Within moments, a vast portal had formed in the side of the mountains, wide and tall enough to encompass the lands as far as the eye could see. A yawning blackness swirled between the pilasters, darkness so complete that nothing could ever return from its midnight embrace.
An aching moan of desire arose from the landscape, and the shadows that had dogged their steps arose from the ground in a great swell. More of the dread wolves and daemon things appeared, accompanied by other beasts and creatures too terrible to imagine.
Black beasts with wicked fangs and gleaming coals for eyes rose on pinions of darkness, slithering drakes with teeth like swords, and skeletal lizard things with axe-blade tails and hideous skulls for heads.
Whatever these had been in life, they were monsters in death.
The army of shadows drifted through the air, forming an unbroken line between them and the gateway in the mountains. A tall warrior stepped from among the ranks of monsters, he alone of the shadow creatures imbued with a hue beyond black.
The warrior was tall and armoured in blood-red plate armour, his helmet carved in the shape of a snarling, horned daemon. A mighty two-handed sword was held out before him, the blade aimed at Sigmar’s heart.
‘You,’ hissed Björn. ‘How can that be? I killed you.’
‘You think you are the only one able to bargain with ancient powers, old man?’ asked the warrior, and Sigmar recoiled as he saw that the daemonic visage had not been wrought from iron, but was the warrior’s true face. ‘Service to the old gods does not end in death.’
‘Fine,’ said Björn. ‘I can kill you again if that is what it takes.’
‘Father,’ said Sigmar, ‘what is it talking about?’
‘Never mind that,’ snapped Björn. ‘Arm yourself.’
With a thought, Sigmar was armed once more, though not with the golden sword of before, but with the mighty form of Ghal-maraz.
‘The boy must pass,’ said the red daemon. ‘It is his time.’
‘No,’ said Björn, ‘it is not. I made a sacred vow!’
The daemon laughed, the sound rich with ripe amusement. ‘To a hag that lives in a cave! You think a dabbler in the mysteries can stand before the will of the old gods?’
‘Why don’t you come over here and find out, you whoreson!’
‘Either give him to us, or we will take him from you,’ said the daemon. ‘Either way, he dies. Give him to us and you can return to the world of flesh. You are not so old that the prospect of more life does not appeal.’
‘I have lived enough life for ten men, daemon,’ roared Björn, ‘and no cur like you is going to take my son from me.’
‘You cannot stand before us, old man,’ warned the daemon.
As Sigmar looked up at his father, savage pride swelled in his breast, and though he did not fully understand the nature of this confrontation, he knew that a terrible bargain had been struck in an attempt to save him.
The army of daemons advanced, wolves snapping their jaws, and the flying monsters taking to the air with bounding leaps. Sigmar lifted Ghal-maraz and Björn readied Soultaker as the masters of the Unberogen prepared to face their doom.
Sigmar felt the air thicken around him, and looked left and right as he felt the presence of uncounted others join him. To either side of him stood a pair of ghostly warriors in mail habergeons carrying a long-hafted axe each. Hundreds more filled the space behind them and around them, and Sigmar laughed as he saw the daemon’s face twist in disbelief.
‘Father,’ gasped Sigmar as he recognised faces amongst the warriors.
‘I see them,’ said Björn, tears of gratitude spilling down his cheeks. ‘They are the fallen warriors of the Unberogen. Not even death can keep them from their king’s side.’
An army of daemons and an army of ghosts faced one another on the deathless plain of the Grey Vaults, and Sigmar could not have been prouder.
‘This is my last gift to you, my son,’ said Björn. ‘We must break through their lines and reach that gate. When we do, you must obey me, no matter what. You understand?’
‘I do,’ answered Sigmar.
‘Promise me,’ warned Björn.
‘I promise.’
Björn nodded, and turned a hostile gaze on the red daemon. ‘You want him? Come and take him!’
With a deathly war cry, the red daemon raised its sword and charged.
Twelve
One Must Pass
The daemons ran towards the Unberogen with screeching bellows and hoots, their attack without strategy or design, and their only thought to destroy their foes by the quickest means possible.
