The Splintered
Rob Sanders

 	The realm was dying.
 	Diseased. The myriad lands of Ghyran were like the gangrenous limbs of one great body, cut off from the spirit paths, heartglades and roots of Alarielle’s Realm of Life. 
 	The taint of Chaos had spread across the skies, over the mightiest mountains and through forests that had once stretched forever. Nurgle, the Lord of Decay, walked the lands in the guise of plague-touched hordes, daemons and the contagions that swirled about their rank presence. His indomitable armies marched everywhere, and wretched death went with them. Ghyran swelled, pulsed and wept with Nurgle’s magnificence – he was father to all rancid misfortune.
 	Amongst the sickness and suffering the sylvaneth endured. As spirits of the forests and wild places, they were a hardy people. Their displeasure could be heard in the hiss of the rain. Their fury was the thunder of the storm and the quake of the mountains. 
 	These noble guardians of life had survived the mortal tribes that had tried to claim the untameable tracts for their own, and the hordes of orruks that had swept through the lands with axe and flame. And they survived still. Hidden in plain sight, Forest Folk were the trees and boulders, the vines and tangled roots of ancient woodland. The magics of life and land disguised their knotted forms and numbers. Many marshalled the strength of their glades against the bringers of rot, while others fought a guerrilla war in the shadows. They were the creaking of branches in the night and the rustling of things unseen through the undergrowth. They slit the throats of warriors bloated with plague, and entangled sorcerers in their thorny brush, dragging the polluted servants of Nurgle off to silent deaths. 
 	Through the bubble of corruption and the groans of the dying, something else could be heard. While the taint and suffering was great, a spirit-song – light with hope – rose above the browning canopies. It soared above the clouds of flies and echoed through root-lined caverns. The dull senses of Nurgle’s Tallybands were deaf to the song, but the sap and sinew of the sylvaneth rang with its beauty. It was Alarielle’s song. The Queen of the Radiant Wood was calling to them. 
 	To some, the song carried with it an invigorating sustenance, a fortification against the illness sweeping through their boughs and branches. For others it was a choral announcement, resounding from the heads of flowers, from the swirls and knots in trees and depths of forest grottos. Something to give them hope: a song of solace and unity. As it carried across the never-ending reaches of Ghyran, it grew to a sonorous boom. It was a trumpeting call to war in the Everqueen’s name, one that even Great Shaddock heard, hundreds of years into hibernation and slumber, deep within the Arkenwood.
 	Shaddock was a towering totem of ironwood and stone, indistinguishable from the trees around him. A Spirit of Durthu, he was a being of age-earned wisdom. His golden sap flowed with nobility while his bole creaked with formidable power. His thick bark, like the surface of a cocoon, had sheltered him from the concerns of the realm, both large and small. He had slept away the Greater Upheavals and the Season of Storms. He had slumbered through the invasion of orruks from the Skullfang tribe. When the Queen of the Radiant Wood sang, however, something stirred deep within Shaddock’s soul. The fires of his ardour were stoked to amber brilliance and lit up the Arkenwood, drawing the Forest Folk and their enemies down upon him. 
 	Great Shaddock, Wardwood of Athelwyrd – wise counsel and glade-guardian of the Everqueen – hear me.
 	Golden soul-light flickered within Shaddock’s eyes and mouth. 
 	Spirit of Durthu, hear me. There isn’t much time. 
 	Shaddock could see. It was night. The blurriness of centuries in slumber began to fade, and the Arkenwood took shape around the ancient. Instead of the mighty trees of the forest, vaulting for the clear sky, he found bark dripping with a veneer of filth and trunks leaning drunkenly over. Criss-crossing each other through the forest depths, the trees of the Arkenwood were suffering some great affliction. Leaves fell from the canopy in a constant shower, forming a carpet on the surface of foetid waters that had risen about the trunks and throughout the woodland. The once-proud Arkenwood was a veritable mangrove, with root systems rotting beneath the surface of the swamp. 
 	‘To whom do I speak?’ Shaddock said. His voice emanated from the very depths of his being. While his face remained unmoved, words laden with age and wisdom rumbled from the sylvaneth. 
 	‘I am Ardaneth,’ a voice returned, like a melodious breeze through the treetops. ‘Priestess of the Arkenwood and branchwraith to the people that once called this forest home.’
 	Shaddock saw her. The priestess was a spirit of lithe limbs and smooth wood. Roots snaked down her body from her head, writhing and entwining ceaselessly. Standing up to her knees in the filth that flooded the forest, she sketched a bow with talons of rough bark. 
 	Other senses were returning to the ancient. The stench of the diseased forest was overpowering. He felt the cold floodwater about his trunk and roots. Looking around, Shaddock saw that the surrounding Arkenwood was full of eyes that burned amber with the spirits of Forest Folk. He could make out the crook and twist of dryads, their bodies curved like antlers. 
 	‘You said we had little time, priestess,’ Shaddock rumbled. ‘I had nothing but time – but now my Everqueen calls for me.’
 	‘Mighty ancient,’ Ardaneth said with urgency, ‘you do not understand.’
 	‘A bold claim,’ the Spirit of Durthu told her, ‘from one so young, to one who was awake when the realm was new.’
 	‘You have slept too long, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘This realm is not the one you left behind. Chaos infects our lands and our people. The sylvaneth are dying.’
 	As the wardwood shook off the bleariness of aeons, his leaves and branches rattled. He reached out with his waking senses.
 	‘This corruption is here?’ 
 	‘It is, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘We implore you, mighty spirit, to protect us as we have protected you. To defend the Arkenwood that has been your home.’ 
 	‘We will fight with you, noble ancient,’ a dryad said, venturing forth to stand next to the priestess. Her horned head was a tangle of ivy. ‘For the Arkenwood and for Radiant Alarielle–’
 	‘Forgive, Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth said. ‘Laurelwort leads the Forest Folk but forgets herself.’
 	Now that Laurelwort had come forwards, her eyes burning with the bravery of her kind, other dryads crept forth. They were less warriors than rangers and glade tenders. Their willowy limbs splashed through the liquid muck. 
 	‘You must help now, ancient one,’ Laurelwort went on.
 	As the branch nymph spoke, the clash of weapons and armour rose close by. A dryad stumbled from the trees, an axe lodged in her bark. She fell face-first in the foetid shallows as Forest Folk scattered to the safety of the ailing trees. A bloated warrior of Chaos, his plate a rusting remnant and his flesh spoiling, pulled the great blade of his axe from where it was embedded. He pushed away and trudged through the swamp towards the sylvaneth. Other putrid warriors followed him, carrying filth-smeared weapons. Horrific spawn leapt from tottering trunk to trunk, drooling and gibbering. 
 	‘Great Shaddock, help us,’ Ardaneth called out, her snake-like roots squirming with terror, ‘for the love of all that is living and pure!’
 	The Spirit of Durthu had heard enough, had seen enough. He felt the fear and revulsion of the Forest Folk and the shock of the life taken before him. The dryads had prayed for aid in his sacred grove, before the hardwood effigy he had become in the years long gone. He was the only tree in the Arkenwood not to fall to disease and decay, for the golden purity of Shaddock’s sap still burned within. But now, his amber light had brought enemies down on his tenders. If the Realm of Life was indeed under attack from the forces of Chaos, Alarielle would need every forest spirit to fight and drive back this plague. 
