CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

~...BUT DO NOT WASTE A DROP~

PART TWO

The silver sword shrilled as it struck the dragonbone; Nostibar felt the jar run all the way up his aching arms, and was too slow to disengage. With a mighty sweep he was flung backwards and sprawling on the pebbly ground, wincing as pain flared up from his lower back. He scrabbled for his swordhilt as the armoured bone-man advanced balefully to finish him off.

Too quick for the eye to follow, Adusa-daro flashed between them. With frightful strength her twin axes dismantled the skeleton in three decisive slices, and the severed creature toppled back, disintegrating in iridescent ash. She whirled on Nostibar, her eyes such a brilliant hue of silver that her pale fur looked grey. "Captain, enough! You are getting tired!"

"I'm obliged to ye," he grunted back, though the ache in his back was worrisomely sore, and it was an effort to regain his feet even with the Khajiit's help. "But Nostibar at-Yosef doesn't leave a job half-done."

Adusa-daro flipped an axe and hurled it through a bone-man's ribcage, severing the spine. "This is entirely irrelevant to our contract. Go back to the ship."

"And do what, twiddle me thumbs?" The monstrosities weren't the quickest of foes, nor in any ways intelligent – but they were resilient, ominous, and endless. Already another skeleton was pulling itself out of the ground – Nostibar darted forward and swept its skull off its shoulders. "I ain't that old!"

Just a few paces away, the Legion veteran, Sirilla, made short work of her own armoured opponent. The shield tethered tight to her hooked stump rammed the creature staggering until her axe found its mark between the lambent pinpricks of its eyes. "There's no bloody end to these bonewalkers!" she spat, as her enemy dissipated around her axeblade. "We're all tiring, Ravenwatch!" The zeal that had carried them forward at their foe had been whittled down; the fighters had reformed their defensive ring and now it was all they could do to hold it. Their fallen did not regain their feet.

A hissing skeleton looming behind the veteran had its skull blown off its spine by a crossbow bolt. "We can hold," Beleval urged, throwing Adusa-daro back her axe. "As soon as that Dragon goes down –"

"Care!" hollered Nostibar, though the terrible roar near drowned it; the undead Dragon drew a sweeping arc above Castle Volkihar as he bore down on the knot of fighters.

But Solen's draconic allies were never shaken from their enemy for long. One of the beasts flashed across the sky like lightning and drove up under Durnehviir's left wing, hurling the monstrosity off his course; the other lunged down from the sky and latched its jaws around the right wing, arresting its motion as it whirled to regain balance. Durnehviir spun thunderously on the smaller Dragon, which folded its wings and simply rolled over his back like rainwater; then the twin was there, and snapped the undead Dragon's maw shut with a clap of frost. The other looped gracefully over its tail and roared keenly; against the sunlit sky Nostibar barely saw the – Shout, did Solen call their magic? – but Durnehviir's green body was suddenly cobwebbed in indigo light, and a terrible scream of wrath and pain welled within his creaking ribs. He still hadn't regained his airborne balance as both his opponents rose high above him in a twirling duality of coils, then turned and roared together. Two pulses of blue struck Durnehviir as one like a mountainside collapsing, and the titan was suddenly hurtling towards the shore.

There was hardly time to sound off a warning and the Solitude fighters to scatter before Durnehviir struck the ground and skidded almost into the sea, sundering through many of his minions in the process. He lay still for a moment, then roused snarling, and the fighters drew hurriedly back to avoid the lashing tail. Then the Reverent were upon him, shrieking like banshees. One crashed down on his back and locked its jaws in the greasy decay of his neck; the other seized his curling horns and threw its weight on its haunches. Durnehviir strained mightily, but could not pull himself free; writhing madly, he was dragged from land into sea, and the three Dragons vanished together and at once into the fathomless waters.

Sirilla was the first to thrust her weapon into the air and roar victory. "Go to Oblivion and stay there, you devil!" And when the remaining bone-men suddenly collapsed to dust, the Solitude fighters all rose up with a wild cheer, Nostibar right among them. The exhilaration chased off his every ache, and exuberant he seized the nearest shoulder to shake, which happened to be the bard's. "Hah! By Morwha's many arms, there's a battle no one's forgetting! Did you get all that, lad?"

"Oh, what didn't I get?" Ataf's eyes shone like stars. "Words can't describe it!"

"Well, you'd better find some, that's your job!" Nostibar slapped his back. "Go on and get the last of the wounded aboard, and quick! Our battle ain't over yet." Not that he felt in any state to be charging off to the next fight straightaway; the elated high was subsiding and his back was smarting again. He rubbed it, grimacing. I used to dance rings round this nonsense.

