—<THREE>—
Reckonings
Sigmar closed the door to his bedchamber at the rear of the longhouse and sighed with exhaustion. Two of his White Wolves stood guard on the other side of the door, but if they saw any sign of his weariness, they did not show it. Alfgeir had trained them well. His three hounds lay on his bed in a lair of bearskins, basking in the sullen heat from the banked fire. Their heads bobbed up as he entered. Ortulf, the eldest of the three, bared his fangs, but bounded from the bed upon catching Sigmar’s scent. Lex and Kai quickly followed him, all three inordinately pleased to see their master once more.
The hounds had been a gift from King Wolfila of the Udose in the aftermath of Black Fire Pass. Udose warhounds were vicious beasts, difficult to train and temperamental, but once their allegiance had been won, they were loyal to their master unto death. Much like the Udose themselves, reflected Sigmar.
He knelt, ruffled their fur and threw them some strips of roast boar he had taken from the feast hall. They scrapped amongst themselves for the food, though Lex and Kai were careful to allow Ortulf the choicest cuts. As the hounds devoured the boar meat, Sigmar rubbed his eyes and yawned. It had been a long day and he wished for nothing more than a good night’s rest.
Sigmar removed the wolfskin cloak around his neck and reached for the clasps securing his magnificent silver armour. Kurgan Ironbeard had presented him with the armour as a coronation gift, and, as Sigmar unbuckled each piece, it felt like he had worn it all his life. Each plate was worked with a skill and craftsmanship known only to the dwarfs, the burnished metal carved with runic script and flawlessly finished to a mirror sheen.
The breastplate was lighter even than the lacquered leather chestguards the Taleuten horse archers wore, moulded to his physique and embossed with a twin-tailed comet of gold at its centre.
No mortal man had ever worn so fine a suit of armour.
He removed the armour quickly and hung each piece on a rack in the corner of the room. Clad only in his tunic and crown, he lifted Alaric’s gift from his brow. Like the armour, the crown was a thing of beauty, and Sigmar sensed the ancient power bound to it in the gold runes worked upon the metal.
Sigmar placed the crown in a velvet-lined casket next to his bed and closed the lid. Ghal Maraz he set on an iron weapons rack alongside his leaf-bladed sword, an Asoborn hunting spear and his favourite Cherusen dagger. He sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the raucous celebrations from the great hall of the longhouse, knowing they would continue long into the night.
Though hundreds of warriors were close by, Sigmar felt strangely alone, as though his elevation to Emperor had somehow isolated him from his fellows. He knew he was still the same man he had always been, but something fundamental had changed, though he could not yet fathom what it was.
He thought back to his pronouncements in the longhouse, and the deafening cheers that greeted each one. In the weeks leading to his coronation, Sigmar had thought long and hard about what boons to grant those that had sworn loyalty to him. His allies were proud men and women, and would seek rewards for the blood their people had shed to make him Emperor.
Sigmar’s first act had also been his grandest.
He abolished the title of king, declaring that no one who called himself a king should be subject to another’s rule. Instead, each of the tribal kings would take the title of count, retaining all their lands and rights as rulers over their people. Their sword oaths still bound them to Sigmar, as his did to them.
The land of each of the counts was entrusted to them for all time, and Sigmar swore on Ghal Maraz that they and their descendants would remain his honoured brethren for so long as they upheld the ideals by which their realms had been won and made safe.
One land, one people, united under a single ruler, yet still able to retain their identities.
With the biggest proclamation made and accepted, Sigmar had then turned to individual honours. He named Alfgeir Grand Knight of the Empire, and entrusted him with the protection of Reikdorf and its people. Sigmar presented the stunned Alfgeir with a glorious banner woven from white silk acquired at fabulous expense from the olive-skinned traders of the south. Depicting a black cross with a wreathed skull at its centre, Sigmar declared it would forever be borne by those who fought in defence of Reikdorf.
Amid wild cheering, Sigmar had declared that Reikdorf would be the foremost city of the empire, his capital and seat of power. It would become a beacon of hope and learning for his people, a place where warriors and scholars would gather to further man’s knowledge of the world in which he lived.
To this end, Sigmar announced the building of a great library, and named the venerable Eoforth as its first custodian. The canny Eoforth had served as Bjorn’s counsellor for more than forty years and, together with Pendrag, had amassed a vast collection of scrolls written by some of the wisest men in the empire.
