Chapter Three
14th of Frost Fall, 4E 201
Falkreath, Skyrim
Hearthfire Crossroads
When Hadvar joined the Imperial Legion, he took an oath to protect the Empire's institutions and citizens. In the decade since his enlistment, he has faced down Bandits, Thalmor, and Stormcloaks across the killing fields of his homeland.
His assignment to Helgen weeks earlier was supposed to be a reprieve from the secret war between the Empire and the Dominion.
But alas, fate conspired to make the tail end of 4E 201 one of the most tumultuous in recent memory.
"Take cover!"
Legionaries of the 32nd Imperial Legion dove for whatever shelter could be found as torrents of flame splashed onto the earth. Many of them were consumed by the blazing inferno, making their final moments on Tamriel a torturous ending.
"Put it out! Put it out!"
"Help me! Help me please!"
All around Hadvar, his fellow Legionnaires turned into beacons of flames that stumbled across the grassy plains in pure anguish. The Battlemages assigned to their Cohort were burdened with drawing the bronze-hued Dragon away from their shattered infantry line.
Bolts of fire and ice shot into the sky in a vain attempt to bring down the massive creature, but the Battlemage's valor was rewarded with one of their number caught by the Dragon's burning flame.
Not an hour earlier, these roads and treelines were patrolled by over two hundred Legionaries, but now a little more than a hundred remained standing.
Hadvar's commanding Centurion had long since perished, and his blackened corpse lay amongst a dozen other dead Legionnaires. The Dragon attacked their outpost guarding the Hearthfire Crossroads during a routine inspection throwing the entire Centuria into disarray and turning what could have been a delaying action into a disorganized rout.
"Move over!" A body slammed next to Hadvar, and he belatedly recognized the intruder as a Legionary named Alldrik. His fellow Nord was a favorite amongst their Centuria, always sporting a confident grin and a wisecrack in reserve.
There was no confidence in Alldrik's visage while amongst the burning corpses of Legionary's he once called brother or sister. Hadvar watched him let loose a single arrow that dozens more in skimming or entirely missing their looming adversary.
The Dragon sneered with contempt at the mortal's resistance and dipped into the treeline with his claws extended. A trio of Legionnaires across the road from Hadvar was plucked from the treeline and bisected in two, the Dragon taking their upper half and leaving the rest of them in a pool of blood and guts.
"We are so screwed!" Another Legionnary shriek of terror was joined by a near mocking roar from the Dragon. Hadvar didn't doubt for a second that the winged demon could smell their fear even from his altitude, but he refused to go down quietly.
Hadvar mustered what courage he had left and bolted for a dead Auxillary holding an intact Imperial Bow and a half-empty quiver. He snatched the bow and was a hair breath from confiscating the arrows when a burned hand gripped his forearm.
The Auxillary was still alive.
"Kill…me…please." Three words were all the Legionary could muster through his scorched throat and flaming skin. The burns were so vicious that Hadvar doubted the man could feel anything at all. Still, there were worse ways to go out, and it was with silent pity he slid his dagger into the Auxillary's exposed sternum.
"Sovngarde awaits, brother." Hadvar couldn't help the passing words even amongst the carnage. He wasn't alive to witness the horrors of the Oblivion Crisis, but he imagined that the burning trees and near suffocating smoke were a fraction of what their forefathers endured.
"Hadvar!" Alldrick called out to his fellow Legionary as a Battlemage put out the flaming trees around them. "Get over here!"
"Take it down! Take it down!" Hadvar's commanding Praefect, an even-tempered Nord named Clevicus, rallied the surviving Legionnaiy's into a cohesive force, encouraging them with every ounce of command he could muster. Hadvar sprinted for the treeline with bow and quiver in hand, stepping over a dozen other dead or dying Legionaries.
He returned to his former position, covered in soot and sporting a heavy breath but still alive. A fact that his fellow Legionaries sought to point out.
"You are one lucky bastard, Hadvar!" Hrungvir, a blond-haired Legionary, commented as he unleashed a steel arrow into the sky. "First Helgen, and now you pull that suicidal stunt. You must be blessed by the divines!"
A familiar word of power silenced any retort Hadvar wished to express.
"YOL, TOOR, SHUL!" A fireball screamed down from above and impacted the treeline above, incinerating the wood and smashing into the ground behind Hadvar. Four Legionnaires were consumed by the blast, and the encroaching flames were doused by two Battlemages in a wave of ice.
