Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Fie on thee, fie and ruin,’ the Rotbringer rumbled. ‘This land is ours, by blight and conquest. You shall not have it — the Lady of Cankerwall has seen it and so it must be. I, Dolorugus, say thee nay.’ He swung his flail towards Felyndael, and the tree-revenant ducked aside. The blow arced over his head and obliterated a pillar of winding reeds.

Aetius charged, hammer thudding down to draw sludgy ichor from the surface of Dolorugus’ chest-plate. The gibbering faces set there began to wail and howl as the hammer cracked steaming scars across them. Dolorugus stepped back. His flail smashed down. Aetius interposed his shield, but the force of the blow drove him to one knee.

‘The basilica is mine. I will ring the pox-bells and call forth every mouldering thing in these marshy lands to my banner, and more besides. We will make this place a bastion — a temple to the King of All Flies. We will be the gate to the Garden, and break armies in Grandfather’s name,’ Dolorugus rumbled as he drove his cloven hoof into Aetius’ chest and sent him flying backwards. ‘Starting with yours, faithless one.’

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?’