A SMALL VICTORY

Paul S. Kemp

THE PRESENT

Masud was exhausted, but he kept running, throwing one leaden leg in front of the other. The desert sucked at his sandals and small, desperate sounds slipped past his lips with every stride. He tried to keep them in – he knew the dead would hear them – but his fear demanded expression. He gulped sand-dusted air, gagging on the grit, his heartbeat an unrelenting drum in his ears.

His memory flashed on Naemah, her face in ruins, her eyes dark, empty pools. Vomit threatened, but he swallowed it down.

Clouds smeared the already feeble moonlight across the night sky, coating the desert in ink. He could only see ten paces in any direction. He was running blind, surrounded by the living dead. Shadows loomed out of the darkness, shambling forms, arms outstretched. The stink of rot suffused the air, a reeking fog surrounding him. He staggered, lost his balance entirely, and went head over heels, his breath escaping in a groan. He came instantly up on all fours, panicked, unable to breathe, sand clinging to his sweaty flesh. The vomit came, and he lost his supper to the sands.

All around, he heard the slow scrape of rotting flesh moving over sand, the grotesque click-clack of ruined teeth, fleshless jaws masticating air in anticipation of live flesh. And the moans, the awful hungry moans, that sounded somehow like the echo of words, loss and pain.

He wiped his mouth, glancing around frantically like a trapped animal, his sweaty hand clenched around the hilt of his gory khopesh.

More moans, getting closer.

Get up. Get up. Get up.

His mind summoned an image of Naemah. Tears welled in his eyes.

A form lurched out of the darkness to his right, bruise-coloured flesh hanging loose from its bones, rotted teeth bared in a snarl. The wrap it wore hung in scraps from its ruined body. It uttered a moan and staggered toward him. He jumped to his feet and ran.

Another form appeared to his left, preceded by the stink of death, the terrible clack of the teeth and more moans.

He veered right and sprinted on, slipping in the sand, fear and instinct the only things propelling him forwards. He glanced around, still running, still reliving his encounter with Naemah. The distraction cost him and he slammed hard into the back of a zombie. Its flesh exploded like a rotted fruit, painting him in stinking gore. They went down in a tangle of limbs, and the zombie’s cold, clammy flesh brought bile to the back of his throat. It tried to turn over, pawing at him, moaning, teeth clacking, cold fingers closing on his arm. He put his knee in its back, split its head with a downwards slash from his khopesh and scrambled to his feet.

They were all around him, forms in the darkness, closing, moaning, teeth chattering. He spun in a circle, breathing hard, his vision blurred. He was dead. He knew he was dead, and silence no longer mattered. He picked a direction and ran, shouting in fear and despair.

‘I’m sorry, Naemah!’

He should have done it. He should have done it.

Howls erupted behind him: not zombies, but ghouls, flesh eaters. In his mind’s eye he saw them – emaciated once-men, skin like leather drawn tight over sinew and muscle, their thin faces all bloodshot eyes and sharpened teeth. They loped over the sand like a pack of jackals.

He answered their howl with another shout. Movement to his right caught his eye and he ran toward it, hysterical, enraged and terrified. The zombie turned, raising its arms, and Masud hacked them off, grinning while blood sprayed, then continued his wild sprint.

He careered over the sand another ten paces before he tripped and staggered, arms flailing. Everything slowed and he seemed to stumble for an eternity. A fall of only moments stretched into a lifetime of terrified anticipation. He hit the ground awkwardly and his head struck something hard. Pain shot through him, sparks flashing before his eyes. Thoughts floated free in his head and rose into the air around him. He was drifting among them, falling, his vision going dark.

He tried to murmur Naemah’s name, the last sound he wanted to utter before he died, but he couldn’t make his mouth work.

He was vaguely aware of snarls, of hands, or something worse, on his body, or maybe he was just imagining it.

Probably some kind of animal, he thought nonsensically. Maybe he’d tripped over a plank of wood. He wondered why that last thought struck him as funny. He wondered, too, how he’d got there to begin with.

A DAY EARLIER

Masud paced the top of Bhagar’s towering stone walls, as restless as one of the priest-king’s caged lions. A desiccating wind pulled sweat from his skin. Pennons raised over the walls snapped in the breeze, the sound like whip cracks. The sun crept over the horizon and painted the sky and sand in crimson and gold.

