Chapter 10: Kill the Gatekeeper
"I'll only be a few hours." Jayred had told her, and yet those few hours seemed like eternity to the Dunmeri mercenary. She had to find something to do during those hours of early morning. She was too frightened to enter the inn, lest she encounter the crazed necromancer Relmyna again. And it wasn't like she really needed anything from there; well, minus food, but that she found by rummaging through a barrel near the door while Drewdhen was rocking in place in sleepy stupor.
Siena felt sort of… guilty inside for stealing from her old friend and comrade, but she had to take it. And it wasn't technically stealing seeing as Drewdhen had practically given her the last meal for free anyways. So she managed to rationally eat the bread with a clear conscious as she sat on the thin balcony of one of the marble ruins.
Climbing up there had been a chore, yes, but the view was spectacular. As the dawn greeted the vile realm of Sheogorath Siena found it harder to really call it vile at all. The soft orange light shone with such pure beauty upon the world, which was a gorgeous array of greens, browns, and blues from the vegetation around it. In fact, the more she gazed upon the dawn, the more she found herself at ease, at home. It was so much like Morrowind, with its rocky lands and mushrooms of giant proportion, and colorful plants sprouting here and there through hard ground. While the mushrooms might be more like trees than those of home, and while the colorful plant life may not be technically the same, it still held that rustic and homey feel.
Until thinking of home got her thinking of home; of Belmyne and Drewdhen and Nanette and Felas and Jayred. Thinking of her old life, looting crypts and confiscating items at the whims of the Councilmen of Hlaalu. Thinking of Belmyne, and how right now the two of them would have been making wild, passionate love beneath the romantic soft glow of orange sunrise. A tear rolled down her cheek; she made no move to discard it.
She sat there for another hour, before the dawn had come and gone and she felt it was time to meet Jayred again. Jumping nimbly down from the thin railing around the ruin, she returned to the now familiar shack and opened the door, not even bothering to knock. Her mind was elsewhere as she entered, closing the door behind her.
Her mind made a quick trip back to reality, though, when she looked around. Bones… If it wasn't for the fact they held her together, she would hate bones to her very core. She looked to her left to find the fur-clad captain sitting at his table, a collection of arrows in front of him and one in his hands. Siena ran a quick count; nineteen, twenty counting the one he worked on now. She didn't want to begin to imagine how much of that bone he had used to make those arrows.
Jayred was so absorbed in his work he didn't even notice Siena's arrival. She moved to the side of the table, standing there and watching him. With careful, loving precision his dining knife cut into the bone, shaving off a sliver there, and a sliver here. After a few minutes he seemed to take notice of the world around him, likely because he was finished, and set the knife down next to his fork and spoon, looking up to Siena.
"You're going to eat with that knife still?" Siena blurted out, looking dumbfounded and pointing at the utensil. Jayred blinked, caught off guard by the question.
"Yeah, why not? It's still good." He replied, and Siena reflexively cringed. Jayred shrugged and held out the arrow he recently finished. "Think you can shoot this?" He asked her.
"Of course I can shoot it, it's an ar-" Siena snapped quickly, before her hand went to the arrow and she took it, looking at it. The tip was ragged and triangular, looking almost like those old stone arrows before the time of men's metalworking. The shaft was smooth and straight, though she could see signs of knife shaving and straighter-stone on it.
The only thing that had her worried was the fletching. It too was made of bone. But as she looked closer she noticed the bone was precisely shaved to parchment-thin strips, and near the shaft the bone got thicker for support. It had to be one of the most expertly made arrows she had ever seen, and it left her at a loss for words.
How could a man who was the captain of a merchant vessel make such a high-quality arrow? And out of such poor quality material? It was a burning question in her mind, just like how Jayred had seemed to just know she was out to kill the Gatekeeper, even though her intentions had not been announced but mere hours before.
"Where did you learn to make such arrows?" Siena asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Jayred simply smiled, and moved to his shelves. "The bones instructed me."
That statement pretty much ended the conversation on the spot. Jayred turned around and came back, setting what looking like an oversized quiver on the table. But it also looked like a skull. Two eye sockets, and the surrounding bone, had been removed from a skull and attached to bone plates. Beneath the eye sockets were what looked like two femoral bones stuck together, and then a kneecap of sorts as a base. Two horns sprouted just under the eyes and outwards a few inches while two more shot out away from the sides of the eyes. And two more sprouted from above the eyes, mirror images of below. Even the top of the 'quiver' was fashioned like the bottom, and that symmetry coupled with the dark eye sockets to send shivers down Siena's spine. Jayred began packing the nineteen arrows into this hellish thing, before Siena reached out a hand and stopped him.
"Thanks, but I think I will use my own quiver." She told him nervously, casting a small, polite smile before taking off the rusted iron quiver and placing the bone arrows inside.
Even though she was not looking at it, the eyes of that skeletal quiver seemed to burn in her mind, staring at her. There was no way she could use such a thing. She was surprised she could even bring herself to use the bone arrows. But at least they don't stare at me, and make me think I'm wearing a creature. She reasoned with herself as she slung the quiver back on her back.
Jayred clapped his hands together, nodding to Siena. She looked him up and down, noticed he was already prepared, and nodded back. "Let's go kill the Gatekeeper. We might die, but there are worse things." He told her, exiting. Siena forced her lips shut to prevent herself from speaking her mind.
