Marked for Death

Felwinter is out of bed within seconds of waking. There was little to gain in the way of procrastinating now. He waddled his way over to the portal after relieving himself and pressing his palm flat against the blank surface, he wills it to life. The reaction came just seconds later. The stone wall begins to fade from a dark gray into a pale white and blue, swirling and shimmering in the air like the surface of a lake.

It was done. It would get them home when the time came. Felwinter willed the portal back into dormancy. Testing it wouldn't be necessary, neither would it the best idea. If he stepped through now, he would likely never come back.

Felwinter spent the trip from the portal to the washbasin muttering to himself, "Whiterun has my kids. Whiterun has my friends. Whiterun has my bed and two-hundred and ten pounds of pure Orc beef keeping it warm just for me. What does Solstheim have? Ash Spawn and even more wannabe conquerors."

His griping to no one in particular was interrupted when he heard movement. The others were stirring. Felwinter could be ready to go within seconds and morale might at least be helped by a hot meal, so he cleaned himself up and left the room. The dead flame beneath the pot in the fireplace returned to life with less effort from Felwinter than it took him to yawn and stretch.

Jordis was out first, stretching in her armor and bidding her thane good morning. Felwinter had a bowl ready and outstretched by the time she drew near and she received it with quiet thanks. Felwinter set down one for Gregor before taking his own, figuring him to be praying.

"We have a plan?" Jordis asked, her low tone ringing in the silence. Gregor's door creaked open and from behind them, heavy booted footsteps approached.

"I plan to go in alone. Neither of you can resist the Stone's pull so you will stay behind. No way around it."

Jordis understood. She didn't like it, the furrow on her brow made that clear but she understood. "If you are attacked?"

"Plenty of Daedra I can summon," answered Felwinter with his mouth full, "I can manage up to four of them at once but if even that proves not enough, I'll do what I can to draw them back towards you," he answered. He lifted the bowl to his lips and drained the rest of the stew. "We'll approach the temple slowly. You two are to tell me the instant the Tree Stone starts pulling on your minds. From there, I go on ahead and under no circumstances are either of you to approach." He sets his eyes on Gregor, who somehow looked even less pleased with the reality of the situation than Jordis, the way he scowled into his bowl. "Forget what honor demands. Forget your obligations. Your thane has given you a direct order. Can I trust the both of you to obey it?"

"Yes, thane."

Gregor let out a great sigh, his hackles dropping with his shoulders. "Aye, thane. As you command."

Captain Veleth was at the gate, waiting for them once again. Arano had joined him, as did the First Councilor, to Felwinter's surprise. He bowed just slightly to Morvayn and his second, before clasping Veleth's forearm.

"I'll be honest, First Councilor, didn't expect to see you before we set off," remarked Felwinter, directing Gregor and Jordis to mount up.

"You've been tasked with saving our city." It was Arano who spoke for him, hints of sleep absent from his features, despite being awake so early. "It was the least we could do." Arano turned away to look back at the gates. "The entrance into the town will be closed and the Captain's men will remain ready, as per your suggestion."

Veleth nodded. "We will keep a few of my best near the Earth Stone," he said, "We'll be ready for whatever comes and we only stand down on your say so."

Felwinter put his hands to his lips and called out for Arvak. A short rumbling and the horse burst from the ground in an explosion of violet light and cold fire, saddled and prepared. Morvayn watched the display with only a hint of surprise and took some measure of comfort in this small but significant display of the Dragonborn's power. Still, he had to ask, "Are you ready, Felwinter?"

"Ready to go home." The man's response was immediate and was as in jest as it was serious. "Whoever this mage is, Miraak himself or some pretender. They've caused us all no small measure of worry and grief. I'm sure you'll agree."

"You have no idea," Morvayn muttered darkly.

"Then they're owed some grief back." Felwinter looks towards his housecarls, waits until the both of them meet his gaze and signal to him that they are prepared. "They may have started this fight but I'm ending it and if I'm in a good mood by the end, I'll end it quickly."

