03 - God King

To Anita. For everything.

This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of
sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all
of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds
and great courage

At the heart of the Old World lie the lands of men, ruled over
by the Emperor Sigmar. Once a land divided, it has been united into the Empire,
stretching from the Sea of Claws in the north to the Grey Mountains of the
south. At Reikdorf dwells the Emperor, the only man with vision enough to see
that if men could not overcome their differences and rally together, their
demise is assured.

To the frozen north, Norsii raiders, barbarians and worshippers of
Dark Cods, burn, slay and pillage. Grim spectres haunt the marshlands and
monstrous beasts gather in the forests. Greenskins plague the land and will
forever be the bane of men. Defeated at Black Fire Pass, they gather their
strength in mountain lairs, waiting on another chance to invade the Empire.

But Sigmar does not stand alone against his many enemies. The dwarfs of the
mountains, great forge smiths and engineers, are his oath-sworn allies. As a
great and terrible evil from the dawn of time arises to lay waste to the Empire,
all must stand together, dwarf and man, for their mutual survival depends on it.

Thus Sigmar wept not for Middenheim

Nor did he weep for his burned lands.

But he wept on seeing his brother lie dead

While all his people wept for themselves.

From that day upon the Fauschlag Rock

We did not speak boldly;

And we passed not either night or day

That we did not breathe heavy sighs.

Thus it was that Death carried off

Pendrag, whose strength and vigours had been mighty

As it will every warrior

Who shall come after him upon the earth.

Lord Aetulff was dead, and they carried the body from his village in a long
procession through the snow towards the surf-pounded shoreline. Those that had
served under him, those despised few who had survived the long flight from the
vengeful blades of their enemies, followed the solemn bier with their broken
swords carried before them. Their lives were forfeit, but there were few enough
men remaining along the coastline to put them to death for their cowardice.

The chieftain’s favoured huscarls carried the body on a palanquin of broken
shields, the body wrapped in a tattered flag brought from the south. The body
was light; a wasting sickness had eaten the flesh from his bones upon his return
from the disastrous war. Zhek Askah had said it was punishment from the gods,
and none dared gainsay him.

Broken in spirit, Aetulff’s wounded body had lingered six seasons after the
defeat before finally succumbing. He had been strong, and he took a long,
painful time to die.

His sons were all dead, slain in battle as the gods decreed, and none now
remained to preserve his line. He had died in the knowledge that no living
creature would carry his name into the future. He would die unremembered and his
bloody deeds would be forgotten in a generation.

The womenfolk did not follow the body, and his shame was complete.

The shield bearers followed a path to the water, where a fire burned in a pit
hacked into the frozen ground. The waters of the ocean were dark, cold and
unforgiving, and a storm-battered ship rose and fell with the surge and retreat
of the tide. Sturdily built from overlapping timbers and tar, a rearing wolf’s
head was carved at its prow. It was a proud vessel and had carried them through
the worst storms the gods could hurl from the skies. It deserved better, but if
the last year and a half had taught the people of the settlement anything, it
was that this world cared nothing for what was deserved.

The warriors following the body climbed aboard and turned to help lift the
dead chieftain onto his ship. They were strong men and it took no effort to
manoeuvre him onto a tiered pile of precious timbers and kindling. One by one,
the warriors slashed their forearms with the broken blades of their swords. They
spilled their blood over their dead war chief and dropped their useless weapons
to the deck. Blood shed and swords surrendered, they climbed over the gunwale,
which looked bare without lines of ranked-up kite shields and banks of fighting
men hauling at the oars.

One warrior with a winged helm of raven’s feathers waited until the others
had splashed down into the sea before upending a flask of oil over the body. He
doused the ship’s timbers with what remained and tossed the flask to the deck.
The raven-helmed warrior tugged a tied rope at the mainmast, and the black sail
unfurled with a boom of hide.

