03 - God King (41 page)

Sigmar saw the palisade forts of the Udose besieged by corpses of ragged
flesh, while other clans were pushed into bleak highland valleys where they
fought desperate battles for survival. Conn Carsten gave battle from the
parapets of Wolfila’s rebuilt castle, his army a patchwork of warriors from a
dozen different clans. Welded together by the common foe, they fought as
brothers, though they scrapped like bitter foes in times of peace.

In the east, Count Adelhard led daring hit and run attacks against the dead,
riding at the head of glorious winged lancers, whooping with excitement as they
charged hither and thither through the ranks of the dead with wild abandon. The
Ostagoths did not build cities, their people living in settlements that could be
broken down at a moment’s notice and loaded onto wagons for transport. The dead
had no focus for their assault, and the Ostagoth cavalry armies encircled and
destroyed their enemies piecemeal.

The Cherusens and Taleutens took refuge behind the walls of their great
cities. Krugar fought heroically on the spiked walls of Taalahim, the great
crater city that nestled like a giant eye in the enormous expanse of the great
forest. Always where the fighting was thickest, Krugar hewed the undead with
glittering sweeps of Utensjarl.

Further west, Aloysis defended Hochergig with all the wild fury for which his
kinsmen were famed. Forced to fight with every weapon available, many of the
Cherusens chewed wildroot and drove themselves into bloody frenzies.

Atop the spire of the Fauschlag Rock, Myrsa and his warriors hurled the dead
from the walls of their soaring city. The cliff-like sides of the rock writhed
with climbing horrors, yet the city still held. Myrsa’s runefang shone with
simple purity, and where it smote, the dead could not resist its power.

Count Otwin’s lands were near empty, his people scattered by the sudden
invasion of the dead from the wastelands to the north-west. Long shunned by the
living, these lands had vomited forth a ravening tide of the dead that had
driven the Thuringians from their lands. Many now fought in Middenheim, or had
since fled to Marburg.

Jutonsryk was a city of the dead, its streets empty of life and infested with
degenerate cannibal creatures. Even if this war against Nagash could be won,
Jutonsryk would forever be a forsaken and damned place, where no soul would seek
to live again. Its great buildings and stone walls would fall into disrepair and
within the span of a lifetime, no one would know that men had once lived there.

Further south in Marburg, the dead hurled themselves at the walls of a great
citadel, but the defenders here were resolute and filled with determination to
hold. Here, the power of the undead seemed weakest, as though a turning point in
the battle for Marburg had been reached, and mortals now had the upper hand.
Sigmar scanned the walls of the citadel for Count Aldred, but could not see the
ruler of the Endals. Princess Marika and Count Marius fought side by side and
when Sigmar saw the shimmering blue blade of Ulfshard in the Jutone count’s
hand, he knew with heavy heart that Aldred was dead.

Setting aside his grief, Sigmar’s awareness of the Empire shrank until he
found himself staring at Reikdorf once more. Despite everything that had been
lost, Reikdorf remained. Enemies of the most terrible aspect stood poised to
destroy it, but there was still hope.

Some people called hope a weakness, claiming it was foolish to trust in the
world’s inherent natural justice. Sigmar knew better. Hope was strength. Hope
could drive men and women to the most incredible feats of heroism, from the
everyday kindnesses between friends to the epic, world-changing feats of kings
and warriors.

Sigmar smiled to himself, understanding that most world-changing events came
about not through the actions of so called great leaders, but ordinary men and
women driven to extraordinary heights of courage.

And as he had seen his land, so too he saw his people.

Sigmar’s sight travelled the streets of Reikdorf, seeing the strength that
resided in every man and woman taking shelter within the city’s walls. Though
his body knelt atop Warriors Hill, Sigmar roamed freely through the city, flying
over its thatched roofs and along its cobbled streets as though transformed into
an invisible observer of life. He saw acts of tiny kindness between people who
had never ventured further than the outskirts of their villages and who had been
brought up to fear and mistrust outsiders; these people now shared what little
food they had with those they would have fought only a few years before.

