02 - Nagash the Unbroken (5 page)

There was a crackle of bone and a creak of decayed sinew. The Usurper threw
back his head and howled his suffering to the sky as his ruined left arm knit
back together. Next, foul smelling smoke poured from the holes in his torso and
forehead. He doubled over, still shrieking in pain, as flesh and organs were
shifted aside.

Thump. Thump. Thump.
One after another, three small, dark metal balls
thudded to the ground, wreathed in pale greenish steam.

Seconds later, Nagash the Usurper was whole again, in body if not in mind.

The first rays of dawn were breaking over the distant peaks. With a trembling
hand, Nagash gathered up the rest of the stones and tucked them back into the
slit pouch. As he quickly dragged the bodies of the creatures over to him, he
could sense that more stones resided in the pouches of the other creatures he’d
killed.

It wasn’t much, but it would be enough, the Usurper vowed. The stones would
sustain him and guide him to the great mountain, where he would learn to master
its fearsome power.

As Ptra’s light burned overhead, Nagash curled up on the rocky ground,
shielded beneath the bodies of those he’d slain, and dreamed of the doom that
would befall Nehekhara.

Lahmia, The City of the Dawn, in the 70th year of Basth the
Graceful

(-1650 Imperial Reckoning)

The yellow silk roof of the Hall of Rebirth rippled like a great sail in the
freshening wind blowing from the coast, and its polished cedar timbers groaned
like a great ship at sea. The comparison seemed particularly apt, Neferata
thought bitterly, given the legion of shipwrights that had been hastily drafted
to build it.

Preparations for the great Council of Kings had gone on for three solid
months, beginning on the very day that the fateful news had arrived from
Ka-Sabar. Even as word raced through the winding city streets that the City of
Bronze had fallen at last, and the long war against the Usurper had finally come
to an end, King Lamashizzar was already digging into the city treasury in
anticipation of his royal peers’ arrival. Commissions by the hundred flowed from
the palace and descended like flocks of sea birds on the astonished city
merchants and trading factors: jars of fine wine by the hundreds; casks of beer
by the
thousands;
cunning gifts of gold, silver and bronze; bales of silk
by the ton and a queen’s ransom in fine spices and rare incense.

And that was only the beginning. Swift trading ships plied the fickle seas
between Lahmia and the Eastern Empire’s trading cities to bring back the finest,
most exotic delicacies that the Silk Lands could produce, while the dockyards
were stripped of every able hand to build a vast tent city on the Golden Plain.
As spring gave way to summer it seemed as though every able-bodied man, woman
and child was working feverishly to complete the king’s grand design.

When the rebel leaders finally arrived, in the last month of summer, they
were met at the edge of the Golden Plain by Lamashizzar himself, at the head of
a richly-dressed panoply of courtesans, artists, musicians and servants. After
being showered with small gifts—from rings and bracelets to fine swords and
splendid chariots—the rulers were conducted across the great, fertile plain to
the sprawling city of silk tents set aside for their servants and retainers. The
gentle breezes that caressed the plain turned the tent city into a rippling
banner of festive colour: sea green for Zandri, gold for Numas, blue for Lybaras
and brilliant red for Rasetra.

The royal processions descended upon their encampments with weary delight,
and allowed a few hours to rest and refresh themselves before the celebrations
began in earnest. Then, at sunset, Lamashizzar and his panoply summoned his
royal guests with a blare of golden trumpets and led them in a triumphant
procession through the streets of his city.

The people of Lahmia commemorated the end of the war for seven ecstatic days,
and from the halls of the palace to the mean streets near the dockyards, the
king’s royal guests were treated like saviours. They wanted for nothing, except
perhaps a few hours’ rest here and there between revels and enough room in their
baggage to carry all of Lamashizzar’s rich gifts back home with them.

It was only at the end of the week, when the king’s guests were thoroughly
worn out and more than a little overwhelmed by the Lahmians’ wealth and
generosity, that Lamashizzar convened the Council of Kings to decide the future
of Nehekhara.

