Fragments of dream came and went - snarling dremora, a grinning Saraven, fire and lightning. None of it remained clear in her mind when consciousness finally dawned.
She was aware of bright light against her eyelids. Zudarra slowly opened her eyes, wincing against the light of late afternoon. She felt so warm with the blanket still wrapped around her, and most of the aches from earlier seemed to be gone. Her stomach complained as she sat up to look around for Saraven, but it was not the all-consuming pain of vampiric thirst. Her mind was finally clear.
The thralls were up again and sharing breakfast by the time she started to stir. At that point Saraven was squatting a couple of yards off, in process of flicking missed bits of dried gore out of the ridges of his daedric blade with a broken chain link. His face was relaxed, contemplative as he worked at the mundane task. He smelled cleaner, no longer reeking of battlefield gore, and his mail gleamed gently in the sun. The adamantium armor that lay near her was clean as well. Eventually he had been bored.
He raised his head as she sat up, then sheathed the sword.
"Afternoon," he said.
"Hello," she said lightly, looking around to see what all had happened while she was out. She noted that her armor had been cleaned as the sweet tang of oranges reached her nose. Galmir and Brithe were sitting nearby on the other bedroll, peeling oranges in their laps. The Bosmer nodded to her when she looked his way, without the dopey smile she was accustom to. He reached into the bag laying at his side and tossed an orange over to her.
"Thanks," she grunted. After her previously unpleasant meal she didn't expect to look forward to the chore of eating, but this time her stomach was settled and ready to accept the food. The fruit was so juicy, so overwhelming sweet to her senses that it was almost too much. She ate slowly this time, closing her eyes as she savored every bite. It was a pleasure so different from blood - gentle, calm, without any worry that someone would come bash her skull from behind while she was frozen in rapture.
"We've decided that we will go to Chorrol," Galmir announced to both of them, a little misty-eyed. Although his happiness with Zudarra and Saraven had been forced on him, it had been real, and he would miss their company. "We'll ride North with you until it's time to part ways, and feed you until then if you need it." Beside Galmir, Brithe nodded firmly.
"Thank you," Saraven said. "That's generous, and it makes things easier."
He slid a glance over to Zudarra, who seemed to be enjoying her orange more than was reasonable. Maybe she had forgotten what taste was like. Maybe he had forgotten what taste was like. Food had been ashes in his mouth for years, and after that he'd never allowed himself to stop and enjoy much of anything beyond the occasional dalliance with a guildmate.
It occurred to him to wonder if he was still functional. There had been no time to worry about anything remotely related to that, and it wasn't important in the long run, was it? He had never intended to sire further children even when he was alive. And he certainly wasn't going to ask Zudarra about it in front of the other two. Blood was a pleasure. Perhaps that was all there was.
"Are you able to ride out?" he asked Zudarra.
"Of course I am," Zudarra snipped indignantly, ears flicking back. Her eyes widened at a sudden realization, and then she closed her eyes and laughed, flashing her short fangs in a wide-mouthed cackle. Molag Bal doesn't own me anymore! I can ride out, but maybe I won't! She inhaled deeply to recover from the sudden burst of laughter and stood, flicking orange peel off into the grass and wiping her sticky fingers on her thigh. Saraven watched her carefully, thin lips pulled slightly to one side. He supposed being moodier than usual was a normal reaction to such an enormous and unexpected change, but it worried him nonetheless.
Saraven will go alone if you don't go with him. Her amused smile fell away and she looked at Saraven very seriously. He must be wondering what had been so damn funny; Brithe was eating calmly, paying no attention, but Galmir was staring at her in confusion. She didn't feel the need to explain herself.
"Saraven. I'm sorry you didn't get cured," Zudarra said, pushing away her previous thought. She wasn't sure what she was going to do yet. "Did anything even happen when you drank that potion? You look the same."
"I have what I truly wanted," he said quietly. "I have control. But it didn't hurt. I'm sorry you had to go through that."
She stared at him curiously for a moment, then glanced back at Galmir and moved closer to Saraven, shoulder to the Bosmer to exclude him from the conversation. He seemed to understand her meaning; he patted Brithe's shoulder and stood, packing up the bedrolls and supplies so they could be underway.
"You were ready to throw yourself into the fire a few days ago. Are you saying you don't mind being a vampire anymore?" Zudarra asked in a low voice.
