This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it isa land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

‘The Southlands – the name conjures up images of sweltering jungles, miasmic mangrove swamps and scaly beasts the likes of which most had only seen in the controlled confines of the Imperial zoo. A place of screaming death, in a thousand and one forms, each of them worse than the one previous.

Or such was Gotrek’s hope.

Normally, the Slayer settled into taciturnity as naturally as a boulder sank into a tarn, but the thought of plunging into that green hell had him salivating as we set sail from Sartosa. It might have been the prospect of looting one of the hundreds of lost cities said to dot the Southlands like rocks scattered amongst the tall grass, or the almost-certain opportunity to match his axe against the scales of one of the monstrous saurians said to roam the jungles. For myself, I was not so enthusiastic.

Our sojourn in Tilea had been only intermittently marked by the sort of terrors that had become depressingly commonplace during my long association with Gotrek – the hunting of the Daemon-Swine of Catrazza, for instance, or our foray into the stinking warrens of the skaven far beneath the ruins of the temple of Myrmidia in Miragliano on behalf of the Order of the Blazing Sun, or even the strange circumstances of Gotrek’s duel atop the undulating battlements of the Stalking Tower with the being calling himself Mordrek the Damned – and I had become attached to those sun-kissed lands, and their various and sundry delights.

Gotrek, as ever, could not be swayed by my pleading. Indeed, ever since the existential horrors of our experiences in Albion, the Slayer had become more determined than ever to drown his thoughts in the red grapes of slaughter…’

– From My Travels with Gotrek, Vol. VI
By Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2525)

CHAPTER 1

‘Cheat!’ Gotrek’s bellow, redolent with outraged incredulity, thundered across the deck of the Orfeo. Startled by the outburst, the gulls that had been perched on the main mast of the merchantman hurled themselves into the salt-tinged air of the early evening. The birds winged their way upwards through the gathering mists, leaving behind only a scatter of feathers and the echoes of their raucous cries. The crew of the vessel, a motley assortment of scurvy rogues from a dozen ports, paused in their labours, but only for a moment. In the weeks since they’d left port at Sartosa, they’d grown used to the Slayer’s occasional outbursts.

Felix Jaeger looked up. ‘What now?’ he muttered. His eyes narrowed, and his thin, sun-browned features tightened in momentary concern. His gaze flickered to the sheathed sword lying against the rail within arm’s reach. The gilt dragon-headed pommel of the blade called Karaghul caught the light of the setting sun, and Felix turned his attentions back to the confrontation brewing across the deck, satisfied that should it be required, he could have the blade in his hand and free of its plain leather sheath in mere moments. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Slayer’s incandescent temper had seen them fighting for their lives, and experience had taught Felix to be ready for the inevitable firestorm.

‘I am no cheat!’ Gotrek roared. The Slayer jabbed his accuser in the nose with a stubby finger. The force of the gesture sent the unfortunate sailor toppling onto his backside. The dwarf was a squat lump of scar tissue and muscle, and Felix had seen him kill with a casual backhand more than once. The sailors who’d made up the rest of the semi-circle began to edge back, giving Gotrek and his new playmate plenty of room. ‘Dwarfs do not cheat,’ Gotrek snarled. ‘Only men and elves and filthy Moot-scum cheat!’

‘I didn’t say you cheated!’ the sailor growled. ‘I said you made a lucky roll!’ His hand edged towards the dirk thrust through the brightly coloured sash he wore about his waist. Don’t do it, Felix pleaded silently, it would only aggravate him. He let loose the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding when the sailor, obviously thinking better of it, spread his hands well away from the hilt of the blade.

‘Same thing,’ Gotrek rumbled. He flashed a gap-toothed grin and flexed his scarred hands. It reminded Felix of a tiger unsheathing its claws. At least the Slayer had left his axe where it sat leaning against a water barrel. Felix relaxed. Gotrek wasn’t really angry. He was bored, which was, in some ways, worse. ‘Now, apologise. Or I’ll have your scalp for a coin purse,’ Gotrek said, gesturing crudely for emphasis.

Felix rolled his eyes and turned his attentions back to the pitiful state of his red Sudenland travelling cloak, which lay across his knees. The cloak had so many holes in it that it resembled a Wissenland cheese, and it was about as much use at keeping out the rain at the moment. He carefully threaded a needle and began to patch the largest of the holes. He’d had to pay a pretty penny for scraps of the right colour and material. It was getting harder and harder to find Sudenland wool that was dyed the right shade. He was tempted to simply buy a new cloak, rather than patching the old, but it didn’t seem right, somehow.

The old cloak had seen him through fire, famine and flood. It had kept the rain off him in the dark forests of the Empire, and in the misty bogs of Albion. It had kept the snow off him in the Worlds Edge Mountains, and the sun, in the deserts of Araby and the hills of Tilea.

His lean fingers traced the rents in the fabric and glided across faded stains. Each was a memory to be cherished, and a story to be told. Or so his mother had said, the day she’d bought the cloak for him. It had been old, even then. He’d taken it with him when he’d gone to university, as a way of remembering her. He caught a fold between his fingers and rubbed the coarse weave. ‘Every mark a story,’ he murmured. He examined his hand, and the fine web of scars that criss-crossed it. If every mark told a tale, he was a collection of stories. And Gotrek was a multivolume epic, at least.

Without losing his train of thought, Felix lifted his feet as a sailor slid across the wet deck and struck the barrel he was sitting on. He used the toe of his boot to nudge the groaning man aside and set his feet back down.

Gotrek laughed nastily and stumped towards the downed man. The Slayer’s broad, craggy face was creased in amusement, and his single eye gleamed with humour. It was a rare expression for Gotrek, who tended towards the sour when he wasn’t up to his elbows in blood, and Felix paused in his mending to study it. Like all poets, inspiration often took him unawares. There was a hint of the dwarf that Gotrek Gurnisson had been in that expression – before he’d shorn his scalp, dyed and greased his remaining hair into a towering crimson crest and taken the oath of the Slayer, setting his feet on the path of glorious, redeeming death. Even after so many years together, Felix knew very little about Gotrek’s past, and the workings of the Slayer’s mind were as mysterious now as they had been the day he’d sworn a drunken oath to follow Gotrek and record his doom.

‘I think you’ve made your point, Gotrek,’ Felix said, turning his eyes back to his cloak.

‘I’m just getting warmed up, manling,’ Gotrek said, knuckling his eye-patch. ‘We’ve been cooped up on this scow for weeks. Weeks, manling! Weeks without as much as a bruised knuckle or the taste of blood in my mouth.’

‘Need I remind you that this was your idea?’ Felix said carefully. Gotrek’s temper was as volatile as it was legendary. It could turn on a guilder, and Felix didn’t want the Slayer’s ire to fall on him.

Gotrek frowned and spat. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said darkly.

‘Then I won’t,’ Felix said. The sailor, blood streaming from a nose that had gone purple and misshapen, had got to his feet, but Gotrek, glaring angrily at Felix as he was, seemed to have forgotten him. ‘You spent the last of our coin on purchasing this passage. I’m simply suggesting that you might not want to cripple the crew before we get where we’re going.’

The Orfeo was sailing for the Mangrove Port, on the eastern coast of the Southlands. The Port was an outpost and a beacon for adventurers, criminals, pirates and treasure hunters of all stripes and backgrounds. Its foundations had been sunk centuries before by explorers from Cathay, and it had changed hands numerous times since, from Araby to Tilea to Estalia. These days, it was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Empire. Or it had been, when they’d left port. Felix knew enough about such places to know that it mattered little what flag flew over the palisade. ‘After all, we still have a few days of travel left,’ he added.

Before Gotrek could reply, the sailor, clutching his broken nose, struck the Slayer on the back of his tattooed skull with a belaying pin. The pin shattered, and the sailor stumbled back, gawping at the broken chunk of wood in his hand. Gotrek’s mouth closed with a snap and he turned a baleful gaze on his attacker. ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ he said. He reached out and grabbed the sailor by the front of his shirt, hefted him with ease, and sent him flying back into his fellows with an almost gentle shove. ‘So wait your turn,’ Gotrek called after him.

Felix sighed. Gotrek’s glare swivelled towards him. Felix kept his eyes on his cloak. Gotrek made to say something, but his words were lost beneath the shout of ‘Get him!’ and the sudden avalanche of angry sailors that buried him. Felix eased his barrel back, out of range. Gotrek bellowed happily and drove a meaty fist into a man’s belly. The latter folded up around the Slayer’s arm like a deflated wineskin, and slumped to the deck. Men went flying to land in heaps about the deck, as Gotrek waded through them with brutal élan. His initial opponent yelped in fear as Gotrek grabbed him. The Slayer cocked a fist, ready to add to the damage he’d already done to the man’s face, when a pistol shot rang out, splitting the air.

Felix glanced over his shoulder. The hunched, bleary-eyed shape of the ship’s captain, a smoking pistol in one hand, and a half-empty bottle of Catrazza Red in the other, swayed on the upper deck. Captain Bolinas claimed to be from Nordland, but Felix had never known a Nordlander to speak with an Tilean accent.

Bolinas took a swig from the bottle and glared down at them blearily. ‘I’ll thank you not to break my crew, Gurnisson,’ he belched. ‘We’re entering dangerous waters, and we’ll need every mother’s son of them, or I’m a Tilean.’

‘You are a Tilean, Bolinas,’ Gotrek said, letting his opponent fall to the deck.

‘Lies, by Ulric,’ the captain said, saluting the dwarf with his pistol. ‘I was born on the frosty coasts of Nordland. Stop punching my crew, thank you, Gurnisson.’

He swayed as the ship caught a swelling wave, and for a moment, Felix feared that he would topple from the deck. Bolinas righted himself with the elaborate care of a thoroughgoing professional sot. He’d had his doubts about the man and his leaky, creaky barge of a merchantman, but Gotrek had sworn by him. There was a story there, though it was one neither the Slayer nor the captain had volunteered. It was clear that Bolinas had known Gotrek for some time, however. Gotrek grinned and extended a hand. ‘Give me that bottle, and we‘ll call it a done deal.’

‘What bottle?’ Bolinas said, taking another swig. He emptied the bottle and pitched it overboard. Gotrek goggled at him for a moment and then grinned broadly.

‘Ha! I knew there was a reason I liked you, Bolinas,’ he said, laughing.

Felix shook his head and finished his stitch. He knotted the thread and bit the end off. Then he held the cloak up to examine it. Shaking his head, he resolved to find a qualified seamstress at the very next civilised port of call they came to.

He looked out over the rail. In the distance, the black ribbon of the coast crawled across the horizon. He frowned. He’d heard stories about the Southlands as a boy, and he’d seen the massive, colourful saurians in their enclosure at the Imperial zoo, while he was at university. But he’d never thought he’d actually wind up trudging through the jungles, on the heels of a suicidal Slayer. Gotrek clapped him on the back and nearly knocked him to the deck. ‘There’s death there, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘I can smell it.’

Felix slung his cloak about his shoulders and said, ‘Your death or someone else’s?’

Gotrek continued, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘They say there are lizards in those jungles that are the size of mountains, manling. With teeth like spears, and claws like swords,’ Gotrek sighed happily. ‘Not as good a doom as a dragon, but, well, how many of those do you get to see in this life?’ He glanced at Felix. ‘And I’ve seen mine.’

‘We almost died fighting that thing,’ Felix said, shivering slightly. His hand instinctively sought the grip of his blade. Karaghul had a doom of its own. The blade hungered for the blood of the ancient beasts, and he had felt that dreadful, fiery hunger first-hand when he and the Slayer had made the acquaintance of the monstrous Skjalandir. It had been quiescent ever since, but sometimes, in quiet moments, he recalled how the sword’s inhuman will had bolstered, or perhaps supplanted, his own, driving him to what he’d thought at the time was certain death. He hoped never to experience that again. He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I thought we were looking for treasure, not giant lizards.’

Gotrek’s expression brightened. ‘Aye,’ he said softly. ‘They say the dawi of Karak Zorn lined the avenues of their hold with precious gems, carved and faceted by the greatest jewellers of all dwarf kind, and placed so that a single torch could be used to light the entirety of the hold. The shields of their clans were plated in gold, and their axes were edged in silver. Their thanes wore cloaks of saurian hide and armour made from the strange red iron found in the deep quarries of the jungles. It was said that they had even tamed the great beasts, and built mighty citadels upon the backs of the largest of the saurians, in order to ride them to war. Aye, they were wealthy and mighty, in their time.’ Gotrek set his hands on the ship’s rail as he spoke. ‘We lost contact with them long before the War of Vengeance, and many claimed that the stinking elgi had used their vile magic to destroy the hold and all who dwelt within it.’ Gotrek spat the words. He had all of his race’s prejudices against their ancient rivals, the elves, though Felix thought that the Slayer had mellowed somewhat, after their adventures on the mist-haunted isle of Albion. Gotrek grunted and spat over the side. ‘But no one knows for sure. No one knows where Karak Zorn is, or was.’

‘I would have thought it would have been on a map, at least,’ Felix said. He’d wanted to bring up the absence of such since they’d left port, but Gotrek had never afforded him the opportunity until now. Even so, Felix hesitated.

Gotrek craned his head to fix Felix with his good eye. ‘A map,’ he said. His tone was withering. ‘Why did I not think of that?’ The rail creaked in his grip. ‘My people are the greatest mapmakers in the world, manling. If there were a map to Karak Zorn, if there had ever been a map to the Great Southern Hold, do you not think that I would know of it?’ Wood splintered as his grip tightened.

Felix looked away. ‘So how do you intend to find it, then?’ he said.

Gotrek sucked on his teeth and stared out over the waves at the distant coastline. ‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ he said finally, grudgingly.

‘You’ll know it when you see it?’ Felix said. ‘What does that mean?’

‘The jungle isn’t that big,’ Gotrek said simply.

‘Gotrek, the Southlands are not just “a jungle”. We’re not talking the Drakwald here,’ Felix protested. Gotrek didn’t look at him. He stared at the Slayer, and comprehension settled on him like an evening chill. ‘Gotrek, we can’t search every inch of the Southlands! It’d take us decades!’

‘We don’t have to search every inch of it, manling. Just the interior, close to where the Worlds Edge Mountains cut through the jungles,’ Gotrek said. ‘It’ll only take a few years, at most.’ He hesitated. ‘Or maybe ten.’ Then added, somewhat defensively, ‘It’s not my fault you humans have such short years.’

Felix stared at the dwarf. Then he looked back at the coastline, now mostly obscured by the thick mist rising from the dark waters as evening drew on, with a sinking sensation in his gut. Ten years of sweltering jungle and insect-infested swamp. Ten years of dodging hungry not-quite dragons and whatever other horrors lurked in that deadly land. He dropped his face into his hands and groaned softly.

‘I should have just let the Emperor’s cavalry run me down,’ he muttered.

Gotrek grunted. ‘This cursed mist is getting thicker,’ he said, ‘I’d swear it was elf trickery, if we weren’t already well past that blasted fortress of theirs.’

Felix twitched. They’d only seen the Island of the Sun at a distance, through a curtain of fog and enchantments, but the sleek shapes of elven warships had been all too close, cutting across the mist-topped waves with a speed and grace that made even the greatest galleons of Marienburg look like bobbing corks. They had passed through elven waters unmolested, however. ‘If it weren’t for that blasted fortress, we’d likely have already been attacked by dark elf corsairs or pirates of some description,’ Felix said.

‘I know,’ Gotrek groused. ‘Damned elves ruin everything.’ He swiped his hand through the curling mist, and it reformed swiftly.

‘Cursed mist,’ he barked again. The mist put Felix in mind of the mists they’d encountered in Albion, and he frowned, waving a hand in front of his face.

‘I hope Bolinas is sober enough to guide us through it,’ Felix said. He turned from the rail. The mist was creeping across the deck, and curling about the masts. The crew had become subdued, and quiet. Some, those closest to the rails, cast nervous glances over the side. What is it they know that we don’t, Felix wondered.

‘Bolinas sails better when he’s drunk,’ Gotrek said. He pushed away from the rail and stumped back towards where he’d left his axe.

Felix snatched up his sword and belted the sheath about his waist. He saw one of Bolinas’s mates handing out cutlasses and boarding pikes to the crew. There was definitely something going on. Felix looked about and spotted Bolinas at the wheel, a new bottle in his hand, and his eyes fixed on the mounting fog ahead of them. Felix climbed to join him on the upper deck. ‘I can’t help but notice that your crew is preparing for trouble, captain,’ he said quietly.

Bolinas squinted at him. ‘Aye, as I said, dangerous waters,’ he said, grinning.

‘Pirates,’ Felix guessed.

‘Pirates, aye, there’re pirates, and worse than pirates,’ Bolinas said. He took a swig from his bottle. ‘Pirates would be a blessing from Ulric, frankly. The dead don’t rest easily in these waters, Jaeger.’ He pressed his bottle to his cheek and continued, ‘We’re not far from the Bitter Sea, here, and the fleets of bone and brass that ride those dark waves.’

It only took Felix a moment to grasp the import of Bolinas’s words. ‘The Land of the Dead,’ he said softly. Suddenly cold, he pulled his cloak tighter about himself. He’d heard the stories of the Land of the Dead as a boy, and more recently in Tilea.

A land where nothing lived, but things still moved. Of great tomb-cities, guarded by skeletal legions, and ruled by undying kings, still swaddled in their grave-wrappings. A once-mighty empire, made over into a thing of dust and rattling bones by some long ago cataclysm. ‘I thought we were far from Zandri,’ he said, naming the great coastal necropolis that Sartosian sailors so feared. ‘Isn’t that where the war-fleets of the dead are said to issue from?’

‘Aye, but we’re close to the Gulf of Fear, and it’s from there that the fleets of the tomb-cities that border the Southlands sail. Or so I hear, for I’ve never seen one,’ Bolinas said, taking another swig. ‘And I’m in no hurry to do so.’

‘That makes two of us,’ Felix said. He dropped his hand to Karaghul’s pommel. He’d fought the risen dead more than once, and lost friends and more than friends to them. He closed his eyes as a pale, aristocratic face swam to the surface of his mind, and he shoved the memory of his lost Kislevite lover aside. Ulrika was gone into the darkness, and though their path had been thorny, it had been no fault of hers. Where she was now, he couldn’t say, nor did he like to think of it, or of the red-eyed thing she’d become.

‘I’ve seen them,’ Gotrek growled. Startled, Felix turned. The Slayer had crept up on them unawares, the mist muffling his approach. ‘I‘ve fought them, too.’ The Slayer reached up and snatched the bottle from Bolinas, who made a sound of mild protest. Gotrek upended the bottle and drained it. He pitched it over the side with a gentle toss and said, ‘They die like any other uzkular. Smash the skull or the spine and they’re no threat.’ He hefted his axe meaningfully. In the light of the lanterns hung from the mast, the ancient runes etched into the blade glimmered strangely. ‘The dry dead are lost in dim ages, manling. They are buried in the stuff of the past, and they do not know they are dead.’

‘That doesn’t make me feel any better about encountering them,’ Felix said.

While it was somewhat amusing to hear a dwarf accuse someone else of being lost in the past, he was careful not to let it show on his face. There was no telling how Gotrek would take it.

‘Skull and spine, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘Just aim for the skull and spine.’

‘Wonderful,’ Felix said sourly. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

They stood in silence after that, for what felt like hours. Bolinas guided the Orfeo through the mist-laden waters seemingly as much by instinct as by the directions shouted down to him by the crew perched on the top of the masts. Watch-lanterns had been lit and hung from every available protrusion, but the swelling mist swallowed the light. Braziers and torches provided no aid, and soon, it was hard to discern even as far as the prow of the ship.

Bored, Gotrek had broken open a keg of ale and sat on the poop deck, guzzling alcohol. Felix, for his part, felt too keyed up to drink or lounge. He eyed the mists and idly played with his sword hilt, thinking of sun-baked deserts and antediluvian tombs. Part of him, the sensible part, cringed from the thought, even as it cringed from the idea of trudging through the muck of the Southlands for months on end. But another part of him, the same part that had compelled him to swear a blood-oath to a mad, one-eyed dwarf, was intrigued. His father had funded one of the early attempts by the Altdorf explorers’ guild to map Nehekhara, and Felix could still recall the ancient, crumbling papyrus that his father had mounted on his office wall, preserved in its thick wooden frame.

As a boy, he’d stared at that papyrus with its strange pictographic writing for hours on end. It seemed to promise entrance to a world beyond the dull confines of Jaeger & Sons, a world of danger and excitement. He sighed. He’d got both of those, in spades, these past few years. Felix fancied that he’d had enough adventures to last him for several lifetimes. He’d written barely a third of them down, since time to write was ever in short supply. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever find that time, or whether he’d perish before then.

From out of the mist came a sound. It wavered through the air and faded, before Felix could focus on it. He tensed, all thoughts of writing washed from his mind by a sudden spurt of adrenaline. ‘Gotrek, did you hear that?’ he said, turning to look for the Slayer. Gotrek was on his feet, axe in hand and his good eye narrowed.

‘Quiet, manling,’ he growled. The dwarf stalked towards the rail, his head cocked.

‘What do you hear, Gurnisson?’ Bolinas said.

‘Hsst,’ Gotrek hissed, flinging up a hand. Bolinas fell silent. Felix heard it a moment later. It was a dull, rhythmic thud – boom-boom-boom – that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. It seemed to pierce the mist from all directions, and for a moment, Felix fancied that it was the crash of waves, or even cannon-fire but it was too regular to be either of those. He squinted, trying to see through the mist, but whatever was causing the sound was undoubtedly too far away.

‘Gotrek,’ he said, ‘what is that?’

Gotrek didn’t reply. The Slayer glared out at the mist, his mouth set in a grim frown, and his axe held across his chest. The thudding grew louder. The crew, who’d fallen silent as the mist enveloped them, began to mutter amongst themselves, until a sharp bark of command from Bolinas’s mate, a heavy-set Bretonnian with a face like the underside of a river-barge and muscles almost as swollen as Gotrek’s, set them scurrying back to their appointed tasks. The thudding continued unabated, and just beneath it, like an afterthought, Felix thought he caught the sound of a splash.

All at once, those gulls that had not taken flight earlier during Gotrek’s outburst did so, in a cacophony of wailing cries and frantically beating wings. The birds heaved themselves upwards with an amount of avian desperation that Felix had only previously observed in pigeons trying to escape an alley cat. He watched them spiral upwards until he lost sight of them in the ever-thickening mist. As the gulls vanished, so too did their shrieks cease, as surely as if the birds had never been. And the thudding continued, unceasing and growing ever louder.

In contrast to the noise, the wind grew weaker and weaker until the sails drooped like empty wineskins and the Orfeo slowed to a crawl. The mist thickened about the sluggish vessel, and soon it was rolling over the rails and curling around the mast, bringing with it a muggy heat. Felix used the hem of his cloak to daub sweat from his face. ‘What’s happened to the wind?’ he said. His voice sounded tinny and muffled to his ears.

‘It fled, like the gulls,’ Bolinas said softly. The slur had vanished from his voice, and he had straightened from his usual reeling slouch. Fear had sobered him up. ‘We’ve entered a sour patch of water and no mistake.’

Felix was about to ask him what he meant, but then thought better of it. Hand wrapped around his sword’s hilt, he made to join Gotrek at the rail when the ship’s compass caught his eye. The compass was a large instrument, composed of equal parts brass and glass, and set into an ornately carved wooden housing that was shaped like an Imperial griffon, rampant. The griffon crouched beneath the weight of the compass, its talons holding the instrument steady, within line of sight of the helmsman. Felix glanced at the compass as he strode to the rail, looked away, and then, as what he‘d seen registered, stopped and looked at it again. His eyes widened slightly and he cursed as he watched the needle spin around and around in an aimless circle.

‘The compass, Gotrek, look at the compass,’ Felix hissed, motioning to catch the Slayer’s attention. Gotrek ignored him.

‘Leave it, manling. Only elves and humans trust such devices. A dwarf always knows what direction he’s facing,’ the Slayer rumbled. His eye narrowed as he peered into the mist. Felix knew that a dwarf could see further and clearer than a man, but he doubted that even Gotrek could see through the obscuring mist. The thudding was growing still louder, as if whatever was causing it were growing steadily closer. It seemed to burrow through the mist towards them, and the throbbing pitch set Felix’s back teeth to itching.

‘And what direction is that, just now, out of curiosity?’ Bolinas interjected.

‘North,’ Gotrek said, and then amended, ‘North-ish.’ He spat and looked at Bolinas. ‘We’re off course, and we have been since we entered this damnable mist.’

‘Can’t be helped,’ Bolinas grunted. ‘Can‘t see, can’t navigate. All we can do is hope that we don’t strike a reef or run aground.’ He glared at the Slayer morosely. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have let you on board, Gurnisson. You’re a damned jinx and no mistake.’

‘I’ll not be denied a chance at my doom by some stinking mist,’ Gotrek snapped pugnaciously. He hefted his axe, and for a moment, Felix thought he was going to lash out at the mist in a show of futile rage. Instead, the Slayer‘s expression grew calculating.

‘What is it?’ Felix said.

‘I think I’ve figured out what that blasted noise is,’ Gotrek said. There was a cheerful note in his voice that Felix had come to know and fear. If Gotrek was happy, it meant that others, Felix included, were soon to become very, very unhappy. The Slayer glanced back at Bolinas and said, ‘I’d advise you to break out the battle-rum and get your crew ready for a fight, Bolinas, because we’re not alone out here.’

Bolinas stared at the Slayer for a moment, and then realisation dawned in his eyes. ‘Ulric’s Teeth,’ he snarled. ‘To arms, lads!’

‘What? What is it?’ Felix said, raising his voice to be heard. The rhythmic thudding was now loud enough to cause his eardrums to twinge in pain, and it rolled across the deck like thunder. And he could hear something else as well. It sounded like oars.

‘Weren’t you listening earlier, manling? The living aren’t the only ones with an interest in these waters – look!’ Gotrek pointed. Felix did, and a moment later felt his heart sink. The galleys that swooped out of the mist were long, lean things that rode low in the water, but even so were larger and heavier than the Orfeo. Indeed, Bolinas’s ship looked like a child’s toy compared to the massive hulks that were even now slicing through the water towards them.

There were a dozen of them, and they moved far more quickly than any ocean-going vessel Felix had ever seen. Each had three great banks of oars on either side, which tore foamy furrows in the water as they thrust the galleys inexorably forwards. Each galley had a single square sail, emblazoned with what he thought might be a stylised asp or viper, mounted on a thick mast set just a little forward of the centre of the vessel, and a smaller, triangular sail mounted on a smaller forward mast.

On the high aft deck of each, emaciated figures pounded wide-bellied drums, and weird, skeletal forms clustered at the rails. Felix felt his skin crawl as he took in the yellowing, bare bones of those warriors. He’d seen the undead before, but they never failed to horrify him. Bones should rest in graves or caskets, not be animated and armed. The closest galley had drawn so near that Felix could make out the strange hieroglyphs that had been painstakingly engraved on the bronze-plated, knife-edged bow that was aimed steadfastly at the midpoint of the Orfeo. Bolinas was screaming orders even as he spun the wheel, trying vainly to turn the ship and avoid the unavoidable.

Felix stared at the approaching vessel, momentarily frozen by his own helplessness in the face of onrushing destruction. Gotrek cursed and gesticulated, frustrated by the situation, rather than afraid. Crewmen called out warnings from the other side of the merchantman. Felix whirled about and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the second flotilla of galleys sweeping towards the Orfeo from the opposite side. These had what he took to be a hawk or other bird of prey in place of the serpent on their sails, but were otherwise identical to his untrained eye. They were massive and bearing down on him, and that was enough.

‘Looks like we’re caught between a troll and a hard place, manling,’ Gotrek whooped. He shook his axe in a ‘come-hither’ manner at the nearest galley. ‘Come on, you dusty buzzard’s leavings! Come to Gotrek!’

For a moment, Felix thought that Bolinas had, impossibly, manoeuvred his ship out of the path of the galley, and his heart leapt in exultation. Then came the crunch of a bronze ram biting into the aft deck, and the Orfeo was punched aside in an explosion of wood and rigging. Men screamed as they were hurled into the air. The force of the impact tore the ship in two, breaking it at the mast.

Felix was flung high into the air. As if in slow motion, as he turned end over end, he saw Bolinas, still clinging to the wheel, go flying forwards in a cloud of splinters. The burly mate vanished in a cloud of red as the mast toppled sideways and a heavy pulley, broken loose from the rigging, struck his skull and pitched him head over heels into the waiting water. And Gotrek, axe in hand and death-song on his lips, seemed to climb the cloud of debris towards the hull of the galley that had bisected the Orfeo.

Felix’s last glimpse of the Slayer was of the moment when Gotrek’s axe thudded home into the side of the galley. The Slayer had not noticed Felix’s absence. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care. Felix plummeted down into the water.

He struck the water hard, and the air was slapped from his lungs by the force of the impact. The water greedily clutched at him, dragging him down into its depths. His cloak billowed and then shrank around him as he sank, smothering him in its sodden folds even as his lungs threatened to burst from lack of air. The weight of his chainshirt squeezed his aching chest, and he thrashed wildly, trying to free himself of the invisible clutches of the sea. Bodies plunged past him, wheeling about into the darkness in a broken gavotte.

Chunks of splintered wood, broken rigging, rope and barrels pierced the gloom of the water, arcing down, riding the current of the ship’s destruction into the depths. Felix tore the grasping edge of his cloak from his face even as a length of broken spar corkscrewed towards him. It caught him a glancing blow and he was sent spinning through the depths, darkness tugging at his mind even as pain ricocheted through his battered body.

His abused body had reached its limit. Impact after impact had drained the strength from his muscles, and his thrashing grew weaker and weaker as the water enfolded him in its embrace. Salt water burned in his nose and mouth and ears, and he could hear the slowing hammer-beat of his own heart. He could see nothing but motley colours, which swirled and billowed across his mind’s eye. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and rest, just for a moment, until his strength returned.

His last thought before blackness claimed him was to wonder who Gotrek would find to write about his doom now.

CHAPTER 2

The jungles of the Southlands were never silent for the woman called Nitocris.

The trees vibrated with the music of death, from the highest branches to the lowest roots. The air was perfumed with the heady musk of slaughter, and the wind carried the roars of hungry beasts to serenade her as she drowsed.

She lay unmoving on a stone bier, her dusky flesh soaking up the moonlight that streamed down through the gaping hole in the roof of the ziggurat that she had claimed a hundred years before, in a single night of blood and fire.

Her bier occupied the topmost chamber of the ziggurat. The chamber reeked of blood and fear, even now, a century or more since she had claimed it as her citadel. Men and women had gone screaming to their deaths on the bier on which she slumbered, their ribcages burst and their hearts plucked, still pulsing, from their gaping chests. The ghosts of a thousand sacrifices still clung to the vine-strangled stones of the chamber, and they crept through the shadows, hollow-eyed and mutely screaming still as they stalked the quivering phantoms of their slayers in a never-ending chase that provided Nitocris with unceasing amusement.

Veins the hue of ash streaked her flesh. Her hair was the colour of pitch, and so dark that it was almost blue in the moonlight. Her eyes flickered as she dreamt of soft silks and the salt-tinged air of the City of the Dawn. It was a false dream, for she had never been to Lahmia. She had never seen its ivory pillars, engraved with the names of its kings and queens, or the soft-hued marble of its palaces, which mimicked the clouds at dawn. But she wished to. And she would. Such was the command of the Queen of Mysteries.

It was the queen who had shared the dream with Nitocris, long, long ago. She had placed the idea of Lahmia, with all of its wonders and majesty, all that it was and all that it could be, in Nitocris’s mind as gently as she had pierced her flesh with her fangs. As sweetly as she had imparted some of her divine strength to her sister-monarch, and raised Nitocris from the mistress of few, to a queen of many.

And all she asked in return was that Nitocris do as she had always done. All she asked was that the Serpent Queen strike, with fire, fang and ferocity, again and again until the Southlands bowed to the whim of the Queen of Mysteries. It was a small thing, and one Nitocris would have done regardless, and had been doing before she had been inducted into the sisterhood of the Handmaidens of the Moon.

In her sleep, she could hear them, though only faintly. Their voices stretched across trackless deserts, and towering snow-capped mountains such as Nitocris had never seen, but dearly wished to. There was so much to see and experience beyond the swamps and shadows of the Southlands. Her sisters whispered to her of those things, and she caught glimpses of the sun-dappled vineyards of Tilea and the harsh hills of Estalia. She smelt the strange spices that lingered in the air of the Street of Booksellers in Copher, and heard the rattle of drums and the thunder of hooves as the armoured knights of the far distant Empire broke into a gallop. All of these sights and sounds and smells filled her mind almost to bursting, and she groaned in longing. The images spun away like a morning fog, and behind them, her purpose rose up again.

Lahmia, her sisters whispered.

Lahmia, the Queen of Mysteries promised.

‘Lahmia,’ Nitocris murmured. The dream passed, and her eyes flickered and widened. A hiss of disappointment echoed through the chamber, and she sat up. As she did so, her handmaidens rose smoothly from where they’d knelt about her in a great circle. They made no sound, save the rustle of their clothing or the clink of golden jewellery. Nitocris spread her arms and allowed those most favoured in her esteem to raise her from the bier and set her down on the moss-encrusted stone floor.

‘Lahmia, my sisters,’ she said, her voice carrying easily throughout the chamber. She kept her arms extended to either side, and those women who had lifted her began to dress her in her war-panoply, as was the custom.

‘The City of the Dawn, from whence our mother, the Queen of Moonlight and Shadow, the Lady of Air and Darkness, set forth her sandaled foot upon the jewelled thrones of this world and said to them, “Obey”,’ she intoned. As she spoke, her handmaidens slid heavy bracers, wrought from the red iron that lurked in the valleys deep in the interior, over her hands and onto her forearms. ‘She made them whimper like whipped curs, my sisters. Have we not done the same, in her name? Have we not brought low the crude chieftains of our lands, and broken the backs of our enemies, like so?’

She raised her legs, one at a time, allowing her handmaidens to place sandals made from the sinews of a great river crocodile upon her feet. Greaves made from the same strange ore as her bracers were strapped to her shins. ‘Have we not beaten back the two-legged lizards which sought to deny us passage to this frontier?’ she said as her handmaidens slid a cuirass made from the thick, mottled scales of one of the aforementioned creatures about her torso, and cinched tight the rawhide thongs that held it shut. ‘Have we not lined the jungle road with the skulls of our myriad foes, to mark our passage and progress? Have we not left a scar across these lands, a sign that we were here, and that we were strong?’ A robe made from the hides, both false and flesh, of the leopard-worshippers who had once claimed this place as their own, was settled about her shoulders and pinned with a clasp of bone. ‘Have we come far enough, my sisters?’

Many pairs of red eyes met hers, and her handmaidens snarled, as one, ‘No.’

‘No,’ Nitocris purred. ‘No, we have not. Our sisters call to us, my fair ones.’ She flung out a hand. ‘They call to us, and urge us on, for there is much yet to do.’ She pressed her hands to her chest. ‘The dry dead of the treacherous sands still stand between us and that which is ours by right, my sisters. The false dead, the slave dead, who know not the caress of the moon or the pulse of blood – the broken dead, who would dare deny us all that our Queen of Mysteries has promised us. The lands beyond the wastes, the kingdoms beyond the moon and the great water – these are ours,’ she said, digging her claws into her cuirass. She flung out her hands again. ‘This she has promised me, promised us, and by her token, we know it to be true!’

A handmaiden hurried forwards to kneel before Nitocris and raise the heavy, ancient Nehekharan sword, in its sheath of crumbling saurian leather. Nitocris drew the blade and it seemed to sing as it caught the moonlight. It was stained still with the blood of the last person to feel its sting, though that had been centuries ago, and in another land. ‘This,’ Nitocris said softly, clutching the hilt in both hands and pressing the flat of the blade to her face, ‘This blade, which shed the sour blood of our lady’s false friend, the false serpent of decadent Lybaras, is our banner.’ She raised the blade over her head. ‘This blade, this fang, is our decree of war against the usurpers of the empire that is ours by right. For are we not the daughters of Lahmia? Are we not the Handmaidens of the Moon, and the Children of the Dawn? And by this blade, we shall show our queen that we are her true sisters. By this blade, which pierced the breast of the false serpent, the true Serpent Queen shall right the course of things!’

As she shouted those words, her handmaidens raised a cry that echoed throughout the chamber. It was a savage noise, and joyous in its savagery, and Nitocris luxuriated in it. She threw back her head and gave vent to her own pealing cry, like the shriek of some great hunting cat. This was what Nitocris had been built for, from her first breath to her last as a mortal woman. She had been made for battle, the way a sword was made, or a spear.

She had been born in battle. Her mother had given birth to her even as she defended the crude palisades of her tiny kingdom against invaders from the lands of the mangrove coast. Her people had been the people of the serpent even then, worshipping at the altar of the great stone snake that had been carved originally by the two-legged lizards that haunted the ancient cities to the south.

Her mother had raised her to be chieftain, as was her right, and in her youth, Nitocris had proved herself by leading raids deep into the mangrove coast, to harry and break the tribes there and drive them into the shadows.

She had led sorties across the slopes of the fire-mountains, to claim the mineral wealth of the tribes who dwelt there. She had wielded spear and sword against the worshippers of leopards, lizards and bats. She had led a coalition of tribes to repulse invaders from the east and the lands she now knew were called Ind.

Her mother had died at the hands of an armoured raider from some hellish shore, come to take slaves and souls for his skull-hungry god. She had drawn the raider and his followers into the jungles and left them to sink in the mud and marsh, dragged down by their heavy armour while her warriors killed those who made it to solid ground with spear thrust and arrow.

She still had his great helm, with its beast snout and crooked horns and the bloodstains that marked the visor from where she’d pierced his eyes with two quick thrusts of her blade, as a reminder of her mother. She shook off the memories. Such moments were long past and no longer concerned her. Only Lahmia mattered now.

As the echoes of her cry faded, she passed through the ranks of her handmaidens, who fell in behind her. They followed her from the chamber, murmuring to each other. They had been drawn from a dozen tribes over the centuries, offered as tribute initially, and then, when her fame had spread from coast to coast, they had fought for the right to join her. Their tribes were long gone now, dispersed or exterminated in the course of her conquests, but as with their mistress, such mundane matters no longer concerned them. They were daughters of Lahmia now, as much as she was, and it was to Lahmia that their thoughts were turned.

She left the chamber and swept out onto the top of the ziggurat, passing beneath the crude stone arch, shaped like the mouth of a giant skull. The night welcomed her. Bats passed across the surface of the moon above and hundreds of torches lit the grounds below.

From the flat, broken expanse of the roof behind her, the beat of drums throbbed through the steamy air. The thump of those drums pulsed through her, and she knew that it did the same, though to a greater extent, to all the dead. The sound of the drums had wrenched the dead from their holes, and brought them to her. They still did so, in fact. Zombies, human and otherwise, stumbled into the city in groups and singly, following the drums, and her army swelled with every new arrival. She looked down the slope of the ziggurat, towards the rest of the ruin.

The ziggurat occupied the aleph of what had once been a temple city, known by the local tribes as the Temple of Skulls. Crumbled buildings and shattered avenues spread out around it, and all were visible from where she stood. Who the city had belonged to and what fate had befallen them was a mystery she had been unable to solve, more through lack of interest than difficulty. It had been empty of life even in the days of Settra the Imperishable.

When she and her army had arrived, it had been occupied by a tribe with similar aims of conquest to herself. They worshipped a foul deity and waged war to acquire slaves to sacrifice to him. Their priests and champions had worn leopard skins and employed iron talons to shed the blood of their slaves in the name of their murder-god. Nitocris had toppled their altars and butchered their priests and champions, and she had torn the head from the snarling, beast-headed god-thing that had overseen their rites, with its brass collar and blood-dappled fur. The leopard-folk now served her, though in a reduced capacity.

The temple city bustled with activity. Stumbling corpses, animated by the dark will of her handmaidens, carried felled trees to the wharves that lined the sluggish, mosquito-shrouded river running through the northern quarter of the city; there, gangs of emaciated slaves constructed crude dhows and barges. Others forged weapons and armour from scrap iron and bronze to arm the silent legions she had raised from the steaming muck of the jungles. The Southlands were built upon bones; hundreds of generations had risen and fallen, and not just those of men, but of orcs as well, and beasts. As she watched, one such, a massive horn-headed quadruped with an armour-plated tail and a gaping death-wound in its side staggered forwards, dragging a load of lumber towards the shipyards. The dead were her servants, no matter what they had been in life.

‘It is beautiful, in its way, my queen,’ a soft voice said. Nitocris turned. How the newcomer had got so close, without alerting either her or her handmaidens, she could not say. It was one of her more impressive tricks. The woman was pale, paler than Nitocris or any of her handmaidens, and had hair the colour of fresh blood. It hung in sweat-soaked knots and rat-tails from her scalp, and her features were obscured by the tattoo that made it appear as if her face were naught but a grinning skull. Rings of gold, silver and iron decorated her slender fingers, and beneath a thin cloak of feathers, scales and fur, she wore a filthy burnoose, taken from some unfortunate and ill-fated Arabayan. His blood still stained it, in places. She had shed that blood with his sword, which she had also taken, and now wore belted about her waist. She rested a palm on the pommel and inclined her head. ‘The dead are so much more pleasant than the living. Don’t you agree?’

‘That depends entirely on the nature of the dead, Octavia,’ Nitocris said. ‘Some are less pleasant than others.’

‘True,’ Octavia said. ‘As ever, my queen, you speak a mighty truth.’ She hesitated. Nitocris examined her, surreptitiously. Octavia was a native of those far-off lands that so haunted her, crimson haired and milky fleshed, her accent strange and harsh, like the caw of a scavenger bird. She had a peculiar grace, though. Nitocris had noticed it the very first moment she had seen her, staggering along in a slave caravan, bound for an Arabayan outpost near the Gulf of Medes. Nitocris and her warriors, in need of repast, had descended upon that caravan in a fury of fang and claw, and amidst the carnage, Octavia had seized her moment with an alacrity that was at once endearing and worrisome. Endearing, because Nitocris valued ferocity in her servants, but worrisome, for Octavia’s mind moved as quickly as Nitocris’s own.

She had almost killed Octavia then and there, but something about her, some darkling pulse just beneath her flesh, had warned Nitocris that to do so would be a mistake. And when Octavia had dragged her enslaver to his feet and set him to freeing her, with his fumbling dead hands, Nitocris had smiled then, even as she smiled now, her lip curling to expose one long, delicate fang. ‘What do you wish to say, woman?’

‘My brothers,’ Octavia said, bluntly. ‘Where are they?’

Nitocris made a careless gesture. ‘Out there, somewhere,’ she said. Her handmaidens giggled. Octavia did not deign to notice their tittering. Her eyes were only for Nitocris.

‘You should not have sent them away,’ Octavia said, softly, respectfully.

‘I do what I wish with what is mine, necromancer,’ Nitocris purred. ‘You gave them to me, and I must find use for them, eh?’

‘I did not give them to you,’ Octavia protested. There was a hint of anger in her words, and Nitocris smiled again. It was rare that the necromancer showed any emotion. Her brothers were her weak spot, unworthy beasts though they were. ‘You took them.’

‘Either way, they are mine, as you are mine, Octavia of Ostermark.’

‘Altdorf,’ Octavia said.

‘What?’

‘I’m from Altdorf, my queen. Not Ostermark,’ Octavia said.

Nitocris blinked, momentarily nonplussed. There was no insult in Octavia’s words, no hidden jibe. It was merely a statement of correction, said without thought or agenda. That made it worse. She frowned. ‘That is what I said,’ she growled.

Her handmaidens had ceased their giggling, and they watched, ready to leap upon Octavia at her command. Indeed, she knew that many among them would take any opportunity to do so, even as they had taken the necromancer’s brothers for their playthings. She had punished her sisters for that – men were not worthy of her kiss. They were not worthy of eternity, and not necessary. Octavia, however, was.

Nitocris raised a hand, and her sisters relaxed, though their red gazes did not waver from Octavia, who, for her part, didn’t seem in the least concerned. And perhaps she wasn’t. This close, Nitocris could feel the chill of the cold fire that burned in the necromancer. There was power in that pale frame, at once lesser and greater than her own.

Nitocris had learned the arts of death at the feet of her queen, who had tutored her in the ways of their kind, even as she shaped the course of Nitocris’s coming centuries. But while Nitocris’s will was strong enough to control armies of the dead and even raise small numbers of them, her skill with the formulas of the Corpse Geometries was lacking. The bloated zombies of marsh and river could not resist her call, but the phantoms of ruin and jungle slipped through her fingers like sand. Octavia, however, had a gift for ghosts. They swarmed about her like loyal pets, and she plucked them from the bodies of the slain with the same ease that Nitocris could pluck out a man’s heart.

It was Octavia who had raised the fleet of Cathayan war-junks, Arabayan dhows and Imperial merchantmen from the greedy waters, and drawn their waterlogged crews upriver to the Temple of Skulls, where they now sat in hastily constructed quays, waiting to take her legions on board. And it was Octavia who would enable her to tumble the stones of Lybaras.

‘Of course, my queen,’ Octavia said. She inclined her head. It wasn’t quite a bow, but it was as close as the red-headed woman got. ‘I merely misheard.’

Nitocris growled softly. Then, she sniffed and looked away. ‘I sent your brothers away. They cannot control themselves. They are rapacious, and we cannot afford to spare any more slaves to feed their gluttony.’

‘If you would let them stay by my side, I could control them,’ Octavia said.

‘Yes, I know,’ Nitocris said. She looked at Octavia and added, ‘Another reason I sent them away.’

Octavia frowned. She made as if to protest, but then visibly thought better of it. Instead, she said, ‘My scouts report that the Serpent Queen’s fleet has engaged that of Mahrak in the Bitter Sea.’

‘Do not call her that,’ Nitocris snapped, whirling to face the necromancer. Octavia frowned and stepped back. ‘I am the Serpent Queen. That false creature is nothing but a memory long overdue for forgetting,’ Nitocris snarled, snapping her fangs. The words were not hers, but those of her mistress. She had learned them by rote, and they sprang unbidden to her lips. The way her queen had spoken of the warrior-queen of Lybaras had always disturbed her. Fondness for an enemy was an alien emotion to Nitocris. Enemies were for killing, not for sighing over.

And the false serpent of Lybaras was her enemy now, even as she was the enemy of all the children of the City of the Dawn. Nitocris would break her. She would sweep aside her city and rebuild it over into a gateway to Lahmia.

‘As you say, my queen,’ Octavia said. She raised her hands in a placating gesture. ‘I merely wished to inform you of the success of your plan.’

Nitocris nodded, mollified. She turned and raised the sheathed Nehekharan blade over her head. ‘Do you hear, my sisters? Our enemies fall upon each other like squabbling apes. Their eyes turn from us, and we shall use their distraction to strike. First, we pull Lybaras to pieces stone by stone, and then – Lahmia!’

As the vampires shrieked in jubilation, Octavia, forgotten, began to make her way carefully down the steep stairs of the ziggurat. Her fingers tapped out an idle, cheerful rhythm on the pommel of her blade, though she felt anything but.

As she descended, she cast a wary eye at the jungle, which crouched just outside the rapidly expanding line of felled trees that ringed the ruined city. She had never liked forests, and a jungle was just a very hot, very wet forest. She watched a gang of zombies topple an ancient tree and smiled. The smile faded a moment later.

It had all gone so wrong, so very quickly. It had been life at its worst: chaotic, dangerous, and confusing. That was why she preferred death and the dead. Change was her enemy, even as much as the idiot living who sought to free her of her fleshy bonds. She had never been good with change. New things had confused her, even as a girl. Routine was her salvation and shield, a bulwark against an overwhelming world. Repetition, pattern and precision were her tools in dealing with happenstance.

When her parents had perished in one of the many, many minor plagues that periodically swept through the poorer quarters of Altdorf, she had sat in her room, on her bed, staring out the window for days on end as her mind tried to process the sudden absence of the two people whose presence she thought inviolate.

Never before had life struck at her so directly. It had gone rampaging on, sweeping all remnants of her parents away, and bringing upheaval in its wake. It had been in that period of paralysis that the scales had fallen from her eyes. To live was to be trapped in the chains of change, to grow, to wither and to vanish. Entropy feeding entropy, life spreading life even as it devoured the living. Madness, it was all madness. Only in death was there true stability, for the dead did not, could not, change. She longed for death, in those early days, before she’d realised the selfishness of such longings.

Death was a gift. That most folk were too ignorant to see it as such was no matter.

She had started small, with scraps of lore gleaned from the hedge-witches and alleyway wizards who promised miracles for a guilder, and scattered at the sight of a witch hunter. New things those, but she had assembled them into a routine that had gradually expanded. By the time she’d made the acquaintance of the little Tilean with the black teeth, change no longer frightened her, though it still frustrated her to no end.

He had been her last teacher and her best – Franco Fiducci, with his strange spectacles and his funny way of speaking. Her brothers had not liked him. They had not liked her studies either, but they were determined to protect her, her faithful, unwavering brothers. Fiducci had taught her much, before he’d run afoul of the templars of Morr and been forced to flee Altdorf in a night of fire and screams.

She’d liked the little man, his funny accent and clownish ways. He had tattooed her face for her, upon her request. And he had taught her the beautiful formulas of the Corpse Geometries, and set her feet on the path that had brought her to her current situation.

‘In Araby,’ he had assured her, ‘there is knowledge that was old when Sigmar was puking up his mother’s milk.’ So to Araby she had gone, and across Araby she had travelled, following secrets and scraps, learning more and more; and as she learned, her plan had grown from the merest whim to a desire, and then, to a strategy.

It was a strategy that hinged upon one factor: the lost libraries of Lahmia. It was, according to respectable sources, the greatest necromantic library in the world. It was the source of all modern writings on death and the arts associated with it. As the black legends that had led her into the desert told it, it was in Lahmia where the arts of necromancy had flourished in the wake of their discovery by the Great Necromancer. It was on Lahmia she had set her sights.

And it was thanks to Lahmia that she had tumbled into her current circumstances.

Her fingers snapped tight about the pommel of her blade. She paused, memories of that night a lifetime away, for all that it had only been a few months, seeping to the surface of her consciousness. The nomads had taken her by surprise, and her brothers had been left bleeding and dying after an attempt to rescue her some days later. When Nitocris had torn through the nomads not long after, she had begged the vampire to let them die. Instead, Nitocris had handed them over to her handmaidens, who had done as vampires invariably did. They were profligate creatures. Fiducci had said that the only reason the vampire counts of Sylvania had failed in their bid to take the Empire was due to their excessive numbers. One vampire was a persuasive argument. A hundred vampires was merely an extended squabble.

She much preferred the company of the quiet dead to those who insisted on having a conversation. She paused on a wide, flat landing, and looked out over the ruin, and the silent legions that laboured under the lash of her will. She had dredged the dead from every rain-swollen river and root-choked battlefield for a hundred miles. Man, animal and otherwise, they had come stumbling through the jungle and still came at her call. They loved her, and she loved them.

Octavia cocked her head and listened to the pounding of the drums, echoing down from the top of the ziggurat. She had crafted them herself, from the flayed flesh of the nomads who had captured her, and she had set their fleshless bones to pounding out the night-black rhythm that stirred the dead in their holes and bowers. Their spirits had thanked her for it. Their lives had been short, chaotic and brutal. But now, in death, they had purpose. The drums were a simple enough conjuring and more efficient than Nitocris’s own necromantic fumbling. While the drums beat, the dead would come. When the drums stopped, those corpses that had not already arrived would sink back into oblivion, returning to the long night of the grave.

Octavia sighed softly and looked up. Phantoms, spectres and ghosts wafted through the air like leaves on the wind. They choked the night sky, lured to the ruin by the drums even as the more solid of their kind were. They swirled about one another, seemingly heedless and unheeding, unless you knew what to look for. Idly, she raised a hand over her head and spread her fingers. The ghosts hovering directly overhead began to circle her like a flock of trained crows as her magics touched what was left of their minds. Ghosts and their sort were personalities bereft of body, even as zombies were bodies without personality. It was what made the former so decidedly unpleasant and difficult to control. Unless you know how to talk to them, she mused.

She gestured gently, and they drifted down towards her, clustering about her in a clammy fog. She reached out, stroking ethereal faces and brushing wispy hairs from agonized faces. The ghosts pushed towards her like eager pets, drinking up her warmth, and she shivered in pleasure. ‘Gently now, gently,’ she murmured, as they clutched at her, billowing past one another in their hunger. ‘There is enough for all.’ She closed her eyes, and let the chill clutch of the dead soothe her anxieties.

Soothing as it was, it was dangerous to allow them to suckle at her soul, for there was always the chance that they would take too much. If that ever happened, if she were too weak to pull away from them, she would join their motley throng. She felt the siren call of that twilight existence more strongly now than ever before. She did not long for death, for there was still much work to be done, but she hungered for it nonetheless. It ate at her soul, though she knew that should her heart cease to beat she would be unable to indulge in sweet oblivion. She would rise again, to complete her task. She clutched at one of the amulets she wore. It was a small, innocuous thing, in the shape of a woman’s mouth, and she brought it to her lips and kissed it.

Something growled, and she looked up. A pair of leopards climbed the ziggurat towards her, their eyes shining faintly in the moonlight.

She gestured and the ghosts departed, though reluctantly. She watched them rise to join the others and then she extended a hand to the newcomers. Their rough, dry tongues kissed her fingers. Like everything else in the city, save for the slaves, the big cats were dead. Bone showed through their fur in places, and their skin hung from them in wasted folds. Nonetheless, they were still mighty beasts.

Octavia sank to one knee and they came forward, their heavy skulls settling gently on her shoulders as she hugged them tight. She closed her eyes, breathing in their sickly sweet stink. She plucked a maggot from the ear of one and popped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment, considering. Then she dragged their heads close to her own and said, ‘Find my brothers.’

She released them and stood. The big cats sprang away with hoarse growls and bounded down the ziggurat. They pelted through the crowds of zombies, streaking towards the jungle. Octavia watched them go. Then she looked back towards the apex of the ziggurat, where Nitocris still stood. The vampire was arrogant, conceited and single-minded; a dead woman with all the worst qualities of the living.

But she would take Octavia to Lahmia. And that was all that mattered.

CHAPTER 3

Felix awoke to the shrieking of dead men.

Or so his jumbled thoughts insisted. His mind was filled with the shapes of drowning sailors, sinking past him into the depths of the Bitter Sea, clawing vainly for the surface. As he jolted awake, he fancied that they had grabbed him, to pull him down into the depths as well. His head jerked up, and a hoarse, whooping scream escaped his raw throat.

Brightly coloured birds rose from the tangled ceiling of branches above him, crying out shrilly in reply. It was their cries that had awakened him, and that he had mistaken for the screams of the Orfeo’s unfortunate crew.

Felix let his head fall back, against the rough bark of a tree. The air stank of swamp and rot, and he was soaked through with muddy seawater. Weak drizzles of sunlight dripped through the mass of branches overhead. It was day, though what day, and what time of day, he had no clue. He lay waist-deep in sludgy, shifting water, his arms and legs tangled in the fat roots of the looming mangrove trees. Insects spattered against his muddy features, seeking bare flesh, and he extricated a hand to fend them off. He gave a cry of disgust as he saw the fat leeches that clung to his palm and wrist, and he clawed at them, his heart hammering in his chest.

‘Gotrek,’ he rasped, then, after mustering more volume, ‘Gotrek!’ It was instinct that made him cry out for the Slayer. A moment later, he recalled his last sight of Gotrek, as he had hurled himself at the galley that had smashed Bolinas’s vessel to flinders. He fell silent. In any event, the only reply he received was the screams of startled birds, and the splash of something sliding into the water. The latter provoked images of the giant snakes and reptiles that he’d been assured lurked in the Southlands, and he flailed at the roots and fought against the soft, sucking eddy of the tide that had carried him into the depths of what surely must be the Shifting Mangrove Coastline.

What he knew of the eastern coast of the Southlands could be written on a scrap of paper. A very small scrap, with room left over for a map and a few personal anecdotes.

It was supposedly nothing but an immense, extended mangrove swamp for miles on end, resting on a sargasso of roots and decay. He’d spoken to men in Sartosa who’d seen it, or explored portions of it, for the coast was as far as most got. The mangroves were less inhospitable than the steaming jungles of the interior, but they were still more dangerous than most were comfortable with. Poisonous snakes, hungry saurians, stinging insects and savage tribes were but some of the dangers that lurked amongst the close-set greenery. Even the elves didn’t come into the mangroves, if they could help it.

The water wasn’t deep, but it had a strong grip. Felix finally pushed himself to his feet and clambered awkwardly up onto the roots of a mangrove tree, Karaghul flopping unhelpfully against his leg. He was relieved that the blade had somehow remained by his side, all odds to the contrary. His cloak was stiff and heavy with mud and grime, and his boots were filled with silt. Luckily his journal was wrapped in oilskin, or it would have been ruined as well. He pawed ineffectually at the filth on his face and searched intently for any more leeches. Finding none, he breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled his gloves from his belt and slipped them on. Despite the heat, he thought it best to be as covered as possible.

Resting from his exertions, he looked about him. Everywhere he looked were hulking mangrove trees that clogged the water with their coiling roots and blocked the sky with their thick, intertwining branches. The trees were so tightly packed here that he could use the roots as a makeshift boardwalk. But he could hear the soft susurrus of the tide somewhere close by.

Felix sank into a crouch and rested his back against the trunk of the tree he’d been tangled in. He had no idea where he was, in relation to where the Orfeo had gone down. The current could have carried him for miles, as strong as it had been. It was only luck that had carried him into the shallows.

That or it was the whim of the gods. Felix cocked his head, peered up at the green roof over his head and muttered, ‘Many thanks, Sigmar, Ulric, Myrmidia, Manann, Taal, Rhya, Shallya, Ranald, Grimnir and whoever else watches out for fools, adventurers and dwarf-friends.’ If the gods heard, they gave no sign. Felix sighed and rested his wrists on his knees.

He would take a moment to regain his strength, and then decide what to do. He’d lived rough before, and there was likely no shortage of game in the mangroves, though potable water was going to be a problem. He scratched his chin, trying to not to think about how thirsty he was. He’d gone without before, he could do so again.

As he sat, he wondered whether Gotrek had met his doom. It seemed less glorious than the Slayer might wish, but then, being picky had kept Gotrek alive far longer than most doom-seekers. Of course, Felix would never say that to the Slayer’s face. At best, he’d get a scowling, and at worst, a thrashing.

That Gotrek had never struck him, in the entirety of their association, did not preclude the possibility of it ever happening. Gotrek would never be accused of being sensitive, but the subject of his persistence on this side of the veil was a sore one.

Gotrek had cleaned out entire alehouses after an innocent prodding from mouthy fools the worse for drink. Once or twice, those fools had even been dwarfs, who really ought to have known better.

Felix closed his eyes, imagining it. Gotrek would have made the rail, of course. The Slayer had scaled mountains, ridden across rivers of magma, hacked through glaciers and fought his way through armies just to reach whatever that moment’s worthy doom was. Gravity and arrows would be little hindrance. No, he would have made the rail and the deck, and then what? Most assuredly a cloud of bone-chips if any of the dead men who were on the galley tried to get in his way. He frowned. It would have been arrows, in the end. Even Gotrek couldn’t fight arrows, though he’d given it a try more than once. Felix could see it, in his mind’s eye. He could see the arrows, loosed by skeletal hands, flashing through the moonlight to pierce scarred flesh and finally, at long last, bring down Gotrek Gurnisson as dead men looked on in emotionless satisfaction.

A sense of melancholy swept through him as the image flashed and faded. That was no fitting doom for Gotrek. Gotrek had battled daemons and dragons. He had traded axe-blows with Garmr the Gorehound, torn the head from Arek Daemonclaw and saved Nuln. He had fought Mannfred Von Carstein, for Sigmar’s sake!

But there was no other outcome. Hundreds of enemies would have been waiting for him on that galley, armed to the teeth, and unafraid of a lone, albeit utterly mad, dwarf. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed that he could almost hear Gotrek’s bellicose death-song, bulling its way through the muggy air. A moment later he blinked. He sat upright with a suddenness that almost sent him toppling from his perch. He had heard something!

Not Gotrek, but something else. Felix rose to his feet, his head cocked. Sound moved oddly in the trees. Was that a scream, or perhaps a cry for help?

Felix began to move towards the noise, scrabbling across the latticework of tree roots. His boots slipped and slid on the wet bark, and more than once he was nearly pitched headfirst into the dark, muddy water that swirled below. But he kept his balance, and gradually increased his pace, until he was pelting across the roots, his aching muscles and growing thirst forgotten.

The strands of sunlight that punctuated the dim interior of the mangroves faded, and grew strained even as he spotted the first bit of debris – a broken section of spar, lodged in the roots of several trees, as he himself had been. He saw more and more of it, and he began to follow the debris, rather than the noise, which was growing intermittent and faded. Sections of mast, tatters of rigging and broken pulleys clogged the waterways between the root systems of the mangroves. Here and there he saw bodies as well, bloated from their drowning, and broken by the current. Once or twice, he almost stepped on one, and his stomach protested sternly as he forced himself to hop over the bedraggled carcass. He recognized none of them, for which he was thankful.

The Orfeo had been split in two; there was no reason to think that some of the crew hadn’t managed to survive, clinging to the prow section. If the current had carried him into the shallows beneath the mangroves, it could have done the same for them. His heart leapt at the thought.

It sank a moment later. He had been correct in his reasoning. But others had got to it first. Felix slowed as the thick knot of trees that rose ahead of him like a green curtain suddenly echoed with growls and snarls. Interspersed were pathetic screams, weak and thready and then, abruptly silenced. Felix crept through the trees, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Every instinct he possessed screamed for him to run back the way he‘d come, that the gods had seen fit to spare him whatever fate had befallen the poor soul beyond the curtain of trees just ahead. But he pressed on. Fear hadn’t quite been burned out of him by his association with Gotrek, but it had been tempered by curiosity. Also, Felix had never been one to stand around and let other men suffer, when he might be able to prevent it. And the sounds slithering about him from just ahead were definitely those of suffering.

But his time with Gotrek had also taught him caution. The Slayer might have gone charging in, but Felix was far less durable. He cast about him quickly, and then, with a grimace, he slid slowly from the boardwalk of roots into the water. The current was strong, even here, and it clutched at him. He forced himself down into the muck and mud, and pulled the filth-encrusted hood of his cloak up over his head. He’d learned the trick from a forester in the Drakwald, who covered himself in dirt, leaves and dung to obscure his scent and shape from the beastmen he hunted for bounty. Felix hadn’t believed that such a tactic would work, until he’d seen the man slither across the forest floor like an ambulatory patch of night soil and cut the legs right out from under a goat-headed sentry.

Covered in his damp, muddy cloak, and up to his armpits in the water, he began to pull himself hand over hand through the network of roots, careful to make no more noise than necessary. Luckily, the current was loud enough to hide the sound of his passage.

The water was dark and shadows obscured the tangled roots, and though he could see weak sunlight filtering through the cracks between branches above, beneath the trees it was as dark as dusk.

His fingers tightened about Karaghul’s hilt as he caught sight of a shattered section of the hull of the Orfeo. It had slid through the trees, uprooting several, and had come to rest on its side on a hummock of semi-solid earth, with most of it extended out over the water. Several bodies had accompanied it, carried in its wake, most likely. Debris lay scattered about, floating in the shallow water or hanging from the trees, and a section of mast had fallen athwart a large mangrove, creating an improvised gibbet, from which a single, bloodied form dangled. He had been caught beneath his armpits by the coils of rope, and his feet dangled limply as he twisted slowly. His face, blackened by bruises and slow, ongoing asphyxiation, hung slack on a head that lolled loosely. Every so often, a wheezing whimper escaped his slack lips. With a chill, Felix realised that it had been the cries of this poor soul that he’d heard. And, below him, gathered like jackals, were the entities responsible for those other, more horrible noises.

Felix had faced the gaunt, grey shapes that leapt and clawed for the dying man’s feet before, and more than once. Ghouls, though somewhat different from those he’d faced before, were covered in barbaric tattoos, and their swollen flesh was punctured in places by bone needles and animal claws. Felix felt a rush of bile as he caught a whiff of their pungent stink. They smelt of sour milk and rotten meat, and they provoked disgust in him greater even than did the skaven. Ghouls were a cracked reflection of men, debased and brought low by the taste of human flesh and necromancy, not necessarily willingly. Though they were no longer men, they had once been so, and he hated them, even as he pitied them.

Some of the ghouls yelped and barked and hissed as they fought and shoved and leapt to swipe at the soles of the dangling man’s feet. Others squatted silently, watching him with the patience of scavengers everywhere. There were a dozen of the cannibals, far more than Felix was comfortable dealing with alone. He hesitated. They hadn’t noticed him yet. He could simply slip back into the mangroves, and retreat to safety.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something long and darkly colourful sliding towards him across the surface of the water. Felix froze as the snake drew across his line of sight, within easy striking distance of his eyes. He didn’t recognise the species, but it hardly mattered. Its bite was likely lethal, unless it was one of the ones that killed by spraying poison. Either way, he was as good as dead if he riled it up. The snake turned slowly towards him, its bright, flat gaze examining him with all the curiosity of a kitten.

Slowly, slowly, it began to wriggle towards him across the water, its tongue flickering. Felix’s heart began to hammer so loudly that he feared the ghouls might hear him. The snake inched closer, studying him intently. Desperate, mouth dry, blood pulsing in his ears and his heart twitching in his chest, Felix raised his hand to just below the waterline, palm first, so that the snake slid over it. Then, before it could escape, he snapped his fingers closed, pinning its head. With a convulsive jerk, he sent the snake sailing through the air and as far away from him as he could manage. It hit the water with a short, sharp splash.

One of the ghouls, closer to him than the others, crouched on a chunk of mast that extended at an angle from the water and gnawing on an arm wrenched from the corpse of one of the bodies scattered about nearby, whirled like a startled cat, its yellow gaze alert. Its jaw worked unconsciously as it eyed the trees warily, chewing a stringy lump of muscle and fat. The ghoul swallowed its morsel and relaxed, turning back to watch its pack-mates caper and quarrel. Felix realised that he’d half-drawn Karaghul, and slowly eased the blade back into its sheath.

The dangling crewman moaned and the ghouls beneath him set up a raucous howl, as if encouraging the former to die swiftly. Felix closed his eyes and whispered a quiet prayer to Sigmar. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t leave – not if there was any chance he could save the crewman. He released Karaghul’s hilt and instead drew his dagger. It was a long, thin, pointed blade of Tilean design, elegant and lethal. It was not a cutting blade, but a stabbing one, meant for sliding into the sides of throats or between ribs, and Felix had, much to his shame, used it so more than once. His mind shied away from the thought. He had never killed, save in necessity, but that didn’t make the red in his ledger any easier to contemplate.

Slowly, Felix eased forward, sinking down so that only his nose and eyes remained above water, and those were hidden by the dip of his hood. He pushed himself towards the closest ghoul. He would have to be quick, and merciless, otherwise he’d join the unfortunate crewman on the feast-table. As he drew close to the ghoul he made sure that the beast was between him and its fellows. When the other ghouls set up another loud caterwauling, Felix struck, rising swiftly and snaking one gloved palm across the creature’s mouth even as he drove his dagger up into its back. The blade was sharp, and he knew where to put it. The ghoul spasmed as Felix drew it backwards into the water as swiftly and as silently as possible.

