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In your tongue, the Word simply means ‘Fire.’ It is change given form. Power at its most primal. That is the true meaning of ‘Yol.’ Suleyk. Power. You have it, as do all dov. But power is inert without action and choice. Think of this as the fire builds in your su’um, in your breath. Su’um ahrk morah. What will you burn? What will you spare?
Power. Fire. Change. The thoughts flowed through him and filled his being as he sat in the snow. All other thoughts and worldly sensations faded away until all that remained was the Thu’um. The coldness of the snow? Gone. The tightness of the chest from the thin air? Little more than an annoyance. The solid sensation of stone and rock at this spine? A hindrance, if it was felt at all. Kaius could feel the word resonating through his bones, permeating deep into his flesh like he immersing himself into a stream filled with the winter’s snow melt. It gnawed at him, twisting through and threading its way through muscles in an all too familiar way and his grasped it with his mind, feeling the coiling strength of simple meaning. This was the key to the Thu’um, the difference between a student and a master and dovahkiin and over the past weeks Kaius had learned the difference between knowing and understanding. He could speak the tongues of the dov, bend it to his will and use it like the sword at his hip or a tool, but there was a significant difference between using it and using it. And so he found himself mediating, listening, feeling and seeking that understanding. Yol was power. Yol was change. Yol was… Pain… Unbidden, a new meaning pushed into his brain and he whimpered at its caress. Pain was something that he was all too familiar with but he concentrated, pushing aside the sensation of blades slicing though his flesh, of bones breaking, arrows and bolts punching through muscle and meat and returned to the meaning, seeking understanding instead. He had a taste of power, power that was so tangible that he could almost reach out and grasp it. Every time he used the Thu’um he tasted it on his tongue, felt it in his soul and when the Greybeards had assembled and recognised him as Dovahsebrom; the Dragon of the North he had felt it physically. When they spoke the world stopped to listen and the power of their tongues shook the very Throat of the World itself. That was true power;not the strength of his body, not the skill of his sword arm, not his ability with magicka… Pain… Again unbidden, the sensation returned and this time it was with far greater force. He couldn’t resist it this time and he felt the agony of his wounds once more, compounded more by the fact that one of the draconic presences within him was also reacting to the meaning. It writhed and coiled around itself and he could feel the magicka flowing through his arm, spreading out from his fingertips and wrapping protectively around him. The magicka locked into place as a physical thing, quivering, rippling and shuddering as the yol pushed down so hard onto it that blood began to drip from his nose. It was too powerful, too mighty. The dragon’s breath was swirling and rippling as a physical force and despite the sheer willpower that he pushed into the ward and despite the might of vampire lending its aid it still cracked and a sliver splintered away. No bigger than the shaft of an arrow, the tiny chink in the magical ward was enough to allow the passage of the yol… of the fire… of the pain… The dragon’s breath spurted through the tiniest of gaps in the ward and splattered about in tiny droplets as though it was a liquid… thing instead of fire. Like a geyser pressurised from the depths, or the terrible majesty of Red Mountain opening its throat and roaring, the hole’s effects were immediate. The fire splattered over his chest and leg, taking to the armour and clothing like a ravenous swarm of slaughterfish and leaving nothing behind. Daedroth scales were seared away, the enchantments binding them in Nirn evaporating and boiling into nothingness. Moonstone chainlinks turned to liquid and soaked through clothes even as it burned the fabric, boiling skin and muscle and stripping the flesh away until the whiteness of bones were revealed. From chest to knee the dragonfire rippled and sprayed, forcing him to kneel smelling his burnt flesh and roasted marrow, feeling the way the metal began solidifying into his body even as it burned into steam from the heat. If it wasn’t for the rock he was sitting against, Kaius would have fallen backward and pitched himself into the snow. Instead he writhed, twisting for a moment and opening his eyes even as he began sucking in the thin mountaintop air in a vain attempt to regain control over himself. Both hands were clutching at his side and even though he could feel nothing under the layers of furs and armour he wore, there was still the residual sensation of burning flesh crawling up his side. “Talos’ balls.” He swore, twisting and resting his head against the rock at his spine and trying hard not to shake. The memory of the pain would be with him for the rest of his existence, but it had been close to two hundred years since he had experienced such agony. Nearby, the enormous being watching his reaction shifted slightly, with all the strength and power of a tectonic plate. “Your understanding is… different Dovahkiin.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kaius watched his companion wearily and sighed loud enough to be heard over the wind whipping over the mountain. “You could say that.” “What did you feel?” “Pain.” Kaius said simply, one hand still unconsciously pressed into his side. “Agony.” Rumbling both with amusement and with his sheer size, Paarthurnax shifted over the ground with all the strength and might of a storm. His clawtips, their lengths similar to the broadsword in its scabbard on Kaius’ hip sunk into the ground as the dragon came to rest a few meters in front of Kaius. “Faaz is not something I would expect from Yol.” “Trust me, it wasn’t something I was expecting either.” “Was it emotion? Or Vahrukt… Memory?” Kaius fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes. There was a flash of light, the slight shimmering of a ward in his mind’s eye before it was drowned in fire. “A memory. Of a long time ago.” Paarthurnax shifted his weight, folding his wings back and both sets of claws under his serpentine neck. Somehow, another understanding within him allowed Kaius to simply know that this was the dragon’s equivalent way of sitting cross legged like Kaius was. “A lingrah time for you is not the same as a lingrah time for me Dovahkiin. You are old for a joor, a mortal… but then, you aren’t really joor… are you?” The chuckle from the great wyrm was so deep that it was ultrasonic, causing the snow under its enormous chest to shudder slightly. For most men and mer it would have been inaudible, impossible to hear but all too easy to feel instead. In normal beings it would have invoked involuntary feelings of dread but Kaius, with his vampiric hearing was able to hear it for what it was. “There are days I don’t really know what I am.” Shaking his head, the ancient dragon looked at Kaius with both eyes. “Have you experienced power before? True suleyk?” “Yes. When I fed upon one of your siblings.” “Our sibling. You are dovah now whether you were born as one or not.” Nodding, Kaius took a deep breath, taking great effort to place both hands on his knees rather than keeping them pressed into his side from the memories. “Hahdrimrii was a dragon of the deep, living in the Underdark… what you would know as the Mingolt…” Receiving a rumble of acknowledgement in return, Kaius continued, trying to keep the memory of the burns away from the pain that was attached to them. “Viconia and I had travelled back to the Underdark with the intention of defeating Lloth; the Spider Goddess but we couldn’t simply face her down and hope to win. We had to remove her allies first.” “And Hahdrimrii was one of them?” Kaius nodded again. “Yes. Her key ally. Hahdrimrii wasn’t the only deep dragon affiliated with the Drow and Menzoberranzan but he was the most important. It was he who had taught Lloth how to claim the power of souls and blood to empower herself. While she was no longer truly in need of assistance from him we couldn’t take the chance.” “But you slew him.” “Not before he nearly killed me.” The agony returned and Kaius couldn’t help but close his eyes. The thoughts, the memories and the sensation of burning and charred flesh returned with full force and he groaned. Shifting towards the front of his mind, the draconic presence pushed the sensations further into him and he remembered. Rich, roasted pork, bitter burnt marrow and the metallic tang of molten steel and metal caught in the back of the throat and Kaius knew that not all of the air entering his lungs was via his nose and mouth. The entire right side of his body from armpit to knee was laid bare and he struggle to walk, let alone stand with a portion of his body ruined by the fire. The ward had finally cracked but had thankfully only done so once the last dying breath of the dragon had ceased. Any sooner and he would have been nothing more than powder and dust, perhaps noting more than a shadow burned into the rocky floor. As it was his body was ruined, his chest and abdomen roasted and significant portions of his flesh blackened and raw. Several ribs were open to the air, the fire burning through his side so deeply that a kidney had been boiled in his own melted fat and a lung had a hole between two ribs that he could suck air through. His right leg was useless and dragging and despite the agony he somehow managed to hop those few paces forward before falling flat on his face. Less than a metre away the gigantic beast he had come to slay lay in the broken masonry and dirt of the ancient ruins. Incalculably deep in the earth and within the bounds of what he had been told was the ‘Middledark’, many of the abandoned and lost cities had been without inhabitants for an incalculable length of time. This ruin had been the dragon’s home, and now it was going to be its tomb. And potentially Kaius’ as he rolled to his side with a scream of soul-rending agony. The burns had left him almost entirely crippled and it was only through a combination of will, and a significant amount of vampiric instinct that kept him going. Lesser men and mer would have already fallen comatose or even died from the shock, but the same corrupted will that had kept him going through the Oblivion Crisis drove him further on. Blood, ankle deep in places flowed sluggishly around the creature as it lay and panted its last breaths away, and Kaius was sitting in a pool of it as he propped himself up against the dragon’s side. Pain would flow through him as he was jostled by the ragged breaths it was sucking in, but neither of them was in any condition to do much else. They were both dying, but Hahdrimrii was beating Kaius in that particular race. The Light of Dawn was stuck in the floor a few meters away, the peerless edge that had allowed Kaius to slice entire hunks of flesh from the dragon had also ensured that when he dropped it, it sunk to the hilt in stone as though it was butter. Where he was sitting, a massive wound was clearly visible in the dragon’s side, blood pulsating in a steady stream that was slowly growing weaker. Shifting and cracking its way to the surface the vampire took over like it had done several times over the previous decades. Jawbone split and elongated, teeth slid out of gums and tapered to points and muscles swelled with unnatural power. If the dragon felt the way that the vampire sunk its claws into its flank to haul itself along it didn’t respond, having lost too much blood and suffered too much damage to react. With only one hand the vampire pulled itself upright, digging claws to the knuckle in grey reptilian flesh and dragging itself up. Even as the vampire slumped from exhaustion and weakness it managed to press its face into the open wound and latch onto a leathery vein with a distended jaw, biting down hard and beginning to feed. Kaius was never certain how much time had passed as he fed on the dragon. Time in the Underdark had no meaning, and unlike the blood of mortals or even animals the blood of the dragon did not seem to fill his belly. He had drunk and drunk and drunk until he thought that he would burst, and yet he didn’t. Somehow there had always been more space for the blood to flow and like a human sized leech or parasite he had simply hung on, bit down with his jaw and sucked the creature’s life-force down. By the time that he had finished there was nothing left. He had never been able to understand how he had managed to drink the blood from a creature dozens of times his own size or the fact that by the time he had pulled away from its desiccated husk that even the blood on the floor had disappeared as though it had never existed. All that was left of his success was the skeletal bones of the creature propping up the leathery scales and skin like a crude tent, the flesh withering and turning to dust right before his eyes. To a vampire all blood was power, but the dragon’s blood was something else entirely. It had filled him, sustained him and had even healed him to some degree. While not entirely whole and playing host to a new collection of scars that ran from armpit to knee he felt stronger, faster and more powerful than ever before. Shaking the thoughts away, Kaius sat uncomfortably in the snow, trying not to meet Paarthurnax’s gaze. “You have tasted yol; tasted true suleyk. In a way you were always dovah, or at least understood what it is to be one.” He again shifted his enormous weight and lowered his head down almost to the same height as Kaius. “You have experienced lifetimes of pain. It weighs up on you and you are troubled as a result.” Kaius couldn’t help but laugh, smiling bitterly to the giant creature before him. “Troubled? I’m always troubled.” “Geh, but the faaz you feel is not of your mortal injuries, but injuries to your zii… Your spirit. These wounds do not heal as others do.” “They are also a lot more recent.” Kaius replied simply.
