XVII
It had all started with a dead servant.
Three years ago, after helping to clean up the mess of a particularly annoying Worm Cult in Skyrim, Grimnir had journeyed to Solstheim, and Brelyna Maryon had gone with him. Determined to prove her worth in magickal prowess to her fellow Telvanni, she had convinced Grimnir to leave her in the care of one of the House wizard-lords who lived there—Master Neloth.
The following two years saw her completing some of the most menial work imaginable: trekking all the way over to High Rock just to find a single briar seed, delving into Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil simply to recover a pair of staves, even being the subject of one of Neloth's more … experimental spells. It was just as well those tentacles weren't permanent—otherwise she might have strangled the mad wizard for his callous attitude towards everyone he met.
Then his steward Varona had been discovered on the road to Raven Rock. Neloth had been so dismissive of this that the two had nearly come to blows, and Brelyna was yet again reduced to being his errand elf, saddled with the task of finding a replacement at once. But in the process, she had discovered firsthand an unexpected side effect of the eruption of the Red Mountain.
Ash spawn: a combination of the hardened volcanic ash of Vvardenfell, and the remains—either cremated or buried—of the deceased. Neither living nor dead, they wasted no time in swarming the south of Solstheim in a matter of days. The ancestral tombs of Raven Rock were nearly overrun, and the nearby ruins of Fort Frostmoth were lost soon after. While Grimnir had been off gallivanting with the Skaal tribes to the north in his campaign against Miraak, Brelyna had been tasked to eradicate the ash spawn by almost every authority figure on Solstheim. They had only spoken once in his time there before the Dragonborn was whisked off to a Dwarven ruin.
Brelyna was very clever, even for a Dunmer with hopes of becoming a Telvanni master, and it didn't take long for her to deduce that something—and in fact, someone—was controlling the ash spawn. When Neloth found out that that someone had been one of his former apprentices, for a moment—if only one—he had looked unusually rattled, as if he'd suddenly understood just what he'd unleashed upon the island. Then, he was as irascible as ever, and—over a cup of that revolting canis root tea he somehow liked so much—he had ordered Brelyna to hunt her down and destroy her, with the promise that she would be counted among the Telvanni if she succeeded.
Now, all the way in Winterhold, watching the horror that was unfolding before her eyes, the Dunmer had flashed back to her time on Solstheim—from her first encounter with the ash spawn to her fight against Ildari. The hole that had just been blasted in Drevis Neloren's chest reminded her of just how far that spiteful elf had gone in order to exact her revenge upon Neloth.
Then Drevis toppled backward to the ground with a soft thud. Brelyna needed no detection spells to know that her former instructor was dead. She screamed in horror—and then everything happened at once.
The Midden exploded with activity—Tolfdir, Phinis, and J'zargo were up on their feet in a flash; all three men had already cast flesh spells on themselves, and glowed with a pale green light. Calcelmo's guards drew their weapons, and moved to barricade any way out of the chamber.
Then, the bags that had contained Solyn's apparent reward exploded. Thick brown clouds spread through the Midden in seconds, so hot and choking that Tolfdir had to cast breathing spells on everyone present, and J'zargo had surrounded himself in a cold mist—a frost cloak, Brelyna knew.
Something stirred within the clouds, and Brelyna—trying her damnedest to pretend as though Drevis had not suddenly been killed before her eyes, cast an ice storm nowhere in particular. She did not make it particularly strong—even though Calcelmo's guards were all Nords, and therefore resistant to the cold of their homeland—; her only goal was to dispel this caustic ash. And sure enough, within a few seconds, the thick mists had been blown away by the rotation of her ice storm.
When she saw what was behind them, she gasped.
"By the Dro-m'Athra … " J'zargo breathed; he had seen them as well. "What are these creatures?"
"Ash spawn!" Instantly Brelyna's hands had erupted in magic as she stared down this unexpected adversary.
There were ten of them in all—ten quasi-humanoid creatures made up of ash, rock, and Azura only knew who or what else. But even as Brelyna watched the sight in fascinated horror, more were on the way, and all of them seemed to be climbing from (unless Brelyna's eyes were very much mistaken) the bags of money Solyn had had delivered to them. Only moments later, their number had doubled … and they were very close to tripling.
"Suppress them!" One of Calcelmo's twenty or so guards leapt for the ash spawn, broadsword in hand. He skewered the lead ash spawn with his blade, and kicked the writhing monster to the ground. But his efforts, though heroic, were in vain: the Nord was stunned to see that upon pulling his sword out of the ash spawn's body, the blade had melted from the sheer heat generated from within it. The instant of distraction led to his undoing—two more ash spawn raised their own jagged blades like spears, and pierced the Nord through his own steel cuirass in kind.
"Galdar!" cried another guard. He let fly with an arrow at the ash spawn that had killed his comrade, then another. Both arrows found their marks, and knocked the creatures backward, but—as with the blade—the arrows soon burst into flame from the heat of the ash that composed them.
And still the ash spawn advanced. They shambled slowly, wave after wave, but slowly their threat was becoming all the more grave. Several of them fired off bolts of red-orange light at their enemies; the archer that had taken out two ash spawn mere moments ago was incinerated in a flash. Brelyna and the others were forced to erect wards to dissipate all the others.
"Push them back!" she called out. "Fire is useless against ash spawn—ice and storm magic only!" The Dunmer emphasized this by hurling another ice storm at the nearest wave of enemies. This one was larger, and more powerful, and pushed the ash spawn back against the wall with just the sheer force of the winds it generated.
Unfortunately, that was all it had going for it.
It took a moment for Brelyna to catch on, but soon enough, her jaw dropped when she figured out that there was a suspicious lack of dying among all these ash spawn. That ice storm she had unleashed was the strongest spell in her arsenal, capable of affecting not just one enemy—like most frost spells were designed to do—but any enemy in their path, be it five or five hundred. And yet, not a single one of those horrors had died just now.
What was going on here?
