War Torn Alliances
War Torn Alliances was a narrative league for Warmachine & Hordes that took place in 2012.
Season 1: Gnarls – Tomb of the Deathless
By Aeryn Rudel
Elyshyvah stared up at the noonday sun and grimaced. She had rarely ventured this far south, and the heat of the late spring was all but intolerable. Before her lay a marshland that eventually merged with the Gnarls. Its still, brackish waters were warmed over and swarming with clouds of biting flies. To a Nyss accustomed to ice, wind, and snow, the terrain felt more hellish than any she had ever encountered. Stepping back into the shade of the forest’s edge, she let the gnarled oak branches shield her from the brunt of the sun’s glare.
Behind Elyshyvah, a dozen Nyss striders hunkered in the shade, enduring the heat without complaint. They, like she, bore the blessings of Everblight upon their flesh, though theirs were far more obvious: transfigured legs granted them swift speed, and bony barbs protruded from their limbs and faces. Elyshyvah’s blight was far subtler, with few physical manifestations beyond a pattern of purplish spots that ran from the base of her neck to the small of her back. As a battle shepherd, her gifts were more oriented toward her natural sorcerous talents and the manipulation of the Legion’s fearsome dragonspawn.
The final member of Elyshyvah’s band lurked farther back, in the deeper shadows of the forest. The nephilim stood silently, its clawed hands wrapped around the stock of an immense crossbow and its eyeless head slowly panning from side to side, seeing everything through a sense that was not quite sight.
The band had traveled from the north through the great forest the humans and trollkin called the Olgunholt and crossed the Dragon’s Tongue River, taking great pains to pass unnoticed. The servants of Everblight had many enemies this far south, and Elyshyvah’s small band would be easy prey for the well-armed groups of trollkin and humans in the area. Her small force, however, was quite skilled at getting in and out of enemy territory quickly and quietly.
Her mistress, Vayl, also known as the Consul of Everblight, had chosen her and her striders for this very reason, tasking them with infiltrating dangerous areas in search of items of keen interest to Vayl—and through her, the dragon Everblight. Because of her unique role, Elyshyvah enjoyed great latitude and autonomy, freedom that had enabled her to successfully recover several important artifacts for her mistress.
To complete her missions, Elyshyvah unfortunately often had to work with those who would be considered enemies under other circumstances. Such was the case now. Vayl had forged an alliance with a human sorceress called Fiona the Black, who knew the location of an ancient Orgoth site that both wished to explore. Elyshyvah and her band of striders had been dispatched to meet with one of the human sorceress’ subordinates. Elyshyvah knew little of Fiona the Black other than that she worshipped the human god Thamar.
“Elyshyvah,” a deep, masculine voice whispered behind her. She hadn’t heard Ryvar approach, but she was suddenly keenly aware of the strider assassin’s proximity.
Elyshyvah turned to face him, planting the butt of her battle staff in the ground before her. “What is it, Ryvar?” she asked, her tone icy.
Standing easily a foot taller than Elyshyuah, Ryvar was large by Nyss standards, even for those who bore the dragon’s blight. His limbs were corded with lean muscle and his deft, long-fingered hands were equally at home wielding his curved sword, drawing the recurved bow across his back, or strangling the life from an opponent with sheer strength alone. He and his partner, Kyryl, held a unique position among Everblight’s striders; the pair operated as a skilled assassination team tasked with slaying specific targets chosen by the dragon’s warlocks.
“We are eager to set forth,” Ryvar said in his low, hissing voice. The whispered croak was a battle souvenir from years before, when a Tharn warrior had ripped open his throat. “Vayl requires quickness of action in this matter.”
Elyshyvah’s fingers tightened around her staff. “I am aware of what Vayl requires, Ryvar,” she said. “Do not forget I have served the Consul ably for many years.”