He set his wide, unblinking eyes straight ahead. Even from a distance, Morvayn could see how small his pupils were becoming. Felwinter licked his drying lips in anticipation. Then he said, "I am not in a good mood."

Arvak bucked its head and set off into an easy trot. Felwinter's pair of Nordic guardsmen followed suit, their horses snorting at the uneasiness Arvak exuded but still dutifully trailing the undead beast Felwinter called his steed towards the eastern horizon, into the rising sun. Under any other circumstances, Morvayn would have watched. Not these ones. Instead, he nodded to Veleth and started the walk back to his home, hearing the grating of the gate as it closed shut behind him and sealed his town from the outside world.

There would be plenty of time to talk on the return to Raven Rock and at whatever celebration that was sure to occur afterwards. Their journey remained silent, Felwinter only breaking it to reiterate their plan. He would move in alone, they would stay behind, nothing had changed.

Felwinter eventually led them into a clearing and told them they were getting close. He could feel the magic wafting through the air and as he suspected, the Tree Stone was indeed significantly stronger than the one back in Raven Rock. They pass another wall of trees into another opening and this time, the ancient, ruined structure of the Temple of Miraak could be seen, clear as day, outlined by the morning sun.

Felwinter had Arvak stop and then he pointed, directing their eyes to the stone walls, green and brown and old and...occupied. People walked back and forth along them. They all had different things clutched in hand, tools, bundles of wood, buckets of quarried stone. They all wore different clothing, some the patchwork armor of bandits and reavers, others the thick leathers and furs of those who could only be the Skaal. Where they all matched was in their faces. Eyes, low and unblinking. Mouths, drawn open just slightly, moving on occasion. And none of them noticed the new arrivals. Most likely, none of them would.

Felwinter spurred Arvak on. Gregor and Jordis followed for just a few more steps. Then, in the same moment, both tugged on their reins and stopped. Felwinter twisted his neck to look at them. All he needed to know was drawn on their faces.

"This is the furthest I can manage, thane," Jordis said. Her words came from a throat as tense and tight as the line of her shoulders. Gregor only nods, his forehead beginning to glimmer in the cool air.

Felwinter dismounted Arvak and made his way back towards them. He takes note of how close they managed, up to the first set of snow-covered steps, and how far they were from the temple. Then he took hold of the horses' reins from both their tight grips and began to bring them around. Felwinter led the pair back towards the treeline they had just passed, keeping his head turned and his eyes on their faces until the tension turned somewhat to relief.

Felwinter goes to face the temple again, taking in not just its ancient foundation but the newer structure being built atop it. It resembled the one in Raven Rock but on a much larger scale. He wondered if the other Stones looked the same. He wondered what it was meant to be and he feared for what they were meant to do.

Felwinter starts forward, feeling the stone's influence ram against his mind and wash over it like waves against a towering mountainside. He stopped to look back at his housecarls. Their eyes were on him and on the temple but they made no moves to follow; a good sign. Felwinter turned back and began to resume his climb before something caught his eye and forced him to pause again. A rounded spike, sticking out of the snow-heavy ground and curving. Too lightly colored to be stone, too round and curved to be of natural causes. Intrigued, Felwinter approached to get a better look. He didn't need to come much closer and even found himself stumbling back, eyes tracing its length and finding the rest of the structure underneath his feet. The spike was a rib, connected to a cage, connected to a corpse. A massive one. The monstrous corpse of a dragon, stripped of all skin and sinew. Its maw was wide open and its body was embedded in the hard-packed sand and snow-covered dirt, in a way only time could have managed.

It did not die of natural means. Dragons do not die of natural means.

Felwinter took a breath and then forced himself away from it, striding up the hill with renewed vigor, born of anticipation. He reached the summit and climbed the wooden stairs. There were more people than he had first noticed. Most of them had been hidden within the deep center of the temple, working and chanting all around the Tree Stone, which stood like an ancient spire at the temple's heart. Working and chanting, too reminiscent of prayer. Felwinter's breathing deepened. The back of his neck began to prickle and he struggled not to summon his weapon to his hand.

