The Fall of Lord Kelvyn

By Commentaholic

A/N: It's back, everyone! The Fall of Lord Kelvyn has risen from the grave of anonymity and absence. I know, it's been about... I don't know HOW long! I have to admit, my dad is the only reason this is up. He is the driving force behind this one, and we worked together to write this (he wrote most of it :P) In fact, I barely wrote any of it, but tossed my own little tidbits into this chapter as we worked together to get the characters and facts right.

I bet Arty's almost leaping for joy right now. This one's for you, Arty.

It's shorter than usual, we know, but it just seemed to work. It's a lot better than the usual riff-raff I usually post in this story, and ALL credit goes to my dad for it.

Chapter 12: Till Death Do Us Part?

The look on Owyn's face although stunned at the sight of Rhesus standing in the doorway towering over Tierra held something deeper. Something that an experienced warrior and leader of men like Rhesus had seen before. Guilt. Seeing him here with his wife, although he technically wasn't sure about their marital status anymore, since he'd been dead for eight weeks before Celedaen had found him, using his dark magic to restore and reanimate his body for his dark purposes. "Til death do us part" was starting to get complicated. If you stacked on the time he had spent, since then, working for Celedaen and meeting with Velvet, it had certainly been a while. Still Rhesus had wished that his wife's memory of her love for him would have lingered a little longer.

Rhesus watched with surprise of his own as Owyn's eyes cast around the room at the parts of his hastily and recently removed armor. His gaze alighting everywhere except where it should have, back into Rhesus's own eyes. There should have been no reason at all for his old comrade's hand to travel so quickly to the handle of his mace.

Though death has a nasty way of clouding one's memories, the conversation that Rhesus had shared with Owyn the day of his death shrieked suddenly back into his mind, like the ghost of a bad dream someone tries to forget in the daylight but is far too terrible to be ignored at bedtime.

Rhesus had previously told his "old friend" that he had been wanting to earn some extra money to buy something really nice for Tierra when suddenly out of the blue, Owyn had approached him about making some quick money in the arena.

"There is a new orc gladiator that thinks he is hot stuff, how about making some of that money you need and teaching the jerk a lesson?" he had suggested to Rhesus. "He should be no problem for you!"

Rhesus had been trying to save to buy Tierra a new suit of chain mail to protect her better during her own sometimes violent excursions. Being a strong warrior herself was one of the things that had first attracted Rhesus to her, but living with the worry that his wife would fall in battle had become one the hardest things to handle about caring for someone so much.

Rhesus had agreed to the fight but had not expected his friend to have set him up with a "ringer". After he had been brought back to the world of the living, he had heard rumors that the Orc that had gotten the best of him, a spellsword named Gorgoth, a fighter of tremendous power and skill had gone on to perform many heroic deeds. The truth came home to him, like a giant fist punching him in the gut, that Owyn, a man that made his living evaluating warriors and pitting them against one another, would have known the Orc was likely to be his end. He had been set up. Some of that had been due to his own overconfidence, he had to concede to himself, but he had been led by someone he trusted, to vastly underestimate the Orc's powers of spell craft.

He felt a growl, like that of a vicious beast, come from somewhere deep inside himself as he pushed Tierra aside, shards of broken water pot crunching under his boots as stepped through the doorway and advanced on the Reguard that had been his friend and mentor. His sword flew from it's sheath and came crashing down with a mighty clang upon the mace that Owyn managed to raise in parry just in time to block the swing that would have surely split him down the middle.

"Why did you do it, Owyn?" Rhesus hissed between clenched teeth, his face just inches from the other Redguard as their feet shifted purposefully in the skillful dance of position that would bring one or the other of them into a place of advantage to land the next blow. "There are plenty of women! Why take mine?"

"Tierra is special! You of all people should know that." came the reply, along with a sneaky toss of the mace into his left hand and a sidearm swing designed to catch Rhesus unprepared from his weak side.

Rhesus stepped back just in time to have the mace whistle past the end of his nose. He bore down on the opening left by the weapon switch and landed a glancing slice to the midsection that drew blood, but the shallow cut was not serious enough to slow the other warrior. Quickly the mace was back in Owyn's other hand closing the opportunity for another such strike from that angle.

"I see being dead hasn't slowed you down much Rhesus." came the sarcastic compliment along with a grimace as Owyn once again shifted and swayed with him attempting to close attack points and look for openings of his own. Not having expected such a confrontation, Rhesus had not worn his own armor and was glad he had caught Owyn with at least the upper half of his armor off for this fight, although it angered him all the more when he thought of what would have been likely to happen once the other half had been removed.

