Siggurdheim was as impressive as Sigmar had been led to believe, rearing above a river valley like a jumbled pile of knucklebones that might topple with the slightest push. The town was large, but constrained by the crag it was built upon, and what Sigmar could see of its defences impressed him, though its ruler had unwisely allowed the city to grow beyond the walls.
Many of the trades associated with a town of such size had spilled down the rocky slopes, with mills, tanneries and temples perched on narrow ledges, supported by a dangerous looking arrangement of wooden spars, or jutting precariously from overhangs.
Sigmar joined the road that led up the slopes by the most direct route, and soon found himself amid a press of men and women from all across the lands. He recognised Asoborn tattoos, painted Cherusens and the plaid cloaks of the Taleutens.
Mixed in with those tribes he recognised were several others he did not, harsh-faced men with dark clothing and sullen demeanours. Perhaps these were the Menogoths or Merogens, for who would not be morose living so close to danger?
As Sigmar drew close to the gate, he pulled off his travel cloak and swapped it for a clean red cloak from his pack. He draped it over his shoulders and fastened it in place with his golden cloak pin. Many passers-by admired the pin, and Sigmar glared at a number of would-be thieves until they fled.
Though many of the men were armed with short iron blades or hunting knives, none had a weapon of any significance, and Sigmar lifted Ghal-maraz from beneath his cloak and rested it across his shoulder. As he had expected, gasps of astonishment and whispers of his name spread like ripples in a pool as those around him saw the incredible weapon and pulled away.
Ghal-maraz was known and feared as the weapon of King Sigmar, and few who dwelled in the lands west of the mountains did not know of its great power.
Within moments, Sigmar was marching towards the gate alone, the wonder and majesty of his presence and that of his warhammer clearing a path for him as surely as a hundred trumpeting heralds.
The guards at the gate wore fine hauberks of iron scale, their bronze helmets polished and obviously well cared for. Each bore a long spear with a flaring, leaf-shaped blade, and a short, stabbing sword. Sigmar fought down a smile as he saw their suspicion turn to surprise and then awe as they recognised him.
Few, if any, of these folk would have laid eyes on Sigmar, but the force of his presence, the red cloak, dwarf-forged cloak pin and great warhammer could only belong to one man.
Sigmar halted before the gates of Siggurdheim.
‘I am Sigmar, king of the Unberogen,’ he said, ‘and I am here to see your king.’
‘You have come alone from Reikdorf?’ asked King Siggurd, his flowing robes brightly coloured and edged with golden thread and soft fur. A golden crown sat upon his brow, its circumference studded with precious stones.
The Great Hall of King Siggurd was a far cry from the fire lit austerity of Sigmar’s longhouse, its walls inlaid with gold and painted with bright frescoes depicting scenes of hunting and battle. Tall windows lit the hall without need for torches or lanterns, but rendered it unsuitable for defence.
Scores of warriors filled the chamber, and Sigmar had been impressed by their discipline as they had escorted him through Siggurdheim towards the king’s hall. The town was noisy and thronged with people, its heart alive with shouting voices and ad-hoc markets, selling everything from expensive gold and silver jewellery to fresh meat and brightly dyed cloth.
Every aspect of the town was given over to trade, and every street was packed with merchants and carts transporting their goods to and from the gates or docks. Despite the intense atmosphere, Sigmar had sensed a subtle undercurrent of fear as though the inhabitants kept themselves deliberately busy to avoid dwelling on some nameless fear lurking behind the smiles and shouted haggling.
King Siggurd was an impressive figure, his bearing martial and his build that of a warrior. His long hair was dark, though streaked with white, and his eyes were as cunning as Sigmar had been told they were. His guards were well armoured and carried themselves well, but Sigmar could see fear in their eyes, though of what he could not tell.
‘I have indeed walked from Reikdorf,’ said Sigmar in answer to King Siggurd’s question.
‘Why?’ asked Siggurd. ‘Such a journey is perilous at the best of times, but on your own? With the orc tribes on the march?’
‘We have seen no orcs in the Unberogen lands for some years,’ answered Sigmar.
