Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Uctor? What—?’ Goral began. Uctor made a horrid, wet sound and what was left of him staggered into the light. His flesh had been perforated at a hundred points by thin tendrils of bark, which stretched back towards the creatures which followed close behind him. The two grey-faced spirits grinned wickedly at him as they manipulated their tendrils and made Uctor stumble like a marionette. One reached around and caught his sagging features, squeezing his mouth open. As it did so, it said, ‘This… way… this… way,’ in a raspy approximation of Uctor’s voice. The other cackled and added its voice to that of its companion. ‘This… way… this… way… this… this… this… way… hurry… hurry.’

Goral watched in revulsion as the tree spirits made his hound-master dance a merry jig, scattering droplets of blood around and around. Uctor groaned pitiably as they jerked his limbs this way and that. Then, with a final, mocking cackle, the spirits hunched forwards and stretched their talons wide, tearing Uctor apart in a welter of steaming gore. The sight of his warrior’s demise snapped Goral from his fugue and he drove his heels into Blighthoof’s sides. The horse-thing screamed and charged.

The spirits retreated, still laughing. They bounded from tree to tree, as if they were no more substantial than shadows. Enraged, Goral urged Blighthoof to greater speed. Roots blackened and decayed beneath the horse-thing’s thundering hooves. But no matter how fast his steed ran, the tree spirits stayed just out of reach.

Suddenly, Blighthoof fell screaming and Goral was hurled from the saddle. He scrambled to his feet, broken ribs scraping his heaving lungs. Blighthoof kicked and screeched in distress as roots burrowed into the muscles of its legs. Flowers and moss sprouted from the horse-thing’s abused flesh, obscuring its tattered hide. Blighthoof snapped blindly at the air as its greasy mane began to crawl with grass and thistles. More roots snaked around the horse-thing, restraining its thrashing form as it sought to rise.

‘No — Blighthoof, no, no,’ Goral wheezed as he stumbled towards Lifebiter, embedded in a stump during his fall. He jerked the axe free and staggered back towards his faithful steed. Vainly, he chopped at the vines and roots. But it was useless. Almost all of Blighthoof was shrouded in verdant greenery now, eaten away from the inside out. ‘Up, get up,’ Goral cried, trying to tear the roots away from his steed’s neck and muzzle. ‘Fight it, you stupid beast… fight…’ he trailed off. Only one of Blighthoof’s eyes was visible now, rolling madly in its weeping socket. But he could still hear the horse-thing’s agonised grunts. Goral laid his hand on the side of his steed’s head. ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he whispered.

Then, crying out in rage, he brought Lifebiter down on Blighthoof’s skull. The horse-thing’s thrashings slowed, then stilled. Goral tore his axe free and turned away. He limped through the trees, not caring whether he was going the right way or not. Sometimes he heard the screams of his warriors, and occasionally the pained shrieking of one of Uctor’s poor hounds. But mostly, he heard the pale, giggling things as they swept past him and above him, always out of sight. Whenever he dared to slow, to catch his breath, they hurtled towards him out of the dark, attacking until he began to move again.

Black blood and bile was running down his limbs when he at last staggered back into the glade. He shouted for Sir Culgus, but received no reply. Blearily, he scanned the glade. Besides the stones, and the crumbling bodies of the slain tree spirits, it was empty. There was no sign of the warriors he’d left to deface the glade, save for a sword embedded in the ground. He limped towards it, and as he drew close, he recognised it as Sir Culgus’ blade. Roots clung to it, and, as he watched in sickened fascination, they drew the sword down into the dark soil until it was completely lost to sight.

Goral looked down. He caught glimpses of rounded armour plates and twitching fingers covered in grass, and suspicious hummocks of moss and flowers which might have once been bodies. Branches creaked above him, but he did not look. He could hear the laughter of the tree spirits, just past the edge of the glade. They were taunting him, trying to draw him out. As they have before, he thought angrily.

The forest had drawn them in and swallowed them whole, the way it had done to uncounted others. But Goral intended to show it that it bitten off more than it could chew this time. As if they knew what he was thinking, the unseen spirits laughed again, filling his ears with their mockery.