Up above the soldiers had to fight the living. Down here their foes were already dead. Sulla Trebanius realised quickly that he was on the wrong side of the earth when a skeleton embedded with arrows continued to attack him.

The blond soldier raised his right hand and sent out a bolt of lightning that had the ruined body clattering back into a useless heap of bones. Hand still raised, his blue eyes darted about the grim caverns quickly to see how his companions fared.

Gaius Maro had beheaded the draugr that had tried to charge him, running to him mindlessly with its rotting arms outstretched. The thing's overbearing stench of rot had been more effective than its attempts to attack the soldier. Gaius was tough, quick with a blade, good at dodging and ruthless with a hidden dagger too, it came as no surprise that rumours had him pegged for the Penitus Oculatus one day, to follow in his father's footsteps.

Marius Attius did not fare so well. The young, gangly soldier shrank back from his undead foe with a wince, swinging his broadsword clumsily with both hands as if he wielded a club. The flat of the blade caught against the skeleton, smacking out half its ribcage and sending the top half of its form down in a clatter of bones into the pelvis. Marius swung again, this time knocking out a knee and sending the unfortunate undead creature down to the ground in a heap.

Narina Avidius let out a loud, unnecessary war cry as she beheaded a draugr dramatically with a swing of her axe. She turned with the axe clutched tightly in both hands as the draugr's body collapsed. The weight of the axe slowed her movements and the frown lines in her face, barely visible in the faint glow of torchlight, exposed the strain of carrying it.

Jena Vanin fared a little better, dispatching two skeletons with a few fast slashes with her twin daggers. She moved almost in a blur, her slim form light on her feet.

Satisfied that the chamber had been cleared of foes for the moment, Sulla took a moment to survey its contents. He thought of the thief who had told them about here, adamant that his gold Septims had come from this rotting, forgotten tomb and not some unsuspecting nobleman's purse. A young, bold Breton with wild brown hair and slightly yellowed teeth set in a crooked smile, he had looked every inch the criminal and it had seemed an easy decision to throw him in stockades until he could be taken to a proper jail for imprisonment.

Sulla had considered it a tad ironic to call a man a thief and imprison him only to then journey to the same ruins he had for treasure but claim the difference was that they were explorers and come not for gold but for a weapon needed to shift the never ending Civil War. Who could say the thief hadn't taken the gold for some noble purpose? Well the thief himself of course, he had huffed that the dead had no claims to coin and he'd a need for some finer wine just for a change.

Sulla's sympathies for their thief had vanished when he had demonstrated his talents for locks and freed himself during the night. Gone without a trace, either it said a lot about the thief's skills or a lot about the incompetence of the Imperial troops who had been camped around him.

Sulla looked to the stone ground carefully, taking care to sidestep a slightly raised stone that he knew signalled a trap. He waved the others on with a quiet gesture of his left hand, heading for an old, heavy set, wooden door.

Down here the air tasted stale. Several hundred years worth of dust lingered on every surface and an odour of dry bones and rotting flesh that embalming had only preserved for so long polluted every room. It was not a scent one got used to, rather one learned to endure it. The silence, now that the dead had fallen again, hung forebodingly. Centuries of quiet had been broken by the intrusion of would be grave robbers, over confident explorers and now them, a small unit of Imperial soldiers from the Legion dispatched on this urgent, desperate mission.

In these ruins, deep under the hard layers of frozen earth, it became easy to forget the unrest above. The Great War had bled into the Markarth Incident, which soon bloomed into the Civil War. The Thalmor foes were turned into uneasy allies and supplanted briefly by the Reachmen as the enemy until the Reachmen's own foes the Stormcloaks became the problem. One war begot another whilst one enemy swapped for another as neighbours, friends and family suddenly became opponents. Weak Concordats made uneven alliances and natives were turned into invaders. The only consistency was that the Imperial soldiers' fighting seemed to be unending. They were tired now, exhausted of battling in this icy country against natives whose only sin had been wanting to worship their god in peace.

