Sigmar had sent wagonloads of swords and spears to every Unberogen village, along with warriors to help train the villagers. In addition to these weapons, the grain stores of Reikdorf had been depleted to feed the women and children, while their menfolk learned to be warriors as well as farmers.
Eoforth had devised a rotational system where each farmer’s neighbours tended to a portion of his fields while he was training to defend their village. Thus each man would learn the ways of the warrior without the worry of his land going untilled or his crops ungathered.
With the Unberogen lands looked to, Sigmar’s thoughts turned outwards to the lands beyond the borders of his father’s kingdom. As the summer months passed, orc tribes were on the march in the mountains, with word coming from King Kurgan Ironbeard of great battles being fought before the walls of many of the dwarf holds. Sigmar had wanted to send warriors to aid the beleaguered dwarfs, but he could spare no men from his own lands.
He paced the floor of the king’s longhouse, tired beyond measure as he awaited news of his father and the course of the war in the north. He drank from a mug of wine, the potency of the alcohol helping to dull the headache building behind his eyes.
‘That will not help you,’ said Ravenna, watching him from the door to the longhouse. ‘You need rest, not wine.’
‘I need sleep,’ said Sigmar, ‘and the wine helps me sleep.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Ravenna, coming into the longhouse and taking the wine from his hand. ‘The sleep of the wine sodden is not true rest. You may fall asleep, but you are not refreshed come the morn.’
‘Maybe not,’ replied Sigmar, leaning down to kiss her forehead, ‘but without it, my mind whirls with thought, and I lie awake through the long watches of the night.’
‘Then come to my bed, Sigmar,’ said Ravenna. ‘I will help you sleep, and in the morning you will awake like a new man.’
‘Really?’ asked Sigmar, taking her hand and following her towards the longhouse’s door. ‘And how will you work this miracle?’
Ravenna smiled. ‘You’ll see.’
Sigmar lay back on Ravenna’s bed, a light sweat forming a sheen over his body as she draped an arm over his chest and curled a leg over his thigh. Her dark hair spilled onto the furs of the bed, and Sigmar could smell the rose perfumed oils she had worked into her skin.
The fire had burned low, but the room was pleasantly warm and comfortable, with the fragrance of two people who had just pleasurably exerted themselves hanging in the air.
Sigmar smiled as he felt a delicious drowsiness stealing over him, a drink of wine and Ravenna’s company having eased his troubled brow and made the cares of the world seem like distant things indeed.
Ravenna ran her hand across his chest, and he stroked her midnight hair as the events of the last few days washed through him, and in so doing, eased their weight upon him. He longed for news of his father and the men of the Unberogen who fought in the north, but as Eoforth was fond of saying, if wishes were horses then no one would walk.
‘What are you thinking?’ whispered Ravenna dreamily.
‘About the fighting in the north,’ he replied, and then flinched as Ravenna plucked a hair from his arm.
She folded her arms across his chest and rested her chin on her forearms as she stared up at him with a playful smile.
‘What did you do that for?’ he asked.
‘When a woman asks you what you are thinking, she doesn’t actually want to hear what you’re thinking.’
‘No? Then what does she want?’
‘She wants you to tell her that you are thinking of her and how beautiful she is, and of how much you love her.’
‘Oh, so why not ask for that?’
‘It’s not the same if you have to ask for it,’ pointed out Ravenna.
‘But you are beautiful,’ said Sigmar. ‘There is no one prettier between the Worlds Edge Mountains and the western ocean, and I do love you, you know that.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I love you,’ said Sigmar, ‘with all my heart.’
‘Good,’ smiled Ravenna. ‘Now I feel better, and when I feel better… you feel better.’
‘Then is it not selfish of me to simply tell you what I think you want to hear?’ asked Sigmar. ‘Am I not then saying it to feel better myself?’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Ravenna, her voice dropping as her eyelids fluttered with tiredness.
‘No,’ replied Sigmar with a smile, ‘I suppose not. All I want to do is make you happy.’
‘Then tell me of the future.’