Taking another vicious swing he replied. "No the guy that fixed me up was a real pro! Did you sell him my body for a little extra cash? I've had a real fun time of it 'cause of you."

"No, I didn't" Owyn chuckled darkly. "I wanted you to stay dead, that's for sure. You were a friend, but I wanted your woman worse!"

"Sorry to disappoint" countered Rhesus, taking another giant swing that clanged like a cymbal off the shining, swinging mace, this one leaving a deep notch in the longsword's blade.

"She was so vulnerable, so easy to win over after your death!" taunted the arena master. "She has such a softer side you know!"

Rhesus growled again, resisting the temptation to wade in too quickly or take a foolish swing. Fighting in the small living area of his home was a challenge with these long weapons. The other Redguard was trying to bait him into making a fatal mistake. Another one, that is. Swinging the sword, still tangled in the mace's flanges off to the side, he freed his weapon, stepped back a pace, and prepared for another assault.

Moving quickly around a small table, he ducked under a candelabra and swung to the right. Mace fighting worked best with a shield and he didn't want Owyn to be able to maneuver his way around the room to the place where he had dropped his. The mace whistled past his ear, just missing caving in his skull. Rhesus spun and reflexively brought up his sword, The blow against it sent shock waves down his arm, almost tearing it from his grasp. He looked up to see a malicious grin spreading across the blade master's features. This was not going well.

Suddenly the expression on the grinning face of the blade master turned to surprise, a crossbow bolt tip protruding from the center of his chest, blood spraying from the heart of a man whose main arteries were suddenly pierced like a pincushion. His eyes rolled up into his head as he fell to his knees and then face down on the wooden planked floor. His body lay at a strange angle as the head of the arrow dug a furrow in the wood before catching fast and pinning him there. Behind where he had stood was Tierra, an empty crossbow in her hands. She dropped it and just stood there, staring at him, her face still a mask of shock and doubt.

Rhesus sheathed his sword and stepped over Owyn's prone body toward her as she crumpled forward into his arms. Grabbing her before she landed in the widening pool of blood he picked her up and carried her into the kitchen, setting her carefully upon one of the wooden chairs at the table. Her face was in her hands, sobbing hysterically. Not sure what to do, Rhesus just waited, his arm around her shoulders, holding her. He was mildly surprised when she finally lifted her face toward his, it was smiling.

"You must have quite a story to tell, my husband" she said solemnly, "But before you do, would you mind taking out the trash?" gesturing at the still bleeding body in the center of their living room. Rhesus was only too happy to oblige.

Rhesus looked both ways to make sure no city guards were nearby as he dragged the body of the man that had betrayed him outside and into the alley behind his house. He knew just where he would hide the dead blademaster. A place where few found the stomach to go: under the arena in the blood pits. A resting place such as that had seemed suitable to Owyn to leave him in, and it seemed only fair to return the favor.

It took quite a while and a lot of skulking to make it to the depths of the arena with a dead body over his shoulder, but somehow Rhesus managed to pull it off. Dropping the carcass on top of the heap of the dead from today's battles, he looked one last time at the face of the man that had been his friend, that had betrayed him to steal his wife. Shaking his head in disbelief, he climbed the ramp leading from the filthy stinking pit similar to the one in the Imperial city in which his own body had lain for so long.

"Rot in hell, Owyn" he said, strangely filled with a sense of foreboding. Turning back, he made his way back to the body and plunged his dagger through the side of its temple, slicing into the brain and ending, hopefully, the possibility of having to re-live this incident in some strange future twist of fate. If Owyn was raised from the dead now, his brain would be so damaged, he would be nothing more than a shuffling zombie.

His clothing was covered with blood as he emerged once again onto the street and headed back toward his home and his wife. People stared with disgust, but it was not that unusual for someone leaving the arena to carry part of their work home with them.

He had almost reached his door when he felt a strange tug on his arm and whirled around to see the Dunmer assassin, Velvet, looking him up and down with a strange smirk.

"Rhesus, just what have you been up to? I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?"

Rhesus smiled slightly, "What can I say, Velvet, you inspire me!"

A/N: Well, that's the special "HEY! WE'RE BACK!" episode. Shorter than my normal ones, but you can't complain. It's here after such a long absence, so you'd better not complain!

This chapter has been brought to you by Commentaholic's Dad, and dedicated to Arty Thrip.

-=Commentaholic=-