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The Tainted Axe – Josh Reynolds

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The Tainted Axe

Josh Reynolds

‘The grove is singing tonight, Sir Roggen. Be wary.’

Roggen stopped. The voice seemed to come from nowhere, echoing through the tumbledown ruins that lay at the top of the slope.

‘Who speaks?’ Roggen said softly. He was a big man, built for war rather than peace. Even out of his armour, he looked like a warrior. His mane of unkempt hair merged with a thicket-like beard, the better to hide his scarred features, and his rangy limbs were thick with hard-earned muscle. His hand – his good hand – itched for the hilt of his blade. But his sword, along with his war-plate, had been left in his cell, back in the chapterhouse. At the moment, he wore only a simple habit of woven fibres, belted at the waist with a strip of leather. The traditional garb of the knights of the Order of the Furrow.

‘Only me, brother. It is my night to sit watch.’

Roggen looked down. A crooked shape sat in the moonlight, sitting cross-legged beneath the broken remains of what had once been an archway. Roggen had taken the sentry for a stone, at first, due to his stillness. ‘Hygal, is that you?’

‘In the flesh, brother. What remains of it.’ Hygal bent, coughing wetly. The moss-leper’s form was hidden beneath thick burlap robes and a concealing sack-hood, but these did little to conceal the musky stink of his affliction. Beneath the robes, Roggen knew that the other knight’s body would be covered in ever-growing patches of cancerous moss. It ate away at flesh and muscle, leaving only dense, green clumps clinging to the bone. It was a common ailment in these precarious times. When the winds blew hot and damp, carrying spores north from the Verdant Bay, no one was safe. Not even knights.

Mercifully, the afflicted felt little in the way of pain. And despite his illness, Hygal could still wield a blade. A sheathed sword lay across his chest, its hilt rising above his shoulder. Bandaged fingers tapped tunelessly against its length. ‘I heard that you’d returned to us at last, brother. I’m glad to see you’ve come back safe from the wilds of Ghur.’

Roggen lifted his other hand – or what was left of it. A mangled stump, bound in dressings. It hurt, but then, it always hurt these days. Sometimes it was only a little ache. Other times – now, for instance – it was a searing knot of agony that threatened to drag the burly knight to his knees. It was strange to him how something that was no longer there could hurt so badly. That he had lost it in service to a god was some comfort.

He had returned to Ghyran after its loss, seeking a familiar place to heal. The god, Grungni, in whose service he had been hurt, had offered to craft him a fine replacement of silver and steel, but Roggen had turned down the offer. He had half-hoped the arts of his Order might restore his missing limb, or at least alleviate the pain. So far, that had not been the case. ‘Safe, yes. But it shall always hold a piece of me, I fear.’

Hygal laughed until he wheezed. ‘Better a hand than a head, eh?’

‘It was a very good hand, brother.’

Hygal extended his own. Moss was growing between and over the bandages in places. ‘I’d give you one of mine, but… well.’

‘I thank you for the offer, brother, even so.’ Roggen looked past the archway, into the grove. Once, this place had been a chapel of stone, dedicated to some forgotten god or other. Now, its walls were gone, its roof long since fallen in, leaving only a few scattered archways and flat stones underfoot to mark its passing. A cathedral of ironwood trees rose tall, as if reaching towards the stars of Azyr, far above. As Hygal had said, the rustle of the boughs in the wind sounded like singing.

‘Something is abroad in the grove this night. I hear it wandering among the graves of our order. Like loose leaves scraping on stone. I think it is waiting on someone.’ Hygal looked up at him. ‘You should go back to your cell, brother. Let the night keep its secrets.’ He gestured back towards the low wedge of the chapterhouse, where its outer ramparts emerged from the hill. The fortress had been built into the slope centuries earlier – or perhaps the hill had grown up around the fortress. It was hard to say, in Ghyran.

Roggen had followed a winding set of crudely carved stone steps up from those angular walls of stone and wood, to reach the top of the slope, drawn by something he could not give name to. A dream? A compulsion? He could not say. He knew only that something – someone – was waiting for him. ‘I think I am expected, brother,’ he said. ‘But I thank you for the warning.’

Roggen made his way into the ironwood grove. The trees were tall and strong, growing among the ruins in copses and bunches. Their roots stretched deep into the hill and, in places, even through the stone and mortar of the chapterhouse within. They nestled among the graves of the honoured dead, who were bound in sacks and buried here, where they might add their strength to that of the trees.

His Order wore no metal, nor bore it into battle. Such was against the oath they’d made in generations past to the Everqueen. Their armour, their weapons, all were constructed from ironwood. They grew their war-plate in this very grove, from seeds gifted to them by Alarielle, long before the coming of Chaos.

They had worshipped a different god, once. Or so the stories said. Now, the Order of the Furrow bowed only to the Lady of Leaves, and watered her sacred forests with the blood of her enemies – and their own, when necessary.

Thick grasses grew between the few remaining stones, rustling softly in the night wind. It almost sounded like whispering, and Roggen wondered whether it was a greeting – or a warning. The rustling of the grasses and the creaking of the branches overhead stilled suddenly and he stopped.

‘I am here,’ he said.

‘So I see.’

At first, he thought the words merely a trick of the wind. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her. A tall shape, undeniably feminine, but not human. ‘Do you know me, son of man?’

‘I do not.’

‘And yet, I have called, and you have come.’

‘Even so,’ Roggen said. He forced himself to relax. ‘I ask you to name yourself, my lady. Who has called me here?’ He flexed his good hand. ‘And why?’

