The days passed, the people of Reikdorf survived the winter, and the hearts of men lightened as the days grew brighter. The sun stayed in the sky a little longer, and as the snows began to retreat, the green and gold of the forest grew more vivid with each passing day.
Farmers returned to their fields in preparation for the spring sowing, armed with Pendrag’s seed drills as new mills and granaries were built throughout the land. The elders of Reikdorf proclaimed that the winter had been amongst the mildest they could remember.
No sooner had the first flowers of spring begun to push their way through the snow than a party of horsemen was spotted riding along the northern bank of the Reik towards the town. Armoured warriors rushed to the walls, until a familiar banner was spotted and the gates thrown open. Wolfgart led his warriors beneath the grim, unsmiling statue of Ulric and back into Reikdorf to cries of welcome.
The homecoming was joyous, and a great feast was held to celebrate the safe return of every warrior who had set out. Folk clamoured for news from the west, and Wolfgart revelled in his role of taleteller.
‘King Marbad,’ said Wolfgart, ‘the old man himself, is coming to Reikdorf.’
The air in the forge was close and heavy, sparks and hot smoke gathering in the rafters as the bellows furiously pumped air into the furnace. The bricks closest to the fire glowed with the heat, and the charcoal roared as the air was forced over it.
‘It must blow harder, manling!’ shouted Alaric. ‘The furnace must be hotter to remove the impurities!’
‘It can’t get any faster, Alaric,’ said Pendrag. ‘The tide is too low, and the pump can’t get enough speed for the bellows.’
‘Ach, they were going fine this morning.’
‘That was this morning,’ complained Pendrag, letting go of the crank handles on the mechanical bellows. ‘We are going to have to wait until the tide rises again.’
He stepped away from the contraption of bladder airbags and leather straps that made up the bellows, and which derived its power from a fast-flowing channel of surging water diverted from the River Reik to pass through the forge.
When the river was in spate, the water spun a great rotary paddle that in turn powered the bellows, which heated the furnace to the incredible temperatures required for the production of iron.
Until only last spring, when Alaric had first come to Reikdorf, the Unberogen warriors had wielded bronze swords and spears, but following the dwarf’s instructions, Pendrag had been the first man to forge a sword made of iron.
Within a season, every warrior had an iron blade, and every day, more hauberks of mail and leather were being produced as the smiths of Reikdorf learned the ancient techniques of metalworking known to the dwarfs.
‘Tides,’ said Alaric, shaking his head. ‘In Karaz-a-Karak we care not for tides. Mighty waterfalls from the peak of the mountain plunge into the heart of the hold day and night. Ah, manling, you should see the great forges of the mountains. The heart of the hold glows red with the heat, and the mountain shudders to the blows of hammers.’
‘Well, we don’t have waterfalls like that here,’ pointed out Pendrag. ‘We have to make do with tides.’
‘And the engines,’ said Alaric, ignoring Pendrag’s comment. ‘Great hissing pistons of iron, spinning wheels and roaring bellows. Gods of the Mountains, I never thought I’d miss the presence of an engineer.’
‘An engineer? What’s that, some kind of smith?’
Alaric laughed. ‘No, an engineer is a dwarf who builds machines like that there bellows, but much bigger and much better.’
Pendrag looked at the hissing, wheezing bellows, the concertinaed bladders expanding and contracting as the rotary pump spun in the channel. With help from Alaric, it had taken him and the finest craftsmen in the village an entire month to build the water-powered bellows, and it was a marvel of invention and cunning.
‘I thought we did well building the bellows,’ said Pendrag defensively.
‘You manlings have some ability, it’s true,’ said Alaric, though Pendrag could see even such faint praise was given grudgingly, ‘but dwarf craft is the best there is, and until I can persuade an engineer to come down from the mountains, we will have to make do with this… contraption.’
‘You helped us build the bellows,’ said Pendrag. ‘Are you not an engineer?’
‘No, lad,’ said Alaric. ‘I’m… something else entirely. I can fashion weapons the likes of which you cannot imagine, weapons similar to the warhammer the king’s son wields.’
