Hammerhal & Other Stories

by Various

  It was the singing of her new companion that woke her.

  Her bittergrub was coiled on her breast, watching her with beady eyes. She stretched out a limb to let the creature run along her branches, and was surprised to notice the absence of a shock of pain for the first time in what felt like many seasons.

  Tentatively, she shifted her body so she could look down at her side.

  Her wound was healing. The flow of bloodsap had finally been stemmed, and tender greenwood had now replaced the rotten bark. She realised abruptly that the final sensation she’d felt before her spirit-song had faded was the bittergrub eating away at the diseased bark, freeing her body from the Great Corruptor’s foul grasp. It had saved her life, and with it possibly the future of Brocélann.

  ‘Your new grub would not leave you,’ Du’gath said, looming over her. ‘It gnawed away the rotting wood and gave your wound a chance to reknit.’

  Wordlessly, Nellas thanked the creature, letting it scuttle appreciatively up one limb and nestle among her boughs.

  ‘I thought about cutting it in half,’ Du’gath said coldly. ‘But I trust the spites more than I trust you, Harvester. May you serve them well.’

  ‘Branchwych,’ boomed the venerable tones of Gillehad. The treelord ancient was striding across the Evergreen towards Nellas, who rose to meet him with the assistance of her scythe. She looked around as she did so. The heartglade was scattered with the dead wood of fallen sylvaneth, and the swiftly decomposing filth of the Tallyband, but of the sinkhole that had nearly consumed the Kingstree there was no sign. Soulpods had been ripped up or brutally slashed, and lifeseeds lost forever. But the Evergreen stood, and with it the future of the Wyldwood remained secure. For now.

  ‘You are healing, I see,’ Gillehad noted. ‘Thoaken has been beset with worry. We all have. We sensed your spirit travelling the realmroot to Mer’thorn.’

  ‘I beg forgiveness from the conclave,’ Nellas said, voice firm. ‘But I would have done it again if need be. It was necessary, for the good of all Brocélann.’

  ‘And in doing so you undoubtedly saved the entire Wyldwood,’ Gillehad replied. ‘By the time we were aware of what was afoot, it was almost too late.’

  ‘I would have made little difference if it weren’t for the Outcasts,’ Nellas continued. She turned to gesture towards Du’gath, before realising the spite-revenant and his sinister kin had vanished.

  ‘They do what they can, as do we all,’ Gillehad said slowly, casting his wizened gaze across the treeline. ‘There can be no bystanders in the war against the blight. Noble houses and Forest Folk, spites and Outcasts, we are all a part of the great Wargrove.’

  ‘I will tend to the soulpods until I have sisters again,’ Nellas said. ‘Once they have been fully instructed in their duties as branch­wyches, I will travel the realmroots to all the remaining Wyldwoods of the Jade Kingdoms. They must be warned not to make the same mistakes we made. They must be told to examine all things, especially where it concerns their heartglades. The rot that festers from within may yet prove more deadly than that which gnaws from without. Thaark’s passing must not have been in vain.’

  ‘True words, Nellas,’ Gillehad agreed. ‘I wish all the seasons’ blessings upon such a task.’

  ‘Many thanks. Now, with the greatest respect, venerable lord, I must be about my duties.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Nellas bowed again, hefted her scythe, and began the harvest afresh. She sang as she made her way slowly through the Evergreen, a recital of both triumph and sorrow, the intertwining roots that ran through everything. It had always been so, the branch­wych mused as she worked. And it would always be so, long after she and all she had ever planted had returned to the ground.

  The seasons changed, but Ghyran endured.

  WARDENS OF THE EVERQUEEN

  by C L Werner

  The War of Life rages on, as Torglug the Despised and the forces of Nurgle seek to destroy the Everqueen. But with their new Stormcast allies, the beleagured sylvaneth at last have a hope of victory...

  Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com

  The Keys to Ruin

  David Annandale

  I

  Daemons were dancing over the Voidfire Plain. The flamers of Tzeentch spun and whirled, their columnar shapes rocking back and forth. Their serpentine limbs outstretched, they bathed the grasses of the Voidfire in their unholy flames, twisting the land, catching it up in their lunatic dance. Wherever he looked, Vrindum saw the daemons. They kept their distance from the Fyreslayers, too scattered and too few to mount a challenge to the great host. They remained writhing silhouettes close to the horizons. The grimwrath berzerker’s grip on Darkbane, his fyrestorm greataxe, was tight with frustrated anger. He longed to cut down the taunting abominations.

  Just ahead of Vrindom, Bramnor, youngest of the runesons, rose in the throne on his magmadroth. ‘Face us!’ he shouted at the daemons. ‘You are craven beasts!’ His roar was powerful. The long, roped braid of his beard shook with the force of his shout.

  The flamers danced on. They had no need to close with duardin. Mindless, they were caught in the ecstasy of the song, the song that was greater than the daemons, the song that blew with the wind over all the regions and vastness of the Evercry. The song that had called to Beregthor-Grimnir, auric runefather of the Drunbhor lodge. The song Beregthor had answered, leading his warriors down from the mountains, away from the magmahold in Sibilatus, exhorting them to cross the wailing plain.

  A choir of a billion voices joined the wind in singing the melody of the dance. The song was simple, repetitive, insistent. It had three notes. Low, high, low. Short, long, short. The beats soft, strong, soft. The voices came from the grasses of the plains. They were tall, waist-high on Vrindum, and flexible, hollow, fleshy, corrupted. Along each shaft, a multitude of toothed mouths chanted. The reeds swayed with the song, bending with and against the wind. When by chance a cluster of reeds leaned together, they burst into eldritch flame. Across the endless stretch of the plain, blossoms of fire shot up into the hard light of the sun. They spread like oil upon water, then went out with the suddenness of candleflame. Fire without cause, out of nowhere, appearing and vanishing.

  A tangle of reeds blew against Vrindum’s arm. They grasped at him, mouths gnawing with hunger. He yanked back, uprooting and tearing them. Green ichor spattered. A step later, a cluster formed and spat their fire over him. He growled at the burn. A thousand searing claws crawled over his flesh, seeking to swallow him in metamorphosis. He shrugged away their touch and swung Darkbane like a scythe, cutting a swathe through the reeds. The fire went out.

  All along the Drunbhor lines, Fyreslayers fought the ­ravenous, singing, burning grass. So it had been for days beyond counting.

  A flare of violet flame swept over Bramnor. His magmadroth spat its own fire over the grass, killing it with the purging acid. Bramnor snarled as he passed through the daemonic burn. ‘This is not war. I’ve had enough of this cursed land.’

  Frethnir, the eldest runeson, said, ‘There is change ahead.’ He pointed.

  Vrindum squinted. There was darkness in the distance. A mass of tall forms, much higher than the grasses.

  ‘Is that a forest?’ The middle brother, Drethor, shaded his eyes.

  ‘It is not,’ Vrindum said. The shapes, vague as they were this far away, did not belong to trees. He cut through more grasses as they reached for him. Their mouths issued discordant cries, but they fell without burning.

  ‘Runefather,’ Frethnir called, ‘is that the promise of honest battle we see?’ His tone was jocular, but Vrindum heard an undercurrent of concern. It had been present when Frethnir spoke to his father ever since the departure from Sibilatus, and had become clearer and more urgent during the endless crossing of the Voidfire.

  There was no answer from Beregthor.

  Instead, there w
as a cry from further back in the lines. An upheaval of flamer-corrupted grasses wrapped around both legs of a hearthguard berzerker. Blood streamed down his limbs and he fell into a conflagration. He cursed to the last as his flesh burned and his body changed, bones thrusting clacking tongues through muscle, eyes sprouting in his beard, wings unfolding on his back. ‘Brothers!’ he called at the end, and his voice was the only thing that was still duardin about him. His comrades answered his need, and ended his suffering, preserving his honour. Then, in rage, they set about slashing the cursed plain with even greater vigour. In the distance, the flamers danced and paid them no heed.

  Another death. They were becoming more frequent. The movements of the land were hypnotic. Mistakes were easier and easier to make with every passing day.

