‘I share Krugar’s unease at surrendering command,’ put in Aloysis, ‘but if we each fight as individuals, the greenskins will destroy us one by one. I am a big enough man to allow my Cherusen to fight under Sigmar’s strategy.’
Sigmar nodded to the Cherusen king in thanks for his support
‘I will be no spectator in battle,’ said Adelhard, drawing his sword and laying it on the table. ‘Ostvarath hungers to be wetted in orc blood.’
‘You will be no spectator,’ snapped Freya. ‘Like a true warrior, you will be in the fire of battle, where Ulric’s wolves await to take the dead to their rest. I will fight alongside Sigmar, for I know the strength in his blood. If any one of us is to take command, it must be Sigmar.’
‘And what of the Bretonii and the Jutones?’ asked Myrsa. ‘Their kings do not join us?’
‘Marius?’ spat Marbad. ‘The man is a snake. I’d sooner have the Norsii on my flanks than that conniving whoreson. At least with the Norsii you know where you stand.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Sigmar. ‘I will send emissaries to the Jutones to offer King Marius another chance to join us.’
‘And when he refuses?’ asked Marbad. ‘What then? His lands will be kept safe by the deaths of our warriors, but he will shed no tears for them. He will wring his hands and think us fools. Such a man has no honour, and does not deserve a place within the lands of men.’
As much as he loved the aged king, Sigmar knew that Marbad’s hatred of the Jutones ran too deep to be assuaged.
‘Then we will deal with Marius when the threat of the orcs is dealt with,’ said Sigmar.
One by one, the remaining kings spoke up, and the debate swung back and forth as they danced around the issue of command. Though each king spoke highly of Sigmar, and expressed their respect for his deeds and vision in gathering them together, few were willing to surrender command of their warriors to another.
Sigmar felt his temper fraying with every hour that passed, the same arguments swirling around the table time and time again. He could see everything he had tried to build over the last decade and more slipping away.
At last he rose and placed Ghal-maraz heavily on the table before him. All eyes turned to him, and he leaned forward, placing both hands palm down on the tabletop.
‘So this is how the race of man will die?’ he asked softly. ‘Bickering like old women instead of standing before our enemies with bloodied weapons in our hands?’
‘Die? What are you talking about?’ asked Siggurd.
‘This,’ said Sigmar, contempt dripping from his words. ‘A lesser race stands poised to destroy us, and we still find it in our hearts to fight amongst ourselves. Orcs are brute savages, creatures that live only for destruction. They build no farms, they work no land and they murder any who stand before them. By any measure of reckoning they are less than us, and yet they are united while we are divided by pride and ego. It grieves me to think that all we have achieved and the great strides we have made to bring our peoples together will end in such petty squabbles.’
Sigmar stood straight and lifted Ghal-maraz, holding it out before him. ‘King Kurgan Ironbeard told of how I came by this hammer at my father’s funeral, and he reminded me that this great warhammer is not just a tool of destruction, but one of creation. The blacksmith’s hammer forges the iron that makes us strong, but Ghal-maraz is much more than a blacksmith’s hammer. It is a king’s hammer, and with it I dreamed of forging an empire of man, a realm where all men could live in peace, united and strong. But, if we cannot put aside our pride, even when it means our doom, then I will have nothing more to do with this gathering. I will return to Reikdorf and prepare to fight any orc that dares to venture onto Unberogen lands. I will expect no aid from any of you, and will offer none if asked. The greenskins will come and they will destroy us. It may take them many years, but make no mistake, they will do it. Unless you stand behind me in battle.
‘Fight under my command, do what I say and we may live through this trial. Make your decision now, but remember, united we live, divided we die.’
Sigmar sat back down and placed Ghal-maraz back on the table before him. None of the tribal kings dared break the cold silence that followed until Marbad rose and moved to stand beside Sigmar. The king of the Endals drew Ulfshard, the shimmering blade forged by the craft of the fey folk, and laid it beside Ghal-maraz.
