Extended Blurb
In the wake of the Great War, the Empire finds itself beset by myriad enemies. Only the Penitus Oculatus, loyal eyes of the Mede Dynasty, can hope to bring security to a realm crumbling at the seams.
For Sorald Half-elven, a young man and renegade spectre, serving the Empire was a thing of the past. Having spent the better part of three years running from the law, Sorald's luck was finally running dry. But in a curious turn of events, his destiny was not bound for the dungeons beneath the Imperial City. Instead, for the city of Anvil, where a disturbing string of dead merchants and false idols to Talos grips the Abecean bay region with fear. Now, the fragile balance that exists between the Empire and Hammerfell stands threatened to collapse, and the Thalmor crave such an opportunity to wedge the once allied nations even further apart.
Can the real perpetrators be caught in time? Or will the Colovian harbor city devour itself from within? Second chances work in mysterious ways, and now Sorald's life might just very well depend on it!
A Plague of Eyes
17 Sun's Dawn, 4E 194
Shadows clung to the tumbledown walls of crudely stacked hovels, which lined a narrow street on both sides, as the frigid grip of night tightened around the town of Bravil. The bitter cold that pursued such a blooming darkness wasn't merciful, and it didn't seem likely to relent anytime soon.
Sorald cursed by the Nine beneath his breath.
Freezing to death wasn't nearly half as bad as slowly bleeding out, and he'd been at it for what seemed like tantalizingly long hours. The Khajiit healer had done her work well earlier that morning. But he was a fair distance from Rimmen now, and he wasn't much good at keeping wounds closed anyway.
Maintaining an even pace, Sorald stepped to his right and off the street, proceeding to lead his horse up an uneven alleyway still slickened by trampled mud and partly melted snow from the day prior. He bit haphazardly at the strands of dead skin strewn across his cracked lips to occupy his weary mind, filling the gaps with long, haggard breaths just to keep himself grounded.
As far as Sorald was concerned, there was never any time for respite when he wanted it most, and plenty of time to idle when he couldn't afford to take it. Simply put, it was how he'd spent the last several years—on the run as an oath-breaker, a cutthroat, and a traitor to the Empire. Not that he imagined he could stay on the move for the rest of his life, but he'd just have to make do for a little while longer.
For its part, Bravil was a stinking shithole of a place, where no one frankly cared who you were or what you did. It was the oldest and most squalid holding in all of Cyrodiil, populated by an equally poor and filthy class of people. What traditional Nibenese roots the town might have once boasted—such as refined magical arts, beautifully marbled architecture, and extraordinary cuisine—were all but tossed into the bay once the criminals, beggars, and drunkards found sanctuary upon its festering islands. And it was no coincidence either that Bravil was once a haven for skooma traffickers. The highly addictive narcotic had been something of a Bravilian staple up until only six or seven years ago. Although the entire operation had largely ended in disaster for all trafficking parties involved, skooma-eaters were still as much a commonplace in town as the ataxia disease, and lice. If nothing else, Bravil made for a good spot to lay low, especially for a reprobate like Sorald.
Stepping onto a wider avenue, the dull lights of town flooded past him, and the place of his destination could be seen just ahead. The sign of the shabby inn read 'Silverhome on the Water' and was as worn and as dirty as the people perched on its front stoop. A small ensemble of instruments offered something akin to music, the sound of which resonated faintly from the open windows on the tavern level, and a haze of tobacco smoke veiled the two-story building as Sorald approached.
"You look weary, friend." A grizzled sort of man with a scraggly beard and a patchwork of clothes muttered haggardly, "Perhaps a pinch of—"
"No." Sorald shoved the man off him with ease. Even if he wanted drugs, he wasn't going to buy them in Bravil.
"Suit yourself, phew." The man spat on the ground just behind Sorald, but moved on his way without any further issue.
Sorald liked to think he was well accustomed to dealing with the Empire's vast palate of degenerates, seeing as how he was one himself. But his mount was carrying far too much gold and he was somewhat dying, so any amount of attention he drew to himself now wouldn't exactly be doing him any favors later.
Leading his horse around the back of the inn, Sorald left her in the care of the unkempt stable boy. He removed his own belongings, dropped a few gold septims into the boy's hands without a word spoken, and gave Senico a slow rub on the nose before turning to head inside.
