"I would have given you odds on their victory if you had offered to wager on it," Urul said to Terek as the four men stood at the top of the stairs and viewed the horrible sight, "and I would have lost that bet."
At the far end of the room stood what appeared to be a large bowl, approximately four feet in diameter. Suspended by their feet above the bowl were the Hagraven and one of the werecats, their hanging heads displaying clearly where their throats had been cut so that their life's blood would drain into the large bowl beneath them. A second werecat lay on a side table. Several pieces of it were missing, as if a butcher had begun the process of removing the choicest bits. Used plates and goblets stood on a separate table a short distance away, and none of the four members of the Hand needed to exercise their imagination in any way to imagine what those plates and goblets contained.
"It appears that these vampires did our work for us," Terek said.
"We could have saved ourselves the journey," Krev said, "and spent the time in an Inn instead."
"I say we depart immediately and do just that," Frik said.
"What of the residents of this place?" Urul asked, "Shall we leave them here to pray upon the next unfortunate that visits them?"
"If it is Hagravens or werebeasts that visit them next, then I vote Aye," Frik said.
"And what if it is not? What if it is some innocent villager that stumbles upon this place? And what if these night walkers decide to leave their home at night to hunt outside?" Terek asked.
"We could collapse the entrance," Krev offered.
"None of us has destruction magic to call upon to do so," Urul said, "And our combined efforts could not achieve it in a month of trying."
"It would be less work to hunt these vampires down and kill them,' Terek said.
"I am sure that is what the Hagraven thought," Krev said.
"We do not know how injured she and her pets were when the fled here," Terek said, "We four are uninjured, and well armed. And the vampires could not have killed these three and remained unscathed."
"Well that one looks to be no worse for wear," Urul said quietly as he looked at the figure that had just entered the room through a door at the other end.
He was tall, almost as tall as Urul, but he was thin, more resembling an elf, which he could certainly have been at one time. The Silver Hand had encountered vampires belonging to all the races of Tamriel; but they tended to group them all into one mixed race, and referred to that race as Nightwalker, or Vampire.
He had entered the room with a piece of parchment in one hand, on which his eyes were set, and a goblet in the other. None of the four had ever seen a Vampire eat or drink, and all of them felt that they would be quite happy to die in ignorance of that detail. But none of them were willing for that day to be their last.
The tall figure took one look at the visitors in his home before he opened his mouth and hissed at them, his sharp incisors prominently displayed.
Terek's hands moved like lightning, the throwing knives leaving those hands only an instant after they had entered them; but he was still too slow to catch the undead creature that turned itself into a wisp of smoke just before being struck. That wisp wasted no time in retreating through the doorway that it had just entered on two feet only a minute earlier.
"Gods blood, that thing will alert the other occupants of this cursed place to our presence," Krev said as Terek retrieved his small blades from where they lay on the bare stone floor just below the tapestry covered wall they had struck.
"Let them come, it will hasten their demise," Urul said as he tightened his grip on the long sword that he had been holding since entering the castle.
"I still say we should depart and leave the destruction of this nest to someone else," Frik said.
"I will not turn my back to these creatures," Krev said, "stiffen your spine, and be on your guard, all of you."
The four men began to move towards the doorway, each of them gripping their silver enhanced weapons. Terek's left hand reached into the pouch on his belt before reappearing filled with a mixture of powdered silver, garlic and enchanted oak. Urul had already done likewise, his long two handed weapon held temporarily in his right hand.
It was Urul who chose to be first through the doorway, and it was Terek who chose to be last. Neither position was enviable if one wished to be safe, but that was true of any position inside the underground castle. Urul had the most experience fighting Nightwalkers, Krev and Frik, never having fought them at all, the least.
"Stay together, and do not stray," Urul said as they walked slowly, "If we are attacked, stand shoulder to shoulder, face outward. They do not know us. They will not know that we are well armed against them."
Urul was not entirely correct. The Nightwalker that they had encountered had certainly not recognized them, but it had identified the particular metal tang in its mouth as coming from silver, which was one of the reasons it had fled in such haste. So it was that when the hallway the four members of the Silver Hand had entered gave way to a room just as large as the one with the blood filled bowl, the four Vampires there made a coordinated, though still wary, attack.
Two of them turned into wisps of smoke and began to circle the four men who had wasted no time forming their outward facing circle. The other two stayed back, their hands filling with spells that they waited to cast.
Urul and Terek waited almost too long before casting their handfuls of powder into the air. The fine mixture had just begun to disperse as the two vampires in mist form flew into it with, for them, disastrous results. The enchanted oaken sawdust caused them to revert to humanoid form as they flew through it, and the silver and garlic powder began to burn those forms as they materialized.
Urul's left hand returned to the hilt of his two handed iron and orichalcum, silver enhanced, broadsword. The vampire's corporeal form had barely stuck the floor beside him before Urul had cleaved it virtually in two as he struck across its back on the diagonal from the right hip to the left shoulder. The force of his blow was so much that his blade made a trail of sparks as it traveled across the stone floor.
