Chapter 12

"And that's why your top priority is to kill the conjurer," said Tariq as he handed Argis another healing a third healing potion. "Of course, you still have to fight through the summons first. Iron is fine armor against mortal foes and non-magical summons. But if you're going against creatures of elemental magic or capable of wielding elemental magic, stout leather is your better option, or armor that has a thick padding between your flesh and any metal. Or mer armor," he reluctantly conceded.

"Like the Dwemer armor you wear," Argis muttered. He groaned and swore softly as he shifted in his chair. He was stripped down to his smalls to be able to apply potions to flesh that had been singed and cracked from fire or lightning or swollen and cracked from ice or just torn open by claws and teeth of various sizes. Despite the multiplicity of wounds, none of them were anywhere near fatal or permanently damaging.

The Arkay priest Runil knocked before entering the room. He put down the tray of herbal tea and small bowl of salad of healing herbs in front of Argis.

Tariq had decided to get Argis more experience against magical foes and so had pressured Runil, a former battlemage conjurer for the Dominion, to help. They'd traveled to the snowy area near where they'd killed Hircine's avatar. It was most of a day's journey by horseback, but Runil wanted privacy. He did not want his skill in magic revealed to the villagers, much less the Jarl. He also did not want to practice near the spriggan cave where the kill had happened, saying that cave was not an area they wanted to practice in or around. Instead, he directed them to an area east of the cave.

While chasing Hircine's avatar, it had run past a homestead. Tariq and Argis hadn't had time to look too closely at the area, but Tariq vaguely recalled seeing a woman tracking them with a drawn bow as they'd galloped past.

Runil took them to that homestead and introduced them to Angi, the Nord woman who lived there alone. The lonely cabin and archery training ground had been in her family the past four generations.

She'd met Runil when her father had brought home an elf he'd found near-frozen by a certain ruin. After ascertaining the elf was not some necromancer (only a necromancer would be around those ruins that the Legion had burned down centuries earlier because of vampires), they gave him shelter and minimal information about the area. Her father had figured the elf was running away from something He'd thoroughly searched the elf's belongings before bringing him home, so he knew the elf was Dominion. But if her father, who'd been in the Battle of Red Ring, hadn't immediately snapped the elf's neck, then she'd give him a chance, too.

Well, her father hadn't proved wrong, and the elf had proven himself useful to Falkreath in unexpected ways.

She was naturally curious why Tariq was so insistent his housecarl gain experience fighting non-humans. The story of the recent Bloodmoon was interesting.

"Werewolves are frequent," she told them. "There's always one pack or another running around. When the young cubs get too aggressive, there's an older pack that comes to take care of them."

"So there is an established pack within Falkreath?" Tariq said in astonishment.

"No. I believe their den is in some other Hold and Falkreath just happens to be in their territory," Angi answered, shrugging. "My father thought they must be an old pack to claim a territory that goes into more than one Hold." She smiled slightly. "I wouldn't advise hunting them. They more or less keep any other werewolf packs from forming and hunt down uncontrolled rogues and the ones who have gone mad from the change."

But they're monsters. They must be put down. He kept that thought to himself. He could see that Angi wasn't worried about the existence of such animals and had convinced herself they were a benefit.

She'd gone on to talk about Dengeir. "The old Jarl was a vigilant hunter of necromancers, vampires, and werewolves. Took a lot of curses. Guess they finally caught up with him and he started seeing Imperial spies and Thalmor behind every bush."

When the war officially ended, father said he gradually started getting worse. People were tired of fighting and dying, and yet he only pushed harder to increase patrols, the vigilance. He claimed Thalmor and the Empire were driving the bad forces here. That criminal scum, witches, necromancers, the non-humans were coming through Pale Pass, Serpents Trail, and Craglorn Pass. The nobles couldn't take his ranting, his unending demands for higher alertness, more patrols, more — Well, then the whispers about paranoia and senility started.

"The nobles petitioned the Empire and the High King to retire Dengeir and appoint a new jarl. I don't know how they convinced him to accept this humiliation gracefully, but they did. He stepped down. And now we're stuck with Siddgeir. He's a pimp who, for enough gold, spreads Falkreath out for any to take."

"I thought we were talking of werewolves and vampires and necromancers," Tariq reminded her. She grimaced.

"So we were. Sorry for going down the wrong track. I've my own problems with the Legionnaires who see Stormcloak rebels behind every bush.

