Author's note

Hello. This chapter will likely be the last, followed by an epilogue, which means the murderer is about to be revealed! Since the fun of a murder mystery is guessing who the killer is, I'm writing this note as fair warning to you readers that this is your last chance to take a guess before the secret is out.

THE LONE SURVIVOR

Tashine curled her knees into her chest watching the soldiers mill about the barracks. Her eldest brother was among them, which was comforting. He had lost an eye in the fighting, and his attitude had grown sterner than Tashine remembered from home, but he was still family.

The threat of the Aldmeri Dominion had subsided. Tashine had heard that they'd fled across the desert. The war had now shifted to Cyrodiil and the Imperial City. Tashine didn't really pay much attention to it anymore. Her thoughts were numbed, somehow, and she felt overwhelmingly listless.

A courier came running into the room at the far end, panting heavily, but with a large smile on his face.

"War's over lads!" he managed between wheezes.

The barracks erupted in raucous cheers. The soldiers jumped up and down and hugged each other, or, in the case of the older veterans, leaned back against the wall with a satisfied smile. Tashine felt mainly apprehensive at the loud noise, but was somewhat roused with curiosity. Snippets of conversation came to her.

"…Thalmor general surrendered in Cyrodiil…"

"…Will there be peace talks now?..."

"…negotiating in the White-Gold Tower…"

Well, it was good news, thought Tashine. She'd be able to go home now. What had happened to her mother? She'd never been able to communicate since the Thalmor occupied the coastal towns.

Tashine decided that the noise was increasingly hard to endure, so she left the barracks and took a walk around the town.

She didn't know the name of the town. It was where they had brought her after finding her in the dungeon of the Thalmor fortress. It was half-tucked away underneath an overhanging cliff of tall sandstone. It had a mill, and an inn, and a wooden palisade around the perimeter on three sides. The fourth side, of course, was a cliff face. Tashine nodded in approval. It was moderately defensible from a military standpoint.

Reaching the palisade, she climbed the steps to the lookout posts. There were many of them ranged along the wall, some even had sentries, but her post was currently vacant, which suited Tashine just fine.

She settled on the rough-hewn chair and acknowledged the view overlooking the canyon pass in the twilight of dusk. Cries of jubilation were still audible from the town. The residents would have reason to celebrate too. At last, the Dominion would be pushed out of Hammerfell.

From up the canyon pass, a man on horseback and a small cortege of soldiers, clinking in their Imperial armour, approached the main gates.

Tashine's heart jumped when she recognized Pashar among them. She watched him as he passed the gate-guard. The leader of the group dismounted and handed his steed's reins to Pashar, who led the beast towards the stables. The rest of the men went towards the longhouses. Tashine snuck down from her post and shadowed Pashar to the stable-house.

"Ahem," she coughed, standing somewhat awkwardly in the entranceway.

Pashar looked up and noticed her. At first he seemed more confused than anything. Tashine realized how much she had changed. For one thing, she was bald. The Thalmor had forced her to shave her head, possibly as humiliation, or possibly to prevent fleas from roosting in her hair. She knew she had permanent bags under her eyes now, and she'd lost a lot of weight. The skin hung loosely on her frame; the muscles under them had shrunk with disuse.

But then Pashar's eyes widened in recognition. "Tashine? Is that you?"

"Yeah it's me."

"I thought you were dead. What… what happened?"

"Umm…" Tashine's voice hitched up an octave, "they captured me."

Pashar came forward, dropping the horse's reins. "Are you okay?"

No, thought Tashine. "Yes."

Pashar closed the remaining gap between them and embraced her tightly. She took a ragged breath and tried to keep her emotions from boiling over. It had been so long since she had felt safe.

Suddenly, a gust of hot smelly breath buffeted her face. She opened her eyes. Facing her was a pair of horse nostrils.

"Your horse is hungry," said Tashine.

Pashar released her and turned, chuckling. "Yeah, just a minute, let me get him put away,"

"What are you doing here anyway?"

Pashar inspected the corner of the room and discovered the urn where the stable-master kept the oats. "We're bringing news of victory from the Imperial City. The war is over," he grinned.

"Oh, yeah. A courier already came by."

"Really? Those couriers sure are fast."

Tashine eyed Pashar's armour. It was seriously dented and scuffed in places. "Did you fight in Cyrodiil?"

"Yea I did."

