‘’Tis the last time your feet shall sully these lands, children of the Horned Rat!’ bellowed Diraceth, letting his rage flow free in a torrent of magic.
The ground beneath the onrushing censer bearers erupted with the Leafmaster’s power. Tiny rootlets sprang into full-grown rushes that speared up through the skaven, spitting them as surely as any lance strike. Grasses with blades like swords slashed through others, turning ragged robes and flesh to red tatters, gizzards hanging like blossoms on the tips of their rapidly growing stalks.
The spattering of running feet heralded the final rush of the plague monks. Hooded and robed, the ratmen advanced out of the fog bank, rank after rank of snarling, spitting vermin. With them, they brought a great wheeled altar, on which was hung a giant censer of burning warpstone. The fumes from this infernal engine streamed over the coming horde, roiling and bubbling with a life of their own.
The sylvaneth did not wait for the skaven to charge, but counter-attacked at a signal from their lord. Dryads and tree-revenants fell upon the Chaos vermin with sweeping branches and shredding claws, their war-song like the cawing of crows and shriek of hunting hawks. The plague monks fought with serrated daggers and warpstone-tipped staffs, their own cries every bit as strident as the calls of Clan Arleath.
The greater treefolk, Diraceth’s glade-cousins, were about to move forwards to support their smaller kin but the Leafmaster halted their long strides. Callicaith glanced up at him, feeling it too. The Leafmaster pointed into the fog.
‘Await, kin of the glades! Do you feel its presence? A greater darkness comes upon us this eve.’
As he spoke, the sensation grew stronger. It was like a deeper pit in the darkness that was the Pestilens horde. The magic of Ghyran swirled as it approached, turned away like dead leaves before a gale, scattering and burning at its touch.
In the fog, something as large as Diraceth loomed through the withered remains of the trees. The Leafmaster drew in all the life magic that he could, expelling it as storm of sharp, glittering kernels that parted the encroaching deathfog.
As the miasma billowed back, it revealed the daemonic master of the skaven.
A crown of curling, twisted horns framed its huge, rattish head. Its tail was like a barbed whip longer than it was tall, tipped with rusted blades. Pink-grey flesh was draped in a ragged brown tunic, over which sat overlapping plates of serrated oil-black armour. A helm with long cheek-guards protected its skull. A huge book hung on its waist, chained to a thick belt of hide, and an unnatural breeze fluttered the pages, spilling forth seeping tendrils of sorcerous mist. The dark magic of the grimoire was like a heavy weight in Diraceth’s thoughts, an artefact of corruption and decay wholly anathema to the Leafmaster and the life-giving magic that had given birth to him.
Bellowing wordless hatred for the greater daemon, the Leafmaster’s tree-cousins stomped forth, whipping lacerating limbs against the Verminlord’s armour, thrusting penetrating branches towards its flesh.
The creature reeled back, allowing more of its underlings to stream forwards, hurling themselves at the treelords and tree-revenants. While the arboreal giants crushed these attackers beneath root-splayed feet and pulverised them with hammering fists, the rat-daemon belched forth a noxious cloud of vile fumes. The treefolk retreated from this poisonous mist, their bark withering and drying at its touch, blighted sap erupting from widening skin-cracks and splitting knotholes. At the touch of the sorcerous fumes, their leaves shrivelled to blackened wisps. Low moans of pain made the earth shake.
All around the ancient, the song of his kin was falling in volume, as spirit after spirit fell silent. He tried to rouse them with bass urgings of his own, infusing them with his renewed desire to fight.
Snarling, glittering spites erupted from Diraceth’s canopy as he stormed forwards, surrounding him with a whirling shield of biting, spitting spirits. He hardened his limbs into lance-points and drew his arm back, ready to strike.
The daemon creature turned, as swift as any of its rapacious minions, its tail whipping around Diraceth’s arm. The two titanic beings braced against each other, pulling, each trying to tear the appendage from their foe.
Fog swirled and lightning crackled around the daemon’s free hand. It coalesced into a four-tined spear. Stepping closer, allowing Diraceth to drag it forwards, the greater daemon of the Horned Rat plunged the weapon into the trunk of the Leafmaster, the points opening up the wound already marking his bark.
