All else was folly, and he grieved at how easily his heart had been turned from its course.
Sigmar took hold of the golden crown.
It burned with dark magic, and he saw that its golden light was hideous and filled with malice. It fought him, filling his thoughts with ever more outrageous promises of power. His weary soul had been blinded to the crown’s malevolence, but now he knew what a terrible trap it had been.
With a soundless scream, Sigmar tore the ancient metal from his brow.
His entire body was a searing mass of pain, but not even the touch of Shallya could compare to the joy that filled him as the crown’s terrible hold was broken. Sigmar pushed up from the bottom of the pool with the last of his strength, feeling a wordless scream of frustration echo from somewhere far, far away.
Slicks of light whirled above him, strange stars and unknown worlds, but he kept his gaze fixed upon the water’s rippling surface. At one and the same time it seemed unbearably close, yet impossibly distant. His strength was gone, and he knew he could not reach the surface.
A questing hand splashed down into the water, and Sigmar reached out for it, feeling an iron grip take hold of his wrist and pull.
Sigmar burst from the pool, his chest heaving and expelling a torrent of scum-frothed water. He clawed his way up the muddy banks, revelling in the sweetness of the air and the myriad scents that filled the swamp. A strong pair of hands hauled him the rest of the way and he rolled onto his back, sucking great gulps of air into his tortured lungs.
A hulking form sat on a nearby rock, a warrior covered from head to foot in black mud, whose face was bruised and bloody. Sigmar wiped his face and gathered breath to thank his rescuer, but the words died in his throat.
‘Thought I’d lost you there,’ said Wolfgart.
When he had strength enough to stand, Sigmar embraced his sword-brother, shamed and honoured by his devotion. The cool air of the marsh felt wondrously sharp against his skin, and Sigmar revelled in the sensation. He breathed as though it were the sweetest nectar. His entire body shook with cold and pain, but he welcomed it, for it was a reminder that he was alive.
At last they parted, and Sigmar looked down at the crown he held in one hand. He dropped it as though it were red-hot and stepped away from it. Wolfgart bent to examine the crown, but Sigmar kicked it away.
‘Do not touch it!’ he cried. ‘It is a thing of evil!’
‘I know,’ said Wolfgart, ‘and you should have known too. What kind of fool trusts a treasure taken from a necromancer?’
Sigmar knew that Wolfgart was right, but would anything be gained in trying to explain the glamour with which the ancient crown had ensnared him? That it had preyed upon his ambition and exploited the warlike heart that made him so formidable a warrior? Anything he said now would sound like an excuse, an attempt to abrogate responsibility for his actions.
And that was something that Sigmar would never do.
‘The Roppsmenn,’ he said, burying his head in his hands. ‘Oh gods, what have I done?’
That the crown had saved Pendrag’s life did not matter, for there were no excuses that could atone for what he had done in the months since Morath’s defeat.
‘Aye, you’ll carry that one for the rest of your life,’ said Wolfgart, ‘and you’ll have a job earning back the trust of the counts.’
‘What about you?’ asked Sigmar haltingly. ‘I almost killed you.’
‘But you didn’t,’ said Wolfgart, offering him his hand. ‘That’s what’s important. It was the crown, it made you do those terrible things. But that’s done with now.’
‘The crown is evil,’ agreed Sigmar, ‘but it could have done nothing to me unless it had found some darkness within me to latch onto. The Hag Woman tried to warn me about replacing Alaric’s gift, but I did not listen.’
‘Ah, speaking of the mountain folk,’ said Wolfgart, reaching down to lift a canvas bag from the edge of the pool, ‘I brought some things for you. I had hoped to give them to you earlier, but… Well, things got a bit out of hand.’
Wolfgart reached into the bag, and Sigmar almost wept at the sight of what he pulled out.
Ghal-maraz glittered in the light, and Sigmar felt his hand curl with the urge to grip the ancient warhammer.
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Pendrag gave it to Redwane when you parted company at Middenheim, and he carried it south to Reikdorf,’ said Wolfgart. ‘Go on, take it.’