"You sure you're up to it?" Sirilla inquired. Rather unfairly in comparison, she looked fit and battle-bright as ever.

"Bah, don't you start." Nostibar waved at her. "I've got breath enough. Solen needs our help if he's taken this long to –"

The soulfires suddenly flared up, the brightest they'd ever been, and the fighters' cheers were suddenly strangled in their throats. Without warning a chill gale swept the shore, so forceful that it bowled them flat. The wind was knocked from Nostibar's lungs as he was blasted onto his front, and his ribs joined the chorus of complaining. Blinking the grit out of his eyes, he raised his head, and felt the bottom of his stomach fall away. It can't be. The Dragon was reforming on the shore, featureless stains of indigo melting into bone and flesh.

"No, damn you," Adusa-daro cursed, "no!" But in seconds Durnehviir had reconstituted in terrible fullness, and there was no delay of grandeur; he swung upon the fighters at once, and though they shouted and scrambled, there was no shelter to be had. Three words were bellowed in the guttural roar, and the world turned violet. Nostibar flung his arms over his head as that hideous magic lanced through the shocked, exhausted warriors and the bard still pulling a wounded veteran aside. Their screams were anguished and brutally short; then they fell, stone dead.

Durnehviir seemed to consider his handiwork for a moment, as the living remainder screamed and cursed, and Sirilla bellowed for formation; then he reared and roared again. The soulfires pulsed to his dread magic as the numberless skeletal horde once more shaped themselves at his command. This time Solitude's felled joined them, their eyes bursting down their faces as that terrible fire ignited in their sockets.

Nostibar reached trembling for his sword as Adusa-daro hauled him upright. "Tu'whacca have mercy on us all. What evil is this?"

"One that we must outlast," she answered grimly, as the Reverent slashed out of the waves with bewildered roars, and Durnehviir spread his wings to meet them.

The familiar burning pinpricks appeared in the room at the hall's end, the vampire's silhouette barely outlined by the meekest candlelight. Aela nearly reached for the change, the frustration of her circling search giving way to the fury of a warrior pushed to her temper's limit, the satisfaction of the prey finally cornered.

But not every instinct followed her risen temper, and those ones brought her up short. Caution, they cried, and even her brindling sister heeded the warning. She stopped mid-stride and mid-draw, the arrow's vanes pressed hard to her cheek. The vampire beyond remained perfectly still, watching her unblinking. That alone was unusual; and she cast her heightened senses forward more carefully, searching for what had so nearly been missed.

It wasn't Gendolin – that realization she reached first. The vampire's scent was formidable with age but younger in its power, and similar in only the barest ways to the blood-magic that permeated the castle. Gendolin's trace was everywhere, slithering alive in every crevasse in the dark labyrinthine of chambers and passages, basements and halls of Castle Volkihar – but they didn't centre here, in the studious little chamber she had turned into. Her eyes had long become friends with the darkness; they picked out the strange artifacts on the walls, alchemical apparati of pewter and brass on shelves and tables, and the rune-traps that glimmered faintly on the tiled floor between where she stood and the vampire observing, cobwebbed tightly into a lethal net. Two more steps would have seen a violent folly.

"A Companion with patience." The Volkihar's voice was regal, soft-spoken, and clearly Dark Elven in cadence. "Hestla led me along a rather different opinion of your kind. Of course, Huntress, your reputation precedes you." His meandering step outlined a hidden path of safety between the lethal trap of waiting magic as he crossed the chamber, contemplating the squat, spiked chalice he carried. "Lord Gendolin is elsewhere in the castle. You'll only waste your time here."

Aela's arrow trained on his temple. "I don't think so. Lead me to him."

She ought to let fly and be done with it, but she'd lost enough time wandering witlessly through this infernal keep. She was furious at herself for being caught so flat-footed – of course the first thing Gendolin would've done in his own lair was separate them! But there wasn't a shadow of doubt in her that wherever Gendolin was, Solen would be too. We will hunt together, shield-brother. I will find you.

"If I must," said the Volkihar, boredly, and set the chalice carefully down.

It wasn't the acquiescence that flattened Aela's temper; it was the apathy of it, flat of any sneer or spite. He couldn't seem to care less about her intrusion, his master, or even his own preservation; he didn't look twice at the arrow trained at his head as he crossed the room and stood waiting in the doorway. Aela felt almost ignored, and perfectly suspicious, and almost didn't follow him.

