Free 03 - God King by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead)

madness, or else what’s the point?”
    “The point of what, youth or madness?”
    “Youth.”
    Alfgeir shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong man, my friend. You want clever
answers, you should ask Eoforth.”
    “I would, but he went to his bed many hours ago.”
    “Always was the clever one, eh?”
    “The wisest among us,” said Sigmar, taking a long mouthful of beer.
    They drank in silence for a while, listening to the good-natured arguments of
drunken warriors outside as they wended their way to their bedrolls. Sigmar
could well imagine the substance of their strident roughhousing, the same things
he and his sword brothers had squabbled over when they were young; women, war
and glory.
    “I sometimes miss it though,” said Sigmar. “When all you had to do was strap
on your armour, carry a sharp sword and ride out with the blood thundering in
your ears. You fought, you killed the enemy and you rode back with your cheeks
blooded. Things were simpler back then. I miss that.”
    “Everything seems simple to the young.”
    “I know, but it would be pleasant to live like that again, just for a while.
Not to have to worry about the fate of thousands, to try and protect all you’ve
built and fear for what will happen to it when you’re gone.”
    Alfgeir gave him a sidelong look down the length of his nose. His eyes were
unfocussed, but there was a clarity to his look that Sigmar knew all too well.
    “The Empire will endure,” he said, taking his time not to slur. “The
youngsters behind us may be foolish just now, but they’re good men and they’ll
grow wiser. You’ve built a grand thing in the Empire, Sigmar, grand enough that
it’ll endure without sons of your blood to keep it strong.”
    Sigmar nodded and looked into the thinning froth on his beer. Alfgeir had hit
a raw nerve, and he took a moment to consider his answer.
    “Ravenna and I talked of a family,” he said.
    “She would have borne you strong sons,” said Alfgeir. “She was a bonny lass,
but she had strength too. Every day I wish Gerreon a thousand painful deaths for
what he took from you.”
    “What he took from us all,” said Sigmar. “But I don’t want to talk about
Ravenna. The world will have to make do without my sons.”
    “And mine,” said Alfgeir. “Never wanted to make a woman wait for me every
time I rode to war. Didn’t seem fair, but I wish I’d sired a son. Someone to
carry on my name after I die. I wanted there to be someone who’d remember me
after I was gone.”
    “The saga poets will remember you, my friend,” said Sigmar. “Your deeds will
be immortalised in epic verse.”
    “Aye, maybe so, but who’ll read them?”
    “They’ll be sung from the longhouses of the Udose to the castles of the
Merogens. I’m the Emperor, I can make it law if you like.”
    Alfgeir laughed and the maudlin mood was banished. That was the Unberogen
way, to laugh in the face of despair with a drink in one hand and a sword in the
other. Alfgeir threw his empty mug over his shoulder into the gently glowing
firepit and nodded.
    “Aye, I’d like that,” he said. “Make it happen.”
    “First thing tomorrow,” promised Sigmar, draining the last of his beer and
lobbing his mug over Alfgeir’s shoulder. It broke apart on the coals, the last
dregs of the beer hissing as the alcohol burned with sudden brightness.
    “So how was Carsten?” asked Alfgeir, apropos of nothing. “Looked like you
cracked the granite of his face at the end.”
    Sigmar took a moment to consider the question. He and Carsten had established
a connection tonight, one he hadn’t expected to make, but Sigmar still felt like
he hardly knew the man.
    “We’re never going to be friends, but I think I understand him a bit better.”
    “What’s to understand? He’s a dour-faced misery, though he’s a devil of a
fighter.”
    “I knew that already, but I know why he’s the way he is. He’s known great
pain and suffering and I think it got the