—<FOUR>—

New Friends and Old Enemies

 

 

The Emperor’s army returned to Reikdorf in triumph, his black steed flanked by a dozen others, and trailed by two thousand marching warriors. Since arriving back on Empire soil, his forces had swollen with followers, farm boys eager to take up a life of the sword and warriors from distant lands wishing to serve under the Imperial banner.

Though Gerreon had escaped them, the stated purpose of the campaign had been to strike terror into the hearts of the Norsii, to let them know that they were not safe in their desolate realm of ice and snow. That task had been accomplished, and the crowds gathered to greet their Emperor’s return waved swords and axes high in recognition of his victories.

Bells pealed from every tower that had one and the schoolhouses emptied as word spread throughout the city. First the arrival of the Grand Knight of the Empire, and now the return of the Emperor. Truly the city of Reikdorf was blessed. Thousands of men, women and children lined the streets, cheering and alternately shouting the names of Sigmar and Ulric.

Conn Carsten and a hundred Udose warriors marched with the Emperor, grim-faced men in long kilts and baked leather breastplates. Each carried a long, basket-hilted broadsword over their shoulders and a round leather-covered shield was slung over their backs. They carried themselves with a rowdy confidence, utterly sure of themselves and cheerfully scornful of the ordered ranks of the Unberogen.

Clad in his dwarf-forged plate and silver helm, Sigmar kept Ghal-Maraz held high. The symbol of his rule, it served to remind his people of the bond of loyalty that existed between his people and those of the mountains. The Empire had come close to disaster at Middenheim, and in times of trouble it was good to remind people of all that stood in their favour. It had been many years since King Kurgan had visited Reikdorf, and Sigmar longed to visit the mountain hold of his fellow king and friend someday.

Wolfgart had not returned to Reikdorf. He had ridden south with Sigmar as far as the castle of Count Otwin of the Thuringians, before heading eastwards toward the lands of the Asoborns. Maedbh and Ulrike, his wife and daughter, now dwelled in the lands of Freya, Queen of the Asoborns. No one called Freya a count, no one dared. Like the Berserker King, she was one of Sigmar’s allies that found it hard to shed her former title.

Behind the Emperor came an ornate bier, pulled by four white horses, the finest of Wolfgart’s southern herd. Upon it lay an iron coffin, draped in the blue and cream of Middenheim. The body of Pendrag lay within, preserved with camphorated wine and powdered nitre. For his service and friendship, Pendrag would be rewarded with a place of honour within Warrior Hill. Sigmar rode through the streets of his city, basking in his subjects’ adulation, the image of the heroic warrior-emperor his people needed and wanted.

 

The fires of the longhouse burned fiercely, filling the length of it with warmth and light. Three wild boars hunted that morning from the forests north of Reikdorf turned on spits and the smell of roasting pork was making every man in the great hall salivate. Blessings to Taal had been said in thanks, and serving maids bearing trays laden with platters of roasted meat and wooden mugs of beer circulated amongst the celebrating tribesmen.

The Udose drank heavily, singing achingly sad songs of lament to the wheezing, skirling music of the pipes. Unberogen warriors joined in, though the singsong language of the northern tribesmen was all but impenetrable to their southern ears. The mood in the hall was hearty, for both groups of warriors had fought side by side for the last year. Many oaths of brotherhood had been sworn between Udose and Unberogen, the kind that lay at the heart of what made the Empire strong.

Sigmar sat upon his throne, stripped of his armour save for the gleaming breastplate and a thick bearskin cloak. Two of his hounds, Lex and Kai lay curled at his feet, while Ortulf—ever the opportunist—circulated through the longhouse in search of scraps. Conn Carsten sat in the place of honour to Sigmar’s right, while Alfgeir and Eoforth sat to his left. Though both these men had helped steer the Empire through some of its darkest hours, Sigmar found himself missing the earthy counsel of Wolfgart and Pendrag.

This hall had once echoed with Wolfgart’s dreadful singing and off-colour jokes, but more and more, he was spending time in Three Hills with his family. Sigmar couldn’t blame him, Maedbh was a hard woman to refuse. As was any Asoborn woman, thought Sigmar, remembering how he had secured Queen Freya’s Sword Oath.

Conn Carsten had filled the void of leadership left by the death of Count Wolfila, binding the argumentative clans of the Udose into a fighting force in the face of the Norsii invasion. But for Carsten’s merciless hit and run raids, the north would have fallen long before the armies of the Empire could have marched to save Middenheim.

