Chapter One- The Contract
The man was wrapped in a large cloak, no one part of his body exposed to the cold winds of the north. His tall frame was hunched over, trying to keep warm in the icy blizzard that was assaulting the city of Winterhold.
Lerric scoffed. Winterhold was hardly a city anymore. It was just a small huddle of houses thanks to that damn college of mages. They'd ruined everything and didn't even have the decency to admit it. They could at least own up to the problems they caused rather than trying to act innocent. It was their fault that dammed Flame Atronach had appeared. And their fault Eliana was dead.
He ground the dagger deeper into the large wooden table he was sat at in The Frozen Hearth, Dagur would be pissed but Lerric was too angry to care. He looked back out into the frozen world and watched the man some more as he fought the elements.
'No reason coming here friend,' Lerric muttered under his breath, 'there is nothing here but death and snow.'
The man clearly didn't hear as he stepped through The Frozen Hearths door, bringing with him a cold wind that made the others in the Inn shout. They went on complaining about the cold air the stranger had brought in with him but Lerric was oblivious. There was something very wrong with this man.
His presence was suffocating. It felt like the stranger had reached out his hands and wrapped them around Lerric's throat, slowly squeezing the life out of him. A cold sweat broke out, the beads rolling down the back of his neck despite the icy chill to the air. Was that just the cold air or was it the stranger. Lerric looked around the inn desperately, couldn't they feel it?
The man walked towards the bar and Dagur who was standing behind it, still wearing his cloak. Something was very very wrong. Lerric's mind started racing. Could this man be a Draugr? That would explain the icy chill in the air. But then this was Skyrim. It was always cold. No it couldn't be a Draugr, that was stupid. But what then?
In an instant Lerric's questions where answered as the man's cloak fell to the floor. It was in deed a man. But one unlike any Lerric had ever seen before. He stood bare chested in the centre of the room. The only clothes he wore being a set of rough spun trousers that where torn off at the knees. Even his feet where bare. Lerric couldn't understand how he had been able to walk through an ice storm with only a cloak and not freeze to death in an instant.
But that want the most unsettling thing. The man was a giant, standing a full head above most in The Frozen Hearth, and they were all Nords, rivalled only in height by the Altmer, and maybe some Orcs. His body was made of hard muscle and tough sinew. Every single part of him chiselled into a perfect example of strength. He was monstrous. Lerric had been in army's, he had seen men formed into weapons with muscles well versed in killing. But this man was something else, like he was strength himself.
Yet still that wasn't what made Lerric feel like he was going to break at any second. By the gods he had fought Giants! A few muscles didn't scare him. What did was the man's eyes. Lerric could barely see them through the thick layer of long black hair that covered his face and trailed down his back past his shoulders. But what he could see made him shudder. The man's pupils where vertical slits, like that of a beast. His iris was a dark red, not dissimilar to that of the colour of blood, but it was mixed with long swirling lines of black that almost seemed to move. Giving the impression of staring into oblivion itself.
Lerric was frozen. He couldn't move. He had thought he was a brave man but this monster had demolished him by just being close. He was sure the others felt it now, he could see the twisted looks of fear on their faces. It was like a waking nightmare.
Time seemed to stretch out into an eternity. Lerric couldn't stand it anymore. He felt like if he spent another second in this monsters presence he would crumble. But he still couldn't move. He wanted to run, to fight, to just do something but his body refused to move as his spirit continued to crumble. Then he realised he still held the dagger in his hand. Maybe he could throw it at the stranger, he had a good enough aim. If only he could move.
Not one of the men in the inn had noticed the growing shadows. Or how the candles and the great hearth that warmed the room and bathed it in light had been extinguished. The only light coming from the far off sun that was separated from them, by the blizzard and the frozen panes of glass that where the inns windows.
A single shadow grew larger than the others. Rising from the ground and begging to take a human shape. They saw it now. They saw how the shadow became human standing straight in the centre of the room, facing down the stranger. By the Nine! Lerric exclaimed inwardly. It was a battle between demons and it had chosen the inn as the war ground.
Slowly, the shadow began to fall away, as though it where no longer a shadow at all but instead just a garment being discarded. Where the shadow had been a feminine body garbed in tight fitting black clothes stood in its place. A red hand printed on the front of her garments.
Not a Demon. Lerric was going to be sick. It was much worse than a demon. He wished that the stranger's presence had torn him apart. At least then he wouldn't be here now to see this. The Dark Brotherhood.