“Of course,” Ryvar replied as he nodded slightly, one cornerof his thin lips turning up in a subtle smirk. “Althoughyou have not been so able of late.” He glanced pointedlyat Elyshyvah’s left leg. A livid scar marred the ivory fleshthere, just below the edge of her boiled-leather skirt. The Iosan warcaster Kaelyssa had inflicted the wound more than a year before. After taking part in the destruction of an
Iosan stronghold in the Thundercliff Peaks, Elyshyvah had tracked Kaelyssa to a dwarven fortress the Iosan had fled to for refuge and engaged the warcaster in single combat. The reward for her hubris had been an overwhelming defeat and a wound she would carry the rest of her days.
Even worse, her surviving striders had pulled her from the battle and taken her, feeble and shamed, before Vayl. The Consul of Everblight had not raged and threatened Elyshyvah with pain and death; Vayl had no use for such crude measures. Instead, she had simply ordered Elyshyvah to heal her wounds and had bidden her return to her duties when she was able. When Elyshyvah had later assembled her striders, she had discovered that Ryvar and Kyryl had been added to her band—their presence a subtle reminder that failure would not be tolerated a second time.
“Return to the shade, Ryvar,” Elyshyvah said. “I would not have you waste your strength in this heat before I have need of you.”
“As you wish,” Ryvar said and bowed. “When you do have need, Kyryl and I will be very close.” He then returned to his partner, who squatted at the foot of a particularly large and misshapen oak running a whetstone over the edge of her sword.
Turning her attention back to the marsh, Elyshyvah was relieved to see a dozen forms moving slowly toward her through the mire. A black-robed figure led the group, presumably Fiona’s representative.
“Melech,” Elyshyvah called out to her nephilim bolt thrower. The creature turned its great, eyeless head toward her at the sound of its name. “Come to me.” It responded immediately and moved to stand next to her. The huge dragonspawn towered over her, and its bulk filled her with pride and confidence.
Elyshyvah remained at the edge of the forest in plain sight, letting the humans wade through the muck. She wasn’t about to enter the marsh again if she didn’t have to. When they reached the sward that buffered the marsh from the forest, she turned to address her striders. “Remain here. I want bows in hand, but do not nock arrows or draw unless I give the command.” She then moved beyond the shade of the trees with Melech following.
The approaching humans wore loose-fitting shirts and trousers and were armed with pistols and an assortment of close-combat weapons, mostly basket-hilted swords and short-hafted axes. Their skin was brown and leathery from constant exposure to the sun and the salty spray of the ocean. They looked lean and hard, if somewhat undisciplined. The leader was dressed similarly to the rest, though his garb was predominately black and seemed both cleaner and of higher quality. He carried no weapon, but a priest of the dark goddess likely had other ways to defend himself.
The group halted a dozen yards away, and the man in black advanced alone. Behind him, the rest eyed the hulking form of Melech, their hands lingering on pistol butts and sword hilts. The man in black seemed completely unfazed by the nephilim, and he walked briskly in Elyshyvah’s direction.
The Thamarite’s dark hair was cropped short to the scalp, and the hair on his face had been neatly sculpted around his mouth and chin. His brow was wide and clear, and his eyes shone a vivid blue that reminded her of clear northern skies. She supposed he was comely by the standards that humans judged such things.
“You are Elyshyvah?” the man said in Aeric, his barbarous accent betraying his unfamiliarity with the language. “What tongues can you speak?”
Her grasp of human languages was limited, but she had a working knowledge of Khardic and Cygnaran. She chose the latter, for the man did not have the look of the north about him. “I am she,” she said.
“I am called Garrus,” he replied, also in Cygnaran. “My mistress bade me give you this.” He held out a folded scrap of parchment, which Elyshyvah took and opened. Scrawled on the parchment was the symbol Vayl had told her to expect: tripartite arrows on a black field. It was the symbol of the goddess Thamar, the deity whom Fiona served. It was also the sign that this was Fiona’s chosen representative.
Elyshyvah nodded and handed the parchment back to Garrus, who tucked it away beneath his robe. “You will take us to the tomb,” she said.
“I will,” Garrus said, “as long as you understand the terms.”
“The terms have not changed,” Elyshyvah said, bristling. “The sword belongs to your mistress; the tome belongs to mine.” She placed one hand on Melech’s massive, scaly forearm. “I will keep the agreement as long as you do,” she said.
“Good,” Garrus replied, ignoring Elyshyvah’s subtle threat. “Then let us proceed.”
