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  Aetius groaned and clambered to his feet. His chest ached. Dolorugus was strong. But his faith in Sigmar was stronger. He shoved himself forwards, hammer raised in both hands. Dolorugus swatted him aside. Aetius stumbled, sinking to one knee. Dolorugus reached out with one wide paw and caught the Liberator-Prime by the back of his head. Aetius clawed at his foe’s fingers as Dolorugus’ grip tightened. Smoke rose from his hand as the blessed sigmarite seared his cankerous flesh.

  Dolorugus roared in pain and hurled Aetius aside. The Rotbringer flexed his hand. ‘That stung,’ he grunted. ‘The pain is good, though. Victory without pain is anything but. I knew pain, dragging those bells here from Cankerwall, and I will know pain again, before long. Pain brings clarity of purpose. Let me show you.’

  Aetius barely heard him. He forced himself up, groping blindly for the haft of his hammer. The chamber seemed to be shaking, and the reeds beneath him were loose and soft. Water bubbled up from between them. He looked around for Felyndael, but didn’t see him. Had the tree-revenant abandoned him?

  He caught up his hammer, but before he could rise, Dolorugus planted a hoof between his shoulder blades. ‘A valiant effort,’ the Chaos champion rumbled. ‘But as I said – clarity. It is too late. The bells still ring, and the walls of this pale world grow thin. The tallymen heed the summoning knell… see! See!’

  And Aetius did. Strange shapes shimmered in the murk of the chamber, not quite solid yet, but growing more so with every clang of the unseen bells. Suddenly, Aetius knew what his foe had meant by ‘more besides’. He’d faced daemons before. He couldn’t help but recognise their infernal stink as it grew stronger and stronger, almost choking him. ‘Sigmar give me strength,’ he whispered in growing horror.

  ‘There is no Sigmar here, my friend,’ Dolorugus rumbled. ‘Only Nurgle.’

  Felyndael dived into the reeds as the blow arced over him. The sounds of the struggle and the bells faded, swallowed by the reeds and water. Aetius would have to fight alone. Only while the enemy was distracted would Felyndael have the time he needed to do what must be done. Though he knew it was necessary, it rankled. The Stormcast had hurled himself into battle on Felyndael’s behalf with a resolve that reminded the tree-revenant of glories past.

  He shot from the underside of the city like an arrow loosed from a bow. Foetid at first, the waters stung his eyes and flesh. But the murk faded and the dark paled as he raced downwards, following the spirit-trail to the heart of Gramin. He coursed along the ancient realmroot, travelling deeper and deeper beneath the lagoon. The primeval root-pylons Alarielle had crafted in an age long past stretched beyond him. Hundreds of them, rising from the lagoon’s bottom to the underside of the city. Some floated listlessly, their reeds black with rot, while others were still whole and healthy. It was the largest of these he followed, slipping around and within it, following the song of the soulpods.

  He could feel the struggles of his kin as he descended. Caradrael fought with a fury worthy of the Protectors of old, leaping and whirling amidst his foes, reaping a red harvest. In contrast, Yvael fought with subtle precision, wounding an opponent so that his bellows of agony might dishearten others. And Lathrael was destruction personified. Where she danced, no rotling remained in one piece.

  Felyndael felt a fierce joy. Drawing strength from the bond, he began to sing, casting his thoughts down, down into the silt and sand. Calling out to the sleeping spirits. Every sylvaneth heard the spirit-song, from even before their first moments of life. It flowed through their thoughts and coursed through their bodies, binding them to the land itself. Heed me, spirits of the lagoon. Heed the Guardian of the Fading Light. I am Felyndael and I say awaken, he thought. Awaken and rise, for it is not safe here. You must rise… Rise!

  Groggily, the soulpods stirred, sending up great plumes of silt. The root-pylons wavered, creaking, groaning. The oldest roots began to unravel, while the youngest snapped. Felyndael dropped to the lagoon bottom in a cloud of silt. His mind was rebuffed, cast back. They did not wish to wake, now was not the time, not yet, they whispered in drowsy petulance. They were stubborn and powerful, and he wondered what slumbered within them. Alarielle herself didn’t know. Life was ever capricious, even where the Everqueen was concerned.

  But whatever they were, they would awaken. They must.

