Author's Notes: Hey everyone, glad you liked the last chapter, hope you like this one as well.

Fortunately the fall was not bad as Karl had feared it would be. The waterfall was not, in fact, one large waterfall but a series of smaller ones. So while they suffered a number bruises there were no broken bones. Indeed they seemed to be in greater danger of drowning. At last they reached a pool where the current to the next fall was weak enough that Karl was able to paddle to the bank and haul them out.

By now night had fallen; fortunately with his wolf eyes he was able to soon find a small cave. He quickly searched the cave but found no trace of anything in it that could be a threat. He returned to where he had laid Wilhelmina, who was just starting to stir and groan. Picking her up he carried her back to the cave.

First he laid her down in the cave; he then went outside and shook himself vigorously, trying to shake the excess water from his fur. Returning to the cave he saw that Wilhelmina was awake. She was sitting up and rubbing her head.

"What happened?" She asked. In his wolven form he could not answer. "Oh, right." She said; she started to chuckle then stopped with a pained hiss and rubbed her head. "Sigmar, my head hurts. Well, first things first."

She got up and went out of the cave. With Karl's help she gathered up branches and smaller twigs for tinder. They had to hurry as it was starting to rain and the wind was picking up. They returned to the cave and Wilhelmina soon had a fire going.

Even with the fire and Karl lying down in front of the entrance to block the wind the cave was still cold. For Karl, with his thick fur it wasn't too bad. For Wilhelmina, however, it was another matter. Their horses had run off with their extra clothes and hers were still soaked and she was visibly shivering. She hunched herself into a ball as close to the fire as she could, occasionally casting furtive looks at Karl.

At last she seemed to come to a decision. Taking a deep breath she stood up and, before Karl's startled gaze, took off first her boots and then her cloths. Flushing furiously she spread her cloths out in front of the fire to dry. Karl had always thought she was rather androgynous, a view reinforced now. Without her cloths she was almost as skinny and flat as a boy.

Still blushing while covering herself she walked over to Karl. To his amazement and immense embarrassment she lay down beside him facing him and snuggled up as close as she could, burying herself in his fur.

"This never happened," she said; "And if you ever speak of this I will personally send you to the next life, regardless of whither Marx approves or not. And this doesn't mean anything, I'm just cold. Oh yes, you had better still be a wolf when I wake up."

Karl, unable to speak, just nodded. Though she pressed herself as close as she could she was still shivering. She wasn't his favorite person but he did not want to see her suffer; tentatively he wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened at first but gradually relaxed.

For a while she was quiet and Karl figured she had gone to sleep. He was just drifting off to sleep himself when she spoke in a sleepy voice.

"I'm sorry I was so rude to you on the way here."

And at Altdorf, Karl thought; And Nuln and…well, every other time we've seen each other.

"I know it wasn't your fault," she continued; "It's just that…" her voice trailed off and she began to snore softly.

The next morning Karl woke to find Wilhelmina already awake and dressed. She had built the fire back up and was roasting a couple of small fish. As he rose she looked up at him; she flushed and quickly looked away. Determined not to make things any worse than they already were he squatted down and tore into one of the fish.

Determinedly looking down at her own fish Wilhelmina began to speak. "We cannot go back without completing our mission. Unfortunately we've lost all our supplies, my staff and sword and both your swords; not to mention our horses.

"Still we may be able to turn this to our advantage. Our mistake was the way we went about things. We went straight in without any reconnaissance or knowledge of what we were facing. That was stupid; Marx would never have made a mistake like that.

"Ortlieb was obviously not in the village but he must be nearby to have intervened as quickly as he did. This time we are going to do what we should have done yesterday; we are going to sneak around that village and its charming inhabitants. Instead, we are going to search the woods around it. Something in these woods brought Ortlieb here and we are going to find out what."

As soon as they finished eating they left the cave and looked up the hills. They seemed a lot steeper and taller than they had appeared than when they had had horses. Wilhelmina seemed to be thinking the same thing because she looked at them and sighed deeply.

