Neferata: Mortarch of Blood by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-11-30T11:30:21+00:00

Do not be bound by the chains of intentions. The intention of an act is unimportant when compared to its consequences.

- Exhortations

CHAPTER 10

AGE OF MYTH

THE SEASON OF LOSS

Neferata stood before the Borzhas palace and watched it burn. 'Why have we waited until now? Raia had asked.

'I wanted the families to wonder about the fates of their commanders. I wanted all the rebels in Nulahmia to wonder what had happened. I have made uncertainty their poison. Let them worry about what I know. Let them look over their shoulders. Let them squirm and make mistakes.'

Only the mistakes had not happened.

'The rebels are still hidden to us,' Raia said, frustrated.

'That is instructive too,' Neferata said. 'They are well-disciplined. And perhaps Sethek and Borzhas acted on their own. They may have attacked when the rest of the traitors counselled caution and patience.'

The north tower of the palace became a torch, flames roaring up its entire height and reaching up into the dark and falling snow.

'We must change strategy,' Neferata said. 'If the battlefield is not what it appeared to be, I will not cling to an illusion.' In the end, her goal was to shape the field to suit her, but she would adapt to each reality as it presented itself. She would always adapt. 'We shall end the patience of the rebels. We will push them again and again, harder and harder, until they can no longer hide.' The anger in the wake of the sacrifice at the Annihilation Gate had not even begun to fade when she finally sent justice upon the Houses of Sethek and Borzhas.

Neferata turned from the blaze. 'Come,' she said to Raia. 'I would see all the fires at once.'

The palaces of the traitors were magnificent constructions, and they were huge - among the largest at the base of Throne Mount. It took a full night for Neferata's guard to put their entire households to the sword. It took three nights before the flames that consumed the palaces finally dropped to embers. Neferata watched the conflagrations from her parapets, reaching out with her senses to smell the burning flesh, to taste the blood and the ash on the air, and to hear the screams of thousands. The extermination was total, down to the servants. If there were beggars on the doorsteps, they died too.

On the third night she went down to the ruins of the House of Sethek. She marched through the smoking stones and blackened timbers. Withered, scorched arms reached out from the rubble in entreaty. Every so often, Neferata passed arms that were still moving. She spotted a hand that bore the high rings of Sethek, and she crouched beside it. She cocked her head, listening, and heard a faint, despairing moan. With a few quick gestures, she tossed away the cracked slabs that covered the victim. Harkhaf, Sethek's consort, dragged himself forwards. His legs were a jellied mass, and the blaze had charred away his silk robes, turning his skin shining red and black. His hair had burned away, and his scalp was split and suppurating.

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