Saraven's heart sank as he recognized the swirl of black and crimson over Skingrad the next day. It was close to noon when they spotted the mass of black clouds on the horizon. Red lightning crackled as they drew closer, and soon the thunderhead was over their own heads, blotting out the sun and casting the world in eerie red light. The coverage of the forest grew sparser and sparser, and soon they came to the valley full of pastures and farmland that sprawled across the countryside outside the city proper.
The party stopped dead in their tracks at the top of a modest hill after they'd cleared the woods. The farms in the valley below were nothing more than black scorches on the earth. The charred skeletons of houses dotted the landscape, some of them still smoking. The Western wall had fallen near the main gate, leaving behind a great pile of stone rubble. Beyond the wall was a trail of destruction where a siege engine had come through, tearing down anything in its path.
The gate to the Deadlands was still open just outside the ruined wall, a cluster of strange buildings around it. Zudarra's first impression was that they were tents; like yurts, but taller and conical. A familiar veiny red membrane stretched across bonelike protrusions that grew from the ground. One panel was left skinless from the midpoint to the ground, a doorway that they watched armored dremora enter or exit. Every now and then a dremora came carrying a screaming prisoner to one of these tents, or into the portal. Broken mortal bodies were littered throughout the camp. The dirt road that led from the city was stained red with blood.
Galmir hadn't seen the sight yet. His view was blocked by Zudarra's enormous back. The Khajiit looked aside at Saraven.
"Late," he growled under his breath. He stamped down the flood of inner recrimination – if he had not tried to feed Zudarra, if he had not been stupidly sentimental, if they had been able to leave a day earlier!
"We should tie the horses up here," she said gravely.
"Yes," he agreed with Zudarra gruffly, and swung down to stake Ves loosely under a tree where there was grass. "We won't be done when the gate's closed. It looks like they're entrenched." He scowled heavily, turning to stare down the hill. "They'd be some time rooting out all the survivors, at least. Skingrad is a maze, and some of the houses are connected at the basement and rooftop level. Can't tell if they've captured the castle from here, but I'll wager not." Castle Skingrad was separated from the city by a high, narrow bridge, eminently defensible. Anyone who had managed to flee there before the portcullis came down was probably safe enough for now, and he doubted whether a siege engine the size of the one that had destroyed the wall could travel over it without the bridge collapsing. The Count's fabled sorcery was obviously not enough to fight off a daedric army single-handed, but surely he had been able to save some within the walls.
They might be ignored on a walking approach through the fields, but surely they would be noticed as they approached the camp with its dreadful tents. The idea of stealth did not even suggest itself to Saraven. There were stereotypes of what Khajiit were like, and then there was Zudarra.
"Getting to that gate alive won't be easy," he said, staring down the hill with a hand on the hilt of his longsword.
Galmir jumped down so Zudarra could more easily dismount and gasped when he finally saw the destruction that lay before them. Zudarra could hear his heart pounding as his breathing quickened, face twisted in terror. He'd been calm all morning from her feeding last night; both because he was weak from blood loss, and because he was falling deeper into thrallhood. This was the first time today he showed any emotion.
"Don't look at it, Galmir," she said, and clanked down in the next moment. The Bosmer obeyed quickly, looking down at the ground instead. His knuckles went white, fists clenched at his sides. She led Shadow to a different tree and tied the reins to a low branch.
"You're to wait here with the horses. Eat if you get hungry." She pulled her own shoulder bag off, full of provisions Lavinia had forced on her, and laid it by the tree.
"It seems like we'd be spotted from the road if we walk straight up," Zudarra said to Saraven, coming to stand beside him. "I can become invisible, but that doesn't do anything to hide you. Want to be my diversion and throw yourself at them?" She grinned toothily at him in jest.
He raised an eyebrow at her, lips twisted to one side.
"It worked once before," he said. "How long can you make it last?" The old ones could stay invisible an inconveniently long time. He had generally found them by their irritating tendency to attack his mind, or waiting until they got impatient - probably aggravated by whatever it was that had made Zudarra bite him, now that he knew about that.
"Not long, I don't think," Zudarra admitted, a bit surprised he'd been agreeable to that. "I very rarely do it; stealth isn't my style. A few minutes at most. But then I'll be in the gate and you'll be swarmed with enemies."
"Oh. I thought you were going to kill them all while I distracted them," he said dryly. "Why don't you sneak around while they're trying to figure out why one lone mer is approaching them and kill, say, two different ones at different areas of the camp? We'll try to make them think they're being attacked by a larger force from within the city, and then try and get into the gate while they're confused. They won't shoot me right away. They're cruel. They like to play with their food first."
"...Yes, that's a good idea," Zudarra said after a long, thoughtful pause while the rusty gears in her brutish mind turned slowly. Then she clapped Saraven on the back hard enough to knock him forward. "I knew you'd be good for something. Come on, then. I can run faster than you and my invisibility won't last that long, so get a head start down the valley."
She waited until the Dunmer was at the halfway point between the hilltop and the city, then closed her eyes to concentrate. Zudarra only used this trick the few times she fed on people in public and feared being seen as she left, but that was a rare occurrence. A sensation not unlike the release of magicka rippled across her fur, and when Zudarra opened her eyes she couldn't see her own muzzle, nor her hands as she held them up. There was no time to waste.
Saraven could hear the clanking of her armor from behind and then a breeze as she gusted past him at breakneck speed. She bounded past the portal to where a lone mage stood, a fair distance away from any others. They were all staring with curiosity at the Dunmer on the horizon, flames already crackling in some of the mages' palms.
The mage started at the sound of approaching armor, looking around for the source of the noise, but Zudarra was already behind him, slamming into his back with one arm and grabbing the top of his head with the claws of her other. His yelp was cut short as she yanked backwards with all her vampiric strength. CRACK. She let the body crumple in a heap before darting away to her next victim.
Some others in the nearby group saw the body fall.
"Archers, from the city!" one of them shouted.
"You idiot, there's no one left on the wall."
"There has to be. Imago just went down."
They were turning and watching the wall now. Zudarra picked another who was alone, snapping his neck as easily as the first.
"Skingrad yet lives! To me!" Saraven shouted as he drew his sword. A female dremora – she had to be, her breastplate had sculpted breasts on it – drew a bead on him with a bow from the entry to a tent, grinning as she realized he was alone. Others who had already been outside looked from him to the walls, unsure which direction to face.