‘Ghal-maraz?’
‘Aye, the skull-splitter, a mighty weapon indeed,’ nodded Alaric. ‘King Kurgan blessed your people when he gave it to Sigmar. Tell me, lad, do you know the meaning of the word unique?’
‘I think so,’ said Pendrag. ‘It means that something’s special. That it’s the only one.’
Alaric nodded. ‘That’s right, but it’s more like saying that it has no equal. Ghal-maraz is like that, one of a kind, forged in ancient times with an art no dwarf has been able to reproduce.’
‘So you couldn’t make something like it?’
Alaric shot him an irritated glance as though he had impugned the dwarf’s skill. ‘I have great skill, lad, but not even I could craft a weapon like Ghal-maraz.’
‘Not even if we had an engineer?’
The dwarf laughed, the tension vanishing from his bearded face. ‘No, not even if we had an engineer. My kind don’t much like to live without a roof of stone above our heads, so I doubt I’d be able to persuade one of them lads to come down from the mountains to stay.’
‘You stayed,’ pointed out Pendrag, watching as the glow of the furnace faded from a golden orange to a dull, angry red.
‘Aye, and do you know what they call me back in Karaz-a-Karak?’
Pendrag shook his head. ‘No, what do they call you?’
‘Alaric the Mad,’ said the dwarf, ‘that’s what they call me. They all think I’ve gone soft in the head to spend my time with manlings.’
Though the words were said lightly, Pendrag could sense the tension behind them.
‘So why do you stay with us?’ asked Pendrag. ‘Why not go home to the mountains? Not that I want you to go, of course.’
The dwarf walked from the furnace to pick up one of the blades from the pile that lay on a low wooden bench running the length of one the forge’s stone walls. The metal was dark, and a hilt and hand-guard were still to be fitted over the sharpened tang.
‘You manlings are a young race, and you live such short lives that many of my folk think it a waste of time to try to teach you anything. It would take the span of several of your lifetimes before a dwarf was thought simply competent as a smith. Compared to dwarf craft, manling work is shoddy and crude, and hardly worth bothering with.’
‘So why do you?’ said a voice from the door to the forge. ‘Bother with it I mean.’
Pendrag looked up, and saw Sigmar, silhouetted in the doorway, his bearskin cloak pulled tightly around his body. Cold air flowed into the forge, and the king’s son shut the door behind him as he entered.
Alaric put down the sword blade, and sat down on a thick-legged stool next to the bench. He nodded in welcome to Sigmar, and said, ‘Because you have potential. This is a grim world, lad—orcs, beasts and things best not spoken of seek to drown us all in blood. The elves have run scared to their island, and it’s only the likes of men and dwarfs that are left to stop these creatures of evil. Some of my kin think we should just seal up the gates to our holds and let you and the orcs fight amongst yourselves, but the way I see it, if we don’t help you with better weapons and armour, and teach you a thing or two about making them, then your race will die and we’ll be next.’
‘You think we are that weak?’ asked Sigmar, walking across to the bench with the unfinished sword blades, and picking one up.
‘Weak?’ cried Alaric. ‘Don’t be foolish, lad! Men are not weak. I’ve spent enough time amongst you to know you have strength, but you squabble lik
e children, and you haven’t the means to fight your enemies. When your ancestors first came over the mountains they had bronze swords and armour, yes?’
‘So the elders tell us,’ agreed Pendrag.
‘All the folks that lived here already had was stone clubs and leather breastplates, and look what happened to them: dead to a man. I’ve seen the orcs east of the mountains, and there’s so many of them, you’d think you were going mad to see them all. Without iron weapons and armour they’ll destroy you.’
Sigmar turned over the blade in his hand, and said, ‘Pendrag, can you make one of these iron blades without Master Alaric’s help?’
Pendrag nodded. ‘I think so, yes.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said Sigmar, dropping the sword back onto the bench, and coming over to where Pendrag stood. The king’s son’s skin glistened with sweat from the heat of the forge, but his gaze was unwavering. ‘Tell me truly, can you make such a blade?’
