by Greg Keyes
A knife thudded into the floor next to him as he scrambled up, and the assassin was close behind; he had a dark blade in his left hand and was drawing a bright one with his right from beneath his jerkin. Colin’s breath rushed in, and for an instant everything slowed and golden light seemed to infuse the room. His arms moved but he seemed outside of it. The next thing he knew, he hit the wall hard, pain trying to make him scream as he fell, but his throat wouldn’t open to let it out.
His attacker was leaning against a bookcase across the room. He made a sort of snarling sound and took one, two steps toward him. With the third step his knee kept bending and he slammed face-first into the floor. Colin could see the bloody point of his knife standing out between the downed man’s shoulder blades.
Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet, feeling them wobble beneath him. Under his breath he said a little prayer to Dibella, but he couldn’t tell if she heard. He wasn’t sure how long he could stand. He made it to the fallen man, though, and took the black knife from his hand. He stuck it in between the first two vertebrae below the skull and wiggled it. Then he had a look at himself.
His arms were cut up from the window, nothing so deep as to be dangerous. The assassin’s other knife had driven through the pectoral muscle where it stretched up to meet his shoulder. The feeling of the impact came back to him, and he realized the blade must have hit a bone and skipped up instead of slipping through to his heart. In any event, if the dagger hadn’t been poisoned, he was probably going to survive.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a second man, coming from the direction of the window, and he tried to turn, far too slowly.
But there was a clap like thunder, and the man went staggering back, and in the next instant something appeared, something horrible. Colin had a glimpse of slits of green balefire, scales, and claws like sickles. The man almost managed to scream before his lungs and viscera were spattered across the room. Then the thing turned on Colin, snarling.
“Stop!” a voice shouted, and the daedra stopped, panting.
Arese stood behind him, her eyes wider than he had ever seen them. It made her look very young. The sleeve of her white shirt was soaked in blood, and a red patch on her temple and eye would probably soon prove itself a bruise.
“Hunt and guard,” she told the daedra, and it turned and reluctantly slouched back toward the window.
“How did you—” Arese managed. She was breathing so hard and shallowly it worried him.
“Come here,” he said. “Are you cut anyplace else?”
“I never saw him,” she said, staring down at the body. “Never heard him. I didn’t have time to do anything.”
“Let me look,” he said. “You got your arm up,” he remarked, examining the defensive wound on her wrist. It wasn’t deep.
“I heard a crash, like glass breaking. I guess I threw up my hand when I turned, but he was there already.”
“The crash was me,” Colin said, searching for punctures anywhere vital.
“I don’t understand.”
“I was waiting on the roof across the alley. I saw him come in.”
“He came to kill me.” Her breath was still too quick, and her skin was hot, much hotter than it should be.
“That seems obvious,” he said.
“They would have killed me if not for you.”
“Well, that second guy would have had me,” he said.
“Divines, you’re bleeding everywhere.”
“Nothing serious,” he said. “But speaking of bleeding, your arm—”
She looked at it, then back at him. He realized he had one hand on her shoulder and another on her stomach. He felt her belly quiver, and something happened to her eyes.
Stupid, he thought. This is stupid.
Her skin felt almost molten. She gasped when their lips came together, as if trying to get the air from his lungs. He smelled something like burning cloves and felt a shock of energy race through him like nothing he had ever known before, filling the emptiness left in him from two hard fights with impossible strength. She buried her face in his neck and he in hers, and they went down on the rug in a tangle, both wrestling furiously at ties and buttons.
Slick with blood, the salt from their sweat burned his wounds, but not enough to matter.
Later, much later it seemed, he lay back while she cleaned his wounds, first with warm water and then with a white ointment that left a pleasant warmth behind it and smelled a little like mustard. It did more than feel good; he could see the flesh draw together almost as if stitched. They had moved to her bedroom, where she had laid out a thick cover over her sheets and let him rest stretched out. She sat on the edge of the bed, the skin of her throat and breast like pearl in the moonlight—except for where the streaks of dried blood still clung. “Feel better?” she asked.
“Much,” he said. “Although I have to say, I didn’t feel it that much a little while ago either.”
She looked down. He thought she seemed embarrassed.
“Reaction,” he offered. “When you realize you’ve almost died, sometimes—you know.”
She shook her head. “When I summon daedra, I have to touch them with my mind. I have to be strong enough to keep them from turning on me. Daedra are—violent, passionate. Sometimes I feel something of what they do.” She looked away. “I think—” She shook her head and dabbed at the cut on his chest. “It’s also been a long time, for me. I haven’t felt I could trust anyone enough to—do that. I haven’t felt secure enough.”
“And you trust me?”
She smiled. “No. But—” She smiled. “Reaction. And there is something about you.” She cocked her head. “You’ve no reason to trust me either, I know. I’ve given you every reason not to. But I’m just trying to get through this. Alive. And sometimes it doesn’t seem worth the cost.”
“Cost?”
