—<TWENTY-FIVE>—

Holding Back the Darkness

Khemri, the Living City, in the 110th year of Djaf the Terrible
(-1163 Imperial Reckoning)

Nagash is coming.

The warning sped to every corner of Nehekhara, sent from the collegium of sorcery in Khemri to each of the great cities, and thence to the ears of the empire’s vassals. Within hours, horns were sounding from the palaces, summoning their fighting men to war.

A strategy had been devised decades before in anticipation of the Usurper’s return, its particulars refined every year by a war council convened by Alcadizzar in Khemri. Each city’s army had a specific role to play in the grand strategy, plus a strict timetable in which to complete their assigned tasks. It was similar in some ways to the complex movement of armies that occurred during the Lahmian campaign almost forty years prior, but altogether more complex and difficult to achieve.

During the first few months after Ophiria’s arrival at Khemri, a steady stream of messages flowed from the palace to the collegium and back again. Alcadizzar worked day and night from the relative seclusion of his personal library, communicating with his vassal kings and directing the mobilisation of the empire. Roughly four weeks after receiving Ophiria’s warning, the armies of Rasetra and Ka-Sabar had assembled and were on the march, both rushing northwards to reach their assigned places ahead of the Usurper’s forces. Meanwhile, on the river docks outside Khemri, every barge the city’s merchants owned had been pressed into service, while the city’s army mustered in the fields to the south.

There were hundreds of decisions, small and large, to be made each and every day. Alcadizzar quickly learned that being able to communicate with his allies across such vast distances was a double-edged sword. He was deluged with questions, requests, clarifications and reports at every turn, until it became a challenge just to sift through the flood and determine which messages needed attention and which did not.

Ironically, the more Alcadizzar knew, the more he worried about the things he didn’t know. Where were Nagash’s forces? How large were they? How fast were they moving? He reviewed his battle plans over and over, looking for hidden flaws that the enemy could exploit.

The king was standing before a large wooden table in the centre of the library, studying a detailed map of the empire, when he heard the door to the library quietly open. He sighed inwardly, rubbing at his eyes. “Yes?” he asked, expecting yet another handful of messages from the collegium.

“Inofre says you haven’t left this room in days. Is something wrong?”

Alcadizzar turned in surprise at the sound of Khalida’s voice. His wife stood close to the library’s door, surveying the cluttered desks and reading tables with a mix of scholarly interest and mild apprehension. She was dressed simply, as was her habit when not attending court, clad in dark cotton robes and silk slippers. A desert headscarf was wrapped loosely about her braided hair. It accentuated the worry lines that creased her forehead and etched the corners of her eyes.

Too exhausted and too surprised to think properly, Alcadizzar shook his head and said, “No more or less wrong than the day before.”

“Then why are you still awake? It’s well past midnight.”

Alcadizzar frowned. He had no idea it was so late. The library had no windows, being in the centre of the royal apartments, so there was no easy way to mark the passage of time. He ran a hand over his face, trying to rub the tiredness away. “Going over reports,” he replied dully. “Making sure there’s nothing I’ve missed.”

Khalida joined him beside the map table and peered closely at his face. “You look ten years older,” she murmured. Her fingertips lightly brushed his temples. “There’s grey in your hair that wasn’t there a month ago.”

The king managed a half-hearted smile. “That’s what you get for marrying such an old man,” he joked.

Khalida scowled. “Be serious,” she said. “You’re exhausted. I can see it in your eyes.”

The smile faded from Alcadizzar’s face. He looked down at the map, eyes sweeping over symbols and notations that he’d burned into his memory over the past weeks. He shook his head. “It weighs on me,” the king said. “Every moment of every day. When I try to sleep, all I can think of is this damned map.”

“I know,” Khalida replied. “You always fret like this before a campaign.”

“Not like this,” he said, shaking his head. “This isn’t about taxes, or trade, or expanding the borders of the empire. This is about life and death—or something altogether worse than death.” Alcadizzar sighed. “The empire is depending on me. If I fail, then every living thing from Lybaras to Zandri will suffer.”

