Björn took his champion’s hand in the warrior’s grip. ‘May he grant you strength, Alfgeir.’
‘And you also, my king,’ responded Alfgeir.
King Björn of the Unberogen looked up towards the red-armoured warlord, and gripped the haft of Soultaker as the ravens began to gather.
Sigmar arose refreshed and alert, the last remnants of a dream of his father clinging to him, but hovering just beyond recall. He took a deep breath, and looked at the sleeping form of Ravenna beside him. Her shoulder was bare, the fur blanket slipped away in the night, and he leaned down to kiss her tanned skin.
She smiled, but did not wake, and he slid from the bed to gather his clothes.
Sigmar lifted pieces of cut chicken from a plate on the table before the hearth, suddenly realising how hungry he was. He and Ravenna had prepared some food, but when Gerreon had left them alone, their thoughts had turned to other appetites that needed satisfying, and the food had gone uneaten.
He sat at the table and broke his fast, pouring himself some water and swilling it around his mouth. Ravenna stirred, and Sigmar smiled contentedly.
His mind was less filled with thoughts of war and the worries for his people, but the business of ruling a land did not cease for any man, king’s son or not. Briefly, he wished for the simpler times of his youth, when all he had dreamed of was fighting dragons and being like his father.
Such dreams of childhood had been put away, however, and replaced with grander dreams where his people lived in peace with good men to lead them and justice for all. He shook his head free of such grandiose thoughts, content for now to simply be a man freshly risen from sleep with a beautiful woman and a full belly.
Ravenna turned over, propping her head on an elbow, her dark hair wild and looking like some berserker’s mane. The thought made him smile, and she returned it, pulling back the covers and padding, naked, across the room to pick up her emerald cloak.
‘Good morning, my love,’ said Sigmar.
‘Good morning indeed,’ replied Ravenna. ‘Are you rested?’
‘I am refreshed,’ nodded Sigmar, ‘though Ulric alone knows how, you didn’t let me get much sleep, woman!’
‘Fine,’ smiled Ravenna. ‘I shall leave you alone next time you share my bed.’
‘Ah, now that’s not what I meant.’
‘Good.’
Sigmar pushed away the plate of chicken scraps as Ravenna said, ‘I feel like a swim. You should join me.’
‘I can’t swim,’ said Sigmar, ‘and, unfortunately, I have things to attend to today.’
‘I’ll teach you,’ said Ravenna, pulling open her cloak to flaunt her nakedness, ‘and if the future king cannot take time for himself then who can? Come on, I know a pool to the north where a tributary of the Reik runs through a secluded little glen. You’ll love it.’
‘Very well,’ said Sigmar, spreading his hands in defeat. ‘For you, anything.’
They dressed swiftly and gathered up some bread, chicken and fruit in a basket. Sigmar strapped on his sword belt, having left Ghal-maraz in the king’s longhouse, and the pair of them set off, hand in hand, through Reikdorf.
Sigmar waved at Wolfgart and Pendrag, who were training warriors on the Field of Swords, as they made their way towards the north gate. The guards nodded as they passed through the gate, making way for trade wagons pulled by long-haired Ostagoth ponies and travelling merchants from the Brigundian tribes.
The roads into Reikdorf were well travelled, and the warriors at the walls had their hands full inspecting those who desired entry into the king’s town.
A wolf howled in the distance, and Sigmar felt a shiver down the length of his spine.
Sigmar and Ravenna soon passed from the road and sight of Reikdorf, moving into the forest towards the sound of falling water. Ravenna’s steps were assured as she led them into a secluded valley, where a slender ribbon of silver water spilled from the slopes around Reikdorf towards the mighty Reik.
The trees were widely spaced here, though they were still out of sight of the road, and a screen of rocks jutted from the ground like ancient teeth before a wide pool that sat at the base of a small waterfall.
The pool was deep, and Ravenna slipped out of her dress and dived in, cutting a knife-sharp path along the surface of the water. She surfaced and shook her head clear, treading water as she pushed her hair from her eyes.
‘Come on!’ she cried. ‘Get in the water.’
