the column of riders wound its way along a path into the high places. A few clumps of trees dotted the rocky slopes, but little else. They rode carefully. The Strigoi horses were bred for mountain travel, apparently, and displayed none of the skittishness she would have expected.
‘Scattered through the column, as you requested,’ he said. ‘Your eyes and ears are open and among the cattle, milady. We learn their language and customs, as you commanded.’
‘And why aren’t you with them?’
‘I felt it best to remain by your side, just in case…’ he trailed off hopefully.
‘Just in case what, my Kontoi?’ she asked, not looking at him. The word was Arabyan, and meant ‘noble rider’. In Bel Aliad, only men of noble birth rode horses into war, and clad themselves in the bronze and iron armour of the Kontoi.
She had learned, to her cost, of the power of a Kontoi charge. Especially when Abhorash rode at their head, as he had then. She looked at Khaled. ‘Just in case I should require your protection, perhaps?’ she snapped and her tone was as sharp as a slash of her claws. Khaled stiffened and dropped back as she rode on, and she cursed herself for her tone. Khaled required more reprimanding than her other servants, but honey had to alternate with vinegar sometimes. It wasn’t his fault. Her blood-kiss seemed to affect men in certain unfortunate ways. She considered Abhorash’s broad back and sniffed. Then, it always had, had it not?
Maybe Mourkain would provide answers to that as well.
She looked back at her followers, drifting through the column of riders with the feline grace that so characterised those with whom she shared her blood-kiss. They would return to her side, minds full of gossip, rumor and knowledge for her to sift through.
In life, she had employed the priestesses who served as her handmaidens in much the same fashion. No one noticed women or slaves. And they always heard such useful things.
What would they hear in Mourkain, she wondered? Maybe the answer to what the black sun was. She looked up, wondering what had attracted Vorag’s attention.
She looked ahead and the black sun seemed larger now; it had expanded in size, until its darkness swallowed all the stars and moon. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Why–
Something brighter than the light of creation’s darkness flared into being around her, seared the air that filled her useless lungs and burned her pale skin to cracked and blackened scraps. She threw up her hands, but she was already blind and burning.
It rose over the mountains like some obscene beast crouching on the crags, its corona flickering through her thoughts like the tips of many knives. Cold heat slashed at her, chilling her bones even as it burned the flesh from them.
Neferata stood at the heart of the black sun and was consumed.
A world died.
Every living thing in this world died and then stirred, bones ancient and new alike shifting and rising. The Corpse Geometries flexed in the ocean of stars as the Kings and Queens of the Land of the Dead rose one by one from their mighty tombs and marched towards the black heart of the charnel kingdoms.
Familiar faces and forms stirred in the dust, rising and joining the march. She called out to them, but to no avail. They responded only to one voice, terrible and empty and cold. It was the voice like needles on bone. Simultaneously high and deep, like wind whistling through a ribcage, it spoke to her of the empire to come, the empire of ghosts and corpses, silent and perfect and eternal. The empire soon to rise…
Now that she was here. Now that she was in Mourkain.
Neferata opened her eyes and moaned. She swayed in her saddle as cemetery thoughts washed over her, seeking to pull her down. Again she tasted grave-dirt and smelled the rot of centuries. The concentrated essence of death filled her, making her light-headed.
‘Neferata,’ Naaima said, reaching for her. Neferata turned and saw the horror that hid beneath her handmaiden’s beauty. Maggots writhed through the gaping holes in the Cathayan’s cheeks and suppurating rents marred her nose and mouth. Teeth like razors flashed behind tattered lips. And in her chest beat a black sun just like the one in the sky.
Neferata felt her gaze drawn down. A similar pulsing mass of corruption throbbed in her chest. She looked at her hands in growing horror, seeing the sickly glow of her bones beneath the pallid,