This night was to honour his courage during the war against the Norsii and confirm his appointment as Count of the Udose. It should have been an occasion for great celebration, and certainly was amongst Carsten’s warriors. But since this night had begun, Conn Carsten had said little and responded to any query with curt answers. He nursed his beer and seemed content to simply watch proceedings rather than participate.

Sigmar regarded his newest count’s brooding countenance, his gloom-swept face having surely seen more than its fair share of hardship. His silver hair was cut tight to his skull and his beard was similarly trimmed. Where his warriors were bellicose and roaring, he was quiet and ill-suited to conversation.

None of the other counts were in attendance, nor had Sigmar expected them to be. After the mustering of their armies for the relief of Middenheim, the tribal leaders were attending to matters in their own lands. Since his return, Sigmar had read missives from Freya and Adelhard of increased greenskin activity in the Worlds Edge Mountains, of warbands of twisted forest beasts in the southern reaches and increased coordination between brigands and reavers in the north. Krugar and Aloysis both begged the Emperor’s help in quelling numerous incidences of the dead rising from their tombs to attack the living, and Aldred of the Endals reported increased attacks from unknown seaborne corsairs.

Eoforth had once said that winning the Empire had been the easy part. Holding on to it would be the real challenge. Sigmar was now beginning to see what he meant. Something so precious would always attract enemies, and the true legacy of Sigmar’s creation would be how long it endured against the encroaching darkness.

As much as he found it hard to enjoy Carsten’s company, Sigmar knew this man was key to keeping his land safe. Better the northern marches were ruled by a competent, disagreeable man than a gregarious friend who didn’t know one end of a sword from the other. Yet it sat ill with Sigmar that he could not reach the dour clansman, as though some unknown gulf existed between them that he could not cross. He did not expect to be as close to all his counts as he was to his friends, and as their ruler he knew he ought not to be. Yet to count a man as his ally and not to know him, that would not stand.

Sigmar turned to Conn Carsten and said, “Can I ask you something, Conn?”

The newest count of the Empire nodded slowly, as though wary of Sigmar’s purpose.

“This should be a grand day for you,” said Sigmar, knowing that flowery words or an indirect approach would only irritate the northerner. “You are a count of the Empire now, a man of great respect and responsibility. Yet you seem distracted, like you stand at the grave of your sword brother. Why is that?”

Carsten put down his beer and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve.

“I have lost too many men in the last year and a half to celebrate, my lord. The wolves of the north wreaked great harm on my tribe and devastated our lands. Every village among the Udose has widows to spare, and the black shawls of mourning are too common a sight among my people. We are always first to feel the bite of Norsii axes. That makes it hard to know joy.”

Sigmar shook his head, gesturing at the gathered warriors. “Your warriors seem to have no difficulty in finding it.”

“Because they are young and foolish,” said Carsten. “They think themselves immortal and beyond death’s touch. If they live a little longer they will see the lie of that belief.”

“A grim view, my friend.”

“A realistic one. I have buried three wives and six children in my life. I once believed that I could have it all, the life of a warrior with its glory and battles, with a loving wife and family to come back to. But it is impossible. You of all people should know that.”

Sigmar felt the touch of Ravenna’s memory, but instead of pain, it now brought him comfort, a reassurance that she was alive within his heart.

“You’re right, I do know the pain of losing loved ones. I lost the love of my life many years ago and my best friend was killed by a man I once called a brother. Every death in Middenheim was a grievous loss, but I know that a life lived without hope or joy is a wasted one. I know the reality of life in the Empire, my friend. I know it is dangerous, often short and violent. That is precisely why we must take what joy we can from what the gods give us.”

“That may be the Unberogen way, but it is not my way,” said Carsten. “Live in hope if you must, I will live in the knowledge that all things must die.”

Sigmar said, “Look at Reikdorf, look at all we have achieved here and how the Empire’s cities grow larger and stronger. One day we will have borders that no enemy, no matter how strong they are, can breach. We will have peace and our people will know contentment.”

Conn Carsten took a mouthful of beer and smiled. “It would not do for me to call you foolish, my Emperor, but I think that is a naive belief. We will always have to fight to hold on to what you have built. Already you have defeated two major invasions. Many more will come. It only takes one to succeed and the Empire will be forgotten in a generation.”

