
OF SHADOWS
This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world's ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.
At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.
But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World's Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.
Smoke curled upwards into the darkening night. From the pyres, the last embers slowly lost their fiery glow. A cold wind blew across the field, setting the long grass swaying.
Slowly, the men surrounding the mounds of ash and charred wood turned away. Starlight gleamed from the plates of steel that encased them---where the polish was not lost beneath the blood and grime of battle.
The knights marched away in dour silence, their spirits haunted by the malignity of their vanquished foes. Bold warriors who would have happily boasted of felling giants and slaying dragons, men who existed solely to test their valour, still they felt the deathly chill of their enemies lingering all around them. Even in the green country of Bretonnia, even in the hearts of that land's noble defenders, there were some things too unholy to contemplate.
The knights did not celebrate their victory. As they climbed into the saddles of their destriers, they did not look back to the scene of the day's battle. None of them wanted to be reminded of the horrors they had seen. In ghostly silence, the men rode away, moving across the fields, hurrying to the promise of hearth and home.
Among the knights, one rider lingered, casting a cold gaze across the smouldering mounds of ash. Normally, the burning of the dead would have been peasant work, but there had been no time to levy soldiers from the villages. The importance of consigning the enemy bodies to flame had been too great to wait for gangs of peasants to be brought to the field. That base duty had fallen to the knights themselves to perform.
The lone knight smoothed the torn tabard he wore over his armour, his fingers lingering against the golden grail embroidered across the breast. His hand fell away from the grail, reaching instead to his belt. From a small pouch, he withdrew a small piece of ivory carved into the semblance of a great eagle. He stared at it for a moment, then shifted about in his saddle, fixing his grim gaze upon the growing darkness.
There was no one to meet his gaze, but he knew there was something out there in the darkness. The same something that had rallied to his knights during the battle. Volleys of arrows had struck the enemy's flanks without any sign of the archers. Strange lightning and eerie fires had played about the enemy's ranks. Weird witch-lights had darted about the knights, guarding them from the blades and magic of their foes.
A power older than men, perhaps older than the gods themselves, had assisted the Bretonnians and helped them to victory. But it was a power that had first summoned the knights to the field of battle, sending strange visions to Duc Sarlat d'Armen, dreams which had compelled him to assemble his warriors and ride to battle upon the Field of Razac.
Only once before had Duc Sarlat encountered the mysterious fey-folk, during his Grail Quest. The fey had demanded a boon from him, a favour which they would claim at a later time. The ivory eagle had been the token of that debt.
Now the debt was closed. The knight had no doubt as to the nature of his mysterious allies, nor to the force which had summoned him. The fey-folk had ventured from their haunted forest to help the Bretonnians, but Duc Sarlat knew it was only because the knights, in turn, had helped the fey.
"I honour my promise," Duc Sarlat called out to the night. He glanced down at the ivory eagle. He felt exploited and deceived. Men had died because they had followed him into battle, died fighting for the fey. Angrily his fingers tightened about the carving. "You have your boon!" the knight snarled, hurling the carving into the darkness. He did not hear it strike the ground.
"Do not call upon me again," Duc Sarlat snarled. Savagely, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his steed, moving off through the tall grass. He did not see the pale hand which caught the ivory token, or the limpid blue eyes that studied his retreat from the battlefield.
\*
Ywain watched the duc ride away, accepting his scorn with stoic indifference. The human had been useful, but he had achieved his purpose---the purpose she had foreseen long ago. Ywain had guided the knight down the path of life, carefully cultivating his every step, steering him towards this day and the Battle of Razac Field. The crude brutality of the knights had been necessary to achieve victory here, so far from Athel Loren. She had foreseen that as well. The strength of the asrai was tied to their woodland home. So far from that strength, it had been necessary to employ the barbaric humans.
She might have done without the humans, but Ywain knew that to do so would mean allowing the enemy to enter Athel Loren. That was a risk she was unwilling to take. Not now, not when the Hour of Shadows was so near. If a thing such as Nahak of Khemri were allowed to set foot upon the Golden Pool...
Ywain shivered as her thoughts strayed to the Golden Pool and the power it contained. No evil thing must ever be allowed near it.
Such power must never be allowed near an evil mind. The vision of what would happen was one that caused the elf maiden's skin to crawl. There were some obscenities that even a spellweaver could not countenance.
Ywain composed herself before turning back towards the archers who had accompanied her and lent their marksmanship to the battle against Nahak and his undead horde. The elves stood scattered about the field, their bows slung over their shoulders, their lean bodies displaying an attitude of ease and indifference. Ywain knew the display was deceptive. The kinband of Thalos Stormsword was as wary as a wolf-pack and could strike as swiftly as a viper. It was one of the reasons she had chosen them to accompany her and aid her in her cause.
Her blue eyes settled on the rakish figure of the kinband's leader. The beginning of a smile teased at Ywain's face. As Mistress of the Golden Pool, her course had been chosen for her long ago and it did not include dalliances with handsome, green-eyed highborn elf lords. Still, she could not reason away the feeling which had buried itself somewhere deep within her heart.
Thalos noticed the spellweaver's attention. Wrapping his emerald mantle about his shoulders, the highborn marched to her side, bowing before her and pressing fingers to lips in the traditional gesture of honour before addressing one of Athel Loren's mystic stewardesses.
"Lady Ywain," Thalos said. "The last of the humans have departed. The bones of the grave-spawn have been destroyed upon the pyres."
Ywain stared at the elf lord, trying to read his sharp features for any trace of emotion, hoping against reason to see her own affection mirrored there. All she could find were the cold lights of duty and loyalty.
"You wish to know if our task is done here? You wish for us to return to the forest?"
"Forgive my impertinence," Thalos said. "I did not mean to question the vision of a spellweaver."
Ywain frowned at his choice of words. They echoed the doubt that continued to nag at her. Portents and omens were not so easily interpreted as letters upon a page. They were like ripples upon a pond, scattering before the eye could follow them, one rushing into another and creating a third from the ensuing confusion. By leading Duc Sarlat's knights into battle against the horde of Nahak, Ywain had prevented the liche from marching on Athel Loren. But had the menace to the Golden Pool been ended?
To know that, she would need to understand the ripples rushing away from the events she had set into motion.
The moons of Mannslieb and Morrslieb were high in the night sky by the time the elves quit the Razac Field. No eye witnessed their passing, for the folk of Athel Loren were accomplished masters in the art of stealth and any sign of their presence that might be beyond their natural skill to conceal, the magic of Ywain wiped away.
Their withdrawal was noted just the same. Not by sound or sight or smell, but it was noticed by the creatures lurking in the darkness. They had a sense for magic, after a fashion, and felt the presence of the elves as though icy fingers raked through their fur. Only when that sensation of unease and disquiet left them did the lurkers emerge from their burrows and steal through the long grass.
The elves had hidden their scent, but they had neglected to blot out the tell-tale stink of battle. Far had the scent of blood and bone carried, scattered by the wind, drawn into the noses of hungry scavengers. Crawling from their holes, the vermin had come to steal whatever provender the battlefield might offer.
Man-like in posture, yet with the furry bodies of rodents and the fanged muzzles of rats, the creatures scurried through the grass. As they crept across the field, their heads were in constant motion, darting from side to side, nervously watching for any sign of danger. Creatures of the underworld, born in subterranean burrows and reared in darkness, the skaven were uncomfortable out in the open. The naked sky above them filled them with instinctive horror, their fears populating the panorama above them with soaring hawks and monstrous owls just waiting to swoop down upon them with sharp claws and tearing beaks.
Hunger was the only force powerful enough to bring the skaven to the surface, and all the scrawny ratmen were firmly in the clutches of starvation. There were no easy pickings for the skaven who made their lairs in Bretonnia. The knights of that land were far too vigilant to allow the ratkin to prosper. Unlike other lands, their nobility was too virtuous to be corrupted, too bold to be threatened. So it was that the skaven of the Gnawbone clan assumed a starveling existence, scavenging only those scraps that the knights left unguarded, terrified lest more energetic depredations lead to their extermination.
Neek Stumblepaw scratched at his mangy, flea-infested fur, sniffing dejectedly at the air. The tantalising smell of blood was there, but not the savoury stench of rotting meat. He ground his fangs together in fury. Just like the vile steel-things to take away their dead. They would rather lock away all that meat in stone vaults than leave anything to feed either vulture or worm. Spiteful, cruel-minded tyrants. Some day the Horned Rat would bring them low, cast down their castles and stone meat-vaults. Then the skaven would be revenged upon the arrogant steel-things. It would be the steel-things who would grovel in the dirt trying to find whatever scraps the skaven discarded.
Neek lashed his tail in frustration. The knights had left no heaps of carrion behind, but perhaps they had overlooked a few things. A severed arm, perhaps. The ratman's mouth watered at the idea of such a morsel. Despite the risk, he rose up from the grass and took a long sniff, desperately trying to find any hint of decaying flesh in the air. No, there was nothing. Only the bitter smell of ashes and charcoal.
The ratman's ears perked up as his brain analyzed that bit of information. The steel-things would take away their own dead, but they would often burn the bodies of the dirty man-thing slaves who served them. And, of course, they always burned the corpses of their enemies.
Neek's belly grumbled as a new image supplanted that of a juicy severed arm. The fires would have burned away all of the meat, but they might not have burned hot enough to destroy the bones. A nice goblin femur or even the broad ribs of a beastkin gor would make a veritable feast for the hungry skaven. Neek's tongue slid along his fangs, already tasting the sweet repast.
Other skaven had already reached the same conclusion as Neek. He could smell their excitement as they scuttled across the field, converging upon the bitter-smelling patches of scorched ground where the steel-things had raised their bonfires. Neek cursed his own laxity. He had a foolish habit of thinking when he should be acting. It was a habit which had never served him well, always causing him to lag behind, forced to pick from whatever his fellows overlooked. It was a flaw of character which had earned him the title "Stumblepaw".
Hurrying through the grass, Neek rushed past the nearest piles of ash. Already there were mobs of squabbling skaven rooting about, pulling charred bones from the debris. Snarls of anger and squeaks of pain sounded as the larger skaven snatched the bones from their smaller kin. Noisily they cracked the bones open with their fangs and began sucking out the marrow.
Neek shunned the closer ashrings and their knots of squabbling skaven. He focused instead on the more distant pyres where there would be fewer skaven and less chance of being forced to fight for his supper. Scurrying across the field, he passed first one, then another pyre, rejecting each in turn as he found verminous shapes already scratching at the ashes. Neek had always been something of a runt and his sketchy diet had rendered him even less fit for a scrap with another skaven. As the scavengers lifted their muzzles from the piles of ash and bared their fangs at him, he bowed his head and hurried on.
Finally, Neek found himself driven to the last pyre. Even here there were skaven scraping through the debris. They turned towards him, displaying their sharp fangs. Instinctively, Neek recoiled, retreating from the threat. He had only taken a few steps, however, before his belly clenched, sending a flash of pain through his body. There was nowhere else to go. This was the last pyre. If he was going to find anything to eat, it would be here.
Desperation drove Neek back towards the pile of ashes. His hand closed about the rusty sword thrust through the ratgut belt he wore. Fear pounding through his veins, terror gripping his glands, he rushed at his fellow skaven.
They must have smelled the change in Neek's scent, for they once again looked up from their scavenging. One of their number, a black furred killer named Tisknik, whipped out his own sword. One of Clan Gnawbone's fiercest warriors, Tisknik was also one of its craftiest. That was why he had chosen a distant pyre, knowing the competition would be less, leaving the closer pyres to those skaven who let their bellies rule their brains.
Neek faltered before Tisknik's blade, his desperate courage flickering as he saw the gleam of murder shining in the black skaven's beady red eyes. His foe was quick to exploit Neek's timidity. Like a flash, the black skaven's sword licked out, slicing across Neek's fingers.
The rusty sword fell from Neek's paw as he squealed in pain. The runt cringed away, hugging his injured limb to his chest. Tisknik's nostrils flared as the smell of fresh blood excited his senses. He continued to close upon Neek, but it was no longer anger that burned in the black skaven's eyes, but hunger.
Only one thing preserved Neek from the cannibalistic attentions of the larger ratman. Tisknik's feet disturbed the piled ash, disclosing a jumble of blackened bones. The other skaven rummaging among the ashes spotted the bones and pounced towards them, squeaking excitedly. Tisknik was soon too busy trying to defend his find from the other scavengers to bother about Neek.
Dejectedly, Neek watched the clanrats squabble. Even if Tisknik's sword killed a few of them, there was little real chance that enough of them would die to give Neek an opportunity to dart in and get some food. The victors would be even more zealous about protecting the meat from a dead ratman than they were about a bunch of old bones.
As Neek watched the confused melee, he saw something roll out from the ashes, kicked away by one of the fighters. The runt scurried to the object, noting its bony smell. True, it was very old, but there might be some marrow left in it. Without bothering to look at it, Neek grabbed the thing with both paws and hugged it close to his body. Not daring to linger, he scurried off into the grass before anyone could come after him.
When he felt he was at a safe distance, Neek looked down and inspected his find. His belly clenched tight as he discovered that his prize was nothing but an old man-thing skull. No marrow there, nothing to produce even the slightest morsel. The only bit of nutrition about the thing was the splotch of blood which stained it---blood from his own injured paw.
Gnashing his teeth in outrage, Neek drew his arm back, intending to throw away the mocking, inedible skull.
Then a voice seemed to speak to him, a thin whisper that echoed inside his brain.
Do you throw power away so easily?
Neek paused, his hackles rising. He glanced about, warily trying to spot whoever was speaking to him. He had a horrible idea where the voice had come from. It took a long time before he dared to look at the skull. When he did, he found that there was a faint flicker of light glowing deep down inside the eye sockets. His glands clenched at this display of sorcery. Again, he moved to cast the grisly thing from him.
I can give you power. More power than you have ever dreamed of. You will never go hungry again. You will be a king among your kind.
The ratman's eyes narrowed as he stared at the skull. He still felt the horror of the thing he held in his hand, but the ghostly voice had impressed that part of his mind not ruled by instinct. Old ambitions flared up within Neek's mind. Position! Power! Access to the breeders! A cloak of cat-skin and a suit of armour such as Warlord Graknit wore!
Such petty ambitions. I offer you true power. The power of life and death. The power beyond death.
Suspicion flared up inside Neek's breast. This was a thing of the dead-things, unholy kindred of the Skull-Devil! It would not offer him anything without some trick. It wanted something from him---something Neek was certain he couldn't afford to give.
I need flesh. I need limbs. The horse-lords have left me broken, my body torn asunder. I cannot work my magic without hands to weave the aethyr and a voice to speak the spells.
That was it! The foul thing wanted Neek's body! The skaven squeaked in fright, dropping the skull to the ground. The faint glow in the sockets faded as Neek backed away from it. Dimly, he imagined he could hear the dead-thing's voice scratching at his brain.
No! It would not have his flesh! Better to die and be eaten by his fellow skaven!
Neek turned to run, but as he did so, he saw a black shape prowling through the grass. The shape's scent was that of Tisknik and as the black skaven's form became more distinct, Neek saw that there was still a hungry gleam in the beady red eyes. Tisknik moved with a limp, his leg bloodied and torn. Clearly he had fared poorly in the melee. Driven off by the other scavengers, he had followed Neek's scent, hoping to find easier prey.
Even weakened, Neek knew that Tisknik was still more than a match for him. There was death in the black skaven's eyes. Neek would spill his life on Tisknik's sword and his flesh would make his enemy strong again. The thought was more repugnant to Neek than it had been a moment ago. Every bullying indignity he had suffered at Tisknik's paws flashed through his mind. No, the arrogant brute would not feast upon Neek's bones!
Subduing his instinctive horror, Neek scrambled back to the discarded skull, cradling it in his hands.
"Yes-yes!" Neek squeaked. "Give-bring power! Share-take Neek's body-flesh!"
Tisknik hesitated, glaring at the smaller ratman. "The Horned One does not listen-hear runt-squeaks," he growled.
The scornful contempt in Tisknik's voice sent a sliver of pure hate coursing through Neek's heart. The runt's vision grew dark, his body turned cold. No, it wasn't hate rushing through his body. It was something else. Something that wasn't a part of him.
The darkness became bright, like a great grey mist which surrounded him. He could see Tisknik now as a strange shadow-figure of pulsing veins and pounding heart. His foe's face and sword, these were mere echoes of substance to Neek's new sight, but the black skaven's veins and heart, racing with blood, these shone more brightly than the most brilliant warp-lantern.
Now there were words forming in Neek's mind. As quickly as they formed, the runt's lips spoke them, his tongue curling about the strange sounds as though they were more familiar to him than his own scent. He shifted the skull to his right hand and made a curious gesture with his left paw.
Instantly, Tisknik stopped advancing. The black skaven cried out, his squeak carrying within it a note of terror mixed with unspeakable agony. The blazing glow of Tisknik's veins faded, collapsing in upon itself, turning blacker than the shadow body which housed them. In a moment, the completely dark body wilted to the ground. The smell of death raced through Neek's nose.
The ratman's belly growled once more. Baring his fangs, he prepared to leap upon the darkened carcass that had been Tisknik. He would fill his belly with the meat of his vanquished enemy!
No. He will be of more use to us whole and undamaged.
The ghostly voice restrained Neek. More words flashed through his brain, and with them were more gestures which he must make. This time, he would need both hands. Carefully, he set the skull down upon the ground once more. As it touched the cold earth, Neek observed the light slowly fade once more from the eye sockets.
It did not matter, the spell was already housed within Neek's brain. He did not need the skull to instruct him further. Standing over the withered body of Tisknik, the runt made the gestures and spoke the words. The carcass began to twitch.
For an instant, Neek thought the skull had betrayed him, that the spell had poured life back into Tisknik. But, no, there was no return of the fiery vibrancy of life to the dead skaven's veins. The blackened heart did not beat, the cold blood did not flow. Tisknik was dead, but his body had been restored to the simulacrum of life, transformed into a soulless puppet.
"Raise-lift your arm," Neek snarled at the dead thing. Slowly, awkwardly, Tisknik lifted his arm. An excited squeak hissed past Neek's fangs at this display of the power he had been given. This was a power greater than Warlord Graknit possessed, for the minions he commanded had minds of their own and might turn on him. Tisknik no longer had any mind, no will except that of Neek. There could never be any treachery from such an underling, only unquestioned obedience.
Neek cast a sly look at the skull lying upon the ground. The foolish dead-thing had given him the secret of a great power, practically handed it to him without a fight. The ratman closed his eyes, concentrating his mind. Yes, the secret of the first spell was there too, the knowledge to wither flesh and drive the life-force from an enemy's body.
He laughed maliciously. He could leave the skull where it was. It had already given him more power than he had ever dreamed of possessing. He could leave it behind, forget all about it. He was no longer Neek Stumblepaw, but Neek Spellscratcher. Warlord Graknit would reward him well for his services.