‘It looks cold,’ said Sigmar.
‘It’s bracing,’ said Ravenna, swimming the length of the pool with strong, lithe strokes. ‘It will wake you up.’
Sigmar set the food basket down at the edge of the clearing. ‘I am already awake.’
‘What’s this?’ laughed Ravenna. ‘The mighty Sigmar afraid of a little cold water?’
He shook his head and unbuckled his sword belt, dropping it beside the food as he pulled off his boots and removed the rest of his clothing. He stood and walked to the edge of the water, enjoying the sensation of misting water from the small waterfall as it speckled his skin.
A raven sat on the branch of a tree opposite Sigmar, and he nodded towards the bird of omen as it appeared to regard him with silent interest.
‘Trinovantes saw a raven the night before you all left for Astofen,’ said a voice behind him. Sigmar reached for his sword before realising he had left it with the food. He turned and relaxed as he saw Gerreon standing at the edge of the clearing.
Immediately, Sigmar saw that something was wrong.
Gerreon’s clothes were muddy and stained black. His boots were ruined, and his leather jerkin was torn and ragged. Ravenna’s brother’s face was pale, dark rings hooded his eyes and his black hair—normally so carefully combed—was loose, and hung around his face in matted ropes.
‘Gerreon?’ he said, suddenly conscious he was naked. ‘What happened?’
‘A raven,’ repeated Gerreon. ‘Appropriate don’t you think?’
‘Appropriate for what?’ asked Sigmar, confused at the hostile tone in Gerreon’s voice.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ravenna swimming back towards the bank, and took a step towards Gerreon.
His unease grew as Gerreon moved to stand between him and his sword.
‘That you should both see ravens before you die.’
‘What are you talking about, Gerreon?’ demanded Sigmar. ‘I grow tired of this foolishness.’
‘You killed him!’ screamed Gerreon, drawing his sword.
‘Killed who?’ asked Sigmar. ‘You are not making any sense.’
‘You know who,’ wept Gerreon, ‘Trinovantes. You killed my twin brother, and now I am going to kill you.’
Sigmar knew that he should back away, simply leap into the water and make his way downstream with Ravenna, but his was the blood of kings, and kings did not run from battle, even ones they knew they could not win.
Gerreon was a master swordsman, and Sigmar was unarmed and naked. Against any other opponent, Sigmar knew he might have closed the distance without suffering a mortal wound, but against a warrior as skilled and viper-fast as Gerreon, there was no chance.
‘Gerreon!’ cried Ravenna from the edge of the pool. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Stay in the water,’ warned Sigmar, taking slow steps towards Gerreon. His route curved to the left, but Gerreon was too clever to fall for such an obvious ploy, and remained between him and his sword.
‘You sent him to his death and did not even care that he would die for you,’ said Gerreon.
‘That is not true,’ said Sigmar, keeping his voice low and soothing as he approached.
‘Of course it is!’
‘Then you are a damned coward,’ snapped Sigmar, hoping to goad Gerreon into a reckless mistake. ‘If your blood cried out for vengeance, you should have come for me long ago. Instead you wait to catch me unawares. I thought you as courageous as Trinovantes, but you are not half the man he was. He is cursing you from Ulric’s hall even now!
’
‘Do not speak his name!’ screamed Gerreon.
Sigmar saw the intent to strike in Gerreon’s eyes, and leapt aside as the swordsman lunged for him. The point of Gerreon’s blade flashed past him, and Sigmar spun on his heel, his fist swinging in a deadly right cross.
Gerreon swayed aside from the blow, and Sigmar stumbled. Off balance, he felt a line of white fire score across his side as Gerreon’s blade slashed across his hip and up over his ribs. Blood flowed freely from the wound, and Sigmar blinked away stars of pain that bloomed behind his eyes.
He spun, and ducked back as Gerreon’s sword came at him again. The blade passed within a finger’s breadth of spilling his innards to the ground, and as he fought for breath, a sudden dizziness drove him to his knees.