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Two months earlier
Thalmor Embassy
Hjallmarch
The party, as most parties did at first glance seemed to be going well. The attendees were mingling, the host was practically twirling around the room in an effort to meet and greet each and every person within and the food and alcohol were plentiful. Dreugh caviar, sautéed kwama meat and more traditional local dishes such as steamed mudcrab and kroppkakor; potato dumplings stuffed with pork, onions and spices could be seen across every platter in sight. There were dozens of other dishes that Kaius couldn’t identify but more than enough that he could. Wines of every variety, from such vintages that merely opening the bottles reduced their worth by hundreds of gold septims and it amused him immensely to see that most of those present were choosing to drink mead instead. Jarls, thanes, dignitaries, merchant-princes, representatives of the East Empire Trading Company and even the High Queen herself were in attendance and Kaius could barely step in any one direction without bumping into one of the most powerful individuals in Skyrim and the Empire. Most he didn’t know but others were all too recognisable. Closest to the door as though he was seeking an early escape was General Tullius standing in his full ceremonial armour polished to a mirror shine. The old soldier and Imperial commander was showing nothing but disdain at being present but was taking obvious solace in the fact that his grizzled subordinate Legate Rikke was there with him. Jarl Balgruuf was making the rounds after his arrival with Kaius, talking to everyone and anyone in the process and showing considerable skill in ensuring that he didn’t spend too much time with the representatives of either the Empire or the Dominion, or any of the dignitaries whose political leanings were more Stormcloak. Kaius caught a glance from the hard faced woman standing in the corner, a glance that had quickly measured him, judged him and had moved on satisfied at what she had seen. There was nothing emotional or sexual to the look but instead had been as businesslike as a trader’s weighing of gold pieces. She at least he knew by reputation alone, but then again there were few who didn’t know of the Black-Briars or their matron. Ingrod Ravencrone was there leaning heavily against a cane carved from a gnarled oaken branch and fingers slowly circling the raven skull that had been carved into the grip. When their eyes met as he casually moved past there was a gleam of amusement in the clouding eyes of the Jarl, a brief nod from her and the faintest hints of a smile at a joke that only she seemed to know or understand. Almost everyone of any position or authority within the province was present, and he was able to quickly see that other than Jarl Ulfric and the Thanes of his particular hold were about the only few that couldn’t be counted among the guests. Not that he could personally blame them for not attending, even if they had been in the position to be invited by the Thalmor. The conflict between the Stormcloak and the Imperial factions was waxing and waning over the previous months and the only thing that anyone could agree on was that it wasn’t anywhere near over. He could emphasise with Ulfric’s rebellion and to put it simply it was taking all of his willpower to remain calm in the presence of so many elves. This was their headquarters, their base of operations within Skyrim and everywhere he looked there were signs of their presence. From the hanging tapestries that proclaimed all the glories of the Alinor and the Dominion to the golden armoured guards standing stiffy to attention along the walls there was no escaping the sight. If there had been any other way to gather intelligence on their activities he would have taken it instead, but Delphine had come up blank for other options. They were stuck, figuratively and in a lot of cases literally in understanding how and why dragons were returning. Moving through the press alongside one of the tables piled with platters of food, he made the show of tasting a collection of salted biscuits with scrib jelly and other unnameable substances. It proved to be enough to ignore the fact that he was suddenly standing less than two metres away from the nearest guard, seeing the blank, expressionless face within the helm staring forward into nothing. For a brief moment Kaius wondered if any of the guests realised or had noticed the pair of tiny razor blades hidden within the elf’s armoured collar that would cut into the guard’s throat unless they kept their posture constantly perfect. He wondered if anyone else within the room even cared. It would have been so easy to have simply killed them all, slaughtered his way through the whole lot of the damnable mer but Delphine had been right. If he or they had acted openly, any notes, details or reports about dragons and potential influence from the Aldmeri Domion would be gone in puffs of magical smoke. This required steady nerves, the will to succeed and, Kaius admitted, a lot of balls to stroll into the troll’s lair. Killing them would have been easy no matter how he tried to ignore the desire. His pulse was racing at the thought, the simple idea of siding up close to the nearest guard under the guise of leaning against the wall with a plate of scrib-jelly biscuits. The guard’s sword would be in his hand before anyone could blink, cutting his throat, flicking it across the room and punching his fellow off his feet. Then, he would duck across, throwing the plate, jamming the tiny knife into an eye before… “You must be Kaius Desin.” His murderous train of thought was cut off in mid flow and the strange tingling of his teeth subsided even as he revealed them in a smile. “I am.” There was no mistaking the elf standing before him. Kaius was not a small man but he still had to look up to look the Thalmor Ambassador in the eye. Elenwen was much closer to two meters tall compared to Kaius’ average height but there was the strange stretched gracefulness about her that most High Elves had. “Thane of Whiterun, and the famed Dragonborn.” If there was any way that she could have injected more disdain into her voice she would have found it, instead choosing to look upon him with an expression that was more of a mask than the metal features of a dwemer automaton. “In the flesh.” Both she and the two Justiciars that were shadowing her noticed Kaius complete and utter lack of subservience and almost naked hostility, but she kept control over her emotions and expressions with absolute will. There was however a brief moment of hesitation as her eyes roamed over Kaius’ face, taking in the handful of scars that were visible. “I could swear I’ve seen you somewhere before…” she had said simply, and Kaius grimaced at the sudden and overwhelming memory.
They had been waiting, lying silently in ambush utilising a combination of magicka, illusions and good old fashioned stealth. Their armours had been dulled with soot and dust, their faces covered with various paints and neither Kaius or Astinoa had realised they were not alone until it was far too late.
The numbers of the Thalmor, combined with their magicka and sheer determination had overpowered them with minimal resistance. This resistance had still left several of their number strewn across the marble passage and more than one obviously dead. Kaius was forced to his knees in the dust and splattered blood, panting and shaking his head in the vain attempt to clear the ringing in his ears and the dullness from the spells that had struck him. The agents of the Aldmeri Dominion had not taken any chances in their capture and the sheer quantity and potency of the spells they had used had left him tasting copper and feeling nothing but pins and needles throughout his body. It was obvious that they wanted them alive, but for what purpose he couldn’t fathom. Dressed in little more than his tunic, pants and boots there was little to set him apart from the thousands of other citizens of the Imperial City, but unlike the rest of the city’s population he and Astinoa had been captured in one of the few places not recently tread by mortals. In fact, the passages that they were now forced to kneel before their captors within had not felt the presence of the living in close to two centuries, and one of the last who had travelled this way through the bowels of the Imperial City had been Kaius himself. If it wasn’t for the fact that after nearly four years of warfare the armies of the Aldmeri Dominion had finally sieged the Imperial City, he would have taken a different path. Instead he had led them right into a trap. This thought that the passage wasn’t a secret was troubling him more than the fact that he had been captured. No one else was supposed know of the passage leading from that particular cell within the prison, and in fact the only other people to have known of the passage had been dead for a hundred and fifty years. It was meant to be secure, but just as it had proven so with the death of Uriel Septim VII, such security was a fleeting hope. The agents of the Aldmeri Dominion had come prepared and not just in the execution of the ambush. Chains of mithril and plated silver bound his arms and legs tightly, each length being held by a trio of elves as they held him kneeling and yet spreadeagled on the floor. Between the twelve armoured elves holding him and the thirteenth wrapping another length around his throat that left his flesh sizzling, they were obviously not taking any chances. “And so the dutiful guardian delivers our prize right into our hands. It is very considerate of such a champion of the Medes.” Unable to turn his head and feeling nothing but pain as the silver on the chains began burning into his wrists, throat and ankles, Kaius was unable to do anything but keep his eyes locked on Astinoa. She was being held securely just as he was, but unlike himself she was not bound by silver. It was the only bright light of hope within the darkness of the catacombs as another Altmer made his presence known. “The Black Blade…” the newcomer hissed through clenched teeth, moving around and into Kaius’ sight. “I have to admit that I was expecting you to put up more of a fight with a reputation such as yours. However, you and your reputation will end here.” Standing to the side with blade drawn, one of the other elves bowed to the newcomer with obvious trepidation. “Lord Naarifin, the Emperor was not with him.” Face snarling in rage, the towering High Elf turned his attention to the commander who flinched away. “Not with him? Where is he?” snapping back to Kaius, Naarifin almost growled with his rage. “Where is the Emperor? Where is Mede?” With blood dripping down over his chin from the shield that had struck him in the face, Kaius couldn’t help but chuckle, spitting a couple of broken teeth onto the ground. “Titus? With any luck cutting his way through your forces with his Legions.” “Then why aren’t you at his side? Surely the great Emperor Mede needs his champion.” Kaius said nothing, smiling instead through broken teeth stained pink with blood. “Who is this?” The question brooked no insubordination, but the tone and indignation that was building within the Altmer commander was struggling to be held at bay. The gesture directed at Astinoa did not go unnoticed by Kaius or any of the agents present and there was a moment’s hesitation from them all. Mostly hidden behind her helm and armour, Elenwen may have been thirty years younger but there was still a hardness to her that existed even before the war. From her position alongside her lord she stepped forward slightly, gesturing to the elf standing behind Astinoa’s kneeling form who immediately pulled her head back by the hair. “Astinoa Desin my lord. His daughter.” The rage that was building within Lord Naarifin had almost reached its breaking point and there was no doubt in the minds of those present that he was struggling for control. He had personally come into the catacombs with the intention of personally taking the Emperor prisoner, but had taken the Emperor’s bodyguard and daughter instead. Embarrassment and insult had replaced gloating victory, and he had unintentionally been made to appear a fool. All of the emotions he had been struggling to keep in check consumed him and he twisted away, his robes billowing about. “Kill her and deliver this… this… filth to Reive for a more appropriate punishment.” Standing before the huddled group of Thalmor agents Elenwen had paused for a moment, sparing a glance to both Kaius and his daughter