He turned and dropped over the side of the ship, wading ashore to take his
place with the rest of his forsaken band. Their war chief had died, yet they had
lived. Their shame would be never-ending. Women would shun them, children would
spit on them and they would be right to do so. The gods would curse them for all
eternity until they made good on their debt.

The freezing wind caught the sail, and the ship eased away from the shore,
wallowing without a steersman to guide it or rowers to power it. The tide and
wind quickly dragged the ship away from the land, twisting it around like a leaf
in a millpond. The treacherous currents and riptides around this region of the
coast had dashed many an unwary vessel against the cliffs, yet they bore Lord
Aetulff’s ship out to sea with gentle swells. Gulls wheeled above its mast,
adding their throaty caws to the chief’s lament.

The raven-helmed warrior lifted a bow from the shingle and nocked an arrow to
the string. He held the cloth-wrapped tip in the fire until it caught light and
hauled back on the string. The wind dropped and he loosed the shaft, the fiery
missile describing a graceful arc through the greying sky until it hammered home
in the ship’s mast.

Slowly, then with greater ferocity as the oil caught light, the ship burned.
Flames roared to life, hungrily devouring the rotten meat of the dead man and
setting to work on the oily timbers. Within moments, the ship was ablaze from
bow to stern, black smoke trailing a mournful line towards the sky.

The warriors watched it until it split apart with a sound like a heart
breaking. It slid over onto its side and with a final slurp of water vanished
beneath the surface.

Lord Aetulff was dead and no one mourned him.

From a cave mouth high on the cliffs above the village, a man in tattered
furs and a cloak of feathers watched the last voyage of the doomed wolfship. His
face was bearded and long hair hung in matted ropes from his head. Once it had
been jet black, but it was now so wadded with mud and dirt that its true colour
had long since been obscured. The filth of living in a cave encrusted his skin
and his arms were rank with sores and rashes that burned and tingled pleasurably
in equal measure.

The villagers called him Wyrtgeorn, though he could make little sense of the
word. What he had bothered to learn of their language allowed him only the most
basic understanding. A fetish-draped shaman had spat it at him a year and a half
ago when he and the wizened immortal stepped from the wolfship that now burned
to ashes. Though he did not know its meaning, it was a name to hide behind, a
shield to hold before the deeds of his true name.

The immortal had left the village, imploring him to travel onwards into the
northern wastes, but he had refused, climbing the cliff and making this cave his
home. He knew he should have gone; his presence here would draw the hunters, but
something had kept him from leaving, as though invisible shackles held him here.

He shook off such gloomy thoughts, and watched the wolfship slide beneath the
waves. A rolling fogbank crept in from the south, obscuring the horizon and
making the air taste of wet cloth. He watched the warriors as they trudged
through the snow to the village, all too familiar with the shame they bore for
their survival.

He threw a guilty look over his shoulder, wincing as the wound that would
never heal flared with old pain. The immortal had given him a cloth-wrapped
bundle as they fled across the ocean, and even without unwrapping it, he knew
what lay within. How such a thing was possible was a mystery. He had thrown it
away in the wake of defeat, yet there it was.

He kept it wedged in a cleft at the back of the cave. He knew he should hurl
it into the sea, but also knew he would not.

Something moved in the fog, and he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the
winter sun.

A phantom of the mist, or something darker?

His right hand twitched with the memory of slaughter, and his gaze slid
towards the settlement as old instincts and new senses prickled with danger.

From out of the fog, a dozen ships cut through the water towards village.

Powerful sweeps of oars drove the ships onward, and their decks were crammed
with armed men in gleaming iron breastplates and full-face helms of bronze. They
clutched axes and swords and spears, and he sensed their anger, even from high
on the cliff. He looked back into his cave, but closed his eyes and took a deep
breath. He had feared this moment ever since he stepped onto the shore, but now
that it was here, he found himself utterly calm.

The same calm he felt before a duel. The same calm he felt before he killed.