This is part 6 of my Skyrim series "Sos do Dov" and is based off the "Forgotten Hero" story from The Elder Scrolls: Legends and partially explains what Kaius has been up to for the 200 years between "Bloodtide Rising" and "Sos do Dov".
Cyrodiil
Spring
4E175
Silent and implacable as the mountains a hundred kilometres to the north, the armoured figure stood amidst a sea of swaying wheat. It rippled and flowed with the breeze that caressed the stalks, twisting the greenery in rolling and billowing waves. The height of spring held the land in its grip, slowly roasting the soil despite the morning dew until it became a fine powder that was crushed underfoot. Despite the relative humidity and the way that every centimetre of skin was concealed, the armoured warrior was unmoving and seemingly unfeeling. The warrior was potentially nothing more than a statue of metal and leather if not for the way that a gauntlet stroked a growing head of wheat.
Outside of the tiny patch of tranquillity, war seethed and devoured; a war that Tamriel had never before seen in thousands of years of history. Even the great conflicts of the 1st and 2nd Eras paled in comparison to the growing bloodshed and destruction that had raged incessantly for nearly four years. Only the Oblivion Crisis had seen such death and conflict, but somehow this war was even more terrible as it was between the armies of mortals rather than against daedrakind.
The skies were darkened with thousands of crows and other scavengers, the air was filled with the stench of metal, mud, blood and shit and the ground was being pulverised under the thunderous tread of armies. Fields that had once been the lifeblood for thousands were being trampled into destruction, but they would soon be fertilised with the blood of countless men and mer.
"Master Blade?"
Grim faced, forged from the darkest ebony hues the scowling helm turned slightly, regarding the young Hastatii with its cold gaze. Gulping, the young man stood rigidly to attention, arms flat by his sides and choosing to stare straight ahead rather than facing the armoured figure before him.
"The… The E-Emperor requests your presence."
Not even the slightest tremble was to be seen at the black armoured warrior. He stood as quiet as the grave, not moving or flinching and barely even noticing the enormous formation of legionaries that snaked their way a few metres beyond them. The distinct black splint mail, made from dozens of metal strips overlapping each other in traditional Akiviri craftsmanship set the figure apart from the solid steel plate of the Legions. There were many within the Legions that had immense hate towards the warrior's Order for their failed part within the war. Despite this, there was a distinct curve in the cohorts' path as they chose to march around him rather than demand he stand aside.
The Emperor requests… Another sign; somewhat less subtle than the Legions bending their path, but a sign nonetheless. It wasn't as simple or as ludicrous as fear, or a sign of the Order's power and authority. It was a sign of the respect that was given to this member of the Blades.
A stalk of wheat was crushed in a gloved fist, breaking it as thoroughly as snapping a spine and the figure turned on his heel and marched past the cringing Legionary. Unseen by all, the young soldier breathed out, releasing the pent up emotion from standing before one of the Emperor's Champions.
For kilometres in every direction the Legions were marching for war, and in their inexorable advance and for the first time in centuries of their long and illustrious history they had met a foe that they could not simply batter into submission. Under the leadership of hundreds of Emperors, they had held the future of Tamriel firmly in the grasp of an armoured gauntlet. Now they were preparing to besiege the very heart of the Empire, but only after bloodily cutting their way through the Imperial City's current defenders.
The camps had been struck, the hundreds upon hundreds of tents that lined from horizon to horizon had been set aside for the moment as their owners began preparing for battle. Foresters moved through the armoured blocks of cohorts and castas as they took up their positions, stabbing the soil at their feet with bundles of arrows. It wasn't long until the crushed wheat that had been pounded into a dusty slurry underfoot had been replaced with a forest of fletching's jutting from the dirt. Five ranks deep, and a hundred wide the enormous blocks of men formed up, their shields locking together into an impenetrable wall of metal and lacquered wood. Each casta of five hundred legionaries linked up to the other casta's to their flanks, and every man and mer within their ranks could feel the earth tremble as even more approached to form a second battleline behind the first.
