Chapter 2: Armada

Aethilis stood on the deck of the Maor Riel, staring out at the forest of white-sailed masts that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. Even after three months at sea, the sight filled him with awe. It was the largest armada in recorded history, one thousand ships carrying ten thousand soldiers and twice as many camp followers, artisans, engineers, blacksmiths, horse masters, enough men and women to fill an entire kingdom. And fill an entire kingdom, they would. The very best of Tamriel's military might was gathered here on the waves of the Eltheric Ocean. Altmer battle mages and imperial legionnaires, bosmer archers and orc berserkers, khajit scouts and redguard swordsmen, all had answered the call of Tamriel's Dragonborn Emperor to embark on the greatest campaign of conquest the world had ever seen. Aethilis had no idea what they would face once they reached that great, unknown continent, yet he felt no fear of it. The Emperor was bringing more than just an army. He was reminded of that fact every time one of the great, winged shadows fell across the Maor Riel. A dozen ships in the fleet were little more than massive floating decks for the dragons to land on. Aethilis didn't like looking at those ships, they reminded him that he, along with every other soldier in the army, was expendable compared to those behemoth creatures. The great beasts could cross the Eltheric in half the time it was taking the fleet, but the Emperor wanted to keep the entire expeditionary force together. Hence the floating landing pads, places for the dragons to rest and feed. Even more ships carried nothing but cattle and fodder for that very reason.

Aethilis felt a sudden wind buffet him as one of the great creatures flew overhead. He looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of the high dragon as it sailed away. The sight sent chills down his spine, it made him feel terrified and at the same time, invincible. Who could stand against them when their Emperor commanded such creatures? It had been with a hundred men and a dozen dragons that the Dragonborn had united Tamriel. Or conquered it, depending on which side of history you wanted to be on. Aethilis preferred to be on the winning side.

He had grown up listening to the tales of the Dragonborn Emperor, the son of nord peasants, a prophesied savior with the soul of a dragon. More than just a man, practically a god made flesh. He had listened, enraptured, as his father told him how the Emperor had waged a one-man war against Alduin, the father of dragons and eater of worlds. Of how the Dragonborn had crossed the Veil to the land of the dead and struck Alduin down. When he had done so, Alduin's power had passed to him, and with it the authority to command dragons. Only the strongest of their kind could rule, and the Dragonborn had proven himself the strongest. The smartest of the dragons had submitted, others resisted, and the Dragonborn hunted down the dissidents even as the provinces of the Old Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion fell to his ever-growing armies. Finally, the few remaining rebel dragons fled across the Eltheric Ocean to a land where they thought the Dragonborn could not find them. They were wrong. The collective will of hundreds of Tamrilic mages poured into scrying spells that finally found the dragons, along with the land they now called home. With nothing left in Tamriel to conquer, the Dragonborn Emperor turned his eye to the west. And now, nearly a hundred years after he stepped back through the Veil, the Emperor and his army were coming.

According to the tales, he had not aged a day.

Aethilis had only the tales themselves to rely on. Even as the general of the Summerset contingent, one of the highest ranking military officials in the Empire, he had never seen the Emperor. Aside from the Blades, the elite imperial guards descended from his original companions, and of course the dragons, few ever did. The Emperor's commands were passed down through a complex bureaucratic system. For all Aethilis knew, the man could be nothing more than a myth.

Whenever such doubts arose in his mind, Aethilis had only to look toward the fleet's flagship to put them to rest. Not a single ship in the armada was small, but the Forerunner made them all look miniscule by comparison. It had no sails, and was made from as much metal as wood. Itwas the product of a century's worth of reverse-engineering dwemer artifacts recovered from the ruins of that long-dead, underground empire. Aside from the Emperor and his Blades, rumor was that the Forerunner also carried several fully functional dwemer Centurions. As if ten thousand spears and seven dragons weren't enough.

Aethilis smiled as he reflected on the raw power of the army that he was an integral part of. He could not wait to see it unleashed on whatever unfortunate foes would oppose them. It was what he had prepared his entire life for, and he thanked the gods every day that he had lived to be part of something so grand. Not only be a part of it, but to be tasked with the command of his fellow altmer. That was something that would have never been possible in the Aldmeri Dominion. Magic did not run strong in his family, and so the best life Aethilis could have hoped for under the old regime would have been as a low ranking officer. That was what his father, and his father's father had done before him. But in the Dragonborn's New Tamrilic Empire, his keen mind, combat skills, sheer determination, and unquestioning loyalty had allowed him to rise through the ranks on his own merit. Now he was not merely a part of the great adventure, he would be one of the few who shaped the future.

Aethilis was snapped out of his revelry by a distant sound. It began toward the front of the fleet, far from where the Maor Riel was positioned, and he had to strain his ears to hear it: a long blast of a horn. Aethilis' heart skipped a beat as the sound grew louder and louder. One by one, every ship in the fleet took up the call, the signal that their advance ships had spotted land.

Then the cheering began, tens of thousands of voices competed with the bellowing of dragons and the rhythmic hammering of swords and spears on shields. Tears welled in Aethilis' eyes as he punched a fist into the air and added his own voice to the roar. As one, the children of Tamriel raised a triumphant cry that shook the very heavens. Their voyage would be over soon, and then they would shake the foundations of the world. Aethilis wiped the tears from his eyes and stared back out at the horizon, and saw in his mind's eye the distant coast rising up out of the ocean to greet them.

"We're here," he whispered.