"I mind it much less," Saraven said. "Now there's no chance I'll kill someone without knowing what I'm doing. My mind is completely my own, and that... was not the case any more at the time we met. Everything is clearer. I didn't want to go back to the way things were, but if it was that or risk committing murder every time I was thirsty I was prepared to accept it. I will always have the shame that you had to keep stopping me, but at least now it'll never happen again." He glanced at the other two seriously, thinking of the moment when she had literally, physically pulled him from the Nord's throat. "I can accomplish more this way. I was never going to have a life of quiet retirement even if the gates had never opened, you know. I would have kept going until I froze at the wrong time, and then one of them would have killed me."
Zudarra silently considered his words as she moved to dress in her armor, starting with the pieces she could reach on her own. She hated that this had to be done with Saraven and everyone else watching. Zudarra knew that she would struggle with the weight of it. But she had worn heavy armor before she turned, damn it, and it had never troubled her then. She just wasn't used to this drastic reduction in strength.
It seemed as though Saraven was actually happy with how things had turned out. Zudarra couldn't say that she was. Everything she had known, most of all her confidence in her own abilities, was in shambles. But at least it was a relief to know she did not have an eternity in Bal's desolate ruin to look forward to. In a way, a weight had been lifted. She finished strapping her grieves and looked back at Saraven's face, smirking knowingly.
"The power is seductive, isn't it? Now you know why I let myself turn. Help me with this," she said.
"Yes, it is," he said grimly, and moved to pick up the cuirass. "I had never understood how many different reasons there could be for wanting to stay this way." He had seen only predators and victims. There had probably been scores of other vampires who were more careful, who did not wantonly kill, who could resist the allure of his blood as he slept. There were probably more than he had ever known.
The crushing weight increased with every piece of armor added, but Zudarra bore it better than she had that morning. Saraven was careful not to let weight transfer in each piece until he was sure she could hold up under it. Fully armored, she found that she could still carry the adamantium without a vampire's strength, although she felt obscenely sluggish. Zudarra was glad she had picked up a smaller sword earlier. She seriously doubted she'd be able to swing a two-handed weapon any time soon, and couldn't bear the shame of having anyone know it.
Saraven realized he would have to hold back to keep from outpacing her inside a gate. That was fine. He was not an impatient mer.
His mind flew to other precautions as he followed her to Shadow to give her a boost into the saddle. Water. He had often been thirsty. He should get another water skin to carry with them now that weight was hardly an issue for him. It would be easily punctured, so the next time they were in a place that sold armor he would get a chainmail covering made for it. He checked the skin hanging from Ves's saddle horn and found it full; Brithe must have taken it to the river earlier. She climbed up behind him easily enough, arms around his waist. He reveled in his own discomfort as they rode to the North. He could hear her beating heart, feel the pulse in her wrists, her throat, and was tormented by gradually increasing thirst. He withheld the slightest twitch or growl as he sat relaxed in the saddle. I am the master of myself.
It was a warm, sunny day. Bravil depended on the water for its livelihood, and on less pleasant little industries; there was little farmland around it for the dremora to burn, and they had been occupied at the gate. They passed intact farms and fields as they rode North through the Nibenay Valley, the Upper Niben gleaming in the distance off to their right. They departed from the Green Road as it turned West in order to take a more direct path as the crow flies, but they would rejoin it at the great bridge across the river in order to turn Northeast. There were only a couple of bridges across the Niben, and without the ability to walk on water they must needs go by the Northern way or turn back for Leyawiin.
So they rode on through rolling green hills, surrounded by tall grass and bushy blossoms of lavender. Mushrooms grew in the shade of the green chestnuts and oaks. Saraven would swear that he saw a rabbit once, fluffy tail vanishing into a thicket of thorn bushes.
As they rode, Zudarra found herself weighed down by troubled musings as much as by her adamantium. It made no sense for her to continue on this journey, to throw herself into the path of danger for the sake of people she didn't know, for a nation she had no love for. Especially now, vulnerable as she was. She needed a month of training to relearn how to move in her armor and carry a blade.
But the crisis was happening now and Saraven would go to battle now if she left. He may think himself invincible, but he was not. Zudarra's heartbeat would quicken and her chest would constrict every time she returned to this thought. Thinking about Saraven had been annoying enough before, but now her body physically responded to her unwelcome emotions in the most uncomfortable ways.
I can think more about it later. No decisions need to be made now, Zudarra thought, and eventually found herself relaxing. The armor was growing hot and she removed the helm after a time, luxuriating in the sporadic gusts of wind that ruffled her fur and offered a brief reprieve from the heat. It was a tiny pleasure, but they were adding up. She could distantly smell Brithe and Galmir, but she was blissfully unaware of their heartbeats. She drank as the need arose and didn't even think of water in between the times when her mouth grew dry. Even with her worries about Saraven and the Deadlands, Zudarra found that she was more at peace now than she could ever remember. Had she forgotten what it was to be alive in only a year?
