The Legend of Sigmar

by Graham McNeill

  Count Aloysis stood atop the ramparts of Hochergig and waved a Cherusen banner as the dead melted away from his walls, while Count Krugar rode through the gates of Taalahim in triumph. In the eastern reaches of the Empire, Count Adelhard rallied his warriors in a krug around the Bechahorst, a spire of dark stone in the northern marches of his lands, and drank koumiss to toast the end of this fight.

  The lands of the south were silent, for their people were already dead. Alone among the southern tribal homelands, the Merogens had endured. Count Henroth led his warriors from within their great castles of stone, blinking in the new light and disbelieving that such a miracle could have saved his people.

  Nagash’s legions were no more, and the living had endured.

  The long dark night of the dead was over.

  Khaled al-Muntasir climbed to the top of the hillside, his bones aching and his flesh scoured by the incomprehensible destruction of Nagash. The vampire’s armour was in tatters, his white cloak torn and burned by the fire that had threatened to consume him. The necromancer’s doom had threatened to drag him to destruction as well, but his blood was of a higher calibre than that of the ancient priest king of Nehekhara.

  Siggurd crawled by his side, the newly-sired vampire’s body wracked with pain. The Asoborns had almost destroyed him, and in his weakened state, his immortal flesh had all but succumbed to the same destruction as had vanquished the army of the dead. Only his superior pedigree had saved him, but it would take dozens of bodies’ worth of blood to restore him. His whimpering cries were repugnant to Khaled al-Muntasir’s ears, but he was of his blood and could not be abandoned to the savage mercies of the mortals.

  Nothing lived on the hillside, every blade of grass withered and every inch of soil barren. His footsteps left prints in ashen sand as he climbed to the top, where he saw the architect of the necromancer’s demise.

  Sigmar stood with his back to Khaled al-Muntasir, his softly glowing hammer at his side and the crown of Nagash lying at his feet. The crown shone with a dull light, and Khaled al-Muntasir wondered what glories he might achieve were he to take it. The Emperor’s flesh was a mass of bruised blood, frostburn and suffering. The vampire licked his lips, seeing that the mortal was at the very end of his endurance. Easy meat.

  ‘You have destroyed that which could not be destroyed,’ said Khaled al-Muntasir.

  ‘I told you that you were not welcome in my lands,’ said Sigmar, without turning. ‘I told you that I would kill you if I saw you again.’

  ‘An empty threat,’ said the vampire, taking a step towards Sigmar. Siggurd moaned in hunger and pain, the smell of blood drawing his broken gaze.

  ‘Is it?’ said Sigmar, turning to face him. ‘Test it, and I will send you to join your master.’

  ‘You are weak,’ said the vampire. ‘Spent. I could kill you and drink your blood before you could raise a hand to stop me. The crown will be mine and all you have achieved here will have been for nothing.’

  ‘Then come at me,’ said Sigmar, lifting Ghal-maraz.

  Khaled al-Muntasir laughed, but the sound died in his throat as he saw the hatred in Sigmar’s eyes. There was strength and power there beyond anything men should know, a cold fire that came not from mortal realms, but from a place long forsaken that did not belong on this world. Its winter fire hailed from a place of gods and monsters, a realm of power beyond imagining and where the laws of nature held no sway. All this power and more burned in Sigmar’s eyes, though he knew it not.

  In that instant of connection, Khaled al-Muntasir knew that if he took another step his undying existence would be ended. For the first time since he had awoken as an immortal blood drinker, Khaled al-Muntasir knew the meaning of fear. His limbs trembled. The thought of oblivion and the bleak emptiness that awaited him robbed him of all his courage.

  Siggurd pawed at the ground, desperate for blood and unable to comprehend why his master hesitated to end this upstart mortal. His senses dulled and broken by his pain, Siggurd could not feel the terrible danger Sigmar represented to him and all his kind. The Emperor’s hate of the blood drinkers was a force all of its own, a force that transcended time and all notions of mortality.

  Khaled al-Muntasir backed away from Sigmar, dragging the wretched vampire count he had sired back down the hillside. Terror of Sigmar’s inner power burned into their damned souls with unending torment as his voice chased them from the battlefield.