Garrus walked a few paces behind the Nyss female and the hulking dragonspawn beside her. Her warriors, whom she had called striders, moved ahead of her in the direction he had indicated based on the encoded notes Fiona had provided him. His own men followed behind him in a ragged line. They walked abreast in small groups of three or four with all the skill one could expect of men more accustomed to the rolling decks of a ship than tangled forest depths. Still, the sea dogs were handpicked from the crew of the Ill Fortune, Fiona’s own ship, and he knew they were adept with the pistols, swords, and axes they carried.
Elyshyvah had not spoken since the two groups had begun moving south toward their goal. She and her “men” seemed quite savage. The effect of dragonblight on their bodies interested him, though, and he welcomed the rare chance to observe it up close.
Even more intriguing than the blighted Nyss was the dragonspawn that accompanied them. Garrus knew he was likely one of the few humans in western Immoren to come so close to one of the beasts and live to tell about it. Humanoid, it stood upon two wide, taloned feet, and its long, sinewy arms ended in four-fingered hands. The dragonspawn gripped a crossbow the size of a small ballista, telling Garrus it possessed intellect beyond that of a simple beast. It was a fascinating creature, and he would like nothing more than to study it in more detail—preferably on his vivisection table.
Garrus turned his thoughts back to the task at hand. Fiona had entrusted him above all others to seek out the Orgoth tomb and retrieve Harrowdim, the legendary blade reputed to be interred there. Fiona’s interest in the blade was understandable; the fell magic of the Orgoth was compelling to any who sought deeper understanding of the occult. He was honored she had chosen him to complete this task.
The trees slowly thinned, and what oaks and poplars remained were quite lifeless, their bare branches skeletal and twisted. Eventually, the terrain stood completely devoid of life. Garrus frowned, puzzled. Nothing he had been told had led him to expect this kind of devastation. Beneath their feet, the ground crunched and crackled as their tread reduced layers of detritus to grey powder. He glanced at the Nyss leader and saw that her expression was grim.
“What happened here?” she asked in Cygnaran, glancing around at the still, dead landscape.
“The Orgoth’s powerful necromantic magic could weaken and kill living things,” Garrus replied, moving up to walk beside her, “but I would have expected such energies to have faded long ago . . .” Elyshyvah nodded, but her expression remained dark, and they continued in silence.
The group soon emerged into a clearing of chalky earth from which the ragged stumps of long-dead trees thrust up like the rotting teeth of some great, decrepit beast. In the center rose a broad mound of earth and stone ringed by six rune-etched pillars, each ten or so feet in height and appearing to be of more recent construction than the ancient barrow. One side of the tomb was dominated by a dark opening outlined in black stone and so large it could easily have accommodated something twice the height of a man and several times as wide. The huge stone slab that must have sealed the tomb lay on the ground nearby. The Nyss woman growled, and Garrus himself felt a pang of dismay that the seal had been breached.
Elyshyvah gestured to one of her band, and the striders took positions around the clearing, slinging their bows in favor of their short, curved swords. The dragonspawn stayed near her. Garrus directed his own men nearer to the mound and then moved to examine one of the monoliths more closely.
Watching him, Elyshyvah said, “What of these pillars? They are not Orgoth. Do you recognize the runes?”
Garrus frowned. “They are trollkin-made. A warning, perhaps, or some kind of ward.”
“A ward? Will they bar our passage?”
Garrus shook his head. “I do not think so; they are likely meant to limit the spread of whatever energies linger here.”
Elyshyvah nodded stiffly before moving off to speak with one of her striders, a large male whom Garrus had noticed held himself apart from the rest.
“Yorvek,” Garrus called out to his group of sea dogs. A dark-skinned man with a bandolier of pistols across his chest moved to stand before him. “We’re going in, Bosun,” Garrus said. “I want torches lit and weapons ready. Choose two men to keep watch up top.”
“Aye,” Yorvek said before heading back to his men.
Garrus turned his attention back to Elyshyvah and saw that she had issued orders similar to his own. Most of the striders and her dragonspawn were moving toward the opening of the barrow mound; the remaining two striders stood near the edge of the clearing. The big male she had recently spoken with was handing her a lit torch; he appeared to be staying behind.
