CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
~LIVE AND DIE IN EVERY MOMENT OF BATTLE~
PART TWO
The Legion had barricaded the two thoroughfares into the Wind District with shattered furniture, tarred and set afire, and for the most part they held back the worst of the horde – but there were always a few that managed to slip through the flames. A guardsman managed to sound a warning before the defiled sabre cat bowled him down, crushed under the monstrous paws like a spring dandelion. Before Rayya reached the scene, scimitars bared, it had disembowelled a Legionnaire and knocked Caius sprawling, his shield shredding under its claws like paper.
Rayya lunged before it could go for the kill, and the sabre's soulless eyes fastened upon her, blood and ichor swinging from its jaws. No sooner had she thrust forward when it took her again, the mortal reluctance to commit and widen her centre to risk – her uncertain scimitars fouled their strike, barely glancing off the tortured hide. The defiled sabre countered her with no such reserve. It rushed with monstrous speed and bulk; she skipped back to evade the reaching paws, but the quick, easy grace of the sword-dancer had lost its edge. She gasped in fright as she was swatted down, cobblestone pinned to her back as the sabre leaned over her, huge jaws fighting around her swords to reach her neck. For a fleeting moment, time froze as Rayya stared down that throbbing black throat.
Then the sabre cat launched off her, yowling, as a battle-axe shore off a chunk of its skull. It flinched back, roaring defiance at its new challenger; Hrongar roared louder, catching the lunging claws on his plated shoulder as he stepped into its lashing strike. They grappled together, Jarl and monster, as Rayya was dragged out from beneath their churning boots and paws. "I'm fine," she gasped, twisting in Lydia's arms, "let me up!" Hrongar thrust his battleaxe between the sabre's gnashing teeth as it rose rampant on its hind paws, its claws dug tight into his shoulders, lurching him savagely from side to side –
Vilkas blurred behind it, and the defiled sabre yawled as his greatsword carved a bloody arc through its haunches. It slumped almost to its belly – Hrongar knocked it askew and wrenched the battleaxe from its teeth. It lashed at him, howling, but folded forward as its hind limbs buckled. Vilkas pinned it to the floor, his greatsword through its ribs, as Hrongar's axe rose and fell, finally laying the monster flat.
"What in Shor's name are you doing out here, woman?" Hrongar demanded, tearing his weapon from the sabre's head. "Councils are one thing, but war?"
Abruptly conscious of her ragged clothes, soiled by smoke and sweat and worse, Rayya reclaimed her fallen scimitars with a temper burning bright as the barricade. "What do you think, Hrongar?! You need every –"
"Is he dead?" Vilkas interrupted roughly.
Caius groaned faintly as Lydia prodded him. Fresh blood ran down his cheek; the wound to his head had been reopened. "Still breathing, my Jarl," she reported, dragging him out of the way as fighters rushed to reinforce the breach. "But he won't be fighting any – watch out!"
"Torch!" Vilkas shouted, as the defiled jerked abruptly back into accursed life. It twisted for the Companion, thrashing madly around the greatsword that pinned it down; Vilkas ripped the weapon free and speared it through its neck in one graceful motion, constraining it anew as Hrongar went at it again with the axe. By then Rayya had seized a burning brand from the barricade and set the dessicated skin alight, and they all retreated a pace as the howling husk writhed itself to stillness. Reminding them that the defiled's endlessness wasn't just their number, but their proclivity to rise again and again until they were ashes; a grim lesson learned over and over in these constant encounters at the barricade.
Hrongar scoured the grime off his battleaxe in the sizzling flames. "Get Caius to the temple, and for the love of Mara, stay there, Rayya." He looked her up and down. "You made your choice." He swung back to the barricade before Rayya could answer. "Get those fires up, damn it! Don't let them go out! Anything that burns, burns!"
Legionnaires, Companions and guardsmen scrambled to obey. Street benches, rain barrels, garden fences, the shields of dead fighters – all snatched up, hacked down, flung upon the burning barricade until the flames roared up again and the looming tide behind it had withdrawn with wails of frustration. Vilkas glanced once at Rayya, partly sympathetic, partly grim agreement, then ran to help them.
For a moment Rayya could only stand and watch them, stung beyond words. You made your choice. She was a seasoned warrior, not some giddy glory-hungry whelp – she'd been fighting since the Black Sun dawned. What choice was there?!
Yet her swords had missed their mark. She'd hesitated to follow through. No matter how she tried, it was impossible to forget the weight on her hips, the fragile life inside her. She should have danced circles. She'd fallen instead. Her life about to vanish down a monster's throat.
Because I was slow. Timid. The fog of thought threatened to steal over her again as she stood frozen with shame. It got in the way again.
"Come on. I've got his left." Lydia hauled the dazed Commander to his feet.
"No –" Refuge lay in action. Rayya slung Caius's arm across her shoulders. "I'll take him, Lydia. You're needed here. I'll be back in a moment." The temple of Kynareth was only across the Gildergreen plaza.
But Lydia was inarguable. "We'll go together, Rayya."
She thinks it too. Rayya turned blankly for the temple. That I can't fight, when fighting's all that's left.
There was almost as much chaos behind the barricades as at them. With the lower city lost, the fighting had been forced into the residential district, and an atmosphere of desperation had descended. Soldiers ran between the two battles undertaking, alternating between Hrongar and Quentin Cipius at the east barricade and Tullius at the west; civilians ran for refuge in the Hall of the Dead, the Kynareth temple, Dragonsreach and even Jorrvaskr, driven terrified from their homes; between them the animals of their livelihood ran almost amok, whinnying horses, lowing cattle, bawling poultry.
What am I doing? Rayya thought savagely, as the temple doors swam into sight. Whiterun's defenders held the barricades, their resolve only sustained by the terror of their backs to the wall. For the civilians' sake there could be no more retreat – no palace or undercroft could hold them all – and their enemy was relentless. Both vampires and their magic were emboldened under the blackened sun, and each defiled creature took entirely too much punishment to put down. Not even Companion warriors could boast such endurance – they all were tiring, and their losses mounted. The barricades were as much choked with burning wagons and tables as the bodies of their own fallen. All the while, Vingalmo remained elusive, and the madness that turned comrades upon each other continued unchecked. What am I doing?! Rayya threw the temple doors apart. I'm not helpless! I won't wait! I can't!
The temple was packed; there was hardly space left to walk, let alone set the dazed Commander down into the care of the priests. "You need to rest too, Rayya," Lydia said quietly as she straightened. "You've been fighting for hours."