"Well, this may take longer than we thought."

Just then Karl got an idea. Dropping down to all fours he nodded his head towards his back. Wilhelmina looked at him an incredulous look.

"You serious?" She asked. Karl simply nodded.

She hesitated for a moment and then crawled onto his back. As he had suspected she was very light, he barely felt her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and looped her arms under his armpits and held on as tight as she could.

He gathered himself and sprang forward. Wilhelmina yelped and clutched even tighter, he was definitely going faster than their horses had been. The rough ground proved no difficulty to him; his claws dug into the ground propelling him forward, seemingly without effort. When the trees became to think he simply sprang to one tree, latching onto the bark with his claws, then springing to another tree.

By noon they were on the edge of the village. This time they did not go into the village but hung back. Karl growled deep in his throat at the smell of the ghouls, he resolved when this was all over there would be a reckoning between him and them.

"Easy, boy," Wilhelmina said, detaching one of her hands to stroke his head, a habit she had undoubtedly picked up from Marx; "Remember the plan."

Karl growled but nodded. They circled around the village without being detected; the ghouls did not seem to like the sunlight and remained hidden in the buildings. On the far side of the village they found what looked to be a trail of some kind but it had clearly been long neglected and vanished soon into the woods.

Wilhelmina slid off his back and stared at it for a moment, then turned and looked at him.

"Well, I'm not of a tracker," she then smiled. It was not her usual cruel smile but it did have a mischievous glint to it. "I do, however, have you." She pointed in the direction that the trail seemed to go in. "Go on boy, smell him out."

Karl growled but put his nose down and began sniffing. He smelled mostly the ghouls, but he did smell one living human. He followed the smell into the woods, Wilhelmina following behind. The trail vanished for long periods of time but it seemed to run in a fairly straight line.

The trail led deep into woods; the smell and sense of wrongness grew the deeper they went. Suddenly the forest gave way to a hill free of trees. Instead the top of the hill seemed to have been artificially flattened and a number of mounds raised on it.

Wilhelmina came up to him and absently rubbed his ear. "Good boy. Looks like barrows; ancient burial places from before the time of Sigmar. Fitting that Ortlieb would hide among the dead. Come, necromantic powers are weaker during the day." Karl started forward but she stopped him.

She began to chant in a language he did not recognize; the air around them became hazy and seemed to grow heavy, it was if they were standing in a heavy fog.

"There," she said when she was finished; "It's a spell of concealment. I doubt that it will stop Ortlieb if he puts his mind to it but it should protect us from him sensing us if he isn't really looking, not to mention the ghouls and any other servants he may have."

At her nod they moved up the hill, the fog moving to continue to surround them. The scent brought them to a barrow located near the center of the mounds. Though the entrance was sealed it had clearly been opened and reclosed recently. Wilhelmina went to the entrance and began to mutter. After a few moments she stopped and turned to face Karl.

"Good, there were wards placed on the door but he obviously broke them when he came here and he did not bother to place new ones."

Karl placed the door open and they headed in. They went down a passageway which was decorated on both sides with faded paintings of the life of the man buried in the barrow. Though it was extremely dark Karl kept following the scent. In spite of his fears they did not meet anyone, or anything, along the way.

As they went in deeper they began to hear the sound of someone moving about and muttering to himself. As they walked on the passage began to slope downward. Karl became aware of a faint glow ahead. The farther they went the brighter the glow became. And the clearer the muttering began.

At last they came to the entrance of a large chamber. In the center of the room was a stone slab on which lay a badly decayed corpse garbed in ancient armor. Along the sides of the chamber were rows of skeletons, each armed and armor; though not as elaborate as the body on the slab.

In the space between the stone and the skeletons a man was drawing a circle, there was another around the slab on which the body lay. He was a thin man of medium height dressed in robes of either black or dark purple. His head was shaved and covered with tattoos. As they neared the entrance his head shot up and he stared in their direction.