  With a cry that was as much thought as sound, he drove Moonsorrow into the ground between his feet. The blade shivered in his hands, adding its voice to his own. He cast images of what might be into the stubborn, unformed minds – of places of exquisite beauty reduced to wastelands, of soulpod groves uprooted and burning, of pyres heaped with the kindlewood corpses of their people. This – this is what will happen, unless you rise, he thought, as their despairing screams rang loud in his head.

  If he failed, if they did not stir, they would die. Another piece of his people would fade into the long dwindling. Worse, those he had brought here would die for nothing. He thought of Aetius above, and felt the reeds give and bend as the Stormcast and his foe fought. He felt Caradrael’s pain, as old wounds opened anew to spill golden sap across the ground. Heard Yvael’s scream as a rusted blade pierced her leg. Felt the reeds burn as lightning speared down to claim Azyr’s dead. All of this he felt, and all of it he thrust down through Moonsorrow’s blade and into the ground.

  You must rise. You must.

  The ground beneath his feet churned and split. Light, pure and radiant, speared upwards. The water frothed and grew warm. Felyndael stretched out his hand. Rise, he thought. Rise!

  And in a blaze of light and song, they did.

  Aetius groaned in pain as Dolorugus’ hoof pressed him down. ‘It is even as the Lady of Cankerwall claimed,’ the Nurglite said as half-seen shapes capered about them in jolly encouragement. ‘They rise, and I shall rise with them. Look upon the end made flesh, my friend, and know a perfect despair.’

  Aetius ignored the creature’s babbling, and the growing solidity of the daemons. If he could not stop the bells, Solus and the others would be overwhelmed. More, the rest of his chamber might be taken unawares when Dolorugus’ hellish force erupted from the marshlands. ‘Who… Who will stand, when all others fall?’ he hissed, between clenched teeth. He dragged his hammer up to use as leverage.

  ‘What?’ Dolorugus looked down. ‘Is that a riddle?’

  ‘No. It is the faithful,’ Aetius said, as he forced himself up and back. The sudden movement knocked Dolorugus backwards a few steps, freeing the Liberator-Prime. Aetius staggered to his feet, hammer in hand. ‘I am the faithful. And I stand.’

  ‘Ha! Still some fight left in you? Good,’ the Nurglite burbled. ‘I will– eh?’ The Chaos champion turned. Aetius looked past him. A light rose from beneath the floor, spilling upwards, growing in radiance. Dolorugus hissed in pain and flung a hand up as the warm light washed over them, expanding to fill the chamber.

  At the centre of the light, the reeds of the floor tore themselves free of the weft and pulled away from that which churned in the dark waters below. The foul idol Dolorugus had been praying to toppled from its altar, and the murk which clung to the walls was seared clean. Daemons, half-solid, were reduced to whimpering shadows by the scorching radiance. Within the burning heart of the light, something rose.

  To Aetius, it was all shapes and none, constantly changing. They were tall, winding stalks, heavy with golden, glowing cocoons, but also strangely shimmering fungal orbs or perhaps a cloud of seeds with diaphanous wings. There were other shapes as well, hundreds of them, each more disturbing and unrecognizable than the last. They shifted from one to the next almost faster than his eye could follow, and the light which contained them took on a shape of its own – a shape that planted what might have been legs and set its burning shoulders against the ceiling above.

  Then, with a roar like that of the sea, the light surged upwards. Reeds popped and burst, tearing away from the whole. The dome ruptured, bursting open like a se
edpod. The ringing of the bells wavered, as if in panic, before continuing their tolling. The light flowed upwards, burning a path through the smoke, cleansing the air of toxins where it passed.

  Higher and higher it rose, until at last it was lost to sight. What was left of the ceiling creaked and began to peel away in mats of dying reeds. The whole basilica shuddered like a dying animal, and a vast moan seemed to rise up from the depths of the city.

  ‘Well. There was a wonder,’ Dolorugus said. He lunged forwards, and caught Aetius by his throat. A blow from his flail knocked the hammer from the Liberator-Prime’s grasp. With a grunt, he dragged the struggling Stormcast from his feet. ‘But it matters not. Listen. The plague-bells still ring where I hung them.’ He gestured to the ceiling with his flail.

