He cradled his head in his hands in the dark cell of the nearest Sigmarite temple. He barely remembered them dragging him off, ripping his staff from his hands and casting him into the darkness. All he thought about was the knife, a ripple of purple eldritch energy and a great cackle of joy. How had he got it so wrong? How had he been so easily deceived? If it hadn't been for the Herald's intervention, the daemon would have killed him, then continued his efforts throughout the army of the Empire.

He'd drifted in and out of sleep so much he couldn't even work out how long he'd been here. A week, two, a month, a year? All were possible.

"Hey, you!" He looked at the bars of his cell to see an armoured jailor standing there, holding a small bowl in his hand. "Dinner's ready for you, you freak."

Freak, they'd called him that since his first meal. With no dignity or pride left, he cast his mask aside to where it still rested at one side of the cell, allowing all the guards to see the ruin of his face, the skin turning to gold where it wasn't ravaged by burn marks. He reached out to take the bowl. Brown slop today, as opposed to grey, green or blue as he'd had before, but one mouthful was enough to tell him it was just as tasteless. "Leave the bowl by the bars when you're done," they couldn't even stand to be so near him anymore.

He finished his bowl in silence, leaving it where asked. He brushed the bars with his fingers. If he wanted he could twist these bars aside and walk out, even as he was, he could get passed the few guards in this prison. But the bars weren't keeping him prisoner. His own regret was a cage that couldn't be broken.

More footsteps. Quick to collect this time. But this wasn't a guard, it was a Witch Hunter, the one who'd tried to track down the Changeling, and who had accompanied the Crusades against Sylvania if he recalled. The Witch Hunter wrapped leather covered fingers around the bars and stared down at him. "I never thought to see you brought so low."

Gelt looked at him. "Here to measure me for your pyre?" He asked.

Emil shook his head, sorrowful. "No, your fate has yet to be decided, but I thought you at least deserved to hear what news there is." When Gelt didn't reply, he continued anyway. "Thyrus Gormann has retaken the post of Supreme Patriarch again. Given the conflict there wasn't time for the effort or dissent of a full election, so Gorman was chosen as the last Patriarch before yourself to retake the role."

He nodded. "We're at war, you couldn't hope for a better choice." Gormann was the Patriarch of the Bright College, their fire magics would prove most useful in the coming battles.

"That's how most thought, the gold order are keeping their heads down, for now, letting the shame pass over. But there is still much ire directed at them. The daemon masqueraded as one of them, and you wrongly accused the Herald of Sigmar of being him."

"I was wrong," no one would judge him too harshly were he but an acolyte, but he was the Supreme Patriarch, he wasn't allowed to be wrong.

"You were, and many are soon to pay for your mistake."

"My wizards?" He asked, was the Gold Order about to be purged? The cult had done worse for betrayal in it's years.

Emil shook his head. "No, Luthor Huss. He's risen in prestige as the man who brought the Herald of Sigmar to us again. Under his direction, the Cult of Sigmar is withdrawing it's support from the bastion."

Gelt hung his head. He knew in his heart of hearts that this would happen. "And without their support, the Auric Bastion will fall."

Emil nodded. "The Emperor has ordered a full retreat, the armies are already moving, they'll be gone by the end of the week."

"The Herald?"

"Travels with the Emperor, and the prayers of the Empire."

"Loremaster Teclis?"

"With the Emperor as well, even he couldn't sustain the barrier without the faith. He and the Tzarina tried to remould it, but it wouldn't work, you created something only you could control, and soon it will fall."

Gelt stared at the cold stone walls of his cell. "I tried to save us," he whispered.

Emil sighed. "I know."

"Time's up!" called a guard. "Leave the heretic alone now."

Emil nodded and stepped back.

"When will I know what happens to me?" He asked.

Emil glanced his way. "As soon as your fate is decided I expect. You've earned that much."

He left Balthazar to his thoughts of despair.

"There must be another way!" Franz insisted to the assembled upper echelons of the Cult of Sigmar. Valten sat in the back, Ghal Maraz across his knees, looking at it in wonder. Franz wished he would speak, while he was silent, Luthor Huss' zealotry had taken over the Cult. "Discount Gelt if you must, but his barrier-"

"The faith cannot support any of the former Supreme Patriarch's works," Huss insisted, arms folded across his barrel like chest in defiance. "Our prayers will not support the work of one so easily fooled by daemonkind. The daemon masqueraded as his own apprentice and he noticed nothing. We cannot allow our faith to risk such easy infiltration by association with his works, who knows what else remains of the daemon's work. Our position has not changed and never will."

Franz sighed in resignation. In truth he had only hope that they would reverse their decision, allow him to recall the armies to the bastion and continue to hold the enemy at bay until they inevitably fell apart.