Rayya's fatigue detested her, even more so to be standing in the quiet temple again. The memory of that day, that choice, was uncomfortably loud in this quiet stillness. The frightened and wounded, the dying and dead, they seared her eyes wherever she looked. Mothers hugged their children while their fathers wept. Soldiers lay slumped in bloody rags, hollow-eyed and hopeless. The dead lay stiff and still. Whelps and yearling Companions, side by side – necks laid open by Volkihar blades; bodies ripped and eaten, gored and trampled by defiled beasts. Mari had died bravely, protecting his shield-sister's back from monstrous jaws. Ria nursed a face flayed open from the tusks of a defiled bristleback; she'd crawled away as Athis defended her. What was left of him lay beside her, gored and shredded to pieces before Torngeir had rushed to their aid.
It was too much. Everything was falling apart. Everything had gone wrong. I never should have chosen this, Solen. I never should have stayed!
Lydia noticed her expression too late. "Rayya –!"
Rayya had no sooner flung herself back out the doors and into the cacophonous streets when Lydia seized her arm. "Rayya, enough! What are you doing?!"
"What does it look like?!" Rayya roared back; for just an instant she was angrier than she'd ever been in her life. "What I can! What's left to do!"
Lydia was, too. "I can't let you keep throwing yourself into danger like nothing's changed at all!"
"I can't sit in there waiting for death either! Damn it, Lydia, don't you get it?! I chose wrong!" It all tore from her without warning. "Nothing should ever have changed! And because I let it, everything's changed! Now his city's bleeding and I can't do a damn thing to stop it, and for this all to happen something's happened to him –"
"Something always happens to that damn Elf! But by old gods and new, Rayya, I'll be dead before something happens to you!" Lydia seized Rayya's shoulder; her green eyes were fierce and alive. "You're more than the damn oath and you have been for a long, long time! Why won't you realize that?!"
Taken aback, Rayya's words failed her; she thought her head might burst. The soldiers' boots stamping frantic tattoos in the cobblestone, the clashing of steel, the billowing of flame, even Odahviing's earth-quaking roars – somewhere out of sight the Dragon still fought – all of it became a numb noise in her ears.
He's not coming home. Without the frenzy of the enemy, the terrible truth spoke free, that which she'd known in her heart the instant the sun had darkened. My husband is gone.
She'd dreaded this pain, and now it was upon her and gods it hurt, hurt her to the quick. The ground slid like sand under her feet as the storm took her soul, that wretched haze of horror and guilt and futile wishes. Her gaze slid under the Gildergreen's branches to where the statue of Talos stood, an unwavering sentinel amid this accursed nightmare. How many times he'd stood beneath it, his hand upon the shrine, wondering what it all had ever meant...
I should have been with you. The woman who'd sworn not to share Irileth's fate seemed so very distant now. We should have fought together to the end.
Rayya stepped out of Lydia's grasp and slumped down against the temple wall. "Why did I keep it, Lydia?" It all seemed so clear, looking back. How stupid she'd been. "We knew who we were. I changed that. Now it's all falling apart. It'll all be for nothing." Perhaps that was what she resented about it the most. Perhaps that was why even as one instinct tangled another, she couldn't put down her swords.
Lydia knelt across from her. "Not yet," she said, quietly and fiercely. "You don't know he's dead. You don't, Rayya. And even if it's so – you cannot throw it all away. He lived for you. Live for him."
Rayya looked at her blankly. Live for what? The world they'd built was crumbling down. The defenders' valiance hung on a knife-edge. It was a question of when, not if, the barricades would fall and the culling begin.
And my fate will not find me waiting. That much she'd promised herself. That much she could promise him. Solen had gone to meet it. So would she. "It's all there's left, Lydia. I live and die in every moment." Her hand moved from her belly to her blade. "I won't stand back. I've made my choice."
Lydia's gaze softened. "So have I." Her anger had faded. She did understand.
The clamour of war suddenly intensified, pulling their attention sharply across the plaza. Reprieve was over; Rayya scrambled upright. Both of them took off at a run as the screaming shrilled, the fighters in a frenzy of action. They thought the barricade had finally been overrun. What they found was far worse. "Gods, not again!" Lydia swore, seizing her sword.
The defenders were pulling back from the barricade – pulling others back from it – while those that weren't restrained walked forward and threw themselves upon the fire. Possessed! Rayya forced her horrified eyes from the bodies writhing in their self-wrought doom. Look for him – he's here – find him!
With every fresh horror of spelled minds had been tantalizing glimpses of the elusive vampire lord. The last had been above the east wall, Vingalmo poised above a regiment of archers; they'd abruptly stopped shooting and stepped off the battlements to their deaths. He'd always been wretchedly afar, beyond range and reaction – Rayya was astounded to discover him perched right above them on the broken arch, emboldened in the defenders' distraction, black eyes eerily huge and fathomless, bared flesh as pale as bleached bone. His taloned hands move gently in a hypnotic pattern, weaving, spelling, ensorcelling.
Not even a Companion new blood could've missed the shot – if only Rayya still had a bow! "Ghelb!" she shouted urgently, spotting the Orc dragging a pacified Legionnaire out from under the stampeding boots. He still had his great longbow. "Ghelb!" He turned, and she pointed with her blade.
Ghelb saw, set the unconscious soldier down, and swung his longbow into his arms. Vingalmo's eyes moved suddenly upon him, and he stiffened mid-draw. No, Rayya realized, as he turned towards her instead. Ruptga, no!
A malevolent blankness had entered his eyes. His arrow sliced for her belly; her sword was barely quicker, though its power tore the blade spinning from her hands and knocked her staggering. Ghelb shattered his beloved bow across his knee like an old branch and flung the pieces aside. "Snap out of it, Ghelb," Rayya urged him, her remaining scimitar between them as he advanced upon her. Don't make me do this.
Ghelb's fists curled, and Rayya knew the swing was coming. She ducked beneath the lethal throw and rammed her shoulder into his back, knocking the scowling Orc straight into Lydia's shield. Two deft blows to his chest and face rocked his senses long enough for Rayya to strafe him and grit her teeth. The cobblestones flashed with blood as her curved blade hewed the tendons in the back of his leg. Ghelb bellowed with agony and collapsed to his knees. Lydia spun her sword and slammed its hilt between his eyes. "Sorry, mate," she muttered, as his eyes rolled up and he folded forward. "You'll feel better when you wake up."
But the chance was lost; Vingalmo had vanished again, leaving the barricade defence in a confusion of swords and shields and axes. Quentin Cipius had to be restrained from killing his own soldiers – Vilkas and Njada were brawling each other in vicious earnest – Sverling was bowled senseless as Torngeir's flail cracked across his helmet – Hrongar was knocked off his feet when his Housecarl struck him in the back, though the Jarl recovered in time to catch the descending war-axe and punch the bedazzled Nord in the face. "The fires," Rayya gasped; the burned bodies had smothered an end almost out, and the defiled were clawing their way through the dwindling embers.