Here, an Asoborn woman offered bread to Brigundian children orphaned by the
fighting, there an Unberogen family sheltered Taleutens and Endals within their
home. In a silent, firelit dwelling in the northern quarter of the city, Orvin
handed down his father’s helmet to his son, Teon. The lad took the helmet, and
even as he slid it over his head, Sigmar saw the shame that he had not been
kinder to his old teacher. For his part, Orvin wished he could tell Teon how
proud he was, but he didn’t know how to begin. He loved his son, but a warrior’s
duty without a wife at his side had made them strangers. Instead, they simply
sat and sharpened their swords and polished their armour in strained silence.
Though there was no affection between them, both Teon and Orvin would fight for
the Empire, and both would die if need be.

Sigmar passed onwards, seeing Freya coupling with Garr, the commander of the
Queen’s Eagles. This was the Asoborn queen’s way, using sex as a means of
wringing each moment dry of sensation and taking advantage of all that life had
to offer. She was a passionate woman, and lived without compromise. Sigmar
admired her for that, but knew she could never be his Empress. Freya would never
be any one man’s woman.

He did not linger on her lovemaking, but smiled as he saw Sigulf and
Fridleifr practising swordplay in the other room. His heart ached to see these
boys and not to know them, but to tear them from their old life for one they
didn’t know and wouldn’t want would be a cruelty he could not inflict. These
boys knew him as the Emperor, and would never know him as a father. Though it
cut deeper than the sharpest sword, Sigmar knew it was the only thing that could
be done.

Moving on, he saw Govannon the smith and his son, Bysen, with Master Alaric.
They rolled the war machine they had been working on for weeks on end towards
the eastern gates of the city. Elswyth was right, the blind smith would never
willingly give up working, knowing all that would be left to him was a slow
decline into death. To continue working gave him purpose, and that purpose kept
him alive. Bysen was a hulking giant of a warrior, his mind left in tatters
after Black Fire Pass. Both men had given so much in service of the Empire, but
each was still willing to give more. Master Alaric had once again come to the
aid of Sigmar’s people, which spoke volumes of his character, for a dwarf’s
friendship was never given lightly. Sigmar was thankful every day that the
irascible runesmith had seen fit to be his friend.

Alfgeir sat in the longhouse with his knights as they told bawdy tales and
made proud boasts. Captain Leodan’s Red Scythes drank here too. These men were
eager for the coming fight, painting fire masks on their helms and images of the
sun on their shields. If they were to fight in twilight, then they would bring
their own light.

Leodan drank with his men, the barriers of rank broken down on this last
night, but Alfgeir sat apart from his knights. He drank sparingly, bound to
these fine Unberogen men, but apart from them. Thirty years separated him from
the next oldest of his warriors, and where their thoughts were fixed on the
battle to come, Alfgeir’s were turned inwards, looking back over a life lived
with honour and courage, but, ultimately, alone. In that respect, Sigmar felt
more kinship with Alfgeir than any other man in Reikdorf. The Marshal of the
Reik missed Eoforth, yet another thread linking him to his glorious youth cut
away like a fraying rope that was on the verge of snapping. Where most men
pushed thoughts of falling in battle aside, Alfgeir brooded on them—knowing
his death was almost certain on the morrow.

Saddened, Sigmar flew on, passing Cuthwin and Wenyld as they drank and
remembered happier times. Sigmar remembered catching the pair of them sneaking
across the marketplace to spy on the Blood Night before the ride to Astofen.
Neither lad had been old enough to fight, and to see them as grown men was a
stark reminder of how much time had passed since then. Though it had been many
years since Cuthwin and Wenyld had seen one another, they picked up where they
had left off, as though it had been only a few days. Such friendships were rare,
and Sigmar dearly hoped they would survive tomorrow’s bloodshed.

Lastly, he moved to the large house in the south of Reikdorf where Wolfgart
and Maedbh lived. Once again its walls were warm and its welcome complete.
Wolfgart and Maedbh and Ulrike lay curled up together on their bed, sleeping in
each other’s arms and content to pass this time together. Joy touched Sigmar at
this sight, a man and his wife and their child together, all pretence and
antagonism forgotten as the depth of their love for one another drove out all
pettiness or recriminations. This had been Sigmar’s dream before the Hag Woman
had cruelly disabused him of the notion that he could ever aspire to such a
life.

