The Witch Hunt

The Witch Hunt
By: Kodan Wolf
This story was originally submitted to Mythic!

Volnar the Witch Hunter held his pistol at the ready, his back against the stone wall outside the old church. He gave the signal and the footmen kicked the door in and they all charged in. Inside the abandoned church they found what Volnar had suspected. Candles giving off an unnatural red light were placed around the room, and dark symbols had been painted on the walls in blood. It was a cult to the chaos god Tzeentch. As his brigade of footmen charged into the room a group of Zealots jumped up from the decaying benches to meet them.

“You are under arrest for the forbidden practice of Dark Arts,” Volnar shouted. He was met with only inhuman screams and praises to Tzeentch. The Zealots hurled themselves at his men. The Zealots’ little knives were no match for the steel swords of the soldiers, but in the confusion several of his men were cursed with dark marks. One of them dropped to his knees, vomiting blood. There was nothing he could do for them.

Then, he saw a figure standing at the front of the church facing away from them. Despair filled Volnar as he recognized what the figure was. “Ah sh–,” Volnar said to himself. His men had already advanced on the Marauder; it was too late for them.

The Chaos Marauder had several pieces of armor nailed to its back and a bony spike extending out of its shoulder. It turned around revealing a chest covered in dark symbols of Tzeentch. A horn-covered helmet shielded its face, but two cruel, glowing eyes shown out of the slats in the metal.

Its arm started shuddering and convulsing, then mutated before their eyes. It became a huge crab claw with spike-like teeth, blood red in color. It attacked with all the fury of a chaos beast, ripping appendages in a sudden blood bath. His men were ripped to pieces so fast they did not have time to scream.

“Volnar witch hunter!” It screamed in a half crazed inhuman voice. “Tchar’zanek will be pleased when I bring your head to him on my claw!”

Volnar chuckled and drew his magical saber. “Not today chaos fiend. It’s your head which will by my trophy.”

The Marauder roared with rage and charged Volnar, who gracefully jumped out of its way to the top of a bench. The Marauder charged past him and he shot it several times in the back with blessed bullets. It yelled in agony, “It burns! Volnar, I will strip the flesh from your bones!” It charged again, throwing benches into the air.

Volnar stood his ground and slashed at the Marauder, severing its mutated appendage. He kicked the screaming minion of chaos to the ground and fired several rounds into its head. The corpse continued to convulse and try to attack him until he drenched it with liquid and lit it on fire.

Volnar left the burning church and tipped his hat to a family of peasants walking by. He slid his saber into its sheath and thought, “One cult down, several hundred more to go.”