“I have heard that before, Conn,” said Sigmar with a grim smile. “The necromancer Morath tried to break me with a similar argument. If we live fearing that all we have will be lost, then we would never build anything, never achieve anything. I cannot live that way; I will build and defend what I have built with my life. You are part of that, Conn, a vital part. I cannot do this without your support. You alone can keep the clans united and be my sword in the north.”

Carsten smiled and his face was transformed in an instant. Sigmar’s words were flattery, but the northern clansman saw the sincerity in them and his dour expression lifted. He raised his mug of beer and Sigmar toasted with him.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Carsten. “But I know what I am, a cantankerous old man the clan chieftains tolerate as their count because they know that every other clan hates me too. I have no sons left to follow me, so the other chieftains look at me and know they will be rid of me in a few years. They can wait.”

Sigmar extended his hand and Conn Carsten took it.

“Make the bastards wait a long time,” said Sigmar.

Conn Carsten laughed and somewhere beyond the longhouse walls a bell tolled.

 

The revelries continued for another three hours, though Conn Carsten excused himself not long after their conversation. As the last of the tribesmen staggered or were carried from the longhouse, Sigmar stood from his throne and paced the length of the dwarf-built structure. Its walls were fashioned from black stone quarried from deep beneath the Worlds Edge Mountains, carried on wagons from the east and raised by surly craftsmen of the mountain folk under direction of Alaric.

Sigmar knew the dwarfs called him Alaric the Mad, a name that rankled, for a more level-headed, pragmatic individual would be hard to find. Alaric now laboured deep beneath the mountains to forge twelve mighty swords for the counts of the Empire. Before Black Fire, Pendrag had crafted wondrous shields for each of the tribal kings, and King Kurgan had decreed that he would present Sigmar with swords to match.

Alaric himself had delivered the first of those swords to Sigmar at the battle for the Fauschlag Rock, a blade without equal among the realm of man. It had been given to Sigmar, but he had presented it to Pendrag as the Count of Middenheim, and upon his death it had been taken up by Myrsa—once the Warrior Eternal, now the new count.

Sigmar sat on a bench, idly tracing the outline of a wolf in a spilled pool of beer. He missed his friends. Time and distance had seen them pulled to the corners of the Empire, and though each was in his rightful place, he still wished they could be near. He even found himself missing the reckless wildness of Redwane. The young warrior and his White Wolves were now quartered atop the Fauschlag Rock as honour guard to Myrsa, a position Sigmar saw no need to rescind.

The hall smelled of cold meat, sweat and stale beer. It was the smell of maleness, of warriors and companionship. Sigmar looked up as the moon emerged from behind a long cloud and its light flooded the hall. He remembered catching Cuthwin and Wenyld trying to sneak a glance at the warriors within on his Blood Night, smiling at the memory of those long ago days. Two and a half decades had passed since then, and Sigmar shook his head at the idea of such a span of time. Where had it all gone?

“Thinking of the past?” said Alfgeir, sitting opposite him and depositing a pair of wooden mugs of beer on the trestle table. “Isn’t that the job of old men?”

“We are old men, Alfgeir,” said Sigmar with a grin.

“Nonsense,” said the Grand Knight of the Empire. He was drunk, but pleasantly so. “I’m as strong as I was when I first took up a sword.”

“I don’t doubt it, but we’re not the young bucks of the herd anymore.”

“Who needs to be? We have experience those with milk from their mother’s teat on their thistledown beards can only dream about.”

“Those that are old enough to have beards.”

“Exactly,” agreed Alfgeir, taking a long swig of his beer.

Sigmar knew that Alfgeir would pay for this indulgence tomorrow. It wasn’t as easy to shake the effects of Unberogen beer as it had been in their youth. Sigmar had ridden to Astofen after a heavy night of drinking and had felt no worse than any other morning, but he now had to nurse his beer or else he’d feel like the gods themselves were swinging hammers on the inside of his skull. His friend was still a powerful warrior, yet Sigmar knew he was slowing down. A young man when he served King Bjorn, Alfgeir was now approaching his sixtieth year.

“Do you remember when we climbed to the top of the Fauschlag Rock?”

“Remember it? I still have nightmares about it,” said Alfgeir. “I still can’t believe I went with you. I must have been mad.”

“I think we were both a bit mad back then,” agreed Sigmar. “I think youth needs a bit of madness, or else what’s the point?”