It was why this branch of the Imperial legion were here in Skyrim, they were Cyrodiil born and therefore they had no ties to the native Nordsmen so they did not hesitate to bring swords against them. The issue was that it wasn't just Nordsmen because with Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak finally being ousted from Markarth, the Reachmen now calling themselves Forsworn were back to cause trouble. The problem with the Forsworn was that they brought magic with them, men were turned bestial by the birdlike witches in the woods. Single soldiers clad in fur and antlers could best ten soldiers with a flick of their wrists as they conjured up fire and lightning. The Forsworn had turned wild in the mountains and forests they were banished to and it made them a terrifying, ruthless foe with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Add this to the rebellious Stormcloaks the Thalmor were demanding an end to and the Legion became stuck in a march towards a lost cause.

Desperate times had led to desperate measures. The desperate measure lay here in Ragnvald, a Nordic ruin in the Reach. Sulla had the privilege of leading this wing and a prayer mission for two reasons. One- he had a mind for ruins and treasure hunting, turning a sharp brain to deciphering booby traps and navigating maze like tunnels with relative ease. Two- his liaison in Markarth several months ago with a young Nordic woman had not been quite forgotten or forgiven by their leader, Captain Tullius.

Twilight liaisons with soldiers and natives was to be expected in lengthy times of war and one could have a blind eye turned to it providing one kept the union brief and discrete and ensured their local partner was a low born type who wasn't likely to make anything of the romantic dalliance. Sulla had forgotten these unwritten rules of soldiers serving their baser needs with the local people and had opted for a long term romance with a woman whose family could be best described as complicated. His only defence had been that he hadn't known her family's alliances and he hadn't expected the soldiers' stay in Markarth to last so long.

"Do you ever wonder who lights the torches?" Gaius' query drew Sulla back to reality.

Sulla glanced over his shoulder to the younger man curiously whilst Narina snorted and shook her head.

Gaius gave Sulla a defensive look and gestured to the torches hung on the walls spurting pale flames to illuminate their dreary ancient surroundings. "I'm serious, theoretically this place hasn't seen any life for hundreds of years."

"Well firstly," Sulla pointed out as he turned ahead to the door, feeling along it carefully for the real handle, knowing the visible handle would only trigger a trap, "that's not true. That thief was in here and judging from the broken burial urns there were others before him and secondly, as you've seen, the occupants may be dead but they are restless."

Gaius frowned at the correction, sparing a brown eyed glower for Sulla's back. "Are you saying the draugr lit the torches?"

"Sure," Jena joked, "maybe they like to have some light to read with. They might be like you Gaius, unable to sleep without boring themselves with a long book first."

"Maybe they're afraid of the dark," Marius joined in the teasing. Even as he jested, the young Imperial looked uneasy, glad to have Narina behind him and Gaius in front.

Sulla shook his head as he triggered the handle and the door swung forwards granting them entry to a set of stone steps.

"Down again," Sulla grumbled as he started to descend.

They bypassed abandoned bottles of dried up ales and spent potions that had leaked through minute cracks in the coloured glass. Bloodied linen scraps and crude tools for embalming lay forgotten on wooden tables resembling scenes of torture rather than burial. The shadows of the rooms stretched out keeping the bodies resting in alcoves in the walls from view.

Only when one rotting hand reached out to grasp at an unsuspecting Marius did the small group realise they were surrounded once more by the restless dead.

Weapons went up as the silence was shattered by Marius' wild shriek. Disturbing creaks of old flesh and the metallic clang of rusted swords and axes soon followed.

At first the battle seemed easy as the soldiers felled half-sleeping draugr with a few choice whacks of their weapons, striking some of them down before they had even fully risen from their resting places.

Marius chose the tactic of yelping and stumbling back, opting for a panicked jog as he clutched his loose fitting helmet with one hand comically. He glanced back every couple of seconds to see if he was being pursued.

