Chapter XII

The wooden floorboards of the shack cracked and groaned to the slightest touch as Miara and Relen attempted to sneak away from their mysterious host, Rumaril. Relen appreciated his life being saved, but he could sense with ease that something was not right about the old man. Thus is felt to him that it made the most sense to simply leave right away.

He glanced ahead to Miara, who was already busy making short work of the lock on the chest, where Rumaril had stowed their equipment. With her usual speed and precision, the mechanism relented and the pair retrieved their things. Relen fastened a dagger to his side and gestured to Miara to follow him towards the door. His hand hovering over his blade, Relen grasped the handle and quietly pushed the door open. The main room was empty, bottles of ale lined the table where Rumaril had clearly stayed up after them, drinking. A mere few feet away was the door. The weather had settled and the night, aside from the sounds of the ocean, was still. It was now or never.

Relen locked his eyes on the door to Rumaril's room, he couldn't hear a sound. He waved Miara onwards and she crept towards the main door. Relen followed, eyes still watching, waiting to see if the old man would awaken.

"Go," Relen whispered hoarsely.

With this Miara shunted open the door and the pair made a hasty exit out into the cold night, softly closing the shack off behind them. Relen saw a trail leading from the shack, down the hill and closer to the shore, it was the only path unless they felt like making their way over some jagged rocks. The carried on forwards, glancing back every so often, but the shack remained quiet.

A short while later, as they reached the bottom of the trail and rejoined the path, they saw the bridge they had tried to cross up ahead. This time there were no bandits waiting on the other side. However, Relen and Miara's feet has barely found the wooden slats of the bridge when a booming voice shouted after them,

"I suppose this is farewell then Elves."

They turned around, hands ready to grasp at their steel, and saw Rumaril standing in his same dishevelled robe atop a hill. His silhouette barely breaking the blackened skies.

"Just know that for what awaits you, you had better be well rested," he commanded.

Relen and Miara exchanged glances and stood their ground, as Rumaril turned and made his way back to his shack.

"What did he mean by that?" Miara asked, worried.

"Bah, the old man's insane. Best leave him to his rocks and his waves," Relen grunted.

The pair continued onwards into uncertain darkness. They had barely begun but had already been beset by problems. Relen wondered how much further the Blades were ahead, or if they had faced similar problems even traversing this region. He reminded himself of the pay awaiting him for the job and put his doubts to rest.

As the stars fell across the sky and the incessant smashing of waves relented, the pair gradually made better progress, making their way over one island and desolate rock after the other. As the hours wore on, dawn began to break. With the sun giving them light, they clambered up a particularly high hill to survey how much further left they had to go.

At the peak, countless islands stretched out before them. But Relen, checking his map, determined that their marker was only another two islands ahead. As he scanned the view to find their destination, he spied a pillar of smoke breaking into the sky from a large campfire. Four or so tents were placed around it and what appeared to be a metal cage was located a few metres away. Miara had seen it too,

"So that's the place?" She asked.

"It is. Looks like whoever was holding our target here is still around," Relen replied.

"Either that or the Blades beat us to it and that's their camp..." Miara noted.

Relen sighed, "It's never easy, is it?"

The two made their way back down the hill and towards their target, it only took a short amount of time before they were close and, on a nearby ridge, they crouched down to get a lay of the camp. Much to Relen's dismay, what they saw did not inspire confidence. He saw an Orc, sat on a rock by himself, furiously reading some kind of scroll. Near to the campfire two Imperial Guardsmen were sat, eating. Another Imperial, not dressed in armor was pacing in front of a tent, he had a dagger at his side. Two more Guardsmen stood watch at the entrance to the camp, which was located in a small valley of sorts, bordered by rocks on two sides and the ocean on another.

"I see no Dunmer here and the cage is empty, the door is open," Relen remarked.

"Looks like we were beaten to it, but it seems they've had no luck finding this Dunmer here either," Miara said.

"This is good," Relen said, resting against a rock and removing his pack. Miara turned, exasperated,

"Good! How is this good? The job keeps getting more complex by the minute and now these Outlanders are in our way."

Relen smiled a reassuring smile at Miara, the kind she had not seen in a long time,

"And now they can lead us to the target, we'll let them do all the legwork."

Miara pondered for a moment before sitting opposite Relen.

"I suppose you're right. If they can get us close to the target then all we have to do is line up a shot with the crossbow. We'll be out of there before his body hits the ground."

Relen produced a small vial from his pack,

"And we'll coat the bolt in this for good measure, just to make sure he doesn't shrug it off in a hurry."

Miara grinned. She didn't say it but she knew Relen was feeling the same thing: they were relishing this job. It was just like old times.