‘I don’t know,’ said Sigmar. ‘I hope so.’
‘You hope so? I heard Blacktusk was a monster that killed an entire hunting party.’
‘That’s true enough,’ admitted Sigmar, ‘but he was a noble creature, and I think we sensed something in each other that we recognised.’
‘What did you recognise in a boar?’ laughed Ravenna, kicking her boots off and sitting on the riverbank. ‘I’m not trying to flatter you, but I do not think you look much like a boar.’
Ravenna dangled her feet in the cool waters and tilted her head towards the sun.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean that, though you should see me with a hangover.’
‘Then what did you mean?’
Sigmar sat next to her and undid the thongs holding his boots in place. The water was cold, and he felt his skin tingle pleasantly as he immersed his feet in the fast flowing river.
‘I meant that we were both one of a kind.’
She laughed, and gave him a playful shove before seeing that he was serious.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to laugh.’
‘I know, it sounds arrogant, but it is what I felt,’ said Sigmar. ‘Blacktusk was enormous, the biggest animal I have ever seen, legs like tree trunks and a chest wider than the biggest horse in the king’s stables. He was unique.’
‘You are right,’ said Ravenna. ‘That does sound arrogant.’
‘Is it? I don’t think so, for I am the only one who seems to have a vision of anything better for us than what we have at the moment. The kings of the tribes are content with their lot, squabbling amongst themselves, and fighting the orcs and beasts as they are attacked.’
‘But not you?’
‘No, not me,’ agreed Sigmar, ‘but I did not bring you here to talk of war and death.’
‘Oh?’ said Ravenna, flicking a spray of water towards him. ‘So what did you bring me here for?’
Sigmar pushed himself to his feet and retrieved the items he had brought from his horse’s panniers. He laid the hide pack beside him and handed Ravenna the cloth-wrapped bundle.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Open it and find out.’
Ravenna eagerly unfolded the cloth protecting the bundle’s contents, turning it over as she uncovered what lay within. The last covering fell away, and she gasped as she saw a folded emerald cloak embroidered with curling spirals of gold. Silver thread intertwined with the gold, and the collar of the cloak was edged in soft ermine.
Sitting on the folded garment was a tapering golden cloak pin adorned with an azure stone at its thickest end. Set in the centre of a circle of glittering gold worked into the shape of a snake devouring its own tail. The workmanship was exquisite. Small bands along the length of the snake’s body were engraved with the symbol of a twin-tailed comet.
‘I… I don’t know what to say,’ said Ravenna. ‘It’s wonderful.’
‘Eoforth told me that the snake eating its own tail is a symbol for rebirth and renewal,’ said Sigmar as Ravenna turned the pin over in her hands, staring in open-mouthed admiration at the incredible piece of jewellery. ‘The start of new things… and the coming together of two into one.’
‘Two into one,’ smiled Ravenna.
‘So he tells me,’ said Sigmar. ‘I had Master Alaric fashion the pin for me, but I think he only agreed so he wouldn’t have to make any more mail shirts.’
Ravenna traced her fingers around the gold circle. ‘I have never owned anything so beautiful,’ she said, and Sigmar heard a tremor in her voice. ‘And this cloak…’
‘It was my mother’s,’ said Sigmar. ‘My father said she wore it when they were wed.’
Ravenna placed the pin back on the cloak, and said, ‘These are exceptional gifts, Sigmar. Thank you so much.’
Sigmar blushed, happy they had pleased her. ‘I am glad you like them.’
‘I love them,’ said Ravenna. She nodded to the hide pack beside him. ‘And what is in there? More presents?’
He smiled. ‘Not quite,’ he said, reaching over and opening the hide pack to lift out some muslin-wrapped cheese and a number of slices of bread. A wax sealed clay jug came next, followed by two pewter goblets.
‘Food,’ she said. ‘You thought of everything.’
Sigmar broke the seal on the jug, and poured a crisp liquid the colour of pale apple juice. He handed her a goblet. ‘Wine from the slopes of the Reik estuary,’ he said, ‘courtesy of King Marbad.’
They drank together, and Sigmar enjoyed the refreshing bite of the wine. A more refined taste than the beer he was used to, it was, nevertheless, enjoyably crisp.
‘You like it?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ said Ravenna. ‘It’s sweet.’
‘Be careful, Marbad warned me it’s quite strong.’
‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’
‘Do I need to?’
‘That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.’
Sigmar took another mouthful of wine, feeling as though he was already drunk, but knowing it had nothing to do with the alcohol.
‘I know of no clever way to say this,’ said Sigmar, ‘so I am just going to say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘I love you, Ravenna,’ he said simply. ‘I always have, but I am not skilled with words and have not known how to say it until now.’
Ravenna’s eyes widened at his declaration, and he feared he had made a terrible error, until she reached out with her free hand and ran her fingers down his cheek.
‘That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,’ she said.
‘You are in my thoughts every day,’ said Sigmar, his words coming out in a gabbled rush. ‘Every time I see you, I want to sweep you up in my arms and hold you.’
