Chapter 3

The Light of Truth

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, but not restfully. When Carsten awoke from his light slumber, he offered a silent prayer to Sigmar. He turned over and shook Isolde as the sunlight occasionally dipped through the tree line and the two of them had quite a bit of business to attend to. The first of which was ensuring that they were no longer lost, and the second of which was to investigate the papers that her uncle left behind. Carsten turned to his horse and put the saddle back on the beast's back over the blanket, brushing out his horse's mane as Isolde woke up from his prompting.

"Make yourself ready to travel. We must be about our business." He said.

Isolde numbly cleaned her ax and returned to a restless sleep. It was light and she got little rest, so when he woke her, she sat up, red-eyed and tired. She nodded, rose to relieve herself behind a bush and packed up her few belonging.

"I'm ready, sir." Isolde said, determinedly not looking at the dried splatters of blood and gore from the brief fight.

"Good... We have to use the light while we can and see if we can't find the trail that leads to your uncle and fathers' cult activities. Cults don't just spring up without any outside influence. There has to be some connection beyond your father and your uncle. I aim to find out what it is." He said with a nod as he mounted up and reached down to bring her up onto the horse's back behind him. The two rode back, doing their best to remember the trail from last night, losing their way only occasionally before quickly finding it again. Once they were back to the main trail, he pulled the map out of a pocket and looked at the crossroads. "I think this is where we turned wrongly." He stated before sliding the map back into the pocket of his long duster, tapping his heels against his horse's flanks and leading the horse forward down the unexplored branch that the map indicated.

Nodding, she climbed up in the horse with his help. She settled behind him in the saddle, checking to make sure her ax was secure across her back. Isolde shivered as she remembered what she'd done with it. Swallowing hard, she held onto him, pressing her face against the Witch Hunter's broad back. Once they were back at the road, she pointed out the correct way.

"Yes. We missed that and took this way by mistake. We need to go further that way before we reach the old road," she said.

Carsten nodded to her, bringing the horse down the proper trail, heading slowly along as he approached ever closer to the X on the small hand-scrawled map. As they drew closer to the gathering place, Carsten took his horse off the trail, leading it into the underbrush and shadowed the trail, quietly leading his horse within sight of the trail, but behind the cover of the bushes that grew alongside. A growing sense of dread grew in his heart as the two of them moved along as quietly as possible.

Isolde was quiet as they rode along. The silence pressed on her nerves and she bit her lip to distract herself. She didn't really know what was going on, but she knew -something- was going to happen.

The treeline was quite thick, and ahead the trail seemed to widen far too much for a course change, indicating a clearing ahead. He stepped off the horse, dismounting with Isolde as he tied the horse to a branch of a nearby tree, withdrawing his pistol and rapier as he crept through the woods quietly and slowly.

Getting off the horse, Isolde held her axe in her hand, checking to make sure her knife was ready at her hip. Then she followed the Witch Hunter as quietly as possible. Moving very quietly for a woman of her strength.

They approached the clearing and hid under the cover of the trees and undergrowth, Carsten parting a branch ever so slightly to get a better view so he could see what was in the clearing. A large granite slab surrounded by small black stones in a wide ring dominated the clearing, the X on the map. No one seemed to be anywhere about, so Carsten stepped forward, quietly parting the branches and investigating further. Something caught his eye. Resting on the far edge of the granite slab, was a book. He approached warily, pausing as he stepped up to the edge of the circle of black stones and then cautiously moved inside the circle.

Isolde chewed her lip nervously as she crept along behind Carsten. At the edge of the clearing, her eyes opened wide.

"That wasn't there the last time I was here a few years ago," she whispered in his ear. Quickly she examined the clearing, noticing a few things. "It's not overgrown. Someone has been here recently." When he stepped out in the clearing, Isolde stayed where she was, kneeling hand on the handle of her ax.

"Someone must have been here since your father and uncle. They must have set this up and this must be the fruits of the plans with whomever they were working with." Carsten said, noting that there were more than a few blood stains on the top of the granite slab. A grisly clue as to what had happened here. He walked to the other end of the slab where the book lay and looked at the slightly moldy pages. He looked at the black ink of the writing and his eyes widened as the curves and lines of the text began to wiggle and change, altering into gibberish.

"Sorcery!" He hissed and used his pistol to flip the book shut. The book fell down from the slab with the force of the slam and fell to the ground with a thud. He glared at it, undecided on exactly what was needed here to cleanse this area. If he should destroy it himself, return for aid from Ostland's ruler, or wait to see who was maintaining this place.

Carefully she crept out into the clearing to his side. She started back at his cry of 'Sorcery!', covering her cry with a hand over her mouth.

