136 Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six – Wrath of the Raven King (1/2)

Most onlookers would call them raven's wings. They were iridescent black, sized to be of neo-angelic proportions, a comparison that would have generated nothing but ire from their owner.

Ire was driving him now, as those wings performed like those of an owl, and he glided down into the camp of the Warpband below.

Whether Warped beast-men mutants or soul-selling fanatics, they were all humans to him. Even though they all presaged the end of civilization, these Warped were still abominations, filth upon the purity of the land, fit only to be cleansed away with their puppet master gods.

He pulled a short spear from his back, face momentarily twisting.

'Spears do double damage on a charge. Swords do not.'

Such an irritating Hagchild. He was remembering her comments in passing even now.

The sentry took his spear in the neck, incidentally silencing any cries he might make. Noir Rabe, the Erlking of the Sidhete, lifted him off the ground, dropped him just as quickly, and flit his wings once, proceeding to the next guard.

The Warped seemed to have little actual needs in the way of baggage and supplies. They had no train of food and water trailing behind them, the few wagons they had carrying more in the way of weapon and armor repair, some plunder, and trophies of war.

Not that they passed up eating. He had seen them heartily consume whatever fell to them, animal, humanoid, monstrous beast, they cared not, and roasted and ate them all.

They were also perfectly happy to eat one another if someone showed weakness and the urge overtook them. They showed no restraints in their habits, taking pleasure in ****, torture, brutal fights for status and weapons.

As a Fey, he saw nothing wrong with such actions, merely another way of living true to the spirit of Chaos, and these insane fellows were certainly emblems of Chaos, free will, refusing to acknowledge the rights and laws set down by others beyond their writ.

Save that they truly had no will, being slaves to the gods of the Warp. Instead of being representative of Chaos, they were merely pawns to greater beings, with no true choice left to them at all.

False Chaos, giving up their wills for power, puppets to be reaved and slain.

And they had brought this False Chaos here, to the Forest of the Fey, the Sidhete.

Another sentry died in silence, his corrupted body thrown to the grasses. Noir Rabe winged his way to the next.

He marveled at the changes in his thoughts brought by the Crown he now wore, focusing his ire and rage in a different direction then he had known all his existence. The corruption borne by these... things below him was as revolting as he'd once found the advance of human cities and farms.

Perhaps they were the same, representing influence and spheres of power, of the Divine and the Mortal, to be resisted as long as possible by the Fey.

Whether the Gods of the Warp were truly divine or not, they were outsiders, and they brought them an end to the Dream of the Fey.

With a grunt, another stinking, tentacle-armed sentry fell, covered by the night wind between the trees.

He gained altitude, flicking off the blood and gore from the razor-sharp wooden length of his spear, stowing it in the Quiver made by his Queen, pulling out his Bow.

The Warped brought few tents, only their commanders deigned to use them for their matters and personal amusements... and their spellcasters, of course.

They were naturally the most suitable recipients of his wrath. His arms rose, and the forest writhed.

Roots exploded in size, bushes and creepers flowed like serpents everywhere, sprouting thorns and nettles. Weeds intertwined, branches closed overhead like a looming net, saplings ruptured out of the soil and stabbed for the closed sky overhead.

The cries were just starting to rise as the entire force of Warped, everything within three hundred paces of him, found themselves caught in the center of a choking, overgrown landscape of rampant vegetation.

One, two three of the trees below rumbled to life, and began to swing at everything moving around them, pulping the half-pinned Warped to pulp with mighty blows.

Another gesture, and Old Weathered, the spirit of his faithful treant retainer, materialized below, among those ruptured tents, and another two trees nearby instantly came to life at the treant's command.

He pointed, and the senior shaman of these invading things looked up, feeling the magic swelling, and had just enough time to recognize the spots of gold up there in the night as eyes when the Word came to his ears. The finger pointed, and Death clenched his heart in a black fist and squeezed it tight.

He fell with a final gasp, heart's blood spewing from his mouth.

At his call, four mighty Earth Elementals rose up from the stone and dirt of the forest floor, liberally girt in vines and creepers, roughly Jotunish forms moving through the plants without disturbing a one. Anything moving on the earth was an infallible target for them, and the grinding, coarse rumble of their movements was a cry in Geoic of war and delight, for the Elementals could feel the corruption upon these creatures as clearly as any mage.