"That damn bat-eared wretch!" Lydia leapt forward as a defiled wolf lunged through, and with a mighty kick flung it back upon the barricade; the fire caught on its withered hide at once and the defiled drew back yelping from the flare. "Just let him come down, I'll give him a proper Whiterun welcome!"
Rayya tensed at the shuddering thought – a vampire lord was no easier on the ground than above – but for now there were other enemies about to be at their sword-ends. The barricade groaned, the livened flames fading down again, and the horde on the other side gathered itself to push through at last –
The streets thrummed with boots and a ragged, rallying cry; Imperial soldiers were streaming into the plaza in the dozens. A pair of battlemages launched a salvo of incendiaries into the barricade; a fledgling vampire that had just slipped through was knocked over by a crossbow bolt. Tullius's bellowing carved through the chaos like a greatsword. "Heavy troopers, reinforce that barrier, fast! Archers to the left, mages right! At will!" The fell tide drew back again shrieking as the flames went up and the barricade crowded with shields.
Hrongar roared with exultant laughter as he released his dazed Housecarl from a headlock. "You Imperials cut it close!"
"General!" Rayya exclaimed, both relieved and alarmed. "But the west –"
"We have a reprieve." Tullius was covered head to foot in smoke-soot, and his normally pristine armour had been scarred by more than one set of defiled claws. "Odahviing finally brought that damn mammoth down, right across the archway. Monsters can't get past them. He's making sure it won't get up –"
Screams of horror and warning exploded among the ranks. Above them a pale shape flared into visibility against the tortured sky, and lunged down upon them with frightful speed. The malevolence in those vast black eyes was breathtaking – Rayya dived flat as the hideous presence swooped over her head, heard steel shrill as talons raked over Lydia's armoured back – then Vingalmo was gliding skyward beyond the shouting Legionnaires, outranging spell and bolt and arrow, Tullius writhing in his grasp.
Seconds later, clouds of embers and vampire's frost showered the air, and the howling of the defiled turned triumphant. The last flames were choked in a storm of cinders as the charred barricade finally buckled and fell.
It had been a long, long time since Solen and Aela had fought together in their furs of chestnut gold and russet red. But they hadn't forgotten how. They ran together, shoulder to shoulder, as Gendolin tore himself from the spell and spun to face them. His spined wings opened and carried him out of their claws, and bared against the black sky his magic curled to grisly life. He cursed their primitive desperation, and it flowed senseless past their snarling maws. For a moment they took the measure of each other with all the loathing disdain such children of Oblivion nurtured between them – and then it began in earnest, part battle, part hunt.
Gendolin was quick, strong, clever, full of tricks to contest the brutish power that hunted him. He strayed beyond their claws, winged above their pounces, took refuge in mist and shadow when their teeth drew close to flesh. His spears of ice were long as lakes, scything through rooftops and towers; they sprang aside from those perilous shards, weathering the ghastly chill against their matted coats. His magic was potent, crushing stone itself to dust; they eluded him whenever he turned with palms rusty-red to fight, slipping through his grasping fingers with all the wiliness of the fox. His skin took on the sleek absolution of ice and the resilience of mountains, until it seemed he were a sculpture living, and he landed among them to bring them down with talons that steamed with the toxicity of the poison they harboured; but they were two, and they ducked and dived beneath his lunging arms, baiting and bewildering in turn, until that impenetrable icy hide began to split at the seams from his own frustration. He took to the wing again to lay them still from afar in a hunter's crude parody, a bow and arrows of frozen ice headed to jagged points with his own corrupted blood; again they split, ducking and diving around what shelter remained.
His blood was potent. His power was ancient. He sculpted the chill of death in ways they'd never seen. But their blood ran old as earth and water, rain and sky, flesh and spirit. Their power was that which the children of domination could never master. Their power was the pack, and it was Aela who unleashed it.
Her howl – her Totem – reached through the tortured veil and called them through, those beloved brothers who had run alongside her in life to hunt with her again in death. And they lent themselves gladly, his mighty strength, his windlike swiftness, unfettered of their human restraint. Two became four, and Gendolin's arrows fell like a wild rain between them. No stolen power could hope to unravel the seamless, beautiful synergy in which they moved together. Their secret language moved ceaselessly between them, a twitch, a flick, a rasp of breath; the living strafed wide and the dead lunged forth, and four were two again. Gendolin's crushing grasp found no purchase upon ghostly hides, and there was no life left in them to drain; he descended to engage them, his body encrusted and glittering with frigid beauty, but their phantom fangs slid through his impervious skin, while his venom found no flesh to poison. The spirit of the hunt itself had been called upon him, and he was marked the hare – too late did he realize the intention of the hunters living, and from either side they lunged upon him and four became one, a symphony of rage and joy.
The vampire lord wrenched himself free and spun into the sky in a rage of his own; his scarlet spell flashed down upon Aela, and she whined and writhed as her stolen life lunged into his gouging wounds, her great strength threatening to crumble beneath Coldharbour's endless hunger. Then Solen raised his voice, and Hircine's Totem spoke the fear of all prey into his howl – Gendolin reeled, his wings buckling, and vanished. Solen roared his rage and the pack roared back, rallying Aela back to her feet – and together they trembled the beaten rooftops, baying themselves to frenzy until their prey became more than sound and scent.
But under the darkened sun, Gendolin's magic was tireless and everchanging. Their exuberant chorus shrilled to warning as their hunting ground became a rising sea of blood. They sprang themselves to safety, clawing themselves to spires and parapets, leaping between them like islands in a storming sea as the tide swirled and gurgled in seething crawling masses, lunging to try and drag them down. Aela snarled as a sticky tendril encased her paw, clinging like tar; fighting back the urge to twist and bite she wrenched herself free and sprang upon another ledge before the rest of her might be snared. She couldn't pause for even a moment; Gendolin shadowed her, his magic tearing down every handhold, every arching island in the swallowing crimson sea, trying to topple her in.
Then Solen leapt, fiercer and further than Aela had ever seen him lunge – he crashed upon Gendolin's back with his jaws gouging the joint of the vampire's wing – Gendolin twisted in a wild spiral, spell-light vanishing as his claws raked madly at the golden fur – they spun together, chorusing hatred and pain and fury into a terrible harmony, until Gendolin turned to mist and the coagulant death below them burst to red dust. Aela sprang down from her toppling spire and Solen dropped lightly onto his paws, bleeding from a dozen scratches and panting his excitement.