Ravenna began climbing from the water, screaming her brother’s name, and Sigmar forced himself to his feet as he fought for breath. Gerreon bounced lightly from foot to foot, one arm raised behind him, his sword arm extended before him.
Sigmar balled his hands into fists and advanced towards the swordsman, his breath coming in short, gasping heaves.
What was happening to him?
His vision swam for an instant, and the world seemed to spin crazily. Sigmar felt a tremor begin in his hand, a palsied jitter like that which plagued some unfortunate elders of Reikdorf.
Gerreon laughed, and Sigmar’s eyes narrowed as he saw an oily yellow coating on the swordsman’s blade. He looked down and saw some of the same substance mixed with the blood on his ribs.
‘Can you feel the poison working on you, Sigmar?’ asked Gerreon. ‘You should. I smeared my blade with enough to kill a warhorse.’
‘Poison…’ wheezed Sigmar, his chest feeling as if it were clamped in Master Alaric’s giant vice. ‘I… said… you were… a coward.’
‘I let myself get angry at you earlier, but I will not make that mistake again.’
The tremors in Sigmar’s hands spread to his arms and he could barely hold them still. He could feel a terrible lethargy stealing over him, and he staggered towards Gerreon, his fury giving him strength.
‘What have you done?’ screamed Ravenna, running at her brother.
Gerreon turned, and casually backhanded her to the grass with his free hand.
‘Do not talk to me,’ snapped Gerreon. ‘Sigmar killed Trinovantes and you whore with him? You are nothing to me. I should kill you too for dishonouring our brother.’
Sigmar dropped to his knees again as the tremors became more violent and his legs would no longer support him. He tried to speak, but the enormous pressure in his chest was too great and his lungs were filled with fire.
Ravenna rolled to her feet, her face a mask of fury, and threw herself at her brother.
Gerreon’s instincts as a swordsman took over, and he easily evaded her attack.
‘Gods, no!’ screamed Sigmar as Gerreon’s sword plunged into her stomach.
The blade stabbed through Ravenna and she fell, tearing the sword from her brother’s grip. Sigmar surged to his feet, pain, anger and loss obliterating all thoughts save vengeance on Gerreon.
The red mist of the berserker descended on Sigmar and, where before he had resisted its siren song, he now surrendered to it completely. The pain in his side vanished, and the fire in his lungs dimmed as he threw himself at Ravenna’s killer.
His hands closed around Gerreon’s neck and he squeezed with all his strength.
‘You killed her!’ he spat.
He forced Gerreon to his knees, feeling his strength flooding from his body, but knowing he still had enough to kill this worthless traitor. He looked into Gerreon’s eyes, seeking some sign of remorse for what he had done, but there was nothing, only…
Sigmar saw the crying boy who had wept for his lost brother, and a screaming soul being dragged into a terrible abyss. He saw the razored claws of a monstrous power that had found a purchase in Gerreon’s heart, and the desperate struggle fought within his tortured soul.
Even as Sigmar’s hands crushed the life from Gerreon, he saw that monstrous power reach up and claim the swordsman entirely for its own. A terrible light built behind Gerreon’s eyes, and a malicious smile of radiant evil spread across his face.
Sigmar’s hands were prised from his foe’s neck as Gerreon pushed him back. The berserk strength that had filled him moments ago now fled his body, and Sigmar staggered away from Gerreon as his body failed him.
Gerreon laughed, and dragged his sword from his sister’s fallen body as Sigmar lurched away from him.
‘You are finished, Sigmar,’ said the swordsman, his voice redolent with power. ‘You and your dream are dead.’
‘No,’ whispered Sigmar as the world spun around him, and he fell backwards into the pool. The water was icy, and cut through the paralysis of the poison for the briefest moment. He flailed as he sank beneath the surface, water filling his mouth and lungs.
The current seized him, and his body twisted as it was carried down river.
Sigmar’s vision greyed, and his last sight was of Gerreon smiling at him through the swirling bubbles of the water’s surface.
