Chapter 41
Idgrod's arrow immediately silenced the Bosmer drug distributor in the caged area. Her falling body wasn't heard over the sickly coughing of the many addicts in the cattle stalls.
The dark elf attendant came out of the back room at the far end of the hall. He saw five heavily armed warriors, one of them a Dawnguard.
He choked as Idgrod's arrow pierced his throat. It wasn't immediately deadly, but Lydia's sword was. Idgrod went upstairs to fetch Rodina, who picked the lock at the bar. Rodina entered and swept behind the bar, bringing up small bottles of addictive poison. "Tainted skooma," she pronounced after dipping in a stick and taking a cautious lick, which she immediately spit out. Even so, that little taste was enough to affect her senses. She rejected the water Lydia drew for her from a well in a side niche room. "I wouldn't drink any liquid from this place."
According to Isran, the leader of the Dawnguard, this drug den was built over the ruins of a defiled and accursed temple of Arkay. At the heart of the temple was a spring that spewed tainted water that had been cursed by the slaughter of its priests at the hands of a vampire. A once blessed spring now ran red like the blood shrines of Molag Bal.
They checked the addicts. A third were dead; their bodies withered from starvation, lack of blood, and work injuries that hadn't been treated. The still living ones also had injuries. "Mining accidents," declared Isran. A reasonable deduction from the dirt and stone chips and dust on the clothes and bodies, hands raw from unfamiliar labor with a pickaxe, and bruises around legs and shoulders from falling and tumbling rocks. There were broken bones and torn muscles, the pain red skooma dulled.
Rodina had gone into the back room behind the bar. There were bar supplies, large kegs of the drug, and a mummified draugr lying against a suspicious section of wall clear of any shelves or cluttering barrels and bags. She carefully searched the room but didn't find a trigger or keyhole. If the wall was an egress, it could only be opened on the other side.
Stalleo and a dozen of his men were also part of this raid; half patrolled above ground to capture and detain anyone coming to this place, and he and the rest would stay on this floor. Idgrod and Rodina would remain with them. Rodina would see what she could do for the still-living addicts, and Idgrod would wait by the locked exit door and alert Stalleo and his soldiers if she detected trouble coming their way.
Tariq, Isran, Lydia, and Valdimar entered the room the Dunmer attendant had come out of. It seemed just another storage room, but at the far left end of the room, blocked from view by a shelf, was an open doorway into darkness.
It felt like a large cavern. The air within reeked and was heavy with the scent and moisture of brewing skooma. Outlined by distant torches, Tariq could see giant vats on an elevated platform. Overhead, more distant lights traced out ledges and what must be a raised bridge on the right.
"No torches, no lights," he instructed Lydia and Valdimar. "Not yet. Stay here; I'm going to have a quick look around."
He tried the new spell he'd learned in Winterhold, Orum's Aquatic Escape, which enabled invisibility, underwater breathing, and night vision. The darkness receded, leaving the world in shades of strangely illuminated gray. The vats, ledges, and the bridge were bright in the stark light. He also saw a cell to the right with the unmoving bodies. Just outside the cell was a full cart of bodies for trash disposal. The smell of rot was not strong enough to overcome the skooma fumes.
He soft-stepped sunwise around the chamber to see what was past the platform and vats. Torches illuminated a shallow niche that was set up with a bed, drawers, and a cooking pot. The drug brewer napped on the bed while his meal stewed over the cooking fire. To the right was a stone and dirt hall sloping upward to the raised bridge.
He cut the druggist's throat. He looked at the cooking pot, his nose twitching at the smell of meat stewing in blood, vinegar, and chunks of vegetables. It was almost appetizing except for his certainty that the meat wasn't animal, and he was not a vampire, ghoul, or follower of the Green Pact.
Respectful apologies to Green Pact worshipers. Vegetables were not part of their diet.
"LASS NAH YIR." The immediate area was mostly clear of the living and undead, except for his team. He counted the distant lights.
He rejoined his team and put up firelight, an illumination spell taught to him by his mother. Unlike the standard magelight or candlelight, firelight was a gentler version of lower illumination power, and its light was of a gentle orange-yellow hue in contrast to the unforgiving blue-white cast of the other two spells. In truth, it was more a candlelight as the other two were akin to a large torch and a bonfire.
