IRon and Oak

Captain Loerson heaved himself up the narrow stairwell of the redoubt, cursing at the spears of pain that shot through his limbs with every step. Out here in the depths of the Ghoul Mere everything was damp and treacherous, every stone slick with foul-smelling moss. The last thing the defenders of the Saint Sverova needed to see was their glorious commander falling backside over moustache. That would do little for morale.

The Master of Shot met him at the top of the stairs. Henraus Malliver was a stocky, barrel-chested man of middling years, his skin permanently marred by soot and valchemite burns. Loerson had worked alongside him for near a quarter century, and in that time he could not recall Malliver offering a single smile. He was leaning against the rampart wall, peering out into the marsh. Several hundred paces beyond the cog-fort there was a stretch of withered trees, rising up from the swamp like crooked skeletons. A thick mist rolled in from the west, fingers of grey-green reaching down to caress the murky water.

‘They’re out there,’ Malliver said. ‘And they’ll come again soon. I can feel their eyes on us.’

‘They won’t stop,’ the captain replied. ‘Not until we’re dead or gone. Pale Oak claims these waters as his own, and you know what that old devil does with trespassers.’

Pale Oak was the name the people of Greywater had given to the great treelord who ruled beyond the walls of the city. A name feared and hated in equal measure.

‘To ash with that one,’ spat Malliver. ‘If he doesn’t want his lands to burn, maybe he shouldn’t have started a war he can’t win.’

Loerson frowned, and turned to look at the towering tangle of steam-pipes and roaring bellows that was the pumphouse, built into the iron hide of the cog-fort’s larboard wall. Great copper tubes descended a dozen meters into the swamp, greedily devouring the silt and slime underneath the surface. Below, surveyors in hook-nosed masks strode through the murk upon mechanical striders, directing the labourers in their work.

It was the guns and luminark arrays of Greywater that had flattened these lands and boiled away the thriving marsh, leaving nothing but a polluted wasteland behind. That was the act that had so damaged the alliance between the city and its Sylvaneth neighbours. Now, by the order of Lord Valius Maliti – the grand architect himself – a fresh expansion of the city’s borders had begun, and for industry to grow, it demanded fuel: oils, rare metals, and whatever other resources presented themselves. Thus was the noble cog-fort Saint Sverova, veteran of the Great War, reduced to guarding one of the Ironweld’s many excavations.

If Vunnarc Loerson was honest with himself, he knew the true purpose of these excavations: to goad the folk of the forest into action, and thus provide the lords of Greywater with an excuse for open war.

Still, orders were orders.

‘How are the troops?’ he asked the Master of Shot.

‘Cold. Tired. Miserable. Sick of being picked off one by one by those bog-lurkers.’

‘The wounded?’

Malliver grimaced and shook his head.

Loerson cursed. Out here in the wastes, a wound could fester and rot in hours. The very air was poison, an alchemical smog that seared the lungs and burned the eyes.

‘Movement!’ came the cry. ‘They come again!’

‘Prime and load!’ came the bellow of the gunnery sergeants. ‘Fire!’

Greycaps were lined along the walls of the cog-fort, their rifles placed in firing channels set along the ramparts of Saint Sverova. At their officers’ command, they cracked off a storm of lead and spun behind the parapet. The second rank stepped up to fire, while the first reloaded their wheel-lock muskets.

‘That’s it, comrades,’ Loerson shouted as he and the Master of Shot passed them. ‘Give the barkskins a Greywater welcome, let them know who holds these walls!’

‘What are you standin’ around lookin’ at us for?’ bawled Malliver as he rounded on an unfortunate trio of fresh-faced gunners. ‘Prime and fire you alley-rats, or I’ll have you thrown over the side for the marsh-snipes to feast on!’

Loerson and Malliver reached the leftmost tower, where the heavy volley guns rested. The largest, Rhapsodia, was the pride of the 117th Greywater Foot, a long-barreled culverin wrought of priceless rare metals. Every inch of the gun was marked with oaths and battle-honours.

The tower housed Gunnery Sergeant Drackov’s squad, a reliable bunch of soot-necks who had the honour of composing the Rhapsodia’s sweet symphony. Gunner Nrozdhy was peering out over the marshes, towards a fringe of leafless trees in the distance. Like the others, she wore a panelled overcoat of mustard-yellow and crimson, over thick breeches and leather gloves. The corks used for plugging her ears dangled around her scrawny neck. She turned as she heard Loerson’s distinctive footfall, and snapped off a brisk salute.

‘What do you see, gunner?’ the Master of Shot said.

‘They’re out there,’ she said, speaking with the distonal drawl of someone who had spent their life in earshot of cannonade fire. ‘The fae-folk. The snatchers. Using the mists as cover.’