The most obvious answer, Brelyna knew, was that this group of ash spawn was different. Whoever was controlling them must have learned from Ildari's mistakes, and made a stronger variant—one that was nearly immune to not only fire, but frost and—she scattered a few experimental bolts of lightning among the ash spawn—shock magic as well, she amended, as none of those bolts had so much as made them stumble.
So they were immune to destruction magic, thought the Dunmer, as she tried to push them back with another woefully ineffective ice storm. That was serious enough—and to add insult to injury, the ash their bodies were composed of was so hot that it could apparently melt steel like ice on a midsummer's day. Even if the creature was killed by a lucky hit from a blade or a bow and arrow, they were reinforcing at such a high rate that it didn't matter.
She felt a grudging admiration for whoever had designed these creatures. Most likely it was this Solyn character, she guessed with a groan—even if he'd never so much as stepped inside College grounds, he'd certainly been doing his homework.
The ash spawn, meanwhile, had already recovered from Brelyna's frost magic, and recommenced their advance. Those of them that didn't use magic were already spreading out and attacking the guards with reckless abandon. Initially, they were unsuccessful—Grimnir, and Calcelmo by extension, had chosen his guards well, Brelyna had to admit. But they still took the guards' iron and steel weapons with them in the process. To the ash spawn—and more to the point, their controller—it was a fair trade. Left with little more than piles of melted slag, the guards were helpless against the next waves of ash spawn; in less than a minute, the creatures had killed every single guard.
And they were still coming.
Phinis looked stricken as he took in the death and destruction. "Tolfdir," muttered the Breton, "we must contain them at all costs. If they reach the lower levels of the Midden, there may not be a Midden left for long. There may not even be a College, either!"
Tolfdir nodded. "The Forge." Brelyna knew what he was referring to: the Atronach Forge, the mysterious device that could summon almost every manner of Daedra imaginable, so long as one had the necessary offerings to do so, and a hyperagonal medium to transmit them—for instance, the sigil stone that Grimnir had acquired some time ago.
If the ash spawn got their hands on that—Brelyna shivered at the thought of what might happen. "We'll fall back, make our stand there," she recommended to everyone else, narrowly missing a blast from one of the closer ash spawn and deflecting another. "Maybe we can get ourselves some help from Oblivion in the process."
"Too risky," Tolfdir said, shaking his grizzled head. "And it's bound to get us all killed—and then who would be left to warn the College about what's happened down here?"
And suddenly, Brelyna saw a glint in the old wizard's eye—one that she had seen on plenty of Nords in her day, and one that often led to tales being sung in the inn of valor and sacrifice. Within moments, Brelyna Maryon knew what Tolfdir was about to suggest … and she wouldn't have any of it.
"No," she said. "Absolutely not. I've known you longer than anyone else here, Tolfdir. I won't let you do this!"
The old Nord looked older than ever, but his brilliant eyes—one hazel, the other a bright green—radiated a light so bright that he might as well be at the peak of his prime again. "There's no other way, my dear," he said sadly. "A Master Wizard of Winterhold has only one duty to him—to advise his Arch-Mage, and to protect him and his College. Grimnir's a good, strong man—I've had it easy these few years I've known him. It's high time I did the job he told me to do."
He reached out with his hand, and Brelyna felt the hair on her body rise up briefly before she felt the cool caress of the flesh spell wrap around her form. "You and J'zargo must go back to the College. Warn the Arch-Mage. Phinis will guide you to the way out."
The Breton looked up at the mention of his name. His normally nonchalant attitude had been swept away, and he now regarded Tolfdir with a mixture of sadness and respect. "What should we do if you fail?"
Tolfdir chuckled softly, as though he'd just been told a very funny joke. "My boy, the College has survived worse than this—it certainly survived old Grimnir," he wheezed. Then his jaw became set. "But if you don't survive with it," he added warningly, "it might not for much longer."
J'zargo looked as though he wanted nothing more than to fight alongside him. He swallowed, and patted the old man's shoulder with a paw. "Jone and Jode guide you," he said huskily.
Phinis slammed his hand on the ground, and was lost to sight by a barrier of violet fire. A veritable wall of red-and-black armor and spikes rushed out from it with the ferocity of a troll. Something long and black flashed out—and the next moment, no less than ten ash spawn had been cloven in two, and the force of the blow caused them to disintegrate into loose piles of ash. Brelyna gave a silent cheer at their first real fight back.
"I honor my lord by destroying you!" roared the newly emerged Dremora as he held his claymore aloft, skewering yet another ash spawn on the ripping edge of the black blade. Another pair of swings felled another dozen of the creatures, and Brelyna's heart rose when she saw that Phinis had cleared a way out for them.
"You and J'zargo have to go, now!" Phinis called out to them. "Don't worry—I'll be right behind you. Head for the surface and don't look back!"
Brelyna took one last look at Tolfdir, and fought the urge to let the tears flow. The old Nord was positively brimming with magicka—so much so that his silver hair was flowing every which way.
Then Phinis' Dremora pushed her onward without any care for her emotions, and Tolfdir was lost to sight—but not to her ear. Brelyna had time to hear Tolfdir speak one last piece before she was unceremoniously deposited on the ground floor of the Hall of Countenance:
"I am a Master Wizard of Winterhold, and a retainer to the Last Dragonborn! By all the hearts and minds I hold dear in mine, you shall go no further!"
Then the trapdoor to the Midden had closed, and Brelyna heard nothing but a muffled series of explosions from below as she raced out of the hall and—she hoped with all her heart—to Grimnir.
Outside Fort Amol
"We're almost in sight of Eastmarch!"
The wind whipped at Mistress Malys' face as the carriage raced down the road at breakneck speed. It was nighttime, and vinye and cosette were both doing their best to get some rest. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Malys had eventually convinced them that if the College of Winterhold were truly in danger of being attacked, it would not be best to fight both sleep and Solyn at the same time.
Nevertheless, the driver's announcement gave Her little comfort.