Hadvar stood onto his feet and nocked an arrow, his eyes following the trails of ice and flame blanketing the cloudless sky. His brows furrowed, and he pulled the arrow against his chest with a heavy breath. It'd been a long time since Hadvar had used a bow, but his father had taught him well enough to at least score a mark.
The moment the Dragon's skull came into view, Hadvar unleashed his retribution.
"Talos preserve us." The weighted string propelled the arrow into the air, slicing through the wind and cutting into the Dragon's hide.
"You got him!" Alldrick proclaimed with surprise as the Dragon's pain-filled roar brought a momentary smile to Hadvar's lips, but it froze as the winged creature hovered in place and stared into his eyes.
"Kynareth, save us," Hrungvir murmured with despair. The Dragon's wrath could be seen gathering in his throat, and every surviving Legionary unleashed every spell and arrow at their disposal to bring down the fell beast.
"Bring it down! Bring it down! Bring it Down!" Clevicus commanded his Legionaries forward, snapping the fear from their eyes and setting them to task. Two Veteran Battlemages poured every bit of Magicka into their firebolts and frozen spears smothering the Dragon in a torrent of fire and ice.
It banked away from the Legionnaires with a heavy flap of its wings, sending a wave of artificial wind cascading into the burning trees. The heavy gusts sent fresh embers and licks of flames spreading across the treeline, blinding the Legionnaires in a haze of smoke and fire.
The Dragon used this opportunity to dip into the horizon and barrel into the tree line opposite Hadvar's position. Its heavy frame smashed into the line of Legionnaires, taking cover, crushing a few under its weight, and completely eviscerating entire groups with its claws and teeth.
The monstrosity tore into a Praefect with its jaws, devouring the Legionary whole and dispersing the survivors into the wilderness.
The Legionnaires were faltering and would have completely routed already were it not for the ring of fire keeping them in place. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from Dragon's cruel gaze.
It had previously chosen to harass the Legionnaires from above with flaming projectiles, but now it runs rampant in their ranks, ripping through the woodlands with reckless fury.
Hadvar watched Hrungvir, and a dozen of his fellows try to flank the Dragon only to have its tail bat them away. Hrungvir crashed into an oak tree, blood propelling from his mouth and his hands grasping at his back.
"Hrungvir!" Alldrick broke from cover, drawing Hadvar's attention as he nocked a third arrow.
"Alldrick, wait!" Luckily the Dragon lunged forward, smashing into a cluster of thick trees shielding several Battlemages that continued to assail the beast.
Two Auxiliary's climbed onto the Dragon's back amidst a hail of arrows and destructive spells slamming into its hide. They stabbed at the exposed sections of its neck, earning a howl of anguish from the monster.
"Insignificant worms!" The Dragon raised itself high, the hinds of its legs digging into the ground, and shook off his would-be killers. "DIE!"
"AHHH!" One of the brave Legionairy's had his torso ripped asunder by the Dragon's spiked wings, and his fellow faired a little better, blinking once before his head realized the rest of his body was somewhere else.
"With me!" Clevicus picked up a long spear and charged the Dragon's exposed side, driving the tip of his lance into its hide and slicing past its jagged surface.
The Legionnaires rallied once more, but before they could fall upon the Dragon, its fell voice spoke once more.
"FUS, RO, DAH!" A gargantuan kinetic force ragdolled a group of Legionnaires, sending them spiraling back into their fellows and breaking the final charge in half. This unrelenting force was followed by a fiery breath that incinerated a trio of Battlemages and several Auxiliary.
The Praefect unsheathed his spear from the Dragons hide and sought to stab it once more, but a spiked wing smashed into his abdomen and sent him barreling into a pile of rocks. Hadvar could only watch the monstrosity loom over the Praefect with a sneer of contempt.
"Take heed, mortal." The Dragon's voice was a malevolent song that befits its bloodied form. "For if you reach the halls of Sovngarde, your soul will be devoured by Alduin himself."
"To Oblivion with you, Dragon," Clevicus spoke through his collapsed lung and broken bones with nothing short of pure contempt for the creature. "The Dragonborn will have your soul one day, and I will laugh from the halls of Sovngarde when she eradicates Alduin from the face of Tamriel."
"Your faith is misplaced." The Dragon glanced towards Hadvar and the remaining Legionnaires bearing their arms and spells with defiance in their eyes. "As is your assumed place at the top of the food chain. Allow me, Honaak of the Great Fire, to escort all of you to the halls of Sovngarde."