“The point of what, youth or madness?”

“Youth.”

Alfgeir shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong man, my friend. You want clever answers, you should ask Eoforth.”

“I would, but he went to his bed many hours ago.”

“Always was the clever one, eh?”

“The wisest among us,” said Sigmar, taking a long mouthful of beer.

They drank in silence for a while, listening to the good-natured arguments of drunken warriors outside as they wended their way to their bedrolls. Sigmar could well imagine the substance of their strident roughhousing, the same things he and his sword brothers had squabbled over when they were young; women, war and glory.

“I sometimes miss it though,” said Sigmar. “When all you had to do was strap on your armour, carry a sharp sword and ride out with the blood thundering in your ears. You fought, you killed the enemy and you rode back with your cheeks blooded. Things were simpler back then. I miss that.”

“Everything seems simple to the young.”

“I know, but it would be pleasant to live like that again, just for a while. Not to have to worry about the fate of thousands, to try and protect all you’ve built and fear for what will happen to it when you’re gone.”

Alfgeir gave him a sidelong look down the length of his nose. His eyes were unfocussed, but there was a clarity to his look that Sigmar knew all too well.

“The Empire will endure,” he said, taking his time not to slur. “The youngsters behind us may be foolish just now, but they’re good men and they’ll grow wiser. You’ve built a grand thing in the Empire, Sigmar, grand enough that it’ll endure without sons of your blood to keep it strong.”

Sigmar nodded and looked into the thinning froth on his beer. Alfgeir had hit a raw nerve, and he took a moment to consider his answer.

“Ravenna and I talked of a family,” he said.

“She would have borne you strong sons,” said Alfgeir. “She was a bonny lass, but she had strength too. Every day I wish Gerreon a thousand painful deaths for what he took from you.”

“What he took from us all,” said Sigmar. “But I don’t want to talk about Ravenna. The world will have to make do without my sons.”

“And mine,” said Alfgeir. “Never wanted to make a woman wait for me every time I rode to war. Didn’t seem fair, but I wish I’d sired a son. Someone to carry on my name after I die. I wanted there to be someone who’d remember me after I was gone.”

“The saga poets will remember you, my friend,” said Sigmar. “Your deeds will be immortalised in epic verse.”

“Aye, maybe so, but who’ll read them?”

“They’ll be sung from the longhouses of the Udose to the castles of the Merogens. I’m the Emperor, I can make it law if you like.”

Alfgeir laughed and the maudlin mood was banished. That was the Unberogen way, to laugh in the face of despair with a drink in one hand and a sword in the other. Alfgeir threw his empty mug over his shoulder into the gently glowing firepit and nodded.

“Aye, I’d like that,” he said. “Make it happen.”

“First thing tomorrow,” promised Sigmar, draining the last of his beer and lobbing his mug over Alfgeir’s shoulder. It broke apart on the coals, the last dregs of the beer hissing as the alcohol burned with sudden brightness.

“So how was Carsten?” asked Alfgeir, apropos of nothing. “Looked like you cracked the granite of his face at the end.”

Sigmar took a moment to consider the question. He and Carsten had established a connection tonight, one he hadn’t expected to make, but Sigmar still felt like he hardly knew the man.

“We’re never going to be friends, but I think I understand him a bit better.”

“What’s to understand? He’s a dour-faced misery, though he’s a devil of a fighter.”

“I knew that already, but I know why he’s the way he is. He’s known great pain and suffering and I think it got the better of him.”

“We’ve all known suffering and loss,” said Alfgeir, raising his mug. “To the dead.”

“To the dead,” said Sigmar.

 

Beneath the light of Mannslieb a hundred warriors of the Menogoths marched from the hill fort of Hyrstdunn. They followed an oft-used road that led through the fields and villages clustered around the sprawling settlement like children afraid to venture too far from a parent’s protection. Many warriors carried tall spears tied with green and yellow cords, flanked by groups of hard-eyed men in lacquered leather breastplates with unsheathed broadswords. Torchbearers accompanied the marching warriors; each robed in black and with their hoods pulled up over their heads. At the head of the column rode Count Markus of the Menogoths, draped in the black cloak of mourning and with his own swords sheathed across his back.

