The ride from Fort Dawnguard had been tedious to say the least; Alarne and Blaise had acted as though they rode in the company of a bear. Their fear of what Runa would do to them should they say or do anything to set her off was almost something Sofie could reach out and touch. Runa only made this worse by sitting atop her horse and sending the occasional glare in the direction of her brother’s back.
The silence had stretched to the point that Sofie would have preferred for her siblings to be bickering as they so often had back in Solitude. The furtive glances that Alarne kept sending her way gave her the constant feeling of being a dangerous animal and she was well aware that the façade that she had erected around herself caused her brother greater fear than her sister ever could.
The calm expression that she wore had started out as a way of coping with the loss of a second set of parents; she had lived through the pain of losing one set and had had no wish to do so again. Yet it had been forced upon her and she had withdrawn from the crushing sadness and pain that had assailed her once the realisation had struck.
Since then Sofie had come to believe that she had complete control over how she felt, but every now and then Alarne did something that would cause such a violent reaction that she was proved wrong. The anger at how he had left; she was sure Blaise had seen it in her eyes when they had confronted him, had been the first time he had actually brought her to anger.
She had known beforehand what he was planning but Runa and Jordis had been left completely in the dark about it up until they had found him missing. Admittedly she could have told them before he left, but his disregard for what they would feel had driven this point out of her mind up until recently and by then it didn’t matter.
So absorbed in her own thoughts Sofie almost kept on riding when Alarne called for them to stop and dismount, pulling her horse up before she had completely passed them she turned in her saddle to survey the clearing that Alarne had led them to. Really it was nothing special; there were what could have passed for tents almost two decades ago and maybe that pile of dead wood over by the trees had been a hitching post other than that it was a normal clearing.
After getting as good a look as she could from atop her horse she slide from the saddle and walked over to where the others were talking. Alarne seemed to have gotten back most of his courage as he was looking Runa in the face as he spoke while Blaise was doing his best to hide behind his friend.
“…we should split up and look around separately, maybe on our own we’ll be able to find some clue or sign that we would see together.” It seemed as though Alarne had been planning this for a while as he spoke without pausing to think and it was almost like he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying.
“You’re right.” The three of them turned and stare at Runa; surprise etched on their faces “What this isn’t the first time I’ve agreed with Alarne, is it?”
“No, it’s just unsettling especially after how angry ya were with Alarne.” Blaise must have mustered all of his courage just to be able to answer her question for as soon as he had finished he shrunk back and took a great interest in the ground before him.
“Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m still furious with my foolish brother and you. I just think that he has a point and something about this place is giving me the creeps.” Her admission only succeeded in causing Blaise to look around in fear; Sofie understood this well enough, for Runa to be expressing unease something had to be really off about this clearing.
Once Alarne had convinced Blaise that Runa wasn’t going to attack him when they split-up the four of them moved off to search their own corner of the ancient camp site. It wasn’t long before Blaise let out a cry of surprise; rushing over all they could get out of him was a whimpered claim that he had seen something moving just past the trees.
“Blaise it was probably just a dear or a fox, no need to be so worried” As Alarne did his best to calm his friend Sofie caught a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. Trying not to cause another outburst she turned as slowly as she could to find herself staring at what appeared to be a man in heavy steel armour standing just within the trees.
“Ah guys I think we have company” as the words left her mouth the figure stepped forward and she was struck by the stench of rotting flesh; the strength of the smell was so strong that she stumbled back. The figure seeing this raised its hand over its shoulder and grasped the hilt of a massive steel Warhammer; while it did this it continued to move towards Sofie as though it was unaware of the others.
Sofie managed to steady herself and drew her sword from the scabbard resting on her left hip, as she moved forward to engage the steel clad figure she heard the sound of steel on steel coming from behind her and she turned to see Runa and Alarne facing off against a pair of rotting corpses each. What little flesh that was left on their bones was crisscrossed with streaks of purple light that seemed to shift as Sofie watched.
