Текст книги "Neferata"

Автор книги: Josh Reynolds

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Neferata had no idea what he was talking about and she had no intention of finding out. She avoided his wild blows, reeling this way and that and once nearly bending double as he swung at her. Grund’s eyes bulged and foam collected at the corners of his jaws as battle-fury swept him up in its embrace. His axe bore no runes or devices. It was simply an axe. But Neferata was loath to test its edge. She sprang back from him, putting a large span between her and the dais.

But even as she landed, hammers crashed into the stone, narrowly missing her as she danced and wove through the throng of guards that sought to bring her down. She caught a hammer on her palm. Even as her fingers curled around its head, she yelped. Smoke rose from her palm as she jerked it out of its wielder’s grip and grabbed the haft, lashing out with the weapon. A dwarf flew backwards, his helm crushed and the skull beneath turned to paste. Another crumpled, his breastbone shattered despite the protection of his armour. Neferata’s frenzied assault drove the hammerers back, and they spread out, surrounding her but staying out of her reach. She turned slowly in place, keeping them all in sight.

‘What did you think to accomplish?’ Borri said, rising from his seat. He jerked her sword from his throne and hurled it clattering to the floor. He stared at the blood welling from his palm and flexed his hand as if the blade had caused him no more pain than an insect bite. ‘Did you think to assassinate me? Did you hope to remove the heart from my people?’ He grunted. ‘We dwarfs are not as men. We do not quail when our own die. We fight all the harder.’

He came down the stairs, still holding his son’s axe. The robed woman and the elderly dwarf followed him, and Grund paced in front, trembling like a hound on a leash. ‘This axe has tasted your blood, I think. It thirsts for it still, regardless,’ Borri said.

‘It shall have to work to get another taste,’ Neferata said, shaking her palm. Something had burned her. She saw that the head of the hammer was shot through with threads of silver and growled. Razek’s axe had been the same.

‘Not as hard as all that, I think,’ Borri said grimly. ‘You are alone, woman. Outnumbered and surrounded. Surrender and I will be merciful. That offer still holds.’

‘I think our concepts of mercy differ greatly, King Borri,’ Neferata said, twirling the hammer in her hands. It was a good weapon, but too brutal for her tastes. She spun on her heel and sent the hammer flying towards Borri. She did not wait to see whether it struck its target. Instead, as all eyes followed the hammer, she leapt for an opening in the ring of flesh and steel that encircled her.

Behind her, she heard the ring of metal on metal and Borri bellowed a command. The floor trembled as the hammerers followed her. Crossbows thrummed and quarrels peppered the floor and walls. Neferata avoided each one with ease. To one with her senses, the bolts appeared to be moving in slow motion. She could see the very air split and twist as the bolts cut through it. Even as the bolts struck the archway of the audience chamber, she was into the corridor beyond and running. She had wasted enough time.

Horns sounded in the deeps, warning the hold of danger. She knew that the horns were not for her. The corridor trembled as the great gate began to open once more. Frigid air slithered into the hold, greeting her as she reached the entry chamber even as the doors began to spread wide.

Naaima stood before the doors, surrounded by dwarfs seeking to bring her down. Broad shapes stabbed at her, and her pale flesh was streaked with black blood. Neferata struck the gate-wardens like a thunderbolt. Her talons sank into the back of a dwarf’s head and she jerked him backwards with savage force, snapping his neck and crushing his skull like an egg. More dwarfs flooded into the entry hall through the second set of doors.

‘Did you get the gates?’ Neferata snarled, snatching an axe from a dwarf’s hand and burying it immediately in its owner’s face. A moment later she was forced to use it to deflect a crossbow bolt.

‘They’re opening, aren’t they?’ Naaima replied, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have taken her arm off at the shoulder. Her rejoinder ripped the dwarf’s face from his skull.