Neek grinned savagely. But why should he serve anyone? If the skull had given him such secrets so easily, what knowledge might it still possess? He would be foolish to cast it aside so recklessly when there was more magic it could teach him.
The skaven turned to his zombie slave. It was almost on his tongue to order Tisknik to pick up the skull and carry it for him. The instinctive suspicion of all skaven prevented Neek from making such a blunder. The skull needed a body to make its magic. Working through Neek, it had been forced to share its power with his mind. But the zombie had no mind of its own. The skull would be able to dominate Tisknik completely. It would have no further use for Neek then.
That wouldn't help Neek in the slightest, because he had big plans for the skull and the secrets it would tell him.
Ordering the zombie back, Neek retrieved the skull from the ground. He chittered maliciously as he sensed disappointment and frustration emanating from the undead spirit. He had seen through the dead-thing's trick. Now it would be forced to deal with him like an equal.
But first, Neek required sustenance. He thought of the skaven pawing through the ashes. Any one of them would make a fine supper. And with Tisknik enslaved to his every thought, there was no reason for Neek to risk himself getting that supper....
A cool breeze rustled through the forest, causing branches to dance and leaves to tremble. The songs of birds echoed from the treetops. Through the undergrowth, a thousand tiny creatures crept and crawled, pushing their way through the long grass in their unending search for forage and fodder. Squirrels raced about, scampering down the trunks of mighty oaks. Black-feathered starlings probed the ground in search of worms. A lithe deer, its brown coat mottled with white, grazed upon the lichen clinging to the trunk of an old ash tree.
Through the restful serenity of the forest, the slender figure of Ywain the spellweaver glided, moving with a natural grace which the animals of the forest might envy. The cool breeze set her dark locks swaying about her bare shoulders, the gauzy folds of her gown fluttering about her lean limbs.
Strange lights flickered and flashed about the elf as she made her way among the trees, capering about her in swirling displays of exuberance. Sometimes the lights would tug at her hair, sometimes they would play with the delicate material of her gown. A ruddy-hued glow toyed with the laces of her doeskin boots, seemingly fascinated with the way the slender cords could be tied into different shapes and knots.
There was nothing capricious about the antics of the faerie lights, their attentions more inquisitive than malicious. The spirits who inhabited Athel Loren could be both, and among the wildest of the fey it was only a small step from curiosity to malignance, yet only the most bitter of the forest's guardians would intentionally harm a spellweaver. The spellweavers were the stewards of Athel Loren, mediating the wishes of the fey and the needs of the wood elves, seeking balance between the natural order of the forest and those who dwelled beneath its boughs.
Ywain tried not to notice the playful excesses of the spirits that had devoted their attentions to her. The spites would only become more persistent if they provoked a reaction with their antics. Sometimes it was difficult, however. When one of the little lights settled onto the tip of her nose and began to chirp like a cricket, it was all Ywain could do to suppress a smile. When the little light transformed itself into a tiny, wizened parody of her own visage, Ywain frowned. The spite flickered in contrition, reforming itself into an even more comically distorted reflection of the elf. This time, the spellweaver favoured the spite with a soft laugh. The light shot away from her nose, a perfect imitation of her laughter sounding from it as the spite circled happily above her head.
The spellweaver watched the spite's merry flight for a time, enjoying this manifestation of the forest's friendship. It had taken the asrai thousands of years to earn the trust of Athel Loren, to claim a place for themselves among its grandeur. As much as the fey themselves, the wood elves had assumed the duty of guardians and protectors of the forest, defending it against all those who would do it harm. It was a duty the elves had come to accept as a great honour, an obligation which had reshaped not only their culture, but their very identity. They had become a part of the forest, as much a part of it as the deer which grazed its foliage and the hawks which soared through its sky. There could be no life for the asrai without Athel Loren.
A sigh fluttered through Ywain's breast as her mind turned away from the beauty of the forest and troubled thoughts began to stir once more. Time flowed strangely within Athel Loren, yet it could not entirely ignore the passing of years in the world beyond its boundaries.
The Hour of Shadows was due to fall once more, bringing with it a menace more terrible than that which she had opposed before. The evil of Nahak had been reborn, bound into a new malevolence. Long had it bided its time, gathering its strength, shaping its vessel. But now, the evil would wait no longer. The Hour of Shadows was coming and with it the opportunity to again claim the power of the Golden Pool.
A change suddenly stole upon the spites circling about her. The flickering lights darkened, their flittering flight becoming somehow subdued. One by one the spites withdrew, soaring back into the trees, vanishing into wood knots and hiding among leaves. Only the little red spite playing with her laces and the excited yellow spite who had made her laugh did not desert Ywain, but even their colours became dim and their attitude subdued.
The change was reflected in the forest around her as well. The trees had become dark and sinister, their branches reaching out like the claws of great beasts. The bushes sported spiky thorns and the grass gave way to ground that was choked by brambles. No longer did birds sing or squirrels scamper, the only sound the warning cry of a lone falcon.
Ywain did not need to look over her shoulder to know that the path behind her had changed, that if she were to look back she would not see the same trees and rocks she had passed before. The trails within Athel Loren were many and often strayed into strange territories. In times of need, the forest might allow a journey of hundreds of miles to take but a single hour. At others, when a traveller had offended the fey, a distance of only a dozen yards might take days.
Ywain recognized the terrain before her. Her steps had led her here many times before. The sinister trees and the thorny bushes were like fence posts raised by the forest to surround one of its darkest places. No elf could find this place unless he were intended to find it and even the fey shunned the power locked away behind that fence. Perhaps the forest itself was afraid of the Golden Pool... and the thing which watched over it.
She had never set eyes upon the guardian of the pool, though she had felt its voice speaking in her mind. The other spellweavers called it "the Warden of the Wood", though they had no real inkling as to what lay behind the name. Ywain only knew it was old, impossibly old, perhaps even older than Athel Loren itself. The fey obeyed it, deferring to its commands with a respectful facility even the wisest elf mage couldn't evoke.
The bushes parted before Ywain's approach, shifting aside of their own accord. Branches pulled back, brambles uprooted themselves and slithered away. With every step she took, the path opened a little more. She could hear the foliage closing up behind her, reminding her of the portcullis of Duc Sarlat's castle.
Ywain was past the fence now, standing within a broad clearing of open ground. Though she had seen this place many times, she could not control the sense of alarm which thrilled through her body as she gazed upon the barren, lifeless earth. Not a weed, not a flower or blade of grass grew within the clearing. For a circumference of a thousand yards, the ground was bare. It was not dead ground, but was rich and black with nutrients. It was soil that should have been abundant with growth, yet it was as forsaken as a slab of granite. The Warden of the Wood had made it so. It had forbidden the forest to grow here, and so the forest did not grow beyond the fence of thorns.
At the very centre of the clearing, set into the ring of black, lifeless ground, was the Golden Pool. A vast pit, a hundred feet across, that glistened in the daylight with the glow of a second sun. Ywain felt her pulse quicken as she gazed upon the pool. Beads of sweat rose upon her breast, her delicate composure snapped as a husky moan whispered through her lips. If only she could cross that dead ground and refresh herself in the luxurious embrace of the pool's warm waters!
Ywain's slender hand pulled at the bodice of her gown. She caught herself with a start, her cheeks reddening as she realized what she had allowed herself to do. The lure of the pool retreated as anger and guilt filled her heart. She knew the pool's tricks, the lures it would use. The Warden of the Wood was not the only intelligence at work behind the fence. The Golden Pool did not communicate with words, but it could evoke feelings in those who were not guarded against its wiles.
The spellweaver smoothed back her hair, chiding herself for being so foolish. The pool didn't even have water to bathe in! It was composed of solid amber, the fossilised resin of ancient trees. Its surface was as frozen and hard as the skin of a mountain. It had to be, for only such a substance could bind the power contained within the Golden Pool, the concentrated destructiveness of a storm of magic.
Evil calls out to evil.
The two spites that had remained with her became agitated as the voice spoke to Ywain. They tugged at her with little clawed hands, trying to pull her back towards the fence and away from the fearsome thing whose presence they could feel wrapping itself around her.
"The Golden Pool still binds it," Ywain spoke. Though she knew it was useless, her eyes searched the line of trees, studied the thorny bushes, seeking any sign of the thing whose voice she heard inside her mind.
Evil calls out to evil.
"I know the Hour of Shadows draws near," Ywain said. "I have seen the malignance of Nahak rising from its own destruction to threaten Athel Loren once more. It uses the rat-creature Huskk Gnawbone as its pawn. The ratmen will march upon the forest and seek to capture the Golden Pool."
The Hour of Shadows weakens the forest, strengthens the magic of darkness. Athel Loren will not be able to defend herself.
"The asrai stand ready to defend our home," Ywain assured the Warden. "We will not allow this evil to triumph. Huskk Gnawbone marches to his destruction."
His magic will be great even without the power of the pool. Your magic will be weakened, just as the strength of the fey will weaken. The ordeal will not be easy.
Ywain's eyes turned towards the Golden Pool, a thought stirring her mind. "The pool's power will be stronger in the Hour of Shadows."
Evil calls out to evil.
The spellweaver turned her head around, catching a suggestion of something massive and monstrous moving beyond the fence. The Warden's words had felt different just then, tinged with more than warning. She had never before sensed any manner of feeling behind the thing's voice before, yet now she had the impression of something closer to emotion than she had ever felt before. There had been a quality almost of regret in the Warden's voice.
Your people will need help to overcome the corruption. Bring Thalos Stormsword here. I will present him with the weapon that will preserve the forest.
Ywain stared at the fence, unable to believe the words. Never in all her centuries of communing with the Warden had the thing ever allowed her to bring another elf to the Golden Pool, much less requested someone brought to it. The strangeness of the request made her doubt the thing's intentions. She felt a swelling of concern for Thalos, worry that the Warden meant him some harm.
The hurt which has been done to him has already been done. Bring him before me and it may be that great good may rise from his suffering.
Ywain bowed her head, hiding her eyes at this mention of Thalos' pain. She had been responsible for that hurt, a hurt which she was not gracious enough to allow to heal. She was a spellweaver and mistress of the Golden Pool, but she was also a woman and possessed a woman's desires.
The spites suddenly became less frantic, relenting in their efforts to draw her away from the Golden Pool. Ywain could sense the presence of the Warden withdrawing from her. She knew it would not return until she brought Thalos through the fence.
The craggy slopes of the Grey Mountains dominated the view from the mouth of the tunnel. Towering far into the cloudy sky, it was difficult to tell exactly where mountain ended and cloud began. Coils of mist and fog rolled down the sides of the mountains, choking the deep valleys and isolating the tall pines clinging to the rocky heights. The smells of granite and sap, pine needle and snow wafted down, seeping into the tunnel and almost masking the dank reek of rodent fur rising from the army of skaven lurking within the subterranean darkness.
Grey Seer Nashrik glared balefully at the mountains, the instinctive agoraphobia of his race closing an icy talon of fear about his heart. A skaven's place was deep inside such mountains where he could hide in the foetid dark and feel solid stone against his whiskers. No sane skaven would scurry about in the open, where his scent might carry for miles.
The grey seer gnashed his fangs as he reflected that the creature he had journeyed so very far to find was hardly sane.
Many frightening reports had been brought back to Skavenblight about Huskk Gnawbone. For dozens of generations, spies had been bringing accounts of the infamous Black Seer to the Council of Thirteen. Huskk was said to be a mighty sorcerer versed in the terrifying bone magic of the Accursed One. It was claimed that he had slaughtered his entire clan, taking the name of his clan for his own. There were accounts that he'd animated the corpses of Clan Gnawbone to form an army of the walking dead, using his undead horde to exterminate the warrens of many small clans and seize their meagre resources for his own.
Whatever the truth of such stories, it could not be doubted that Huskk possessed some sort of power and the ambition to match. Even if some other enemy were responsible for the destruction of the starveling clans beyond the Blighted Marshes, Huskk's conquest of Clan Grubrr was undeniable. Whatever secret allies and hidden traitors might have supported him, it was Huskk who had led an army into the burrows of Clan Grubrr's main warren of Blackscratch and in a single night enslaved its entire population.
True, Clan Grubrr might have been able to muster a counter-attack had its other far-flung settlements not been appropriated by other opportunistic clans. And it had to be admitted that the murder of Grubrr's warlord by an assassin in the employ of Clan Rictus was woefully ill-timed. Then there was the little accident of Clan Sleekit misdirecting the original relief force dispatched from Skavenblight to reclaim Blackscratch. Still, the fault for Clan Grubrr's destruction was entirely on the heretical head of Huskk Gnawbone. Once the cowardly rat who had dared proclaim himself "Black Seer" was exterminated, a vile affront to the dignity and grace of the Horned One would be expunged from the Under-Empire.
Nashrik squinted at the landscape before him. Once, he'd been sent to investigate the wild schemes of Warpscratch Snaggle, one of Clan Skryre's half-mad warlock-engineers. Snaggle had been trying to appropriate resources to construct an enormous cannon with which he intended to fire skaven explorers towards the darkling moon Morrslieb. The justification for his scheme was his belief that the moon was made of warpstone. He'd tried to make his case to Nashrik by allowing the grey seer to study the moon in detail through a gigantic lens array he called his "star-sniffer".
What Nashrik now gazed upon looked something like that bleak moonscape he'd seen through the star-sniffer. The ground was worn and lifeless, pockmarked with gaping craters and ugly gashes. Streams of muddy water oozed through the desolation, cloudy and grey.
It was a simple thing to follow the flow of water back to its source, a great system of hoses and pumps, each hose manned by a crew of dozens of skaven. The hoses were trained upon the great slopes of the mountains, pressurised water blasting into the rocks, pulverising them until they collapsed in jumbled rubble. A vast horde of scrawny labourers swarmed through the rubble, dragging away most of it. Sometimes an emaciated slave would cry out, brandishing a sliver of black stone. Instantly, a swarm of guards would descend upon the slave, snatching the prize from him and bearing it away to a series of iron lockboxes.
The reason for the brutal strip-mining operation was evident. The skaven of Clan Grubrr had long profited from the warpstone deposits buried inside the Grey Mountains. However, there were limits to what they could safely extract from their caverns inside the mountains. So another way had been brought into use to reach the warpstone buried in the upper slopes.
Nashrik watched the savage display for a time, impressed despite himself by the scope of the operation. There were thousands of slaves toiling away on the slopes, hundreds of technicians operating the hoses and a veritable army of armed guards supervising the whole thing. The very audacity of such a scheme, gnawing away at the walls of the mountain, using its own mountain streams to force it to render up its treasures!
The grey seer shook his head, peering malignantly at the slaves and their overseers. He was here with a purpose. He was here because these skaven had forgotten their place in the grand scheme of things, had forgotten that they were beholden to the Horned Rat and the Council of Thirteen. They had neglected the tribute which was the due of their masters in Skavenblight and they had failed to render the proper devotion to the prophets of their god. These were crimes that none of the Under-Empire's subjects could be allowed to get away with. The very fabric of skaven civilization would collapse if any ratman thought he could simply do as he liked.
Yes, there must be consequences, severe, fast and violent. Nashrik turned his horned head and smirked as he considered the army he commanded. From the sacred walls of holy Skavenblight, his soldiers had followed him. Hundreds of stalwart clanrats, scores of ferocious stormvermin, dozens of Clan Skryre weaponeers with their deadly instruments of death!
And, of course, there was the mighty Grey Seer Nashrik the Terrifying, favoured disciple of Seerlord Kritislik! Sword of the Council! Herald of the Horned One! Chewer of Enemy Spleens! His magic alone was enough to wipe out the puny slaves and their ridiculous guards.
Nashrik stroked his whiskers. Black Seer indeed! If this was all that Huskk's magic could summon, then the renegade heretic heathen was already dead! Nashrik would make sport with the outlaw's pelt after he peeled it from the rat's flesh. The skin of Huskk Gnawbone would make an amusing gift for Seerlord Kritislik, one that would impress him with the courage and efficiency of Nashrik the Dependable.
The grey seer snapped his claws. Instantly, a wiry young skaven scrambled to his side. Like Nashrik, the smaller ratman had pale fur and wore a robe of grey, but the horns upon his head were low nubs of bone not yet matured into the impressive array of a skaven sorcerer-priest. Adept Weekil was Nashrik's apprentice, the latest in a long line of disciples who had been mentored by the older grey seer. Weekil's position made him more than just student, however. He was valet, servant and general dogsbody to Nashrik, undertaking all of the duties too insignificant or too dangerous for his master's attention. At present, that meant acting as liaison between Nashrik and the pompous Fangmaster Vermitt, general of the army under Nashrik's command.
"Tell Vermitt to begin his attack. Surround the mine. Kill-slay all who resist," Nashrik growled.
"He will want-know where Tyrannical Nashrik is-is," Weekil whined, bobbing his head in an annoyingly unctuous manner. "Worry-fear for Dread Nashrik's safety," the apprentice added lamely.
The craven maggot! Vermitt wasn't concerned about the grey seer's safety! The parasite was hoping to use Nashrik's sorcery to do his fighting for him, to let the grey seer exhaust himself withering the enemy ranks with his spells. Then Vermitt would mop up the survivors with hardly a loss among his own troops. Or perhaps the bloodworm had loftier ambitions. An exhausted Nashrik would be easy prey for the blades of his warriors and he could always claim that the grey seer had fallen in battle. That would leave only Vermitt to be lauded as a hero when the expedition returned to Skavenblight.
"Tell-say that I will remain here," Nashrik told Weekil. "I must-must commune with the Horned One and ensure that his blessing is upon the efforts of our army. You will act as my proxy in my absence. Render Vermitt such aid as you can with your magic."
The smell of musk seeped from Weekil's glands. "But most malignant of masters, you have taught me so little of your magic. I am not strong-mighty like you..."
Nashrik bared his fangs in a threatening snarl. "Then I suggest you don't overexert yourself," he cautioned. "If you would ever become a full grey seer, it is important to learn the limits of your abilities. And your ambitions."
Nashrik pulled at his whiskers as he prowled through the captured mine. Vermitt's warriors had made quick work of Huskk's pathetic retinue. Only a dozen or so of the expedition had fallen in the battle, most of them when an over-excited team of globadiers had become confused and tossed poison wind bombs into the ranks of one of the clanrat regiments. It had been prudent to accept the incident as an accident rather than rise to rumours about gambling debts. The services of weapon teams were expensive and clanrats were easily replaced.