Honaak reared back his neck with a word of power not yet unleashed brewing within his throat. Hadvar stared back with a cool determination, his frame relaxing as he hoped to bear witness to the Nordic Haven that defined his ancestors.
"LIZ, SLEN, NU-!" The Legionnaires flinched, but not due to the Dragon's Thu'um but its blood staining the floor before Clevicus.
*BANG!*
A single reverberating noise pierced the heavens and sent what little animal life remained scattering into the forest. Hadvar had never heard such a sound before, and his teeth clenched in panic while the rest of his body fell to the ground in surprise.
*BANG!* A force tore through Honaak's throat, rupturing his vocals and causing a flash of fear in his ancient eyes. The Dragon was used to spears, arrows, and even spells cutting through his hide on occasion, but this time it was different.
It was a…foreign anguish that he was not accustomed to.
An object slammed onto his back from above, and Honaak felt the sheer force of its weight send him crashing into the ground with a pain-filled roar. The Dragon tried to flap its wings and gain altitude, but the entity unleashed its weapon upon his back once more.
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
Hadvar ducked his head low on instinct, but his eyes couldn't stray away from the scene playing out in front of him. A humanoid creature covered in armor as black as night, devoid of any familiar markings of steel or ebony, tore into the Dragon's back with an indescribable weapon.
It barked with the power of a god, tearing through the winged monstrosity with ease and inflicting more damage than the two hundred Legionnaires combined.
"What is that thing?!" Alldrick's voice echoed as he tightly grasped Hrungvir's wounded form.
"I don't know!" Hadvar replied, standing to his feet with the bow well in hand. This Stranger was taking the Dragon head-on, and he'd be damned if the Legion didn't do their part. "To arms brothers forward!"
The Legionnaires broke from their cover, potent magic lighting their path as the remaining Battlemages unleashed their last reserves for this final charge. Other surviving Auxilarys from the smoldering treeline broke from their hiding places and joined their brothers in bringing down the beast.
Pride swelled within Hadvar as he watched over fifty Legionnaires grasp their nerves and throw caution to the wind. As a unified force, they tore into Honaak's limbs with fury in their arms, slicing through its battered hide and keeping the Dragon grounded.
The Stranger took advantage of the Imperials assault and, in a show of impossible strength, drove his fist through the Dragon's throat. Hadvar's eyes would have bugged out with surprise if he wasn't busy trying to sever Honaak's left wing.
The Dragon squirmed with pain, but each inflicted blow sapped the life from its body and drove it closer and closer to death.
Honaak couldn't believe that these insignificant creatures were going to kill him, and as he choked on his own blood, the last thing he would ever see was the end of a barrel and a figure that should have been a forgotten legend.
"Shadow Walker!"
*BANG!*
The Stranger watched the Dragon's head snap back, its brains spilling out of the clean hole in its skull. He gave the creature a once over, driving his boot into its cranium and slowly crushing it against the bloodied floor.
He wasn't willing to test whether this thing's fortitude could tank a trio of 7.62 rounds to the skull, so it became mush beneath his armored boot.
The soldiers gathered around Hadvar let their guards down, more out of exhaustion rather than lack of discipline. He didn't know how many survived, but a glimpse of his surroundings confirmed that their Centuria had taken a beating.
He identified at least fifty fresh corpses either burnt or torn apart by the Dragon, yet the Legionnaires maintained their discipline and would have fought to the bitter end were it not for this Stranger's intervention.
Hadvar stepped towards the enigmatic figure, drawing its featureless helm away from its glorious kill.
"My thanks, Stranger." Hadvar beat his arm across his chest in a military salute. "Were it not for your arrival, we would have been finished."
"You're welcome." He slid off the Dragon's fresh corpse and loomed over the Legionary. "Name and rank, soldier?"
"Legionary Hadvar, 32nd Imperial Legion." He proclaimed with muted pride. "My men and I are in your debt."
"I don't need such gratitude." The Stranger replied. "It simply wasn't your time. Can you handle things from here?"
"Aye." Hadvar glimpsed towards the Battlemages, tending to the wounded, many of whom were suffering from debilitating burns. "Reinforcements should be arriving soon and-."
By the time he turned back, the Stranger was already gone, and all that remained was the Dragon's rotting corpse. He glanced around his surroundings, but fellow Legionnaires and burnt forestry were all he could find.