Sulla exercised his talents as a spellsword, offering a few flashes of fire for a slightly stronger draugr that antagonised him.

When the noise came the soldiers realised they had underestimated their foes.

It resembled a shout but like no other they had heard before, a booming voice that carried through the ancient walls of stone. It quivered through the air to send a very real tremble through their bodies before it sent them falling to the floor like rag dolls.

Sulla winced as his chin smacked off stone and his metal breastplate vibrated against his chest. He knew with a sense of dread that it must be the thu'um, the usage of a voice in the form of battle. It was something only a powerful foe could manage.

Sulla heard the metal clang of boots as the voice's owner came racing down a stone corridor. His blue eyes widened as he took the creature in. It resembled a draugr but one in better armour than the others, tall with heavy metal and a high pointed, black helmet. It let out another deep, bellowed cry that had them all pinned to the ground with the weight of its power.

Marius' blood-curdling scream filled the air as the draugr's sword plunged down into his frozen form, finding the gap between his breastplate and his baltea where his flesh was protected only by a thin layer of crimson tunic.

Sulla shook off the power of the voice at the scream and forced himself to his feet. His chest felt tight and he struggled to suck in a breath as he tried to push back at the panic the booming voice had instilled in him.

Sulla flung out a bolt of electricity in the direction of the foe and regretted the ill-planned attack the moment he dealt it. His only thought was to get the draugr away from Marius but he had no plan over what to do next.

The draugr's icy eyes darted over to Sulla, glimmering blue with the magic that animated its long dead body. Its mouth parted and Sulla immediately flung himself around a pillar to avoid the quivering wave of power that emitted from it.

Jena darted in a low crouch across the stone floor towards Marius. She hoped to evade attention by staying below eye level.

Sulla tensed as he felt the pillar begin to crack behind him and heard the sound of metal boots smacking off the ground as his opponent started to run again.

Another scream let the blond soldier know that the draugr had not been running for him.

Sulla peered around the pillar in instant alarm, his eyes widening as he saw Jena shrinking back on her palms in an attempt to evade the swinging sword of the draugr.

"Over here!" Narina called out boldly.

Sulla looked to the woman in horror, knowing she would be too slow to do any damage to this swift undead creature. He had to think fast, faster than this draugr! His blue eyes roamed the cavern desperately, eager for something to give them an advantage.

There, a gleam of something shiny caught Sulla's gaze. It was a spilling of oil from a shattered pot on the ground. A small amount but perhaps just enough, the creature was barely more than a dried up husk after all, something Sulla imagined would be quite flammable.

The spellsword hurried over to the sickly black stain before turning and letting out a yell to draw interest. The draugr cocked its head from Narina to Sulla, curious who it should give its attention to.

"Over here you rotting bastard!" Narina bellowed.

Sulla winced at the cry and shook his head as he shouted, "no, no!"

Irritated by the dual efforts to garner its attention, the draugr dropped its jaw again and another yell escaped it. This time the booming war cry directed to Narina who fell backwards hard and fast with no resistance.

"Damn it," Sulla cursed as the thing started to run triumphantly to its fallen foe.

Sulla unleashed another electric bolt in the draugr's direction, conscious that his magic had its limits and he couldn't drain it before he had a chance to ignite the oil spill.

The draugr grunted as the lightning struck its shoulder and looked to Sulla as if it'd been stung by a bee.

"Come here you bastard!" Sulla snapped at it.

The draugr started to run at the blond.

Sulla became so fixated on this foe he didn't notice Gaius trying to keep back another from Jena and Marius.

Gaius danced about this armoured foe, frowning as sweat started to trickle down his brow as he barely deflected its sword with his own. He'd only been fighting it for a couple of minutes but already his arms were aching with the effort to keep his blade moving fast. With each clang as the swords met he felt painful vibrations travel up his aching limbs and knew that he was losing stamina.

The draugr toyed with Gaius, moving fast with little effort as its blade struck down again and again towards the fallen Marius.