The grey seer paused, looking out across the shivering mass of prisoners that his army had captured. Realising the hopelessness of their situation, the slaves and their guards had surrendered almost immediately, grovelling before Nashrik in a pathetic display of begging and snivelling. More of the wretches had been killed because of their captors' brutality than had perished in the actual fighting. The death toll might have been higher had Vermitt's troops not discovered the mine's food supplies and gorged themselves upon its contents. The losses didn't upset Nashrik. These fools were either willing accomplices or hapless tools of a degenerate sorcerer who had refused to accede to the authority of the Council. One way or another, they were already fated for a violent death, whether they died here or as an example to the teeming hordes of skavendom on the sands of Skavenblight's Arena of Calamitous Doom.
Nashrik savoured the image of his triumphant return to Skavenblight. Only the failure to find Huskk himself tainted his victory, but he could easily pass the blame for that failing onto the incompetence of Vermitt and his troops. If there was one thing a skaven commander could not abide more than treachery, it was stupidity. Vermitt would suffer for the failures of the expedition while Nashrik profited from its successes. If Vermitt had been smarter, their roles might have been reversed. But, of course, if Nashrik had even suspected such cunning, he would have arranged an accident for Vermitt long ago.
Contemplating his erstwhile ally, Nashrik was surprised to see Vermitt and a pack of his black-furred stormvermin marching towards the cave that the grey seer had made into his temporary lair. He cast a suspicious glance at the iron chests of warpstone he'd confiscated from the strip-mine. Nashrik's eyes narrowed with avarice. If Vermitt thought he was going to claim any portion of the treasure destined for the coffers of the Temple of the Horned Rat, then he was every bit as deluded as Huskk's wretched followers. Nashrik would unleash a spell so terrible that the only thing left of Vermitt and his warriors would be a greasy smear on the mountainside.
Nashrik was just popping a small sliver of warpstone into his mouth to fuel such malignant magic when his ears perked up. Vermitt's skaven weren't alone. They were leading a scrawny, withered little ratman with mangy fur and a tattered robe. Nashrik stifled a squeak of excitement. Had these dolts finally tracked down Huskk and pulled him from his hiding place?
Alas, their incompetence proved to be total. The scrawny skaven wasn't the renegade sorcerer, only a lone lurker whom the sentries had discovered prowling about the edge of the mine. He claimed to be a messenger bearing tidings from his master, Huskk Gnawbone.
"Grey Seer Nashrik of Skavenblight," the messenger said, his voice a dry whisper and his words conveying all the vitality of an open grave. "Black Seer Huskk Gnawbone desires to make-take council with you. He want-like squeak-speak about tribute and surrender."
Nashrik's attention fixated upon the word "tribute". "Surrender" and "council" didn't interest him greatly. If Huskk thought that anything he could say would make the Lords of Decay pardon his heresies, then he was a bigger idiot than Vermitt.
However, it had to be conceded that Huskk's mining efforts had yielded a noticeable amount of warpstone. He might have a fair deal more hidden away in whatever hole he'd buried himself in. When his messenger spoke to Nashrik of "tribute" what he really meant was a bribe, an offering to make the grey seer look aside while Huskk slipped away and escaped. Naturally, Nashrik had no intention of risking his own neck by allowing so notorious an enemy of the Council to escape, but Huskk didn't need to know that.
At least not until after the grey seer had accepted the bribe.
"Take me to Huskk the Heretical," Nashrik declared, jabbing his claw at the messenger's nose. "I will hear his confession and if he is truly contrite, I shall ask the Horned Rat to be merciful."
The messenger made a deep bow, baring his throat to Nashrik in the age-old gesture of obedience and submission. The grey seer squinted and sniffed, trying to read any hint of treachery or deception from the skinny ratman's posture and scent. He could find none. That fact instantly put his nerves on edge. A skaven was always more at ease when he knew he was being lied to.
"We go catch-take Black Seer, yes-yes?" Vermitt asked, unable to contain his excitement over the messenger's words. Nashrik couldn't miss the greedy glint in the chieftain's eyes. Apparently the mention of tribute hadn't gone unnoticed.
The grey seer weighed his options. If he took Vermitt along, he'd have to be wary not only of treachery from Huskk, but betrayal from the warlord as well. From what he had seen of the Black Seer's domain, Huskk's vaunted magic seemed far from impressive, certainly nothing a grey seer couldn't handle. It would be easier and safer if he confronted the renegade alone. Not only would it allow him to obscure the size and nature of Huskk's tribute, but it would allow him to concoct as heroic an account of his battle with the Black Seer as he liked without any witnesses around to contradict him.
"This may be a trap," Nashrik told Vermitt, enjoying the way the warlord's enthusiasm flickered and died. "The Black Seer has mighty magic. Only the protection of the Horned One will defend against such dark powers. I will go-go and face Huskk alone."
Vermitt lashed his tail in annoyance, a trace of disquiet in his scent. The general was debating whether he should listen to his greed or his fear. Nashrik didn't like the way Vermitt's posture suddenly changed, becoming servile and meek. He'd caught the warlord's momentary glance at the iron boxes strewn about the pit.
"Adept Weekil," Nashrik snarled at his apprentice. The young seer perked up, scrambling to his mentor's side with cringing deference. "I go to squeak-speak with the heretic. You will stay-watch the Horned One's treasure. Any who think to take-steal from the Horned One will suffer his wrath."
"Yes-yes, wise and terrible Nashrik," Weekil said, his head bobbing up and down. As a rule, skaven were a fearful and superstitious race. The threat of their god's displeasure would be enough to dissuade them for a time. Whenever they did manage to rationalise away such religious inhibitions, they would still have Weekil to deal with. The adept had learned enough magic that he could make things ugly if Vermitt's troops made an attempt to seize the boxes.
Nashrik would have to hedge his bets against the cowardly greed of Fangmaster Vermitt. Besides, there was every reason to think Huskk's tribute would be greater than what the expedition had seized from the mine. Enough to make it worth the risk involved.
"Lead me to the heretic," the grey seer growled at the messenger.
The mounted elves broke through the bushes, pressing their stallions into a gallop as they sighted their quarry far ahead of them. Spites flitted across the path, alternately jeering and applauding the two hunters. The elves carefully ignored the mischievous spirits. The hunt was difficult enough without provoking the interest of the fey. The trees sometimes found it amusing to make a horse stumble over one of their roots or to snag a rider with their branches.
Ahead of them, the great stag hesitated, its head turning to regard the path before it. While it paused, the trees leaned back, opening a new trail beside the path. The stag glanced at the narrow little trail then darted into the space between the trees.
"Hurry!" Thalos Stormsword cried. "The fey have taken a hand in our hunt! If they close the trail behind our quarry, we will never catch him!"
The highborn urged his steed to greater effort, lunging down the path and charging down the newly opened trail. His companion galloped close behind him, rushing to close the distance between hunters and prey. The winding trail curled through the forest, wrapping itself around poplars and pines. Wizened faces peered at the elves from the trunks of the trees, seeming to study the chase with mocking disdain.
Faster and faster the chase became, the trail twisting upon itself at such intervals that neither elf was able to loose an arrow at the stag before the animal would vanish around the next bend. The creaky voices of the fey groaned through the trees about them, the forest echoing with strange knocks and bangs. The spirits were showing more interest in this hunt than any other the elves had been on. The thought of turning back occurred to each of them, but always the stag would appear suddenly just ahead with the promise of a speedy end to the lengthy chase.
Finally, Thalos drove his horse through a tangle of ferns and found himself in a small glade. The stag stood panting beside a little brook, its sides heaving as it gasped air into its lungs. In one fluid motion, the highborn raised his bow and nocked an arrow to the string. Before he could shoot, however, his arm froze. It was not sight of the stag which arrested his aim, but recognition of the animal's surroundings.
An arrow whistled across the glade, striking the stag through the eye. The animal was dead before it hit the ground, slain almost instantly by the unerring aim of an elf hunter.
"A fine shot," Thalos said. "And a fine end to a long hunt. Honour to you, Saith. The bounty is yours."
Saith scowled at his companion. Pensively, he slung his bow back into its boar-hide sheath. "I appreciate your courtesy, my lord," he said, a sour note in his voice.
"I only pay you your due," Thalos rejoined, annoyed by his companion's irritated state. "The arrow was yours, therefore the bounty is yours."
Saith shook his head. "May I speak and forget the courtesy due to my lord?" Thalos motioned for him to continue. "It was your steed who broke into the clearing first. Had you loosed an arrow, the stag would have fallen to you, not me. I have no desire for charity, even from my lord."
Thalos nodded in understanding. "There was no insult intended," he apologised. "Since we are speaking as one elf to another, I too shall forget the burden of rank and speak my mind rather than voice empty courtesies. I did reach the clearing first, but my hand hesitated." Thalos cast his eyes across the little forest meadow once more, picking out each rock and flower, noting the old dead log lying across from the brook. "I know this place. Finding it again so abruptly caught me by surprise." Thalos forced a laugh onto his face. "So, you see, my distraction was to your advantage."
Saith dropped down from the back of his horse. The elf's face was drawn, a look of deep concern in his eyes. He paused, as though about to speak, then thought better of what he was going to say. Crossing the meadow, he gathered up the dead stag and laid it across the back of his horse. Saith hesitated before remounting. He turned and stared hard into the face of his lord.
"This is where you met her," Saith said, his voice grave. Thalos did not speak, answering his friend with only the slightest nod. "My lord, this thing you have allowed inside your heart can only bring you pain. What future can there be, loving the mistress of the Golden Pool? It can only end in tragedy."
"Pain reminds us that we are alive," Thalos told his friend. He gazed across the meadow, seeing again that long ago day when he had first met Ywain. She had been washing her hair beside the brook, the sunlight shining from her locks. He had never seen anything so beautiful. It was a memory he cherished, one that offered solace against the long years of loneliness and separation.
"Return to the hall," Thalos told Saith. "I would tarry here and be alone with my thoughts."
With some reluctance, Saith left his master, turning his horse back into the narrow trail.
Thalos slid down from the back of his steed, leaving the horse to graze upon the lush grass of the meadow while he strolled along the brook. Closing his eyes, he could almost smell the sweet perfume of Ywain's body and hear the soft tinkle of her laughter.
When he opened his eyes again, the spellweaver stood before him, an inviting smile gracing her beautiful face. Thalos took her in his arms, crushing her slender body against his chest. The velvet softness of her lips pressed against his. For a moment, all the sorrow and longing faded from his heart.
"Was ever there a love more doomed to tragedy than ours?" Thalos whispered into Ywain's ear.
"King Orion and Queen Ariel sacrificed their love to make a place for the asrai in Athel Loren," Ywain answered. "From their sorrow, great goodness was born."
The spellweaver looked hard into her lover's face. "Would you make such a sacrifice if it were asked of you?"
Thalos could see the anguish, the worry shining in Ywain's eyes. He affected an attitude of unconcern. "For another such kiss, I would let the dryads take my left arm."
Ywain shivered in his embrace. "The forest may demand more from you," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The Warden of the Wood wishes to see you."
Her words sent a chill through Thalos' spine. The Warden was almost a mythical thing, an unseen force of the forest feared by elf and fey alike. He had only half-believed that it was real, deluding himself that Ywain communed with nothing more than a capricious branchwraith or treeman.
"When does it wish to see me?" Thalos said, forcing each word.
"Before the Hour of Shadows," Ywain said.
Thalos fought to put a smile back onto his face. "Good," he said, tightening his embrace and kissing Ywain's soft lips. "That leaves us some time for ourselves."
Huskk Gnawbone's burrow was a winding maze of chambers and tunnels chewed from the foot of the mountain. There was a distinct regularity about the main passageways that was uncharacteristic of skaven work and there was an unsettling smell of rot and old bones hanging in the air. The earthen walls were marked with strange pictoglyphs, crude and barbaric things that possessed a disturbing sense of ancientness about them. Nashrik realized they were the work of some long-vanished breed, perhaps a primitive clan of man-things or the very first dwarf-things.
Whatever the nature of the builders, it was easy for Nashrik to guess the purpose of the tunnels. They were ancient catacombs, burial vaults used to store the dead. It was a foolish and debased custom among the lesser races to entomb their dead, leaving the meat to decay in the darkness without providing sustenance to anything but maggots and worms.
As he followed the messenger through the dreary tunnels, Nashrik caught glimpses of connecting galleries and saw that Huskk had adopted the barbaric custom. Chamber after chamber was packed with the decayed corpses of untold multitudes of skaven, many of them reduced to nothing more than fleshless skeletons. If Nashrik had entertained any idea of keeping any agreement he made with Huskk, this evidence of the Black Seer's insanity erased the notion.
The smell of death and decay intensified. Nashrik gripped the shoulder of his guide, forcing him to stop while the grey seer sniffed at the air. There was a cold, clammy feel to it now, the stink of bone-magic and sorcery. Nashrik's fur crawled with disquiet as warnings flashed through his senses. Whatever else he might be, the Black Seer did have some measure of genuine power. How much power, Nashrik couldn't be sure. He turned his horned head and glanced back down the tunnel. It didn't seem such a clever idea now to brave the heretic's lair alone. Those cowards Vermitt and Weekil should never have allowed him to put himself at such risk.
"Follow-follow," the messenger wheezed, pulling away from Nashrik's grip. "Not far now."
The grey seer hesitated. There was still no sign of treachery. The catacombs were devoid of activity, giving no sign of hidden guards waiting to spring a trap. Either Huskk had concealed them so well as to defy belief, or the renegade's talk of surrender and tribute were genuine. To be on the safe side, however, Nashrik put a piece of warpstone in his mouth, pushing the pebble of magical rock into one of his cheekpouches. If he had to draw upon its power to evoke a hasty spell of escape, he didn't want to suffer the delay of pulling it from the pocket of his robe.
The scrawny guide continued to lead Nashrik through the deathly darkness, until at last the tunnel opened out into a larger chamber. This, at least, had the signs of skaven construction, though any comfort the grey seer might have derived from such familiarity was immediately crushed by the macabre furnishings.
One wall was pitted with little niches, each one holding the yellowing skull of some creature. Nashrik noted the heavy bone structure of dwarf-things, the tusked heaviness of orcs, the grinning death heads of humans, even several fanged skaven skulls. By far the most common, however, were the slender, thin skulls of elf-things. Nashrik had seldom seen the bones of elves, but there was no mistaking their scent. Even in death, there was a lingering hint of magic about them.
An even more disquieting collection stood in a broad formation across the centre of the chamber, a collection of more complete bodies. Each of these had been a skaven when it was alive, but now they had been reduced to morbid trophies, preserved through some crude taxidermy. Nashrik saw the crouching shape of a Clan Eshin assassin, daggers gripped in paws and tail, silken vestment slowly rotting away into shadowy tatters. He saw the weedy figure of a Clan Skryre sharpshooter, one of its eyes replaced by a monstrous telescopic lens, its paws leaning against the rusting wreck of a wide-barrelled jezzail. He saw the twisted frame of a Clan Moulder beastmaster, a spike-jawed skaven-snatcher held before it as though even in death it were ready to catch an enemy between the snapping steel claw.
There were a dozen and more of the shrivelled corpses in varying states of decay, each posed in some attitude that seemed drawn from life. By far the most horrifying was a ghastly assemblage crafted from the bodies of three black-furred ratmen. The grisly thing stood upon six legs and six arms jutted from its shoulders, a crooked sword gripped in each skeletal paw. Three heads, piled one atop the other, leered menacingly at the grey seer. Nashrik's glands clenched at the sight of the hideous figure and he wondered what diseased imagination had conceived such an abomination.
"If you make-take one wrong move-twitch, Three-to-one will cut-kill."
The voice was a dry rattle, like wind rasping through a ribcage. Nashrik leapt back, his body tense, his every nerve enflamed with fear. The grey seer raised his staff, summoning a sliver of magic to evoke a greenish glow from the iron icon fitted to its tip.
By the eerie warp-light, Nashrik watched as a cadaverous figure shuffled out from among the carrion-trophies. It was the desiccated shell of a skaven, its furless skin pale and stretched tight across the bone structure, its body wrapped in gruesome robes crafted from the flayed skins of other skaven. A hood framed the lean, almost skeletal face, a hood adorned with great curling horns. Gleaming eyes, hoary with ancient wickedness and evil, stared from the pits of the thing's face. A human skull hung suspended from a chain fitted about the creature's neck, the glow emanating from its eye sockets mirroring that shining in the ratman's eyes.
Nashrik had been unaware of the creature, hidden as it was among the carrion-trophies. Now he felt a crawling fear settle over him, his sorcerous sight picking out the haze of dark magic emanating from the thing's body. It looked as dead and lifeless as everything else in the room. Certainly there was no smell of anything living rising from the creature's leprous skin. That it was capable of moving, of mustering even the crudest semblance of life, was a horror in itself. But the horror was compounded for Grey Seer Nashrik. He knew what this creature was. He knew that he gazed upon Huskk Gnawbone, the Black Seer.
A malicious cackle wheezed through the heretic's fangs. One of Huskk's leathery claws caressed the skull dangling against his chest while the other tightened about the knobby staff he carried. The gleam in his eyes grew more intense, more threatening.
Nashrik backed away, his tail tucked between his legs. Tricked! He had been tricked, goaded into this mad recklessness by the avaricious obsessions of Fangmaster Vermitt and Adept Weekil. Their mad hunger for glory and wealth had brought Nashrik into terrible peril. The Black Seer was no mouse-livered petty conjurer, but a fearsome sorcerer of awful potency. His display of weakness had been nothing more than a clever deception.
"It is sometimes advisable to feign infirmity and hide strength," Huskk stated, seeming to read Nashrik's thoughts. "We have conquered a dozen clans by such ruses. The living rarely comprehend the power of the dead." Huskk gestured with his staff. "These have learned, these killers who have sought us out thinking to win favour with the Lords of Decay through our death. Instead, it is they who have embraced death."
Nashrik felt his glands clench. His eyes again darted across the collection of corpses, appreciating their nature a bit more. Assassins, hunters, poisoners, snipers, bombers, warriors, even the putrid carcasses of Clan Pestilens plague monks were all on display. Only one thing kept his mounting terror from becoming complete. There were no grey seers among Huskk's collection. The heretic hadn't descended so far down the path of blasphemy that he would pit himself against a prophet of the Horned Rat.
The observation put steel into Nashrik's spine. The grey seer straightened his posture, glowering down at the absurd little carcass of a sorcerer. Why, his body looked brittle enough to break in two with the merest exertion of magical energy! And this ridiculous thing thought it could defy the Council!
"I have come here to squeak-speak of tribute and surrender," Nashrik said. "Not listen to a heretic scare-boast!"
Huskk nodded his head, a disgustingly human gesture. "We will listen to your offer."
Nashrik lashed his tail in annoyance. The maggot thought he could haggle! "All-all warpstone and all-all slaves," he told Huskk. "If there is much-much, I may tell Seerlord Kritislik I could not sniff out your scent."
The dry crackle of Huskk's laughter crawled through the chamber. "You make-take mistake," he said. "We do not discuss our surrender. We speak of yours."