She called their scattered brothers back to their sides and Solen's fury filled their ears, quickening the tempo of their hearts. Aela threw back her head gladly. It was exhilarating. It was wonderful. It made her want to bare her throat, as if he were the elder.
And she realized it'd taken her too long to see that something was wrong.
His voice was deeper. His eyes were brighter. When they passed across her, they were cold and driven, every thought bare and savage on the surface. He had always been the larger between them, but not to this extent, and it seemed to her that he was growing still. She'd lost her eartips to Gendolin's claws and the searing ends still boiled with his poison, but Solen didn't even lick at his gashes before lunging after the scent. He didn't run with her – she ran to keep up. He was driven, maddened, tireless.
He's feral. Aela's breath chilled in her teeth. He's given himself over to Oblivion.
Nothing remained of the vigorous and eager pup that she knew him to be; he had become some ancient and primordial rage made manifest, a true hound of Hircine. He was bounds ahead of his packmates, and his roar flushed the prey from his concealment, and the spells withered before they could be spun; Solen was upon him at once, tearing flesh and bone with a crazed passion; pain shocked Gendolin back to sharpness, and his talons were suddenly everywhere, gouging hideous tears through Solen's hide.
Aela galloped to his aid – her jaws latched around a lashing arm and she forced them tight as Gendolin strained – pain blinded her as his claws scoured across her skull and she flinched back half by instinct to save her eyes. Yet Solen didn't seize his chance to withdraw, not even with his flesh hanging off in great peels from his chest, not even when Gendolin struck him so forcefully he almost went over the ramparts. He shouldered his fighting spirit-brothers aside and redoubled his attack before Aela had even caught her breath. Gendolin, hissing, awaited him; the tips of his sizzling talons glinted with the red tint of a life drain, his wounds sealing over even as Solen carved new ones.
Get out of there! Aela snarled. His claws are poison – he'll rip you apart! Yet Solen fought on, deaf to her authority. His glowing eyes yielded no indication of pain, even as the rubble slickened under his claws. No attempt was made from either opponent to artfully dodge and counter; they brawled with such a violent hatred that for a time Aela and her packmates could only circle, desperate for an opening that never came. Solen would not give them one. The symphony of the pack had been lost in blind rage.
Fight with us, brother! Solen threw the vampire lord onto one knee and thrust his fangs around his neck, even as noxious talons ripped at his own. With me! Aela threw caution to the winds and hurled herself against Solen, urging him to break his grip. It's your death if you fight alone!
Solen wouldn't relent. He surged forward with freak strength, raking his claws across Gendolin's torso so zealously that the vampire lord pulled away at last; Aela was spun roughly aside as Solen surged after him, howling exuberantly. Nothing of the man seemed left in him; he moved like an animal and Gendolin knew it. The vampire lord no longer attempted to disengage but moved steadily backwards. Solen's golden fur had reddened, yet he fought on, too insane with his bloodlust to realize his own agony, or that his enemy was baiting him to exhaustion.
Get up! Save him! Aela staggered upright, and her poisoned wounds seared. Her muzzle brushed the ground as she swayed on her paws, shaking her head. The scratches pulsated in the ugly squeeze of the drain – so Gendolin was leeching her, too. Growling, she flung herself into what was left of the churned snow, pressing its icy alleviation into the poisoned gashes until the burning throb eased enough for her to stand.
And she saw it glinting just beyond her, its shaft half-buried still; an arrowhead glowing with a soft radiance, warm as the sun.
Ashes. They were on Irileth's tongue, dusted her eyes, filled her nose and lungs as her senses resolved. Ashes, soft and silken as what blew across Morrowind's burning plains. Ashes that gathered in dark crypt corners and the resting-beds of the ancestors. Ashes that had billowed from the funerary pyre. For a moment she wondered if she wandered the wastes of her ancestors' homeland again.
But she was not there, and she was not home. Fort Dawnguard resolved itself in the silence that had descended in the wake of the holy fire. The upper balcony was sundered, gouged with the force of spell or sacrifice. Great pieces lay strewn across the chamber below, quiet now of any seal. She'd been fortunate – blown back against the walls with a handful of others. The rest roused in a daze in the chamber below.
Irileth staggered to her feet, shook the ringing from her ears, and leaned over the ruin. The halls had quietened from the slavering chorus, eerily so. She heard the last of the bloodfiends dying in the wing corridors, picked down by the methodical barking of crossbows. The pulsating swarm that had devoured Florentius was gone – their ashes, his ashes, were all that remained, silver stars in the air heavy with ghosts and power.
A roar split the stunned peace, revulsive to their ears – Orthjolf stormed suddenly into the chamber, a void given shape in the watery reddened daylight. Blood ran in curtains from his jaws and his remaining hand. The operatives shouted, above and below, and Isran threw the rubble off him as he snatched up his hammer, bellowing – forsaking his magic, Orthjolf lunged among them like a beast. His brute strength ripped agonized wails from gurgling throats, limbs from limbs until they scattered like leaves across the ashen floor, until the air thickened with blood and dying. Isran struck the walls like a sack; his Stendarr's Aura cracked like glass. Something moved in the pitiless eyes as Orthjolf advanced upon him. It was impossible to say if the monstrous creature was more enraged or triumphant.
Never had Irileth imagined she could have ever grown angrier, yet the fury in her burned like a new flame. It was now? Now that he had chosen to land and fight? Now, when he'd put himself in her reach in brazen, gloating challenge? Now, when Florentius was dead?!
Coward. It grew in her as it had never grown, embers swollen on a scorching wind, and the ashes in her lungs and on her skin burst again into flame. Coward. Coward! COWARD!
She flung herself from the balcony, and her scream might have cut to the lifeblood of the earth. It cloaked her in a halo of fire – no divine righteousness, but a dark and terrible wrath of red and gold, incarnate of loss and all the fury behind the losing, a yearning vindication that nothing would extinguish – she and it fell together upon Orthjolf's shoulders, right between his skeletal wings, and the broken blade bit deep into the ghoulish flesh, again and again. Orthjolf roared beneath her and spun like an unbroken horse, thrashing and cursing as wound after wound was etched into his corrupted skin. Irileth refused to relent – not when his talons forced themselves through the fire and shredded armour and flesh and bone, not when crossbow bolts pounded through her as Sorine shouted for a driving volley, not as the last of the Dawnguard rallied and stormed the chamber, all of them, not when Orthjolf finally ripped her from his back and flung her to the ground.