Behind and below, the city awakened from another night of disquieted, pensive slumber.

A few carts rattled down the packed earth streets. Shutters and shades opened to face another day, as coughs and the murmur of low conversation carried through the quiet. After a time, hammer blows from the direction of the Merchants’ Quarter announced the beginning of the workday for the slaves who toiled from dawn to sunset on the city’s defences. As the full circle of the sun crested the horizon, the huge gong of the Temple of Ptra sounded the morning toll. Throughout the city, the smoke of sacrifice rose from temples and carried off into the morning air, bearing the hopes and prayers of the populace.

Masud looked beyond the walls, to the barren sandscape of the desert. A lone cart lay askew in the area before the walls, half buried by the windblown sand. The area would normally have been bustling, dotted with colourful tents, camels and horses, travellers and the chatter of commerce, but everyone had retreated within the city walls, or fled.

War was coming. The Usurper and his unliving horde were sweeping across the desert like a sandstorm, burying all before them, or so some said. But the army, however powerful would break on Bhagar’s walls. It had to.

The wind gusted, sending a series of tiny whirlwinds eddying across the sand. Perhaps they were fleeing from the advancing army, too.

‘Masud.’

His brother’s voice startled him, pulled him around.

Fadil wore the linen kilt and boiled leather vest typical of a professional soldier. Sweat beaded his bald pate. Gold bands bound his narrow, pointed beard. A heavy tulwar and ceremonial whip hung from his wide leather girdle. He wore the headband of a cavalry officer in the priest-king’s army.

Seeing his brother brought Masud hope. They embraced.

‘It’s good to see you, Fadil. It’s been too long.’

‘I tried to find you last night when I heard…’ He ran a hand over his head, words failing him.

Masud felt his cheeks warm. ‘When you heard that Naemah had left?’

Fadil nodded. ‘I thought you might…’

‘I’m going after her,’ Masud said.

‘…be thinking of doing something rash.’ Fadil sighed and shook his head. ‘You can’t, Masud.’

‘I must.’

Fadil stared into Masud’s face, as if judging his resolve. He leaned forward and spoke in a low tone. ‘You shouldn’t. She’s been gone half a day and it’s… dangerous beyond the walls.’

‘The more reason I should go after her!’

‘You don’t know what’s out there! It’s–’

‘Her father forced her to go,’ Masud said, pacing anew. ‘She would not have gone otherwise. She loves me, Fadil.’

Masud turned and stared into his older brother’s face, daring him to disagree. Fadil surprised him with a smile and a nod.

‘I know she does. And you love her. I can see it in your face. Hasani has not been dead so long that I’ve forgotten that look. I wore it once, too.’

Hearing his brother mention the wife he’d lost to plague four years earlier put a pit in Masud’s stomach. He took a step towards him, a hand raised in apology.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open old wounds. I–’

‘You can’t reopen what has never closed. I know what it is to miss someone. I would not wish it on you, but I do not wish you to risk your life, either. You are my brother.’

Masud said softly, ‘I must, Fadil. I have to find her.’

Fadil’s expression softened as resistance crumbled. He rubbed his beard. ‘How will you get out of the city? As of this morning, the priest-king has forbidden anyone from leaving, for fear that all would flee if they could.’

‘I… I hoped that you could help. You are–’

‘An officer of the Priest-King’s army?’

‘Yes. And I know it is much to ask–’

‘If it were known that I defied an edict, I would be sent to the salt mines to work and die.’

‘They wouldn’t dare!’ Masud protested. ‘You command a regiment of horse. At worst, you would be flogged.’

Fadil stared at Masud, eyebrows raised.

Masud felt himself colour. ‘I didn’t mean–’

‘You didn’t mean to be a spendthrift with the coin of my pain?’

Masud looked away, fists clenched with frustration and embarrassment.

‘I shouldn’t have involved you.’ He turned and stared out over the desert, looking in the direction that Naemah would have taken towards the mountains and Quatar. He wished he could leap from the walls and fly. ‘Forgive me, Fadil. I should have–’

His brother’s hand on his shoulder gave him a gentle shake.

‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I said I would be punished if it were known that I did. So, let us take care that it is never known.’

He pulled Masud close and embraced him.

Relief caused Masud’s eyes to well. ‘Thank you. Thank you, Fadil.’

