Predator and Prey (I)


The trek downward had proved to be much easier than the first trail Brom and Lydia had taken down the enormous mountain – but only because the slope was far more gradual. This of course, meant that they had to travel much more distance to get down to the grasslands than they had expected. The sun, which previously had at least scattered some light in their direction through the clouds, was now gone and darkness surrounded the area. Fortunately, the rain had finally lightened up, small droplets drizzling downward every minute or so.

Far more worrisome however, Brom found it difficult to keep track of time. While earlier during the day, the sun was bright enough to let some illumination through the clouds – while during the current night time the vapor had entirely trapped and almost reflected the moonlight back into the sky – as a consequence, Lydia had momentarily stopped as soon as they had reached the grass bed, unsure of where the moon was positioned in the sky as the clouds masked its location.

"We're definitely well into the night," she observed, covertly squeezing then expanding her fist to generate a small ball of flames in her palm. "Take the map from my pocket."

Brom, who had also just made the final hop off the mountain path and onto the grasslands, squared his eyes in confusion. "Why don't you grab it? You have two hands."

Lydia sighed. "With a fire spell going off in one of them? I don't want to risk burning the only thing that can guide us right now."

Brom nodded, then moved to her hazy form as the fire highlighted her outline. He rummaged around in her side pant pocket for a second, fingers stumbling upon a tightly furled scroll.

"Here," Brom announced silently, removing the map and unrolling it. "Move your hand closer."

Lydia seemed to object to this, but moved her hand closer. "Can you see anything that can tell you where we are now?"

Brom narrowed his eyes, struggling to focus on the section that Lydia was holding her hand close to. "Uh, I see a circling river somwhere past the mountain we just cut through."

Brom was certain that the circular blue line was a river, and it ran around a small land mass that he had not recognized.

"There's some island in the middle of it too," Brom continued. "Your map calls it – Karthspire Camp."

Brom could see Lydia's illuminated face flood with concern. "What's wrong?"

Lydia bit her lip, then shook her head at him. "It sounds like a bandit hideout."

"Yeah I would agree," Brom noted, putting the map back in her pocket. "What now?"

Lydia blinked, still keeping the fire in her palm. Brom watched her oscillate around, back turned to the mountain while looking out at the dark grassland in front of them. Brom could barely see four paces around him, even with Lydia's compensatory fire.

"You said there's a river that's on the way to Markarth, correct?" Lydia asked Brom, breaking the silence. "Did it look close to where we are now?"

"I suppose so," Brom guessed. "I can't tell with just the map."

"Well, going through the mountain will go back to Rorikstead," Lydia observed. "So, if we go ahead, we may hit the river. Follow me."

Brom started moving as she told him to, but kept the silence from returning. "What's the point of getting to the river?"

"It means we're going in the right direction," Lydia informed him, back still turned and fire raised higher. "And usually, farms like to sit close to the river. I'm sure we can get help there."

Sounds feasible, Brom thought. If we can find it.

He was not able to see the river, as the environment was so crushingly dark, and there were no audible noises that could be connected to water flowing. Even Lydia's fire spell had only lit up the area for a small radius – and he suspected that she was deliberately avoiding making the spell larger to avoid detection.

"Does that make you tired?" Brom whispered, staying close to the flame. "Holding it up I mean?"

Lydia smiled at him. "Eventually. I'm fine so far."

Brom widened his eyes, moving past the flames and began searching the ground.

"What are you doing?" Lydia asked, crouching down slightly to see Brom.

"Finding sticks," Brom announced. "We can make some torches."

Brom heard Lydia chuckle behind him, pulling him up.

"Fire doesn't quite work like - "

She paused. Lydia moved her hand down and extinguished the flame. Brom felt her pull him closer, then bring him down to the ground in a crouched position. She turned to him, ears twitching in concern.

"Stay low, and stay close to me," Lydia urged. "Keep your voice down."

Brom could not see why she was so suddenly alert. Now that she had ended her fire spell, he could barely see her. And despite the darkness of nighttime, he had not seen anything troubling around him, and he had not heard any sounds that reminded him of the Brotherhood. Conversely, the environment seemed to be even more silent now that Lydia was moving so suspiciously through the short grass.

"What did you hear?" Brom whispered, voice almost low enough to go unheard.

"Shh," Lydia let out. "Stay quiet."

