Time of Legends

LET THE GREAT AXE FALL

The Legend of Sigmar

Graham McNeill

Part One

In the end, they counted eighty-eight skulls in the pile at the heart of the village: the skulls of children, no larger than a fist, all the way to those of fully grown men and women. The entire settlement had been wiped out in a single act of slaughter. Such feasts of death would usually attract the attention of carrion birds, but the sky above Heofonum was empty of scavengers.

Stacked in a pyramid, with the smallest at the top, the skulls were coated in sticky blood that had run down the bony ridges of empty eye sockets and jawbones to pool beneath this grim shrine to man's mortality. The wooden homes of the villagers lay in ruins, smashed apart as though a herd of bulls had been driven through them. Even the stone hall at the edge of the settlement had been destroyed.

Their hunting party had ridden the length and breadth of Heofonum, turning over every fallen timber, digging through every collapsed home and raking the debris of its abandoned barns, but they had found nothing of its inhabitants save their fleshless skulls. This was the third such village they had found, and with each bloodied pile of skulls laid before them like monstrous altars of worship, the mood of the hunters darkened still further.

Wenyld leaned against the stone wall of what had been the village alderman's home. The stonework was simple, imitating the style of Sigmar's great hall in Reikdorf, but this building had not been crafted by the mountain folk, but by the hands of men and was nowhere near as grand or finely made. It had been built to last, with dutiful care and a cunning eye for defence, but that had not been enough to thwart the monster that had razed Heofonum. Having listened to Leodan's account of its ferocious strength, Wenyld doubted any wall, no matter whether wrought by man or dwarf, could withstand such dreadful power.

Wenyld pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as a chill blast of wind scudded through the ruined hall. Ever since he'd taken a dead man's spear to the belly in the last moments of the battle to save the Empire from the necromancer's undead legions, he'd found it next to impossible to keep the cold at bay. Only perched on a bondsman's bench at a blazing firepit would any hint of warmth touch him. With winter blowing in over the Vaults to the south, Wenyld knew he was in for a painful season of snow and misery, with aching bones and frost-touched marrow.

'Great Ulric, you favour the snows, but I'll be glad to see your brother again with the spring,' he said with a respectful nod to the ice-white skies of the north.

'Careful,' said Cuthwin, emerging from the trees on the far side of the ruined hall. 'I'd rather we didn't offend Ulric before we head into the mountains.'

'Into the mountains?' said Wenyld, irritated he hadn't even suspected his friend was near.

Cuthwin had always been the better huntsman, but still it irked Wenyld that he hadn't heard so much as a broken twig or brittle leaf being crushed underfoot.

'That's where the tracks lead,' said Cuthwin, moving around the building. Clad in worn leather buckskin and a dappled cloak of faded green and brown, he blended with the landscape. His bow was strung, and his long-bladed hunting knife was loose in its sheath.

Wenyld looked up to the blackened, snow-capped summits of the mountains to the south, their craggy peaks like serrated teeth gnawing at the clouds. The Vaults were the edge of the world as far as Wenyld was concerned, a battleground where two vast ranges of mountains met and threw up treacherous valleys, gorges and shadowed canyons.

He didn't like being too close to the mountains; orcs, goblins and worse made their lairs in the mountains, and no good ever came of going anywhere near such places. Leave such terrain to the Merogens, they were welcome to them.

'You're sure?' he asked, though he knew Cuthwin was never wrong about these things.

'I'm sure.'

Wenyld sighed. 'Ah, good. Just what I was looking forward to, a climb into the mountains at the onset of winter.'

'Could be worse,' said Cuthwin brightly.

'Really?' asked Wenyld. 'How could it possibly be worse?'

'You could be doing it without me to guide you.'

'Aye, there's that,' he conceded. 'You know your way around this terrain. Are you sure there's not some mountain goat in your family history? Is there some shameful tryst you've kept secret all these years?'

'Only that one night with Ebba,' returned Cuthwin with a sly wink.

They both smiled. Ebba was a notorious Reikdorf harridan, a mother of ten and as broad as she was tall. She was married to Bryni, a baker of such willowy proportions that it amazed everyone who knew them that they had produced such healthy children, and that he had survived the ordeal.

'Thank you for that image,' said Wenyld. 'Suddenly the idea of hunting a living dead champion of a Norsii blood god doesn't seem so bad.'

'There, you see? Told you it could be worse.'

Cuthwin threw his arm over Wenyld's shoulder as they made their way back to the centre of Heofonum, where the men and horses of their hunting party awaited their leader's word to move out. Thirty horsemen, clad in gleaming mail shirts and heavy furs, with half-helms of bronzed steel – these were among the finest warriors in all of Reikdorf. Over their armour, they wore white cloaks secured at the neck by a torq stamped with the four-armed cross the former Marshal of the Reik had taken as an informal symbol of their brotherhood.

Many were seasoned veterans, men who had stood in the heaving press of a sword line and lived, which marked them as both skilful and favoured by the gods. A few were little more than youths, the rise of the dead having forced them to manhood before their time.

All were volunteers, none had wives and none had fathered any children.

Sigmar wanted no new orphans and widows in Reikdorf; the war against the dead had created enough already.

One warrior stood apart from the others, a tall, shaven-headed man with a stripe of hair running across his crown to the base of his neck that then became a long, dangling scalp lock, similar to those worn by the Ostagoths. This was Leodan, a horse-warrior of the Taleutens whose Red Scythes rode with Sigmar's army at the River Reik and who had very nearly met his end at the great axe of the monster they hunted.

Like Wenyld, his wounding had been grievous, and few had expected him to see the dawn. But Taleutens are tougher than seasoned oak, and the horseman's shattered bones had knitted whole, though he would forever walk with a pronounced limp. Alone of his Red Scythes, Leodan had lived through that hellish night of war-making, and the loss of his brother riders was a wound that could not be healed by poultices and stitches.

Sigmar had once remarked that there was something missing in Leodan, some part of him that wasn't entirely normal. Wenyld had sensed it too on those few occasions he had cause to speak to the embittered Taleuten. Leodan had remained in Reikdorf following the defeat of the necromancer, a sullen presence at the fire whose shame kept him from returning home and whose pride drove him to relearn his skills as a rider. When Sigmar had asked for volunteers to ride with him, Leodan had been first to offer his lance.

Wenyld and Cuthwin nodded to the warriors as they tightened saddle cinches and fed grain from their panniers to the horses. They all knew that this was likely the last stop before they reached the mountains, and a well-fed horse was a sure-footed horse. None of them had ridden the trails of the Vaults, and Wenyld saw their wariness at venturing into such a hostile environment. The mountains offered a whole host of ways for a warrior to die, none of them glorious. To die falling from a cliff or crushed in a rockslide was no way to enter the eternal hall of Ulric's kingdom.

Leodan limped over to Cuthwin, his scarred face and ice-blue eyes cold as the grave.

'What sign?' he asked.

'South,' said Cuthwin. 'Into the mountains.'

Leodan nodded and turned away, returning to his horse and hauling himself into the saddle with the aid of his lance and an awkwardness the men of Reikdorf pretended not to see. With Leodan gone, two of the younger riders approached, Gorseth and Teon, lads barely old enough to have reached their Blood Night and whose chins were scuffed with only the faintest scraps of beard.

Though they had seen only sixteen summers, Teon had ridden into battle alongside Alfgeir, and earned great renown by standing against the blood drinker that had once been Count Markus of the Menogoths. Gorseth had fought for the Emperor too, standing in the spear line against a host of black riders, and sported a long scar along his shoulder where a rabid corpse-wolf had raked him with its claws.

Both were lads of heart, but they were so young it only reminded Wenyld how old he felt.

'Did you find any bodies this time?' asked Teon.

'No, lad,' said Cuthwn. 'We did not.'

'Where do you think they are?' said Gorseth. 'What does the monster do with them?'

'Best not to think of it,' said Wenyld. 'It would give you nightmares that'll have you weeping at your mother's teat.'

Gorseth glared at Wenyld. 'I earned my blooding,' he said. 'Same as every man here.'

'Maybe so, lad,' snapped Wenyld, suddenly angry. 'And when you've seen more than one battle or can grow more than thistledown on that chin of yours, maybe I'll treat you as an equal. Until then, stay out of my way and stop asking stupid questions.'

Gorseth's face flushed ruddy with colour, but he bit down on his anger and turned away. Teon followed his friend without comment, but Wenyld could see the disappointment in the lad's eyes. He sighed, irked that his temper had got the better of him. Gorseth hadn't deserved such ire.

'You were harsh on the boy, Wenyld,' said Cuthwin, as the two youngsters mounted their horses. 'Seems like only yesterday we were as inexperienced as him.'

Wenyld grunted. 'Maybe to you,' he said. 'I don't remember my bones aching in winter so much or feeling the stiffness in my joints yesterday.'

'Age comes to us all, my friend,' said Cuthwin.

Wenyld said nothing, his heart heavy. Cuthwin was only a single cycle of the moons younger than him, but a stranger could be forgiven for thinking that a decade or more separated them. War and wounds age men, thought Wenyld, but Cuthwin had somehow avoided the worst ravages of both.

'How long do you think before they get here?' asked Wenyld, shielding his eyes against the low sun and looking to the east. 'I don't like the idea of too many nights in the open waiting for them.'

Cuthwin shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine. Not long, I'd hope.'

'You'd think it would take them longer,' said Wenyld. 'What with the shorter legs.'

'They don't travel like we do,' said Cuthwin. 'They damn near outpaced the Asoborns of Three Hills on the march to Reikdorf.'

Wenyld nodded. He'd heard the story often enough from Wolfgart, the new Marshal's voice swelling with his pride as he told how his wife and kinfolk had stood fast against the blood drinker's army on that tree-lined hillside.

'Aye, and we'll damn well outpace you and your fancy horses when we get up into the Vaults, manling,' said a voice from the brush behind Wenyld. He reached for the heavy-bladed sword strapped to his hip. Cuthwin's hand kept him from drawing the blade, as a stocky figure encased in layered plates of burnished gromril and shimmering links of mail emerged from the scrub as though from thin air. Silver wings flared from the cheek plates of his full-faced helm, and he carried a great axe across his shoulders, with butterfly-winged blades and an edge sharper than even Govannon could fashion to a weapon.

'Master Alaric,' said Cuthwin, with a short bow.

'Cuthwin, isn't it?' said the dwarf, his hands planted on his hips. 'You younglings all look the same to me.'

'Maybe if you took your helmet off you'd get a better view,' said Wenyld.

'Listen to him,' said Alaric with grim amusement. 'You'd think with that cook pot he calls a helmet on his head he'd have the good sense to keep his flapping tongue silent about someone else's armour.'

'At least my cook pot lets me see who I'm talking to.'

Alaric took a step forward, and a dozen dwarfs in heavy mail shirts with round, steel-rimmed shields stepped from the brush behind him. Each of the mountain folk were like metal statues, and the threat of violence contained in each one was palpable.

Alaric laughed and lifted the visor of his helm and held out his hand.

'Good to see you again, Wenyld,' said Alaric. 'Grungni knows, you've lost none of your charm and good manners.'

'I had few enough to begin with,' said Wenyld. 'But at least I had some.'

