[Heroes 04] - Sigvald

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  Sigvald sat in silence for a few seconds, as colour rushed into his face. Then he let out a wordless scream and lurched to his feet, tearing the parchment in half as he rose.

  “My lord,” gasped Baron Schüler, rushing forwards. “What’s the matter? What does it say?”

  As Sigvald rounded on the baron, his face was locked in a hideous snarl. “My patron is too delicate to be in my presence.” His voice was trembling with rage as he waved at his bloody, ruined armour. “My appearance is too offensive.” He continued tearing the parchment into smaller and smaller pieces, spitting curses as he staggered back and forth.

  The scribe scuttled away beneath the trees.

  “Belus has gone!” cried Sigvald, grabbing the baron’s shoulders. His eyes were filled with terror as well as rage. “I’ve been forsaken!”

  Schüler narrowed his eyes. “What of it, prince? You don’t need any help to capture that fortress. Why bother with this Belus Pül? You’re invincible. No one could deny you anything. No one can come between you and that brass skull.”

  Sigvald let out a shrieking laugh. “Don’t you understand?” he cried, waving at the scraps of paper. “Without my patron, I’ll be in the ground within the year.” He pounded his fist on his dented cuirass. “I’m only alive by the grace of Belus Pül. The daemon is everything.” He clutched his face in horror and lowered his voice to a terrified whisper. “The parchment shows exactly what’s going to happen now. I’m going to grow old, Schüler. Old and hideous, like everyone else.” His eyes widened in fear and he backed away from the others, speaking too low for them to hear. “And then I will die.”

  “Sigvald,” muttered Oddrún, waving at the ground.

  The prince stared back at him, uncomprehending. Then he shook his head, trying to remove the awful visions that were flooding his mind. “What?” he said quietly, sounding utterly bereft.

  “The other parchment.”

  The prince eyed the paper with suspicion and shook his head. “I can’t,” he muttered. He looked at Víga-Barói. “Tell me what it says.”

  The knight bowed decorously and picked up the scroll. “It describes your life to this point,” he said, squinting at the text. Then he looked up at the prince with a shocked expression. There was a slight hitch in his voice as he spoke. “Your majesty never told me…” He stumbled over his words, unsure how to continue. “I did not know the extent of your adventures, my lord.”

  “Carry on,” snapped Sigvald, “and you’ll see how miserably my adventures end.”

  The knight lingered over the passage for a few more seconds, clearly unnerved by something, then he skipped over the subsequent paragraphs until he neared the end of the roll. His eyes lit up and he leant closer to the paper. “My lord,” he gasped in reverential tones.

  “What?” sneered Sigvald.

  “You have… You will become a…”

  “What?”

  “A god,” whispered Víga-Barói, looking up at the prince in wonder. He dropped to one knee and lowered his head. “Your majesty,” he breathed, his voice trembling with emotion as he held out the paper. “You are to be elevated beyond the boundaries of the mortal realm. You will ascend beyond the firmament.”

  “I’m going to die, yes, I know,” snapped Sigvald. He levelled a finger at the bird skull. “That wretched creature has ruined me. For the sake of some trees, I will—”

  “No, lord,” interrupted Víga-Barói, furiously shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant.” He jabbed his finger at the parchment. “The story clearly describes your return, in your present—” he paused and took in Sigvald’s appearance with a grimace, “—condition. But then it continues to show how you will renew your beauty.” He leapt to his feet and handed the parchment to Sigvald. “It shows you entering the kingdoms of the gods. My lord,” he cried, “Slaanesh Himself will remake you and endow you with renewed vitality. You will return to the Old World, as a being of unimaginable power. Look!” he cried, pointing at the parchment. “Your divinity will be assured, and so will your victory. You will crown yourself with the skull of the Blood God.”

  Sigvald shook his head. “You’re talking gibberish. No mortal can travel so far and expect to return.” Despite his dismissive tone, there was a slight tremor in the prince’s hands as he snatched the paper and looked at the final lines of text.