The grey seer's fangs pulled back in a savage snarl. The impudence of the filthy little grave robber! "I am a grey seer, not some slinking murderer dispatched by one of the lesser clans! I have an entire army encamped on your threshold! My magic could crush out your miserable life like a flea!"
Huskk's chittering laughter sounded once more. "We have dealt with grey seers before," he hissed. "They usually invoke the Horned One when they make their threat-speak. In the past, we have found it good-wise to kill them out of hand. Some things serve us better when they are dead."
As he spoke, the Black Seer's eyes began to glow with a ghoulish light. The chamber grew chill, turning Nashrik's breath into frost. The grey seer's fur crawled as he sensed a presence behind him. Springing to the side, he nudged the warpstone sliver with his tongue, preparing to grind it between his fangs and use its energies to power an escape spell. What he saw made Nashrik vent his glands and spit out the chunk of warpstone in his mouth as a sensation of pure terror wracked his body.
There were figures standing between himself and the entrance to the chamber, shadows that had not been there before. There was a spectral glow about the things, illuminating their fleshless skulls and skeletal limbs. Dark robes fluttered in tatters about the ghostly figures, swaying in a phantom wind. Nashrik could not decide what was the most hideous thing about them, whether it was the fact that he could see right through their translucent bodies or the impression that each of the horned wraiths had been a grey seer when they had been alive.
"Seerlord Kurzch came to kill-slay with an army four times as big as yours," Huskk cackled, gesturing at one of the wraiths. "Grey Seer Fugrat and Grey Seer Masslitch were sent together in hopes that their combined magic would be enough to overwhelm us. Grey Seer Prazhakk led a horde of ravening rat-beasts bred in the deepest reaches of Hell Pit."
Nashrik had lost all of his surety now. The grey seer winced at Huskk's every word, his eyes darting to the floor in search of the sliver of warpstone he had spat out. It was proving unspeakably difficult to spot.
"They were all sent by Seerlord Kritislik to destroy us," Huskk growled. "We should think he would have learned enough not to send an expedition weaker than those which came before." A chitter of amusement slithered past Huskk's fangs. "Unless, of course, he want-like Nashrik to fail."
The grey seer looked up from his frantic inspection of the floor. Huskk's words stabbed into him like the edge of a dagger. The heretic vermin was right! It didn't make sense that Kritislik would send a force weaker than the others! The seerlord had intended that he should fail, had planned for Huskk to annihilate Nashrik!
Nashrik gnashed his teeth. The paranoid Seerlord Kritislik must have learned of Nashrik's meetings with Seerlord Tisqueek and his part in helping Tisqueek's ambitions of becoming the seerlord and master of the order of Grey Seers! The scheming Kritislik had his spies everywhere, sniffing about for any hint of disloyalty, even among his most faithful servants. So, this was Kritislik's way of getting rid of him, sending him off to be killed by a half-insane necromancer!
"You were sent here to die-fail," Huskk stated, "but that does not-not need to be your fate-doom. We will accept your surrender-service if you offer tribute-gift."
The grey seer glared at the cadaverous Huskk. So that was what his messenger's words meant. The Black Seer wasn't offering surrender or tribute. He was demanding them! The arrogance of the heretical renegade! Who did he think he was to toy with a grey seer?
Nashrik looked over his shoulder, shuddering as he saw the spectral shapes of the other grey seers who had challenged Huskk. Ending up as one of the necromancer's pet wraiths didn't appeal to him.
"How may this most humble-loyal grey seer serve the great and mighty Huskk Gnawbone?" Nashrik whined, somehow managing not to choke on the words.
Huskk's eyes narrowed, his gaze boring into Nashrik's. "First we must decide-know if you are useful to us." The necromancer took a shuffling step closer, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "Tell-say, have you learned the forbidden thirteenth ritual?"
Nashrik shivered when he heard the question. Among the grey seers, there were few who were allowed knowledge of the Horned Rat's most sacred magic. Many of the seerlords didn't even know the workings of the dreaded spell. Knowing the spell and its secrets was enough to earn a grey seer a slow and malingering death if he had not been instructed in its use by Seerlord Kritislik himself. Nashrik had stolen the spell from the grimoire of another grey seer named Sleekit. He had prided himself on the craft of such a theft because his victim wasn't supposed to know the spell either and so would never make mention of the crime.
Instinctively, Nashrik began to deny knowledge of the spell, but a tiny note of warning in the back of his mind made him bite his tongue. Clearly Huskk had need of such magic, a magic far different from his own morbid necromancy. That need would make Nashrik valuable to him, valuable enough, perhaps, to make the grey seer's assistance quite expensive. Besides, Nashrik had a feeling that if he told Huskk he didn't know the spell, he'd soon find himself among the necromancer's wraiths.
"I am versed in all the great rituals," Nashrik announced, his posture straightening as self-importance swelled his frame. "But my magic does not come cheap. I will need much-much warpstone. Ten slave-weight," Nashrik added, voicing the first large figure that popped into his head.
"We will gift-give a hundred slave-weight," Huskk said. His crackly laughter scratched across the chamber when he noticed the grey seer's eyes boggle. "We have much-much warpstone," Huskk told him. His claw dropped from the skull dangling about his neck and reached into a pouch tied to his belt. Nonchalantly, the necromancer withdrew a nugget of black warpstone as big as Nashrik's fist. "We do not need-want warpstone."
Nashrik shook himself, tearing his bulging eyes away from the warpstone in Huskk's hand. "Not want-take warpstone?" the grey seer muttered in disbelief. If the necromancer didn't want warpstone, then what did the creature want?
Again, Nashrik had the disturbing feeling that Huskk could read his mind. "We want-find greater power. Power that is lost-hid in the forest. You will help us find-take that power."
Nashrik's eyes strayed back to the nugget of warpstone. "Yes-yes," he agreed eagerly.
"Good-good," Huskk hissed. The Black Seer replaced the chunk of warpstone into its pouch. The necromancer's claw snapped and one of his zombie slaves shuffled forward. The loathsome creature held a large flask in its decayed hands. The Black Seer favoured Nashrik with a sly smile.
"Did your army eat much-much?" Huskk asked, a tone of withering mockery in his voice. "Capture-take food from our slaves?" The necromancer gestured and the zombie shambled forwards, offering the flask to Nashrik. "Drink," Huskk ordered. "This is antidote to our poison. We poison food of slave-meat, then they are sure to stay so they get antidote."
Nashrik's eyes went wide. He scrambled for the flask, eagerly draining its contents. It didn't occur to him until after he'd consumed half of the ruddy-hued liquid that the necromancer might have lied and what he was drinking was in fact the poison, not the antidote.
Huskk snapped his claws again and several more zombie skaven stepped from the darkness, their shoulders hunched beneath the weight of several large casks. Nashrik could tell from their scent that the casks held the same substance he had just drunk.
"More antidote for your army," Huskk said. "If you hurry-scurry, you might give it to them in time." The necromancer effected a disarmingly human-like shrug. "Live or die, they will still serve Huskk Gnawbone."
Grey Seer Nashrik shuddered as he heard the necromancer's words. For the first time he appreciated the evil of the creature he had formed an alliance with.
Thalos felt every hair on his body standing on edge as Ywain led him through the forbidding fence of thorn bushes and malignant trees. There was an impression of brooding menace about the place, of hidden strength and terrible power. It became even more pronounced when the spellweaver brought him into the blighted clearing. The rich yet barren soil was a thing the highborn had never seen before in all his travels through Athel Loren. The uncanny sight only increased his sense of dread.
Ywain watched her lover with a keen eye, waiting for the trickery of the pool to reach out to him. She was more on guard against its deceptions now than ever before, knowing that its power would grow once the Hour of Shadows fell upon Athel Loren. She worried that Thalos, unused to the pool's lure, would succumb to its pull. At the first sign of falling under the pool's spell, she would draw upon the forest's magic to break its hold upon him.
"So that is the Golden Pool," Thalos commented, forcing more humour into his voice than he felt. "It looks quite beautiful," he observed. "But I can't help thinking the forest would be better without such a thing nestled within its bosom."
It seemed strange to Ywain that Thalos should express such disquiet when every time she entered the clearing, her own first impression was one of serenity and desire. It took an effort to remind herself that the power contained within the pool was destructive and evil. How could Thalos be so unmoved by the pool's call, unless, perhaps, he was somehow immune to its lure?
Doubt crept into Ywain's heart. Was that why he was here? Was that why the Warden wanted him? For some reason Thalos was resistant to the pool's magic, but why was that important to the Warden? The threat to the forest was from without, not within. Huskk Gnawbone and Nahak, and the army they had gathered, were the danger. If they could be kept away from the pool...
Why did she love Thalos? As a spellweaver, as mistress of the Golden Pool, she knew that there could be only tragedy in such an affair. She could never make a true wife for Thalos, be his companion through all his days. The forest demanded her powers, exacted duty from her in exchange for her magic. She could not deny her obligation to Athel Loren, nor forsake her role as protector of the Golden Pool and servant of the Warden of the Wood. Only heartache and loneliness could come from loving anyone, much less an asrai highborn. She had accepted that, but what she had not been prepared to accept was the fact that Thalos would share in her pain.
She knew that the right thing was to set him free, to deny the longing of her heart. In time, Thalos would forget her. He would find someone else, someone who would make him a proper wife, bear him fine children and ensure the prosperity of the Stormwind kinband. Ywain knew that was the right thing to do, but she could not bring herself to do it. Whatever pain her love caused her, she was too weak to let it go. Even if clinging onto it would hurt Thalos.
"When do you think the Warden will show himself?" Thalos suddenly asked, snapping Ywain from her reverie.
"He won't," she told him. "The Warden never shows himself, even to me. I don't think any elf has ever seen him and if any of the fey have, they will not speak of what they saw."
"Yet you talk with him," objected Thalos. "Surely you have seen him."
Ywain shook her head. "I haven't even heard his voice." She pressed her hand against her temple. "He speaks to me here, projects thoughts into my mind."
Thalos stared at her in confusion. "If you have never seen the Warden or even heard his voice, why do you serve him?"
The spellweaver closed her eyes, considering his question. It was one she had asked herself many times. Assuming the role of mistress of the Golden Pool, communing with the Warden, these were things that had set her apart from her fellow spellweavers and spellsingers, made her almost an outcast among her own people.
"He is old and wise," she answered. "Older and wiser than elves or treemen or dryads. He was here before the Oak of Ages, he was here when there was no forest and the Grey Mountains looked out across a great sea. His time was before anything we know, before anything we could understand."
"The last survivor of a forgotten age," Thalos whispered in awe. "Lingering in the shadows until his time is over."
"Or perhaps waiting for his time to come again," Ywain said.
A glimmer of light caught her notice, shining from the edge of the clearing. Thalos noticed it too, striding over the black soil towards the far side of the clearing. He motioned for Ywain to keep back, but the spellweaver could not be restrained. There was a haunting familiarity about the way whatever it was had sparkled in the sunlight.
"A sword!" Thalos exclaimed, staring down at the source of the shine. It was a long, slender blade, crafted in the style of the asrai. Just looking at it, Thalos could appreciate the delicate balance of the curved hilt and the leaf-shaped blade. This was the work of a master swordsmith, beyond anything he had ever seen, even in the halls of the mightiest elf lords. The hilt had been fashioned from heartwood, smoothed and polished to a mirror-like sheen. The grip was studded with tiny nodules of wood to provide a tight hold in the swordsman's hand.
The blade itself was the strangest thing. It wasn't forged from any metal Thalos had ever seen. Instead, it seemed composed of gemstone, a glasslike substance possessed of an orange-brown-yellow colouring. The blade was somewhat translucent, the roots supporting the sword visible behind the leaf-shaped edge.
Ywain gasped when she saw the sword. She knew where that blade had come from, the only place such a blade could have come from. It was amber, drawn from the Golden Pool!
Thalos reached down to remove the blade from the strange knot of roots which held it above the ground. A feeling of unexplainable fear flashed through Ywain. She started to call out to her lover, but reason stilled her tongue. There was only one being who could have made such a sword, certainly only one being who would have left it for them to find near the Golden Pool. The meaning was clear. The Warden wanted Thalos to have this sword.
"Dawnblade," Thalos said, reading the inscription carved across the guard in graceful Eltharin script. He tested the balance of the sword, finding it far lighter than he had expected. It didn't feel like a sword at all. The highborn smiled. It felt more like a piece of himself, something that should always have been in his hand. "The way my fingers wrap about the hilt, you would think it had been made just for me."
"It was," Ywain told him.
Thalos turned around, laughing at her. "That is ridiculous! It would take years to make such a sword!"
"Take a closer look at the inscription," Ywain advised him.
"The letters are freshly carved," Thalos said. "There is even a bead of sap inside one of them."
"This is why the Warden wanted you to come," Ywain told him. "He made this sword for you. He wants you to aid me in destroying the enemies of the forest."
Thalos scowled, staring distastefully at the Dawnblade. "Does the Warden think I am such a churl that it needs gifts to remind me of my obligation to Athel Loren?"
"No," Ywain said, thinking back to the Warden's words. "But he said you would need this weapon to overcome the corruption which threatens the forest." She could still see wounded pride on the highborn's face. "No warrior is stronger than the blade he wields."
Thalos nodded his head. Testing the balance of the Dawnblade once more, he thrust the sword beneath his belt. "Warden of the Wood!" he called out. "If you can hear me, know that I thank you for this gift! You may depend upon me, depend upon my kinband to defend Athel Loren to our last breath!" He studied the imposing wall of trees and thorns which guarded the clearing, waiting for any kind of response.
At last there came a flurry of motion. Bushes uprooted themselves and shuffled closer to the trees, opening a path through the fence. Thalos waited, expecting to see the Warden itself come striding down the path, to acknowledge the elf's gratitude.
Long minutes passed, but nothing stirred upon the path. Thalos spun about in surprise when Ywain's cool hand pressed against his cheek.
"It is time for you to go," she told him. "You must gather your kinband and prepare them for battle. The enemy will soon be upon us."
Thalos closed his hand around Ywain's fingers. "What of you?" he asked. "Where will you go?"
Ywain laughed, touched by this display of concern. "I won't try to face Huskk Gnawbone alone," she assured him. "But I must commune with the Warden again, learn if he can tell me anything more about the enemy's plans. I think he will speak to me when you have gone."
"Then I make my departure," Thalos said. "Isha watch over you, mistress of the Golden Pool."
The spellweaver watched the highborn stride down the path, watched as the bushes closed ranks behind him. She watched until long after even the sound of his footsteps was lost to her. Leave the fighting to others.
"I knew you were here," Ywain said. "Watching from behind your thorns and brambles."
He will die, but he will save the forest.
Ywain's hands tightened into fists. "He will not die," she hissed. "I won't let him. I will be at his side when the fighting begins."
Evil calls out to evil.
Tears rolled down the spellweaver's cheeks. "I can't abandon him, whatever doom you have foreseen." Ywain stared at the fence, imploring the thing hidden beyond it to help her. Perhaps it couldn't feel the same emotions she did, but maybe it could understand them. Maybe it could pity her plight.
Seek out Daithru. Stir him from his sleep. Tell him it is the Hour of Shadows.
"Thank you," Ywain said. "I will find him at once!"
Thank Daithru, for it is he who will suffer.
Evil calls out to evil.
The rock valley squirmed its way between the towering cliffs of the Grey Mountains. Silence brooded heavily above the desolate landscape, reigning in undisturbed tyranny until a bark of caustic laughter echoed from the forbidding stone walls.
Huskk Gnawbone chittered with amusement as he watched Grey Seer Nashrik make a wide circle around the necromancer's retinue of the walking dead. The fool. He had more to fear from his living troops than he did from Huskk's dead ones. The undead felt no jealousy or malice. They would not turn on their master out of petty ambition or unreasoning suspicion. The only way they would pose a threat to Nashrik was if Huskk ordered them to.
And it wasn't time for that.
"You warned your followers to keep out of the valley?" Huskk asked the grey seer as he approached.
"They have been warned," Nashrik confirmed.
"How many spies do you think Vermitt will send?"
Nashrik twitched his whiskers. "At least six, certainly not more than a score."
The necromancer rubbed his paws together and hissed his satisfaction. "Good," he said. "A few of them should survive. Your army will be much easier to control if they understand the power at our command."
The two skaven were concealed at the bottom of a gulley, broken branches arrayed above them to act as camouflage. Huskk's macabre grave rats were scattered along the floor of the gulley, as silent and still as when Nashrik had first seen them in the necromancer's lair.
Before the gulley yawned the mouth of a little valley, its rocky slopes covered in gorse and shrub, great grey fingers of rock projecting far from the sides of the mountain. Except for a few vultures wheeling overhead, drawn by the carrion stink of Huskk's zombies, there was only one sign of life in the valley.
Nashrik stroked his whiskers as he considered the miserable little traitor. Standing at the mouth of the valley, his limbs tied to a wooden frame, an iron bit stuffed between his jaws, the wretch could neither move nor cry out. He was helpless and vulnerable, just the sort of prey that would draw a hungry predator.
When they had made their alliance, Huskk had demanded a sacrifice from among Nashrik's underlings, something to seal their compact in blood. The Black Seer had suggested using this opportunity to get rid of whatever spy Seerlord Kritislik had planted among Nashrik's followers. Of course there was one, Nashrik could see that, but the problem of who was likely to be the seerlord's agent was vexing. His first instinct was that it must be the insufferable Fangmaster Vermitt, but the warlord's arrogance and obvious scheming were hardly the marks of a competent spy, certainly not any spy a skaven in Kritislik's position would have cause to employ.
Nashrik had finally decided the spy must be his own apprentice, Adept Weekil. The young sorcerer was far too dependable and helpful to be trustworthy. The only regret he had denouncing Weekil to Huskk was that Weekil would probably have waited until their return to Skavenblight before causing any trouble. Until that time, the adept might have been useful.
Once the choice had been made, however, Huskk was quick to act. Weekil had been seized by the necromancer's wraiths in the dead of night and dragged down into the Black Seer's grisly laboratory. Nashrik felt his gorge rise as he recalled the things that had been done to his screaming apprentice. The adept had been shaved, then strange symbols had been carved into every inch of his skin, arcane runes Huskk copied from a musty old scroll. Finally, the half-dead adept had been dunked into a cauldron of foul-smelling muck and left to soak for the rest of the night. Huskk wanted the scent to seep into Weekil's flesh. It was very important that the adept have just the right smell about him.
Now the poor Weekil was trussed and gagged, bait for the monster that Huskk was trying to lure down from the mountain.
The monster was to play an important role in Huskk's plans. He had explained only a little of his scheme to Nashrik, just enough to excite the grey seer's interest. Nashrik had, of course, displayed utter horror at the idea of invading the elf forest. Athel Loren was a dark legend among the skaven, a place where only death waited for their kind. When Huskk had been merely Neek Stumblepaw and a part of the starveling Gnawbone clan, even the worst famine could not move the ratmen to intrude upon the forest. But now he would strike to the very heart of the forest if need be, not to fill his belly but to glut his mind, to saturate his spirit with the sorcerous power bound to the Golden Pool.