The great Hall of Rebirth had been built by the city’s carpenters and
shipwrights in the space occupied by the palace’s grand royal gardens. In fact,
the wooden structure encompassed the gardens themselves, creating the illusion
that the council chamber was surrounded by a tamed wilderness. Brilliantly
coloured songbirds, many imported at great cost from the Silk Lands, filled the
space with music, while fountains burbled serenely just out of sight. Servants
came and went along hidden paths, bearing refreshments to the guests, who sat
around a huge, circular mahogany table in a clearing at the far end of the
garden. The effect of so much vibrant, harnessed life on the desert rulers was
nothing short of stunning.

The entire spectacle, from start to finish, had been calculated as carefully
as any military campaign, Neferata understood. It was couched to tempt, seduce
and intimidate the rulers of east and west, and muddle whatever alliances they
might have forged against Lahmia’s interests. It was also stupendously,
ruinously
expensive.
The city’s treasury was virtually empty. All of the
wealth that their father Lamasheptra had so carefully built during the dark
years of Nagash’s reign was gone. Their last reserves had been thrown away on a
single, extravagant throw of the dice. There was not enough gold in the coffers
to make even a quarter of the coming year’s payment to the Eastern Empire; if
Lamashizzar’s negotiations did not bear fruit, the City of the Dawn faced
certain disaster.

While the king gambled with his city’s future, Neferata was left to watch the
proceedings from a broad balcony that spanned the rear of the great hall and
overlooked the great council table. Her handmaidens lounged on silk cushions and
ate candied dates while they gossiped in hushed tones about the scandals from
the previous week’s celebrations. A delicate fog of incense curled just above
their heads: nryrrh spiced with black lotus, to relieve the boredom. Servants
knelt at the fringes of the chamber alert to the queen’s every need. A low
table, with sheets of paper and an ink brush, had been hastily set beside her as
she studied the visiting rulers from behind a polished wooden screen.

As precarious as Lahmia’s future might be, judging by the appearance of their
guests it was evident to Neferata that the other great cities were in a far
worse state. During his unnatural reign, Nagash the Usurper had recreated the
Nehekharan Empire in principle if not in name, subjugating the other great
cities through the power he held over Khemri’s hostage queen, Neferem.

For centuries, each city had been forced to pay tribute to the Usurper in the
form of gold and slaves, driving them to the brink of ruin. When the priests of
Khemri—at the urging of their superiors on the Hieratic Council in Mahrak—finally attempted to unseat Nagash and end his blasphemous reign, the Usurper
retaliated with a terrible curse that struck down two-thirds of Nehekhara’s
priesthood in the space of a single day.

It was that one act of infamy that finally caused the priest kings to rise up
in revolt, but the Usurper fought back with dark magics and terrible atrocities
that devastated the Blessed Land and slaughtered thousands. Yet even when the
Usurper’s army was finally defeated, close to a dozen of his immortal
lieutenants escaped destruction and continued to bedevil the land for decades.

Rather than celebrate their hard-won triumph at Mahrak, the Priest Kings were
faced with a long, gruelling campaign of terror and attrition as they hunted
down every last one of the Usurper’s minions. Since Nagash’s body had never been
found, it was secretly feared that one of them still possessed the Usurper’s
corpse and, if given the opportunity, might be able to restore the dreaded
necromancer to life. It had taken ninety years to finish the task, slaying the
last of Nagash’s immortals after a lengthy siege at Ka-Sabar, the City of
Bronze.

The long years of war had left an indelible mark on each of Nehekhara’s
rulers. They were gaunt from strain and deprivation that no amount of easy
living could ever erase. Few wore jewellery, or gilt adornments on their robes
of state, and the fine fabrics of their ceremonial attire seemed shabby and
worn. Even now, amid the verdant luxury of the great hall, their expressions
were haunted and fretful, as though they expected fresh horrors hiding in every
shadow.

Neferata was vividly reminded of that night in the cellars, now decades past,
when Lamashizzar and his cabal had returned from the war.
And they’d scarcely
fought more than a handful of battles, while these men and women have known
nothing else their entire lives,
she thought.

