Into the Fire
"You did what?" Shadowmere asked in disbelief at Saeana's most recent contribution to their epic tale of their various attempts at self destruction. It had been hours since they had left the priory and, instead of sleeping, they had kept walking, hearing tale after tale of gut twisting thrills and spills. Shadowmere had learned that Saeana had been something of a brute as a child; at one point, she had earned the nickname "The Dentist" because she had "accidentally" knocked out two of her friend's teeth while playing a game. The cringing part of the story had been that her friend had shoved the dislodged teeth back into her gum without a second thought. Shadowmere had countered the dental disaster story by recounting how Ilura had pushed her kneecap back into place, offering descriptions of the sounds that had resulted. Though each flinched and feigned disgust, Shadowmere knew she and Saeana were both relieved, however perversely, that they had such a dialogue going. It had been over a day since their fight by the waterfall, and the disgusting conversation had been the only thing that kept them both awake.
"Zemechelin was going to tag me so I dove over the side of the balcony," Saeana said, her voice jovial as she retold her story, but her vermillion eyes regretful of her past actions.
"But you dropped twelve feet!" Shadowmere exclaimed, strangely jealous of the tale. None of her painful, butt clenching stories had been about injuries sustained while playing with friends; hers had all been the result of Tavrel. She had never realized that children could hurt themselves simply playing with one another.
"And I landed on rose bushes and a pile of gardening equipment." Saeana was now purely bragging of her adolescent escapades. "I broke two ribs and sliced open my hand when I tried to break my fall on a broken shutter." She held up her hand, which bore a scar running from the top of her index finger down to the opposite side of her palm. "But Zemechelin never got me." Shadowmere had to laugh; Saeana was competitive before anything else. "Your turn," her friend said, nodding toward her.
"You tit-punched me yesterday morning, that was pretty heinous." Saeana rolled her eyes at the cynical comment.
"Come on, I know it sucked, but that's not nearly graphic or drastic enough. Come up with another one. You have to come up with something that tops broken ribs and a twelve foot fall during a game of tag."
Her response now required some genuine thought; during their long trek, the two women's conversation had encompassed most of the painful moments of Shadowmere's past but she was running out of material. She had a few winning tales left, but those were too painful to even think about, much less speak of. Those that didn't make her shudder simply made her want to cry.
"So, what prompted this whole conversation?" she asked, not pretending her question fell in line with the flow of the dialogue.
"I'm pretty sure you did," Saeana reminded her, a snide grin on her face. "You wanted me to try and top the story of turning into a horse."
"Yeah, but that was hours ago. Childhood injuries aren't exactly a topic that take so long to relive and brag about without some reason to keep talking about them." Saeana's eyes, to Shadowmere's surprise, suddenly lost the playfulness they had developed over the course of their trip, and her smile was quietly sobered. The silence that followed the change in tone made Shadowmere regret her question.
"The monks said," she started, her voice having all the force of the lamb Shadowmere had held in her arms hours earlier. "They said that we were probably going into danger. They said they would pray for us." While the effect it had on her companion was clear, Shadowmere was unsure as to why this was so significant for her.
"We've gone 'into danger' before Saeana," she assured, trying to fix what she had inadvertently broken. "We've come out the winners each time. Why does this have you so shaken?" Saeana shook her head, looking lost to Shadowmere.
"They're praying for us," she insisted, the basis of her unease becoming clear. "They don't think that we're going to survive without the Divines' intervention. It makes me a little sick to think about." Nodding with pretend understanding, Shadowmere furrowed her brow to emphasize her point.
"So naturally, we discuss the most nauseating things that have ever happened to us to take your mind off of blowing chunks by the side of the road," Shadowmere's face danced with sarcasm, though her words failed to bring any reaction to her friend's sullen countenance.
"We discussed the worst physical suffering we've ever endured and survived," Saeana corrected her, looking to her like a child lost in a crowd who had suddenly seen a familiar face. "It was kind of comforting to know how much we could survive." Letting out a long sigh, Shadowmere tried to find the words to console her friend. She had learned a long time ago that sometimes adding more words to a conversation wasn't always what would make it better. Of course she had learned that because she had no way of contributing outside of blowing her lips or whinnying. The knowledge was still valid though, and she intended to make use of it.
"How many people do you think those men see?" she asked, putting one hand on her hip as she kept walking, trying to exude her conviction and coolness. "And of those few people, how many of them do they send off into potential danger?" Saeana's shoulders lost a little of their tension, the tightness flowing off her back like a silk cape. "And would you rather they said that they weren't praying for us? I can't imagine that would award a whole lot of confidence. 'You go ahead and risk your lives, but we're going to save our prayers for the lepers and heathens.' " Shadowmere saw that, because of her best efforts, a smile had cracked into Saeana's face. "Believe me, this isn't going to be a big deal," she said, hoping that she hammered her point into the ground. Saeana's face had almost regained the carefree smile it had held for most of their trek when the sound of pounding footsteps thundered toward them.