“I am ready,” Elyshyvah said as she approached the mound. She pointed to the entrance with her bladed staff. “You will go first.”
Garrus restrained a grimace at her obvious distrust. He himself wasn’t entirely happy with the thought of ten blighted Nyss and a dragonspawn at his back as he descended into a gloom-haunted tomb, but he doubted Elyshyvah would betray him before they had explored the barrow mound completely. He was far more concerned with the possibility of Orgoth traps. Well, he would just have to make the best of it. The Nyss would most likely trip something in their ignorance, and he couldn’t take the chance.
“Very well,” he said, “but it is vital you and your . . . people follow my instructions. The Orgoth did not look kindly on trespassers.” He took a lit torch from Yorvek and held it aloft. The scattered light revealed a steep passageway of smooth worked stone that led into the earth. The stale, musty air that wafted from the depths of the tomb smelled faintly of rot. “Stay behind me,” he said to his men over his shoulder and stepped across the threshold into the dark.
Elyshyvah sent her dragonspawn behind the humans and followed it into the darkness. She could hear its talons clicking surely against the stone floor; it had no need of a torch to see. Her striders came after her, their movements careful in the unnatural surroundings.
The procession moved slowly, a pace set by the cautious progress of the priest in the lead. Elyshyvah studied the walls of the steadily descending passage as they continued. They were bare for the most part, but occasionally she spotted what looked like more trollkin runes scrawled into the stone. Other places showed finely sculpted faces, leering and demonic. They were part of a common motif she knew to be associated with Orgoth ruins and artifacts.
Several times the group came upon skeletons lying scattered in the slanted passage, suggesting more recent intrusion. Near these and several other times, the Thamarite priest bid the others to stop as he examined the walls and their markings. Seeming to know the ways of the Orgoth and their traps, he warned them against stepping on certain stones. Several times he pushed his fingers into nearly invisible openings and prompted grinding sounds within the walls, deactivating whatever deadly surprises would have sprung upon them.
After a long period of torch-lit gloom, Elyshyvah noticed a glow ahead. The yellowish light gradually grew in intensity, spilling up the passage and casting strange, distorted shadows upon the walls. As they approached, she realized it emanated from a sizable, open chamber at the end of the passage.
Garrus and his men moved into the room without hesitation. Elyshyvah held up her right hand and raised her index and middle fingers. Behind her, she heard the striders respond to her signal by sheathing their swords and unslinging their bows. The chamber ahead looked quite large—large enough for missile fire.
As Elyshyvah moved into the circular chamber, she was stunned by its sheer size. Constructed entirely of worked stone and stretching hundreds of feet in diameter, it boasted a domed ceiling that rose 30 feet or more into the air. The ceiling was covered in strange sigils and more of the bestial faces she had seen in the passage. A massive pit containing a towering bonfire dominated the center of the room, its flames a vivid yellow that burned with unnatural brightness and without apparent fuel.
Though largely barren, the chamber featured a mammoth throne of black stone that sat on a raised dais directly across from the entrance, to the north. Scattered in front of the throne were the broken remains of dozens of skeletons. Most still clutched rusting iron weapons or cruder stone weapons and were clad in the tattered remains of clothing or armor. Upon the throne sat the mummified corpse of a large man clad in elaborate steel armor. A naked sword rested upon its knees.
Garrus and his men had begun moving toward the throne, giving the fire pit a wide berth. With Melech behind her, Elyshyvah followed. Her striders spread out along the perimeter of the chamber, bows in hand and arrows nocked.
As they neared the throne, Elyshyvah could make out more details of the ancient armor worn by its occupant. It looked decidedly Orgoth. Breastplate, greaves, and vambraces all bore grotesque humanoid faces, disturbingly elongated to accommodate the piece of armor they each adorned. A conical, open-faced helm with curling steel horns sat upon the corpse’s bowed head.
When Elyshyvah joined Garrus in front of the throne, he pointed to the great sword that rested on the Orgoth warrior’s knees and said, “That is Harrowdim.” The single-edged weapon resembled a two-handed falchion. Howling, bestial faces shifted and writhed on the blade’s surface, their tortured countenances glowing a faint acid-green.
