Middas, 10:11 PM, 4th of First Seed, 4E 202

The Pale

Hand over hand. Don't look down. Do not look down.

Thorald was nearly at the top of his rope. The wind blew through the slits in his helmet, made odd noises in his ears, made it hard to think. The heavy canvas of the package over his shoulder kept thudding into his back. His gauntlets were encrusted with frost. So were his boots. So was the rope, actually.

And the mountainside he was climbing was basically a vertical cliff. The rope actually hung a little bit away from the rock face at points. The wind was making him sway from side to side, and he couldn't brace himself properly. If he slipped, there would be nothing but air between him and the ground below.

Maybe, in some past life, this all would have made him a little nervous, but he already knew he would make it to the top. He felt nothing.

Besides, he didn't exactly have all night to cling to this rope.

When the Nord got within arm's reach of the grappling hook at the top, he unslung the package from his shoulder and heaved it up over the edge of the cliff above him. He pulled himself up after it, made it securely onto all fours on the rough stone ledge, and only then did he look down behind him.

The ground was dizzyingly far away. He could see for miles up here, it felt like. He'd only ascended a fraction of the mountain, there was a lot more above him, but the drop must have been nearly a hundred feet. This armor was heavy dwarven plate, but it would do nothing to protect him if he fell.

He closed his eyes, steadied himself, took a breath. He still didn't have all night. It was time to move.

The first thing he did was pull up the rope after himself. He left the hook where it had fixed itself against the rock, it wasn't hurting anyone there, but the rope went in a nice big coil. The next thing he did was unbuckle the straps holding the package closed, and unroll it on the flattest surface of stone he could find.

The sheet of canvas was treated with something that made it a dark, dull tone of gray. It blended in oddly well with the rock. It looked like the only thing in front of him was an array of golden metal components. Some large, some small, mostly long and slender, but for three cylinders of metal, one light, two heavy. Immediately, he started plucking them from their spots, fixing them together, tightening screws, assembling the apparatus they were meant to form.

Thorald heard something. It was hard to discern, against the gentle rush of the wind. Voices, it sounded like. He looked down off the cliff again.

This portion of mountainside was directly over a road. On one side, it traveled into a winding mountain pass, and on the other, it led to an open field of snow and ice. On the open field side, Thorald could just barely see the silhouettes of a line of men. Maybe fifteen or twenty, moving in single file, coming his way. Against the gray-lavender color of the nighttime snow, they all appeared solid black.

Thorald returned to his work. He had to finish his assembly, and fast. The lighter cylinder went on one side of the main body, the heavier two on the other. On one end was two pairs of metal arms, one pair curved, one pair straight. It was coming together very quickly.

When it was finished, he set the apparatus down on the bare rock, heavy cylinders facing down. He laid himself down on his belly behind it. The padding of his armor staved off the worst of the cold, but lying flat on frozen stone… He ignored it and just got settled as best as he could, resting on his elbows, peering down below.

Those silhouettes were a little closer now. This was as good a time as any, he supposed. Thorald braced the bipod-mounted automatic crossbow against his shoulder, took hold of its grip, and peered through the telescopic sight on top.

Thorald was looking at a small circle in his field of vision, magnified many times over. A cross of wire over the lens showed him where exactly his weapon was pointing. He'd never had the chance to use this device in the field before. Maybe this should've been exciting, but still, he felt nothing. He had a job to do.

Looking through this aperture, the tiniest motion of his arm, even the natural movement of his breathing, was enough to make his whole field of vision jiggle around. Without the bipod, it probably would have been impossible to aim. Slowly, as carefully as he could, he panned up the road.

It turned out those all-black silhouettes were actually black in color. Every one of them was wearing Thalmor robes. He could count them properly now. Sixteen Thalmor mages, traveling on foot up this barren road. But even through this metal tube, they looked far away. They only took up a tiny fraction of the sight's circular space. Thorald guessed they were maybe three or four hundred feet away from the base of his cliff.

In other words, they were outside his effective range. He'd just have to wait.

Now that he was holding still, the cold was starting to creep in through his armor. He shifted around slowly where he lay, struggling to keep his sights on the mages. Might as well see what they were doing, while he waited.