“This isn’t a life, Colin. I’m thirty-one years old. I’ve been a spy in Hierem’s ministry since I was twenty-one. I’ve been with one other person in that time, and it was a disaster. I work, and I fear, and sometimes I do awful things. I have drinks with my sister for an hour or two most evenings and come home. I can’t talk to her about what I do. She stays out, gambles, goes for rides in the country, has affairs. I’m careful. I protect myself. And now I’m going to die anyway.”
“They failed,” he pointed out.
“But someone sent them, probably one of my rivals or Hierem himself. They’ll send more. I’ve made a mistake somewhere—probably to do with those two on the island. They know.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “You’re very young,” she said. “You can get out of this. You should. I won’t stop you.”
“Are you giving up?” he asked.
“No. No, I can’t do that. But I don’t have to pull you down with me.”
He sighed. “I was in this already,” he said. “I have to—I have to do something right. Do you understand?”
“You did something right tonight,” she said. “You saved my life. Can’t that be enough?”
“Not if you die tomorrow.”
“We all die. You gave me at least a day more than I would have had. And not a bad one.”
“It’s not enough,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s just not.”
“Don’t get angry,” she said.
“I’m not,” he replied.
“You sound it.”
“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m not, though.” But he was, wasn’t he?
She didn’t say anything, but then he felt a tender kiss, just at the edge of his lips.
“It doesn’t have to be rough,” she said. “I can be gentle.”
He thought of the two men she had killed on the island, of the many who had perished in that house he had followed her to. He thought about the assassin he had just slaughtered, and realized he felt nothing.
He kissed her, and outside the night birds sang as if everything were normal, quiet, and in its place.
SIX
“Halt here,” Captain Falcus shouted. “Brennus, Mazgar—take three more and check out the village.”
“On it, Captain,” Mazgar said, trying to keep the fatigue out of her voice. Then realizing she’d spoken out of turn, she looked to Brennus.
“I’m not trained for this,” Brennus said. “We both know that. You choose.”
She nodded. “Merthun, Tosh, Na-Nasha, come on.”
The others were as weary as she, and in fact she was beginning to worry about Brennus. He was a scholar, not a warrior or battlemage, although his skills had saved her a few times in the past weeks. But he didn’t have the constitution or the training for this sort of forced march, and it was starting to show.
They had managed to fight their way through the southern end of the encirclement on the ridge, but none of the horses had survived and they had lost almost half their number. Since then they had been able to keep ahead of the undead creatures, but only by pushing themselves to their limits. What provisions they had were now gone, and they couldn’t stop to hunt or fish, because the band that attacked them wasn’t alone; it was part of a massive wave moving across the mountains into Cheydinhal County.
They half trotted, half stumbled down the hill to the village, if village was even the word for ten houses arranged around a central area of bare dirt and a well. She looked longingly at the latter, but had a job to do before she could drink from it.
There were about seven people in the square when they entered it, but within moments more began appearing from the houses. They didn’t look threatening; none of them even seemed to be armed.
“We’re Imperial troops,” Mazgar shouted. “Who’s in charge here?”
An older Redguard woman with frizzled white hair stepped toward her.
“I suppose that would be me,” she said. “I’m Sariah, charter-holder of Mountain Watch, such as it is.”
“Sariah,” Mazgar said, “just keep your people still for a moment. We mean you no harm.”
They went quickly house to house, despite the sudden burst of protests and complaints from Sariah and a few others in the square, only confirming what Mazgar already reckoned—that this was a bunch of farmers and hunters. Then she whistled—one short, one long, two short.
A few moments later Captain Falcus and the rest came down.
“Captain, this here is Sariah,” Mazgar said, introducing her, “the charter-holder.”
“What’s this about, Captain?” Sariah demanded. “Since when can Imperial troops search houses without permission?”
“By order of his majesty, or in time of war, lady,” Falcus said. “You and all of your people are about half a day from being dead, every one of you.”
“What are you talking about?” Sariah asked.
“Mountain Watch, eh?” Falcus said, and spat. “You aren’t watching too well.” He raised his voice. “Listen up! You people have fifteen minutes to pack. Take nothing you can’t eat, drink, or fight with, and I mean it. Any horses you have, bring those up now, and bring my men provisions.”
“What gives you the right to order us out of our homes?” Sariah snapped.
“I don’t aim for any of you to die,” Falcus said. “I intend to get you all behind the gates of Cheydinhal ahead of what’s coming. But if you delay me with this senseless prattle—if anyone does—it means some or all of you are going to die. Even now it may be too late. Now—do what I told you. Now!”
The charter-holder’s eyes widened, but she didn’t dissent anymore. Nobody ever argued with Falcus when he used that tone of voice. He might as well have been the Emperor himself.
They took turns at the well, drinking and filling their skins, and those not at the well helped gather up the grand total of six horses the village had to offer. They hooked four of them to two wagons, to carry the youngest and the infirm. Falcus and Kuur, the battlemage, took the other two.
A bit of grumbling started to resurface, and it took more than fifteen minutes, but within the hour they were shepherding forty people ranging in age from two months to sixty-something down a weather-worn track that couldn’t quite be called a road.