‘With me!’ roared Björn, and charged headlong towards the daemons. The ghosts followed their king in silence, forming a deadly fighting wedge with Björn and Sigmar at its tip. When the armies met it was with a spectral clash of iron that sounded as though it came from a far distant place.
The army of ghosts cleaved into the daemons, swords and axes cutting a swathe through their enemies as they fought to carry their king and prince towards Morr’s Gateway.
Sigmar smashed a daemon apart with Ghal-maraz, the hammer of Kurgan Ironbeard more deadly than any sword. The power worked into the weapon by the dwarfs was as potent, if not more so, in this place as it was in the realm of the living. Every blow split a daemon’s essence apart, and even its presence seemed to cause them pain.
Björn fought with all the skill of his years, the mighty Soultaker earning its battle name as it cleaved through the enemy ranks. The daemons were many, and though the wedge of Unberogens pushed deeper and deeper into the horde, their progress was slowing as the daemons began to surround them.
For all its ferocity, however, this was no bloody battle. Each of the combatants disappeared when vanquished, the light or darkness of their existence winking out in a moment as a sword pierced them or fangs tore at them.
The battle raged in the shadow of the great gateway, and Sigmar saw the darkness of the portal shimmer as though in expectation, its urgency growing with every passing second.
Sigmar and Björn fought side by side, pushing the fighting wedge deeper into the daemon horde. As the turmoil between the mountainous pilasters of the gateway grew stronger, Sigmar saw a golden glow emanating from a pendant around his father’s neck.
‘I see you, Child of Thunder!’ shouted the red daemon, cleaving a path towards him.
Sigmar turned to face the daemon, transfixed by the abomination of its very existence.
The daemon’s sword slashed towards him, and he overcame his horror at the last second to sway aside from its attack. The deadly blade came at him again and again, each time coming within a hand’s span of ending his life.
In that moment, Sigmar knew he was hopelessly outclassed, and that this daemon warrior had spent centuries perfecting its fighting skills. In desperation, he knew he had only one chance to defeat it.
The daemon launched another series of blistering attacks, and Sigmar fell back before them, appearing to stumble at the last as he desperately blocked a strike that would have removed his head.
With a roar of triumph, the daemon leapt in to deliver the deathblow, but Sigmar righted himself, and spun on his heel to swing Ghal-maraz at his foe’s knee. The warhammer smashed against the armoured joint, and the daemon screamed as it collapsed to the ground.
Sigmar reversed his grip on his weapon, and swung it in an upward stroke into the daemon’s howling face. The head of Ghal-maraz obliterated the daemon’s skull, and with a shriek of terror, it vanished into whatever hellish oblivion awaited it.
With the death of their daemonic master, the shadow horde recoiled before Sigmar, and he pressed forward, the ghostly warriors of the Unberogen following behind him.
Sigmar turned to see his father surrounded by a host of daemons, desperately fending them off with wide sweeps of his axe. Without thought, Sigmar launched into the fray, and struck left and right. Daemons fell back before him, and together, he and his father fought their way clear of the
monsters to rejoin the fighting ghosts of the Unberogen.
The daemons were in disarray, their line broken and their numbers dwindling with every passing moment. Sensing victory, the Unberogen warriors pushed onwards into the daemon horde, and Sigmar and Björn once again took their places at the fighting point of the wedge.
The combat was no less fierce, however, and at every turn both daemons and ghosts vanished from the field of battle. Nothing, however, could halt the inexorable advance of the Unberogen, and as Sigmar crushed a daemon wolf’s skull with his hammer, he saw that no more enemies stood between him and the portal.
‘Father!’ he shouted. ‘We are through!’
Björn despatched a nightmare creature with dark wings and a barbed tail before risking a glance towards the mountain. The black portal rippled like boiling pitch and, for the briefest moment, Sigmar fancied he could make out the faint outline of an enormous, beckoning figure swathed in black robes, standing just beyond the gargantuan portal.