But again, she'd nearly missed it. She was familiar enough with courtly discretion to recognize that beneath the surface indifference lay an air of invitation; there was something to be found that a warrior's haste wouldn't find. There was undoubtedly another trap somewhere further down, but for now they were alone, and the vampire offered not the least suggestion of combat. Perhaps there was something to be gained with words before the inevitable loathing of their natural rivalry triumphed.

She kept the arrow to the string, but slackened it; she picked out the hidden path between the runes and stepped carefully between them to where the Volkihar waited. "Who are you?"

"Garan Marethi, a name of no importance."

Aela's gaze flicked back to the room behind her. "What was that?"

"An empty cup. Its power has long moved elsewhere."

"Is this a trick?"

"It's conversation. A refreshing turn of expectation from both of us, I should think."

It was almost impossible to detect deception in those without heartbeats, but Garan's step was unhurried, his answers prompt. Aela kept pace with him, careful to remain out of arm's reach of her strange company. She wasn't used to this curiosity; her questions felt stiff and awkward. "Why are you here –" She recalled the lattice of the dead across the shore. "– and not out there?"

"Like my lord, a throne never held my interest." He turned and seemed almost amused, as if he'd heard Aela roll her eyes. "It seems in that way you've mistaken his intention. Gendolin is only a very young contender to the ambitions of the court. They were long in motion before his arrival. He only quickened them." Garan tutted softly. "Feran. Fura. Hestla. Vingalmo. Orthjolf. I don't expect to see any of them again."

He spoke of his fellow lords, the ones the Ravenwatch had seen disperse, with an unexpected contempt. "You don't care what happens to them?" Aela frowned. "About the prophecy?"

"Volkihar do not 'care', Companion. Sentiment is for the herd. We respect power and those with the means to defend it." The vampire waved loosely at the unfriendly masonry around them. "Lord Gendolin is master of this court because he proved himself Lord Harkon's rightful successor."

"By killing him."

"Such is our way. Of course, it doesn't change that Gendolin is only a fledgling garbed in an ancient skin." The narrowed corridor opened into another chamber, a junction of passages, presiding over which was a staircase and a lowered portcullis. Garan paused below the step and shifted his gaze to hers. "He disdains this life, you know. It is passion that compels him, not ambition. He dances with fire by embracing it still."

The disgust, though quietly spoken, was clear as day. It furrowed Aela's brow. "But Gendolin champions you. His patron –"

"We were only ever a means to an end, Huntress, just as he was to us. Even our patron. Gendolin serves, and has always served, a different master beyond our ears." Garan climbed the staircase to the modest landing. "To him, the prophecy never augured our ascendance, but the means for a needed change. The court cared not. It promised an opportunity Lord Harkon has starved them of for so very long, and so they have gone to grow their gardens of bones."

Some sooner than others, Aela thought, recalling the struggle Irileth had stayed back to lift in Riften. "And you? Why didn't you seize your chance for domination?"

"As I said: thrones do not interest me." Garan flicked his hand; the portcullis was noiseless as it slid up into the ceiling, revealing the heavy double doors behind them. "I have witnessed such fanatic excitements before. Perhaps it will pass. Perhaps not. I will observe and wait, as I have always done. Until then, I serve my Lord."

Aela joined him, warily, on the landing. "And so he spared you."

"Perhaps he recognized the use of old and waiting wisdom." Garan indicated the heavy doors. "Perhaps he only needed a keeper."

Something immensely sinister lay behind them; it scorched Aela's senses raw and yearned her to turn pelt-side out. Gingerly she pressed her ear against the heavy doors. She heard no voices or battle on its other side, only a soft, wet slithering that sent cold fingers of revulsion down the back of her neck.

A keeper of what? She glared at Garan; he merely made a slight motion with his hand, inviting her to open it. Whatever Gendolin had designed behind the doors, it seemed she was meant to see. Aela ensured the arrow was ready to be quick-drawn before she eased one door open.

No shadow-clustered hall awaited her beyond; this chamber was cathedral in its demeanour; its shrine was boldly lit, vast and bare and awash in a cold blue light. The seething air was peculiarly rancid, shivering with old torments. Twisted bones lay heaped to each side of the thoroughfare. An altar overlooked the aisle from a dais at its end, and there was no mistaking the effigy of skull and horns, its features engraved in horrifically beautiful detail. The hatred and dread that seized Aela was so intense as to paralyze; she had to force herself to approach the accursed shrine to Molag Bal. Above its pronged basin writhed a strange and shapeless blossom of pulsating red and watery black, whose tendrils flowed eerily skyward from the altar, bleeding steadily up the walls in long red strands. The thing cocooned inside the pulsating folds of fell colour was indistinguishable at first – until she groaned.