‘I have known Sigmar since he was a lad,’ said Marbad. ‘I fought alongside his father and his grandfather, Redmane Dregor. All were men of courage, and it shames me that I ever doubted the wisdom of his course. I welcome the chance to fight at Sigmar’s side, and if that means placing my warriors under his command, then so be it. How many years have we spent at war with one another? How many sons have we buried? Too many. Our strength was divided until Sigmar united us, and now we want to shy away from allowing him command of our armies? No longer will I stand apart from my brothers. The Endals will fight under Sigmar’s command.’
Marbad gripped Sigmar’s shoulder, and said, ‘Björn would be proud of you, lad.’
Adelhard rose from his seat and circled the table, drawing Ostvarath as he walked. He too placed his blade beside Sigmar’s weapon. ‘My people owe you their lives. How could I not stand behind you?’
Next came Wolfila, who placed his great broadsword beside the other swords of kings.
One by one, each of the gathered rulers set their weapons beside Sigmar’s warhammer.
Last to place his weapon was Myrsa, the Warrior Eternal of the Fauschlag rock, placing a heavy warhammer with a leather-wound grip and iron head in the shape of a snarling wolf next to Ghal-maraz.
‘I am no king, Lord Sigmar,’ said Myrsa, ‘but the warriors of the north are yours by right and by choice. What would you have us do?’
Sigmar stood, honoured and humbled by the faith his brother kings had shown him.
‘Go back to your lands, for winter is almost upon us,’ said Sigmar. ‘Allow your warriors to return to their families, for it will remind them why they fight. Gird yourselves for war and march your armies to Reikdorf in the first month of spring with sharpened swords and hardened hearts.’
‘And then?’ asked Myrsa.
‘And then we will take the fight to the greenskins,’ promised Sigmar. ‘We will destroy them at Black Fire Pass, and secure our lands forever!’
Twenty
Defenders of the Empire
‘Leave me, boy,’ gasped Svein, blood bubbling from the corners of his mouth. ‘You… know you… have to.’
‘Hush up there, old man,’ snapped Cuthwin, hauling his friend and mentor’s body around a loose tumble of snow-covered rocks, and propping him upright. Blood coated Svein’s leather jerkin and stained his woollen leggings. The wound was plugged with a strip of cloth, but blood still leaked from the hole, leaving an easily followed trail of red dots on the snow.
Cuthwin was exhausted, and he took a moment to regain his breath as he scanned their back trail. There was no sign of pursuit yet, but there would be. The smell of blood would draw the goblins, even if they were somehow unable to follow the trail he had been forced to leave while carrying his wounded friend.
The goblin’s arrow had come out of nowhere and struck the older scout in the small of the back, punching through his jerkin and jutting from his belly. A host of the squealing monsters had leapt from the darkness, serrated knives and stabbing swords bright in the moonlight.
Tiny hooded things that smelled of animal dung and rotten meat, the goblins were darting figures clad in ragged black robes that hid their cruel, pointed faces and needle-like teeth. Cuthwin killed the first two, and Svein had killed a third before they had closed in a flurry of rapid, slashing squeals.
Their weight had borne Svein to the ground, but Cuthwin had kicked them clear, stabbing with his sword and hunting knife. Even wounded, Svein had fought like a hero, snapping necks and gutting the foul little creatures with quick twists of his knife. More arrows had clattered against the rocks,
and the struggling goblins had shrieked in terror at their fellows’ lack of care for their lives, turning and fleeing into the darkened crevices of the mountains.
With the goblins fled for the time being, Svein had dropped to his knees, and Cuthwin had rushed to his friend’s side. The arrow piercing his body was a crude thing, and Cuthwin snapped off the stone head and quickly slid the shaft from Svein’s body.
‘Ach… they’ve done for me, lad,’ said Svein. ‘Leave me, and get on back to the armies.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re too big and ugly to die from this little pigsticker.’
Cuthwin swiftly plugged the wound, and hooked an arm under Svein’s shoulder before hauling him to his feet. Svein grunted in pain, but Cuthwin could not afford to waste any time, knowing that the goblins would return when their fragile courage was bolstered by numbers.
