02 - Empire

by Graham McNeill

  The ruin of Mourkain faded from sight, and Sigmar was glad to see it go, for it spoke of ancient loss and the inevitable doom of dreams. Yet the achievements of its builders were no less impressive for its having fallen. They had built a great city and carved out a mighty empire, and that was something to be proud of. That it had eventually been brought to ruin did not lessen the wonder of that achievement.

  Yes, empires fell and men died, but that was the way of the world. To defy that was to go against the will of the gods, and no man dared stand before those awesome powers with such arrogance. His father had once told him of how the ageing leader of a wolf pack would leave and roam the mountains alone when his strength was fading and stronger wolves were ready to lead. For a thing to endure beyond its time was a sad and terrible thing, and to see what was once glorious and noble reduced to something wretched and pathetic was heartbreaking.

  Sigmar’s empire would one day fall, and when that time came, men would mourn its passing. Other empires would arise to take its place, but this was the time of his empire, and no necromancer was going to take it away from him!

  Sigmar lifted his head, and stared at Morath as he sucked the life from Pendrag.

  His heart hardened and growing strength filled his limbs. He forced himself to his feet, crying out as the chill touch of the necromancer fled his body in the face of his acceptance of the future’s inevitability. With every second that passed, the despair and hopelessness shrouding him diminished in the face of his determination to resist Morath’s dark power.

  “Empires rise and fall,” snarled Sigmar as he stood tall, “but that matters not. All that matters is that they rose, and in their time men walked with honour and fought for what they believed. What matters is what we do with the time we have.”

  Morath turned at the sound of his voice, and the necromancer’s sunken eyes widened in surprise. His hands stretched out towards Sigmar, and streaming bolts of cold fire leapt from the necromancer’s fingers. Dancing sheets of icy flame erupted from the air around Sigmar, but he smiled as the runic script worked into his armour blazed in reply.

  Sigmar walked untouched through the inferno, Ghal Maraz ablaze with the white fire that Morath hurled.

  “You have no power over me,” said Sigmar. “Your despair means nothing to me, for I have no fear for the future. That I shall die and all my achievements turn to dust does not make them pointless. Living forever and creating nothing of worth… that is pointless. You have no place in this world, necromancer. You should have died a long time ago, and I am here to send your soul into the next world and whatever torments await you.”

  Morath raised his arms, and Pendrag sagged to the stones of the tower. With every step Sigmar took, Morath took one away from him. Once more he stabbed his hands towards Sigmar, and the shrieking ghosts that swirled around the top of the tower gathered in a mass of howling spirits. Morath hurled them towards Sigmar, and they came at him in a mad, swirling pack of screaming skulls.

  They howled around him, snapping with fleshless claws and ethereal fangs. Sigmar ignored them, his towering self-belief carrying him through their hate unharmed. His heart was iron, his soul a stone, and the depraved spirits could not turn him from his path.

  “What manner of man are you?” demanded Morath as Sigmar came closer. “No mortal can resist such power!”

  The necromancer’s staff blazed with dark light, but Sigmar raised Ghal Maraz, and the staff shattered into a thousand fragments, each one blowing away like ash in a storm. Morath fell to his knees, his hunched form now pitiful and contemptible. He reached out with reed-thin fingers, but Sigmar batted them away. The necromancer seemed to shrink within his robes, as though his form was diminishing, whatever power that had sustained him over the centuries withdrawing from his flesh.

  “No…” hissed Morath, holding his withered hands up before his face. “You promised…”

  The roiling stormclouds above the tower began to break up as the dark energies that bound them dissipated. A fresh wind blew over the tower, carrying the scent of highland forests and fast-flowing rivers of cool water.

  Morath crumpled, his bony frame folding into itself with every second. His flesh was wasting away, and the golden crown he had worn with such arrogant pride fell from his brow. It landed with the heavy metallic ring of pure gold, and rolled across the tower before coming to rest at Sigmar’s feet.