before turning and following her Lord and commander out of the catacombs. The echoing footsteps faded into the darkness and left the several dozen Altmer looking between themselves in an uneasy confusion. With a trio of Thalmor dragging on the silver plated chains wrapped around each limb, there was little he could do but he still resisted. Swearing, grunting and beginning to sweat under the strain the four groups of elves did all they could to lock their feet into the floor and keep him from breaking free. None of others wanted to be the first to obey their Lord’s command until their commander stepped forward, dragging Sunchild’s gore streaked edge from the pool of blood that it had fallen during the fight. Roaring with pain and determination, Kaius put so much effort into breaking free that other elves had to move in and take hold of the chains. It took sixteen of their number to hold him as their senior Justiciar moved around behind Astinoa, gripping Kaius’ own blade in both hands and looking down on the writhing woman. “Father.” The single word cut through his building fury and all of his struggling ceased. Less than four metres separated them, but it may as well have been the entire Niben Bay for all that it mattered. Their eyes met, and he stared into the wolf-yellow irises that had always reminded him of her mother. No tears could be seen, but there was sorrow enough and Kaius could do nothing but watch as the Thalmor took his daughter away from him. Sunchild’s tip punched through spine and ribs, cutting deeply and tasting blood as it sought out her heart. For a second Astinoa squirmed on the blade, her mouth opened in a silent scream, fangs clearly visible even as she began to burn and immolate from within. It was over in seconds, leaving little more than a sorry looking pile of bones and ash resting amongst the dust and gore. She was gone, dead and the collection of Altmer holding Kaius’ chains felt him slump with the full weight of failure. Wiping the immaculate Ayleid blade clean on a pure silk handkerchief, the Justiciar had paused to admire the weapon that had taken Astinoa’s life, grinning and turning to his fellows in triumph. “Now, take this one away as Lord Naarfin wanted. Reive awaits…” He paused in mid breath, looking down upon Kaius in growing horror as he saw himself reflected in blackened, soulless pits of eyes. There was no humanity left within his features, the bones of his skull restructuring and teeth erupting out of his gums and growing long and pointed. As Kaius changed before their very eyes to the sounds of his screaming anguish, they all soon discovered that they had only brought just enough agents for success. Before they managed to beat him unconscious through a combination of a magicka and blows from their weapons, fists and feet, eleven of their number had their souls sent screaming into Aetherius. Kaius looked into Elenwen’s with his own, true eyes and simply took a mouthful of brandy from the glass he had been carrying since he arrived. There was none of the renewed anger, guilt or grief he felt showing to anyone in the room, and to the Thalmor worthies he only seemed insubordinate and disgustingly cheerful. “I have a recognisable face these days. I’ve found such fame comes with slaying dragons.” Elenwen didn’t seem convinced and regarded him with her usual cold, aloof attitude. “Oh? Well how many of the serpents have you slain thus far?” The smile he wore was about one percent respect and ninety-nine percent challenge. “Three. Hahdrimrii, Mirmulnir and Sahloknir.” One of her shadowing aides scoffed under his breath in a way that would have been inaudible if not for Kaius’ vampiric hearing. Elenwen’s face threatened to crack into a smile and there was a hint of her eyebrows raising. “Really? That’s far more than I think anyone would expect a char to accomplish. Tell me; do you make a point of remembering the names of your enemies?” “Only those who have proven themselves worthy… Madame Ambassador.” The implied statement and underlying insult was not lost to any of them and there was an almost imperceptible flush begin to work its way up from her high necked collar and darken her golden flesh. Kaius knew that at that moment there was nothing she wished more than to call to the nearby guards to place manacles around his wrists and take him away for ‘re-education’ but his title as Thane of Whiterun stayed her hand. “Madame Ambassador, I’m so sorry to interrupt…” Somehow managing to give the illusion of rolling her eyes without them ever leaving Kaius’, it was also obvious that she had resisted the urge to sigh. “What is it Malborn?” “It’s just that we’ve run out of the Alto Wine.” Said the shorter wood elf who had approached during their conversation, bowing at the waist as he did so. “Do I have your permission to uncork the Arenthia red…” “Of course.” She snapped, dragging her attention away from Kaius and giving Malborn the slightest of glances. “I’ve told you before not to bother me with such trifles.” “Yes. Madame Ambassador.” “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.” She said, returning her attentions to Kaius for the moment. “Please, help yourself to more wine. The hospitality of the Thalmor Embassy is at your service…” Twirling away and leaving Kaius standing there bemused with Malborn by his side. “Y’ffre damn you Kaius,” Malborn hissed as he went through the motions of providing Kaius with a fresh glass of Brandy. “I thought that you were going to be discreet.” “I am being discreet.” Grinning while taking a mouthful of the Brandy he gave Malborn a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I haven’t killed anyone yet.” The silence between them was solid enough to cut with a knife for a few moments before the Bosmer spy looked at the way the guards began shifting away from the walls towards one of the guests who had obviously had far too much to drink. “Let’s hope we both live through this day.” “Your confidence is inspiring.” With a smooth motion, Kaius drank the last of the expensive brandy in a single gulp. “I suppose that we better go check the wine cellar though, it seems you have run out of this particular vintage…”
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As he had over the short weeks since Kaius had begun scaling to the very peak of the mountain in the mornings, Paarthurnax had sat silently, listening as patiently as the mountain itself until the story was finished. They had spent the first few days talking about anything and everything that could even remotely stem from Kaius’ search for Dragonrend, and the ancient dragon was extremely learned. Kaius had been the first in over a century to have made his way to the very tip of the Throat of the World and the reclusive dragon had been a gracious, if information starved host. There was only the tiniest hint of moisture in Kaius’ eye, moisture that could have easily been explained away by the buffeting winds and the freezing temperatures on the peak, but dragon or not there was no mistaking the raw emotions that had bubbled to the surface of the man before it. Kaius watched as Paarthurnax lifted his enormous head, turned and sinuously twisted himself around one of the jagged outcroppings of rock that were scattered about the peak. He had seen snakes in southern Cyrodiil with less grace and ability to what the ancient dragon had shown as he coiled around the rocks, wrapping his tail and wings around them and hiding them from view. “The death of Fron, of children is an alien concept, unfathomable and unknowable to the dov. We can taste regret and understand sorrow, but it is not in the same way as joor do.” He tried and failed to hide the snort and the corner of his mouth curled upwards. “There appear to be many concepts that dragons seem incapable of comprehending.” The horned and scaled head nodded. “Vahzen. This is true. Mortality and family nid, but we understand loss and suffering well enough.” Slowly, like the beginnings of an avalanche Paarthurnax lowered his head and angled it towards Kaius in interest. “Do you know why I live here, at the peak of the Monahven… what you name Throat of the World?” “Dragons and mountains have always been synonymous with each other. I guess you could have been the beginning of such legends and stories.” “Legends and stories are merely facts wrapped in fabrication. This is the most sacred mountain in Skyrim. Zok revak strunmah. The great mountain of the world. Here the ancient Tongues; the first mortal masters of the voice brought Alduin to battle and defeated him.” “With Dragonrend.” Kaius murmured quietly, but not so quietly that the enormous creature couldn’t hear him. “Yes and no. Viik nuz ni kron. Alduin was not truly defeated. If he was, you would not be here with me, studying, learning, seeking to… defeat him. The Nords of those days used the Dragonrend Thu’um to cripple Alduin, but this was not enough. Ok mulaag unslaad. It was the Kel… The Elder Scroll. They used it to… cast him adrift on the currents of Time.” “They sent him forward in time?” The enormous head twitched and his wings fluttered and Kaius knew this was equivalent to a shrug. “Not intentionally. Some hoped he would be gone forever, forever lost. Meyye. I knew better. Tiid bo Amativ. Time flows ever onward. One day he would surface, which is why I have lived here. For thousands of mortal years I have waited. I knew where he would emerge but not when.” Paarthurnax lowered his head until it rested on top of the stones and Kaius followed his eyes upwards, where the sky was crystal clear. Even after a week and a half of studying and meditating with the dragon it always struck him how blue and perfect the sky was at the mountaintop. “The dov are children of Akatosh, that we are specially… attuned to the flow of Time. Perhaps also uniquely vulnerable. I warned them against such a rash action as even I could not foresee its consequences. Nust ni hon. They would not listen.” “They? Who’s they?” The pupils were slitted and thin and both looked at Kaius for a moment. “Wuth fadonne… my friends… Hakon, Gormlauth, Felldir.” Kaius felt the rumbling sigh that billowed out of Paarthurnax’s chest like a hurricane. “They were the first, the first mortals that I taught the Thu’um and the very first of the Nordic Tongues. They were mighty in their day, leaders of the rebellion against Alduin but to attempt to defeat him… sahrot hunne. The Nords have had many heroes since, but none greater.” Sitting in silence Kaius watched the dragon carefully, feeling and seeing a similar pain within the ancient being as what he had felt for the better part of three decades. “You miss them.” “Geh. I do and I have for a long time. There is no afterlife for the dov, and death… true death is an impossibility. Our… physical bodies may wither and be slain but our Rii, our essence lives on. There is no afterlife waiting for us, no new world or endless halls to allow us to exist until the end of the dream. Whether we soar through the skies or lay dormant in the ground as bones we exist.” The expression of understanding must have been readable on his face as Paarthurnax glanced at him again and nodded. “You understand that I will never see my friends again and what fate awaits us dov. When we die against another of our kind whether they be dovah or dovahkiin we become them, joining together as one. You have consumed three of our brothers in your time, and you know this intimately.” For a moment Kaius could feel the strange squirming sensation within the depths of his being. He couldn’t describe or hope to understand the sensation but he somehow knew he could feel the dragons within him. “In a way I suppose it is satisfying to know what fate awaits you when you die. A long time ago I knew that when I died my spirit would find its way to Aetherius, but I am no longer certain. Will I be trapped forever within Coldharbour to be a plaything for Molag Bal because of my vampirism? Or will Mehrunes Dagon claim me for consuming the essence of one of his pawns? Perhaps what you say will be true in my case and I lose to one of our kind, and I become one with another dragon, perhaps Alduin himself as he consumes the world…” There was no way that Paarthurnax could mistake the way that Kaius’ gloved fists bunched together on his knees as he continued to sit in the snow. There had been days where neither of them had moved from their position from sunrise to sunset but the nervous energy that flowed through him was powerful. “You have lost friends as well as your Fron. Do any weigh upon your soul more than others?” Kaius’ nodded, his face grim.
