‘Morning Rises in the Alik’r’
The Imperial in front of Jorra was a sorry sight.
His hair was dishevelled, the war paint on his face had been smudged, and though the cavern was almost as cold as the mountains outside, he was sweating profusely. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he made incoherent whines as he wrenched his head from side to side.
Jorra’s hand shook, and the tip of his kunai would not stop trembling. He licked his lips.
‘Master,’ he said, and he could not keep his voice from quavering. ‘Who did you say this man was?’
Takarro paced around him, folding his arms behind his back, his voice as calm as ever. ‘A father to a family of three. The wife passed away a while ago, so he takes care of the two boys with the help of their elder sister. One of them is five, the other three. Coin is difficult to come by, so he scrounges what he can, and saves most of it for his children.’
‘I’ve…’ Jorra swallowed. ‘I’ve never met him before in my life. Why do I have to kill him?’
‘He is your target. Do you need any other reason?’
Jorra raised his kunai and the man went mad, convulsing in his restraints as if it would somehow loosen the chains, trying in vain to speak through his gag. The two other men next to him were long dead, their throats open, their bodies cold. Unaka and Mokko had not hesitated.
Tsukikage does not target innocents, he told himself. But this helpless, defenceless Imperial looked not in the slightest like a threat.
He knew how to do it. This was what he was trained for. Practice session after practice session after practice session, learning exactly where to place his strikes and slip his blade for a killing blow. It would be quick; it would be clean; it might even be painless.
I can do it. He took a step forward. The Imperial made a sound like a slaughtered pig and strained until he began tearing the skin off his bound wrists.
‘Is something the matter, Jorra-to?’ Unaka looked at him, half-curious, half-bashful. Mokko said nothing, as he usually did.
‘No,’ he stammered. His target – I don’t even know his name – met his eyes and pleaded through his own, his stare frantic, desperate. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’
He lifted the kunai to shoulder height and thrust forward. Somehow, despite all the years of training, all the diagrams of the human body he’d studied and all the perfect scores on simulated dummies, the blade missed, sailing past the Imperial’s throat, skewering him under the collarbone. The target screamed into his gag, writhing like a dying cockroach.
‘I’m sorry!’ Jorra wound back, stabbing again, his movement wild, undisciplined, his lessons all but forgotten. The kunai punctured the target’s lower torso, just above the groin. His screams rose by an octave. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’
Jorra stabbed the Imperial six more times, a hysterical apology bursting from his lips each time he struck. He knew he should have repositioned, taken the time to gauge distance and consider which organs he was aiming for, but the only thing he could focus on was the blood. So much blood, wet and sticky, clinging to his hands, his tunic, his fur.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whimpered, cradling his head in his hands as he dropped his kunai and sank to his knees. Then he heard a weak, gurgling moan and looked up in horror. The man was still alive, still staring at him with eyes now bulging out of their sockets. He had missed every single vital on the target.
‘No,’ Jorra sobbed, covering his eyes, bloodied palms smearing his face with gore. ‘No, no, no, no, no, this wasn’t what I wanted, this wasn’t-’
The wretched moaning stopped abruptly. Master Takarro had brought out his own blade and with the precision of a hawk severed the target’s spinal cord. The weapon was sheathed just as quickly, and the elder Po’ Tun swooped down on Jorra, wrapping him in his arms.
‘Master, I- this wasn’t- I can’t- not what I-’ Jorra hiccupped.
‘Shh,’ Takarro said, stroking his mane. His arms were strong and warm. ‘Shh. It’s all right, it’s all over now. You’ll never have to go through that again.’
‘Promise?’ Jorra sniffed, looking up.
‘I promise.’ Takarro took him by the neck and rested his head on his shoulder. ‘Never again.’
He had been eleven years old.
Jorra opened his eyes, wincing as the desert sun seared his eyes. The route he charted through the Alik’r had been free of enemy patrols, so he had taken the risk of travelling by day. The Legionnaires of Fort Hazir would not expect him to arrive so soon. I’m coming, Arngrimur-ra… no, just Arngrimur now. Jorra smiled. To think that they were already familiar enough to leave out honorifics.
