"To me, warriors of Franz, to me! Heed my words! Hear my call!" The commander sat astride his noble steed, polished armor shining like the sun, longsword held high above his head. All the men of the Nordland 3rd Regiment of foot looked up at him and listened as he spoke. "Today, we find ourselves arrayed against the hordes of Chaos! They are a terrible and hideous enemy, but I say let them come! They will break themselves upon our iron-hard defense as a wave breaks itself upon the rocks of the seacoast! Their ferocity cannot match our discipline, though the fight will be fiery indeed! If victory is to be had today, every man among you must bear up his weapon and fight with true valor in his heart! Let them come, I say! We shall falter not under their assault! They shall not find us wanting! Men of Nordland! Will you join with me in vic-" A very rude arrow interrupted the commander's speech, burying its cold steel barb and its meter-long shaft deep in his throat.

A cry of fear and rage rose up from the Imperial ranks as the general slipped from his horse, his shining armor speckled with his own blood. The only sound he made as his lifeless body hit the ground was a dull thump, followed by a hideous gurgling noise as the air from his lungs left his body through his mangled throat.

All was confusion among the men of the Empire. Shouts and conflicting orders rang out, and men in the back ranks demanded to know what was going on, while their allies in the front could say nothing more than "The general's dead! The general's dead!"

As the men bickered among themselves and hastily scrambled about trying to decide what to do next, a hail of arrows was loosed from the woods nearby. The rain of bolts struck home among the Nordlanders, and eighteen men fell to the bow-shots. Another twelve were seriously injured.

Panic immediately set in, and the Imperial soldiers scattered in all directions. "Run! Run!" came a cry from one of the lieutenants. "No!" another responded. "Stay and fight! Fight, damn you, fight!" At that very moment a horrible warcry, long and terribly ululating, rose from the forests on both sides. The last shreds of Imperial resolve vanished, and the Nordlanders broke and fled as hundreds of Chaos Marauders emerged from the forest, charging and screaming like the bloodthirsty savages they were.

Within the confusion, a single man stood tall, the shaven crown of his head glinting in the light. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with life-giving air, and roared out a command. "Warriors of Sigmar! If you are men and not lilly-livered children, you will stand with me and purge these unclean maggots!" His voice was undeniable, loud, clear, and powerful. Five men turned to look at him, then ten, then twenty, forty, the whole army. Every Imperial man stood silent as the Chaos Marauders closed in, gazing at the figure before them.

He was majestic. Gleaming in his simplistic silvered armor, a brown mantle on his shoulders, a massive hammer clutched in his crushing grasp. He was plainly armored and attired, but that was not why he stood out. Around him there was a glowing radiance, and his manner of bearing was so strong, so righteous, so kingly, he looked as though he could have been the Emperor himself. He smiled a grim and terrible smile. "Fight them."

It was a single command, almost monosyllabic, but every man among the Nordlanders swung about to face the enemies closing in. The state troops formed up in serried ranks as the Marauders pounded over the grassy terrain towards them. A warrior priest of Sigmar was with them! It was a miracle, all were sure. They would not -could not- fail now!

---{KF}---

Hastor Kell, warrior priest of Sigmar, swung his hammer with blinding speed. The Marauder before him practically melted away at the force of the blow, the blunt face of the weapon pulping flesh and splintering bone. In the fiercely swirling melee, Kell was everywhere at once. Wherever the Empire's troops were hardest pressed, there Kell stood to fend off the black advance of Chaos with flying hammer and fierce words.

Where Kell walked, the resolve of the Imperial troops swelled and their will to fight grew till they were roaring like lions with every blow. The priest dispensed blessings and blows with equal measure, for he was needed to bolster morale as much as to slay the foe.

Hastor Kell was a brave man, but he was also very intelligent, and he had a great deal of tactical acumen. He knew that the small Nordland army could not hold for long against the onslaught of Chaos. He had to do the impossible. He needed to face the Chaos commander in single combat.

It was a decision that he was not glad to make. Kell knew that if he went up against the leader of the dark legion, he would most likely perish. Even if he did manage to destroy the blackguard commander, it was a certainty that he would not come out unscathed. Kell was not afraid to give his own life for the men of Nordland. He would gladly give of himself to save the life of a single man. Though no warrior priest of Sigmar had ever feared martyrdom, Kell was still unnerved by the prospect of failure. He had no desire to have his head mounted on a pike for the armies of Chaos to use as a propaganda weapon against the Empire.

