But even as she landed, hammers crashed into the stone, narrowly missing her as she danced and wove through the throng of guards that sought to bring her down. She caught a hammer on her palm. Even as her fingers curled around its head, she yelped. Smoke rose from her palm as she jerked it out of its wielder’s grip and grabbed the haft, lashing out with the weapon. A dwarf flew backwards, his helm crushed and the skull beneath turned to paste. Another crumpled, his breastbone shattered despite the protection of his armour. Neferata’s frenzied assault drove the hammerers back, and they spread out, surrounding her but staying out of her reach. She turned slowly in place, keeping them all in sight.
‘What did you think to accomplish?’ Borri said, rising from his seat. He jerked her sword from his throne and hurled it clattering to the floor. He stared at the blood welling from his palm and flexed his hand as if the blade had caused him no more pain than an insect bite. ‘Did you think to assassinate me? Did you hope to remove the heart from my people?’ He grunted. ‘We dwarfs are not as men. We do not quail when our own die. We fight all the harder.’
He came down the stairs, still holding his son’s axe. The robed woman and the elderly dwarf followed him, and Grund paced in front, trembling like a hound on a leash. ‘This axe has tasted your blood, I think. It thirsts for it still, regardless,’ Borri said.
‘It shall have to work to get another taste,’ Neferata said, shaking her palm. Something had burned her. She saw that the head of the hammer was shot through with threads of silver and growled. Razek’s axe had been the same.
‘Not as hard as all that, I think,’ Borri said grimly. ‘You are alone, woman. Outnumbered and surrounded. Surrender and I will be merciful. That offer still holds.’
‘I think our concepts of mercy differ greatly, King Borri,’ Neferata said, twirling the hammer in her hands. It was a good weapon, but too brutal for her tastes. She spun on her heel and sent the hammer flying towards Borri. She did not wait to see whether it struck its target. Instead, as all eyes followed the hammer, she leapt for an opening in the ring of flesh and steel that encircled her.
Behind her, she heard the ring of metal on metal and Borri bellowed a command. The floor trembled as the hammerers followed her. Crossbows thrummed and quarrels peppered the floor and walls. Neferata avoided each one with ease. To one with her senses, the bolts appeared to be moving in slow motion. She could see the very air split and twist as the bolts cut through it. Even as the bolts struck the archway of the audience chamber, she was into the corridor beyond and running. She had wasted enough time.
Horns sounded in the deeps, warning the hold of danger. She knew that the horns were not for her. The corridor trembled as the great gate began to open once more. Frigid air slithered into the hold, greeting her as she reached the entry chamber even as the doors began to spread wide.
Naaima stood before the doors, surrounded by dwarfs seeking to bring her down. Broad shapes stabbed at her, and her pale flesh was streaked with black blood. Neferata struck the gate-wardens like a thunderbolt. Her talons sank into the back of a dwarf’s head and she jerked him backwards with savage force, snapping his neck and crushing his skull like an egg. More dwarfs flooded into the entry hall through the second set of doors.
‘Did you get the gates?’ Neferata snarled, snatching an axe from a dwarf’s hand and burying it immediately in its owner’s face. A moment later she was forced to use it to deflect a crossbow bolt.
‘They’re opening, aren’t they?’ Naaima replied, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have taken her arm off at the shoulder. Her rejoinder ripped the dwarf’s face from his skull.
‘Then we only have to hold on for a bit longer,’ Neferata said. Even as the words left her lips, a trio of crossbow bolts sank into her back, puncturing her armour like paper and knocking her to the ground. She screamed in pain and surprise, and flopped around for a moment like a fish in the bottom of a boat, before pushing herself to her feet, the heads of the bolts scraping against her insides as she moved. She coughed blood and awkwardly plucked one of the bolts free.
‘Shoot her again!’ the watch-warden commanded. ‘Bring her down!’ He was the one who had escorted her into Borri’s presence, the one who resembled Razek.
Neferata growled low in her throat and sent the bloody bolt flying into one of the crossbowmen, knocking the dwarf backwards with the impact. Naaima yanked the others free as she and Neferata began to back towards the widening portal. Gears groaned as the massive doors allowed a cold wind inside, and a flurry of snow.
More dwarfs filled the entry hall, all armed and seemingly intent on using those weapons on her. Horns sounded loud, low and long from the side-passages and the upper balconies. Neferata scanned the ranks of dwarfs; in minutes, a hundred or more crossbows were aimed at her. And behind the line, King Borri and his hammerers.
‘Get that damned gate closed!’ the king roared. ‘She’s trying to escape!’
‘She won’t get far,’ the watch-warden roared. ‘This is for my cousin, hag!’ His axe licked out, gouging her armour. She swatted him aside, sending him crashing to the floor and his axe flying.
‘Escape is for the defeated,’ Neferata said, stepping back into the opening. With the air of a performer, she threw back her head and extended her arms. ‘Enter, my loves, and be welcome!’ she howled. Snow spun around her and behind her and the white expanse was suddenly shattered by black shapes that burst from it like abominable shooting stars.
The wolves were more carcass than carnivore, but they were dangerous for all that. Twice as savage in death as they had been in life, the large beasts loped into the hold, fleshless jaws agape and an alien hunger burning in their lifeless eyes. They stank of ancient places and secret crimes and the sight of them caused the closest dwarfs to hesitate, though only for a moment. But that moment was enough. The wolves hit the line, absorbing hastily-fired crossbow bolts as if they were no more than mosquito bites. They made no sound as they crashed into their prey, but the dwarfs screamed well enough.
Behind the wolves came Neferata’s handmaidens, their armour crusted over with ice. Khaled sprang past her, his face tight and feral with pleasure as he tossed her a sword. ‘You look as if you could use this,’ he said nastily, his tongue writhing between his fangs like a red snake.
She snatched the blade out of the air without replying. Khaled laughed at her silence and strode past her, as the handmaidens clustered about her. Anmar looked at her worriedly. The young woman had taken to staying by her brother’s side in the weeks since they’d set out from Mourkain. Perhaps Anmar suspected that her brother’s manner and method would see a Strigoi sword in his back, or maybe she feared that Neferata would attempt to wreak her revenge sooner rather than later. She hesitated, torn between her mistress and her brother. ‘Lady,’ she began.
‘Follow your master, whelp,’ Neferata hissed. Anmar stepped back, as if slapped. She spun and followed Khaled into battle. Neferata watched her go and then turned to Iona and the others. ‘Help them. We need to drive the dwarfs back and hold this point. Everything depends on it. Go!’
The vampires sprang into motion, still one moment and then flashing forwards, shadows thick with kill-urge. The other end of the entry-hall was slick with blood as the organised ranks of the dwarfs crumbled into a melee. The wolves stalked among them, dragging dwarfs down and mauling them. The vampires flung themselves into the confusion with fierce glee, Khaled in the lead.
‘He’s heading for Borri,’ Naaima said. Neferata frowned.