Read 02 - Nagash the Unbroken Online

Authors: Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

Tags: #Warhammer, #Time of Legends

02 - Nagash the Unbroken

BOOK: 02 - Nagash the Unbroken
12.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

 
A WARHAMMER “TIME OF LEGENDS” NOVEL
NAGASH THE UNBROKEN

 

Nagash - 02
Mike Lee
(An Undead Scan v1.0)

 

 

It is a Time of Legends, a time of gods and daemons, of kings
and heroes blessed with the power of the divine.

 

The arid land of Nehekhara has been blessed by the hands of the gods, giving birth to the first great human
civilization by the banks of the winding River Vitac. The Nehekharans dwell in
eight proud city-states, each with its own patron deity whose blessings shape
the character and fortunes of its people. The greatest of them all, situated at
the nexus of this ancient land, is Khemri, the fabled Living City of Settra the
Magnificent.

 

It was Settra, hundreds of years before, who united the cities
of Nehekhara into mankind’s first empire, and declared that he would rule over
it forever. He commanded his priests to unlock the secret of life eternal, and
when the great emperor eventually died, his body was entombed within a mighty
pyramid until the day when his liche priests would summon his soul back from the
afterlife.

 

After Settra’s death, his great empire unravelled, and
Khemri’s power waned. Now, amid the haunted shadows of Khemri’s mortuary temple,
a brilliant and mighty priest broods over the cruelties of fate and covets his
brother’s crown.

 

His name is Nagash.

 

 
PROLOGUE
New Beginnings

 

Lahmia, The City of the Dawn, in the 63rd year of Khsar the
Faceless

(-1739 Imperial Reckoning)

 

Small, soft hands gripped her and gently shook her. Voices whispered urgently
in her ears, calling her back across the gulf of dreams, until the Daughter of
the Moon stirred at last from her slumber and opened her heavy-lidded eyes. It
was very late. Neru hung low on the horizon, sending shafts of lambent moonlight
through the tall windows of the bedchamber. The golden lamps had been turned
down, and only the faintest hint of incense still lingered near the room’s tiled
ceiling.

The sea breeze stirred the gauzy curtains surrounding her bed, carrying
ghostly sounds of revelry from the Red Silk Quarter, down by the city docks.

Neferata, Daughter of the Moon and the Queen of Lahmia, rolled onto her back
and blinked slowly in the gloom. Tephret, her most favoured handmaiden, was
crouched by the head of the queen’s sumptuous bed, one slim hand still resting
protectively on Neferata’s naked shoulder. The queen irritably brushed the touch
away, her own fingers slow and clumsy from the effects of too much black lotus
and sweet, Eastern wine.

“What is it?” Neferata murmured, her voice thick with sleep.

“The king,” Tephret whispered. The handmaiden’s face was hidden in shadow,
but the outline of her slender body was tense. “The king is here, great one.”

Neferata stared at Tephret for a moment, not quite able to make sense of what
she’d heard. The queen sat up in bed, the silken sheets flowing over the curves
of her body and pooling in her lap. She shook her head gently, struggling to
think through the clinging fog of the lotus. “What time is it?”

“The hour of the dead,” Tephret replied, her voice wavering slightly. Like
all of the queen’s handmaidens, she was also a priestess of Neru, and sensitive
to the omens of the night. “The grand vizier awaits you in the Hall of Reverent
Contemplation.”

The mention of the grand vizier cut through the mists surrounding Neferata’s
brain at last. She swung her slender legs over the edge of the bed, next to
Tephret, and let out a slow, thoughtful breath. “Bring me the
hixa,”
she
said, “and my saffron robes.”

Tephret bowed, touching her forehead to the top of Neferata’s feet, then rose
and began hissing orders to the rest of the queen’s handmaidens. Half a dozen
young women stirred from their sleeping cushions at the far end of the room as
Neferata rose carefully to her feet and walked to the open windows facing the
sea. The surface of the water was calm as glass, and the great trading ships
from the Silk Lands rode easy at their anchors in the crowded harbour. Specks of
red and yellow lantern-light bobbed like fireflies down Lahmia’s close-set
streets as the palanquins of noblemen and wealthy traders made their way home
from an evening of debauchery.