‘You’re my brother, Masud. Naemah is your love. And love makes its own demands.’

Masud hugged his brother the way he had when they were boys, when their parents still lived and the world seemed wondrous and new, when the Usurper was nothing more than ancient legend.

‘How will I escape the city?’

The smell of incense wafted up to them from the street below. They looked down to see half a dozen priests of Usirian, the god of the underworld, walk by, their bodies covered head to toe in a sheer veil of gossamer-green linen. Hoods covered their downcast heads and each carried a small censer that leaked aromatic smoke. Pedestrians near them spat in their path and shouted at them. The priests did not respond.

Fadil stroked his beard and nodded at the priests.

‘That’s how. The priest-king has ordered them from the city by nightfall.’

Masud could not believe it. ‘Ordered the priests away? Why?’

‘They were to ensure the eternal sleep of the dead. If what we’ve heard of the Usurper’s army is true, then they’ve failed. But their failure is your opportunity.’

Masud held up his hands and shook his head. ‘I can’t pass as a priest, Fadil. If anyone questions me…’

‘No one will. The priests have vowed to stay silent until the priest-king’s edict is lifted. You’ll hide among them and out you’ll go. No one will expect you to speak.’

Masud warmed to the idea. He rubbed his chin.

‘But you’ll have to travel on foot,’ Fadil continued. ‘The exiled priests will not be given horses.’

‘Naemah is travelling by wagon. I will catch her easily.’

‘Then it is settled.’

Masud could scarcely believe his good fortune. He’d need to make offerings to Basth in thanks.

‘Come on,’ Fadil said. ‘We need to get you vestments and get you out as soon as possible. Most of Usirian’s priests have already left the city.’

As they descended one of the many stairways that led down from the walls, Masud said, ‘Fadil, do you think they… feel anything? The Usurper’s creatures? Do you think they know anything?’

‘I think they’re no more alive than a plank of wood.’

‘I’ve… heard that their final thoughts stay with them and drive them mad.’

Fadil, never one for fanciful thoughts, shook his head. ‘They’re dead and nothing is left of them. Put these things from your mind. Dark arts animate dead flesh, nothing more. In any event, they are still far from here, so you will see none. But you must hurry. War will be upon us soon enough.’

‘What about you and your men, Fadil? You are horsemen. A siege is–’

‘When the dead start to appear, I’ll lead my companies out to meet them. We will destroy as many as we can out in the desert, then fight our way back to the city. The priest-king wants us to do as much damage as we can before the siege begins.’

‘That seems a small victory.’

Fadil nodded. ‘It does. But large victories are made of many smaller ones. Besides, sometimes small victories are all the gods allow.’

‘True.’

‘We have duties, you and I,’ Fadil said. ‘Mine is to the city. Yours is to your heart. Time to perform them. Now, let’s get you those vestments.

The crowded streets smelled of sweat and emptied chamber pots. Masud eyed the throng of pedestrians, camels, horses, and wagons through the veil of the priestly vestments.

‘Here is one more,’ Fadil shouted from atop his mount. He pulled Masud along by the robes and shoved him into a trio of Usirian’s priests. ‘Fall in, dog!’

The priests, likewise robed and veiled in green, barely glanced at Masud. They bore staffs, waterskins, and little else. Masud had secreted his khopesh under his robes.

The crowd lining the street shook fists and screamed curses, brandishing their anger like a weapon. Masud bent under the onslaught. A shirtless child with a mop of unkempt hair darted into the street and spat at him and the crowd cheered. The contents of chamber pots rained down upon them them from balconies.

‘If you can’t keep them dead, then the gods send you to join them!’ shouted a hugely fat woman. She threw a stone that hit the head of the priest in front of Masud. The priest staggered and the crowd roared, surging forwards as if the thrown stone had broken some invisible barrier that had held them back. Masud bounded forward and took the priest under the armpits to keep him from falling and getting trampled.

‘Get away!’ Masud shouted, realising his mistake too late.

The priest he was aiding whirled to face him. Masud could well imagine the look of shock behind his veil.

‘He spoke,’ someone shouted, pointing at Masud. ‘Oathbreaker, oathbreaker!’

‘Back,’ shouted Fadil, from behind them, and his mount danced a circle around the four priests. ‘Everyone back. They are banished by order of the priest-king. Back!’

