And I'm finally back with Chapter 6. I've been trying to get into the rythmn of posting a new chapter every weekend, but unfortunately the rest of my life takes place over this story. Oh well, though most of my chapters are probably going to be late, I'll at least write one a week. A quick note: this chapter is the last of the chapters that make up a kind of 'prologue' due to the fact that there were too many details to do a flashback. But now more than ever I would like some reviews on how you think the story is doing so far, whether that be good or bad (and if you don't like something in the story, I'm okay with you telling me about it, but at least do your best to be polite when saying so; I do my best to come up with these chapters and somebody telling me that I suck and should just give up on this or something along the line is just plain depressing). This chapter is rather long but hopefully the action in it will keep you hooked. Oh, and I only reviewed this thing once because I was just getting impatient with it so there are probably grammar mistakes, sorry in advance. Well, time to shut up now and let you guys do your thing.
Terror griped me in a cold, hard vice grip. I wanted to scream, to run, to just get away from this place as fast as possible. But I couldn't move or (luckily) scream for that matter. I felt something bump up against my leg and managed to turn my gaze from the gruesome sight to see that Shade had joined me on the steps and was motioning for me to follow her. I nodded and was just about to start down them when I heard her voice.
"I will never tell you where she is, not as long as I breathe." Came my mother's voice, defiant yet scared. A sense of loyalty to my family hit me, as well as guilt for attempting to leave my mother behind. Shade looked up me, begging me not to turn back, but I did and I angled myself to see more into the room.
Like the corner where Father lay obviously dead, the rest of the house was torn apart, with the drawers open and things flung out of them. My bed was upturned and the furs that served as blankets were thrown at the far wall, and the sheet of glass that was my mirror had been taken out of the frame and was now pieces on the floor and I could see Elanor's picture shredded among the shards. Mother herself was in the center of the room, backed against the stone fireplace. Men surrounded her, all dressed in strange dark armor, like the one that the man wore in my dreams, but with matching helmets that covered their faces. They formed a circle around her, with one holding a bloody steel sword up to her throat. A sword, I recognized, was the one father always had hung up on the wall and only took down for my lessons in swordplay once a week.
The one with the sword was laughing. "Lady, I think you don't realize what I'm saying. Look, either you tell us where your daughter is now, or I force it out of you later." Although it was muffled by the helmet, his very masculine voice told me that he was human. I watched with sheer horror as he dug the sword deeper into my mother's throat, making her wince. He turned to someone that I couldn't see.
"Have you found anything yet?" he demanded harshly.
A female elven voice replied, "Nothing here, sir. We're still looking."
"Well, look harder. She must have kept a journal or something. Blast this generation for not writing things down." Said the man with the sword, who I now realized was the leader of these, thieves, assassins? I didn't have a clue. Well, whoever they are, they sure know what they're looking for, or rather who. Then another thought crossed my mind. What do these people want with me? Most of the townspeople might not like me very much, but they've put up with me (and more importantly, my background) and I've never done anything to really make anyone this mad. An even more horrid thought crossed my mind. What if Malcolm sent them? He could finally have given up on me and decided that I'm not worth my breath.
"Sir! I've found something!" said an elven man who I couldn't see. The leader looked over at him and somehow a comic image of the man clad in his sinister dark armor waving a small piece of paper high above his head for all to see managed to get into my horror induced mind. The things that fear can do to people. From the shadows, I watched a short armored figure approach the leader and hand him a small folded piece of paper (how did I know that was what he had found?). The man unfolded the letter and read its contents slowly. For a moment, I wondered what it was that he was reading but by bending my head a little, I saw that there was an eyelike symbol inked into the back of the parchment. A symbol that I had not noticed when I had first read it, due to my excitement making me miss it.
The sound of a whimper jerked me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see that Mother had tried to cross over to the leader. Two people held her arms and forced her back as far as she could go without burning her in the lit fireplace. The man looked up at her in a way to make me think that there was a cruel smile behind his mask.
"Now, now, none of that." He said. Mother stared emotionlessly at him even after he turned back to the note. Suddenly my mother's eyes displayed what seemed to be horror mixed with grief. I quickly realized that she was looking at me. "Run," she mouthed. "Run." In the back of my mind, I felt Shade tug on my dress, insisting that we go. But the sight of the scene in front of me held me in place, with Mother being held captive and Father lying motionless on the ground, eyes vacant and shirt stained the same crimson color that his eyes always were. My throat constricted as bile found its way up, but I managed to keep it down. Eventually the man looked up from reading.
