The Legend of Sigmar

by Graham McNeill

‘Oh no, cat!’ he said. ‘This is bad… this is very bad!’

  ‘Will he live?’ asked Pendrag, afraid of the answer.

  Cradoc ignored him, for what was the point in offering an answer that the warrior would not understand and would not want if he did? The young prince was poised at the very threshold of Morr’s realm, and no knowledge of man could prevent him from passing through.

  He had been tending to a young warrior with a broken arm, another casualty of Alfgeir’s harsh training regimes on the Field of Swords, when Pendrag had rushed in, his face pale and frightened. Even before the man opened his mouth, Cradoc had known that something terrible had happened.

  Cradoc had gathered his healer’s bag and limped after Pendrag, his aged frame unable to keep up with the young warrior. By the time they reached the longhouse, Cradoc was out of breath and his mouth was dry.

  His worst suspicions had been confirmed when he saw the crowds gathered around the king’s longhouse, their faces lined with fear. Pendrag had forged them a path and, though he had been prepared for the worst, he felt a chill as he saw Sigmar lying on a pallet of furs, his body wet and pale like a corpse.

  Sigmar’s sword-brothers and Eoforth knelt beside him, and a group of warriors stood to one side, their blades bared as though ready to fight. A hunched man in a tattered buckskin jerkin waited nervously to one side, and a small cat curled around his legs, looking nervously at the king’s wolfhounds.

  He had immediately shooed everyone out of the way and begun his examination, already fearing that the prince was beyond help, but then he saw that blood still pulsed weakly from deep cuts along his hip and ribs.

  ‘I asked whether he would live?’ demanded Pendrag. ‘This is Sigmar!’

  ‘I know who he is, damn you!’ snapped Cradoc. ‘Now be silent and let me work.’

  Sigmar’s colour was bad, and his body had clearly lost a lot of blood, but that alone could not account for the symptoms that Cradoc was seeing. Sigmar’s pupils were dilated, and a faint tremor was evident in his fingertips.

  Cradoc peered at the wounds in the prince’s side, wounds clearly caused by a sword.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Cradoc. ‘Who attacked the prince?’

  ‘We do not know yet,’ snarled Wolfgart, ‘butwhoever it was will die before this day is out!’

  Cradoc nodded and bent closer to the injured Sigmar as he saw the faint yellowish deposit of a resinous substance coating the skin around the wound. He bent to sniff the blood, and recoiled as he smelled a sour, vegetable-like odour.

  ‘Shallya’s mercy,’ he whispered, prising open Sigmar’s eyelids.

  ‘What?’ asked Pendrag. ‘What is it, man! Speak!’

  ‘Hemlock,’ said Cradoc. ‘The prince has been poisoned. Whatever blade wounded him was coated with hemlock from the Brackenwalsch.’

  ‘Is that bad?’ asked Wolfgart, pacing the floor behind Pendrag.

  ‘What do you think, idiot?’ barked Cradoc. ‘Have you heard of a good poison? Stop asking stupid questions, and make yourself useful and bring me some clean water! Now!’

  He turned from the gathered warriors. ‘I have seen hemlock poisoning in livestock that eats too near the marshes, or drinks water in which its roots have found purchase.’

  ‘Is it fatal?’ asked Eoforth, giving voice to the question everyone feared.

  Cradoc hesitated, unwilling to take away what little hope these men had for their prince.

  ‘Usually, yes,’ said Cradoc. ‘The poisoned beast usually has trouble breathing, and then its legs fail and it begins to convulse. Eventually, its lungs give out and it breathes no more.’

  ‘You say usually, Cradoc,’ said Eoforth, his voice calm amid the panic that was filling the longhouse. ‘Some survive?’

  ‘Some, but not many,’ said Cradoc, rummaging in his healer’s bag to remove a clay vial stoppered with wax. ‘Where is that water, damn you!’

  ‘Do what you have to,’ said Eoforth. ‘The prince must live.’

  Wolfgart appeared at his side, and Cradoc said, ‘Clean the wounds. Be thorough, wash the blood away and don’t be squeamish about getting inside the wound. Clean everything out, and leave no trace of the resin within him. You understand? Not a trace.’