Chaos power flared through the injury, a thousand tiny bites engulfing Diraceth. He lashed out, throwing dagger-needles into the face of his foe. Ripping the spear free with a spray of golden sap, the skaven-beast stepped back, its tail unwrapping from Diraceth’s arm.
The treelord ancient staggered away, life fluid spurting in thick fountains from the gash in his torso. He thrust a hand into the wound, growing branch-fingers to bind it together. The ancient felt the burn of the Chaos magic, tiny flecks of corrupted rust burrowing through his exposed heartwood.
Even as he stumbled and almost fell, Diraceth let forth a retort. Vines burst from the broken ground at the monster’s feet, snaking around its legs, seeking its throat and eyes.
The Verminlord took a step closer, spear raised for the kill. Diraceth looked up into its red eyes, undaunted by its horrific majesty.
The Verminlord hesitated.
As it was about to strike the blow, it shifted, cocking its head to one side. A moment later a breeze rippled through Diraceth’s leaves. Fresh, restorative. The fogs were swirling, becoming ragged tufts on the gusts of a new wind. The darkness beyond was diminishing, overpowered by a burgeoning yellow gleam.
Sunlight.
Warmth touched Diraceth. The heat of the sun. The power of Ghyran.
With it came a new spirit-song. It was like nothing he could remember, swelling up from the heartrock of the ground and cascading down from the sky, melodic and subtle, but dramatic and discordant all at once. Fuelled anew, the wound in his chest sealed by the magical touch, the Leafmaster surged to his feet. His hands crooked into wicked blades as he advanced towards his enemy with renewed purpose.
The daemon thrust its spear into one of its own followers, spitting the mewling plague monk upon the points. Sorcerous lightning crackled again, forming an arc that pulled the skaven apart, its scattered body forming a swirling circle of green fog that flickered with Chaos power. Through the miasma Diraceth felt a yawning chasm, a deep shaft that dropped away between the physical realms.
The daemon stepped into the fresh gnawhole with a last look at the Leafmaster. Though its expression was impossible to read, the spear thrust towards the ancient was a clear threat – this would not be their last encounter.
With a wet sucking noise the portal closed, the remnants of the sacrificed plague monk splashing to the mulch-covered ground.
Diraceth’s attention was drawn back to the strange sunrise. The fogs were almost completely dissipated now, taking on more of the cast of mountain lake mists at dawn.
The plague monks felt it too, and having been abandoned by their immortal master did not take flight but threw themselves upon the sylvaneth with frenetic desperation.
Where the gold light touched, the Wrathwaters responded. The blackened, withered morass burst into renewed life, saplings and bushes springing forth from the groundwaters, blossoming into full growth as Diraceth watched.
The rush of magic flowed around and over and beneath him, through air and water and ground. Heartseeds thought lost in the mire crackled with energy amongst the fronds and strands of fresh growth. He heard the tremulous strains of their nascent soul-songs quivering into life, ready to grow into fresh generations of sylvaneth.
Behind him the waters of the lifepool glimmered with the magic of birth. Sylvaneth souls that had long been repressed by the noxious flow of skaven corruption suddenly burst into full bloom, brought to fruition by the influx of lif
e essence. Out of the heartseeds his clan had salvaged from the incessant skaven encroachment burst forth a fresh surge of dryads, branchwraiths and tree-revenants. These newborns splashed out of the waters, their birth-songs tainted by rage and bloodthirst, and they fell upon the skaven with vengeful cries and haunting moans.
And then it was as though the sun itself entered the sacred grove.
The presence was blinding, both in light and as a spring of the energy of Ghyran. Diraceth could not quite comprehend what was in their midst, all senses both physical and spiritual overwhelmed by the force of the entity that had arrived. The sound of thrumming wings made the air and ground vibrate. Heat prickled on his bark, like fingers caressing the folds and cracks, bringing forth green buds where they passed.
As the wave of life magic seeped into the earth of the grove, its power restoring tree and spirit alike, the Leafmaster looked upon their saviour.