Stalking through the growing press like a shadow, the black armoured blade seemed to glide from place to place. He slid between cursing and grunting legionaries as they shuttled forward spare pilums shields, helmets and gladii. Others moved about with dozens of sloshing waterskins tied over their shoulders for the inevitable flood of wounded and injured as killing worked up one of the most terrible of thirsts. Others carried further bundles to the plate armoured foresters as they transformed from the stealthy skirmishers and hunters to the disciplined and precise archers. Everywhere, in the strange confusion and chaos of the military, a great ballet of logistics and strategy was being conducted.
Barely a glance was provided to the teams of sweating engineers as they wound and pulled back on enormous siege engines. With enormous bars of metal, they pulled catapult arms down and loaded their deadly projectiles. Windlasses were pulled back, building the tension in the enormous arms of siege ballista under the careful eye of Praefects. Even the truly enormous arms of field trebuchets were pulled down, the leather loops and their stones as heavy as an orc were placed into position for the forty metre arm to whip them through the sky.
None of this was truly seen by the stalking Blade. His eyes were focussed on a sight that lay before him, seated on top of a small hill within the depths of this great army and where nearly every eye was constantly being drawn back by the weight of expectation.
A pair of spears locked into place before the snarling plate helm, the gleaming tips promising blood and violence in the hands of the purple robed guards. Not even a twitch was seen, the Blade coming to a halt before slowly turning to look at one of the guards dead in the eye.
Dressed in his own resplendent plate and the polar opposite of the grim figure before him, the Praetorian shivered, seeing death in the uniquely fashioned armour before him. The Blades had once been protectors and guardians of the Emperor until the last of the Septims and while that role had long since been lost to them they had changed, evolved even further into spies. It was rumoured that they were also the Emperor's assassins, a group so capable and feared that the Dark Brotherhood and the Moran Tong kept themselves at a considerable distance.
This man, this black armoured fiend was a representation of the shadowed Order; an Order that had been thoroughly decimated in the four years of gruelling warfare. After all, it had been their member's severed heads tumbling from a wagon that had set this conflict into motion.
Towering over all three of them, the tent in the sea of tents rose up like a castle's central keep. Purple, gold and peerless white shone in the morning sun, making the enormous shelter appear like gem incrusted ivory despite the sights and smells of an army at war. The Blade at the door appeared to be a blemish, a shadowed growth almost cancerous and corrupting in the presence of such finery.
Appearing to the exclamation from one of the praetorians, another man appeared in the tent's doorway. Dressed in nothing more than a simple toga with signet rings wrapped around his fingers, he found himself staring into the masked Blade with none of the fear and unease that his presence usually incurred. Years of dealing with the most powerful men in the Empire left him immune to displays of authority but there was no mistaking that the silent warrior was unnerving to say the least. The Black Blade was a legend within the Empire and had been for the past hundred years at least. A legend that most spoke about in whispered tones if they spoke about at all.
There was a nod and the spears were moved away, allowing the Blade to step through without a single word to either of the guards. Inside the temperature dropped markedly, the several layers of the outer walls allowing the morning cool to remain for hours into the day. Despite this, most of the men and women within the central room were noticeably sweating and weren't assisted with the visage of armoured death that appeared in their midst.
"Ah. You came."
The armoured figure bowed, hand clanking to an ebony breastplate over a heart that managed to cover some of the swirling vines etched into the metal.
Laying in a bed of silken sheets worth more than an entire cohort's equipment, the Emperor lay sweating even more than the dozen individuals around him. He was a middle aged man, barely into his forties but for the moment he appeared to have had decades stolen from him.
A hand waved in the general vicinity to the door. "Leave us."
One of the closest to the Blade, the hulking form of the Praetorian commander twitched. "But Sire."
"I said leave." The threat that hung to every word was enough to make the sweat flow a little more freely. "I'm better protected now than what I was last night, so get out!"
Carefully they all bowed, fading from the tent and leaving the Emperor to stare at his Blade champion.
