Bellowing orcs surrounded him, and a heavy club smashed into his shoulder, tearing his last remaining shoulder guard away and driving him to his knees. Ghal-maraz swept out in a low arc and smashed the legs from his attacker, who fell in a crumpled heap beside him.
Sigmar rose and stamped his heel down on the orc’s throat as he blocked the sweeping axe blow with his shield. A sword sailed past his head, and he swayed aside as a spear stabbed for his chest. He smote the spear-carrier, and rammed his shield forward into the face of another orc as an axe caromed from his breastplate.
‘Pendrag!’ cried Sigmar as he saw a great shadow loom over his sword-brother.
The troll creature was a terrifying monster of gigantic proportions, its limbs grossly swollen and lumpen with twisted muscle. Its head was enormous, repellent and humanoid, but its eyes held no gleam of intelligence. Hideous growths and fur like wire sprouted from its grey, stony flesh, and it carried the trunk of a tree with a dozen sword blades jutting from the end.
The monster drooled smoking saliva, and its limbs moved with a ponderous strength. Pendrag looked up through a mask of blood in time to see the massive spiked club descending towards him, and raised his arms in a futile gesture of defiance.
Sigmar slammed into Pendrag, pushing him from the path of the troll’s club. The monstrous weapon split the ground, and Sigmar rolled to his feet with Ghal-maraz raised and his shield held before him. Pendrag lay where he fell, the crimson banner fallen beside him.
The troll towered above Sigmar, a thick lipped smile of hungry malice spreading across its slack features. A series of booming grunts came from its mouth, and Sigmar realised that it was laughing.
Anger filled him, and he ducked beneath its swinging club, smashing his hammer against the monster’s thigh. The beast’s hide cracked beneath the blow, and the ringing impact travelled up Sigmar’s arm as though he had struck the side of a mountain. Its club swung for him again, and he took the blow on his shield. The metal cracked, and his arm felt as though a horse had trampled it.
The troll reached for him, but he dodged its clumsy, grasping hands. Sigmar heard shouts from his men as they saw their king’s danger and rushed to his aid. The orcs fell back from the renewed attack, but they would not be held for long.
Sigmar spun inside the troll’s reach, swinging his hammer for the monster’s face, but the beast reared up, and Ghal-maraz slammed into its chest with a heavy crack. The troll’s armoured hide split wide open, and vile, stinking blood sprayed from the wound. Sigmar gagged and fell back, his gorge rising at such an unholy reek.
He blinked to clear his vision, and stared in shock as the terrible wound in the troll’s chest began to close over, its thick skin slithering and growing with unnatural speed to repair the damage. Sigmar’s surprise almost cost him his life as the troll drew in a great breath and leaned forwards with its mouth opened wide.
Instinct made Sigmar raise his shield, and he cried out as a torrent of disgusting fluid vomited from the troll. The stench was unbearable and the acrid stink of its digestive fluids stung his eyes.
Sigmar tumbled away from the troll, repulsed beyond words as he felt a sizzling heat across his arm and chest. His shield was melting, the metal hissing and flowing as it dripped in golden droplets to the earth. Astonishment made him slow, until a tiny rivulet of the troll’s eructation dripped onto his arm.
The pain was incredible, and he cast the shield from him, seeing that he had been the luckiest of those standing before the troll. A trio of Unberogen warriors screamed in unimaginable pain as the acidic bile burned through their armour and liquefied the flesh beneath. Sigmar felt a heat on his chest, and looked down to see a bubbling stain of hissing bile eating through the metal of his breastplate.
Sigmar dropped to his knees, fumbling with the straps securing the breastplate to his chest, but they were out of reach. He cried out as the heat of the acid seared his skin.
‘Hold still,’ said Pendrag, appearing at his shoulder with a knife in his hands.
‘Hurry!’ cried Sigmar.
Pendrag sawed through the straps securing the armour, and Sigmar cast the breastplate from his body with a desperate heave. In pain, but grateful to be alive, Sigmar nodded his thanks to his sword-brother and rose to his feet in the thick of the fighting.
