[Sigmar 01] - Heldenhammer

by Graham McNeill

  When you see the sign of the red hand in the same breath as a wounded sword… that is the time for your vengeance. Seek out the water hemlock that grows in the marshes when no king rules in Reikdorf.

  He had left the hag woman’s cave in a daze, his thoughts wreathed in fog from the opiates that burned in her fire and the implications of what he desired. Gerreon remembered little of the journey back through the Brackenwalsch, save that his steps had carried him unerringly through the darkened fens, and that he had awoken in his bed the next morning with a pounding headache and a dry mouth.

  As he lay there, the hag woman’s voice had whispered to him, and terror had kept him pinned to his bed as her words had flowed like honey in his ear.

  Be the peacemaker… hold to your vengeance, but cloak it with friendship. Remember, Gerreon of the Unberogen… the red hand and the wounded sword.

  He had risen from his bed, feeling as though he was walking through a dream as he made his way through Reikdorf. The sun shone and the sky was a wondrous shade of blue. He had stopped by the Oathstone in the centre of the settlement and felt a sick sense of unease as he made his way towards the Field of Swords.

  There he had found Sigmar and made his peace with the future king of the Unberogen, though the words had almost choked him. For six long years he had held his hate close to his heart, nurturing it with each passing day, and picking at the scab of it whenever it threatened to diminish.

  And yet…

  As each day passed and Gerreon became one of Sigmar’s friends, he found his grip on his hatred slipping as though the pain of his twin’s death were somehow lessening. One morning he had realised, to his horror, that he actually liked Sigmar. Even Wolfgart and Pendrag, men he had loathed in his teens, had become likeable, and he was forced to admit that, seen without the petulance of youth, there was much to like.

  He had soon slipped into the easy camaraderie of warriors who fought shoulder to shoulder and saved each other from death time and time again. As the years passed, he and Sigmar had become like brothers, and the future was golden, his hate vanishing like morning mist.

  And now this…

  Now he had seen the signs of which the hag woman had spoken, and the dark memory of Trinovantes’ death surged back into his mind like a swollen river over a broken dam, the venom and anger and hurt of Sigmar’s betrayal as strong as it had been the day they had brought Trinovantes’ body back.

  The wounded sword…

  He had not known what such a sign might be, but as he watched the bleeding boy on the Field of Swords it had suddenly become clear. The boy had said his name was Brant, an old name from the earliest days of the tribe’s migration from the east, a good name with a proud heritage.

  In the early tongue of the Unberogen the name Brant meant sword.

  And Reikdorf without a king? How such a thing might come to pass when the Unberogen were at the height of their power and influence seemed a far-fetched idea, but now King Bjorn had issued a call to arms.

  Horsemen had been despatched throughout his lands, summoning all those who had sworn allegiance to him to make their way to Reikdorf within ten days. Each man was to bring a sword, a shield and mail armour, and was to be ready to march into the north for several months of campaigning.

  Sigmar would rule in his father’s absence…

  Leaving Reikdorf without a king.

  Dark thoughts of blood and the pleasure he would gain from avenging Trinovantes warred with the bonds of brotherhood he had formed over the last six years. He looked away from the water, and turned towards the grey silhouette of Warrior’s Hill where lay his twin.

  “What would you have me do?” whispered Gerreon, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  * * * * *

  For ten days, Reikdorf became a gathering place for warriors from all across Unberogen lands. Sword musters from settlements along the river and fertile valleys of the Reik made their way to the Unberogen capital, drawn there by their king’s command, and by ties of duty and honour that were stronger than dwarf-forged iron.

  Camps were set up in the fields to the east of the town, long rows of canvas tents gathered for the hundreds of men that arrived daily from all corners of the king’s lands. Grim-faced warriors with heavy axes, swords and lances marched over the Sudenreik Bridge, accompanied by lightly armoured archers with leather breastplates, bows of fine yew and quivers of arrows with shafts as straight as sunlight.

