The battered man sat, keeping vigil while tied to a tree, as the troops marched toward the camp. Even at dusk and half a mile's distance, the Slaaneshi standard was clearly visible.

Three ragged men around the nearby campfire laughed, and another rushed back from the creek to meet their new companions. "Still thinkin' about smitin' us all and escapin', witch hunter?" one of the bandits called.

The man said nothing. As he watched the army came to a halt on the open steppe and a regiment of warriors, armor pulsing with runes and festooned with horrid fetishes, marched quickly within speaking distance of his captors. The leader, bright blue_black armor plates nearly glowing in the gathering gloom, glanced at the prisoner, and then spoke in a clear voice through his helmet. "Problems taking him?"

The bandits all bowed. "Piltch and Hosgrave, they died, milord, and…" began the chief bandit.

The Chaos Lord interrupted his underling in a calm, restrained voice. "Gif. I'm sorry. I was making a rhetorical statement just now, the idea being to elicit a confession of some kind concerning our captives distressing physical state."

Without warning the warrior snapped forward like a striking serpent, snatching the bandit chieftain's greasy hair in his left gauntlet, yanking his head back savagely as his right hand smoothly drew the short sword from it's scabbard and swept the tip to the man's adam's apple. "I will now rephrase so that you might better comprehend." he hissed. "Our prisoner looks like he was dragged behind your horses every step since Kislev. Why would that be?"

Gif silently made water down his leg, and one of his men actually began to weep. "Milord, he kilt two of my men trying to escape the first day we had 'im. He wouldn' walk or ride after that, so's we've been tyin' him to the saddle just to keep moving. An' he won't eat." The bandit was nearly pleading.

The Chaos Lord's head swiveled to the bound man. "'Won't eat?'"

"No, milord." continued Gif. "Not a mouthful to drink neither."

The warrior released his grip, dumping the bandit chieftain to the ground. He sheathed his sword, and strode to the tied captive. He stood a moment, eyes invisible behind the mask of his helm. "Yevgeny Ivanovich Kalnikoff? Witch_Hunter of Kislev?"

The man lifted his head. One eye was shut, and would probably never open again. His lips were split, as well as cracked with dehydration, and blood had crusted over his chin and down over the front of his once fine dark wool tunic. Yet somehow he managed to smile. "You know my name, Chaos Slime. Good. Better than those fools when they first met me." He motioned to the bandits with his chin. "May I have your name as well so that I might pray to Sigmar, that in his mercy, he might accept your tortuous and agonizing suffering to come as atonement, and may forgive your perverse iniquities?"

The Chaos Lord smiled slightly. "Does it really matter what my name is? I'm far beyond pardon, and I'm not seeking atonement today."

The witch hunter's remaining eye widened in surprised. Normally chaos scum took every opportunity to shout their names to the rooftops. Defiantly, threateningly, proudly, evilly, whether on the field of battle, across a tavern, or stretched on the rack, they all wanted you to know who they were. "Well," the man mumbled, thrown off his side. "I suppose it doesn't matter what you call yourself, creature of darkness."

The warrior nodded, then drew his knife, grabbed the witch hunter's collar and yanked him forward. With one swift slash, the lead rope from the tree to those binding the man's wrists was severed. Keeping hold of the man's collar, the warrior dragged him unceremoniously to the stream, dropping the witch hunter on his belly at the bank.

The warrior knelt down beside the prisoner. "You were wise not to eat or drink anything the highwaymen offered you. You never know what they might put in there. But this stream runs from your country to mine, and has no taint. Drink, Yevgeny."

He grinned. "You look thirsty."

"I seek no comfort nor solace from you, chaos vermin." began the man. "My faith in Sigmar sustains me…"

The Chaos Lord seized the collar and waist of the witch hunter's trousers, and pitched the man roughly forward into the stream. The water was only a foot deep and the current a trickle, but bound as he was, after the days of treatment he'd received, Kalnikoff was unable to turn himself over. He thrashed weakly.

After a full minute the warrior reached down and lifted the witch_hunter's head out of the water. The empire man gasped for air.