Her wings were feathery streamers of dawn light, luminescent and hot. Her face was serene, her eyes a rich leaf-green. Diraceth met that godly gaze and felt a moment of connection, from root to branch, spreading out across the entire Realm of Life. Here was the font, the spring of creation, the mother of his people.
Alarielle, Everqueen of the sylvaneth.
His gaze moved away, freeing him from the trance. It was now that he saw that his goddess was not as he remembered, in robes of autumnal growth. She wore armour, her body clad in shimmering plates of birch-silver edged with ironbark and studded with firestones. The apparition held a spear as tall as she was, its head shimmering with destructive magic. The Leafmaster watched as she turned her attention to the skaven. Alarielle’s tranquil expression changed, and the light of her presence changed with it. Ire twisted her features. The dawn light aura became a crackling halo of incarnate fury that burned with the fire of an unrelenting noon sun.
‘Kill them all,’ she commanded in the voice of a burgeoning storm.
As her children eradicated the stain of the ratmen from her realm, Alarielle’s anger faded. It did not disappear completely, for how could she not feel rage whilst her children teetered on the edge of extinction? She could not rest while her people in the Realm of Life and far beyond suffered from the malignance of Chaos. But for the moment, in this place and at this time, her vengeance was temporarily sated.
She held up a hand and the heavens opened at her command, bringing rain as sweet as nectar. The Wrathwaters responded to her call, swelling in a spume-topped mass over the shores of the lakes to wash away every vestige of the skaven. Her tree-kin set down their roots as the deluge swirled past them, making sanctuary for the smaller sylvaneth in their branches. A glorious wind swept down from the Laureneth Peaks, driving away the last of the rat-must. The rustle of green leaves and the creak of swaying canopy was a song in her ears after the thunder of the skaven drums.
While the floodwaters drained, a carpet of new grass and flowers in their wake, Alarielle turned her attention to the deeper wounds, the taint laid upon the souls of the Wrathwaters. She settled, furling her nebulous wings, letting her armour fade so that she could feel cool breeze on her flesh. Its touch brought flashes of recollection, scattered images of her previous lives.
She held the pain at bay, a mortal memory not suited to an immortal spirit.
Alarielle purged the taint of Chaos from the Wrathwaters, using her magic as she had used the Wrathwaters, driving out the corruption from the lowest earth. She became part of the Realm of Life, splitting again and again, allowing her essence to be one with the land and water and air.
She tumbled over rocks, her cleansing current bringing freshwater to algae-swathed pools where rat corpses bobbed. Her essence eased through cracks, nourishing the broken-stemmed plants, the pressure of her spirit forcing the magic of life into the deepest roots of the maligned forests. She lapped against the banks and gurgled over the rapids, reed beds and rushes growing fulsome in her light. Lilies rippled on the pools amidst the crackle of life magic shimmering in the waters. She nestled with the crabs in the sands of the Scarlet Sea, into which the vast delta of the Wrathwaters flowed.
All that lived felt her coming, renewed by the Everqueen’s magic.
Even as she danced on waves as sparkles of sunlight, she spiralled along high branches. Blossom erupted in her wake. Snapped limbs healed and trunks marked by welts and rot were made anew.
Winds carried the Everqueen’s spirit far over the swamps that had engulfed the Wrathwaters. From murky pools sprang every variety of marsh flower in a profusion of rainbow colours. Even in the darkest regions she could not be denied. Grubs and beetles, worms burrowing through the dark mud, acted as a conduit for her power.
Bringing together her energies, Alarielle ascended, leaping skywards from one drop of falling rain to another. She reached the clouds and looked down upon the great rivers and winding streams of Clan Arleath’s territory. Renewed, it stretched in vibrant greens down to the white sands of the coast, and was lost in the haze of the mountains.
Higher still she climbed, into the stars bordering the Celestial Realm. She could feel Ghyran, the Realm of Life, pulsing and changing, awakened by her return.
Yet it was only the start, the first breaking of bud through hardened frost. All across her lands, Chaos lay like a choking clot, stifling and repugnant. Even to touch upon it in thought revolted the Everqueen. The pollution made her soul sicken.
