Текст книги "Neferata"

Автор книги: Josh Reynolds

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The orcs broke, as she had known they would. In the past two centuries, she had learned the intricacies of their ways. It had been child’s-play for one used to dealing with the ambitious kings of Nehekhara to incite the orcs to mass and attack.

Now, keeping them attacking for close to two centuries had been the trick. Two centuries of constant invasion and retreat had created a massive horde of the beasts – a Waaagh! as they referred to it. As each small wave was destroyed, it had collapsed and been absorbed by the next, creating a perfect storm of bestial violence. With this last attack, she judged that the time would be right for another period of infighting among the various tribal remnants, especially with the current warboss and shaman dead; others would have to be chosen.

‘Rasha,’ she murmured as she looked up at the palisade. Ushoran seemed to have survived and he was occupied with his guards. The slim vampire looked to her mistress, water trickling down her face.

‘Wazzakaz,’ Rasha said, knowing what Neferata wanted.

‘Yes. Go give him a sign, would you?’ Neferata said, tossing the head into the water. Wazzakaz was the next-most prominent of the current crop of orc shamans, and a firm believer in throwing his followers at the holds of their ancient enemies the dwarfs, rather than the pitiful territories of the humans. Now, after this most telling defeat of his current rival, would be the perfect point for Wazzakaz to see an omen which would encourage him to insist that whatever chieftain was listening to him this week press his right to control the Waaagh!

Rasha moved swiftly and departed down the slope, unnoticed by any of the others there. Neferata’s followers had learned much about the arts of stealth over the decades. Then, it wasn’t hard in the aftermath of a battle to move without being noticed, especially considering some of the others up and about. On the nearby slopes, dark cowled and robed figures prowled among the dead. To the people, they were simply the Mortuary Cult. It was a source of supreme amusement to Neferata that W’soran had chosen to co-opt the cult of the liche priests of the Great Land, and dedicate it to gathering the dead for his dark experiments. She climbed out of the river and shook her hair, trying to free herself of the slimy feel of the water.

‘We will reap a great harvest this day,’ a sibilant voice chortled.

Neferata turned. The speaker was draped in heavy robes, but even with the concealing hood, she could tell that his head was overlarge and oddly proportioned. ‘Melkhior,’ she greeted the robed man. ‘Your cloud cover came in handy. You should be commended.’

Melkhior emitted a gurgling laugh. ‘You would be the only one to do so, my lady,’ he said. She caught a glimpse of the face in the hood and repressed a grimace. More bat than human and more corpse than bat, Melkhior was the most senior of W’soran’s ever-growing supply of apprentices. The other vampire had apparently discovered a love of teaching. Thin-limbed and bloat-bellied, Melkhior looked and smelled like a corpse that had been left overlong in the sun. That was natural among W’soran’s students. Melkhior was also a treacherous little worm, if what her spies reported was the truth, having murdered at least three of his rivals for W’soran’s attentions. That too he had learned from W’soran, and Melkhior was nothing if not an apt pupil. ‘And you deserve a commendation as well,’ the apprentice continued, gesturing to the dead wyverns. ‘Such heroism puts even mighty Abhorash to shame.’

‘Speaking of heroes, where is your master? Cowering in the dark while the rest of us defend his hideaway?’ Neferata said, using the tip of her sword to pull the edge of Melkhior’s hood away from his face. The vampire jerked back.

‘He is above such petty concerns as mere warfare,’ Melkhior said.

‘Yes. So he has said on numerous occasions. What is it he is not above, I wonder,’ she said, frowning. She traced the bloated sack of Melkhior’s cheek with the sword tip.

‘Ask him yourself,’ Ushoran said.

Neferata turned and looked up at the palisade as Melkhior scurried away. Ushoran gestured sharply, as if to a dog. ‘Come, my Lady of Mysteries. Your king requires your counsel.’