Felwinter moved away before one of the enthralled could run into him, her glazed eyes looking far past. The interior of the temple continued from the rise where Felwinter was standing to a lower level, connected by another wooden set of stairs. He didn't bother to take in more of his surroundings. The power and sick magic rolling off the Tree Stone did so in waves, like an almost visible miasma. He had never seen or felt anything like it around the Earth Stone, even when he had been close enough to touch. He was still several long strides away from the Tree Stone and now he was feeling just an inkling of what all of the others must have felt.

Pattering, light and quick. It took only three footfalls before Felwinter twisted on his heel, a blade ready in one fist and ice crackling in the other.

There was someone running here but not towards him. The woman came into sight once she rounded the Stone, her eyes upon it, not even having noticed Felwinter. Her forehead was slick with sweat, her chest rose and fell rapidly and the weapon at her side was tinged red with blood. The sturdy, blonde Nord moved freely, most certainly not enslaved to the Stone upon which her attention remained despite Felwinter's arrival.

In apparent agitation, she paced back to where she had come, keeping out of the immediate perimeter of the Tree Stone, careful not to touch it or the people working around it. Felwinter managed a few looks at her face and when he did, all he saw were plain but young features hardened by anger and frustration.

His magic dispelled. Zazikel disappeared. Felwinter began his approach, taking it slowly as to not startle the woman and failing as soon as his foot skidded against the stone. The young Nord reacted immediately, ripping the bloodied war axe of Nordic steel from her waist. She twisted with a yell, weapon raised, prepared to drop and found Felwinter just a few steps away, hands raised in a gesture of peace.

The axe didn't move. It didn't start falling towards his head, thankfully, but neither did it return to its holster at her waist. She glared at him, her mouth a hard, snarling line and her eyes wide and unblinking. "You one of those cultists?" She demanded, "Here to join your brothers and sisters in Oblivion?"

Felwinter's eyes darted away from hers for only a second. He only needed the second to find the bodies of dead masked men and women stacked in a pile at the far end of the temple. "I'm not," he replied. "The opposite, as a matter of fact. Those same cultists attacked me some time ago, in Skyrim."

"Why?"

He felt it was best to answer truthfully. "My name is Felwinter," said Felwinter. Her eyes narrowed immediately and her arm wavered. She recognized it and her eyes searched his face for any sign of duplicity. "They attacked me for being Dragonborn. Proclaimed me false. I'm just here to find out who sent them and put a stop to any future attacks, alright? Nothing more. Please remove your blade from my face."

She does, only after another half-minute. She looks him up and down, then to the Tree Stone, then back. "That's why you're not affected," she murmured.

"Yeah, it's why I'm not affected. Now, why aren't you?"

The Nord's face shifts into something that attempts to be a smile but comes off as a grimace. She gestured with her head. "Look around," she tells him, "Most of the Humans here are Skaal. My people. Between every stone on this island, my village has lost over half its number."

Felwinter's eyebrows raise slightly.

"My father is the shaman," she went on, "He's doing what he can to protect the few of us that remain. A magical barrier that helps us resist the Stone's influence from home. He developed a smaller version of it, a spell that confers resistance."

Now his interest was truly piqued. He needed to meet this man. But Felwinter's reminded himself to keep his hopes low, however. The lines marring her face told him that the protection was not absolute and would likely not last. Still, he asked, "Can you teach me the spell? Right here, right now?"

The Skaal woman hesitated, her jaw working beneath the skin. "Maybe but with so little time and little magicka left, I admit, I don't think I would be the best teacher." She brought up the hand not clutching the axe, pressed her fingers to her temple and began to murmur under her breath. Felwinter felt the shift in the air just before her fingers started giving off a gentle blue light. Her eyes had closed. When she opened them and shook her head, as if clearing fog, they seemed weary but more determined. The stress lines faded from her features and she began to look more her age.