"Ah, now I see where I wandered off. I was thinking of your man in Falkreath's jail. Yes, those are shoddy. Any bandits that get arrested have the chance to escape. It's a deal the Jarl made with the bandit groups. Bandits that get caught get disciplined for being clumsy enough to get caught by their leaders, that is, if they've got the balls to return to their base. In the end, it makes the bandit groups stronger by being able to weed out members so stupid and careless to be caught by the town guards.

"But there are some robbers who allow themselves to be caught, usually with a load of goods and gold that go into the evidence chests that later disappear into the Jarl's treasury. Then they escaped or their buddies came and helped them get out. And the roof of the jail gets rethatched at the lowest price possible.

"So back to monsters. Graveyards do attract a lot of dark creatures. It's not a common story and his family has tried to bury it, but Dengeir's family did have a notorious vampire in the family two centuries ago, right around the Oblivion Crisis time."

"How are you familiar with the legend?" asked Tariq.

"My family is one of the oldest in Falkreath. And my ancestors were part of the guards that put that vampire down. The privilege to buy land was a reward for their bravery and discretion. The property they originally bought had been on the shores of Lake Ilinalta, and this property was built a couple generations later as a hunting lodge. It later became our primary home when the original property was destroyed during power disputes within the Hold that turned into warfare until the High King stepped in.

"Building a place only a couple of candlemarks away from the ruins was probably chancy, but… there is magic in these parts, quite rare and worth watching over."

Runil coughed, signaling a change in subject. "The ruins were quite dead when I stumbled across it," said Runil. "But lately, yes, there's power building in it. I fear something is waking inside. And Jarl Dengeir's family graves have been opened. Grave-robbing, sadly, is not uncommon, either by desperate people or a way to hide goods for later retrieval."

"Dead vampire graves?" Tariq cynically guessed aloud.

"Of the same age, yes. But the vampire ancestor was supposed to have been burned with his castle. A brutal period in Falkreath, a brutal purging. Vampires and daedra.

"The violated graves were vampire's immediate family members, but not known to have been vampires, thus they were allowed to be buried intact."

"Coffin burial. Bodies then fairly intact with all material present and not cleaned out by worms," Tariq further summarized. "That makes a necromancer's resurrection efforts easier, especially if they wanted to bring back a specific person using bodies of family members." He grimaced. The necromancers in Hammerfell loved raiding crypts of noble families. "Someone trying to bring back a specific vampire master, perhaps? These stories about the former jarl's ancestor — do you know the stories?"

"No, no, I don't," said Runil. "Dengeir doesn't talk about them and I've never been curious enough to ask. The purported stories one hears about town seem to me to be fairly typical of any vampire master — nothing specific in character or deeds."

Tariq pushed his map in front of him. "Mark it. I'll look over it later."

Argis groaned. "Now vampire hunting, my thane? Ghost, witches, and werewolves — now vampires?"

"I am a sword-singer, Argis. It's my sworn duty to protect the People against all enemies."

"Yah? All Redguards. Don't think anybody else qualifies, from what I'm understanding. Like Companions to the Nords… Well, nevermind. I've heard rumors even they've started accepting non-Nords."

Tariq smiled, remembering Imperial Ria of Cyrodiil, so happy to be a Companion.

"I'm willing to be flexible about my borders," admitted Tariq.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Runil shift, turning slightly away as he sipped his tea. Tariq was polite to him, but the elf wasn't stupid about where the boundaries were. When Tariq glanced at the map, the elf had marked the site the "Bloodlet Throne." Huh. Did the vampires really call it that? Stupidly and arrogantly blatant, weren't they? More Falkreath humor?

He wondered if this vampire would be more Dengeir or more Siddgeir or a horrible mix of the two? Well, to be honest, he didn't have the measure of either men, just random opinions so far. This was as good an excuse as any to take their measure.

… … …

"Vighar, dammit. His name was Vighar. What was stolen from the graves was half of the ward stone. The other half of the stone was set in the ward over the Bloodlet Throne. To remove the ward, you need both pieces of the stone. And before you ask why we didn't destroy the other half or toss it into an unknown hole, destroying the half pieces nullifies the entire stone. And just throwing it away means that anyone could just track it down with some kind of sensing magic. And the grave was his brother's. He wanted the stone buried with him so he could make sure his brother stayed in his."

"Seems overly elaborate. The body should have been burned to ash and the ashes scattered," said Tariq.

"Well, since they're all 200 years dead, I can't exactly clap their heads and demand what their reason was, can I?" snapped Dengeir. His brother Thadgeir laid a hand on his shoulder and Dengeir calmed down. He focused on his tankard.