He first directed their attention to the cage and the bodies.
"Damn," said Isran softly as he recognized one of the bodies in the cart. He reached and touched the withered face of a mer.
"Your Bosmer friend?"
"Yes. No surprise. I didn't expect he'd be alive after all this time."
"How many out there, my thane?" asked Lydia.
He pointed up. "Only one sentry by the bridge." His arm dropped to their level. "Five on the other side." Dipped a little lower. "Six others further away." To the ground at their feet, fingers spreading wide. "A dozen down there."
"A life detection spell?" asked Isran.
"A dragon shout. It detects both living and undead."
"Can you tell the undead from the thralls?"
"No. To a dragon, anything capable of moving — living or dead — is prey to be conquered."
"Interesting."
The bridge sentry was a sword fighter thrall that Lydia handily beat.
From there, they descended to a mining area. Undead and drug-numbed slaves mined the ores, ignoring them until a skeleton and a vampire ran into the area. At the vampire's command, all the indifferent miners turned to attack Tariq and his group.
Isran cursed and thrust his left hand into the air. A swirl of golden light surrounded him. The dead shrieked and shied back from him. Valdimar used the turn undead spell, causing the low-ranked dead to flee. He then chased them to chop them down. Work-weary slaves were no challenge to Tariq or Lydia. They quickly released them from their slavery. As for the vampire, Isran shot after her with a weapon he called a "crossbow," which Tariq was sure had been designed after the arm bows of Dwemer centurion machines.
"Best thing for taking down those bloodsuckers," Isran had said. "A bow is faster, but a crossbow, once loaded, has the stopping power you need."
"Does it indeed?" said Tariq skeptically. Back in Hammerfell, he'd seen some crude attempts at making a portable personal ballista based on the wrecked remnants of a type of Dwemer centurions. Those imitations required extra rope and a winding device or used a belt around one's body and leg power to draw the bow. The Dawnguard version was smaller still and had an integrated cocking lever. It seemed to work.
The maximum draw of a wooden recurve bow for a man was, what, 80-pound draw, in the hands of an adult? At a generous guess, the steel and wood crossbow might be a 100- to 200-pound draw. The small arrows — "bolts," Isran called them — were less than half the length of a regular arrow and of lighter weight. The tips would have to be needle-sharp to compensate.
But what did he know of bows or crossbows? Maybe that modest-sized weapon did have the power to shoot through the typical leather armor some vampires wore. But even he could see it still took time and effort to cock and load, and a lunging vampire didn't give one much time. With luck, you might have one devastating shot.
They traveled through the mining area. The mining revealed old niches and skeletons, some broken crypts. At the far end of the area was a sliding rock door opening to a downward tunnel. At the bottom were two vampires and four hellhounds. Isran took the lead, casting a Restorations spell he called "Stendarr's Aura," surrounding him with energy specifically damaging the undead. The vampires and hounds shied back from the doorway when he came through.
Tariq was a step behind him. "YOL-TOOR!" Tariq shouted, and fire engulfed the creatures. Isran's hammer knocked down the two hellhounds leaping at them. Tariq darted away to attack the nearest vampire, his scimitar cleanly taking its head. He spun about, fending off the second vampire. As he knocked it back with his shield, Valdimar put two ice bolts through it before using his ax to take its head. Tariq and Valdimar also took out the remaining two hellhounds. Lydia pouted because they'd left nothing for her to kill.
They were entering the underground levels of the buried temple. Here, the sturdier build of the tombs had survived intact the earthquakes of the Third Era that had destroyed the upper levels of the temple.
There were more puddles of unnaturally red water on the floor. The hall they were traveling came to a T-intersection. At the end of the left hall was a closed iron gate. To the right, the hall appeared to terminate at a window to a sentry watch room. That little room was illuminated with a torch. There was a lever on the wall. Tariq had Lydia stand guard at the gate to alert them if enemies came from that direction.
