Chapter 5: The Sands of Time
IC -1163
It was early morning, the sun just winking over the horizon, and the Bitter Sea was anything but. Its waves were calm, not their usual malevolent selves but pitifully weak, as though afraid to attract the attention of that which sailed their waters.
A shape slipped smoothly through the rising mist, quiet as the dead. The barque was of Nehekharan design, but was far from typical of any other to be found in the ports of the Great Kingdom. Huge chunks of gristly bone served as the mast pole, and adorned the rigging. Tendon, rubbery and dry with age, bound the macabre ship together, and moth-eaten banners hung, resplendent nonetheless, from the sides of the soundless vessel. Their insignia was unmistakable.
The sleek ship cut through the water as true and straight as an arrow, although the deck was deserted. Gone were the bustling sailors, heaving, sweating, at the oars. Gone were the slaves, who drenched the deck in salt water, and fed the hungry belly of the ship with cargo. Gone was the Sea Master, his bellowing voice replaced by the sighs of the wind.
The living had no place aboard this monstrous vessel.
Uneven ruins rose into sight on the distant shore. They stood, black and jagged, against the fiery red of the rising sun, a deathly silhouette, serving as a reminder for all foolish enough to sail these waters of the evil that once festered there, corrupt and corpulent. Only those with a death-wish made port at that cursed place now. Only those who sought to die, mad and alone, amidst the haunted ruins of Lahmia, walked those bloody sands.
The ship sailed closer, as softly as a dead man’s sigh. Wreathes of mist snaked out, keeping pace with the rotting barque, never seeming to move but always behind it, trailing. Once they almost caught up, threatening to swallow the wood and bone, and envelop it in their chilling coldness, but the ship slid smoothly, unscathed, from their grasp.
Waves lapped pitifully against the hull of the ship, as though loathe to touch it, yet desperate to encourage it on its way. Had they known what dwelled within, waiting patiently to dock, and rejoin with land once more, they would have left the ship to its own devices. Even the wind was quelled, reduced to a whisper on the air, quiet and impotent.
Passing through the ruined sea-gates and into the Lahmian bay, the graceful ship began to slow. As the broken heights of the Lahmian docks rose up, cracked and burned, around it, the ship became two, then three, then a dozen, as more and more of the macabre vessels slipped from out of the concealing mist and into the bay.
A score, then two dozen, then three, the mist regurgitated the unnatural barques. The slim, decaying vessels slid into port alongside each other, directed by some greater will. Freed from the horror that had transfixed it, the Bitter Sea slapped ineffectually at the now creaking hulls of the ships. Stay away, it seemed to say, do not take to my seas again.
The first figures staggered from out of the gloom below deck, stepping awkwardly onto the wooden boards. Their bleached bones clicked, and empty eye-sockets stared unseeing at the carcass of once mighty Lahmia.
The fleet of Nagash emptied itself onto the bloodied flagstones of the cursed city.
Time. It had done little to ease the anguish that poisoned Maatmeses’ heart. As she stood in the blackened ruins of the Temple of Blood, the revenant shades of men long dead met her gaze. She watched them as they strode across the temple antechamber, their insubstantial figures wavering in and out of consistency, trapped in a re-enactment their final moments for all eternity. They were like shadows, wisps of memory given some semblance of form. Their lips moved silently as they walked through toppled statues and flame-charred walls. She could not tell whether they were products of her imagination, shades called back from the grave to haunt Lahmia’s broken streets, or a mixture of both. Her ancient eyes glistened.
The time for vengeance was upon them. Now, at long last, the Nehekharans would pay for their war crimes. Maatmeses had learned much in the dripping, stagnant bowels of Nagashizzar, their dark god himself teaching the surviving vampire masters the twisted intricacies of necromancy. It had been difficult beyond comprehension, and she had been slow to learn, but every day she had devoted to practice was a grain of sand in the right direction, and now her arcane knowledge was more than a match for anything she could remember the priests of the Great Kingdom being capable of.
The ancient vampire pulled at the straps of her breastplate, tightening it, and stalked from the despondent temple. She had been much changed by the time spent in Nagashizzar. They all had.