"Run while there's still time!!" Shadowmere felt all her relief washing away from her like a rescue line pulled out of reach as an Altmer man ran screaming toward them, making Saeana's eyes widen. "Really?" Shadowmere thought in exasperation, thoroughly pissed at the man's panicked entrance. "You had to do this now?" Before she could voice her feelings, the man started yelling again as he reached them, grabbing Saeana by the shoulders and shaking her. "The guard still holds the road, but it's only a matter of time until they're overwhelmed!" Uncomfortable with the lunatic having his hands on her friend, Shadowmere immediately pushed him back, using her oppressive presence for the second time in two days, though this time it was on someone who was actually intimidated by it. Startled just enough to let Saeana go, the man backed down and Shadowmere said nothing. "Man, am I always going to be like that?" she wondered, slightly unnerved at how instinctual it had been to leap to her friend's defense at the perception of a threat. "I'm not a horse anymore, Saeana's not helpless, why am I still acting like her personal guard?"
"Run?" Saeana clarified, ignoring the physical altercation. "Run from what?" The man's light brown hair frizzed and wild brown eyes were frenzied; his fear was as cold and powerful as the waterfall to which Shadowmere had awoken for so many weeks. He stank of sweat and smoke, the smell pushing a slimy knot up Shadowmere's throat which settled there until she turned her head away for a breath of fresh air.
"God's blood, you don't know, do you?" The man's distraught words were soft and filled with disbelief, Shadowmere's skin crawling. "Daedra overran Kvatch last night!" A shudder simply wasn't an adequate reaction to something so horrific, and Shadowmere, for a few seconds, felt nothing at all while her body decided what to do. "There were glowing portals outside the walls! Gates to Oblivion itself!" he waved frantically toward the stone wall on the hill above them, where a spire of smoke rose ominously into a bruised sky. "There was a huge creature…something out of a nightmare…came right over the walls, blasting fire…they swarmed around it…killing…" Shadowmere still felt the knot in her throat, but she barely smelled the man anymore.
"The whole city can't be destroyed." Saeana's voice was infused with fear and disbelief, and Shadowmere thought better than to try and tell her to look up at the foreboding cloud above the city walls. Fortunately, the madman didn't share her sentiments as he pointed back toward the walls, doing what Shadowmere couldn't bring herself to do.
"Go and see for yourself!" he taunted. "Kvatch is a smoking ruin! We're all that's left, do you understand me?!" The man shook his arms, acting like a wounded animal cowering into the corner and surrounded by predators. "Everyone else is dead!" "He's exaggerating," Shadowmere told herself, the knot pulsing in her throat threatening to pop out of her mouth. Even as she told herself that what the man said couldn't be true, that there had to be others left alive, deep inside, she knew he spoke the truth. His stink seemed non-existent now.
"How did you escape?" Saeana asked, either putting on a strong façade or genuinely unmoved by the man's words. As she had been so stricken by his words before, Shadowmere suspected it was the former. Her question seemed to trigger a sense of calm in the man, his hysteria lessening and his words more subdued.
"It was…Savlian Matius…" he murmured with some degree of awe. "Some of the other guards…helped some of us escape…they cut their way out, right through the city gates. Savlian says they can hold the road…" A peace came over the man, and when it seemed his panic was washed away with the tides, it came back in a tsunami. "No…no. I don't believe him! Nothing can stop them! If you'd seen it you'd know…I'm getting out of here before it's too late!" The man spun around them, backing down the path they had just come up, still trying to warn them. "They'll be here any minute, I'm telling you. Run while you still can!"
"Look, mister-" Shadowmere started, only to be interrupted by the man who backed further down the path."
"You can say what you like," he said, dancing between the balls of his feet. "But I'm never going back to Kvatch!"
"I'm not asking you to," she said, doing her best to calm the man. "We're looking for someone named Martin," she said, trying to keep from chasing the man down and tackling him to stop his infernal twitching. She found it irritating and distracting, but she suspected it was the only thing that kept the High Elf from tearing himself apart.
"I knew a priest named Martin once," he said, continuing his a-melodic waltz some distance away. "I'm sure he's dead, just like the rest of them. They're all dead, don't you understand?"
"Yeah, yeah I got that much," she muttered, tiring of his dementia. "Who's Savlian Matius?" Continuing to back down the path, the man pointed toward the smoking walls.
