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The Witch Takers – C L Werner

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The Witch Takers

C. L. Werner

Mangled bodies lay stretched under the blazing desert sun. Puddles of blood glistened in the light. The gory litter lay scattered in a patch of carnage dozens of yards wide, broken weapons and severed limbs half buried in the scale-like metal sands of Droost.

In the very midst of the havoc, an ugly pit yawned. The piles of sand and broken stone marked it as a recent excavation. The jumble of old bones and rusted armour strewn about the opening served as silent testament to the callous looting of the uncovered tomb.

‘Tal, is there anything down there?’ The question was voiced by a tall and powerfully built woman. Long locks of deep golden hair peaked out from under the hood of the white cloak Esselt wore. There was an expression of deep concern on her well-defined features. Her gloved hands kept a firm grip on the immense silver-bladed greatsword she held at her side.

In response to Esselt’s query, a man emerged from the shadowy tomb. He was more compactly built, wolfish in form and a few inches shorter. He, too, wore a white cloak, though it was now greyed with the dust and grit of an ancient grave. His swarthy face had a pinched, almost hungry look to it, his moustached lip drawn back in irritation. Keen eyes studied the broken stones where robbers had smashed their way into the crypt. With a sigh, Talorcan shook his head.

‘Nothing, Esselt,’ he declared. He waved his gloved hand at the bodies strewn all around them. ‘Vulture scum they may have been, but they were very thorough. I don’t think there is so much as a strand of hair they didn’t drag out of there.’ He stepped over to one of the corpses, a body more complete than some of its mutilated companions. With the edge of his boot he kicked it onto its side. As it rolled over, a brand on the dead man’s forehead was revealed. A single hieroglyph depicting the slouching figure of a hyena.

‘The brand of thieves,’ Esselt observed. ‘The same as the man we found in Skra Voln.’ A hardness swept into her voice. ‘This is where the murderers came from.’

Talorcan inspected the ground, carefully noting the disturbances in the sand. ‘Only one set of tracks lead away from here. From here to Skra Voln… and the massacre.’ As he made his study of the bodies, he began removing objects from them. A bronze breastplate, a jewelled dagger, rings and necklaces. From one man’s fingers he pried away a vicious-looking sword.

‘Grave robbers who argued over their plunder,’ Esselt growled. ‘After murdering their comrades, the rest must have gone to Skra Voln to slake their bloodlust.’

‘Only one set of tracks,’ Talorcan reminded her. ‘When we reached Skra Voln, except for the herdsman who discovered the massacre, there was only one set of tracks going into the village.’ He turned the sword around so that Esselt could see what he had discovered. The grip of the sword was formed from a gnarled curl of bone, but its pommel was fashioned from blackened steel.

Instinctively, Esselt drew back, alarm shining in her eyes. She recognised the grisly symbol the pommel had been shaped into. None of the witch takers of the Order of Azyr were unaware of the Skull Rune, emblem of the Chaos God, Khorne.

‘Grace of Sigmar, Tal!’ Esselt cursed.

‘This is the madness of the Blood God,’ Talorcan said, gesturing at the carnage around them. ‘Looks like this tomb was something more than the robbers bargained for. The grave of some champion of the Dark Gods. When they broke in here, they unleashed something. Some infernal force that provoked them to… this.’

Esselt shook her head. ‘And the victor carried his murdering frenzy with him to Skra Voln. Praise the God-King the evil died with him.’

Talorcan was looking at the collection of grave goods he had removed from the thieves. Every body had yielded up something. ‘When we examined the branded corpse in Skra Voln, there was nothing that was remarkable about him. No treasure that could have come from this tomb.’

‘No,’ Esselt said. ‘There was nothing. Only the tattered rags he was wearing.’ She looked at the pile of loot Talorcan had gathered. ‘Every man had his share. The thief at the oasis should have had something.’

‘But he didn’t,’ Talorcan stated, a haunted look stealing into his eyes. He suddenly dashed across the sands to where they had hobbled their animals. The demi-gryphs squawked in protest as he rummaged through the saddle bags. Finally, he found what he was looking for: a big metal flask with a dragonhide stopper. He returned hurriedly, removing the stopper from the flask and dousing the pile of grave goods with its contents. Metal and jewels began to smoke and bubble as the alchemical concoction spilled onto them.

‘We will destroy this filth,’ Talorcan said. ‘Then we must make haste back to Skra Voln.’ He gave Esselt a grim look. ‘I fear I followed the wrong trail. I wanted to see where the killer came from. I did not think to follow any trail leading away from Skra Voln.’

‘You believe someone survived the massacre?’ Esselt asked.

‘A survivor or someone who came upon the scene before the herdsmen did,’ Talorcan said. ‘Either way, whoever it was took something.’

‘The killer’s share of the treasure,’ Esselt stated, watching as the other plunder was swiftly reduced to a molten puddle. ‘Some cursed relic from a heretic’s tomb.’

Talorcan nodded, looking across the havoc around them. ‘Something from the grave of a champion of the Blood God. Something damned by the filth of Chaos. Something that could possess a man and make him ferocious enough to commit such atrocities. Something that may pass its curse along to whoever carries it.’