"There's a mill up ahead. You sure You don't want to rest up there?" asked the driver for the third time that night.
And for the third time, Malys answered him back, "We paid you to get us to Winterhold as if your horse was being chased by Dagon himself!" She called back irritably. "We didn't pay you to ask questions on the way!"
The driver huffed, and spurred the reins of his horse again. "Yah!"
As the carthorse launched himself onward with a whinny, Malys was left to pray to the Daedra that all was not lost. Vampire She might be, but Her dedication to Azura, Boethiah, and all their kin had not died with Her.
Winterhold
The ash spawn struck with ferocious intensity.
They streamed from the two entrances to the Midden—one in the courtyard of the College, another in its Hall of Countenance, and wasted no time in attacking everyone and everything within sight. Sergius Terrianus, the College's reclusive enchanter, was seen trying to persuade a few prospective defenders that they were either too young or too inexperienced, and coaxing them to get inside the Hall of Attainment.
Though the ash spawn did not know it yet, it was to be the safest place in the College of Winterhold that day.
Just ahead of the growling and gurgling storm of ash, fire, and stone were J'zargo, Brelyna and Phinis, who emerged from the Hall of Countenance with smoldering robes, herding several more harried staff members into the courtyard and toward the adjacent hall. Once they were out of harm's way, the trio helped Sergius get to safety—the old Imperial had managed to hold off a group of the ash spawn with a volley of very thick ice spikes: enough to slow them down, but not nearly enough to kill them outright.
"No one escapes!" bellowed a voice from above. It sounded like a Dremora, Brelyna thought; Phinis must have summoned a new one to stem the tide of ash spawn from above. She craned her neck upward, and sure enough, she saw a black-armored mountain of a Daedra with a black blade on the parapet above. That same black blade scythed through the ash spawn as if it was threshing wheat, and loose ash began to fall on the ground alongside the snow.
In the thick of the action, J'zargo made a guttural aside to Brelyna. The Dunmer followed his claw—pointing towards one of the ash spawn, and was surprised to see that a full suit of armor was sticking out under all that ash in some places. Immediately after, she felt a dull blow to her gut when she realized just how similar that armor looked to that of Calcelmo's private army.
"So they resurrected the guards," Brelyna growled under her breath, and J'zargo nodded. This was a problem—bad enough these monsters were almost immune to magic, but they had armor now; most of the mages here didn't have a blade to their name. "I hate necromancers," she growled. "Always have to fight them twice."
"Khajiit sees no necromancy in this, Brelyna," observed J'zargo. "It appears as if these ash spawn force themselves into a new host instead—a freshly dead body, which it may animate from inside. It is better than necromancy," he said grimly, "in that these ones must first get through the puppet, now, before we face his puppeteer."
Brelyna felt sick as she noticed the ash spawn in question indeed looked a little more rotund than before.
"What the devil is going on out here?!"
Both mages turned around to face Grimnir walking towards them. Even the bluish-green mask on the Arch-Mage's scarred face looked scowling as it surveyed the chaos around him.
"Brelyna—why are there ash spawn on College grounds?" he demanded.
"They came from the sacks, Grimnir!" the Dunmer told him in reply, the words tumbling out of her mouth. "Solyn's sacks—these must be his doing! Drevis didn't have a chance—the ash spawn killed him only a few moments after they revealed themselves."
Grimnir's mask showed no expression, or any change in it, but Brelyna felt the aura around him change. She knew this was a serious blow to him—Drevis had been his own instructor in illusion magic, before his journey to Solstheim.
"I know—they tried to get to me, too." The mask had turned upward to the battlements, just in time to see the Dremora overpowered by the hordes of ash spawn. "I see Phinis up above. Colette is inside with the other students. But where is Tolfdir?"
Brelyna felt her heart sink. Had the Master Wizard not made it out yet? " … He told us to go on ahead," she said thickly, "said he'd hold the ash spawn off from below. We … haven't seen him since."
The aura around Grimnir grew further, and Brelyna felt the power behind it, the raw emotion. She knew Grimnir was angry now—that the dragon inside him was stirring in its slumber.
"Get inside," the Dragonborn ordered, tightening his blue gloves. "Make sure everyone else is safe. I'll handle this—but I don't want any of you caught in the crossfire."
Crossfire? Brelyna wondered. He's not going to use … "Grimnir, these ash spawn are different than the ones we faced on Solstheim—the ones created by Ildari Sarothril. They're completely immune to destruction magic now, and they can take over the bodies of anyone they kill—like puppets on strings."
"Can they?" Brelyna did not like the tone in which he spoke those two words. There was no emotion to the Dragonborn's voice whatsoever. He might have been genuinely curious, perhaps even cocky and confident. But the Dunmer had known Grimnir long enough to know that such emotions were little else than veils for something far darker—just another set of masks for him to wear.
"Go," Grimnir said simply. "I told you, I've got this under control."
"I hope so," Brelyna told him. "Because if your magic doesn't work on them," she added under her breath as she hauled a protesting J'zargo by his paw into the Hall of Attainment, "then we're in bigger trouble than Labyrinthian and Ancient's Ascent put together … "
Grimnir watched them leave out of the corner of his one eye. Once he was sure that Brelyna and J'zargo were out of harm's way—and that no one else was in his sight—he went to work.
The Arch-Mage knew the ash spawn well, though not as well as Brelyna had in her quest to neutralize Ildari. But he'd had to face a few hordes or so of them on his own sojourn through Solstheim, and Grimnir knew they were best dealt with all at once. Taking them on one at a time was a losing battle.
Kyne's Wrath, then, he thought. That should hold their advance.
He spread out his legs, turning his gaze skyward as the ash spawn turned in his direction, and advanced on him from the battlements and the grounds alike, dropping from the parapets and brandishing all manner of spell, spear and sword in their roughly hewn hands.