A Shadeclaw’s camp was simple. No bedding and no tent, for a shinobi could rest simply by meditating on the spot. A frame of sticks with a small collapsible pot hanging from them was all he needed. Jorra clenched his fist and a fire sprung up under the pot, warming the sand eel stew he had made yesterday night.
The broth began to bubble and Jorra concentrated, holding a palm over the pot. Drawing moisture from the air was much more difficult in arid regions, but he managed a small stream of water. A few pinches of herbs he’d picked and powdered over the weeks went into the stew for seasoning, and he brought the fire down to a simmer.
Jorra rubbed his arms, wincing as his magicka drained. A Shadeclaw more attuned to the arcane arts could have simply summoned water from another dimension, but his talent had always been with plants and not spells. Still, he was grateful to his old magic instructors. Both the spells of water distillation and the rudimentary fire magic he had performed were invaluable in the field, allowing him to sustain himself without creating visible smoke and attracting attention.
The fire died down completely, and he took a sip of the thickened broth. Satisfied with the texture and flavour, he dug in with his chopsticks. Cooking – to be precise, the art of producing fine cuisine from simple ingredients – was one of the less obvious but no less important skills of a Shadeclaw. After all, the Po’ Tun often went undercover as Khajiit servants or slaves, infiltrating the very households of their targets. No able housekeeper had ever been an incompetent cook.
He checked his timepiece as he ate. Nine a.m. sharp. Normal travellers would be forced to stop in a few hours and find shelter from the unforgiving noonday sun of the Alik’r, but a Shadeclaw’s improved circulatory system was six times more effective at maintaining the body’s temperature equilibrium. Jorra was not even sweating – as a matter of fact, his body was incapable of producing sweat. The Clear Flask neutered both the sebaceous glands and sweat glands, with a new layer of permeable dermis replacing the function of moisture retention and preventing the skin from having to secrete odorous oils and waxes, thus making the shinobi for all intents and purposes completely scentless. Not even Colovian bloodhounds were capable of detecting a Po’ Tun who had gone through Rendanshu.
That did not, however, mean that he was completely safe from predators. This particular area of the Alik’r was infested with Dunerippers, and they did not require scent to hunt. The vibrations produced by careless footsteps could easily draw the monstrous creatures. That, of course, was where shinobi training came in.
He finished the stew and drank the last drop of broth, cleaned the pot with sand, then folded it into three flat sections and slipped it into his pouch. He took two breaths, concentrating and feeling the power rush through his bloodstream. Nord Tongues like Arngrimur called it the Thu’um, and the art of focusing it Shouting. Akaviri samurai and their descendants, the Blades, called it ki, and all derived techniques the kiai. Shadeclaws honed their ki as well, but unlike the loud Shouting of the Tongues and the intense, aggressive kiai of the Blades, a shinobi’s silent kiai had far fewer offensive applications… though it was no less versatile.
Jorra raced at full sprint through the desert, his feet leaving no prints on the sand and producing no sound. Ki provided his soles with an additional layer of padding, and by ejecting it and spreading it out over a five-foot-radius he dispersed the impact of his boots into the surroundings without even kicking up a single fleck of dust.
Magic, years of training from birth, mutated bodies and ancient Akaviri techniques combined to make the Shadeclaws some of the most formidable operatives Tamriel had ever – no, in more cases than not, never – seen. If only we could involve ourselves in something other than war and death, Jorra thought bitterly.
It had been almost forty years, but the stare of the only man he had ever truly intended to kill still burned in the back of his head, haunting his dreams. He had never learned the Imperial’s name.
Then, as he always did, he pushed it out of his mind. You are the weak one here, Jorra reminded himself. You lack the stomach to do what your comrades do.
And it was true – he would much rather stay in the garden, tending his plants and mixing potions. But a shinobi was a shinobi and war was war, and even those who did not have the resolve to kill were needed on the field, especially one with his skill in alchemy.