‘I have as many names as there are leaves on the trees.’ She laughed, and the sound of it – like thorns clattering over bone – made him shiver. ‘Your brotherhood calls me the Bramble-Maiden, sister to the Lady of Vines and daughter of the Everqueen. Do you know me now, son of man?’

Roggen sank to his knees. ‘I do, my lady.’ A handmaiden of Alarielle was no mere spirit, but the right hand of the Goddess of Life. Among the Sylvaneth, there were none greater than the branchwraiths who served as the Everqueen’s servants. They were Alarielle’s word given physical form, sent to do her will in the world of men.

‘Good.’ She circled him, walking through the trees. They swayed and bent with her, hiding her from view. ‘I would tell you a story, sir knight.’ Roggen did not move. He knelt and listened, though it was a story he had heard many times before. Sometimes, he thought it was the only story there was to tell. Perhaps for the Sylvaneth it was, or had become so…

‘The world was fair, in ancient days. Forests rose, one upon the next, tumbling upwards forever into jade skies, and the sounds of life were as the songs of minstrels, echoing between the glens without cease.’ Her voice was like the murmur of fresh water over smooth stones, soft but persistent. ‘Then came the Withering Season, and the Cruel Gardener. With his pitted scythe, Nurgle reaped life and made the air and waters foul. His slaves sowed sickness, planting a crop of plague-seeds which fester even now, in darkling vales.’

The trees ceased their swaying.

He could feel her gaze on him and cleared his throat. ‘Speak on, my lady. What is your will? If it is within my power, I shall see it done.’

‘Take care with your words, Roggen of the Ghyrwood March. A spirit crueller than I might take that as a binding oath, rather than a simple boast.’

Roggen frowned. ‘Perhaps it is. Why else would you come here to me?’ He glanced around, trying to spot some hint of her among the trees. He lifted his mangled stump. ‘Not to fix this, I think.’

‘And if I could, would you ask it of me?’

Roggen hesitated. The tone was teasing. He lowered his arm. ‘As novices, we are taught to be wary of Alarielle’s children, for they are not mortals and do not think as mortals do. They change with the seasons and cannot be trusted.’

‘Are we so wicked, then? Are we monsters, to be feared?’

He heard a susurrus behind him, as of something moving through the grasses. He did not turn. ‘No more so than the storm or the flood. We are taught to respect you, but not to trust you.’ He bowed his head. ‘Seek no favours of the tree-kin, but sink deep the roots of every bargain,’ he recited.

‘There is a wisdom, in those words.’ Her voice came from directly behind him. ‘Turn, sir knight. See me.’

Again, he hesitated. She laughed – a rough, rattling sound, as of many branches rasping across brick. ‘Do you fear to look upon me, then, mortal?’

‘I once heard tell of a young knight who wasted away for want of your touch and voice, having met you,’ he said. ‘They say you took him away and entombed him in some secret bower where he sleeps eternally.’

‘I, too, have heard that tale.’ Something light, like a strand of cobweb, stroked his cheek. ‘There is little truth in it. He sleeps, that knight, though it was not I who laid him to rest. But that is not important. Come. Look at me.’

Roggen turned. Like all branchwraiths, he saw that she was beautiful in her own way, but not human. Her face was a twist of bramble and bark, the features shifting constantly, from an approximation of a woman’s to something altogether more frightening. Her form was hidden beneath layers of creepers and cobwebs, and her hands were gnarled claws of splintered wood. Her hair was a spill of bramble vines, heavy with berries and spiky leaves.

‘Good. Far to the south sits the Writhing Weald. An old forest, even by the standards of my folk, and savage. Do you know it?’

‘I do, my lady.’ It was a foul place, baneful and hoary. Men went in and did not come out. At least not in one piece. It was said to be a haunt of dark spirits, more capricious than most, and malignant.

‘There is something at its heart – a mote of darkness. A plague-seed, like those I spoke of in my tale. An ancient weapon, once wielded by a cursed scion of Nurgle’s demesnes, who came many seasons ago to burn the Weald and take that which he had no claim to.’ Her voice became a hiss, and the tree branches made a sound like spears rattling. Her thorny claws pressed painfully close to his throat as she circled him.

‘He was slain for this temerity, and made food for the soil. But his weapon – his hateful weapon – lingers there, festering in the dark. And the forest grows sicker by the day. Do you understand?’ She leaned close, her splintery lips brushing his ear.

Roggen swallowed. ‘I do. But why do you not claim the weapon yourself, if it troubles you so?’

Again, the cobweb-gentle touch traced his jugular. ‘We cannot touch it. It pains us. It is a foul thing – an ancient weapon, hungry for the life of the forests. So a mortal must do so. In return…’ She touched his bandaged stump. There was a moment of pain, followed by a sensation quite unlike anything he’d felt before. The bandages bulged and tore as thin spirals of dark wood bloomed from his ravaged flesh. He watched in amazement as a new hand grew where the old one had been. It was a hand of bark and bramble, but a hand nonetheless.

‘My hand… You…’ Even as he tried to find the words, the hand shrank and withered, falling away from his stump. He closed his eyes, as the pain returned. ‘What would you have of me, my lady?’

‘The tainted axe, Roggen of the Ghyrwood March. Bring it to me, and I shall grow you a hand to replace the one you lost. Will you do this thing?’

Roggen nodded. ‘Such is my oath, and so it will be done.’

‘Good.’ A talon-tip lifted his chin, and he opened his eyes. ‘You will have safe passage, but even so, the Writhing Weald is a confusing place. You will need a guide.’ She held out her palm, and on it, a thin tendril of bramble sprouted and grew. It tore itself free of her and coiled about itself like a serpent. He heard what might have been a whine of complaint as she plucked it from her hand and set it in his.