  ‘Hear now the word of Sigmar Heldenhammer,’ shouted the Emperor. ‘I curse you and all your kind to be my enemies for all time!’

  The vampires fled into the shadows.

  Sigmar watched the vampires run, thankful that his killing boast had not been put to the test. His body was a mass of pain, his heart heavy with the mourning yet to come, and his soul was sickened to see what might yet become of his beloved Empire. The air around him was thick with foetid vapours, unclean fumes that lingered in the wake of the necromancer’s destruction. Yet even as he waited, a fresh wind was building, blowing from the west with clean air and the promise of new beginnings.

  He took a deep breath, savouring the sweetness of that air. It had been so long since he had tasted air untainted with the ashen reek of grave dust and death that he had almost forgotten what it was like. Freed from the necromancer’s magic, the land was already beginning to heal, purging the foulness of dark magic from its soil and wind.

  Soon the desolation of Nagash would be little more than a memory, for the world was more resilient than people knew. It would outlast mankind, and its mountains, forests and rivers would see them dead and buried before it would even blink. Mortals were a flicker in the life of this world, yet even that was worth holding onto.

  Sigmar opened his eyes as he saw a host of men and women gathering around the desolate hillside, warriors from his army, people from his city and allies from across the land. They were weeping tears of hope and mourning, loss and relief.

  The battle was over and they were alive.

  Sigmar dropped to one knee before his people, giving homage to them as they had given homage to him. The sky above the battlefield began to lighten as the perpetual twilight of Nagash was banished. Its sullen gloom had gripped the Empire for so long that its people had forgotten the feel of sunlight on their skin. Its radiance spread across the land, a bounteous illumination that banished evil to the shadows and chased away the darkness.

  Sigmar smiled and turned his face to the sun.

  ‘People of the Empire,’ he said. ‘A new day is upon us.’

  Epilogue

  In the aftermath of the battle, the bodies of the dead were gathered and taken to the blasted hilltop where Sigmar had defeated Nagash. Nothing would ever grow there again, and the priests of Morr declared it a fitting place for the dead to be given their final rest. Night after night, the priests of all the gods spoke prayers for the dead, and scattered the ashes into the river Reik, where they were carried downstream to Marburg and the open ocean.

  Count Marius and Princess Marika were married a month after Nagash’s defeat, the ceremony attended by Sigmar, Krugar, Aloysis, Otwin, and Myrsa. Claiming the injuries she had suffered at Siggurd’s hands still pained her, Freya and her wounded sons returned to Three Hills to rebuild what the dead had destroyed. Though many people muttered darkly as to what the union of Jutones and Endals might mean for the Empire, Sigmar had blessed the marriage and gifted the couple with a pair of golden sceptres from his treasure vaults.

  Wolfgart and Maedbh remained in Reikdorf with Ulrike, though they decided that they would split their time between Sigmar’s city and Three Hills. Never again would they allow anger to get the better of them, and never again would they allow themselves to be parted with bitter words between them. Within days of the wedding at Marburg, Maedbh announced to Wolfgart and Ulrike that she was with child, and the celebration that accompanied the news was more raucous than the wedding feast of Marius and Marika.

  Redwane left Reikdorf within a day of the victory, leading his rav
aged, self-mortifying band of madmen into the forests of the Empire. Less than a thousand of them remained, their headlong charge into the undead costing the majority of them their lives. Sigmar had caught Redwane as he prepared to lead his march of doom, but no words could reach the younger man; his hope had been crushed and life now held no meaning for him. Otwin told Sigmar how the crazed Redwane and Torbrecan had broken the siege of his castle and whipped the people of the Empire along the route of his march south into a morbid frenzy. Taking up a hook-knotted rope, Redwane wished the Emperor well and set off into the shadowed forest with Torbrecan, leaving his heartbroken White Wolves behind.

  Master Alaric and his dwarf warriors had sought to destroy Krell after the fire of the repaired Thunder Bringer had brought him low, but Nagash’s will was not the only force empowering the dread champion’s unlife. The monstrous warrior had fought his way clear of the dwarfs’ vengeance, and fled into the north. Too blooded to pursue, the dwarfs had watched in bitter impotence as Krell escaped the clutches of their blades. Yet more entries were noted for the Dammaz Kron, the names of all the dwarfs Krell had slain.