Esselt shaded her eyes as she looked across the vast dunes of Droost. To her it was like watching a sea of crawling silver. The blazing sun shimmered across the thin scales of metal that composed the sand. Despite the heat, a chill swept through her as she watched the wispy haze that rose from the hot ground.

‘It looks like water,’ she said, leaning around in her saddle to speak with Talorcan.

‘Many a traveller has thought so,’ Talorcan said. ‘Drawn on by the mirage. Parched brains imagining the illusion of rivers and lakes just beyond their reach.’ He shook his head. ‘A terrible end for anyone.’

‘And if I were to get lost out here?’ Esselt nudged him in the arm. ‘Don’t say you couldn’t find me, Tal. You’re almost as much a part of the desert as the dust-vipers.’

Talorcan was pensive a moment. ‘I might find you,’ he said. ‘But it would have to wait until the Order’s business is finished.’ He drew back as Esselt tried to swat him. ‘I’m only warning you to stay close until our work is done,’ he laughed.

‘When our work is done, you won’t have much to laugh about,’ Esselt promised, patting the greatsword sheathed along the side of the saddle.

Talorcan smiled. ‘An assignation then,’ he said. ‘I’ll hold you to it. You might have the advantage with that gargant-sticker of yours, but never forget that I fight dirty.’

Esselt gave him a sharp look. ‘You also cheat at cards. But if we’re going to discuss all of your faults we’ll be out here until the rainy season.’

Talorcan bowed in defeat and turned his eyes back to the landscape before them. From atop the summit of a scaly dune, he gazed out across the crawling desert and the rippling haze. They were no strangers to the great wasteland that encompassed the Khanate of Arlk. The cloaks that covered them were fashioned from the porous hide of the dune-jackal and bleached to a brilliant white to better defy the sun’s heat. The talons of the demi-gryphs they rode were swathed in thick moccasins to keep them from sinking into the scaly sands. A third demi-gryph followed close behind them, the creature’s beak muzzled by a mask of steel chain so that it could not twist its long neck around and snap at the burden lashed across its back – a keg of stout Varthian blackoak filled with water from the River Chael.

The witch hunters were silent for a time, intent upon their study of the surroundings. When the silence was broken, it was Esselt who spoke, her voice edged with frustration. The tomb of the Chaos chieftain and the massacre of Skra Voln were many days behind them, yet still their quarry was beyond their reach. ‘They cannot have gone much farther, Tal,’ she declared. ‘By the Light of Azyr, we should have come upon them already.’

Talorcan kept his eyes roving across the dunes, watching the rippling heat rising from the scaly sands. ‘By the Light of Azyr, we will find them,’ he said. ‘Skill and determination can lead a hunter only so far. After that it becomes a test of faith.’ One of his hands released its hold on his demi-gryph’s reins and pointed across the dunes. ‘There. Do you see? Where the mirage falters?’

Esselt followed Talorcan’s gesture, her own eyes narrowing as she spotted the disruption of the heatwaves. There was only one thing that could distort the sun’s effect upon the dunes, and that was some object blocking its rays from the metallic sands. There were some nomads who could track a hare by the faintest chink in the haze.

‘Your observation, as ever, surpasses my own. If you say there is some sign, I believe you, my love,’ Esselt said. Her face dropped into an expression of gravity. ‘Please to Sigmar God-king we have found our quarry.’

Talorcan nodded his head, his voice taking a sombre turn. ‘We do Sigmar’s work. He is always with us.’ He reached to the hammer-shaped amulet that hung from the clasp of his cloak. ‘But there are other powers and they are in opposition to our work. Where faith is weak, the Dark Gods prevail.’

‘Our faith is as sharp as our blades.’ Esselt once again patted the immense sword hanging from the saddle sheath beside her. A flicker of a smile crossed her face as she peered intently at Talorcan. ‘Or do you question my sincerity?’

‘I would not dare,’ Talorcan said, looking to Esselt and returning her smile. For a fleeting instant, the grim duty ahead of them was forgotten. Then his demi-gryph started down the incline of the dune and the onerous nature of their task resumed its primacy.

They could not know what they would find at the end of the trail, but of one thing Esselt and Talorcan were certain: there would be death. That was the one constant in the work of witch hunters.

He was dying. Perhaps he should be dead already. He wanted to die. He wanted to just lie down and let Black Nagash have him.

But to live or die was no longer his choice. A burning, snarling compulsion drove him on. His breath was a reedy rasp that seared his lungs, yet still he persisted. His muscles felt like they would rip through his skin, yet still he kept walking. Blood, yes, blood. It dripped and trickled, oozing from his wounds. So much blood. How could there be any left in his veins? How could there be enough to keep his heart pumping?

The demand that roared inside him would not let him stop. He could not pull out the spear-shaft that was lodged in his chest. He could not tie off the sword-slash that left his back open from shoulder to hip. He could not see from the eye that had been crushed when a mace had caved in the side of his head. Still, it would not let him die.

There was a terrible imperative that forced him onwards. Only when it was satisfied could he relent. Until then, he would stumble on through the dunes, lost and damned.

Tears glistened in his remaining eye. He wanted to die so badly. He deserved to die. The things he had done… atrocity! He had no right to draw that next breath.

But draw it he did. And the next. And the one after that. The compulsion kept him moving. Up and down the crawling dunes, defying the desert heat and the ghastly wounds.

