‘It sounds like quite the trick, then,’ Naaima said. ‘And how will you do it?’

Neferata smiled. ‘Why, by letting someone else hold the bowl, of course.’

EIGHT

Neferata reclined in her palanquin, protected from the sun by curtains of muslin and silk. Cushions of all shapes, sizes and colours decorated the interior and she smiled as Anmar lounged across them like a cat. The corner of the girl’s mouth was streaked with blood and her eyes held the dreamy gleam of one who had fed well and deeply.

She was so like Khalida, albeit lacking in the natural ferocity that Neferata’s long-dead cousin had possessed. Tenderly, Neferata reached out and rubbed the drying blood from Anmar’s mouth. ‘Your brother has been up to something,’ she said.

‘My brother is always up to something,’ Anmar said lazily. She pushed herself up. ‘You are not angry, are you, my lady?’ she said.

‘I encourage initiative,’ Neferata said. ‘Don’t I, Naaima, my sweet?’

Naaima snorted. She sat at the back of the palanquin with Rasha. Neferata had been both impressed and pleased to find that both her oldest and newest handmaidens had survived the debacle of the attack on Bel Aliad, among others. Abhorash had taught the warriors of Bel Aliad well, and they had shattered the desert tribes in the months of her captivity, scattering them to the four corners of the Great Desert. But Neferata’s handmaidens, like their mistress, were made of sterner stuff.

‘When it suits your plans,’ Naaima said.

Neferata chuckled. ‘True.’ Her smile faded. ‘But the privilege of initiative must be earned, and your brother, little leopard, has yet to do that. He has, if anything, earned himself a short leash.’

‘We are simply eager to explore the power you have gifted to us,’ Anmar said.

‘Your brother is eager to be caliph,’ Neferata retorted. ‘And as a consequence, he endangers my plans for this city.’ She leaned back and looked up at the ribs of silk that made up the ceiling of the palanquin, and then looked out through the side curtain. The men who carried the palanquin were devotees of the Cult of Mordig, the Great Ghul. Their brawny forms were covered in scrawling tattoos composed of the cult’s holy writ — each devotee was a walking book, carriers of Mordig’s word into the daytime world. They wore funerary purple robes and silver skull masks.

Khaled had been a nominal supporter of the cult, as he was one of many noblemen whom the cult supplied with esoteric bric-a-brac. Neferata had used his connection to ingratiate herself with the cult’s high priests, and then, swiftly, to take control. They were corpse-eaters and blood-drinkers already, and her undead nature had only served to impress them. They worshipped her now as the Charnel Bride, and Queen of the Night.

As rumours drifted across the sandy expanse separating Araby from the Great Land, the cult had grown in influence. Many saw the servants of the Eater-of-the-Dead as the best defence against the walking dead which were said to now haunt Nehekhara. Whether that was true or not was something that had yet to be tested. Neferata intended to be ready regardless when the inevitable occurred.

‘Thinking of home?’ Naaima said.

Neferata shook her head. ‘My home — our home — is the future. The past is dead. Best we leave it as such.’ And the future, right now, was making Bel Aliad into a true power. The cult had adherents in each of the caliphates, and through them, Neferata was slowly weaving a web of subtle control. She had infiltrated the harems of the mighty with her followers — survivors from among the tribes as well as new converts. In these lands, where women were almost property, the giving of a beautiful woman as a gift was a common form of diplomacy.

It might take decades, but soon, the Cult of Mordig would control every nobleman from Bel Aliad to Copher and through them, Neferata would command the might of Araby. She sighed in pleasure.

That pleasure was wiped away in a flash of pain as an arrow pierced the curtain and smashed into her shoulder, hurling her to the other side of the palanquin. The palanquin tipped and then fell as the cultists carrying it sprouted arrows. People screamed as the streets were suddenly filled with armed men. Neferata hissed in pain as she jerked the arrow from her shoulder. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she snarled.

‘It’s Al-Khattab!’ Naaima said, narrowly avoiding a sword thrust that shredded the curtain. Sunlight boiled in, blistering the flesh of her arm. Neferata’s hand snapped out, grabbing the blade before it could retract. She gave it a yank, heedless of the way the edge shredded her palm. She dragged the swordsman inside the palanquin and Rasha and Anmar fell on him, growling. His screams echoed across the street, mingling with those of the market day crowd. Through the curtain, Neferata could see more men approaching.

‘That treacherous dog,’ Neferata said, half admiringly. Al-Khattab was an opponent of the cult and the commander of the city’s Kontoi. He had the caliph’s ear, a situation that Khaled was attempting to rectify. She hadn’t thought him capable of even contemplating outright assassination, but here they were. His men were clad in insignia-less armour, but they moved with training and speed. And the sun stood strong in the sky.

Men surrounded the palanquin, readying their spears. ‘Come out, priestess of the corpse-king,’ someone called. ‘We will make your death as swift as that of that fool princeling…’

‘Khaled,’ Anmar gasped. ‘No!’

Neferata snatched up the dead man’s sword and looked at her handmaidens. ‘Prepare, my daughters,’ she said. Then, with a shriek, she lunged to her feet and sliced through the curtain. As the sunlight streamed in, she leapt out to meet the assassins…

Horns blew loud enough to rattle the branches of the trees as the hunters followed the bloody trail left by their prey. Neferata leaned over the neck of her horse and tasted the wind. The musky, rotten smell of the fleeing beastmen was strong. Thirty of the beasts at least, maybe more; they had attacked a village on the northern frontier, putting it to the torch and eating the inhabitants. More and more of the creatures had been descending from the north of late. Abhorash and his men had undertaken an expedition to investigate, but that still left the mountains overrun with the cloven-hoofed vermin.

More horns blasted over the thunder of horses’ hooves and the hunters whooped and howled in the light of the torches they carried. Neferata laughed as her horse leapt over a fallen log and galloped on. She could smell the cloud of fear that clung to their prey.

The riders were mostly Strigoi. Zandor was among them, and Gashnag as well. Those two had joined Ushoran’s royal bodyguard in recent months, which Neferata had allowed. The two were cowed, more or less, and their feeble attempts to have her killed had trickled to nothing since she had not opposed their elevation to Ushoran’s clique. It made sense to leave them where she could find them. After all, according to her spies, it had been Ushoran whom they had run to in the aftermath of their abortive assassination attempt. Whether Ushoran himself had set them on her tail, or whether they’d simply been attempting to curry favour, she couldn’t, as yet, say. But she would find out eventually.

Nearby, Iona pressed close to her mistress. The henna-haired former concubine of Neferata’s predecessor flashed her fangs in a smile. ‘Volker is enjoying himself,’ she said. Neferata looked past her handmaiden towards the burly chieftain of the Draesca tribe, as he awkwardly clung to his barrel-chested Strigoi stallion. Volker was hairy and gap-toothed, but cunning. Near him rode the chieftains of the Draka and the Fennones, as well as the savage Walds. Four of the largest tribes of the western marches and northern hills, and the four most dedicated opponents to the expansion of Strigos.