‘Then we only have to hold on for a bit longer,’ Neferata said. Even as the words left her lips, a trio of crossbow bolts sank into her back, puncturing her armour like paper and knocking her to the ground. She screamed in pain and surprise, and flopped around for a moment like a fish in the bottom of a boat, before pushing herself to her feet, the heads of the bolts scraping against her insides as she moved. She coughed blood and awkwardly plucked one of the bolts free.

‘Shoot her again!’ the watch-warden commanded. ‘Bring her down!’ He was the one who had escorted her into Borri’s presence, the one who resembled Razek.

Neferata growled low in her throat and sent the bloody bolt flying into one of the crossbowmen, knocking the dwarf backwards with the impact. Naaima yanked the others free as she and Neferata began to back towards the widening portal. Gears groaned as the massive doors allowed a cold wind inside, and a flurry of snow.

More dwarfs filled the entry hall, all armed and seemingly intent on using those weapons on her. Horns sounded loud, low and long from the side-passages and the upper balconies. Neferata scanned the ranks of dwarfs; in minutes, a hundred or more crossbows were aimed at her. And behind the line, King Borri and his hammerers.

‘Get that damned gate closed!’ the king roared. ‘She’s trying to escape!’

‘She won’t get far,’ the watch-warden roared. ‘This is for my cousin, hag!’ His axe licked out, gouging her armour. She swatted him aside, sending him crashing to the floor and his axe flying.

‘Escape is for the defeated,’ Neferata said, stepping back into the opening. With the air of a performer, she threw back her head and extended her arms. ‘Enter, my loves, and be welcome!’ she howled. Snow spun around her and behind her and the white expanse was suddenly shattered by black shapes that burst from it like abominable shooting stars.

The wolves were more carcass than carnivore, but they were dangerous for all that. Twice as savage in death as they had been in life, the large beasts loped into the hold, fleshless jaws agape and an alien hunger burning in their lifeless eyes. They stank of ancient places and secret crimes and the sight of them caused the closest dwarfs to hesitate, though only for a moment. But that moment was enough. The wolves hit the line, absorbing hastily-fired crossbow bolts as if they were no more than mosquito bites. They made no sound as they crashed into their prey, but the dwarfs screamed well enough.

Behind the wolves came Neferata’s handmaidens, their armour crusted over with ice. Khaled sprang past her, his face tight and feral with pleasure as he tossed her a sword. ‘You look as if you could use this,’ he said nastily, his tongue writhing between his fangs like a red snake.

She snatched the blade out of the air without replying. Khaled laughed at her silence and strode past her, as the handmaidens clustered about her. Anmar looked at her worriedly. The young woman had taken to staying by her brother’s side in the weeks since they’d set out from Mourkain. Perhaps Anmar suspected that her brother’s manner and method would see a Strigoi sword in his back, or maybe she feared that Neferata would attempt to wreak her revenge sooner rather than later. She hesitated, torn between her mistress and her brother. ‘Lady,’ she began.

‘Follow your master, whelp,’ Neferata hissed. Anmar stepped back, as if slapped. She spun and followed Khaled into battle. Neferata watched her go and then turned to Iona and the others. ‘Help them. We need to drive the dwarfs back and hold this point. Everything depends on it. Go!’

The vampires sprang into motion, still one moment and then flashing forwards, shadows thick with kill-urge. The other end of the entry-hall was slick with blood as the organised ranks of the dwarfs crumbled into a melee. The wolves stalked among them, dragging dwarfs down and mauling them. The vampires flung themselves into the confusion with fierce glee, Khaled in the lead.

‘He’s heading for Borri,’ Naaima said. Neferata frowned.

‘Can’t have that, can we? I need more time.’ She looked at her handmaiden. ‘See to the advance. Morath and the others need to hurry. I will see to the rest.’

‘Are you—’ Naaima began, casting a dark look at Khaled. She reached up, almost but not quite touching Neferata. Neferata grabbed her hand.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘And hurry.’

