The world around me froze and crystallized as I stared, wide-eyed, at Nael's empty, glassy eye and the reflections of electrical magicka and flames. Fire from the makeshift torch roared near my ears until the sound faded and was replaced by a high-hitched keening. I didn't know where the sound came from; I knew only that it eclipsed the totality of my perception. I darted glances about me as I struggled under my horse, looking for the source. A pair of hands yanked under my arms and my legs slowly emerged from Nael's side. The right one had snapped at a bad angle, and as I was helped to my feet, pain shot through my leg hot and white.
When I looked up, I saw Nael laying there, cold and still. The bandit who shot her was aiming another arrow my way. "Henny, come on. Move," croaked Derkeethus, pulling me stiffly away from the corpse. I shook him away like an impertinent fly, the keening sound growing louder in my ears. With a soft twang, the arrow flew free, blazing straight for my chest. I watched it moving slowly through the air, as if the air itself congealed into thick sludge. Derkeethus' will grappled with mine for control, but I shoved it rudely aside as sensation of molten energy poured into me. My gaze sharpened and pressure in my throat turned the arrow in midair back towards the bandit, striking him in the center of his center. He fell with a soft thud.
Heat blazed from my snapped and twisted leg. Without thinking, unable to think beyond an instinctive haze, I turned it straight as the bones melded back together. The bandits around us that had been victorious against the Thalmor and Imperial and now turned on us, blood high in their faces. I grinned, and one of those foes flinched, suddenly unsure. In seconds, I leapt upon him, sliding my blade home in his gut. Another I bashed in the face with the torch before carving a filet from his arm and devouring it before his eyes. His mouth worked, but his voice was silent. Moments later, he, too, fell.
"Gwaihen! Get to the prison. Now!" I heard someone say from far away.
"Henny! Let's go!"
But I continued on my warpath, unchecked. One of the mages sent lightning jolting through my body, and I turned it on her, bending the arcing light with my sword into her iron helm. She screamed, clutching her skull as her body danced uncontrollably, though I barely heard her cries for the incessant wailing in my ears. When at last the group of bandits lay broken and bleeding on the cold ground, their bodies arranged haphazardly around my horse in a monumental sacrifice to her lost being, I turned on my friend who had managed to avoid my wild blade thus far.
In my eyes, he wavered, morphing into monstrosities of all shapes and sizes all of which leaned over me, mouths slavering. He drew my power back into him, hungry, greedy, taking what was now rightfully mine. I advanced on the Argonian.
A rough hand spun me and cool blue eyes met mine. Then my cheek stung and my head twisted to the side. The keening stopped. "Get inside and find my daughter, elf," the man before me growled, "We'll clean up the rest out here." I stared at him uncomprehending, even when he shook me. Then a name, Hrefna, filtered through the swirling layers into what was left of my rational mind.
Someone's probably tortured her...
They might be torturing her now...
They are torturing her now.
Kill them now!
Now!
The imperative drove me towards the tower now guarded by the bowman's dead body. Before we entered, I spared one last look at my fallen friend. Through the red haze in my mind, a part of me was sobbing inconsolably; her cries were choked in a feral snarl. My hand heaved the heavy door open and we went inside.
A bandit stood, stunned, with her hand outstretched as if to open the door that nearly smacked her in the face. "What--?" she began, raising the axe in her hand.
With a clatter, the weapon, and her hand, fell to the floor. In horror and pain, the bandit stared at the stump that was now her arm, and I watched her, disconnected--a cat watching an injured mouse. Derkeethus sighed and ended her quickly. His look of disapproval passed through me, and when I slunk forward, stalking, he had no choice but to follow. For as I continued to draw his strength, so, too, did I draw his will, wrapping it in my own. We were all at once two beings and one will.
Let me go, he thought, but the fear I felt in his heart caused the maddened part of me to clamp down tighter. I tried to tell him I could no more stop this than I could stop a storm, but my thoughts were swept away in the wild gale of shifting, massless darkness.
On all fours, I crawled, scenting the ground like a beast. Behind me, Derk slouched, fingering his crossbow whenever my grip on him waned. We came to a room filled with cages of various sizes. All of them were empty except for one near the far door. Hackles rising, I aimed my bow at a man standing in front of the cage.
"Why they force me to keep you buggers is beyond me." He knelt and jabbed at something between the bars, which emitted a high-pitched squeal. "That's right. Squirm you little bastard," he laughed dirtily.
My arrow went wide, missing his vitals by fragments of an inch. Spinning, clutching his side, he paled at my expression.
"Mercy! No!" he cried, crouching away, leaving a bright trail of blood. The next shot found its mark in his ear, and he collapsed in a heap. Creeping forward, I examined his corpse, my eyes feeling hot and dry in my head.
"It's only a skeever," murmured Derkeethus softly, peering into the cage. I joined him, standing properly as I felt a little of the pressure pushing me onward dissolve. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I gained a little more control over my body, though my thoughts were still muddled and swirling, virtually incomprehensible in any formal language. Carefully, I freed some of the power welling through the connection from the Argonian. In turning to him, I stared piercingly through his eyes, trying to communicate the idea of a trade. His power in exchange for his help. Catching the gist, Derk smiled, I would have followed you into Oblivion and back. Why must you always forget this fact?
As his voice reached the small sane corner inside, I felt the rest of me release his strength, and suddenly we were no longer two, but one and only one. One mind, body, and presence, separated by the space between our physical selves. Twin perspectives floated in my mind. Twin thoughts, but all united. My hearing caught varying levels of sound, from the higher pitches I could normally hear to the low levels I never knew existed. It was in these lower levels that I heard the scuffling of many pairs of feet upstairs and the soft voice of a little girl protesting.
"I don't wanna go out in the cold!"
"Mamma! Mamma, help me!"
"Do as I say girl, or mommy dies."
"No!"
"Do as the man says, honey."
"But--"
"Get up the ladder, leech!"
As one, we started down the hall, towards the place where the sounds were vibrating the most. A doorway opened into a wide stair that curved up and away into the tower. Up this stair we raced, and on a landing we met an Orc who drew his sword and smiled gleefully.
"At last, someone to fight. I was worried they were having all the fun out there!" I pulled the trigger on my crossbow at the same time I swung my sword, and while the Orc attempted to block my blow, the dart stuck in his side like a thorn. With a grimace, he ripped it out, flinging it aside. In watching myself dodge the swing of his sword, I loaded another dart. This one hit home in his thigh, staggering his stance. With a fluid motion, I sank the blade into his neck, severing an artery that left him slumped against the wall in a daze.
We left him bleeding as we progressed up the next set of stairs. Somewhere ahead a door opened and closed, and I smelled through Derk's nostrils the scent of cold, snowy air. They were getting away.
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