Grimnir saw this, and immediately both his hands glowed with the most potent of restoration magic. He wove them this way and that, and slammed his palms on the ground. There was a bang, and a flash of light, and then a shimmering blue bubble of magicka had encompassed the Arch-Mage for ten feet in every direction.
The ash spawn growled, and released blasts of fire from their hands at the shield. They burst against the magickal edge of the barrier, and did no apparent damage. Yet Grimnir's knew his shield was only a stopgap; it was either a matter of time or firepower before it dissipated into thin air. And with this many ash spawn, he needed to act quickly.
He felt Morokei's mask tingle on his face as he began to gather more magic for his attack. That dragon priest's moonstone visage was a particular favorite of Grimnir's; in his research, he had discovered that it bore a unique regeneration enchantment that acted upon all manner of magicka—even the ancient magic that was unique to him, the Dragonborn … the magic he was currently building up inside his throat.
The ash spawn, meanwhile, continued their assault, and at last one of their fire spells breached Grimnir's shield. He was not perturbed—the barrier had provided him enough time to retaliate. He took a deep breath—and Spoke.
"Ven … Grah VEY!"
For only a split second, the winds that constantly buffeted the College shrieked louder than ever—like a thousand razor-sharp blades. The split second after that, those blades of wind, shaped and guided by Grimnir's Voice, sliced through the hordes of ash spawn like a dragon's claws rending flesh, meeting no resistance whatsoever. Within seconds, any and every ash spawn that had so much reared its head had been bisected, trisected and then some into hundreds upon hundreds of cleanly cut chunks.
The Arch-Mage surveyed his work with a detached satisfaction. The Greybeards had named this Shout Kyne's Wrath, after the Nordic goddess of wind, rain, and the storm. By Shouting to the winds, the Dragonborn could thus command them, and therefore use them to bolster his speed to superhuman levels, scatter his foes like chaff, or—as he had just demonstrated—kill dozens of them in the time it took to draw breath.
The Dragonborn had created this Shout himself, and other Shouts as well—meditating upon the Words of the dragon language for a long time to discern their many meanings—and so he was therefore its only living master. For even the dragons, in spite of their great power and their intelligence, lacked the ingenuity and adaptability of mortalkind.
The Dragonborn is the pinnacle of both worlds—the ultimate dragonslayer.
Grimnir started—those had not been his thoughts. Was he hearing things … or—?
No, you're not, said the voice, as calmly as if it was discussing this over a pot of Neloth's tea. You're quite strong, you know. I wasn't expecting to find someone like you still alive on Nirn. It's a bit sad that it won't be for too much longer. My assistants will see to that.
"Are you Solyn, then?" Grimnir asked, looking at the battlements and around the grounds with some concern at the words. Had he missed some ash spawn? Or did Solyn's so-called "assistants" have another trick up their sleeve?
I am, the voice confirmed. And you may rest assured that your body will not be too damaged. After all, I have a unique opportunity to study this admirable magic of yours—and I would prefer not to squander it with brute force.
That being said, Solyn went on, you are still an inconvenience. I do not like inconveniences. Restrain him.
As the last words faded, Grimnir heard a rumbling from up above, and his first, frantic thought was that a snowstorm was brewing. But no—it was coming from the battlements of the College. And even as Grimnir looked upon the parapet, he saw the pieces of the hordes of ash spawn he had felled swirling into the air, rotating around invisible points all around him—tornadoes of volcanic dust and rock twice as tall as he was.
These tornadoes now sprouted what might have been called a head and a pair of arms, and Grimnir now realized that these were atronachs of some description—not unlike a summons he had seen Neloth use in their exploration of the Dwarven ruin Nchardak. If that was true, then—
He erected a second shield around him at the same time as these "ash atronachs" raised their hands in unison and sent blinding clouds of ash racing towards him. All visibility was lost within seconds, and Grimnir could not even see the edge of the barrier he had erected, so choking was the miasma. The tiny particles of ash that made up these clouds were better able to penetrate the barrier, he realized—blocking this assault was worse than useless now!
The Arch-Mage knew he had little time, and so he raised both his hands until they brimmed with turquoise-colored energy. He let that energy wash over his body, and his strongest flesh spell took shape over his skin—one that was, fittingly enough, strong as dragon scales.
The spell had only been in place for a moment before the onslaught of ash broke through his shield, and in an instant Grimnir's world was a mass of extremes—darkness and light, heat and cold, all of it pressing upon his skin like a hundred wet blankets. He realized what Solyn was trying to do; he could sense the alteration magic imbued within this ash. A quick test confirmed it—his arm could not move an inch.
A paralysis spell, thought Grimnir, and an odd way to go about one, too. Well, there's still an answer to that.
Flesh spells were normally spread evenly along the skin of their caster's body, Tolfdir had told him once. However, an especially skillful mage could learn to concentrate his magicka along certain points of that flesh spell—almost like the spaces in a suit of armor. If Grimnir could do this, and then release that magicka in the blink of an eye …
He waited a few dangerous seconds longer, and then flexed the muscles in his arms with a loud grunt. There was a noise like crunching glass, and he saw cracks spreading across the blanket of hot ash. Magicka leaked from those cracks, forcing the ash to fall from his body like dried skin.
Very nice, said Solyn's voice again, sounding quite amused, and the Arch-Mage cursed the unseen elf for his persistence. Those three mages you sent to find me are quite powerful. And yet they are nothing compared to you.
"Leave them out of this, damn you!" shouted Grimnir.
Not when they've already done so much to help me, Solyn laughed. They are on their way to you now—but they will be too late. Kill him—quickly, quietly. Do not make a mess.
"Ven … Grah VEY!" Grimnir responded. The wind howled for a second time, and again it sliced at the atronachs with furious speed. But the ash and rocks that comprised them were either so dense, or able to avoid Kyne's Wrath with the speed at which they rotated, that only a few of them suffered any discernable damage—and not a single atronach fell to his Shout.