"What is to become of us?" he said softly, laying back into the plush finery. The grimace that crossed his features was of pain and irritation at having his own body betray him.
"Sire?" The voice was deep and muffled through the mask. Only the eyes, cold and unfeeling and the tightly pursed lips could be seen under the brim of the kabuto helm and above the form fitting mask. Fashioned into the stylised likeness of the ancient Akaviri people, it almost gave the blade a daedric appearance.
"Don't 'Sire' me. I didn't send the others away so you could stand there all formal." Carefully, a hand pressed into ribs covered with bandages and the Emperor groaned. "And I especially didn't want to be laying here talking to you behind your mask."
After a moment's hesitation, the Blade reached up, grasping the mask and pulling it away from his face. After he had secured it to his belt the helmet too was removed, tucked away under an arm and revealing a head covered with short, closely cropped hair. There was nothing obvious about the man who stood before the Emperor to mark him as one of the Empire's chosen other than the aura of deadliness that permeated the air around him.
Silence filled the tent, broken only by the echoing shouts and rolling thunder of thousands of feet on the march. The battlelines were prepared and soon it would be time to unleash the full might of the Empire on the invaders.
"Pity you weren't here sooner. If you were then I know I wouldn't have been laying here watching my army run around leaderless."
The blade nodded, sadness covering his features. "But you are still alive."
"Ha. There is that, and that definitely matters to me more than anything, but you Kaius; you too still live."
Kaius raised his eyes, meeting the Emperor's gaze and seeing the sadness that mirrored his own. "I do…"
Despite his reputation Titus Mede II licked his lips nervously at the sight of the warring emotions within the man standing before him. There were few who knew the truth about the Black Blade, but the line of the Emperor's since his great-great-grandfather's knew the identity of the champion. Most within the Empire believed the champion of the Blades to be specifically chosen individuals within the Order's ranks who swore an oath of silence and utter devotion to the Mede Emperor's. The Emperor's knew differently. They knew who he was, and even more importantly they knew what he was.
"Are you loyal Kaius?"
The question seemed to shock the stoic vampire standing at the end of the bed. "I am."
"Why?"
If the first question had been shocking, the second was confusing and he looked up into the Emperor's features, seeing only the honest yearning for an answer.
"Why am I loyal to you? or why am I loyal to the Empire?"
The Emperor laughed, grimacing as he held his side where an assassin's blade had scraped ribs. "I know all too well why you are loyal to the Empire. You care about people. A strange trait for a vampire but you aren't an ordinary one."
Kaius said nothing, appearing to have as much emotion as a statue or a dwemer automaton. To the Emperor however he could see the sudden nervousness in his champion in the way his face tightened and he ground his teeth together.
"I'm loyal to your family because your grandfather helped mine."
"I used to read his journals, and especially his memoirs when I was younger." The steel blue eyes burned into Kaius' own. "It always fascinated me the stories that they contained. The way that they were to be kept secured at all times with some of the most potent magicka available to the Empire. You know how I reacted the first time I read what my grandfather wrote?"
Kaius shook his head.
A smile creeped onto the Emperor's face. "I sat in my room for the entire night, staring at the opened pages before me. I couldn't comprehend it; one of the most heroic individuals within the last two eras was a vampire. And not just an ordinary vampire; one cursed with the strength and power of the daedra and able to walk in sunlight. Yet they were also blessed, blessed with the ability to rule their own destiny. What was even more difficult to comprehend was that the being who not only was outside the influence of the Elder Scrolls and immortal had chosen to spend the better part of two centuries protecting my family."
"I never read the stories he wrote." Kaius said truthfully. "but I remember when I first met him. I fought by his side during the siege of Kvatch."
"Yes, he wrote that in his journals. You made quite an impression on him then, and even more of one when you supported his claim to the throne."
"It had been in my power to do so as Count."
The smile grew broader. "You do realise that taking your family in was his way of repaying you for everything you had done? He would have heaped glories untold upon you and your family and ensured that you would never have had to fear again."
