Khaled, clad in the armour of one of Ushoran’s guard, cut and slashed in the wedge of metal and flesh that defended the master of Mourkain as he struggled with one of the warlords of the green horde that crashed like an ocean tide against his walls. Ushoran was wearing armour himself, eschewing his more bestial habits in order to play the hero for his people.
Like always when he was in public, Ushoran wore the face of a god. Painfully handsome, strongly built, he towered over his guards and at times, he seemed to be protecting them, rather than vice-versa. The orc was a large one, a full head taller than Ushoran. The beast wore the skins of a dozen wolves stretched and stitched over its frame, and carried a length of crudely beaten and sharpened bronze like a sword.
It whipped the sword at Ushoran, seeking to decapitate him. Ushoran stepped back, letting the curved tip of the blade slice past his chin. As the orc staggered, off-balance, he slid close and drove his own sword into the creature’s gut. It howled in agony and dropped its sword, grabbing Ushoran’s head in its paws. Ushoran was slammed down hard enough to crack the palisade, but he showed no sign that the impact had hurt him. He reached up and grabbed the orc’s tusk, jerking its head down. Their skulls connected with an audible crunch, and the orc staggered back, minus its tusk, which Ushoran still clutched.
The vampire sprang to his feet and lunged, jabbing the orc in the throat with its tusk, while simultaneously reaching for the hilt of his sword, still lodged in the orc’s belly. He jerked the sword free and swept it up, chopping the orc’s skull in half, jaw to brow. It toppled from the palisade, knocking a number of other green-skinned savages off in its descent.
He looked at her, his face a mask of blood, and grinned. He was enjoying the fight, she knew. ‘How heroic,’ she murmured, blocking a spear-thrust aimed at her heart. She flung out a hand and tore the orc’s throat out, even as she pivoted and hurled it behind her.
As Neferata turned she saw Abhorash leap from the palisade and chop down through the bull-neck of the giant that had steadily been trying to uproot a section of the palisade for the better part of the last hour. ‘Speaking of heroes,’ she murmured, grabbing an orc by the neck and shaking it hard enough to shatter its bones. She hurled it from the wall with a disgusted grimace as its foul blood splattered across the ornate cuirass she wore. Abhorash had been recalled from the eastern frontier, where he had been dealing with the ogre tribes that infested the hills there, and he had thrown himself into this new war with as much enthusiasm as he ever showed for anything.
He chopped at the giant’s neck as it staggered and fell, his sword rising and falling like a butcher’s knife, and his aquiline face was twisted into an expression of bestial exultation. Abhorash lived for battle. He had a will of iron, until the sky darkened with arrows and the soil ran with blood and then his savagery put even Ushoran’s to shame. She watched the decapitated giant sway on its feet before toppling forwards. It took the bigger ones a long time to realise that they were dead. She could practically hear W’soran’s greedy chuckle now. The giant, even headless, would make excellent labour for the mines.
The giant slumped over the palisade, and Abhorash, ever at the forefront, bounded towards the orcs that swarmed up its bent body like ants. He crashed into the oncoming green wave like a rock set against the tide. An orc burst at the point of impact, Abhorash literally tearing through the creature as if it were of no more bother than a linen curtain. Other orcs were flung aside like gnats. Abhorash grabbed one as it flipped into the air, snatching it by one ankle and wielding it like a living, screaming flail against the others. Only when the creature had been reduced to a bedraggled mess did he toss it aside and continue his rampage.
‘He plays the part well, whatever else he might be,’ Naaima said, snapping an orc’s arm as it swung an axe at her head. Like Neferata, she wore the black and red enamelled armour that Ushoran’s smiths had gifted to them. It was far more ornate than that which they had worn in Nehekhara, being all flaring ridges and sharp edges. ‘And speaking of playing parts, Khaled ably defends Ushoran, I see,’ she added, frowning as she bent the orc backwards over the palisade and broke its back.
‘He is magnificent,’ Anmar said, leaping up to perch on the palisade wall even as she kicked an orc in the skull hard enough to crumple the bone and send it flailing to the rocky slope below.
‘Referring to your brother or Lord Abhorash, little leopard?’ Rasha said as she stabbed a wounded orc as it lunged awkwardly for the other vampire. She hefted the kicking, bawling beast and sent it spinning from the palisade.
‘Both,’ Anmar said simply, craning her head around to look at her blood-sister. ‘Do not say you have not noticed,’ she added, teasingly.
‘Not my type,’ Rasha said, sniffing, leaning on her blade. She brushed a lock of bloody hair out of her sharp face and looked at her mistress. ‘Still, he is useful, in a rather blunt, unimaginative way, eh, my lady?’
‘Sometimes a hammer is the right tool,’ Neferata said. Down below, Abhorash had been joined by his ‘Hand’ — the four companions who had fought beside him since the fall of Lahmia. The four vampires were an aloof lot, bound to their captain by blood and honour. Regardless, they fought for Strigos with a vigour that few could match. Together, the five vampires carved a path through the heart of the orc horde, butchering the savages with abandon.
‘Speaking of hammers,’ Neferata murmured and looked away from the battle, searching for Vorag. The Bloodytooth was not at the forefront, as he would’ve liked. Instead, he and his riders waited behind the palisade. It was Abhorash’s plan, of course. Wait for the orcs to break themselves on the palisade and then let Vorag’s riders harry them as they retreated. It was an effective plan, and sensible, which meant that Vorag saw it as an insult.
She had convinced Ushoran to recall the timagal, despite the fact that Vorag’s own lands were the scene of the harshest fighting. Ushoran even thought it was his idea. Vorag had been forced to leave his hard-won territories to be engulfed beneath the green tide, and Neferata could tell that he was seething even from a distance. And beside him, blonde and bloodthirsty, Stregga was whispering sweet nothings into his ear, calming him and simultaneously enflaming his hatreds even more. Neferata smiled.
She carefully wiped the expression off her face as the thud of armoured boots sounded and Ushoran approached, mopping at the blood on his too-handsome face with a ragged strip of cloth. ‘They’re close to breaking,’ Neferata said.
‘You had doubts?’ Ushoran sneered. Orc blood had collected and dried in the grooves and swooping curves of his armour. ‘They are beasts. We have more trouble with rats in the granaries.’
‘Overconfidence is an attractive trait in a man, but not a ruler,’ Neferata said mildly, resting the flat of her blade across her shoulder.
‘And as always, I bow to your previous experience,’ Ushoran replied blandly. He frowned. ‘I grow tired of this. We should be expanding, not merely holding what we have.’ He kicked petulantly at a green-skinned corpse. ‘I want to do something about this, about them.’ He looked at Neferata. ‘Do something. Earn your keep.’
Neferata raised a delicately plucked eyebrow. ‘I’ll need men and gold, as well.’
‘Yes, fine! Fine,’ Ushoran said, waving a hand. ‘You can have it all. I grow weary of slaughtering these creatures. I need a real war. And prisoners…’ His eyes were unfocused and his gaze drifted towards the black pyramid. ‘Yes,’ he said, shaking himself, ‘prisoners.’
It was only a gentle caress, but Neferata knew that Ushoran was hearing the needle-on-bone voice again, even as she herself sometimes heard it. It spoke to him more often, and she was still unsure as to whether she should be relieved or jealous.