Foreword:

Fifty years after the Oblivion Crisis and six years since the events of the Infernal City, the story begins. A personal message leads the Guild Fighters on a voyage to foreign lands. Of course, nothing is ever quite that simple. An unseen threat lurks upon the streets of Sentinel.

Authors note: With some artistic license, all reasonable effort made to maintain general parity with canon established in Oblivion, The Infernal City/Lord of Souls, and Skyrim.

Rated M for mild adult content.

Although it should go without needing to be stated, let it be said: Bethesda owns The Elder Scrolls and all related materials. I am merely contributing my own interpretations in a public forum and no profit is derived or intended from my work.

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Additional note: The story follows on from "Evening Star: An Elder Scrolls Novel". Some effort has been made to allow this story to function as stand-alone. However, I still recommend reading the previous story for a more complete perspective.

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The Hammer and the Anvil: An Elder Scrolls Novel

Greg J Miller

~O~

Chapter 1

Almost three years earlier:

Second Seed 4E46

The harsh sunlight continued to beat down upon the sands of the Alik'r Desert, threatening to drain away his very life force. It was still very early in the day, but it felt just like midday. Armin wiped the sweat from his brow as he gazed out across the dunes. It wasn't just another trick of the light. There was a city out there. This time, he was certain of it.

Armin hadn't even realised that he'd stopped walking until one of the camels passed him by, depositing some of its drool upon his sleeve. One of the caravan traders advised him to keep moving. He confirmed that Armin was looking at the domes of Sentinel.

If he hadn't been found by the trading caravan of Alik'r tribals, he might not have made it that far. He had wandered much further afield than he'd thought. The desert was no place for someone like him. Armin was a fit and healthy Redguard, but he was not from one the Alik'r tribes.

He really should have heeded the words of others and waited until he could travel with regular traders. If he had the coin, he might have considered booking passage upon a northbound sailing vessel, rather than trying to make the journey on that old horse.

Nearly a week had passed since Armin had set off from his former home in the city of Hegathe, located upon the broad cape in the south-western region of Hammerfell. He hadn't been a complete fool. He had headed off with adequate supplies. He had plenty of water skins, at least enough for both the horse and himself. It was sufficient to make it along those stretches between the towns and settlements.

Armin had fully intended to keep to the roads, making his way northward from place to place until he reached Sentinel. He had even avoided travelling during the hottest parts of the day, sometimes riding during the hours before dawn or into the early evening. That strategy had served him well. He'd made it all the way to Chasetown without great trouble.

For Armin, the problems had begun along the road from Chasetown to Sentinel, the last major leg of his journey. He had been riding slowly along the northbound road during the early evening. Both Masser and Secundus were high in the eastern sky, but only just showing as slim crescents among the stars. Both moons were waxing in the early phase. There was barely enough light to see the road and little more than that.

Something had unexpectedly spooked the old horse. At the time, Armin held no idea of what had occurred. He just held on tight and tried his very best to persuade the old gelding to draw to a halt. The horse had carried him far from the roadside and just kept going for what seemed like quite a long time.

Eventually, the old horse slowed and relented, coming to a full stop. Reluctantly, Armin had climbed down from his mount. The horse remained agitated, but at least it didn't try to run off. He drew a torch from his pack and used his tinderbox to ignite it. He learned that the old horse was foaming at the mouth. Given how hard it had been running, he wasn't totally surprised. He tried to get the animal to drink some water. It drank only a little, seemingly disinterested in quenching its thirst. That didn't make a lot of sense to Armin.

A few moments later, he had observed that the horse was favouring one of its hind legs. Armin tried to determine if there was any visible injury. He also checked to see if it had thrown a shoe. Even though he was a blacksmith by trade, there wouldn't be all that much he could do right then and there. In any event, he couldn't see anything wrong. He couldn't really see that much of anything by torchlight.

The horse soon became agitated again, before faltering and then slowly collapsing down upon its legs. The animal panted, struggling for breath. After another few moments, the horse was dead.

