AN: I've had the first chapter written for like a month, for some reason this one took me a long time to get together. But it was definitely worth the reworking, and you guys don't have to wait that long to read the next part~ I seem to have this weird thing where the second chapter of my fanfics involves a fight. Can't seem to stop either. /
In the land of snows, it was difficult to judge the time of day. The sun was hidden most of the day, so there was no telling where it lay, and even at night the stars were difficult to follow if you lost your way. This wasn't so bad in the sunnier cities south, Whiterun and Falkreath and Riften were relatively warm and you could at least see the sky, but the northern skies were almost always lost under cover of snow. Even when it wasn't a full blown storm, the clouds remained ever vigilant, a looming threat that, even if it was favorable weather at the moment, it could become a tempest at any moment. This became a rather barbed thorn in Ra'Zhag's side when darkness came upon him halfway through his trek.
He thought he had at least another three hours before nightfall, but night had come faster than he anticipated, and he found he had diverged from the main road when the shadows were too thick to see through. He was left in the middle of a forest, trying to steer his horse in between the densely packed trees. Blessed with a Khajiit's sight, Ra'Zhag avoided the thick trunks of dying oaks, whose brittle leaves were heavy with a layer of fresh snow that dusted the saber cat furs wrapped around Ra'Zhag's shoulders. He shuddered as the terrible chill began to bleed through his layers of cloth. Wherever the Vampire's keep may lay, he wasn't going to make it there tonight.
Pushing back his hood a little, he breathed in a gust of the nipping air and sighed a puff of warm breath that rose around him like the wisps of smoke from a candle, floating freely back to brush his cheeks. Forests rose around him, suddenly very tall, then vanished completely as he came into a clearing, and everything was bright once more with the light of the moon that had finally broken free of the northern clouds. It was only a sliver, but it was enough to make out his surroundings. Behind him were the towering trees that rested on a plateau, and he realized the last had seemed so tall when he broke free of them because he had been riding upwards along a razor thin path in the crags of a mountain. Ahead of him was a silver bathed keep of stone, the moon making each brick shimmer even with only the smallest of holes in the blanket of clouds to shine through. Candlelight peeked out of a window at the top of a tower and torches burned brightly on sconces at the mouth of the keep, lined by dangerous looking fences of spikes made from sharpened logs of wood. Ra'Zhag could only hope this was the keep he was looking for, but he doubted it. Either way, he would be killing someone tonight, alive or undead. The keep was clearly inhabited, and the only people that seemed to inhabit these places weren't the type to share their comforts, comforts the Khajiit sorely needed. Ra'Zhag felt his bones ache with the cold, and he was more than sure he could handle a few scattered bandits, so he slipped from his horse and thanked the sturdy mount under his breath before continuing quietly on foot. The horse whinnied uneasily but didn't follow.
Snow crunched under his heavy boots as he crept closer to the high walls of the keep, avoiding the sharpened stakes, and pressed his back against the cool rock. There were voices somewhere inside, and a shadow passing at the top of the wall made him flatten himself a little more to the stone. His axe made a slick grating noise as he drew it from his back, brandishing it in front of him as he peered around the corner. Three men in the courtyard, two idling along the walkways above and how ever many more were inside the keep itself. Ra'Zhag could barely make them out in the shadows as each one was wearing dark black robes, but a particularly tall and gangly member of the group was wearing one painted with a sickly green skull on his chest that practically glowed, making him the easiest target. But they made Ra'Zhag hesitate. He knew a dark mage when he saw one. At the moment, he saw five.
With their skinny arms and fumbling feet, he could have easily overpowered every single one of them, but getting close enough to do so would be a challenge. Much as he hated Vampires, he hated the mages in dark robes as much or even more. They knew spells of fireballs that could strike him before he made it within ten feet of them, and could conjure wolves to do their fighting for them, or create giants made of ice, or suck his soul straight from his body while it was still warm. Vampires just had to get in biting distance of you, Ra'Zhag had yet to meet one with as much practice in magic as the mages in dark robes. Most every battle he fought could be won with brute force, and he told himself over and over again for the following moments that they were still only men. Men who bled, same as the rest of them. They had many great magic tricks but none would have a weapon larger than a dagger. He told himself this again and again; they are men made of blood, they are men made of blood.
