Part 3
24th of Frostfall, 4E 204, Hammerfell, Southern Bangkorai
A Redguard man stared out of the window, sitting at the table with his back to the small room which was both a kitchen and dining room as well as a bedroom, watching two boys playing on the street. Each carried a wooden stick carved into the shape of pulwar and they attacked each other with grim expressions and overplayed shouts of righteous fury. The wooden swords sometimes hit skin and the boys acted as if they suffered a serious injury, dropping on their knees, leaning against their swords. And just when the other was about to land a killing strike they would miraculously push through the pain and rise back on their feet. The swords would then lock and they would grit their teeth, pushing against each other.
Such were the games of children. They were always pretending to be one of the famous Swordsingers. Frandar Hunding, Divad the Singer, and each time a girl played with the boys she would be Makela Leki, and they were all slaying scores of imaginary Goblins and Orcs.
Though in recent years he noticed that another enemy had sprung up in the games, and he had found himself pausing, rubbing his black braided beard, when he heard shouts like ‘Die, elf!’ or ‘This is our land, you Thalmor dogs!’ Children could sometimes be very cruel in their innocent bluntness, with their hurtful words.
A backpack landed on the table in front of him, startling him, but he would be damned if he let her have the satisfaction of seeing him jump out of his pants. “What’s that?” he asked calmly, his brown eyes still fixed on the street.
“Supplies. You forgot to pack them,” she said with her song-like southern accent. He could easily imagine her standing above him, her hands on her hips, a frown on her face. He didn’t even have to turn around to know what stance she took.
“I didn’t. I’m not going,” he replied, with silence being her response. He sighed. “I’m not leaving you, not after what happened with the boy-”
“Precisely because of that you should go,” she didn’t let him finish, her hands clasping his shoulders. “Now is not the time to alienate the people. If Heimke says he needs your help hunting down the lion then help him.” He didn’t respond and now her hands moved into his hair, playing with his dreadlocks. She sighed, seeing that he wasn’t convinced. “The boy will be fine,” she sighed, a humming coming from the next room of their house. “We will be fine.”
The two boys on the street stopped in the middle of the fight, their eyes set on something on the street he couldn’t see. In few seconds an Orc in grey leather armor walked into his line of sight and the boys’ eyes went wide as plates. For hadn’t their imaginary foe suddenly become real? The Orc stuck his tongue at them and then continued walking, chuckling.
“So it is true,” she murmured behind him. “An Orc is in town. Is he a trader from the so called city of Orcs?”
“He doesn’t look like it,” he shook his head. “Neither he looks like the tribal one. A mercenary I think.” He paused, sucking air through his teeth.
She knew him too well to let that slide. “Something bothers you. What is it?”
He grimaced, shaking his head. “You know me too well. Maybe that is why I love you so much. Can’t hide anything from you, even if I wanted to.”
“Or maybe that is why I love you so much,” she laughed, kissing him on the back of his head. “So do not even try to steer the conversation away. What is bothering you?”
“The Orc. Something about him…” he let that sentence fade into silence, not sure how to describe it. “Just have a bad feeling about him. It’s like a bad omen.” He then reached back, taking her hand into his and rubbed her knuckles. “I’ve heard few of the militia boys talking in the tavern earlier. Something about sweeping the green filth out of town.”
“That was just the drink talking. As long as he does not cause trouble and pays with Skaven gold they will keep their bold words around the table in the tavern.”
Someone then knocked on the main door and soon after they could hear Heimke’s baritone. “Rhavhyn? You ready? We’ve got a lion to catch, come on!”
He looked at the backpack on the table and frowned.
“Go. We will be fine,” she said softly into his ear, a humming coming from the second room accompanying her words, soothing his mind. “I promise.”
“Rhavhyn!” Heimke’s voice echoed again.
“Rhavhyn!” the burly Breton hunter shouted, followed by heavy breathing and Rhavhyn stopped and turned around.
Heimke was leaning against his thighs, trying to catch a breath, his straw hair glued to his face. His green tunic was soaked with sweat, but Rhavhyn wasn’t doing any better.
They’d been running almost the entire night after all.
“Just a… second… need to… catch… Catch my breath,” Heimke rasped and Rhavhyn leaned against his hunting spear, his chest heaving in controlled inhales and exhales. He nodded and looked to the east. The sun was rising, drowning the orange glow that had been lighting up the sky whole night.
