Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The murmured contemplation of the watching tree-revenants stilled as she arrived. They parted wordlessly for her. She could feel their eyes on her injury. The sudden hush caused the treelord conclave to cease their own discussion and turn to watch her slow approach. She felt her anger spike under the scrutiny.

‘You need not bow, Nellas,’ Thoaken said as she drew closer. ‘I did not know you were wounded.’

‘It will heal with time, my lord,’ Nellas said, letting her roots sink in a little as she stopped before the gathered moot.

‘The whole Wyldwood aches for the loss of your sisters, branchwych,’ Thenuil said. He was a redwood by nature, his rust-coloured bark giving him a warlike appearance as he loomed over his fellow treelords.

‘And for the head of the clan, the venerable Thaark,’ Gillehad added, the ageing willow bent almost double. ‘The goodness of his spirit and the wisdom of his leadership will not soon be forgotten. May his lamentiri enrich many a sylvaneth as-yet unplanted.’

‘Such a loss makes your well-being all the more important, Nellas,’ Thoaken added. He was old, even by the standards of the ancients. A slender pine, his highest needles matched the canopy of Thenuil, while his grey bark was knotted and craggy with age. He swayed gently as he talked, each word as inexorable and measured as the passage of years.

‘Until the soulpods sprout fresh branchwyches, you alone can safely harvest the lifeseeds and tend to the Evergreen. And until we have elected a new head of the clan, Brocélann needs you now more than ever. We already miss Thaark’s guidance.’

Doubt made Nellas hesitate. Should she admit her fears? Should she tell the conclave that she believed Skathis Rot’s blow to her side had brought on some form of infection? That the Outcasts had accused her of corruption?

‘Spite-messengers have brought us grievous news,’ Thoaken said before Nellas could order her thoughts. ‘From both Ithilia and Mer’thorn. Our sister woods have been overrun by the worshippers of blight.’

His words chased all thoughts of self-doubt from Nellas’ mind, and she felt a keening at the thought of such desecration flare in her breast.

‘Surely not,’ she heard herself say.

‘It has been confirmed by those Forest Folk that escaped the felling,’ Gillehad creaked. ‘And we ourselves feel the spirit-song ache of many great lords cut down and wise ancients forever uprooted. Tragedy has finally caught up with our corner of Ghyran.’

‘How is this possible?’ Nellas demanded, turning from one treelord to the next. ‘The glamours have kept Ithilia and Mer’thorn safe ever since the Great Corruptor set foot in the Jade Kingdoms. How have the Rotbringers been able to overcome them?’

‘How did that warband pierce our own treeline?’ Gillehad replied.

‘Bands of Rotbringers stumble across us from time to time,’ Nellas said, voice snapping angrily like broken branches. ‘There were no survivors to tell of what this squirm-scum uncovered. There never are.’

‘I agree,’ said Whitebark. The ancient loremaster was the least vocal of the conclave, so old that he seemed in a perpetual doze, his spirit-song drifting and languid. A knotted silver birch, he leant heavily on one drooping branch like a crutch. ‘The chances of not one but two great Wyldwoods falling to the random roving of a warband large enough to overcome their enchantments are almost non-existent. We must assume their glamours failed them.’

Or that some rot beset them from within, thought Nellas. The realisation hardened her resolve.

‘We must discover the state of our sister woods,’ she said. ‘And find how the Rotbringer filth were able to locate them. I propose to the moot that I be allowed to spirit-walk to Mer’thorn for this purpose.’

‘Out of the question,’ Thoaken replied. ‘I have already told you of the vital place you now hold in Brocélann, Nellas. If we lose you, the very future of this Wyldwood would be threatened.’

‘If we do not discover how the sister woods fell, we will be next,’ Nellas said. Her anger drove out any thought of admitting her private fears, of agonising over what even now gnawed at her bark.

‘Spites are being dispatched,’ Thoaken said. ‘And the Wargrove assembled once again. We shall begin a muster as soon as our household has rested its roots.’

‘That will take time. A spirit-walk will be faster and safer.’

‘Not if the Wyldwoods have indeed become as corrupt as we fear.’

Nellas didn’t respond immediately. As far as preserving Brocélann was concerned, Thoaken was right, and the whole woodland knew that once he dug his roots in, the fury of all the gods, great and small, would not move him. But if Nellas’ fears were correct, they didn’t have time to assess the threat from afar. She bowed, ignoring the discomfort the motion brought her.

‘As you wish, venerable lord.’

She could feel the scrutiny of the conclave as she spoke, prickling with suspicions. Most of them, she suspected, perceived her intentions. She kept her eyes on the Evergreen’s nearest soulpod saplings, praying by bough and branch that they didn’t demand assurances of her. She could not disrupt the natural cycle by refusing a direct order from the conclave, but nor would she wait passively for events to play out around her. The fury smouldering inside her demanded her sister woods be avenged. Eventually, Thoaken spoke.

‘The moot will continue to ponder these dark events. You are clearly in need of rest, Nellas. You are dismissed, for now. May the Everqueen’s blessings be upon you.’

‘My thanks, lord,’ the branchwych replied, turning her back on the conclave.

She would have to be swift.

Nellas slid gently into the clear depths of the woodland spring, slender bark limbs immersed in its cool flow. The waters embraced her, whispering a song of renewal as they slid over the thick tangle of thorns and vines that sprouted from her scalp. Her green eyes opened beneath the surface, following the redfins and minnowspawn as they darted back and forth through the clear depths. The water was brimming with life, just like the soil it fed.

She could not allow a place such as this to fall to corruption. Ghyran endured.

Closing her eyes once more, she let the stream’s song fulfil her. The healing waters had reduced the agony of her wound to a numb throb. She could spend an eternity in here, watched over by the spirits of the spring, sustained by their soothing embrace. But in her mind’s eye she saw the waters congeal, the clear flow discoloured by filth. To stay would be to surrender Brocélann to damnation, a truth she had known even as she had paid lip service to Thoaken’s commands. Her bark would not leave the Wyldwood’s treeline, but her spirit would.

She hummed to herself, communing with the spring’s song, letting its melodies entwine with hers. As she did, she felt the flow around her tug, teasing at her branches. Though her roots remained sunken into the slick stones at the spring’s bottom, her mind started to drift.

There were many ways for the spirit-song of a sylvaneth to travel between the Wyldwoods of Ghyran, and the sacred waterways were one of them. The stream was one of several that flowed from Brocélann to her neighbouring woodlands, one of the realmroots blessed by the Everqueen to bring her life-giving energies to this part of the Jade Kingdoms. As Nellas’ spirit-song left her physical form, the water’s flow snatched at her and carried her along. She bound herself to the form of a passing bluescale, the big fish darting over rocks and between lazy fronds and watermoss, following the current as it carried her beyond Brocélann’s borders.

The sense of detachment was exhilarating. The pain of Nellas’ wound had become a distant ache, left far behind. The natural rhythms of the stream flooded her thoughts, the instinctive concerns and needs of its wildlife merging with her own desires. It was only with difficulty that she slid free from the bluescale, forging through the current towards the bank.