Leopold Sturnhammer walked under the make-shift sign and grimaced as his eyes fell upon the hovel that lay before him. Outside of Dorfmark was a ruin, a cesspit, after the forces of chaos had been driven back into the wastes. The people of the town had been left with nothing but a rotten shell of their former home, houses gutted and put to the flames, livestock killed, and all manner of the dead lying with their thin skinned skulls screaming to the skies. He pushed himself past a man searching a dead body, his mind thinking of judging him for the act, but returning to other things, more important things.
Leopold was a stern and vigilant man, with a thick set face. He was bald; a circlet of iron was around his brow, at its centre the hammer of his god Sigmar. He wore a similar hammer symbol around his neck on a thick chain, which clanked off of a suit of full plate armour which was fastened around his chest. A red Sudenland robe was underneath this, well fitted and clean, apart from the blood and mud which plastered the lower half of it. In one hand he held a book, thick and clasped with golden talons of bronze, in the other a hammer which he rested on his shoulder. It too was caked with blood and looked the picture of brutality resting like a hammer of the Gods.
He walked past more people sitting in the mud and trying to cook food. He could see that the people were struggling, but it was the way in which they were coping with this which was his problem. Not them. He looked up and saw a group of soldiers walking towards him. They were dressed in their town's colours, red and black, but they were looking distinctly older and duller now. One of them, the foremost wore a chest plate on his front, with a huge dent in it. He walked with a limp and a wheezing series of breath, and Leopold concluded that he must have taken a rather large blow during a fight, most likely against Chaos Warriors or Marauders. He wasn't sorry to see the back of them, and no mistake.
"You are Leopold Sturnhammer?" The lead and wheezing man said, reaching out a hand to greet him.
Leopold nodded "Warrior Priest of Sigmar at your service Captain" he bowed and took the mans hand.
"We are in desperate need of you, my name is Usten, these are what are left of my men" He pointed towards the rag-tag group of men behind him, their weapons almost so bent they wouldn't harm a woodland creature, let alone a raging beastman.
"You must take me to this witch at once" Leopold said, ignoring the soldiers and hastening to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, he had other business to attend too, not to mention his companions waiting for him at the tavern in the next town.
The Captain signalled to his soldiers and as one they escorted him through the rabble, all concerned with their own problems towards possibly the only building still standing in all of Dorfmark. The manor house was riddled with holes, arrows stuck from its roof and there was a giant ballista lodged into one of its side walls.
"What happened here?" Leopold said, looking at the manor house with both wonder it was still standing, and fear of it collapsing.
"This is where we made our last stand against the Marauders who were plaguing our lands. They came forth on the third day with other beasts and machinations of chaos and tried to take it all, but we remained in there and fought our hardest. We would have died it if wasn't for the Emperor's soldiers turning up and attacking their force from the rear. Course, they have all gone now." Usten looked annoyed at this and scuffed his boots in the dirt.
Not knowing what to say in return he followed the Captain up the steps to the house and walked through the rickety door which was barely keeping together. Inside was a mess. Tables and chairs were upended and there was a stench of what seemed like raw sewage and corpses coming from one room he passed. He did not like to look inside, but remembered he should return and burn it when he could. Usten's soldiers peeled off and went into different rooms but the Captain kept his course and Leopold followed him down a narrow corridor to a large oaken craft door set near a large staircase.
"Inside here" Usten said "I cannot go any further, the wizard has forbade anyone but you from entering. There is a witch hunter there too by the name of Fallon, he was a hell of a brute this morning so watch yourself my Lord" Usten nodded and took his leave, moving with considerable pace back down the corridor and darting into a side room without so much of a backwards glance.
Leopold shrugged his shoulders and let the book in his hands fall to his side, the chain attached grating on his plate mail as he stepped towards the large door and pushed it open. A waft of stench filled his nostrils and heat seared his eyes. He put his arm up to shield him.
"What in Sigmar's name is going on here?!" He lowered his arm just enough to see a thin man leaning over a blazing furnace, a pair of pokers in gloved hands. Beside him stood a wizard, garbed in black and seemingly unphased by the blasting heat.
The thin man, the witch hunter it seemed turned and lowered the pokers, removed his gloves and looked to the wizard beside him. The heat immediately vanished and the furnace because a pile of glowing embers.
"You must be Leopold Sturnhammer, Warrior Priest of Sigmar, ah brother is most pleasing to see you here for this occasion". He reached out with a scarred and tattooed hand and Leopold shook it quickly.
"My friend here, Wizard Valkirk here was just heating the fires so we could interrogate the woman in question, have you seen her? She is quite a rare find; my name is Fallon by the way"
Leopold walked past Fallon and Valkirk to a rack table covered in blood and burn marks.
"This seems very brutal, even for a follower of chaos. The subject would not endure enough for confession to be properly gleaned from them" Leopold looked back at the unchanged expressions on both the witch hunter and the wizards' expressions.
"Anyway" Fallon said, snapping out of his mock reverie, "We must bring the woman in, it will be most intriguing to see how she deals with the last rites delivered by a priest of her old faith".
For the first time the wizard spoke "Bring her in and lash her to the table, I cannot stand these false magic users being loose" he spat on the ground.
