02 - Empire

by Graham McNeill

  “In defiance of everything I said to you both, you continue to fight one another. You plunder one another’s lands, raiding and killing in spite of my command. I gave you a way to save face and return home in peace, but no, that was not good enough for you, was it?”

  “Sigmar, I—” began Krugar.

  “Sigmar, please,” said Aloysis from his cell. “There is no need for this!”

  “Enough!” shouted Sigmar. “The Roppsmenn paid the price for attacking me. Now you will both see what it means to betray me. At dawn tomorrow you will be taken to the marshes of the Brackenwalsch and put to death.”

  ——

  The Temptation of Sigmar

  Grey skies greeted the day of the executions. Sigmar rode through the streets of Reikdorf at the head of twenty White Wolves, moving quietly and without conversation. Counts Krugar and Aloysis were borne upon a hay wagon, their heads swathed in hessian hoods and their hands bound with iron fetters. A bell tolled from the steeple of the temple of Ulric, and a light rain began to fall.

  It was still early, and the few people abroad at this hour stopped to stare in surprise and fear at the sight of him leading so strange a procession. Beneath their hoods, both prisoners were gagged, and all signs of their former station had been removed. To all appearances, the prisoners were no more than base criminals, yet Sigmar was not fool enough to think that their identities were not already common knowledge.

  The thought did not trouble him, for the warriors who had ridden with Krugar and Aloysis were even now under guard in a number of warehouses on the southern bank of the river. The city gates had been closed to prevent word from spreading beyond the walls, but Sigmar could not stop tavern talk, and news of Aloysis and Krugar’s arrests had swept through the city like marsh pox.

  Aloysis had arrived in Reikdorf only two nights previously, and the Cherusen count had been similarly outraged at his harsh treatment. Sigmar ignored his protests and left him chained to the dungeon wall until he had brought Krugar down to join him. As he held the blade to Krugar’s throat, the killing urge that had been with him since Morath’s defeat threatened to overwhelm him. It had taken all his self-control not to cut Krugar’s throat there and then.

  Such urges were anathema to him, but the desire to kill Krugar and Aloysis was like a craving to which he dared not surrender.

  These men were his friends.

  No, they were his enemies, defying him and breaking their oaths of loyalty.

  They were men who made foolish errors of judgement, letting ancient hatreds whose origins had long been forgotten blind them to their ties of brotherhood.

  No, they were fools who deserved to die!

  Sigmar’s head ached with conflicting thoughts and emotions. As much as he knew that what he was doing was very wrong, the rage that fed his urge to kill pulsed like fiery waves in his skull, blotting out any thoughts of compassion. So vile and bitter was this rage that he did not even recognise it as his own. Sigmar had known anger in his life, but this rage had been nursed for thousands of years, a hatred that had grown to such immense proportions that Sigmar’s mind recoiled from such darkness.

  Even as he understood that this hatred was alien, calming warmth spread through him, seeping down from his temple and into his chest. It spread along his limbs, easing his fears and soothing his troubled mind. All remembrances of this morning’s evil fled from his thoughts.

  The Ostgate loomed in the pre-dawn light, and the armoured warriors stationed there pulled the locking bar from its runners. The gate was opened, and Sigmar rode between the high towers flanking it. None of the gate guards dared meet his eyes, and he sensed great fear in their lowered gazes and submissive postures.

  Even as he relished that fear, anger swelled as he saw that they pitied the prisoners.

  These men had betrayed him, and his own warriors dared look at them with pity?

  Keeping his hands tight on the reins, Sigmar rode from his city, keeping the pace steady as they travelled through the morning along the eastern road that skirted the edges of the Brackenwalsch. Weak sunlight warmed the earth, yet wisps of fog still oozed from the bleak fens to the north. The muddy greyness of the day lingered, and when the road bent towards Siggurdheim, Sigmar stopped his horse and dismounted.

  “Bring them,” he said, his voice cold and laden with ancient relish.

  The White Wolves manhandled the two captives from the wagon, and Sigmar marched over to them. He pulled off their hoods, and both counts blinked in the sudden brightness. Sigmar looked into their eyes, pleased at the fear he saw behind their bravado. Men always feared to die, no matter what they claimed.