Tashine nodded. Pashar busied himself with feeding the horse, finally closing the gate on his stall and turning his attention back to Tashine.

"You're quite brave," said Tashine, "Or lucky."

"So are you."

"Sure."

Tashine looked at her feet.

"Will you marry me?"

Tashine choked on her spit. "WHAT?"

"Living through a war kinda puts things in perspective. What do you say?"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. I'll marry you Pashar."

Several months later, the news came.

The entire garrison had gathered in the main courtyard. Pashar's commander had ridden back to the Imperial City, and now returned to the town under the cliff with news of the peace treaty known as the White-Gold Concordat. He was reading the terms aloud when he came to the subsection that spelled out territorial exchanges between the Empire and the Dominion.

"…the lands of Coastal Hammerfell, south of the Alik'r, will be annexed to Alinor…"

And with that, the soldiers in the audience erupted in a flurry of angry outbursts.

"They did what now?" raged Tashine.

"What did we bleed for? These are terms of surrender!" cried Pashar, next to Tashine.

"We have them on the run," cried another legionnaire.

Tashine fumed when she and Pashar retired to the inn for a drink that night. They had married a fortnight ago in the humble temple. There were three other couples that had decided to hitch as well. The poor townsfolk likely hadn't seen so much celebration in years.

But now there was angry talk among the locals and the legionnaires garrisoned among them.

"How dare the empire betray us?" Tashine said. "If they think they can just trade away our homeland to save their city…"

There was a legionnaire from Cyrodiil arguing on the bench across from her. "The Empire nearly fell apart in the war. Mightn't it be best to preserve what we can?"

"Then give half of Cyrodiil to the Dominion! Leave us out of it," spat Tashine.

Pashar nodded darkly, "The war isn't over. Not for us."

He was right. The leadership of Hammerfell petitioned the Emperor for independence, demanding that they have the chance to fight for their territory. The Emperor granted their request, if only to harass Thalmor ambitions.

Pashar and Tashine were officially discharged from the Imperial Legion. They travelled south to enlist with the Alik'r, the only remaining organized paramilitary group in the nascent country. Tashine's three brothers joined as well. They had miraculously survived the Great War unscathed, with the exception of the eldest's missing eye.

Tashine couldn't stand to wear her Legion's armour, so she sold it and commissioned a leather cuirass all of her own. She turbaned her head in the style of the Alik'r, but never got accustomed to the feel of their scimitars. Instead, she took up the mace and her first shield, which reminded her of her father's.

At first, she was assigned to a raiding patrol that intercepted couriers and supply caravans between the coastal cities. The Thalmor could still send communications by ship, but any inland city held by the Dominion would soon find itself isolated.

Her first taste of real combat came when a party of some twenty Alik'r warriors were tasked with overrunning a fort of moderate strategic value.

It was a bright morning; the sun shone upon fields of indigo and cotton, used in Hammerfell dye and cloth industries. Amidst the fields stood a mound of rock and soil, some erratic from a long-melted glacier. A fort had been built on the top of this hill, with a sloping road wrapping helically around it.

The Alik'r gathered on the plains and formulated their plan of action. The place was on prime defensive ground, but had few defenders. They would attack it head-on, charging up the path and storming into the courtyard. Tashine nodded. She was eager for a real fight.

As they approached, Tashine could make out the nature of the enemy, and was a bit surprised. She had expected the typical contingent of atronachs, Thalmor mages and gold-armoured footsoldiers. Instead, the men on the parapets were small and clad in leather: a bosmer archer division from Valenwood.

The Alik'r captain, a hulking man of imposing physical stature, sounded the battle cry, and they charged forwards.

The Dominion answered with a horn, bleating the warning to all defenders in the fort.

The arrows began to fly.

Tashine charged forwards, never breaking, darting in a zig-zag motion to throw off archers. She raised her shield above her head just in time, as an arrow sunk into it with a thud and a splintering.

She was in the middle of the pack as they charged up the ramp. As they reached the top, they arrived at the portcullis. The leader of their group went down as an arrow sailed through the holes of the gate and pierced him through the face.

Tashine pressed herself against the stone exterior and kept her shield above her head. The rest of the surviving Alik'r joined her. Tashine's youngest brother was among them.

"Up and over!" cried one of the men.