Eoforth would be entrusted with the gathering of knowledge from all across the lands of men, bringing it together under one roof so that any who sought wisdom might find it within the library’s walls. Sigmar placed the grey mantle of a scholar upon Eoforth, seeing Pendrag’s anticipation as he awaited a similar position within this new institution.
But Sigmar had a greater destiny in mind for Pendrag.
He smiled, picturing Pendrag’s face as he was appointed Count of Middenheim, entrusted with the rule of the empire’s northern marches. The shock on Pendrag’s face was mirrored by the relief on Myrsa’s, and Sigmar knew that the decision was the correct one.
Warriors from all the tribes were honoured for their courage at Black Fire Pass, Maedbh of the Asoborns, Ulfdar of the Thuringians, Wenyld of the Unberogen, Vash of the Ostagoths and a score of others. The longhouse shook with the sounds of swords and axes banging on shields, and with his duty to his warriors fulfilled, Sigmar had left them to their revelries.
Tired beyond measure, Sigmar slid beneath the bearskin covers of his bed, his three hounds curling together on the Brigundian rug at the centre of the room.
He longed for sleep but, as the hours passed, slumber would not come.
* * *
The hearth-fire had burned low, casting a dull red glow around his chamber. Though the room was warm and his covers thick, Sigmar suddenly felt the lingering soul-chill of his near-drowning in the Cauldron of Woe.
He shivered as fleeting glimpses of the things he had seen beneath the icy water returned to him. What did they mean and how should he interpret them? Were they visions of the future granted to him by Ulric or mere phantasms conjured by his air-starved mind to ease his passage into death? When the days of feasting were over and the counts had returned to their lands, Sigmar resolved to task Eoforth with researching the meaning behind his visions.
Ortulf and Lex lifted their heads from the rug, growling softly at some unidentified threat, and Sigmar was instantly alert. Without appearing to move, he slid his hand beneath the covers for the punch dagger hidden in a secret pocket within the bearskin.
Opening his eyes a fraction, Sigmar scanned the room for anything out of place. All three hounds were growling now, though he could hear their confusion. Something had alerted them, but they could not identify what.
A shadow detached itself from the corner of the room, and Sigmar’s fist closed around the bronze hilt of the punch dagger.
“Put down your weapon, Child of Thunder,” said a loathsome voice that Sigmar had hoped never to hear again. “I mean you no harm.”
“I wondered when you would show your face,” said Sigmar, propping himself up and keeping his grip firm on the hilt of his dagger.
“You sensed my presence?” said the Hag Woman, limping across the room. “I am impressed. Most men’s minds are too concerned with their desires to notice the truth of the world around them.”
“I sensed a foulness on the air, but knew not what it was,” said Sigmar. “Now I do.”
The Hag Woman chuckled mirthlessly and moved towards his bed using a staff of dark wood for support.
“So that is to be the tone of our discussion,” she said. “Very well, I shall speak no words of friendship or congratulation.”
Sigmar’s hounds bared their fangs, muscles tensed and hackles raised. The Hag Woman spat a curse in their direction, and the dogs whimpered in fear, slinking away to the furthest corner of the room.
“The beasts fear me, even if men do not,” she said wistfully. “That is something at least.”
She sat on the end of Sigmar’s bed, and he could see the weight of years upon the woman. Her skin was loathsomely wrinkled, like weathered leather, and what little remained of her white hair was lank and thin. For a moment, Sigmar was moved to pity. Then he remembered the misery she had allowed to enter his life and his heart hardened.
“You truly knew I was in Reikdorf?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Sigmar. “And now I wish you gone. I am weary and I am not in the mood for words of doom.”
The Hag Woman laughed, the sound like winter twigs snapping underfoot.
“Alaric’s crown gives you perception,” she said. “Beware you do not seek to replace it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“A piece of advice, nothing more,” said the Hag Woman. “But that is not why I am here. I come with a warning and a request.”
“A request?” said Sigmar. “Why should I grant you anything? All you have done is bring me misery.”
A shadow of anger passed over the Hag Woman’s face, and Sigmar recoiled from her cold fury.
“You hate me,” she said, “but if you knew all I had sacrificed to guide you, make you strong and prepare you for what is to come, you would drop to your knees and grant me my heart’s desire.”