  “This is the day of your deaths,” he said, pointing into the fog-shrouded marsh. “Some years ago I watched the Endals execute a traitor named Idris Gwylt in the marshes around Marburg. They called it the thrice death, and it was a bad death. The priests of Morr tried to stop it. They said that for a man to die like that would deny him his journey onwards to the next world. I say it is the only death appropriate for traitors.”

  He smiled as they blanched at the mention of the thrice death. Word of Idris Gwylt’s fate had spread throughout the empire, and the horror of his death was writ large in their eyes.

  Sigmar led his warriors from the road and into the marsh, leaving a handful of White Wolves to guard their horses. The air tasted of life, and Sigmar felt his bile rise at the rancid stench of growth and fecundity. This was a liminal place, where worlds overlapped, and where the walls that separated them grew thin. He could sense power seeping up through the ground, the essence of life and creation, and his flesh crawled at its nearness.

  No paths existed through the marshes, yet Sigmar led the way through the fog as though following a well-remembered route. He had never travelled these marshes, but he knew with utter certainty that he would not be sucked beneath the dark waters. Behind him, his warriors splashed and cursed as they dragged the reluctant prisoners through the sodden ground.

  The marshes were alive with sound, and Sigmar shut out the cries of birds, the buzz of insects and the croaks of swamp creatures. His flesh grew clammy and warm with the life energy pouring from the waters. His warriors were oblivious to it, yet he could see it as a translucent green mist that rippled from the water and fens like noxious swamp gas.

  When he decided they had come far enough, he raised a hand and turned to face his victims. He stood at the edge of a dark pool, the waters brackish and dead. It was perfect.

  “This is far enough,” he said. “Bring them.”

  Krugar and Aloysis were dragged forward and pushed to their knees at the edge of the pool. Their eyes bulged with fear, wordlessly pleading with Sigmar not to do this. He drew Krugar’s sword, carrying Utensjarl now instead of Count Wolfila’s blade. The hilt felt warm in his hand, the power within it cowed by something greater.

  He held the gleaming blade before Krugar, and said, “To be killed by a weapon bound to your lineage will send a message that will be heard throughout the empire.”

  Krugar struggled against his bonds, but the White Wolves held him firm.

  “This gives me no pleasure,” said Sigmar, “but betrayal can have only one punishment.”

  “And what of murder?” asked a familiar voice.

  Sigmar turned as Wolfgart emerged from the mist, his sword-brother leading a lathered horse that picked its way fearfully over the sodden ground.

  “What are you doing here, Wolfgart?” asked Sigmar. “This does not concern you.”

  “Oh, this concerns me, Sigmar,” replied Wolfgart. “This concerns me a great deal.”

  “These men defied my command. What message does it send if my counts can pick and choose which of my commands they obey and which they do not?”

  “I don’t deny that action must be taken, but this?”

  “This is a legitimate execution,” said Sigmar.

  “It is murder,” replied Wolfgart.

  Sigmar shook his head, aiming Utensjarl at Wolfgart.
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  “Of all the people I thought would betray me,” he said, “I never once thought you would be one of them.”

  Wolfgart took a step towards Sigmar, his hands held out in supplication.

  “I’m not betraying you, my friend. I’m trying to save you,” he said.

  “From what?”

  “From yourself,” said Wolfgart, moving closer. “Something happened to you in the north. I don’t know what, but something changed you, made you more ruthless, more… I don’t know… heartless.”

  “Nothing happened in the north, Wolfgart,” said Sigmar, “save my eyes being opened to the true nature of man. He is an animal, and it is in his nature to betray. All the race of men understand is blood and vengeance.”

  “Vengeance is pointless, Sigmar. Continuing the feuds that divide us will only lead to further hatred. You taught me that.”

  “I was young and foolish then,” said Sigmar. “I was blind to the reality of the world.”

  Wolfgart was right in front of him, and Sigmar felt a nauseous spike of pain in his gut, as though his sword-brother’s very nearness was somehow its cause. Wolfgart reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched.

