as she handed Neferata the top of a beastman’s skull, stripped free of flesh, inverted and filled with blood. Neferata drank deeply, emptying the makeshift bowl in moments. She made a face as she handed the bowl back to Naaima.
The Cathayan vampire had strung up several of the bodies and was systematically draining them of every drop of their filthy blood, and collecting it in upturned shields and helmets collected from the dwarf dead. Anmar was busy filling the heretofore-empty water-skins the group had brought. Blood congealed quickly, especially in the cold, but a few stones properly heated and dropped into the skins would bring the blood back to something approaching edibility. It was a stop-gap measure at best – drinking old blood could be as debilitating as going too long without fresh blood.
Still, there was no telling how long they would be in these mountains. Neferata sighed and looked at Naaima. ‘It seems a waste,’ she said.
‘We cannot drink from one of his kind,’ Naaima said.
‘That we know of,’ Khaled said, squatting beside the dwarf. Naaima glared at him. He returned her glare with a raised eyebrow. ‘Have we ever tried?’ he said.
‘Feel free, brother,’ Anmar said. ‘Show us whether your bravery extends to your stomach.’
Khaled grimaced as the others laughed. Neferata sank gracefully to her haunches. ‘Enough. We must go. I will deal with him.’
She raised her sword in both hands and pressed the tip of the blade to the point where the dwarf’s skull met his spine. It would be a merciful act – quick and clean. He groaned again, and muttered something in the language of his people. The words crashed together like rocks in a basket, unintelligible and meaningless.
All save one.
She did not understand it. Could not, for she did not know what it meant or to what it might refer. Nonetheless, it strummed a chord within her, and her spirit shuddered in its sheath of cold flesh.
Neferata rose smoothly to her feet, her face stiff and expressionless. She turned north, and the black sun blazed as if in answer to the question that swam to the surface of her mind. The others fell silent, sensing her disquiet.
‘What are you?’ she muttered, half expecting an answer. As usual, none was forthcoming.
‘Neferata,’ Naaima asked, reaching out to touch her mistress’s shoulder. ‘What is it? What did he say?’
‘Mourkain,’ Neferata said, repeating the dwarf’s word. She said it again, tasting the dark edges of it. ‘Mourkain,’ she whispered. And the black sun blazed with darkling joy.
TWO
The Shark Straits
(–1163 Imperial Reckoning)
The storm lashed the sea with whips of lightning. The sea, in its turn, did its best to return the favour, heaving and thrusting ever higher. The ship rode the thrashing waves as best as it could, but the hull groaned with something like agony and the sails were ragged strips of cloth.
The captain pressed his back to the mast and extended his sword. Rain pounded down, swamping the ship. It ran down his arm and across the blade, joining the ankle-deep water that splashed across the deck. The helm was unmanned, but he had other concerns. Namely, the two slim shapes that swayed easily across the deck despite the pitch and yaw. Eyes like dark lamps fixed on him hungrily and he swiped the sword through the rain, trying to force them back.
‘Your service is to be commended, captain, but the time has come for a parting of ways,’ Neferata said, glaring at the last living man on the ship through a veil of stringy, soaked hair. Blood stained her arms to the elbow and her pale shape was marred by the filth of the lower decks. The captain, a Cathayan, shouted something defiant. Neferata’s eyes flickered to the side.
‘He is damning us to the six hells,’ Naaima said.
‘That’s what I thought he said,’ Neferata said. She was pleased in an almost child-like fashion with her facility with languages, but the Cathayan tongue was more complex than any she had ever encountered. ‘Well, he’s a bit late for that,’ she said, snapping her fangs together.
The ship was bound for Araby, loaded down with silks and steel to trade for spices and slaves. In the years since her flight from Lahmia, Neferata had done well in Cathay. Too well, in fact. The powers entrenched there had not taken kindly to the former queen’s predatory attentions.
If there was one thing that her final confrontation with Alcadizzar had taught her, it was when to become the memory of a thorn,