Hesitantly, Sigmar reached out, and slowly wrapped his fingers around the rune-encrusted haft of Ghal-maraz, flinching as the last of the golden crown’s influence was purged from him by the dwarf rune-magic. He smiled as the weapon settled in his grip, just as a well-made cloak which had weathered the harshest winter would feel after being warmed by the fire.
Wolfgart reached into the bag again, and pulled out another gift
The crown fashioned by Alaric the Mad.
Sigmar took a step back.
He shook his head.
‘No, I do not deserve to wear it,’ he said.
‘Of course you do,’ said Wolfgart. ‘You’re the only man who can. This has been a dark period, but it’s time for you to be our Emperor once again. A fresh start. What do you say?’
Sigmar looked into his friend’s eyes, seeing devotion and forgiveness he did not deserve.
Through everything, Wolfgart still believed in him.
‘I do not deserve a friend like you,’ he said.
‘I know, but you’re stuck with me,’ said Wolfgart. ‘Now take your crown.’
‘No,’ said Sigmar, dropping to his knees before Wolfgart. ‘If this is to be a fresh start, then I want you to crown me anew.’
‘I’m no Ar-Ulric, but I think I can manage that.’
Sigmar bowed, and Wolfgart placed the crown upon his head. Like Ghal-maraz, Alaric’s crown welcomed him without reservation or rancour, and the wisdom and love that had gone into its craft filled him with strength he had not realised had drained from him.
He stood and looked out over the marshes. The sun was breaking through the clouds and clearing the mists away. Sigmar felt the sunlight on his skin and smiled. It felt good to be alive, but even as he relished this rebirth he knew there was much yet to be done.
‘We must get back, my friend’ said Sigmar at last. ‘The empire is in great danger.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ asked Wolfgart.
‘There are two counts of the empire I need to set free,’ said Sigmar. ‘I have behaved shamefully towards them, and I only hope they can forgive me.’
‘Ach, they’ll be fine,’ said Wolfgart. ‘Krugar and Aloysis know they did wrong, and one thing’s for sure; they’ll not be sending raiders into each other’s lands again any time soon. But that’s not what you meant, is it?’
‘No,’ said Sigmar. ‘The Norsii return to reclaim the lands I took from them. Hundreds of Wolfships are already crossing the Sea of Claws, and the north is virtually undefended.’
Wolfgart shrugged.
‘It was only a matter of time until they came at us again,’ he said. ‘At least I’ll get to put that sword above the fire to good use, though you’ll be the one explaining to my little girl why her father is going to war again!’
Book Three
Empire of War
Twelve swords, one for each chief,
And holy Sigmar bade each to wield it
In justice for his people,
And pledge to fight for one another
In undying unity,
Thus did every chief’s hall
Become a stronghold in the realm of men.
Seventeen
Wolves of the North
They had lost.
Dawn was minutes old, and the army had been on the march for eight hours already. Thousands of warriors in ragged bands of bloodied survivors marched south in the shadow of the Middle Mountains. Sigmar watched each man as he passed, seeing the same sullen disbelief in every face.
They had lost.
The armies of the empire never lost a battle.
It hadn’t quite sunk in.
No one could believe it, least of all Sigmar.
It had been a bright spring afternoon, the perfect day for a battle. Sigmar had felt powerful and invincible as he sat atop his horse and watched the Norsii of Cormac Bloodaxe march out to give battle. Eight thousand warriors of the empire—Udose, Unberogen, Thuringians and Jutones—stood in disciplined ranks on a forested ridge some fifty miles from the northern coast. Each of the tribal contingents was led by its count, and Sigmar had relished the chance to march alongside Otwin and Marius.
The counts had gathered the previous evening to plan the coming battle, and Sigmar found himself missing Wolfila’s garrulous company more than ever, for the Udose chieftain who attended the war council was a dour, humourless man named Conn Carsten. Since last spring, the Udose lands had been riven with skirmishes as the clan lords fought one another to claim the title of count, but the Norsii invasion had put an end to the feuding long enough for them to name Conn Carsten as their war-chieftain.