"Serana!" Aela drew as close as she dared to. "Can you hear me? What has Gendolin done?"

"Aela?" Serana's reply was barely above a whisper.

The heavy doors slammed sonorously shut behind her; Garan had closed and sealed them, and his glare on her neck was frigid with hunger. The silent cathedral echoed with bones crawling and creaking themselves awake; pawsteps whispered beneath gargling growls as a pair of death hounds manifested from the shadows to join their beckoning master. It seemed their conversation was over. Aela curled her fingers around the bowstring.

"Forget me," Serana murmured; each word seemed a terrible effort. "Aela, the roof..."

"Gendolin? But it's broad daylight out there!"

"He has my blood. The sun..."

"He still needs the Bow. Solen has –" Alarm stiffened Aela's spine. Solen was alone.

The sun was blinding after so long in darkness. Solen half-wished he'd eased the door open gently instead of kicking it in. He threw up his arm until the glare settled into the softer light of dawn. It was only an hour or two after sunrise, though the dazzling layer of snow that dusted the rooftops of Castle Volkihar made it seem much brighter.

Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Solen moved quickly into the refuge of sunlight – it wasn't unwelcome, but certainly unexpected. Or did Gendolin really let me chase him out here?

The icy wind was, for once, a welcome slap in the face; it gusted off the vile whispers that had plagued him throughout the castle and brought him sharply back to Skyrim. He breathed deeply, steadying his racing heart. Here we go again, then. Fighting for the weapon under the sun.

But what happened in the Chantry wasn't going to happen here. His fingers twitched over the vanes of the sunhallowed arrow, safely disguised in his quiver. Solen was certain that Gendolin had no idea he had it. One shot. One chance.

But first he had to ensure that even luck wouldn't save Gendolin from Auri-El's storm. Solen started by collapsing the doorway behind him – one Word, silently spoken, was enough to bring a wall down over it. Then he surveyed his new hunting ground, a forest of conical spires, slanted rooves and ice-crusted platforms, their sharp points worn down by the ravages of time and their shadows stretched long by the morning sun. The Sea of Ghosts glowed from horizon to horizon, casting a brilliant sheen to the belly of the brightening world. Distantly he heard the dim pulse of the Thu'um, a Dragon's fading roar, and stirred restlessly. They still fought down on the shore.

Not for much longer. Somewhere amid the towers and turrets Gendolin was hidden, and the subject of prophecy was only getting stronger. You have one, I have the other. Don't keep me waiting. Solen tightened his grip on the Bow and looked inward to Shout.

An arrow almost took him off his feet, driving between the plates of his armour to the flesh beneath with an assassin's precision. Damn it! Solen swung himself behind the nearest shelter, and then the pain erupted, everywhere, as if he'd been bitten all over again. A cry ripped from him as the agony clenched his limbs, excruciating as acid under the skin. Poison. His legs slid out from under him and the breath hitched in his throat. By Sep, that stings! What's he tipped them with?!

Out – get it out – his arm jerkily climbed up his chest to obey, and he yelled again as he wrenched the shaft free of his flesh. In the fresh burst of pain rose a scent that thickened his throat with bile, horribly familiar, as he stared at the arrowhead with wavering eyes. It was covered in his blood now – but it had been tipped with hers.

Don't think about that. Get up. Get up, now! He's coming! Solen's shaky limbs were failing him; his trembling fingers were uncurling from around the Bow. The poison still simmered noxiously under his skin, but he could breathe again, and none too soon as Gendolin manifested across from him; his black bow in one hand, the other outstretched in dark orange light for Auriel's. A spur of manic energy lent a welcome haste to Solen's Shout. "GAAN LAH!"

Gendolin swore most ungracefully and lunged backwards, but there was no shaking the draining lattice Solen's Words had woven. Stolen vigour flowed into Solen's deadened limbs like the breath of life, and he swung the Bow out of magical reach. "YOL!" The pulse of bright flame finally chased Gendolin off entirely, leaving a scouring mark across the pristine white roof. No sooner had Solen staggered back upright when Gendolin reappeared above him on a tower spire, cloaked black against the sun, his bow at full draw. Solen barely managed to snatch a breath. "TIID!"

The world thickened just in time. The bloodcursed arrow slowed to crawling, half a foot from his gorget; Solen stepped from its path and swept Auriel's Bow up to answer in kind. The sunfire-ignited arrow burst dazzlingly against Gendolin's shoulder as time regained its momentum; he reeled with a scream and vanished again.

