02 - Nagash the Unbroken (8 page)

None of that mattered to Nagash. To the east, hard by the shores of the
gloomy sea, rose the dark slopes of the mountain that had called to him for more
than a hundred years. It was larger and far more imposing than the broken peaks
that surrounded it; tendrils of steam leaked from fissures along its flanks,
glowing faintly green in the darkness. It dominated the horizon for miles,
crouching at the edge of the sea like a brooding dragon from some barbarian
myth.

Looking upon the mountain, Nagash realised he had never actually seen it with
his own eyes before that moment. The shadow of the power buried at its heart had
somehow etched itself upon his mind’s eye. Now he understood why it had always
seemed to hide, just out of his grasp, no matter how hard he tried to reach it.
All this time he’d been chasing a phantasm, a ghost of the true mountain. The
notion both intrigued and troubled him.

Nagash reckoned that there could be dozens, perhaps even scores of stone
deposits hidden within the mountain. How could they have been gathered all in
one place? His gaze strayed to the constellation of watch fires lining the
northern coast. Perhaps it was the rat-things. They were gathering up the stones
faster than he. It all had to be going somewhere.

He would have to learn more before proceeding. The secrets of the mountain
would be his, no matter what; he would need every bit of power he could muster
to re-conquer Nehekhara and punish those who had defied him. If the rat-things
stood in his way, then he would deal with them as well.

It took most of the night for Nagash to descend the far slope of the mountain
and make his way to the outskirts of the marshland. In the early hours before
dawn, when the night was coldest, a thick blanket of glowing mist rose from the
marshlands and along the shores of the distant sea. The vapours curled and
shifted across the surface of the water, though there was no wind to stir them;
the unearthly light created the illusion of half-formed shapes capering and
whirling madly within the mist.

The marsh terrain was more dense and treacherous than Nagash realised. He
sloshed through foul-smelling, scummy water that rose up to mid-thigh in places.
It was unnervingly warm, and where it touched his skin he felt the faintest
brush of sorcerous energy. The necromancer considered the tendrils of steam
writhing like serpents across the flank of the distant mountain. If there were
enough burning stone buried within the mountain to taint the neighbouring sea,
his vengeance upon the living world would be great indeed.

He wound between hummocks of thick, yellow marsh grass and stunted trees,
listening to slithering, splashing creatures hunting through the mist. Strange
howls and high-pitched cries echoed from the moss-covered branches of the trees,
and once he saw a pair of faintly glowing yellow eyes regarding him intently
from the shadows to the left of his path. But the creatures of the marsh shunned
him, as all living beasts did. More than once he heard something huge rise up in
the mist ahead of him and go thrashing off into the water at his approach. When
the sun finally broke over the horizon, hours later, he crawled into a muddy
hollow formed by the thick roots of a half-dead tree and waited for nightfall.

Voices and the sounds of thrashing water roused him from his meditations,
many hours later. Darkness had fallen, though the moon was still low in the sky,
and as he crept to the edge of the tree’s sheltering roots he could see a yellow
haze of lantern light playing upon the surface of the water.

The voices sounded human, guttural and strained with effort. There were at
least two speakers, perhaps three, calling out to one another in a barbarian
tongue unlike anything Nagash had heard before. It was difficult to tell how far
away the voices were, the sounds echoing flatly from the surface of the water
and the surrounding trees.

Nagash eased carefully from his hiding place, head low, and searched for the
source of the noise. The thrashing continued unabated, punctuated by grants and
muffled blows. It was coming from beyond a screen of moss-covered trees just a
few dozen yards away. The glow of lanterns seeped between the gnarled trunks,
flickering crazily as straggling figures moved past the source of the light.

The necromancer still carried two of the large bronze daggers he’d looted
from the corpses of the rat-things so many years ago. He drew one of the blades
from his leather belt and crept from tree to tree until finally he caught sight
of the source of the noise.