Left of the sentry window was a wall of loosely spaced planks. Peering through the boards revealed a lower level with cages of hellhounds and two vampires talking during a lackadaisical butchering of human bodies, part for the hounds, part for the stew pot.
"Too damn bad the red water isn't real blood. Be a lot easier than bothering with a skooma den."
"Yeah. Be easier, wouldn't it? But even if vampires are immune to all the diseases drinking the water gets you, it's no better than blood-flavored water. Just slow starvation."
The sentry gate room was only accessible by wooden stairs winding up a central pillar in the room. So, kill the two vampires before they could release the hellhounds — the hellhounds could starve to death in their cages for all he cared — then up the wooden stairs and get to the sentry room to flip the lever to open the iron gate.
Isran banged on the wood. The vampires charged into the bottom of the stairway. He shot one with his crossbow. Lydia wounded the other with her bow and blessed arrows. Tariq finished it off with his sword.
Lydia shot the hellhounds, not because she felt sorry for the doglike demons, but because none of them really knew how long those things could go without eating, or worse, if they could revived from a death-like state like the vampires. Some curious but unlucky adventurer in the future could open their cages and be in for an unpleasant surprise when the withered dog corpses sprang up and ate them. Isran agreed with her, so he and Valdimar hauled the hounds and vampires in a large pile that Tariq used his fire shout to reduce to ash.
And a soft FUS to scatter the ash to every crevice in the chamber.
The opened section were burial chambers, all in decent condition. The only things prowling down here were vampires and hellhounds.
He left Lydia and Valdimar to guard Isran. Isran's favored weapons were his crossbow and long-handled warhammer. Powerful but slow weapons. Isran claimed the Dawnguard armor was created to have a strong resistance against the undead, so he was not particularly concerned with close-quarter fighting.
His plan was to bait the vampires and hounds to concentrate on him. The other three would attack from a distance at first and then close in. It was a strategy that had worked well enough for him in the past, and he doubted Skyrim vampires had any new tricks that he hadn't seen when dealing with Hammerfell vampires.
On the other hand, he had some new tricks to try. With FEIM, he ghosted past the vampires. A tossed rock caused them to bunch up as they investigated where the rock hit, and he scattered them violently with a FUS RO DAH. Lydia lunged forward to paralyze as many as she could with Serpent's Fang. Valdimar herded the scattering targets back together with ice bolts. Isran's crossbow bolts shot into the reformed mass. When he ran out of bolts, he switched to crushing skulls and chests with his hammer. Tariq, of course, had his exercise with his blessed silver scimitar.
Final chamber. Tariq confirmed a dozen fiends behind the doors. Same tactics as before.
The master vampire, Venarus Vulpin, an Imperial, almost got them with his use of the Imperial voice. The other vampires, watching their master pacify the new meat, were too slow to react when one of their prey shouted back, "TIID KLO UL," and became a golden blur from which silver light lashed out. Four were beheaded, and Vulpin, seeing their falling bodies, leaped aside and thus escaped that first rush with only a missing arm. He did not escape the second rush.
A soft "FUS" knocked Isran, Lydia, and Valdimar back, breaking the false calm of Vulpin's voice effect. They surged back, full of fighting fury.
In the chamber of the blood spring, Tariq said his prayers for the dead, though he knew it would take greater power and holiness than he had to cleanse this foul spring. The bones of the original ancient sacrifices still marinated therein. Tariq doubted even the high curates of the main temple of Arkay in Cyrodiil would have enough sanctity to purify this spring.
On a whim, he'd collected all of Vulpin's journals. Isran wasn't interested in them. The writings seemed a mix of Nede and Altmer elvish. Vulpin seemed fascinated by a particular chalice. Drawings of its various features were scattered throughout his journals. There was even a sketch of the chalice immersed in the blood spring. Tariq guessed the chalice was sacred to the vampires. He found the chalice half hidden behind a coffin. Probably rolled there during the battle and his shouting.
Past the blood spring was a small crypt room and one more door with a pull chain.
The entryway Rodina had been looking for.
The door slid open. Rodina, Idgrod, and Stalleo were waiting on the other side.
"All the addicts died when you killed the master vampire," Idgrod announced.