It kicked once, as he shoved it down beneath the wreckage. After sawing his knife about inside it to ensure its death, he withdrew the blade and swung himself around the wreckage it had been crouching on. The others had not yet noticed their comrade’s absence from its perch. That gave him the advantage, if his luck held. Grimly, Felix began to swim towards the shattered section of hull, where several more ghouls crouched and gnawed on the pasty remnants of dead sailors. His plan, such as it was, wasn’t the best, but it was all he could come up with. Too intent on their meals or the entertainment provided by the dying man, none of the brutes noticed Felix as he slithered into the wreckage beneath them. He peered up through the web of shattered timber and stretched rigging at the closest of the cannibals, and used the hilt of his dagger to rap on a dangling pulley.

At the sudden, sharp clatter, the ghoul peered down with a puzzled grunt. Still clutching the lump of gnawed gristle in its malformed jaws, it began to descend through the web of debris towards the water, its head angled down and its body contorted like that of a lizard climbing down a wall. Felix, hidden by his cloak and the wreckage, waited with his dagger ready. As the ghoul passed through the shadows of the hull, its eyes glowed with a feral phosphorescence that put Felix in mind of an alley cat hunting for mice.

The ghoul paused in its descent and sniffed the air. It was less than an arm’s length above Felix, and it looked everywhere save straight down. Felix tensed and then uncoiled like a spring, the point of his dagger piercing the soft flesh beneath the creature’s jaw and plunging upwards into its brain. Felix caught the body as it fell and dragged it beneath the water even as he had the first, though with a great deal more noise.

It couldn’t be helped, but he knew the element of surprise was gone. He shoved the twitching ghoul down, lodging it beneath the wreckage, and crawled away, keeping his head below water. By the time he surfaced a few feet away, from under a layer of rope, his lungs were burning and he greedily sucked in a lungful of air. Ghouls clustered on the top of the wreckage, peering down and making soft questioning sounds. Four of them, Felix saw. That left half a dozen outside the wreckage. Slowly, the beasts began to descend, calling out in barbarous grunts for their missing companion.

Felix knew that he would only have a moment to deal with them before the others came to investigate. He would have to be quick. Quietly, moving no more than necessary, he pushed himself up out of the water and waited. The ghouls began to squirm through the wreckage, sniffing and growling to one another. Perhaps they thought their pack-mate had found a hidden treat, or maybe their capacity for concern was not lessened by their bestial nature. Felix doubted the latter; in other encounters, he’d seen the creatures turn on their weaker pack-mates readily enough when they were peckish. As they turned away from him, he began to climb. Not far, and not fast, but just enough to get above the four ghouls who now prowled through the water like ambulatory crocodiles.

Dagger in hand, he waited until one drew below him and then let himself fall onto its broad, bony back. His cloak flared about him and covered his prey, even as he used both hands to ram his dagger through the back of the ghoul’s neck. His weight drove it beneath the water, but his strike hadn’t been as true as his previous two blows. The ghoul was dying, but it was not dead. Gargling on its own blood, his dagger lodged in its neck, it writhed beneath him. A flailing backhand caught Felix and sent him crashing back into the water.

The dying ghoul rose with a strangled shriek, and clawed at its neck. Felix, desperate, lashed out with his foot and caught it in its bloated belly. The ghoul made a choking sound and bent double. Felix threw himself forward, planted his palms against its back, and slid over the retching ghoul. As he splashed down behind it, he twisted swiftly about and snatched his dagger free. The ghoul reared up, and Felix drove the blade into its back again and again in a flurry of blows. The ghoul sagged with a sigh, and as it fell, Felix saw that its fellows were clambering towards him with simian agility.

With a curse, he sent the dagger hurtling towards the closest of the creatures. Without waiting to see whether it had struck, he ripped Karaghul from its sheath and lunged to meet the beasts. He held the sword like a spear and thrust it forwards with both hands, catching one of the ghouls in the chest as it flung itself at him. The ancient templar blade pierced the ghoul’s rubbery flesh with ease, and it vomited blood. Its scabrous talons plucked at his wrists, and its jaws champed in mindless agony. Felix jerked back. He’d felt Karaghul bite bone, and the blade was lodged in the thing’s chest. He lost his grip on the sword as the third ghoul sprang onto him, bowling him over. He splashed back into the water, the ghoul’s taloned fingers scrabbling at his throat. Felix smashed his forearm into the brute’s twisted features, forcing it to pull back. He drove a punch into its jaw, and it rolled away from him with a snarl.

Felix flailed, searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon. His hand found a jagged strip of wood and as the ghoul threw itself on him again, jaws wide, Felix shoved the long splinter down its throat. It flopped off him, twitching and fumbling at its mouth. Felix pushed himself up, grabbed the creature by its scalp and forced its head beneath the water. It clawed at him, tearing gouges in his sleeves and its claws became tangled in his chainshirt, but he didn’t release it until it had stopped thrashing.

When it had gone limp, he released it and rose, turning to look for the remaining ghoul. His heart rattled against his ribcage, and his breath came in harsh, rasping gasps. Adrenaline surged through him, and his limbs trembled with exertion. He swiped sweat and blood out of his face and saw the ghoul, dead, his dagger jutting from its eye. He swallowed and made his way towards it, to pluck his dagger free. Then he turned towards the one he’d pinned with Karaghul.

It was still alive and it whined as it saw him start towards it. It fumbled at the blade with nerveless fingers and tried to squirm away as he approached. Felix hesitated. He felt slightly sick as he contemplated the raw fear in the ghoul’s eyes. Then he remembered the dangling crewman, and the screams he’d heard. There had been other survivors, before the ghouls had got to them. His expression hardened. He reached out and took the hilt of his sword and gave it a twist and a shove. The ghoul gave a rattling groan and died. Felix tore the sword free and hefted it.

A noise from above caught his attention. He looked up. The remaining six ghouls stared down at him, their expressions unreadable. Felix met their gazes and said, ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’

The ghouls shrieked as one and began to spring down towards him. They clambered and swung and pounced, wailing and howling. Felix felt no fear, only resignation. It had only been the sheerest luck that he had survived fighting four of the beasts. Six was at least two too many, and he readied himself to meet them as best he could, hip-deep in brackish water, his limbs leaden with exhaustion. He tightened his grip on his sword and dagger.

The first ghoul came at him in a wild lunge, with a bestial yell. Felix swept Karaghul up and across in a sloppy example of an Altdorf mittelhau. The ghoul, caught in midair, flipped head over heels, trailing brackish blood. Felix met the second, which dived under the tumbling body of its fellow, with his dagger. He drove the blade into the ghoul’s belly, even as its teeth slammed down on his shoulder, snagging in the sleeve of his chainshirt. Hauled off balance, Felix staggered. He was forced to release his dagger, and the ghoul clutched bonelessly at him, pulling him off balance.

With a strangled yell, he shoved the dying cannibal away, but not quickly enough. A ghoul snaked its arm around his throat, hauling him back. Another latched on to his sword-arm, dragging it down. He pounded futilely at the arm around his throat with his free hand.

The remaining two beasts charged towards him, eyes alight with a hideous hunger.

Felix kicked out at them. He caught one in the face and felt its jaw crunch at the point of impact. The other crashed into him and its fingers snagged his hair. It yanked his head aside, and hissed in obvious delight.

Felix continued to struggle, but he was pinned. The ghouls tittered in delight, and he could smell their foul breath as it washed over him. He closed his eyes, awaiting the fatal bite.

And as crooked, yellowing fangs grazed his throat he gave vent to a final yell.

CHAPTER 4

The ghoul grunted. Felix cracked an eyelid. The ghoul that had been preparing to bite out his throat stepped back, a confused look on its face. It reached up with a trembling claw to gingerly touch the tip of the arrow that had suddenly sprouted from between its open jaws. It grunted again, and then toppled backwards into the water with a splash. The remaining ghouls released Felix and scuttled off, splashing away from the wreckage and their intended prey.

Felix slumped, leaning on his sword. He looked up. A man stood perched on the curve of the ruptured hull, a second arrow notched and ready to let fly. ‘You don’t speak Reikspiel, by chance?’ the newcomer shouted down.

‘I’m from Altdorf,’ Felix coughed.

‘Small world, so am I,’ the archer laughed. He lowered his bow. ‘Can’t be too sure, though. We get all kinds on this coast – Estalians, Tileans, Norscans, and all of them rattling on in their own languages, rather than learning a proper tongue.’ He paused. ‘Another few moments, and you’d have been meat for the beast, neighbour.’ He was a lean man, almost cadaverous, and pale despite the climate. He wore a battered breastplate, its markings long since scoured off by the elements. A long sword was sheathed on his hip, and beneath his piecemeal armour he wore the grimy leathers of a seasoned traveller.

‘I thank you for your timely intervention,’ Felix said. He grabbed his dagger and jerked it from the dead ghoul’s belly. He wiped it clean on his trousers and sheathed it. He looked up at his saviour and said, ‘Out of curiosity, where in the name of Sigmar did you come from?’

The archer frowned. ‘Mangrove Port,’ he said, ‘Where else?’

Felix almost sagged in relief. ‘Thank Sigmar.’ If his rescuer was from the port that meant that they hadn‘t been driven as far off course as he’d feared. For a moment, he was paralysed by the possibilities filling his head, now that he knew he wasn’t going to die out here. He could catch a ship for, well, anywhere. Relief warred with sadness. If Gotrek was dead, then he was free. He was free of his obligations, free to go where he wanted, without regard to a taciturn travelling companion. He could go home, or to Marienburg, or back to Tilea. Felix twitched, sending the thoughts fluttering away. It was best to stay in the here and now, until his feet were on familiar ground. He’d known Gotrek long enough to know that until he saw the body, there was every reason to believe the Slayer had survived, regardless of the odds. His thoughts of Tilea, and Altdorf, faded.

‘I’m happy to accept your gratitude, neighbour, but no need to deify me,’ the archer said as he slung his bow. ‘My name’s Sigmund, Sigmund Steyr, late of Altdorf and currently of this fine garden of rapturous delight. Come, let me give you a hand up, herr…?’

‘Jaeger,’ Felix said, climbing towards Steyr’s extended hand. ‘Felix Jaeger.’ He caught Steyr’s hand and found himself hauled up onto the hull. Steyr was strong, and surprisingly so, for being so thin. He looked up at the roof of branches and squinted.

Felix saw that the shafts of sunlight had turned a dull grey, and guessed that the sun was hidden by clouds. From overhead came the rumble of thunder. It rattled down, causing the tree branches to clatter in sympathy.

‘Well, Felix, we ought to get under cover. It’s the rainy season, and the sky will soon be weeping fit to drown a man where he stands.’ Steyr raised his hands to his mouth and shouted, ‘Ho! Greedy-guts! Patty-cake! I found one!’

Felix blinked. ‘Greedy-guts?’ he asked.

‘Gregory, my brother,’ Steyr said, ‘and Pieter, my other brother.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Be glad my sister Octopus isn’t here, or you’d be getting the whole Steyr family in one go, and I’ve been told that’s a heady experience.’

‘Octopus,’ Felix said, and then hazarded, ‘Ottilia?’

‘Close, neighbour – ah, there they are,’ Steyr said as he clambered off the hull. Felix saw two shapes emerge from the shadows beneath the trees. One was big, the other small. The former was a blond, hulking brute of a man, with enough muscle and fat to slab the bones of three smaller men. He was clad in rattletrap gear much like Steyr, and Felix wagered that was the only way he could find anything to fit him.

‘Don’t call me Greedy-guts, Soggy,’ Gregory rumbled, swinging the heavy, exquisitely engraved khopesh he carried from one round shoulder and stabbing it point first into the ground, so that he could lean on the hilt. ‘I’m not greedy, am I, Pieter?’

‘No?’ Pieter said. He was smaller than either of his brothers, and patently younger. He was leaner than Steyr, with a wasted, hollow look to him. He wore no armour, but had a slim Arabayan blade belted about his waist. Nonetheless, he moved quickly, with an odd, hopping motion. Felix was reminded of a weasel he had once watched dancing about a rabbit moments before it struck. ‘Where’s he from?’

‘Altdorf,’ Felix interjected, dropping to the ground beside Steyr. Pieter hopped back, as if startled, but his lips twisted in a smile.

‘Altdorf? How’s that for luck, eh?’ The boat was from Altdorf?’ He padded past Felix and began to examine the hull. ‘These are Sartosian barnacles, aren’t they?’

‘You’ll have to forgive our Pieter, he’s a man of many questions,’ Steyr said. He smiled fondly at his brother. He glanced at Gregory and added, ‘Even as our Gregory is a man of singular hunger.’

Gregory snorted. ‘You’re not as funny as you think you are, Soggy.’

‘Don’t call me Soggy, Greedy-guts,’ Steyr said, with genial malice.

‘Don’t call me Greedy-guts,’ Gregory retorted.

‘Do you have a nickname?’ Pieter said, appearing suddenly at Felix’s elbow. ‘Only you’ll need one, if you want to fit in, won’t you?’

‘I’ve been called a lot of things,’ Felix said, ‘most of them less than pleasant.’

Steyr laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We can sympathise,’ he said. He looked at Gregory. ‘Are there any other survivors?’

Gregory shook his head. ‘Fish-bait, the lot of them,’ he said. He gestured to Felix. ‘He’s it.’ Felix frowned, and looked up at the man hanging from the prow. He’d forgotten about him in the rush to save himself. The man hung silently, swaying in the breeze. Something had torn out his throat. Felix wondered when the ghouls had done that. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer to Morr, to see to the man’s care and keeping.

He thought about mentioning Gotrek, and then decided against it. If the Slayer was dead, it was no business of theirs, and if he wasn’t, there was no point in saying anything until and if they ran across him. Gotrek could take care of himself. Also, though he was careful not to let it show, Felix felt an instinctive wariness of his rescuers. Not enough to turn down their help, but enough so that he didn’t feel like spilling his life story to men he’d just met.

‘Well, no reason to tarry then,’ Steyr said. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the soft patter of rain on the leaves punctuated his words. ‘If we hurry, we can make the Mangrove Port by sunup.’ Steyr started for the trees, followed by his brothers.

‘We’re walking?’ Felix said, hurrying after them. The adrenaline that had sustained him through the fight with the ghouls was swiftly draining away, and before they had gone too far, he stumbled on a root. He was only stopped from falling into the water by a quick snatch from Gregory, who caught a handful of his cloak. The big man steadied him.

‘Well, we are. If you can fly, feel free,’ Steyr said. He looked back at Felix. ‘Horses don’t do so well here, and boats are in short supply.’ He peered at Felix. ‘Are you all right?’

Felix leaned against a tree and used the edge of his cloak to mop at his face. He felt weak, and his throat was as dry as the desert. ‘It’s been a trying morning,’ Felix rasped. Steyr reached him as he began to sink down.

‘Whoa, easy there, neighbour,’ he said. He frowned and looked at his brothers and snapped his fingers. ‘Pieter, your waterskin,’ he said. Pieter hurried forwards, uncorking a waterskin as he approached.

‘Is he going to die?’ he said. He seemed curious, rather than concerned. Steyr waved him back, after taking the waterskin from him.

‘I’m not dying,’ Felix croaked, ‘though I’d kill for a drink.’ He felt wrung out and weak at the knees. He’d been running on fear and necessity, and all he wanted now was to sleep for a week. The prospect of tramping through the mangroves for a night was as intimidating as the confrontation with the ghouls.

‘I know the feeling,’ Steyr chuckled, handing him the waterskin. ‘Water, water everywhere and not a drop fit to drink. You’ll get used to it, if you stay here. I should have thought of that, I’m sorry. I was a little surprised to see a survivor, honestly.’

‘You sound as if you’ve done this before,’ Felix said. The water wasn’t cool, and it tasted brackish, but it refreshed him nonetheless. He gulped at it greedily, until Steyr pulled it away slowly.

‘Easy,’ he said. Then, ‘It’s a chore, mostly. Men scour the coasts in either direction from the port, checking the usual spots. The currents tend to carry wreckage to the same locations. Wrecks are common enough along these coasts, and there are rarely survivors. Between the sharks, the lizards and the ghouls, not to mention the occasional greenskin war-party, it’s not often we’re in time to do anything but scavenge.’ He smiled. ‘This time, we had a bit of luck.’ He gestured back towards the wreck. ‘We’ve marked it, and we’ll come back with more men to collect the wreckage. Plenty of use yet in that wood, if we get to it before the heat and damp does. There are probably some supplies fit to scavenge as well.’

‘Maybe even a cask of wine,’ Gregory said, looking out at the mangroves. At the thought of wine, Felix unconsciously licked his lips.

Steyr rummaged beneath his cuirass and pulled out a flat leather pack. ‘Here, some pemmican. We travel light, or I’d feed you something more substantial.’ Felix hadn’t realised how hungry he was until Steyr unwrapped the stiff strips of dried meat. He grabbed one and began to gnaw on it, until the taste registered. It had a strange taste, almost like pork, but not quite, and decidedly unpleasant. He spat it out. Steyr chuckled. ‘Not to your liking then?’

Felix pawed at his tongue. ‘What is this?’

‘The local cuisine,’ Steyr said, smiling. He plucked a strip free and popped it whole into his mouth. ‘Quite nice, once you get used to it. Though I do miss more civilised fare.’

‘Chops,’ Gregory rumbled.

‘What about mushy peas?’ Pieter said. Felix could sympathise with the longing he heard in their voices. It had been years since he and Gotrek had been in the lands of the Empire, and he sometimes woke up with the taste of that thin stew his landlady in the Luitpolsstrasse had made in his mouth. It had been full of wharf rats, he suspected, but sometimes he still longed for it. He even found himself occasionally wishing for a horse-piss apple, from Hamhock Shivers’s stall on Pinchpenny Street. Not to actually eat, mind. Just to look at.

Steyr helped him to his feet. ‘Why stay, then?’ Felix said.

Steyr didn’t answer immediately. Then, ‘Where else would we go?’ Before Felix could ask what he meant, he continued, ‘The rain is getting heavier. If you’re feeling strong enough, we should go.’

Felix peered up, and rain splashed against his face. It was warm and not refreshing at all. Steyr continued, ‘Keep the talking to a minimum from here on out. A lot of the beasties in these swamps hunt by sound, more so than sight.’ He smiled again, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for talking later, once we’re somewhere more convivial, eh?’

The air had taken on a muggy quality by the time they got under way again, and as they moved across the roots and hummocks, Felix thought it felt like walking through soup.

The increasing strength of the downpour didn’t help matters. The rain was a solid wall, obscuring his vision past a certain point, and his hood barely kept it out of his face. His boots squelched with every step, and the combined weight of the mud, water and mail threatened to send him to his knees more than once. Keeping in mind Steyr’s admonition to keep quiet, Felix asked no questions and for no help. They moved quickly, and Felix was soon puffing to keep up. The brothers Steyr moved with the speed and surety of natural-born foresters. They were quiet as well, and more than once he lost sight of one or two of them. Steyr stayed close to him, and Felix was grateful. He couldn’t even tell what direction they were moving in, and without his guides, he knew he’d be totally lost in the mangroves.

Between the rain and the shadows, there was no real light to speak of. When the sun had at last set, it was as if someone had doused a torch. There was no gradual slip into darkness. Instead, he went from being able to see, however dimly, to being surrounded by darkness on all sides.

The only available light was the weak drizzle of moonlight that dripped through the leaves overhead with the water. The rain pounded down, making the roots beneath his feet slippery and the bark of the trees unpleasant to the touch. It was all he could do to keep the faint gleam of Steyr’s cuirass in sight. The moonlight caught on the wet metal, and to Felix, it was a welcome sight.

He wondered whether it was merely the rain that kept his newfound companions from using torches or lanterns, or whether they feared something spotting the light and mistaking them for a meal. He thought of the ghouls, and shivered. How many more such creatures lurked in these swamps, or worse things besides?

Out in the darkness, something roared. The sound reverberated through the trees, piercing the dull veil of the rain. Felix froze at the sound, and he cast about for Steyr, or his brothers. He saw nothing but rain, sheeting down. While he’d been lost in his thoughts, they’d vanished. He heard nothing but the rustling of leaves beneath the downpour and the gurgle of the current beneath the roots. ‘Steyr,’ he called out.

There was no answer. Where had they gone? They had been right there, right beside him and now gone. Panic began to build in him. The roar sounded again. Beneath his feet, the roots seemed to twist and tremble, and water splashed. Something was coming towards him, something heavy. He made to call out again.

A wet hand clamped over his mouth, startling him. His hand flashed towards his sword, but another hand interposed itself. Pinned, Felix heard Steyr whisper, ‘Quiet, neighbour. We’re not the only pilgrims abroad in the night.’

Felix fell silent. He saw Gregory and Pieter slide out of the shadows, and he wondered if they’d been so close the entire time. Steyr’s hand rose and pointed. ‘Look,’ he hissed.

Something vast and monstrous passed through the water close by them. It was taller than a ship’s mast and it moved smoothly, despite the current. It was too dark for Felix to discern its features, save for its broad, wedge-shaped head and thick torso. A tail undulated behind it as it stalked through the mangroves, and its breath sounded like a bellows being squeezed. A plume of foul air, stinking of carrion and blood, washed over him and he pressed a hand to his mouth to silence his instinctive gagging.

It stank of the heat and the damp. As it moved past, he thought he saw something else, something large and blocky upon its back, almost like a howdah, with smaller forms moving on it and within it. Before he could get a clearer look, it stalked past them in the direction they‘d come from, and it left one last roar in its wake.

‘Wh-what in the name of the Magnus was that?’ Felix breathed.

Steyr jerked away from him and said, ‘A lizard.’

‘It was a big lizard, wasn’t it,’ Pieter whispered.

‘And some little lizards,’ Gregory said, clutching his khopesh more tightly.

‘Lizardmen,’ Felix said, in sudden understanding. Steyr looked at him. Felix smiled weakly. ‘I’ve travelled. And I’ve heard things. I’ve seen things, though never a lizardman. I’ve seen some of the jewellery, though, those flat golden plaques with the frog faces and strange symbols.’ Gotrek had faced the creatures once or twice, and he’d said that there were smaller ones and larger ones, and that they sometimes rode beasts. At the thought of the Slayer, Felix’s smile faded. He wondered where Gotrek was, if he wasn’t dead. Was Gotrek hunting for him, even now? Or would the Slayer assume that he’d died, and continue on without him?

The thought of the latter was at once heartening and annoying. For the first time in years, freedom from the dwarf’s mad quest was in his grasp, but he felt himself shying from it, like a horse too long in a paddock. The thought of Gotrek continuing on, as if Felix were nothing more than a footnote in his epic, was somehow an intolerable one.

Steyr chuckled, and the sound shook Felix from his annoyed reverie. ‘Depths unplumbed, Felix.’ He peered up at the rain and said, ‘If they’re out and about, I’d rather not dawdle. The Mangrove Port is near, a few more hours at most.

‘Let’s go.’

Out in the darkness, the great saurian roared again. Felix hurried after his newfound companions.

They paused to rest when the rain was at its heaviest, much to Felix’s relief. Sheltering beneath the arthritic trunk of a bent tree, the four huddled together, damp and cold. More than once as they sat, Felix caught sight of great grim shapes moving through the obscuring sheets of rain. More of the large saurians, Felix knew. The brothers did not seem concerned, but Felix couldn’t help but feel nervous. He flinched whenever a guttural roar pierced the rain and noise of the storm.

His cloak was sopping wet, and it felt as if it held more water than the ocean, but he pulled it about himself regardless. The brothers sat in the rain with no more concern than if it were a light summer shower. The tree kept the worst of the weather off them, but water steadily slopped down onto their shoulders and the napes of their necks.

Steyr shared out more of his peculiar jerky, and Felix gnawed on it gratefully. They spoke in low tones, about Altdorf, and the places they’d been. The brothers were not so well travelled as Felix, but their journeys had been nearly as fraught with danger. Felix found himself warming to them, or rather Steyr, at least. Gregory was a scar-faced lump whose taciturnity seemed to rival even Gotrek’s at his most morose, and Pieter was simply odd. Given those facts, he wasn’t surprised by Steyr’s need to talk to someone.

‘You’re a poet?’ Steyr said, after Felix had shared his occupation.

‘I wished to be, yes,’ Felix said, taking a swig from Pieter’s waterskin. ‘I’m not much of anything now, I’m afraid.’

‘Poetry cannot be discarded like a cloak,’ Steyr said.

‘Detlef Sierck, Reminiscences and Regrets,’ Felix said, recognising the quote.

‘Ha! Yes,’ Steyr said, clapping his hands softly. ‘You know Sierck?’

‘Who doesn’t know Sierck?’ Felix said, leaning forwards. He drew himself up. ‘The dramatist tells the truth. It is the historian who lies,’ he said, gesturing for emphasis.

Steyr laughed and said, ‘Upon My Genius – a brilliant work, made all the more brilliant by its unflinching honesty.’ He shook his head. ‘It took me forever to scrounge up a copy of The Tragedy of Oswald. Brilliant play,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Sierck truly had an eye for the grim and the dark, don’t you agree?’

‘Oh yes,’ Felix said. ‘It was as if he were living with some poisonous flower nestled to his heart. Have you read To My Unchanging Lady?’

‘Ah, such sonnets as to make a man weep,’ Steyr said. ‘Frankly, and I say this as a man who has memorised whole stanzas of Jacopo Tarradasch’s Immortal Love, that particular sonnet cycle is as close to perfect as something of man’s creation can be.’

Felix made a dismissive gesture. ‘Tarradasch – don’t even get me started. The Desolate Prisoner of Karak Kadrin is one of the most blatantly libellous works I’ve ever had the misfortune to read.’

‘Really,’ Steyr said. ‘I thought it had some interesting insight into the dwarf psyche. Their greed, their lack of human morals…’

‘While I have the greatest respect for Tarradasch’s ability to wring rhyme from thin air, what that man knew of dwarfs couldn’t fill this waterskin,’ Felix said, holding up the water-skin. ‘They’re a peculiar people, this is true, but Tarradasch emphasises their less salubrious qualities in favour of cheap drama.’

‘Oh, a dagger, a dagger to my heart – cheap drama, he says,’ Steyr said, chuckling.

‘I meant no disrespect,’ Felix said, ‘but I’ve had the honour of visiting Karak Kadrin, and of knowing a number of that race, and they are…’ He paused, seeking the right words. ‘They are like a precious jewel, still encrusted in rock and soil. They have facets within facets, just waiting to be discovered. They are a people of contradiction, but at the same time of utter and coherent logic. They are not men, and cannot be judged as men.’

‘They are not men,’ Steyr repeated. ‘That’s a wonderful phrase, Felix.’ He slapped his knees. ‘Ah, it is so good to have someone to talk to, you know?’

‘I’m sitting right here,’ Gregory said, somewhat petulantly.

‘And doing an admirable job of it, Gregory, yes, but I was speaking to Felix,’ Steyr said. ‘I hope you’ll stay with us for a while. It’s rare that I can discuss the literary merits of my favourite scriveners.’

He was about to say something else, when a rattling bellow shook them all down to their bones. Felix was half on his feet, his hand on his sword hilt before the echoes of the cry had faded. The brothers had had the same idea. Gregory lifted his khopesh and Steyr had an arrow ready. Pieter met a glance from his brother and nodded. He slid out from under the tree weasel-quick and vanished into the darkness.

‘Can he see where he’s going?’ Felix hissed.

‘We’re used to operating in the darkness,’ Steyr said. ‘You learn how out here, or you die. Each drop of rainwater carries a bit of moonlight, and the rain sounds different when it’s striking a moving body than when it’s striking a tree.’ He fell silent as Pieter rejoined them, soaked through and muddy.

‘Something is fighting, isn’t it?’ he whispered. ‘Something tried to eat something else, and it didn’t want to be eaten, maybe?’

Felix strained to hear. He could hear distant splashes and bellows, and something that might have been a tree falling. ‘Maybe we should move on,’ he said.

Steyr nodded. ‘Sound thinking,’ he muttered. ‘Time to go.’

The night wore on as they moved, and the rain finally slackened, after what felt like an eternity of its unceasing rhythm. Felix’s legs throbbed with a dull ache, and his body was slick with rain, sweat and grime. He was exhausted. Steyr and his brothers, in contrast, appeared to be as well rested as they had been when they’d chased off the ghouls.

They had an unflagging reservoir of energy that Felix envied, even as he cursed it. He wanted to rest for longer than a few minutes, but knew of no way of conveying that need that wouldn’t make him seem weak. And the last thing he wanted to do was appear weak in front of Steyr and the others.

He didn’t feel the need to impress them, for he barely knew them, though they seemed amiable enough, and he found in Steyr a kindred spirit. No, it was wariness that prevented him from admitting that he’d passed his limit at a gallop some time back. He’d learned to be careful in his years of travel. Men were rarely the face they presented at first meeting. Steyr and his brothers could be from the port, as they claimed, or they could be bandits or pirates, though if they were the latter, he couldn’t understand why they’d bothered to save him.

Despite these thoughts, Felix couldn’t help but utter a grunt of relief when Pieter, in the lead, paused and held up a hand. Felix was about to ask what such a signal meant when Steyr pressed him back against a tree and leaned close. ‘We’re being followed,’ he muttered.

‘By what?’ Felix asked as he gripped Karaghul’s hilt. His head swam with fatigue and his belly clenched in on itself, despite the jerky Steyr had given him earlier. The sun had risen, or as close as it came in these wet lands, some time earlier, and a weak grey light drifted down through the few gaps in the canopy overhead.

‘No idea. It could be a war-party of greenskins, or those lizards we saw.’

‘Or ghouls,’ Felix spat. Disgust was replaced by a twinge of fear. ‘Or whatever it was we heard, bellowing out in the rain.’

Steyr grunted and nodded. ‘I doubt that anything would follow us that far, but it could be.’ He smiled. ‘Luckily, we’re not far from home. Look,’ he said, pointing.

Felix followed the gesture and saw the outline of what must have been palisades, groaning beneath the weight of vegetation. He squinted, trying to make out guards or blockhouses, but saw nothing save the wooden stakes that made up the barrier.

He wondered why he heard none of the noises he associated with a port; even a backwater like this must be bustling with activity. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and nodded. ‘Should we make a run for it, to draw out whatever it is?’ At Steyr’s look of incomprehension, Felix clarified, ‘If it’s a war-party, whoever you have guarding those walls might want to sound an alarm.’

‘Oh, I doubt that,’ Steyr said, peering over his shoulder and into the trees. ‘We’re a quiet community. We’re a live and let live sort of place, no trouble with the neighbours, that sort of thing. Once we get behind the walls, we’ll be fine.’ He slapped Felix on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

Felix had no energy left to muster a reply, so he simply nodded again and struggled after them as they moved towards the palisades. As they drew closer, the trees began to thin, and Felix could tell that the area had been swept free by the hands of men, rather than nature. He’d seen similar bald areas in the Drakwald and the Border Princes, places kept free of vegetation and trees in order to provide a killing ground for the men on the walls. But the folk of the Mangrove Port had grown slack in that regard – vines and thick plants now stretched from the distant trees, creating a flimsy covering from the tree line to the walls. Perhaps it was too damp to burn it back, he thought, or perhaps they thought being hidden was a better deterrent than a defensive clearing.

Felled trees had been shaved flat on top and laid across the root networks and hummocks of damp ground to create an improvised boardwalk system. Some enterprising soul had hammered iron stakes into each tree on either side, and strung a rusty chain around the top of each stake, making a sort of guard-rail.

The current was stronger here, which was no surprise given how close they were to the coast. From what Gotrek had told him before they’d left Sartosa, the Mangrove Port rested at the mouth of an eddy in one of the rivers that cut through the mangroves, where it pooled and grew deep enough to sail ships. He couldn’t see it, thanks to the palisade, but he could hear the water.

The port itself sat on a vast hummock that was likely one of the few true patches of dry ground anywhere along this coast. The palisade was smaller than he’d expected, and he guessed that it contained something the size of a fishing village, at most. It wasn’t quite the gateway to the Southlands that he’d been promised, he reflected sourly.

As they drew closer, he could hear birds squawking and the rustling of leaves and the cracking of branches. Whatever was following them was making almost as much noise as the great lizard the night before.

He increased his pace. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to meet it in the open. No alarm was raised as they reached the palisade. There was no sound save that coming from the mangroves. He could hear the cry of birds, the hum of insects, and the splash of heavy bodies through the roots as well as the gentle tap-tap of the slowing rain on the canopy overhead. But no voices, no bells, no sounds of movement. There wasn’t even any smoke. Felix was too tired to question it, but it nonetheless nagged at him. It was as if some, small, far-off voice was trying to warn him, but he was too exhausted, too thirsty, too hungry to care. He wanted sleep and food and to rest, just for once, without having to worry about assassins in the eaves or ratmen in the privy. He blinked and forced himself into a stumbling trot so as not to fall behind. The noises continued behind them, and he fancied he heard something bellowing in frustration.

There was no gate, as such, in the palisade. Instead, a heavy door had been built into the wall where it curved over a chunk of ossified wood and rock, creating a natural incline. The door was as wide as three men, but not tall. It reminded Felix of the blocking board of a kennel, less entrance than handy aperture. Steyr noticed his quizzical expression as they climbed towards the door and said, ‘Gates get attacked, but doors, not as much.’

Gregory pressed his shoulder to the door and gave a grunt of effort as he pushed it back and slid it aside. As Steyr led Felix through, he saw that there had likely been another door there, some time ago, but that it had been burst from its hinges by some great impact.

Once inside, he realised why there had been no smoke or sound rising from within the palisade. Just below the edge of the walkways that lined the interior of the wall, someone had attached great swathes of sailcloth and tarpaulin and stretched them drum-tight from the palisades to the ramshackle buildings that stretched towards the water. There weren’t many of the latter, and they were all in various states of disrepair, dripping with mould and rot and opportunistic vegetation. To Felix’s tired eyes, there was just as much swamp inside the palisade as out.

Nonetheless, there were a number of ships in the natural sandy harbour that the port had grown up around. As with the buildings, however, the ships had a destitute look about them, as if their crews had had better things to do than look after them.

‘Home sweet home,’ Steyr said as he stripped off his quiver of arrows and tossed it aside with his bow. ‘Forgive the state of things. We’ve had so little help, keeping it up.’

‘No inclination either,’ Gregory said, setting the door back in place. From the way his muscles strained, Felix knew that the door likely weighed more than he himself could move easily, if at all.

‘Does it rain that much here?’ Felix asked, even as he tried to ignore how much the quiet and the state of things disturbed him. Had there been an attack? Had the port fallen to some tropical disease, or had it simply been abandoned en masse?

‘No, that’s for the sun, weak as it is,’ Steyr said. ‘It took us several nights, but, it was worth it.’ He smiled at Felix. ‘We’re well protected from all the nasty elements, now, rain or shine.’

‘What happened here?’ Felix said. He’d lost sight of Pieter as soon as they’d entered. The youngest brother had seemingly vanished. Gregory hadn’t moved from the door, where he stood, leaning on his khopesh.

‘A sickness,’ Steyr said. ‘It was quite a nasty one too, and over all too quickly, unfortunately. A hundred or more souls perished in a single night.’ He clucked his tongue. ‘And now, only we few, we happy few, remain to welcome travellers to this bustling community.’

‘Just you three,’ Felix asked, looking around. He could smell something, just beneath the rot. It was a thick, clotted stink, like that of ripe carcass or newly hung man. Steyr’s lips split in a wide grin. For the first time, Felix saw his teeth, and an atavistic shudder rippled through him at the sight. Steyr’s mouth was full of razor slivers, and his smile uncurled, revealing more teeth than Felix thought belonged in a man’s mouth.

‘Oh no,’ Steyr said. ‘Not even Gregory could eat that many.’ He tilted his head back and spread his arms, and a thunderous scream burst from his throat. The noise sprang from one building to the next, and the sound of it caught Felix’s spine in a fearsome grip and squeezed it into water. He made to step back, but froze, riveted in place as the cry was answered, not by Gregory or even Pieter, but from within the buildings.

Pale shapes, clad in rags and outfits from every nationality, spilled from the darkened doorways and windows, and loped towards him. A dozen pairs of red eyes, blazing with wild, inhuman hunger were fixed on him and Felix wished he’d let the ghouls eat him, for that would have been a more merciful fate than what he now faced. Steyr stepped towards him, still grinning. ‘Welcome to the Mangrove Port, Felix Jaeger. Sit. Stay awhile.’ He licked his lips. ‘Stay forever.’

CHAPTER 5

Felix drew Karaghul with a speed born of pure, unadulterated terror and had the tip to Steyr’s throat before the latter could say anything more. Steyr blinked, startled. ‘You’re quite fast, for a breathing man,’ he said genially. ‘You’ll be faster still, I wager, if there’s enough left of you afterwards. Oh, Pieter, be a good lad, would you?’

Felix jerked forwards as Pieter dropped down atop him, one hand clamping down on his sword arm. Cold fingers squeezed and Felix’s hand spasmed. Karaghul fell from his nerveless fingers and Steyr kicked it aside. He stepped forwards and plucked Felix’s dagger from his belt as well, and spun it before the latter’s eyes. ‘It’s not so bad, after all is said and done. And then, well, you’ll be a member of a new brotherhood. We’re not much to look at, but we’re quite good in a fight. You’ll have to get used to the taste of blood and flesh, but you didn’t have a problem with the jerky, so we’re halfway there, hey?’

Felix struggled ineffectually in Pieter’s grip. As Steyr’s words sank in, he felt sick. ‘Vampires,’ he said. ‘You’re vampires.’ He’d faced vampires before. Several times, in fact, and he cursed himself for not recognising them for what they were. He could only blame his exhaustion, and the addled state of his wits. He wasn’t tired now, however. Fear had added fire to his blood.

Steyr leaned forwards and tapped the tip of Felix’s nose with the flat of the dagger. ‘I can tell you were a university lad. Yes, we are. What gave it away? Was it the fangs, perchance?’

‘The smell,’ Felix said.

Steyr made a face. ‘Ah. Yes, well, we can’t help that, believe me. It’s the blood. Spill enough of it and it takes over, like mould. Also, hygiene is the first thing to go with many of the lads.’

He gestured to the approaching knot of vampires, and Felix saw that they were a far cry from the courtly devils he’d faced before. They were less human looking than the brothers Steyr. They were almost as bestial as the ghouls; they were rampant hunger, given human shape, and he cringed as they drew close. They stank of dark places and bad deaths, and their mouths were full of too-sharp teeth and their fingers were clawed. Before they could reach him, however, Steyr drew his sword and extended it like a barrier between them. ‘Not so fast, lads,’ he said. ‘This one has to last us.’

‘They look hungry, don’t they?’ Pieter murmured, nuzzling Felix’s ear in a disturbing fashion. ‘We’re always hungry, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, but some of us know better than to inhale the first bit of blood to stumble into our waiting arms,’ Steyr said without looking at his brother. ‘Back off, I said!’ he roared, lunging at the other vampires. He stamped forward, whirling his blade over his head. The vampires shied back, hissing and snarling. Steyr glanced at Felix and smirked apologetically. ‘Forgive their eagerness, but it’s been a few months since our bellies were full. There isn’t much eating in lizards and orcs, though Gregory swears by the latter, greedy pig that he is.’

‘Almost as good as Miss Miggins’s rat pies, back in Altdorf,’ Gregory said. He smacked his lips nastily. Steyr grimaced.

‘I prefer the real thing, myself, but then I’m a bit of a gourmet, to borrow a Bretonnian term, as my brothers would likely attest,’ he said. ‘Only the finest foreign rats for me back in Altdorf, eh, Pieter?’

‘Are there foreign rats? Aren’t all rats, rats?’ Pieter said.

‘So speaks a gourmand,’ Steyr said, using the flat of his sword to turn Felix’s head to the side. ‘Do you know what the difference between a gourmet and a gourmand is, neighbour?’

‘Quality and quantity,’ Felix said.

‘Bravo,’ Steyr said. He licked his lips as he examined Felix’s jugular. ‘I can see that we have years of scintillating conversation ahead of us, Felix. I love my brothers, but Gregory is only conversant in the contents of his stomach, and Pieter is a bit touched. And this lot – well, if I want to know which port has the best whores, they’re my men. But if, say, I’d like to discuss Sierck’s The Tragedy of Oswald, all I’m going to get are blank stares.’ He used the point of his sword to knick Felix’s neck. ‘You know what I mean, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Felix grunted, wincing. Blood dribbled down his neck. Pieter’s grip tightened, and painfully so. The vampire whimpered. The others moved closer, grunting and muttering. Steyr nodded cheerfully.

‘Good, good. Conversation is a more valuable commodity out here than blood.’

‘Only to you,’ Gregory said. ‘I’m hungry, Soggy.’

‘Don’t call me Soggy, Greedy-guts,’ Steyr snapped. ‘And I told you, we have to make him last. Who knows when the next ship will come by, and be convivial enough to dash itself to flinders within easy reach, eh?’

He snorted and met Felix’s gaze. ‘The ghoul-tribes get to them first, mostly, or the lizards. We’re too few to do more than scavenge the scraps. But you, neighbour, you’ll last for weeks, if we’re careful. My sister is something of an expert on grave matters, and she has assured me that a single sip of blood every few days is all that is necessary to keep individuals in our condition in fighting trim.’ He sniffed. ‘Of course, some of us lack the self-control… Gregory.’

‘I was hungry,’ Gregory said, petulantly.

‘A hundred people, in a single bloody night,’ Steyr said, throwing up a hand. He looked at Felix. ‘A hundred, Felix. Can you believe that? This place could have been a larder for months, years even, but no, and now we’re left with this motley crew to feed as well as ourselves.’ He placed a hand to his chest. ‘The responsibility they have placed upon me is terribly stressful to a man of my humble origins. But the cream rises to the top, they say. I’ve always fancied myself a “von”. Sigmund von Steyr, it has a nice ring to it, eh?’

A vampire abruptly lunged from the knot of gathered blood-drinkers. Fangs agape and claws extended, he bounded towards Felix, panther-smooth. Steyr, however, was quicker. His blade flashed out, separating the vampire’s head from his shoulders in one quicksilver blow. He whirled with a roar, his face becoming something out of a nightmare. ‘I said no!’ he shrieked. ‘No, no, no!’

He stooped, grabbed the ankle of the decapitated vampire, and, in a display of inhuman strength, sent the body whirling over the heads of the others. ‘If you can’t wait like civilised men, fight over that,’ he snarled.

He turned and kicked the head towards Gregory. ‘And you can shut up and eat that.’

Felix’s stomach churned as Gregory grudgingly scooped up the head and the vampires fell on the thrashing, headless body with eager growls. The head’s eyes bulged and the lips writhed soundlessly, still somehow possessed of some measure of abominable life as Gregory hefted it. He cracked the top of the skull like an egg and upended it, his jaws unhinging like those of a snake. Felix closed his eyes and gave a soft groan of disgust as a loose mush of brain matter plopped into Gregory’s gullet with a sound like a stone dropping into a well. When he opened his eyes, Steyr was looking at him. As he watched, the vampire raised his bloody sword and licked it clean with a thick, leech-like tongue that contorted itself about the blade in an unnatural way. ‘Waste not, want not,’ he said, chuckling.

Felix knew his only chance lay in keeping Steyr talking. Though he saw no way out of his situation, he was determined to put it off for as long as possible. ‘I thought you said that you had a sister,’ he said quickly. ‘I don‘t see her here.’

Steyr’s smile disappeared. ‘No, she is not. She is otherwise occupied at present.’

Pieter growled softly. ‘She betrayed us, didn’t she?’ He tensed and Felix winced as the vampire’s grip tightened. His arms were growing numb.

‘No, she didn’t,’ Steyr said forcefully. ‘She had no choice in the matter, and we all know that. Even as we all knew what sort of fate likely awaited us when we came to these bloody jungles.’ He cut his eyes back to Felix. ‘One does what one must, for those one loves, regardless of the consequences. The Loves of Ottokar and Myrmidia, act II, scene six.’

‘Yes,’ Felix said. He felt a flush of guilt. He hadn’t seen his family in years, and there was no love lost there. He’d never been the son his father had wanted, and after his mother’s death, he had only had as much contact with the old man as was required, and even less with his brothers.

‘I’m glad you understand,’ Steyr said. ‘It will make this whole process much easier, in the long run. And afterwards, well, you’ll join our merry band, and you and I will speak of literature and the great places that await us in the years to come, Felix. I shall yet convince you of Tarradasch’s worth, my friend.’

‘So squatting in the jungle isn’t your endgame, then?’ Felix said.

Steyr laughed and said, ‘Of course not.’ He tapped two fingers to his temple. ‘I’ve got big plans, me. The whole of eternity spreads out before us. Who’d waste it in this green hell?’ He swept a hand out to indicate the ships. ‘We were lucky, despite Gregory’s impatience. There were a number of ships in the quay, the night we killed the port. And they sit there still, awaiting my command to set forth and wreak a red storm along these cursed coasts.’

Before Felix could reply, he heard a crash. The door behind Gregory shuddered. The vampire tossed aside what was left of the head and turned with a perplexed grunt. Outside, something bellowed loudly and the door shuddered. ‘Secure that door!’ Steyr snapped.

‘It is secure,’ Gregory snarled. ‘It’d take an ogre to move it.’

The door bulged and shook. The wood cracked and splintered, and the palisade trembled. Gregory backed away, his khopesh raised. Pieter’s grip on Felix had slackened as the vampire‘s attention was on the door. ‘What is it? What is it?’

‘Maybe another lizard is trying to get in,’ Steyr muttered. ‘The brutes are far too fond of the taste of carrion for my liking.’ He reached for Felix. Felix seized his chance, when he saw it, tearing himself free of Pieter’s grip. He flung himself past Steyr, who snarled and stabbed at him, pinning his cloak to the ground even as Felix rolled towards his sword. He snatched up his blade just in time to meet Steyr’s next slash. The vampire’s blow sent him staggering back, and his arms and wrists felt numb. ‘This won’t do you any good,’ Steyr growled, lashing out. Again Felix parried the blow, and again the force of it threatened to shatter his wrists. Steyr was as strong as any blood-sucker Felix had yet encountered, if lacking in others’ gravitas.

He stepped back. When he felt a hand snag his jerkin, he realised that Steyr had manoeuvred him back towards the knot of slavering vampires. Worm-pale hands shot towards him and jaws gaped in animal glee as they lunged for him.

Felix dipped his head, raised his shoulder, and thrust himself into them. There was no use trying to get away, so it was best to go through. His sudden movement surprised them, and the vampires scattered for a moment. Felix stumbled but was on his feet and past them a moment later, interposing Karaghul between them. He heard Steyr howl, ‘Pieter!’

Something flashed towards him, serpent-swift, and he barely jerked aside as Pieter’s blade darted for his face. Felix slapped the lighter blade aside and stumbled back as Steyr’s brother circled him like a blood-mad stoat. The other vampires joined in the game, lunging at him and leaping away as Karaghul chopped out at them.

Felix could hear wood cracking, and he hoped that whatever was trying to get in did so and fast. If he could dart past it, while the vampires were occupied, he might be able to make the mangroves. He had no idea where he’d go from there, but anywhere was better than here.

A vampire rushed him, arms spread. Felix danced aside. The creatures were quick, but lacked the sinister grace he’d come to associate with their kind. Another bounded at him, and he nearly fell avoiding it. Pieter chuckled as he circled Felix. ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Not in the least,’ Felix said. He was shaking and bathed in sweat. He was running on adrenaline and fear, and while the latter wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, the former could only keep him upright for so long. Pieter came at him in a rush, quicker than Felix’s eye could follow. With more instinct than skill, Felix parried a thrust that would have perforated him. He staggered away, his sword arm aching and his shoulder throbbing. Pieter giggled and bounded towards him.

At that moment, the door burst inwards in a spray of splinters. Through the cloud of wood pulp and dust, a broad, squat shape stalked, death clutched in its hand. ‘Where are you, manling?’ a familiar voice bellowed. The words reverberated through the town.

‘Gotrek,’ Felix said, and then more loudly, ‘Gotrek! You’re alive!’ Relief thundered through him, lending new strength to his flagging limbs. The Slayer was a welcome sight for all that his survival meant that Felix’s dreams of freedom were now so much ash on the wind.

‘Yes, curse you,’ Gotrek roared. ‘Alive and abandoned by my Rememberer. I would have words with you, manling! What did you mean, running away from me like that, eh?’ He pointed a stubby finger at Felix accusingly. ‘If that overgrown lizard hadn‘t tried to eat me last night, I’d have caught up with your cowardly hide sooner!’

Gregory snarled and slashed down at Gotrek’s shaved skull with his khopesh. Gotrek casually blocked the blow with his axe and the khopesh shivered to fragments in the vampire’s hands. Gregory stepped back, eyes bulging in shock.

Gotrek ignored the vampire and stomped past him. Felix could see that Gotrek had had as tough a day of it as he himself. The Slayer’s muscular frame was streaked with mud and drying blood, and arrows of odd fletching jutted from his chest and back. There were marks on his flesh that had quite clearly been made by teeth, and bruises and welts that had come from strong blows. But his one eye glittered with resolve. ‘Found some new friends, eh? They’re all zanguzaz, you know,’ he rumbled. ‘I can smell the blood-stink coming out of their pores. Decided to join that witch of yours in the thirsty dark, eh?’ he said nastily.

Felix flinched. A woman’s face, topped by hair so pale as to be almost white, floated to the surface of his mind. Angrily, he forced it aside. ‘Not in the least. And I wasn’t running from you! I was kidnapped.’ It was a lie, but one he hoped the Slayer wouldn’t question. After all, he hadn’t known that Gotrek was alive, had he?

‘A likely story, manling,’ Gotrek sneered. He looked around and spat. ‘Is it true? Did you kidnap my poet?’

‘What?’ Steyr said, staring at the dwarf. All of the vampires were seemingly frozen in shock, uncertain as to how to react to the invader. Gotrek had that effect on people, Felix knew. He’d seen the Slayer send daemons packing through sheer force of his unremittingly hostile personality. Meeting Gotrek’s eye was like staring into the eye of a building storm, or watching the fuse of an explosive burn down to its inevitable conclusion. Even creatures as steeped in violence as vampires hesitated before the fury of a Slayer, who was violence personified.

‘Did. You. Kidnap. My. Poet?’ Gotrek said, enunciating each word with the same precision he‘d have used to throw a punch. ‘Even a blood-drinking bat-fondler should be able to understand a question as simple as that.’

‘Somebody get him!’ Steyr roared, gesturing wildly.

Gregory bellowed and flung himself on the Slayer. Gotrek cackled happily and pivoted far more swiftly than his bulk implied he could to drive a scar-knotted fist into the vampire’s face. Gregory’s nose exploded with a sound like a cannon going off, and the vampire went head over heels. Gotrek whirled back around, his axe spinning in his grip. ‘It’s been too long since I collected a necklace of dead men’s fangs. Come on then. Come to Gotrek, leeches!’

With a roar, vampires spilled towards the Slayer. Gotrek peered up at the wave of cold, dead flesh that threatened to engulf him and gave a tiger’s grin. Then his rune-axe licked out and black blood stained the wet air. The Slayer laughed wildly as his axe tore the guts out of one vampire and then snapped back to behead a second. Individually the creatures might have stood a chance, but in a group they were more of a hindrance to each other than Gotrek. The Slayer waded into them with an enthusiasm that was as terrifying in its own way as the vampires’ savagery.

Gotrek’s arrival had bought Felix a few moments to breathe, but not much more than that. Pieter was not one to be easily distracted, and the slim vampire stalked towards him. ‘Who is he, then? A dwarf, is he? How do you know a dwarf?’ Pieter hissed, with eerie sincerity, even as he probed Felix’s defences. The vampire reminded him of an overly curious child. Pieter sprang at him, and his blade skidded off Felix’s own, the point tracing a gouge across Felix’s cheek. Felix yelped and beat aside Pieter’s blade, and then, with a lunge that was more desperate than skilful, he rammed his sword into the vampire’s side. Pieter screeched and the pommel of his sword crashed down on Felix’s head, flattening him. He tore Karaghul loose as he fell. Dazed and bleary-eyed, he rolled aside as Pieter attempted to stamp on his head. His skull felt like a cracked egg and he felt sick. Pieter chased after him as he scrambled away, still on the ground.

Pieter’s hand snapped out and he caught a handful of Felix’s chainshirt and jerked him from the ground. The vampire’s face had become a mask of feral fury. The human façade that hid the monster within had melted away, revealing a cadaverous beast-face. His mouth opened wide, exposing the thicket of fangs that clustered about his piebald gums. Felix smashed Karaghul’s pommel into Pieter’s maw, shattering fangs. The vampire dropped him and staggered back, clutching at his wounded mouth. Felix reacted swiftly and his sword swung out, catching the vampire in the shins. Pieter screamed and fell as Felix cut his legs out from under him.

‘Bad form, neighbour,’ Steyr said, as Felix got to his feet. He leapt over his wounded brother and forced Felix back. ‘I’m perfectly willing to forgive and forget, but you’re making it quite difficult to remain civilised about all of this.’

‘Funny words coming from a night-crawling corpse,’ Gotrek said, from behind Steyr. The Slayer had bulled through the other vampires, and he stomped towards Steyr, picking up speed as he came. Gotrek launched himself at the vampire, rising from the ground as if shot out of a cannon. Steel screeched as Steyr’s sword met Gotrek’s axe. The former splintered into glittering shards and the axe continued down unhindered, chopping into the vampire’s breastbone with a sound that made Felix wince in involuntary sympathy. Steyr dropped without a sound. Gotrek jerked his axe free and spun, just in time to meet another vampire’s shrieking charge. His axe carved a red path through the vampire‘s face, removing its bottom jaw and shattering its neck. The body tumbled aside to crash down in a heap.

‘Is that it, then?’ Gotrek said, shaking the sour blood from his axe. He eyed the remaining vampires with disdain. ‘Pah, these southern vampires are soft indeed. It’s like fighting melons.’

‘Yes, blood-drinking melons,’ Felix wheezed, ‘with teeth and claws.’

Gotrek laughed harshly and hefted his axe. ‘Come on then, who wants to be next?’ he shouted, making a ‘come-hither’ gesture to the remaining vampires.

Gregory, who’d regained his feet, pushed his way through the others. His eyes bulged from the sockets and were the colour of fresh blood. Felix wondered whether that was from the force of Gotrek’s punch, or whether it was simply a physical embodiment of the vampire’s state of mind. The big vampire threw back his head, bent his arms and expelled a bone-rattling howl into the air.

‘Yap all you like, blood-drinker!’ Gotrek said. ‘I care not.’ Felix heard a sound from the buildings behind them. He turned and saw white faces creeping from the shadows.

Of course, he thought in resignation. How many shipwrecked crews had they preyed on, how many travellers had they lured to their side since Mangrove Port had perished in fire and blood? How else had Steyr planned to sail those ships, except with a crew of blood-hungry vampires? How many slumbering creatures lurked on those ships in the shallow waters of the quay? ‘Gotrek,’ he said.

‘Don’t bother me, manling, I’ve got vampires to kill.’

‘Yes, yes we do,’ Felix said. ‘Gotrek, we’re surrounded.’

‘Eh?’ Gotrek glanced over his shoulder and his eye narrowed. ‘Hunh,’ he grunted. ‘That’s more blood-drinkers than I’ve ever seen in one place. I’ve never known them to congregate in groups this size.’

A rattling laugh greeted Gotrek’s comment. Steyr, one hand clutched to the wound in his chest, had shoved himself to his feet. The vampire spat blood and laughed again. ‘It’s a bit like herding particularly smelly, stupid cats, I admit, but I’m nothing if not persistent, master dwarf.’ He grinned through the mask of blood that marred his face. ‘My brothers and I grew up in the gutters of Altdorf. We struggled with dogs for food and waged wars for a bit of bread. We fought our way across the world to get to this point.’

‘Must be disappointing for you,’ Gotrek spat.

Steyr hissed. So too did Gregory, who loped towards them, and Pieter, who squirmed across the ground like a snake, hauling himself along as his legs healed. ‘Mockery from a one-eyed ape is no sort of mockery,’ Steyr said. His eyes flickered to Felix. ‘One last chance, Felix – submit, and I will give you eternity. Or die, and be meat for my beasts. I hope you’ll choose the former, neighbour. I truly wish to discuss Sierck’s To My Unchanging Lady with someone who can fully appreciate his grasp of sonnet construction.’

‘Go to hell,’ Felix said.

‘Eloquent, if disappointing,’ Steyr said. He straightened and pulled his hand away from his wound. ‘Quite a nasty bite your axe has, master dwarf. I’ll enjoy sinking it in a mudhole somewhere.’

‘I want it,’ Gregory growled, his fingers opening and closing. ‘He destroyed my blade. I’ll have his axe, it’s only fair.’

‘We’ll discuss who gets what after the fact,’ Steyr said. ‘Dibs on Felix’s sword, though.’ Steyr’s eyes glittered nastily. He raised a clawed hand. ‘Goodbye, Felix.’

Gotrek readied himself. Felix looked about wildly. ‘Gotrek, if we head for the water, we might be able to get to a boat.’

‘No,’ Gotrek grumbled.

‘Gotrek, this isn’t exactly the sort of death I had in mind for either of us!’

‘But it’s the death that’s available, manling,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer licked his lips. ‘It’s the death I came looking for. It’s a good death.’

Desperate, Felix said, ‘Is it? And even so, who’ll write of it for you?’

Gotrek blinked. ‘Eh?’

‘If I’m gutted and sucked dry by these beasts, who is going to write of your glorious death?’ Felix said quickly. He slashed at an overeager vampire, driving the creature back. ‘Because it won’t be me,’ he added.

‘I’d be happy to do it,’ Steyr said amiably as he approached, arms spread. ‘I’ve always fancied trying my hand at a bit of verse.’

Gotrek’s eye narrowed. Felix felt a spurt of panic. ‘You can’t actually be considering that, can you?’ he yelped.

After a long moment, Gotrek said, ‘Of course not, manling. I was merely considering the best way to take his head off.’

‘Quickly, would be my suggestion,’ Felix said.

The vampires were closing in all around them. Felix turned, trying to keep the ones approaching from the ships and the quay in sight. He and Gotrek stood back to back as the ring of dead faces closed in.

I’m going to die here, he thought. Death, in the abstract, didn’t hold as much terror for him as it once had. It was just the bloody unfairness of it all. To die here, like this, after all he’d seen and done. It was like the cruel punch line to a dark, cosmic joke. ‘Ha,’ Gotrek grunted, lifting his axe. ‘Come on, then. What are you waiting for, maggots? My axe is thirsty, and I have been alive too long. Hurry up and gather your courage.’ Then, more loudly, ‘Hurry!’

The vampires struck as one. To Felix, it was as if they were in the eye of a hurricane, composed of claws and teeth and snarling curses. He slashed wildly, and spat the vilest oaths he could muster into the rows of champing, snapping fangs that sought his flesh.

Claws tore at his clothing and snagged in his mail. He heard Gotrek roaring out a dwarf war-hymn, and felt the hot rain of blood that the Slayer was spreading with abandon. Bodies fell only to rise, staggering, and fall again. Vampires took more killing than most of their opponents had, and Gotrek was forced to chop and hew at the same ones again and again. Felix stabbed and slashed and thrust, but to no avail. The dead kept coming, their eyes gleaming with blood-greed and the air hot with their panting.

They would eventually pull the Slayer down, Felix knew, no matter his skill or deadliness. They would bury Gotrek in a tomb of their own carcasses if that was what it took to bring him down.

Felix stepped on a squirming body and slipped, falling backwards. The vampires pounced, and he flailed. He had no breath to call for help, and no leverage to get to his feet. Fangs sought his throat and he clawed vainly at a wet scalp, trying to halt the inevitable.

A shadow fell over him. Not that of a vampire. Detached, rendered numb by the nearness of death, he looked up, expecting to see the cowled and cloaked shape of Morr, the god of death, come to collect him at last. Instead, he saw a different sort of death.

Arrows, hundreds of them, fell in a graceful arc, descending with a communal whistle that split the air more effectively than any rumble of thunder. Felix closed his eyes. The vampires crouched over him screamed and thrashed as they were perforated by multiple arrows. Felix’s eyes sprang open as he realised that death had, for the moment, passed him by yet again.

He sat up, and saw that most of the vampires were down, arrows sticking from them. Some had been struck so many times that they resembled overlarge hedgehogs rather than blood-drinking monsters. He twisted, and saw Gotrek standing nearby, panting. The Slayer was paying no attention to the surviving vampires. Instead, his eye was riveted on the water. Felix turned and felt his heart sink.

A galley of bronze and bone nosed its way to shore, pulled aground by a number of skeletons clad in archaic bronze armour, with large shields strapped to their backs. The skeletons hauled the galley to the shore by use of great lengths of chain that extended from runnels set along the curve of the prow. The galley, big as it was, brushed aside the boats and ships in its path, gouging holes in their hulls or simply crashing through them in a nigh-continuous cataclysm of shattering wood. On the high deck of the galley, a number of skeletons armed with bows readied themselves to unleash another volley of arrows.

Vampires, it seemed, were not the only dead men on the Shifting Mangrove Coast. ‘Gotrek,’ Felix began, as the skeletal warriors on the shore dropped their chains and retrieved their shields and the khopesh each had sheathed on one bony hip. They drew their curved sickle-swords with a communal hiss of bronze escaping leather and presented their shields as one. Then, with a rattle of bones, they began to march forwards together.

‘Aye, manling,’ Gotrek said, happily. ‘Now it’s a fight.’

CHAPTER 6

The dry dead, their bones bleached or brown, marched forwards, their steps so smooth and precise that Felix thought their discipline, even while alive, would have been the envy of the armies of Karl Franz. They came to a halt some distance from the galley and spread out in a line, locking their shields rim-to-rim.

They wore helms topped by open-mouthed asps, and more snakes decorated the front of their shields. Felix’s eyes strayed past them to the galley they had hauled ashore. Its bronze-plated prow was engraved with Nehekharan hieroglyphs, depicting great battles, or perhaps the conflicts of the gods themselves. The sails sagged and billowed in the damp air, causing the asp depicted on them to undulate in sinister fashion. The oars had been raised, though he could see no sign of the rowers. He wondered, in a detached fashion, if this was the same galley that had torn Bolinas’s ship in half, and if so, whether it had come back to finish the job.

From the galley, a heavy drumbeat began to echo. Felix could feel the rhythm of each strike in his chest. He could see the same withered shapes as he’d glimpsed during the wrecking of the Orfeo pounding on the drums, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in fear. The archers on the high deck had raised their bows, and now, bones gleaming in the weak light that dappled the waters, held arrows ready to be unleashed. The warriors on the shore waited as well, their sword arms cocked as if to deliver a chopping blow.

For long moments, the only sound was the boom-boom-boom of the drum. Then the tap of bone on wood echoed beneath the drumbeat. A lone figure appeared at the front of the galley having exited some unseen cabin, Felix guessed. Ancient, crackling linen bandages, yellow and stiff with the grime of unguessed ages, clung to a form that had, in life, been that of a voluptuous woman. She was tall, and wide of shoulder and hip. Thin robes of aged muslin draped long limbs, and golden bracers and greaves hid her forearms and shins. She wore an ornately wrought and elegantly engraved cuirass, edged in gold and set with turquoise.

A golden deathmask hid her ravaged features, and a headdress made from the spotted hide of some great desert cat obscured the back of her head and neck. The features of the mask were beautiful, but chilling: at once lifelike and yet empty of life.

The dead woman carried a wide-bladed stabbing spear in one hand, and a long-hafted, single-bladed bronze axe in the other. She raised her spear. ‘You have been judged,’ a voice like shifting sands said. Felix started. It was her voice, he realised. It seemed to echo from everywhere and nowhere as she spoke, and her words pulsed in time to the drumbeat. ‘You have been found wanting. By the command of the Beloved of Asaph, Daughter of the Asp-Goddess and High Queen of Lybaras and Mistress of the Bitter Seas, this place is to be scoured from the bosom of Ptra, and you are condemned to the dark of Usirian’s wastes, there to howl and lament for all eternity.’

Then, in a crackle of linen, the great spear was slicing through the air. Felix flinched as it whistled past him, narrowly missing him. A scream snapped at his ears. He spun and saw Pieter fly backwards. The vampire had been caught in mid-leap. The spear had pierced his chest and ripped his black heart from its housing. Even as he hurtled back and struck the inside wall of the palisade, his slim form was shrivelling and rotting on the bone.

‘Pieter,’ Steyr howled. Gregory and the other vampires pelted forwards, roaring and shrieking like wild beasts. The dry dead met them, shield to fang and sword to claw. Gotrek whirled as a vampire leapt past him, and planted his axe firmly in the creature’s gut, chopping it nearly in two with a single blow.

Through the rain of gore, Gotrek met Felix’s eyes and said, ‘Well? Get stuck in, manling, before those blasted bone-bags kill them all!’

‘Yes, do get stuck in,’ Steyr snarled, nearly bowling Gotrek over as he rushed towards Felix. ‘You did this! Pieter is dead because of you!’ The vampire deftly avoided Gotrek’s blow and pounced on Felix, bearing him to the ground. Felix caught Steyr’s gut with his boots and sent him tumbling away. The vampire was on his feet in a moment, Pieter’s sword in his hand. Felix grunted as he narrowly parried a savage thrust.

Nearby, Gotrek bellowed and hacked at the few vampires not occupied fighting the new arrivals. Felix knew the Slayer would be no help. Luckily, Steyr was obviously a better archer than he was a swordsman. He was stronger, and faster, but not as skilful. Felix stepped back, extending his blade in a langort or ‘long point’ stance. Steyr hesitated.

Behind them, Gregory howled as he crashed into the armoured dead. Over Steyr’s shoulder, Felix could see the big vampire smash aside a skeleton with a sweep of his arm and wrench the blade from the grip of another. He cursed and stamped on a skull, shattering it to powder. Arrows sprouted from him, and he wailed. Steyr jerked around, concern for his remaining brother momentarily distracting him. Felix lunged, executing a perfect stechen thrust, straight from the manuals of the Altdorf school of fencing. Only Steyr’s speed saved him from being spitted, and he jumped back like a startled cat.

The vampire hissed and slapped aside Felix’s next blow hard enough to make Karaghul quiver in his grip. Felix staggered and Steyr darted forwards. He grabbed Felix by the throat and flung him down. As Felix tried to scramble upright, Steyr kicked him in the chest, flattening him. He stamped on Felix’s sword hand, and then placed a boot on Felix’s chest. ‘Time to bring this ridiculous farce to an end, I think,’ Steyr said. He raised his weapon in both hands over Felix.

‘Says the man who likes Tarradasch,’ Felix said, snatching his dagger from its sheath and driving it through the ankle of the foot that held him pinned. Steyr yelped and fell back. Before he could recover himself, Gotrek’s axe sprouted from his side, crunching through the metal of the vampire’s cuirass and the body beneath. Steyr whirled, but his flailing blow passed completely over the dwarf’s head.

Gotrek tore his axe free in a welter of dark gore, and sent it smashing home into Steyr’s belly, lifting the vampire off of his feet. Steyr staggered away, his arms pressed tight to his gut. The vampire sank to his knees and toppled over. Gotrek stalked towards him, clearly intent on taking his head.