Twisting his gloved hands around the leather bound hilt of his axe, he let out a long, slow breath that curled around him in plumes in the frosted air. Then he charged into the courtyard.
Having made no sound or battlecry as he rushed forward, the first mage, the one closest to the entrance, had barely enough time to whirl around before Ra'Zhag's axe split open his neck, and his warning shout to the others came with a gurgling noise as blood began to fill his lungs. He fell, gagging and coughing while the thick redness sputtered from his mouth with every struggled breath. They were men made of blood. He shot out after the mage in the skull robe. They had noticed him now, and the skull mage was backing quickly away, swinging his arm back out of sight, then forward as he flung something at Ra'Zhag. The Khajiit easily pivoted out of its path, and heard a loud and sudden crackling behind him like ice cracking where the thing had struck the ground. He ignored it, heaving his axe upwards at the mage, who swept back with an impressive swiftness. Ra'Zhag caught a purple light at his left side and ducked down just in time to miss a spell hurled at his head from atop the keep's walls. This time he stole a glance back at where the spell hit, seeing a scorch mark in the snow that encircled what looked like an arrow, but which looked opaque like smog in the shape of an arrow. In this split second the skull mage rushed past him, his robes flapping noisily around him, and skid to a stop beside the one fallen mage. A stream of violet light illuminated his now long dead comrade. Ra'Zhag realized he was trying to heal him, he'd seen Ri'sien do a similar spell that took away all his pains and stitched his body back together, and he smirked smugly. Healing a dead man was the greater waste of magic than enchanting boots.
He clutched to his axe, ignoring the mage while he tended to a corpse, and threw himself at the next opponent. Their hands flew upwards, palms facing Ra'Zhag, and a rush of heat met him, taking him by surprise. At first, he considered it a welcome attack as the warmth crept into his clothes. Then the warmth became a river of flames like dragon's breath.
The Khajiit stumbled and shielded his bare face while the flames lapped at his breastplate, where the metal began to glow red hot and he felt the fur on his chest begin to burn. With a feral growl, he dove forward, rolling with his axe tucked against him, and sprang to his feet all in one quick movement. Now he was close enough to strike the mage, but at the same time, closer to the heat of his flames. Even as he felt the metal of his chest plate touch his collarbone and the undeniable sting of it burning into his skin, he blocked the pain and held his axe high above him, bringing it down on the mage's head, where it fragmented his skull into shards of bone. He watched the mage's eyes loll back into his head before he crumpled to the ground, painted with gore.
Another burst of light and Ra'Zhag jumped forward to avoid a second incorporeal arrow that fizzled into the earth where he had once stood. He unhooked a small woodcutter's axe from the loop of his belt and strained to raise it above his head so far the poll brushed his shoulder blades. Then, with every muscle tensing and rippling under his skin, he sent it hurtling, spinning from handle to blade towards the mage on the walkways, where it stuck into his kneecap with a sickening shlunk, and the black robed mage buckled. They are men made of blood.
He turned, dragging the tip of one boot into the ground so snow kicked up all around him, and faced the skull mage once more. Only it wasn't just him anymore. The other man that had fallen was standing, slumped, at the skull mage's side. The wound Ra'Zhag had inflicted was steadily leaking crimson down the front of his robes, but not in the steady pumps it would if his heart were beating, Ra'Zhag realized. No, it was simply slipping freely in bunches of red ribbons down his chest, slowly and surely draining from him. But he was standing. Standing on his own two feet, albeit hunched and broken looking. He moaned a guttural noise and rushed the Khajiit.
The skull stitched into a mage's robes was a sign of a necromancer, it dawned on Ra'Zhag far too late.
