[A/N]: What's this - an early chapter? I decided that I might post the next two a lil earlier than scheduled to get this story rollin'. Because oh boy, will we be rollin'...

To KurehaSama: wonderful to have you along! I hope you enjoy the ride ;)

Skyrim confession time: before creating Solen, I'd never played a Redguard or Altmer in the TES series. Even in ESO I main Dunmer and Nords. When I made Solen, I decided I'd blend these two omissions together, which inspired much of his background and plenty of reading about Redguard lore. Naturally he and I were drawn to Rayya, the only Redguard Housecarl in Skyrim. Canonically she doesn't give you too much information about her background or even a family name. Which makes her a perfect blank canvas for a writer like me...

CHAPTER TWO

~FIRST BLOOD MATTERS LESS THAN LAST BREATH~

It was the third evening since their arrival in Ivarstead, and Rayya was back to pacing. Not because she harboured any particular disdain in staying at the little mountain village – as far as Skyrim's settlements went, Ivarstead was quite well-off – but because she disliked being separated from Solen too long.

Call it protectiveness, call it duty, call it paranoia, Rayya didn't care. She was not a woman given to hesitation or indecision. She made her intentions very clear, including her anticipation of Solen's enemies, of which he had no shortage. Going up the Throat of the World alone was probably the only part of Skyrim she was certain he'd find no threat – none that his Thu'um couldn't handle – but it still made Rayya anxious when he was gone from her sight longer than a day.

He did warn me he might stay the night, Rayya reminded herself, as she retraced her pacing route across the road outside the Vilemyr Inn. He also said one night.

She'd never climbed the sacred mountain, mainly because the Greybeards were very selective about their visitors, and also because Rayya had no love of waiting around in the cold for any length of time. But she knew it was at least a solid half-day's hike up the Seven Thousand Steps, if one left before the sun rose, and Solen had clearly a great deal on his mind he'd wanted the Greybeards' counsel for.

Additionally, Rayya was simply a poor idler. Like Solen, she didn't like sitting still. She always had to be doing something. Patrolling. Sparring. Maintaining her gear. Grooming horses. Anything. It was partly why she'd made such an excellent Housecarl. Nothing dissuaded her from a task she was given. It was also why she and the new Falkreath Thane she'd been assigned to had clicked so well. Four years on, Solen's vigour was as boundless as ever. Their idea of a quiet moment was one travelling Skyrim together, or hunting, or exploring some newly-found crypt, or making their bed regret the day it'd been built.

Such energy was rarely found in Skyrim outside battle. This cold, drowsy, eternal land had taken some adjusting to, when Rayya first had travelled across the border some ten or fifteen years before. Nords liked to take things slow and take their time. Until came battle, then they were among the most violent creatures alive. That was what had caught her eye and enticed her to stay in this wild, rugged land, and how she'd fallen into Falkreath's courts. Well, that and her ability with her blades. Like most traditional Redguards, Rayya had been raised to the ways of the sword from birth. Her childhood was full of stories about Frandar Hunding and the Sword-Saints. She could recite the Book of Maxims by heart.

So could Solen. That was how he'd caught her eye. Besides being, well, Solen – an Altmer who fought for the Nords, who in a few short years had amassed more esteem than most trueborn sons and daughters of Skyrim ever amounted to in their lives. Rayya hadn't expected to find so much in common with him, besides a shared skill with a form of blade. Then she'd learned Solen had spent a decade in Hammerfell and his childhood sailing the Abecean Sea. He too had been raised in the Redguard tradition of swordplay, heeded to the ancient Yokudan wisdoms. He aspired to visit Leki's Blade, the legendary school of swordmasters one day. He might have a Dragon's soul, but he and she were kindred spirits. And quite suddenly the frigid land of Skyrim had grown warmer with him in it.

"Still not back?" asked a friendly voice. Wilhelm, the innkeeper, leaned on the railing of his veranda and peered down Ivarstead's only road towards the mountain. "Bah, I wouldn't worry, milady. Whenever he goes up, he always comes back down. The gods have always had their eye on that elf."