It should have hurt. It didn't. She rose again in blood and flame, and the vengeful promise written into the wildness of her face. Fury left room for nothing else. Not for pain. Not for death. This fire would not go out – she would not be denied again!
Orthjolf saw it. Orthjolf knew it. She saw his contemptable fear dragged to the surface as he snarled and spread his wings, reaching for his accursed magic. Sorine's exploding bolt burst open the ruin on his back and almost pitched him to his knees with a winded howl. The last Dawnguard fighters, galvanized, leapt upon him in a desperate symphony of flashing adamantine; they were flung aside as Orthjolf lurched up again with a roar barren of anything triumphant, leaving a trail of dazed and battered bodies in his wake as he limped slithering towards the doors, tumbling out of his vast monstrous shape, the smaller to make himself to the crossbow bolts chasing him down.
The illusion tumbled with him, laying the truth bare to the bone. All his arrogance, all his power, all his years of boasted strength – all of it as brittle as the sword he'd broken! The vampire lord reduced to a craven man. And Irileth had killed many, many craven men.
Her painless stride ate up the staggering distance between them, and the world shrank down until nothing remained between them but the oath that pulled her forward. She watched him turn, beheld the fear very real in his paled face. He flung his hand towards her, seething in a tangle of corruption, one last spell to finally fail her brutalized body.
Agmaer's bolt splintered his hand before the spell could cast. Orthjolf reeled and spun to his knees – no more running. Irileth spun the broken blade to readiness.
His baleful eyes found hers, so wide and bare and plain. He reached as she leapt, fingers lengthened into claws, as if he dared to hold her back, as if she cared to stop. They didn't pierce her heart before the broken blade sank to its hilt into his skull.
They went down together as the world stopped.
Irileth held those burning eyes until they withered into pits dark and cold and empty, and she knew that the deed was done. Only then did her fury release her. Only then did the fire finally go out.
For a moment, they hung poised above the parapets of Dragonsreach – then Tullius plunged, and Vingalmo swooped after him, like a great pale hawk toying with the kill.
It was a futile endeavour, Rayya knew, but it sent her leaping up the steps to the Cloud District all the same, her belly heaving and her heart frantic with an urgency she struggled to name. Tullius was almost certainly dead, and she would be too, to challenge a vampire lord in the black day dawned – but with the fighting exploded across the park behind them, it was only a matter of time before they all were.
But the choice was made. The seething horde behind them met a final, desperate defence of the middle city. With Vingalmo revealed, she and Lydia could give the defenders time enough to make their stand. It was better than waiting.
The fear-instinct fluttered up in her as the landing drew near, checking her sprint and softening her tread. She and Lydia crested the last stairs almost on their bellies to behold a scene in clamouring contrast to the final desperate struggle below. Tullius had been flung down across the footbridge of timber and stone that spanned Dragonsreach's moat, gasping and battered with both his legs horribly bent, yet still alive. Behind him the palace's double doors shook and rattled as panicked soldiers desperately tried to unbar them – Tullius shouted hoarsely that they do no such thing, even as Vingalmo drifted between the decorative arches of pine that framed the bridge and stepped from flight.
"As if those splinters will hold me when we're finished here, General," he sneered – his cool, elegant voice so drastically displaced within the monstrosity of his titanic form. "Broken already? How disappointing. Orthjolf so liked to brag about the superiority of his breeding. The resilience of his flesh. Or perhaps, not all humans are bred equal. Shall we find out?"
It seemed he had no quick death planned for the Legion's General, and Tullius, snarling, fumbled for his gladius. But Vingalmo's back was to Rayya; so focused was he on his prey, he didn't know they were there at all. It was a chance, their best chance, perhaps their only – she leapt over the last step and bounded forward, scimitars curling for the creature's back in the dune-lion's pounce.
But her lunge was slowed, hampered by tired limbs and swollen waist, and as Vingalmo stirred she realized her blades wouldn't find their marks before his talons reached her flesh. It seized her again, that accursed, self-preserving reluctance to commit; it sent her skidding gracelessly into the defensive as Vingalmo swung to face her, both blades crossed over her heaving chest, just out of arm's reach of the vampire lord as Lydia staggered cursing beside her, shield upraised.
Vingalmo scoffed and straightened; just in time, Rayya averted her gaze from his. "Oh, really. This is to be your city's final best? You are overdue your slaughter, you bloated sow."
"What in Oblivion are you doing, Rayya?" Tullius's shout had tautened with pain. "Run, woman!"
"Run?" Vingalmo stepped forward. "No, I think not. It is much too late for that. I do not offer my mercy twice."
Rayya wasn't sure she could, even if she'd wanted to; her limbs trembled, and every fearful compulsion that skipped her racing heart willed her to curl up around her heaving belly. Don't think about that. That chance was gone. She searched for anger instead, something that would carry her through the challenge that could not be refused. Don't meet his eyes. Though the warrior's first instinct was to, Vingalmo's sinister attention absorbed her every move. Don't look! She stared at the bloodred pendant instead, the lanky limbs, the curling talons – all unarmoured, like she was.
She felt his crawling stare spider between her and Lydia and Tullius, tangible as sodden silk, and Vingalmo scoffed again. "Such defiance," he mused, as if the word was a bad taste on his tongue. "Why must you insufferable animals have so much of it? Why? You are pitiable creatures with pitiable destinies, born to rut and bleed like pigs. How do you even suffer a day being such as you are, ignominious, futile? Look around you! Look to the sky! Just what are you defending now? What do you still think to accomplish, defying me? Your city is mine! Your lives are mine!"
Rayya eased herself into the scorpion's stance. "Not yet."
Vingalmo leaned forward and lifted himself slowly, gracefully into a hover, his long skeletal wings barely opened. His belligerent gaze was cold as snowmelt on her skin. "Yet you cannot even meet my eyes, dragon-wench. Is even the simplest courtesy too much for your disobedient mind to bear?"
His hand twirled in a disdainful flick; Lydia gasped with surprise as she was jerked dangling off the ground. Vingalmo flattened his palm, and Lydia launched backwards as if struck by a giant's club. She crashed against the district wall in a clamour of metal and slumped down, motionless.
Lydia! Rayya couldn't go after her, not with the vampire lord's glare carving itself under her flesh. She swung forward in attack instead, and found herself stiffened mid-swing, bone and muscle frozen against her will. No! Panic seized her, tighter than the vampire's grip. Not again!