Through the desolation, at last a sight greeted him. The force driving him on became ferocious. Hungrily it urged him to greater effort, compelling him towards… something? No. Someone.

He tried to stop himself when he understood. He tried to throw the damned treasure away, to cast it out among the dunes where it should never be found. He didn’t have that kind of strength now. He only had the strength his destroyer allowed him to have.

The nomad spotted him. He saw the robed man draw a sword and watch him with wary eyes. The force driving him onwards exulted. It had no need of him now. The strength it had been dragging out of him evaporated and he crumpled. Almost lifeless, he slid down the dune towards the stranger.

His vision was already fading. He didn’t see the nomad, but he felt the boot that prodded his side. A moment later he felt the hands roving across his body. Frantically, he tried to warn the nomad, but all that escaped his lips was a gargled rasp.

The last thing he heard as his life drained from him was the nomad walking away. Death, so long denied, closed around him, conveying his spirit not to the morbid halls of Nagash but to a realm of blood and skulls.

Everywhere Talorcan looked the sand-like metal scales were stained a dull crimson, blotting out both their shine and the eerie animation that set the dunes of Droost crawling across the wastes. The unblemished scales about the blighted region shivered their way over the gory spectacle, creeping around the destruction.

‘Massacre,’ Esselt declared the site as she gazed down upon it. Boxes and bundles lay scattered about the depression between two dunes, strewn as though by a petulant gargant. The tatters of tents and pavilions fluttered in the hot desert breeze. Carcasses of immense draft-lizards quivered on their backs, their sluggish nerves still tugging at the muscles of their slaughtered bodies. Smaller bodies were littered about the scene, so covered in their own gore that it was impossible to tell simple drover from wealthy caravaneer.

‘By the Hammer, we are too late,’ Talorcan growled. He tried to urge his steed down into the depression, but the demi-gryph balked at his commands. The creature threw back its head and crackled an anxious cry. Annoyed, he dismounted and trudged down the crawling slope to reach the grisly scene. Throwing back his hood, Talorcan kneeled beside a small body, carefully folding what was left of its hands across its breast.

Esselt followed Talorcan down, leaving her own steed with the other animals. In her hands she carried the massive greatsword she had taken from her saddle. The silver blade glistened in the afternoon light, the sacred runes etched across its length shining like golden flames. The holy sword had been forged by the armourers of the Order of Azyr and thrice-blessed by no less than High Priest Crautreic himself. She had used the weapon many times to strike down the obscene daemons and mutated monsters of Chaos, but as she looked across the massacred caravan, the desire to visit justice and judgement with the edge of her sword burned more fiercely in her heart than ever before.

‘How many?’ Talorcan shook his head and looked up at Esselt. His face was lean and hard, darkened to defy the desert sun, weathered by the horrors he had unearthed and combated for so long.

‘Three nomad camps, one village, and now this caravan.’ Esselt stepped to Talorcan’s side and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ve been with you a long time, Tal. I know whatever atrocities you’ve been confronted by have not caused you to waver. You have never failed to see Sigmar’s justice meted out. It doesn’t matter how many it has claimed.’ An edge crept into her voice, a tone of menace that promised vengeance for the fiend they sought. ‘All that matters is we keep it from taking any more.’

Talorcan closed his hand around Esselt’s, drawing comfort from her reassurance and her determination. ‘I will track this fiend to the gates of Shadowfell if needs must,’ he vowed.

‘Perhaps it is dead already,’ Esselt said. She drew Talorcan’s attention to one of the bodies lying nearby, a corpse wearing the mail hauberk of a mercenary. Clenched in his hand was a bloodied scimitar. A little further on, another armoured body gripped a spear with its head snapped off. ‘The killer didn’t find such helpless victims this time. These people fought back.’

‘No,’ Talorcan stated, releasing her hand and rising to his feet. ‘It isn’t here. If it was, we would know it. The Order of Azyr has trained us to sense the corruption of Chaos. We would sense its taint, feel it crying out for new victims. The evil is gone. It has gone to seek new prey. To lurk unsuspected until its hunger is aroused.’ He stood and began stalking about the scene. Crouched over, his face peering intently at the ground, his hand brushing across the scaly sands. He looked at the footprints scattered about the havoc, trying to pick from the marks left by victims and killer. At length he found a track that steered away from the murder site. As he pursued it towards the farther dunes, he shouted to Esselt.

‘The trail will be easy to follow,’ Talorcan declared. ‘The ground on the slope of the dune bears similar discolourations. Faint, but obvious enough if you know what you are looking for.’

Esselt stood above the small body Talorcan had first inspected. She repressed the empathy the corpse evoked, her mind processing the sight with the cold practicality demanded of all witch hunters. ‘No vultures have been around,’ she observed. ‘Not even a hint of bloat-moths sucking at the wounds.’

Talorcan managed a smile. Despite the grim circumstances, he was proud Esselt had learned so much from his teaching. ‘Bloat-moths would already have laid eggs if they were here. That means these bodies have not been here overnight. At best this happened in the morning. The killer cannot have gone far.’

Esselt’s fingers tightened on the grip of her sword. Her eyes roved across the carnage. ‘I ask few favours of you, Tal, but I ask for one now. When we find this thing, I want to be the one who brings it the doom it has earned.’

