Warhammer Fantasy: Mark Of Ruin

Chapter 1: Wolf's Vengeance

Eric and Eva are the two children of Ada Krieger, a widowed seamstress who lived with her two children in the town of Brockel, located on the edge of the Drakwald Forest, on the road leading to Middenheim, city of the White Wolf. Life on the frontier is harsh, especially for a widow and two orphans. Eric and his sister help their mother by chopping wood and carrying water among other chores. On a sunny afternoon, Eric and Eva were walking the two miles between the water well and the town, each carrying two buckets full of water. It was a strenous effort for children of their age. "It's too heavy, Eric, you should carry another bucket" said Eva, panting and breathing heavily. "Why is that? Because you're too scrawny?" teased Eric. Even though a young boy, Eric was known in the town for his strength and resilience. He always won in contests of strength and cunning against other boys of his age. It also seemed that he was possesed of an exceptional vitality, and his wounds would heal very quickly. All these traits hinted at a martial legacy from his unknown father, whom his mother has never mentioned to Eric or his sister.

As the two siblings made their way back to the town, a strange sense of foreboding filled the air. Feeling something awry, Eric increased his pace to a slow jog. "What's wrong, Eric?" asked Eva with concern in her voice. "Something feels off" said Eric "let's hurry back." With the town in sight, with the older brother hurrying back in a hasty stride, while the young sister is lagging behind, tripping over her buckets in bewilderment, Eric's concerns were proving to be justified. Heavy smoke filled the air above the town with fire visibly roaring in the distance. Distant screams of horror and anguish mixed with inhuman brays that spoke of intense bloodlust and hatred reached the siblings' ears. In a fit of horrifying realization, the two buckets of water fell from Eric's hands as he rushed towards the town, followed by his stunned sister a few steps behind.

The town was a vision of unadulterated carnage. Dead bodies littered the floor, while the air was filled with the thick coppery smell of spilt blood. Looking around himself, Eric saw his townsfolk getting slaughtered by a rampaging herd of beastmen. The beastmen were twisted, mutated creatures that lived in forests. Half man, half beast, and full of rage and fury.  The Drakwald, the forest surrounding Middenheim and covering most of Middenland has the highest concentration of those beasts of Chaos.  Beastmen hate men with an unfathomable fury, partly because of envy at their non mutated state, and partly because of their revulsion to order and repulsion to civilization.  In a fit of horror, he looked at his little sister, "Run and hide!" Eric said, with a desperate authority, as he started running towards their home, ignoring the confused and teary protests of his sister. Sneaking stealthily through the town, Eric witnessed the blood drenched scenes of slaughter occuring everywhere around him. A gor chopping an old man in half with a blood stained cleaver, the town butcher fighting with an ungor, only to be impaled from behind on the horn of a minotaur, and a towering gorghon, a giant four-limbed mutated beast of Chaos, rampaging through the town, destroying houses, barns and buildings as if they were made of sand. The whole scene was accentuated by the unrelenting chanting of the beastmen. One terrible sound, that spoke of an infinite depth of hatred "Khar, khar, khar!" The sound meant nothing to Eric, but he felt an insane amount of rage build up within himself at the sound of the chant.

Shaking his head and clearing his mind, Eric pushed forward until he reached the burnt ruin that was his family's humble home. Burning tears stained Eric's horrified face as he pushed the door open and saw the mutilated corpse of his mother, broken in a bloody pulp, with a horrified expression on her beautiful face, that was strangely left untouched. Kneeling beside his mother's corpse, Eric stared at her visage for a while, blood staining his hand as he held her, while his tears wetted her serenely horrified face.

"Khar, khar, khar..." The chant kept going with an ever increasing intensity. The chant now had a profound effect on Eric. He started to feel his body shaking. "Mother..." said Eric with eyes stained with tears and blood. He felt the ground sink beneath him, as his heart was engulfed by anguish and despair. Growing up without a father, Eric's mother and Eva were everything to him. Sharing their struggles on the frontier, they developed an unbreakable bond. The sudden severing of that bond made Eric lose his balance. Something within his young and innocent psyche suddenly snapped.  Losing himself to an intense state of bloodlust, where all he could experience was visions of slaughter and an animalistic urge to hunt, a predator's prerogative to devour, Eric looked to the sky through the ruined roof of the house where he spent his childhood, and let out a blood curdling howl, that should never have come out from the mouth and throat of a human. Hearing the sound, the beastmen were startled. Looking around to the direction from where the sound originated, the beastmen were shocked to witness a bright yet intense grey light emerge from the ruins of the Krieger's ruined house. Accentuated by the intensity of the howl, the eery grey light caused the morale of the beastmen to waver causing low growling brays of fear and confusion begin to appear within the ranks of the bestial raiders. Before the beastmen could realize what is happening, a savage apparition surrounded by a halo of intense pressure emerged from the ruin, and started to wrack bloody vengeance on the stunned beastmen. A gor was slashed in half by razor sharp claws, while a pair of gors were subsequently mutilated by fangs as sharp as forged steel. The brays of the beastmen turned from exultant war cries to terrified moans of horror, as they scattered in all directions. The death of dozens of gors anounced by the inhuman howl alerted the leader of the beastmen herd. A hulking creature of bunched muscles and sinews, with a bloody red complexion, marking him as a chosen of the blood god, the minotaur let out a deep guttural growl, which galvanized the beastmen, who renewed their assault on the strange solitary figure, laying waste to their ranks.