‘The future? I am no seer, my love.’
‘No, I mean what you hope for the future,’ whispered Ravenna. ‘And no grand dreams of empire, just tell me of us.’
Sigmar pulled Ravenna close and closed his eyes.
‘Very well,’ said Sigmar. ‘I will be king of the Unberogen and you will be my queen, the most beloved woman in all the land.’
‘Will there be children in this golden future?’ murmured Ravenna.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Sigmar. ‘A king needs an heir after all. Our sons will be strong and courageous, and our daughters will be dutiful and pretty.’
‘How many children will we have?’
‘As many as you like,’ he promised. ‘Sigmar’s heirs will be numbered amongst the most handsome, proud and courageous of all the Unberogen.’
‘And us?’ whispered Ravenna. ‘What becomes of us?’
‘Our future will be happy, and we will live long in peace,’ said Sigmar.
Tears streamed down Gerreon’s face as he all but fled into the darkness of the Brackenwalsch. His fine boots of softest kid were ruined, black mud and water spilling over the tops of them and soaking his feet. His woollen trews were splashed with tainted water as his footsteps carried him deeper and deeper into the bleak and cheerless fens.
A low mist wreathed the ground, and the ghostly radiance of Morrslieb bathed the marshes in an emerald light. Glittering wisps of light, like distant candles, floated in the mist, but even in his distressed state Gerreon knew better than to follow them.
The Brackenwalsch was full of the bodies of those who had been beguiled by the corpse lights and wandered to their doom in the peaty bogs around Reikdorf.
His hand clutched his sword, and his anger grew as he pictured Sigmar rutting with his sister in his own home. The two of them had returned as Gerreon had been sharpening his blade, and it had been all he could do to smile and not cut the Unberogen prince down.
Sigmar had placed a hand on Gerreon’s shoulder and he had all but flinched, the hatred in his eyes almost giving him away.
He had read Sigmar and Ravenna’s lecherous intent in every word they spoke, and though they had asked him to join them for a meal, he had excused himself and fled into the darkness before the firelight would illuminate his true feelings.
Gerreon stumbled through the shallows of a sucking pool, dropping to his knees as the mud pulled at his boots. His hands splashed into the reeking liquid, and black tears dripped from his face as he stared into the water.
His face rippled in the undulant surface of the pool, grotesquely twisted in the shifting water. The breath caught in his throat as he saw the reflected image of the moon over his shoulder, its face bright and constant, inexplicably unwavering in the water.
Gerreon lifted his hands from the water, his fingers coated in a thin layer of oily, black liquid that dripped from his hands. In the dark of night it looked like blood, and he shook his hands clear of it in disgust.
‘No… please…’ he whispered. ‘I won’t.’
He looked up from the water as the moonlight shone upon a tall plant that grew at the edge of the pool, its stems dotted with many tiny, white flowers in flat-topped clusters. A sickly smell exuded from the plant, and with a heavy heart, Gerreon recognised it as water hemlock, one of the deadliest plants that grew in these lands.
A whisper of wind shook the plant, and for the briefest instant, Gerreon felt i
t was beckoning him. As he watched, its stem sagged and broke, an oily liquid dribbling from the hollow interior.
Gerreon looked into the darkened sky, seeking some escape from the future the fates seemed determined to force upon him.
The moon glared down at him, its cold light unforgiving and hostile.
Common belief held that it was ill-luck to stare into the depths of the rogue moon for any length of time, that the Dark Gods saw into the hearts of those who did so, and planted a seed of evil within them.
As he looked into the shifting light, it seemed that he could see a pair of shimmering eyes, cunningly hidden within the ripples and contours of its surface, eyes of indescribable beauty and cruelty.
‘What are you?’ he yelled into the darkness.
The depthless pools of the eyes promised dark wonders and experience beyond measure, and Gerreon understood with sudden, awful clarity that the strands of his fate had been woven long before his birth and would continue long past his eventual death.
He stood and waded across the pool towards the drooping hemlock plant.