 	Shaddock stirred. He willed his limbs to move. Roots began to tear and pop. Leaves and breaking branches rained down from his canopy. His bole squealed and his crust of petrified bark began to splinter and shred. The crack and boom of the wardwood’s stirring turned into a roar that shook the forest and sent ripples through the fell waters.
 	While the Spirit of Durthu struggled to be free, Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the dryads fought for their lives. The sylvaneth were usually swift and agile, but in the thick swamp their movements were slow and restricted. Such terrain did not bother Nurgle’s foul servants, however. Blighted warriors trudged through the mire with indomitable certainty, and their rust-eaten blades cleaved through the limbs and slender bodies of the sylvaneth. Spawn set upon the dryads, finding purchase in their offshoots and branching forms, enveloping shrieking heads with dribbling maws. 
 	Laurelwort and the priestess ran to the aid of their people, advancing as one through the swarm of plague-swollen warriors. A monstrously bloated warrior strode through the filth towards them. His helm was twisted with horns that had erupted through his rusted helm. Pus dribbled through the slits of his visor as he gurgled in his own rot. The warrior gestured for the Forest Folk to approach with his rusted battle axe.
 	Moving with a fluid grace, Ardaneth ducked and weaved out of the clumsy path of his blade. Simply laying her bark-encrusted talons on his wrist and then shoulder, she allowed her powerful magic to flow through his tainted form. Infected limbs turned to stone, creaking and transforming before the warrior’s very eyes. 
 	Two of his grotesque companions waded through the waters towards them. Ardaneth’s powerful magic left a gallery of rough statues in her wake. Laurelwort stretched out her sharpened talons, moving with a dancer’s confidence. Stabbing, slashing and crashing through the statues of Nurgle’s warriors, the branch nymph sent their shattered remains sinking to the bottom of the mire. 
 	‘Fight for the Everqueen!’ Ardaneth called out to her people, but the dryads were dying. With the servants of Nurgle smashing through their lean forms, the dryads were fast becoming kindling that floated on the surface of the swamp. Drawn by the amber blaze of Shaddock’s awakening, diseased warriors closed on the ancient and began sinking their axes into his body and trunk.
 	With a creak, Shaddock brought a mighty arm around. Shredded bark and moss fell from the limb to reveal smooth ironwood and encrusting stone. A pair of bloated shapes emerged from a buzzing cloud of flies, their axe blades dripping with golden sap. As they hammered them into the ancient’s hallowed form, he snatched up the first Chaos warrior in his great talon and crushed him with the impunity of a natural force. Corroded plate crumpled, and the warrior’s diseased body distended until finally his head popped within his helm. Shaddock smashed the second axe-wielding monster away with such force that he came apart in a spatter of pus-laden gore. 
 	A rabid spawn leapt on the wardwood’s arm but Shaddock flung it away with monstrous force, breaking its miserable body against the trunk of an Arkenwood tree. He felt the bite of new axe blades in his bark and grabbed for the putrid warriors attempting to fell his emerging form. He crushed them against his own bole like ripe fruit. He picked up armoured bulks by the tips of his bark-clad fingers before tossing them into the unyielding trunks of surrounding trees. He flicked heads from shoulders, allowing decapitated bodies to crash into the shallows. 
 	As he fought, Shaddock tried to heave himself out of the ground. He could only do so much, rooted to the spot. Bark sheared and splintered away, and foliage cascaded down to carpet waters that began to bubble about him. The stench intensified as he unearthed the filth in which his resistant roots had been sat. 
 	Suddenly, the waterlogged ground gave way and a sinkhole of foetid water gaped open. Thrashing his mighty limbs and splashing filth about him, the ancient disappeared beneath the surface with the warriors of Chaos attempting to chop him down.
 	‘No!’ Laurelwort yelled, splashing through the shallows towards the ancient. Ardaneth hauled the branch nymph back. A maggot-infested warrior stomped through the swamp towards them, but Laurelwort took out his leg with a swipe of her talons. As the servant of Nurgle splashed down into the shallows, the dryad ended him with vicious strikes. 
 	Suddenly, Shaddock erupted from the mire. A wave of filth radiated from his emerging form, swamping Rotbringers and carrying Forest Folk out of the reach of axes and cleaving blades. Mud and decaying weed dribbled from his body. Clawing his way out of the sinkhole, Shaddock reared to his full height. Cocooning bark, branches and roots were gone, and the golden light of his spirit blazed from within, lighting up the forest. Filth steamed away from the glowing runes on his trunk. 
 	The wardwood drew an elegant blade from the crooks and hollows of his back. Crafted from razor-sharp stone, it glowed like a blade drawn from a blacksmith’s forge – only it burned not with the heat of the furnace, but the golden energies of Shaddock’s sap. 
 	‘Get down,’ the Spirit of Durthu commanded. Each and every dryad felt the power of his words reverberate through their being. They dropped, kneeling in the disgusting waters. Shaddock swung his glowing blade. Trailing a golden haze, the sword passed over the spirits and cleaved through the bodies of the still-standing servants of Nurgle. Rotten armour offered no protection, and sour flesh parted. Some warriors were sheared in half by the passage of the glorious blade, their rank innards displayed for all to see. Others, ripe with their myriad afflictions, simply came apart in a rain of gore. 
 	Few were fast enough to avoid the devastation. Spawn gibbered and leapt at Shaddock, clawing and biting at his crooked trunk. He tore them from his body, crushing their spindly forms within a fist of ironwood and stone. 
 	As Laurelwort ran to her people, the surviving dryads were helping each other back to their feet. Ardaneth approached their towering saviour. Shaddock looked down at the priestess. Thickets of sprouting shoots grew from his head, while those cascading from the bottom edge of his face gave the impression of a beard.
 	‘You are truly Queen-sent,’ she told him.
 	‘The Everqueen has not had need for my kind since the Splintering,’ Shaddock said. ‘But at long last she calls for my return.’
 	‘Of course, you must go,’ the priestess said. ‘As the Radiant Queen commands. She will have need of you.’
 	‘But she is not the only one in need,’ the Spirit of Durthu said, burning bright from within. ‘Where are the fell sorcerers and daemons that have damned the mighty Arkenwood?’
 	‘While the flood rises about us, they take to high ground,’ Laurelwort said, supporting a smashed dryad. 
 	‘They weave their spells above the Ebon Tarn,’ Ardaneth said, ‘a place once sacred to our kind – but not anymore.’
 	‘Take me to this place.’
 	Shaddock knelt down once more, offering his branches and trunk to the Forest Folk. Led by Ardaneth and Laurelwort, dryads climbed up the crooks and stumps of his towering form. Rising once more, the Spirit of Durthu strode off through the diseased shallows and the forest of leaning trees. 
 	The closer they got to the Ebon Tarn, the sicker the Arkenwood became. Trees were bare, diseased and abloom with warped fungi. Through the leafless canopy and drooping branches, Shaddock saw a rocky mound that rose above the forest floor. The mighty pines that had crowned the rise had been cut down and used as fuel for fires about which the noisome warriors of Nurgle were gathered. On the crest of the hillock, looking over the Ebon Tarn beyond, stood bloated sorcerers engaged in dread ceremonies. 