"You will fall, mer of Nirn," the dremora called out to him. "Abandon hope and die."
"Hope left me in Cheydinhal," he said, voice harsh as he drew nearer. "And yet I live."
"You will have time to learn your place," she said, and loosed an arrow. Used to trying to cope with vampiric reflexes, Saraven was already rolling forward over his right shoulder when he heard the string creak, longsword held to the side to avoid stabbing himself. He balled up the lightning in his left hand as he moved, and when he came to one knee he loosed it. The dremora jerked in place, snarling in pain, and the arrow was loosed to fly in a random direction. It pierced the wall of a tent, and there was a harsh scream from within.
Saraven was already up and moving. She did not have time to repent her mistake as the Dunmer slashed into her throat above her gorget, opening a wound from chin to ear. He evaded a wild swipe easily and continued his progress toward the gate, listening to the gurgle of the creature dying behind him as he accelerated into a run.
"Arazed has fallen!" someone shouted behind him. There was an argument in the dremora tongue, probably over who was next in the chain of command – he had slain an officer, he realized as he drew nearer the crimson membrane. A glance backward showed arrows being fired out of a tent, but not at him; whomever the dying female had hit was attacking anything that moved.
Zudarra felt a tingle across her skin, her cue that the invisibility would fade soon. Saraven had performed his role beautifully and was running for the portal, so Zudarra did the same. She didn't hesitate this time, leaping into the fiery membrane with eyes wide open. The dizzying sensation of moving sideways through space lasted only a moment and then her paws thudded on the arid ground of the Deadlands.
The portal had deposited her on a large, flat tract of land, but before her rose a sheer cliff that completely blocked the horizon. A hole had been carved through the center and obstructed by a set of massive iron double doors, large enough for two siege engines to crawl through side by side. In fact, only one of them had, judging by the tracks on the ground. The gate in the cliff was currently shut, and there seemed to be no other way around, as an ocean of lava gurgled from all sides.
Two tall, spiny pillars rose from the ground on either side of the gate. Their basic shape was conical, a head mounted at the top of each that was very much like the eye of the siege engine. Long, curved horns protruded from the heads. Luckily, the area was quite deserted, so they would have plenty of time to tackle this obstacle.
Saraven was already there, longsword at the ready. He turned when he heard heavy feet land beside him.
"Well done," he said. "Did it perfectly." He started forward, looking around narrowly. "There's got to be another way in. They can't open the gate every time one warrior needs to go in or out on an errand." He saw no one watching from above, but the cliff top was so far away that it was possible they would neither see them nor be seen by them at this distance. His mithral chain would produce a twinkling pinpoint against the black, rocky ground; Zudarra's duller armor might not appear at all.
Along the shore stood ranks of plants he had not yet seen, neither the veiny gray grass nor the whiplike vines. These were waist-high gray stalks with a big dull yellow bloom atop every stem. They were dark red and granular at the centers, disturbingly like the surface of a deep wound. They swayed gently in the hot wind off the lava.
"Let's get a closer look at that gate," Zudarra said, setting off for the iron doors.
As they neared the rock wall, they could see that some of the vertical crevices in the base of the cliff seemed to be deep, possibly leading into the mountain.
When they were about thirty feet from the massive gate, the heads atop the twin pillars suddenly started spinning. They rattled as they picked up speed, the single-eyed heads whirling faster and faster. Zudarra stopped in her tracks, head snapping up to the curious sound.
Fireballs burst from each, one flying for the Khajiit and the other toward the Dunmer. From that distance Zudarra dodged easily, but the startelement of the unexpected attack made her fur stand on end. She backpedaled until the whirling head slowed to a halt.
Saraven paused as well, staring up at the towers, and then dove and rolled backward to avoid the resulting fireball. It heated the armor on his right side as he scrambled back out of range.
"Hm." He surveyed the towers, eyes narrow, and then the walls on either side of them. "If we can get to the wall and into a crack we'll be out of their range. You might be able to run in a straight line, you're fast. I'll have to try and serpentine. Are you willing to go first and try and find a tunnel, so I know where to aim for?"
"Yes. Hold on." She darted for the wall to the right of the gate. The pillar started whirling and spitting out fireballs. She felt the heat of some on her tail, but she was too fast a target for them to hit her. The first crevice she came to was too shallow upon closer inspection, but the next looked deep.
It would be a tight squeeze for her, but possible. The wall leading in was covered with red vines. Zudarra recoiled in disgust as they writhed, sensing someone was near. With no other choice, she ducked inside the crevice just as fire exploded against the outside wall. The whip-like vines lashed out as she passed, raking her with knife-sharp edges across the face and slapping against her armor. Without thinking she snarled and ripped a handful of vines from the wall with her bare hand. The remaining tendrils jerked as if injured and she jumped back deeper into the cave out of their reach.
Her face and hand stung horribly. She looked down at her palm, covered in deep cuts from the sharp vines. She released a tiny puff of healing magicka and glared at the entrance for Saraven, tail lashing wildly behind her. She was in a foul mood now.
The black skin of Kahzarku's new face was smooth and unmarked. The tattoos that chronicled his deeds and the rings on his horns that named him Kynreeve must all be earned anew. Arazed had taken his place as leader, a dishonor from which Kahzarku thought he might never recover. He walked with other Caitiff now, shamefully looking into the faces of the worms he once commanded.
He would claw his way up the ranks again, Kahzarku had no doubt. The war against Mundus would give him plenty of chances to distinguish himself. In the meantime he had mortals to abuse in his anger, although the flaying and burning was no longer his right. He was stuck fetching those wailing puke stains for the enjoyment of his superiors, a fact that made Kahzarku tremble with rage.
His clan's present posting was Agesh, an island on the other side of the world. Kahzarku was not aware of the fact that the mortal city he now stood before was a day's ride away from the city where he failed to capture Martin Septim and was slain by a mortal.
Every line of that mortal's gray face was etched into his mind. He did not expect to get revenge. The mer would be dead in the blink of an eye, forever robbing Kahzarku of the ability to redeem himself.
When shouts from outside provoked Kahzarku to step from the war tent, the iron hammer slipped from his hands. He'd been driving stakes through the limbs of some golden-skinned mer, pinning him to the ground for Arazed's later enjoyment. He continued to moan painfully behind the dremora. His tongue had been cut to end his incessant pleading.