“Why should I believe you?” demanded Sigmar. “Your words bring only death.”
“And yet you have your empire.”
“Won by the courage of warriors,” said Sigmar, “not the wiles of your scheming.”
“Won by your lust for death and glory,” snapped the Hag Woman. “Most men’s desires are simple and banal: food in their belly, a home to shelter from the cold, and a woman to bear their sons. But not you… No, Sigmar the Heldenhammer is a killer whose heart only sings when death is a hair’s-breadth away and his bloodstained hammer is crushing the skulls of his foes. Like all warriors, you have darkness in your heart that lusts for violence. It is what births the urge to kill and destroy in men, but yours will consume you without balance in your heart. Temper your darkness with compassion, mercy and love. Only then will you be the Emperor this land needs for it to survive. This is my warning to you, Child of Thunder.”
The Hag Woman’s words cut like knives, but Sigmar could not deny the truth of them. The clamour of battle was when he felt truly alive, when his enemies were broken and driven from the field of battle in a tide of blood.
“You call it darkness, but it allowed me to defeat my enemies,” said Sigmar. “I need it to defend my lands.”
“It is ever my curse to be unappreciated,” sighed the Hag Woman, “but my time in this world is short, and I have only this one chance to pass on my knowledge of things to come.”
“You have seen the future?” asked Sigmar, making the sign of the horns.
“There is no future,” said the Hag Woman. “Nor is there a past. All things exist now and always. It is the blessing of mankind that they do not perceive the whole of this world’s infinite structure. Existence is a complex puzzle, of which you see but a single piece. It is my curse to see many such pieces.”
“You do not see them all?” asked Sigmar, intrigued despite himself.
“No, and I am grateful for that small mercy. Only the gods dare know everything, for it would drive men to madness to know the full truth of their destiny.”
“You have delivered your warning,” said Sigmar. “Now make your request and begone.”
“Very well, though you will be pleased that this time I speak of life, not death.”
“Life? Whose?”
“The man named Myrsa,” said the Hag Woman. “You call him the Warrior Eternal, and it is a well-chosen title. The people of the Fauschlag Rock harken to an ancient prophecy, one that warns of their city’s fall without such a warrior to lead their armies in times of war.”
The Hag Woman laughed. “A false prophecy delivered by a conniving soothsayer to advance his idiot son’s ambitions, though now it seems it has a measure of truth to it. More by accident than design, I suspect. In any case, you must not allow the Warrior Eternal to die before his time.”
“Before his time?” asked Sigmar. “What kind of request is that? How can any man know when it is his time to leave this world?”
“Some men know, Child of Thunder,” said the Hag Woman. 'You will know.”
Once again Sigmar made the sign of the horns.
“A curse on you, woman!” he said. “Speak not the words of my death! Now leave or by Ulric’s blood I will kill you where you sit.”
“Be at peace,” said the Hag Woman. “I do not speak of your death.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“No,” said the Hag Woman with a knowing wink. “That I choose not tell you, for it is the uncertainty of life that keeps it interesting, don’t you think?”
Anger flared in Sigmar’s heart, and he slid from the bed, his blade extended before him.
“You torment me with your mysteries, woman,” he said. “Well, no more! If I see you again, I will cut your throat before that vile tongue can utter another curse upon my head.”
“Fear not, Child of Thunder, for this will be the last time we speak,” promised the Hag Woman sadly. “Yet we will see one another again, and you will remember my words.”
“More riddles,” spat Sigmar.
“Life is a riddle,” said the Hag Woman, rising from the bed with a smile and turning her gaze upon the smouldering fire. “Now sleep, and do not forget what I have said, or everything you have built will be destroyed.”
The hearth erupted with flames, and the dagger dropped from Sigmar’s hand as he collapsed onto his bed. Great weariness descended upon him, and the sleep that had previously eluded him dragged him down into its warm embrace.
Sigmar awoke with the dawn, warm and refreshed beneath his bearskin. There was no sign of the Hag Woman and his hounds were no worse for the encounter, though the same could not be said for Sigmar. Her words hung like chains around his neck, and throughout the rest of the week of feasting and celebration, he found his eyes darting to the shadows lest her dark form should emerge from them.
