Arvel woke up. He stared at the unfamiliar ceiling of stone in confusion. Memory came rushing back soon after.
"That rogue!"
The thief surged to his feet, quivering with righteous indignation. To be suckered like that so close to the goal! He dashed up the tunnel while visions of revenge danced in his mind.
Ooh when I get my hands on that Imp's grubby neck!
Hearing the sound of fighting up ahead, Arvel quickened his speed as he exited the tunnel into a large chamber, driven by anger and fear for the safety of his treasure.
What he saw sent his feet into an immediate skidding halt. The weapons that he had so eagerly raised slowly drooped down as he stared at the desperate fight raging on the distant platform. There was that tall Nord lass from before. Towering over her, shrouded in black plates and cruel death, was a warrior who would give Boethiah pause.
"Bloody, bloody Oblivion"
As one of the Jarl's Housecarls, Lydia had often led squads of guardsmen to confront bandits plaguing the Hold of Whiterun. Most of these thugs had been of poor quality when it came to fighting: a life preying on civilians did little to teach sword-craft and when they crossed steel with those who had the luxury of training, such fools quickly died. Some had been more challenging: a pair of Redguard twins used to the swirling whirlwind slash of a scimitar, a Bosmer who had specialized in placing arrows through a helmet's eye-slit at a hundred yards. Perhaps her most challenging fight had been against an Orc berserker who had survived to a ripe old age on the battlefield and desired nothing more than to kill as many as he could in glorious combat.
And they were children playing with sticks compared to the Deathlord of Bleak Falls.
Down! Lydia's shield stabbed down. The Deathlord's slash at her legs rebounded and immediately skipped up towards her exposed face. Lydia flicked her shield up, catching the strike at the last second and her sword struck out from the side, forcing the Deathlord to parry in turn.
He'd had four thousand years to hone his craft and it showed in his blade-work. His footing was superb, his awareness of the environment bordering on omniscient. Each time she tried to drive him down the stairs, or against the edge of the platform, the Deathlord slipped past her bullying shield and sword like smoke and then it would be her frantically working to avoid the edge.
The fact that she could block and attack at the same time seemed to be the only reason the fight was equal, but secretly, as she worked her sword and shield through another set of frantic routines, the Housecarl was convinced he was toying with her.
He fought only with his sword but the black blade whipped and arced so fast that streams of super-chilled air glinted in its wake. Each strike was a deep and shuddering blow on her shield and every parry with her blade was accompanied by a terrible shriek of steel.
But Lydia's blade was a good one, Sky-forged by Eorlund Gray-Mane as one of his best pieces, and the shield had come from Balgruuf's personal armory. Her gear would hold so long as she wielded it well.
Her shield arm crossed her body, sliding a thrust along its rim. The white steel snapped out only for the Deathlord to nimbly side-step and flick its blade forward again. This time she was a fraction too slow and a flash of pain cut across her helm, leaving behind a tiny rivulet of blood.
Lydia redoubled her efforts, trying to finish the fight now. As she'd feared, the Deathlord's defense intensified, matching her blow for blow. The blood on her forehead inched inexorably down as they fought, paused for a moment on her brow before hot red drops ran into her eye.
Lydia snapped her head to the side in an effort to clear her stinging vision. She thrust out at the same time to keep her opponent at bay, but the Deathlord's sword flickered, slapping her own blade wide. Then the Deathlord's blade thrust forward. Half-blinded, Lydia desperately snapped her shield up to cover the gap in her defenses.
The blade crunched through the wood of the shield just above her braced arm, driven by the unnatural strength of the Draugr. The tip of the black metal ripped a deep groove in the steel gauntlet protecting Lydia's arm where the Deathlord's sword became trapped.
Then the Deathlord planted his feet and yanked. The sword did not rip straight out of her shield. The strength behind the thrust, coupled with the thick coating of frost had fused the sword to the shield. When the Draugr pivoted, his weight acted on the sword, which in turn acted on the shield, turning it into a fulcrum between the combatants.
Lydia was caught off-guard. She tried to release her shield, but more frost had crept from the blade and adhered to her gauntlet. Instead, the Housecarl was sent flying over the edge. For a moment, she was suspended, then at the apex of the arc, the sword was torn free of the shield, and she fell.
