The Serpent Queen Read online

  ‘Don’t look so worried, manling. Remember our time with Long Drong? It’ll be just like that,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose.

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ Felix said. They’d spent a month aboard the ironclad warship of the infamous Slayer-pirate. He and Gotrek had got along like… Well, like Slayers. Felix had experienced the worst seasickness of his life aboard the cramped and foul-smelling vessel, and things hadn’t got any better when Drong and Gotrek had bullied him aboard Malakai Makaisson’s experimental undersea exploration vessel. Things hadn’t got any better once they’d hit the ocean floor, either. He pushed that particular memory aside.

  ‘No fish-men, though,’ Gotrek added.

  ‘Thank the gods for small favours,’ Felix muttered. He looked at Zabbai. ‘Can’t we outrun them?’

  The dead woman looked at him. ‘We are warriors of Lybaras, barbarian. We don’t run.’

  ‘Ha! I’m starting to like you, crow-bait,’ Gotrek said. He nudged Felix with his elbow. ‘You like dead women, don’t you, manling? I approve of this one, if it matters.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Felix said through gritted teeth. The only thing worse than a Slayer in a sour mood was one who was looking forward to a fight; a cheerful Gotrek was like an overly excited bear, given to playful bites and bone-rattling swipes.

  Zabbai lifted her axe and shouted something in her own tongue. Archers began to troop up onto the deck, their gear rattling on their yellowing bones. Djubti followed them, seemingly in no hurry. The liche-priest leaned on his staff, and his withered features twisted into an expression of frustration. ‘We have no time for this, woman,’ he rasped. ‘I will conjure the breath of Khsar and we shall leave them in our wake.’

  Zabbai’s axe swept out, and the tip of the blade poked the liche-priest in the nose. ‘We do not run, old bones. They must know that we do not fear them. They must know that we can go where we wish, whether they will it or not. The open seas are ours, and the coasts and everything in between.’

  ‘Are you so eager for open war?’ Djubti said. He used his staff to shove aside her axe.

  ‘War has already been declared,’ Zabbai said. ‘They attacked us.’

  ‘And we beat them. Let that be an end to it,’ he hissed. ‘Black clouds and carrion birds gather about us, woman. We have no time for such petty concerns. Greater things are at stake than your warrior’s pride.’

  Felix watched the exchange, curious as to what it was about, and not a little concerned. Despite his attempts to ferret it out, Zabbai had not revealed why this ‘Serpent Queen’ wanted to see them, or what it had to do with whatever was going on. And something was going on. He could feel it in his gut. He moved to Gotrek’s side. ‘We are in deep waters here, Gotrek,’ he said.

  The Slayer peered over the rail and grunted, ‘Fairly deep, aye. What’s your point, manling?’

  ‘Metaphorical waters, Gotrek,’ Felix said. ‘We are bobbing on an ocean of plots and schemes, I think.’

  ‘Really,’ Gotrek said. ‘Observant of you, manling.’

  ‘Something is going on,’ Felix tried, growing frustrated.

  Gotrek cocked his eye at Felix. ‘Something is always going on, manling. Living humans are full of plots and schemes. Why should dead ones be any different?’ he said dismissively.

  He waved a hand at the approaching galleys. ‘I came here to find either gold, doom or both. Those will do me as well as anything.’

  ‘You think that old liche was telling the truth, then?’ Felix asked, softly. ‘About your search being over, I mean.’ He cast a quick glance towards the oncoming galleys and then looked back at Gotrek.

  The Slayer frowned thoughtfully. ‘I’ve heard that before,’ he muttered. He looked at Felix. ‘I’ve heard it too often.’ He fell silent. His grip on his axe tightened perceptibly, and the haft creaked beneath his fingers.

  Felix knew better than to try and get any more out of him. Gotrek was never the most communicative of companions, especially when it came to the subject of his doom. Felix looked back at the galleys swooping towards them, and felt a stab of pity for the dead men.

  Behind them, a hoarse voice began to chant. Felix turned and saw Djubti standing in the centre of the deck, his shrivelled arms extended over his head, with his staff held horizontally in both hands. The sea breeze began to grow in strength as the liche-priest croaked out his incantation. He’d obviously won his argument with Zabbai. Felix felt somewhat relieved.

  The sails of their vessel snapped and billowed, filling with an unnatural wind.

