‘I suppose,’ agreed Sigmar, ‘but that leads to another question.’
‘Which is?’
‘Why be a necromancer at all?’
‘To live forever?’ suggested Pendrag. ‘To cheat death?’
‘If living like this is cheating death, I would sooner not bother. Even if you were to cheat death, is what you would have really life? Living like this, shunned by your fellow man and surrounded by corpses? No, if that is what living forever entails, then I want no part of it.’
‘They say that some men are drawn to necromancy in the hope of bringing back a loved one,’ said Pendrag, ‘that they do not begin as evil men.’
‘Maybe that is true, but to delve into such darkness can only drive a man to madness. I loved Ravenna and I lost her, but I would not dream of using the dark arts to bring her back.’
‘Not all men are like you, Sigmar,’ said Pendrag, casting an uneasy glance towards the tombstone sky. ‘To fear death is not unusual.’
‘Trust me, Pendrag, I am in no rush to find death, but I do not fear it. Death is natural, it is part of what makes us human. That is why we must strive to make every moment special, because it might be our last. Some men live in fear their whole lives. They fear to fail, so they do nothing. You can hide from danger all your life, but you will still die. What matters is how we make use of the gift of life, bettering ourselves and helping our fellow man wherever we can. That is why this Morath is so dangerous: he lives only for himself and contributes nothing of value to the world. In the realm of the necromancer, nothing grows, nothing lives and nothing dies. And stagnation is death.’
‘So is starvation,’ said Pendrag, looking over his shoulder at the six hundred men who marched through the valley behind them. ‘Between what the pack ponies and the men are carrying, we only have food enough for another two days march into the mountains. If we’re going to find this Brass Keep, we’d better do it soon.’
‘We will,’ said Sigmar, feeling the deathly chill of the cold wind blowing from the centre of the mountains grow stronger, reaching into his chest and caressing his heart with icy talons. ‘We are close, I know we are.’
‘I hope you are right,’ said Pendrag. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take.’
The shadows moved across the valley sides, the only visible indication that time was moving on at all. After a mid-afternoon stop for food and water, Sigmar’s warriors continued on through the valley as the ground became even more broken and uneven.
Jagged rocks tore at tunics and flesh as the day lengthened and the slopes of the mountain grew steeper. The unnatural silence of the mountains loomed over everyone, broken only by the pebbles that skittered from ledges high above. Pallid shapes darted between narrow clefts carved in the mountainside by scouring winds, and arrows loosed at the shapes clattered harmlessly on the rocks before Myrsa ordered his men to stop wasting their shafts.
The valley began to widen ahead of a sharp northward turn around a black spur of knife-sharp rock, perhaps a mile distant. A gust of cold air, like the last laugh of a suicide, swept the landscape, and Sigmar knew that he had reached its source.
‘Raise the banners,’ said Sigmar. ‘Assume battle march formation.’
‘Battle formation?’ queried Redwane, looking up to the sky. ‘But it’s nearly dark.’
‘Do it,’ said Sigmar. ‘We are here.’
The White Wolf nodded, and the word was passed along the line. No sooner was the order given than the warriors moved smoothly into formation. Swords were bared, and a fresh sense of purpose infused every warrior. Sigmar loosed Ghal-maraz from his belt and a squadron of White Wolves formed up around him.
With Pendrag at their head, the Count’s Guard took up position on the right, while Myrsa led the warriors of Middenheim on Sigmar’s left. Moving at a swift yet economical pace, the army marched towards the black spur, shields locked and swords held at the ready.
As Myrsa’s warriors reached the turn, he slowed their pace as the Count’s Guard wheeled around it, the entire shallow wedge of the army swinging around like a closing gate with the spur as the hinge.
Beyond the spur, the landscape fell away in rippling slopes of icy rock towards a wide crater gouged in the heart of the mountains, thousands of yards in diameter. The ground shone like a mirror, a vast and stagnant lake that had frozen in an instant during some forgotten age. Broken spires and strange collections of jumbled stone jutted from the frozen lake, like stalagmites in a cave. Towering over this grim and frozen tableau was a mighty edifice that could only be Morath’s lair.