Grimnir saw this, and knew that these creatures were too much for the others to handle. They were almost completely immune to magic, and too dense to be damaged by the mass-produced Nord steel of the guards. Their predecessors might have been weak to more powerful melee attacks—such as the Daedric weapons of a Dremora—but if they could withstand Kyne's Wrath as they just had, Grimnir doubted that would be the case again.
There was no better choice he could make.
And so, as the ash constructs recommenced their attack, Grimnir made that choice.
"Mul … Qah DIIV!"
Bluish-gold spectral armor, shaped in the likeness of dragon scales, erupted from his arms, chest and head, dispelling the new coats of ash that had settled over him, and protecting him from any further assault from the ash constructs. This was one of the more powerful Shouts Grimnir had mastered; it had been necessary for him to learn it in order to stop the renegade Miraak from enslaving Solstheim several years ago.
However, Grimnir had studied the Voice extensively in his time since becoming the Dragonborn, to the point where the armor that covered his body merely set the stage for something else, something so powerful that Grimnir had forbidden himself from ever using it in front of innocent people—but there was no other solution he could see.
The Dragonborn took a deep breath. Akatosh, Kyne … Master Arngeir … forgive me for what I am about to do.
As Grimnir's feet began to leave the ground from the sheer amount of magic he was concentrating inside himself, he spread out his arms, unclenched his fists—and called every last ounce of the Thu'um inside him into his mouth.
"Sah … "
Down below in the Midden, Tolfdir was in trouble. The Master Wizard was bleeding from a dozen open, healed, and reopened wounds in his body, and he was almost knee-deep in the remains of what must have been hundreds of ash spawn—yet still the old Nord soldiered on. But these creatures were equally resilient; Tolfdir had now been pushed within inches of the same sigil stone that he had entrusted himself to protect. He knew he could not falter here, or else the Atronach Forge would be seized, and then who knew what could happen from there?
As a fresh wave of ash spawn poured forth, Tolfdir's hand blazed with green energy, and he raised his palm outward with a war cry to unleash a massive emerald wave. The paralysis spell—the latest of many he'd had to use to stall and buy time for everyone up above—washed over the creatures, and all of them within range toppled backward.
His other hand was consumed in Oblivion magic, and he produced a glowing battleaxe of shimmering violet flame, hefting it in his hands. Tolfdir swung it left and right, and the ephemeral barbs of the axe ripped into the ash spawn, disintegrating yet more of the horrors at his feet.
Then, several things happened at once.
Tolfdir heard a great rumble, and the first thought in the old Nord's mind was, Earthquake? But that was impossible; the outcrop of rock on which the College stood was magically reinforced. It would take another eruption of Vvardenfell to sunder it again.
Then he realized that the trembling was coming from above the ground—at exactly the same time as he heard a low, growling roar from somewhere above him.
Tolfdir had heard a roar like that only once in his life, and only recently at that. He had not been there to see it, but Faralda had told him stories of the destruction that had come after. The ash spawn were no longer the foremost thought in his head, and so absorbed was the old wizard that he didn't notice that the ash spawn, too, had stopped at the sound of the roar.
Tolfdir was well within his right to be so distracted, even if it would have meant his undoing. This roar was easily the most terrifying thing that could have happened today. It wasn't as dangerous as a horde of interminable ash warriors, or even as an earthquake to match the destruction of Vvardenfell.
If anything, it was worse.
And now, Tolfdir was so worried at what was happening above him that he wasn't seeing what was going on in front of him until the two ash spawn were right there. The figure they flanked was thinner and much less broader at the shoulder.
But when the wizard saw who it was, he finally faltered. All hope left him, and the battleaxe faded and died in his hand. He had no trouble recognizing the naked man before him—or at least, what was left of him.
" … Drevis?" the old Nord whispered, eyes wide in horror. "Drevis, my lad … what have they done to your face?"
When the bleeding mouth of Drevis Neloren spoke, it was in a voice that did not belong to him at all. "Where are you?" he cried out. "What are you? What is this place?!" He thrashed against his captors, and raked his clawed fingers at the empty space where his face had once been.
"Speak to me!" howled the crazed thing that had once been Drevis, foaming at the mouth. "Please, I'm so tired! Please—JUST LET ME SLEEP!"
And then he broke free of the ash spawn, and lunged for Tolfdir with the insane shriek of a berserker.
Faralda, meanwhile, was at her wit's end. She'd just been to see Thorvald, the head of the town guard, about Grimnir's suspicion that the College might soon be attacked. And the stubborn Nord's reply had been a dismissive, "Absolutely absurd."
The Altmer bristled. "Maybe I wasn't being clear with you," she said coldly, gritting her teeth. "In the event of an attack on Winterhold, the College is normally your first line of defense, is it not? Well, what do you think might happen if the College was suddenly put out of commission by said attack?
"Exactly," Faralda went on, not waiting for Thorvald to answer. "Once the attackers finished with the College, they would move on to the rest of the town. And without our help, I think you can agree that Winterhold would be a big, fat sitting duck."
Thorvald sighed, and pulled a leather-clad hand over his face. "Listen, it's not that I don't understand that kind of threat," he said patiently. "But my men are stretched too thin as it is. These vampire attacks have put us all on edge—and I think we can both agree that vampires are the more dangerous enemy to face here."
Faralda almost blew up then and there in fury—in fact, she would have, had something else not blown up first.
It was a distance away, and somewhat muffled in the wind and snow, but something had indeed exploded, and Faralda suspected that the culprit was somewhere within College grounds. Was Grimnir right—had an attack already started?
Immediately, her voice turned frantic. "I don't care how many guards you have to recall—get everyone you can spare and get them to the College yesterday!"
Thorvald backed away from the panicked elf before him. Seeming to recognize that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, he barked orders to anyone he could see. "Gretta! Yngmar! Sound the horn! Any other soldier not on patrol is to make for the College on the double! Let's move it—!"
