‘Too kind,’ Neferata murmured. The magma had cooled into a black splotch across the snow. Bone limbs twitched as it hardened. She stepped lightly across it and began to ascend towards the peak, moving as swiftly as she was able. Anmar followed close at her heels and the others just behind. The snow had been melted away, revealing the carefully crafted runnels which had been installed to conduct the flow of the magma. The ingenuity of the dwarfs was impressive. They were a people who thought defensively, preparing for onslaughts which might never come. Neferata could respect that sort of cunning.
The wind smashed against them as they climbed, and the snow fell in great clumps. They didn’t feel the cold, but it played merry havoc with their senses, rendering sight, smell and sound unreliable. Nonetheless, the vampires climbed quickly, following the runnel. Neferata caught a scrape of stone on stone and reached out to touch the edge of the runnel. It trembled slightly. ‘Take cover!’ she shouted, throwing herself to the side. The others did as she did even as a blistering explosion of fiery liquid sluiced down from on high, throwing up fumes and steam. The Strigoi, Dinic, wasn’t fast enough and he howled as the magma caught him.
Neferata watched as Dinic staggered to his feet, enshrouded in burning liquid. The magma seemed to reach out and enfold him in molten fingers. The vampire’s screams rose in pitch as his flesh crumbled off his bones. Tearing at himself, Dinic stumbled back and fell into the runnel, dissolving even as he hit the magma flow.
‘That’s done it,’ Neferata said. She sprang to her feet as the last of the magma slid away and dropped into the runnel. ‘They know we’re coming — hurry!’ The stone of the runnel was painfully hot and her flesh reddened and blistered as she ran. She ignored the pain. It was an easier path than climbing the mountain, and more effective. The stone maw of the dragon rose over her. She leapt up, slithering between its char-black fangs and down its throat.
She only had moments before what she was doing would go from a brilliant idea to a bad one. She hoped the others were following close behind. She hurtled through the dragon’s throat and a very surprised set of features filled her vision. The dwarf jerked back with an oath that was cut short as her sword found his throat. She whipped the blade out, decapitating him even as she emerged from the tunnel and into the hidden tower.
It was a circular stone room, with flues set into the walls and a number of heavy pipes and sluice-works crisscrossing the walls and ceiling. It stank of sulphur and raw heat. Five dwarfs were there to greet her. Only one reacted quickly, grabbing a handy hammer and swinging it towards her head. In the cramped confines of the tower, she had little room to manoeuvre and was forced to let the weapon connect. Her skull rang and she swung wildly, driving the warrior back. He spat something in Khazalid and one of the others dived for a crossbow leaning against the wall. Neferata hurled her sword, pinning the would-be crossbowman to the wall in mid-flight. With a snarl, she dived on the hammer-wielder, bearing him to the ground, her vision still swimming from the force of the hammer-blow. The others closed in.
The rock ceiling cracked and shuddered above them, causing the dwarfs to look up in shock. Neferata concentrated on her prey, bashing the dwarf’s skull against the floor until his head cracked like an egg and what was within slopped out. Even as she rose, the ceiling came away in great chunks, ripped apart by Khaled and Jirek. Anmar dived in through one of the newly-made holes, and her sword flashed in a tight arc, gutting one of the dwarfs. The others reacted by fleeing for the trapdoor which led down from their perch.
‘Grab them!’ Neferata spat. Khaled sprang past her, his talons tangling in one of the dwarf’s braids and hair. He hauled the burly shape off its feet and swung the dwarf around, hurling him out through the gap in the roof to smash himself lifeless on the mountain-side below. Jirek caught the other even as he descended, tackling him with a scream like a hungry tiger. Dwarf and vampire tumbled down into whatever was below. Khaled almost followed, but Anmar grabbed him.
‘Wait!’ she said.
There was a concert of screams from below. Neferata ducked her head down, and her lips writhed back from her fangs in disgust. Jirek and his prey had blundered into the delivery system for the magma. Specially treated pipes had burst and the room swam with heat as magma sprayed and dripped, coating walls, floor and combatants liberally.
Neferata retreated. ‘Fool,’ she said, kicking the stone trapdoor into place. The floor was already growing warm. ‘That artifice would have been useful.’
‘Jirek was more useful,’ Khaled said, glaring at her.
‘Debatable,’ Neferata said. ‘Nonetheless, we must make sure that there are no other surprises waiting for us. The dawi are cunning, and I’d rather they didn’t find a way to make the mountain vomit its guts all over us.’ She jumped lightly onto the wall and climbed out onto the roof.
The panorama of the Worlds Edge Mountains spread out around her, vast and uncaring of the war begun in its depths. Above, the sky was the colour of tar and the snow spiralled down like tears. She reached out, setting her talons on the horizon, even as she had done as a girl, visualising what would be hers. With a grunt, she drew her hand back. Tossing her head, she brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes and spotted the black shape of a river slithering out away from the mountain. She smiled.
Khaled and Anmar joined her a moment later. ‘We destroyed the pipes and devices. This thing is no threat now,’ Khaled said.
‘Oh, well done, dog of Mourkain,’ Neferata said. ‘You do your master proud.’
Khaled grabbed her arm. ‘I would have done the same for you if you had let me,’ he said. ‘I would have served you forever,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.
‘You serve none but your own lusts, my Kontoi. I saw that clearly in Bel Aliad, before I first kissed you,’ Neferata said, placing her fingers along his cheek. ‘And I will acknowledge no desire save my own.’ Her claws scraped his face, opening the flesh to the kiss of the cold wind. Khaled stepped back, releasing her. His eyes hardened.
‘Ushoran says different,’ he sneered, gesturing to her throat.
Neferata smiled softly and licked his blood from her fingers. ‘What he says and what you hear are two different things, my sweet, savage, sad son. And that you never saw that is one of the reasons why I am glad to be rid of your tedious love.’
Khaled snarled, but Neferata turned away and leapt off the tower. She dropped into the snow and started back down.
The dwarfs did not remain idle after the failure of their dragon-weapon. Neferata soon found herself wishing that they had, if only to provide respite from the dangerous tedium that followed. Two weeks passed in the wake of the dwarfs’ flight into the lower regions of their realm, but, like all vermin, they refused to stay in their holes.
Instead, they had displayed the unguessed intricacies of their craftsmanship. There were apparently innumerable hidden passageways and concealed doors and the dwarfs had sallied forth three times in strength, pummelling the dead before retreating into their hidden enclaves. Others had crept from unseen points to set off explosions and fire crossbows into the vampires and ghouls. They had already lost four of the Strigoi vampires to such tactics, and the remaining warriors were becoming unsettled and impatient. When not fending off these attacks, Neferata and the Strigoi passed the time in fruitless debate.
‘There must be more than one way in,’ Morath said testily. He looked half-dead, and weird lights flickered beneath his skin. He sagged in his saddle. The stink of exhaustion seeped from his pores.