When they left Azra’s Crossing they had been travelling west, to the other side of the crater and beyond, where one of the remote farms reported seeing a lion that had also eaten one of the farmer’s cows. Before sunset they’d reached a ravine, a good place for camp and also a good place for a lion’s den. But there had been no signs of the lion, no marks or tracks, and so they had made camp right before dark.
And that’s when they saw it. The light in the east, the orange glow in the sky. Coming from Azra’s Crossing. And so they ran.
Rhavhyn stared in the town’s direction, his thoughts a storm of emotions. Anger. Worry. Grief. Hope. It was all there.
He knew he should have stayed, that he could’ve done something. It was the feeling of being powerless that burned in his soul the most, the fear of the unknown. What if something had happened to his family? He hoped they were fine, but what if they weren’t?
Now that they stopped to catch a breath his thoughts headed in that direction again, fear creeping into his heart. He and his family had suffered enough already, they deserved a peaceful life. The gods couldn’t be so cruel as to take his family away from him, not now, when he’d found happiness, after all he had seen and done in his life.
Please, don’t be cruel. Have mercy and spare my family. Tava, may your winds carry them to safety. Tu’whacca… look the other way. Just this once.
He gritted his teeth, unable to deal with those thoughts and fears anymore. “Let’s move. We’re close now,” he grunted towards Heimke who nodded, his breaths now deeper. Rhavhyn could see the Breton was as scared as him, he too had a family in the town. A beautiful wife and an even more beautiful daughter.
Gods, please, let everyone be fine and unharmed. Be merciful…
But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be so. Not with a fire illuminating the night sky like that.
They started running again, running towards their deepest fears just as the sun rose from over the horizon, blinding them with its morning intensity.
A piercing pain kept exploding in his lungs and his legs burned and shook, but there was something pure in the running, something that kept everything simple. One leg in front of the other, repeat. Inhale, exhale, repeat. There was no room for worrying about things they would find at Azra's Crossing, about finding confirmation of their deepest fears. There was only the wind on Rhavhyn's face and in his hair, as if Tava was stroking his cheek in a comforting gesture.
Running made everything go away. The shame of his family name, the haunting deaths of the Great War, the things he and his wife were forced to do to ensure their survival. All that was swept away by the wind on his face.
Wind that was getting warmer and warmer as they neared the town, cutting the distance over the rocky landscape. His eyes watched the remains of Azra's Crossing which was nothing more than a smouldering pile of rubble now, and with every step his heart kept sinking deeper and deeper, deeper than Oblivion itself.
He could hear Heimke panting behind him, struggling to catch his breath, and with every pace they drew closer the pants were interrupted by an occasional sob as the sight in front of them pummeled the Breton's soul, and Rhavhyn found himself narrowing his eyes, clenching his jaws. He could feel silent tears rolling down his cheek, carried away by the wind and his running began slowing down.
It was just gone, the whole town. Overnight. Nothing but smouldering rubble and ash now.
Not more than thirty steps from the edge of the town he dropped on his knees, his tears now flowing freely. He expected it, but it still hurt so much. Truth always hurt so much. There was no one trying to put out the fires, no people huddled away from the fires, comforting each other. Only smoke and embers, and charred bodies at the edge of the town.
Heimke ran past Rhavhyn, checking each body, sobbing every time he turned around the bodies disfigured by the heat.
Rhavhyn didn’t see a point in that. Nobody survived. He felt certain that no one survived. No could have.
His mother always kept saying they were cursed, because of their name, even though they no longer used it, too ashamed of what their ancestor had done, of the chaos he’d wrought on Tamriel. He had brought the curse on them, she said.
He never really understood it, why his family had been stripped of their titles and the name, why they were stricken from all the records. All that because of the actions of one man. And what he also didn’t understand was why they kept reminding their children of their legacy when it was nothing but sand in the wind.
But he understood now. The curse was real. The gods had cursed them for the deeds of the past, made sure they would never find happiness, and he was the last one to pay the price now.
How could he ever believe there would be a peace for him? The town was gone and with it his family, his wife and his child. The curse had taken them and so he was the last.
And there and then he decided the curse would end with him.
He reached for the hunting knife on his belt, pulled it out and stared at the reflection in the blade for a moment and then he turned the knife around, the tip now resting on his chest right where his heart was.
It was all his fault.
“This is all your fault!”
