“You remember the day I gave you that hammer, manling?” asked the high king.
“I remember it well, my king,” replied Sigmar, following King Ironbeard.
“Clearly you do not,” growled Kurgan. “Or you’d remember that it was Ghal-maraz that chose you. I saw something special in you that day, boy. Don’t make me regret giving you the heirloom of my house.”
King Kurgan turned to the gathered warriors and said, “I expect you know how this young one came by Ghal-maraz?”
No one dared answer the king until Wolfgart shouted, “We’ve heard it once or twice, but why don’t you tell it, King Kurgan?”
“Aye,” nodded Kurgan, “mayhap I shad. Looks like someone needs to remind you of what it means to bear an ancestral weapon of the dwarfs. But first I need some beer. “Tis a long way from the mountains.”
Master Alaric swiftly produced a firkin of beer, the mouth-watering aroma of fine dwarf ale drifting to those nearby as a tankard was poured for Kurgan. The dwarf king took a long swallow of the beer, and nodded appreciatively before setting the tankard down on the armrest of King Bjorn’s throne.
“Very well, manlings,” began Kurgan. “Listen well, for this is a tale you will not hear from a dwarf s lips again for as long as any of you shall live, for it is the tale of my shame.”
A hushed sense of expectation pressed upon the walls of the longhouse, and even Sigmar, who knew the tale of Ghal-maraz better than anyone, felt a breathless sense of excitement, for he had never dreamed that he might hear the dwarf king speak of his rescue before a hall of tribesmen.
“Was barely yesterday,” said Kurgan. “The blink of an eye to me, so close I remember everything about it, more’s the pity. Me and my kin were travelling through the forests to the Grey Mountains to visit one of the great clans of the south, the Stonehearts. Fine workers of the stone, but greedy for gold. Loved it more than any other clan of dwarfs, and that’s saying something, let me tell you. Anyway, we were crossing a river when the thrice-cursed greenskins fell upon us, led by a great black orcs monster named Vagraz Head-Stomper. Cunning as a weasel that one was, waited until we were ready to stop for the night and break out the beer before they attacked us. Black arrows took my kinsman, Threkki, in the throat. Stained his white beard as red as a sunset, I’ll never forget it. Our guards, dwarfs I’d known longer than twice your eldest’s span of years, were cut down without mercy, and our ponies were hamstrung by goblins. Friends from hearth and home were murdered by the greenskins, and I remember thinking it were an evil day when they took us prisoner and hadn’t just killed us. They robbed us of our gold and treasure, and of our weapons. A black day it was for sure, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Kurgan, if you ever get out of this, there’s going to be a grudge as long as your arm…’. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and my throat’s dry reliving this here story.”
The dwarf king stopped for another mouthful of beer, his audience enraptured by his tale and his iron-hard voice. It was a voice of supreme confidence, but was not arrogant, for the king had tasted defeat and, in doing so, had gained humility.
“So, there we were, tied to stakes rammed into the ground and nothing but sport for the orcs. All we could do was try to break our bonds and die with honour. But even that was denied us, for we were tied with our own rope, good dwarf rope that even I couldn’t break. All around us, Vagraz and his orcs were sitting like kings on our treasure, drinking five hundred year old beer that was worth an army in gold and feasting on the flesh of my friends. I struggled and I struggled, but I couldn’t break the ropes. I looked that big black orcs right in the eye, and I’m not ashamed to say that he was a damned fearsome beast. It was his eyes, you see… red, like the fires of a forge that had burned low, filled with hate and anger… so much hate. He planned on torturing us, one by one, letting me watch all my friends and kin torn apart for the fun of it. He wanted me to beg, but a dwarf begs to no one, least of all a damned orcs! I vowed right then that I was going to see that beast dead before the morn.”
Spontaneous cheering erupted, and Sigmar found himself joining in, swept up by the defiant turn in Kurgan’s tale. Every man in the hall was standing straighter, pressing forward to hear more of the dwarf king’s story.
“Brave words, manlings, brave words indeed, but as my old counsellor, Snorri, was dragged towards the fire, I don’t mind telling you that I thought my time for this world was done, that I was all set to join my ancestors. But it was not to be.”
