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The Low Road – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Low Road

Evan Dicken

Alarielle’s song filled the air. Normally the gentle chorus of growing things would have calmed Branchwych Shikal, but her anger burned hot and bright as a wildfire.

‘Why were we not summoned?’ She jerked her head like a stag in spring. ‘Does Kuonor not believe our kind capable of battle?’

‘You know that is not true, sister.’ Aletha’s steady contralto threaded Shikal’s aggrieved refrain, nudging her voice back into harmony. The old Branchwraith reached out a hand to touch Shikal’s shoulder.

‘This grove is young, our foothold in Ghur still precarious. We must deepen the roots.’

Aletha spoke wisdom, but Shikal was in no mood to hear it. Even now, the subtle thrum of Treelord Kuonor’s basso rumble spurred the martial chorus of scions and Tree-Revenants. Their warsong called to her, summoned her.

‘I would hear it from Kuonor before they depart.’ She took up her greenwood scythe.

‘If you must.’ Aletha turned back to the young mangroves, wading down to where the other dryads waited. It was high tide, and the thrashing gyre of the Krakensea sent waves lapping over the muddy patchwork of sedge and snakegrass to the upland marsh where the grove stood.

Drawn by Shikal’s outburst, a swarm of twigling imps filled the boughs of a gnarled mangrove, plucking up dead leaves and brush to pelt the circle of dryads below. They ignored the spites, hands linked as their voices spread along root and trunk, helping the grove grow deeper, stronger.

Several of the tiny, twist-limbed twiglings had managed to lift a particularly substantial bit of driftwood, and were even now wrangling it into place above Aletha’s head.

Shikal knocked it from the air with a quick swipe of her scythe. The move unleashed a torrent of chattering rebuke from the imps, but Shikal paid them no mind. Mischief was simply the nature of such spites, their tiny, fluting voices adding notes of whimsy to Alarielle’s chorus.

She picked her way across the copse, careful not to disturb the brackish, silt-choked waters beneath. Time and tide might shift the salt marsh, but Shikal never would.

The Sylvaneth were a guiding hand, not a grasping one.

‘A horde of Ironjawz orruks gathers upon the Bruteplains. We make for the greenhold.’

Shikal heard Kuonor’s deep echo long before she reached the grove’s centre. One of the more ancient Treelords, Kuonor had sprung forth in Ghyran during the long winter. His voice came like oaken taproots, strong enough to crack stone.

Scions and Tree-Revenants filled the small clearing, girded by a wall of woven mangrove roots.

‘You have a question, little one.’ Kuonor shifted to regard her, no doubt sensing the note of discord.

With all eyes suddenly upon her, Shikal became a tree in autumn – anger scattered like fallen leaves.

She drew in a shaky breath. ‘Why was I not summoned to war?’

‘Because you are not needed there.’ The multifaceted harmonics in Kuonor’s tone dulled the sting of his response. This was not a rebuke, but a compliment. Kuonor did not need her there, he needed her here.

Their grove was small, barely a few seasons old, precariously nestled between the Krakensea and the vicious, spite-haunted expanse of the Creeping Mire. The Ironbark Greenhold sat north of the Mire, its roots deeper, stronger. If the greenhold were lost to the orruks’ fire and steel, Shikal’s grove would soon wither.

Without words, without thought, Kuonor conveyed his trust in Shikal, his belief that she could protect the grove. There was no reproach in his voice, nor among any of the wargrove who marched this day.

All this Shikal understood, Alarielle’s song moving her soul in ways words never could.

‘It is time to march.’ Kuonor’s singing cracked the ground, water swirling as root and branch stirred the murk into an eldritch gyre. Shikal could almost feel power pulse through the ley line on which the grove was situated. She lent her voice to the chorus, letting Kuonor guide the tempo and cadence to bring the realmroots into being.

Swords and spears flashed in the afternoon light. Scions led war copses of Tree-Revenants into the darkened whirlpool, sinking into the eddying muck as they travelled along the realmroot to the Ironbark Greenhold to the north. The Creeping Mire was a terrible, trackless place, dangerous for even spirits of martial aspect. To cross would mean facing not only the perils of such unkind ground, but also the depredations of the Spite-Revenants who dwelt within – cruel, wretched creatures, unable to hear anything save a harsh skirl of wounded malice.

At last, Kuonor himself entered the pool, his gaze never leaving Shikal. Only he possessed the power to open the path, and with his departure the grove would be alone. But there was no trepidation in the Treelord’s measured stride.

Shikal was Ironbark, she would not be uprooted.

Only when the muddy water lapped over Kuonor’s branching crown did Shikal turn away. Her voice did not possess the deep, dependable foundation of the Treelord’s, but with the mangroves themselves providing watery cadence, she took up the song, her sisters’ voices lending strength.

Shikal knew that many races sang – aelves, humans; even duardin had their deep, rumbling melodies. She had heard high hymns in Sigmarite chapels, war chants bellowed across battlefields, rough peasant odes sung in smoky taverns, but none could match the truth of Alarielle’s song.

Even other gods could not understand the beauty of true harmony, not really.

How Shikal pitied them.

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