"Runil tells us you sword-singers aren't just wandering mercenaries with a fancy name. You have some code of honor that requires you perform noble deeds for free," said Thadgeir. "That's a little hard to believe. You don't look like a fool."

Tariq laughed lightly. "Our first duty is to perfect our sword technique, and you cannot do that only in the practice yards or by fighting only one type of foe. Battle has always been the most effective and merciless teacher and tester of one's skill." Dengeir grunted and Thadgeir grinned in agreement. "As for 'free,' if I deem the challenge is worthy, yes, I will omit any demand for payment. But that does not mean I will not make some demands if there's more to the foe than just meeting them in mortal combat."

"Ah, that makes more sense," said Thadgeir, nodding. "If you're going against vampires, you'll need a supply of healing potions and probably a magic item or two for killing and defense. We might—"

"Oh, no, honored sirs, this wasn't a push for special items," Tariq said, holding his hands up, palms out. "I practice some alchemy and can brew my own potions. I also have my own special sword and charms and prayers against the wrongfully revived dead. I came here for information. And because this is your ancestor I am planning to hunt, it is only right I seek your family's permission to put your ancestor back to his journey to wherever his soul is meant to go."

"Thanks for the courtesy," said Thadgeir gruffly. "If you can make it permanent, do so. Take anything you find in there as yours. That ancestor was as greedy for wealth as he was for power. The place was built over a silver mine. Strange for a vampire, but, as I said, greedy as well."

… … …

"So, my uncles gave you permission to take whatever you could carry. I see." The Jarl yawned, turning his face away. He looked at Tariq out of the corner of his eyes, a calculating look, then a sly smile. "Still," he murmured to no one in particular, "the wealth that is said to be in there is far more than one man can carry, and first looting privilege is quite generous payment.

"Ah, I can finally get some people in there to work the mine. When my steward gets back, I'll send her immediately there to estimate my new wealth." He extended his arm out and a servant hastily came forward to refill the empty goblet. Sycophants around the Jarl speculated about the treasures vampires naturally acquired from their prey, or told specious stories about vampires.

Seeing that the man was already dreaming of spending the wealth his peasants hadn't yet mined, Tariq excused himself. And left the Jarl's hall to get himself a drink.

It was a back-handed compliment, he supposed, that the Jarl already assumed Tariq's victory.

Yes, no expense had been spared to put that young man in place of a key territory. Old Dengeir was slipping, but his paranoia seemed to have a solid grounding in facts. Tariq had spent an evening listening to the old man rant about Imperial conspiracies. But there was enough in there that Tariq could see the pattern of buy-offs of nobles. It was a common tactic within the Mede Empire, buying the votes of the nobility to destabilize the power and influence of an inconvenient ruler.

Dengeir was a vigilant guardian of his borders. That would be inconvenient, obviously. So start a whisper campaign. Say the old man is clinging to the past. Say he's suffering from after-battle fatigue, a too-common condition. Ponder that his increased demand for vigilance and patrols is a sign of paranoia and incipient madness.

Pour out the gold and say his support of the Stormcloak ideals would only make all the septims go away again, and they'd be all back to war conditions and no more luxuries. Neither Dengeir nor his brother had married and had children. Neglectful, but there it is. But Dengeir's young relative — a young cousin, really, this young relative had spent his youth in Cyrodiil and knew how to work with the Empire. Put him as the jarl. It would be better for everyone. He's only just past his 20th year, but all the real administrative work was being done by Dengeir's steward, right? Just keep her in place. And she's an elf, she could keep things working for decades.

The old man could see his allies deserting him. No. Most of his old allies were dead in the battlefields. Then, before their bodies could be brought home for burial, they betrayed by a coward Emperor who signed a treaty allowing the Dominion all their original demands and denying the godhood of Talos.

The same damned conditions the Dominion knew the Empire would reject and give the Dominion reason to declare war in the first place.

The ones taking the gold were the youngest children or grandchildren who had never seen the War, had never stood beside the Imperial Legion, facing the golden armies of the Dominion. Or worse, old Nord veterans who proved even after battle that they were dishonorable traitors willing to sell out their homeland.

Now the Legions were on the other side. He saw and recognized the tactics and angrily conceded he'd lost the fight.

… … …

Taking the Bloodlet Throne took two sleepless days. The strategy was simple: Tariq would take the lead and Argis was sweep up after him. He gave Argis the Serpent Fang dai-katana to use for this mission. The design wasn't one Argis wasn't quite used to, but it was heavy and well suited to be an executioner's sword. Argis's job was behead the bodies Tariq left. The poison of the blade wasn't of much use against vampires, but the paralysis effect worked very well, even against the new type of stone monsters he'd never seen before.