By the looks of things, the mages were just walking. They were all wearing hoods, but the one in front looked to be a man, just by his stature. He kept turning over his shoulder while he walked, and the ones just behind kept nodding and making gestures. He could hear their voices again now, still faintly. The one in front made a big, sweeping motion with his arms, and he could hear them laughing.

Thorald didn't care. They were all targets. And they were all coming within range. With his thumb, he pushed down a button on the handle, and a gear train powered by a dwarven dynamo core, inside one of the two heavy cylinders, pulled the bowstring back by itself. The other cylinder was full of solid metal bolts, and loaded one into place, also by itself.

He trained his sights on the mage in front. Not actually directly on him, of course. The wind was gently pushing left, and this was still a great distance, so the center of his wire cross was a bit to the target's upper right. They were still walking, still moving, so he carefully followed the mage's movement… Took a deep breath in, let it back out halfway…

When he pulled the trigger, the butt of the crossbow kicked hard against his shoulder, but there was no sound. His boots were enchanted with the muffle effect. It muted not just his movement, but his weapons as well. He simply felt the kick, immediately pressed the loader button, and watched as one of the mages farther back in the line suddenly fell over, clutching his lower leg.

That was wrong. That elf had been way off to the left. Thorald must have misaligned the sight just now. Should have tested it first, or something. He frowned and tried to adjust his aim accordingly, so… Pointing way to the right, basically.

The mages started scattering apart and casting armor spells on themselves. For all the good that would do them, of course. The one in front was shouting, it could be heard even up here, and pointing at people, and doing what a leader was expected to do. Thorald pulled the trigger again.

The one in front clutched at his throat for a couple of seconds, then collapsed. It reminded Thorald faintly of his interrogator in Northwatch, the one Idolaf Battle-Born had taken care of.

They still hadn't figured out who was attacking them. A couple were conjuring atronachs on the spot. Thorald ignored those. They'd vanish with the deaths of their summoners anyway.

This crossbow reloaded itself in something like half a second. Thorald had never experienced anything like this. He'd aim at someone, or to their upper-right, technically, pull the trigger, and move on to the next. Of course, he'd had plenty of time to practice. They wouldn't have sent him on this assignment if he couldn't handle it. But taking on all these mages with this weapon? They didn't stand a chance.

He took one mage down, and then the next, and then the next. They were running, now. All in different directions, trying to just be less of a target. Thorald followed them patiently. Some were running in erratic zigzags, trying to dodge him. He even missed a couple of times, thanks to that. But he simply kept launching bolt after bolt, and the Thalmor mages fell one by one. None of them even tried fighting back.

Soon enough, there was only one mage left. He was hiding behind a hulking frost atronach, slowly advancing towards the mountain pass, careful not to expose any of himself to Thorald's line of sight. If he got close enough, he'd be able to retaliate, and Thorald wasn't eager to find out how. Against someone with a normal weapon, this would have worked just fine. Thorald could attack the atronach, and probably destroy it, but the mage could simply summon another before he could reload his crossbow.

Unfortunately, Thorald's crossbow was built to load itself, and faster than any pair of hands ever could. He aimed for the atronach and started simply letting off bolts.

The atronach crumbled after the third impact. Sure enough, the mage instantly summoned another. A huge, purple, swirling orb of energy blossomed on the ice, obscuring the mage from view. When it shrank away again, there would be another atronach, fresh from Oblivion, just like the last.

Thorald's fourth bolt went straight through the orb. The spell ended early. That big purple orb collapsed into nothing. There was just a dead mage lying flat on the ice.

He lifted his head from the sight, looked down there with both eyes. He counted sixteen silhouettes scattered across the ground. Sixteen Thalmor corpses. That was it, then. His mission was done.

As he set to work taking the device apart, putting the pieces back into their package, Thorald wondered what he was meant to feel about this. He'd just killed a whole lot of unsuspecting people. Thalmor mages, yes, and undoubtedly the enemy, but they hadn't even had a chance. He wasn't sure he really liked it that way.

But this was a war. Thorald was a soldier. He had a job to do. Maybe it was best to simply keep feeling nothing.