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The Garden of Mortal Delights – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Garden of Mortal Delights

Robert Rath

Arise, all ye spirits, arise in the soul glade,

O children of the Everqueen, what dost thou see?

A foe-host has come bearing ember and axe-blade,

To poison the water and butcher the tree.

Armour of ore they have pillaged from mountains,

And pelts of thick fur torn from unwilling beasts.

They come hence with daemons, both fair and befouled,

And ecstatic moans on the lips of their priests.

Grant them bitter welcome with stone-sword and claw-root,

With borrowed earth-arms do we strike the first blow.

And soon we shall lay these gifts back in the soil,

All slick with the nourishing blood of the foe.

Hold fast, forest children, the Mirrored One cometh!

He cuts down our kinfolk, blades thick with sap-gore.

I weep at the sound of your pain-song and fear-dirge,

And reap lamentiri to sow you once more.

Hold fast, he comes!

He comes! Hold fast!

Do not break the song.

Wilde Kurdwen removed her claw from the dryad’s root, unable to bear the dream-song. A season’s cycle later, her last battle-chant still echoed in the souls of those she had failed.

They still sung, still striving to answer the war cry of their branchwych.

Indeed, the dryads twitched as they dreamed. Finger-branches clenched and released. Gnarled roots, planted deep in rich earth, twisted like running ankles. The flowers that bloomed from their chests, arms and legs shivered. From afar, it looked as though a flock of purple butterflies had alighted on their bodies, their petal wings opening and closing like eyelashes.

But there were no butterflies here. Nothing so delicate could live on this island.

Crouched, she could even imagine these sisters back in a Neos glade, their disquiet merely the natural, traumatic cycle of growth and regrowth. And indeed, many ripe fruits hung from these elegant spirits. Berries clustered around their throats like jewels on the neck of a high-born bride. Dark spices burst up through the cracked bark of their roots. And the feathery pollen stems inside the purple flowers would, after being pounded, dry into the finest sapphrin. They were blossoming, verdant.

Yet these dryads dreamed of battle. Of trespassers. Of blades stained amber by torchlight, of men with nets and kin cut down.

And they dreamed of axe blades chopping deep into their own flesh.

For these twitching, still-living dryads had no heads. Each one was decapitated, planted, a vehicle only for growth. New shoots emerged from the stumps of their necks – for dryads are resilient spirits – but soon the menial gardeners would come to trim them back.

They were not allowed to grow, for dryads themselves did not produce the fruit, spices or fine edible flowers. These delicacies came from the plants grafted on to their bodies – their shoots inserted into the living bark and wood-flesh with sharp knives and sealing wax – parasites that supped from the dryads’ life force to make their branches heavy with culinary delights.

And no matter how much Wilde Kurdwen tried to fool herself in the quiet hours of night, there was no forest glade beyond this copse of headless spirits, only an obsidian wall that blocked the spirit-song.

High above, the branchwych saw the torches of warriors patrolling the battlements.

It was not a prison – it was a pleasure garden.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Nuala Kinrade.

The Garden of Mortal Delights © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. The Garden of Mortal Delights, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78999-681-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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