"It is not my way to simply accept charity."
"No…" there was a nod and a further grimace of pain as the wounds he had suffered made themselves felt. "No it is not. But you have to ask yourself Kaius; what price must you continuously pay for a debt that you have repaid hundreds of times over?"
Seeing the darkening expression on his face the Emperor continued, forcing himself to sit up further from the cushions behind his spine. "I am truly sorry what has happened. I will grant you anything and everything within my power, even though I know that what you truly wish no one has the power to grant. Not even an Emperor."
"I desire revenge."
"With all I have learned from those memoirs and the last thirty years of your tutelage I would be terribly concerned if you didn't." His voice softened. "I unfortunately know all too well how it is to lose children, even if the circumstances differ between us."
The creaking of leather and metal was audible over the background noise of the Legions preparing for war and Kaius raised a trembling fist in front of his face. Hunching over slightly, the look of utter agony that consumed him left him shuddering and moisture building in the corners of his eyes.
"The dead do not weep." The Emperor stated simply, watching the surge of emotions as Kaius struggled to contain the overwhelming sorrow that churned within him. "Even if I knew nothing but your true nature, I would know enough about you to trust you with anything in all of Tamriel. The Daedra and the Dead do not weep. This alone proves to me that my family has been right in trusting you for all these years, and makes my decisions all the easier."
Eyes red rimmed and gleaming with barely supressed heartbreak looked into his own. "I have one last task for you my old friend, but I release you from my service. Kaius Treblanus Desin; you are freed from your bonds of service to me and the Empire. Freed to weave your own destiny and write your own fate within the Scrolls."
There was no surprise in the depths of the cold brown eyes, sorrow yes; but not surprise. He had been expecting something like this from the Emperor but if anything he was expecting it to have been riding on the wings of failure instead of gratitude.
The Emperor shivered, instinctively railing against the cool temperature within the tent as something in the depths of his mind and soul realised the weight his words carried. It had not been a difficult decision, maybe for his father perhaps but Titus knew that it had been a decision made for him four years before when the upturned cart spilled its rotting contents at his feet. Eyeless and swollen in the autumn heat, one hundred and thirty-three decapitated heads had rolled at his feet, tumbling and staring blankly into the nothingness of death.
Kaius had been there, by his side as his role as guardian and representative of the Blades. It was his actions that had given Titus his answer, the strength to be able to stare down the Thalmor delegation and tell them exactly where they should go. It had been Kaius, his old teacher of history, military tactics and swordsmanship and the way that he had bent down over one of the heads had been more terrifying than the threat of war that hung in the air. Every action had been precise, every movement smooth and perfect and Titus, and Titus alone knew how much raw emotion was coursing through the black armoured figure. There was no sign of the impossible depths of sorrow that had filled the ancient vampire, growing so great that it had breached the veil between sorrow and rage.
One hundred and thirty-three decapitated heads had lain on the ground, but one hundred and thirty-two of them were clothed in rotting flesh. One, and only one had been unique in that no flesh remained, revealing only a skull blackened from flames and a pair of incisors that were subtly longer than normal. Titus had watched as Kaius knelt down, carefully picking the skull from where it had lain and only Titus knew that at that very moment the Aldmeri Dominion had made a terrible enemy.
An enemy it seemed they were blindly filling with such a terrible hatred and anger that he was fearing for the lives of all mortals within Tamriel. It was only through the incredible humanity within the man that held back the darkness within the vampire that Titus didn't consider somehow trying to kill Kaius. That, and the fact that if two hundred years of failed attempts from every beast, man, mer, demi-gods and daedric princes couldn't kill him then he doubted anything at an Emperor's command would suffice.
"You know better than anyone my friend what the Dominion intends for us." the pain was still there, but Titus could see it hardening into resolve with every second. "And I for one know that they are planning something even more terrible than enslavement and genocide. If we do not stop them here, today and win the war then I believe that you might be the only one who can stop them."
"They will pay." He growled, and Titus couldn't help but feel the chill of fear as the man's features tightened around a skull pushing forward against his flesh.