Kurgan walked over to Sigmar and placed a mailed fist in the centre of his chest.
“The greenskins were getting ready to torture old Snorri when suddenly the air’s filled with arrows, human arrows. At first I didn’t know what was happening, then I saw this young lad here leading a scrawny looking pack of painted men into the orcs camp, whooping and yelling, and screaming like savages. Half of me thinks that we’re still not out of the pot, that we’re just going to get robbed and killed by this lot instead of the orcs, but then they starts killing the greenskins, fighting with courage as hard as an Ironbreaker’s hammer and just as deadly. Never saw anything like that before, humans fighting orcs with such heart and fire. Then this lad jumps right into the middle of an orcs shield-wall, cutting and stabbing with a little sword of bronze. Madness I thought, he’ll never walk out of there alive, but then he does, not just alive, but with a ring of dead greenskins all around him. Now I’m not a dwarf that’s easily impressed, you understand, but young Sigmar here fought like the spirits of all his ancestors were watching him. He even lifted the stake old Bonis was tied to right from the ground, and I’d seen three orcs ram that stake into the earth. Course by now some of us are being freed, and as my bonds were cut, I turns to young Sigmar and tells him that his warriors are all going to die unless they gets some help. Now my lads and I, well, we had some powerful rune weapons with us when we were taken, and I knew exactly where to find them.”
Kurgan paused as he shared a guilty look with Sigmar. “Well, maybe not exactly, but not far off. I knew that Vagraz would keep all the weapons in his tent, close by so he’d have all the best stuff, because even an orcs knows good weapons when he sees them. By now, Sigmar here’s fighting the monster, and they’re going back and forward, hacking lumps from one another, only Sigmar’s having the worst of it on account of Vagraz’s axe and armour. Now, I don’t know what kind of enchantment the orcs shamans work, but whatever dark spells they wield must be powerful. Black flames flickered around the beast’s axe, and, no matter where Sigmar stuck him with his sword, he couldn’t even scratch the warlord.”
Sigmar shivered as he remembered the battle against the hulking orc. Every killing blow was turned aside, and each stroke of his enemy’s axe came within a hair’s breadth of ending his young life. Even six years later, he sometimes awoke in the night, bathed in sweat with the memory of that desperate struggle fresh in his mind.
“So anyway, I runs to the warlord’s tent and I’m hunting high and low for my old friend, Ghal-maraz, but everything’s scattered and heaped all over the place. I found my armour, but nothing to fight with save a man’s sword, which—and no offence here—wasn’t much use since the blade was so poorly forged. So I’m looking for something useful, but I’m not finding anything, and every second I’m looking, Sigmar’s men are dying, and I can hear Vagraz’s laughter as him and his black orcs are set to kill us all. Then I found Ghal-maraz. I was cursing the orcs with every swear known to dwarfkind when my hand closed upon sturdy stitching wound around cold steel. I knew what it was by touch alone, and I pulled it from the heap of loot.”
Sigmar held out the mighty warhammer and Kurgan took it from him, running his hands along the length of the great weapon. The runes sparkled, though whether that was the light of the fires or the touch of its maker’s race, Sigmar knew not. King Kurgan’s eyes lit up at the touch of the warhammer, and he smiled ruefully as he held it out in front of him.
“I hold out Ghal-maraz and I’m ready to charge into battle, even though I’m fit
to drop with pain and exhaustion, but a dwarf never lies down when there’s battle to be done unless he’s dead. And even then he’d better be really, really dead or his ancestors will be having words with him when he gets to the other side! But even as I lifted the warhammer, I knew it wasn’t for me to carry it into battle. You see, the power in Ghal-maraz is ancient, even to us dwarfs, and it knows who is supposed to bear it. Truth be told, I think it’s always been your warhammer, Sigmar, even before you were born. I think it was waiting for you, down the long, lonely centuries. It was waiting for the moment you would be ready to wield it. So instead of charging in, I throws Ghal-maraz to Sigmar, who’s on the back foot, with Vagraz about to take his young head off, and damned if he doesn’t catch it and meet the orcs’ axe on the way down. Now the odds are even, and suddenly Vagraz doesn’t look quite so cocky, and starts running his mouth off, gnashing and wailing his big fangs. But young Sigmar here isn’t fooled, he can see the bastard’s worried and he lays into him with Ghal-maraz. Piece by piece, he takes the orcs apart until he’s down on his knees and beaten.”