Over the next six days, the warriors of the empire gorged themselves on the fruits of their victory: mountains of food and lakes of beer. Counts from the far corners of the empire brought wines and fiery spirits from beyond the mountains to the south, and tribal dishes were prepared by the womenfolk of every land. Unberogen beer, a powerful ale flavoured with bog myrtle was consumed by the barrel-load, and crate after crate of Asoborn wine was unloaded from the docks and dragged to the longhouse.
Cherusen beef was served on platters with Menogoth pork, and every king enjoyed new and exotic dishes from across the empire. Truly, it was a feast that none gathered in Reikdorf would ever forget. Nor was it only the warriors who were honoured with such largesse; Sigmar commanded his granaries to be opened, and for the duration of the coronation, free bread was distributed to every family in Reikdorf and beyond.
Eoforth bemoaned the expense, but Sigmar was not to be dissuaded, and his name was praised from one end of the land to the other.
Custom dictated that the Emperor spent his coronation day as an aloof and magisterial ruler, but for the rest of the week he resolved to be simply Sigmar the man. Wolfgart and Pendrag had approached him almost immediately on the second morning, and Sigmar knew exactly what his banner bearer was going to say.
“I cannot do this, Sigmar,” said Pendrag. “Ruler of an entire city? It is an honour, but there must be others more suited to the task.”
Wolfgart shook his head, and said, “He’s been like this all night, Sigmar. Sort him out.”
Sigmar took his old friend by the shoulders and said. “Look at what you have done with Reikdorf: stone walls, new schools, forges and regular markets. You have made it the jewel in my crown, and you will do the same for Middenheim, I know it.”
“But Myrsa… It is his city,” protested Pendrag, though Sigmar saw that the thought of applying his ideas to a new city appealed to him. “The honour should be his. He will feel slighted.”
Sigmar shivered, recalling the Hag Woman’s words as Wolfgart said, “I think Myrsa will be only too happy to have you take charge. What was it he said last night? ‘I am a fighter, not a ruler!’”
“I don’t think you need worry about Myrsa’s feelings, my friend.”
“For a man who’s been up all night drinking, Wolfgart speaks sense,” added Sigmar. “But keep Myrsa close, for he knows the city and its people. He will be a staunch ally in your rule.”
“I am not sure—”
“Trust me, my friend, you will make a grand count of Middenheim. Now go, enjoy yourself and get drunk!” ordered Sigmar.
“First sensible thing I’ve heard this morning,” said Wolfgart, leading Pendrag away.
Over the following days, Sigmar mixed with his subjects and conversed with his counts about what needed to be done to secure the peace they had won. Sword oaths were renewed and plans laid to defend the east and north, while expeditions were planned to learn more of the lands far to the south.
Many called for war against the Jutones, and the sentiment found much support amongst the counts. King Marius, safe in his coastal city of Jutonsryk, endured thanks only to the great victory others had won. All agreed that a reckoning was due, and that Marius must be brought to heel or destroyed.
Queen Freya of the Asoborns was Sigmar’s constant shadow throughout the feasting, and he endured countless tales of her twin boys, Fridleifr and Sigulf, who were gods amongst men if their mother’s stories were to be believed. Freya’s desire for him was undimmed and her disappointment was clear when he gently rebuffed her offers of carnal pleasure.
Kragar of the Taleutens and Aloysis of the Cherusens both tried to broach the subject of their shared border, each claiming that the other was sending raiders to violate their lands. Sigmar forestalled such disputes until the spring; this was a time for unity, not division. Neither count was happy with his judgement, but both bowed and withdrew.
Of all the counts gathered, Sigmar enjoyed the company of Wolfila the most. The Udose count was a garrulous guest, and seemed to have a limitless supply of energy with which to feast and partake in games of strength and skill. None who fought him in mock duels could best him, until Sigmar put him flat on his back with one punch.
No sooner had he regained consciousness than Wolfila dragged Sigmar into the longhouse to break open a bottle of his finest grain spirit, a bottle said to have been laid down in his grandfather’s time. The two men drank long into the night, cutting their palms and becoming blood-brothers while devising ever more elaborate means to solve the evils of the world.