‘I can,’ said Pendrag. ‘I know how to sift the impurities from the ore, and now that we have the bellows working, we can get the furnace hot enough.’
‘At high tide,’ grumbled Alaric.
‘At high tide,’ agreed Pendrag, ‘but, yes, I can do it. In fact, I’ve been thinking about how we can better remove the–’
Sigmar smiled, held up a hand, and said, ‘Good. When the snows break fully I will gather every smith from across the Unberogen lands, and you will teach them how to make such things. Master Alaric is right, without better weapons and armour we are lost.’
Pendrag said, ‘You want me to teach them? Why not Master Alaric?’
‘With all due respect to Master Alaric, he will not be with us forever, and it is time we learned to do these things on our own.’
‘Quite right,’ agreed Alaric. ‘Besides you could die tomorrow, and then where would you be?’
Pendrag shot Alaric an exasperated look as Sigmar continued. ‘The king has decreed that by the end of the summer every Unberogen village is to be forging iron blades. You and Master Alaric have done magnificent things here, but you two alone cannot hope to produce enough weapons, fast enough to equip our warriors.’
Pendrag stood, and spat on his palm, offering his hand to his sword-brother.
‘By the end of the summer?’
‘Think you can do it?’ asked Sigmar, spitting on his palm and taking Pendrag’s hand.
‘I can do it,’ said Pendrag.
King Marbad arrived barely a week after the snows broke, riding towards the Sudenreik Bridge with his raven banner unfurled and pipers marching before him. The pipers wore long kilts formed from leather straps, and gleaming breastplates of layered bronze discs.
Each musician was a youth of extraordinary height, and the pipes they carried resembled wheezing bladders stuck with wooden pipes, one of which was blown into, while another was played with the fingers.
The music carried across the river, and the fishermen on the far bank clapped in time to the infectious melodies when they saw the raven banner, and who rode beneath it.
The king of the Endals was well known to the Unberogen, a grey-haired man of advancing years with a lined and weathered face. His frame was lean and spare, though his bronze armour was moulded to resemble the muscular physique of his youth. He wore a tall helm with feathered wings of black that swept up from the sweeping cheek plates, and a long dark cloak was spread over the rump of his horse. A score of Raven Helms rode alongside their king, tall warriors with black cloaks and winged helms identical to their king’s. These were the best and bravest of the Endal warriors, men who had sworn to protect their king’s life with their own.
The folk of Reikdorf paused in their labours to watch the procession of warriors, cheering as they welcomed these friends from distant lands. Unberogen scouts rode with the Endals, and the warriors manning the walls of Reikdorf passed word of the arrival of Marbad.
As the king of the Endals crossed the Reik and began the climb towards the settlement, the gates opened wide, and King Björn walked out to greet Marbad, with Sigmar at his side. Alfgeir and the Guards of the Great Hall followed close behind, wolfskin pelts draped over their shoulders and long-handled warhammers held at their sides.
Sigmar watched the riders with a practiced eye, seeing the discipline in their ranks as the grim-faced Raven Helms kept their hands near their sword hilts, never relaxing their guard, even in this friendly territory. They were powerful men, wolf-lean and tough, though the horses that bore them were thin, and not the equals of wide-chested Unberogen steeds.
‘Damn, but it’s good to see you again, Marbad!’ bellowed the king of the Unberogen, his powerful voice easily reaching down to the river. Sigmar smiled at the genuine pleasure he heard in his father’s voice, having found it absent for much of the winter.
Ever since Trinovantes’s funeral rites had been completed, the fire in his father’s eyes had dimmed, and he had taken to looking at him strangely when he thought Sigmar was not aware of it.
King Marbad looked up, and his previously grim face broke apart in a wide grin. The king of the Endals had visited Reikdorf many years ago, but Sigmar had only vague recollections of him. The black-cloaked riders made their way to the gates of Reikdorf, and fanned out to halt in a line with their king at the centre. The pipers took up position at either end of the line, while the bearer of the raven banner remained beside Marbad.
‘Good to see you’re still alive, Björn,’ said Marbad, his voice powerful despite his lean physique. ‘You’ve been having some hard times of it, I hear.’