Naaima nodded and turned, sprinting into the snow. Neferata tightened her grip on her sword and threw herself into the red sea of battle. Khaled was carving a wet path to Borri, who seemed determined not to allow the invasion of his hold to progress further. A rotting wolf lunged out of the confusion towards the king, but Grund slapped it from the air and crushed its skull to powder with his foot. More horns were sounding now, so many that the stone seemed to vibrate with their sound. There were more guards in the high places, and crossbow bolts dropped like rain. Nearby, a wolf stumbled and fell, its unnaturally invigorated form looking like a hedgehog for all the bolts jutting from it. Neferata swatted a bolt from the air and searched for her former servant.

Khaled spat Arabyan oaths as his sword chopped down on a dwarf. He kicked the body aside and then the way was clear, save for the mad-eyed Grund. Nostrils flaring, the red-bearded dwarf made to face Khaled, but Borri stopped him with a look. ‘No, this is not your doom,’ Borri said. Grund cursed, his lips writhing back from rows of filed teeth.

‘Let me have my doom, brother!’ he shrieked, his muscles rippling with tension. The raw agony in his voice gave pause even to Khaled, who hesitated. ‘Please,’ Grund spat, as if the word were a razor, slicing his throat to shreds even as it escaped.

‘No,’ Borri said. He pointed his hammer at Khaled. ‘This is my kill.’ As Grund stepped back Khaled trotted forwards, more confident now, and Borri waited with his son’s axe in one hand and a hammer in the other. ‘Come on then, corpse-eater,’ Borri said. ‘Some of us have kingdoms to run.’

Khaled obliged, diving forwards like a bird of prey, his sword extended. Borri took a half-step back, his hammer beating the blow aside and his axe ringing off Khaled’s pauldron, staggering the vampire. The hammer swam upwards, the edge of the head catching Khaled on the chin. Borri moved even faster than his son, Neferata realised. Then, Razek had been a diplomat, not a warrior. Borri was a king of the old style – a warrior down to his very bones.

He had fought elves once, in an age when men hid in caves, and likely worse things. Khaled, for all the inhuman ferocity that flowed from him, was as nothing to the things that Borri had seen in his darkest moments, Neferata knew.

Khaled staggered back, his shattered jaw re-knitting itself. Neferata tensed, hoping that Borri could finish the job. It would make things simpler in the long run. But such was not to be. Khaled, aware of what he faced now, avoided the next blow and his sword lightly stroked the side of Borri’s face, opening a gash that stretched from jowl to brow. The dwarf didn’t hesitate, barrelling into the vampire, who squirmed backwards, letting his sword dart out to prick the dwarf’s face and uncovered arms.

Neferata hissed. Khaled was attempting to draw Borri away from his guard. Once out of the protective envelope of steel and muscle, he would be surrounded, cut off and brought down. Khaled wasn’t playing champion, he was playing bait. With the king dead, it was very likely that the dwarfs would retreat. And with Borri dead, taking the hold would be an easier, quicker affair. And Neferata couldn’t allow that.

She flew across the distance separating her from the combatants. She threw herself in among the hammerers, cutting down one with a grunt of effort. Even as strong as she was, cutting through the solid mass of an armoured dwarf was no easy task. A hammer connected with her hip, cracking bone, and she turned her stumble into a leap, crashing into Khaled and sending them both flying. Borri’s guards raced to surround their lord and Khaled was forced to slither out of reach of their weapons.

Her former servant glared murder at her, but she pretended not to see. Her sword sliced out, cutting the head from a hammerer, and then she was up and limping back.

‘What were you—’ Khaled raged, grabbing her arm. Neferata shook him loose.

‘Keep the gate open, fool!’ she snapped, gesturing to the winch mechanism that controlled the gate. Several dwarfs were attempting to fight their way towards it. Khaled uttered a snarl and bounded towards them, his sword snicker-snacking out to relieve one of the warriors of his bearded head. Neferata grinned and turned back to Borri. The king’s eyes met hers, and she knew that he knew that the dwarfs were going to lose control of the gate. ‘Fall back, mighty king,’ she murmured. ‘Stall with all of your might. Make us pay in blood for every metre.’