"Oh Dadda.. you fool! Why did you have to get involved with this...," Isolde whispered, tears sparking in her eyes. To keep Carsten from seeing her tears, she turned away from the altar. The hand on her mouth stifling the sobs that began to wrack her.

"We must keep watch. Find out who was behind this with your father and uncle. This book is not harmed by the elements and was left here recently. We have to end this now and find out whatever clues we can to bring them to the Grand Theogonist so this can be investigated properly by more than just us." Carsten reasoned out. As he was deciding what to do, a snap of twigs and a rustle of braches off to the side caught his attention. Without thinking, Carsten moved to Isolde quietly and swiftly, clapping a hand over her mouth as he led her away and back toward the brush on the opposite side of the clearing. He quieted her down and held a finger up to his lips as they crouched behind several bushes.

She nodded as he spoke, crouching down, both hands over her mouth as tears ran down her cheeks. The snapping twig wasn't heard by the young woman, but she almost screamed when he grabbed her and barely managed to keep a hold of her ax as he dragged her behind a bush. Tears wet Isolde's cheeks, but she nodded at his warning and crouched behind the bush, wiping her eyes.

From the opposite side of the clearing, in the direction that the twig snapped, there stepped a large human man, holding an gnarled and twisted staff. Long nails, rail spikes, were stuck through his skin in dozens of places as obscene piercings over his half nude body. Four other figures followed him, on carrying a large familiar looking body. The four figures were in various states of dress and mutation. One had a large lobster-like claw extending from his forearm, another's skin was covered in scales. The body they carried to the altar was laid out on it. Olaf. The villager he'd killed for his nigh heretical interference the night before.

She covered her mouth again when she saw Olaf's body being brought forth. The Chaos warped cultists made Isolde want to vomit, she settled for stuffing the side of her hand in her mouth. Nauseated, she looked at her companion, the Witch Hunter.

Carsten watched with rapt attention, his single good eye focusing, taking in everything through the parted branches as the cultist with the staff looked at the book laying on the ground, frowning a bit. He studied it for a time, but merely bent to retrieve it and brought it to the slab where it had been resting before, flipping page after page.

"We have lost our brethren, but the town of Windhaven is not closed to us. But we must ensure that we are not discovered my brothers. There is one who brings fire and death in the town." He cautioned his companions as he found the page he was looking for and his lips curled into a grin, an unnaturally long grin resultant from his cheeks being split open to elongate his mouth.

Isolde crouched lower, making sure her ax blade was on the ground. As the cultist spoke, she glanced at Carsten. Not sure what he was going to do.

If there was something Carsten wanted her to do besides watch, he gave no indication. The Witch Hunter watched as the body of Olaf lay on the slab and the cultist began to speak words in a guttural and wholly unnatural tongue. Carsten's face blanched and he seemed to be made physically ill by the very sound of the words just from their inherent wrongness.

She paled. The language just felt.. wrong. Words that shouldn't be pronounceable by a human tongue fell from the cultist's mouth. The young woman gripped the handle of her ax hard enough her knuckles turned white.

Olaf's body twitched as magical energies made the hair on the back of Carsten's neck stand on end. And then Olaf's body began to change. The veins under his skin inflated, making long impressions on his skin, turning dark, almost black from the power of whatever ritual was being performed. The black stones in the ring around the granite slab seemed to glow, like polished black pearls. Olaf's body shivered and shuddered as the magic took hold of him. He arched his back on the slab and his mouth fell open in a high pitched screech.

Isolde shivered, crouching lower, hand over her mouth as she watched, horrified, the body change and warp. The urge to scream, run or vomit grew as the body twisted on the altar.

Paling, Isolde stood up and followed the Witch Hunter out. Staying behind the frightening man. Her ax held at the ready.

The large mutated cultists charged down the Witch Hunter. Carsten snarled as he drew his rapier and let them charge him down, backing up a bit so that Isolde could perhaps help him from behind as she had with the Beastmen the night before. He raised his rapier and the used it to fend off the unarmed cultists.

Backing up, Isolde crouched behind a large bush, gripping her ax in a white-knuckled grip. The cultists were a more serious threat than the Beastmen from the night and she knew she had to strike hard and accurately, or they'd both die or worse.

Thrusting and parrying and slashing with his rapier, Carsten kept the two off balance as much as he could while the third and the body of Olaf, possessed by some form of unholy energy, stood back.

Isolde stayed back and when shed thought the two cultists where thoroughly focused on Carsten, she stood and raising her ax up, stepped to the closest cultist and swung it down as hard as she could at it's upper back.

