01 - Heldenhammer

by Graham McNeill

  Sigmar vaulted from his saddle as he reached the rock, and slapped the gelding’s ramp to send it on its way to the reserves gathered behind the front line. He swiftly climbed the rock, the many handholds making the ascent easier than he had thought.

  Atop the Eagle’s Nest, the entire battle was laid out before him, and the sheer scale of it astounded him. In the thick of the fighting, a man could only see his immediate surroundings, the warriors next to him and the enemy before him, but here, the awesome spectacle of two entire races attempting to destroy one another was laid before Sigmar.

  He could not even begin to guess how many warriors filled the pass, for surely no concept existed for such an amount. From the narrowest point of the pass, the orcs hordes stretched back, virtually uninterrupted, to where the ground dropped away to the east.

  Tens of thousands of warriors opposed them, but they were a thin wall of iron and courage between the dark lands of the east and Sigmar’s bountiful homeland of the west.

  High above the orcs host, its master soared on the back of the dark-pinioned wyvern, and Sigmar longed to bury his warhammer in its foul skull.

  Goblin arrows arced towards him, but Sigmar did not move as they clattered against the rock or whistled past him. His practiced eye, which had read a hundred battles, now saw the grim reality of this struggle.

  It could not be won.

  As things stood, his warriors had already achieved the impossible, holding back a numberless tide of greenskins with a fraction of the numbers, but that could not last forever, the orcs would simply wear them down.

  King Kurgan’s warriors fought in the centre of the battle, where the fighting was thickest, the dwarf king killing orcs with gleeful abandon. Master Alaric fought beside the king, his runestaff wreathed with crackling lightning that burned the flesh of whatever it touched.

  No king could ask for finer allies than these.

  The warriors of the tribal kings saw him atop the Eagle’s Nest, and cheered his name as they fought, pushing the orcs line back with renewed determination. Warriors from all the different tribes fought side by side, and as Sigmar saw the fresh fire in their hearts, he knew what he had to do.

  Sigmar gripped the haft of Ghal-maraz tightly and sprinted towards the edge of the rock, leaping from the Eagle’s Nest towards the mass of roaring orcs.

  Alfgeir saw Sigmar’s insane leap from the Eagle’s Nest, and cried out as his king flew through the air with his warhammer raised high. The moment stretched, and Alfgeir knew he would never forget the sight of Sigmar as he fell towards the orcs like a barbarian hero from the ancient sagas.

  Every warrior in the army watched as Sigmar landed among the orcs with a roar of hate and then vanished from view.

  Alfgeir had lost one king in battle and he vowed he was not about to lose another.

  He circled his horse and shouted, “White Wolves. To me! We ride for the king!”

  Sigmar swept his warhammer around his body, the heavy head smashing the armour of a huge orcs armed with a blood-soaked cleaver. He wielded Ghal-maraz in both hands, his strength undiminished despite the bloodshed of the day. Each blow was delivered with a bellowing howl of rage, animal to the core, answering the orcs’ unending war-cry. Blood sprayed as the king of the Unberogen slaughtered his foes, driving ever deeper into the greenskins like a man possessed. Cold fire burned in his eyes, and, where he fought, the winter wind howled around him.

  Orcs scrambled to be away from this bloody madman, who fought with a fury greater than that of any orcs. Sigmar killed and killed without thought, seeing only the enemies of his race and the destruction of all that was good and pure. His vengeance against the orcs was unsullied by notions of honour and glory. This was simple survival. Ghal-maraz filled him with hate, his fury armoured him in thunder, and Ulric poured lightning into his veins.

  Sigmar was screaming, but he knew not what he shouted, for his entire being was focused on the slaughter. His rage was total, yet this was not the wanton fury of the berserker, this was controlled aggression at its most distilled.

  A hundred orcs were dead already, and a great circle opened around Sigmar as the orcs fought each other to escape his rampage. Ancient energies flared from Ghal-maraz as it worked its slaughter, powers that not even the most revered runelords could name aiding the king’s bloody work.

  Sigmar fought with the might of every one of his illustrious ancestors, his enemies unable to even approach him, let along bring him down. Powers from the dawn of the world flowed through him, his muscles iron hard and invigorated with strength beyond imagining.