On the morning of the fourth day of feasting, Wolfila introduced Sigmar to his wife, Petra. Swathed in a patchwork dress of many colours, Petra was petite and slender, though she had fought in battle since becoming Wolfila’s wife. From the swelling of her belly, it was clear that she was with child, her first, though this had not stopped her from eating and drinking her share of the feast platters.
“He’ll be a bonny lad,” said Wolfila, patting his wife’s belly. “A hellraiser and a warrior to be sure. Just like his father.”
“Whisht,” scolded Petra. “Away with you, it’s a girl, as sure as night follows day.”
“Don’t be foolish, woman,” cried Wolfila. “A boy, didn’t old man Rouven say so?”
“Rouven?” snapped Petra. “Ach, the man couldn’t predict rain in a thunderstorm!”
The Udose were renowned as an argumentative tribe, whose clannish family groupings fought with one another as often as they battled their enemies. Though Wolfila and Petra loved each other dearly, Sigmar soon learned that they would argue over the smallest thing, and that it was best to leave them to it. The strange thing was that they seemed to enjoy it.
As well as the rulers of each tribe, Sigmar spent a great deal of time with the warriors of the tribes, listening to their tales of courage and heartbreak from the field of Black Fire Pass. A Thuringian warrior broke a table as he re-enacted his killing of a gigantic troll, a pair of Asoborn spearmen ran circles around their listeners as they explained the tactics of a chariot charge, and shaven-headed Taleuten horsemen sang songs of how they rode down fleeing greenskins at battle’s end.
With every account, Sigmar’s awe for these men and women grew deeper and his gratitude more profound. Most moving of all were the words of a Menogoth warrior named Toralf, who tearfully begged Sigmar’s forgiveness for his cowardice in running.
“We tried,” sobbed Toralf, showing a monstrous scar in his side where a great barb had pierced him. “We killed the wolves and marched into the teeth of the spear throwers. We didn’t know… We didn’t know… Hundreds of bolts let fly at us, thick as a felled tree they were, and each one killed a dozen men, skewered like pigs in a row. I lost my father and both brothers in the time it takes to nock an arrow, but we kept going… We kept going till we couldn’t go no more… And then we ran. Ulric forgive me, but we ran!”
Sigmar remembered the dreadful fear he had felt watching the Menogoth ranks breaking under the horrific onslaught of orc spear throwers. The greenskins had poured into the gap and savaged the flanks of King Henroth’s Merogens before Sigmar had led his Unberogen sword bands forward to hurl the orcs back.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he told Toralf. “No warriors could have held firm under such an attack. There is no shame in fleeing from so grievous a slaughter. What matters most is that you came back. In every battle, there are those who flee for their lives. Fewer are those who find their courage and return to the fight. Without the strength of the Menogoths, the battle would have been lost.”
Toralf looked up with wet eyes and dropped to his knees before Sigmar, who placed his hand on the man’s head. All eyes were upon him as Toralf received Sigmar’s blessing, and a palpable sense of wonder filled the longhouse as the hearts of the Menogoths were healed.
Though he favoured no count over another, Sigmar found that he spent almost no time at all with Aldred. This was not for lack of effort on Sigmar’s part, for it seemed the Endal count deliberately kept away from the new emperor. King Marbad, Aldred’s father, had been one of Sigmar’s staunchest allies, and it grieved him to feel the distance growing between him and the count of the Endals.
No sooner had the feasting come to an end on the seventh day than the Endals mounted their black steeds and rode through Morr’s Gate, Reikdorf’s westernmost entrance. Sigmar watched them go, the Raven Helms surrounding their master as they followed the course of the river towards Marburg.
One by one, the counts of the empire returned to their homelands, and it was a time of great joy and melancholy. With the celebrations done and the warriors departed, Reikdorf felt strangely empty. Autumn was coming to an end, and the cold winds howled over the northern hills with the promise of winter.
Soon darkness would cover the land.
The seasons following Black Fire Pass had been mild, but the winter that fell upon the empire in the wake of Sigmar’s coronation was as fierce as anyone living could remember. The land was blanketed in white, and only the most foolhardy dared venture far from the warmth of hearth and home.
Blizzards sprang from nowhere, raging southwards to bury entire villages beneath the snow and wipe them from the map. Only when the snows retreated in the spring would many of these settlements be rediscovered, their frozen inhabitants huddled together in their last moments of life.