"Which is precisely why I worry," Rayya muttered, glancing again at the setting sun. "No good ever comes of gaining the gods' attention."

"Will you be takin' another room tonight?"

"I suppose so. Then if he's still not back, I go up." Something occurred to Rayya. Solen had travelled up to High Hrothgar five times – six, if one counted his descent from the peak after his return from the Nordic land of the dead. Everyone who ever went up the Throat of the World first supplied themselves from Wilhelm's inn. Wilhelm must know her husband better than most civilians. "You knew Solen from his first journey up the Steps, don't you?"

"That I do, milady. I remember when he first walked into town – walked, can you believe, all the way from Whiterun! Nervous fellow he was back then, but always quick with a smile and a helping hand."

"That sounds like him. Except the nervous part." Rayya hadn't met Solen until early '203, after the Dragon Crisis was over. "He must've outgrown it after all the Dragonslaying."

"Well, back then he was answering the Greybeards' summons. Wasn't surprised he kept it to himself as long as he could. I got a hunch though, after he kept coming back that year an' the next. Too often for just any old pilgrimage."

Rayya frowned at him. "Were you surprised when you learned? Or shocked?"

Wilhelm shrugged. "Well, surprised a little. But the gods work in strange ways, milady, and there I was thinkin' to myself when the word got out, well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer man. Always polite and gentlemanly, he was. Nothing at all like those Thalmor snobs. Glad the Empire got 'em out of Skyrim. Feels like a Nord can breathe again, y'know?"

"We all can," said Rayya, puffing out a sigh. "They've tried to get him more than once."

Wilhelm chuckled. "Going against our Ysmir come again? Those rotten elves and their southern magic don't shed a shadow against the Thu'um."

Rayya fervently agreed. There were memories in the Civil War she and Solen were both determined to forget. "So, I hear you ain't runnin' with the Legion anymore, that right?" Wilhelm persisted. "What's next for the pair of ye? Back to Whiterun?"

"For a time," said Rayya. Wilhelm seemed safe enough to talk with. "Then we're travelling again." She frowned again at the setting sun. "Do you think he's coming down tonight?"

"Hmm. Hard to say. In the dark, most likely, if you ain't seeing him on the path." Wilhelm pointed upward, towards where the Seven Thousand Steps snaked away over the snow-capped mounts and out of foothill-bound sight. "My eyes ain't so good. Can you see anyone movin' up there?"

Rayya squinted. "No."

"Most likely after sundown then, or tomorrow."

Rayya sighed. "I suppose I'd better unpack the horses, then. It'll be too late to travel."

"Need a hand with that?"

"Could do."

Their two horses, Ember and Starfire, were picketed around the back of the inn just off the road. They were huge Skyrim breeds, thick with muscle and immensely strong. Not the fastest creatures, but enduring, dependable, and surprisingly gentle to handle, with hooves that could crush a troll's bones like a sponge. Ember, Solen's palomino, nudged his muzzle into Rayya's hands and whickered, beating his hoof in the ground. "Sorry, old boy," Rayya murmured, unbuckling his reins. "No travelling today."

They'd barely started when Wilhelm suddenly straightened and remarked, "Head inside if ye need some food an' mead, boys. You'll be tended."

Rayya spared a cursory glance over her shoulder, and froze. The trio of Nords that stood facing them all quickly scowled and shuffled off, but a single glance was enough.

"You all right, milady?" Wilhelm stepped around, Starfire's saddle in his arms.

"Put that back on," said Rayya tersely.

Wilhelm glanced after the three rough-clad men. "Trouble?"

"There will be." Rayya busied herself with affixing the reins back to Ember's head. Snowborn. Rayya had killed enough Stormcloaks to know those Skyrim-for-the-Nords extremists by sight. Cold eyes, ugly faces hard with disgust and righteous rage, wild hair unkempt from a life in the wilds.

