Borri and his men had obviously arrived too late to rescue any of their loved ones. Instead they had been met by the silent menace of the tortured spirit-hosts drawn from the bodies of the dead. The ghosts of women and children and dead warriors swept across the great plaza, surrounding an imposing structure which Neferata thought must be the temple to either Grimnir or Grungni.
‘They ran in there, the little fools,’ Khaled said. ‘Then, who can blame them, eh?’
Neferata spun. Khaled sat on a dwarf cart, his mouth and chest wet with blood. His gloves were soaked in it and he smiled at her. He cut his eyes to the spirit-host and licked his lips. ‘You weren’t the only one who learned from Morath. I was quite the connoisseur of such things, before… Well.’ He gestured to himself. Neferata caught sight of Anmar behind him, and Zandor. Redzik was there was as well, and four other Strigoi. Dead wolves prowled among the corpses and slobbering ghouls squabbled over the choice bits.
‘What have you done?’ Neferata hissed.
Khaled hopped to his feet. ‘What I was commanded to do, by my master,’ he snarled. He pointed at her. ‘What you were commanded to do!’
‘No one commands me,’ she said. ‘Not Nagash, not Ushoran and certainly not you, princeling!’
‘I told you,’ Zandor spat. ‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted. Kill her, Arabyan!’
Khaled hesitated, his expression shifting.
‘Ushoran is not here, Khaled,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Can you feel his influence? I cannot. He has no power here. He cannot command us.’
Khaled looked at her. Anmar hurried to his side. ‘Brother, if she’s right—’
‘Quiet,’ Khaled snapped. ‘I need to think, I—’
‘No! No more thinking, no more talk!’ Zandor snarled. He leapt for Neferata as the other Strigoi converged on Naaima and the others. As Zandor crashed against her, the doors to the great temple where Borri and his remaining men had retreated boomed open and off their hinges, shattering the stillness of the mountain.
A maggot-infested wolf bounded towards the opening and was crushed by an expertly wielded hammer. A shorn-scalped dwarf stepped into view, his hair and beard shaved. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. He held his hammer in one hand as he tore feverishly at the clasps of his armour.
Another dwarf, similarly shaved and bare-chested, followed. Then another and another, dozens, the last survivors of Karaz Bryn, their beards shaved and oaths to Grimnir on their tongues as they discarded their armour with ritualistic contempt. Some had daubed strange markings on their flesh in soot and blood and the eerie dirge that swept from them chilled even Neferata’s heart.
She knew then that there would be no surrender. No mercy.
‘What—?’ Zandor began, staring at them in shock. His hands hung limply around Neferata’s neck. ‘Are they mad?’
‘Yes,’ Neferata said, and rammed her fist through his chest. Zandor screamed in shock and pain as her fingers sought his heart. She seized it and jerked it free of his chest. The Strigoi staggered back. Neferata crushed his heart before his disbelieving eyes. ‘I told you to remember my hand on your heart, Zandor,’ she hissed.
Zandor lunged with an inarticulate cry and Neferata brought Grund’s axe up and buried it in the Strigoi’s skull as he knocked her to the ground. Before she could get up Khaled’s sword sank through the meat of her thigh, pinning her leg to the floor. She screamed. Her scream was echoed by the dwarfs as they charged forwards to meet the ghosts and ghouls and dead warriors that sprang into action at Khaled’s barked order. The dead and the suicidal crashed together like opposing ocean waves, and hymns to Grimnir buffeted her ears as she grabbed for the sword.
‘No,’ Khaled said, stepping back, his expression torn between satisfaction and disgust. ‘No. You won’t wriggle free of this trap.’
Neferata twisted, but the sword was in an awkward place. She couldn’t reach it. Khaled, oblivious to the fighting going on around them, squatted before her, grabbing her chin as she had so often grabbed his. ‘Was that what I was? A trap?’ he sneered. ‘Are all men traps, my lady? Is that why you could not accept what I offered you?’
‘You’re no trap, Khaled. You’re simply a fool,’ Neferata hissed, grabbing his wrist. ‘You offered nothing. You wanted everything and I give nothing.’ Khaled jerked back, trying to free his hand from her grip. Flailing for a weapon, he snatched up the axe, jerking it out of Zandor’s skull. The silver wept smoke as it exited the vampire and it trailed it down as Khaled lashed out at her. She twisted.
The axe struck her, gashing the flesh of her throat. Suddenly she was choking on her own blood and she released Khaled and squirmed around, leg still pinned to the floor, clutching at her throat. Khaled gave a scream of fury and prepared to deliver another blow.
‘No!’
Khaled whirled as the sword gouged across his side. He swept the axe down into the chest of his attacker. Anmar coughed and fell back. ‘No,’ Khaled said. ‘Oh no, no, no…’ He stooped and tried to pull his sister to her feet, but the axe was buried to the haft in her heart. Smoke and steam rose from the wound and from her mouth and nose and eyes as she twitched and thrashed. In her final moments, she reached for her mistress as Neferata rose unsteadily to her feet, Khaled’s sword in one bloody hand. Neferata’s pain-filled writhing had dislodged the blade finally, and now she held it tightly.
‘Goodbye, little leopard,’ Neferata said, and drove the sword down through Khaled’s body, into his sister’s and on into the rock below. Khaled made no sound as his sister expired and the rot that claimed all vampires upon death set in, reducing her form to what it would have been had she lived a mortal life. Khaled shuddered, pinned in place by the sword, unable to look away.
Neferata kicked the axe out of his reach and turned. Borri’s men were fewer in number than they had first seemed, and though they fought as berserkers, the dead were numberless. Ghostly hands plucked at bare flesh, drawing the last dregs of life from the warriors.
‘Neferata of Lahmia, I declare you oath-breaker and murderer,’ a harsh voice rasped. Neferata turned. Her handmaidens still battled the Strigoi. She was alone.
‘Borri,’ she said, reaching for the sword still sheathed on her hip. The king had doffed his armour, as had his remaining warriors, and his barrel chest was streaked with blood. He still carried his son’s axe. ‘We can still end this without further bloodshed.’
‘Your name has been entered in the book,’ he said. Then he charged. Neferata barely blocked the blow and spun, dancing around the dwarf as he chopped at her in grim silence. Soon Borri was puffing and stumbling. The exertions of the day had taken their toll. ‘You have murdered us,’ he gasped, lashing out at her. ‘You have torn out the heart of our hold and condemned us to wander.’
Neferata avoided a wild blow. ‘You have condemned my son to wander!’ Borri roared, flinging the axe at her as she stepped back. She swatted the axe aside.
Borri tensed. His hands clutched emptily, and he glanced at the axe where it had fallen. Neferata shook her head. ‘You won’t reach it.’
Borri said nothing. Neferata sighed. ‘Honour is a burden a ruler can ill afford. It is a weight on the soul and the mind.’
‘Kill me and be done, witch.’
‘I don’t want to kill you, Borri. If I did, I would have let Zandor and his bone-eating cronies do the job for me,’ she snapped, gesturing to the mangled corpse of the Strigoi. ‘I want you alive. I want your people alive. Together, we can—’
‘No,’ Borri said.
Neferata stopped. ‘What?’
‘No.’ He looked at her pityingly. ‘Your name has been entered into the Book of Grudges, Neferata of Lahmia. There can be no end other than the settling of the debt.’
‘I’m offering you mercy, King Borri. I am offering you the lives of those of your people who survive. And all I ask is that you—’ she said, bewildered.