Days were short and the nights long, and the people of the empire were left with little to do but press close to their fires and pray to the gods to deliver them from the bitter cold. Harsh as the winter was, the Unberogen passed it with relative ease, for the granaries were well stocked, even after Sigmar’s generosity at his coronation.
The ground was like iron, and work ceased on the forest clearances as well as the wide roads running between Middenheim in the north and Siggurdheim in the south. The workers were glad of the respite, for the hungry forest beasts made it too dangerous to venture beyond the walls of a settlement for any length of time. Work would resume in the spring, and fine roads of stone would link the great cities of the empire.
The danger of the forest beasts was illustrated only too clearly when a pack of twisted monsters raided the village of Verburg, burning it to the ground and taking the inhabitants captive. Though savage winds howled around Reikdorf, Sigmar had gathered a hunting party to track the beasts and rescue his captured people. His head scout, Cuthwin, found the beasts’ trail a mile east of Astofen, and the Unberogen riders had fallen on the creatures as they camped above a frozen lake.
The slaughter had been swift, for the beasts were starving and weak. Not a single rider fell in the fight, but the captives were already dead, butchered to feed the hungry pack. Dispirited by their failure to rescue the villagers, the Unberogen rode back to Reikdorf without the soaring pride that would normally accompany the slaying of so many of their enemies.
Two days later, Sigmar still brooded on the deaths of his people, and it was in this mood that his friends found him as they came to discuss the spring muster.
The fire in the centre of the longhouse burned low, yet the dwarf craft in the hall’s construction was so precise that no cold seeped in through the windows or doors. Sigmar sat upon his throne, Ghal Maraz lying across his lap and his faithful hounds curled at his feet.
Behind him stood Redwane, one hand on the grip of his hammer, the other on a polished banner pole of yew. With Pendrag in Middenheim, the honour of bearing Sigmar’s crimson standard had gone to the strongest warrior of the White Wolves. Alfgeir had advised Sigmar to choose a warrior of greater maturity, but he had seen great courage in Redwane and would not change his mind.
The doors to the longhouse opened, and a malicious gust of wind scattered the dry straw spread across the floor. Eoforth limped inside, swathed in thick furs and flanked by Alfgeir and Wolfgart. The cloaked warriors helped Eoforth to a seat by the fire, and Sigmar descended from his throne to sit with his closest friends.
“How goes work in the library?” asked Sigmar.
“Well enough,” nodded Eoforth, “for many of the counts brought copies of their foremost scholars’ work with them in autumn. The winter has given me the chance to read many scrolls, but the business of organising them is never-ending, my lord.”
Sigmar nodded, though he had no real interest in Eoforth’s books. The first hints that winter was loosening its grip were in the air, and he was eager to make war once more.
As promised at his coronation, there were reckonings to be had.
He turned from Eoforth and spoke first to Alfgeir. “How many men do we have under arms for the spring muster?” he asked. Alfgeir glanced at Eoforth.
“Perhaps five thousand in the first raising,” he said. “If need be, another six when the weather breaks.”
“How soon can they be gathered?”
“Once the war banner is unfurled, I can send riders out, and most of the first five thousand will be here within ten days,” said Alfgeir. “But we will need time to prepare food and supplies before ordering such a gathering. It would be best to wait until the snows melt.”
Sigmar ignored Alfgeir’s last comment and said, “Eoforth, draw up a list of everything the army will need: swords, axes, spears, armour, wagons, war-machines, horses, food. Everything. I want it ready by tomorrow evening and I want us ready to raise the war banner as soon as the roads become passable.”
“I will do as you command,” said Eoforth, “though the planning of so large a muster should be given more time than a single day.”
“We do not have more time,” said Sigmar. “Just make it happen.”
Wolfgart coughed and spat into the fire, and Sigmar sensed his friend’s confusion.
“Something troubles you, Wolfgart?” he asked.
Wolfgart looked up and shrugged.
“I’m just wondering who you’re in such a rush to go and fight,” he said. “I mean, we killed the beasts and burned their corpses didn’t we? The others of their kind will get the message.”
“We are not riding out to kill beasts,” said Sigmar. “We march to Jutonsryk. The coward Marius must be called to account for deserting us at Black Fire.”