  Sigmar wrapped his hand around Morath’s throat, feeling the frailty of his bones, and he knew that he could snap his neck with ease. There was no weight to him, and Sigmar looked upon the icy battlefield to see that the dead warriors no longer fought. Their bones crumbled to dust, and the city beneath the ice began to fade like a distant memory as he watched.

  His warriors cheered as they saw him atop the tower with the necromancer as his prisoner. They bayed for Morath’s death, and they were not the only ones. Half-heard moans of anger were carried on the wind, the freed spirits of the dead demanding vengeance.

  “I think there will be many souls awaiting your arrival in the next world,” said Sigmar.

  Morath’s gnarled and ancient face stretched in fear, and he gibbered nonsensical pleas for mercy as he clawed at Sigmar’s arm. His struggles were feeble, and Sigmar quashed the flickering ember of pity that threatened to stay his hand.

  “You have existed for too long,” said Sigmar, lifting Morath over the edge. “It is time for you to die.”

  He hurled Morath from the tower, and watched as his thin body tumbled downwards, spinning end over end until he smashed into the ice. Sigmar let out a long, exhausted exhalation and felt a wave of gratitude wash over him. Thousands of faces and names flashed through Sigmar’s mind, each one a soul freed from eternal damnation, and tears of joy spilled down his face as they passed on.

  Sigmar turned from the edge of the tower and felt something at his feet: the crown Morath had worn and which had granted him such power. He reached down and turned it around in his hands. The workmanship was incredible, easily the equal of any dwarf-forged metal, yet its design was unfamiliar. Worked in gold and set with jewels, it was a thing of beauty, and he felt the vast power bound to it, an ancient power beyond the ken of even the mountain folk to craft.

  For a fleeting moment, he beheld an ancient city of the desert, and a host of bejewelled armies marching across the scorched sands beneath great banners of blue and gold. Then it was gone and the incredible vista of the Middle Mountains returned to him. He saw Pendrag lying on his side at the edge of the tower, crawling towards the fallen Dragon Banner.

  Sigmar rushed towards his friend, his vision of the desert armies forgotten as he knelt at his side and turned him over. He tried to hide his shock, but Pendrag saw the horror in his eyes.

  “It’s that bad is it?” whispered Pendrag, his voice little more than a parched croak.

  “No… It’s—” began Sigmar, though he could not bring himself to lie.

  Pendrag’s face was sunken and hollow, the very image of Lukas Hauke, the creature that had been imprisoned beneath the Faushlag Rock. His eyes were rheumy with cataracts and his skin wrinkled like ancient parchment. What Morath had taken was Pendrag’s youth, for Sigmar cradled a man hundreds of years old.

  He wished he could save Pendrag. He wished he had not succumbed to Morath’s dark magic, that he could have broken the spell of his despair sooner. Tears fell from his eyes and landed on Pendrag’s face at the thought of his death, and Sigmar knew that all the power in the world was meaningless in the face of such loss.

  “Sigmar!” cried Pendrag, and Sigmar opened his eyes as the crown grew hot in his hands.

  Golden heat flowed from the crown and into Sigmar. It filled him with light, and the weight of his burdens lifted in an instant. But the crown had not yet finished its work. Amber light flowed from Sigmar and passed into Pendrag, filling his body with light and undoing the necromancer’s hateful magic.

  Pendrag cried out as his hair thickened and the red that had drained from it returned mo
re lustrous than ever. His flesh filled with life and the colour returned to his eyes. Old scars on his arms faded, and his chest rose and fell with powerful, deep breaths.

  Both men looked in astonishment at the golden crown. The light faded from the jewels, yet Sigmar could sense that its power was far from spent.

  “I don’t believe it!” cried Pendrag, climbing to his feet and examining every inch of his body as though afraid to believe in the miracle of his renewal. He threw his head back and laughed, the sound filled with renewed life and hope: the laughter of one who has faced death and come back stronger than ever.

  “The crown…” said Sigmar. “I have never seen anything like this… It healed you. This is powerful magic indeed.”

  “Aye,” agreed Pendrag, staring in joyous wonder at the magnificent artefact. “Magic used for evil by a necromancer.”