  “Do you see?” asked Víga-Barói, gripping Sigvald’s shoulder.

  Sigvald stared at the scroll in silence for a few seconds, then his shoulders began to shake with laughter. “Oh, I understand,” he said, waving at the shreds of paper on the ground. “Belus has left me a choice. Either I wait for age and infirmity to overtake me, or I head even further north.”

  Baron Schüler looked from the prince to Víga-Barói in confusion. “Further north?”

  Sigvald turned towards him with a lunatic grin. “Remember the lights you saw from the Empyreal Dome?”

  Schüler blanched. “The Realm of Chaos?”

  Sigvald nodded and let out another burst of rippling laughter. “Belus is testing my nerve to see if I will abandon the world and present my naked spirit to a god.” He gave a grudging nod of respect. “My patron seeks entertainment on a grand scale. Only then will the daemon give me what I seek.”

  Oddrún hissed beneath his hood. “Belus has lost its love for you, Sigvald, that is all. You knew this time would come. Such a capricious being was bound to forsake you, eventually. All Belus wishes now is to watch you destroy yourself in the most spectacular way possible. The promise of the skull is just a trap.”

  Sigvald nodded, but as he looked back at the parchment, his eyes glittered with lust. The text described his return to the mortal world as an event of world-changing importance. The final image showed him bathed in unholy light, raising a flashing rapier over his head, with winged spirits spiralling above him into the writhing heavens. “Tell me, Oddrún,” he said, looking up from the paper, “what is the alternative?”

  Oddrún lurched forward, barging the others out of the way and stooping down to peer into Sigvald’s face. “We could grow old,” he hissed, his voice filled with desperate urgency. “We could return to our people and spend our final years in repentance. We could beg Völtar the Wolf for forgiveness.”

  At the name Völtar, the colour drained from Sigvald’s face. “Do not mention such things,” he replied, in hushed tones.

  “Why not?” cried Oddrún. “Because it causes you pain?” He tore the paper from Sigvald’s hands and threw it down onto the grass. “That’s because part of you remembers how to be human.”

  Sigvald’s lips curled back from his teeth in a bitter, leering grin. “And you think we could just start our lives again?” He pulled Oddrún’s hood lower until the giant’s head was just inches from his own. “Look at yourself,” he whispered. “You’re a monster. What exactly do you think ‘our people’ would say if they saw your revolting body lurching towards them?”

  Oddrún wrenched back his head and loomed over the prince. “There has to be a way. Don’t you see?” He waved at the scraps of paper. “Belus wants to ensnare you again. You have become boring and the daemon just wants fresh sport.”

  Sigvald drew his borrowed sword and pointed it up at Oddrún’s disjointed frame. “I can only see one fool here, Narrerback. You’re a monster and you can’t even see it. You’re ridiculous.”

  Oddrún shook his head and backed away across the lawn, but as he went, he looked down at his grotesque body and began to mutter under his breath.

  Sigvald strode after him, jabbing his sword at the chancellor. “You’re a freak,” he howled. “Don’t you see? You’re cursed! Cursed! Cursed! As much as any of us. You can’t hide sin with a piece of sackcloth. You’re evil, Oddrún, let that sink into your rotten skull. Whatever I decide to do, you can be sure of one thing: you are utterly damned.”

  Oddrún flinched away from Sivgald’s words as though they were sword strikes, and at the word “damned” he clamped his hands to his head.


  “Where’s the doctor?” snapped Sigvald, as he approached him.

  Oddrún gave no reply, so Sigvald reached into his robes and withdrew the battered gold casket.

  “Doctor Schliemann,” cried Sigvald as he flipped open the box with a brittle grin. “One last question!”

  The head was slumped on its side. The doctor’s eyes were open, but there was no sign of life in their clouded lenses. His scalp had been torn open in several places and there was a trickle of grey fluid running from the back of his skull.

  Sigvald grimaced and looked back at Víga-Barói. “Where’s the sorcerer?”

  Víga-Barói dragged his gaze from the box’s gruesome contents. “Énka, my lord?”