Fallon nodded and walked from through a side door located behind the table, much hustle and bustle was heard before the clank of chains signalled his return. He dragged with him a woman barely clothed, barely alive. She pulled on the long chains wound around his forearm, on the other end the iron clasps biting into her skeletal wrists, drawing small gouts of blood. She would once have been beautiful, Leopold surmised, but the toll of her experiences had drained her of everything. She eyed him with hope for a moment before she saw the sigils of Sigmar adorning his body.
"What is her crime, the statement?" Leopold said, pulling the book up and setting it down as Fallon lashed her to the table, an excited Valkirk beside him looking into the embers of the dying fire.
"She is accused of consorting with the ruinous powers my lord and using magic without licence. As well as this she is accused of two charges of murder, my friend Usten's own guards, her kinsmen"
Leopold looked down at his book and walked to her side, painting the hammer symbol on her dirty forehead as he did. It left a burn mark on her skin and she wailed in agony. She was truly rife with the chaos stink, but something about her was not right.
"Where is her mark?" Leopold said, looking at what was left of her body.
Fallon ripped her ragged tunic apart on her chest, revealing cracked skin across her breast and stomach, and in the middle of it a seven pointed star emblazoned in the skin, drawn with blood.
Leopold shook his head and closed the book.
"Oh my dear woman" he said, with sorrow paining his words "you did not even seek the powers you have been given did you?" he placed a hammer symbol from his pocket on her mark and it immediately began to glow and burn as tears filled her eyes.
"No…" she said, through lips so caked with tears and blood it was a struggle to talk.
Leopold turned to the others. "What spells did she cast?"
Fallon was busy with the pokers and was firing them with Valkirk.
"Oh, yes, she created food from nothing. And when she was confronted by the guards she killed them both with a chilling mist which chocked them to death, she ran from the scene and was only apprehended after I was sent for and my friend here" Fallon went back to the pokers.
Leopold knew full well this woman had had no knowledge of the power within her. She had found this new gift, not realising that it was sent from the dark gods and had used it for her own gain. He doubted any of the others out there would have done any different in this time and with things the way they were. That was what the dark gods wanted, to convert all those to this life of ease and plenty, with no thought of its effects you would slowly drop into greed and become evil like they. He doubted that she had even meant to kill the guards that had come for her either, a defence mechanism of the demons haunting her perhaps. That was most likely why she had all but given herself up to the witch hunter.
He knew the duty must be done.
Valkirk fired the embers and they blazed white hot, Fallon took the pokers from the coals and held the brands above the woman's body, aimed at her forehead. Leopold opened the book and began his chants.
With a searing sound of burning, melting flesh Fallon pressed the brand into her skull, imprinting the name 'SIGMAR' into her skin. She screamed and wailed like a banshee possessed, her soul becoming the play thing of both the dark gods and the righteous Sigmar. Leopold attempted to ease her passing, chanting louder to block out her screams and wails and then, she lay still.
Valkirk let the fire die down. "Another hedge wizard, follower of those chaos filth dead, good riddance".
Leopold wondered if they had taken the time to understand the woman maybe they would not be so void of feeling at her passing, but he did not raise such a question, would be seen as heresy just the same, even as a priest of Sigmar by the crazed zealots of the witch hunters. There was very little difference in his mind between a man like Fallon and the maniac flagellants that stalked the Old World talking of the end of the Empire.
"You must burn the body" Leopold said, looking into her vacant eyes and noticing that the evil symbol on her body had all but vanished, replaced by a burnt hammer sign. "If you do not, then the foul gods will claim the use of her body. If she was a vessel for magic then her body will still harbour some of its stench and if claimed she will not enter Morr's garden. And give her a proper burial" he said, adding this as he imagined Fallon just throwing her out of the back window.
He left the two to their business, both of them engrossed in the body before them and walked back out of the manor house. Usten was waiting for him with the handful of guards. He had a grim look on his face, as did a collection of beggars behind him, all grabbing at the guards and asking for money. It was no wonder the dark gods were winning such favour here.
"It is done" Leopold said, as Usten joined him walking back out of the ruins of the town. "I will be on my way, and have left instruction with Fallon and Valkirk as to what to do with the body."
Usten nodded "Did she die quickly?" he asked, trying to keep up with Leopold's stride.
Leopold looked at the captain with puzzlement. "No, she died in agony as her soul was torn between good and evil a most unpleasant death."
Usten's eyes filled with tears and Leopold could sense that he had felt it was unjustified and end to the young woman's life as he did. He put a hand on the captain's shoulder as they both passed under the cracked and broken sign.
"Sigmar will protect you in this place, you mark my words. But I must hasten to my comrades in arms and battle what is left of this blight in our lands. Be strong and righteous young captain, and do not let the words of those fanatics hinder your good deeds here, you do all you can I can plainly see."
"Your thanks is appreciated Leopold, we will await your return some day when we rebuild what is left." He saluted with the crossing of the hammer on his chest and retreated back to his men.
Leopold looked back at the almost shanty town before him. If this was their reward for defeating the hordes of chaos, then he did not want to know the outcome if they had lost. There would be many more towns like Dorfmark he warranted on the road ahead.
Ben Shaw