Tariq put Vulpin's chalice in her hands. "Anything special about this?"
"No. It's pretentious and ugly. Why? Is it supposed to be special?" After flipping through Vulpin's journals, she recommended sending the cup and journals to Mage Falion in Morthal and let him puzzle out their secrets.
"We're going to look at the blood spring. You coming?" asked Rodina.
"Not a chance," answered Idgrod, refusing to look in that direction.
Stalleo and Rodina soon came back looking pale.
The vampires had a respectable horde of wealth in their lair. Tariq was satisfied to let Stalleo claim it all in exchange for his oath to finish cleansing the ruins. As for the blood spring, Tariq wrote letters to Mage Wuunferth in Windhelm and Archimage Faralda in Winterhold advising them of the need to magically seal the ruins. He watched as Stalleo gave the letters and horses to two of his soldiers to deliver.
Rodina and Lydia, who knew the local politics, advised against immediately involving Jarl Layla Lawgiver or her court mage, Wylandria. Stalleo agreed. As a Rift noble, he was well aware of the Jarl's habit of transferring bothersome unpleasant projects to her steward or, worse, to that pushy, arrogant Black-Briar merchant. "Maven Black-Briar is the shadow jarl of The Rift," he confided. "Everyone knows she has connections with the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. As for Wylandria, the court mage, pfagh! That one only thinks about her research, but no one knows what she's researching. Nothing that has ever benefited anyone or anything in The Reach. Only makes herself useful to the Jarl and the court folk; ignores requests for help from the rest of us," Stalleo grumbled.
There was little else Tariq or Isran could help Stalleo with for dealing with The Rift's Jarl or the weeks ahead to clean up Redwater Den. Notifying Wuunferth in Windhelm would likely grant Stalleo a delay in deployment if Jarl Ulfric agreed with Wuunferth to allow Stalleo to continue overseeing the dangerous task. Isran would check back later to see if Stalleo needed any further assistance.
… … …
For the exploration of Forelhost, a Second Era fortress of the Dragon cult, Tariq decided that he would only take Valdimar. Lydia, Rodina, and Idgrod would continue onto Fort Dawnguard with Isran.
The word wall on the battlements could be seen from where they stood in the bailey. With a little effort, they could climb up and claim it without going through the haunted stronghold. But at the moment, they were listening to Valmir, a man they'd found camping there.
He was wearing a Legion uniform and saying that "the general" had given him the mission to retrieve the journal of Skorm Snow-Strider left inside Forelhost centuries ago. But as he hadn't been assigned any squad to help him, he was forced to recruit help from any adventurers he could find. As for pay, anything they found in the ruins except for the journal. This journal was written by a battalion commander chasing after Snow Elves and stumbling across this last bastion of the Dragon cult, a cult thought to have been exterminated in the Dragon Wars of the Second Era.
Tariq knew this Valmir was a disguised Stormcloak officer, and the "general" he referred to was General Galmar, not Military Governor General Tullius of the Legion. Wuunferth had told him an agent had been sent to Forelhost to retrieve the dragon mask of Rahgot, the priest who ruled from that stronghold in the Second Era. Wuunferth had also read the later war reports of Commander Skorm Snow-Strider for any mention of Forelhost. But the commander had only repeated that he'd left a journal behind to warn later followers of the dangers within the fortress.
Valmir, however, wasn't suicidal to go charging into Forelhost on his own. "I'm too important to the war effort to go myself," he'd replied when asked why he hadn't tried to retrieve the journal. Hence, this farce of recruiting random passing adventurers and naive soldiers to do the work.
"All this for a journal?" Tariq asked doubtfully.
"Yes. The general believes it's very important for the war effort."
"And the journal is all you want me to retrieve."
"Yes, yes," Valmir snapped impatiently.
"Very well. The journal," agreed Tariq with a hard smile.
Idiot. Despite all his yammering, he hadn't once bothered to ask the identities of those he was trying to recruit or predetermine their loyalties in the war.
"Have you inspected the wall up there?" Tariq asked, gesturing to the dragon word wall.
