Wardens of the Everqueen

by C. L. Werner

  The two adversaries glared at one another from opposite sides of the pool. Diomar glanced at the weakening storm and at the shore behind him. Torglug understood his enemy’s mind. Somewhere, beyond the ice, the Lady of Vines was even now hurrying away from her hunters.

  ‘She is not escaping,’ Torglug sneered. ‘Jade Kingdoms are belonging to Nurgle. All Ghyran is being his domain! I am finding her. I am claiming my destiny.’

  Diomar glared back at the warlord. ‘Only when you get past me.’

  ‘As you are saying,’ Torglug laughed. The warlord circled around the pool at a run, ice creaking and cracking beneath his every step. Across from him, Diomar did the same. The two enemies reached one another in moments, starblade pitted against the diseased corruption of Torglug’s blighted axe. Slivers of corroded steel flew from the black axe as Diomar blocked his enemy’s assault. Streaks of filth marred the purity of the lightning-man’s blade as the noxious enchantments of Nurgle sizzled against it.

  At last the furious struggle came to an end. The smallest spot of rot gained a hold upon Diomar’s starblade, the slightest pollution in its sanctity. This flaw gave way beneath Torglug’s axe. The blackened blade slipped through his guard to chop down into the crest of his helm and then into the sigmarite mask itself. Diomar’s free hand caught at Torglug’s wrist, striving to push the warlord back. Against the bloated bulk and tremendous strength of Nurgle’s favoured champion, he was unable to prevail. Inch by inch the axe sank lower, hewing through the metal and into the flesh and bone beneath it. Diomar could feel the fiery sting of the axe’s plague-infested edge racing through him.

  ‘She is not escaping,’ Torglug promised as he pushed the axe deeper and watched the light start to fade from Diomar’s eyes. ‘I am claiming prize that the Grandfather is demanding. Be letting that truth speeding you back to Sigmar.’

  Torglug pulled away as Diomar’s dying body blazed into light and the Stormcast’s spirit departed the Sea of Serpents. He shielded his eyes against the holy flare, finding its momentary brilliance even more painful than Grymn’s warding lantern. Yet he took comfort from this hurt, for with Diomar’s destruction there was nothing to keep him from running down the Lady of Vines.

  The rotworm nestled inside him began to twist and writhe, undulating with such a frenzied spasm that Torglug fell to his knees in pain. The torment wracking his body was unspeakable, yet at the same time there was a strange sense of comfort bound within that agony. This wasn’t a punishment being meted out to him by Nurgle, but rather the Plague God’s expression of delight and appreciation that his favourite had vanquished the mighty Knight-Azyros Diomar. The torture that crawled through Torglug wasn’t a curse, but a blessing.

  From the slits in his helm, Torglug’s three eyes watched as the many boils and pustules scattered about his skin began to slither across his flesh, oozing down his limbs or across his swollen belly to clump together in triangular clusters that echoed the shape of the despicable fly-rune which was Nurgle’s sacred sigil. The pain was incredible, the horror of watching his skin ripple with sores. Yet as each of the clusters of boils gathered together, a thrill surged through Torglug’s entire being. He could feel Nurgle’s malign essence pouring into him, strengthening him, infecting him with still fouler corruption and disease.

  When it was finished, Torglug could see wisps of necrotic smoke drifting away from his mutated flesh. The rotworm in his belly grew still once more, no longer feeding Nurgle’s power into its host. He had received his god’s blessing, had been rewarded for the destruction of Diomar. It was but a taste, a sampling, of the even greater gifts that would be his once he captured Alarielle for his master.

  Filled with the pestilent power of the Plaguefather, Torglug was re-energised. He looked towards the shore, trying to pierce the veil of mist that clung about the beach. Dimly he could perceive the radiant glow of the queen-seed ahead. Raising his voice, Torglug shouted for Goregus and the rest of his bodyguard. The Lady of Vines was close, and only her entourage of dryads remained to defy them.

  As he called out to his putrid blightkings, demanding them to brave the crumbling ice and head for shore, Torglug heard the keening song of his prey. Again he felt the commanding tones of her harmony, the appeal in her wordless melody. Somewhere, far across the sea, he knew the jotunberg was stirring once more.