Three hours riding across the crawling dunes of Droost brought the witch hunters to yet another morbid scene. From the crest of one dune, a dark shape sprawled in the sand. Crimson-stained blemishes along the slope of the dune gave vivid evidence of where the body had initially fallen and rolled its way downwards.

Cautiously the witch hunters dismounted and approached the gore-spattered body. Talorcan threw back the folds of his cloak, drawing sword and pistol from his weapon belt. The blade he bore was smaller and slighter than the one Esselt carried, a weapon made for finesse and speed. The pistol was a silver-barrelled device fitted to a frame of sacred shimmerwood. The charge within was derived from an alchemical powder, the shot itself a ball of silver bathed in the holy unguents of Sigmar’s temple. Talorcan kept his sword held out to one side and aimed the pistol at the body’s head.

Esselt stepped closer, both hands locked on her weapon. Her strength, the brutal impact of the silver greatsword she carried, the heavy armour she wore under her cloak, drove her to investigate the grisly carcass. Talorcan’s forte was the quickness of his reflexes. Coupled with the reach of his pistol, it made sense for him to provide cover for Esselt.

The wounds that afflicted the body were almost beyond measure. Esselt could count at least five that should have been mortal blows. The caravan had fought hard, even if their efforts had not been enough to save them. Keeping a wary eye on the body, she kicked it over onto its side. For a moment she watched it, waiting for some kind of reaction. She was about to dismiss the thing as nothing but a corpse when a sanguine glow filled the empty eyes.

In a heartbeat the thing sprang onto its feet. It rushed at Esselt with outstretched hands. Long talons were emerging from them and the clawed fingers raked across her breastplate, scraping the metal surface.

The next instant there was a cracking boom as Talorcan fired his pistol into the cadaverous thing. The shot caught the fiend in its shoulder, shattering bone and shredding flesh. A spray of dark blood and gleaming ichor flashed from the wound. The creature swung around, glaring at its new attacker. Its head was distorted beyond the vicious injuries the body had suffered in life. Great black horns were tearing their way up from beneath the scalp. Long yellow fangs pushed up from the jaws.

Talorcan readied himself for the fiend’s charge, but before it could rush him it was served a violent reminder of the foe it had left behind. In a shining arc of silver, Esselt brought her sword slicing down upon the monster’s neck, all but cleaving its head from its body. Smoke sizzled from the mutilating wound, ichor vaporising as it encountered the blessed residue left behind by the slashing blade. It swung back around, clashing its fangs together as it glared at Esselt. Then it collapsed against the scaly sands, the impact tearing its head free from the flap of skin that held it.

‘Receive Sigmar’s judgement, horror of Old Night,’ Esselt recited as she stared down at the desiccated remains. The horns and other daemonic manifestations were rapidly fading into a crusty residue, leaving behind only a mangled corpse.

‘A minor daemon of the Blood God,’ Talorcan said as he observed the dissolution. ‘I should think it took possession of this body only after the soul was gone. The flesh was seeped in the energies of Khorne, enough to act as a temporary host. Without the life-force to sustain it, the thing could not have lingered long in Chamon.’

Esselt shook her head and pointed at the bullet wound in the corpse’s shoulder. ‘It had vitality enough to endure being shot. The one we found outside the village withered as soon as it was struck.’

‘And the host bodies we found outside the nomad camps were simply corpses,’ Talorcan expanded. ‘Time is the explanation to that riddle. We were farther back on the trail when we found the others.’

‘Then the strength of this possession means we are close,’ Esselt stated. A hard glint came into her eyes; a coldness settled upon her face.

Talorcan stepped past her and inspected the corpse. ‘It isn’t here,’ he declared. ‘Whatever damn thing was brought up from that tomb, it isn’t here.’

‘Someone else has it,’ Esselt said. ‘Like every other time, it found someone else to take it before relinquishing its previous owner.’

‘Someone else has it,’ Talorcan agreed. ‘But we can be thankful the evil is dormant now. It lacks even the power to make its new owner cover his tracks.’ He waved his empty pistol at a line of footprints that stretched out across the dunes. Already some of them had been covered by the crawling sands, but enough remained to betray a general direction.

‘It is my belief that whatever devilry is within this cursed relic,’ Talorcan said, ‘lies dormant until something serves to provoke it. The robbers outside the cairn can be assumed to have argued over their spoils. In Skra Voln it looked as though the village had started to butcher an old draft-lizard for a feast. At every site there was some sign that violence occurred before the massacre started. The relic must be empowered by the malignity of the Blood God, and once it senses bloodshed, it uses whoever carries it to create even more to sate its hunger.’

Esselt caught at Talorcan’s arm. ‘How long will it remain dormant? Can we catch the new owner before the evil is aroused?’

Talorcan placed a rough hand over hers. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he drew her close. ‘Sigmar knows we must,’ he said in a sombre whisper. ‘Otherwise the trail will lead us to another massacre.’

The oasis of Tora Grae was one of dozens scattered across the vast desert of Droost. Shielded from the crawling dunes by great outcroppings of copper-hued rock, Tora Grae offered succour from the blazing sun. Great stands of frond-leafed trees grew around a large pool of dark water. Tough shrubs and hardy desert grass formed an outer layer that ringed the trees, stretching to the very periphery of the rocks.