By providence, she landed in the stream that split the cavern. Centuries of water flow had deposited thick layers of silt and this softened the impact. Encased in fifty pounds of metal, Lydia still landed hard. Her head smashed against a river stone hidden in the cold muck. Her vision went white only to return with the chilling splash of water and suffocating river silt enveloping her. Hacking and spluttering, Lydia snorted water out of her nose, swiped muck away from her eyes and spat it out of her mouth. She struggled slowly out of the stream bed, clawing up the rocky slopes. Rolling over on her back, Lydia stared at the ceiling and focused on just breathing until the pain subsided. The Deathlord descended sedately down the stairs towards her. The black sword in its hand spun slowly, tracing frost rimmed circles in the air it chilled. "Aan pruzah krif" it called out as it approached her. "Fah tol-
-your death will be quick."
Caius placed a trembling hand over his body. Every move was agony, every breath a rictus of torment. Heal he urged. Magic swirled down, dove through his wounds, the massive entry wound slowly slithered shut.
He pressed a hand against the stones and pushed up.
"Gaah!"
It felt like someone had just reached in and ripped his gut in half. When he pressed a hand to his stomach, the skin felt frigid and stiff. A chill began to crawl up his spine. Caius tapped into his reserves again, channeling the Restoration to perceive his body.
There, in the epicenter of the healed wound, a block of frozen flesh as wide as his fist. And it was growing. Centimeter by centimeter, tendrils of ice radiated out from his wound.
Draugr blades carry a chill as freezing as a Skyrim blizzard…even we can't resist a freezing blade that's penetrated our innards.
"Fuck."
Trouble, rat?
The voice drifted up from his subconscious, a fragment from a distant past. Caius closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. If he concentrated he could match a face to the voice.
You're freezing to death
Why, yes, yes he was.
So what are you going to do?
He'd been thinking about that. Maybe he could use Restoration spells, increase his body's temperature like he'd done crossing the mountains.
Ha – but no. You've got a Deathlord's chill growing inside, that ain't something you can snuff out with a little extra shivering. You need real heat lad, fire to melt that ice.
Fire…yes…fire. Destruction had always been weak for him but maybe, maybe with his life hanging in the balance…Caius slowly shifted his hand to his gut. He closed his eyes, tried to concentrate past a growing dark spot in his mind. Flames. Slowly the magic tingled, but it felt unfamiliar, wrong. Fire began to flicker under his hand, weak, pale tongued flames that barely licked at his frozen skin before collapsing with faint pffts.
Ice-brained idiot! You were always shit with anything that wasn't restoration, why the hell would you be able to suddenly pull a fireball out your ass now?
But there was no other-
-his eyes fell on the flaming braziers.
Oh.
Give the Imperial a sweetroll!
The thief staggered and crawled across the ground. His hands were trembling now and his lungs were feeling oddly tight. His breath plumed out ice crystals and tendrils of cold crept up his neck. He reached the brazier, stumbled and snagged the lip of the bowl with numb fingers. The heavy metal dish shifted slightly, hot oil splashed on his fingers, sizzling away flesh and cold. His other hand tugged at his coat, undoing straps with fumbling fingers until the bare skin of his torso was exposed.
The thief hesitated, one hand on the brazier, one holding up his jerkin, exquisitely aware of the agony that awaited this path. One moment stretched into two, then four, and his body grew colder and colder.
Embrace the fire…the fading voice whispered ...the fire is pain…
And the pain…was life.
He tugged.
Burning oil washed over him. It splattered on his leathers, and some on his face, burning and sizzling, but most of it hit square on his chest. The heat stabbed and impaled him, a thousand fiery brands lashing and writhing on his flesh and the sickening stench of burning flesh thickened the air. Yet his mind rode the pain like a wave, watching in detachment as shrieking nerves were scorched silent, skin crackled like hot roast.
And ice thawed.