Hadvar pursed his lips in momentary confusion before releasing a relived, if also subdued, exhale. Reinforcements from the Falkreath garrison would be arriving soon, and if his luck stayed true, then maybe he could get a months leave out of this catastrophe.
He turned towards an ailing Hrungvir, receiving a dose of healing magic to his broken back from an exhausted Battlemage. First, they needed to triage their wounded and prepare them for departure as soon as reinforcements arrived.
Second…They needed to find a way to bring the Dragonborn here so she could devour Honaak's soul before Alduin got any bright ideas.
It was a short list, but it would take days to clean this mess up and find the Dragonborn. The Hearthfire crossroads was a critical juncture of trade between Falkreath and Whiterun. Every day it was closed down was, septims being tossed down a drain.
"Hadvar!" Alldrick broke the Nord from his internal thoughts. "Stop daydreaming and get over here!"
"On my way!"
Hadvar rushed towards his ailing companions with full intent to assist, but all the while, he missed the shadows licking at the Dragon's hide. Before the Legionnaires could blink, black tendrils tore the body asunder in an orgy of violence that sliced through its hardened bones and infected the veins that once ran with blood.
Infernal energy poured from every open wound marring its once-proud hide and corrupting the waving grass with an intoxicating darkness that none would ever find comforting.
Honaak of the Great Fire would become the first Dragon to be taken by the Shadow Walker.
And his death echoed across not just Skyrim for every Dovah to hear. It reverberated across the realms of Oblivion, drawing the interest of Deadra and Aedra alike.
The Dragonborn was not the only hunter of Dovah in Tamriel.
Whiterun, Skyrim
Bleakwind Bluffs
SHADOW WALKER!
Freya and her Housecarl were navigating the dangerous heights of Bleakwind when she overheard an echo in the darkness of a blinding blizzard. This storm wasn't a natural occurrence and her instincts brimmed with suspicions that the World Eater himself was the instigator.
An underlying tension hung in the skies of her ancestral home, but it was only felt by those who had the blood of a Dovah beating in their veins.
Freya's heart froze with a dread that she couldn't begin to understand, and her Dragon blood bristled with turmoil as the words consumed her every thought.
"My Thane?" Lydia, her ever-trusty Housecarl, steadied Freya with a hand wrapped around her shoulder. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes." Freya's words were hollow, but her stern expression kept the Housecarl's concerns silent.
Lydia's training as a Housecarl of Whiterun encompassed every aspect of martial warfare. They are an extension of their chosen lord's will, but not all lords are created equal.
Some Housecarls spend their service within the cushy homes of noblemen and merchants to be nothing more than house sitters. Lydia feared becoming one of these unfortunate souls trapped in a tedious existence as she awaited Jarl Balgruuf's final decision.
Few could have predicted it to be the next Dragonborn of this age, least of all Lydia herself.
Freya was everything a warm-blooded Nord saw in a leader. Fierce but disciplined, savage yet lenient. It was a precarious balance, and Lydia spent the early parts of their journey getting a feel for the Dragonborn and her many eccentric traits.
One of Freya's more vexing attributes was a stubbornness that matched the likes of Ysgrammor himself, and Lydia found it endearing but no less aggravating.
"We should find shelter for the night. We won't last long once this blizzard rolls through." The Housecarl ducked beneath a tree branch and foraged ahead, searching for refuge against the growing blizzard.
"I see a cave up ahead." Lydia could also spot embers of light at its entrance. "How much do you want to wager it's occupied with Bandits or Forsworn? "
"My money's on Forsworn." Freya's lips curled into a distasteful sneer. "We're close enough to Markarth for a raiding party to make camp out here."
"I can't believe they range this far east."
"The Forsworn are a plague that keeps on spreading." Even after Freya personally slit Madanachs throat, his people continued to pillage their way across the land of Whiterun and the Reach without mercy or hesitation.
Freya silently wondered if her decision to kill Madanach was a sound outcome and if the Forsworn's actions over the last few weeks were anything to go by, it was a seemingly poor conclusion.
However, there is nothing in all of Tamriel that could have convinced Freya to stay her blade that night because the Forsworn is in every way a cult more in line with fanatic zealots than any organized resistance movement.
She vividly remembers the Forsworn camps riddled with human sacrifices to whatever misbegotten gods they worshipped. Freya has never shown them an ounce of mercy, for the word is never in the mindscape of a Forsworn Briarheart.