'Never had much use for manners, boy,' said Alaric. 'Manners only clutter up what I need to say to someone with pretty words and hot air. And what damn use is that?'

'None at all, master dwarf,' said Wenyld, taking Alaric's hand.

Wenyld had met Alaric in the wake of the battle against the necromancer, when Sigmar had carried his wounded body to the Great Hall at the centre of Reikdorf. The healer Elswyth had been swamped with wounded men, and thus it had been Master Alaric of the dwarfs who had stitched his wounds closed. Even one-handed, he had been steadier than most human surgeons, and Wenyld knew he owed the dwarf his life.

'Is Sigmar here?' asked Alaric with his customary abruptness.

Cuthwin nodded. 'He is. The Emperor set out from Reikdorf as soon as he received word from Karaz-a-Karak.'

'Good to see a manling king still understands the value of an oath,' grunted Alaric. 'Take me to him. There's killing to be done.'

Sigmar knelt with his head bowed beside beside the small stone shrine, one hand over his heart, the other clasping the haft of Ghal-maraz. The plates of the Emperor's burnished armour shone like silver, and the thickly-furred pelt of a great bear hung from his shoulders. A short-bladed sword was strapped to his side, and his anger at the death of his people hung over him like a lightning-shot thunderstorm.

The shrine itself was a small structure of four stone columns with a pitched roof of grey slate. It stood beside the shattered northern gateway of the village, and Sigmar knew it was lucky to have escaped destruction when the gates had been smashed asunder. No walls enclosed the shrine and at its heart was a statue of the wolf god in his bearded, barbarian aspect. A pair of wolves sat by his side, and he carried his mighty two-handed warhammer over his shoulder, a warrior who has never known his equal and never would.

Sigmar did not pray for himself: he petitioned the god of the northern winds and wolves to look kindly on his subjects that had been murdered in Heofonum.

'Great Ulric,' said Sigmar. 'Your people died here, and they come before you as victims of a terrible evil, one which has escaped Morr's judgement more than once. I would ask you to welcome them to your halls, where the beer is cold and the roasted meat is always hot. I ask this not for me, but for your loyal people.'

Sigmar received no response, nor had he expected one, for Ulric was a god who rarely answered prayers. His lessons were harsh, and taught a man self-reliance.

A hard god to follow, but a worthy one.

Sigmar stood as he heard someone approaching. From the heavy, mechanical rhythm of the footsteps he had a good idea who that might be. Sigmar did not turn around, and gently touched the heavy, rune-inscribed head of Ghal-maraz to the carved hammer of Ulric with a nod of respect.

'Praying to the Wolf God can wait. There's a grudge to be settled,' said a voice he knew could only belong to one dwarf.

'Greetings, Alaric,' said Sigmar, finally turning and descending the short steps of the shrine to the ground. Alaric was just as he remembered him: stout, immovable and utterly dependable. His armour was gold and bronze and silver, and he was not surprised to see the hand he had lost in the battle was restored with a mechanical gauntlet.

'I see you got yourself a new hand,' said Sigmar.

'Aye, lad,' said the dwarf, flexing a bronzed gauntlet of articulated digits that moved just like a limb of flesh and blood. 'Can't have a one-handed dwarf smith, sounds too much like an elf god for my liking.'

'And that would never do,' smiled Sigmar, but a moment of melancholy touched him as he was put in mind of the silver fingers the dwarf had crafted for Pendrag. His fallen friend's replacement hand had been a miracle, but this artefact was clearly of much greater sophistication. None among the dwarfs were as skilled in the craft of the smith or the forging of runes as Alaric, and this piece was a masterpiece of the metalworking arts.

'They already call me mad,' said Alaric, his gruff tones not quite concealing his irritation at the name. 'Can't have them thinking I'm an elf-friend too. I'd need to shave my head and find the nearest daemon to kill me.'

'A daemon?' said Sigmar with a shudder, remembering the terrible creature he had fought atop the Fauschlag rock of Middenheim. He shook his head. 'I would not be in too much of a hurry to meet such a beast. Even a hero like you might struggle to defeat a daemon.'

'Maybe so, lad, maybe so,' agreed Alaric. 'And we've a bastard hard fight ahead of us as it is. Even that bumbling smith of yours couldn't put him down fully with the baragdonnaz he'd rebuilt. A dwarf-built one might have done it, but he put it together like a blind apprentice with a hangover.'

'It didn't kill the monster, but it hurt it.'

'That it did, lad, that it did,' conceded Alaric. 'And if we can hurt it, we can kill it.'

Sigmar nodded slowly, offering a hand to Alaric, who accepted his warrior's grip and shook it with a grin of real pleasure.

'Just once it would be pleasant to see you when there's not killing to be done,' said Alaric.

'That it would, my friend, but these are not the times we live in.'

'There's truth in that,' agreed Alaric, striding back to the centre of the village with Sigmar at his side. 'And I'm glad to see you've honoured your oath.'

'You are my sworn oath-brother, you and King Kurgan both,' said Sigmar. 'You should know I would never break my word.'

'There's them among your kind don't know the value of an oath,' said Alaric. 'They'd break a promise as soon as break wind, and with just as much thought for those around them. It's easy to forget sometimes that you're not all the same.'

'I'll try not to be offended by that,' said Sigmar with a wry grin.

The dwarf looked genuinely puzzled, but said nothing as they reached the centre of the village. Sigmar's riders stood by their mounts, ready to ride at a moment's notice, and nine armoured dwarfs stood in a small square by a fallen signpost.

Alaric rejoined his dwarfs and turned to survey the warriors Sigmar had brought with him with a critical eye. Apparently satisfied, the runesmith addressed his words to every one of them.

'You all know why we're here,' he said. 'There's a grudge that needs settling, and we've all been wronged by the monster that did this killing. These aren't the first folk its killed, not by a long shot, and my people know that better than anyone. I can see there's some among you manlings know it too.'

Alaric stared hard at Leodan, and the scarred Taleuten gave a slow nod.

'Now this monster is more than just a dead thing that's been lifted from the grave, it's a monster that's been steeped in blood for longer than any of you can remember. Longer than a lot of my kin can remember, and that's saying something.

'It's got a name, and names are powerful things. Knowing a thing's name breaks its hold on you. Once you know its name, you're not so afraid of it. Well this thing's called Krell, and he was reaving and slaying in the name of the Blood God centuries before this new Empire of yours was a glint in young Sigmar's eye. Before your distant kin even came across the mountains, Krell was spilling blood and taking skulls for the Blood God. Grungni alone knows how many dwarfs and men fell before his axe, too many, and every one of those that died needs avenging. Back in my hold, there's a book. We know it as the Dammaz Kron, what you'd call a Book of Grudges, and everyone and everything that's done my people wrong is remembered. We dwarfs never forget an insult, and even if it takes a thousand years or more, we get even.'

Alaric paused, his mechanical fingers clattering as he made a bronze fist.

'Krell's done your kind great wrong too,' said the runesmith. 'He killed your warriors at the River Reik, and he's butchered hundreds more now that he's recovered his strength. Wherever it was he hid his dead face these last months, I don't know. Probably in some dank barrow in the deepest part of the forest or some worm-infested cave beneath the earth. It doesn't matter, all that's important is that he's shown his face again and we can end his slaughters right now.'

'How do we fight a thing like that?' asked Teon. Sigmar had been wondering the same thing. He did not see Krell on the battlefield, but had heard the terrible stories of his power and murderous fury. The undead champion of the Dark Gods would not be a foe easily bested.

Alaric unsheathed his axe and brandished it over his head.

'We fight with heart and courage,' he said, turning the weapon so that all could see the glittering, frosted sigils on its shimmering blade. 'And with master runes.'

Alaric swept the axe in the direction of the mountains to the south, and his dwarfs followed him as he set off with a mile-eating stride. Sigmar had seen dwarfs on the march and knew they would be able to maintain that pace for days on end. There would be no danger of the horsemen leaving the foot-slogging dwarfs behind.

Wenyld led a dun gelding to him, the muscular steed that had faithfully borne him into battle against the necromancer. Sigmar had sought the horse out with the dawn, knowing that a horse of such courage and heart was a rare beast indeed. He had found it grazing by a patch of untouched grass at the northern end of the city, and it had welcomed him with a stamp of its hooves. The horse was named Taalhorsa and tossed his mane as Sigmar climbed into the saddle and secured his boots in the stirrups.

With the Emperor atop his steed, the rest of the warriors mounted and awaited the signal to move. Wenyld unfurled the Emperor's banner, its bright cloth woven anew by the women of Reikdorf in the aftermath of the great victory against the dead. It rippled with gold and blue and crimson, the armoured warrior and wolves adorning the fabric given wondrous animation by the stiff breeze.

Sigmar flicked his reins and Taalhorsa set off after the dwarfs. Wenyld, Leodan and Cuthwin rode alongside the Emperor; his banner bearer, lancer and scout. Leaving Heofonum behind, they rode along little-used and overgrown paths that led inexorably up to the cold, shadow-haunted tracks of the mountains. Sigmar glanced down at the village's fallen signpost as he passed.

It had once pointed to Reikdorf in the north and somewhere illegible in the east. Though Reikdorf was hundreds of miles away, Sigmar was heartened by what it represented. It showed that even people distant from his capital actively thought of him as their Emperor.

It also reminded him of how he had failed them.

He had promised these people protection, but what protection was there from a monstrous champion of the living dead whose damned soul was sworn to the Blood God?

The ground quickly began to rise in choppy waves of rock-strewn ridges, tree-lined gorges and rough slopes of loose stone that cascaded downhill as the horses trudged ever upward. The dwarfs quickly outpaced the mounted men, but Alaric had the sense to order his warriors to slow their stride and allow the riders to keep up. As chafing to the dwarfs as such a delay was, they knew it would be madness to allow their forces to become separated.

Krell was not the only danger in the mountains.

Alaric had spoken darkly of a tribe of greenskins known as the Necksnappers, and the spoor of rats and the sound of their scuttling claws on rock stretched everyone's nerves wire-taut. Cuthwin caught the scent of something repellent, and soon came upon signs of its passing – footprints of splayed claws and sharp talons. He had no idea what this beast might be. Sometimes it walked on two legs, sometimes on all four, but its stride was long and its prints deep, which was enough of a reason to stay out of its way.

Krell's passing was easy enough to discern.

The Vaults had long been a place where the kings of old and their long-vanished tribes had laid their dead to rest. Overgrown barrows, so ancient they had been obscured by rockfalls and the growth of hardy mountains scrub, lay broken open and emptied. Piles of discoloured, dusty bones lay at their entrances and the musty, stagnant air of the darkened tombs was the reek of a spoiled storehouse. Rusted weapons and verdigris-stained armour lay strewn about, as though Krell had thought to loot the tombs and been disappointed by the lack of anything of worth inside. The higher they climbed, the more of these broken barrows they saw, and each one gave Sigmar a shudder of unease as he stared into the darkness beyond their shattered portals. He had stared death in the face, and could not forget the chilling touch of mortality on his soul. Sigmar was a proud man, but he liked to think he was not egotistical. He knew he would not live forever, that he would one day stand before the judgement of Morr in the slabbed necropolis of the dead.