Fadil reared his horse and the crowd retreated, still shouting.

‘Move!’ Fadil shouted to the priests, hustling them towards the west gate. The crowd closed in behind them, a tide of frightened, angry flesh held at bay only by the implied threat in Fadil’s words.

Fadil darted ahead of the priests, swung out of the saddle and handed his reins to one of his men.

‘Keep the crowd back,’ he ordered, and they formed up on the road, spears crossed.

Fadil walked behind the priests as they passed through the tunnel of the gatehouse. Masud welcomed its hollow quiet. Ahead, the light of the midday sun beckoned and the desert spread out before them. Fadil’s hand closed on his shoulder and his brother’s mouth was beside his ear.

‘Stick to the road and make for Quatar. It’s the only place Naemah could have gone. Be careful, and Ptra keep you.’

Masud dared not speak, so he simply put his hand over Fadil’s. Then his brother was gone. Masud and the priests stepped out of the gatehouse tunnel and into the sun. The shouts of the crowd faded away as the enormous gates ratcheted closed behind them. The four of them stood outside the city, the eyes of the wall guards upon them, as if unsure what to do next.

The wind stirred the sand. Masud was already sweating under his robes. He felt the eyes of one of the priests on him, the one who’d heard him shout at the crowd. The priest seemed as if he wanted to speak, but his own vow sealed his lips. Masud glanced back at the walls, at the guards looking down on them.

He took the priest by the shoulder and started walking west. The others followed. Before them, the desert stretched on forever.

The priests walked slowly, their heads bowed. They moved like beaten men, their elevated status stripped from them by the priest-king in a fit of pique. Masud considered leaving them behind, but could not quite bring himself to do so. Instead, he moved among them, silently urging them to move more quickly. The priest who’d heard him speak eyed him continuously. When Bhagar could no longer be seen behind them, Masud decided to confess.

‘Listen to me,’ he said, and they gasped. He removed his veil and showed his face. ‘As you see, I’m not one of you. I needed to leave Bhagar and this was the only way. Forgive me for the sacrilege.’

They looked from one to another, obviously uncomfortable. Masud plowed onwards.

‘My beloved travelled this road yesterday in a wagon. I want to catch up with her, to see her to safety in Quatar. We can all be safe there.’

The priests looked at one another. He could read nothing of their expressions behind the veils.

‘Come on,’ he said, and started walking.

The priests followed him. They had nowhere else to go.

Masud set a brisk pace, his eyes staring into the distance ahead, hoping to catch a glimpse of Naemah’s wagon. The priests huffed and sometimes stumbled but kept up. They ate dried dates and smoked meat on the move. The hours drained away. Throughout the day, they saw flocks of birds in the distance, flying towards Bhagar. Twice they saw desert foxes fleeing in the same direction, tails down and drawn between their legs. Masud had seen animals behave so only when a sandstorm impended, but he saw no sign of one approaching.

‘Plainly, they’re fleeing something,’ he said, and the priests nodded.

Night swallowed day and with the darkness came a sense of dread. The priests’ silence seemed not a religious observance but an expression of fear. Masud wished at least one of them would break his vow and speak. None did.

The wind picked up, spitting the desert at them in coarse granules. Above them, clouds thickened, devouring the stars and darkening the sky.

‘We travel through the night,’ Masud said, his voice small in the vast emptiness.

The priests nodded, plodding along behind him in the sand.

Neru rose but the clouds ate her light. Sakhmet followed, and her foul glow leaked through the clouds and cast the world in a pale, unholy green. Masud’s heart was racing. He could not say why.

Forms rushed out of the darkness before them, a pack of jackals, tongues lolling, running in silence back the way Masud and the priests had come. The pack paid the humans no heed. Masud could have reached out and touched two of the creatures as they passed. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He shared a look with the priests, but their veils masked their expressions.

‘Keep moving,’ Masud said.

The wind soon grew chill, whispering over the dunes. Over its rush, Masud thought he heard a distant moan.

‘Did you hear that?’ he asked the nearest priest.

Lost in his hopelessness, the man merely shook his head.

Masud swallowed, eyes and ears alert to all around him. A hiss sounded from the darkness to his right. More animals?