Sigmar smiled at the memory, remembering the warmth and feeling of fulfilment that had enveloped him as he hefted the great warhammer and closed with the warlord to deliver the deathblow.
“You remember what you said to it?” asked Kurgan.
“I said, ‘Is that really the best you’ve got?’,” said Sigmar.
“Aye,” said Kurgan, “and then you smashed his skull to pieces with one blow. And I don’t think there’s many could have done that, even with a dwarf hammer. Now the battle’s turned. Orcs don’t like it when you kill their big boss, it breaks their courage like brittle iron, and they went to pieces when Vagraz died. When the battle was over, I remember you tried to give Ghal-maraz back, an honourable gesture for a man, I thought, but I looked into your eyes and I saw that they were smouldering with an energy like I’d never seen.”
The light in the longhouse seemed to dim as the dwarf king closed in on the ending of his tale, as though the structure built by the craft of his kind sought to enhance the telling.
“The rest of young Sigmar’s face was in darkness, and as the flames flickered in his eyes, I swear they took on an eerie light. Even the gaze of the greenskin warlord didn’t have the raw power of that stare. Right then I knew there was something special about this one. I could feel it as sure as I know stone and beer. I looked down at Ghal-maraz and knew that it was time for me to pass this great weapon, this heirloom of my family, to a man. Such a thing has never happened in all the annals of the dwarfs, but I think a gift such as Skull Splitter is worth the life of a dwarf king.”
Kurgan marched across the dais and once again presented Ghal-maraz to Sigmar, bowing to the young prince before turning once again to the rapt audience.
“I gave Sigmar this hammer for a reason. True enough, it is a weapon, a mighty weapon to be sure, but it is so much more than that. Ghal-maraz is a symbol of unity, a symbol of what can be achieved through unity. A hammer is force and dominance, an honourable weapon and one that, unlike most other weapons, has the power to create as well as destroy. A hammer can crush and kill, but it can shape metal, build homes and mend that which is broken. See this mighty gift for what it is, a weapon and a symbol of all that can be. Men of the lands west of the mountains, heed Sigmar’s words, for he speaks with the wisdom of the ancients.”
King Kurgan stepped from the dais to thunderous applause, but the venerable dwarf raised his hands for silence, which duly followed after yet more cheering.
“Now let us drink to the memory of King Bjorn and send him to his fathers in glory!”
BOOK THREE
Forging the Legend
Then fame and renown of Sigmar,
hammer bearer of the high king of the dwarfs.
Spread far and wide.
Sigmar the chief mighty lord of the Unberogen
and other tribes of mankind.
——
Vengeance
Firelight from the burning ships lit the underside of the clouds with a glow like the hells the Norsii were said to believe in. Sigmar watched from the cliffs above the vast expanse of the ocean as thousands of men died before him, burned to death on their ships or dragged below the surface of the water by the weight of their armour.
He felt nothing for the men he was killing; their barbarity rendering them less than nothing to Sigmar. Hundreds of ships filled the wide bay, the night as bright as day as Unberogen and Udose archers sent flaming arrows into their sails and hulls as they jostled to escape.
“Great Ulric’s beard,” whispered Pendrag. “Do you mean to kill them all?”
Sigmar bit back a sharp retort and simply nodded.
“They deserve no less,” snarled King Wolfila. “The blood-geld of my people demands vengeance upon the northmen.”
“But this…” said Pendrag. “This is murder.”
Sigmar said nothing, for how could he make his sword-brother understand? The Norsii were not part of his vision and could never be part of it. The northern gods were avatars of slaughter, the Norsii culture one of barbarism and human sacrifice. Such a people had no place in Sigmar’s empire, and since they would not accept his rule, they must be destroyed.
