‘Come then,’ she purred, crooking a finger, ‘one last time, Strezyk.’

The mace looped out, and her body became as mist, swirling and coiling up his arm as he gaped in shock. The mist seeped into his flattened, triangular nose and open fang-filled mouth and red eyes and hair-choked pores. Strezyk dropped his weapon and clawed at himself as he staggered back. He opened great canyons in his own flesh, trying to dig her out, but to no avail. Strange bulges began to form on his body, like flowers seeking the sun, and he groaned. His tongue and eyes protruded grotesquely as his body began to shake. He made a strangled sound and then gave an agonised scream as he abruptly burst in a shower of gore. Men and women screamed and there was a stampede to the doors as the ruin of Strezyk tottered a few steps and fell at the foot of the dais.

Silence fell on the hall as Neferata stepped out of the ruins of the former major-domo, picking her way delicately over the lumps of quivering meat and bone that littered the steps. Blood drenched her, turning her pale skin the colour of rust. She gazed up at Ushoran and licked her lips. She held his gaze for a moment. Then she dropped to one knee, spread her arms and bowed her head.

‘My king,’ she said, ‘how may I serve you?’

Bel Aliad burned as Neferata led her warriors over the hastily erected barricades. She wore thin black robes and a voluminous hood and scarf to hide her from the sun, and light leather armour sewn with hammered copper discs over the former. The horse she rode was a sleek desert stallion, ungelded and almost as savage as its rider. She drummed her heels into its glossy black flanks and it leapt over the fire-pots the defenders had lit without hesitation. Her sword snapped out like a scorpion’s stinger, and a man screamed as she split both a spear and the hands holding it.

She jerked the reins and her horse spun, lashing out with its hooves as she chopped at those defenders who had not retreated at her arrival. Wildcat screams heralded the arrival of her handmaidens. Like her, they rode the pride of the nomad herds and wore flowing black robes and hoods to protect them from the merciless attentions of the sun that played witness to the ensuing slaughter.

‘Drive them back!’ she howled, waving her sword over her head. ‘The city will be ours!’ As she said it, the words burned like bitter poison in her mouth. Bel Aliad, for all of its vaunted splendour, was not Lahmia. It was a shadow of the great tomb-cities of Nehekhara, a sad attempt by the Arabyans to ape their betters.

It was not Lahmia. It was nothing. But it would be hers. If Lahmia was lost to her, then she would have Bel Aliad. She would be a queen again, despite Alcadizzar and despite Nagash. At the thought of his name, a nauseated shudder ran through her. Nagash had demanded her servitude, but she had defied him. Let the others sup from his scraps like the dogs they were. She would make her own way.

She slashed and thrust about her as spears sought her vitals from every corner. The defenders had grown complacent; they had not realised the size of her army. Though W’soran’s attack had scattered many of the tribes, enough had remained to create a force large enough to threaten more than just the trade routes between Bel Aliad and Khemri.

She snarled and sent a man spinning away, his face opened to the bone. She was painfully aware that even this attack served Nagash in some way, preventing any outside aid from reaching Nehekhara in time. She had seen the first few refugees of the Great Plague, and knew that it was without a doubt Nagash’s doing.

Nehekhara was dying, as Lahmia had died. Part of her felt a vicious satisfaction at the thought, but another, more practical part knew that Nagash would not be satisfied with the throne of Khemri. No… the Great Necromancer wanted the world, and he would crush the thrones of the earth beneath his feet to get it.

As an immortal, she had become used to having a wealth of time to contemplate such gambits, but now, time was at a premium. How long would it take her homeland to die? How long until an army of rotting, plague-infested corpses stumbled across the sea of sand and scratched at the walls of the Arabyan caliphates?

If she could take Bel Aliad — and from there the other caliphates — and unify them into a mighty kingdom, then she might be able to stop him. She might be the only one who could. Ordinarily, pitting herself against Nagash would be the last thing on her mind. But her experience in the desert had taught her that there was nowhere to run. Nagash was the wolf at the door of the world.

Then, there was the fact that the Great Necromancer had insulted her. And no man, alive or dead, insulted Neferata and lived.

She would take Araby and her peoples and forge them into a sword to thrust into Nagash’s sour, black heart—

The arrow caught her by surprise, sprouting as if by magic from her thigh. Another slapped home in her chest, nearly wrenching her from her saddle. She looked up. Archers made ready on the sloping rooftops of the buildings nearest the barricades. She gestured with her sword and Naaima kicked her horse into a gallop, leading Rasha and a few others towards the closest of the bowmen. Naaima leapt from her mount to the edge of the roof. Arrows sped towards her and her sword knocked them from the air as she attacked the unprepared archers. Men screamed and died as the other handmaidens followed suit.

Neferata growled in satisfaction. She urged her horse forwards. The defenders were falling back now, though not in an organised fashion, and retreating towards one of the city’s many market squares. Men trampled one another in their haste to escape the attacking tribesmen. Bloodlust stirred in her and she gave herself up to it gladly. She had restrained herself for months now, whetting her appetite for the coming bloodletting. Now she unleashed the pent-up aggression, flogging her horse forwards after the fleeing warriors. She hacked at their backs and upraised limbs, sheathing her arm in a sleeve of red.

She was laughing when the first lance caught her horse in its chest. It squealed and fell, forcing her to dive from the saddle. She sprang to her feet, sword licking out. The armoured Kontoi of Bel Aliad had arrived. The lancers wore robes sewn through with flat iron plates and heavy helmets that covered their faces. Their lances were weighty spears of wood that could bring down even the heaviest horse. They met the nomads in a tangle of metal and flesh, and the Kontoi’s greater mass began to prevail. Neferata found herself buffeted by horses and she leapt upwards, her claws snagging a Kontoi’s armoured coat. She snarled into the man’s helmet and then snapped his neck.

The sword nearly chopped through her arm as the dead man fell away from her. The Kontoi wore a finer coat than the others and brightly coloured silks dangled from his helmet in a rainbow halo. The sword seemed to writhe in his hand like a thing alive, and the sigils inscribed on the blade hurt her eyes. What was this? What was it—?

She fell back as the warrior swung at her again. The blade sizzled as it cut the air and it seemed to shiver. She fell from the horse and slid between its legs. She slashed the warrior’s saddle strap with her claws, sending him crashing to the ground. The square was filled with heaving, stamping horses and men and the sky was growing dark. Night was falling.

She rose, flinging back her hood. The Kontoi scrambled to his feet. He had lost his sword in the fall. With a yell, he dived for it even as she lunged for him, catching it up as she landed on him. She spun him around and hurled him into a wall hard enough to crack the brick. The warrior staggered, but remained standing.