Neferata sheathed her sword without flourish. She refused to give Ushoran the satisfaction of reacting publically to his needling. She and Anmar stepped through the broken section of the palisade. The third wyvern lay there, gutted and cooling. Spears and arrows sprouted from every inch of its body and its rider lay in several pieces some distance away. Anmar preened slightly as they stepped over the orc’s head, which still had a surprised look on its face.

‘Well done, little leopard,’ Neferata murmured as they joined the others.

‘I live but to serve, my lady,’ Anmar said.

‘If only all of my servants were so accommodating,’ Neferata said. Anmar made a face.

‘He’s only doing as you asked, my lady,’ she said diplomatically. ‘As he always does,’ she added.

‘Do you think I’m too hard on him, my child?’

Anmar paused, sensing the danger in her mistress’s tone. ‘I think he is devoted to you. We all are.’

‘Devotion is no substitute for obedience. And your brother is anything but obedient. See that you do not follow his example, little leopard,’ Neferata said, without looking at Anmar. She left the other woman standing there as she joined Ushoran’s entourage.

Mourkain had weathered the orc attack as it always had. The palisades which covered the lower slopes and approaches took the brunt of any attack. Only occasionally, when the brutes gathered the sense to hurl some form of flying beast, like the wyverns of lamentable memory, at the city, did Mourkain itself suffer from battle.

Still, there were other ways to suffer. Fresh water was easy enough to come by, but food was almost impossible to grow in these high reaches. Thin, pinched faces filled the streets as Ushoran’s panoply rode into the city. Rationing had been instituted early on, and with the coming of the Waaagh! food supplies had been limited to what could be brought in between assaults.

W’soran was waiting for them in the council chambers of the black pyramid, alongside another of his apprentices, the Strigoi nobleman Morath. The latter gave her a sickly grin. She felt some small pang of sympathy for the mortal – or not so mortal perhaps, considering that he had unnaturally lengthened his own span, albeit not in the usual fashion.

Morath was unusual. The only breathing man in the room, the Strigoi was slim, with the look of a poet, rather than a warrior. He was as dangerous as any member of the Strigoi nobility, however, having been schooled in the arts of blade and bow since childhood. If he lacked Vorag’s obvious muscle, he more than made up for it with a subtlety of wit that Neferata found refreshing. He was perhaps the only civilised man in Mourkain. It was a shame that he had been pledged to W’soran’s service by Ushoran. Then, that was perhaps one of the few intelligent decisions that his majesty had made. Ushoran knew that W’soran couldn’t be trusted, and that it was only a matter of time before he vanished or tried something, and left Strigos bereft of his magics.

But Morath, above all else, was loyal to Strigos; the ideal, if not the men who made it. He sat near his master, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Neferata could understand that as well. W’soran grew more inhuman-looking every year, with pronounced bat-like ears and a face out of nightmare. Thin, gangly arms protruded from the too-tattered sleeves of his robes, clutching tight to a messy pile of parchment, which he thrust at Ushoran as the latter entered the room. Ushoran scanned the parchment and grunted.

Shoving it back into W’soran’s hands, he said, ‘Abhorash, the map.’ Abhorash unrolled a large bear-hide. On the opposite side from the fur, a great map had been inked in painstaking and impressive detail. ‘Cartography is a rare skill, and one I have cultivated among my servants,’ Ushoran said. He swept a hand across a section of the map. ‘Orcs, barbarians and beasts – those are the enemies we face, my friends.’

Abhorash snorted. ‘Those are not enemies. Those are obstacles.’

‘Nonetheless, I need them not to be,’ Ushoran said. He looked at Neferata. ‘I need them gone.’

‘Orcs are easy,’ Vorag said. ‘If we can hit them hard enough and fast enough…’

‘We don’t have the men,’ Abhorash said, arms crossed. ‘It’s all we can do to hold the mountain passes…’

‘We don’t need them!’ Vorag snapped. Abhorash gazed at him steadily, but said nothing.