Where there was water to be found in the desert, so too would the society of man be found. Built within the outer ring of grass and shrubs, a small village had persisted for many generations. Huts woven from palm-fronds and reinforced with bartered cloth lay clustered together in a confused huddle. Beyond the huts, herds of wiry antelope nuzzled the grass within their fenced enclosures. Huge draft-lizards basked on the tops of rocks, soaking in the warmth of the day until, sated, they crawled into the shadows of their burrows. Demi-gryphs milled about, each animal tethered by a ring fastened to its beak and fixed to a stout wooden post. Dogs and poultry roamed freely through the village, doing their best to avoid the rambunctious children who raced around the huts. The older inhabitants of the village lounged in the shade of the trees. Early morning and early evening were their hours of labour, when they would see to their flocks and gather water from the pool. The middle of the day, with the hot sun blaring down on the world, was a time for rest and repose. Only children and fools bestirred themselves at such an hour.

Scattered about the rocky outcroppings, sentries maintained a lazy watch upon the desert around Tora Grae. Their main concern was the withering scalestorms that would reach down and rip away at the dunes, driving a blinding wall of shimmering sand across the desert to smother anything in its path. A lesser but still serious worry were the raider bands who prowled the wastes. Their usual prey were the caravans, but sometimes a gang would become large and bold enough to attack a village.

When one of the sentries spotted movement through the shimmering haze, his first inclination was to dip his fingers into the water jug resting beside him and moisten his eyes. After a few blinks, he looked again. There could be no doubt, there was someone riding through the desert in the very worst of the day. Two riders leading a third animal. The sentry hesitated only long enough to assure himself there weren’t others who had evaded his first sighting, then he scrambled down from his shaded perch and hurried into the village to alert his people.

As Talorcan and Esselt rode through a winding cut between the coppery rocks and onto the grassy expanse that surrounded Tora Grae, the witch hunters found themselves the centre of attention for hundreds of villagers. All the able-bodied inhabitants of the village were gathered together, hands locked around the hefts of axes and spears, the grips of swords and lizard-goads. Behind them, from the edge of the settlement itself, the very old and very young watched with anxious gazes as the strangers approached.

Talorcan looked across the assembled villagers, studying them with cold eyes, meeting the mute hostility of their own scrutiny. With a flourish he threw back the white cloak, displaying the weapons holstered on his belt, but more importantly revealing the heavy pectoral that hung across his chest. The surface of the metal plate was adorned in gold, displaying the image of a hammer centred above a pair of crossed lightning bolts. It was the mark of his chapter, the Witch Takers of Azyr.

Even in so remote a place as Tora Grae, the symbol of the witch hunters was recognised. An instant before and the villagers had been ready to fight these intruders. Now they shrank back, eyes wide with fright.

‘Who is headman here?’ Talorcan called out. ‘I would have words with your leader.’

The crowd was silent. Though they maintained their distance, none of them had lowered their weapons. Esselt shifted around in her saddle, slowly drawing her silver-bladed greatsword. An awed murmur rose from the villagers and they withdrew several paces back, some of them stumbling as they bumped into huts and fences.

‘We are the Hunters of Sigmar,’ Esselt declared, letting her words linger in the air. ‘We will speak with your headman,’ she added as she set her sword across the front of her saddle, its bright edge glistening in the sun. ‘Let him come forwards.’

An old man emerged from the midst of the crowd, his wrinkled brown body wrapped in a yellow burnoose bound about the waist by a heavy lizard-hide belt. The elder’s thin fingers were closed around a wooden hammer icon, and as he came towards the witch hunters, he held the holy image out to them.

‘Peace and rest be yours,’ the headman said, bowing low before the riders. ‘I am Morleo, leader of this community. Excuse the antagonism of my people. We did not recognise you for who you are.’ He drew the icon to his lips, kissing it reverently. ‘Tora Grae is dutiful in its faith. The God-King’s shrine is never neglected and I myself lead the morning devotions to Great Sigmar. We embrace and abide by the sacred teachings of His strictures–’

‘Into the halls of paradise the serpent of Chaos may slither,’ Talorcan interrupted, warningly. His gaze roved once more across the villagers. ‘We would have private conference with you. Then you will appreciate our purpose here.’ His tone dropped to a low whisper that barely reached the headman’s ears. ‘Then you will understand the danger your people are in.’

Talorcan and Esselt followed Morleo through his village. The shrine of Sigmar stood some small way from the huts, raised up on a log platform. Only a little larger than the huts themselves, the space within the shrine allowed enough room for a small altar with a stone hammer fastened to the wall behind it. A basin of water rested to one side of the altar while on the other side was an open box with a litter of coloured stones. The blues of lapis lazuli and turquoise clustered with the yellows of amber and the greens of malachite.

‘Offerings to Mighty Sigmar,’ Morleo explained when he noticed Esselt staring at the box. ‘My people are not wealthy, but such small treasure as they do find they bring here to render up in gratitude to the God-King.’

Esselt turned from the box. ‘Has anyone made an offering today?’

