Read Online 03 - God King by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead) - Free Book Online Page B

wait.”
    Sigmar extended his hand and Conn Carsten took it.
    “Make the bastards wait a long time,” said Sigmar.
    Conn Carsten laughed and somewhere beyond the longhouse walls a bell
tolled.
     
    The revelries continued for another three hours, though Conn Carsten excused
himself not long after their conversation. As the last of the tribesmen
staggered or were carried from the longhouse, Sigmar stood from his throne and
paced the length of the dwarf-built structure. Its walls were fashioned from
black stone quarried from deep beneath the Worlds Edge Mountains, carried on
wagons from the east and raised by surly craftsmen of the mountain folk under
direction of Alaric.
    Sigmar knew the dwarfs called him Alaric the Mad, a name that rankled, for a
more level-headed, pragmatic individual would be hard to find. Alaric now
laboured deep beneath the mountains to forge twelve mighty swords for the counts
of the Empire. Before Black Fire, Pendrag had crafted wondrous shields for each
of the tribal kings, and King Kurgan had decreed that he would present Sigmar
with swords to match.
    Alaric himself had delivered the first of those swords to Sigmar at the
battle for the Fauschlag Rock, a blade without equal among the realm of man. It
had been given to Sigmar, but he had presented it to Pendrag as the Count of
Middenheim, and upon his death it had been taken up by Myrsa—once the Warrior
Eternal, now the new count.
    Sigmar sat on a bench, idly tracing the outline of a wolf in a spilled pool
of beer. He missed his friends. Time and distance had seen them pulled to the
corners of the Empire, and though each was in his rightful place, he still
wished they could be near. He even found himself missing the reckless wildness
of Redwane. The young warrior and his White Wolves were now quartered atop the
Fauschlag Rock as honour guard to Myrsa, a position Sigmar saw no need to
rescind.
    The hall smelled of cold meat, sweat and stale beer. It was the smell of
maleness, of warriors and companionship. Sigmar looked up as the moon emerged
from behind a long cloud and its light flooded the hall. He remembered catching
Cuthwin and Wenyld trying to sneak a glance at the warriors within on his Blood
Night, smiling at the memory of those long ago days. Two and a half decades had
passed since then, and Sigmar shook his head at the idea of such a span of time.
Where had it all gone?
    “Thinking of the past?” said Alfgeir, sitting opposite him and depositing a
pair of wooden mugs of beer on the trestle table. “Isn’t that the job of old
men?”
    “We are old men, Alfgeir,” said Sigmar with a grin.
    “Nonsense,” said the Grand Knight of the Empire. He was drunk, but pleasantly
so. “I’m as strong as I was when I first took up a sword.”
    “I don’t doubt it, but we’re not the young bucks of the herd anymore.”
    “Who needs to be? We have experience those with milk from their mother’s teat
on their thistledown beards can only dream about.”
    “Those that are old enough to have beards.”
    “Exactly,” agreed Alfgeir, taking a long swig of his beer.
    Sigmar knew that Alfgeir would pay for this indulgence tomorrow. It wasn’t as
easy to shake the effects of Unberogen beer as it had been in their youth.
Sigmar had ridden to Astofen after a heavy night of drinking and had felt no
worse than any other morning, but he now had to nurse his beer or else he’d feel
like the gods themselves were swinging hammers on the inside of his skull. His
friend was still a powerful warrior, yet Sigmar knew he was slowing down. A
young man when he served King Bjorn, Alfgeir was now approaching his sixtieth
year.
    “Do you remember when we climbed to the top of the Fauschlag Rock?”
    “Remember it? I still have nightmares about it,” said Alfgeir. “I still can’t
believe I went with you. I must have been mad.”
    “I think we were both a bit mad back then,” agreed Sigmar. “I think youth
needs a bit of