‘This spirit will guide you. Trust it or not, as it pleases you. But it will help you find what you seek.’ She closed his fingers over the brambles. ‘Do not fail me, my knight.’ She leaned close and brushed his cheek with her lips.

A moment later, she was gone.

Roggen stood. When he touched his cheek, his fingers came away red.

The forest reeked of sickness.

There was no wind, but the trees shook as if afflicted with ague. Swollen, black roots ruptured the loam, and the hum of insects echoed from among the high branches. The air was still and damp. Almost stifling in its opacity. It tasted sour, like curdled milk.

Worst of all were the strange lights that danced between the trees, and the unidentifiable shapes that scampered through the underbrush, just out of the corner of the eye. The forest was alive, but it was a darker sort of life than he was used to.

‘A fair wood this is, eh, Harrow?’ Roggen growled, leaning forward in his saddle. The bronze-coloured ironwood war-plate he wore creaked as he did so, and his ragged, jade tabard rustled noisily. His demigryph squalled in reply, her tail lashing. The big beast, a monstrous blending of feline and avian characteristics, was covered in a shaggy pelt the colour of damp soil, and vibrant green feathers. Dark ironwood armour protected her barrel chest and lean flanks.

Larger than any stallion, she could run for days on end without tiring. Twice as vicious, she had dismembered an armoured warrior in moments on several bloody occasions. Now her great talons scythed into roots and bark as she carried her master through the vast blackness of the Writhing Weald.

Roggen had entered the forest three days ago, though it felt considerably longer. Even time itself seemed afflicted by whatever sickness had taken the Weald. He was half tempted to put the forest to the torch.

But that would not solve the problem. The forest would grow back, and the sickness would continue. It was in the soil, poisoning the roots of the trees and souring the waters. A tainted seed, nestled in the forest’s living heart. Something left behind that had festered and grown and now must be purged. ‘Such is my oath, and so it will be done, as the Lady of Leaves wills,’ he murmured. He glanced down at his wounded limb. A cap of ironwood now covered the mangled stump, preventing further injury. The bracelet of bramble vines the Bramble-Maiden had given him had been knotted about the end of the cap. The brambles moved slightly, contracting. He felt the pressure of the thorns as they scraped against the cap.

‘Are you awake, little spirit?’ he rumbled.

‘I do not sleep.’ The brambles spoke in a thin, hissing voice, like rushes in a breeze. ‘I cannot sleep, with your stink.’

Roggen chuckled. ‘So you have said. Which way?’ Without the spirit, he would have long since become lost in the black belly of the Writhing Weald. But it was an untrustworthy thing. He suspected it was taking him in circles. Then, perhaps that had been the Bramble-Maiden’s plan all along – the ways of the tree-kin were not those of men, and often seemed confusing or contradictory.

The bramble-spirit was silent for a moment. Then it twisted up like a snake preparing to strike and said, ‘South. I can feel it, there. Like a discordant note in the spirit-song. It… hurts.’

‘Not for long.’ Roggen thumped his heels against Harrow’s flanks. ‘Hup, girl. Let us not tarry here beneath these dark trees.’

‘Wise. These trees were watered on blood,’ the bramble-spirit murmured slyly. ‘They yearn to sink their roots into soft meats. Like the kind you hide beneath your ironwood shell.’

‘They shall find me more than a mouthful if they try.’

Harrow suddenly squalled as something hooked her forepaw, causing her to stagger into a tree. Roggen grunted in pain as his shoulder was caught by a branch and he was nearly plucked from the saddle. Above him, in the canopy, he caught a flash of something pale and heard high-pitched laughter. At first, he thought of children. But he knew better.

High, thin voices murmured in singsong tones. He seeks, he sorrows, he slips and sleeps… Nonsense words, spilling over one another in a babble of sound.

Harrow tore herself free of the tangled roots that had snared her and shrieked again. The demigryph’s claws tore strips from the bark and the pale things retreated, the echoes of their malign laughter dancing on the wind. ‘Up, girl, get moving,’ Roggen growled. Harrow sprang between the trees, moving quickly.

‘I did warn you.’

Roggen glared down at the bramble-spirit. ‘Is that what you call it?’

‘That they have not plucked out your eyes and made a toy of your beast’s pelt to taunt you with as you wander blind and anguished is proof enough that you have safe passage. But they are… agitated, nonetheless. Something else is abroad in the forest. And they cannot tell the difference between you and it. So they lash out.’

Roggen knew well enough the dangers of such spirits – outcasts from the groves of the Sylvaneth, they took root in dark places and grew twisted and strange.

‘These spirits do as they will,’ his guide continued. ‘It is not Alarielle’s song that they hear, but a rather more primal melody, and darker by far, sung by one whose will is as tangled as the roots of this forest. You know of whom I speak.’

Roggen could not repress a fearful shiver. ‘I do.’ He did not say the spirit’s name for to do so was said to attract her attention. And that, he desperately did not wish to do. ‘Is she abroad in these lands again?’

‘Once. No longer. It was the self-styled Regent of the Outcasts who cursed this place with her thoughtless savagery. It was she who planted the plague-seed you seek, and her followers guard it even now.’

‘What?’ Roggen blinked. The Bramble-Maiden hadn’t seen fit to mention that. Drycha Hamadreth, the Queen of Thorns, wasn’t the sort of foe he would have relished facing, even with two good hands.

The bramble-spirit tittered. ‘She did not tell you!’

