A/N: Amazingly, no one has yet complained that the Chapel of Arkay isn't actually in Bruma. Whoops. Since this is pretty well established in my miniverse canon I'm afraid I'll have to leave it there...

Chapter 27

The Kynmarcher was there watching as Ghatha began the process of summoning the Sleeper back into the Citadel. All his other kynreeves were there, too, waiting in predatory anticipation of failure. Ghatha's latest attempt to gain his favor had not improved her standing with her peers.

When she failed, when the cord of summoning was cut despite her earnest and clever efforts, no one laughed. They were looking at the Kynmarcher. Ghatha stood rigid, upright in spite of her exhaustion, and waited for his verdict.

The Kynmarcher folded his arms, rattling his heavy armor. "It was a clever idea," he said. "But you have failed. We will not recover this Sleeper."

"My lord," began Ghatha, but he was already drawing his sword. The kynreeves grinned in anticipation, and now one or two did laugh, but quietly.

"We will withdraw from this Citadel," said the Kynmarcher. "I have listened to you too long, krynvelhat bitch." He took one long step and swung his claymore. A nearer kynreeve ducked to avoid Ghatha's flying head. Her body toppled over slowly.

"One of you go find her apprentice and kill him, too," said the Kynmarcher. "Don't kill her more than twice more." He grinned, as a man might at a good joke. "But take your time."

--

Ebel-Merodach knelt on one knee, listening, and tried to determine what he had missed. The flame atronach was gone, Dagon only knew where. The fire had more or less gone out, but his eyes were beginning to adapt to the unnatural darkness that was night in this plane. He could just make out the atronach priest Varen, who was talking to someone over his head. A faint whiff of burnt flesh from that direction made him as close to homesick as it is possible for a kynaz to be, but he was able to ignore that.

He was alive, his Sleeper was alive, and the debt bond stood. Something that had been knotted for a while was unwinding inside him, threatening to throw him off balance. And that I cannot allow. He'd had nothing to drink in too long, and Sodrinye's healing had not given back all his lost blood. He could lift his mace, but he would be slower than customarily. Merodach narrowed his eyes, calculating.

It might have been easier if Sodrinye were awake, but she was not. He should not have to depend on overwhelming magical power for victory in any case. That had been beneath him before he met her and it should be so now.

If the reflexes of the man who had stabbed him were anything to go by, the angry human overhead would not be easily killed. They are smaller, and very quick, and unburdened by this armor. He had noticed a certain agility in Menien Goneld, who was certainly older as mortals counted it than the man Varen was calling Marcus. And to mortals age meant weakness, not strength.

Menien Goneld was still alive. Ebel-Merodach could see the faint gleam of the alien stars on the arrow he had nocked and on the bald top of his head. Someone was crouched there behind him, the Breton female if size was anything to go by. Neither seemed to be the other's prisoner, which puzzled Merodach. But then, if Goneld was anything to go by, humans formed attachments and hostilities with startling rapidity.

Try as he might, he could hear or sense no one else nearby. No blood has been shed but mine. Embarrassment does not come easily to a kynaz, or he might have been embarrassed at that. At the moment there was work to do. Ebel-Merodach bared his teeth at the battle to come. Then he hefted the mace and started up the stairs, making no attempt to be quiet.

--

The Breton girl seized Goneld's arm as he was about to fire. "You can't do that," she hissed.

"I bloody well can," said Goneld. The grip of her small hand on his arm was not very strong, but it would throw off his aim. For some reason which, at the time, he did not clearly understand, he didn't shrug her off.

"Not in cold blood," said the girl. "Surely you're not so far gone as that."

"What makes you think so?" said Goneld. He'd lost his chance, anyway. The Blade was back away from the edge now. No doubt he'd heard Merodach on his way up the stairs. Goneld saw the gleam of the Dremora armor disappearing up the stairwell. The tramp of heavy boots was quite audible.

Goneld looked pointedly at the girl's hand on his arm. She blushed and withdrew it.

"You wouldn't have made that charming offer when we both ended up back here," she said, rallying quickly. "And even when you shot Varen, you didn't mean to kill him. You said so."

"That's true," Goneld said. He looked at her as if for the first time. She really was young – not yet twenty if he wasn't mistaken. Of course, it had been a long time since he'd seen a human face this closely, even in the dark. Especially in the dark. She was short, and plumpish, and her hair was an undistinguished shade of brown. But there was something in her face... A little sharp, like her tongue. "How long have you been a priestess?" he said.

"Er," said the girl. "A few months now."

"Up in Bruma?" said Goneld.

"Yes. They needed a new priestess because one of the other novices ran off to join the Chapel of Dibella. Why?" she looked at him suspiciously.

"No reason," said Menien Goneld, and shrugged his shoulders under the sudden return of weight. I'll have to stick by the demons. I still owe them more than they owe me. "My name's Menien, by the way. What's yours?"

"Laure," she said. "I'm afraid I followed Varen when he left the Chapel – I was curious, and he's supposed to have been so many interesting places." Here she eyed him challengingly, but Goneld took this in stride. "I suppose I'll know better next time."

"I had to learn that one, too," agreed Goneld without force. "Took a lot more. You're lucky you're smarter than I was."

