It was only the tiniest of flaws, the slightest thing out of place on the surface of the acorn but Adrials keen eyes saw it from almost 10 feet away. The Watcher of Ways moved quickly along the forest floor and stooped to pick the nut up. The wrongness was almost shocking to him. The acorn should not have fallen this soon, it was big and on the outside it was just that one little hole. His right hand slid to his blade pulling it only three inches out of the scabbard. He sliced the acorn's skin open on the weapon then dropped the sword back into its scabbard.
With delicate fingers he pried apart the shell and then peeled back layer after layer of the flesh until he found it. It was a small worm, a sickly off white colour, tinged slightly green. Three little black eyes looked back at him. With his foot Adrials cleared an area of the forest floor and placed the acorn in the center, the viscous little worm chewed through more layers of the acorn and the Way Watcher did not take his eyes from the creature as he piled up dead leaves and small sticks around it.
With two sticks he quickly created a fire and let the leaves burn under the acorn. The creature quickly realized its predicament and went to move away from the acorn but soon Adrials had moved the fire all around it and the worm was consumed in the blaze. He stomped the fire out and ran on.
Quickly he realized that more was amiss than one acorn.
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The throne had spun for generations across endless skies. Finally it struck and landed here, it smashed into a small lump of soft ground, landing upright and ready for someone to sit on it.
Within half an hour all of the plant life on the little island was dead. In an hour fishes started to float to the surface of the water. Two days later and there was a space for 20 feet around the island which harboured no life.
It has not gone unnoticed.
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Pustus Blightspew was unscrewing the head of another tribesman pinned down and held by the dozen nurglings that carried him about on his palanquin. He enjoyed moving his blade around their neck, causing the skin to wither and rot before it, he could focus on the bone as that was usually the toughest bit. At the touch of the blade it would become brittle, the osteoclasts inside the vertibrae working overtime and the osteoblasts withering and dying at the touch of the fouled weapon. Not that Pustus knew any of the details. He just knew it was easier to pull their heads off after withering the bone a bit first. He enjoyed popping their heads off.
The trail of heads, neatly cleaved in half, the crown down on the ground exposing the brain, was easy enough to follow. The sorcerer had been reading their future in the entrails of some of the victims and he had news, exciting news, that Blightspew needed to know.
He came upon the Lord of Nurgle as he gave a slight twist to a head of one of the tribes men they had just vanquished. He heard the snapping of bone, although it seemed muted, and the sorcerer said "Lord."
Blightspew stood up and with that motion absentmindedly pulled the head from the warrior.
"What is it?" he said with the hint of a grin on his face.
"I know where the Throne Mortalis is."
The grin grew to almost cartoonish proportions.
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The armoured sabaton of the Stomcast Eternal made one final clang on the metal ground before his forward motion ceased.
"My Lord Vashta, the forces of the Blightspew are moving dramatically," said the new arrival.
Srini Vashta stood. His mind reeled with the images of the slaughtered tribesmen still haunting him.
"Where are they headed?"
"We believe that the Throne Mortalis has landed near the Haelstrom Gate, he is moving towards that location."
"Then we must move there too. To arms, quickly," said Vashta.
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The rhythmic beating of hooves on the ground was not unusual in this part of the vast forest but the stench was. A mixture of fecal matter and decaying blood marred the air and the Beastlord took notice. He strode towards the sound. In the open woods the two creatures could see each other from a good distance. The Knight rode closer to the beastman, stopping within 20 yards of the latter.
"Blightspew requires your service," said the knight.
In answer the Beastlord spat upon the ground.
"Just follow to where I ride," said the knight, wheeling his horse around and galloping off.
The Beastlord looked back over his warriors and then ran after the knight.
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Adrials could see the decay ahead of him now, but then he realized it wasn't decay. It was death, even the decay was gone, there was no foetid smell, no sweet stench in the air. That is when a sound in the distance to his left pulled him up short.
It was the sound of hooves, many of them. He caught sight of the pack of Beastmen before they saw him and loosed a stream of arrows at them, striking a few and alerting them to his presence. Some of them changed their direction now and moved towards the elf roaring as they came.
Soon he found himself surrounded by four of the largest of the herd. He moved quickly, dancing left and right to avoid the enemy blows, his blade slashed at them cutting small gashes in the huge creatures skin. It was not enough, one of their massive blades came down on him. The blow was not even on, the edge had not struck him but it was enough to send him reeling.
The next blow he did not completely avoid either. He dodged most of it but the blade of the ax cut through his armour and sent a stream of blood spewing from his side. The enemy seemed to be reinvigorated with the stench of blood in the air. As Adrials leaped over one wild swing he ran up the arm of the creature poking his blade into the creatures face was he did. The blade went into only and inch before it was yanked out. Adrials other arm had been caught by one of the creatures and he was pulled off of the other one, his blade jerked out of its hit with him.
He was slammed brutally to the ground where he lost consciousness.
The creatures left him there and moved on as the Beastlord yelled at them to move more quickly.
The forces of Nurgle moved on either side of the river. It was an unearthly thing and it unnerved Blightspew to move so close to it. There was no life in this river, no decaying matter, just death. The water worked on the living creatures pulling them apart but never was anything going to rot such was the power of death nearby. Blightspew wanted that power for himself.
His men lurched towards their goal, the throne could now be seen, its blackness almost a palpable thing even from this distance.
But they could see that they would have competition, also.
The light reflected off of the water each time the forces of Lord Celestant Srini Vasta stepped through the Maelstrom Realm Gate.
The first through were Prosecutors who flew directly across the open bay towards where they sensed the radiating death.
Both forces moved down the causeway in opposite directions.