  Torglug hastened towards the shore, but he was too late. The giant’s agitation sent tremors across the frozen sea. The surface crumbled away, pitching his followers into the deep. Torglug clutched at a sliver of broken pack ice as the world around him descended into catastrophic upheaval.

  In the very moment of his triumph, Torglug could only watch helplessly as all his plans fell into abject ruin.

  Chapter nine

  For Lorrus Grymn and his companions – Stormcasts and sylvaneth alike – the trek across the frozen sea was a seemingly endless gauntlet of skirmishes and battles. With the fog and snow to conceal them, the first they were aware of enemies was when they were almost upon them. Warherds of beastmen, tribes of marauders and packs of diseased daemons infested the ice, prowling among the frozen waves in search of their prey. One after another, Grymn’s warriors struck out against the scattered warbands of Torglug’s legion, cutting down many of them and routing the survivors.

  Not all they encountered were foes, however. Several times Grymn discovered clutches of sylvaneth or retinues of Hallowed Knights. Some had been separated from the entourage that attended the Lady of Vines, others were survivors from the battle at the bridges. Grymn was especially pleased when Prosecutor-Prime Tegrus and two of his winged warriors dipped down out of the storm-wracked sky to join his disparate company. He had thought all of the Prosecutors slain in their aerial battle with the plague drones. It cheered him to find that Tegrus had endured.

  A greater discovery lay ahead, however. As he led his followers across the ice, he heard a friendly horn-blast. It was the trumpet of a Knight-Heraldor, a call to arms for all Stormcasts. Grymn led his small army through the dips and valleys of the frozen waves, urging them towards the sound. As the sound grew louder, other noises rang out above the moaning winter wind – the crash of blades and the roar of battle. Rushing onwards, Grymn finally saw figures moving within the fog. A few yards more and they changed from misty shadows to shapes of flesh and metal. Some were the grotesque minions of Torglug, a horde of half-naked tribesmen with a few of the hideous Chosen mixed among them.

  It was the foes these disciples of disease fought that gave Grymn new hope. They were Stormcasts, but not of the Hallowed Knights. The armour they wore was white, blue and gold; the symbols they displayed on their shields were those of sun and moon. These were warriors from the Knights Excelsior. As Morbus had postulated, another Stormhost, or at least elements from one, had descended upon the Sea of Serpents to aid them in defending the Lady of Vines and protecting the queen-seed of Alarielle.

  There were scores of Stormcasts, a mixed body of Liberators, Judicators and paladins, struggling to turn back hundreds of Torglug’s warriors. In their midst, resplendent in his elaborate armour, stood a winged Knight-Venator, a deadly realmhunter’s bow clenched in his mailed fists, a shrieking star-eagle sweeping out to rake its master’s enemies with vicious talons. At the Knight-Venator’s signal, the Knight-Heraldor raised the horn to his mask and blew again the rallying call, inflaming the hearts of his comrades as they strove to turn back the pestilent tide of Chaos which crashed against them.

  The Knights Excelsior were more than equal to overwhelming their enemy – given time. Foot by foot, yard by yard, they were trying to fight their way clear. Like the Hallowed Knights before them, they’d been dispatched to Ghyran with a purpose far greater than simply slaughtering the slaves of Nurgle. They were trying to guard Alarielle, but to do so they had to break free of Torglug’s barbarians.

  Reflexively, Grymn started to raise the stump of his hand, to signal his warriors with the warding
lantern he’d carried into battle so many times before. Instead, he turned and shouted to his followers, ordering them to the attack. Falling upon the marauders and Chaos warriors from the rear, they would either drive them full into the shield wall of the Knights Excelsior or else throw them into complete panic. The mortals who marched under Torglug’s banner were both determined and depraved, but they didn’t adapt well to surprises on the battlefield. Without a firm hand to throw them back into the fray, once they scattered it would take them a long time to regroup.