  Sigvald nodded. “Yes—the fish thing. Fetch him here.”

  Víga-Barói bowed and hurried from the orchard.

  Sigvald turned back to Oddrún. “Pull yourself together,” he said, softening his voice and placing a hand on the giant’s trembling shoulder. “Once he’s revived, the doctor will direct me to Slaanesh’s kingdom. Think about it, Oddrún: I will be imbued with power greater than anything we’ve ever seen. There will be no limits to what I can achieve. I could give you anything you wanted.”

  Oddrún lowered his hands and shook his head. “Nothing good ever came from such a source.”

  Sigvald smiled as he looked up at the gathering clouds. “I’m not so sure about that, Narrerback.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sväla looked up at Sigvald with tear-filled eyes. Since leading the Fallen into the Gilded Palace, her doubt had been growing. Now, as the Geld-Prince gazed down at her from an ancient, faded canvas, she felt crushed, insect-like beneath his radiance. As she compared her scrawny, bedraggled shape with his handsome face and his exquisitely embellished armour, she wondered if Völtar might have led her astray. Could such a perfect being really be responsible for their curse? Then she noticed the device on the prince’s shield. It was the same circular design she had drawn in the dust all those months earlier. Her heart sank. This must be the man.

  She stepped closer to the painting, blind to the elaborate gilt frame and the billowing cobwebs as she focussed on Sigvald’s piercing blue eyes. Could it be right to seek the death of such a being? Despite the playful grin on his face, there was a proud, distant look in the prince’s eyes, as though he were gazing far beyond the confines of the mortal world.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” said Valdür, hobbling down the vast hallway towards her. His voice was weak and hoarse, but it echoed around the vaulted ceiling, causing the old warrior to flinch, as though he had disturbed the sanctity of an ancient temple.

  Sväla looked back at him and felt her resolve harden. Valdür’s body was ruined. His skin had blistered away from his face and his furs were hanging from his rounded shoulders in tatters. But he looked at her without any hint of accusation or doubt. How could she hesitate, when so many had entrusted her with their lives?

  The final approach had been the worst; time had begun to play games with them. At first, the palace looked only a few hours away, but then, after what seemed like a lifetime, they had crested a ridge to find it further away than ever. Days became weeks, then years, then days again, until it was impossible to know how long they had been wading through the snow. She had watched friends grow old and die and then reappear the next day as young as when they set sail. By the time they clambered wearily up the winding, golden steps, only one thing was certain: less than half of the Fallen were alive to enter the home of their wayward son.

  “Yes,” replied Sväla, turning away from the painting and closing her eyes for a second.

  Valdür shuffled to her side and placed a hand on her cheek. “You must rest, child,” he said, waving back towards the huge doorway at the far end of the passageway. “I’ve told Svärd to order the men to hand out the last of the meat.” He waved at the empty hallway. “If the palace is empty, we may as well make use of it. We can sleep here while you wait for Völtar to send you guidance. Sleep might be all you need to bring back the visions.”

  Sväla shook her head. “I can’t sleep in a place like this.” She nodded to the opposite end of the passageway. It was shrouded in gloom and dust, but another door was just visible, as grand as the first one. “I’m going to look around.”

  Valdür looked past her down the hallway and frowned. “I don’t think it’s wise to go any further alone. The palace might not be completely empty. Remember how huge it is.” He shrugged. “Maybe Sigvald is still here somewhere.” He nodded at the knife in Sväla’s tattooed fist. “You might need more than that if you find him.”

  Sväla gave him a rueful smile. “You’re right, of course, old friend. I won’t go alone.” She gestured to the blankets of dust draped over the portraits. “But I think you’re wrong about Sigvald. My heart tells me he’s far from his home.”

  Sväla shook her head at the enormity of the palace. They had wandered down miles of hallway without encountering a single room. There was nothing but portraits, hundreds of them, all showing the same, grinning youth, posing heroically in his gleaming gold armour.

  “We may as well head back,” said Valdür. “No one’s been here for decades.”

