[Sigmar 02] - Empire

by Graham McNeill

  Darkness swallowed Sigmar as he led his warriors into the tower, and icy winds swirled around him as though he had stepped into an ice cave far beneath the earth. The tower was hollow, a soaring cylinder that rose dizzyingly to a pale, deathly light. An unnatural, echoing silence filled the tower, the noise of the furious battle raging beyond its walls extinguished the instant he crossed the threshold.

  Fallen headstones and crumbling tombs filled the tower’s interior, a sprawling necropolis impossibly filled with thousands of graves. The earth on each was freshly turned, as though the dead had only recently been lowered beneath the ground, though some unknown instinct told Sigmar that whoever was buried here had been dead for centuries or more.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” said Redwane, nodding towards the mass of graves.

  “There are thousands of them,” added Pendrag.

  Sigmar didn’t answer, seeing a series of mossy, tread-worn steps cut from the inner circumference of the tower.

  The cold wind that had led him to this hidden valley gusted from above. It seemed to beckon him, as though daring him, or perhaps needing him to climb the steps. Sigmar sensed a power greater than any man could master in that sickly summons, but it was a summons he had come too far to ignore.

  “This way,” he said. “We cannot stop now, we have to push on!”

  He ran towards the stairs with Redwane and Pendrag at his side. The White Wolf kept one eye on the gloomy necropolis, a faint green glow from the dread moon bathing the city in its hateful illumination.

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that the dead things we fought outside were in these graves?” asked Redwane.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” replied Pendrag as a hideous moaning filled the tower.

  It sounded as though it came from somewhere deep underground, as if the earth itself were howling in its depths. Seconds later, the dirt upon the graves trembled, and the slabs sealing each tomb crashed to the ground with the grinding of stone on stone.

  “Ulric’s bones, doesn’t this ever end?” hissed Redwane as grasping, skeletal hands clawed their way from beneath the ground and over the lips of dusty sepulchres. A fresh host of the living dead rose from their slumbers, warriors armed with short curving swords and clad in rusted plate of a style that Sigmar had never seen. Elaborately crafted with sweeping curves and horned spikes, it seemed that they were designed for intimidation as much as protection. These warriors had last made war thousands of years ago.

  “There’s too many of them,” said Redwane. “We can’t fight our way through them all.”

  Sigmar looked up the curving spiral of the stairs towards the nimbus of light that gathered at the top of the tower.

  “Maybe we will not have to,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Pendrag as the ancient warriors shuffled and dragged their rotten carcasses towards the waiting men of the empire.

  “Morath is up there, and with him, the source of his power,” said Sigmar. “The priests of Morr told me that without the will of the necromancer binding them, these wretched souls will return to the realm of the dead where they belong.”

  Redwane nodded, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. He shifted his grip on his hammer and nodded again, taking a deep breath.

  “Then go,” said the White Wolf, hauling warriors into position to form a rough battle line at the bottom of the stairs. “We will hold these dead things back. Get to the necromancer and bury your hammer in his skull!”

  Sigmar and Pendrag took the stairs two at a time, pushing upwards without pause for breath or any words. Already tired from the march through the mountains and the battle on the ice, Sigmar’s thighs burned with exertion, yet he did not dare stop. The sound of clashing blades and screams drifted up from below.

  Pendrag had refused to let Sigmar face Morath alone, and his sword-brother puffed and panted as he followed behind. He still clutched the Dragon Banner, and Sigmar was reassured by his brother’s unwillingness to be parted from it. To fight the necromancer with such a potent symbol at their side would send a clear message that Sigmar was in no mood for mercy.

  The fear that held sway over the battlefield was concentrated and distilled within the tower, a black dread that sank down from above like blood in water. Shadows howled and spun in the gloom, faceless phantoms that swirled like flocks of crows. Each time the hungry shadows swooped towards the two climbers, Pendrag held the Dragon Banner high, and they screeched and spun away from its power.

  Sigmar did not know what that power was, but was grateful to whatever enchantments had been woven into the banner… or to whatever it had acquired in the course of the battle.

