Текст книги "Neferata"

Автор книги: Josh Reynolds

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Yes, she had been a queen once, centuries ago. Queen and goddess of a vibrant land, she had asked so little of her people and given so much in return and been rewarded with treachery and pain. Once, she had thought to go back, to re-take what was rightfully hers. That was impossible now. Only the dead ruled Nehekhara, and though she was not truly alive, Neferata was anything but dead.

No, Nehekhara – Lahmia – was dead and dust and there was nothing for her there, nothing but fast-fading memories of a different world and a different woman.

‘Do you smell it?’ a soft voice asked. Neferata glanced at the woman rising from the snow nearby and blinked in momentary confusion. Then she tilted her head and tasted the wind. Her eyes widened.

‘Blood, freshly spilled,’ the former Queen of Lahmia breathed. No wonder she had been dreaming. She stretched, thrusting her hands towards the moon. She felt no soreness or stiffness, even hungry as she was, but old habits were wont to die hard. She luxuriated in the feeling of powerful muscles pulling against one another. As a mortal, she had never truly indulged the limits of her body, but in the centuries since the tainted blood of Arkhan the Black had mingled with an assassin’s poison in her veins, Neferata had come to derive a certain satisfaction from the raw physicality that immortality had conferred upon her.

She could run faster and longer than any beast and her strength was as that of the great saurians of the Southlands. She could follow the beat of a man’s heart and track the sweet scent of his blood for miles. And all she required in return was what any predator required. Blood. Dollop or deluge, the blood was the life, and Neferata wanted to live. She looked at the other woman and said, ‘Where?’

‘To the north, I think,’ the woman said, brushing snow from her shoulders. Like Neferata she wore heavy furs, though she no more felt the cold than her mistress. ‘The cold dulls my senses, however,’ she added hesitantly, with the wary modesty of a servant with a temperamental master.

‘It dulls all of our senses, Naaima,’ Neferata said, stroking the other immortal’s cheek. ‘But dulled or not, we will follow them. It has been too long since we last fed. Wake the others.’ Naaima caught her hand and held it for a moment. Then she nodded and set about thrusting her hands into the snow to dislodge it and reveal four more huddled shapes. One by one the vampires snapped alert as the smell of blood invigorated them.

Neferata watched them awaken, a familiar sense of possessiveness rising in her. Each of them was a part of her in some way. They were all blood of her blood, having been gifted with her blood-kiss in the centuries since Lahmia had fallen. There had been more once, but these were all that remained. Neferata grimaced and turned away, looking south once more. It had been weeks since they had seen any sign of their pursuers. Perhaps they had given up.

No. Not her, not the little hawk. Neferata repressed a growl. Nonetheless, they had been wandering in the mountains for weeks now. With the coming of winter, the hills were barren of sustenance, and it was only their inhuman vitality that had kept the little group moving. But now, there was blood on the air.

‘It smells like the greatest feast our father ever laid out, Khaled,’ one of the vampires squeaked, her eyes wide as she stripped the snow from her glossy hair. Anmar bin Muntasir had been young when Neferata had delivered her up into immortality, only seventeen at most. Sometimes, Neferata regretted having done so, though she couldn’t say why.

‘Hunger plays funny tricks, sister,’ Khaled al Muntasir replied. Anmar’s brother had been given the blood-kiss within moments of his sister. Older by a decade before he had ceased aging, he was slender and handsome, and he had taken to an immortal’s life with a relish that was almost unsettling. He sniffed the air and let his palm fall onto the pommel of the slim Arabyan blade hanging from his hip. His dark eyes found Neferata’s and he smiled. ‘My lady,’ he said, inclining his head with courtly grace.

Neferata smiled, amused. She glanced at the final two members of her small coterie. Rasha bin Wasim, like Khaled and Anmar, was Arabyan, though she was a daughter of the desert rather than the cities as the siblings were and taciturn where they were talkative. Lupa Stregga, in contrast, had been a native of Sartosa in life. Where the others were dark, she was fair, and where they were subtle, she was loud. Stregga inhaled the air with a snort and reached into the snow to retrieve her sword. It was a short-bladed chopping thing, favoured by the sailors of her native land. ‘Smells like durra to me,’ she said, looking at Neferata. ‘Then, it’s been a dog’s age since I’ve seen one.’

‘What do they taste like?’ Anmar said, looking at the taller woman. ‘And what’s a durra?’

‘The little under-men,’ Stregga said with a shrug. ‘And I never thought to try and take a bite.’