It was him. The gray mer in his mithral armor cut down Arazed with ease and fled to the portal. The anger at seeing his clan sister and Kynreeve shamefully die was dwarfed by the joyful realization that Kahzarku might reclaim a piece of his honor this day. Argument broke out, and he knew there would soon be a duel to decide her successor. No one cared about the lone mortal who ran to his death when such important matters were at hand.
Kahzarku waited for the fighting to escalate before following. Someone might try to steal his kill if he showed interest, but the mortal would be his alone. When he was sure that no one was paying him any mind, Kahzarku strode through the portal without missing a beat. His eyes immediately landed on the lone figure in front of the gate, no doubt wondering how to get through to the tower.
"Mortal! Your day to bleed has come!" Kahzarku bellowed, hefting his battleaxe from its harness and breaking into a run.
Saraven watched the Khajiit, poised on the balls of his feet. She moved almost too fast for his eyes to track, but he had been watching vampires run for long enough to watch for the telltales: puffs of dust rising from the dirt along her path, little impacts of her weight hitting, harder and deeper from the sheer power of each impact traveling at such a speed. So he was able to see where she disappeared into the cliff, something moving at the entrance around her. Vines? Some creature? He started to move after her when he heard a shout from behind him. He turned to see a dremora in armor charging toward him, battleaxe in hand.
He had seen many faces of many dremora in the last week of his life. It was not impossible to determine differences in their features, in the shades of black-red-brown-orange in their mottled skins, in the size and shape of their horns. The voices still sounded alike to him, but this one seemed oddly familiar somehow. Those exact horns he was sure he had seen, though the face had been covered in swirling marks -
The first gate. He had an eye on his breastplate.
"You again," Saraven grunted. He had heard that daedra could not easily be killed forever, that they would make their way back through the waters of Oblivion again and again. He turned to move into the charge, letting the dremora build up momentum and then dodging to his left as he swung, under the blade of the axe. This time he was ready for a back-swing of the haft, and he kept spinning, trying to slash at the underarm where padding replaced armor.
The mortal's blade glanced off Kahzarku's armor, narrowly missing the seam, and the dremora's own backward stab met with nothing but air. This mer was an agile creature and had learned well from their last meeting. Kahzarku sneered at the mortal as he turned to face him, axe resting comfortably in his hands.
"So you remember. Good. It will please me all the more if you know who disembowels your broken body while you watch," he growled and lurched for Saraven with the battleaxe still held close to his face, feinting a blow with the head of his axe, but shifting his hands before momentum could build and striking at the Dunmer's right hand with his haft instead.
Saraven dodged to the right too late to realize what was happening, and the haft of the axe smashed into his right hand with an audible crack as he felt a bone snap. He lost his grip on the longsword as pain flared through his palm and fingers. His left hand caught the falling sword as he kept moving, teeth bared in silent reaction. He had never been fully ambidextrous, but he was at least competent with the longsword left-handed.
His own weapon weighed too much to outmaneuver the swift-footed mortal under normal circumstances, so Kahzarku would just have to even the playing field. He grinned at the sound of crushing bones, shifting his weight to the right and kicked at the Dunmer's knee, always holding his axe high to guard his face.
Saraven twisted away in time to save his knee, but the blow thudded into his left thigh, knocking him off balance. The world became a kaleidoscope of black earth and red sky as he rolled away, aching from the new bone-deep bruise. The dremora was fighting smarter than he had last time, actively trying to leverage his greater strength to negate Saraven's speed advantage. Perhaps there was something to the tales of dremora cunning after all, more than the screaming torture-obsessed thugs he had seen so far. For now the Dunmer scrambled frantically away, trying to put distance between them and regain his balance.
The dremora finally hefted the axe over his head, every step a heavy clatter as his daedric boots stomped over the dusty ground towards the rolling mer. He slammed the weapon down just as Saraven scrambled aside, the bladed edge driving deep and sticking itself in the earth. Kahzarku growled in annoyance, yanking the weighty axe head back from the ground. He fell back a step under the sudden burden as it came free.
Where is Zudarra? Saraven wondered. She would never run from a fight. She must be trapped in the cave somehow, perhaps tangled in the vines. He needed to go after her. What if she had run into a flame atronach in an enclosed space? He was startled to find he felt real apprehension. For all their mutual dislike, she was the person with whom he had interacted the most over the last week – probably over the last year.
But the puff of blue magicka as he healed his hand reminded him of something he had momentarily forgotten. Saraven jerked his left hand forward, palm splayed as he let the lightning go.
Kahzarku was too slow to dodge the lightning at that range. He jerked as it hit and fell back, clutching the haft of his weapon tightly as he twitched silently on the ground. Steam rose from the chinks of his armor as daedric flesh cooked. He was left staring up at the rolling black clouds when it was done, eyeballs bulging from their sockets and muscles still spasming. He tried to move; there was too much resistance, too much pain. There was too much numbness in the worst parts for Kahzarku to know that his skin and flesh had melded with his armor padding and sloughed off when he fell.
Halasse had waited in the dark for some time, dreaming in the heat. She had found her way to this place after her last death, furious at the betrayal of her sister, seeking a nexus of power with more rage and less subtlety than that of her progenitor. Selanne had broken a rule; backstabbing and poisoning and child-murder were for the Fifth Strand, the Cavern of No Law. Halasse would find her way back to the tight halls of Envy in the Second Strand of the Spiral Skein one day, in the fullness of time. For now she basked in the warmth and the darkness and the sweet, hot blood of Dagon's children.
They were so indignant when they fell paralyzed into her embrace, furious that they had been overcome by stealth. She rejoiced in their dying struggles, ever in denial of their fate, but she missed mortals. Mortals knew that they were meant to die, to submit, to fall, and she lived for that last moment of exhausted acceptance, when they yet lived but had ceased to struggle, when she might pause to sing to them and caress their pretty faces before she had her last drink. Dremora or mortal, her victims did not suffer. Her venom anesthetized them against pain, numbing them, weakening their struggles.
Against the black stone with its veins of orange and red she was nearly invisible. The spider that she was from the waist down was black with threads of crimson woven through her exoskeleton. The chitin climbed her torso to form a rough corset against her chest, over the features that had no function or meaning in a creature that did not nurse her young. Her face and hands were dead-white, symmetrical, beautiful as a statue is beautiful – the perpetual half-smile on her perfect mouth was cold, perpetually amused. Her lips were red and slick in the darkness, her eyes white as web, white as mortal seed. She was without a headdress in this place, with no access to less clever or potent sisters who might be deceived into a sensual embrace that would then be their last in that incarnation. Her white hair hung lank and shining around her shoulders.