These new creatures didn't seem to be summoned creatures of Oblivion; they didn't respond to banishment or dispersing spells that worked on atronachs. Their weapon-blunting flesh was hard as the strongest flesh-to-stone spell he'd ever come across, and it did look like stone-colored flesh over rippling muscles that anchored to bones.

But "kill" one, and the illusion shattered to broken pieces of solid stone. No muscles, no bones — an incredible illusion. Stone automatons, but certainly not made by the Dwemer. His steel scimitar now had a bend in it, so he took an iron mace off one of the dead thralls and hooked it onto his belt in case he came across more of these stone monsters.

The majority of the job was sneak-and-ambush killing of thralls and vampires. They were so confident that nothing would intrude upon them that they didn't even bother with the rudiments of security. It helped that none of them seemed to like each other's company, so it made it easy to take them down one by one.

And there was plenty of treasure. Most of the thralls seemed to be robbers or adventurers; most of the meals and experimental subjects seemed to be peasant children, women, young men. Plenty of evidence of robber loot or things taken from small-time peddlers and lone travelers. This location was too near Pale Pass. That made it easy to pick off the travelers who didn't have military escort.

The vampires, so far as he was able to tell, seemed mostly from necromancer and witchy groups, if one were to hazard by their dress. The strongest vampires, who weren't dressed like rogue wizards, wore a sort of leather uniform. He had a feeling this was not a group of vampires built from the local Falkreath population.

They found Dengeir's disgraced vampire ancestor presiding over a sort of arena where captives were forced to face against hellish dog-beasts. Not werewolves. Black, short-coated dogs, unlike the tall, rangy, shaggy hounds most often seen in these lands. These black things had glowing red eyes and their bodies radiated cold, whereas true hounds were hot with life.

The current entertainment were three black hounds circling the last survivor of a group of five, a large, warrior wielding a two-handed battle ax. He wore Cyrodiil-style chainmail. Long, thick braids of red head came out from under the full-face helmet. Broken links in the chainmail showed how effective it initially was against the hounds' teeth, but they were slowly tearing his defenses down. The warrior was clearly exhausted and Tariq could only admire how the other conserved his movements to keep his heavy weapon up and ready to strike.

Tariq hoped this one wasn't a low-life robber. He was too skilled. It would be a crime for one such to end up as dog meat or a vampire's thrall. Tariq wanted to try his sword skills against that one's ax.

He heard Argis catch up to him, crouching behind him. "How's your blade's edge, Argis? I think we're about to face the vampire master."

"Serpent's Fang is still razor sharp, thane. Akaviri steel, I'd say, is almost equal to Skyforge steel."

"Good. But don't forget Valdr's little knife. Use that if you get in close combat."

The vampires had an enchantment station that he had taken the time to use to inspect Valdr's gift of an enchanted knife. It was old First or Second Era magic — an enchantment to boost the accuracy of a strike. As a hunting knife, or an assassin's blade, it would be a prize weapon. He could tell the enchantment — like many from those eras — could not be duplicated.

For one-eyed Argis, it granted him a knife skill that was superior to even when he had both eyes. And Argis had discovered that if he could managed to hold or touch the knife with his hands, like as now with the knife tied against the hilt of the katana, the accuracy gift extended its effect.

Per his thane's advice, Argis untied the little gift so that if he was forced to drop the dai-katana, he would still have the knife in hand.

"You pull that chain. I'll charge in once the bars are down. Go in once the dogs are on me. Get the dogs from behind, but keep watch for the vampire master. He'll likely jump in once we start killing his pets. Also watch for the dead bodies that might be revived. I don't know how powerful that female vampire is next to him, or if there's more we don't see."

"Understood, my thane."

So he charged in. He and the red-haired warrior quickly put down the unnatural hounds. As he predicted, the vampire master jumped into the battle.

Also as he predicted, red-hair's dead companions were revived by the female vampire as thralls. Red-hair and Argis handled these thralls and the hounds. At some point, Red-hair came to wield the Serpent's Fang and Argis gone to dagger and shield. Argis was faster than the other exhausted warrior, and bodily shield-rushed his opponents, knocking them over and his dagger striking vital areas more than once. It would seem foolhardy to rush into the arms reach of a vampire, but Argis now had exceptional timing skill. Red-hair was on the downed ones, slicing them to pieces, as soon as Argis had leaped up to charge another. Their own spells, if they could be called such, against the undead were loud invocations to Shor and Talos to grant them strength and skill.