Shaking his head to rid himself of such gloomy thoughts, Kell called out to the men around him. "Follow me, men of Nordland! I need twenty of you! Twenty men, to fight with me! We will cleave through the ranks of the enemy and make for their black-hearted leader! Twenty brave men! Who among you will give of themselves for Sigmar?!"

Thirty-two faithful warriors of the Empire ran to Hastor Kell's call. Not a single one did he turn away. Speaking a benediction of blessing over them, Kell's eyes brimmed with tears. He could hardly bring himself to doom these brave, stupid men. But without them, he would never make it to the Chaos leader's position. Silently mouthing a prayer to Sigmar, Kell asked for forgiveness and strength in the face of a horrible death. As he finished his prayer, Kell felt as though his god would surely answer his plea.

---{KF}---

The screaming, the roaring, the horrible squelching hack of men being torn limb from limb. It was all around. William Osbourg tried to block it out as he swung his greatsword again and again. The blade bit deep into flesh, and Osbourg pulled it out with a heavy tug. He had just slain another Marauder. These Chaos fighters were ferocious, but easy to kill. As the Imperial greatswordsman readied his blade for another swing, he cast his eyes to his left and to his right.

On the left, there were nothing but screaming Marauders. On the right, the miraculous warrior priest made great holes in the enemy lines with his whooshing, flying hammer. The golden aura that filled the air around him was no dimmer now than it had been at the start of the battle, and just looking at the man gave Osbourg new strength. The Nordlander shouted out his defiance and moved his sword behind his head, preparing to strike down any foe who came at him.

As Osbourg switched his gaze to the enemies straight in front of him, he saw something that made his blood run cold as ice water. Chaos Warriors in full plate armor, bearing large shields with the corrupt symbol of Chaos upon them, and wielding oversized axes and swords, chipped and weathered, but still wickedly sharp. Osbourg's resolve withered like a dry vine in the summer heat. He had nothing that could stand up to those creatures, no skill, no strength of arms. What hope had he of beating a foe like that?

Kell's shout pierced through Osbourg's thoughts like a crossbow bolt. The greatswordsman turned to look at the warrior priest, and what he saw made his heart swell with pride. Kell stood over the crumpled corpse of a Chaos Warrior, holding his hammer high above his head, his golden halo stronger than ever before. "Take heart, men of the Empire! These Warriors can be defeated! Fight on! Fight on, for Sigmar and for Karl Franz!"

Kell swung his mighty rune-hammer downwards in a glinting arc. Osbourg watched as the weapon struck against another Warrior with a shattering impact. The Chaos fighter's armor was broken open like the shell of a chestnut by the blow, and the Warrior staggered back, his wound spurting blood and various other unnatural ichors. A shot from a handgunner - on the righthand side of the warrior priest- finished off the enemy.

Osbourg turned to look at the Chaos Warrior in front of him. Hardly knowing what he was doing, the Nordlander charged, holding his greatsword behind his head and screaming a battle-yell. The Warrior roared out a fierce responding warcry and pushed aside two Marauders who were in his way, making for Osbourg. The swordsman and the Warrior clashed with a titanic noise, and Osbourg swung his greatsword to meet the downward sweep of the enemy's jagged broadsword. The two blades clashed, and it was all Osbourg could do to push the Warrior's strike aside, leaving a clear opening for Osbourg to slice at the Warrior's armpit.

The greatsword flashed and sparked as it met the murderous Chaos fighter's hell-forged armor. Over the course of the battle, Osbourg had slain more than twenty Marauders with the sword, and it had done more than its fair share of neck-hewing. As the well-used greatsword met the unnaturally strong Chaos armor, Osbourg knew it had done all it could do. The blade broke into a dozen shards with a sound like glass shattering. The Warrior laughed as he saw the greatsword fall to pieces, and he raised his broadsword above his head with a guttural cry.

