(Oh yeah, the disclaimer. Uh…I don't think there are going to be very many characters that I don't own, except for the Daedra. But I don't own Morrowind, or any of the locations.)

CHAPTER 2

Kjarl stood, breathing heavily, amongst the bodies of several dozen former worshippers of Molag Bal. They had killed an important Imperial knight and cut out his heart. Many of them were now dead, by his axe. One had escaped, just behind what had seemed to be a Khajiit in black fatigues. The apparent leader, the one woman in the group of worshippers, dressed in a red and gold robe, had been brought down by a fireball that an Altmer battlemage had conjured.

Kjarl turned to the battlemage. "What about you?"

The Altmer shrugged. "I'm just here for Noren." She pointed at the singed body of the Dunmer woman on the floor. "She used to be one of the Mages' Guild's brightest stars. Then she betrayed us, turning to necromancy and making us all look bad."

Kjarl raised an eyebrow. "And that was cause to kill her?"

The Altmer gave him a wry smile. "As a mercenary, I didn't think you'd care."

Kjarl snorted. "I don't know what mercenaries are like where you come from, but we're not all about killing. We're about whatever the people who hire us tell us to do. Admittedly, that usually involves killing…"

"So, what's your story?"

"Well," Kjarl said, wiping the blood from his axe, "the Imperial Legion hired me to find Stoncien Draconius, a very important Imperial knight, who they were fairly certain was being held captive here." He pointed to the body in the chest. "That would be him."

The Altmer leaned against the gigantic statue of Molag Bal that stood in the center of the shrine. "If you're just a mercenary, how do you know that's him?"

"I've worked for the Legion before," Kjarl replied. "We've met."

The Altmer began wrestling with the cork on a bottle labeled "Restore Magicka." "Oh," she said. "Sorry about your loss."

"Well," Kjarl said, tucking his axe into his belt, "to tell you the truth, the Legion kind of hated him. When he went missing, they initially weren't going to look for him, until the Emperor himself gave the order to find him."

The Altmer finally gave up on trying to remove the cork by hand, and decided to try and remove it with a sword. "We should probably get out of here before that one guy who escaped gets back with reinforcements."

"Good idea," Kjarl replied. "Besides, Molag Bal probably wouldn't be too happy if we hung out here much longer."

"From what I understand, Molag Bal is never really happy."

Kjarl began to laugh, unaware that the statue's eyes seemed to be following him as he headed towards the door.

"By the way," the Altmer said, extending her hand. "I'm Anterriel."

"Kjarl," Kjarl said.

X X X (this site doesn't support asterisks, for some reason)

Kjarl sat down at the counter of The Eight Plates, the local pub in the city of Balmora. The barmaid, a Dunmer woman in a yellow skirt, leaned on the counter. All Dunmer had red eyes, but hers seemed to glow with a warmth that none of the others seemed to possess.

"Evening, Kjarl," she said. "What'll it be?"

"Mazte," he said, flatly. "And put it in a tall mug."

"Daring today, aren't we?"

"I need to forget something," he groaned, laying his forehead on the counter.

The barmaid slid a tall, frothy mug in front of him. He drained half of it in one gulp. He hated his life right now. Draconius was dead. The Emperor would not be happy, and would punish the Legion for waiting so long to hire somebody to find him, and Varus Vantinius, Knight of the Imperial Dragon, would surely find some way of putting the blame on Kjarl. That was his way. Whenever it was his fault, it was his subordinates' fault. Kjarl closed his eyes and put his head on the table, trying to concentrate on something else. The first image that formed in his mind was of an Altmer. There was no mistaking the gold skin and almost white hair. The Altmer was a woman…in a dark blue robe with gold trim…her eyes were very light green…there was something familiar about her. Maybe Kjarl would've been able to place it if there was just a little less alcohol in his system…

He was jerked from his half-sleep by the sound of a stool scraping across the floor next to him.

"Ah, S'Ravha," the barmaid said. "You're back in one piece, I see. How did it go?"

Kjarl looked up. A Khajiit had taken a seat next to him. The Khajiit was dressed entirely in black fatigues. His hood was pulled down, revealing a pair of lamp-like green eyes, and enough unkempt reddish-brown hair to make him seem almost lion-like.

The Khajiit opened his shirt and pulled out the handle of something white. "S'Ravha thinks it went quite well. Though, S'Ravha would've died, were it not for the arrival of an Altmer battlemage and a Nord mercenary. They distracted them, giving S'Ravha time to escape." S'Ravha slid the white thing back inside his shirt. It was then that he noticed Kjarl. "In fact," he said, "S'Ravha thinks this man is the mercenary."

Kjarl thought long and hard about what the Khajiit was talking about. "A Daedric shrine, near Tel Aruhn? Several dozen people worshipping Molag Bal?"

"That is the place. You were upset that they had killed somebody."

"Yes," Kjarl said. "And you were the one who opened the chest where they had stashed the body."

Just then, S'Ravha's ears started twitching. He spun around, and his eyes widened. Kjarl turned to see what he was looking at. Two men in green cloaks were advancing on them.

"So it was you," one of them said. He had a very gruff, throaty voice. He threw back his hood, revealing that he was a Dunmer, and that he had a very flat haircut. "You are responsible for the death of Relthasa Noren. You have disgraced Molag Bal. And now, we will disgrace you!" He drew a long, black sword from his belt. Everyone else in the tavern set their drinks down in unison and ran out the door.

"Gentlemen!" the barmaid shouted. "I am trying to run a respectable establishment here, and I will not tolerate any fighting in…"

The other man grabbed a nearby bottle of brandy and smashed it over her head. The barmaid slumped to the floor.

Kjarl drew his axe. "I handled an entire shrine full of you guys. The two of you shouldn't be much trouble."