  “What do you think will happen to the empire if you kill Krugar and Aloysis?” Wolfgart asked. “The Cherusens and Taleutens won’t stand for it. They’ll rebel, and you’ll have a civil war on your hands. Some of the counts might support you, but others won’t, and what will you do then? March on their lands and burn them like you did the Roppsmenn?”

  “If need be,” said Sigmar, shrugging off Wolfgart’s hand.

  “I won’t let you do this,” said Wolfgart.

  “You cannot stop me,” laughed Sigmar. “I am the Emperor!”

  Sigmar turned his back on Wolfgart.

  “I am done explaining myself to you. It is time to deliver my judgement upon these traitors,” he said.

  “Sigmar, don’t,” pleaded Wolfgart.

  “Begone,” he said. “I will deal with you when I return to Reikdorf.”

  Sigmar lifted Utensjarl, but before he could strike Wolfgart hurled himself forward, sending them both tumbling to the ground. The sword landed point down in the mud.

  Sigmar roared in anger as Wolfgart fought to hold him down. His fist cannoned into Wolfgart’s face, and he heard a crack of bone. Wolfgart slammed a right cross into Sigmar’s jaw, but he rode the punch and slammed his forehead into the middle of Wolfgart’s face.

  Blood burst from Wolfgart’s broken nose, and Sigmar brought his knee up into his groin. His sword-brother grunted in pain, but did not release his hold.

  “This is murder,” hissed Wolfgart through a mask of blood.

  Hands gripped Wolfgart, hauling him from Sigmar.

  “No!” roared Sigmar. “Leave him!”

  They rolled in the mud and sopping pools of the marsh, punching, kicking and clawing at one another like wild animals. All thoughts of honour and nobility were forgotten in the brawl. Sigmar spat out a mouthful of stagnant water, and drove his elbow into Wolfgart’s neck.

  Wolfgart clutched at his throat, crawling away as he gasped for air.

  Sigmar reached out as he saw a gleam of silver, his hand closing on Utensjarl’s hilt. He dragged the sword from the mud. A ring of warriors surrounded him, but he cared nothing for their expressions of shock and confusion. All that mattered was that his enemy died.

  He half-crawled, half-scrambled on his knees through the mud towards his sword-brother. Wolfgart lay at the edge of water, and Sigmar turned him onto his back. The water bubbled and churned around them, as though their struggles had stirred something beneath them. Rank swamp gas frothed to the surface.

  Wolfgart’s face was bloodied, and he fought for breath. Sigmar took Utensjarl in a two-handed grip, the blade aimed at Wolfgart’s chest.

  “Brother!” cried Wolfgart, and Sigmar’s killing fire faltered as he saw not fear, but sadness in his sword-brother’s face. The water around them heaved again, and Sigmar heard a wet, sucking sound, like a boot pulled from the mud.

  A body broke the surface of the water, a corpse once held in the stygian darkness below, but now returned to the world above. The body rolled upright, and Sigmar gagged on the stench of the marsh’s depths as he found himself staring at a pallid, dead face.

  It was the Hag Woman. Though dark water slicked from her face and marsh fronds garlanded her hair, there was no mistaking the Brackenwalsch seer.

  Her throat had been cut and her skull was caved in at the temple.

  Her eyes were open, and they stared directly at Sigmar. And in them, he saw his soul shining back at him.

  Sigmar cried out as he saw himself reflected in the Hag Woman’s eyes, sitting astride his oldest and dearest friend with murder in his heart. As though looking up through her cold, lifeless orbs, he saw the horror in the faces of those around him, and the berserk rage on his own. For the briefest instant, he did not recognise himself, the drawn, parchment-skinned monster that revelled in bloodshed and the pain of the living.

  The moment stretched, as though frozen in time, and Sigmar felt a feather-light brush of a power greater than anything he had ever known, including the Flame of Ulric. It was elemental and vast beyond understanding, a power that had existed since the dawn of the world, and which would endure beyond the span of men or gods.