As a warrior and an Emperor, his was a life steeped in battle and blood, and to think that he would live forever was foolish indeed. But as he stared deep into the bleak, emptiness of the cairns of these long forgotten kings, he was touched by an altogether greater worry. He chuckled softly to himself, dispelling the gloom that had crept on him with every step Taalhorsa had taken.

'Sire?' asked Wenyld, twisting in his saddle. 'Did you say something?'

'No, it's nothing,' said Sigmar. 'I was merely amused by my vanity.'

'I don't understand.'

Sigmar pointed to a barrow with a yawning entrance and a crumpled skeleton lying in a heap of brittle bones. 'I look at these violated tombs and my greatest fear is not dying. Do you know what my greatest fear is, Wenyld?'

'No, sire.'

'I fear being forgotten.'

'You will never be forgotten, my lord,' Wenyld assured him. 'How could you be? You are the first Emperor, the founder of the Empire and the ruler of the lands. You and the Empire are one and the same. Without you, there is no Empire.'

Sigmar smiled and said, 'I imagine the kings buried in these tombs thought the same, but do any of us remember them? Do the saga poets still sing of their mighty deeds? What is left of them but dust and bones? No, Wenyld, it is only the vanity of men that allows us to think we will always be remembered.'

'I disagree,' said Cuthwin. 'These men may have been kings, but what did they do of note? Did they found an empire? Did they save the race of men from extinction time and time again? Their names and deeds may have been forgotten, but armies will march with your name on their lips for as long as there are men to speak it.'

As Sigmar listened to Cuthwin, the image of the vast column of men with bloodied halberds and red swords the necromancer had shown him in the final moments of their battle returned to him. Those men had carried banners with his name emblazoned upon them, and bore talismans of the twin-tailed comet as they marched from a scene of wanton slaughter.

'You should not speak of such things,' said Leodan, surprising everyone. The horseman was taciturn at the best of times, but he had barely spoken since they had ridden from Reikdorf all those weeks ago.

'Why not?'

'You bring the notice of the gods by speaking of immortality,' said Leodan. 'Men should not dream of it, for immortality is for the gods alone and they are jealous of their eternal lives.'

'We weren't talking about immortality,' said Cuthwin.

'Yes, you were,' said Leodan, raking back his spurs and riding to the head of the snaking trail of mounted men with his lance-tip glittering in the sun.

'What was that about?' wondered Wenyld.

Sigmar had no answer for him and they lapsed into silence as the day wore on and the terrain became ever more difficult. The ground grew rougher and steeper, the path through the tree-shawled gorges getting narrower and narrower. These were mountains that did not suffer living things to move freely through their deep valleys and forests without effort.

At every turn in the path Sigmar felt as though a hundred eyes were upon the hunting party, hidden spies stalking them on the cliffs above or malevolent observers watching from behind every crag or in every shadow. The sense of threat and imminent danger was palpable, and he knew he wasn't the only one feeling it. Many times, horses stumbled and men cried out as they swung out over towering drops when they took their gaze from the path to seek out what might be a lurking enemy above.

A chill wind howled down through the gorge, a knifing cold that sought out every gap in a cloak or every thin patch of cloth covering a man's bare skin. Sigmar shivered in his armour and wished he'd worn the padded undershirt Count Marius had sent from Marburg. Ostentatiously decorated with embroidered stitching and needlepoint images of hammers and comets, Wolfgart had laughed at the sight of it, but it was undeniably warm and of sublime quality. Say what you wanted about Marius, he understood the value of quality goods.

Thinking of Wolfgart brought a rueful smile to Sigmar's lips. He missed his old friend, and dearly wished Wolfgart could have accompanied him on this ride into the mountains. The rogue had wanted to come, but one look at Maedbh's eyes and her swollen belly had convinced him that to leave Reikdorf would be a mistake. The old women who knew of such things had told Maedbh she was to bear a son, and Wolfgart's joy was complete. The boy would be born within three cycles of the moon, and Wolfgart had made Sigmar swear he would return in time for his son's birth.

In any case, Wolfgart had no choice but to remain in Reikdorf. With the departure of Alfgeir into the snow-wilds of the north, someone had to assume the mantle of Marshal of the Reik. Though Wolfgart had protested, Sigmar had known there was no one else who could follow the example Alfgeir had set. In a solemn ceremony, attended by no less than three of the Empire's counts, Sigmar had presented the glittering sword of the Marshal to his oldest friend, who had grinned like it was his Blood Night all over again.

A clatter of falling rock from ahead shook Sigmar from his nostalgic reverie. He looked for the source of the sound, seeing a scree of loose stone tumbling from the cliffs above them. Sigmar's eyes narrowed as he saw a flitting shadow in the thick brush that clustered at the edge of the high cliff like the bushy eyebrows of an old man.

Sigmar heard the creak of seasoned yew and looked over to see Cuthwin had his bowstring pulled back and a goose-feathered arrow nocked. The huntsman scanned the clifftop, but eventually eased the string back, but did not replace the arrow in his quiver.

'What did you see?' asked Sigmar.

'I'm not sure,' said Cuthwin. 'Maybe a coney or a fox.'

'Or something more dangerous perhaps?'

Cuthwin nodded, and Sigmar saw how it irked him to be unsure of anything.

'Keep a wary eye out,' said Sigmar and Cuthwin nodded, keeping one eye on the narrow path and one on the cliffs above them.

The path continued to wind up the angled slope of a white cliff that glittered with golden dust embedded in the rocks, and Sigmar wondered why none of the dwarf holds had constructed some iron structure to hew it from the cliff. Perhaps it was too dangerous or perhaps it wasn't even gold. Sigmar was no miner, and the fact that none of Alaric's dwarfs had given the cliff so much as a second glance told him that it probably wasn't gold.

Alaric was waiting for him at a bend in the track, where a jutting boulder with a flat face projected out into space. Alaric stood with his hands braced on his hip, standing at the very tip of the boulder, with nothing to prevent him from falling thousands of feet to his death. The winds howled around the dwarf, but he seemed not to notice.

'Hard going,' said Sigmar, drawing in the reins.

'This?' said Alaric with a distracted air. 'This is a gentle stroll compared to some of the galleries below Karaz-a-Karak. At least there you have good stone above your head, and not this damned empty sky.'

'It's hard going to us,' said Sigmar.

'Aye, you're only manlings, it's true,' agreed Alaric. 'You like your land flat and covered with trees and growing things.'

'What are you doing out there on that rock?'

Alaric looked around, as though he'd been unaware of where he was standing. He stamped down on the boulder, and Sigmar winced, half expecting it to shear off and carry the dwarf to his doom. Alaric saw his face and grinned.

'I forget your kind doesn't know stone like we do,' he said. 'I was reading the stone ahead of us, lad.'

'What is it saying?' asked Sigmar, who knew not to mock such statements.

'Hard to say,' replied Alaric. 'They don't speak quietly here. These mountains didn't just rise up nice and calm. No, they were brought into the world with violence and fire and earthquakes that would split your Empire into shards if they happened now. I still hear the echoes of that.'

Alaric extended his arms to the north and west. 'The Black Mountains in the north and the Grey Mountains in the west. Tell me what you see when you look at them.'

Sigmar shielded his eyes from the lowering sun with the palm of his hand and looked out over the titanic peaks of the Black Mountains. The jagged, crimson-hued mountain that men of the south knew as Blood Peak reared over a gnarled mob of craggy summits that stretched into the clouds of the far distance. Dots of bird flocks swirled over the nearest peaks, like crows over a battlefield.

Only the misty edges of the Grey Mountains could be seen from here, the sharp slopes cowled in patches of snow. What lay beyond those mountains was a mystery to the men of the Empire. Only the Bretonii had dared venture into the ice-locked passes that led to the lands beyond, and no one had seen or heard from that lost tribe in nearly two decades. Twilight was fast approaching, and there was little Sigmar could see that had attracted Alaric's attention.

'I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see,' he said at last.

'Do you see the mountains moving?' asked Alaric.

'Moving? No, of course not,' said Sigmar. 'Mountains don't move.'

'Ah, lad, of course they do,' said Alaric with the amusement of someone who knows the punchline of a jest. 'This world is a lot less solid than you manlings think it is. All this land, these mountains and the oceans, they drift on giant beds of stone that float on vast seas of molten rock. They move and grind against each other, and sometimes they collide to raise giant mountain ranges like this. A long time ago, before we dwarfs even built our holds, two of those beds collided, and the shock of that threw up these mountains.'

'You're mocking me,' said Sigmar.

'Not at all. Aye, these beds of rock move so slowly that you fast-moving races don't see it, but dig the rock for long enough and you'd soon know. The rock bed to the north scraped up over this one and the tail end of the northern mountains rode roughshod over the mountains of the south to make this almighty snarl-up of peaks and valleys and this pass.'

'This is a pass?' said Sigmar. 'I thought this was just some secret path you knew. Ulric's breath, the very teeth of winter are blowing down on us.'

'It's a pass right enough,' said Alaric. 'Yonder to the north-east is Karak Hirn, but our path won't take us anywhere near there. Shame, I'd have liked to see the great wind cavern and hear it bellow.'

'Alaric, why are you telling me this?' asked Sigmar.

'I'm not sure,' said the dwarf, with a soft sigh. 'I suppose I just want you to understand the rock and stone like I do. There's history here, and memory too. These mountains have seen their fair share of dying, and I can feel there's more on the way. The monster we're hunting came this way, and he wasn't the only one.'

'My scout didn't see any signs of anything else,' said Sigmar.

'Your scout doesn't know rock like I do.'

'You think there's trouble coming?'

'In these mountains, there's always trouble coming,' said Alaric.

They found a place to camp for the night only a little farther up the pass, a projecting lip of rock that Sigmar would have called a narrow plateau, but which Alaric seemed to think was a sweeping plain. In any case, the point was moot, as there was good water streaming down the cliff in a sparkling waterfall, and screes of tumbled boulders that offered plentiful cover and places for sentries to watch the approaches.

The riders saw to their horses first, hobbling them in the centre of the flat ground and rubbing down their lathered flanks with handfuls of scrub grass warily pulled from the edge of the cliff. Each beast was then led in turn to the natural trough at the base of the waterfall and allowed to slake their thirst in the bitingly cold water.

With the mounts settled, the men attended to their own needs, filling waterskins and breaking out hard bread and salted meat from the horses' panniers as the darkness began to close on the mountains like a fist. Fires were lit against the cliff and the reflected heat dispelled the worst of the bitter wind blowing down from the heart of the Vaults. Warriors sat close to the fires, untying their heavy furs to allow the warmth to reach their bodies.

Alaric's dwarfs sat in a small circle around their own fire, though none of them removed their armour or loosened their cloaks. The race of mountain folk and the race of men were bound by powerful oaths, but neither sought out the company of the other. As alike as they were in basic form, there remained – and would always remain – a gulf of understanding between them. Common cause had brought them together, and but for a number of rare instances, few men and dwarfs would count themselves as friends.

Sigmar moved through the campsite, taking the time to stop at each fire and exchange words with the men gathered around it. He knew every man's name, and though he was exhausted by the time he sat at the fire with Wenyld, Cuthwin, Leodan, Teon and Gorseth, he knew the effort had been worthwhile. The talk around the other fires was animated, and good-natured banter flowed between the men instead of dark muttering and fearful speculation of what tomorrow might bring.