  ‘Only the faithful!’ Grymn cried out, signalling his warriors to charge. The sylvaneth joined in the assault, a wargrove of tree-creatures slamming into the marauders with the fury of an avalanche and hurling the wreckage of broken barbarians far into their own ranks. Grymn’s Liberators struck next, slashing and bludgeoning dozens of marauders before they were even aware the silver warriors were there. When a fly-headed champion tried to rally his tribesmen and mount some sort of reprisal, the Hallowed Knights locked their shields and presented an unbroken wall of sigmarite to the pestilent throng. An arrow from the Knight-Venator struck down the mutant leader, searing through his body and leaving him a smouldering husk on the ice. The shrieking star-eagle dived down with raking claws to tear at the faces of the diseased marauders. As the barbarians tried to batter and slash their way through, the Liberators struck them down with overhand smashes of their hammers and stabbing thrusts of their swords.

  Judicators joined in the assault, protecting the flanks of Grymn’s attackers with deadly volleys of arrows. Confusion and panic reigned among Torglug’s warriors as they found themselves being inexorably squeezed between the Knights Excelsior on one side and Grymn’s mixed force of Hallowed Knights and sylvaneth on the other. The pressure was finally too much for the disciples of disease, their putrid courage failing. As the barbarians broke, the sylvaneth fell upon them with vengeful ire, tearing into them with their wooden claws and spear-like branches.

  The Stormcasts kept back, allowing their inhuman allies to slake their need for retribution. Across the heaps of enemy dead, the Hallowed Knights greeted their fellows of the Knights Excelsior. Their commander, the Knight-Venator, bowed his head in salute as he approached Grymn.

  ‘Well met, Lord-Castellant,’ the Knight-Venator said. ‘We were sent to the Jade Kingdoms to render aid to your Stormhost, but it seems that you have helped us instead.’

  Grymn returned the Knight-Venator’s salute. ‘It is the fortune of battle that few plans unfold as they are designed. But your intervention is timely. The fighting has drawn us far from the one whose protection is our duty. It is imperative that we find her before the enemy. If your Knights Excelsior would help us in that purpose, Knight-Venator....’

  ‘Giomachus,’ the Knight-Venator said, providing his name. ‘I am acting commander, Lord-Castellant. Our leader, Knight-Azyros Diomar has gone to detain Torglug’s vanguard. My assignment was to prevent reinforcements from reaching the warlord.’

  Moving to Grymn’s side, Lord-Relictor Morbus shook his head, a scowl twisting the exposed part of his face. ‘Diomar should have brought his full strength against Torglug. It is dangerous to underestimate that diseased scum.’ He waved his hammer, indicating the battered condition of the Hallowed Knights, the many wounds they had already suffered. Giomachus took a step back when he noted the grisly condition of Grymn’s disfigurement.

  ‘We should hasten to my lord’s side then,’ Giomachus declared, his star-eagle shrieking in sympathy with its master’s agitation.

  Tallon reflected the bird’s agitation, whining in turn. ‘None here has greater desire to see Torglug brought down than I,’ Grymn said, calming the gryph-hound. ‘But such isn’t our duty here. We are charged to defend the Radiant Queen, and right now that means protecting the one who carries Alarielle’s soulpod, the Lady of Vines.’

  ‘You would leave my lord Diomar to fight alone?’ Giomachus asked, a steely edge to his voice. The other Knights Excelsior drew back from the Hallowed Knights, their meeting suddenly chilled by the agitation of their commander.

  ‘It isn’t a choice,’ Morbus told him. ‘It is our duty. We must find the Lady of Vines. If we lose her and what she carries, then it will count for nothing if we kill a hundred Torglugs. The victory will belong to Chaos.’

  Grymn came close to Giomachus, every step sending pain rushing through his body. ‘I know exactly what this burden is to you. We were forced to leave our own Lord-Celestant, Gardus. What we fight for is greater than any of us. The God-King has charged us with preserving the Radiant Queen. While Alarielle lives, there is hope that Ghyran can be reclaimed. If she falls, then the blight of Nurgle will never be expunged from this realm.’

  The Knight-Venator shook his head. ‘However wise the words, it doesn’t change the shame of leaving a comrade behind.’