Solen's sense of vindication was brief; the pain still plagued him all over in an accursed undercurrent, and he leaned gasping against the wall of his shelter, blinking the blur out of his eyes. How long would this accursed poison last? I can't fight like this.

But he's poisoned too. Solen wasn't sure how long the Drain Vitality Shout lasted, particularly in its incompletion; but Gendolin couldn't recover his vigour or his magicka under direct sunlight, not without blood, and a lycanthrope's wouldn't suffice. They were alone on the rooftop – what he lost would stay lost.

I can outlast him. Solen gathered himself to the challenge that could not be failed. "MUL QAH DIIV!" The Aspect flared into a spectacle of light around him, warm as a midwinter furnace, and the lurking excruciation softened into a background discomfort. Wear him down, then it's arrow time. Come on, Solen, it's only pain. Whatever happens, we stay under the sun!

No sooner had the pledge been made when he noticed a stain like spilled dye reddening the snow under his feet, spreading much too rapidly to be anything good. Solen leapt aside just as the coagulant spawned gruesomely into the open, swelling into the size of a sheep and oozing repugnantly towards him. "This again?" Solen groaned; the masonry all around him was suddenly alive with red blobs straining themselves from every crack and crevasse, hurtling upon his position in a grisly tide. "IIZ SLEN NUS!" The red globs didn't so much freeze as explode in the spears of ice that snapped them still, yet they just kept coming from all directions, and to stay and fight would end being overrun. "WULD NAH KEST!"

The reddened snow whitened again as Solen shot across the castle ramparts; his heels found no purchase on the ice-slick tiles, and in the mad skid that toppled him to all fours, the Bow shot out of his hands. The world tinted dark orange as Solen scrabbled after it; then suddenly he couldn't move at all.

Yet the vampiric grip didn't toss him about with its usual disregard for dignity; the lattice of the drain still pulsed dark indigo against Gendolin's nightblack armour as, hissing at the effort of it, he thrust his other arm towards the Bow, the shoulder of which gleamed with sunfire burns.

He's struggling – actually struggling! And the hopeful revelation galvanized Solen long enough to turn inward and focus. It was still a difficult dive through himself, chaotic with pain and adrenaline, but beneath it all he glimpsed the quiet centre long enough to Shout himself free. FEIM!

Movement and a blessed reprieve returned to him, and Solen bulled forward. The Bow had almost been pulled to Gendolin's fingertips when Solen hurled him flat, the ethereal dispelling under his forceful haymaker. The vampire lord stumbled, his concentration thoroughly disturbed; the Bow shot past him and landed in a snowdrift behind him.

Gendolin dived after it, Solen Shouted, and again time stood still. It's almost fun not fighting fair, Solen thought, perversely amused as he waded through the immobilized, grey-tinged world and pulled the Bow from under Gendolin's reaching fingers. He'd circled back behind his enemy, set a fresh arrow to the string, and pulled the twine against his cheek as time resumed. As Gendolin's fingers raked the empty snowdrift, the sunfire arrow flashed into his backside, burning a magnificent hole through armour and cloak and dignity. He screamed, buckled, and was gone at once into mist.

But that was starting to struggle, too – no longer purely invisible, Solen's eyes followed the dark blur that left a dirty smear against the sky. It expelled Gendolin against an arching spire in a frayed tangle rather than its usual satiny sweep. He's feeling the drain, all right, Solen thought, even more hopefully, and sped for the tower as quick as his pain-shaken limbs might take him. Gods, this time I really think I have a chance!

The Bow flexed in his arms; he was a poor marksman mid-stride even on a good day, but Gendolin still visibly flinched as the sunfire arrow burst dazzlingly against the tiled roof. He sprang into the tower's shadow and turned with sweeping anger, bruised blue conjuration magic gathering between his fingers. No reprieve, Solen snarled, as the Thu'um swelled up in joyous anticipation. It's only you and me. "FUS RO DAH!"

The world flashed blue, a roar that carried the unrelenting tide surging forward in ever-expanding fury, and one Gendolin finally wasn't quick enough to escape. The staunch bastion that had weathered sun and storm immemorial shredded under the Thu'um like sand, and the tower toppled with a deafening tortured thunder that shook the castle down to its roots.

Solen stood watching the last skyborne rubble fall out of view, the last echoes rumbling to nothingness in his ears, and realized he was smiling – in a bit more manic and daring way than his usual, but smiling all the same. I might actually be winning this.

