On the other side, dwarf voices murmured. The dwarfs had been using the ore veins for the last month to launch surgical strikes against the flanks of the Strigoi forces as the dead moved steadily and inexorably through the upper levels of the hold. How he had gotten the interior entry gate open, Neferata couldn’t say. Regardless, once inside, Khaled’s talent for bloodletting had come to the fore and the dwarfs had been forced into a steady retreat. There were only a few thousand warriors in the Silver Pinnacle, not nearly enough to stem the advance of the dead. With Morath at his side, Khaled had forced the dwarfs back and back, as she had known he would. The dead might not be able to rule the living, but they could grind them down well enough. Gate after gate had fallen.

Now, only one remained.

Just beyond the rusted portal that blocked their way was the vaulted hall that led to the so-called Deeping Stair. Beyond the Deeping Stair were the temples and shrines. The dwarfs had chosen to make their last stand beneath the gazes of their gods. They had hunkered down, prepared to outwait their enemies, despite a lack of food, resources or reinforcements.

Perhaps they thought the runners they had sent along the Underway to request aid from other dwarf holds had escaped. Perhaps they thought that the Strigoi would grow bored. Perhaps they thought neither of these things but could do nothing else save sit waiting stubbornly for the end, whatever form it took.

Neferata stood. The eyes of her handmaidens followed her. She gestured, and felt the cool, damp presence of the spirit-host. It had only grown larger since she had first brought the ghosts from the depths of the river. Dozens had become hundreds as dwarf spirits were wrenched from their bodies and added to the spectral morass which followed the vampires like an omnipresent mist.

‘We must get the last gate open,’ she said.

‘That means revealing ourselves to an entire army,’ Naaima said.

‘A risk we’ll have to take,’ Neferata said. She looked at Naaima. ‘The time has come. My patience has grown thin and the dwarfs aren’t moving any further. It is time to bring this farce to an end.’

‘Which end, the one Ushoran envisions, or the one you’ve been plotting since we arrived?’ Naaima said softly. Neferata blinked. Naaima sighed. ‘I know you.’

‘The only one that matters, Naaima. Mine,’ Neferata said, after a moment. She looked around, meeting the unblinking gazes of her handmaidens. ‘Ours,’ she amended. ‘Here we will be free. Here, in these halls, we will build a New Lahmia.’ She reached out, stroking Varna’s knotted and tangled hair. ‘Here we will be queens. We will be the queens of the world. Let Ushoran gnaw the bones of Mourkain. Let him have his petty kingdom. When it falls, we will still be here. When all of the kingdoms of the world are footnotes in the histories of scribes yet to be born, we will still be here. We will sit here, astride a throne made from the world’s spine, and our subjects will be kings and hetmen.’

‘What of Khaled? What of Morath or the Strigoi?’ Naaima said. ‘What of Ushoran?’

‘We will do as we have always done with those who would try and stop us,’ Neferata said. Seeing the look on Naaima’s face, she added, ‘Once the gate is open and the dwarfs are in retreat, you will take the others and bind the Strigoi. They are as few in number as we and they’ll be fewer after the coming battle. She hesitated, then, ‘Leave Morath for last.’

‘What of Khaled?’ Naaima said, and Neferata heard the unspoken question — and Anmar? — and she looked away.

‘I will handle him myself.’

Naaima fell silent. Neferata smiled thinly. The others trusted her, and obeyed her implicitly. Naaima knew better, knew enough to know that Neferata was not infallible. But she obeyed. They lived on the sharp end, and to hesitate was to get cut. She gestured. ‘Go, my hungry she-wolves,’ she said curtly. Iona and Varna snarled and sprang for the door. Their shoulders struck it, and the iron bolts popped from the stone and the door toppled inwards with a thunderous clang. Dwarf voices were raised in surprise as Iona and Varna scrambled to their feet and to the attack.

‘Harry them. Take every alcove and cul-de-sac,’ she shouted, raising her sword. The spirit-host boiled around and between the remaining vampires squeezing into the corridor beyond. Neferata loped in its wake, as swift as thought. There was no light within the passageway, but she saw plain enough. The dwarfs there radiated life and heat and saliva filled her mouth.

The dead and the soon-to-be-dying came together in the darkness. The dwarf line held, shields raised and axes high as the vampires rampaged among them. Neferata’s sword split a dwarf’s helmet and the head beneath even as the doomed warrior struck at her in vain with his axe. She waded into the line, followed closely by the others, the spirits of the hungry dead clustering on the flanks, pulling down dwarfs with ethereal talons.

‘Hold steady, lads, it’s just an ill-breeze,’ a dwarf bellowed. His axe was decorated with runic symbols that burned bright as he swiped at the ghosts. Several shrieked silently and dissipated as the axe blade cut through them. Neferata felt a spike of pain as the spectres vanished and she lunged for the dwarf. He caught her blow on his shield with a grunt, and the force of the impact drove him to one knee. His axe hissed, as if red-hot, as it cut at her and she hastily jerked back. Like the hammers wielded by the king’s guard, some enchantment had been worked into the metal.

Neferata traded blows with the dwarf as the corridor floor ran red. Undeterred by the runic axe, the spirits swept forwards, enveloping the dwarfs and sucking the life from them. As each dwarf fell, the face of the one facing Neferata grew harder and harder, and his blows came faster and faster, as if by defeating her he could save those of his men who remained. And perhaps he could have, if she had let him.

He chopped out at her, overextending himself. She rolled around the blow, stone scraping beneath her sandals as she twirled and brought her sword up into his back. His mail buckled, and the sword screeched against the metal as it penetrated and popped out of his barrel chest in a blossom of blood. She withdrew the sword and turned as he toppled onto his face. The dwarfs were retreating now, falling back along the corridor towards the point where it opened up into a balcony that overlooked the great hall beyond. A wide set of curving stairs waited for them on one side of the gate, leading down to the open floor below.

Neferata paused, taking in the scene. The Deeping Stair was a mile across and three miles long and carved from a single plane of rock. In other circumstances, it would have been breathtaking. It was the main artery for travel in the hold, and even now, dwarfs hurried across it, seeking the safety of the temple district located below. She recognised the immense statues of the dawi gods and goddess, watching with blank-eyed sadness as their people streamed for the safety the temples promised. She could feel the same burning pressure emanating from those buildings as she had felt at the Vaults.

With that realisation came an understanding of the pattern to the dwarf movements. They were fighting a rearguard action, trying to give their people a chance to reach safety. She grimaced. If they reached those temples, they would be almost impossible to dig out. Unless they came out of their own free will. Her frown faded and she moved on, still thinking.

The vaulted chamber rang with the sound of weapons as the fight spilled onto the balcony. The large doors that led to the entry hall shuddered on their hinges and ranks of dwarfs waited for the undead without to break in. There were shouts of surprise from their ranks and reinforcements hurried towards the stairs, seeking to halt the incursion.