Brom tensed himself. The air was chilling and the rain was beginning to increase. He was not sure how far they were from the mountain, in case they needed to retreat. The river offered another alternative to surviving – as he had guessed that Lydia had a waterbreathing shout that she could use on them both.

"Lydia," Brom emphasized, pinching her arm. "What's happening?"

"I heard something," Lydia started vaguely, staying crouched.

"You're starting to scare me," Brom urged her, tapping her on the shoulder. "Should we be worried?"

Lydia's breaths were coming out in ragged whispers now. Her ears were twitching and her gaze was very disturbing - even to Brom.

"Something is definitely here," Lydia managed out, gripping Brom's forearm so painfully that he winced. "I can hear it."

Brom focused his hearing as hard as he could. The only thing he could discern was the clearly audible rumbling in the grass, night air sweeping through the plants and rubbing leaf against leaf.

"Maybe the Brotherhood is in the area right now," Brom guessed, heart beginning to beat forcefully against his lungs.

"No," Lydia immediately shot down. "This is something else. The Brotherhood are too stealthy to try and kill us like this."

Brom gulped, completely provoked by her words, but let Lydia continue.

"Listen closely," she breathed. "The grass starts making noises, then stops."

Brom detected this immediately once pointed out. There were two separate noises that he had mistakenly fused into one. The most audible one was the grass idly swaying with the breeze, irrespective of where Lydia and Brom were. The other one was also grass-based, but much heavier, and clearly had a pattern; as long as they were walking, it would continue chiming, then would stop as soon as Lydia and Brom stopped.

"What if it's a cave bear?" Brom asked, heart pulsing as the pattern of grass noises continued. "What if it's hunting us?"

Lydia shook her head. "Oh, I wish. There are no bear tracks close by, and bears do not hide and hunt with such closeness, even during the night..."

Whatever the presence was, it had the advantage of being cloaked in darkness, while Lydia and Brom's clothes acted as a weak reflector of light in a sea of black grassland. If something was targeting them, they would be easy kills.

"Lydia?" Brom shakily spoke out into the darkness, realizing that the grip on his forearm was gone. "Lydia? I can't see you…"

A quick whisper followed from within the darkness, to his left side. "Follow my voice. Do NOT move closer to me, unless I tell you to."

Brom squeezed his eyes shut, letting his building heart rate slow down slightly before opening them again. He was terrified by just the idea of a bear hunting them, and after Lydia had worsened his fear with some other conjecture, he had no choice but to rely on instinct alone.

The pattern was more constant now, and the grass noise began to sound off even when Brom was completely still.

"Follow my voice."

Brom obeyed, but hastily pulled out his dagger from a band around his waist. He slowed his breathing, concentrating on hiding the dagger behind his forearm in the exact same way Lydia had showed him to, but this seemed pointless in the poor visibility of night time.

"Get down completely to the grass, Brom."

Brom blinked, but immediately laid down with both arms extended fully across with the dagger still clutched in his hand. It was shaking unnervingly, and the grass noises now seemed to grow stronger and continue regardless of whether he was moving or not.

"Lydia," Brom started, voice hoarse and desperate. "Please…"

A sudden whizzing noise, then the grass sounds seemed to intensify infinitely for several seconds before fading away completely.

"Lydia?"

No response.

"Lydia?"

Still no voice.

"LYDIA!"

The voice was not guiding him anymore, and he could not even see her vague outline gliding somewhere around him. Brom could not even hear Lydia's movement, and he had hoped for something – perhaps the clashing of steel, or maybe Lydia roaring in pain, even the Brotherhood's voice – but the silence was pure agony.

The grass noise returned.

Or rather, the noise was being replaced by a very depressing, crushing force. While initially the pattern had consisted of small repeated intervals of grass rubbing against each other, now it felt as if a very heavy force was actively flattening the grass around him - and he could not locate the direction of where. Sometimes the crushing noise would come from behind him, then in front of him, then to the sides… almost as if it was circling his body.

Brom felt the dagger slip out of his hand in fear as the crushing noise came within inches of his index finger. Its movement was erratic but focused, and it was spiraling perpetually inward towards Brom. He heard a dragging noise as the sound of steel swiping through grass blades cut through the air.

"No, no, no - " Brom raggedly gasped, blindly fumbling around with his fingers in the grass where his dagger had likely landed. "Please, no…"

No matter how hard he dug his fingers into anywhere on the grass, he could not find the dagger - despite having dropped it literally seconds ago.