They heard the river long before they saw it, for the bridge increased the echoes. In fatter times there had occasionally been bandits staking out the bridge across the Upper Niben. The Legion would come and clean them out, but not so often that they were never present. Today the great bridge looked chill and empty even in the sun, a pale fog arising from the river that obscured the center from the travelers' eyes. It was broad enough that all three horses could walk abreast with room to spare, if they so chose. The horses' hooves seemed loud as they stepped onto cobbled stone again.
They had nearly reached the end of the great bridge when a distant, echoing clop turned Zudarra's ear and she looked behind them to see a horse-drawn cart approaching. Several blankets were tied down over a massive heap of things - Zudarra would guess furniture. A rolled up rug was jutting out from beneath one corner and wooden feet from another. From that distance and through the light fog Zudarra could just make out a family of four humans, one driving the small cart and the rest walking alongside it.
"They might have news," Zudarra said, reining Shadow up alongside the road at the end of the bridge to wait. Saraven reined up beside Zudarra, listening to the approach of four beating hearts. Two were small, weaker: children. It was an Imperial family with a boy and a girl. Brithe lifted her chin from his shoulder to look down the bridge at the strangers as they emerged from the fog. Ves whinnied a greeting at their horses, which was returned with a slightly different-toned noise that probably made sense to a horse. By their dress they seemed to be city-dwellers of the merchant class. The bottom of the lady's velvet skirt was stained with mud from the road and her brown hair was falling out of her braid. She grabbed the children by their hands as they approached, hanging behind the cart.
"Hello," the father said as he came within earshot, stopping his horse on the bridge. He was young and handsome, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a day's worth of beard shadow. "Not brigands, are you?" He smiled tiredly, as if they simply could not be, as he was no mood to deal with such a thing. He was unarmed.
"No. We were hoping you have news of other places? We're going to Cheydinhal, what of that? And Anvil?"
"Ah, that's good," the man sighed. "We're going to Cheydinhal as well. Word reached the Imperial City two days ago that the gate had been closed there and the city is untouched. I'm sorry but I can't say anything about Anvil, other than since that gate was closed there's been no news. No second gates have opened up in any of the cities, as a matter of fact, so I would say that it's safe."
It was natural to talk to the person wearing heavy, bright armor, Saraven thought as he listened. In Cyrodiil that carried the connotation of a relatively benign authority: the Legion, the Emperor's Blades, to a lesser extent the Fighters Guild. Bandits and brigands were clad in fur, in leather, in scrapped-together bits of dirty iron. Even the city guards kept their chainmail bright and their tabards clean; those with the worst reputations were the guards of Bravil, the dingiest city in Cyrodiil. The idea that Zudarra could be a bandit wearing ornate adamantium armor was as ridiculous as the idea of a clannfear wearing a hat.
Saraven bowed from the shoulders as he saw the woman's eyes on him, but did not feel the need to enter the conversation. He waited until both the sound of hoofbeats and the sound of heartbeats had faded before he said,
"If Cheydinhal is safe, we need not go there. Galmir, Brithe, we should part company here. You two can go on around the Ring Road, north to Chorrol."
"And where will you go?" Brithe asked, as she swung carefully down behind him. He dismounted to help her transfer her belongings to Galmir's horse.
"I'm for the City, back South across the Niben and then West and North to the bridge."
"Will you not be fed before you go?" she asked. "If there is no gate there it may be a long time for you."
Saraven hesitated, pausing with a hand on the saddle horn. She was correct. He didn't care for the idea that they would part company with her and Galmir each remembering him as the cause of their weakness, of their journey being slow; but he also did not want to be hungry when they reached the City, or handicap his own travel time by forcing himself to travel out of the sun.
Galmir had been very quiet that day. His mind was clearer than it had been in weeks and yet he felt that life was a dream, a nightmare he might wake from at any moment. The road blurred when he thought of Mileth but he would not allow himself to cry in front of Zudarra and Saraven. He missed the fog of complacency but could not return to that empty existence. He was beginning to look forward to their parting, when he could show weakness to someone else who knew his pain.
Galmir dismounted when the others did, as much to help them with the bags as to stretch his legs. He saw the hesitation on the Dunmer's face when Brithe suggested he feed.
"It's all right, Saraven. Like I said to Zudarra: If a single drop of my blood helps you defeat the daedra, I'm all for it."