But the Slayer was sent flying as Gregory smashed into him. The vampire struck the Slayer so hard that Felix’s teeth twitched in sympathy, and Gotrek hit the ground some distance away, digging furrows in the soft soil, cursing the entire while. A man’s weight in arrows jutted from the big vampire’s frame, but it hadn’t slowed him down. Felix snatched up his sword as Gregory made to snatch up his wounded brother, but an ear-splitting caterwaul caused them both to turn.

Felix saw the golden-masked woman spring from the deck of the galley, her axe in her hand. The long-hafted weapon slid through her grip as her feet touched solid ground, and she spun, catching a vampire beneath his chin with the curve of the axe and sending him flying, his head cleft from teeth to pate.

She danced through the blood-drinkers, moving more swiftly and gracefully than a corpse ought, her axe flashing and spinning in her grip to weave a tapestry of sour blood and foul innards about her. Not a drop of the ichors touched her as she sped towards Gregory, who spun to meet her, his stolen khopesh in his hand.

‘You have been judged and found wanting, cursed one. The black blood of Lahmia the Damned seeps from your pores and you stink of pauper’s earth,’ the woman hissed as she approached. ‘You cannot flee. Wherever you go, whatever hiding place you creep into, be it city, swamp or oasis, Zabbai of Lybaras shall drag you forth in chains of blood and fire to face the judgement of Asaph. Run and be damned, or face me and be destroyed.’

Gregory let loose a blistering torrent of oaths and charged towards her. Whatever else he was, Felix supposed, no one could call him a coward. As the big vampire moved, his flesh rippled and split, disgorging stiff, wiry hair, and his skull cracked and shifted beneath the flesh of his face, becoming something long and lean. His jaws thrust forward in a lupine fashion, his gums exceeding the edges of his mouth and stretching out, even as a briar patch of cruelly curved fangs sprouted from their piebald surface. He knuckled the ground like an ape from Ind, propelling himself along with a surge of his swelling shoulder muscles.

The beast-thing that flung itself at the golden-masked woman resembled a hideous amalgamation of simian and lupine characteristics, with something of the stoat and the bat and rat thrown in. Gregory shrieked as she leapt to meet him in midair. Her axe flashed. But it did not meet flesh. Instead, it carved through the canvas ‘roof’ that the vampires had stretched across the port. Deftly, Zabbai avoided Gregory’s lunge and instead tore an entire section of the canvas down. She landed in a crouch as the vampire crashed to earth, writhing in the sudden glare of the Southlands sun.

She raised her axe. ‘Fire arrows,’ she said. She did not shout; nonetheless, the archers on the galley heard her and fired, not at the brawling vampires, but instead at the buildings and the protective sheeting that kept the glare of the sun from their pale flesh.

As Felix watched, flaming arrows struck the sails and sheets, setting them alight. More burning arrows found the ruined and rotting hulks in the quay, or the buildings closest to shore. Still more sizzled past him to bite into the hard wood of the palisade. Despite the damp and rot, the fires caught somehow. The Mangrove Port was burning.

Gregory, caught full by the sunlight, shrieked in agony. The vampire clawed at his blistering, blackening flesh and rolled about, as if trying to snuff the flames. Wreathed in fire, he lunged to his feet and staggered blindly towards Felix. Gregory shrieked and gibbered as his flesh sloughed from his bones in sizzling dollops.

His eyes boiled in his sockets, and steam and greasy trails of smoke rose from him as he swiped at Felix. He snapped his jaws mindlessly as he threw himself forwards. Felix stumbled back, barely getting his sword between them in time. Gregory spitted himself on the blade.

Clawed hands grasped the sword, and the vampire began to pull himself along the blade, twitching and moaning, his jaws clicking as he bit blindly at the air. Felix tried to jerk Karaghul free, but the sword was lodged in bone. Heat washed over him as Gregory’s talons clasped the crosspiece of the sword.

Then, an axe flashed and the vampire’s head went spinning from his shoulders. It struck the ground and exploded into fragments of charred bone and ash. Zabbai used the curve of her axe to hook the already disintegrating body and drag it away from Felix. He stared at his reflection in the polished surface of her mask, unsure of what to say. Close as she was he could see that the face the mask had been carved to represent was beautiful, and that she was taller than he. In life, she would have been imposing. In death, she was terrifying. ‘He lives, then,’ she said. Her voice was at once hoarse, yet smooth, like sand pouring through an hourglass.

Behind her, he could see that the battle was over. Without the Steyr brothers to lead them, the vampires had retreated, or died. Some would likely escape, and continue to plague these shores, but not many. The thought gave him no pleasure. He had come too close to joining their ranks to feel anything but relief.

‘As I said he would,’ Gotrek said. He tore his axe free from a squirming vampire and let it drop onto the creature’s neck, severing its head. He spat and kicked the body aside. He frowned and looked at the dead woman. ‘You have my thanks,’ he said grudgingly.

‘It is not for your gratitude that we have spared you, stunted one,’ Zabbai said, resting her axe across her shoulder. It was a peculiar sort of gesture, Felix thought, for a dead woman. Then, these were a peculiar sort of undead, from all that he had seen. They were as different from the vampires and ghouls as day from night.

Anger flared in Gotrek’s single eye, and his lip curled. ‘You didn’t “spare” anyone, crow-bait. I choose when it is time for me to die and no one else!’

‘Then you chose wisely,’ Zabbai said, looking down at Gotrek. She turned and started back towards the galley. ‘Come. It is time for you to uphold your part of our bargain.’

‘Bargain,’ Felix said. He looked down at Gotrek. ‘What bargain?’

‘Come on, manling. I’m tired of all these trees.’ Gotrek stomped after Zabbai.

‘What bargain is she talking about?’ Felix said, hurrying after the Slayer. Behind him, he heard a roar as flames began to consume the palisade.

‘None of your concern,’ Gotrek snapped. He didn’t look at Felix.

‘I’d say it is,’ Felix insisted. ‘What’s going on, Gotrek?’

Gotrek paused. He didn’t turn around. ‘I thought you were dead, manling.’

‘What?’

‘I expected you to follow me, when I leapt aboard the galley. It would have been a glorious death.’ Gotrek shifted slightly, glaring at Felix over his shoulder. ‘But you weren’t there. At the moment of glory, my Rememberer was nowhere to be seen.’

‘I was knocked overboard,’ Felix said. Realisation struck him. ‘Did you call a truce with them, just to find me?’ Gotrek glared at him silently. ‘How was that even possible? What benefit was it to them?’ Gotrek turned and stalked away. Felix began to press the point, but he stopped short when he saw the way the veins in Gotrek’s neck were bulging. That was a sure sign that the Slayer was growing angry. He sighed and followed Gotrek towards the galley. His head was full of questions.

He had never truly considered himself to be that important to Gotrek’s quest for self-immolation. He had thought that the dwarf merely regarded him as an appendage, or a tool to be replaced, when necessary. He had met other Slayers, and they had, without fail, regarded their Rememberers as interchangeable. Then, over the course of their years together, Felix had come to learn that Gotrek was anything but a normal Slayer, if such a thing could even be said to exist. The fire that burned within him seemed to feed less on shame than ego, and it burned twice as hot because of that.

The warriors formed up around them with a clatter. They swung their shields onto their backs and sheathed their blades as they trooped into the water. Felix realised that they were going to shove the galley back into the water, and he hesitated. ‘Are we really going with them?’

‘Unless you’d rather stay here,’ Gotrek said, without stopping.

‘Frankly, yes,’ Felix said. Nonetheless, he followed Gotrek up the boarding plank that had been lowered from the galley. Zabbai led them to the high deck.

As he stepped aboard, Felix could see down to the lower decks, where the rowers sat. Like the warriors, they too were bone, bleached by the sun. They wore rags and tatters left over from life, and waited silently for the order to begin rowing. No wonder these galleys move so fast, he thought. Dead men never grew tired, and they had magic in place of muscle.

The galley shuddered, and Felix stumbled against one of the crew. He jerked back hastily as the skeleton turned to examine him with an empty gaze. ‘I – ah – sorry,’ Felix said with his hands raised in a placatory gesture. The skeleton seemed to shrug as it turned back to its duties. Felix turned. Everywhere he looked, dead men went about their business as briskly as their living counterparts might have.

Zabbai stood on the high deck, surrounded by her archers. Gotrek stood beside her, his axe cradled in the crook of his arm. Felix joined them. He was surprised but gratified that they had been allowed to keep their weapons. Then, it wasn’t as if they would do them much good, should events take a turn for the worse. He kept his palm on Karaghul’s pommel. The galley began to move forwards, and behind him, the drums began to sound again as the rowers set to. The warriors who had pushed them out of the shallows climbed back onto the boat in a display of agility that Felix found somewhat off-putting. He was used to dead men who stumbled and staggered. Shuffling zombies and jerky skeletons, pried from filthy, root-encrusted barrows. But these moved cleanly, and smoothly, as if in death they had been shorn of all physical weakness.

‘You are bleeding,’ Zabbai said. Felix blinked, startled. He touched his arm, and hissed in pain. All of a sudden, he felt every ache and pain acquired in his recent travails.

‘Are you in pain?’ she continued, head cocked in apparent curiosity.

He wondered how long it had been since she had seen a living man, with a living man’s hurts. He knew the stories of the Land of the Dead, how the war-fleets of Cursed Zandri had scoured the coasts of Araby and Tilea, and how skeletal legions had marched east and north, killing all who stood against them. In Copher, they still spoke of the Wars of Death in hushed whispers, despite the oceans of time that stretched between those battles and the present day.

‘Pain doesn’t hurt,’ Gotrek rumbled. Idly, he fingered one of the broken arrows still jutting from his shoulder. Felix wasn’t surprised by Gotrek’s seeming disregard for his wounds. He’d once seen the Slayer walk around with a knife stuck in his back for three days. He’d even taken wagers on when Gotrek would notice, and won a handy sum.

‘I don’t suppose you have any water or bandages?’ Felix asked hesitantly.

Zabbai thumped the deck with the haft of her axe. On the lower deck, a gong was sounded. In moments, several mummified women appeared, carrying golden bowls filled with sweet-smelling liquid and bandages. Felix eyed the women nervously. Like Zabbai, they were clad in spotted animal skins and thin robes, and they wore golden jewellery and death-masks of pale, oven-fired clay. ‘Do not be afraid. They are my handmaidens, and they will see to your hurts,’ Zabbai said. She looked at Gotrek. ‘And yours as well.’

‘I need no help,’ Gotrek said.

‘It is not for your benefit. You are bleeding on my deck, and that offends me.’

Gotrek grunted, but didn’t reply. Felix inclined his head. ‘I thank you, great lady.’

Zabbai looked at him. Felix couldn’t repress a shiver. ‘I am no lady,’ she said. ‘I am the Queen’s Champion, the Spear of Asaph, and the Swift, Sudden Judgement. But I am certainly no lady.’ Though he could detect no emotion in those words, Felix couldn’t help but feel that Zabbai smiled beneath her mask. He hesitated, but decided to throw caution to the wind.

‘While I am grateful, I can’t help but wonder what’s going on,’ he said, carefully not looking at Gotrek. As he spoke, Zabbai’s handmaidens began to dress his wounds with delicate fingers.

Despite the gentleness of their touch, Felix shuddered as the dry, dead fingers glided over his wounds. Another handmaiden gently eased the arrows from Gotrek’s flesh, dropping each into a bowl filled with water and incense. Gotrek kept his gaze fixed on the horizon. The dwarf seemed determined to ignore them all.

‘What is going on is not your concern,’ a voice interjected. Felix turned, and saw a wizened shape climb the stairs to the high deck with the aid of a staff. The new arrival was a shrivelled thing, empty of fluid, if not vitality. Dead flesh the colour of dried leather was shrunk tight against yellowing bones beneath a frayed and tattered robe, which had once been fine. Decorations of gold and turquoise dangled against a shrunken chest and armlets meant for living limbs sagged and rattled on bony arms.

The dead man wore no mask, and his shrivelled features contorted as he took in Gotrek and Felix. ‘The concerns of the dead are not those of the living. Thus spoke Settra the Imperishable in the first golden hour of the Reign of Millions of Years,’ the liche intoned. Air wheezed eerily through his cracked and fleshless jaws. Eyes like twin embers fixed first on Felix, and then on Gotrek. ‘Then, you are not truly alive are you, Child of the Mountains?’

Gotrek frowned and he fixed the dead man with a sullen look. ‘What would you know of it, liche?’

‘Djubti knows much. So he claims at every available opportunity, at length,’ Zabbai said. Yes, that’s definitely humour, Felix thought, obscurely pleased. If the dead had humour, then perhaps they weren’t that different from the living.

Djubti shot a look at Zabbai, and then said, ‘You are as dead as we, for you do not live. You merely persist, in search of a proper place to lay your bones, Son of Stone.’ Djubti’s gaze flickered towards Felix. ‘You, however, burn with life. Offensively so,’ he said.

‘Thank you?’ Felix said.

Djubti ignored him. He looked back at Gotrek. ‘Your search is at an end, Doom-Seeker.’

Gotrek blinked. Then he grinned. ‘Is it now? Well, things are looking up aren’t they?’ He looked at Felix. ‘Hear that, manling? The bag of bones says I’m going to find my doom.’

‘Yes, wonderful. If I can’t ask what’s going on, can I at least ask where we’re going?’ Felix said, looking from one dead face to the next.

‘Lybaras,’ Zabbai said. She thumped the deck with her axe again. ‘Lybaras, City of the Asp, Lybaras the Magnificent, Lybaras Which Guards the Sea.’ She looked at him, the sunlight glinting off her. ‘The Serpent Queen wishes to speak with you.’

CHAPTER 7

In her chamber at the top of the ziggurat, Nitocris stirred the blood in the clay bowl with one long finger. In its murky depths she could see portents and happenings, possibilities and potentialities. The strands of webs yet to be woven, as her mistress had taught her. She had been taught more besides; strategy was like a recipe, requiring all of the ingredients to be in place, lest what came of it be inedible. Nitocris had never cooked in her life. She’d had slaves for that. But she understood the concept.

She lay on her bier, the bowl on the floor within easy reach. With her chin resting on one forearm, she dipped a finger into the blood and raised it up, sending glistening droplets plop-plop-plopping back into the bowl. In the ripples, worlds were born and died.

The blood had come from the body of one of the lizards who haunted the interior. It had been a small thing, to hold so much blood, with soft, wet scales and a colourful crest atop its triangular head. It was no taller than her knee, and had been clad in golden ornaments, feathers and bronze armour. The latter had been stripped from it, and left in the mud outside the temple complex, where it had been caught spying. They had been watching her since her army had occupied the Temple of Skulls, though she couldn’t say why. She didn’t particularly care, at that. Her prey was an asp, after all, not a lizard.

In the swirling ripples of dark liquid, she saw victory and defeat, smashed skulls and sunlit doom. She saw the sands stained red and the jungles blacken in fire. But she did not see Lahmia, and she growled softly. A whisper of sound made her look up. One of her handmaidens swept into the chamber.

She wore not robes, but leather armour and a cloak of feathers and scales. She sank to her knees before the bier and waited, head bowed. ‘Speak, Andraste,’ Nitocris purred.

‘The Mangrove Port is gone, my queen,’ the vampire said, her eyes still on the floor. In life, Andraste had been the concubine of a nomad chieftain, before Nitocris had taken her and raised her up as a captain in her armies. She had battled lizards, greenskins and tribes of the interior with equal vigour, and brought herself esteem with her viciousness and cunning. ‘The servants of the Asp burned it to the roots.’

‘Ah,’ Nitocris said. She hesitated, and then asked, ‘Survivors?’

‘Some, but they are singularly useless creatures,’ Andraste said.

Nitocris laughed and propped herself up. ‘Is that opinion or fact?’

‘They are wild, hungry and stupid,’ Andraste said. ‘It would be best to dispose of them, before they become a problem.’

‘No,’ Nitocris said, lying down on her back. She examined the moon and the black sky above and stretched slowly, enjoying the feel of her muscles’ pull. ‘They have some use yet, now that they’ve provided a handy distraction. The brothers – are they dead?’

‘Two are.’

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that it was the big, stupid one who survived,’ Nitocris said. She held up her hand. In the moonlight it was almost translucent, and she watched the play of veins and muscles beneath her skin. The necromancer was right when she claimed that there was a sort of beauty in the dead, or some of them, at any rate. Nitocris had been frozen at the height of her beauty and power. She was the epitome of might made eternal. She was the immortal Serpent Queen, who would wrap the rebellious dead of the sandy wastes in her coils and squeeze them into servitude, and then she would slither into the world beyond, to see and do as she wished. The thought of it held her for a moment, and she could smell the wet stones of Altdorf and the harsh fire-powders of Nuln. An eternity of experiences awaited her, and to taste them, all she had to do was do what she did best. Nitocris would conquer and destroy, and then be free to do something, anything else.

‘It was Sigmund,’ Octavia said, from the shadows of the chamber. Nitocris frowned as her daydreams blew apart like sand on the breeze. Andraste whirled about, one hand flying to the wide, Cathayan blade sheathed on her hip, even as her lips peeled back from her fangs. Octavia held up a hand, and a flare of cold flame suddenly wreathed her fingers. Andraste shied back, hissing.

‘Enough,’ Nitocris said.

Octavia closed her fingers and snuffed the flame. She looked at Nitocris. ‘It was Sigmund who survived,’ she repeated, ‘and only barely, at that.’

‘Which one was Sigmund? Was he the small one?’ Nitocris said. She smiled crookedly and rolled over to face Octavia. ‘I liked him. He was funny.’

‘No, he was not the small one. Or the big one, my queen,’ Octavia said, her voice calm.

‘Oh,’ Nitocris said. She rose into a sitting position and swung her legs off the bier. ‘He’s the smart one, then.’ She slid to her feet and swayed towards Octavia. ‘I should have known.’ She circled the necromancer slowly. ‘Smart men can’t be trusted, you know.’

‘You are most puissant, my queen,’ Octavia said, not looking at her.

Nitocris hesitated. She didn’t know what that word meant. The necromancer used so many foreign words, and new words for old things, that Nitocris found it hard to understand her sometimes. Rage flared in her as she caught sight of a twitch in Octavia’s cheek. The necromancer was laughing at her. Her claws extended from her fingers, but she resisted the urge to part the soft flesh of Octavia’s cheek. It would be satisfying, but only for a moment, and it would be a defeat, of sorts. And the latter she could not countenance. Nitocris had never been defeated, and she never would be – certainly not by a creature like Octavia. Instead, she stepped back and smiled. ‘Is that what they say in Altdorf?’

Octavia blinked and looked at her. ‘Among other things,’ she said.

Nitocris reached out and caught Octavia’s chin between her thumb and forefinger. ‘You will take me to Altdorf, when this is over. When the false queen kneels before us, when my mistress once again sits upon the throne of Lahmia, you will take me to Altdorf and show me the lands of the dry forests and cold mountains, won‘t you?’

‘If you wish it, my queen,’ Octavia said softly.

‘I do,’ Nitocris said, pulling Octavia close. When they were only a few breaths apart, she murmured, ‘You will show me everything I wish to see, Octavia of Altdorf.’ This close, she could taste the dark magics that constantly crackled and sparked invisibly about the necromancer. She could trace the old scars that lined Octavia’s cheeks and chin beneath the skull-face tattoo that hid her features from the world. Scars were stories, her mother had said, of victories won and battles lost. A person without scars was not a person, empty and devoid of meaning or purpose. What is your purpose, necromancer, she thought. What drives you?

She could smell it, like lightning on the air in the wake of a storm. It was sharp and hot and consuming, and familiar. Whatever passion drove the necromancer, it did so as hard as her own. She leaned close, and her lips brushed Octavia’s ear as she said, ‘For now, show me your brother.’

She released the necromancer and allowed her to step back. She could hear the reedy, nervous thrum of the living woman’s heartbeat and smell her sudden confusion. You are smart but stupid, Nitocris thought. Is it any wonder one such as you prefers the silent dead?

Octavia turned without a word and left the chamber. Nitocris padded in her wake, Andraste following protectively behind her. She could sense the other vampire’s displeasure. Andraste was one of those who had little use for the living woman, and viewed her less as an asset than a rival. Nitocris could have assuaged her concerns, but it suited her to keep her sisters wrong-footed. It was in their nature to plot and scheme, for such was the power in their blood. To see all possibilities, and to attempt to act on the best, was as natural for the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle as breathing had once been. Loyalty only lasted so long, beneath the relentless tides of ambition and cunning. Thus, she played their desires one against the next in a quiet symphony of confusion. She chose her favourites at random, and let them slip from favour just as randomly.

Andraste was on top at the moment, and though she played the loyal executioner, she was anything but. But her relentless scheming kept the rest of them occupied and, if nothing else, it kept them alert.

The smell of the jungle wafted over her as she stepped out onto the plateau of the ziggurat. The hot miasma was punctuated by the tang of fires, and the complex echoed with the sounds of industry. There were ships to be made seaworthy and the waiting corpse-legions to be armed and armoured. Her army would be ready to march within days, and a shiver of anticipation coursed through her. The pleasure of that thought faded as she caught sight of the slumped form, on its knees between two of her handmaidens. She could smell the sour taint of vampire-blood on the air, and the bedraggled figure of Sigmund Steyr oozed exhaustion. It took a lot to weaken their kind, but then, he hadn’t been feeding regularly. Broken arrows jutted from him, and barely healed wounds showed through the great rents in his ruined armour. Where his skin wasn’t streaked with blood, it was burned black, and he was missing most of his hair. Despite this, he met her gaze challengingly when she stretched out one sandaled foot to hook his chin and lift his head. ‘So, you yet live,’ she mused.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he croaked.

She retracted her foot and nodded to one of the handmaidens who stood to either side of him. The vampire smiled and grabbed what was left of his scalp and jerked his head back. She then drew her blade and pressed its edge against his throat. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have your head removed, and your body tossed to the ghouls.’

‘It seems a bit of a waste,’ he said, licking his blistered lips.

Nitocris looked down at him silently. In truth, he had done exactly as she’d hoped. Otherwise she’d have simply put him and his brothers down the minute they rose from the pile of drained corpses they’d been tossed on after her sisters had had their way with them. Instead, she‘d sent them away, to wreak havoc along the coasts and draw any eyes that might be watching after them. She knew the dry dead of old, and knew that they had eyes everywhere possible. It wouldn’t have been long before they’d noticed the drifting, dead-crewed hulks sliding up river. So she’d given them something else to look at, something obvious and vicious and within tempting reach.

It had worked, and even better than she’d hoped. For when the fleet of Lybaras had set sail to hunt down her distraction, so too had the fleet of Mahrak. The dry dead of the sands were ever at war with one another, renewing in death the rivalries that they had had in life. The Mangrove Port had been in waters claimed by Mahrak, for all that no soldier of the City of Decay had ever set foot anywhere on the Shifting Mangrove Coast, in life or in death. The tensions between the two cities, never far from the surface, had been stirred once more.

The eyes of her enemies would be upon one another, now, rather than her jungles. And that meant that she could strike, without fear of obstacles. ‘A waste,’ she repeated, looking down at Steyr. He had been a handsome enough man, in life, though he was looking distinctly the worse for wear now. Hard used, but not used up. Not quite. ‘Yes, perhaps it would be, at that.’ She glanced at Octavia, who met her gaze without flinching. As ever, there was no challenge there, no resistance to her will. The necromancer’s mind might as well have been a placid jungle pool. But Nitocris knew that there were monsters beneath those still waters. And they were waiting to strike. She smiled at the thought, relishing it. She had fought monsters before, and broken them to her will. The necromancer would be no different.

Octavia fought to control her expression as Nitocris turned away and said, ‘I may yet have use for you, man. Lick your wounds and stay out of my sight, until I call for you.’ She turned to level a hot gaze upon Octavia. ‘I am sure your sister will see to your needs.’

Octavia bowed, but said nothing. What was there to say? This was the beginning of a new game, and they both knew it.

When Fiducci had taught her about vampires, that had been his first lesson. Vampires lied. They always lied. Or if they did not lie, they bent the truth into new and creative shapes. And they never, ever did anything save that it benefit them in some fashion. The question was, how did leaving her brother alive benefit them? Was his continued existence a reward or a warning?

Nitocris examined her, as if reading her thoughts. Octavia bowed again, and the slightest hint of a cruel smile tugged at the corners of the vampire’s mouth. Seemingly satisfied, Nitocris swept back to her bier, followed by her handmaidens, leaving Octavia and her brother alone on the ziggurat. She looked down at him. ‘I sent warning,’ she said softly. The cats she’d sent had returned not long before Nitocris’s warriors had escorted her brother back to the temple, and brought with them images of what had occurred. It was a difficult trick, seeing through the eyes of the dead, but one she had mastered early.

If she willed it, she could see through the eyes of everything she had called to her with the drums, which even now still pounded, be they flesh, bone or spirit. She could see all that they saw and all at once, though she was hesitant to try it. Her mind could carry a heavy load, but that was pushing her limits.

‘It seems that it did not reach us in time,’ Steyr coughed. He placed a hand on his knee and pushed himself to his feet. She went to him. He stank of the swamp and unmarked graves, and she closed her eyes and pressed her face tight to his chest. He stroked her hair with a gentleness that belied his strength. ‘I was so close. Our fleet was coming along nicely,’ he murmured. ‘In a few more months, we would have sailed around the coast and up that blasted river, and torn this foul edifice down around her ears.’

Octavia stiffened and stepped back. She looked at him, and saw that he was acting the vampire now, arrogant and brutal and thirsty. It was like a shroud over his personality, and she could sense it vibrating darkly. There was a predatory quiver to vampires, a subtle and sinister formula that rose through the Corpse Geometries to dominate and twist the pattern.

Fiducci had warned her about that as well. Vampires strove to dominate in all facets of existence. It was in their nature, and in their blood. A drop of the latter in a wound conquered even the strongest warrior, and made them over into what they fought. The iron will of the Mother of All Vampires was recreated in all who were descended from her. ‘And then all three of you would have died, rather than just two,’ she said. ‘And then where would I be?’

‘Unencumbered,’ he said. A trace of old hurts was evident in the way he said it. He turned from her and looked out over the ruin, his hands clasped behind his back.

She placed a hand against his back. Her eyes were drawn to the largest of the healing wounds he bore. Idly, she poked it, and he hissed and spun, grabbing her hand. ‘That still hurts,’ he snapped.

‘The pain is in your mind. You can’t actually feel it,’ she said, extracting her hand from his grip. ‘No Nehekharan weapon made that wound.’

‘That’s not surprising. It wasn’t a dead man who nearly killed me, now was it?’ he said.

‘You lied to her,’ Octavia murmured, somewhat surprised. Vampires always lie, she thought. Even when the vampire in question was your brother, it seemed. ‘The Nehekharans weren’t the ones who attacked you?’

‘Oh they did, and quite thoroughly mauled us too, but they had some help,’ he said. He began to pluck out the arrows that still jutted from him. ‘It was a dwarf.’

‘Dwarfs,’ she said, surprised. There were rumours of a dwarf hold, somewhere in the talon of mountains that hooked the western edge of the jungle, but she knew of no one, alive or dead, who’d seen it.

‘Clean the grave mould out of your ears, Octavia. I said dwarf, singular, and a man.’ He sniffed. ‘A fine fellow, you’d have liked him. I so hoped that we were going to be friends.’

She touched the wound again, despite his protestations. Every wound bore the signature of the blade that made it, and every blade left something of itself behind, whether fragments or shavings – and sometimes, just sometimes, something even finer. She could feel the raw, ugly power of the blade that had bitten into her brother. It was a thing of discomfiting solidity, and it had left its mark on her brother’s essence. Octavia knew little of the dwarfs, but what she did know was that the weapons they crafted were heavy things, heavier than the world around them, and somehow more real than reality. They ate at magic the way acid ate at flesh.

The magics within her recoiled at the hint of such a thing, and she lowered her hand. It was no wonder it was taking so long for her brother to heal. ‘What happened to them,’ she said, ‘the dwarf and your fine fellow?’

‘You’ll forgive me if I wasn’t in the mood to be observant. For all I know, the bone-bags killed them after they finished with us,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘Why did she spare me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. She smiled at the sight of the expression on his face. She reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘I’m glad she did.’ Her smile faded. ‘How did they die?’ she asked, quietly. Their faces swam before her eyes – laughing Pieter and frowning Gregory. She felt a stirring, down deep in the ashes of her soul. She still loved her brothers, but part of her was glad that their souls were free of meat now, and away from this harsh realm.

‘As well as can be expected,’ Steyr said, taking her hand. He kissed her knuckles. ‘We knew when we followed you to this cursed place that it would likely mean our deaths, sister. And it did. It’s simply taking a bit longer than normal for us to lie down.’

She took his hand and led him down the ziggurat. ‘You need blood, to speed your healing,’ she said, as they descended. ‘I think our beloved queen can spare a few slaves, don’t you?’ She raised her free hand, catching the attention of the spectres and ghosts that floated above them. They began to drift down towards her, and their moans filled her ears like friendly greetings.

‘I don’t know, they all look exceedingly busy,’ he said, allowing her to lead him. ‘I’m beginning to think you were right, sister. This place looks as ready for war as any place I’ve ever seen. What is she up to?’

‘Much the same as you were planning, I imagine,’ she said, glancing at him. He smirked and shrugged, and for a moment he was the brother she recalled from her childhood, all bravado and instinct. It was Sigmund who kept them fed, and Sigmund who kept her safe from the watch and the assorted predators of the slums, until she had grown strong enough to protect herself. Sigmund the sneak thief, Sigmund who’d been named for a hero, and who’d lived up to that name, at least in her eyes.

Then his smirk became a hard, cruel smile, and she knew that he was already scheming and plotting to take advantage of his current situation. She felt a weight settle on her heart. Vampires were not truly dead. They lacked the grace of the grave, instead clinging to the rags and tatters of life. Only the living sought to rule. What use had the dead for kingdoms? For a second, she wished her brother had been killed.

The thought of his death, and hers, warmed her. They would be together in damnation then. She pushed the thought aside as the chill fingers of ghosts brushed across her scalp. Her hand caught up the amulet in the shape of a woman’s mouth, and again she kissed it. Steyr saw the gesture and grimaced.

‘You still have that detestable phylactery, I see. I’ll never forgive that blasted Tilean for teaching you about that.’ He reached for her. ‘There are better ways to anchor your spirit to this world, sister. That… thing is not one of them.’

‘What it is, or is not, is no concern of yours, brother. Come,’ she said, and stepped off the ziggurat and onto the buoyant cloud of spirits that rose beneath her. Their ethereal fingers plucked at her legs and they coiled about her like a morning mist. They whispered to her, speaking of secrets, curses and pleas, but she ignored them. They wouldn’t acknowledge her, should she reply. She’d learned as much as a child. There wasn’t enough left of their personalities for them to do anything more than repeat their dying thoughts incessantly.

Steyr hesitated. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

‘Don’t you think we’re a little past the point of worrying about safety?’ she said teasingly. She held out her hand, and he took it. She pulled him onto the roiling host of spirits and they descended, walking across the backs and palms of the ghosts until they reached the ground. Steyr watched the spirits return to their slow orbit of the ziggurat and frowned.

‘Damn things are worse than those bloated corpses she made you fish from the sea,’ he muttered. She laughed.

‘You have never been able to see what I see, have you, Sigmund?’

‘No one sees what you see, Octavia,’ Steyr grunted. They made their way through the ruins, past stumbling lines of newly arrived zombies and filth-encrusted skeletons. Entire armies had died in the jungles for thousands of years – Arabayan, Cathayan, and Nehekharan, to name but three. Expeditions from Tilea, the Empire and Estalia had also been swallowed by the foetid shadows of the Southlands, and their remains now staggered and slouched into the moonlight, shoving through the gaping holes in the ancient and crumbling walls of the temple city.

‘They are beautiful,’ she said, stretching out a hand to caress the rusted and dangling pauldron of a lurching corpse. It was clad in the filthy remnants of the uniform of an Averland militiaman, and dragged a broken halberd behind it. A snake slithered up from within its uniform and into its sagging mouth, before poking its wedge-shaped head through an empty eye socket. Octavia held up her hand, and the snake slithered across her palm and coiled about her forearm. She pulled the serpent close to her and stroked its skull as they walked. ‘There are colours unknown to poets and artists alike visible upon their tattered flesh, and smells more intricate than can be conceived of by even the greatest perfumers of Bretonnia waft from them.’

‘I will admit, they have quite the heady bouquet,’ Steyr grunted, waving a hand in front of his face. ‘But beautiful? There we agree to disagree, my sister.’

He made a face. ‘She’s had you rouse every corpse in the jungle.’

‘We’ll need them,’ she said.

‘I take it she’s still intent on tearing Lybaras apart stone by stone?’ he said.

‘And more besides – Mahrak, as well, at least, and Rasetra – everything south of the Charnel Valley,’ she said. She smiled and added, ‘And Lahmia, of course.’

‘Of course,’ he said sourly. He hopped over a crawling corpse, missing its lower half. He watched it follow after the others for a moment, before continuing after her. ‘You still think she’ll let you get within a hundred yards of that library you dream of?’

‘If she’s as smart as I think, she’ll know she has no choice. In Lahmia lie the secrets of controlling the dead of Nehekhara – the great tomes and papyri of the masters of the art, which contain everything I’ll need to bring the tomb-kingdoms to heel, and free them from the tyranny of their dreams of lives once lived.’ She petted the snake and it slithered up her arm and coiled about her neck, its tongue flickering in and out of its mouth. ‘She needs me to make use of those secrets, for her sake if for no other reason. Otherwise, all the dead in these jungles won’t be enough to hold back the tomb-legions that will come pouring through the Charnel Valley, once they realise what she’s done to Khalida and Lybaras.’

CHAPTER 8

The Lybaran galley sped across the heaving sea with preternatural speed. Or so it seemed to Felix, who sat on the rail of the high deck, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He examined his hand. It had been bandaged so expertly that he would not have known he was wearing it, had he not seen it put on. Zabbai’s handmaidens were better surgeons than any he had had the misfortune to encounter in his own lands.

He’d been somewhat worried about infection, and not just from the muck and filth that had crusted his wounds. It was common enough knowledge that ghouls carried a hundred and one vile diseases on their fangs and talons, scraped from the bones of dead men. It was a ghoul who had carried the Blue Pox into Stirland, and a ghoul who had inflicted the first case of the Red Rot in Bretonnia. Or so folk had it. Then, folk also had it that the dead of the deserts were as foul as any corpse that had ever clawed its way out of the sour ground of Sylvania.

Felix lowered his hand and watched the crew of the galley. They acted much as they had in life, he suspected. He wondered if Gotrek was correct – did they even know that they no longer possessed flesh, or were they lost in dreams and heedless of the salty sea winds that scratched at their bones?

‘They do not see the world as it is, but as it was,’ Zabbai said, from beside him. Startled, he nearly slipped from his perch. Her hand shot out, steadying him. She was far stronger, he knew, than himself. Idly, he wondered if that had been the case when she’d been alive, as well. Judging by her size, he thought it likely. He’d never met a woman, alive or otherwise, who was both taller and stronger than himself.

‘And how do you see it?’ he said, steadying himself on the rail.

‘I am speaking to you, am I not?’ She tilted her head. She leaned on the haft of her war-axe, at ease. Up close, the Herald of Lybaras smelt of strange spices and preservative oils. It wasn’t a foul smell, he decided. But it was different.

‘I’m surprised you speak our language,’ he said, ‘but gratified. My own facility with languages is diverse, but limited.’

‘I speak all of the languages of the empire,’ she said, looking out over the deck. It took him a moment to realise that she wasn’t referring to the Empire of Karl Franz, but some other, more ancient kingdom. He hesitated, wondering how to respond. She looked at him, and made a soft, rattling sound he thought might be a chuckle. ‘Though it has been some time since I’ve spoken to a barbarian from the northern wilds, I will admit.’

‘Barbarian?’ Felix asked, stung.

‘Do you prefer savage?’ Zabbai cocked her head. ‘You’re an Unberogen, no? You look like them, though you are quite skinny.’

‘You’re one to talk,’ Felix muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Felix said, looking at his reflection in her golden mask. ‘Have you met many barbarians, then?’

‘I took their heads. Does that count as meeting them?’ She patted the haft of her axe. ‘They fought well, those mountain-folk, but I rode with Nekaph, and even the gods would hesitate to meet the Herald of Settra in battle. We harried them to their brute palisades, and put their hovels to the torch. We mounted the heads of their petty kings upon stone pillars, where the carrion birds could strip them clean.’ She spoke proudly, and Felix felt slightly ill. She stretched out a hand towards the sun and spread her fingers, as if to clutch at it. ‘Our empire stretched from sunrise to sunset, and the earth trembled beneath the wheels of our war-chariots.’

‘And now it is dust and ashes,’ Gotrek rumbled.

Both Zabbai and Felix turned. The Slayer wasn’t looking at them. Gotrek had been staring at the wake of the galley since the liche-priest, Djubti, had intimated that he would find his doom, as if the waters held some secret in that regard. The dwarf ran his thumb over the edge of his axe and stuffed the bloody digit into his mouth. He turned and fixed them with a gimlet stare. ‘Everything ends, manling. Empires rise and fall, and the world keeps turning, whether we wish it, or not. And those of us who remain are forced to wade through the ashes of that which we once knew.’ He spat over the rail. ‘That or we wallow in them. It seems that the dead are no different to the living, in that regard.’

‘Our empire still exists,’ Zabbai said. ‘It has existed, and will exist again. It is imperishable and eternal. We are imperishable and eternal.’

Gotrek grinned. ‘Like the markings on a tomb,’ he said.

Zabbai half raised her axe. If she’d been alive, Felix might have thought that she was contemplating burying her axe in Gotrek’s head. As it was, he had no idea what was going on behind her mask. Could the dead be insulted? He decided to play peacemaker. They were guests – or prisoners, a traitorous part of his mind murmured – though Gotrek seemed to have forgotten that, as usual. ‘Tell me of Lybaras,’ he interjected, quickly.

Zabbai looked at him. Then she lowered her axe and said, ‘Lybaras is vengeance given form. It is the wrath, the wrack and the ruin of all those who would dare challenge the Great Land. The shadows of its white towers stretch from the Devil’s Backbone to the west, to the Cursed Jungle in the south, and to the Gulf of Fear in the east. Only from the north may Lybaras be safely approached, and it is the north that Lybaras guards, for in the north lies cursed Lahmia and twice-cursed Nagashizzar.’ Zabbai settled her axe in the crook of her arm. ‘The Serpent Queen, High Queen Khalida, has set herself the task of barring the way, should there be any attempt to rouse the damned spirits which lurk in Lahmia’s ruins, or to once again light the hell-forges of Nagashizzar. While the other kings, queens, princes and princesses of the Great Land are lost to the memory of flesh, or content to wage war upon one another for boredom or spite, Khalida alone sees the greater purpose of our curse.’

‘Greater purpose,’ Felix repeated.

‘We failed,’ Zabbai said softly. ‘We failed our land, our people and our gods, and thus we are stripped of eternity and condemned to watch as the world moves on without us, without our wisdom. We are not rulers now but gaolers, set to guard the Usurper’s foul treasures so that none might make use of them as he did.’

‘Who is “the Usurper”?’ Felix asked.

He never got his answer. The drumbeat changed rhythm and Zabbai snapped around, staring towards the horizon. Felix followed her gaze and saw the shapes of several approaching galleys. They were cutting through the water, against the current, but approaching speedily for all that. They bore a hawk or some other bird of prey on their sails and he recalled the second flotilla he’d seen from the deck of the Orfeo. Had they fallen afoul of some internecine squabble between tomb-cities? The thought wasn’t a pleasant one.

Zabbai said something in her own tongue. He thought it might have been a curse. ‘What is it?’ he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

‘Mahrak,’ she said. ‘We are in waters that the City of Decay claims.’

‘I take it that you don’t agree with them,’ Felix said.

‘Their fleet is a third the size of ours, and they claim a third more of the sea,’ Zabbai said. ‘King Tharruk has ever overestimated Mahrak’s reach.’

Felix shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun and peered at the approaching ships. ‘Just now, I’d say they outnumber you, whatever the size of their fleet. We’re one to their three.’ He nervously fingered the hilt of his sword. He’d never been a fan of boarding actions.

‘We have already met them in battle once. We broke them then,’ Zabbai said.

‘Aye, and our ship as well,’ Gotrek said. He peered at the approaching ships with interest. ‘Then, your folk have never given much thought to anyone else, have they?’

‘And yours have?’ Zabbai said. Like Gotrek, she stared at the galleys, which were swiftly closing the distance. Felix wondered if they were using some fell magic to do so, and then looked about the deck, at the skeletal crew that surrounded him, and shook his head. He caught Gotrek’s eye and the Slayer chuckled.

‘Don’t look so worried, manling. Remember our time with Long Drong? It’ll be just like that,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose.

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ Felix said. They’d spent a month aboard the ironclad warship of the infamous Slayer-pirate. He and Gotrek had got along like… Well, like Slayers. Felix had experienced the worst seasickness of his life aboard the cramped and foul-smelling vessel, and things hadn’t got any better when Drong and Gotrek had bullied him aboard Malakai Makaisson’s experimental undersea exploration vessel. Things hadn’t got any better once they’d hit the ocean floor, either. He pushed that particular memory aside.

‘No fish-men, though,’ Gotrek added.

‘Thank the gods for small favours,’ Felix muttered. He looked at Zabbai. ‘Can’t we outrun them?’

The dead woman looked at him. ‘We are warriors of Lybaras, barbarian. We don’t run.’

‘Ha! I’m starting to like you, crow-bait,’ Gotrek said. He nudged Felix with his elbow. ‘You like dead women, don’t you, manling? I approve of this one, if it matters.’

‘It doesn’t,’ Felix said through gritted teeth. The only thing worse than a Slayer in a sour mood was one who was looking forward to a fight; a cheerful Gotrek was like an overly excited bear, given to playful bites and bone-rattling swipes.

Zabbai lifted her axe and shouted something in her own tongue. Archers began to troop up onto the deck, their gear rattling on their yellowing bones. Djubti followed them, seemingly in no hurry. The liche-priest leaned on his staff, and his withered features twisted into an expression of frustration. ‘We have no time for this, woman,’ he rasped. ‘I will conjure the breath of Khsar and we shall leave them in our wake.’

Zabbai’s axe swept out, and the tip of the blade poked the liche-priest in the nose. ‘We do not run, old bones. They must know that we do not fear them. They must know that we can go where we wish, whether they will it or not. The open seas are ours, and the coasts and everything in between.’

‘Are you so eager for open war?’ Djubti said. He used his staff to shove aside her axe.

‘War has already been declared,’ Zabbai said. ‘They attacked us.’

‘And we beat them. Let that be an end to it,’ he hissed. ‘Black clouds and carrion birds gather about us, woman. We have no time for such petty concerns. Greater things are at stake than your warrior’s pride.’

Felix watched the exchange, curious as to what it was about, and not a little concerned. Despite his attempts to ferret it out, Zabbai had not revealed why this ‘Serpent Queen’ wanted to see them, or what it had to do with whatever was going on. And something was going on. He could feel it in his gut. He moved to Gotrek’s side. ‘We are in deep waters here, Gotrek,’ he said.

The Slayer peered over the rail and grunted, ‘Fairly deep, aye. What’s your point, manling?’

‘Metaphorical waters, Gotrek,’ Felix said. ‘We are bobbing on an ocean of plots and schemes, I think.’

‘Really,’ Gotrek said. ‘Observant of you, manling.’

‘Something is going on,’ Felix tried, growing frustrated.

Gotrek cocked his eye at Felix. ‘Something is always going on, manling. Living humans are full of plots and schemes. Why should dead ones be any different?’ he said dismissively.

He waved a hand at the approaching galleys. ‘I came here to find either gold, doom or both. Those will do me as well as anything.’

‘You think that old liche was telling the truth, then?’ Felix asked, softly. ‘About your search being over, I mean.’ He cast a quick glance towards the oncoming galleys and then looked back at Gotrek.

The Slayer frowned thoughtfully. ‘I’ve heard that before,’ he muttered. He looked at Felix. ‘I’ve heard it too often.’ He fell silent. His grip on his axe tightened perceptibly, and the haft creaked beneath his fingers.

Felix knew better than to try and get any more out of him. Gotrek was never the most communicative of companions, especially when it came to the subject of his doom. Felix looked back at the galleys swooping towards them, and felt a stab of pity for the dead men.

Behind them, a hoarse voice began to chant. Felix turned and saw Djubti standing in the centre of the deck, his shrivelled arms extended over his head, with his staff held horizontally in both hands. The sea breeze began to grow in strength as the liche-priest croaked out his incantation. He’d obviously won his argument with Zabbai. Felix felt somewhat relieved.

The sails of their vessel snapped and billowed, filling with an unnatural wind.

However, despite this, the enemy galleys had drawn far too close for comfort. Felix could see that they had their own archers. Zabbai barked an order. Her soldiers raised their bows, arrows ready. A moment later, the sky momentarily darkened as opposing volleys of arrows met and passed through one another. Felix yelped as arrows rained down on them. Gotrek grunted and grabbed Felix, slinging him to the deck. The Slayer interposed himself, and as Felix watched in mounting horror, arrows struck Gotrek, piercing his thick flesh.

The dwarf remained standing despite this, and held tight to his axe. Felix closed his eyes. As the last arrow punched through the wood of the deck, Felix opened one eye. Gotrek looked down at him. ‘Still in one piece then, manling?’ he asked. Arrows jutted from his chest, shoulders and arms like the quills of a porcupine. As if they were no more bother than bee stings, Gotrek lifted his axe and chopped through the hafts, shearing them to nubs. Blood oozed around the barbed heads, but the Slayer didn’t seem to care. Idly, he twisted an arrowhead free and bounced it on his palm.

‘Gotrek, are-are you all right?’ Felix said, rising to his feet.

‘Bah,’ Gotrek spat. ‘Elven archers are more dangerous than that lot.’

‘The warriors of Mahrak favour the blade to the bow,’ Zabbai said, from where she stood near the rail. Felix saw that she, like Gotrek, had been struck several times, though she hadn’t bothered to break or remove the arrows. He felt a moment of queasy fascination as he considered the company he found himself in. He felt terribly fragile, all of a sudden.

On the enemy galleys, dead men were gathering in the prows. On the closest, Felix saw a skeletal figure, clad in ornate, archaic armour and flowing ruby robes, raise a heavy, square shield and a gilded khopesh as if in salute. The warrior shouted something that Felix couldn’t make out. He looked at Zabbai, who hissed. ‘Otep,’ she said. ‘I should have known.’

‘An old friend,’ he said.

‘An old suitor,’ Zabbai said.

The archers were abandoning the deck, moving down to the lower sections of the galley as spear-armed warriors replaced them. Zabbai swung her axe and buried it in the rail. She gestured imperiously, and one of her warriors handed her a large, broad-bladed spear, much like the one she’d used to kill Pieter. She brought the blade up and touched its tip to her brow. Then, with a hiss of bronze splitting the air, she sent the spear flying towards the closest galley, and the gesticulating figure of Otep.

Felix winced as the spear tore the warrior’s head clean off. Otep’s body staggered back, hands flung out. It stumbled and abruptly vanished. Felix thought he might have fallen. ‘He never did know when not to call attention to himself,’ Zabbai said. She tore her axe free of the rail.

‘Old suitor, you said?’ Felix said, hesitantly.

‘Would-be suitor,’ Zabbai amended. ‘They’re slowing,’ she added.

‘Are we going to get a fight, or not?’ Gotrek said impatiently. ‘My axe grows thirsty.’

‘We’ll get a fight. Otep’s galley is peeling off, but the others are still coming,’ Zabbai said. ‘We won’t be able to outrun them, even with Djubti’s sorcerous wind filling our sails and aiding our rowers.’

She gestured, and the drumbeat began to change. Her warriors approached the rail, raising their shields and hefting spears to ward off boarders. Zabbai waved Felix back. ‘Behind me, barbarian,’ she said, almost gently, shooing him back. She looked at Gotrek and added, ‘You can stand wherever you want, dwarf.’

Gotrek gave a grunt of satisfaction and stumped towards the rail. Felix looked at Djubti. The liche-priest stood near the mast, hunched and sour looking. Felix turned back, and saw that the first galley was almost upon them. He could make out the eerie, fleshless grins of the warriors gathered in the prow, crouched behind shields, their bony fingers waiting to draw their swords. He swallowed. What was it Gotrek had said? ‘Spines and skulls,’ Felix muttered. ‘Spines and skulls.’

The galleys crashed together in a cacophony of crunching metal and splintering wood. Felix was nearly thrown from his feet. As he regained his balance, there was a hiss of voices, and the enemy leapt to the attack. Dead men clad in bronze armour crashed against one another in the small space between aft rail and prow. Khopesh met khopesh and shields smashed together as ancient rivalries were renewed.

Gotrek gave a roar and struck the enemy line like a cannonball. His axe swung out in wide arcs and shards of bone and bronze flew in its wake. Felix drew Karaghul and parried a spear as it dug for his belly. His shoulder crashed into his opponent’s shield and he rolled across it, reversing Karaghul as he did so. He stabbed the sword behind him, catching the skeleton in the back, severing its spine.

Zabbai was at the forefront, wielding axe and shield. She strode across the deck like a goddess of war, her axe removing heads and limbs, and her shield smashing her enemies from their feet. In life, she would have been magnificent. In death, she was terrifying. Felix goggled as she caught a warrior with her shield and flung the struggling skeleton into the air, and then caught it with her axe as it fell. The warriors of Lybaras held their ground as those of Mahrak pressed against them. Those who weren’t involved in the defence of the deck had moved towards the side of the galley where the second enemy vessel had drawn alongside. Boarding planks slammed down on the rail, and more enemy warriors clattered across. Djubti gave a hoarse curse and raised his staff. A string of croaking syllables slipped from his desiccated lips, and as Felix watched in horrified fascination, the skulls of those warriors already fallen rose into the air with a communal shriek. The skulls were drawn towards the liche-priest and they swirled about him, as if he were the eye of a maelstrom.

With a sharp gesture, Djubti sent the whirling storm of skulls spinning towards the enemy galley. The warriors crossing the boarding planks were caught and torn to shreds by the chattering cloud of skulls, and their own skulls joined the storm as it swept across the galley. The galley heaved as the skulls tore through wood and metal and bone. Djubti clenched his hand and the storm rose up, the skulls swirling faster and faster. They shattered the masts of the galley and tore the sails to shreds. Bodies were caught in their wake and drawn up into the swirling vortex. Then, with a cutting gesture, Djubti let the spell fade. A rain of cracked and broken skulls thudded to the deck of the enemy galley, and nothing moved upon it.

A khopesh slashed out, narrowly missing Felix’s head. It snagged a thread of his hair before burying itself in the mast. Shaken from his reverie, Felix cursed and stabbed out with Karaghul, but the templar blade was batted aside by a rattling flail. The warrior who faced him was no skeletal spearman. Clad in gold and obsidian armour and flowing black raiment, he was bigger than his warriors, and he wielded a saw-toothed khopesh and a flail composed of cruel barbs, wrought in the shape of scorpions’ stings. His face was hidden behind a mask of fraying silk and thin, filigreed gold.

‘Ho, living man! Would you face Antar of Mahrak, Prince of the Obsidian Divide, Lion of the Valley, Mighty Son of Heaven?’ his opponent rasped. ‘Would you meet the Second King of the Fourth Dynasty in honourable combat? Come, O fleshy one! Come, so that he might shuck thee of thy untidy and off-putting seeming!’ Antar swept out his arms, and the enemy soldiers, and those of Lybaras as well, drew back. ‘Back, you dogs! Back, sons of Mahrak and curs of Lybaras! Antar is a prince of Mahrak, scion of Tharruk, and he issues a challenge to thee, worm of seven hundred graves!’

Felix raised his blade in rough salute. He didn’t intend to waste breath answering such a long-winded challenge. Antar clashed his weapons and stalked forwards, much quicker than Felix expected. The flail snapped out, entangling Karaghul as he sought to block the blow, and the sword was ripped from his grasp and sent clattering across the deck. Felix didn’t hesitate. He dived after the blade. The khopesh sliced out, barely missing his head as he stretched his hands out towards his sword. ‘Dog of the north,’ Antar hissed. ‘Jackal with ten thousand fathers! Face the Spiteful Son of Imanotep!’ Felix caught up Karaghul and rolled to his feet.

Antar lunged, smashing his blade aside and his flail tore across Felix’s face and chest. Felix staggered back. The wounds weren’t as bad as some he’d taken, but they burned strangely. He stumbled backwards, and his back struck the rail. The world swam before his eyes. Antar shook his flail. ‘Do you feel the scorpion’s sting, fleshy one? Do you feel it eat into your primitive muscle, draining your strength? Ha! Woe betide any who would pit themselves against the Dutiful Scorpion of Mahrak, for his sting shall send them to Djaf’s embrace!’

Felix slumped against the rail. His veins felt as if they were swollen with fire and his tongue felt bloated and heavy in his mouth. Karaghul slipped from his nerveless fingers and he slipped down. Antar approached. ‘I shall make a codpiece of thy skull, northman. I shall weave thy flaxen locks into a braid for my concubines, and I shall have thy sword shattered and cast into the sea.’

‘Touch the manling again, you withered bag of dog’s leavings, and I’ll pick my teeth with your finger-bones,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer slapped aside a skeletal warrior with casual brutality and stomped towards Antar. ‘He’s oathsworn to me, you moveable feast for maggots, and I’ll not have you help him escape it. He’s already tried once this week,’ Gotrek growled. Felix tried to protest, but his face felt numb, and he was having trouble breathing. Gotrek gestured with his axe. ‘You want to fight? Let’s fight.’

Antar cocked his head, and then gave a raspy laugh. ‘Fight, you say? Antar, Hawk of the Rising Moon, does not fight stumpy monkeys. He kills them and plucks their eyes for sweetmeats. Do not come between the Son of the Third Queen, Lady of the Eighth Sun, Mightiest of All and his chosen–’

Gotrek didn’t give Antar a chance to finish. He charged forwards. His rune-axe thundered down, splintering Antar’s wrist, and the hand that held the flail fell to the deck. Antar reeled back, cursing. Khopesh met axe in a flurry of squeals and sparks as the fight reeled across the deck. Antar’s speed did him little good against the Slayer, who blocked every blow with ease.

The khopesh cut towards Gotrek’s skull, and the Slayer interposed his axe. Such was the force of Antar’s blow that the blade cracked and the rune-axe bit deep into it. The two weapons became locked. Gotrek’s free hand snapped out, catching hold of Antar’s exposed spinal column, beneath its breastplate of gold and onyx. Gotrek gave a grunt, and the muscles in his arm and shoulder bulged and flexed as he crushed the aged bones. Antar gave a squawk and toppled backwards. Or rather, the top half of him did. His legs stayed where they were.

‘Cheat!’ he hissed, flailing helplessly. ‘This is not honourable! Antar makes protest! There was no formal challenge! The Mighty Lion Cub was struck from behind by treacherous donkeys!’

‘This is a fight,’ Gotrek snarled, reaching down to grab the dead man’s skull. ‘You don’t get to protest. Now shut up so I can finish killing you.’ Felix wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The thought didn’t bother him as much as it should have. His head felt muddy and his thoughts felt as if they were muffled in cotton. He could hear his heart struggling in his chest, and he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes.

‘No,’ Zabbai said, tapping Gotrek’s shoulder with the flat of her axe. ‘It is not meet that you should kill a prince of Nehekhara this way. It is also not meet that we should throw him over the side, so that he would have to crawl back to Nehekhara across the ocean floor, like the worm he is, no matter how much he might deserve it. He is our prisoner, and will be treated as such.’

‘Ha! You heard her. Release this Glorious Child of Mahrak, ape of Ind! Release Antar, He Who Has Come to Deliver Justice,’ Antar said, battering at Gotrek’s unyielding fist with his bony hand. ‘You heard the Serpent’s doxy!’

‘Quiet, Antar,’ Zabbai said, easily hefting the top of him. ‘Or I’ll string you from the prow for the gulls to play with.’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘See to your friend. Antar was ever fond of dipping his weapons in poisons.’

Felix’s eyelids felt unbearably heavy as Gotrek sank down into a crouch beside him. ‘Gotrek, I think I’m dying,’ he croaked. Black spots crowded at the edges of his vision, and he felt as if he were looking up at the Slayer from the bottom of a deep well. Gotrek’s craggy face was unreadable. A rough palm was pressed to his forehead, and the dwarf traced the wounds in his face. Gotrek’s eye narrowed.

‘You might be at that, manling,’ he said grimly. Faces swam before Felix’s vision – Ulrika, Max, Snorri, others – enemies as well as friends. Flashes of memory, pieces of his past swirled across the surface of his mind. He saw each of them as clear as day and as vibrantly as if he were experiencing them for the first time. And then he saw nothing at all.

CHAPTER 9

Felix felt warm. His eyes fluttered open.

A brightly hued bird stared down at him. It squawked as he came awake and flapped its wings. The bird flew away, out through a stone doorway that led onto a wide balcony. Felix pushed himself up and looked down at himself, and then at the room around him. It was not large, but it was tidy. Age-dulled mosaics covered the pale stone walls, depicting scenes from a history utterly unfamiliar to him.

He saw men in chariots firing bows at great, ill-formed beasts, and ranks of spearmen marching against a horde of bipedal lizards. Sunlight streamed in through the doorway that the bird had flown out through, and through the oval windows that lined the walls. There was no glass in the windows, only thin curtains of muslin that stirred ever so slightly in the salt-tinged breeze coursing through the room. He shivered and climbed out of bed. The world spun for a moment, and a queasy ripple of vertigo swept through him. He felt wrung-out and weak. He wasn’t dead, however.

His clothes lay across a stool nearby, as did his chain shirt, his cloak and his boots. All had been cleaned and repaired, seemingly as good as new. Karaghul, in its sheath, hung from a bedpost, as did his dagger. Both sheaths had been scoured of muck and grime, and he unsheathed the sword, marvelling at the polish it now possessed. The sword maintained an edge and a gleam better than any blade he’d ever carried, but it was positively radiant now. He dressed quickly, and stepped out onto the balcony. The balcony was a plain stone extension, with a curving balustrade, and strange serpentine designs marked every fourth block of stone that made it up.

Below him, a silent city stretched out. The buildings were made from stone and marble, and of a variety of sizes, but all of a similar mausoleum-like shape. The windows were squares of black set into flat walls, and he saw no faces or movement in any of them. Long shadows slithered through the streets, and ancient structures, topped with gold, stood silent sentinel over what he hoped was Lybaras. He leaned over the balustrade. The streets were empty, with no sign of anyone, living or dead. In truth, he hadn’t expected to see anyone, but it was odd and more than a little disquieting to experience.

The city was as quiet as any tomb, and the eerie silence caused a chill to pass through him, despite the heat of the day. It was a vision of decayed splendour, with wide, paved streets lined with great statues carved in the shapes of cobras, asps and serpents of all sorts. Funeral monuments lined the plazas and vast, free-standing archways marked the entrances to those plazas and intersections. And beyond it all, the glitter of the sea.

The salty wind caressed the stones and hissed through the streets. He closed his eyes. He had been certain that he was going to die. Then, that wasn’t anything new. Felix fancied that Morr probably had a berth with his name on it held open on a more or less permanent basis on his grim vessel.

The last thing he recalled was Gotrek’s face, glaring down at him in either concern or consternation. Felix flexed his bandaged hand and tilted his head. A bitter wind caressed his face. There was a good reason that the Bitter Sea was named such, he knew. He stepped back into the room. What had happened after he’d passed out? And where was Gotrek?

There was a bowl of fruit on a table near the bed, and a stone jug of water. The fruit was quite unlike anything he’d ever seen, and he thought that it must come from the Southlands. It wasn’t quite rotten, but it was soft enough to provoke a queasy reaction in his grumbling belly. The water had a slightly sour taste that was mostly hidden by the slices of fruit that had been dropped into it. He wondered why the dead had a supply of such things, and whether they had procured the fruit, at least, just for him, or if they had a supply of it on hand, just in case visitors stopped by. The thought made him smile.

As he struggled into his chain shirt, he saw that the broken links had been repaired with bronze and iron, and like Karaghul, it too had been polished. He was swinging the cloak about his shoulders when the door opened and a shape stepped into the room.

Felix snatched up Karaghul and had the sword half drawn before he saw that it was Zabbai. The Herald of Lybaras cocked her head. ‘I see that you are awake, barbarian. Good.’

‘Felix,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘My name is Felix,’ he said, belting his sword about his waist.

‘I did not ask,’ Zabbai said.

‘No, you didn’t,’ Felix said. He stuffed his gloves through his belt and stretched his bandaged hands. They ached somewhat, but he’d take soreness over numbness any day. ‘I owe you my thanks. For saving my life, I mean.’

‘Again,’ Zabbai said, ‘saving your life again. That is two you owe me.’

‘I seem to have a bad habit of finding myself in debt to others,’ he said. She laughed. The croaking rattle was not nearly as surprising as before. In life, he suspected that it had been loud and boisterous. ‘I assume that we made it to Lybaras, then,’ he said.

‘Where else would we be?’ Zabbai said. She gestured towards the door. ‘The Beloved of Asaph, the Lioness of the Sands, wishes to speak with you.’

‘Where is Gotrek?’ Felix said, as they stepped out into the corridor beyond. Silent, skeletal servants waited there, clad in frayed robes and tarnished golden jewellery. As one, they formed up around them.

‘Here, manling,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer was sitting on a stool a little way up the corridor, a jug of sour-smelling wine dangling from one meaty paw and a skeleton kneeling nearby, with a platter of something dead and roasted balanced on its upraised palms. He grinned and stood. ‘Feel better after your nap?’ He gestured with the jug of wine. ‘Like a bit of liquid fortification? We can’t have you fainting again, can we?’

‘I was poisoned,’ Felix protested, waving away the jug.

‘Aye, and?’ Gotrek said. He tilted his head back and emptied the jug.

He gave a thunderous belch and peered into the jug, as if to detect whether there was any of whatever it was hiding from him.

‘Some of us don’t have your resilience, Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘Bah, men are lazy and fragile,’ Gotrek said, with a dismissive wave. ‘You are an anchor about my neck, manling. I should have left you here, and gone on alone to seek this doom these bone-bags have promised me.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’ Felix snapped.

Gotrek tossed the empty jug to one of the silent servants and stomped ahead of them without replying. Felix watched him go and restrained the urge to fire curses at the dwarf’s broad back. Zabbai gave a raspy chuckle. ‘He has been sitting on that stool since you were brought here,’ she said. The curses died in his throat and he shook his head.

Zabbai led Gotrek, Felix and the crowd of servants through the pale, sunlit corridors of what Felix learned was called the White Tower, though, she confided, it was less a tower than a palace and not so much white as simply pale. Gotrek punctuated this revelation with loud, uninvited remarks as to the various and sundry weak points of human architecture, and all of the ways in which dwarf craftsmanship was superior. The servants made no comment.

For his part, Felix was content to drink in his surroundings. It was everything he’d ever dreamed of as a boy. Carvings of asps marked every stone not occupied by intricate and colourful mosaics or hieroglyphic engravings. The corridors were a kaleidoscope of colour and imagery that seemed to shift and writhe as the sun speared through the round windows lining the tops of the walls. ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. He stooped to peer more closely at an engraved asp. The stone shape of the snake seemed to writhe as he drew close. The triangular head moved, and amethyst eyes fixed him with a chilling stare. The stone snake hissed. All thoughts of beauty faded as he shot upright and stumbled back. The corridor walls were alive with squirming stone shapes, and all of them looking directly at him. He hurried after the others, and tried to ignore the way the stone asps slithered in his wake.

‘Keep up, manling,’ Gotrek said, as Felix rejoined the group. ‘If you get lost in this blasted necropolis, I’m not going to bother looking for you.’

‘Lybaras is the smallest of the great cities of Nehekhara,’ Zabbai said. ‘It would be difficult for him to become lost.’

‘The manling once got lost in a small tomb with a single entrance,’ Gotrek said.

‘That small tomb with a single entrance was almost forty miles in diameter and occupied by a skaven warren,’ Felix said. ‘Also, you promised me you wouldn’t bring it up again.’ He grimaced and straightened his cloak. ‘It wasn’t pleasant the first time around, and I have no wish to relive it.’

They exited the corridor, stepping out onto an open-air stairway composed of flat, wide stone steps, which led up in a coiling curve to a high plateau where a gold-capped white dome sat. As they ascended, Felix looked down and saw a courtyard below, marked by an immense mosaic, which depicted a massive serpent. ‘Got a thing for snakes, this queen,’ Gotrek said.

‘She is the Beloved of Asaph, the goddess of vengeance, whose symbol is the asp. Lybaras, and all who yet dwell within it, have been dedicated to the goddess’s cause,’ Zabbai said. ‘Our arrows are her fangs, our shields, her scales, our legions, her body, and our Queen is her voice. Lybaras is Asaph, and Asaph is Lybaras.’

She waved a hand, and the flock of servants dispersed, scattering across the plaza, about other tasks, though Felix couldn’t imagine that there was much to do. When you lived in a tomb, who was there to serve? What was there to do, even? He wondered whether they would simply retreat to some darkened building to sit and wait to be summoned again.

As they reached the top of the steps, Felix saw that the way into the dome was a set of massive, bronze doors, guarded by a phalanx of statues, each bearing a head fashioned in the likeness of a serpent’s skull. The statues wore armour and carried huge halberds. Felix was startled, but not surprised, when the statues moved, crossing their halberds to block the group’s path to the doors with a loud clang.

He had heard stories of the war-statuary of the Land of the Dead, and the great stone sphinxes that were said to prowl in the vanguard of the silent tomb-legions when they went to war with the living. After everything else he’d seen in his career as Gotrek’s Rememberer to date, moving statues came as no shock. He kept his hands well away from his weapons, and hoped Gotrek would have the good sense to do the same. The Slayer was eyeing the closest statue the way a starving man might eye a rabbit.

‘Keep your axe to yourself, dwarf,’ Zabbai said warningly. ‘The Chosen of the Gods, the ushabti, will brook no threat to the queen. They are filled with the stuff of heroes, and given strength by Asaph’s will, and will strike suddenly and without mercy if you show any hint of a threat.’ Gotrek’s face twisted into a pugnacious expression, but he merely grunted and spat.

Satisfied, Zabbai stepped out in front of the group and thumped the ground with the haft of her axe. One of the statues looked down, and dull sparks flared in its eye sockets. The snaky jaws opened and a voice like sand caught in a strong wind intoned, ‘Who comes?’ Felix twitched. He could feel the echo of the ushabti’s voice in his belly and bones. It made his teeth itch and his ears throb. It was a voice as deep and heavy as the crash of rock falling from the highest peak to the lowest valley.

‘Zabbai of the Southlands, Herald of Lybaras, Judgement of Asaph, Bride of the Axe and Queen of Her Folk,’ Zabbai said, thumping the stone with her axe for emphasis.

‘Who requests thy presence, daughter of Asaph?’

‘My sister, cousin and mistress, the Voice of Asaph, High Queen Khalida of Lybaras, Lady of the Sixth Geas, Mistress of the Marshes and Protector of the North,’ Zabbai said. Her axe went thump-thump-thump.