All the power he could ever want was there. He had learned that much from the skull of Nahak. Unlimited, unstoppable power! He only needed to reach the Golden Pool and draw it out. Nahak had prepared dozens of canopic jars for that purpose, eldritch vessels that would contain the magic of the pool. The originals had been smashed by the knights in the Battle of Razac Field, but Huskk had scoured Bretonnia to secure the materials to build new ones.
Nashrik had urged him to delay his attack, insisting that they could succeed only in winter, when the spirits of the forest would be at their weakest. Huskk had sneered at such a suggestion. He had learned much about Athel Loren from the ghosts bound to his collection of skulls. He had learned the tricks and traps the forest would use against an intruder. He had learned of the many weapons the elves and fey would bring against any who violated the borders of Athel Loren. More importantly, he had learned of the secret signs and spells which could allow him to defy the illusions of the forest. He had learned of the shadow fey, dread spirits of the forest who despised the elves as a pestilence, an infestation. By appealing to them, by exploiting their hatred of the elves, he would be able to escape the worst of the forest's illusions.
Nashrik thought their only chance for victory was to tarry until winter. Such a belief only betrayed the grey seer's ignorance. Only during the Hour of Shadows could the power within the Golden Pool be released. Only during the Hour of Shadows would the dark power of Dharr be stronger than the faerie magic of the elves and their forest. No, to delay would bring disaster. Only by striking now could there be any hope of triumph!
A squeal of terror echoed down from the cliffs. Huskk reached to his belt and removed a pair of strangely-tinted lenses, setting them across his eyes. When they were in place, the Black Seer peered out over the lip of the gulley. Turning his gaze upwards, he saw a mangled body tumbling down into the valley. A second, then a third followed, though these fell with a speed and violence more appropriate to a rockslide than anything of flesh and bone.
Training his gaze still higher, Huskk could see a monstrous shape flying about the cliff, flapping its leathery pinions as it scratched at the rocks with its enormous talons. Clearly a few of Vermitt's spies had squirmed into a crevice where the monster's claws couldn't reach them. Huskk hoped they had the good sense to keep their eyes closed.
"ls-is that the kill-beast?" Nashrik asked, blinking behind his own set of tinted lenses.
"That is it," Huskk hissed. "The vermin of Clan Grubrr call-name it 'Deathwatcher'. Man-things say-speak of it as the cockatrice."
The flying monster suddenly uttered a shrill, ghastly cackle, wheeling away from the side of the cliff. Either it had tired of trying to reach the skaven lodged in the crack or it had satisfied itself that they were all dead. Whatever its motivation, the cockatrice began to soar across the valley, its head snapping from side to side in jerky movements as it watched the earth below.
Perhaps it was looking for the skaven who had fallen. Perhaps the cockatrice was merely seeking prey. If there was a motive behind its flight, the monster soon forgot whatever it was. An updraft must have brought Weekil's scent to it, for the bird-beast abruptly swung around, another shrill cackle rising from its throat. The cockatrice stared down at the bound adept, then folded its mighty wings close against its sides. Warbling its weird shriek, the monster dove straight towards Weekil.
Weekil thrashed against his bonds, frantically trying to tear himself free. His muffled scream sounded from behind the iron bit in his mouth.
The cockatrice landed a few yards from the bait. It presented a fearsome aspect, an enormous bird with dun-coloured feathers dappled with black whorls, mottles and slashes. A ruff of bright red surrounded its throat, the neck above naked and wrinkled, the skin an ugly pinkish hue. A crest of black feathers sprouted from the top of the creature's head, leading down into a sharp, vulturine beak and massive, owlish eyes. The monster folded its leathery, batlike wings against its sides and marched towards the bound ratman, the massive talons on its feet clawing the rocky ground with each prancing kick of its powerful legs.
"Try not to look straight into its eyes," Huskk warned Nashrik. "The glasses are not strong enough to protect-guard from a direct look." The grey seer shuddered beside him, slapping a paw against his left eye, as though by blocking half his vision, the intensity of the cockatrice's gaze would likewise be halved.
The cockatrice continued to approach the bait. It cocked its head to one side, then another, staring in perplexity at the bound skaven. The monster wasn't stupid, but it was confused, unable to decide which sense to trust. Its eyes told it there was only a miserable little prey creature here, but its nose told it there was another cockatrice. The muck that had soaked into Weekil's shaved skin had excited its instincts, mimicking the scent of one of its own kind, an intruder into its territory.
The cockatrice decided to trust its keen sense of smell. The spiky feathers around its throat fanned out, bristling with malice. The taloned feet scratched at the ground. The leathery wings flapped angrily against the beast's sides.
The threat display continued for several minutes, a low hiss rumbling from the monster's wrinkled throat. Sometimes the cockatrice would pause, tilting its head in confusion, waiting for Weekil to react in some way. When the bound ratman failed to either retreat or attack, the cockatrice began its menacing exhibition once more.
Finally, the creature's patience wore thin. Uttering a loud cackle, the cockatrice lunged at Weekil, slashing at him with its talons. Black skaven blood bubbled up from Weekil's torn hide. The ratman shrieked in pain, the sound fighting its way past the iron bit in his mouth.
The cockatrice did not relent in its attack, buffeting Weekil with its wings, smashing the wooden frame to the ground. The adept writhed among the wreckage, his bones breaking along with the poles to which he was tied.
The monster loomed above the mangled skaven, at last deciding that Weekil wasn't another cockatrice. Its owlish eyes glared balefully down at the torn ratman for a moment. Then the beast's beak snapped down, ripping into Weekil's body, tearing a great sliver of flesh from his broken bones. The cockatrice threw its head back, choking down the gory meat at a single swallow. Then it bent down to feed some more.
Huskk chittered malignantly as he watched the cockatrice become ensnared in his trap. The beast was eating more than just Weekil's body, it was consuming the spell carved into the ratman's skin. Careful planning had been needed to ensure the spell was not destroyed by the monster's petrifying gaze, but since a cockatrice was immune to its own power Huskk had reasoned that it would not waste its energies trying to turn another cockatrice into stone. Nor would it use its power once it realized its mistake, for by that time, Weekil would no longer be any possible kind of threat, only a pile of fresh meat lying at the monster's feet.
"Did plan-plot work?" Nashrik asked, still peering at the cockatrice through one eye.
"We will see-learn," Huskk said. The necromancer snapped his claws. In response, the decayed shape of Tisknik stumbled up from the floor of the gulley. The zombie skaven stared blindly at its master, its eyes sewn shut as a precaution against the gaze of the cockatrice. Huskk had a certain affection for Tisknik, it had, after all, been the first undead his magic had created. There was a certain connection between the necromancer and the zombie, a sympathy which made Tisknik more capable than the other zombies. Tisknik could carry out complex orders and even display rare instances of initiative. Both qualities were useful to the necromancer, making him almost loath to put Tisknik at risk. Of course, if things didn't work out, he could always try to resurrect whatever the cockatrice left.
Huskk pointed his claw at the cockatrice. Tisknik bobbed its head and crawled over the lip of the gulley. From their concealment, Huskk and Nashrik watched the zombie approach the feeding monster. The undead creature didn't need its eyes to sense the monster, its decayed nose still capable of guiding it to the bird-beast's scent.
The cockatrice rose from its meal, its beak dripping with blood, ribbons of flesh dangling from its serrated jaw. The owlish eyes fixed upon the approaching zombie. The watching skaven held their breath. If the petrifying membranes slid down over the monster's eyes, they would know that the spell had failed, that the cockatrice was still a wild beast.
Tisknik continued to shuffle towards the cockatrice. The zombie's paws awkwardly removed the burden tied across it back. Its rotting fingers fumbled with the ratgut straps, eventually unfolding a bag-like mass of leather.
The cockatrice continued to stare at the zombie, but made no motion to attack. The beast acted as though it were mesmerised by Tisknik's slow, stumbling approach. Even when the zombie stood only a few feet from it and set the heavy leather hood over its head, the monster remained docile. Tisknik pulled at the drawstring dangling from the bottom of the hood, tightening it about the cockatrice's head and locking its cruel beak and lethal eyes behind a shapeless mask of leather.
Only when the cockatrice was successfully restrained did Huskk and Nashrik emerge from the gulley. The grey seer tugged at his whiskers, cackling over the ease with which the monster had fallen into their trap. The binding spell which Huskk had carved into Weekil's skin had smothered the monster's spirit, forcing it to submit to the will of its new master.
Huskk paid little attention to Nashrik's gloating, and even less to the now servile cockatrice, dismissing it from his thoughts the moment he was certain it was in his power. His paw closed about the skull of Nahak. He turned and stared at the landscape below. From the mountain valley he could see the green expanse of Athel Loren and the blue ribbon of the Grismerie River.
Within that forbidding wilderness was the Golden Pool and the almost limitless power which had drawn Nahak from the desert wastes of Nehekhara to his destruction at Razac Field. Now that power was again within reach. This time, the forest would not defy the darkness.
"Bring-take Deathwatcher," Huskk snarled at the rest of the grave rats lurking in the gulley. The zombies and skeletons crawled out from beneath the camouflage, converging on the cockatrice, looping leashes of rope about its neck. Obediently, the monster followed the zombies as they led it away, its ferocity shackled under the blinding hood.
"Good-good," Nashrik chittered. "Now no elf-things can stand against us!" The grey seer cast a sly look at Huskk. The necromancer didn't need to read Nashrik's mind to know what scheme was percolating in his twisted mind. He was thinking that, given enough time, he might wrest control of the cockatrice from his ally and use it against the renegade. Then he could forget about attacking the elves and all the dangers that would entail.
"Fetch-bring Fangmaster Vermitt," Huskk growled, annoyed by the transparency of Nashrik's plotting. There was an easy way to foil the grey seer's plans. He would simply advance the timetable. Instead of attacking in the dead of night, they would strike at twilight.
He could already feel his powers waxing as the Hour of Shadows approached. His magic would only grow stronger as day faded into night. True, an earlier attack would increase the casualties among Huskk's forces, but that was inconsequential beside the power he would wrest from the Golden Pool.
Huskk petted the pate of Nahak's skull as he watched Nashrik scurry off to summon Vermitt. The grey seer, unfortunately, was going to be one of those casualties.
Ywain hurried through the overgrown copse, sprinting across the fallen logs, leaping across the narrow streams, gliding past the shadow-choked hollows. Spiders watched her from their grey webs, ravens croaked from the fire-blackened limbs of scarred old oaks and withered ash. A wolf prowled among the weeds, sniffing about in search of prey. Twice her steps lighted upon mouldering bones, the fanged skulls of orcs and the wizened skeletons of goblins.
This part of the forest had fallen prey to marauding orcs only a few dozen winters past. It had taken great effort and great sacrifice to exterminate the greenskins. Despite the magic of the spellweavers and treesingers, it would take many decades for the scars to heal.
Few things dwelt in this part of the forest. Only the wildest of the fey haunted places such as this, the most malicious of spites and the most ferocious of dryads, spirits that were a danger to any asrai they caught alone. Were it not for the special protection serving the Warden of the Wood conveyed upon her, Ywain would never have dared enter this place alone. But even the most feral of the forest spirits, those who most despised the elves and would see them removed from Athel Loren, even these deferred to the power of the Warden.
The ground here was truly barren. The orcs in their brutal belligerence had descended upon the forest with no thought in their savage brains beyond wanton destruction. Unlike men who came to make homes or dwarfs who came to cut fuel for their cruel machines, the orcs wanted to deliberately destroy the forest. As they burned and ravaged, the greenskins had strewn the cinders with salt, tainting the ground and making it impossible for anything to grow. Only the orcs' lack of thoroughness had kept the destruction from being complete, leaving isolated patches among the desolation where life might thrive.
Ywain approached one of those refuges of life, an island of green amidst a blighted sea. Fresh young saplings grew among the charred husks of dead trees, their leaves standing stark against the background of destruction. Ferns and moss carpeted the loamy ground, thriving in the cool shadows.
Towering above all the new growth was an immense maple tree. Only a few of its branches still bore leaves, the rest scratching at the sky like claws. Its bole was scarred and blackened, marked by torch and axe. The rusty hilt of an immense sword jutted from the trunk, a great crack spreading from the old wound.
Ywain knelt before the old maple tree, the soft murmur of a spell rising from her lips. Light flickered about her as she drew upon the magic of the forest, a pale glow that seemed to rise from her own body. Ywain's voice lifted into a crooning song, rippling through the little stand of saplings.
A low groan sounded from among the trees, a dull pulsation that made the saplings shiver. By degrees, the sound was repeated, gradually taking up the cadence of Ywain's spell. After a time, the spellweaver observed a change come over the old maple tree. Hollows had opened in its trunk, forming into the semblance of glowering eyes and a great gash-like mouth with jagged fangs of wood.
"Daithru, awaken," Ywain cried out. "There are enemies in the forest and Athel Loren needs your strength."
The great maple tree stretched its upper branches, the limbs closing upon one another to form two mighty arms with clawlike talons. The hollows in the trunk opened and closed with a rapid flutter, as though blinking away the haze of sleep.
"Ywain of the Golden Pool calls Daithru from his slumber," a rumbling voice boomed from deep within the tree.
"The Warden of the Wood sent me to call you," Ywain explained, frightened that the ancient spirit might take offence at her summons. The treemen were the oldest and most powerful of the forest spirits and their wrath was a thing no elf courted.
Daithru's mouth snapped wide, as though the treeman were yawning. It stretched its wooden arms, listening to the creak and groan of its branches. "You call me to my doom, little one. I march to my last battle."
Guilt filled Ywain. The Warden had told her to seek out Daithru only after she had refused to leave Thalos to fight alone. The thought that she might cause this ancient being's death was one she could not reconcile with what she knew was her selfish desire.
"Forgive me for disturbing your slumber," the spellweaver said. "I did not know what I was asking. I will find some other to aid me." She rose to leave, but the ground suddenly trembled beneath her feet. She looked up to find Daithru lurching forwards, the lower part of its trunk splitting into two pillar-like legs.
"You cannot cast aside a fate which is not your own," the treeman said. Its wooden arms reached down, caressing the spindly branches of the saplings. "When the burners came with their axes, I tried to stop them. Many I crushed beneath my roots and struck down with my branches, but there were too many. I saw my friends cut down, uprooted without any purpose except destruction. It is a heavy burden to bear." A low sigh shuddered through the enormous maple. "There will be a new copse here, one day, but it will not be the same. It will not be the one I knew and nurtured."
Daithru stared down at Ywain. "The asrai saved what they could. Your people avenged the destruction of my trees. They are the protectors of the forest now. It is only right that I should help them."
"But you know you will die," Ywain objected.
"My death is a small thing," Daithru told her. "From my death, a great good will grow. Do not mourn my passing. Athel Loren will endure." The treeman took a lumbering step, making his way into the desolation. "Now I must leave you, for there is much I should do while there is time."
Ywain stood in silence as she watched the treeman stride through the burned remains of his copse, lingering beside each charred husk, kneeling over each fallen timber. Spites flittered about Daithru as he made his way through the ruined landscape, settling in his branches and crouching upon his shoulders. The spellweaver felt shame as she watched the noble treeman walking through his forest, paying his final farewells to the trees he had watched over for so long.
"Your sacrifice will not be forgotten," Ywain swore.
As darkness stole across the land and the sun began to sink into the horizon, the skaven army emerged from their burrows in the foothills and began their march upon Athel Loren. Thousands of chittering, squealing ratmen formed into packs of vermin bristling with spears and swords. Small teams of specialists, weaponeers from Clan Skryre, scuttled about the flanks of the formations, their ghastly instruments of death held at the ready.
At the head of the army strode a horde of Huskk's deathless warriors, skeletons summoned from the catacombs of the Black Seer's lair. The fleshless horrors tromped their way into the forest in silence, only the rattle of rusty armour against bleached bone sounding from their ranks. Each of the skeleton warriors clenched a corroded blade in its claws and in their empty eye sockets shone a weird green glow, growing more intense the deeper they progressed into the trees.
Having Huskk's undead leading the way eased some of the dread gnawing at the hearts of his living minions, though he could tell from the stink of fear-musk rising from them that they would still have preferred to abandon this dangerous expedition entirely. The necromancer had foreseen such cowardice and prepared for it. A second, even larger horde of undead warriors marched behind the living skaven, cutting off any hope of retreat. Certainly, the ratmen could try to escape, but the zombies and skeletons at their rear would show them no mercy. It would be troublesome to expend the magic needed to animate those his undead were forced to kill, but living or dead, Vermitt's warriors would serve Huskk's cause.
The Black Seer positioned himself at the centre of the army, surrounded by his macabre bodyguard of grave rats, the hooded cockatrice being led on its leash by Tisknik. Huskk wanted to be close to the fighting when the elves inevitably challenged the invasion of their forest, but not so close that he would be caught up in the fighting himself. His role was to guide the army and use his magic to support the frontline fighters, not dodge elf arrows.
Grey Seer Nashrik and Fangmaster Vermitt seemed to have adopted the same strategy. Both skaven had surrounded themselves with a pack of armoured stormvermin and were keeping well away from the vanguard and the flanks. They were not keen to be the first ratmen challenged by the elves. If it came to a pitched battle, they would wait to see which side had the upper hand before committing themselves. None of the ratmen would think twice about abandoning his comrades, though the threat of Huskk's undead might force them to do a bit more fighting than they had planned to do.
Huskk Gnawbone bruxed his fangs as he considered the short-sighted cowardice of his fellow ratmen. The fools did not understand the power which would soon be his! Power that would make him greater than the grey seers and the Lords of Decay! If they understood, they would fear the Black Seer's wrath far more than any elf!
The necromancer laid his paw upon the skull of Nahak, feeling the malignant spirit of the liche wrapping itself about his mind, feeding its own terrible energies into his body. The Hour of Shadows would magnify all dark magic and increase the strength of all those who wielded it. Huskk's strength would be greater still, drawing from the enhanced malignity of Nahak as well as his own sorcery. Would it be enough to offset the magic of the forest? A vicious grin spread on the ratman's face. It would be enough to get him to the Golden Pool. After that, even the faerie queen herself wouldn't be able to stop him!
Squeals of terror announced the first attack. Nashrik had insisted upon scattering living scouts amongst Huskk's vanguard of walking skeletons, arguing that thinking minds could alert the army to danger far more quickly than one of the necromancer's mindless automatons. The grey seer's advice proved sound. By dying so noisily, the skaven scouts spread the alarm to their comrades.