As the Death-Lord strode towards Lydia his attention was momentarily seized by the clatter of an oil dish and a sudden spurt of flame. The ancient warrior paused and watched with a mixture of curiosity and confusion as the first thief willingly immersed himself in fire. As such, he did not notice a figure clad in ratty-hide armor peek his head around a stone pillar. Arvel looked at the downed Housecarl and felt stirred by an oddly insane desire to help. Sneaking carefully around the pillar to get a clear shot, the Dunmer raised his stolen axe behind his head, exhaled, and threw with all his strength.
The axe spun end over end through the air, the blade glinting sharply in the pale light towards the back of the Draugr's helmeted skull.
-and a dead gray hand snatched it out of the air.
The Draugr brought the axe around and stared at the pitted blade. Tendons crackled as its head slowly turned to stare at the thief that had dared try to strike it from behind.
Arvel frowned, "Huh, guess 'e did see that one coming."
Unamused, the Deathlord snarled as he returned the axe to its sender. Arvel yelped and dove to the ground as the axe blade whistled centimeters past his head. It shattered against the stone wall as the Deathlord strode forward with grim intent.
The Dunmer thief struggled with his own iron blade, getting it out just in time to block the first blow. Sparks flew and metal screeched as the black sword left long cuts in the softer iron. But Arvel was no swordsman and it showed in the clumsy way he handled the sword.
The Deathlord feinted a chop and Arvel reacted with blinding speed to raise his sword, raising his guard too high to stop the boot that lashed out and swept him off his feet.
Arvel landed on the ground with an oof, dropping his sword. He snatched for the hilt but a black boot smashed down. There was a loud crack and Arvel came away with only the hilt and a few inches of jagged metal. Desperately, the thief thrust out a hand, spraying bolts of lightning.
The destructive magic slapped against the Deathlord, jolting it back a half-step.
"Hah!" he laughed giddily, "didn't like that did you?"
The Deathlord slowly lifted its head and Arvel's words died in his throat. It seemed his sparks had created an effect not unlike smacking a very large bear on the snout with a very frail stick and yelling at it to go away. The Deathlord's flickering flames tightened, becoming smaller but glowing brighter with an icy light. More light gathered in the palm of the draugr's off-hand, cold light that dripped with frost.
"Oh…no no no, no that's not fair." Arvel protested, "you can do magic?"
"Dir mey!" its hand stabbed out-
-and a shield smashed into its side. The Deathlord snarled. Arvel's mouth gaped.
With water streaming off her plates, muddy locks tangled and face a collection of muck, blood, and bruises, never had Arvel been so appreciative of tall, muscular women as when they were standing between him and a giant undead freak.
"We weren't finished yet." The Housecarl growled as she swung. The Deathlord batted aside her blade with contempt, then his hand was thrusting out, spewing ice magic.
"Diin!"
Lydia cursed and snapped her shield up. The water dripping off her shield flash-froze instantly as the wave of cold swept through. The metal bands crackled with frost. Still the cold penetrated deeper, freezing the shield and sweeping to the metal protecting her shield arm. Ice crystals formed and locked on her damp flesh and the soaked goat-hide padding under the metal vambrace. Only the heat of her Nordic blood kept the deathly chill from carrying deeper into her flesh.
Then the next strike landed and the crackling disc of ice shattered in an explosion of wood fragments and metal shards. Lydia turned her head from the incoming shrapnel, felt metal ping off her helmet and slice grooves through her face.
As Lydia staggered past, the black sword struck out, hitting the exposed gap between her back plate and the fauld that wrapped around her waist, slicing through the chainmail with a long gash. She tumbled away with a pained hiss.
Instead of following her, the Deathlord leisurely pivoted again to face her, sword nestled in the crook of its arm as it waited for her to resume the duel. Blood, her blood trickled down the black tip and fell in frozen droplets to shatter on the ground.
The Housecarl slowly rose from her hunched over position. The cut above her waist was painful rather than debilitating – the chainmail had saved her there – but as she shifted the blade into a high guard, tip of her sword thrust out towards her opponent, hilt held back near her cheek - Lydia's back throbbed with pain, her left arm was a numb lump of flesh and hot blood seeped down her back.
"Come on then."
"Ol hin hind."
Black iron slashed out, was slapped down by white steel. Lydia stepped back, keeping her distance. With one arm damaged, she conserved her strength, waiting for the opportune moment. Her hands flexed, twisted, knocking aside another two strikes. She swept his blade wide, flinging his arm to the side.