  Wolfgart set up makeshift paddocks to the north of the town for horsemen to stable their mounts as Sigmar organised the warriors into fighting groups. The host swelled with each passing day, and soon the task of keeping records of the gathering warriors fell to Pendrag.

  Traders had long used tally marks and simple script to keep track of their dealings, and with help from Eoforth, Pendrag borrowed ideas from the concept of dwarf runic language to develop a rudimentary form of written instruction. Quick to see the benefit of this, Sigmar commanded Pendrag to further refine this new form of communication and have it taught in the schoolhouses.

  When the time came to marshal the army to march, Pendrag’s head count indicated that King Bjorn would lead an army of just under three thousand swords, with each man and his village recorded faithfully by Pendrag.

  Between them, Sigmar, Wolfgart and Pendrag worked organisational wonders with the assembled army, readying it for march, and ensuring that it would leave Reikdorf with enough supplies to sustain it through the campaigning season. A long train of wagons, and the tradesmen necessary to keep the army ready to fight, was soon assembled and made ready to accompany the warriors.

  King Bjorn took little part in the organisation of the army, instead spending his days tirelessly with the men with whom he would ride into battle. Every day, Bjorn would tour the growing camp and pass a few words with as many of the men as he could manage in a day. Sometimes, Sigmar would accompany him, enjoying his father’s easy banter with the warriors, all the while trying to hide his disappointment that he would not be marching to war with them.

  He had made his way from the longhouse to Ravenna’s home, following his father’s pronouncement that he would be staying in Reikdorf, angry beyond words that he would be denied this chance to march out against an enemy of such power.

  Ravenna had needed no woman’s intuition to see his dark mood, and had immediately sat at her table and poured two large measures of Reikland beer. Sigmar paced the floor like a caged wolf, and she waited patiently for him to sit.

  When eventually he did so, she reached out and placed a goblet in his hand.

  “Speak to me,” she said. “What is the matter?”

  “My father insults me,” stormed Sigmar. “The army is to march north and do battle with the Norsii. The kings of the Cherusen and Taleuten beg for our aid and my father has decided to answer their call.”

  “And this insults you how?”

  “I am to have no part in this campaign,” said Sigmar, taking a great mouthful of beer. “I am to be left behind like some forgotten steward while others earn glory in battle.”

  Ravenna shook her head. “You have such vision, Sigmar, but sometimes you are so blind.”

  He looked up, his expression a mix of anger and surprise.

  “Your father honours you, Sigmar,” said Ravenna. “He has entrusted the safety of all he holds dear to you while he is away. Everything he has built over the years is in your care until he returns. That is a great honour.”

  Sigmar took a deep breath, followed by another mouthful of beer. “I suppose.”

  “There is no ‘suppose’ about it,” said Ravenna.

  “But to fight the Norsii!” protested Sigmar. “There is glory to be had in battles such as these! There is—”

  “Foolish man!” snapped Ravenna, slamming her goblet on the table. “Have you learned nothing? There is no glory in battle, only pain and death. You speak of glory, but where is the glory for those who will not return? Where is the glory for those left upon the field as food for crows and
wolves? I told you I hated war, but I hate more the fact that you men perpetuate it with talk of glory and noble purpose. Wars are not fought for glory or freedom or any other golden foolishness. Kings desire more land and wealth, and the quickest, easiest way to get it is by conquest. So do not come to my table and talk of glory, Sigmar. Glory saw my brother dead.”

  Sigmar saw the hurt anger in her face and weighed his next words carefully. “You are right, but there are some battles worth fighting,” he said. “Fighting the Norsii is such a battle, for it is not fought for riches or glory, it is for survival.”

  “And that is the only reason I am glad you are not going with your father.”

  “Glad? What do you mean?”

  Ravenna softened her tone, and said, “Do you believe that the dangers we face every day will lessen while our warriors march north to face the Norsii? There are still beasts, reavers and greenskins to fight, and the other tribes will not be ignorant of your father’s departure. What if the Teutogens or the Asoborns or the Brigundians try to seize Unberogen lands while the king is away? The warriors who march with your father fight for our survival, and I thank the gods that you remain here to do the same. I think you will find no shortage of battles to fight while your father is in the north.”