Osbourg saw his chance. With a roar of pure, unadultered defiance, the Imperial soldier focused all his rage, his hopelessness, his years of pent up despair and fear and anger into a lance of mental clarity and purpose of will. In one swift move, William Osbourg reached to his side, gripped the hilt of his backup shortsword, and drew it out. Two-and-a-half feet of fine Marienburg steel rang clear and loud as it left its scabbard. Time seemed to move impossibly slowly as Osbourg pulled back his elbow behind his head, holding the sword horizontally. Still roaring out his defiance of all that the dark creature before him stood for, Osbourg thrust the shortsword out with all the strength in his right arm.

Imperial blade met Chaos armor with a sound like clanging churchbells. Osbourg pushed with all his strength, and each millisecond that passed felt like a thousand years. And just at the point where the clanging crash was loudest, the blade, impossibly, pierced the armor. Though the Warrior's plate was made in hell, it still could not stand before the wrath of a desperate man and two-and-a-half feet of good Marienburg steel.

When Osbourg looked up to see the damage he had wrought, he found that he had thrust his sword right through the Warrior's faceplate and deep into his brain, killing him instantly. The Imperial swordsman leapt aside as the Warrior collapsed with a clatter of colliding armor. William Osbourg stood dumbfounded before the body of a fallen Chaos Warrior, and in that moment, he rejoiced.

---{KF}---

Kell was bleeding from a half dozen small wounds, and his left leg had been badly smashed, perhaps even sprained, when a Marauder, whom the priest had presumed dead, had struck out from his place on the ground with an iron-studded club. Hastor Kell was a strong man, however, and he cared not for pain. He would gladly bear any amount of suffering for the cause of Sigmar.

Trying to duck under the sweep of an attacking Marauder's sword, Hastor moved just a little too slowly. The tip of the blade sliced through the skin of his brow, just above his eyes. The enemy had put too much power in the strike, however, and his arm went wide, leaving Kell an opening. The warrior priest brought up his mighty hammer, bashing it into the chestplate of his foe. The thin, crude slab of iron broke from the force of the blow, and the Marauder wearing it stumbled backwards and fell on his rump in the dust. Kell raised his hammer high above his head, and brought it down with thunderous force. Gore fountained.

Blood from his new wound seeped down into Kell's eyes, and the warrior priest paused to wipe his face. Battle raged all around, and Kell swiftly tore a long strip of cloth from his robe and wrapped it four times around his head, covering the cut. Vision cleared, Hastor looked around. There was a lull in the fighting, and it seemed almost as if Kell and his retinue of soldiers were running out of enemies. The priest took the time to catch his breath and survey his remaining soldiers. Kell could feel the energy of battle draining as the action faded, adrenalin burning away and blood lust leaving his mind. He was tired, so tired.

Out of the thirty-two warriors who had charged with Kell into the press of the enemy lines, only fifteen remained. Kell was forced to reduce that reckoning to fourteen as he saw a Chaos Warrior, cornered by soldiers, cut apart a spearman with a swift and powerful attack. The Warrior was fighting fiercely, and he knocked away three of the state troops before Hastor marched over and smashed him to the ground with a furious strike.

Kell knew they had probably made it almost the whole way through the Chaos lines. There were only a dozen or so Marauders and three Warriors in front of the party of Imperial fighters. Kell had expected to find the Chaos commander here, but the leader was nowhere to be seen. The warrior priest and his retinue charged forward, tired but determined, and put the remaining enemy troops to the sword.

Kell leaned on the haft of his hammer, breathing heavily. He felt cheated. He'd brought these men here and lost almost thirty of them to find and kill a madman, and now the madman had slipped through his fingers. It was a great disappointment indeed for the warrior priest, and to make matters worse, he couldn't seem to catch his breath. He sucked in great breaths with gasping gulps, but still it felt as though atmosphere was devoid of oxygen. There was something about the air...

Kell wiped his eyes and looked down at the book chained to his side, the grimoire of Sigmar that all priests carried. He thought over the scriptures of battle which he knew by heart. In a flash of desperation, hardly knowing what he said, he recited one of his favorite verses. "Let not your eyes deceive you, for they are the windows into the soul, and the soul is ruin. Rather, let Sigmar be your light and your sure guide through the darkness. Let his flame illumine your heart, let faith in him give you strength."