  With grim, murderous strokes, Sigmar pushed onwards, hearing a swelling roar behind him as the tribal kings followed the last order he had given to Alfgeir.

  Their hearts filled with fiery pride, the armies of men charged with the last of their strength and hope.

  Unberogen champions and Udose clansmen threw themselves at the orcs, fighting with the same fury and strength as Sigmar. Wolfgart cut through orcs armour with mighty swings of his heavy sword, and Pendrag fought like a berserker as he hacked a path towards Sigmar.

  Ostagoth blademasters cut bloody thin through the orcs, and Chemsen wildmen cackled like loons as they tore at their foes with hooked gauntlets. Asoborn warrior women danced through the greenskins with long daggers, plucking out eyes and slashing hamstrings, while Taleuten riders abandoned their steeds to charge in with slashing swords.

  Raven Helms skewered orcs upon lowered lances, and the steeds of the White Wolves smashed into the orcs as their riders broke open enemy heads with their swinging hammers.

  Screaming berserkers fought without heed of their own lives, and King Otwin roared as he swung his axe in lethal arcs. Myrsa and the warriors clad in all-enclosing plate chopped a bloody swathe through the orcs with wide sweeps of their terrifying greatswords.

  The orcs were in disarray, and the front line was butchered by the sudden onslaught.

  None dared come near Sigmar as he pushed onwards, further even than his most courageous warriors had reached. Orcs flowed around him, and panic seized the nearest, a ripple of fear spreading from the front of the army as the fury of this newborn god spread.

  Sigmar neither knew nor cared how many orcs he had slain, but no matter how grand a total, he knew it would never be enough. Even with the courage and fire his warriors were displaying in this magnificent charge it could never be enough. Sigmar was leaving his warriors far behind, their war cries swallowed by the baying of the orcs.

  The press of bodies from the rear of the orcs army prevented many from escaping his wrath, and he slew them without mercy, corpses building around him in a vast mound of the dead.

  Ghal-maraz shone like a beacon of faith in the centre of the battlefield, and the orcs quailed before it. The warriors of the twelve tribes fought like heroes, and as yet more orcs fled before its might, Sigmar felt the first stirrings of hope in his breast.

  Then a dark shadow fell upon the battlefield like a slick of oil across water.

  Sigmar looked up and saw great emerald wings and a roaring maw as the wyvern struck like a thunderbolt from the sky.

  The wyvern’s jaws snapped at Sigmar, and he dived to the side, tumbling down the slope of orcs dead and falling to the ground amid a rain of split heads and broken corpses. He rolled to his feet as the wyvern landed atop the bodies of the greenskins that Sigmar had slain. Its homed head was massive, thrice as big as the largest bullock, and its jaws were filled with teeth like Cherusen daggers.

  Its monstrous body was scaled and leathery, rippling with muscle and bony scales that ran the length of its back to a slashing tail that dripped hissing black venom. Two enormous wings stretched out behind it as its thick, serpentine neck pushed its head forward.

  The black soulless orbs of its eyes fixed Sigmar with a stare of brutal cunning.

  Atop the wyvern’s back sat the largest orcs that Sigmar had ever seen. Its skin was coal dark, and its armour was composed of heavy plates of iron hammered into its
flesh with spikes. Tusks as large as those of the beast it rode jutted from its jaw, and its red eyes burned with all the hatred of its race.

  Not even the eyes of Vagraz Head-Stomper had held such malice within them. This warlord was the purest incarnation of orcs rage and cunning combined.

  Ghal-maraz burned in Sigmar’s hand, and he felt its recognition of this warlord: Urgluk Bloodfang.

  Green fire rippled around the warlord’s axe, a weapon of immense power and evil. The blade was smooth obsidian, and no orcs craft had fashioned so deadly a weapon. Twisted variants of the runes that blazed on Ghal-maraz were worked along the length of its haft, and Sigmar felt their evil clawing at his soul.

  Currents of power flowed around the two masters of the battlefield, and the fate of the world rested upon this combat. Man and orcs faced one another, and the souls of both armies were carried within them. His own warriors were still far behind Sigmar, and, though orcs surrounded him, none dared intervene in this titanic duel.

  “Come ahead and die!” shouted Sigmar, holding Ghal-maraz before him. The ancient hammer blazed with power, its urge to wreak death upon its enemies an almost physical force.

