‘War,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Your son understood that.’

‘Razek had many faults,’ Borri said, shoving her back a step. Sweat coated his beard and ran down his seamed face. ‘That does not give you the right to insult him.’

Neferata redoubled her efforts. ‘Surrender, great king, and this can all end. Your son had to die, but your people do not,’ she said.

‘You truly know nothing of us,’ Borri said. His wrists bulged and suddenly the sword was ripped from her hands. The axe struck sparks from the collar and she cursed herself for underestimating the king. If he would not retreat willingly, she would have to force him. With a roar, she threw herself back, allowing two Strigoi who had been circling the fight to leap on the king and bear him down. Borri fell, bellowing in anger.

Neferata scrambled to her feet as those of the king’s guards not already engaged rushed to his aid. Hammers forced the Strigoi back, and a great crest of hair parted the warriors swirling around the king. Grund burst through the press, driving an elbow into a Strigoi’s mouth, shattering fangs.

He roared and chopped down, severing the other Strigoi’s leg at the thigh. The vampire shrilled and fell on top of the burly dwarf. Grund shoved the vampire aside and crushed its skull with his fist. He hacked at it wildly for good measure before turning to face her. ‘I said I’d have your head, witch, and I’ve only ever broken one oath,’ he roared.

‘Grund—’ Borri coughed as his men pulled him to his feet.

‘No!’ Grund snarled. ‘She’s mine, brother. Come, hag! Come, night-stalker! Fight me!’

Neferata wasted no words on the berserker. She didn’t want to kill Borri yet, but this creature would be better off dead. She stepped back, channelling the dark energies that invigorated her as Morath had showed her. She spat a stream of syllables and her eyes crackled with energy, which immediately burst forth in twin bolts. Grund swung his axe up and the energy flared, leaving char-marks on the flat of the blade. For a moment, as it steamed, she could see the tell-tale curl of runes.

Grund lowered the axe and grinned. He raced towards her. She stepped aside, avoiding the seemingly heedless charge, but not his hand as it snapped out and grabbed her hair. Grund set his feet and yanked her down and around, sending her crashing to the floor.

With one foot planted on her back, he raised his axe. Neferata scrabbled for her sword, which had fallen just out of her reach. Neferata’s fingers dug grooves in the stone as she tried to shake him loose but it was as if the mountain itself was holding her in place. Grund wanted her head and it looked as if he intended to have it.

As the axe fell, she squirmed beneath him and rolled onto her back. Her palms slapped tight on the axe. There was silver in it and her hands blistered as she strained against whatever magics had gone into crafting the blade. With a stifled snarl, she pulled it out of his grip and Grund, off balance, fell off her. His eyes bugged out and he screamed at her and lunged, fingers hooked like claws.

With a snarl of her own, she let the blade slide through her hands and grabbed the haft, swinging as her palms touched the leather bound tight around the wood. The axe chopped into the mad dwarf’s skull, bisecting his berserk features. He hurtled past her and fell. Neferata rose slowly to her feet. Borri was on his feet, his eyes solemn as he took in the body. ‘It was a good death. Your debt is discharged, brother,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘Yours is not.’

‘You are a hard people,’ Neferata said, looking at his guards. They were in the eye of the battle. Dwarfs fought grimly around them, trying to hold back the inevitable for just a few seconds more.

Borri spat a wad of blood and sputum at her feet. ‘We endure,’ he said.

‘Not for long.’ She looked past Borri. ‘Your people are in a place that I may not be able to enter,’ she said, gesturing to the temple of Valaya across the span of the bridge. ‘But reach them I will. I will butcher them, King of Karaz Bryn, your rinn and beardlings. Unless you surrender.’

Borri glared at her silently. She stepped forwards, ignoring the weapons of his guards. She stretched out a hand. ‘Your hold is lost, King. But a hold can be replaced. Can your people? What debt do you owe them, as king? Is dying here the way they expected that debt to be paid?’

His face hardened, but only for a moment. His shoulders slumped. ‘We must speak on this.’ He looked at her.

She inclined her head. ‘Pull back what forces remain to you, King Borri. Neferata of Lahmia will see that you have the time you require,’ she said haughtily. His guard surrounded him protectively as wailing war-horns signalled for retreat. The dwarf throng, what was left of it, was in full flight. The dead did not pursue. Instead they paused on the stairs in serried, silent ranks, staring ahead as their enemies retreated. A Strigoi — Dragoj, she thought — made to follow Borri’s retreating retinue and she stepped in front of him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Let them go.’

‘Are you mad?’ Dragoj snarled, his eyes bright with bloodlust. ‘We have them here, we must—’ He stopped abruptly and looked down at the sword-tip sprouting from his chest. ‘What?’ he gurgled as he reached out with a trembling finger to touch the blade.

Neferata’s reply was a swing of Grund’s axe. Dragoj’s head bounced across the stones, the startled expression still on his face. As his body slumped, she met Iona’s dark gaze. ‘Hello, little she-wolf,’ she said. The broken hafts of crossbow bolts protruded from Iona’s armour and body alike.

‘We have them,’ she said.

‘All of them?’

‘Save those few who are with Khaled. The rest are ours.’ Iona grinned. ‘They never even suspected until our blades were cutting their hamstrings.’

‘Kill them. All of them, and strip the fangs from their skulls. Ushoran will not fail to understand that message.’ Neferata paused, and then went on. ‘But first…’ She looked towards the temples. ‘First we must bring this to an end.’

She met with Naaima and the others on the edge of the last landing. The dead waited in patient ranks about them. ‘Where’s Morath?’ Neferata said. She still clutched Grund’s axe in her hands.

Naaima waved a hand towards the ranks of the dead. ‘He’s exhausted. I left him with Varna. She knows not to hurt him,’ she added quickly, before Neferata could protest. Neferata looked at her remaining handmaidens. She had entered with eleven, but only six remained. Of those, only two had accompanied Naaima. The others were busy with the Strigoi, and the screams echoed hellishly over the Deeping Stair.

Neferata ignored the noise. ‘We go. I want to see if our brave Kontoi managed to accomplish the task I set for him,’ she said.

‘What of the dead?’ Naaima said.

‘What of them?’ Neferata said, starting down the stairs. ‘Let them stay as they are, to remind the dwarfs that there is no escape. Borri can’t have more than a hundred warriors left, and most of those will be wounded. No. We’ve won. Let us be graceful in victory,’ she continued. Naaima and the others hurried after her.

It wasn’t until they drew closer to the temples that they heard the screams. They were not the wails of frightened women and children. Instead, they were the full-throated howls of men driven past the breaking point. Weapons rattled and the howls of corpse-wolves echoed through the streets of the temple district.

Neferata cursed. She broke into a run, her sword in her hand. The four vampires sped through the streets towards the sounds, and Neferata’s curses degenerated into shrieks of rage as she saw that Khaled had indeed accomplished his task, and more besides.

The refugees had not reached safety. Khaled and Zandor had been quicker than the dwarfs, and the latter had paid for it. Neferata stalked into the plaza in front of the temple of Valaya. It was carpeted with the bodies of slain. Little bodies, some of them, impossibly little; and something in Neferata curdled and she was once more in Lahmia, watching as the soldiers of Rasetra and Khemri and Lybaras snatched Lahmian children from their wailing mothers and swung them by their ankles against the walls of houses.