'Another long day,' said Cuthwin, as Sigmar sat down.

'They're only going to get longer. Alaric says these are just the foothills of the Vaults.'

'Dwarf humour or dwarf understatement?' asked Wenyld.

'The first, I hope,' said Sigmar, loosening the cords binding his boots and flexing his feet with a relieved sigh. Seeing the men around the fire grinning, Sigmar said, 'Even Emperors get blisters sometimes.'

'Even from horseback?' said Cuthwin, passing Sigmar as bowl of hot oats and goats' milk. The milk was starting to turn, but Sigmar didn't mind. A warm meal at the end of a day's travel did more to restore spirits than anything else, but Sigmar knew they would need to catch Krell soon before lack of supplies forced them to turn back.

They ate their food slowly, letting the aches and pains of the day ease out in the heat and companionable silence. Leodan passed a leather-wrapped bottle around the fire, a powerful Taleuten liquor distilled from grain and root vegetables. Sigmar took the first drink, and Cuthwin and Wenyld gratefully accepted one also. Teon and Gorseth each took a mouthful, and both coughed and retched at the taste of the powerful spirit.

Leodan smiled and said, 'It's an acquired taste, lad, but it'll keep you snug in your bed through a long, cold night.'

'Not too snug,' warned Sigmar, as Leodan took another long mouthful. 'Alaric's dwarfs are taking the first watch, but we'll be taking our turn too.'

Leodan shrugged and put the bottle away with a sour look, as the rest of Sigmar's warriors made themselves as comfortable as they could. With only their saddle blankets between them and the rocky ground, it was going to be a long night. Sigmar arranged his saddle for a pillow before pulling his furs over him.

He closed his eyes, and sleep stole upon him almost instantly.

Sigmar woke with the first touch of chill in the air, a deeper cold than simply that of the mountains. This was a cold that only emanated from beyond the portals of Morr, the breath that accompanies those unquiet souls who do not pass through the god of the dead's halls to their final rest. His eyes snapped open, and he rolled from his furs with Ghal-maraz leaping to his hand. The rune hammer glimmered with corposant, the bound magics that were inimical to the dead sparkling like snowflakes in a fire.

'To arms!' shouted Sigmar. 'Up! Up!'

Not a soul moved, his men resting where he had left them. The horses stood as still as the carved horses at the end of Lancer Bridge over the Reik, their eyes glassy and lifeless.

'Up, damn you!' roared Sigmar, delivering his commands with a boot to hasten his men awake. They grunted and rolled over in their sleep, but did not awaken. Sigmar saw that even Alaric's dwarfs were still slumbering, and knew that some fell enchantment was at work.

'Ulric's bones, get up!' shouted Sigmar, kneeling beside Cuthwin and shaking the huntsman violently.

'He can't hear you, son of Bjorn, no one can,' said a rasping voice from the darkness.

'Show yourself, damn you!' demanded Sigmar, turning to try and pinpoint the sound.

'In time, but for now it would be best for you if you kept silent. Yes, silent would be good. Your men and the stunted ones were easy, but you have will that is not easily hidden.'

'What have you done to them?' cried Sigmar. 'Are they dead?'

'Always so loud, you heroes,' said the voice. 'I'm not deaf, and neither are they.'

'Answer me, damn you!'

'Of course they're not dead, dung-for-brains. Look, they still breathe. Their chests still rise and fall and warm air still blows from their lungs.'

'Come out of the shadows, you coward! Face me!'

'Face you? Don't be ridiculous,' laughed the voice. 'Would I go to all this trouble just for you to bludgeon me with that hammer of yours? Now be silent, son of Bjorn. I mean you no harm, but they do! Look behind you, Sigmar Heldenhammer, and find yourself a place to remain silent and still!'

Sigmar cooled his temper towards this invisible speaker, angry at being so manipulated, but as he heard the tramp of marching feet from below, he could still recognise the lesser of two evils. Sigmar ghosted silently to the narrow portion of the thin plateau on which he and his men were resting. Far below, but climbing rapidly, was a seething host of creatures, though Sigmar had difficulty in determining exactly what they were.

Some carried torches, while others bore tall banners of bone. He could hear the clatter of armour and a scratching, squealing sound like a barnful of chittering mice. The wind changed direction, and a verminous reek of stinking, unwashed flesh was carried uphill. Sigmar gagged at the stench, like an exposed midden on a summer's day. He fought to keep his food down as he smelled rotten meat, excrement and a hundred other fouler aromas. The noise of the approaching host grew louder, a barrage of squeals, squeaks and guttural barks.

Though it was too dark for an accurate gauge of numbers, Sigmar reckoned that at least five hundred or more creatures were marching towards their camp. He looked back over his shoulder to his sleeping warriors, knowing they were dead unless he could get them to move.

But how to rouse men who had been ensorcelled by some nameless enchanter?

Before Sigmar had a chance to think of a solution, he saw the pathway leading back down the mountain ripple and undulate, as though the rock had become suddenly malleable. In the thin light of the torches, he saw a wriggling carpet of mangy rats running ahead of the host: hundreds of disgusting creatures with patchy fur, branded backs and splintered fangs.

He stifled a gasp of horror and pushed himself hard against the cliff, stepping up onto a lip of stone as the seething tide of rats surged past like a furry river of diseased flesh and blood-matted fur. Some were brown, some were black, and yet others were white and furless. Pink tails wriggled like worms, and they snapped and bit at each other, as though driven by the whips of cruel masters. A few turned and sniffed the air as they passed him, and several turned their beady pink eyes upon him. They hissed in puzzlement, but passed on without attacking.

Behind the rats came scuttling beasts that loped and darted in the firelight of the torches. Wretched things in rags and scraps of armour, with their elongated snouts obscured by sackcloth hoods and their eyes made huge by orbs of glass nailed to their skulls. Sigmar held his breath at the sight of these vile monsters, monstrous hybrids of man and rat. They carried rusted swords, crude halberds and heavy cleavers with notched blades and old bloodstains. They hissed and spat with feral glee as they moved past him, but none of them so much as turned a grotesque, rag-swathed head towards him.

Sigmar took a tight grip of his hammer's haft, but instead of falling upon his men with their brutal cleavers, the rat-things tramped over the narrow plateau as though it were unoccupied. They marched past with their strange, jerking, hopping gait, but paid no mind to the sleeping men and dwarfs in their midst. Though the sleepers were clearly visible to Sigmar, the stinking horde of ratmen ignored them, as though they had no inkling of their presence whatsoever.

Sigmar let out his breath, and regretted it immediately as a rat-thing with black armour and a bronze headpiece, segmented like a beetle's carapace, paused in its march and stepped close to the cliff. Its nose twitched and its blistered tongue flicked out, as though tasting the air. Stubby whiskers bristled, and it cocked its head to one side. Beneath its helm, Sigmar saw eyes that were the red of a low-burning fire, eyes that narrowed with a loathsome, feral intelligence that horrified him.

The creature stood tall, its furred body twisted in a hideous parody of a man, upright and erect, but still with reverse-jointed legs and a whipping tail that ended in a barbed hook. A wide leather belt at its waist held a collection of skinning knives and a stubby wooden club fitted to an intricate mechanism of bronze and iron with a glowing green light at its heart.

Sigmar leaned back, letting the cold water streaming down the cliff pour over him as the creature took a stalking step closer. The icy chill of the water was freezing, but he did not dare move. How this thing could not see him, he did not know, but he guessed that if he so much as moved a muscle, whatever enchantment was keeping his men from the sight of these beasts would be undone.

The beast's face was less than an inch from him, its breathing wafting the stench of its last meal in his face. The smell of spoiled dairy and rotten meat made Sigmar want to gag, and its hot, rancid breath was animal and reeked of an open sewer. The flesh of its maw pulled back as it hissed in consternation, revealing two enormous, flat-faced fangs like sharpened chisel blades.

A whip cracked and the dreadful thing flinched, spinning around and rejoining the marching host as it continued its journey into the mountain. Sigmar watched the creature go, as larger beasts and more intricately attired creatures shuffled and scuttled past. Careful to keep his breathing even and his movements to a minimum, Sigmar blinked away the spray of water in his eyes as he tried to make sense of these nightmarish horrors.

Wolfgart had spoken of fighting squealing creatures with the faces of rats in the tunnels beneath Middenheim, and Sigmar – like everyone else – had assumed them to be no more than bestial forest monsters yoked to the Norsii army as it burned its way south. But to see such a horde, moving with such cohesion and discipline forced him to think of these things as something else entirely.

At last the end of the vermin horde passed his place of concealment, and when the last of the hissing, chittering beasts had vanished around the bend in the path farther up the mountain, Sigmar dropped to the hard-packed earth of the path. His body was numb with cold, chilled to the bone by the spray of water from the high peaks. His clothes were soaked through and his flesh was like ice as he stumbled back to his camp.

A fire burned at the centre of the plateau, and he made his way towards it, stripping off his sodden garments and pulling a warm blanket from an open pack. A solitary figure sat cross-legged before the fire, a shaven-headed man whose body was concealed by a voluminous cloak of black feathers. His shorn skull was tattooed with the black, reflective eyes of crows, and his own eyes were no less black.

Sigmar knew this stranger must be the source of the sorcery that had kept his men from the attention of the rat-things, but was too cold to do more than kneel beside the fire and let the heat from the flames thaw his naked flesh.

'Greetings, son of Bjorn,' the man said with a lopsided grin. 'I am Bransuil the Aeslandeir.'

'I am Sigmar Heldenhammer, but you already know that, don't you?'

The man nodded. 'I know a great many things about you, son of Bjorn. Much of which you would rather I did not know, but that is not to be the nature of our relationship. I will know all your secrets, and that is why you will trust me.'

'Trust you?' laughed Sigmar. 'I don't know you.'

'You will,' said the man with a sage nod. 'Or you did. It is hard to be certain sometimes.'

Sigmar looked over to where his men still slept, peaceful and blissfully unaware of the terrible danger that had just passed them in the night.

'So how is it my men and I are alive?' asked Sigmar as the fire began to warm him. He had decided against any violence to this Bransuil, guessing that any man who could hide so large a group from so many monsters was not someone to be taken lightly.

'A simple incantation,' said the man with a grin that exposed brilliantly white teeth. Sigmar had only ever seen such clean teeth in the mouths of young children, and he was reminded of the leering skull of the dread necromancer. 'When you spend as long in the far north as I once did, hiding yourself is the first trick you learn from the ravens.'

'But how did you do it?' pressed Sigmar.

Bransuil leaned over the fire, and Sigmar saw the darkness of his eyes had receded. In place of the blackness of crows' eyes, the man's eyes were now a brilliant, cornflower blue.

'Magic,' he said.

Part Two

When Cuthwin awoke, it was as though he'd spent the night in a warm bed with one of Aelfwin's Night Maidens. His limbs felt refreshed and his head was as clear as a winter's morning. He rolled from his blanket and stretched, sitting upright with a bemused grin on his face as he saw the rest of their company felt a similar sense of wellbeing. Teon and Gorseth set off to gather fresh kindling for the fires, but the smile fell from Cuthwin's face as he saw the churned ground all around them, hundreds of footsteps in the earth and scraped claw marks on the rock. Cuthwin leapt to his feet and snatched his sword from its scabbard as he saw more and more signs of a sizeable warhost's passing. Even the men with little in the way of woodsman's skills could hardly fail to notice the imprint of so many feet, and voices were raised in confusion at the sight of the tracks.

