The Revenge of Rondhol
A Call for Aid, or Ruin
Briars on Board
The lull in the song calmed their bitter hearts, its lessened tempo temporarily tempering their temperamental natures.
She watches from on high as her sisters shuffle and crawl into the vessel’s hold. Unlike the other dryads, she will stay above board. She sits on her haunches, upon the topgallant yard. One talon also clutches the wooden beam, lest the crudely constructed vessel’s bobbing and rocking throw her from her precarious perch.
In her free hand, she carries the greenwood scythe that marks her as more than a common dryad, and upon her back, a bittergrub sits, its mandibles snapping and clicking hungrily.
It is the scythe that marks her as the brood’s matriarch, the grub is just a spite, attracted to its power, nothing more than a hanger-on, but occasionally useful, so she permits its presence.
It is also the scythe which grants some degree of clarity to her mind, and it is this clarity that keeps her from succumbing to the malaise that has afflicted her sisters since the last hunt’s end.
This is the price they pay for following the siblings’ song. When battle is joined, their boisterous energy bolsters the brood, but in the calm times in between fights, the thundering beat fades to almost nothing, and the whole realm feels dull and grey in its absence.
At the foot of the mast, one of the lichen-skinned siblings sits with the cranium of some mighty beast in his lap. He occasionally bonks it with a femur which he holds in one hand. He looks as listless as she feels, yet the savage orruk is doing his job. His music, such as it is, draws the sisters onwards, leading them to stow themselves like cargo in the cramped space belowdecks.
Other siblings man the oars, or tug on ropes. Even thinking more clearly than her sisters, she can’t comprehend what each action contributes. The workings of even a vessel as primitive and ramshackle as this one are beyond her understanding. She knows only that following Da Choppas will lead the sisters to their next prey.
The plodding, monotonous tune remained steady all through that tedious journey, and the sylvaneth slumbered, until they neared their destination.
She alone amongst the brood remains alert, she alone sees the other barges flock to their side, forming a flotilla, as small tributaries join, combining into the mighty flood which has submerged the ruins that were once a city.
She could not put into words why, but she feels a burgeoning joy at the sight of man-made structures collapsed and half-submerged, the sight of Rondhol reclaiming its land from the curse of civilisation filling her with elation.
She does not have long to admire the spectacle, though, for the orruks are not the only predators skulking around these parts. Blackmaw’s Reavers also stalk this grave of Order.
Their vessels are fewer in number than the crude, slapdash barges of the Waaagh!, but undeniably superior on a one-to-one basis. She knows nothing of ships, but even she cannot miss this disparity. If they were trees, the Chaos armada would be giant sequoias, standing stalwart and untouchable for millennia, whilst the flotilla would be a motley collection of stunted, shrivelled shrubs, barely clinging to life during a lengthy drought.
That is irrelevant, though. These rudimentary constructs of flotsam and jetsam, of half-rotten timber and scrap metal, needed only transport the siblings and the sisters to these ruins, and they have already served that purpose.
The steady, atonal notes rose in pace and volume, and the sylvaneth stirred, a hunger awoken in them. They felt the nearness of their prey.
Strength and vigour thrum through her heartwood, and though the crashing waves and orruk warcries drown out any softer sounds, she knows that belowdecks, her sisters are shifting and stretching their branches, impatient to leave the dark, dank hold.
She feels that impatience herself, as does her spite, she can tell from the incessant chittering in her ear. She is well accustomed to ignoring the complaints of her segmented passenger, though. It will not be long now.
Displaying an odd degree of cohesion for followers of the Ruinous Powers, a pair of near-identical, black-painted galleons manoeuvre their port-sides to face the oncoming flotilla. The orruks cheer and jeer, thinking the reavers are turning to flee. Then four hatches creak open along the hulls of each vessel, and to the sound of grinding gears, a long, hollow cylinder emerges from each aperture.
She does not recognise these objects, cannot fathom their purpose, so feels no fear nor apprehension at the sight of them. In her eyes, they are just more meaningless boat things. She joins her thin voice to the siblings’ guttural roars as they give their customary cry of, “Waaagh!”