She struck once, twice, three times,
On the fourth, the Deathlord parried and swung their locked blades around. It stepped in and lashed out with the sword-pommel, catching her on the side of the helmet with a sickening CRACK
Black spots erupted in her vision, a cry ripped out of her throat before her teeth clenched shut. Disorientated, half-blinded, Lydia slashed clumsily as she stumbled back to her knees, trying to buy time to recover.
But again, the Deathlord didn't pursue her. Instead, her nemesis circled her slowly, lazily holding its sword low by its side. The blue flames in those hollow sockets glinted and sparked with curiosity, as if it was examining the struggles of some quaint insect.
Lydia sucked in a breath. Planted her sword tip against the cavern soil. Flexed her arms and pushed herself up. Numb hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword. She breathed harshly, sucking in greedy breaths, exhaling ragged gasps.
The Deathlord stalked closer, blue-eyes burning.
Now!
She ripped her sword up, swinging it underhand in a surprise slash. The Deathlord back-stepped with blurring speed. There was a shriek of steel as her sword whipped past. Several links of dark iron mail clattered to the ground. The Deathlord paused and glanced at the thinnest of cuts in its flesh. It reached down with one skeletal finger and dabbed at the bead of fluid seeping from its throat.
No decapitation. Just a flesh wound. Weariness…and despair seized the Housecarl. She had fought a giant spider, held off an army of undead, just to fail now? Talos, give me strength she prayed silently as the Deathlord closed in for the end game.
A slash evaded her lagging parry and carved a deep rent in her steel armor. The frost sank through the metal, turning it brittle. Another strike smashed through the less armored gap between her pauldron and her gauntlet, cutting through the chainmail covering with ease. Blood flowed down her right arm and her grip loosened.
The Deathlord's blade smashed into hers, flipping her sword out of her numbed grip and into the air. She moved after it but the Deathlord kicked out, catching Lydia square on the chest. The impact knocked her into a stumbling fall.
Her sword clanged to the ground and the Deathlord paused to reach down and pick it up. He held it before his empty eyes and studied the blade.
"Daar los aan pruzah zahkrii."
Then he turned towards her.
As he approached, Lydia felt no fear. She did not fear dying, not in battle, striving to the last drop against a stronger foe. After all, what warrior would fear death on the battlefield if he or she knew the wonders of Sovengarde awaited them? But she was…reluctant to leave the mortal plane so soon. To leave her task unfinished – perhaps she would wander the halls of this barrow, or walk the nights of Skyrim as a ghost? In the end who could say what worlds lay beyond the mortal life?
The Deathlord crossed the blades and placed them on her neck. The cool steel tingled against the feverish sweat on her skin.
Lydia turned her gaze past him, to the moonlight drifting down the hole in the ceiling.
Shadows stirred behind the Deathlord.
A hand covered in burns and welts clasped the Deathlord's chin, yanking the surprised foe's head to the side. A figure veiled by a hood stabbed steel deep into the neck, twisted the hilt sharply, and yanked the tapered blade out, releasing a steady flow of liquid.
Why do you warrior types have to be so fatalistic? Don't fight fair, stab it in the back. That conversation returned to the Housecarl, her eyes widened, blinked in surprise. Caius? No, impossible. The Imperial burglar had died, she was certain. So what revenant was this?
The swords dropped from her neck as the Deathlord rammed backwards. The figure leapt clear with ease before hard plate could crush against unyielding rock. He landed in a roll, cloak flapping around him as he rose to his feet. His hood obscured his features but his gold eyes glinted in the firelight. His tattered cloak snapped and spun with the swift movements of his knives as he ducked and weaved and slashed around the Deathlord's angry swipes.
Individual movements became a blurred haze. As if by magic, wounds opened up on the Deathlord as the figure swirled. Deep gashes on the tendons of the draugr's legs, another slash ripping open the muscles of the ancient Nord's sword arm. Steel shrieked and sparks leapt as the Deathlord's swinging blades were parried and blocked.
The Deathlord dropped Lydia's sword swiftly. That hand darted forward, snagging the cloak as it whipped by. He hauled back, nearly yanking the thief off his feet before a curved golden edge slashed through the ties.