‘Not that I am aware,’ Morleo said. ‘It is possible someone may have come without my knowing. The shrine is open to all.’ An expression of almost painful regret replaced the worry that had been on his face. ‘Has something been stolen? Do you think one of my people to be a thief?’

‘Something has been taken,’ Talorcan said, slowly walking around the shrine, ‘but not from here. A foul relic from an unholy grave.’

‘Our problem is twofold,’ Esselt added. ‘We do not know who has it, nor do we know what it is.’

Morleo scratched at his chin in confusion. ‘If you do not know these things, then how do you know there is anything to look for?’

‘A string of massacres that has left red sand almost to your own threshold,’ Esselt growled, smacking her fist into her palm in frustration.

Talorcan glanced at her and frowned. Arriving too late to stop the slaughters was taking a toll on them both. He wished there was some comfort he could offer Esselt that wouldn’t seem a mere platitude.

‘Twenty days,’ Talorcan told the headman. ‘Twenty days we have been on the trail of this horror. It began with the grave of some chief of the Chaos hordes that once threatened the Khanate. Robbers took something from that tomb. Something saturated in the evil and madness of the Dark Gods.’

Morleo’s face took on a sickly hue. ‘You say that the trail has led you to Tora Grae? That a thief has brought this unclean thing here?’

‘Someone has brought it here,’ Talorcan said. ‘The relic has a way of abandoning its owners.’ His eyes were like slivers of steel as he met Morleo’s gaze. ‘It takes possession of them before the end and uses the one who carries it to further its evil.’

Morleo wrung his hands in despair. ‘It is horrible! Monstrous! If you do not know what this thing looks like, if you do not know who carries it, then how can you find it? I cannot even lead my people away from Tora Grae for, if you are right, we would be taking the curse with us!’

Esselt stepped beside the old man, grabbing him by the shoulder. ‘You will achieve nothing if you surrender to fear. Keep faith with Sigmar. Know that He has sent us here before this evil could be set loose. If you keep faith, then we will prevail.’

‘This is the only settlement near the place we found the body of the last man to carry this obscene relic,’ Talorcan told Morleo. ‘Whoever took it from him, this is where they went. I need to see anyone who was away from the village today. Man, woman or child. We must interrogate and examine them all.’

Morleo rang the bell that hung outside the shrine, summoning the people of Tora Grae. It took little time for a crowd to gather for most of the villagers had kept nearby, both intrigued and frightened by the headman’s visitors. The elder stood atop the log platform flanked by the two witch hunters as he addressed his people.

‘As many of you have heard, our visitors are from Sigmar’s Order of Azyr,’ the old man said. ‘They wish to speak with anyone who was away from Tora Grae today.’ Morleo waited while the hunters and herdsmen who had left the oasis stepped out from the crowd. Some of them, intimidated by the presence of the witch hunters, needed the encouragement of family and neighbours to admit that they had been away.

Talorcan stepped down from the platform and began speaking with each villager. He watched each of them with a piercing gaze, studying their faces for any trace of duplicity. His questions were simple. Had any of them found a dead man in the desert? Had someone taken something from the body?

Still upon the platform, Esselt was able to see more of the villagers than Talorcan. The questions he posed to the hunters and herdsmen were heard by those further away. At the very fringe of the group who had left the oasis, one of the hunters showed increasing signs of agitation. He kept looking at Talorcan, then hastily averting his eyes. Sweat beaded his brow and he kept fidgeting, kicking his feet in the dirt.

Esselt knew guilt when she saw it, and the simple hunter wasn’t crafty enough to hide his. Carrying her sword with her, she dropped down and pushed her way through the crowd. ‘Talorcan,’ she called to her partner. ‘No need for more questions. The one we want is here.’ The hunter’s alarm mounted as the armoured woman strode towards him.

‘I think you have something to tell us,’ Esselt said as she closed upon the hunter. She held her greatsword over one shoulder, her stern gaze boring down upon the man.

‘I didn’t kill him,’ the hunter sputtered. ‘By the Hammer, he was dead already!’

Talorcan circled around to one side of the hunter. He threw back the folds of his cloak, keeping his weapons in easy reach. ‘The man you found is of less concern to us than what he was carrying,’ he said, his words quick and sharp. ‘We want what you took from him.’

‘He was dead,’ the hunter insisted. ‘What good would it have done to just leave something so pretty to be lost in the sand?’

‘Fool,’ Esselt snapped. ‘Do you have any idea what you are trifling with? What did you take?’

Talorcan was studying the hunter closely, but his eyes suddenly shifted from him to the crowd watching them from the village. He saw a woman, lissom and youthful, with an almost frantic expression on her face. He saw something more. Something that was out of place in a simple village like Tora Grae. Around her arm was a bronze armlet adorned with an immense girasol. The red opal was bigger than any he had seen in the courts of Arlk, bigger than the diamond that adorned the khan’s turban.

‘Esselt,’ Talorcan hissed. ‘He doesn’t have it. He gave it away!’

Before Talorcan could move towards the woman wearing the armlet, the hunter dashed ahead of him. ‘Please!’ he cried. ‘Leave her alone. I will get it for you.’

Reaching the woman, the hunter begged her to hand over the armlet before there was further trouble. She drew back from him, one hand closing protectively around the armband. Seeing her resistance, Esselt and Talorcan drew nearer.