  Aetius pounded on the Nurglite’s arm, but the creature’s grip was unyielding. ‘Grandfather’s hand stretches out, as implacable as time itself. He shall clutch you to his bosom, my friend, and teach you the true meaning of faith.’ Dolorugus shook him, the way a dog might shake a rat. ‘Perhaps you will even join me as a blight-brother, in time. You already have the armour and bearing of a knight, after all,’ Dolorugus said, chortling.

  ‘No.’

  The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. ‘Felyndael,’ Aetius gasped, still trying to free himself.

  Dolorugus grunted. ‘Where are you, spirit? I thought you gone.’ He turned, dragging Aetius with him. ‘Come out. Were those lights some witchery of yours?’ He laughed. ‘You should have fled while you had the chance, spirit. Now, I shall break your limbs and use them for tinder. The fire of your passing shall light our path to victory. But first…’ He looked down at Aetius. ‘You die, my friend, but you will be reborn, I have no doubt. Perhaps we will meet again, in days to come.’ His grip began to tighten. His flesh sizzled, but the sigmarite creaked, as did Aetius’ neck.

  Suddenly, Felyndael was there, flowing up the nave towards Dolorugus. His blade flashed, chopping into the Nurglite’s arm. Ichor spurted and Dolorugus cried out, more in rage than pain. Aetius fell to the ground. Dolorugus whirled his flail out, driving Felyndael back. The floor buckled and split as the Chaos champion lunged after the tree-revenant. Water, clean and crystal pure, geysered upwards.

  Aetius stood, fighting for his balance. It felt as if the whole basilica were coming apart. The passing of the light had wrecked everything in its path. But the bells were still ringing, and Dolorugus still roared and fought. As Aetius watched, his flail caught Felyndael a glancing blow and knocked the tree-revenant sprawling. Aetius charged barehanded and crashed into Dolorugus, driving him back against one of the reed pillars. The force of it bent the pillar and caused the damaged ceiling above to buckle and warp. The clangour of the bells lost its monotony, becoming arrhythmic and erratic.

  Aetius’ silver-clad fists thudded into his foe’s greasy armour until Dolorugus brought both of his own down between Aetius’ shoulder blades and dropped him to one knee. As he sank down, head ringing, he heard the sound of splintering wood and the scream of reeds giving way. He looked up as, with a roar, the curse-bells at last tore through what was left of the ceiling and hurtled downwards.

  Dolorugus looked up at the last instant, as Aetius hurled himself aside. As he rolled away, he thought he heard the Chaos champion laugh. Then the bells struck home, and smashed through the floor and into the waters below. They carried Count Dolorugus with them into the black depths of Verdant Bay.

  As the echoes of the bells’ final tolling faded, Aetius hauled himself to his feet. He looked at Felyndael as he recovered his hammer. ‘I thought you had abandoned me.’ The tree-revenant didn’t look at him.

  ‘We must go.’

  As they hurried towards the doors, the reeds crawled and split beneath their feet. Everywhere Aetius looked, the basilica was beginning to unravel. Outside, Solus was waiting for him, with the remaining Stormcasts. There was no sign of the other tree-revenants. ‘Our allies?’ Aetius asked, fighting to be heard over the creaking and groaning of the city.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Solus said, casting a wary glance at Felyndael. ‘They vanished as soon as that light did. Left us to clean up.’ He looked around. ‘So much for garrisoning this place. The streets are coming undone and the buildings are unwinding like so much thread. What happened?’

  ‘Victory. I’m just not certain as to whose. What of our foes?’ Aetius asked.

  Solus shook his head. ‘Gone. Dead or else fled, once the unlucky ones started slipping through the holes in the streets. The whole city is sinking.’

  ‘Whatever magic was holding it together has been lost,’ Aetius said, looking at Felyndael. The tree-revenant nodded.

  ‘Go,’ Felyndael said. ‘The city has served its purpose. It will sleep now, until its season comes again. You must not be here when it does.’

  ‘You heard him. Rally the others. We need to make it back to the quays before we join the Rotbringers in the lagoon,’ Aetius said, gripping Solus by the shoulder. As the Judicator-Prime turned away, Aetius looked at Felyndael. ‘That light… What was it?’

  Felyndael said nothing. Aetius sighed. ‘Next time, perhaps, you will simply tell us,’ Aetius said, softly. Felyndael looked at him, his expression impenetrable. Aetius held out his hand. ‘But you have my thanks for coming back, Felyndael of the Heartwood.’