Blightspew ordered the knights to move as quickly as possible towards the oncoming Sigmarites.
They obliged him. The Prosecutors whirled to see the knights bearing down on them, such was the fury of the charge that they did not have time to take flight to avoid it.
Vashta was right behind them, he hoped he could make it before the knights were able to destroy his men.
He was not fast enough though.
He joined the fray, plowing in among the festering horsemen. Blood and pus mixed on marshy ground as knight skewered angel and then was battered into the much in turn.
The minotaurs were driven forward by the stench of fresh blood in the air. They had been deprived of their last meal by their master, but this time they were where they needed to be and would not be denied a second time.
The Judicators opened fire on the monsters heading towards them but the arrows did little to deter the charging monsters and several of the Eternals were knocked off their feet in the collision.
Vashta, hopelessly outnumbered, fought on. Glaives swung with the force of madmen and the precision of a warrior who has had hundreds of years to perfect his craft struck the Lord Celestant's armour, one of the knights reared up on his mount and drove his weapon straight through the rear quarter of the Dracoth spilling intestines out the right haunch. Vashta jumped off of the mortally wounded creature only to suffer a similar fate as his hand was separated from the rest of his body and landed with a splash in the murky water.
Blood pouring from half a dozen wounds, the massive armoured warrior smashed his fist into the face of one of the hellish mounts, even through the armoured gauntlet he could feel the beasts bones give way as it crumpled to the ground, throwing its rider. But then the Eternal was dealt with similarly and the last sound he heard was the explosion of air from his chest as a glaive pierced back plate, lung and chest plate before emerging, glistening with gore, into the morning sunlight.
Seeing their master fall the rest of the Sigmarites charged forward with renewed vigor to stop the pestilential tide that was upon them, more of the warriors emerging from the realm gate every minute.
Foul magics could be scented on the air as the sorcerer opened a rift in reality and seven plaguebearers fell through the orifice like opening in the sky to plop into the water below. Initially sinking under they came to the surface and moved towards the black throne to drag it back with them. The water, filled with disintegrating dead fish and other animals was not easy to slog through but they made it to the mound and dragged the chair back into the water with them.
The battle raged at the bridgehead that connected the two causeways. Minotaurs were slicing their way through Liberators after dispatching all of the Judicators. More Judicators were lending the weight of their long range fire to soften up the enemy in preparation for the assault by the Retributors who were making their way to the scene of the action now.
More Prosecutors had come through and were trying to fly around the scrum on the causeway to cut off the escape of the chaos daemons with the Throne Mortalis.
The weight of the throne was not the biggest obstacle for the plaguebearers in dragging it through the thick water. Upon touching the artifact the daemons could feel their life essence draining from them. Soon one was dead, floating in the water, then another and the rest could not move the chair further.
The sorcerer cursed. 10 more feet and it would be out of the water. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the Gors were moving up on him fast. "Good," he thought, "they can move it now."
The Gors could help move it, but they would not be moving it where the sorcerer wanted it to go. The Beastlord gave a guttural yell and the lead Gor slammed his blade into the back of the sorcerer knocking him to his knees. The latter stood up, axe protruding from his back and sliced at the beastmen to keep them back.
"Betrayed! We are betrayed, kill the beastmen, kill them all!" he yelled as the beastmen stepped into the distance of his weapon and cut him down.
Blightspew could not hear. His tide of hellmites poured over the Liberators ahead of him and he followed up dispatching the Eternals with his rusted blade. Where it touched their armour the armour instantly corroded and he drove it through them. His nurgling placed his palanquin on the ground and surged over the enemy, biting and scratching, they did little damage directly. It was enough to distract the warriors making Blightspew twice as deadly.
The prosecutors dove into the Gors smashing beastman after beastman to the ground with their hammers.
Blightspew and the Blightking cut down the last of the Liberators but were charged by the Retributors who had made it to the fight at last. The fight was equally furious on each side, the blightking fell first, followed by two of the Retributors and then it was Blightspew and the Retributor prime going toe to toe. The warrior of Sigmar deftly dodged blow after blow until he saw his opening. He swung his hammer in and overhead blow while Blightspew was off balance. One of the nurglings ran up blight spews leg and leaped into the air to interdict the hammer blow. A tiny "Noooooooooooooooooo!" could be heard by those close enough.
The hammer contacted the nurgling in the air and slammed the small daemon into Blightspews body. The blow was true and the Chaos Lord's body came in half.
While Blightspew had not heard that he had been betrayed by the beastmen the Chaos knights had and they charged the minotaurs killed several and driving the rest in headlong flight down the causeway.
Now the Judicators were directly in front of them and were sending arrows flying towards the chaos forces.
The Retributor, still reeling from his fight with the Chaos lord and the Blightking was now set upon by a Spilchunks, the herald of Nurgle. He managed to connect with one might stroke against the daemon and then another, but his next swing was a moment too slow and the daemon's sword caught him under the chin. He could feel the skin wither beneath the blade only for a second before the metal of it slid into his brain and his body tumbled back into the water.
Arrows glanced off of shields and armour as the knights charged across the bridge and then they were among the Judcators, slicing with their glaives as their horses reared and plunged, kicking powerful hooves into the armour of the Sigmarites.
The prosecutors looked about them as the beastmen fled into the woods. More of the forces of chaos charged towards them, being the only thing between the Nurgle slaves and the Throne they stood bravely but were swamped by the enemy and quickly dispatched.
The warriors picked up the chair at the direction of their leader. Some died as they carried the chair out of the swamp and back across the bridge but they were more resilient than the beastmen and leaving their comrades behind them to die at the hands of the Stormcast Eternals they made their way beyond the reach of Sigmar, a new champion at their head.