‘Perhaps she did not think it worth mentioning. Much like your name.’ Roggen pressed his injured arm close to his chest as he held onto the reins of his mount with his good hand. Riding a demigryph at full pelt was akin to being on a boat during a storm. It took years of training to learn the art, and years more to learn how not to get eaten in the event that you did fall off.

‘You would not eat me though, would you, my girl?’ he said, bending low over Harrow’s feathered neck. She squalled again, as if in reply, and snapped her hooked beak at the air.

‘Meat riding meat,’ the bramble-spirit hissed. It tightened its coils, scraping his bracer with its thorns. ‘Ridiculous.’

‘But efficient,’ Roggen said. ‘We cannot all slip through the trees as easily as a fish swims in water.’

‘What is a fish? Another meat-thing?’

‘Yes. A delicious one.’

The bramble-spirit made a disgusted sound. ‘Meat eating meat. Disgusting.’

‘Did you not just say these trees fed on blood?’

‘They are outcast, and mad.’

‘Yes.’ Roggen caught sight of a mark on a nearby tree – several gashes akin to those that might be made by a demigryph’s claws. Behind him, he heard something moving through the branches. He did not look back. ‘South, you said?’

‘Did I? I meant north. Yes, north. You are going the wrong way.’

Roggen frowned, but turned Harrow’s head north. The demigryph shrilled in protest, but kept moving. ‘I must have misheard you,’ the knight said.

‘Yes. Meat does not know how to listen. You are deaf to the song of spirits. That is why we are Alarielle’s chosen, and you are nothing.’

‘So you have said many times.’

‘Meat is forgetful and must be reminded of its place.’

Roggen snorted but didn’t reply. He thumped Harrow’s flank and she lashed out with a paw, gouging a nearby tree, marking their path. Only a few thin drizzles of sunlight pierced the canopy to illuminate the path ahead. He saw familiar slashes on several of the trees. They’d come this way before. ‘This forest fair drinks the light,’ he murmured.

The trees seemed to lean close about them, as if curious. Perhaps they were. You could never tell, in Ghyran. In the Realm of Life, some things were far more aware than they might seem at first glance. Even the stones underfoot might have something to say, if you but listened.

‘How did you lose your hand?’ the spirit hissed, suddenly. ‘Was it in battle?’ It sounded eager, as well as curious.

‘And are you interested in the deeds of meat, then?’

‘You have no idea how boring it is to be a bramble.’

Roggen laughed. ‘Fair enough. But a tale for a tale. I tell you mine, you tell me yours. How does that sound?’

‘I shall decide when I hear your story.’

Roggen smiled. ‘I lost my hand in battle against a sorcerer. He sought to turn my very flesh against me, so I removed it.’

He frowned, remembering the feel of change-fire as it seared his hand into a new and monstrous shape. The pain of that desecration had been worse, in its way, than that which followed. Sometimes, as he slept, he dreamed that he could feel some last tendril of altered flesh worming its way through him. Taking root like a cancer. He thought, perhaps, that he and the forest shared that in common.

‘Is that it?’

Roggen blinked, startled from his reverie. ‘Is what it?’

‘Is that all there is to your story? Did you kill the sorcerer?’

‘No. He escaped.’

‘That is a terrible story.’

‘Is yours any better?’

The bramble-spirit was silent for a moment. Then, with a rustling sigh, it said, ‘I was magnificent, once. A hero. I fought in the vanguard of my household and collected the heart-roots of many a foe. Now I am bound to these twists of bramble by the Everqueen’s command.’

‘And why would your mistress do that to you?’ Roggen asked, though he suspected that he knew the answer well enough. The Everqueen’s aspects were as varied as the seasons, and like the seasons, some were harsher than others.

The bramble-spirit hissed angrily and scratched at the cap of his stump. ‘I made a mistake.’ The bitterness in the spirit’s voice was evident. ‘We are no more united than you meat-things. Groves jostle for a place in the sun. Their roots squeeze each other, seeking water. In the eyes of the Everqueen, we are as children. Some among us are unhappy to be seen so.’

‘And you were one of these?’

‘It is no business of yours, meat.’

‘True. But will you at least tell me your name?’

‘You do not deserve to know it!’

‘Perhaps. Though we are companions, for the moment. I thought I should enquire.’

‘I would no more tell you my name than you could grow a new hand,’ the bramble-spirit said derisively. ‘Feh! – the weakness of meat. So fragile.’

Roggen grinned. ‘As the Lady of Leaves wills, little spirit. But there are some advantages to being made of meat, else I would not be here, in service to your mistress and mine.’

‘But do you truly serve her? Or do you serve another?’

Roggen frowned. ‘A man may serve more than one god.’ His Order had made an oath of service to the duardin god, Grungni, in centuries past. Though they worshipped Alarielle, the Knights of the Furrow had often shed blood in service to Grungni.

‘And what if those gods disagree? The Crippled God,’ said the spirit slyly, ‘is not well loved in the courts of the Everqueen. His devices of steel and stone gouge the earth and gobble trees, scraping these lands bloody so that men might build cities. And yet here you are – a servant of the Lady of Leaves, wounded in the service of one she hates.’

‘I serve Alarielle in all things.’

‘Oh? I have heard, on the wind, that the Crippled God seeks weapons of power. Like the one entombed in this forest. Do you seek it for her, or for him?’

Roggen hesitated. In truth, he had wondered that himself. He did not believe that which he hunted was one of the weapons Grungni sought. If it had been, he would have seen some sign. He made to reply when he heard a sound. Not the hissing murmurs of the outcast spirits, flitting through the trees around him, but something louder.

‘Well, have you no answer?’ the bramble-spirit demanded.

