Chapter 26

Day 78

"Move! We need to get this gate repaired!" Mjoll shouted as she drew her ax and charged at the line of undead. They swarmed out of the forest around New Riften. We had defended against wave after wave until one of their masters had arrived. He blasted our gate open and we where almost lost. If not for the dragonborn we would have perished. But it was lucky for us she arrived just as the gate was blasted open. With her help we had pushed them back and slain the necromancer.

"With Mjoll! Defend the workers!" I shouted as loud as I could over the fighting and shouting. Mjoll and her group where in the middle of the horde of undead just outside our gates. The dragonborn at their side, slicing down one after another with her daedric blades. My blade sliced through the neck of one of the pale creatures. Marsh-Walker sliced through two more behind me. The other four under my command where near the gates as the volunteers, who normally went out to gather supplies, worked on repairing the gates enough to be able to close them again.

"Their breaking through!" Marsh-Walker pointed to a group of undead heading to the gates. The other four where preoccupied holding off a large group.

"I'll handle them!" Zaynabi charged from behind the gate. She held a book in one hand and in her other there looked to be a small flame floating above her other hand. Zaynabi closed her eyes a moment before channeling the flame to extend to the oncoming undead. The book in her other hand began to flip through the pages on it's own, sparks flying off the pages as though it where on fire. The bodies where soon charred and fell over as they tried to step forward.

She had come a long way with her studying of the arcane. I hadn't any idea that she could wield such power. I turned my attention back to the creatures that shambles towards Marsh-Walker and I. We dispatched them with ease and retreated back to the gate where the volunteers had just finished their hasty repairs.

"Everyone fall back! Back into the gates!" I shouted and waved my arms towards Mjoll. "Marsh-Walker, Shavari, with me!" I signaled for the others to guard the gates and headed towards Mjoll and her group. We fought our way through the undead to the group and helped them to break through the corpses. The dragon born covered us as we made our way back to the gate.

"Fus...RO-Dah!" She shouted and sent many of them flying backwards and through the air. She cut two by with her swords before running back with us.

"Close the gates!" I shouted and helped the volunteers to shut the gates closed. "Shavari! You and Shadr keep a lookout on the tower. I want to know if another one of those necromancers comes. Marsh-walker, take the siblings to the wall. Don't use all our arrows but keep them off the gate as best you can." I sheathed my blade, propped my shield up by the blacksmith and walked over to the jarl whom was talking to the armored Khajiit who had come to our rescue. I arrived just as she removed her dragon priest mask. Under the cowl was the face of a young khajiit who bore black lines down her face with brown fur underneath. She looked around New Riften and hooked the mask to her belt. Her green eyes seemed to shine as she observed everyone working.

"So. This was Fort Amol?" She asked the jarl, ignoring all others around her.

"It was, yes. We have taken to calling it New Riften." She turned around to ask Mjoll to check the supplies they had stored up.

"New Riften. A little small to be a town but I'm guessing you had plans to expand the fort before these things appeared?" She motioned with an armored claw towards the undead that was just beyond the gate.

"We had been stocking up on wood to build an outer layer of walls but had little luck when Darius returned from the ruins of Windhelm." The jarl motioned for me to join them as they spoke. "This man is Darius. He was made captain of our guard after the fall of Riften." I bowed my head in respect to both the jarl and dragonborn. "Darius this is Kiera. The dragonborn who saved us all from Alduin."

"It's nice to finally meet you. You saved the caravan I had been traveling with some time ago. You have saved us yet again."

"You where travelling with Ahkari's caravan? I haven't seen them for some time. DO you know if they are alive?" She crossed her arms, looking at me accusingly. Did she think I did something to them? When Farian had told me that she was protective of her kind, he wasn't kidding!

"Zaynabi and Kharjo should be in the barracks. You could ask them." I turned the the jarl and bowed my head. "After seeing those crystals in Windhelm. I have no doubts that they are connected to all this. I still can't figure out what they are for though and Zaynabi couldn't figure it out with the sample I brought back." I had originally been against bringing a piece of those strange crystals back but Marsh-Walker had insisted.

"Crystal? Maybe I should ask Zaynabi more about this when I see her." The dragonborn walked by us and into the barracks area, slamming the door shut behind her. The dragonborn could basically do anything they wanted to in the game. Is the same said for this world? She had saved everyone after all. Maybe Farian was right though. Maybe the dragonborn just wanted to stop fighting for once.

"We're lucky to have her here with us. It greatly increases our chance for survival." The jarl said before turning to get a report from Mjoll. A week's worth of supplies for us had been stashed away. Only a week. This was not going to end well if we couldn't beat back the undead around us.

"There's got to be something else going on. How did this even happen?" I had been asking myself this question since we had been able to actually sit for a few moments. What was happening to Tamriel? I made my way up the steps and onto the walls where Marsh-Walker, Ryona, and Farian where firing arrows into the mass of undead that rammed themselves against the gate. "Save what arrows we have left. Help the others secure the wooden addition and the gate. Then try and get some rest." I sat down on a wooden chair that had been placed on the wall and sighed. My normally heavy armor felt even more so. Farian and Ryona left to follow my orders while Marsh-Walker stayed behind. The argonian removed his helmet and sat on a piece of rubble near the chair.

"Things could be worse." He stated while looking out over the forest around us. Pale bodies lay in pools of green ooze while others that still moved continued to come out of the shadows. There seemed to be no end to them and all I could do in response to what he said was laugh.

"How so? Even with the dragonborn our chances of getting out of this are-"

"We could be dead already." He said, interrupting my pessimist statement. "If you, Mjoll and the others hand't retaken fort Greenwall. We wouldn't of had anywhere to go after fleeing from Riften. We might not have even fled at all. When those things began climbing out of the water, we where ready to give up right there. But then Mjoll arrived and we all got a second wind."

"But if we had been there before we might have-"

"No. It wouldn't have made a difference. We all would have felt that hopeless feeling and given in. We all would have been trapped in our own city, it's walls no longer a feeling of safety but of a prison." He stared out over the treeline and past the undead. "We'll make it. I know it to be true." He turned and smiled before getting up to go follow my orders.

"Maybe you should be captain, not me." I muttered as I looked down at my armored feet. What was I even doing here? No matter how far I had come from when I first woke up, there was no chance of survival anymore. "Akatosh. I pray and ask for the strength to protect everyone here. I ask for guidance, what should I do? How can we survive this?" This time instead of the silence I had become used to, there was a continuous banging sound. Not from hammers but from a drum. I stood and looked around, no one was making that sound with what they where doing. I looked around and then saw it. Out in the distance I could see a light shining from the shadows of the trees. Then without warning something flashed next to me. It flew past my face, close enough that I could hear the hum of the gem that centered the hilt. It flew past my head and into the tower behind me. Others had noticed and looked up in shock. There, sticking out of the stone was a blade that I recognized from the game. It was the one you received at the end of the quest for a daedric prince. The one that hated undead, I couldn't remember her name but the sword I knew as it was one I had been fond of in the game. The blade shone brightly, even in the light of the sun. Dawnbreaker the sword was called, the bane of the undead.