[Sigmar 01] - Heldenhammer

by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead)

  Henroth of the Merogens was a barrel-chested warrior with a long, forked beard of red and a heavily scarred face. Thick braids hung from his temples, his eyes were hard as napped flint and his grip strong. Sigmar liked him immediately.

  The Menogoth king, Markus, was a shaven-headed swordsman with a lean, wolfish physique and suspicious eyes. His initial manner was cold, but when he saw the tusks Sigmar had taken from the dragon ogre, he was only too eager to obey Siggurd’s directive to swear a sword oath with Sigmar.

  The four kings crossed their blades over Skaranorak’s tusks, and sealed their pact with an offering to Ulric that was witnessed by the priests of the city. After three nights of feasting and drinking, Markus and Henroth had departed for their own kingdoms, for the orcs were on the march, and they had battles of their own to win.

  Sigmar had promised Unberogen warriors to their battles, and he watched from the highest tower of Siggurdheim as they and their sword-brothers galloped towards the mountains. At dawn the following day, Sigmar took his leave from his brother king and prepared for the journey back to his own lands.

  It had taken him nearly five weeks to reach Siggurdheim on foot, but the journey home would be shorter, for King Siggurd had gifted him a powerful roan gelding with a gleaming leather saddle fashioned by Taleuten craftsmen.

  Unlike the horsemen of the Unberogen, who rode their steeds bareback, Taleuten riders went into battle on saddles fitted with iron stirrups, which allowed them to better guide their mounts and fight more effectively from horseback.

  In addition, the armourers and garment makers of Siggurdheim had worked together to create a shimmering cloak of scale from the hide that Sigmar had cut from Skaranorak. It was a wondrous thing, and could turn aside even the most powerful sword blow without a mark.

  Amid cheering crowds and the sound of singing trumpets, Sigmar rode north for his own lands once more, enjoying the sensation of riding with a saddle, and relishing the prospect of seeing his friends again.

  The journey north was uneventful, and Sigmar had once again enjoyed the solitude of travelling through the open landscape. He rode without the sense of liberation that had gripped him as he had left Reikdorf, but the chains of duty that had seemed constricting on the journey south were now welcome.

  Sigmar had hoped to arrive quietly and unannounced in Reikdorf, but he had been challenged by Unberogen scouts at the borders of his lands, and word of his return had swiftly travelled back to his capital. He had refused the offer of an escort, and had ridden for Reikdorf through a pastoral landscape of golden cornfields and peaceful villages.

  He passed a marker stone in the road that told him he was three leagues from Reikdorf, and urged his horse to greater speed as he saw many lines of smoke etched on the sky, too many for Reikdorf alone.

  At last, he came around the side of a rolling embankment and saw the smoke curling from the city, and from the hundreds of cook fires spread in the fields and hills to the north. The flanks of the hills were dotted with makeshift shelters, and thousands of people huddled together beneath canvas awnings or in shelters dug from the earth. From the colours of their cloaks and their dark hair, Sigmar could tell these people were not Unberogen, but who were they and why were they camped before the walls of Reikdorf?

  Warriors manned the walls of his capital, and afternoon sunlight glinted on hundreds of spear points and links of mail shirts. The city—it could no longer be called a town—was his home, and the life-giving River Reik glittered like a silver ribbon as it wound around the walls and meandered towards the far distant coast.

  Sigmar guided his horse along the south road, and joined the many trade wagons as they made their way towards the city. As he approached the gates of Reikdorf, a great cheer went up as the warriors on the wall recognised him. Within moments, the entire length of the wall was a mass of cheering men, who waved their spears or banged their swords against their shields in welcome.

  The gates of the city swung open, and Sigmar saw his closest friends awaiting him.

  Wolfgart stood alongside Alfgeir and Pendrag, who held his crimson banner in a gleaming silver hand. Beside Pendrag was a short bearded figure, clad in a long coat of shimmering scale, who wore a winged helm of gold. Sigmar smiled as he recognised Master Alaric and raised his hand in welcome.

