The sky above her darkens and the air feels heavier as Aleyna's horse trots up the road towards the city of Kvatch. She spies a small tent settlement growing in the distance along the road to the city. A Dunmer sprints past her without a word as she dismounts but an Altmer stops looking up at her his eyes filled with panic when she grabs his arm as he runs past.
"Run! Run for your life!" He yanks his arm away and takes off again, clearly running for his life. Aleyna turns and takes the reigns of the horse leading it up the path and into the tent camp, her other hand resting on the pommel of her sword.
"You!" She calls out as a Legionnaire exits one tent crossing the road to another. He turns when he hears her as she approaches he snaps to attention when he sees the sigil on the pommel of her sword.
"What's going on here?"
"Agent, you don't know? The city has fallen to the Daedra." She gives him a look.
"Have you been sampling the ale soldier? Where's your commander, Matius?"
"The Captain is at the city gates, trying to keep the Daedra from taking the road. Agent...you'll want armor." He points to a set of chainmail draped on a table by a crackling fire. Aleyna looks at it then back at him.
"You're serious."
"You should really go see the Captain ma'am." Aleyna walks over and picks up the chainmail.
"Feel like I'm in Boot again."
Aleyna looses the arrow from her silver bow, it sails over Matius' shoulder punching through the thick enlarged skull of the Clanfear that threw itself at him, catching it in mid air it falls to the ground dead. Matius turns as Aleyna throws him a wave the fighting around him beginning to die down.
She stares up at the massive portal to Oblivion erected just outside the city gate, almost as high as the walls surrounding Kvatch. The sky around her burned as if on fire, Legionnaires brush past her as they pull their wounded off of the front line, behind the hastily erected barricades, she looks back at Matius as he approaches her sheathing his bloody sword.
"Agent." The two old friends clasp their hands together as they turn and look up at the Oblivion gate.
"Captain, mind telling me what's going on here?"
"Last night at approximately three in the morning a gate to Oblivion sprung up in the center of town. Daedra of all manner began pouring from it in droves attacking and burning everything in sight." Aleyna's eyes wander up to the burning sky, no birds she thinks to herself.
"The Guard was almost immediately overwhelmed, we lost the city in almost half an hour. We failed to evacuate the count and I've been here trying to hold the road and protect the settlement below." Aleyna nods, perfectly sound and reasonable tactics, that lacked complete imagination or creative thought. Typical for most Legion soldiers, which was why Matius never rose in the ranks like she did.
"Now, mind explaining to me what you're doing here? I hope the Empire sent you to help me take back my city?" Aleyna shakes her head as she turns to him.
"I'm looking for a man named Martin, he's a priest here."
"Brother Martin, yeah."
"Did you spot him before you retreated?"
"Do you have to use that word Al?"
"Fine, did you see my guy before you advanced backwards to ensure further victory?" They both smile as she bumps his shoulder with hers, Matius chuckles.
"No, no I didn't but I wasn't on that end of the square. Calnius was though. Calnius!" Matius shouts as a young soldier, barely eighteen, whose helmet was two sizes too big for him, runs up to them.
"Calnius, this is Agent Jes." The young soldiers eyes widen as he snaps to attention.
"Ma'am."
"At ease Calnius she's not here for you. You were in the square outside the temple?" Matius asks as the pair lean against the barricades and look at the young boy. Aleyna folds her arms across her chest staring at the boys helmet tilted halfway to the side, sliding off his head.
"Yes, sir."
"Did you see what happened to one of the priests, Brother Martin?"
"Yes sir, he and several survivors along with Tierra and Inean took refuge in the Chapel."
"Soldier, does your blacksmith lack a measuring tape?" Aleyna interrupts as the soldier adjusts the helmet on his head again. It immediately slides back to where it was, perched half cocked on his head.
"Oh well um-it's not-it's not mine, ma'am. His name was Benis, I lost mine in a struggle." Aleyna nods, taking the helmet from his head and dropping her pack onto the ground.
She takes a strip of leather from it and punches the strip at both ends with the blade from her thigh. Slipping the newly made holes over the studs on the rim of the helmet, she drops it back onto his head and tucks the strap under his chin giving the top of the helmet a resounding slap.
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Keep your head down and your eyes open, soldier." She steps aside as the young man hurries past her. Matius and Aleyna turn back to the Gate leaning on the barricade staring up at it.
"What are we going to do Al? I sent men in there to close that ungodly thing so we can retake the city, but none have returned."
"Those gates the only route into the city?"
"Yeah."
"Then I guess I'm going in there after them."
"You're still insane, you know that?" Matius looks down at her as she takes a knee, unbuckling her shield from her pack she looks at him and smiles as she slings the pack back around her shoulders.
"I know."
"We'll run cover for you as best we can."
"Appreciate that." Aleyna slides her arm through the leather bands of her shield and grips the handle as she draws her sword. She pauses, looking up at the massive gate.
"Good luck."
"Yeah, I think I'll need it." Aleyna bounds up two of the thin logs of the barricade jumping over the pointed ends, dropping onto her feet on the other side. She hears Matius call for a charge as she takes off sprinting for the gate.
Several scamps try to block her path but a hail of arrows from the Kvatch guards showers down on them as Aleyna nimbly side steps and vaults over one Scamp before an arrow drops him. She ducks under the arm of a Flame Antronach, pivoting on her ankle at a dead run as fireballs whiz past her.
The gate grows larger as she leaps off her back foot and throws herself into the eerie red void.