The confrontation didn't feel over, but a lull had definitely settled; an echo of Thu'um rubbed his ears, not quite as dim as before, and Solen's head turned towards the shore. Wincing a little, he strode to the battlements. He'd ended up on the castle's... whatever castle side overlooked the landing, and the battle sprawled out far below. It was difficult not to get distracted a little. Bodies fleshed and unfleshed writhed together in vigorous contest, illuminated in rings of those fell soulfires, while above them the Reverent and the undead Durnehviir continued the mad diving dance of battling Dragons. The dark swarm, considerably larger than the knot of Solitude fighters, had inched them back towards the forlorn watchtower and the ship.

They're holding, Solen told himself, they're holding well, though as he watched, Durnehviir swung low, roared a Thu'um he didn't recognize, and yet more dark shapes began hauling themselves into existence. But they can't hold forever if there's no end to the enemy, oh, Morwha. How long had it been? How many had died? How many more before he finally swept Gendolin's head off its shoulders? Would that even undo whatever hideous defilement had brought this abominable Dragon into existence?

One battle at a time, Solen. He spun away, reaching for another arrow, as the beast arched its back within. You chose your prey.

Gendolin winged suddenly into view, transformed into his more monstrous shape, and landed heavily high on a slanted rooftop with much less of his customary grace. "There he is," Solen called, driven viciously and spontaneously to goad as he fumbled with the nock. "I was wondering when the big guy would show up. He's not scared of the big bad Bow, is he?"

"Roar away, little Dragon," Gendolin spat, without any trace of his courtly charm. "No thunder hides the pain in your voice." One bat-like wing arched against the snow's glare as he squinted down to the battlements below. "Did you see them? They're drowning in a battle they can't win."

"I'd worry about yourself, Gendolin. You don't look so good." Solen smiled again, still spurred by that savage humour. "What's the matter? Is one of your plans finally not going your way?"

He could tell that one hit its mark – Gendolin's face contorted with cold fury as he straightened. His spells failed in his curling claws, all but one – his wings snapped open and carried him hovering above the parapets, and a blistering bold red glow swelled between his arched fingers. "That's right, Solenarren. Keep making her suffer."

He crushed the spell-light in his fist and the rooftop exploded in red stains, coagulants worming their way through every crack and crevasse in a repulsive wave. Solen abandoned his shot and Sprinted out of the ensnaring ring, then spun and Shouted them down in frost as they funnelled after him. The vampire lord sped after him, gathering the blood-magic again, only to shriek and buckle from the air as Solen's arrow tore a burning hole through one of his outstretched wings.

You shouldn't have said that. A second arrow smote the other wing in a scorching flash of sunfire. Solen's anger steadied his shaking limbs. You really shouldn't have said that.

Gendolin growled balefully, his blackened wings curling down behind his shoulders. He said nothing, only gathered himself. His claws lengthened like drawn knives, and he seemed to swell to even ghastlier proportions; with a speed that belied his great bulk, he flung himself from the roof in a slicing lunge. Solen Shouted himself aside, and the perilous talons gouged effortlessly through an unfortunate turret instead of his flesh. He'd barely caught his feet when Gendolin lunged again, his leaping stride effortlessly eating the distance between them. Solen Shouted again, barely in time; the ground bucked in groaning protest behind him, huge cracks cobwebbing the rooftop walkways beneath the vampire lord's fists. It was a miracle the roof didn't cave under them.

That's new. Solen stumbled out of the Sprint, winded and gasping. What in Tava's name did he husk to get as strong as a giant? And unlike those twenty-foot towers of muscle and beard whose strikes had sent many an overconfident mercenary to the moons, Gendolin was fast, and it made for an uncomfortable combination; Gendolin was already halfway towards him when Solen turned around. His quick-fired arrow missed confidently. There was no outrunning this enemy without Thu'um, and Solen barely pulled his rattled wits together long enough to dive. FEIM ZII GRON!

The eviscerating claws slid unsettlingly through the ethereal, but at least he hadn't been sawn in half. Solen twisted between the lunging strikes and retreated swiftly to regain his bearings, leaving Gendolin spinning behind him. His scarlet eyes were slit almost shut, and his monstrous face was warped with a hateful grimace. His claws slashed the air in greatly inaccurate lunges, and his head twisted with such vigour that the silvery braid down his back whirled like a whip.

"Hiding already?" The vampire lord flared his nostrils and snarled. "Do I frighten you, Solenarren?"

The arrow bit him squarely between his shoulderblades, throwing him onto all fours with a scream of agonized wrath. Far from it, Solen thought, grinning. I just figured out how this next part goes.