“Then take it,” she replied.
Garrus shook his head. “I don’t think it will be so easy,” he warned. “Harrowdim is too great a prize to be unguarded.” He stared at the throne and the figure upon it, lost in thought.
Elyshyvah looked down at the skeletal remains in front of the throne. They all bore the telltale signs of violent death: cracked ribs, broken skulls, and shivered weapons. Most had clearly been there for many years, but shreds of desiccated flesh clung to the bones of a few, indicating more recent death. One of the skeletons was smaller and finer-boned than the others, and it clutched a massive tome covered in leather dyed a deep blue. Her eyes fixed knowingly on its surface, but she gave no outward sign of interest.
Garrus’ voice brought her attention back to the throne and the sword. “I see no indication of wards or traps. There must be a guardian.” He turned and scanned the walls, but his frown indicated he saw no more sign of another entrance than she did.
“A guardian, we could fight,” she said flatly. “How do we find it?”
Garrus looked at her evenly, a predatory smile on his lips. “We lure it out.”
He turned toward his men, who had kept a short distance back, and pointed to a light-haired one near the edge of the chamber. “You,” he called out. “Retrieve the sword.” The sea dog hesitated, then cursed as his fellows looked to him with darkened faces. He moved toward the throne with his pistol raised, trying not to step on any of the skeletons heaped in front of it.
When he reached the throne, the man stretched out one hand and curled his fingers around the worn leather wrap of the great sword’s hilt. Sweat was beading on his brow. He lifted the weapon, and a smile broke upon his weathered face.
Sword in hand, he turned and started back toward Garrus. He made it exactly three paces before stopping suddenly, his features twisting in agony.
“Look at the blade,” Garrus whispered.
The writhing faces along Harrowdim’s length had grown much brighter. Their lurid illumination had taken on an almost tangible quality, creeping up the sea dog’s arm in tendrils of emerald radiance. The man fell to his knees, features pinched in obvious pain as the awful green glow quickly enveloped his entire body.
Elyshyvah watched with morbid fascination as his flesh began to wither, collapsing around his bones as if the green fire that limned his body was wringing the life from his flesh. His mouth hung open and stretched wider and wider as the skin became paper-thin and pulled taut across his skull. His eyes shriveled in their sockets, collapsing inward before disappearing completely. Remarkably, he remained horribly alive as the sword greedily sucked the life from his flesh. Even after the man was reduced to nothing more than a husk, he still twitched feebly, spindly fingers wrapped around Harrowdim’s hilt. Finally, the man became still, and the sword fell from his grip and clattered to the stone floor.
The sword was glowing fiercely, and the radiance rose to a searing intensity that forced all in the room to shield their eyes. The painful illumination slowly dimmed and eventually winked out like a candle snuffed by the wind.
Elyshyvah removed her forearm from her eyes and curled her fingers reflexively around her battle staff. She immediately saw that the humans had pointed pistols at the throne, and her striders had drawn their bows, barbed arrows twinkling in the firelight. Melech hissed and raised its crossbow.
The Orgoth corpse was a corpse no longer. It stood in front of the throne, bronze skin visible in the gaps of its armor. The face that stared out from beneath its helm possessed a noble bearing, with a wide jaw, a hawkish nose, and deep-set eyes the color of onyx.
The warrior walked slowly forward and stooped at the sea dog’s remains to retrieve Harrowdim. His movement was all that was needed to break the murderous tension in the room. The muted slap of strider bowstrings striking leather vambraces sounded and was quickly followed by the thunderous roar of the sea dogs’ pistols. A hail of arrows and pistol shot struck the Orgoth warrior, driving him back a number of steps to the base of his throne, but they fell to the floor in a litter of broken shafts and flattened lead balls. The fusillade of missiles seemed to have had little effect.
The thunder of gunfire gave way to the desperate fury of reloading as the sea dogs rammed fresh cartridges into the breaches of their weapons. The striders continued to fire, smoothly nocking arrows, drawing, and releasing again and again.