The lights of the Red Silk District, as well as the more upper-class District
of the Golden Lotus, still burned brightly, while the rest of the great city had
sunk reluctantly into slumber. From where Neferata stood, she could just see the
sandstone expanse of Asaph’s Quay, at the edge of the Temple District and just
north of the city harbour. The ceremonial site was bare.

The queen frowned pensively, though she’d expected no less.

“There was no word from the army?” she asked. “None at all?”

“None,” Tephret confirmed. The handmaiden glided swiftly across the room and
knelt beside the queen, offering up a small box made from fine golden filigree.
“The king’s servants are in an uproar.”

Neferata nodded absently and plucked the box from Tephret’s hands. She
carefully opened the lid.

Inside, the
hixa
stirred torpidly. Neferata gripped the large,
wingless wasp between thumb and forefinger and pressed its abdomen against the
hollow beneath her left ear. It took a few moments of agitation before she felt
the
hixa’s
sting and the prickling tide of pain that washed across her
face and scalp. Blood pounded in a rising crescendo at her temples and behind
her eyes, finally receding several seconds later into a dull, throbbing ache
that set her teeth on edge but left her alert and clear-headed at last. There
was no better cure for the lingering effects of lotus and wine, as the nobles of
the city knew all too well.

She placed the
hixa
back in the box with a sigh and handed it back to
Tephret, then raised her arms so that her maids could wrap her body in
ceremonial robes of welcome. Tephret set the golden box aside and hurried to a
cabinet of gilded ebony that contained the queen’s royal mask. Made of beaten
gold and inlaid with rubies, polished onyx and mother-of-pearl, it had been
crafted by the artisan-priests of Asaph as a perfect likeness of the queen’s
regal face. It was the face she was required to show to the rest of the world.
In time, it would serve as her death mask as well.

It would have taken hours for Neferata to fully prepare herself for her
husband’s return; she impatiently waved aside the proffered golden bracelets and
necklaces, and glared at the maids who tried to paint her eyes with crushed
beetle shell and kohl. The instant her girdle was pulled tight and the royal
mask set carefully upon her face, she snatched up Asaph’s snake-headed sceptre
from Tephret’s hands and hurried from the bedchamber. A servant dashed ahead of
Neferata, her bare feet slapping on the polished marble tiles as she held up a
bobbing lantern to light their way.

Neferata moved as swiftly as her confining robes would allow, but it still
took ten long minutes to traverse the labyrinth of shadowy corridors, luxurious
rooms and ornamental gardens that separated her apartments from the rest of the
palace. It was a world apart, a palace within a palace that served as both
sanctuary and prison for the women of the Lahmian royal bloodline. Not even the
king himself could enter, save on certain holy days dedicated to the goddess
Asaph and her divine revels.

There were only three small audience chambers where the queen and her
daughters were allowed to interact with the outside world. The largest and
grandest, the Hall of the Sun in its Divine Glory, was set aside to celebrate
weddings and childbirths, and was open at various times to both the royal
household and the common folk of the city. The smallest, a dark vault of green
marble known as the Hall of Regretful Sorrows, was where long, solemn
processions of Lahmian citizens would come to pay their last respects to a dead
queen before her journey to the House of Everlasting Life.

In between was the Hall of Reverent Contemplation, a medium-sized chamber
built from warm, golden sandstone and inlaid with screens of lustrous, polished
wood. More temple than audience chamber, it was here that the king and the noble
families of the city—as well as a handful of common folk, chosen by lot—would gather to pay homage to the queen and receive her blessings for the coming
year.

By the time Neferata arrived at the hall the great golden lamps had been lit,
and incense was curling in dark, blue-grey ribbons from the braziers that
flanked the royal dais. A red-faced servant, glistening with sweat, was
single-handedly trying to unfold the delicate wooden screen that was meant to
shield the royal presence from unworthy eyes. The queen stopped the servant in
her tracks with a curt wave of her hand as she stepped from behind the elegantly
carved wooden throne and approached the robed figure resting upon his knees at
the foot of the dais.