  ‘Not a trace,’ said Wolfgart, and Cradoc saw the terrible fear for his friend in the warrior’s eyes.

  He handed the clay vial to Wolfgart. ‘When the wound is clean, apply this poultice of tarrabeth, and then get someone with steady hands to stitch him shut.’

  ‘And he will live? He will be all right then?’

  Cradoc laid a paternal hand on Wolfgart’s shoulder. ‘Then we will have done all we can for him. It will be for the gods to decide whether he lives or dies.’

  Cradoc moved aside as Wolfgart got to work, his joints flaring painfully as Pendrag helped him to his feet.

  ‘Where was Sigmar found?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘It could be vital,’ snapped Cradoc. ‘Now stop answering my questions with questions, and tell me where he was found.’

  Pendrag nodded contritely and indicated the hunched man in the buckskin jerkin. ‘Horst here found the prince in the river.’

  Cradoc’s eyes narrowed as he saw the worried looking man. He smelled of fish and damp leather, and the healer recognised him from some years ago. He had treated the man’s son for a sickness that stripped the flesh from his bones, but despite Cradoc’s best efforts, the boy had died.

  ‘You found him?’ asked Cradoc. ‘Where?’

  ‘I was out fishing by the edge of the river when I saw the young prince,’ said Horst.

  ‘Where exactly?’ demanded Cradoc. ‘Come on, man, this could be vital!’

  Horst shrank back from Cradoc’s sharp tongue, and the cat’s ears pricked up.

  ‘My apologies,’ said Cradoc. ‘My joints are aching, and King Björn’s son is dying, so I do not have time for politeness. I need you to be precise, Horst, tell me where you found Sigmar.’

  Horst’s head bobbed in an approximation of a nod. ‘Out by one of the north channels, sir. The one that flows from the Five Sisters. I was out fishing, and the prince went and snagged on my hook.’

  ‘You know this place?’ asked Cradoc, turning to Pendrag.

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘Sigmar was naked, which tells me he was swimming and did not fall into the water until after he was attacked,’ said Cradoc, rubbing the heel of his palm against his temples. ‘Is there a pool further up that channel?’

  Pendrag nodded. ‘Aye, there is. It is a favourite place for young lovers to swim.’

  ‘Take me there,’ said Cradoc, ‘and if you wish to avenge yourselves on the prince’s attacker, bring your finest trackers.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Pendrag. ‘What do you expect to find?’

  ‘I do not think it likely that Sigmar will prove to be our only victim today,’ said Cradoc.

  Sigmar opened his eyes to a bleak world of ashen grey. Rocky plains stretched out all around him, withered and dead heaths over which blew a parched wind. Twisted trees dotted the landscape, rearing high like black cracks in the empty, lifeless sky.

  He was naked and alone, lost in this deserted wilderness with no stars above to guide him and no landmarks he recognised to fix his position. He did not know this land.

  A range of mountains reared up in the distance, vast and monolithic, easily the biggest things he had ever seen. Even the distant peaks of the Grey Mountains were nowhere near as mighty as this great range.

  ‘Is there anyone here?’ he shouted, the sound as flat and toneless as the colours around him. The silence of the strange landscape swallowed his shout, and he felt a strange sense of dislocation as he set off towards the mountains in the absence of any better direction to travel.

  His memories of how he had come to be here were confused, and he had only fleeting memories of his life. He knew his name and that he was of the Unberogen tribe, the fiercest warriors west of the mountains, but be
yond that…

  Sigmar walked for what felt like hours, but he quickly noticed that the sky above was unchanging, the dead sun motionless in the grey clouds. A moment or an age could have passed, yet his limbs were as strong as they had been when he had set off. He had no doubt that he could walk forever in this lifeless realm without feeling tired.

  He stopped as a sudden thought came to him.

  Was he dead?

  This strange landscape was certainly bereft of life, but where was the golden hall of Ulric, the great feasting and the warriors who had fallen in glorious battle? He had lived a valourous life had he not?

  Was he to be denied his rest in the halls of his ancestors?

  Fear touched his heart as he felt shadows gather around him at the thought. Where he had stopped was as empty and desolate as any other place he had seen in his travels, but he could sense a gathering menace.

  ‘Show yourselves!’ he roared. ‘Come out and die!’