"You'll find him at the barricade at the top of the hill. He's trying to hold what's left of the guard together." Without so much as another word, the man took off down the road, kicking up clouds of dust and disappearing in the haze.
"Have a nice day!" Shadowmere called sardonically, shaking her head. "Nut job," she added under her breath. Saeana looked over at her, the façade dissolved and worry now shadowing every curve of her face.
"I don't think he was lying," she said meekly. "I mean, you see the smoke just as much as I do, the air reeks of it." She looked up at Shadowmere, her eyes innocent. "Do you think we're too late?"
"That guy was out of his mind," she said quickly, not wanting Saeana to lose her motivation to get the priest out of Kvatch. "Yeah, something bad has obviously happened, but we still have a job to do. Maybe we can help them out somehow, but first things first; we need to get the priest." Saeana nodded complacently. It was odd to Shadowmere how she had to lead her by the hand through all this; Saeana was hardly a submissive personality. She had been an independent, seasoned fighter and she was more than capable of taking care of herself, which she had proven time and again. Was it their partnership that was making her so lax? Was Shadowmere assuming too much of the power in their relationship? Or was Saeana so genuinely unsure of herself in this matter that she turned to her in a need for direction? At this point it didn't matter; that could be addressed later if necessary, but for now they needed to act.
"Yeah," Saeana reluctantly admitted. "I suppose we ought get up there then." Shadowmere was relieved to see that she at least started walking on her own, jogging slowly to catch up with her. Shadowmere felt as though she was walking knee deep in bread dough that grew increasingly thicker the closer they got to the base of the winding path up to the city gate. And despite the billowing smoke, the air seemed to be getting colder, making Shadowmere's skin pucker. Surrounding a large central fire were a number of tents in varying sizes; some pup tents, some slightly bigger and some that were like canvas manors. A few stools and smaller, darkened cooking fires decorated the miserable miniature village, as well as a few trunks and crates. One tent had an anvil set up on a table outside of it, as well as its own fire pit. While the surroundings weren't altogether unpleasant to behold, the slimy feeling she had felt earlier, brought about by the stench of the crazed Altmer, now pushed its way back up her throat when she saw the faces of the people gathered in a makeshift campsite.
Most bore soot and a few had bright red burns, or bandages. She had seen dirty faces before, she had seen injuries before, but it was the distinct narrow clean streaks running down their cheeks that made a distant hurt swell in Shadowmere's chest. She tried to focus on the dirt on the ground in front of her, and not those whose tears fell upon it. She tried to listen to the wind that cooled her skin, and not the sound it carried, or the smoke in it that stung her eyes. Still, the words of the citizens managed to make their way to her unwilling ears.
"I've looked everywhere. Perhaps she still in Kvatch, in a basement, hiding?" A Bosmer murmured. Though his words carried hope, his voice was that of a man who had lost nearly all expectation of a positive outcome.
"It's possible," an Orc woman said, her tone much in line with the man's. "Maybe she got out and she's looking for you too." It was strange to Shadowmere, and a little upsetting, how willing these people were to continue to hurt themselves and each other after plainly having suffered so much pain. Why did the Bosmer set himself up for such inevitable heartache? And if he insisted on doing so, why did the Orc continue fostering this delusion? Whoever it was that the man was looking for was likely, considering the mounting evidence, dead and perhaps never to be found. It was obvious to Shadowmere, perhaps to Saeana as well, though Shadowmere found her expression difficult to read, that believing anything otherwise would cause more harm than good.
"Should we find somewhere to put on our armor?" Saeana's voice drew Shadowmere from her mental quagmire, her tone already taking on the same hopelessness that seemed to strangle the encampment.
"You think this might be dangerous?" she asked facetiously, looking at all the tents. "I'm guessing any of these things without stuff in it is game."
"Shadowmere," Saeana's voice conveyed slight surprise, as well as a certain disapproval. "This is where these people live now; would you really walk into someone's house, no questions asked?"
"We've done it before," she said, lifting her brow. "I'm pretty sure we weren't invited into that huge mansion up by the shrine to Azura." Saeana shook her head and sighed.
"There's a big difference between taking a few trinkets from someone who wouldn't miss them and violating the privacy of people who have lost everything," Saeana insisted, intent on making her point. Despite the sorrow all around them, Shadowmere felt her heart lift a little with pride at her friend's words.
"Well, look at you!" she murmured, nudging her with her hip. "We'll make an altruist out of you yet." Saeana scoffed and rolled her eyes, refusing to comment one way or another, and walking over to an old Redguard man. He sat on a beat up table near the anvil and makeshift forge, though he lacked the thick knuckles and calloused hands of a blacksmith. But in this place, where so much had clearly gone wrong, anything was possible.