The vanguard had pressed forward into a winding path bordered on every side by towering pines, the ground overgrown with briars. The undead had tromped heedlessly through the briars, their fleshless bones immune to the stabbing thorns. The scouts, however, had hesitated, trying to cut away the briars, thinking to earn some regard from their masters by clearing away the obstructions.
Seemingly from nowhere, arrows shot down, transfixing the scouts as they chopped at the briars. Elf sentinels, their lean bodies concealed beneath cloaks woven from leaves and vines, were concealed in the branches high overhead. From the moment the skaven had set foot in Athel Loren, their presence had been known. The elven archers had anticipated the line of march, hiding themselves in the trees, training their bows upon pre-selected spots, waiting for their enemies to reach the killing zone.
Huskk cursed the discipline of the camouflaged waywatchers. Given the choice between loosing their arrows into unfeeling bone or living flesh, they had chosen to strike those enemies who would cry out, whose screams might sow fear and discord among the other skaven. The necromancer could smell the increased fear among his allies, a rancid odour that made his stomach boil.
"Control your rabble," the Black Seer snarled at Nashrik. He raised a claw, evoking just enough magic to cast an eerie glow about his fingers. "Control them, or I will!" he threatened, leaving no mistake about his meaning.
Nashrik trembled visibly, then pushed his way towards the faltering blocks of clanrat warriors. "The Horned One protect-guard all-all brave-bold skaven!" the grey seer shouted. "No-not fear-tremble! Elf-things no-not hurt-harm!" The sorcerer-priest's speech ended in a yelp of panic as an arrow shivered through the night and skewered one of the ratmen standing beside him.
Huskk glared up into the trees, his eyes glowing as he drew upon his magic. Stretching forth his hand, the necromancer snarled a spell that was ancient when the streets of Skavenblight still swarmed with humans. A ghostly wisp of dark energy shot from his paw, moaning through the air as it unerringly sought its prey. The waywatcher realised his peril, leaping from branch to branch as he tried to escape Huskk's magic. The effort was futile, the death-wisp correcting its trajectory instantly each time the elf moved. At last it circled around the bole of an ash tree, catching the waywatcher before he could scramble to a new location. The elf shrieked, once, then his withered body hurtled down to the forest floor, shattering into a jumble of blackened bones as it struck the ground.
The death of the waywatcher did little to improve the morale of the skaven, who could now hear the sounds of battle rising from the forest ahead. They cowered a bit closer to one another and cast longing looks at the path behind them.
Huskk closed his eyes, projecting his awareness into the skeleton warriors of the vanguard. Through their spectral senses, he saw the situation clearly. The waywatchers had been only the picket line of the elf defences. Barbaric, half-naked elves had been concealed in spider-holes along the path. At a signal from their war chief, the painted elves had sprung their ambush, leaping through the ranks of skeletons in a dazzling blur of swords and spears. The sluggish undead were cut down before they could even turn to face their enemies, the elves dancing away to find new victims before the broken skeletons even touched the ground.
From the fringes of the forest, other foes began to manifest, rising from among the trees with bodies of gnarled wood. Ghastly dryads, their wizened faces howling hatred of the invaders, their branch-like arms tipped in long talons. The enraged forest spirits struck down Huskk's undead warriors, tearing them asunder with each sweep of their brutal claws.
The necromancer had seen enough. Huskk's eyes closed, tendrils of darkness coiling about his body as he drew the fell energies of blackest sorcery into his body. Stretching forth his withered claw, he sent ghostly streamers of power coursing through his skeleton warriors. The invigorated undead began to react more quickly to their attackers, matching the assault of the wardancers and resisting the carnage wrought by the dryads. Huskk knew that even with their bodies quickened and strengthened by dark magic his skeletons could do nothing more than delay the wood elves. But delay would be enough.
"Attack!" the Black Seer roared, his awareness leaping back into his own body. Instantly he was compelled to expend a fragment of his magic to ward away an arrow as it came whistling at his head. A moaning death-wisp soon settled the unseen bowman. "Attack!" Huskk repeated, his eyes blazing with magic-fire. "Kill-slay all elf-things!" To emphasize his words, he sent a third death-wisp straight into the massed clanrats, transforming one of them into a pile of black bones. If the skaven thought the only thing they had to fear was the elves, then they needed to be reminded of their error.
Squeaking a half-hearted war-cry, the skaven surged forwards, racing among the trees. The ratmen were very swift when speed was needed and when the proper motivation was applied. Their charge through the trees was so rapid that only twenty or thirty of them fell prey to the lurking waywatchers. The ratmen came upon the wardancers and dryads while they were still engaged with the undead. Attacked from both sides, grossly outnumbered by the packs of snarling skaven, the elves were dragged down and butchered. The dryads persisted until a skaven weapon team trained a warpfire thrower upon one of their number, igniting the creature's wooden body and transforming it into a walking torch.
The attentions of the hidden waywatchers turned in full upon the main body of the skaven warhost. Arrows flashed down from the trees, striking down dozens of ratmen. Fangmaster Vermitt crumpled in a bloody heap, no less than a dozen arrows protruding from the gaps in his armour. Grey Seer Nashrik was luckier, suffering only a single arrow through his forearm.
Huskk swatted aside every missile that was aimed at him, disintegrating the arrows in mid-air with a burst of dark magic. He did not bother to send death-wisps moaning after the hidden archers. Instead, he snarled a command to Tisknik. In response, the zombie pulled the hood from the cockatrice's head and unhooked its leash.
The bird-beast fluttered its wings, then uttered its shrill cackle. Dozens of arrows shot down at it from the trees, but not one struck their target, glancing away as though striking an invisible wall. The protective talisman chained to the cockatrice's foot guarded the beast against such concerns as arrows and spells. Huskk had been reluctant to part with such a potent artefact, a relic plundered from the barrow of an ancient Bretonni horse lord, but he knew that if he would reach the Golden Pool he must keep the cockatrice safe. It represented his most potent weapon against the elves and their forest.
The cockatrice took to the sky, arrows still bouncing from its protective shell. Cackling its rage, the monster soared above the trees, fixing its beady eyes upon the forest below. Black membranes slid across its eyes, filtering the creature's malignant gaze into a deadly emanation.
One after another, the waywatchers fell from their perches, their paralysed bodies slamming into the earth. There was a fascinating quality about the gaze of the cockatrice, compelling those targeted by it to look into its eyes. Once that gaze was met, a terrible transformation took place. Skin hardened, calcifying until it became rigid and immobile, paralysing the victim. Should the cockatrice maintain its malignant attentions, the flesh of its victim would likewise begin to harden. Given enough time, the body of a cockatrice's prey could be transformed into solid stone.
Huskk chittered maliciously as he saw the cockatrice descend, fluttering above the branches of a few dryads who had unwisely decided to linger upon the battlefield. It took longer for the tree spirits to submit to the monster's gaze, but at length they began to grow sluggish, their trunks taking on a greyish-black colouring. A moment more and the dryads became frozen in place, their clawlike hands still reaching into the air, vainly trying to snatch the cockatrice from the sky. Vengefully, the monster slapped its scaly tail against one of the dryads. The tree-creature slammed into the ground with a heavy thud. The gaze of the cockatrice had petrified it.
"Elf-things run-flee," Nashrik reported. The grey seer had removed the arrow from his arm and used his magic to heal the wound. It seemed to be the only contribution he had made to the battle. "Now is our chance to scurry-hurry! We can flee-leave scary-trees! Stay-hide in safe-good burrows!"
Huskk glared at the grey seer, lips pulling back to expose his sharp fangs. A malignant light glowed in the sockets of Nahak's skull. "We go on," the necromancer hissed. "We do not leave until we take-find the Golden Pool."
"The kindreds of Nymraif and Caidath failed to hold the intruders. They were barely able to delay them."
Thalos Stormwind glowered as he heard the scout's report. It had taken time to muster his kinband, to draw out his allies from the trees. He had been depending upon them to hold the skaven at the edge of the forest until he could bring his full army there. Ywain had impressed upon him the threat to the forest if anything evil should come into contact with the Golden Pool, particularly during the Hour of Shadows, when the strength of all dark magic was in flux. He glanced over at Ywain, noting the flicker of worry that disturbed her composure. The spellweaver had warned that Huskk's magic would be strengthened during this dark time, but Thalos had been unwilling to accept the magnitude of the ratman's power.
Thalos pressed his palm against the wooden hilt of the Dawnblade, reassured by the feel of the sword. He turned his head and regarded the nobles gathered around him in the clearing. They watched him with expectant eyes, waiting to follow his lead. Looming above them all was the treeman Daithru, the ancient's gnarled face imperturbable as it observed the elves' war council.
"We will send riders to warn the other kinbands," Thalos decided, his voice grave. The entire forest would already be aware of the skaven intrusion. There was no need to warn anyone about this. The message Thalos would send was more shameful. He would have to warn the other lords of the forest that the skaven intrusion was something his own warriors might be unable to repulse. It was the duty of any highborn to protect the lands under his charge. To fail in that obligation was among the worst dishonours a highborn could bring upon himself.
Saith shook his head in disbelief, colour rising into his cheeks. "You cannot mean to do such a thing!" he objected. "The other lords will demand another noble assume leadership of your domain!"
Thalos smiled at his friend's loyalty. "Thank you for your confidence, but I cannot allow my own fate to endanger Athel Loren."
"It is only a filthy ratkin!" Saith cursed. "Such creatures have menaced us before and always they have been exterminated!"
"Do not underestimate this one," Ywain cautioned. "The kindreds of Nymraif and Caidath already made that mistake."
"The root-chewer has great magic." Daithru's groaning voice thundered across the clearing. "It is never wise to take a wizard lightly." The treeman's body shook in a great sigh. "And this one has bound a strange creature to its will, a monster whose kind has never before threatened these lands."
Ywain shuddered as she listened to the treeman's voice, her insides twisting into a knot of guilt. If she thought her words would do any good, she would have implored Daithru to leave the fighting to the elves. But a treeman's mind, once decided, was as immovable as the Oak of Ages.
Thalos paced among his nobles, picturing the line of march the ratmen would take. Ywain had tried to persuade the fey to intercede, to conceal the paths and lead the skaven astray, but such tactics had failed. There was no way to deceive Huskk as to the location of the Golden Pool. The necromancer could smell such a source of sorcery from hundreds of miles away. Trying to block the trails and impede the speed of the invaders had likewise been frustratingly impossible. There were many forest spirits that resented the presence of the elves. These had taken it upon themselves to render aid to the necromancer, acting in subtle ways to help Huskk's progress.
The highborn considered the speed of Huskk's advance. There were only a few places where an army could close upon the skaven. The usual tactic of whittling down the invaders through the use of scouts and waywatchers had proven too costly---Huskk's infernal monster was able to annihilate every ambush the elves set. True, the cockatrice wouldn't attack until after the elves had started their assault, but trading one elf for three or even four skaven was an exchange Thalos found unacceptable, even more so when he learned that the necromancer was using his sorcery to resurrect the fallen ratkin as zombies.
No, they would have to meet the invaders en masse, try to destroy the enemy so quickly that Huskk's magic couldn't undo their losses. More importantly, they had to do something about Huskk's damnable monster! The cockatrice had proven immune to bowfire. It would have to be met head-on, a prospect which could only result in hideous losses.
"There are only two places where we can intercept the invaders," Thalos decided, "the Glade of Sorrows and Hawk Heath." An idea came to the highborn as he spoke. The Glade of Sorrows was farther away, a battle there would keep Huskk away from the Golden Pool. Hawk Heath was nearer, but offered a possibility for destroying the cockatrice.
Thalos turned to Saith. "Do you think Scraaw would consent to aid us?" he asked the noble.
Saith followed his lord's line of thinking, a grim smile appearing on his face. "The hawks will fight for their eyries," he said. "I am certain they would fight with us."
Thalos closed his fingers about the grip of the Dawnblade, feeling the sword's power flowing through him. The Warden of the Wood had given the weapon to him for a reason. Perhaps this was it. "Request Scraaw's help. We will fight the invaders at Hawk Heath. Ask Scraaw if one of his flock will consent to carry me into battle."
Ywain gasped. "You are no hawkrider," she reminded him. "Saith has flown with the warhawks before. Allow him to fly with them."
Thalos shook his head. "It is my place to lead the battle. The Warden has entrusted me with that duty. I must go where the Dawnblade is needed." He turned away from her before she could make further protest.
"Gather your kindreds," Thalos told his nobles. "We meet the enemy at Hawk Heath."
The enemy emerged from the cover of the trees and into the open field of the heath. The front ranks of skeletons and zombies paid no heed to the change of environment, but the skaven who followed behind them squealed in fright. After hours tramping along narrow forest paths, trees pressing upon them on every side, the air close and heavy, the ratmen gazed up at the starswept sky with a feeling of utter horror. A breed of agoraphobics who spent much of their lives crawling about subterranean tunnels, the skaven preferred even the haunted forest to the terrifying open sky.
Concealed among the trees bordering the heath, the elves watched their enemies creep out into the benighted field. Ywain frowned as she saw the masses of undead marching before and after the skaven. It was a testament to her adversary's powers that he had been able to stir so many from their graves. Or perhaps it was a sign of how vast the necromancer's powers had grown under the baleful influence of the Hour of Shadows. The spellweaver could sense her own weakness, the drain on her own powers. She could only imagine what the reverse experience must feel like, the sorcerous strength that must be flooding through Huskk's body.
Ywain could see the loathsome necromancer striding alongside his terrible cockatrice, surrounded by a guard of walking corpses. If she could loose a spell against that vile abomination, the battle would be won. The death of Huskk would end the threat to the Golden Pool and break the will of the invading army.
The spellweaver shook her head, bitterness and frustration filling her. If her powers were at their full, she might risk such a spell, but she knew it would tax her strength to attempt it in her present condition. Worse, with his own powers so greatly increased, Huskk would be able to break her magic with a counter-spell, rendering her effort worthless.
As much as she hated the danger to Thalos, Ywain understood that his plan was the best chance they had. Force of arms would have to prevail against Huskk and his army. They had to pick away at the necromancer's forces, destroy it piecemeal so that its vast numbers couldn't be brought to bear and overwhelm them. But to do that, they had to be free to strike and fade. Whatever the danger, the cockatrice had to be destroyed before they could stand any chance of attacking Huskk himself.
The invaders' march brought them very near the middle of the heath. It was here that Thalos planned the destruction of the enemy. Concealed in the grass, hidden in spider holes, a dozen waywatchers suddenly erupted from the earth, loosing a vicious volley into the oncoming skaven. Squeals of pain echoed into the night as ratmen fell to the vengeful arrows.
Following the plan, the waywatchers did not linger after their first volley, but immediately turned and started to retreat across the field. The skaven chatted and snarled at them as they fled, but none of the ratmen gave chase. They had become accustomed to the tactics of their new warlord and were anticipating the unique spectacle which they would soon witness.
Huskk snapped a command to the zombie ratman beside him. The creature removed the leather hood covering the cockatrice's head. Warbling a ghastly cry, the loathsome monster took wing, rising up into the sky. Cackling savagely, the monster dove towards the fleeing elves.
As it neared the elves, there was suddenly a burst of motion from the treetops. Immense hawks, the smallest with a wingspan of fifteen feet, rose up from the forest. Shrieking their deafening hunting calls, the giant birds streaked across the night sky.
Screams of utter panic sounded from the skaven ranks, many of the ratmen casting down their weapons and fleeing into the trees. Here was one of the primordial terrors of their race, one of the nightmares ingrained upon the soul of every skaven. Mighty birds of prey soaring through the vast sky, ready to swoop down and seize the exposed ratkin in their talons and bear them off to their rocky eyries! Even Huskk Gnawbone was seized with horror, cringing against the ground and covering his head with his paws.
But the warhawks had no interest in the ratmen cowering below them. Their interest lay with the intruder flying above their hunting grounds.
The cockatrice was too absorbed in its own hunt to notice the warhawks until one of the raptors dove down upon it, slashing its side with steely talons. Ywain watched as the monster faltered in midair, falling a dozen feet before it corrected itself and rose once more into the sky. Whatever magic guarded the beast, it wasn't proof against the attentions of an enraged warhawk.
A second warhawk dove down upon the cockatrice, slashing its wing. The monster hissed angrily as its attacker darted away, then was forced to wheel away as a third warhawk attacked it. Confronting the cockatrice from all sides, the warhawks were preventing it from concentrating on any one of them and fixing them with its petrifying stare.
Ywain fought back a feeling of fear as she watched a fourth warhawk dive upon the cockatrice. The brown bird with white markings was Scraaw himself and upon his back rode Thalos. The warhawk shunned attacking its enemy with its talons, instead twisting about in midair so that the elf might slash at the beast with his sword. The Dawnblade flashed at the monstrous creature, but the amber blade failed to strike its target. Thalos did not have Saith's experience when it came to fighting from the back of a warhawk.
The cockatrice twisted about, trying to find its latest tormentor. Before it could pursue Thalos, however, another hawkrider swooped down upon it. Saith had better luck than Thalos, stabbing his spear into the monster's side.
Then the hawkrider's luck ran out. A bolt of green lightning leapt up from the ground. The malefic energy crackled across Saith and his warhawk, burning them both from the sky. Ywain could see a second skaven sorcerer, a horned creature in a grey robe drawing power into itself. The creature lacked the magnitude of power she had sensed surrounding Huskk, but the grey skaven still seemed to be benefiting from the magical flux to some degree.
Ywain knew there was nothing her magic could do to stop Huskk Gnawbone, but against this second sorcerer, she might stand some chance. Even if she didn't, she couldn't stand by and watch the vile creature use its magic to burn the warhawks out of the sky. Closing her eyes, the spellweaver opened herself to the eldritch forces of the forest, absorbing the magic of Athel Loren, channelling it into the form she desired.
The grey skaven was raising its staff, sending another bolt of green lightning into the night when the ground about its feet suddenly exploded in a tangle of thorny roots. The sorcerer's staff fell from his paw as the roots swept upwards, winding about his body. In the blink of an eye, the ratman was trapped in a coil of crushing vegetation.
Ywain concentrated upon the coil of roots, causing it to tighten. Her intention was to crush the evil ratman, but before she could bring the coil tight enough to achieve her purpose, a pulse of dark magic repulsed her spell. The roots shrivelled and died, falling from the grey skaven's body in a clump of desiccated splinters. The sorcerer leapt away from the debris, scrambling for his staff before retreating to the side of his rescuer.
Huskk Gnawbone had recovered from his fright, unleashing his deathly magic to free his confederate from Ywain's spell. The necromancer glared maliciously at his companion, then turned to direct his energies to the battle raging in the sky overhead. Ywain saw the Black Seer raise his paws, the skull of Nahak blazing with aethyric power as the necromancer invoked another spell.