‘Probably wise,’ Naaima said. ‘The dawi are not men. There is stone in their blood.’ She looked at Neferata. ‘But it is not just dawi blood we smell, I think…’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Neferata said. She licked her lips. She looked at the black sun and then away. The others looked at her eagerly, waiting on her command. They trembled like hounds straining at the leash, and hunger made their facades slip slightly, revealing the beast beneath the skin. Neferata knew that she was no different. Her human beauty had been replaced by something altogether more feline.

‘We hunt,’ she hissed.

They bounded through the snow like flickering shadows, shaking off the sluggishness of daylight torpor. The scent of blood curled and splashed through the air, teasing them on. Neferata took the lead, running wolf-swift through the trees. As she ran, she drew the short, heavy blade that was sheathed at her side.

She had been taught the art of the blade by Abhorash himself. The champion of the City of the Dawn had been a man of few words, but he was an unparallelled swordsman and a warrior without peer. Neferata could not match him – she knew of none who could – but thanks to his teaching she was better with a blade than many hardened warriors walking the world today.

She had not thought of Abhorash in many years. Not since his betrayal in Araby. The thought still sent a flush of rage spurting through her. They had all betrayed her, Ushoran and W’soran and Abhorash.

Every man betrayed her, in the end. Lamashizzar had tried to take her power from her, and reduce her to an ornamental queen. Arkhan had given her immortality and then died, again, before he could share it with her. And Alcadizzar had turned on her, and turned the other great cities against Lahmia.

A throaty laugh caused her to glance aside. Khaled had his own blade out and he was keeping pace with her, his eyes glowing with a ravenous hunger. The only man she had given the blood-kiss since Bel Aliad. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it. Neferata leapt, her sandals scraping against bark as she ran up the trunk of the tree. The others followed. There were roads open to vampires that were denied to any other creature save birds or vermin.

She leapt from branch to branch, tasting the wind as she went. Sounds joined the smell. Weapons clashing and the screams of the dying rode the night-wind. Hairy shapes charged through the trees below, snorting and growling. Neferata stopped, perching in the crook of a branch. Her eyes narrowed.

She had encountered the twisted beast-men only once before, but she recognised them easily enough. They were hideous amalgamations of man and beast, with the worst traits of both. They stank of a dark corruption, though their blood was palatable enough.

The creatures spilled into a clearing, launching themselves with berserk abandon at their opponents. Neferata realised that they were seeing the final bloody moments of an ambush. She saw small, stocky forms littering the snow.

‘Dawi,’ Naaima hissed in answer to Neferata’s unasked question.

Neferata peered closer at the broad bodies, nodding shallowly. Where had they come from? The dawi were dwellers in the depths. They rarely trod the open earth, and only then when it was absolutely necessary. Whatever they had been doing, wherever they had been going, they weren’t going there any more. The ambush was done.

A large beast brayed in triumph and brandished its gore-encrusted axe at the dark ceiling of trees overhead. It was a massive creature, all simian muscle and taut sinew, with a belly like a stove and splay-hooves that ground the snow underfoot into slush. Scraps of armour and badly tanned hide struggled to contain its girth as it stooped and jerked the body of its opponent into the frosty air. All around it, similar scenes played out as its companions stooped to scavenge from the bodies that still steamed in the chill mountain air.

The dwarfs had fought bravely, but in the end, had been too few. The beasts’ attack had been hard and wild, seemingly driven as they were by the talons of a desperate winter. Hunger gnawed at their bellies; some had already fallen to filling their gullets, slicing open the fine mail and jerkins worn by the dwarfs and burying their snouts in the tough flesh beneath. Others fought one another over the scraps and silver trinkets scoured from the bodies.

Wolf-teeth snapped behind goatish lips as the pack-leader drove back those who drew too close; it swung its axe wildly, and stamped its hooves as it tried to keep the body of its most recent opponent for itself.

The dwarf coughed and blood spattered his beard. Nonetheless, he grabbed the hand that held him and squeezed. Chaos-born bone popped and cracked and the beast screamed in shock and pain, releasing its hold. The dwarf fell heavily, his armour clattering. Blindly, he groped through the snow for a weapon. Talons speared through his hair and sank into his scalp and he was jerked backwards and sent hurtling spine-first into a crooked tree.

The dwarf groaned as he collapsed into the snow. Dwarfs were harder than most creatures, but even stone cracked if you hit it hard enough. He coughed again and tried to push himself upright. Blood drenched the dwarf’s limbs and stained his armour, and the heady scent of it filled Neferata’s nostrils as she looked down. The beastman stalked forwards, cradling its broken hand and swiping at the air with its axe. The others crowded around it, baying like eager hounds.