‘The barbarians are trickier,’ Morath spoke up, tapping the map. ‘The tribes are constantly changing size as they fight amongst themselves, and they change chieftains almost as often. We never deal with the same one twice.’

‘One barbarian is much the same as another,’ W’soran said dismissively.

‘And because you think that is why I am here.’ Neferata studied the map. ‘How big an empire do you desire, Ushoran?’ she said after a moment.

‘Why?’ Ushoran said.

‘Merely defining the limits of my authority,’ she said. Ushoran looked at her. She smiled. ‘The orcs are a problem. Diplomacy will be useless. But there are other ways of countering their numbers.’ She flattened her palm on the map and looked at Abhorash. ‘How would you describe the creatures, champion?’

‘A force of nature,’ he said.

‘Like a flood, say, or an avalanche?’ Neferata said. Abhorash nodded. Neferata patted the map. ‘The mountains form a natural culvert, and the orcs have, by and large, filled that culvert. They attack, because they have nowhere else to go. And the more they attack, the more of them are drawn into the culvert, seeking the battle they crave.’

‘Every time we force them back, it’s like dumping water into a leaky bucket,’ Abhorash said, nodding more fiercely. ‘We have to plug the hole.’

‘What hole? What are you talking about?’ Ushoran snapped.

‘I’m talking about ridding your lands of the orcs forever. We need to break their spine, to harry them out of the places they congregate and pulverise them as they are forced out into the light,’ Neferata said, making a fist. ‘They will eventually regroup, but we can buy ourselves several generations at least before their numbers swell to such proportions again.’

‘And how will you do that? As he’s pointed out,’ Vorag said, gesturing to Abhorash, ‘we don’t have enough men for the job.’

‘Perhaps not living men, no,’ W’soran began, eyes alight with interest. ‘I could—’

‘No,’ Neferata said flatly. ‘We have an opportunity here that must not be squandered simply for expediency’s sake.’

‘You spoke of the wildling tribes earlier,’ Ushoran said, stroking his chin.

‘Not just them. If you desire expansion, we’ll need closer ties with the Silver Pinnacle.’ She tapped the marker for the dwarf hold. It had taken her spies years to discover its whereabouts; the dwarfs used trading posts to ferry their goods to Mourkain, so protective were they of the whereabouts of their hold. ‘We must share more than gold with them…’

‘Blood,’ Abhorash said.

Neferata nodded. ‘They’re pressed just as hard as we are by the orc migrations. If we were to offer them a more proactive alliance…’

Ushoran sat back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally, he said, ‘What would you need?’

‘Vorag,’ Neferata said immediately. Vorag blinked, and then slowly grinned. ‘We’ll need to move quickly. The tribes will do our heavy fighting for us.’

‘Yes, you still haven’t said how you intend to accomplish that,’ W’soran said. ‘The Draesca and the other wildlings have no love for Strigos.’

Neferata smiled. ‘You have your secrets, sorcerer. Let me have mine.’

When the council had ended some hours later, Neferata returned to her chambers. Naaima waited for her there. ‘It’s time,’ she said.

‘I sent the girls out at sunset,’ Naaima said.

‘As always, you predict my needs,’ Neferata murmured, sipping her second goblet more slowly. ‘They have their instructions, then?’

‘Yes, and the tribes await their coming. Beautiful daughters of the high agals of Strigos, wedded to the chieftains of the tribes.’

‘Blood is a stronger bond than gold. Longer lasting as well,’ Neferata said, falling into a hard stone chair. ‘The girls will choose handmaidens of their own from the high women of the tribes and those women will control their husbands and the tribes…’ Neferata gestured with her free hand and smiled. ‘Has Rasha returned?’

‘Yes,’ Naaima said. ‘The orcs are moving west, towards the ranges where the Silver Pinnacle sits. It will be a year at least before they attempt to mount an assault, or try and return here.’

