by Various
‘To save you,’ Ardaneth said, seeing him look at the stump of his shoulder, ‘I had to sacrifice the limb. I did not undertake such a thing lightly, but the pulp and sinew was cursed, spreading further taint through your mighty form. So I laid my own talon upon it and petrified the wood. To be sure that you were beyond Nurgle’s reach, I shattered the stone limb from your shoulder.’
‘Thank you,’ Shaddock said.
‘I do not expect your gratitude, mighty ancient,’ the priestess said. ‘I have mutilated a wardwood of the Radiant Queen.’
‘The shrub pruned,’ Shaddock said, ‘grows the better for such attention. Forest fires bring forth the sun to benighted groves and nourish the soil. I shall become the stronger for your care and determination. Besides,’ the wardwood said, reaching behind him and slipping his stone blade from where it still rested in its scabbard of roots. The weapon burned bright with the amber brilliance of Shaddock’s rejuvenated spirit. ‘I still have one good hand with which to protect my queen and fight, side by side with the sylvaneth of the Arkenwood.’
‘And we are glad for it,’ Laurelwort said.
‘While glad of your presence here,’ Shaddock said, ‘I am painfully aware that you are folk without a forest. What of the Arkenwood?’
‘You were right,’ Ardaneth said. ‘Like your limb, the Arkenwood could not be saved. Like you, its spirits survive and fight on. I said we would defend what remains of that sacred place. Mighty wardwood – you are all that remains.’
Shaddock nodded solemnly. His frightful visage was once again lit with golden brilliance. He had lived through the ages and yet rarely encountered spirits such as these.
‘How did you find me?’
‘Alarielle’s song grew louder and clearer with our every step,’ the priestess said. She hesitated slightly before going on. ‘The path of destruction that you left in your wake might have helped also.’
The wardwood stomped down the slope, pushing through the branches of the trees. From the greenery of the mountainside, the wardwood could see that the surrounding lands were blighted and foul. The canopies of nearby forests were a patchwork of yellowing leaves and bare branches, while the untamed reaches beyond were blanketed in sour marshland and the black smoke of torched sylvaneth.
‘Tell me, Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth said, standing beside him. ‘Are the sylvaneth doomed?’
‘Do you hear that?’ the wardwood said, cocking his head.
‘Yes,’ the priestess said, startled.
‘That is the spirit-song of the Everqueen,’ Shaddock said, himself gladdened to hear it once again. ‘As strong as I’ve ever heard it. Alarielle is close, and she calls to us – to all the spirits of her realm. It is time to take back the wild places from those that would defile them, and drive the plague from this sacred land.’
‘From which direction does the Radiant Queen call?’ Ardaneth asked.
Shaddock pointed his blade towards the stained horizon, towards a distant place where land and sky met in a blackened blot of disease and creeping death. A decimated forest – more blasted battlefield than ancient grove – that seemed to draw in the festering legions of Nurgle from leagues around.
‘Our queen needs us,’ the Spirit of Durthu said.
Leaving the sanctity of Draconite Glade and the shadow of Mount Draconyth, Shaddock led the Forest Folk through the dismal land. The sickness of the sylvaneth was everywhere, reminding the spirits of what was a stake. They passed toppled treelords, blooming with spore-spitting fungus. Altered Wyldwoods, dragging their corrupt trunks along with grasping roots, hindered their advance. Shattered dryads, brittle to the touch, lay about in mottles of mildew. Everywhere there was evidence of the Plague God. Meadows had been marred by the rotting remains of camps, forests reduced to mulch by sorcerous contagion and grasslands turned to tracks of mud and pus.
As they approached the blighted woodland formerly known as the Forest of Aspengard, the sky grew dark. The heavens were stained black with filth and the air was thick with flies. The forest itself had been reduced to islands of standing Wyldwoods, isolated by a bitter and war-torn wasteland. The ground of the blasted expanse was littered with stumps, slithering roots and mouldering logs.
Plague-infested daemons and columns of putrid warriors weaved across the battlefield to reinforce the hordes of Nurgle battling the sylvaneth warhosts of Aspengard. Shaddock and the Forest Folk of the Arkenwood used the ailing Wyldwoods to cover their approach. With virulent pus showering from the canopy and infected trees reaching out for them with root and branch, Shaddock and the dryads had to take as much care with the forest as they did with the servants of Nurgle.