'What happened here?' asked Wenyld, kneeling beside a clawed footprint.

'We slept through the night,' said Leodan, scanning the path that led up the mountain.

'What in the name of Ulric's balls was in that drink?' demanded Cuthwin. 'We could have been killed!'

Leodan shook his head. 'Nothing that shouldn't have been. It's just burned water rakia.'

'Damn it, Leodan, you could have killed us,' snarled Wenyld. 'You might have a death wish, but don't drag us down with you.'

The Taleuten horseman gripped the hilt of his knife, and for a moment Cuthwin thought he might actually draw it.

'Talk sense, man,' said Leodan. 'If I'd put us out with strong drink then we'd all be dead.'

Despite his anger, Wenyld saw the logic of what Leodan was saying, and nodded curtly, turning to Cuthwin with a mute appeal for an explanation. Cuthwin had none to give him; he couldn't tell how many had passed in the night, nor, for that matter, could he imagine how they hadn't all been woken or killed. He tried to move carefully around the tracks, but it was impossible to step on any patch of ground that hadn't been tramped flat by the passage of uncounted feet.

'This makes no sense,' he said. 'Why aren't we dead?'

Cuthwin gave up trying to decipher the tracks and looked up as he heard voices raised in anger from farther along the path. He saw Sigmar making calming gestures towards the dwarfs who all looked as though they were ready to start a brawl in a crowded tavern. A hunched figure in a cloak of iridescent feathers stood behind Sigmar, and Cuthwin took an instant dislike to the man, though he could not say why.

'Come on,' he said. 'Looks like trouble.'

Wenyld and Leodan followed Cuthwin as he made his way to the ugly scene brewing between Sigmar and the dwarfs. Even before he reached Sigmar's side, he heard words like necromancer and daemonspawn. It didn't take any great leap of imagination to know that these words were being directed at the man in the cloak of raven feathers. As Cuthwin approached, the man turned to look at him, and the huntsman felt acutely uncomfortable, as though all his secrets were laid bare. He looked away, standing just behind Sigmar as Master Alaric glowered in fury.

'We will not march with this warlock at our side,' said the dwarf, his hand of flesh and blood curled tightly around his axe, his bronze one clenched in a fist.

'But for Bransuil we would all be dead,' said Sigmar.

'Or enslaved in one of the rat things' hell-pits,' said the raven-cloaked man, clearly the Bransuil of whom Sigmar spoke. 'Which, trust me, would be far worse.'

'Shut your mouth, daemonkin!' roared Alaric, hefting his axe meaningfully.

Sigmar raised his hands. 'Alaric, this man saved your life. Now calm down and put up your weapon before you dishonour yourself.'

Alaric glared at Sigmar, and only the oaths they had sworn kept him from violence. Cuthwin knew how seriously dwarfs took their oaths, and by voicing how close Alaric was to breaking his, Sigmar had shamed him into backing down. But it had cost Sigmar greatly to invoke the power of his oath, and even Cuthwin could see that Alaric was cut deeply.

Alaric lowered his axe and calmed his raging temper with shuddering breaths.

'Aye, so be it, Sigmar,' said Alaric with a disappointed sigh. 'While we march together in these mountains I'll not harm this one, but if he ever works his sorceries on me or my warriors again, my axe will have his head off his shoulders so fast, he'll walk ten paces before he knows he's dead.'

'You have my word he will not,' said Sigmar, turning to face the cloaked man. 'Swear it.'

Bransuil sneered, as though unused to being given such commands, but he nodded and gave an awkward bow to the Emperor. 'So be it, I shall not work my magics upon the sons of Grungni again. You have my word on it.'

Alaric did not acknowledge Bransuil's words, but simply turned and set off towards the path leading farther into the mountains.

'Be ready to march by the time the shadows reach that rock,' said the dwarf, pointing to a white boulder at the end of the plateau. Looking at the sun's position, Cuthwin saw that didn't give them much time. Sigmar saw it too, and let out a deep breath.

'Cuthwin, Wenyld, get everyone ready to move out,' said Sigmar.

'Sire, what just happened here?' asked Cuthwin. 'Who is this?'

'The tracks you see all around us?' said Sigmar. 'A host of armoured monsters passed in the night, and this man saved us from them. How, I do not yet know, but that we are alive at all is thanks to him.'

'I am Bransuil the Aeslandeir,' said the man, and Cuthwin stiffened at the alien sound of the man's homeland.

'You are Norsii?'

'I was born in the north, yes,' agreed Bransuil. 'A student of Kar Odacen, but don't hold that against me.'

'We can't trust his kind,' said Leodan. 'You drove the Norsii out for a reason. They hold to the old ways of dark gods and blood sacrifice.'

Wenyld put his hand on the hilt of his knife, and Leodan's sword slipped an inch from its leather scabbard. Cuthwin saw Bransuil's eyes glitter with dark amusement, and stepped in front of his bellicose companions.

'Why are you here?' asked Cuthwin. 'And how did you come upon us? I saw no tracks that could belong to you.'

Bransuil smiled. 'There are paths through this world that not even you can track, Cuthwin, son of Gethwer. Paths that only those with the shealladh can see.'

A chill travelled the length of Cuthwin's spine and he backed away from the man, making the sign of the protective horns over his heart.

'He is a warlock!'

'Warlock, wyrd, galder-smith, sorcerer, seider… I have been called all such things and worse,' said the man, ruffling the feathers of his black cloak. He grinned, and Cuthwin saw his teeth were a perfect white, like the first snow of winter. No man's teeth should be as white.

'We owe him our lives,' stated Sigmar. 'And that is a debt we will honour.'

'He probably saved us for something worse!' said Wenyld. 'A sacrifice to his heathen gods!'

Bransuil laughed – a cawing, echoing sound – and said, 'Wenyld son of Wythhelm, if I desired you dead, you would already be a feast for the scavengers of these mountains.'

Wenyld blanched as the man laughed.

'Enough,' said Sigmar. 'This man is under our protection and you will fight at his side as you would any of your sword-brothers. You understand? Now put up your blades and get ready to move.'

Cuthwin nodded. He didn't like it, but he understood the debt they owed this man. So many tracks had passed in the night that there was no way they could have lived against such numbers. Sigmar walked past him to where Taalhorsa was hobbled by the edge of the cliff. Cuthwin felt the cloaked man's gaze upon him and reluctantly turned to face him.

'You do not need to fear me, Cuthwin, son of Gethwer,' said the man. 'Today the sun is bright, the wind is clear and the champion of Kharneth is many leagues ahead of us. Let us bask in what the gods have given us while it is ours to enjoy, eh? I have no doom for you this day, but who knows what tomorrow may bring?'

Wenyld took Cuthwin's arm and led him away from the grinning warlock.

'Pay him no mind,' said Wenyld. 'His kind are never to be trusted. Even their truth is cloaked in lies.'

Cuthwin nodded, but said nothing as he reached his horse. He would keep an eye on this Bransuil. No good could come of association with those who practised the dark arts. Cuthwin possessed a single arrowhead fashioned from a silver icon of Morr that he'd had blessed by the high priestess of Shallya.

He had been saving the arrow for Krell.

Now he wondered if he would need it to slay a mortal enemy.

Another six days' travel took them higher and higher into the mountains. Alaric spoke little during that time, aside from advising on the best path for the horses, but Sigmar couldn't blame him. The dwarfs did not approve of men dabbling in the sorcerous arts, though he would not be drawn on why, save a thinly-veiled barb at the easily corrupted hearts of humankind.

Midmorning on the fourth day of travel saw the hunters pass the snowline, and the weather deteriorated still further. Swirling blizzards halted Sigmar's warriors on the fifth day, forcing them to find shelter in a winding cave system that had clearly been home to a large beast at some point. The tracks at the cave mouth were a mix of ursine paw and something vaguely birdlike, but paintings on the stone walls spoke of a crude kind of intelligence.

Piles of gnawed bones, some as long as a man's leg, lay in a rotting pile of discarded trinkets and skulls, some recognisably greenskin, others of a form and shape that none of the hunters could recognise.

'We shouldn't stay here,' said Cuthwin, looking around the stinking interior of the cave. 'It smells of fresh blood. Whatever lives here brings its kills back to devour. It's probably out hunting just now, and we don't want to be here when it comes back.'

'We don't have a choice,' said Sigmar. 'The storm is too severe. We need shelter.'

'If the beast returns to its lair, we'll be trapped.'

'That's a chance I'll take,' said Leodan, leading his shivering horse into the cave, though it fought him as soon as it caught a whiff of the blood and bones. None of the horses were willing to enter the cave without a struggle, and hauled at their riders as they were dragged inside. Even the prospect of a blizzard seemed preferable to their mounts, and Sigmar wondered if he should take that as a sign.

'Get some fires going,' ordered Sigmar. 'And do it quickly if we're not to freeze.'

Cuthwin nodded, but before the huntsman could begin to gather up their meagre supply of firewood, Bransuil opened his hands and spoke a muttered word that sounded part exhalation, part violent expulsion. The cave was suddenly filled with light as twin balls of seething orange fire sprang to life in the palms of his hands.

Sigmar was astonished. He had heard that the shamans of the Norsii could command the elements, but had never seen a man perform such a feat before his very eyes. Bransuil flicked his wrists and the two balls of flame fell to the ground, continuing to burn as though sustained by invisible kindling and fuelled by unseen timber. In moments the cavern was comfortably warm, and the ice and snow coating the warriors' armour and cloaks began to melt.

'You can summon fire with your power?' asked Sigmar.

'I can summon many things,' replied Bransuil. 'Fire is but the least of them.'

'You should not wield great power with such casual ease,' warned Sigmar. 'Men will fear you for it.

'Men already fear me,' said Bransuil. 'Most days they are right to, but not today. The fire will warm us and cook our food and keep nearby predators at bay.'

Sigmar nodded and knelt by the nearest of the fires. Its heat was powerful, and soon warmed his frozen limbs. Though initially reluctant to approach these unnatural fires, cold, hunger and Sigmar's example eventually drove the men to gather around the crackling blazes and prepare the cook pots.

Alaric's dwarfs took neither heat nor sustenance from the fires, and simply sat at the back of the cave, speaking in their native tongue with low voices and chewing their tough stonebread. It saddened Sigmar that Alaric had reacted with such anger at the presence of the Norsii warlock, but he understood the dwarf's hostility. His people had lost warriors in the fight against the northern tribes at Middenheim too, and he had no reason to trust Bransuil.

Neither did Sigmar, but necessity made for strange bedfellows.

Steaming bowls were passed around, and the mood thawed along with the ice as the men began to feel more human with hot food in their bellies. Sigmar sat with his warriors around the blaze nearest the cave mouth, and the shimmering flames made the pictograms on the walls dance like drunken revellers on a feast day.

Bransuil accepted a drink from Leodan's bottle, and Sigmar was surprised at the gesture, for the Taleuten had been the first to draw his blade at the mention of the warlock's homeland.

Leodan saw his look and said, 'The man's not killed us, and now he's keeping us warm. That's worth a mouthful of rakia.'

Sigmar accepted that simple logic and nodded.