The young soldier had become a pale, groaning heap half in Jena's lap. Her hands manoeuvred over the wound at his groin as she tried to stave off the bleeding.

Sulla's soles slipped in the oil and he fell backwards as the draugr's sword swung out for him. This clumsy folly kept him from feeling the sting of the blade as he dropped unexpectedly to the ground. His armour saved his back from bruising as his torso smacked hard off the ground. He dismissed his shock to push himself up suddenly, hands stretching out to eject flames from his fingertips to the oil the draugr now stood in.

Sulla pushed his body back in an awkward tumble as the oil caught alight and flames sprouted suddenly from nothingness turning the draugr into an instant candle.

Narina's yell of alarm let Sulla know that his victory would be short lived.

Sulla looked her way as a hoard of draugr came charging up a tunnel towards the female soldier. Narina didn't stand a chance.

Sulla jumped to his feet, his jaw twitching as Narina's screams of pain filled the air.

Gaius glanced over in alarm and his face turned chalk white beneath his helmet as he saw the six undead figures chopping and hacking at his comrade like she was mutton to be prepared for stew. His own foe lay on the ground twitching, back to its odd state of undead. Gaius was spent from the battle and knew he had no strength for another. His dark eyes darted down to Jena and Marius nervously.

"No," Jena begged suddenly.

She would never know for sure if Gaius heard her and ignored the plea or if he genuinely just did not hear the single syllable she gave that was so short and yet conveyed so much in it.

Whether it was panic or a selfish desire for survival that drove them they didn't know but both Gaius and Sulla moved at once, not for their fallen friends but for an exit instead.

Jena flung the bleeding, groaning man in her lap off and leaped up to flee, leaving Marius to buy her time.

The fallen soldier shrieked as the axes and swords came down upon him granting him a quick but bloody death.

Sulla wondered as he ran at the anger that suddenly consumed the place. He thought of their desperate mission, the hope of finding a powerful, magic based weapon here and he realised that it had to be true for if there were no such weapon within why would the ruins' residents be so eager to destroy them? Something was mad at them, he could feel it, an unrelenting fury calling for their demise as punishment for their intrusion.

Gaius bolted past the blond without looking back, his boots only just avoiding a trigger in the floor.

Sulla could hear them following, fleet footed foes that would soon catch up to him. His blue stare spied the raised stone Gaius had evaded by luck not skill.

An icy, sickly scented breath reached out to brush against the back of Sulla's neck. The draugr were close now and his body screamed in pain as his limbs were already stretched to their limits.

Sulla's right foot smacked down on the stone hard, panicked, fast and barely hopeful as he considered the age of the mechanism and wondered if it even still worked.

The blades swung out of the walls simultaneously without warning. They came from either side of the walls, swinging so fast that no one in the corridor Sulla had just ran up would stand a chance.

Sulla glanced over his shoulder instinctively even as he let his feet continue to carry him forward. His mind shrieked that he wouldn't be safe until he was back on the surface in the Skyrim wilds.

Sulla's mouth dropped suddenly before he could help it at the horrifying sight before him.

Jena raised her hand towards Sulla in a pleading gesture as blood spilled out of her lips. Her mind couldn't react quick enough to what had happened, leaving her in a state of confusion. She stumbled forward once before falling to the ground amongst the sliced corpses of the draugr. A blade had almost severed her in two, swinging into her torso like butter, and not even sticking as its mechanism pulled it back out again.

Sulla tasted vomit as he looked ahead and kept running. The draugr were twitching and groaning and he couldn't possibly know if the swinging blades were enough to keep them down or had only stunned them.

He followed the echo of Gaius' feet up through the stone tunnel, round a corner and through a sticky cobweb before he felt a faint brush of cold, fresh air against his cheeks. Freedom would soon be at hand.

Overcome with fear, the soldiers forgot their training momentarily and blundered out to the lightly frosted grass of the Reach's wilderness with all the stealth of an enraged cave bear. Their armour betrayed them, rattling noisily into the dusk causing a metallic echo that would be heard easily within a two mile radius.

