The dwarf on the shield belched loudly and Sigmar stepped to meet him as the regimented lines of dwarf warriors folded around him like the jaws of a closing spring trap. Their movement was so precise, so coordinated, that it eerily reminded Sigmar of the perfect unison of the dead legions of the necromancer. Not the shambling, rotting grave-fiends, but the armoured warriors of undeath, the black riders and the dreadful liche-lords of the dead.
The red-bearded dwarf looked Sigmar up and down, then took another mouthful of beer. It foamed on his lips and soaked his beard. He did not look impressed with what he was seeing.
“So who is this you bring to my hold, Master Alaric?” said the dwarf. “A manling? No wonder they call you mad.”
Alaric stepped forward and bowed to the elevated dwarf.
“Thane Egril Barazul,” said Alaric. “It is my honour to present to you Sigmar Heldenhammer, Emperor of the lands of men. He is oath-sworn to King Kurgan of Karaz-a-Karak, and though he is but a manling, he understands the value of such things. His treasure halls are rich in gold, his grain stores are well stocked and his people are courageous.”
“An emperor, eh?” said Thane Barazul. “A big title.”
“Well earned,” said Alaric.
“So you say.”
“I do.”
Barazul wiped beer from his beard and his already gimlet eyes narrowed further as he studied Sigmar. As the thane’s eyes bored into him, Sigmar held his head high, determined not to be bowed before this dwarf.
“I think I’ve heard of you,” said Barazul. “Are you the manling who joined King Kurgan at the pass north of Karak Angazhar?”
“I am,” said Sigmar. “The warriors of King Kurgan fought alongside my army and we defeated a host of greenskins that would have overrun the world.”
Barazul grunted and Alaric nudged Sigmar in the ribs.
“Show him the hammer,” whispered Alaric.
Sigmar reached for Ghal-maraz and five hundred dwarfs each reached for their weapons. Hundreds of axes were suddenly bared and the fires reflected ruddy light from every blade.
“Careful now,” warned Barazul. “It’s a foolish individual who dares to draw a weapon before the Thane of Karak Izor. Nice and slow, manling. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
With deliberate slowness, Sigmar unhooked the ancient rune hammer and held it out before him. Where the keen edges of the dwarf axes shimmered in the glow of the fire bowls, Ghal-maraz held fast to the flames until it seemed it was ablaze with captured starlight. Sigmar felt the warmth of the runic magic bound to its metal, and a powerful sensation of homecoming swelled in his breast. Every eye in the entrance hall was locked to the warhammer.
Barazul nodded towards Alaric. “One of your creations, I’m guessing.”
“It is,” replied Alaric.
“And King Kurgan just gave it away?”
“He did, and he did so gladly,” said Alaric. “Sigmar saved King Kurgan from greenskin slavers while only a youngling. The gift of Ghal-maraz sealed their oath of brotherhood and stands as a symbol of the unity and warrior brotherhood that exist between our people.”
Barazul nodded, understanding full well the import of Alaric’s words. To dishonour an oath of the High King, even one made to a manling, would be to bring shame upon his hold, and Thane Barazul wasn’t about to make such a poor error of judgement.
But Sigmar saw that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Very well, I give you leave to enter the halls of Karak Izor,” said Barazul. “Now tell me why you have come to my hold, Emperor Sigmar.”
Gorseth lay on a pallet bed that was about a foot too small for him, stripped to the waist, while dwarf maids in long dresses cleaned his bloodied chest with mountain spring water. The boy’s colour was terrible, and that he still clung to life was a miracle. Teon sat by his bed on a stool, while Leodan, Wenyld and Cuthwin tore into fresh-roasted shanks of meat and bread laid out on copper platters. Bransùil loitered at the wounded boy’s bedside, as though relishing the chance to watch a mortal soul pass into the next world. Alaric and his dwarfs were quartered in an adjoining series of chambers, and had, thus far, kept themselves to themselves.
After telling Barazul of their climb into the Vaults, the battle to destroy Krell and Gorseth’s subsequent wounding at the hands of the dread champion, Sigmar saw a lessening of the casual hostility in the thane’s manner. Krell’s damned name was well known to the mountain folk, with countless grudges against him. For a manling to have settled those grudges was no small matter, and Thane Barazul knew it.