"Then I will accept that offer," Saraven said quietly. Brithe moved forward first, then paused to stare at him as he held out his hand for hers. He would at least let them have the parting gift of some dignity. Know yourself. Feel no pain. He did not cloud her mind beyond the desire to keep it from hurting physically as he raised her wrist to his lips, not wanting to make it harder for them to ride out. He sank in his teeth carefully, slowly enough to be aware if she winced, but she waited patiently, feeling nothing.
It was as good as it had ever been, perhaps more because he had waited longer; he shut his eyes that they might not be seen to roll upward. Certainly it was less comfortable standing up, but that was all to the good if it made it easier to stop. This time he silently counted five before he let go – gently, detaching his lips without violent movement. It did not feel easy. It felt like pulling a tooth with pliers. But he was able to do it, and that was all the difference in the world.
"This is all?" Brithe said, looking at him in surprise as he healed the small wound. It gave him satisfaction to see her clear-eyed, still standing easily on her feet. He clasped her hand for a moment before he let go.
"No reason to be greedy when there's two of you," Saraven said. "You've got a long ride."
He treated Galmir in the same way, drinking from his wrist for five seconds, carefully taking the pain but imposing no pleasure, forcing no emotion that was not real. Galmir waited fearfully for the fog to overtake him and make him stupid again, but it did not. When it was done Saraven clapped his other hand carefully to the Bosmer's shoulder.
"Thank you both," he said. "And good journey to you. May you ride to better things."
Brithe raised a hand. "And to you both," she said quietly, looking from him to Zudarra. Then she went to get the pillion from Ves, stuck it onto the back of Galmir's saddle, and mounted up.
Galmir smiled wistfully at the Dunmer, idly brushing his wrist where the puncture had been. It didn't hurt, and there was no longer any trace of the wound.
"It was good to know you, Saraven. Take care of yourself out there."
Zudarra had been watching silently from atop her horse. She remembered the ecstasy of drinking blood, but wasn't sure she missed it. She no longer had the drive to want it. She almost pitied Saraven for what he must be feeling now, having had so little to drink. It was always like that with a thrall - constant restraint, constant thirst, knowing you could never give in to your desire to drain them.
Galmir had taken Elwaen by the bridle and turned back to look up at her now with a funny, tight-lipped expression, as if he didn't know what to say. He couldn't bring himself to hate her, but how should he say farewell to one who had enslaved him? The horse snuffled at his ear and he broke into a smile, laying his other hand on her nose.
"Good-bye, Zudarra."
Zudarra acknowledged him with an upward jerk of her chin and watched him mount up behind Brithe, awkwardly repositioning his hands until he finally let them encircle her waist. Zudarra almost snickered as she watched them go, clopping off down the road to an unknown future with her gold. She thought she might regret giving them that, but she didn't. She felt no guilt for what she had done to Galmir. He would be okay - they both would, in time.
"Just you and me again," Zudarra said quietly when they were well out of earshot. The sun was beginning to set now and the crickets were beginning their evening song.
"So it is," he said as he mounted back up. He listened to the two heartbeats fade into the distance. "Better for them. Have to choose the next one carefully." He nudged the horse around to face back down the bridge and started off into the fog again. "How'd you ever find Vandalion, anyhow?"
"He was an admirer of mine from the arena. Kept leaving flowers and being a general pain until I gave in and invited him home," Zudarra said, riding beside him and staring off at the sparkling orange waters of Lake Rumare. "He was in love with me. Probably would have been my thrall if I asked, but I didn't." She hadn't thought about Vandalion in a while, and didn't want to. Had he been found and buried by now? Was a single person in Tamriel wondering where he went? She wished she would not think of it.
"What will you do if the next person says no?" she asked. "They might report you."
Saraven's mouth folded down at the corners. He looked into the fog ahead of them, eyes searching, ears alert, blind to the beauty of the lake.
"Brithe wouldn't have," he said. "Didn't care. If I'm wrong about the next one I'll do my best to take their memory of seeing me. I don't like that, but I can't be fighting the law and Dagon at the same time." Or the law and the rest of the vampires after that. He was beginning to acknowledge the possibility that there might be a life after the cataclysm, that there might be a Cyrodiil with families that needed help and protection in the subsequent chaos.
Zudarra eyed the tall spire of the castle beyond the lake. Today it seemed foreboding instead of majestic. Dagon had to have a reason for leaving it untouched until now. Whatever designs he had in store, Zudarra found it unlikely that she and Saraven could do anything to stop it.
