Chapter 17
In his old neighbourhood, Kelp was the one boy that every Altmer mother screamed at their children about.
‘You hear about Kelp, ah? Kelp’s going to the University of Lillandril already! Kelp’s going to be a soldier! Kelp’s going to serve our country! Why can’t you be more like Kelp, ah? You slack-jawed layabout! Do your homework!’
At the age of nineteen Kelp had enrolled in the Dominion military academy. At the age of twenty he wrote an eighty-six-page treatise detailing eleven different troop formations that could be used to defeat the Imperial Legion’s full oblong square phalanx without the use of magic.
Kelp liked to think he got an early start to language and writing even before he could go to school because he had to learn how to write his own name. His full name was Kelpemmeonrielleldrynas. Only the most stringent of officers and instructors used it at the academy.
When he graduated at twenty-two, he did so with full honours and perfect marks. He was immediately promoted to second lieutenant. The unit he’d been assigned to had hated him at first. Then they’d been deployed to Elsweyr and their routine patrol had been set upon by Suthay-raht guerillas. The captain and the lieutenant had died in two minutes, leaving him the highest-ranking officer. He had taken charge. The fight was over in half an hour. All fifty-seven guerillas lay dead. Their unit had only suffered two more casualties. He had been welcomed home with a medal and a hot meal and after the ceremony, another captain had approached him.
The captain’s name was Aenir.
After that his career had flown along as smooth as butter. His transfer to the Aldmeri Dominion’s Third Division had been approved in two days.
His new comrades were eleven Altmer all from varied backgrounds, barely adults like himself – Captain Aenir was the eldest and he wasn’t even thirty years old – but already known in the army as the elite of the elite. Aenir’s unit operated directly under the Third Division’s commander, the young but already decorated Thalmor war hero Larethor of Shimmerene.
They wouldn’t get their nicknames, though, until the latter half of the Second Century came about and the Great War erupted, bringing them to operations all across the continent. The Twinstinger’s Hornets, always triumphant, always coming in to save the day with the big finish. Alinor loved them and the Dominion’s propaganda machine was only too happy to parade them about as examples of the ideal fighting mer. Even after the Red Ring, the citizenry ate them up.
Then came the mission of 196…
Nerunae plopped a bowl of lukewarm wheat porridge in front of him as he sat down in the mess. Kelp stared at it, giving it a little stir. A small bubble rose up in the bowl. The porridge was grey and stuck unpleasantly to his spoon. Kelp’s eye twitched.
We went from poster children to this miserable existence. He gripped the spoon hard enough for veins to pop out of the back of his hand. Tsukikage…!
‘Eat.’ Nerunae was really rationing her words today. She patted her belly and Kelp took her meaning. Keep your strength up.
Kelp stuck the spoon in his mouth and winced. The porridge was almost as bitter as his thoughts.
Nerunae nodded approvingly and left for the barracks.
As always when he was upset, Kelp started to think, running through facts in his head, pulling up strategies and counterstrategies and focusing on things that needed to be done. We’ll have to change hideouts soon.
They were currently set up in a small bandit camp in Eastern Skyrim, near the Morrowind border. Clearing them out had been easy enough – the loosely organised humans couldn’t even be called a training exercise – but even though the camp was remote, staying in one position for too long put them at risk of exposure. Another week, tops.
Kelp choked down the porridge, trying not to conjure up memories of seaside shallow-fried fish. Then he headed to the war room.
The bandits’ camp had been converted out of an old fortress, so the Hornets had simply restored some of the chambers to their original function. The war room even came with a table that wasn’t as rotted as the rest of the wood in the castle. Kelp hazarded a guess that it was something the bandits brought in, seeing as the map they had found on top of it was quite recent and some spots had been marked with fresh ink.
The Hornets, of course, used their own map. They had worked on it for almost four full years now, and over the last year their progress had been exceptional. We’re running out of crystal balls, though.