As if he had heard her, Borri’s eyes narrowed. Then he raised his hand. One of his hammerers put a curling ram’s-horn to his lips and blew a single, sorrowful note. The remaining dwarfs in the gallery began to fall back, even as they attempted to pull themselves into something resembling a battle-order. The sound of great pistons shook the chamber and Neferata looked up. Some dwarfs scrambled across the balconies, moving pulleys and wheels into motion even as others covered the retreat of their fellows with another barrage of crossbow bolts.

‘What in Usirian’s name are they doing?’ a vampire snarled as she plucked a bolt from her thigh. Neferata snorted.

‘Exactly what I supposed they’d do. They’re sealing the entry hall.’

‘We have to stop them!’ Khaled snarled, gesturing with his sword.

‘No, not us,’ Neferata said. She turned her face to the snowy wind. A thin black shape galloped through the doorway on a horse that was nothing but bone and balefire. Morath glared about him with hollow eyes as his arrival scattered the gathered vampires. The snow turned to steam as it touched him. Large leather-winged shapes joined him, swooping up towards the balconies with predatory shrieks.

‘Just in time,’ Neferata said, sheathing her sword.

‘It took more than I suspected to keep the bats flying in the storm. Even dead flesh and necromancy have their limits,’ Morath said, watching as the fell-bats attacked the dwarfs above. One by one, they either retreated or died, and soon not one living dwarf remained in the entry hall.

A moment later, the chamber resounded with the sounds of the inner doors of the hold slamming shut as one.

The siege of the Silver Pinnacle had begun.

FIFTEEN

The Tilean Coast

(–1020 Imperial Reckoning)

The village clung to the rocky coast, a swift wind from the shores of Sartosa. Neferata leapt from the galley even as it crunched into the soft sand. She wore dark robes over her armour, as did her followers. Naaima, having no taste for such things, had stayed behind. Khaled and Anmar, however, had been eager to come. The siblings followed her up across the shore, their expressions hungry.

‘An exquisite plan, my queen,’ Khaled murmured. ‘We shall lull the druchii into complacency and then strike.’

‘We will strike, won’t we? I detest those creatures,’ Anmar said. ‘I detest handing people over to them even more.’ The young woman looked pensive. There was no moon and a thick mist crept inland from the sea, obscuring them from anyone who might have been watching.

‘Rather than feasting on them yourself, you mean,’ Khaled countered, grinning.

‘Among other reasons,’ Anmar said primly.

‘Yes, it is a detestable business, but it is necessary,’ Neferata said. ‘We must ensure our influence takes root in the senate, and we need allies among the old ruling class. Sparing their people the druchii levy will see to that.’

‘I still don’t see why we don’t simply take power,’ Khaled said. ‘None could gainsay us.’

‘As we tried in Bel Aliad, you mean?’ Neferata asked pointedly. She turned on him. ‘Only a fool does not learn the lessons of the past, my Kontoi. Are you a fool?’

‘He meant no insult, my lady,’ Anmar said quickly.

Khaled glared at his sister, but said nothing. Neferata sniffed and continued on. Regardless of the necessity of the thing, she had to admit that it had been too long since they had hunted properly. Murder and bloodshed were things that she had learned to avoid, following the events in Bel Aliad. No sense in alerting the hounds to the trail, was there? And there was even less sense in revealing yourself to the hawk.

She restrained a growl and instinctively searched the shadows, though there was no cause. The angry dead were an ocean away and her nemesis was with them. Let Arkhan waste his immortality fighting opponents who couldn’t be killed. She had no reason to do so. The world was large enough.

And it’s not as if you were frightened, said her treacherous thoughts. It’s not as if seeing her again shook the very foundations of your sense of self.

