The tide rolled in softly, the cove had a natural breakwater in the form of an island that sat almost exactly in the middle of the two ends of its crescent shape.
The ship that was there rolled with them. Its massive anchor chain held it to the shore. The ground was dead where the chain ran to a massive tree. It was bound around the tree many times. Carcingetorix didn't want his ship going off anywhere without him.
The virulent ooze that seeped into the water from the ship had ruined the land around it. The trees had all died and the grass that grew there was stunted, mutated and foul smelling.
The contagion had stopped spreading though and the ship almost seemed to be inert. The tittering that could be heard on board before had stopped now. Carcingetorix had been gone for three weeks. The Sylvaneth watched and waited for his return. If he did come back, they would be ready.
What disturbed them now wasn't Carcingetorix though, it was another enemy. The movement of this warband had been leisurely through the wooded realm. It meandered this way and that but the Spirit of Durthu had recognized that the meandering was not aimless and that their ultimate goal was the plague ship.
Whatever the Slaanesh warband had planned, Durthu was determined to bring those plans to a screeching halt.
Softly did the movements through the trees seem at first, a rustle of leaves that could have been mistaken for the wind. Only the most observant would have noticed that the wind, where it blew, would have moved the leaves in a different direction.
The movements grew in strength and from small groves of trees shapes emerged, manlike from a distance but nothing like a man to the touch. Rough bark, hard woody skin, claws of sharped thorns or blades made from the hardest wood, they emerged and moved to the defense of the ship from this cavorting host.
But one moved among them who could not, at any distance, be mistaken for a man. He strode through the clearings as tall as the trees around them. Durthu stood proud and unleashed his anger on the forces of the God of Pleasure.
As the two forces started towards each other, alternately whispering and shrieking their incantations, two sorcerers caused the very air to distort. As the air became iridescent they shot the material components of the spell into the disruption. As the drops passed through the parallax and landed on the ground their pearl-white colour darkened and grew. From each of six small pools grew a Daemonnette and they joined the line of their patron's followers and charged towards the Sylvaneth defenders.
Battle was joined most violently.
The chariot swung through the trees and smashed straight into the Treeman. He brought his sword down on the vehicle as it came on shattering it and although he suffered two deep gashes from the collision, he strode away unhindered.
Mollybdim slipped past him towards the ship. Could he just unleash the chain he would be able to set the ship afloat. Carcingetorix had caused enough problems in this area that the enemy was focused on him. Mollybdim had used this distraction to his own advantage. It allowed his smaller warband to carry out their plans. He knew that Carcingetorix was heading back to his ship. If it wasn't here, the distraction would continue.
The forest spirits were battling against his cavalry and he decided to help his men and skewer some of these tree creatures.
Faster even than the Lord of Slaanesh the dryads turned on him and with the raking of claws they brought down his beast. He was thrown the ground. As he tried to rise the very roots were coming out of the ground and holding him in place.
One of the dryads yanked off his helm, then thrust her limb at the open mouth of the champion of Chaos. The branch like army grew down his throat and he thrashed about as the woody claws tore apart his internal organs before withdrawing leaving him lifeless, blood pouring from the mouth now open unnaturally wide.
Where Mollybdim's followers met the enemy their fate was not much different from that of their master. The Tree-revenants blades cut through cavorting marauders after cavorting marauder, their fluid movements belied their wood-like appearance.
The fighting was having another effect though. A small giggle could be heard from the ship, or could have been if anyone were close enough.
The slow drip of the ooze now increased from one drop every minute or so to two.
As the fighting wore on, the flow increased as did the amount and volume of the giggling.
Viagriss danced and sang and shrieked and a malevolent aura flowed out of his open mouth and settled on the Slaaneshi cavalry. Seeing their Lord killed by the dryads drove them into a frenzy and they hacked and slashed, soon the ground was littered with bark and shards of wood.
Durthu saw the last of Dryads disappear beneath the bladed arms of the Hellstriders and came to avenge them.
The damonic beasts ridden by the mutated men were too quick for the Treeman though and as he raged they picked at him, soon sap was flowing from a variety of small wounds and Durthu had slowed noticeably.
As the song of the treeman echoed through the woods, the leaves were rustling intensely again and more creatures emerged from the woods.
Lord Viagriss fled from these new assailants. He was able to summon more daemonic help, which assisted his flight.
Durthu managed to dispatch the last of the chaos cavalry and turned towards the biggest threat, a Daemon champion astride a beast was pulling at the chain.
More Sylvaneth emerged from the treeline and poured into the fighting. Bodies littered the battlefield. Durthu himself dispatched the last of the mortal followers of Slaanesh save for the sorcerer Larisam Sollux Destrine.
Just as he was free of those enemies though, Durthu was beset by more of the sharp clawed Daemons that were almost all that remained of the chaos host. Their sharp claws ripped into his legs, bringing the treeman to his knees. One of the inhumanely quick creatures gracefully moved up his arm and sunk her claw deep into the head of the treeman who fell over backwards, his legs snapping at the knee where he doubled over on them to move no more.
The entire time the ground had become more pestilential and boggy as the effluvium of the ship saturated further and further into the shore.
Troops had been swallowed up by the morass.
Larisam saw chain and ship start moving off away from the shore. The tree that was its mooring had collapsed and the retreating tide was drawing the ship back out to sea.
Larisam Sollux Destrine looked about him. Mollybdim's warband was shattered. A few of them men had run, but most lay dead on the ground.
Seeing more of the tree-creatures emerging from the wood, he decided that he might try to find those that had run away after all. The job here was done.
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