A moment later, understanding comes too late, as all eight skull cannons fire in perfect synchronisation. Eight plumes of smoke and flame mar the air around the brazen barrels’ mouths, and eight blazing skulls burst forth. An instant passes, then eight Khornate cannonballs collide with eight ramshackle barges, penetrating eight shoddily constructed hulls.
One of the impacts rocks her own ship precariously, coming close to capsizing it, and tossing her about like a leaf in a gale, almost flinging her from her perch. Yet more distressingly, as the flame-wreathed cranium breaches the vehicle’s side, she knows that several of her sisters must surely be dead or dying, as tightly packed as they all are down in the hold.
She doubts these deaths will trouble the other dryads, blessed by Ghur as they are with such simple, straightforward minds. But as their branchwych, it is her duty and curse to think more clearly than her sisters. She feels keenly every loss, like a sharp thorn piercing the soft, fleshy heart of a human.
She gives an anguished howl, but isn’t given time to wallow in her sorrow, the barge lurching again, rapidly taking on water through the gaping wound in its side. Despite this calamity, the music calls to her still, insistent that the hunt go on, and as the skull thumpers maintain their raucous din, thoughts of vengeance override her grief.
On instinct more than conscious thought, she scrambles and leaps from yard to rigging to bowsprit, landing in a crouch and leaning over to gaze upon the massive rent in the ship’s side. Her eyes widen as she sees what some of her sisters are doing.
In an act of cooperation that would have been unthinkable before they came upon the siblings and their unifying song, many of the dryads have clambered atop one another, intertwining their slender forms to construct a sort of wall. It will not be enough to keep the shoddy vessel afloat forever, but undoubtedly their efforts are slowing the rate at which it is foundering. Watching them, she feels a sudden swell of pride in her chest.
The rhythm rose, growing stronger as it approached its crescendo, and despite the Reavers’ opening fusilade, the hunt was only gathering pace.
Then they are upon the foe, their slapdash vehicle slamming into the larger, sturdier ship. The galleon barely shifts, whilst the barge gives an almighty crash, and immediately begins to fragment. As it does, sisters boil out of it from every opening, like termites spilling from a rotten log, and in their dozens they latch on with root and talon to the Chaos vessel, and begin to scale its hull.
The savage orruks too make their way over, jumping from rigging, swinging on ropes, even tossing crude, stone grappling hooks across the gap, to provide a path.
But what meets them on the other ship are no mere marauders. The chaos warriors stand in ordered ranks which seem utterly at odds with their name, tower shields raised before them like an impregnable wall of steel. Both the primitive, stone tools of the savage orruks and the wooden talons of the dryad swarm will prove all but useless against such heavy armour.
But the Reavers have not reckoned with having to face a branchwych. No sooner has she scratched and scrambled her way upon the deck than she throws herself into the melee with wild abandon, swinging her greenwood scythe in great arcs that carve apart inch-thick iron plates with scarcely more effort than a dryad would expend slicing through foliage with her talons.
Though she knows that this weapon is what makes her the matriarch, she has no comprehension of how or why. She is unaware that it is a relic which has been amongst her folk since the days of yore, before they ever left Ghyran, in the ancient Age of Myth. Fortunately, her ignorance does nothing to diminish its power.
The slaves to darkness fall before her, either slain outright or merely wounded, it makes no difference; with a gap opened in each of their black carapaces, the sisters and siblings alike are quick to exploit that weakness, and rush to pry the iron shells from the vulnerable flesh beneath.
She by no means goes unscathed in doing this, but fights on despite the accumulating injuries, as axe blades split bark, embed themselves in heartwood, and spill precious bloodsap from her body. The bittergrub on her back does what it can to aid her, but its mandibles are scarcely more effective than her sisters’ talons against these hulking figures.
Without her, though, the dryads will be all but helpless before their implacable foes, so no matter the cost to herself, she knows that she cannot afford to ease her frenetic assault.