For one, Neferata had been stripped of her rank. The cunning bitch was no more a queen than Maatmeses was now, and instead her husband Vashanesh had risen as their captain. Nagash himself had appointed the Lahmian king as their master, and against his incomparable will not even the Queen of Lahmia could contest. That alone had brought her deep-seated satisfaction, in the early years of their arrival. She had found nothing quite as rewarding as watching their once glorious queen rant and rave her displeasure.
Neferata was as powerless against the Great Necromancer as the mortals were against her.
A grin split Maatmeses’ face, the expression all the more daemonic for her years in the company of Nagash and his ilk. Her mouth was a mesh of needle-like fangs, and her once bronze flesh had faded slightly in the absence of the Nehekharan sun. Her cheeks had become sunken, giving a strained, feral turn to the once High Justice’s face.
Perhaps it was the years of exposure to the Great Necromancer’s precious warpstone, she mused as she strode from the shattered maw of the Temple of Blood and into the light of day. It had certainly corrupted the visage of their lord, transforming him beyond all recognition, turning him into a reeking, rotting horror the likes of which she had never before seen. It was no stretch of the imagination to believe that the corrupt substance had affected her own appearance in some way.
Her delving into the necromantic arts was another possible explanation. W’soran was a walking example of what prolonged use of Dhar could do to one’s body. The previously malnourished vampire had grown ever more emaciated since his extensive experiments into death and necromancy. He rarely left Nagash’s side, like some Khemrian hound, eager for any scraps of ancient lore or prophecy that was tossed his way by their master. That his extensive efforts had proved fruitful, she could not deny; the scholarly vampire was by far the most proficient of their number at spell casting. The innermost secrets of necromancy were at his discretion and he gave little away, jealously hording what macabre knowledge he accumulated and sharing only a little of that with his own priests.
He had also paid the highest price for his potent skills. With leathery flesh and skeletal limbs, his withered corpse of a body said it all: toy with the wind of Dhar, and suffer the consequences.
Outside it was still morning, but already the sun’s heat was intense, searing the vampire to her core and cooking her insides. She walked down the long flight of cracked stairs, to join the rest of Nagash’s lieutenants, her bronze armour winking in the sunlight. This is what is must have felt like to be condemned to the desert, she thought. It was a punishment she had frequently heaped upon the murderers and thieves of Lahmia, driving long spears through their limbs and pinning them to the desert sands. The lucky ones were devoured by carrion, their innards ripped out and consumed by the ravenous birds. Those less fortunate were left there, driven mad by the heat, until their desiccated corpses were removed and replaced with fresh criminals.
Grim nostalgia drew laughter from the vampire, a dusty hiss escaping her throat.
She missed the old days. She missed the authority and satisfaction that came with being High Justice. Now she was a Dark Lord. A lieutenant of Nagash, captain of his unholy legions. Rewarding, yes, but it was not the same.
She needed her vengeance. It was a long time coming, and the years had done nothing to diminish it. If anything, the desire for retribution had taken root in her, unmoveable, revenge as much a part of the woman as her blood-thirst, or her very name.
“You are finished in the temple, Maatmeses?†It was W’soran. She nodded, and his lips split into a tight smile. “Then we are ready. We have taken Lahmia uncontested, but the rest of Nehekhara still awaits our attention! From the eastern shores to the furthermost reaches of the Great Desert, the mortals cower in their petty kingdoms. Lybaras, Mahrak, Quatar, Zandri, Numas and Khemri, all are soft and weak and afraid. They must die.†Vashanesh interrupted, his own voice belying an aura of majesty and authority that W’soran could never hope to achieve.
“This day we mark the beginning of the end for the priest kings and their subjects. They will fall before our limitless hordes and deadly magics and like a plague of locusts we will descend on them and devour them, in the name of Lahmia, and Nagash!†The six master vampires snarled and laughed, their hearts swelled with confidence and hunger. The deserts will run red with the blood of mortals. Their corpses will turn the seas themselves crimson and stagnant. All of Nehekhara will be theirs, and the glory of Lahmia restored!
“We have waited so long…†said Harakhte, his ruby eyes turned skyward. Ushoran laughed, a cold, hard sound, devoid of human emotion.