Wilhelm lowered his voice. "I can alert the guards."

Rayya considered it. If it was only those three... Her gaze wandered quickly through the town. A small place, prosperous enough, full of civilians and returned veterans seeking a quiet life, just like every other hamlet. The road was bustling as workers from the lumber mill and farm made their way home. It was busy, but not so busy that Rayya couldn't pick out locals from newcomers. She'd spent evenings enough pacing through the town, taking note of its handful of occupants, to recognize who belonged here and who didn't. There was more than three.

"They're here for Solen," said Rayya quietly. "One of their scummy street spies must've seen him heading up the mountain."

Wilhelm scoffed. "A Dragonborn would make short work of those outlaws."

"He won't if he's tired and half-frozen from that bloody hike up and down the mountain. Besides, he won't risk the civilians. The Snowborn will."

Wilhelm sobered immediately. "What will you do? That lot have been coming in and out of Ivarstead all day. Thought they were labourers here for the spring sow."

"Get out." Rayya tightened the last bridle strap on Ember's head and swung around to help a dithering Wilhelm return the saddle onto her black mare's back. "With any luck they'll follow. They know we're a pair."

"I'll send the guards after you."

"No, you won't. You'll make sure they get any of the frostbit mudcrabs that hang around." Rayya patted her twin swords. "I'll make sure the civilians don't have to see the mess I'm about to make."

Even Wilhelm sensed when a discussion with Rayya was over. "May Talos guide you then," he said. Rayya spared him a nod, swung herself onto Starfire's back, lashed Ember's reins around her saddlehorn, and rode straight out of town.

Night was falling quickly. Rayya wrapped herself tightly in her cloak and kept her ears open. No part of Skyrim was ever really safe at night; in the Rift, the main cause of concern was bears. Bears in every damn bush. Fortunately, at this time of year, most would be sluggish and thin after their hibernation and probably wouldn't take interest in two fully-fit warhorses and one agitated Redguard. But better not to take chances. Or risk losing her pursuers. Rayya kept to the road.

The village road sloped down to the crossroads, with Ivarstead's cottage smoke still barely visible over the hill against the indigo sky. Rayya forced herself to loosely hitch the horses to the signpost, then settle down and wait. Looking relaxed when she was anything but took practice, but at least the encroaching darkness hid the way her dark eyes darted restlessly. She adjusted the wrap around her head and listened. Solen had taught her how to interpret the wild language, how to detect disturbance in the nightly chorus. Every corner of Skyrim had its own. In the Rift, it was the soft hooting of owls, the warbling of nightjars, the low twittering hum of bush crickets, the ethereal bugle of a bull elk calling to his herd. All through the autumnal forest, branches budding in the wake of the winter snow, torchbugs crawled from their daytime beds in stumps and tree eye-knots and took to the sky, thoraxes aglow like fallen stars as they twinkled for their mates.

Rayya crouched on the balls of her feet, drew one of her dragonbone scimitars onto her lap, and waited. How Solen had found a way for dragonbone to bend in the curved grace of the Redguard blade she'd never know. Surely Eorlund Gray-Mane, the smith at the Skyforge, had little left to teach his eager pupil...

A dark figure crested the road above. Rayya could tell by his silhouette that it was one of her pursuers, ready to spring the trap. She'd play their game. Miming poor sight, she squinted into the darkness. "Solen? Is that you?"

The idyllic melody of the forest around her ceased. The crickets stopped humming. The torchbugs vanished on the spot. In the silence, it was easy to hear the soft rustle of booted feet stalking the undergrowth behind her. The horses threw up their heads, nostrils flaring in alarm, tugging at their reins.

"Kept me waiting long enough," said Rayya, languidly straightening up as the enemy strolled down the path towards her. "So, we getting on our way to Riften or what?" Might as well throw down a false trail for any survivors to follow.

"You're goin' nowhere," came the rusty leer from the darkness.

