03 - God King (50 page)

The necromancer gave one last shriek of horror, and his body exploded in a
wash of black light and frozen fire. Dark magic and immortal energies flared
upwards from his destruction like a volcanic eruption.

And the sky filled with ashes and grief.

With Nagash’s destruction, the army of the dead melted away like woodsmoke on
a windy day. Warriors of bone dropped their swords and collapsed as their
spirits were freed to pass on to their final rest. Undead wolves that had,
moments before, been howling for blood, fell to dissolution as the magic binding
their bodies to the world of mortals was undone. Spirits shrieked as their
ethereal forms were drawn back to the tombs that held them, and the shambling
corpses raised from their graves now slumped to the ground, reduced to nothing
more than dead meat for crows.

The binding will of Nagash was absolute, and no creature that walked, drifted
or flew within his host had power of its own to maintain its existence. As the
necromancer’s power bled away, the dead ceased their attacks on the living and
returned to the realm that had first claim upon their souls. Morr’s gates opened
to receive them, and as each violated spirit was freed from the necromancer’s
iron clutches, a wave of euphoria swept over the battlefield.

Weeping men and women laughed and danced as the threat of death was lifted.
They cried tears of joy, and hugged one another tight. The nearness of death had
reawakened every mortal heart’s appreciation of the gift of life. Though that
would fade in time, for now it was a glorious moment that would never be
forgotten.

Nor was Nagash’s influence confined to the dead at Reikdorf, for the black
strands of his web of control stretched all across the Empire. The dead at
Marburg dropped to the ground as the will driving them over the citadel walls
faded into nothingness, while those clawing their way into Middenheim fell from
the causeway and tumbled from the sheer sides of the Fauschlag Rock. The Udose
watched in amazement as the dead ceased their attacks into their hidden valleys
and crumbled to dust around the walls of Conn Carsten’s clifftop fortress.

Count Aloysis stood atop the ramparts of Hochergig and waved a Cherusen
banner as the dead melted away from his walls, while Count Krugar rode through
the gates of Taalahim in triumph. In the eastern reaches of the Empire, Count
Adelhard rallied his warriors in a krug around the Bechahorst, a spire of dark
stone in the northern marches of his lands, and drank
koumiss
to toast
the end of this fight.

The lands of the south were silent, for their people were already dead. Alone
among the southern tribal homelands, the Merogens had endured. Count Henroth led
his warriors from within their great castles of stone, blinking in the new light
and disbelieving that such a miracle could have saved his people.

Nagash’s legions were no more, and the living had endured.

The long dark night of the dead was over.

Khaled al-Muntasir climbed to the top of the hillside, his bones aching and
his flesh scoured by the incomprehensible destruction of Nagash. The vampire’s
armour was in tatters, his white cloak torn and burned by the fire that had
threatened to consume him. The necromancer’s doom had threatened to drag him to
destruction as well, but his blood was of a higher calibre than that of the
ancient priest king of Nehekhara.

Siggurd crawled by his side, the newly-sired vampire’s body wracked with
pain. The Asoborns had almost destroyed him, and in his weakened state, his
immortal flesh had all but succumbed to the same destruction as had vanquished
the army of the dead. Only his superior pedigree had saved him, but it would
take dozens of bodies’ worth of blood to restore him. His whimpering cries were
repugnant to Khaled al-Muntasir’s ears, but he was of his blood and could not be
abandoned to the savage mercies of the mortals.

Nothing lived on the hillside, every blade of grass withered and every inch
of soil barren. His footsteps left prints in ashen sand as he climbed to the
top, where he saw the architect of the necromancer’s demise.

Sigmar stood with his back to Khaled al-Muntasir, his softly glowing hammer
at his side and the crown of Nagash lying at his feet. The crown shone with a
dull light, and Khaled al-Muntasir wondered what glories he might achieve were
he to take it. The Emperor’s flesh was a mass of bruised blood, frostburn and
suffering. The vampire licked his lips, seeing that the mortal was at the very
end of his endurance. Easy meat.

“You have destroyed that which could not be destroyed,” said Khaled
al-Muntasir.