Far from being a figure of fear, Sigmar sensed only serene wisdom from this giant apparition, a serenity born from the acceptance of death’s natural inevitability. He lowered Ghal-maraz, and knew now what had to happen.
Sigmar stepped towards the towering gateway, knowing that the Hall of Ulric would be open to him, and that he would find peace there. A rough hand gripped his arm, and he turned to see his father standing before him, the army of ghosts at his back and the horde of daemons defeated.
‘I have to go,’ said Sigmar. ‘I know now why I am here. In the world above I am dying.’
‘Yes,’ said Björn, lifting the glowing pendant from around his neck, ‘but I made a sacred vow that you would not.’
‘Then you… you are… dead?’ asked Sigmar.
‘If not now then soon, yes,’ said Björn, holding up the pendant. Sigmar saw that it was a simple thing, a bronze image of the gateway they stood before, though this portal was barred.
His father looped the pendant over Sigmar’s head. ‘This kept me here long enough to aid you,’ said Björn, ‘but it is yours now. Keep it safe.’
‘Then this was supposed to be my time to die?’
Bjorn nodded. ‘Servants of the Dark Gods conspired to make it so, but there are those who stand against them, and they are not without power.’
‘You offered your life for me,’ whispered Sigmar.
‘I do not understand the truth of it, my son,’ said Björn, ‘but the laws of the dead are not to be denied, not even by kings. One must pass the gateway.’
‘No!’ cried Sigmar as he saw his father’s form growing faint, becoming like the ghostly Unberogen warriors that had fought at their side. ‘I cannot let you do this for me!’
‘It is already done,’ said Björn. ‘A great destiny awaits you, my son, and no father could be prouder than I to know that your deeds will surpass even the greatest kings of ancient days.’
‘You have seen the future?’
‘I have, but do not ask me of it, for it is time you left this place and returned to the realm of life,’ said Björn. ‘It will be hard for you, for you will know great pain and despair.’
Even as his father spoke these last words, he and the army of ghosts were drawn towards Morr’s gateway.
‘But also glory and immortality,’ said Björn with his last breath.
Sigmar wept as his father and his faithful warriors made the journey from the realm of the living to that of the dead. No sooner had they passed beyond the gateway than it vanished as though it had never existed, leaving Sigmar alone in the empty wasteland of the Grey Vaults.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
And opened them again to searing agony.
The top of Warrior’s Hill was exposed, and the wind whipped around it with cruel fingers that lifted cloaks and tunics to allow autumn’s chill entry to the body. Sigmar made no attempt to pull his wolfskin cloak tighter as though daring the season to try its best to discomfit him. The cold was his constant companion now, and he welcomed it into his heart like an old friend.
No sooner had Sigmar opened his eyes and awoken to pain than the memory of the bloodshed by the river had returned, and he had screamed with an agony born not from his near death, but from his loss.
He remembered telling the wounded boy of the Field of Swords that pain was the warrior’s constant companion, but he now realised that it was not pain, but despair that dogged a warrior’s every moment: despair at the futility of war, at the hopelessness of joy and the foolishness of dreams.
Six armoured warriors accompanied him, his protectors since Gerreon’s attack nearly five weeks ago. Fear of assassination had made old women of his sword-brothers, but Sigmar did not blame them, for who could have foreseen that Gerreon would turn on him with such savagery?
He closed his eyes and dropped to his knees, tears spilling down his face as he thought of Ravenna. His grief at seeing the paleness of her flesh, stark against the darkness of her hair was as fresh now as it had been the moment he had seen her lying lifeless upon the pallet bed.
Gone was the vivacious, intelligent girl who had shone sunlight into his heart, and in her place was a gaping, empty wound that would never heal. His hands balled into fists, and he fought to control the anger building within him, for with no one to strike at, Sigmar’s rage had turned inwards.
He should have seen the darkness in Gerreon’s heart. He should have trusted his friend’s suspicions that Gerreon’s contrition was false. There must have been some sign he had missed that would have alerted him to the treachery that was to rob him of his love.