One of the warhawks attacking the cockatrice was suddenly hurled back, swatted from the sky as though the fist of an invisible giant had slammed into it. A second warhawk was similarly repulsed. The thwarted attacks gave the cockatrice the respite it needed. Wheeling about, it brought its terrible gaze to bear upon one of the warhawks. The enormous bird cried out in pain as its body stiffened and its feathers turned to stone. It plummeted from the sky, shattering as it struck the heath.
Most of the warhawks turned about, retreating before the malignant cockatrice. Only one of the great birds remained. Scraaw, with Thalos upon his back, dove straight down upon the cockatrice. The monster fixed its gaze upon the mighty warhawk, the bird slowly petrifying as it hurtled towards the cockatrice. The beast's attention, however, was not fixed upon the elf sitting on Scraaw's back. As the paralyzed warhawk hurtled past, the Dawnblade slashed out, ripping through the monster's leathery wing.
Scraaw crashed to the earth, his impact digging a deep furrow in the field, ploughing through the massed skaven and undead. The cockatrice smashed down beside the warhawk, its torn wing unable to keep it in the air. The monster flopped and flailed in agony, shrieking in pain. The sound roused Thalos. The highborn had been thrown to the ground when his mount crashed. Now he glared vengefully at the grotesque monster that had killed so many of the asrai and their allies. Tightening his grip on the Dawnblade, he charged towards the cockatrice.
Ywain wasn't the only one who saw the fight. Huskk Gnawbone's eyes stared malevolently at the highborn who had wounded his monster and now thought to finish the beast. The spellweaver sensed him conjuring a murderous spell. The magic might not strike down Thalos before the elf killed the cockatrice, but there was no doubt in Ywain's mind that her lover would not have long to savour his victory.
Desperately, Ywain threw all of her flagging energy into a single conjuration. She opened a tear in the corporeal world, pushing Thalos through the tear and across the hidden path between reality and dream. The highborn vanished as he was translocated to another part of the forest. With such a hasty spell, Ywain had been unable to send him very far, but at least it was far enough to escape Huskk's spell.
For the moment, that was enough.
With the cockatrice incapacitated, the elves hidden among the trees began to loose arrows into the confusion of skaven and undead filling the heath. Skeletons shattered beneath the withering volleys, ratkin were skewered upon the avenging missiles. Hundreds of the invaders were shot down, skaven blood staining the heath.
All at once, a fell wind exploded across the heath, knocking arrows from the air, toppling saplings and dislodging archers from their perches in the trees. Ywain could sense the cold, clammy taint of sorcery. She could see Huskk's body fairly burning with magical energy, blazing like a live coal against the darkness. Bolts of aethyric energy crashed all around the necromancer as the spellsingers allied to Thalos' kinband turned their magic against the ratman. Huskk slapped aside their best efforts with a wave of his claw, evoking a counter-spell as easily as drawing a breath.
Ywain felt a wave of despair grip her. What could she, what could anyone do against such power? The Hour of Shadows had magnified Huskk's magic to a state where the mightiest of her own spells would be little more than a minor annoyance to him. There was nothing the weakened faerie magic of Athel Loren could muster to stop the malignant necromancer.
Unless she drew upon a power that was not of Athel Loren! The thought came to Ywain with such suddenness that for a moment she was shocked. The more she considered the idea, however, the less crazy it sounded. The Golden Pool was a reservoir of magical energy, with the potential to wreak great destruction if it were used to work evil. But if the power was forced to serve the cause of good, used to oppose evil...
Ywain continued to feel horror at the idea. It was still repugnant to her. She remembered all the subtle ways the Pool had used to try and draw her to it.
Still, if she did nothing, then the Golden Pool would surely fall to Huskk and Nahak. She knew the kind of evil that event would unleash.
Silencing her lingering doubts, Ywain turned her back upon the battlefield. She hoped the glade guard and spellsingers would be able to hold Huskk's army long enough for her to reach the Golden Pool.
Huskk Gnawbone slashed his paw through the air, batting aside the puny spells being directed at him. It barely taxed his enhanced abilities to protect himself from the weak forest magic, but it did require some slight concentration on his part. The persistent efforts of the elves, however ineffective they might be, were a distraction. At the moment, the Black Seer couldn't afford any distractions. He would much rather provide one for his enemies.
The necromancer cast a sly look at his erstwhile ally, Grey Seer Nashrik. It was time for the dolt to serve the purpose for which Huskk had spared the prophet's life. He glared down at the grey seer, feeling his guts seethe with loathing for the craven maggot. Nashrik was crouched down, close beside Huskk's feet, trying to ensure that the necromancer's counter-spells would protect himself as well as the Black Seer.
The crippling of the cockatrice had initiated a second phase to the battle. The elves began loosing volleys of arrows from every quarter, striking down fleeing ratmen on every side. The warpfire crew made the mistake of training their weapon against the treeline, a burst of green fire engulfing the foliage and turning a wide swathe into a crackling pyre. It was impossible to say how many elves were caught in the conflagration, but there was no question about how the others responded. The mercenaries from Clan Skryre crashed into the dirt, their bodies so riddled with arrows that looked as though they might have been sired by hedgehogs.
Huskk's undead formed into solid blocks of infantry, employing the shield-wall tactics Nahak had taught its own skeletal legions. The formation provided some defence against the arrows, but none at all from the warhawks which now ruled the sky overhead. The enormous birds dove down among the skeletons, shattering them three and four at a time with their talons before rising back into the sky, well beyond the reach of spear and sword.
The undead were too slow to prevail in such a battle. Huskk could expend his energies, revitalize decayed muscle and bleached bone, but doing so would take time and effort. Both of these were things the necromancer did not have to spare for his undead horde. What he needed was a menace that would awe his enemies, gripping them in shocked fascination.
Nashrik would provide that spectacle. At Huskk's gesture, Tisknik reached down with its rotten paws and seized the grey seer, dragging him to his feet.
"Mercy-pity!" Nashrik whined. "Must-must run-flee!"
Huskk bared his fangs. "No-not run-flee," he hissed. The Black Seer reached into his robes, removing a chunk of warpstone the size of his fist. Nashrik's eyes went wide with wonder, his nose twitching. Fear was forgotten as the grey seer gazed upon the finest, purest piece of warpstone he had ever encountered. The warpstone had been cut and polished, each facet marked by a mystical scratch Huskk had no doubt stolen from the other grey seers who had challenged him. The arcane scratches acted to restrain the poisonous qualities of the warpstone while enhancing its magical potential. Such tokens were common among the order of grey seers, but never had Nashrik heard of someone creating something on such a scale.
"Elf-things fast-quick," Huskk hissed, waving angrily with his paw as another magical barrage tried to strike him down. "Dead-meat not fast-quick," he added, pointing at the slow march of his zombies towards the trees. "Must have live-quick to catch-kill elf-meat."
Nashrik stared stupidly at Huskk, his mind unable to make the connection between the problem and why the necromancer was explaining it to him.
The Black Seer tapped his claws against the skull of Nahak, annoyed and impatient. "The Thirteenth Ritual," he snapped.
Understanding finally dawned in Nashrik's eyes. Fear spurted from his glands. His head twitched as he stared at the horde of undead scattered about the heath. The magnitude of what was being asked of him made his heart quiver. The drain on his magical abilities would leave him a burnt-out drooling madrat---if he survived at all. Rather than confess his fear, Nashrik tried to refuse on grounds that employing such a holy rite upon undead ratmen was sacrilegious.
"Use-take," Huskk growled, shoving the warpstone into Nashrik's paws. "Use warpstone to make magic!"
Nashrik grinned as he took hold of the warpstone. The renegade was right! He could use the warpstone to power the spell. He could use its energies while keeping his own in reserve!
Another barrage of faerie fire and elven arrows convinced the grey seer that he had nothing to lose by attempting the dreaded spell. Closing his eyes, wrapping his paws carefully around the warpstone, Nashrik opened himself to the divine energies of the Horned Rat. He drew the power back into himself, then sent it slithering out through the facets of the warpstone, all the while squeaking the forbidden words in a scratchy whisper.
The grey seer couldn't see the subjects of his spell, but he could sense the magic coiling itself about them. A strange metamorphosis was gripping each of the walking carcasses. Each of them suddenly became rigid and unmoving as the magic of the Horned Rat flooded through their bodies. Decayed flesh sloughed away to be replaced by fresh new pelts of verminous fur. Bleached bones bubbled as rodent flesh rapidly grew around them.
In less than a minute, the undead horde was transmogrified into a cluttering mass of full-grown, living skaven. Nashrik had done more than simply restore life to the dead husks animated by the Black Seer's magic. The Thirteenth Ritual had erased those decayed creatures, using their bodies as a foundation from which the magic crafted entirely new skaven, creatures which owed no allegiance to Huskk Gnawbone. Creatures which owed their very existence to Grey Seer Nashrik.
As Nashrik opened his eyes, blinking away the last fragments of dark power clinging to him after working such a mighty spell, he was impressed by the living horde that had replaced Huskk's dead one. The change-scent skaven squeaked and snarled, both confused and exuberant in their new existence. Nashrik noted that no arrows whistled out from the trees to strike his new-made ratmen. Even the elves were awed by this display of sorcery!
"Kill-kill!" Nashrik roared, adopting his most stiff-backed, imperious posture. He pointed his claw at the trees. The change-scent skaven regarded their grey-clad creator then, with a chorus of squeaks and howls, charged into the forest. Where the march of the undead had been slow and regular, the advance of the skaven was a rapid confusion of slavering fangs and rusty blades. The elves, rousing from their confusion and shock, were barely able to fell a dozen of the monsters before the first ranks were among the trees and taking the battle to the foe.
Nashrik watched his warriors, the thrill of power and the promise of victory swelling his spleen. These were his soldiers! They would obey him! The usefulness of Huskk Gnawbone was at an end! Nashrik could steal the power of this Golden Pool, claim the necromancer's hoarded warpstone and still bring the pelt of the Black Seer back to Skavenblight!
A flicker of disquiet crept through Nashrik's exultant mood. Huskk would certainly appreciate the mistake he had made. It would be best to attend to the necromancer before he could cause any trouble. It had been considerate of the fool to provide Nashrik with the means to ensure his own destruction.
Already invoking a terrible spell of ruin, magnifying its energies through the warpstone, Nashrik spun around. His clawed paw reached forward, prepared to send a crackling blast of warp-lightning sizzling through Huskk's withered hide.
The grey seer blinked in confusion. Huskk wasn't there! The craven Black Seer had fled, taking his bodyguard of grave rats and his crippled cockatrice with him!
Nashrik's lip curled in contempt. So the worm had realised his mistake. Well, let him try to hide. There would be no escape from the claws of the Horned Rat!
A blast of crackling faerie fire seared past Nashrik's shoulder, blackening one of his horns. The grey seer dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding a spear of emerald light that streaked above his prostrate form.
The grey seer would have bigger problems to attend to than finding Huskk. Now Nashrik appreciated the full extent of his faithless ally's perfidy! The necromancer had abandoned him to the wrath of the elves! After the mammoth spectacle of the Thirteenth Ritual, every elf in the forest knew of Nashrik's power.
Knew of it, and were determined that the grey seer would never get the chance to use it again!
Ywain passed through the fence of gnarled trees and thorns which surrounded the Golden Pool. The foliage seemed reluctant to part, responding with a lethargic truculence that she had never encountered before. It was almost as if the guardian trees were frightened to allow her entry.
The spellweaver stood upon the edge of the black earth, staring out at the circle of amber at the centre of the clearing. Ywain could almost see the dark energies rippling about the pool, the untapped power emanating in response to the Hour of Shadows. It was similar to the awful strength she had sensed swirling about Huskk Gnawbone, but magnified a thousandfold. This was the raw, primordial energy of a volcano, of a typhoon, all locked within the pool. All waiting to be used, shaped by any mage brave enough to claim its might.
Evil calls out...
The words of the Warden flashed through Ywain's mind. Almost as soon as she heard them, they were smothered by a panoply of frightening images. The skaven and the undead running amok through the forest, burning and killing with savage abandon. Thalos, his body broken and bloodied, strewn before Huskk's feet only to rise again, a lifeless puppet enslaved to the necromancer's fell will.
Ywain could not allow such visions to be fulfilled, not while there was any hope they could be stopped. She knew the power locked within the pool was evil, but her convictions were pure. Her purity would allow her to reshape the pool's magic, force it to a good and noble purpose. The evil locked away for so very long would be compelled to protect the forest. She would save Thalos.
The spellweaver strode across the barren ground, each step more difficult than the last. Intangible spiderwebs seemed to drag at her, trying to draw her away. Fear and doubt struggled to overwhelm her, to force her to turn back. Always the vision of Thalos lying dead at the feet of Huskk gave her the strength to prevail.
After what seemed an eternity, Ywain stood at the edge of the amber pit. Here, this close to the Golden Pool, she could feel the eerie emanations rising from it as a slimy coldness that pawed at her flesh and groped at her soul.
Steeling her resolve, Ywain placed her foot upon the surface of the pool, opening herself to the power rising from the amber pit. Instantly a shock passed through her body. She felt as though she were on fire, burning from within. Aethyric energies blazed through her flesh and spirit, howling and raging like the winds of a tempest. It took every ounce of her willpower to force the crazed malevolence to relent, to subside into currents she could see and understand.
The Golden Pool beneath her feet was in turmoil, shivering and bucking, shuddering as its essence became amorphous and watery. Like a geyser, the core of the pool exploded upwards, rising high above the clearing in a writhing column of molten amber, dancing and swaying in the starlight, pulsating with a weird melody at once tragic and lascivious.
The surface of the pool remained solid beneath the spellweaver, borne aloft by the turmoil beneath it. Ywain stared down from the swaying, twisting summit of the sorcerous geyser, seeing the forest spread out below her. How small and inconsequential it looked. How unworthy of the power now flowing through her body, thundering through her soul.
Ywain railed against the prideful madness. She knew it for the evil force of the pool, and recognizing it for what it was, she bent her will to silencing its temptation. She would use the power of the fulcrum to protect others, not to aggrandize herself.
At the spellweaver's thought, the entire column shifted, facing about that she might gaze in the direction of Hawk Heath and the battle she knew was still raging there. Closing her eyes, Ywain drew upon the power of the Golden Pool, focusing it upon the battlefield, directing its energies against the invaders. The skaven had thought to plant a crop of evil in Athel Loren. Now the monsters would reap what they had sown!
As she worked her magic, Ywain was oblivious to the changes stealing upon the clearing below, of the gnarled trees and thorn bushes that were slowly, inexorably and reluctantly crawling away from the fence, making their way across the forbidden ring of barren ground.
She had sent the Golden Pool's magic into the forest. Now the forest was coming to the Golden Pool.
\*
Grey Seer Nashrik chittered with insane glee as he burned another warhawk from the sky with a bolt of warp-lightning. He had overcome his momentary and uncharacteristic fright, dismissing the feeble efforts of the wood elves and their allies to oppose his mighty powers. Using the warpstone Huskk had so foolishly given him, Nashrik had become a dynamo of destruction and carnage. What were the crude weapons of Clan Skryre beside the magic of a grey seer? Entire stretches of the forest had wilted beneath Nashrik's magic, withered from branch to root. The grey seer had taken a special delight exterminating the greenery, exposing the elves in their hiding places. He had unleashed the dread transformation of the Thirteenth Ritual upon the elves, twisting their bodies into verminous shapes, obliterating their identities under the mentality of a change-scent skaven.
The spellsingers still made their puny efforts to stop him, sending swarms of spites and beasts of the forest to end Nashrik's sorcery. One and all they had perished before his magic. He was unstoppable! A living engine of destruction! A walking pestilence! The glory of the Horned Rat made flesh!
Nashrik tugged at his whiskers as he felt a change steal upon the battlefield. He glanced hurriedly at the skaven warriors rampaging across the heath. They sensed it too, their ears folding back close against the sides of their skulls, their tails lashing in agitation. The hint of fear-musk was on the wind now, where before there had been only the smell of victory.
Before the grey seer's stunned gaze, shapes began to materialize, emerging from nothingness to stand between his army and the elves yet opposing him. Nashrik's hackles rose as he saw those lithe forms dance across the borderland between worlds, springing across the heath in ecstatic gyrations. Supple and sensuous were the figures which now capered among the ratmen, curvaceous bodies of pale, furless flesh with a husky scent of wanton desire. Many of the ratmen forgot their fear, squeaking happily as they rushed forwards to embrace the prancing figures. The strange laughter of the breeder-things tinkled across the field as they returned the amorous charge of their admirers with a crimson flash of slashing claws and tearing pincers.
No elf or dryad, these hellish apparitions. Nashrik could smell the fell energies saturating the dancing harridans, the abominable stink of blackest magic. Daemons. Creatures of the Outer Dark!
The stink of skaven blood made Nashrik's warriors belatedly recognize their peril. The ratmen tried to reform into a more defensible posture, some fragment of Nahak's tactics yet lingering in their minds. Nashrik shrieked orders to them to fall back, to retreat from this weird new menace that had formed to oppose them.
It was too late. Too many of the murdering daemonettes were already mixed among the skaven ranks. Nashrik could see more of the infernal spirits manifesting, these mounted upon long-legged steeds that seemed to mix all the qualities of worm, serpent and peacock. The daemon cavalry descended upon the confused ratmen, spitting them upon golden lances or ripping them apart with slashing claws.
Victory, so close a moment before, slipped through Nashrik's grasping paws. Simple survival became the grey seer's only ambition. While the daemons were busy slaughtering his army, there was a chance he might be able to slip away.
The grey seer turned to flee, coming up short as he saw his way blocked by a grotesque daemon-thing. It was as big as an ox-rat, scuttling towards him on six spiky legs, its snake-like head tapering into a puckered mouth from which an obscene tongue flickered. Enormous claws sprouted from its shoulders and arched over its scaly back was a club-like tail tipped by a dripping stinger.
Nashrik cried out in fright, focusing his mind upon a spell to obliterate the disgusting monstrosity. Yet even as he tried to work his magic, his nose was filled with a strange, sickly-sweet scent. His thoughts became fuzzy, coherence collapsing beneath a warm idiocy. The warpstone fell from Nashrik's slackened grip, rolling away into the grass. The grey seer stood unmoving as the daemon-beast crawled towards him. He didn't even try to escape the mangling claws that snapped tight about his body or cry out when the poisoned stinger stabbed into his chest.
From the shelter of the trees, the elves watched in dumbfounded horror as the daemon host exterminated Nahsrik's army. They had been delivered from their enemy.
Delivered by a force far more terrible than either skaven or undead.
Thalos dashed through the benighted forest, desperate to reach the battlefield. He did not blame Ywain for the magic which had caused him to vanish from the heath and reappear within a copse of ash trees some half a mile away. He trusted that the spellweaver had a good reason for working such magic upon him. However, his place was in battle, leading his kinband against the enemies of Athel Loren. Whatever peril that might mean.