 	The wardwood stopped at the foot of the rise, allowing the Forest Folk to disembark on dry land. He rose, looking towards the hillock. 
 	‘You’re going to fight them?’ Ardaneth said, her voice light with hope.
 	‘They must be purged,’ Shaddock said. 
 	‘Then let us help you,’ Laurelwort insisted. 
 	‘She is right,’ the priestess added, ‘there are many and you are one.’
 	‘One that will not be stopped,’ Shaddock told them.
 	‘What will you do?’ Laurelwort said. The wardwood paused. He gestured towards the ailing Arkenwood.
 	‘I was but one tree unseen among many,’ Shaddock said. ‘Our enemies shall see me now. They shall hear the wrath of the wild places and feel the forest’s vengeance. These Rotbringers are a disease. I shall deliver what all diseases deserve. Eradication.’
 	Leaving the Forest Folk at the base of the stump-dotted hillock, Shaddock strode up the rise. He smelled the rot of flesh and heard gurgling laughter. The servants of Nurgle seemed to find a madness and hilarity in their suffering. While their bodies broke down about their souls, they belly-laughed and roared through their pain. Fires crackled and rusted plate jangled about the camp. By the time any of them realised that an ancient of the forest towered over them, it was too late. Shaddock had his stone blade in hand. 
 	Like a terrifying entity of the forest, the wardwood suddenly raged with the stoked fires of his soul. His blade hit a group of Rotbringers with such force that they burst and were scattered across the hillside in streams of blood and pus. 
 	Across the rise, it was slowly dawning on Nurgle’s servants that they were under attack. Some had been sleeping, their corrupt bodies putrefying in the warmth of the fires. Others had removed their weapons and plate. Shaddock made them bleed for their lack of discipline. The suffering was brief, however, as with each sweeping strike of his sword, he sent mobs of diseased warriors into oblivion.
 	Warriors that all suffered from the same horrific affliction woke from their slumber and scrabbled for their weapons. Their pox-ravaged leader shook himself awake, but before he could issue an order from his lipless mouth, Shaddock squelched him into the ground with his roots. Using the flat of his sword, he batted the blighted warriors aside. The last he snatched up and crushed, allowing spoilage to dribble between his wicked talons. 
 	Shaddock could hear the sorcerers atop the rise gabbling orders. As he worked his way towards them, more pox-ridden warriors of Nurgle charged at him from around the sides of the hillock. Taking a ground-shaking run-up, the spirit kicked the blazing embers of one of the campfires flying through the air. Caught in a fiery blizzard, warriors were set alight. While most were consumed by the inferno, some exploded due to the gases that had long been building within their swollen bodies. Those that did make it through were stolid mountains of sickly flesh, ignoring their burning garb, skin and hair. Shaddock wheeled his mighty blade about him like a golden storm, cutting them down and sending leprous limbs and slabs of diseased meat bouncing down the slope. 
 	As he neared the top of the hillock, Shaddock found that it hung over the Ebon Tarn like the crest of a wave. The lake was a festering expanse of filth. Flies swarmed across its surface, which in places had formed a scabby crust. The Plague God’s sorcerers had turned the obsidian waters of the Ebon Tarn into their own steaming cauldron of effluence. Shaddock could see a shadow slowly rising from beneath the bubbling waters. Something huge and daemonic was using the tarn as a gateway to the Realm of Life. The sheer size of the thing was displacing the lake water. It was the water gushing over the banks in bubbling waves of filth that had flooded the surrounding Arkenwood. The Spirit of Durthu might not have been able to save the forest, but he could do something about the sorcerers that had doomed it. 
 	Reaching the summit upon which the sorcerers had conducted their fell rituals, Shaddock found that they were no less corrupted than the warriors who had died for them. The hooded coven closed on an improvised altar in defence of the profane offering still chained to it. Spread across the stump of a once-magnificent ironwood lay a sacrificial victim so diseased and mutilated its race was unrecognisable. The sorcerers clutched staffs and blades in their slime-slick hands that glowed with unhallowed energies. 
 	As one sorcerer made to visit some dread pollution upon Shaddock, the ancient kicked him off the summit and out across the Ebon Tarn. With a vengeful swing of his sword, the Spirit of Durthu felled a whole gaggle of sorcerers. Shaddock stepped forwards, and released the prisoner from its woes. He obliterated the suffering soul with a stamping foot and sent several sorcerers stumbling back. The fell thing leading the ritual launched itself at him, only for the wardwood to snatch him up in his talon. 
 	Turning the blade of his sword about, Shaddock stabbed it deep into the earth of the summit. The ancient heard rock and root give beneath his feet. A crack ripped through the ground before the overhang tore free and plunged down towards the Ebon Tarn, taking a throng of sorcerers with it. 
 	As he clasped the last of their foetid kind, Shaddock felt the sorcerer’s futile resistance. The thing stabbed its sacrificial blade into the thick bark of his arm and pulled back its stained hood to reveal an abhorrent face. Instead of a mouth, the sorcerer had a hooked pit, like that of some parasitic worm. Opening it wide, he vomited forth a stream of corruption at Shaddock’s face. The filth dripped from his frightful visage and steamed away on the amber brilliance that burned within. Shaddock pulverised the sorcerer, feeling blubber burst and bones break within his mighty talon. The sacrificial knife thudded to the ground amongst the mess dribbling down from his fist. 
 	With his sword still burning gold in his hand, he looked down into the festering birthing pool. Without the sorcerers’ spells to sustain its entry into Ghyran, the surfacing daemon sank back beneath the fly-swarming filth. As the daemon’s monstrous form descended, returning to whatever unhallowed place from whence it originated, the waters crusted over, growing thick and still.
 	Shaddock stood there for a moment. There was no roar of defiance, no celebratory rage. There was only a deep, dark sadness as the ancient looked out across the Arkenwood from the rise. The forest was beyond saving. From the top of the hillock he could see the damage wrought by the Chaos sorcerers and their plague magic. He could see the bare branches of dead trees surrounding a few ancient survivors. Their canopies dribbled with pus, were smothered by moulds, choked with blooms of warped fungus or tangled with the webs of voracious insects. 
 	The Spirit of Durthu soaked up the hopelessness of a diseased land. If the rest of the realm was like this, then the Everqueen would be in dire peril. It was no wonder that the searing call of her spirit-song now passed through the plague-ridden lands of Ghyran. She would need all her noble guardians. Ancients long banished, wardwoods that had once towered at her side, before the Splintering. They would again, Shaddock promised silently. He saw Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the Forest Folk climb the rise. They picked their way through the wounded Rotbringers and groaning sorcerers, finishing with stabbing talons what Shaddock had started on the hillock. The dryads gathered around the wardwood like a circle of forest menhirs. 
 	‘We thank the Radiant Queen for your coming, Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said. ‘You have saved the Arkenwood and its attendant spirits.’
 	‘You can do more than thank her,’ the Spirit of Durthu said. Ardaneth nodded, looking out across the diseased forest.
 	‘You are right, of course,’ the priestess said. ‘The Arkenwood is ailing – it will take an eternity of care to undo what has been done. To heal what has been afflicted. To purge, replant and tend.’