There had been such hatred there, in her eyes. All-consuming and terrifying. Would she have hated so much, had she accepted Neferata’s kiss? Neferata glanced at the siblings, wondering whether the same hatred lingered in their hearts. Did they resent her? Did it matter, as long as they feared her? Khaled looked at her, and in his eyes she saw only the same mingled hunger and desire that was always there. He was a yawning void of need, always wanting what he could not have, always demanding what could not be given.

She knew that he was mad, even as his sister was mad, and she herself was the maddest of them all. The world was mad; a world where the dead walked and the proper order had turned topsy-turvy.

Behind them, she heard the soft pad of the feet of the ghouls they had brought from Sartosa – the sad, tattered remnants of the great ghoul-cult of Mordig – as they slipped from the bellies of the galleys that had brought them. Over a hundred of the creatures followed them inland as they moved towards the sleepy village.

‘Take them,’ Neferata hissed. The ghouls swarmed past her, loping towards the village…

The Silver Pinnacle

(–326 Imperial Reckoning)

Heavy mauls struck the massive interior doors that led into the hold. The mammoth ghouls who wielded them were even bigger than the creatures Neferata had faced. W’soran had outdone himself, fattening the beasts on the blood of her co-conspirators. Sticky protrusions of bone stuck out from their elephantine hides and their lungs flexed like bellows as they pounded unceasingly at the ancient portal, filling the air with thunderous groans as well as the reverberation of metal on metal. There were six of them, and Neferata knew that twice that number wouldn’t have been enough to bring down the doors. Not with the enchantments woven into the very core of their creation.

Behind the beasts, the silent ranks of the dead, their number swelled by the disgorged inhabitants of the great barrows and mass graves that riddled these hills, waited. Hundreds of tribes had come and gone in the centuries since Kadon had first raised Mourkain from the rock, and the dead of those tribes yet remained, if one knew where to look.

Amongst the dead, Morath sat astride his skeletal horse, surrounded by a vanguard of Strigoi, all clad in the black armour of Mourkain’s foundries. Ushoran had sent his most eager warriors to accompany her in her task. Or perhaps they were his most expendable ones. Some were fierce berserkers, like Dragoj or Racki, who had been among the first to turn on Vorag when he had faltered. Others, like taciturn Redzik and his clinging shadow Dzaja, were seasoned campaigners sent to keep hold of the reins. And then there were the overly-ambitious fence-sitters like Zandor and his cronies; they had sat out the coup, waiting to jump to the side of the victors. Now they sought to prove their loyalty with the over-enthusiastic fanaticism of the new convert.

Neferata and her handmaidens waited off to the side. ‘We’re not getting in this way,’ she murmured.

‘Then what would you suggest we do? Talk them into opening those doors?’ Khaled said, striding towards them through the ranks of skeletons. He looked at Neferata. ‘Then maybe you could, at that,’ he added.

‘I wouldn’t dream of interfering,’ Neferata said smoothly.

‘You’re supposed to be leading this little sortie, or had you forgotten?’ Khaled growled, not quite meeting her eyes. He didn’t dare, not even now.

‘You’re quite the one for determining what I’m supposed to be doing, aren’t you, my Kontoi?’

‘Horns,’ Naaima interjected.

‘They’ve been tootling for all they’re worth since this began,’ Khaled snapped. ‘What matters a bit more noise?’ He shot a glare at Naaima for daring to interrupt.

Neferata looked at Naaima. ‘Different horns,’ the former said. ‘Different signals, but to whom—’

There was a sound like stone snapping and then a wave of heat blew through the open outer doors, heralding the arrival of a downpour of molten rock. The bubbling, burning brew struck the lead elements of the undead army. Though the dead seemed unconcerned, the magma dissolved animated bone and ancient armour alike, reducing far too many of them to slag. Morath jerked his mount’s reins, forcing it to back up as the seeping edges of the spillage crept into the entryway. Nonetheless, the sudden rush of heat caused the skin of his face to blister and Morath grunted in pain. One of the Strigoi shrieked as a bit of the burning substance spattered him, and he staggered and fell, clawing at flesh which had suddenly assumed the consistency of stewed chicken.

