PROLOGUE
Two and a half thousand years
before the present day
White banners of mist hung around the clearing. The thick frost gave each blade of grass a cruel edge, the tree-line was as dark and impenetrable as a shield wall. In the centre of the clearing a gruesome splinter of black rock stood at a crooked angle. From niches carved into it, the eyeless sockets of skulls stared out and crude totems hung limp in the freezing air. With their backs to the stone, the last of the beastmen herds stood close together, their breath misting the chill air, their furred fingers clamped on the shafts of their spears.
They were surrounded.
From the still banners, all the tribes of Sigmar’s new Empire were represented: mail-clad chieftains with their jostling warbands behind them. Despite the cold many warriors were naked, their pale skin inscribed with swirling blue tattoos. A few gnashed their teeth, the frenzy of battle overcoming them.
From the Imperial ranks one man stepped forward. His white beard hung nearly to his waist, but there was nothing frail about the way Johann Helmstrum, first Grand Theogonist, raised his mailed fist and pointed towards the hated foe.
Sigmar had been gone for ten years, but the furnace of his passions still glowed in men like Johann. From Sigmar’s own tribe of the Unberogens, he had followed Sigmar until his disappearance—and like others of the man-god’s warband, he now led armies of his own to destroy beasts like these.
For too long had people lived under the threat of death. For too long had nightmare beasts haunted the night. For too long had the people along the Stir River been prey to the occult rituals of these creatures, foul amalgams of man and beast.
Hefting his dented warhammer, Foe-crusher, Johann picked out the largest beastman and fixed him with a merciless stare: warlord to warlord. “In the name of Sigmar,” his voice carried across the clearing, gathering power as he spoke, echoing over the ranks of warriors. “I claim these lands for man. Your kind has no right to laws or life. I hereby pronounce your execution.”
The Unberogens beat their spears and sword-hilts against their shields. The beastmen shuffled uncomfortably; even their leader, eight foot of rippling muscle, bowed his horned head.
Johann Helstrum lifted his warhammer again and turned back to his men. “For Sigmar!” he roared and led the charge.
The clash of armies was like two waves breaking upon each other. Through months of battle and slaughter, the beastmen had been harried and hunted to the very edge of their tribal lands, and now with their backs to the mighty River Stir, they had nowhere left to flee. It was around the last of their herdstones that they fought, and the arcane monolith, of a stone known to no man, gave them renewed strength and resolve.
They fought with all the ferocity of trapped animals. Three times the men of the Empire were thrown back, but each time the white-bearded figure of Johann Helmstrum led them back into the charge, and as close around him as a mailed fist went the men of his bodyguard, led by Ortulf Jorge and his brother, Vranulf.
It was mid-morning when the men fell back in confusion for a fourth time. There were heaps of dead on both sides, but a knot of a hundred monstrous beastmen survived: berserk with blood-lust, their snouts stained red, their weapons dripping blood.
Men collapsed from exhaustion and the sight of the enraged beasts was enough to make the bravest man falter, but Johann’s encouragement sent the fire of Sigmar from man to man, and gave them the energy for one last fight. One last charge would surely break them.
The old man’s warhammer cut a swathe through the beastmen. He wielded the warhammer as if it weighed no more than a hatchet, and with his bodyguard round him he cut a path right to the base of the herdstone, where goat-horned shamans still desperately prayed to their capricious gods.
The closer they came to the monolith, the more the men could feel its evil. It pulsed at the priest’s approach, made the arms of his bodyguard heavy and leaden. Ortulf found that simply raising his weapon to parry was a terrible effort; Vranulf was almost run through as he struggled in mortal combat.
Only Johann seemed immune to the arcane power of the stone. He killed both shamans and splattered the herdstone with the remains of their horned skulls. With their death, the beastmen’s spirit seemed to waver—but the wargor let out a huge bellow, like an enraged bull, and charged through the battle. Ortulf and two other bodyguards stood firm, but the aura from the monolith made their legs and arms shake with the effort. The beastman shrugged off their sword and spear thrusts, battering them aside as if they were sticks. He cut Vranulf down and reared up over the venerable warrior, knocking Foe-smiter from his hands.
Ortulf shouted out as he saw his brother cut down, struggled to get back to his feet. As the wargor raised his axe Ortulf tried to pick up his sword, but it slipped from his fingers.
“Sigmar!” the Grand Theogonist shouted and drew his sword, but his voice was weak and the beastman batted the blade away as if it were a child’s toy.
The wargor had dragged the old man to the herdstone. He took a handful of beard and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. The monolith hummed with pleasure as the knife was raised.
“Sigmar…” Ortulf prayed, and just the name gave him strength enough to stand. He dropped his shield, picked up his brother’s spear from the bloody grass, and staggered towards the wargor. The pain in his head was like hammer blows. Ortulf saw the raised dagger and thrust with all his remaining strength. The spear head went in next to the creature’s spine and up under its ribcage. The wargor let out a bellow of pain, but instead of falling it turned and Ortulf realised he was defenceless. His fingers grasped for a weapon or shield—but his hands were slippery with blood and sweat and could find no purchase. The wargor picked him up and threw him aside. Ortulf’s body hit the monolith with a sickening crunch. But in that brief moment of respite, Johann Helmstrum’s fingers found the haft of his warhammer. He had fought a hundred campaigns against the enemies of humankind. It was not his fate to die here. The face of Sigmar came to him, whispering quiet words of encouragement, and gave him the strength he needed to raise his warhammer one final time.
Johann Helmstrum swung Foe-smiter down, and buried the blunt head deep into the wounded beastman’s skull, between its curled horns.
The monster staggered and raised its axe once more, but sank slowly to its knees, and fell face down at the Grand Theogonist’s feet.
* * *
With their shamans and leaders slain, the last of the herds were quickly routed and hunted down, Johann Helstrum had men loop ropes around the vile stone and tear it from the ground, roots and all. They built a great pile of wood over the thing and set fire to it, and when the fire at its hottest and the stone was glowing a dull red, they carried freezing water from the Stir River and drenched it. Steam filled the clearing for a whole day, and when it cleared they saw the stone had shattered into a thousand pieces.
Johann led them all in prayers to Sigmar, and then he declared the land to be free of the enemies of man.
When the dead had been buried and the wounded tended, the Grand Theogonist’s army struck camp. The people watched them leave, astonished to find that the woods and hills were clear of enemies. In the crowd that watched them leave was Griselda Jorge, young widow of Ortulf. She let her tears flow, reliving the moment she and the other women had hurried through the piles of dead and dying to find her lover: crushed at the foot of the herdstone. But where that accursed monolith had once stood was now a high burial mound, where her husband’s and her brother’s broken bodies had been laid: their weapons at their sides and the heads of their enemies piled about them. Griselda sat there until evening, watching the shadows grow, her cloak tight around her, pressing their son to her chest.
“Your husband was a brave and honourable man,” the Grand Theogonist had told her, and she repeated his words to her son, over and over. “Your father killed many of the enemy. He was a brave and proud and honourable warrior.” But inside she cursed his bravery and his pride and the honour that had left her widowed and her son fatherless.
At last one of the local women came out to her. The woman patted her hand. “Your husband is with Sigmar now,” she said and Griselda nodded and wiped away her tears. He would be happy here, she thought and let the old woman lead her back to the new village they had founded, named in honour, not of her dead husband, but of the Grand Theogonist: Helmstrumburg.