Текст книги "Neferata"

Автор книги: Josh Reynolds

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Neferata smiled softly and licked his blood from her fingers. ‘What he says and what you hear are two different things, my sweet, savage, sad son. And that you never saw that is one of the reasons why I am glad to be rid of your tedious love.’

Khaled snarled, but Neferata turned away and leapt off the tower. She dropped into the snow and started back down.

The dwarfs did not remain idle after the failure of their dragon-weapon. Neferata soon found herself wishing that they had, if only to provide respite from the dangerous tedium that followed. Two weeks passed in the wake of the dwarfs’ flight into the lower regions of their realm, but, like all vermin, they refused to stay in their holes.

Instead, they had displayed the unguessed intricacies of their craftsmanship. There were apparently innumerable hidden passageways and concealed doors and the dwarfs had sallied forth three times in strength, pummelling the dead before retreating into their hidden enclaves. Others had crept from unseen points to set off explosions and fire crossbows into the vampires and ghouls. They had already lost four of the Strigoi vampires to such tactics, and the remaining warriors were becoming unsettled and impatient. When not fending off these attacks, Neferata and the Strigoi passed the time in fruitless debate.

‘There must be more than one way in,’ Morath said testily. He looked half-dead, and weird lights flickered beneath his skin. He sagged in his saddle. The stink of exhaustion seeped from his pores.

‘There are a number of ways in. Finding them, however, is another matter,’ Neferata said, resting on her haunches, her chin pressed to the pommel of her sword, her fingers draped over the hilt. It was not the most regal position, but it suited her mood. She stared out at the blizzard.

‘Who says we have to find them, eh?’ Zandor said. ‘We just set those bone-bags we brought with us to chipping away at this anthill until we make a passage.’

‘Do you have any concept of how much power and time that would require?’ Morath snapped. ‘No, of course you don’t.’

Zandor growled at the necromancer, his normally handsome features lengthening into something lupine. ‘Watch your tone, meat, or I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’ Neferata said, without turning from the snow. ‘In case you had forgotten, Zandor, I require Morath’s services more than yours, indispensible as they are.’

‘And you’ll hold your tongue, witch,’ Zandor said, grinning at her in a lopsided fashion. ‘You’re only here because Ushoran still professes to respect your abilities. But if you give us trouble—’

‘Your head will be the first to touch the dust,’ Anmar said, tapping Zandor’s throat with the flat of her sword. The other Strigoi snarled like a pack of dogs. Neferata’s handmaidens drew closer to her. She herself neither moved, nor paid attention to the ongoing confrontation.

‘Quiet!’ Khaled roared. He looked at Neferata. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘The river,’ Neferata said. ‘The river is the way in. It travels beneath the mountain.’

Morath’s eyes lit up with realisation. ‘It might be possible, yes. A small group, no more than a hundred,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘No. No it won’t work. My abilities are great, but the strain…’

‘Not you. Me,’ Neferata said, rising to her feet.

‘Your grasp of the necessary magics is incomplete,’ Morath said slowly.

‘Then complete it,’ Neferata said. ‘Teach me, Morath. You will find me a most apt pupil…’

‘No!’ Khaled barked.

‘Quiet, Arabyan,’ Zandor snapped. ‘Why shouldn’t we? If the witch wishes to leave the glory to us while she sneaks in the back door, let her. A few tricks might help her distract the dwarfs for more than a few moments before they take her traitorous head.’

‘Your support is noted and appreciated, Zandor,’ Neferata said. ‘It will take time, of course.’ She looked at Khaled. ‘But I’m sure we can find something to occupy our days and weeks, no?’

He made a face and looked at the immense inner doors that sealed the rest of the hold away from the entry-chamber. The Upper Deep was theirs, but getting into the lower levels would be difficult. More than difficult, in fact; near impossible, even with the forces at their disposal, unless something tipped the balance in their favour.

Neferata inclined her head as Khaled glared at her. ‘What would you suggest?’ he grated.

‘Come, come, my Kontoi, surely you have taken part in sieges before?’ Neferata said. ‘There are things which must be done.’

His eyes lit up with understanding. ‘As ever, my queen, you are correct,’ he said. He grimaced a moment later as he realised what he had said. Neferata gave no sign that she had heard.

In the days that followed, the dead fell easily into old routines formed in life. Roving patrols of skeletal horsemen rode through the claws of the weather that gripped the mountains, their ancient bronze armour green with verdigris and sheathed in ice. Corpse-wolves loped through the scrub forests of the mountain slopes, hunting for the merest whiff of warm blood. And the ranks of the numberless dead swelled day by day as Morath pulled them from their crude graves.