"Yevgeny, you will drink, or you will be made to drink." assured the Chaos Lord.

"Pox on you, Chaos Worm…" gasped the witch hunter.

Back down into the water. Another minute. Another. Back up out of the water.

"Yevgeny, we can wait until my men have dug their latrines. In which case I'll see you drink from that if I have to put a funnel in your mouth and pour the buckets myself. Or you can drink the water of this stream now."

"You cannot frighten me, maggot." gasped the witch hunter. "You cannot make me kneel to you."

The warrior laughed, and dragged the man back to the dry bank. "Yevgeny I'llych, I'm not here to frighten you. I'm not here to break your spirit, or corrupt you."

"Liar."

A soft chuckle came through the metal helm. "Perhaps. But today I'm just a delivery boy and lucky you, you're my package. I have to take you back north, and you have to be alive when I get there."

Kalnikoff looked up from his prone position.

"Where? Why?"

The Chaos Lord looked over to his retinue, standing attentively by the campfire. "Tell the men to make camp where they are. We'll leave at first light." he called to his Standard Bearer. He then turned back to the witch hunter.

"Where doesn't matter; too far North for you to recognize the local landmarks. As for why, well, how about that drink first? All this gabbing has made me thirsty."

The witch hunter made a sour face.

The warrior shrugged again, and reaching up, slipped off his helmet. The blue runes covering the headgear first flared, then went immediately dark upon being removed and Kalnikoff was able to gaze upon the features of his new captor. The warrior wiped the sweat from his smooth bald pate, pausing briefly to stroke the two small horns which sprouted symmetrically from his forehead. The bright blue, almost merry eyes looked down with amusement from above sharp cheekbones as the last of the sunlight flickered across the whirling loops and curves of the scars forming the Slaaneshi symbol across his left cheek. The warrior bent down to the creek, and swept handful after handful of water up into his mouth, his gaze never moving from the prone witch hunter.

Sated, the warrior smiled. "Mmm. Tasty and refreshing. Now understand, Yevgeny, there's nothing personal about this, but I mean to get you to where we're going. And that means I won't let you die of dehydration along the way. So when I said the stream or the latrine, I assure you I mean it. Now, which was it you would prefer?"

The witch hunter smiled. "Untie my hands, so that I might drink for myself."

The warrior smiled. "Of course." He walked over to the man on the ground, drew his knife, and leaned down. Then he straightened. "Oh, right. I nearly forgot."

The Chaos Lord drew back his heavy boot and kicked the witch hunter on the side of the left leg. The knee gave with a sickening pop. The pain was so intense, Kalnikoff blacked out for a moment.

When he came to, gritting his teeth to hold back the howls, he found that the bonds around his wrists had been severed, and that the chaos warrior was walking slowly back toward the campfire. "You can wash yourself up after that drink, if you'd like Yevgeny." he called back over his shoulder. "Just don't wander off too far. Lots of bad things lurking out there in the dark."

The witch hunter of Kislev had traveled perhaps two hundred yards downstream in the hour since the Chaos Lord had left him when soldiers on picket duty had found his crawling form and brought him back to the campfire. An army camp had quickly been set up in the pastureland, several hundred battle_ seasoned men all eating, bedding down, or maintaining equipment. The Chaos Lord, two of his trusted aides, one in armor and one clad in robes, and the four bandits were sitting around the fire pit when the prisoner was returned.

"So glad you finally decided to join us, Yevgeny." welcomed the Chaos Lord. "Would you like something to eat to go with that drink?" The warrior motioned to large plates of meat and bread laid out nearby.

The witch hunter wobbled on one leg, but managed to stand. "If I say no, will I be led out to where your horse picket lines are and made to eat what can be found there?"

The warrior laughed, and as if on cue his sycophants chimed in along with him. "No, Yevgeny. A few days without food won't hurt you if you don't feel like sampling our fare. It makes no difference to me."

The man grimaced. "I don't know what your plan is, slimefilth, but I assure you, you'll get no help at all from me. I'll die before I do anything to aid your evil."