  He glanced over his shoulder, feeling his armour and hammer weigh heavily upon him. Every step he took towards the top of the tower, the heavier they became. His limbs ached and he fought the urge to give up. He was exhausted, his body and mind pushed beyond the limits of human endurance. A sibilant, voiceless imperative urged him to rest, to lay down his burdens and accept that there was no more he could do. He fought it with every scrap of his will.

  Sigmar gritted his teeth and put his head down. When he had climbed the mountain to face the Dragon Ogre Skaranorak, he had concentrated on simply putting one foot in front of the other, and that single-mindedness served him as well now as it had then. Even so, his steps were leaden, each one a small victory.

  He heard Pendrag’s laboured breath and knew that his sword-brother was suffering as he was. The tower darkened until all Sigmar could see was the faint glow from the rune-carved haft of Ghal Maraz. The climb was sapping Sigmar’s strength, draining his vitality and feeding every dark thought that lurked in his mind, telling him he was too weak, too stupid and too mortal to ever succeed. Only by embracing the power of dark magic could any man hope to cheat death and see his labours truly bear fruit, for what ambition of any worth could be satisfied in the span of a single life?

  Sigmar shut out that voice, that damnable voice of doubt that lodged like a parasite in every man’s heart and chipped away at his resolve. Don’t bother trying anything, for all your dreams are dust, it said. It is pointless to struggle, for in a hundred years no one will remember you.

  “No,” hissed Sigmar. 'I will be remembered.”

  Mocking laughter rang from the walls, and Sigmar fought against the arrogant superiority that he heard in the echoes. You will fail and be forgotten, said the laughter. Give in now.

  “If failure is so certain, why do you work so hard to make me believe it?” he cried.

  Behind him, Pendrag let out a soft moan, and Sigmar felt warmth at his brow where the crown fashioned by Alaric slotted neatly over his helmet.

  “I may fail and, in time I will die, but I am not afraid of that!” Sigmar shouted at the oppressive, smothering blackness. “I am not afraid to fail. I only fear not to try!”

  With every word, the gloom lifted, until he could once again see the steps beneath his feet and the glowing light at the top of the tower. Barely a dozen steps lay between him and a square-cut opening. The sickly light and cold wind that had guided him here shone like a hopeless beacon at the end of the world.

  Sigmar looked down to see Pendrag at his back, blinking and letting out short, hiking breaths, as though awaking from a dreadful nightmare.

  “Whatever he’s telling you, don’t believe it,” said Sigmar.

  Pendrag looked up at him through tear-filled eyes. “He told me of my death.”

  Sigmar saw the terror in Pendrag’s eyes and shook his head.

  “All men die, Pendrag, it takes no sorcery to know that,” he said. “If that is the best this necromancer can conjure, then we have nothing to fear.”

  Pendrag looked past him at the square of light at the top of the stairs. His face crumpled in self-loathing.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m afraid.”

  Sigmar came down the stairs to Pendrag and gripped his shoulder.

  “It is Morath who should fear us,” he s
aid. “He knows the strength of mortals and he fears it. He seeks to break our spirits before we can destroy him.”

  Reaching up to the Dragon Banner, Sigmar took hold of the stiff, crimson fabric and held it before his friend.

  “You carry a banner of heroes, Pendrag,” he said. “The blood of brave men stains this cloth, and we dishonour them if we falter. You are a warrior of great courage, and I need you at my side.”

  Pendrag took a great gulp of air, and Sigmar saw that he had overcome the dark enchantments that were working against them. The fear was still there, but the warrior spirit that made Pendrag so formidable remained firm.

  “I will always be by your side, my friend,” Pendrag said.

  Sigmar nodded, and together they climbed into the lair of the necromancer.

  The mountains stretched out for hundreds of miles around them, and the view was so spectacular that Sigmar almost forgot that they stood upon a tower raised by dark magic. Giant, snow-capped peaks marched off into the distance, jagged and impossible, immense structures of rock that were surely sculpted by the hands of the gods.

