Birth of the Dark Assassin Part: 2
As the four guards led me down the familiar forest path towards town, my hands clamped in irons and my feet bound in shackles, my mind was wrecked with a torrent of emotions and for once I could find no comfort in the sound of the wild I heard all around me. The guards were still taking turns in striking me and abusing me with fiercely racist remarks, the likes of which I had not heard in a long time. On any other occasion I would have rose to the remarks and defended the honour of my people and their ancestors but not tonight. I had shamed my family and my ancestors with my actions and the physical and verbal abuse I was now suffering at the hands of these imperials was little more than I deserved. I had forgotten the faces of my fore fathers, I had let my family be butchered and had murdered my only friend in the world, the anger I felt for those who murdered my family was nothing compared to the feeling of guilt at the dishonour I had wrought on my family name.
I would not let it end like this, I could not let it end like this. I would set things right or die trying. I made a promise to myself then and there, as I was marched through the woods, that I would dedicate the rest of my life righting the wrongs of this night. I pushed away all the feeling of guilt and regret that filled my mind and began to focus. I drowned out the incessant voices of the guards and instead focused on the sounds nature and used them to help calm my spirit and collect my thoughts.
I started to make a vague outline of a plan in my mind quickly making mental notes of the things I would need to do, to atone for my actions and regain my family’s honour. I would avenge my family’s death and kill all those responsible, I would make amends to Christof’s family, and how I was to do this I did not yet know. These two things were a given, but how could a refugee Dunmer hunter on his own hope to accomplish these things?? The first and foremost problem with his plan was that he was a prisoner and was sure to be found guilty and executed in the not to distant future.
If by some miracle of Azura he was to escape this grim fate there were still the facts that, he was in a strange land, possessed little or none of the skills needed to track down those responsible and he had no money or equipment. Realising all of this he felt completely disheartened. He was woken from his thoughts by the sounds of the town drawing nearer; he had not even noticed the trip pass him by. It seemed like only moments ago he had been arrested and yet here he was in town an hours journey on foot away from his homestead.
They led me straight through the centre of town towards the guard office and although late it was still fairly busy with people going about their business. I did not lift my head as I did not want to look any of them in the eye, such was my shame. Thanks be the nine, we arrived at the guard office shortly and I was hauled inside away from the questioning eyes of the small crowd of locals that had stopped to see what was going on. “Alright you bloody nosey lot get back to your business there aint nothing more to see hear I tell ya, go on, on with ya!!” said a big burly human man who I automatically assumed to be the captain of the watch and he followed us back inside where he had come from.
“Well, well, well, what have we here ay?” he asked solemnly as he examined my extremely blood stained clothes. The guard who had been the most obnoxious to me thus far stepped forward proudly with his belly sucked in and his chest stuck out, the smell of cheap mead oozing from his pores, “You see sire its like this. A Nordic boy came in not long ago and said he and his father had been on there way back from town when the boy’s mother had come screaming through the woods crying bloody murder. The husband could make no sense of his wife’s ramblings except that something terrible had apparently happened out at the homesteads. The Nord who I’m told was named Christof put his wife and son on his nag and instructed them to head back to town and alert the guards and seek help for his wife. On receiving this information we gathered ourselves and promptly headed for the homesteads sire. When we got there swiftly as we could and it didn’t take us long to locate the source of the commotion. We spotted this filth…” and he gave me a slap on the back of the head for good affect then continued with his story. “… through a door way and he was stabbing a man repeatedly with a dagger. So we rushed in on him just as yielded and when he saw us four standing over him the coward didn’t even try to fight he dropped the dagger immediately and has not spoken since sire. But that’s not the worst part sir, oh no not by a long shot. In the house we also found the bodies of a young dark elf boy and that of a dark elvin woman, there throats slashed and their hearts pierced with a dagger, the same type of one the prisoner was holding when we had arrived. If you want my guess sire it looks to be some sort of foreign ritualistic this fella was in the middle of doing and his poor unfortunate neighbour had walked in on the savage and disturbed him and was butchered to death as a result. Isn’t that right you dirty murdering dark skinned sad excuse for an elf eh??” he screamed the last part at me and then quite generously proceeded to spit a rather big snot filled mouthful of salvia into my face.
“That’s enough of that now Igor I will not have a prisoner treated like that in my presence is that understood?” said the captain angrily. “Yes” replied Igor rather meekishly, “Yes sire!!” said the captain raising his voice even higher to show his disdain at Igor’s lack of respect. “Yes sire” said Igor as he gave me a look of pure and utter hatred.
The captain turned to me and removed his helmet and I got a good look at him for the first time, he was a big burly man with dark hair that was nearly all starting to turn grey, even his beard had more than a few hints of grey in it. His eye were a light blue and he had a nasty looking scar going diagonally from his left eye down past the bottom part of the right side of his mouth. He looked at me from head to toe and then spoke, “Well? What have you to say for yourself my young Dunmer friend? Is it like my men say it is? Are you guilty or have we got it all wrong? Although after hearing the tale from my constable I don’t really see how we could have it wrong, none the less I would hear your side of things if its all the same to you? Can you speak the common tongue or will I have to send for a translator eh?”
I wanted to speak, I wanted to tell him everything and protest my innocence but for reasons I cannot comprehend the words just would not come, it was as if I was spell bound. “Come on now man don’t be shy, speak up, speak up or you’ll leave me no choice but to have you found guilty and you’ll be executed. Do you understand?”
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