 	‘And what of the next warband or sorcerous coven to lay claim to this land?’ Shaddock asked her. ‘The next daemon to burrow beneath its bark or army to pass beneath its bowers with axe and flame?’
 	‘We are the spirits of the Arkenwood,’ Ardaneth said. ‘We live, as those that sprang forth before us, to tend the ancient groves of our homeland. We shall defend what remains of this sacred place, as will those that follow. We shall bring it back from the brink, no matter what it takes. I should have expected a denizen of the Arkenwood to understand such a pledge.’ 
 	‘I understand it,’ Shaddock said, ‘and honour it. I have great faith in your care and custodianship and am here because of it. But you plant your hopes in rocky ground, priestess. The Arkenwood is lost, the land defiled.’
 	Ardaneth stared up at the Spirit of Durthu in disbelief before casting her gaze across the diseased forest.
 	‘I do not believe that,’ the priestess said finally.
 	‘Only the Everqueen can heal this place,’ Shaddock said, ‘Arkenwood and all. But she needs all of her spirits now. I am her wardwood. She has called to me and I must obey. Come with me and find fresh service in her ranks. Priestess, you are needed.’
 	Ardaneth looked to the ground. Laurelwort knelt before her.
 	‘Priestess,’ the branch nymph said. ‘Let the Forest Folk fight for their Everqueen.’
 	‘And abandon our ancestral home?’ Ardaneth asked. ‘Leave it to sink into the mire, to wither and die?’
 	‘The Arkenwood is dead already,’ Shaddock told her. 
 	‘My lady–’ Laurelwort began.
 	‘No,’ Ardaneth said, her words hard like the barbed wood of her bark. ‘I forbid it. The fight is here. Let all dryads stand their ground. Let all the ancient places endure. This invasion, like the fever, shall pass. Even if we can save but one single tree, then our efforts will not be in vain. Let the Queen of the Radiant Wood take glory in that. For from one fruit can great forests grow. The Arkenwood will survive this. I will ensure it.’
 	Following Laurelwort’s example, the remaining dryads on the rise knelt down before their priestess. Shaddock nodded slowly to himself. 
 	‘Your loyalty and belief do you credit, priestess,’ Shaddock said.
 	‘As do yours, mighty wardwood,’ Ardaneth told him. ‘May the Everqueen be safe in your hands – as her lands are safe in ours.’
 	Shaddock sheathed his colossal blade in the tangled roots on his back. Turning with a creak, the wardwood strode down the rise. Wading through the sickening swamp in which the Arkenwood died, he left the Forest Folk there. They knew the spirit-song of Alarielle was calling him on. 
 	Shaddock strode across the festering lands of Ghyran. 
 	Towering above the suffering and blight, the Spirit of Durthu travelled across great expanses, festering forests, dead grasslands, and mountain ranges capped with frozen filth. He crossed foul rivers and strode along the coastlines of deep seas, once full of life. The bright, blossoming green of life unbound was gone. The blue of sea and sky had been drowned in the murk of pollution. 
 	As Shaddock walked on, there seemed no part of the realm he had once known that had not been tainted and transformed. Once, the great lands of Ghyran supported huge, migrating herds and a plethora of mighty predators that stalked them. The air sang with colourful birds and insects. The shallows thrashed with the bounty of fish while the depths boomed with ancient behemoths. Mortal tribes flourished, as did the fleet spirits of the forest, their lords and their ancients, living as one with the land. Even the strange forces of the realm were in tune with Alarielle’s will, creating marvels of nature. Crystal waterfalls, flowing up into the sky. Storms of flowers and seeds. Sky forests floating through the clouds. Cavernous underpeaks reaching down through the earth.
 	The breathtaking grandeur of Ghyran was now gone, rotted through. The daemons of Nurgle stalked the lands, polluting everything with which they came into contact. The crystal mountains of Quartzendor darkened, shivered and quaked with affliction. The surrounding rivers feeding Lake Serenity had steamed away to nothing in the fevered land, leaving behind crusty beds and channels. 
 	Worst of all for Shaddock was the sight of sylvaneth laid low. The dryads of Winterbirch had been transformed into kindling that hacked, coughed and cackled at his passing. Shaddock found the lowland Wyldwoods of Hanging Forest impassable, the Forest Folk having strangled one another with root and vine. The resulting knot was like a contracted muscle that knew not how to let go. Crossing the wooded peaks of the Realmspine, the Spirit of Durthu struggled across lands laced with Nurgle’s affliction. The caves of the Illythrian Deep had grown sharp, yellowing teeth and babbled madness that infected creatures for leagues around. 
 	In what remained of the Sorreldawn, Shaddock passed amongst the scaly trunks of treelord ancients who wandered blind across the realm, their limbs and branches withered and drooping. He encountered the revenants of the Gloomwood in a terrible state. Blooming with unnatural growths that restricted their movements, the tumorous bark hardened, turning the spirits into warped statues of petrified horror. 
 	Wherever his kin was suffering, he found the servants of the Plague God. With Alarielle’s song lifting him, the wardwood took the wrath of wild places to the abominations in his path.
 	In the Dell of Gort, warbands of rot-withered knights surrounded Shaddock, chopping the ironwood of his legs with their tarnished blades. The wardwood crushed them into the suppurating ground. About the felled Bronze Willow, Shaddock encountered warriors of insensible fortitude. Emerging from the stumps of toppled bronzewoods, they threw axes blistered with a metallic infection at him. As the blades found their mark, Shaddock stepped between the stumps to skewer the bloated warriors into ground they had defiled with their recent butchery. 
 	In the Darknid Vale, Shaddock found himself set upon by three monstrous maggoths that tried to fasten their lamprey maws onto his ironwood and tear him limb from limb. Hefting a blood-sweating boulder from the valley floor, the Spirit of Durthu crushed the head of one of the beasts. He sank his talons into the belly of another, spilling its foul guts as he tore the wicked claw free. The last maggoth stomped through its companions’ remains, flashing concentric rows of shearing teeth. The ancient drew back his mighty blade and thrust it deep into the thing’s gullet. Holding the creature transfixed, Shaddock waited while it vomited its stinking insides out onto the vale floor before finally falling still. 
 	At the Verdenhold, Shaddock found its walls of thorn and tangled roots writhing in agony. The realmgate it had guarded – the Glimmerfall – had been a rainbow cascade of light and water. Now it was a slurping cataract of blood and pus, swarmed by fat, black flies. Plaguebearers issued forth from the realmgate, wading through the morass of filth before reaching the shore. They found Shaddock there. With savage kicks and sweeps of his long arms, the wardwood cast scores of the daemons back into the swarming gateway. Those that remained began to climb his towering form, trying to use their combined weight to bear him down to the floor. He plucked each one from his branches, dashing them on the ground like rotten fruit.
 	As the Spirit of Durthu forged on, his progress became a blur. Crossing lands that seemed to rise and fall with laboured breath, Shaddock found himself wandering in a malaise. The thunder of his staggering step took him through a horde of marauding Rotbringers and grotesque sorcerers. His grasping talon missed as often as it found foes, while the bludgeoning stone of his blade carved furrows in the infected earth. Still, Shaddock scattered the spoiling warriors and pulled down an ailing tree on the spell-mouthing sorcerers as he steadied himself. 
