he said, eyes glinting. ‘Zandor and I will take several of the Strigoi and cut them off. We can’t let them scurry into their damnable holes. I would be done with this.’
‘For once, we are of one mind,’ Neferata said. ‘There will be women and children in those temples. I want them alive.’
‘Why?’ Khaled said.
‘Because I have commanded such,’ she said, putting an edge to her words. ‘I intend to offer the dwarfs terms–’
‘What?’ Zandor snarled. ‘Who are you to–?’
‘I am Neferata of Lahmia,’ she snarled, backhanding the Strigoi and knocking him from his feet. She turned her glare on Khaled, pinning him in place before he could draw his sword. ‘That should be reason enough to do as I command. I want them alive, Khaled, alive and unharmed.’
Khaled stepped back and hauled Zandor to his feet. The Strigoi glared at her groggily, but said nothing as Khaled hauled him away. Neferata watched them go, and then said, ‘You can come out now, Anmar.’
The girl stepped out from the shadows of the gateway, her sword gripped loosely in her hand. ‘Who would you have helped, I wonder?’ Neferata said, turning to her. Anmar said nothing. She met Neferata’s eyes, but only for a moment.
‘Have I ever told you about my cousin?’ Neferata said. ‘Her name was–’
‘Yes, you have,’ Anmar said softly. Neferata stopped, nonplussed. ‘Why would you spare them?’
‘The dwarfs?’ Neferata said. Anmar nodded. Neferata smiled thinly. ‘Spite. Ushoran wants them exterminated. Thus, I will spare them.’ That and it would be easier to get the dwarfs to surrender if their loved ones were offered safe passage.
‘Is that why you tried to take the crown?’
Neferata hesitated. ‘Why are you asking this? Yes, girl, I wanted the crown for spite.’
‘Is that why you took me?’ Anmar said, shifting her sword in her grip.
‘I–’ Neferata hesitated again. What had got into the girl? ‘Anmar, you are my little leopard. I took you because I wanted to give you my gift.’ She stepped towards the girl. ‘Anmar–’
‘I must go. My brother will need me,’ Anmar said, slipping past Neferata and speeding after Khaled.
‘What would you have done if she’d helped him?’ Naaima said. Neferata turned and saw her oldest handmaiden picking her way across the bodies of the dead. Before Neferata could speak, Naaima continued. ‘The others are doing as you commanded, never fear. The Strigoi will never see them coming.’
‘Good.’ Neferata peered at her. ‘You will take Morath.’
‘I will be gentle,’ Naaima said, flashing a crooked smile.
Neferata nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her,’ she said finally. ‘She is as dear to me as my own sister.’
‘So was Khalida,’ Naaima said. ‘And when it was necessary, you snuffed her as if she were a flame.’ Naaima smiled sadly. ‘We are tools, Neferata. You call us sisters, but we are but pieces on your game-board. You collect us and hoard us, and sometimes you spend us. Sometimes you spend us for ambition. Other times, it is for spite.’
Neferata stared at her, stunned. Naaima stepped forwards and took her mistress’s face in her hands and kissed her softly on the cheek. ‘And we love you for it, because we cannot help but to do so. You unmake us as easily as Nagash’s crown threatened to unmake you, and remake us in your image.’ She stepped back and turned away.
Neferata watched her go, part of her wanting to batter the sad smile from Naaima’s face. But the other part, the cold, calculating part, merely made her nod. She pushed the distraction of it all aside. She trotted towards the ongoing battle, slowly at first, then picking up speed.
Neferata scanned the stairs with the eye of an experienced general as she ran. She had learned over the centuries to read the ebb and flow of battle as easily as Morath read his mouldy parchments. This was a fighting withdrawal. They had caught the dwarfs by surprise, and there simply weren’t enough of them to face a foe that was seemingly limitless, not to mention fearless. It would be a retreat, then, down to the next level where the final defences were likely already being prepared.
The dwarf rearguard on the Deeping Stair fought with tenacity, but the dead noticed only obstacles, not determination. The sheer number of skeletons and dwarf zombies pulled down the defenders, reducing them from a solid battle-line to struggling, fast-consumed knots of embattled heroes. Rune-weapons blazed in the hands of the mightiest warriors of