"Excuse me," she asked him, though he barely lifted his eyes, much less his head, in acknowledgment. "Is there somewhere we can change? We're heading up to the city gate, we'd just like to be prepared." The man shrugged.
"You could do it right here and no one would notice," he muttered, shaking his head. "Those of us who aren't catatonic have our eyes so tattooed with the ugliness we've seen that we're blind to anything beautiful."
"That's the most depressing compliment I've ever heard," Shadowmere thought dismally, almost hating her own pleasing appearance. She wished for a moment that she still had her disfigured nose, her scarred face, her hooves, anything that would make the man look at her. It was a bittersweet gift, not having her marks from all she had endured. True, she was more aesthetically pleasing, but now no one would ever believe her regarding what had happened during her abysmal childhood. It wasn't as though she wanted to tell many people about that time, but on the rare occasion when she could give sympathy, her credibility would be called into question and her commiseration would be dismissed. "With the scars they could see who I really was." Shadowmere sighed but knew that, given her lifestyle and habits, there would be plenty of opportunities to garner new marks.
"For modesty's sake," Saeana said, once again speaking to the old man. "My friend here is shy." Her joke went over the man's head, as he wasn't even looking at Shadowmere or her daring outfit. The man jerked his thumb toward one of the tents.
"Use mine," he muttered. "I just can't sleep. I lie down and close my eyes but I can't stop thinking about it." Saeana hurried in, closing the flap behind her and leaving Shadowmere in awkward silence with the man.
"So, what's your name?" she asked, leaning against the table beside him. "I'm Shadowmere, by the way." The man glanced at her for a fleeting moment before averting his eyes once more.
"Boldon. What do you want?" She shouldn't have been surprised by the man's curt words, but she suspected that he had very little capacity left for tact.
"What…" She wasn't even totally sure how to ask the question properly. "…happened here?" she asked, overlooking his terse response. The man scoffed, glancing over at her, for an instant before examining the darkened calluses on his hands.
"Hirtel didn't clue you in?" he asked. "Our former village idiot."
"Was he the Altmer screaming that everyone was dead?"
"Yep. He's been the one reminding us all of what happened; because, you know, the stink of burning flesh, the living in tents and the annihilation of everything we've ever known wasn't enough to remember that night by." Though his words were bitter, Shadowmere raised her eyebrows.
"So you can tell me what happened?" She tried not to sound too enthusiastic to hear about something that was destined to be terrible. Boldon sighed heavily, looking as though he knew that the next thing he touched would give him a static shock.
"Late at night, when we were all asleep, a door to Oblivion opened." His voice was empty, like the sound of an abandoned house, where family portraits still hung. "Daedra came out and set fire to the town. Many people died, but some," he motioned to the rag-tag group of people around them, "got out alive." Shadowmere didn't want to press him further, but she had another question which had some relevance to the job she had undertaken with Saeana.
"Do you know what happened to a man by the name of Martin?" Even the sound of what had to be a familiar name didn't shake the man out of his complacency.
"If you mean the priest I don't think he made it out of the city. Very few of us did. But Savlian Matius might know more. He's in charge of the city guard that's defending the camp. You'll find him at the barricade at the top of the road. He's still trying to hold what's left of the guard together." The old man seemed to take some level of peace from the knowledge that at least some were still trying to protect them, despite what sounded like overwhelming odds.
"It's the smell really." A voice across from her made Shadowmere look up. An attractive young Nord woman in a tattered blue dress now spoke. "Smoke and fire. And something worse. In the ruins." Though the woman's words didn't follow the conversation she had been having with Boldon, Shadowmere suspected that the woman just needed someone to listen to her. She was good at listening.
"This all just happened last night?" she pressed, garnering a nod from the woman. "What did you do before all this?" she asked, trying to focus the woman's mind elsewhere while she braided her waist length hair.
"Alchemy," she murmured while Shadowmere twisted her braid into a bun on the back of her head, pinning it in place with two hair pins.
"Lost all my equipment in the attack so I don't know how I'm going to get back on my feet. I can't in good conscience charge for the few potions I got out with, not when the people here have as little as I do, if not less." Shadowmere made a note that, should she find any alchemical equipment, she ought to bring them here before selling them.
"Your turn," Saeana murmured, tapping her on the shoulder and motioning toward the now empty tent. She was now clad in the armor that she had been given when she was initiated into the Dark Brotherhood. It was similar to the armor Shadowmere had worn since she was fifteen, but Saeana's was of a slightly lower quality, the leather thinner and the enchantments on it weaker. Her Daedric bow was fastened to her back, framing her quiver of elven arrows.