Alcadizzar was surprised to feel Khalida’s arms slide about his waist and draw him close. It made him think of the first time she’d embraced him, on the road to Khemri with the tribes. He’d thought desert women were quiet and pliable back then, Ophiria notwithstanding. Khalida had shown him how utterly wrong his impressions were.

“You will not fail,” she told him, in a voice that brooked no dissent. “This is the moment you’ve been preparing for. It’s the whole reason the empire exists.” She rested her head on his shoulder, and her voice softened. “In all my life, I’ve never known a man more devoted to anything.”

The words stung, whether she’d meant them to or not. He put his arms around her. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For letting all this come between us,” Alcadizzar replied. “I’ve been a poor husband these past few years.”

“But a great king,” Khalida said. She reached up and wiped at her cheek. She gestured at the map. “Look at all you’ve done.”

“I’d give it all up in an instant if you asked me to.”

“You wouldn’t,” Khalida said, laughing weakly. “Don’t be stupid.”

The king laughed along with her. “I’m not,” he protested. “Once this is over, things will be different. No more travelling. No more campaigns. No more pacing the floor at all hours of the night. We’ll finally do all those things we dreamed about.”

“You’ll take me to the Silk Lands in a barge made of gold?”

Alcadizzar smiled. “If you wish.”

“And you’ll make the Celestial Emperor bow before me?”

“He won’t need much encouragement, once he sets eyes on you.”

Khalida chuckled and hugged him tight. “Promise?”

The king smiled. “With all my heart.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said. “So. When do we march?”

“We?”

Khalida disentangled herself and gave Alcadizzar a stern look. “You expect me to stay here? I’ve ridden with you on every campaign since we were married and I do not plan on stopping now.”

The very idea filled Alcadizzar with dread, but he knew that there was no point in arguing. Even the authority of kings had its limits.

“Zandri’s forces have already left and are travelling upriver now,” he said, tracing his finger along the length of the River Vitae. “The Numasi are on the move as well, they should be here in two weeks. Another two or three days to load their army and ours onto the barges, then we’ll be ready to go.”

Khalida nodded. “And the rest?”

“The Iron Legion left Ka-Sabar two weeks ago and are headed north to Quatar. Rasetra’s forces left at roughly the same time and Heru reports that they’ll be at Lybaras in another week or so.” He folded his arms. “There’s been no word from Mahrak in weeks. I fear the Hieratic Council is reconsidering its role in the plan.”

The queen nodded. Though she hadn’t been directly involved in drafting the battle plan, she’d pieced it together over the years, and knew it as well as any of the other rulers. “It’s not hard to understand. You’ve placed them in a difficult position.”

“It wasn’t by choice, but they don’t seem to believe that,” Alcadizzar said. “They’ve been suspicious of my motives ever since I started the sorcerer’s collegium. But abandoning the city is the only realistic option. If they won’t join Rasetra and Lybaras, at least they could withdraw to the Gates of the Dusk, where they could hold the eastern end of the Valley of Kings for many weeks—certainly long enough for their people to reach the far end of the valley and take refuge in Quatar.”

“It’s not that easy a decision for them. They’re trying to preserve their faith,” Khalida pointed out.

“Not if they manage to get themselves killed in the process,” Alcadizzar retorted. “It will be a bitter irony if the Hieratic Council’s own mistrust and paranoia proves to be their downfall.”

“If that is their fate, then there’s nothing we can do,” Khalida said. “But they may surprise us yet. There is still some time left before Nagash’s army crosses the Golden Plain.”

Alcadizzar nodded, but his expression was doubtful. “We can hope,” he said. “At this point, it’s all we can do.”

Propelled along the dark waters by sweeping oars of bone, the undead fleet took two long weeks to cross the narrow straits and reach the ruined harbour at Lahmia. They arrived in the dead of night, concealed by a spreading stain of ashen cloud that swallowed the light of the moon. In the years since the fall of the city it had become home to squatters and bandit gangs from all over eastern Nehekhara—desperate men and women who laughed at the legends of the Cursed City’s past. W’soran stood upon the deck of his transport ship and listened to their screams as the undead host spread silently through Lahmia’s narrow streets.