  ——

  Those Left Behind

  Fires had gutted the village of Ubersreik, and the scent of charred wood still lingered on the smoky air. A hundred people had made their homes here, and now they were all dead. Scavenging wolves padded through the deserted village, and crows perched on every rooftop. Sigmar rode his grey stallion into the village, an immense sadness weighing heavily on him as he took in the scene of devastation.

  The smell of corruption was a sickly tang on the air, and Sigmar spat a wad of unpleasant phlegm to the trampled ground. Wolfgart and Pendrag rode alongside him, and thirty riders followed them into the village, a quarter of those left behind after the king’s army had marched north a month earlier.

  Everywhere Sigmar looked, he saw death.

  Families had been butchered in their homes, stabbed to death in a frenzy of blades, and then dragged outside and dismembered. Animals lay in rotten piles, skulls crushed, and half a cow lay in the centre of the road.

  “Who did this?” asked Wolfgart, his anger and anguish clear. “Greenskins?”

  “Sigmar shook his head. “No.”

  “You sound sure,” said Pendrag, his voice less emotional, yet Sigmar could still sense the outrage beneath his friend’s control. “This looks like the handiwork of orcs.”

  “It’s not,” said Sigmar. “Orcs do not leave bodies behind them when they are this deep in human lands. They feed on them. And there is no spoor or orcs daubings. As vile as this is, it is too neat for orcs.”

  Pendrag’s face was a mask of disgust, and he turned away from the blackened, brutalised bodies piled in the doorway of a burnt-out home.

  “Then what?” asked Wolfgart. “You think men did this? What manner of man kills women and children with such savagery?”

  “Berserkers?” suggested Pendrag. “The Thuringians are said to field warriors that drink firewater that drives them into a maddened frenzy during battle.”

  “I do not believe King Otwin would have allowed such slaughter,” said Sigmar. “He is said to be a hard man, but nothing I have heard of him makes me think his warriors had any part in this… butchery.”

  “Times have changed,” said Pendrag. “Does he even still rule the Thuringians?”

  “As far as I know,” replied Sigmar. “I have not heard of any other taking his throne.”

  “Then perhaps some new bandit chieftain is making an example of this place,” said Pendrag.

  “There’s too much left behind,” replied Wolfgart. “Bandits would have cleared this place out, and why burn it to the ground? You can’t rob people next season if you kill them.”

  Sigmar halted his horse in the middle of the devastated village, turning in his saddle to take in the full measure of the slaughter and destruction around him. Despair settled on him as he thought of the people who had died here. How they must have screamed when the flames and the enemy took them.

  “Why didn’t they fight?” asked Wolfgart, riding alongside him.

  “What do you mean?” asked Sigmar. “There are no swords in the wreckage. No one tried to fight them.”

  “They were only farmers,” pointed out Pendrag.

  “They were still men,” snapped Wolfgart. “They could still have fought to defend themselves. I see axes and a few scythes, but nothing to make me think that anyone fought. If a man comes into your home with murder in mind, you kill the bastard. Or at least you fight him however you can, with a carving knife, an axe or your fists.”

  “You are a warrior, my brother,” said Sigmar. “To fight is in your blood, but these were farmers, no doubt exhausted after a day in the fields. The attackers came on them at night, and our people had no chance to defend themselves.”

  Wolfgart shook his head. “A man should always be ready to fight, farmer or warrior.”

  “They counted on us to protect them,” said Sigmar, “and we failed them.”

  “We cannot be everywhere at once, my friend,” said Pendrag, removing his helmet. “Our lands are too vast to patrol with the few warriors left to us.”

  “Exactly,” said Sigmar. “It was arrogant of us to assume we could protect our lands ourselves, but Wolfgart is right, every man should be ready to fight. We have made sure that every warrior in our lands has a sword, but we should be making sure that every man has a sword.”

  “Having a sword is all very well,” said Wolfgart. “Having the skill to use it… that is something else.”