She had no children with her in this place of rage and darkness. They had fallen when she fell, and they had to make their own way through the Waters as best they could. Perhaps they had come to other shores. Perhaps they had been lost in the stream. She had amused herself with the bodies of one or two of her victims so far – she had a venom sufficient to that use – but she was not yet gravid. The species of the father would not matter. All of her daughters would be as she was.
Now she heard a snarl from the outer cavern as someone fought their way in through the harrada. Halasse smiled sweetly and crept toward the sound on swift and silent feet, her mouth watering with the First Venom. She thought she heard something new, not quite the sound of a dremora's voice, not quite a mortal's scent. She dodged around a corner and spat at the shape that loomed between her and the light.
Zudarra had been distracted by the vines, but now she took note of an odd scent. Everything in the Deadlands was alien and strange, but she'd been there twice now and was growing accustomed to its smells. The sulfurous stink of the air, the ancient and earthy black stone, even the bizarre half-living flesh sacks were recognizable. This was a new living thing. Just as she lifted her nose to better scent the air, she heard a faraway shout.
Saraven!
Before she could twitch, something wet splattered the back of her head. The Khajiit whirled to see what had hit her, hand flying to her scalp to touch the moisture in her fur. White skin and white eyes seemed to glow in the light from the mouth of the cave. Snarling, Zudarra leapt at the new daedra with vampiric speed, black claws gleaming as they extended to dig into the flesh of its humanoid upper body. Even as she jumped the venom tingled through her pads where she'd touched it and Zudarra felt her muscles stiffen as it spread.
Halasse was taken by surprise at the creature's speed, so much faster than one of Dagon's children. She hissed as black claws raked the soft flesh of her chest and right arm, blood springing to the surface. She scuttled backward with a sound like a box of dice rattling, no longer attempting stealth, and spread her hands in supplication. Healing power spiraled in from palms to body.
She watched the creature stiffen and start to topple forward, and she grinned, showing her sharp fangs, and darted forward to catch her – yes, her, Halasse's hand cupped the shape of a breast molded into her armor. She sank to the floor with the heavy weight cradled in her arms.
"Shh, shh," she cooed. "There's a pretty thing." She spoke Cyrodilic. She had mastery of several tongues over a long existence of preying on many beings that spoke and bargained and reasoned, all very entertaining if you weren't too hungry.
Something was different about this one. It wasn't the fur – her hand stroked the soft coat on the mortal's face with pleasure – but the feeling of strangely cool flesh, cool even for a mortal creature. The teeth seemed long even for one of the furred ones. The half-shut eyes were red.
"Here is something new," she said. "Are you bitter or sweet, hmm? Have you secrets to tell? You may speak, you know. The First Venom goes from the tongue first of all."
Zudarra glared up at the white face, lips trembling over her fangs as the creature stroked her face almost lovingly. Frothy spittle dripped from her open mouth as her tongue fluttered uselessly, aching for the taste of the blood she still smelled on her claws. Her arms twitched, fingers clenching and unclenching in a weak fist but she was unable to raise her hands as she wanted. Her limbs had become dead logs, heavy and useless.
"I'll... kill you!" Zudarra snarled, an animalistic cry that was more shriek than words.
The spider daedra clucked her tongue. "Tsk, tsk. I didn't think you were going to be boring. Well, let's have a taste, then." She bent to thumb loose the clasp of the creature's gorget and flip the panel aside so that she could lean down, rubbing her cheek against the mortal's soft fur. "Cold, cold for a child of Nirn. How do we solve this riddle, Hm?" She sank her teeth in slowly, enjoying her victim's tremors of outrage and fruitless struggle. The big vein was in the right place, at least.
Zudarra jerked against the touch of fangs on her neck but her movement amounted to only a twitch. The puncture hurt more than she would have expected - none of her own victims ever thrashed or made a cry of pain - and the sickening sensation of blood being sucked left her trembling in impotent rage. It happened so easily. Zudarra was utterly powerless to defend against the violation.
Halasse sipped lightly at first, raising her head to lick her lips. Blood streamed slowly from the punctures.
"Hmm. Bittersweet, my dear, not very tasty, not very warm. Almost as though one were already dead. Aha, I have it!" She grinned down at her victim, reaching up to scritch between the cream-colored ears. "One of the transformed, the mortal putting on immortality. Are you a daughter of Rape or of Wishes, Bal or the Vile?"
The gentle touch and friendly chatter was a humiliation Zudarra could not bear. She slashed at the daedra's face, muscles straining as if pushing through tar, but there was little force behind the blow with her arm trapped between their bodies and Zudarra's own body fighting her movements.
Halasse recoiled, blood running hot down her cheek from the mortal's claws. She dropped the mortal, letting her flop to the hot stone floor as she scooted her abdomen backward. Zudarra landed on her back with a painful jolt, the clank of steel plates echoing dully in the cave. She struggled to roll to her side but only succeeded in a pitiful rock. "Hasss! Well, that's rude. If I had children you'd be in for a nibbling, my dear. Pity you are cloven and not crested. Your daughters would be strong ones."
"My friend outside would be happy to sire your daughters," Zudarra ground through clenched teeth, grinning mirthlessly.
Sorry, Saraven, she thought. I need the time. She'd heard the noise of distant battle and knew something deadly had Saraven held up; maybe something he couldn't face alone. But Zudarra could already feel her clenched muscles begin to relax, far too slowly for her to be useful anytime soon. If she had to pick between the Dunmer's survival and her own, Zudarra would pick herself. She doubted the spider would take her bait after she'd already demonstrated she wasn't fully paralyzed, but she had to try.
"Oh, did you bring a friend?" Halasse delicately tip-tapped around her and edged over to peer out of the cavern-mouth. The harrada was still retracted from the immortal's attacks on it earlier; one strand that tentatively prodded her was impatiently swatted away. She thought that the immortal was probably trying to trick her, but you never knew your luck.
A gray-skinned, white-haired creature in very shiny chainmail stood facing one of Dagon's children who was even now falling. As Halasse watched he moved forward, raising a daedric longsword.
"Wait!" she called out. The mortal paused, looking around warily. "I have something of yours. Trade?"
"Trade what?" his voice was a rough, scraping noise in his throat, without melody.
"Him. If he's not dead I can heal him enough to feed me well." He would taste considerably better than the bitter-blooded vampire, and she doubted seriously whether the gray one would entertain a salacious offer. He was a dour-looking sort.