Anticipating a violent reaction, the bandits flinched back, but again the Chaos Lord only laughed. "Ah, Yevgeny, you empire folk all think alike." The warrior rose, and walked to the witch hunter's side. "So fierce, so proud." He motioned to an empty seat by the fire. "I don't want anything from you. I don't know you, or want to know you. I just know that you're wanted in the North, and that things are not going to go well for you when you arrive."

"The purity of Sigmar is an anathema to the Chaos Wastes." the witch hunter proclaimed strongly. So strongly, in fact that he overbalanced and would have fallen had the Chaos Lord not reached out and grabbed the man by the shoulder. Kalnikoff flinched away, but the strong grip was not broken. The warrior gently lifted the witch hunter and carried him to the fireside seat, and then returned to his own.

"You were saying?" the warrior prompted.

The witch hunter cleared his throat. "My death is much coveted in places of evil. But the extinguishing of my life means nothing. There will be others. I will be avenged. Your kind will not be suffered to exist."

Again a tense silence fell before being dispelled by the Chaos Lord's laughter. "I'm sorry, Yevgeny. But you look so serious when you say those things." Another gale of laughter. "You think you've got it all put together, the only way it can fit together, don't you?"

The prisoner scowled. "Why else would you kidnap and kill a Witch Hunter, chaos maggot, except to avenge those I have slain in the name of holy Sigmar?"

The Chaos Lord chuckled and looked to his companions as if to say, 'how foolish can you be?' "Yevgeny, your pride goeth before a fall. You think all this is just about you? How vain! That's just silly, if you think about it."

"A silver tongue doesn't change the snake." retorted the witch hunter.

The warrior smirked. "If the objective was simply to kill you to avenge our kind, you'd be three days dead and a hundred miles south, wouldn't you? We wouldn't need an army to escort you all the way back. Gif and his boys could have done the job, no trouble."

Kalnikoff smirked back, but inside he was troubled by the man's words. "'Gif and his boys' were a baker's dozen strong when they came across me. Give me a chance, and I'll put paid to all of you scum, bad knee or not."

Gif began to protest, but the chaos lord silenced him with a hand motion. "Yevgeny, I'll tell you straight out, what's happening to you, it is a vengeance thing. But it's really only tangentially related to the work you've done as a hunter."

"Tangen…?" piped up Gif.

Another shushing motion. "The man you work for, Cardinal Weiss? He's the one who's the point, the target of this action."

Kalnikoff managed to keep his face from betraying his horror. They knew of the Cardinal? That wasn't possible! How could they know of the quiet, pious man who fed him the critical bits of court information, snippets which allowed him to root out evildoers, punish the guilty and protect the good people of Kislev? How?

"I don't know any Cardinal Weiss."

A sly smile covered the Chaos Lord's face. "Of course you don't. And you don't know Baron Zarchikoff either, or Graf Schozern, or Padre Holtzmann either, do you?"

The witch hunter could not hide his shock this time. All three were chaos worshipers he had personally judged and punished within the last year, all of them identified as cultists by his friend and confidante Cardinal Weiss. "How…?"

The warrior's face sobered immediately. "Please, Yevgeny. Don't be naïve. We know about them because they were all, as you discovered, chaos worshipers. Slaanesh worshipers, to be specific. And when the same witch hunter happened to burn all three within the last ten months, it didn't take long to figure out someone was giving him the names. After that, it was just a matter of figuring out what to do about it."

Kalnikoff found his resolve. "Cardinal Weiss is well protected. Even if you kill me you will never silence him. My death will simply strengthen his will to see you all destroyed."

The Chaos Lord snickered. "Yevgeny, your death will send a message to Weiss that his betrayal is known, and remind that the ruinous powers do not deal lightly with disloyalty."

Yevgeny's head was spinning. First the beatings, then the hunger and thirst, and now this… Weiss was a cultist? How? Though it would explain where his secret and impossible_seeming revelations had come from… But there was never a hint, never any sign…

"Five years ago," explained the Chaos Lord. "When Weiss first became a Bishop, he was already a high_level initiate into the Order of the Serpent. He kept a low profile, and contented himself with a little manipulation here and there, occasionally exposing low level groups of unimportant cults of all stripes, just to maintain his credibility. When finally, on orders from his superiors in the North, a major band of Khornates was unmasked, which propelled him into the seat of the Cardinal."