The assassin drew a short dagger and walked towards the man. She clearly felt no fear as the others in the room did. She was almost relaxed. Spinning the dagger around her fingers as she approached the stranger who stood motionless. His demon eyes never blinking. Never moving from the eyes of the assassin that approached him.
Then she spoke, 'I never thought that someone like you would come to a place like this.' Her voice was deep and husky. Lerric might have even found it attractive under different circumstances. 'Do you have any idea how long the Brotherhood has been looking for you?'
The stranger said nothing.
'You're probably the one contract it has taken the brotherhood the longest to fulfil. Every single sanctuary has been searching for you for longer than I care to imagine. And guess what. I found you.'
The assassin darted forward with such speed that Lerric could only see her when she stopped moving, and that was when she had planted her dagger deep in the stranger's chest. Only she hadn't. The daggers point rested on his bare chest. Lerric could see the pressure it was exerting on the man's body, but it still failed to cut him.
The assassin's confidence drained from her body as it had from all the others in the room. Only the assassin could still move. She darted back from the man as quickly as she had attacked him and within seconds the shadows where begging to swell around her body. They had reached her waist when the stranger finally moved.
His body blurred then quickly vanished. As soon as he was gone he appeared again in front of the assassin, his large fist swinging into the assassin's small head. The result was devastating. The woman was thrown from her feet and flung across the room until her limp body smashed against the wall. Leaving a large blood smear where here crushed skull had hit the wall.
Before the assassin's body had even hit the floor Lerric was already looking elsewhere. He watched aghast as Ranmir, probably fuelled by drunken confidence, charged the giant. He held his iron dagger above his head as if he was wielding some sort of great sword. Lerric tried to look away but found himself unable to do so as the stranger lifted his foot and kicked Ranmir in the chest sending him through one of the large beams that supported the inns roof and then into one of the large tables that lined the inns walls.
Lerric stared at the now dead drunk, a large beam of wood piercing his neck. No one else dared move. No one else could. The stranger had beaten them. He'd beaten them the second he had walked through the door. Lerric no longer thought of throwing the dagger at the man, but instead using it to cut his own throat. It seemed like the most painless way to escape the nightmare he was now living.
Without warning the room was bathed in a white light that blinded Lerric and for a moment he thought he was entering Sovngarde. Quickly his vision cleared and he saw Nelacar standing in the doorway to his room. The dammed Altmer held a large scroll in his hand, this was where the white light was coming from. The magic beamed from the scroll, reaching across the room and ending at the stranger. Lerric was once more horrified to see a large pattern on the floor circling the place where the stranger stood.
The rune was unlike anything Lerric had ever seen before, and he had seen his fair share of magic, living next to the College, to know that nothing good would ever come of it. Even if it was the only way to kill the monster of a man their where too many unknowns to let the elf use any kind of spell. He would rather let them all be killed by the stranger than risk what could come from the use of magic.
Slowly, he stood. No longer frozen by fear, but filled only with a devout resolve to stop Nelacar. Walking through the white light that spilled from the spell felt like he was trying to walk through a dream. He could only imagine what it felt like for the stranger who the spell was aimed at. Out of nowhere the mage began speaking, breaking the silence that had occupied the inn, 'By the fallen Gods and the risen men. By the good who are dead and the living who are evil…'
Magic had killed his wife and daughter. He wasn't going to let it hurt anyone else. No matter who it was.
'By the days of old and those yet to come. By the cruelty of the Daedra and the benevolence of the Nine.'
No matter what he would make sure that all magic was gone from the world and that all the evil that came with it would vanish.
'I force this contract upon you Thur'rahgol.
Lerric forced the dagger deep into Nelacar's gut. Twisting the blade as blood began to soak his fingers. The elf began screaming as Lerric stabbed him again and again. Blood pouring onto the floor, pooling at Lerric's feet and covering his clothes.
As if in slow motion the elf fell to the floor, still bleeding, but no longer breathing. The white light began to reach out of the scroll that hovered in the air despite their being no one holding it. The light grabbed onto Lerric's bloody wrists and pulled them inward, towards the scroll. Lerric tried to resist, but it was impossible. In moments his hands where clasped around the edges of the scroll and the light had vanished.