Heimke’s rough and broken voice sounded behind him, and he understood that. He had brought doom on the town. He never should have come here.
“You never should have come here,” Heimke growled, and it was only Rhavhyn’s own emotional state that prevented him from recognizing what was really hiding in the voice. A hand landed on his shoulder and roughly spun him around, the knife falling out of his hand when he gasped in surprise as he was brought on his back. “You shouldn’t have brought that bitch of yours. You shouldn’t have spawned the bastard!”
He looked into Heimke’s face. It was pale, the soot and ash glued to his skin with sweat, tears running down his cheeks, locked in a grimace of hate and wrath.
“What did you say?” Rhavhyn whispered, his heart suddenly beating faster as his mind was slowly starting to comprehend.
“You heard me!” Heimke growling, kneeling over him and he grabbed his tunic, his fingers reaching for his neck. “There never was a lion, you fool! I only had to keep you away!”
The hands were now on his neck, the pressure increasing. “What did you do?” he rasped.
Heimke’s face twisted in spite as he now leaned forward with all his weight, intending to choke Rhavhyn to death. “We had had enough of carrying snakes on our chests! We had enough and… look what that brought us!”
Rhavhyn’s vision began to grow dark, but he understood now. Villagers, peasants, unable to look past their simple minds, past their simple notions. His family… They took it from him, but the fools didn’t know, they couldn’t comprehend. They had brought only doom on themselves.
The curse of his bloodline would end now.
But after the last of the bloodthirsty simpletons were dead.
His mind was already slipping, but he still managed to reach out. It had been far too long, but the response was immediate, as if there was a will that had always waited for him to reach out again, to use it. As if it had never left. It felt just the way it had felt the first time in his life, rushing and eager.
And he used it.
A wind picked up and sped past his body, hitting Heimke with full force into his chest. It lifted the burly Breton off the ground and threw him several steps back where he landed with a shocked scream.
Rhavhyn drew a sharp breath, the air filling his lungs and scratching his sore throat as he clawed back on his feet.
“You too? Bastard!” Heimke shouted as he began rising, but one flick of Rhavhyn’s wrist pushed him back into the ash as if a fist had reached out of the sky and smashed the Breton’s back.
“Yes,” the Redguard murmured as he slowly walked towards the Breton. “I believed we were friends, Heimke.” The air whirled around him in complicated patterns, drawing in the smoke and ash. “I thought that you, a Breton, would understand, that you wouldn’t be as short-sighted as them.” Tiny sparks of lightning danced on his skin, lashing out from his body with every word. “And you helped those fools, helped them kill my family.”
“Burn in Oblivion!” Heimke yelled at him, getting on his knees, but this time no wind pushed him back. No, instead, the wind collided into several thin vortexes of smoke and static energy which headed towards the Breton.
“No,” Rhavhyn murmured. “You burn in Oblivion.”
The vortexes then lashed forward, and before Heimke could scream they poured into his body through his mouth, nose and ears. He let out a choking sound and his body began thrashing as the smoke filled his lungs and the lightning burned his body from inside out. The skin turned black and started peeling off and the man that had been Heimke fell on the ground.
Just another charred husk of the smouldering Azra’s Crossing.
And that was the end of the last of the fools who had taken away his family with their foolishness.
The curse had to end.
He turned around, walking back to the knife he’d dropped, ready to follow his loved ones to the Far Shores or wherever their souls drifted. He would meet them again, wherever they were.
Something caught his eye for a second, glistening in the sun and he narrowed his eyes, his gaze going back to the knife. He clenched his jaws and then headed towards the glistening object. The curse could wait.
It was some kind of metal, half melted and it took him a moment before he recognized the shape. It used to be a flail. He gritted his teeth. That Orc had carried it. Thought what it meant, why the flail was there, he couldn’t guess.
He looked around and noticed three pairs of prints, half buried by the ash, and his heart skipped a beat. Two pairs were quite big and heavy, but the third were lighter and also smaller. Belonging to a woman.
Could it be? Tava, please…
He followed the lighter ones and noticed they came from the town, which raised his hopes.
Could his wife have survived? And who were the other two survivors?
He followed the tracks, noticing that they headed east and he clenched his jaws.
If the two survivors were from the town, they would try to finish the job, if the third pair of tracks was really hers. And if not…
There were three survivors that didn’t have the right to be alive.
He ran towards the knife and sheathed it, his eyes set east.
The curse could wait.
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