The Death Jackals, thought Yevgeny. He had participated in the cleansing of that nest of vermin. And had met Cardinal Weiss during and after the burnings.

"So he gets to be Cardinal," continued the warrior. "And all of a sudden Slaaneshi cult leaders start bursting into flame, so to speak. No one up North seems to be able to get in contact with the esteemed Cardinal, and no one knows why he went rogue. So they ask me to come south and pick you up from our industrious friends here." He motioned to Gif. "And to bring you back alive as fast as possible. Now, I don't know what they have planned for you, but I don't imagine it's anything too pleasant. Whatever it is, it takes away Weiss' favorite 'flint and steel', lets him know that his actions have been noted, and that if he continues his wayward ways, sooner or later it'll be him making the trip North."

Kalnikoff felt nauseated. "You're lying. It's all lies. Cardinal Weiss is a pure man. I know it. I know him."

The Chaos Lord laughed quietly. "Yevgeny I'llych, you're half starved, with a shattered knee, and it's fifty miles over broken ground to the nearest hamlet. You're surrounded by nearly five hundred warriors who, as you so neatly pointed out, would love to kill you, just to watch you die. Short version: you're no threat to me, and you're not going anywhere. So why would I bother lying to you?"

Kalnikoff flinched away, falling from his seat. "You seek to break me. You're just trying to weaken my faith. You…"

The Chaos Lord stood and walked over to the fallen man. "Yevgeny, you're already broken." he said gently. "And when we get where we're going you're going to die harder than any sinner you've ever 'purified'. Think on that."

At an order from the warrior, all the men save the witch hunter left the area surrounding the fire pit and sought their tents for sleep. The Chaos Lord lingered behind a moment longer than the rest.

"There's no need to tie you up, friend." he said to his prisoner. "Wander where you like, there's no place for you to go." He turned to leave, but paused once more. "If I were you, witch hunter, I'd pray to Sigmar for deliverance, because the farther we go, the less likely it is he'll hear you. You know what I mean?"

"A pox on you chaos dog!" hissed the Empire man. But as the warrior strode away, he could hear his prisoner's voice on the evening breeze, carrying a plea for salvation and vengeance in equal measure.

The camp was completely quiet. Two hours, perhaps three had passed since the Chaos Lord had left him, and Kalnikoff was nearly a mile downstream. The pickets had been lax, and even crawling he had made it through their lines. Of course, when the sun came up in about an hour they'd round him up in no time since the trail he left crawling could be read by anyone who'd spent more than five minutes looking. Having come so far, now his overtaxed reserves of strength were slowly ebbing, ebbing, the savage conditions of the last few days taking their final toll. Quietly he whispered the Litanies of Purification and of Righteous Retribution, over and over, a dozen times each since the beginning of his break for freedom. A break that was about to run out, judging by the shadows.

Suddenly the shadows shifted rapidly to his right.

Yevgeny, pushed himself up onto his one good leg, ready to make the best of whatever fight presented itself. But now upright, the witch hunter found that the glow surrounded the entire area. Foul magics, he thought, and threw himself flat again, crawling as quickly as he could.

"Yevgeny Ivanovich Kalnikoff." spoke a strong, clear voice.

The witch hunter raised his head, and saw a man. A man clad in shimmering white armor. A man who seemed the center of the warm glow which engulfed them both. A man… with a hammer.

Yevgeny shook his head. A mirage? No, still there. "Sigmar?"

Huge strong hands reached down, and picked up the fallen man. Kalnikoff flinched away from the side with the broken leg, but found the limb miraculously healed. Testing it, the witch hunter found it restored to full use. He looked to the man who lifted him, and then bowed low. "Lord Heldenhammer, I am unworthy…"

A short laugh from the glowing apparition cut him off. "Yevgeny Kalnikoff, you have kept faith with me through this most hopeless and desolate time. In doing so, you have proved yourself more than worthy."