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4E175
White Gold Tower
The Imperial City
The orb shattered into thousands of glittering pieces against the towering column, exploding and scattering across the floor as fine dust that began dissolving before their very eyes. All other movement had ceased, their shock overcoming their various injuries and the resulting pain. Priceless beyond all measure, the remains of the Orb of Vaermina flickered and returned to Oblivion once more. Tyr had stood as still as one of the statues that lined the room, smiling despite the fact that sixty centimetres of flame wreathed blade was jutting from his back. Despite Kaius’ best efforts and intentions that had made him hand over the Orb to the grinning Naarifin, the Nordic Blade had made his own choice and thrown himself on the sword that had been at his throat only a minute before. The Orb had been snatched away, flicked across the room and destroyed before anyone could react, including the towering Dremora wielding the golden katana that transfixed Tyr through the chest. The grin still didn’t fade as he slipped weakly backwards, the weapon dragging itself through flesh and muscle and Kaius moved quickly, trying and failing to catch Tyr before he thudded wetly into the floor. Their other companions looked on, aghast as his actions and nursing the various injuries the Dremora had inflicted. “You fool!” Hissed Naarifin, twisting and snarling with a face filled with hatred and rage at the creature of Oblivion standing with its sword coated in blood. “You will pay for your ineptitude!” Kaius wasn’t listening to him or whatever words growled forth from the dremora’s throat. Before he had realised what he was doing he was on his knees, cradling his friend in his arms and looking down at the terrible wound in his chest. Their mission to the Imperial City had been successful and had even been going well barring the obvious ambush by Naarifin and his daedric bodyguard. Even ignoring the small number of undead within the city’s catacombs, they had managed to infiltrate on of the most heavily fortified places in all of Tamriel but they were now paying the price. Laaneth was kneeling on the floor, her heavily tattooed face pinched in agony and turning a much lighter shade of grey as she cradled her shattered hand to her chest. Bloody froth wept down the hole in Swims-at-Night’s chest where the daedra had simply stabbed him with a dagger in passing. Even Cassia was down, her Legate’s armour not much use and being left groggy and trying to focus after being punched so hard that her helmet had been dented by the blow. Kaius had only suffered a few minor cuts and gashes from the burning edge of the golden katana that the creature wielded and it was only when Tyr had been grabbed, disarmed and the blade put to his throat that the initial fight had stopped. Now he was dying, taking it upon himself to make the sacrifice that Kaius had been unable to do. They had come to discover the way the Thalmor were tracking the Imperial forces and had discovered it in the form of the Orb, but just as Kaius had claimed it from where it had been kept the Dremora had appeared, casually defeating them and taking Tyr hostage for his master. There hadn’t been the slightest hesitation from him in handing over the Orb in exchange for Tyr’s life, but there also hadn’t been any hesitation in his friend in impaling himself on the daedric weapon to snatch the unholy artefact from Naarifin’s hands. Blood bubbled from Tyr’s throat and mouth and the cold blue eyes looked up at Kaius. They had fought together for the previous months and their friendship had grown, but Kaius could do nothing but watch as the light faded from his friend’s eyes. Even with his skill in restoration magicka there had been no way to heal such a wound. The burning weapon had seared and cauterised everything it had touched and it had also sliced through all the major arteries surrounding the Nord’s heart. His friend died, the last of his strength flooding from his body in a rush. In the moments before his heart stopped, the hand that had managed to pull the amulet from around his neck fell weakly, dropping to the floor where the sword pendant skittered a few centimetres from the limp hand. “How much failure can you withstand, hmm?” Naarifin whispered mockingly, turning the rage at the destruction of the artefact away from his minion to the man kneeling at his feet. “You may have stopped me from being able to track the Emperor and his armies, but I never needed the Orb to track you. We have been waiting for you and knew where you were in the city from the moment you arrived.” There was nothing but silence from Kaius and he didn’t even raise his head from Tyr’s body. Slowly, carefully he closed the dead Nord’s eyes, reaching and grasping the Amulet of Talos and its handmade leather loop from where it had fallen. “It was you. It has always been you. You were the one that allowed the Dominion to out manoeuvre the Legions and hunt the Emperor down. You and only you are responsible for the destruction of the Empire and all those who have died in this war.” Only now did he look up at the gloating Naarifin and the expressionless visage of the Dremora at his side. Both were much taller than he was, the Dremora especially was well over two metres in height, looking down on Kaius as though he was little more than an insect to be scraped off the bottom of his serrated, daedric boots. “You are so full of shit.” Spat Kaius, slowly raising himself to his feet and struggling to control his breathing. Behind him he could hear the muted exclamations of his comrades, but they seemed so far away. “Really? Why would I lie? Take a look at Reive here. A good look. Is there not something familiar about him? Something recognisable? You have met before.” “Yes. In the slave pits.” “Before that. Long before that.” The gnawing sensation built and grew within him. There was a familiarity about the creature that transcended anything he could understand, some kind of burning connection that defied cause or reason. The understanding did come however with the creature’s growing scowl and the smile that split it’s black, gash like lips to reveal a mouthful of needle like teeth. “You were at Kvatch.” “Yes.” It growled. The guttural, booming voice that rumbled forth from its chest having a physical quality all of its own. “After you closed the portal, Lord Dagon banished me from the clans. You stole everything from me and after all these years my revenge will be complete.” Naarifin’s pinched features twisted into a mockingly hideous smile. “If your mind wasn’t so enfeebled you would be amazed at how much information you can glean when you have access to beings with a connection such as yours. Two bodies and two souls; one of which is shared between them both. Tell me, filth… how how have you stood beside the Emperor? How many times have you been present during war councils? Meetings between members of the Elder Council and the Emperor? Discussions with the Grandmaster of the Blades the whereabouts and identities of every agent within Tamriel? How much information has reached your ears regarding everything in the Empire? Troop dispositions? Supply chains? The exact whereabouts of the Emperor? All of this and more has been heard by the Dominion thanks to the connection you two share.” Kaius’ felt his entire soul break and knew that Naarifin was speaking the truth no matter how hard he was trying to deny it. For the past four years of war he had been present at almost every meeting of the Generals and Legates and numerous times there had been discussions of how the Dominion seemed to be able to eerily predict and counter every deployment, every manoeuvrer and tactic the Legions offered. The Blades had been steadily decimated as well, hidden operatives having their cover inexplicitly blown and most had been killed outright, others like Tyr had appeared to simply vanish as they were caught in the impenetrable web of esponaige and intrigue that was the Aldmeri Dominion. He shared blood with the killer of Tyr, and he of all people knew the powers and capabilities of Blood Magicka. The deaths of so many were on his hands, and not just the untold thousands, if not millions of Imperial citizens who had died in the war. His son, his daughter had also lost their lives as a result of his daedric blood. Flicking his cloak over a shoulder Naarfin took a pair of steps away from his Dremora bodyguard, his expression hardening despite the smile at Kaius’ sudden whimper of emotion. “Put it out of its misery.” Reive’s smile grew larger until it put the hungry maw of a slaughterfish to shame but it contained a small amount of confusion as Kaius looked up at it. “If you couldn’t defeat me then,” he whispered to the being that he had first fed upon. “What makes you think you can now?” The smile remained but the golden katana, ethereal flames still licking up the peerless edge rose from where it had been pointing at Tyr’s body and pointed right into Kaius’ scowling face. “Lord Boethiah has granted me Goldbrand; her greatest weapon, to end your miserable life…” It gleamed, the edge almost keening in the expectation of bloodshed but Kaius’ eyes didn’t waver from the Dremora’s. “and to reclaim my soul.” Reive added with considerable relish. There was a flash of light as the weapon slashed at Kaius’ throat faster than the eye could follow. An arc of fire transcribed itself through the air, drawing gasps from his comrades at his back that quickly gave way to outright exclamations of surprise. Reive had been strong enough to batter his way through the group when he had first attacked, crippling and maiming them all within mere moments and as capable as Kaius had been he had been no match for it. But that was before, and now he was no longer holding back. Gleaming with sharpness, the razored edge stopped less than two hand spans from taking his head from his shoulders, thudding to a sudden and abrupt stop that none of them were expecting. Reive especially wasn’t expecting the blow to not succeed, but there had been no way to expect or prepare for the sight of Kaius catching the blade in his hand. Blood welled and pulsated from his palm but the grip he had on the burning weapon was stronger than ebony. It had come to such a sudden and abrupt stop that the Dremora didn’t know how to react and Naarifin, standing by its shoulder openly gaped as his jaw fell in complete surprise. The flames seemed to flicker for a moment and then they died, almost as though they had never existed. Standing before his opponent, eyes never wavering from the Dremora towering head and shoulders over him, Kaius’ was breathing so heavily and so quickly that he was almost panting, his nostrils flaring and the flush of anger making all his scars vivid and noticeable. “Looks like someone doesn’t have your back anymore.” He growled, his voice constricted with an overwhelming rage as the daedric enchantment on the weapon fluttered and died. Born in the depths of Oblivion and once a general in the armies of Mehrunes Dagon, Reive reacted quickly, lashing out with a fist wrapped in a razored gauntlet in an attempt to crush Kaius’ skull. It never connected. Ripping the Dremora off his feet, Kaius wrenched hard on the trapped blade in one hand and gripped the daedra by the throat with the other, pulling him forward even as his entire body rippled and changed to the absolute horror of his companions. Their own injuries and pain was lost at the sight of how Kaius’ flesh shifted and warped, his face elongating and jaw unhinging almost like a serpent as every tooth tapered to a point. His eyes shifted into darkness, veins erupting with black corruption that poured strength into his muscles and caused them to swell with power. Before anyone realised exactly what was happening It was over. Kaius had already bitten Reive’s throat away, dragging him to the floor to consume the portion of its soul that he had missed a hundred and seventy years ago.
“You consumed the deyra?”
“Yes.” Kaius nodded to the great wyrm resting upon its spire of rock. “This time I didn’t leave anything behind." “And Naarifin?” “He fled even before Reive hit the floor. He had an annoying habit of slipping away at a moment’s notice.” Carefully, feeling the stone outcrop pressing into his spine through the layers of furs Kaius breathed out heavily and watched the mist of his breath get snatched away by the wind. “It didn’t matter in the end. He had summoned what appeared to be every armed elf within the entire city and sent them at us. I know that for a while there the others had considered leaving me behind after they saw what I really am but in the end we managed to grab Tyr and flee. Don’t ask me how we managed to get out of the city and cross the northern portion of the Lake but we did. Swims-at-Night is a scaly bastard but he can perform miracles under pressure.” Gazing into the blank emptiness of the sky seemed to be strangely soothing and Kaius rested his head against the stones at his back, looking upwards with the dragon and letting his mind freely wander. “It took us two days to travel north to Bruma, being hounded by Thalmor patrols the whole way but we finally encountered a squad of Extraordinarii only a few hours away from the city. Cassia somehow convinced them that we weren’t just simple refugees but Imperial Agents and reached the Northern Legion’s camp shortly after. None of us were coping really well at this point. All I wanted to do was turn around and head back and start killing anything remotely affiliated with the Thalmor, Laaneth needed the best part of two days with the best healers the Legion had to offer to fix her hand and I know Cassia wasn’t doing as well as what she was showing. It might have been a few years before we had all met but I knew that she and Tyr had been lovers once. In the end it wasn’t her sense of duty that sent her back to her command of the 8th but her grief.” “What did you do?” “Me?” Kaius glanced at the dragon to see that Paarthurnax’s attention hadn’t wavered from him in the slightest. “After we burned Tyr’s body I went to Cloud Ruler and retrieved some of the Armour and became the Black Blade again. It was only when I came back a few days later that I found out the Dominion had tried to assassinate Titus.” “This Tyr, why does his death weigh on your more than others? You have had friends before have you not?” “I have, but Tyr and I were closer than others. After my daughter was killed I found myself thrown into the slave pens of the Imperial City and we were among those forced to fight for the amusement of the Elves. I… I lost myself. Caiden had been killed by the Thalmor before the war and then Astonia was taken. I had nothing left.” The heights of the mountain and the bitter wind froze the tears in his eyes until he managed to suppress the sorrow and the rage and grief that was rising to the surface. “I succumbed to my curse, killing without thought or mercy. There was no light or way out of the abyss that I had fallen into but Tyr managed to find me.” Kaius clenched and unclenched his hand, remembering the days when his talons had never been sheathed. “Tyr didn’t pull me back from the brink as such, I was already over the edge and within the darkness and he somehow managed to reach in, grab me and pull me back. He gave me back my humanity, made me reject the monster I had become and gave me purpose. Without him I would have still been an animal, like all those other vampires out there. He saved me and I failed him.” Silence fell between them and other than the tiny twisting movements within Paarthurnax’s tail and the steady, slow rise and fall of his enormous chest there was nothing to differentiate him from the mountain that was his home. “Dov wahlaan fah rel. We were made to dominate. The will to power is in our blood.” “I understood that particular desire even before I drank Hahdrimrii’s blood. To dominate is to be a vampire and I’ve always thought that this curse is Molag Bal’s private joke on the mortal realm.” “Onikaan ni ov dovah; it is always wise to mistrust a dovah. I have overcome my nature only through meditation and long study of the Way of the Voice. No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. Zin knif horvut se suleyk.” The great scaled head shifted down and hovered just a few metres from where Kaius sat crosslegged. Despite personally slaying three dragons it was still disconcerting just how big and agile they were, especially when it was obvious that he could be grabbed in that enormous maw and swallowed without the requirement of chewing. “I would ask you a question of whether it is better to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort but I suspect I already know your answer.” Kaius chuckled. “Am I that transparent?” The vibration of Paarthurnax’s own laugh rippled through the ground and Kaius could feel it deep in his chest. “We cannot rid ourselves of our desire to dominate, all we can do is redirect it elsewhere. When I first came to live on the mountain I did so not just to wait for Alduin’s return. Here, on the highest peak on the highest mountain in the world I could be alone, to contemplate my nature and the rotmulaag. Evenaar Bahlok. There are many hungers it is better to deny than to feed.” “The desire to dominate and enslave?” Paarthurnax nodded, slowly and carefully. “Dreh ni nahkip. Discipline against the lesser aids in qahnaar… denial of the greater. You lost control once, but were there other times where the struggle was greater? “Several times.”