The mortal peered down at his foe, then over at Halasse waving from the crack. "I'd never get him past the towers."
She sighed in exasperation, glancing over her shoulder. "Oh, fine. I'll come to you." She loathed being in the open, but she knew there was no way he could carry a dremora in full armor fast enough not to be set on fire. Halasse set out across the black earth, scuttling in a zig-zag pattern; the towers lit and spun, but they spat in vain at the fast-moving spider daedra as she skittered across the black earth.
When the tak-tak-tak of the spider daedra's feet grew faint, Zudarra threw her weight into another roll. This time she was able to get up on one elbow, and could look around better at the cave. The narrow entrance opened into a wide tunnel, and she saw many branching paths further on. She might be able to hide while the daedra was distracted, if only she could get her limbs to cooperate. Her legs twitched unresponsively.
Saraven watched the daedra approach warily, backing up beyond the prone dremora. He believed the creature was even still conscious, though he must be in terrible pain. It had been his intention to stab him in the eye.
"You said you have something of mine," he said as the spider daedra drew nearer. She smiled winningly, eyes flat-white and almost unreadable above her wet red lips. She clasped her hands at her midriff, looking at the dremora and over at him.
"Why yes, your angry friend with the bitter-tasting blood, Molag's child. She said you would sire my little ones gladly, but I think she was probably lying to get me to leave the cavern. Silly girl. She's still paralyzed, you know."
"Hm. What would that mean, exactly?"
"Oh, it would be very easy for you. I have a special venom for it and everything," she assured him, looking at him demurely sideways.
"Not reassuring," Saraven said.
"Look, at least let me eat Dagon's child there, you're not doing anything with him."
Saraven shrugged. "All right. I'm going to get Zudarra."
"That sounds to me like an excellent bargain. Shoo shoo." The spider daedra ticker-tapped over to lean over the dremora and spit onto his face. The moment the venom had begun to sublimate from his skin she clapped her hands over him, blue healing power spiraling upward. Saraven backed away as she settled downward onto her abdomen, reaching out to gather the prone dremora into her arms.
Kahzarku growled through his nose as the pain faded, but one form of paralysis had been exchanged for another. The axe slipped from his hands as the daedra lifted him, too heavy to be held without the full cooperation of his muscles.
"You're a handsome fellow," Halasse crooned to the dremora as she enfolded him in her arms, white bosom against his cheek. "What's your name?"
She was not entirely finished with the other two, but she would have time enough to find them again. The caverns beneath the cliff were extensive, and she knew them very well; and why shouldn't she have a certain meal before she went chasing after an uncertain one?
Kahzarku swallowed thickly and realized his mouth was working.
"Release me, traitor! Those mortals threaten Dagon's realm!" he snarled, brow twitching furiously. He wanted to reach out and wring this insolent wench's neck. "The elf must die by my hand!"
"How original," Halasse said, stroking his black hair as she listened to his threats. "You know, nearly every one of you has called me that? It's almost as if you think I was made here." She looked around, but the black plain was still desolate; the army that had marched out was still in Nirn. Now she bent to undo the dremora's gorget. Blood beat hot and sweet under the skin, quickened by his fury. She stroked the great vessel with her nails, licking her lips, and then bent to sink in her teeth.
Saraven turned and sprinted for the cavern mouth, dodging to left and right to make his path less predictable. He heard fireballs impact behind him, one so close that it scorched the back of his boot. He hurled himself into the crack with sword outstretched, ready to hack at vine or web or whatever was there, but he found only the fleshy vines. They whipped at his armored torso quite without effect as he danced through into the heat and darkness.
Zudarra's ears flicked back towards the approaching footsteps, knowing it must be Saraven. She heaved herself to her knees now, leaning against the cave wall for support, unfastened gorget swinging freely. Her joints were locked up; she couldn't seem to pull herself up any farther.
"We have to get out of here!" Zudarra told the shadow in the doorway, stiffly turning her head to look at him. The fur of her neck was matted with blood, but the flow had stopped. The Khajiit was overcome with a sudden shame knowing Saraven would see it. The fingers of her right hand twitched and the punctures healed in a flash of blue.
Saraven moved forward, sheathing his sword as he looked quickly around them.
"Are you all right?" Her gorget was undone and the dust of blood was just puffing away from her fur after the healing. Your friend with the bitter-tasting blood. He bent to push his shoulder under hers, to help heft her onto her feet. He needed her well. He would just have to find someone to feed her quickly, that was all. She would be fine. She'll be fine. She'll be fine…
"I'm fine," Zudarra snipped, tail twitching. She was mostly mad at herself for being caught so easily, but Saraven was conveniently there, acting as if she needed help, and it was easier to be annoyed with him instead. She leaned her considerable weight on the elf as she stood. "The paralysis is wearing off."
She put one paw in front of the other and almost fell, but her arm around Saraven steadied her. Zudarra growled. The warmth of his body, his smell, the thudding of his heart were all so close, right under her nose. She glanced down at the leather gorget around his neck before looking back up the tunnel and limped forward, face tense with determination. When she could support her weight herself she yanked her arm away from the Dunmer and refastened her gorget without pausing.
The roughness with which she pulled away from him did not surprise him. He perfectly understood hating to admit weakness, and it eased his apprehension. A Zudarra acting like a complete ass was a Zudarra fully in command of herself, in fighting shape. Saraven let her determine their direction, knowing he lacked a Khajiit's sense of smell.
Have to get away from that daedra. Some of the tunnels were thick with her scent. Zudarra guided them down those that were not. The light of the entry had faded behind them, leaving them in the dark. Gray light shone from tiny natural air shafts here and there, but they were few and far between. She caught a faint trace of dremora and scamp, but the scents were so old they couldn't have been using these tunnels as a regular path around the gate. But it was too late to go back to the surface and find another. Zudarra reported as much to Saraven as they ran.
"Clannfear have been here most recently," she said. "And something else that I can't place. Something new."
"Oh, good," he said dryly. There was no point in asking was it a Xivilai, was it an atronach, was it something else; she no more knew what each of those smelled like than he did.
The tunnels seemed endless, a hell of black stone and heat. They ran for what felt like hours through the twisting passageways, choosing upward slopes when they could, but often forced downward instead. The black, scaly volcanic stone beneath their feet grew warm, the air stale and hot. They had just entered a large chamber, held up with natural pillars carved by ancient lava flow. Several other passages lead out in all directions. An orange glow and burbling whisper spoke of lava at the bottom of one downward sloping tunnel.