“Too long, my brothers and sisters. But now we are set free, unleashed upon Nehekhara to do our lord’s bidding, and none shall stand against us! The blood, just think of the blood!â€Â
“For Nagash!†shouted Vashanesh, his bestial rage carrying far into the sky. The Great Necromancer had taught them the ways of necromancy. He had promised them their Lahmia, resurrected to its former glory. He had shown them the light in their time of darkness. As one, the vampires began to chant.
Their tongues spat corruption; venomous words that had no right to be spoken aloud filling the air and turning it thick with dark magic. A fierce wind raced through the decaying city, unsettling ruins and scattering sand to the skies.
Above all their voices, one sounded stronger and more powerful, harnessing the winds of magic and bending them to his will as slaves to a king. W’soran screamed and chanted, incantations flying fast from split, bloody lips. He raised his hands, long black robes buffeting his frail form.
And all across the desert graveyard that was Lahmia, the dead stirred. Skeletons that had sailed down from Nagashizzar with their undying masters stood side by side with the brittle bones of those long buried beneath the shifting sands. Generations of ancient nobles woke in their mausoleums, reborn as wights - fathers, sons and grandfathers, they strode slowly from their tombs, enchanted blades clutched in mailed fists. Even the ghouls, degenerate men that on Nagash’s command had accompanied the vampires, crouched and leapt and howled their fury at the dark winds as they swept the city.
Thick grey clouds converged on the clear blue sky, concealing the blasphemy that was wrought below from the eyes of the sun, and the creatures of the night, the ghouls and ghosts and ghasts, screamed with triumph.
Then the vampire lords themselves stirred, breaking from the casting of their unnatural magics to lead their armies across the golden desert and into battle.
Maatmeses flushed with decades old excitement. Anticipation flooded her ancient veins. The time for vengeance had come. It was now. It was here! A thousand bitter memories came swarming back into her mind: of her murdered children, Gehb, Eshe, Khait and the others, of friends lost, Abhorash first and foremost, of her laws flaunted and disgraced, and of her home - her city - torn down from around her. Desperation welled up like a desert spring inside the vampire, soulful and earnest.
“Beware, men of Nehekhara,†she screamed aloud, “for I am Maatmeses, and I come to claim my blood debt!â€Â
IC -1163
It was early morning, the sun just winking over the horizon, and the Bitter Sea was anything but. Its waves were calm, not their usual malevolent selves but pitifully weak, as though afraid to attract the attention of that which sailed their waters.
A shape slipped smoothly through the rising mist, quiet as the dead. The barque was of Nehekharan design, but was far from typical of any other to be found in the ports of the Great Kingdom. Huge chunks of gristly bone served as the mast pole, and adorned the rigging. Tendon, rubbery and dry with age, bound the macabre ship together, and moth-eaten banners hung, resplendent nonetheless, from the sides of the soundless vessel. Their insignia was unmistakable.
The sleek ship cut through the water as true and straight as an arrow, although the deck was deserted. Gone were the bustling sailors, heaving, sweating, at the oars. Gone were the slaves, who drenched the deck in salt water, and fed the hungry belly of the ship with cargo. Gone was the Sea Master, his bellowing voice replaced by the sighs of the wind.
The living had no place aboard this monstrous vessel.
Uneven ruins rose into sight on the distant shore. They stood, black and jagged, against the fiery red of the rising sun, a deathly silhouette, serving as a reminder for all foolish enough to sail these waters of the evil that once festered there, corrupt and corpulent. Only those with a death-wish made port at that cursed place now. Only those who sought to die, mad and alone, amidst the haunted ruins of Lahmia, walked those bloody sands.
The ship sailed closer, as softly as a dead man’s sigh. Wreathes of mist snaked out, keeping pace with the rotting barque, never seeming to move but always behind it, trailing. Once they almost caught up, threatening to swallow the wood and bone, and envelop it in their chilling coldness, but the ship slid smoothly, unscathed, from their grasp.
Waves lapped pitifully against the hull of the ship, as though loathe to touch it, yet desperate to encourage it on its way. Had they known what dwelled within, waiting patiently to dock, and rejoin with land once more, they would have left the ship to its own devices. Even the wind was quelled, reduced to a whisper on the air, quiet and impotent.
