Eye of the Wind – Ch. 11 – 6: The Battle of Fort Dunstad

• Posted by Kyrielle Atrinati December 12, 2012 - 350 views

  Bone chimes dangled from the ceiling and they wove in and out in a doubling of perception.  Chills raced up my spine as memories of the Forsworn cave merged with the cages and empty braziers lining the stair.  On a far wall, the monstrous animal figurehead outside the cave superimposed itself over the stone.  Yet up we crept, I looking forward, Derkeethus looking backward, the deep sounds of the tower rumbling in our ears.

  Passing a door, we jumped, weapons ready, when the hinges rattled as something slammed into the wood.  The latch threatened to bend inward as blood seeped under the threshold.  Outside someone screamed an Altmeri oath.  When smoke filtered through the cracks in the panels and the smell of melting varnish was evident, we hurried along.

  They're all going to die out there.

  Not all of them.

  They haven't a chance!

  Focus on the goal, Henny.

  No.

  We're almost there...

  We have to help them!

  Focus on the goal.

  "He's going to die!  After him!"
  

  The last a voice I did not recognize, but found it was my own hissing into the air, my lips curled in a sneer.  In the end, it didn't matter for we were at the top of the stair, and around the corner was a wall of bars and a stench.  Excrement, urine, blood, fear, something musky that made us sick, though I could not identify it.  I searched the cells, but they were empty of life, though many contained a fine, grey dust.  In the middle cell, on a small bedroll, lay a doll stitched on soft deer hide, its eyes beads of polished stone chips.  Mutely, I traced the sinew threads as a dim possessive comprehension arose.

  I made this.

  My green hands clutched the doll, taking it from my olive-skinned ones.

  I gave this to her.

  Derk's aspect narrowed his eyes as the memory of the little girl, squealing with delight, echoed through the round room.  She was here.  Two voices speaking at once, then a jarring psychological shove to search the room for her.

  There has to be a way to escape.  

  A door.  There's a door somewhere.

  As I turned around, fighting the frustration building in my turbulent mind, I saw a table.  On that table was a Bosmer, splayed and bound to the table's legs.  His eyes were half-opened, and I saw they had been a dark red like those of the strange creature in the mountains near the burning hall.  Puncture wounds on his neck brought the image of the man nailed to that flaming hall's table, slowly going mad.  His chest had been opened, and something in his face spoke of this occurring while he had been alive.  The toothsome grimace exposing his vampiric fangs only reinforced this suspicion.

  A small table on the other side of the room was covered in an array of instruments.  Thin knives of the finest obsidian.  A heavy sadiron with a handle wrapped in a rag.  Hooks, nooks, books on the shelves near the wall.  Shears, tongs, a hammer with an oblong head.  Forks, ladles, mace, a screw for pulling corks.  Poisons of equivocal mass, potions, bowls of powdered glass.  All of these arranged in near rows for easy access.  My mind fed me an image of a bandit meticulously vivisecting those in the cages, exploring with the dead eyes of a spider.  Then, the Bosmer on the table shifted into the small form of Hrefna.

  He watched.

  Air heaved in and out of my lungs in fitful bursts.  Suddenly, I was trapped in this place.  Hungry and angry in a cage much too small with my captor jabbing at me with a sharpened stave.  I tore at the instruments, flinging them across the room in rage.  Everything on the shelves I swept to the floor.  We pulled the shelves themselves down, toppling them in a mass of shattered wood.  The alchemy station in the corner was overturned, its alembics and retorts shattered in a symphony of tinkling glass.  

  I viciously kicked over a pail filled with a yellowing liquid, and as it spilled, the sheen on the surface told me it was oil.  It's earthy odor filled the small space.  Furious still, I lit the oil and watched as the flame devoured the air in the room in a heady woosh.  It spread wildly over the floor, licking the soles of my boots where the oil just stopped.  Smoke filled the chamber, and we inhaled deeply, savoring the burning in our lungs.  The burning was good.  It was right.  This place would die burning alive, just as I felt I was burning alive with each passing moment.

  Spinning, I searched the room wildly for a way out; the walls whirling in a dervish as we moved on opposite axes.

  Then, there, in the ceiling.  A trapdoor with a rotted ladder leading upward, and in focusing, I heard voices on the wind.  Derkeethus moved first, climbing carefully up above, pushing the door open.  Icy air gusted down into the chamber.  He glanced back at me, momentarily doubtful, then his eyes steeled and he climbed through.  Taking one last look at the bright fire destroying the prison, I followed.

  Above, I could see snow covering the tower between the parapets, but all was otherwise dark.  Someone was speaking  on the far end in hushed, frightened voices.  Voices I recognized.  Raising my torch, my blood curdled as its pale light shone off the armor of a man I so desperately wanted to kill.  He held Hrefna hostage, her hands bound and neck ringed by a leash, the end of which held in his teeth.  He yanked gleefully, causing the girl to stumble backwards towards a broken section of the parapet.  In his hands, a bow was drawn at Tormir, who stood, held in check, near the trapdoor.  She turned to us as we emerged.

  "Help me!" she cried.

  "Ah, so good of you to finally arrive," Legate Constantius said, almost casually, through the rope in his teeth.