It seemed that she was not alone in her thoughts. Another group of travelers were coming toward them now from up the road, a few with carts like the earlier family, but most of them on horseback or on foot. A flash of light from the corner of her eye turned Zudarra's attention back to the city, where swirling masses of black clouds were slowly forming, obscuring the top of the White-Gold Tower. The whorl had been a focal point above the other gates, and now there were several, one over every district. Red lightning crackled around the White-Gold Tower.
Zudarra's heart seemed to stop completely as she stared in horror at the herald of coming destruction. The gates were opening inside the city. Saraven reined up beside Zudarra, following her wide-eyed gaze to the clouds above the Tower. He could track the multiple foci as well as she could, knew at once what they meant. He was aware of how strange it seemed that he could not hear the blood rushing in his ears, that his stomach barely seemed aware of his dread and horror – his mind divorced from his dead body.
We are ended, Saraven thought. There is no way that the two of us can close that many gates that close together.
"We have to ford the lake!" Zudarra shouted, turning Shadow off the road. Zudarra had made her decision without thought; she would fight with Saraven. She could not run from a battle. She could not abandon him to certain death. Lake Rumare was narrowest at the tip of the little peninsula on which the Arcane University was situated. It would be their only hope of arriving in time. Saraven turned his knee into Ves and urged him after Shadow. The gelding snorted, but he went.
It was Zudarra's life they were risking, not his. He could not drown, did not need to breathe except to speak; and she was wearing incredibly heavy armor. If she should slip from her horse he was not sure he could get it off her fast enough to save her from drowning. His strength would not help him without leverage, trying to swim upward carrying a three hundred pound suit of armor.
"Be careful," he growled back, and then they were pounding down the hill toward the lake, trampling sward and lavender, jumping fallen logs to get to the pebbly lake shore. The lake was beginning to glow with the unholy red light of the clouds of the Deadlands gathering overhead. Ves ran straight into the lake at his urging, first wading, then swimming, whinnying at the strangeness of it and the coldness of the water; but he was accustomed to the tight hand on his reins, and he kept on.
Shadow balked at the water's edge but Zudarra dug her knees into his side and with a whinnying shriek the drafter galloped into the shallows and plunged into the deeper water with his head held high. The sudden cold was shocking to Zudarra as it engulfed her legs. As the water rose to her chest she felt the weight of it inside her armor, dragging her down and leeching away her body heat, but she leaned forward and gripped Shadow tightly around the shoulders to keep herself from sliding off. Her heart was pounding now; she could feel it thudding wildly against her chest, in her ears, a rush of adrenaline that numbed the fear and the cold. Shadow's muscles rolled beneath her fingers with every kick of his strong legs and Zudarra knew that she was completely dependent on him until they had reached land.
It was startling to realize how little Saraven felt the cold as the water rose up to his thighs, to his chest; Ves was keeping his head above the surface but Saraven could not do so without risking floating free of the horse. He held tight to the gelding's neck instead, head underwater. It gonged in his ears as he listened to the distant clack of Zudarra's armor against her saddle, but he could see little, the water green and nearly opaque around him. Red shafts of light pierced here and there, showing little.
He felt the impact as Ves's feet found ground again, and the water churned with silt as the horse scrambled for purchase and ran up the bank, panting and blowing. A flood of water gushed from Zudarra's armor ahead of him. Her damp fur and padding might offer some protection against the magefire but now Zudarra trembled involuntarily at the cold.
The bridge to the city was a mass of confusion, people running to and from the University - some fleeing the chaos in the city, others on their way to help. Zudarra shoved her helm down over her ears and dropped from Shadow's side without stopping. He slowed when her weight was no longer with him, tossing his head at the shouts and the stink of fear as people ran past on the bridge nearby. There was no time to find a secure place for the horses, and to tie them up here would be to ensure their deaths if the daedra got this far. They would probably not cross the water on their own, and would be safest given free range on the island.
Saraven reigned up and dismounted as Zudarra did, hooked the water skin from the saddle horn and slung it over one shoulder, shoved it under the strap that held his baldric to keep it in place.
"Survive," he told Ves in Dunmeris, and slapped the horse on the flank as he turned to follow the Khajiit. The gelding took out after Shadow immediately, whinnying.
Zudarra was already on her way up the slope toward the city, water still draining out of her armor, unstoppable, inimitable. Saraven walked quickly to catch up, falling in beside her as they climbed the hill. The bridge between the University and the City loomed on their right, casting a giant shadow. As they topped the slope people instinctively got out of the Cathay-raht's way, and Saraven hooked his mail hood up over his head as he moved in her wake.
