Even as Sigmar’s hands crushed the life from Gerreon, he saw that monstrous power reach up and claim the swordsman entirely for its own. A terrible light built behind Gerreon’s eyes, and a malicious smile of radiant evil spread across his face.
Sigmar’s hands were prised from his foe’s neck as Gerreon pushed him back. The berserk strength that had filled him moments ago now fled his body, and Sigmar staggered away from Gerreon as his body failed him.
Gerreon laughed, and dragged his sword from his sister’s fallen body as Sigmar lurched away from him.
“You are finished, Sigmar,” said the swordsman, his voice redolent with power. “You and your dream are dead.”
“No,” whispered Sigmar as the world spun around him, and he fell backwards into the pool. The water was icy, and cut through the paralysis of the poison for the briefest moment. He flailed as he sank beneath the surface, water filling his mouth and lungs.
The current seized him, and his body twisted as it was carried down river.
Sigmar’s vision greyed, and his last sight was of Gerreon smiling at him through the swirling bubbles of the water’s surface.
——
The Grey Vaults
Horst Edsel was not a man given to reflection on the whims of the gods, for he had accepted he was but an insignificant player in their grand dramas. Kings might lead armies to fight their enemies, and great warlords might conquer lands not their own, but the sweep of history largely passed Horst by, as it did many men.
He was not a clever man, nor was he gifted physically or mentally. He had married young, before the women of Reikdorf had fully realised the limited nature of his abilities, and his wife had gifted him with two children, a boy and a girl. The girl had died with her mother during the difficult birth, and a wasting sickness had taken the boy three years later.
The gods had seen fit to bestow these gifts upon him and then take them away, but Horst had not thought to curse them, for the joy he had known in those brief years was beyond anything he had known before or since.
Horst pushed the boat from the edge of the river, using an oar to ease it through the long reeds and thick algae that bloomed this far down the river, away from the timber jetties of the town. The meagre pickings he caught in the river were enough to feed him and provide him with a few fish to sell on market day, but little else, and certainly not the mooring fees charged by King Bjorn.
His nets and rods were safely stowed along the side of the small fishing boat, and his cat lay curled in the stem. He had not given the animal a name, for a name meant attachment, and no sooner had Horst ever become attached to something than the gods had taken it from him. He did not want to curse the cat by giving it a name and then having it die on him.
The sun had already climbed a fair distance into the sky, and he said, “Late in the day, cat.”
The animal yawned, exposing its fangs, but paid him no attention.
“Shouldn’t have put away the rest of that Taleuten rotgut,” he said, tasting the acrid bile in his throat from the cheap grain alcohol peddled by the more disreputable traders. “We’ve slept past the best time for fish, cat. Earlier fishermen than us will have plucked the river by now. It’s going to be another hungry day for us both. Well, for me anyway.”
Clear of the reed beds, Horst set the oars in the rowlocks and eased the boat out towards the centre of the river. Trading boats further up the river were sailing towards Reikdorf, and Horst continually checked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to be rammed.
Shouts and curses from various ships chased him, but Horst ignored them with quiet dignity, and eased his boat towards a spot where a tributary that ran from the Hills of the Five Sisters flowed into the Reik. This had often proven to be a good spot for fish to gather, and he decided to give up on the main body of the river today.
He dropped the rope-tied rock that served as his anchor over the side of the boat with a satisfying splash, earning him a look of disdain from the cat, and then baited his hook with a scrap of rotten meat that he’d scavenged from the butcher’s block.
“Nothing to do now but wait, cat,” said Horst, casting his line into the water.
He dozed in the sun, leaning against the gunwale of his boat, the line looped around his finger lest a fish should actually bite.
It felt as though he had barely closed his eyes when something tugged at the line around his finger. From the heft of the pull, it was something big.
Horst sat up and took hold of the fishing rod, easing it back with some difficulty, and looping the twine around a cleat on the side of the boat. Even the cat looked up as the boat swayed in the water.