She smiled and halted his ramblings by leaning forward to kiss him, her lips tasting of the wine and a thousand other flavours he would remember for the rest of his life. Sigmar kissed her back, sliding his arms around her and lowering her towards the grass.
Ravenna’s arms slipped naturally around his shoulders, and they kissed for many minutes until their hands found each other’s belts and buttons. Their clothes slipped from their bodies with ease, and though Sigmar knew it was foolish to be so exposed this far into the forest, all thoughts of caution were banished by the sight of her naked flesh beneath him.
Her skin was pale and smooth, and her flesh lean and hard from days spent working the fields, yet soft and supple and flushed with excitement.
Sigmar had bedded his share of village girls, but as his hands explored her body, he felt as though this beauty before him erased the memory of them. His every touch was experimental, tentative and deliciously new. Likewise, her hands touched the hard, corded muscles of his chest and arms with unabashed pleasure.
They kissed fiercely as they made love, their every movement gaining in confidence. Sigmar wished that the moment would never end. The chill feel of the wind on his back, the rushing of the river and Ravenna’s rapid breath rang like thunder in his ears.
At last they were spent, and lay wrapped together on the banks of the river, all thoughts of the world beyond this moment forgotten.
Sigmar rolled onto his elbow and ran his fingertips along the length of her body.
‘When I am king, I will marry you,’ he said.
Ravenna smiled, and his heart was snared.
The cave was dark and filled with echoes of the past: grand deeds, villainous betrayal and horrifying carnage. Some had been plotted and some had been prevented, but as with all things, they had their origins with men and their desires.
The hag woman sat in the centre of the cave, a cauldron of black iron hissing on a low fire in front of her. Evil-smelling smoke rose from the skin of murky liquid at the base of the pot, and she sprinkled a handful of rotten herbs and mildew into the hot metal.
Hissing smoke rose from the mixture, and she took a deep draught into her lungs as she felt the power that blew from the northern r
ealms fill her body. Men knew little of this energy, fearing its power to transform and twist creatures into vile monsters. In their ignorance, they called it sorcery or simply evil, but the hag woman knew that this power was simply an elemental force that could be shaped by the will of one strong enough.
As a child, she had been cursed with visions of things that later came to pass, and could perform miraculous feats without effort. Fires could dance on her fingertips, and the shadows would obey her commands, carrying her wherever she desired.
For this she had been feared, and her parents had pleaded with her to stop, to keep her abilities to herself. They had loved her, but they had dreaded her coming of age, and she could hear them as they wept and cursed the gods that had delivered them such an afflicted child.
She was young, however, and the temptation to make use of her ability was too great. She had entertained the other children of the village with dazzling displays of light and fire, sending them squealing home with tales of her wondrous powers.
She had told her father of this, and her heart had broken as she saw the anguish etched into his face. Without a word spoken, he had taken up his axe and led her from their small home and into the dusk-lit forest.
They had walked for hours until she had fallen asleep, and he had carried her against his chest. If she tried, she could still recall the smell of his leather jerkin and the peaty aroma of the marshes as he splashed through the shallow bogs of the Brackenwalsch.
With the green moon high overhead, he had set her down amid the reeds and black water, the drone of insects and distant splashes of marsh toads loud in the darkness. His axe had come up, moonlight glinting on the sharpened blade, and she had cried as he had cried also.
The hag woman felt her anger grow and viciously suppressed it. Anger would cause the north wind to surge with fierce power and send her into a dark spiral of hate. To soar on the currents of power, the mind needed to be clear. Anger would only cloud her thoughts.
Her father had held the axe aloft, his arms shaking at the terrible thing he was about to do, but before it descended to end her life, a strong voice rang out, carried across the bleak fens with fierce authority.
‘Leave the child,’ said the voice. ‘She belongs to me now.’
Her father had backed away, dropping his axe to the waters with a heavy splash.
She cried for him, but he had vanished into the darkness, and she never saw him again.
She had turned to see a withered old crone in ragged black robes making her surefooted way through the marsh towards her. Her fear was instantly multiplied as she sensed a dreadful familiarity and awful inevitability steal over her, but her feet were rooted to the spot, and she could not move.
‘You have the gift, child,’ said the crone as she stood before her.
She had shaken her head, but the crone had laughed bitterly. ‘You cannot lie, girl. I see it in you as my predecessor saw it in me. Now come with me, there is much to teach you, and already the dark powers are conspiring to see me ended.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ she had said. ‘I want to go home. I want my papa.’
‘Your papa was going to kill you,’ said the crone. ‘There is nothing for you to go back to. If you return, the priests of the wolf god will burn you as a practitioner of the dark arts. You will die in pain. Is that what you want?’
‘No!’
‘No,’ agreed the crone. ‘Now give me your hand and I will teach you how to use that power of yours.’
She had wept, and the crone’s hand, fast as a blade, snapped out and slapped her hard across her cheek.
‘Do not cry, child,’ snapped the crone. ‘Save your tears for the dead. If you are to use your power and live, you will need to be stronger than this.’
The crone offered her hand. ‘Now come. There is much to teach you and little time to learn it.’
