The Longest Road – Ch. 4 – 7: Blood in the Dark

  • Sarcophagi lined the walls, most cracked and leaking bone dust.  Braziers that were once cold and dead blazed to life as we approached them, and whether it was ancient magic or a presence waiting for us, I did not know.  Serana spent much of her time peering into these coffins, muttering in her strange rolling language as if commenting on the state of the dead within.  At first, I doubted her ability to lead us, having been asleep for who knew how long, but her decisions were quick and sure.

    The course we followed climbed steadily upward, and in spite of being generally fit, Valindor and I huffed and puffed with our legs on fire after an hour of climbing endless stairs.  When we reached the top of one landing, several stone coffins ground begrudgingly open to reveal dazed and infuriated undead.  They gargled threateningly at us, and to my surprise, Serana responded fluently in a harsh tongue.

    "I don't think they liked that answer," I muttered sidelong to Valindor.  He coughed a short bark of laughter that was cut even shorter by the dead charging the vampire.  Whatever distrust and disdain he showed for her, he at least had the decency to defend her.  With his bow, he shot one of the dead in the eye, showing the Bosmer marksmanship and steady hand I always knew he possessed.  It seemed killing undead was simpler than killing the living.  Drawing my own bow, I fired a second arrow into the neck of another shambling creature, dislodging its head so it hung precariously by fraying sinews.  Dodging a blow, the vampire sucked the meager life force from one corpse.  It collapsed in a heap of dust.

    "Serana, duck!" I shouted, spinning to aim at a shape creeping in the shadows.

    She looked at me in confusion, shaking her head with a shrug.  An arrow plunged into her side.  Spitting a curse, I let my arrows fly wildly into the dark, silently praying I hit whatever was hiding there.  Several plinked harmlessly against the wall, but two sank with a papery crunch into a dried corpse.  It slumped to the floor.

    "I thought I told you to duck."  The vampire offered an apologetic, though pained smile.  With a grimace, she yanked the arrow out of her side, the head of which was bloodless.  I held out a healing salve from my pack, but she pushed the pot away and shook her head.  Determined, we moved on.

    "Near there," she said, "Near outside.  Miss magnus."  Her brows contracted in longing.

    "A vampire that misses sunlight, who'd have guessed that?"

    Valindor rubbed at his short beard tiredly, his palm making a soft rasp in the silent tomb.  "I'll tell you what I miss.  I'm missing me a bottle of wine and the chorus of an inn.  This place is far too quiet."

    We arrived in a grand theater that surrounded a pit filed with blazing fire.  The air in the room was hot and stuffy, roiling with acrid smoke that stank with the tang of magicka.  My sinuses ached as I breathed in the foul smoke.  Near a grate in the center, a shriveled shape hunched near the flames, its skin blackened and melted.  Tall chairs crowded the railing around the pit, ancient skeletons slouched watching a game long ended.

    Serana descended the steps first, her shoes toking loudly off the walls, and I tensed, bow drawn, regarding those skeletons with a wary eye.  In the flickering light, I half-expected them to move.  Valindor followed me, fanning out to my left with his own weapon ready.  The vampire's pale hand touched the brow of one of the slouched would-be nobles and the thing slowly stood and bowed deeply to her.  Were those her people?  How old is she?

    "Henny."

    I nearly jumped out of my skin.

    "Look over there."  Val's voice was a harsh whisper as he pointed to the opposite side of the put where an oversized throne supported a dead man wearing a flowing moth-eaten robe.  The skeleton had fallen into a pose of abject boredom.  To my horror, the corpse Serana awakened was leading her right to this blasé figure, gesturing and ushering subserviently the entire way.

    "Don't go near that!" I called, but she waved dismissively as she approached the fallen royal.

    With an angry gurgle, the berobed body rose to its feet and stretched out a bony hand toward the other dead in the room.  They, too, stood, bowed, and collapsed as energy left their bodies and flowed into the royal.  Magicka blazed coldly through its body and it began to float several feet above the ground.  At this my arm jerked and trembled, unleashing a spark of magicka that opened the portal for the spriggan.  Y'ffre's maiden stepped through, with a face blazing with fury.