The fortress city at their back had stood for hundreds of years, a forest of wooden logs with sharpened tips and strong towers. The land hereabouts was rugged and undulant, rising in gentle sways towards the haunches of the Grey Mountains that bordered Menogoth lands to the south. The earth here was fertile and rich in resources, yet the price for that bounty was a life lived in the shadow of the monsters that made their lairs within the mountains: greenskins, cave beasts twisted by dark magic or strange monsters with no name and ever more fearsome reputations.

King Markus had carved a life for his tribe in this wild land, but not without great cost. His people were hardy, yet their souls were forever caught in the shadow of the mountains. Often gloomy and fatalistic, the Menogoths were viewed as a miserable tribe by their more northerly cousins, but had they spent a year in their lands, not one Unberogen, Cherusen or Thuringian would fail to see why.

Count Markus rode beneath a streaming banner of yellow and green silk carried by his sword champion, Wenian. The banner had been a gift from Marius of the Jutones in the wake of the great victory at the Fauschlag Rock, and its fabric was said to have come from lands far to the east beyond the Worlds Edge Mountains. Markus had cherished the gift ever since.

His wife and daughter rode in an ornate coach pulled by four black horses that had been harnessed in bronze and plumed with black feathers. The coach was of lacquered black wood, hung with ebony roses, spread-winged ravens and, at its front, the image of a great portal. The women had their heads bowed, and heavy veils hung with black pearls obscured their faces.

This was a grim night for the Menogoths, for the only son of Count Markus was dead.

Borne on a palanquin of spears, Vartan Gothii went to his rest among the tombs of his ancestors. An honour guard of the Bloodspears carried the body of Markus’ son, granted this honour for their courage in standing firm at Black Fire while their brother warriors had run.

Markus led the procession through his lands towards the flat-topped hill where the Menogoth heroes of old were buried. Called the Morrdunn, its height should have made it the natural place to build one of the forts that gave the Menogoths their name of hill people, but the first tribesmen to settle here had instinctively known that this was not a place for the living. A number of torches flickered at its summit as the grim procession wound its way up the hard-packed earth of its burial paths.

They passed the tomb of Devyn of the Axe, the heroic warrior who had saved the first king of the tribe from an ogre’s cook pot. Further up, Markus nodded respectfully to the mausoleum carved into the hill where Bannan, the greatest Swordmaster of the Menogoths, lay at his final rest. Odel the Mad lay within a simple sepulchre of polished grey granite built into the upper slopes of the hill, and Markus touched the talisman of Ranald at his chest to ward off the malign influence of the berserk huscarl.

He rode onto the crest of the hill, its summit enclosed by a ring of rune-carved stones like spikes on an ancient ruler’s crown. The priests of Morr were waiting, a dozen men in black robes tied with silver cords and each carrying a thin book bound in soft kidskin. The black coach rambled onto the hilltop, and the Bloodspears moved to the centre of the hill, where the only priest of Morr with his hood drawn back stood ready to fulfil his duty to the dead.

“Who comes with a lost soul to be ushered into the realm of Morr?” intoned the priest.

Markus and his champion dismounted, walking alongside the Bloodspears towards the centre of the hilltop tomb. Wenian planted the banner before the priest as Markus answered.

“I do, Markus Gothii, King of the Menogoths.”

Markus used his old title, for this was an ancient rite of his tribe, one in which his new title of count had no part.

“Morr would know this soul’s name, King Markus of the Menogoths.”

“I bring my son, Vartan Gothii, slain by greenskin warriors while defending his people.”

“Slain in service of a higher calling,” said the priest. “Then he will find rest in the realms beyond this world of flesh.”

Markus clenched his jaw. He was the master of the Menogoths, a warrior of superlative skill. He rubbed a hand across his shaven scalp, tensing his lean, wolfish physique as the grief threatened to unman him before the priests who would see his son to the realms of the dead.

The priest saw his battle and opened the book he carried as the Bloodspears gently lowered Vartan Gothii to the ground. The acolytes of the head priest came forward and knelt in a circle around the body. Markus looked at the unmoving features of his son, so pale and serene that they might have been carved from marble.

“Keep it simple, priest,” ordered Markus. “Vartan hated ceremony.”

“As you wish, King Markus,” said the priest, flipping to a shorter passage.

Markus’ wife and daughter came alongside him and he took their hands as the priest began his recitation of the benediction to the dead. The priest’s voice was clear and strong as he read, and Markus took comfort in the words he heard.