Throughout the night, he bore his friend westwards to the gates of the mountains, and safety. Winter’s grip had finally loosened on the mountains at the edge of the world, but the armies of the tribal kings were camped far from the mouth of the pass. If Svein could survive long enough, Cuthwin could get him to the apothecaries who would heal his wound.
As the night dragged on, however, and the wound continued to bleed, Cuthwin feared that the goblin’s arrow had pierced one of his friend’s kidneys and that he was bleeding internally. He also knew that goblin arrows were often coated in animal faeces, and it was more than likely that Svein’s wound was already infected.
Morning’s light brought little hope to Cuthwin, for Svein’s colour was terrible, his face ashen and his cheeks sunken. Looking at him, he knew that his friend would be lucky to live another hour, let alone return to their fellow warriors.
Cuthwin felt tears prick at his eyes, and angrily wiped them away. He had known Svein for over half his adult life, and the big man had taught him the deepest mysteries, fieldcraft and survival, becoming the surrogate father he had never known since the greenskins killed his family many years before.
In the months they had spent in the mountains, the two scouts had encountered many goblin bands, and they’d had the best of all those encounters. Cowardly creatures, the goblins would attempt to strike from ambush, but Cuthwin and Svein had craft beyond the cunning of mere goblins, and had evaded all such ambushes.
The mountains at the eastern edge of the world were home to all manner of foul creatures, goblins among the least of them, and three times they had been forced to hide to avoid the attentions of trolls and, once, a lumbering giant. The danger was incredible, but Sigmar had tasked them with gathering information on the movements and strength of the greenskin horde gathering in the mountains.
When they had reached the eastern mouth of the pass, they had seen the full extent of the orc army. Though he had seen it with his own eyes, Cuthwin could still scarcely believe the size of the orc horde, a swelling ocean of green flesh that filled the ashen plains beyond the mountains as far as the eye could see. Thousands of tribal banner poles dotted the plains, and the smoke from the greenskins’ fires cast a dark shadow over the entire landscape.
The boom of war drums echoed from the mountainsides, and the shouts and bellows of chanting orcs was like the roar of an angry god. Giant idols had been erected, enormous wicker effigies of foul orc deities, and Cuthwin’s anger had threatened to overwhelm his sense when they were burned, and he saw that each one was filled with screaming men, women and children.
Following the burning of the idols, a huge winged creature with a serpentine neck and loathsome reptilian skin took to the air, a monstrously armoured warlord astride its back. Even over the tramp of marching feet and bellowing roars of the orcs, Cuthwin could hear this mighty beast’s roar of hatred.
The horde began its march into the mountains, its movement fitful, and without the cohesion of an army of men. Packs of wolves roamed ahead of the seething host, and hideous monsters lurched alongside the tens of thousands of orcs.
Despite the snow that still lay in thick drifts, the greenskins were marching for the pass.
Both Cuthwin and Svein knew that unless Sigmar was warned the orcs were on the move, the greenskins would be through Black Fire Pass before the armies of men could stop them.
Haste had made Cuthwin and Svein incautious, and as they rested on the tenth day of their travels west, the goblins had finally caught them.
Svein would now pay with his life for their carelessness.
The news they carried was of vital import to Sigmar’s force, yet Cuthwin found that he could not leave his friend to die alone on the mountains.
‘You have to go,’ said Svein, as though guessing his thoughts.
‘No, I can’t leave you here,’ protested Cuthwin. ‘I can’t.’
‘Aye, lad,’ said Svein. ‘That’s exactly what you have to do. This wound is the death of me, and you know it.’
Cuthwin heard a soft scrape, as of rough cloth on rock, and knew that their pursuers had found them. Svein had heard it too, and he leaned forward to grip Cuthwin’s tunic, his face creased in pain and determination.
‘They’re coming now and if you don’t get to Sigmar, then I died for nothing, you understand me?’
Cuthwin nodded, his throat constricted and his eyes tearful.
‘Give me that bow,’ said Svein. ‘You won’t need it… and you’ll be quicker on your feet without it.’