“Ah… Marius,” said Wolfgart, nodding. “Aye, well he needs to be dealt with, right enough, but why so soon? Why not wait until the snows break properly before ordering men to leave their homes and loved ones? Marius isn’t going anywhere.”
“I thought that you of all people would be eager for this,” snapped Sigmar. “Were you not complaining that big sword of yours was getting rusty?”
“I’m as eager for battle as the next man,” said Wolfgart, “but let’s be civilised about this and fight in the spring, eh? My old bones don’t like marching in the snow or sleeping rough in the cold. War’s hard enough as it is, there’s no need to make it harder.”
Sigmar stood and circled the fire, Ghal Maraz held loosely across his shoulder as he answered Wolfgart.
“Every day since I threw his ambassador from Reikdorf, Marius has been fortifying Jutonsryk, building his walls and towers of stone higher. His ships bring grain, weapons and mercenaries from the south, and every day we sit like old women around the fire, his city grows stronger. The longer we wait to take the fight to Marius, the more men will die when we attack.”
Sigmar and Wolfgart locked eyes, and it was his sword-brother who looked away.
“You’re the Emperor,” said Wolfgart. “You always did see things bigger than me, but I wouldn’t go haring off to Jutonsryk without making sure my back was covered first.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Sigmar, stopping in front of Wolfgart.
“Aldred of the Endals,” said Alfgeir.
“Aldred?” asked Sigmar. “The Endals are our brothers, Sword Oath sworn and bound to us for generations. Why would you dishonour a man who has sworn a sword oath with me?”
“That’s just it,” said Wolfgart. “His father did, but he hasn’t.”
“And you think Aldred would dishonour his father’s memory by turning on us?” demanded Sigmar, angry that his sword-brother would suggest such a thing.
“He might. You don’t know Aldred’s heart.”
“I think what Wolfgart means is that the Endals are something of an unknown quantity,” said Eoforth hurriedly. “King Marbad was your father’s greatest friend and a proud ally of the Unberogen, but Aldred…”
“I grieved with Aldred when we set Marbad on the pyre,” said Sigmar. “He knows I honoured his father.”
“We all grieved for Marbad,” said Alfgeir, “but I agree with Wolfgart. It makes no sense to face one enemy with potentially another behind us.”
Wolfgart rose from his seat and stood face-to-face with Sigmar. “I watched the Endals the whole time they were here, and I didn’t like the looks of that Aldred one bit. The way he stared at you, well, it was as if you’d rammed that spear in his father’s chest yourself.”
“You’re saying that he blames me for his father’s death?”
“You’d have to be a blind man not to see that,” said Wolfgart. “Even Laredus was like a stranger, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw less and less of the Endals as time goes on.”
“You agree with this?” Sigmar asked Eoforth.
“I think it is worth considering,” said Eoforth. “As Alfgeir says, it’s sensible to make certain of the loyalty of the warriors behind you before laying siege to Jutonsryk. Be sure of Aldred, win him to your cause, and then take your anger to the Jutones.”
Sigmar wanted to rage against their words, but he had seen the bitterness in Aldred’s eyes and had known it for what it was. Marbad had been dear to Sigmar, but he was Aldred’s father too. Nothing could assuage Aldred’s knowledge that, had his father not been compelled to hurl the blade Ulfshard to Sigmar at the height of the battle, he might have lived.
Sigmar took a deep breath.
“You are right,” he said. “My anger towards Marius and my frustration at the deaths of my people is blinding me to the wisdom of my friends. I saw the hurt in Aldred’s eyes, but I chose to ignore it. That was foolish of me.”
“We all make mistakes,” said Wolfgart. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No,” said Sigmar. “I am Emperor, and I cannot afford to act so rashly or people will die. From hereon, I will make no decisions of magnitude without speaking with you, for you are all dear to me and this crown weighs heavy on my brow. I will need your honest counsel if I am to make wise decisions.”
“You can count on me to tell you when you’re being an ass,” said Wolfgart. “You always could.”
Sigmar smiled and shook Wolfgart’s hand.
“So do you still want to order the spring muster?” asked Alfgeir.
“No, not yet,” said Sigmar. “Our reckoning with Marius will need to wait.”
“Then what are your orders, sire?”
“When the snow breaks, assemble a hundred of the White Wolves,” said Sigmar. “We will pay a visit to Count Aldred in Marburg and see what truly lies in his heart.”