A wet squelch raised Zudarra's hackles, but it was just a fleshy pod clinging to a pillar with its long tendrils. The pod quivered, beads of sweat rolling across pale flesh, painted peach from the light of the tunnel. The raised vessels snaking across its skin pulsed faintly. In the absence of other sound, Zudarra could hear it loud as a drum in her ear.
"We'll take a break. You're probably tired," Zudarra said, tongue lolling from her parted mouth as she panted, and slowed to lean against a pillar. Her thoughts were slow and sluggish in this oppressive heat that baked the Khajiit in her armor. She envied Saraven for his mithral.
Saraven slowed willingly enough, looking around them. There was no telling whether they were even near the fortress now, or if they had wandered out under the blackened plain, moving toward an exit that would find them on some desolate promontory.
Zudarra pushed away from the pillar and walked to the farther end of the chamber, giving the pod a wide berth. Her nose twitched at the mouth of every tunnel, checking for the faint trace of fresh air that might herald an exit. None of them seemed good candidates, although one was thick with alien musk. That way was best avoided.
"It doesn't look good," Zudarra said, returning to Saraven. She couldn't imagine how thirsty he must be running along in this dry air. Zudarra's throat ached as well; her last feeding had been light, as it wouldn't take much to suck Galmir dry. She might try to exchange him for a larger slave when the chance arose, but for now they were both left parched in the sweltering heat.
A scrape of claw against rock. Zudarra's head jerked toward the tunnel she'd resolved to avoid in time to see a dark shape emerge from around the bend. It ambled forward and sat crouched in the mouth of the passage, using arms nearly as long as the rest of its body and short digitigrade legs to propel itself forward. The hands that it walked on were palmless, twin claws curved up and behind as it leaned on its knuckles.
The body was roughly humanoid in shape, covered in brown scales so dark that it nearly blended with the cavern walls. Without the glow of the lava a non-Khajiit might never have seen it at all. An oblong head whipped towards them, two little eyes on either side of its long snout winking at the trespassers in its lair.
No, Zudarra realized. The beast was eyeless, and the movement she saw on its face were flaring nostrils as it scented the air. Its head was armored in thick scales, a natural plate armor to shield the brains. A long, pink proboscis tipped with barbs slithered from a lipless hole on the end of it's tubular muzzle before zipping back inside. Zudarra had never seen an anteater personally, but vaguely knew they were native to a homeland she'd never seen. It reminded her of that.
Zudarra froze in place, staring at the strange creature, unsure what to do. Saraven did not hear what she heard, but he could follow where she was looking well enough. He stared into the darkness, trying to parse out the shape of another creature, and one hand went to the hilt of his longsword. Whatever they found in this place, it would not be friendly to strangers.
"What do you -" he started to say, and then a blur of brown scales shot out of the tunnel-mouth into the dim light of the room, leaping from it's short hind claws and stretching its long arms out to grab Zudarra. Too stunned was she to dodge and the daedra hit her square in the chest, knocking her down on her back. It's long claws gripped her shoulders as it clung to her. She jerked her head aside just as the thick proboscis stabbed the ground beside her head with a wet slurp.
Saraven drew his sword as they went down together, and now he could see the thing, an emaciated eyeless monstrosity unlike anything he'd ever seen. Saraven stepped forward, sword in hand, looking for a gap in the armored scales. Every creature had places where the scales were softer, thinner: under the arms, between the legs, under the chin -
Under the chin. There were heavy scales armoring the top of its head and face, but under its throat was nearly unprotected. Saraven lunged forward to stab at it with the longsword.
The creature's head turned to the sound of Saraven's footsteps and lashed at him backhanded, clubbing the Dunmer hard across the face with its long arm.
The thing's arm was all bone and scale, and it was fast, faster than he had expected. Pain exploded through the front of his skull. Saraven staggered back, black and white spots blotting out the world for a second as the longsword clattered on the floor.
Zudarra grabbed the arm still pinning her shoulder and hurled her weight aside, rolling on top of the daedra and slamming the long head to the ground with her free hand. It made a sound halfway between a hum and a gargle, deep and throaty. With a frenzied hiss the vampire forced her fangs through the softer scales of its throat, but like other daedra, it wouldn't succumb as she fed. It thrashed its legs and banged the free hand against her armor. The prehensile tongue shot from its mouth, waving in the air before slithering to its target above her gorget. Zudarra was oblivious to all of it, lost in a haze of pleasure as she swallowed her first gulp of daedric blood, until something tightened around her throat.
Saraven was on his knees when his vision cleared, sagging forward toward the floor. He caught himself on one hand. With the other he groped for the sword, shaking his head to try to dispel the cobwebs. His fumbling hand found the hilt, tightened around the hot metal. Even in Nirn it was always warm to the touch. Now the creature was on its back, entangled with Zudarra. He could hear her frantic swallowing, like a thirsty man under a fountain, completely unaware of the thing's tongue slithering around her throat. It was longer and taller than she was, but her body was bulkier; Saraven scrambled forward, seeking in vain for a way to get at anything vital. There was no going for its throat with Zudarra in the way; its face was armored; her armor covered its belly.
"Move, you have to move," he hissed at her.
Zudarra jerked away as the tongue coiled tighter around her neck, barbs digging into her skin. The touch panicked her; Zudarra did not need to breathe, but it was a habit still deeply ingrained. She rolled off the daedra away from Saraven and the creature followed, clambering on top of her again, slashing frantically at her face. Her arms flew to her head to protect from the blows.
Saraven breathed, in breathed out, trying to steady his vision, and stabbed at the side of the creature's chest, trying to slide in between its presumptive ribs while its arms were up trying to get at Zudarra's face.
The daedra shrieked its gargling wail as the blade pierced flesh, instinctively leaping aside but unable to uncoil its tongue from the Khajiit's neck fast enough. Its movement jerked her up by the neck. Rage burned in her red eyes, blood weeping from the gouges cut across her nose and brow. Zudarra grabbed the tongue at its base, barbs digging into the flesh of her palm as she squeezed, and yanked. With a wet tear and a pained howl the tongue ripped free of the daedra's mouth, blood splurting over Zudarra's greaves. It fell back and flailed on its side, long limbs striking out blindly and droplets of blood flinging as it thrashed and cried.