‘And these?’ the ushabti said. Its eyes fixed on Felix, who felt a sudden urge to flee. Preferably while screaming loudly and with much flailing of his arms, just to make the point. Gotrek shoved past him.

‘Gotrek Gurnisson, son of Gurni, and Slayer,’ he spat. He slapped Felix in the chest with a casual backhand. ‘And this is my Rememberer, Felix Jaeger, of Altdorf, and the manling Empire.’ The ushabti, responding perhaps to the hostility dripping from the Slayer’s voice, stirred and the edge of its halberd caught the sunlight. Gotrek tensed, ready to explode into violence at any moment. Felix had suspected that, despite Zabbai’s admonition, the Slayer wouldn’t be able to resist goading the inhuman sentinel into a fight.

He clenched his hand. If it came to it, there’d be nothing he could do, save draw his sword and hope for the best. ‘High Queen Khalida has requested their presence, O Kharnak, Mighty Sentinel of the White Tower, Beloved of the Gods and Sentry of the Just and Sudden Reach,’ Zabbai said, extending her axe between Gotrek and the ushabti. ‘They are her guests.’

‘You vouchsafe them, Daughter of the Spear?’

‘I do,’ Zabbai said.

‘Then pass, you pilgrims, into the throne room of the beloved of Asaph, to wonder and glory in her beneficence,’ the ushabti intoned. The halberds were raised, and the doors swung open with the grinding squeal of rarely used hinges. Felix followed Gotrek and the others through, the nape of his neck prickling beneath the steady gazes of the gathered ushabti.

The doors crashed shut behind them. He expected darkness, or torchlight. Instead, the chamber beyond was bathed in the brightest sunlight. Dazzled by the intensity of the light, Felix blinked and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Mirrors,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Another bit of artifice stolen from my people.’

The dwarf wasn’t bothered by the blinding shafts of light that played across them, or, if he was, he wasn’t letting it show. Felix shook his head and thrust the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to clear them. As he blinked away tears, he saw that the floor was composed of an intricately pieced together network of polished golden tiles, each of which depicted a scene from what he assumed was the history of Lybaras. He looked up. The rounded roof of the chamber was similarly decorated, though it was punctuated by large, circular openings that appeared to be lined with polished bronze discs of varying sizes and placements.

Gotrek saw him staring and said, ‘You’ve been to Karak Kadrin, manling. You know how we light our halls. As the sunlight strikes each disc, it is reflected to the next, all the way down the shaft, and when it strikes the floor, the gold reflects it across the walls.’

Gotrek gestured, drawing Felix’s attention to the immense golden discs that lined the curved walls. Each was shaped like a sun, surrounded by a halo of sharp flanges, and each blazed with reflected light.

It was as if they stood within the belly of a vast kaleidoscope, with beams and shafts of light crossing and criss-crossing about them, creating a sea of light and colour. Felix saw heavy columns of pale stone rising from the floor to the ceiling. Each of them had been carved to resemble a rearing serpent, and was as wide as five men. From top to bottom, each column had been chiselled with Nehekharan hieroglyphs, all the way around.

‘The history of our people, of the City of Asaph,’ Djubti said. The liche-priest was waiting for them, swaddled in sunlight, with a scowl on his face. In the concentrated glare of the light, Felix could see the puffs of dust and incense that flew from his withered form with every twitch and gesture. ‘Here is writ the story of us, by artifice and puissant concern,’ Djubti continued with a grandiloquent croak. He threw up his hands and smote the floor with the butt of his staff of office. ‘Here is the pinnacle of our craftsmanship.’

‘A beardling could have designed it,’ Gotrek said disdainfully.

Djubti lowered his arms and glared at the dwarf. He thumped the floor again and turned away in a flare of aged cloth, pulling his cloak about himself. ‘She awaits you. Follow me,’ he rasped. They moved through the corridor of columns. Felix felt a warm breeze, and saw large openings marked sections of the wall, each blocked by a curtain of thin material that rippled in the arid wind. Strange, large forms moved behind the curtains. With a start, he realised that they were immense snake-shaped monstrosities, each with a massive human-like skull within the folds of its cobra-hood. The soft scrape of their bellies across stone caused his teeth to itch, and his hand sought the hilt of his sword instinctively. One of the creatures dipped low, and Felix saw a skeletal shape perched upon it, with a heavy spear in its hand. As he watched, the weird creature and its eerie rider slithered out of sight.

‘The necropolis knights have been awakened,’ Zabbai murmured. ‘That does not bode well.’ Insomuch as he could determine, she sounded worried. And that worried him.

‘What are they?’ Felix whispered.

‘Guardians of the temples and demesnes of the Mortuary Cult,’ she said. He noticed that she clutched her axe at the ready. ‘Mighty warriors who ride constructs which bear the stamp of Qu’aph, god of Cobras, He Who Hunted Dragons When the World Was Young. They are rarely awoken, for their love of battle is so strong that even in death, they hunger for the stuff of carnage and the red, wet hymn of slaughter.’

Felix shuddered. ‘Why would they have awoken them, then? Unless…’ He looked at her. ‘Who are you at war with? Is it Mahrak?’

Zabbai said nothing. Felix waited for her to speak, but when he realised that no answer was forthcoming, he fell silent. Something was going on. His earlier suspicions had been correct. He and Gotrek had stumbled into a situation not of their making. But whatever was going on, they were involved now, whether they liked it or not. Worry gnawed at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement behind one of the great pillars. It was gone before he could focus on it, and he wondered what other sorts of guardian lurked in this brightly lit tomb.

As they neared the rear of the chamber, Felix saw a crowd of skeletal shapes, standing silent and attentive. They wore a diverse array of costumes, and bore tight scrolls of parchment, or thin blocks of stone, marked by chiselled hieroglyphs. ‘Messengers from the other cities, and the other kings and queens,’ Zabbai whispered, ‘You have come at a time of much upheaval. Lords and ladies of Lybaras, Mahrak and Rasetra, who should be slumbering in their tombs, are awake and ready for war.’ She gestured to one of the scroll-bearing skeletons. ‘Representatives from the smaller dynasties, who come bearing tentative offers of alliance against mutual enemies, within their own kingdom or another,’ she said.

‘Do your people really war against each other so much, even now?’ he hissed in reply. It wasn’t unusual for war to break out amongst the diverse provinces or personalities that made up the Empire, but it was somewhat disheartening to consider that death, which the Cult of Morr claimed was the great unifier, was no end to such petty internecine conflicts.

‘There are more kings now,’ Zabbai murmured, as if that explained everything. Djubti led them to a high, wide dais that occupied a vast niche set into the back wall of the chamber. A quartet of armed, gauze-shrouded skeletons stood on the steps of the dais, wearing what Felix now knew to be the Nehekharan equivalent of heavy armour: cuirasses of bronze scale and treated leather, gilded and inlaid with turquoise. Their bodies were covered by golden jewellery, bracelets, headdresses and scarab-shaped brooches that clutched thin, dangling parchments in their claws. On each parchment was a litany of inked images.

Each of the guards held a heavy shield in one hand, marked with the universal symbols of death – skulls, bones and other grim sigils. In their other hand, each held the hilt of a wide-bladed khopesh, its point pressed to the step.

The floor before the dais was covered by the hide of some great reptile, and the rounded steps that led to its top were draped with brown and decaying palm fronds and moth-eaten animal pelts. The niche in which the dais sat was carved in the shape of an asp’s gaping mouth, with stone fangs rising from the bottom step of the dais and jutting down over the slim, stone throne that occupied its plateau.

The throne was obscured by wide palm fronds, yellowing and ragged with age, held by two mummified women, who were clad in thin robes and gilded death masks, and who wore headdresses of saurian hide and torcs in the shape of coiled serpents.

Djubti led them into the queue that had formed before the dais, where representatives from other powers and principalities waited, with demands and requests for the Serpent Queen. Though whether she was listening or not was up for debate, as the palm fronds never moved and the queen had yet to reveal herself.

A gaudily dressed skeleton stepped forwards at a curt gesture from one of the guards. He was clad in silks and furs, with a headdress made from faded and drooping feathers, and wore more gold than the pirate Red Hand was said to have buried. It hissed, ‘King Ushtep, Mighty Falcon of Rasetra, Settra’s Strong Hand in the South, Master of the Fortress of Vengeful Souls, High King of the Sweltering Jungles, Champion of the Charnel Valley, Prince of All Princes and King Among Kings does request that High Queen Khalida, Queen of Lybaras, set low her standards and move forth her legions from the foothills of Mount Arachnos and enter into battle with his enemy, Imanotep of Mahrak.’ He extended a ragged scroll, which had turned brown and fragile with age, to the guard, who took it and passed it up to the handmaidens. The latter passed it behind the fronds.

‘She who is Lybaras, Mistress of the Serpent Legion and Sentinel of the Bitter Sea, recognises and will consider the proposal of her brother-king,’ the guard said, jawbone clicking. ‘Next!’

As they approached, Djubti struck the floor with his staff and said, ‘Bow, pilgrims, bow before the Wisdom of Asaph made flesh, the Voice of the Vengeful, the Lioness of the Hills, She Whose Legions Blot Out the Sun With Their Arrows, High Queen Khalida, Guardian of Damned Lahmia, the Watchful Soul and the Serpent Queen.’ Every title recitation was punctuated by a thud of the staff and the ring of the metal cap on the butt striking the golden tile.

‘Let her be revealed.’ He turned towards them. ‘Kneel, so that you might bask in her radiance.’ Zabbai sank to one knee, as did every other Nehekharan. Only Gotrek and Felix remained standing.

Seeing Djubti glaring at them, Felix hurriedly dropped down. ‘Gotrek,’ he hissed, ‘kneel!’ As he bent forwards, he again caught a flicker of movement, like a shadow slashed loose of its host. It darted behind the crowd of representatives and hugged the wall, sliding and slithering around and beneath the beams of sunlight. A bird, he thought, a gull perhaps.

He thought of the colourful bird he’d seen on the balcony earlier. Perhaps it was roosting in one of the sunlight shafts, and its shadow was being cast down by the reflecting plates.

‘Dwarfs do not kneel, manling,’ Gotrek said, ‘especially Slayers.’

Felix forgot about the bird as the Slayer spoke. The guards on the dais shifted as the Slayer’s words echoed through the chamber. Gotrek eyed them without concern. The crowd of representatives began to rattle and whisper, perturbed by the dwarf’s lack of respect.

Djubti quivered with rage, his fleshless jaws snapping as he thumped the floor repeatedly. ‘Kneel, Son of Stone! Kneel, Stubborn Bastion of the Ancient Days!’

Gotrek frowned and crossed his arms. ‘When I kneel, you withered stick, it’ll only be because I’m missing a leg.’ Felix rested his face in his palm. He heard the rasp of bone on gauze, and knew that the guards were likely moving towards the Slayer.

Zabbai made to stand, but before she could, a voice, at once soft and insistent, said, ‘Be calm, Djubti. If he does not wish to bow, no invective will change his mind.’ The palm fronds were pulled aside, revealing the throne. It was not the sort of kingly seat that Felix was familiar with, rather it was a simple bench with smooth armrests. The skin of a giant serpent covered it, and over that the hide of some great cat, and upon the latter reclined a lithe, elegant form. She had a long staff across her knees, and an ornate headdress covered her head. Her face was hidden behind a smooth mask, lightly engraved with shallow, serpentine designs.

High Queen Khalida’s linen-wrapped limbs were encased in bejewelled bands, and she wore a cuirass of beaten gold. In life she had been beautiful, but in death her beauty had been transformed into something at once greater and more horrifying. Felix fancied that her form was not as wasted as those of her servants, as if some higher power had preserved her flesh and muscle from the ravages of time. She gestured towards Gotrek in languid fashion. ‘Yes, you are even as Asaph whispered to me in my slumber. Your thorny hide bristles with broken ghosts, dwarf. You have sent armies to Usirian’s bower, by your axe and action alike. You are beloved and despised by your gods, even as we are, and you persist, though the sands of history would bury you. I bid thee welcome, Doom-Seeker, to Lybaras, and may you find that which you seek in our service.’

Gotrek stiffened. He opened his mouth to reply. Then, with a growl, he lifted his axe and, before Felix could even attempt to stop him, the Slayer sprang for Khalida’s throat. The guards moved to block the Slayer’s path, but they were too slow to stop him. Gotrek brushed the swiftest aside with the sheer force of his charge. As he bounded up the dais, he flung his axe with a guttural roar. Khalida jerked aside as the axe hurtled past and struck its target.

The dark shape that had been falling towards the High Queen gave a wild scream as the axe caught it full in the centre of its mass. It crashed heavily to the dais and rolled down the steps, spitting and hissing as foul-smelling steam billowed from where the axe had chopped into it. The dark shape uncoiled and tore Gotrek’s axe from its midsection. With a roar, it sent the weapon spinning back towards the Slayer. Gotrek caught the weapon easily and ran his finger across the blade. He popped the bloody digit into his mouth and then spat. ‘Vampire,’ he snarled.

Felix stared in shock at the would-be assassin. It was clearly a woman, wrapped in dark robes and wearing leather armour that had been dyed a dull black hue. Gotrek’s axe had bitten into her belly, and the robes had been torn away, exposing pallid flesh. The raw edges of the wound were already knitting together, despite the steam that rose from them and the turgid splatter of blood that marked her stomach and the steps at her feet.

The vampire drew a scimitar from a sheath on her back and a saw-edged dagger from her hip as the guards closed in on her. She flipped over the first to reach her, using his back as a springboard to launch herself at the next. Her scimitar flashed out in a quicksilver blur, removing the guard’s skull from his neck in a spray of bone-chips and dust. The assassin was as different from the ragged horrors Felix and Gotrek had faced in the Mangrove Port as a panther from an alley cat. She moved too fast for Felix’s eye to follow, avoiding the guards’ blows with ease and doling out disabling hammer-strikes in return.

‘Herald, do your duty – protect the queen,’ Djubti shrieked. Zabbai was already moving, and Felix, without thinking, joined her rush towards the dais. But even as he ran his thoughts were an ocean away, and filled with a pale face and hair so blonde as to be almost white – Ulrika Magdova. It was not she who slid, parried and slashed before him; this creature, whoever she had been in life, had been no Kislevite, dark as she was, but the similarity was there. He could not help but wonder where Ulrika was now, and whether the Countess had kept her promise.

Then, there was no more time for thinking.

Some instinct, trained to utmost sensitivity by the constant flow of danger that surrounded Gotrek, blared a warning, and as he ran, he jerked to the side, fell and rolled painfully across the steps of the dais. An odd, wavy-bladed spear slammed down, piercing the stone with a crunch. A second black-clad shape balanced on the quivering length of the spear, like a Tilean acrobat he’d seen once at a carnival. The shape unfolded and swung off the spear, jerking it free of the step in the process.

Behind her, he saw a third assassin, bearing a sword that might once have belonged to a knight from one of the many orders that dotted the Empire, charge up the stairs towards Khalida, who had not moved. Felix sucked in a breath and bellowed, ‘Gotrek, Zabbai – there are more of them!’ A moment later, the spear slid past his head, nicking his ear and drawing blood. He grabbed the haft and shoved it away. He drew his dagger and sent it spinning towards his attacker. The vampire easily avoided it and drew back her spear with a peculiar circular motion, striking his shoulder with the flat and knocking him sprawling. He scurried up the stairs on all fours, hoping to put some distance between himself and his opponent.

The vampire followed, her dark robes billowing as she moved. She stabbed the spear down between his legs and used the momentum to vault over his head, landing directly in his path. Her foot streaked out, catching him in the chest, and Felix was sent flying. He hit the floor hard and skidded away from the dais. As he tried to sit up, he saw her twirl the spear in a wide arc, knocking aside those representatives of the other tomb-cities who moved to intercept her. Zabbai lunged towards her from behind, and the vampire spun. Axe met spear and they began to trade blows furiously. The scimitar-armed vampire duelled Gotrek on the other side of the dais. As far as Felix could tell, she was doing an admirable job of not dying when Gotrek wanted her to. His axe hummed as it swept out, and she back-flipped away from the blow with predatory grace. That left the third of the assassins, who, Felix saw, had reached the top of the dais and the throne where Khalida still reclined, as if watching a play performed for her amusement.

The vampire held her blade in both hands, point extended out before her for a piercing thrust. Like the others, she wore a hood and a scarf that covered everything but her face, and her thick robes protected her from the web of sunbeams that spread throughout the chamber. ‘The Serpent Queen bids you greetings, Khalida Neferher,’ the vampire snarled as she approached the throne. ‘She comes for you and this city of carrion and dried marrow, and she shall cast both you and it down and grind you beneath her heel, before taking back that which was stolen from us.’ With that, the vampire gave a savage thrust of her blade.

Khalida, with an almost gentle gesture, swatted the blow aside with the staff that had been lying across her lap. Such was the force of the blow that the sword was torn from the vampire’s grip and was sent sailing across the chamber to embed itself in one of the pillars. The vampire backed away, resolve fading into fear as Khalida stood.

‘Serpent Queen, is it?’ Khalida said, softly. ‘Is that what she calls herself now?’

She cocked her head. ‘No, no, she would never send assassins. It is too bold, and too crude. Your mistress is no true queen. She is but a servant, a dagger, thrust from within a concealing veil to draw my eye.’ The vampire stumbled back as Khalida pursued her. ‘But even a feint must be blocked, lest it draw blood.’ She paused, as if considering; then, with all the speed of a snake, she spun her staff about and rammed the end through the vampire’s chest, piercing her heart and lifting her into the air. The vampire squalled in agony and clawed at the staff. Khalida reached up and tore the vampire’s hood and scarf away, exposing the creature’s head and shoulders to the bright sunlight.

‘Burn,’ she said, simply. Then with no sign of effort, she thrust her staff, and the writhing vampire impaled upon it, into the sunlight. The vampire’s squalls became shrieks as her dusky flesh turned black and began to smoke and curl from her bones. The other two assassins broke away from their opponents and raced towards Khalida, though whether they intended to rescue their companion or simply complete her mission, Felix couldn’t say. Nor did he intend to wait and find out. Felix pelted towards the dais, and drew Karaghul as he ran.

Khalida swept her staff out, scattering the charred remains of the dead assassin through the air as she blocked a scimitar blow. The staff spun in her hands as she drove its head into the belly of the spear-wielding vampire, sending her staggering back. With a roar, Gotrek hurled himself on his unheeding opponent, one meaty paw clamping tight around the vampire’s throat. He bore her down. His axe rose, and fell with finality. Her head bounced down the stairs, a look of incredulity stamped on her features.

The remaining assassin barely had time to recognise her predicament when Zabbai lunged for her, axe singing through the air. The vampire hopped back with a hiss right onto Felix‘s out-thrust blade, which took her in the back. Felix forced the blade deeper, and the vampire shrieked and dropped her spear. Zabbai’s axe looped out and took her head, sending it spinning towards a pillar, where it rebounded into a shaft of sunlight and began to smoulder. Felix jerked Karaghul free and stepped aside as the body rolled down the steps. Zabbai nodded brusquely to him.

‘I thought those statues outside or those snake-things were supposed to keep people from getting in,’ he said, cleaning his sword with the edge of his cloak.

‘Only if the queen wishes it,’ Zabbai said. Felix caught on quickly.

‘She let them in?’

‘She always does,’ Zabbai said. From her tone, it was clear she disapproved.

‘Is this a common occurrence?’

‘Yes,’ Zabbai said, ‘especially of late. Our queen guards places of infamy, and there are many who wish to lay claim to the secrets within those places. Vampires, ratmen and black-armoured northmen have all tried to kill her, or destroy Lybaras to get at what we protect. None have succeeded.’

‘None will ever succeed,’ Khalida said. Felix looked up and saw that the queen had returned to her throne, where she sat at ease. She looked down at Gotrek. ‘My thanks, Doom-Seeker,’ she said. He met her gaze and nodded gruffly.

‘What did you mean before, about Gotrek finding what he sought,’ Felix asked, adding, ‘ah – your majesty?’

‘There have been portents and signs,’ Djubti said. The liche-priest still stood where he’d been when the assassins attacked. He’d made no move to defend Khalida, and Felix wondered how often he’d seen such a scene play out in these chambers. ‘A twin-tailed scorpion struggled with a skeletal python upon a pile of bone. The wind carries the scent of purification from the south, and the bound dead dance in the moonlight. Your coming was whispered by the gods of the underworld and Asaph herself, who spoke of a force whose tread would shake the Great Land, and shatter the empire of the Serpent Queen.’

Felix felt a chill slither the length of his spine, as Djubti spoke. He clutched Karaghul more tightly and glanced around, looking for the closest exit. He paused when he realized that Khalida was gazing directly at him.

‘Be at ease, barbarian. Though I am a queen of serpents, I have no empire. Nor would I want one.’ She gestured to the remains of one of the would-be assassins. ‘But there is another who lays claim to the title of “Serpent Queen”. And she does have an empire, though it is a small one, and petty by any civilized standard. An empire which stretches from coast to coast, from sunrise to sunset and which even now mobilizes for war.’

‘Speak plainly,’ Gotrek said, suddenly. He motioned around him with his axe. ‘You had us brought here, woman. You say your portents demanded it? Fine, I care not.’ He pointed his axe at Khalida. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want you to perform a service for me,’ Khalida said. Felix couldn’t tell whether she was amused or insulted by Gotrek’s boorish behaviour. ‘There is an item I wish you to reclaim.’

‘Item,’ Gotrek repeated.

‘A sword,’ Khalida said. ‘A simple sword.’

‘That’s all? Why is it important, this sword?’ Gotrek said.

‘That is none of your concern, Child of the Mountains,’ Djubti said. He struck the floor with his staff. ‘It is enough that you have been commanded.’

‘No one commands me,’ Gotrek snarled, as he whirled to glare at the priest.

‘Nor would I attempt it,’ Khalida interjected. Gotrek glanced at her warily. ‘I offer you a bargain instead, Doom-Seeker. What I require lies in the heart of my enemy’s lands. It is surrounded by an army the size of which dwarfs even that of Settra the Imperishable. To get to that sword, you will have to fight every dead thing in the Southlands. Thus, I say to you, in performing this service, you may find what you seek above all else – death and doom.’

Gotrek stared at her for a moment, before suddenly relaxing. He gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Well now, why didn’t you just say so?’

CHAPTER 10

‘Death and doom, you say?’ Gotrek said. He inclined his head and swept out an arm. It was as close to a bow as Felix had ever seen him come. ‘Speak on, O queen,’ Gotrek said, his good eye glittering with interest.

At the foot of the dais, skeletal servants cleaned up the mess left behind by the dead vampires. The crowd of representatives and messengers had not dispersed, or even moved during the fight. They waited patiently, still holding their scrolls and offerings, as if such assassination attempts were a daily occurrence, and to be politely ignored. Then, if what Zabbai had said was true, it was all part of the routine. Felix watched as more guards trooped in to replace those who had fallen. Cloaked and cowled figures that Zabbai identified as members of the Mortuary Cult swept in silently and claimed the bodies of the fallen. Felix wondered whether they could bring the fallen guards back to something approximating life, or whether they were simply being disposed of, like the vampires.

Khalida tapped her cheek and examined the Slayer for a moment before speaking. ‘In the jungles to the east and south of here, there is a temple. An edifice stained in the blood of a thousand generations and haunted by the spirits of those who died screaming on its black altars,’ she said. ‘The Temple of Skulls.’

Felix spoke up. ‘This sword you mentioned – I gather that it’s ensconced in this temple?’ He didn’t like the sound of the skulls bit. In his experience, any structure with an appellation that grisly wasn’t exactly the sort of place a sensible sort ought to go. Gotrek, on the other hand, looked to be practically salivating at the thought.

Khalida didn’t look at him. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘And it belongs here. It is mine, by right and by blood, and I would have it returned to me.’ She made a fist, and Felix winced as linen tore and dried flesh popped. He’d heard stories of the Tomb Kings marching halfway around the world to reclaim a single golden trinket that some unlucky explorer had stolen from them. He’d always put such wild claims down to idle fancy, but now it seemed to be nothing but the bare truth. What sort of sword, no matter how finely wrought, was worth that sort of effort?

‘Then go and get it,’ Gotrek said.

Khalida fell silent. If she’d been alive, Felix would have guessed that Gotrek’s words had stung her. Instead of replying, she gestured to Djubti, who glowered at Gotrek. The Slayer ignored him. ‘The queen cannot simply go and get it. She is needed here. Mahrak bristles at imagined slights and Rasetra crouches, waiting and watching like the jackals that they are. Lybaras is adrift in a sea of enemies, and Great Settra, the Hawk of the Desert, the Great Wind Which Smashes Kingdoms, whose edicts might calm them, sleeps in his necropolis.’

‘Not to mention that whoever sent those assassins is still out there, and likely trying to goad the queen into just that sort of rash action,’ Felix said.

Djubti turned his glare on Felix. After a moment, the liche-priest nodded. ‘My spies have heard drums in the jungles, and they say that the dead of the mud and marsh walk where they should sleep. They tread the ancient roads to the Temple of Skulls, where they mass.’

‘Do the dead fear the dead, then?’ Gotrek said.

‘The High Queen fears nothing,’ Djubti snapped. ‘But she knows her responsibilities, her duties, and so we must turn to other avenues to retrieve that which is ours.’

He gestured to Gotrek. ‘That would be you, Doom-Seeker. The gods brought me word of you. They heard your tread upon the road of fate, and saw that your skein intersects with ours. Your fate is tied to the fate of Lybaras, and thus I commanded Zabbai to spare you the fate she had planned.’

Gotrek’s eye narrowed, and he looked at Zabbai. ‘We had a bargain,’ he spat.

‘So we did, dwarf. But did you not wonder why I should agree, when I could have simply pierced you with a thousand arrows and dropped you over the side to sink like the stone you resemble?’ Zabbai asked. Felix had wondered the same thing. Apparently Gotrek hadn’t. The Slayer snorted and turned back to the queen. ‘Well, is that it, then?’ he said. ‘You want me to get your toy back for you, is that it?’

‘Unless you think it is beyond your abilities,’ Khalida said.

Gotrek hawked up a wad of spittle and sent it plopping to the steps with a rude sound. ‘Dead men pose little challenge to my axe. Or dead women, for that matter,’ he added, glancing at Zabbai.

Before the Slayer could say anything else, Felix interjected. ‘Supposing that we agree – not that I’m saying that we won’t, because Gotrek for one clearly seems to have his heart set on it – how will we find it? There’s a lot of jungle to cover, and we’re not what you’d call familiar with the terrain.’ He knew, even as he said it, that he was verging on the disrespectful. He couldn’t say that he cared, particularly. It had been bad enough when it looked as if they’d be wandering around the jungle, looking for a lost dwarf hold. This sounded, on the whole, as if it would be much worse. There was no question that they’d do it, for all Gotrek’s bluster. The Slayer was being aimed in the direction he wanted to go, and all Felix could do was join him for the ride and hope that he survived the inevitable bloody conclusion.

In reply, Khalida raised her hand. Djubti thumped the floor and a handmaiden stepped forward, bearing a golden platter, draped with a fraying cloth. At another gesture from Khalida, the cloth was removed to reveal a familiar, and unwelcome, visage. ‘Release Antar, Beloved of All the Gods, and Especially the Goddesses, or his wrath shall shake the pillars of creation!’ the skull rasped as it rattled and hopped on its platter like a dollop of oil in a hot pan.

Felix stepped back. ‘Is that–’ he began.

‘So! You survived the poison of the Dutiful Scorpion, fleshy one! You shall not survive it twice, this swears Antar, King of Mahrak, Prince among Princes, Lover of Lionesses!’ Antar snarled. ‘And you, cheating boulder! Antar sees you, ape of Ind, with your stupid hair! Antar demands satisfaction,’ the skull continued, rolling in Gotrek’s general direction.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to mount this wastrel’s skull on the Standard of Asaph, my queen?’ Zabbai asked, gesturing to Antar. ‘He has long been an annoyance unto thee, and it would please me to display him for all to see and mock at their leisure.’

‘Antar is the Second King of the Fourth Dynasty, Doxy with Four Hundred Suitors!’ Antar spat, his skull wobbling with anger.

‘You were king for three days, two of which you spent coming up with new names for yourself,’ Zabbai said. ‘Even Ramsus of Numas, He Who Ruled an Epoch of Scattered Moments, did more actual ruling than you.’

‘Lies, lies and calumnies,’ Antar rattled. ‘Woe betide thee who shall deny Antar’s divinity! He is the Son of the Falcon and the Desert Wind, Greatest King of the Greatest City, He of the Glory Which Makes the Sun Weep!’ His skull bobbled on its platter, rolling about in a frustrated frenzy. ‘A knife, Antar demands a knife!’

‘He doesn’t have any hands,’ Felix murmured to Gotrek.

‘Antar heard that! Antar, He of the Iron Jaws, has teeth, does he not! Antar shall sever your tendons with one bite of His Beautiful Jaws Which Can Pierce Bronze!’

Khalida gestured sharply and the muffling cloth was dropped over the prince’s skull by the attendant. Antar continued to make threats and imprecations, but no one paid him any attention. ‘No, his skull shall be placed anew upon his body and he shall give his parole,’ Khalida said, leaning back in her throne. ‘He is a prince of the Great Land, and courageous, if foolish. He has given me his oath of service, which he will not break, lest the jackal-ghosts that hunt Usirian’s wastes come and pluck his soul from his bones.’

‘Not to mention that the preening cockerel swears he’s been to the Temple of Skulls before, on a sortie against the creatures who dwelt there at the time,’ Djubti said. ‘In return for not being turned into the topper for a standard pole, he’s sworn to lead you there.’

‘I know where it is,’ Zabbai said.

‘Yes, but as long as Antar is with you, and has sworn an oath to guide you, he is not attempting to escape, or to otherwise jostle King Tharruk into open war. It is a shame that Otep got away, but Antar is the more dangerous of the two, if only from sheer volume,’ Djubti said.

‘He is an idiot,’ Zabbai said.

‘Yes, but an influential one. The princelings and petty kings of Mahrak have ever begrudged Lybaras its isolation from Settra’s influence, and Antar’s voice has been the loudest in reminding them of that fact. They grow restless and our encounter with their fleet has only stoked the flames of their desire for war. Tharruk will march. But the longer we keep that chattering jackal from influencing him, the more time we have between now and then. So he will be your guide, oath-bound to serve you.’

‘I see even dead humans lack the stomach for war,’ Gotrek said.

‘A war on two fronts, yes,’ Khalida said. She leaned forwards in a rustle of linen and silks. ‘The dead stir in the jungles. The cursed spawn of Lahmia make ready for war and we must stand between them and the Great Land, as we have always done.’ She fixed her burning gaze on Gotrek and said, ‘Not every war is equal, Son of the Mountains. Not every war demands immediate prosecution. Your folk know this, else why would they gnaw over old slights for centuries and hoard insults done them, the way a man might hoard bread?’

Gotrek flushed. ‘Careful, corpse-woman,’ he growled.

‘Care is for the weak,’ Khalida rasped. She pushed herself up from her throne with a languid grace. There was no hurry in the Beloved of Asaph. As he watched her descend the dais, Felix was reminded of the undulations of a venomous serpent. Her movements were fluid and inexorable, and he felt a chill as her gaze passed over him. She was regal and terrifying and beautiful, despite the fact that she was dead. ‘Care is for the living. We are dead, and we have our duty. We hold tight to our oaths, though the world turns and seasons pass. Surely you understand that much, dwarf. I have sworn to let no child of blighted Lahmia return to that ruin. I have sworn to hold fast against the unbound dead, and that oath supersedes all others.’ She looked down at Gotrek. ‘But you know all about that, don’t you?’

Gotrek said nothing. He glared up at her, but beneath the obfuscating veil of hostility, his expression was unreadable. Felix knew the dwarf well enough to know that Khalida had scored a point. ‘I want my sword, Doom-Seeker. And you will claim it for me, and bring it to me. And then, perhaps, the gods will let you have your reward,’ Khalida said. ‘You will help me fulfil my oath, Gotrek, son of Gurni.’

‘Why should your oath outweigh mine, woman?’ Gotrek asked, finally.

‘Because of him,’ she said, extending her hand. Felix blinked, and realised that she was pointing at him. He stepped back, and suddenly, guards surrounded him. He hadn’t even heard them approach. The mummified warriors grabbed him before he could so much as utter a word of protest, and Djubti approached him, holding a small bejewelled and gilded casket in his hands.

Gotrek made to stop them, but Zabbai moved into his path. Gotrek growled and lifted his axe, intending to slap the Herald aside. Khalida thumped the steps with her staff and the dust and sand that had collected in the crevices and cracks suddenly twisted up and rose, as if caught by a strong wind. The sand swirled and thickened, rising and splitting into a number of individual columns. The columns shed their skin of dust and sand, revealing the thick, sinuous forms of a number of large serpents, which struck as one. Gotrek roared and swung his axe, but it passed harmlessly through the snakes, scattering only sand in its wake. The snakes coiled about Gotrek, pinning him in place. The Slayer struggled and cursed, but was held fast.

Felix was forced to extend his arm. His sleeve was jerked back, exposing his forearm. Djubti flipped open the casket, revealing what looked like a coiled asp made from gold, with jaws that were wide enough to encompass the circumference of a man’s wrist. Khalida lowered her staff and said, ‘In the Golden Age, before the Usurper’s curse burned all life from the Great Land, we had traitors and criminals aplenty. There were dangers then, too, and upheaval, war and politics. And sometimes, a man would be made known to the rulers of Lybaras through some great crime and his skills would be put to use, though he was bound for the scorpion pit. He would be given a number of days, allotted by the whim of Asaph, to complete a task. If he survived, and completed his task, he would shed his sin, as a snake sheds its skin. If he failed, Asaph would strike him down.’

Djubti grabbed Felix’s arm in a grip that was at once cold and unyielding. ‘Stop squirming,’ he said. A guard took the casket from him, and he removed the golden asp. Before Felix could mount a protest, he slid it onto his arm. The snake’s jaws settled tightly over his wrist. It didn’t prevent movement, but every twitch caused his skin to rub against the asp’s mouth. Its body coiled tightly about his forearm like a gaudy bracer.

‘It’s heavy,’ Felix said, as he was released.

‘It should be,’ Djubti said. ‘It’s full of poison.’

Felix blanched. ‘What?’

‘Poison squeezed from the finest temple asps,’ Djubti said. ‘You should feel honoured, barbarian. This is a royal poison, fit only for the veins of the worthy.’

‘Then find someone worthy to put it on,’ Felix said, clawing at the bracelet. ‘Get this thing off me!’

‘Should the allotted time run out before you have returned to Lybaras to receive judgement, the asp’s fangs shall slide into your flesh, and pump your veins full of death. You will die in agony in seven days, unless you return to Lybaras within that time,’ Khalida said. She gestured sharply, and the serpents that still held Gotrek’s struggling shape dissolved back into sand and blew away. The Slayer staggered forwards, off balance, and then stumped towards Felix. Roughly, he took the latter’s arm and examined it.

‘I’ve seen this sort of artifice before. The Arabayans have a device that they call the Riddle of Scorpions. This is something akin to that. It’s cunning, if primitive.’ Gotrek glowered at Khalida and snapped, ‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘It is simply to ensure that you do as we have asked,’ Khalida said. ‘Your own life means nothing to you, Doom-Seeker, else why would you seek to throw it away so heedlessly in battle? But his life – ah – that is a different story, isn’t it?’ She turned away and ascended back towards her throne. ‘Is his life worth your oath that you will return my sword to me?’ She sat down, and reclined, waiting for Gotrek’s answer.

Gotrek snorted, ‘I was planning to do it anyway. I will return your toy to you, Serpent Queen, and then I will have the doom you’ve promised me, even if I have to take it out of your withered hide, one stripe at a time.’

As statements of acquiescence went, Felix had heard better, but it seemed to satisfy Khalida, who tilted her head back and made a rasping sound that he had come to associate with laughter. Gotrek turned back to Felix and said, ‘Worry not, manling. You won’t die from this trinket’s sting.’

Felix released a breath he hadn’t realised that he’d been holding. ‘Gotrek, I–’ he began.

‘Shut up,’ Gotrek said. ‘You’re lucky I need you. Otherwise, I’d leave you to your fate.’

Felix took the hint and swallowed his thanks. He thought – he hoped – Gotrek was lying. After all, if the dwarf didn’t care, he wouldn’t have made the bargain that had brought them here in the first place. He’d saved Felix more than once, on this journey and others besides. Still, it stung somewhat, and he felt a pulse of the old, familiar anger. It was more trying than not, to be Gotrek’s companion.

He prodded at the asp. He could see no sign of the artifice Gotrek had mentioned. To his eyes, it appeared to be all one piece. ‘Don’t fiddle with it,’ Zabbai said. ‘We wouldn’t want it to strike early, would we?’

‘We don’t want it to strike at all,’ Felix snapped. ‘You didn’t have to do this.’

‘No? And would the Slayer have agreed, otherwise?’ Zabbai said.

‘You don’t know Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘No, we do not. Hence, the asp,’ she said, taking his wrist gently and tapping the golden bracelet. Felix pulled his hand away.

‘Is some sword really so important that you’d condemn an innocent man to death to get it back,’ he said. He almost choked on the word ‘innocent’, but it was true, as far as it went. He was no criminal, no matter what those wanted posters said.

Neither was Gotrek, come to that, despite having Reckoners from at least three major dwarf holds, including Karak Kadrin, on his trail. It was one of life’s little jokes that though they had accomplished more good than bad, at least in Felix’s estimation, they were still regarded as outlaws.

‘Yes,’ Zabbai said.

Felix heard something in her voice. He was coming to learn how to parse the faint fluctuations in the rasping monotone that all of the inhabitants of the Land of the Dead seemed to possess. Zabbai was worried, he thought, or concerned, at the very least. Before he could pry further, Djubti thumped the floor with his staff and croaked, ‘Your audience is at an end.’

‘Come, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘I dislike the smell of these walking carcasses.’ The Slayer stumped towards the exit, shoving messengers and representatives out of his path with careless swings of his arms. Felix followed more slowly. Zabbai walked beside him.

‘We must make ready to leave,’ she said.

‘You’re going with us?’ Felix said.

‘Of course,’ Zabbai said. ‘Someone needs to ensure that you do as the queen commands.’ She sounded amused.

‘Then what in the name of Shallya’s sweet voice is this thing for?’ Felix nearly shrieked, shaking his forearm at her.

‘The queen is content to trust Djubti’s auguries,’ Zabbai said. She took his hand in a gentle grip and pushed it aside. ‘I am not. And as impressive as you and the Doom-Seeker are, you will need more shields at your sides than just that fool Antar, if you are to make it to the Temple of Skulls. Antar once led an army into a canyon with only a single entrance and became lost.’

‘So, you doubt the Lover of Lionesses’ ability to guide us?’ Felix said, amused despite himself. He felt his anger slowly ebbing, to be replaced by resignation. As situations went, he’d been in worse. At least it wasn’t a siege this time.

‘I doubt every third word that comes out of Antar’s mouth.’

‘You hold too many grudges, woman,’ Djubti said, creaking past them. ‘He would have made a fine husband, when flesh still cloaked his bones. And Lybaras would have been strengthened by that marriage.’ The liche-priest didn‘t look at them, but Felix could tell that his withered face was twisted in a frown.

‘So you say, old bones,’ Zabbai said, ‘So you said of Otep and Pashtar and all the others. But I am and was the Herald of Lybaras, and my duties do not include a marriage bed.’

Djubti gestured dismissively, but didn’t turn around. Felix got the impression that it was an argument-by-rote, rather than a true disagreement. He cleared his throat.

‘Do the dead get married then?’

‘Do the living?’ Zabbai said.

‘Of course,’ Felix said. He flushed. ‘I’m sorry, that was inelegantly phrased, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Zabbai said, ‘and yes, they do, on occasion. Not all of us are so aware of our current state, and some find comfort in such rituals. Dynastic marriages seem to be even more important now than they were when the Great Land still breathed. There are too many princes and princesses who refuse to slumber, as Settra and the High Kings of the tomb-cities have decreed, and they rage across the sands, waging empty war over useless dunes.’

‘Is that the case here?’

‘No. Khalida bound those who would not bend knee to her in their sarcophagi and sealed them in their tombs, to await release at her pleasure.’ Zabbai shook her head. ‘I would have smashed them to dust and flinders, myself, but I am not queen. I am but her spear.’

‘Will she ever awaken them?’ Felix asked. He wondered whether they were still conscious, those trapped princes and kings, or whether they had found refuge in dreams or even madness. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

‘If the city is in danger,’ Zabbai said. ‘Their rage is our weapon, and their legions, our secret. Not even Settra knows how many legions Lybaras’s necropolis holds in its bowels. And nor will he ever, if Khalida has her way.’ She looked at him. ‘That is another reason for this trip. We must smash our enemies, before war forces us to reveal that which we would rather remained hidden.’

‘I find it hard to believe that a sword, no matter how valuable, can prevent an army from marching. Especially an army of dead men,’ Felix said.

Zabbai was silent for a moment. Then, she said, ‘It will not. But it may deliver victory to Lybaras, and that is all that matters, Felix.’

It was the first time she’d used his name.

He hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

CHAPTER 11

Nitocris watched Octavia examine the sword. It wasn’t the first time that she’d allowed the necromancer to do so, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. Nitocris wished to wring free the secrets that were hidden within the pitted length of the ancient blade. It had shed a queen’s blood, by the hand of a queen, and that blood still stained it. It had never been cleaned.

They stood at the top of the temple, on the roof of Nitocris’s chamber, where the drums had been placed. Bloated, mossy corpses beat ceaselessly at the stretched skin drums with gnawed femurs, the dark rhythm echoing out over the temple complex. Drums and drummers both shone with faint phosphorescence, even in the watery light of day. At night, they glowed, like sinister beacons, calling all of the dead of the Southlands home.

Octavia had wanted to examine the blade in the daylight, which Nitocris had grudgingly allowed. She and Andraste stood in the protective shadow of the stretched hide of a great lizard, held aloft by a quartet of dead men, who had pierced the hide with spears and stretched it as wide as it could go. Even with the shade provided by the stretched skin and the thick, dark clouds, which swallowed the sun and spat out thin, weak streams of light, her flesh itched, and the sensation made her irritable. Andraste was even more uncomfortable, and she squirmed in her armour, picking at it and rubbing her arms.

Her queen, the Queen of Mysteries, could walk freely in the light of day. The sun had no more power over her than the moon or the tides. She was separate from the world, and mighty in her isolation. Nitocris longed for such strength. She longed to walk under the sun through the stone plazas of faraway cities, and take her refreshment from the throats of unknown folk. Impatient, she shifted her weight and said, ‘Well?’

‘It can be done,’ Octavia said, without turning to face her. ‘It will not be easy. It will require time, and preparation.’ Her hands passed over the blade without touching it. It was held flat across the palms of a zombie, which twitched slightly as flies crawled in and out of its eye sockets, and maggots ate its body hollow from the inside.

‘How much time?’ Nitocris asked.

‘A few days,’ Octavia said. She turned and added, ‘A week at most.’ When she saw Nitocris’s expression she said, ‘I must fast first, and there are unguents and other assorted tools to be gathered or made. You are asking me to usurp old magic. The dead of Lybaras, of all the tomb-cities, are already bound to a spell. I must find one thread in a wide weave and pluck it loose to pull it tight.’

‘The sword,’ Nitocris said.

‘Will help, yes. The blood on the blade, aged as it is, will help me find the thread, but I must still pluck it and pull it, and that will require great effort.’

‘But you can do it,’ Nitocris said.

‘As I said, it can be done.’

Nitocris heard the unspoken challenge in her words. She tilted her head and studied the necromancer. Even in the weak light of day, ghosts clung to her like children to their mother’s skirts. ‘That is not what I asked,’ she said softly. Beside her, Andraste tensed. If she asked it, her handmaiden would leap into the sun to behead the necromancer, though she might burn in doing so. ‘I asked whether you could do it.’

‘I can,’ Octavia said. Her hand rested on the pommel of her own blade, and her eyes were on Andraste. Nitocris smiled thinly.

‘Will you?’ she said.

Octavia’s eyes slid towards her. ‘I will. I live but to serve you, most magnanimous one,’ she said, bowing shallowly. ‘I live at your behest, and I die at your command.’

Andraste snarled. The sound ripped across the rooftop. Octavia did not flinch, Nitocris was pleased to see. ‘It is wise of you to remember this, Octavia,’ Nitocris said as she waved Andraste to silence. ‘We march tomorrow.’

‘That is not enough time,’ Octavia said. ‘I will not be able to perform the proper rites on the march.’

‘That is why you will stay here,’ Nitocris purred.

‘What?’ Octavia’s face hardened. ‘You promised me.’

In one swift movement, Nitocris was across the roof, and her hand was about Octavia’s throat. Ghosts clawed uselessly at her, and she batted at them in annoyance as she hefted the necromancer and propelled her backwards, towards the edge of the roof.

Her flesh squirmed where the sun touched it, but she had been prepared for the discomfort, and ignored it. The sun no longer had much of a hold on her, though it could destroy her handmaidens. Octavia clawed at her wrist, even as she groped for her blade. Nitocris let her draw it, and then casually swatted it from her hand. It struck the steps below and slid down, well out of reach. ‘I promised you nothing,’ Nitocris growled.

She shook the necromancer slightly, causing the woman’s jaw to click. Her feet dangled over the edge of the roof, and she kicked uselessly. ‘I swore nothing, and offered nothing. You serve me, woman. We are not equals, we are not partners.’ Octavia’s face flushed as Nitocris tightened her grip ever so slightly. She pulled her close, and leaned forwards. ‘You are my dog, woman of Altdorf. You are my pet, to live at my discretion and hunt as I command. Otherwise, I will make you wish I had left you to the tender mercies of the slavers.’

As she spoke, she could feel the necromancer’s will pulsing out to the dead men on the roof, trying to command them. But Nitocris’s will was stronger. She closed off Octavia’s panicked attempts to suborn the zombies, and pressed the woman’s chin to her shoulder. Still holding her by the throat, she stroked her hair and whispered, ‘I am kind to my pets, Octavia. I let you keep your brother, after all, though I have no use for a wretch like him. I let you keep your will, and your legs and your voice, though you need them not to do as I wish. Why must you growl at me so?’

Sudden pain stabbed at her, startling her. A moment of vertigo followed, as images of some other place fluttered across the surface of her mind – blades stabbing down, a red weal of agony, a grimacing one-eyed face and the wet thunk of an axe biting into flesh. She felt the burning caress of the sun, and the crisping of her flesh and hair – no, not hers, but her handmaidens’. They were dying.

Nitocris shrieked and tossed Octavia aside as she clutched at her head. She staggered back towards Andraste and the shade. Andraste reached out to her, and supported her as she fell forwards. ‘My queen, what is it, what has she done to you?’ Andraste said. She drew her sword and made to spring towards Octavia, who clambered to her feet. The necromancer’s eyes widened as Andraste stalked towards her. The weak sunlight drew thin contrails of smoke from the vampire’s flesh, but Andraste paid no heed, intent as she was on taking the necromancer’s head.

But before the first blow could land, a cloaked and cowled figure crashed into her and knocked her sprawling. Through the haze of pain, Nitocris saw Steyr rise to his feet, his body protected from the sun by his hood and cloak. He had no blade, but flexed clawed fingers and emitted a hiss as Andraste got to her feet. She returned the hiss with interest, and swung her blade at him. Steyr dodged back from the blow, his cloak flaring about him. Andraste lunged after him. Her flesh was pockmarked with burns and she snarled in pain as she cut at the other vampire. ‘I will kill you, if you’ve harmed her,’ Andraste shrieked. ‘I will crack your bones and mount your head on our standard pole.’

Steyr met Andraste’s lunge. He tried to overpower her, but she was more than his equal. Andraste had had centuries to learn her own strength, and Steyr had only the barest drip of years. Her knee caught him in the belly, doubling him over. Her elbow slammed down on his neck, and he dropped flat to the roof. Andraste kicked him onto his back and crouched over him. She raised her blade in both hands and prepared to drive it through his heart.

‘Sheathe your blade, Andraste, it was not her – it was not them. Sheathe your blade,’ Nitocris hissed. Bloody tears ran down her round cheeks. She forced herself erect. ‘Your sisters are dead,’ she said. Andraste sheathed her blade, and bowed her head. Nitocris roughly brushed the blood from her face, smearing it in the process. She had expected to feel the pain of their passing, sooner or later. It was a blessing and a curse of her blood that she could sense the passing of her handmaidens, who all had some small part of her in them.

She had sent three of her best warriors, chosen for their speed and stealth, to Lybaras, to deliver her message of war to the false Serpent Queen. She had allowed them to taste of her blood before they set out for Lybaras, so that she might know when they fell. For their fate had been assured the moment they were chosen – and they had welcomed it, for it was an honour not bestowed lightly. Such had ever been the way among her people, the opening thrust, to spill a bit of blood to season the dust.

Nitocris knew that such a tradition was, in many ways, antithetical to the ways of the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle. To alert the enemy before the battle was considered a grievous error by her sisters, whom she had never met. Her queen had sought to school her in their ways, but while Nitocris had absorbed many of those lessons, others seemed nonsensical. To skulk and strike from the shadows was all well and good, but if the enemy did not know who had made the fatal blow, then what was the point?

She licked blood from her face and said, ‘War has been declared in the proper manner. We march tomorrow, at first dark.’ She waved Andraste away from Steyr. The latter flopped over onto his belly and drew his cloak about himself as he slithered to his sister’s side. She was impressed, despite herself. Steyr’s willingness to place himself in harm’s way for his sister bespoke great loyalty. She had thought him a coward, a beast; perhaps there was a man there, after all.

Andraste eyed him warily. He’d been no match for her, but that he’d got so close, without Andraste noticing him meant he was more dangerous than either she or her handmaiden had thought.

‘And what about me,’ Octavia croaked, rubbing her throat. ‘Are you leaving me here?’

‘Yes,’ Nitocris growled. She gestured to Andraste. ‘Andraste will stay with you, to ensure that you have everything you need. And your brother – your brother will come with me, and serve as my captain.’

‘Captain,’ Steyr said. Octavia felt him stiffen as he said, ‘Captain or hostage?’

‘Both,’ Nitocris said. She had regained her composure quickly. ‘Or neither, if you aggravate me, wretch,’ she added. She examined them with hooded eyes. ‘Think of it as an opportunity to prove your worth to me. At the moment, you only live thanks to your sister, but I grow tired of her incessant demands. I considered taking your head to punish her, but I think I will find more use for you in war. You will lead my vanguard, Sigmund Steyr. You and your loathsome creations shall lead the ghoul-tribes into war, ahead of my legions. If you survive, perhaps there will be a place for you in the world to come. And if you do not – well, at least you died in battle, rather than being slaughtered like a beast.’

Steyr made to retort. Octavia grabbed her brother’s wrist. ‘Quiet,’ she murmured. He looked at her, and then nodded. Satisfied that he would keep his mouth shut, Octavia looked at Nitocris. ‘You will need me, when you reach Lahmia,’ she said. It wasn’t quite a protest, more in the nature of a warning. Her throat ached where Nitocris had gripped it. She hadn’t expected the vampire to react so violently. ‘I will be of no use to you here.’

‘As you will be of no use to me in the battle to come,’ Nitocris said. ‘You will cast your spell, Octavia. You will break the half-soul of the false queen of Lybaras, and shackle her bones to my will. You will cage the spirits of her people and bring them to heel. And then, and only then, you will be allowed to join me in Lahmia.’

Octavia allowed her brother to help her to her feet. She eyed Nitocris speculatively. ‘And what if I cannot get the spell to work?’ she said.

‘Then your brother dies,’ Nitocris said. ‘And I die as well, most likely.’ She smiled. ‘And then you die, because if our gambit fails, Andraste will take your worthless head.’

Andraste smirked and her fingers tapped the pommel of her sword.

Octavia had expected that answer. In a way, she had been hoping for it. Nitocris’s subtlety had its limits, as did her patience, and it was clear to the necromancer that both had been reached. ‘I will get the spell to work. And then I will join you,’ she said slowly. Nitocris’s smile grew and her eyes glittered in the shadow of the lizard-hide canopy. Octavia bowed low and turned away, pulling Steyr after her. He paused only to trade snarls with Andraste, and then he followed her off the roof of the pyramid.

His muttered curses filled the air as they descended. She let him vent and then said, ‘Thank you.’ His curses stuttered to a halt.

‘What?’

‘For saving me,’ Octavia said. She stopped as she reached the spot where her sword had fallen and stooped to reclaim it. She eyed it critically, checking to see whether its fall had damaged it, and then, satisfied, sheathed it.

‘Why break the habit of a lifetime,’ Steyr said sourly. He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘She intends to kill me, you know. You’ll be on your own. You’ll need to be wary, Octavia.’

Octavia turned to face him. ‘No, she wants to kill you. But she won’t. She has her own code of honour, barbaric as it is. Fight Sigmund,’ she said as she grabbed his hand. ‘Fight as you fought when you tried to rescue me from the slavers. Fight as you intended to fight, with your vampire fleet. Show her how useful you can be.’

He gave a crooked smile, from within his hood. ‘When have you ever known me to be useful, sister?’ He patted her hand. ‘But I take your meaning. You’ll still need to be careful. Andraste has her own plans, though she appears as loyal as a hound. I can smell the schemes that boil in her blood. She yearns for Nitocris’s throne, and you’re in her way.’

The idea that Andraste might seize the opportunity to kill her didn’t come as a shock to Octavia. She knew the vampire hated her – most of them hated her. They despised her for her magics and for the attention Nitocris paid her. Life among vampires was akin to the stories she’d heard of life in the Imperial court: constant backbiting and underhanded scheming to garner an extra bit of height on a ladder of importance. Andraste was at the top of the heap for the moment, and she couldn’t countenance someone like Octavia, who existed outside of the predatory pecking order that Nitocris had established.

But she had assumed that Andraste would make her move after she had cast her great working over the dead of Lybaras. The thought that Andraste might sacrifice her mistress in order to gain control of what was left of Nitocris’s empire after a failed assault on the tomb-city was an unsettling one.

‘Is she that bloody-minded?’ she said.

‘She’s a vampire. Take it from one who knows, sister, you must strike first, and hardest, or she will have her fangs in your throat before you finish that spell.’ Steyr looked out over the temple complex. ‘You must kill her as soon as possible. And take control of the fleet, if you can.’

‘The fleet,’ Octavia muttered. She peered at her brother. He didn’t meet her gaze.

‘We will need it, for the inevitable retreat. Nitocris is a savage and her concept of war is no different from that of a greenskin. She will hurl her forces full tilt at the enemy, until one side or the other breaks. I for one do not intend to be caught in the middle of that, if I can help it.’

He looked at her. ‘This spell of yours, what is it?’

‘The Chains of Usirian,’ Octavia said. She made a fist. ‘That’s what those old Arabayan tomes I found in Copher called it. It will bind an unbound soul, and free the dead from the tyranny of will.’ She smiled. ‘All I need is a bit of blood, shed at the moment of death. Nitocris swears that the blood on that ancient blade is that of Khalida, High Queen of Lybaras. With it, I can bring her and the legions that follow her, to heel.’

‘Really,’ Steyr murmured.

Octavia heard the amusement in his voice. She fixed her brother with a glare. ‘What are you thinking, brother?’

She could practically hear the gears turning in his head. He was cunning, and brave and resourceful, but subtlety was not one of his virtues.

‘Nothing much,’ he said. He paused. Then, ‘If you control Khalida and the forces at her disposal, would we need that blood-swilling leopardess and her stringy-haired vassals?’ He leaned close to her. ‘To get to Lahmia, I mean. That is still your goal, sister, is it not? To plunder the secrets of that dead kingdom, and bring this empire of bones to heel, eh?’

He enfolded her in his cloak, as he had done so often when they were children. But now, rather than warming her with the heat of his body, she felt only the cold radiating from him.

He leaned his chin on her shoulder and murmured, ‘Kill Andraste, sweet sister-mine, and then cast your spell. And once that has been done, destroy the Serpent Queen once and for all.’

CHAPTER 12

Felix cursed as the soft soil crumbled under his foot, and his leg sank to the knee in it. He flailed helplessly for a moment, before Gotrek knotted a hand in his cloak and hauled him up and out of the sinkhole. ‘Careful, manling,’ the Slayer growled. ‘These tunnels are as soft as an elf-man’s hair. One wrong step and you’ll be swallowed whole.’

‘I know, I know,’ Felix said testily.

The tunnels, or as the Nehekharans called them ‘qanats’, had, Felix had been told, carried water in the time when Nehekhara still lived. The well-like shafts, and the gently sloping tunnels that they were connected to, had provided a reliable supply of water for irrigation and drinking in the more arid regions of the Great Land. Now, most were as dry and crumbling as everything else in the Land of the Dead.

Felix was somewhat grateful for that fact. It was bad enough tramping through the damp confines of a qanat without having to worry about the poisonous and rotten-smelling waters of the stagnant rivers that crossed the desert like the collapsed veins of a corpse. The tunnels were big enough that he could stand upright, and here and there, the roof above his head was pierced by shafts of sunlight, which dropped through what he assumed were collapsed wells. There were enough of these that the tunnels were, while not well-lit, not dark either. If Felix squinted, and was careful, he could see well enough.

Dry as it was, though, the tunnel still stank. The smell grew worse whenever they passed what remained of the entrances to the collapsed sections of the tunnel network. Sometimes he fancied he could hear water sloshing on the other side of the tunnel wall, and other times he swore that he heard what could only be movement. When he made mention of the latter, Zabbai said, ‘The dead are not alone in Nehekhara, especially this close to the jungles and the mountains. Keep close, my little barbarian. I would not like for some hungry sand-devil to gobble you up.’

The tunnels ran beneath the entire stretch of land from the Devil’s Backbone to the jungles, and they provided a quick, safe route to the edge of the latter. It had, much to Felix’s relief, only taken them a day to get to this point from Lybaras, and he was feeling confident that in the six days left to him, they could complete the journey.

Taking the tunnels would allow them to avoid the patrols from Mahrak and Rasetra as well, neither of whom would take kindly to a group of armed warriors trespassing on territory they considered theirs. Zabbai was with them, as was a group of twelve warriors, each one armed with shield, khopesh and bow. They also carried supplies for Felix and Gotrek, though where they’d found food and water fit for living consumption, Felix was afraid to ask.

Djubti had conferred extensively with Zabbai before they left, and Felix had noted the strange amulet that the liche-priest had pressed upon the herald. If it was anything like the bracelet they’d forced upon him, Felix considered her welcome to it. Antar led the way, complaining loudly and at length the entire time. Felix wondered if that was the prince’s default state, when he wasn’t boasting about his battle prowess or, more disturbingly, the size, shape and comeliness of the bones of his concubines. Death, Felix fancied, had likely not changed Antar a bit. His ego was too strong to succumb to the morose numbness that accompanied undeath. In a way, it was heartening. In another, altogether more apparent way, it was annoying.

‘I’m going to rip his jawbone off and crack his skull with it, if he keeps blathering,’ Gotrek said, eyeing the prince with a calculating gaze. They had come to an intersection in the sloping tunnels, and had stopped to allow Felix to rest. They had moved quickly, and between Gotrek’s steady, downhill boulder pace and the swiftness of the dead, Felix’s legs felt like lead weights. He was used to keeping up with Gotrek, however, and after a few minutes, he’d regained his breath. ‘I doubt that would shut him up,’ Felix said, fiddling with the bracelet.

Gotrek eyed the bracelet. ‘Worse comes to worst, manling, I can just have your arm off at the elbow,’ he said. ‘That’s not your scribbling hand, is it? No matter, we’ll get you a replacement. My folk have the art of such things.’ He patted Felix companionably on the shoulder.

‘Wonderful,’ Felix said morosely. He shoved himself to his feet. ‘Let’s call that Plan B, shall we?’ They continued on, moving through ever-more cramped and twisting tunnels. Felix was reminded more than once of the ratruns of the skaven, and the crude tunnels of the goblins.

The walls of the qanat had been worn smooth by water long ago, but he could imagine greenskins or the vile ratkin moving through them now, in their numberless hordes. He didn’t comment on it. Gotrek would only get distracted, and that was the last thing he wanted at the moment. He glanced down at his wrist again and then resolutely looked away, examining the warriors that Zabbai had brought with her.

They were not the linen-shrouded honour guard from the throne room, nor were they the bare-boned skeleton archers he’d seen on the galley. Instead, they wore the remains of what looked like cuirasses made from reptile hide, and bone and feather decorations dangling from their arms and around their necks. The shields they carried were made from the armoured plates of what he could only assume was some great insect, and the khopesh each had sheathed on its bony hip had a pommel in the shape of a scorpion’s sting. The bows they carried were stout things, intricately carved and maintained, despite the general air of decay that clung to their owners, and the arrows in their quivers were fletched with black feathers. Upon the skull of each warrior was carved a coiling pattern, which stretched from crown to jaw. They moved in loose formation, maintaining a swift, ground-eating trot, until an abrupt command from Zabbai brought them to a halt.

He’d tried to make their acquaintance more than once since they’d departed, more out of curiosity than any real desire to speak to the dead, but none seemed capable of speech. They stared at him blankly, or turned away when he spoke to them, and after a few hours of feeling insulted, Felix had come to wonder whether they even knew that he was there. So engrossed was he in studying the silent warriors, that Felix nearly collided with Gotrek. The Slayer planted a palm on his chest and said, ‘Stand still, manling.’

‘What is it,’ Felix said. He grasped his sword’s hilt and looked around warily, his ears open. As he listened, he could hear the same scrabbling noises as before, but louder this time, and closer.

A crack suddenly formed in the closest wall. The crack spread upwards and outwards in a radiating spider-web of crumbling sand and soft rock. The surface of the wall bulged at the edges of the crack. The wall exploded outwards. Felix staggered back as chunks of hardened sand and old mud struck him. As dust filled the tunnel, he heard the click of bones. The dust cleared and Felix saw a wave of tiny bodies flood into the tunnel. The dried husks of thousands of scorpions, scarabs and countless other insects and small creatures swept against the opposite wall, and splashed back towards Felix and the others in a dusty, clattering wave.

Gotrek grabbed him and shoved him away. ‘Go, manling! Run!’ Felix began to run, joining Zabbai and the others, who were moving swiftly away from the encroaching swarm.

‘Run where?’ Felix shouted. ‘They’re filling the tunnel.’ And they were. The horde of clicking, scrabbling bodies pulsed forwards like some hideous tide, crawling across the floor, the walls and the ceiling, as well as each other. They filled the tunnel from top to bottom as they crashed forwards, like sausage being squeezed through a grinder.

‘There,’ Zabbai said, pointing towards a shaft of light ahead of them. ‘We’ll go up.’

She reached the light first and sprang up, catching the edge of the hole and scrambling up with the peculiar agility of the animated dead.

Even as Felix reached the light, Zabbai’s warriors followed her up, Antar not far behind. Felix didn’t pause. As he hit the light, he leapt straight up, flailing wildly for something to hold on to. Bony hands seized his wrists and he was hauled upwards by the skeletal warriors, passed hand over hand until Zabbai grabbed the neck of his chain shirt. She dragged him up and out into the open air without effort. ‘Where is the dwarf?’ she said, looking down as she deposited Felix on the ground. He looked around. The top of the well was a crumbling circle of awkwardly balanced stones, which shifted alarmingly beneath even Zabbai’s slight weight.

‘He’s too short to make the jump,’ Antar said, peering into the well. He sounded amused. ‘The messengers of Usirian shall claim him, as is obviously the god’s will. Goodbye, ape,’ he shouted down into the well.

‘Out of the way,’ Felix snapped, elbowing Antar aside as he stripped off his cloak. ‘We’ve done this before,’ he said, whirling his cloak into a tight length and knotting it loosely. Without hesitation, he dropped it into the waiting hands of Zabbai’s warriors, who grasped his intent immediately, and lowered it down to Gotrek. ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted, ‘grab my cloak!’

‘About time, manling,’ Gotrek bellowed, as he was hauled up. ‘I was wondering whether you would remember that some of us are not built for leaping about like prancing elves.’

‘After Miragliano, I don’t think I’ll forget anytime soon,’ Felix said. Gotrek tossed his cloak back to him as he scrambled out of the well and onto solid ground. ‘What in the name of Sigmar’s hammer was that?’

‘A tomb swarm,’ Zabbai said. She and her warriors quickly collapsed the well, filling the aperture. ‘They are drawn to the sorcery that animates us. They flock to it in great numbers. If Djubti were here, he could easily control them, but we lack the skill, or will, to do so,’ she added, tossing a glance at Antar as she said the last part.

Antar made a dismissive gesture. ‘Antar, the King of the Beautiful Moment, has no need of mindless insects. Besides which, the bugs are also drawn to the smell of living flesh and blood. It is not Antar’s fault that the fleshy ones are draped in useless meat and filled with unnecessary juices.’

‘You were once human yourself,’ Felix said, insulted.

‘Vile slander,’ Antar said sharply. ‘Antar was divinity made flesh! His body was composed of the air, the soil, and the sweetest waters of the River of Life! His intelligence, that of the great stones which form the bedrock of our world. Antar, Mightiest of Mortal Immortals, Antar Who Once Rode His Chariot across the Sea, was never as you, puny meatling!’

Felix looked past the gesticulating tomb-prince to Zabbai. ‘Where are we?’ He saw slumped obelisks and weather-worn Nehekharan mausoleums all around, arranged along lines that he suspected had once been marked by streets, but were now simply rubble-strewn paths. There were broken statues as well, giant legs that extended up from square daises to non-existent bodies.

It was far from the well-tended necropolis of Lybaras. ‘The Great Southern Necropolis,’ she said, and gestured. ‘These ancient vaults were shattered and pillaged during the Usurper’s invasion. The spells and rites that clung to the stones were overthrown or twisted into new, more deadly shapes,’ Zabbai murmured. Felix looked around. The stone obelisks and mausoleums rose out of the patch of muddy, weed-choked ground that marked the place where the mountains and desert they had bypassed through the qanats gave way to the swamp. They stretched as far as his eye could see.

So too did the swamp. Crooked trees, with leprous boles and mossy limbs, had invaded the necropolis’s southern edge, and Felix could see where a number of tombs had been inundated by thick tangles of roots, where they weren’t completely swallowed. Sand had become mud and the flat stretches of barren ground were separated by runnels of bitter-looking water. The Land of the Dead wasn’t all desert, though none of it – sand-strewn or otherwise – was particularly pleasant looking.

‘The vaults and tombs stretch from the Gulf of Fear to the Devil’s Backbone,’ Antar said. His normal boisterousness had become subdued. ‘They say these stones and what lies beneath once protected the borders of Lybaras from the encroachment of the Doom Glade Swamp, which grows and creeps like a thing alive.’ As he spoke, birds burst from the tree line that marked the swamp, croaking loudly. Felix hoped they were birds, at least. ‘The swamp is cursed,’ Antar added. ‘In case you were wondering.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Felix said. He rubbed at his wrist beneath the bracelet, trying to ease the soreness of the latter’s clutch. It was loose enough to allow sand and grit to get between the gold and his flesh, but tight enough that his forearm felt as if it were caught in an engineer’s vice. He’d tried threading a length of cloth between his skin and the metal soon after they’d put it on, but there was simply no room. The bracelet seemed to swell or shrink as necessary, for maximum annoyance.