Hard to like, Carsten was nevertheless a canny soldier who knew the land well. Under his command, the northern clans had slowed the Norsii advance, and given Sigmar time to gather a sword host. But for Carsten, the north would have already fallen.
With plans drawn and the courage of their warriors bolstered by the presence of the Emperor, the army had marched out to victory. Every warrior could taste the sweetness of triumph, the honour and glory that would be theirs. The tales of blood and courage they would tell upon their return home were already taking shape in each man’s head.
But they had lost.
No sooner had the counts taken the field beneath a wild panoply of colourful banners than malformed storm-clouds swelled in the clear sky. They crackled with gleeful lightning, fat with the promise of rain. Howling storm winds blew, and a sour, battering downpour began, like the legendary floods said to have drowned the world in ages past.
Arcing bolts of lightning slammed into the earth as the storm broke, and tremors of fear rippled along the empire line at such unnatural phenomena. Worse was to come.
Sigmar rode with the White Wolves in the centre of his army, and each warrior sought to restore their honour after the war against the Roppsmenn.
The thunder of their hooves was the sound of victory.
Then a shrieking bolt of azure lightning had struck the bearer of the White Wolves banner.
The warrior fell from his horse, his flesh blackened, and the symbol of the Emperor’s Guard afire. The banner fell to the ground, its crimson fabric utterly consumed by blue flames that were apparently impervious to the endless rain. Horrified cries rang from the forested ridge, but it was too late to quell that fear. Torrential rain turned the ground to a quagmire, and the advance became a trudging hell of sucking mud and blinding lightning strikes.
As Sigmar’s warriors floundered, the Norsii attacked with a savage bray of war horns. The host of Norsemen marched out beneath the skull-banner of Cormac Bloodaxe and fought with discipline, courage and, worst of all, a plan. Instead of the usual mass of charging warriors, the Norsii gave battle in imitation of Sigmar’s army. Norsii fighters marched in tightly-packed ranks, moving in formation with a hitherto unheard of cohesion.
Whooping tribesmen with dark skin and short-bows rode horses of black and gold to encircle Count Otwin’s Thuringians and hammer them with deadly accurate blows. Otwin’s advance faltered, and a host of Norsii warriors, mounted upon dark steeds taller than any grain-fed beasts of the empire charged the scattered Thuringians. Led by a mighty warlord in bloody armour, a warrior who must surely have been Cormac Bloodaxe, the Norsii hacked the Thuringians down without mercy.
Jutone lancers drove back the marauding warriors, but not before Otwin had taken a lance to the chest. Marius led the countercharge, and carried the wounded Otwin from the fighting slung across his saddle. Even now, the camp surgeons fought to save the Thuringian count’s life.
Sigmar’s stratagems were met and countered at every turn, his warriors hurled back time and time again. As afternoon waned into evening, he realised the sick feeling in his gut was despair. The battle could not be won, and Sigmar had ordered the army’s clarions to sound the retreat. Only here, at battle’s end, did the discipline of the Norsii finally break down, the tribal champions leading their men in an orgy of slaughter amongst the wounded.
As terrible as it was to leave the wounded to their fate, the vile appetites of the Norsii ensured there was no pursuit, and Sigmar was able to lead his men from the field of battle unmolested. The night march had been cold and cheerless, with the wounded treated on the move or during one of the infrequent breaks from the retreat.
Wolfgart rode alongside him, the flanks of his horse lathered in bloody sweat. Sigmar’s sword-brother had come through the battle unscathed, save for a long slash along his jerkin that had missed cutting his gut open by a hair’s breadth.
‘Long night, eh?’ said Wolfgart.
‘It won’t be the last,’ replied Sigmar, ‘not now.’
‘Aye, you have the truth of it, but we’ll get them next time.’
‘I hope you are right.’
‘Do you even doubt it?’ asked Wolfgart. ‘Come on, man. They’re barbarians, and looking at how many totems I counted, there’s a lot of war leaders there.’
‘Is that supposed to be a good thing?’
‘Of course,’ said Wolfgart. ‘You put that many barbarian chiefs together, and they’ll fall to fighting each other soon enough.’
