The centaur held the boy aloft like a trophy, prancing in a circle to show him off to the gathered cultists.
Al watched in horror as the mutated Slaaneshi worshippers stared at him with fanatical lust.
One deformed goat-man used a tentacle growing from its head to lick Al's leg, leaving a trail of foul slime.
The revulsion made Al instinctively cling to the centaur's arm.
Her eyes narrowed; she pulled the boy into her chest with her left arm and swung her massive hammer with her right.
CRUNCH.
A wet explosion followed, leaving nothing but a pile of pulverized meat and bone where the mutant had stood.
Bits of gore splattered onto Al's back, the cold touch making him shiver.
The courage he had used to fight the Beastlord was nowhere to be found.
The other cultists scattered but quickly regrouped, cheering even louder as if nothing had happened.
Al's fear deepened; Chaos worshippers were insane, but Slaaneshi ones were the worst of the lot.
Khorne's followers just wanted blood; Nurgle's wanted a disgusting family; Tzeentch just wanted to prank the universe.
But Slaanesh... they were in a never-ending pursuit of a high they could never reach.
They started with vanilla, moved to cactus-fucking, then to electric fans, and finally to meat-grinders.
If he stayed here, he'd go from liking girls to liking guys, from a 'Top' to a 'Bottom,' from human to beast...
"NO!"
The terrifying vision of his future made Al scream out loud.
The centaur looked at him, puzzled; his pretty, delicate face was twisted in a mask of pure terror.
She considered for a moment, then pulled him closer and barked an order to the followers on the edge who were less mutated:
"Find the weak sheep-women. Tell them to prepare an offering for the God-Child."
The Beastmen scurried off, while the rest of the horde followed the centaur and Al deeper into the woods.
"Wait!"
Al didn't want to leave the only person he cared about—his mother—behind in that cave.
He knew what happened to "captured women" in these stories; he thought of a certain one-armed swordsman's trauma.
But he also knew leaving her with these Slaaneshi freaks was a death sentence.
The centaur sensed his resistance and placed him on her back.
Al panicked, having never ridden a horse before, and leaned forward against her muscular upper back.
There was no saddle, so he had to grip the muscles of her equine spine to stay balanced.
Among this crowd of monsters, she was the only one who looked remotely "normal."
The centaur then turned her attention to the two goral-girls still worshipping Zhakun's severed parts.
She walked over, towering over them as they remained obsessed with the filth.
Without a word, she drew a scimitar from her waist and decapitated them both in two clean strokes.
She flicked the blood from her blade and sheathed it.
Al stared, his grip on her back tightening in shock.
The centaur glanced back at him, a spray of blood dotting her exotic face, making her look even more feral.
"Zhakun broke their minds. The All-Father would not accept their souls," she explained. "If they died like that, they would only fall into the Maze of Pleasure as lowly slaves for demons."
Al realized he could actually understand her speech, which confused him even more.
"Wait, aren't you with the Slaaneshi cult?"
Reading his confusion, she gripped her hammer again, the head covered in bits of brain and dirt.
"I follow only the Master of the Skull Throne, the Enraged Mother, the Blood God. I kill in Her name."
"???"
"The Skull Throne? The Blood God? Are we talking about the same brass-toilet-sitting-god here?"
The centaur reached back and pulled her hair aside, showing Al a red brand on her neck.
It was a symbol made of skulls, topped with the image of a female demon with massive horns.
It looked exactly like a reversed Khorne symbol.
Al was baffled; the Slaanesh marks hadn't changed, but the Khorne ones were... different.
Meanwhile, a boisterous army was marching south through the corridor from Parravon to Estalia.
Mercenaries from Bretonnia, the Empire, and even Kislev led the way.
Behind them marched the professional regulars: halberdiers, swordsmen, crossbowmen, and handgunners in disciplined ranks.
Yeomen, Knights Errant, and Knights of the Realm scouted the flanks.
Elite hunters from the New World colonies moved silently through the woods—marksmen who had fought Lizardmen, Skaven, and Dark Elves in the jungles of Lustria.
A group of knights stood on a hill overlooking the column.
Their leader had wild, golden hair that looked like a lion's mane blowing in the wind.
An aide opened a map, but the man pushed it away.
"We're close."
He stared toward the horizon where the forest grew thick.
"My cousin, Celestine, was ambushed by those beast-bastards on this very road."
He whispered, his eyes filled with a mix of grief and rage.
"Rein, we all want blood, but our priority is the Emperor's mandate," a one-eyed veteran officer said, patting the man's shoulder.
"We have the best hunters. I know men from the Arden forest who survived Lustria. They've cleared Beastmen for the Duke of Artois."
"They are professionals. I will go into the Piña Forest with them myself. I promise you, not a single cub in that filthy Chaos tribe will survive."
Rein said nothing, letting out a heavy sigh.
The image of a heroic, beautiful woman remained burned into his mind.
Behind the hill, a cloaked figure lying on the ground let out a cold snicker.
The veteran officer, Hart, glared at the figure, but Rein signaled him to stop.
The cloaked person looked up from under their hood and spoke slowly:
"Your cousin should have died on the battlefield. That would have been the kindest end. You don't want to know what happens to the women those beasts take alive."
Hart turned red with fury, but his shoulders slumped.
"May the Sigmar protect Celestine and her soul," he prayed.
Rein stood up, his face expressionless.
"If Celestine is alive, I am bringing her back. Whether she goes home or to a convent..."
He took his horse's reins and began to lead it down the hill.
He didn't say the last thought out loud.
"If you're dead, I'm burning this entire forest to ash... Gilia."