Hour upon hour, the heavily laden ships came and went from the great stone quays, pouring a steady flood of spectral troops into the city. It was well past daybreak when W’soran’s turn came to disembark, riding upon a palanquin of bone that moved like a spider on eight long, segmented legs. He rode the undead engine through the preternatural gloom, making his way up the hill to the remains of the royal palace. There he remained over the next several days, while the army slowly gathered on the plains south of the city.

The necromancer amused himself by picking through the ashes of the old temple, both from curiosity and for the simple reason that he knew Arkhan would not come within a mile of his former prison unless he had to. Sharing control of the army—and the glory of victory—with the damned liche galled W’soran no end. For years he had tried to think of a way to engineer Arkhan’s demise—certain that the liche planned the same fate for him. At Nagashizzar, under Nagash’s unblinking gaze, he could not think of a way to destroy the liche without considerable risk to himself, so W’soran had bided his time, waiting for the invasion to begin. Though Arkhan’s necromantic skills might be marginally better than his at present, W’soran now had the advantage of numbers on his side. His seven progeny together accounted for control of nearly half the army. All he had to do was watch and wait for the right opportunity to push the damned liche into the enemy’s hands.

As W’soran expected, Arkhan kept to his own devices, haunting some other part of the city until the army was ready to move. One by one his immortal retainers gathered at the palace as their contingents debarked in the harbour. The old throne of the city was long gone, likely consumed in the temple fire years ago, and the copy that Neferata had made was nowhere to be found, so W’soran had his warriors search the palace for a suitable chair to place upon the royal dais and waited there for Arkhan to attend him and discuss strategy.

A day and a night passed. Then another. W’soran’s ire grew. Finally, on the third day, he despatched one of his immortals to find Arkhan—only to discover that the liche had taken the warriors directly under his control and headed west two days before.

Furious, W’soran roused the rest of the host and chased off after him, determined not to let Arkhan reach Khemri first and deprive the necromancer of the honour of capturing Alcadizzar. The vast army lumbered and lurched up the narrow pass and onto the Golden Plain, spilling like a dark stain across the barren fields. The necromancer drove his troops forwards ruthlessly, marching both day and night; the dust and ash stirred by their marching feet was drawn upwards by W’soran’s magic to perpetuate the vast sea of cloud that shielded them from the burning sun.

It took more than three weeks to finally catch up with Arkhan, clear on the other side of the desolate plain. W’soran’s cavalry caught sight of the liche’s forces drawn up in fighting order some ten leagues west along the trade road, not far from where it branched southwest towards Lybaras. A league away, with their backs to the Lybaras road, waited a Nehekharan army.

The necromancer’s infantry caught up with Arkhan’s troops some four hours later. W’soran commanded them to halt a short way behind the liche’s forces and then led his palanquin forwards in search of the broken-toothed bastard.

Arkhan sat astride a huge, skeletal horse, surrounded by a group of mounted wights near the centre of his battle-line. Unlike W’soran, who had retained his sigil-marked robes, the liche had traded his filthy rags for bronze and leather armour. A tarnished bronze helmet covered his skull, its skirt of leather and bronze rings surrounding his face and neck like the lower part of a cowl. The liche’s snarling face turned to the necromancer, green eyes burning from their bony sockets. With a creak of leather he raised his hand and pointed a bony finger at the distant army.

“Explain this,” Arkhan grated.

W’soran brought the palanquin to an abrupt halt. “Isn’t it obvious?” he snapped. “Some of that misbegotten rabble in Lahmia must have escaped and carried a warning to Lybaras. You didn’t think they would just sit and wait for us to show up outside their walls, did you?”

A guttural hiss slipped past the liche’s rotten teeth. “Lybaras and Rasetra both,” Arkhan declared. “It would have taken weeks to muster them, much less march all this way to meet us. How is that possible?”

“How should I know?” W’soran shot back. “The Lybarans have all manner of strange devices, do they not? Perhaps they spied us coming from a long distance away.”

“You’re an even bigger fool than I remembered,” Arkhan sneered. “You swore to Nagash that the great cities were divided. That they couldn’t muster a proper defence against us.”

The necromancer felt a moment of unease as the implications of what the liche was saying finally sank in. From this moment forwards, if anything went wrong on the campaign, Arkhan would try to blame W’soran for it.