  No sooner had he spoken than the shadows coiled from the ground and shaped themselves into dark phantoms of nightmare. A pair of huge, slavering wolves with red eyes and fangs like knives stalked him, and a scaled daemon with a horned head, forked tongue and a dripping sword hissed words of his death.

  Sigmar wished he had a weapon to defend himself, and looked down to see a golden sword appear in his hand. He lifted the blade, and imagined himself in a suit of the finest iron armour. He was not surprised when it appeared upon his body, the links gleaming and oiled.

  The creatures of darkness surrounded him, but rather than wait for them to make the first move, Sigmar leapt to attack. His sword cleaved through one of the shadow wolves, and it vanished in a swirl of dark smoke.

  The second wolf leapt at him, and he dropped flat to the dusty ground, his sword sweeping up a disembowelling cut. Again the beast vanished, and the daemon rushed in with its sword raised. The blade slashed for his throat, but Sigmar ducked and rammed his sword into the creature’s side.

  Instead of vanishing, the creature let loose a screeching howl, the pain of it driving Sigmar to his knees. He dropped his weapon, which vanished as soon as it hit the ground. The daemon bellowed in triumph, its sword sweeping down to take his skull… to be met by a great, double-headed axe that blocked the blow.

  Sigmar looked up to see a mighty warrior in a glittering hauberk of polished iron scale, with a winged bronze helmet and kilt of linked leather strips reinforced with bronze. The warrior’s axe swept aside the daemon’s blade, and the return stroke smote its chest, sending it back to whatever hell it had come from.

  With the daemon despatched, the warrior turned and offered his hand to Sigmar, and even before he saw the warrior’s face, he knew whose face it would be.

  ‘Father,’ said Sigmar as Björn took him in a crushing bear hug.

  ‘My son,’ said Björn. ‘It does my heart proud to see you, even as it grieves me to see you in this place.’

  ‘What is this place? Am I dead? Are… are you?’

  ‘These are the Grey Vaults,’ said Björn. ‘It is the netherworld between life and death where the spirits of the dead wander.’

  ‘How did I come to be here?’

  ‘I do not know, my son, but you are here, and I mean to make sure you return to the land of the living. Now come, we have a long way to go.’

  Sigmar indicated the barren emptiness that surrounded them. ‘Go? Where is there to go? I have walked for an age in this place and found nothing.’

  ‘We must reach the mountains. There we will find the gateway.’

  ‘What gateway?’

  ‘The gateway to Morr’s kingdom,’ said Björn, ‘to the realm of the dead.’

  The battle was won, but as Alfgeir had feared the cost had been high. The Norsii had fought like daemons against the armies of the southern kings, their shield walls like impregnable fortresses atop the forested ridgeline. Time and time again, the axes and swords of the Taleutens, Cherusens and Unberogens had hammered the northmen, until shields had splintered and spears had broken.

  Inch by bloody inch, they had driven up the slopes and pushed the Norsii back, but for each yard gained, a score of men had been lost. As the army of the southern kings finally took the top of the hill, the Norsii fought in smaller and smaller circles, defiant to the end and asking for no quarter.

  Truly, these men were iron foes.

  King Björn had fought like a man possessed, launching himself into the thick of the fighting from the outset, his mighty axe cleaving northmen dead with every stroke. The White Wolves had tried to keep up with him, but the king’s progress had been relentless.

  Alfgeir had seen where the king had been headed and tried desperately to follow, but a blood-maddened hound had leapt upon him with its fangs snapping shut on his gorget. He had killed the beast, but had been powerless to follow his king as the press of fighting bodies blocked all passage forward.

  Alfgeir closed his eyes as he remembered the glorious sight of his king standing before the red-armoured warlord of the enemy host. Never had he been prouder to serve Björn of the Unberogen than the moment he had seen his liege lord’s axe cut the head from the enemy leader. The dragon banner had fallen, and a cry of dismay and anger had arisen from the Norsii, their vengeful eyes turning to he who had toppled it.

  The Marshal of the Reik turned from his memories and approached the fire where the healers worked. Screams of the dying filled the air, piteous cries for wives and mothers tearing at the hearts of those who attempted to make their last hours more comfortable.