He held up a hand to stop the priests, stepped a few strides off the road and stared out into the desert. The clouds obscured the moon’s green light and it was too dark to see far. He saw nothing but the roll of the dunes, the wind shaving off their tops in sprays of sand.

Another hiss sounded from somewhere out in the darkness, a low, prolonged moan that weakened his legs. No animal, surely.

‘You must have heard that,’ he whispered over his shoulder.

The priests shifted on their feet, staring at one another and back at him.

‘Speak, damn you,’ he said. ‘Did you hear it or not?’

Another moan from behind the priests spun them all around.

A form lurched over the sand, staggering towards them, arms outstretched. The priests backed off, fumbling for their staffs. One fell on his backside.

‘Stand and name yourself!’ Masud said, running towards the figure, khopesh in hand.

Only a moan answered his demand.

A knife slit in the clouds let some of Neru’s light through, painting the desert in a flash of silver. In it, Masud could see the stranger: flesh the color of a bruise, skull half staved-in beneath his turban, face crusted with brains and blood, teeth bared like a beast and empty, dead eyes. He wore the robes of a desert raider.

Masud sprinted past the priests, towards the creature. It moaned at his approach, hands opening and closing. Its jaw moved as if chewing the air, teeth chattering.

Masud sidestepped its slow, awkward lunge and brought his khopesh down on the zombie’s neck, nearly severing its head. Blood splattered him as the corpse fell to the ground, twitching. He struck it again, then a third time before it stopped moving.

He looked up to see the three priests standing in a huddle in the road, their staffs held before them as if to ward off the creature. He listened, and through the wind heard more moans. He could not tell if they came from behind or in front of them.

‘The Usurper’s army must be closing on Bhagar faster than the scouts reported.’

He considered turning around, heading back to warn the city, but he had to find Naemah. Besides, the priest-king had scouts. They would warn him.

‘Do any of you wish to turn back?’

The priests looked at one another, shook their heads. Quatar was their only hope.

‘Come then,’ he said.

The priests fell in behind him, trailing him like ghosts. From time to time he stopped and listened to the desert. In time, he perceived the deep slow beat of war drums carrying from somewhere, the artificial heartbeat of an army that had no beating hearts among it.

Distant hisses sounded from out in the darkness: more moans and howls. The wind carried the suggestive stink of rot. The priests crowded closely around him, staffs in hand. He walked with his khopesh ready, his body tensed.

Shadows moved at the edge of their vision. Once, they heard the horrible clacking of teeth from the far side of a dune. He and the priests crouched low in the road until the wind ate the sound.

Fear crept up on Masud, gripped him in chill fingers. He sweated so badly, breathing so heavily, that he feared he might soon pass out. The chill wind raised the hairs on his clammy flesh.

He stared up at the sky, wondering at the hour.

‘Day is not far off,’ he whispered, but it was a lie. They had many hours of darkness left, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what the day would reveal.

Still, he pressed on, his desire to find Naemah consuming him. He imagined her, her family and their servants plodding along the road in a wagon as the dead stalked out of the darkness. He told himself that they had moved faster than he had expected, that they were far, far ahead, well away from the danger. The hope salved his concern and kept him moving.

An hour later they found Naemah’s caravan, and hope died.

The spare moonlight cast the wagon in lurid silver. It lay half toppled in a dune near the road. The horses, still harnessed to the yoke, lay on their sides in the sand, the carcasses stripped nearly to the bone. Broken pots, two rolls of fabric, and other household goods lay scattered in the sand, the flotsam of murder.

He ran forwards, his legs failing him. He fell, rose and fell again. There was blood all over the sand, browned by the hours. But no bodies. No bodies. Gods.

He put his face in his hands, fear forgotten, fatigue forgotten, all of it drained away into the yawning black hole of his despair. Naemah had been caught by the dead, his beloved, his flower. Her pale flesh had been… he forced himself to think it: eaten. She had died in terror, in pain. In his mind’s eye, an image of her death played itself over and over: her screams, her agony, her blood.

He felt gutted, turned inside out. He floated outside himself, his flesh a shell that held only pain and grief and despair.

‘Naemah!’ he shouted, heedless of who might hear. ‘Naemah!’

Two of the priests ran to his side, one signalling for silence with a finger held to his lips, the other shaking Masud by the shoulders. Masud did not care. He threw them off.