  Sigmar turned the crown in his hands, knowing that he held the key to making the empire stronger than ever before. With such power, he could defend his land and people, ruling with justice and strength. Morath had twisted the power of the crown, but Sigmar would use it to heal, not to kill. To govern with wisdom and compassion, not to enslave.

  He looked at Pendrag, and his sword-brother answered his unasked question with a nod.

  “Yes. It is yours now,” said Pendrag.

  Sigmar lifted the golden crown and slipped it over his head. Though Morath’s skull had been thin and hairless, the crown was a perfect fit. He felt its power, and he took Pendrag’s hand in the warrior’s grip.

  He heard the sound of footsteps behind him and a group of battle-weary warriors poured onto the top of the tower. Redwane was at the forefront, his face streaked with blood and his armour hanging from him in torn links of mail and battered plate. In his hands he held Sigmar’s helmet, the metal dented and scraped from its fall down the length of the tower. Alaric’s crown still sat upon it, and a flicker of unease passed through Sigmar.

  Redwane held the helmet with an amused grin.

  “Must I always be picking up after you?” he asked.

  Sigmar laughed. “Keep it,” he said, sweeping past the White Wolf. “I have a new crown.”

  Unwilling to remain a moment longer within the valley of the necromancer, Sigmar’s warriors gathered their dead and wounded and marched through the darkness. The Dragon Banner was lowered and, as the moon traversed the clear night sky, Sigmar spoke to each man in his army, praising his courage and honouring the sacrifice of the dead.

  The wounded were carried on makeshift litters, and, as Sigmar took their hands, it seemed their suffering lessened. He sought out Myrsa, and was relieved beyond words to find that he still lived. No sooner had he laid his hand upon the Warrior Eternal’s brow, than the colour returned to the wounded man’s face and his breathing deepened.

  Forgetting his promise to bring Brass Keep down, stone by stone, Sigmar led his warriors from the mountains, taking a more direct westerly route through thickly forested valleys that would bring them out on the western flanks of the mountains.

  Four days later, the weary men of the empire emerged from the foothills of the Middle Mountains, following a curving path towards the forest road that led south to Middenheim. On the morning of the fifth day, scouts reported a large column of people and wagons coming from the north, and Sigmar went out to meet them with his new crown glittering at his brow. Redwane and three White Wolves marched with him, and the invigorated Pendrag carried the Emperor’s crimson banner aloft.

  The first groups of people to emerge from the tree line marched in a long, weary column, and Sigmar swore softly under his breath at their wretched, sorry state. As more and more came into view, he saw that they came on foot, on rattling carts or on overflowing wagons. He had expected travelling merchants or a labourers heading to Middenheim to find work. What he had not expected was hundreds of refugees, for there could be no mistaking that these were people fleeing from some terror behind them.

  “Udose by the look of them,” said Pendrag.

  “Aye,” agreed Redwane. “I see plaid, and some of the men have claymores.”

  “What in the name of Ulric happened to them?” asked Sigmar, approaching a wagon with a ragged scrap of an Udose flag bearing the patchwork colours of Count Wolfila flapping on a makeshift banner pole. A pair of weary pack ponies pulled the wagon, and a one-armed man with wide shoulders and the face of a pugilist sat on the buckboard. A young woman with three children sat behind him, their faces pinched and fearful.

  “Ho there, fellow,” said Sigmar, walking alongside the wagon. “What do they call you?”

  “Rolf,” said the man. “Though most call me Oakfist on account of my left hook.”

  “I can see why,” said Sigmar, seeing the meaty scale of the man’s remaining fist. “Where have you come from?”

  “Salzenhus,” said Rolf. “Or what’s left of it.”

  Sigmar felt a knot in his stomach at mention of Count Wolfila’s castle and said, “What do you mean? What has happened?”

  The old man glared at him and spat a single word, “Norsii.”

  “The Norsii? They did this?”

  “Aye,” said the old man. “Them and their traitorous allies.”

  “Allies? Who?”

  “Bastard Roppsmenn,” said Rolf. “Wolfships been raiding up and down the coast all season, but there’s been sword bands of Roppsmenn riding with ’em this year, killing and burning and driving people south.”