"Damn right," Rayya growled, and whirling she turned and cut the throat from the Snowborn that rushed her from the darkness. Down he went, gurgling and writhing. Rayya stepped over his body and swept her second dragonbone scimitar into hand. "Come on then, milk-drinkers," she leered. "You wanted a warrior. Here I am!"

"Kill her!" someone else barked, and then the forest came alive.

In a split second before steel clashed ivory, Rayya realized she'd miscalculated. The woods were thick with renegades. The ones sent to town had gone to flush out their enemy into this woodland trap. At least it's sprung early, out of harm's way, Rayya decided, and then threw herself into the unmatched thrill of mortal combat.

The Nord way of fighting was to intimidate and overwhelm. They favoured huge cleaving strikes that could take down half a dozen foes with a single swing, or shatter shields and slighter blades. Quite effective against the slow, the inexperienced, and the reckless. Rayya was none of these things, and made a point of not fighting like a Nord. She stood a head shorter than most Nords. She was well-muscled but still slighter than a soft Nord maiden. And she was quick. Oh yes, she was very quick. And very hard to pin. A Nord brawled, but a Redguard danced.

Her two curved blades cut the air like a fish fin through water, hissed like an Alik'r cobra, and just like a serpent Rayya slithered beneath, between, around her opponent's strikes. Their drumming feet made an easy rhythm to follow in the dark night, their hot growling breath all the warning she needed of their impeding blows and swings. Her weapons were not of the thrusting sort, but the Nords often favoured showing the flesh of their faces and arms, to showcase their fearlessness of death or some such nonsense. To her it just meant her dragonbone scimitars, rimmed with Skyforge steel, always found somewhere to bite. They slit wrists, throats, faces, fingers, armpits, painting the night with blood. In half a minute, six more Snowborn had joined their fallen fellows, piling the crossroads as their lifeblood bled out from their opened veins.

"Well?" she dared the others, now holding back, uncertain how to match her sword-dance. "Is that all you've got?"

"You're outnumbered," growled another one from the darkness, somewhere behind. "Lay down your arms, sand-witch."

"You first," sneered Rayya.

"Never." A flash of teeth, clenched in rage. "Empire dog!"

"Come on, then." Rayya would not disdain herself with jeers or laughter. A true sword-dancer of Bergama conducted herself with poise and grace. She raised her blades invitingly in the scorpion stance, one blade curled above her head, the other across her centreline. "Let's get this over with."

"Now!" came a rallying shout. "Skyrim is for the –"

Abruptly the shout became a wet, sickening gurgle.

Rayya was rapidly losing visibility in the ever-darkening forest, but she had sight enough to discern an unfamiliar shape, robed and leathered, withdrawing a small straight blade from the unfortunate Snowborn. Not one to miss an opportunity given, Rayya glided to the nearest foe and striped her throat in scarlet. Then the battle was back on, although perhaps a confusing ruckus was a more apt description of the turn the ambush had taken. The Snowborn split, some going for Rayya, others for the hooded stranger. Rayya could hold her own well enough, so long as she kept strafing out of the reach of their axes. As for the hooded stranger, well – this was clearly not his first encounter with brigands. He moved like a blur, the blade of his knife barely seen as it flashed in and out of flesh. When the Snowborn began screaming and trying to flee, the stranger wouldn't let them. He seemed everywhere at once, one moment at Rayya's shoulder helping her carve a hulking hammer-bearing Nord into a lump of sliced meat, the next thirty yards away, extricating the knife he'd driven into a fleeing Snowborn's spine.

All too abruptly it was over, the field filled with dead and dying Nords. "Thanks," said Rayya, honestly impressed, as the traveller came to join her. "It was starting to get a bit hairy."

"My pleasure," said the hooded stranger, and smiled. Rayya gasped. His fangs glistened scarlet.

She struck, but the creature was faster – and not just that, impossibly, unfairly strong. Rayya felt herself go flying into the signpost and slid down, dazed, one sword knocked from her hands and clattering out of reach. The other she didn't get up in time before the creature was upon her, clawing the sword from her remaining hand while ripping at her headwrap in a frenzy.