The talk was slow and forced, each man wary of speaking too freely in the presence of the Norsii. If Bransuil took offence, he hid it well, and simply sat in silence with his hands stretched toward the fire.

'How far behind Krell do you think we are, Cuthwin?' asked Sigmar.

Cuthwin rubbed a hand over his face, and Sigmar saw the weariness etched into the man's features. He remembered Cuthwin as a young boy, catching him sneaking through Reikdorf to spy on his Blood Night, and still found it hard to reconcile the bearded huntsman before him with that cocksure youngster of his memory.

'Hard to say,' said Cuthwin. 'The storm is blowing away the tracks almost as soon as they're made, but I reckon we're close.'

'How can we ever catch such a monster?' asked Teon. 'It doesn't get tired, doesn't need to sleep and it doesn't need to stop to eat.'

'You are wrong, Teon, son of Orvin,' said Bransuil. 'It does get tired.'

'How can that be possible?' said Gorseth. 'It's dead.'

'How little you know…' smiled Bransuil. 'Aye, Kharneth's champion is dead, and the fiend who brought his damned soul back to life is no more. You saw what happened to the rest of the legion of the dead when your Emperor slew the necromancer, it collapsed to dust and ruin. But Nagash was not the only one with a claim on Krell's soul. The Blood God, Kharneth, claimed him an age ago and his hold is unbreakable. Krell's hate and rage give him strength. They sustained him when all others of his kind fell, but even hate has its limits. Even rage cools.'

The Norsii's eyes glimmered darkly, and Sigmar couldn't shake the idea that he spoke with admiration for such power.

'So he's getting weaker?' asked Wenyld.

'Weaker, yes, but still monstrously dangerous,' agreed Bransuil. 'To walk in the mortal world for a creature such as Krell requires powerful magic. Dark magic. The invisible energy of tombs and graves, of dark deeds and violent murder. That is why he has come to the Vaults, for the tombs of dead kings throng its weed-choked pathways and gloomy valleys. The darkest of magic can be found here, but without a necromancer to channel it, Krell can only sup crudely from broken barrows. Such magic is finite and old; it fades quickly and his strength is a fraction of what it once was. You will never have a better chance of ending him than you do now.'

'So he can be destroyed?' said Sigmar.

'Of course, nothing in this world is eternal,' said Bransuil. 'Not love, not duty, nor – in the end – honour. You know this. When the storm breaks on the morrow, we must travel high to the edge of a vast crater, the site of an ancient starfall that not even the sons of Grungni know, wherein lie the ruins a lost city. An outpost built in the name of a forgotten conqueror from the Land of the Dead. Built to serve an eternal empire, it was destroyed within a hundred years, and passed from living memory. At the heart of the city lies the tomb of its mightiest general, a warrior whose deathly energies Krell will drain to restore his power, perhaps even enhance it. The wards around the tomb are strong, and not even a being as powerful as Krell can break them easily. But he will break them given time.'

'Then we must stop him before he reaches this city,' said Sigmar.

'You cannot stop him, he is already there,' answered Bransuil.

Despite the threat of the beast whose lair they were currently inhabiting returning, Sigmar's warriors passed a restful night, and awoke warmed by Bransuil's fires that surged back to life with the dawn. The storm had passed in the night, and the day was bright, with a thin powder of snow draping the path into the toothed summits. Sigmar stood at the mouth of the cave, staring out over the mountainscape around him. Such titanic peaks dwarfed the achievements of men, and they would outlast any great deed he might hope to perform.

The city they were to travel to this morning was proof enough of that.

Bransuil had spoken of an immortal god-emperor known as Settra, a being whose armies and war-fleets had once nearly conquered the world. His reign was to have lasted until the end of time, but, like all mortal men, Settra had died and his empire had faded into forgotten myth. What did it matter how many lands a ruler conquered or how many people offered him fealty if he would eventually die? Lesser men would come after him, and all that he had built would decay until nothing remained.

Sigmar knew he was being vain and morbid, but the thought that all he had built and shed blood to create would be lost after his death troubled him deeply. He did not desire immortality as Settra was said to have done, but nor did he want his achievements to pass into legend, a tale of pride and hubris told at the fireside by old men and saga-poets.

Alaric emerged from the cave and gave Sigmar a respectful nod.

'I've been thinking about what you were saying, old friend,' said Sigmar. 'About the mountains.'

'What about them?'

'Looking at them from up here makes a man feel small,' said Sigmar. 'I realise now that we're all very small in a very big world.'

'Some men are bigger than others.'

'Some dwarfs are bigger than others.'

Alaric grunted in amusement. 'You and I are oath-sworn, Sigmar, and nothing will ever change that, but you would do well to hurl that warlock from the cliffs and be done with him.'

'He'd probably spread that feathered cloak of his and fly off.'

'I'm serious,' said Alaric. 'Nothing good will come of keeping him close, mark my words.'

'I'm not a fool, Alaric,' replied Sigmar. 'I know his arts are not to be trusted, but for now his purpose and our purpose are united.'

'You do not know his purpose, it would be unwise to think you do.'

'Very well, then I will say that our purposes appear to be united,' said Sigmar. 'And that will have to be enough. Bransuil has power, and to fight something that bears the mark of the Blood God, we will need that power.'

'Aye, like as not,' agreed Alaric. 'But I still don't like it.'

It took the morning and the better part of the afternoon to climb to the edge of the crater Bransuil had spoken of. Though the landscape all around was shawled in snow, the steep-sided rock of the crater's rim was bare and black. The pale glitter-threaded rock they had become familiar with over the last week gave way to the glossy stone more commonly found where mountains erupted with fire and smoke. Even the thin scrub with which they had rubbed the horses and bulked out their grain began to thin. The air took on a grainy quality, as though invisible dust hazed the atmosphere, and when Sigmar dismounted to touch the snowless rock he found it was warm.

The lip of the crater was hundreds of feet above them, almost as tall as the Fauschlag Rock, and Sigmar could see no obvious paths. Alaric led the way, unerringly finding hidden defiles and stepped grabens that afforded access to the upper slopes. The climb was exhausting, and by the time their hunting party had led their mounts to the top, both men and horses were breathing hard and lathered in sweat.

Sigmar saw Alaric and his dwarfs standing silhouetted at the lip of the crater, looking vaguely frustrated at the laboured progress of the men behind them. His breathing came in shallow gasps, and he found it hard to take a breath, far harder than it should have been.

'Breathe slowly,' said Alaric. 'The air is thin up here, and you manlings don't do well at such heights.'

'I thought dwarfs were all about depths, not heights,' said Sigmar.

'Dwarfs cope well with any extremes,' said Alaric, without any hint of irony.

Sigmar nodded as he climbed the last ridge of the crater and stared down into the ruins of what had once been an outpost of a dead empire. What little was left of his breath was snatched away in wonder.

A vast hollow had been gouged from the mountain by the ancient starfall, a wide, steep-sided depression thousands of feet in diameter and hundreds deep. A dozen towering waterfalls spilled into the crater on its far side through a naturally formed dam of compressed rock, and glittering rainbows arced over the ruins of a great city of black stone. Tall towers and giant temples with golden domes and great needles of tapered silver vied for space with grand palaces and ornate castles, with each building Sigmar's eyes fell upon grander than the last. Great lakes formed in what had once been pleasure gardens and rivers flowed along proud avenues before vanishing into abyssal cracks torn through the base of the crater.

Sigmar saw the city was built to an ingenious design: its streets were arranged in concentric rings, with every thoroughfare cutting through its circular geometry angled towards the building at the city's heart. A vast temple, stepped and constructed of angular blocks of a pale stone that even Sigmar could tell had not been hewn from these mountains. Ornamented beyond all reason, its pillars were topped with great carven lions, its portals flanked by wide processionals of beasts that merged human and animal anatomies.

A great road, easily wide enough to accommodate a column of marching men wound down to the city along the inner face of the crater, and Sigmar wondered what had happened to the road on its outer face.

Bransuil strode to the crater's lip, his eyes dark and peering into forbidden places where no man's gaze ought to penetrate.

'You must hurry,' he said. 'The last ward is collapsing.'

Sigmar rode at the head of his warriors, each man galvanised by the thought of finally cornering the monster they had sought for so long. The road into the crater was smooth and led onto one of the main avenues that encircled the palace at its heart. It was a simple matter to navigate the city, for its sacred geometries were necessarily simple.

The city's architecture had been impressive from above, but seen up close it was doubly so. The buildings were of a heroic scale unknown among the lands of the Empire, and Sigmar vowed that his realm would soon boast such monumental structures. Though thousands of years or more had passed since their builders had raised them, Sigmar saw each building was still as sound as they day it had been completed. Only those structures that had suffered at the hands of earthquakes or the eroding effects of the water had suffered the ignominy of collapse.

Leodan rode at his left, Wenyld to his right with Sigmar's banner held high.

Cuthwin, Teon and Gorseth rode behind him, with the dwarfs split into two groups that jogged with an unflagging pace to either side of the riders. Bransuil rode with Gorseth, who, as the youngest warrior in their group, had been appointed the unwelcome task of bearing the warlock on his mount. Sigmar kept the horses at a brisk walk, knowing he might have need of their fleetness later. The mood of Sigmar's warriors was grim but eager, as much at the thought that they would soon be able to return home as defeating Krell.

Twice they were forced to take detours as they came upon blocked streets that had not been obvious from above or found swollen rivers of ice-cold water that were too deep to ford. Yet the precision of the street plan allowed them to navigate their way to the centre of the city without difficulty. A fallen stone needle afforded a crossing of one fast-flowing river and the swift application of dwarf hammers broke open a way that was previously blocked.

Before long, Sigmar found himself riding along the grand, statue-lined processional that led to the great mausoleum temple. The statues were part man, part animal, but not in the monstrously melded way of the beasts that dwelled in the Empire's forests. These creatures looked constructed, as though they had been bred or shaped with deliberate intent. The idea that anyone would breed such monsters was anathema to Sigmar, and he found himself glad that this Settra's empire had passed from history.

'This is the place,' he said. He could feel the strange wash of dark breath that gusted from inside. The part of him that had passed through the Flame of Ulric felt the emanations of dark magic from the temple, and Sigmar recoiled as he sensed a connection between that power and this. To think that Ulric's power shared even a passing kinship with such evil unsettled him greatly.

The portal that led within was easily wide enough to allow his warriors access without breaking formation, but Sigmar ordered a halt as they reached the edge of the darkness that lay within. Sigmar twisted in his saddle to look up at the edge of the cliffs encircling the city as he felt a sudden chill on the back of his neck, as though a cold northern wind had brushed past him. He felt as though someone were watching him, but it was not an uncomfortable sensation or a threatening one.

'Something wrong?' asked Leodan.

'No,' said Sigmar.

'We must hurry,' said Bransuil. 'Krell's strength is growing even as we wait.'

Torches and lanterns were broken out of packs, and tinderboxes sparked to ignite the oil-soaked brushes and wicks. With light to guide them, Sigmar's warriors rode into the temple with greater urgency, the stone carvings of its walls glittering with embedded jewels and gold relief. Sigmar saw the dwarfs' entire demeanour change at the sight of so much ancient gold.

The passage was wide and high, and Sigmar could imagine the great cortege that had accompanied the dead general as he made his way to his final resting place. To this vanished culture, death was something to be venerated.