  However, despite this, the enemy galleys had drawn far too close for comfort. Felix could see that they had their own archers. Zabbai barked an order. Her soldiers raised their bows, arrows ready. A moment later, the sky momentarily darkened as opposing volleys of arrows met and passed through one another. Felix yelped as arrows rained down on them. Gotrek grunted and grabbed Felix, slinging him to the deck. The Slayer interposed himself, and as Felix watched in mounting horror, arrows struck Gotrek, piercing his thick flesh.

  The dwarf remained standing despite this, and held tight to his axe. Felix closed his eyes. As the last arrow punched through the wood of the deck, Felix opened one eye. Gotrek looked down at him. ‘Still in one piece then, manling?’ he asked. Arrows jutted from his chest, shoulders and arms like the quills of a porcupine. As if they were no more bother than bee stings, Gotrek lifted his axe and chopped through the hafts, shearing them to nubs. Blood oozed around the barbed heads, but the Slayer didn’t seem to care. Idly, he twisted an arrowhead free and bounced it on his palm.

  ‘Gotrek, are-are you all right?’ Felix said, rising to his feet.

  ‘Bah,’ Gotrek spat. ‘Elven archers are more dangerous than that lot.’

  ‘The warriors of Mahrak favour the blade to the bow,’ Zabbai said, from where she stood near the rail. Felix saw that she, like Gotrek, had been struck several times, though she hadn’t bothered to break or remove the arrows. He felt a moment of queasy fascination as he considered the company he found himself in. He felt terribly fragile, all of a sudden.

  On the enemy galleys, dead men were gathering in the prows. On the closest, Felix saw a skeletal figure, clad in ornate, archaic armour and flowing ruby robes, raise a heavy, square shield and a gilded khopesh as if in salute. The warrior shouted something that Felix couldn’t make out. He looked at Zabbai, who hissed. ‘Otep,’ she said. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘An old friend,’ he said.

  ‘An old suitor,’ Zabbai said.

  The archers were abandoning the deck, moving down to the lower sections of the galley as spear-armed warriors replaced them. Zabbai swung her axe and buried it in the rail. She gestured imperiously, and one of her warriors handed her a large, broad-bladed spear, much like the one she’d used to kill Pieter. She brought the blade up and touched its tip to her brow. Then, with a hiss of bronze splitting the air, she sent the spear flying towards the closest galley, and the gesticulating figure of Otep.

  Felix winced as the spear tore the warrior’s head clean off. Otep’s body staggered back, hands flung out. It stumbled and abruptly vanished. Felix thought he might have fallen. ‘He never did know when not to call attention to himself,’ Zabbai said. She tore her axe free of the rail.

  ‘Old suitor, you said?’ Felix said, hesitantly.

  ‘Would-be suitor,’ Zabbai amended. ‘They’re slowing,’ she added.

  ‘Are we going to get a fight, or not?’ Gotrek said impatiently. ‘My axe grows thirsty.’

  ‘We’ll get a fight. Otep’s galley is peeling off, but the others are still coming,’ Zabbai said. ‘We won’t be able to outrun them, even with Djubti’s sorcerous wind filling our sails and aiding our rowers.’

  She gestured, and the drumbeat began to change. Her warriors approached the rail, raising their shields and hefting spears to ward off boarders. Zabbai waved Felix b
ack. ‘Behind me, barbarian,’ she said, almost gently, shooing him back. She looked at Gotrek and added, ‘You can stand wherever you want, dwarf.’

  Gotrek gave a grunt of satisfaction and stumped towards the rail. Felix looked at Djubti. The liche-priest stood near the mast, hunched and sour looking. Felix turned back, and saw that the first galley was almost upon them. He could make out the eerie, fleshless grins of the warriors gathered in the prow, crouched behind shields, their bony fingers waiting to draw their swords. He swallowed. What was it Gotrek had said? ‘Spines and skulls,’ Felix muttered. ‘Spines and skulls.’

  The galleys crashed together in a cacophony of crunching metal and splintering wood. Felix was nearly thrown from his feet. As he regained his balance, there was a hiss of voices, and the enemy leapt to the attack. Dead men clad in bronze armour crashed against one another in the small space between aft rail and prow. Khopesh met khopesh and shields smashed together as ancient rivalries were renewed.