Hate isn't a potent enough word for what the Dragonborn feels for the zealots, and she prays to whatever divine possible that this cave is filled with Forsworn raiders.
Freya's sparkling blue eyeballs flared with delight as she identified the outline of a Forsworn Headdress lingering at the cave entrance. She turned towards a bundled up Lydia with a fanged smile, drawing a Steel Dagger and Sword from her sheaths.
"Follow me and stay out of sight." The Housecarl carefully readjusted the grip on her sworn shield and reluctantly grasped her father's sword.
"Be careful what you wish for, Lydia." Her words were muffled by a gust of heavy wind from the passing blizzard, and her feet sunk into the deep snow with every step taken. Lydia had no illusions that this night would be a continuance of the last few days on the fringes of civilization.
Forsworn hunting was Freya's favorite pastime, after all.
"WULD!" The Dragonborn shot into the sky, her focus never straying from the Forsworn Stalker guarding the cave entrance. The Reach native raised her gaze upward just in time to see a dagger sheathing itself into her eye socket.
Freya drove the blade clean through her skull and crashed her full weight into the Forsworn before ripping the dagger free.
LAAS YAH! The Dragonborn's gaze lit up with a red hue that scanned her surroundings, searching for more victims.
"Iaezo!" A spectral red outline approached from the cave's interior. Freya ducked out of sight as another Forsworn came into view. "Peyr wants you inside until the storm-Ack!"
A dagger with Whiterun markings engraved into its pommel appeared from the falling snow and cut through the Ravager's esophagus. His cries of pain were silenced by streams of his own blood flowing down his severed throat, and the last thing he ever saw was Lydia's blank visage.
She retrieved her dagger and stepped over the dying Forsworn without a second thought, exchanging a silent nod with Freya as the pair descended into the cavern.
The Dragonborn and her Housecarl would sleep soundly that night, but a great many Forsworn weren't so lucky.
Falkreath, Skyrim
Embershard Mine
Cyrus had never been much of a cave explorer, but that was a consequence of life he couldn't mend to his favor.
The Covenant was far too proud to hide from a fight and preferred to build grandiose settlements or bases to flaunt their influence. The Insurrectionists Cyrus hunted predominately operated inside major settlements because there were fewer civilians out in the frontier to keep as collateral in case of a UNSC raid.
Caves were locations he wasn't entirely familiar with, and as he descended into Embershard mine, his steps were measured and careful.
A rudimentary wire hooked up to a basket of heavy rocks lay dormant off to his left, and he suppressed an impassive huff at the Bandit's pathetic booby trap.
Cyrus kept his AR magnetized to his back and relinquished the armor-piercing firearm in favor of a short blade held in a reverse grip.
He had no interest in wasting what precious ammo he had left on a pack of outlaws, so he confiscated a weapon from the lone Bandit guarding the entrance outside.
Poor bastard was sleeping and didn't even realize he was dead until his eyes registered his head facing the wrong direction. The Bandit had a war hammer, but Cyrus didn't find the oversized club appealing and stuck to a far more precise weapon.
The mineshafts wooden frame creaked in protest at his tonnage, but the passing thunderstorm tempered the sound.
"Do you think he'll come through?" One of the bandits, a burly man lugging around a steel battleaxe, spoke up.
"No, Adralf killed his last messenger and sent him back to Falkreath one piece at a time." His smaller statured companion nurtured the fireplace in between them. "The Jarl won't take that insult without provocation, and sooner or later, Mercs will start knocking on our front door."
Cyrus marked the name Jarl as a subject of interest to pry out of whoever was commanding these Bandits. From what he could decipher, these brigands were kicking up money to a local government official for protection, but the details remained vague at best.
It was time to act.
A familiar black haze crept into the Spartan's psyche, a consequence of Project Chrysanthemum and everything it gave him.
There was no anger or emotion to speak of, only a clear mind that left him focused and devoid of all distractions
Hostile Elements…..Thirty Tangos.
Recommendation…..Purge all targets.
Objective…Secure intelligence for Bureaucratic Dossier.
"Shouldn't we leave soon?" The burly outlaw tentatively inquired, his eyes filled with tentative worry. "I don't fancy our chances against trained mercenaries, especially when there are barely thirty of us down here."
"Keep your cool, Jaygal." Cyrus meshed with the darkness, his massive frame disappearing like a shadow in the night before the bandits could take notice. "Borland is gathering up the rest of our loot, so we'll be out of here within an hour tops."