Cuthwin rode alongside Sigmar and said, 'I've heard that the tombs of the old kings were full of traps. Shouldn't we ride with more care?'

Sigmar shook his head. 'Any traps will have been triggered by Krell.'

He didn't need to add, I hope.

The air of the temple was charged with a subtle vibration, and Sigmar could feel the wards sealing the tomb at the heart of this structure were close to breaking. From somewhere far ahead, he could hear the thunderous booming of enormous impacts. A terrible roar of howling anger echoed from the walls, and Sigmar felt the same fear he had known when facing the dread necromancer himself. He had fought great beasts, creatures of nightmare, daemons and devotees of the Dark Gods, but this fear touched the very mortality of every man, and exposed his worst terrors. Sigmar loosened the haft of Ghal-maraz and swung his glittering warhammer in looping arcs at his side.

The passage opened into a vast, vaulted chamber of dark stone and soaring statuary depicting ancient gods whose names had been lost and great kings whose deeds had been forgotten. Its roof enclosed an immense space of dusty gloom, pierced in numerous places to allow beams of dim, moon-shot twilight to illuminate its grand void.

At the centre of the space stood a great sarcophagus on a golden bier, surrounded by piles of skeletal warriors in armour of gold, silver and jade. They had been smashed to pieces by the fury of the red-armoured giant that stood before the sarcophagus with its great axe rising and falling like a butcher cleaving a carcass in two. Wisps of dark magic flowed like poisonous fog from the cracks in the imperishable substance of the sarcophagus, and Sigmar knew the last ward was on the verge of being broken. Even without further blows from Krell's axe, it had suffered too much damage and was beginning to unravel by itself.

Krell's bulk was enormous, taller by a yard than the Berserker King of the Thuringians and broader than even the troll Sigmar had fought at Black Fire.

Plates of armour beaten into shape from a metal known only to a far distant world encased Krell's body, embossed with skull sigils that writhed in anger and howled in unending rage. Blood dripped from every skull-faced rivet and stained every link of mail that hung in tattered strips from exposed joints. Splayed bone horns jutted from his helm, and Sigmar saw that great portions of the champion of death's armour had been blasted clear or hung from his frame in broken fragments.

The sight would have been pitiful were it not for the vast shanks of dried meat and yellowed bone that jutted from the wounds torn through Krell's armour. The blood that coated his armour and dripped from his gauntlets was not his own, but an unending stream from the skulls taken in the name of his hellish master.

'Krell!' bellowed Alaric. 'I name thee Grudged.'

The giant champion of the dead and slaughter turned at the sound of the name he had borne in life and let loose a fearsome roar. Beneath its shattered visor, the monster's face was a fleshless nightmare of yellowed bone and grey flesh. A hideous emerald glow burned in one eye socket, and its lambent light promised only death.

The grinning skull leered at them, as though remembering those who had escaped its axe once, but who would not do so again. Sigmar felt the cold dread of this monster, the terror that leeched from its dead bones and sapped the courage of all who stood before him.

But these were men of Reikdorf who had faced an army of the dead, men who were commanded by the very warrior who had smashed the great necromancer to dust. They fought beside dwarfs who had stood against Krell and lived, who were led by the greatest runesmith of Karaz-a-Karak.

But most powerful of all, they were dwarfs who bore a mighty grudge.

Krell swung his mighty axe around, a weapon stained black as midnight by the blood of a million victims, and the powerful reek of its murders filled the dusty tomb. Krell had no voice, but a throbbing bass rumble, like a dreadful mockery of a heartbeat boomed with every step he took.

'Any thoughts as to how we're going to do this?' asked Alaric.

'With horse and speed and strength!' shouted Sigmar, raking back his spurs and urging Taalhorsa to a gallop. His riders followed him with a wild yell, Leodan with his lance lowered and Wenyld with Sigmar's banner aloft. It was a wild charge, with none of the grace or elegance of the Taleuten Red Scythes or the wild passion of the Ostagoth Eagle Wings, but it had power and it had Sigmar.

And it had Ghal-maraz.

Driven by anger, driven by shame, or driven by guilt, Leodan was the first to reach Krell.

He thrust his lance into the very heart of the undead champion's chest as though driven by the hand of Ulric himself. The cold iron tip punched through the red-stained metal as the wooden haft of the lance splintered into fragments with the force of the impact. Krell didn't so much as stagger, and the Taleuten kicked his boots free of his stirrups as Krell's axe slashed down with awesome force.

The enormous blade clove Leodan's horse in two through the saddle, and an ocean of blood flooded from the shrieking creature's body as it fell. Leodan rolled to his feet, his sword already in his hand, as the rest of Sigmar's riders hit home. Heavy broadswords, double-edged slashing blades and short stabbing swords clanged against Krell's armour, some piercing the gristly flesh beneath, others rebounding in showers of red sparks.

Krell's axe struck out, faster than any weapon of such size should be able to move, and five riders were hacked from their mounts, decapitated with executioner's precision. Their headless corpses rode on for a few yards before the weight of their armoured bodies dragged them to the ground.

Sigmar swayed aside from a return stroke of the axe and slammed Ghal-maraz against Krell's shoulder. Unnatural plates buckled and broke against the fury of his blow, and Krell at last staggered. The champion spun around, his axe reaching for Sigmar, but finding only empty air. Sigmar wheeled Taalhorsa around and drove his ancient warhammer into Krell's back, splitting apart the cuirass of his monstrous armour and drawing a howl that echoed in this world and the realm of the dead.

The cracks in the sundered sarcophagus split wider, and the deathly tang of evil magic grew stronger. Sigmar cried out as he saw another six of his men cut down by Krell's deadly axe, their souls dragged from their bodies to feed the monstrous appetite of the blood-hungry champion.

'Hurry!' cried Bransuil. 'The last ward is almost spent!'

Alaric and his dwarfs hurled themselves into the fray, hammers beating on Krell's body like demented smiths in a forge. Each warrior bore a weapon inscribed with runes that worked the magic of the dwarfs into a useable form, and each blow wreaked fearful damage on the strange plates of his armour. Alaric's frost-bladed axe bore runic magic the equal of that worked onto the killing face of Ghal-maraz, and every blow sheared slices of metal and bone from the beleaguered champion.

Krell leapt into the air, slamming down with bone-crushing force on two of the dwarfs, their armoured bodies crushed to paste beneath the creature's bulk. A looping axe blow sheared another two in half and only Alaric's master-forged axe saved him from a similar fate.

Mortal warriors faced an immortal champion, and though two of the greatest heroes of the age fought alongside them, this was no equal contest. Each time Krell's axe swept out, men and dwarfs died, and Sigmar knew they could not long suffer such rates of attrition. The sarcophagus at the centre of the temple cracked wider still, and the taint of dark magic gave a bitter, poisonous taint to every breath. Portions of the stone began to dissolve into the air as the magic sealing the long-dead general in his tomb crumbled under the assault of so much malignant power.

'Alaric, go left!' shouted Sigmar, wheeling his horse around the champion's right flank.

The runesmith obeyed without question, attacking the giant from the opposite side. Teon and Gorseth fought beside the dwarfs, darting forward between swipes of Krell's mighty axe to hammer their swords against his armour. Leodan fought alone, standing before the might of Krell with his notched sword held high. His armour was split wide, and Sigmar saw the Taleuten was lucky to be alive. Blood masked his face, and a long gash ran from his collarbone to his hip. A finger breadth deeper and he would already be dead.

Sigmar vaulted from Taalhorsa's saddle and wrapped one brawny arm around Krell's neck. His hammer slammed down on Krell's helm, buckling the metal and drawing a bellow of inchoate rage from the beast. The haft of Krell's axe shot up as Sigmar drew his arm back for another strike and slammed into his temple. The force of the blow was incredible and bright lights burst before Sigmar's eyes as he was thrown from Krell's back. Ghal-maraz spun from his grip, and he landed badly on the steps of the bier.

Little remained of the sarcophagus, only a fading outline of stone that diminished like morning mist. Within lay a skeletal corpse with the flesh pulled taut over a regal bone structure and clad in armour of gold, jade, amethyst and bronze. A strange weapon with a recurved blade lay on the corpse's chest, and a glimmering light was reflected in the emeralds set in its eye sockets. A dusty breath sighed between its sharpened teeth, and Sigmar fought to recover from the dizzying force of Krell's blow.

Bransuil knelt beside him, and placed a hand on his chest. He spoke a soft word that sounded like the chorus of a child's lullaby, and fresh strength flowed through Sigmar's body.

'The ward is gone,' he said. 'This your chance, son of Bjorn. Drive him into the tomb!'

Sigmar nodded and looked for his hammer, knowing it was the only weapon capable of causing lasting harm to the undead champion. Ghal-maraz lay in the midst of the fighting, where Leodan, Wenyld and Teon battled to keep the great axe of Krell at bay. More men were dead, and only three dwarfs still stood with Master Alaric as Krell shrugged off their attacks with a sound of grating metal that Sigmar realised was diabolical laughter.

Gorseth saw Sigmar rise to his feet and dived under Krell's axe to retrieve Ghal-maraz. The youngster's eyes blazed with winter fire as his slender fingers closed on the haft. Sigmar knew the temptation of such power on a young heart, but Gorseth shook it off and hurled the great warhammer to Sigmar as the black axe descended and cut into his shoulder.

Blood sprayed from the wound, and Teon cried out as his friend fell. Sigmar caught the spinning hammer as Teon threw aside his sword and dragged Gorseth away from the fighting. The effort was noble, though Sigmar knew a wound from so dreadful a weapon would almost certainly prove fatal.

Wenyld screamed and drove his sword up into Krell's belly as Leodan vaulted from a fallen portion of masonry and swung his sword at the mighty champion's head. Such was the power and emotion driving Leodan that his blade struck a blow like no other. Krell's helmet shattered into spinning fragments, revealing his ruined and blackened skull and madly gleaming eye. Fully half of Krell's skull was gone, the rest torn away by the blast of the dwarf war machine at the Battle of Reikdorf. Yet even as Sigmar watched, the bone was reknitting, weaving fresh substance as the dark magic released from the sundered tomb saturated the air.

'Cuthwin, son of Gethwer!' yelled Bransuil. 'Now is your moment! Loose!'

Sigmar looked over to where Cuthwin knelt beside Gorseth and the weeping Teon. The huntsman's bow was bent and a shaft with a shimmering silver arrowhead was nocked to the string. Cuthwin let fly between breaths and the arrow soared as true as any loosed by the king of the fey folk himself. The silver arrowhead punched through Krell's remaining eye, and the towering champion bellowed with rage as the magic imbued in the metal seared his damned soul with holy fire.

Sigmar knew they would never get a better chance to end Krell's terror, and hurled himself at the reeling monster. Master Alaric also recognised the moment and attacked with his rune axe cutting into Krell's thighs and belly. Leodan and Wenyld fought at his side as Krell took backward step after backward step. Dark light spewed from the awful wound in his skull, twisting coils of black smoke that shrieked as it fled the dissolution of Krell's body. The monstrous champion's axe clattered to the ground as his clawed hands sought to contain the abominable energies that sustained his existence.