 	The ancient felt only worse as he stomped on absently. The ironwood of his arm creaked with inner agonies, and his sap ran hot beneath his bark. The brilliance of his inner fire burned low, while the spilled blood and diseased filth that he wore like a second skin felt like it was finally working its way through his defences. 
 	Over the festering mess that had been the Rivenglades, it began to rain. While the ground crunched like a mouldering carpet of leathery flesh and snapping ribs, tiny, pot-bellied daemons began to fall from the sky. The shrieking green creatures had miniature horns and needle-toothed smiles. Shattering against Shaddock’s meandering form, they coated him with a burning ichor that smouldered on his canopy. Lifting an arm before his face, the Spirit of Durthu staggered on, the squelching bodies making the ground slippery underfoot. Through the gloom of his fevered mind, Shaddock saw the suggestion of shelter ahead. Groaning through the torment that wracked his body, he crawled for the woodland ahead. 
 	Under the cover of bare and twisted branches, the Spirit of Durthu took shelter from the shower of daemons. What little light Shaddock had been aware of was now gone. Even his own light burned sickly and low like a dying camp fire. The Wyldwoods about him were packed tight, huddled together in their joint suffering. The woodland creaked and groaned as it attempted to flee the daemon rain.
 	Shaddock rose and stumbled from trunk to trunk, making his way through the writhing trees. He had no idea where he was going. The song of Alarielle had long been lost to him – its distant beauty drowned out by suffering. Instead of the Everqueen’s sonorous call to war, the wardwood began to hear other voices in the darkness. There were three of them: voices of abyssal woe that were deep, knowing and inescapably evil. 
 	‘Give yourself to me, doomed spirit.’
 	‘Soak up your suffering. Be one with it. Become the exquisite torment that already wracks your body and mind.’
 	‘A dark agony lives in you. Embrace it. Unlock its soul-withering potential.’ 
 	‘For every living thing there is a season. Let yours be the warm dread between life and death. Revel in the rot.’ 
 	‘Let me save you from your suffering. I can make you strong again. Indomitable, and impervious to the pain that is to come.’
 	‘Affliction is but the beginning. Beyond such misery and anguish is a world of woe – a world that is yours for the taking. Savour it. Draw upon its strength.’
 	‘The Great Lord of Decay holds sway in both your spirit and your realm. There is no escape. Contagion claims all in the end…’
 	Shaddock stopped. He grabbed his head, which creaked with the pressure. The last flashes of golden brilliance flared behind the eyes and mouth. Letting go, the Spirit of Durthu looked down at his talon. In the thick bark, burning with a cruel malevolence, was a dark sigil. It had been carved into the wood by the sorcerer leading the sacrifice above the Ebon Tarn. Before Shaddock had crushed him, the sorcerer had afflicted him with his master’s mark. Three wretched circles, conjoined. 
 	‘Yes…’ the daemon said. ‘Your sap belongs to me, forest spirit. As this realm falls to my feculent lord.’
 	The Spirit of Durthu brought his talon up close to his face. His vision was darkening. His thoughts ran thin. The mark of the daemon glowed with fell power. About it, the bark was soggy and pus-threaded. The ironwood beneath was weak and swollen. Worms riddled the wood while lice swarmed the surface of the thick bark. 
 	The mighty talon moved with sudden violence. It started shaking uncontrollably. The wardwood grabbed the wrist with his other hand. As he held it there, maggot-thick pus dribbled down his fingers. 
 	Shaddock fell to his knees in the darkness. His aeons of wisdom, his warrior’s spirit were beyond him now.
 	‘Radiant Queen…’ he managed.
 	‘Your queen cannot save you from me,’ the daemon told him, his every word intensifying the pain within the limb. Shaddock felt the pollution spreading through him. 
 	‘Alarielle…’
 	‘You are Feytor’s now,’ the daemon told him. ‘A child of the Thrice-Father’s reborn. You thought you could deny me entry to this place, but I am the touch that taints. The wound that seeps. The blade that contaminates. There are a thousand ways into your doomed realm. A thousand acolytes to ensure my entry.’ 
 	Shaddock tried to stand. Beyond the taunts of the daemon echoing through his infected being, he could hear friction – the sound of wood being rubbed together. There was light in the darkness. Heat. A terrible brilliance that grew into a crackling blaze. Shaddock recoiled but the flames were everywhere. The Wyldwoods, unable to face the corruption around them, had set light to themselves. Their bare branches raged with cleansing flame. Through the spit and roar of the fires erupting all about Shaddock, he could hear the agony of the tree spirits. 
 	Shielding himself from the heat and billowing cinders, the Spirit of Durthu staggered through the inferno the forest had become. The Wyldwoods had not intended to trap the ancient – they had simply been overwhelmed with dread. Shaddock crashed through briars and tangled branches. Smoke swirled and flames roared about him. His leaves shrivelled and curled up before blowing away. Fires took about his twigs. 
 	At last, Shaddock burst free of the twisted wood. A suffering silhouette against the furious flames, he stumbled on without care or thought. He listened for the Everqueen’s song but could hear nothing. The sky was a poisoned smear of greens, browns and black. All but blind, he was alone in the darkness. He could hear the festering creak of his infected limb. He felt agonies blossom throughout his form, the heralds of spreading corruption. All the while he heard Feytor the Thrice-Father, the daemon’s merry madness reaching through him. 
 	Shaddock did not know how long he had been staggering across the afflicted lands but suddenly the ground wasn’t there anymore. His foot stepped out into nothingness. The wardwood reached out to save himself. His mighty talon was crippled and useless. Hooking the sharp digits of his other hand into crumbling rock, Shaddock slowed his fall. With the weight of his mighty frame hanging off some kind of cliff or precipice, the wardwood tried to hold on. For what remained of his dwindling spirit. For the dying realm. For Alarielle. 
 	He could not, however. Rock came away in his hand, and Shaddock tumbled. Air rushed through his branches and hollows. The ancient waited for oblivion, welcomed it. The impact that would break his hallowed form and end his suffering. Shaddock was not granted his wish, however.
 	He hit liquid, something soft, thick and disgusting. His mighty form plunged down into the vile warmth of blood and pus. It was a river of diseased filth, swelled by the ichor of the raining daemons. The torrent bubbled and slurped along, with Shaddock’s frame floating on the surface. He crashed into the shattered forms of felled trees, the river crowded with debris from further upstream. His spirit all but extinguished, the wardwood rode out the thick current as it meandered through the valley. 
 	Shaddock was carried by the filth, bumping into logs that formed a tangled dam. He drifted to the slimy bank, where he became beached on the shore. There he lay, caked in blood and pus, smothered in flies. He felt the slime below him squirm with daemonic worms. They bit at the wardwood tentatively before opening their jaws wide to devour his limbs. 
 	Through Feytor the Thrice-Father’s dark chuckle of satisfaction, Shaddock thought he heard a familiar voice.
 	‘Skewer these sacks of filth,’ Laurelwort called. 
 	All about him, Shaddock felt the fleet footsteps of dryads. The wardwood heard the thud of sharp thorns and talons puncturing daemon flesh. The beasts thrashed and squirmed as Forest Folk descended upon them, stabbing skulls and slitting throats. At first, Shaddock thought that Laurelwort must have abandoned her priestess, but as he heard Ardaneth’s soft commands he knew that the Forest Folk of the Arkenwood had left their sacred glade.