Panting and frightened, Sulla and Gaius headed away from the ruins, still sprinting as they aimed to put distance between themselves and the cursed place.

Only when they stumbled onto a pebbled path for horses and their carts did they realise they were probably safe, at least from draugr.

Gaius pushed up the edge of his helmet and looked to Sulla with eyes so wide the blond half imagined they would pop out of his companion's skull.

"We...we...what do we do?" Gaius queried. His youthful confidence had gone, horror had drained the colour from his face and a mad adrenaline rush was all that kept his guilt from him.

"Back to camp," Sulla decided sombrely, "and tell Captain Tullius we lost good people trying to get the mask."

Gaius nodded briskly even as his stare remained wide. "Right, right. Oh..." He looked back to the gentle slope they had come down as he realised with Sulla's words that three of them were now dead. "Jena," he murmured hoarsely.

"We mourn later," Sulla said firmly as he studied the shadowy shapes of the trees with unease. "This is Forsworn territory, if we hesitate we'll join Jena."

Gaius tensed up at this thought, his hand clutching firmly at the hilt of his sword as he searched the trees too.

The sun had gone but the moons were only just beginning to glow in the sapphire sky as day gave way to dusk. The night started to cloak the land, creating pockets of black amongst the trees and stretching out their shadows onto the path. The air grew cooler with each passing minute and soon the soldiers could see their breath slipping out in white, misty puffs.

Every sound suggested a potential danger, animal calls were suspected Forsworn encrypted cries, branches snapping hinted at possible predators stalking them, and the rustle of feathers had Sulla and Gaius shuddering and thinking of the hagravens.

They headed in the direction of Markarth, the great stone city that Ulfric had seized from the Forsworn before he had been unceremoniously imprisoned and then ousted from it by the people he had cast the yolk of the Forsworn from. There the Imperial camp awaited them, anxious for news of a dead dragon priest's mask. The soldiers were so sick now of warfare and drained by the wild warriors that came upon them under the cover of foliage, moving in secrecy to assassinate them, that they were willing to hope that a mythical being's ancient weapon might be found and be able to be used to assist them.

The Forsworn had the advantage, they lived in the wilds and therefore knew how to hide amongst the trees and rocks unseen until it was too late. They sprung up from leaf piles or down from trees without warning, one set of antlers poking up from the bushes was often the only clue. They attacked quickly with daggers, spiked clubs or powerful blows of magic, always swift and never staying for a true battle, just lashing out with a flurry of violence and fleeing before seeing the damage they dealt. The soldiers struggled to fight back against them, they fought in regiments, they were trained in battle, which meant they had rules and tactics and expected their enemies to follow suit. They dealt with other soldiers on a battlefield. These animalistic foes that came from the woods without warning were not following any warfare tactics the Imperials knew.

Sulla and Gaius were relieved when they spied the faint glow of campfire from a small hilltop. There Tullius had made himself king of the hill, a very small domain indeed for his soldiers but the only spot he had found to meet the requirements for a secure camp. It offered a good viewpoint of Markarth, the walled city that allowed them entry because it was now technically part of the Empire but granted them a barely concealed hostility as its residents were a mixture of Stormcloak sympathisers and disguised Forsworn agents.

Sulla and Gaius headed up slowly, letting their fatigue take over at last as they looked to the hill as safety. Sulla figured cynically that not much else could go wrong as he bypassed curious soldiers and headed directly for the captain's tent.

Sulla pushed back the heavy, cloth flap of the tent and looked in wearily, stunned for a moment as he heard an unexpected sound. It took him a few seconds to identify it as it seemed so ill-suited to its surroundings. It was the wailing of a baby.

Sulla didn't even take in Captain Tullius at first as he searched for the infant, his keen cerulean stare falling to the corner a Khajiit female sat in attempting to nurse the bawling baby resting in layers of wrinkled cloth in her paws.