“Something big, cat!” shouted Horst, dreaming of nice, fresh trout or mullet, or perhaps even a flounder, though this region of the river was a little far from the coast for that. He pulled on the rod again, and his hopes of dinner were dashed as he saw the body.
It drifted on its back towards him, the hook snagged in the skin of its chest. Horst squinted, seeing that the body was that of a naked man, powerfully built, but leaking blood into the water. Flaxen hair billowed around his head like drifting seaweed, and Horst reached over to pull him close to the boat.
With some considerable difficulty, Horst dragged the man’s body into his boat, grunting and straining with the effort, for the man was muscular and powerful.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he told the cat. “Why bother when this poor fellow’s obviously dead, eh?”
The cat uncurled from the stern and padded over to examine Horst’s catch, sniffing disinterestedly around the wet body. Horst sat back to recover his breath, until his heart rate had slowed enough to tell him that he wasn’t about to drop dead from the exertion.
Then he noticed that blood was still flowing from the long cuts to the man’s side.
“Ho ho, this one’s not quite dead yet!” he said.
Horst leaned over and brushed the sodden locks from the man’s face.
He gasped, and reached for the oars, rowing for all he was worth towards the jetties of Reikdorf.
“Oh no, cat!” he said. “This is bad… this is very bad!”
“Will he live?” asked Pendrag, afraid of the answer.
Cradoc ignored him, for what was the point in offering an answer that the warrior would not understand and would not want if he did? The young prince was poised at the very threshold of Morr’s realm, and no knowledge of man could prevent him from passing through.
He had been tending to a young warrior with a broken arm, another casualty of Alfgeir’s harsh training regimes on the Field of Swords, when Pendrag had rushed in, his face pale and frightened. Even before the man opened his mouth, Cradoc had known that something terrible had happened.
Cradoc had gathered his healer’s bag and limped after Pendrag, his aged frame unable to keep up with the young warrior. By the time they reached the longhouse, Cradoc was out of breath and his mouth was dry.
His worst suspicions had been confirmed when he saw the crowds gathered around the king’s longhouse, their faces lined with fear. Pendrag had forged them a path and, though he had been prepared for the worst, he felt a chill as he saw Sigmar lying on a pallet of furs, his body wet and pale like a corpse.
Sigmar’s sword-brothers and Eoforth knelt beside him, and a group of warriors stood to one side, their blades bared as though ready to fight. A hunched man in a tattered buckskin jerkin waited nervously to one side, and a small cat curled around his legs, looking nervously at the king’s wolfhounds.
He had immediately shooed everyone out of the way and begun his examination, already fearing that the prince was beyond help, but then he saw that blood still pulsed weakly from deep cuts along his hip and ribs.
“I asked whether he would live?” demanded Pendrag. “This is Sigmar!”
“I know who he is, damn you!” snapped Cradoc. “Now be silent and let me work.”
Sigmar’s colour was bad, and his body had clearly lost a lot of bloo
d, but that alone could not account for the symptoms that Cradoc was seeing. Sigmar’s pupils were dilated, and a faint tremor was evident in his fingertips.
Cradoc peered at the wounds in the prince’s side, wounds clearly caused by a sword.
“What happened?” asked Cradoc. “Who attacked the prince?”
“We do not know yet,” snarled Wolfgart, “but whoever it was will die before this day is out!”
Cradoc nodded and bent closer to the injured Sigmar as he saw the faint yellowish deposit of a resinous substance coating the skin around the wound. He bent to sniff the blood, and recoiled as he smelled a sour, vegetable-like odour.
“Shallya’s mercy,” he whispered, prising open Sigmar’s eyelids.
“What?” asked Pendrag. “What is it, man! Speak!”
“Hemlock,” said Cradoc. “The prince has been poisoned. Whatever blade wounded him was coated with hemlock from the Brackenwalsch.”
“Is that bad?” asked Wolfgart, pacing the floor behind Pendrag.
“What do you think, idiot?” barked Cradoc. “Have you heard of a good poison? Stop asking stupid questions, and make yourself useful and bring me some clean water! Now!”
