Chapter II
Pieter's head thundered. The throbbing pain made his head spin, and his mouth was dry. He figured he was hungover. He swore to himself never to drink again.
Then his chest seared in pain. He remembered the stigmata on his chest and looked down. There it was, a wisp of smoke leading to a circle with a dot in the center of it and a curved spike at the end. His heart leaped. Hoof beats thundered nearby, coming closer to his hut. They passed and Pieter relaxed.
He threw on his shirt and went outside. A few of the knights had ridden past from the forest. One of them dumped a mutated body in the village square. It was somewhat shaped like a muscular man, save the horned head and the hooves. He nervously approached it. It's head was that of an elk, but it's hands were those of a man. It's eyes stared at him from deaths embrace, never to see again.
But the thing that caught Pieter's gaze was the mark on it's arm. The same mark that was emblazoned on his chest. Was this his fate? To become an animal like parody of man? He shuddered at the thought of being chased through the forest.
"Good start eh ratty?" Pieter hadn't noticed the knight walk to him. "Yeah, we'll kill the lot of 'em"
"Good," Said Pieter, lost in his own thoughts. He almost reached for his temple to check for horns.
"You work on the farms on the outskirts yeah?" The knight asked.
"Yeah, almost me hole life," said Pieter. "Why?"
"Well given the circumstances, we're ordering the people to stay in the town limits, it's not going to be enforced, but you probably don't want an arrow shaft in your neck."
"But the food?" Famines were not appreciated in the village and those responsible were usually run out of town.
"Rations will be brought from the Reik on a caravan." The knight stated.
Pieter looked around, he didn't know what to do. Ever since he was young, he'd work in the field and go home or the tavern. Now he was without work, and he had nothing to keep him busy. So naturally his thoughts went to the symbol on his chest. He started to shake, and the edge of his vision grew fuzzy.
The knight looked at him, "You all right boy?"
Pieter regained some composure. "I'm fine." He was able to mumble.
The knight tossed him a silver coin. "Here this'll hold you up until you can find a new job, or at least get you drunk enough to forget your troubles."
Pieter took the coin greedily. Then he managed to coax his legs into carrying him away. The tavern was closed so drinking himself dizzy wasn't an option at the moment. The rest of the village was really boring to him he realized. The tavern, his hut, and the fields were usually where he went. Now he wandered aimlessly looking to be entertained. Mainly he passed more huts and other small homes. He passed the granary and the mill but they held no interest to him.
Then something happened, Pieter's sight shifted. People walking by had slight fuzzy glows around their bodies. But it only happened for a split second before things went back to normal. The incident though, was enough to cause him to stop in the street and take a breathe. Some people paused to look at him and he realized how much attention he was drawing to himself..
He decided to duck inside the closest door and tried not to look like he was robbing a house. It turned out that the building was a store. An apothecary's store! But it was empty save a man sitting at the desk, his nose in a book. He hadn't even noticed Pieter, so Pieter took the chance to look around the room. It was dusty, smelled of mildew, and covered with stacks of books and jars containing plants or small animals. The man hadn't noticed him still, even though Pieter was standing in front of him.
The book the man was reading was large and written in a script Pieter had never seen before. Not that Pieter could read, but he still recognized Imperial script when he saw it. Then he saw something he did recognize on the page. A wisp of smoke leading to a circle with a smaller circle inside it ending in a curved spike. The man was reading a forbidden tome of chaos.
"That symbol," Pieter whispered. But in the still air of the shop carried the barely audible sound to the man's ears. The mans eyes snapped up and when he saw Pieter he jumped.
The man fumbled to put away the book as he shut it with a resounding boom. "You, frightened me." He stammered. "Although I am grateful for the company I'm not open, so I must ask you to leave."
He hurried round the counter and began to herd Pieter out the door. "Wait I wanted to ask you about it."
The man stopped and looked at him. He seemed to be considering the odds of Pieter turning him in. The he asked, "Why?" Pieter looked at the man and then realized that the apothecary would not be able to turn him in because Pieter had seen him reading the book with the symbol inside it. So he lifted his shirt and was rewarded with a gasp of awe from the apothecary.
"You have been blessed," he murmured. "You have the favor of the lord Tzeentch, you are chosen."
"What does that all mean?" Pieter asked. The man shuffled back around the counter and fetched the book he had been reading.
"This is one of a few tomes dedicated to the powerful gods of chaos. You bear the symbol of lord Tzeentch over your heart, you will be a great part of his plan for this world."
"I don't understand, how can this happen." Pieter was feeling sick, he was a servant of chaos, he would be hunted down and burned at the stake.
"I can see the changes have already taken to you." The man observed. Then he saw Pieter's shock and tried to correct himself. "Your eyes, have changed slightly, more like those of a creature of the night. Your whole body will change in due time to fit the great gods plans."
"What can I do? I'll be hunted as a monster, burned, destroyed completely." Pieter felt tears well up in his eyes. "I don't even know your name."
"I'm so sorry, how rude of me, my name is Otto." Otto offered his hand to Pieter who took it and they shook hands. Otto was much older and shorter than Pieter, his white hair came down to his shoulders and his gnarled hands were clasped together whenever he talked. "But belated introductions aside, you should stay here with me. It's unsafe for you to go to the tavern anymore, you could reveal anything there, and you'll look suspicious traveling back and forth from your home to my shop." Pieter was fine with living with Otto, but not being able to go to the tavern anymore was a massive strike to the face for him. "We must prepare to leave anyway." That caught Pieter off guard.
"What?" He yelled. "Leave the village! Are you insane? There's a tribe of beastmen out there!"
"Where else did you think we would go?" Pieter's jaw dropped.