"I don't think we should wait, Stenaf." Jaygal quietly murmured, his eyes casting over to the tunnel leading towards the front entrance. "I can feel something…dangerous on the horizon."
"What you think is irrelevant." Stenaf motioned towards the dimly lit tunnel. "Now, if you're done whining, go help Tallvar on watch, he's been out there for a few hours, and he's probably asleep."
"Fine." Cyrus watched the now named Jaygal give his companion a severe look, but he kept his tongue and rambled up the wooden palisades.
The Spartan stalked the Bandit's every step, and once his companion lost sight of his burly form, did he make his move. Jaygal strode past the rock trap and made it no further than a few feet before an armored limb wrapped itself around his throat.
Cyrus dug his fingers into the Bandit's esophagus, choking the oxygen from his body while grasping the crown of Jaygal's head with his free hand and snapping his neck.
All manner of resistance from the Falkreath raider was cut from its strings, and the distinct pop went completely ignored by Stenaf, who had crawled into his sack to catch some much-needed sleep. Cyrus happily obliged him an eternal rest by sliding a dagger across his throat.
He turned his focus towards a wooden crossing that hovered above a body of water teeming with aquatic specimens. The suspension bridge was inaccessible in its current state, but a thorough search of the chamber produced a mechanism that most likely operated the crossing.
Cyrus kicked the copper level and forced the wooden halves down, but it also had the unintended effect of alerting another pair of Bandits loitering on the other side.
"The bridge is down." A blonde-haired outlaw unsheathed his sword and shared a look with his green-skinned companion. "I thought we had a guard posted outside?"
Cyrus snuffed out the burning fires nearby, dousing his sectioned-off chamber in a wave of shadows dark enough for his armor to naturally blend in.
"We did." Another Bandit armed with a curved bow came into view. "Keep your eyes peeled. I don't think we're alone."
"Stenaf! Jaygal!" Each call rang in the distance, but silence was the only response the bow-wielding Bandit received. He shared a concerned glance with his blonde-haired companion, and both outlaws tentatively crossed the bridge.
Cyrus kicked off the rock floor and leaped towards the lead Bandit with all the kinetic force of a runaway train, sending him and the Spartan plummeting towards the pond below.
A torpedo of water ejected into the air, soaking the sole remaining outlaw and knocking him off the bridge. Cyrus crushed the captive Bandit's throat and leaving him to waddle like a dying fish in water.
The remaining outlaw removed the heavy plates of his iron armor before they sank him into the dark abyss. As he broke the water's surface, his hair stuck to his cheek, and his lungs begged for precious ox gasped for air as he painstakingly waded towards the bank.
"Help!" The Bandit called out, but his cries for assistance went unanswered. He was mere feet from reaching the shoreline when something caught his limb and dragged him into the darkness.
A yelp of fear and a collection of air bubbles was the only evidence of the Bandit's existence.
The chamber fell into a hushed silence with only the crackle of a diminishing campfire fading into the deep.
Inevitably a figure slipped out of the blood-filled water. There wasn't a resounding crash but a subtle emergence that followed the lethal killer the darkness momentarily welcomed.
"Four kills. Thirty seconds." The Spartan murmured to himself before a subtle sneer leaked into his visage. "Sloppy work, need to be more precise."
Cyrus was his own harshest critic, something that Chamber often found to be somewhat unnecessary, but he demanded perfection in all things. A rustling sound caught his attention, and a subtle noise of padded footsteps emerged from across the bridge.
"Let's go! We need to pack up our gear and be out of these caves!" A guttural voice echoed in the adjacent cavern as Cyrus carefully crossed the wooden bridge. It was one of the few instances where his armor was a liability, and there was the real chance this wouldn't be the first instance it worked against him.
"System. Evaluate active camouflage module for operation." Cyrus ducked through the narrow entryway and braced himself against a wall of bedrock. There was a commotion in an adjacent cavern with several torches and just as many Bandits gathering up sacks filled with coin.
ACTIVE CAMOUFLAGE MODULE UNAVAILABLE…ETA TO REPAIRS…UNKNOWN
"Terrific." Cyrus would have to repair the module himself with what little he had available. His MJOLNIR came with a repair kit, but that was for temporary measures at best, and he doubted it could keep his armor running if it suffered catastrophic damage.
But that was a problem for a different day.