‘Ulric preserve us,’ breathed Redwane at the sight of the gleaming fortress.
The name Lukas Hauke had given it was apt, for it shone in the last light of day as though sheathed in brass. Its towers were tall and slender, and its walls were smooth and fashioned with great cunning. A great iron portal wreathed in sharpened spikes barred entry, and spectral light shone from every shuttered tower and lofty turret of the gatehouse. At the heart of the dreadful castle, a single tower of pearlescent stone rose above all others, and from it shone a pulsing dead light, a glow that drained life from the landscape instead of illuminating it. Sigmar felt a powerful attraction to the tower, as though this were the source of the cold wind that had led him to this place.
He had expected to find the creatures of Morath waiting for them, but the crater was empty, unnaturally so, for even the carrion birds that had followed them from the foothills kept their counsel. Thousands of black-feathered ravens observed his army from perches high on glittering spires of icy rock, and Sigmar sensed their dreadful appetite.
These birds had gathered in anticipation of a feast.
‘Move out,’ ordered Sigmar, and the army advanced down the icy slopes towards the dreadful Brass Keep. The ground underfoot was slippery and treacherous, and many warriors lost their footing as they made their way down to the icy plain.
Darkness gathered over the fortress, bruised clouds heavy with rain and lightning. A fell wind issued from the far reaches of the valley, and Sigmar tasted the foulness of dead things at the back of his throat. As the army marched out onto the frozen surface of the lake, Sigmar gasped in astonishment as he saw a sunken city lying far beneath its glassy surface.
As though he looked through the clearest glass instead of ice, Sigmar saw an ancient metropolis, grander and more massive than Reikdorf, with towers and structures taller even than the Fauschlag Rock. Cries of astonishment and fear spread along the battle line as his warriors saw the same thing.
Sigmar had never seen its like in all the realms of man, though it was clearly a city designed and raised by the artifice of his race. The towering buildings were colossal and defied understanding, such was their magnificence. Enormous temples, sprawling palaces and rearing statues filled the city, and its grandeur stole Sigmar’s breath. Yet for all its glory, it was a dead place, a mockery of a city where lives were lived and dramas, both vital and banal, were played out on a daily basis. As he formed this last thought, the image wavered for a second, as though the city was no more substantial than morning mist.
‘What is this place?’ asked Redwane, still keeping pace with the battle line as he stared in horror as the sunken city. Collapsed portions of the city’s tallest towers jutted through the ice, lying in crumbled piles of fallen masonry, sad remnants of something wondrous that had passed into ruin and decay.
‘I do not know,’ answered Sigmar. ‘Perhaps this is Mourkain? When Lukas Hauke said its name, I did not know whether it was a place or a person. Now I know.’
‘Mourkain? Never heard of it,’ said Redwane, shaking his head as though to deny the city’s existence. ‘Surely if there was a city here, we’d know about it?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Sigmar, tearing his eyes from the ghostly city’s wreckage as a shimmering mist formed around the battlements of the gleaming castle. ‘I think maybe that we are seeing an echo of something that has long since vanished from the face of the world. Hauke said
that Morath survived the doom of Mourkain, so maybe this is his way of remembering it.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘I will be sure to ask him,’ said Sigmar dryly.
‘Point taken,’ said Redwane, grinning and hefting his hammer. The White Wolf’s earlier fears had receded in the face of imminent battle, and looking along the line of determined faces of his warriors, his heart soared to see such strength. The fear that had dogged the army’s every step into the mountains fled in the face of their courage.
Sigmar felt a cold gaze fasten upon him, and looked towards the dread tower at the heart of the castle as Ghal-maraz grew hotter in his grip.
Atop the bone-white tower stood a figure wreathed in black, a slit of darkness against the sky that seemed to swallow the light around it. Robes of night billowed in ethereal winds, and even from this distance, Sigmar saw the pale, ravaged features of a thing more dead than alive. The necromancer carried an ebony staff, and upon his skull-like brow he wore a glittering golden crown that seemed to pulse in time with Sigmar’s heartbeat.
‘Morath,’ hissed Sigmar as the dark sorcerer raised his staff. A withering light pulsed from the ice, the rocks and the very air, as though some ancient rite were nearing completion.