But Vingalmo didn't pull her into a choking grasp; he forced her head up instead, and she shut her eyes too late. His gaze ensnared her own, vast, black, horrific orbs that widened to impossible dimension, portals of nightmare that pulled her choking into their pitiless blackness. The world she knew dissolved around her as thread by thread she was teased apart until she no longer knew where she began or ended. But this was no peaceful release of death. Vingalmo's vile presence crawled through her like water, prying for weakness. Shake him off, cried her scrambled thoughts, get him out, resist –
Resist? Vingalmo's sneer numbed her ears. You think to fight me, little worm? You're too busy fighting yourself.
Nothing hid from him here, below her skin – every uncertainty cracked her like an open wound, and into them he slithered until her memories bloated to the surface. Nor could she hide them from herself; he forced her to look, he suffocated her with them, every tormented doubt deepening into a mire of shame.
Selfish, selfish, he leered – within the Kynareth temple the choice replayed itself. He laughed as she turned and left, the tea untouched. You chose wrong, little wench. You know you did. Since when do lowly little Housecarls choose their own fates? The long easy months in Jorrvaskr, her days whiled gently away with spars and walks. Growing soft. Growing fat. Is this what you wanted? The food on her plate as others went hungry – a soft bed while the frightened displaced crowded for a corner to throw their bedrolls – her belly swelling as swords sharpened and drums sounded the pulse of war. You chose the easy way. The coward's way. You left your mate to fight and die alone.
Solen's bright eyes were closed, his throat opened to a scarlet smile. Such a sight was too much, too much - a scream of horrified despair opened her down to the soul, and she felt the creature smile to it. His fingers tightened around her neck; he wouldn't let her look away, wouldn't let the hideous vision fade. You chose your shame, oathbreaker, now bask in it! Bask in what you wanted! Bask – or redeem yourself.
She felt her trembling arms bend towards her, his cold and shapeless presence soaked down to the bone. You dare to still draw breath in such a disgraceful skin. Unburden yourself of that shame and join him.
Was it his voice? Was it hers? Rayya could no longer tell in this storm of misery. The swords' edges pressed to the swell of her skin.
And then she felt it. Moving. Warm. Alive.
Through the forest of fear manifest it stopped her like a lantern's light. That wretched blundering instinct she'd cursed and resented across the battle had suddenly coiled tight as a serpent over her nest, cornered and defiant over this tiny spark of life. But this was no cold-blooded thing, it was hot and angry and fierce. It was familiar. It was her. It had always been her.
And the thing that gripped her so cold and bleak, that whispered in her ear – that wasn't. It was as separate as an iron shackle, tightening as she resisted the urge – his urge – to cut. To succumb. To end.
I won't. It pulled, and she pulled back. She'd chosen this. There was fear. There was dread. By Morwha, there was plenty of both. But shame? To dare to wonder of a life beyond the known? That was not shame – there was no shame. She'd chosen this because she could!
I'm more than an oath. And more than that – I wanted this. It burst through her unfettered; anger, glorious old friend, bright and boiling as the Alik'r sun. I chose this because I wanted it! All of it! Down to the last! The scorch shot down her arms and spine, and steel and ivory spun to life in her hands. And I will live and die for it, too!
From afar came a great shriek, splintering the shackles and the nightmare visions, and at once Vingalmo's cold and leeching veil was sucked away. Rayya came awake with her eyes wide open and her wild heart pounding free, afraid and furious in equal measure, and all the fiercer for it. Those two accursedly, wondrously turbulent instincts of warrior and mother had melded at last into one, and the Skyforged edges of her brindling scimitars were all the sharper. First blood was drawn; two hatched slices wept open on the vampire lord's stomach. If all that remained was truly this, then so be it. The choice was made, and by Tu'whacca's gaze, Rayya would not regret a day of it!
Vingalmo, snarling with pain, engulfed her in his glare again – but his illusions found no purchase of doubt within her, only a will of fury and fire that shut him and his poison out. It carried Rayya forward with a curdling yell, lunging to carve a third bloody stripe across his pallid flesh. Too late did she realize she'd overstepped; one long stride slid Vingalmo out of her reach, but not out of his; he stretched above her, one long arm drawn back with the clawed fingers splayed to slice –
Lydia's shield intercepted the reaching talons, and though they struck her with full force, the Housecarl held her ground, immovable as earth and stone. The vampire lord staggered from the fouled strike, and Lydia's sword slashed like lightning. Vingalmo reeled back in shrill pain, his hand severed at the wrist – the spell-light died as the appendage struck the footbridge, the talons curling up repulsively like a spider's legs.
Lydia moved against Rayya's shoulder and shook her tremoring shield to stillness, her green eyes bold and glaring, resolute as the steel she wore. "Just try that again, you cringing milksop! I dare you!"
Vingalmo quivered with wrath as he clutched his sundered stub. "I will flay you for such impertinence, you churl!"
He struck first, his lunge blurred with speed; Lydia swung her shield against it, and the noise of the clash was like a thunderclap. Into his stagger Rayya stepped, curved swords ready to exploit, and Vingalmo flinched in fresh pain. His claws lunged for her, but she was ready this time, swirling beneath those reaching talons and under his maimed limb – his own size would confound his strikes, so long as she was quick. The vampire lord leapt back as Lydia's sword pursued him, ready to retaliate the blow, and almost tripped over where the General lay. Tullius rolled over, his gladius ready, and slashed Vingalmo's ankle to the sordid bone.
He's blade-shy, Rayya realized, as Vingalmo squealed and shot back from the downed General like a dazzled Companion whelp. He doesn't have a clue how to fight!
It sent her forward with a fortitude renewed – for all his monstrosity, Vingalmo seemed unused to pain. A chance remained – they couldn't lose it! Lydia had sensed it too, and they shared a glance, a plan between them, and moved together as a flustered Vingalmo reached for flight. Rayya, strafing, painted three swift cuts on the lamed leg and ducked under his hip to escape Vingalmo's clumsy reproach. Her dancer's step was still quick enough to leave her enemy floundering after her, groping for a clear strike; in his distraction he opened himself to Lydia's painful exploit, and the sword-wounds they carved were black and oozing on his pale skin. He stumbled as Rayya circled back to Lydia; they rushed him together, shouting their battle-fury from their bellies, and something notoriously like panic seized the vampire lord. Wings and limbs whirling, he crashed through the footbridge barrier and the decorative arches that framed it in his haste to escape to the sky, showering them in fragments of timber. Rayya sliced a piece from the air as it toppled towards her shoulder.
"Damned bat!" Lydia exclaimed, as they watched him ascend against the darkened sky. "Of course he runs from a fight. Did he hurt you, Rayya? What did he –?"