"Come on, hurry up!" The outlaws exited the small alcove in a rush, bags of coin falling from their sacks as each Bandit ran towards a sizeable cavern with an open skyline. Cyrus followed them like a shadow creeping on the edge of a blinding light, his eyes sweeping over the encampment with a keen gaze.
The cavern possessed a blacksmith forge with a sizeable armory and half a dozen alcoves that accommodated just as many Bandits if the rolled-up bedrolls were any indication. Its suspended bridge united the network's higher floors, connecting to a waterfall and a rear section that he could not glimpse from this angle.
"Listen up, you rats!" A guttural tone, both human and not, echoed off the bedrock walls.
Cyrus tore his gaze away from the archaic walkways to the Bandits that occupied this cave. The remaining brigands formed around a central figure in a finely crafted steel plate armor that was a scale above the rest of his crudely outfitted colleagues.
"We make for Bleak Falls Barrow!" The Bandit leader announced to the chorus of murmuring voices. "The Dragonborn cleared out its previous owners, and now it is free for new ownership to claim."
Cyrus crept up a wooden walkway to his left and perched himself on a wooden platform with a clear sightline of the Bandit leader and his gang. His HUD analyzed every thermal signature and isolated them into their own distinct targets. The intelligence of thirty Bandits was spot on, and with four already dead, there were only twenty-six remaining to contend with.
He was tempted to use one of his frag grenades, but with no resupply in sight, every magazine, bullet, and grenade was turned into a precious commodity. The dispatching of this Bandit gang would be done with his hands and a single dagger.
Archaic means to be sure, but Chief Mendez didn't teach him to only use a rifle.
"Any questions!" The Bandit Leader announced to his gathered subordinates, nodding his head when none spoke up. "Good, we-"
Something moved in the shadows that caught the brigand's attention.
In this new world of Dragons, myths and legends were being reborn within its shadows for none to be the wiser, and now fate has deemed fit to give the night a champion that is neither god nor man.
The darkness has given birth to something…supernatural. And with a colossal boom, this eldritch creature fell upon one of the bandits, crushing him like a bug and turning both meat and metal into an unrecognizable paste.
There was barely a twitched muscle or a breath taken before Cyrus went to work on the Bandits in the only way he knew how.
There was bravery.
There was an attempt at resistance.
But life is rarely fair.
And for these bandits, fate demanded compensation for their misbegotten lives.
A payment that could only be settled in lives.
Fifteen seconds.
That's how long it took Cyrus to bring down twenty-six bloodthirsty and well-armed killers.
At least by this planet's standards.
A select few of their number wielded fire, ice, and other magical abilities that practically ran along their fingertips. They were exotic to be sure, and they should have brought their own list of problems for him to unravel.
But as Cyrus stepped over the broken hands of a terrified Bandit with her throat snapped in two, he found them to be little more than an added variety.
For all their talents, they died like the rest of their kin, and even their most bizarre capabilities served them little when face to face with a Spartan.
Thirty bandits were beaten, broken, and all but one lay dead at his feet.
All but their leader.
Cyrus didn't know his name, nor did he care, but within this Bandit's mind was information that he needed.
And he would pry it from this outlaw's mind piece by bloody piece if necessary.
"Wake up," Cyrus dunked the Bandit leader's head into the bloody pond, strewn with his slain brethren's corpses. "Wake UP!"
His second attempt wielded more favorable results, albeit more...vocal.
"Ahhhh!" The Bandit's shriek of terror bounced off the cavern walls, and Cyrus could only bear it for so long before his patience ran dry. He
"Speak only when I tell you." His demand was simple, and the Bandits curling voice became subdued by the shadow looming over him. "I have questions, and you answer them. Am I clear?"
The brigand didn't trust his voice, and through his blurry gaze, he nodded with a heavy squint.
"Good…." Cyrus relented his grip, allowing the Bandit to fall into the bloodied water to catch his breath. There was a litany of problems he needed answers to, but one subject drew his attention above all else.
Dragonborn.
It sounded mythical, and on a planet like this, mythical might as well have meant important. Cyrus snatched the Bandit by the curls of his hair and threw him against a pile of corpses that belonged to his men.
Like a ghost in the night, Cyrus stalked the brigand until he had pressed himself further into the bodies. His voice was devoid of all emotion, and any trace of humanity was lost in a haze of shadows.
Adralf of Windhelm felt a vice crawl up and snatch his voice as the Spartan loomed over him.
"Tell me what a Dragonborn is?"