‘Like water sloshing in a bowl. First one side and then the other,’ Neferata said. She added, ‘The trick being to get the water to slop out without getting wet.’

‘It sounds like quite the trick, then,’ Naaima said. ‘And how will you do it?’

Neferata smiled. ‘Why, by letting someone else hold the bowl, of course.’

EIGHT

The City of Bel Aliad

(–1150 Imperial Reckoning)

Neferata reclined in her palanquin, protected from the sun by curtains of muslin and silk. Cushions of all shapes, sizes and colours decorated the interior and she smiled as Anmar lounged across them like a cat. The corner of the girl’s mouth was streaked with blood and her eyes held the dreamy gleam of one who had fed well and deeply.

She was so like Khalida, albeit lacking in the natural ferocity that Neferata’s long-dead cousin had possessed. Tenderly, Neferata reached out and rubbed the drying blood from Anmar’s mouth. ‘Your brother has been up to something,’ she said.

‘My brother is always up to something,’ Anmar said lazily. She pushed herself up. ‘You are not angry, are you, my lady?’ she said.

‘I encourage initiative,’ Neferata said. ‘Don’t I, Naaima, my sweet?’

Naaima snorted. She sat at the back of the palanquin with Rasha. Neferata had been both impressed and pleased to find that both her oldest and newest handmaidens had survived the debacle of the attack on Bel Aliad, among others. Abhorash had taught the warriors of Bel Aliad well, and they had shattered the desert tribes in the months of her captivity, scattering them to the four corners of the Great Desert. But Neferata’s handmaidens, like their mistress, were made of sterner stuff.

‘When it suits your plans,’ Naaima said.

Neferata chuckled. ‘True.’ Her smile faded. ‘But the privilege of initiative must be earned, and your brother, little leopard, has yet to do that. He has, if anything, earned himself a short leash.’

‘We are simply eager to explore the power you have gifted to us,’ Anmar said.

‘Your brother is eager to be caliph,’ Neferata retorted. ‘And as a consequence, he endangers my plans for this city.’ She leaned back and looked up at the ribs of silk that made up the ceiling of the palanquin, and then looked out through the side curtain. The men who carried the palanquin were devotees of the Cult of Mordig, the Great Ghul. Their brawny forms were covered in scrawling tattoos composed of the cult’s holy writ – each devotee was a walking book, carriers of Mordig’s word into the daytime world. They wore funerary purple robes and silver skull masks.

Khaled had been a nominal supporter of the cult, as he was one of many noblemen whom the cult supplied with esoteric bric-a-brac. Neferata had used his connection to ingratiate herself with the cult’s high priests, and then, swiftly, to take control. They were corpse-eaters and blood-drinkers already, and her undead nature had only served to impress them. They worshipped her now as the Charnel Bride, and Queen of the Night.

As rumours drifted across the sandy expanse separating Araby from the Great Land, the cult had grown in influence. Many saw the servants of the Eater-of-the-Dead as the best defence against the walking dead which were said to now haunt Nehekhara. Whether that was true or not was something that had yet to be tested. Neferata intended to be ready regardless when the inevitable occurred.

‘Thinking of home?’ Naaima said.

Neferata shook her head. ‘My home – our home – is the future. The past is dead. Best we leave it as such.’ And the future, right now, was making Bel Aliad into a true power. The cult had adherents in each of the caliphates, and through them, Neferata was slowly weaving a web of subtle control. She had infiltrated the harems of the mighty with her followers – survivors from among the tribes as well as new converts. In these lands, where women were almost property, the giving of a beautiful woman as a gift was a common form of diplomacy.

It might take decades, but soon, the Cult of Mordig would control every nobleman from Bel Aliad to Copher and through them, Neferata would command the might of Araby. She sighed in pleasure.

That pleasure was wiped away in a flash of pain as an arrow pierced the curtain and smashed into her shoulder, hurling her to the other side of the palanquin. The palanquin tipped and then fell as the cultists carrying it sprouted arrows. People screamed as the streets were suddenly filled with armed men. Neferata hissed in pain as she jerked the arrow from her shoulder. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she snarled.