Nodding toward the young woman and the old man, Shadowmere jumped into the tent and closed the flap. Though she was a little cooler than she had been earlier, she wasn't looking forward to putting on her worn, black leather armor. It had been weeks since she had worn it, and she wasn't sure that it would still fit after so many weeks lazing about and drinking beer. Letting her hacked short pants fall to the ground, she pulled the bottom part of her armor over her legs, struggling to pull it over her slight paunch, confirming her fears.
"It's not by much," she lied to her stricken sense of self-esteem, "And it's possible that he leather shrunk a little from not wearing it." Satisfied with her excuse, she unlaced her boots just enough to pull them over her calves. Grunting a little as she yanked the leather cuirass around her body and laced it shut, though she had to tug a little tighter than she was used to.
"Damn beer," she spat, knotting the strip of rawhide securely and beginning the process of lacing the top and bottom together. That was one advantage Saeana's armor had that Shadowmere's didn't; her armor was all one piece, and only had to be laced once up the side. Then again if she had to pee, Saeana was required to completely disrobe. In that case, Shadowmere preferred her method. Tying off the lacing around her waist, she set her sights on fastening her boots to her greaves. Securing all the pieces of her armor together made it a little sturdier and kept her skin from being exposed as she moved, but it was certainly time consuming.
Finally, her lacing done, she emerged from the canvas shelter and strapped her baldric around her waist, adjusting it so that her sword was resting along her left leg and carried her shield under her arm. "You ready?" she asked, Saeana now leaning against the tent support, staring toward a man standing alone near where the path began to slope. Her friend nodded toward the man before looking back at her, her concern written in her eyes.
"He's been standing there forever," she murmured. "Just muttering to himself and shaking." Shadowmere stared at the man in question, furrowing her brow and watching as the man paced back and forth, shaking his head.
"Have you talked to him? If I had to guess, he's probably seen something that the others haven't. He might be able to give us some insight." Saeana shook her head and, without waiting for further comment, Shadowmere started toward the man, already feeling as though something wasn't quite right. The air around the Imperial, a priest from the looks of it, stank of acrid piss and madness, and the sound of the man's incoherent mumbling made her ears strain to hear.
"Are you sure about this?" Saeana asked, nodding toward the white haired man, whose pacing only increased as they approached. "I don't know that he wants company." Shadowmere said nothing, but agreed with her friend nonetheless. Still, if the man had information that could help them, he would have to get over his apparent xenophobia.
"Excuse me," she said as they got closer. The man's pacing stopped and he stared directly at the two Dark Elves; he was the only one of the entire encampment to look either of them in the eye. Shadowmere didn't know if that was good or bad.
"Hope is gone," he droned despondently. "The Imperial line is dead. The Covenant is broken. The Enemy has won." Looking at one another, Shadowmere and Saeana each mirrored the other's raised eyebrows and Shadowmere, for some reason, found herself choking back giggles.
"Alright then," she said after a moment of searching for the right words and pushing incredibly inappropriate laughter down her throat. Those weren't the right words, but they were the best she could come up with. "At least I didn't laugh," she consoled herself. "What covenant are you talking about?" The man stared at her for an uncomfortable half a minute, his feuillemorte eyes assessing her with disappointment.
"The Imperial line is dead and the gods have forsaken us." As he spoke, he walked closer to Shadowmere, the stink of his robes almost moving on its own accord. "Where is our blessing?" he asked softly, his voice tense with the pain of betrayal, his nose almost touching the end of hers, his breathe stale and only slightly improved from the smell of his robes. "Where is our protection? Where are our gods?" She stayed quiet, hoping the man wasn't expecting a response. "The Enemy triumphs, and we die alone." His face was twisted into a twitching snarl, Shadowmere was more than a little uncomfortable as his breath brushed against her lips.
"What enemy? Who's the enemy?" Shadowmere had never been more grateful for her friend than when Saeana spoke up, drawing the man's attention away from her. Though she was certainly uneasy about the proximity of their bodies, Shadowmere found herself distracted by pity for the man. She had no place in her life for the gods, but this man had believed at some point. Now he was trapped in some horrific nexus between what he had believed and what he had seen, and it was causing him terrible pain.
"Lord Dagon is the Enemy," he muttered, turning toward Saeana, his madness now fixed on her. "He is the Prince of Destruction and the daedra are his servants. The Chapel is cast down and the faithful…my friends…all dead. The Enemy has won, and we are destroyed." Before he could reach Saeana, Shadowmere grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her away from the crazed priest, not wanting a repeat of their encounter with Hirtel.