They had issued at least one of the enchanted baubles to every team of adventurers, mercenaries and bounty hunters they managed to lure up the Jeralls to Mount Furiya and at this point they were down to five. Perhaps it was time to make some more.
The plan was meticulous and careful. Kelp knew; as the unit’s resident tactician he’d helped plan it with Aenir and Larethor. It had taken the Hornets three years to advance their magic to the level where they could perform this sort of enchantment, but it had been worth it. In addition to becoming far more well-rounded combatants – they needed to be since they didn’t have backup anymore – their increased mastery over the arcane arts meant that they were able to place secondary enchantments into the crystal balls that allowed them to track their location.
Which meant that they knew exactly where the teams had stopped moving.
Funded by gold they had acquired from bandit hoards, the Hornets had gone around the Jeralls from every surrounding province recruiting explorers – most of the time, their cover story was relic collection.
The shinobi’s territory had such a terrifying reputation as a haunted mountain that it actually ended up making things easier. Only the most capable bands assembled for the job. Of course, none of them actually made it up to the village. The last group led by the Imperial archer and the Redguard swordsman only went three leagues into Shadeclaw land. Getting onto the mountain hadn’t been their objective in the first place.
By cross-referencing every spot where the teams had met their end, Kelp had managed to narrow down the location of Tsukikage to an area approximately fifteen miles long and nine miles wide. It was marked out across the map with red string tied taut around pins. An X was drawn in the very centre, along with a question mark.
Roused by the prospect of revenge, he went over to the other side of the table and picked up the file. It had belonged to a former member of the Blades.
Ironic – he managed to evade the Dominion for so long only for us to turn up.
The process of acquiring the file had been painstaking, involving twelve murders, a chase across three provinces, an encounter with both the Thalmor and the Penitus Oculatus in Southern Cyrodiil, a Moth Priest and several thousand ducks.
The file had been coded with three layers of magic – a spell cast through the ink and two enchantments woven into the paper. It had taken Kelp and the other Hornets two months to break each layer. Every one of them had read it by this point. Kelp had even refined some of the main points into training drills. He could recite parts of it by heart.
Kelp grinned in anticipation and began to read.
Interrogation Log One
(Transcription begins)
E: Well, then. You know where this is going.
(G remains silent for upwards of two minutes)
E: Nothing to say? In that case, I’ll dispense with-
G: Esbern, wasn’t it? A bit young to be doing this, aren’t you? Ah, but I suppose you did mastermind the whole Falinesti affair. Already looking to climb the ranks, are we? I’ve been in this room a few times, but never from this side of the table. Interesting perspective. Who’s handling the hot poker this time around?
E: You are not going to be tortured.
G: No? Pity, I was getting bored.
E: Your name is Garros Secutor. You are – were – the head of combat operations in Northern Cyrodiil. Two years ago, you deserted your post, and have since been responsible for multiple acts of sedition and-
G: Are you just here to list off my charges, boy?
E: Your cell of ten rogue agents is directly responsible for the deaths of two hundred and seventy-six Tsukikage shinobi, fifty-nine of which were killed by your own hand.
(G laughs)
G: That’s what this is all about. I figured as much.
E: How did you do it?
G: My sword. What do you think?
E: If you cooperate, we will ensure-
G: Oh, save it. I don’t need an incentive to tell people how to take down Shadeclaws. What do you want to know? Make your questions specific.
E: How did your unit manage to dispatch so many shinobi? Given their physical and magical abilities…
G: (snorts) Shinobi. You know, by the original definition of the term, we would count as shinobi too. In Akavir, ages long past, anyone who performed intelligence gathering activities was a ‘shinobi’ – it’s just the Akaviri word for ‘spy’, just like ‘katana’ is for ‘blade’. There were samurai who were also shinobi… even members of the Dragonguard. The Shadeclaws share an even closer ancestry with our order than most of us think. But Tsukikage has taken a bit of a monopoly on the title in modern times.