‘It’s Al-Khattab!’ Naaima said, narrowly avoiding a sword thrust that shredded the curtain. Sunlight boiled in, blistering the flesh of her arm. Neferata’s hand snapped out, grabbing the blade before it could retract. She gave it a yank, heedless of the way the edge shredded her palm. She dragged the swordsman inside the palanquin and Rasha and Anmar fell on him, growling. His screams echoed across the street, mingling with those of the market day crowd. Through the curtain, Neferata could see more men approaching.

‘That treacherous dog,’ Neferata said, half admiringly. Al-Khattab was an opponent of the cult and the commander of the city’s Kontoi. He had the caliph’s ear, a situation that Khaled was attempting to rectify. She hadn’t thought him capable of even contemplating outright assassination, but here they were. His men were clad in insignia-less armour, but they moved with training and speed. And the sun stood strong in the sky.

Men surrounded the palanquin, readying their spears. ‘Come out, priestess of the corpse-king,’ someone called. ‘We will make your death as swift as that of that fool princeling…’

‘Khaled,’ Anmar gasped. ‘No!’

Neferata snatched up the dead man’s sword and looked at her handmaidens. ‘Prepare, my daughters,’ she said. Then, with a shriek, she lunged to her feet and sliced through the curtain. As the sunlight streamed in, she leapt out to meet the assassins…

The City of Mourkain

(–550 Imperial Reckoning)

Horns blew loud enough to rattle the branches of the trees as the hunters followed the bloody trail left by their prey. Neferata leaned over the neck of her horse and tasted the wind. The musky, rotten smell of the fleeing beastmen was strong. Thirty of the beasts at least, maybe more; they had attacked a village on the northern frontier, putting it to the torch and eating the inhabitants. More and more of the creatures had been descending from the north of late. Abhorash and his men had undertaken an expedition to investigate, but that still left the mountains overrun with the cloven-hoofed vermin.

More horns blasted over the thunder of horses’ hooves and the hunters whooped and howled in the light of the torches they carried. Neferata laughed as her horse leapt over a fallen log and galloped on. She could smell the cloud of fear that clung to their prey.

The riders were mostly Strigoi. Zandor was among them, and Gashnag as well. Those two had joined Ushoran’s royal bodyguard in recent months, which Neferata had allowed. The two were cowed, more or less, and their feeble attempts to have her killed had trickled to nothing since she had not opposed their elevation to Ushoran’s clique. It made sense to leave them where she could find them. After all, according to her spies, it had been Ushoran whom they had run to in the aftermath of their abortive assassination attempt. Whether Ushoran himself had set them on her tail, or whether they’d simply been attempting to curry favour, she couldn’t, as yet, say. But she would find out eventually.

Nearby, Iona pressed close to her mistress. The henna-haired former concubine of Neferata’s predecessor flashed her fangs in a smile. ‘Volker is enjoying himself,’ she said. Neferata looked past her handmaiden towards the burly chieftain of the Draesca tribe, as he awkwardly clung to his barrel-chested Strigoi stallion. Volker was hairy and gap-toothed, but cunning. Near him rode the chieftains of the Draka and the Fennones, as well as the savage Walds. Four of the largest tribes of the western marches and northern hills, and the four most dedicated opponents to the expansion of Strigos.

It had taken her decades of patient diplomacy to even get them to the point where they would countenance accepting the hospitality of Ushoran. It never failed to amuse Neferata that she was first forced to build her enemies up before she could properly break them down. Fifty years ago, the tribes had been little better than the beastmen they now hunted. Now, however, their hill-forts dotted the hills and valleys of the badlands. Nomadic raiders had become farmers. War-chiefs had given way to hereditary kings, headmen to counts and bosses to barons.