Pendrag once again held his banner, and Sigmar saw that his warriors had formed a shieldwall around him, protecting him while he faced the troll. Perhaps a hundred men still fought, and Sigmar could see no end to the orcs encircling them. An ocean of green flesh surrounded this island of Unberogen.
His warriors were attempting a fighting withdrawal, but the orcs had cut off every avenue of escape, and they were trapped. Sigmar could see little of the battle beyond this fight, but he hoped that Alfgeir or some other king could see their desperate predicament.
Sigmar heard a disgusting cracking, slurping sound, and saw the troll devouring one of the warriors who had fallen beneath its dreadful vomit. The man’s leg still protruded from its jaws, but with a heave of its gullet, the leg was swallowed. The troll looked up, and, seeing Sigmar, bludgeoned its way through the shieldwall towards him.
Warriors were smashed aside by its enormous club, sailing over the heads of their fellows to land in the midst of the orcs. Sigmar leapt to meet the troll, even as he knew he could not defeat it alone. As if in answer to that thought, a handful of his warriors, including Pendrag, attacked with him, stabbing long spears and swords at the horrific beast.
Blades cut its hide and spears stabbed into its sagging belly, but no sooner had the monster bled than its terrible anatomy would heal within moments. Men were crushed beneath its heavy club, and Sigmar saw cruel enjoyment in its moronic features. Nothing they could do was harming this monster, and the shieldwall was shrinking as men fell to the chopping blades of the orcs.
Then Sigmar heard the thunder of hooves, and his heart leapt as he saw the blessed sight of the Raven Helms of King Marbad cutting a path through the orcs. The black-armoured riders smashed through the greenskins, their heavy steeds crushing their foes, and their lances spitting them where they stood.
King Marbad rode at their head, and the old king was magnificent, his silver hair streaming behind him as he clove through the ranks of the orcs, Ulfshard’s blade streaming with blue fire. No power of the orcs could stand before the sword of the fey folk, and the stone set in its pommel shone with ancient power.
The Raven Helms were the greatest warriors of the Endals, and the orcs scattered before them or else were destroyed by them. Needing no orders, the Unberogen began fighting to link with Marbad’s warriors.
A deafening roar of hunger echoed as the troll smashed through Sigmar’s warriors and came at him again, its stomach heaving with grotesque motion. Its monstrous head lowered and its jaws spread wide once more.
‘Sigmar!’ shouted Marbad, drawing his arm back.
The king of the Endals hurled Ulfshard towards Sigmar, the glittering blade of the fey folk spinning with effortless grace towards him.
Sigmar plucked the weapon from the air, blue flames leaping from the blade at his touch, and spun on his heel.
The wondrous blade sliced into the troll’s throat, cutting clean through its neck with a searing blast of power. The monster’s head flew from its shoulders, and its body crashed to the ground.
Sigmar roared in triumph, and let the fire of Ulfshard join with the winter flames that burned in his own heart. With a weapon of power in each hand, Sigmar turned from the troll’s corpse and raced to rejoin his warriors as Pendrag led them through the orcs towards the Raven Helms.
A cry of rage torn from scores of throats made him look up, and he cried out as he saw Marbad’s horse brought down, and the old king fall among the orcs.
‘Marbad!’ shouted Sigmar, cleaving a path towards his friend. The orcs were no match for him, and his twin weapons cut through his enemies with ease, but Sigmar already knew he would be too late. He smashed Ghal-maraz through the skull of
an orc too slow to flee before him, and stabbed Ulfshard through the back of another as he drove them from the body of the fallen king.
Sigmar reached the king of the Endals and knelt beside him, anguish tearing at his heart as he saw the terrible wound in Marbad’s chest. Blood pooled beneath the king, and Sigmar saw there would be no saving him.
A spear had torn into his lower back, ripping up into his lungs, and a broken sword blade jutted from his side. A circle of warriors formed around him, Raven Helms and Unberogen both.
‘You old fool,’ wept Sigmar, ‘throwing your sword like that.’
‘I had to,’ coughed Marbad, gripping Sigmar’s hand. ‘She promised me glory.’
‘And you have it, my king,’ said Sigmar. ‘You are a hero.’