  Frethnir had turned around in his throne when he heard the shout. Now he met Vrindum’s gaze. Frethnir’s face was expressive in its pain. His features were thinner and longer than those of his brothers. Even his beard seemed more angular. A great scar ran from Frethnir’s forehead to his chin, earned when he had single-handedly slain two maggoths. Sigils of ur-gold ran along the mark, a sign of Frethnir’s honour and strength. At this moment, though, it seemed to be the division in his spirit. Loyalty and love fought with doubt.

  Doubt. Frethnir had spoken it aloud. Bramnor, recoiling from the vast sky over the Voidfire, had been complaining since they reached the plain. Drethor, quieter than the other two runesons, had fallen into a silence he now rarely broke as the days had turned into weeks and supplies had run low. He fought on through the cursed grasses with a stoicism more grim than patient. Frethnir, though, had expressed concern about the quest at the start. He had argued with Beregthor, then accepted the runefather’s decision as final. After so long in the Voidfire, though, the doubts had returned, and grown more serious. They were clearly eating at Frethnir. The lack of answer from Beregthor did not help.

  Vrindum moved to the side, hacking through screaming reeds, so he could look past the runesons. Twenty paces ahead, Beregthor rode the magmadroth Krasnak, as high and proud in his throne as he had been the day the fyrds of the Drunbhor had left Sibilatus. Vrindum saw no doubt in the runefather’s posture, and no fatigue. The days in the Voidfire Plain had not worn him down. There was a leader who was sure of the path he had set for his lodge.

  Vrindum glanced back at Frethnir. The runeson’s brow was still furrowed, his features still tortured by a decision he did not want to make. He faced forward once more, his posture rigid.

  There could only be one choice so agonising. It was between two great loyalties: to the runefather, and to the lodge.

  He thinks he might have to challenge the runefather, Vrindum thought.

  Vrindum and Beregthor had grown up together. They had fought side by side their entire lives. The idea that the rune­father might no longer be fit to bear the name Beregthor-Grimnir was a tragedy Vrindum refused to countenance.

  Yet he could not ignore the accumulation of events that had pushed Frethnir to this point. Not just the endless march through the Voidfire Plain. The quest itself was driven by reasons even Vrindum found vague. We seek a gate where the wind is born, the runefather had declared. The lodge of our fore­fathers calls to us, he had said. A lodge never spoken of before. Beregthor led the Drunbhor towards a myth, to aid another myth. And there was the near-catastrophe at Sibilatus…

  He looked again at the bearing of the runefather and felt better. There was a great warrior. He had not fallen, and Vrindum would follow him wherever he led.

  But it was hard to look back and no longer see the towering bulk of Sibilatus.

  II

  Sibilatus: the howling mountain, magmahold of the Drunbhor lodge. Vrindum had dedicated his life to its defence, and it was a wonder worth defending. It shouldered high above its neighbouring peaks, a hulking, titanic skeleton turned to granite, crouched and brooding over the leagues before it. The skull took the full brunt of the wind that blew over the Evercry.

  The night of the coming of the storm, Vrindum stood deep in the orbit of the skull’s left eye. He was a mote in the vast opening. The rounded roof was hundreds of feet above him. The wind hit him as it surged through the tunnel, roaring with all the strength built over the uncounted leagues from its legend-shrouded origin. It rushed in through the gaps in the ribs, and through the openings of porous bones. The entrances to the caves of Sibilatus numbered in the thousands. Where Vrindum stood, the voice of the wind was a deep, animal bass. Entwined with it were the higher notes of the ringing through tunnels long and short, wide and thin, straight and twisting. Sibilatus was a single great instrument, and the wind played it, creating a song of many harmonies. Vrindum revelled in the strength of the howling mountain. As he did every night, he rededicated his life to its defence. He spread his arms and welcomed the power of its booming, ever-changing hymn.

  The songs of Sibilatus accompanied the retelling of sagas, the revels of feasts and the thunder of war. He knew them all.

  Then came the storm.

  In a single moment, all variation ceased. The song became a simple one. It was an immense cry. A war horn bigger than worlds sounded three notes over and over. Vrindum staggered under its blow. Silver lightning exploded beyond the horizon. It streaked to earth as if the stars themselves were coming to wage war. This was lightning such as Vrindum had never seen before. The light was both more pure and more savage than that of any storm.