Those plague lords and rancid champions that did spy the approach of the sylvaneth despatched warbands to deal with the interlopers. Believing that they were isolated spirits of the Aspengard fleeing the slaughter, they never for a moment considered that they were reinforcements searching for their Radiant Queen. Withdrawing into the wailing thickets, Laurelwort and her dryads prepared an ambush for the Rotbringers. They moved through the roots and branches of the fevered Wyldwoods, hiding, stalking and striking at their infested foes. They gutted bloated warriors who were ready to burst. They sliced the throats and stabbed at the rusted helms of passing outriders from concealed nooks and hollows. They garrotted Rotbringers with noose-like vines that they heaved up through the canopy, leaving the hanging warriors there to choke.
While the Forest Folk stabbed and sliced their way through the servants of Nurgle, Shaddock drew them into a clearing. As corpulent knights charged from the trees, Shaddock whirled his blade around in an amber flash. The wardwood cleaved through corroding plate and diseased flesh. He swept ripe warriors aside with the flat of his blade. He kicked a leprous champion apart and chopped clean through the trunks of warped Wyldwoods, burying Rotbringers under toppling trees.
As they moved from copse to copse, Shaddock and the dryads found the wastelands between crowded with marauding warbands. With the searing song of Alarielle getting louder, the wardwood marched on towards his Everqueen. Towering above the hordes, he impaled daemons on the length of his sword and stamped down on plague knights in green plate. With the creaking sinew of his sword arm guided by his age-old form, the wardwood smashed a path through the scourges of Aspengard. Picking their way through the corpses Shaddock left behind, the dryads of Arkenwood swept in on half-dead foes. Stabbing warriors and skewering the hearts of felled champions, the dryads followed the Spirit of Durthu through the death and disease.
Before long, the sylvaneth reached the centre of the battlefield. The bloated servants of Nurgle were crushed up against each other, the plate of unclean knights crumpling against the brawn of cyclopean daemons, as scythe-wielding champions chanted foul prayers astride monstrous maggoths.
Like a constricting wall of muscle, the hordes of Nurgle surrounded what was left of the Aspengard glades. Known as the Silver Dell, argent oaks and mirrorwoods formed the centre of the besieged forest and stood uncontaminated amongst the mud, blight and destruction. The dell was teeming with the silver-barked spirits of Aspengard – Forest Folk who had fallen back to protect it and the treelords who ruled from there.
While the dryads entangled the servants of Nurgle in a thicket of thorns, the roots of treelords burst free of the earth behind their enemies. They bludgeoned grasping sorcerers and champions into the ground before dragging their smashed bodies beneath the surface of the soil. Silvered Wyldwoods swung their heavy branches, sweeping hordes of sickly warriors aside with bone-breaking force.
As Shaddock strode through the packed ranks of Chaos warriors, axes and spears embedded themselves in his bole and branches. Forging a path through the crush of corrupted bodies with sweeping sword and stamping feet, the wardwood pushed on. The air rang with the sound of wood snapped, split and cleaved in two by rusted blades. Nurgle’s servants fought with an indomitable fervour, rank after rank of d
iseased warriors gladly walking into blood-slick talons and the pulverising sweep of branches.
The wardwood tried to block out the sickening cheers. He concentrated on the song of the Everqueen, fighting his way through the hordes to reach Alarielle.
‘Stay close to Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth called to her dryads as they were swamped by a wave of sour bodies. Horned daemons and Rotbringers were attempting either to smash the sylvaneth to kindling or visit their myriad contagions on the Forest Folk. As the dryads of the Arkenwood began to shriek and fall, Shaddock’s mighty blade passed like an amber blaze through the packed ranks. It sheared off elephantine limbs, cut swollen warriors in half and clipped fat heads and helms from shoulders.
Ardaneth and Laurelwort whirled about one another in a deadly dance. A mighty daemon warrior swung a rust-eaten sword at the branch nymph, forcing her to duck. Sprigs and leaves were chopped from her head as the cursed weapon sheared through the tips of her foliage. Laurelwort charged at the monster, slamming her body into its own. Its cyclopean eye rolled in its socket as the branch nymph knocked it back. Ripping furiously into its swollen belly with her talons, Laurelwort tore the rancid guts out of the thing.