"That they will. One way or another the souls of millions of men, women and children cry out for vengeance and I believe that you may be the one fated to do so."
"I have been fated to do many things," he replied, growling out the words and trying to hide the tremble that snatched at his throat. "I will have my own vengeance whether I have to take my sword from one end of Tamriel to the other and kill all in my path."
Titus laughed again, holding onto his side and feeling the pull of stitching that turned the laugh into a wracking cough. "You and I know that is not within your nature. You are a killer yes, but you are not a murderer."
Seeing the cold look in Kaius' eyes the Emperor couldn't help but feel the slightest trace of doubt. Holding his murdered son's skull in his hands those years ago had unravelled the threads of his humanity, and the more recent loss of his daughter in the City may have come very close to snapping them entirely.
"I swear Titus; the Dominion will pay. I will not stop until they have been ground into ashes."
"You are free from my service to do whatever you deem necessary, but I have one last order to give."
The eyes burned into his own, and Titus shivered. The weight of destiny had been lifted from his shoulders but he couldn't help but feel the fear of what Kaius could accomplish. An immortal with the power to make his own fate was even more dangerous than the machinations of all the daedric princes, and even more dangerous than the threat of the Aldmeri Dominion.
"Give me your orders my friend."
The Emperor strode from the depths of the tent, dressed in the enormous and lavish plate armour that had been passed down for generations. Every inch of metal was etched in gold, the silver sheen of the steel competing with the gold for dominance and it was almost as though the sun grew slightly brighter in the sky. Flanked by a pair of seasoned Legates, not one of the thousands of soldiers who had turned to behold the sight noticed how the Emperor's Praetorian guard were nowhere to be seen. Nor did they see the looks of concern on those closest to the Emperor.
The closed helm turned and looked over a sea of expectant faces, most hidden behind layers of steel and leather but there was no doubt that the waning morale of the army had suddenly gained a significant boost. The rumours of the attempted assassination had swept the army like wildfire, and some Legionary's had their courage hanging by threads. The sight of their Emperor standing, dressed in the full panoply of war sent a ripple of cheers through the massed ranks.
"Legate Tullius, are the men ready?" The Emperor called, picking out the red-cloaked figure standing in a group of the highest ranked officers present.
Grey hairs had yet to appear, but the man's receding hairline from a lifetime of wearing a helmet bobbed as he nodded and saluted at the same time. "Yes Sire. We await the order to advance."
"Good." The gleaming golden katana at his side was drawn, a gloved thumb testing the immaculate blade's edge for keenness. Not that the enchanted weapon needed anything as mundane as sharpening. "The other Legions?"
"General Jonna's forces have engaged the elves to the East. They are driving them towards us as we speak."
"And General Decianus?"
A finger pointed to the west, where several dozen kilometres distant an enormous black mass slithered from the edge of the Great Forest. Even with the distance between the two armies it was visible and those who turned to see what their leaders were discussing began cheering at the sight. For the golden hordes of their enemies arrayed before them with their backs to the waters of the Rumare it was not a welcome sight.
"Well then. Let's wet our swords with elvish blood!" the Emperor called, raising his voice so that it carried over the ranks before him despite the muffling effects of the closed helm. No one man would have been able to shout loud enough for the two hundred thousand legionaries standing before him to hear, but the massed ranks began cheering with pride as they saw their Emperor raise his golden Katana into the sky.
"DOVAH INVICTA!" Kaius roared, raising Goldbrand into the sky as looking at the sight of White Gold Tower spearing the sky before him.
The bellowed cry from a quarter of a million throats of soldiers, healers and camp followers tore leaves from trees and shook the ground with its fury. It was a cry of war, a cry that rolled over the lands of Cyrodiil where it was taken up by the other two armies marching on the City. The battle cry from a million men and women rocked the land, and the tread of their feet resounded with the weight of destiny.
