Josh Reynolds

Neferata

Prologue

Bones rubbed softly together within tattered scraps of armour as the skeletal sentries shifted aside their spears. Eyes burning with witch-fire, Arkhan the Black examined them for a moment, and then stepped through the archway, one fleshless hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

The place had belonged to the dwarfs once, and it showed in the design of the thing, though modifications had been made since. The majestic sturdiness of dwarf stone was consumed by the sumptuous decadence of lost Nehekhara. Draperies of Cathayan silk softened the stern arches of the corridor, as tile murals from Sartosa obscured the stones of the ceiling and fumes of exotic incense spilled into the halls from quiet alcoves. The statues of long-forgotten gods from dead lands squeezed into the spaces once reserved for the mighty stone forms of Valaya, Grimnir and Grungni, their marble eyes watching Arkhan’s progress.

Dead men hovered along the path, toiling ceaselessly at labours that were beneath Arkhan’s notice. Somewhere behind him, the vast doors of the hold crashed shut, causing the smooth rock of the path beneath his feet to tremble. From the outside, one would not even know that this place existed, unless one was familiar with the rune-markings of its former masters. In days long gone, the dwarfs had boasted of their dominion of these mountains and the gates would have been not only visible, but impressively so. But the dwarfs were no longer the masters here, and the hold’s new mistress had a predilection for secrecy.

She had purged the routes and signs leading to this place in the intervening centuries since she had taken the throne. None knew the secret ways and means of Silver Pinnacle now, save those whom the hold’s dark queen wished to know.

How Nagash had known was up for debate, given the circumstances. Gone were the days of shared counsel between Arkhan and his master. Dim though it was, the single guttering spark of humanity that remained to Arkhan — that made him who he was — served only to illuminate the rift between him and what Nagash had become in his time in the deep dark. Arkhan, fleshless as he was and driven by dark magic, was terrified of the nightmare thing that his lord had returned as: all brass bone and balefire, the Great Necromancer was a force unto himself, self-wrought and self-empowered, owing nothing to anyone or anything.

Nagash had sent him here to acquire the fealty of this place’s mistress and her vassals, a task Arkhan was uniquely suited for, considering the connection between them. Or so Nagash had claimed. In truth, Arkhan thought it was because Nagash did not trust him. Not that he had any reason to. Arkhan had served Nagash well and faithfully for a stretch of time longer than his mortal life and had been rewarded with annihilation time and again.

In the thousand years since Nagash had last walked the land, Arkhan had tasted again the joys of independence. He chafed now beneath Nagash’s thumb, and he spun plots to free himself; all had failed, of course, or had never been implemented. Nagash was too strong and too in need of a lieutenant to let Arkhan return to Nehekhara and his conquests in the land of bones and dust.

Until such time as Nagash freed him, was destroyed, or was victorious, Arkhan the Black would serve him, however unwillingly.

The great stone gallery with its walls adorned by more murals and colourful tapestries from the lands of the Bretonni extended far ahead of him. It was lit by specially constructed hooded braziers whose light set the shadows to dancing on the walls in shapes pleasing to the inhabitants.

Dark, low shapes prowled in the dark corners and alcoves, mewling softly amongst themselves in the debased tongue of the flesh-eaters. Above, clinging to the high ceiling like a living carpet of hairy flesh, were thousands of bats who watched Arkhan’s progress and added their chittering to the background murmur of the ghouls’ mewling. Arkhan ignored them all and moved steadily towards the raised dais at the end of the gallery.

The broad-boned skeletons of the citadel’s former inhabitants waited for him there. They were arrayed in ranks before the dais, armoured and armed as they had been in life. Arkhan was not intimidated, but even so, the skeletal dwarfs gave him pause. His fingers tightened on the hilt of the black blade sheathed on his hip.

Perhaps it was a trap. He would not have put it past her. She would not bow her head to any creature, not even Nagash. The thought was a surprisingly pleasant one, and if he had still possessed the capacity to do so, Arkhan would have smiled. Instead, he simply stopped before the dais and its fearsome guardians and waited for the mistress of the mountain to receive him. As he waited, he studied the dais.

It sat at the apex of a set of circular steps that ringed around it, and was surmounted by great curtains of soft, dark silk that flowed down from somewhere far above like a black waterfall. Soft light lit the curtains from within, and the smell of strange spices and incense hung heavy on the air, hiding the stink of old blood that clung to the stones of the gallery. There was a cat as black as the shadows that clustered about the chamber lying on the steps, its yellow gaze fixed on him. As he waited, it rose languidly to its feet and trotted up the stairs and through the dark curtains.

There was a whisper of steel on the air and then a colony of dark shapes dropped from the bat-crowded ceiling of the gallery. Arkhan swept his sword from its sheath just in time to meet the downward stroke of a slim, curved blade. The liche stepped back, armour creaking, as more blades dug for his skull. He parried each blow with inhuman speed, ancient reflexes honed in countless battles carrying him through the tornado of steel that had descended on him.

Whispering voices reached him, sliding innocuously through the gallery inbetween the riotous meeting of swords. An audience of red-eyed courtiers had gathered in the balconies above, and they watched with ill-concealed delight as the liche defended himself.

He had expected a dozen perhaps or maybe twice that, at most. But there were hundreds of pale, hungry shapes looking down on him. Mostly women, but some men, scattered here and there. They were of all the races of man and none, bound as they were to a new, darker bloodline. Here was the army Nagash had sent him for: not the skeletons or the crouched, snivelling carrion-eaters, but this plague of nocturnal nobility.

They were as far removed from the vampires he remembered as he was from the gambler he had been centuries ago. Hundreds of red-eyed, blood-swilling predators, to be set upon the human who dared call himself emperor and who dared keep that which was Nagash’s from him.

His attackers were red-eyed shadows, clad in dark jerkins and hoods. They moved with a fluid ease that part of him fondly recalled and envied. It was the ease of immortality, the suppleness that came with being separate from the world’s ebb and flow and time’s anchor. They danced around him like leaves in a strong wind, bending and twisting bonelessly around his half-hearted blows.

They made precise, lethal movements that would have killed a lesser being in a matter of moments. The gallery rang to the sound of steel on steel and agitated bats filled the air as Arkhan’s mind raced. Was this indeed a trap? Or was it something more subtle… A test, or perhaps a game?

Arkhan caught a descending blade in his hand. Magically strengthened bone contracted and the sword blade cracked and shattered like an icicle. Its wielder blinked stupidly for a moment before leaping backwards to avoid Arkhan’s own sword. The black blade hissed out, narrowly missing the vampire’s midsection.