Still, there was no telling how long they would be in these mountains. Neferata sighed and looked at Naaima. ‘It seems a waste,’ she said.

‘We cannot drink from one of his kind,’ Naaima said.

‘That we know of,’ Khaled said, squatting beside the dwarf. Naaima glared at him. He returned her glare with a raised eyebrow. ‘Have we ever tried?’ he said.

‘Feel free, brother,’ Anmar said. ‘Show us whether your bravery extends to your stomach.’

Khaled grimaced as the others laughed. Neferata sank gracefully to her haunches. ‘Enough. We must go. I will deal with him.’

She raised her sword in both hands and pressed the tip of the blade to the point where the dwarf’s skull met his spine. It would be a merciful act — quick and clean. He groaned again, and muttered something in the language of his people. The words crashed together like rocks in a basket, unintelligible and meaningless.

All save one.

She did not understand it. Could not, for she did not know what it meant or to what it might refer. Nonetheless, it strummed a chord within her, and her spirit shuddered in its sheath of cold flesh.

Neferata rose smoothly to her feet, her face stiff and expressionless. She turned north, and the black sun blazed as if in answer to the question that swam to the surface of her mind. The others fell silent, sensing her disquiet.

‘What are you?’ she muttered, half expecting an answer. As usual, none was forthcoming.

‘Neferata,’ Naaima asked, reaching out to touch her mistress’s shoulder. ‘What is it? What did he say?’

‘Mourkain,’ Neferata said, repeating the dwarf’s word. She said it again, tasting the dark edges of it. ‘Mourkain,’ she whispered. And the black sun blazed with darkling joy.

TWO

The storm lashed the sea with whips of lightning. The sea, in its turn, did its best to return the favour, heaving and thrusting ever higher. The ship rode the thrashing waves as best as it could, but the hull groaned with something like agony and the sails were ragged strips of cloth.

The captain pressed his back to the mast and extended his sword. Rain pounded down, swamping the ship. It ran down his arm and across the blade, joining the ankle-deep water that splashed across the deck. The helm was unmanned, but he had other concerns. Namely, the two slim shapes that swayed easily across the deck despite the pitch and yaw. Eyes like dark lamps fixed on him hungrily and he swiped the sword through the rain, trying to force them back.

‘Your service is to be commended, captain, but the time has come for a parting of ways,’ Neferata said, glaring at the last living man on the ship through a veil of stringy, soaked hair. Blood stained her arms to the elbow and her pale shape was marred by the filth of the lower decks. The captain, a Cathayan, shouted something defiant. Neferata’s eyes flickered to the side.

‘He is damning us to the six hells,’ Naaima said.

‘That’s what I thought he said,’ Neferata said. She was pleased in an almost child-like fashion with her facility with languages, but the Cathayan tongue was more complex than any she had ever encountered. ‘Well, he’s a bit late for that,’ she said, snapping her fangs together.

The ship was bound for Araby, loaded down with silks and steel to trade for spices and slaves. In the years since her flight from Lahmia, Neferata had done well in Cathay. Too well, in fact. The powers entrenched there had not taken kindly to the former queen’s predatory attentions.

If there was one thing that her final confrontation with Alcadizzar had taught her, it was when to become the memory of a thorn, rather than the thorn itself. The subtle politics of the east, as compared to those she had employed in Nehekhara, had been eye-opening. The great bureaucracy was composed of rings of power, each smaller than the next, spider-webs of steel influence and precision. Any man could be king, but to be the one who controlled the king — who controlled all kings — that was true power.

Unfortunately, those lessons had come too late to do her much good in the lands of the Dragon-Emperor. Now she was fleeing again, a fact which rubbed at her soul like a bit of grit caught beneath armour. Still, needs must…

The first absent crew member had been blamed on the sea and a sudden swell. The second had been blamed on the same, with the addition of drunkenness to explain such misfortune occurring twice in one voyage. By the third, the crew had been stalking the holds, weapons clutched in their sweaty hands. They had heard the stories of the gangshi — the stiff corpses that walked — that had come out of the capital in the preceding years, and like all sailors, were superstitious enough to believe those stories.

Neferata idly stroked the still healing spot on her belly where a bilge-hook had entered as she slept. The storm had been a gift from the gods, blacking the sky and setting the crew’s minds to other, more pressing dangers. The Shark Straits were visible, and the storm seemed determined to drive the ship right into their jagged teeth.

‘A parting of ways,’ Naaima echoed. Her face was as expressionless as a porcelain mask. Neferata knew her handmaiden well enough to see the storm of emotions hidden beneath the mask. As practical as she was, as ruthless as she could be, she lacked the stomach for slaughter. Killing had never sat well with Naaima. She preferred to sup in moderation, taking gentle nourishment from suitably docile partners or pets. Neferata recognised the inherent longevity of such a practice, but something wilder stirred in her at times, as now.

It was not quite hunger. Rather, it was a savage frenzy, a slaughter-lust that bubbled beneath her calm façade for months or years and then suddenly erupted. It was not only blood that she required; she needed death and pain and the screams of her prey as she clutched their throats between her teeth.

With a wildcat scream, she lunged through the sheets of rain that separated her from the Cathayan captain. With a yell he swung his sword, but Naaima was there, smashing his sword-arm to the mast and pinning it there. Neferata crashed against him, his armour digging into her flesh as her fingertips dug into his. He thrashed in a pleasing manner as she grabbed his topknot and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. She purred in pleasure as her fangs sank into his unshaven throat. Blood exploded into her mouth and the purr turned to a snarl as she gulped at the hot flow. His body gave a spasm and she stepped back, gesturing imperiously for Naaima to take her place at the still-gushing spigot.

The ship rolled beneath her feet as she glided towards the deck rail. The Shark Straits rose dark and hungry before her. The ship would run aground on them, and the scavengers said to lurk in their shadow would descend on the wreck when the storm had subsided. And from there, the caliphates of Araby awaited.

Neferata spread her arms over her head and laughed gleefully as the storm battered the ship towards the waiting rocks…

The fire crackled, casting twisted shadows across the snow. The flames rose like grasping hands. In her head, bones clattered across still vistas on a ceaseless, remorseless march. Words spattered across the surface of her mind, blotting out her thoughts. Eyes of green balefire stared at her from out of the heart of the fire, bright with predatory intent. They held her and pulled her into the dark. It was the needle-on-bone voice again, digging into her consciousness.