Eye of the Wind – Ch. 11 – 7: The Battle of Fort Dunstad

  • "Hand over the girl!" roared Derkeethus, my rage feeding his.

    "Let's see the Phial," the Legate replied, grinning lewdly at Tormir.

    "Give me my daughter, first," she growled, eyes wild, nostrils wide and blowing like a bear.

    "Now, I don't think you're in any position to negotiate," he said through the rope.

    "Hand him the Phial, Tormir," Derk spoke, my words coming from his mouth.  My own only champed and snarled, a feral thing of unhindered expression.  He gazed--I gazed--at her meaningfully.  Doubtful, she drew the small vessel from the front of her dress, where it had been nestled between her breasts.

    "Very good.  Bring it here," Constantius commanded, relaxing the bow and holding out a greedy paw.  Our weapons poised, ready, as Tormir approached with a glower and trembling steps.  Hrefna gazed pleadingly at her mother, her fearful expression displaying the tiny points of over-sharp teeth.  I start at them, horrified and transfixed while Derkeethus eyed the procession.  Who would bite a little girl?  Feed from her?  

    As the Nord approached, the Legate spat out the rope and smirked.  Cruel fingers snatched the White Phial from her hands, and Hrefna ran in that same moment.  "Mamma!" she cried, tears of relief running down her face.  Tormir fumbled with the bindings, throwing the leash from the girl's head with a look of disgust.  It sailed over the parapet into the windy night.  Contantius yanked the cork from the vial and took greedy swigs of its contents.  Suddenly, I realized what he was going to ask of the Phial and charged, my blade high, hoping to distract his thoughts.

    "Tormir, take Hrefna and get out of here!"  Get far away from this place!" shouted my friend, seeing the vision in my mind.  For I saw the man in raw contrasts, wielding impossible strength and magicka, tearing the fort to ruin.

    "What about my daughter?  We need to heal her!"

    "Run, damn you!"

    My blade clashed with his, our wills colliding in the air, sending ripples through the mountains.  Derkeethus joined me, moving in tandem with my blows, such that we danced about him as a fox circles a serpent.  But every blow was blocked; every stroke parried; every swing dodged.  Our bones vibrated and muscles quivered as we turned away his powerful blows.  Such was his strength.  Wearing, we backed away, panting heavily.  Constantius had yet to break a sweat.

    "It's over, friends," he said, the word sounding like something foul, "Why don't you surrender.  I'm sure I'll have some use for you.  Especially you, Argonian."  He turned to my friend, his eyes boring into ours.  They were hypnotic.  "Come now...Derkeethus, was it?  Surely you see reason.  Why die here, now, in the dark and cold?  I'll reward you well for your endeavors.  You could be head of the mercantile division.  You're far too valuable to lose," he nearly purred.

    We flinched, briefly fighting the compelling pull towards the Legate, then shoving each other mentally as Derkeethus attempted to disconnect.  When he discovered he could not, he gritted his teeth and bore down on the connection, drawing as much power as he could garner into himself.  "You don't need her, boy.  She's only weighing you down.  Look at all the trouble you've gotten into because of her," Constantius continued.  

    At this Derk snapped, and relaxing back into our combined being, he managed to smile.  "And I was made for trouble," he replied.  More molten power was shifted across the beam between us, and his voice boomed in thunder as he roared a challenge.  Constantius staggered for only a moment, and it was in the echo of that rolling crack of sound that Derkeethus charged.  

    His pickaxe caught the edge of the Legate's armor, and in attempting to unsteady him further, he threw all of his weight into the Imperial.  Instead of toppling over as so many might have done, Constantius moved nary an inch.  Crouching slightly, he threw the Argonian off and backhanded him across the head.  Derk stumbled as I rushed my foe once more, trying to distract him and strike a vital spot.  My eyes burned in my head as I howled in fury, standing in front of my friend as he clumsily got to his feet.  Half of my vision was blurred and staring down at the snow underfoot, while the other half regarded our enemy.