Barazul had nodded to a pale figure standing unnoticed in the shadows behind him, a dwarf of such advanced years that it seemed he was entirely composed of streaked grey hair and wrinkles. The venerable dwarf was introduced as Gromthi Okri, though Sigmar couldn’t be sure if that was a name or a title. Alaric had given the dwarf a deep bow of respect, a deeper one than the thane had received, so the dwarf was clearly not some doddering old fool assigned to them as a veiled insult. His skin was pale to the point of translucence, and Sigmar wondered how many centuries the old dwarf had behind him.
Gromthi Okri had led Sigmar’s men through high-roofed chambers adorned with gold and copper towards a network of linked apartments decorated with precious metals and brightly coloured glass. He had spoken of each hall’s ornamentation and history in slow, courteous tones, like a kindly grandfather taking a leisurely stroll with a gaggle of children in his wake. He told of the hold’s deep mines, its honourable history in war and the thane’s great wealth with paternal pride. His tale-telling made it sound as though he had been part of the household since its first tower had been raised.
With the hold’s guests accommodated, food and beer had been brought, and Okri began his examination. He studied Gorseth’s dreadful injury through a number of whirring and clicking eyeglasses attached to a headpiece of red-gold metal that hissed with venting steam and clacked with ratcheting clockwork mechanisms.
The ancient dwarf worked in silence for some time, before bending to sniff Gorseth’s wound. He leaned closer and sniffed again.
“Most curious,” he said at last.
“What is?” asked Sigmar.
“The smell.”
“What smell?”
“Exactly!” said Okri, dipping a glass rod filled with coloured liquid into the wound. Gorseth groaned and a cold breath sighed from his lips.
“I do not understand,” said Sigmar. “I smell nothing.”
“But you should,” said Okri with a serene expression on his face. “This wound has festered for seven days beneath unclean bandages. It should be rotten and black, and the boy burning with fever. But his skin is cold. Icy even.”
“What does that mean?” asked Teon.
“It means that I cannot save him,” said Okri. “No one can.”
“No!” cried Teon. “Surely the wound being clean is a good thing?”
Okri smiled indulgently. “In most cases I would agree with you. The boy would be dead already, but for the dark magic clinging to his spirit.”
“Krell’s axe,” said Bransùil, leaning in to look at the wound. His rustling cloak of black feathers put Sigmar in mind of a carrion bird circling its prey. “Its blade was forged in the Northern Wastes on the edge of the world, where the winds surge with the breath of the gods themselves.”
“You are a man who knows of such things?” said Okri.
“I have some art, aye,” agreed Bransùil.
“Art you call it?” said Okri with a rueful shake of his head. “Long have I held that men should not dabble with things they do not understand.”
“I understand power, old one,” said Bransùil.
“If you truly understood the power you wield, you would foreswear it utterly,” said Okri.
“Enough,” said Sigmar as he saw Bransùil’s crooked grin. “If Krell’s axe is so dangerous, why is Gorseth still alive?”
The lenses on Okri’s headpiece clicked and spun around
on tiny toothed wheels, rising up like the visor of a battle-helm.
“Because Death has claimed him.”
“He’s dead?” exclaimed Teon.
“Not yet, but when his body fails, as it most assuredly will, his spirit will be claimed by the dead things. He will wander the Grey Vaults as a shade for all eternity.”
“The Grey Vaults...” hissed Sigmar.
“You have heard of them?”
Sigmar nodded. “I’ve been there,” he said. “I was lost there as a youth.”
“And yet you live. Curious. How did you return to the world of the living?”
“My father brought me back.”
“Then he must be a very great warrior,” said Okri.
“He was.”
“Ah, yes. I forget how swiftly your kind pass through life. It must be very exciting,” said Okri, removing a twisting pipe with a bowl carved in the shape of a dragon’s head. As he filled the bowl with a reeking tobacco, he nodded towards Gorseth. The boy’s chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, and Sigmar knew his life hung by the slenderest of threads.
Okri lit his pipe and said, “If you have walked the wastelands of the Grey Vaults, Sigmar Heldenhammer, then you understand the doom awaiting this youngling.”