Mazgar and Brennus took positions along one of the wagons. Brennus looked pale.
“There’s room in the wagon,” Mazgar suggested.
“I’m fine,” he murmured. “Thank Akatosh I don’t have to carry around all that muscle and bone, like you do.”
“No, all of your weight is in your head,” she replied. “Seriously. A little rest will help you.”
“He can have my place,” a child’s voice said. “I want to walk.”
Mazgar glanced in the wagon and saw that the speaker was a little human in brown twill breeches and a yellow felt shirt.
“See?” she said. “The boy is willing to give up his spot for you.”
“Yeah,” the kid said, “but I ain’t a boy.”
Mazgar studied the short brown bangs, snub nose, and slight frame.
“The girl, then,” she corrected.
“It’s all right,” Brennus said.
“Come on,” the girl said, hopping out. “I’m seven now. I can walk as good as anyone and better than most.”
Brennus shook his head, but in the next step he stumbled.
“Well, considering that,” he sighed.
“Right,” Mazgar said. “We need you fresh when the wormies catch up to us, and that’s no lie.”
She expected a quip back from him, but he just nodded and started trying to clamber in. She gave him a little shove to help him along.
“There,” she said. Then she looked down at the girl. “Think you can keep up with me?”
“I can keep up with anybody,” she said.
“We’ll see about that.”
“You’re an orc,” the girl said.
“Is she, now?” Brennus said, perking up a little. “Here I’ve been thinking that somewhere out there a bear and a pig are living in wedded bliss.”
“What do you mean?” the girl asked.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Mazgar said. “He’s only trying to get me to mash his face in.”
“Why?”
“Some people are funny that way,” she replied.
“Well, I’d like to see it!”
“Maybe when he’s feeling a little better. What’s your name?”
“Lorcette, but everybody calls me Goblin.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, they just always have. Mom always said I had ears like a goblin.”
“Huh,” Mazgar said. “Now that I look, you sort of do. Which one of these is your mom?”
“Oh, she’s gone,” Goblin said. “Died when I was six.”
“Mine died when I was seven,” Mazgar said. “At the sack of Orsinium. They say she killed thirty before death took her.”
“My mom didn’t die in a battle. She just got sick.” The girl cocked her head. “Who was your mom fighting?”
“Redguards and Bretons,” Mazgar replied.
“You became an Imperial soldier because of her?”
“I became a soldier because of her. I became an Imperial soldier because if it hadn’t been for the Seventh and Fifteenth legions, a lot more of us would have died. They put themselves in harm’s way for us, got the survivors to safety in Skyrim.”
“Kind of like what you’re doing now.”
Mazgar remembered the terror, the chaos, the walk that went on for weeks through bitter cold—and never having enough to eat. “Let’s hope not,” she said.
“What’s a wormy?” Goblin asked after a few moments of silence.
“What?”
“You said something about wormies catching up with us.”
“Yeah. That’s what I call ’em. They used to be people—then they died and some kind of witchery brought them back, and now they’re all full of maggots and such—so I call ’em wormies.”
She thought the girl would look scared, but instead she looked thoughtful.
“My mom
is buried back there,” she said. “Do you think they’ll bring her back?”
“Nah, they like fresher bodies than that. Anyway, it wouldn’t really be your mom, just your mom’s body with a daedra in it.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“To conquer Tamriel, it looks like,” Mazgar replied. “But I wish whoever it is who had the itch to do that would have chosen less smelly troops.”
“I could say the same about some of his majesty’s elections,” Brennus said.
Mazgar was preparing a retort, but then she saw his eyes were closed. “Mauloch,” she muttered. “Even when he’s asleep.”
They marched along like that, with the girl prattling and keeping good pace. When night fell, however, she and Brennus switched places. The mage seemed much better for the rest, and Goblin dropped off pretty swiftly.
“You let that girl talk your ear off all day,” Brennus said, “and you never once looked like you were going to clout her in the head. That’s not like you.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Remember that kid that hung around our camp on the way up—that little mountain town? The one you threatened to tie to a tree by his bowels?”
“Well, he was annoying.”
“About the same as this one, really,” he said. “Something’s changed in you.”
“In me?” she snorted.
“I think maybe you’re starting to think about spitting out a few little bear-pigs yourself, that’s what I think.”
“You’re more out of your mind than usual,” she said. “Children? Me?”
“Just an observation,” he rejoined. “You’re not getting any younger, and we’ve lost a lot of comrades. Makes you think.”
“Makes you think,” she said. “And way too much.”
“Still—”
“Rest it!” she snapped.
She must have said it louder than she meant to, for a number of heads turned her way.
She couldn’t tell if the look on Brennus’s face was smugness or contrition.
Humans.
A bit after noon the next day, Mazgar saw the high steeple of the chapel of Arkay peeking up through the trees below them. On foot they would have been there quickly, but the wagons were having a hard time going downhill. Mazgar felt the familiar itch of danger at her back growing more and more pronounced, and glanced often over her shoulder, though Coals and Merthun were on the rearguard and both were more than competent.