  The wyvern launched itself at Sigmar, its wings flaring as its jaws snapped for him. Sigmar sidestepped, and swung his hammer in a short arc that slammed into the side of the beast’s head. Roaring in pain, the wyvern staggered, but did not fall.

  A powerful sweep of the wyvern’s thick tail caught his shoulder and hurled him from his feet. He landed badly and felt something break inside him, but he managed to scramble to his feet as the monster lunged forward. He dived beneath the snapping jaws and rolled beneath the creature’s neck, snatching up a fallen sword as he went.

  With every ounce of his strength, Sigmar thrust the sword into the wyvern's chest. The blade sank into the beast’s flesh, but before Sigmar could drive it home, the creature took to the air, clawing at him with its rear legs.

  Talons like swords sliced down Sigmar’s chest and he roared in agony. He brought his warhammer up and battered the wyvern's legs away before its claws could disembowel him. Gasping in pain, he rose to his feet in time to see the beast diving towards him once more.

  Sigmar dived to the side, blood flowing freely from the wounds on his chest and a dozen others. He let the pain fuel his anger, and rose to his full height, a blood-soaked king of men with the mightiest of hearts.

  “Come down and face me!” he shouted to Bloodfang.

  If the warlord understood or cared, it gave no sign, but it hauled on the beast’s chains and grunted as it pointed at Sigmar. The wyvern's jaws opened wide enough to swallow Sigmar whole, and it gave a terrifying roar. Its head snapped forward, and Sigmar vaulted over its jaws as he smashed Ghal-maraz down on its skull.

  The beast shuddered and once again it reared up in pain.

  Sigmar dropped close to the wyvern and swung his warhammer with two hands towards the sword that still jutted from the monster’s chest. Ghal-maraz slammed into the sword’s pommel, thrusting the weapon deep within the wyvern and piercing its heart.

  With a strangled bellow, the wyvern crashed to the ground, its wings crumpling like torn sails as the life went out of it.

  Sigmar rushed forward, hoping to catch Bloodfang struggling beneath his fallen mount, but the warlord was already on his feet and waiting for him. The black axe sang for Sigmar’s neck, and he hurled himself to the side. Green fire scorched Sigmar’s skin as the blade came within a hair’s breadth of taking his head.

  Bloodfang arose from the death of his mount, a towering giant of enormous proportions and endless hate. The warlord’s muscles bulged and pressed at the armour plates nailed to his flesh. A warlike chant built amongst the orcs surrounding Sigmar, and Bloodfang seemed to stand taller as the brutal vitality of his race surged through him.

  For long seconds, neither combatant moved. Then Sigmar leapt to attack, his warhammer swinging in a deadly arc for Bloodfang’s head. The axe flickered up to block the strike, and the warlord pistoned a fist into Sigmar’s jaw.

  Sigmar had seen the blow coming at the last second, and rolled with the punch, but the force behind it was phenomenal, and he staggered away, desperate to put some space between him and his foe. The black axe slashed towards him, and Sigmar dropped, slamming the head of Ghal-maraz into Bloodfang’s stomach.

  The warhammer howled as it struck the enormous orcs, unleashing potent energies as it found the perfect target for its rage. Bloodfang staggered away from Sigmar, a newfound respect in the glowing embers of his eyes.

  Both warriors attacked again, axe and hammer dashing in explosions of green and blue fire. Though Bloodfang had the advantage of strength, Sigmar was faster and landed more blows against the orcs.

  As the battle went on, Sigmar knew that he was reaching the end of his endurance, while Bloodfang had just begun to fight. The orcs chanting was growing louder, but so too were the war cries of Sigmar’s army.

  His warriors were battling to reach him and their courage gave him the strength to fight on.

  The axe came at him again, and Sigmar slammed his warhammer into the obsidian blade, leaping closer to the immense orcs. He spun low, and brought Ghal-maraz up in a crushing underarm strike, the head connecting solidly with Bloodfang’s jaw.

  The warlord’s skull snapped back, but before Sigmar could back away, the orcs’ fist closed on his shoulder, and he screamed as bones ground beneath his skin. Bloodfang fell back with a heavy crash, and Sigmar was dragged with him, fighting to free himself from the warlord’s grip.