The ancient dwarf turned and placed a hand on Teon’s shoulder.
“I grieve for your loss, manling, but when your friend’s spirit passes, you must burn the body and scatter the ashes to the four winds. It is the only way to keep him from returning as a revenant.”
“What? No!” protested Teon.
Leodan, Cuthwin and Wenyld joined Sigmar as he knelt beside the dying boy.
“You saved my live, Gorseth, son of Gothen,” said Sigmar. “I shall see that you are honoured and remembered.”
Bransùil knelt beside Sigmar, his twisted frame making the movement awkward and jerky.
“It does not have to be like this, my lord,” said the warlock. “You can save him.”
“No,” said Okri, firmly. “He cannot.”
“He can, and you know he can,” snapped Bransùil. “You could do it too, but you choose not to. I can help bring this boy back, you know I can.”
Okri sighed and addressed Sigmar. “This boy will die. Nothing now can prevent that.”
“He’s wrong,” said Bransùil, gripping Sigmar’s wrist with a strength that belied his wizened frame. “I can send your spirit to the Grey Vaults. As your father did for you as a youth, you can do for this boy. You can bring his spirit back to his body.”
“That would be a fool’s errand,” warned Okri. “You would lose two souls instead of one.”
“You could do that?” asked Sigmar, ignoring Okri’s words.
Bransùil nodded. “Aye, Lord Sigmar, I could.”
“My lord, no!” cried Cuthwin.
“And you can bring me back?” said Sigmar.
“I believe so.”
“You believe so?”
Bransùil shrugged and grinned, exposing his gleaming white teeth. “Such things are ever fraught with uncertainties, but you have a strong soul and will not be hard to locate. It is the best I can offer you.”
“Sire, this is madness,” said Leodan. “You can’t trust this man, he’s Norsii!”
“Leodan’s right, my lord,” added Wenyld. “I’m all for trying to save the lad, he was a brave one, but he’s as good as gone.”
Sigmar stood and hauled Bransùil to his feet alongside him.
“You say you can send me to the Grey Vaults,” said Sigmar. “Then do it.”
Sigmar lay on the floor next to Gorseth’s bed, Ghal-maraz clutched tight to his chest as Bransùil knelt at his head and placed thin, willowy fingers on each of his eyes. Leodan stood behind the warlock, his hunting knife bared. Cuthwin and Wenyld had blades drawn, while Teon held tight to Gorseth’s hand.
“Are you ready?” asked Bransùil.
“No, but do what you must before I lose my nerve,” said Sigmar, the fear of what he might find in the Grey Vaults making his heart hammer against his chest. He had been little more than a boy when he had last walked its ashen wastelands, but the horror of those memories was still as dreadful.
“Come back to us, my lord,” said Wenyld.
“I plan to,” said Sigmar.
Leodan tapped his blade against Bransùil’s shoulder and said, “Know that if this wretch has treachery in mind, I’ll open his neck before he can blink. If you die, he will serve you on the road to Ulric’s halls.”
“Your faith in me is heart-warming,” snapped Bransùil. “Now let me work.”
Sigmar controlled his breathing with effort, feeling a chill settle in his bones. The Norsii warlock began a low, guttural chant of words that were not words, more like the racking coughs of a man dying of lung-blight. With each utterance, icy cold seeped into Sigmar’s flesh, and he let out a frost-limned breath as he felt his body go numb.
The sharp outlines of the richly appointed chambers faded as a cold mist arose and the hazy contours of a far distant landscape swam into view. Sigmar’s spirit rebelled at the sight of such a bleak, empty domain, fighting to remain within his body rather than be transported to so awful a place.
“Do not fight it,” said Bransùil’s voice, a lifeline to the world of warmth and hot blood. Sigmar wanted to cling to his voice, to let it guide him home, but he had come here with purpose and he could not shirk that duty. A boy with a warrior’s heart was trapped in the space between life and death, and only Sigmar could save him.
He stopped fighting the pull of his body and let his spirit flow from him into the Grey Vaults. Cold swept through him and he gasped as the connection between flesh and spirit was broken.
Sigmar cried out and opened his eyes in the nightmarish netherworld of the damned.