‘Them,’ Anmar said, her voice filled with horror.

Neferata suddenly recalled the odd stone dragon head which had protruded from the lofty upper peaks of the mountain. It had seemed out of place at the time, but its purpose was plain now. ‘Clever, clever creatures,’ she snarled. Then, ‘They’re cutting our forces in half!’ she said, gesturing towards the ceiling with her sword. ‘We have to destroy that thing.’

‘The dead don’t mind it,’ Khaled protested, his eyes wide as he stared at the hissing, bubbling rock.

‘Of course not, they’re dead,’ Morath nearly shrieked. One hand was pressed to his face. ‘But they can be destroyed by it easily enough! I can’t revivify melted bone.’

Khaled snarled and shared a look with Redzik. The Strigoi was rangy and hawk-like and was a seasoned warrior, lacking Vorag’s bluster or Gashnag’s pomposity. He nodded and gestured to two of his fellows. ‘Jirek, Dinic, get up there,’ he growled. The two vampires hesitated, looking at their fallen fellow, who had been dragged from the burning liquid but whose healing was slow to begin. He mewled piteously, and his face looked like one overlarge raw wound. Redzik grunted and cast his gaze at Zandor. ‘What about you?’

‘I think not,’ the ajal said, stepping back, his hands raised.

Neferata snorted. ‘The courage of Strigos is legendary,’ she said. ‘I’ll go.’

‘Not alone,’ Anmar said. Neferata looked at the girl for a moment, and then nodded. Khaled growled.

‘Foolishness. Fine, Jirek, Dinic, come with me, the rest of you organise some sort of defence – the dwarfs won’t sit idle. They’ll try to crush us between the hammer and the anvil. We’ll soon have every warrior in this rat-hole at our throats.’ For a moment, Khaled shed the lethargy of the predator and was once more the Kontoi he had been in life. He looked at Neferata. ‘After you, my lady,’ he said.

‘Too kind,’ Neferata murmured. The magma had cooled into a black splotch across the snow. Bone limbs twitched as it hardened. She stepped lightly across it and began to ascend towards the peak, moving as swiftly as she was able. Anmar followed close at her heels and the others just behind. The snow had been melted away, revealing the carefully crafted runnels which had been installed to conduct the flow of the magma. The ingenuity of the dwarfs was impressive. They were a people who thought defensively, preparing for onslaughts which might never come. Neferata could respect that sort of cunning.

The wind smashed against them as they climbed, and the snow fell in great clumps. They didn’t feel the cold, but it played merry havoc with their senses, rendering sight, smell and sound unreliable. Nonetheless, the vampires climbed quickly, following the runnel. Neferata caught a scrape of stone on stone and reached out to touch the edge of the runnel. It trembled slightly. ‘Take cover!’ she shouted, throwing herself to the side. The others did as she did even as a blistering explosion of fiery liquid sluiced down from on high, throwing up fumes and steam. The Strigoi, Dinic, wasn’t fast enough and he howled as the magma caught him.

Neferata watched as Dinic staggered to his feet, enshrouded in burning liquid. The magma seemed to reach out and enfold him in molten fingers. The vampire’s screams rose in pitch as his flesh crumbled off his bones. Tearing at himself, Dinic stumbled back and fell into the runnel, dissolving even as he hit the magma flow.

‘That’s done it,’ Neferata said. She sprang to her feet as the last of the magma slid away and dropped into the runnel. ‘They know we’re coming – hurry!’ The stone of the runnel was painfully hot and her flesh reddened and blistered as she ran. She ignored the pain. It was an easier path than climbing the mountain, and more effective. The stone maw of the dragon rose over her. She leapt up, slithering between its char-black fangs and down its throat.