The noise was awful, piercing his ears and seeming to stab into his aching brain. Saraven moved quickly to decapitate the thing, falling to one knee and hacking at its scaly neck over and over. Zudarra scrambled up to hold two of the thrashing limbs as Saraven hacked. Blood spurted with every wet chop, pattering their faces, their armor, their hands. Zudarra's mouth fell open instinctively, watching the gory scene with wild eyes. The coppery tang was on her tongue and in her nose, flooding her mind with a desire for more.
Then the daedra sagged quietly under their grasp when Saraven finally succeeded in severing its head. The noise had finally stopped, leaving them staring across the lanky, twitching body at each other. Bloody chunks of meat that had been its neck glistening in the dim glow. It was dead and no longer appealing to the vampire, but the heady scent remained.
"Are you -" Saraven started to say, then paused, shaking his head. There was something he should be doing, but he couldn't remember what it was. His fingers had lost their grip on his sword, he realized in the moment before he crumpled onto his side, the room whirling around him.
The Khajiit looked vacantly at the Dunmer as he spoke and then as he collapsed, sword skittering across stone. She surged forward over the corpse of the daedra, its long tongue still draped over her shoulders, grabbing the mer by the arm and hauling him up. He flopped like a rag doll in her grasp.
Furred lips curled back over wet fangs and the vampire mindlessly descended on the leather-bound neck, but her teeth bumped something stiff and unyielding. The scent and texture was all wrong.
Saraven's gorget. Zudarra's eyes widened in horror as comprehension dawned. What was I about to do? She shifted the mer in her arms, cradling his head against the crook of her arm and laying her palm on his chest. Healing light embraced Saraven, washing from torso to head and boots.
"Saraven?" she asked, eyes and ears trained expectantly on the Dunmer's face. Her voice trembled.
He was not very aware of what happened between when he fell and when he was healed. He thought that there was something wrong with his neck, his gorget suddenly tight, but that was all wrong and then blue light bloomed in front of his eyes and he was blinking up at Zudarra's face.
She tried to bite me, good Gods, she did it again. But her voice was not one of unrepentant predation. She sounded horrified at herself.
"I'm all right," he said. "Not your fault." He should have healed himself immediately when he knew he'd hit his head. They sneaked up on you, head injuries. He was getting old, that was what it was. Now he sat up slowly, reaching out to squeeze her arm.
"Daedric blood does something to you," he said. "It happened last gate, too."
Her face hardened to a cold, slightly irritated mask once again. Zudarra almost shoved him aside for the implication that she'd lost control. But her eyes shifted to the hand on her arm, then back to his face. His tone was not accusing and the touch was meant to comfort. Her tongue fluttered against her teeth in preparation for words, but Zudarra didn't know what she would say, so she shut her cracked muzzle and backed away. He could obviously stay up under his own power now.
"What in the hells is this thing?" she asked, rising and kicking the corpse with a paw. Anything to distract from the unspoken words and the shame twisting in her gut.
Saraven was right about me. I really am a monster.
Something wet rolled off the tip of her nose and Zudarra remembered her cuts. She yanked the severed tongue from her neck and threw it down, raising the other hand to heal minor wounds with a quick burst of magicka. The tongue smacked wetly against stone and she absently rubbed her damp fur where it had held her.
He watched her heal herself as he got up. She was in control now, certainly. She was doing the thing that she always did when she felt ashamed or uncertain, which was to get angry. He tried to imagine her as the ancient he had been projecting all this time, a cold and calculating intelligence, as enslaved by the lust for cruelty and inflicted pain as the lust for blood. He could not.
Saraven went to retrieve his sword.
"Never saw the like," he said. "But at least there's probably only one, or it would've attacked by now. We have to keep on."
Zudarra faintly hoped there were more. Its blood had been divine, and what little she'd been allowed was invigorating. If only they would relax as she fed. Perhaps Saraven could be convinced to help her lop off its limbs and tongue and cauterize the stumps with his flame. It would make a perfect portable snack, if only Zudarra trusted herself to stop drinking before it died.
"Yes, probably true," she said instead, and picked a tunnel that sloped upward.
The dremora's blood was delicious, and his furious imprecations amused Helasse for some minutes as she delicately sipped. Finally it occurred to her that the army would be back at some point, or someone from the fortress would look out and see her. She detached from his throat, licking her lips.
"Well, this has been delightful, but I think we'll have to continue a little later." She draped the dremora over her great tear-drop of an abdomen, where her backmost knees would keep him in place, and turned to make her run for the cavern. The towers' defenses singed her ankles, but they did not harm her, and they couldn't do much to her prize even if they had hit him full on. She batted away the harrada from the entrance before she slid inside, that they might not damage his face.
There was a cavern off the main, broad path where she sometimes stashed living playmates, the ones she planned to have her fun with for some time to come. It was a cozy little room, all rounded, like the inside of a bottle on its side. Webs lined the walls and floor. She tipped the dremora onto the floor, then dragged him over to arrange him sitting upright against the wall, humming to herself. She stood high on her tiptoes, bending her abdomen forward to spray him with web from her spinnerets.
"There," she said. "Now you just have a nice rest and I'll be back again before you know it. Ta."
Now, which way had they gone? Halasse tiptapped this way and that up and down the hallways, listening for a beating heart. Molag's child probably did not have one any more, but the mortal certainly did, she had heard it. Eventually she caught a faint scent of blood in the distance, but it was daedric, not mortal. Ah, well, perhaps they had gone that way and run into her friend the vermai. He wasn't much of a talker, but on the other hand, his scales were too thick for her to reasonably bite through. She slowed as she moved toward his lair, working to silence her footsteps.
Tsk. He was dead, his head chopped off and his tongue pulled out of his mouth. They were such naughty bunnies, these two from Nirn. They'd be great fun if only the vampire tasted better. She crept up the hallway after them, grinning as she waited to catch a glimpse of a tail or shiny armor.
Zudarra thought she heard something lightly ghosting across the stone behind them, but when she paused to listen better the lava gurgled from faraway chambers and it was impossible to tell what she'd really heard. She was probably still on edge from the earlier attack, Zudarra reasoned. She didn't want to ask Saraven to stop and let her check; she'd look paranoid then, and he'd already been witness to too many of her weak moments.
Not weakness, she reminded herself. Daedric blood clouding my mind, that's all. I didn't actually bite him.