  It was old this power, old and strong, and with that one, almost inconsequential touch, Sigmar recognised it as a power he had long ago sworn to serve in a moment of grief. The Hag Woman had promised he would see her again, and he understood the meaning of her last words to him in one sudden, awful burst of clarity.

  He looked beyond the ring of White Wolves, seeing that which was invisible to the sight of mortals. Was this a last gift of the Hag Woman, an echo of her powers granted to him that he might understand what he had become?

  Sigmar saw the tautness of his body, as though his flesh and soul had been stretched and twisted like a fraying rope on the verge of snapping. A black miasma surrounded him, a cloying shroud that smothered the very things that made him the man he was and poisoned everything within him that was good and noble. Within this miasma, a towering shadow hung over him, a monstrous outline of something long dead, yet which endured impossibly down the thousands of years since its doom.

  A clawed hand of glittering gold and silver seemed to reach from the miasma with fingers of black smoke that pressed upon his skull like the blessing of a priest. Yet this was no blessing, this was a curse, for, even as he watched, the essence of the shadowy creature was slowly, moment by moment, passing into Sigmar.

  “No!” he cried, but he was not a player in this scene, merely a passive observer.

  In an instant, he relived the war against the Roppsmenn, the hideous massacres, the burning villages, the blood-thirsty rampages of the Udose which he had not only allowed but encouraged. The slaughter of an entire people. Tears welled in his eyes as he knew that he had passed the darkness of his heart to every man who fought with him in the north.

  The souls of all who took part in the destruction of the Roppsmenn would be forever tainted by that unjust war, and Sigmar knew he could never atone for it. Looking around him, he saw the same shadow that enveloped him as a haze around the warriors he had brought from Reikdorf. Through him evil had touched them, bringing the hidden darkness within them to the surface.

  Looking closer, Sigmar saw that the dark shadow seeping into his soul was slithering around the golden crown at his brow. The soothing warmth that quietened his fears and quashed any rebellious thoughts had silenced the shrieking voice of his heart that knew what he was doing was wrong. Every day since the defeat of Morath crowded his thoughts, and he wept to see the passage of days, knowing they were his yet experiencing them as a stranger might hear the tale of a long-lost brother.

  “This is not me!” he screamed, watching as the shadow that loomed over his body swelled in anticipation of this murder.

  Images flashed before him, and his soul fought
against the dark spirit invading him.

  Ravenna by the river.

  A city swallowed by the sand…

  His father in the Grey Vaults.

  A murderous enemy with a fell sword…

  The kings of men swearing sword oaths with him.

  The forging of a mighty crown of sorcery…

  The soaring nobility of the race of man coming together as one.

  Utensjarl fell from Sigmar’s hands, and the world snapped back into focus as he looked, once again, through his own eyes. The black miasma surrounding him vanished, and Sigmar looked down at Wolfgart, heartsick with grief and horror. He sobbed, and the sound clawed from his throat as though from a great distance.

  “Sigmar?” cried Wolfgart. “Is that you?”

  He blinked, tears of shame and fear spilling down his cheeks as he felt the awesome rage of something older and more terrible than anything he had ever known turn upon him.

  “Gods, brother,” he whispered. “What has become of me?”

  Sigmar grasped the golden crown at his brow, but no sooner had his fingers touched the metal than fiery agony exploded inside his head. He screamed as shooting spikes of pain ripped into him, like a choke-chain violently pulled at the neck of a disobedient hound.

  He surged to his feet, screaming as his humanity warred with this invasive force that poisoned him with its evil. Wolfgart scrambled to his knees, reaching out to him, but his sword-brother could not help him now.

  He had to fight this battle alone.

  With a cry of anguish, Sigmar turned and fled into the depths of the marsh.

  The mist closed around him as he ran blindly through the depths of the Brackenwalsch. He heard alarmed cries following him, but they were soon swallowed by the deadening fog and eerie silence of the marsh. Sigmar ran without care for where he stepped, knowing that at any moment he might wander from the path, stumble into a sucking bog and be lost forever.

  He welcomed the thought, but with every stumbling step he plunged deeper and deeper into the haunted fens, driven by the imperative to flee from any he might corrupt with the evil power growing within him.