"So, it seems that the brat was inducted to the College of Winterhold. Interesting. Tell, me," the leader turned to Mother who was looking at him with eyes that held such a burning hate that it terrified me, "has the child left yet?"
Mother glanced at me pleadingly before answering, "I've told you once before. I'd rather die than tell you anything about my daughter." The man made a small noise of annoyance and then elegantly stepped forward and quickly ran Father's sword against her cheek. I stifled a cry of alarm and her head turned with the blade as she gasped at the pain. A stream of blood quickly ran down her face, almost like a river that had once been dammed was now being released. Mother looked up at him defiantly, her face showing that she would not be broken so easily. The man shifted his position and crossed his arms, annoyed at this prospect. Meanwhile, Shade managed to nearly pull me down a step and I turned to quietly whisper for her to stop it.
Suddenly Shade yowled and as I tried to muzzle her, a shadow floated out from behind a bush and came over me, its hands grabbing my hair and pressing something thin and sharp against my neck. I fell back into the open doorway and soon found myself standing in front of the intruders, the shadow having been an armored figure who now pressed me up against him, with his hand over my mouth and a steel dagger resting on my exposed throat. Looking around the room, I saw that everybody's eyes were on me, and while I couldn't tell the expressions on my captors' faces, Mother's was that of pure fear as tears came to her eyes.
The leader of the group, who had Father's sword aimed at Mother, now let it fall to his side and walked causally towards me. I tried to break free, but the other man held me in a vice grip. Fear ran coldly though my veins as he reached out his hand and grabbed my chin, studying me like a scholar with some new find. "So, you're the one who's caused us so much trouble. Somehow I thought you'd be older." He said slowly, almost lazily. I whimpered as his hand went up the side of my face and turned my head to the side. His touch felt like it was leaving pricks of ice in my skin, which seemed to burrow into me all the way to my bones. I whined with fear but that only made him laugh at my weakness.
"Stop! Stop it! Leave my daughter alone!" Screamed my mother as she struggled against the men holding her. The man with the sword turned back to my mother, the warmth slowly returning to my face when his hand left me. I watched as he crossed the room to my mother, whose face had lost all its color and was now furiously fighting her captors. He stood in front of her until she stopped her futile attempts to get free. Once she did, he crossed his arms over his chest and then said, "Well, it seems that you won't have to die today. As long as you don't give us any trouble while we take your daughter off your hands." He then turned to head out the door, but Mother wouldn't let him have the last word.
"You bastards! You killed my husband! And now you kidnap my daughter!" She struggled once again. "I won't let you get away with this! Not as long as I live!"
The man looked positively furious. "You insolent woman! All we want is your daughter, nothing more." He cast a quick glance at Father. "Your husband attacked us before we could even have a chance to explain ourselves. When he refused to yield and my men couldn't restrain him, I was forced my hand. It is, "he paused for the right word, "unfortunate that such a strong Dunmer such as him had to die, but he left us with little choice. Besides, your daughter will be treated well, and she will serve a great purpose. You should be honored." He motioned towards the person holding me and they quickly started to push me towards the still open doorway.
But like I said, mother wouldn't let him have the last word. She kicked the captor who held her right arm in the shin, who loosened his grip and thus left the opening that my mother needed to break free. Before the leader could call out a command, Mother summoned lighting which surrounded her hand and then cast streaks of electricity right towards the leader. It hit him squarely in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs, but instead of that being the end of the spell, it then leaped from the man and went right into the one who held me. Shell-shocked, I felt his arms loosen and then fall away as he collapsed the ground and didn't move.
"Mivryna, run!' yelled my mother as the spell started to leap around the room to the rest of the attackers, the effects ranging from simply staggering them to killing them before they could make a sound. "RUN!"
At first my feet wouldn't obey but then I heard Shade cry out to me, her voice pleading, and somehow the fear that held me in place finally allowed me to move. I turned and ran out the door, which was just to my left, but I spared a glance back and for the rest of my life I swear I will never forget what I saw. My mother stood defiantly in front of the leader, who raised his sword with strange calm, as if the dying screams of his comrades meant nothing to him. Mother's left arm had now been freed; the elf that had been holding her was now bleeding heavily and spending his last breaths moaning in pain. Mother charged a lighting spell to attack with, but before she could release it, the leader took Father's sword and promptly thrust it into my mother's stomach, the force of the blow lifting her off her feet. As the sword slid out of her body, her solemn gaze met mine and her last words died on her lips, but I knew what they were.