Become Ethereal was no Shout of invisibility, yet its soft blue translucence was quite lost in the glare of sun-struck ice and snow, and in that form he cast no shadow, yielded no scent, and betrayed no heartbeat. The vampire lord's day-stricken senses couldn't follow him, so long as Thu'um and silence lasted. As Gendolin surged up, contorted with hatred, and thundered in the arrow's direction, Solen closed his eyes and dived again. The wall that had made his shelter was blown down in three violent blows; by then he was across the tiled roof, veiled in the unsung Voice, leaving his enemy whirling in wrathful circles.

Like wearing out an Elder Dragon. Solen dropped down behind a decorative turret to ready his next shot, lit with a euphoria that banished all fear. He knew this dance of man and monster. You think me nothing without the Voice? You're nothing against it!

"I tire of this mischief." Gendolin spun around, his talons carving deep gauges in the stone. "Show yourself, Dragonborn! Or will you hide behind that Bow forever?"

Solen stepped out behind the turret, daringly corporeal. "Have to say, it's been working so far."

The Shout was poised as Gendolin charged his way; he dropped it like an anchor to the quiet within. VEN! The funnel of wind was brief but effective, and Gendolin flinched as it tugged him about and hurled a flurry of snow into his face. "Wretch! I don't need my eyes to find you!"

Solen swung back out of sight. ZUL MEY GUT! "You still need your ears, bat-face!" his bodiless taunt sang over Gendolin's wounded wings. Fooled again by the thrown Voice, Gendolin recognized his error too late – the next arrow gouged a scorching hole through his leg, eliciting another shriek. He dropped to a knee, and for a moment his titanic body shook strangely – smouldering at the seams like threads coming loose off an old tapestry. Who's suffering now? Solen snarled, and let the next Thu'um roar his burning anger aloud. "YOL TOOR SHUL!"

The roiling inferno encased the vampire lord, and his agonized wail was the loudest yet. Charred and trailing smoke and cinder, Gendolin flung himself airborne on the ruin of his wings, even as embers still wormed their way into his flesh. Baleful red light swelled between his talons, but Solen gave him no chance to redden the snow. The Bow hummed, and the infused arrow struck Gendolin full in the chest. In the burst of iridescent sunfire Gendolin made no sound, only plunged as if stricken with a sledgehammer – he crashed upon the scorched rooftop and finally lay still.

Now, Solen thought breathlessly, with a surge of elation that soared across his soul. It's now!

In a nest of scorched and broken shingles, Gendolin looked almost reminiscent of a Dragon exhausted from the sky. His darkened eyes were ardent with loathing as he laboriously raised his head and levered himself onto slithering elbows. His quivering form had shrunken, teeming with coarse and repulsive trails of blackness. All that stolen power can't hold itself together. Solen reached for his quiver. Not with good old Akatosh Himself poking holes in it.

The sunhallowed arrow slid into the open at last, shining lustrously, and settled in place against the bowstring. Gendolin's eyes followed it warily, slowly widening as if he realized the doom the Knight-Paladin had written into the shining arrowhead. It's your reckoning, you son of a bitch – after all you've done – At last, at last, Solen pulled the string to his cheek and swung the Bow at the sky.

At least, he started to.

All Gendolin had done was ablaze through his mind. Gelebor's broken, blinded body lying in the smote Chantry, not a week passed since he'd screamed that terrible cry. Serana's blood oozed through the stones of her family's home at her tormentor's behest. Aela, jerking around a sword driven up through her chest; Faendal, dying tortured and alone; Vilkas and Njada, dangling half-alive above Riften's walls; Rayya, half-dead in the Winterhold snow; Dexion, thralled beyond all trace of his former self; all of Skyrim's people who'd bled under vampiric hunger; Riverwood and all the other little hamlets abandoned and stricken to rubble; the Dragons driven to insensate madness; his country driven into despair; his own soul, condemned to Oblivion –

All because of what? Of what?! Solen's heart pounded like a drum, a dark and furious beat. The more he thought, the more he remembered, the more he realized just how badly he wanted Gendolin to hurt. Never, in all his years and battles, had there been anyone, anyone, whom he hated so much.

Now here that hated enemy was, in all his power and renown, after all these months of loss and agony and tearing down, finally... helpless. Frozen like a moonstruck hare. It transfixed Solen. It exhilarated him. It almost made him laugh. Something rose in him that had nothing to do with the beast; it curled his tongue around the darkest of Words and turned the sunhallowed arrow from the rising sun to where Gendolin lay.

And he welcomed it. You're right, Nosti. Sometimes it just takes monsters killing monsters.