And through it all, the Handmaidens of the Moon had whispered quiet counsel to the chieftains and their fathers and their father’s-fathers. Religion was a subtle lever and the invented ones were the subtlest of all, Neferata had found. The Nehekharan religions were anathema to the wildlings, representing Strigos as they did in their eyes. She had been forced to come up with something innovative. Thus, the Handmaidens of the Moon; she had taken a minor hill-goddess called Shaya and crafted a more pleasing image for her, a goddess of healing and mercy, whose adherents were allowed to travel between the barbarian kingdoms without fear of reprisal. No man, no matter how powerful or paranoid, would willingly turn away skilled healers. Or, even better, skilled healers who were willing to act as messengers between men of status who could not ordinarily make contact without upsetting their bloodthirsty followers and rivals. And who would say a word about the Handmaidens and their propensity for nocturnal travel, or the savage vengeance visited upon those who dared test the protection extended to them by their goddess?

She smiled. The Fennones, in particular, had taken to the new goddess. And their traders had carried the faith ever westwards, into the savage lands beyond the forests of their territories. The snort of a horse brought her out of her contemplative reverie.

The wildling chieftains were not natural riders, and it showed in their clumsy attempts to urge their horses to greater speeds. Their bodyguards were little better. In comparison, Neferata and her handmaidens, as well as the select few Strigoi allowed to accompany them for form’s sake, rode as if they had been born in the saddle.

‘Usirian’s teeth,’ Vorag swore. ‘These hairy bastards ride like drunken urka.’ The Strigoi’s horse flew through the trees like a hawk, and its rider was fighting an obvious battle to control the inhuman savagery lurking within him. In the years since their first meeting, Neferata had noticed that Ushoran’s blood-progeny had more problems in that regard than her own. Something bestial lurked beneath the skin of the vampires of Strigos, as if the dark magic which inundated the mountains had twisted them in some way.

‘It was your idea to fill their bellies with wine before we started the hunt,’ Stregga said, forcing her horse between Vorag’s and Neferata’s. Vorag barked laughter and followed after her, lust evident in his expression.

Stregga had pinned the Strigoi’s ears back, and quicker than Neferata could have hoped. At least some things were going according to plan. Vorag’s exile was no longer a topic of discussion at court, thanks to Neferata’s agents. In the years since she had begun planning the extinction of the orc tribes that still squatted within the boundaries of Ushoran’s ever-expanding empire, she had taken Vorag as her right hand, and bought his loyalty with her salt.

The Bloodytooth was no longer Ushoran’s creature, if he ever had been. And he made a satisfactory replacement for Khaled, being both altogether more biddable and less prone to questioning her. Thought of Khaled made her frown. He was still playing shield-bearer to Ushoran, and was invited to all of the counsels and quiet meetings that her former Lord of Masks thought she was unaware of.

There was no question that Ushoran trusted her Kontoi. But should she?

A howl alerted her that their prey had come to bay at last. Horns bellowing, the hunters burst through the trees to confront the beastmen. The creatures screamed and howled as the riders flooded over them. Hunting spears pinned writhing, hairy shapes to the forest floor.

Neferata pulled her horse up short, letting the others indulge their bloodlust on the pathetic goat-things. ‘Good sport, lady,’ someone grunted. She turned and smiled serenely at Volker. Iona sat just behind him, her attention split between the object of her seduction and the dying beast-things. The crimson-haired vampire’s face was twisted by feral hunger.

She examined the chieftain of the Draesca. He was broad, but short and gnarled. His beard was thick and tangled and his armour was of the crudest variety – beaten bronze plates sewn to a boiled leather jerkin with deer gut. His hair was held back from his leathery face by a band of gold that had probably belonged to a dwarf lord at some point in time. Dark eyes peered from beneath bushy eyebrows at her.

‘I’m glad to see you enjoying yourself, great chieftain,’ Neferata said. ‘And I am glad to see you that you’re enjoying my gift as well.’ She nodded to Iona, who put her hand on Volker’s brawny forearm. The chieftain gave a gap-toothed grin and patted the girl’s pale hand.