The interior of the inn was the least bit inviting, and as filthy as its exterior was. Though not that anyone seemed to care. What served as the tavern area was packed to the fullest with patrons, and was louder than even some streets in the Imperial City on a busy market day. Dozens upon dozens of patrons drank, shouted, gambled, fought, eloped, and sang along to the musicians tune in the corner, otherwise indulging the kinds of nightly delights one could only presume to find in a place like that.
"Can I help you with somethin' dear?" The publican managing the front asked as Sorald pushed his way inside.
He brushed the long, sweaty bangs of his dark hair away from his face, revealing the faded scar down his right eye, before peering down at her with belated attention. Sorald met the dull blue of her gaze with his own hazel paring, though both clearly as weary as the rest of his body.
"I need a room, and a bath. As soon as possible." Sorald couldn't help but sound demanding. He didn't have much time to tend to his wounds, and the smell of death hung on him like rotten eggs.
"I—of course." She replied promptly, flipping through the worn ledger on her table as quickly as she could muster. Glancing back up at Sorald, she nodded, "We should have room, and I can have a bath drawn for you as soon as you like."
Sorald nodded slowly.
"Two silver septims up front, ser." She replied, "Two upon your leavin'. Did you know how long you'd be staying for?"
"The night." Sorald dug twenty-four silver septims and five gold septims out of his pocket, then placed them all on the table softly. A twing of pain through his abdomen cause him to grab his side, as he said, "But I need discretion, and a bottle of liquor—whiskey, whichever kind you have."
"I see…" She pondered for a moment, and Sorald didn't much like the way she was studying him. She shook her head, and said, "I should be able to get you something small from the bar. One moment."
Sorald watched the young woman scamper away from the front table and into the tavern area, but reeled with a wince as those pangs of burning shot through his body once more. He couldn't bear to stand for much longer, and only hoped the damage wasn't too severe.
"Here you are." The clerk returned,
Sorald wiped the cold sweat from his flushed, unshaven face and accepted the small bottle of spirits silently. It wasn't to his taste, but then he wouldn't be drinking it anyway.
"Your room is up the stairs and two down on the left." She said with a ginger smile, "Please let me know if you anything else."
"Thank you." Sorald muttered, and dragged himself towards the stairs at once.
The room was extremely small, as expected. With poorly lit candles dripping from the end table and running down between the floorboards, a cold draft whistling in by the single smoky window, and the smell of must and spoiled alcohol pervading the hay mattress and burlap blanket, it wasn't an appealing sight. But Sorald couldn't care less about the state of his lodgings, he'd sleep just about anywhere, as he had many times before, so long as he lived to see the next morning.
Removing his tattered, blood-laden cloak and fur hood, Sorald tossed his bags onto the ground beside the bed and sighed heavily.
He was still breathing…. for now.
There were moments that afternoon when he might have died—should have died. The bounty hunters had made him work for it. He'd killed all three in the end, but they'd nearly gotten the better of him.
Was he getting clumsy?
It was possible. But it was also possible that he was just simply tired of the walking, and the riding, and the running. Perhaps he was tired of being framed as the glorified killer he was made out to be, or of the various bounties on his head across the Empire, each as trivial and inflated as the next. Of course, they only made his own bounty hunting much more difficult to sustain. It was overtly tedious trying to hunt down other men, when he was constantly being hunted himself.
The last time he bothered asking, his bounties were sitting at a combined payout of somewhere short of two-thousand gold septims. It was enough coin to make a man chase him to every corner of every nation on Tamriel. He wasn't sure that he'd ever be safe again, but at least tonight he might be able to get some rest.
Sorald removed his blood-soaked tunic as delicately as he could muster. But there was no avoiding the searing pain, the cuts were too deep. As soon as the tunic was off and tossed to the corner of the room, he removed his boots and stripped down to his smallclothes.
Although the light in the room was duly poor, Sorald took a moment to inspect his sword belt and dark cloak, both of which dangled side-by-side on the hook where he'd placed them. For some reason, he recalled how they'd looked when he first received them on his seventeenth birthday, and the sorry state of them now.
The sword was made of steel and cast in the traditional style of the Imperial Legion, with slight variations. It held a double-edge, a single-handed grip, and a crossguard that curved toward the blade. The cloak was a faded black thing with golden trim, and was saturated by stains of all kinds. Between where the fabric folded as it hung in place, Sorald could just make out the heavily worn, red diamond and golden eye embroidery.