"Ah, no," answered Valmir. "As I've said, this place is quite haunted. There's a particularly violent ghost up there that immediately attacks. It's prevented me from seeing if the doors up there are locked."
"Well, I want to see that wall. And let's see if that ghost is any indication of what we'll find inside. Valdimar, help me get up there."
Valdimar boosted him up. The ghost rushed him as he struggled to get the rest of his body onto the battlements. It wore old Nord armor and wielded a claymore. The air around the blade shimmered with power. FUS! The ghost staggered back, and Tariq got to his feet. Tariq brought his silver sword up to block the ghost's downward swing. The shimmering around the claymore intensified, and Tariq felt a strange backwash. The enchantment he'd put on his sword was being reflected back to him. There was no harm in that because it was merely a blessing to repel the undead, and since he was quite alive, all he felt was a light tingling of his nerves.
The ghost was also not taking damage from the silver. Ghosts were resilient against unenchanted weapons made of iron, steel, bone, or orichalcum. Damaging weapons started with silver as the most basic weapon, then Daedric, ebony, and glass. However, enchantments enabled iron, steel, bone, and orichalcum to be effective — simple blessings or a basic fire enchantment at minimum.
Tariq didn't enchant his weapons with elemental or vampiric effects, considering them a sloping dependency leading to over-confidence and sloppy sword habits.
It was just plain stupidity to supply an enemy with powerful weapons in the unfortunate instance of defeat and one's weapons claimed by the enemy as their prize.
The ghost's claymore had a healing enchantment that wasn't a transference health drain spell. If the blade had the power to heal the wielder in battle, the ghost had no need to keep pushing the attack to drain and transfer the opponent's health. He noticed that if the ghost took damage, it was content to back off until it recovered enough to attack again.
Tariq became the aggressor, taking his silver scimitar in both hands and charging.
The ghost spear-thrust its claymore point forward.
Sweep to knock the point aside. Tariq's blade rebounded off the claymore. A turn of the wrist to slash towards the body. Score against armor over lower ribs.
The ghost stepped back and spun, its claymore aiming at Tariq's head, the only unarmored part of him.
Tariq cursed as he turned away, having his back's plate armor and left shoulder pauldron take the full impact.
His opponent was a ghost, but the weapon was not a ghost blade. The impact was real; it made a dent but failed to pass through armor and cut flesh like a ghost weapon should. The resistance spells imbued in his armor reacted against another enchantment of the claymore. But he couldn't yet discern the nature of the blade's latest feature. It didn't seem deleterious. In fact, he felt re-energized.
FEIM! Spirit to spirit. He swung, his spirit-encased scimitar passed through the claymore unhindered, and silver sliced through the ghost's armor and body as it was meant to do. The ghost shrieked and staggered back. Tariq swung again, his sword now cutting through the neck, chest, and out through a kidney.
The ghost dissolved, leaving behind its claymore in a puddle of ectoplasm.
The word collected was BAH. It felt like a powerful word. The faint tingle and taste of power as he mouthed the word reminded him of the word from High Gate Ruins in Hjaalmarch. So BAH might be a part of the Storm Call shout.
He hadn't used the soul of the Bonestrewn Crest dragon yet so that one would empower the first word of the shout. He needed another dragon soul.
He gave the claymore to Valdimar to carry. Valdimar could have it if he wanted, but his housecarl said he preferred having one hand free to cast spells with.
Going behind the word wall, they could see on the mountain opposite them the remnants of a shrine and a word wall. A sleeping dragon was perched on the wall. Had that possibly been the dragon this cult worshiped? On his map, Tariq saw that Wuunferth had marked that as Lost Tongue Overlook.
"Are you thinking of going there when done here, my thane? Just the two of us?"
"Yes. The word on this wall feels powerful. I am eager to discover its power. Once I take that dragon's soul, I will have two words of a shout that can call forth lightning from heaven and earth."
"A wide area of attack of a lightning storm? A frightening power, my thane."
The doors on the battlement were locked, and there was no keyhole, so they would have to go through the front door if he wanted Rahgot's mask.
Did he want the mask? He already had the word. But then, he had promised Wuunferth the mask for study.
Fine. Might as well purge the ancient fortress of its restless dead.