Armin had suspected that the horse might have been bitten by a serpent or stung by a scorpion. That seemed to make the most sense. Either way, it hardly mattered by then. There was nothing he could do about it.

He firstly planted his torch in the gravelly sand to provide some useful light. He then struggled to free the packs from the horse's carcass. There was no way that he could easily carry everything that the horse carried. He certainly couldn't manage even one of those larger water skins for any distance. He did his best to distribute some water to each of the smaller flasks and skins that he had. He had some food in his pack, but not all that much. He briefly agonised over which of his meagre possessions he could carry and which would need to be left behind.

Once Armin was loaded and ready, he took up his torch in preparation to find his way back to the road. He looked up to the sky to confirm his approximate direction. The crescent moons had risen even further from the horizon. He heard a rumbling behind him. He turned toward the west. The stars had disappeared from the night sky. A heavy cloud cover was rapidly moving in from Iliac Bay and darkening the sky. That could quickly become a cause for some concern. The way those clouds were moving, the moons might soon be hidden behind the cover. They weren't all that bright to begin with. Still, he had some torchlight and he remained confident that he could follow the horse's tracks back toward the road.

As confident as Armin might have been, that hadn't been nearly enough. Long before he'd reached the road, the storm was upon him. The torch flames didn't last long under the driven rain. He pressed on, believing he was headed in the right direction. The rain hadn't lasted that long, but it would have washed away the tracks he was trying to follow, not that he could really see anything in the darkness. He might have been far better off just staying put. Without any reference in the dark skies above, he had eventually managed to wander off in the wrong direction altogether. Rather than heading westward, he had probably turned toward the north at some stage. He might even have been travelling eastward at some point during the night.

It was not until the subdued light of dawn began to illuminate the clouded eastern skies, that Armin gained some insight into just how lost he had become.

As far as Armin he could see in each direction, there was almost nothing but the sandy dunes of the Alik'r Desert. Only a few rocky outcrops here and there defied the barren ocean of sand. At least he was able to determine which way was west. Still, he held little idea of how far he needed to travel to find the road. It could have been just beyond the nearest dunes or several leagues beyond.

Resigned to the circumstance, Armin began trudging in the proper direction. It wasn't yet all that hot, but he took some care not to push himself too hard.

After a few hours, he'd crossed several dunes and still not seen the road ahead of him. He found it difficult to imagine how he could have possibly travelled so far eastward during the previous evening. He felt certain that he would surely gain sight of his goal over the next line of dunes, or the ones after that.

As the morning wore on, the clouds had passed and the heat of the day soon began to rise. Armin had still not seen any indication of the road. He spotted a rocky outcrop off to the north a short distance away. It looked like it might provide some welcome shade from the harsh sunlight. He decided to head for that outcrop. He intended to rest there until the heat of the day had subsided somewhat. Once it was a bit cooler, he would resume his westward journey in the hope of finding the road that led to Sentinel.

That outcrop of rock was not as far off as he'd thought. It was also rather smaller than it had firstly seemed. It provided only for some rather limited shade, but that was better than no cover at all. Fortunately, no dangerous creatures shared that place. There were just a few tiny desert lizards that scurried away into the cracks of the rocks.

Later in the afternoon, Armin got up from that poorly shaded shelter and again headed off across the sands. Half way up the first dune that he climbed, his foot struck something hard in the sand and he fell flat upon his face. He struggled to get up with the load he was carrying. His foot hurt a little, but it was nothing crippling. He glanced down to see what had caused the pain in his foot. It wasn't a rock. That was what he'd expected to see. It was something dark and metallic. He quickly recognised that the object was actually something cast from ebony.

Momentarily forgetting all about his current circumstance, Armin brushed away at the sands to see what it was. It was definitely made of hardened ebony. He tried to imagine what kind of forge might have produced such work. As odd as it seemed, it appeared that he was looking at an enormous war hammer. He could barely move it, let alone lift it up. He couldn't conceive of how any warrior might be able to wield it in battle. Even one of those big ugly Orcs would have struggled with it. The handle of the hammer was also made of ebony. It looked to have been cast in a single piece. He was surprised to learn that the handle had been broken off half way along its length. The broken piece was still there in the sand with the rest of it.