The Orgoth warrior hefted Harrowdim and his wide mouth split in a feral grin. Suddenly, the deep thrum of Melech’s crossbow filled the chamber. The huge bolt struck the warrior’s breastplate, slamming him back against the throne. The projectile had penetrated armor and the flesh below, leaving nearly two feet of fletched bolt projecting from his body.
The Orgoth recovered his balance instantly. The dark rage that filled his aquiline features was ancient and terrifying. He reached up with one hand, ripped the bolt from his chest, and flung it away. He then took Harrowdim in both hands and disappeared.
A heartbeat later, Elyshyvah heard Melech screech. She turned to see the dragonspawn on its knees before the warrior, black blood pouring from a gigantic wound in its abdomen. The Orgoth’s sword flashed, and the nephilim’s head came away from its body in a spray of blood.
A burst of reprising gunfire followed Melech’s death, but the warrior had vanished again. Elyshyvah dropped her torch and whirled around in place, holding her battle staff out in front of her in a protective stance. The entire chamber had erupted into a cacophony of Nyss and human voices crying out in confusion and rage.
The warrior reappeared in the middle of a group of sea dogs, his sword flickering: once, twice, three times. Then he was gone, leaving three corpses behind. Seconds later, he appeared again on the other side of the chamber next to two striders, and Harrowdim slaked its thirst for carnage on Nyss flesh. Strider arrows and sea dog pistol shots slammed into the wall as the warrior vanished again.
Silence reigned for a moment, and then the Orgoth reappeared on his throne, Harrowdim resting once again on his knees. Rivulets of blood ran sluggishly down the gore-spattered blade and onto the warrior’s armored legs beforedripping to the stone floor.
Sea dog pistols and Nyss bows swung toward the throne, causing Elyshyvah and Garrus to cry out in near-unison in their respective tongues: “Hold your fire!”
The Orgoth warrior stared down at the figures before him, his black eyes glittering. “You dare intrude upon my court?” he asked, booming voice filling every inch of the colossal chamber. “You will pay your respects before this throne or suffer for your temerity.” He spoke Cygnaran, but in an accent unlike anything Elyshyvah had ever heard.
Garrus stepped forward and kneeled before the throne. “Forgive our intrusion, Great One,” he said, voice shaking. “We did not come seeking to rouse your ire.”
The Orgoth warrior’s gaze shifted to Elyshyvah. She felt its weight upon her as a tangible thing, a dark and stifling malevolence. “What of you, pale one?” he asked. “Too haughty to kneel before your better?”
Elyshyvah inclined her head. “I, too, mean no disrespect, but I cannot kneel before this throne,” she said, wondering if those words would be her last. “My fealty belongs to one greater even than you.”
“Greater than me?” The warrior threw back his head and laughed. “You have spine, cold one. I admire that in a slave. Kneel or stand; it makes no difference to me.”
Garrus rose to his feet. “I am called Garrus,” he said. ”The one whom I serve has sent me to treat with you. That is what brought us to your . . . hall.”
“What is it you seek?” the Orgoth inquired. “I have no treasure, and even my slaves are naught but bones now.”
Garrus, perhaps unconsciously, glanced at the shriveled corpse of the sea dog before the throne. The act did not escape the Orgoth’s attention.
“Of course, you seek the blade,” he said, placing one hand on Harrowdim’s hilt. ”I will not keep it from you.” He grasped the sword by the blade and held it out hilt-first. “Come forward and take it.”
“My mistress has much interest in Harrowdim,” Garrus admitted, though he took a step away from the throne.
“No?” the warrior said, grinning. “And you?” He pointed the hilt toward Elyshyvah.
She said nothing and simply stood still.
The warrior returned the sword to his lap and settled back into his throne. “It has been long years since anyone worthy has come seeking the sword,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Garrus asked.
“The blade has grown heavy these long years. I would be inclined to pass it on to one worthy of its power,” the warrior said. “Perhaps one of you.”
“How do I—we—prove our worth?” Garrus asked, glancing at Elyshyvah. She did not like what she saw in the human’s eyes.
The Orgoth warrior smiled, showing a neat row of perfect white teeth. “You survive.”