He turned from the gathered warriors. “I have seen hemlock poisoning in livestock that eats too near the marshes, or drinks water in which its roots have found purchase.”
“Is it fatal?” asked Eoforth, giving voice to the question everyone feared.
Cradoc hesitated, unwilling to take away what little hope these men had for their prince.
“Usually, yes,” said Cradoc. “The poisoned beast usually has trouble breathing, and then its legs fail and it begins to convulse. Eventually, its lungs give out and it breathes no more.”
“You say usually, Cradoc,” said Eoforth, his voice calm amid the panic that was filling the longhouse. “Some survive?”
“Some, but not many,” said Cradoc, rummaging in his healer’s bag to remove a clay vial stoppered with wax. “Where is that water, damn you!”
“Do what you have to,” said Eoforth. “The prince must live.”
Wolfgart appeared at his side, and Cradoc said, “Clean the wounds. Be thorough, wash the blood away and don’t be squeamish about getting inside the wound. Clean everything out, and leave no trace of the resin within him. You understand? Not a trace.”
“Not a trace,” said Wolfgart, and Cradoc saw the terrible fear for his friend in the warrior’s eyes.
He handed the clay vial to Wolfgart. “When the wound is clean, apply this poultice of tarrabeth, and then get someone with steady hands to stitch him shut.”
“And he will live? He will be all right then?”
Cradoc laid a paternal hand on Wolfgart’s shoulder. “Then we will have done all we can for him. It will be for the gods to decide whether he lives or dies.”
Cradoc moved aside as Wolfgart got to work, his joints flaring painfully as Pendrag helped him to his feet. “Where was Sigmar found?” he asked.
“Is that important?”
“It could be vital,” snapped Cradoc. “Now stop answering my questions with questions, and tell me where he was found.”
Pendrag nodded contritely and indicated the hunched man in the buckskin jerkin. “Horst here found the prince in the river.”
Cradoc’s eyes narrowed as he saw the worried looking man. He smelled of fish and damp leather, and the healer recognised him from some years ago. He had treated the man’s son for a sickness that stripped the flesh from his bones, but despite Cradoc’s best efforts, the boy had died.
“You found him?” asked Cradoc. “Where?”
“I was out fishing by the edge of the river when I saw the young prince,” said Horst.
“Where exactly?” demanded Cradoc. “Come on, man, this could be vital!”
Horst shrank back from Cradoc’s sharp tongue, and the cat’s ears pricked up.
“My apologies,” said Cradoc. “My joints are aching, and King Bjorn’s son is dying, so I do not have time for politeness. I need you to be precise, Horst, tell me where you found Sigmar.”
Horst’s head bobbed in an approximation of a nod. “Out by one of the north channels, sir. The one that flows from the Five Sisters. I was out fishing, and the prince went and snagged on my hook.”
“You know this place?” asked Cradoc, turning to Pendrag.
“I do, yes.”
“Sigmar was naked, which tells me he was swimming and did not fall into the water until after he was attacked,” said Cradoc, rubbing the heel of his palm against his temples. “Is there a pool further up that channel?”
Pendrag nodded. “Aye, there is. It is a favourite place for young lovers to swim.”
“Take me there,” said Cradoc, “and if you wish to avenge yourselves on the prince’s attacker, bring your finest trackers.”
“What is it?” asked Pendrag. “What do you expect to find?”
“I do not think it likely that Sigmar will prove to be our only victim today,” said Cradoc.
Sigmar opened his eyes to a bleak world of ashen grey. Rocky plains stretched out all around him, withered and dead heaths over which blew a parched wind. Twisted trees dotted the landscape, rearing high like black cracks in the empty, lifeless sky.
He was naked and alone, lost in this deserted wilderness with no stars above to guide him and no landmarks he recognised to fix his position. He did not know this land.
A range of mountains reared up in the distance, vast and monolithic, easily the biggest things he had ever seen. Even the distant peaks of the Grey Mountains were nowhere near as mighty as this great range.