‘Begone!’ he said, spit flying. ‘There is nothing left for me now. Go! Go and die in your silence, if you will. I will die speaking her name. Begone!’

Howls sounded from the darkness. He heard the ominous clicking of teeth, and perceived movement at the edge of his vision.

The dead had heard his shouts. They clambered over the dunes and the priests backed away, looking for an escape.

‘Run if you will,’ Masud said to them, standing and grinning madly. ‘Run.’

Rage, and the desire for revenge, replaced grief. He took his khopesh in both hands and charged. The first zombie, once a man, limped on a ruined knee. Half of his face was gone, revealing his skull and an empty eye socket. Masud easily avoided the zombie’s lurching grasp and swung his blade in a crosscut that split the zombie’s head. Splinters of bone and flesh spattered him. He spun and crouched, his teeth bared in a grimace. He saw another zombie staggering towards him, a woman in filthy, bloodstained robes, great chunks of her hair pulled out by the roots to reveal an oozing scalp. He ducked under her grasping hands and chopped through her knee. The blade cut through the joint and she fell in a moaning heap, her mouth opening and closing, teeth clacking. Roaring, he brought his blade down between her eyes.

Motion behind him pulled him around. He whirled, snarling.

And froze.

Naemah stood a few paces from him, lurching across the sand. Her long, dark hair, caked with dirt and blood, was over her face. Her head hung from her neck at a grotesque angle, her spine obviously snapped. Her lower lip and the skin of her jaw had been ripped almost clear, revealing her gums and teeth. It looked as if she was grinning.

A priest screamed behind him, a terrible, pained shriek, but he barely heard it.

His lips moved as if to say Naemah’s name, but he could not bring himself to utter it, not while looking at the thing before him. All at once, the rage went from him, draining away into the sand. He was in ruins. Everything was in ruins.

She approached, her gait wobbly, and he raised his blade, the motion unthinking, reflexive, like that of an automaton, like that of a dead man. He was dimly aware of tears leaking down his face.

Another step closer, another. She moaned, her fingers opened and closed, her mouth working, teeth making that terrible clack, as if in anticipation of feasting on his flesh.

He thought of all the moments they’d shared, the soft words, the warm embraces. His hand tightened on the hilt of his blade. Howls sounded nearby – carrion eaters. More moans, more shuffling corpses. Another screaming priest.

He should destroy her, he knew. Cut her down and then put his blade to himself.

But he couldn’t. He lowered the khopesh, steeled himself and raised it again. But he couldn’t. He could not harm his Naemah.

She took another step towards him, her face still fixed in a bloody rictus, and something in him broke, snapping like a bowstring. Fear returned, bringing despair for company.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, then he turned and ran, chased by memories and the dead.

Behind him, he heard Naemah moan. He slowed and almost turned, once more resolved to destroy her, to put her out of her misery. But he knew he couldn’t.

He wept freely as he ran.

THE PRESENT

Masud awoke face down in the sand. His head throbbed. His vision was blurry and his eyes ached. His joints screamed with agony. He did not know how long he had lain there alone in the sand. Hours, maybe. It was still dark. Sakhmet leered green from a gap in the clouds.

Groaning, he lifted himself to all fours, then stood. He was covered in stinking blood. There were moans all around him, movement in the dark. They must not have seen him. He heard the howl of flesh-eaters but they sounded far off. His heartbeat hammered in his ears, or was that the war drums of the Usurper’s army? He could not be sure. He was not thinking clearly. His mouth was as arid as the desert, and tasted foul.

One thought alone penetrated his clouded thinking. He needed to get home. He needed to get to Bhagar and his brother.

Moaning at the pain that wracked his body, he staggered back the way he had come. Two of the priests he had journeyed with stepped from the darkness and fell in behind him. Of course they said nothing. Neither did he.

Sand and gore coated Fadil’s arms and armoured vest. He rode at the head of his company, scanning the breaking darkness for any more of the straggling lead elements of the Usurper’s forces. Fadil and his men had left Bhagar two hours after Sakhmet’s rise, when scouts had returned and reported that the unliving horde was closer than anyone had suspected. His first thoughts had been for Masud and Naemah. He made an offering to Ptra, praying for their safety. Then, duty had overtaken concern.

