Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Diraceth’s attention was drawn back to the strange sunrise. The fogs were almost completely dissipated now, taking on more of the cast of mountain lake mists at dawn.

The plague monks felt it too, and having been abandoned by their immortal master did not take flight but threw themselves upon the sylvaneth with frenetic desperation.

Where the gold light touched, the Wrathwaters responded. The blackened, withered morass burst into renewed life, saplings and bushes springing forth from the groundwaters, blossoming into full growth as Diraceth watched.

The rush of magic flowed around and over and beneath him, through air and water and ground. Heartseeds thought lost in the mire crackled with energy amongst the fronds and strands of fresh growth. He heard the tremulous strains of their nascent soul-songs quivering into life, ready to grow into fresh generations of sylvaneth.

Behind him the waters of the lifepool glimmered with the magic of birth. Sylvaneth souls that had long been repressed by the noxious flow of skaven corruption suddenly burst into full bloom, brought to fruition by the influx of life essence. Out of the heartseeds his clan had salvaged from the incessant skaven encroachment burst forth a fresh surge of dryads, branchwraiths and tree-revenants. These newborns splashed out of the waters, their birth-songs tainted by rage and bloodthirst, and they fell upon the skaven with vengeful cries and haunting moans.

And then it was as though the sun itself entered the sacred grove.

The presence was blinding, both in light and as a spring of the energy of Ghyran. Diraceth could not quite comprehend what was in their midst, all senses both physical and spiritual overwhelmed by the force of the entity that had arrived. The sound of thrumming wings made the air and ground vibrate. Heat prickled on his bark, like fingers caressing the folds and cracks, bringing forth green buds where they passed.

As the wave of life magic seeped into the earth of the grove, its power restoring tree and spirit alike, the Leafmaster looked upon their saviour.

Her wings were feathery streamers of dawn light, luminescent and hot. Her face was serene, her eyes a rich leaf-green. Diraceth met that godly gaze and felt a moment of connection, from root to branch, spreading out across the entire Realm of Life. Here was the font, the spring of creation, the mother of his people.

Alarielle, Everqueen of the sylvaneth.

His gaze moved away, freeing him from the trance. It was now that he saw that his goddess was not as he remembered, in robes of autumnal growth. She wore armour, her body clad in shimmering plates of birch-silver edged with ironbark and studded with firestones. The apparition held a spear as tall as she was, its head shimmering with destructive magic. The Leafmaster watched as she turned her attention to the skaven. Alarielle’s tranquil expression changed, and the light of her presence changed with it. Ire twisted her features. The dawn light aura became a crackling halo of incarnate fury that burned with the fire of an unrelenting noon sun.

‘Kill them all,’ she commanded in the voice of a burgeoning storm.

As her children eradicated the stain of the ratmen from her realm, Alarielle’s anger faded. It did not disappear completely, for how could she not feel rage whilst her children teetered on the edge of extinction? She could not rest while her people in the Realm of Life and far beyond suffered from the malignance of Chaos. But for the moment, in this place and at this time, her vengeance was temporarily sated.

She held up a hand and the heavens opened at her command, bringing rain as sweet as nectar. The Wrathwaters responded to her call, swelling in a spume-topped mass over the shores of the lakes to wash away every vestige of the skaven. Her tree-kin set down their roots as the deluge swirled past them, making sanctuary for the smaller sylvaneth in their branches. A glorious wind swept down from the Laureneth Peaks, driving away the last of the rat-must. The rustle of green leaves and the creak of swaying canopy was a song in her ears after the thunder of the skaven drums.

While the floodwaters drained, a carpet of new grass and flowers in their wake, Alarielle turned her attention to the deeper wounds, the taint laid upon the souls of the Wrathwaters. She settled, furling her nebulous wings, letting her armour fade so that she could feel cool breeze on her flesh. Its touch brought flashes of recollection, scattered images of her previous lives.

She held the pain at bay, a mortal memory not suited to an immortal spirit.

Alarielle purged the taint of Chaos from the Wrathwaters, using her magic as she had used the Wrathwaters, driving out the corruption from the lowest earth. She became part of the Realm of Life, splitting again and again, allowing her essence to be one with the land and water and air.