From the pouches at their waist, several of the Alik'r drew Fireball scrolls. Backing away from the wall for a brief moment, they launched them at the elves above the gate. Tashine and the others retrieved the ropes they had brought, adorned with solid iron hooks. They flung them over the battlements, getting them to stick on the stone.

The invaders began to climb.

With a cry, the man next to Tashine fell from midway up the wall, an arrow sticking out from under his arm. He bounced off the path below and disappeared into the fields beyond.

As she crested the top and sat astride the wall, she spied an archer aiming her way. Instinctively, she brought her shield up, and watched as an arrow lodged itself halfway through.

She turned to help her brother, who was climbing the rope she had used. Out of the twenty warriors they had begun with, only thirteen remained.

Tashine dashed along the walls, ducked into the first tower, and ran up the staircase two stairs at a time. The sniper behind the parapet turned with a started cry when he heard her, drawing his bow.

He didn't have the chance to fire. Tashine charged into him, shield raised, and sent him flailing off the battlements. An arrow flew past her head as she turned to run back down the tower. Shouts and clashing of steel sounded from below.

As she reemerged on top of the wall, she saw that the battle was nearly over. The other tower had been breached, and below, a lone altmer commander was surrounded by Alik'r on all sides. Then she noticed her brother, lying spread-eagled where he had fallen in the courtyard, with an arrow buried in his forehead…

Despite her earlier convictions that she was ready to die, she hadn't expected it to come quite so soon. As the knife was wrenched from her back, she doubled over, suddenly alert.

Curiously, it wasn't painful. Admittedly, there was severe discomfort radiating from her back, but no searing pain. More disquieting was the alarm sounding in her mind, at a sudden lack of sensation from the lower half of her body. Experimentally, she tried to move her legs, to no avail. She fell to her side, using her arms to try and prop herself up and turn to face her attacker.

Standing a few paces away was a figure gingerly holding a bloodied dwarven dagger.

"Surprise," said Roandil.

Roandil watched cautiously as Tashine's face went through several emotions before settling with confusion.

"I thought you were dead,"

Roandil nodded. "Did you? Well I'm terribly sorry to disappoint, but as you can see, I'm very much alive."

Tashine stuttered, "But… I saw your body."

"All black, a bit bloodied? It was a pretty good disguise, if I do say so myself. Brelyna, you see, is quite good at alteration magic, including turning people into different colours. So she just put a blackening spell on me, while I gave myself a nosebleed and lay down on the floor. Then Brelyna did her whole screaming routine and you came rushing back in to find me, and since Brelyna was doing her fancy Detect Dead thing, you assumed I was gone?"

Roandil paused, and took a moment to wipe the dagger clean on a kerchief.

"So Brelyna was in on it?"

Roandil chuckled, "Oh hardly. It was surprisingly easy to convince her to help me fake my death, all things considered. I just had to say 'You're a smart girl, right Brelyna? Do you really believe that the Argonian is suddenly a master archer? There's a killer among us, and the only way to outsmart them is to mess with their game'. Perhaps it's my elven charm."

Tashine stayed silent.

"Since then I've been famished. Tashine, you have no idea." Roandil clutched his stomach. "I was afraid my stomach would growl and give me away. I've been surviving by nibbling on mushrooms, and let me tell you, I hate mushrooms. Too spongy. And, incidentally, did you know that some varieties of mushrooms can make you hallucinate? The ones that grow down here are mostly fine, but some are definitely not. I have been having the worst time."

Roandil took a side-glance at Tashine, "Okay, granted, maybe not the 'worst' time, seeing as I'm not dead, but relatively speaking…"

The wood elf looked about the room and noticed the mangled body in the corner, "I've certainly fared better than poor Stenvar over there,"

This seemed to get the Redguard to stir. "Why," she gasped.

"You tell me. Is it because we all deserve it?" asked Roandil, "I suppose if one was cynical, one could think that. After all, Cato was an army deserter, Arniel used black soul gems in his research, Stenvar was a hired killer, Deep-in-his-Cups was a skooma dealer and an addict, the Khajiit had a criminal past, Brelyna freely experimented with magic on human subjects. Do you know Suzanna the Wicked in Windhelm? She's not really wicked, she was smeared by Kjeld for bedding his son."

Roandil continued, "But not everyone, surely. What did Eoric ever do? He's fairly innocent. And what about me?"

Tashine protested, "You're a Thalmor spy!"

