Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

A green light spread over the Stormcasts, rising from the ring of menhirs behind them. An ethereal screech suddenly echoed across the vale, causing even the Great Unclean One to pause in consternation. Grymn turned, and saw a glowing manifestation stalk through the ranks of the Hallowed Knights.

‘Alarielle,’ Morbus said. ‘The Radiant Queen has come at last.’

‘Why now?’ Grymn hissed. ‘Why not before, when Gardus…’ He trailed off as Alarielle’s eyes met his, and he looked away, unable to bear the torment he saw there. She was not mad, not quite, but there was nothing human, nothing mortal in that gaze.

Men stepped aside as Alarielle moved past them with an eerie grace, her robes whipping about her as if she were the eye of a storm. Leaves and shattered branches swirled about her, and her long, golden hair flowed in her wake as she stepped across the glistening surface of the water. Impossibly thin, and as pale as ice, she resembled nothing so much as a marble statue gifted with life, and her eyes blazed with a power far beyond anything Grymn had ever witnessed.

‘What is she?’ he whispered.

‘Life,’ Morbus said. ‘In all of its fury and power.’

Alarielle pursued the retreating forces of the Nurgle worshippers with slow, stately steps. Where the end of her staff fell, the water turned cool and clear, and ravaged vegetation sprouted green and lush once more. Any daemon so foolish enough as to move towards her, rather than away, was reduced to swirling ash in the blink of an eye.

‘This place is not yours,’ she said, gazing at the Great Unclean One. Her voice rang out, as clear as a bell, as loud as thunder. Daemons quailed back, and the sylvaneth began to shriek and howl. ‘I ceded my realm to you, but I shall not cede this place.’

‘What you will or will not cede is of no concern to me, my lady,’ Bolathrax said, leering at her. ‘Nurgle’s deluge falls, and this place will soon not be fit for such delicate flowers as those you call children. The sky roils with magics, and this place will fall to Grandfather. All will drown in his sacred slurry.’

‘No,’ Alarielle said. She looked around, and Grymn followed her gaze. Athelwyrd was flooding inch by inch. Soon, they would have no choice but to return the way they had come. Otherwise, this hidden bower would become their tomb. ‘No,’ Alarielle said again, but more softly. Her face contorted suddenly, and she threw back her head in a scream of denial so intense that sylvaneth and daemons both writhed in agony from its reverberations. Stormcasts clapped their hands to their ears as the dolorous sound washed over them.

Before the echoes of that cry had faded, Alarielle gestured sharply and a thick net of iron-thorns erupted from the waters to entwine the Great Unclean One.

‘I know you of old, Bolathrax,’ Alarielle said. ‘Long have I desired to take what I am owed from your rotting flesh.’

Bolathrax struggled against the vines, but for every dozen he tore from him, two dozen more replaced them. Alarielle began to chant, her voice rising and falling like the wind, and the cage of briars constricted about the greater daemon. The thorns dug into his flesh, lacerating him. Bolathrax’s roars became screams and then squeals as he came apart at the joints and collapsed into a gory ooze. His cries caused those daemons nearby to shudder, and many joined him in dissolution, falling apart even as they tried to flee the destruction of their leader. The briar vines rose from Bolathrax’s remains like angry serpents, and struck out in all directions. As the Stormcasts watched, those daemons that had not already come apart died in droves, torn asunder by Alarielle’s anger.

Though the leader of the daemonhost had been slain, his lieutenants still remained, as zealous as their opponents. Grymn fought on, and his warriors followed his example. Everywhere in the vale, where the Stormcast Eternals fought, the enemy died in hordes.

It was not enough, in the end.

The rain still fell, and it soon became evident to even the most stubborn amongst the Stormcasts that Athelwyrd was doomed. The storm hammered down as malign and benevolent magics crashed against one another in the sky above the battle. The pox-rain fell, harder and faster, inexorably claiming the vale.

‘We will drown if this continues,’ Zephacleas roared, fighting to be heard over the storm as he and his warriors joined the Hallowed Knights. ‘None but a servant of Nurgle can survive in this place now.’

‘We must move,’ Grymn said aloud, as he booted a struggling plaguebearer from the blade of his halberd. They would need to get to higher ground to escape back into the mortal lands of Ghyran. ‘We’ll have to fight our way back. Where is Ultrades?’

Zephacleas pointed with his sword, to where the Guardians of the Firmament had formed up in a shieldwall around a retreating grove of dryads. The bark of the treekin was cracking and burning beneath the plague-rain. Grymn shook his head.

‘Help him,’ he said. ‘We must fall back.’

‘Fall back to where, Lord-Castellant?’ Zephacleas asked, filthy water running down the contours of his battered war-helm. ‘Where is there for us to go?’

‘The only place we can,’ Grymn said. He extended his halberd towards the shimmering expanse of the River Vitalis above. ‘Up. Gather your warriors. Fall back to the River Vitalis.’ He paused. ‘The Hidden Vale is lost.’

In the end, the Hidden Vale was hidden once more.

On the banks of the River Vitalis, Grymn stared into the depths of the water, seeking any sign of it, but all he discerned was a faint scar of murk, running along the river’s bottom. The forces of Nurgle had not followed the Stormcasts and the sylvaneth as they retreated, first to the upper reaches of the valley, and then back through the breached portal, to the dubious safety of Rotwater Blight.

Then, why should they have? he thought grimly. They had what they wanted, he suspected. The Hidden Vale was gone, and Alarielle was cast adrift into a world that was no longer hers. Her power, while great, would not be enough to win back her realm. I wonder if she realises that, he thought, as he gazed surreptitiously at the Radiant Queen, where she stood nearby.

Alarielle’s screams of denial still rang in his head. They had echoed across the near-infinite kingdoms of Ghyran, he suspected, so loud had they been. She had wept and raged as they retreated, her cries of anguish so intense that daemons had shivered into incoherent fragments at the sound and Stormcasts had fallen, skulls burst. And while she was now silent, he could still feel the heat of her rage.

‘Where is he?’ she asked, suddenly, in a voice like the croaking of a murder of crows. ‘Where is the one who led my enemies to me?’

Grymn stiffened. ‘He is… gone. He fell in battle, defending your realm.’

‘Defending a realm he endangered,’ she snarled, and the fury in her voice shook him to his core. ‘My kingdom… my people… All gone, all lost,’ she keened. Dryads hissed and shrieked mournfully as they clustered about her. She looked at Grymn, and he stepped back. Her eyes burned like twin suns, and he knew that she could kill him as easily as she had healed him before. Life in all its fury and power, he thought, recalling Morbus’ words.

‘My lady, they are gone, as are our brethren. But we still live,’ he said. He set his halberd. ‘And while we live, so too does Ghyran. While we stand, your realm shall not fall. So I swear. We shall fight. We shall win. Your kingdom will be free.’

‘Free,’ she breathed. Surrounded by her dryads and branchwraiths, her tall form blazing with a strange light, Alarielle turned towards the Hallowed Knights. Her shimmering gaze flickering across their ranks as she studied them. Grymn hesitated, uncertain, then stepped forward. ‘But for now, my lady, you and your folk must come with us. We have cost you your haven. The least we can do is see you to safety.’