 	‘Get him up,’ the priestess said. Shaddock felt dryads swarm about him, their talons locked about his limbs and branches. Heaving him up onto their shoulders, the Forest Folk carried the wardwood away from the bubble and glug of the disgusting river. He felt Ardaneth come in close, her face next to his.
 	‘We found you, mighty ancient,’ she said. ‘Now know the peace of a realm thought lost. Once, you awoke to deliver us from a plague. Sleep again, Great Shaddock, and let us save you…’ 
 	So the wardwood slept. Gone were the fevered thoughts. Gone was the madness of voices in his troubled mind. Gone were dreams of sickliness and smothering. When he awoke, his sight had returned. The land was pure and he saw it crystal clear. 
 	His spirit burned like a furnace within the fortitude of his body. Looking up, he saw skies of blue, framed by branches heavy with fruit and greenery. A mountain peak, dashed with a cap of glittering diamonds, reached into the heavens. Beyond, he could hear the tinkle and splash of a stream.
 	‘Where am I?’ Shaddock said, half expecting the vision to be a dream.
 	‘The spirit awakes,’ Laurelwort said. The branch nymph came into view, standing over him. The wardwood got the impression of Forest Folk gathered amongst the trees. Ardaneth came forth.
 	‘Great Shaddock,’ the priestess said, her words like a rejuvenating tonic. ‘You are in the Draconite Glade.’
 	‘How…’ the wardwood said, ‘how can this be?’
 	‘Like Alarielle’s servants,’ Ardaneth said, ‘there are places that have yet to succumb to the grip of Chaos. Sites of significance that resist the corruption as you have, mighty Shaddock. This glade is protected by Draconyth, the spirit of this mountain. Trees grow on his slopes unmolested and the blessed waters of his meltwater streams are pure.’
 	With a creak, Shaddock sat up. He had been slumbering in a circle of standing stones. Each was a crystalline menhir, draped with moss. The ancient looked around to see Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the gathered Forest Folk. These were not the dryads he had left behind in the Arkenwood. They looked hopeful but hardened. Their boughs were notched and splinted. Their thorns and sharpened talons were stained with blood and ichor. His own form, however, had been washed in the shimmering waters of the nearby stream. The filth was gone from the ironwood and encrusted mineral of his frame. And so too was the diseased remnant of his left arm.
 	‘To save you,’ Ardaneth said, seeing him look at the stump of his shoulder, ‘I had to sacrifice the limb. I did not undertake such a thing lightly, but the pulp and sinew was cursed, spreading further taint through your mighty form. So I laid my own talon upon it and petrified the wood. To be sure that you were beyond Nurgle’s reach, I shattered the stone limb from your shoulder.’
 	‘Thank you,’ Shaddock said.
 	‘I do not expect your gratitude, mighty ancient,’ the priestess said. ‘I have mutilated a wardwood of the Radiant Queen.’
 	‘The shrub pruned,’ Shaddock said, ‘grows the better for such attention. Forest fires bring forth the sun to benighted groves and nourish the soil. I shall become the stronger for your care and determination. Besides,’ the wardwood said, reaching behind him and slipping his stone blade from where it still rested in its scabbard of roots. The weapon burned bright with the amber brilliance of Shaddock’s rejuvenated spirit. ‘I still have one good hand with which to protect my queen and fight, side by side with the sylvaneth of the Arkenwood.’
 	‘And we are glad for it,’ Laurelwort said.
 	‘While glad of your presence here,’ Shaddock said, ‘I am painfully aware that you are folk without a forest. What of the Arkenwood?’
 	‘You were right,’ Ardaneth said. ‘Like your limb, the Arkenwood could not be saved. Like you, its spirits survive and fight on. I said we would defend what remains of that sacred place. Mighty wardwood – you are all that remains.’
 	Shaddock nodded solemnly. His frightful visage was once again lit with golden brilliance. He had lived through the ages and yet rarely encountered spirits such as these. 
 	‘How did you find me?’ 
 	‘Alarielle’s song grew louder and clearer with our every step,’ the priestess said. She hesitated slightly before going on. ‘The path of destruction that you left in your wake might have helped also.’
 	The wardwood stomped down the slope, pushing through the branches of the trees. From the greenery of the mountainside, the wardwood could see that the surrounding lands were blighted and foul. The canopies of nearby forests were a patchwork of yellowing leaves and bare branches, while the untamed reaches beyond were blanketed in sour marshland and the black smoke of torched sylvaneth. 
 	‘Tell me, Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth said, standing beside him. ‘Are the sylvaneth doomed?’
 	‘Do you hear that?’ the wardwood said, cocking his head. 
 	‘Yes,’ the priestess said, startled.
 	‘That is the spirit-song of the Everqueen,’ Shaddock said, himself gladdened to hear it once again. ‘As strong as I’ve ever heard it. Alarielle is close, and she calls to us – to all the spirits of her realm. It is time to take back the wild places from those that would defile them, and drive the plague from this sacred land.’ 
 	‘From which direction does the Radiant Queen call?’ Ardaneth asked.
 	Shaddock pointed his blade towards the stained horizon, towards a distant place where land and sky met in a blackened blot of disease and creeping death. A decimated forest – more blasted battlefield than ancient grove – that seemed to draw in the festering legions of Nurgle from leagues around. 
 	‘Our queen needs us,’ the Spirit of Durthu said.
 	Leaving the sanctity of Draconite Glade and the shadow of Mount Draconyth, Shaddock led the Forest Folk through the dismal land. The sickness of the sylvaneth was everywhere, reminding the spirits of what was a stake. They passed toppled treelords, blooming with spore-spitting fungus. Altered Wyldwoods, dragging their corrupt trunks along with grasping roots, hindered their advance. Shattered dryads, brittle to the touch, lay about in mottles of mildew. Everywhere there was evidence of the Plague God. Meadows had been marred by the rotting remains of camps, forests reduced to mulch by sorcerous contagion and grasslands turned to tracks of mud and pus. 
 	As they approached the blighted woodland formerly known as the Forest of Aspengard, the sky grew dark. The heavens were stained black with filth and the air was thick with flies. The forest itself had been reduced to islands of standing Wyldwoods, isolated by a bitter and war-torn wasteland. The ground of the blasted expanse was littered with stumps, slithering roots and mouldering logs. 
 	Plague-infested daemons and columns of putrid warriors weaved across the battlefield to reinforce the hordes of Nurgle battling the sylvaneth warhosts of Aspengard. Shaddock and the Forest Folk of the Arkenwood used the ailing Wyldwoods to cover their approach. With virulent pus showering from the canopy and infected trees reaching out for them with root and branch, Shaddock and the dryads had to take as much care with the forest as they did with the servants of Nurgle. 
 	Those plague lords and rancid champions that did spy the approach of the sylvaneth despatched warbands to deal with the interlopers. Believing that they were isolated spirits of the Aspengard fleeing the slaughter, they never for a moment considered that they were reinforcements searching for their Radiant Queen. Withdrawing into the wailing thickets, Laurelwort and her dryads prepared an ambush for the Rotbringers. They moved through the roots and branches of the fevered Wyldwoods, hiding, stalking and striking at their infested foes. They gutted bloated warriors who were ready to burst. They sliced the throats and stabbed at the rusted helms of passing outriders from concealed nooks and hollows. They garrotted Rotbringers with noose-like vines that they heaved up through the canopy, leaving the hanging warriors there to choke. 