‘Come on then,’ the dwarf spat hoarsely, jerking upright, a rock in his hand. Pushing himself onto his feet, he hefted the rock. ‘I’ll match you stone for stone,’ he said weakly. It was an empty boast, Neferata knew. The dwarf was dying on his feet, and his blood had turned the snow pink. The beastman roared and launched itself into an awkward charge, its axe cocked back for a skull-crushing blow.

Neferata moved.

She struck the tree above the dwarf’s head and catapulted towards the beastman. Steel flashed and the beastman stumbled to a stop, blinking quizzically. Behind it, Neferata had landed in a crouch. One arm was stretched out, the crude steel sword held tight in her pale fingers. She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes met the dwarf’s. The moment was broken by the hiss of hot blood sliding off the tip of the sword to plop into the snow. The dwarf’s eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched forwards, unconscious at last.

The beastman made a curious sound as its head rolled off its shoulders to land in the snow near the unconscious dwarf. The other creatures drew back, whining and growling. Neferata rose smoothly to her feet, her arm still extended. She swept her gaze across the gathered beastmen and smiled. ‘Take them,’ she breathed.

A large beastman howled and lunged for her, swinging a spiked club. Something crashed down atop its head and shoulders, driving it snout-first into the snow inches from Neferata. Khaled rose, wrenching his sword from the pulverised skull of the twitching beastman. Black-haired and bearded, his hawk-like features twisted into a fierce expression as he gave a bark of laughter.

The remaining beastmen hesitated, their nostrils flaring. Snow drifted down from the branches above. A beast screeched as a figure dropped down beside it, cleaving through its shoulder and chest. Naaima spun, jerking her sword free of the dying beast and bringing it crashing around into the neck of another. She danced among them for a moment, leaving carnage in her wake, before she sprang to Neferata’s side, blood coating her bare, pale arms to the shoulders.

‘They smell foul and taste worse, I’d wager,’ she hissed, her dark eyes narrowing.

‘Needs must, when the gods demand, Naaima,’ Neferata said, bringing her blade up and letting it extend in front of her. She grasped the hilt with both hands and chuckled. ‘Their blood is red enough, regardless.’

‘It’s not the bottle, it’s the vintage, Lady Neferata,’ Khaled said, stepping to join them as the beasts pawed the snow and gathered their courage. He flung off his furs, revealing a tight cuirass of banded and beaten metal over a jerkin of thin, brightly coloured silk. He spun his sword with a flick of his wrist, his eyes meeting those of each of the beastmen in turn.

‘And what vintage would these abominations be, Khaled?’ Naaima said.

‘Something unsubtle and northern,’ Khaled said, grinning insouciantly at her.

‘Silence,’ Neferata said, and the pair fell quiet. She ran a finger along the thin runnel cut into the length of her blade, where the blood had collected. Delicately she licked the tip of her finger and grimaced. ‘Sour,’ she said.

‘Needs must, Neferata,’ Naaima murmured, her tone only vaguely teasing.

Neferata shot a glare at Naaima and then swung the sword, splattering the nearest beastmen with blood. ‘Needs must,’ she said. ‘Twelve left.’

The beastmen had got over their confusion. They started forwards in a howling, stamping mass, drawing courage from numbers. Something snarled and sprang from the snow to the side, bringing down a squalling, goat-headed monster. The desert-leopard’s fiery coat stood out in the snow as it shrieked a challenge at the beastmen before it casually bit the top of the goat-thing’s head off.

‘Ha! Cheat!’ Stregga snarled, springing from a tree to wrap her long arms around a simian brute’s head. She gave it a vicious twist as her feet touched the snow, snapping the creature’s spine and nearly jerking it from its back. She finished the job with all the efficiency of a fish-wife and shook the bloody spinal column at the leopard. ‘Cheat, Rasha! No points for you!’ she said, and the leopard snarled in reply. Neferata smiled slightly at the sight of the beast. The changing of skins came less easily to those who had accepted her blood-kiss than it did herself or Naaima. It had taken Rasha almost a century to learn how to do it without agony or mistake, and only because Neferata had tutored her relentlessly in the practice. The others still couldn’t; not even Khaled, quick study that he was. He might learn in time, if he survived.