Neferata had made her camp out of the grip of the blizzard that continued to batter the region, within the entrance hall. A pavilion tent had been erected by fleshless hands and filled with luxuries, brought specifically for that purpose from Mourkain. Even if she was being forced to play general for Ushoran, there was no reason she couldn’t do so in comfort. She studied the old scrolls while lying on a pile of cushions, handing them to her handmaidens when she had finished. Of them all, only Naaima seemed to have grasped the art of the magics as well as she, but the others would learn in time.

Morath stood in the centre of the tent, warming his hands over a brazier. He wore heavy furs over his slender form and dark circles weighted down his eyes. The tent flap was opened and Redzik, one of the Strigoi, stepped in, snow falling from him in clumps. ‘We’ve found it,’ he said.

Neferata tossed aside a scroll. ‘Where is it?’

‘Just where you said,’ Redzik said. ‘The wolves sniffed it out. The river goes right into the mountain’s guts.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s iced over, though. Probably why there’s no guard on it. No telling how deep the ice runs…’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Neferata said, stretching. ‘It’s time.’ She looked at Morath. ‘You know what to do?’

‘Knowing and accomplishing are two different things,’ the necromancer spat. He shivered. Neferata reached out and gently stroked his cheek with the edge of her palm. Morath shuddered. She smiled gently.

‘I have faith, my sweet Morath, as should you. After all, does not a god stand at our side?’ Like the rest of them, he had stood frozen as Ushoran became something terrible. Morath’s prediction had come true, and he had done nothing to prevent it.

‘I’m… I am sorry,’ he croaked, after a short silence. He looked away.

‘Men are always sorry, after the fact,’ Neferata said, running her fingers across his shoulders. ‘But it is not you from whom I will accept an apology. You’re a dog, Morath, and a dog can be forgiven biting at the whim of its master.’

He jerked as if she had struck him. ‘Mourkain—’ he began hoarsely.

‘Mourkain would have been a paradise,’ she said, turning to follow Redzik out of the tent. Naaima and her handmaidens paced after her, checking their weapons and armour.

‘You do not have to do this,’ Anmar said as Neferata approached. ‘Naaima could go, or even Layla,’ she suggested, taking Neferata’s hand.

Neferata was silent for a moment. Vampires could not feel regret; or, rather, none she had known had ever displayed such. But what was writ on Anmar’s face was as close to it as she thought that they could get.

‘And what would I do, little leopard?’ Neferata said. ‘Would you have me sit and sulk in my tent? Or would you rather me sit and ponder the intricacies of your brother’s betrayal?’

The remark was spiteful, and Anmar took it as such. She pulled back. Neferata hesitated, wanting to reassure her, but knowing that there was no purpose to such a gesture. She was going to kill Khaled and Anmar too, if she interfered. She would kill all of the traitors and fools. Instead, she said, ‘You have made your choice, little leopard. You have chosen your brother over me.’

‘Could I do otherwise?’

‘Only you can say,’ Neferata said, turning away. ‘Blood calls to blood and like to like. I made a mistake with your brother. I should have left him dead on the floor of his secret room, and taken only you. But even then, I knew I could not separate you. It seems nothing will.’

She strode away, noting Khaled approaching as she did so. She wondered whether he had heard. From his expression, she guessed that he had. A momentary surge of satisfaction lifted her mood as she stepped outside. The wind and cold enveloped her and she welcomed it.

Besides her handmaidens, a troop of skeletal horsemen and spearmen, their bones coated in glistening ice, accompanied her. A token force and one she intended to leave near the river. There would be plenty of dead within the hold for her to manipulate, if she were right.

The dwarfs entombed their dead, as W’soran’s studies of Mourkain’s depths had shown. There were generations upon generations, going back to the first inhabitants of the hold, all waiting for her gentle summons to march to war against their kin. They would catch the dawi in a pincer, between two walls of bone and metal.

When they reached the river, she found that it had indeed frozen solid, just as Redzik said. Neferata stood on a bluff overlooking the river, Naaima and Iona beside her. They had left the others below, out of sight, with the dead. Neferata sniffed the wind. Several of the corpse-wolves were prowling nearby, their gait awkward and uneven.

‘We’ll set the dead to shattering the river. Once we have a hole, we’ll go down,’ she said. ‘We will awaken the dead of the hold even as the Strigoi batter their way in. If need be, we will of course open the doors for them again. Eventually.’

‘Are you certain that this is wise?’ Naaima said.

She was eyeing the river distrustfully, but Neferata knew she wasn’t actually talking about that. ‘No,’ Neferata said. ‘But we face two enemies here, not one. And we cannot strike until they are both properly weakened.’ She looked askance at Naaima. ‘Or would you have me remain a slave?’

‘I would have you live,’ Naaima said, not looking at her.

Neferata stared at her for a moment longer. Then she looked at Iona. ‘Gather my handmaidens. We will descend as soon as possible.’

‘What about Anmar?’ Naaima said suddenly.