The firelight reflected on Sigmar’s face, throwing his handsome, craggy features into sharp relief, his differently coloured eyes hard as stone. Twenty-five summers had passed since his birth upon the hill of battle in the Brackenwalsch, and Sigmar had grown into as fine a figure of a man as any could have wished.
The crown of the Unberogens sat upon his brow, his for the two years since his father had been laid to rest in his gilded tomb upon Warrior’s Hill, and a long cloak of bearskin billowed around his wide and powerful shoulders.
Thousands of warriors lined the cliffs in wide blocks of swordsmen and spearmen. Udose clansmen cheered as they watched the Norsii die, while Taleuten, Chemsen and Unberogen warriors watched with awe as an entire tribal race died before them.
No sooner had King Bjorn’s tomb been sealed and Sigmar crowned king of the Unberogen by the priest of Ulric than he had ordered a sword muster for the following spring. Pendrag, and even Wolfgart, had argued against a muster so soon, but Sigmar had been immoveable.
“We have great work ahead of us to forge our empire,” Sigmar had said, “and with every day that passes, our chance to realise it slips further away. No, with the break of the snows next year, we march on the Norsii.”
And so they had. Leaving enough warriors to defend the lands of the Unberogen, Sigmar had gathered three thousand fighting men and marched back into the north, calling upon the Sword Oaths sworn to his father by the Chemsen and Taleutens. Both Krugar and Aloysis were reluctant to honour their oaths so soon, but with three thousand warriors camped before the walls of their cities, they had little choice but to march out with the king of the Unberogen.
As expected, King Artur of the Teutogens had refused to pledge any warriors to Sigmar’s cause, and so his army had continued north towards the beleaguered lands of the Udose tribe, a realm that suffered daily attacks from northern reavers.
King Wolfila’s capital was a soaring granite castle atop a jagged promontory of the northern coastline, pounding waves booming far below. Sigmar had liked Wolfila from the moment he had seen him riding through the black gates of his fastness. With braided hair the colour of the setting sun and a plaited kilt, Wolfila carried a sword almost as big as Wolfgart’s and his face was scarred and painted with fierce tattoos.
The northern king had been only too willing to join Sigmar’s campaign, and wild, kilted and painted men and women of the clans with great, basket-hilted swords were soon coming down from their isolated glens and hilltop forts to join the mighty host of warriors.
The Norsii had fought hard to protect their lands as Sigmar had expected, but with eight thousand warriors marching on them, burning and destroying as they went, the northmen could do nothing to stop them.
The weather battered
the armies of the south, fearsome storms and barrages of lightning, smiting the heavens with leering faces and howling gales like the laughter of dark gods. The morale of the army suffered, but Sigmar was unrelenting in his care, ensuring that every warrior had food and water and understood how proud he was to lead them in battle.
The final outcome of the war had never been in doubt, for the Norsii were outnumbered three to one, and their men were starving, and had seen their lives destroyed by the vengeance of their previous victims.
Sigmar had been careful always to allow the Norsii to fall back to the northernmost coastline, where their ships were beached. Though the northmen were fierce warriors, they were also men who wanted to live.
When they boarded their ships, Sigmar unleashed the newest weapon in his arsenal.
From the cliffs around the bay, huge catapults unleashed great flaming missiles that arced through the air to smash onto the decks of the tinder-dry ships. Strong winds fanned the flames, and as yet more missiles rained down from the cliffs, the entire Norsii fleet was soon ablaze.
Here and there, a few smouldering vessels limped clear of the inferno, but they were few and far between. In less time than it had taken to assemble the war-machines, an entire tribe of man had been almost entirely exterminated.
Sigmar watched the slaughter below with satisfaction. The Norsii were ended as a threat to his empire, and he felt no remorse at the thousands dying below him.
King Wolfila turned to Sigmar and offered him his hand. “My people thank you for this, King Sigmar. Tell me how I can repay you, for I’ll be in no man’s debt.”
“I need no payment, Wolfila,” said Sigmar, “just your oath that we will be brother kings, and that you and your warriors will march beside me as allies in the future.”
“You have it, Sigmar,” promised Wolfila. “From this day, the Udose and the Unberogen will be sword-brothers. If you want our blades, all you need do is ask.”