A beastman spun and swung a crude hammer at Stregga’s head. With a wild cry, Anmar interposed herself. Her sword pierced the hammer-wielder’s gut and lifted it off its cloven feet, hurling it backwards where it landed limply near the leopard. Anmar panted slightly, her body shaking from blood-hunger and exertion.

‘Nine now I think you’ll find, my queen,’ Khaled said, looking at Neferata, who said nothing. She and the others glided forwards. The six vampires surrounded the nine beasts, closing in on them from all sides. The battle that followed was brief and bloody. In moments, every beast was dead and their foul blood warmed the bellies of their killers.

‘Tastes like goat,’ Stregga said, sucking blood from a dollop of hairy flesh. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or like what I recall goat tasting like.’

‘It tastes foul enough without you adding to it,’ Rasha, now returned to her own shape, snapped, letting a beastman fall from her grip to thump into the pink-stained snow. She wiped the back of her hand across her jaw, smearing more blood than she removed.

‘Needs must, children,’ Neferata said, looking down at the crumpled form of the dwarf. He was breathing shallowly, and his blood smelled strangely acrid, like hot metal on a forge fire. She prodded his body with her sword, and he groaned.

‘Tough little creature,’ Khaled murmured, sidling up beside her. He cleaned his blade with a hank of beard torn from one of the dead dwarfs. ‘Still… he won’t last long out here, not like that.’

‘No,’ Neferata said, not looking at him. She prodded the dwarf again. The dawi had not been a common sight in Nehekhara. Indeed, she had not seen one at all until many years later, in Araby. And that one had been dead and stuffed as part of a caliph’s trophy room. This one did not seem much healthier.

‘Kill him,’ Naaima said as she handed Neferata the top of a beastman’s skull, stripped free of flesh, inverted and filled with blood. Neferata drank deeply, emptying the makeshift bowl in moments. She made a face as she handed the bowl back to Naaima.

The Cathayan vampire had strung up several of the bodies and was systematically draining them of every drop of their filthy blood, and collecting it in upturned shields and helmets collected from the dwarf dead. Anmar was busy filling the heretofore-empty water-skins the group had brought. Blood congealed quickly, especially in the cold, but a few stones properly heated and dropped into the skins would bring the blood back to something approaching edibility. It was a stop-gap measure at best – drinking old blood could be as debilitating as going too long without fresh blood.

Still, there was no telling how long they would be in these mountains. Neferata sighed and looked at Naaima. ‘It seems a waste,’ she said.

‘We cannot drink from one of his kind,’ Naaima said.

‘That we know of,’ Khaled said, squatting beside the dwarf. Naaima glared at him. He returned her glare with a raised eyebrow. ‘Have we ever tried?’ he said.

‘Feel free, brother,’ Anmar said. ‘Show us whether your bravery extends to your stomach.’

Khaled grimaced as the others laughed. Neferata sank gracefully to her haunches. ‘Enough. We must go. I will deal with him.’

She raised her sword in both hands and pressed the tip of the blade to the point where the dwarf’s skull met his spine. It would be a merciful act – quick and clean. He groaned again, and muttered something in the language of his people. The words crashed together like rocks in a basket, unintelligible and meaningless.

All save one.

She did not understand it. Could not, for she did not know what it meant or to what it might refer. Nonetheless, it strummed a chord within her, and her spirit shuddered in its sheath of cold flesh.

Neferata rose smoothly to her feet, her face stiff and expressionless. She turned north, and the black sun blazed as if in answer to the question that swam to the surface of her mind. The others fell silent, sensing her disquiet.

‘What are you?’ she muttered, half expecting an answer. As usual, none was forthcoming.

‘Neferata,’ Naaima asked, reaching out to touch her mistress’s shoulder. ‘What is it? What did he say?’

‘Mourkain,’ Neferata said, repeating the dwarf’s word. She said it again, tasting the dark edges of it. ‘Mourkain,’ she whispered. And the black sun blazed with darkling joy.

TWO

The Shark Straits

(–1163 Imperial Reckoning)

The storm lashed the sea with whips of lightning. The sea, in its turn, did its best to return the favour, heaving and thrusting ever higher. The ship rode the thrashing waves as best as it could, but the hull groaned with something like agony and the sails were ragged strips of cloth.

The captain pressed his back to the mast and extended his sword. Rain pounded down, swamping the ship. It ran down his arm and across the blade, joining the ankle-deep water that splashed across the deck. The helm was unmanned, but he had other concerns. Namely, the two slim shapes that swayed easily across the deck despite the pitch and yaw. Eyes like dark lamps fixed on him hungrily and he swiped the sword through the rain, trying to force them back.