‘Cursed or not, it’s the most direct route,’ Zabbai said. ‘We should go.’

‘No,’ Gotrek said.

‘What,’ Felix said, turning to look at him.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Gotrek rumbled. The Slayer sank into a crouch and pressed one big hand to the damp earth. He dug his fingers in and his eye flickered about, as if searching for something.

‘Gotrek, what are you talking about?’ Felix said, hurrying towards him. ‘Is that swarm returning?’ The thought of a cloud of stinging, biting, clawing undead insects bursting through the ground to envelop them wasn’t a happy one.

‘Stay back, manling!’ Gotrek roared, rising to his feet. Felix froze where he was.

Antar drew his khopesh and crowed, ‘So Antar’s silent foreseeing of which he chose not to make you aware has been proven truthful! The stunted monkey cannot be trusted! He is a jug of lies and his smell is that of deceitful pony!’

‘Quiet!’ Zabbai said. She raised her axe. Her warriors grew still, arrows notched. She turned her head slowly. ‘The dwarf is right. No one move.’

‘What is it?’ Felix said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re being stalked,’ Gotrek said, grimly. ‘Now be silent, while those of us without puny human ears try to listen.’

Felix swallowed thickly and tried to remain as still as possible. His hand inched towards the hilt of his sword as he scanned the empty tombs and fallen obelisks. Something nagged at him, something Antar had said, only moments ago – These stones and what lies beneath… Even as Felix thought it, he felt the ground beneath his feet tremble, as if something massive were moving below him. ‘Gotrek,’ he hissed.

‘I hear it, manling,’ the Slayer said, raising a hand to silence him. ‘They’re circling us.’

They, Felix thought, with a sinking sensation, as in, more than one. ‘Wonderful,’ he muttered. He looked around. The crooked length of a toppled obelisk rested nearby. It wasn’t much, but it would get him off the ground. He’d learned much in his time at Gotrek’s side, and one of the more important lessons had been the higher the ground, the more work your enemy had to do to get to you. He tensed, preparing to make a run for it.

As if reading his thoughts, Gotrek said, ‘Don’t move, manling. Not until I give the word.’ The Slayer raised his head to look at the others. ‘That goes for all of you.’

‘It is cowardice you speak of! Antar, Mighty Lion Cub, Raised by Falcons, runs from nothing!’ Antar blustered, swiping at the air with his saw-toothed khopesh. He stamped on the ground and struck a fallen stone with his blade. ‘Come out, cowardly skulkers! Face the Will of Heaven Made Glorious Manifest!’

The damp, soft soil exploded upwards in a spray of browns and greys as several horrifying serpentine forms burst from the ground around Antar. A trio of ancient and ornate blade-topped staves hissed out from three different directions, and Antar was forced to drop down beneath them and leap aside, spluttering and cursing. Felix caught a hint of snakelike bodies and manlike torsos before their attackers had vanished beneath the ground as quickly as they’d come.

‘Sepulchral Stalkers,’ Zabbai said, gesturing for her warriors to seek higher ground. ‘Head for the stones, and stay off the ground.’

She backed towards a bisected tomb, her axe spinning slowly between her hands. Felix hurried towards the toppled obelisk he’d spotted earlier. He drew Karaghul as he moved. He felt the ground shift beneath him, and as he drew his sword, he caught the reflection of a dark shape heaving into sight behind him. He didn’t turn, or stop, but instead sprang for the obelisk with every ounce of lift his legs could muster. He hit the tumbled stone hard and rolled off the other side, Karaghul quivering in his hands as the blade struck rock. The dark, serpentine shape of the Sepulchral Stalker lunged after him, raising its staff for a slicing blow.

Felix twisted away and brought his sword up, chopping through the staff just below the blade. Slivers of what might have been fossilised wood or bone stung his unshaven cheek. He dived out of the way of the creature’s frenzied slashing with the shattered staff. It slithered swiftly over the obelisk after him. It flung its broken weapon aside and reached for him with long arms. He dodged aside and leapt onto a shattered wall, scrambling up. The Stalker vanished, burrowing into the ground at the base of the wall. Felix panted. His heart hammered in his chest and he looked around wildly. ‘What are these things?’ he called out. ‘And why in Sigmar’s name are they after us?’

‘They’re guards, manling,’ Gotrek replied, his voice carrying easily through the ruined necropolis. ‘Sentries, standing watch for an enemy who came and went millennia ago. My people have encountered these constructs before, to our cost. Many a clan has sung dirges for proud sons slain by such as these.’ Felix searched in vain for the Slayer, but he couldn’t spot him from where he crouched. He hoped Gotrek would have the good sense to get off the ground, though he knew that it was a wasted effort. Gotrek was hunting.

A moment later, he heard the scrape of Gotrek’s axe as its edge slid across stone. ‘They’re not so bad, if you watch out for the eyes,’ the Slayer said. Felix tensed as the rune-axe struck stone again, more loudly this time. ‘That’s how they kill, isn’t it crow-bait? The eyes,’ Gotrek called out. Felix caught a flash of crimson. The Slayer was prowling nearby. At the base of the wall, the ground roiled for a moment, before becoming still.

‘Yes,’ Zabbai said. She leapt from the top of a crumbling tomb to a broken pillar. As she landed, she dropped into a wary crouch and looked around. ‘Anyone who looks into their eyes will become as a pillar of sand, to be blown away on the wind.’

Felix swallowed. He’d come too close to meeting the creature’s gaze as it attacked him. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, and scanned the ground. ‘How do we fight something we can’t even look at?’ he shouted. As far as he was concerned, they weren’t showing the proper amount of worry. ‘Gotrek,’ he yelled. ‘Gotrek, where are you?’

‘Right behind you, manling – don’t move!’ the Slayer thundered. Felix froze. A shadow fell over him, blotting out the sun. Sand and dirt dribbled into his hair and across his shoulders from above. He heard Gotrek say something, and then he heard the hiss of a blade descending at all speed. Felix threw himself from the top of the wall and hit the ground, hard. The air whooshed out of his lungs. Behind him, bronze struck stone, and then something much, much harder than bronze smashed down on the strange, fleshy stone of which the Stalkers were seemingly composed. ‘Ha!’ Gotrek roared. Felix risked a quick glance and saw that the Slayer had split the Stalker’s inhuman skull in two with a single blow. Holding tight to the Stalker’s shoulder, Gotrek rode its body to the ground as it crumpled in on itself, its tail lashing in its death throes. The thick muscles in the dwarf’s arm bunched as Gotrek tore his axe free of its head and stepped off the writhing body. ‘One down,’ he said. ‘From the sound of them, there are only two, maybe three, to go.’ He grinned at Felix.

‘Don’t sound so happy,’ Felix said, as he picked himself up. ‘Not all of us find this as entertaining as you do. In fact, I can think of a hundred other places I’d rather be than right here, right now, facing deadly eyed burrowing snake statues.’

‘Bah! Antar, Scion of the Greatest Dynasty, has no fear of wide-eyed statuary,’ Antar said. Unlike the others, he hadn’t sought higher ground. Like Gotrek, he seemed intent on confrontation, though he hadn’t yet had the Slayer’s success. ‘They fear Heaven’s Favoured Son, and slither from him like serpents before the crocodile!’

A Stalker exploded out of the ground behind the tomb-prince. Antar whirled, hurling his flail. The Stalker’s eyes pulsed with a terrible energy and Antar’s arm dissolved into sand moments before the flail struck home. The Stalker reared back, and lashed out with its staff. Antar leapt over the blow and his khopesh hissed out, removing both of the Stalker’s arms. Before it could recover, arrows sprouted from its eyes. Zabbai’s warriors fired smoothly, striking the Stalker again and again. Zabbai herself lunged over its lashing tail and brought her axe up and around, tearing the top of the construct’s head off with a single powerful blow. ‘That’s two,’ she said, as the thing’s body crashed down behind her.’

As soon as the Stalker had appeared, Gotrek had sprung into motion. Felix looked for him, and saw the Slayer pelting away in pursuit of a swiftly moving furrow in the soft ground, his axe held tightly across his body, and his mouth open to expel a nigh-constant litany of curses. It would be a waste of breath to call after the Slayer; best to save his wind for running.

He heard a shout from behind him, and the telltale explosion that marked the appearance of one of the creatures. He turned in time to see a thrashing tail sink into the sand, but not before its tip caught Antar beneath the chin and sent the tomb-prince hurtling into the air. Antar crashed down behind a fallen statue. The burrowing Stalker circled its fallen fellows and shot towards Zabbai and her warriors as fast as a bolt from a ballista. Sand was spewed from the furrow its passage dug. Zabbai’s warriors fired arrows at the approaching trench, but either the thing was too deep or the sand was too thick, and it exploded out of the ground at an angle that sent it hurtling over a pair of warriors. One it beheaded with a sweep of its stave as it passed, and the other was caught by its deadly gaze. Bone, tack and harness all became as sand. It remained standing for a moment, and then a contemptuous flick of the Stalker’s tail burst the newly made statue into nothing more than a cloud of drifting particles.

Zabbai darted for the high ground, and the Stalker, having now plunged back beneath the ground, burrowed in pursuit. Felix ran after them. He wasn’t sure what he could do to help, but anything was better than standing around doing nothing. He propelled himself over fallen stones and vaulted broken columns, running along a parallel course to Zabbai and her pursuer. He stumbled on a loose stone and crashed into a mostly intact, if weather-worn, statue of a hawk-headed god. As he righted himself, he saw the Stalker lunge partially from the ground long enough to swat Zabbai from her feet. Then it plunged back down into the dirt and swiftly circled her. It rose behind her as she tried to regain her feet.

Felix scaled the statue as quickly as he could. His limbs were aching and his muscles were burning, but he knew that to stop was to condemn Zabbai to oblivion. Whatever else she was, the dead woman was a comrade, and had saved his life at least once. The least he could do was return the favour. He tore his cloak from about his neck and snapped it tight between his hands. Then, with a wild yell, he ran down the length of the statue’s prominent beak and leapt off, even as the Stalker raised its staff over Zabbai’s unheeding skull. As he slammed down on the Stalker’s crooked back, he flapped his cloak over its skull and twisted the ends tight, completely enveloping its head.

‘Now, Zabbai,’ he shouted, hauling back. His weight pulled the Stalker off balance, forcing it to rear. Zabbai bounded to her feet and sprang up, turning. Her axe flashed in the red light of the setting sun, and the blade tore a gaping crevasse in the Stalker’s skull, destroying its eyes and most of its face. The construct collapsed. Felix was thrown off, and only narrowly avoided its thrashing coils as he scrambled to his feet. He drew his blade and hewed at its tail, chopping through the joins where some long-dead artisan had connected the segments of its tail.

Karaghul’s hilt vibrated in his grasp as he struck the stone and gilded rings that marked each squirming segment. Zabbai swung her axe in short, fierce arcs, chopping through its joints and finally hacking its head free of its neck. As the head rolled free, the Stalker settled into motionlessness.

Breathing heavily, Felix met Zabbai’s gaze. She nodded tersely, and Felix returned the gesture before moving to carefully extract his cloak from about the Stalker’s head. It had a wide rent in it, from Zabbai’s initial blow, but the wool cloak had suffered worse in its time. He flapped it out and swung it back about his shoulders before hurrying after Zabbai as she ran towards the site of Gotrek’s duel with the lone Stalker remaining.

The Stalker had coiled about Gotrek like a python, but the dwarf had taken hold of its lower jaw and forced its deadly gaze skywards. It had lost its weapon, and Gotrek’s axe was pinned within the Stalker’s coils. As Felix and Zabbai drew close, Gotrek jerked his other hand free, albeit without his axe, and clamped his fingers on the side of the Stalker’s skull. Dwarf muscle swelled with pent-up power, and stone and metal buckled, cracked and began to give way. The Stalker writhed and squeezed Gotrek more tightly. The Slayer’s face was going red, and veins bulged on his neck as he twisted the Stalker’s head around with a loud crack-crack-crack. With a loud roar, Gotrek ripped the Stalker’s head from its shoulders and sent it flying. All at once, its body slumped.

Gotrek shoved his way free of the limp coils and retrieved his axe. He glared at the headless shape and spat on it. Then he looked at Felix and grinned. ‘I told you, manling. Just watch the eyes,’ he said.

CHAPTER 13

Felix lit the fire carefully. There wasn’t much in the way of combustible material, but he’d scrounged a few bits of wood, dried grass and what he hoped wasn’t a bone belonging to anyone important. He blew on the tiny flame until it caught. Then he sat back, and huddled in his cloak and wondered how any place as hot as the Land of the Dead could grow so cold, come nightfall. Zabbai’s warriors stood sentry, and though they didn’t require it, Zabbai and Antar sat near the fire. Only ten of Zabbai’s warriors remained. Felix wondered how the dead viewed death, or whatever passed for it among their kind. Was it a simple cessation, or something more poignant? Maybe for some of them it was a kind of relief.

They had reached the Doom Glade Swamp not long after nightfall. Like the coast, it was mostly water, albeit water the colour of strongly brewed Cathayan tea or the dark, bitter kahve favoured by the Arabayans.

Thin, serpentine trees rose in close-knit groups from thick nests of sword blade-shaped foliage, punctuating the dark water. Hummocks of earth and compacted, decaying vegetation slumped and crouched in out-of-the-way places. Larger trees, heavy trunked and with a profusion of thick roots, occupied these, sitting silent sentry. Felix fancied that he could see faces in their bark, and when the thick branches rattled in the night breeze, just at the edge of his vision, they gave the impression of voices.

The group had made camp on one such hummock, where the ground was more or less solid. ‘This arm is lacking in divinity,’ Antar grumbled. He flexed the stone fingers of the forearm he’d filched from one of the fallen Sepulchral Stalkers. Somehow, he’d managed to attach it to his elbow joint, as if whatever residual magics lurked within the severed limb had interwoven themselves with the magics that kept the prince of Mahrak ambulatory.

It was slightly larger than his original, and Felix suspected that it was a good deal heavier. ‘It has no grace, no skill. Antar, the Swift Edge of Justice, is displeased. Also, he believes that it smells of damp.’ He shoved the arm under Felix’s nose. ‘Judge, fleshy one. Judge and answer the question of the Most Beneficent Prince.’

‘It smells like stone,’ Felix said, pushing the offending limb aside with distaste. Antar retracted his arm and glowered at Felix as if he were at fault. Felix ignored him and looked at Zabbai. ‘Is that something all of your folk can do?’ Felix asked, gesturing to Antar.

Zabbai shook her head. ‘The liche-priests of Mahrak have ever been masters of joinery. After the Great Awakening, it was discovered that many of their princes and kings had been badly damaged by the Usurper’s bone-gnawing acolytes. They had cut into the sacred mummies and scattered them across their tombs with all the care of jackals at the feast. Thus the priests were forced to repair them with what they had to hand. Stone, bronze and turquoise were used to replace missing limbs or repair broken spines and skulls. The rites and magics they used have enabled the scions of the Mahrak dynasties to repair themselves quickly, and without the need for a liche-priest. It is not a trait they have been able to pass on to their legions, thankfully.’ She gazed at Antar for a moment and then shook her head. ‘Antar and his ilk will outlast the rest of us.’

Felix looked at her. He didn’t think she was simply referring to Antar’s new limb, or what it represented. ‘Are there many, then? Like him, I mean?’

‘Antar is right here,’ Antar said. ‘Do not ignore the Son of Heaven!’

‘More awaken every season, and they stay awake longer,’ Zabbai continued, ignoring Antar. ‘They are as glory hungry now as they were in life, and while Settra’s edicts hold sway over them now, it will not be long before even the Imperishable Son of Heaven cannot control such creatures. They yearn for war and slaughter with all the longing of a youth for his first concubine. They wish to extend the borders of the Great Land and to reclaim our ancient demesnes, though Settra has forbidden it. They see no reason why the dead cannot rule the living, if they even bother to think that far ahead. Most of them, Antar included, would have no idea what to do with a conquered city, if they ever managed to acquire one.’

She looked at Felix, still steadfastly ignoring Antar, who visibly fumed, his bones trembling with annoyance. ‘Your people are lucky that we confine ourselves here. If the kings sent their chariots thundering through your lands, no two stones would stand atop one another in their wake. Your Empire would be as a morning dream, and your treasures would adorn our palaces and necropolises, rather than the reverse.’

‘We would crush all beneath our wheels – barbarians, greenskins and stunted monkeys alike!’ Antar said, clapping his hands together. ‘It would be glorious!’

‘My people do not crush easily,’ Gotrek rumbled. It was the first thing he’d said since their encounter with the Sepulchral Stalkers. He stared moodily at the fire, his axe across his knees. Gently, he ran a finger across the runes that stretched across the flat of the blade, tracing them again and again. ‘We have weathered cataclysms and invasions, and will do so unto the last hold, and the last dwarf.’ He lifted his axe, and turned it so that the firelight played across it. ‘When the last days come, the dwarfs will stand and weather the storm, as we have always done. Though the world dies, we shall not be broken.’

Felix could sense the black mood that had its claws in Gotrek’s mind. The Slayer had a face like a lump of stone, but he radiated his moods like a lantern. Felix could tell how the dwarf was feeling just from the way he hunched forwards. He cleared his throat and said, ‘You mentioned earlier that you’d faced those creatures before.’

‘Aye,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘What of it?’

‘I was thinking it might make for an interesting aside, in your death-poem,’ Felix said. Nothing cheered Gotrek up like talking about his perennially imminent death. ‘It’d be just a line or three, about your previous adventures. A bit of colour, you might say.’

‘Colour,’ Gotrek said suspiciously. ‘The only proper colours are gold, grey and brown. Or possibly blue and red. And all the permutations of gold, of course… Red-gold, brown-gold, blue-gold, gold-gold…’

‘Not that sort of colour,’ Felix said. He blew into his cupped hands. ‘Narrative colour, I mean. A bit of descriptive allusion to adventures unseen, in order to show the audience that you existed outside of the story of your death. I want to show them that you lived, before you died.’

Gotrek frowned. ‘None of that matters, manling.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘My death is the only important story.’

‘To you, maybe, but to me and to those who will read about you – about us – it’s just the end. There’s more to a story than just the climax,’ Felix said. He extended his palms towards the fire. He tried to rub some life back into his fingers. ‘Detlef Sierck had a saying – “context is the mortar of legend”.’

Gotrek snorted. He thrust a finger beneath his eye-patch and rubbed at the empty socket. Then he said, ‘It was the Seventh War of the Hammer. The throng of Karak Azul was marching for the fourth time upon Mahrak, and I was new to my oath.’ He ran his fingers along the edge of his crest. If he didn’t know better, Felix would have said that the Slayer was self-conscious. ‘We had blindfolded ourselves, of course, as was tradition, since the First War, and the Unworthy Doom of Drong Sternbeater.’

‘Wait, Seventh War? As in, there were six wars before that?’ Felix said.

Gotrek looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘Obviously, manling, otherwise we wouldn’t have recorded it as such.’

‘And you were marching for the fourth time, which implies that in the Sixth War, Mahrak marched on Karak Azul?’ Felix said, wonderingly.

‘Yes, and the Second and Fourth Wars as well,’ Gotrek said. ‘Keep up, manling.’ He sniffed. ‘As ever, the treacherous dead unleashed their slithering basilisk-eyed guardians on us, as we exited the hills around the Charnel Valley. Blindfolded as we were, the Stalkers were little challenge, though many Slayers fell.’

‘Due to being blindfolded, perchance?’ Felix said.

‘Stop interrupting, manling, you wanted to hear this,’ Gotrek said.

‘Antar remembers that battle,’ Antar said, suddenly. He was sharpening his khopesh and as he slid the stone along the blade’s inner curve, he said, ‘King Alkharad had reclaimed his property.’

‘Our property, you mean,’ Gotrek snapped.

‘Antar, Brilliant Master of a Thousand Stratagems, means what he says,’ Antar said, thrusting his bony jaw pugnaciously at Gotrek. ‘Just because thieving monkeys claim a thing does not mean it is theirs.’

‘What property was that,’ Felix said, trying desperately to bring the conversation back on track. Gotrek glanced at him.

‘It was a holy relic of the Iron Peak, the Hammer of Algrim, first king of that hold, which he used to crush the skull of the dragon Falandraugr, the Death-in-Jade,’ Gotrek said, somewhat wistfully. He stroked his axe. His face hardened. ‘It was stolen, by the greedy dead.’

‘Stolen? Stolen,’ Antar barked. ‘We are not thieves! The hammer was borne to our walls by a greenskin rabble! King Alkharad took it as spoils of war, as was his right!’

‘Just because the greenskins stole it first doesn’t make you not thieves,’ Gotrek said. Felix tried to parse the logic of that statement, but as usual with dwarfs, and Gotrek in particular, it seemed to only make sense to them.

‘Perhaps it was a simple misunderstanding,’ Felix said.

‘Perhaps the monkey should apologise to Antar, who is affronted,’ Antar said.

‘The Hammer of Algrim was a relic of my people before your rat-warren of a city built its first wall out of mud and dung,’ Gotrek said. He got to his feet, gripping his axe tightly, his good eye blazing. ‘If any should apologise, it should be you.’

Antar rose, and swept out his khopesh in a practice swing. ‘And the disc of bronze which now decorates its head to commemorate his victory belongs to King Alkharad, He who is Antar’s Beloved Cousin. When you took it, you stole from us.’

‘Are you accusing my folk of thievery now?’ Gotrek snarled.

Before Antar could reply, and the situation could escalate further, Felix said, ‘Why didn’t you simply ask for it back? The bronze disc, I mean.’

Both Gotrek and Antar looked at him. ‘What do you mean, manling?’ Gotrek said.

‘Well, if the disc of bronze belongs to them, why not just give it back?’ Felix said. He began to wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

‘Give it back?’ Gotrek said incredulously. ‘It’s no fault of ours if they attached some worthless gee-gaw to our relic.’

‘Then maybe you could take the disc off and give the hammer back?’ Felix said desperately, looking at Antar.

‘It was a spoil of war,’ Antar rasped, as if that explained everything. He looked at Gotrek. ‘Is he slow-witted?’

‘Aye, his folk have no true understanding of honour, or grudges,’ Gotrek said, looking at Felix in apparent disappointment. ‘They think such matters can be resolved so simply. It is like talking to beardlings.’

‘Madness,’ Antar said as he shook his head in disbelief.

Felix looked at Zabbai. ‘Help,’ he said.

‘Oh no, you started this, barbarian,’ Zabbai said, holding up her hands in a warding gesture. ‘I want no part of it. If I’d wanted to debate such things, I’d have become a priestess.’

From out of the darkness, a roar brought an abrupt end to the conversation. Trees cracked and burst beneath the tread of something heavy in the distance. Felix pulled his cloak tighter about himself. Gotrek, still standing, stared out at the night. He hefted his axe. ‘Big beastie,’ he muttered.

‘We’re not hunting beasts, Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘They’re hunting us,’ Gotrek said. He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Fresh meat, manling, that’s all we are for the beasts that roam these lands.’ Gotrek smiled widely as he said it.

‘In Antar’s youth, he would accompany his glorious cousins, the princes of Rasetra, into the jungles to hunt the scale-backs,’ Antar said. He tapped his cheek with the tip of his khopesh. ‘It was great fun.’ He glanced at Zabbai, who made a sharp gesture.

‘No,’ she said.

Antar turned away. If bones could sulk, then Antar’s were doing a fairly good job of it, Felix thought. Zabbai looked at the fire. ‘I was born not far from here,’ she said, after a time. She extended her linen-wrapped hand over the fire, and Felix shivered slightly as the light shone through the wrappings and thin flesh alike and illuminated the bones.

‘How did you find yourself in Lybaras?’ Felix said.

‘She was a slave,’ Antar said dismissively.

Zabbai ignored him. ‘My tribe was destroyed in a conflict with Rasetra, as were many tribes. I survived, and was taken in the great wheeled cages to the grand market in Lahmia, to be sold to the highest bidder. The men of Rasetra, you see, did not trust slaves taken from the jungle, being so close to it. That was sensible, for we would have cut our overseers’ throats and fled at the first opportunity. Thus, they sold us on, to proud Lahmia, who would sell us to the other cities, or men of Cathay, for whom my people were a novelty.’ She fell silent.

Felix hesitated. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why? It was not your folk who shattered mine. Nor was it your folk who sold mine into slavery for a tidy sum. I was large, you see, and strong, as all the women of my tribe were, and many men bid on me. Some, I’m told, wanted me for a bodyguard and concubine all in one, while others wanted me to guard their wives, seeing in me no threat to their fidelity.’ She pulled her hand back from the fire and examined it. Felix had the impression that she was smiling, beneath her mask. ‘I was purchased by the then-king of Lybaras, and, when I had been trained to his satisfaction in all of the arts of war, I was made the protector of his newborn daughter.’

‘And that is why you serve Khalida now?’ Felix said, after another protracted silence. ‘You protected her in life, and now, you serve her in death?’

‘No. Khalida was born long after my own death. As was the Usurper, come to that. I saw Settra ride his chariot to war with living eyes,’ she said, touching her mask. ‘He was glorious, then. A god among men, and his enemies fell before him like wheat before the scythe.’

‘And when was Settra king?’ Felix asked, curiously. He’d heard the name mentioned several times, but his knowledge of Nehekharan history was limited to dribs and drabs of second- and third-hand stories, gleaned from explorers and drunks in various ports. He fought to hide a yawn. The exertions of the day had worn him out.

Gotrek laughed harshly. ‘Around two thousand years before your Sigmar,’ he said.

Felix stared at the dwarf for a moment, before turning to look at Zabbai. He was suddenly, consciously aware, for the first time, of the vast gulfs of time that separated him from the dead woman sitting beside him. He had met beings whose years outstripped his own before – Gotrek for one, and others: Teclis, the elf-mage, and Mannfred Von Carstein – but never by so much. A century, two, even five hundred years was graspable, but two thousand was inconceivable. It was a time before even the rudiments of his own civilisation had been a glimmer in someone’s eye. Felix blinked and shook himself. ‘That’s quite a long time,’ he said finally.

Gotrek chuckled. Zabbai did as well. She reached out and slapped Felix on the shoulder. The force of the blow nearly sent him sliding into the fire. ‘You should sleep, barbarian,’ she said. ‘We have miles to go yet, and the jungle is unforgiving.’

Felix, whose eyelids felt as if they were made from stone, nodded and lay back against the trunk of the tree. He looked up at the stars overhead, spinning through the gaps in the canopy of trees and thought, five days left. He closed his eyes.

In the court of the High Queen of Lybaras, long-dead musicians plucked at non-existent strings or blew breathlessly into cracked flutes. Once, the throne room would have echoed with the sound of the queen’s favourite tunes, played by the greatest musicians of Lybaras. Now there was only the scratch of fleshless fingers manipulating long-silent instruments. On the dais, Khalida’s handmaidens fanned her linen-wrapped bones with frayed feathers, and courtiers waited silently to be noticed, scrolls and papyri clutched in their arms. Some had been waiting for so long that sand had collected in the nooks and crannies of their bony frames. Still others had been waiting since Khalida had first risen from her tomb. They had died, waiting to pass on their messages to the rulers of Lybaras, and now, having been revived, they continued to wait, and would likely do so for an eternity.

Djubti stirred the shifting column of sand that rose from the clay jar set on the floor before him. He stood before the throne, and the eyes of those who were aware of the world beyond their own memories were on him as he worked his far-seeing. Scenes played across the rippling surface of the sand, like shadows across a curtain. The scenes changed as Djubti dipped his fingers into the sand. ‘They’ve reached the swamp, my queen,’ he rasped. ‘I thought for sure that the Sepulchral Stalkers would kill the Doom-Seeker, but the wyrd which binds him is strong indeed. Certain death for any other is but a momentary hindrance to one such as him.’

‘As your auguries foretold,’ Khalida said. She leaned back in her throne, her pose relaxed, her fingers draped across her staff of office. Her head was bowed, and one less familiar with the High Queen of Lybaras and her moods might have suspected that she was weary. The dead could not grow weary, however, though many slept nonetheless. Djubti knew that such periods of hibernation had more to do with boredom than anything else. The younger princes and kings thought nothing of waging eternal war, for they’d known little of it in life. For them, it was but a game, played with toys that could never be permanently broken.

For Khalida it was not a game. It had never been such, as far as Djubti was aware. He had only met the Serpent Queen after Settra’s awakening. He and his brother-priests in the Mortuary Cult had been ordered by the Grand Hierophant Khatep, before his exile by Settra, to scatter themselves among the great cities, and serve and watch and guide as best they might. At their first meeting, Khalida had struck Djubti as less a queen than the will of a goddess made flesh. She spoke of Asaph as one might speak of a beloved mother, and he could sense the power that flowed through her age-shrivelled form. It was akin to his power, but it far outstripped it in some ways. If Khalida could call forth the wrath of the gods, he had never seen it, but then at times she seemed nothing so much as that wrath made manifest.

But now, she seemed merely pensive. He stirred the sands again. ‘Another day, perhaps two, depending on the frailty of the living man’s flesh, and they will reach the Temple of Skulls,’ he said.

‘And then,’ Khalida said. Her voice was no louder than the hiss of the sands.

‘It is up to the gods,’ Djubti said. He swept his hand through the sand, and it fell back into its jar. His assistants scrambled forwards to replace the lid on the jar and remove it. Djubti spared them only the barest glance. They had been apprentices when they’d died, and they would remain apprentices forever, though they knew it not. Their minds, like the minds of so many of their people, were lost in the now.

‘And in whose favour do the gods seem inclined, Djubti?’ Khalida said. She was amused, he knew. She was one of the few still capable of such emotions. Most kings rode surging waves of melancholy that occasionally crested into wrath or madness, before calming and falling into a taciturnity that might last centuries.

But Khalida still had a sense of humour. It was unpredictable, and often at odds with the proper order of things, and Djubti had ground his remaining teeth to nubs because of it.

‘As ever, they keep their true inclinations hidden behind a veil of mystery, O most blessed of Asaph,’ Djubti said carefully, trying to avoid giving Khalida any opening to debate the philosophical implications of the gods’ reticence in adjudicating the affairs of men.

Her fingers tapped her staff, and Djubti bit back a curse. As ever, his mind was too slow. Asaph’s Will Made Manifest had a mind like quicksilver, even now, even after all these centuries. ‘If you cannot predict the will of the gods, Djubti, then how can you say your auguries were correct?’ she asked. If she had been any other ruler, Djubti would have feared for his head. As it was, execution might be preferable to mockery.

‘Have I ever failed you, my queen?’ he said.

‘Sophistry, my faithful advisor,’ Khalida said.

Djubti inclined his head. ‘I have many skills, O beneficent one.’

‘What does my enemy plan then, O skilful counsellor?’

Djubti hesitated. There were layers to that question, and he did not care to peel them back. He leaned against his staff, searching his mind for an answer that might bring the questioning to an end. In truth, he had no idea. The presence of the bound dead in the jungles to the south had been as much a surprise to him as the arrival of the Doom-Seeker. The gods had not warned him of either, though they rarely warned him of anything. If he did not ask the right question, he was not given the correct answer.

The gods grew more remote by the year too, drifting into memory as their servants became lost in routine. What need had the dead of gods, after all?

‘Distraction, obfuscation, confusion,’ he said. ‘She seeks to disrupt the harmony of things, and to shake the foundations of the heavens.’

‘Cryptic, but correct,’ Khalida said.

Djubti felt anger war with pride. When he had first arrived in Lybaras, he had thought to guide a lioness to her rightful prey. Instead, he’d found a serpent queen, coiled and observant. There was a terrible purpose burning within Khalida, a command that outweighed any edict of Settra’s. It was that purpose which had led Lybaras into war again and again, against opponents both foreign and familiar. At times, Djubti felt the weight of that purpose himself, and it nearly shattered his brittle, browning bones. How Khalida stood it, he could not say, and did not dare to guess. He bowed. ‘As you say, my queen,’ he said.

‘I have long wondered what happened to that sword. Did she take it as a keepsake, and mount it in some place of honour? Or did she hide it away in shame at what she had done?’ Khalida said. She raised her head, and stared up at nothing in particular. ‘More importantly, how did her agents find it, and get it into the hands of she who now threatens my sovereignty?’

‘Her ways are as the shadows, O Guiding Star of Lybaras,’ Djubti said. In truth, he had wondered that himself. His eyes and ears, in the shape of beetles, serpents and sand-devils, watched every ruin, port and cove from one end of the Great Land to the other. He searched ceaselessly for any sign of those bearing the blood of the Usurper, the foul curse of Lahmia, in their sour veins. Vampires were drawn to the Great Land like maggots to a corpse. They couldn’t resist and only the barest years would pass between attempted infiltrations or invasions.

Djubti had long theorised that something in the black ruin of Lahmia drew them like a lodestone. ‘Ha,’ Khalida said. It wasn’t quite a laugh, more a rustle of amusement. She had thought of something, though she did not seem inclined to share it. Instead, she said, ‘They will march soon, these leeches on our doorstep. They are impatient, and overeager, as all those who bear her curse are. We must muster pickets to tease them, and taunt them into fields of our choosing. I would have this done, and swiftly. Mahrak and her petty kings eye us like starving jackals.’

She rose to her feet. The butt of her staff struck the dais with a sound like a gong. ‘Make my legions ready for war. Lybaras marches and our enemies shall become as the dust beneath our feet.’

CHAPTER 14

The dull blue light of the creeping dawn was spreading across the black sky when something woke Felix from his fitful slumber. He’d been dreaming of the squalling boneless things that he and Gotrek had faced in Blutdorf. The creatures, warped and twisted by foul magics, had been children, though he hadn’t known it at the time. Not until it was too late.

The dream hadn’t been pleasant. Then, they rarely were. They hadn’t been since he’d joined Gotrek. He had tried, for a time, to drown himself in ale or beer, to drink himself into a stupor that the bad dreams couldn’t permeate. He didn’t want to see the faces of the dead, or be revisited by the horrors he and Gotrek had already faced and sent packing. Once was enough, thank you very much.

He shook off the clinging fog of the dream and raised his head, curious as to what had woken him. He saw something pale, purplish and rubbery slither over his boots. The pale thing – a tongue, he realised, with mounting horror – retracted into the mouth of the large reptilian horror that reared up over him, looking down at him with tiny eyes. It was a snake, but larger than any snake he’d ever seen. It was dripping with water, and a sharp fin jutted from the wedge-shaped skull that weaved to and fro above him.

Its head was the size of a ballista bolt and the fin could have been used as a sail by a small boat. Eyes like nictitating lamps examined him, and the tongue flickered out again, brushing across his legs and up towards his face. Felix cut his eyes towards Karaghul, where it lay beside him. One quick movement would see the sword in his hand. The question was, was he quicker than a giant snake?

The serpent had come up onto the hummock from out of the water and had coiled about the tree. Most of it was still in the water, and as he watched its flickering tongue draw closer, a small, eternally inquisitive part of Felix’s mind wondered how big it was.

Its head dipped towards him, and the fluttering tongue passed over his chest and face. Then, its jaws abruptly widened and Felix knew that it intended to swallow him whole. He rolled towards Karaghul as it readied itself, startling it, and had just managed to snatch up the sword as it recovered and lunged, jaws spread.

Gotrek’s axe spun through the air and caught the snake on the side of its neck, between jaw and throat. The axe had been hurled with such force that it decapitated the beast and went on to bury itself in the tree. The head fell at Felix’s feet, and the thrashing coils sank down and slid off the hummock and into the water, nearly uprooting the tree in the process.

‘You took your bloody time,’ Felix said. Gotrek stumped past him, climbed the now-bent tree, and extracted his axe. The Slayer grinned at him.

‘Had to wait for it to get close, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘And I didn’t want to wake you from your beauty sleep.’

Felix squatted and jabbed the snake’s head with his sword. The massive jaws slammed together, nearly catching Karaghul in their grip. Felix yelped and fell back. Gotrek kicked the head off the hummock and into the water, where it sank without a trace. ‘It’s dead, manling. Don’t fret so,’ the Slayer said, reaching out and hauling Felix to his feet by the front of his chain shirt.

‘And where were you lot?’ Felix demanded, looking at Zabbai and the others. She and her warriors were making ready to move, as if there hadn’t been a giant snake slithering through the camp.

‘Antar, Most Inquisitive of Princes, was wondering how long it would take for you to wake up once the snake started to swallow you,’ Antar said. ‘The dwarf insisted you’d wake up before your boots were in its mouth. Antar thought it would be longer, due to your laziness and general air of weakness.’

‘You bet on how long it would take for the snake to eat me,’ Felix said, in disbelief.

‘No, manling, just on how far it’d get before you woke up,’ Gotrek said. ‘I wouldn’t have let it finish.’

‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ Felix said acidly.

Gotrek nodded agreeably. He either hadn’t noticed Felix’s tone or he didn’t care. ‘I told them you’d be fine with it. Poets have a great sense of humour.’

Felix looked about him helplessly. ‘I knew you’d wake up before it got done tasting you,’ Zabbai said. ‘Here.’ She shoved a pair of fat, hairy carcasses into his arms. Felix gagged and looked down into the twin fixed rictus of two dead animals very much like wharf rats, albeit more muscular and unpleasant looking, despite the puncture wound each had in its head. ‘I procured you a fine, fat pair of swamp rats for your breakfast, barbarian. You need to keep your strength up.’

Felix grimaced as he shifted the muddy, bloody bodies in his grip. ‘I think I’d rather eat the snake.’

‘And she cooks as well,’ Gotrek said, snatching one of the rats from Felix’s unresisting grip. He eyed the carcass hungrily for a moment before leering at Felix. ‘Pledge your troth, manling, before someone else does.’

‘Quiet, Doom-Seeker,’ Zabbai said. She nudged Gotrek’s shoulder with her axe. ‘Or I’ll be forced to remind you that I won our bet.’

Gotrek gave her a sour glare, and slapped the rat back into Felix’s arms. ‘Stir the fire, manling. My belly believes my throat has been cut,’ he growled.

After they’d breakfasted, they moved on. Their pace wasn’t quite as quick as before, given the dangers and terrain of the swamp. Felix saw more huge snakes, sliding through the water, and even larger shapes crashing through the trees. The latter were invariably obscured by the mists that rose from the waters and the close-packed nature of the swamp, for which Felix was quietly grateful. If he couldn’t see the creatures that were stalking the swamp, then they likely couldn’t see him, which suited Felix.

Gotrek complained, of course, until Felix reminded him that he’d already fought and killed one of the great lizards, plus a giant snake and Sigmar alone knew what other beasts between the wreck of the Orfeo and the battle with the vampires at the Mangrove Port. The Slayer had been mollified, somewhat.

Felix had scavenged a compass from the wreck of the Orfeo, and whenever they paused, he took careful notes as to their position in his journal. The latter was looking exceedingly worse for wear, despite being nestled in its usual spot between his armour and his chest, and wrapped in oilskin. The leather cover he used to protect the pages was covered in stains, and the pages themselves had been dunked into the water once too often. Nonetheless, he dutifully made his notations with the flat bit of charcoal he’d retrieved from the campfire.

There were a dozen such notebooks stashed in various cities and towns, left with friends, allies and, in one case, a sworn enemy of Gotrek’s, who had nonetheless seemed quite pleasant when he’d invited Felix to lunch while he and the Slayer were in Magritta. Each one was dated and numbered, as best he could manage. Some, he knew, had found their way into his brother Otto’s hands. Others were resting undisturbed in strongboxes and safes, or hidden at the bottom of desk drawers. While Gotrek had been busy littering the world with bodies, Felix had been littering it with hastily bound sheaves of crudely squared paper.

He knew that he’d never compile an official history of his travels with Gotrek. Too many things had happened, too much blood had been spilled; some of his notebooks had likely gone missing, or he and Gotrek were unable or unlikely to return to where a particular journal had been stashed. He could only hope that someone would eventually read them. Most of them, at any rate; some of them he’d be just as happy if they never resurfaced – the incident at the Imperial zoo, for one, or Gotrek’s aborted attempt to wrest the secret of the Jade Monkey from its cadaverous owner.

Felix closed his notebook with a snap. It was late afternoon. The sun was a weak haze of light splashed across the cloud-laden sky. The air was murky and humid and smelt of a coming rain, and the waters of the swamp were beginning to give way to more solid terrain. He could still smell water on the air, however; they were following a river, he thought. It made sense, at least to him. Most cities were built on or near a water source of some description, unless the inhabitants were dwarfs. Zabbai had mentioned that the river ran through the Temple of Skulls, and that it had something approaching a primitive natural quay, though to her knowledge it had never been used as such.

The jungles of the Southlands were even as he had imagined them – thick, tree-choked and filled with noise and life, most of the latter of the insect variety. Idly, he scratched at the welts he’d accrued and hoped he wouldn’t get some form of swamp-fever on top of everything else.

The Southlands were a striking contrast to the Land of the Dead. Everything was green and vibrant, rather than brown, sun-scorched and dead. Birds filled the trees, and the noise of them marked the day even as the roar of carnosaurs and other predators marked the night. Felix mopped at his face with the hem of his cloak. The close-packed trees and the thickly clustered branches overhead seemed to hold in the heat. Sometimes it was like sitting in a boiling pot. He shook the hand with the bracelet, trying to get some small thread of air to circulate between the golden asp and the sweat-slick skin of his forearm. Between the sand and the grime of the jungle, he was getting a rash, and his skin was turning red and itchy.

He was perched on an upright stone that greatly resembled one of the boundary markers indicating when one province gave way to another in the Empire. The surface of the stone had seen the touch of tools, but whatever had been carved upon it had been long since worn away by the weather, or covered by the thick, tangled vines that clung to everything.

More stones dotted the clearing they’d stopped in to give him a moment to catch his breath, and beneath the vines, roots and moss that covered the ground, Felix could make out what might have once been flat paving stones. There were even oblong lengths of stone that resembled the remains of walls. Antar had claimed that the spot had been a ruin even when he’d been a living man, and Zabbai tacitly agreed.

The jungle had covered it, even then, according to the Nehekharans. Just who had built it, and what it had been, neither could say. Gotrek, for his part, had his own theories.

‘Definitely the work of my people, manling,’ the Slayer said. He’d pried one of the paving stones up and was examining it intensely. ‘You can tell, because your folk are incapable of producing stones this smooth without our help.’ He weighed it on his palm. ‘It’s so smooth you could use it as a pillow.’

‘Maybe you could,’ Felix muttered.

‘What was that, manling?’

‘I said maybe it was made by elves. It is said that their outposts once dotted the world. Maybe this was one of them,’ Felix said.

‘Elves – bah,’ Gotrek spat. ‘This isn’t elven work.’ He sneered. ‘Elves don’t use good stone like this. They choose their building materials based on looks, rather than strength. I could kill a charging knight with a good chunk of rock like this.’ His sneer twisted into a sharp smile. ‘And I have. Or don’t you remember, manling?’

Felix looked away. ‘Then you think this is some dwarf outpost,’ he said, hurriedly changing the subject. ‘Some lost watch-post of Karak Zorn’s?’ He gestured to the ruins around them.

Gotrek frowned. ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘Far from the mountains, though. My folk aren’t forest-dwellers.’

‘This is a jungle,’ Felix said helpfully.

‘If it has trees and beasts, it’s a forest,’ Gotrek said dismissively. He eyed the rock suspiciously. ‘Close to a river, though, and the coast, which means it could have been a trading outpost.’ He tossed the rock over his shoulder. Something gave a yelp of surprise. The sound was loud, and Felix had the impression of something large moving very swiftly away from them. Gotrek’s casually tossed missile had obviously startled something. Felix tensed, waiting for the creature to make an appearance, or worse, to attack. Instead, the sounds of clumsy flight faded. Felix let out the breath he had been holding.

‘Finally,’ he said, ‘something that doesn’t want to eat us.’

A roar split the air. Birds sprang upwards in desperate flight, screaming. Zabbai whirled, her axe raised. ‘The Death-that-Stalks,’ she said.

‘What,’ Felix said, dropping from his perch and drawing Karaghul. He stuffed his journal beneath his chain shirt. ‘What was that?’ The trees creaked, as if something that was even larger than the last something was prowling about. Felix smelt a metallic musk that reminded him of a snake’s den.

‘It’s a big lizard, manling,’ Gotrek said, peering about lazily. ‘It walks on two legs, and eats everything that crosses its path. The scale-folk sometimes use them as mounts, I’ve heard tell.’

Felix froze. ‘Lizardmen,’ he said. He recalled the shapes he’d seen in the fog when he’d been with the brothers Steyr. He’d spent enough evenings in filthy taverns, sharing drinks with the more disreputable sort of mercenary to know a little about that mysterious race said to haunt the far shores of Lustria. ‘Then there are lizard-folk here.’ The thought filled him with wonder. A part of him, the same part that had stared at the Nehekharan papyrus in his father’s study, had long held the desire to visit the mysterious cities of that far land, where golden walls rose from the green jungle. The wonder faded, drowned beneath a sudden rush of fear. Lizardmen were said to be as dangerous in their way as the Nehekharans. They were jungle-shadows, striking hard without warning, and fading away into the night.

Gotrek spat and said, ‘I doubt that, manling.’

‘He’s right,’ Zabbai said. ‘More likely the Doom-Seeker scared off whatever the carnosaur was hunting, and now it’s trying to decide whether we’re a suitable replacement.’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you did that on purpose, dwarf.’

Gotrek ignored her, his good eye riveted on the wall. ‘Maybe it won’t attack,’ Felix said. ‘Maybe it’ll just leave.’

The carnosaur sprang to the top of the ancient stone wall and roared out a challenge. It wasn’t as big as Felix had feared, but it was big enough to give him pause.

Black and emerald scales covered a heavy, low-slung form. It had a wedge-shaped head, covered in bony encrustations, and its wide, powerful looking jaws sagged in anticipation of snapping tight on flesh. Clawed not-quite hands clenched and relaxed spasmodically at the ends of muscular forelegs as it eyed them hungrily.

The carnosaur roared again and Gotrek answered its challenge with a roar of his own. He said, ‘It’s smaller than the one that tried to eat me earlier, but that won‘t save it.’ He shook his axe at the beast. ‘Come on then, you overgrown newt! I’ve long wanted a cloak of scales like the King of Karak Kadrin wears, and I find your hue appealing. Come to Gotrek and get skinned!’

Felix glanced at the asp bracelet on his arm. The gold scales caught the setting sun and he blinked. For a moment, it looked as if the asp were coiling more tightly about his arm, though he felt nothing but the incessant itching. Four days, he thought. Once the sun set, he’d only have four days left. ‘Gotrek, I don’t think we have time to fight a giant carnivorous lizard, let alone skin it.’

‘Plenty of time, manling,’ Gotrek said.

‘Gotrek, I only have four days left!’

‘Five,’ Gotrek said flatly, ‘the sun hasn’t set yet. Put on your gruntaz and stiffen your spine. Here he comes.’ The carnosaur dropped from the wall and loped forwards, its heavy body held low to the ground and its tail undulating behind it. It shrieked like the boiler of a steam tank as it came, and its ape-like arms propelled it along. Teeth like spear blades clashed together, and its yellow eyes rolled beneath their shelves of bone and scale.

Felix and Gotrek dived aside as it charged past them. The beast turned far more quickly than Felix had estimated, and he only just avoided its snapping jaws. Gotrek charged between its legs and swung up at its throat with his axe. The blade sank into its tough hide, and the carnosaur shrieked. It reared up, hauling Gotrek into the air.

As it jerked to the side, Gotrek lost his grip on his axe and was flung up over its head. Its jaws gaped and Gotrek fell obligingly into its mouth. The jaws slammed shut, cutting off the Slayer in mid-curse. Felix cursed and charged towards the beast, whipping Karaghul around and slashing at its leg. It stumbled aside and clawed at him. He ducked aside and brought his blade in a wide arc, slicing at its knee. The carnosaur grumbled and curled around, catching him between its body and its tail. Then Zabbai was there, climbing its broad back, using her axe as a makeshift piton.

Arrows hissed through the air as her warriors fired at the creature. The carnosaur thrashed about, trying to fling her off its back as arrows sprouted from its muzzle and shoulders. Antar leapt over its wildly twisting tail and chopped at its other leg with his khopesh. ‘Return Antar’s foul-smelling and argumentative companion, overlarge reptile, or the Most Beloved Son of the Hawk and the Serpent shall condemn thy bestial soul to roam the lonely wastes of Usirian!’ he bellowed.

Felix saved his breath for hewing at the twisting and stomping limb before him. The carnosaur hadn’t opened its mouth since swallowing Gotrek, and between that and its seeming distraction Felix felt a faint glimmer of hope. That hope was rewarded when the carnosaur reared back and gave a querulous grunt. Slowly, its jaws parted. Gotrek’s face appeared, flushed with effort. Veins stood out on his neck and skull, and he spat rapid-fire curses in Khazalid. He’d got a grip on the carnosaur’s top and bottom jaw and was slowly but surely pushing them apart. As Felix watched, Gotrek set his feet on the creature’s bottom jaw and slammed both palms against its upper and, with a grunt of effort, began to force the beast’s jaws wider. He realised that Gotrek wasn’t attempting to escape.

Gotrek’s eye bulged and his lips had peeled back from his teeth. Sweat popped and rolled down his face. Bands of thick muscle bunched at the corners of the carnosaur’s jaw as it fought against Gotrek’s efforts. Gotrek slumped and his knees bent. The carnosaur hunched forwards.

Gotrek’s swollen musculature seemed to vibrate with effort, and slowly the jaw began to rise again. Then, Gotrek’s shoulders bunched and there was a loud crack as the carnosaur’s jaw snapped.

The creature toppled over with a rattling sigh. Zabbai leapt clear and Felix and Antar scrambled aside as the body crashed to the ground in a twitching heap. Gotrek shoved his way out of now-loose jaws and tore his axe free from its chest. He was covered in blood, bile and spittle, and his barrel chest rose and fell with exertion.

He scraped blood out of his beard and looked at Felix. ‘See, manling? Plenty of time,’ he said.

CHAPTER 15

Nitocris extended her arms out from her body and allowed her handmaidens to dress her. Quick, strong fingers slid her armour on and tied it in place. She had awoken in a good mood. There was a charnel wind blowing through the jungle. Everything had come down to a single moment. There were no more decisions to be made or questions to ponder, only the work to be done. She looked around the chamber. Her senior handmaidens were arrayed about her, awaiting their final orders before the die was cast.

‘Talia, you will take command of our fleet,’ she said to a broad, muscular woman with a shorn scalp and a scar that exposed the fangs on one side of her face. Talia had had that scar before Nitocris had claimed her, and wore it even now as a badge of honour – a sign that she had been blooded in battle. It was the scar that had convinced Nitocris of her worthiness to join her sisterhood. ‘Make straight for the coast, and avoid open battle, where possible. If the servants of the false serpent wish to control the empty seas, let them. You will take three others with you – you may choose who – to help control the fleet. It will be no easy task, but it must be done. We will need those troops when we reach Lybaras.’

Talia, whose people had done their share of raiding along the Arabayan coast, nodded silently. Nitocris turned to a short woman, smaller than the rest of the handmaidens, and slight. She wore no armour, save for animal hides and a chest-piece of rattling bone. Golden trinkets, lifted from the cities of the two-legged lizards, dangled from her hair, arms and neck. There was an air of the feral about her, more so than her sisters, as if her flesh were but a mask for the beast within. ‘Yamina, you will take your pack and support the cannibal tribes that have flocked to our banner. Harry them, and keep them moving towards Lybaras. They will be our shock-troops, and I would have them full of fear and fury when they reach the enemy.’ Yamina exposed her fangs in a grin.

Nitocris gave the rest of them their orders. She had enough sisters that they could control the unruly horde at her disposal, but she needed to ensure that they all moved as one. Otherwise the legions of Lybaras would carve them to pieces. She let her gaze pass over the eager faces of her sisters and wondered how many of them would survive to see the glories of lost Lahmia. How many would join her, in the lands beyond the desert? How many wanted to? Her eyes flickered to her lieutenant.

Andraste watched the others with a sour expression. She was visibly annoyed, though whether because of envy or impatience, Nitocris couldn’t say. ‘As soon as we’ve marched, bring the sword to Octavia,’ she said, catching Andraste’s attention. ‘We should be outside of Lybaras’s walls by the time she’s finished the ritual. When she’s done, you will bring her and march what remains of our forces from this place to join us.’ She saw the unspoken question in Andraste’s face and added, ‘Kill the slaves. Have Octavia raise them up. We shall use them to the last drop.’

‘I can do that easily enough,’ Andraste said dismissively. Her fingers plucked at the strand of rotten silk that fluttered from the curious ring-shaped pommel of her blade. ‘We should kill her, when she has completed the ritual.’ A murmur of agreement swept through the others. None of them cared for the necromancer, though most were wise enough not to give voice to that distaste so openly.

‘No,’ Nitocris said. ‘She has uses yet.’

‘We cannot trust her,’ Andraste said. ‘Or him, for that matter.’ She flung out a hand to indicate the kneeling figure of Steyr nearby. He’d been on his knees for a day and a night, as punishment for his attack on Andraste. Seeping burns, already healing, marked his face and hands, but he’d uttered no sound of pain. Nitocris was pleased, though she hadn’t shown it. Her handmaidens had ignored him, and he them.

‘Necessity and trust are often mutually exclusive,’ Nitocris said. She clapped her hands, and those dressing her stepped back. ‘You will safeguard her, Andraste, or I will have your fangs for my standard pole. Do you understand?’

‘As my queen wishes,’ Andraste said, bowing low.

‘Yes,’ Nitocris said. ‘You would all do well to remember that.’ She let her gaze meet that of each of her handmaidens, daring them to challenge her. One by one, they all looked away. She was content to let them scheme in the chambers of their own minds and hearts, as long as they acknowledged her superiority at the end of the day. ‘Now come, I have a gift for you.’

She moved through the crowd and they fell in behind her, following her from her chambers and down the steps of the ziggurat. Her bodyguards, ancient wights raised from the graves of kings and heroes of old, kept pace with the group, moving as smoothly as they had in life. They were hardy creatures, and wore the best armour and carried the best weapons she had to hand. The wights were an army unto themselves, and more than one enemy had broken themselves on the shields of the dead men.

The temple complex resounded with activity. No longer were her forces preparing for war. Now they were readying themselves to march. The rotting dead culled from the swamps and jungles were organised into shambling legions, a third of which would be carried to Lybaras aboard the makeshift fleet now docked in the river quay. As they reached the bottom of the ziggurat, grey-fleshed shapes loped to meet them.

These were the chieftains or pack-leaders of the more organised ghoul-tribes. There were a hundred such tribes on the coast, the degenerate descendants of those that Nitocris, or her ancestors, had broken and driven from the jungles and hills. The largest and most organised now paid her fealty, and their chieftains scampered forwards to receive her blessing. The ghouls were large for their kind, heavy with muscle and covered in scars earned in their rise to control of their monstrous tribes. They wore armour and rags scavenged from shipwrecks, and their rough flesh had been daubed with crude war paint. They set up a caterwaul of greeting as Nitocris approached them, and she held out her hands. They slunk towards her like contrite leopards. With her thumbnails, she sliced the flesh of her palms. She held out her bloody hands to them, and the ghouls nuzzled her skin, licking and nipping. They growled and shoved one another for the chance to taste a single drop of her blood.

When she had judged that they had had enough, she jerked her hands away and snarled. The ghouls stiffened and cringed back from her, licking their chops. ‘Steyr,’ she said.

‘My queen,’ Steyr said.

‘These will be your captains. Allow them to taste of you, so that they might know your scent, and serve your command as they would mine.’

Steyr made a face, but did as she asked. He stretched out his arms and she grabbed his wrists, forced his hands around, palms up, and bent over them. She sank her fangs into his flesh and tore it open with a jerk of her head. Steyr yelped in shock. She forced him forwards, and gave a snarl. The ghouls sprang towards him greedily and fastened their mouths on Steyr’s wounds. He hissed in disgust at their touch. Behind her, Nitocris heard Andraste and the others tittering in amusement. Finally, she yanked Steyr away from his new followers and hurled him aside. She gave a final snarl, and the ghouls loped away, to rouse their packs and ready themselves for war. Steyr cradled his wounded hands to his chest and glared daggers at her.

Nitocris ignored him and led the group away from the ziggurat and into the city. The dead clustered thickly along the ancient streets and avenues. If they had been living men, they might have cheered to see her. But the silence was a cheer of sorts, to Nitocris’s way of thinking. It was proof of her power. She led her handmaidens through the silent masses and to where the slaves were kept.

As with the ghouls, she had broken the human tribes of the Southlands to her will. Those who had not fallen in battle and been bound to her service had been taken captive and were forced to serve her in other ways. They worked to arm her warriors and patch the vessels hauled from the sea and shallows. They were a source of nourishment for her and her handmaidens too, when they required it. And when they were not at work, the slaves were kept in the pits, where they could cause no mischief.

A number of ancient wells dotted the temple complex. Great circular apertures that stank of mould and centuries of damp, the wells went deeper than Nitocris had bothered to explore, and were wide enough to swallow one of the smaller ziggurats that lined the edges of the complex. Strange carvings covered their interiors, stretching all the way down past where the sun or torchlight would reach. With a bit of work, they had been made fit for purpose.

Heavy stakes had been hammered around the circumference of each well, and to each stake, a thick rope composed of interwoven jungle vines had been tied. The ropes stretched from the stake down into the wells, and at the other end of each was a large, heavy globe comprised of bent branches, flotsam and more vines. And inside each globe were a number of slaves. More than a dozen, in some cases, packed into their pen elbows to knees, barely able to breathe or move. Then, given how weak most of them were, they didn’t move all that much.

When the slaves were not at work – and there was always work to be done – they were here. Once a day, slop made from crushed plants, animal leavings and the smashed remains of those corpses not fit to serve as soldiers was rained down on the globes to feed those inside, and the rainwater which collected in the cracked and leaking buckets that dangled from the sides and bottom of each globe assuaged their thirst.

At the top of each well, a group of corpses, in various states of decay, waited silently for orders. When the slaves died, Nitocris had them dragged back to their feet. Work did not end with death. She set their mindless corpses to hauling up their fellows, when required.

Each well had its own overseer, in the form of one of the temple’s previous inhabitants – wights, clad in crude armour and ragged leopard skins. The wights were armed as they had been in life, with their clawed gauntlets, and their war-clubs and blocky shields.

At the sight of Nitocris and her entourage, the wight in charge of this particular well stepped forward, as if to challenge them. Nitocris gestured sharply and the wight stepped aside, lowering its club. She felt the featherlight scrape of its mind against hers, a feeble flicker of will that pulsed once, like a fading heartbeat. She had broken the leopard-cult in war, and she had broken them beyond the veil, tearing their foul souls from the bosom of their murder-god. She had not done so because she needed them, particularly. She had wights aplenty, raised from burial places of chieftains and heroes. No, she had done it for spite, and for the humour of it. They had fought savagely to defend the temple from her in life, and now, in death, they would guard it for her with equal vigour.

Nitocris stalked forwards and motioned to the closest rope. ‘That one,’ she said. ‘Bring it up.’ The wight turned and raised its club. At its signal, the zombies that squatted near the rope lurched to their feet and grasped the rope in their flabby, rotten hands. The zombies staggered forwards, hauling the spherical pen out of the well. The slaves inside the sphere moaned and screamed as they were hauled out of the dankness and into the moonlight, the wood of their cage scraping as it struck stone. They had been slaves long enough to recognise the meaning behind a moonlight retrieval. It was rare that slaves were rousted between dusk and dawn, and when they were, it was inevitably because their mistresses had decided that their usefulness had ended.

Then, that depended entirely on how one defined use, Nitocris supposed. She extended a hand, and her handmaidens leapt forwards with a communal snarl. They tore the cage apart with commendable speed, and snatched out those mewling slaves who were too slow, or too weak to avoid their clutches. Nitocris watched with maternal pride as her sisters glutted themselves. It was rare that she allowed them to do so, outside of battle, and they made the most of it, shrieking and hissing at one another as blood splashed black across the moonstruck stones. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. She inhaled the smells of sudden death and violently spilled blood, savouring the hunger it awoke within her. Hunger had ever been her ally. Hunger fired her ambition, her drive to conquer.

Hunger drove her to heights undreamt of by her mother, or her mother’s mother. Hunger had made her a queen, and hunger would make her an empress, in time. She had thought it often, in her most private moments – an idle whim, a daydream. When she sat upon Lahmia’s ivory throne, when she had done as her queen had asked, would she be content to stop there? Would she accept her reward, and shed the scales of the conqueror and move on to loftier battlefields? That was what she wanted. But would she be able to do it? Or would the song of hunger compel her to make use of the empire she had built?

Nitocris shivered at the thought, and her tongue ran gently across her fangs. She loved her queen, and feared her, but at the same time, some small part of her longed to challenge the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle. That part rarely stirred, save as now on the eve of battle. A frisson of hunger, not for blood, but for the challenge of the thing, pulsed through her black veins. If her mother had lived, and had not fallen beneath an enemy’s axe, Nitocris would have been expected to challenge her for leadership of the tribe, when she came of age. Could she do the same to the woman who had raised her up from a mortal, and made her a demigod?

Maybe the Queen of Mysteries expected it of her. Maybe all of this was a test of Nitocris’s worthiness. The thought warmed her. She thought she was worthy. After humbling the dry dead of the desert, would the rest of the world prove any more challenging? The living were more fragile than the dead. She frowned as she thought of burning cities. Cities she dreamed of seeing, of experiencing, torn down by bony hands. Her eyes opened. Her arm flashed out, knocking Steyr from his feet.

He had not lunged forwards with the others, justifiably wary of the ferocity of her handmaidens. No, he had waited and slunk about the edges of the feeding frenzy, like the snivelling jackal he was. Seeing an opportunity, he had begun to inch forwards.

Nitocris whirled and pinned him to the ground with her foot. She glared down at him. ‘You will wait,’ she hissed.

Steyr writhed beneath her, and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Of course, of course, patience personified, that’s me,’ he said. He tried for an ingratiating smile, but it came out a fearful snarl.

Nitocris glanced over her shoulder at her handmaidens, watching them feed for a moment. Then she looked back down at Steyr. She sank to her haunches, her feet planted on either side of his chest, and her hands dangling between her knees. She ran her fingers across his chest and throat, tracing the faded double-headed eagle on the battered breastplate he now wore. He’d filched from the dead, assembling something approaching a full set of armour, though each piece had a different place of origin. It was scavenger’s armour, fit for a ghoul or a grave-robber, and Nitocris thought it suited him perfectly. He had a sword on his hip, a western blade. She tapped the pommel, and then drew the sword and placed the tip beneath his chin. ‘Do you know why I spared you, jackal?’

‘Sigmund,’ he said.

She cocked her head. She pressed the blade gently against his throat. ‘Jackal suits you better, I think,’ she murmured.

‘Now that you mention it, I’ve always thought so myself,’ he said. ‘Jackal it is. Delightful, I’ve wanted a new name for ages now.’

‘You are a coward,’ she said.

‘I prefer to think I’m strategically self-aware,’ Steyr said, licking his lips.

‘Answer my question,’ she said. Behind her, she could hear the sound of cracking bones and tearing flesh. Her sisters were ensuring that none of their blood had got into the slaves by opening them up and emptying them of everything that might pump or carry a stray bit of blood. Zombies didn’t need working organs. They had learned from the incident that created Steyr and his brothers. They needed no more accidental vampires dogging their tracks. ‘Why did I spare you?’

‘I’m a hostage to fortune,’ Steyr said. He met her gaze steadily, which surprised her.

‘Yes,’ she said. She traced his cheek with the tip of his blade. ‘And because I require a herald. Do you know what a herald is?’

‘A champion,’ he said hesitantly.

‘Of sorts,’ she said, leaning close to him. ‘A sacrifice would be a more appropriate definition. A sacrifice to the gods, the whim of fortune made flesh. A victorious herald shows that the gods approve. A fallen herald shows that the gods have turned their eyes from you. That is what the Nehekharans believed. But I prefer my heralds to be messengers, to carry word of my coming to my enemies. You will be my herald, jackal. You will lead forth the speediest elements of my army, the cannibals and four-legged dead, and strike my enemy with speed.’

Steyr swallowed. ‘I’ve never been fond of suicide,’ he said.

‘Not suicide,’ she said. She took hold of his jaw. ‘Opportunity. I will need a man of the lands beyond the mountains to be my herald to those vibrant lands, to Ostland and Reikland and the Moot.’

‘No one wants to go to the Moot. People travel through Sylvania to avoid the Moot,’ Steyr said. ‘People lash themselves to logs and float down the river just to avoid the barest edge of the Moot.’

‘I want to go to the Moot. I want to go to Marienburg and Middenheim. I want to see the white snows of Kislev, and the mountains of the far north. I want to see it all, jackal.’ She squeezed his jaw and leaned forwards to lick a bit of blood from the shallow cut she’d made on his cheek with the sword. ‘You will be my guide.’

‘And what about my sister?’ he asked.

Nitocris sat up. She released him and pushed herself to her feet with his sword. ‘Your sister will be by my side. She will be my companion, in our travels. I must have someone to teach me how a woman of your lands comports herself, after all.’

‘And will she be alive, while she is serving you in this capacity?’ he asked, looking up at her. She swung the sword and tapped his breastplate with the flat of the blade.

‘Do you not wish for her to be as you – as we – are?’

He hesitated. ‘I wish for her to be safe.’

‘Safety is no longer an option, jackal. There are only varying degrees of danger.’ She smiled. ‘She will join us, she will join my sisterhood, and we shall see all that there is to see – if you survive, and do as I command.’ She reversed the sword and drove it down into the stones beside his head with a single, forceful thrust. ‘Disappoint me, and she will have to do without you.’

Without waiting for him to reply, she gestured. One of her bodyguards stepped forwards, carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle. It was a heavy standard pole, looted from a previous encounter with the legions of the Land of the Dead. The standard was crudely stitched from sailcloth and animal skin, and had been splashed with blood in the shape of a great serpent. From its crosspiece dangled trophies of battles past: hundreds of rattling greenskin tusks tied together with twine and hair, golden plaques taken from the cities of the lizards, the skulls of men and ratkin, and strips of hide taken from the great lizards of the jungle. The standard was topped by the beast-helm of the warrior who had taken her mother’s life.

‘As my herald, you will carry my standard into war,’ Nitocris said, as the wight handed the standard to Steyr, who had scrambled to his feet. He held it gingerly.

‘You will plant my flag before the walls of Lybaras and make claim of the lands which I will own in due course.’ Steyr hesitated. Then he nodded. Nitocris stroked his cheek. ‘Good. I knew you would make your sister proud, my jackal.’

She turned away from him and raised her hand. Her handmaidens slunk away from the wreckage of the spherical cage, dragging aside the dead or dying bodies of those they’d fed on. There were several survivors, huddled back against the bars of the cage. Nitocris approached the trembling, blank-eyed slaves with the grace of a tiger circling a tethered goat.

‘I thirst,’ she said, softly.

Then, with a shriek worthy of the carnosaurs of the deep jungle, she leapt upon them, her jaw opening inhumanly wide and her claws extended. She tore through them without hesitation, snapping bones and ripping flesh with savage exultation. She drank greedily from geysering stumps and was soon covered head to foot in blood. It pulsed through her cold, crooked veins, and it caused red explosions behind her eyelids as she glutted herself on stolen lives. Power such as she had rarely felt flooded her limbs, and the night seemed alive with infinite sights, sounds and smells.