  “Are you sure they were Roppsmenn?” asked Sigmar, feeling a throbbing pulse of fury at his temple as the full weight of what he had been told sank in. “They hated the Norsii as much as any tribe ever did.”

  “Damn right I’m sure,” snarled Rolf, rage and sadness choking his voice. “I seen them with my own eyes. Shaven heads and curved swords they had. Burned Wolfila’s castle to the ground and cut him into pieces for dogs to eat. Killed his family too. Wife and child butchered and crucified on the only tower left standing.”

  Sigmar felt the knot in his stomach unravel with a dreadful sickness at this news, and the fiery pulse at his temple grew stronger. He remembered Wolfila at his coronation, the garrulous northern count introducing his wife to Sigmar during the feasting days. Her name was Petra, and she had been pregnant with their first child. Sigmar had sent a silver drinking chalice to Salzenhus upon the birth of the child, a boy they had named Theodulf. The boy would have been around six or seven years old, but if what Rolf was saying was true, the line of the Udose chieftains had ended.

  “Wolfila killed?” Sigmar said, still unable to believe that one of his counts was dead.

  “Aye,” said Rolf, “and all the men able to hold a sword. Boys and old men. Bastards only left me alive since I ain’t got no sword arm. I’d have fought though, but they laughed at me, and I had my daughter and her young ’uns to look after. I thought they’d take ’em, but they let us go, like we weren’t worth bothering with.”

  Sigmar heard the shame in Rolfs voice, knowing the man would have died with his chieftain but for the need to protect his family. Such things were at the heart of what made a man proud, and to have that taken away by an enemy was a bitter blow indeed.

  Sigmar stepped away as Rolf shucked the reins and the wagon moved on. His fists clenched and he turned his furious gaze northwards, as though he could see his enemies through the forest.

  When he had driven the Norsii from the empire, the Roppsmenn had claimed their territory, largely because no one else had wanted it. Barren and said to be haunted by the ghosts of those their shamans had burned on sacrificial pyres, the land of the Norsii was bleak and lashed by freezing winds from the north.

  In his quest to unite the tribes of men, Sigmar had not sought the Sword Oaths of the Roppsmenn chieftains, because they lived so far to the east that they were for all intents and purposes a tribe of a different land. It had been an arrangement of convenience, for he had been reluctant to wage war or pursue diplomacy so far from Reikdorf.

  “Damn me,” said Red
wane, shaking his head as yet more frightened people passed. “Roppsmenn? Who’d have thought it? They’ve never raided south into the empire. Why would they do such a thing, and why now?”

  “It does not matter,” said Sigmar, his fists bunched at his side. “They have allied with the Norsii and that makes them my enemy.”

  Sigmar turned to his friends, his face scarred with hostility.

  “Pendrag, raise the Dragon Banner,” he said. “I have need of it again.”

  “The Dragon Banner?” asked Pendrag in alarm. “Why?”

  Sigmar squared his shoulders before his sword-brother, as though daring him to gainsay his words.

  “Because I am going to gather an army and march east,” he said, his voice all fury and hurt. “I am going to avenge the death of my friend. The Roppsmenn are going to learn the fate of those who make war on my people.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Pendrag.

  “It means their lands will burn!” roared Sigmar.

  ——

  Sigmar’s Justice

  Normally the Brackenwalsch Marsh was a gloomy place of mist and shadow, but this day was glorious, the sun shining upon the waters like glittering shards of crystal. A cool breeze kept the temperature pleasant, and the aroma of late-blooming flowers and fragrant reeds perfumed the air with myriad pleasing scents.

  The Hag Woman sat upon a fallen tree trunk, its mouldy bark alive with insects and thick with moss. Where others would recoil at such things or find them repulsive, she enjoyed the rich cycle of death and rebirth. As one thing died, it became a home to some creatures, a hatchery for others and food for yet more.

  “All things have their time,” she said to no one in particular, watching as a raven settled on the low branch of a nearby tree. The bird cawed, the sound echoing over the deep pools and hidden pathways of the marshes.