“Great Morr, master of the dead and dreams, you have made death itself the gateway to eternal life. Look with love on our fallen brother, and make him one with your realm that he may come before you free from pain. Lord Morr, the death of Vartan Gothii recalls our human condition and the brevity of our lives in this world. For those who believe, death is not the end, nor does it destroy the bonds forged in our lives. We share the faith of all men and the hope of the life beyond this frail realm of all flesh. Bring the light of your wisdom to this time of testing and pain as we pray for Vartan Gothii and for those who loved him.”

The priest closed his book and bowed his head. The hillside was silent, even the black horses and the torches seeming to understand that it would be unseemly to intrude on a king’s mourning.

A slow clapping came from the far side of the hill, and a figure armoured in gleaming silver and gold emerged from behind one of the great menhirs. A mantle of white silk spilled from his shoulders, contrasting sharply with the soft caramel colour of his skin and the oiled darkness of his lustrous hair.

“Very poetic,” said the warrior, his accent soft, rounded and obviously cultured, though it was of no tribe Markus had ever encountered. “You mortals do so enjoy indulging in the luxury of woe.”

“Begone,” declared the priest of Morr, brandishing his prayer book like a weapon. “This is a sacred moment you are defiling.”

The warrior snatched the book from the priest and hurled it into the darkness. “This? Utter nonsense! Don’t believe a word of it, but what can you expect from a man who has not passed over to see the other side for himself?”

 

The Bloodspears lifted their weapons and the swordsmen tensed as the warrior walked slowly towards the mourners at the centre of the Morrdunn. His movements were unhurried and casual, yet Markus’ expert eye caught the telltale signs of a man perfectly in balance with his body. This man was a killer, no doubt about that. He seemed utterly unafraid, which marked him either as a madman or a man who knew something Markus did not.

“Who are you?” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I am burying my son, and you are being disrespectful. That can get a man killed in these lands.”

“So can being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the warrior. “But in answer to your question, I am Khaled al-Muntasir, though I am sure that will mean nothing to you.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” said Markus. “Now begone before I have you slain.”

Khaled al-Muntasir laughed, a rich sound full of dark amusement. He smiled and swept back his cloak to reveal a slender-bladed scabbard of pale wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jade. The warrior placed his hand on the sword and drummed his fingers on the pommel of jet.

“If you are looking for a fight, then you are a fool,” said Markus.

“I am many things, Count Markus: a man of culture, an artist, a writer of sorts and a dilettante in all things mystical. I have some knowledge of the celestial mechanics wheeling above us and am a passable tailor, weapon-smith and crafter of fine jewellery and ornaments. But one thing I am not, is a fool.”

“Let me gut him, my lord,” hissed Wenian, drawing his sword with a hiss of metal on leather.

Markus hesitated, knowing full well how skilful Wenian was, but fearing that any duel fought here would be an unequal match.

“Yes, let him,” said Khaled al-Muntasir, drawing his own weapon. The blade reflected Mannslieb’s glow such that it shone like a sliver of moonlight itself. “I have been cooped up too long in Athel Tamera, and it will be good to wet my blade in mortal flesh again.”

“You talk big, fancy man, but you’ll bleed just the same,” said Wenian, spinning his sword to loosen his shoulders.

“Actually, I think you’ll find that—”

Wenian didn’t give him a chance to finish, launching himself at the finery-clad warrior. Khaled al-Muntasir’s blade swept up in a blur of white gold, flickering like sunlight on ice. Wenian’s charge carried him past the warrior, but before he turned, he sank to his knees and toppled to the side. His head fell from his shoulders, rolling to a halt before one of the great menhirs.

Markus was horrified. Wenian was one of the greatest swordsmen he knew, more skilful than any droyaska of the Ostagoths, and twice as fast as any Cherusen Wildman. Yet this effete warrior had beheaded him without so much as batting an eyelid.

Khaled al-Muntasir knelt beside Wenian’s corpse and wiped his sword blade clean of blood. He looked up at Markus with a predatory gleam in his eyes. They were dark and liquid, like the oil that burned in sunken pools deep in the reeking canyons of the Grey Mountains, and he found it hard to look away. Markus had seen that kind of look before, in the eyes of a wolf with its prey firmly locked in its grip.

“What are you?” he said.

Khaled al-Muntasir stood and smiled. “I am your worst nightmare. Or at least one of them.”