Too bad Rodina wasn't able to be here. He wondered what tale she could have spun from the dust of this tomb. After reading Snow-Strider's journal and other scraps of papers, Tariq knew that Rahgot decided upon a mass suicide when it was clear they would lose to the Nord army besieging his fortress. He made his orders, the chief of his alchemists objected, and he executed her. The order was carried out. The children were killed first, their bodies carefully wrapped and buried with armor, gems, weapons, and gold that grieving parents, destined to die later, laid them to rest with. After that, the parents destroyed as many passages as they could before poisoning all the water sources, drinking deep, and lying down to die.
Snow-Strider was horrified. His own men, thirsty from battle and from hauling rubble to get into the place, drank from the wells without thought, and so he lost more soldiers in those few hours than the weeks he'd spent besieging the place. He withdrew, not caring if Rahgot lived or not.
Tariq imagined the dragon priest lived all right. A quiet life in his ruined fortress, pretending he had a life with his undead followers, nursing his anger.
It was time this farce ended. Taking down the withered dragon priest was no greater a challenge than the paladin ghost guarding the word wall, which was good because they were tired from fighting an army of ghosts and draugr. As his Ash'abah teachers had often told him, "Let the world think us absolute bastards. Just get it done because the true ones suffering are the dead."
"High time to send you onto your next life. Live better," he told Rahgot as it turned into ash.
Ah, now Rahgot's mask was an admirable piece of quality orichalcum. Diagna, an avatar of HoonDing, smashed his fist against the HoonDing Gong and caused blades to fall from the Orichalc Tower, and with these blades, waged a rebellion against the Sinistral Elves. Later, Diagna became a god in his own right, the Orichalc God of the Sideways Blade.
He would let Wuunferth study the mask, but he would eventually reclaim it. This mask called to him, and he would make it part of a helmet. Perhaps he would craft the rest of the helmet in singersteel. The Sinistral Elves liked that metal alloy of nine parts steel to one part orichalcum. He wondered if the Companions and Gray-Mane would allow him to use the Skyforge again. Gray-Mane only used the finest quality steel — the best he could buy from WarMaiden, who was very particular about the ores she smelted. Or should he use Dwemer brass to match his armor? Was it possible to substitute brass for steel? He should consult with Adrianne about that. She'd probably never seen singersteel, and he wasn't sure he could make an ingot for her. He'd always worked with ingots made by other masters. But if he had to sacrifice an example for her study, he did have a knife made of singersteel that she could melt down for experiments.
In the meantime, he could at least starting thinking about helmet styles to match his Dwemer armor.
They exited the great doors of Rahgot's chamber. As they walked to the word wall, they could see the Valmir — this time in a Stormcloak officer's armor — roping in a Stormcloak soldier pawn to explore the ruins for him. Faithless fool. Couldn't even wait a couple of days to see if they'd survived the exploration.
The Stormcloak pawn spotted them first and pointed. Valmir looked up and saw Tariq and Valdimar grinning down at him. "Oh. Uh… Wait. I can explain."
Tariq threw Snow-Strider's journal at him, hitting him on the chest.
"Here's the journal of Skorm Snow-Strider,'" Tariq said, adding mockingly, "You may inform the general that the Dragonborn has claimed the mask of Rahgot. You may furthermore express my continued admiration of his scholarly research to locate ancient treasures of the past."
… … …
Tariq noticed that dragon shrines and temples had these dragon-headed buttresses. He'd also noticed those were quite useful when fighting dragons. Standing on the small platform covered by the dragon-head sculpture created an area that protected an archer or mage from a dragon's attack. Dragons preferred to attack from a greater height, so the platform was designed to foil that maneuver. He'd place Valdimar in that protected area. Valdimar's job was to harass the dragon with ice bolts.
Now, if a dragon landed and shouted from below, Valdimar wouldn't survive since the stone dragon sculpture would work against him by collecting and reflecting the dragon's fire breath to the area it had protected.
But if the dragon landed, it would be facing Tariq, who was lounging against a pillar convenient to duck behind to avoid the shouts if the dragon made another swooping attack. It had tried twice. Each time, Tariq replied with the Force shout. Tariq wished he knew the insults to incite the lizard to face him on the ground. Right now, all he could do was wave his sword.