E: You mention the Akaviri Dragonguard. When you deserted the order, you took with you a trove of classified documents, many of which were also historical manuals. Did any of them contain information pertinent to your quest to kill Shadeclaws?
G: No, not really. Like I said, things were different in Akavir. Anything in the manuals speaking of techniques and strategies to use against shinobi basically just meant ‘counterintelligence’ and ‘counterespionage’. We already employ most of these strategies.
E: Then-
G: (raises a finger) However… I did find certain manuscripts useful. They were written by Tsaesci warriors who detailed techniques to use against what they describe as ‘Po’ Tun assassin clans’. You know, I didn’t even take most of those manuscripts with me. They should still be available from the Llugwych loremaster. (he laughs) You’ve had it sitting under your nose this whole time.
E: So you became such effective shinobi hunters all because of these Tsaesci manuals?
G: Well, not entirely. You have to remember that at the end of the day, they might be enhanced mutants, but they’re still human – as in flesh and blood. Fighting them head-on actually isn’t that much of an issue if you’re well-trained. And we were very, very well-trained.
E: In numerous reports, it is mentioned that you always forced Shadeclaws into open combat whenever possible.
G: Of course. And I always had men at my back. You see, Shadeclaws aren’t trained to handle fighting multiple hostiles for a lengthy amount of time. They either finish a fight in minutes or escape. You don’t even need that many people. A group of elite soldiers anywhere larger than five actually stands a good chance of fending off multiple units of Shadeclaws. I dragged out our battles, and the longer they got the more opportunities we had.
E: How does that work?
G: It’s one of the key weaknesses of a Shadeclaw’s mutated physiology. They don’t sweat.
E: Sweat?
G: Yes, sweating. After Rendanshu, any of a Shadeclaw’s glands involved in the secretion of odorous fluids are completely deactivated. This makes them essentially scentless and allows them to sneak right past guard dogs… but sweating is an important mechanism that allows all humanoids to rapidly cool themselves. The only way a Shadeclaw can cool themselves is through breath control – but it still can’t compare to the efficiency of sweating. Which means that if you can force a Shadeclaw to exert themselves at full capacity for extended periods of time, their body will begin to overheat.
E: It’s that simple?
G: Shadeclaw weaponry is centred around stealth and mobility. I outfitted everyone in full plate armour, which basically let us go completely on the attack. I’ve never let a shinobi off the back foot. That’s the key – force them back, don’t give them room to manoeuvre. A few shinobi skilled enough with the kiai can still cut through our defenses, but we have our own kiai, and it’s much more potent when it comes to open combat. You do still need a team of accomplished warriors who can maintain a continuous offensive long enough. I borrowed a move from the Colovians. The Legion’s phalanx and its rotating frontline. You know – one row fighting at the front for ten minutes, then going to the back and letting the row from behind become the front line. In a drawn-out battle, a Legionnaire in a phalanx of seven ranks deep only fights once every hour. I cut it down to three rows, and even then it was simple – every one of the Blades in my unit was worth at least ten Legionnaires. We also trained ourselves in magic. You’ll need only enough skill to repel most of a Shadeclaw’s spells while pressing forward.
E: You make it sound almost easy.
G: It really was, after a while. Fighting isn’t the main problem when dealing with Shadeclaws. If you’ve spotted them, cornered them and forced them into the open, you’ve won three-quarters of the battle. When they’re actively hunting you from the shadows, when you don’t know where they’re striking from – that’s when they’re at their most dangerous.
E: But you solved that problem too.
G: Yeah. Your standard life detection spells won’t cut it with fully trained Shadeclaws. Our kiai might be more powerful, but a shinobi’s silent kiai is quite a bit more versatile. They can use it to halt certain life functions long enough to get close and go in for the kill. Spells that track pure life essence, though – those will show you exactly where a Shadeclaw is. We used Galerion’s Snare. Casting it continuously over a two-hundred-yard radius was no challenge at all. And the best part about it? The only way to counter spells like that is to use magic, but since the Snare also detects fluctuations in magicka, we found the shinobi all the same.