And then there was the worst sound of all—a deep, bellowing roar that shook Faralda's bones and instantly soaked her neck in cold sweat. That was not a dragon's roar, she knew. And yet …
Thorvald had already made for the door, and stared from the threshold in awed terror. "Shor have mercy … " he whispered. Faralda followed his gaze, and blanched when she saw the yellowish light emanating from the College courtyard, and the wisps of black smoke rising from—
Black smoke and golden light, and a roar that could shout down the gods themselves … Faralda felt her knees quake at the sight, and icy claws colder than the winds of Winterhold pierced her heart and choked her with frozen terror.
There could be no doubt now—it was happening again.
"Shalidor, save us all," she murmured—and then Faralda bolted for the College.
Thorvald tried to hurry after her. "Where are you going?!" he called out, waving a fist at her in agitation. "Bloody mages—that place will be the end of you one day, and by Ysmir, it'll be the end of us all!"
But the elf did not hear him—as she sprinted up the footbridge, only one thought was on her mind. This was not the first time she had seen those yellow lights or that black miasma. The last time she had—and the first time—it had nearly ended her life in a split second.
Grimnir … you told me you would never use that Shout again! Faralda thought. Is the situation that dire, for you to resort to it so quickly?!
She prayed to Auriel to grant her the courage to face what she knew was about to come—and for the strength to get to the College before it was too late. Because right now, it didn't matter what was going on at the College.
Right now, Grimnir had just become the real danger to Winterhold.
So scared was Faralda that she could not feel the fatigue in her legs, nor could she hear the protesting of their muscles as they continued to exert themselves against all better judgement. She sprinted up the bridge, telekinetically wrenched open the gate with her magic without pausing in her step—
And gasped.
The scene beyond was nothing short of a battlefield. Most of the snow that had fallen in the courtyard was melted, replaced by a blanket of glowing ash so thick that it covered everything—even the trees and bushes that dotted the space were groaning under the weight of it all. Faralda guessed these must have been the ash spawn—Grimnir must have killed them all. Was this the end of the threat, then? Had the Arch-Mage—
CRUNCH.
Something heavy, something burning and black, fell from the sky, and onto the statue of Shalidor and the fountain of magicka he presided over. The ancient edifice, repaired time and again from one dragon attack after another, crumpled once more under the strength of the person that had descended upon it.
But Faralda knew that while it might have had the form of a human—it most definitely was not human.
Grimnir Torn-Skull stood in the center of the courtyard, over the remains of the magickal font and what was left of the statue of Shalidor. But the way he was standing sent alarm bells through Faralda's mind; the Arch-Mage was crouched on all fours, and a strange black substance, like burning pitch, covered him and most of the area around him. The eyeholes of the mask on his face—Faralda could not tell which one, nor did she want to get close enough to find out—were blazing with a bright red flame.
I'm too late, the Altmer realized. That thing has already taken over his body!
"Zu'u zok sahrot do naan ko Lein!" bellowed Grimnir—no, Faralda reflected, the Dragonborn. The words were not in Grimnir's voice; it was a full octave lower, perhaps even two, and akin to something more primal than a mere human being.
And then the Dragonborn noticed Faralda.
The Altmer's breath caught in her throat as his neck jerked in her direction, and a beastly growl escaped the Dragonborn's lips as he slowly crawled towards her. "Pahlok joor!" he snarled at the Altmer. "Hin kah fen kos bonaar. Nust wo ni qiilaan fen kos duaan!"
Faralda had been around Grimnir long enough to read his movements in battle, and the slight twitch in the Dragonborn's wrists was all that saved her life then and there.
The Dragonborn lunged at her with a snarl, and Faralda rolled to one side only just—he skidded on the ash-covered walkway, tearing his fingernails till the blood flowed on the stone to halt his charge. The stone path was torn in his wake as well—a testament to the kind of power that now radiated from the Dragonborn's body.
In the incipient heat of battle, Faralda realized something crucial. Its hold isn't too strong, she thought, thinking back to how the Dragonborn had twitched a bit before the attack—as if for one slight moment, he had held back. Did he not use the full Shout? That was a bit of good news; it meant that what she was dealing with right now could easily have been much worse.
She had seen Grimnir use the full shout once before, on a large iceberg in the Sea of Ghosts some months ago, as a private demonstration away from prying eyes—and innocent lives. One second, he had opened his mouth, and spoken three simple words of the dragon language.
One second after that, there had been no more iceberg, and very nearly no more Faralda, either. The elf, who had come close to drowning in the frigid ocean that night, had not been able to sleep for the next whole month out of abject fear for the man—the dragon—she was presently fighting.
"Mulaagi zok lot!" spat the Dragonborn as he stalked his prey. "Faas … Ru MAAR!"
A burst of crimson energy erupted from his body, and washed over Faralda with enough force to push her backward a few feet. She closed her eyes instinctively; when she opened up again, the Dragonborn had changed. His body was more hunched and angular now, yet still managed to tower over Faralda. Translucent black flames licked his body like ephemeral scales, and spread out from him as if they were wings. His eyes burned red like blood, and the mask on his face had morphed into a terrifying visage. All of this was wreathed in yet more of that hellish black smoke; whether this was real or some trick of the mind, Faralda could not tell.
Faralda felt herself sweat in spite of herself. It's just an illusion, she told herself. It's not real! It's not real!
The Dragonborn growled again, and the Altmer heard the animal relish in his voice as he savored this battle. "Faaz … Daan NAAX!"
Faralda screamed. Her body was suddenly being assaulted with a level of pain and torture that she never would have thought possible; her very bones were splintering like matchwood, and every single inch of her flesh felt like it was being pierced inside and out, from within and without, by a million searing blades, melting at the onslaught and bursting into flame—
She kept on screaming, screaming even after her throat had turned raw, even after the pain had long since left her body—and still the elf climbed to her feet. For even through all the terror and suffering that the Dragonborn had thrown at her, Faralda knew she could not just give up and die.
She knew Grimnir was still inside that thing—and it was up to her to get him out.