Or maybe he should sketch the outline of a children's hop-and-jump game in the dirt and play it to taunt the dragon of its incompetency?
Hm, there was that coil of thief's rope on his belt. It was a bit lightweight for rope skipping. He could also do that, although rope-skipping in full armor was unnecessarily tiring when he was waiting to fight a dragon.
Balance exercises it was then. He hopped onto a rounded section of a fallen column to begin warm-up stretching to test his initial balance. As he became more confident, he drew the ghost sword from Forelhost. Although the Atmoran greatsword wasn't his preferred blade style, it was worth testing. He practiced the new forms he'd learned from the Eldergleam while familiarizing himself with the blade's weight and the feel of its shape.
Really. The footwork the Eldergleam taught him with its thrashing roots was meant for uncertain surfaces. Reviewing, practicing, and revising the notes made in the Sanctuary would one day make a fascinating book to add to the discipline of the swordsingers. Yes, "Dance of the Flowers" would be its title. Many will laugh at the title. Let them. In the end, on any battlefield, the winners are the flowers.
The dragon's pride drove it to exhaust itself against Valdimar's relentless attacks. It should have fled. Instead, it landed.
Tariq glanced over to Valdimar. He could see the man was exhausted from spellcasting. He was struggling to stay on his feet and hold up his ax. Tariq waved him down.
He leaped off the pillar and ran towards the lizard. It heaved a stream of fire at him. He held the blade crosswise before him as he'd seen the ghost do. Most of the fire was deflected, and he felt the fire's heat was lesser even before the anti-fire spell on his armor reacted.
Wide swings, power swings to fend off the lunging head of the dragon. With a foe this big and powerful, subtlety was not advantageous.
He kept an eye on the dragon's breathing. Dragons had shorter time between shouts — at least with the elemental shouts they used against him. So far, he hadn't noticed them using anything other than fire, ice, and life-drain shouts. Alduin at Helgen called down a meteor storm, but none of the lesser dragons he'd battled since then demonstrated such power.
"TIID KLO!" he growled — slow time — and used the extra minutes to run, slice the lizard's wing membranes, and duck into the gap between the word wall and the mountainside to wait out the dragon's enraged thrashing and fire. When that was done, he left hiding to run up the dragon's back, an impossible feat without the slow-time effect and the Eldergleam's dancing lessons.
The underside of a dragon was a weakness, as it was in all creatures. The dragon realized that at least. Going for the belly would be suicide. There was no time to wait to use another shout. His best chance was to get a blade into the dragon's neck. The ideal would be the base of its skull, but even in slow time, the neck was moving too much for him to travel it. Halfway up was his best target, just past the massive wing muscles.
He pulled his flyssa out. The straight and narrow was his best choice to stab under the scales and pierce the neck muscles. He'd found a blacksmith's hammer in Forelhost. One, two, three blows, driving the flyssa to the hilt, almost through the neck.
Time snapped back to normal. He was flung off and crashed against the word wall. He scrambled desperately away from the snapping jaws. He got back behind the wall and waited to be able to shout again.
Slow time again, and again he ran up the dragon's back. Valdimar helped this time by using Rahgot's staff to create a barrier of lightning at the dragon's front feet with Rahgot's staff. It was too angry at Valdimar to pay attention to Tariq.
Tariq lunged, grabbed the flyssa's hilt, and poured all the magicka he had into the sparks spell. A novice-level spell, the prelude to lightning.
A steel thorn feeding lightning into the nerves of its neck. A hot blade sizzling the blood of the arteries it cut.
He was flung off again. This time he sailed over the platform and hit a cluster of trees a hundred feet down. As he climbed back up, he could hear the dragon screaming in fury and agony. As he reached the top, the dragon's soul rushed into him. Valdimar had finished roasting the dragon by concentrating all the lightning power in Rahgot's staff directly on it.
He retrieved his flyssa and sighed. He hoped there was a forge at Isran's Fort Dawnguard because the temper on his blade was ruined by the lightning.