E: You were so confident in your unit’s capabilities that you had even begun drafting plans to attack Tsukikage itself.
G: Ah. You found them?
E: Of course we did.
G: Well, obviously I’m in no position to execute those plans. But yes. Not just with my unit, though. I would need a force of considerable size, comparable to one or two Legions, if I wanted to attack the village.
E: Tsukikage’s population is at Legion size itself. What makes you think you could pull off a siege successfully?
G: A few things. A flaw in the Shadeclaws’ attempts to preserve secrecy is their lack of communication when they’re in the field. Once a shinobi leaves Tsukikage for a mission, they carry nothing that they can use to relay information back to the village. No birds, no spells, nothing. Their coordination as individual units in the field is superb, but that’s the point – they’re individual units. It took the village months to catch on to the fact that I was actively hunting them across Tamriel. They’re not going to come rushing back when the village is attacked. Another thing you need to keep in mind is that, barring the New Year’s Festival, Tsukikage’s actual population is only ever at six to eight hundred or less. In wartime, it could even drop below three hundred. The rest of the Shadeclaws are scattered across the world, busy with their missions and operations. With enough forces and proper organisation, you could form a double-edged blockade around Mount Furiya and simply pick off any shinobi that try to make it through. Tsukikage doesn’t have siege engines or any defensive fortifications aside from their village wall. That’s why it’s still called a village. They’ve banked everything on their home being untraceable. If we just slowly tightened the blockade while pushing in on all sides… well, we’d come across the village eventually.
E: So why haven’t you enacted the plan yet? You’ve obviously thought it through.
G: You know, every culture has some equivalent to chess. The ‘king’ or ‘general’ piece is invariably housed in the very centre… it’s funny. In the Eastern Akaviri version, the one played by Po’ Tun, the king is probably the most powerful piece. It can go in any direction and take out any piece on the board. It’s just very rarely used because of the risk of immediately losing the match.
E: And how is this relevant?
G: It’s relevant because there’s one problem with everything I’ve just said about besieging Mount Furiya. The Shadeclaw Grandmaster.
E: I see.
G: No, you don’t. You really don’t. There’s a reason you hear Tsukikage shinobi invoking the name of their First Grandmaster like they would one of the Aedra or Daedra. She practically was one herself. The First and Second Grandmasters of Tsukikage were beings that matched the Dunmeri Tribunal in power. Grandmasters of the modern era can’t compare, of course, but all of them could probably have taken a Telvanni master wizard or an elder Psijic sage one-on-one. There are a few Shadeclaws every generation who are at this level of power, but those are also the ones assigned the roughest missions. The Grandmaster, on the other hand, almost never leaves the village in order to keep their strength and magicka capacity at peak levels. In other words, the Grandmaster is consistently the greatest threat to anyone invading the village.
E: Then why even bother drafting your plans around a standard siege?
G: I was waiting, of course.
E: For what?
G: There are occasions where the Grandmaster leaves the village. Very, very select occasions. Annual meetings with the Emperor. Personally leading operations of the highest priority. War. I’d been planning to wait for one of these occasions. If the Grandmaster can be isolated, they’ll just be a very powerful individual without backup. Still a grave menace… but not impossible to deal with.
E: So it’s that old adage about fighting snakes.
G: That’s right. Before you do anything else, go for the head.
Go for the head… Kelp licked his lips, looking forward to the moment. He’d already devised a strategy to take down the Grandmaster. It would be risky, and every one of the Hornets was needed, but the odds of success were greater than failure. And after that was dealt with, they could move on to the rest of the village.
First, of course, there was the second stage of the plan. But Larethor and Aenir were already in Morrowind dealing with that, so Kelp didn’t need to worry. The two of them together could get anything done.
He flipped a page and turned to the second interrogation of Garros Secutor. There were sixteen in all.
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