‘Stay calm,’ Talorcan said. ‘We only want the relic.’

The woman either didn’t hear or didn’t believe Talorcan’s words. Her efforts to pull away became more desperate. The hunter tried to soothe his lover’s fright, but his words, too, went ignored. The woman grew more panicked the closer Esselt and Talorcan came towards her. Her attempts to flee only made the hunter more frantic to get the armlet away from her. The other villagers retreated from her vicinity, alarmed by the conflict but more frightened by the attention the witch takers were showing in the woman.

‘Get away from her,’ Esselt warned the hunter. ‘The relic is dangerous.’ The greatsword was no longer resting across her shoulder but was clutched tightly in both hands as she took another step towards the woman.

‘Please! I’ll get it for you! Don’t hurt her!’ the hunter pleaded. Desperation made his effort to get the armlet away from his lover violent. In his move to wrest the armband free, the rough edge of the bronze ripped open the palm of his hand. Blood gushed from the wound, streaming down the woman’s arm.

The huge girasol began to glow with a hellish light. A hideous chill swept through the village. Grass wilted. Breath turned to frost. A charnel stink filled the air, the stench of busy abattoirs and old battlefields.

‘Get away from her!’ Esselt shouted a second time. The warning came too late. Even if the hunter had intended to listen to her, the hand of his lover closed around his arm in a steely grip. He looked into the woman’s face, screaming when he found her eyes vanishing beneath a glaze of blood. Crimson tears ran down her face as her mouth curled back and long fangs sprouted from her gums. The cursed woman’s other arm drew back, slamming her fist into his chest with such colossal force that it erupted from his back in a spray of blood and splintered bone.

Terror raced through the village. The crowd parted, scattering in every direction. Morleo cried in horror and fled into the Sigmarite shrine. Animals bleated and howled in their pens, trying to trample through their enclosures. Dogs and chickens fled out into the desert, yelping and shrieking. Even the trees of the oasis seemed to shudder as the profane power of Khorne was unleashed.

The possessed woman moved with ghastly speed and power. In one swift motion she peeled her dead hunter from her clawed hand, casting the carcass aside like an old glove. Bones could be seen shifting and changing beneath her skin and clothes, a fringe of spikes stabbing out from her shoulders and spine. Hideous knots of muscle swelled around her arms and bulged from her legs while her face elongated into a lupine muzzle.

‘Butcher of Khorne!’ Talorcan shouted, firing his pistol into the monster. ‘By Sigmar, you will kill no more!’ The shot smashed against the thing’s breast, burrowing through to the heart. The shot alone would have finished a mortal, the blessings on the bullet should have vanquished a daemon. The awful power of the thing the witch hunters faced was that it was neither mortal nor daemon, but rather the murderous legacy of the ancient chieftain made flesh.

With steaming ichor spilling from the bullet wound, the abomination turned on Talorcan. It sprang at him like a rabid jackal, crimson froth dripping from its fangs. One clawed hand slashed for his face. Talorcan matched the incredible speed of his foe, bringing his sword licking across the mutated arm. A deep furrow was gouged into the corrupted flesh; bestial fingers were hewn from the gnarled hand. Yet the beast was oblivious to its hurt and its attack did not falter. Talorcan was thrown back as the maimed limb smashed into him. Unable to penetrate his armour, the blow still had enough force to send him flying. He crashed down on his back, almost cracking his skull against the edge of the log platform.

‘Leave him!’ Esselt’s cry rang through the air, so fierce it rose even above the screams of the villagers. She charged at the possessed creature, bringing her greatsword chopping down in a vicious arc. The thing snarled in fury of its own as the silvered sword chewed through its neck and sent its head slopping to the ground.

Esselt turned away from the mangled thing as it slumped to its knees. She looked for Talorcan, alarm in her eyes. He managed to sit up, making a dismissive wave of his arm to allay her concerns. Esselt was hardly reassured. She knew he would conceal the gravity of any injury from her in order to calm her fears. Slinging her greatsword up onto her shoulder, she started towards Talorcan.

It was Talorcan’s face that suddenly became twisted with fear. Eyes wide with horror, he thrust his hand and pointed. ‘Esselt – behind!’ he shouted.

Even as Esselt turned, the headless fiend attacked. Far from vanquished, its claws came sweeping down, scratching across her vambrace and tearing away her pauldron. She dived to the ground to avoid the vicious talons. She struck hard against the earth, kicking up a cloud of dust. She scuttled back as the dust settled and found herself staring into the grisly eyes of the fiend’s severed head. The monster noticed her, rolling its eyes and gnashing its fangs as it tried vainly to strike at her. Then a feral grin contorted its visage. The eyes stared upwards. It was warning enough for Esselt. Rolling across the ground she avoided the slashing claws of the thing’s body by the narrowest margin. Strips of shredded cloak fluttered upon the beast’s talons when it stalked after her.

Esselt had no intention of running from the possessed monster. Once she was clear of its reach, she regained her feet and waited for her opportunity. Removing the beast’s head had not killed it, but at least it had slowed the creature down, made its movements less agile. When it failed to strike her with another sweep of its claws, she lunged at its body. Esselt drove her sword deep into the thing’s side. With a brutal wrenching motion, she tore the blade free, ripping open a great gash from sternum to flank. A confusion of entrails spilled from the wound, flopping against the monster’s legs in a welter of gore.