Armin wondered how it could it have arrived out in the desert. He also wondered what force could have broken it in that fashion. He quickly accepted that he was unlikely to find any answer to either of those things. More than that, as much as he might have wished otherwise, the broken hammer was far too heavy for him to carry. He would just have to leave it there.

Wearily, Armin wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced up to the skies. He estimated another two hours before the sun would be setting in the west. Something caught his eye. There was movement cresting a dune just a short distance north of where he sat. He saw a procession of people wearing light coloured flowing robes. There were about a dozen of them, along with six camels. It looked like one of those Alik'r trading caravans that came into Hegathe from time to time. At least, he hoped that's what it was.

Armin called out. He stood as tall as he could and frantically waved his arms. He'd successfully attracted the attention of the travellers. After a moment, the procession had changed direction and headed directly for his position.

Fortunately, it actually was a trading caravan. It might have been rather less fortunate if they turned out to be something else. The desert tribes did hold a certain measure of disdain for the Redguard that bowed to the Imperials. Still, it was contrary to their custom not to offer aid to a fellow traveller in the desert. They had even offered to assist him with the huge ebony war hammer that he had with him, finding a way to fix it to the back of one of the camels.

Armin travelled with that trading caravan for the remainder of the day and into the first part of the evening. They stopped to camp during the middle of the night for a few hours. Well before the sun had risen, they had again set off across the barren land. The caravan was also bound for the city of Sentinel. By Armin's estimate, they were travelling north-west, rather than west. He assumed that they knew where they were going.

It seemed that second day of travelling with the caravan would soon lead Armin to his destination. Sentinel was finally in sight, but it was going to be a little longer before they arrived at that location. The trading caravan had drawn to a halt. The tribesmen had stopped to pitch their tents and rest. They intended to camp for the next four or five hours as they waited for the heat of the day to pass.

Even in the shade of the tent, Armin found it far too difficult to sleep. Nevertheless, he welcomed the rest. It gave him some time to sit and collect his thoughts.

Leaving Hegathe behind had not been a casual choice. Armin had needed to get out of that city and he needed to do it quickly. It might not have been his own fault, but there was nothing much he could do about it.

His fool of a brother, Rabon, had run up a sizeable gambling debt and then borrowed more gold from shady money holders. In the end, Rabon had lost his life and Armin had lost his small smithing business. The men that took his property had expected him to keep working there. He imagined that the time would eventually come when he was no longer needed. Armin intended to escape to another city before that time arrived. After losing his brother, there was no one to keep him there. He would try to make a fresh start, far away from his troubles in Hegathe. He was a skilled smith. He planned to find work with someone else. Perhaps he might even be able to again establish a business of his own with the passing of time.

Many years ago, his father had been with the Fighter's Guild in Sentinel. That was back when there was still a strong presence of that organisation in Hammerfell. Back before the assassination of the Imperial Potentate and all that turmoil in Cyrodiil.

Although he'd never been there, he knew that Sentinel was a big place. It was one of the wealthiest places in all of Hammerfell. After all, it was the capital city of the land.

Up until that unexpected diversion into the desert, everything had passed well enough. Still, that misfortune had somehow turned out for the better. If he hadn't become lost, he wouldn't have found that huge broken weapon. He expected that it might be rather valuable, even in its current state. It might be even more valuable if he was able to repair that broken handle. Still, working hardened ebony was quite difficult. He was a blacksmith by trade, but he'd not had much opportunity to work with something like that.

An odd thought occurred to him. That huge block of ebony was meant to be a hammer, but from the size of it, it might make a perfect anvil. A little smaller than he might prefer, but not all that much. It was something to think about.

Armin looked out across the sands. Soon, he would be in Sentinel and he could begin his new life in that city. He hoped it would be far better than what he left behind.

~O~