Cuthwin quickly strung the bow he carried, and handed it to Svein, propping a quiver of arrows against the rocks as his friend drew his sword and laid it on the ground next to him.
‘Now, be off with you, eh?’ said Svein. ‘And may Taal guide your steps.’
Cuthwin nodded, and said, ‘Ulric’s hall will be open to you, my friend.’
Svein nodded. ‘It’d bloody well better be. I don’t plan on dying a hero’s death for nothing. Now go!’
Cuthwin turned and slipped through the rocks, leaving a trail that would take more cunning than any goblin possessed to follow.
He had travelled less than a hundred yards when he heard the first squeals of dying goblins, followed swiftly by the clash of blades, and then nothing.
The Merogens called them the Worlds Edge Mountains, and Sigmar knew that the name was well deserved. Grim sentinels at the very edge of the known world, there was little beyond them that was understood, and much that was feared. Towering peaks of grey rock soared above the landscape, reaching to the heavens and piercing the sky with their immensity.
Snow lay in thick shawls over the slopes, and stands of pines scented the air with a freshness that Sigmar found welcoming after the stench of thousands of warriors on campaign.
Spring’s boon was upon the wind, and with it the promise of a year of blood and courage.
The sun was low on the eastern horizon, shimmering through the haze of early morning and framed by the towering escarpments that marked the sheer sides of Black Fire Pass. The day Sigmar had been preparing for all his life had finally arrived, and he could feel the potential of it pressing against the inside of his skull.
Today would see the race of man doomed or triumphant.
Eoforth had woken him from a dream in which he had supped from a cup of blood with Ulric himself, and eaten meat ripped from the bones of a freshly hunted stag. A pack of wolves with bloody snouts circled him, and their howls were music to his ears.
He had told Eoforth of the dream, and the old man had smiled. ‘A good omen, I think.’
Sigmar’s silver breastplate sat upon an armour tree, gleaming and embossed with a golden comet with twin tails of fire. His winged helm shone as though new, and his greaves of bronze were worked with silver wolves.
Eoforth had helped him don his armour, and as Sigmar lifted Ghal-maraz, he felt a thrill of excitement pass through him. The ancestral weapon of King Kurgan also appreciated the significance of this day. Eoforth then handed Sigmar a golden shield, rimmed with iron, with a carved boss at its centre, depicting a snarling boar’s head.
&n
bsp; Sigmar emerged from his tent, and a great cheer erupted from hundreds of throats as the warriors camped nearest saw him. The rest of the army soon took up the cheer as word spread, and soon the mountains shook with the deafening roar of thousands of warriors.
The land of the wide plains before the gates of the mountains were filled with warriors, horses and wagons, for Sigmar and Wolfgart had travelled throughout the lands of men to ensure that the other tribes were keeping to the pledge they had made in King Siggurd’s hall.
Their travels took them to the far corners of the land, and both men were pleased to see that there were no dissenters. Even those kings who had not attended were approached afresh with promises of honour and glory, but to little avail.
Each emissary to King Marius of the Jutones had been rebuffed, and King Marbad of the Endals brought word that the Bretonii had also refused to send any aid, leaving their homes and marching south across the Grey Mountains to distant lands. As unwelcome as the news was, Sigmar knew that the departure of the Bretonii was a blessing for the Endals, who now had fresh land into which their people could expand.
As the first month of spring had drawn closer, an ambassador from the west had presented himself before the gates of Reikdorf with word from the king of the Jutones.
Sigmar’s heart had been full of hope for the meeting, but it had been cruelly dashed when the ambassador, a thin, stoop-shouldered man named Esterhuysen, had presented him with a bow of wondrous quality, the wood golden and shaped with such craft as only the fey folk across the ocean were said to possess.
‘King Marius offers you this token of his best hope,’ said Esterhuysen, bowing low. ‘Regrettably, he can spare you no warriors for your war in the south, but he hopes that this magnificent weapon will bring you luck in all your endeavours.’
Sigmar had taken the bow, a truly wondrous artefact of incalculable worth, and broken it over his knee.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 31