Yet as beleaguered and broken as these rulers might be, they were not to be
underestimated, the queen knew. When the doors to the great hall were opened,
Lamashizzar’s guests had filed through the gardens in solemn procession, led by
the Priest Kings of Rasetra and Lybaras and the young Queen of Numas. Each of
the three rulers bore a sandalwood box in their hands, and when they reached the
great council table they set the boxes before the smiling Lahmian king and drew
forth their contents.

The severed heads of Raamket, the Red Lord, and Atan-Heru, the Great Beast,
had been treated with nitre and the sacred oils of the mortuary cult, and looked
much as they had at the moment of their deaths. Their pale skin was mottled with
burns from the touch of the sun, and their lips were drawn back in savage,
almost bestial snarls, revealing teeth that had been filed to points and stained
brown with human blood. The third head, by comparison, was round and fleshy as a
suckling pig’s, with small, beady eyes hidden by a thick band of kohl.

Memnet, the former Grand Hierophant of Ka-Sabar, who murdered his king and
served Nagash in exchange for eternal life, had wailed like a babe as he was
dragged before the headsman. An expression of craven terror was still etched on
Memnet’s jowly face.

The heads still sat in the centre of the table, their hideous expressions
turned to face Lamashizzar. The message—to Neferata, at least—was clear.
We’ve done our part, while you sat in your city by the sea. Now you’ll help us
rebuild, or there might be one more head on this table by day’s end.
At this
point, it was difficult to say whether Lamashizzar’s display of wealth had
successfully undermined his guests, or simply strengthened their resolve.

The queen bit her lip in irritation. We should be deciding this on the
battlefield, she thought. We can always make more soldiers. Gold is much harder
to come by.

It was mid-afternoon. The council had been in session for almost five hours,
during which time Lamashizzar enquired of the needs of each of his guests and
made offers of assistance in the form of monetary loans and trade agreements.
Dizzying sums of gold were haggled over, while scribes hurriedly drafted copies
of proposals that would govern the flow of goods across Nehekhara for
generations to come.

Trade with the Eastern Empire would rejuvenate the Blessed Land’s economy,
and open up a vast new realm of markets for Nehekharan goods—and all of it
would pass through the City of the Dawn. Each of the rulers had been given the
chance to speak, and a brief lull had settled over the table while each of the
council members took stock of their current positions. Off to the east came a
distant grumble of thunder as a late-summer rain shower made its way towards the
coast.

Neferata heard a rustle of cushions behind her, followed by a familiar
cat-like tread as her young cousin Khalida came to sit beside her.

“Great Gods, is it finally over?” the girl asked, slumping theatrically onto
the queen’s lap. “We’ve been trapped in here
forever.
I wanted to go out
riding before the rain came in.”

Neferata chuckled despite herself. Khalida hadn’t the least interest in
courtly gossip or affairs of state.

At fifteen she was tall and coltish, full of so much restless energy that
even the sprawling Women’s Palace wasn’t large enough to contain her. She was
much like her father, Lord Wakhashem, a wealthy nobleman and close ally of King
Lamasheptra, who had secured a strategic marriage to Neferata’s aunt Semunet.
Both had died when Khalida was very young, and according to tradition she had
been returned to the keeping of the royal family until such time as a husband
could be found for her. She was passionate about horses, archery—even
swordplay—and had little interest in the finer aspects of courtly behaviour.
Lamashizzar dismayed of ever finding a nobleman who would take Khalida, but
Neferata was secretly proud of her.

The queen reached down and stroked the girl’s dark hair. She kept it in
dozens of tight, oiled braids, like the Numasi horse-maidens of legend. “The
real work has scarcely begun, little hawk,” Neferata said fondly. “Up until now,
the council has merely argued matters of taxes and trade. Trivial matters, in
the grander scheme of things.”

Khalida looked up at the queen. The goddess Asaph hadn’t blessed her with the
radiant beauty that Neferata and most of the Lahmian royal bloodline possessed.
She was striking, in a fierce, angular way, with a sharp nose, a small, square
chin and dark, piercing eyes. She frowned. “Trivial compared to what?”

The queen smiled. “Compared to power, of course. The decisions made here will
determine the balance of power in Nehekhara for centuries to come. Each of the
rulers seated below us has their own idea of how that balance should be struck.”