Run. And I did.
I burst through the partly open doorway and into the freezing night; I could hear the leader shouting, "Get her!" and several other commands that I quickly pushed out of my mind. My feet pounded loudly when I reached the cobblestone road and were soon accompanied by my pursuers'. I heard a strange whizzing sound by my head and I looked back to see that a few of the men had stopped and in the dim light that the moon and stars offered, I saw the forms of drawn bows being aimed right at me. They're trying to shoot me! The revelation only heightened my fear.
Adrenaline pumping in my veins, I was faster than usual, but each step seemed to last a lifetime. This is what's it's like to run for your life... The feeling was terrifying in itself, but I had no time to think on it. I finally lost the men upon reaching the row of abandoned houses and, only wasting a second to think the plan over, ran inside the nearest one and immediately put a chair against the door to stop anyone from coming in. I then ran as deep into the bowels of the house as I could, the fleeting thought that if these people got into the house and started looking for me, I would be trapped only crossed my mind for a second because I had just then reached the final room in the house. And for the third time this day, I knew I would never forget what it was that I saw before me.
I stood in a small hallway, the walls having turned from wood to natural stone (when did that happen?) and a few old rotten barrels stood along the side. The floor was broken up here and there with rubble, some of it seeming ancient and had strange dark patches here and there but they were hard to see in the terrible lighting, although something told me that it would be best if I didn't know. Altogether, it looked slightly that either the house or this hallway had not been there before the other. But the worst part of the scene was that there was a door at the other end of the hallway. A door with a sinister and unfortunately easily identifiable engraving that would make even the most hardened warrior to turn and run like death was upon them. And that was because it was.
I didn't even give the thing another glance as I turned on my heel and ran back up to the ground floor, only to find utter chaos there. They're burning this place to the ground! I thought and had to move quickly to avoid being crushed by a beam that was engulfed in flames. I sprinted headfirst towards the door and with only a second's hesitation, kicked down the weakened door with ease. I heard a rumbling from above and instinct managed to conquer curiosity as I flung myself out of the house right before the entrance came crashing down. I lay on my stomach for only a moment before I heard the leader's voice shouting to keep looking, that I couldn't be far, and to hurry up and set the houses on fire and I watched as a house a little bit down was suddenly engulfed in flames. I got up and sprinted towards the front gates, leaving the main road to take a long way around to avoid detection. In the distance I could hear the screams of people and the horrid thought hit me that they weren't just burning the abandoned buildings; they were burning all of Cheydinhal.
My thoughts were interrupted by a strong hand grabbing my arm and jerking me back and up against a tree; my head banging against its thick trunk and making my vision go blurry. I think that all the color drained from my face when I my vision soon cleared and I found myself staring up at none other than the Thalmor Advisor's son, Malcolm.
"Hello, my pretty." He said as he tightened his grip on me, more than likely leaving bruises on my arms. He grinned cruelly and bent down as if kiss me, but I turned my head away before he could get that far. He leaned back to get a better look at me. "Thought you'd leave without saying good-bye, hmm?"
"Let me go! Malcolm, the city is burning; we have to get out of here!" I cried, letting my fear color my voice. I struggled against him for a moment but soon found it futile. Pleased with himself, he then bent down to whisper in my ear:
"Yes, I know about that, my dear. And who do you think started this terrible fire? Certainly not the one of us who spends her days playing with fire magic, now." He once again moved his head back to look at me, but this time he grabbed my throat and squeezed tightly, producing a steel dagger from a sheath on his hip. "And now you're going to pay!" he screamed, raising the blade to attack. My throat burned with pained as he slowly crushed it in his grip. I closed my eyes to avoid seeing the end, but before his blade could bring upon the darkness that would take me from this world, I heard the sound of something whizzing through the air and the breath get knocked out Malcolm. I opened my eyes to see him falling to the ground with a thud and it was then that I caught sight of Ranar standing in front of me, holding a large, seemingly heavy tree branch.