"Lydia," Brom whispered, confident that she would not hear him. "It has my dagger, oh by Talos it has the dagger…"

Brom felt his ears be buffeted by a burst of wind - yet he knew the breeze was too light for such an event. Instead, he suddenly felt an enormous warmth enclose his body, and felt two furry paws press down on his hands, restricting his movement. The bursts of wind continued to bludgeon his ears.

It was breathing on him.

It had to be breaths from some creature. The wind was the creature exhaling rhythmically, and the fur from its hands were actively rubbing against Brom's fingers. It felt dense and thickly-muscled, layers of fur laid across bones large enough to crush Brom just by sheer weight - and it was moving against him, sweeping against his back and neck before sniffing at his hair.

Brom did not dare move his head, feeling his hair quiver as the nostrils blew warm tornadoes of air across his scalp.

And it growled.

The beast's growl could not be confused with a cave bear, by any stretch of imagination. The noise emitted was deeply guttural and immensely low - and infused with raw aggression. It was an absurdly dark, heavy sound that shivered as it passed through Brom - vibrating all the empty spaces between bones. Brom felt that if the creature wanted to, it could roar and break apart his entire skeleton - as the sheer volume of the growling was actively hurting him.

Massive, clawed fingers tugged at his back, flipping him over effortlessly and leaving five large tears in his armor. Brom went with the staggering force without hesitation, shock preventing him from closing his eyes.

The face that he saw truthfully could not be described as a face at all. The head was shaped in an extremely rectangular fashion with jutting bones protruding out of each corner. The top half - where there would be eyes - instead had two black spikes embedded in each eye socket, red liquid coating the surface. The lower half of the face was warped - a perpetually open mouth that Brom almost mistook for an injury or a gash - teeth that were blunt and randomly shaped, non-existent lips, and a deep hole across the upper and lower jawbones, filled by a shining glint of steel, hilt still protruding from outside the creature's mouth. The beast lacked a nose, but made this up in the form of two perfectly circular holes sitting just above its mouth.

"I need - " the beast uttered, voice gruff and almost incomprehensible. " - I need - I need - please…"

Brom was relieved to realize that his hands were free, no longer pinned down the creature's heavy arms. He did not dare look away from his face - and honed in on his dagger, still stuck in the creature's mouth. Brom subtly began moving a leg from underneath the beast.

"I - I - " the beast continued. " - could not save them all. Save yourself…"

It moved both its arms to Brom's shoulders, squeezing tightly as its claws tore through his flesh, leaving warm trails of liquid seeping across Brom's leather torso. Brom suppressed his scream by biting his lips hard, still trying to move a free leg in front of the beast's mouth.

"I - I - will save you," the beast groaned again, moving its mouth to Brom's exposed neck. "I am saving you…"

Brom saw the creature's mouth as it moved closer, widening and expanding to reveal more crooked teeth that seemed pulverized and misshapen. He pressed his head hard into the grass, finally managing to bring his leg underneath the creature's mouth.

And he kicked.

The launched foot was aimed straight into the beast's mouth, and made contact with the dagger still embedded inside. The force of it pushed the dagger further into the the creature's throat, shredding more flesh and making it howl in suffering as it removed its claws from Brom and stood up, shaking its head in vain attempts to ease the pain.

Brom received a full view of its body. It was strangely wolf-like in appearance, but had the shape of a giant humanoid rather than a wolf. His first thought told him it was a werewolf, yet its face bore no resemblance to that of a werewolf. Even its body seemed atypical among werewolves - ribs were showing, the skin was pale and almost seemed - pasted on in some sections… the biggest eyesore of all however, was the stomach region - or what remained of it.

He could see the intestines. He could see the digestive tract and the stomach muscles. Smooth muscle tissue, unbroken yet completely exposed, squeezed and pulled involuntarily as the beast rocked on its feet.

Brom kept tracking it, watching it stumble around as he shot upright, legs prepared to run faster than he had ever done so before.

The beast abruptly stopped shaking, focusing on Brom's upright form and screeching wildly. It bent its legs, appearing to get into a jumping position before two blades forced their way through its ribs – they glowed brightly and moved across to tear apart the creature into two clean halves.

Brom coughed, dust settling into his throat as a vaguely familiar outline pushed the two halves aside and made its way quickly to Brom, flicking him on the forehead.