Still the fiend would not fall. The back of its hand slammed into Esselt, sending her reeling. The headless horror came after her, relentless as a juggernaut.

At the base of the platform, Talorcan rallied. His head ringing from his violent impact, all pain was banished when he saw Esselt. A wave of dread seized him. Snatching up his sword from the ground, he staggered to where the decapitated head lay. The thing glared at him, clacking its fangs together in a display of mute fury. Then he brought his sword crunching down into the mutated skull. Twisting the blade, he bisected the head, the two halves sizzling as the ichor within them steamed away.

Unlike the discarded hosts they had found before, destroying the head was not enough to end the monster’s rampage. Talorcan saw the headless body lunge at Esselt once again, its claws just missing her face. Then he spotted the armlet still fastened around the beast’s arm, the girasol still ablaze with hellish light.

‘The relic!’ Talorcan shouted. ‘That is its power!’

Esselt gave no sign of hearing Talorcan’s cry, but her actions showed that she understood. When the monster came at her again, she ducked beneath its talons and attacked it from the side. The cleaving edge of her silvered sword smashed down on the thing’s shoulder, cutting through bone, muscle and tendon. The arm went rolling across the ground. Esselt was sent spinning through the dirt as the monster’s remaining hand caught hold of her cloak and flung her backwards.

Talorcan hurried towards the severed arm. The fingers were scratching at the earth, trying to flip the limb over so it could drag itself back into the fray. He stamped down on its palm, pinning it in place. His eyes stared down at the armlet locked about the bicep, the ghastly girasol still aglow with infernal power. Taking his sword in both hands, he brought it chopping down, striking the ancient bronze in which the gem was set.

A mighty howl roared across Tora Grae as the armlet was severed and the girasol was sent tumbling away from its host. At once the unnatural cold and gory scent that had descended upon the oasis was banished. The headless monster that only a moment before had been ready to attack Esselt now slumped to its knees. Esselt prodded it with her sword and it fell onto its side, already losing its monstrous proportions. Soon it wilted into the maimed body of a young woman.

Talorcan reached to his belt and removed a strip of golden cloth from one of its pouches. Carefully he set the cloth over the loosened girasol, noting with some dismay the way the cloth darkened when it came into contact with the gem. He didn’t ponder the phenomenon for long. Turning from the cursed relic, he staggered over to where Esselt stood above the carcass of their late enemy.

‘Are you harmed?’ Talorcan asked, his voice heavy with concern.

Esselt gave her companion an appraising look and raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I should be asking you that question, Tal,’ she told him.

‘Nothing that won’t heal,’ Talorcan said. He tried to smile, but the effort was ruined by a wince of pain. ‘I am more ashamed than hurt. I thought I had some idea of what we were up against, but the first thing you should never forget is that Chaos obeys few rules in its manifestations.’

Esselt removed what was left of her cloak and draped it across the mangled remains of the woman’s body. ‘What matters is that our faith in Sigmar brought us victory,’ she said. ‘How many times have we visited judgement on the filth of the Dark Gods? It will need more than a cursed bauble to overcome us.’

Talorcan looked back at the cloth he’d set over the girasol. The golden colour had turned a deep scarlet, almost the colour of clotted blood. ‘It still has power and I am not sure it is safe to carry back to the temple for disposal.’

‘What do we do with it then?’ Esselt asked. ‘We can’t just leave it.’

‘No, we can’t,’ Talorcan agreed. His gaze turned to the little shrine of Sigmar. ‘But maybe we won’t need to take it away with us.’

It was late the next day when the witch hunters left Tora Grae. The cool of dusk would soon descend upon the desert of Droost and the keen-eyed demi-gryphs would be able to pick their way across the dunes by moonlight as easily as they could by sunlight. With a long journey between themselves and the temple complex of Vorthion, Esselt and Talorcan were eager to avoid as much of the daytime heat as they could.

The villagers watched them ride away from the tops of the barrier rocks. They had seen enough of the fight to know the peril they had been saved from. The witch hunters had their gratitude if not their adoration. Even for simple desert folk it was difficult to be at ease knowing the Order of Azyr was watching.

Old Morleo didn’t join his people on the rocks. Instead he was crouched inside the shrine, bowing his head before the altar and praying to Sigmar that Talorcan and Esselt would have a safe journey. The basin to one side of the altar was empty now and on the morrow he would have to bring up a new supply from the pool to bless in Sigmar’s holy name.

The box of offerings at the other side of the shrine was a little fuller than it had been before. There was a new stone there, a plain and withered-looking thing. All that remained of the brilliant girasol after it had been drowned in holy water and offered up to Sigmar.

All that was left of Khorne’s obscene relic once the Blood God’s malice was removed.

About the Author

C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax, the Age of Sigmar novel Overlords of the Iron Dragon, and the novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, the End Times novel Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Time of Legends: The Black Plague series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and the Age of Sigmar.

A group of heroes assemble to hunt the Eight Lamentations, mighty artefacts of the Dark God from the Age of Chaos.

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by John Michelbach.

The Witch Takers © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. The Witch Takers, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-851-8

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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