Kaius opened his eyes and looked into the flames crackling softly before him. The hour was late and as it seemed to do so his mind had been wandering through the depths of his thoughts. Every year that he lived weighed heavily on him and the deaths of friends and family were fresh as the day they had passed onto Aetherius. Baurus, Jauffre, Belisarius and Alexi. Three Emperors, several counts, unnumerable acquaintances from the lowelist beggar to kings and queens and beyond had come and gone and yet he remained. Viconia was far away despite her proximity to his waking thoughts and he knew that if it wasn't for her presence then he would have no longer been lingering in the world.
A branch snapped as its flame weakened mass broke in two and a tiny storm of embers rose into the sky to be snatched away by the wind. It was howling around the tiny alcove in the cliff face, threatening and promising death and hypothermia. The cold of the mountain was nothing to the cold of his own thoughts, and the frozen core of his soul. For so long he had crushed his emotions and thoughts that it was only through battle that seemed to bring him any joy anymore.
Within the recesses of his mind and soul he felt a familiar presence coil around, the burning rage and anger somehow pleading with him. It was a presence he had felt even since that fateful day that he stepped through the burning hell portal to meet his destiny head-on. It had been part of him for over two hundred years now, but since the Great War it was much, much more insistent and audible.
A vampire is a devourer of the soul, and the hundreds, if not thousands of throats he had drunk from had filled him with tiny fragments of lifeforce that had merged with his own. Some had faded into nothing, consumed and dominated by his unique variation of the Rape-God's curse to empower him. A handful however remained, the hints of their personalities and strength remaining where he could call upon them. He could feel the draconic and the daedric presences, coiling and scratching at his mind and sanity but after so long dominating the first soul-fragment he consumed they were nothing to him.
Scaled and ancient, the pair slithered within him, coiling about themselves and whispering half-heard phrases in a language older than time itself. Spindly and corrupt, the arachnid presence kept its own company, choosing instead to rail against the confines of its soul-prison and howl its wordless outrage and despair.
Promising power and ruin upon his foes, the ever present daedric presence spoke to him directly as it had done so for centuries. What he had once known only as the beast was far more vocal these past years after more of its soul had been consumed. A being that had once been general to a Daedric Prince and champion to a Thalmor was now reduced to a pathetic mewling in the back of a vampire's mind. A mewling that was easily ignored from years of practice and a will stronger than steel.
The cold seeped into his flesh and he put another log on the fire. Thick and weighted, the fur coat was pulled tighter around him, and for a moment he leaned over and did the same to the tiny lithe figure slumbering nearby. As she had for months, Sofia had followed him on this journey, this pilgrimage… For two days they had climbed the mountain, braving the slopes and striding up the 7,000 steps.
The Daedra and the Dead do not weep. He thought to himself, the memory returning and he couldn't help but smile. Sofia sighed softly in her sleep as the thick furs shifted slightly to cover her further from the wind's embrace.
The Daedra and the Dead do not weep. The dead; whose suffering is now over and whose souls have moved onto Aetherius are incapable of weeping, and the children of Oblivion are incapable of doing so. It had once been a phrase spoken in the darkest moments of his life intended on giving hope and purpose to him, to provide confidence and comfort in the face of so much loss.
But now, almost thirty years later the truth of the phrase was much more personal. The Daedra and the Dead do not weep. When all sorrow and suffering and loss strips away a person's humanity there is nothing left but raw emotion. Soon, that too is stripped away, scraped and ripped and worn until all that is left is a being hollowed and empty or consumed with hate and anger.
Two centuries. Two hundred years of vampirism. The loss of his friends, the deaths of his children, and his wife, his love, his mrimmd'ssinss somewhere in the depths of the world. All hope, love, and pleasure was being taken from him every day and he couldn't remember the last time he had cried.
The daedric presence in his soul coiled forward and he could feel his muscles tensing with the promise of untold power, the teeth in his skull tingling with potential change. It whispered a wordless question to him; a formless query framed in scraps of emotion.
"Shut up Reive." Kaius whispered to himself, the soft words stolen by the wind as he turned the coals over with his broadsword.