"I think I can help free the people enslaved by the Stone," Felwinter told her, "I would start by finding whoever is behind this and taking them down." He pointed to the way from where he came. "I've got two allies at the base of the temple. Strong fighters, the both of them, but they can't get any closer without being taken."

"You want me to cast the spell on them." The Skaal woman caught on quick.

"Yes but let me provide the power. I'm well-rested and I've got stores to spare. Maybe it'll last longer that way." The Skaal woman looked unsure, adjusting and readjusting the axe in her hand. Then she looked back at the Stone, at the people laboring and murmuring reverently around it.

She turned back, all hesitation gone. "Felwinter?"

"Yes?"

She nodded curtly and sheathed her weapon. "Frea. Take me to them."

The gamble had paid off. As soon as Frea had finished her work, Jordis and Gregor made the climb with her and Felwinter back into the temple. Both of them looked strained but no more than Frea did this close to the Tree Stone and none of them made any attempt to approach the Stone more than necessary.

With more to their numbers and with quiet, Felwinter could finally hear the chanting more clearly. The First Councilor had been right. They indeed said the same thing, over and over,

"Here in his shrine,

That they have forgotten

Here do we toil

That we might remember

By night we reclaim

What by day was stolen

Far from ourselves

He grows ever near to us

Our eyes once were blinded

Now through him do we see

Our hands once were idle

Now through them does he speak

And when the world shall listen

And when the world shall see

And when the world remembers

That world shall cease to be."

There would be some deviation, none of it attributable to free will but whenever there was, the name 'Miraak' would be intoned. People enthralled by the Stone's magic, the name Miraak, the dragon corpses surrounding the Temple (Felwinter had counted four when he walked the perimeter), Felwinter was getting closer and closer to losing all doubt that this whole thing was much bigger than he had hoped to believe.

Felwinter took his third once over of the temple. Frea had told him that the part they were currently in was the upper level, that there were areas going deep into the ground. Regardless, Felwinter found this a terrible location for a fight, what with enclosed spaces and innocents shambling about them. And a fight was likely, Frea's pile of deserving victims rotting in the corner was proof enough of this. If there were more cultists inside the Temple, their party would've been heard and made an appearance by now. If they approached from the outside, Felwinter could only hope that one of them heard in time, so they could meet them before they breached the Temple.

"Gregor, Jordis, how are we feeling?" Felwinter moved for a closer look at the Stone. He stopped at the edge of the miniature, murky lake surrounding its base. It had a smell to it.

"We are managing, thane."

Best they could hope for. "Frea, when did you start losing people?"

"Three months and two weeks now," she answered. It lined up with Morvayn's reports.

"Before then, did you have any interactions with the cultists?"

"Our hunters and tradesmen would sometimes return with reports of strange robed figures in masks wandering the island but this is the first time I've seen them personally." Frea walked up behind him, keeping a further distance from the Tree Stone. Felwinter looked away from it towards the dead bodies, saw Jordis pulling the mask off of one of them. The face revealed was the deep blue, weathered one of a middle-aged Dunmer woman. Had she been compelled? Were all of them?

Gregor was closest to the set of wooden stairs leading out of the temple, so when his head suddenly snapped towards the exit, it was all Felwinter needed to know.

"Someone's coming," Gregor announced for good measure. He turned back to his thane to find Felwinter already making towards him, blade at the ready. Gregor unbuckled his shield, heard Jordis and the Skaal woman, Frea, unsheathe their weapons, and felt Felwinter practically buzzing when he strode past. He stopped just before the stairs and threw his free hand out towards the pile of bodies rotting in the corner, muttering some expletive about necromancers. The bodies went up in bright, roaring flames. Then they all followed him up the stairs to the top.