  In the distance, bands of pink clouds clung to their summits like feathers, but here they were ugly, sooty smears, the black smoke of a flaming midden, greasy and reeking of rotten meat. Lightning arced in broken spears around the circumference of the tower, and more of the shrieking skull-faced witches spun around it like trapped hurricanes.

  The necromancer was waiting for them, and the sight of him took Sigmar’s breath away.

  Like a sliver of the deepest darkness imaginable, Morath stood at the edge of the tower, a monstrous creature of evil who sucked the life from the world. Tattered robes of black flapped and blew around the necromancer, though no wind disturbed Sigmar’s cloak or the cloth of the Dragon Banner.

  The necromancer had his back to them and gave no sign that he was even aware of their presence. For a reckless moment, Sigmar thought of rushing forward and pushing the sorcerer from his pearl tower, and wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of such a foolish plan.

  Morath turned his head, and his ghastly visage struck a deep wound in Sigmar’s heart, for here was the very face of death. The necromancer’s face was not a skull, yet the skin was drawn so tight across his jutting, angular bones it might as well have been. Morath’s hood was drawn up over his gleaming head, and his features were bathed in the glow of the pellucid lightning and his staff’s dreadful illumination.

  That human eyes could stare out from so hideous a face was a horror neither he nor Pendrag had been prepared for. In his hatred, Sigmar had assumed that Morath would be an inhuman monster, a creature of darkness and evil with whom they could share no commonality.

  But in the haunted orbs of Morath he saw rage and bitterness fuelled by emotions that were all too human: an age of fear, regret, loss and thwarted ambition that had driven him to madness and acts of such depravity and horror that nothing, not even the gods, could redeem his damned soul. Such a man had good reason to fear judgement beyond death.

  “By all the gods,” breathed Pendrag. “What are you?”

  Morath grinned, exposing a glistening and blackened tongue that licked the yellowed stumps of his teeth. Any lingering trace of humanity was dispelled by that grin and Sigmar forced himself to take a step forward, gripping Ghal Maraz tightly, focusing all his courage into that one act.

  He locked his gaze with Morath as the necromancer lifted a withered hand and swept the hood from his head. Sigmar’s steps faltered as ancient light shimmered on the golden crown that sat upon the necromancer’s brow. It was a beguiling thing, crafted in an age long dead, a wondrous artefact imbued with all the power of its maker.

  Morath hissed, and turned to fully face Sigmar and Pendrag. Shadows swirled around him, as though the darkness of the deepest night enshrouded his form. Now that he looked closer, Sigmar saw that Morath was hunched and emaciated, his physical form withered and decayed. Skeletal ribs were visible through the tattered fabric of his robes, but Sigmar knew not to judge the necromancer’s power by his frail appearance.

  “You have come a long way to die,” said Morath, his voice silken and seductive, at odds with his dreadful appearance.

  “As have you,” said Sigmar. “Mourkain is a long way from here.”

  Morath laughed, the sound rich and full, as though they had shared a private jest.

  “You speak of a place you do not know,” said the necromancer, “of an empire that fell before your degenerate tribe even came to this land.”

  Sigmar flinched at Morath’s words, as though each was a dart tipped with poison.

  “But you could not let it die, could you?” asked Sigmar.

  “Would you allow yours to be ended by the foolishness of one man, Sigmar the Heldenhammer?” asked Morath, taking a step towards him.

  “All things have their time, and all things must die in time.”

  “Not all things,” promised Morath. “I came to this land near death, but I slept away the centuries beneath the world and far from the sight of men. Now I am risen, and already your empire is dying. Can you not feel it? The cold touch of the death I bring is carried on every breath of wind and all that you love will soon be gone.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” said Sigmar. “This land is strong and it will survive your magic.”

  “It will not,” promised Morath, “but I am done talking with you. It is time for you to die, but fear not, I will bring your soul back and you will stand at my side as we carve a new empire from the bones of your doomed race.”