It was not to be. Instead he turned and made his way to his command tent. The Army of Reikland would be one of the last to retreat, already the other armies were on the way south and west, to more defensible lands.

The great councils of the campaign had marshalled over five hundred generals, lords, sorcerers and other elites, around the tent now were only six: Kurt Helborg, Ludwig Schwartzhelm, Thyrus Gormann – the new Supreme Patriarch, Tzarina Katarin and, slightly aside from the others, Vlad and Isabella von Carstein.

"My Emperor," Kurt started, stepping forward. "Do we continue with the retreat?"

Franz nodded. "We do, Sigmar save us, but the war will be decided elsewhere it seems."

"There are cracks appearing all along the bastion, without the power of the faith or Gelt it will fall, possibly within days, will we get far enough away, I wouldn't like to be caught out in the open plains of the north of the Empire, in retreat, with a much greater enemy force coming up behind me." Schwartzhelm didn't hold back on their situation, and Franz himself had given much thought to it. He didn't like to rely on prayer and chance, but he needed every blessing of every god to ensure that it didn't happen.

"I can stop them." They all turned to look at Vlad von Carstein. Isabella was wrapped around him like a cloak, her body pressed against his. "The living need to retreat, the dead can give you the time you need to do so."

"You would sacrifice your kind for ours?" Thyruss Gormann asked. "I don't believe it."

"My kind?" Vlad asked, sneering at the patriarch. "No, Isabella will take many of my cousins of the blood in their retreat. I will hold the line with my necromancers... and every corpse that can be raised."

"Sacrilidge!" Gormann began, but Franz held up a hand to silence him. "How much time can you buy us?"

Vlad nodded in thanks to Franz agreeing to listen. "As long as my necromancers can keep raising the dead, we will hold them, I will never be able to achieve victory alone, but even the arms of cursed chaos warriors must grow tired when they have to cut through seas of corpses."

"You would use the bodies of the dead-" Thyrus began.

"To allow the living a chance to not join them," Vlad finished, taking a single step forward. That one step had the weight of ages behind it. "A chance to fight again at their own will. I do not have the power to raise the dead of twelve provinces, if the living fall, the realms of death will follow, and nothing will be able to stop the advance of Chaos."

Franz nodded discreetly at Kurt. It was clear that Thyrus would continue to object to Vlad, but a suggestion from the Reiksmarshall...

"We do need someone to screen our retreat, every day will save lives and preserve our strength. If von Carstein volunteers, I say that we indulge him."

Thryus still looked like he hated the suggestion, but outnumbered, the newly reinstated Supreme Patriarch decided not to press the issue. "So be it, I'll shed no tears when he dies."

"Nor will I," Isabella said leaning up and pressing cold lips to her husband's cheek, "because he will come back to me when he does." Vlad patted her arm gently.

"So it's decided," Katarin said, stepping forward, her icy presence cooling the rage of Thyrus Gormann. "I will inform the last of my soldiers to be ready to move by the end of the day." She swept out of the tent, ending the debate quickly.

"And I will prepare to hold the line here, Isabella, come." The two vampires followed the Tzarina, leaving only men of the Empire behind.

"We should go," Franz said. There was nothing else to be done. Well, only one thing.

Outside, as she was preparing to mount Urskin, Katarin turned at the sound of footsteps, Vlad and Isabella were approaching. "What do you want?" She asked, her hand dropping to the pommel of her blade.

"Only your help," Vlad said. "This war, it will not end quickly."

"I'm aware," Katarin replied, unsure where the vampires were going with this.

"We will need all the power we can get to win it," he continued.

"If you doubt my commitment to this war," she replied, indignation bristling within her. "Don't. I will avenge Kislev and all it's people."

"It's not your commitment that concerns me," Vlad says. "Only the foresight of the petty cults of the Empire." She raised an eyebrow. "Someone with the power to raise such a wall should not be left to be executed for an insult to a prophet boy."

Katarin stalled. "Balthazar."

Vlad nodded. "The old Supreme Patriarch, we will need a man of such power in the battles to come."

She knew that power well enough. "And why are you telling me instead of the Emperor?"

Vlad and Isabella shared a brief glance. "Because the Emperor won't help us break him out."

Gelt looked up at the sound of metal falling to stone. What was that? He pressed his face to the bars, but couldn't see beyond them. The padding of footsteps came rushing towards him and he fell backwards. Disgruntled assassins, here to kill him for what he'd done, without even a trial... perhaps he deserved no less.

But it wasn't an executioner. "Tzarina!" He gasped at the woman who turned at his cell.