Peering through a screen of hanging moss, Nagash saw a wider patch of water
just past the hummock where he stood. Perhaps ten yards away a low,
flat-bottomed boat had poled up close to another small, tree-covered hummock,
and within the globe of light cast by the lantern set at its bow, four men were
wrestling with the thrashing body of what appeared to be a huge, whiskered fish.
Two of the men stood up to their waists in the murky water, their arms thrown
around the fish’s scaly flanks as they tried to heave it up into the boat. A
third stood in the boat and tried to grip the creature’s flat, toothy head,
while the fourth tried to kill it with blows from a short, thick club. From
where Nagash stood, it was difficult to tell which side was winning the fight.

The men were barbarians; that much he saw at once, but they had little in
common with the tall, fair-haired northerners sold on the slave block at Zandri.
Their bodies were short and squat, thick with muscle but deformed in different
ways. He saw hunchbacks and misshapen skulls, long, ape-like arms and bulging,
knobby spines. Their heads were hairless, and their skin was a sickly, pale
green. The men in the boat wore simple, belted kilts of rough leather that hung
below their knees, and their chests were decorated in swirling scar patterns
similar to Nehekharan tattoos.

So it wasn’t the rat-creatures who inhabited the north shore after all,
Nagash realised. Clearly these barbarians had lived close to the tainted waters
for much, if not all their short, squalid lives. The mutations wrought by the
burning stone appeared pervasive. The necromancer’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
With a little patient study, these men could teach him a great deal.

Sticking to the deep shadows, Nagash crept around the edges of the wide pool
while the barbarians straggled to finish off their prey. The noise of their
struggles masked his movements, until finally he reached the far side of the
hummock next to their boat.

The sounds of thrashing abruptly ceased. Nagash heard the barbarians whooping
and laughing, and then the sounds of feet tramping through foliage just a few
yards away. Carefully, he eased through the undergrowth towards the sounds.

Within moments, lantern light was seeping between the mossy trees. Nagash
heard the scrape of wood on soil, and then a meaty
thud
on the ground
nearby. Peering around the bole of a gnarled old tree, he saw that the
barbarians had grounded their little boat and dragged their monster catch up
onto dry land to clean it and cut away the meat. The fish was huge—easily six
feet long—and almost as thick as a human torso. The scales along its back were
a dark grey, grimed with muck from the bottom of the pool, and its wide mouth
was full of small, black, triangular teeth.

The two men who had wrestled the thing from its hiding place beneath the
water had pulled on heavy, oiled leather cloaks and stood tiredly over their
catch, their mud-streaked chests heaving, filthy water streaming down their
legs. One of their companions was digging a leather-wrapped bundle out of the
bottom of the boat, while the fourth man was busy tying the craft to the branch
of a nearby tree.

Sensing his opportunity, Nagash slipped silently from the shadows beneath the
tree and crept across the small clearing where the men had set down their catch.
Being careful not to startle the barbarians, he walked quietly up behind one of
the cloaked men. At the last moment, just as Nagash came within arm’s reach, the
man must have sensed his presence. The barbarian whirled about, his powerful
hands poised to seize whatever was creeping up behind him. The man must have
been expecting an animal of some kind, because when he saw Nagash, his beady
eyes widened with surprise.

Before the barbarian could recover, Nagash darted in quickly and slashed his
throat with the rat-beast’s dagger. Blood splashed across the clearing and the
man collapsed with a choking scream.

Nagash turned on the second cloaked man just as the barbarian leapt at him
with a guttural shout. He managed to get his left hand around the man’s throat
as they crashed together, nearly knocking him from his feet. A stubby-fingered
hand seized Nagash’s knife wrist and held it in a vice-like grip, while jagged
fingernails clawed for his eyes. Nagash tightened his grip on the barbarian’s
throat and tried to pull his knife hand free, but the man refused to let go. A
knobby fist smashed into the side of the necromancer’s skull; he responded by
driving his knee into the barbarian’s groin. The man roared in pain, but
doggedly hung on.

The barbarian who had been tying off the boat snatched up a fallen branch and
charged across the open ground towards Nagash, and the fourth man wasn’t far
behind. The tide of the battle was rapidly turning against the necromancer, and
the very idea infuriated him. With a snarl, he drew upon the power of the
burning stone.