  Another man Sigmar did not recognise stood behind his friends, a tall, rangy warrior with a bare chest and a single scalp lock trailing down his back from the crown of his head. The man wore bright red leggings and high-sided riding boots, and he carried an ornate scabbard of black leather and gold.

  Sigmar put the stranger from his mind as Wolfgart clapped a hand on his horse’s neck.

  “You took your bloody time,” said his sword-brother by way of a greeting. “A short journey you said. At least tell me it was successful.”

  “It was successful,” said Sigmar as he dismounted. “We are now brothers with the tribes of the south-east.”

  Wolfgart took the horse’s reins and gazed quizzically at the arrangement of saddle and stirrups. “Brigundian?”

  Sigmar shook his head. “Taleuten, a gift from King Siggurd.”

  Alfgeir came forward and looked Sigmar up and down, taking in the fresh scars on Sigmar’s arms. “Looks like they didn’t join peacefully,” he observed.

  “It is a fine tale,” said Sigmar, “but I will tell it later. First, tell me what is going on? Who are these people camped beyond the walls?”

  “Greet your sword-brothers first,” said Alfgeir. “Then we will talk in the longhouse.”

  Sigmar nodded, and turned to Pendrag and Master Alaric. He took Pendrag’s silver hand, and was surprised when the fingers flexed and gripped his own.

  His sword-brother smiled and said, “Master Alaric fashioned it for me. Almost as good as the real thing, he says.”

  “Better than the real thing,” grumbled Alaric. “You won’t lose these fingers if you’re clumsy enough to let an axe strike them.”

  Sigmar released Pendrag’s hand and gripped the dwarf’s shoulder. “It is good to see you, Master Alaric. It has been too long since you visited us.”

  “Pah,” grunted the dwarf. “Was just yesterday, boy. You manlings have such poor memories. I’ve hardly been gone.”

  Sigmar laughed, for it had been nearly three years since he had laid eyes on Master Alaric, but he knew that the mountain folk counted time differently to the race of men, and that such a span of time was as the blink of an eye to them.

  “You are always a welcome visitor, my friend,” said Sigmar. “King Ironbeard prospers?”

  “Aye, he does. My king sends me to you bearing grim tidings from the east. Much like this young fellow,” said the dwarf, nodding towards the bare-chested man who stood apart from Sigmar’s captains.

  “And who are you?” asked Sigmar, turning to face the stranger.

  The man stepped forward and bowed before Sigmar. His skin was smooth and his features soft, but his eyes were haunted.

  “I am Galin Veneva. I am Ostagoth and come from King Adelhard. It is my people who are beyond your walls.”

  * * * * *

  Sigmar gathered his warriors in the longhouse to hear Galin Veneva’s tale, and it was with a heavy heart that he sat upon his throne and rested his warhammer beside him. The journey home through the peaceful fields and golden sunshine seemed now to be a last gift from the gods before what he knew would be days of blood and war.

  The Ostagoth tribesman’s voice was heavily accented, and he told his tale haltingly, the memory of the horrors his people had suffered weighing heavily upon him.

  Orcs were on the march in greater numbers than had been seen in living memory.

  They had come in a green tide from the eastern mountains, burning and destroying all in their path. Entire Ostagoth settlements had been razed to the ground. No plunder had been taken and no captives hauled away, for the greenskins had simply slaughtered the people of the east for the sheer enjoyment of the deed.

  Fields
were burned and all the forces that King Adelhard could muster were swept away before the might of the orcs host. Braying, chanting orcs warriors in patchwork armour offered no mercy, and the scattered Ostagoths were no match for the brutal killers.

  The men of the east fought on, their king rallying as many men to his banner as possible, while the survivors of the swift invasion fled into the west. Some were even now camped around Taalahim, seat of King Krugar of the Taleutens, but fearing the greenskins would drive onwards, many refugees had continued west to the lands of the Unberogen.

  Sigmar well understood Galin’s bitterness at being in Reikdorf while his kinsmen fought and died to defend their homeland, but his ruler had tasked him with a solemn duty to meet with King Sigmar and present him with a gift and a request.

