The Revenge of Rondhol
A Portal’s Pull
Briars Drawn Back
In the wake of the recent massacre, she leads what few sisters she has found back downriver, keeping an eye on the water as she skulks along the Att’s banks, occasionally slipping from her upright posture to crawl on all fours like a beast. She remains on the lookout for more dryads spat up by the raging rapids, and washed ashore like so much worthless driftwood.
She knows that their losses were tremendous, that even the branchwych herself was smashed to kindling when Rondhol turned on them, quaking beneath their roots with such ferocity that great hordes of wild creatures were driven to stampede, rampaging through the Waaagh!’s warriors and the Chaos cultists alike.
She also knows that — being all but feral themselves — many of the Brashbriar Brood were just as badly affected as the animal life, similarly succumbing to the tide of base savagery, instinct overcoming all reason as they ignored the song of the Waaagh! and fell upon their allies with tooth and talon.
And she knows that she was one of those so afflicted. But that is in the past, and the past is irrelevant. In the present, she is guiding this smattering of survivors back to the scene of their last hunt, where the music sings to her that their siblings are regrouping.
The sisters have no name for that place, though others call it The Gaping Portal. Few of them can speak at all — their minds greatly diminished by comparison to those sylvaneth who have not lived their entire lives severed from the spirit-song, under the primal influence of Ghur — and she is no exception to this trend.
Though they now retreat in disarray — after suffering tremendous casualties, lost not to enemy forces, but to an act of savagery perpetrated against them by the very land that they fight to protect — she feels neither anger nor dismay. Such a display of unrestrained, mindless savagery is the perfect encapsulation of Rondhol’s nature, and so, in her eyes, this event is not a tragedy to be mourned, but a joyful celebration of everything that they are fighting to preserve.
Though the Waaagh!-song is quieter now, with so many siblings lost in the slaughter, the energies of the realm itself flow fiercely through her every root, branch, twig and leaf. Her heartwood thrums with vigour, and only the dim awareness that a successful hunt requires cunning as well as brutality keeps her from dashing off immediately to seek out more wild beasts to tear into with her talons.
One day, Rondhol will devour her, she knows, just as it has so many of her sisters on this day. She does not fear that fate, though, but embraces it as the natural way of things. As she sees it, attempting to change that status quo — as the “civilised” beings do — is a crime of the most heinous sort, committed against Ghur itself.
A dryad by her side gives a hooting cry, and she turns her head in time to see the other wooden woman scamper down the embankment in a shower of dirt and scree. The Att takes a lazy swipe at her with a large wave, but the sylvaneth’s roots dig deep into the slope, keeping her from being bowled over by the sudden swell. The sister grasps a gnarled stick, and with a wordless cry of triumph, lifts it up, hauling a battered and broken — yet still living — dryad from the waters.
She joins the other forest folk in a chorus of harsh, animalistic cheers, before spilling down the slope with a couple others, to help retrieve their fallen sister, to drag her back onto dry land. The river has been rough with this one, but she will pull through. She is strong, as are they all. It is occurrences such as this that make them so. This is Rondhol’s way of weeding out the weak.
——
She is in the jungles now, not far from the realmgate. Many of her sisters are with her. Perhaps all of them. She has no way of knowing how many Rondhol claimed this day, but it is clear that they are much reduced. In time, their numbers will be replenished, as with no capacity to pass on the memories of past generations — owing to the complete lack of noble spirits and lamentiri in the Brood — there is nothing to keep the forest folk from planting soulpods in their wake wherever they go, in a manner not dissimilar to the dissemination of orruk yoofs. Those that survive to maturity will find their sisters eventually.
But that is a slow process, taking place over years and decades, not days and weeks. It will not restore their ranks in time to be of any relevance to this war. They will have to make do with what they’ve got. At least, in terms of raw numbers. There is something, though, due to be returned to them this day, which will impact on the fights to come.
She and her fellow branch nymphs are at the forefront of the group, eyeing one another warily across the clearing in which they await their guest, whilst the rest of the Brood lurk amidst the trees behind them, jostling for position.
They hear him before they see him, clomping laboriously through the brush, then a single ardboy stamps his way into the little glade, the scrap-metal helm he wears concealing his expression. Though his kind are ostensibly the weakest of the Ironjawz orruks, and certainly far smaller than the brutes, he still has the mass of any two sisters combined. Even she would struggle to overcome him in a fight. Battle is not his intention, though. In his hands he carries the greenwood scythe of the Branchwych.
He holds it out towards them, saying something that she does not understand. She glances to her left and right, snarls at her sister nymphs, making clear her intentions to claim the weapon, and with it, dominion over the Brood. A couple hiss angrily in response, apparently harbouring their own notions of supremacy, but none openly challenge her.
She prowls forwards on all fours, eyes fixing upon the wooden haft. Then a howl from her right, and she is bowled over, rolling through dirt and fallen leaves, a rival nymph clawing at her bark. Several twigs growing from the branches on her back are snapped off as they tumble, some of her leaves are scattered, and raking claws carve deep furrows into her heartwood, but she gives as good as she gets.
All the others are standing stock-still, watching the brutal spectacle unfold. Even the ardboy has his gaze fixed upon this display of raw, Ghurish savagery. She manages to clamp her jaws around one of her sister’s forearms, gripping it tightly to immobilise the limb. They roll over again, and she finishes up on top this time. With one talon, she finds an eye socket, and digs in. Her sister shrieks and wails, thrashing violently, but she manages to hold her position. For good measure, she slams the other nymph’s head against the ground a few times.
Her rival falls limp — not dead, but most certainly defeated — and she straightens up, standing bipedal and raising her chin, she faces the rest of her sisters, meeting the hostile gaze of each branch nymph, one-by-one, silently daring them to challenge her. When none do, she holds out one hand towards the orruk, not even glancing his way. He gets the message, and places the scythe in her grip.
New knowledge floods her mind, and for an instant she is gripped by something like vertigo, feeling as if she will fall. Then the sensation passes, and the newly anointed Briarbrood Branchwych looks upon her subordinates. She sees in their expressions none of the jealousy and anger of a moment prior. Even the — now one-eyed — nymph at her feet gazes up at the latest Brashbriar matriarch with something like adoration.
Said matriarch herself is not so quick to forgive and forget, though. All the grooves gouged into her heartwood by her sister’s wracking talons still sting. She gives the prone sylvaneth a hard kick in the side. Her sister cries out, and hurriedly shuffles backwards, before any more punishment can be delivered. Still, there is not a trace of rebellion on that face, only confusion and hurt, as if her sister cannot comprehend why the branchwych would strike her.
She realises that she feels a strange sensation in her chest, and she stares at the former challenger for a long, awkward moment, before her newfound reservoir of information provides a word to describe the feeling. Guilt. She feels bad for hurting someone else. That’s new. She looks down at the greenwood scythe held in her claws, and only now does it occur to her to wonder what exactly it is, why the Brood follow its bearer with such blind zeal, and where and how it came to be.
Questions for another time, she decides. She turns her head a fraction, so that in her peripheral vision, she can catch the eye of the armoured sibling, and from the depths of the sea of wisdom now sloshing about in her head, she manages to dredge up two words which convey what she wishes him to know.
In a voice made hoarse by a lifetime of disuse, she says, “Our… thanks…”