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4E17
Palace District
The Imperial City
The entire city appeared to have lined the road through the heart of the Talos Plaza and Palace Districts and the roaring cheers grew so loud that the buildings themselves seemed to shake. Rose petals were floating on the breeze, and thousands upon thousands of other flowers were being added to the growing festivities. Above the sound of cheers and exclamations of the city came the steady tramping of armoured boots; a series of percussive impacts perfectly in time with each other. Kaius stood among a smaller crowd on the steps to the Imperial Palace, watching with a combination of awe, pride and nervousness at the sight of so many armed men and mer marching through the heart of the greatest city in the world. Their numbers may have been utterly dwarfed by the overwhelming crowds but there was no mistaking who or what they were. They were legionaries; still the Empire’s elite soldiers and as the pair of columns approached he couldn’t identify a single fault with any of them. Their armours were polished, their ranks perfect and each and every soldier was in time with his or her comrades. It was undeniably an impressive sight. However it was not a full Legion, and nor was it technically a legal military parade. Their commander, eschewing a horse and instead choosing to march at the very front of the Legionaries had no authority to do what he was doing besides what Kaius and the other collection of individuals around him provided. Five ranks abreast and two hundred deep, the pair of Castas numbered exactly a thousand legionaries but they still covered the better part of half a kilometre from front to rear. Many of the Legionaries had found themselves marching with rose petals fluttering away off their armours, others had found themselves dressed in hastily strung together garlands. It was indeed a far cry from the cries of doom and despair that many on the Elder Council had spent the previous weeks proclaiming when they heard of what was happening. Apparently the citizens of the Empire didn’t hold too much faith in many on the council or their proclamations. Some at least were still considered worthy rulers by the teeming masses, and most of them were present with Kaius, standing on the steps to White-Gold tower and watching as each cohort came to a ground-shattering stop in turn. “Here he comes.” Muttered one of the Counts to Kaius’ right and he turned to look at him. Count Corvus Umbranox had returned from his mysterious disappearance in the months following the Oblivion Crisis and had been one of many who had thrown his support behind the Legion commander making his way towards them. Savlian Matius, wearing the wolf’s-head heraldry of Kvatch on his white toga chuckled darkly at the sight. “Titus certainly knows how to make an entrance; I’ll give him that much. You could be forgiven for believing that he has saved the world with such a parade.” “In several ways he has.” Kaius nodded to his fellow Count and gestured to the cheering crowds that continued to push closer to the two castas of legionaries within the street. “Few alive are worthy enough to claim or be granted the Ruby Throne and Titus has proven himself more than worthy.” “The Empire would have welcomed you Kaius. Your name could have been the one being chanted.” The pangs of regret were hard to ignore but he crushed them aside with some difficulty. Of those members of the Elder Council who had chosen to remain instead of fleeing south into County Bravil, only one remained in the shadows of the Tower. Janus Hassildor looked human enough but the Count of Skingrad’s eyes glowed unnaturally in the shadows, giving him a strange, feline like appearance as he stood in the enormous doorway. “Keeping a throne warm is not for me Janus. I have enough to handle running a County. Besides that, how long do you expect I would have remained on the throne before Viconia shoved me off it?” There were a series of laughs from the assembled Counts but there was a bit of hesitation from them all. Not a single one among their number were unfamiliar with Kaius’ wife and Countess and none had any illusions to her personality. “You heard the stories that the Thulian’s have been propagating?” Corvus commented after the handful of chuckles had ceased. “Apparently our new Emperor is the ‘Bandit-King’ of Sutch and a leader of an army of outlaws?” Kaius snorted loudly and forcefully. “Terentius and his ilk have always been shit at propaganda. A bandit? That’s a fine way to describe an Imperial Tribune. I also wouldn’t like to be in their shoes if they the men of the 2nd find out they’ve been branded criminals. It doesn’t matter though. Thules is disposed, and Titus will be Emperor.” “Are we sure about this?” All the men turned and looked at Corvus and he flushed slightly. “This is hardly the time to be second-guessing your life decisions Corvus.” Count Hassildor’s voice was sharp enough to cut through silk but there was amusement within his tone. “I’m not, but we are about to make a Casta Commander the most powerful man in Tamriel. That sort of thing does warrant some level of concern.” “I trust Titus.” Kaius said, shrugging under his own red-black toga marked with his county’s heraldry and trying to ignore the murmuring sensation crawling through the core of his being. “And if it’s a choice between watching the Empire burn for the second time in twenty years or putting a legionary on the throne, I’ll pick the legionary every time.” His eyes fell back upon the armoured figure moving through the arched gateway that separated the Talos Plaza and the Palace and saw how Titus was doing his best not to limp. At forty-three years of age he wasn’t as young as he was when they met and the old injury he had sustained during the crisis had been haunting him a bit more with every passing year. As he passed out from the shadow of the gateway his eyes met Kaius’ and he smiled at the sight of one of his oldest comrades. “Come on.” Being the first to step forward, Kaius began moving down the steps to meet the soon-to-be Emperor. “Let us all go give him a crown to wear.”
“The story of Alduin’s defeat had already turned into legend when Jurgen Venzaan came to the Monahven. His Zii, like yours was broken and wounded and he was seeking answers. He had heard tales of the dragons that had turned from the tyranny of Alduin and had taught mortals the Thu’um and had climbed the mountain in his search of answers.”
“Did Wind-caller find answers?” Kaius asked Paarthurnax simply. “In his own way. He created the answer himself, and in doing so answered a question I never thought to ask. Fin Miraad do fin Thu’um; The Way of the Voice. He remained with me for days, weeks perhaps, talking and listening in return, much like we are now. Alduin’s defeat had been several centuries before his time and was already a myth but he discovered something that called to the both of us. A way to exist. A way to control ourselves and our paar; our desires. It was not I who taught him the way; it was he who showed me the path that I was already following.” “I have never lost my desire for power or to rule, and no matter how hard I may try I cannot remove it from myself. I’d be sooner able to give up my need for air. We must dominate, there is no escaping it and the only way to truly survive is to direct our efforts elsewhere.” “Where have you directed yours, dovahsos?” “Internally, within my own mind and soul and towards dominating the very curse that drives me to do so. I refuse to allow myself become an animal again, like so many others who share my curse.” The grin that slowly spread across his face was practically inhuman. “That, and I find it easier to direct it towards those who make themselves my enemy.” “Like my zeymah?” Kaius shook his head. “Alduin? His is an enemy, but not my enemy. He threatens the world and I just happen to live in it. As shit and broken as it is, I don’t want to see it come to an end.” “Then what do you do to your hokoron?” “I viik them…”
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4E175
White-Gold Tower
The Imperial City
The city was dying, bleeding and scrabbling in the masonry dust and writhing with blades dragging through its marbled flesh. Fires burned out of control, crowds pushed and shoved through the streets and nowhere could anyone escape the growing, building roar of battle. For the second time in two years the Imperial City was under attack but this time those assaulting it were seeking its salvation. Legionaries of every Legion, Casta and Cohort smashed their way through the golden armoured forces of their elvish foes, cutting and hewing through their ranks in the drive to rid the city of their presence. Not since the days that Alessia herself walked those same marble streets was there so much death and destruction within the city. Even Mehrunes Dagon when he had physically entered the city would have struggled to match the raw brutality that the Great War had spawned. Kaius rode at the head of a mass of Extraordinarii, their mighty warhorses crushing all in their path as they laid bloody waste to the defending Aldmeri forces. Dismounting and striding up the steps where he had created an Emperor a hundred and fifty-eight years before there was little to show of the man he had been so long ago. To the men and women following in his footsteps he was their Emperor, clad in the heavy gilded platemail whose silver and gold details were now hidden under copious amounts of blood. None of his flesh could be seen within the armoured suit and Kaius stared out through the tiny eye slits in the mask fashioned in the likeness of an old friend. None of those who followed him knew that the death mask was slightly inaccurate, that the facial dimensions of the first Mede Emperor were skewed. All they knew was that their current Emperor was leading them to the very heart of their enemy with the intention of carving the rotten core from the Empire. The sight that greeted them as they entered Elder Council Chambers stopped many of them in place. Even after years of countless and unimaginable death they were given pause, gasping and making signs to their various deities for their protection as they found themselves staring into the very gates of hell itself. Burning, roaring with ethereal energies, the Oblivion Portal in the very heart of the Council Chambers overwhelmed all that looked upon such an impossibility. Enormous arms of ebony and obsidian reached for the roof almost as though they sought to pull the tower down around them, and the tendrils of energy swirled and writhed with a life of their own. Only Kaius seemed unaffected, stepping through the opened doors into the tower itself and feeling the broken marble crunch underfoot. He wasn’t used to wearing such heavy armour but his vampiric strength made it feel inconsequential. On the back of the Emperor’s favourite destrier he had slain all who had dared to stand before him and the picked elite of the Legions and now only a few remained. Framed in the burning light of Oblivion, the tall, rake thin Altmer General faced him and the other intruders down. If there was any concern at the sight of the dozens of blood soaked Imperial warriors filing into the chambers he didn’t show it as he held a staff of gnarled wood into the floor. With an oblivion portal at his back, dozens of his own elite warriors between him and his foes and the dozens of atronachs bound by enchanted chains around the portal there wasn’t much for him to be concerned about. “Well, well.” Lord Naarifin called out, loud enough to be heard over the roaring of the portal and the sound of a city being torn apart by war. “The Emperor himself. Come to… What? Duel me? You think you can stop me, is that it? Fool.” Stepping away from the portal and closer to the closed ranks of his bodyguards, the expression he wore was triumphant. “Look around you! The Culling has begun. I will unleash the fires of Oblivion tonight…” The staff came down, pointing at Kaius’ chest like a knight’s lance and the smile on the Elven commander’s face grew even wider. “After I’ve added your body to the pyre!” Kaius’ response was short and immediate. Grinning through a mouthful of fangs behind the stifling mask he smashed the flat edges of Goldbrand across the front of his shield, roaring on the top of his lungs and charging right into the mass of enemies arrayed before him. The elite troops of the Aldmeri Dominion were tall, powerful and highly trained, equipped with the best moonstone and quicksilver arms and armour available and they were extremely skilful in their use. The Extraordinarii were the Empire’s equivalent and while in their ebony-steel alloy armour they were heavier and slower, they were far tougher. His shield smashed the first of the Elves from his feet, sending him staggering backwards into the second rank and making the entire centre of their formation buckle from the impact. Under the layers of gilded mail he could feel the bony protuberances twisting and rubbing against the tunic and underlying chainmail as more and more of the daedra-infused vampire came to the surface. With Goldbrand in hand he hacked left and right, cutting through elven armour and filling the air with misted