Knowing he could never have the simple pleasures of hearth and home, wife and
child, Sigmar had made his peace with knowing that the Empire was his bride. He
had sworn to love it and no other, and he had kept his faith with that,
sacrificing his desire for love and companionship to be the man he needed to be
in order to rule. Seeing Wolfgart and Maedbh, with Ulrike nestled in the
protective embrace of her father, made that sacrifice worth every moment spent
alone and without Ravenna by his side.

In that moment, Sigmar vowed that when this world was done with him, when he
was ready to act upon his father’s words, he would honour his promise to
Ravenna. When the Empire was strong enough not to need him, he would walk the
wolf’s road he had been promised in Ulric’s fire so long ago it felt like it
belonged to the story of another man’s life.

Sigmar flew up and over Reikdorf, understanding that the strength in every
person came from the life each one treasured. That it could be snatched away at
any moment made it all the sweeter, driving men and women to chase their dreams
and make them real. The dead had no dreams, no ambition and no forward momentum.
If Nagash defeated Sigmar and covered the world in shadow, then it would
stagnate, becoming a barren rock bereft of life and light. To cheat death and
achieve immortality was one thing, but to rule over a world of grey, ashen
wastelands, populated only by the shuffling, mindless dead, was no life at all.
What could any man want with such a prize?

High upon Warriors Hill, Sigmar opened his eyes, feeling a swelling sense of
humility as he looked down on Reikdorf with his mortal eyes once more. He rose
to his feet and walked back down the hill towards his long-house. Beyond the
city was darkness, an uninterrupted sea of shadow and death. Curiously uplifted
by that, Sigmar found his fear of the dead had completely vanished.

The outcome of tomorrow’s battle was unimportant.

That he fought in defiance of Nagash’s lifeless, empty future was enough.

Sigmar would ride out and give battle, but he would fight with all the Empire
at his back.

Thousands had gathered to hear the Emperor speak, filling the square at the
centre of Reikdorf with a press of bodies like the crowd at an execution. Sigmar
looked up to see the twin moons slung low in the sky, as though eager to witness
this moment. His closest warriors gathered around him and people hung from
windows and gathered on rooftops, eager to hear what the Emperor had to say as
the time of battle drew near.

Freya and her Queen’s Eagles formed a ring around Sigmar, who sat atop his
horse beside the Oathstone. His mount was a dappled grey gelding with a bright
red caparison and a mane pleated with silver cord. Armoured in his dwarf-forged
plate, Sigmar was a single source of brightness in the darkness, his armour
gathering all the moonlight and magnifying it tenfold. Sigmar’s head was bare,
his long hair unbound and spilling around his shoulders. His pale blue and green
eyes swept over the thousands waiting to hear him speak, and he felt their
belief in him wash over him like a tide.

People of all tribes were gathered before him. They had asked much of Sigmar
over the years, and now it was his turn to ask something of them. He knew they
would not refuse him.

Sigmar lifted Ghal-Maraz, and the ancient heirloom of King Kurgan glimmered
with runic traceries as it sensed it would soon be set loose amongst the
unliving.

“People of the Empire, we are besieged by an army of the dead,” began Sigmar.
“A dread necromancer from the dawn of time has invaded our lands, murdering our
people and enslaving those he kills to march in his dread legions. He comes not
for plunder or any reason conquerors give, but simply to drain the land of life.
He comes to our city to retrieve a powerful crown, forged by his own hand in an
age forgotten by all save Nagash himself. He must not succeed, for the crown has
the power to enslave all the lands of the living. I cannot stand by and let this
happen, and nor will you.”

Sigmar’s voice grew in power as he spoke and saw the effect his words were
having. They believed him,
really
believed him. They trusted him to
deliver them from this terrible foe, but this was not a battle that would be won
by one man, it would need to be won by
all
the people of the Empire.

He saw they were afraid, and Sigmar remembered what his father had said
before he rode to Astofen. He recognised the universal truth of these words as
he said them anew, like a father passing age-won wisdom down to his son.