Roandil tapped his fingers together, "Oh. Yes, well, I suppose there's that." Roandil shook his head, "Wait, back up a minute. How do you know?"

"I read your journal entry."

"Oh, you can read?"

"Obviously."

"Right." Roandil sighed. "I'm sure the Thalmor did terrible things to you, and that's unfortunate. Don't blame me for everything that they did. Besides, it's not like terrible things are a barrier to greatness. Take Ysgramor, for instance. He isn't a Nord hero in spite of killing scores of Snow Elves, he's a hero because of it. Do you think Tiber Septim conquered the known world with poems and drum circles? When great powers rise, bad things happen to the people who are arrayed against them, and make no mistake, the Thalmor are the next great power."

Tashine made no comment.

"Besides, as an elf, I stand to benefit greatly from a regime change. My girlfriend's human suitor in Valenwood will be scarcely fit to lick her boots once the Dominion imposes the fullest extent of their law."

Tashine finally retorted, angrily, "They used Bosmer troops to defend coastal Hammerfell. They used your people as fodder in a war they knew they would lose."

"Yes, well. I didn't say life would be perfect… Look, is this really what you want to do? Argue politics on your deathbed?"

At this, Tashine began to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because it's your death too. You can't hope to dig through the floor all on your own. Not with those spindly arms."

"Hey, they are not spindly!" Roandil crossed the room to inspect the patch of stone that was chipped only half-way through. Roandil looked at Tashine, and pointed down with an index finger. "Is this really all you managed to do? You guys weren't very sharpish about it, were you?"

Tashine shrugged.

"Fortunately for me, I have other options," said Roandil. From his tunic he drew a small copper orb.

"What is that?"

"This? This is the key to the portal." Roandil examined it in the faint light. Satisfied, he crossed to where the portal of blue-glass and metal hoops stood as inert as ever. Near the edge was the circular opening. Delicately, he inserted the orb into it, and gave it a twist. The portal came to life, and the stonework around the sides adjusted, sinking into the floor to provide a convenient set of steps to the passageway beneath.

Tashine raged, "You had that the whole time and you didn't tell us?"

Roandil grimaced, "Afraid so. Did you really think Calcelmo would embark on such an ambitious expedition without the necessary equipment? He found this baby in the ruins of Markarth years ago and has been holding on to it ever since."

"But why lie about it?" Tashine pressed.

"By the time we got down here, I realized what an opportunity I had. What with everyone sealed inside the ruin and the murders, it was possible that I could not only discover Blackreach, but I could be the only person to discover Blackreach. Selfish I know, but what kind of morally dubious Thalmor agent would I be, otherwise?"

"So that's why you killed everyone? So you could have the glory of discovering Blackreach for yourself?"

Roandil was taken aback, "Wait what?" He shook his head. "Hold on a minute. I'm not the killer. Do I look like some kind of master assassin to you, what with my spindly arms and all?"

Tashine pursed her lips and said nothing.

"If I were, I'd scissor kick into the air and break your neck between my thighs on the landing. Best I can do is sneak up and stick a dagger in your spine.

Tashine stared in silence.

"And I only did that because I've been operating under the assumption that the murderer was you."

"Me?" scoffed Tashine.

Roandil narrowed his eyes. Why on Nirn would she be denying involvement now? What was there to gain by deception? He appraised the other carefully, and wondered if Tashine wasn't altogether sane. There was a feverishness in those eyes, and not just from the pain of a spinal injury.

"Don't act like you're innocent now. I watched you spar with Stenvar and seal him in here with the Centurions."

Tashine looked guilty, "I thought it was him. He thought it was me."

Roandil nodded, "Fair enough. But what about the burns on your arms?"

Tashine looked down at them, noticing the scarring tissue again.

"Did Brelyna leave those marks? When you were strangling her?"

Tashine said nothing.

"I notice there's blood on the front of your cuirass. Was that from J'Kier when you stuck him in the chest with a pickaxe?"

Tashine was looking down at her body in consternation.

"Think about it. How could I have killed J'Kier right in front of Stenvar without being noticed? It could only have been one of the two of you, and frankly, I know it wasn't Stenvar."

At last, Tashine seemed to give up. Her eyes were staring lifelessly at nothing in particular. She seemed to have shrunken, and was breathing only shallowly.

"Yes," she admitted in a barely audible whisper. "I did it. I killed them all."