While deep burgundy light burst from the necromancer's hands, bathing everything in a cerise glow, the thrall swiped at him with a ragged iron dagger, scraping the metal of his armor and creating a shower of sparks, and taking with it a few whiskers from his cheeks. Clumsily, he staggered back. He brought up his gauntlet before the blade came down again. This axe was not made for a single hand, he thought grimly as he threw his hulking axe upwards at the thrall with one arm, the other still pinned against the dagger, where the tip had pierced the iron shell and stuck. The axe clipped the dead man's chest before fumbling from Ra'Zhag's grip but did nothing to deter the corpse and he pressed forward, trying to pry his dagger from Ra'Zhag's arm. Being a good five stones lighter than the Khajiit, Ra'Zhag threw his hand out and easily hoisted him up by the throat. The slick feel of the corpse's neck wound nearly made him squirm and drop him.
His boot hooked under the handle of his battle axe and he flipped it up onto the shoulder, the haft standing up straight from the ground as he bended to a knee and threw the dead man down on the bit of the axe. It sliced clean through his spine and met the wound made before. His head rolled from the weapon, then broke apart, melting along with his body into a pile of ash in the shape of what had once been a man like a log crumbling in a hearth, having spent its last lick of flame.
This time, death stuck.
No sooner had he rose to his feet again that the necromancer was on top of him, stabbing wildly at his face and neck, barely giving him enough time to throw his arms up and guard his eyes before a lucky slash hit his cheek and sliced open the skin in a long gash from brow to jaw. He hissed softly, the frozen night biting at the wound, and threw his gauntlet out against the mage's skull. Staggering him for a moment, Ra'Zhag grabbed the long, leather bound handle of his axe and hefted it up in both hands, grinding his teeth as he swung it and caught the mage under the arm. Severed nerves ensured he didn't lift it again. When the necromancer spiraled back, he collected to strike again. Then the snow at his feet lit up orange and yellow in a shaft of sunset colors.
Whirling, he saw the door of the keep had swung open and spilled warm light from the torches inside out onto the courtyard. Seven blacks figures, like ebony pillars blocking the sun, had sprung up in the doorway and began to pour out in the night. Seven, then nine, then twelve, then Ra'Zhag lost count as they moved to encircle him in a ring of black robes and torchlight. Had he been given the chance to catch them by surprise, he might have overpowered them. But there was a throng of them now, the ones closest to him armed with daggers and bloodmagic, and the ones further away notching arrows and training them on him. He clutched his axe so tightly his knuckles ached. He could fight them. He was quick, he was big, he was stronger than them, he had fought off thieves and bandits without so much as scratching his armor. He could beat them, he could beat them. They are men made of blood, they are men made of blood, they are men made of-
Blood. He tasted it at the back of his throat. The axe clattered from his grasp once more and landed in a puff of snowflakes on the ground. An ivory snake donning black cloth wrapped up around him from behind and took him by the throat, five heads digging into his neck as it's tail perforated his cuirass into his back, then slowly drew away again. Cold rushed in and steam rushed out. The snake moved and wound into his dreads as he was forced to his knees, the biting steel tail moving to his throat instead, sharp and wet.
"Don't." One of the dark robes stepped forward.
"He killed Barul, and Trig!" A voice behind him growled. The snake tightened on his scalp.
"And he must pay for it. But we have use for him, don't we? Our last test subject died only yesterday, it seems a favor from the Princes that he should come to us. Bring him inside, and Barul and Trig's death will not have been in vain."
There was a pause, a moment that let Ra'Zhag appreciate how his skin spasmed painfully where he had been burned. Something gnawed his muscles and veins, more fiercely painful than any knife wound had a right to be, and the blood that pooled around it mingled with something from the blade's tip and ate through his clothes like caustic moths. He could feel the cold night air on his back. He let his eyes droop. It was almost soothing, a soft wind grazing the layer of blood.
"...As you wish, my Caller."
A loud, hard thump, and everything went black.