  ‘Nor should it,’ Morbus told him. ‘Let that feeling drive you on. Let it sustain you when you would falter. Let it goad you to the supreme effort. Prove yourself loyal to Sigmar, no matter how onerous the burden.’ As he said the last, Morbus looked across the white-armoured warriors. He could see that his words made an impact upon them. ‘Fight to win the war, not simply the battle.’

  A tremor suddenly rumbled through the ice, cracking the pack and causing fissures to ripple across the surface. Spouts of frigid water lashed upwards as the violent sea erupted through gashes and crevices. Stormcasts were thrown down by the quake, clawing at the ice as huge slabs split and rose. Knights Excelsior and Hallowed Knights rushed to one another’s aid as the terrain tore itself apart.

  Beneath the groaning, popping clamour of the breaking ice, Grymn could hear the keening song of the Lady of Vines. The branchwraith was near, or at least near enough for her melody to reach them. That fact, however, brought him little solace. She was rousing the jotunberg once more, goading the winter giant into catastrophic agitation. He was certain only grave duress could have driven her to such action. Perhaps Torglug had already vanquished Diomar and was closing upon his prey. It wasn’t her willingness to sacrifice all the Stormcasts and sylvaneth still upon the Sea of Serpents that unsettled him. He knew such an act, callous as it might seem, might be necessary to preserve the queen-seed. No, it was the drain upon the fading energies of Alarielle that such action would demand that concerned him. He had heard from Morbus the toll it had taken for the Lady of Vines to rouse the jotunberg before.

  Morbus, as though reading Grymn’s mind, caught hold of the Lord-Castellant.

  ‘The song is different,’ he told him. ‘I can sense the soothing enchantments woven into the harmony. She isn’t trying to rouse the jotunberg, she’s trying to put it back to sleep.’

  Grymn shook his head. ‘Why would she do that?’

  Tegrus had an answer. ‘We must be near the other shore by now.’ He pointed towards the fog on the horizon, indicating its relative thinness. Dimly, the Stormcast could see shadowy shapes behind the misty veil – the outlines of massive statues. ‘She is trying to give us time to get across the ice.’

  ‘Her duty is to protect her queen,’ Grymn almost growled.

  ‘Maybe that is what she’s doing,’ Morbus observed. ‘Maybe she needs us to help her do just that.’

  Grymn swung about, stabbing the butt of his halberd into the shivering ice to steady himself. ‘Tegrus, I must call upon you to take wing once more. Into the storm. Try to seek out the Lady of Vines.’

  Grymn could feel the tremors running through the ice growing worse. Right or wrong, they couldn’t stay where they were. He had no choice – they would strike out for what they hoped was the shore while Tegrus went aloft to locate the branchwraith.

  Sigmar willing, they would all find what they sought.

  The Lady of Vines stood amidst the ancient menhirs. The great standing stones had been raised long ago, before even the Jade Kingdoms were realised. The earliest inhabitants of Ghyran, the first to rise from the soul
pods grown by the Radiant Queen, had raised these megaliths. The massive pillars acted as a capstone, a fulcrum for the magical vibrations flowing through the realm. With the right rituals and the proper alignment of stars, the menhirs would harness those arcane energies and allow them to be tapped by those wise and powerful enough to wield them.

  The branchwraith’s distress didn’t allow her the time for lengthy rituals or propitious celestial alignments. Her need was immediate, and therefore she was forced to desperate measures. Using a small portion of the force within the queen-seed, the Lady of Vines began to syphon the residual energies that had seeped into the stones themselves. The ancient megaliths cracked and fractured as she drew the magic out of them, great slices of stone sloughing away as the rock began to crumble.

  From the branchwraith’s entourage of dryads, a harmony somewhere between moan and song rose into the air. The tree-creatures clasped their wooden hands together, forming a ring around the Lady of Vines. Wisps of light streamed from their trunks and branches, weaving themselves around the branchwraith and forming an ethereal skein about her.

  The magic the Lady of Vines conjured now was of a more reserved and restrained sort than the mighty enchantment that had roused the jotunberg. There was no necessity for sacrifice, no need to drain the essence of her followers. It was enough for them to surrender themselves to the radiance of the queen-seed, to lose themselves for a moment in the sacred vibrations of the Everqueen.