necromancer in hunting down every scrap of information about those books. Her agents had scoured Araby, Cathay and Ind, hunting stories and memories. Neferata herself had travelled to the decadent coastal cities of the Black Gulf and hunted a certain Abdul ben Rashid through the Street of Booksellers in Copher, where she had torn him apart in broad daylight after he refused to hand over his necromantic scribbling.
And in two decades, all signs had pointed towards Nagashizzar.
‘Like as not, rats chewed them to rags and ghouls use them as loincloths,’ Rasha said. Morath glared at her, but said nothing. Neferata smiled. Necromancers were precious about their parchments and papyri.
‘We’d best hope not, my huntress,’ Neferata said, turning to continue on. ‘We need them.’ I need them, she thought. W’soran had sworn that those books had the secret to binding Alcadizzar’s angry ghost and freeing Nagash’s crown from his clutches. And Neferata wanted that crown. It was the only reason she had agreed to Ushoran’s mad plan of an expedition to Cripple Peak. It had taken them months to get here, and would likely take them months more to find those books, barring interruptions.
A shrill cry echoed from the rocks, rebounding down the spine of the mountain. Neferata’s head jerked up, and her nostrils flared. She smelled sour blood and rotting meat. It seemed that someone had come to greet the visitors. They had been forced to fight more than once on their trip through the Desolation, battling mutant beasts and the degenerate tribes of savages who clustered on the shores of the Sour Sea, but it had been days since they’d left the territory of the tribes behind.
A tumble of rocks rattled down from above, nearly dislodging Layla, who yelped as she was struck. Rasha shielded Morath and Neferata swatted a rock aside with her hand. A group of men would have likely been discomfited by the rock fall. For vampires, it was barely an annoyance.
‘Rasha, stay beside Morath!’ Neferata barked, drawing her sword. ‘Layla, get back here and help her!’
‘But–’ Layla began, searching for the creature that had dared to drop rocks on her.
‘Now,’ Neferata snarled, bounding up the slope with more speed than caution. ‘Keep the sorcerer breathing, whatever else happens.’
Over the years, Neferata had become intimately familiar with the methods and manner of the corpse-eaters. Where there was death, there were the eaters-of-the-dead. They had a society of sorts, and kings and queens and lords and ladies. They were a mockery of the men they had descended from, but even mockery has a kernel of truth.
But these ghouls were not like the almost-tame creatures that scampered through the tunnels beneath Mourkain, or the organised tribes of Araby. No, these mountain-ghouls were a breed apart. It was akin to the difference between wolves and dogs. Hidden tunnel mouths suddenly vomited clay-crusted simian shapes. The ghouls boiled from their tunnel like wasps from a disturbed nest, their ape-like agility propelling them down towards her from all directions. They had painted their flesh with clay and filth, and some carried sharpened bones as weapons. Most, however, seemed to content to use their claws and teeth.
Neferata shrieked, casting her voice at them like a weapon. Several dozen stumbled to a halt, tripping up those immediately behind them. Neferata was on them a moment later. Her sword slashed across the front rank, gutting four of the creatures and lopping the arms from a fifth. She pressed her attack, aware that even with all of her strength the creatures could pull her down through sheer weight of numbers. She had to break them; they were scavengers by nature, and would retreat if their prey looked to be too strong.
Her elbow came down between the head and shoulders of a ghoul, shattering its neck even as her leg swept out. Her foot crushed a slavering jaw and the force of the kick spun the ghoul in place, dropping it dead to the rocks. Her sword darted out, chopping like a cleaver into grey flesh. Severed limbs lay heaped on the ground as she created a corridor of death through the ghoul ranks.
Alone, Neferata had blunted the momentum of the ambush. The ghouls scrambled back from her, yelping and howling. Many retreated for their holes, but more stayed. Greasy bodies crashed into her as they sought to drag her down. When she killed one, two more took its place. Hooked claws tore her flesh and she returned the favour. She was in constant motion, her