She only had moments before what she was doing would go from a brilliant idea to a bad one. She hoped the others were following close behind. She hurtled through the dragon’s throat and a very surprised set of features filled her vision. The dwarf jerked back with an oath that was cut short as her sword found his throat. She whipped the blade out, decapitating him even as she emerged from the tunnel and into the hidden tower.

It was a circular stone room, with flues set into the walls and a number of heavy pipes and sluice-works crisscrossing the walls and ceiling. It stank of sulphur and raw heat. Five dwarfs were there to greet her. Only one reacted quickly, grabbing a handy hammer and swinging it towards her head. In the cramped confines of the tower, she had little room to manoeuvre and was forced to let the weapon connect. Her skull rang and she swung wildly, driving the warrior back. He spat something in Khazalid and one of the others dived for a crossbow leaning against the wall. Neferata hurled her sword, pinning the would-be crossbowman to the wall in mid-flight. With a snarl, she dived on the hammer-wielder, bearing him to the ground, her vision still swimming from the force of the hammer-blow. The others closed in.

The rock ceiling cracked and shuddered above them, causing the dwarfs to look up in shock. Neferata concentrated on her prey, bashing the dwarf’s skull against the floor until his head cracked like an egg and what was within slopped out. Even as she rose, the ceiling came away in great chunks, ripped apart by Khaled and Jirek. Anmar dived in through one of the newly-made holes, and her sword flashed in a tight arc, gutting one of the dwarfs. The others reacted by fleeing for the trapdoor which led down from their perch.

‘Grab them!’ Neferata spat. Khaled sprang past her, his talons tangling in one of the dwarf’s braids and hair. He hauled the burly shape off its feet and swung the dwarf around, hurling him out through the gap in the roof to smash himself lifeless on the mountain-side below. Jirek caught the other even as he descended, tackling him with a scream like a hungry tiger. Dwarf and vampire tumbled down into whatever was below. Khaled almost followed, but Anmar grabbed him.

‘Wait!’ she said.

There was a concert of screams from below. Neferata ducked her head down, and her lips writhed back from her fangs in disgust. Jirek and his prey had blundered into the delivery system for the magma. Specially treated pipes had burst and the room swam with heat as magma sprayed and dripped, coating walls, floor and combatants liberally.

Neferata retreated. ‘Fool,’ she said, kicking the stone trapdoor into place. The floor was already growing warm. ‘That artifice would have been useful.’

‘Jirek was more useful,’ Khaled said, glaring at her.

‘Debatable,’ Neferata said. ‘Nonetheless, we must make sure that there are no other surprises waiting for us. The dawi are cunning, and I’d rather they didn’t find a way to make the mountain vomit its guts all over us.’ She jumped lightly onto the wall and climbed out onto the roof.

The panorama of the Worlds Edge Mountains spread out around her, vast and uncaring of the war begun in its depths. Above, the sky was the colour of tar and the snow spiralled down like tears. She reached out, setting her talons on the horizon, even as she had done as a girl, visualising what would be hers. With a grunt, she drew her hand back. Tossing her head, she brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes and spotted the black shape of a river slithering out away from the mountain. She smiled.

Khaled and Anmar joined her a moment later. ‘We destroyed the pipes and devices. This thing is no threat now,’ Khaled said.

‘Oh, well done, dog of Mourkain,’ Neferata said. ‘You do your master proud.’

Khaled grabbed her arm. ‘I would have done the same for you if you had let me,’ he said. ‘I would have served you forever,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.

‘You serve none but your own lusts, my Kontoi. I saw that clearly in Bel Aliad, before I first kissed you,’ Neferata said, placing her fingers along his cheek. ‘And I will acknowledge no desire save my own.’ Her claws scraped his face, opening the flesh to the kiss of the cold wind. Khaled stepped back, releasing her. His eyes hardened.

‘Ushoran says different,’ he sneered, gesturing to her throat.