The Dunmer raider brought his short sword up to parry aside Neros' overhead swing and prepared to swing wide with his other blade. Neros blocked his attack with his Legionary shield, thanking the Nine Devine he had brought it along, and thrust his blade-point at the Dunmer. The Dark Elf, who Neros realized couldn't be more then in his teens, predicted and parried away the attack, setting up to swing wide with his right-hand blade. What he did not predict was Neros bashing into him with his shield, the rectangular curved metal sending the young warrior flying and landing on his back with a hard thud. Neros pounced on the fallen Dark Elf, stepping hard with his steel boot on the boy's chest and driving his blade into the exposed neck, mixing the creature's squeal with the gurgling of blood. The Imperial left the worm to wriggle around in agony and turned his attention to the front door.
A second Dunmer, wearing a leather tunic and a prominent tattoo on his face, stood with his mouth open in the doorway before turning around to rush inside. Neros charged forward in a rage, stomping past Vabdas' unmoving body and into the house, where a flying dagger missed his head by an inch. Neros stopped and raised his shield to deflect a second dagger, looking around the protective barrier to see the leathered man looking desperately for something else to throw at him. The enraged Imperial charged again, closing with his hapless opponent and driving his blade between the man's fifth and sixth rib up to the hilt. The bandit let go a scream of pain and the bag of loot he had been carrying, its contents of money and utensils spilling out across the floor as he fell to the ground on both knees. Neros was forced to put a boot to the creature and push him off of his blade, which was now dripping with red blood.
The third Dark Elf came running up from the basement to see what the commotion was about, only to see an Imperial soldier standing over the dead body of one of his comrades. He had been in such a hurry he forgot to tie his belt, and when he went to take a step his pants fell down to his ankles, causing him to trip and tumble back down the stairs. An otherwise comical scene under different circumstances, Neros chased after the clumsy scoundrel with a trail of blood following close behind. The villain was caught up in a pile of white linen that had been cast aside, and had cut his blade free of the cloth when Neros' sword cleaved the weapon, and the hand that held it, free from the rest of the body. The marauder clutched at the bloody stump, spreading his anguish and blood all over the bed sheets.
"Please...please, have mercy..." the Dunmer was able to say, between the throbs of pain that shot through his body. Neros' fierce, hard eyes met the pleading Dark Elf's for a moment before one final swing finished the creature off with a resounding Thwack.
Neros closed his eyes and stood there, breathing deeply, letting the rage within dissipate until he was his calm self again. Neros searched for and found a clean sheet under the pile of linen that served temporarily as a burial bed, and cleaned himself up. He would need an oil rag when he got back to the barracks to keep the blood on his sword from corroding it. His immediate concerned fulfilled, Neros looked around the room and examined the damage done by the burglars.
The thugs had literally torn the place apart looking for valuables: pillows cut open and their fluff spilled on the floor, books laid out to check for hidden compartments, cabinets and closets broken into with brute force. Anything the robbers didn't find valuable found it self broken into hundreds of pieces on the floor as Neros kicked aside broken pottery and glassware, checking an empty chest whose hinges had been bashed apart. The large bed stood beneath where the stairs came down from the first floor, a large gash diagonally across the mattress...
It was only then when he noticed the small figure huddle up against the bedpost in a fetal position, terror in her eyes as she stared back at Neros. Neros guessed she couldn't be more then twenty, maybe even younger. Her dark red hair flowed down past her shoulders, and from what he could tell the young girl was naked but for some torn bits of clothing.
Neros averted his eyes, and noticing a pile of clothing at his feet hastily grabbed a drab brown robe. Throwing on the bed, he kept his eyes looking away from her nude form, hastily saying "I'll be outside when you're ready."
The first floor was in similar shape as the basement, the vandals taking everything of value and breaking the rest. Outside the rain had stopped, although the overcast remained, as did the bodies of the armored Dunmer and the widow. He checked on Vabdas's body first, pulling it out of the mud onto a dry piece of land. Her body was pockmarked with several stab wounds made by a dagger, and her neck was heavily bruised, probably from being choked. She was bare from the waist down. Neros did the only decent thing he could, carrying her back into her house and covering her with a sheet next to the central fireplace.
Back outside he examined the carcass of the first warrior he struck down, whose hands were grasped around the hole in his neck. The n'wah was in a full suit of light armor, made from the chitin of one of Morrowind's beasts. Neros removed the thing's face mask to be surprised by the face of a teenager, younger then the girl back in the house. A spiral tattoo covered the right side of his adolescent face, the same kind Ashlanders wear. Damn sonofabitchs.
The Ashlanders were nomads who wandered the ash wastelands at the base of Red Mountain, the central dominant landform on Morrowind. Unlike their civilized cousins, Ashlanders never fully gave in to Imperial rule, conducting hit-and-run raids against both the House Dunmer and Imperial settlers. Neros had never heard of them hitting this far into the West Gash region before though or this close to an Imperial garrison town.
Neros never heard the young woman approach, turning around to see her staring at the dead body. No, not at it. More like through it he thought, her eyes unmoving, unflinching in their cold gaze of a...thing that had just brought her life crashing down around her. She was completely wrapped up in the auburn robe, clutching on to it like a child to a safety blanket, her bare feet encased in the muddy ground.
"Come on; let's get you back to Gnisis." There was no sense in sticking around her anymore, especially if these Ashlanders had any friends who would come looking for them. The two companions walked in silence on their cold, muddy march back to civilization.