The highborn hesitated as he rounded a turn in the narrow path through the trees. He felt a change in the air around him, almost as though the forest itself had shuddered. There was an unpleasant clammy sensation slithering across his skin, setting his hairs on end. It was an obscene feeling, ripe with the corrupt tang of evil. Thalos felt as though his very soul were being violated by the slimy phantasm which caressed his flesh.
The sensation crawled along his chest, crept down his arms and up his legs. Thalos could feel its progress, probing and groping, causing each nerve in his body to tremble with the thrill of abomination. Then the coldness seeped across his fingers, towards the amber sword clenched in his hand.
At once, the corruption fled from him, recoiling from the Dawnblade as though from a raging fire. Thalos could almost hear the unseen force screeching in terror as it fled, abandoning the elf once more to the darkness.
Thalos felt his gorge rise at the vileness that had assaulted his senses. It was a struggle for him to regain his composure, to keep from running, to keep from screaming. Only the knowledge that the foul presence had fled from him allowed the elf to retain his courage. Whatever the atrocity had been, it had feared the Dawnblade.
The foul stink of carrion struck Thalos' reeling senses. The highborn forced his mind to clear itself of nameless fears. Sufficient to the moment were the evils thereof. The stink he smelled could only belong to some of Huskk Gnawbone's undead slaves.
Crouching behind the bole of a maple tree, Thalos waited while the smell grew stronger. Soon he saw a ragged mob of zombie ratmen shuffle into view, each of the hideous things bearing a clay jar in its decayed paws. Following behind his slaves, the emaciated form of the Black Seer crept into view. Even upon the bestial, leprous features of the necromancer, there was no mistaking an expression of malevolent triumph.
Thalos leapt out from behind the tree, striking with his sword. Before the invaders even knew he was there, three of the zombies were cut down. The others shifted awkwardly, laden down with the heavy canopic jars. The mindless things took no move to defend themselves against the ambusher.
Huskk Gnawbone snarled, his voice raised in a shriek of fury. A grey miasma, glowing with corpse-light, flashed from the Black Seer's paw. The malignant energy sped towards Thalos, but as it drew near to the highborn, the Dawnblade blazed with light. The magic shifted in flight, drawn towards the sword instead of the one who held it. Before Thalos' wondering gaze, the grey miasma crashed against the amber blade, sucked down into its translucent depths.
Huskk shrieked again, this time gesturing wildly with his claws. From the blackness behind the necromancer, the cockatrice appeared, leaping onto the path, its talons digging at the earth. The bird-beast snapped its beak, the feathers of its ruff shivering with agitation. Thalos felt the monster's beady eyes glaring at him. The cockatrice seemed to remember who it was that had cut its wing.
The beast's rage was all that preserved Thalos from instant destruction, for he doubted the Dawnblade would protect him from the cockatrice's gaze as easily as it had Huskk's magic. So incensed was the monster at the sight of its attacker that it chose to forgo training its petrifying gaze upon the elf, instead leaping forwards to rend him with beak and talon.
As Thalos prepared to defend himself, there came a sudden motion from the tree behind him. An immense cluster of branches, bound together in the semblance of a hand, reached down and closed about the body of the cockatrice as it charged him. The avian horror thrashed about wildly as the wooden fingers clenched tightly about it, plucking it from the ground and raising it high into the air.
"Attend to the root-chewer," the groaning voice of Daithru rumbled from above. Thalos looked upward to see the treeman's gnarled face, aware for the first time that his momentary refuge had in fact been the ancient forest spirit. "This doom is mine."
Thalos blanched in despair as he saw Daithru's body grow pale, stiffening as the cockatrice directed its lethal gaze upon the treeman. The groaning sigh of the treeman's voice fell silent as his wooden body became petrified.
The cockatrice cackled as its hideous gaze brought destruction upon the noble ancient. The monster kept its stare fixed upon Daithru until the treeman's body became stone, until the last spark of life had been extinguished. Then it allowed the deadly membranes to slide back. The cockatrice resumed its struggles to free itself, pecking and clawing at the treeman's now frozen fingers.
It did not notice the tiny lights emerging from the hollows of the treeman's body, the little spites that had sheltered within Daithru's wooden frame. Hidden from the cockatrice's baleful gaze, protected from its petrifying power, now the spites surged forth to wreak vengeance upon Daithru's killer. The fey lights assumed fearsome shapes, ghastly bodies of thorns and claws and fangs. Flittering upwards in a ferocious cloud, the swarm of spites engulfed the struggling cockatrice. The monster's cackle became a pained shriek as the swarm descended upon it, savaging its body with barbed tails and hooked swords, with serrated jaws and razor wings.
Thalos turned away from the gory spectacle of the monster's destruction. Sight of his pet's distress had spurred Huskk into action. The Black Seer was in flight, scurrying down the forest trail. The necromancer had drawn upon his occult powers, infusing his retinue of shambling corpses with the vigour of living beings, enabling them to keep pace with their master as he fled.
The elf clenched his teeth, chiding himself for being distracted by the cockatrice. He could not allow the necromancer to escape. Not after the sacrifice Daithru had made.
The highborn dashed off in pursuit of the fleeing skaven, but at the first turn in the path, he discovered that his foe had taken steps to cover his tracks. Thalos recoiled as a rusty sword flashed through the darkness, then ducked as a second chopped down at his neck. The elf back-stepped away from his attacker, trying to give himself a respite to take the measure of Huskk's rearguard.
The thing was an abomination, a horror constructed from three skaven. Swords were clenched in each of the thing's hands, six blades against the elf's one. Malignant fires smouldered in the depths of the undead nightmare's skulls. Its jaws clattered in a silent echo of a war cry, then the fiend surged forwards on its six bony legs.
Thalos met its charge, the Dawnblade dancing before him in a whirling pirouette of death. Only the reflexes and speed of an elf could have matched the crashing clamour of the rat-thing's six blades. Only the keenness of the Dawnblade could have shattered each of the enemy's swords, snapping them as though they were dried twigs.
The mindless horror did not falter as each of its swords was broken by the Dawnblade. Instead, it pressed its attack, seizing the elf in its bony claws, lifting him towards its snapping jaws.
Thalos drove the Dawnblade between the horror's fangs, stabbing the sword upwards, driving it through first one, then another of its stacked skulls. The entire abomination shuddered as the power of the amber blade cut away at the dark magic sustaining its unholy semblance of life. The undead nightmare slumped to its knees, gnashing its fangs as it toppled to the ground.
The highborn pulled himself free of the rat-thing's lifeless claws. The mighty Dawnblade had protected him once more. Next it would be Huskk Gnawbone's turn to feel the enchanted sword's power.
Pulling the Dawnblade free, however, Thalos made a horrifying discovery. The rat-thing's gnashing fangs had shattered the sword, breaking it six inches above the hilt. The magic blade had been reduced from a sword to a dagger.
Thalos felt his body go numb at the discovery. Would the Dawnblade's magic still remain in the fragmented sword? Could it still protect him from the Black Seer's sorcery?
Whatever the answer, the highborn knew his decision was already made. He must pursue the necromancer and prevent him from reaching the Golden Pool.
Huskk Gnawbone scurried down the forest path. The Golden Pool was near; he could smell its tremendous power all around him. He could feel its energies swelling under the influence of the Hour of Shadows, far surpassing what Nahak had led him to expect. The liche had insisted the might of the Golden Pool could not manifest on its own, yet the Black Seer had felt its malefic power rippling across the forest. Nahak had been mistaken.
The necromancer's paw closed about the skull dangling against his chest. A savage smile spread across Huskk's withered features. Nahak had been mistaken about many things. Most importantly, the liche had deluded itself into believing Huskk would share the power of the Golden Pool.
Ripping the chain from around his neck, Huskk swung the skull of Nahak against the trunk of an oak. His mind quivered with the liche's spectral shriek as the skull shattered against the unyielding bole. The Black Seer lashed his tail in amusement as the fragments exploded across the path. He hoped that the liche enjoyed oblivion.
"Fast-quick," Huskk hissed at his grave rats. "Hurry-scurry!" The Golden Pool was near, but the Hour of Shadows would soon begin to wane. He would need to act fast if he wanted to siphon off the pool's power into his canopic jars.
The necromancer and his minions scurried onwards, the pulsations of dark energy growing as they advanced. Huskk bruxed his fangs, feeling his belly growl in sympathy to the hunger he felt.
Huskk blinked in confusion as the forest suddenly opened out into a wide clearing. He would have expected some sort of barrier, some kind of wall to contain the power of the Golden Pool. Yet there was no mistaking the smell of its dark energies, no denying the cold chill of dark magic in the air and the fiery glow of the pool's witch-light. Impatient, eager to slake his lust for power, the necromancer hurried onwards, snarling at his zombies to quicken their pace.
It was when the Black Seer crept out into the clearing and felt the black soil under his paws that he became aware that something was wrong. A great geyser of golden liquid gyrated and pulsated at the centre of the clearing. It was only when he raised a paw to his face, shielding his eyes against the glow that he saw the slender figure poised high atop the magical fulcrum.
Horror filled Huskk's heart. The blind, stupid fool-meat! One sniff told him the figure atop the fulcrum was a she-elf tree-mage. The idiot was trying to use the power of the pool, not by siphoning it off, but by tapping it directly!
The mad fool-meat! She didn't understand what she was doing! She might think she was using the pool, but it was using her, using her to escape, to explode across the world in a storm of havoc and atrocity!
Huskk's ambitions wilted beneath a tide of raw terror. Better than the she-elf, he understood the force her magic had unleashed. Then his eyes caught a suggestion of motion beyond the writhing geyser. Squinting against the glare, he voided his glands as he saw a gigantic figure stride forth.
In shape it was like an elf, though vastly magnified in proportions. Great curved legs ended in splayed hooves, slender arms terminated in enormous claws. A horned head leered downwards from a serpentine neck, a sinewy tongue flickering between its sharp teeth. Staring up at the horrific thing, Huskk understood why the forest had seemed so desolate, for the monstrous creature had crafted its body from trees and bushes, luring them into its phantom clutches and reshaping them into a daemonic form.
The great daemon's eyes blazed as it met Huskk's stare. At once, the beast read the necromancer's intention, understood why the ratman had penetrated the forest to the Golden Pool and what he had hoped to accomplish. The daemon's gaze shifted to the canopic jars. Wooden lips curled back in a leering scowl. High atop the fulcrum, the tiny figure of the she-elf twisted around. She pointed her hands down at the zombies.
Huskk could feel the dark energies explode around him as the elf's spell crashed down upon the zombies. The canopic jars exploded, detonating like bombs as the enraged daemonic power smashed them asunder. The undead skaven were torn to ribbons in the explosion, their dismembered fragments strewn about the clearing.
The Black Seer squeaked in fright. Before he could flee, however, the daemon's claw swept downwards, snapping tight about his body. Desperately, the necromancer evoked one of his spells, using his full energies to attack the ghoulish monster. Possessed wood peeled away, blistered and rotting as Huskk's malign spell consumed it. The energies of the Hour of Shadows continued to augment the Black Seer's dark magic.
But the boon the Hour of Shadows presented Huskk Gnawbone was as nothing compared to that which it gave the daemon. A being whose essence was dark magic, the entity's entire substance was swollen with the fell energies. Even as Huskk's spell ate away its claw, the splinters coalesced into a new limb, a vicious snapping pincer that shot outwards. Darting towards the Black Seer, the daemon's pincer clacked shut about the skaven's neck. Huskk's final squeak of horror went unvoiced as his leprous head leapt from his shoulders.
The Keeper of Secrets gazed upon the twitching corpse of Huskk Gnawbone, savouring the sight and smells of its would-be exploiter's demise. The daemon had been chained within the Golden Pool for millennia, shackled within its amber prison since a time before time, when even the god it served was yet unborn.
A daemon of sensations and emotions, of sights and smells, of touch and sound, the millennia of isolation and deprivation had been an endless torment to it. Yet even its suffering had been an experience towards an end. It had penetrated the deceit of time, seen the world before the world, known the shape of what had been before the gods and what would be after even the gods were no more. It knew, and knowing, it could reshape the toils of fate. It could break the wheel and end the cycle of things that had been and would be.
The daemon lifted its silvery voice, crying out to the darkened sky. Soon it would be free from the pool. Soon the last of its essence would pass through the sacrifice, freed from the prison which had held it for so very long. The daemon closed its eyes, indulging in the agonies of the she-elf's body as she struggled to contain the power cascading through her. The Keeper forced itself to slow the escape of its essence from the pool, appreciating that there was a limit to what mortal flesh could withstand. It had to be patient, and careful. If the elf expired before it was free from the pool, it might never escape.
Escape! Even as that long-cherished word exploded across the daemon's mind, the Keeper's awareness was drawn back to the floor of the clearing. Its wooden lips pulled back in a sneer of contempt as it observed a lone elf coming forward. It recognized the impudent little mortal who had defied its investigation earlier, the bold creature who dared to carry a sliver of its prison in his hand.
The Keeper laughed, the sound keening through the forest like the moan of a lyre. The elf's sword had been broken somehow. There was not enough of it left to menace the daemon, not in its body of living wood. The Keeper would take its time destroying this one, peeling away each layer of skin with its claws, relishing every cry of agony as it stripped the elf's body down to the bone.
Before the daemon could take more than one lumbering step towards its prey, the giant froze. It turned its head, staring at the one stand of trees which had defied its call. The trees were in motion, scuttling aside on their roots, drawing apart like the gates of a fortress.
The daemon's wooden lips curled as it sensed the presence of its captor, the coming of the Warden of the Wood.
Thalos trembled as he felt the malign attention of the hideous daemon focused upon him. He recognized this horror for what it was---a creature of Slaanesh, the profane Prince of Pleasures whose corruption had sundered the asur and brought evil into the heart of Ulthuan with its lustful malice. Now that evil power had been set loose in Athel Loren.
Remembering the spectral touch of the daemon and how it had recoiled from the Dawnblade, Thalos raised the broken fragment of sword he yet retained, hoping to drive back the abomination. His heart went cold when he saw the daemon snicker at his bravado. Clearly, it had no fear of a shattered sword.
Suddenly, the daemon's attention was diverted. It shifted its bulk about, staring into the forest. The trees parted, shambling away on their roots, opening a path for... something.
The highborn gawped at the weird creature which came stomping out from among the trees. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, a great reptilian beast with a scaly brown and black hide. It tromped down the trail on four massive, pillar-like legs. A great, club-like tail swung from its hindquarters, sharp barbs running along the sides of the cudgellike button on its tip. A humanoid torso rose from the fore of the creature's lower body, muscular arms descending from broad shoulders, a lizard-like head perched atop the merest stump of a neck. In the creature's hands, a bladed staff of silver and white shone with the brilliance of starfire. Even from a distance, he could tell it was no natural denizen of Athel Loren, nor yet some strange manifestation of the fey. He was reminded of Ywain's words, her insistence that the Warden of the Wood was not a creature of the forest but rather something far older.
Ywain! Thalos forgot about daemons and monsters, turning his frantic attention to the swirling pillar of molten amber. He could see the spellweaver standing atop of the fulcrum, her arms outstretched, her lips locked in the cadence of a spell.
The spell must be broken.
Thalos staggered as the voice of the Warden echoed through his mind. He looked over at the strange beast, watched as it charged into the wooden daemon. The silver sky staff crackled with eerie lightning as it scorched the daemon's claws. The daemon retaliated, swatting aside the Warden's staff, slashing its scaly flesh. The entire clearing quaked as the two monstrous beings brought their terrible power crashing down upon one another.
The evil must end.
Thalos felt a sliver of the Warden's strength flow into him, spurring him towards the Golden Pool. As the creature's focus was momentarily split, the daemon rallied, driving the reptile back, gouging its side with a thorny talon. The highborn needed no further warning. The reptile was giving him time, holding the daemon's rage, allowing Thalos to do what must be done.
Thalos hesitated for only a moment when he stood beside the swirling, gyrating geyser of magic. Tightening his grip upon the Dawnblade, he gave his trust to the Warden and the spirits of Athel Loren. A glance back at the battling behemoths, then the elf cast himself into the roiling pillar.
Swiftly, the elf lord was borne upwards, rocketing to the summit of the geyser. In the blink of an eye, Thalos found himself standing at the apex of the fulcrum, standing beside Ywain.
The highborn moved to embrace his lover, to take her away, to bear her to safety, far from battling daemons and raging reptiles. As he stretched forth his hand, however, Thalos drew back in horror. A single glance was enough to see the monstrous changes which the daemon's essence had inflicted upon Ywain's flesh. In the eyes of the spellweaver, the woman he loved had vanished, leaving only hollow pits of pain and madness.
Anger flared up within Thalos' breast. He cast his furious gaze down upon the wooden daemon. How dearly did he wish he could leap down upon its timber shoulders and drive the Dawnblade into its fiendish brain. But he knew such a gesture would be both foolish and futile. What was a body to a thing that was composed only of intangibles like emotion and thought?
The spell must be broken. The evil must end.
Thalos understood the Warden's meaning now. He shuddered as he considered what he must do. However, he knew there was no other way. The spell had to be broken, and that could not be done while Ywain yet worked her magic, allowing the daemon to escape its prison.
Thalos approached the spellweaver, wrapping his arms around her tortured body in a final embrace. A single thrust sent the broken sliver of the Dawnblade stabbing through her vitals. The highborn grimaced, then pressed the blade still deeper, not relenting until he had transfixed his own body and felt his own life-blood streaming from his veins.
Together, slayer and slain sank into the Golden Pool, their bodies drawn into its amber depths as the geyser withdrew, retreating back into the pit. A howling gale accompanied its retreat, the screaming wail of the Keeper as its essence was sucked back into the arcane prison. The great wooden body it had crafted for itself became an empty shell, teetering awkwardly upon its hooved feet as the governing vitality slipped away. A moment the grotesque stood, then it came crashing down to lie in rotten splinters beside the amber pit.
The Warden of the Wood watched as the fulcrum collapsed back into the earth and the last of the daemon's power was returned to its prison. The reptile looked skyward, watching as a subtle shifting of the stars heralded the waning of the Hour of Shadows.
The ancient reptile accepted the end of the present danger with cool detachment. It cast its awareness through the forest. At Hawk Heath, the last of the skaven had been annihilated, the daemons called forth by Ywain's desperate spell cast back into the Realm of Chaos with the sealing of the Golden Pool.
The Warden contemplated its fallen acolyte. It had warned the elf, warned that the evil of the pool would seek her through the evil in her own soul. It was a failing of the new races that they could not understand the nature of Chaos, would not see that the spiritual defects they cherished and called emotion were the feeding grounds for evil.
The age of the new races would pass. The wheel of time would run its course. The Warden and its kindred would await the passing of the warm-flesh.
One day, it would again be the age of its kind.
The age of the zoats.
Scanning, formatting andproofing by Flandrel,additional formatting andproofing by Undead.

