Neferata

But these ghouls were not like the almost-tame creatures that scampered through the tu

Neferata shrieked, casting her voice at them like a weapon. Several dozen stumbled to a halt, tripping up those immediately behind them. Neferata was on them a moment later. Her sword slashed across the front rank, gutting four of the creatures and lopping the arms from a fifth. She pressed her attack, aware that even with all of her strength the creatures could pull her down through sheer weight of numbers. She had to break them; they were scavengers by nature, and would retreat if their prey looked to be too strong.

Her elbow came down between the head and shoulders of a ghoul, shattering its neck even as her leg swept out. Her foot crushed a slavering jaw and the force of the kick spun the ghoul in place, dropping it dead to the rocks. Her sword darted out, chopping like a cleaver into grey flesh. Severed limbs lay heaped on the ground as she created a corridor of death through the ghoul ranks.

Alone, Neferata had blunted the momentum of the ambush. The ghouls scrambled back from her, yelping and howling. Many retreated for their holes, but more stayed. Greasy bodies crashed into her as they sought to drag her down. When she killed one, two more took its place. Hooked claws tore her flesh and she returned the favour. She was in constant motion, her feet and hands crushing skulls and splintering bones even as her sword removed heads and spilled intestines.

For a moment, the snarling creatures that swirled around her wore the faces of enemies new and old, of every obstacle that stood in her path — Razek and Al-Khattab, Lamashizzar and Khalida, Khaled and Ushoran. Obstacle and enemy were interchangeable concepts for Neferata and she wondered, in the bliss of bloodletting, when that had become the case.

Then the moment passed and she stood alone, drenched in blood. The survivors squatted around her, stinking of fear, their yellow gazes riveted on her. It was ever the way with the corpse-eaters; simply kill enough of them and they worshipped you. If only men were so easy.

Neferata stretched out her sword, catching one of the larger beasts beneath its jaw with the flat of the blade. It gurgled something. She frowned. ‘Morath, I trust W’soran taught you whatever debased mewling passes for the language of Nagashizzar,’ she called out.

Morath hurried towards her, flanked by Neferata’s handmaidens. The blades of both vampires were dark with blood, but only a few ghouls had been opportunistic enough to attack them. Those creatures littered the slope below. Morath spoke in a halting, gurgling tongue that seemed to be less word than bark. The ghouls answered with barks of their own. Morath turned to Neferata, who was examining the blood dripping from her sword to the rocks. Several ghouls squatted low and snuffled at the spreading stain. ‘You’ve impressed them,’ Morath said.

‘They will serve us, or I will hunt them down. Tell them that,’ Neferata said.

‘That’s u

‘The minds of ghouls are as the minds of men. They seek strong leaders,’ Neferata said. The ghouls began to flow back into their holes in pairs and groups. A number stayed with them, as if to act as escort, a fact which Morath confirmed.

‘They will show us the secret ways into Nagashizzar. But it is dangerous in the deeps. There are creatures there that even the ghouls fear,’ Morath said as they followed the capering ca

Neferata nodded. She had heard similar stories in Cathay and then again in Araby; of chittering red-eyed shadows and stealthy paws in the dark. She had thought it a fable. But now, looking up at the crude walls of Nagashizzar where it sprouted from the mountain’s peak, she could believe it. Where else would rats congregate, save in a warren such as this? This close to the fortress of the Great Necromancer, she could feel the evil that infected rock and soil. It sank greedy claws into her mind, and she felt a strange invigoration, similar to that which she felt when entering Kadon’s pyramid in Mourkain.

The ghouls led them up the slope and into the warrens that honeycombed Cripple Peak. As they entered the foul-smelling hole, Neferata realised that Nagashizzar was very likely sitting atop a molehill. The trip through the cramped and crude ghoul-tu

Here and there as they made their way through the tu

There were ghoul-women in the tu

‘What was that, necromancer?’ Neferata said.

‘These creatures were once men,’ Morath said, gesturing to a cowering carrion-eater. ‘Five or ten generations ago, they might have been the same as my own people. And now they are — what? They are nothing but ca

‘One ca

‘Is it inevitable, then?’ Morath spat. ‘Will the Strigoi become cowering apes, hiding in the dark and gnawing bones?’ He glared at the vampires. ‘Is that what awaits us—’ Morath stopped as the tu

‘What is that foulness?’ Layla whispered, her nose wrinkling.

‘The stuff which nightmares are made of,’ Morath said, letting it hiss through his fingers to the floor. ‘It’s called abn-i-khat. Nagash devoured it; it sustained and consumed him.’ He looked at the ghouls. ‘And likely these poor creatures as well,’ he said.

‘Much like magics in general,’ Neferata murmured, her flesh crawling as she took in the shimmering veins of the weirdly glowing ore. Morath looked at her.

‘Maybe, but it is a price some of us willingly pay,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes, so much the martyr,’ Neferata said, peering into one of the dark tu