  Victory fires were even now being lit atop the hill, the mounds of dead northmen burning as offerings to Ulric, but the victory tasted of ashes to Alfgeir, for he had failed in his duty.

  King Björn lay on a hastily erected pallet bed, his armour in a bloody and torn pile beside him. The king’s flesh was grey, his body wrapped in bandages that covered the many sword blows and spear thrusts that he had suffered. Blood pooled beneath his body and dripped through the linen of the bed.

  No sooner had Björn slain the Norsii warlord than his dark-armoured champions had fallen upon the king to wreak their revenge. Alfgeir could recall every sword blow and spear thrust, feeling them as though they struck his own flesh.

  ‘Will he live?’ asked Alfgeir.

  One of the healers looked up, his face streaked with tears.

  ‘We have stitched his wounds, my lord,’ said the healer, ‘and we have administered bandages treated with faxtoryll and spiderleaf.’

  ‘But will he live?’ demanded Alfgeir.

  The healer shook his head. ‘We have done all we can for him. It will be for the gods to decide whether he lives or dies.’

  Sigmar and Björn walked further through the Grey Vaults, the landscape remaining unchanged no matter how far they travelled. To Sigmar’s eyes, the mountains appeared to draw no closer, yet his father assured him they were on the right path.

  Though the scenery appeared unchanging, they were not without company on their journey. The dark shadows that had assaulted Sigmar flitted on the edge of perception, only ever seen from the corner of the eye, as though they escorted the travellers, yet were afraid of being seen directly by them.

  ‘What are they?’ Sigmar asked, seeing another darting shape at the edge of his vision.

  ‘The souls of those damned forever,’ said Björn with great sadness. ‘Eoforth said that the Grey Vaults are inhabited by the souls of the unquiet dead, those whose bodies are raised by necromancy and who cannot pass into Morr’s realm.’

  ‘So nothing that dwells here is truly dead?’

  ‘As good as,’ said Björn. ‘Though those consigned here may have been virtuous while alive, here they have been twisted into terrible forms by their hatred for the living. Our warmth and light reminds them of what they once were and what they can never now have.’

  ‘So why aren’t they attacking?’

  ‘Be thankful they are not, Sigmar, for I do not think we have the strength to oppose them.’

>   ‘All the more reason for them to attack.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Björn, ‘but I feel they are directing us to somewhere of their choosing.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I do not know, but we might as well enjoy the walk until we get there, eh?’

  ‘Enjoy the walk?’ asked Sigmar. ‘Have you seen where we are? This is a terrible place.’

  ‘Aye, true enough, but we are getting to walk it together, father and son, and it has been too long since we spoke as men.’

  Sigmar nodded. ‘There’s truth in that. Very well, tell me of the war in the north?’

  Björn’s face darkened, and Sigmar sensed his father’s hesitation in answering. ‘Well enough, well enough. Your men fought like the Wolves of Ulric, and the Cherusens and Taleutens fought well too. We drove the Norsii from their lands and back to their own frozen kingdom. When you are king, you must do honour to Krugar and Aloysis, son. They are honourable kings and staunch allies of the Unberogen.’

  Sigmar could not help but notice the phrasing of his father’s answer, but swallowed the feelings growing within him. Instead he asked, ‘This gateway we are heading towards? Morr’s Gate? Why exactly do we want to get there?’

  ‘Ask me when we get there,’ said his father, and Sigmar read the warning in his voice.

  They walked in silence for another indeterminate length of time, until Björn said, ‘I am proud of you, Sigmar. Your mother would have been proud of you too, had she lived.’

  Sigmar felt a tightness to his chest, and was about to reply when he saw that his father was looking at something ahead of them. He turned from his father, and the breath caught in his throat at the sight before him.

  Though the mountains had been as far away as ever the last time he had looked, they now towered overhead, monstrous black guardians of an undiscovered country beyond. As Sigmar watched, the flanks of the mountains seemed to shift and twist as though the power of a god was reshaping the rock into some new design.

  Entire cliffs shook themselves free of the mountains, grinding together to form terrifyingly huge pilasters. Towering ridgelines compressed with tectonic force, and splinters of rock and billowing clouds of dust rose from the mountains as a huge lintel took shape across the roof of the world.