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Vipers of the Marsh – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Vipers of the Marsh

Bryce Mainville

Mattias was certain they were lost.

They hadn’t passed a memorable landmark for hours. Nothing but dense walls of reeds. He’d lost count of how many times he’d nearly twisted an ankle. He couldn’t even slip into a mindless shuffle, as swarming, biting insects dogged their every step.

The man leading Mattias and the other recruits did not seem lost. Major Evins, a straight-backed young officer not much older than himself, moved confidently, consulting at times a water-wrinkled notebook he kept in his overcloak. His boots, Mattias noticed, were cleaner than any of his comrades’, somehow missing every spongy patch of humus they seemed incapable of avoiding.

And no one was worse off than Mattias’ cousin. Jakk, irate and mud-splattered, grumbled endlessly beside him. She was everything he was not – large, broad-shouldered, with jet-black hair. He was blond, thin, almost two heads shorter; their mothers had jokingly called them Big Dog and Little Dog since they were children.

‘He’s leading us in circles,’ she said. ‘Trying to scare us.’

‘Are you feeling scared?’ Mattias asked.

‘No – look, you’re a Barony boy. Swamp in the blood, all that nonsense. But I didn’t sign up to go camping.’

‘Quiet back there,’ Evins chided without turning.

Jakk went back to muttering. Mattias, however, needed no reminding. The marsh had worn him down within the first few minutes. His heart kept racing, his vision blurring. Marsh terror, they called it. Mattias was a townsman, had spent his whole life in Elzach, one of the walled fortress-towns atop the colossal terrapins the Barony rode upon. To him, the marshes had always been a scenic tableau beyond the high walls, a landscape familiar and repetitive. But now, hours deep, there was nothing familiar, and it frightened him.

The Green Vipers. One of the Barony’s most celebrated Wildercorps. It was an honour to be even considered. To be plucked from regular Freeguild training and funnelled to the corps meant you had something they wanted. But Mattias, who’d never before walked without the comforting clack of the terrapin’s shell beneath his shoes, had no idea what that something was. Nor did he have any idea why Jakk had been chosen alongside him. She hailed from a recently transplanted Azyrite branch of the family, and seemed even less suitable than he.

‘We are lost!’ She’d finally boiled over and confronted Evins. ‘No sense of direction–’

‘Stop yelling–’

‘–bugs everywhere, my boots all full of slime, and we’re tromping about like drunks trying to find the nearest oystermonger–’

Evins let out a whistle that quieted her. He drew a handheld crossbow and trained it on the cat’s tails beside the trail. ‘Weapons.’

The recruits drew their knives, breath held. The only sound the buzzing of flies.

Shapes burst forth from the reeds.

Evins’ crossbow hummed and something shrieked. ‘Gnashtoofs!’

Mattias was unprepared – he had only ever seen drawings of them. Each was a horrible cross of vermin and canine, standing as tall as his waist and covered in slick, oily fur pocked by mange. One bit the bracer around Mattias’ wrist and gnawed. He struggled to fight it off. The creatures let out ear-piercing whines, and coughing sounds they made by raking their teeth together. He saw another recruit go down with one at their throat.

A gnashtoof knocked Mattias to the ground and went for his face. He barely got his knife up in time to block the bite. He grabbed for a rock and slammed it against the side of the creature’s head, which only enraged it further. Panic robbed his limbs of coordination. He heard screaming and realised it was himself.

‘Mattias!’ Jakk roared, dragging the gnashtoof off him, only for it to attack her. Of the six recruits, three were already dead. Evins fended off two creatures at once with his longsword, but even he would soon be overwhelmed. Another gnashtoof gave up mutilating a fallen recruit and turned towards Mattias. Nowhere to go, nowhere to flee, except endless marsh. This would be a speedier end than anything out there.

Just as the creature prepared to pounce, something lifted it off its feet and slammed it down.

A mastiff. The monster clawed the dog but couldn’t penetrate its thick hide. The trailhound bit down – not on the neck, but the top of the skull, crushing the gnashtoof’s brain. As soon as its enemy went limp, the dog let go and rushed another.

Mattias saw hounds tearing into gnashtoofs all around him. He scrambled out of the way as a dog and its opponent went rolling into the water, savaging one another. It was over in seconds – facing a numerically superior foe, the creatures fled. A few trailhounds made impetuous half-charges, but a sharp whistle made them stop.

Another ranger had appeared. He was a large man, his face disfigured by countless injuries into a misshapen grotesque. He nodded at Evins. ‘You’re late.’

‘You’re early, Houndmaster Gustav,’ Evins said. ‘Rangers, carry the dead.’

Mattias startled as figures emerged from the reeds. Scouts in the dark greens and blacks of the corps, carrying crossbows.

‘You heard him,’ Gustav said. ‘We don’t leave ’em for the orruks to find.’

Jakk came up to Mattias, panting, swiping mud from her face. ‘You all right?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t think you’re cut out for this?’ He knew from her voice, the tremor under the bravado, that she was asking for the both of them.

Before he could answer, Gustav bid them pick up what remained of one of the recruits and get moving.

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2025 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Alex Boyd.

Vipers of the Marsh © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2025. Vipers of the Marsh, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-83609-249-0

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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