"Don't fight it, mortal," the vampire hissed. Its eyes glowed a horrific red in the darkness, two coals in the blackest stove. "Your blood will be divine..."

"Get off!" Rayya gasped, for all the good that would do. She finally surrendered the sword and wrapped both hands around its throat, hoping to choke the wretched creature. Only then did she remember she was fighting an undead, who were past the whole breathing thing. She did manage to hold its head back for a bit, but the creature was heavier than it had a damned right to be. Her arms buckled as it threw its weight forward, pointed canines inching steadily for her throat...

Then without warning it arched backwards with an inhuman squeal of agony, in tandem with a sickening crack! Rayya kicked it off her and it writhed on the ground, limbs jerking madly. It flipped over, showcasing a short, thick arrow wedged deep in its spine.

Then another crack split the night, and a second arrow grew from its skull. It stopped moving at once.

"Did it bite you?" growled another stranger's voice in the stilled darkness.

Rayya seized her scimitars and shot to her feet, in no mood for any more surprises. Her heart raced. The lambent eyes were burned into her mind. "Show yourself!"

The cobbles clacked with the slow, deliberate tread of footsteps. In a patch of starlight through the trees, an Orc stepped into view, grey-haired, adorned in a thick padded lamellar, and a crossbow – no garish Dwemer thing, but a rustic construct of wood and steel – gripped tight in his gloved hands. He was completely indifferent to the Nord bloodbath all around him; his attention was wholly pinned on Rayya. "I said," he rasped, in the gravelly growl of his kind, "did it bite you?"

"No," said Rayya. "Came close, though."

The Orc lowered his crossbow to the vampire, and he didn't put it away until he turned its body over and weighed up its shrivelled, emaciated countenance and its eyes, now devoid of that boiling red light. "That your first vampire?" he asked.

"No," said Rayya, "but first I've seen outside its lair."

The Orc wrenched the crossbow bolts from the creature's corpse and flicked off the blood and brain. "I'd head back to Ivarstead if I were you," he growled. "The towns are still safe – for now."

Rayya snorted. "You'd think. What are you doing lurking around the wilds, then?"

"I'm recruiting. Scouring Skyrim for any vampire hunters in the making." The Orc considered her. "You look like you handle yourself just fine in a fight. A little more silver on your blade and a little less surprise, and that fledgling wouldn't have stood a chance."

"You'd better save the recruitment spiel for when my husband gets here."

"Husband?"

"Rayya!"

Ember and Starfire pricked their ears. The Orc spun around, his crossbow upraised. Rayya slammed her hand on the stock, shoving it down. "Stop that. You'll make him Shout." Hiding the surging relief she felt to hear him again – and her annoyance that he'd descended so late – she raised her voice. "Solen! We're down here!"

"Rayya!" Solen's silhouette appeared at the top of the road. He must've panicked when he found the horses missing, knowing Rayya wouldn't leave town without reason, as running down a hill was no longer quick enough to reunite him with his wife. He Shouted a word and went from the top to the bottom of the road in a rush of wind, stumbling over the mass of dead.

"You're late," said Rayya, all snark to mask her concern. At least Solen looked no worse than windblown and hungry. "Missed all the fun. What in Zeht's name were you doing up there for two days, knitting?"

"Time got away from me. Are these Snowborn? Are you hurt?"

"Who do you take me for, a Companion whelp? Enough about me. We have company."

Solen finally seemed to notice the Orc in their midst, and took him in at a glance, as only seasoned warriors could. "Who are you?"

The Orc smiled in a grim sort of way and settled his crossbow on his back. "So. You're the Dragonborn. Taller than I expected."

"I get that a lot," said Solen, frowning. "You weren't looking for me, were you?"

"No, but I'm glad we met. I'm Durak. I'm with the Dawnguard, and I think you're both exactly what we need."