He peered around the column. Tychicus Varen had not moved. He stood looking toward the doorway into the courtyard with his hands folded in front of him. It seemed he had dismissed the fully armed and very angry Blade from his attention. You won't succeed. In fact, I'm quite certain you will die in the attempt, he had said.

Laure seemed to be prey to a similar recollection. "He's always very polite," she said in a more subdued voice. "And he is kind to those in need, because it falls within his oath of service. It's easy to forget how very cold he is. I suppose that's why no one has ever realized he isn't human."

Goneld heard this, correctly, as That's why I didn't realize. There would be a lot of sleepless and stinging nights for Laure in the near future. He remembered, albeit dimly and as one far away, what it was like to be that age. What the atronach thought about it no one could say; was there any such stage in the life of a daedra, any such heated and embarrassed time of life? Goneld thought not.

"Ebel-Merodach would never pass, I know that," said Goneld. "I don't know that he'd want to try." I wonder if it really was just the two Blades. I wonder where those two Redguards are now...

--

Marcus Barnabas heard the tramp of boots on the stairs as he was halfway there. He stepped quickly back into a shadow beside Lybiad's body, listening. There was a rumbling growl from that direction. It's the big caitiff. Marcus thought quickly, his rage clearing with the necessity of the moment. He could change weapons and fire before the kynaz got to him. The question was whether he could hit anything vital enough to kill before the kynaz reached him. He would not get a second shot.

I'd have to get him in the eye socket or the mouth, and in the dark I don't like the odds. Marcus adjusted his grip on the sword as he stood in the dark. He was not sure what weapon the kynaz had, but he did know the creature's head was unarmored except for his horns. The massive Dremora cuirass – it would not be daedric, not on a low-ranking kynaz like this one – would provide some protection to his throat, and if he normally fought without a helm he would be accustomed to hunch up his shoulders so that the pauldrons could serve that purpose. I'll have to try for the armor's joints or go for his face. A caitiff won't be so very fast.

He expected it to be easy. He'd killed caitiffs and churls before.

None of them was Ebel-Merodach, who had collected twenty-five hundred souls.

--

Merodach showed his shoulder around the top of the stairwell. No missile arrived to rebound from his pauldron. Merodach stood listening for a moment, then peered each way down the broad walkway that circled the inside of the tower. The human who had stabbed him lay off to his left, giving off the familiar smell of burnt flesh and death. The stone walls cast harsh shadows in the disorienting starlight, foiling his vision.

Would a human fighter be far from the corpse, in inexplicable but very human distaste for that reminder of mortality? Or would he be nearby, expecting the corpse to serve as a distraction? Ebel-Merodach considered this briefly, then stepped out toward the corpse. He was partly in shadow now, and his head would not be easy to aim at from behind if he had guessed wrong. From the front his glowing eyes would be an easy target, as Menien Goneld had been so quick to point out. Merodach held the mace high to protect his face, disdaining the way this punished the exhausted and blood-deprived muscles in his arm and shoulder.

"I know you are there," said Ebel-Merodach in Cyrodilic. "Come out so that I can kill you."

The form of a man darted from the shadow beside the body, long blade flashing in starlight. Ebel-Merodach registered that he was holding it low just in time to turn face-on to the blade, causing the point to score his belly plates rather than punch through the seam of the cuirass. The man quickly recovered and swung back at Merodach's head, but he was ready for that, too. He knocked the blade aside with an armored elbow and struck the man a glancing blow on the shoulder with his mace. An attempt to crush the enemy's ribs would have failed. Merodach would have had to turn fully and he would not have been fast enough. Now the two disengaged, standing back warily from each other.

Merodach bared his teeth at the set of scratches the flanges of the mace had inflicted on the man's shoulder. The heady scent of blood rose from the neat slits in the shoulder of his leather tunic. Merodach was very thirsty, his throat raw.

"Go back to Hell," said the human.

"You are poisoned," said Ebel-Merodach. "If you flee and seek help now, perhaps you will live."

"There's no help out here," said the man. "Not for me. Not for you." He jabbed forward again, and this time Merodach moved his head to one side to avoid it. The man tried to kick the back of Merodach's knee as he whirled past, one of the better ways to unbalance a kynaz in full armor. Merodach knew that one. He stiffened his leg against the blow, and the armor absorbed the shock.

To fight so defensively was profoundly undesirable, but weakness still dragged at his arms and legs. Merodach pivoted as the human circled him, watching as he was watched. The human tried a feint, hoping to lure him off balance that way. Even with the scent of blood strong in his nostrils, Merodach did not take the bait.

Then the human's eyes widened in realization as the poison began to take effect. He made another cut at Merodach's head, but the movement was slower, untidy. Merodach caught it on one pauldron and shrugged off the blade. The man staggered, no feint this time. Merodach swatted the sword out of his hand with the mace. He sheathed the weapon and drew his belt knife as the man fell to his knees.

The man came up with a knife of his own from somewhere as Merodach was reaching for him. His wild swipe managed to cut a slice of Merodach's left hand, and then Merodach jabbed him in the side of the neck and fastened his yellow teeth around the hole, crushing his enemy in his armored grip.

One of the advantages to poison by enchantment is that it does not linger in the victim's blood. Fast he might be, but he was not as strong as a kynaz. He only struggled for a few seconds.