Gregor hadn't misheard. From their high ground, their crew could see the oft-spoken about cultists, making their way up the stone, snow-covered stairs, uniform in dress and masks, ten in number. Bringing up the rear was an eleventh, a tall and imposing Khajiit warrior, a dark red cloak trailing behind her and no mask adorning her face.

Felwinter muttered, "Take a step back, all of you." He took a step forward once they did. The cultists stopped. The Khajiit's hand, missing its largest finger, came to rest on the hilt of her sword. Grip present but loose and lazy, as if she was measuring them up.

"All this time," Felwinter called out, letting his voice fly on the wind and drift over the hills, "All this way and you lot are still after me. I'm flattered! Truly. But I'm a taken man."

No response. Not even a shift in stance from the cultists or a reaction in the face of the unmasked one. "I propose a deal. I ask some questions." He gestured to himself then to them, "You answer them. Then everyone gets to go on their merry way. Sound good? Of course it does."

Felwinter began to pace, his gaze never leaving the crowd before him. "Why have you enslaved these people?" he asked.

Silence. The cultists stood stone still.

"What do you intend for the All-Maker Stones? What is their purpose?"

"The ones I faced had as much interest in talking as these," he heard Frea mutter when they failed to answer again. Just standing there, staring up at him. The only movement was their heads, tracking him as Felwinter stalked back and forth.

When he stopped, so did they. Felwinter rolled his shoulders, his neck and prepared for what would surely come next. The Dragonborn took one more step forward and demanded, "Who is Miraak?"

Only the maskless one had a reaction; her scarred face twisting into a deep scowl. The masked cultist at the head of their group took a single step forward, then turned to look back at her. Whatever question they silently asked to the Khajiit, a simple, barely noticeable nod was her only response. She never took her eyes off Felwinter as she gave it.

When the cultist turned back, gloved hands flew up with them. Felwinter's ward came just barely in time to stop the ball of fire thrown towards them with dizzying speed and dangerous precision. The others flinched at the impact but did not waver. Nor did they waver when several more blasts of fire came for them, Felwinter's ward their only defense. The vanguard of the cultists were a siege engine, throwing fire after fire in succession with each other so that the thunderous, explosive rain never ceased.

Pulling one hand away from his weakening ward, Felwinter pressed his palm to the ground beneath his feet. On the lower level, the world split open in a flash of purple and black. The onslaught stopped. The cultists turned their attention and their fire onto the two Dremora charging in their direction.

Felwinter let the ward drop and peered through the smoke. The Khajiit spoke and pointed, barking commands. She focused her eyes onto the black cloud drifting into the air and through its haze, locked onto his own.

Felwinter only needed to question one. She'd do.

"Keep them off me," he ordered. He looked back at the Khajiit to find her already walking away. "I'm taking their commander."

With a heave, Felwinter leapt off the temple and dropped to the ground level. He charged one of the cultists with a roar, running Zazikel through their chest and spinning to rip it out and keep his stride. The Dremora were a fury, two cultists dead at their feet in only the minute they've spent on the battlefield. With the departure of their commander and another cultist's life's blood running down his sword, seven were left for his five. Felwinter darted through the crowd, avoiding strikes and bolts of magic as he made his way to the Khajiit. As soon as he had a clear view of her back, retreating to the treeline, he Shouted, "WULD NAH KEST!" The view before him bent and folded. Felwinter felt his feet practically lift off the ground as his power propelled him forward.

With a whirl of her cloak, she spun and met him, sword in hand. His own clashed against it, his momentum sending her sliding back in the dirt but failing to topple her. She pushes him off and darts forward, short blade stabbing out at his chest. Felwinter jumps to the side to avoid it, moving back and aiming for her throat only for her blade to meet his again.

Their weapons remain locked, teeth bared as both pushed against the other and refused to give an inch. "My patience grows thin, Khajiit," Felwinter growled, his pupils shrinking into tiny dots in a sea of white. "Who wants me dead?" he demanded, "Who ordered the attacks? Who is Miraak?"