"We'll see what we can do about that," she said quickly, already making her way up the hill. "Try not to worry." The man merely stared at her, emotionlessly watching them as they made their ways up the path.
"So next time we find a crazy person, we leave him alone, right?" Saeana murmured, lifting an eyebrow at Shadowmere.
"Agreed," she sighed, blowing out her cheeks. "Thanks for bailing me out."
"You too." Shadowmere tucked a stray lock of her ebony hair back into place as they rounded the first curve in the path. "Do you suppose when he said 'Lord Dagon', he actually meant…?" Shadowmere looked over at Saeana who looked a little skeptical.
"Mehrunes Dagon?" Shadowmere finished, receiving a nod from Saeana. "I don't know. The man was obviously out of his mind, I don't know that I'd believe anything he said. On the other hand, I don't know what, other than the Daedra Lords, would be able to cause this much devastation."
"I know," Saeana said, biting her fingernails, trying to hide her nervousness. "But then again, why would a Daedra Lord come from Oblivion to Tamriel?" Shadowmere shrugged.
"Why do they ever come?" she asked, swinging her shield onto her back and shaking her arm to wake it up. "Reign destruction, test faith, remind humanity that they're still the bosses." It reminded Shadowmere of living under Tavrel's tyranny; things were peaceful until he decided that he needed to prove he was still the unquestioned authority. Then hell and damnation would follow for as long as it took for him to feel like he was in control again.
As the two women continued their ascent, Shadowmere noticed that something odd was happening to the sky. While the sun had been hidden for some time, the grey sky was now boiling into an angry orange, and rolling into a bitter red. Her mind jumping backwards to their daedric encounter in the forest by their campsite, Shadowmere remembered the same thing happening to the sky in the woods. Unsettled, she found the loose tendril of hair she had tucked back into place and began twisting it in her fingers, the silky texture giving her some small amount of peace.
"Oh gods," Saeana said, taking a breath in horror. "Well, when the Daedra Lords come to Tamriel, I think I know how they get here." Extending her arm, she pointed at an abomination the likes of which Shadowmere was all too familiar.
"Almighty Azura," she breathed, dropping her hair and not wanting to see what now met her eyes. It was remarkably similar to the thing they had found in the woods by their campsite, but this was frightening on a different scale. The anathema that met her eyes was beyond belief, beyond reason, and despite that, it was. A portal, for lack of a better word, made out of fire, brimstone and the darkest of magics, stood directly in front of the city gate and was perhaps twice the size of the one the two women had found in the woods. As if the sight of the monstrosity wasn't intimidating enough, where the one in the woods had let out an eardrum searing noise, this one let out a muted roar, compounded by intermittent clanging of invisible chains. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Shadowmere murmured.
Before the gate, a barricade of split, sharpened posts served as the only protection a very small number of city guards had to call their own. On the other side of the barricade, the hulking execration whelped a seemingly endless litter of daedra, scamps, clannfears and spiders which, from the looks of the pile of corpses created by the guardsmen, had been coming for some time.
"What did you get us into?" Saeana said absently, staring up at the screaming gate. Shadowmere just shook her head.
"I don't know, but it's not just us in here." From the few people stumbling around the makeshift town center, and the few city guards forcibly vigilant beside her, Shadowmere wasn't sure whether it was a good thing to be one of the few in the "here" to which she referred.
"Stand back, civilian!" a man shouted as charged toward them. His russet eyes were dim with exhaustion and framed with dark circles and while she was sure the man was only in his forties at the oldest, in the cruel red glow of the gate and sky, Shadowmere thought he looked at least a hundred years old. "This is no place for you," he chastised further. "Get back to the encampment at once!"
"I'm not your bitch," Shadowmere thought with indignation, though she thought better than to actually say it to the soot and sweat-streaked Imperial. "You're Captain Matius?" she asked instead, earning an abrupt nod from the Imperial.
"What happened here?" Saeana asked in horrorstruck awe of the imposing gate. The man scowled deeply, glaring at her, enraged that he would have to explain something so obvious to someone with clear vision.
"We lost the damned city, that's what happened!" he barked, making Saeana jump and Shadowmere put her shoulders up defensively, ready to pounce should the need arise. Fortunately their reactions alone sobered the captain, who lowered his voice when he spoke again. "It was too much, too fast. We were overwhelmed, couldn't even get everyone out," his words were dismal as he nodded toward the city walls. "There are still people trapped in there. Some made it to the Chapel but others were just run down in the streets. The count and his men are still holed up in the castle. And now," he sighed in frustration. "We can't even get back into the city to help them, with that damned Oblivion gate blocking the way." Shadowmere could see the displeasure Captain Matius had with himself, the torment bringing more sweat dripping onto the headband he wore over his cropped short ash brown hair.