The daemon would not be stopped, however. Grabbing her with unnatural strength, the plague-ridden monster tossed her at Ardaneth. Both of them fell back into the stinking ranks of Nurgle’s servants. As the daemon stomped towards Ardaneth with its blade held high, she reached out at the Nurglites surrounding her. As the petrifying power of her talons touched their slimy flesh, their bodies were immortalised in standing stone. Immortality, however, lasted only the few seconds it took for the daemon to smash through the wall of statues.
‘Help me,’ Ardaneth called to the branch nymph as the daemon crawled over the rubble to get to her. Laurelwort came up behind it and entangled its limbs in vines that sprouted from her branches. Seeing her chance, Ardaneth lunged forwards and placed her talon squarely on the daemon’s horned face. As the creature turned to stone, Laurelwort let it fall, its head snapping off at the neck where it struck the rubble.
‘Where is she?’ Ardaneth called up to the wardwood. ‘Where is our Radiant Queen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Shaddock told her. Alarielle’s song was all around. He looked about the blasted battlefield and argent oaks of the Silver Dell but the Everqueen was nowhere to be seen. ‘She should be here.’
Something suddenly gave. The hordes of Nurgle were never-ending, but up to that point the sylvaneth of Aspengard had proven immovable. Neither army had given way. Sorcerous catapults, however, had finally reached range through the crush of foetid warriors. Mouldering barrels leaking a horrific green concoction were flung through the air, high over the heads of Shaddock and the diseased hordes. Smashing into the canopy of the Silver Dell, the shattered barrels hung in the shimmering branches, cascading fell liquid down on the treelords and forest spirits holding the dread masses at bay. Some kind of acid ate its way through the trees and the sylvaneth below, stripping leaves and burning through bark. As a dirty silver cloud rose over the dell and a further barrage of barrels were fired up into the sky, Shaddock could hear the sounds of horrific suffering amongst the argent oaks.
‘Radiant Queen,’ the wardwood roared. ‘Where are you?’
Looking over at the siege engines, Shaddock saw that they were not the only reinforcements to arrive on the battlefield. Walking mountains of festering corpulence were making their way towards the Silver Dell, wading through the Plague God’s jubilant hordes. With the bombardment intensifying and the sylvaneth faltering, these daemons were advancing like shock troops to break the siege and lead the horde into the ancient glade.
A monstrous daemon had assumed command near the catapults and brought the siege engines forth. The abomination was not one but three bloated creatures conjoined – an echo of the symbol carved into Shaddock’s bark. The Spirit of Durthu realised that he was looking at Feytor, the Thrice-Father, the daemon he had prevented from manifesting at the Ebon Tarn. The monster that had taken his arm and sullied his essence. A sound like thunder boomed from the wardwood as the golden fire of his wrath burned bright.
‘Kill the crews,’ Shaddock said, stabbing his colossal blade into the ground and offering his hand to the dryads of the Arkenwood. ‘Sabotage the engines.’
Laurelwort and a barbed cluster of surviving Forest Folk crawled up the crooks and branches of the wardwood’s arm. Ardaneth joined them.
‘What are you doing?’ the priestess asked.
‘I’m curing this blessed land of its affliction,’ Shaddock told her.
With a heave, he became a catapult of his own, sending the spirits sailing across the battlefield. As their light frames landed amongst the sorcerers and siege engines, he saw dryads throw themselves valiantly at the withered crews. Laurelwort kicked over barrels of acid and stabbed a sorcerer in the chest, while Ardaneth petrified the workings of the engines so that they tore themselves apart upon firing.
Shaddock crushed warriors underfoot as he closed on the Thrice-Father. Spotting the towering ancient, the greater daemon heaved his bulk around.
‘Welcome, spirit,’ Feytor said, lifting a colossal cleaver. ‘Your sap belongs to me.’
‘Then take it, daemon,’ Shaddock roared.
‘I shall,’ the Thrice-Father said. ‘One drop at a time, if I have to.’