The two cloaked men raised their hands and began chanting in unison. "Doht roht ekhem meht oht roht ayem!"

With a bright yellow flash, two new beings appeared next to the men. Each was built like a man itself, but its skin was red and black, and seemed hard as ebony. Their eyes were red and soulless. Each had a red goatee, a small horn over each eye, and a large spiked club in its right hand.

Kjarl lowered his axe slightly. "Dremoras. Lovely."

The dremoras howled with rage and brought their clubs smashing down on the counter, as Kjarl jumped to the side, knocking over S'Ravha's stool in the process. By that point, however, the Khajiit had already jumped onto the counter and assumed a fighting position. The dremoras moved to either side of the Nord on the floor and raised their clubs…just as S'Ravha threw a pair of large, heavy tankards at their heads. The dremoras shook their heads, turned, and ran towards S'Ravha, who jumped over their heads, clunked them together, and landed on his feet on a table behind them. The dremoras staggered around for a few seconds, trying to clear their heads, which gave Kjarl the time he needed to regain his feet. He turned to the nearest dremora and swung his axe at the space between its soft, vulnerable neck and the right shoulder in a move he normally used when fighting heavily armored opponents. Unfortunately, the dremora chose that moment to turn, so that his massive pauldron deflected the axe. The flat of the blade hit him in the cheek. Enraged, the dremora turned on Kjarl, swinging his club and smashing furniture. S'Ravha jumped to the floor, dropped to one knee, and swept his other leg in a wide arc, tripping the dremora and causing him to fall, throat-first, onto Kjarl's axe.

The other dremora picked up a chair with one hand and tossed it, effortlessly, at Kjarl's head. Kjarl swung his axe like a baseball bat, splintering the chair. S'Ravha grabbed a flying piece of leg and shoved it down the dremora's throat. The dremora gagged, dropped its club, and fell to is knees, putting it in the perfect position for Kjarl to behead it.

The two men in cloaks looked at the two slain dremoras, which were starting to fade into Oblivion from whence they had been summoned, and ran, screaming, from the tavern.

"Wow," Kjarl said, looking at the black blood on the edge of his axe. How long had he managed to keep it clean today? Three hours?

The barmaid slowly stood up, looked at the half-vanished dremoras and the splintered furniture, and passed out again.

"I don't normally fight that well when I'm drunk," Kjarl said.

"No," S'Ravha replied sharpening his claws on a dagger that seemed too small to be good for anything other than sharpening claws. "You weren't really that good this time. Not compared to when S'Ravha saw you fighting in the shrine. S'Ravha thinks that without his help, you would be dead."

Kjarl grabbed S'Ravha by the shirt and lifted him above his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," S'Ravha said, his smile never flickering, "that without S'Ravha's help, you would be dead. It means exactly what it sounds like."

"That's what I thought it meant," Kjarl said. He tossed S'Ravha aside and turned back to the bar, sitting down on the one un-broken stool.

S'Ravha rebounded off the wall and landed on his feet next to Kjarl. "You are a very strange man."

"I'm drunk." Kjarl said flatly. "That's what happens when I'm drunk."

"Is this how all mercenaries celebrate victory in battle? Go to a tavern far from the battle and get drunk?"

Kjarl rolled his eyes. "Some victory. Three days travel, haggling over silt strider prices and fighting off those damned blight creatures, only to find that the man they're paying me to rescue has been sacrificed to Molag Bal. Now I have to tell the Knight of the Imperial Dragon that we waited too long to go after him. Wheee."

"This Knight of the Imperial Dragon…he does not take failure well?"

"That's an understatement if I ever heard one. Because I was the one on the payroll for his rescue, I'm going to end up getting the blame." Kjarl sighed and lifted his mug to drink the rest of his mazte, only to find it had been spilled in the fight. He sighed again. "Guess I'd better face the music." He got up and headed towards the door. S'Ravha followed him. "Where are you going?" Kjarl asked him.

"Anywhere but here," S'Ravha said, pulling up his hood, so that only his eyes and ears were visible. "S'Ravha does not want to be here when the barmaid wakes up."

X X X

"Well," Kjarl said when they were out on the street again, "it's been fun. Hopefully, the next time you hear my name, it won't be in an obituary."

"S'Ravha does not even know your name."

"Ah, yes, that would make it hard to know if you were reading my name in an obituary or not. I am Kjarl. I believe I already know your name." With that, Kjarl began to head off down the road.

"Wait!" S'Ravha called after him.

"Look," Kjarl called back, without turning around, "I'd love to stay and chat, but Vantinius will kill me even more thoroughly if I delay in telling him what happened."

"No," S'Ravha shouted, "that's not what S'Ravha meant…" but it was too late. In a flash of green, the two men who had summoned the dremoras had appeared from an alley, grabbed Kjarl by the arms, and dragged him back into the alley.

S'Ravha shook his head. "S'Ravha isn't sure why he's doing this…" With that, he cracked his knuckles and sprinted to the alley. When he got there, he saw the two men nailing the lid down on a wooden crate. The crate seemed to be moving on its own accord.

"I don't know why we don't just kill him now and get it over with," one man said.

"You know perfectly well that Molag Bal demands all who disgrace him to this magnitude to be burned alive inside a wooden crate," the other one reprimanded.

Silently, S'Ravha flexed his fingers, crouched, and pounced, claws extended, hoping to use the arguing Dunmer to mask his attack. But at the last possible second, one of the Dunmer turned around and very casually raised his hammer and brought it crashing down just above S'Ravha's right eye.

S'Ravha's head nearly exploded with pain. He fell short of his attack, hit the pavement shoulder-first, and rolled into the adobe wall. He struggled to retain his grasp on consciousness, but couldn't. The last thing he saw was a pair of large, ash-colored hands reaching for him…