"We're looking for someone named Martin," she said, knowing nothing she said could make the man feel any better. "They said that you might know where he is."
"You mean the priest?" he asked, getting an eager nod from both Dunmer. "Last I saw him, he was leading a group toward the Chapel of Akatosh. If he's lucky, he's trapped in there with the rest of them, safe for the moment. If he's not…" Captain Matius shrugged, unable to finish the sentence. Though the news wasn't good, it was the best for which they could have hoped and Shadowmere felt a bit lighter from the news. Saeana, looked less so.
"What will you do now?" Saeana asked, her eyes laden with sympathy. The beleaguered captain shook his head and scoffed.
"The only thing we can do," he said, his voice a monument to despair. "We try to hold our ground, that's what. If we can't hold that barricade, those beasts could march down and overrun the encampment. I have to try and protect the few civilians that are left. It's all I can do now." The hopelessness in the man's words, the level of sorrow in his voice made Shadowmere's eyes burn. How people could have so little for which to live and still continue to exist was one of the great mysteries Shadowmere had yet to solve.
"I'm sorry," Saeana said softly, clearly unsure about how to proceed, to which Shadowmere could relate. As urgent as their errand was, it was uncontested that there bigger fish that needed to be fried. If they could take a moment and offer some release to the man's frustrations, it seemed like the least they could do and still call themselves a part of humanity.
"My home," he muttered. "My goddamn home in flames!" His change it mood was dramatic and quick as he motioned toward the still burning city, as though tossing a lifeline. "It kills me that I can't get in there and DO something!" He shook his head again, looking over at the glowing homunculus. "We couldn't have been any less prepared for this. Seems like they came out of nowhere. There were just so many of them…If only I had some way to strike back at the enemy. But," he trailed off, gesturing toward the remaining city guards, who made their ways back from their most recent skirmish with the daedric forces. "We can't leave the barricade until that Oblivion gate is closed." Shadowmere's eyes widened as an epiphany struck her with the impact of an ogrim titan.
"Tell me about this Oblivion gate," she said, putting a hand on her hip as she thought, furrowing her brow a little. Captain Matius gave her a doubtful look, lifting his sweat- burdened eyebrow.
"Some kind of portal to Oblivion," he said shrugging and shaking his head, not knowing what else to tell her.
"Yeah, I got that much," she said simply. "What else can you tell me?" The man repeated his cynical shrug and head shake, as though there was nothing left to tell.
"The enemy used them to attack the city," he said motioning toward the torn, blackened ground before the city barricade. "They appeared outside the walls and daedra poured out! They've opened one right in front of the city gates. Until that's closed, the best I can do is to hold these barricades." Saeana sighed, while Shadowmere put her hands on her hips and sought the words buried so deep in her mind that they might as well have been absent.
"Alright, what can we do to help?" Saeana asked, her mind working more quickly than Shadowmere's. The captain chuckled without a smile.
"You want to help? You're kidding right?" Shadowmere and Saeana each gave a fleeting look at the other before looking back at him and shaking their heads independently. His eyebrows knitted together as he pondered their offer. "Hmm… If you're serious, maybe I can put you to use." He gathered a strange hopeful yet sarcastic look and looked at each of them in turn. "It'll likely mean your death though." The two nodded again; they had heard that before. "Are you sure?"
"We'll do what we can," Saeana said fervently. "But what is it that we need to do?" Nodding toward the portal, the captain visibly sneered at the unholy relic.
"I don't know how to close this gate, but it must be possible because the enemy closed the ones they used in the initial attack." Following his pointed hand, Shadowmere saw deep gashes around the gate that still stood. "You can see the marks on the ground where they were…with the Great Gate right in the middle." The man looked even more bogged down by the words he spoke than he had before. Shadowmere hadn't thought that was possible. "I sent men into the gate to see if they could find a way to shut it. They haven't come back."
"So that's what that is," Shadowmere thought, watching Captain Matius's face curdle with guilt. Though she hadn't always understood how guilt felt, she had always known how it looked. It was scrawled almost permanently into Ilura's face when she was a child, but it wasn't something she had felt until after she had been a mare. That was knowledge she felt she could have lived without; understanding and feeling the pain and heartache she caused, whether intentional or not. Then again that lack of emotional knowledge had made her a fairly ruthless killer, something she regretted. "I bet that's what he feels like," she thought, looking at the already outmatched captain. "A killer." After all, he was the one who sent his men into an unknown world, with no promises that they would come back, while he stayed in relative safety.