Not long after thundering out of the city, he and his men had encountered zombies and flesh-eaters in groups numbering anywhere from a dozen to a few score. Throughout the night they had chopped, stabbed, and trampled the dead into a bloody pulp that stained the sand red. He would keep fighting until daybreak, take stock of the size of the horde, then ride back for Bhagar as if Usirian himself was at his heels.

‘Ahead, my lord!’ shouted Alfun, one of his sharpest-eyed outriders.

Alfun pointed with his spear to a sea of dunes. There, undead monstrosities staggered out of the darkness in groups of two and three, their shambling gait unmistakable in Sakhmet’s viridian glow.

‘Follow me,’ he said. Tulwar in hand, he put his heels into the flanks of his mount. The mare flew over the sand and his riders thundered behind, roaring a battle cry.

Masud heard the clamour of battle ahead. He could scarcely see anything, just cloudy darkness and the haunting green glow of Sakhmet. He was aware of others around him, but they seemed mere shadows, somehow unreal. He just wanted to get home and see Fadil. Nothing more. His mind fixated on it, holding on to it as if that single task were the only thing that mattered in the world.

Riders exploded over the dunes, tulwars and spears raised, horses thundering and warriors shouting. One of them flew a banner, the heraldry of Bhagar, of home. He stumbled towards it, the two priests flanking him. He tried to call out, to speak, but his dry mouth allowed nothing to escape but a moan.

Fadil split the head of zombie and the corpse fell to the ground, twitched for a moment, and lay still.

‘Shore up the left,’ he shouted at Alfun. All around him, his men cut down the walking dead.

‘By the gods!’ one of his riders shouted, the words dripping with despair. Other riders took up the call, fear spreading like a contagion.

‘What is it?’ Fadil called, scything down another zombie and looking up the rise, where several of his men had gathered. ‘What?’

Dawn lightened the sky. In its newborn light Fadil could see a dust cloud far in the distance. His men were looking in the direction of the dust. Fadil heeled his mare and she galloped to the rise.

‘What is it? A sandstorm?’

He could not make sense of what he saw, a black blanket that stretched for leagues, carpeting the desert. Its undulating motion over the sand threw up the dust.

The Usurper’s army.

He could make out few details other than its size. It looked like a single organism, a seething, roiling mass marching forward, covering the sand in rot.

He and his men stared at the enormity of the army and what it implied. Bhagar could not hold. Nothing could hold. And yet…

And yet, he had a duty to perform. He could not – would not – surrender to hopelessness.

‘Back to it!’ he shouted. ‘Kill what we can!’

He and his men wheeled their mounts and charged at the nearest zombies. Fadil cut one down and wheeled his mount as another shambled toward him, arms outstretched, a moan escaping its lips.

At first he had trouble believing his eyes. His breath caught and his tulwar fell slack at his side.

‘Masud?’

His brother stumbled towards him, blood and sand encrusting his face, his skin purpling with death, the vestments he wore as a disguise little more than rags. His swollen tongue lolled from his mouth as he moaned.

‘No, no, no!’

Masud’s hands opened and closed reflexively, as if imagining a grip on Fadil’s horse. His teeth chattered grotesquely.

Words poured through Fadil’s mind in a rush. He heard his brother’s voice.

Do you think they feel anything?

Do you think they know anything?

I’ve… heard that their final thoughts stay with them, drive them mad.

Fadil wept as he swung out of his saddle. Masud lurched for him, his eyes black, empty, dead. He moaned again and Fadil could hardly bear it. He thought of the size of the Usurper’s army, knew that in coming days his body, too, would probably shamble mindlessly in service to the necromancer. But he could at least give his brother peace.

A vicious cut separated Masud’s head from his neck. The body fell to the ground, blood gushing, and Fadil fell to the sand beside it. He took his brother’s cold hand in his own.

‘I’m sorry, Masud.’

After a moment, he stood and remounted his horse.

Sometimes small victories were all the gods allowed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PAUL S. KEMP

Paul S. Kemp describes himself as a fictioneer. He has written both swords & sorcery and space opera, such as the ‘Chronicles of Erevis Cale’ and ‘War of the Spider Queen’ sagas. He has also written novels set in the Star Wars universe, including the New York Times bestselling Crosscurrent. He lives the life of an outlaw in Grosse Pointe, Michigan with his wife and children, and a steady supply of scotch.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Clint Langley

© Games Workshop Limited, 2011. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-522-8

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