Lorgar walked through streets littered with corpses. He looked at the mountains of civilian bodies stretching beyond sight outside the city, then raised his eyes to the temple spires within, gleaming in the sunlight and piercing the clouds. An anger unlike anything he had ever known rose from the depths of his heart.
"Teacher Enoch..." His voice trembled.
"Cover your face." Enoch handed him a strip of black cloth. He had covered his own face with one as well.
They did not go to the temples to pray, nor did they buy any "indulgences." They ventured deep into the city's filthiest slums, where the plague was at its worst.
Instead of chanting scriptures, they fought the plague with the simplest, most effective methods.
Enoch taught Lorgar how to distill clean drinking water with simple equipment; he explained the importance of "quarantine" to those survivors still willing to listen, telling them to separate the sick from the healthy; he took Lorgar into the wastelands outside the city to search for herbs described in ancient medical texts as effective against the plague, boiled them into bitter medicinal brews, and distributed them to the poor who were willing to trust them.
Lorgar witnessed two utterly different fates.
He watched those who devoutly drank "holy water" and pressed "indulgences" to their chests die writhing and convulsing in agony, their skin turning black and blood pouring from every opening in their faces.
He also watched those who followed the principles of hygiene and quarantine, drinking only the distilled water and herbal brews they provided. Though they remained weak, their high fevers slowly subsided, and they survived.
A week later, as they prepared to leave this city of death, Lorgar stood outside the gates and looked back at the magnificent temple surrounded by mountains of corpses.