She recoiled at the sight of his ruined face. "Balthazar," she breathed. "What... by the snows?" She cut off, looking back from where she'd come.

"You have him?" Vlad von Carstein stepped into view. His sword was still sheathed, in fact, there was no sign that there had been any violence at all. Vlad only looked at Gelt with passing curiosity. "We have to go, now."

The Tzarina drew her blade and with two deft strikes, had cut through the bars, sending them chiming to the floor. She held out a pale hand to him. "Come Balthazar. Quickly."

Gelt didn't move. "Why?" He whispered.

"This world isn't done with you yet," Vlad said, beckoning him. "Come."

"You don't deserve this," Katarin said. "You made mistakes, grave errors of judgement, but that is an accusation that can be laid at anyone's feet. You tried, chaos gods be damned, but you tried to keep them out, and for that, you deserve to have the chance to help fight them."

"Fight them?"

"We need to hurry," Vlad said, clearly not happy with the lack of alacrity shown by the Supreme Patriarch. "Damn it man," he said as Gelt refused to be pulled away.

He's broken, Katarin realised. She'd seen that look on the eyes of soldiers who had lost everything, who had been broken by their first fight or their hundredth. Not that she could truly blame him. She entered the cell and took his arm gently. "Come, Balthazar, let's get you outside for now."

It took a while to coax Gelt to move, down the corridor of empty cells, past where Isabella was charming the guards to stay asleep and towards the open air outside.

There were four mounts waiting for them outside: The two undead horses of the Vampires, Urskin, and Quicksilver, Gelt's Pegasus had landed just as they were to break him out of the prison, he knew his master would be needed. "Quicksilver," Balthazar's grip became just a little tighter, a little more sure on her arm.

"He'll take you away from here," Katarin said, ignoring the pointed glares of Vlad and Isabella. They wanted to keep him in the fight, but Gelt had no fight left in him, he needed to recover, to remember himself, and for that, he needed freedom. "To a place where you can recover yourself."

Gelt nodded. Before taking the reins of Quicksilver, he ran his hands over the soft fur of the animal. "My friend," he whispered to it softly before awkwardly pulling himself up onto the saddle.

"So you freed him then?" She spun, sword in hand at the voice, but faltered at the sight of Karl Franz approaching, alone.

"Peace, Katarin," he said, holding out his hands. "If I meant him harm I would have brought the Witch Hunters, I only wish to speak to him, before he leaves."

"My Emperor..." Balthazar sounded sorrowful, regretful, fearful and subservient all at once.

Franz stepped up. There was no aggression in his posture. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you released to your old position, not many remember the good you have done."

"It was my pride, my hubris, that disillusioned them, if I had just accepted the offers of help, instead of needing to do it all alone... much of the horror that is to come could be avoided."

Franz brushed Quicksilver's mane. "Do you know where you'll go?" He asked after a moment of silence.

Gelt looked at Quicksilver. "Wherever he takes me."

Franz nodded. "How long do I have, Gelt?" Franz asked. "How long before that wall collapses?"

Balthazar looked at the wall. "I can't tell, my powers are... off. Without the faith or my power, it probably had two weeks. But I don't know how much time has passed since them."

"Then we'd best get moving as fast as possible. Katarin, I suggest you return to your people. Gelt," he paused. "I hope to see you on the battlefield again."

Gelt didn't pause, he only reached out a hand and brushed the Tzarina's shoulder in thanks. Then he put his feet to Quicksilver's sides and the beast cantered off before taking into the sky, a majestic silver streak against the grey clouds.

"Good luck, Patriarch," Katarin whispered into the air.

Vlad stepped forward. "You should return to your armies, Emperor, I must begin my work. He stalked off to prepare his undead host to delay the armies of the Everchosen, to buy the mortal world some time.

Archaon didn't allow an assault through the wall when the first section of it came tumbling down. No, he could feel that there was no power left in it, nothing fueling it against him. He kept up the bombardment until the wall was broken in a hundred places before sending the command to unleash the hordes.

He could see a shambling mass of figures assembled beyond the wall. So they'd left a rearguard. It didn't matter. "I return to your realm, Sigmar False-God," he said as his armies, almost frothing at the mouth with anticipation of battle, surged forward in a great wave of death and chaos. "And I will bring it crashing down."

A/N: So that's the end of that bit. Sorry if it seems rushed but I wanted to move onto the more exciting stuff ASAP. From now on though, with the stories being far more in depth and there being far more of them, I will be posting them as separate ones on my account. I'll be uploading the first chapter of the first one once this chapter is out. This is going to be a much more long term project than I thought, and I hope you'll stick by me through it all.

There will be another chapter at the end of this story, but that will just be a list of all the stories in it, to have them in one place.