The world shattered into a infinite number of tiny, swirling shreds and shards and specks. Kell's eyes burned with the sight of it, as the landscape around him was riven and broken and remade. It felt to the priest as if a veil had been lifted up from before his eyes, and now he saw the true matter. Hovering twelve feet in the air before him, wings formed from unholy energies flaring from its back, was a Champion of Tzeentch. The man-bird thing floated down to earth in a graceful, twisting spiral. When it's long, sharp-clawed feet hit the ground, Kell felt a hideous coldness in the air. Frost spread out from the creature's robes to lick over the boots of Kell and his soldiers. When the warrior priest tried to move back, he found himself frozen in place.

Unable to resist, Kell looked up into the face of the Champion as it stalked closer with loping, bobbing strides. It really did look uncannily like a bird, like a crow or a vulture. Its unnatural face was twisted into a dark grin as it moved over to one of Kell's retinue and extended a clenched hand from within the recesses of its cloak. Kell was morbidly fascinated as the garment shifted and moved almost like a living thing to accommodate it's wearer's actions. His fascination turned to dread as the Tzeentchian sorcerer extended its index finger, which ended in a long, vicious talon.

The bird-man reached out his finger towards the soldier and slowly scrawled a symbol of pure evil into the frozen human's forehead with his claw. The soldier screamed a horrible, animal scream of deep pain -mental as much as physical- as the symbol was drawn, and when the Champion withdrew his finger, the man's face melted away, all the flesh of his body sloughing off his bones in runnels of crimson. The flesh pooled in a small puddle around the feet of the now bare skeleton, and then the man's bones turned to dust, blown away by a breeze that did not exist. The Champion of Tzeentch cackled with a sound like a thousand bones being simultanouesly broken in the most horrible way imaginable.

Kell's mind was nearly destroyed by the sound, but as he felt himself nearing insanity, he thought upon the oaths he had taken, upon the words he had read in the grimoire at his side. He would not succumb to the powers of ruination, and neither would any of his men if he could help it. Reaching down to grip the binding of his book, Kell opened his mouth and roared over the sound of the laughter. "Men of the Empire! This thing may take our bodies, but it cannot take our souls! Glory to Sigmar and to the Emperor Karl Franz!"

Nine of the fourteen looked at Kell in shock, and then their eyes burnt away and they vomited up their intestines. The other five roared out a response, a single shout of pure defiance and devotion. "Sigmar!" It was long and loud and pure, and as it rang out, Kell saw the sorcerer recoil in shock, scrabbling at his ears with his avian hands as if the sound gave him pain. In that moment, Kell realized that his feet were free. Shouting a warcry, he charged at the Champion. Out of the corner of his eye, Kell saw that one of the soldiers had charged too, wielding a shortsword and screaming bloody murder. The sorcerer knocked the swordsman to the ground with a blast of magical power, and drew back his staff as if to smite the fallen fighter. Kell roared with rage and sprinted faster towards the Champion, distracting it from the man at its feet.

Each quiet step made a noise like thunder, and each infinitesimal moment lasted a thousand years. Kell closed the gap between himself and the birdman, and with a monstrous effort in his aching muscles, he swung his mighty hammer at the thing. The face of the weapon met with the air an inch in front of the sorcerer and stopped for less than a second, blocked by some invisible magical force, and then broke through. The blow -worthy of a god- shattered the Champion's sorcerous wards and sent the creature to the ground.

As Kell brought the hammer back for the final, ultimate blow, he couldn't help but smile. And as the warrior priest paused for that tiny moment to leer at his foe, the Tzeentchian wizard brought up its staff with a blur of motion and launched a plume of blue fire that burnt Hastor Kell's flesh away and sent him flying.

---{KF}---

As William Osbourg regained consciousness, he saw the priest knocked back by the sorcerous explosion. The runehammer was blown from the Sigmarite's grasp and spiraled through the air, landing a few feet from Osbourg. The Imperial citizen's heart fell as he saw the priest hit the ground in a flaming, smoking heap. The Champion marched with its unnatural gait towards the fallen warrior-priest. The man-bird's back was turned to Osbourg.

Looking first at the priest and then at his fallen hammer, Osbourg knew what he had to do. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed the hammer's long haft. Lifting it required all the swordsman's formidable strength, but Osbourg did it. He held the hammer over his head and charged, screaming with fear and pain and anger. The Champion turned -too late- to gaze at Osbourg in shock as the man swung the hammer.