The gate to the City opened into the Arboretum. A round palisade in the center was ringed by statues of the Nine Divines, surrounded by grasses and flowers and raised beds with stone rims. The ubiquitous fly amanita burgeoned in the shade, red caps gleaming. Paths led forward toward Green Emperor way and to either side to and from other Districts – he could see the roof of the Arena in the distance off to their right. The paths were crowded with people, although there was not yet such panic as to render the landscaping navigable.
There was no gate in this district, but the darkened sky promised one nearby. A battalion of legionnaires raced across the courtyard in their dull iron armor toward the castle, the most likely focal point of the attack. With the heavy, iron-reinforced doors held open Zudarra could just make out a shimmering red membrane in front of the White-Gold, over the heads of the men as they streamed into Green Emperor Way. She looked at Saraven and jerked her head in that direction, then took off after the legionnaires, sword in hand. The officer holding the door saw them coming and kept it open for them, thrusting his armored fist into the air when they passed.
"For the Empire!"
Saraven lifted his chin at the Legionnaire as he shouldered his way through the gate alongside Zudarra. Green Emperor Way curled around the palace proper in front of them, circling the towering bulk of the Palace, and an ancient cemetery occupied the green sward between the stone walk and the ring wall, monuments of all shapes and sizes crowding in with their separate histories. It was a proud family indeed that could say its dead were buried on Green Emperor Way. Now dremora trampled the grass and knocked over lesser stones without heed, perhaps not even knowing what they were destroying.
As the legionaries fanned out shoulder to shoulder in front of them, they could catch glimpses of dremora rushing two-by-two through the gate, shouting their furious war cries as they emerged with weapons drawn to smash into the first living thing they saw. Soldiers swarmed the portal, but there was already a large crowd of daedra waiting for them, and the dremora viciously fought their way through the encircling line to make way for their emerging brethren.
"Defend the Emperor! Don't let them reach the Tower!" someone shouted, and Zudarra had a split second to think The Emperor is dead, what is he talking about? before the man in front of her went down with an a sword through his eye and a snarling dremora yanked back his bloodied weapon and was darting for her. Zudarra raised her sword to parry. She moved painfully slow, bogged down by mortal limitations as much as by the weight of her armor. Sparks flew as steel met steel and the dremora slashed at her head as he jumped back. She wasn't able to block in time - everything seemed to move unnaturally fast - and the crash of blade against her helm set her ears ringing.
Saraven almost tripped over his own feet at words about the Emperor – what Emperor?
I need to know what is really at stake here.
He danced through the crowd as he drew his sword, looking for the right opening, and then darted forward to smash his sword-hilt into the back of a dremora's skull. He caught the falling creature without stopping and hauled him behind a heavy tombstone to press his back to the monument, arms encircling the stunned demon as he sank his teeth into its throat.
The explosion of ecstasy was no less than it had been before. He was blind to the world for seconds. But there came a moment after when he knew what was happening, even through the whelming waves of pleasure, could hear the heart weakening, knew that he could choose to stop. He did not choose to stop. This was no thrall, no mortal in a terrible situation deserving of mercy and consideration. He held in his arms the enemy of all that he had ever loved. He drank without ceasing until the blood stopped coming, then dropped the dremora onto the grave, touching a hand reverently to the tombstone as he rose – an offering of a fallen foe to an ancestor of Cyrodiil, something that spoke to the Dunmer in his blood and bone.
Power coursed through his body. His muscles trembled with it, ready, eager for release. Saraven looked around for Zudarra in her adamantium armor and found her staggering from a blow to the helm, a dremora sneering as he prepared to jab at the opening in her helm with a sword. Saraven extended his hand and let the lightning go, and the creature convulsed, screaming between jagged teeth, and then he was running past and picking up speed and -
The world slowed.
He felt he was running at a normal rate, but everything around him seemed to be moving through water. He navigated easily between Legionnaires and their foes, so fast that they could detect him as nothing but a blur and a wind of passage. He passed a man in steel armor whose sword was only now indenting the throat of a dremora in front of him, droplets of blood streaming seemingly weightless as the blade began slowly, slowly to pierce flesh. When he glanced back he saw Zudarra's tail begin to lash to one side, so slowly that he could track the trailing progress of cream-colored wavelets of fur not yet caught up to the movement of the whole, and the dremora in front of her was still jerking, individual muscle contractions seemingly almost a full second apart.