‘She has chosen to remain by her brother’s side. I have chosen to allow her to do so.’

Naaima said nothing, but Neferata caught the soft susurrus of her thoughts nonetheless. She knew exactly what her handmaiden was thinking. She glanced at the other woman. ‘You think that was a mistake?’

‘I think that even though we are immortal, that even though we are no longer human, something yet remains for us of mortality and humanity. And for some of us more than others…’ Naaima brushed a loose strand of frost-stiffened hair out of her face. ‘Khaled’s betrayal hurt us all.’

‘Not you. You never liked him to begin with.’

‘Nothing good comes from men like that.’

‘Nothing good comes from men,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Lamashizzar, Alcadizzar, W’soran, Ushoran, Abhorash… Nagash.’ The last name was said in a bitter snarl. ‘All of them men and all fools and monsters. They seek to bind us to their destinies, as if we have none of our own. As if we should be thankful.’ She spat the last word. She looked at the river, her eyes dark and far away. ‘Our destiny is here, Naaima. Here in these cold stones. The dawi worship death, even as the people of the Great Land did, before Nagash – before we – perverted it. There is old death, old strength in the bones of the mountain and it is upon that strength that I shall build…’ She trailed off.

‘Build what?’ Naaima said.

Neferata spun. ‘How many wolves did we bring?’

‘What?’

The bullet took Naaima in the shoulder, crunching through her pauldron and shoulder joint alike and spinning her around and off her feet. Neferata made to grab her, but too late. Naaima plummeted off the bluff. The ice shattered at the point of impact and the vampire slipped into the dark water.

The wolves she had seen before had shed their reeking skins, revealing the squat shapes of a number of dwarfs, who’d been wearing them. One was recognisable, even at a distance and with his beard turned silver. Orc tusks and rat skulls still dangled in his beard, though more than the last time she had seen the ranger called Ratcatcher. He grinned at her and tossed aside a long-barrelled fire-stick to one of his men as another was shoved into his hand. He took aim and fired even as Neferata leapt from the bluff after Naaima.

The rangers had been waiting for them. That was the only thing that made sense. They had been waiting for them to eventually stumble across the river. Days, weeks, months – she knew that none of it would have mattered to the taciturn and eccentric Ratcatcher. There was no guarantee that the rangers had even been in the mountain when they’d attacked.

Neferata hit the water not far from where Naaima had crashed through. She plunged into all-encompassing darkness. The cold wreathed her bones, and though it did not bother her, she could feel it. The blood pumping through her limbs turned sluggish and she caught the sharp, familiar tang of Naaima’s blood floating on the current. Like a shark, Neferata arrowed downwards, following the scent of her handmaiden.

Even for one who could see in complete darkness, the depths of the river were near impenetrable. Neferata was forced to rely on her other senses. When she felt the brush of a flailing hand, she latched on to the attached wrist and began to swim for the surface. It was an instinct, to seek succour on the surface. Neither she nor Naaima had a need to breathe, nor did the glacial current hamper them. Regardless, Naaima’s body was dead weight.

Neferata hauled Naaima up until they collided with the ice. Neferata punched through it with a single blow, driving her fist up into the open air. Using her shoulder and elbow, she widened the hole and forced an opening big enough to accommodate them both. Naaima gasped like a beached fish, and blood spurted and sizzled in the hole in her shoulder. A foul-smelling steam issued from the wound and Neferata gagged. ‘What—’ she began.

‘Burns,’ Naaima gasped. ‘It burns!’

Neferata drove her fingers into the wound and shrieked as something as hot as any fire caressed her fingertips. Steeling herself, she plucked the offending object from the wound. It was a lead ball, shot through with veins of silver. She growled and hurled it away.

‘Silver, blood-hag,’ a voice called out. She looked up and saw a firing line of dwarfs trudging across the ice towards them. All carried the long fire-sticks and had great two-handed axes strapped to their backs. Ratcatcher was chewing on a lit fuse, and a stinking tendril of smoke wafted up around his head. ‘You can thank Grund for that, the sad bastard. He saw how you blood-drinkers shrivelled around it. And if there’s one thing the Karaz has plenty of, it’s a pretty bit o’ shine.’ Ratcatcher let the fire-stick swing off his shoulder and he dipped his head, touching the hissing fuse clenched between his blackened teeth to its back.

The fire-stick roared and Neferata was hit by a hammer-blow that took her off her feet. She landed on her back on the ice and heard it crack beneath her. The silver-threaded ball burned through her arm and she gasped as she tore at the wound. The ball fell out and rolled across the ice, steaming and bloody.