“Kill him,” ordered Markus, and the Bloodspears moved to surround this lone warrior. No one, no matter how skilful could survive against such numbers. Fifty spearmen advanced towards the warrior, the iron blades of their weapons aimed at the swordsman’s heart.

“Really?” said Khaled al-Muntasir, as though disappointed. “You are a king, are you not? This is the best you can do? I’m insulted you think I would fight like some common brawler. Luckily, Krell here excels at this sort of fight.”

A terrifying roar swept over the summit of Morrdunn, the echoes bouncing from the menhirs and filling every heart that heard it with the naked fear common to all prey creatures. Something moved in the shadows and a hulking red shape flew through the air to land with a crash of metal and stone in the centre of the ring of spearmen.

It was a warrior, but a warrior unlike any other.

A full head and shoulders above his tallest rival, Krell was clad in brazen plates of ancient iron so stained with blood that their original colour was impossible to gauge. A great skull rune was stamped or branded into his chest, and Markus’ courage deserted him at the sight of it. Great horns of bone extended from the monstrous warrior’s helm and Markus saw Krell’s face was a skeletal horror of yellowed bone and leathery flesh. A hideous emerald glow burned in his empty eye sockets, and any warrior brave enough to meet his gaze saw the manner of his death there.

A vast axe with a blade of utter darkness swung out and a dozen men died, their bodies hurled through the air like corn stalks at threshing time. The red-armoured warrior bludgeoned its way through the Bloodspears, hacking them down with insane ferocity and without mercy. Khaled al-Muntasir watched the slaughter impassively, as though bored by such violence.

In seconds, every warrior of the Bloodspears was dead, chopped into ragged hunks of gory meat. It was impossible to tell one warrior’s remains from another, such was the scale of butchery. Markus ran to his wife and daughter, gathering them to him and shielding them from the whirlwind of destruction that killed his warriors.

The sword bands fared no better; cut down in a frenzy of bloodletting that left Markus horrified and disbelieving. The summit of the Morrdunn was soaked in blood, the ground sodden with the vital fluid of a hundred men, slain in less time that it would take to count them. The slaughterman returned to Khaled al-Muntasir’s side, a constant stream of blood pouring from the black blade of his axe.

Only now did the swordsman look interested in the slaughter. A thin network of veins pulsed beneath the skin of his temples, his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared at the bitter reek of blood on the air.

“Ulric preserve us,” whispered Markus, backing away from the two warriors.

“The wolf god?” smiled Khaled al-Muntasir. “He won’t hear you. And if he does, he won’t care. Isn’t that what his priests teach, that his followers should be self-reliant?”

“You are daemons,” said Markus, drawing his sword and standing before his family. “Fight me if you must, but let my wife and daughter live. They are innocents and do not deserve this.”

“Innocent?” hissed Khaled al-Muntasir, as though enjoying the taste of the word. “There is no such thing in this world, just by being born mankind corrupts this world. Every step a mortal takes, he destroys a little piece of it. No, do not think to appeal to me with thoughts of compassion. I forgot that emotion before your tribe even crossed the eastern mountains.”

“What are you?” demanded Markus.

Khaled al-Muntasir stepped closer, and Markus saw that the pale hue of his complexion had nothing to do with the moonlight. Khaled al-Muntasir smiled, revealing two elongated fangs descending from his upper jaw.

“You are a blood drinker!” hissed Markus. “A creature of the dead.”

“I cannot deny the truth,” said Khaled al-Muntasir. “And your daughter’s terror is such a tantalising sweetmeat that I think I shall leave her until last. As much as it would give me great pleasure to make you watch them die, I will savour her terror all the more as she watches her parents bled dry before her young eyes.”

“Why are you doing this?” said Markus, fighting to control his terror of this beast of the night. His blood was sluggish in his veins, and it was all he could do to keep hold of his sword.

“It is not I,” said Khaled al-Muntasir. “I am but a humble servant in this drama.”

A vast shadow moved in the darkness behind the warrior, a slice of the deepest, darkest night given form and motion. As Krell towered over Khaled al-Muntasir, so too did this giant figure loom over them all. It stepped into the flickering circle of light cast by the fallen torches, yet no hint of illumination touched its blackened form.

A mighty figure cloaked in night and armour from the darkest forges of the damned, its eyes burned with the same green light as shimmered in Krell’s vacant skull. One arm clutched a forked staff in the form of an elongated snake while the other had a sickly metallic sheen to it, like iron with a rainbow scum of oil slithering across its surface.