"I told you to stay down on the ground," Lydia began with an irritated tone. "The taller their prey is, the more agitated they become."

"Well I was under the impression that I was going to die," Brom spat. "So I did what I had to do."

Lydia laughed mirthfully. "The only way you'll die idiot, is if you do something I tell you NOT to do."

Brom noticed immediately that the Lydia that had returned just now was not the same Lydia that had abandoned him minutes ago. Her clothes were ripped in several places with exposed skin showing, and several deep fissures ran across her back and stomach, bleeding and crusted by what Brom guessed to be Lydia's attempted healing spell. Her face was unmarked, but her voice came out in weak whispers rather than full commands.

"What happened to you?" Brom demanded at once, keeping his eyes still on the ripped apart beast in paranoia. "Did any of them do this to you? The… werewolves?"

He made sure to convey doubt in his last word, and Lydia picked up on this.

"Yes," Lydia confirmed. "But these are no ordinary werewolves - they seemed altered in some way, either with great magic or some crude dismemberment - "

Lydia turned to the downed werewolf, ripping the dagger out of its mouth and cleaned off the remnant flesh as best as she could. Brom noticed that on the way back, she was limping: there was no visible damage that he could see under such dark conditions, but the leg seemed oddly twisted and nearly bent in half at the knee socket.

"Here," Lydia urged, giving the dagger to Brom. "And good job."

Brom raised his eyebrows in amusement. "Good job?"

Lydia bowed her head. "I didn't expect one of them to attack you and yet you showed great – "

"Wait," Brom began, cutting her off. "One of them?"

Lydia tried to force a smile, but it ended up looking like a sneer instead. "You didn't think that we were being hunted by one werewolf now, did you?"

Brom gasped, holding his hands to his head before feeling his heart rate rise again.

"Relax," Lydia smoothly objected, snapping her fingers in front of Brom. "Calm down and focus. We need our wits about us if we're going to survive."

"I – I - " Brom broke out, shaking his head in disbelief. "We're being hunted by werewolves in the middle of the night, oh by the – we're going to die here..."

"No we are not," Lydia firmly refused, moving closer to Brom despite her injuries. "And be brave and calm right now. We have to - "

"This stuff," Brom interrupted, feeling his heartbeat pulse erratically enough to make him feel nauseous. "Is not something I do. I am not used to any of this."

"I understand - "

"NO YOU COULDN'T!"

Lydia reflexively put her hand on Brom's mouth, staring at him in the eyes. "Be quiet for Talos' sake - "

Brom's heart was racing, and a cold sweat had broken out as flashing images of werewolves – all from his imagination and only some from his experience – attacked him simultaneously.

" - Please."

Brom avoided looking at her eyes, certain that he would lose his anger if he did so. He shoved her hand off his mouth, nodding at her to make her continue her explanation.

"I used a shout to speed away from you, after I told you to stay down to the ground," Lydia informed him. "I led them off in another direction."

"And how many did you manage to kill?" Brom asked at once with eagerness.

"Four or five," Lydia stated without pride. "I don't know how many more are there. Most left as they saw several of their own be killed."

Lydia paused, the blood loss apparently affecting her. "These injuries are near impossible to heal - my spells only made the situation worse. And my daggers' magical effects are weakening."

"Your injuries probably also have magic attached to them," Brom noted, hearing several grass sounds return - at a distance however - behind him. "Lydia?"

"Brom?"

"They're coming back - I can hear them."

Lydia breathed several times fast, then spoke to Brom. "We keep moving. Stay cl - "

"Close to you, I know."

Lydia swiveled around, turning her body away from the noises.

"No matter what Brom," she started. "You see anything wrong, you listen to me first. If I tell you to run or stay or do whatever, you must listen, for your own sake."

"I - " Brom stuttered.

"Brom! Remember what I said?"

" - Right. Okay."

"Follow me."

"Lydia?"

"What?"

"Thank you."

A pause, as despite Brom's efforts, she refused to make eye contact with him.

"Hush now. Let's go."


A/N

Suspense actually is a big element of the story, and I'm glad to start using it now that most of the expositional info is out of the way… and yes, it will get better.

Some writing style tweaks also inbound - mostly small fixes that make reading more engrossing and unnecessary details being excluded. Most of the style and structure will stay the same though, so no worries…

I'd appreciate any support that you can give, and thank you for the view! Forge on!

~TWa