"Good timing Trebatius," Tullius greeted him bluntly.

Sulla's eyes darted over to his superior questioningly. He had falle mute, his terrible news forgotten with this confusing scene before him.

Tullius' expression turned grave as he stared back at the young Imperial. The captain was a serious faced, middle aged Imperial who was steadily carving out an admirable military career for himself back in Cyrodiil. He hoped this diversion to Skyrim would just be a temporary anomaly in his otherwise stellar career in the Imperial Province. He understood the Emperor's belief that the Skyrim rebels were better quashed by outsiders but felt his talents were getting squandered in the frozen land of the Nords.

"Your...companion," Tullius faltered over the word as he addressed Sulla quietly, "Selena Wickhart was hung today."

Sulla felt his chest tighten as he stared back at Tullius, transfixed by his words as he tasted vomit again.

"A small faction of Stormcloak sympathisers, instigated by her own brother, accused her of being guilty of the crime of begetting an Imperial baby."

"A...what?" Sulla stammered out the word as his blue stare darted in the direction of the quiet Khajiit who had soothed the baby to soft whimpers.

Tullius' steely gaze eased slightly as sympathy crept into it. "When did you last see Miss Wickhart?"

Hearing the name filled Sulla with a flood of emotions. He caught a flashback of the young woman's naked form lying ready for him in a beguiling pose as she offered up a seductive smile. She had been a true winter beauty, hair dark as the early nights and skin pale like the morning frost.

"I...I don't know, I've lost track of time here," Sulla confessed bitterly. "Four months maybe more, not since you ordered me to stay away from her."

Tullius nodded as he looked to the baby out of the corner of his eye. "Her parents claim not to have known she was with child until the child was born. Not even a day old and the mother is dead and her uncle was ready to dash her brains out against a wall."

There came the vomit again. "I don't..." Sulla shook his head.

Tullius gestured to a free stool in the corner of his tent. "I was making a patrol with my men just a few hours ago, we were too late to save Selena but we were able to see the child spared and Selena's killers brought to justice. Most fought, and a few died, including the uncle. More causalities of this Civil War I suppose they'll say," he remarked bitterly. "I spoke with the family and they have cast the child out as cursed. She is yours now Sulla Trebatius. Sometimes we pay highly for our moment of fun."

Sulla fell onto the stool and placed his face into his hands before glancing up aghast to the Khajiit and her burden. How foolish he had been to think nothing else could go wrong.

"What do I do?" he groaned.

"This one thinks a name would be a good start," the Khajiit answered in a tone that seemed slightly mocking.

Sulla's azure gaze became hostile as he took in the feline figure before he looked down again to the infant. Name it? He wondered if Selena had considered names. Why had she not sent word to him? He had never been far from her. Had she been so bitter at his absence that she hadn't wanted him to know about his child? His child. He was only eighteen, what did he know about parenthood?

Sulla finally wretched.

Tullius frowned and cast his gaze up to the roof of the tent as he clasped his hands behind him and resisted a reprimanding.

The Khajiit let out a disapproving hiss and a frown cut across her tawny features as the baby stirred to life at the sound of her father losing his dinner and she began to howl anew.

"Little screamer, that's you," the Khajiit chided the child. "Let Hedani nurse you." She raised the baby up.

Sulla glanced over and his eyes widened as a moment of anger filled them. "What are you doing?" he queried hoarsely as he wiped a stain from his mouth.

Tullius stepped forward quickly, breaking Sulla's glare upon the Khajiit. "Your daughter is only a few hours old, she needs nursed," he said softly. "And finding a nursemaid in Markarth at such short notice was no easy feat."

"The difficulty was finding one who did not mind the curses," the Khajiit mused merrily. "Hedani believes in coin not curses."

Sulla shook his head miserably. "Mother murdered, uncle dead too, your father is at war, and now a Khajiit suckles at you. You are cursed, we both are," he lamented.