“I told you that you were not welcome in my lands,” said Sigmar, without
turning. “I told you that I would kill you if I saw you again.”

“An empty threat,” said the vampire, taking a step towards Sigmar. Siggurd
moaned in hunger and pain, the smell of blood drawing his broken gaze.

“Is it?” said Sigmar, turning to face him. “Test it, and I will send you to
join your master.”

“You are weak,” said the vampire. “Spent. I could kill you and drink your
blood before you could raise a hand to stop me. The crown will be mine and all
you have achieved here will have been for nothing.”

“Then come at me,” said Sigmar, lifting Ghal-Maraz.

Khaled al-Muntasir laughed, but the sound died in his throat as he saw the
hatred in Sigmar’s eyes. There was strength and power there beyond anything men
should know, a cold fire that came not from mortal realms, but from a place long
forsaken that did not belong on this world. Its winter fire hailed from a place
of gods and monsters, a realm of power beyond imagining and where the laws of
nature held no sway. All this power and more burned in Sigmar’s eyes, though he
knew it not.

In that instant of connection, Khaled al-Muntasir knew that if he took
another step his undying existence would be ended. For the first time since he
had awoken as an immortal blood drinker, Khaled al-Muntasir knew the meaning of
fear. His limbs trembled. The thought of oblivion and the bleak emptiness that
awaited him robbed him of all his courage.

Siggurd pawed at the ground, desperate for blood and unable to comprehend why
his master hesitated to end this upstart mortal. His senses dulled and broken by
his pain, Siggurd could not feel the terrible danger Sigmar represented to him
and all his kind. The Emperor’s hate of the blood drinkers was a force all of
its own, a force that transcended time and all notions of mortality.

Khaled al-Muntasir backed away from Sigmar, dragging the wretched vampire
count he had sired back down the hillside. Terror of Sigmar’s inner power burned
into their damned souls with unending torment as his voice chased them from the
battlefield.

“Hear now the word of Sigmar Heldenhammer,” shouted the Emperor. “I curse you
and all your kind to be my enemies for all time!”

The vampires fled into the shadows.

Sigmar watched the vampires run, thankful that his killing boast had not been
put to the test. His body was a mass of pain, his heart heavy with the mourning
yet to come, and his soul was sickened to see what might yet become of his
beloved Empire. The air around him was thick with foetid vapours, unclean fumes
that lingered in the wake of the necromancer’s destruction. Yet even as he
waited, a fresh wind was building, blowing from the west with clean air and the
promise of new beginnings.

He took a deep breath, savouring the sweetness of that air. It had been so
long since he had tasted air untainted with the ashen reek of grave dust and
death that he had almost forgotten what it was like. Freed from the
necromancer’s magic, the land was already beginning to heal, purging the
foulness of dark magic from its soil and wind.

Soon the desolation of Nagash would be little more than a memory, for the
world was more resilient than people knew. It would outlast mankind, and its
mountains, forests and rivers would see them dead and buried before it would
even blink. Mortals were a flicker in the life of this world, yet even that was
worth holding onto.

Sigmar opened his eyes as he saw a host of men and women gathering around the
desolate hillside, warriors from his army, people from his city and allies from
across the land. They were weeping tears of hope and mourning, loss and relief.

The battle was over and they were alive.

Sigmar dropped to one knee before his people, giving homage to them as they
had given homage to him. The sky above the battlefield began to lighten as the
perpetual twilight of Nagash was banished. Its sullen gloom had gripped the
Empire for so long that its people had forgotten the feel of sunlight on their
skin. Its radiance spread across the land, a bounteous illumination that
banished evil to the shadows and chased away the darkness.

Sigmar smiled and turned his face to the sun.

“People of the Empire,” he said. “A new day is upon us.”

In the aftermath of the battle, the bodies of the dead were gathered and
taken to the blasted hilltop where Sigmar had defeated Nagash. Nothing would
ever grow there again, and the priests of Morr declared it a fitting place for
the dead to be given their final rest. Night after night, the priests of all the
gods spoke prayers for the dead, and scattered the ashes into the river Reik,
where they were carried downstream to Marburg and the open ocean.

