The Fall of the Great Porch

Veleth instantly felt...not better, but far lighter the moment they stepped outside. The 'porch' was huge. If Ravenlight had caught Odahviing here, it was slightly overkill. Several dragons could fit there. Chains with links almost as long as his forearm hung from the ceiling. The place was designed to hold a dragon, Drizzt was saying. He could believe it.

Zak stayed back in the shadows, but he, too, had relaxed the second they'd left the more crowded hall below. Drizzt walked back and forth across the large space, pointing out the wheels in the rafters that had lifted and dropped the massive yoke that had pinned the dragon down once Ravenlight had lured him in; a blackened patch on the stone where Odahviing had spat fire to get the over-eager court wizard Farengar to leave him alone; and the still-present claw marks at the end of the porch where he'd launched himself off afterward, Ravenlight riding him for the first time, to take her to the one place Sovngarde could be reached from the mortal plane.

Veleth took it all in. It was much easier being out here. It was just them and a few guards posted along the stone railing. He went all the way to the edge and looked down. It was a long fall along the craggy side of the enormous hill they were on. If someone fell, they would bounce along the rocks until they landed, broken, at the bottom. It was a powerful sight. He started to turn back to Drizzt when something caught his eye.

Curious, he walked over to where a guard was standing oddly. At first glance, it seemed that he was either mannequin placed awkwardly or a guard who had fallen asleep standing up. As he got closer, he felt the first prickle of alarm from deep within him, waking up the beast and making it arch its back.

Zak noticed where he was walking; then he stiffened, eyes widening in alarm, his hands dropping automatically to his blades. "Drizzt...something's wrong."

Veleth reached out and brushed the guard's shoulder. At that light touch, he toppled over, dead. Veleth whipped his sword out, looking around but there was no sign of anything other than them, no real sign of how the guard died.

Drizzt and Zak looked up from the others, faces grim. All the guards along the porch were dead, propped up so that no one would notice.

There was no blood, no obvious wounds, no marks on the neck. No wounds...but something else. He nudged the helmet off a guard with his foot. The eyes were wide open and bloodshot, the tongue swollen and saliva still drooling from the mouth. Poison. No...There. A small bloody hole through the uniform on his back. Venom. Something had stung him. Something with a stinger thicker than a man's finger.

The beast growled, arched up and puffed out, but not knowing where the enemy was. He couldn't hear anything, see anything, smell anything...where was it? A slight wooden creak from the dragon trap above made him look up.

Just in time for a massive demon to crash full into him from above.

Drizzt and Zak were already in motion, their blades flying out of their sheaths. This one barely looked human; it was a grotesque hybrid of man, spider and scorpion. Zak reached it first, his eyes turning black as he lashed out, cutting deep into its venom-swollen tail. While he didn't cut it off in the first swing, he sliced it halfway through, and the second blow sent it flying off the porch.

Veleth was a bit busy, pressed hard against the ground, fighting tooth and nail to keep the snapping claws from slicing his throat open. The demon shrieked as its tail went flying, its lips peeling back to reveal razor-sharp teeth that looked all too much like snake fangs.

"Vith!" Veleth jerked as hard as he could away as the fangs sought to bite him, one hand pushing at the thing's head and the other still beating off claws. He finally got a foot up under the demon and kicked it off him, allowing him to scramble backwards.

The demon was disgustingly fast, scuttling back up to the roof and shrieking.

Zak kept his eyes fixed on it, growling in what sounded like two separate languages. Drizzt slung Taumaril off his back, watching it as well. He glanced over at Veleth. "You all right?"

"Yeah." Veleth got to his feet. "Damn things get uglier and uglier..."

It paused in its mad scuttle through the rafters above, stopping for maybe half a second. It was just long enough. Drizzt wasn't as fast with the bow as Ravenlight was...but he'd been learning from her, just as she'd been learning from him with the sword. He swept the bow up and let fly.

The demon shrieked, the cry ear-piercing enough to make all three elves cringe and flinch as it dropped like a dead bug. Only, Veleth realized too late, it wasn't dead. Not yet. As it fell from the very tall ceiling, it's claws reached out and slammed into the rock floor point first. Its claws disappeared into the floor, then its arms, shoulders, chest. When it came to rest, it was buried halfway into the ground.

As they edged forward to make sure it was dead, three sets of pointed ears pricked at a strange hissing sound. They frowned a bit, not quite sure what to make of the noise until massive cracks stretched from the hole suddenly. Then it hit them: the caustic venom from the demon was eating through the rock.

The crack of the porch separating from the rest of the mountain could be heard throughout all of Whiterun.

They were too far from the rest of the building to make it back as the rock tilted, crumbled, and started to slide. Drizzt grabbed for them both, hoping to at least try-

And then, just as the rockslide parted and fell, all three of them were suddenly wrapped in light, and lifted, a clear voice shouting words not immediately discernible over the roar of falling stone and masonry. As they started gliding back toward the still-solid rock supporting the rest of the palace, they glanced over to see who'd retrieved them.

Cattie-Brie stood by the still-solid remnant of the porch, beneath the spot where Odahviing had been trapped, her staff upraised, pulling them back to safety.

"Ju as panthi sut rirhul ayulis." Veleth muttered.

She backed up, pulling them to safety just as the doors behind her banged open, and several others came out. Balgruuf and Ravenlight were in front-which meant that when they shouted for everyone else to "Stay back!", the press behind them instantly let up.