  Govannon and Bysen both survived the Battle of the River Reik, as it was becoming known, and returned to their forge. The Thunder Bringer had been crushed in the fighting raging around Krell, but its remains had been salvaged and brought back within the city walls while the dwarfs grieved their fallen brothers. Though it was smashed beyond all hope of repair, Govannon immediately set about working out how to make newer and bigger machines. A scrap of fire powder from the misfiring barrel had been recovered from the wreckage, and the near-blind smith was optimistic he would be able to replicate it.

  If Master Alaric knew of this, he gave no sign, and after meeting privately with Sigmar in his longhouse, led his warriors in solemn procession to the east. The loss of his hand affected him deeply, and as Sigmar watched the mountain folk return to their homeland, he sensed a great melancholy within Alaric.

  Sigmar returned Nagash’s crown to High Priestess Alessa, and bade her take it far from the Empire, somewhere its evil power would be unable to corrupt men’s souls. With a group of iron-willed warriors, Alessa left Reikdorf and rode into the east, never to return.

  Of all the warriors who had fought for Sigmar, Alfgeir carried the burden of victory more than most. Though many men and women had been dreadfully wounded in the fighting, the loss of his arm cut the Marshal of the Reik far deeper than the flesh. His eyes never regained their normal colour and no fire could warm his skin. Six months to the day after the battle’s end, Alfgeir rode a white horse into the north toward a frozen lake, where he met a fur-cloaked warrior with two wolves at his side.

  Wenyld and Sigmar watched him go, and the Emperor knew that a stronger compulsion than duty to Reikdorf called to his old friend. As Alfgeir vanished over the hillside, Sigmar bade Wenyld farewell and made his way into the depths of the frozen forest to the west of Reikdorf.

  The cathedral of evergreen trees was a shimmering winter garden of glistening icicles and stillness. Walking paths he had not taken in years, he made his way to a peaceful hollow where weeping willows drooped with the weight of snow and ice on their branches. A gurgling waterfall spilled into a wide pool, and a simple headstone was set at its edge.

  He touched the headstone and looked to the east.

  ‘Soon, my love,’ said Sigmar. ‘Soon.’

  Let The Great Ax Fall

  In the end, they counted eighty-eight skulls in the pile at the heart of the village: the skulls of children, no larger than a fist, all the way to those of fully grown men and women. The entire settlement had been wiped out in a single act of slaughter. Such feasts of death would usually attract the attention of carrion birds, but the sky above Heofonum was empty of scavengers.

  Stacked in a pyramid, with the smallest at the top, the skulls were coated in sticky blood that had run down the bony ridges of empty eye sockets and jawbones to pool beneath this grim shrine to man’s mortality. The wooden homes of the villagers lay in ruins, smashed apart as though a herd of bulls had been driven through them. Even the stone hall at the edge of the settlement had been destroyed.

  Their hunting party had ridden the length and breadth of Heofonum, turning over every fallen timber, digging through every collapsed home and raking the debris of its abandoned barns, but they had found nothing of its inhabitants save their fleshless skulls. This was the third such village they had found, and with each bloodied pile of skulls laid before them like monstrous altars of worship, the mood of the hunters darkened still further.

  Wenyld leaned against the stone wall of what had been the village alderman’s home. The stonework was simple, imitating the style of Sigmar’s great hall in Reikdorf, but this building had not been crafted by the mountain folk, but by the hands of men and was nowhere near as grand or finely made. It had been built to last, with dutiful care and a cunning eye for defence, but that had not been enough to thwart the monster that had razed Heofonum. Having listened to Leodan’s account of its ferocious strength, Wenyld doubted any wall, no matter whether wrought by man or dwarf, could withstand such dreadful power.

  Wenyld pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as a chill blast of wind scudded through the ruined hall. Ever since he’d taken a dead man’s spear to the belly in the last moments of the battle to save the Empire from the necromancer’s undead legions, he’d found it next to impossible to keep the cold at bay. Only perched on a bondsman’s bench at a blazing firepit would any hint of warmth touch him. With winter blowing in over the Vaults to the south, Wenyld knew he was in for a painful season of snow and misery, with aching bones and frost-touched marrow.