The room was dark now the dazzling white light was gone, and quiet now that Nelacar had stopped screaming. The stranger stood motionless at the other side of the room. His face twisted in horror. The sight was more terrifying than anything Lerric had seen in the last few minutes. It was a look of pure hatred and anguish.
After a moment of silence the room exploded. The men who had been frozen by the strangers presence suddenly came back to live. They roared murder and cried for blood. Weapons where drawn and in seconds they had surrounded Lerric. He was dumbfounded. Surely the greater threat here was the stranger, not Lerric. Or where they still scared to face the stranger and instead choosing to attack Lerric as a substitute.
Not one of them dared glance towards the stranger who hadn't moved in the commotion, and Lerric could see the piss dripping from more than one pair of breeches. So they were just cowards. Lerric sighed heavily. At least he wouldn't die by the hands of the stranger, and at least he had made one step to removing magic from the world.
Dagur raised his steel sword above his head in much the same way Ranmir had. Lerric closed his eyes and raised his hands above his head. He hadn't planned on dying while cowering, but it turned out it was very difficult not to.
It wouldn't be long now. A few seconds then he could die. At least the nightmare would be over. But it didn't end. A lifetime seemed to play out as Lerric waited to die. Images of his wife and child flashed before his eyes. He would see them very soon.
But he didn't. Lerric opened his eyes, unprepared for the devastation that lay before him. The inn was ruined. The majority of support beams where broken, the ashes from the hearth where thrown across the floor, and one wall was missing. The wood and brick shattered and broken. And everyone was dead. Everyone but Lerric and the stranger.
He stood not far from Lerric, his face calm again after the hatred that had been there before. His chest had a splattering of blood on it. By Talos! The blood! The walls dripped and the floor was more like an ocean of red. Lerric dropped to his knees, tears where begging to fill his eyes and he didn't know why. Was he crying for the dead that surrounded him? Or crying because he was still alive?
By the Gods I'm pathetic. Why am I Crying? I'm just a weak baby aren't I? There is no way I can rid the world of magic, no way I can avenge them or save anyone. I couldn't even save them. I'm just a weak, pathetic, coward who can't even die. Everything I ever earn or want or love is taken away from. Why do the Gods hate me so? I'm pathetic, pathetic, PATHETIC!
'You don't know what you did when you killed that mage, do you?' The voice was somewhere between the sound of a blade being sharpened and a man eating gravel. It was as cold as polished marble and deep as the holes that the Dwemer hid in so long ago.
'N-no' Lerric spoke without thinking.
'That mage was casting a spell. A very old spell. A spell that binds two people together under specific… terms. Normally they have to be mutual, but he was going to try to force the contract on me. Then you killed him, and the contract passed to you. The spell probably wouldn't have worked if you hadn't killed him. No one seems to realise mages are at their strongest when their dead.'
'What does that mean?' Lerric raised up onto one knee, he was surprisingly calm given the situation. Like all the fear and despair had washed out of him, he had been overflowing with them one minute, and just like that they had been spilt from his body.
'It means,' the menacing voice replied, 'you own me.' His voice was full of hatred and Lerric swore he heard his own death in the words.
'I own you?' Lerric was unable to comprehend what was being said, 'what does that mean?' The stranger walked towards Lerric and firmly took the scroll from his hands. His eyes quickly skimmed over what was written before he started speaking.
'The contract holder hear by takes complete control over the contracted and his or her life. Any action the contracted takes against the contract holder will result in termination of the contracted's life. Should the contract holder's life be terminated in any means that is not natural or self-inflicted the contracted's life shall also be terminated… Do I need to go on?'
'So you mean if I die, or you try to make any move against me, you die too?'
'Pretty much.'
'I own you.' The stranger handed the scroll back.
Lerric was shaking, He couldn't understand how it had happened, but somehow he was in control of the monster that stood before him. All of a sudden he had been handed the power he needed to rid the world of all abominations. The power he needed to protect. It had just come too late for Eliana and Saskia.
The wind howled, ice and snow clawed its way through the crumbled wall and the blood that covered the room was beginning to freeze. Lerric slowly rose to his feet. He stumbled through the remnants of what had been the other customers of The Frozen Hearth. He soon found a sword. It was a dull piece of steel that could hardly be called sharp. But that didn't matter. He had the stranger to do the fighting for him.
The stranger watched Lerric patiently, waiting for his first order, and Lerric didn't waste any more time in giving it
'Where going to destroy the college of Winterhold.'