gore and the screams of the dying. One elf dropped with a massive smile opened in his throat, grasping at the hideous wound even as he was kicked backwards by one of the nearest Extraordinarii. Another shrieked as his hamstring was severed by the golden katana, dropping to his knees but somehow managing to block the downwards blow a second before it would have taken his head from his shoulders. The ebony shield in Kaius’ hand smashed several teeth down the screaming elf’s throat with the impact from the blunt rim, snapping his head back against the floor just long enough for Kaius to stomp down hard on a throat. Another died as he ducked down behind his shield, twisting and flicking and throwing the charging elf over his shoulder where the sounds of stabbing and stamping could be heard as the nearby legionaries ensured his assailant wouldn’t be rising again. It was absolute carnage, men and elves screaming in pain, anger and soul destroying fear as they fought, bled and died on the polished marble floors of the chamber. For one moment Kaius saw one of the Extraordinarii kneeling down over a fallen Dominion soldier, forcing his gladius down with both hands even as the elf tried throttling him to death. Another had lost an arm in the fighting but through a combination of determination and pure adrenaline was sawing her blade back and forth across a naked throat, roaring wordlessly the whole time. One of the elves was lifted off the floor as Kaius jammed Goldbrand to the hilt in a groin, seeing nothing but whitened eyes and a shrieking mouth through the tiny slits in the mask. A second had only a moment to see death coming for them before they had been kicked away, left to scrabbling at the loops of intestine after Goldbrand sliced through armoured plate and chainmail to caress the flesh underneath. For every legionary that died, they took an elf with them but it was the same in reverse. Both sides were slaughtering each other and their bodies were soon intwined in death. Gore washed over the white tiles in torrents and made each step treacherous. Kaius was one of several who fell foul to the slippery battleground, a boot skidding in a puddle of gore as a trio of Naarifin’s elites rushed him with blades and shields. One of the double-edged moonstone swords bounced off his helm, jarring him for a moment that gave the others the chance to press their advantage. There were too many enemies and with most of his senses locked away behind the mithril mask he couldn’t fight to his full potential and found himself driven to the floor under a flurry of blows. As suddenly as the pressure of the battle had crashed down upon him, it was gone. The acrid tang of magicka caught in his throat as a bolt of pure energy crashed into one of the Elven soldiers bringing his sword up to take Kaius’ life. His lifeless body was thrown a dozen metres away, flopping to the ground at the base of the tiered seating to the side of the oblivion gate as one of his comrades dropped with a throwing dagger lodged in his throat. A hand, scaled and clawed reached down and with a strength born of decades hauling on ropes and sails it grasped Kaius’ forearm tightly. “Don’t just stand there you wet-legged bilge rats!” Swims-at-Night snarled, hissing like a caiman from the depths of Blackmarsh as he dragged Kaius to his feet. “Kill something!” The City was filled with fighting soldiers, but somehow in amongst all the chaos his friends had managed to find him. Laaneth, Swims-at-Night and Legate Cassia had all arrived, bringing with them the last surviving members of the 8th Legion. Their numbers had been decimated throughout the war and in the months since their heroic attempt to defend the Imperial City their numbers had been whittled down even more. The few that remained, barely enough to form two full cohorts were the hard bitten survivors, toughened by endless conflict and they roared as they charged into White-Gold Tower. The first signs of Naarifin’s concern began to seep through as he began directing several of the Atronachs into the fray. His elite guard were being gutted by the veteran legionaries and the handpicked elite of the Legion’s Extraordinarii and even with the ferocious might of the Atronach’s their advance was barely being slowed. His eye began to twitch, a sign that Kaius saw even through all the blood and death and the limited vision of the mask concealing his face. The panic that was gaining hold over the Elven commander was building quickly, especially when Kaius managed to shoulder his way through the last of his elites and break into the clear between them. As Kaius smashed a atronach off its burning feet and speared it through the molten wound of a mouth Naarifin grew concerned. When the swirling vortex of energy and rocks was battered aside by a shield and scattered across the floor as tumbling chunks of void salts he panicked. The Oblivion portal writhed in response to his plea for assistance against Kaius' inexorable advance through his minions. In full view of everyone present it condensed into reality and began spewing forth daedric horrors. Anyone who had lived through the Oblivion Crisis would never forget the sight of Oblivion Portals and Daedric invasions. Kaius was one of a very rare few who could count themselves among the number who still lived with such experience and even as he fended off several of the atronachs his eyes were drawn to the sight. This was Naarifin’s ultimate goal, the singular event that he had been planning and seeking to accomplish for years. Since taking the Imperial City he had been preparing for this event, summoning and binding Atronachs with increasing powerful spells and enchantments for the elemental beings to act as anchors for the wound in reality. But the keystone, the strangely simple fact of why he had chosen, why he had needed to perform this ritual in the Imperial City had been the city’s inhabitants. Kaius had experienced the power of souls and life-force, he was a walking example of what it meant to absorb another being’s energy and claim it as his own. He had also fought beings who had used such powers to enhance themselves, elevating themselves above mere mortals and striving for godhood. Lloth had been one who had used the energies of sacrifices to become a demigod but she had ultimately been cast down by Kaius and Viconia. With the atronachs prepared, a sigil stone readied and the souls and lifeforce of the Imperial City’s million inhabitants at his disposal he had all he needed to breach the barriers between Nirn and Oblivion. This was not to be some merging of the realms as what Mehrunes Dagon had sought to achieve in the two centuries prior, but a localised, stabilised and permanent gateway between the worlds. His forces, under the direction of senior Thalmor Justiciars had began The Culling; the citywide extermination of every man, woman and child. The Imperial Legions spewing onto the city streets found themselves faced with a massacre, the Thalmor striving desperately to slaughter each and every last being within the walls even as the city fell to the Imperials. Death squads were moving from door to door, killing whole families even as they found themselves faced with Legionaries. This distraction was one of the reasons why the Legions were finding themselves so successful in fighting through the city, battering their way through the scattered squads of their elven foes who were more focused on killing the innocent than the soldiers coming for them with bloodied gladii. Enough had died for the portal to splutter and disgorge daedra into the Council Chambers, and while it was sporadic and random Kaius, his companions and the legionaries soon found themselves fighting off the hordes of Oblivion. These were no Dremora though, and while humanoid they were obviously not entirely in the shape of men and mer. Grossly disproportionate, their arms and legs extended far beyond that of normal beings, the creatures had a starved, emasculated appearance that was completely at odds with how they moved. Servants of the Daedric Prince Boethiah, these creatures were Hungers and they lived up to their namesake as they began swarming the legionaries and managing to drag several down to feed. The Gate was sporadically opening and flickering, the ritual not entirely complete and in his haste Naarifin had enacted it too early, too soon for there to be enough death and spiritual energy to sustain it. With the legions pushing through the city and stopping the culling and the bound atronachs being destroyed one by one there was no longer enough to keep it open and it flickered and died completely. Kaius had been attacked by several of the foul monsters of the Daedric Prince of deceit but they were little more than irritations. The first had died as he separated its head from its shoulders, another had been left scrabbing on the floor as he took both legs away with a sweep of Goldbrand before gutting it. He kept his gaze fixed squarely on the Elven commander as he finished off the last, smashing into the circular maw of needle-fangs with his shield, and dropping his knee heavily into its throat as it thrashed on the ground. The Elf’s eyes had been darting about the room at the destruction that was being wrought within it. He watched as the Oblivion Portal finally died and collapsed into nothingness, the way the Legionaries rallied against the dual assault of Hungers and atronachs and the last of his bodyguard were brought down by Laaneth, Swims-at-Night and Cassia. It was only when the white-haired elf’s gaze locked onto Kaius and recognised the sword that he carried, that astonishment and recognition finally broke through his terrified mind. “You’re not the Emperor!” The shield clattered to the floor as Kaius strode purposefully toward Naarifin. Goldbrand too left his grasp as he flung it point first into the tiles where it stuck fast, wobbling and quivering in the air. “No.” Like he had all those other times before, Naarifin tried to flee, to turn tail and escape but there was nowhere to go, nowhere else to turn from the gauntleted fist that slammed into his abdomen. The impact drove all the air from his body and most of the contents of his stomach with it as he fell to his knees, vomiting and coughing even as Kaius grasped him by the hair and hauled him back up again. “All that you have done…” His knee rammed itself into Naarifin’s groin, drawing a pained gasp of agony from the taller elf as he tried and failed to double over in Kaius’ grip. “With everyone who has died…” The sound of a knee snapping was audible even over the sounds of the dying battle as Kaius kicked him as hard as he could. “And after everything that has happened…” Coated in blood but still obviously silver, the funeral mask of Titus Mede slammed hard into Naarifin’s face and pulped his nose. “You have still failed Naarifin…” Knee broken and in complete agony from his injuries, the elven commander fell to the floor in a puddle of his own blood and bodily fluids as he lost control of his bowels and vomited again. The expressionless mask of the first Mede Emperor looked down on him but he could still feel the rage and emotion boiling in the man behind it. Desperately pushing through the pain, he reached out and grasped his staff from where it had fallen, trying to do anything and everything to stop Kaius. An armoured boot came down so hard onto his hand gripping the staff that the two metre length of wood cracked in two and the marble tiles underneath were shattered. It took the last of his strength to pull his pulped extremity from the crater that had been left after Kaius’ overwhelmingly powerful stomp but he didn’t scream. He couldn't scream. Instead he was left looking at the bloodied mess of a hand, his mouth open and wordlessly gaping as though he had run out of pain to eject from his body. Whether he expected death no longer mattered to Kaius and he turned away from the shattered thing that had once been the commander of the Dominion forces in Cyrodiil. The elf would live, not because he had shown him mercy but because he had decided that death was not going to be punishment enough for everything that he had done. A pair of surviving Extraordinarii gathered up the insensible Naarifin at Kaius’ orders, dragging the elf away after being commanded to “Show him what an Imperial Victory looked like…” Knee deep in death and the ruins of the greatest city in Tamriel, Kaius had closed his eyes and struggled against the tears, finally glad at the fact that the stifling mask hid more than his true identity.He had survived. Again… To the roars of the battered, bloodied remains of the Imperial Legions, Kaius walked into the sun once more. He walked alongside his friends and the men and women who had fought alongside him, taking his first steps down a path of his choosing for the first time in decades. “What became of Naarifin?” The shrug spoke volumes but Kaius continued regardless. “They locked him in a gibbet and hung him from the top of White-Gold. He may be there still, I wouldn’t know. After I returned to the main camp I gave my farewell to Titus and left to be with Viconia again.” his sigh was deep and filled with pain. “She didn’t take the deaths of our children well.”
“And is that why you returned?”