"Meyz mul, fahliil," the Dragonborn laughed savagely. "Fo … Krah DIIN!"
This time, Faralda was ready for him. As she raised both her hands, she erected the strongest ward her battered body was capable of at the exact same instant as the icy breath of the Dragonborn, cold as the north winds of frozen Atmora, hit the ward with full force. The torrent of freezing air was deflected either side of Faralda, tearing up snowberry bushes and carving furrows in the ash, snow, and frozen earth underneath.
The Dragonborn growled again, a horrible cackle that chilled her insides. "Strun … Bah QO!"
Faralda's breath caught in her throat. Oh no. She knew that Shout, and she'd seen how destructive it could be. Not nearly on the level of what she'd seen on that iceberg a long time ago, but still enough to depopulate a small town—and certainly more than enough to finish off one little elf.
Yet Faralda had other ideas.
She had to work quickly—already she could feel the change in the air, the tingling sensations creeping along her skin and making her hair stand on end. The Altmer threw up a ward with one hand, and held it a little higher than when she'd deflected that ice magic just now—an angle high enough in precisely the one direction where she might be safe from both the Dragonborn and the dangerous sky. Then, she readied some alteration magic, as if she was about to cast a flesh spell on herself—but instead, she fed that magic into her ward, strengthening it further still—
Then the lightning struck. Bolt after bolt pummeled the surface around Faralda, dislodging stones from the parapet, splintering bushes and trees and leaving smoldering craters in the earth around her. The noise was deafening.
But as the elf had predicted, the majority of the lightning was concentrated on her.
The bolts hit her ward in such rapid succession that it almost felt like a continuous stream of energy. But the infusion of alteration magic into her ward had done the trick; even though it felt like a giant was pummeling her into the ground, Faralda knew the bolts were being successfully deflected—she could tell from the screams and roars in front of her ward, barely audible over the din. She bit her lip, hoping that Grimnir would have enough sense of self-preservation to do what she was hoping to do.
How long the assault continued, Faralda did not know. But just as soon as they had appeared, the bolts faded, and the sky was gradually becoming clearer. It was quiet in the wake of the magical storm—too quiet, as even the wind had ceased to blow—and so, chancing a look, Faralda dropped her ward and stood up. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight.
The remains of the ash spawn were stirring, and for a moment, Faralda wondered why they were moving when there wasn't a breath of wind in the air right now. Then, just as she put two and two together, and prepared her last bit of magic against a possible final push from the ash spawn, the mass of ash suddenly lurched upward, swirling into a giant glowing cloud. This cloud grew higher and higher, larger and larger—before it suddenly dropped like a stone beyond the walls of the College, lost to sight in the time it took to draw breath.
Confounded, Faralda hurried over to the edge of the battlements, and peered downward at the massive drop to the Sea of Ghosts. There was no sign of the cloud—or indeed, of any of the ash spawn that had battled Grimnir—
Grimnir!
The Altmer whirled around, towards the spot where she had angled the lightning blasts, and her heart sank as she saw the result of all that destruction.
Grimnir—she knew somehow that that was him, and not the Dragonborn of before—was sprawled against the outer wall of the College, several feet away from the entrance to the Hall of Attainment. Black smoke and sizzling noises curled up from his prone form, and much of the skin Faralda could see was burned and blistered from the onslaught of his own lightning. The wall behind him was cracked and crumbling; Faralda suspected that one more blast might have destroyed it, and sent the Arch-Mage over the edge and into the sea. She wondered if perhaps Grimnir—or the Dragonborn—had sensed this, and decided not to attack any further out of fear for his own life.
Gingerly, Faralda walked up to him, and put a few experimental fingers over his neck, and then his heart. Her own heart rose—there was a pulse, but it was faint. Faralda hoped it could stay that way for just a while longer.
The door to the Hall of Attainment suddenly creaked open. Colette Marence crept out, followed by a few novices close behind her. "Is it over?" one of them asked—a girl called Agni, the Altmer recalled.
"I hope so," replied Faralda. "The threat seems to have passed. There's been no sign of ash spawn for a while now."
"Then what happened out here?" Colette asked, and then her eyes fell on the Arch-Mage. "What happened to Grimnir? I-is he … ?"
"He's alive," Faralda said grimly, "but barely. He needs medical attention right now. Get some of the stronger novices you can spare. We need to get him inside—get him to safety."
Colette was already upon Grimnir with healing magic, sealing the worst of the wounds. Both women knew that Grimnir would not die easily—whether it was because of him, or the dragon inside him, he could recover from wounds this serious in less than half the time it would take a normal man. But that didn't mean he was invincible—certainly not in this situation.
"All right," Colette stood up, dusting off her hands. She pointed to a pair of novices who looked a little more broadly built than the average mage. "Talib, Metilius—help me get him upstairs! Gently, now—gently!"
The convoy made for the Hall of the Elements—leaving Faralda to finally breathe a sigh of relief, and to tell Tolfdir of what had happened aboveground.
Faralda stiffened suddenly. Where was Tolfdir, anyway? He hadn't come up from the Midden yet …
Half an hour later, Faralda—along with Brelyna, J'zargo, and Colette—had found her answer, and all four of them had covered their mouths in shock and sorrow.
Tolfdir lay before the Atronach Forge, still clutching the handle of the rusted iron sword protruding from Drevis' neck. His mouth was open, forever frozen in a silent scream, and his mangled body was covered in jagged gashes and dried blood. Drevis was no better—a gigantic burn scar was emblazoned on his chest, exactly where his heart and lungs ought to be.
"S'rendarr's claws," whispered a horrified J'zargo at the sight; the Khajiit was white in the face under all that fur. Colette looked sick, and had to excuse herself rather quickly from the room.
Faralda couldn't blame her. The Altmer's first thought at seeing this was why Tolfdir would ever think to turn on his colleague in such a way. Presumably, one had been under the control of the ash spawn, and thus forced to attack the other. But Brelyna had already stated that Drevis had died first.