  “I am here to make sure that never happens,” said Sigmar, forcing himself to close with the terrible, wretched form of the necromancer. If he could only get close enough to strike a single blow, he knew he could end this.

  Morath chuckled, and a chill entered Sigmar’s heart.

  “You think you are here by your own design? Foolish, arrogant man,” said Morath. “Even entombed beneath the world I sensed your power, and I knew I would need to draw you to me. One such as you will make a fine general for my army of the dead when I rebuild the glory of Mourkain.”

  Morath raised his hand, and Sigmar’s step faltered as the chains of duty that bound him to his people crushed him within their grip. To rule a united empire of man had been his dream since he had wandered the tombs of his ancestors on Warrior’s Hill as a young man, but he had not been prepared for the reality of the task.

  Smothered beneath the hideous weight of his undertaking, Sigmar’s arms fell to his sides. He knew this was Morath’s sorcery, but he was powerless to resist.

  Sigmar dropped to his knees.

  “I can’t do this,” he whispered.

  Pendrag stood tall at his side, his chest heaving with effort as he clutched the Dragon Banner tightly to his breast.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “It’s too much,” said Sigmar.

  Pendrag caught his breath and looked over at Morath.

  “Fight him! Your warriors are buying us time to kill Morath with their lives!”

  “I don’t care,” said Sigmar tearing off his helmet and hurling it away. Pendrag watched helplessly as the magnificently crafted helm fell through the opening in the floor, hearing it clatter down the steps as it fell to the bottom of the tower.

  “Stand and fight!” demanded Pendrag, hauling on his arm.

  “Don’t you understand?” shouted Sigmar. “It’s too much for any one man. The empire… We will never be safe. Never. There will always be someone or something trying to destroy us, whether it’s greenskins from the mountains, Norsii or worse from across the seas, twisted forest beasts or necromancers. We can’t fight them all. We fight and we fight, but they keep coming. Eventually, one of them will drag us down, and drown this land in our blood. It’s inevitable, so why bother fighting to keep the flame alive when it’s eventually going to be extinguished?”

  Morath’s triumphant laughter swirled around him, and Sigmar saw the black form of the necromancer swell and billow, his
robes spreading like the wings of a huge bat.

  Pendrag roared and hurled himself at the necromancer, but a flick of Morath’s shrivelled hand sent him sprawling, the banner torn from his silver grip. The standard skidded across the smooth stone before coming to rest at the edge of the tower, its bloody cloth flapping in the shrieking winds that circled the tower.

  Morath slid through the air to hover above Pendrag, his leering features twisted in ghoulish relish, his head cocked to one side, like a carrion bird deciding which eye of a freshly dead corpse to devour first.

  “I spoke words of your death, yet still you came,” hissed the necromancer. “You will make a fine lieutenant for my new general.”

  A pale light built within Morath’s outstretched hand, and Pendrag cried out in pain, his face twisted in agony. His sword-brother’s skin grew pallid and leathery, the colour bleaching from his hair until it was utterly white.

  The life was being sucked out of him, yet Sigmar could no more lift himself from his knees than he could sprout wings and fly. One of his oldest and dearest friends was dying before his eyes, and he could do nothing to prevent it. Nothing.

  He closed his eyes as his dreams collapsed. His vision of a strong and united land fractured and died within him. Morath was right. No empire of mortals could ever really last, for such was the fate of all works of man. Empires grew and prospered, and then became fat and complacent. Before long, one of their many enemies would rise up and destroy them.

  It was as inevitable as nightfall.

  In Sigmar’s mind’s eye he saw a ruined city by a river, a once magnificent capital built around the mighty tomb of some ancient king. It had once covered a vast area and been home to thousands, but now only greenskins dwelled there. Its gilded plazas served as arenas for battling warlords, its sunken marble bathhouses as pens for wolves, boars and foul, cave-dwelling beasts that skulked in the shadows. Tomes and scrolls that had been gathered over thousands of years burned on campfires, and works of art that had stirred the hearts and minds of those who studied them were smashed for sport.

  Morath’s honeyed words sounded in his mind. This is the doom of your empire.