Count Marius and Princess Marika were married a month after Nagash’s defeat,
the ceremony attended by Sigmar, Krugar, Aloysis, Otwin, and Myrsa. Claiming the
injuries she had suffered at Siggurd’s hands still pained her, Freya and her
wounded sons returned to Three Hills to rebuild what the dead had destroyed.
Though many people muttered darkly as to what the union of Jutones and Endals
might mean for the Empire, Sigmar had blessed the marriage and gifted the couple
with a pair of golden sceptres from his treasure vaults.

Wolfgart and Maedbh remained in Reikdorf with Ulrike, though they decided
that they would split their time between Sigmar’s city and Three Hills. Never
again would they allow anger to get the better of them, and never again would
they allow themselves to be parted with bitter words between them. Within days
of the wedding at Marburg, Maedbh announced to Wolfgart and Ulrike that she was
with child, and the celebration that accompanied the news was more raucous than
the wedding feast of Marius and Marika.

Redwane left Reikdorf within a day of the victory, leading his ravaged,
self-mortifying band of madmen into the forests of the Empire. Less than a
thousand of them remained, their headlong charge into the undead costing the
majority of them their lives. Sigmar had caught Redwane as he prepared to lead
his march of doom, but no words could reach the younger man; his hope had been
crushed and life now held no meaning for him. Otwin told Sigmar how the crazed
Redwane and Torbrecan had broken the siege of his castle and whipped the people
of the Empire along the route of his march south into a morbid frenzy. Taking up
a hook-knotted rope, Redwane wished the Emperor well and set off into the
shadowed forest with Torbrecan, leaving his heartbroken White Wolves behind.

Master Alaric and his dwarf warriors had sought to destroy Krell after the
fire of the repaired Thunder Bringer had brought him low, but Nagash’s will was
not the only force empowering the dread champion’s unlife. The monstrous warrior
had fought his way clear of the dwarfs’ vengeance, and fled into the north. Too
blooded to pursue, the dwarfs had watched in bitter impotence as Krell escaped
the clutches of their blades. Yet more entries were noted for the Dammaz Kron,
the names of all the dwarfs Krell had slain.

Govannon and Bysen both survived the Battle of the River Reik, as it was
becoming known, and returned to their forge. The Thunder Bringer had been
crushed in the fighting raging around Krell, but its remains had been salvaged
and brought back within the city walls while the dwarfs grieved their fallen
brothers. Though it was smashed beyond all hope of repair, Govannon immediately
set about working out how to make newer and bigger machines. A scrap of fire
powder from the misfiring barrel had been recovered from the wreckage, and the
near-blind smith was optimistic he would be able to replicate it.

If Master Alaric knew of this, he gave no sign, and after meeting privately
with Sigmar in his longhouse, led his warriors in solemn procession to the east.
The loss of his hand affected him deeply, and as Sigmar watched the mountain
folk return to their homeland, he sensed a great melancholy within Alaric.

Sigmar returned Nagash’s crown to High Priestess Alessa, and bade her take it
far from the Empire, somewhere its evil power would be unable to corrupt men’s
souls. With a group of iron-willed warriors, Alessa left Reikdorf and rode into
the east, never to return.

Of all the warriors who had fought for Sigmar, Alfgeir carried the burden of
victory more than most. Though many men and women had been dreadfully wounded in
the fighting, the loss of his arm cut the Marshal of the Reik far deeper than
the flesh. His eyes never regained their normal colour and no fire could warm
his skin. Six months to the day after the battle’s end, Alfgeir rode a white
horse into the north toward a frozen lake, where he met a fur-cloaked warrior
with two wolves at his side.

Wenyld and Sigmar watched him go, and the Emperor knew that a stronger
compulsion than duty to Reikdorf called to his old friend. As Alfgeir vanished
over the hillside, Sigmar bade Wenyld farewell and made his way into the depths
of the frozen forest to the west of Reikdorf.

The cathedral of evergreen trees was a shimmering winter garden of glistening
icicles and stillness. Walking paths he had not taken in years, he made his way
to a peaceful hollow where weeping willows drooped with the weight of snow and
ice on their branches. A gurgling waterfall spilled into a wide pool, and a
simple headstone was set at its edge.