But what was especially disturbing about this entire scene was what had happened to their faces. Both of their heads had been horrifically mutilated; the face had been hollowed out, skull and all, leaving nothing but a circular space of nothing. There was no sign of a brain, let alone eyes or a nose; only the ears and mouth remained. The skin was a pasty grayish-white for both men, and only their white hair distinguished one from the other; Tolfdir's lay flat against the stone floor, while Drevis' continued to stick outward even in death.
Brelyna looked especially stricken at the sight of her old mentors. "Oh, gods … this looks like—!"
And before anyone could stop her, she bolted from the chamber, suppressing the urge to either cry or be sick—Faralda could not be sure. She forced herself to look away from the grisly scene, and beheld a second sight that was even more surprising, though this time, it was in a more comforting way.
"The Forge," she said, approaching the construct reverently, eyes locked on the cloudy red morpholith on the forward end of the dais. "The sigil stone is still intact."
"Why?" Colette walked towards the smooth sphere with some caution, still a little pale in the face. "I would have thought Tolfdir would try to destroy it—keep any of those creatures from reinforcing their position here!"
"Unless that was these ash spawn's idea from the beginning," mused J'zargo. "To keep us from bringing help of our own."
"I think you're right, J'zargo," Faralda said thoughtfully. "From what you and Brelyna told me, these ash spawn were already sending reinforcements through those bags of septims that Solyn … "
Her voice trailed off as all three mages thought the same alarming possibility at exactly the same time.
After barely thirty seconds of sprinting back the way they had just come, they arrived at the site of Drevis' scrying spell—and stared in growing horror.
Faralda swallowed, and the small noise echoed loudly in the sheer emptiness of the circular chamber in which they were standing. She turned to J'zargo. "Get Phinis down here right now. We have a problem."
Rkund
The clear skies above the Jerall Mountains swirled with a thick soup of red, orange and brown before they dissipated, though not without dropping a parting gift—or, in this case, five of them.
The five gifts in question hadn't even hit the stone ground before slowing to a halt in front of Dagoth Solyn's glowing hands. They circled him as the golden elf manipulated them, his burning eyes taking in every detail of the newly acquired Dwarven artifacts from every angle.
Already the Chimer's mind was buzzing with excitement. Not just for the fact that the tools he had been searching for were in his possession—along with a few other intriguing relics—but for his interest to find out the power they were capable of. Spellbreaker and Volendrung especially—they were Daedric artifacts, and so their function was just as likely to change as their form over time.
And Kagrenac's Tools … Dagoth Solyn felt his fingers shivering just from a small touch of those arcane artifacts. He was somewhat disappointed to note that the power within them was of only a negligent level—but that did not matter to him. At long last—after four thousand years of exile and planning—he had arrived at this juncture.
At last, the power he had been seeking was his.
Solyn stored the artifacts in his robe—Volendrung and Spellbreaker with some difficulty; they were larger than he had expected—and entered the citadel of Rkund. So immersed in his own thoughts was he that the Chimer found himself in the great hall of the Dwarven city without any memory of how he'd made the journey there.
The miners he had commissioned into helping him excavate the ruin were still gathered here. They had been working tirelessly for the last week—and some were beginning to look mutinous after a seventh straight day of doing nothing but dig up dirt. This did not concern Solyn—the miners, too, had been an excuse for him to come here. Now that he had what he came for, they were expendable to him.
One of the workers, a wood elf, suddenly sprang up from his cot and made a beeline for the Chimer. "Hey, you!" he called out.
Solyn stopped.
"Some of us have been talking," said the Bosmer, jerking his head back to reveal several other miners crouched around a fire. "We've been here for what—two months? Two months of digging, two months of breaking our backs to clear out some out-of-the-way ruin. In those two months, we've lost more than half the men we started out with—Dro'zaka and that wispmother, that cave-in at the cathedral, and a whole army of those metal creatures!"
Solyn did not blink. "Yes?"
That only seemed to make the Bosmer madder. "We're starting to think you have no idea what in Y'ffre's bones you're doing! You're either somewhere down below doing Daedra-know-what, or you're outside doing Daedra-know-what. Two months we've been here, and we have nothing to show for it! If you don't get your act together, we're quitting right now—I don't care how much gold you shell out!"
There was a murmur of assent from the fire behind him.
Solyn merely sighed. "Well, that's actually part of the reason I'm here," the Chimer said quietly. "Your services in Rkund have helped immensely. You see, I have found what I came to collect—all of it and more. I have no further need of your services in this regard—however," he added, holding up a finger before the wood elf could protest, "there is one more thing I must ask of you before I can send you on your way with the rewards of your hard work."
The wood elf cocked his head to one side. "And what's that?"
"You may die."
It took the more slow-witted of the laborers a moment to catch on to what Solyn had just said. An Orc, along with some of the most attentive miners, leapt to their feet in surprised anger.
But by the time they could bring their pickaxes to their hands, Dagoth Solyn had already turned his back on the miners as he made his way back to the lift. He began his descent at the exact same time as his ash spawn, hiding in the rafters above the great hall, descended upon them. The Chimer heard the sounds of the one-sided slaughter all the way down to the lower levels of the citadel.
And all the while he still smiled in anticipation. There was still much work left to do, after all.
Next chapter: The College must recover from Solyn's attack, but are they willing to retaliate?
A/N: I didn't initially plan to write this little plot thread, but part of me didn't feel like I'd fleshed out Grimnir quite enough. Since I plan to write a lot more about him in the future, I want to make him more than just a supporting character in the process.
VEN GRAH VEY (Wind, Battle, Cut) – Slices enemies to pieces with the power of the winds.
FAAZ DAAN NAAX (Pain, Doom, Cruelty) – Pretty much what it says on the tin.
And as for that other Shout of his … well, let's just say this saga isn't over yet, and it certainly won't end with this story. Three cheers for creative liberty!
Thanks for reading! - K