  Gotrek gave a roar and struck the enemy line like a cannonball. His axe swung out in wide arcs and shards of bone and bronze flew in its wake. Felix drew Karaghul and parried a spear as it dug for his belly. His shoulder crashed into his opponent’s shield and he rolled across it, reversing Karaghul as he did so. He stabbed the sword behind him, catching the skeleton in the back, severing its spine.

  Zabbai was at the forefront, wielding axe and shield. She strode across the deck like a goddess of war, her axe removing heads and limbs, and her shield smashing her enemies from their feet. In life, she would have been magnificent. In death, she was terrifying. Felix goggled as she caught a warrior with her shield and flung the struggling skeleton into the air, and then caught it with her axe as it fell. The warriors of Lybaras held their ground as those of Mahrak pressed against them. Those who weren’t involved in the defence of the deck had moved towards the side of the galley where the second enemy vessel had drawn alongside. Boarding planks slammed down on the rail, and more enemy warriors clattered across. Djubti gave a hoarse curse and raised his staff. A string of croaking syllables slipped from his desiccated lips, and as Felix watched in horrified fascination, the skulls of those warriors already fallen rose into the air with a communal shriek. The skulls were drawn towards the liche-priest and they swirled about him, as if he were the eye of a maelstrom.

  With a sharp gesture, Djubti sent the whirling storm of skulls spinning towards the enemy galley. The warriors crossing the boarding planks were caught and torn to shreds by the chattering cloud of skulls, and their own skulls joined the storm as it swept across the galley. The galley heaved as the skulls tore through wood and metal and bone. Djubti clenched his hand and the storm rose up, the skulls swirling faster and faster. They shattered the masts of the galley and tore the sails to shreds. Bodies were caught in their wake and drawn up into the swirling vortex. Then, with a cutting gesture, Djubti let the spell fade. A rain of cracked and broken skulls thudded to the deck of the enemy galley, and nothing moved upon it.

  A khopesh slashed out, narrowly missing Felix’s head. It snagged a thread of his hair before burying itself in the mast. Shaken from his reverie, Felix cursed and stabbed out with Karaghul, but the templar blade was batted aside by a rattling flail. The warrior who faced him was no skeletal spearman. Clad in gold and obsidian armour and flowing black raiment, he was bigger than his warriors, and he wielded a saw-toothed khopesh and a flail composed of cruel barbs, wrought in the shape of scorpions’ stings. His face was hidden behind a mask of fraying silk and thin, filigreed gold.

  ‘Ho, living man! Would you face Antar of Mahrak, Prince of the Obsidian Divide, Lion of the Valley, Mighty Son of Heaven?’ his opponent rasped. ‘Would you meet the Second King of the Fourth Dynasty in honourable combat? Come, O fleshy one! Come, so that he might shuck thee of thy untidy and off-putting seeming!’ Antar swept out his arms, and the enemy soldiers, and those of Lybaras as well, drew back. ‘Back, you dogs! Back, sons of Mahrak and curs of Lybaras! Antar is a prince of Mahrak, scion of Tharruk, and he issues a challenge to thee, worm of seven hundred graves!’

  Felix raised his blade in rough salute. He didn’t intend to waste breath answering such a long-winded challenge. Antar clashed his weapons and stalked forwards, much quicker than Felix expected. The flail snapped out, entangling Karaghul as he sought to block the blow, and the sword was ripped from his grasp and sent clattering across the deck. Felix didn’t hesitate. He dived after the blade. The khopesh sliced out, barely missing his head as he stretched his hands out towards his sword. ‘Dog of the north,’ Antar hissed. ‘Jackal with ten thousand fathers! Face the Spiteful Son of Imanotep!’ Felix caught up Karaghul and rolled to his feet.

  Antar lunged, smashing his blade aside and his flail tore across Felix’s face and chest. Felix staggered back. The wounds weren’t as bad as some he’d taken, but they burned strangely. He stumbled backwards, and his back struck the rail. The world swam before his eyes. Antar shook his flail. ‘Do you feel the scorpion’s sting, fleshy one? Do you feel it eat into your primitive muscle, draining your strength? Ha! Woe betide any who would pit themselves against the Dutiful Scorpion of Mahrak, for his sting shall send them to Djaf’s embrace!’

  Felix slumped against the rail. His veins felt as if they were swollen with fire and his tongue felt bloated and heavy in his mouth. Karaghul slipped from his nerveless fingers and he slipped down. Antar approached. ‘I shall make a codpiece of thy skull, northman. I shall weave thy flaxen locks into a braid for my concubines, and I shall have thy sword shattered and cast into the sea.’