 	While the Forest Folk stabbed and sliced their way through the servants of Nurgle, Shaddock drew them into a clearing. As corpulent knights charged from the trees, Shaddock whirled his blade around in an amber flash. The wardwood cleaved through corroding plate and diseased flesh. He swept ripe warriors aside with the flat of his blade. He kicked a leprous champion apart and chopped clean through the trunks of warped Wyldwoods, burying Rotbringers under toppling trees.
 	As they moved from copse to copse, Shaddock and the dryads found the wastelands between crowded with marauding warbands. With the searing song of Alarielle getting louder, the wardwood marched on towards his Everqueen. Towering above the hordes, he impaled daemons on the length of his sword and stamped down on plague knights in green plate. With the creaking sinew of his sword arm guided by his age-old form, the wardwood smashed a path through the scourges of Aspengard. Picking their way through the corpses Shaddock left behind, the dryads of Arkenwood swept in on half-dead foes. Stabbing warriors and skewering the hearts of felled champions, the dryads followed the Spirit of Durthu through the death and disease.
 	Before long, the sylvaneth reached the centre of the battlefield. The bloated servants of Nurgle were crushed up against each other, the plate of unclean knights crumpling against the brawn of cyclopean daemons, as scythe-wielding champions chanted foul prayers astride monstrous maggoths. 
 	Like a constricting wall of muscle, the hordes of Nurgle surrounded what was left of the Aspengard glades. Known as the Silver Dell, argent oaks and mirrorwoods formed the centre of the besieged forest and stood uncontaminated amongst the mud, blight and destruction. The dell was teeming with the silver-barked spirits of Aspengard – Forest Folk who had fallen back to protect it and the treelords who ruled from there. 
 	While the dryads entangled the servants of Nurgle in a thicket of thorns, the roots of treelords burst free of the earth behind their enemies. They bludgeoned grasping sorcerers and champions into the ground before dragging their smashed bodies beneath the surface of the soil. Silvered Wyldwoods swung their heavy branches, sweeping hordes of sickly warriors aside with bone-breaking force. 
 	As Shaddock strode through the packed ranks of Chaos warriors, axes and spears embedded themselves in his bole and branches. Forging a path through the crush of corrupted bodies with sweeping sword and stamping feet, the wardwood pushed on. The air rang with the sound of wood snapped, split and cleaved in two by rusted blades. Nurgle’s servants fought with an indomitable fervour, rank after rank of diseased warriors gladly walking into blood-slick talons and the pulverising sweep of branches. 
 	The wardwood tried to block out the sickening cheers. He concentrated on the song of the Everqueen, fighting his way through the hordes to reach Alarielle. 
 	‘Stay close to Great Shaddock,’ Ardaneth called to her dryads as they were swamped by a wave of sour bodies. Horned daemons and Rotbringers were attempting either to smash the sylvaneth to kindling or visit their myriad contagions on the Forest Folk. As the dryads of the Arkenwood began to shriek and fall, Shaddock’s mighty blade passed like an amber blaze through the packed ranks. It sheared off elephantine limbs, cut swollen warriors in half and clipped fat heads and helms from shoulders. 
 	Ardaneth and Laurelwort whirled about one another in a deadly dance. A mighty daemon warrior swung a rust-eaten sword at the branch nymph, forcing her to duck. Sprigs and leaves were chopped from her head as the cursed weapon sheared through the tips of her foliage. Laurelwort charged at the monster, slamming her body into its own. Its cyclopean eye rolled in its socket as the branch nymph knocked it back. Ripping furiously into its swollen belly with her talons, Laurelwort tore the rancid guts out of the thing. 
 	The daemon would not be stopped, however. Grabbing her with unnatural strength, the plague-ridden monster tossed her at Ardaneth. Both of them fell back into the stinking ranks of Nurgle’s servants. As the daemon stomped towards Ardaneth with its blade held high, she reached out at the Nurglites surrounding her. As the petrifying power of her talons touched their slimy flesh, their bodies were immortalised in standing stone. Immortality, however, lasted only the few seconds it took for the daemon to smash through the wall of statues. 
 	‘Help me,’ Ardaneth called to the branch nymph as the daemon crawled over the rubble to get to her. Laurelwort came up behind it and entangled its limbs in vines that sprouted from her branches. Seeing her chance, Ardaneth lunged forwards and placed her talon squarely on the daemon’s horned face. As the creature turned to stone, Laurelwort let it fall, its head snapping off at the neck where it struck the rubble. 
 	‘Where is she?’ Ardaneth called up to the wardwood. ‘Where is our Radiant Queen?’
 	‘I don’t know,’ Shaddock told her. Alarielle’s song was all around. He looked about the blasted battlefield and argent oaks of the Silver Dell but the Everqueen was nowhere to be seen. ‘She should be here.’
 	Something suddenly gave. The hordes of Nurgle were never-ending, but up to that point the sylvaneth of Aspengard had proven immovable. Neither army had given way. Sorcerous catapults, however, had finally reached range through the crush of foetid warriors. Mouldering barrels leaking a horrific green concoction were flung through the air, high over the heads of Shaddock and the diseased hordes. Smashing into the canopy of the Silver Dell, the shattered barrels hung in the shimmering branches, cascading fell liquid down on the treelords and forest spirits holding the dread masses at bay. Some kind of acid ate its way through the trees and the sylvaneth below, stripping leaves and burning through bark. As a dirty silver cloud rose over the dell and a further barrage of barrels were fired up into the sky, Shaddock could hear the sounds of horrific suffering amongst the argent oaks. 
 	‘Radiant Queen,’ the wardwood roared. ‘Where are you?’
 	Looking over at the siege engines, Shaddock saw that they were not the only reinforcements to arrive on the battlefield. Walking mountains of festering corpulence were making their way towards the Silver Dell, wading through the Plague God’s jubilant hordes. With the bombardment intensifying and the sylvaneth faltering, these daemons were advancing like shock troops to break the siege and lead the horde into the ancient glade. 
 	A monstrous daemon had assumed command near the catapults and brought the siege engines forth. The abomination was not one but three bloated creatures conjoined – an echo of the symbol carved into Shaddock’s bark. The Spirit of Durthu realised that he was looking at Feytor, the Thrice-Father, the daemon he had prevented from manifesting at the Ebon Tarn. The monster that had taken his arm and sullied his essence. A sound like thunder boomed from the wardwood as the golden fire of his wrath burned bright.
 	‘Kill the crews,’ Shaddock said, stabbing his colossal blade into the ground and offering his hand to the dryads of the Arkenwood. ‘Sabotage the engines.’
 	Laurelwort and a barbed cluster of surviving Forest Folk crawled up the crooks and branches of the wardwood’s arm. Ardaneth joined them.
 	‘What are you doing?’ the priestess asked.
 	‘I’m curing this blessed land of its affliction,’ Shaddock told her. 