The three landed, and the light around them cut off. Drizzt instantly went to Cattie-Brie, hugging her tightly. Zak and Veleth needed a moment to catch their breaths.

Balgruuf stared at the destruction behind them. "What in Oblivion happened out here?"

"How many does that leave now? Eighty three?" Veleth asked.

"Another one?" Ravenlight grimaced. "They're getting bolder. How on earth did it destroy the porch, though?"

Veleth pointed to where venom still hissed on the stone, sending up smoke.

"This one was venomous," Zak said with distaste, looking at his blades to see if any of the stuff had gotten onto them. "Tail, claws, teeth...all of it. Drizzt shot it out of the rafters; it went into the rock below it. We went up to make sure it was dead, didn't realize it was taking down a chunk of mountain to bring us with it."

Veleth huffed and retrieved his sword from where it had landed when the demon crashed into him. Damn near kissing a venomous monster was not how he wanted this day to go.

Drizzt looked up from whispering thanks into his wife's ear. "So. Who do you think that one was after? Us in particular, or everyone else?"

Veleth frowned. That one was strange. All it did was kill a handful of guards and dropped part of a structure. There was...no reason for it.

"Poison that could destroy part of a mountain?" Ravenlight shuddered. "If that thing had gotten inside..."

"Why didn't it?" Veleth asked. "Why go through the trouble of killing the guards so they didn't look it at first glance, almost totally escaping our notice...to not get inside?"

"It was lying in wait for you," Cattie-Brie said quietly. "Zaknafein and Veleth in particular. And it came very near to succeeding."

Veleth glanced at Zak. "I wonder what the payout on a daedric bounty is. Other than getting to eat the target."

"I'm sure I don't want to guess. More souls to play with?" Zak cracked a smile, but it slipped when he looked back at the shattered ruin. They'd been standing twenty feet out on it earlier.

"Unfortunately for them, I'm not willing to play nice." Veleth also looked out over the empty space. "However...I think I'm going to avoid high places like this until it's all over."

Balgruuf looked at Cattie-Brie, not with suspicion, but with curiosity. "How did you know? That this..." he gestured to the shattered mountain, "was going to happen? Or that it was after them?"

"She's a priestess of Kynareth," Ravenlight answered. "A strong one, too. And Kynareth has a...rather strong interest in my brother."

Cattie-Brie nodded. "She warned me, perhaps just after they went out onto the porch."

"I can't tell you how grateful I am for that." Veleth said. "That's...not a fun trip down."

Ravenlight moved gingerly to the edge and looked down, whistling when she saw the shattered timber and stone below. "No. It certainly would not have been."

"Go from being damn near impossible to control that little raging n'wah to it being nearly silent." Veleth growled to himself.

"Going to have to find a way for us to have accurate warning about those things," Ravenlight growled. "This is getting irritating."

"Every other day thus far."

She was silent for a moment, lips moving as she counted the days. "Not quite...but very, very close."

"Too close." Veleth said.

"Well. We're going to have to let everyone know what that was-and hopefully the gods were merciful, and no one was under that when it fell." Balgruuf stared mournfully at the shattered end of the Great Porch. "Damn demon. No way we can repair that in full."

"Unless you can find a shaman skilled in elemental magic." Drelasa said, coming up. "A rare gift, but not unheard of."

Drizzt glanced at Cattie-Brie, but she laughed ruefully and shook her head. Drelasa smiled at them. It would give them something to focus on after the war instead of a sudden end. That never ended well.

"We have met a number of shamans," Ravenlight said. "Don't know how many of them are skilled in elemental magic...but we'll see what we can do."

"Something to look into. Later. We don't need to go searching for someone who can meld rock right at this moment." Drelasa said. "Are you three alright?"

"A little shaken," Zak admitted. "That was...close." He looked over at Veleth. "What about you? You haven't dropped dead yet, so I'm guessing it didn't do more than land on you."

Veleth rolled his shoulders. "It tried, but it got in its own way, fortunately. Thank the gods, I really didn't want a kiss from that thing. I do have standards."

Zak blinked at him, then let out a short, approving laugh. Ravenlight glanced between them and smiled a little. They were not yet friends, and might never be friends...but this just might have eased some of the animosity between Boethiah and Ebonarm.

Might. She doubted she'd hold her breath.

Veleth caught her glance and gave her a ghost of a smile. He had nothing against Zak personally. The gods needed to shut up and get along to finish this shite.

"Well." Ravenlight looked at the wreckage. "Might be best if you came in and put up with the crowd. And we need to tell them what that was, they probably heard that crash halfway to Falkreath and Winterhold."

"Don't suppose we can just tell them the wind did it?" Veleth asked.

"After the bards were singing about the capture of that dragon?" Balgruuf snorted. "They'd be more likely to believe that it was Farengar."

There was an indignant sputtering from the crowd in the doors.

"Considering that these things are getting bolder, we'd better tell them what we're up against straight," Drizzt said. He glanced over at Ravenlight. "And tell them that the consecrated weapons work against them."

Veleth gave the collapse one final glance as they went back inside. He knew...this wasn't over.

"Jarl Balgruuf!" a sharp voice suddenly called from further back. "And Ravenlight. There's trouble. Come quick!"

Veleth sighed. Of course there was more.

Ravenlight turned, scanning the crowd. Then she let out a sulfurous curse. "Delphine came in with Madanach, didn't she?" She shoved her way through the crowd and bolted.

Oh, now the damn rage lit. Veleth growled as he followed her.