Caius tumbled out of his garment and rolled to his feet. His skin was marred by burns but he looked remarkably alive for a dead man. Unfortunately, he'd avoided a strangulation, but sacrificed distance and speed. In that brief pause, the Deathlord drew its shoulders back, braced its feet in a familiar posture. The thief darted forward.
"Caius! Look-"
"FUS ROH DAH!"
A wall of blue tinged air rushed forward and slammed into the thief with a sickening crack.
Caius hit a pillar of stone.
Caius went through a pillar of stone.
He had expected his skin to absorb the blast, suck in the Thu'um and replenish his magic. Instead, the thief went flying back at a ludicrous speed, smacked through the air by an invisible fist. Caius's strengthened body flashed with pain, bone and flesh and organs quaking from the impact. His magicka levels dropped suddenly as the Restoration weaves drained his reserves. But the weaves held and so his life was saved even as stone shattered and exploded around him.
Caius landed on the ground in a spray of rock and dust. Cavern stone plinked and clacked on the rocky floor. After a few moments, Caius slowly rose up, giving his head a dazed shake like a dog shedding water. The world sped up again as his perceptions dropped to normal, limbs and flesh ached with the phantom sensation of pain and his mind throbbed with the fatigue of so much casting.
The Deathlord's pristine black plates were coated in thick streaks of pale fluids. Pale white bone glinted beneath the ravaged flesh of its arm and legs. "A savage attack," it commended, then its voice hardened, "But one lacking honor. You struck from behind."
"Why look your opponent in the eye when you can see his back well enough?" the thief countered.
The Deathlord rotated its neck, popping tendons and cracking its head as if limbering up – despite the jagged wound in the side of its neck that was spurting fluids.
"Your strategy relies on surprise instead of skill. A snake sinking its fangs desperately into a slumbering bear, hoping venom and treachery will do what strength cannot."
The Deathlord stepped forward on half severed legs. Its hand tightened on its sword, gouged out arm flexing damaged muscles with ease. It spoke and every word that came out of that mouth brimmed with contempt at this little mortal that had dared to scratch it.
"Fool, if we were so easy to dispatch we would not haunt the nightmares of the living. I am a Death-Lord, I was slaughtering armies and ending legends before your distant ancestors had the misfortune of being born."
Caius slipped a hand into a padded pouch. "The years must be catching up then, seeing as you couldn't even dispatch a burglar properly."
The Deathlord's eyes narrowed and Caius tossed back his second vial. Liquid magick rushed down his throat and his reserves bloomed dashed forward, a blur of motion, pushing himself faster than he had ever pushed before. Seeing the Deathlord's jaws open in that now familiar move of channeling a Thu'um, Caius moved to the side, anticipating another blast of solid force.
"SU GRAH DUN!"
Instead of a blast of force, the Deathlord's blades suddenly flickered. The black blade slapped aside both of Caius's knives and the thief dropped to the knees to avoid a decapitating strike from Lydia's captured sword that appeared out of nowhere.
What-
Suddenly Caius was on the defensive, knives blurring frantically to block the Deathlord's swords that darted with the speed of lightning. Left knife parried the first strike, right one deflected the second.
The third and fourth laid open twin cuts on his face.
Caius stumbled and only reflexes saved him as his body twisted to avoid a fifth strike. Pain lanced up his side as the thrust sliced off a half-inch of leather and flesh and then Caius was rolling clear, breaking out of the engagement zone to come to rest ten feet distant from his opponent.
"Few have ever tasted a Thu'um. Be honored that before you died, you tasted two."
He came up, knives crossed before him in a defensive posture, pupils dilated with adrenaline and yes, fear. "Two? Is that all you can do?"
A smile – if that unnatural peeling of flesh to expose grayed teeth could ever be called a smile – grew on the Deathlord's face. "How little you comprehend."
"Wuld!"
There was a howl of tearing air and suddenly the Deathlord was in front of him. Caius dove reflexively as that damned black blade stabbed out. Ancient stones shattered on the unnatural iron and the Deathlord strode through the wreckage.