With every passing day, Sigmar drew further into himself, shutting out Wolfgart and Pendrag as they tried to rouse him from his melancholy. Strong wine became his refuge, a means of blotting out the pain and visions that plagued him nightly of Gerreon’s sword plunging into Ravenna’s body.
Nor was Ravenna’s death the only pain he carried in his heart, for he knew that his father, too, was dead. No word had come from the north, but Sigmar knew with utter certainty that the king of the Unberogen had fallen. The people of Reikdorf eagerly awaited the return of their king, but Sigmar knew that they were soon to experience the same sense of loss that daily tore at him.
A secret part of him relished the thought of others suffering as he did, but the nobility of his soul knew that such thoughts were unworthy of him, and he fought against such base pettiness. He had not spoken of the Grey Vaults and his father’s fate to anyone, for it would be unseemly for a son to speak of a king’s death before it was confirmed, and he did not want his rule of the Unberogen to begin on a sign of ill omen.
Reikdorf would learn soon enough the meaning of loss.
In the weeks since his awakening, he had learned that his body had lain cold and unmoving, not living, but not truly dead, for six days. His life had hung by the slenderest of threads, with the healer, Cradoc, at a loss to explain why he did not awaken or slip into death.
Wolfgart, Pendrag and even the venerable Eoforth had sat with him for all the time he had lain at the threshold of Morr’s kingdom, and he knew he was lucky to have such steadfast sword-brothers, which made his forced estrangement all the harder to rationalise.
Grief, as Sigmar had learned over the years, was a far from rational process.
He had tried to reject what his eyes had seen on the riverbank and looked for retribution, but even that was denied him, for neither Cuthwin nor Svein could find any trace of Gerreon’s passing. The traitor’s meagre belongings were gone, and he had vanished into the wilderness like a shadow.
With Sigmar’s awakening, Wolfgart had readied his horse to ride into the forest and hunt the traitor down, but Sigmar had forbidden him to go, knowing that Gerreon had too great a head start and was too clever to be caught.
Gerreon’s name was now a curse, and he would find no succour in the lands of men. He was gone, and would likely die alone in the forest, a nithing and an outcast.
Sigmar shook his head free of such t
houghts, and scooped a handful of earth from the summit of the hill, letting the rich, dark soil spill from between his fingers as he felt something turn to stone within him.
He looked over his domain, the ever-growing city of Reikdorf, his people, the mighty river and the lands spread out in a grand tapestry as far as the eye could see.
The last of the earth fell from Sigmar’s fingers, and he reached up to his shoulder and brushed his hands across the golden pin he had given Ravenna by the river, and which now secured his own cloak.
‘From now on I shall love no other,’ he said. ‘This land shall be my one abiding love.’
The breath heaved in Sigmar’s lungs as he made the last circuit of the Field of Swords, each step sending bolts of fire along his tired limbs. He could feel the fire build in his muscles, but pushed on, knowing that he had to build his strength up before the Unberogen army returned to Reikdorf with the body of the king.
The guilt of keeping this from his people still gnawed at him, but the alternative was no better, and thus he kept the bitter truth locked deep within his heart.
Once, this run would have barely taxed him, but now it took all his willpower to keep putting one foot in front of another. His strength and endurance was returning, though at a rate that still frustrated him, even though it amazed old Cradoc.
Every day, Sigmar fought to regain his former vigour. He sparred with sword and dagger to restore his speed, lifted weighted bars of iron that Master Alaric had forged for him to develop his strength, and ran a dozen circuits of the Field of Swords to build his stamina.
It had been Pendrag’s idea that Sigmar train within sight of the younger warriors, claiming they would see him grow stronger and take hope from the sight.
Privately, Sigmar knew that Pendrag’s suggestion was as much to do with giving him the edge he needed to succeed as give his warriors hope. Training alone, he had only himself to disappoint if he gave up, but failing in full view of his people would disappoint everyone, and that was not Sigmar’s way.