Like the queen, Grand Vizier Ubaid had taken the time to don his ceremonial
saffron robes to welcome the king’s return. His shaven pate had been freshly
oiled and matched the mellow tone of the room’s polished wood. Neferata could
barely make out the coiling tattoos of Asaph’s sacred serpents that wound
sinuously about the sides of Ubaid’s head and neck. She couldn’t help but note
that the thin coating of fragrant oil effectively concealed any signs of nervous
sweat on Ubaid’s high forehead.

The grand vizier bowed low the stone floor as Neferata descended the broad
steps of the royal dais. “A thousand, thousand pardons, great one—” he began.

“What is the meaning of this, Ubaid?” Neferata hissed. Her husky voice
sounded harsh and menacing within the golden confines of her mask. “What is he
doing here?”

Ubaid straightened, spreading his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I
swear, I do not know,” he replied. “He arrived little more than an hour ago with
a small retinue and a handful of slaves.”

Like most Lahmian nobles, the grand vizier had a slender neck, high
cheekbones and a prominent jaw-line. Years of rich living hadn’t softened him,
like many of his peers, and despite being of middle age his body was still
slender and strong. Many at court suspected him of being a sorcerer, but
Neferata knew that he was simply very good at keeping up appearances. He had
even taken to wearing golden caps on the ends of his little fingers, each one
ending in a long, artificial nail in the fashion of bureaucrats from the Silk
Lands across the sea. The affectation did nothing to improve the queen’s mood.

“Where is the army?” she demanded. “The last report said they were still
three days’ march away.”

Ubaid shrugged helplessly. “There is no way of knowing, great one. Likely
they are still somewhere on the trade road, west of the Golden Plain. Certainly
they are nowhere near the city itself. The king appears to have hurried on ahead
of the host.”

As well as the majority of his noble allies, Neferata observed, growing more
irritated by the moment. Absolutely nothing about Lamashizzar’s expedition to
Mahrak had gone according to plan, and now he was risking the ire of people
whose goodwill he would desperately need in the years to come. “And where is the
king now?” she asked coldly.

The vizier’s carefully composed expression cracked somewhat around the edges.
“He’s… in the cellars,” he answered in a subdued voice. “He went there
straightaway with his men—”

“The
cellars?”
Neferata snapped. “Why? To inventory the jars of grain
and honey?”

“I…” Ubaid stammered. “I’m sure I can’t say—”

“Asaph’s teeth!” the queen swore. “I was being sarcastic, Ubaid. I know
perfectly well what he’s doing down there,” she said. “Take me to him.”

Ubaid’s eyes widened. “I’m not certain that would be proper, great one—”

Neferata straightened her shoulders and glared down at the grand vizier, her
golden face implacable and cold. “Grand vizier, the king has flouted ancient
tradition by returning to the city in this… unorthodox… fashion. By custom and
by law, he hasn’t
officially
returned, which means that I continue to
rule this city in Lamashizzar’s name. Do you understand?”

The grand vizier bowed his head at once. Over the last year and a half he’d
been exceedingly careful to conceal his true feelings about the king’s secret
dispensation of power. By rights, Ubaid should have been the one to rule Lahmia
in Lamashizzar’s absence; the queens of Lahmia were not meant to sully
themselves with mundane affairs of state. Now, eighteen months later, Ubaid
understood what had persuaded the king to make such a scandalous choice.

“Please follow me, great one,” he replied smoothly, and rose to his feet.

BOOK: 02 - Nagash the Unbroken
12.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

El túnel by Ernesto Sábato
Ice Storm by Penny Draper
Mated by Night by Taiden, Milly
Naked Came The Phoenix by Marcia Talley
Unknown Remains by Peter Leonard
Alluring by Curtis, Sarah
Frostborn: The False King by Jonathan Moeller
The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier
Wrapped in Silk by Fields, MJ