The other vampire fared better, but only by a small degree. its momentum had carried it away from the four men, outside of easy reach. But the silver and garlic were continuing to burn its face and hands, and it was still in the process of screaming in pain as Terek stepped out of the circle a short distance and sliced through its neck cleanly with his silver enchanted leaf blade.
He was only the length of one stride out of place, but it was enough for him to become the center of attention for the two remaining vampires. The stagnant air in the room was still filled with the two handfuls of powder, which limited the Nightwalkers options for attack, and also blocked their retreat. They stood at the far end of the room and their only exit was through the cloud that filled the room, and surrounded the four men who stood between them and the doorway.
But they could still attack with magic from a distance, and that is precisely what they did, and one of them chose the obvious target for that attack. Terek felt the distinctive pins and needles sensation on his hands and forearms, and the high pitched whining noise in his ears, that told him that his enchanted gauntlets were deflecting magical attacks, and he knew that if those attacks persisted for much longer that they would succeed. The second vampire's target was one of the other three men who still stood in a group. Once again, Terek's hands moved almost too fast to be observed, the twin sliver enchanted throwing knives crossing the distance between hand and target almost as fast.
If they had been simply steel weapons the undead creature's reflexive action, raising its left hand and arm to protect its face, and thereby taking the two blades impact on its forearm, might have saved its life. But when the metal blades embedded themselves into its dead flesh the silver enchantment began to work immediately. It's screams as it's flesh burned were more animal than human, and it was while those screams were filling the room that Urul, who seemed unaffected by the magical attack of the second Nightwalker, ran forward quickly as he raised his broad sword before bringing it down with a powerful blow. The Vampire had at the very last raised his crossed arms over his head in a desperate effort of protection. Urul's blade, when it descended finally, cleaved through the creature's crossed wrists before splitting its skull, coming to rest in the center of its chest.
Urul tore his blade free of the now truly dead creature before looking at Terek who was standing next to him, shaking his left hand, his right hand, and the leaf blade it gripped, still wet with the blood of the vampire he had impaled with his throwing knives.
"Are you well?" Urul asked Terek calmly.
"It is nothing. The feeling will return to normal in time," Terek said before reaching his still numb left hand down to retrieve his throwing knives, "I sometimes wonder if magical gauntlets are a wise choice."
Urul's smile warned Terek that a salacious comment was inbound.
"Be glad you were not wearing an enchanted codpiece."
Terek's laughter quickly turned into a fit of coughing as he inhaled a lungful of silver, garlic and enchanted oaken dust.
"Let us be away from this place," he said amidst his coughing as he cleaned his knives and sword, "I would like to breathe some clean air."
"I am entirely of your mind," Urul said before his eyes fell on Krev and Frik, "What is wrong with you two?"
The two said nothing, but stood calmly for a moment.
"What?" Krev said after a moment.
"What magic did that one use on you three?" Terek asked Urul.
"I do not know. I felt it when my breastplate deflected it, but I have no idea what it was meant to do."
"I believe we know now what it was meant to do," Terek said as he looked at the two men who still seemed dazed.
Urul's smile again alerted Terek. "Come, let us get them outside. The sight of an Inn is always guaranteed to revive Krev."
"You would do well to invest in something that protects you from magical attacks," Urul said to Frik and Krev later as the rode at a leisurely pace, "Your gold would be better spent on that than on drink."
"Leave me be," Krev said as he sat quietly in his saddle. Whatever spell the Nightwalker had used on the trio, that Urul's enchanted breastplate had deflected, had long since worn off, but Krev and Frik still seemed to be affected, their demeanor subdued as the sat quietly upon their horses for the journey north.
"Were-beasts do not attack with magic," Frik said, "It was never a cause for concern before now."
"Hagravens. Nightwalkers. They are not our concern. We are The Silver Hand, we are not Vigilants of Stendarr, neither are we Dawnguard. We should leave them to others," Krev said.
Terek and Urul exchanged a look before Urul spoke.
"You believe that Ysgramor would ignore the threat posed by Hagravens and Vampires were he still alive?"
"Ysgramor would do as he pleased," Krev answered, "and he would do it without my help, since he would neither require it, nor ask for it. For myself, I do not like wasting my efforts, or risking my life, in this fashion. We are tasked with the eradication of werewolves. We may stretch the point somewhat to other werebeasts, but no further. If I was Harbinger, we would leave Hagravens and Vampires to others to deal with."
"Then it is fortunate for Skyrim that you are not Harbinger," Terek said, which seemed to pull Krev further out of his mental fog, "we live in community with others, and most of them cannot protect themselves. You would leave them to die hanging above a large bowl, their life's blood flowing out to mix with the blood of the others that preceded them."
"I value my own life, and my own blood, above that of others," Krev said, "it is for me, and no one else, to choose where and when to risk both."
Terek looked at Urul again. The large Orc simple shook his head, and said nothing.