“You call that a proper defence?” the necromancer shot back. “I always suspected you were a coward, Arkhan. That’s a fraction of the army I nearly defeated at Lahmia, years ago!”

Arkhan leaned back in his saddle and considered W’soran for a long moment, until the necromancer began to wonder if the liche would be foolish enough to reach for his sword.

“Indeed?” he said at length. “Then your legions should have little trouble defeating this one.” He raised his hand; all at once, his entire force turned to the right and began to march northwards, out of the path between W’soran’s forces and the enemy.

W’soran glared at Arkhan, furious that he had let the liche outmanoeuvre him so easily. “Very well,” the necromancer hissed. “Pull your warriors back to the north-east and keep them out of my way. You can manage that much, can’t you?”

Arkhan did not deign to give him an answer, merely turning his horse about and heading off to the north. W’soran clenched his fists, sorely tempted to blast the liche from his saddle and settle things once and for all. Reluctantly, he stayed his hand. Now was not the time, not with an enemy army just a few miles distant.

Seething, he turned his palanquin about and returned to his waiting legions. With a few curt orders and a string of mental commands, the army began forming into battle-line. Archer companies clattered forth to take up position in front of the spear companies, while cavalry and chariots took their places at the flanks.

As they were assuming their places, W’soran studied the enemy force. Truthfully, the force seemed at least as large as the one Alcadizzar had led against Lahmia—perhaps eighty to a hundred thousand warriors. He spied heavy infantry in the centre and on the flanks, screened by large units of archers to the front and chariots to the south. Just behind the battle-line were perhaps two-score small, wheeled catapults, arranged in alternating ranks to fire over the heads of the infantry. A formidable force, the necromancer allowed, but woefully outnumbered against the assembled legions of undead. With a mirthless smile, W’soran ordered his archers and spearmen forwards.

The tightly packed spear formations descended the sloping ground towards the enemy troops. Minutes passed as the two forces drew together. W’soran could dimly hear trumpets calling back and forth along the enemy battle-line. When the advancing skeletons were perhaps a thousand yards away, the necromancer saw men begin working the winding arms on the Lybaran catapults. The necromancer issued another command and his archers picked up their pace, trotting ahead of the spear companies to provide covering fire for the last few hundred yards before contact. At two hundred yards, they came to a halt and drew back their bowstrings in a single motion, then unleashed a hissing storm of arrows into the ranks of the enemy infantry. Many fell upon upraised shields or glanced off rounded helms, but others slid through narrow gaps and buried themselves in flesh and bone. Holes opened in the ranks as men fell, wounded or dying.

The skeletal archers prepared for a second volley, but now the enemy bowmen responded, sending up a shower of their own missiles. They plunged down among the lightly armoured archers, punching through dusty ribcages and bleached skulls. Where the arrows struck, there was a tiny white flash and the skeletons collapsed to the ground.

The flashes caught W’soran’s attention at once. Whatever it was, it snuffed out the magic animating the corpses like pinching a candle flame. It had to be magic of some kind, the necromancer realised with alarm.

Down on the field, the skeletal archers unleashed another, more ragged volley of arrows. Almost immediately, the Nehekharans fired back, and hundreds more of W’soran’s archers were destroyed. With a snarl, he ordered the survivors to retreat. As the archers turned about and trotted through narrow gaps between the spear companies, W’soran issued curt orders to his retainers. The immortals raised their arms and began to chant, casting the first incantations of the battle.

The spear companies pressed forwards, undaunted by the punishment suffered by the archers. At five hundred yards, a trumpet blew from the enemy battle-line, and all twenty catapults went into action. Clutches of smooth, rounded stones the size of melons fell among the spear companies, crushing shields and shattering bones. Knots of spearmen simply ceased to exist, as though flattened by the stomping feet of an invisible giant.

A hundred yards later, the catapults fired again, then a hundred yards after that. The lead companies of spearmen were all but destroyed, but there were still thousands more ready to take their place. At two hundred yards, another shower of stones fell, plus a flight of enemy arrows that sowed yet more carnage through the ranks. Snarling, W’soran raised his hand to the sky and all eight immortals unleashed their incantations simultaneously. Necromantic power surged through the undead spearmen, filling their spindly limbs with a momentary burst of additional vigour. They surged ahead in a silent mass, weapons levelled, charging across the last two hundred yards faster than either the enemy bowmen or the catapults could react.