  Bloodfang released his axe and took hold of Sigmar’s head.

  Sigmar dropped Ghal-maraz and wrapped his hand around Bloodfang’s wrists, the muscles in his arms bulging as he strained against the enormous strength that threatened to crush his skull.

  Veins writhed in his arms and his face purpled with the effort of trying to pull Bloodfang’s hands from his head.

  Their faces were less than a hand’s span apart, and Sigmar locked his gaze with the powerful warlord, his twin-coloured eyes meeting the blazing red of Bloodfang’s without fear.

  “You. Will. Never. Win,” snarled Sigmar as the power of a winter storm surged through his body with cold, unforgiving fury.

  Inch by inch, he prised Bloodfang’s hands from his head, relishing the look of surprise and fear in the warlord’s eyes. That fear drove Sigmar onward, and with growing strength he pulled the warlord’s hands even further apart.

  Sigmar grinned in triumph and rammed his forehead into the warlord’s face. Blood burst from the orcs’ pig-like nose and it roared in frustration. Realising that he could not simply crush Sigmar with brute strength, Bloodfang ripped a hand clear and reached for his axe.

  It was all the opening that Sigmar needed.

  He swept up Ghal-maraz and brought the ancestral heirloom of the dwarfs down upon Bloodfang’s face with all his might.

  The warlord’s skull exploded into fragments of bone and flesh and brain matter. A flare of white light burst from the warhammer, and Sigmar was hurled clear as Bloodfang’s body was entirely unmade by the most powerful energies of the dwarfs’ ancient weapon.

  Blinking away the afterimages of Urgluk Bloodfang’s death, Sigmar saw the shock and awe on the faces of the orcs that surrounded him. They still earned sharp swords, and he saw the fires of vengeance and opportunity in their eyes.

  Sigmar tried to stand, but his strength was gone, his blood-covered limbs trembling in the aftermath of channelling such mighty power. He sank to his haunches and reached for a weapon of some description to fight these orcs, but only broken sword blades and snapped spear hafts lay next to him.

  A broad-shouldered orcs with a helmet of dark iron reached for the fallen warlord’s axe, and a white-shafted arrow punched through the visor of its helmet to bury its iron point in the beast’s brain. Another followed and within seconds a flurry of arrows thudded into the orcs ranks, followed by a swelling roar of triumph.

  Sigmar lifted his gaze to
the blue sky, and wept in gratitude as the warriors of his army swept past him and into the stunned orcs. Asoborn warrior women shrieked as they tore into the orcs alongside Unberogen, Chemsens, Taleutens and Merogens. Thuringian berserkers, led by King Otwin, rushed headlong into the orcs lines, followed by Menogoth spearmen. Thundering Raven Helm cavalry, hungry to avenge Marbad’s death, smashed into the greenskins, and Brigundian archers harried the orcs with deadly accurate shafts.

  King Wolfila cleaved a bloody swathe through the orcs with his enormous, basket-hilted broadsword, and his howling clansmen followed him into the orcs with furious howls.

  The orcs’ courage and resolve, teetering on a knife edge at the incredible death of their leader, broke in the face of this new attack, and within moments they were a panicked, fleeing mob.

  A horse drew up next to Sigmar and he looked up into Alfgeir’s scowling face.

  “By all the gods, Sigmar!” snapped the Marshal of the Reik. “That was the most insane thing I have ever seen.”

  Darkness was falling by the time the last of the greenskins had been driven from the field. With the death of Urgluk Bloodfang, the awesome power that had dominated and bound the orcs tribes together was gone, and they had fractured like poorly forged steel. Without the warlord’s force of will, old jealousies erupted and, even amid the slaughter of the rout, the orcs had turned on one another with bloody axes and swords.

  The exhausted warriors of Sigmar’s army had pursued the orcs as long as they were able, vengeful cavalry riding down thousands as they quit the pass and fled for the desolation of the east. Only darkness and exhaustion had prevented further pursuit, and the sun was low in the west when the riders returned in triumph, their horses windblown and lathered.

  It had taken some time for the enormity of the victory to sink in, for so many had died to win it, and so many would yet die upon the surgeon’s tables, but as the horsemen rode back to camp, the laughter and songs had begun, and the relief of those who lived surged to the fore.