"If you can get in there, find out what happened to them. If they're still alive, help them finish the job," the guard captain said, clearly not holding out much hope. "If not, see what you can do on your own." If nothing else, the man looked relieved that there was one less thing he had to do, and two fewer people under his command whose lives he had to risk.
"Anything else?" Shadowmere asked, pulling her sword out of its sheath in anticipation of what she was heading into.
"The best I can say is good luck," he said, a strange smile flickering on his face, as though he wanted to believe they would make a difference, but all logic demanded he employ cynicism. "If you make it out alive, we'll all be waiting for you."
"What if we don't make it out alive?" Shadowmere muttered, loud enough that only Saeana could hear. Saeana just rolled her eyes at her tactless sarcasm.
"Good luck, it's a brave thing you're doing." The man raised his arm in a farewell as the two walked toward the gate.
"Not a smart thing, but a brave thing," Shadowmere amended, inspecting her sword briefly and changing the grip just enough to give her a better defensive stance while Saeana pulled her bow off of her back and held it nervously in her azure fingers.
"And this is better than cleaning out caverns and picking locks how?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows. "Why are we doing this instead of killing bandits?"
"Hey, we're going to another plane of existence," Shadowmere said, with more enthusiasm than was necessary. "How often can we say that?"
"You're going in?" Before Saeana could find an answer, an Imperial man, younger than the captain, but equally tired and forlorn, piped in. "You have my gratitude, but can I ask you something?" Looking the guard over, assessing how much of a threat he was, she decided that she could probably take him.
"You're not giving much choice in the matter," Shadowmere said, staring at him in all seriousness. The man looked confused and fell silent for a few moments, to Shadowmere's great amusement.
"What's your question," Saeana said with a sigh, trying to excuse Shadowmere's comment without calling attention to it and further confusing the already overwhelmed guard.
"Do you have a death wish?" he asked, his moss green eyes wide with shock. "Because there are easier and more comfortable ways to go."
"I'll keep that in mind," Shadowmere said, continuing to approach the gate. The smell of brimstone, sulfur and something more foul was nauseating, the odor sticking in her nose, throat and sinuses. For the moment, all she wanted was a sneeze, perhaps a few sneezes, however many it took to clear the smell from her head.
"Can we at least know your names?" the young guard asked. He seemed to have accepted the fact that he wasn't going to stop them from going into the gate that had swallowed so many of his comrades. "That way, when they erect the memorial, we're able to include you?" His comment was so intensely certain and grim that Shadowmere had to laugh outright.
"Gods, you are one goddamn ray of sunshine, aren't you?" she coughed out as she laughed, feeling somewhat punchy and somewhat hesitant to believe the man was genuinely this disconsolate. He hung his head and shook it sadly.
"After a few hours of this piece of paradise, you'd be on the pessimistic side too," he murmured morosely. "We've been collecting the names of the dead and missing; it's already in the triple digits. It's something productive we can do, it makes us remember that as tired as we are, at least we're better off than they are." Shadowmere was barely able to comprehend the bitterness with which the man spoke.
"I'm Saeana Pelegryn." Saeana's voice was soft, as though she knew that, in giving her name to the young guard, she was healing some small part of him.
"I'm Shadowmere." The guard's brow danced at the sound of her name.
"Shadowmere what?"
"Do you know enough Shadowmeres that you need a surname?" she asked, surprised that he would care enough to make sure he had her name correct. "Just remember I'm the Shadowmere with black hair." He nodded, smiling with just a little amusement amidst the annihilation.
"Fair enough," he consented. "Best of luck ladies." Nodding courteously, Saeana passed by the remaining guards, while Shadowmere gave her mock salute and followed.
"That was less than encouraging," she muttered to Saeana who grunted in agreement as they stopped in front of the gate. The sensory experience of the portal was now suffocating; the smell of brimstone and burnt flesh was almost palatable and stuck to the back of Shadowmere's throat like pustules. Her berry-red eyes stung with invisible smoke and scalding light, and her ears still rang with the baroque screech of the unholy magic that held the gate in place. Oddly enough, her skin slithered against her muscles and made her shiver at the relic's unnatural cold.
"It's like a fever," Saeana murmured, her gaze transfixed on the profane door. "It's so hot on my skin, but I'm so cold inside." Glancing over at her friend, Shadowmere didn't give herself time to notice how unnerved she looked before grabbing her by the hand.
" 'When thou enterest into Oblivion, Oblivion entereth into thee.' " she murmured, as they stepped together through the molten gate under the watchful eyes of all the Kvatch guard, unsure whether they would return.