"The warrior will die by the sword, she fought honorably and should be treated in kind. As for you…hmm." Caius evaded, rolling through the wreckage, getting to his feet. The Deathlord stepped after Caius and gave a casual flick with the white sword's tip.
The thief collapsed, clutching at the pain slicing up the back of his leg. He summoned up a restoration spell, trying to heal in time.
He didn't.
The Deathlord tossed aside Lydia's sword and that hand clamped like a vise around the thief's throat. Then the ancient warrior lifted Caius off the ground with such ease he might have been uplifting a rag doll. The Deathlord tilted its head, as if musing over a dilemma as he stared at the Imperial's dimming eyes. "As for you… I think I shall just crush your throat and leave your body for the rats. A fitting end for one as ignoble as you."
Caius's face darkened, flushed with blood, veins rose out, screaming for oxygen they weren't getting, his feet drummed a hanged man's dance against the Deathlord's armored shins.
"Y-you haven't b-beaten me" the thief choked out.
"Oh?"The Deathlord's grip slackened slightly, letting air into the burglar's lungs. Caius sucked in a huge gasp.
"You've d-delayed a quick kill…f-for a chance to gloat."
A slowly growing tingle directed the Deathlord's attention to its outstretched arm, which the thief's hands clutched desperately. Hands glowing with a soothing orange healing aura.
The Deathlord looked back up at Caius.
Realization dawned the exact instant the spells released.
The Restoration spells Caius had been channeling for himself flooded into the Deathlord. Spells meant to mend living flesh tried to heal flesh preserved by necromantic weaves. And as any Vigilant of Stendar could attest, the school of Restoration was not kind to the undead.
A light storm erupted, hot orange and cold blue auras burning. Magical backlash burned the pads of Caius's fingers only to dissipate into his skin. A high pitched keening shriek savaged his ears as the spells continued to clash.
That banshee wail was joined by the gravel gnashing howl of the Deathlord as the skin of its arm began to crackle and disintegrate. His hand crushed around Caius's throat - then slacked abruptly as the weaves holding its damaged arm together dissipated.
Caius fell, coughing and sucking in air desperately. His hand darted out, snagging the hilt of Lydia's sword.
Still on all fours he slashed out desperately and the Deathlord howled again as its leg cleaved away. It fell down, but stabbed out with the black sword. Clumsily evading, adrenaline and magic pumping in his veins Caius scrambled to his knees and chopped down. The black blade lunging at him fell away as Lydia's sword separated the Deathlord from its good arm.
"Mir Mul Nir!"
The air rippled and echoed with the Deathlord's shout. Caius braced himself for a blast but instead the sounds flowed around him, through him, echoing into the night sky above the cavern.
And then…nothing.
The Deathlord clutched weakly at its stump with its half-severed arm. Triumph faded to confusion in its eyes as the silence grew. Caius stared at him, but the Deathlord did not react, even as the thief mended his leg and took to his feet. Caius picked up the sword and at last the Deathlord's gaze turned from the sky towards the thief who would be his executioner.
The Deathlord's soulless blue eyes flickered in bewilderment.
"Impossible…"
Caius gripped Lydia's sword in both hands and swung hard.
Silence descended on the chamber.
Caius stood over the headless corpse. His breath plumed in the cold air, his body was a strange cocktail of buzzy adrenaline and sagging exhaustion. He stared at the sword in his hand as if unsure of how it had gotten there. The hilt hung awkwardly in his hands, the blood and fluids of the living and dead had swirled into an oily reddish hue. His blood was on there somewhere, mixed with Lydia's and the Deathlord's.
A hide-bound helmet cautiously poked up behind a rock formation. Arvel looked at the dead body carefully, "Is it dead?"
Caius stared at him then at the draugr corpse before mustering up a shrug. "If it gets back up… I don't know, set it on fire or something."
He turned on unsteady legs and slowly began to limp towards the downed Housecarl. She'd managed to prop herself in a seated position. He knelt beside her. "You look like something a troll chewed up and spat back out." He wasn't lying either. Lydia's armor was splattered with a butcher's array of spider guts, embalming fluid, and clumps of preserved flesh. Her face was a maze of lacerations and purple bruises and blood twined patterns down her arm and back.
"You don't look much better." She winced and sucked in a pained breath, "Did you get the tablet?"