  Alfgeir tensed as the Ostagoth approached Sigmar’s throne, holding a black and gold scabbard out before him.

  “This is Ostvarath, the ancient blade of the Ostagoth kings,” said Galin proudly. “King Adelhard bids me present it to you as a sign of his truth. He pledges you his sword oath, and asks you to send warriors to his lands to fight the orcs. Our people are being slaughtered, and if you do not aid us, we will be dead by the time the leaves fall from the trees.”

  Sigmar rose from his throne and accepted the scabbard from Galin, drawing the blade and letting his eyes linger on the fine workmanship of the sword. Ostvarath’s blade was polished and smooth, both edges honed to razor sharpness. This was truly a blade fit for a king, and for Adelhard to have sent his own sword was a sure sign of his desperation.

  “I accept your king’s sword oath,” said Sigmar, “and I give mine to him. We will be as brothers in battle, and the lands of the Ostagoths will not fall. I give you my word on this, and my word is iron.”

  The relief in Galin’s face was clear, and Sigmar knew that he wished to return to the east and the battles being fought in his homeland. Sigmar sheathed Adelhard’s blade and handed it back to Galin.

  “Return Ostvarath to your king,” commanded Sigmar. “Adelhard will have need of it in the days to come.”

  “I shall, King Sigmar,” said the tribesman with relief, before withdrawing from the throne.

  Sigmar said, “Master Alaric? What news do you bring?”

  The dwarf stepped into the centre of the longhouse, and his voice was laden with grim authority as he spoke.

  “The lad there spoke the truth, the orcs are indeed on the march, but the greenskins attacking his lands will soon retreat to the mountains.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Sigmar.

  “Because my people will stop them,” said Alaric. “The warriors of the Slayer King and Zhufbar are even now marching to meet them in battle. But word has reached Karaz-a-Karak of a great horde of orcs, moving up from the peaks of the south and from the blasted lands east of the mountains. A host of greenskins that will make the army ravaging King Adelhard’s lands look like a scouting force. This is an army that seeks only to destroy the race of man forever.”

  The atmosphere in the longhouse grew close, and Sigmar could feel the tension in every warrior’s heart at the news. The greenskin menace had been a constant threat for as long as any man could remember, killing and rampaging throughout the lands of men, but this was no mere raiding force.

  Sigmar lifted Ghal-maraz, and his gaze swept over the warriors gathered before him: proud men, courageous men. Men who would stand beside him and face this threat head on: Sigmar’s people.

  “Send riders to the halls of my brother kings,” ordered Sigmar. “Tell them I call upon their sword oaths. Tell them to muster their warriors and prepare for war!”

  ——

  The Swords of Kings

  From where Sigmar stood on the banks of the River Aver, it appeared that the southern lands had been set ablaze. Pyres of dead orcs sent reeking plumes of black smoke into the sky, and what had once been fertile grassland was now a charred, ashen wasteland. The advance of the greenskins had been merciless and thorough, no settlement going unmolested and nothing of value left intact.

  Sigmar’s anger smouldered in his breast, banked with the need to avenge the last two years of war. He had aged in these last years. His face was lined and tired around the eyes, and the first streaks of silver were appearing in his hair.

  His body was still strong, the muscles iron hard, and his heart as powerful as ever, but he had seen too much suffering ever to be young again. His body ached from the days and nights of fighting to hold the bridges over the River Aver, and his many stitched wounds pulled tight as he walked through the Unberogen campsite.

  Sigmar was bone weary, and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a season, but his warriors had fought like heroes, and he spent some time with each sword band, praising their courage and mentioning warriors by name. Dawn had been but a few hours old when the battle had been won, and now the sky was dark, yet still he could not rest.

  Priestesses of Shallya and warrior priests of Ulric also made their way through the campsite, tending to the injured, easing the passing of the mortally wounded, or offering prayers to the Wolf God to welcome the dead into his halls.

  Since Master Alaric’s warning of the orcs’ invasions, Sigmar had hardly seen the lands where he had grown to manhood. He had returned to Reikdorf only twice in the last two years, but no sooner had he washed the orcs’ blood from his armour and hair than the war horns would sound and he would lead his warriors into the fire of battle once more.