Passing through the ruined sea-gates and into the Lahmian bay, the graceful ship began to slow. As the broken heights of the Lahmian docks rose up, cracked and burned, around it, the ship became two, then three, then a dozen, as more and more of the macabre vessels slipped from out of the concealing mist and into the bay.
A score, then two dozen, then three, the mist regurgitated the unnatural barques. The slim, decaying vessels slid into port alongside each other, directed by some greater will. Freed from the horror that had transfixed it, the Bitter Sea slapped ineffectually at the now creaking hulls of the ships. Stay away, it seemed to say, do not take to my seas again.
The first figures staggered from out of the gloom below deck, stepping awkwardly onto the wooden boards. Their bleached bones clicked, and empty eye-sockets stared unseeing at the carcass of once mighty Lahmia.
The fleet of Nagash emptied itself onto the bloodied flagstones of the cursed city.
Time. It had done little to ease the anguish that poisoned Maatmeses’ heart. As she stood in the blackened ruins of the Temple of Blood, the revenant shades of men long dead met her gaze. She watched them as they strode across the temple antechamber, their insubstantial figures wavering in and out of consistency, trapped in a re-enactment their final moments for all eternity. They were like shadows, wisps of memory given some semblance of form. Their lips moved silently as they walked through toppled statues and flame-charred walls. She could not tell whether they were products of her imagination, shades called back from the grave to haunt Lahmia’s broken streets, or a mixture of both. Her ancient eyes glistened.
The time for vengeance was upon them. Now, at long last, the Nehekharans would pay for their war crimes. Maatmeses had learned much in the dripping, stagnant bowels of Nagashizzar, their dark god himself teaching the surviving vampire masters the twisted intricacies of necromancy. It had been difficult beyond comprehension, and she had been slow to learn, but every day she had devoted to practice was a grain of sand in the right direction, and now her arcane knowledge was more than a match for anything she could remember the priests of the Great Kingdom being capable of.
The ancient vampire pulled at the straps of her breastplate, tightening it, and stalked from the despondent temple. She had been much changed by the time spent in Nagashizzar. They all had.
For one, Neferata had been stripped of her rank. The cunning bitch was no more a queen than Maatmeses was now, and instead her husband Vashanesh had risen as their captain. Nagash himself had appointed the Lahmian king as their master, and against his incomparable will not even the Queen of Lahmia could contest. That alone had brought her deep-seated satisfaction, in the early years of their arrival. She had found nothing quite as rewarding as watching their once glorious queen rant and rave her displeasure.
Neferata was as powerless against the Great Necromancer as the mortals were against her.
A grin split Maatmeses’ face, the expression all the more daemonic for her years in the company of Nagash and his ilk. Her mouth was a mesh of needle-like fangs, and her once bronze flesh had faded slightly in the absence of the Nehekharan sun. Her cheeks had become sunken, giving a strained, feral turn to the once High Justice’s face.
Perhaps it was the years of exposure to the Great Necromancer’s precious warpstone, she mused as she strode from the shattered maw of the Temple of Blood and into the light of day. It had certainly corrupted the visage of their lord, transforming him beyond all recognition, turning him into a reeking, rotting horror the likes of which she had never before seen. It was no stretch of the imagination to believe that the corrupt substance had affected her own appearance in some way.
Her delving into the necromantic arts was another possible explanation. W’soran was a walking example of what prolonged use of Dhar could do to one’s body. The previously malnourished vampire had grown ever more emaciated since his extensive experiments into death and necromancy. He rarely left Nagash’s side, like some Khemrian hound, eager for any scraps of ancient lore or prophecy that was tossed his way by their master. That his extensive efforts had proved fruitful, she could not deny; the scholarly vampire was by far the most proficient of their number at spell casting. The innermost secrets of necromancy were at his discretion and he gave little away, jealously hording what macabre knowledge he accumulated and sharing only a little of that with his own priests.
He had also paid the highest price for his potent skills. With leathery flesh and skeletal limbs, his withered corpse of a body said it all: toy with the wind of Dhar, and suffer the consequences.