Ranar was the single thought that broke through the chaos of my mind. Ranar was Malcolm's younger brother and the least hated of the three children, mostly because he actually left everyone alone. He had been known for his shyness and for rarely leaving the house, and if so, and only doing so alone. But to me he was no better than his brother and I wasn't about to let him get away with anything. I opened my mouth to say something but it died as soon as he said, "Are you all right?" I shut my mouth immediately, not knowing what to say. The boy actually sounded concern.
"I'm fine." I said angrily and for another surprise, Ranar recoiled at the hate in my voice, but he continued on.
"We need to move. The fire's spreading impossibly fast and we need to get out of the city. I think some sort of assassins are here and they're making quick work of anyone that comes near." He said. I looked back towards the city, whose buildings lit up the darkness and its citizens' pierced the night with their screams. For once, my hatred of the Advisor's family died and I just nodded as the both of us quickly sprinted for the front gates. I spared a quick glance at Malcolm's still body. Good riddance, I say.
Although both of us were tired and the adrenaline that had kept us going throughout the night was dying, we made it to the stables in good time. Outside the walls, the night was only a bit less hectic, with the horses going nuts in their pens and the front door to the stable master's house was open with hearth light pouring out. However, the stable master himself lay completely still in the threshold of the door with a pool of blood spreading from him.
Ranar managed to quiet one of the two black horses in the corral and then lead it back towards me. "Get on," was all he said and soon I sat in the saddle, Ranar looking solemnly up at me.
"Where are we going?" was all I could think of to say.
"You're going to get the as far away from this place as possible. I'm going to go back in and see if there are any survivors." He said in a voice that cut off any objections. But that didn't mean I didn't have questions.
"Why are you helping me? Aren't you coming with me? What about your brother or the rest of your family?" the questions seemed to pour out of my mouth.
But Ranar just smiled, one that seemed to light up his features. "Like I said before, I'm going back in to look for survivors. And I heard some of those assassins talking. They want you, nobody else. And after what they did here tonight, I'm not about to let them have anything." His tone sounded like there was more to that then what he was letting on. Something passed through his eyes for a moment, but faded as quickly as it appeared. Seeming to decide on some unknown course of action, he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down closer to him. "And as for why I'm helping you…" he cut himself off as leaned in and kissed me. At first I was too shocked to do anything, but that quickly faded and soon I started to kiss him back. An involuntary whimper escaped me and Ranar quickly pulled away, the both of us breathing hard, though I was certain that that wasn't from the fact that we'd spent the night running from madmen.
Just then I heard the sound of what sounded like a puppy. I looked towards the gate to see a small black ball running at us as fast as its little legs could carry it. Shade! Guilt welled up inside me; in all the chaos, I completely forgot about the little thing. She ran up to the black horse and starting jumping up and down, barking her sweet little head off. Ranar smiled and picked her up, which prompted a growl from the shadow wolf. "Well, aren't you very nice? All right, all right, get up there and take care of your owner for me, okay? Good." Shade stopped growling and instead looked thoughtfully at Ranar for a moment before sneezing in his face. Ranar actually laughed at that and patted the little thing on the head. He looked up at me with something in his eyes that resembled grief that had been pent up for years. But before I could make sense of what had just recently happened, Ranar walked to the back of the horse and then said, "He's not my brother."
"Huh," I said intelligently, but, then again, I did just watch my family get killed right in front of me and then ran through all of Cheydinhal while it was burning to the ground. Not to mention everything else…
"Malcolm. You thought he was my brother." Ranar smiled, "The damn bastard's actually my cousin." And with that, Ranar smacked the horse on its flank and it took off like an arrow, with me using one hand to hold onto for dear life, and the other to keep Shade in place. I naturally got into control of the horse and soon I was galloping it through the woods that I'd spent my childhood exploring. After a ways, I reached the top of a small hill and stopped, looking back at my hometown.
Cheydinhal looked like a battleground, with the whole city up in flames, shining through the darkness of the night with its terrible beauty. In my mind, I could still hear the screams of the people, both commoner and noble alike, now just forgetting their status and trying to flee the chaos before them, but finding little luck. How many people are dead? I wondered. The flames. They don't look natural. The horrible damage magic can do when not used correctly. It's no wonder that people fear it. They have good reason to. Shade whined, gently pulling me out of my thoughts. I smiled down at the girl; her eyes reflected the moonlight and made them look like two little torchbugs. Smiling, I took one last glance at my home, now engulfed in flames. Well, I was going to head to the College sooner or later. Guess it's going to be sooner. And with that, I spurred the horse onward and to the north, towards Skyrim.