"Not yet," he replied, "Gentleman I am, I figured I'd see how you were doing."
"Not well." Lydia replied in a quiet but rather calm voice. "I might have broken one or two things."
Caius took off his glove and placed his hand on her neck. It was always hard to cast magic on others, his body reluctant to lose such valuable resources. But Caius sent a tendril of magic into her body, examining the damage.
"What are you doing?"
"Examining."
Two broken ribs, a punctured lung, one fractured arm, deep lacerations on the other arm, and a concussion in the head.
Caius whistled, "How were you able to keep fighting?"
"Simple…I still had my sword." Lydia looked him over critically, "But I saw him run you through. How were you able to fight?"
"Simple. I cheated."
Her laughter quickly ended in pained hisses and grunts. Caius closed his eyes and concentrated.
To outsiders, Restoration magic must have seemed pretty self-explanatory – wave a hand in the general area of the injury and watch as it magically sealed shut. But healing required a deep understanding of the body, of flesh and bone and what organ went where, of the roadways of veins and arteries and capillaries. Like any magic, if Restoration was so easy to use, they wouldn't have a College for it.
He focused on the ribs first, coaxing the spells to wrap around them, straighten them. As a broken rib pulled out of the punctured lung, blood from ruptured arteries rushed into the collapsed organ – only be urged back by more tendrils. Caius worked carefully as he knitted new flesh over the hole. If he made the patch too thin, it would tear, if he thickened the membrane too much the lung wouldn't function properly and her breathing would be stunted. In his mind's eye he saw the lung expand and contract, the action smooth and fluid. Lydia frowned, "How's a burglar versed in Restoration?"
"I spent ten years as a priest at a temple." The thief shrugged.
Lydia nodded, "That was a lie, wasn't it?"
He grinned as he finished casting the spells. Lydia clambered to her feet, taking her sword from Caius and wiping the blade clean before carefully returning it to its scabbard. "Now we just need to find that tablet."
A clatter of metal caused both tomb raiders to whip around.
"Arvel…what are you doing?"
Arvel looked up, caught in the act of wrestling pieces of armor off the Deathlord. "What? He won't be using it."
"Find anything good?" Caius called out, earning him a glare from the Housecarl who finally just sighed and shook her head.
Arvel shrugged as he unlaced the straps around the breastplate, "Some coins, some rings…" he tugged off the armored plate and blinked, "…um, okay, that's different."
As Caius and Lydia joined him, Arvel stepped back to give them a clear look. He'd pried the breastplate off the ancient Nord, revealing the withered musculature of its torso. However, in the center, the skin raised up over a strange shape.
Caius frowned and crouched low over the body. He pressed against the raised shape, it was hard and unyielding. "Well, it's obviously something."
"Maybe it's moon sugar."
Lydia slowly turned her head and looked at him liked he'd suggested Skeevers could fly. "What."
"Oh come on, you've never heard of muckers smuggling in sugar under their skin?"
"You're kidding."
"Oh yeah, it's a real popular trick. Way back, all the way back to Nevarine – the second one, I mean, there was this one Tong in Balmora, the Camonna, real hard nutters, the lot. Anyway, they'd buy up a bulk of slaves for cheap – the old or sickly ones who ain't much worth elsewhile, and they'd sow up packets of moon sugar within them. Once the slaves got past the guards, another member of the Camonna's would slice 'em open and get the sugar."
"That's..." Lydia struggled to find a word that would adequately express the loathing she felt, "despicable."
"Extremely lucrative, you mean," Arvel sighed dreamily, "buying slaves must've cost a fraction of what them big hefty bribes for the guards would've been. Gods, they must've been drowning in coin."
Seeing her glare and suddenly remembering his target audience, the dunmer quickly held his hands up. "Hey! Never said I did it, mind," Arvel protested, "just what you hear with an ear to the ground's all."
Keeper of Dragonstone…I wonder.
Metal slid quietly out of leather as Caius pulled out the elven dagger.
"What are you doing?"