“Is there anyone here?” he shouted, the sound as flat and toneless as the colours around him. The silence of the strange landscape swallowed his shout, and he felt a strange sense of dislocation as he set off towards the mountains in the absence of any better direction to travel.
His memories of how he had come to be here were confused, and he had only fleeting memories of his life. He knew his name and that he was of the Unberogen tribe, the fiercest warriors west of the mountains, but beyond that…
Sigmar walked for what felt like hours, but he quickly noticed that the sky above was unchanging, the dead sun motionless in the grey clouds. A moment or an age could have passed, yet his limbs were as strong as they had been when he had set off. He had no doubt that he could walk forever in this lifeless realm without feeling tired.
He stopped as a sudden thought came to him.
Was he dead?
This strange landscape was certainly bereft of life, but where was the golden hall of Ulric, the great feasting and the warriors who had fallen in glorious battle? He had lived a valourous life had he not?
Was he to be denied his rest in the halls of his ancestors?
Fear touched his heart as he felt shadows gather around him at the thought. Where he had stopped was as empty and desolate as any other place he had seen in his travels, but he could sense a gathering menace.
“Show yourselves!” he roared. “Come out and die!”
No sooner had he spoken than the shadows coiled from the ground and shaped themselves into dark phantoms of nightmare. A pair of huge, slavering wolves with red eyes and fangs like knives stalked him, and a scaled daemon with a horned head, forked tongue and a dripping sword hissed words of his death.
Sigmar wished he had a weapon to defend himself, and looked down to see a golden sword appear in his hand. He lifted the blade, and imagined himself in a suit of the finest iron armour. He was not surprised when it appeared upon his body, the links gleaming and oiled.
The creatures of darkness surrounded him, but rather than wait for them to make the first move, Sigmar leapt to attack. His sword cleaved through one of the shadow wolves, and it vanished in a swirl of dark smoke.
The second wolf leapt at him, and he dropped flat to the dusty ground, his sword sweeping up a disembowelling cut. Again the beast vanished, and the daemon rushed in with its sword raised. The blade slashed for his throa
t, but Sigmar ducked and rammed his sword into the creature’s side.
Instead of vanishing, the creature let loose a screeching howl, the pain of it driving Sigmar to his knees. He dropped his weapon, which vanished as soon as it hit the ground. The daemon bellowed in triumph, its sword sweeping down to take his skull… to be met by a great, double-headed axe that blocked the blow.
Sigmar looked up to see a mighty warrior in a glittering hauberk of polished iron scale, with a winged bronze helmet and kilt of linked leather strips reinforced with bronze. The warrior’s axe swept aside the daemon’s blade, and the return stroke smote its chest, sending it back to whatever hell it had come from.
With the daemon despatched, the warrior turned and offered his hand to Sigmar, and even before he saw the warrior’s face, he knew whose face it would be.
“Father,” said Sigmar as Bjorn took him in a crushing bear hug.
“My son,” said Bjorn. “It does my heart proud to see you, even as it grieves me to see you in this place.”
“What is this place? Am I dead? Are… are you?”
“These are the Grey Vaults,” said Bjorn. “It is the netherworld between life and death where the spirits of the dead wander.”
“How did I come to be here?”
“I do not know, my son, but you are here, and I mean to make sure you return to the land of the living. Now come, we have a long way to go.”
Sigmar indicated the barren emptiness that surrounded them. “Go? Where is there to go? I have walked for an age in this place and found nothing.”
“We must reach the mountains. There we will find the gateway.”
“What gateway?”
“The gateway to Morr’s kingdom,” said Bjorn, “to the realm of the dead.”
* * * * *
The battle was won, but as Alfgeir had feared the cost had been high. The Norsii had fought like daemons against the armies of the southern kings, their shield walls like impregnable fortresses atop the forested ridgeline. Time and time again, the axes and swords of the Taleutens, Cherusens and Unberogens had hammered the north-men, until shields had splintered and spears had broken.