These were the vestments of the Penitus Oculatus: The Mede Dynasty's eyes and ears throughout the Empire, as well as greater Tamriel. They were stark reminders to Sorald of his service to the Empire, and the very vows he once swore to uphold with his life. For reasons mysterious to himself, Sorald couldn't bring himself to part with them, or even doff them, despite the risk that having them presented. They marked him for death, but maybe that was no less than he deserved.
"Help, help!" A muffled voice echoed down the hallway just outside Sorald's room. Not but moments later, several quick knocks pounded on his door.
"Please, help me." The voice pleaded. It was a shrill sounding voice, and hard to tell whether or not it was a man's or a woman's at first.
Sorald said nothing in reply, remaining motionless by the door. But a sudden flare of pain wrinkled up his back and forced him to press his foot down into the floorboard, which squeaked loudly.
"Oh, thank the Nine." The voice sighed in relief, "Please, open the door. You must help me—I beg of you."
Sorald growled at his own body's betrayal, but muttered, "Go. Away."
"What? No—no, you don't understand." The voice continued in desperation, "They'll kill me if you don't help me. Please, I'm begging you. Look, I really am."
Sorald produced one of his daggers from its sheath on the sword belt and made for the door handle.
"Oh, bless you." The voice resounded as Sorald turned the brass knob, "I was beginning to think, oh—"
"Not, another word…" Sorald pointed his dagger at the man, who was a man. Though it was too dark to make out his features in any great detail, he was tall but certainly thin, with a head of long, dirty blonde hair braided partly in the back. He wore colorful clothing with some kind of a stringed instrument around his neck, which prompted Sorald to add belatedly, "…Bard."
The wiry musician stared back at Sorald for a frightful moment, but quickly turned his attention down the hallway.
"Oh—they're coming. Will you just let me in?" The man panicked, as he tried to push his way in.
But Sorald held him off rather easily and peered his own head out into the hallway, where the silhouettes of figures could be seen idling towards the stairs far to his right. They didn't look like they were approaching, but it was hard to tell.
"You don't have any weapons, do you?" Sorald asked indifferently, the man's disheveled hair pressed into him wildly.
"Does it look like I carry any weapons?" The man nearly shrieked, still trying to claw his way past Sorald, though to no avail.
Sorald rolled his eyes, and thrust the man into his room by the scruff of the neck, closing the door behind them quietly.
"Ow—did you have to toss me?" He groaned through a shortness of breath, picking himself up from the floor to dust himself off at once.
Sorald crossed his arms, and inspected the man further. He was young—perhaps not much younger than Sorald was, even though he could surely pass as a youth with the way he kept his face shaved. He was fair of skin, and his accent was familiar, though Sorald was too tired to think about it. The man's outfit was a headache to look at too, and his small groans of discomfort were equally irritating.
"Who are you?" Sorald demanded in a low tone of voice, as he closed the distance between them, "Speak quickly."
"I, uh—" The man stammered, and stared up into Sorald's piercing gaze, "I go by Del, when it suites me. Though Delacourt, in full, if you really must know."
"Delacourt…" Sorald squinted curiously. He might have been on the outskirts of information, but that was a hard name not to recognize, "Not the Delacourt, surely? Delacourt the Libertine? The Seducer? Sanguine's Cat?"
Delacourt chuckled nervously, a flash of fear in his eyes, "So… you've heard of me, have you? There's an unfortunate surprise…"
"As I recall," Sorald muttered, grabbing Delacourt by the collar of his tunic to pull him in close, "You're a wanted man in the west. What was it that you did again? Caught sleeping with the Count of Chorrol? Whilst at the same time having an affair with his wife?"
"Well…" Delacourt squirmed, "It's all grossly hyperbolic. I should never have taken that job to begin with, just so we're clear. I didn't even want it!"
"You stole all of their silverware... and a donkey." Sorald pressed, still trying to wrack his own brain for information, "Am I remembering the wanted posters correctly?"
"Ah, I mean, sort of." Delacourt whimpered with a slight smile, "It was a goat, technically."
Sorald tightened his grip around the bard's collar, his dagger nearer to his neck.
"Alright, alright," Delacourt pleaded, "Yes, it's all true. I'm a sick and depraved sort of man. What more do you want me to say? I was in love."
Sorald eyed him suspiciously, "With the goat?"