  “We’ve come this far,” snapped Svärd, striding forwards and waving his javelin at the next door. “Let’s at least see what we’re all dying for.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable as he glared at his mother’s back.

  Several other tribesmen nodded their heads in agreement and as Sväla turned to face the small group, she shook her head at the old man. “What good will it do us to go back? We’ve no food and no idea where to go next. If Sigvald isn’t here, then maybe there’s at least something to eat, or someone who knows his whereabouts.”

  Svärd stepped up to his mother’s side with a sneer. “Tell me, witch, what would we do if Sigvald was waiting behind that very door? Bearing in mind what you said about his pact with the Lord of Delight, and him being immortal, I’m a little confused about how we’d actually kill him.”

  Valdür opened his mouth to silence the boy, but then he hesitated and looked at Sväla to see how she would respond.

  Sväla turned to her child with a look of such ineffable sadness that the boy’s rage faltered, and he turned away.

  “All his life,” she said, “your father never doubted his people. He always believed that we could free ourselves from our curse, despite having no idea of its source.” She looked up at one of the portraits. “Now we know the source and you still can’t believe.”

  Valdür shook his head and answered on Svärd’s behalf. “But if he’s immortal?”

  Sväla studied the iron knife in her fist. “I’ll find a way. I know it.” She turned her gaze back on her blushing son. “I still have faith in Hauk.”

  The emotion in Sväla’s voice silenced any further debate and they shuffled on towards the next door.

  It swung open to reveal a small antechamber, leading onto a second, larger room.

  The Norscans hesitated before entering and looked at each other in shock. The rooms were both hazy with smoke, drifting from a wide, inglenook fireplace in the second room. It was clear that it had been in recent use.

  Sväla gave the tribesmen a triumphant glance, before edging slowly into the room. Her feet sank into a deep, lilac carpet and she felt a wonderful warmth seeping through her furs. Candelabra were mounted on the walls and several of them were still flickering, filling the rooms with soft, ebbing light and revealing the illustrations on the silk wall hangings. The images showed a beautiful, raven-haired woman, surrounded by hundreds of screaming, tormented men. Sväla grimaced at the pictures and moved on. As she crossed the antechamber into the larger room, she noticed the enticing smell of cooked meat and stepped over to the long, polished table.

  She held a finger to her mouth as the men crept after her, holding their javelins aloft and peering into the smoky shadows.

  There was no sign of life, but as Sväla approached the table
, she saw that dozens of silver plates were set out, as though for a banquet, and some of them were still full of food.

  She closed her eyes for a second to savour the smell of the meal and when she opened them again, several of the tribesmen were gorging themselves on the stuff, groaning with pleasure as they rammed fistfuls of food into their mouths.

  Sväla was about to protest, but then she noticed that Valdür was grinning at her and she relented with a wave of her hand.

  “Looks like we’re not alone after all,” whispered the old man, grabbing a handful of meat and wolfing it down. Then he nodded to a door at the far end of the table.

  Sväla nodded back and waved for the men to follow her as she walked down the length of the table towards the door.

  As she reached the head of the table Sväla paused, noticing a plate of food that was piled even higher than the others. She shrugged and stepped towards it. In the face of such excess, it seemed churlish to abstain. She felt sure there would be plenty to take back to the others.

  As she approached the plate she gasped and looked back at the men in horror.

  They followed her gaze and saw what was on the plate. The colour drained from their faces. The meat was roasted to a chestnut brown and glistening with fat, but it was unmistakably a human head.

  The Norscans grimaced and wiped their mouths nervously, backing away from the table. As they looked closer at the cuts of meat, they noticed other human shapes on the plates.

  One of the men groaned in disgust, but Sväla signalled for them to remain silent as they approached the door.

  She pressed her ear to the wooden panels and closed her eyes. To her amazement she heard laughter and music. The sounds were distant, but there could be no doubting that some kind of celebration was going on. She held up a hand to the others and continued listening for a few seconds. The sounds were too far away to be in the next room.