This path twisted up and around, climbing higher than any they'd traversed so far. It widened into another large chamber and narrowed far ahead. More throbbing flesh sacs clung to the walls like nightmarish barnacles. Hot air wavered from tiny cracks in the floor, leading deep into the earth where churning magma lit the room from the bottom. None of the gaps were big enough to catch your foot in, but they would burn bare pads if stepped on.
The Khajiit's nostrils flared at a scent she was beginning to lose hope of ever catching again.
"Fresh air!" she exclaimed, voice echoing dully in the chamber. "It's a good thing I still bother to breathe." There was a definite draft of fresh air from the tunnel as they approached.
That actually startled Saraven into an amused exhalation. He sped up to move after her, longsword in hand.
Something wet hit him in the back of the head. Weakness spread through his body. He spun, staring down their back-trail at the smiling face of the spider daedra as he started to sag against one wall.
"Zudarra," he said. He managed to lift one hand in time to let go the lightning. The spider could not escape in the narrow space, shrieking as all eight legs convulsed, kicking and scraping at the walls as she slid back down-slope.
Zudarra whirled, drawing the greatsword from its unlined scabbard with an echoing shnk. She sprinted for the convulsing daedra, sword parallel to the ground and driven forward like a spear.
If the paralyzing venom touched her, they were both dead.
One chance. She launched herself forward with a raging roar, aiming to drive the blade through the heart of the deadra's humanoid torso.
The creature screamed, trying to scramble away, but she could not move fast enough, and she had not had time to heal her damaged nerves. The greatsword pierced her to the hilt, splitting her sternum with a solid shunk. Blood ran down her chin as she stared incredulously at Zudarra, mouth opening and closing, and she futilely tried to claw at the vampire's shoulders for a second before she finally stiffened, mouth yawning wide, and then went limp around the blade.
Saraven was left sitting in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He could not muster the energy to feel humiliated. He was beginning to feel very tired, as he had inside the first gate.
No. I will live. Zudarra will live. We will close the gate and escape. Tamriel needs us!
Zudarra's snarling glare transformed to a wide-mouthed grin as the daedra's groping arms dropped and the body fell slack. Bracing a hand against the flaring crossguard she twisted, relishing the sensation of serrated teeth ripping through flesh and organ.
"I hope you lasted long enough to feel that, you worthless shit," Zudarra spat, raising a finger to the corpse in an uncouth gesture. She yanked the blade back, blood gushing after it. Shreds of gore were caught in its teeth and Zudarra tapped it against the ground to knock them loose. The thick scent of blood in the air drove her wild with need again. She closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself, before turning to walk back to Saraven.
"Now that was satisfying. Paralyzed?" she asked in good humor, stabbing the glistening blade into a crack in the ground in front of the Dunmer and crossing her arms over the hilt.
Instantly he felt alive again. Annoyance was a warming emotion compared to cold exhaustion. "Yes, damn it," Saraven growled. Apparently his tongue had recovered first; he certainly was having no luck doing more than flopping his left arm around otherwise.
"Ah, damn," said the Khajiit, her smile growing. It really wasn't funny - every second spent here hurt their chances of survival - but she couldn't help it. "That's really inconvenient. I want out of these damned caves yesterday. I'd carry you out, but if something were waiting for us, your dead weight would get us both killed."
She wiped off her blade on a flesh pod nearby as best she could, leaving its skin smeared with red before she sheathed it. Then she clanked her back against the wall a few feet away from Saraven. She'd love to sit and rest, but it took too much effort to quickly stand wearing plate armor. No telling what might rush down the tunnel next.
She looked down at the paralyzed mer, remembering the shame and the horror of her powerlessness. She should not have teased him.
"Thanks for that, by the way. Your lightning bought me time to kill her," Zudarra said, softly.
He could move the muscles of his face. He managed about one half of a smile, the first time he'd tried to do it in... a year? Had it been that long?
"It was my privilege," Saraven said. He flopped his arm again. He could see his sword lying a couple of feet away. If he tried he could squeeze his toes inside his boots. He still ached all over, but that would heal fast enough when he could move. He wasn't passing out again, that was the important thing.
He seemed to remember a life of considerably more dignity than he'd had since he'd met Zudarra. He remembered a life gamely waiting for death, too. This was, admittedly, more interesting.
This reminded him of something. Aching, unable to move, slumped against hard stone. A man's face hovered in front of him, white in the dark, pale blond hair like many Bretons had.
Hello again, little hunter. Saraven's face grew hard and distant as images swam in front of his eyes. I see you're still with us. Let's have a go at that mind of yours again. You should give in, you know. It will bring you such pleasure to die in my arms.
Zudarra had noted his twitching arm and followed his gaze to the sword on the floor. She wondered if she should pick it up for him. She shrugged to herself, rolling one shoulder, and looked away to pretend she didn't see. Then the Khajiit sighed, pushed away from the wall, and walked in front of him to grab the weapon.
His face, when she glanced at it again, was odd. It was the same look he'd had back in Kvatch when he dropped the bottle.
"Hey... Saraven?" she asked uncomfortably, straightening slowly with his longsword in hand. Her tail tip moved in a little questioning curl.
Another voice was speaking, a voice that belonged also in places of darkness and danger, and yet it did not inspire him with hopeless, morbid loathing. Saraven blinked his eyes for the first time in several seconds and was looking at Zudarra. Muscles in his shoulders and neck unknotted.
Oh, good. I'm only half-paralyzed and trapped in the Deadlands without any certainty of getting back to Nirn again, and there's a good chance if I pass out, my vampire will eat me. But the relief he felt was real.
MY vampire!? What the HELLS, Saraven Gol.
"Still here," he said, shaking his head. Now he found he could open and close both hands, and he worked on shoving his way up onto his feet, leaning against the wall. "Thanks. Can't hang onto that damn thing today."
Zudarra would no doubt take exception to the Dunmer's thoughts if she had known them. She handed the sword off to him and moved away, pacing impatiently across the cavern while she waited for his paralysis to end. Zudarra's first impulse was to be annoyed with his mental infirmity. But if she were honest with herself, her problem was somewhat similar. Zudarra was not master of her faculties, something she had known for a long time but was only recently willing to admit to herself.
Weakness was inexcusable, whether in herself or in others. I'll find a way to stamp it out, and he had better do the same.
Saraven regained control of his limbs with embarrassing slowness, quietly healing himself to dispel the distracting ache. Zudarra did not watch, showing surprising mercy for her. Or maybe she was still embarrassed that she'd bitten his gorget.
It had been a very strange day.