Fiery strength surged through him. His hand closed about the barbarian’s
neck, crushing the man’s spine. Nagash hurled the body like a children’s doll
straight into the third man’s path. Both man and corpse tumbled across the
ground in a tangle of limbs.

Nagash pounced on the man before he could pull himself free and drove his
dagger through the barbarian’s eye.

The last man stopped dead in his tracks, mouth agape in shock. Without
thinking, Nagash flung out his hand and hissed a stream of arcane words—and
the power of the stone responded. The man’s body went suddenly rigid, as though
gripped in a giant’s invisible fist. The necromancer hissed in satisfaction.

“Good,”
Nagash murmured, feeling the power crackling through his
outstretched hand.
“Yes. Very good.”

He rose slowly, careful to maintain his focus on the impromptu spell. It was
more difficult than it once was; the magic was more potent, but less controlled,
and fought against his will every second.

Nagash approached the man carefully. The cloth bundle was still clutched in
the barbarian’s hands. The necromancer reached up and carefully prised it from
the man’s fingers. The objects wrapped up in the greasy cloth clinked
metallically.

He smiled. Kneeling down, he set the bundle on the ground and unrolled it.
The tools within gleamed in the lamplight. The necromancer nodded grudgingly.
Crude implements, but suitable to the task. Satisfied, Nagash turned his
attention back to his prisoner.

“I have many questions,”
he told the terrified barbarian.
“This is
a strange land, and there is much I do not know about you and your people.”

He drew a long, curved flensing knife from the pouch and inspected the bronze
blade in the lantern light.

“Fortunately, I expect you will be a font of useful information,”
the
necromancer said. He rose to his feet and studied his subject carefully. He
raised his left hand, and with a slight gesture, the barbarian’s arms rose from
his sides.

Nagash’s smile widened. It had been a very long time since his last
vivisection.

“We shall begin with the muscle groups,”
he said to the man, and went
to work.

Lahmia, The City of the Dawn, in the 76th year of Asaph the
Beautiful

(-1600 Imperial Reckoning)

The Eastern priests crouched before the queen like great, yellow bullfrogs,
backs slightly arched and palms pressed to the marble floor as they filled the
Hall of Reverent Contemplation with their buzzing, wordless song. Their eyes
were squeezed shut in concentration, perspiration gleaming beneath the brim of
their outlandish felt hats as the six elderly men emitted a basso drone that
Neferata could feel against her skin. The delegation from the Silk Lands seemed
to find it uplifting, judging by the beatific looks on their faces. She found
the noise deeply unnerving—and it just seemed to go on and
on.
For the
first time, Neferata was genuinely glad that she was required to wear a mask in
public. The longer the Eastern
throat music
went, the more horrified she
became.

The audience with the Imperial delegation had begun in a civilized enough
fashion, with little of the outrageous fanfare that usually accompanied the
arrival of a member of the Celestial Household. Normally, the first Imperial
attendants would arrive well before dawn to decorate the Hall of Reverent
Contemplation with silk hangings, lacquered screens and an unbroken line of
royal carpet stretching all the way to the palace gate. Priests would walk from
one end of the hall to the other, chanting prayers to chase away evil spirits
and promote harmony, then give way to a procession of musicians and artists
whose task was to tune the vibrations of the space in a manner that was pleasing
to Celestial ears.

When the delegation itself finally arrived, many hours later, it would be
accompanied by a small army of courtiers, bureaucrats and servants that would
fill the cramped chamber to capacity. By the time that Neferata met the
delegates face-to-face, it was only the relative placement of the throne-like
chairs that made it clear who was actually giving an audience to whom.

By contrast, the current ambassador had arrived with very little fanfare,
appearing at the palace gates promptly at midday and pausing only long enough to
have a brilliant blue carpet unrolled at his feet before continuing onward to
the hall. He was accompanied by a very modest retinue: five bureaucrats, a
handful of courtiers, and a young woman clad in rich robes whose face was
painted white as alabaster. The entire delegation could be seated in a
comfortable half-circle before the royal dais, lending the proceedings an
unusually intimate, almost conspiratorial air.