hundred warriors left, and most of those will be wounded. No. We’ve won. Let us be graceful in victory,’ she continued. Naaima and the others hurried after her.
It wasn’t until they drew closer to the temples that they heard the screams. They were not the wails of frightened women and children. Instead, they were the full-throated howls of men driven past the breaking point. Weapons rattled and the howls of corpse-wolves echoed through the streets of the temple district.
Neferata cursed. She broke into a run, her sword in her hand. The four vampires sped through the streets towards the sounds, and Neferata’s curses degenerated into shrieks of rage as she saw that Khaled had indeed accomplished his task, and more besides.
The refugees had not reached safety. Khaled and Zandor had been quicker than the dwarfs, and the latter had paid for it. Neferata stalked into the plaza in front of the temple of Valaya. It was carpeted with the bodies of slain. Little bodies, some of them, impossibly little; and something in Neferata curdled and she was once more in Lahmia, watching as the soldiers of Rasetra and Khemri and Lybaras snatched Lahmian children from their wailing mothers and swung them by their ankles against the walls of houses.
Borri and his men had obviously arrived too late to rescue any of their loved ones. Instead they had been met by the silent menace of the tortured spirit-hosts drawn from the bodies of the dead. The ghosts of women and children and dead warriors swept across the great plaza, surrounding an imposing structure which Neferata thought must be the temple to either Grimnir or Grungni.
‘They ran in there, the little fools,’ Khaled said. ‘Then, who can blame them, eh?’
Neferata spun. Khaled sat on a dwarf cart, his mouth and chest wet with blood. His gloves were soaked in it and he smiled at her. He cut his eyes to the spirit-host and licked his lips. ‘You weren’t the only one who learned from Morath. I was quite the connoisseur of such things, before… Well.’ He gestured to himself. Neferata caught sight of Anmar behind him, and Zandor. Redzik was there was as well, and four other Strigoi. Dead wolves prowled among the corpses and slobbering ghouls squabbled over the choice bits.
‘What have you done?’ Neferata hissed.
Khaled hopped to his feet. ‘What I was commanded to do, by my master,’ he snarled. He pointed at her. ‘What you were commanded to do!’
‘No one commands me,’ she said. ‘Not Nagash, not Ushoran and certainly not you, princeling!’
‘I told you,’ Zandor spat. ‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted. Kill her, Arabyan!’
Khaled hesitated, his expression shifting.
‘Ushoran is not here, Khaled,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Can you feel his influence? I cannot. He has no power here. He cannot command us.’
Khaled looked at her. Anmar hurried to his side. ‘Brother, if she’s right–’
‘Quiet,’ Khaled snapped. ‘I need to think, I–’
‘No! No more thinking, no more talk!’ Zandor snarled. He leapt for Neferata as the other Strigoi converged on Naaima and the others. As Zandor crashed against her, the doors to the great temple where Borri and his remaining men had retreated boomed open and off their hinges, shattering the stillness of the mountain.
A maggot-infested wolf bounded towards the opening and was crushed by an expertly wielded hammer. A shorn-scalped dwarf stepped into view, his hair and beard shaved. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. He held his hammer in one hand as he tore feverishly at the clasps of his armour.
Another dwarf, similarly shaved and bare-chested, followed. Then another and another, dozens, the last survivors of Karaz Bryn, their beards shaved and oaths to Grimnir on their tongues as they discarded their armour with ritualistic contempt. Some had daubed strange markings on their flesh in soot and blood and the eerie dirge that swept from them chilled even Neferata’s heart.
She knew then that there would be no surrender. No mercy.
‘What–?’ Zandor began, staring at them in shock. His hands hung limply around Neferata’s neck. ‘Are they mad?’
‘Yes,’ Neferata said, and rammed her fist through his chest. Zandor screamed in shock and pain as her fingers sought his heart. She seized it and jerked it free of his chest. The Strigoi staggered back. Neferata crushed his heart before his disbelieving eyes. ‘I told you to remember my hand on your heart, Zandor,’ she hissed.
Zandor lunged with an inarticulate cry and Neferata brought Grund’s axe up and buried it in the Strigoi’s skull as he knocked