He thought of what Mokko, Torako and Unaka had done and felt a small knot of anger rise in his stomach. Shadeclaws were supposed to avoid collateral damage, yet the three had infected an entire river with diseased corpses simply to clear out a fort. Did they even think about the people who draw water from further downstream? How many innocent lives were lost because of the new outbreak of pox? How could they use it as a weapon so easily?
Once again he pushed that sort of thinking out of his mind. You are the weak one here.
A speck rose in the distance and Jorra squinted at it. After another mile of running, the speck grew into a brick. He spotted the Septim dragon flag of the Imperial Legion flying from the smoking battlements and smiled. Fort Hazir.
Arngrimur was waiting for him at the gates.
‘Jorra!’ The Legate’s voice was as loud and boisterous as ever, though a pair of new rings were visible under his eyes. ‘Damn me, you got here quick! Come here, you.’
‘It’s good to see you too, Arn,’ Jorra croaked as Arngrimur grabbed him and squeezed the breath from his lungs with a bear hug. Nords.
Arn wasted no time on further pleasantries. ‘Do you have a cure ready?’
Jorra frowned. Arngrimur of all people was anxious. That boded ill. ‘Is it that bad?’
Arn sighed, rubbing the stubble on his neck. ‘So far the Legionnaires and the refugees have gotten by drawing water from upstream, but the walk is long and some have already collapsed from heatstroke. We burned all the enemy corpses, but at least sixty of the men still managed to catch the pox, not to mention the refugees already infected… our healers are spread so thin that a couple of them are about to die from exhaustion. I’ve send word to Cyrodiil, but they can’t afford to give us any more mages.’
Jorra laid a hand on Arn’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said gently. ‘I have something even better than a cure. I have the recipe.’
He pulled out a sheet of parchment from his pouch, unfurling it in front of the Legate. ‘Torako-jo was kind enough to tell me exactly which variant of the pox we were dealing with. The Breton scholar Florian had already devised a cure for the disease, but some of the ingredients were hard to obtain. Bloodgrass and Sacred Lotus don’t exactly grow in the Alik’r wastes, so I substituted an extract of-’
Arn held up a hand and took the recipe. ‘Let’s skip the alchemy lesson. I’m guessing all the plants you listed here can be found here in the desert?’
Jorra nodded. ‘Yes. And the instructions should be simple and clear enough as well. Boil together for thirty minutes, consume one dose every six hours until all symptoms are gone. The ingredients listed with an asterisk can be made into a paste and applied directly to the rash.’
‘Sergius!’ Arn yelled, and his lieutenant came running over. ‘Gather a Cohort. We need to go pick some flowers.’
‘Sir!’
‘I will teach your healers to make the first dose,’ Jorra said, producing a vial of potion. ‘I have a solution ready for the river as well. You have already removed the corpses, correct? Pour this into the water, and the river should run clean after two moons.’
Arngrimur clasped his hand. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Jorra. You Shadeclaws are more than just simple assassins… well,’ he scowled as Unaka glided past them, stopped, stared and squealed Jorra’s name before Torako pulled her away. ‘Some of you, anyway. I swear, that woman gives me nightmares. Sweet, flowery and laughing one moment, a cold-blooded murderer the next.’
Jorra smiled as Mokko followed behind the other two, bemused and shaking his head. ‘Don’t be too hard on them, Arn. They did exactly what they came here to do – help you take Fort Hazir. I admit, their methods might be a little unrefined sometimes, but they were no less effective.’
‘I saw them butcher diseased refugees on their deathbeds, simply because they wanted fresh corpses,’ Arngrimur said, disquiet in his eyes. ‘And then they just threw them into the river.’
Tsukikage does not target innocents, Jorra wanted to say, but found the words stuck in his throat.
‘These are dark times,’ he said instead, turning his gaze to the horizon.
‘Aye, dark times,’ Arn agreed. ‘But you shinobi thrive in the dark, don’t you?’
‘Not all of us,’ Jorra said quietly, and spoke no more. Arngrimur soon fell silent as well.
Together they watched as the sun rose to its full height over the Alik’r, burning away the shadows cast on the dunes.
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