"I sense you, who's there? Show yourself!"

He snatched up his staff, which resembled a scythe, and shouted a phrase. Karl shivered as if a cold wind was blowing and the fog around them vanished. Ortlieb looked at them and then laughed.

"You, didn't my servants humiliate enough last time? Go away; I have more important things to do than play with a little girl and her puppy!"

Wilhelmina's face flamed and she spat out a phrase of her own. Again the shadows formed daggers that shot towards the necromancer. He waved his arms and chanted rapidly. The daggers vanished and he began hissing out a phrase that made Karl's ears hurt. To his horror he saw the skeletons begin to stir and start to rise.

Wilhelmina saw it as. "Attack!" She yelled at Karl.

Karl sprang forward toward the fallen wizard. Ortlieb saw him coming; he screamed and swung his scythe-staff at Karl. Karl yelped in pain as the blade buried itself deep into his side. Ignoring the pain he bore Ortlieb to the ground and prepared to tear the man's throat out.

"Wait!" Wilhelmina called, stopping him just as Karl was about to bite down.

Growling in anger Karl never the less did as commanded. She walked up to the two and glared down at the necromancer. Out of the corner of his eye Karl saw the skeletons fall back down as the spell Ortlieb had begun was undone by Karl's interruption.

"Why? Why did you break your vows and seek to harm the very people you swore you would protect?" Ortlieb glared up at her.

"Why do you think you stupid girl? The power was there, it called to me. Why should I refuse it? What do I care for the people of the Empire? Stupid, superstitious, muck-farming oafs who for the most part who can't even write their own names! Who would have us all burnt in an instant at the slightest provocation from the priests or any doom-declaring lunatic who comes along!

"For more than twenty years I served. I endured pain and suffering the likes you cannot even begin to imagine! And yet what thanks did I receive? None! It will be the same for you here. You've beaten me and I am sure your about to kill me but we both know no one will thank you for this; or any of the other sacrifices wizards make. The question isn't why I did what I did; it's why everyone from the colleges don't do the same?"

Wilhelmina just looked at him for a moment. Then her face became a mask of hate so fierce that both Karl and the necromancer flinched.

"That's it? You betrayed humanity and damned your soul because people did not appreciate you? How pathetic! If they were so far beneath you why would you care one way or another what they think?

"You are right. I will receive no official thanks for what I do here and I don't care. I don't do it for the fickle love of people who are very much as you describe." She leaned in and gave a smile so cold that Karl could swear he felt ice forming. "I do it because I hate people like you."

She turned and picked up Ortlieb's staff, which had fallen to the side and with a sound of surprise her own which he had clearly brought with him.

"Ah, my staff, my thanks for keeping it safe; and you are wrong. I am not going to kill you and neither is the beast. With a sudden gesture bands of shadow appeared and wrapped around his mouth and pinned his hands to the floor.

"We're leaving, come," she said to Karl. Confused he rose and followed her. At the entrance to the chamber she turned and looked back; "One thing Ortlieb. Your knowledge of necromancy is doubtless greater than mine but I am not completely ignorant of it. I do, for example, know what the purpose of that circle you were drawing was for, as well as the one you did." She smirked at the terror in his eyes. She then calmly walked to the first circle and scratched part of it out. She turned to look at Karl.

"The one he was working on was to bind the lord of this place to his will and the first was to hold him till then as I just undid it I suggest we get going."

Just then Karl heard a sound from the slab. Looking at it he saw to his horror that the body was beginning to rise. They ran for the entrance as fast as they could but it was not fast enough to not hear it utter a single word, a word loaded with age and hate though it was barely more than a whisper.

"Defiler!"

Author's Notes: Hey everyone hope you liked it, not quite what I was planning but there you go. Will try to update soon. Till then please pray for the Americans in Iran and the victims of the weather in the US and the Philippians and the runaway girl in Nevada and all who need it. Till then may Jesus bless you all.