The daemon moved with a swiftness that belied its rancid bulk. Knots of Rotbringers were crushed beneath the Thrice-Father as he leaned in to strike with his cleaver. Parrying with an arcing swing of his own, Shaddock felt the weight and power of his foe. As he staggered back, one of the creature’s bodies twisted towards him to reveal a monstrous axe. The weapon’s rusted blade clipped some of the wardwood’s branches as he swept his head below the strike. Then the third and final body came around, knocking Shaddock into the ranks of plague-ridden warriors with its swollen belly. The Spirit of Durthu turned aside as one of the greater daemon’s heads vomited a stream of sizzling bile.
Shaking the filth from his canopy, Shaddock found himself near the catapults. He began to fear that despite several ages of service to the Everqueen, he had failed her. She had called to him and he had been unable to reach her – and now he was going to fall to some monstrous servant of her sworn enemy. A foul creature that was not one great daemon but three.
As the Thrice-Father dragged its obscene carcass towards him, booming with abyssal laughter, Shaddock readied himself for the end.
‘Wardwood,’ Ardaneth called up from a demolished engine. ‘Look.’
The priestess was pointing up into the sky. Turning, Shaddock saw massive islands of stone drift down through the miasma of pestilence that stained the heavens. Atop the floating islands stood mighty ironwoods, their roots dangling down from their rocky undersides. He had seen the islands before. They were the Skyforests of Jynnt, towering sentient woodlands that traversed the heavens, hanging in the clouds and soaking up the sun’s rays. The sylvaneth of Jynnt had descended to offer reinforcement.
Shaddock watched as several islands settled over the Silver Dell, draping their writhing root systems across the glade and allowing the inhabitants of Aspengard to climb to safety. Other islands drifted across the battlefield, their roots squirming. Boulders rained down on the Nurgle forces, crushing corrupt mortal and daemon alike. The Spirit of Durthu spotted ranks of Kurnoth Hunters at the forest’s edge, their bows drawn over the island precipice and aimed at the enemy below. Releasing their weapons in unison, the Free Spirits loosed volleys of huge arrows into the servants of the Plague God.
‘Go!’ Shaddock told Ardaneth as an island floated towards them.
‘Not without you, mighty ancient,’ the priestess called back. The wardwood put himself between Ardaneth and the Thrice-Father.
‘Get the Forest Folk to safety,’ the Spirit of Durthu commanded. As Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the dryads of the Arkenwood made for the roots
reaching down towards them, the daemon Feytor heaved his great bulk around and levelled the broad blade of his cleaver at the wardwood.
‘I’m going to smash you to splinters, spirit,’ the Thrice-Father told him. ‘I will bury each one of them in my infected flesh.’
‘I am beyond your reach now, monster,’ Shaddock told him. His sword pulsed with energy, just before he leaned into a mighty throw. As he released the weapon, it flew hilt over heavy blade until it finally thudded into the nearest of the Thrice-Father’s vast bellies. It was held there, glowing through his stretched, leathery skin and spoiling guts. Feytor’s booming laughter rolled across the battlefield. Such an attack might have felled other monstrous beings, but Nurgle blessed his servants with unnatural resilience. The sword simply sat there, in its scabbard of diseased flesh.
‘We are the cure,’ Shaddock told Feytor the Thrice-Father as the sylvaneth pushed back against the forces of Nurgle.
The amber glow of the wardwood’s blade faded, the weapon reverting to cold, inert stone. Feytor’s faces dropped in unison, each suddenly aware of something terrible happening deep amidst the daemon’s corpulent form. The tips of branches prodded, stretched and then burst through the monster’s skin. The blade had transferred some of Shaddock’s energy into the daemon, fuelling the growth of a tree inside the Thrice-Father’s grotesque bodies. Swollen bellies burst open as the life within could not be contained, flooding the surrounding battlefield with spoilage. As branches reached up through the rotting guts of the daemon, they skewered his hearts.
The Thrice-Father tried to say something, but his words were smothered by the thick foliage bursting free of his mouths. Branches pierced his eyes and ripped the flesh from his faces, their growth finally slowing and coming to a halt. Shaddock watched the daemon’s bellies rise and fall for the last time around the tree that had grown up within him.