Grotesque and twisted with vile animation, the grim visage was that of death itself, a horror cast from the nightmares of men and women since the dawn of time. Markus’ wife fainted dead away with horror, and he felt his own fragile grip on sanity slipping in the face of such irrevocable knowledge of his own death. His sword fell to the ground and tears spilled from his eyes as he turned his daughter’s face away from the monster.

She sobbed uncontrollably, and Markus knew it would be a mercy to cut her throat rather than have her face what was to come. Until this moment, Markus had not feared death, knowing his courage in battle would surely earn him a place in Ulric’s Hall. One look into the lambent pits of this horror’s eyes told him there would be no journey to the next life to hunt in the forests of eternal winter. Even the horror of the grave, with cold earth embracing his rotting flesh and the worms growing fat on his meat was to be denied him. Compared to the fate this creature was soon to visit upon them, such an end would be a mercy.

Markus dropped to his knees before this dreadful apparition as it closed on him.

“It is fitting that you give homage to the new lord of these lands,” said Khaled al-Muntasir.

Markus fumbled for his dagger, thinking to end his and his family’s life, but before his hand even closed on the hilt, the blood drinker was at his side and holding him in an unbreakable grip, the cold flesh of his face inches from his own.

“No, not yet,” whispered Khaled al-Muntasir. “Not when there are such sights left to see.”

Darkness boiled from the towering black warrior’s form, filling the sky with unnatural gloom, blotting out the moon and filling the sky with evil clouds and the screeching of bats. Wolves howled in the darkness, blood-hungry beasts of the deep forest, not the noble creatures of the northern woods that carried the chill winds of Ulric in their veins. The darkness closed on Hyrstdunn, obscuring it from view, but Markus heard the screams and knew his city was doomed.

“I want you to say his name,” said Khaled al-Muntasir.

“I don’t know it,” said Markus, wishing that were true.

“Come now,” chided Khaled al-Muntasir, digging a manicured nail into his throat. “It lives in mortal minds as a nightmare of distant lands and forgotten days. It is a name of death that travels with fearful taletellers and poisons the lips of scared men huddled around fires in the foolish belief that they are safe from his reach. Say it, mortal. Say it now.”

“No,” wept Markus. “I cannot.”

“Of course you can, it’s just wind noises passing through your throat.”

“He is… he is…”

“That’s it, go on,” urged the blood drinker.

“He is Nagash,” said Markus, spitting the name like a curse.

As though giving voice to the name of the dread necromancer from the ancient horror tales gave it power, the mighty form slammed its vile metal hand into the earth of the Morrdunn. A booming peal of thunder split the heavens and the green light in Nagash’s eyes blazed with incredible power, flowing through his withered, monstrous body to pour into the earth of the Empire like a corruption.

Flickering green light danced over Markus’ son’s body, like wisps of corpse light in the swamps. Though he was cold and dead, Vartan sat up with stiff movements, as some dread force other than his own wasted muscles empowered him. Markus wept at this violation of his son’s flesh, hating these beings of darkness more than he had hated anything in his life.

Vartan turned his dead gaze upon Markus, the cold empty green light flickering in his sunken, shrivelled eyes. Cold horror crept over Markus as his son stood on limbs he himself had washed and oiled the night before, the metal links of Vartan’s armour clinking together as he took his place at the blood drinker’s side.

The ground of the hill trembled and a deep groaning from its heart rumbled far beneath Markus’ feet. The grass rippled, as though an army of snakes writhed beneath its surface, and a hand punched up through the earth. Dried flesh clung to the bones and fragments of rusted armour emerged as the dead warrior clawed its way from beneath the hill.

More and more followed it, hundreds of Menogoth dead torn from their eternal rest by the dark sorcery of the ancient necromancer. The hill shook as the honoured slain broke open their mausolea, tombs and barrows and marched to the summit of the Morrdunn.

Markus felt his anger crowd out his fear, but Khaled al-Muntasir’s grip was unbreakable.

“Know that your Emperor’s realm is doomed,” said the blood drinker. “Know that all you love will die and rise again to serve this army of darkness. Know this and despair!”

Khaled al-Muntasir’s fangs sank into his neck and Markus felt his life being sucked from his flesh. Yet as he slipped down into the black abyss of death, his thoughts were that once again the Menogoths had failed their Emperor.