Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Gathering her nerve, ignoring the fear that she would draw unwanted attention upon herself, Alarielle sang loud and clear, calling to the quivering spirits of Clan Faech. She pushed back the darkness as it encroached on the path she had made behind her. The Everqueen beckoned and cajoled, tried to soothe away the primal dread that trapped the sylvaneth as surely as the warriors of the Plague God.

‘Fight it!’ she insisted, bursting forth with fresh soulsong. Alarielle could almost touch them, could almost make the magic flow into the spirits to rouse them from their terrified stupor. ‘Reach out to me. Break free!’

But they did not. Not only dread quelled them. Bitterness spat back from the renegade forest spirits.

Recoiling, Alarielle could do nothing as the grip of Nurgle tightened again, a black sludge that filled the space around Clan Faech as tar bubbling up from its pit. It hardened, seizing them fast once more. Their song was muted and deathly silence engulfed Alarielle.

The Everqueen realised she was alone in the great sea of darkness. She fought back panic, searching for the rivers of life-essence that had brought her here, desperate as a ship’s crew tossed on a tempestuous sea.

She caught upon a glimmering trail and started to follow it, but in her agitation did not sense the approach of something else. It was too late that she detected another presence in the mystical strata — a triumvirate entity. A three-spawn fly of Nurgle made into bodily form somewhere in the vale. A sting strike, a spine of pure Chaos, pierced her spirit, pumping darkness into her soul. Like a toxin in the blood of a mortal, the Chaos energy flowed through her, trying to drag the Everqueen into the mire of death that surrounded her.

She fled.

Returning to her body, Alarielle gasped, suppressing the scream of horror that wanted to break free — her subjects had to fight on, could not know anything was amiss.

The Chaos taint was still in her. She could see it now, like a blackness in her veins, darkening her skin, dimming the light of her presence. It worked fast, weakening her, trying to consume her with burning pain.

Horror gripped her. All that she had feared, all that had cowed her for those long years of slumber, was coming to pass. The touch of Nurgle was in her. Beneath the surface of her being, raw wyldmagic and Chaos power thrashed against each other, their conflict sending agonising stabs through her.

‘My queen?’ A Spirit of Durthu stood over her, its spirit-song a sombre throb of concern. She realised a single crystal tear marked her cheek, a sign of the struggle within.

She took in a shuddering breath but dared not speak of what had happened. The Everqueen mastered her fear and urged the tree spirit to leave her.

Unprompted, the Spirit of Durthu lay a twig-fingered hand upon Alarielle’s arm. At his touch she felt the foul magic burst forth, engulfing both of them. The spirit’s branches shuddered and its soulsong became a low moan of age-old aching.

She felt the spirit drawing forth the blight. Alarielle tried to fight it, to hold the poison in herself. But the spirit would not be deterred, placing another leaf-limb on her to bring forth more of the taint.

‘It is not… yours to… take…’ she gasped, but the spirit silently looked at her with deep emerald eyes as the corruption flowed into its heartsap.

When it had siphoned away the last of the dark power, the Spirit of Durthu reared up, taking a step back from the Everqueen. Already its leaves were wilting, branches drooping with the weight of the poison in them. Its spirit-song was little more than a few whimpering notes as wood turned to dust and sloughed away, revealing blistered greenwood beneath.

‘My queen, everlasting font of life,’ croaked the spirit, sinking down. Threads of mould spread over its splintering, disintegrating form. ‘Lead our people to fresh life. Fear nothing more. Let the wrath of the sylvaneth carry you to victory.’

The spirit slumped, degenerating into scattering motes and spores that drifted away, leaving nothing but a blackened heartseed. The last vestiges of its song died away with its body.

She had almost failed her people again. Freed of the taint, Alarielle calmed herself, her sorrow short-lived. In the past she had allowed fear to rule her, to break her resolve. Not this time. Not now.

The fire of her wrath flared from her body like a fresh dawn. Where its light touched, Alarielle’s presence filled the sylvaneth with a deep rage. She drove the wardroth beetle forwards with a thought, weapon held high. Her spirit-song called to her glade-warriors to follow.

Incandescent with fury, the Spear of Kurnoth singing its own bloodthirsty hymn in her thoughts, the Everqueen passed into the Vale of Winternight.