The enemy archers saw the danger approaching and retreated at once, snatching unfired arrows out of the ground by their feet and racing back to safety behind the heavy infantry. Moments later the Nehekharan battle-line roared in challenge as the undead spearmen crashed against their upraised shields and the battle was truly joined.

The Rasetran army was clad in heavy armour of leather and bronze plates and they wielded iron-bladed hand axes or heavy maces with deadly skill. Their shields were marked with runes of protection; their weapons with symbols that crumpled skeletons with every blow. W’soran and his retainers responded with another series of incantations that speeded the attacks of their spearmen, until the bronze spearheads jabbed into the enemy like the heads of vipers. The slaughter on both sides was terrible to behold, but the Nehekharans stood their ground against the onslaught.

W’soran lashed at the undead legions with the force of his will, hurling the entire host at the stubborn foe. To the south, skeletal cavalry and chariots charged into the mass of Nehekharan horse, touching off a wild, swirling melee. Companies of archers and spearmen advanced behind the undead cavalry, striking the Rasetrans from the flank and unleashing volleys of arrows at the struggling Nehekharan horsemen. To the north, another force of undead cavalry and infantry were swinging around the enemy’s left flank. Trumpets sounded a desperate call for reinforcements, as the enemy left began to bend backwards under the pressure. Before long the undead charioteers would be able to swing past the struggling infantry and strike at the Lybaran catapults at the rear of the army.

Still the Rasetrans fought on, stubbornly refusing to give ground against the onslaught. The Lybaran catapults continued firing over their heads into the rear ranks of the undead, along with the archer companies, but ultimately the effort was a futile one. The skeletons felt no fear or pain. They did not know the meaning of retreat. They fought until they were destroyed, whereupon the next warrior in line took their place and the battle went on. Slowly, inexorably, the undead host began to spill around the flanks of the struggling army, like a pair of jaws that would soon close and swallow the living warriors whole.

After nearly an hour of fighting, the Nehekharans reached the breaking point. Their flanks had nearly collapsed and their infantry companies had taken a terrible mauling. Suddenly, trumpet calls sounded up and down the battle-line, and the withdrawal began. With a steady, disciplined tread, the companies fell back a step at a time, angling slightly back towards the south-west.

Sensing victory, W’soran urged his troops to redouble their efforts. More incantations were cast—but this time, to the necromancer’s surprise, their effects were dispelled by cunningly directed counter-magics. Furious, W’soran searched the aether for signs of the enemy spellcasters—but before he could locate them, there was a sudden surge of magical energy and the ground before the struggling warriors seemed to erupt into a howling wall of blinding dust and sand.

W’soran drove his warriors forwards, into the howling sandstorm, but perversely, the sounds of fighting dwindled rather than intensified. The enemy was in full retreat, shielded by the concealing storm. The necromancer switched tactics, marshalling his retainers to dispel the storm. Within minutes, the spell was unravelled, but swirling clouds of dust still obscured the field of slaughter, making it difficult to gauge the enemy’s position.

By the time the dust had cleared enough to see, the necromancer was left cursing in disgust. The Rasetrans had pulled back with surprising speed—even the catapults had managed a rapid withdrawal, towed down the trade road by teams of horses. The enemy cavalry had wheeled about and followed in their wake, screening the weary infantry from pursuit.

W’soran glared sourly at the retreating Nehekharans. He’d won, at best, a minor victory. As long as the enemy army remained intact, it still posed a threat. Now he would be forced to chase them, all the way to Lybaras and beyond if he must. That would cost precious time, while the cities of the west marshalled their forces on the other side of the Bitter Peaks.

The necromancer spat a curse at the mortals. At the bottom of the slope, Arkhan was walking his skeletal horse amongst the piles of enemy dead, no doubt searching for some piece of evidence that could be used to damn him before the Undying King.

Already, the campaign was proving to be a long and a bitter one.