When she had finished, she stepped daintily from the wreckage of her repast, and she allowed her handmaidens to clean her with their rough tongues. She stroked their heads and closed her eyes, imagining the glories to come.

Whatever the challenge to come, I will be victorious, she thought. No matter who, or what, seeks to stop me, I shall see Lahmia. I shall see Altdorf and all the far places. I shall see them and I shall rule them.

Octavia watched Nitocris indulge herself through the eyes of the dead. An old witch in Bretonnia had taught her how to see through the eyes of those she pulled from their graves. She had started small, watching the world through the eyes of birds and beasts, but she could do it with men now, as well. It was how she spied on the doings in Lybaras, and how she kept tabs on Nitocris’s schemes. Those she didn’t boast openly about, at any rate.

Then, Octavia had schemes of her own. She had seen her brother’s lost poet, and his dwarf companion in Lybaras through the eyes of one of her pets. The man was handsome enough, though she thought Sigmund might have overestimated his cleverness. He didn’t look especially clever – but neither did her brother. He had managed to stay vertical this long so perhaps looks weren’t everything. She stroked one tattooed cheek, and down in the plaza, dead eyes swivelled to fix on her brother where he stood, looking forlorn. A flush of affection swept through her. Part of her hoped he would die, soon, the true death and not the temporary vampire equivalent. She could hear the screams of the slaves, and the zombie whose eyes she’d borrowed turned, letting her watch the slaughter.

Though she knew the slaves welcomed death – for who would not in a place like this, in a situation like the one they found themselves in – such slaughter sat heavy on her stomach. Better the quick death than the painful one. Nitocris could have hypnotized her prey into feeling no pain, no fear, but she never did so, save when she was forced to feed on beasts.

She enjoyed the spice fear gave to the blood. All vampires did. They liked to hear the hearts of their prey begin to beat faster, the tensing of the muscles, the whine that bubbled at the back of the throat. Pain and fear were as meat and drink to them. Octavia closed her eyes and severed the link as a thrill of disgust ran through her.

She stood on top of the pyramid, with the drums. It had become the place she was most comfortable, surrounded by a whirlwind of spirits and dark magic. As the day of war drew closer, the vampires became less bearable. Nitocris’s handmaidens had grown excitable and even more vicious than normal, like carnosaurs scenting blood. Even her brother was agitated. Agitation was the enemy of peace.

Behind her, the drums thudded. The rivers of corpses flowing in from the jungles had begun to slacken, at last. But there were other legions than just those of the charnel house. Nitocris had summoned the ghoul-tribes to war. Octavia hated the ghouls, as one who raised chickens hated foxes.

They were parasites, but useful in battle. They would crack the bones of their enemies and sup on the marrow, and, even better, they would die in droves and thus find their purpose.

She looked up. The sun had set. It was time to call the others. She had felt the flickers of their consciousness, so fierce even with the weight of millennia of death pressing them down. They yearned even now to fly and hunt. Animals did not understand death. They took no solace in it, for which she pitied them. But they would come when she called, and like faithful hounds, they would follow her commands. ‘I am sorry,’ she murmured, ‘but I need you, my lovelies. You must rise and fly and darken the sky with your wings.’

She reached out with her mind and voice, and stoked the tiny embers of consciousness into roaring flames. Down in the darkness beneath the temple complex, they stirred. Big and small, their size dwindling with the rising strata beneath the ruin, they were all dead and they all responded to her call with an alacrity that might have startled another necromancer. They came not grudgingly, or because of promises of hunting and blood, but due to love. They loved her, even as the spirits and ghosts loved her, for she had spent months whispering to them in their cavernous tombs, stroking their tiny minds with her own, letting them know that they were not alone. They were, as all the true dead were, her friends.

Across the temple complex, in the wells, the slaves began to wail and scream as typhoons of withered flesh and dry, brittle hair spun upwards from the dark, unexplored depths below. Thousands of bats came at Octavia’s plea, and they exploded into the air, blotting out the moon. Great-winged shapes hurtled through the crowd of their smaller cousins, and even larger shapes came behind them. Fell-bats and the great terrorgheists from which they were descended hurtled upwards to stretch long-stilled wings once more. Tattered lungs inflated and stretched as the great bats shrieked their return to the world above.

A terrorgheist crashed down onto the top of the ziggurat, nearly sweeping aside the drummers in its haste. Octavia held up her hand, unafraid, and the massive corpse-beast nuzzled her palm and made whistling whines of greeting. She scratched its chin and murmured pleasantries to it. It was the same basic shape as a bat, but it was larger than a wyvern. Its flesh had the consistency of forest loam, and its bones rose like tombstones from its sagging skin. The echoes of its hunger were almost overpowering.

‘Magnificent,’ Nitocris said.

Octavia did not flinch, or otherwise react. Fear and pain, she thought. The terrorgheist shifted and grumbled, its toothy maw flexing as it eyed the vampire greedily. Unlike many dead things, the giant bats did not become subservient around vampires. To them, the smaller blood-suckers were just as much prey as anything else.

Nitocris, covered in gore as she was, likely looked especially delicious. The thought amused Octavia, and she fought to keep a smile from cracking her facade of indifference.

‘Would it devour me, if you commanded it?’ Nitocris said, as she drew closer to Octavia. Her fingers combed through Octavia’s red hair. It was a habit of the vampire’s that never failed to annoy Octavia. Oh yes, it would gobble you up in an instant. And if I thought that’d kill you, I’d be tempted to let it try, she thought. She needed the vampire, but plans could be adapted. Especially if what her brother believed about Andraste were true.

‘I do not command them. They are not slaves,’ Octavia said, pushing the thought aside. Nitocris stepped away from her. She reached towards the terrorgheist. It twitched away from her with a bone-rattling hiss. Nitocris frowned. ‘I want it,’ she said. ‘Make it bow to me.’

‘I told you, I do not command them,’ Octavia said.

‘But I command you,’ Nitocris said, not looking at her.

‘I wish for it to be my mount in the coming war. I wish to descend upon my enemies from above, and strike with speed.’ Octavia felt Nitocris’s mind and will uncoil, like an adder readying itself to strike. The terrorgheist reared up and extended its wings. It gave a thunderous shriek, and Nitocris gestured sharply. The dark magics that seeped invisibly from her pores swept forwards, wrenching the beast’s mind from Octavia’s grasp with ridiculous ease. Octavia staggered as a dagger of pain cut into her thoughts. Nitocris laughed and sprang onto the terrorgheist, slithering up onto its neck. She plunged her clawed fingers into what remained of its flesh and muscle.

‘You see, it is not so difficult, to make things do as you wish,’ Nitocris cackled as she forced the beast to bend low. It balanced on its wings and gave a wail of frustration and anger. ‘I could even force it to eat you, if I so desired,’ she added. She leaned forwards, the slim, corded muscles in her arms swelling as she dug her claws more tightly into the neck of the terrorgheist. Its jaws sagged, and a foul odour washed over Octavia.

She felt no fear. Only anger; and she allowed it to flash, briefly, in her eyes. Nitocris looked down at her and smiled. ‘Can it be?’ she asked. ‘Can you have finally learned the lesson which I have been trying to impart to you since I plucked you from an ignominious fate?’ Nitocris’s smile became a silvery slash. ‘What you have is mine. I have given it to you and I may take it back, should I wish. Even your dreams are mine, Octavia of Altdorf.’

‘As my queen wishes,’ Octavia said. She met Nitocris’s eyes, but only for a moment. When she looked away, the terrorgheist snapped its wings and lunged upwards into the bat-filled night sky. The force of its passage nearly knocked Octavia from her feet. She looked up, as Nitocris’s scream of joy rang out. The vampire-queen was never happier, save when battle was on the horizon.

Her brother was right. Nitocris’s usefulness was rapidly coming to an end. Like a spoiled child, she would be taught the error of her ways, in the moments before she was condemned to oblivion. She had no purpose, and things without purpose must be discarded.

‘Savour your joy, my queen,’ she said softly. ‘Savour the illusion of control, for your empire totters towards its final resting place.’

CHAPTER 16

Felix awoke as Gotrek’s rough palm clamped itself around his mouth. ‘Hsst. Quiet, manling,’ the Slayer growled, as Felix thrashed. They had made camp in the branches of one of the larger, thick-rooted trees. The branch Felix had chosen was as wide as a bridge and about as comfortable, but he’d managed to fall into a fitful slumber despite the noise of the night-jungle. Carnosaurs screeched hungrily as they prowled below, hunting the tri-horns and the shell-backed quadrupeds that seemed to infest the region. Leopards, snakes and other, unknown, predators stalked the jungle’s shadows. The tree was no real protection from the former, but it kept them from attracting the notice of anything bigger, and Zabbai and her warriors could see off the occasional, curious big cat.

Now, however, the tree shuddered down to its roots, and Felix could hear the steady thud of marching feet. It was still night, but the stars and the moon were only barely visible through the cloud of darting bats that flowed continuously overhead.

Gotrek allowed him to sit up, and gestured. Felix’s query died unspoken in his mouth as he caught sight of the stumbling, staggering shapes moving through the trees. The zombies moved steadily, crawling if they could not walk. Amongst the horde, he caught sight of bog-blackened bones and rusty weapons and armour, and, even worse, the lumbering shapes of giant reptiles, their scales sloughing from them as they plodded mindlessly forwards. There were more animals besides the great beasts – leopards, serpents and, above them, large bats, whose leather wings caused the trees to shake and shudder.

The big bats ploughed through their smaller cousins like sharks dispersing schools of fish, their wings beating loudly, and their shrieks grating on Felix’s ears.

One of the latter swooped low over the tree they had taken refuge in, its hairy body a black blot in the night sky. In the branches, Zabbai’s warriors raised their bows. She made a sharp gesture, and they lowered their weapons. The bat was enormous. Felix suddenly remembered the giant bats that had laired in the caverns beneath Wurtbad, and those he had seen from a distance, swooping across the plains of the east, hunting the herds of wild horses that galloped there. The one that circled overhead wasn’t quite that size, but it was big enough to have given the carnosaur they’d encountered earlier a moment’s pause. He glanced nervously at Gotrek, hoping the Slayer wouldn’t attempt to get the creature’s attention. Gotrek looked at him and muttered, ‘It’s a scout, manling. If it lands, we’ll have to kill it, and quickly, because there’s no way we can sneak past it. Damn beasts have a better sense of smell than a wolf.’

Felix nodded tersely. He watched the bat circle overhead, its immense leathery wings snapping and curling as it drew closer and closer to the ground. Whether it was a living beast, bound to serve dead masters, or an undead construct wrenched from some hidden grave, he couldn’t say, nor did he wish to get close enough to find out. ‘Maybe we should get down,’ he hissed, doubtfully.

‘Too late for that, I think,’ Zabbai said. The bat suddenly plummeted like a rock from a catapult, its wings folding back as it dropped towards them. Branches snapped and splintered as the bat descended onto the branch Felix and Gotrek stood on, bracing itself on its folded wings and its rear legs.

It hissed and its snout wrinkled back, exposing a mouthful of thin fangs. It was long dead by the look of it, but, quicker than Felix could react, it began to hop forwards. Gotrek darted past Felix to meet it, but the arrows of Zabbai’s warriors beat him to the kill, piercing the bat’s eyes, brain and mouth, and silencing it instantly. It began to slide off the branch and Gotrek lunged forwards to catch it by one limp wing. He hauled it back up onto the branch and shot a glare at Zabbai. ‘I could have done that,’ he growled.

‘You have done entirely too much of that on this trip, Doom-Seeker,’ Zabbai said. She placed a hand on Felix’s shoulder. ‘Your companion will only have three days come the sunrise. Every needless brawl you engage in reduces that time.’

‘It’s not my fault,’ Gotrek said petulantly. ‘I didn’t stick that thing on him.’

‘But it will be your fault if he dies,’ Zabbai said.

Gotrek glowered and made ready to reply, when one of Zabbai’s warriors knocked gently on the tree trunk. Zabbai turned and immediately sank into a crouch. She motioned for the others to do the same. ‘Corpse-eaters,’ she murmured.

Felix looked down. Ghouls padded through the jungle below, in ones and twos. Some wore primitive armour, but all carried weapons. Their worm-pale flesh was daubed with ash and war paint, and they barked and growled softly to one another as they moved. More ghouls followed the first lot, and still more after that. He counted a hundred of the degenerate cannibals before he gave up. Gotrek poked him. Felix looked at the Slayer, who pointed down towards a tall figure striding through the ghouls, a heavy battle standard held horizontally across his shoulders. He wore armour, had a bow slung across his back and a sword on one hip. As he stepped into a beam of moonlight, Felix caught sight of his face. It was Steyr. He looked at Gotrek, who shrugged, and then at Zabbai, who shook her head.

Felix had assumed that the vampire had died with his brothers, and he wasn’t certain what his apparent survival implied, save that it wasn’t good. Steyr paused beneath the tree. In the moonlight, Felix saw the vampire’s nose wrinkle. He looked around. Felix tensed. His hand sought Karaghul’s hilt. If the vampire looked up, they were finished. Ghouls could climb as well as the apes they resembled, and almost as quickly.

Steyr raised his head. An indefinable expression passed across his face, followed by a thin smile. Felix knew that the vampire had seen them. He felt Gotrek uncoil. The Slayer was ready to fall from his perch onto the vampire. But, instead of the expected command to attack, Steyr merely twitched his head, as if in a nod, and then kicked a ghoul in the rear to propel it along. The vampire strode on, and vanished into the shadows of the jungle, the ghouls swarming in his wake. When the last ghoul had vanished, Zabbai rose. ‘We must go,’ she said. They descended quickly, and moved into the jungle, in the opposite direction from the army. Felix hurried to catch up with her.

‘That army,’ he said. ‘It is moving north, towards Lybaras, isn’t it?’

‘Our enemies move swiftly,’ Zabbai said.

‘More swiftly than Khalida anticipated?’ Felix asked.

Zabbai said nothing. Felix shook his head. He met Gotrek’s eye. ‘I don’t think you’re the only one running out of time, manling,’ the Slayer said. Felix lifted his wrist and stared at the deadly bracelet in the moonlight. He fell silent, and stayed that way until the moon had set and the night sky had begun to lighten.

He tried to distract himself from thoughts of asps and poison with more immediate worries about what they might find when they reached the Temple of Skulls. If he’d still been an optimist, he might have hoped that they’d find the ruin abandoned and the sword just sitting somewhere, unguarded. Instead, he feared they’d find the ruin abandoned and the sword gone. Instead of being able to sneak in and sneak out, they’d have to pursue an army of the dead.

As the sun began to rise, Felix found himself marching beside Antar. It wasn’t the spot he’d have chosen, but Gotrek had lapsed into surliness and Zabbai was ranging ahead with her warriors, checking that the trail they followed was clear of dangers.

‘War is a thing of beauty,’ Antar said as he chopped through a vine. ‘It is the crucible in which kings are forged. Antar, Son of Dhekesh, is of a superior forging, if you were wondering, fleshy one.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Felix said, as the vine that Antar had chopped in two swung wildly towards him. He ducked and glared at the tomb-prince. He hadn’t initiated the conversation, and had done his best to discourage it. Antar didn’t seem to notice.

‘Of course you were,’ Antar said. ‘Antar is magnificent and mysterious – all men wish to know him and all women wish to bed him.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes it is the reverse. Antar does not allow such occasions to discommode him, for he is comfortable with adulation in all of its forms.’

‘I’m very happy for you,’ Felix muttered.

‘As you should be,’ Antar cried portentously. ‘Antar, Hawk of the Crimson Winds, inspires joy in his servants and enemies alike!’ He sliced at more vines with enthusiasm. ‘And once this minor task is done, Antar shall enter the crucible of war once again. He shall stride across the ruins of Lybaras like a colossus, and carrion birds shall follow in his wake!’

‘Do you have some particular grievance against Lybaras? Is that why you’re so eager for war?’ Felix said. He wasn’t actually curious. He was simply trying to keep Antar from bellowing. For a creature entirely lacking in lungs, the tomb-prince could muster an impressive amount of volume. He’d stunned one of the colourful birds that seemed to infest the upper reaches of the trees just by yelling in its general direction. And while they’d encountered no dangers or obstacles on their trek – the passing army had apparently frightened most of the larger jungle beasts into seeking more accommodating climes, for which Felix was grateful – there was no sense in tempting fate.

‘Grievance, no,’ Antar said. ‘Antar bears no grudges! He is as magnanimous in defeat as victory, elsewise he would have slain thee and thy stunted monkey for shaming him!’

‘Then why agitate for war with them?’ Felix asked, recalling what Zabbai had told him about Antar and his fellow princes. The tomb-prince reminded him of any number of arrogant aristocrats he and Gotrek had run across in their travels – so convinced of his own rectitude that he couldn’t see the very real harm his actions might cause.

‘Agitate? Agitate! Who claims that Antar agitates? Name him and Antar shall challenge him to the Test of Seven Scorpions!’ Antar stopped and whirled, so quickly that Felix almost ran into him. ‘Antar is no agitator, he is a hero!’

Felix pointed past him, at Zabbai, as she stepped into view. ‘Her,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ Antar said. ‘Yes, well, say, rather, that Antar urges his kingly forebears to consider the merits of war.’ He looked at Felix. ‘War is the only entertainment available in the Great Land. Antar cannot taste grapes or wine, he cannot touch a woman and his paints are all dust. The ink has dried, and Antar’s poetry goes unwritten.’

‘You were a poet?’

‘Antar was the greatest poet! His verses made Asaph herself weep for the beauty of them,’ he said. ‘Alas, truth and beauty fled with flesh, and now Antar is but a shadow of his former glory – though he is still more glorious than any who would compare themselves to him.’

‘Not that anyone would do so willingly,’ Zabbai said as she drew near. ‘We’re almost there.’ Her warriors followed her, their skulls creaking as they surveyed their surroundings watchfully.

‘How can you tell?’ Felix said.

‘Offhand, manling, I’d say because we’ve been walking through it for some time now,’ Gotrek growled. It was the first thing the dwarf had said since the sky had begun to lighten. Gotrek swept his axe out, chopping through a curtain of vines and rotting leaves to reveal the ancient stonework hidden beneath.

Felix looked around in surprise. Now that he’d been made aware of it, he could see that what he’d taken for trees or stones were in fact the remains of walls and wide shapes that might be statues beneath their coverings of vegetation. ‘What is this place? Is it another outpost?’

‘No,’ Gotrek said. He ripped aside a handful of vines and revealed the surface of a strangely carved square column. Felix realised that there were other columns, all equally massive and connected by flat, vine-encrusted archways. They were in some sort of overgrown plaza. Gotrek glared at the markings on the column and then spat.

Felix knew better than to question the dwarf further. He moved around the columns, examining them. Unlike the outpost, the stones were not so much carved as shaped. When he cleared aside the vines to touch the flat surface of the column, he felt a tingle in his fingertips and a bitter taste at the back of his tongue. ‘Magic,’ he murmured.

‘The Temple of Skulls was a ruin before Settra had made himself king of kings,’ Zabbai said, from close behind him. Felix turned and nearly ran into her. She grabbed his wrist and held it up to examine it. ‘Your skin is raw,’ she said.

‘Old metal and harsh conditions,’ Felix said, gently removing his wrist from her grip. ‘I’ll be fine as soon I get it off, I assure you.’

She reached up and touched his face. Then, with a quick jerk, she dragged him forwards. Felix stumbled into her, a protest dying on his lips as he heard the vines rip and tear behind him. Something thrust its way out of a heretofore hidden alcove set in the centre of the column, and clawed for him with rotting fingers.

Felix whirled around as the moss-encrusted mockery of a man lurched towards him. Soggy hands groped for him, and he ducked aside. Karaghul was in his hands a moment later and he chopped into the zombie’s midsection like a woodcutter hewing at a tree. The corpse wheezed as a stinking cloud of air was shoved out of its lungs. Even as Felix jerked his blade free of the collapsing body, more zombies burst from hidden alcoves or rose from beneath the ground and thrashed through the vegetation towards them. ‘They were waiting for us,’ he shouted. Zabbai and her warriors were accosted as well, as bodies covered in tangled roots and slime rose and clutched at them. Felix saw one of the skeletal warriors dragged down by a trio of zombies and its skull smashed.

‘They were waiting for anyone, manling. We’re just the ones they caught,’ Gotrek growled. His axe glittered as it carved a black path through two of the zombies at once, beheading one and shattering the spine of another. ‘My father claimed that the cursed Von Carsteins used to do the same thing, to guard their camps and lairs, during their wars with your people. They’d line the roads out of Sylvania with mass graves, so that they would always have troops ready to do as they needed. ‘He grunted and spun his axe, slicing first through a groping arm and then cutting the legs out from under the arm’s owner. ‘They’d use the dead as watchdogs, and their moans would draw the others like moths to candlelight.’

‘At least these are silent,’ Felix said, burying Karaghul to the hilt in a slack face. He jerked the blade free as clammy fingers clutched at his hair and face. As he made to drive his blade through the flailing zombie, an explosive groan burst from its sagging lips. One by one, the others joined in, until a communal rumble of dead voices began to fill the muggy air.

Gotrek paused in his efforts to glare at Felix. ‘You just had to say something, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘I thought you’d be overjoyed,’ Felix snarled, redoubling his efforts. ‘More zombies on the way mean more chances for you to die!’

Gotrek brightened. ‘It does, doesn’t it? My thanks, manling – maybe this won’t be a wasted trip after all!’

‘I was joking,’ Felix protested.

‘I wasn’t,’ Gotrek said. He grinned and spun his axe between his hands, scattering rotting flesh from the blade. ‘Come on, you overripe sacks of meat! Come on!’ he roared, momentarily drowning out the groans of the dead. ‘Bring all of the dead of these jungles to me! Come at me until I can no longer lift my axe, until my breath sears my lungs, until the shadows of death enfold me.’

‘Be silent,’ Zabbai hissed. Her axe looped out to split a zombie’s head from crown to jaw, and she easily wrenched it free. ‘There is more at stake here than your selfish desires, dwarf.’

Gotrek laughed wildly. ‘My desires are all that concern me, crow-bait.’ He backhanded a corpse carelessly, sending it staggering onto Felix’s sword.

Felix cursed and kicked the thrashing zombie off of his blade. ‘And is my life so meaningless? If you bring every zombie down on us here, we won’t reach the temple in time, and this damned bracelet will kill me!’

Gotrek ignored him, and his laughter lashed Felix like a whip. Anger surged through him. He’d always known Gotrek was selfish and self-absorbed, but after the Slayer had made his bargain to rescue Felix, he’d thought that the Slayer had, at last, come to see him as something other than a companion of convenience. Obviously, he’d been wrong. ‘Is this how you want to die?’ he shouted. ‘Is this how the great Gotrek Gurnisson goes to the halls of his ancestors? Pulled down by reeking corpses? Do you think Grimnir will smile on you for dying this way? Or will he turn his face from you, for choosing an easy death?’ He fairly screamed the last two words.

Gotrek’s laughter ceased. His jaw tensed pugnaciously and he began to hew grimly at the staggering, empty-eyed dead men. The Slayer rapidly made headway, sending bodies and pieces of bodies flying as he pushed through the ranks of the dead. With Gotrek’s ire thus concentrated, Felix and the others were free to strike down the dead as the latter turned the bulk of their attentions on the dwarf shoving his way into their midst.

‘He is mad,’ Antar said wonderingly. ‘Even Antar, Touched by Ptra and Scion of the Third House, is not so heedless. And Antar is fairly heedless.’ The prince of Mahrak took the head off of a zombie with his khopesh and backhanded another with his flail.

He paused and added, ‘Or so he has been assured by his many and multifarious cousins, doctors, priests and concubines.’

The dead fell on Gotrek like a tidal wave. They struck him with flabby, heat-bloated fists and bit at him with wobbling jaws. The dwarf hunched forwards, waiting until ten and then twenty or more of the corpses were clawing and biting at him. He vanished beneath them, and for a moment, Felix thought that Gotrek had decided to let the dead kill him out of spite. Then, with a roar that seemed to rumble from out of the depths of the earth, Gotrek surfaced from the charnel wave. His rune-axe shone with water and rotten blood as it carved a single canyon through every corpse in its path. Such was the force of the blow that dead men were sent jackknifing backwards and upwards and away from the seething mass of dwarfish muscle.

Felix was reminded of misfiring cannons he’d seen, and the havoc they had wreaked on their unlucky crew. Bodies tumbled into the water or struck the bent trees. Gotrek stood in the midst of once-human wreckage and shook himself with a gusty sigh.

He watched dully as Zabbai and her warriors finished off those zombies still capable of movement. ‘You’re right, manling. That would have been a stupid death,’ the Slayer said, looking up at the lightening sky. The way he said it, however, convinced Felix that he didn’t mean it. Gotrek shook himself again and hefted his axe. ‘Let’s go before any more corpses arrive,’ he muttered. ‘My doom waits, and I would not have it do so for long.’

‘For one who seeks doom, he is curiously easy to dissuade,’ Zabbai said, as they watched Gotrek hack his way through the muck and murk of the overgrown ruin. Felix ripped down a dangling vine and flung it aside as they followed him.

‘Gotrek isn’t looking for a doom. He’s looking for the doom. The one that will elevate him from what he is to someone his folk – all folk, really – remember for all time,’ he said.

‘Hubris,’ Zabbai said.

‘Desperation,’ Felix corrected, softly. ‘I have learned much, in my time with Gotrek. I have learned things about him that he would never allow me to speak of, were he aware that I knew them.’

He gestured towards the Slayer’s broad, scarred back. ‘That is all that remains of a brave, clever, energetic dwarf. He is the ghost of a damning oath, echoing down through the ages, moving inexorably towards some unrevealed fulfilment.’ Felix looked up at the sky, where it appeared in the gaps between trees. ‘I think, maybe, that Gotrek once could have been the hope of his people.’ He looked at her, and smiled sadly. ‘It’s just a fancy, and likely Gotrek was no one, and nothing more than what he was before he took up that axe and began his march towards his appointed hour. But there are moments where he seems to me to represent the best and worst of his folk, like no other dwarf I’ve met. We were told once, not long after we’d met, that when Gotrek fell, so too would his people. I’ve had that thought in the back of my head for longer than I care to think about.’

‘And do you believe it?’ Zabbai said.

Felix shook his head. ‘I hope that was an exaggeration, but there are times when I think… I think that when he finally dies, something great and mighty will go out of the world, and never pass this way again.’ He looked at Gotrek. ‘I don’t think I’ll outlive him, by much. And if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to.’ He shook his head again. ‘Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’ll find his doom here, and I’ll survive, and go back to Tilea – perhaps lie on the beach and drink something that tastes of fruit, rather than wheat.’

Zabbai looked at him for a moment. Then her dry, cool hand fell on his shoulder. ‘If I were a living woman, I would take you as my own, for however long you lasted. It would not be long, for you are thin and fragile, but it would be memorable,’ she rasped.

Felix blinked. He tried to formulate a reply, but all he could come up with was, ‘Thank you?’

‘I’d take her up on it, manling,’ Gotrek said without turning around. ‘Among my folk, a woman who can crush a grobi skull between her hands is considered quite a catch.’

Felix didn’t reply. He swallowed, wondering how much Gotrek had heard. He shook his head and looked at Zabbai. ‘Thank you for saving me, back there.’

‘It is my duty to keep you alive, Felix,’ Zabbai said.

‘A bit contradictory,’ he said, tapping the bracelet.

‘That is not for you,’ Zabbai said. ‘It is for him.’ She gestured to Gotrek.

‘So you’ve said,’ Felix said, flexing his hand. ‘What I want to know is why?’ He looked at her. ‘You’re obviously capable of going to get this sword yourself. Why bother with Gotrek and me? Is it just because Djubti said so?’

‘Hardly,’ Zabbai said. She made the rasping noise that Felix had come to associate with laughter.

‘Then why?’

She fell silent. Felix looked at her. ‘You may as well tell me. We’re here. And we may not make it out. And I, for one, would hate to die in ignorance.’

Zabbai expelled a rattling sigh. ‘This is not the first time that the thirsty dead have gathered here.’ She looked at him. ‘Like the plagues they are, they have their seasons. It is this so-called Serpent Queen’s season now, but before her were the Empress of All Bats and the Jackal-Lord, the Adder-King and the Bride of Ten Scorpions – others, dozens, hundreds. The dead have been culled from these jungles before, and they will be again. This place calls to them, and more besides – greenskins and daemon-worshippers gather in these ruins as well, when the war-season is upon them. We have learned to our cost that there are places here where we cannot go.’

She noticed his look of confusion and said, ‘Spells of protection and binding, some old and some new, mark the great ziggurats for which the ruin is named. The very old folk who built this place laid spells with the first capstone. Many princes and warriors were lost storming those high places in centuries past. Their bones became as powder and their souls were snared and lost, never to return. Death is never the end for us, Felix. It is but a respite. Were I to fall, I would rise again in a day, a year or a century hence and return to my duties, for such is our curse. But to enter the ziggurats at the heart of this ruin is to be unmade utterly and completely.’

‘Why didn’t Khalida simply tell us this?’

‘She is the High Queen,’ Zabbai said. ‘She does not have to explain. She has but to command, and that is enough.’ Felix had no reply.

‘If you two are done chattering,’ Gotrek said, ‘I’d advise you to turn your eyes forward.’ The Slayer had stopped. His axe slashed out, hacking aside a tangled mat of vines and leaves to expose another archway. And beyond it, a vast pyramidal shape that bore a strong and unpleasant resemblance to a malformed human skull, albeit grossly magnified, stretched above the jungle mist. It loomed higher than the smaller ziggurats and the thick walls that rose up in the distance over the trees and ruins about them.

‘Behold,’ Antar said, ‘the Temple of Skulls!’

‘Really,’ Felix said. ‘And here I was thinking it was some other ruined temple. Thank you for clearing that up, mighty prince.’

‘No thanks are necessary, peasant,’ Antar said as he swept past Felix and Zabbai. ‘Antar is aware of your ignorance, and he is magnanimous with knowledge!’

The ruin was less overgrown once past the archway. There were strange trails in the vegetation that covered the flagstones, as if many bodies had been dragged slowly over them over a long period of time. Felix shied away from the thought and tried to concentrate on their surroundings. Something seemed strange about the shape of the avenues and pathways. When he mentioned it, Gotrek grunted and said, ‘This place is sitting in a natural river basin. Everything leads down to that big ziggurat in the centre, in a roundabout fashion.’ He gestured about them with his axe. ‘These avenues and archways are simply the overgrowth of the main temple complex, spreading out from the aleph, like spokes from a wheel. They get narrower as they draw closer to the inner walls.’ He motioned to the distant walls. ‘This was a bastion, once.’ He spat. ‘Now it is the haunt of monsters.’

‘It wasn’t a dwarf bastion, though, was it?’ Felix said.

‘No,’ Gotrek said. ‘It belonged to another folk, older even than my own.’ He looked around. ‘But they fell. Even as our holds fell, and the outposts of the elves, so too did their cities fall in the time of the Ancestor Gods, when Grimnir, Grungni and Valaya walked among us. Their cities burned and crumbled, and their empire was shattered, even as ours flourished in the Golden Age that followed.’ He looked at Felix. ‘That is the nature of empires, manling. They all fall, in the end.’

‘Even that of the dwarfs?’ Felix said, expecting Gotrek to bluster a denial. Instead the Slayer fell silent and pressed one hand to the great wall, as if to commune with the ancient stones that made it up. Unnerved, Felix cleared his throat and said, ‘What now?’

‘Now, manling, we go get the dead woman’s play-pretty,’ Gotrek said.

Khalida Neferher stood in the Avenue of Kings, before the entrance to the pyramid of Rhupesh the Seventh, of the Third Dynasty of Asaph’s Wrath, Devoted Husband of the Asp and Tiger of the High Wall. His pyramid was one of the largest in the avenue, and built like a fortress. Rhupesh had been a mighty builder in his day, Khalida recalled. It was he who had overseen the construction of Lybaras’s fortified harbour, and the massive, high walls of pale stone that guarded the city still, millennia after his death in the War of Two Thousand Arrows.

Djubti stood beside her, his staff extended before him and his voice raised in the Incantation of Awakening. Arrayed about the liche-priest and his queen were those princes and kings who had already been awakened from their imposed slumber at Khalida’s command. Quiet arguments, centuries in the brewing, rippled through their ranks, as old rivals became reacquainted. Any moment now, Khalida knew, challenges would be issued and swords would rattle, and she would be forced to intervene. Such annoyances were a large part of why she had issued the Edict of Asaph’s Chosen, and sent the fractious nobility of Lybaras into enforced slumber during the Wars of the Kings.

Rhupesh had been one of the more troublesome kings, after the Usurper’s Curse had awoken them all. It was said that as an infant he had been found floating in a basket of reeds by the then queen of Lybaras. The strange runes that had been carved into the stone tablets that had accompanied him in his basket had never been deciphered. The queen, who had been barren, had hastily adopted the orphaned babe. Whatever his origins, Rhupesh had taken to the life of a king as naturally as if it had been his birthright, and had warred and built with the energy of a man possessed. In death, that energy had not dimmed. He had never marched against her, as some of the others had, but he had been a vociferous and voluble opponent to her plans for Lybaras. If there was anything that Rhupesh liked more than war, it was a good argument, especially one that went on for years on end.

But she needed him now. Argumentative as he was, he was also a mighty warrior, and a strategist second to none. All of the kings she had commanded Djubti to awaken had their own specialities – tactics, horsemanship, infiltration amongst others. They were each the master of their own chosen method of warfare, their skills honed in life and perfected in death. Rhupesh, the Tiger of the High Walls, was a cunning defender, a warrior born to conduct and resist sieges. With him awake and standing on the walls of Lybaras, no enemy would enter the city.

Djubti finished the incantation and smashed the butt of his staff against the stones of the avenue. ‘Awaken, O King,’ he rasped. ‘Awaken, in this, thy city’s hour of war. Come forth, Mighty Tiger of the High Wall. Come forth, Deadly Viper Assassin of Asaph’s Enemies! Come forth, Adopted Child of the Asp Goddess!’ He thumped his staff again. ‘Awaken! You are called forth, O Bearded Scion of Serpent and Ox!’

The entrance to the pyramid opened ponderously. A group of slaves, their flesh long since flensed from them by the knives of the Mortuary Cult, and their bones inscribed with the fifty-seven verses of the Immortal Rhupesh’s Ode to the Bejewelled Scales of the Goddess of Vengeance, forced the stone block aside, so that their lord might stride forth, colossus like, to unleash his light and glory upon the world.

That Rhupesh was about the size of a dwarf did not lessen his colossus-like stride, or the majesty of his tightly curled and splayed beard – or, rather the golden facsimile of said beard, which spread out from the bottom of the golden death mask that encompassed his round skull. Thick, short bones swung in pugnacious rhythm as he left his mighty pyramid. A round shield of bronze was strapped to one arm, and he clutched a heavy mace in his other hand. He smashed the mace against his shield and croaked, ‘Rhupesh comes! Who calls for Asaph’s adopted son?’

‘I do,’ Khalida said, stepping forwards before Djubti could reply.

‘Khalida,’ Rhupesh grunted. He turned around. ‘The slumber of ages calls to me, woman. Do not bother me.’

‘Happily would I allow thee to slumber, diminutive one, but I require thy strong arm and stubborn heart,’ Khalida said.

Rhupesh paused. He looked at her over his shoulder. ‘Compliments and insults in the same caw, carrion-queen. What do you require of the Ox of the Mountains?’

‘I require thy legions, armoured in bronze and courage, O Hound of Justice,’ Khalida said. She gestured to the gathered kings and princes. ‘I require thy artisanry, to see to the defences of the White City. I require thy wisdom, and thy steadfastness.’

‘War comes?’ Rhupesh said, turning around. He sounded eager. ‘Who are thy enemies? Is it those puling maggots of Mahrak, or the savages of Rasetra? Or has that mewling whelp Settra finally grown spine enough to bring thee to heel, O prodigal daughter?’ With every question, he pounded his shield-face with his mace. ‘Or greenskins, perhaps? Do the urk march on Lybaras, woman?’ he roared. Rhupesh had warred extensively with the greenskin tribes that had poured out of the Southlands in his time. It was said that he had looked forward to their war-migrations with all the eagerness of a child upon naming day. ‘Bah, do not answer! It does not matter to the Tiger of the High Wall whom he strikes with his claws. He shall strike them true, whoever they are.’

‘Then you will join me, Majestic Son of the Third Dynasty?’ Khalida said.

‘If I did not, you would surely fail,’ Rhupesh said. ‘Am I not the keystone upon which Lybaras’s might stands? Ha! War! War again, after so long in slumber.’ He stumped towards Khalida and peered up at her. ‘How are you, by the way? Regretting that edict yet, are you?’ he asked, conversationally.

Khalida gave a rustling chuckle. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, as Rhupesh took her hand and patted it affectionately. ‘Do you regret going into the slumber of ages?’

‘What – you mean letting you handle the bothersome bits while I lie and dream of the mighty structures I will build when you inevitably realise the blunder you made in shouldering the responsibilities you have?’ He snorted. ‘Not a bit.’ He cocked his head and glanced at Djubti. ‘Hello, old snake. Still as sour as a pickled marsh viper, I see.’

Djubti ignored him. ‘We have awakened fully twenty of the kings of old, my queen,’ he said. ‘I would respectfully advise that we leave the others to their dreams, unless the tide should turn against us.’

‘So many,’ Rhupesh said. He looked up at Khalida. ‘What comes, daughter of my daughters?’

Khalida met his steady gaze. ‘Old enemies, father of my mothers. The oldest of enemies, and once again, Lybaras must stand between the Great Land and the horrors of cursed Lahmia.’

CHAPTER 17

Felix pulled his hood up over his head and moved slowly through the rupture in the wall, alert for any sight or sound of a sentry, living or dead. Rotting vegetation and loose stones shifted unpleasantly beneath his feet as he slid down the inner escarpment of the great wall. The sky had grown dark overhead, and the moon had risen early, and it bathed the Temple of Skulls in a silvery radiance.

It had taken he and the others most of the day to reach the wall that marked the inner aleph of the temple. Upon doing so, they had found that it wasn’t as sturdy or as well preserved as they’d first thought. Enormous cracks marked its length, and heavy swathes of vegetation clung tenaciously to the stones. Into the smaller cracks, human skulls had been wedged in great numbers. More skulls hung from the trees, suspended by cords of vine and hair and leather. Indeed, the closer they had got to the wall, the more skulls they’d seen, until Felix began to wonder just how many untold thousands had perished within the dreadful ruin. He steadfastly avoided contemplating just who had hung up or wedged tight all of the victims’ skulls, however. He had a feeling he’d find out soon enough as it was.

Everything was overgrown to such an extent that Felix suspected that the wall was more plant than stone. Zabbai had counselled caution, while Gotrek had been all for hacking his way through and charging into the complex, axe raised and bellowing at the top of his voice. And while Felix was forced to admit that such a tactic had, on more than one occasion, proven successful – or unsuccessful, given the Slayer’s inclinations – he’d argued against it this time, offering to scout ahead to make sure that they weren’t walking into a trap. He had no doubt that the Slayer could chop his way through an entire city of zombies, but they didn’t have the time.

Gotrek had glowered and growled, but had at last subsided, much to Felix’s relief. Said relief had only lasted for a few moments before it was replaced by the familiar pulse of anxiety. Once again, he was willingly entering a situation that a wiser man would rightly avoid. That his life would be in danger if he didn’t do so didn‘t make the situation any more palatable. He could hear Zabbai’s warriors taking up position behind him, covering his progress with their bows. The thought didn’t comfort him as much as he’d thought it would. The dead were notoriously hard to bring down with arrows unless they were on fire, and sometimes even that was not enough.

The incline was steep, and it was only when he was halfway down that Felix realised that it was in actuality an immense stone buttress that had been swamped by rubble fallen from the wall and more than a century’s worth of accumulated jungle grime. He glanced back and saw immense, frog-like faces peering down at him from the massive plaques that lined the upper reaches of the walls. He shivered and continued down, trying to ignore the feeling that the eyes of those faces were tracking his every move.

Zabbai or one of her warriors could easily have accomplished the task, he knew. Indeed, it had been her plan in the first place. And on the face of it, that would have been the wiser course – what did the dead have to fear, after all? But he’d shied away from such pragmatism. In the days since they’d left Lybaras, he’d got to know Zabbai and Antar well, or as well as a living man could know the dead at any rate, and had seen them endure dangers on his behalf often enough. Now it was his turn.

Rocks clattered down past him as he reached the bottom. He paused, and turned slightly, to peer up over his shoulder. His palm was sweaty where it pressed to Karaghul’s hilt and his fingers twitched, ready to draw the sword at a moment’s notice. He squinted, trying to pick out any movement in the moonlight. He suddenly wished there was a way he could signal the others without moving.

He turned back and examined the scattered ruins that waited for him below. There was more to the Temple of Skulls than simply walls and ziggurats, it seemed. There were signs of industry everywhere: old buildings repurposed and repaired, and manifold piles of newly felled timber or haphazardly heaped stones.

Between the ziggurats, which towered over everything else, he could see what might have been the masts of ships, still draped with tattered sails. It wasn’t inconceivable that the basin had its own natural harbour, somewhere on the other side of the ziggurats. The thought sent a chill down his spine. He recalled the creaking wrecks harboured at the Mangrove Port and what had lurked within them. Could these be more of the same? And if so, why hadn’t they left with the army that had passed them in the early morning hours? Why march overland if you had boats?

Unless… He closed his eyes and fought to control the sudden hammering of his heart. Was the army they faced really that large? It seemed impossible. Then, what need had the dead of supply lines or logistics? If any army other than the brawling hordes of the greenskins could achieve such a size, it would be an army of the risen dead.

More rocks slid down. He saw nothing, but he knew something was moving above him. He could feel eyes on him. He stared at the incline, trying to spot whatever it was. There was a flash of darkness in the moonlight, a low, slithering shape that skidded out of his line of sight as quickly as it had entered. Felix whipped around, trying to follow it.

It bounded towards him from an angle, moving swiftly and smoothly on all fours despite the loose rubble, its eyes blazing as brightly as the moon that watched it all unfold above. With a screech, it flung itself on him.

Claws raked through his sleeve as he pivoted and drew Karaghul. His blade struck bone and skidded away, and his attacker rolled with the blow. It sprang to its paws, tail lashing. It was a leopard, he saw, dead and rotting, but no less fierce for all that; he could, quite literally, count its ribs. It sprang for him again, jaws wide. Felix thrust Karaghul at it, point first, and caught it between its open fangs. His sword slid down its throat, cracking bone and slicing through putrefied meat.

The leopard fell, yanking his sword from his grip as it did so, and it made a sound like it was choking. It squirmed on the ground, pawing at the blade that jutted from its throat. Felix drew his dagger and leapt on it, avoiding its claws as best he could. Quickly, he slashed where he hoped its tendons were, rendering its limbs useless. It continued to struggle regardless, writhing beneath him like an enormous serpent. Felix sheathed his knife, clambered off it, set his foot on its throat, and ripped Karaghul free. Then, before it could do more than snap at him, he took off its head with one blow.

Breathing heavily, Felix leaned forwards. His gasps caught in his throat, as some instinct made him spin about, Karaghul slashing up. A second leopard tumbled to the ground, just short of him, an axe buried in its spine. It twitched and snapped its jaws, but it had been rendered helpless. Felix positioned the tip of his blade over the centre of its skull and then leaned on it, splitting its skull, and sending it on to whatever afterlife awaited such tormented creatures.

‘Good fight, manling,’ Gotrek said, stomping down to join him. He tore his axe free of the twice-dead leopard and shook the rot off it. ‘There might be hope for you yet.’

‘Thank you,’ Felix said. He looked around and signalled for Zabbai and the others to follow them down. ‘How much further can you go?’ he asked the former, as she reached them. ‘All the way to the foot of the ziggurats,’ she said. ‘We are not as fragile as all that. The ancient spells have shrunk in the intervening millennia.’

‘Don’t worry, crow-bait. Gotrek will get your queen’s toy for her,’ Gotrek rumbled cheerily. He ran his thumb along the blade of his axe and stuffed the bloody digit in his mouth. Sucking on it, he mumbled, ‘Let’s get moving. The manling only has a few days left and he’s slower than a goatherd with two false legs and the krutz.’

‘Thank you, Gotrek. I appreciate your concern,’ Felix said. The Slayer sniffed, snorted and spat something onto the head of one of the leopards that glistened unpleasantly. Taking that as an acknowledgement of his gratitude, Felix followed the Slayer as he began to stump towards the ziggurats.

Gotrek led the group through side plazas and narrow avenues. The innate spatial awareness all dwarfs, but especially Gotrek, seemed to possess never failed to impress Felix. Gotrek had, to all appearances, mapped the temple complex during his descent from the inner wall and now he swiftly led them along the quickest route to the centre. As they moved, Felix saw that Gotrek’s assertion had been correct – every processional avenue and causeway in the ruin led in a roundabout fashion to an immense central plaza. The inner ring of the temple was as overgrown as the outer barrios, though the ruin was broken up by culverts and canals of stone and tarnished gold that bisected the streets, allowing the stagnant, dark water that pulled through algae-choked stone irrigation runnels from the river to burble nastily throughout the temple complex.

Here and there, Felix saw signs of habitation of sorts. Not just the piled materials, but places where the ruined outbuildings had been converted to hovels and crude halls. These had mostly fallen into disrepair, and he felt slightly ill as he considered what must have happened to their former inhabitants. That they hadn’t seen them didn’t mean that they weren’t still around in some fashion that didn’t bear thinking about.

Occasionally, as if to prove the truth of his suspicions, he would catch glimpses between the buildings of the shuffling shapes of dead men or the awkwardly loping corpses of animals. They were moving slowly back the way that he and the others had come, and Felix wondered if they were belatedly responding to the alarm raised by the other zombies they had encountered.

The air was heavy with the constant rumble of drums. The sound was so prevalent that Felix had, at first, mistaken it for the sound of thunder, before they had drawn close enough to the source to discern the individual drum beats. The drumming grated on him, seeping into his head, like the whine of some unseen, but ever-present mosquito. And given the prevalence of actual mosquitoes, it was annoying indeed. Felix slapped at his neck, catching one of the latter. He examined the twitching corpse. Then he cursed as the squashed insect twitched, struggled upright and wobbled into the air.

‘The drums,’ Zabbai said.

‘What?’

Zabbai tapped her head. ‘The drums are a spell, waking and calling all of the dead in these lands.’ She noticed the nervous look that flickered over Felix’s face and added, ‘All save us, Felix. The spells which bind us to the dust of our creation are far stronger than that needed to draw in these wretched remains.’

‘Quiet,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer had sunk into a crouch beside a wall that had half sunk into the ground, as if the street beneath it had collapsed. The others crept towards him. The Slayer was staring out through a crack in the wall. He moved aside at the touch of Felix’s hand on his shoulder. Felix took his place and immediately cursed.

‘Zombies,’ he muttered. ‘Thousands of them.’ He stared through the crack in the wall at the corpse-choked plaza beyond. It looked to him as if every zombie left in the immediate area had shown up for some indefinable purpose and now stood between them and the ziggurats beyond, which made a certain amount of grim sense, given that it was the central plaza of the ruin and the largest they’d yet seen. The dead stood in a tightly packed mob, occupying every square of space in the plaza. Some swayed softly, as if listening to a song only they could hear, while others were as rigid as stone. But all of them had their heads turned towards the largest of the ziggurats that occupied the outer edge of the plaza.

It was the ziggurat they’d seen earlier, towering over the others. Its uppermost level was shaped like a titanic skull made from crude slabs of stone, with steps running down below it on all sides. The ziggurat was like some grisly wheel hub from which the spokes of the city spread outwards. It rose up over the others and its shadow engulfed the dead. From the crown of the skull, the sound of drums throbbed out across the plaza.

All in all, it was an eerie sight, and one he hoped not to have to experience for longer than necessary. He turned around, sank to his haunches and looked at the others. ‘I didn’t think that there could be that many dead men in one place.’

‘Not just men, manling,’ Gotrek muttered, his good eye pressed to the crack. ‘Women too, and beasts and other things. It looks like whoever is in charge woke up every dead thing between here and Cathay.’

‘Yes, it’s almost as if they have something valuable to protect,’ Felix said. He rubbed the asp bracelet and looked at Zabbai. ‘I don’t suppose your warriors have enough arrows to clear that mess out there?’

‘Not even if we could get them all to stand single file in several densely packed lines,’ Zabbai said. She crouched amongst her remaining warriors, her axe across her knees. Antar stood nearby, impatiently swinging his flail.

‘Antar, Hero of a Hundred and One Epics, does not fear the cold clutch of the bound dead.’ He looked at Felix. ‘Let us carve a mighty corridor through these maggot-stuffed flesh-sacks and take the High Queen’s prize. Antar the Most High and Glorious grows impatient.’

‘The bag of bones has the right idea,’ Gotrek said, still staring through the crack. ‘The direct route is the quickest.’

‘Gotrek, I really think we should–’ Felix began, not looking at the dwarf.

‘Too late,’ Zabbai said. Felix heard the clatter of metal on stone and turned in time to see Gotrek’s feet disappear over the top of the wall.

He shot to his feet, all of the blood draining from his face. ‘Oh, by the gods,’ he snarled, and followed suit. He was swinging himself over the top of the wall before he had a chance to consider that it was, as ideas went, a fairly terrible one. He dropped down on the other side even as Gotrek gave a triumphant cry and bounded across the vine-covered plaza with a speed and buoyancy that Felix would have found funny had the situation not been so desperate. The Slayer’s axe licked out and a zombie’s head went flying. More limbs followed suit as the dwarf waded into the dead men.

Felix hurried after the Slayer. He parried an awkward slash from an axe-wielding corpse and sent it staggering into its fellows with his shoulder. ‘Gotrek, where are you going? You don’t have the least idea where that blade is!’

‘It’s at the top of the pyramid, manling, obviously,’ Gotrek shouted, over his shoulder. He grabbed a zombie’s entrails in his free hand, knotted them about his knuckles and jerked the dead man’s head down to crack against his own. The zombie went down as if it had been struck with an axe.

Felix looked around. They were surrounded by the strange, jagged ziggurats.

Each was composed of flat platforms of stone that grew smaller as they ascended and had a stepped appearance, with steep staircases on each side. ‘Those are ziggurats, Gotrek. And there are dozens of them,’ Felix protested. A zombie slumped against him, gnawing toothlessly at his shoulder. Felix kicked its legs out from under it and ducked under a wild swipe from one of its fellows. He drove his arm and shoulder into the latter’s gut, and as he rose, he flipped the soggy corpse over his back.

‘Aye, and it’ll be in the biggest one, manling. It’s always the biggest one,’ Gotrek said as he backhanded a zombie and sent its bottom jaw bouncing across the plaza. ‘Haven’t you been paying attention?’

‘I’ve been a bit busy, what with the trying not to die and all,’ Felix muttered. Rotting hands snagged his cape and he was jerked off balance. Zombies crashed into him from all sides. Gotrek’s attack had opened a momentary island in the sea of bodies, but the dead were closing ranks around them now. A zombie lurched towards Felix when an arrow popped its skull as if it were a particularly noxious boil.

More arrows struck the dead men closest to him, picking them up off their feet or dropping them where they stood, depending on how much was left of the corpse in question. With a rattling whoop, Antar and Zabbai joined Felix. Antar, much like Gotrek, fought with determined abandon, and Felix wondered whether he had been as reckless when he was alive. Zabbai, as ever, fought without wasted motion. Her axe spun and bit, scattering the dead before her like broken branches.

A vampire appeared on the steps of one of the ziggurats. She tilted her head and uttered a shriek, before bounding towards the fight, her sword at the ready. ‘That’s torn it,’ Felix muttered. The vampire crashed into Antar, who spun about and flung the creature to the ground with his stone hand. She was up a moment later, and her sword smashed against Antar’s khopesh. The two of them whirled about, knocking aside zombies heedlessly in their duel. Antar bellowed imprecations at the vampire, who shrieked and cursed in reply.

Felix stumbled away from a lurching zombie and nearly slipped into a yawning pit that he hadn’t noticed before, thanks to the press of bodies. He looked down, and froze. ‘Sigmar,’ he hissed. He saw the dangling cages, and their human contents, and suddenly, an unasked question was answered. Anger roiled through him, burning away fear and worry in a single white-hot moment. Eyes empty of hope, of fear, of anything save grim resignation to a fate worse than death met his own through the wooden slats of the closest of the spherical cages, and he hacked at a zombie, shoving it back into its fellows in frustration. His eyes followed the rope that connected the cages to the stakes thrust into the stones. ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted, ‘help me!’ All thought of urgency or the poison bracelet that threatened his life had faded the moment the eyes of the slaves had met his own. All he could think of now was freeing them as quickly as possible. He shouted again for Gotrek.

‘What are you on about, manling?’ Gotrek snarled, bulling towards Felix.

‘Help me pull up these cages!’

‘What – why?’ Gotrek said. He peered down into the pit and his eye narrowed. He cursed in Khazalid and buried his axe in the stones. No further explanation or urging was required. ‘One side, manling, this requires more muscle than you’ve got in those weak arms of yours.’ Gotrek spat into his palms and rubbed them together before grabbing the closest rope. Felix stepped back and sent a zombie tumbling into the pit with his elbow.

Arrows hissed past, catching a wight in mid-leap, its clawed gauntlets mere inches from Felix’s neck. As the dead man fell, Felix drove an overhand blow down on top of its head. Karaghul struck stone and the wight’s skull collapsed in on itself. He jerked the blade free and turned as a flash of bone caught his eye. He halted his instinctive lunge as he recognised Zabbai. She had cleared the area around the edge of the pit and was staring in evident confusion at Gotrek. ‘What is he doing?’

‘There are people down there. Living ones,’ Felix said, taking a moment to recover his strength. The stench of the dead was nearly unbearable, and he coughed as he sucked in a lungful of air. ‘Slaves, maybe – or livestock,’ he said.

‘Yes, but why are you bothering with them? They’re just slaves, and time is of the essence,’ Zabbai said.

Felix looked at her. ‘You were just a slave, once,’ he said.

Zabbai twitched. Then she nodded, just once, and briskly. ‘Make it fast. We cannot hold the bound dead back for long.’

Felix sheathed his sword and moved to help Gotrek roll the cage over the lip of the pit. The Slayer had hauled it all the way up with little sign of effort. He grabbed his axe and moved towards the next rope as Felix set to cutting the cords and ropes that held the cage together. The prisoners had been stirred by the sight of their rescuers, and now they spoke in a variety of languages and dialects, few of which Felix recognised. Hands grabbed at him as he cut them free, and when the cage came apart, they spilled out into the plaza. Some ran immediately, staggering for freedom through the crowd of zombies. Others snatched up weapons and set to, chopping and hacking at the dead in a seeming frenzy. They were weak and near death themselves, but the chance for freedom seemed to lend them strength.

A man grabbed Felix and tugged on his arm, pointing across the plaza. Felix could see what looked like similar pits, and more ropes in them. The man said something in a tongue Felix didn’t understand. He was emaciated and clad in rags, his bare flesh covered in badly healed cuts and crooked scars. Though he couldn’t understand him, Felix knew what he was saying easily enough. There were more to be freed, perhaps hundreds. Felix turned to see Gotrek hauling up the second cage. The dwarf left it, as newly freed prisoners began tearing the cage open and extricating their fellows. Others were busily hauling up the remaining cages. ‘Gotrek, there are more pits,’ Felix shouted. ‘We have to get to them.’

‘We’ll take care of them,’ Zabbai said, before Gotrek could reply. She shoved Felix forwards. ‘We will free who we can, while we can. You two go and do as you must. Get our queen’s sword back, as she commanded.’

Felix hesitated. Gotrek grabbed his arm. ‘Come on, manling, leave her to it. We’ve done what we could, and now we must do what we came here for.’ Reluctantly, Felix allowed Gotrek to pull him away from the fight and towards the immense skull-topped ziggurat. As they began to climb, Felix saw that the spaces between steps were stuffed with skulls and other bones, most of them human.

Gotrek took the steps more slowly than Felix, but given his head start, Felix was forced to run up them two at a time in order to catch up. There were no corpses on the ziggurat, but they didn’t make it more than halfway up before Felix caught sight of several women racing down the stairs to meet them. That they were vampires was obvious, given the mouthful of fangs each had on display, and the stark black veins that stretched across their pallid flesh. They moved as swiftly as the assassins in Khalida’s throne room had, growing closer with every eye blink.

The Slayer neither slowed his ascent nor hesitated as the first vampire reached him. The woman wore a leather hauberk with rusty steel rings, and her hair was in thick, worm-like plaits. She leapt from the steps and fell towards Gotrek, her blade held in two hands and angled downwards. Gotrek casually smashed the sword aside. The power of his blow sent the vampire sprawling. Felix hurdled her tumbling form as two more closed in on the Slayer.

He intercepted one, interposing his blade between Gotrek’s head and her axe. She hissed and forced him aside. Felix snatched his dagger free of its sheath and stabbed at her heart. She caught his wrist and they turned in an awkward pirouette, before Gotrek’s axe removed her head from her shoulders. Felix blinked blood out of his eyes as the body slumped.

‘Stop playing around, manling. I thought you said we were in a hurry,’ Gotrek rumbled. Felix wiped blood out of his face. Gotrek had dispatched the other vampire in a similar fashion. The one he’d swatted aside had got to her feet, and she started up towards them, only hesitating when she realised that both of her companions were dead. Gotrek, thick frame covered in blood and grime, smiled widely at her and held out a hand in a beckoning gesture. ‘Come on, lass. If you hurry, you can catch your friends before they get wherever cursed souls go,’ he said, mock-gently.

The vampire wavered, hissed and turned, sprinting down the steps towards the battle below. Gotrek grunted in disappointment. ‘I hate it when they run away,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Felix said, wilting slightly in relief. He turned and peered up at the top of the ziggurat. He could see the source of the steady, throbbing drums above – a number of bloated corpses, pounding away at heavy skin-drums with the yellowed bones in their flabby hands from atop the square structure that occupied the pinnacle of the ziggurat. ‘Let’s get up there before she changes her mind, shall we?’

Below them, the battle was spreading across the plaza. The freed slaves who weren’t hacking at the zombies with stolen weapons or pulping their skulls with loose stones were doing their best to pass the favour along to those who were still trapped in the pits. With the wights and zombies occupied by Antar and Zabbai’s warriors, more and more starving, abused wretches joined the fray to vent gods alone knew how much frustration on their unloving captors. Felix knew that many of them wouldn’t survive the melee, especially given their state of deprivation, but better a death in battle than a slow tumble into oblivion in captivity. Or so he told himself as he followed Gotrek to the top of the ziggurat. Nonetheless, he felt ill, using them so. He hadn’t intended it, but the slaves were proving to be just the sort of distraction they needed.

He pushed the guilt aside as they reached the top. There were no more guards, but he could hear chanting from within. A smell like a lion’s den wafted out of the opening – the abattoir stench of old blood and savaged flesh. He exchanged glances with Gotrek. ‘Well, manling?’ the Slayer said.

‘After you, I insist,’ Felix said.

Gotrek guffawed and stepped through the archway. After a moment of hesitation, Felix followed him into the darkness.

CHAPTER 18

Nitocris sat upon her monstrous steed and considered the army marching slowly beneath her. The wind whipped through her hair and caressed her flesh, and she could feel the terrorgheist’s dead muscles pulsing as it flapped its ragged wings and cut through the sky, riding the air currents. Even from her present height, she could tell that the army below was a hodgepodge, without cohesion, formation or organization. Such things didn’t bother her, though she had learned their value early in life. When your army could simply be reconstituted or revived with but a careful thought, there was little reason to waste time on battle lines or grand strategy.

The army was encountering its first signs of resistance below, but she paid it little heed. If her new herald and the ghoul-tribes couldn’t deal with a few constructs then it was better that they died here, and were raised up as something more useful.

She narrowed her eyes and peered at the horizon. The sun was coming up. Bats clustered thickly above and around her, blocking out the harmful rays. If the bats proved not to be enough, a sandstorm could be summoned to cover their advance. The terrorgheist shifted beneath her and it gave a grunt of warning.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the other giant bats that were following the terrorgheist in loose formation. They weren’t as large as her mount, but they were large enough to carry a number of her handmaidens. They were the bravest of her sisters, those who sought to emulate her in her abandon and battle-lust: the ones who had been the champions of their tribes, or the mistresses of their harems, and in whom subtlety was yoked by the hunger for glory – just like poor Andraste, she thought. The thought of her lieutenant brought a wan smile to her face. So much ambition but so little wit to use it properly.

Most of those she had chosen for her handmaidens were as loyal as any warrior staggering beneath her banner. They served her as she served her mistress. If they contemplated treachery, they kept it to themselves. But there were some who schemed far too openly, or served too faithfully, with an obsequiousness that was as suspicious as resentment. Andraste was of the latter camp. She was as stolid and as brusque as a good lieutenant ought to be, but in her heart lurked a savage ambition.

Like Nitocris, she had been the child of nobility, and though she had pledged to serve her new queen, she had ever thought that Nitocris’s title was hers by right. Nitocris had kept her close for centuries, never giving her an opportunity to exercise that ambition. Andraste made for a wonderful lightning rod, attracting those of her handmaidens who whispered of coups. She had gathered together the like-minded and weak-willed. A few of them had even tentatively struck out at Nitocris, emboldened by Andraste. Those she had dealt with accordingly, and had made an object lesson of them.

And Nitocris had duly shucked them all. She had left all of them behind, where they could not threaten this final advance, save by destroying themselves in the process. Andraste knew as well as she that to disrupt Octavia’s spell was to call down the wrath of the Tomb Kings upon them. Nitocris would be destroyed, but there would be no place Andraste could hide from the stalking bones of the desert.

She wondered when Andraste would make her move. It would not come once Octavia had completed her spell, she thought. Andraste would not risk that. No, she would strike at the final moment, and claim that Octavia had expired from her sorceries. Unless Octavia proved as capable as Nitocris suspected. The necromancer served two purposes – the spell, and dealing with those of Nitocris’s followers who had outlived their usefulness. If Octavia survived, then she deserved to receive the same gift that had been erroneously given to her jackal of a brother, whether she wanted to accept it or not.

Contemplating her loyal lieutenant’s inevitable betrayal was a pleasant way to pass the time as they coursed through the air towards Lybaras. Treachery was as inherent in her kind as the thirst for blood. It had been a part of them since the beginning. Or so she had been told.

Her queen had tutored her in the history of their sisterhood personally. She had crouched with Nitocris on rough stools before the fire in her war-camp, speaking to her of her travels and travails, painting her a picture of the world that lay beyond the jungles, mountains and deserts that Nitocris had known. Of wars fought not with spears and muscle, but with gold and words, of cities not of mud and wood, but of grey stone, of white snows and cool forests. The Mistress of the Silver Pinnacle had seduced Nitocris with stories. She had seduced her and set her on her path.

In a way, Nitocris was nothing more than a weapon. It was a belated realisation, but not an unpleasant one. Nitocris thought of her enemy, of the false serpent, Khalida, who had tried to strangle the sisterhood in its infancy, and then hounded them from the cradle of their birth and into the wild lands. Khalida, who stood sentry over Lahmia, and who had thwarted many of her mistress’s schemes and plans. She was an obstacle that had to be removed for the good of the future of the sisterhood, even as her queen had done all those centuries ago when she’d sheathed her blade in Khalida’s belly.

That was what Nitocris had been told, and that was what she knew, after all these long years of building her forces and bringing the Southlands to heel. The jungles and swamps ran red with blood, and she controlled the whole of it, but it was worth nothing if it did not gain her this victory. All that she had achieved hinged on this war. Her future, her ambitions, her dreams – all of them would be dust on the wind if she failed to do as she had been tasked. She would right the wrongs of the past. The dead would bow to their rightful queen, even if she had to topple their tomb-cities one by one.

Steyr’s boot struck the giant scorpion’s carapace, and he vaulted over its striking tail. The creatures had risen from the desert amidst the vanguard of Nitocris’s army. There were four of them, and they were as large as any carnosaur, with snapping claws and stinging tails. They weren’t true scorpions, he knew, but rather intricately devised sarcophagi. Each contained the mummified body of a Nehekharan priest, or so his sister had claimed. The creatures had attacked as the army had left behind the necropolis that marked the boundary between the swamp and the desert, and entered the sandy dunes of the Land of the Dead.

He landed behind the scorpion in a crouch, as the creature spun about, snatched up a screaming ghoul and scissored the unfortunate cannibal in half in a spray of gore. Its tail struck another, pinning the ghoul to the ground. The ghoul’s screams were choked off as its scrawny body abruptly ballooned with poison. Black venom gushed from the ghoul’s eyes, nose and mouth and its struggles ceased. The scorpion tore its tail free and whirled about, hunting for Steyr.

The vampire snarled and avoided a second blow from its tail. He leapt aside and scooped up Nitocris’s standard from where he’d dropped it. He rolled to his feet, the standard held like a spear. He swatted aside the scorpion’s sting and stabbed at its carapace. It reared, as he’d hoped, and he lunged forwards smoothly, using every ounce of inhuman strength he could muster to drive the end of the standard through the creature’s underbelly and out through its back. The scorpion shuddered as he forced it back on its hind legs. Black incense and tomb-dusts spilled out of the wound and coursed over his hands as he set the other end of the standard against the ground, trapping the scorpion in place.

Steyr grabbed the edges of the wound and wrenched them apart, revealing the squirming form of the mummified liche-priest. The mummy had been spitted and its bandaged hands clawed helplessly at the standard pole. It hissed at him with a lipless mouth. He hissed back, grabbed its skull in his hands and, with one foot braced against the writhing underbelly of the scorpion, he tore the dead thing’s head off. He tossed the skull over his shoulder and sat down in the shadow of the now-still creature. It provided a lovely bit of shade, better even than the chittering shroud of bats that swarmed through the skies overhead.

He sat and hummed tunelessly, patting his knee to keep time, as he watched the ghouls overwhelm and tear apart the remaining scorpions. It took them quite a long time, and many died from poison or snapping claws. If he’d bothered to aid them, he knew that fewer of them would have perished, but since he had no particular interest in keeping any of them alive, he was content to sit and enjoy the show.

They were within spitting distance of Lybaras, as far as he could tell. The scorpions told him that much. He had little doubt that they’d been unleashed simply to slow Nitocris down somewhat – something he was all for. It was all about time now. Octavia would have begun preparing to cast her spell not long after they’d left, and when she began casting it, he would have to act quickly. He patted the sword sheathed on his hip affectionately. He would take Nitocris’s head personally, of course. Octavia wouldn’t mind.

Nitocris’s handmaidens would be easy prey, after that. With the dead of Lybaras broken to his sister’s will, for despite what she claimed, that was the case, Nitocris’s pestilent followers could be captured, bound and left out to cook in the desert sun. The thought gave him no small amount of pleasure.