Ahead of him loomed the Palace steps, the great columns circling the building out of sight, White-Gold Tower crowned with foreboding black clouds far above. On the top landing before the great doors stood a tall thin-shouldered Argonian in tattered gray robes. His face and hands were pale, dull green and pinkish red, as though they had been faded from richer hues by hardship or disease. Twin crests of bone and stretched skin fanned back from his face like little wings, crowned with tiny horns whose points were almost all either dull or broken. His cheeks were sunken, muzzle long and thin. One who passed him on the street might take him for a mendicant, some beggar, if not for the staff in his left hand. It was carved of knotted, twisted wood, undecorated, flaring into a rootlike crown on one end, but the power of the thing raised the hairs along Saraven's neck even where he stood. It had just finished discharging a blast of magicka at a dremora who had attained to the steps, and the fingers of power stretched almost stationary between the staff and the demon, fire, frost, lightning united as one white-hot blast of agony.
The Argonian's robes swirled about his knees with dreamlike majesty as he clenched his left hand. Power rippled in the air around him as a shield formed. His eyes were dull, dark red, narrowed with concentration; he was not able to see Saraven, but he was aware something was there. His hands were covered with tarnished rings, stones dully glittering in the red light.
Got-No-Home, it has to be. What is going on inside that he guards the doors alone? Is Chancellor Ocato that precious to the Empire now?
Saraven turned to make his way down and across the steps. His sword licked out as he went, piercing a brainstem here, a throat there, and he had moved on before his enemies even knew that they were dead, before they ever began to fall. Once he tore off a helmet only to see it seemingly float through the air, the law of gravity weakened and blunted by the terrific speed with which he now moved. To everyone else dremora seemed to die from no cause as they approached the steps, falling one by one in a traveling wave of bloody murder. He felt himself burning up the blood he had drunk, and knew that he could not maintain this for much longer; and then he attained the walkway near Zudarra again and staggered as the ground shook under his feet.
There were cries of horror and dismay all around him as he turned to see a giant shadow fall across the Palace, over the Argonian, over the gate.
It was everything Zudarra could do to focus on the enemy in front of her and guard the few weak points in her armor long enough to get a good shot at one of theirs. When lightning crackled over her shoulder she knew it had been Saraven's hand, but there was no time to search for him in the chaos before the next daedra closed in.
Any fears were dulled by the rush of victory as her toothed blade ripped through the flesh of her enemies. The cacophony of battle and the burn in her muscles faded into the background as Zudarra focused on the movements in the sea of flashing blades and snarling faces. There was no time for cocky showmanship now, only survival.
A shadow fell across the dremora in front of her as the ground shook, cries of terror finally trickling through her wall of focus. The dremora grinned, eyes flicking up to something behind her and Zudarra kicked at his leg, bashing the hilt of her sword into his skull as he lost his footing and went down on one knee. She spun to see a gigantic, red-skinned monster, just taller than the city walls. She would have known it to be Mehrunes Dagon himself even if she had never seen the towering four-armed statues with their menacing goblinesque scowls. His lower lips bulged around long, tusk-like fangs and a row of horns trailed from the forehead to the back of his bald skull. She could feel an otherworldly power emanating from the Prince, pressing against her mind as much as it pressed down on her from all sides. The air was choked with it, a strange staticky sensation that prickled against her skin and made her fur rise.
Dagon's body was covered in something that looked like ritual scars, reminiscent of the strange gray-skinned daedra they had encountered only once. Dragonscale faulds and a giant gorget that draped across his chest were his only armor, but she knew that no weapon on Nirn would ever pierce his skin.
There were no giant portals to deliver him. He had simply appeared, summoned from the Deadlands as easily as a mage calls forth a scamp.
He carried a two-headed battle axe in a single clawed fist and swung into the crowd at his feet, moving with unnatural speed for something his size. Legionnaires screamed as they ran to get out of his way but most were not fast enough, blade slicing through armor as easily as through flesh. Torsos sailed through the air like rag dolls as the lower halves skidded across the walkway, entrails and blood flying after them to shower the survivors with red gore.
Zudarra's legs turned to lead as her jaw dropped in horror at the sight before her, her mind screaming at her to flee. A growl beside her pulled her from Dagon's grasp and she hunched her shoulder to guard against the blow from a mace on her left. She had no need to retaliate. The dremora was knocked aside by a crowd of fleeing soldiers, so wild with terror that they scarcely knew what they were doing. Zudarra braced herself against the flood, lowering herself to one knee and pressing her chin to her chest. She looked up to see others racing for Dagon, the brave few who would willfully run to their own deaths in the hope of buying time for the others.
Her eyes darted frantically for Saraven as she stood.