Loerson took the spyglass, and scanned the horizon. The swirling fog masked everything, and it was thickening by the moment. If their last volley had struck anything, he could not see the corpses. The damned forest spirits were so fast that they had struck and withdrawn before the gun-line could pin them down.

The captain turned and signalled to Malliver.

‘Let Rhapsodia sing,’ he said. ‘All batteries, target the mists. I want a steady barrage, four drakesbreath canisters on the four-hundred mark. Let’s burn them out into the open.’

He stepped back to let Drackov’s team do their work. The duardin crew rammed the load home, and Nrozdhy made the sightings, the poor visibility making it more guesswork than anything else. Loerson covered his ears, and Malliver roared.

‘Fire!’

The cog-fort’s seventeen emplacements opened up with a blast like an avalanche, and flames reached to the skies as the rounds detonated. Each cartridge was packed with Aqshian fire-diamonds, crushed and mixed with shards of metal. Whatever didn’t burn would be shredded to pieces by flying shrapnel. The cannonade lasted a further three shots, and when the thunder ceased, a vast swathe of swampland was aflame.

Silence, but for the ringing in their ears. The air was acrid with smoke.

‘Reload,’ shouted the captain. ‘And make ready.’

Drackov nodded, and went to lever another cartridge into the Rhapsodia’s breach. The ground trembled. The duardin lost his footing and crashed into the powder kegs. There was another roaring sound, quite different to the fire and fury of artillery.

‘What in the name of…’ gasped Malliver, as a tidal wave of foetid swamp water swept towards them. It was several dozen feet high, almost tall enough to crash over the parapet and engulf the greycaps. It slammed against the wall with enormous force, sending several unfortunate soldiers toppling. A spray of foul-smelling liquid slapped Loerson across the face, and he staggered. In an instant the waters receded.

‘The flames,’ whispered Nrozdhy.

The fires surrounding the cog-fort had been quenched. Figures marched from the smoking marsh, lithe and graceful as they picked their way through the steaming waters. Beyond them rose a greater shape. An armoured beetle as massive as a cog-hauler, crawling forwards on bladed limbs. Curving horns rose from its smooth crown, iridescent in the flickering light. A lone female form stood upon the behemoth’s back, and when Captain Loerson’s eyes fell upon her he was transfixed. A winged goddess, towering and beautiful. Her eyes burned with the rage of a summer storm.

‘Present arms!’ roared Malliver, struggling to his feet.

The distant figure raised a golden staff. The waters below the cog-fort erupted, and snaking vines of lashweed spiralled into the air like writhing snakes. They swept across the parapet, entangling each cannon and organ gun, wrenching the massive weapons aside with shocking ease. Rhapsodia was flipped over like a child’s toy. Those greycaps brave or foolish enough to raise their weapons found them snatched from their hands, broken into kindling.

The deck of the cog-fort exploded into life as grasping vines tore aside plates and rivulets and forced their way up from the bowels of the great fortress. They wound together, coalescing into firm boughs of oak. Greycaps staggered back from the explosion of life, yelling in surprise. Shapes darted from the breaches in the Saint Sverova’s hull, blades of glimmering viridian held aloft.

‘God-King help us,’ shouted Loerson. ‘Fix bayonets!’

‘Enough,’ came a voice that boomed out over the marsh. It was melodic, even beautiful, but as merciless as the bite of winter. ‘This futile killing ends now.’

The behemothic war-mount rumbled forwards, shaking its gigantic horned head. Its rider gestured imperiously, and as one the Sylvaneth warriors fell back, lowering their blades. The goddess turned her blazing eyes to Loerson, and despite himself the old captain fell to his knees. He heard the rest of his warriors do the same.

‘My Lady Alarielle,’ he said.

Even as he spoke the goddess slammed the haft of her jade longspear on the armoured shell of her mount.

‘Speak not to me,’ she said. ‘You have befouled that which is purest. You have sown death and sickness into fertile lands. You have slaughtered my children. Speak again and I will tear the life from you.’

The captain cowered in the face of this sudden fury, bowing his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

As swiftly as it had come, the cold rage evaporated.

‘There will be time enough for judgement later,’ Alarielle said, and now her voice was the whisper of windblown leaves. ‘Your lives are spared, though your outrages are not forgotten. The pact of iron and oak must be restored. The Great Withering is upon us, and if we do not put aside our hatred, we shall all sicken and die.’

The Everqueen raised her staff, and Loerson saw figures emerging from the mists. It was a gathering of Sylvaneth larger than anything he had ever witnessed, a grand host of the forest in every colour and hue.

‘You will take me to the gates of your city,’ Alarielle said. ‘I would speak with the lords of Greywater.’

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

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