  Felyndael looked down at his hand. The sylvaneth’s deceptively delicate features split in a small smile. ‘And you have mine, Aetius Shieldborn,’ he said as he clasped the Stormcast’s armoured forearm. A moment later he was gone, leaving Aetius standing alone.

  ‘Next time,’ he said to himself. Then, as the Basilica of Reeds unravelled and Gramin came undone, Aetius Shieldborn hurried to join his warriors.

  Heartwood

  Robbie MacNiven

  The Realm of Life had become a place of death.

  Blood and bark, iron and earth, the glade shook with the fury of battle. At its centre a warband of Rotbringers had turned at bay, their tight cohorts of rusting plate armour and sagging, rotten flesh split apart by nature’s wrath.

  Nellas the Harvester, branchwych of House Il’leath, swung her greenwood scythe in a hissing upward arc, parrying the blightking’s stroke. The hulking Rotbringer leant into the blow, trying to use his bulk to force Nellas’ guard down. The sylvaneth was dwarfed by the warrior, but she stood her ground, willowy limbs invested with the strength of the Wyldwood’s deepest roots. Bark creaked and the scythe shuddered in her grip as she held the blightking in place, while from the trees all around the sylvaneth poured. The whole forest keened with the battle-song of the Wargrove; the encroachment of the Great Corruptor’s minions into Brocélann would not be tolerated.

  The bittergrub that coiled among Nellas’ branches saw its opening. It darted forward and locked its mandibles around the upper thigh of the Rotbringer, slicing through corroded plate and neatly snipping a hamstring. The blightking grunted and went down on one knee. The bittergrub held on.

  Nellas leant back to give herself room, and plied her scythe in a great arc. There was a crunch, and the warrior’s cyclopean helmet thumped to the ground, a jet of pus-like ichor pattering across the glade’s trampled grass.

  Nellas was pushing past the decapitated corpse before it had even slumped, her bittergrub wrapping around her once more. The Rotbringer champion was ahead, bellowing vile curses as he swung a great, rusting mace at Thaark. The treelord ancient’s own household revenants were struggling to reach him, locked in a grinding melee with the Chaos lord’s bodyguard. Nellas shrieked with fury as she saw the Rotbringer’s blow thump home into Thaark’s thigh, splintering wood and splattering thick amber bloodsap. The head of House Il’leath tore into the champion’s flesh in response, his great talons splitting armour and spilling rancid guts, but to no avail. The Rotbringer’s wounds regenerated as soon as they were made, the obese armoured body bound together by more than mere mortal wi
llpower.

  The Rotbringer heard Nellas’ cry and turned in time to swat aside her first blow, moving with a speed that belied his diseased bulk. Nellas darted back to avoid the warrior’s backswing, the forest air thrumming with the force of the mace’s passing. Thaark lunged at the champion’s exposed back, dragging fresh gashes down his spine, but he simply shrugged off the wound and stepped in closer to Nellas. She attempted a shortened slash with her scythe, but this time it merely clanged off corroded battle-plate. For all her strength, the branchwych didn’t possess Thaark’s oaken might.

  And now she had overextended. The Rotbringer was too close to strike at her properly, but the thrust of his mace was still deadly. The blow smashed into Nellas’ side, and pain fired through the branchwych. She went down, roots questing for purchase in the glade’s bloody earth. Her bittergrub lashed out at the plague champion, maw snapping at the wounds already dealt by Thaark, but the Rotbringer simply snatched its writhing, segmented body in one iron gauntlet. With a bile-choked laugh he crushed the spite, popping it with a hideous crunch.

  Nellas tried to rise, shuddering at the departing soul-shriek of the grub. Her bark was splintered, bloodsap running down her side. The Rotbringer turned to Thaark, another stroke of his mace splitting a great gash down the treelord ancient’s trunk. Nellas could feel her lord’s life force draining as he swayed back from the blow.

  ‘Your Wyldwood is mine, tree spirit,’ the Rotbringer said, the voice rasping as though from two separate, phlegm-choked throats. ‘Skathis Rot claims this kingdom for the Grandfather.’

  Thaark was able to ward away another huge blow with his upper branches, but he teetered as the Rotbringer kept swinging, snapping limbs and scattering leaves. Around him the tree-revenants of Thaark’s guard were battling furiously to reach him, but the phalanx of blightkings protecting their own champion were still unmovable. Only Nellas had broken through.