Eleven
The Grey Vaults
Horst Edsel was not a man given to reflection on the whims of the gods, for he had accepted he was but an insignificant player in their grand dramas. Kings might lead armies to fight their enemies, and great warlords might conquer lands not their own, but the sweep of history largely passed Horst by, as it did many men.
He was not a clever man, nor was he gifted physically or mentally. He had married young, before the women of Reikdorf had fully realised the limited nature of his abilities, and his wife had gifted him with two children, a boy and a girl. The girl had died with her mother during the difficult birth, and a wasting sickness had taken the boy three years later.
The gods had seen fit to bestow these gifts upon him and then take them away, but Horst had not thought to curse them, for the joy he had known in those brief years was beyond anything he had known before or since.
Horst pushed the boat from the edge of the river, using an oar to ease it through the long reeds and thick algae that bloomed this far down the river, away from the timber jetties of the town. The meagre pickings he caught in the river were enough to feed him and provide him with a few fish to sell on market day, but little else, and certainly not the mooring fees charged by King Björn.
His nets and rods were safely stowed along the side of the small fishing boat, and his cat lay curled in the stern. He had not given the animal a name, for a name meant attachment, and no sooner had Horst ever become attached to something than the gods had taken it from him. He did not want to curse the cat by giving it a name and then having it die on him.
The sun had already climbed a fair distance into the sky, and he said, ‘Late in the day, cat.’
The animal yawned, exposing its fangs, but paid him no attention.
‘Shouldn’t have put away the rest of that Taleuten rotgut,’ he said, tasting the acrid bile in his throat from the cheap grain alcohol peddled by the more disreputable traders. ‘We’ve slept past the best time for fish, cat. Earlier fishermen than us will have plucked the river by now. It’s going to be another hungry day for us both. Well, for me anyway.’
Clear of the reed beds, Horst set the oars in the rowlocks and eased the boat out towards the centre of the river. Trading boats further up the river were sailing towards Reikdorf, and Horst continually checked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to be rammed.
Shouts and curses from various ships chased him, but Horst ignored them with quiet dignity, and eased his boat towards a spot where a tributary that ran from the Hills of the Five Sisters flowed into the Reik. This had often proven to be a good spot for fish to gather, and he decided to give up on the main body of the river today.
He dropped the rope-tied rock that served as his anchor over the side of the boat with a satisfying splash, earning him a look of disdain from the cat, and then baited his hook w
ith a scrap of rotten meat that he’d scavenged from the butcher’s block.
‘Nothing to do now but wait, cat,’ said Horst, casting his line into the water.
He dozed in the sun, leaning against the gunwale of his boat, the line looped around his finger lest a fish should actually bite.
It felt as though he had barely closed his eyes when something tugged at the line around his finger. From the heft of the pull, it was something big.
Horst sat up and took hold of the fishing rod, easing it back with some difficulty, and looping the twine around a cleat on the side of the boat. Even the cat looked up as the boat swayed in the water.
‘Something big, cat!’ shouted Horst, dreaming of nice, fresh trout or mullet, or perhaps even a flounder, though this region of the river was a little far from the coast for that. He pulled on the rod again, and his hopes of dinner were dashed as he saw the body.
It drifted on its back towards him, the hook snagged in the skin of its chest. Horst squinted, seeing that the body was that of a naked man, powerfully built, but leaking blood into the water. Flaxen hair billowed around his head like drifting seaweed, and Horst reached over to pull him close to the boat.
With some considerable difficulty, Horst dragged the man’s body into his boat, grunting and straining with the effort, for the man was muscular and powerful.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he told the cat. ‘Why bother when this poor fellow’s obviously dead, eh?’
The cat uncurled from the stern and padded over to examine Horst’s catch, sniffing disinterestedly around the wet body. Horst sat back to recover his breath, until his heart rate had slowed enough to tell him that he wasn’t about to drop dead from the exertion.
Then he noticed that blood was still flowing from the long cuts to the man’s side.
‘Ho ho, this one’s not quite dead yet!’ he said.
Horst leaned over and brushed the sodden locks from the man’s face.
He gasped, and reached for the oars, rowing for all he was worth towards the jetties of Reikdorf.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 17