The snarl on her face broadened and then twisted into a smile. The Khajiit leaned in until they were nearly nose and nose before rasping. "The god of this land and the future owner of your head." Felwinter said nothing to that. His face remained hard and impassive. Her grin widened. "Does that answer not satisfy you, pretender? You seemed so...desperate..."

The strength to speak departed her. Without warning, the pressure Felwinter was exerting seemed to double, triple even. With what seemed to be by little more than raw strength, Felwinter forced the Khajiit down to a knee, her body trembling with all the effort it took to keep her spine straight and her body upright. Now, it was him who smiled, one that was just as wide as her's was and twice as bloodthirsty. "More than you realize."

Felwinter threw his blade out to the side and he did so with such strength and suddenness that the Khajiit's shortsword was wrenched from her tight grip and sent clattering to the sandy ground. Her head swiveled away from where the sword had dropped and back to him just in time to catch sight of a heavy armored boot flying up towards her nose.

The kick toppled her, throwing her backwards and sending her sprawling. Felwinter looked down and grimaced, coldly at the cultist on the ground and derisively at the thin stain of blood that now covered the toes of his boots. The Khajiit, flat on her stomach, attempted to rise on shaking arms. Felwinter stepped forward and threw a second, even harder kick into the softness of her leather-covered stomach, knocking out what little air was in her lungs and wiping his boots off at the same time.

He wouldn't take his eyes off his opponent but he listened to the fighting behind him and knew that his people were winning, even with the Dremora having returned to their own realm. Felwinter brought Zazikel up, taking it in two hands before reconsidering. He could interrogate the corpse. Bring it back to the world of the living just enough that it could be compelled to tell him whatever it knew. But the body would need a head and an intact throat to speak. He let Zazikel down, removing one of his hands from its ebony hilt and grabbing hold of her thin, muscled arm. The Khajiit was yanked forward, head lolling, her body held in place by the strength of his grip as he prepared to plunge his sword deep into the center of her chest.

Her head snapped up and she spoke. No, she didn't speak. What she did was far beyond speaking; bewildering and nothing short of unmistakable.

The Khajiit Shouted and the world shook with the unbridled power of her words.

Felwinter's fingers lost the energy to stay wrapped around Zazikel's handle. It slipped from his loosened grip and clattered to the ground. The blood rushing through his ears made it so that he never heard it.

The Khajiit's arm slipped from his grasp as Felwiner staggered back, barely managing to breathe with the strength he had left. Shaking like a leaf in the wind, he dropped to one knee, trying his damndest to stay upright. His mind raced, spurred by confusion, panic and an instinct to react in some shape or form.

She Shouted again. The wave of power hit Felwinter full on and his last knee gave out. His back did as well, his fists planting into the ground to keep from falling onto his face like a puppet with cut strings. He was shaking even harder now. His heart thundered in his ears and his throat. Something wet and warm ran a trail down from his nostril.

The Khajiit rose back up to her feet. Felwinter did not even have the strength to lift his head and watch her. So when he felt the air shift, when he felt the buzzing suddenly erupt along his skin, he had no power to avoid what was coming or defend against it.

He shut his eyes and braced. Her hand flew forward and a magical blast of pure force hit hard enough to lift the big man bodily off the ground and send him hurtling almost to the height of the trees. He felt nothing but air as he sailed in a long arc, over the cultists, over Frea and his housecarls, backwards towards the temple. An era seemed to pass before he began to descend. Retaining some of his senses, he summoned a helmet at random to his head, just as he crashed through a flimsy wooden wall. His back slammed into something solid and cold and he fell, face first into stinking, murky water.

His strength was just beginning to return, as did feeling, as did pain. He heard his name being called as he attempted to rise to his feet, find his weapon, re-enter the fray. But then he was sinking, dropping slowly through the surface of the black pond that surrounded the Tree Stone.

He couldn't remember if he tried to fight whatever force was attempting to drag him under. He wasn't sure he did. All that was clear was darkness and in that darkness, a single black book.

It opened and the world fell away.