Another thought, albeit not quite so pleasurable, was of the pale face he’d seen crouched above him in the jungle trees. Felix Jaeger had survived, it seemed. Steyr wasn’t entirely happy with Felix. It hadn’t been the poet’s fault that the Herald of Lybaras had attacked – no, that had been all Nitocris’s doing. But he and his pet dwarf had been an unfortunate distraction at an inconvenient time.

Jaeger and the dwarf had been taken by Lybaras, and now, they were apparently heading towards the Temple of Skulls. That smacked of some gambit by the bone-bags. If his sister was smart, she could use said gambit as a distraction. She’d kill Jaeger, of course, more was the pity, but needs must. He leaned back, musing on what might have been.

His musing was interrupted before it’d even got properly under way. Steyr peered out from under his makeshift sun-screen as he heard the jangling shriek of one of the great bats that flew amongst their smaller brethren. He sighed as the bat landed in a plume of sand and its rider dropped from its back. She stalked towards him, the cloak and cowl of animal skins she wore swirling about her. ‘Why are you sitting?’ she snapped.

‘Hello, Yamina. Yes I’m fine, thank you, and yourself?’ Steyr said, turning away from her. She ducked beneath the scorpion, and glared at him.

‘The bone-eaters require your aid,’ she spat.

Steyr made a show of looking towards the closest knot of ghouls. They’d managed to tear the legs from the scorpion they were battling, and were now attempting to crack it open with stone axes. ‘Do they? I think they’re doing quite well without me, in my opinion.’ He reached beneath his cuirass and pulled out a small pouch, proffered it to her and said, ‘Jerky?’

She made as if to retort, and then grunted and pulled a slice of the dried and salted human meat from the pouch. She sank down beside him and chewed noisily.

‘Where’s the fleet?’ he said, watching the ghouls as they tore a writhing mummy from its scorpion-sarcophagus and began to devour it, even as it mewled in protest. ‘Haven’t gotten lost have they? Talia was a pirate’s daughter, but she hasn’t been on a boat in three hundred years.’

‘The fleet draws close. Talia drew forth a salt-wind and the souls of the drowned to speed them to Lybaras,’ Yamina said. ‘Worried that they won’t be there, jackal?’

‘Oh, are we all using that nickname now? Wonderful,’ he said. ‘And no, merely inquiring as a good captain ought. The military mind, Yamina, must have all the facts to plan accordingly.’

‘Military mind,’ she said and laughed. ‘You are no better than the bone-eaters.’

‘Then why am I carrying this?’ he said, and patted the standard.

‘Because Nitocris is besotted with that ragged red crow you call a sister,’ Yamina said. She smiled and licked her lips. ‘And she will have her. She will have us all, in the end. Nitocris cannot be denied. She will triumph and we will triumph with her, and sweep over the desert and mountains.’ She tore off a chunk of jerky and swallowed.

‘And then what? A grand tour of the provinces of the Empire, or perhaps Bretonnia?’ he asked. He didn’t try and hide the mocking tone to his words. Beneath the mockery, however, was a faint sense of longing. In truth, he’d almost be willing to forego treachery if he thought Nitocris actually meant to keep her word. To return to Altdorf at the head of a conquering army of the dead would be a fine thing indeed for a fellow who’d been run out one step ahead of the Sigmarites. But he knew Nitocris too well to believe any of what she said. ‘Will you all shuck your hides and armour for ladies’ dresses and expensive carriages?’

‘I don’t see why we can’t wear both,’ Yamina said. Her fangs sawed off another chunk of jerky. ‘We’re being followed, you know,’ she added, as she chewed.

‘I saw them, yes,’ Steyr said. A group of skeletal horsemen had been shadowing them most of the day. He assumed they were scouts, sent to keep an eye on them. ‘Given our queen’s fondness for announcing herself and her intentions, I didn’t think it was worth hunting them down. They already know that we’re coming and that our numbers are as the sands themselves.’

Yamina grunted and finished off the jerky. ‘You think too much,’ she said.

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘Best stop then, and start moving. Nitocris will not be pleased if you tarry,’ Yamina said. She stroked his cheek gently, and then, without warning, clawed his face. Steyr hissed in pain and slapped her hand away. She giggled and brought her fingers to her mouth. ‘She’ll do worse, if you don’t get moving,’ she said as she rose to her feet and started back towards her waiting bat. Steyr watched her go, his hand pressed to his torn cheek. He wanted nothing more than to draw his sword and take her head. But that would tip his hand too soon. No, it was best to savour the pain and wait for Octavia to do her part.

‘Be careful, sister, and be quick, for both our sakes,’ he muttered.

In the uppermost chamber at the top of the great ziggurat, Andraste made a peremptory gesture, and the dead men set the heavy sarcophagi down. There were three of them, and they were bound with heavy chains and dripping with muck. Octavia raised an eyebrow. She stood in front of Nitocris’s bier. Sunlight streamed down through the hole set in the roof above. The vampires stayed well away from it, which suited her just fine. ‘And what, pray tell, are you doing with those?’ she said, looking away from her preparations. She had completed the ritual purifications for the casting of the spell, and now all that remained was the spell itself. Andraste, however, didn’t seem in as much of a hurry as she was.

Andraste smiled. She patted the nearest of the sarcophagi and said, ‘You know what they are?’ The other vampires in the chamber murmured amongst themselves. They were all Andraste’s creatures, Octavia knew. She wondered whether Nitocris had left them all here intentionally or whether Andraste had subtly manipulated her queen into doing so.

‘I saw our queen sink them in the river, yes. They are traitors to her glorious cause,’ Octavia said. ‘She bound them and sunk them, so that they might suffer for their temerity. My question wasn’t who but why.’ Not that I require an answer, she thought. It had become obvious that Andraste had been waiting for such an opportunity for some time. Octavia had known what she intended the moment the vampire had organised a retrieval party of zombies and wights to recover the three prisoners from their confinement.

She did not know their names or what they were supposed to have done. Whatever treachery they had attempted had occurred during the expedition that had seen her and her brothers become entangled in Nitocris’s madness. They had been forced screaming into the sarcophagi and sealed away. It had been her first object lesson in what she could expect should she disappoint her new mistress. She gazed at the containers and wondered what sort of shape they’d be in now. Vampires were tenacious. They could survive even the harshest deprivation, but there would be… changes.

Andraste’s smile slipped. ‘Perhaps I missed them. They are my sisters.’ Her lips curled away from her fangs. ‘And who are you to question me?’

Octavia ducked her head and turned away. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ She heard the sarcophagi rattle as if something within them had suddenly awakened. A muted moan rose from one, followed by a hoarse screech from another. Andraste crouched beside them and murmured softly to them. ‘I was merely pointing out that she sealed them away for good reason. And that their confinement may have driven them past madness and into something worse,’ Octavia continued, not looking at either Andraste or the now-rattling sarcophagi.

‘That is my concern. Not yours!’ Andraste growled.

‘Then why bring them up here, where I am engaged in a delicate and dangerous ritual?’ Octavia asked. It had taken hours to prepare the chamber for the ritual. She had had eight slaves butchered on the altar, as painfully as possible, to awaken the necromantic pulse of the ancient stones, and then had the bodies flayed and sacks made from the dripping skin. The sacks hung about the room, and the ghosts of the slaves were anchored to them, so that they might catch the breeze and lend their wails to her chanting when the time came. She had used their blood to daub sigils on the walls, so that the magics she invoked would be trapped in the chamber and thus properly concentrated. The slaves’ meat and muscle she had shucked from their bones and arranged in the required glistening, stinking patterns on the floor. The bones she had used to bolster the altar, after she had carved the proper symbols into them and removed the teeth. Those teeth now occupied a clay bowl on the altar, and would act as the fulcrum upon which she balanced the lever of her sorcery.

‘They require a stronger sustenance than the thin blood of slaves, sustenance which your magics will provide,’ Andraste said. Octavia nodded. That made sense. Vampires could draw strength from the winds of death as easily as they could blood, though they needed both to prosper. Being near a ritual such as the one she was about to cast would reinvigorate whatever sad remnants shuddered in those sarcophagi. But sensible as it was, she knew it wasn’t the whole reason. It was a show of power, a reminder that it was Andraste, not Nitocris, who was now in command here, and that Octavia continued to breathe only at her sufferance. Or so Andraste believed.

‘As you say,’ Octavia said. She let her hand fall to the pommel of her blade. After Nitocris’s departure she had spent a few precious hours ringing her sword about with dark enchantments, so that if she was forced to defend herself, she could. Besides the ghosts that clung to her like a cloak of fog, it was the only weapon she could count on. ‘What is my concern is the spell – it is time to cast it, Andraste. If Nitocris is to have any hope of opening the way to Lahmia, we must chain the souls of Lybaras and now.’

Andraste eyed her for a moment. Octavia wondered if she would be so foolish as to refuse. Then, Andraste barked an order to one of the other vampires, who stepped forwards, bearing a cloth-wrapped bundle.

Octavia gestured for the vampire to set the sword down on the bier, atop the rag of flayed flesh. The flesh, which Octavia had excised from the body of a bandit dangling from an Estalian gallows, had been tattooed with certain signs and symbols by a necromancer of her acquaintance. He had shown her the proper ritual preparations for the spell she was preparing to cast, in return for her aid in summoning the spectre of a long-dead king.

The vampire hesitated, and looked at Andraste. Octavia glanced at the latter. Andraste motioned sharply and the vampire placed the sword where Octavia had indicated. ‘This would go more swiftly if you weren’t lurking over my shoulder,’ she said as she placed a severed hand at each corner of the bier. The fingers of each hand had been made into candles, with wicks made from human hair stuffed into the deep cuts she had made on each fingertip. Each hand had belonged to a traitor, whether personal or political. It had taken her months to gather them from the corpses of executed men. Luckily, the Tileans had a broad interpretation of what constituted treachery.

‘If you were trustworthy, my presence would not be required,’ Andraste hissed. And if you were trustworthy, you would be by your mistress’s side and not stuck guarding me, Octavia thought as she drew the sword from its crumbling sheath and ran a thumbnail across the age-pitted surface of the blade. The blood of its last victim had never been cleaned from it, and dark splotches stained the metal. She could practically taste the power there, though there was nothing unusual or inherently mystical about either the blade or the long-since dried blood. Once, those stains had been no more than what they appeared to be. Now, however, they were something more potent. So potent, in fact, that she could sense nothing from them.

Then, what if that was the case? It was a small doubt – a creeping maggot of uncertainty that refused to be squashed. What if the blade was exactly what it appeared to be, and was nothing more than a rusty old relic? What if Nitocris was wrong?

Then the spell will not work, and she will be destroyed regardless, she thought. ‘Have you ever stopped to consider that it is not I whose loyalty is in question?’ she said. She didn’t look at Andraste. She didn’t have to. She could feel the vampire’s rage through the threads of dark magic that invisibly pierced the air between them. The sarcophagi shuddered and something within one of them gave a croaking shriek. She set a trio of canopic jars on the bier, and opened each one. She reached into the first and withdrew a pinch of dust made from the powdered bones of a jackal.

‘You are only loyal to yourself,’ Andraste growled. ‘You know no higher cause.’

‘If you think that, then you are stupid as well as treacherous,’ Octavia said breezily. She scattered the powdered bone across the sword’s blade. The granules sizzled where they struck the metal. Behind her, Andraste snarled and took a step forwards. Octavia tensed.

Her brother was right. She could smell the ambition bleeding off Andraste like sweat. The vampire had a hundred different plans brewing away in her brain, and ambition dripped from her every word. Nitocris had been wise in choosing who would remain behind. Only a dozen vampires had been left, including Andraste. Of those dozen, five were loyal to her. The other six were, if not loyal to Andraste, certainly not entirely loyal to Nitocris. They were the waverers and plotters, and likely the reason Andraste had decided to dig up those who’d been buried. In the days that had followed the army’s departure, the vampires had begun to plot and scheme against one another in an almost playful fashion. Discipline, fairly tenuous when Nitocris was present, had vanished entirely. Andraste maintained order through savagery and cunning, but she lacked her mistress’s ability to inspire.

They’d be easy to pick off, one by one, for that reason. They didn’t dare touch her, thanks to the cloud of spirits that accompanied her wherever she went now. She wasn’t entirely certain how effective the ghosts would be against vampires, but as long as the latter shared her uncertainty, they had a stalemate.

Her ghosts hovered protectively about her, bound to her by chains of love and devotion. Andraste curled her nose at them and backed away. Octavia knew she wouldn’t make her move until the spell had been cast. Then the vampire would strike, seeking to claim the blade and mastery of Lybaras, for herself.

And then I will burn you to ash and your sisters with you, and take what remains of the dead here and go to meet my brother, if he survives, she thought. Or, conversely, she would die, and horribly, beneath the vampire’s fangs. Her hand found the amulet shaped like a woman’s mouth.

Fiducci had taught her that the souls of those who dabbled in the dark arts were stronger than those of ordinary folk. They were like strange moths, trapped in a chrysalis shell of meat and bone, awaiting the cessation of breath to be free. Some were not strong enough to survive the transformation, while others became mad souls, and dangerous to everything around them, living or dead. She clutched the amulet so tightly that it bit into her palm. She wondered what she would become. Whatever it was, it would be glorious – a thing of death, and beauty, if and when it happened.

From somewhere outside, a vampire screamed, interrupting her reverie. It was not a cry of pain, but one of warning. Andraste whipped around, her lips skinning back from her fangs. She gestured to the others. ‘See what’s going on.’

She looked at Octavia as the others raced from the chamber. ‘And you – finish what you’ve started, witch. I’ll see to it that we’re not disturbed.’

‘Of course,’ Octavia said. She opened the second jar, and retrieved a pinch of dust, culled from a certain barrow in the Worlds Edge Mountains. She scattered it across the blade. Thin plumes of foul-smelling smoke rose from the sword. She felt Andraste draw close. The vampire circled her and the bier, not quite drawing close to the circle of sunlight that marked the bier. From outside, she could hear the clangour of weapons. It sounded as if they were under attack. How convenient, she thought, forcing herself not to smile. How unexpected.

She had seen the intruders through the eyes of the dead stationed in the outer plazas, and later, through the eyes of her cats, who’d been patrolling the ruins of the outer walls. The cats had attacked, and she’d made no effort to stop them, or to alert Andraste, not realising what was going on until it was too late. If she’d been quicker of mind, she’d have had her beasts retreat and merely watch. The intruders, whether they were treasure hunters, adventurers or luckless wanderers, were no threat to her, and she had hoped they might provide her with a necessary distraction. Which, it seemed, they were doing.

With a thumbnail, she cut open her palm and squeezed her blood into the bowl of teeth. They immediately began to hop and rattle against one another. She took them out and scattered them about her. They continued to twitch and move wherever they landed. Each tooth was like a tent spike, drawing the skin of her power tight over the room.

Necromancy, more so than any other magic, had a tendency to leak away from its caster. The dead were hungry in more ways than one, and they required more and more energy to bolster them up, the longer they were active. They were sumps of dark power, absorbing it and basking in it, and demanding more. That was why most necromancers raised the newly dead at every available opportunity, such fresh corpses requiring less in the way of effort. After a time, it grew exhausting, unless you had a way of strengthening yourself.

Some necromancers ate ghosts, swallowing the souls of their victims to strengthen their own. Others drew strength like a leech from the dead, though they became less human in the doing so. For herself, she’d found the best way was not to take from the dead, but to give. Every dead thing she had summoned had some part of her in it, nestled like a seed. A bit of life force, that grew in the dark soil of every rotting husk or whimpering spirit.

It had weakened her and dangerously so, but she did not fear death, the way many of her peers did. Out in the plaza, the dead waited, and she could feel the seeds she had planted in them flowering. With a single gesture, she awoke that which she had given, now grown fat on the stuff of death. Energy flooded her, and she swayed on her feet, momentarily drunk with the delicious darkling essence of it all. She was connected to every corpse, skeleton and spirit left in the ruin, each one feeding from her and returning what they took in a pulsing loop of power. For a moment, all were one.

The moment passed. Preparations complete, she laid her hands flat on the blade and began to speak the words of the spell. Around her, the forms of the ghosts wavered, like mist caught in a morning breeze. The invocation thundered in her mind, though her voice was soft. The sword blade grew warm beneath her palms, and then deadly cold.

It was the single greatest feat of necromancy she had ever attempted. Once it was done, every dead thing in Lybaras would bend knee to her, and the path to cursed Lahmia and the knowledge she sought would be open.

CHAPTER 19

Felix followed Gotrek through the archway, and into the chamber. It was mostly dark, but a column of weak sunlight issued down through a hole set in the centre of the roof. His eyes were drawn immediately to the red-headed woman standing beneath the hole, before a stone bier. She was dressed in filthy clothes, and as she turned, he started. Her face had been tattooed to resemble a skull. She smiled as she saw them, but did not cease chanting.

The words thrummed on the air, like the peal of a hammer-stroke. Three large sarcophagi rattled and shook nearby, and Felix hoped not to see what was trapped screaming within them. The sunlight was already fading, and the chamber grew darker with every passing moment.

‘Necromancy,’ Gotrek spat. Felix didn’t bother asking how the Slayer knew that. He recognised it easily enough himself. Only death-magic resonated on the air so sourly. It made his bones throb and his teeth ache. Past the woman, Felix saw a sword on the bier. It was a small thing, but he knew what it must be. Why else would it be where it was, after all?

‘Gotrek, there – the sword,’ Felix said.

‘Aye, manling, I see it,’ Gotrek growled. ‘One side, woman,’ the Slayer continued, starting forwards, murder glinting in his good eye.

The necromancer gestured, as if in welcome. Overhead, the steady thud-thud-thud of the drumbeat abruptly ceased. Gotrek bounded forwards, axe raised. A number of heavy bodies tumbled through the hole in the roof. Felix realised why the zombie drummers had ceased their rhythm. They fell onto the Slayer, eliciting a bellow of anger from Gotrek. Flabby hands grabbed the dwarf and tossed him across the chamber. The bloated corpses slipped and slumped towards Gotrek as he bounced to his feet.

Felix started towards the woman, Karaghul in his hands. The templar blade had, in the past, provided some amount of protection against sorcery. He hoped that still held true. The necromancer, however, seemed unconcerned by his approach. She stood relaxed, fingers tapping the pommel of her sheathed blade. Abruptly, Felix realised his mistake. Instincts screaming a warning, he spun on his heel, blade licking up to block the blow that would have split his skull otherwise. He was nearly knocked from his feet by the force of the blow. ‘Oh, very nearly, Andraste,’ the necromancer said, her tone mocking.

‘Silence, witch,’ Felix’s attacker snarled. The vampire was tall, and clad in leather armour and a cloak of feathers and scales that flared around her as she moved. He lashed out at her, driving her back. She rocked back on her heels and began to circle him. ‘Finish killing that creature, Octavia, while I dispose of the man,’ Andraste hissed, motioning towards Gotrek. She sprinted towards Felix and slashed at him with vicious speed. He blocked the slash, and his wrists and arms ached from the force of the blow. His heels skidded on the floor as he blocked her second blow. The necromancer turned towards the battle between her zombies and Gotrek.

She pursued him, giving him no chance to recover or counter her. She wasn’t as good with a blade as he was, but like Steyr, she was stronger and faster, and that more than made up for her lack of skill. She hammered him back towards the entrance, her blade drawing sparks from Karaghul. Felix caught a blow and stepped towards her, trying to drive her back. His shoulder thumped her chest, and she stumbled and lashed out at him, unhurt but angry. Felix leapt back, and Andraste followed. But then she paused and stepped back. ‘Enough of this,’ she spat. She turned towards the three sarcophagi. ‘I shall free my sisters, and let you be their first taste of blood.’

As she turned her back, Octavia spun away from Gotrek, and a wave of crackling, ebony energy leapt from her extended hand. It struck Andraste in the centre of the back, and black, wailing flames enveloped the vampire. Andraste shrieked and staggered. The black flames swirled about her, reducing her to a vaguely human-shaped torch as she crawled towards the sarcophagi. Felix backed away in shock as the vampire sank to her knees and crumbled, burning and shedding clumps of ash.

The necromancer smiled and nodded to Felix. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘What?’ Felix said. Confusion made him hesitate. He’d thought for a moment that she’d been aiming for him, and hit the vampire by mistake.

‘She had outlived her usefulness. As have you, I fear,’ Octavia said. The hovering spirits started towards Felix at her gesture. He struck at them, and they recoiled from Karaghul’s bite. The blade was enchanted, after a fashion, and a holy weapon besides, having belonged to a templar order. The spectres wanted no part of it. They swirled about him, like circling sharks and Felix backed away. Gotrek was still battling the drummers, and was in no position to come to his aid. ‘You’re the one Sigmund mentioned, aren’t you?’ Octavia said. She drew her sword and padded after him. The spirit host whirled about her, as if she were the eye of a storm. ‘The red cloak,’ she said. ‘You don’t see cloaks like that, much. He said you were a poet.’

Felix didn’t waste his breath on a reply. The ghosts boiled through one another like bubbling water as they swarmed about him, herding him out of the chamber. He cut and thrust, carving wisps of chill mist from their ethereal forms as he muttered out a stream of prayers to any gods he thought might be listening. The ghosts moaned and screamed and chattered, pounding his ears with black noise. He was forced back out into the open air and the ghostly shapes spilled after him. More swept down from above, and he felt the chill clutch of spectral fingers on his hair and hands. He whirled, trying to drive them off. Octavia pierced the phantasmal fog, her sword held extended before her. Felix jerked back at the last moment, and the blade glided across his shoulder, the metal shrieking as it gnawed at his chain shirt.

The force of the unexpected blow knocked him from his feet, and he fell. He struck the stairs and rolled down them. Karaghul slid out of reach as he came to a stop on the next level down, his body aching. He shoved himself to his hands and knees. Octavia descended. ‘You have a few moments left – would you like to serve me? My brother would not have asked, but I do not force the dead to do my bidding,’ she said as she approached him.

‘Would you like to be my troubadour, poet? I will leave you enough of yourself to write such works as you can only dream of. You will sing a song of death for me, so that the living will know not to fear my coming, but instead welcome me as they should.’

Felix coughed and tried to get to his feet. Octavia set her foot against his head and gave a gentle shove. Off balance, Felix slid off the plateau and tumbled down the next level of stairs. She followed at a leisurely pace, then paused just out of reach as he lay sprawled on the stairs, trying to pull air into his abused lungs. ‘You’re mad,’ he wheezed.

‘No more than anyone else,’ she said. ‘Look at them.’ She indicated the slaves, who were fighting against their former captors. ‘They fight without hope. Death is the only safe harbour left to them, but they refuse to enter it.’ She shook her head. ‘I offer them safety, purpose, love, and they struggle like beasts in a trap. The meat makes beasts of us all, poet,’ she said, looking at him. ‘Life makes monsters of us. Only in death can we find freedom from the tyranny of pain.’

Felix stared up at her. He had faced madmen and women before – the world was full of madness. But there was an earnest appeal in the necromancer’s quiet voice that was more disturbing than the cries of any frothing lunatic. In her eyes burned the light of true belief, of hope, and he felt a stab of pity for her. Then pity was washed aside by necessity and he scrambled to his feet. She stepped back and raised her blade. The ghosts crowded closer, so thickly he could see nothing else but the silently screaming faces that clustered about him. ‘You dropped your sword,’ she said, stepping through them as if they were no more substantial than a morning mist. The tip of her sword touched his neck. ‘Let them take you, poet. It will be kinder than the sword. There will be no pain, only a slight chill. Join them, and I will give you an eternity upon which to inscribe your words.’ She smiled gently, and on her tattooed face the expression was ghastly. ‘I will love you as my brother,’ she said. ‘Please – death is my gift. Let me give it to you.’

‘Manling,’ Gotrek bellowed, from somewhere above. Octavia turned, her eyes widening, and Felix saw the Slayer charging down towards them, his axe in one hand and Khalida’s sword in the other. Gotrek leapt, springing straight up into the air, his axe raised. As his feet left the stone, he sent the sword spinning through the air towards Felix and the necromancer. Octavia whirled aside and Felix stretched out a hand and caught the hilt of the sword as it spun past her. She rose up over him as he turned, her blade slashing towards his head. He blocked the blow, and then Gotrek’s axe flashed down, chopping through her extended wrists as the Slayer landed.

Octavia stepped back, a curious expression on her face. She held up her wrists, and her eyes widened as they took in the ragged stumps and the blood that bubbled from them. Then she crumpled and fell back into the swirling cloud of spirits. The ghosts howled in seeming agony as they spun about the necromancer’s form and bore her aloft. Every ghost flew to join the growing cloud, and soon the necromancer’s form was completely obscured by the sheer number of phantoms curled about her, like hounds comforting their dying master. Then, with a vast, communal sigh, the ghosts retreated, allowing her body to tumble down the stairs. Her hair had become wispy and white, and her body was shrunken, as if all of the life had been drained from it. Something very much like black smoke boiled from her eyes and mouth and wrist stumps, and rose into the air, where the ghosts clustered together about this new dark core. The smoke billowed and pulsed as the spirit host spun about it, as if in celebration. Felix tore his eyes away from the sight and looked down into the plaza below.

Even as the necromancer was swallowed up in the cloud of spirits a number of zombies stumbled and fell like puppets with their strings cut. Wights staggered, the hell-light in their eye sockets flickering and dimming. The remaining vampires looked about in shock as the slaves redoubled their efforts.

It was only a temporary reprieve, for several of the vampires gestured and spat black words in an effort to keep the dead from crumbling back into oblivion. There were only a few of the creatures left, but even one was too many. But more slaves had been freed from their pits, and now there were almost a hundred men and women fighting the dead in the plaza. As Felix watched, one of the remaining vampires was tackled by a group of emaciated slaves, and had a length of broken wood shoved through her heart.

‘Let’s get down there, manling,’ Gotrek said. He eyed the cloud of ghosts warily.

‘And then what?’ Felix asked, as he recovered Karaghul. Ghosts streaked across the sky, joining the host. The blackness within them had assumed an almost humanoid shape, and he felt the water in his body turn to ice as he gazed at it. Something was happening there, and whatever it was, it was terrifying.

Gotrek turned to glare at Felix. ‘Did you forget that army, manling? Allow me to refresh your memory – it’s between us and Lybaras,’ he said. ‘And you’re still under a death sentence.’

‘What about them?’ Felix said, gesturing at the nearest knot of slaves.

‘What about them,’ Gotrek said, starting down the ziggurat’s steps. ‘They are fighting for their freedom. We gave them what aid we could. The rest is up to them. We have an army to catch, and a bracelet to remove.’

‘Barbarian, do you have it?’ Zabbai called out, as they descended. Felix held up the Nehekharan blade in reply. Zabbai was alone, her armour rent and torn, and her axe nicked and notched from much use. Felix couldn’t see any sign of her warriors. It appeared that Antar was the only other member of their group on his feet. Antar was across the plaza from Zabbai and Felix, and as he watched, the tomb-prince smashed a wight to the ground, and exhorted a group of slaves to destroy another undead warrior.

‘It is time to depart,’ Zabbai said. She cast a glance up at the phantasmal cloud growing above the ziggurat as she pulled out the feathered amulet that Djubti had given her, just before they’d left Lybaras, and, with a great, rattling cry, she smashed it down on the ground. The amulet exploded, and what looked like sand spilled out across the ground. The sand stirred and rose, as if caught in a strong breeze. It spiralled up, and expanded, until a whirlwind of sand was spinning in the spot where the amulet had fallen.

Then, with a hoarse, croaking cry, a huge shape exploded from the sand and shot upwards with a snap of colossal pinions. It curved through the air with ill grace, and every wingbeat assaulted Felix’s nostrils with the stink of rotting meat and battlefield leavings. Zabbai raised her axe and cried out, ‘Come, O child of Ualatp! Come and bear your servants into the sky, so that we might strike our enemies!’

At her cry, the massive, rotting hulk of the creature dropped down into the plaza accompanied by a thunderous gust of wind from its broad wings. Zombies tumbled from their feet, and a vampire screeched as it was flattened beneath one of the beast’s talons. The creature’s head dipped, swiftly and suddenly, and the vampire’s cries ceased. Zabbai grabbed Felix, who stared at the sorcerously summoned beast, awestruck.

The bird resembled one of the black desert vultures that prowled the skies of the Great Desert, albeit far, far larger. Putrefied ropes of muscle and meat hung from its bloated frame, and it shed feathers with every twitch. A razor-sharp beak stripped the pale flesh from the vampire’s bones, and the long, bald neck bulged and rippled as the bird swallowed its meal. Bits of vampire flopped pathetically from the bird’s gaping belly, to drop sizzling to the sun-washed stones.

‘Time to go,’ Zabbai said. ‘The beast won’t remain docile for long, and we’d best be on its back before it decides to leave.’ She hurried towards the bird, Felix in tow.

‘You call that docile?’ Felix said as the bird’s hooked beak pierced the vampire’s skull and its thick, worm-like tongue probed the crack. He turned and shouted, ‘Gotrek, come on!’ Above, he saw that the attentions of the ghosts were beginning to drift away from the blackness in their midst, and instead fall upon the struggle below. There was a terrible hunger writ on those spectral faces, and Felix felt his stomach knot in fear. He suddenly wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

Gotrek decapitated a wight and looked at the avian abomination with disgust. ‘I’ll not get on that hunk of rotten meat,’ the Slayer said. Zombies staggered towards him, moaning. The Slayer bobbed around a flailing hand and split the offending corpse pate to groin. ‘I’ll walk out of here under my own power or not at all.’

‘Fine,’ Zabbai said, ‘Stay here and miss all of the actual fighting.’

Bile rose in Felix’s throat as he clawed his way up behind Zabbai. He could feel maggots and scarabs moving beneath the bird’s flesh. The bird shifted and gave a petulant squawk. He looked towards the ziggurat. The cloud of ghosts was dispersing, like the shell of a chrysalis peeling back, and the air had the odour he associated with a plague-pit. Felix’s skin crawled, and he blinked as the air seemed to squirm with half-seen shapes.

‘What?’ Gotrek snapped.

‘The army, remember?’ Felix said before Zabbai could, and was rewarded with the glint of comprehension in the Slayer’s good eye. Satisfied that Gotrek was coming, Felix looked for Antar. He saw the tomb-prince across the plaza, standing surrounded by heaps of the newly re-dead. Antar’s skills hadn’t been all bluster apparently, and Felix wondered whether he and Gotrek hadn’t got lucky the first time they’d fought the tomb-prince.

Antar had snatched up a bow and quiver from the shattered remnants of Zabbai’s warriors. A moment later, he sent an arrow smashing into a charging vampire’s chest. The creature shrieked as the force of the blow sent her flying backwards into one of the pits. The tomb-prince fired again and again, emptying the quiver with inhuman rapidity and felling wights and zombies with every shot.

He tossed the bow and quiver aside once he’d emptied the latter, and drew his khopesh and flail. Then, without hesitation, the tomb-prince of Mahrak charged the closest of his enemies, bellowing at the top of his nonexistent lungs. Two vampires closed in on him, and soon all three were engaged in a battle of lightning-quick lunges and thrusts. Beyond him, Felix saw a knot of slaves struggling to hurl a wight into one of the pits.

‘We can’t just leave them,’ Felix said. He felt sick. His previous urgency was undercut by a stab of guilt. He knew with all certainty that there was nothing to be done, unless he was tired of living. He looked at the bracelet on his arm. It was a convenient excuse for cowardice. The thought roiled in his gut like a slug of sour ale. He knew he was no hero, and that his courage could be called faltering at best. But there were certain things he had never done, and would never do.

The carrion began to rise into the air, scattering zombies and slaves alike. The latter were already beginning to retreat, taking advantage of the distraction provided by the carrion. Those who could had fled the plaza, scattering into the ruin. But there were too many left behind, and too many still in the pits. They needed time, to free those who remained and to break away from their captors. Time that Felix and the others could give them, but only at cost to themselves and their mission.

‘If you want to live to fulfil your oath to me, manling, we must,’ Gotrek said as he clambered up behind him. Felix looked at him, and then at the slaves still fighting. As he watched, a clump of zombies mobbed a man and brought him down, biting and tearing at him. The man’s screams tore at his heart, as did the pleading cries of those people still caged in their pits, and in that moment Felix knew that he had no choice. He had never had a choice, in fact, not since he had first joined the Mock-Beggars while at the University in Altdorf and penned his first political tract. Gotrek saw the look on his face and grabbed his arm. ‘There’s nothing to be done, manling. We have given them a chance. That is all Grimnir allows any of us – a chance, and an axe to use in making the most of it.’

Felix hesitated. It had been one thing when it was just his life in danger. But this was something else. He would not – could not – leave these people behind. Even if it cost him his own life, he couldn’t do it. All thoughts of flight, of Lybaras, of survival vanished, replaced by determination. ‘I don’t worship Grimnir. Here,’ he snapped, shoving the sword into Gotrek’s hands. Then, before he could stop himself, and before the Slayer could grab him again, he’d dropped from the carrion’s back. It rose above him, the shadow of its wings blotting out the sun, and, for a moment, blocking his view of the spirit host gathering over the ziggurat. He had his blade out of its sheath the moment his boots touched the ground, and a zombie’s head went flying. From above him, he heard Gotrek’s sulphurous cursing.

He kicked aside a corpse and hauled a wounded man to his feet. Felix flailed towards the jungle. ‘Go,’ he shouted. He doubted the man understood Reikspiel, but he hoped his intent was clear. He hurled himself into the melee, his blade rising and falling. ‘Retreat, fall back – run, you bastards! Go!’ he screamed. His sword slashed out, spilling a corpse’s rotting guts across the stones of the plaza.

He fought his way through the press towards the closest of the pits, where a gang of slaves was trying to pull up a final cage. Felix intercepted a wight who was moving to stop them. He bowled the dead man over and set his heel on the latter’s head to hold him pinned. Overhead, more spirits were beginning to drift down, away from the great roiling mass of ghosts that clustered about the black kernel. The air throbbed like a sore tooth, and Felix felt an itch on his skin that could only be explained by the presence of necromancy. The wight clawed at his leg, and Felix sank Karaghul through the dead man’s skull. A ghost swept down and enveloped a number of freed slaves in its tattered arms, its shape billowing and expanding to engulf them. Their already withered forms shrunk even further as they collapsed and died, their lives snuffed out by the spectre. More ghosts joined the first, like crows flocking to a carrion feast.

Felix became more frantic in his attempts to get the slaves to retreat. There was no way that they could defend themselves against the spirits. He shouted, cajoled and pleaded. Some listened, but not many. They fought on, grimly determined to pay back their enslavers or to free those of their fellows who were still imprisoned. Felix cursed their bravery, even as admiration for their efforts filled him. Admiration curdled into fear as a flood of howling spirits crashed down from above, something black and terrible leading them.

Felix’s eyes widened as he recognised the necromancer, or what was left of her. Her vaporous form was swathed in flimsy shrouds of shadow, and lit by a corona of flickering ghost-lights that danced and spun about her. Her tattooed visage had become shrunken and even more skull-like, and her crimson hair framed her head like a nest of writhing serpents. She held her scimitar in one pale, luminous-fleshed hand. Eyes as black as the deepest caverns met his and Felix froze, unable to move. He knew what she had become, even if he couldn’t say how, or why.

He’d faced such creatures before, when he and Gotrek had travelled across the Grey Mountains to Bretonnia, and the Slayer had insisted on hunting for the monster known as the Red Duke. They’d found the Red Duke readily enough, but the vampire had escaped the bite of Gotrek’s axe, and Felix and the Slayer had been trapped in a grail shrine for a week by a legion of the undead, including the screaming spectres that the Bretonnians called wailing hags, but Felix knew as tomb banshees. Octavia’s mouth sagged open, and a scream burst forth.

All around Felix, slaves toppled over, eyes bulging with fright, and blood trickling from their ears and noses. Zombies, immune to the mind-wrenching shriek of the newborn tomb banshee, tore at those who survived. Felix staggered as the scream washed over him. The sound was one of mingled sadness and fury, a lifetime’s thwarted ambition and obsession that smashed into him like a hammer blow. His heart stuttered in his chest, but he remained standing. Memories, tattered rags of past failures, fluttered around his mind’s eye as a pall of melancholy settled over him.

As the banshee swept towards him, followed by her ghostly retainers, Felix raised Karaghul. Her scimitar snapped out, and he parried the blow. The banshee hurtled past him, and the spirit host enveloped him, tearing at him with impossibly cold hands. Felix lashed out wildly, driving them away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the battle was turning against the freed slaves. The ghosts rolled over them like a malevolent fog bank, and those not struck dead by the banshee’s wail died in the chill clutches of the spirits. The cries from the pits were silenced, and the remaining vampires began to pad towards Felix.

Felix looked around. He was the sole living man left in the plaza. Despite his best efforts, he had failed. The thought was like a knife in his heart, and he wanted to scream curses at the dead things that circled him like predators in the twilight. The banshee screamed again, and barbs of futility hooked themselves into his courage, and began to strip hope from him, one agonising inch at a time. In that moment, he was back in Blutdorf, with the bodies of twisted and tortured children at his feet, and the laughter of the self-styled Mutant-Master ringing in his ears; he was in Praag, watching as the servants of Chaos rampaged through the city; he was in Sylvania, watching as Ulrika, red-eyed and fanged, left with her new mistress. Every dragon slain, every warlord dead, by his hand or Gotrek’s could not outweigh the losses that came with every victory.

He had once thought that some force guided him and Gotrek, some great intelligence, acting in opposition to Chaos. He knew now, after so many years, so many losses, that such imaginings had been nothing more than a young man’s fancy. They were alone in the dark with the beasts beyond the firelight. And the beasts were hungry. The banshee wailed and the zombies moaned, and the ghosts howled and the vampires hissed, and the dead closed in on the last living man, offering up the final gift. He recalled Octavia’s words, her offer of death – kinder than the sword, she’d said. ‘You call this kind?’ he snarled up at the hovering banshee. ‘This isn’t a gift, it’s theft!’ he shouted, chopping through a ghost that drew too close.

The banshee screamed again, and in that scream were not the failures of the past, but those of the future. He saw Gotrek dead, his body trampled beneath the feet of a victorious enemy. He saw a looming snarl, studded with fangs, and felt the blow that would prevent him from recording the Slayer’s final fate. He saw mountains fall and cities burn, and knew that there was no epic battle waiting for them at the climax of their tale, for he and Gotrek were not heroes out of an epic from the days of Sigmar. They would die amidst death, lost in a tide of fate, and all that they had accomplished, all that they had done, would be forgotten. There was no victory, no glorious doom. Just a doom, a cessation, a death – one amongst many – and his words, his scribbling, would be so much ash. He staggered, head swimming. ‘No,’ he groaned.

The banshee drifted around him. She wailed again. ‘No,’ Felix said. He blinked bloody tears out of his eyes. He knew he’d made mistakes, he knew that all he’d written would be forgotten – all stories were – but he’d come too far, done too much to give up. He’d fight until his last breath left him, until he saw the Slayer fall, and if he followed him to whatever hell awaited Slayers and their Rememberers, then that was the way of it. The banshee flew past him, her screams clawing at his ears and her ghost-lights stinging his eyes.

‘Fine then,’ Felix hissed, turning. ‘Fine!’ He chopped into a zombie that was reaching for him, felling the corpse with one blow. ‘You want death? I’ll give you death!’ He jerked the blade free and sent it hammering into another dead man, splitting his skull lips to spine. ‘Form an orderly queue and wait your turn.’ He struck a zombie with his shoulder and sent the corpse stumbling. He beheaded it with a two-handed blow. ‘One sword, no waiting!’ he snarled. He drove his fist into a cadaver’s ruined face, and as it reeled, he swept off the top of its head with his sword. ‘If you want it so badly, come and take it,’ he shouted.

The banshee rose and turned, angling back towards him with all of the lethal grace of a shark. Her mouth sagged open, impossibly wide, and she raised her scimitar. Felix raised his blade to meet her, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to fend her off for much longer. Hands seized him. He struggled, until he heard Antar’s voice. ‘You are brave, fleshy one, and Antar commends you your dedication. But this is not your place.’

Felix looked over his shoulder at the tomb-prince. Antar’s finery and armour was torn and ragged from battle, and his khopesh was broken. His face mask had been lost and the bare, grinning skull beneath exposed, its eye sockets glowing. The tomb-prince had fought his way across the plaza to reach Felix’s side. ‘Some of them made it out,’ Antar said, hefting Felix by his chain shirt. ‘You bought them time, and now Antar shall return the favour in his own inimitable fashion, for the death of an honourable man is not pleasing to the Favoured Son of Heaven.’

‘What are you–’ Felix began, as Antar hoisted him up one-handed and then flung him into the air like a rock from a catapult. Felix screamed in surprise as he tumbled upwards. His ascent was halted by the talons of the carrion, which closed about him as it swooped past, and arced upwards over the city.

‘Ha, there you are, manling! Who told you that you could get out of your oath that easily, eh?’ Gotrek’s voice echoed down from above.

‘Are you coming, O Yapping Dog of Mahrak?’ Zabbai called out, from the bird’s back.

‘What? Leave? When there are enemies yet standing?’ Antar shouted up at her, slapping aside a zombie with his broken khopesh. ‘Go! Antar, Majestic Warrior of the Eternal Court, has met his obligation to the queen of Lybaras, and it is his pleasure to hold back the enemy until his mighty heart beats its last or he becomes otherwise bored!’ Antar jabbed his blade up at them in a gesture of farewell. Then, with a croak of laughter, he spun to face his enemies as they encircled him.

Felix’s last glimpse of the tomb-prince was of the banshee and the remaining vampires closing in on him, and Antar awaiting them with regal disdain, his broken sword extended. Then the carrion was winging its way over the city, back towards Lybaras. As Felix hung in the undead bird’s talons, he caught sight of men and women hurrying through the outer tangle of the ruin, making their way to freedom. Antar had been right. Some of them had escaped. Felix sagged, the tension draining from him.

Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing after all. Despite this thought, the images the banshee had forced into his mind clung to the underside of his thoughts tenaciously. Death and damnation – was that really what awaited him and Gotrek?

From overhead, he heard Gotrek’s voice. ‘Get this buzzard moving, woman – I have a doom to claim!’

CHAPTER 20

‘Your buzzard is coming apart at the pinfeathers, woman,’ Gotrek said, some time later. He lifted up a hand to let the loose sand and rotting feathers be caught by the wind. ‘Typical shoddy human craftsmanship,’ the dwarf grunted.

‘It’s a magic zombie bird, Gotrek,’ Felix said. The Slayer had been even more curt than usual since he’d hauled Felix up onto the bird’s back out of its talons. Whether he was angry because Felix had nearly got himself killed, or because Zabbai had prevented him from joining Felix in his suicidal attempt to save the slaves, Felix couldn’t tell.

‘Typical shoddy human sorcery, then,’ Gotrek said.

‘The spell only lasts so long – enough to get us close, but not to the city itself. When Ptra’s sun-barge sets sail the spell will unravel, and we had best have landed by then,’ Zabbai said. The carrion’s powerful wings beat against the air, and the undead vulture squawked in what Felix suspected was either agreement or frustration, perhaps both. The night was fast fading, and the bird was losing altitude. He could feel its bones grind and shift beneath him, and a trail of dust and sand marked the air behind it. It was coming apart, and he felt a queasy tingle in the pit of his stomach as he considered what might happen should it continue before they could land.

They’d ridden the bird for almost a day and a night, and covered more ground than Felix thought possible. The dead truly did travel fast. They’d left the jungle behind swiftly enough, but there was a trackless expanse of desert between them and Lybaras. The thought was a gloomy one, especially given how their numbers had shrunk since they’d set out. Felix thought of Antar, wielding his khopesh against the numberless dead. Antar had made a rapid transition from enemy to ally over their short journey. Then, for a being that regarded war as a game, perhaps it wasn’t as strange as all that. He almost missed the bellicose tomb-prince.

‘These birds used to descend in flocks of such size that they would blot out the sun, and provide us shade to fight beneath,’ Zabbai said. ‘It was said that they served Ualatp, god of scavengers, and took the souls of newly slain warriors into the sky to fight endless battles against the daemons that prowled there.’

‘This Ualatp sounds quite practical, for a human god,’ Gotrek said.

‘That’s not quite the word I’d use,’ Felix said. He felt slightly sick, and not just from the bird’s charnel stink. He’d never been the best with heights, though he found himself forced to deal with them often enough. But riding on the back of an overgrown zombie buzzard was a far cry from a dwarf gyrocopter or an airship.

He flexed his hand. The serpent bracelet felt heavy on his wrist and forearm. He hoped it was only his imagination, but he thought he felt the golden coils drawing tight about his wrist. There was only a day left before its fangs sank into his flesh. He rubbed it, and wondered what it would feel like, if worse came to worst. He’d been poisoned before. More than once, in fact; one of the hazards of being Gotrek’s constant companion was that the inevitable attempts to murder the Slayer sometimes spilled over onto him. The incident in Tobaro with the swarm of blow-gun wielding, black-clad skaven came to mind. Felix shuddered. That night had been unpleasant all round. He pushed aside his most persistent memory of that night – Gotrek battling that lanky skaven that had called itself ‘Deathmaster’ on the roof of the temple of Handrich in the pouring rain – and tried to concentrate on more immediate matters.

Felix looked down at the sword he held. It wasn’t very big, compared to Karaghul, but it was deadly enough looking, in its way. It was short and slim, leaf-shaped and still sharp, despite the centuries that had passed since it had last seen use. It was not well-balanced, and he had the impression that it was more a ceremonial blade than one intended for use in battle. There was a dark stain on the blade that looked wet when the sword was angled just right. He wondered whose blood it was, and why it was important to Khalida. What use could a dead woman have for such an old blade? For that matter, what spell had the necromancer been attempting to cast using it?

‘It’s a child’s toy,’ Gotrek rumbled, interrupting his train of thought. He examined the blade over Felix’s shoulder. ‘All that effort for something even the youngest beardling would turn their nose up at.’

‘Child’s toy or not, I’d say they want it back,’ Felix said. ‘Look!’ He pointed with the blade. He’d noticed their pursuers only when they’d pierced the clouds and come into the open. Gotrek twisted around, his good eye widening slightly. Then a grin split his face and he chortled like a child offered a sweet.

Behind them, a trio of vampires streaked after them, wings pumping. They were a horrible amalgamation of woman, bat and beast, their undead flesh rippling with constant change. Felix knew that some vampires, though thankfully not many, could alter their forms for brief periods, and that some devolved into bestial shapes from lack of nourishment or simple blood-lust. Which these were, he couldn’t say, nor did it matter; what mattered was that they were closing in, and rapidly, despite the rising sun.

‘Brave, blood-suckers, brave,’ Gotrek bellowed, pushing himself upright on the carrion’s back. He gesticulated with his axe. ‘Come on, then! Hurry to Gotrek! Better my axe than the sun, eh? Come on!’

As the shrieking vampires drew closer, Felix saw that one had a black, shrunken shape clinging to her back. The shape lifted its head. A single eye, blazing crimson, glared at them. Felix started as he recognised the vampire that the necromancer had set ablaze – or, rather, what was left of her. ‘Gotrek,’ he began, ‘is that–’

‘Aye,’ Gotrek said. ‘They’re tough, these witches. You can have her if you like, manling. Not much left of her anyway.’

Felix ignored Gotrek and bent towards Zabbai. ‘Can we outrun them?’

‘No,’ Zabbai said. A moment later, Felix saw that she was right. Two of the bat-winged vampires swooped past the carrion, darting around it. The third swept over the carrion, outpacing it. As she passed over them, the burned vampire leapt from her back and onto Felix. The carrion jerked and dipped as the additional weight caused its flight to become erratic. Felix nearly fell as the undead bird flapped its wings, fighting to stay aloft. The vampire’s weight drove him down against the bird’s rotting back. Fangs snapped in a lipless mouth, and her single remaining eye blazed hungrily. She had been burned down to the bone, but somehow, she still lived. Her scorched talons grabbed for the sword. ‘Give it to me,’ Andraste gurgled.

Gotrek’s hand clamped on to the back of her charred skull. ‘That’s the problem with you blood-suckers, you don’t know when to lie down and die,’ the Slayer growled. He tore her off Felix as the carrion was struck from above and below simultaneously by two of the other vampires. The bird shrieked and lost more of itself to the wind. The sun was rising now. The bird spun. Its talons snared one of the vampires. Felix slid from its back, a yell bursting from his lips as the world spun about him. He saw Gotrek and the burned vampire fall past, locked in a death-grip. The Slayer was laughing wildly.

One of the vampires tore through the carrion’s wing in an explosion of dust and rot, her talons spread and her bestial jaws wide. There was nothing human in her features, only an animal hunger too long denied. Felix swept the sword out, raking her across her eyes as she smashed into him. She shrieked, and leathery wings, already smoking from the touch of the rising sun, enfolded him.

Twisting in her grip, Felix interposed his bracelet-wrapped forearm between his throat and her blindly snapping jaws. Fangs broke on the scales of the golden serpent, and Felix snarled a curse as he rammed the ceremonial blade through her heart. The vampire plummeted away from him as they turned in the air. He’d lost sight of Gotrek, and everything else, save for the revolving blur of sky and rapidly approaching ground.

‘Felix, grab my hand!’ Zabbai’s shout pierced his confusion, and he looked around. He saw her swimming through the air towards him, her hand stretched out. He flailed for it instinctively. She hauled him into an embrace. ‘Duck your head, barbarian. Sand isn’t as soft as it looks.’

‘What?’ Felix said, eyes wide.

‘Head down, little man,’ Zabbai said, planting her hand on the crown of his head and pressing his face to her hauberk. ‘And maybe say a little prayer to your primitive gods.’

They struck the ground before Felix could compose so much as a brief prayer. Sand geysered about them, and Zabbai’s bones dug into his flesh as they bounced and rolled and slid to a halt. Zabbai had been right – they hadn’t been far from the ground. Far enough to hurt, though, he thought as her arms flopped away from him and he rolled free. Every muscle ached and his bones felt as if they’d been shaken loose of their joints. A scream made him look up.

The last vampire dived down towards Zabbai, who was pushing herself to her feet. Fire and smoke streamed out from the swiftly moving, loudly howling creature, but whatever pain it was feeling from its ongoing immolation seemed only to add to its determination to tear the head from the Herald of Lybaras. Zabbai, wrappings askew and body shuddering, was in no state to defend herself.

Felix lunged forward, elbowing her aside as he drew Karaghul. He swept the blade from its sheath as the vampire drew close enough that the heat of the flames that now enveloped it singed his hair. The sword passed through the vampire’s neck as it completed its arc, and Felix staggered aside as the headless body smashed into the sands and exploded into burning gobbets of ash.

The carrion had crashed down nearby. The bird had completely come apart, but it had succeeded in taking its prey with it. Even as the carrion returned to the sands it had sprung from, its claws had pierced the heart and skull of the vampire it had caught in its talons. Felix looked for Gotrek. The Slayer had survived worse falls – his drunken attempt to climb the Tower of the Grail in Mousilion came to mind – but he hadn’t been locked in combat with a vampire at the time.

He heard a roar from just over the closest sand dune. Felix scrambled up the slope, and saw Andraste and Gotrek straining against one another. The vampire’s blackened fingers were sunk into Gotrek’s bull-neck, blood welling about them. Gotrek had his hands locked around her head, and ash and char slipped between his fingers. Smoke rose from the vampire as the eye of the sun swept over the desert. Andraste snarled and squirmed in Gotrek’s grip. Flames blossomed on her already burned flesh as the sun rose. One more day, Felix thought, as the vampire became a wailing torch. Her wails were cut short as her head came apart in Gotrek’s hands. The Slayer stepped back as his opponent crumbled to dust and ash. Slapping his palms together to rid them of the greasy char, Gotrek glanced up at Felix. ‘Survived, then, manling? What about the crow-bait?’

‘I still live,’ Zabbai said, placing her hand on Felix’s shoulder. He looked at her. She looked as bad as he felt.

‘That’s debatable,’ Gotrek said, touching the already clotting wounds on his neck.

‘Where are we?’ Felix said, rubbing his wrist. ‘Are we near Lybaras? If the answer’s not yes, I’m going to be unhappy.’

‘We are near Lybaras,’ Zabbai said. ‘Unfortunately, we have landed on the wrong side of that.’ She motioned with her axe. Felix followed the gesture and his eyes widened.

Across the shifting sand dunes rose a line of vast statues, each one almost as large as the ziggurats of the Temple of Skulls, and Felix wondered why he hadn’t noticed them from the air, even occupied by the vampires as he had been. They stretched across the horizon, as far as Felix could see in either direction, and he counted almost thirty of them before he gave up. The towering effigies were covered in gold and gems, and each carried a long, elaborately carved staff in one hand and a pair of huge scales in the other.

The line of gigantic statues stood on the edge of what looked to be an immense crater. A column of dust, which seemed to stretch for miles, rose above the crater, and Felix could dimly make out the creak of bones and the clash of weapons. ‘What is that? Did we land near a battle?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Zabbai said, starting forwards. ‘Ushtep’s Folly, the Crater of the Waking Dead. King Ushtep of Rasetra and King Imanotep of Mahrak met in battle in that crater several centuries ago. They were too evenly matched and in their frustration, they blamed the gods for prolonging their duel. The gods grew angry and cursed them to wage eternal war for their amusement. It is said that they watch the battle through the eyes of the Hierotitans they summoned from the sands, and which now line the crater. This is but the smallest edge. It stretches for miles, and separates Mahrak and Rasetra. We’ll have to cross the rim of the crater if we wish to continue on to Lybaras.’

Gotrek scrubbed at his eye socket with his thumb. ‘We’re still at least two days from your blasted city, on foot and moving fast. The manling won’t make it.’

‘What?’ Felix said.

‘I know.’ Zabbai looked at him. ‘I am sorry, Felix. Djubti’s bird was supposed to carry us to within a day’s march of the city. But the gods have willed otherwise.’

‘What do your gods have against me?’ Felix asked plaintively.

‘Let’s go ask them,’ Gotrek said, starting towards the crater and the statues that loomed above it. Felix watched him go, and then looked at Zabbai, whose head was cocked, as if in thought.

‘He’s right,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘There will be chariots down there, and horses. We will take one.’ She looked at him and clasped his shoulder. ‘We will get to Lybaras before the next sunrise, barbarian. You shall not die, save perhaps in battle – but better battle than the asp’s sting, eh?’ She sprinted after Gotrek. Felix gaped after her for a moment, and then hurried in pursuit, hope lending strength to his flagging limbs.

He was more exhausted than he had been in some time. Aches and pains radiated through his leaden limbs. He was thirsty, but there was no time to take a sip from the depressingly light waterskin slapping against his side. There was no time to fish a bit of pemmican or dried fruit from the pouch on his belt. Not if he wanted to keep up with his companions.

When they reached the line of Hierotitans, they paused. Even Gotrek was somewhat taken aback by the scene taking place in the crater below. Countless thousands of skeletal warriors were locked in combat. The battle-lines swayed across the vast crater, as hundreds of chariots smashed into one another, and ushabti duelled with each other. As they watched, a chariot ploughed through a unit of skeletal spearmen, crushing them beneath its heavy wheels. The broken warriors lay still for a moment. Then a creeping haze of purple light enveloped them. Broken bones mended and bent or shattered weapons repaired themselves, and the skeletons staggered upright, ready to resume battle. The same scene was repeated across the expanse of the crater. Warriors fought, fell, and rose to fight again with barely a moment inbetween.

‘This battle will never end,’ Zabbai said. She raised a hand to indicate the statues. ‘So long as the gods watch, and remain entertained, the battles continue. Both Ushtep and Imanotep have sent messengers to every city in Nehekhara, demanding the intervention of the other kings and queens, as if that would bring things to an end.’

‘Wouldn’t it?’ Felix said. He cast a wary glance up at the statues that loomed over them. The head of each had been carved in what he took to be the shape of the face of a given god. The eyes of each glowed faintly, and he felt a chill as he wondered what inhuman intelligences might be gazing out at the battle taking place below.

Gotrek shook himself and muttered a curse under his breath. Felix wondered what the Slayer thought of such a fate – to be damned to fight, but never die, for an eternity. It probably struck a personal chord with the dwarf. Gotrek hawked and spat. ‘Well?’ he said harshly. ‘Let’s get down there, borrow a chariot and get to Lybaras.’

They slid down the wall of the crater, trailing clouds of dust behind them. Felix didn’t bother asking how they were going to acquire transportation. It was fairly evident from the pugnacious set to Gotrek’s jaw, and the way Zabbai swung her axe. They reached the bottom of the crater quickly. They were at the far edge of the battle, but even so, this close, it was startlingly loud, albeit in a different way from any other battle Felix had had the bad fortune to find himself in. There were no voices shouting battle-cries, no screams of the dying, only the scrape of bone on bone and the rattle of metal.

‘There,’ Zabbai said. She indicated a chariot being pulled by a quartet of skeleton horses as it slewed through a line of archers. Its rider smashed the skulls of his enemies with a massive, two-handed blade as the chariot drifted through their ranks.

Gotrek hurried towards the chariot, and, without hesitation, leapt onto the side of it, momentarily overbalancing it. His axe took the head off the driver. The rider, a magnificently accoutred prince, whirled, mummified features tightening in surprise. Zabbai sent her axe spinning towards him, removing his arm at the elbow. The axe buried itself in the front of the chariot. The tomb-prince reeled in shock, and Gotrek grabbed the front of his robes before he could recover. With a grunt of effort, Gotrek jerked the warrior out of the chariot as it slewed in a wide circle, and hurled him to the ground. The tomb-prince made to rise, but was crushed beneath the wheels of his own chariot a moment later.

Zabbai leapt onto the chariot and grabbed the reins. ‘Come on, manling, pick up your feet,’ Gotrek shouted, holding out a hand. Felix’s lungs burned with effort as he chased after the vehicle. All around him, the shattered ranks of skeletons began to pick themselves up. Taking a breath, he leapt. His hand slapped into Gotrek’s, and then he found himself falling into the back of the chariot. He got to his feet as Zabbai snapped the reins and sent the chariot hurtling towards the edge of the crater.

‘Are you certain this is going to work?’ he shouted, fighting to be heard over the noise of battle. The team of fleshless horses that pulled the chariot didn’t seem bothered by their new passengers. They galloped where they were directed, regardless of who was holding the reins.

‘No,’ Zabbai said, without looking at him. ‘Hold on.’

Felix hunkered down as the chariot rattled up the slope of the crater. As they cleared the rim, he thought he saw the statues begin to move, their heads turning, their hands reaching down. Rock ground against rock, and Gotrek hefted his axe and shouted curses at the top of his voice. Sand rose into the air around them as the statues stabbed the ground with their staves, narrowly missing them. Felix covered his eyes and whispered every prayer he could think of.

Then they were shooting past the line of Hierotitans and galloping north, towards Lybaras. ‘Ha ha!’ Gotrek bellowed. ‘Open your eyes, manling. We’re on our way, and my doom waits!’

CHAPTER 21

Eyes closed, Nitocris spread her arms and relaxed on her perch on the terrorgheist’s neck. The wind coursed over her, tearing at her like a hungry jackal. The day was wearing on, and she could still feel its deadly heat, even through the sandstorm her handmaidens had conjured and the fluttering hurricane of bats that flocked around her. Her skin crawled at the thought of burning. Though she had braved the sun before, and likely would again, it was never a pleasurable experience.

Somewhere far below her, drums thudded. Not her drums, but old ones, made from cracked leather and covered in the dust of ages. The drums of Lybaras were sounding the song of war. Nitocris’s eyes opened and she hissed in satisfaction. Finally, after centuries of struggle and labour, she was on the cusp of claiming all that had been promised to her. And all she had to do was fight her way through the dead legions of her mistress’s greatest enemy. Nitocris threw back her head and laughed.

All of her doubts and questions regarding her purpose were burned away by the burgeoning tide of blood-lust that rose within her. What did it matter why she had been chosen, or what might await her over the mountains? Nothing mattered now save the fight. She would conquer her queen’s enemies and maybe die in the process, but it would be done. She had built an empire solely to turn it into a spear to lance the belly of Nehekhara, and she was now guiding that spear into position for the killing thrust.

She had hoped to use them, but such was not to be. It was better this way – the magic had not sat well with her, though it had been her plan. But that plan was ash now.

She had felt the pain of her sisters dying like a blade in her gut. It had quivered through her limbs and blinded her for long, agonising moments. As with her assassins, she had shared blood with some of those left behind. Something had gone wrong. Some unseen enemy had cut the tail of her army off. Some opponent had killed her followers and rendered her best laid plans to so much wreckage. She had suspects aplenty – Andraste, Octavia, and the Nehekharans among them. The identity of her enemy made no difference. The deed was done, and retreat was not an option.

After the pain of her sisters’ deaths had faded, and the anger, she had felt a moment of pure joy; there was no strategy now, no scheme, only war. In war, Nitocris was supreme. She had cunning enough, and could plan, but it was only in the red moment that she could truly show her worth to the Sisterhood of the Silver Pinnacle.

She would smash Lybaras. She would smash Rasetra and Mahrak, claim Lahmia and weather the wrath of the other tomb-cities, as she had weathered the wrath of the lizards and the jungle tribes. She would deliver an empire to her queen, as she had sworn. She would earn her future, in her own way. She would not return to the Temple of Skulls. If any of her handmaidens had survived, they would join her, or not, as they wished. All that mattered was the war ahead, the struggle to come.

She would need to find a new necromancer, however. That thought gave her pause. She felt a flicker of something that might have been sadness, or disappointment. She had not felt the necromancer’s death, but she had assumed that the woman had met her end nonetheless. To think otherwise was inconceivable. If Andraste was behind it, then Octavia was certainly dead. And if it had been Octavia… Well, she would need another necromancer regardless.

She had not spoken to Steyr yet. She looked forwards to telling him, if he survived the coming battle. If she could not enjoy Octavia’s company, she would enjoy the pain her absence caused her brother. She giggled, and looked around. Below, the battle was being joined. The numberless dead of the Southlands were stumbling towards the great walls of Lybaras, and the army that was arrayed before it. Awakened kings bedecked in their finest war-panoply stood aloof on the backs of chariots, surrounded by their tomb-guard. Legions of archers waited, arrows nocked and pointed upwards. Skeletal warriors crouched behind a line of locked shields, spears levelled at the approaching horde. And in the centre of the line was a mound of skulls and bone that had burst from the earth the moment the first zombie had come into sight of the walls.

A dais of bone surmounted the mound, and upon the dais sat a heavy casket, inscribed with eye-searing hieroglyphs. Behind the casket stood the liche-priest her spies had named as Djubti, and his harsh, croaking voice thundered across the field of battle, impossibly loud. He gesticulated with a staff and a curved knife, and even from as high above as she was, she could feel the power building in the air about him.

As armies went, Nitocris had seen few that were more impressive. As the horde drew near, the drumbeat started up and the front ranks began to march to meet the coming enemy. Chariots rumbled forward, flanked by knots of skeletal horsemen and swiftly trotting ushabti. The latter easily kept pace with the cavalry and chariots.

Nitocris saw no sign of any larger constructs – no great war-sphinxes or titan statuary. But that didn’t mean that they weren’t there. She looked away from the walls, towards the harbour. The galleys of Lybaras were still at anchor. A heavy fog rolled in towards the city, and within that fog was her fleet. Whether Lybaras would launch their galleys before her fleet reached the shore, she couldn’t say. If not, Talia had orders to lead the dead aboard her vessels into Lybaras and fight her way towards the gates.

Nitocris jerked on the terrorgheist’s exposed neck muscles, forcing the beast to pull in its expansive wings and drop from the sky towards the walls of Lybaras. It shrieked as it plummeted, and she screamed with it. She enjoyed the rush of wind past her face and the hiss of the arrows slicing up to meet her. There was a joy to be found in battle that outstripped even the taste of fear-seasoned blood, and she intended to indulge herself to the fullest, now that there was no reason not to.

As the terrorgheist plunged down through the cloud of arrows and catapult-fire that had rushed up to envelop them, she reached across herself and drew her blade. She spun the sword in her hand, eager to smash bone and chop through withered, mummified muscle. A fusillade of fiery, screaming skulls, trailing eerie tails of green fire, arced past her.

She could hear the thin shrieks and ululating howls of those of her handmaidens who had acquired winged mounts for themselves as they joined her in the attack. She smiled, pleased at their display of courage. A screaming skull struck one of her handmaidens, and the sky was filled with a blaze of green for a moment, then the vampire and her mount plummeted past, wreathed in flame. She leaned forwards over her mount’s neck as they smashed through another volley of arrows. She slashed out, chopping a number of them into splinters. Others punched into her arms, legs and shoulders, but she gave them no more than a cursory glance. Pain was an old friend, and she welcomed the stings of the arrows.

The terrorgheist bellowed as arrows tore through its tattered wings and hairy body, and screaming skulls struck its bony snout and bounced away. The cry was as instinctual as the beast’s impulse to flap its wings. It felt no pain, and flew now through magical means rather than by its own muscle. The screams of the sorcerous catapult ammunition bothered it no more than flea bites.

The walls seemed to expand as they drew ever closer, and she could easily discern the individual skeleton archers who sought to bring her down. In life, it was said that the gods of Nehekhara never took the forms of flying beasts near Lybaras, for the archers of Asaph’s city could fell any target, large or small, flying, running or swimming, divine or daemonic. An arrow gouged a red canyon from the corner of her mouth to her ear, and a whistling hiss escaped from between her clenched fangs. She felt the wound rip and spread as she opened her mouth and howled.

The terrorgheist pulled up at the last moment, the stiff, filthy hairs on its belly scraping the stone parapet. Its wings snapped out, catching an updraught and smashing aside skeletons in the process. Nitocris leapt from its back with a roar, decapitating an archer as her feet touched the stone. As the gigantic bat hurtled skywards, Nitocris was moving. Her dusky form slithered through the packed ranks of skeletal archers quicker even than their sorcerous sight could follow, her blade licking out to smash through spines and send skulls spinning from neck bones. She kicked a skeleton from its feet and raised her blade, ready to shatter the dead man as she had his fellows, but a hastily interposed shield caught her blow and deflected it. Before she could recover, a heavy war-mace smashed into her belly. The force of the blow nearly sent her flying from the parapet.

‘Are you the queen of witches, or merely an acolyte?’ a rough voice croaked. Nitocris scrambled backwards as the small statured tomb-king stepped in front of his fallen warrior and smashed his mace into his shield. ‘Bah, do not answer. I would not sully my ears with your words. I am Rhupesh, the Tiger of the High Wall, and I welcome you to my jungle,’ he said, gesturing to the parapet.

He was a thing of heavy bones and bronze armour, with a golden death mask. He motioned for the gathering skeletons to retreat, which they did with all haste. Nitocris saw the terrorgheist crash into the parapet behind Rhupesh, and the giant bat tore a catapult apart, as she had planned. While she kept the troops on the wall occupied, her mount would destroy the enemy artillery.

‘Tiger,’ Nitocris hissed. ‘More like toad.’ She lunged. Rhupesh was swifter than she’d given him credit for and her blade skidded across the curve of his shield. His mace looped out, and she ducked aside. The mace smashed down, cracking the parapet.

‘Insults are for dockside trollops,’ Rhupesh said as he sliced at her with the edge of his shield. She flipped backwards as the razor-sharp rim of bronze hissed through the space she’d been occupying. ‘I’m told you call yourself a queen.’

