‘The living do not serve the dead,’ Borri said.

‘You dwarfs do nothing but serve your dead,’ Neferata spat. ‘This whole place is nothing but a tomb! It’s a monument to a failed race!’

‘Then let it be our tomb,’ Borri said simply.

Neferata closed her mouth. She looked away. ‘Is that your answer?’

‘There can be no other,’ Borri said. Then, with a grunt, he leapt for the axe. Neferata whirled, reaching for him. Borri ripped the axe up and rolled across the floor, springing to his feet as Neferata swooped over him. He set his feet and swung his son’s axe. Neferata screamed as the axe chopped into her shoulder and the silver threads that ran through it burned her. Her fist punched through Borri’s torso, erupting from his back in a splatter of blood. Borri grunted and his trembling arm sawed at her shoulder, trying to reach her heart even in his final moments. Neferata gasped and grabbed his face with her free hand and ripped the dwarf away from her, flinging him backwards. He landed in a bloody heap some distance away and she wrenched the axe from her body, screaming again as smoke escaped from the wound. Still holding the axe she stumbled towards him, intending to bury the weapon in his skull.

But there was no need. Borri was dead. Neferata sank to her haunches and placed the axe between his hands. She stood, one hand holding the wound on her shoulder closed.

She turned towards the battle, her face settling into a still mask as she started forwards. The war was over. All that was left was the massacre.

It had all led to this moment, every struggle and every scheme. She had ever sought a place from which to rule, to command. But always they had been taken from her. Always, outside events had interfered. Lahmia, Bel Aliad, Sartosa, Mourkain, memories and false-starts all, she knew that now. The dead could not rule the living.

But she would rule nonetheless. She would rule this place. She would make it a fortress, a temple to ambition and a refuge from a world whose tides and tempests she would set right. A dwarf roared and swung a hammer at her. She caught the weapon and drove its haft into the berserker’s belly, rupturing organs and breaking bones. She kicked the dwarf aside and met their hymns with the war-song of lost Lahmia.

She would see to it that that song was sung again, in the years to come. The ghost of Lahmia would find rest here, within these sheltering halls. A dwarf screamed wildly and drove a broken spear into her hip. Neferata broke his neck and threw the body into the air. More dwarfs charged forwards, seeking death and absolution.

Neferata was happy enough to give them the former.

Blood filled her vision, sweeping away all doubt and ambition. She snarled and spat and screeched, less a woman than some great veldt cat driven past hunger into madness. The dead fell around her, their remorseless march stalled and stopped by the berserkers who tangled their dying bodies in spears and among legs, dragging blazing-eyed ghouls down beneath the press with a final spasm of insane strength.

Soon Neferata was alone, a pale wraith stalking dunes of dead flesh, her fangs popping from her mouth, her tongue long and lashing as she drank the thick, heady brew from her blade. One dwarf left, screaming and bulge-eyed, so far gone in shame and hate that he did not realise that he was alone.

She parried his axe and brought her sword up through his barrel chest, lifting him off his feet. As the dwarf’s blood gushed down her arm to splash across the stone, Neferata leaned close to one club-ear and whispered, ‘I am queen.’ The words sounded hollow in the sudden silence.

The dwarf’s only reply was a death-rattle.

Neferata stood for a time, looking down at the body. The last defender was dead. The Silver Pinnacle had fallen.

Long live New Lahmia.

EPILOGUE

Neferata sat back and took a sip from her goblet. ‘And that was that. I’m sure you know the rest.’ Arkhan the Black gazed at her silently. He had remained standing throughout her tale, his undead body knowing neither fatigue nor discomfort. Now, however, his head dipped and his eyes dimmed.

‘That is it?’ he said.

‘You wound me,’ Neferata said, leaning back. ‘And you do me a disservice.’

Arkhan shifted, his bones creaking. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

‘It was anything but, I assure you,’ Neferata said. She touched her temple. ‘I can still hear it, though its whispers have grown ever fainter in these intervening years.’

‘Where is it now?’ Arkhan said. ‘Where is the crown?’

‘Your master knows better than I,’ Neferata said. She tilted her head. ‘It sits hidden to the west and Nagash is drawn to it. And you are drawn with him.’

Arkhan stiffened. His eyes flashed. ‘As you will be as well. Nothing you have told me is of any use, Neferata.’

‘If you think that, then you are indeed diminished,’ Neferata said, her eyes narrowing. ‘You truly do not see it, do you?’

‘I see a woman hiding in a tomb, cowering from fate,’ Arkhan said harshly.

‘Careful,’ Neferata said softly. ‘And you should know by now that fate is a mocker. There is no fate, save that which we make for ourselves, else it would have been I who wore Nagash’s crown.’

‘Are you so certain? How do you know Ushoran was not its intended recipient?’

‘I don’t. But it sought the strongest. Not just in body, but in mind. It wanted a sorcerer and a warrior, not either-or,’ Neferata said. ‘It wanted a strong body to ride into eternity.’ She smiled widely, her fangs surfacing from behind her lips. ‘So I gave it one.’

Arkhan stood silently for a moment, the glow in his eyes dim. Then, suddenly, they blazed bright. The skull tilted back and the jaws gaped and Arkhan the Black laughed, truly laughed, for the first time in centuries. There was a black joy in that sound, and relief as well.

The great hall of the Silver Pinnacle echoed with the sound of his joy, and the bats that clung to the ceiling stirred, their tiny dreams becoming unpleasant as Arkhan’s voice penetrated their thoughts. As the echoes of his laughter faded, Arkhan looked down at her. ‘Do you think he realised, at the end, what you had done?’ he said.

‘If he had, he might have tried harder to destroy me,’ Neferata said. ‘Instead, he was content to squander that power on barbarians and orcs and worse monsters.’ She gestured extravagantly. ‘Then, maybe he did, and maybe this was my reward for it.’ She chuckled. ‘I suppose it’s too late to ask him now.’

‘I suppose you were only too happy to see the crown vanish into the west, there at the end,’ Arkhan said.

Neferata’s humour faded. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘poor Morath. He played his part well, in the end, in the last days of Mourkain.’ She looked at Arkhan. ‘He was right, you know. Ushoran consumed the Strigoi, as we consumed the Lahmians. You were — are — right. The dead cannot rule the living. They can only destroy them. Or perhaps guide them.’

‘Is that what you would do? Guide them where?’

Neferata laughed. ‘Why… I will guide them wherever I wish, Arkhan.’ She pointed at him. ‘But you did not come here to hear my plans for the future, did you?’

‘I came for vampires,’ Arkhan said.

‘Ah yes, because Nagash demands it. He wants new servants; more, he wants servants who can propagate themselves. With our kind, one becomes two, two becomes four, four to eight and so on,’ Neferata said, smiling. ‘A plague of undeath, a plague that walks and plans and fights, that is what the old king of bones wants, isn’t it?’

Arkhan was silent. He knew her well enough to know that she was leading him somewhere. Neferata rose to her feet and drifted close to him, pressing her palms to his cuirass. She leaned close, her lips brushing the chill edge of his skull. ‘To beat Nagash, one must give him what he wants. No more, no less,’ she whispered.