"No—not the goat." Delacourt shook his head in shock of the accusation, "The Count."
"You were in love with the Count, but you seduced his wife?" Sorald remarked oddly, "How does that make any sense?"
"Well, they were a charming pair, weren't they? But a handful more than I had hands. Still, I do miss that…" Delacourt sighed slightly, as if he'd just remembered some fond memory of the same marriage he'd singlehandedly ruined. He shook his head back to attention, "Look, that's not the point. Those men out there are bounty hunters. Do you know what that even means?"
"Enlighten me." Sorald indulged somewhat sarcastically.
"They want to collect a reward on account of my head." Delacourt answered, as if Sorald were a dullard, "And that bounty is for dead or alive, mind you. I think they really might kill me, by the way."
Sorald furrowed his brow, "Why?"
"Because…" Delacourt fidgeted, "I stole their coin purses some ten minutes ago."
"What is wrong with you?" Sorald asked irritably. He never liked bards, and his disdain seemed to be growing by the second.
"Oh… so many things." Delacourt responded woefully, "You have no idea. It all started in Skyrim, you see—"
"Who are they?" Sorald interjected to change the subject abruptly, as he let go of Delacourt, who fell into the rickety bed behind him, "These men of yours."
"I just told you, didn't I?" Delacourt replied as he sat up right to adjust his collar, but added more crossly, "Were you even listening? Fine, I'll start over—"
"What were they wearing? What kinds of things did they carry?" Sorald practically growled, "Did they seem like they were imperial-licensed hunters? Professional? Amateur? Something in-between?"
"I—look, I don't know, alright?" Delacourt shrugged petulantly, "They carried swords, I know that much. Otherwise, they all looked the same to me."
"…Swords?" Sorald scoffed in disbelief, "That's all you can come up with? And anyway, there are men with swords down there hunting you, and you mean to tell me that your first instinct was to steal from these men?"
"Nearly right from under their very noses." Delacourt nodded, as if he were proud of his own stupidity, "I would have gotten away with it too, bastards. Unfortunately, I sneezed, and blew my cover straight out the window. But this city is disgusting and riddled with filth, so it's hardly my fault."
Sorald rolled his eyes, "Did these men wear anything in particular? A similar broach? Or a mantle of some kind?"
Delacourt pondered the question for a moment, and said with a sudden grin, "They did. It was their shields—I didn't get a great look, but they were blue and white, and there was a sort of tree after a kind on their faces. Although, it was hard to tell, they kept them somewhat hidden."
"Of course." Sorald snarled amusedly, "Those aren't bounty hunters at all, you donkey, they're men of Chorrol—the spurned Count's own, I should wager."
"The Count?" Delacourt nearly choked on his words, "But… why?"
"Because you're a fucking idiot, that's why." Sorald winced through a short burst of pain in his ribs, "You didn't recognize the insignia or the colors from your trollop through Colovia?"
"I suppose not." Delacourt furrowed his brow confusedly, "Isn't that strange…"
Sorald didn't respond, he didn't have time to entertain this idiot any longer. Instead, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and made for the door.
"What—wait, where are you going?" Delacourt called after him nervously, "You can't leave me."
"I'm going to have my bath. You stay here." Sorald replied quietly, who then closed the door behind him, and well before Delacourt could get in another word. Even still, he locked the door behind him just to be sure that Delacourt didn't go anywhere, and that those men didn't accidentally come wandering in.
Luckily for the bard, Sorald had plans for these men of Chorrol, he just needed to be careful with how and when.
Afterall, it was hard to believe that Count Alerius would send his own guards across county borders, willingly ignoring all jurisdiction in such matters by doing so. The man was eccentric, not stupid. If anything, he would delegated resources to the legally binding bounty, or at the very least put out a discrete assassination contract. And if he had done either of those things, Sorald's guess was that Delacourt would already be dead. Which told him two things: The Count's bounty was likely just a formality to smooth things over in his own household, and these supposed men of Chorrol had almost certainly traveled to Bravil in secret, likely in search of what they imagined to be easy coin and reputation with their Lord.
If that were the case, then Sorald was going to take them for all their worth, bard's bounty included.
Though he wasn't doing anything until his wounds were taken care of, as he'd need all the strength he could muster. For if memory served him well, his conversations with Colovian soldier-types were sparse for words and hardly polite.