Roggen turned in his saddle. ‘Be silent. I hear something.’ He hauled back on Harrow’s reins. The demigryph sank down with a petulant growl, tail lashing. He braced his elbow on her skull and cocked his head, listening. Sound carried strangely in this forest. Sometimes it was closer than it seemed.

The bramble-spirit twisted, raising part of itself up. ‘The song… it has changed. Can you feel it?’

Roggen could. The trees shook slightly, the branches rustling. The whisper of the leaves was like voices, murmuring in growing fear. Harrow hissed. Roggen sniffed the air and patted her beak. Whatever it was, it was not the Sylvaneth. ‘Yes, I smell it as well. Fire. And not the usual sort.’

It stank, like the forest. A cloying stench, like the pyres of pox-afflicted corpses. He knew that smell – balefire. He’d fought Nurgle’s slaves before. There were few warriors in Ghyran who hadn’t. Like the flames that had taken his hand, balefires twisted what they touched as they devoured it. Where the smoke went, sickness followed.

It was no wonder the forest was fearful – it was not so ill that it did not fear what the balefires would do to it.

‘Fire is fire,’ the bramble-spirit spat.

‘You know better than that, little spirit. This fire stinks, and not of smoke.’ His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. ‘I think I am not the only mortal in this forest.’

‘Rotlings,’ the bramble-spirit snarled in understanding.

‘Let us go and see if I am right, eh?’ Roggen urged Harrow into motion. She took off eagerly, sensing battle in her future.

‘You would confront them?’

‘It seems the quickest way to find what we seek.’ He bent low over Harrow’s neck as she surged through the wood. In the canopy overhead, he caught sight of pale faces. The outcasts were following him. Perhaps they already knew where he was going. Had they been trying to keep him away, or steer him to this point?

‘I am leading you to what we seek!’

‘You are not. At least not directly.’ Roggen glanced down at the tangle of bramble.

‘Answer me true, little spirit, or I shall toss you into the next stream we cross. You are leading me in circles. Why?’

The brambles contracted sullenly, their thorns scraping the cap over his forearm. Then, finally, in a small voice, it said, ‘I defend the Everqueen.’

‘And I serve her.’

‘Do you? This thing you seek is a poison. Better it be left in the dark.’

‘Surely it is safer in Alarielle’s hands than here, making the lands sick.’

The bramble spirit gave a hissing laugh. ‘But it will not be in Alarielle’s hands, will it? You have not spoken to the Everqueen, meat, only her handmaiden. And they, like the seasons, turn as they will. Sometimes they blow sweet, and sometimes…’ The spirit subsided. ‘But such words are not for the ears of meat.’

Roggen frowned but did not reply. For his folk, the Sylvaneth had always been a fact of life, remote and inhuman. But perhaps that was merely a mask they presented. Perhaps they were as prone to foolishness as any other peoples.

The thought was not a comforting one, and he quickly pushed it aside. Whatever the spirit’s worries, they were as nothing next to the thought that the servants of the Plague God might claim that which he sought.

‘Will you tell me your name now?’ he asked the bramble-spirit, as he rode. ‘It would be well to know it, since we are soon to go into battle together.’

‘We do not have to go into battle at all. They are welcome to the cursed thing.’

‘Then you would rather them have it? What would Alarielle say?’

The spirit fell silent. Roggen smiled sadly. ‘Very well.’

The ground turned to sludge beneath Harrow’s paws as they drew nearer to the source of the smoke. The trees and their tangling roots began to thin out, bending away to reveal a vast, rotunda-like glade. It was a veritable cathedral of wood, and the roots humped and coiled so that they resembled the stones of a nave.

At the end of that aisle rose a bubo of earth and rock. There was a wide gouge in its side, like a gangrenous wound. Piles of loose dirt and rock scattered haphazardly about. The stones which surmounted the bubo were larger than any man, and their flat faces were marked with strange, curling sigils beneath a shroud of yellowing moss. A trickle of gleaming water poured from between them to spill down the sides of the hummock of swollen earth.

As the water threaded through the worn runnels of dirt, it turned brackish and foul. Flies swarmed over it, their hum causing the air to quiver. Fleshy flowers the colour of rotting meat clustered about the base of the hummock and filled the glade. The air was thick with smoke and the sour stink of decaying vegetation.

Tendrils of balefire smoke wound through the woods opposite him. Roggen could hear the groan of falling trees. The ground shook with their dying. The bramble-spirit was keening softly. ‘I cannot hear the song. I cannot hear it,’ it wailed.

Roggen urged Harrow on. Mud splashed as she tore through the glade. She leapt up onto the hummock and scrambled up its slope to the stones. There was power in them; he could feel it. Though they were like healthy flesh grown over an infection. Whatever it was had burrowed beneath them and nestled below. But it seemed the Rotbringers had got to the infection first.

Quickly, he lashed his reins to his mangled arm and drew his blade. Like his armour, it was made from wood – in this case, the seedpod of a devourer plant. Thick, vein-like convolutions connected the dark blade to the hilt, and the pommel-stone was a milky-hued gem, uncut and heavy. ‘What are you doing?’ the bramble-spirit hissed.

Roggen ignored it. His attentions were fixed below, on the great hole that had been gouged into the hummock and the filthy labourers who clambered out of it, chortling amongst themselves. Two bore between them a heavy, oval-shaped scab of ossified roots. There was something within the tangle of rotting plant matter. An oily miasma seeped from it, and the air in the glade became close and foul as it was brought into the light. A sound like the buzzing of a thousand flies caused the air to tremble.

‘The axe,’ the bramble-spirit murmured, confirming Roggen’s suspicions. ‘They’ve found it.’