Kaius shook his head and gestured to the vast expanse of the world stretching out forever around the mountain. “I spent nearly twenty years in the Underdark, and I was determined never to return to the surface. I didn’t want to nor did I have any intentions to return. There are some things however that are beyond ability and choice, and it seems that no matter what I decide I am always destined for one thing or another. It is very… tiresome in its own way.” “Hi dreh ni gahvon wah dez. To surrender or yield is not in your nature.” The echoing rumble was filled with amusement. “Perhaps we have been looking in the wrong direction. Pogaan miiraad, pogaan vahzen.” Silence fell between them and Kaius knew that Paarthurnax was deep in thought, contemplating all that he had been told. Other than the sound of the wind whipping over the peak there was only his own breathing and that of the ancient dragon's breaking the calm. “Yol is not suitable for you at this time dovahkiin. There are others perhaps that call to you more keenly. One in particular you have limited understand of but I believe it has immense potential in you.” Seeing Kaius’ interest, the dragon shifted from his perch, sliding down over it with a liquid like grace despite the way that the ground trembled from his weight. “You know of ‘Fus’; it is called ‘Force’ in your tongue but as you push the world so does the world push back. Think of the ways force may be applied effortlessly. Imagine but a whisper pushing aside all in its path. That is ‘Fus’. Su’um ahrk morah. You will push the world harder than it pushes back; a concept you seem intimately familiar with…”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The days had stretched into weeks but while Kaius contemplated the understanding of the Thu’um, the world far below the mountain continued on. It had almost been a full month since he had returned and been proclaimed Dovahsebrom by the Greybeards but the measure of peace he had obtained was eventually broken. Sofia and Lydia had chosen to remain in Ivarstead while he climbed the mountain, Sofia because the Greybeards had taken a dim view on her taste for mead and Lydia because “Sofia needed a minder.” When they had both arrived at the doors of High Hrothgar demanding to see Kaius and almost coming to blows with the peaceful monks it was obvious that something had happened during his absence. That something was death. Ivarstead had been attacked in the days previous but not from Imperials, Stormcloaks or dragons but by a group of vampires. A dozen or more of the locals had perished in the attack, many others wounded to some degree and it was soon apparent that the town was not the only one. Sofia and Lydia had done well in saving the majority of the populace and fending off the nocturnal predators but it was apparent the Skyrim was in the middle of a plague of undeath. And the Dawnguard it seemed was struggling to rise to the challenge. Lydia told stories that they had heard from travellers and caravans passing through the town as they waited for Kaius’ return. Stories of death in the night and entire villages suddenly emptied of the living during the encroaching winter nights or filled with corpses once the sun rose again in the mornings. The Dawnguard had sallied out on several occasions to hunt the creatures down or defend what towns they could but for the most part they had become martyrs. The vampires were seemingly inexhaustible in their numbers and the Dawnguard appeared too ill prepared or trained to take the fight to them. Kaius had come to a decision very quickly. There was little more that he could do and while the training with Paarthurnax was progressing well and increasing his mastery of the Voice there was little more tangible results to be gained. He had made one final journey to the mountain’s peak, saying farewell to the ancient being and receiving “Aal fin ven aak hin wundun” – “May the winds keep you aloft” in return. It was a further three day journey to the base of the mountain, another seven past Riften to Fort Dawnguard and none of them were expecting a warm welcome. Isran had cooled a little, comparatively speaking for the dour Redguard since their return but the deaths of several of his hunters had softened his stance a little for accepting help. A little at least. He still tried, and failed to kill Kaius for the third time since they had met and had grudgingly permitted them to stay only because he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. His determination to end Kaius’ existence was still a burning passion for him but there was little he could do about him in the meantime. Despite the numbers of casulaties at the claws and fangs of the vampires, the Dawnguard had grown considerably. Several dozen had arrived and were provided brief training and whatever equipment the order could forge, scrounge, buy or outright steal from their dead foes but it wasn’t enough. It was surprising to Kaius that the issue really wasn’t equipment but skill and training in defeating vampires, and he quickly decided to assist in that regards. “I am Kaius Treblanus Desin, Thane of Whiterun Hold, dovahkiin, slayer of the dragons Mirmulnir and Salhokinir and the Dawnguard’s pet vampire.” There were several looks of surprise upon the members of the Dawnguard arrayed in a rough semi-circle around him in the fort’s training halls. They had been gathered for their morning’s training session but had been surprised when Kaius, Sofia and Lydia had come in and taken over. Some of the looks of shock from the hunters was because they hadn’t yet heard of Kaius’ true nature, others were shocked at simply hearing it out loud or from him openly admitting it. “I am one of the Dawnguard’s worst nightmares! Like the other creatures who share my curse I can enter the shadows at will, am stronger than six men, can move faster than the eye can see and can resist some of the worst injuries imaginable. I am as durable as a troll, as dangerous as a starved sabrecat but unlike other vampires I can exist in sunlight and be just as strong and as fast as I am in the shadows. Silver still hurts, but your prayers, your wards, your blessings are useless against me as like you, I worship and belive in the Divines. So when facing me, don’t waste your holy water as I will just find it refreshing.” One or two members facing him stifled giggles despite their nervousness and unease. Only Kaius and his companons seemed to know what was going on or what to expect as he paced up and down in the centre of their semicircle, turning and looking and watching them the whole time. He had their attention though, even if that attention was a grim wariness from his admission of what he truly was. “Out there.” He said, stabbing a finger in the direction of the fort’s entrance and hiding the grimace as some of their number twisted to look. “Awaits a tribe of vampires so ancient and deadly that I am but a mere youngblood. I have walked the bounds of Nirn since the dawn of the 4th Era and have seen and fought and killed things that you should be thankful you can’t imagine. Those vampires however you have heard of. They are the monsters your mothers whispered to you when they tucked you into bed at night, the horrors of the stories teaching you to fear the darkness and safeguard against the night. Out there, await the Volkihar vampire clan and it is up to you all to stop them from killing Skyrim and beyond.” There was a strange lack of fear emanating from the hunters, wariness yes but no real fear. He would have to change that to make them truly understand. “The Volkihar clan are among the oldest and most ancient of all vampire-kind. For over four thousand years they have existed and the tales of their abilities exist in all of your worst nightmares and legends. They are the monsters that lurk beneath the frozen surfaces of lakes waiting to drag travellers and the unwary to their watery dooms. They are the creatures that lurk in the night, waiting for you and your kin to fall asleep before glutting themselves on your throats. They are dangerous, powerful and have been waiting a long time to claim Skyrim as their own.” “My companions and I have faced them before and have won. Sofia and Lydia have fought them at their strongest and have prevailed and I have slain more vampires than you all have collectively had meals. We will teach you not only how to hunt and to kill these monstrosities but how to survive doing so.” Looking over the recruits he saw how their confidence was building, the slightest smiles growing on their faces at the expectation of what was to come. A few were shifting their gazes sideways and judging by what he could smell and sense they were more interested in the way that Sofia was idly sitting on the bench, sitting in such a way that accentuated her curves and drew the attention of all the hot blooded males in the group. There was a lot of work to be done to prepare them but Kaius had been a teacher before. “You.” he said simply, his finger pointing out a young Nord who looked barely old enough to have reached his twentieth winter. “What’s your name.” The young man’s attention snapped away from Sofia and his face reddened in embarrassment. “Agmaer. Uh… Sir.” Kaius’ face split into a scowl and he growled under his breath. “I am not a sir Agmaer. I am a thing, a monster and a creature of your nightmares. What do you do when faced with such a creature?” “I, uh… I attack it?” “Don’t just say it. Do it!” The snap in his voice made the young man jump and he dragged the two handed woodsman’s axe from its straps down his spine, rolling his shoulders in the thick brigandine armour common among the Dawnguard. Kaius counted to two before tackling the man off his feet, throwing him onto his back with a sharp yell of surprise that was chorused by the others standing around him. He had moved with his full abilities, smashing the young man to the ground hard enough to wind but not hard enough to cause any lasting damage. Any doubts of what he really was in any of their minds would have been entirely dispelled at that tiny demonstration. “First law of fighting vampires is not to hesitate!” Kaius said as he rose from his crouch and left the stunned Agmaer to climb to his feet. “If you hesitate… If you freeze… If you give them a moment, then that moment will be your last.” One of the nearby recruits, a woman with short cut hair than hung close to her scalp laughed at Agmaer but froze in horror as Kaius’ head snapped towards her. “Is this a game to you?” Her eyes widened in a combination of fear and unease as Kaius prowled over to her. “N-no, si… No.” “What is your name?” he hissed threateningly. “Conora.” “Well Conora, you have just found yourself face to face with a vampire, what do you do?” “I attack it… but surely you don’t want me to really attack you?” This time Kaius’ snarl was not human in the slightest and his face audibly cracked and elongated, his fangs thrusting out of his gums and splitting his mouth apart in an inhuman visage of hate. To her credit Conora reacted quickly, her rapier was out of its scabbard in a heartbeat as she drew it and sliced across in a single dexterous movement that would have put some of the Companions to shame. The sudden fear from the group was overwhelmingly evident, especially to Kaius’ nose as he smelt their terror at his true face. The blade stopped in mid blow as he caught it in a hand tipped with six centimetre black talons, leaving her struggling for a moment to free the wedged blade. “The second law to fighting vampires is never to do so alone.” He said simply, his face returning to normal but his taloned hand remaining unchanged. “They are stronger, faster and more dangerous than anyone of you. Never fight to their strengths.” Releasing the grip on the sword, he took several steps away and saw how all the blood had drained from Conora’s face and those standing around her. There was no mistaking the tremble in her swordarm as she tried to return it to her side, nearly cutting the fingers of her other hand in the process. The training hall would have been utterly silent if it wasn’t for Sofia’s cackling laugh at their reactions. “You, you and you.” The three Dawnguard initiates stiffened as he pointed them out, but two of them were the biggest and strongest looking orcs in the entire group. Each outweighed Kaius nearly twice over, their enormous slabs of muscle and shoulders ensuring that they would have to turn sideways to walk through regular doorways. Without any pause or hesitation, the three of them immediately attacked, one of the orc’s roaring as he put his full weight behind his first blow of his battleaxe that cracked the stone floor as Kaius stepped aside. “Better!” he called out, ducking under another blow from the Orc’s comrade and keeping his eye on the Wood elf he had chosen as their partner. “You all must hem the creatures in, don’t give them room to move or breathe or time to think. Make them react to you!” The trio did just that, the larger orcs shifting and keeping Kaius on the defensive as the Bosmer moved in with his blade at the ready. There was no holding back from any of them which pleased Kaius greatly. Not only were they truly out to kill him but it was actually providing him with a mild challenge that he found himself enjoying. “Most vampires are solitary creatures.” The fight continued as Kaius ducked and weaved through their attacks, talking loud enough for everyone to hear. “There are those that live within nests or what they like to call families or clans but they do not cooperate in battle. Even when fighting a group they will all act individually, and it is extremely rare to come across some that will assist others of their kind in combat. Use this to your advantage.” Ducking another wild swing of the second orc, he swept the green brute’s legs out from underneath him and he fell in a mass of limbs and armour plates. The bosmer was picked up and thrown across the room, skidding across the floor on his back, winded but unharmed which left only the battle axe wielding orc. “Some servant of Malacath you are, pig. I thought the Orsimer were a race of warriors, or were you a runt of the litter?” Kaius could almost see the bloodvessels in the Orc’s eyes burst as his words had the desired effect and the next attack was delivered with overwhelming force. It was all the more shocking as Kaius simply stepped in closer, twisting the axe out of the greenskin’s enormous paws before flinging it up into the ceiling. The roof of the hall was twenty metres above their heads but the axe 'thocked' into a support beam. The orc had just enough time to register what had happened and look shocked before Kaius had grabbed him by the throat. “Third law when fighting vampires is to fight cold, to not lose your tempers and to keep your humours balanced. Vampires are creatures of emotion, of passion, desire and hate. You need to have the chill of glaciers in your blood to be able to meet them in battle. Anger and hatred will only get you killed as those emotions are far stronger in them.”Kicking in the air, the orc's eyes seemed ready to pop out of his skull as he scrabbled at Kaius' arm. The rest of the Dawnguard gaped at the sight of how effortless he made lifting a hundred and forty kilograms with a single arm look. It was only Sofia and Lydia that could see the slightest of trembles in Kaius’ arm as he held the kicking mer aloft, waiting for his rage to subside and for his complexion to change to a purplish hue before he released his grip. “Lastly,” he continued, seeing the caution in the eyes of the orc as he rose to his feet in front of him. “There are dozens of breeds of vampires in existence, some with unique and varied abilities as twisted as what they are. The Serentin vampires are unable to revert back to their mortal forms but are stronger and faster than normal. The Keerilth clan of Valenwood can turn into mist at a whim but burn easier. The Volkihar vampires are led by their patriarch, who for all intents and purposes is the first of their kind… The very progenitor of their breed. He can turn into a literal monster with wings like a bat and ugly enough to make the devout of Peryite look damn near attractive.” “When facing any vampires.” The grin on his face grew ever larger and he took a step away from the orc rubbing absently at his throat. “you must be prepared for anything.” Again their shock and surprise gave way to absolute horror as Kaius briefly couched, leaping into the air and exploding into a chittering swarm of bats that swarmed its way up to the ceiling condensing back into his true form as he ripped the orc battle axe from where it was lodged. He then fell the full distance, landing as lightly as a Khajiit with the axe gripped tightly in one hand. Even Sofia and Lydia from their positions on the table and leaning against the wall were taken completely by surprise at an ability they had not seen before, sharing a glance between themselves that needed no translation. Handing the axe back to its original owner who was too stunned to do anything but hold it in both hands, Kaius moved back to the central position and looked over the entire group. They were all standing very, very quietly and very still. Their entire attention was fixated upon him, staring, listening to every word he said and no longer under any illusions to the threat that they faced. Their confidence was injured, but now it was time to heal it and provide them the skills needed for the struggle ahead. Some of those in the group looked extremely young, which he somehow found humourous. Despite the two centuries he had lived he didn't look a day over thirty but most of the Dawnguard's recruits looked younger than he did.At least training men and woman to fight wasn’t an alien concept to him.
The young boy fell to his hands and knees, spluttering and spitting on the immaculate tiled floor. Not all of the saliva that stained the tiles was white and there was tinges of red mixing it to a lighter pink with every cough. He was scrawy, wiry like all young boys on the cusp of puberty but the daily training regimes would soon begin to fill his frame with dense muscle.