“Sofie look out” She had no idea which of them had called out but she was thankful for it, for as she turned back to the man with the hammer she could see that he had started to swing it down towards her. There was a loud crunch as the hammer smashed into the layer of leaves and sticks that litter the ground where Sofie had been standing moments before leaping to the side.
As she struck the ground she felt a sharp pain in the hand that had been holding her sword; her mind as sharp as it was knew instantly that her sword arm would be of no help for the time being and so she did her best to get back on her feet.
Once she was standing again Sofie could see that Alarne had managed to overcome one of his foes and was now doing his best to get past the shield of the other. This had been a mistake for in the instance that she had looked over at her brother her opponent had turned to face her again.
Looking down at her sword arm she could see that her first guess had been right and also that she was no longer holding her sword. Considering her wild leap out of the way this didn’t really surprise her but it was worrying as she felt as if she were still clutching the pommel.
All of a sudden a pair of feet appeared in front of her and there was a sound like breaking timber. Looking up she could see Alarne standing with the remains of a shattered shield grasped in his hands; lodged in what little remained of the shield was the head of the man’s Warhammer. From her left came the sound of magicka being released and then the man was struck in the head by a blast of lightning which sent him flying towards that edge of the clearing.
Both she and Alarne turned to find Blaise standing with his hands outstretched and an expression of amazement on his face.
“Blaise when did you learn that?” Alarne asked the question that had run through Sofie’s mind just moments before; he released the shattered remains of the shield and started to walk towards Blaise before stopping and turning to Sofie.
Already knowing what her brother was about to ask she answered before the question could leave his mouth “I’m alright; well actually I think I might have broken my wrist when I jumped out of the way of the Warhammer.” A look of concern spread across his face and she could see that the same held true for Runa who was now rushing towards her.
“Anyway Blaise that was amazing when did you learn how to cast a spell like that?”
“Oh um well back before Alarne and I left I wanted to be as helpful as I could so I begged Sybille to show me as much as she could about magic and I guess some of it sunk in. I’m sorry but I can’t remember any healing spells so I can’t fix yah arm.”
The look of utter sadness at his inability to help was enough to forget the pain emanating from her wrist and to feel sorry for Blaise “No Blaise it’s alright, there’s nothing you can do about it and plus I’m sure one of the temple priests back in Riften will be able to do something.”
Once she had finished reassuring Blaise, Sofie made her way over to the crumbled body of the man she had been fighting. As she drew near the smell of rotting flesh only seemed to grow stronger and before long she was covering her mouth and nose with her good hand. She held her sword arm to her stomach so as not to jostle it as she knelt next to the corpse she could see what appeared to be ash leaking out of the joins in the armour.
Taking a deep breath she removed her hand from across her face and tried to pry off the man’s helm; before she could even manage to shift the helm in the slightest Runa was kneeling across from her and had pushed her hand out of the way so that she could pull the helm free. Once she had a steady stream of ash poured out of the armour.
“It was the same for the four that Alarne and I fought, once we struck them down they started to glow and then their flesh turned to this” as Runa said this she gestured at the pile of ash that had formed at their feet after it had escaped from the neck of the armour.
“Did you manage to find anything before… well this? Because all I found was a bunch of sticks and grass.” She gestured at the now empty suit of steel armour lying before them and directed her question at the three of them and each replied with a no.
The trip back to Riften was not something she was looking forward to for while she was hiding the pain it was still there and riding a horse would only serve to jostle her arm which would worsen it. This would mean they would have to travel slower than they had coming her and it would be well after nightfall by the time they arrived at the city.
“Here I think you dropped this.” Alarne was standing next to her and hold out her sword with a pained smile stretched across his face. Struggling to her feet she thanked him and took the sword back with her left arm and then proceeded to struggle with sheathing it. Once the blade was back in its proper place she started over to her horse which amazingly had remained where she had left it.
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