They had come so close to ruin. Chaos had almost overrun everything. Though the enclaves of the sylvaneth were like bright sparks, they were almost lost in the darkness – here and in other realms. Even the great glades where Alarielle had arisen as the war maiden seemed like a pinprick against the vast pustulant expanse.
And through the decay, on the far side of the rot and destruction, she could feel the thunderous heartbeat and ponderous breaths of the power that desired dominion over her. Life perverted, built upon death. The tendrils of Nurgle’s Garden stretched far and deep into the Jade Kingdoms, coursing with vile purpose, throbbing with vigorous intent. And the gnawholes of the skaven ran like maggot trails through rotten meat.
So close to utter destruction, so much to reclaim.
It seemed not so long ago, to her immortal reckoning, that she had conquered all, that victory over Chaos had seemed but a breath away.
Yet it had been lost, and the darkness had prevailed again.
Alarielle woke, returning to her physical shell. In her absence, her council had gathered – mighty treelords and ancients from across the Royal Glades and woodland clans. The Old King of Winterleaf conversed with Leafmaster Diraceth, newly reacquainted with his clan-cousins. Their senior, the High King of Oakenbrow, noticed first the return of the queen. Rippling his leaves, he pushed silence out into the song of his clan, quietening both it and their boisterous mood.
‘The Wrathwaters run fresh once more, Jade Mother,’ the High King intoned solemnly. ‘Clan Arleath returns its strength to Winterleaf, and your reach extends once more. Whither now shall the attention of your host fall?’
She ignored the question for the moment and beckoned to the Winterleaf conclave.
‘Attend me for a moment, lords and ladies of Winterleaf.’
The tree-beings approached, their silver bark and leaves pale in the sunlight. A procession of branchwraiths followed, wearing long coats of golden leaves, each accompanied by a tree-revenant – spirits of the forest clad in the guise of wood-dwellers from an older age. In stately accord they arrayed themselves behind the treelords, bowing before their queen.
Diraceth was ushered forwards by the High King. The ancient approached with eyes cast down, his long strides slow and purposeful. Callicaith and a few branchwyches nestled in his limbs. They averted their gaze from the Everqueen.
‘Look upon me,’ Alarielle instructed. ‘See your queen as she is now.’
Diraceth looked up, almost flinching. He met her gaze for a moment and the
n looked away, branches trembling with shame.
‘I am thankful, bounteous goddess, but unworthy. I have failed you and the Winterleaf clan. But for your miraculous presence the Wrathwaters would be lost forever. Our guard was not strong enough.’
‘You are not alone in such tribulation, and I do not absolve you of blame. But know this, Leafmaster. Clan Arleath held when others did not. The Wrathwaters, though tainted, remained a part of my domain.’ She held out a hand and stroked his bark, comforting the troubled spirit. ‘You resisted a long time. Long enough.’
‘Thank you, queen of the forests. Clan Arleath shall repay the debt in whatever fashion is required. We owe our existence to you, mother of hope.’
‘Mother of hope no more,’ Alarielle replied, her expression turning grim. ‘The avenger, the scourge, the cleansing sun I have become. None failed the Jade Kingdoms more than I, and none has more for which to atone.’
‘No, my queen, that is not so…’
‘It was not the lords of the clans that turned back at the very brink of victory. It was not my ancient warriors that lacked the heart to finish what had been begun.’
Diraceth said nothing, not understanding what she meant. Even he, an age old as he was, could not remember the first wars against Chaos, when the Realm of Life had been wrested from their grip and the sylvaneth first born.
Alarielle remembered well enough, and too well the part she failed to play. How could she judge any of her children harshly, who had done more than she to resist the encroachment of Nurgle’s touch, who had battled daily against the incursions of the skaven? While she had slumbered, afraid and spent, her people had died without hope.
‘I have returned, but I cannot bring hope,’ she told the treelord ancient. ‘We stand upon the brink of oblivion and have only taken a single step from the edge. My return will herald not hope, but war, and suffering on a scale none but the immortals have known. I am strife-bringer, woe-seeder. Look not to me for hope, Diraceth, for I have none.’
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 34