Everything was just as he remembered it: the lifeless hinterlands of desolate ash, the bleak grey sky that had never known the sun, and clawed trees of black cinders that scraped the air as the frozen winds of the shade-haunted plains howled through their gnarled branches. Black mountains rose in the distance, and Sigmar knew that no matter how fast or long he walked, they would come no closer. Time was meaningless in this place. Day and night were non-existent, and every moment was as hopeless as the next. Here and there, lonely figures wandered the wastelands, anguished souls condemned to walk in limbo for all eternity, for crimes real or imagined.
Sigmar was naked, but with a thought he was clad in his dwarf-forged battle armour and helm. He carried Ghal-maraz, and the frost-white glow of its runic powers was a beacon of light in this eternal twilight. In a place where nothing ever changed, his appearance was sure to attract all manner of monstrous attention. Already he could see black wraith-wolves slinking from the shadows of the black trees, and moaning spectres were gathering on the ash plains as they sensed his powerful presence.
“Gorseth!” yelled Sigmar. “Gorseth, son of Gothen! Come to me! Your Emperor commands you to stand at his side!”
His voice did not echo, nor did it carry over the dead landscape, but his call was answered by a plaintive cry of desolation from the black forest before him. A hundred eyes of cold light glittered between the tangled trunks, and Sigmar knew Gorseth’s spirit was being held within that lightless copse.
“I am Emperor Sigmar Heldenhammer!” he bellowed, but the howling winds swallowed his words, mocking his ego and delusions of immortality. Anger touched Sigmar, and he set off towards the forest with Ghal-maraz looping around in killing sweeps. Puffs of ash blew up around him, and he felt the hunger of the shades that stalked him.
Sigmar entered the forest and the bleak light of the dead sky was snuffed out as the black canopy of trees closed in overhead. Everything was gloom, and the only light came from Sigmar’s hammer. Midnight-black trees loomed from the darkness, whipping branches clawing at his body as he pushed deeper and deeper into the forest. Moaning shades swirled around him and Sigmar swept his warhammer out as immaterial claws slashed for his warmth.
> Ghostly revenants vanished at the touch of Ghal-maraz, and as each one was destroyed it loosed a shriek of plaintive horror. Sigmar forged a path onwards, swinging his hammer at the creatures of darkness as he charged through the haunted forest. Wraith-wolves howled and snapped at his heels, but Sigmar was too fleet for them. He ran with the speed of Ulric’s wolves, fighting and running as he aimed his course for the bleak heart of the forest. Claws tore at his armour and spectral fangs ripped plates from his body.
Scores died to the touch of Ghal-maraz, but he could not see or fight them all. Icy fangs bit his arms and soul-sapping talons raked his chest. None of these wounds bled, but each sapped his spirit, making it ever more difficult to keep moving and fighting.
“Gorseth, come to my side, your Emperor commands it!” he shouted. “Damn it, boy, fight! Fight with me!”
His imperious demand was met with a battle shout that could only have come from the throat of an Unberogen warrior. A light flared in the darkness, and Sigmar saw Gorseth surrounded by a host of shadow-black spectres who held him fast in their claws of ice. The boy’s spirit was being drained by these horrors of the dead, but he was fighting them.
“To me!” yelled Sigmar. “Your sword, boy, think of your sword!”
A gleaming sword of silver appeared in the boy’s hand and he plunged the blade into the shades holding him. They screeched in terror as they vanished, and Gorseth fought his way clear of the others as a shimmering dagger appeared in his other hand.
“Where is this?” cried Gorseth as he staggered over to Sigmar.
“It is a place of hopelessness and death,” said Sigmar as a host of darting shades and wraith-wolves attacked. “Now fight!”
The noose of dead things closed on the two of them, howling wolves circling as the spectral soul-stealers swirled around them. Sigmar and Gorseth fought back to back, silver sword and rune hammer slashing, bludgeoning and killing with every stroke. It was a bloodless battle, for each wraith-creature struck simply vanished and their own wounds were of the soul. Hundreds of the monsters surrounded them, and Sigmar knew they could not hope to survive this fight.
Warhammer 40,000 - [Weekender 01] Page 5