There were plenty of worse things in Siena's mind, but most of them came after death.
When Siena and Jayred arrived at the Gates of Madness, it was already midday. The sun pounded down upon them in the hot, muggy air, but both ignored it as they walked up the last steps leading to the plateau of the Gates. Simultaneously they readied their bows and knocked arrows of bone, Siena trying hard to ignore the material they were made of.
The Gatekeeper -that horrid giant of preserved flesh and cast iron- just stood there, in the center of the stone plaza with the curving stairwells at each side and the bust of a man as big as the Gatekeeper behind it. And then it moved, making Siena flinch. But all it did was strut towards its left, walking calmly. Almost as if it failed to notice two bows drawn and aimed at it.
Or maybe it just didn't care.
"We have to alternate our fire, Jayred. You fire, then I will, then you will. Each time it will draw the Gatekeeper's attention from the other and onto the attacker. It'll give us time to draw and make another shot, and possibly help keep distance between us and the Gatekeeper." Siena explained, her voice smooth and unnaturally calm.
"You go to one side, and I'll take the other." Siena told the Nord, and the captain nodded and moved towards the wall of rock at his left. Siena inched herself towards the wall of rocks on her right. The entire time, the Gatekeeper seemed oblivious to their presence.
If anything, that was what unnerved Siena the most. Not that it was undead, or rotting where it stood; while that unnerved her to the core, it was fear, and fear could be overcome. No. It was the fact that the Gatekeeper seemed to not even care, as if they were meaningless fodder. Anger was often more fatal than fear.
A bowstring twanged and an arrow whistled through the air, snapping Siena's attention towards it. She watched through her shaded lenses as the arrow soared and struck true, impaling the right shoulder of the monster; the sword shoulder. The Gatekeeper emitted a disgusting wale of pain, turning with remarkable agility towards the source of the arrow. The ground rumbled as it lumbered forward unabated by its wound, sword arm swinging back to prepare to strike.
In a panic Siena raised her bow and aimed, focusing her eyes through her shaded glasses and clearly seeing her target. Forcing her breathing to normalize, she steadied her aim and fired. The bone arrow whistled through the air before piercing into the left side of that faceless head, and the Gatekeeper tilted to the right only slightly before continuing on its path.
Almost as if the arrow did not even affect it.
Horrified, Siena cried out as the serrated blade swiped forward, clanging against the rocky wall that Jayred had chosen as his location. She couldn't see any blood, but her mind was moving too frantically now to realize that fact, and she drew another arrow, leveled her bow, and fired.
This one she made sure the Gatekeeper would feel; if it even had –or had need of- a heart. The arrow hit its mark and the Gatekeeper responded, though not in the way Siena had hoped. The unholy beast reared back in pain, again waling, before turning to face her.
Siena was about to knock another arrow when the beast reared back again, and she heard Jayred's voice. "Die dammit!" The Gatekeeper twisted in rage and punched the spot where Jayred was supposed to be. Siena could see when it turned another arrow was jutting from the back of its right shoulder.
The rock around the location cracked audibly, and Siena closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from screaming. She opened them again, though, when the earth began to rumble. The sword came down, but Siena was already rolling out of the way. The moment she was out of the roll, she was running for her life.
In her heart she knew Jayred was dead. She knew he'd been wrong and the Gatekeeper couldn't be defeated. She knew she wasn't going to let herself die, here in this Tribunal-forsaken realm. She cared only for running, only for saving her life. She didn't even care that she'd dropped her bow in her haste to avoid the oncoming attack.
It was like a nightmare where you are unable to run quickly, and time seemed to slow around her. She could hear the rumble of massive feet behind her, but it was overcome by the thumping of her heart in her ears. The stairs to safety seemed to stretch for an eternity.
She heard the rumbles again; the Gatekeeper was closer behind her now. Instinctively she jumped, hurtling herself towards the bottom of the stairs. At the same time she twisted her body in midair and tapped into her depleted well of magicka, flinging a ball of flame at her nightmare.
The sword came within a foot of her feet, and if she hadn't jumped it would have been her waist, and not air, that met the rough metal. The fireball exploded in the Gatekeeper's face, but as Siena landed hard on her back she couldn't really gauge how effective it had been. Hurriedly she raised herself up on one arm, the other clutching her side as she tried to steady her breath.
She'd made it! She'd reached that border where the Gatekeeper would venture no further, and now stared at the monster in defiance. Its face was slightly redder than before as it presumably stared back, and then turned and left. As it walked up the stairs, Siena couldn't help but notice the odd way its sword arm seemed to dangle at its side.
Eyes wide with shock, Siena hastily began picking up the bone arrows that had fallen from her quiver while she was in the air. So… if they did work… they simply didn't work enough. I need something else. Something to augment the arrows and do even more damage. She felt a giddiness come over her that was –to say the least- surprising. All she needed was one more weapon against that thing, and the nightmare would be over.
Nanette! Relmyna had mentioned Nanette. Didn't she say something about… instructing her or something? Maybe she knows a weakness! Yes, yes that was just what she needed to do. Talk to Nanette and find another weakness. But first she had to find Nanette.