‘Of course not, for you are far from the mountains, but we are not so fortunate here.’
‘I am not surprised,’ said Sigmar, ‘and it is for that reason that I travelled to your hall, King Siggurd. The lands of men stretch from the mountains on the south and east to the oceans of the north and west, and the tribes of men that dwell within it are the blessed people of the gods. We farm fertile land, we raise our children and we gather around the hearth fires to hear tales of valour, but there will always be those who seek to take what we have from us: orcs, beasts and men of evil character. In the north, I have forged alliances with many tribes, for we were like packs of wild dogs, fighting and scrapping while the wolves grew stronger around us. It is madness to allow petty divisions to keep us apart when our common ancestry should bind us together. In any settlement, all men must aid their neighbours, or they will perish. When one calls for aid, all must answer.’
‘A noble sentiment,’ said Siggurd, stepping down from his throne and walking towards Sigmar. ‘Altruism is all very well, King Sigmar, but it is the nature of man to serve himself. Even when one man helps another, it is usually in the hope that he will receive some reward.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Sigmar, ‘but I remember when a fire started in a barn at the edge of Reikdorf last year. The barn was beyond saving, but the owner’s neighbours still bent every effort to prevent its destruction.’
‘To prevent the fire spreading to their own properties,’ pointed out Siggurd.
‘No doubt that played a part, yes, but when the fire was extinguished, those same neighbours then helped to rebuild the burned barn. Where was the gain for them in this? Everyone in Reikdorf knows they can count on the people around them to support them in times of trouble, and that shared community is what gives us strength. It is the same with the tribes. I have sworn Sword Oaths with six kings of the north and all our warriors fight as one. When the beasts of the forest kill the settlements of the coast, Unberogen horse archers ride into battle alongside Endal spearmen. When the orcs of the east raid Asoborn villages, Taleuten warriors and Unberogen axemen drive them back into the mountains.’
Siggurd drew level with Sigmar, and he saw that the king’s eyes were drawn to Ghal-maraz. Sigmar held the warhammer out for the king of the Brigundians to hold.
‘The strength of your sword arm is well known to me, as is the power of your allies,’ said Siggurd, taking hold of the warhammer and hefting it in a powerful grip. ‘You keep your lands safe with thousands of warriors, who fight with the courage you give them. By strength of arms are your people defended, but we Brigundians prosper more by trade and diplomacy. Brigundian farms provide food for the Asoborns, the Merogens and the Menogoths, and our grain goes to the breweries of the dwarfs. These people are our friends, and through such alliances our lands are made safe.’
Sigmar shook his head. ‘There will come a time when diplomacy will avail you nothing, when an enemy comes in such numbers that no tribe can stand before it alone. Join with me in swearing a Sword Oath, and our people will stand together as brothers. Together with the tribes of the south, we will finally be united as a people.’
‘All men must stand together?’ asked Siggurd, handing Ghal-maraz back to Sigmar.
‘Yes.’
‘And all men should answer their neighbour if they call for aid?’
‘No man of honour would refuse such a call,’ said Sigmar.
Siggurd smiled and said, ‘Then as your brother king, I ask for your aid in fighting a great evil that plagues
my lands.’
‘My strength is yours,’ said Sigmar. ‘What manner of evil troubles your lands?’
‘A beast of the ancient times,’ said Siggurd. ‘A dragon ogre.’
The peaks to the south of Siggurdheim were dark and hostile, the rocks jagged and the clouds drawn in tight to the mountains’ flanks. The air was cold and, within a few hours of climbing, Sigmar was coated in clammy wetness. The hairs on his arms stood erect, and flickering embers of ball lightning danced from the rocks around him.
No sound of wildlife nor cry of birds disturbed the silence, and the only sounds were the skitter of loose shale beneath Sigmar’s feet and the echoes of stones falling down the slopes and splashing into dark, silent tarns.
The wind sighed through clefts in the rock, and Sigmar had the uncomfortable feeling that the mountain was groaning in some dreaming pain. His hands were bloody where the razor-edged rocks had cut his palms, and his leggings and tunic were torn open.