  “Indeed it is, my friend,” replied Sigmar. “We need to begin a system of training throughout our lands so that every man knows how to wield a sword. Each village must maintain a body of warriors to defend against such attacks.”

  “That will take time,” said Pendrag. “If it is even possible.”

  “We must make it possible,” snapped Sigmar. “What use is an empire if we cannot defend it? When my father returns, we will draw up plans to institute a system of raising troops, training them and equipping them in every village. You are right, our land is too big to defend with one army, so each village must look to its own defence.”

  The discussion was brought to a halt when Cuthwin and Svein emerged from the forest on the north edge of the village and made their way towards the three warriors.

  From Svein’s expression, he could see that the suspicion forming in his mind had been correct. The two scouts approached, and Sigmar slid from the back of his horse as the craggy-featured Svein squatted on his haunches and sketched in the dirt.

  “Perhaps fifty riders, my lord,” said Svein. “Came in from the west just as the sun was setting. They drove through the village, burning as they went. Another group came in from the east and caught any who fled. Most people were killed in the open, but the rest were driven back to their homes and burned to death inside.”

  “Where did the raiders go after they had killed everyone?” demanded Sigmar.

  “West,” said Cuthwin, “following the line of the forest to the coast.”

  “But they didn’t keep to that line, did they?”

  “No, my lord,” agreed Cuthwin. “After three miles or so they cut north following the river.”

  “Good work,” said Sigmar, standing and rubbing ash from his woollen leggings.

  Pendrag said, “You know who did this. Don’t you?”

  “I have an idea,” admitted Sigmar.

  “Who?” demanded Wolfgart. “Tell us, and we’ll descend on them with swords bared!”

  “I believe the Teutogens did this,” said Sigmar.

  “The Teutogens? Why?” asked Wolfgart.

  “Artur knows the king has gone north with his army, and he is taking advantage of my father’s absence to test our strength,” said Pendrag. “It seems like the logical conclusion.” />
  “Then we burn one of his villages to the ground,” snarled Wolfgart, “and show him what it means to attack the Unberogen!”

  Sigmar turned on his friend, anger flashing in his eyes as he waved his hand at the burned and mutilated bodies. “You would have us do this to a Teutogen village? Would you kill women and children in the name of vengeance?”

  “You would leave this act of barbarism unanswered?” countered Wolfgart.

  “Artur will pay for this,” promised Sigmar, “but not now. We have not the numbers to punish him, and we will not give him an excuse to come against us in greater numbers. While the Unberogen army is in the north, we must swallow our pride.”

  “And when your father returns?” demanded Wolfgart.

  “Then there will be a reckoning,” said Sigmar.

  King Bjorn pulled his white wolfskin cloak around his shoulders, numbed to his very bones by the northern cold and biting wind that found its way through to his skin no matter how well he wrapped himself in fur. This far north, the climate and landscape were as different from the balmy springs and crisp winters of his lands as night was from day.

  Here, the people dwelled in a land of dark pines, rugged valleys and windswept moors, where only the most determined would survive. The people of the north endured wet summers, and winters of such ferocity that entire villages died overnight, buried in snowstorms that wiped them from the face of the world.

  Such harsh climes, however, bred a hardy folk, and the inhabitants of the north had impressed Bjorn with their courage and tenacity in the face of the Norsii invaders.

  The king of the Unberogen made his way through the camp of the allied armies, smiling and praising the courage of every group of warriors he passed. Cherusen Wildmen, naked but for painted designs on their flesh and armoured loincloths, danced around fires that burned with blue fire, and Taleuten warriors drank harsh spirits distilled from grain as they spoke of the many heads they had taken.

  Nearly seven thousand warriors had marched into battle. Nearly a thousand of them had remained on the battlefield, food for crows and the earth. Hundreds more were screaming in agony as the surgeons did the bloody work of saving the wounded. Ragged lines of tents filled the valley, though most warriors slept rolled in thick furs beside the hundreds of campfires that dotted the landscape like stars fallen to earth.