Saraven stood transfixed at first, staring up at the calamity to end all calamities. They had failed. He had failed. Mehrunes Dagon walked in Nirn. The dread of the great Prince's aura washed over him, and he knew his own insignificance. There was no reason to continue fighting. He might as well drop his sword and wait for the end.
Saraven clenched teeth and fist stubbornly. No. I chose this dead body, this dead flesh, that I might not die passive and waiting. He shook off the dreadful paralysis as he looked for Zudarra, found the stained adamantium still glittering through the blood and dirt where she stood alone. Ahead of her, Legionnaires were running toward the god's giant feet. Saraven put on one last burst of supernatural speed and was beside her.
"I'm here," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the din.
The Prince turned toward the palace, giant feet crushing the defenders underfoot, powdering tombstones or flattening them so far into the sward that they were no longer visible. Screams choked off in horrible gurgling, in sudden, dreadful silence. And then the giant shadow passed over them and Saraven turned to see Got-No-Home standing with upraised arms, teeth bared in a brilliant grin as he shook his staff in the face of the end of all things. Magicka licked out from the staff, striking the Daedra Prince's ankle, leaving no mark at all.
Dagon swept his giant axe down with majestic slowness, ignoring the swords and arrows of the last of the Legion about his feet. The great blade connected with the front wall of the Palace, knocking thousand-year-old masonry aside with a tremendous roar and clatter. The Argonian vanished in the cloud of dust. Dagon took his first step over the rubble into the ruin of the Imperial Palace.
Zudarra winced against the white cloud that rolled across the walkway, dust stinging her eyes and threatening to choke her before it slowly settled. She watched with expectant horror, rooted to the spot, and reached out to grab Saraven by the shoulder. Don't go over there, it's hopeless! Gray shapes loomed in the fog at the top of the palace steps, and as the dust settled she saw a man emerge. He was draped in a flowing, fur trimmed robe of purple and burgundy satin, a red jewel glittering brightly on his chest.
Saraven caught at her gauntlet to push it off his shoulder, then stopped dead as he caught sight of the Septim. And he was, must be a Septim. A profile very much like that one was on every coin in the realm. He could not imagine what it meant. The Emperor's sons had died at the hands of the same assassins who had killed their father. Some secret heir, sheltered away from the capital?
"Uriel Septim?" Zudarra gasped aloud. Even as the words escaped her lips she knew it could not be him. The Emperor had been old and gray - she had actually seen him once, in his private box at the arena. This man looked very much like him from afar, but his long hair was brown and without a touch of gray. Two guards in Akaviri plate armor stood on either side of him, holding their shields high to protect the man from debris.
"This way, Your Majesty!" one of them shouted and they grabbed him by the elbows to rush him down the steps just as Dagon's foot came down in front of the doorway, crushing stone beneath his feet in another cloud of dust.
The Argonian emerged from the dust rolling, inches ahead of Dagon's foot, and turned to stab at the giant's toe with a sword whose blade was black as jet, so dark that it seemed to suck in the light and devour it. Dagon grunted in surprise, the noise felt as much as heard, and Saraven was stunned to realize that Got-No-Home had actually caused him pain.
"This is the thing for which I was changed," Saraven said to Zudarra. He kissed the back of her hand and gently removed it from his shoulder. Zudarra stared stupidly down at him, heat flooding her face, but by the time she realized what he was doing he was already turning toward the lurching behemoth that was the Daedra Prince. "Go. Live!"
"No!" she shouted, stepping after him, but the Dunmer was already gone faster than she could ever hope to catch up.
The blood of dremora was almost burnt out in Saraven's veins from his earlier exertion, but it would last just a little longer. Enough to buy some time. Enough to do what he had to do. He asked for no more. Saraven picked up speed as he ran toward Dagon, looking up to see the Daedra Prince's axe swoop down toward the Argonian again. He accelerated as he watched Got-No-Home hurl himself forward between the giant feet, and then the axe came down in front of him with a world-shaking earthquake and he leaped as hard and as high as he could to grasp the hilt. It was as wide as a tree trunk. Saraven shinned up it as fast as he could, hearing another noise from above, a growl. It would be flattering to think he was recognized. He grinned as he reached the giant hand, hurled himself forward to grasp at the edge of a gauntlet. The flesh of the Daedra Prince was burning hot to the touch. He felt it through his armor, through his padding, as he let go with one arm to swing his sword. It scraped over the crimson flesh without leaving the slightest mark.
And beyond Zudarra, the last heir of the Septim line disappeared into the Temple district with his Blades...