"I'm fine, Lydia." The life within Rayya was as strong as ever, if protesting at all the rough treatment; while she had breath, little else mattered. "Check on Tullius. I'll –"
Earsplitting groans of timber interrupted her, and the footbridge lurched like a living thing. The floorboards cracked and creaked, striped with jagged fissures; the remaining arches, along with the heavy decorative beam that topped them, bucked savagely in their restraints, beckoned to life by the vicious spell-light that meshed them in tightening fingers. No sooner did Rayya shout a warning when the timber supports shattered like glass, peppering them with painful splinters, and down it all came, flung upon them with monstrous direction. Rayya dived down, curling up, and time stood still as the heavy beam ate up her vision – but when it shuddered to a halt above her, time sped up again. Lydia had caught the beam, her face reddening with the strain, as under them the battered footbridge groaned on its last foundations. "Move!" she gasped.
Rayya scrambled from its shadow, almost over Tullius. She threw her swords aside, seized his arms, and dragged him out from the jagged nest of fallen timber before he could be crushed as well. No sooner were they clear of the bridge with their backs against the palace doors when Lydia flung the heavy timber beam off her shoulders and leapt after them, and down it all came behind her, floorboards snapped to spearpoints and the battered footbridge severed into the moat below.
Escape granted them no reprieve. Vingalmo's hiss jerked their attention to where he hovered beyond all reach, distorted with a baleful fury. "Nothing!" The ichorous blood oozing from his stump had congealed into the shape of a slithering hand, reassembling bone and flesh. "You have achieved nothing, maggots!" The other he raised awash in the crueller, far more immediate glow of destruction magic.
Disarmed and pinned against Dragonsreach's doors, there was nowhere to shelter from the coming storm – Rayya and Lydia stood shoulder and shoulder to meet it as Vingalmo trimmed his wings and dived.
All the wild fervour behind Solen's blows had ebbed; his strength had slipped away from him like water in a cracked vessel. He panted between his languorous strikes, but the animal rage would not let him stop. Much too belatedly, it occurred to him that Gendolin more toyed with him than truly fought – under the blackened sky his enemy was tireless, while Solen's endurance was tearing at the seams. Still the life drain gnawed at him, a wretched effect he had no means to counter; Gendolin battered him as they grappled with a brutality that pummelled through hide and skin like a cruel mace, but to disengage would be to open himself to a worse punishment without the speed to escape it. Solen tried to howl for Hircine's blessing and felt his jaw almost split in two as Gendolin's fist crushed his muzzle in an uppercut, reeling him back on his rear limbs.
For a moment Solen lost his hold, and fell stunned to the ground, and at once claws slammed into his back, scraping off the bone; he was forced down and filled with that biting poison until the wounds smoked, and he roared and writhed and finally screamed, consumed with one extraordinary agony after the other. The talons slid away, and before collapse could claim him he surged up and drove his claws and fangs into whatever part of the enemy they found, shoulders, limbs, as much hanging on as he desperately tried to drag his opponent to the ground.
But his wounds continued to boil, and what ones he opened on Gendolin's grey hide simply sealed over again in mockery of his efforts. Solen's grip slackened as the hideous pain soaked into every spasming limb; Gendolin leaned into the embrace, laughing the maliciously manic mirth of the conqueror as his talons closed around Solen's pounding neck. "This fight is over. Do you even still hear me inside that animal? You're dying, Dragonborn – and even your cur has abandoned you to your fate."
A rumble of rebellion rose in Solen's throat. Liar. His moon-sister was elder in the hunt. He didn't know where she had gone, but she knew its laws better than he; she would never abandon it.
Then her scent reached him across the rooftop, and with it a glimmer of her intention. Urgency gripped him tighter than his enemy. He couldn't go down, not yet – he snatched Gendolin's arm in his jaws and sank the fangs in as deep as he could, growling until he was certain the vampire lord's attention remained upon him and him alone. Even as he felt his claws shaken loose, even as he thought his heart would burst, even as Gendolin struck him again and again until his bones splintered and his senses swam and his breath thickened in his lungs – his every instinct was shouting a final desperate chorus. He must bear Gendolin's wrath. He must not let go.
Not until they heard the thud of a bowstring loosed.
Solen had glimpsed Aela over Gendolin's shoulder – Auriel's Bow stretched at full draw and the sunhallowed arrow so brilliantly ashine as to be blinding. Now the arrow was launched into full and glorious flight, blazing a wondrous white stroke across the darkened sky. Gendolin's malevolent gaze swung upon her, realizing too late; Aela snatched for her quiver; before she could set arrow to string he'd dragged the Bow from her grasp and back into his own. His other hand he stretched towards her, but Solen still gripped it at the wrist, his jaws crushing the deathly magic before it could be spun – Gendolin pounded his muzzle with the glimmering bowshaft in a fury, and ripped his arm free with such a savage strength that half the fangs in Solen's head went with him. One final blow flattened him to the ground, numbed with excruciating exhaustion. Through fading senses he could only watch as Gendolin turned murderously upon his shield-sister, while Aela, defenceless without her hide but defiant to the end, seized her dagger –
All became white, brilliantly so, and by the exclamations that went up beyond him Solen was not the only one who found himself suddenly blinded. For a moment he lay overcome and whimpering. And then he felt the warmth.
His senses resolved to a wonder. The blackened sky had brightened into gold, and the world was warm and bright once more, soaking away the noxious pain. The sun was returned, blazing vast and white with a new-born fury. The heavens opened in a firestorm as they had never seen nor would ever see again; an aureate rain descended in a glorious cavalcade, each stripe of light soaring faster than belief and beyond every horizon in their thousands, in their hundreds of thousands, until everything lay etheric golden beneath the divine and wrathful promise.
And above the roar that had filled the world like the Shouting of a thousand Dragons, above the joyous echo of the Thu'um that arose reawakened and singing in Solen's soul, Gendolin was screaming.
No golden lance missed its mark; they scythed through the stunned and blinded vampire lord like great blades – he leapt and twisted in an exquisite maddened agony. His great form shuddered and shivered and shrunk, as if the light were flaying him down to his core. His spined wings shrivelled on his back, and a ghastly black ichor slithered like living things off his flailing limbs, melting like water between his grasping talons to vanish like dust beneath the wondrous wrath Auriel's Bow had called at last into the world. Tumbling in and out of himself, Gendolin searched desperately for an escape across the battle-flattened rooftop. Nothing remained but to flee this horrifying power – to slip through the ruins into the darkness below, and there reassemble himself or wait out the storm –
STAY.
The command erupted from within, unspoken yet louder than anything Gendolin had ever heard, loud as a god and louder again. It froze him at once, trembling and compelled, even as sunfire flattened him gasping against the ramparts – the terrible instruction thundered through him, over and over, until it was all the truth he knew. Akatosh spoke with Solen's voice.