    Parrying a blow, I made a riposte, slicing my blade through the air like a heron's beak into water.  It met no metal this time, only soft flesh as I drew first blood.  Holding my blade to protect myself, I saw the Legate watch a bead roll down the length of my sword, his eyes narrowing in loathing.  "You will regret that," he snarled.  Moving faster than even my eyes could follow, he swung his sword, connecting with my shoulder.  The armor bent under the force and I sprawled on my back, windless.

    My right arm was numbed from the shoulder to my fingertips, and my hand held my sword awkwardly.  Trying to regain my breath, I scrambled to my feet.  Yellow film slid over my eyes--Derk's eyes--as I looked through them to see Constantius make a wide swing at my friend, who staggered, the edges of his brain marked by undulating violet waves and spots.  "No!" I managed to cry, at last, breaking through the storm.  The flat of the Legate's blade connected with the side of Derk's head and we both saw stars.

    When the Argonian collapsed to the ground, I ran towards him, stumbling and weaving erratically as his pain became mine.  Then Constantius lifted my friend's head by his horns and bared a grimace at me.  The Legate's eyes were cold chips of malice.  I stopped, frozen, thinking of the horrible walking dead under Nordic tombs, my skin breaking out in gooseflesh.  Hefting Derkeethus over his shoulder effortlessly, he slowly walked over to the parapet.

    "I gave you every chance to join me, my friend.  But you've refused on every account.  What did you think you were doing when you offered to make that deal with Hrollod?" he said in his ear.  I heard every word as both a quiet whisper and a loud boom.

    "Hrollod...is a better man than you.  He never...used me," Derkeethus struggled.

    "Never used you?  Oh, so blind.  So naive."

    "Drop him, Constantius!" I snarled, still staggering as my head whirled and spun unpleasantly.

    "Silence!  You have no part in this.  You never did.  You're nothing more than a nosy, misplaced, beast who can't even manage to save her own friends," he sneered, "You're nothing.  Nay, less than nothing.  But I'm not finished with you."

    Fury boiled my lips together in silence.  "You're quarrel...is with me," I felt Derk murmur.

    "As a matter of fact, I believe our discussion is over."  And with a horrifying display of strength, he tossed my friend over the edge of the tower just as my legs unlocked.

    Derkeethus hung in the air for one crystalline moment, a spell in his palm, and I flung my body against the stone, reaching out with groping fingers.  They brushed his cloak as he floated too far out of my reach.  I saw Derk's face and my own overlapped in our mind for a moment as we regarded each other:  I with an expression of pained desperation, my friend with one of momentary confusion.  

    Then up was down, down as up, gravity pulled in two directions at once and I was flying, falling, standing, and reaching in the same instant.  I hung by my legs off the parapet even as I fell to the ground, the last coherent thought was, Why?

    The ground met my--Derk's--body and my world was a flash of bright pain.

    Suddenly I was alone.  In one eye, my world careened into a deep black.  In the other eye, a bright light suffused my vision.  I was blind and lost.  Dimly I felt cold snow seeping into my chest, though I was clinging to the tower, facing outward.  When I climbed back up, grasping empty air for some time until I felt smooth stone, I stood for a while, listening in a dazed panic for Constantius to approach me.  I heard nothing.  Nothing at all.

    My vision cleared, and all that was my friend's life became known to me at last.  From the moment of his hatching, to the last expressed fragment of his mind when he hit the ground.  With the knowing came a sudden metaphysical snap, and the connection was closed--sealed--while the full strength that was within us towered, monumental and overflowing.  I turned around and saw my foe as little more than a fly on the cheek of a giant.  For I felt my strength eclipsing his as Jode passes over the sun.  The Phial's powers were but that of a trinket, a mockery.

    "I believe you weren't finished with me?" I asked, a calm descending, unnatural and otherworldly.

Comments

1 Comment
  • Kynareth
    Kynareth   ·  May 12, 2013
    Ooh, I will have to think on this one for quite some time...the connection and the reasons for it are still a bit of a mystery (unless I have forgotten something from the past, which is quite possible).  Not Derk, not what I hoped would have happened to t...  more