Sigmar had left King Siggurd and his warriors in the foothills far below, by the banks of a fast-flowing river that rose in the heart of the mountains. A fair-sized village had been built beside the river, but nothing lived there now. Every building had been gutted by fire or torn down, and the wanton devastation reminded Sigmar of the ruins of the Asoborn villages raided by the forest beasts.
The main road through the remains of the village was dotted with blackened craters that resembled powerful lightning strikes, and Sigmar felt a growing sense of nervous anticipation at the thought of facing a creature that could call upon such power. Then he remembered the leader of the forest beasts and how it had used dark sorcery to hurl deadly bolts of lightning.
It had fallen to his warhammer, and so too would this creature of evil.
A drizzling rain had cloaked everything in grey, and the bitter sense of abandonment was palpable. Sigmar saw that many of the houses had been smashed down instead of burned, not by axe or hammer, but by brute strength.
‘This was once Krealheim,’ explained Siggurd, sadly, ‘one of the many settlements destroyed by the beast. Many believe this to be the first settlement of the Brigundians. It was where my mother and father were raised.’
‘And the dragon ogre did all this?’ asked Sigmar, aghast. ‘One creature?’
‘Aye,’ nodded Siggurd. ‘The dwarfs call it Skaranorak. They say that its strength can crush boulders and its claws can cleave even rune-forged armour. My trackers believe it was driven from the depths of the mountains by the mountain king’s slayers and now seeks to prey on us.’
‘You have sent hunting parties to destroy the beast?’
‘I have, but none have returned,’ said Siggurd. ‘My son led the last expedition, and I fear greatly for his life.’
‘I will slay this Skaranorak for you, King Siggurd,’ vowed Sigmar, offering his hand.
‘Kill it and you shall have my sword oath,’ promised Siggurd, ‘and the oaths of the Menogoths and Merogens.’
‘Their oaths are yours to give?’
‘They are,’ said Siggurd. ‘Kill the beast and we shall be part of your grand empire.’
Sigmar had found a small fishing boat that was just about seaworthy, and made his way across the river to begin his climb. Now, with the icy wind slicing down through deep, vertical crevices in the rock, Sigmar was chilled to the bone and his body felt like it was wrapped in freezing blankets.
He found some shelter in the lee of a jutting overhang of black rock, the shadowed hollow beneath it mercifully free from wind and water. Sigmar gathered together the little wood he could find and set a fire, the flickering flames barely warming his numbed body at all. Despite the cold, he slept, tiredness, and the pressing despair that hung over the mountains like a shroud, conspiring to overcome his watchfulness.
When Sigmar awoke it was approaching dawn, the stars invisible above him and a mournful howling coming from far away. No wolf this, but something far more dangerous and unnatural. He had not idea how long he had slept, but the fire was virtually dead and his limbs were frozen in place. He added some kindling to the fire and stretched his legs, massaging the tension from his thighs, and stretched his arms behind his head when the blaze caught.
With his limbs loosened, Sigmar warmed his cloak over the fire and chewed a little cured meat he had brought with him. He drank from a leather waterskin, for he was unwilling to trust the dark streams that tumbled down the mountainside.
‘Time to be on my way,’ he said, the mountain throwing back his voice in a mocking echo.
Weak sunlight lit the clouds, casting a diffuse glow over the bleak and inhospitable peaks, and Sigmar’s spirits fell as he saw how little he had climbed. The low clouds obscured the full height of the mountains, but allowed him a perfect view of the lands below. The greens and golds of the fields and forests seemed to call out to Sigmar, and he ached for the feel of grass beneath his feet and the scent of flowers.
Looking at the sweep of wondrous land below him, it was little wonder that the beasts that dwelled in these forsaken peaks desired to take them for themselves.
For the rest of the day, Sigmar climbed higher and higher, pushing his body past the point where he knew he should turn back. Each time he came close to the edge of endurance, he heard his father’s voice in his ear.
‘It’s all about oaths, Sigmar,’ whispered Björn from the Halls of Ulric. ‘Honour those you make and others will follow your example.’
And so, Sigmar would climb onwards.