  ‘Touch the manling again, you withered bag of dog’s leavings, and I’ll pick my teeth with your finger-bones,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer slapped aside a skeletal warrior with casual brutality and stomped towards Antar. ‘He’s oathsworn to me, you moveable feast for maggots, and I’ll not have you help him escape it. He’s already tried once this week,’ Gotrek growled. Felix tried to protest, but his face felt numb, and he was having trouble breathing. Gotrek gestured with his axe. ‘You want to fight? Let’s fight.’

  Antar cocked his head, and then gave a raspy laugh. ‘Fight, you say? Antar, Hawk of the Rising Moon, does not fight stumpy monkeys. He kills them and plucks their eyes for sweetmeats. Do not come between the Son of the Third Queen, Lady of the Eighth Sun, Mightiest of All and his chosen–’

  Gotrek didn’t give Antar a chance to finish. He charged forwards. His rune-axe thundered down, splintering Antar’s wrist, and the hand that held the flail fell to the deck. Antar reeled back, cursing. Khopesh met axe in a flurry of squeals and sparks as the fight reeled across the deck. Antar’s speed did him little good against the Slayer, who blocked every blow with ease.

  The khopesh cut towards Gotrek’s skull, and the Slayer interposed his axe. Such was the force of Antar’s blow that the blade cracked and the rune-axe bit deep into it. The two weapons became locked. Gotrek’s free hand snapped out, catching hold of Antar’s exposed spinal column, beneath its breastplate of gold and onyx. Gotrek gave a grunt, and the muscles in his arm and shoulder bulged and flexed as he crushed the aged bones. Antar gave a squawk and toppled backwards. Or rather, the top half of him did. His legs stayed where they were.

  ‘Cheat!’ he hissed, flailing helplessly. ‘This is not honourable! Antar makes protest! There was no formal challenge! The Mighty Lion Cub was struck from behind by treacherous donkeys!’

  ‘This is a fight,’ Gotrek snarled, reaching down to grab the dead man’s skull. ‘You don’t get to protest. Now shut up so I can finish killing you.’ Felix wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The thought didn’t bother him as much as it should have. His head felt muddy and his thoughts felt as if they were muffled in cotton. He could hear his heart struggling in his chest, and he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes.

  ‘No,’ Zabbai said, tapping Gotrek’s shoulder with the flat of her axe. ‘It is not meet that you should kill a prince of Nehekhara this way.
It is also not meet that we should throw him over the side, so that he would have to crawl back to Nehekhara across the ocean floor, like the worm he is, no matter how much he might deserve it. He is our prisoner, and will be treated as such.’

  ‘Ha! You heard her. Release this Glorious Child of Mahrak, ape of Ind! Release Antar, He Who Has Come to Deliver Justice,’ Antar said, battering at Gotrek’s unyielding fist with his bony hand. ‘You heard the Serpent’s doxy!’

  ‘Quiet, Antar,’ Zabbai said, easily hefting the top of him. ‘Or I’ll string you from the prow for the gulls to play with.’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘See to your friend. Antar was ever fond of dipping his weapons in poisons.’

  Felix’s eyelids felt unbearably heavy as Gotrek sank down into a crouch beside him. ‘Gotrek, I think I’m dying,’ he croaked. Black spots crowded at the edges of his vision, and he felt as if he were looking up at the Slayer from the bottom of a deep well. Gotrek’s craggy face was unreadable. A rough palm was pressed to his forehead, and the dwarf traced the wounds in his face. Gotrek’s eye narrowed.

  ‘You might be at that, manling,’ he said grimly. Faces swam before Felix’s vision – Ulrika, Max, Snorri, others – enemies as well as friends. Flashes of memory, pieces of his past swirled across the surface of his mind. He saw each of them as clear as day and as vibrantly as if he were experiencing them for the first time. And then he saw nothing at all.

  Chapter 9

  Felix felt warm. His eyes fluttered open.

  A brightly hued bird stared down at him. It squawked as he came awake and flapped its wings. The bird flew away, out through a stone doorway that led onto a wide balcony. Felix pushed himself up and looked down at himself, and then at the room around him. It was not large, but it was tidy. Age-dulled mosaics covered the pale stone walls, depicting scenes from a history utterly unfamiliar to him.