  Such portents. Such omens. He stared. He could not fathom what he heard and saw.

  A new thunder sounded beyond the portal to the cavern. It was the runefather’s voice, extraordinary in its power, as if it were drawing strength from the storm.

  ‘Bear witness, fellow Drunbhor!’ Beregthor called. ‘Look to the west, and see the hand of fate itself! See the workings of prophecy! Bear witness! Bear witness!’

  The runefather’s command was taken up and passed through all the tunnels and chambers of Sibilatus. The Drunbhor climbed to the heights of the magmahold. In the socket of that vast eye, Vrindum was soon no longer alone. There were hundreds of Fyreslayers with him, and thousands more wherever there was an aperture giving on to the eruption of the heavens.

  The horizon flashed with new war. The entire Drunbhor lodge bore witness.

  All eyes looked west, and so they did not see the enemy.

  III

  The flamers danced, the grasses burned and clutched, and the forest drew near. Vrindum thought of it as a forest because there was no other word he could find for it. The silhouettes of the tall, swaying trunks were swollen with large, tumorous shapes. There was no foliage, though there appeared to be branches. They coiled and gestured, summoning the Drun­bhor to their darkness. Over the three-note song of the wind came a rasping sound. Vrindum thought of the rubbing of rough, horned flesh. A scent like foul, piercing incense wafted over the fyrds.

  Vrindum drew level with Krasnak. The magmadroth slashed at the hungry grasses before each step. The great beast bore the scars of burns. So did the runefather. He looked down from his throne and smiled at his old comrade. ‘Are my sons full of doubt?’

  Vrindum nodded.

  ‘Will Frethnir challenge me?’

  ‘He wrestles with the decision. Why did you not answer him when he called to you?’

  Beregthor laughed. ‘What need?’ He pointed the Keeper of Roads, his latchkey grandaxe, towards the tortured shapes ahead of them. ‘Is that a fit destination for our quest? My sons need more faith.’

  ‘Frethnir does not speak against you.’

  ‘Loyal but troubled, is he?’ Beregthor chuckled.

  Vrindum saw little cause for amusement, but the runefather had been in high spirits since the first night of the storm. Even as the Voidfire gnawed at the ranks of the Drunbhor, Beregthor remained transported by the purpose of his quest.

  A flamer twisted close, almost within reach, then moved away as throwing ax
es flew in its direction.

  ‘And what do you think, Vrindum?’ Beregthor asked.

  ‘That I march where you march.’

  Beregthor laughed again. It was a great laugh, deep and strong. It shook Beregthor’s entire frame. ‘That much I can see, and I am grateful, as always, for your comradeship.’ He turned serious. ‘We are not alone in our purpose. Other lodges are on this journey.’

  Vrindum frowned. ‘Have there been messages?’ He did not know how this was possible.

  ‘No.’ Beregthor rose in the throne once more as Krasnak took them through a burst of flame. ‘That is the prophecy. A new age dawns! It is full of change and war! Grimnir calls to all Fyreslayers, and we must answer!’

  Vrindum wondered at this. Beregthor claimed his knowledge came from seeing a prophecy fulfilled, but it was a prophecy known only to him. Not even Runemaster Trumnir had heard of it before.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Beregthor, ‘do you believe in our journey? Do you believe in the reason we march?’

  ‘I believe that what happened at the magmahold had meaning, runefather.’

  Of that, at least, he was certain.

  IV

  What happened at the magmahold…

  They were all looking west, at the storm and the portents. They let their guard down. They were not looking inward. They did not see the enemy until almost too late.

  With a cry of rage, Vrindum leapt from the gallery surrounding the Chamber of the Gate. He came down in the centre of the cave, on the very dais of the Drunbhor’s realmgate itself. He landed on the back of a raving priest, shattering his spine. He swung Darkbane in great arcs, left then right, its dual blades chopping down the corrupted warriors of the Changer of the Ways. The two long braids of his beard whipped about his head. Limbs and skulls flew. Blood fountained, drenching Vrindum in the death of the invaders.