Marbad tried to smile, but a spasm of coughing shook him. ‘There is no pain now,’ he said. ‘That is good.’
‘Yes,’ said Sigmar, pressing Ulfshard into the dying king’s hand.
‘I always feared this day,’ said Marbad, his voice drifting, ‘but now that it is here… I do not… regret it.’
With those words, the king of the Endals passed from the realms of man.
Sigmar stood, and his hatred of the greenskins burned hotter than ever as he took in the measure of the battle in an instant. The tempo of the fighting had changed, and he saw that Menogoth warriors were pushing forward to secure the right flank that they had previously fled.
Once more the battle had become a desperate toe-to-toe struggle of heaving warriors.
Howling orcs crashed against the warriors of men and dwarfs, the line of defenders bending back, but as yet unbroken. The charge of the Raven Helms had forged a path back to his army, and Sigmar was not about to waste his brother king’s sacrifice.
A young man Sigmar recognised as Marbad’s son pushed through the ring of warriors, his face a mask of grief.
‘Father,’ wept Aldred, cradling Marbad’s head in his lap.
‘Let me help you with him,’ offered Sigmar.
‘No,’ snapped Aldred as four Raven Helms stepped forward. ‘We will carry him.’
Sigmar nodded and stepped back as the Endal warriors lifted Marbad onto their shields.
As he watched the Raven Helms bear Marbad away, Sigmar knew that there was only one way to end this battle.
‘Gods, man, what were you thinking?’ demanded Alfgeir as Sigmar jogged back to where the war banner of the Unberogen was planted in the ground. He did not answer Alfgeir, but simply swung into the saddle of his gelding. His armour had been torn from him, and his body was a mass of blood and scars.
‘We cannot win the battle like this,’ said Sigmar. ‘The orcs will grind us down, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.’
Alfgeir looked set to deliver a withering reply, but saw the cold fire in Sigmar’s eyes and thought better of it.
‘What are your orders, sire?’ he asked.
‘Send runners to every king,’ commanded Sigmar. ‘Tell them to watch the rock of the Eagle’s Nest and to follow my example.’
‘Why?’ asked Alfgeir. ‘What are you going to do?’
But Sigmar had already ridden away.
Twenty-Three
Birth of an Empire
Sigmar pushed his roan gelding hard towards the Eagle’s Nest, riding behind the front lines of battle. The clash of iron and flesh filled his senses, and it was all he could do not to turn his horse towards the battle. He would fight soon enough, but he had grander plans than simply joining the fighting ranks.
The jutting rock was aptly named, for it rose in a sweeping curve like an eagle’s noble head. It dominated the centre of the pass, its summit some ten yards above the ground, and Sigmar could see why Master Alaric had suggested he direct the battle from here.
Sigmar vaulted from his saddle as he reached the rock, and slapped the gelding’s rump to send it on its way to the reserves gathered behind the front line. He swiftly climbed the rock, the many handholds making the ascent easier than he had thought.
Atop the Eagle’s Nest, the entire battle was laid out before him, and the sheer scale of it astounded him. In the thick of the fighting, a man could only see his immediate surroundings, the warriors next to him and the enemy before him, but here, the awesome spectacle of two entire races attempting to destroy one another was laid before Sigmar.
He could not even begin to guess how many warriors filled the pass, for surely no concept existed for such an amount. From the narrowest point of the pass, the orc hordes stretched back, virtually uninterrupted, to where the ground dropped away to the east.
Tens of thousands of warriors opposed them, but they were a thin wall of iron and courage between the dark lands of the east and Sigmar’s bountiful homeland of the west.
High above the orc host, its master soared on the back of the dark-pinioned wyvern, and Sigmar longed to bury his warhammer in its foul skull.
Goblin arrows arced towards him, but Sigmar did not move as they clattered against the rock or whistled past him. His practiced eye, which had read a hundred battles, now saw the grim reality of this struggle.
It could not be won.
As things stood, his warriors had already achieved the impossible, holding back a numberless tide of greenskins with a fraction of the numbers, but that could not last forever, the orcs would simply wear them down.