‘Very well,’ said Gerreon, ‘if I cannot escape my fate then I embrace it.’
Ten
Red Dawn
The sun rose through golden clouds, the rays of light striking the bronze armour of the Norsii and making it seem as though the tree-lined ridge was aflame. Defiantly gathered on the slopes of a wide, rocky ridge, the fearsome northmen battered their axes upon the bosses of their shields, and roared terrible war cries of blood and death.
Björn sat upon his horse at the base of the ridge next to Alfgeir, surrounded by his personal guards, the White Wolves as they were now dubbed. His wolf banner fluttered in the icy wind that blew from the north, and he looked left and right to see the flags of his fellow kings held high along the line of the army.
Of all the gathered warriors, Björn took pride in knowing that the Unberogen were, without doubt, the most fearsome and magnificent. Lines of spear-armed warriors awaited the order to advance, and tribal sword-brethren answered the Norsii’s battle-cries with no less fearsome roars of their own.
Cherusen Wildmen bared their backsides to the Norsii, and Taleuten horsemen galloped with glorious abandon before the enemy army.
Spirits were high, and the frozen wind was seen as a good omen by the priests of Ulric, a blessing of the god of winter and a portent of victory.
Björn turned to Alfgeir, his champion’s bronze armour polished to a golden sheen. His visor was raised, and he sat motionless beside the king, though Björn saw a tension in his features that he had never seen in the moments before battle.
‘Something troubles you?’ asked Björn.
Alfgeir turned to face the king and shook his head. ‘No, I am calm.’
‘You seem unsettled.’
‘We are about to go into battle, and I must protect a king who rides into the heaviest fighting without thought for his own survival,’ said Alfgeir. ‘That would unsettle anyone.’
‘Your only thought is for my life?’ asked Björn.
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Alfgeir.
‘The thought of your own death does not trouble you?’
‘Should it, my king?’
‘I imagine most men here are at least a little afraid of dying.’
Alfgeir shrugged. ‘If Ulric wants me, he will take me, there is nothing I can do about it. All I can do is fight well and pray he finds me worthy to allow me entrance to his hall.’
Björn smiled, for this was about the longest conversation he had ever had with his champion. ‘You are a remarkable man, Alfgeir. Life is so simple to you, is it not?’
‘I suppose,’ agreed Alfgeir. ‘I have a duty to you, but beyond that…’
‘Beyond that, what?’ asked Björn, suddenly curious. Alfgeir claimed not to be concerned about death, but the coming battle had loosened his tongue in a way nothing before had. Even as he formed the thought, he knew that it was not his champion’s tongue that was loosened, but his own.
‘Beyond that… I do not know,’ said Alfgeir. ‘I have always been your champion and protector.’
‘And when I am dead you will be Sigmar’s,’ finished Björn, his mouth suddenly dry as he realised that his desire to talk and connect with another human being was born of the need to ensure that his people would be safe after his death.
‘You are in a dark mood, my lord,’ said Alfgeir. ‘Is there something wrong?’
It was a simple question, but one to which Björn found he had no answer.
He had woken in the middle of the night, his keen sense for danger awakening him to a presence within his tent. How such a thing could have been possible with Alfgeir and the White Wolves maintaining a vigil around it he did not know, but his hand quickly found the haft of Soultaker.
He opened his eyes, and felt a chill enter his heart as he saw a silver mist creeping across the floor of his tent, and a hooded shape swathed in black hunched in the corner.
Björn swung his legs from his cot bed and raised his axe. The ground was cold, and tendrils of mist clawed at him as the dark figure drew itself to its full height.
‘Who are you?’ roared Björn. ‘Show yourself!’
‘Be at peace, King Björn,’ said a sibilant voice that he knew all too well. ‘It is but a traveller from your own lands, come to claim what is hers.’
‘You,’ whispered Björn as the dark figure pulled back its hood to reveal the wrinkled face of the hag woman of the Brackenwalsch. Her hair shone with the same silver light as the mist, and a cold dread seized Björn’s heart as he knew what she had come for.