Outside it was still morning, but already the sun’s heat was intense, searing the vampire to her core and cooking her insides. She walked down the long flight of cracked stairs, to join the rest of Nagash’s lieutenants, her bronze armour winking in the sunlight. This is what is must have felt like to be condemned to the desert, she thought. It was a punishment she had frequently heaped upon the murderers and thieves of Lahmia, driving long spears through their limbs and pinning them to the desert sands. The lucky ones were devoured by carrion, their innards ripped out and consumed by the ravenous birds. Those less fortunate were left there, driven mad by the heat, until their desiccated corpses were removed and replaced with fresh criminals.
Grim nostalgia drew laughter from the vampire, a dusty hiss escaping her throat.
She missed the old days. She missed the authority and satisfaction that came with being High Justice. Now she was a Dark Lord. A lieutenant of Nagash, captain of his unholy legions. Rewarding, yes, but it was not the same.
She needed her vengeance. It was a long time coming, and the years had done nothing to diminish it. If anything, the desire for retribution had taken root in her, unmoveable, revenge as much a part of the woman as her blood-thirst, or her very name.
“You are finished in the temple, Maatmeses?†It was W’soran. She nodded, and his lips split into a tight smile. “Then we are ready. We have taken Lahmia uncontested, but the rest of Nehekhara still awaits our attention! From the eastern shores to the furthermost reaches of the Great Desert, the mortals cower in their petty kingdoms. Lybaras, Mahrak, Quatar, Zandri, Numas and Khemri, all are soft and weak and afraid. They must die.†Vashanesh interrupted, his own voice belying an aura of majesty and authority that W’soran could never hope to achieve.
“This day we mark the beginning of the end for the priest kings and their subjects. They will fall before our limitless hordes and deadly magics and like a plague of locusts we will descend on them and devour them, in the name of Lahmia, and Nagash!†The six master vampires snarled and laughed, their hearts swelled with confidence and hunger. The deserts will run red with the blood of mortals. Their corpses will turn the seas themselves crimson and stagnant. All of Nehekhara will be theirs, and the glory of Lahmia restored!
“We have waited so long…†said Harakhte, his ruby eyes turned skyward. Ushoran laughed, a cold, hard sound, devoid of human emotion.
“Too long, my brothers and sisters. But now we are set free, unleashed upon Nehekhara to do our lord’s bidding, and none shall stand against us! The blood, just think of the blood!â€Â
“For Nagash!†shouted Vashanesh, his bestial rage carrying far into the sky. The Great Necromancer had taught them the ways of necromancy. He had promised them their Lahmia, resurrected to its former glory. He had shown them the light in their time of darkness. As one, the vampires began to chant.
Their tongues spat corruption; venomous words that had no right to be spoken aloud filling the air and turning it thick with dark magic. A fierce wind raced through the decaying city, unsettling ruins and scattering sand to the skies.
Above all their voices, one sounded stronger and more powerful, harnessing the winds of magic and bending them to his will as slaves to a king. W’soran screamed and chanted, incantations flying fast from split, bloody lips. He raised his hands, long black robes buffeting his frail form.
And all across the desert graveyard that was Lahmia, the dead stirred. Skeletons that had sailed down from Nagashizzar with their undying masters stood side by side with the brittle bones of those long buried beneath the shifting sands. Generations of ancient nobles woke in their mausoleums, reborn as wights - fathers, sons and grandfathers, they strode slowly from their tombs, enchanted blades clutched in mailed fists. Even the ghouls, degenerate men that on Nagash’s command had accompanied the vampires, crouched and leapt and howled their fury at the dark winds as they swept the city.
Thick grey clouds converged on the clear blue sky, concealing the blasphemy that was wrought below from the eyes of the sun, and the creatures of the night, the ghouls and ghosts and ghasts, screamed with triumph.
Then the vampire lords themselves stirred, breaking from the casting of their unnatural magics to lead their armies across the golden desert and into battle.
Maatmeses flushed with decades old excitement. Anticipation flooded her ancient veins. The time for vengeance had come. It was now. It was here! A thousand bitter memories came swarming back into her mind: of her murdered children, Gehb, Eshe, Khait and the others, of friends lost, Abhorash first and foremost, of her laws flaunted and disgraced, and of her home - her city - torn down from around her. Desperation welled up like a desert spring inside the vampire, soulful and earnest.
“Beware, men of Nehekhara,†she screamed aloud, “for I am Maatmeses, and I come to claim my blood debt!â€Â