"Ash-face might be on to something." He rested the knife against the edge of the bump,
"You don't think…"
"Well, it'd make an odd sort of "honorable" sense wouldn't it?" Caius asked as he sliced carefully along the edges. Even with the elven blade's keen edge it was like trying to trim hardened leather. "The only way anyone would get their hands on the Dragonstone-"
He cut along four sides and gripped the flap of skin, " – would be over his cold, dead body."
Then the thief tugged.
Arvel turned away quickly, muttering under his breath, "oh that's just nasty."
Caius stared at the smoky gray clay like tablet that been implanted within the lord of Bleak Fall's chest. He reached down, carefully easing the edge of the stone out. It was a weird sensation, touching the insides of the dead draugr. Instead of the usual warmth of a freshly killed corpse the body was cold, so cold that his finger-tips immediately grew chilled. Caius quickly eased the tablet out and wringed his hands until warmth had returned.
"As requested: one carved tablet of ancient evil; mildly slimy. Now, can we please get out of this muck-hole?"
"Had your fill of barrows for a while?"
"Honestly? It feels like I've spent months in here."
He dropped like a rock from the edge of the summit. His prey sensed him too late. Even as its legs quivered with motion his claws snapped around it like a vise. He bore it to the ground and squeezed, snapping his prey's neck in an instant.
The elk went limp.
Another mighty hunt, he thought with mockery. His wings flapped furiously to trap enough air under his tattered wings to let him lift off. They were healing, slowly, but it would be days before the fire of his Sil, his soul, reforged the broken membranes of his Slen, his flesh.
He gained enough altitude to alight on the summit, a raised ridge of flattened rock jutting out of the ocean of pines. The summit itself was but a hill compared to the gray slab barriers of the mountain borders, but it was not easily accessible by foot, gave him a clear line of sight for many miles and best of all was far from the settlements of mortals.
He dropped the elk and leaned down.
"YOL"
The night sky was briefly lit up by the flare of fire as it swept over the carcass, igniting bothersome fur into ash and cooking the insides to perfection. It was a three-bite meal, a snack really, one of countless smaller prey that he had consumed over a three-day. There were herds of mammoths farther north, one might be a true meal. However they were watched zealously by the twelve foot sons of Nirn. With his wings at partial strength, he would still be struggling to carry his meal off the ground when their clubs began to swing.
He had outlasted most of his brethren by being cautious and sly. The centuries may have withered his power but he had been free to soar when many others could do naught but sit in their bones, their essence of Sil confined by broken Slen. A fate he himself had experienced but a few suns ago.
The flesh around his throat had been restored but he could vividly recall the flash of pain that had sliced through his raging bloodlust, tearing a hole in his Slen through which his life-blood had fallen and sizzled on the earth. However while his Slen Kopraan, his flesh body had died, his Sil had remained. No plane of Oblivion could contain its fire, even the Void, the end of all things, could not touch him for his Sil rode the streams of time. His soul would fly seconds, days, eons ahead of true death's reach.
That did not mean dying was pleasant. A darkness unlike the Void –a darkness of sleep, had seized his Sil into slumber. He had nestled in his bones as the mortals had crawled around their shattered home. Until Alduin had called his Sil back to task, to craft new Slen and serve the Firstborn again.
The night sky of Skyrim was shaken by a sudden flash of power, a blue tinged expanding ring of light that ignited in the upper atmosphere. At the same time he felt something tug at his Sil, a summons.
Mirmulnir.
The power of his name washed over the green dragon, causing him to pause in his meal. The Thu'um was weak, it had traveled a great distance, all the way from the temple on the lonely mountain peak. He tasted it, divining its caller from the magic of its shout. Not a fellow Dov, but one of the Krah Kendov, the cold warriors, had summoned him. Such summons were never used lightly by the warrior-servants.
Intriguing
His tongue flickered, cleaning the blood off his long snout and teeth. The Krah Kendov might have seen better days, but the best among them were rather formidable – when compared to other two-leggers, of course.
He left the earth in a furious sweep of wings. Updrafts kicked up debris, whipped up leaves and sent the pines of Falkreath creaking as his shadow passed over the darkened forest.
A/N: So this is like the tenth rewrite of this chapter, It's been polished and scrapped and re-polished some many times, I'm simply going to say it's done and I'm finally getting to move on to the rest of Skyrim so hurrah for a change of scenery!