Stifling her tears, she had taken the crone’s hand and been led deep into the marshes where she learned of the mighty wind of power that blew from the north. The long years had taught her much: the power of charms and curses, the means to read portents and omens and, perhaps most importantly, the hearts and minds of men,
‘Though they will hate you for your powers, men will ever seek you out to cheat what the world has decreed should be their fate,’ explained the crone, who had never told her a name.
‘Then why should we help them?’ she had asked.
‘Because that is the role we play in this world.’
‘But why?’
‘I cannot answer you, child,’ said the crone. ‘There has always been a hag woman dwelling in the Brackenwalsch, and there always will be. We are part of the world as much as the tribes of men and their towns. The power we tap into is dangerous; it can twist the hearts of even the noblest person, turning them into a creature of darkness. We use this power so others do not have to. It is a lonely life, yes, but the race of man is not meant to wield such powers, no matter what others might one day decide, for man is too weak to resist its temptations.’
‘Then this is our fate?’ she had asked. ‘To guide and protect while being feared and hated? To never know love or family?’
‘Indeed,’ agreed the crone. ‘This is our burden to bear. Now we will speak no more on it, for time is short, and already I can feel my doom approaching in the tramp of booted feet and the sharpening of cook’s knives.’
A year later, her teacher was dead, boiled alive in her own cauldron by orcs.
She had watched as the crone was killed, feeling no sadness or need to intervene. The crone had known of her death for decades, just as she too knew the day of her death, and the time she would seek out an unwilling child of power to become her successor.
A group of men had come upon the orcs in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm and destroyed them. The leader of these men had slaughtered the orcs with deadly sweeps of his two-bladed axe as the woman who travelled with them screamed in pain. As the battle drew to a close, the woman’s screams ended, and the screams of a newborn cleaved the air.
Anguished cries came from the men, who discovered that the woman was dead. She watched the grieving axeman lift a bloody baby from the ground as a roaring peal of thunder split the sky and a mighty comet lit the heavens with twin fiery tails.
‘The Child of Thunder… born with the sound of battle in his ears and the feel of blood on his skin,’ she hissed. ‘Yours will be a life of greatness, but one of war.’
Over the years, she had found her thoughts ever drawn to the child born beneath the sign of the twin-tailed comet, the currents of power that flowed around him, and the twisting fates he shaped simply by existing.
More and more, she knew that great powers had been unleashed with this child’s birth, but that they had left their work undone. To achieve his potential, much had yet to happen to him: joy, grief, anger, betrayal and a great love that would forever change the destiny of this land.
She allowed her spirit to fly free of her body, leaving behind her wasted, skeletal frame, and soaring on wings of the spirit, where all flesh was meaningless and strength of spirit was all. Invisible currents filled the air, stirred by the warlike hearts of mankind and myriad creatures of this world, and these currents blew strong, bathing the land in unseen thunderheads of roiling power.
The marshes of the Brackenwalsch seethed with ancient energies, the ground saturated in the raw power that bubbled up from the world’s centre. She could see the world laid out before her like a great map, the great mountains of the south and east, the mighty ocean of the west and the lands of the fey beyond it.
The great wind of power blew in variegated clouds from the north, a mixture of powerful reds and purples with only a few spots of white and gold amongst the ugly, warlike colours. The darker colours were growing stronger, and war was looming like a vast shadow covering the land with its promise of destruction, famine and widows.
Her sight swooped low over the world, seeing the lone, trudging figure she had been waiting for as he
made his way carefully through the marsh. His green cloak was pulled tightly around his lean frame, and she was mildly irritated that he had reached the hill where she made her home without her becoming aware of him.
Swirling colours surrounded him, vivid reds, shocking pinks and lascivious purples. An instrument of the dark powers, to be sure, but one with a purpose that suited her own for now.
She returned swiftly to her flesh, groaning as the weight of her years settled upon her after the freedom of the spirit. When her kind died out, none would remember how to soar on the winds of power, and the thought saddened her as she heard wet footfalls beyond the mouth of her cave.
She blinked away the harsh smoke, and awaited the arrival of the young man with vengeance and betrayal on his mind.
He was startlingly handsome, and his finely sculpted, slender physique stirred a longing in her that she had never before known. Handsome to the point of obscenity, his features were the perfect combination of hard masculinity and feminine softness.
Dark hair was gathered in a short ponytail, and a sword, sheathed in a black leather scabbard, was belted at his side.
‘Welcome to my home, Gerreon of the Unberogen,’ she said.
BOOK TWO
Forging the King
Mighty is Sigmar
He who saves a dwarf king
From dishonour
How can I reward him?
A hammer of war
A hammer of iron
Which fell from the sky
With two tongues of fire
From the forge of the gods
Worked by runesmiths
Ghal-maraz is its name
The Splitter of Skulls.
Seven
All our People
Firelight illuminated the faces of the warriors around him, and Sigmar nodded to Wolfgart and Pendrag as he saw the shadowy forms of Svein and Cuthwin making their way downhill through the thick undergrowth. Both moved in silence, their skill in blending with the landscape making them Sigmar’s most valued scouts.