King Kurgan’s warriors fought in the centre of the battle, where the fighting was thickest, the dwarf king killing orcs with gleeful abandon. Master Alaric fought beside the king, his runestaff wreathed with crackling lightning that burned the flesh of whatever it touched.
No king could ask for finer allies than these.
The warriors of the tribal kings saw him atop the Eagle’s Nest, and cheered his name as they fought, pushing the orc line back with renewed determination. Warriors from all the different tribes fought side by side, and as Sigmar saw the fresh fire in their hearts, he knew what he had to do.
Sigmar gripped the haft of Ghal-maraz tightly and sprinted towards the edge of the rock, leaping from the Eagle’s Nest towards the mass of roaring orcs.
Alfgeir saw Sigmar’s insane leap from the Eagle’s Nest, and cried out as his king flew through the air with his warhammer raised high. The moment stretched, and Alfgeir knew he would never forget the sight of Sigmar as he fell towards the orcs like a barbarian hero from the ancient sagas.
Every warrior in the army watched as Sigmar landed among the orcs with a roar of hate and then vanished from view.
Alfgeir had lost one king in battle and he vowed he was not about to lose another.
He circled his horse and shouted, ‘White Wolves. To me! We ride for the king!’
Sigmar swept his warhammer around his body, the heavy head smashing the armour of a huge orc armed with a blood-soaked cleaver. He wielded Ghal-maraz in both hands, his strength undiminished despite the bloodshed of the day. Each blow was delivered with a bellowing howl of rage, animal to the core, answering the orcs’ unending war cry.
Blood sprayed as the king of the Unberogen slaughtered his foes, driving ever deeper into the greenskins like a man possessed. Cold fire burned in his eyes, and, where he fought, the winter wind howled around him.
Orcs scrambled to be away from this bloody madman, who fought with a fury greater than that of any orc. Sigmar killed and killed without thought, seeing only the enemies of his race and the destruction of all that was good and pure. His vengeance against the orcs was unsullied by notions of honour and glory. This was simple survival. Ghal-maraz filled him with hate, his fury armoured him in thunder, and Ulric poured lightning into his veins.
Sigmar was screaming, but he knew not what he shouted, for his entire being was focused on the slaughter. His rage was total, yet this was not the wanton fury of the berserker, this was controlled aggression at its most distilled.
A hundred orcs were dead already, and a great circle opened around Sigmar as the orcs fought each other to escape his rampage. Ancient energies flared from Ghal-
maraz as it worked its slaughter, powers that not even the most revered runelords could name aiding the king’s bloody work.
Sigmar fought with the might of every one of his illustrious ancestors, his enemies unable to even approach him, let along bring him down. Powers from the dawn of the world flowed through him, his muscles iron hard and invigorated with strength beyond imagining.
With grim, murderous strokes, Sigmar pushed onwards, hearing a swelling roar behind him as the tribal kings followed the last order he had given to Alfgeir.
Their hearts filled with fiery pride, the armies of men charged with the last of their strength and hope.
Unberogen champions and Udose clansmen threw themselves at the orcs, fighting with the same fury and strength as Sigmar. Wolfgart cut through orc armour with mighty swings of his heavy sword, and Pendrag fought like a berserker as he hacked a path towards Sigmar.
Ostagoth blademasters cut bloody ruin through the orcs, and Cherusen wildmen cackled like loons as they tore at their foes with hooked gauntlets. Asoborn warrior women danced through the greenskins with long daggers, plucking out eyes and slashing hamstrings, while Taleuten riders abandoned their steeds to charge in with slashing swords.
Raven Helms skewered orcs upon lowered lances, and the steeds of the White Wolves smashed into the orcs as their riders broke open enemy heads with their swinging hammers.
Screaming berserkers fought without heed of their own lives, and King Otwin roared as he swung his axe in lethal arcs. Myrsa and the warriors clad in all-enclosing plate chopped a bloody swathe through the orcs with wide sweeps of their terrifying greatswords.
The orcs were in disarray, and the front line was butchered by the sudden onslaught.
None dared come near Sigmar as he pushed onwards, further even than his most courageous warriors had reached. Orcs flowed around him, and panic seized the nearest, a ripple of fear spreading from the front of the army as the fury of this newborn god spread.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 35