‘Wolfgart exaggerates,’ said Björn, clearly realising where Marbad’s information had come from.
Marbad swung his leg over his horse’s neck and dropped lightly to the ground, and the two kings embraced like long-lost brothers, slapping each other hard on the back with their fists.
‘It has been too long, Marbad,’ said Björn.
‘It has that, my friend,’ replied Marbad, looking over to Sigmar, ‘and this cannot be Sigmar! He was but a lad when last I saw him.’
Björn turned, with his arm still around Marbad’s shoulders. ‘I know! I can’t believe it either. It seems like only yesterday he was suckling at the teat and shitting his cot!’
Sigmar masked his annoyance as Björn marched his sword-brother towards Sigmar. Though it had been years since the two kings had seen one another, both men looked so at ease that it might as well have been a day. As Marbad approached, Sigmar’s eyes were drawn to the sword sheathed in a scabbard of worn leather at his side, the handle wound with bright silver wire, and a blue gem burning with a harsh light at its pommel.
This was Ulfshard, a blade said to have been forged by the fey folk in ancient times, when daemons stalked the lands, and the race of man had lived in caves and spoke in grunts and howls.
Sigmar tore his gaze from the weapon, and held himself straight as King Marbad placed his gloved hands on his shoulders, his face full of pride.
‘You have become a fine-looking man, Sigmar,’ said Marbad. ‘Gods, I can see your mother in you!’
‘My father tells me I have her eyes,’ replied Sigmar, pleased at the compliment.
‘Aye, well it’s a good thing you take after her, boy,’ laughed Marbad. ‘You wouldn’t want to look like this old man would you?’
‘Just because we are sword-brothers, he thinks he can insult me in my own lands,’ said Björn, leading Marbad away from Sigmar and towards Alfgeir.
‘My friend,’ said Marbad, taking the king’s champion’s hand in the warrior’s grip. ‘You prosper?’
Alfgeir nodded. ‘I do, my lord.’
‘As talkative as ever, eh?’ said Marbad. ‘And where is Eoforth? That old rogue still dispensing his gibberish and calling it wisdom?’
‘He begs your leave, Marbad,’ said Björn. ‘He is no longer a young man, and it takes him time to get up from his bed these days.’
‘Ach, no matter, I’ll see him tonight, eh?’
‘That you will, old frie
nd, that you will,’ promised Björn, before turning to Alfgeir, and saying, ‘Food and water for the Raven Helms, and make sure their horses receive the best grain.’
‘I shall see to it, my king,’ said Alfgeir, who began issuing orders to the Guards of the Great Hall.
Marbad turned to Sigmar again and said, ‘Wolfgart told me of Astofen Bridge, but I think I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Maybe this time I’ll get to hear it without all the dragons and evil sorcerers, eh? What say you, lad? Would you indulge an old man in a bit of storytelling?’
Sigmar nodded. ‘I’d be happy to, my lord,’ he said.
Once again, the longhouse of the Unberogen was filled with carousing warriors, the ale and roasting meat in plentiful supply. Sigmar sat at the trestle tables with his warriors, drinking as his father and Marbad sat and talked at the end of the table. Serving girls circled the table, bearing platters of succulent meat, skins of wine and jugs of beer.
The atmosphere was fine, and even the Raven Helms had relaxed enough to remove their armour and join the warriors of the Unberogen as they feasted. Earlier in the evening, Sigmar had spoken at length with a warrior named Laredus, and had found much to like about the Endals.
Having been forced from their ancestral lands by an influx of Jutone tribesmen driven west by the warlike Artur of the Teutogens, they had carved a home from the inhospitable lands around the Reik estuary.
Sigmar had never journeyed that far west, but from the description of Laredus, and his father’s tale of the battle against the mist daemons, he decided he had no wish to. The description of Marburg, however, made it sound magnificent, its earthen ramparts built atop a great rock of volcanic black stone that reared above the marshes, and the tall, winged towers of the Raven Hall constructed on the ruins of an outpost of what was said to have once been a coastal outpost of the fey folk.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 9