The tomb of the great general flared with unnatural light as Krell drew on the reservoir of dark magic contained within, and Sigmar saw how they could end this. He spun around the flailing champion and took hold of Master Alaric's shoulder.

'Together,' he said.

Alaric nodded, understanding Sigmar's meaning in the way that only warriors who have fought and bled together for decades can know. Together they surged forward and their blows were struck with such symmetry and unity, that no force in the land could hope to resist. Krell stumbled back towards the tomb as the long dead general stirred from his aeon's long slumber.

Sigmar leapt and swung Ghal-maraz in a vast, sweeping blow that slammed into Krell's chest with all the strength he had earned in his years of battle. The mighty warhammer shattered the last of Krell's armour and a vast explosion of runic magic hurled the champion back into the tomb. Coils of dark magic enveloped the fallen champion; spiralling coils of vicious, jealous blackness. An immortal general from a bygone age fought the theft of the power intended to raise him from the grave, and the two creatures of undeath roared against one another in their desperate fury.

Bransuil stepped in front of Sigmar and Alaric, plunging his hands into the vortex of dark magic with a guttural chant of power words that sounded like a thousand windows shattering at once. The power contained in the tomb was old and strong, and was not about to be contained without a fight. Bransuil shuddered as his own strength went to war with magic conjured into being by a master of undeath. Crackling arcs of deadly energies whipped around him as he drew his arms in as though moulding clay upon a wheel. Sigmar and Alaric stepped back from the tempest engulfing Bransuil, shielding their eyes as a dazzling blaze of light exploded from the tomb and the earth shuddered as though struck once again by the hammer blow of a starfall.

Portions of the temple's roof fell inward, crashing down in enormous, building-sized chunks of masonry. Vast cracks split the walls and moonlight speared into the quaking temple. The crash of falling coffers and cracking rock was deafening, and the surviving warriors fought to hold their footing as the mountains shook with the fury of such powerful magics being unleashed.

'Get out!' shouted Sigmar. 'Get out of the temple!'

Alaric and his fellow dwarfs ran for the nearest crack in the temple walls, knowing with the skill of their race the escape route least likely to bury them beneath thousands of tons of stone. Sigmar ran for Taalhorsa and threw himself into the saddle as Leodan grabbed the reins of a fallen warrior's mount. Cuthwin and Wenyld rode for the passageway by which they had entered the tomb, and Sigmar was pleased to see his banner still flew proudly. Teon hauled Gorseth over his saddle and rode after the remaining riders as yet more pounding slabs of stone crashed to the ground.

It galled Sigmar to see how few would be making the journey back to Reikdorf, but he knew that they had been lucky to finish Krell with any of them left alive. He turned and held his hand out to Bransuil, who gratefully scrambled up behind him. The warlock's face was ashen, lined with exhaustion and sheened with sweat. Behind him, Sigmar saw the tomb of the general was gone, and its place was a shimmering sphere of crystal, like a vast diamond in which two forms could be made out as ghostly shadows.

Krell and the former occupant of the tomb were frozen together, locked in an eternal struggle for survival that would never end. Great chunks of stone slammed down on the magical prison but shattered and spun away, leaving the crystal tomb unmarked by so much as a scratch.

Sigmar raked back his spurs and Taalhorsa surged to the gallop as though all the Olfhednar of the marshes were at their heels. The temple was collapsing with ever-greater speed and violence, and clouds of dust billowed around them, making it impossible to see more than a few yards. Sigmar had to trust to Taalhorsa's sense for danger as they swerved away from falling rubble and leapt over high barriers of toppled columns. Bransuil wrapped scrawny, buckle-boned arms around his waist as Taalhorsa leapt a yawning crack in the ground and lost his footing for a moment.

'On!' cried Sigmar. 'Taal guides you!'

The horse righted itself and set off with a whinny of terror as the ground heaved with elemental fury. Booming cracks of grinding stone echoed from all around them, and Sigmar heard a groaning crash of falling rocks and a roar of falling water. They rode into the grand tunnel that had brought them to the interior of the mausoleum, and Sigmar leaned over his horse's neck, speaking words of courage in its ear.

At last there was only sky above them, and Sigmar let out a wild yell of exultation as they left the tomb behind. Sigmar's warriors and Alaric's dwarfs saw him, but he saw they were not out of danger yet. The mountains shook and rocks tumbled from the high slopes as the titanic forces of the earth convulsed. The natural dam at the lip of the crater was breaking apart, and vast geysers of icy water were spilling into the city. The rivers were overflowing and soon every building would be underwater.

'Ride!' ordered Sigmar. 'Before we all drown!'

'We'll run,' said Alaric with stubborn pride. 'I'd rather wade than ride.'

'Suit yourself,' said Sigmar, 'but wade fast.'

The riders set off at the gallop, retracing the route they had taken to reach the mausoleum as vast spumes of waters flooded the city. Surging meltwater crashed against the walls of palaces that had stood for thousands of years and toppled them in a heartbeat. Tidal surges dragged entire streets to ruin, and soon the horses were galloping through knee-high water of unbearable cold.

Splashing and frantic, the horses reached the road leading back to the lip of the crater, and Sigmar's racing heartbeat eased a fraction as they gained height above from the drowning city. Higher and higher they climbed, and Sigmar eased the pace as he saw Alaric and his dwarfs wade to the road with little more then their beards above the surface. He laughed as they shook off the water like wet dogs and marched towards the waiting men as though they had just taken a brisk stroll in the rain.

The crashing thunder of falling water continued as they climbed to the top of the slope, and the city was swallowed by the freezing run-off of an ancient glacier. Teon and Wenyld lowered Gorseth to the ground, and Sigmar was amazed to see the lad still clung to life. He was young, but he was tough, as were all good Reiklanders.

Sigmar dismounted and knelt beside the boy.

'You have my thanks,' he said. 'That was brave of you to get me my hammer. Foolhardy, but brave. But for your courage, I doubt we would have prevailed.'

Gorseth smiled and his eyes fluttered.

'Don't you bloody well die,' snapped Wenyld. 'You hear me, boy. Don't you dare. Not when old men like me walk away without a scratch.'

Gorseth coughed, and his spittle was bloody. 'No more jokes about my age…?'

'I make no promises,' said Wenyld, and Sigmar saw there were tears in his eyes. 'Stay alive long enough to reach Reikdorf and we'll see.'

'Fair enough,' said Gorseth as Leodan and Cuthwin began binding the terrible wound in his shoulder.

Though the temperature was falling rapidly as night drew in, none could tear their eyes from the sight of the newly formed mountain tarn. The surface rippled like the ocean, and the moonlight sparkled on the water as it lapped at the edge of the crater, not ten feet below them. The violence of the earthquake had subsided, though the mountains still grumbled with smouldering anger.

Sigmar let out a pent-up breath and helped Bransuil down from Taalhorsa's saddle. Even through his armour, Sigmar could feel the misshapen, birdlike frailty of the warlock's body. The man nodded gratefully as a freezing wind blew over the surface of the lake and an icy prickling sensation crawled over Sigmar's skin.

A bitterly cold mist rose from the water, like the breath of the great frost giants said to haunt the featureless ice tundra of the Northern Wastes. The horses whinnied, their eyes wide and their ears pressed tight to their skulls in fear. The wind passed over them, but it was not the deathly cold of the dead, but the cleansing chill of a good northern winter. Sigmar had felt that cold before, when he had passed through the flame at the heart of Middenheim, and he clung to the memory.

No sooner had it arisen than the mist dissipated, and cries of astonishment arose from the men and dwarfs as they saw what had become of the lake. The water had frozen solid, leaving a vast, shimmering plane of ice before them. From the surface to the deepest reaches of the crater, the lake had been transformed in an instant to solid ice.

'Ulric's blood!' swore Cuthwin, turning to Bransuil. 'Did you do that?'

The warlock shook his shaven, tattooed head, staring over the glacier lake with a curious expression. 'No, young Cuthwin. I have a degree of mastery, aye, but such powerful elemental magics are beyond my ability to wield.'

Sigmar followed Bransuil's gaze, and his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a distant shape on the far side of the crater. Someone was standing directly opposite them by the shattered gap where the rock dam had once held back the mountain waters. Though it was dark and the shimmering moonlight was filtered through a haze of ice particles, Sigmar swore he could see a figure swathed in fur.

A wolf-clad man with but a single arm.

Even as Sigmar caught sight of the man, he vanished into the moonlight shadows. He watched the spot for a while longer, hoping he would show himself again.

But the man did not return, if he had been there at all…

Sigmar turned away from the lake. Krell lay entombed beneath millions of tons of ice, sealed in a magical tomb in the heart of an ice-locked city, and Sigmar allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction.

'Will it hold?' he asked Bransuil. 'The crystal prison you created, will it hold?'

'It will hold,' replied the Norsii. 'For a very long time, but it will not endure forever.'

Sigmar nodded, as though this was a fundamental truth of the world he had only now come to fully appreciate.

'Nothing lasts forever,' he said. 'Nor should it.'

Author's Commentary

One loose end I left at the end of God King was the fate of Krell, the Chaos Undead champion who gets shredded by the Empire-fixed Volley Gun. I’d always intended to return to this in a later Time of Legends novel, but as my plans for those didn’t really favour that storyline appearing (at least not without a lot of shoehorning) I decided to take it elsewhere, specifically to Hammer and Bolter, where it was broken into two parts, and subsequently printed in the Sigmar Omnibus. And, in case you’re wondering, the title is a neat way of tying together the hugeness of Krell’s axe with notions of vengeance and a quote from Shakespeare. Me writist, me clever!

By the end of God King, a lot of the characters we’d shared the journey with were dead or missing or going rogue. It was time to bring in the new blood, and this seemed like a good place to bring some of the youngsters who’d dropped in and out of the story over the years to the fore. Cuthwin and Wenyld, the youngsters who first creep across the square in Reikdorf in the opening pages of Heldenhammer, were a great fit with what I wanted to do, as were Teon and Gorseth and the warrior of the Red Scythes, Leodan.

This was the perfect opportunity to tie off Krell’s loose end (as it’s one of the few ‘facts’ we know of what Sigmar got up to in the wake of Black Fire Pass and the Battle of the Reik) and for me to get to know the new characters I’d be using when I next came to write a Sigmar novel. And any chance to use Alaric the Mad is always welcome.

The hunt for Krell threw up some interesting moments, not least of which was the introduction of Bransùil the Aeslandeir. The time of Sigmar is a time where the institutions of the Emprie as we know it just don’t exist. There’s no wizards, no engineers, no warrior priests and, crucially, no magic in the hands of the Empire. It’s the Empire stripped of all that makes it the Empire, which is a tremendous Tabula Rasa, but also gave me a chance to show a kind of proto-version of magic in the Empire, while also hinting that it may not turn out too well. Hence why magic doesn’t become part of the Empire until Teclis teaches it to the race of Man during the Great War against Chaos.

The hunt and fight against Krell harks back to some of the characters lost along the way over the three Sigmar stories, and what will come in the future. It has a trek into the mountains that introduces another villain race of the Warhammer World, a hint of a future antagonist for Sigmar and the Empire (if I ever get the chance to return to the Time of Legends series, my next Sigmar book was to be called Underempire. Make of that what you will…).

Table of Contents

Title

Let the Great Axe Fall

Author's Commentary