‘Truly the Strigoi are a blessed people to have such women spring from them,’ Volker grunted, eyeing her speculatively. ‘A shame that you yourself are spoken for,’ he added.

‘Yes, well,’ Neferata said, looking over at the massacre that was occurring only a short distance away. One of the beasts had broken past the horsemen and, bleating, charged towards them, waving a notched and rusty blade. ‘Your spear, if you please,’ she said, extending her hand to Volker, who guffawed and handed the weapon to her. She bounced it on her palm and then, in one smooth motion, hurled it into the charging beastman. It folded over the spear and collapsed with a single, strangled whine. Volker nodded appreciatively.

‘Yes, quite a shame,’ he muttered. ‘The Wald and the Draka are quite impressed with you.’

Neferata said nothing. Volker’s previous cheer had disappeared. He frowned, his face becoming even more apelike. ‘But the Draesca are not the Wald or the Draka. We are a proud people, and it will take more than Strigoi women or Strigoi wine to make us share blood and bone with you.’

‘I know,’ Neferata said. ‘But if blood and bone don’t serve, what about blades?’ she asked.

‘Are you threatening us?’ Volker grunted incredulously.

‘Nothing of the sort,’ Neferata said, kneeing her horse towards the beastman she had spitted. Without a trace of effort she jerked the spear from its body and rode back towards Volker. ‘You know of the dawi, I trust?’

Volker sat back on his saddle and tugged on his beard. ‘Aye,’ he said suspiciously.

‘The dawi are the finest weapons-makers in the world,’ Neferata said, extending the spear so that the tip rested beneath Volker’s nose. ‘This spear, for instance.’

Volker grabbed the weapon and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. He rubbed his calloused thumb along the edge. His eyes flickered up to Neferata. ‘You would trade us weapons?’

‘I would.’

‘For what price would you do this?’

‘Blood and bone,’ Neferata said, smiling.

Later, as the hunters, now satiated, rode back towards Mourkain, Stregga’s horse fell into a trot beside Neferata’s. ‘Vorag is eager for the coming war, my lady,’ the vampire said.

‘Then he’ll fit right in with these barbarians,’ Neferata murmured. ‘What else?’

‘He’s angry. The northern expedition—’

‘The northern expedition is nothing.’ Neferata shook her head. Vorag’s temper was like a storm. It was a constant struggle to keep it in check and to keep it from upsetting her delicate web of schemes. Still, he was less disruptive than Khaled. ‘Assure him that there will be glory aplenty in the mountains. He will once more be the saviour of Strigos, and Abhorash will not be around to steal his victory.’ The Great Land was gone, and Ushoran’s attempt to recreate it was doomed to failure. But there might be something worth saving from those ashes, Neferata thought. A society that could be moulded into something greater than it currently was. The way forward was not as the wolf or the leopard, but as the flea or the tick. A dead host was nothing but rotten meat. But a live one could keep her and her followers in comfort for eternity.

But a live host required careful pruning of anything that might endanger it. The orcs, for instance; but with the barbarian tribes, and Vorag’s men, the orcs would be easy enough to destroy. She had learned much over the course of the past century, fighting and manipulating them. Now was the time to put all that knowledge to use. The orcs had outlived their usefulness and their violent antics were more hindrance than help.

Wazzakaz’s Waaagh! had been crashing like a green ocean around the rock of Karaz Bryn for close to three decades now. The great shaman himself had gone from a vigorous, mad, bad bastard of an orc to a withered, hunched thing that cackled and rocked in its saddle. Her spies had kept tabs on the creature, and had watched the ebb and flow of the siege of Karaz Bryn.

She had sent messengers to the Silver Pinnacle, offering the aid of Strigos. Razek had yet to respond. Whether that was due to dwarf stubbornness or the war-effort, she could not say, though she expected that it was the former.