  ‘Great Ulric, you favour the snows, but I’ll be glad to see your brother again with the spring,’ he said with a respectful nod to the ice-white skies of the north.

  ‘Careful,’ said Cuthwin, emerging from the trees on the far side of the ruined hall. ‘I’d rather we didn’t offend Ulric before we head into the mountains.’

  ‘Into the mountains?’ said Wenyld, irritated he hadn’t even suspected his friend was near.

  Cuthwin had always been the better huntsman, but still it irked Wenyld that he hadn’t heard so much as a broken twig or brittle leaf being crushed underfoot.

  ‘That’s where the tracks lead,’ said Cuthwin, moving around the building. Clad in worn leather buckskin and a dappled cloak of faded green and brown, he blended with the landscape. His bow was strung, and his long-bladed hunting knife was loose in its sheath.

  Wenyld looked up to the blackened, snow-capped summits of the mountains to the south, their craggy peaks like serrated teeth gnawing at the clouds. The Vaults were the edge of the world as far as Wenyld was concerned, a battleground where two vast ranges of mountains met and threw up treacherous valleys, gorges and shadowed canyons.

  He didn’t like being too close to the mountains; orcs, goblins and worse made their lairs in the mountains, and no good ever came of going anywhere near such places. Leave such terrain to the Merogens, they were welcome to them.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he asked, though he knew Cuthwin was never wrong about these things.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Wenyld sighed. ‘Ah, good. Just what I was looking forward to, a climb into the mountains at the onset of winter.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ said Cuthwin brightly.

  ‘Really?’ asked Wenyld. ‘How could it possibly be worse?’

  ‘You could be doing it without me to guide you.’

  ‘Aye, there’s that,’ he conceded. ‘You know your way around this terrain. Are you sure there’s not some mountain goat in your family history? Is there some shameful tryst you’ve kept secret all these years?’

  ‘Only that one night with Ebba,’ returned Cuthwin with a sly wink.

  They both smiled. Ebba was a notorious Reikdorf harridan, a mother of ten and as broad as she was tall. She was married to Bryni, a baker of such willowy proportions that it amazed everyone who knew them that they ha
d produced such healthy children, and that he had survived the ordeal.

  ‘Thank you for that image,’ said Wenyld. ‘Suddenly the idea of hunting a living dead champion of a Norsii blood god doesn’t seem so bad.’

  ‘There, you see? Told you it could be worse.’

  Cuthwin threw his arm over Wenyld’s shoulder as they made their way back to the centre of Heofonum, where the men and horses of their hunting party awaited their leader’s word to move out. Thirty horsemen, clad in gleaming mail shirts and heavy furs, with half-helms of bronzed steel—these were among the finest warriors in all of Reikdorf. Over their armour, they wore white cloaks secured at the neck by a torq stamped with the four-armed cross the former Marshal of the Reik had taken as an informal symbol of their brotherhood.

  Many were seasoned veterans, men who had stood in the heaving press of a sword line and lived, which marked them as both skilful and favoured by the gods. A few were little more than youths, the rise of the dead having forced them to manhood before their time.

  All were volunteers, none had wives and none had fathered any children.

  Sigmar wanted no new orphans and widows in Reikdorf; the war against the dead had created enough already.

  One warrior stood apart from the others, a tall, shaven-headed man with a stripe of hair running across his crown to the base of his neck that then became a long, dangling scalp lock, similar to those worn by the Ostagoths. This was Leodan, a horse-warrior of the Taleutens whose Red Scythes rode with Sigmar’s army at the River Reik and who had very nearly met his end at the great axe of the monster they hunted.

  Like Wenyld, his wounding had been grievous, and few had expected him to see the dawn. But Taleutens are tougher than seasoned oak, and the horseman’s shattered bones had knitted whole, though he would forever walk with a pronounced limp. Alone of his Red Scythes, Leodan had lived through that hellish night of war-making, and the loss of his brother riders was a wound that could not be healed by poultices and stitches.