The vampire lord had obviously been more a warrior than a wizard and his attacks used only minimal magic. It relied on raw physical power. Superhuman speed and strength Tariq could counter with Ash'abah spells crafted to cripple these vampire advantages. When the creature finally resorted to magic, it inexpertly wielded bursts of flame that Tariq's armor shunted aside.

It all came to a battle of egos. Truth be told, if the vampire would've just run, there was no way Tariq could have chased him. But the creature willingly confined itself to its arena to fight Tariq. It believed it had home ground advantage. Tariq was happy to prove it wrong.

Red hair pulled off his helmet. A Nord. Hazel-green eyes, wide grin. "Silver sword like that, you a Yokudan ancestor-killer? An Azbah?"

"Ash'abah," Tariq corrected stiffly. "No, I'm not one of them, though I've taken some sword training from them. I'm a sword-singer."

"Oh, one of their legendary wandering heroes. Guess you're not just a cute story the Redguards tell. Nice to meet you. I'm Ingvar."

Ingvar helped them gather sacks of treasure around the castle, mostly loose gemstones, jewelry, and gold coins. There were wagons hidden in the woods around the castle, the wagons from dead travelers, even a couple of horses that hadn't yet been killed by the vampires to feed the thralls. That was good because Nimat and Cairo were never trained to haul wagons. They picked the biggest wagon and loaded it with as much as they could find. One trip only. Tariq had no doubt the Jarl had spies in the woods that would report the size of their haul and if Tariq dared make a second trip, which would no doubt have the Jarl accusing them of theft and demanding a portion if not all of their haul.

Ingvar drove the wagon and Tariq and Argis rode beside him. They went slow, not wishing to exhaust the horses pulling the treasure-laden wagon through the snow and rough dirt road back to Angi's.

"I and my companions had just come through Pale Pass. Guess we were too confident when we decided to make camp at these old ruins when a snowstorm came up. Damn things came at us in the dead of night. They'd already caught an earlier, equally unlucky group of travelers a day ahead of us, so they weren't hungry for food, just entertainment first and then food afterwards."

"You a mercenary?"

"Yes. I was with the Legion but quit after seven years and joined the Bruma Fighter's Guild. Got homesick finally and decided to move back to Falkreath, put some of the money I've earned to rebuilding the family homestead that should take me a couple of years, then wander over to Whiterun. Take up my cousin's invitation to join the Companions, or at least give them a look-over. She's been telling me for years to come join. Says the Companion's life is the greatest and nothing could make her happier. She was sure it would make me happy as well."

"Companions, yes. I met pair while I was in the Reach. One was actually an Imperial woman. Seems your Companions are accepting non-Nords."

"Really? Well, guess even they have to accept some change."

"I was thinking of joining them. The two I met made a good argument. I want to explore Skyrim and I also want to keep perfecting my sword skills with new challenges. I was promised that if I joined the Companions, the 'Circle' that managed the business of the Companions would take care of contracts and would guarantee that I would not be taking on jobs I would consider dishonorable."

"Seems a good plan. Tell you what, I'll write you a letter of introduction to my cousin, Aela. She's a champion archer. And last I heard, she's part of the Companion's Circle of top champions."

They arrived back at Angi's. She and Ingvar definitely knew each other if the loud cries of greetings and enthusiastic hugs and kisses meant anything.

"What's with all the junk swords and armor?" asked Angi, disdainfully picking up and tossing aside the weapons sticking out from the barrels in the cart.

"Oh-ho! A trick," she exclaimed when she pulled and tossed aside chest plate armor to reveal gold coins at the bottom of a barrel.

Ingvar laughed with her. "Tariq warned me about the Jarl and possible spies. So we piled a lot of useless junk on top that I'll go and try to sell to the local blacksmith. It is old Brenton?"

"No. Lod. Dengeir's former housecarl. Good call with the spies," she said to Tariq. "There most definitely were. I spotted their horses tied back a ways while I was checking my snares. All three of you should go junk selling. The Jarl will love it, thinking all you got was junk for selling while he gets all the lovely silver ores to dig out."

"We could probably go back to that palace, my thane, and collect more old Akaviri armor and weapons," suggested Argis. "If it's more than what Lod wants to pay for, we can always cart the rest over to — what's that other town? — ah, Riverwood."

"Riverwood's nice," said Ingvar, "but if you really want coin for the armor, let's take it to Helgen. It hosts a Legion garrison. I was stationed there the first two years of my service. And old Akaviri weapons and armor would sell in spite of the Thalmor. Easier to restore and repurpose old armor after all."

"Great idea," said Tariq.