The witch hunter felt his face glowing with the praise. "Milord, the sinner's who took me prisoner, they must be punished, purified…"

The glowing warrior shook his head. "They are lice, grains of sand. Destroy them, and more simply spring up to take their place."

Yevgeny began to protest.

"All in time, my good soldier." continued the armored figure. "For now, it's best to strike at those who betray the empire, remove their evil influence so that those who might walk in righteousness find no evil barring their path."

"Who, Lord Sigmar? I seek only to be a weapon for your use."

Sigmar smiled. "Cardinal Weiss is a festering sore eating away at the heart of Kislev. He has betrayed his chaos comrades, but he betrayed the people of the Empire first. He must be brought low, his crimes exposed. Cardinal Weiss, Yevgeny. Let my justice be swift, he must be purified. Hurry, my soldier. Give him no chance for escape."

The witch hunter flushed with rage at the though of the chaos vermin fleeing justice, and with pride at having been chosen personally for such a task, his fanatical zeal restored. "At once, Lord. But how will I make my escape? Even with my knee healed…"

Suddenly the bright aura blinked out, leaving Kalnikoff blinking in the darkness. When his vision restored, the witch hunter registered movement to his right. Moving cautiously, he quickly determined the threat was in fact one of the bandit's horses, which had apparently gnawed through the rope which had secured it.

Not waiting for any further divine favors, the witch hunter swung up onto the horse and spurred it South as fast as he could drive it. Evil was everywhere and cried out for purification, and he had received a charge from Sigmar Heldenhammer himself…

From a stand of trees not far away, the Chaos Lord stood with a small handful of his followers and watched the rider move swiftly away. He turned to the mage. "'Cardinal Weiss is a festering sore'? 'Let my justice be swift'? A little melodramatic, don't you think?"

The mage shrugged. "When you're dealing with religious zealots, a little colorful oratory is just the thing to get them moving in the right direction. The illusion worked, and that's what matter's right? It was that healing spell I was worried about. Not what I'm used to, but it seemed to work."

"I suppose." admitted the warrior.

"Ah, excuse me?" broke in Gif. "I was just wondering about something.

The chaos lord and the mage both rolled their eyes. The marauder had more questions.

"If it wasn't some high muckty_muck mages, wanting the Hunter for revenge on a traitor, who had us nab the bastard, how'd you know where we'd find the witch hunter inna first place? I mean mages have ways to know that sort of thing. But you...?"

The Chaos Lord sighed. Underlings always wanted an explanation. He sent the chaos sorcerer back to the camp. "You see, Gif, when you serve the Keeper of Secrets, which I do, sometimes you just happen to 'know' certain things. Private, personal, embarrassing hurtful things most often. These things just come, usually when I'm talking to someone about something related, sometimes in dreams. The important thing is that I've always been given the knowledge in order to act on it. Always to act. Four days ago I woke up 'knowing' that Kalnikoff was heading to that little roadside shrine you found him at. Because that's the anniversary of the death of his wife, who was defiled and killed while he was away on business just prior to his decision to become a witch_hunter. While we talked last night, he spoke about others who would continue his fight against chaos should he die." The warrior shrugged. "It was then I 'knew' the names Cardinal Weiss, and Zarchikoff, Schozern, Holtzmann, and the Death Jackals too.

"And that's when you knew that the Cardinal was a traitor? And you decided to send the witch hunter after him?" finished Gif with a triumphant smile.

The Chaos Lord stood motionless for a long time, then shrugged off_handedly. "Actually, no, Gif. I don't know anything of the sort. But I'm absolutely certain that Weiss is a Sigmarite Cardinal with a talent for burning our brethren. So it doesn't really matter why Yevgeny kills him, does it?"

The bandit chieftain let out a slow whistle of frank amazement. "I guess not, Lord Garrick." A cautious pause. "You're sure you're not one o' them Tzeentch meddlers, are you, Milord?"

Seth Garrick, Chaos Lord of Slaanesh, shook his head. "Nah. The Schemers are a bunch of joyless recluses, all work and no play." He grinned. "And the Slaaneshi women are much more interesting. Now then. Let's get the men up an we'll be on our way before Yevgeny I'llych thinks to send a steam tank or two our way."

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