Both Kaius and the boy were stripped the waist, sweat glistening their flesh with a sheen of moisture that the coolness of the tower could not dissipate. They had been training for over an hour now, the swords filling the halls and corridors with the sounds of wood on wood and wood on flesh. Kaius was renouned to be a harsh teacher, but unknown to the child on all fours in front of him, he was and would not have been his only pupil. “Why did you lose?” Kaius said simply, his stance light and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Neither of them wore any shoes, and it would be several years before his student would have developed enough to fight in any form of armour. “Because you are bigger than me. Stronger. Faster. More experienced.” Ignoring the petulant tones of the young boy he began to pace back and forth, sharing a glance with the woman standing off the side of the room flanked by the silent pair of Praetorians in their resplendent plate. Her son would not learn the truth until he had come of age but Gappina Mede, like her siblings, her uncle and his siblings had been taught by the man who had just knocked the boy to the floor. “Those are reasons why you couldn’t win, not why you didn’t.” Despite her obvious trepidation at her son’s treatment, there was not a single sign of it on Gappina’s face as she watched Kaius pace back and forth, conducting a lesson even as he taught her son to fight. “I gave up.” Came the tiny voice and Kaius nodded in satisfaction. “Exactly. You lost the moment you gave up. The difference between the victorious and the defeated is that one side was willing to do more than the other to win. As soon as one side, one opponent decides that they were going to take ‘this step and no further’, they immediately taste defeat.” His eyes returned to the young Empress in her resplendent toga and they shared a glance without any hint of emotions. “Giving up is what kills people.” As he had over the course of several other lessons, the young Titus Mede II growled to himself, reaching over and dragging the wooden training sword from where it had fallen. The bloodline of his Great-Grandfather flowed strongly in his veins and Kaius could see the hints of the Colovian Tribune that he had assisted in becoming Emperor all those long years ago. Titus was going to be the third generation of the Mede Dynasty that Kaius had tutored, and while his own son had grown and become a member of the Blades he couldn’t help but feel some paternal pride at the sight of the young boy standing resolute before him. He was still very young, but he had a strength within him. It did irk Kaius a little that it was only when he was pushed that his true greatness was revealed. Growing from a boy to a man, he was forty-one when his mother died and inherited the throne and crown of a troubled Empire. Most of all he also learned the truth about his inexplicably ageless mentor, discovering exactly who and what Kaius truly was after a lifetime of suspecting. It didn’t help the new Emperor that in the few short years after ascending to the throne the shadow of war was growing on the Horizion. There had always been rumours and stories, tales of troubles and unrest throughout the Aldmeri Dominion but neither Kaius, the Emperor or anyone within the Empire was expecting it to turn out the way it did. The Dominion had sent diplomats on that fateful day, and in an unusual request had asked to see the Emperor at the steps of White-Gold itself. There was a tension in the air that had not existed in previous dealings between the Dominion and the Empire. While their diplomats and representatives had been growing every more dismissive and cold over the years they had never reached the point of outright hostility as they did that morning. Kaius had been there, dressed in his full ebony-black Akaviri armour and face hidden behind a scowling Menpō mask and Kabuto helm as the representative began stating the Dominions demands. Even for an elf his attitude had been haughty, arrogant and disdainful even when speaking to an assembly of dozens of members of the Elder Council and Titus Mede II himself. The outright threat of war between the Dominion and the Empire was only the beginning, and soon the hammers began to come crashing down. The Annexation of Southern Hammerfell. Disbandment of the Blades. Religious enforcement of the outright ban on the right to worship Talos. The reduction of the Legions from Ten to Four. Annexation of Western Colovia consisting of the entirety of Counties Anvil, Kvatch and Skingrad. Full military access of Dominion troops throughout the Empire, one out of every ten Septims taken in taxes provided as tribute. Trade concessions bordering on outright theft and for Highrock to give up all seats on the Elder Council and to succeed from the Empire. Kaius wasn’t sure whether it was fear or shock that flowed through the assembled members of the Council but there was a building storm of anger and resentment at the demands. The arrogance in which they were demanded and the way the Aldmeri representative had simply folded his arms in his immaculate sleeves and grinned was infuriating them all. As the anger built the representative had nodded once, not to the assembled council or the Emperor but to the pair of guards standing alongside the tarpaulin covered cart sitting near the rest of the Aldmeri contingent. The two guards had moved without hesitation, one lifting the peg connecting it to the horse train, the other throwing back the tarpaulin as it tipped and spilled its stinking contents all over the steps of the Tower. As a human wave the press shifted away from the rolling, tumbling heads and their rotting, putrescent forms. Corpse bile and rot splattered the peerless marble, staining it and several of the council members’ togas as they scurried away. Only Kaius and the Emperor seemed to remain in place, Titus standing as still as a statue even as a few of the heads stopped centimetres from his sandalled feet. The two dominion guards, resplendent in their golden armours and ignoring the suddenly levelled spears of the Praetorians forming a ring around them began reaching into the forward section of the cart. One by one they began removing bundles of swords wrapped in the bloodstained rags of their owners before tossing them into the pile of death. The effect was immediate. Where there had been outrage and determination amongst the members of the council there was now an obvious fear and anxiety that could not be removed. Many began outright chanting for peace at any price, to simply accept the demands of the Dominion and provide whatever tribute was necessary in the face of such death. Kaius had stood in shock, his features hidden behind his Akaviri armour. Only his eyes were visible and they were darting about as he looked over the pile of heads and swords at his feet. The swords were for the most part the same as the second one he wore on his hip opposite Sunchild, single edged katana’s that only one organisation in all of Tamriel utilised. But there was one, and one only that caught his eye. It was a beautifully forged broadsword, thinner blade than most of its kind but one he knew intimately.It had been the sword he had presented his son Caiden so many years before when he had become a Blade. Ignoring the building chorus from the council and the sneering tone of the Elven diplomat, Kaius began moving forward, ignoring the squelching and the liquid sucking of the rotting skulls that rolled over his feet as he moved. his eyes were moving, darting and seeking while hoping against hope that the one he was looking for was not present. It was a tiny hope, and one entirely in vain as he came across a skull unlike all of the others. It was burnt as black as his armour, the flesh picked clean by the same scouring fires that had scorched the bone and while not overly noticeable the incisors were slightly longer than what should have been expected on any normal being. The cries to submit to the demands were growing as more and more members of the council threw their political and personal weight into the argument, pleading with the Emperor to give in lest war broke out. Kaius had looked over to the man who he had taught since childhood, tutoring him in everything from swordsmanship to military tactics and history. He knew Titus better than anyone, possibly even himself and at that moment all he could see was a broken man. Titus however had seen something else. He had seen his friend, his mentor holding the skull of his eldest child in his hands, looking and waiting with complete and utter loyalty for his decision. He could have ordered Kaius to kill the entire delegation from the Dominion right there and then and he would have done so with relish, and he could have ordered the surrender of the entire Empire and Kaius’ sense of duty would have forced him to obey. “No.” The single word cut through the tumult like a knife through flesh and they all stopped in mid motion, many of the Council members stopping blankly in mid breath. Of the answers, it was obvious that this was not one the elves were expecting and the Elf standing before the rotting pile had his mouth fall open in surprise. “What?” The gaze from an Emperor was not a small thing and for a split second it appeared as though the Aldmeri representative was going to flinch or step back, or even start shaking in his black-gold Thalmor robes. “No.” Gathering up the courage to speak, even as Kaius stepped over to the Emperor’s side the Thalmor cleared his throat, the same indignant tone returning with full force. “If the Dominion wins, your lands will be ruined, the empire broken and it will take until the time of your grandchildren's grandchildren to pay the tribute. The Empire, and mankind will be nothing more than a frail shadow grasping at its forgotten glories…” Both Kaius and Titus Mede II briefly looked at each other. “If you win.” The Emperor growled forcefully, gathering and throwing his purple toga over a shoulder and turning away from the stinking pile of decapitated heads. There was a similar strength in many of the Dawnguard that faced Kaius now, all staring at the sight of absolute horror but hardening their souls for what was to come. Despite the few that would leave over the coming days or so, there were many who we obviously preparing themselves for anything. “No matter your skill, no matter your experience. From today we will begin afresh! My companions and I will teach you everything, starting from the very basics." Behind him and hearing her cue, Sofia jumped off her table and gleefully strode forward, ignoring the aghast expressions at Kaius’ announcement. “Okay! This morning's lesson; how not to stab yourselves!” Leaving Sofia and Lydia to commence teaching the Dawnguard the skills that Kaius had imparted them both over the previous months, Kaius followed Celann up the winding staircase. He had appeared as they were getting into the first of what was going to be many lessons about wielding weapons against vampires, announcing in no uncertain terms that “Isran wants the suckhead.” Celann might have been one of the more relaxed members of the Dawnguard in Kaius’ presence but that didn’t stop him from having a firm grip on his sword and another member with a loaded crossbow pointed at Kaius at all times. None of them were taking any chances and it amused Kaius to think that this was actually going to benefit them all in the long term against the Volkihar. After witnessing Harkon transform those months ago and sensing the terrible power at his disposal he knew more than anyone that every little edge was worth the price in sweat and blood. It had been a long year though. Between the vampires in Morthal, attempting to retrieve the horn of Jurgen Windcaller to find it stolen, uncovering Delphine’s identity as one of the last Blades in Tamriel, infiltrating the Thalmor, rescuing Esbern and rediscovering Sky Haven Temple, he, Sofia and Lydia had travelled from one end of Skyrim to the other several times over. They had managed to buy time at least. Since returning from the Throat of the World he had ben in semiregular contact with Delphine. Using their coded messages via the tavern in Riverwood he knew that Esbern was researching into the location of the Elder Scroll that they needed. In a strange twist, whether it was fate or luck the particular ‘dragon’ scroll was one of the few recorded that had never been part of the Elder Moth Collection in the Imperial City. In one of her messages Delphine had said how Esbern had tracked it right back to where the early Nordic kingdoms had lost it during one of their many skirmishes against the Dwemer and how it hadn’t surfaced since. Esbern, using one of his many aliases had contacted the Dwemer scholar Calcelmo in Markarth for assistance and Delphine had confidence that the location of the scroll could be found. It would take time however, perhaps even months but it was highly possible that they could succeed. In the meantime he was stuck facing and dealing with yet another threat to the province, possibly even Tamriel itself. The Dawnguard would take time to get prepared against the vampires and while the dragons seemed content in biding their time, he was hoping against all hope that the other threat was doing the same. With the loaded crossbow hovering a few short centimetres from his spine he stopped and waited as Celann pushed open a door a few doors from Isran’s room. It did amuse him slightly that ever since they had first met Isran had changed all his locks for dwemer ones, one of which was enchanted. This room they entered though was not made for comfort. Chains hung from the ceiling much the same as Isran’s room, but the implements of torture spoke a different story. “What’s the occasion Isran?” Kaius asked as he entered the room and laid eyes on the Redguard leaning against the wall. For a second he made the show of looking about the room before returning his gaze to the veteran vampire hunter. “Are you going to help me work this kink out of my back? I could do with a good stretch.” Isran simply ignored his sarcasm but there was an obvious sense of annoyance in his expression and tone. “This vampire showed up at the gates while you were showing off. I’m guessing it’s the one you found in Dimhollow as it specifically asked for you. Says it’s got something really important to say to you.” The tightening grip on the Light of Dawn in his hand was enough to show Kaius his true feelings on the matter. Especially as he used it to gesture to the figure seated in a chair on the far side of the room, flanked by Durak and Ingjard with their crossbows loaded and ready. “Hallå.” Said Serana in her ancient accent, not attempting to rise at all from her seat. Her expression as she looked at Kaius was a mixture of relief from his presence and unease at her surroundings. “You probably weren’t expecting to see me again...”