‘Stand firm!’ shouted Sigmar, his voice echoing from the valley sides to bolster his warriors’ resolve. Shouts of alarm came from both flanks, and Sigmar saw scores of shambling horrors climbing from the ruins of the towers that jutted through the ice. Loathsome cadavers in tattered robes and rotted flesh lurched and stumbled from the ruins in their dozens, and then in their scores.
Their armour was rusted from the long centuries that had passed since their deaths, yet their swords and spears were still deadly. Skeletal fists punched through the ice, and armoured warriors of bone hauled their fleshless bodies upwards, before turning grinning skulls upon their warm-bodied foes with dreadful malevolence. As though commanded by a living general, they marched in hideous lockstep, forming sword-bands like those facing them.
Sigmar’s army halted at so terrifying a sight, for these abominations were an affront to the living, a dreadful violation of the natural order of things. The fear that had been quashed by courage returned to tear at each warrior’s heart, and they could not take so much as a single step towards the dead things.
But that was not the worst of it.
The iron gateway of Morath’s keep swung open like the maw of hell, and an unliving host of armoured warriors marched out in dreadful unison. A pall of fear went before them, and a low moan of anguish swept through Sigmar’s army as the dead warriors in silver armour and bloody robes drew relentlessly closer.
Sigmar’s flesh crawled and his bladder tightened at the sight of the hideous warriors, for they wore the heraldry of Ulric and of Morr. The flesh decayed and rotted on their bones, but they were not so long dead that that their faces were unrecognisable. Brothers and sons marched at the command of the hateful necromancer, and every man in Sigmar’s host felt piteous horror at the sight of their fallen comrades.
‘Men of the Empire!’ shouted Sigmar, his voice carrying across the field of ice, and striking home into the hearts of his men like arrows of truth. ‘You are the bravest warriors in a land where bravery runs in every man’s blood! You have climbed into these mountains in the face of fear, and you have reached this place of death by the iron in your souls and the fire in your hearts! Though they may wear the bodies of our friends, these monsters are not your sword-brothers. Their souls are bound to the will of an evil man, and only you can free them to travel onwards to Ulric’s hall. We march beneath the Dragon Banner, so let not your blade hesitate from destroying these dread foes, for theirs shall seek to bring you down!’
A ragged cheer greeted Sigmar’s words, desultory and half-hearted, but he had broken the paralysing terror that held his men rooted to the spot. The fear of this dead host still cast a dark pall over his warriors, but swelling embers of courage were steadily pushing it back.
Sigmar looked up at the necromancer’s tower as the hosts of the living and the dead marched into battle. The golden crown at Morath’s brow shone like a beacon of unimaginable power.
‘The cowardly sorcerer skulks atop his tower,’ shouted Sigmar. ‘I shall tear the crown from his brow and take if for my own!’
Twelve
The Battle of Brass Keep
The dead were silent, no battle cries or bellows to a watching god for strength of arm or divine protection. Somehow that was worse. When man fought man there was hatred and anger, emotions that both clouded the mind and granted strength, but these abominations fought with none of that. They came towards the army of men with singular determination, their rotten meat faces and skeletal grins terrible, giving each warrior a glimpse of the fate that awaited them should they fall.
Sigmar knew of no other way to lead his warriors save by example, and he lifted Ghal-maraz high as he charged towards the living dead.
‘For Ulric and the wolves of the north!’ he proclaimed.
The White Wolves followed him, howling like their namesakes, their hammers swinging. Pendrag’s Count’s Guard charged the enemy with their greatswords held high, shouting oaths that would make a Jutonsryk docker blush. The Middenland warriors on the left each shouted their own battle cry and then slammed into the decaying creatures spilling from the tumbled ruins of the towers.
A skeletal warrior stabbed a spear at Sigmar, but the thrust was slow, and he smashed his hammer down on the fleshless skull. The creature dropped, its bones falling apart as the power holding it together was undone. Another came at him, but he spun away from its attack and smashed its ribcage to splinters with an overhand sweep. The White Wolves fought all around him, their hammers breaking bones and skulls with every blow.