The mutated cultist cried out in pain as the ax bit deep into the abomination's back. He squirmed and his dark eyes turned on her as he twisted about before falling down, dead. His compatriot turned to this new threat and made that his last, fatal error, as Carsten ran him through, his rapier sliding into the flesh and out through his scaly chest. Carsten raised his boot even as the beast fell, and kicked out to push the creature off his blade. "The blasted sorceror! Come on!" He shouted as he dashed through the tree line toward the clearing. The sorceror, however, had fled, as had the large hulking form of Olaf, possessed as he was. The book was gone.

"Damn!" He cursed.

She cursed, hitting the downed bodies several more times. She did -not- want them getting back up, she thought as the edge of her ax severed the necks. At Carsten's shout, her head snapped up and she swore quietly as she followed the Witch Hunter. When they entered the clearing, she looked around for the sorcerer.

The clearing was bare save for the stones.

"He let his compatriots die so he could get away. We have to make sure that this site can't be used again." He said softly as he looked at the granite slab and black rock circle.

Swallowing hard, Isolde nodded. "I have a long handled forging hammer. We can use it to break the stones, or chip them." she said, wiping off her ax and avoiding looking at the butchered corpses at her feet.

Carsten and nodded to her. "Yes. Get to it. I'll do what I can." He said as he began shifting the black round stones into a pile.

Nodding, she hurried back to the horse. There she retrieved the long handled hammer. The head more like small sledge. Retying the pack, she tied it to the saddle, then ran back to the Witch Hunter and at his direction, began trying to break some of the stones.

He looked at the stone slab. "This must be destroyed as well. Do you have a chisel by chance?" Carsten asked her as he turned over toward her. The Witch Hunter turned his attention back to the granite altar. The entire ritual site had to be destroyed.

Isolde nodded, then shook her head. "I have metal chisels. No stone cutting ones. I'm a blacksmith, not a stone cutter," she said, Examining the altar stone, she lifted the hammer up high and brought it down on an edge, several inches in. she did this several times before breaking off part of it. This was repeated several times and soon she had a decent pice of a corner broken. a small part of the slab, but it was a start.

He nodded. "We'll have to -" Carsten started as the brush crashed nearby. Something large was coming through the forest. "Go... The horse!" He hissed, pushing her toward the brush as he covered their escape, jogging behind her a bit.

Isolde was beating on another corner when the brush shook and Carsten grabbed her arm. She ran in front of him, grabbing her axe as she passed it. She didn't want to be unarmed.

He pushed her ahead, keeping himself between her and whatever was crashing through the brush toward the empty clearing. Enough of the stones and the altar itself had been destroyed, so Carsten moved to the horse and mounted up, reaching down and gripping her arm to pull her up behind him. He kicked the horse's sides to get the animal moving. Neither of them wanted to be around to find out what it was moving through the woods.
Heart in her mouth, she ran to the horse. Letting him mount, then climbed up and swung in behind him. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. She did not want to fall off now.

They rode hard through the woods, making it back to the trail and riding hard toward the village of Windhaven. They had to report this to the Grand Theogonist and the Church of Sigmar. Ostland was in danger.

"Bah..." Said the guttural voice of the sorceror. The large twisted and mutated body of Olaf, more of a demon than the man he once was, towered over the ruined and nearly destroyed cult altar.

"They have set back our plans for now, but they will pay. The power of Slaanesh and Chaos Undivided will overcome them, and they will belong to us in the end." He said as Olaf opened his mouth and let out a screech in agreement.

A soft breeze blew through the clearing, slight purple mist rising off of the altar.

"Lethke..." Whispered a voice on the breeze. The cultist blinked and turned toward the altar, eyes widening.

"Wha?" He asked in confusion.

"Lethke, my servant..." Said the voice as the purple mist increased, twisting wistfully and languidly on the breeze as it coalesced.

"Ahhh... Slaanesh... My lord..." Lethke, the cultist sorceror knelt down and groveled.

"Lethke, our forces draw near, yet I sense that our preparations in the Empire are not complete." Said the hissing voice of the daemonette representing Slaanesh, manifesting in the purple mist.

"Ahhh.. A uh... A setback my lord... The proper army of hosts and slaves will be prepared when your army lands and takes the coast of Ostland. I swear it." Lethke spoke hurriedly.

"You had best not lie to our lord Slaanesh Lethke... Those who fail him are not killed, but serve for his unending delight in new forms of pain." The Daemonette spoke.

"No! No! Lord Slaanesh's army in Ostland will be prepared." He spoke nervously as the mist disappeared with the breeze.

"Our plans must be rectified to compensate for this setback..." Lethke hissed to the possessed mutated corpse of Olaf. "Come!" He shouted before turning back to the forest.

The cultist and possessed creature dashed off to undertake their foul work while Carsten and Isolde raced off into the face of an encroaching storm.