The swing was badly timed, badly aimed, and badly executed. Osbourg had no experience with warhammers, and his attack was clumsy and unprofessional. But it struck the sorcerer, if only just. The hammer nicked the bird-man's robe, blowing away the shifting fabric and revealing the true nature of the thing's body. As the hammer followed through with the sweep, it struck the Champion's staff. Both staff and hammer disappeared in a flash of purple light, and when the blinding glow was gone, William saw the Champion's unclothed form. Twisted, tortured, covered with patches of feathers and unholy sigils and markings cut into the flesh. Without thought, Osbourg put his hand to his scabbard and drew out his shortsword. Except it wasn't there.

The moment he realized his mistake, Osbourg turned and ran for the place where he had dropped his sword. He felt the heat as a blue fireball whipped past his ear. It was a lesson every swordsman learns early in his training, "never turn your back on a foe." It was one William had followed all of his days as an Imperial soldier. But he knew he would rather face this foe with a trusted weapon than with his bare hands, even if he stood no chance at all. Another fireball passed even closer, and Osbourg could smell singed hair.

Spotting the shortsword, Osbourg dove and rolled, grabbing it and carrying on with his run. He could see the forest edge growing near. He was almost there, perhaps if he made it to the forest he could- whoosh! William's plans were brought to an abrupt end as a wall of fire eight feet high rose in front of him to block his route to the forest.

"No. No, no!" the warrior screamed as he flailed backwards to avoid being caught in the the blaze.

"Oh, yesssss..." the voice came, hideous and low, then high and sickening. "You thought you could essssscape usssssss..." William turned to face the Champion of Tzeentch, and realized that the thing's avian beak had shifted into a massive, almost obscenely large, mouth. Osbourg shivered. "Sigmar protect me," he whispered.

"Your god Ssssssigmarsss cannot helpssss you now! The great gods of darknessssss shall prevailssss!" The bird-man's mouth was not moving with the words, instead it grew larger and smaller and wider and thinner and changed colors as the Champion spoke. "The Lord of Change, mighty Tzeentch, will have victory todaysssss!" The Champion began to caw like a raven, and the sound was so vile, so horrible, so hideously and unnaturally wrong that Osbourg simply couldn't take it.

"Shut up!" he screamed in terror, tears flowing from his eyes. "Shut up!" "No!" "I mean it! Shut up!"

The Champion didn't oblige, instead it began to speak in a voice that was like many voices, all varying in tone and volume and language. And underneath the babbling torrent of sound, William heard -but not with his ears- the cries of a thousand souls, and he knew their words to be true. It was too much for his mind.

"In Sigmar's name, shut up!" William Osbourg cried. The invocation of the Hammer-god startled the birdman, and through a haze of tears, William saw a tortured expression on its aquiline face. Screaming like a man who had lost all sense and all hope -and truly, he was a man of that kind- William Osbourg closed his eyes and ran like a charging bull at the Champion, shortsword grasped in both hands and extended before him. He didn't stop running until he felt a solid impact and heard the sound of his sword squelching into inhuman flesh. Osbourg opened his eyes and saw his sword had completely impaled the creature's heart, and the look on the face of the Champion was one of peace.

Osbourg let go of his sword-hilt and stumbled back as he heard a rumbling noise that sounded like thunder in the distance. It grew louder and louder until it reached a crescendo, and at that point the body of the Champion exploded as a flock of glowing, spectral crows burst from its chest and flew upwards in a spiraling circle. The ghostly flock flew over the battlefield, looping around once, twice, thrice, making an unholy cawing sound with each pass. On the third pass, the crows made not a caw, but a scream, like the scream of a hundred souls being tortured in hell.

And then they were gone, in a flash of blue light. When William looked at the body of the dead Champion, he saw that it was no longer twisted into the shape of a bird. Even as he watched, the sagging corpse began to immolate itself, burning down to ashes. As the discouraged forces of Chaos retreated from the field in rout, William Osbourg walked over to the pile of ashes. Laying in the fine grey soot was William's shortsword, and as Osbourg picked it up, he reflected that not even a Champion of Chaos could stand up against two-and-a-half feet of good Marienburg steel.