Josh Reynolds - Neferata

Neferata twisted, but the sword was in an awkward place. She couldn’t reach it. Khaled, oblivious to the fighting going on around them, squatted before her, grabbing her chin as she had so often grabbed his. ‘Was that what I was? A trap?’ he sneered. ‘Are all men traps, my lady? Is that why you could not accept what I offered you?’

‘You’re no trap, Khaled. You’re simply a fool,’ Neferata hissed, grabbing his wrist. ‘You offered nothing. You wanted everything and I give nothing.’ Khaled jerked back, trying to free his hand from her grip. Flailing for a weapon, he snatched up the axe, jerking it out of Zandor’s skull. The silver wept smoke as it exited the vampire and it trailed it down as Khaled lashed out at her. She twisted.

The axe struck her, gashing the flesh of her throat. Suddenly she was choking on her own blood and she released Khaled and squirmed around, leg still pinned to the floor, clutching at her throat. Khaled gave a scream of fury and prepared to deliver another blow.

‘No!’

Khaled whirled as the sword gouged across his side. He swept the axe down into the chest of his attacker. Anmar coughed and fell back. ‘No,’ Khaled said. ‘Oh no, no, no…’ He stooped and tried to pull his sister to her feet, but the axe was buried to the haft in her heart. Smoke and steam rose from the wound and from her mouth and nose and eyes as she twitched and thrashed. In her final moments, she reached for her mistress as Neferata rose unsteadily to her feet, Khaled’s sword in one bloody hand. Neferata’s pain-filled writhing had dislodged the blade finally, and now she held it tightly.

‘Goodbye, little leopard,’ Neferata said, and drove the sword down through Khaled’s body, into his sister’s and on into the rock below. Khaled made no sound as his sister expired and the rot that claimed all vampires upon death set in, reducing her form to what it would have been had she lived a mortal life. Khaled shuddered, pinned in place by the sword, unable to look away.

Neferata kicked the axe out of his reach and turned. Borri’s men were fewer in number than they had first seemed, and though they fought as berserkers, the dead were numberless. Ghostly hands plucked at bare flesh, drawing the last dregs of life from the warriors.

‘Neferata of Lahmia, I declare you oath-breaker and murderer,’ a harsh voice rasped. Neferata turned. Her handmaidens still battled the Strigoi. She was alone.

‘Borri,’ she said, reaching for the sword still sheathed on her hip. The king had doffed his armour, as had his remaining warriors, and his barrel chest was streaked with blood. He still carried his son’s axe. ‘We can still end this without further bloodshed.’

‘Your name has been entered in the book,’ he said. Then he charged. Neferata barely blocked the blow and spun, dancing around the dwarf as he chopped at her in grim silence. Soon Borri was puffing and stumbling. The exertions of the day had taken their toll. ‘You have murdered us,’ he gasped, lashing out at her. ‘You have torn out the heart of our hold and condemned us to wander.’

Neferata avoided a wild blow. ‘You have condemned my son to wander!’ Borri roared, flinging the axe at her as she stepped back. She swatted the axe aside.

Borri tensed. His hands clutched emptily, and he glanced at the axe where it had fallen. Neferata shook her head. ‘You won’t reach it.’

Borri said nothing. Neferata sighed. ‘Honour is a burden a ruler can ill afford. It is a weight on the soul and the mind.’

‘Kill me and be done, witch.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, Borri. If I did, I would have let Zandor and his bone-eating cronies do the job for me,’ she snapped, gesturing to the mangled corpse of the Strigoi. ‘I want you alive. I want your people alive. Together, we can—’

‘No,’ Borri said.

Neferata stopped. ‘What?’

‘No.’ He looked at her pityingly. ‘Your name has been entered into the Book of Grudges, Neferata of Lahmia. There can be no end other than the settling of the debt.’

‘I’m offering you mercy, King Borri. I am offering you the lives of those of your people who survive. And all I ask is that you—’ she said, bewildered.

‘The living do not serve the dead,’ Borri said.

‘You dwarfs do nothing but serve your dead,’ Neferata spat. ‘This whole place is nothing but a tomb! It’s a monument to a failed race!’

‘Then let it be our tomb,’ Borri said simply.

Neferata closed her mouth. She looked away. ‘Is that your answer?’

‘There can be no other,’ Borri said. Then, with a grunt, he leapt for the axe. Neferata whirled, reaching for him. Borri ripped the axe up and rolled across the floor, springing to his feet as Neferata swooped over him. He set his feet and swung his son’s axe. Neferata screamed as the axe chopped into her shoulder and the silver threads that ran through it burned her. Her fist punched through Borri’s torso, erupting from his back in a splatter of blood. Borri grunted and his trembling arm sawed at her shoulder, trying to reach her heart even in his final moments. Neferata gasped and grabbed his face with her free hand and ripped the dwarf away from her, flinging him backwards. He landed in a bloody heap some distance away and she wrenched the axe from her body, screaming again as smoke escaped from the wound. Still holding the axe she stumbled towards him, intending to bury the weapon in his skull.

But there was no need. Borri was dead. Neferata sank to her haunches and placed the axe between his hands. She stood, one hand holding the wound on her shoulder closed.

She turned towards the battle, her face settling into a still mask as she started forwards. The war was over. All that was left was the massacre.

It had all led to this moment, every struggle and every scheme. She had ever sought a place from which to rule, to command. But always they had been taken from her. Always, outside events had interfered. Lahmia, Bel Aliad, Sartosa, Mourkain, memories and false-starts all, she knew that now. The dead could not rule the living.

But she would rule nonetheless. She would rule this place. She would make it a fortress, a temple to ambition and a refuge from a world whose tides and tempests she would set right. A dwarf roared and swung a hammer at her. She caught the weapon and drove its haft into the berserker’s belly, rupturing organs and breaking bones. She kicked the dwarf aside and met their hymns with the war-song of lost Lahmia.

She would see to it that that song was sung again, in the years to come. The ghost of Lahmia would find rest here, within these sheltering halls. A dwarf screamed wildly and drove a broken spear into her hip. Neferata broke his neck and threw the body into the air. More dwarfs charged forwards, seeking death and absolution.

Neferata was happy enough to give them the former.

Blood filled her vision, sweeping away all doubt and ambition. She snarled and spat and screeched, less a woman than some great veldt cat driven past hunger into madness. The dead fell around her, their remorseless march stalled and stopped by the berserkers who tangled their dying bodies in spears and among legs, dragging blazing-eyed ghouls down beneath the press with a final spasm of insane strength.

Soon Neferata was alone, a pale wraith stalking dunes of dead flesh, her fangs popping from her mouth, her tongue long and lashing as she drank the thick, heady brew from her blade. One dwarf left, screaming and bulge-eyed, so far gone in shame and hate that he did not realise that he was alone.

She parried his axe and brought her sword up through his barrel chest, lifting him off his feet. As the dwarf’s blood gushed down her arm to splash across the stone, Neferata leaned close to one club-ear and whispered, ‘I am queen.’ The words sounded hollow in the sudden silence.