‘Aye, and they wouldn’t have, if you had not played me false. Now be silent.’ He clucked his tongue. Harrow leapt. She was among the half a dozen ragged figures before they could even react. Her great claws slashed out, snapping bones, tearing flesh. She shrieked and spun, sending broken bodies flying.

Roggen added his voice to hers, bellowing as he laid about him with his sword. The Rotbringers, clad in grimy hauberks and rusty helms, stank of something left too long in the sun. Ruinous sigils had been carved into their armour. Pestilential tokens hung from their clothing. Pitted blades, wielded in panic, hewed at Harrow to no avail. The blows glanced from her armour or missed entirely.

A horn sounded as the last of them fell. Roggen turned. Diseased shapes forced their way through the trees, wreathed in smoke. Crossbow strings hummed as he swayed to the side and kicked Harrow into a gallop. She sprang towards the newcomers, screeching. With cries of panic, they scattered. Roggen wheeled the demigryph around, hauling back on the reins lashed to his stump. He had the advantage, so long as they didn’t realise they had him outnumbered.

‘This is foolish! Let them take it if they would – they will remove it far from here,’ the bramble-spirit shrilled as the horn sounded again. Closer now.

‘No,’ Roggen growled. ‘I swore to claim it in Alarielle’s name, and so I will. Such is my oath, and so it will be done.’ A crossbow bolt glanced off his shoulder-plate, leaving a greasy mark. He urged Harrow towards the crossbowman who was hurriedly trying to reload his weapon with bandaged fingers. Harrow bore down upon him, crushing him to the ground with an almost playful leap.

A bolt thudded into a nearby tree and Roggen turned. Several Rotbringers crouched behind a hastily assembled line of wooden shields, readying their crossbows. Cursing, he dragged Harrow around. He would not reach them in time, but would simply have to hope he could weather the storm.

‘Hold! Lower your weapons.’

The bellow came from behind him. As it echoed through the glade, the Rotbringers lowered their weapons. Roggen straightened in his saddle and turned. ‘Lady of Leaves defend me,’ he murmured as he saw the newcomer.

‘I think you are on your own, meat,’ the bramble-spirit hissed.

The Rotbringer was bigger than the others, swollen with a hideous strength and clad in pitted, rusty war-plate. The leather straps of his armour creaked audibly as they sought to contain that putrescent form. A bulbous helm, wrought in a vaguely fungal shape, nodded atop a flabby neck. Strips of mouldy silk hung from the top of the helm, and a rotting tabard, marked with a stylised fly, hung from the brute’s torso. A heavy sword, blunt-tipped and saw-edged, rested across the saddle-horn of his steed, and he clutched a mollusc-shaped war-horn in one hand.

The horse – if it could be called such – was a scaly, scabrous monstrosity with too many legs and a concave skull that was more mouth than anything else. A barbed, serpentine tongue flickered from the depths of that cavernous jaw and tasted the air. It pawed the ground with enflamed talons, growling hollowly.

‘You have killed my men,’ the rider gurgled in a voice like mud striking the bottom of a bucket. ‘Who are you to dare such a thing?’ The Rotbringer did not sound angry as much as congratulatory. Then, such creatures rarely valued the lives of their servants.

Roggen hauled Harrow about. The demigryph hissed as it caught the plague-beast’s scent. ‘Who are you to ask me?’ Roggen countered.

The Rotbringer cocked his head. ‘You wear heraldry on that tabard of yours. Are you a knight, by chance?’

‘I am,’ Roggen said. ‘What of it?’ Smoke hung heavy on the air. He could hear the crackle of flames and the groan of dying trees. Harrow clawed restlessly at the ground in no mood to stand still.

‘Only that we seem to be at an impasse, my friend,’ the Rotbringer said, chuckling. He hung his war-horn from his saddle. ‘As you are a knight, honour bids me offer you fair challenge. And bids you accept, I think.’

‘What do you know of honour?’ Roggen growled.

‘More than most. I am Feculus, of the Duchy of Bitterbile. Knight of the Order of the Fly.’ The bloated warrior raised his rusty blade in salute. ‘Might I have your name, good sir knight?’

Roggen hesitated in disgust. The creature before him was a parody of the knightly values his Order lived by. Nevertheless, honour demanded he answer. A knight could do no less. ‘Roggen, of the Ghyrwood March. Knight of the Order of the Furrow. In the name of the Lady of Leaves, I bid you leave this place, Rotbringer.’

‘Alas, I cannot. I am on a quest. A relic of my order rests here and I come to claim it – and through it, my birth right. I come to claim the broken axe of my kinsman, Duke Goral of Festerfane, left to rot here these many years.’ He gestured to the lump of cancerous root matter that now lay abandoned amid the bodies of the slain.

Roggen hesitated, eyeing the lump. Harrow was swift, but not swift enough to outpace crossbow bolts. There was no way he could reach it and escape. ‘You understand, I think,’ Feculus gurgled, mistaking his hesitation for something else. ‘I suspect you are after the same thing, else why would you be here now?’

‘I understand nothing about you.’ Roggen leaned over the side of his saddle and spat. ‘I know that heraldry you wear, as you seem to know mine. You are the spawn of the Blighted Duchies. I heard tales of the fallen knights in my crib. Monsters and fools in service to daemons.’

‘As we hear tales of you – blind servants of a mad goddess. You sold yourselves to the queen of shade and sweet water, and for what?’

‘Better a goddess of life than a god of disease.’ Briefly, Roggen caught sight of tall, inhuman shapes moving through the trees. It seemed the Sylvaneth had come to watch. Perhaps they hoped the intruders would slay each other. Or maybe they had simply been drawn by the scent of blood and fire.