‘How can you be here?’ he asked.
‘I am not here, King Björn,’ said the hag woman, ‘I am but a shadow in the deeper darkness, an agent of powers beyond your comprehension. None here have seen me and nor shall they. I am here for you and you alone.’
‘What do you want?’
‘You know what I want,’ said the hag woman, coming closer.
‘Get away from me!’ cried Björn.
‘You would see your son dead and the land destroyed?’ hissed the hag woman. ‘For that is what is at stake here.’
‘Sigmar is in danger?’
The hag woman nodded. ‘Even now a trusted friend plots to destroy him. By this time tomorrow your son will have passed through the gateway to Morr’s kingdom.’
Björn felt his legs turn to water, and he collapsed back onto his cot bed, terror filling him at the thought of having to see Sigmar’s body pass into a tomb upon Warrior’s Hill.
‘What can I do?’ asked Björn. ‘I am too far away to help him.’
‘No,’ said the hag woman, ‘you are not.’
‘But you… you are still in the Brackenwalsch, yes? And this is a vision you are sending me?’
‘That is correct, King Björn.’
‘Then if you know who plots against Sigmar, why can you not save him?’ demanded Björn. ‘You have command of the mysteries. You can save him!’
‘No, for it was I who set the assassin upon his course.’
Björn surged to his feet, Soultaker sweeping out and cleaving through the hag woman, but the blade hit nothing, her form no more substantial than fog.
‘Why?’ demanded Björn. ‘Why would you do such a thing? Why set his murderer in motion only to attempt to prevent it?’
The hag woman drifted closer to Björn, and he saw that her eyes were filled with dark knowledge, with things that would damn him forever were he to know them. He turned from her gaze.
‘A man is the sum of his experiences, Björn,’ said the hag woman. ‘All his loves, fears, joys and pain combine like the metals in a good sword. In some men these qualities are in balance and they become servants of the light, while in others they are out of balance and they fall to darkness. To become the man he needs to be, your son must suffer pain and loss like no other.’
‘I thought you said I had to save him?’
‘And so you shall. When we met upon the hill of tom
bs I told you I would ask you for a sacred vow. You remember?’
‘I remember,’ said Björn, a bleak dread settling upon him.
‘I now ask for that vow,’ said the hag woman.
‘Very well,’ said Björn. ‘Ask me.’
‘When battle is joined on the morn, seek out the red warlord who leads the army of the northmen and face him in battle.’
Björn’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s it? No riddles or nonsense? That makes me uneasy.’
‘Simply that,’ answered the hag woman.
‘Then I give you my oath as king of the Unberogen,’ said Björn, ‘I shall face this Norsii bastard and cut his damned head from his shoulders.’
The hag woman smiled and nodded. ‘I believe you will,’ she said.
The mist had thickened, and Björn had awoken with the morning sunlight prising his eyelids open. He sat up, the substance of his encounter with the hag woman etched on his memories with terrible clarity.
Björn opened his fist, and found he clutched a bronze pendant on a leather thong. Turning it over in his palm, he saw that it was a simple piece carved in the shape of a closed gateway. His first thought was to hurl it over a cliff or into a fast-flowing river, but instead he looped it over his head and tucked it beneath his woollen jerkin.
Now, sitting before the enemy army, the pendant felt like an anvil around his neck, its weight threatening to drag him to his doom.
Alfgeir pointed to the ridgeline. ‘There’s the bastard now.’
Björn looked up. The warlord of the enemy host was riding at the front of the Norsii army, his armour a lustrous crimson, his dragon banner proudly held aloft. The warlord’s dark steed reared up, and sunlight shimmered on the warrior’s mighty sword as he held it aloft.
Drums and skirling trumpet blasts sounded, and the army of the southern kings began to march forward, thousands of swordsmen, axe bearers and spear hosts ready to drive the Norsii from these lands.
A wolf howled in the distance, and Björn smiled sadly.
‘A good omen do you think?’ he asked.
‘Ulric is with us,’ said Alfgeir, extending his hand.