As dawn broke in sheeting rain on the second day of his travels, Sigmar heaved his battered body through a jagged cleft of boulders, every breath like fire in his lungs. He slumped to his knees, breaking clusters of wood beneath him. He was grateful for the brief shelter from the thieving wind, and took a moment to rest before setting off once more.
As his breathing returned to normal, he realised that the pile of splintered wood he knelt upon was in fact brittle, bleached bones. With the realisation came alertness, and Sigmar reached for the reassuring feel of Ghal-maraz. The haft of his warhammer was warm, and he could sense a smouldering anger burning within the weapon, as though some ancestral foe was close by.
Keeping as still as possible, Sigmar took stock of his surroundings: a wide, lightning-blasted canyon formed from great slabs of glistening rock that had collided in ages past and formed a multi-layered plateau filled with an army’s worth of shattered bones and skulls.
To Sigmar’s left, the side of the mountain fell away into a darkened abyss, its base lost to sight beneath swirling clouds of yellow vapour. Ahead was a yawning cave mouth with a dozen corpses scattered before it. Most were missing limbs, some were missing heads, but all had been partially devoured.
A crackling energy filled the air, fizzing the rain, and Sigmar could see rippling lines of blue fire wreath the head of Ghal-maraz.
He heard a heavy crunch of splintering rock and looked up to see a monstrous creature from his worst nightmares, emerging from the darkness of the cave: Skaranorak.
Eighteen
Skaranorak
A dragon ogre, one of the most ancient races of the world. Sigmar had heard the elders tell tales of the dragons of the deep mountains, and had once even seen the preserved corpse of a hulking warrior that a travelling showman had claimed was an ogre, but nothing had prepared him for the awesome sight of Skaranorak.
It was a thing of flesh and blood, to be sure, but it seemed harder, older and more solid than the mountains it called home. A cloak of winter trailed it, and lightning crowned its head, but its body was a horror of warped, iron-hard flesh. Its lower body was the colour of rust, scaled and hugely muscled like a giant lizard, with powerful, reverse-jointed legs, gripping the rain-slick rocks with yellowed talons like sword blades.
A serpentine tail slithered behind the beast, blue sparks leaping from the iron spikes hammered through its end. The dragon-like form of the beast’s lower half merged with the upper body of what resembled a massively swollen man, layered with muscles like
forged iron, and pierced with rings and spikes. Great chains dangled from its thick wrists, and Sigmar could only wonder what manner of fool would try to keep such a dreadful beast captive.
Tattoos of dark meaning slithered across its chest as though writhing beneath its skin, and a mane of matted fur, stiffened with blood, ran from the back of its bestial skull to the middle of its back.
The monster’s head was horrifyingly human, its features grossly exaggerated and widely spaced across its face, yet altogether recognisable. Its nose was a squashed mass, and its lips were kept forever open by a jutting pair of bloodied tusks.
Beneath a heavily ridged brow of thick bone, eyes of such infinite malice and age that Sigmar could scarce credit they belonged to a living thing surveyed its domain.
With utter certainty, Sigmar knew that the monster was aware of him and was even now seeking him out, its flattened nose wrinkling as it sought to separate his scent from the myriad foetid odours before it.
The monster reached down and lifted a massive, double-bladed axe from the ground next to it, and Sigmar felt a tremor of fear as he saw the enormous size of the blades. Such a weapon could fell an oak with one blow!
‘Ulric grant me strength,’ he whispered, and regretted it immediately as he saw the beast’s head snap towards his hiding place, though it could surely not have heard him over the relentless hammering of the rain and distant booms of thunder.
The dragon ogre let loose a deafening bellow that echoed from the canyon’s sides, and charged. It crashed over the rocks, its speed phenomenal for such a large creature, and Sigmar saw a raging fire in its eyes.
He rose swiftly and leapt to the side as Skaranorak’s weapon smashed down onto the rocks, the force of the blow sundering boulders and cleaving rock. The axe swept to the side, and Sigmar pressed his body flat against the ground as it whistled over him, a hand’s span from splitting him from crown to groin.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 28