‘The King of All Flies rules all things – not just sickness.’ Feculus’ steed pawed the earth and he slapped its scaly neck affectionately. ‘But I have little interest in theological debate. Let us settle this argument in the way of true knights – with blood and steel. To the winner, the spoils.’ He gestured lazily to the hummock. ‘My kinsman’s axe, Lifebiter, stews there, in a poor grave. The victor shall claim the honour of freeing it.’

‘Do not trust it – rotten meat lies,’ the bramble-spirit hissed. Its coils tightened warningly about his stump.

‘No. Rotten meat is honest, if not pleasant.’ Roggen had fought the warriors of the Order of the Fly before – they had been true knights, once. Twisted though it was, tatters of their ancient honour yet remained to them. Enough to make this an even contest, perhaps. He lifted his sword, copying the creature’s earlier salute. ‘Fine,’ he called out. ‘To the winner, the spoils.’

‘Excellent! It has been many a year since I last jousted with a worthy knight.’ Feculus jerked on his steed’s reins, and brought it around. ‘Fear not – my armsmen shall not interfere.’

‘The thought had not crossed my mind,’ Roggen said as Harrow took up a position opposite Feculus and his steed. ‘This is a matter for knights. Not lowborn serfs.’

‘Exactly. I knew you understood.’ Feculus laughed gutturally. ‘I knew the moment I heard their screams that Grandfather had blessed me with a proper foe. These tree-kin are no fit opponent for an honest knight. Creeping, scuttling things.’

The bramble-spirit hissed in anger but Roggen ignored it. ‘Is that why you felled the trees and set them aflame?’ he asked. The smoke scratched his throat and he prayed silently for rain. Even just a drizzle to stir the air.

‘Only way to deal with such cowardice.’ Feculus laughed again. ‘Your folk do much the same, I hear.’

‘You heard wrong.’ Roggen lifted his sword.

Feculus kicked his steed into motion, his spurs drawing yellow ichor from its flanks. The reptilian steed lurched forward with a bellicose hiss, its claws shredding many of the fleshy blossoms that littered the glade. He gripped its sides with his legs and lifted his heavy blade in both hands as it galloped.

Harrow lunged to meet it, squalling in eagerness, every feather on her neck stiff and sharp. Roggen raised his blade, angling it parallel to the ground. He would have to be quick; precise. The chosen servants of Nurgle were blessed with an endurance beyond human. They could survive wounds that would slay a mortal out of hand.

‘This is madness!’ the bramble-spirit shrilled, as the two beasts slid past one another. The plague-thing’s barbed tongue drew a bloody weal along Harrow’s flank while the demigryph’s claws gouged a hunk of meat from the other creature’s side. Feculus’ sword swept down, nearly splitting Roggen’s head in two. He weaved aside and thrust his blade through a wide gap in the Rotbringer’s armour. Black ichor spewed from the wound and his sword steamed as he ripped it free.

Harrow shrieked and twisted, catching hold of the plague-thing’s rear legs. Feculus turned in his saddle, bellowing. Roggen grimaced as he managed to deflect the Rotbringer’s blade. The effort it took all but numbed his arm.

The bramble-spirit dug into the cap of his stump as if in panic. ‘You cannot beat him, fool! He is too strong!’

‘Either help or be silent,’ Roggen snarled. He rolled his stump, tightening the loop of the reins, preventing them from sliding free. He jerked Harrow’s head about and the demigryph snapped at the pox-knight, almost severing his leg.

As Feculus reeled, Roggen drove his sword towards another gap. But his blow was weak and the tip of his blade skittered short of his target. The plague-thing turned on Harrow, contorting itself with boneless ease. Its barbed tongue raked across Roggen’s chest-plate, tearing his tabard and causing the ironwood to smoulder and bubble. The reins slipped loose from his arm as he jerked back, and he fought to hold on with just his legs. The plague-beast’s claws sank into the demigryph’s side. Harrow rose with a roar.

Off balance, Roggen tumbled from the saddle. He landed heavily and rolled aside, hoping to avoid the stamping feet of the two monsters. He held onto his sword – but only just. Feculus gave a shout of triumph and slashed at him. Roggen scrambled aside and the black blade dug into the ground. The pox-knight was too strong to parry.

As Roggen rose to his feet, Harrow knocked the plague-beast sprawling and pounced upon it. Staggering back, Feculus thrashed his way free of his saddle. Roggen flung himself at the pox-knight but Feculus spun, his sword looped out, nearly decapitating Roggen. The knight thrust his blade through a corroded hole in his opponent’s chest-plate and was rewarded with a groan. Feculus’ hand flashed down, catching hold of the blade.

‘A fair blow, sir, but for naught,’ the pox-knight hissed as he jerked Roggen forward, impaling himself further on the wooden blade. He raised his own sword. Roggen was forced to abandon his blade and leap aside as the blow shivered down.

Thunder rumbled overhead. A droplet of rain struck the back of Roggen’s neck as Feculus wheeled, laughing hollowly. He tore Roggen’s sword from his chest and tossed it at the other knight’s feet. He peered up at the sky for a moment, and then back at Roggen. ‘Fie sir, fie. Would you abandon your blade, like a coward? Pick it up.’

Instinctively, Roggen bent to snatch the sword up. He realised his mistake a moment later and twisted away from the blow that would have split his skull. Despite his speed, the tip of Feculus’ sword crashed down across his chest-plate and knocked him sprawling into the mud. All the air was expelled from his lungs at once, and he lay gasping in the rain.