DIE.
It crawled under his skin and gripped every joint into immovability; it forced his eyes open into the agonizingly brightened day, and he watched the werewolf fighting his way upright with a staggering labour. He could not move, not from the sunfire lance that flashed into his spine, not from the claws that pierced his skin with unfathomable suddenness. Solen's eyes were cold and black and pitiless as the Void – and in them, Gendolin saw reflected a curious revelation. One he'd never once seen woven within all the echoes and echoes of the threads that formed his fraying mind.
I'm not ready.
The struggle was feverishly brief. The ramparts crumbled behind him, and the bright and wrathful world disappeared behind the werewolf's fangs as they tumbled out into open air.
For a dazzling moment Rayya was almost as frightened as she'd been when she'd first beheld that terrible dawn – but as the blinding light subsided from her eyes, she recognized the warmth that struck her face. The blackened sky and its bloody vestige were gone. The sun had returned, and it returned in fury.
The phenomenon was like nothing ever seen, and she found herself lost to describe it – she only stood transfixed and awed with the others beside her as the sky came afire, and the heavenly rain sped down in spears of gold, thundering over Whiterun in an incandescent volley. Rayya knew, somehow, that these falling flames would not harm her, nor Lydia or Tullius or any of the mortal fighters entangled in the Wind District below. This wrath was upon the Volkihar and all their abominations, and a great noise of dismay was climbing, a joyous chorus to Rayya's ears. She pictured the defiled buckling sightless under the sunlight and yawling their confusion. She pictured them burning and crumbling as the falling fire smote them to ash, while the rest scrambled insensibly for what shadows might be found.
And with one wondrous revelation came another, that sent her death-ready heart leaping with hope. The Day of Black Sun hadn't ended; it had been cut short.
She only needed to watch Vingalmo to know. The vampire lord's murderous dive had turned witless in the returned light, his spells abruptly silenced and his bulging eyes flinched into nothing – then the great lances of light began to strike him, carving effortless wounds into his abominable shape, and his agony was shrill and musical. He foundered, struck blind, but nowhere he turned offered escape from this divine punishment. The light moved far quicker than he, spearing him down before he could dive through Dragonsreach's rafters, hurtling him from the air to sprawl him across the palace stairs below.
Another chance before her, and the only one Rayya knew she'd need. It galvanized her across the footbridge, dancing across the splintered wreckage with a step steadied by certainty. Sunlight revealed the hilts of her scimitars, pinned and waiting beneath the rubble – she pulled them free, and the Skyforged edges flashed so bright it was as if they were aflame themselves. Over the rubble and down the stairs she flowed to the waiting task. The battle wasn't ended, but this she would. It left her lighter than starlight, and she descended upon the vampire lord without even a memory of fear.
Vingalmo looked shrunken beneath the sun, squirming like a snail bared from the shell as he fought to reorient himself. He clutched his hand to his face as he bawled his shock and fright, his pale body blistered and gouged by the firefall as he crawled in beleaguered circles, his fell magic failing, his blood shrivelling meekly under his skin. He hardly noticed Rayya as she lunged with her spirit singing a warrior's howling tempest. Under her flashing scimitars and pounding sunbursts she carved Vingalmo's neck into her reach, dancing between his clumsy reproaches, until the moment came. She stepped between the groping claws and came open, blades crossed and deep against the skin of his throat, and roared an oath to Shor and Ruptga both as she pulled them apart.
The dragonbone strained with power, the Skyforged edges unwavering. Vingalmo's head tumbled from his neck and down the steps, leaving its great pale body to twitch and jerk its last.
Rayya swayed and stepped back with shoulders heaving, for a moment wondering if she could believe it all. The realizations came upon her as her senses roamed across the city. The sun burning bright, its glorious return. Her baby safe, herself alive. The city, survived. Warhorns, trumpeting the enemy's retreat. Her world no longer descending, but climbing. Overcome, she sank down on the step. The spirited shouting of the soldiers below soon overwhelmed the bawling of the dread beasts, and far across the city Odahviing launched suddenly into flight, lifting himself upon wings so badly torn and gouged that it was a marvel he could ascend at all – but he was flying again, his rumbling roar as mighty a rally as anything ever could be. The Imperial horns answered him gladly as he soared past the walls and across the fields. The Thu'um echoed, and his flames came tumbling free, scourging the scattering horde in plumes of merciless flame. The sun's fury never touched him, even as it continued to paint the world in dreamy gold.
Lydia found Rayya watching, and joined her on the step. Her buckled shield clattered clumsily against her thigh as the Nord eased herself to sitting and sighed loudly, her exhaustion showing. For a moment they were silent, each woman gathering her weary thoughts and basking in the light returned. Finally, Lydia murmured, "Now will you rest?"
Rayya leaned on Lydia's shoulder until the divine firefall faded, leaving the city becalmed and the fighting distant. Then she shook her head. "Not yet. Not until I know."
The struggle was feverishly brief. Solen was himself again for only a moment, long enough to shape the Words on his tongue and hold Gendolin still. Then all was vindication and craving, and it could only be fleeting. The poison ran deep. He must be quick.
The battlement crumbled under the force of Shout and lunge combined; hunter and prey both hurtled from the rooftop, locked together once again in a spinning descent. But Gendolin never fought back, and the wounds Solen laid never sealed; when air and fire finally vanished behind the veil of dark and frigid water, suspending them in lightless depths, the final and inglorious conclusion was made.
With the sun's return had burned a Dragon's joy and a final strength, and Solen seized upon it with the fury of the beast. He ripped. He tore. He bit and clawed and rendered his most hated and despised foe unrecognizable, and in those dark and inscrutable depths he made certain that nothing remained of Sithis's final, faithful scion to ever be found.
And when the rage released him at last, and Solen blinked awake, nothing was left for him to rend. Scraps of fabric were fading to shadow on the tips of his claws, and strands of silver hair glinted bright as moonbeams as they swirled from his sight, claimed by the fathomless depths.
But it was done. It was finally done.
Solen let the threshing waves push him floundering to the surface and to the shore, though something in him continued to sink to dark and unfathomable places. He had spent himself and more; it was a wonder he managed four paces up the coast before the weight of his flesh became too much. At least the pain had left him, eased away in the ocean's chill. The warmth of the sun had become a faint and pleasant memory dwindling in his eyes as ice crusted upon his sodden fur and his muzzle pressed to the sand, leaking blood and water in swirling strands.
He thought he heard a cry of victory rising distantly on the wind, then all was soothed to stillness by the susurration of the sea, beckoning him away to farther shores.