 	With a heave, he became a catapult of his own, sending the spirits sailing across the battlefield. As their light frames landed amongst the sorcerers and siege engines, he saw dryads throw themselves valiantly at the withered crews. Laurelwort kicked over barrels of acid and stabbed a sorcerer in the chest, while Ardaneth petrified the workings of the engines so that they tore themselves apart upon firing.
 	Shaddock crushed warriors underfoot as he closed on the Thrice-Father. Spotting the towering ancient, the greater daemon heaved his bulk around. 
 	‘Welcome, spirit,’ Feytor said, lifting a colossal cleaver. ‘Your sap belongs to me.’
 	‘Then take it, daemon,’ Shaddock roared.
 	‘I shall,’ the Thrice-Father said. ‘One drop at a time, if I have to.’ 
 	The daemon moved with a swiftness that belied its rancid bulk. Knots of Rotbringers were crushed beneath the Thrice-Father as he leaned in to strike with his cleaver. Parrying with an arcing swing of his own, Shaddock felt the weight and power of his foe. As he staggered back, one of the creature’s bodies twisted towards him to reveal a monstrous axe. The weapon’s rusted blade clipped some of the wardwood’s branches as he swept his head below the strike. Then the third and final body came around, knocking Shaddock into the ranks of plague-ridden warriors with its swollen belly. The Spirit of Durthu turned aside as one of the greater daemon’s heads vomited a stream of sizzling bile. 
 	Shaking the filth from his canopy, Shaddock found himself near the catapults. He began to fear that despite several ages of service to the Everqueen, he had failed her. She had called to him and he had been unable to reach her – and now he was going to fall to some monstrous servant of her sworn enemy. A foul creature that was not one great daemon but three. 
 	As the Thrice-Father dragged its obscene carcass towards him, booming with abyssal laughter, Shaddock readied himself for the end.
 	‘Wardwood,’ Ardaneth called up from a demolished engine. ‘Look.’
 	The priestess was pointing up into the sky. Turning, Shaddock saw massive islands of stone drift down through the miasma of pestilence that stained the heavens. Atop the floating islands stood mighty ironwoods, their roots dangling down from their rocky undersides. He had seen the islands before. They were the Skyforests of Jynnt, towering sentient woodlands that traversed the heavens, hanging in the clouds and soaking up the sun’s rays. The sylvaneth of Jynnt had descended to offer reinforcement. 
 	Shaddock watched as several islands settled over the Silver Dell, draping their writhing root systems across the glade and allowing the inhabitants of Aspengard to climb to safety. Other islands drifted across the battlefield, their roots squirming. Boulders rained down on the Nurgle forces, crushing corrupt mortal and daemon alike. The Spirit of Durthu spotted ranks of Kurnoth Hunters at the forest’s edge, their bows drawn over the island precipice and aimed at the enemy below. Releasing their weapons in unison, the Free Spirits loosed volleys of huge arrows into the servants of the Plague God.
 	‘Go!’ Shaddock told Ardaneth as an island floated towards them. 
 	‘Not without you, mighty ancient,’ the priestess called back. The wardwood put himself between Ardaneth and the Thrice-Father.
 	‘Get the Forest Folk to safety,’ the Spirit of Durthu commanded. As Ardaneth, Laurelwort and the dryads of the Arkenwood made for the roots reaching down towards them, the daemon Feytor heaved his great bulk around and levelled the broad blade of his cleaver at the wardwood.
 	‘I’m going to smash you to splinters, spirit,’ the Thrice-Father told him. ‘I will bury each one of them in my infected flesh.’
 	‘I am beyond your reach now, monster,’ Shaddock told him. His sword pulsed with energy, just before he leaned into a mighty throw. As he released the weapon, it flew hilt over heavy blade until it finally thudded into the nearest of the Thrice-Father’s vast bellies. It was held there, glowing through his stretched, leathery skin and spoiling guts. Feytor’s booming laughter rolled across the battlefield. Such an attack might have felled other monstrous beings, but Nurgle blessed his servants with unnatural resilience. The sword simply sat there, in its scabbard of diseased flesh.
 	‘We are the cure,’ Shaddock told Feytor the Thrice-Father as the sylvaneth pushed back against the forces of Nurgle.
 	The amber glow of the wardwood’s blade faded, the weapon reverting to cold, inert stone. Feytor’s faces dropped in unison, each suddenly aware of something terrible happening deep amidst the daemon’s corpulent form. The tips of branches prodded, stretched and then burst through the monster’s skin. The blade had transferred some of Shaddock’s energy into the daemon, fuelling the growth of a tree inside the Thrice-Father’s grotesque bodies. Swollen bellies burst open as the life within could not be contained, flooding the surrounding battlefield with spoilage. As branches reached up through the rotting guts of the daemon, they skewered his hearts.
 	The Thrice-Father tried to say something, but his words were smothered by the thick foliage bursting free of his mouths. Branches pierced his eyes and ripped the flesh from his faces, their growth finally slowing and coming to a halt. Shaddock watched the daemon’s bellies rise and fall for the last time around the tree that had grown up within him.
 	As a floating island cast the wardwood in shadow, a giant, trailing root grasped him. Lifted clear of the battlefield, Shaddock snatched his sword from the carcass of the defeated daemon. Sheathing the weapon, the Spirit of Durthu allowed the root to draw him up towards the Skyforests of Jynnt. 
 	With the sylvaneth of Aspengard rescued, the islands rose up through the filth and back into the glory of the sun’s rays, leaving the hordes of Nurgle behind. Kurnoth Hunters extended their talons down to haul Shaddock and the dryads of Arkenwood up over the precipice, welcoming them to their glade. The Skyforest bustled with the spirits of Jynnt, Aspengard, the Arkenwood and other spoiled lands. The ancient felt Ardaneth and Laurelwort beside him.
 	‘I am Shaddock,’ he said. ‘Wardwood of Athelwyrd, former counsellor and glade-guardian to the Radiant Queen. I humbly present myself, with the refugees of the Arkenwood, as a true servant of the Everqueen and request a meeting with the presiding ancient of the Skyforest.’ 
 	‘Your request is denied,’ a voice replied from the ironwoods. It was the imperious rumble of thunder. It was the playful splash of the stream. It was the calm breeze through the leaves and the fury of a forest fire – all as one. Dryads, Hunters and ironwoods parted to admit Alarielle, Everqueen of the sylvaneth and all Ghyran, riding high on a gargantuan wardroth beetle.
 	Shaddock went down on one knee, bowing his head. He came to understand how Alarielle’s song had led him to the battlefield but not to the Everqueen herself. She had been drifting high above on the islands of the Skyforest. Like the wardwood, the spirits of Aspengard and the Arkenwood knelt also. 
 	‘There is no presiding ancient here,’ Alarielle told the Spirit of Durthu. ‘Only a queen – with a request of her own. That an old friend can forgive her foolishness and take his rightful place by her side once more, as wise counsellor and as glade-guardian. The time of the Splintering is at an end and the war for Ghyran begins. What say you, my wardwood?’
 	Shaddock sagged. Then, the weight of his trials and travels was lifted from his shoulders. He rose before Alarielle, to bathe in her glory and her love for all living things. 
 	‘My queen calls,’ Shaddock said, ‘and her subject obeys.’