Feculus loomed over him. ‘My apologies, Sir Roggen. But all is fair in war, no?’ He raised his blade in both hands. As it fell, Roggen flung up his arms, hoping to perhaps catch it, or at least absorb some of the impact.

‘I knew rotten meat had no honour,’ the bramble-spirit hissed as its shape twisted and undulated, seeming to expand. A nest of brambles exploded upwards and snagged the descending blade. Feculus shouted in alarm as his weapon was twisted from his grip. He stumbled back as the brambles caught at his helmet and gorget, threading through the gaps. The bramble-spirit launched itself from Roggen’s stump like a striking viper to writhe about Feculus’ head. The pox-knight staggered, clawing at the vines, trying to pull them loose.

‘If you value your life, meat, you’ll find your sword,’ the spirit shrilled. Roggen did as it bade, snatching up his sword. Whirling, he rammed it through Feculus’ back. The tip of the ironwood blade punched through the pox-knight’s corroded chest-plate, dragging a lump of sour, black meat in its wake. Feculus stiffened. Then, with a groan, he sank to his knees, and toppled forward like a felled tree.

Roggen ripped his sword free and turned as Harrow screeched. The demigryph crouched atop her own opponent, which twitched in its death-throes. Her flanks were striped with blood, her feathers plastered to her nape with the rain but she screamed again, savage gaze fixed on the remaining Rotbringers.

Roggen felt the impact of the crossbow bolt before he heard the twang of the string. He staggered as the bolt embedded itself in his chest-plate. Feculus had said his servants would not interfere – not that they wouldn’t try and finish what he’d started. A second bolt skidded past his cheek, tearing his flesh.

Before he could whistle for Harrow, he heard a scream and saw something reach down from the canopy overhead to pluck a hapless Rotbringer from his feet. The warrior vanished into the branches with only a scream to mark his passing. Pale shapes, wreathed in bark, scuttled from the underbrush. They rushed the pestilential warriors from all sides, hissing and chuckling, barely visible in the growing downpour.

Barbed vines snared a Rotbringer and dragged him to the wet ground. He was lost from sight among the thickly clustered flowers in a brief spasm of motion, his cries muffled by the fleshy blossoms. Another was yanked backwards into the trees, as if lassoed. His screams rose in pitch and volume for long moments, before falling abruptly silent.

The others broke and ran, fighting their way past the cackling tree-kin. Rusty blades bit uselessly at bark limbs, and corroded armour was little proof against slashing talons. Two more fell as the rest vanished into the trees. The outcasts descended on the stragglers with high-pitched shrieks of triumph before dragging them into the darkness past the trees. The Rotbringers wailed and clawed at the muddy earth, but to no avail.

Screams echoed through the glade. Roggen knew that the others would not escape, no matter how swiftly they fled. He limped to the corpse of the pox-knight, drawing the bolt from his chest-plate as he went. As the adrenaline faded, pain replaced it. His missing hand hurt worse than ever. He dropped wearily to the ground beside the corpse and looked at the tangle of bramble.

‘Do you still live?’

‘Of course I live. I am not meat. I do not break so easily.’

Roggen extended his stump. The brambles bunched and ensnared his forearm. ‘My thanks for your aid.’

‘I did not do it for your sake.’

‘Obviously.’

It hesitated. ‘You are hurt.’

‘I will be worse than that if the outcasts return before we have departed. I have a feeling they won’t be in any mood to honour my safe passage once their blood rises.’

Roggen levered himself to his feet, wheezing with effort. He went to the knot of roots where the axe lay forgotten and stripped off his tabard. As he approached it, he saw the waters pouring from the stones had turned clear. The filth that had contaminated them was gone. And despite the stink of smoke, the air tasted cleaner, somehow. He could not say whether that was due to the rain, or his prayers. Perhaps the Lady of Leaves was simply watching over him.

He dredged his tabard in the clear waters, then awkwardly bound the cancerous lump in an improvised sling. He whistled and Harrow trotted towards him. She shied back from the lump but settled down as he murmured to her.

With great effort, he tied his sopping prize to the back of his saddle, then hauled himself up. ‘What now?’ the spirit hissed, as Roggen urged Harrow into motion. The demigryph loped from the glade, hardly slowed by her wounds. The rain was falling steadily now. He could no longer hear the fires or the screams of the Rotbringers.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The axe. Who will you take it to? The Everqueen, or Grungni?’

Roggen shook his head. ‘There was never a question. I made an oath.’ He lifted his stump. ‘An axe for a hand, as I swore in the ironwood grove.’

After long moments, as the rain beat down on them and the trees leaned close, the spirit said, ‘My name is Kryael. I was once known as the Knight of Evensong. And I, too, swore an oath.’

Roggen smiled. ‘Perhaps you will be known as such again, my friend.’

‘Perhaps. And it could be, on that day, we will fight side by side again… Roggen.’

Roggen laughed. ‘As the Lady of Leaves wills, my friend. As the Lady wills.’

About the Author

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Primarchs novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Fabius Bile: Primogenitor, Fabius Bile: Clonelord and Deathstorm, and the novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio dramas Blackshields: The False War and Master of the Hunt. In the Warhammer world, he has written the End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, as well as the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen. He has also written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden, Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, Nagash: The Undying King, Fury of Gork, Black Rift and Skaven Pestilens. He lives and works in Sheffield.

A group of heroes assemble to hunt the Eight Lamentations, mighty artefacts of the Dark God from the Age of Chaos.

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustrations by Filipe Pagliuso and Kevin Chin.

The Tainted Axe © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. The Tainted Axe, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-860-0

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