    "You violate the laws of the earth bones!" she shrieked.  Leaves and vines shot from her hands to collide with the undead's dark magic.

    I fired arrows at the corpse, but they were knocked cruelly aside.  Serana summoned her own brand of cold magic and sent spears of ice sailing towards it, but a ward shattered the spells into glittering diamond dust.

    "Ward!  Break ward!" the vampire shouted, and the spriggan sprang at the noble, her claws glowing bright green.  Thrusting her arm forward, she pushed against the ward, sending stray magicka flying everywhere.  Valindor and I crouched behind a fallen pillar, our eyes and bows following the undead noble's every movement.  At last, with a terrific boom, the ward shattered.

    "Now!"  Our bow strings sang and our arrows flew, lodging their heads into the creature's chest and leg.  Serana threw an ice spear into its center.  Weakened, the corpse fell to its knees.  A trembling pale hand gripped the papery skull and bright, red energy crawled over the fingers and up the arm.  The vampire sighed contentedly, and as my friend and I ran over to finish the job with cudgel and sword, I noticed the darkened hole in her side knitting back to together.

    With a final, dusty gasp, the undead royalty collapsed and disintegrated before our eyes.

    Exhausted, I collapsed on one of the many steps and put my head between knees.  The smell of magicka-fueled fire caused my head to pound blindingly and my stomach to churcn.  I lost track of Serana, not particularly caring where she was anyway.  Had she not been our hope of leaving this place quickly, and had I not agreed to take her to her family, I'd have been more than happy to see the back of her slowly disappearing.  A soft rustle of fabric and clink of mail settled next to me.

    "I'm sorry for what I accused you of back there.  I know whatever it is you're researching is important to you.  And even if I think you're insane to continue on this journey, especially if it involves some place like the Soul Cairn or resurrecting dead people, I'll at least try to make sure you're alive to atone for anything you do."

    "Thank you, Val.  I'm glad my religious experience is so important to you," I replied dryly.

    "I didn't mean it that way!  Of course I want you to stay alive anyway!  I don't know what'd I'd do if you managed to die.  I just don't want to watch you be punished by Y'ffre."  His fingers traced small circles on the back of my hand, and I felt a little better for it.  I turned my head to look at him and found his face full of grave concern.

    "I'm sure I'll survive just fine as a tree."

    "Yes, knowing you, you'd break rogue traveler's ankles for amusement."  His eyes were light were humor, and the moment threatened to turn into something different.

    "Outside.  Found outside!  Come."  The moment fizzled.

    The crypt exited on a snowy mountainside high above the destroyed Hall of the Vigilants.  Frigid air blasted our faces, and Valindor and I fumbled to tighten our hoods against the razor sharp winds.  Snow blew in every direction.  Darkness shrouded the world, so we stumbled for a while over rocks and through snowdrifts until our feet were soaked, bruised, and frozen.  I had to stop our progress before we died of exposure.  Of course, Serana had the audacity to look confused at our mortal needs.

    There wasn't much wood for a fire, and what precious little we did find was damp.  It took many tries to light the blaze with my rapidly numbing hands, but the wood eventually caught.  My friend and I clustered about its feeble heat like moths.  When we could move our hands with some dexterity, we set up a tent, Val taking the first watch.  His cudgel lay across his knees, his body barring the vampire from getting near the tent.  Not that she did anyway.  She'd eyed the fire with deep distrust and uttered something in her foreign tongue before disappearing into the dark.  We didn't see her until sunrise.

Comments

3 Comments
  • Kynareth
    Kynareth   ·  July 18, 2013
    I am enjoying your treatment of Serana very much, Kyrielle, and I look forward to DG to meet her some day.  Lots of hope in this chapter, despite their surroundings.  Your descriptions of magic were also amazing!
  • Kyrielle Atrinati
    Kyrielle Atrinati   ·  April 26, 2013
    A walker...made of....ice...yeah.  That's why he uses ice cloak.  Yeah..that's it.  (But don't tell him that!  Shhhh..!  He's sensitive about his age!)
  • Matt Feeney the New Guy
    Matt Feeney the New Guy   ·  April 26, 2013
    "Contrary to popular belief dragon priests are supported by suspensor chairs." LOL! So what about Krosis? :P