‘Your service is to be commended, captain, but the time has come for a parting of ways,’ Neferata said, glaring at the last living man on the ship through a veil of stringy, soaked hair. Blood stained her arms to the elbow and her pale shape was marred by the filth of the lower decks. The captain, a Cathayan, shouted something defiant. Neferata’s eyes flickered to the side.

‘He is damning us to the six hells,’ Naaima said.

‘That’s what I thought he said,’ Neferata said. She was pleased in an almost child-like fashion with her facility with languages, but the Cathayan tongue was more complex than any she had ever encountered. ‘Well, he’s a bit late for that,’ she said, snapping her fangs together.

The ship was bound for Araby, loaded down with silks and steel to trade for spices and slaves. In the years since her flight from Lahmia, Neferata had done well in Cathay. Too well, in fact. The powers entrenched there had not taken kindly to the former queen’s predatory attentions.

If there was one thing that her final confrontation with Alcadizzar had taught her, it was when to become the memory of a thorn, rather than the thorn itself. The subtle politics of the east, as compared to those she had employed in Nehekhara, had been eye-opening. The great bureaucracy was composed of rings of power, each smaller than the next, spider-webs of steel influence and precision. Any man could be king, but to be the one who controlled the king – who controlled all kings – that was true power.

Unfortunately, those lessons had come too late to do her much good in the lands of the Dragon-Emperor. Now she was fleeing again, a fact which rubbed at her soul like a bit of grit caught beneath armour. Still, needs must…

The first absent crew member had been blamed on the sea and a sudden swell. The second had been blamed on the same, with the addition of drunkenness to explain such misfortune occurring twice in one voyage. By the third, the crew had been stalking the holds, weapons clutched in their sweaty hands. They had heard the stories of the gangshi – the stiff corpses that walked – that had come out of the capital in the preceding years, and like all sailors, were superstitious enough to believe those stories.

Neferata idly stroked the still healing spot on her belly where a bilge-hook had entered as she slept. The storm had been a gift from the gods, blacking the sky and setting the crew’s minds to other, more pressing dangers. The Shark Straits were visible, and the storm seemed determined to drive the ship right into their jagged teeth.

‘A parting of ways,’ Naaima echoed. Her face was as expressionless as a porcelain mask. Neferata knew her handmaiden well enough to see the storm of emotions hidden beneath the mask. As practical as she was, as ruthless as she could be, she lacked the stomach for slaughter. Killing had never sat well with Naaima. She preferred to sup in moderation, taking gentle nourishment from suitably docile partners or pets. Neferata recognised the inherent longevity of such a practice, but something wilder stirred in her at times, as now.

It was not quite hunger. Rather, it was a savage frenzy, a slaughter-lust that bubbled beneath her calm façade for months or years and then suddenly erupted. It was not only blood that she required; she needed death and pain and the screams of her prey as she clutched their throats between her teeth.

With a wildcat scream, she lunged through the sheets of rain that separated her from the Cathayan captain. With a yell he swung his sword, but Naaima was there, smashing his sword-arm to the mast and pinning it there. Neferata crashed against him, his armour digging into her flesh as her fingertips dug into his. He thrashed in a pleasing manner as she grabbed his topknot and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. She purred in pleasure as her fangs sank into his unshaven throat. Blood exploded into her mouth and the purr turned to a snarl as she gulped at the hot flow. His body gave a spasm and she stepped back, gesturing imperiously for Naaima to take her place at the still-gushing spigot.

The ship rolled beneath her feet as she glided towards the deck rail. The Shark Straits rose dark and hungry before her. The ship would run aground on them, and the scavengers said to lurk in their shadow would descend on the wreck when the storm had subsided. And from there, the caliphates of Araby awaited.

Neferata spread her arms over her head and laughed gleefully as the storm battered the ship towards the waiting rocks…

The Worlds Edge Mountains

(–800 Imperial Reckoning)

The fire crackled, casting twisted shadows across the snow. The flames rose like grasping hands. In her head, bones clattered across still vistas on a ceaseless, remorseless march. Words spattered across the surface of her mind, blotting out her thoughts. Eyes of green balefire stared at her from out of the heart of the fire, bright with predatory intent. They held her and pulled her into the dark. It was the needle-on-bone voice again, digging into her consciousness.

Neferata… The dead are stirring in their ancient tombs. They will rise and march across the world and force time itself to stop in its tracks…

Neferata…

‘Neferata,’ Naaima said.