The dwarfs had stopped some distance away. Ratcatcher was unhurriedly reloading, even as he continued to speak. ‘The engineers call ’em handguns. Don’t trust them myself, but I must admit they’re a mite handy when it comes to this sort of thing.’ He looked at her. ‘Quite a few dead ones you brought with you. They might have made a mess if they’d got in. Lucky we figured you’d try this eventually.’ He chuckled. ‘We’ve got a bit of a surprise waiting for them, don’t you worry. You won’t go into the darkness alone.’

Neferata heaved herself to her feet. She heard a sound like the growling of a pack of leopards and Ratcatcher made a gesture like a man hearing a familiar melody. ‘The boys got a bit eager there, but no matter.’ He tapped the side of his hooked nose. ‘Artillery crews are like beardlings – give ’em a target and they just can’t resist firing.’

His eyes narrowed to cruel slits. ‘You shouldn’t have killed Razek, blood-drinker. He was my friend. And you definitely shouldn’t have tried to take my mountain.’ He aimed his handgun. ‘Back to the shadows with you, witch.’

‘Why don’t we go together, ranger?’ Neferata said. Still crouched, she raised her fists and smashed them down with every ounce of strength her immortal frame possessed. The crack was small at first, but then the ice ripped with a sound like a melon being chopped in half. Cracks spread outwards from the point of her fists’ impact, zigzagging across the surface of the frozen river. The rangers scattered in surprise, but they could not outrun the cracks.

Neferata pulled Naaima to her feet as the ice slipped and shifted beneath them. Together, the two vampires dived into the freezing waters. Neferata arrowed herself towards the struggling dwarfs, who were sinking like stones. With her teeth bared she swam downwards towards Ratcatcher, who sank in a cloud of bubbles. He saw her coming and his eyes widened. His movements were slow and awkward as he clawed for a weapon, his eyes bulging.

She hit him like a bolt thrown from a ballista and tore him in two. The dwarf spun aside in two directions, leaving a cloud of blood in both wakes. She pushed herself around, watching Naaima dart around the other dwarfs like an eel, tearing out throats or opening bellies with every graceful pass. The water became thick with dark clouds and Neferata inhaled the heady brew before pushing herself towards the surface.

‘What now?’ Naaima said, rubbing her chest. The wound had healed, but she still looked pained. The sound of artillery had fallen silent. Whether that implied that the dwarfs had blown her forces back to whatever hell had spawned them or that they themselves had fallen, she couldn’t say. Nor, in truth, did she care. She looked back at the river and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘Now we follow the river,’ Neferata said. ‘But first, we gather the others.’

When they rejoined the others, it became obvious that the dwarf ambush had been unsurprisingly effective for all that it had been a suicide mission. Layla trotted towards them, dragging a dying dwarf by his foot and leaving a trail of red across the snow. ‘This wasn’t the only ambush,’ she said. ‘Not according to this one,’ she added, tossing the dwarf at Neferata’s feet.

The dwarf glared at them blankly, pink bubbles gathering on his lips as snow collected on his twitching form. Neferata kicked him over onto his face and sighed. ‘How many of you survived?’

‘Most of us, my queen– Sabula was shredded, the slow-witted cow, and Lodi as well. We are maybe a dozen strong now.’ Layla gestured to the smoking piles of shattered bone and smouldering armour. ‘And our escort fared even worse.’

‘They would only have slowed us down in any event,’ Neferata said. ‘Gather the others. We will proceed.’

‘Should we inform the Strigoi of the ambush?’ Layla said.

‘Oh, I’m quite certain that they already know,’ Neferata said, smiling crookedly. ‘In fact, I’m quite certain that a certain Arabyan princeling was hoping for just this sort of occurrence.’

‘Redzik’s scouts couldn’t have missed it,’ Naaima said, frowning. ‘The rangers perhaps, but the guns – never.’ She looked at Neferata. ‘Humiliation isn’t enough for that one, is it?’

‘Oh no, he wants me dead, my faithful Kontoi.’ Neferata licked her fingers and rubbed a smudge of blood from Layla’s face. ‘He knows that eventually I will worm my way out of this trap, as I have every other, and that when I do, I will come for him and his ending will be most unpleasant.’ She looked at the devastation caused by the ambush and nodded. ‘Let him think he succeeded, however.’ She looked at them and her eyes lit on Rasha. Something like satisfaction filled her and she pointed to the former nomad. ‘Rasha, you and Layla will stay here. Khaled is certain to send out search parties to ensure our deaths.’

‘And you want us to make sure they find nothing?’ Rasha said, flashing her fangs. ‘Just like the old days, my lady.’

‘Indeed. Messengers as well,’ Neferata said. She looked up the sky, where the snow’s incessant tumble had slowed somewhat. ‘The blizzard is lessening its hold. See that none of the messengers that either Khaled or Morath send out reach Mourkain.’

‘What game are we playing now, Neferata?’ Naaima murmured as the two vampires ran off.

‘The same one as always, sweet Naaima. The only game that matters,’ Neferata said.