registered save for the briefest flicker of Arkhan’s eerie gaze. ‘Nagash sends his regards,’ he said.
Neferata paused. There was no trace of the fear that the Great Necromancer’s name had once engendered in the one-time Queen of Lahmia. Instead there was simply wariness. ‘I was not aware that Nagash walked among us once more,’ she said.
‘I have lost my flesh, Neferata, not my senses,’ Arkhan grated, his sword hilt creaking in his grip. ‘You knew the day he awoke, as I did.’
‘Maybe not the day,’ she said, smiling thinly. ‘Have you rejoined him?’
It was Arkhan’s turn to hesitate. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Why?’ There was no malice in the question, only simple curiosity.
‘Why did you set your dogs on me?’ he countered.
She chuckled. ‘To see what was left of you,’ she said. ‘To see whether you were merely a husk animated by Nagash’s will, or something more…’
‘I should have thought Bel Aliad would have taught you better,’ Arkhan said.
‘Oceans of time, dear Arkhan, have passed over that moment,’ Neferata said, idly examining her fingers. ‘Things – people – change, even those like ourselves who are, by definition, changeless.’
‘So I see.’
‘What does Nagash want?’ she said.
‘What he always wants: servants.’ Arkhan said it flatly. There would be no lying to Neferata. She was too cunning for that and Arkhan had little reason to hedge. ‘Vampire servants,’ he added.
‘I would have thought his experiences with poor, unfortunate W’soran would have taught him better than that,’ she said.
Arkhan made a grinding sound. W’soran had been a greedy fool, and Arkhan had paid for the vampire’s overconfidence more than once during the war against Alcadizzar. ‘I tried to find the sorcerer. He stole something of Nagash’s and fled in the last days of Nagashizzar.’
‘He’s dead,’ Neferata said bluntly, ‘and good riddance to him, the fool.’ She sighed and met Arkhan’s eerie gaze unflinchingly. ‘Servants, is it?’
He inclined his head. She snorted. ‘And I am supposed to – what? – throw open my gates and yield my divine right to his majesty, the King of Bones?’
‘If not, I am to take it by force,’ Arkhan said.
‘Do you think you could?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
Neferata rose smoothly from her throne and pressed her hands to his chest. Her fingers rose, tracing the contours of his skull with delicate caresses. ‘Oh, my sweet, savage Arkhan… You would, wouldn’t you?’
‘As swiftly and as surely as I destroyed Bel Aliad.’
She made a pouting expression and sniffed. ‘Yes. And wasn’t that a terrible waste.’
‘For you,’ he said.
‘For both of us,’ she said.
‘The dead can never rule the living, Neferata. They can only destroy them,’ Arkhan said, in a tone of one who has no wish to re-hash an old argument. She snorted and a slip of laughter escaped her.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said.
Arkhan paused. ‘You have changed, then…’ he said. Bony fingertips brushed a strand of dark hair out of her face. Her own hand came up instantly and swatted his aside. The fingers of her other hand pressed deep into the metal of his ancient cuirass and suddenly he was flying backwards, out through the curtains and down the stairs.
Arkhan picked himself up slowly as Neferata stepped through the curtains, his sword in her hand. Automatically he glanced at his now-empty sheath and then up as she sprang towards him, aiming a blow at his skull. Arkhan twisted desperately, avoiding the strike. The sword crashed into the stone, cracking it. Neferata whipped the blade up and around with a skill he had not known that she possessed, nearly taking his head off as he bent back beneath the blow.
He backed away, raising his hands. She hissed, exposing inch-long fangs. Her form blurred as she moved, faster than the human eye could see. Fortunately, Arkhan was no longer human. He slapped aside the blade and wrapped his fingers around her throat. She dropped his sword and suddenly a panther was raking its hind-claws across his torso. Surprised, he released the creature. Neferata resumed her shape and her blow caught him in the chest, rocking him back.
Magic crackled on the tips of his fingers. Nagash had taught him those first halting, clumsy spells but in the centuries since, Arkhan had become a sorcerer in his own right. Death and the loss of flesh had done remarkable things for his concentration. Neferata hesitated, a smile curling at the edges of her lips.
Snarls and shrieks suddenly echoed from every corner of the gallery. Vampires flung themselves at the liche. Pale fists and hooked talons tore at