A cold shadow plunged over them before the twine could slip through Solen's fingers. Durnehviir surged over the battlements in a rush of withering wings and draconian malevolence, his sloughing jaws agape. "GAAN LAH HAS!"

"FEIM!" Solen barked back. The leeching Thu'um slid harmlessly through him and Durnehviir sped on. Fire and frost flashed in his wake in roaring stripes as the Reverent tore over the spires after him in hot pursuit; their battle had chosen a most inconvenient moment to climb over the castle. They skimmed so low to the snowy battlements that they swept up a blinding flurry in their undertow. Cursing the interruption, Solen flung an arm against the veil, for all the good it did; in the ethereal he could neither interact with the world nor interact against it. A glimmer of urgency shook the sinister reverie from him, but too late – the swirling gale settled and revealed Gendolin gone.

No sooner had Solen regained his flesh when a shadow moved against the sun. Solen stretched the Bow to shoot, but faster was the daedric tether that latched upon him with fingers of red and indigo. Nocturnal's boon of strife hit him like a giant's club, and Solen reeled under the wringing weakness of stolen life force – but not so much that he missed the dagger flashing lightning-quick at his throat. He swung the Bow to interrupt its path and jerked back, lunging for a breath; Gendolin, small and lithe again, would not let him gain it. The hand that normally bore his silver sword instead flung a wad of snow squarely into Solen's eyes, and Gendolin pressed his frenzied attack as Solen fell back further, clawing the burning cold out of his face. For a moment they churned together in a sort of desperate, drunken dance, each scrabbling for advantage in the seconds of strength they had to them.

Then the dagger slammed into Solen's elbow, eliciting a roar of pain; he barely found the Words as he felt both Bow and arrow torn from his weakened grasp. "ZUN HAAL!" he choked; a metallic zing answered him as the disarm sent the Bow – and the arrow – flying from both their reaches. He didn't quite see where they fell before a boot crunched into his face, knocking him stumbling like a drunkard out of the brawl. Break it, Solen thought wildly, as his head spun and his nose cried bloody murder, break the tether, now! Gendolin was only getting stronger the longer it lasted; he caught his balance and spat the blood from his mouth. "BEIM!"

Oh, no.

The next blow careened him against a rampart, which Solen clung to as his legs threatened to crumple. The Aspect pulsed in bright challenge, and the coloured shadow of the Voice launched to his defence. But the dulled spark had reignited ravenously in Gendolin's burning eyes, and his sunfire-blistered armour was folding back into sleek stillness, veiling away his ghastly wounds; he met the shade gladly, and had cut it down before Solen had wrenched Eldródr off his back. The battle-blade was unpleasantly heavy in his hands, and he bounded forward with a swing undisguisedly desperate. Neatly, mockingly, Gendolin swerved beneath the blow, then the second, then the third, without reciprocation. He seemed content to watch Solen flounder until the tether finally brought him gasping to his knees.

"You were on the threshold, weren't you?" All the cold, self-assured arrogance had returned to Gendolin's demeanour. "You finally glimpsed the truth. You were so close."

Was it possible to be both furious and mortified? In this heady fog of weakness floated a horror that weighed Solen down. It was right there. I threw the chance away. Had that really been him? It hadn't felt like him... it couldn't have...

The blow shocked him flat; Gendolin struck him savagely across the head, and his helmet rang like a bell. "But not close enough. This is my world, Solenarren. You don't belong in it."

Was the Chantry repeating itself? When Solen managed to open his eyes again, it was to the sight of Gendolin with Auriel's Bow in his grasp, choosing an arrow. "You should have listened." A coagulant wriggled up between the stones at his feet; at his beckoning it leapt upon the arrowhead and sank into the steel point, staining it into a dark, wet sheen. "The light always yields."

The realization of what was coming unearthed a final hidden reserve; Solen launched himself to his feet and snatched Eldródr to readiness. "WULD!"

Gendolin, Bow and bloodcursed arrow melted to mist around the strike. Solen staggered frantically, searching for his vanished enemy with a hideous sense of descending nightmare. When he finally spotted Gendolin atop the battlements, well beyond the sword with his hood pulled low against the sun, Solen realized there was no time left, not even to Shout it still. The quiet place lay lost in a haze of simmering agony and horror, thick as ink below the surface. He scrambled for a Word of Power his broken nose wouldn't mangle. Gods, no. Please, no!

The arrow glided back on the tautened string, then sped skyward, out beyond the reach of all things.

For an instant that stretched too long, all was agonizingly still.

And then the sun went black.