Neferata blinked and her snarl rippled across the clearing. ‘What is it?’ she snapped, whirling on her handmaiden. Naaima stood her ground.

‘The dwarf is awake,’ she said.

Neferata shook aside the strange thoughts that clung to her consciousness like cobwebs and looked over at the dwarf. He was a peculiar looking creature – all broad muscle and hair, wrapped up in armour more fine than that of even the kings of Nehekhara and leathers more skilfully tanned than any done by the hands of men. Such skill could be put to good use by the right hands. She stalked towards him and dropped down beside him.

She fingered one of the talismans attached to his armour and hissed as something snagged her. She sucked on her fingers and eyed the shiny silver amulet balefully. The dwarf groaned and his eyes cracked open. ‘Bugrit,’ he said, stubby fingers reaching up to prod the crude bandage wrapped around his head. More bandages covered his arms and neck, and all were stained with crusted blood. The dwarf had lost much of the latter, and his flesh was the color of stripped bark. His eyes were dull with pain.

‘Quite so,’ Neferata said. She gestured and Naaima dropped to her haunches beside the improvised litter they had constructed out of a shield and two branches. The Cathayan gently probed the dwarf’s skull and then moved on to his other wounds. The smell of his blood was less strong now, for which Neferata was grateful. The heat of it had aroused her thirst the way sea-water will seem like the finest wine to a marooned sailor, despite knowing the danger. True, there was no evidence save Naaima’s assertions that his blood would sicken them, but Neferata didn’t feel like taking the chance.

The dwarf glared at her suspiciously and spat a stream of crude syllables. Neferata shook her head. He frowned, and then said, ‘Strigoi?’

‘What’s a Strigoi?’ Khaled said. He had built the fire, more for appearances’ sake than anything else. It wouldn’t do to let their guest know the true nature of his rescuers, not while they needed him alive. Khaled spoke in Arabyan, as was his custom, and the dwarf blinked and replied in the same tongue.

‘You’re a long way from the desert, manling,’ he growled, squinting at Khaled.

‘You know our tongue?’ Khaled said, surprised.

‘I’ve been to the caliphates, and a beardling could pick up your speech in a few hours,’ the dwarf said and sat up with a pain-filled groan. The smell of fresh blood suddenly filled Neferata’s nose and she grunted. The dwarf looked at her. ‘You’re not Strigoi, then? You have that look…’

‘Look?’ Neferata said.

The dwarf ignored her question. ‘I’m the only survivor, then?’ he said, his voice turning harsh.

Neferata nodded. ‘Thanks to our intervention,’ she said.

The dwarf was silent for a moment. Then, with a grunt, he said, ‘Then I owe you a debt. I am Razek Silverfoot.’

‘And I am Neferata,’ Neferata said, inclining her head. She motioned to the others. ‘And these are my companions. We are heading north.’

‘To Mourkain, is it?’ Razek said. He slumped back. ‘Have to be. It’s the only place worth going out here,’ he added, answering his own question.

‘Mourkain,’ Neferata said, letting the word roll across her tongue. Mourkain was a place. ‘Yes, we are going to Mourkain,’ she added, ignoring the looks her followers gave her. She knew that they could not see the glare of the black sun and even if they had, they would not understand it. They had followed her into the mountains because to do otherwise was to die on the spears of dead men, or because they felt loyalty to her. Her eyes met Naaima’s, and she nodded. Something howled hungrily in the darkness. Razek’s hands flexed, as if itching to hold a weapon. ‘Beasts,’ he grunted weakly.

‘But far enough away to be harmless,’ Neferata said. ‘Are you hungry?’ She snapped her fingers and Anmar trotted towards them, holding a steaming skewer of charred meat.

Razek eyed the girl with something like surprise and took the meat, nodding in gratitude. ‘Nothing to drink, by chance, is there?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Water, I’m afraid,’ Neferata said. She crooked her fingers and Stregga sauntered over, holding a helmet full of melted snow. The dwarf frowned at the improvised cup. A muscle in his jaw jumped. It was a movement so slight that a human would have missed it, and Neferata knew at once that they had made a mistake. She rose and slapped the helmet out of Stregga’s hands. ‘Fool,’ she snapped.

Stregga recoiled, stunned. ‘Bring him a water-skin,’ Neferata continued, her eyes narrowed. Stregga hesitated, and then nodded. She would empty one of theirs of blood and fill it with melted snow. It was a sacrifice, but a necessary one.