The dead were no match for these brave warriors, but there seemed no end to them. As each creature fell, two or more pushed forward to take its place. Shambling creatures with pallid skin sloughing from their bones crawled from the wreckage of the city, and Sigmar saw hundreds more climbing the ruins beneath the ice towards the surface.
A rusted lance hooked around his pauldron and hauled him off balance. He swung Ghal-maraz and crushed the pelvis of the lance wielder, but his feet slipped on the ice. Sigmar landed heavily, and no sooner was he down than the dead were upon him. Axes and swords chopped downwards with mechanical precision, and he rolled and blocked to keep them from him.
He kicked out, breaking legs and kneecaps, but still they came on. A spear jabbed downwards and skidded from his breastplate as a bony foot stamped down on his face. He twisted aside and swung his hammer in a wide arc, splintering thighs and creating some space around himself.
‘Here!’ shouted Redwane, holding his hand out. The White Wolf had slung his hammer, but still held Sigmar’s banner aloft. Sigmar gripped Redwane’s wrist and hauled himself upright, careful not to spill them both to the ice.
‘My thanks,’ said Sigmar. ‘Lost my balance.’
‘So I saw. Lots of them, eh?’
‘Too many for you?’ asked Sigmar.
‘Never,’ grinned Redwane, unhooking his hammer and plunging back into the fray.
Pale light, evil and suffused with emerald, bathed the fighting in a lambent glow. A flickering radiance seemed to dance around the blades of each warrior, both living and dead. The dread moon had risen, its rough surface leering down at the carnage beneath it, and a shiver of fear passed down Sigmar’s spine as he saw that it was as full as it had been when they had fought in the swamps around Marburg.
White Wolves stood sentinel over him, and Sigmar nodded to them as he set off after Redwane. The fighting wedge of the army, with the wolves at the centre, was a spear thrust at the gateway to Morath’s fortress, with the flanks keeping the tip from becoming bogged down. Sigmar looked for his standards, quickly finding them in the morass of fighting warriors.
Beneath the Dragon Banner, the Count’s Guard fought with killing sweeps of their enormous blades,
cleaving great paths through the dead. Each warrior fought his own battle: for the reach of such swords ensured that no warrior dared fight nearby for fear of being struck. To fight in such a manner was courageous and heroic, but to wield a greatsword was heavy work and rapidly sapped a warrior’s strength. How much longer would Pendrag’s warriors be able to keep pushing on?
To his left, Sigmar saw Myrsa battling a host of black wolves, their mouldering fur and decaying flesh hanging in tatters from rotten bones. The wolves fought with savage strength and speed, and only Myrsa’s superlative skill with his enormous hammer kept them at bay. Fangs flashed and bloody jaws snapped as Myrsa’s men were torn down and devoured.
The blue and white banner of the Fauschlag Rock still flew proudly over the fighting, but Sigmar saw that the men of the north were in danger of being overrun. The ferocity of the frenzied wolves was slaughtering them, but they refused to break. With the Dragon Banner raised, every man understood that against such a dreadful foe there could be no retreat.
It was fight or die.
Myrsa fought in the centre of a circle of snarling, snapping wolves and the Hag Woman’s warning returned to him at the thought of the Warrior Eternal being brought down.
‘Emperor’s Guard, with me!’ shouted Sigmar, pushing through the host of fighting men towards Myrsa. Armoured warriors of bone fought to reach Sigmar, but deadly strikes from Ghal-maraz and the weapons of his guards smashed them down.
Sigmar battered a path towards Myrsa through the dead warriors as the clouds above the Brass Keep vomited up arcing bolts of lightning that slammed down and exploded in purple sheets of fire. Men were hurled skyward as bolt after bolt struck the ice with shattering force. He risked a glance towards the keep, and saw Morath with his hands raised to the heavens, laughing insanely as his staff crackled with the same purple lightning that smote his warriors.
Wolves leapt and bit as they pushed into the ranks of Myrsa’s warriors, tearing with diseased claws and ripping flesh from bones with jagged fangs. The Middenheim banner bearer had no time to scream as a wolf’s jaws fastened on his head and crushed his skull with a single bite. The snarling wolf swallowed its morsel, and a great wail went up from the northern warriors as their standard fell towards the ice.