  The dwarfs had been true to their word, holding the greenskin tribes from advancing any further into the lands of the Ostagoths, but the warriors of the High King had been forced to withdraw to defend their mountain holds. The time bought with dwarf lives had not been wasted, for King Adelhard had rallied his warriors and had linked with Alfgeir’s White Wolves, Chemsen axemen, Taleuten lancers and Asoborn war chariots. In a great battle on the Black Road, Adelhard smashed the orcs and drove the bloodied survivors back to the mountains.

  By the time Sigmar had mustered the hosts of his fellow kings to march south-east, the lands of the Merogens and Menogoths were all but overrun, their kings besieged in their great castles of stone. Orcs roamed the lands with impunity and laid waste to the lands of men.

  Brutal, green-skinned savages destroyed villages and towns, burning what they could not carry. Thousands died, and only the natural internecine violence of the greenskins had prevented them from spilling west and north with greater speed.

  Thousands of refugees flooded the lands of the Unberogen, and Sigmar had given orders that all were to be given shelter. The grain stores were bled dry, and kings from far off lands sent what aid they could spare in an effort to relieve the suffering. The days were dark and filled with despair, and it seemed as though the end of the world had come, for each day more howling warbands of greenskins descended from the mountains, while the armies of men grew weaker.

  Sigmar paused by a lone, fire blackened tree atop a small hillock and looked out over the flood plains of the Aver, where the armies of Cherusens, Endals, Unberogen and Taleutens camped. Nearly fifty thousand warriors rested beside their campfires, eating, drinking and offering thanks to the gods that they were not food for the crows.

  A limping figure climbed towards him, and Sigmar saw the aged form of the healer, Cradoc, the man who had helped bring him back from the wound Gerreon had inflicted.

  “You should rest, my lord,” said Cradoc. “You look tired.”

  “I will, Cradoc,” said Sigmar. “Soon. I promise.”

  “Oh, you promise, do you? I was told always to beware the promises of kings.”

  “I thought it was their gratitude?”

  “That too,” said Cradoc. “Now are you going to get some rest, or am I going to have to beat you over the head and drag you?”

  Sigmar nodded and said, “I will. How many?” He did not have to qualify the question.

  “I will know for sure in the morning, but at least nine thousand men died to hold these b
ridges.”

  “And wounded?”

  “Less than a thousand, but most will not live through the night,” said Cradoc. “A man felled by an orcs rarely survives.”

  “So many,” whispered Sigmar.

  “It would be more if you hadn’t held the bridges,” said Cradoc, wrapping his arms around his frail body. “I shudder to think of it. The greenskins would have killed us all, and would be halfway to Reikdorf by now.”

  “This is just a temporary respite,” said Sigmar. “The orcs will return. They have an unquenchable thirst for battle and blood. The dwarfs say an even larger host of greenskins gathers east of Black Fire Pass, awaiting the spring to pour across the mountains and wipe us from the face of the world.”

  “Aye, no doubt that’s true, but that is for another day,” said Cradoc. “We are alive now and that is what matters. Tomorrow will look after itself, but if you do not rest, then you will be no use to man nor beast. You are a powerful man, my king, but you are not immortal. I have heard you fought in the thick of the battle, and Wolfgart tells me you would have been killed at least a dozen times, but for Alfgeir’s blade.”

  “Wolfgart talks too much,” said Sigmar. “I have to fight. I have to be seen to fight. I do not wish to sound arrogant, but few men are my equal, and where I fight my warriors fight that much harder.”

  “You think me a simpleton?” snapped Cradoc. “I have fought in my share of battles.”

  “Of course,” said Sigmar. “I did not mean to patronise you.”

  Cradoc waved away Sigmar’s apology. “I know the sight of a king risking his life in battle lifts the courage of men. But you are important now, Sigmar, not just to the Unberogen, but to all the tribes of men. Imagine how terrible a blow it would be if you were slain.”

  “I cannot simply watch a battle, Cradoc,” said Sigmar. “My heart is where the blood sings and death watches to take the weak.”