‘I am not sure, my friend,’ said Sigmar, recalling the deadly precision he had seen in the Norsii, in particular a warrior in glittering silver armour, who fought with twin swords. ‘I swear it was as if they knew our every tactic. We will lose the empire one battle at a time if we think of the Norsii simply as barbarians.’
‘You’re giving them too much credit,’ said Wolfgart. ‘I can teach an animal to do tricks, but that doesn’t mean it’s clever.’
‘No, but the way they fought… It was as if they had a warrior schooled in the empire leading them, someone who knew how we fight. All through the night, I have gone over the battle, picturing every clash of arms and each manoeuvre, hoping to find some clue as to how the Norsii beat us.’
‘And what have you come up with?’
‘Time and time again, I come back to the same answer,’ said Sigmar. ‘I underestimated them, and my warriors paid for that mistake with their lives.’
‘Then we’ll not do that again,’ stated Wolfgart, and Sigmar was forced to admire his sword-brother’s relentless optimism. He had faith in Sigmar, even in defeat.
Wolfgart rubbed a hand over his face, and Sigmar saw how tired he was.
Since Sigmar’s attempted execution of Krugar and Aloysis, Wolfgart had spent virtually every waking minute with the Emperor. The two counts had been freed, and Sigmar begged their forgiveness on bended knee. It took the combined skills of Eoforth and Alfgeir to avert what could have been a devastating civil war but, in the end, both Krugar and Aloysis accepted that Sigmar had been under the dread influence of the necromancer’s crown.
Their slighted honour demanded recompense, however, and both counts returned to their castles laden with gold, land and titles. Sigmar could only promise that what had happened would never happen again, for the hateful crown was buried deep in the heart of Reikdorf.
Wolfgart had wanted to hurl it deep into the marsh and be done with it, but Sigmar knew he could not so casually dispose of such a dangerous and powerful artefact. Lifting the crown with a branch broken from a rowan tree, he carried it straight to High Priestess Alessa at the temple of Shallya. With solemn ceremony, the crown was sealed in the deepest vault and warded with every charm of protection known to all the priests of Reikdorf.
Never again would the crown see the light of day, and if its maker ever dared come to claim it, he would find it defended by every warrior in the empire.
A
contingent of painted Thuringian warriors marched past Sigmar and Wolfgart, each with a twin-bladed axe slung across his shoulders. They were bloodied and angry, having lost many comrades on the battlefield, men and women both. They wore little armour, for these were the King’s Blades, the fiercest and most deadly of all the Thuringian berserkers. They escorted a covered wagon pulled by horses more usually employed to carry Jutone lancers, but which Count Marius had offered to serve the wounded Berserker King.
Sigmar saw a familiar face among the Blades, and nodded to Wolfgart. Together, they rode alongside the tattooed warriors. A berserker woman with long hair pulled in tight braids, naked but for a mail corslet and bracers, looked up at them with eyes haunted by defeat.
‘How is he?’ asked Sigmar.
‘Ask him yourself,’ said Ulfdar, the berserker warrior Sigmar had defeated when he had fought the Thuringians to secure their king’s sword oath. Her mail was torn and links fell to the muddy road with every step.
‘I saw you fight,’ said Sigmar. ‘I lost count of how many you killed.’
‘I don’t keep count,’ replied Ulfdar. ‘I remember little of battles. When the red mist is upon me, it’s hard enough to tell friend from foe.’
Sigmar lifted his voice for all the Thuringians to hear.
‘Yesterday you fought like heroes,’ he said, ‘every one of you. I watched as the enemy bore down on you, and not one of you took a backwards step. That is iron courage that cannot ever be broken. The Norsii proved a stronger foe than we remembered, but we are better than them. They are far from home and we are defending our homelands. No force in the world can compare to the warrior defending their hearth and home and loved ones.’
The Thuringians marched past without acknowledging him, and Sigmar could not tell whether his words had any effect on them. The wagon bearing Count Otwin approached, and he waited for it to reach him. The Blades parted before him, and a hatchet-faced Cradoc pulled the canvas flaps at the rear of the wagon aside.
The Legend of Sigmar Page 64