‘More queen than you are king, bag of bones,’ Nitocris snarled, springing to the top of the parapet and sprinting past Rhupesh. As he turned, she vaulted over him. Her blade hummed down, scoring the back of his hauberk, and sending scales of bronze and leather flying. Rhupesh roared and whirled. His mace caught her in the hip and she was sent sliding the length of the parapet.

‘Ha,’ Rhupesh said. He stalked after her. ‘And which of us is on their knees,’ he growled, as she dragged herself upright. Her hip had been shattered by his blow, but the bone was already knitting itself back together within the torn flesh. She extended her sword to keep him from getting too close.

‘Not me,’ she hissed, ‘never me. Queens do not kneel, not even to kings.’ She shoved herself to her feet and came at him so quickly her form was nothing more than a blur. Even hampered by a still-lame leg, she was faster than Rhupesh. Her sword shivered in her grip as it hammered at his shield, denting and gouging the ancient metal. She drove him back, step by step. The tomb-king retreated before her, hunkering behind his shield. Even so, her blade struck his death mask and bare bones more than once.

Behind her, she heard the scrape of her handmaidens at last joining the fray. They had engaged the remainder of the skeletons on the parapet. ‘Do you hear them? Do you hear my sisters?’ she said. ‘We shall throw down your walls ourselves, if this is all that you can muster against us.’ She struck him again and again. ‘Where are your mighty champions, Lybaras? Where are your heroes? Must I dig their mouldering bones out of their tombs myself?’

Her sword smashed down on the rim of Rhupesh’s shield, nearly splitting it in half. He twisted it, trapping her sword, and with a wrench, sent shield and sword both flying. Weaponless, she dived on him, her talons scratching at his armour. Rhupesh caught her in mid-leap, his mace rising to meet her. She flipped head over heels, her jaw blazing with agony. She crashed down heavily and he stumped towards her. ‘I built these walls, woman. I built the defences which have kept Lybaras safe for thousands of years. I will not let some mewling jungle cat stomp her paws and send the work of ages tumbling down. The Son of Ox and Serpent says nay to thee, and he will add your bones to the mortar of his great works.’

Nitocris rolled aside as his mace came down. She bobbed to her feet with serpentine grace and drove her fists into his chest. Rhupesh, caught by surprise, was lifted off his feet and sent tumbling backwards. ‘My bones are mine, as is this city and everything in it,’ Nitocris snarled, ‘even if I must tear it apart, stone by stone, with my bare hands to claim it.’

She crouched, readying herself to spring on the prone tomb-king, but a shouted command caused her to hesitate.

A moment later, the air was filled with arrows. Nitocris bent and whirled, evading the majority of the missiles with inhuman agility, but some struck home and she was sent staggering back, rivulets of black blood running down her flesh from where the arrows had pierced her. She swept the shafts from her with a growl, but did not lunge forward again.

The false queen had come forth at last. Nitocris examined the regal figure who stood amongst the archers.

Khalida was relaxed, as if she were strolling in a garden, rather than leading a counterattack. Nevertheless, she gazed at Nitocris with interest. She extended her staff and used it to gently push aside the arrows that her warriors had nocked, ready to fire. ‘You are the one who claims the title of Serpent Queen,’ she said, in a sepulchral voice.

‘Yes,’ Nitocris said as she rose to her feet. She flexed her claws. ‘It is meet we should know one another, Khalida.’

‘You speak as if we are equals, blood-drinker. You speak as if you were something other than a mad pawn on a game board.’ Khalida drew her khopesh with her free hand. ‘We are not equals. I am a queen and you are but a puppet, a shadow cast upon a wall by familiar hands.’ She extended her staff and blade to either side of her, and waited. ‘Come, puppet. Come and show me how you dance.’

Nitocris tensed. Her rage had built to a fevered peak as Khalida spoke, and for a white-hot instant, she considered throwing herself at her enemy. Then, abruptly, she calmed. She smiled and took a step back. ‘I am a puppet. And so are you, queen of bones and sand. Our battle is but a game of destiny, mine against yours. Let us see who triumphs, come the dawn!’

She whirled about and sprang from the wall. Her terrorgheist swooped beneath her, and as she settled into her seat, it rose skywards, leaving behind a cry to mark its passing. Her handmaidens had followed suit, climbing back onto their mounts and retreating back into the sky, pursued by arrows and catapult-fire. The terrorgheist had managed to destroy a number of the catapults, but not all of them, more was the pity. She wondered if Steyr had had more luck. She hoped he’d survive the battle to come. With his sister dead, she would need another to guide her in the kingdoms of the north.

Steyr wept tears of blood as he led his ghouls behind the concealing ranks of zombies. He’d felt Octavia’s death, though he knew not how, or why. The connection of blood, perhaps, or maybe simply the closeness of siblings; regardless, he knew that she was dead. He was the last. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d follow her and his brothers into the dark. He paused, letting his ghouls shuffle past, and peered through a gap in the line, towards the enemy.

Drums thudded heavily, and the air tasted of sorcery. His eyes sought the strange formation of bone that occupied the centre of the enemy line, and the sarcophagus that now rested upon it. The air congealed about it, and he fancied he could see writhing, hazy shapes that put him in mind of the ghosts that had followed Octavia around like dogs. Whatever it was, he intended to destroy it. Octavia had taught him enough about sorcery to know that whatever that thing was, its presence wasn’t going to be beneficial to Nitocris’s forces. He would have to destroy it, and swiftly.

He swiped blood out of his eyes. It had been Felix. He’d hoped – no, assumed – that Octavia would be able to deal with Jaeger and his stunted companion, but he’d been wrong. He’d underestimated the poet in the Mangrove Port, and apparently Octavia had as well, unless Andraste had simply taken advantage of the situation, and made her move while his sister was otherwise distracted. He snarled softly. You had best be dead, Jaeger, or I’ll make you wish you were, he thought.

He would make the man pay for Octavia’s death, whether he was personally responsible or not. He cursed the day he’d saved Felix from the ghouls, and he cursed himself for not setting his corpse-eaters on them when he’d seen them in the jungle. Octavia had been right – he wasn’t half as smart as he thought he was, and she’d paid the price for his foolish attempt at cunning. He closed his eyes, and ground his fangs together. He’d spent his life trying to keep them all alive and together. That had been in vain, it seemed. Now all that was left was to avenge his siblings. Lybaras first, Jaeger second and then… Then, Nitocris. I’ll take your head and mount it on a post in your precious Lahmia. He snapped his fangs together, startling a ghoul.

He heard a thunderous shriek and looked up. Nitocris was beginning her attack on the walls. It was time to move. Throughout the semi-organised horde of corpses, wights clashed axes and swords against crude shields, and zombie drummers began to beat out a slow rhythm. Dead saurians roared hollowly as they trudged forwards, and dead animals growled, barked, moaned and hissed as they slithered through the feet of the bipedal dead.

The vast majority of the dead were unarmoured, but amongst them were mouldy skeletons clad in bronze and rusty iron. These formed the core of the horde, and maintained mindless discipline amidst the chaotic sea of rotting flesh that flowed about them. Horsemen, culled from the nomad tribes of the Great Desert as well as from the sunken fleets of Cathayans and Bretonnians, trotted on the flanks, waiting for the signal to engage the enemy cavalry. Rotting banners flapped and curled in a sour breeze.

Steyr hefted Nitocris’s standard, and, with a snarl to summon his ghouls, led the flesh-eaters out in front of the zombies. He unfurled the banner and held it aloft, so that the enemy could see it clearly. Then he sank the standard into the ground, and faced the enemy army. He drew his sword, threw back his head, and shrieked. The army surged into motion around him. Dead horses galloped forward, zombies lurched and skeletons marched.

The battle for Lybaras had begun.

CHAPTER 22

‘The crow-bait queen promised me a doom, and by Grimnir, she’s delivered,’ Gotrek roared, slapping the side of the chariot as if to urge the skeletal horses to greater speed. While Felix saw no reason to be so enthusiastic, he couldn’t disagree with Gotrek’s assessment. The chariot had carried them across the desert to Lybaras in a single day, the undead horses never flagging or slowing. Now the pale walls of the City of Asaph rose before them, and the army that laid siege to it as well.

The latter hadn’t been a surprise, but that didn’t make the prospect of crashing through the numberless hordes of walking corpses any more tolerable. But the sun was beginning to dip, and there was only a single brief night between him and an untimely and altogether unfair death. ‘Any chance of putting on a bit of speed?’ Felix asked. He fought to keep his voice calm. They’d heard the sounds of the battle from miles away, and seen the cloud of dust thrown up by the two opposing armies.

The battle had, to all appearances, been going on for several hours, and bodies littered the wide expanse of sandy ground before the city walls, or lay in twitching heaps. Broken skeletons pulled themselves across the ground towards crippled zombies. Undead horsemen clashed in whirling duels and scaly monsters, their hides sloughing from them as they moved, tore at unmoving phalanxes of tomb-guard and were peppered with arrows from the walls.

‘They’re going as fast as they can,’ Zabbai said. ‘They’re already losing their vigour. We’re too far from the crater, and those who pulled them from death.’ Snapping the reins, Zabbai urged the skeletal horses on. Felix could see that their bones were trembling in their traces, and starting to pull away from one another.

The army of the undead spread out ahead of them, moving towards the pale walls of Lybaras with single-minded intent. The sun overhead was blotted out by a swirling cloud of bats, which seemed to stretch from the mountains to the coast. He could also see the fleet that approached the city from the Bitter Sea, the tattered sails of the shattered ships rippling in a sorcerous breeze. Lybaras was under siege from all points – the land, the air and the water.

Gotrek hunched in the back of the chariot, his good eye blazing fiercely. ‘Slow down, blast you,’ he snarled. ‘Let me off here! My axe grows thirsty.’

‘No, don’t slow down,’ Felix said. If they did, the horses might fall apart, and then where would they be?

‘Don’t be so cowardly, manling. You have a full night before you die,’ Gotrek blustered, glaring at Felix. ‘The enemy is right there, and I’m getting itchy to crack some skulls.’

Zabbai leaned forward and cracked the reins again. The horses were swaying and skidding. ‘You will have all of the battle you can stomach soon enough, Doom-Seeker,’ she said. ‘The only way to reach the gates of Lybaras is through the ranks of the enemy.’

‘Of course it is,’ Felix said, holding tight to the side of the chariot. They were moving so fast that he’d nearly been slung from it more than once as it rattled over the rocky terrain. He looked at his wrist. The eyes of the asp bracelet seemed to glare up at him. He looked up at the bat-choked sky, wondering how much time he had left. Only hours, at most, he suspected, and likely not even that. When did the day begin, for Nehekharans? Sun-up, or dawn’s first light, or even earlier?

The chariot struck the rearmost lines of the undead horde like a thunderbolt. The skeletal horses trampled and smashed the zombies heedlessly, and they shed pieces of themselves in the process. Felix whispered a prayer to any god who might be listening that they’d hold together a bit longer. Corpses were sent flying. Dead men spun over their heads, to crash down in the dust of their passage. Gotrek bellowed cheerfully and shook his axe. Felix gritted his teeth and hunched forward, trying to avoid the bits of dead flesh and broken bone that pelted them.

The chariot carved a swathe through the close-packed ranks of the dead, careening towards the front lines of the host. A horse lost most of its leg and fell, shattering into pieces. The chariot slewed wildly as the remaining horses took up the slack. ‘There,’ Zabbai said, pointing. The massive gates of the tomb-city rose up before them. They were huge edifices of bronze and iron, and covered in the shapes of thousands of serpents, all of which seemed to be moving and squirming in the dust and clamour of war.

Felix’s heart leapt at the sight. They were almost clear of the horde. A roar caught his attention. A carnosaur, long dead and with its bones shot through with broken roots and dried moss, loped alongside them. A vampire crouched on its back, a javelin in one hand and a shield in the other. She screamed and the carnosaur leaned towards the chariot, its fleshless jaws snapping shut on the head of one of the horses.

The carnosaur jerked its head and tore the horse from its traces. The chariot was upended and wrenched into the air, but only for a moment. The magic that held the remaining horses together finally gave out and they crumbled in mid-flight. Felix hit the ground before the chariot. He rolled aside as it smashed down. He’d avoided being crushed only by a hair’s-breadth. He looked up and saw the carnosaur’s foot dropping towards him, and he rolled back the other way. The taloned foot thudded down. Felix leapt to his feet, sword in hand. He slashed out instinctively, ripping a gouge in the dead beast’s leg. It snapped at him, catching his cloak and tearing a strip from it as he ducked aside.

‘Ho, beast,’ Gotrek shouted, hefting a broken chunk of chariot. As the carnosaur turned towards the Slayer, Gotrek leapt, and pierced the beast’s shrivelled eye, and the rotten brain behind it, with the makeshift spear. Such was the force of his blow that the carnosaur was knocked sideways, and it fell onto its side. The vampire sprang from her perch as her mount fell, and as she dropped to the ground she sent her javelin flying towards Gotrek.

Felix lashed out, chopping the missile in half. Gotrek paused only to give him a nod of either acknowledgement or reproach, before bounding past, his axe held aloft. The vampire hastily interposed her shield as Gotrek’s axe dropped towards her. The shield buckled and split, and the vampire was sent sprawling. She was on her feet a moment later, a sword in her hand. But before she could move to meet Gotrek, Zabbai’s axe looped out and sent her head spinning into the depths of the zombie horde clustered about them. Gotrek cursed as the headless body toppled at his feet. ‘That one was mine,’ he said.

‘There are plenty more to choose from,’ Zabbai said. Felix looked around. Zombies closed in around them. Gotrek raised his axe. He glanced at Felix.

‘Get to the gates, manling. I’ll buy you what time I can.’

‘Gotrek, I–’ Felix began. Zabbai grabbed his shoulder.

‘There is no time, Felix. Go!’

Together, the two of them raced towards the gates, which were closed. He had no breath to waste on asking how they were planning on getting in. On top of the gatehouse and walls, skeleton archers and spearmen waited to repel attackers with silent discipline. As Felix ran, he saw zombies bearing scaling ladders, made from the twitching bones of animals and men, approaching the walls. There were siege towers as well, mounted on the slumped, staggering carcasses of great lizards, and battering rams made from the skeletons of immense serpents, entwined about the trunks of trees. For a moment, Felix feared they’d be caught between the advancing army and the wall, but pushed the thought aside as catapults and archers fired from the walls, and the front rank of the besiegers was scythed away.

Behind them, Gotrek had clambered on top of the now twice-dead carnosaur, and was busy spewing profanities and invitations to the zombies lurching towards him. Without the vampire to direct them, the corpses homed in on the loudest, nearest target. Gotrek waited for them with a wide, gap-toothed grin on his ugly face. The dead began to swarm up the carcass of the great lizard and Gotrek tore the head from the first of them to get close.

But before the rest could reach Gotrek, the sands about the carnosaur’s carcass ruptured as two heavy shapes rose from concealing trenches, amidst the zombie horde. Their sudden appearance sent sand and corpses flying in all directions. Their gigantic forms were covered in bones and mortuary ornamentation, and their heads had been carved to resemble large skulls. They were hewn from emerald and stone, and wore great crested helmets, breastplates, vambraces and ornamental greaves, all lavishly decorated and engraved with intricate scenes and scrawling blocks of Nehekharan script. Each bore a mighty two-handed sword, fully the height of a man, and as thick across as Gotrek himself.

Those swords took a dreadful toll on the ranks of zombies, including those scrambling towards Gotrek. The Slayer gave vent to a howl of frustration as his opponents were scythed away, like chaff on the wind. ‘Behold,’ Zabbai said, ‘the Emerald Sentinels of Lybaras, greatest of the war statuary of Nehekhara, and mightiest of the necrolith colossi!’

Felix could only watch in awe as the two gigantic constructs launched an unstoppable assault into the heart of the enemy army. Dozens of zombies were crushed, chopped or hurled into the air by every sweep of the massive blades. Undead saurians hurled themselves at this new foe, seeking to grapple with them. Gotrek dropped from the carnosaur’s carcass and trotted towards Felix, kicking severed heads and limbs out of his way petulantly. ‘They’re killing all my zombies,’ he snarled, gesturing at the stone warriors.

‘There’ll be more, I’m certain,’ Felix said.

Gotrek spat and gestured to the sword in Felix’s hands. ‘Let’s get that toy back to its owner. The sooner we do that, the sooner I can find the doom she promised me,’ he said, glaring longingly at the path of destruction left behind by the two constructs.

‘And the sooner I can get this blasted thing off my arm,’ Felix said. ‘Of course, there’s still the question of how we get in.’

‘There is no question. If the Emerald Sentinels have emerged, then a sortie is imminent. All we have to do is reach the gates as they open,’ Zabbai said.

As they hurried towards the gates, the ground began to tremble beneath their feet. Ahead of them, the ancient portal began to open and Felix saw that Zabbai had been correct. Massive hinges screamed in protest as the heavy bronze doors spread apart. Felix stumbled to a halt as he caught sight of the two enormous ushabti that were responsible for the movement of the gates.

As the giant statues pushed the gates open to their fullest, a legion of skeletal horsemen galloped through. Gotrek pulled Felix aside as the riders thundered past in a loose column, to join the necrolith colossi in their battle. ‘Careful, manling, you have a bad habit of almost getting run over by horses,’ Gotrek said.

The column split into two lines, which travelled in opposite directions, racing the length of the approaching horde. The horsemen carried bows rather than spears, and as Felix and Zabbai watched, the horse-archers began to fire as they galloped down the line of zombies, peppering the horde with arrows. The approaching mass of zombies hesitated as the front ranks disintegrated and those behind were forced to clamber over their fellows, or be crushed by the colossi. Felix knew it wouldn’t stop them, but it had slowed them considerably.

Zabbai hurried Felix through the gates. ‘Come, we must find the High Queen,’ she said. Skeletons marched past them out of the gates, shields held aloft, and spears levelled. To Felix, it looked as if the might of Lybaras had been mobilised in its entirety. The avenue beyond the gate was packed with rank upon rank of skeletons, most armed with shields and spears, but some archers as well. He realised that the horse-archers had been merely to ensure that the legions arrayed before him had room to take up position before the walls.

Behind the infantry, row upon row of chariots rolled forward, accompanied by more skeletal horseman, and loping ushabti, as well as the sinister shapes of the necropolis knights. Khalida, it seemed, had no intention of weathering a siege. In the lead chariot, Felix caught sight of Khalida. She stood straight-backed, her staff by her side and a khopesh in her hand. Her tomb-guard swarmed around her. Felix saw no sign of Djubti, and he hoped that Khalida could remove the asp without the liche-priest’s help.

‘You have returned,’ Khalida said when she caught sight of them. She ordered her chariot to a halt, and the others followed suit. ‘As Asaph foretold,’ she continued.

Zabbai pushed Felix forwards. ‘My queen, we have travelled far, and braved many dangers, and we have reclaimed that which was stolen from you,’ she intoned.

Khalida’s glowing gaze settled on Felix. ‘Give me the sword.’

He handed it over quickly, eager to be rid of it. ‘What about this?’ he said, gesturing to the asp bracelet. Khalida did not look at him.

‘What about it?’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘I require your service for one day more, Doom-Seeker. The death I promised you encircles us. I would pit the weight of your wyrd against the ambition of my enemy.’

Gotrek’s jaw thrust out stubbornly. ‘And the manling?’ he asked.

‘Fight and he shall live,’ Khalida said. ‘Or die, as the gods will.’

‘But – but, we brought you the sword!’ Felix protested.

‘As the gods willed, and now they will that you fight,’ Khalida said.

‘I’ll fight without the poison!’ Felix protested. He clawed at the bracelet. ‘Get this thing off me!’ He looked around helplessly, and then slumped when he saw no help forthcoming.

Khalida looked at him. ‘You still have a night yet, man of the wild lands. And come the morning, we shall either be victorious or enfolded in oblivion’s bower. Fight hard, and live. Or run and die. Either way, the will of Asaph shall be done.’

‘The manling has never run,’ Gotrek snapped. ‘And aye, I’ll fight for you. You promised me a doom, and I’ll collect it from you, Serpent Queen.’

‘So I did, Doom-Seeker,’ Khalida said softly. ‘Before this battle is done, you may yet find it, if Asaph so wills.’

‘Asaph means nothing to me,’ Gotrek growled. ‘If she would deny me a doom, she’ll have to take it up with Grimnir.’

‘This is the Doom-Seeker, then?’ Rhupesh said, looking down at Gotrek. ‘He is quite tiny.’

‘Come down here and say that,’ Gotrek snapped, flicking blood out of his beard.

Rhupesh leapt down from the chariot and stalked towards Gotrek. They were of a similar size, though Felix judged that, were Rhupesh alive, Gotrek would have proven the heavier. The tomb-king bumped his ribcage against Gotrek’s barrel chest and said, ‘Tiny I called thee, and tiny thou art.’

Gotrek leaned forward. ‘You speak hard words, for a dead man.’

‘I am no man. I am a king,’ Rhupesh barked. The two were almost nose to nose.

‘And I am a Slayer,’ Gotrek growled.

Felix looked back and forth between them. He leaned towards Zabbai. ‘He’s – ah – he’s quite short, for a king. And broad,’ he said hesitantly.

‘He is the Son of the Ox and Asp,’ Zabbai said. ‘He was found in a basket of rushes, delivered to Lybaras as a gift of the gods.’

‘Right, right, but his general shape is…’ Felix trailed off.

‘The weight of his divine strength has but reduced his stature.’

‘Are you sure?’ Felix asked, wondering how to phrase the question he dearly wanted to ask. Before he could, however, Khalida thumped the floor of her chariot with her staff.

‘Cease, Rhupesh,’ she said. ‘We ride to war already. There is no need to start a second here.’ She looked at Zabbai. ‘Take the Adder Legion and Harkhaty’s regiment,’ she gestured to one of the nearby tomb-guard, who saluted stiffly, ‘to the Gate of Salt and Trade. The enemy has entered the harbour. They seek to enter the city from the seaward side, likely so that they might throw open the gates to Nitocris’s host. Throw them back into the sea, my herald.’ She gestured and her chariot-driver snapped the reins. The chariot rumbled past. Felix was forced to scramble aside. Rhupesh’s chariot followed suit, and the column marched on, out of the gates to meet the enemy.

‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’ Felix said, to no one in particular. He reached into his belt pouch and filched out a bit of dried meat. It was all that remained of the supplies they’d taken on their journey into the jungle. He gnawed on it hungrily.

‘Probably,’ Gotrek said, slapping him on the back and nearly causing him to choke on the food. ‘Look at it this way, manling – at least you’re in the right place for it.’

‘That’s not comforting, Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘I wasn’t trying to comfort you,’ Gotrek said. He spat on the hem of Felix’s cloak and used it to wipe rotting flesh from the blade of his axe. ‘Still got your notebook with you, then?’ he continued, as they fell in beside Zabbai.

Felix touched his chest, and felt the square of leather and pages beneath his chainmail. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘why?’

‘No reason,’ Gotrek said, letting his axe rest on his shoulder. ‘If you die, I’ll need to retrieve it. For your replacement, I mean.’

‘My replacement,’ Felix said dully.

‘Well you can’t expect me to go on without a Rememberer, manling,’ Gotrek said with a sniff. ‘That isn’t how it works.’

‘No, no I suppose not,’ Felix said.

Gotrek was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘It’d be a shame, mind.’

‘Would it?’

‘Be a waste, really,’ Gotrek said, not looking at him, ‘all those scribbles you’ve left scattered across the world. Be a shame to have to leave those out of my death-saga.’

‘Yes, it would,’ Felix said, smiling slightly.

‘If you die, my story won’t have as much – what’d you call it – colour? If my doom is to be worthy of a saga, it must have the proper context.’

‘Oh yes, certainly,’ Felix said.

‘Context, manling, is the mortar of legend,’ Gotrek said piously.

‘So I’ve heard,’ Felix said.

‘Dwarf saying, that, very old, very traditional,’ Gotrek added.

‘I’m sure.’

‘Are you laughing at me, manling?’

‘No, Gotrek. I’m merely enthused by the prospect of the coming battle,’ Felix said, not looking at the Slayer. Gotrek eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then made to slap him on the shoulder. However, the expected blow did not fall. Instead, he gently patted Felix’s arm.

‘Aye, manling, me too,’ Gotrek said. ‘Try not to die, will you?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Felix said.

Zabbai led them through the city, along the bottom of the wall, until they reached the edge of the city closest to the sea. A group of ushabti were waiting for them. Felix could hear the crash of waves on the other side of the wall.

‘Hail and well met, Daughter of the Spear, Son of the Stone and Man of the Uncivilised Tribes,’ one of the ushabti boomed. It struck the ground with the haft of its weapon. Its fellows followed suit. ‘Have you come to shed blood and share glory with the proud Sons of Asaph?’

‘Hail and well met, O Kharnak, Mighty Sentinel of the White Tower,’ Zabbai said. She raised her axe in greeting. ‘We have come to see off those who would threaten the Gate of Salt and Trade.’ Felix realised that the immense construct was the same one that had been guarding Khalida’s palace when he and Gotrek had first arrived. Zabbai gestured to the warriors that Khalida had sent with them. ‘We bring men.’

‘And a Slayer,’ Gotrek growled.

‘A plan would be preferable, Child of the High Peaks,’ Kharnak said, jaws sagging in what Felix hoped was a smile. ‘We are mighty, but few. Our enemy shall slip past us, like the vermin they are.’

‘None shall get past us, Hero of Ancient Days,’ Zabbai said. ‘We must meet them before they reach the gates, however.’

‘Thy cunning is renowned, Bride of the Axe,’ Kharnak said. He gestured, and the great seaward gates began to open, hauled inwards by gangs of skeletons, who held the massive chains attached to the heavy circular plates set into the centre of each door.

Corroded hinges squealed, and Felix grimaced. As the gate opened, the smell of the Bitter Sea billowed through and across them. Felix held his cloak up to his face to hide his nose and mouth. The sea had acquired its name honestly. It smelt faintly of sulphur. Gotrek slapped the sides of his barrel chest and inhaled loudly.

‘Smell that, manling? It smells like the forges of Barak Varr.’ Gotrek gestured, as if to pull more of the stench into his flared nostrils.

‘Yes, just like that,’ Felix gagged. The Bitter Sea was a dark expanse, stretching across the horizon and back as far as the eye could see. Felix could see the dark ridges of distant shores, obscured by the bitter mist that rolled across the waters.

‘The enemy approaches, Child of the South. Assemble thy forces. We stand ready for your command,’ Kharnak rumbled. Zabbai ordered the archers forward into the archway of the gate. Felix looked out at a scene of destruction.

Out in the harbour, the rotting hulks had smashed through the galleys that had mobilised to block the mouth of the harbour, and, carried forwards by stinking winds conjured by the vampires standing on the decks of the lead ships, they plunged aground. The ancient docks and quays of Lybaras, which had once played host to vessels from a thousand and one ports, were shattered and broken by the heaving, zombie-infested vessels. Ambulatory corpses tumbled from the decks or plunged through the holes in the hulls, and waded ashore, clutching rusty weapons, or reaching out with empty, rotting hands. Undead sea-beasts came with them, things with scales, fins and too many legs, dredged from the mud and silt of the ocean’s bottom and brought to the surface by the dark magics of the besiegers.

Felix watched in horror as the harbour-guard were pulled down by the sheer mass of corpses. The skeletal warriors fought, but they were as rocks in a rushing stream, and were overwhelmed with rapidity. Vampires leapt across the heads and shoulders of the stumbling dead, using the zombies as an undulating walkway right to the harbour gates of the city. Felix’s horror crystallised as he realised that the vampires, led by one clad in a ratty and outsize Sartosian captain’s coat, headed right for him. He glanced at Zabbai, who motioned the archers to ready themselves to fire. A servant scuttled down the line with a lit taper clutched in one fleshless hand, touching it to each arrowhead.

‘Those corpses look too damp to set fire to,’ he said doubtfully.

‘The arrows aren’t for the corpses,’ Zabbai said. She roared out a command. The fire-arrows were loosed, and the archers immediately retreated back through the gates, replaced by a line of a hundred tomb-guards wielding heavy shields and halberds, and marching in lock-step. The armoured skeletons filled the harbour gates from hinge to post. Zabbai gently pushed Felix back behind the line of shields. The burning volley struck the beached vessels. The hulks caught quickly, despite their state. In moments, an inferno blazed behind the approaching horde. Zabbai raised her axe again, and brought it down. The tomb-guard began to march. They formed a moving shield-wall, and crashed into the front rank of zombies. Instead of fighting them, however, they locked shields and crossed halberds, creating an unbreakable bulwark.

‘Ha! That’s the way,’ Gotrek roared. ‘That’s the dwarf way. Maybe you humans did learn some of what we taught you.’ Slowly but steadily, the tomb-guard began to push the clawing, groaning dead back. The vampires, however, were a different matter. They used the tomb-guard as they had the zombies, springing onto their shoulders and heads and leaping off. The one in the coat gave a screech and she and her companions loped forwards.

Zabbai stepped forward. ‘We must keep them from getting into the city,’ she said.

‘Agreed,’ Felix said. ‘How about we step back inside and close the gates?’

‘That’s no fun,’ Zabbai said, and sprinted to meet the vampires. Felix sighed and looked at Gotrek.

The Slayer grinned. ‘I like her, manling. If she were several centuries younger and still breathing, I’d pledge your troth for you myself.’ He gestured and they started after Zabbai. Behind them, Felix could hear the ushabti beginning to move as well, with a sound like stone grinding on stone.

‘Oh no, you remember what happened last time you arranged a marriage for me?’

Gotrek frowned. ‘I didn’t know they were filthy Moot-scum. They lied to me.’

‘You didn’t ask.’ Felix said. Zabbai had already engaged the lead vampire. The ushabti had engaged the others, driving the vampires back with powerful sweeps from their halberds. The constructs fought with an unearthly grace, almost equal to that of their undead opponents, and the unliving and the undead whirled about in a dance of blades that Felix found almost impossible to follow.

‘They hoodwinked me. Deceitful little beasts,’ Gotrek said, and spat. ‘I hate halflings.’ He lifted his axe and smashed aside a blow that would’ve split his skull, crown to teeth. The vampire staggered, off balance, and Felix smoothly spitted her with Karaghul. As she fell, Gotrek’s axe severed her head. The dwarf kicked it aside and said, ‘I hate blood-suckers more, though.’

‘Well, feel free to work out your frustrations,’ Felix said.

‘Thank you, manling, I think I will,’ Gotrek said. He raised his axe and bellowed a war-cry in Khazalid. Then he charged towards the closest vampire. A moment later, the battle was joined. Zombies stumbled past the shield-wall, and things devolved into a confused melee of bone against dead flesh.

Felix sliced the head from a zombie, and looked for Gotrek. The battle heaved back and forth. The burning ships in the harbour continued to disgorge dead men, who splashed to shore and joined the battle. While the Nehekharans had the advantage of skill, their enemy was seemingly numberless.

He caught sight of the Slayer wrenching his axe out of the chest of a vampire. The woman screeched and clawed at Gotrek’s arm as he let the axe fall again, removing her head. He turned and punched a fist through a zombie, shattering its spine. Felix was about to join the Slayer, when he saw Zabbai. The Herald of Lybaras was surrounded by several vampires, and she was isolated from any aid her warriors of the ushabti might have given. As Felix watched, blades chopped into her torso and shoulders. Zabbai was fast, but her opponents were equally swift, and the Herald had taken more than her share of knocks recently. Zabbai staggered. Her axe snapped out, beheading one of the vampires, but the others were on her in an instant, like jackals pulling down a wounded lioness.

Felix raced towards them. Zabbai had been hurt time and again protecting him. He couldn’t let her fall now. Felix drove Karaghul through the back of one of the vampires, eliciting a shriek of agony. ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted, ‘help me!’

He didn’t wait to see whether or not the Slayer had heard him. He dragged his blade free and brought it around to block a blow from another vampire. The creature snarled and shoved him back. Before she could attack, Gotrek’s axe sank into her belly, lifting her off her feet. Felix whirled to see Zabbai fall beneath the lightning-quick blows of the vampire in the coat. She collapsed and the vampire’s sword flashed, chopping through the haft of her axe and rendering her weapon useless.

Felix raced towards them, knowing even as he did so that he wouldn’t reach them in time. He could hear Gotrek roaring and cursing in his wake. Then the ushabti called Kharnak was there. A stone fist shot forward, catching the vampire a blow on the back of the head, hurling her towards the open gates. The vampire hit the ground, rolled to her feet and then vanished into the city.

Felix sank to his knees beside Zabbai, as did Kharnak. ‘Do you yet persist, Daughter of the Spear?’ the statue rumbled. From what Felix could see, there was no reason she should. Zabbai’s mummified form was covered in bloodless wounds and where her bones were visible through her funerary wrappings, they were notched and splintered.

‘Zabbai,’ he said, lifting her head. She grabbed his hand.

‘I still live,’ she wheezed. ‘But my fight is over. I am broken inside. One of them got into the city. She will attempt to open the gates to the enemy. I cannot pursue her. You must do so, Felix. You must catch her, and you must take my place at my queen’s side.’

Gotrek came up behind Felix. ‘Aye, we’ll catch her, crow-bait. You rest easy,’ the Slayer said. ‘Come on, manling,’ he continued, stumping towards the open gate. Felix looked up at Kharnak.

‘Take care of her,’ he said, as he rose to his feet. Then, without a backward glance, he ran after Gotrek.

CHAPTER 23

Gotrek and Felix pursued the vampire through the empty, moonlit streets of Lybaras in silence. The Slayer, despite the wounds that covered his tattooed frame, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy. Felix felt exhaustion gnawing at the edges of his consciousness, but he shook it off with grim determination. There would be time to sleep later, if he wasn’t dead.

He couldn’t say what the vampire hoped to accomplish. Opening the gates was all well and good, but it wasn’t as if the enemy could occupy the city. Not with Khalida’s forces ahead of them. Then, given the sheer number of rotting corpses pressing against the defenders outside the walls, it wasn’t inconceivable that they could simply force their way in. Unless, of course, there was already a group waiting outside, ready to take advantage of the open gate. Felix imagined the catapults on the walls being turned on the city, or, worse, on Khalida’s forces outside its walls.

They followed the same route back that Zabbai had taken to lead them to the seaward gate. The city was as silent as ever, and as they ran, Felix wondered how many more generations of warriors waited for Khalida’s silent command to rise from their slumber and march into battle. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. They moved along the base of the wall, and Felix’s ears throbbed with the clamour of battle. The walls occasionally shuddered with impacts from the enemy’s siege weapons.

Overhead, bats and worse things – undead flying reptiles, birds and shrieking conglomerations of bat and beast – attacked the walls. Occasionally, one would plummet down inside the walls, riddled with arrows. More often, a skeleton warrior would be plucked from the wall and sent hurtling to the ground. Some would begin to repair themselves almost immediately, while others would lie in a heap, shattered beyond their own ability to pull themselves together.

When they reached the gate, its guardians were already lying in broken piles, and the vampire stood before the gates, her hands pressed to the ancient metal portcullis. The skeleton warriors on the walls were occupied fighting off the zombies clambering up scaling ladders and the swirling swarms of bats, and had no attention to spare for one lone vampire. He shared a look with Gotrek, and the Slayer nodded and put on a burst of speed.

As they raced towards the vampire, she spat a stream of guttural syllables and the air around her became charged with a bitter energy. As Felix drew closer, he saw the metal of the gates grow rusty and begin to flake away, as if millennia of neglect had passed in mere moments. Even as the vampire whirled to face them, the gates began to collapse with a bone-rattling roar of cracking stone and tearing metal. A wave of dust washed over them, momentarily hiding the vampire from sight.

Felix blinked, trying to clear his eyes. When he could see again, the first thing he saw was the tip of a sword darting towards his face. Gotrek shoved him aside and met the blow with his axe. The bit of his axe split the sword blade in two and continued on into the shoulder of its wielder. The vampire screeched and fell. Gotrek tore the blade loose and ended her cries a moment later.

‘We were too late,’ Felix coughed.

‘Then we’ll just have to make up for it. On your feet, manling,’ Gotrek growled. Dozens of grey shapes loped through the remains of the gate, howling and snarling. Felix scrambled to his feet as the first of the ghouls reached them. It was these creatures that the vampire had been intending to let in. Gotrek struck the corpse-eaters like a bolt from the blue, his axe wreaking red havoc amongst them. Felix followed suit, and soon, most of the ghouls were scrambling away from them, wailing in fear. Some had made it into the city, but he and Gotrek had blunted the attack.

‘After them,’ Gotrek said. He bounded in pursuit of the fleeing ghouls, and his axe left several of the corpse-eaters lolling dead in his wake. Felix followed more slowly. Gotrek had caught up with the ghouls, who’d crashed into others of their kind still intent on entering the city, in the centre of the arch of the gate, and he tore through the lot of them with gleeful abandon. Felix looked past the slaughter towards the battle, which showed no signs of ending anytime soon.

Chariots rumbled past the gate, and the tomb-kings mounted in them sent arrows or javelins hurtling into the mass of enemy dead that staggered forward stubbornly. Neither army could be broken in the conventional way. It was a slugging match, with two fighters who would neither retreat nor give up pounding away at one another beneath the silver glare of the moon. At any other time, Felix might have felt some small measure of fear, but now he simply felt numb. Like the battle they’d witnessed in the crater, the scene before him seemed as if it could continue for an eternity.

The head of a ghoul, a surprised expression on its face, bounced past him. He looked over to see Gotrek kicking bodies aside. Those ghouls he hadn’t managed to butcher were fleeing quickly, their lanky shapes vanishing into the fog of war. ‘We should get out there,’ Felix said. Gotrek looked at him in something that might have been shock. Before the Slayer could say anything, Felix said, ‘We promised Zabbai we’d protect Khalida.’ He pointed with his sword. ‘I can see her standard.’

Gotrek nodded brusquely, and he and Felix stepped through the open gate. The battle heaved back and forth on all sides. Zombies staggered towards the open gate on awkward limbs, and skeletal horsemen, clad in the ragged remnants of armour and silk robes, swept after them. Felix hesitated, but he knew there was nothing they could do to stop them. Holding the gate would serve no purpose, and wouldn’t be possible – not with only the two of them. He could only hope that Khalida had foreseen and planned for such an eventuality. The sky was thick with bats and the decayed hulks of carrion, and dead men battled all around them. They were forced to defend themselves more than once as they fought their way towards the centre of the battlefield, where Khalida’s standard swayed above the battle.

For a moment, the tide of battle ebbed, and Felix saw past the struggling corpses, to where Khalida’s chariot raced through the enemy ranks, crushing zombies beneath its wheels. Then, from above them, a monstrous cry echoed down. Felix felt his blood turn to water in his veins and he looked up. A monstrous bat, the size of a dragon, dropped towards the battlefield from the sky, and on its back was an armoured figure he knew could only be the enemy leader, the creature who claimed the title of Serpent Queen for herself.

‘Terrorgheist,’ Gotrek spat. ‘Trust a blood-sucker to pick one of those for a mount.’

The terrorgheist landed with a crash atop Khalida’s chariot, smashing the bone-horses to flinders. The massive beast’s jaws closed around the head and shoulders of Khalida’s driver with a crunch as it snapped the skeleton up and flung it aside. Khalida rolled free of the wreckage and drove her staff into the monster’s snout, causing it to rear back. A vast, tattered wing snapped out, forcing Khalida to leap back. The edges of the wing tore across her belly, ripping ancient wrappings and scattering incense and dried flesh across the sands. Khalida retreated, clutching her stomach.

‘Gotrek, we have to help her,’ Felix said.

‘Help her if you wish, manling,’ Gotrek said, his eye fixed on the terrorgheist. ‘But that oversized cave-squealer is mine.’ He charged, his axe held in both hands. But before the Slayer could get far, a shape slammed into him, staggering him. Felix stopped as he recognized Steyr – the vampire was attacking Gotrek so quickly that he appeared to be coming at the dwarf from every direction at once. Gotrek roared and spun in place, his axe licking out and just missing the vampire, who skidded back in a cloud of dust, before lunging forward again. Before his blade could reach Gotrek, Felix managed to interpose Karaghul. Steyr snarled and his head shot forward to connect with Felix’s, staggering him. With his ears ringing and his vision blurred by the pain ricocheting through his skull, Felix stumbled back. Steyr followed him.

‘You killed my sister,’ he hissed, ‘you and that damned dwarf.’

‘Aye, and I’ll send you to join her directly, blood-sucker,’ Gotrek roared. His axe nearly took off Steyr’s sword arm, but the vampire hopped back with lightning alacrity. Steyr retreated before them.

‘Maybe so,’ the vampire hissed, ‘but not before Queen Nitocris kills the corpse-woman.’ He lunged, too quickly for the eye to follow, and his blade licked across Gotrek’s bicep and shoulder, eliciting a growl from the Slayer. Steyr leapt over the Slayer and his blade sang out, connecting with Karaghul. Felix reeled from the power of the blow. Steyr seemed fully capable of occupying him and Gotrek, which was disconcerting, to say the least.

‘He’s right, Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘No he’s not,’ Gotrek spat. ‘I’ll kill him directly, manling. I’m just taking my time.’

‘Take as much time as you need, master dwarf,’ Steyr said mockingly. He shot forwards, dust and sand curling away from him as his blade skidded off Gotrek’s axe and drew blood from the side of the dwarf’s head. Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed a handful of Steyr’s jerkin, and with a grunt he sent the vampire flying.

Felix took advantage of Steyr’s predicament, lunging to meet the vampire as he rose to his feet. Their blades met, and Felix twisted Karaghul so that the hilts locked. ‘Gotrek, go! Help Khalida! I’ll see to this varlet,’ he shouted. Gotrek hesitated, but only for a moment. The Slayer resumed his charge towards Nitocris and Khalida.

‘Varlet,’ Steyr said. ‘I find thy speech offensive and off-putting, Jaeger.’

‘Not as much as I find thy stench,’ Felix said, straining to hold Steyr’s blade pinned.

‘For a man who dislikes Tarradasch so much, you do like quoting him – The Loves of Ottokar and Myrmidia?’ Steyr said. He ripped his blade free of Felix’s, and nearly took off the latter’s leg in the process.

‘Barbenoire, the Bastard of Bretonnia, actually,’ Felix huffed, parrying a blow.

‘Ah, never liked that one,’ Steyr said. ‘Too simple, too linear… Where was the complexity?’ He launched a blow at Felix’s head. Felix jerked back, but not quickly enough, as the tip of the blade tore through his chain shirt, ripping it and scattering links. Felix staggered and instinctively pressed his hand to the bloody gouge in his chest. Steyr closed in. He knocked Felix from his feet with a casual, backhanded blow from his fist. ‘You killed my sister, Felix. You got my brothers killed. But I quite like you… Complexity, you see?’ He kicked Karaghul aside and planted his foot on Felix’s chest. ‘You’ve proved a villain, Jaeger, but a pitiable one, like Baron Trister, or poor Oswald. But we’re in the last act of this drama now, and the curtain is descending. Time to take your bow,’ he said, swinging his blade up.

‘Who told you that your sister was dead?’ Felix said hurriedly.

‘No one had to tell me.’ Steyr paused. ‘Why?’

Felix looked up at Steyr, his mind racing. His hand was hidden by the fold of his cloak. If he could reach the dagger on his belt, he might have a chance. He’d have to be quick, though. ‘She’s dead – but not,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t kill her!’ It was a lie, but he preferred to think of it as acting. Octavia hadn’t seemed particularly well-disposed to her vampiric allies, and neither had Steyr. Felix had seen it played out time and again – sides in a conflict were never as clear-cut as historians and playwrights liked to imply.

Steyr stared at him for a moment, and then an expression of understanding spread across his face. ‘Oh… Oh no,’ he said, stepping back. His eyes flickered from Felix to Nitocris. His lips peeled back from his teeth. ‘Damn her,’ he snarled. He forgot about Felix, and stepped towards the battle. Felix rolled to his feet, and his dagger sprang into his hand. He crashed into Steyr’s back, and rammed the point of the dagger up through a gap in the clasps of Steyr’s cuirass in search of his heart. Steyr screamed in shock, and bent forwards. Felix snaked an arm around his throat, and drove a knee into the small of his back, hauling him backwards, so that the blade pierced further. It skinned off bone and then, suddenly, black, cold blood gushed over his hand.

Steyr sank down, coughing. Felix twisted the blade, and, with a grunt, snapped off the hilt, leaving nothing save a sliver of steel extruding from the wound. He didn’t want Steyr extracting it. He tossed the hilt aside and staggered back, fumbling for Karaghul.

‘That damn knife. I keep forgetting you – ah – have it.’ Steyr stayed on his knees, clawing uselessly at his side. Blood welled up and poured down his cheeks as he tried to rise. ‘Right in the bloody heart as well. This is terribly embarrassing. Octavia was right – I make a piss-poor vampire.’ Felix recovered the templar blade and raised it up, for an executioner’s blow.

‘No,’ Felix said, breathing heavily, ‘Just your bad luck to run into someone who’s fought Mannfred von Carstein.’

‘Ha,’ Steyr hissed. ‘I would’ve liked to have heard that story.’ He looked up at Felix. ‘I wasn’t Barbenoire, was I?’

‘Ottokar, almost certainly,’ Felix said. Steyr gave a gurgling chuckle and bowed his head.

‘Lower the curtain,’ he said.

Karaghul fell, and Steyr’s head rolled free. Felix didn’t look at it as he stepped past the crumpled body. Gotrek had left a trail of hacked and pulverised zombies in his wake as he fought his way towards Nitocris and Khalida. The former had descended from her monstrous mount and had engaged Khalida blade to blade. Felix was puzzled to see that Khalida had dispensed with her khopesh and staff, and instead fought with the ancient ceremonial blade. Gotrek had engaged the terrorgheist, which snapped at him with its rancid, gore-encrusted maw. The Slayer avoided its snapping jaws and hacked at its neck with his axe. The giant bat-like creature shrieked and hopped awkwardly after Gotrek, stumping along on its folded wings and hind legs. Felix hesitated, torn between the two duels. He’d promised Zabbai that he and Gotrek would protect Khalida, but how to best do that?

His choice was made for him when he saw the terrorgheist swat Gotrek aside and turn its baleful gaze towards its mistress and her opponent. Felix raced to intercept the beast, hurdling a shattered chariot, and crushing the soft skull of a crippled zombie in his haste. Nitocris had manoeuvred Khalida so that the High Queen’s back was to the monster, which scrambled forward, bulling aside skeletons and zombies alike in its eagerness.

Felix sprang at the creature’s head, his sword piercing one of the gaping cavities in its flesh-denuded skull. The beast jerked to the side, and Felix held on for dear life as the creature’s sudden movement lifted him off his feet. ‘Good shot, manling!’ Gotrek roared. ‘Herd it towards me.’ Past the terrorgheist’s writhing limbs, he saw the Slayer charging forward, his body streaked with blood, dust and sand, but his enthusiasm undimmed. Gotrek laughed as he ran, his thick legs covering the distance between himself and the beast more quickly than Felix had thought possible. The terrorgheist saw the Slayer and its jaws opened. Felix felt the hairs on his neck and arms prickle, and he smelt something like the stink of a mass grave. Then a black sound tore from the beast and he saw something like a wave of molten frost wash over Gotrek. The runes on Gotrek’s axe blazed brighter than the sun for a moment, and then its edge was smashing down through the front of the terrorgheist’s skull.

Gotrek planted one boot on the terrorgheist’s head and his muscles bulged as he tore the axe free in a spray of rotten blood and slime. ‘Want to scream, do you? I’ll give you something to scream about!’ Gotrek frothed. His eyes were wide and his teeth were bared in a grimace of effort. He slammed the axe down again and again until the terrorgheist’s bloated body sagged, and its head had been reduced to a pulpy ruin. Gotrek wiped a splash of gore out of his eyes. He looked at Felix and spat, ‘Where’s the witch? I have a doom to collect.’

Before Felix could answer, the clash of blades drew their attention. Khalida and Nitocris spun and danced about one another, moving with the speed of the dead. Their blades connected and skidded away in a flash of sparks and a shriek of metal. Nitocris chopped down at Khalida’s head, and the High Queen threw up a hand to deflect the blow. Nitocris’s blade sent her hand spinning away. Nitocris leapt away from a slash that would have disembowelled her. She threw back her head and gave a shriek reminiscent of her mount. Felix turned and saw a number of her handmaidens speeding forward, racing through the battle, eyes fixed on the queen of Lybaras. ‘Gotrek,’ he said.

‘I see them,’ Gotrek said, ‘but I want the hag, not her servants.’ He moved towards Nitocris, eye glittering. ‘You hear me, hag? Gotrek is coming to collect his debt!’ He raised his axe and broke into a headlong charge. Felix followed suit, hoping to reach Khalida’s side before the other vampires reached them.

A vampire sped past Felix and lunged for Khalida, a spear digging for the High Queen’s head. Felix tackled Khalida and the spear missed her by inches. He rolled aside as the spear jabbed down between them. Khalida grabbed the haft, and her sword took the vampire’s hand off at the wrist. The woman reeled with a scream, and Felix caught her in the side. She fell, still screaming. One of her feet caught him in the hip, and he felt the bone grind. He staggered out of the way as Khalida finished what she had started, pinning the vampire’s head to the ground with the spear.

Gotrek, meanwhile, had got Nitocris’s notice. She didn’t seem puzzled by the presence of a dwarf on the battlefield, and she laughed as she writhed aside from Gotrek’s blows. She crashed into Gotrek and rolled across his shoulders, using the force of his blow against him. She dropped to her feet behind him and her sword kissed his back, drawing blood. Gotrek stumbled forwards, his eye wide in shock. He whirled. ‘You’re fast, hag,’ he growled, reaching over his shoulder and drawing back fingers red with his own blood.

‘And you’re strong,’ Nitocris said, licking a dollop of his blood from her blade.

Gotrek laughed and twirled his axe. ‘The question is, are you fast enough to kill me, woman?’ He spat blood and licked his lips. ‘Haven’t met one of you blood-suckers yet that is.’ He exposed his teeth and made a ‘come-hither’ gesture.

‘Are you strong enough to make it worth my while?’ Nitocris said, as they began to circle one another. ‘I haven’t yet met an opponent who is.’ She shot forwards. Sword scraped against axe. Gotrek laughed again and forced her back. They traded blows back and forth. Nitocris was the swifter, but Gotrek’s strength, incredible even by dwarf standards, was almost a match for hers.

Nearby, Felix ducked aside as a vampire pounced. Khalida smoothly spitted the creature, excising her heart with a flick of her wrist. Even one-handed the High Queen of Lybaras was deadly. ‘Your companion should hurry up and die, if that is what he craves,’ Khalida said, ‘for the Serpent Queen is coming to the end of her reign.’ She caught a second vampire’s wrist and gave the creature a boot to the belly. Felix quickly beheaded the vampire, as she bent double.

The High Queen didn’t appear concerned about the squalling blood-drinkers closing in on them from all sides. Every surviving vampire had been drawn to Nitocris’s cry, and they circled Khalida and Felix like jackals trying to bring down a wounded lioness. ‘I don’t think he’s in any particular hurry,’ Felix said, whipping his sword around to drive the vampires back. ‘He seems to be enjoying himself.’

And he did. Gotrek roared and cursed, but he smiled widely as he fought. The smile vanished when Nitocris leapt over a wild swing of his axe and landed on his shoulders. She reversed her blade, grabbed it in both hands, and plunged it down into Gotrek’s shoulder. A howl burst from the Slayer’s lips and his axe fell from his hand. Nitocris tore her blade loose and dropped off Gotrek as he sagged. The Slayer clamped one hand to the spurting wound, and sank to one knee. He drove his unwounded arm backwards in an attempt to knock Nitocris aside as she came for him again. She danced back out of reach and laughed.

‘Not fast enough,’ she said. She held up her blade and opened her mouth to catch the opalescent pearls of dwarf blood that rained down from the edge of the blade. She swept the blade out, spattering the ground with Gotrek’s blood. Gotrek growled wordlessly. Blood squeezed from between his clamped fingers. Felix stared in shock at the steadily pumping wound. He’d seen Gotrek hurt before. The Slayer accrued wounds like other men accrued debts. But this was, by far, the worst he’d seen in more years than he could recall. Not since the injuries Gotrek had suffered in Karak Dum had Felix seen him so pale.

He made to go to the Slayer, but Khalida stopped him. ‘Your part in this is done,’ she rasped. ‘Stand and watch.’

‘But–’

‘Stay where you are, manling,’ Gotrek croaked. He grabbed his axe and used it to lever himself to his feet. The Slayer looked at the High Queen, who inclined her head regally. Nitocris watched the exchange and clapped her hands together in glee. She spread her arms and looked around. All around them, the dead still fought in grim silence. How much of Nitocris’s army remained, Felix couldn’t say, but what was left was doing its single-minded best to continue the battle.

‘Is that it, queen of nothing?’ Nitocris said. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ She looked around. ‘This is what I have been waiting for?’ She extended her sword towards Khalida. ‘I have spent centuries preparing for this. Centuries scheming and wondering if victory was possible. Centuries yearning for the chance to match blades and fangs with the false serpent of Lybaras. Centuries not knowing if I would be worthy of travelling beyond the desert, to the lands of spice and honey.’ She swiped the air with her blade. ‘I could have beaten you by myself, with my handmaidens for an audience. I could have broken you across my knee the minute my queen charged me with the task!’ Her smile faded. ‘I lost so much time. Can you not even give me a challenge worthy of me? Can you not make this all mean something?’

‘What should it mean?’ Khalida asked. Her voice carried easily across the battlefield. She held up her sword. ‘Everything she told you is a lie, you know. Every whisper, every purr, every grand dream… All lies. She whispered the same things to me, as a girl. As she whispered them to others down through the millennia. Games within games, and she and I are the only players.’ She looked down the length of her blade at Nitocris, who was staring at her with an expression of incomprehension. ‘How many times has your mistress tried to take Lahmia from me, do you think?’

Nitocris said nothing.

‘One hundred and thirty-six times,’ Khalida said. Her voice was as remorseless as sand scraping stone. ‘One hundred and thirty-six of her followers have raised armies, fleets and beasts to hurl themselves against my walls. Sometimes they come north, sometimes east, or south. They come from the sea, and the sky and Great Desert, from the jungles and the mountains. They pour forth in a limitless tide and they are broken on my walls.’

She turned the blade, so that the thin ribbon of light now stretching across the horizon caught it. ‘And every time, she sends with them a token of her affection, one cousin to another. A lock of her hair, a book of poems by a philosopher of our acquaintance, the crown of Lahmia taken from her husband’s head, the amulet of Asaph stolen from my crypt, or… a sword she used to shed my blood. There is no magic in this thing. It is merely old steel, and badly cared for – still sharp, however. She stole it in order to let me know we had begun the old game again.’

The sky was still thick with bats, though the sun was beginning to rise. Felix grabbed his wrist. When the sun rose, the poison would enter his veins. But somehow, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was what was going on in front of him. ‘This is not my undoing,’ Khalida said, holding the sword up. ‘It is a gift from one player to another. A sign that she has not forgotten me, and to ensure that I do not forget her. In all the world, down through the long corridor of centuries, there has only been this game. And she has been my only opponent. You were right, before, on the walls, when you said you were a puppet. But not of fate… You are her puppet, her pawn, and this is her gambit.’ Khalida spun the blade with a swordswoman’s grace and planted it blade-first into the ground.

‘Worthy, you say,’ Khalida said, stepping back. ‘You are not worthy to fight me. Queens do not duel pawns.’ She gestured to Gotrek. ‘They let their servants deal with such things. Gotrek Gurnisson?’

‘Aye, High Queen?’ Gotrek said formally. He stood straight and with no sign of weakness from his still dripping wound. He took his bloody hand away and let it fall by his side.

‘Will you serve as my herald in this duel?’

‘Aye,’ Gotrek said, bowing shallowly.

Khalida folded her arms. ‘Dispose of this creature. The game is done, and her presence offends me.’

‘My pleasure,’ Gotrek said, turning towards Nitocris. He raised his axe. He tapped the haft against his wound. ‘You got lucky, hag. Let’s see if you can actually cut my throat this time, instead of just giving me a bit of a pinch.’

Nitocris had been silent as Khalida spoke. Now, her face twisted into an expression of bestial rage and she leapt towards Gotrek with a feral scream. Mockery was gone from her movements and her voice, leaving only a savage fury in its wake. As her sword connected with his axe, the world seemed to shudder to a halt. The sounds of battle faded around them, as if the eye of every dead thing were drawn towards the duel between Slayer and Serpent Queen.

Nitocris moved as swiftly as ever, but Gotrek’s speed had somehow increased. He moved faster than a being of his bulk ought to have been able to do. His rune-axe stopped every blow and laid light kisses on Nitocris’s limbs and torso in reply, drawing blood with every touch. The vampire did not slacken her pace. She spun about the Slayer like a dervish, striking at him from every direction, but Gotrek intercepted her again and again.

Finally, Nitocris leapt up over him, her sword swinging up to cave in his skull. Gotrek swung his axe out, and the vampire’s blade shattered into a hundred shining fragments. Nitocris hit the ground and rolled to her feet. She tossed aside the ruined blade and lunged for Gotrek, jaws wide in a mindless shriek.

Gotrek waited for her, face set in an expressionless mask. Then, when she was only inches away, he spun his axe to meet her rush. Blood stained the air, and Nitocris crashed down. Gotrek closed his eye and stood for a moment, axe extended, limbs trembling with exertion. Sweat covered him, and blood still pumped down from the wound in his shoulder. Then he lowered his arm and turned.

Nitocris had crawled to her knees, and she gripped her throat with both hands. Blood spurted between her fingers, and her eyes bulged, red, as she glared hatefully at Khalida. She rose awkwardly to her feet, took a step forwards, and then another. Blood sluiced down her hands and chest. Her mouth worked silently. Khalida let her come.

‘Herald,’ she said, simply, when Nitocris had come within arm’s-reach of her.

Gotrek reached up and grabbed Nitocris’s scalp. With a single, powerful jerk of his arm, he tore her head from her ruptured neck. Nitocris’s body refused to fall. Her bloody hands reached out, and knotted themselves in Khalida’s robes. In Gotrek’s grip, her jaws snapped soundlessly, as her eyes rolled in their sockets, blazing with fury. Then, the fire dimmed, and the eyelids sank down. The champing jaw slackened, and her body tottered and fell backwards. As it hit the ground, something very much like a vast sigh rippled through her army, and one by one, every dead thing that was not of Lybaras fell, bereft of life and will.

Gotrek extended Nitocris’s head to Khalida. She took it, brought its lips to hers, kissed them, and then tossed it aside. The vampire’s body began to smoulder as the sun began to rise. Felix looked at his arm and tensed, waiting for the sting of poison.

Nothing happened.

He looked up. Khalida was watching him, her head cocked to the side. ‘I don’t think it’s working,’ he croaked.

‘It hasn’t worked in four centuries,’ Djubti croaked from behind him. The liche-priest looked as tired as a dead man could, and leaned on his staff. Behind him came Rhupesh and Kharnak, the latter cradling Zabbai in his arms. Felix smiled as he saw her. The smile faded as Djubti continued. ‘Poison dries up quickly, after a few years.’

‘What?’ Felix said, not understanding.

Gotrek frowned, but not for long. He gave a loud guffaw. ‘Ha!’

‘What?’ Felix demanded.

Khalida reached towards him and tore the bracelet from his wrist before he could pull away. ‘I needed to ensure that the Doom-Seeker did as I bade.’

‘But-but you said…’ Felix began. ‘You lied!’

‘Yes,’ Khalida said. ‘I am queen. It is my prerogative to lie to barbarians, and to my enemies.’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘I could not trust you to do as I asked. So I had to ensure that the game was played the way I wished.’

‘But-but… you didn’t even need the sword!’ Felix said. ‘I almost died – we almost died!’ he shouted. Gotrek put a restraining hand on his arm.

‘Leave it, manling. We got a good fight out of it, at least,’ Gotrek said. He rubbed his wounded shoulder. ‘Not much of one, mind, but good enough.’

Before Felix could reply, drums thundered, and chariot wheels rattled. Felix turned, and saw that the horizon to the west of Lybaras, where the Devil’s Backbone stretched, was occupied by an army of the dead. Not zombies these, but skeletons clad in bronze, and bearing standards in the shapes of scorpions. Their approach had been hidden by the distraction of the battle.

The drums continued to roll, and as he watched, the newcomers lowered their spears, set their shields and began to advance. ‘Mahrak,’ Khalida said simply.

‘Are they here to help, or…’ Felix trailed off.

Khalida didn’t look at him. She watched the assembling legions. Behind them, the Lybaran forces began to form up, readying themselves to meet this new threat. They had just finished one war, but didn’t seem too bothered about starting another. He recalled Antar’s words about war being a game, and the interminable battle in the crater and shuddered. Was battle all that there was in these lands?

His heart sank as he considered it. It seemed that even if the poison had been nothing more than a ploy, he was still going to die. Khalida held up her remaining hand as Kharnak and the other ushabti stepped forwards, stopping them from racing towards the enemy. Behind them, the Emerald Sentinels stomped into position, and they too froze at Khalida’s command.

A trio of chariots rumbled out of the newcomers’ ranks and towards Lybaras. Felix shook his head as he recognized one of the riders. Gotrek laughed. ‘Look, manling. He survived after all.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ Felix said, as Antar descended from his chariot. The tomb-prince, like Zabbai, looked much the worse for wear from his travels. How he had managed to survive the Temple of Skulls and make it back to his city, Felix couldn’t say, but it was clear that it had taken a toll upon him. Antar was rattling worse than ever as he strode towards them, accompanied by his driver. The driver stepped forwards, as if to speak, when Antar shoved him aside.

‘Antar, Most Beloved of the Sun, Moon and Stars, sees that you have defeated the charnel rabble, O Queen of the Serpent’s Vengeance. He is pleased! Your victory is Antar’s victory, for it was he who helped you achieve it!’ He gestured towards the waiting army. ‘Antar thought you might need aid, and thus, he mustered the Scorpion Legions of Mahrak to come to fight at your side.’

‘Indeed, son of Mahrak, you did,’ Khalida said. ‘And Lybaras thanks you, and asks that, since our enemies have been routed, you take this army you have so thoughtfully brought and remove it from our demesnes.’

Antar cocked his head. ‘Ah. The Helpful Lion regrets that, having roused the Scorpion Kings of Mahrak, he must provide them with battle. If it be not with the enemies of Lybaras, then it must be with Lybaras itself. Such is the will of King Tharruk, who has himself come to witness the battle.’ He gestured back at a splendidly adorned chariot, and its regal rider. Antar looked at Khalida. ‘Of course, Antar did convince the king that, in lieu of open battle, a contest of champions would be a most fitting decider for the grievances between our cities.’

‘Oh?’ Khalida said. ‘And who fights for the City of Decay?’

‘Who else?’ Antar said, spreading his arms. ‘Antar, Mightiest and Most Magnificent of All Princes, Whose Glory is as the Sun, will fight for Mahrak. For is he not Mahrak Embodied? The question, mighty queen, is who shall fight for Lybaras? Your Herald is crippled,’ he said, gesturing to Zabbai.

Zabbai began to squirm in Kharnak’s grip. ‘Crippled, am I? Let me down, honoured one! I shall take his yattering jaw,’ she hissed.

‘Be at peace, Herald of Heralds,’ Khalida said. ‘You have done all I asked, most faithful one. Djubti shall make you whole, and you shall serve me anew. But our guests appear to be the impatient sort, and likely will not deign to await your restoration.’ She looked at Antar, who inclined his head, and waved disparagingly at Zabbai. The latter reached for him with a throttling motion, and Kharnak was forced to tighten his grip to keep the broken Herald from squirming out of his grip and going after the prince of Mahrak.

‘As you say, most puissant queen,’ Antar said, backing away from Zabbai, who filled the air with curses. ‘Though I would happily await the Herald’s pleasure, we are here now, and spears rattle and swords are raised. Battle! Battle calls to us! The gods watch and champions must clash! Yes? Yes! Antar is but the game-piece of fate, and he is burdened by glorious purpose!’

‘Then it seems that I require a temporary herald.’ Khalida looked at Gotrek. ‘Have you any wisdom to offer, Son of Stone?’

The Slayer was silent for a moment. Then he smiled and looked at Khalida. Felix looked back and forth between them, hoping that the next words out of Gotrek’s mouth weren’t going to be what he expected. ‘You didn’t give me the doom I was promised, but it’s not every day I get to kill a queen. I owe you for the fight, by my reckoning, High Queen of Lybaras. And I always pay my debts, one way or another,’ Gotrek said.

Khalida examined the Slayer. ‘You are not bound, Gotrek Gurnisson. You have done all I required. You are free to leave, to go where you wish.’

‘I always was,’ Gotrek said with a huff. ‘Aye, and I will, by and by. But this mouthy crow’s leavings and I have a fight to finish before I and the manling take our leave of your lands. A debt of honour stands to be settled, between the folk of Mahrak and mine.’ Gotrek grinned and looked past Antar, where King Tharruk watched from his chariot. ‘I want that hammer back, you sun-bleached oaf!’ he roared, shaking his axe.

‘Hammer?’ Felix blinked. ‘Oh, oh no, Gotrek, really?’

‘Of course, manling. The Hammer of Algrim! I bet that buzzard vomit has it on him,’ Gotrek said, waving his axe at the distant chariot. ‘One of them does, at any rate. Better to shave my beard than let an opportunity like this pass. I’ll silence this chattering numbskull,’ he hiked a thumb at Antar, ‘and I’ll return Algrim’s hammer to Karak Azul. That alone will make this trip worth it, doom or no.’ He looked at Khalida expectantly.

She examined him for a moment, and then inclined her head. ‘Will you lend me one final service, Gotrek Gurnisson, before you depart for the lands of the living?’

Gotrek grinned. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

Felix groaned.

‘Good!’ Antar barked. ‘It is our time come around at last, cheating monkey. Now shall Antar have his vengeance and he shall have King Alkharad’s as well! Antar shall await you between the armies! Come and die, one-eyed ape!’ He spun about and trotted away, still shouting and gesticulating.

‘This’ll be fun,’ Gotrek said, and slapped Felix on the back. Felix took in the enemy army and swallowed. It was massive. Drums crashed as Antar bellowed something to the troops who’d come with him. They raised a clattering cheer. Behind them, the Lybaran forces began to form up into organised lines. Zabbai inclined her head as he met her gaze. Djubti fussed about her, realigning her cracked bones and poking at her wrappings. She’d be up and around in no time. He was glad she’d survived. He realised that he would miss her, when all was said and done.

‘Cheer up, manling. I’m almost positive I won’t survive this one,’ Gotrek said cheerfully. He gave his axe an experimental swing. Felix looked at him.

‘Here’s hoping,’ he said.

Gotrek guffawed.

‘That’s the spirit!’ he said. Then, with a laugh, the Slayer hefted his axe and went to meet his waiting opponent, as Felix watched the rising sun, and thought of Tilea and sandy beaches.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author of the novels Knight of the Blazing Sun, Time of Legends: Neferata, Time of Legends: Master of Death and Gotrek and Felix: Road of Skulls, Josh Reynolds used to be a roadie for the Hong Kong Cavaliers, but now writes full time. His work has appeared in various anthologies, including Age of Legend and several issues of the electronic magazine Hammer and Bolter.

For Noah, who probably won’t read this

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Dave Greco.

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