A.D.w.D. Chapter 7: Daybreak

• Posted by Exuro August 22, 2015 - Filed in TSC: CB Story - 1,240 views

  Amari and Silver collapsed into the sanctuary of the meat locker. The battle raged on above, shouts trembled the earth above them and rolled like thunder. How did she always end up down here? She shivered at the memory of her last time in the cove, with the Toad. He was still there, bobbing beneath the water’s surface. In the darkness, her imagination ran wild; visions of his grotesque form breaking the water’s surface and swarms of diseased skeevers pouring into their room filled her mind. She quickly channeled her energy into a glowing orb and cast it at the ceiling, dispelling the darkness, and with it the visions, in a blue-white glow. She sighed in relief and rested against the earthen walls.

   

  “So you are a practitioner.”

   

  Amari stiffened, she forgot Silver was with her! Years of hiding her abilities triggered her survival instincts. She whipped around, dark purple energies encasing her hand as she grabbed Silver by the throat.

   

  The energy in her hand closed about his soul and she snarled feral by this point of the night, “You speak a word of that and I’ll tear the soul from your body!”

   

  “Whoa! Easy there,” Silver managed, holding his hand up in surrender. The look in her eye told him not to test if she was bluffing. “No words will pass my lips. Besides, I’m from Cyrodiil, magic is common over there.”

   

  Amari released him and retreated back. “I’m so sorry! Of course you wouldn’t, it’s just Skyrim, the bandits, the dragons… everything!”

   

  “Um, yeah, don’t worry about it,” he replied eyeing her warily, then he curled up around his stump as his phantom hand sent waves of protesting agony through him. In the light she noticed how pale he was and how his shirt was drenched from the blood dripping from his left wrist.

   

  She gathered a healing spell in her hand. "You’re still bleeding! I can heal that.”

   

  Silver touched his throat reflexively. “No thanks… the blade cauterized most of it. I’ll just wrap it and it’ll be fine. I'll be fine... I will... I will... We should look at that leg of yours though; you still have that arrowhead in there.”

   

  Amari rolled up her dress to reveal the arrow wound and stared at the small frost covered opening apprehensively, “First we need to enlarge the hole, then use some tongs or wrap some wire around the arrowhead to pull it out. I can feel that it’s stuck in the bone. Once it’s out I can start healing it.”

   

  “How do you know all this?”

   

  “My father was a priest of Mara.”

   

  Silver laughed. “You’re a priest’s daughter? You?”

   

  “Yes, so? Stop laughing!” He didn’t. “Go ride a Narwhal horn!”

   

  That just made him laugh more. He stepped out of the room and called out behind him as he shut the door, “I’ll look for some tongs or something, your holiness.”

   

  She muttered more curses under her breath and then began trying to form an ice scalpel like she’d seen her father do a thousand times before while Silver started upending crates and barrels over the floor.

   

  Amari looked up with concern when she heard him start yelling at everything and nothing as he smashed the crates on the other side, but when he returned he was carrying a skinny pair tongs and a bottle Cyrodilic Brandy in his one hand with his usual grin back in place. He held up the tongs up and read an inscription, “’Property of The Gourmet, 100% steel with refined silver coating’, and to think this was buried, forgotten in the bottom of a crate. What are you doing?”

   

  Besides worrying about him, Amari was failing miserably at creating the scalpel. She could create a rod of ice, but whenever she tried to sharpen it, it exploded in her face. Ice magic required a state of emotional stillness and each failure was only worsening her already shaken state.

   

  “I need a scalpel!” she vented, frustrated.

   

  “Well, I have this.” Silver set down his loot, then tossed her a finger knife that was concealed in his sleeve, “it slices through leather coin purses like butter, should do the trick.”

   

  “Right, thanks.” Amari held the knife above the wound and took deep breaths, trying without success to steady her shaking before digging in.

   

  “Wait.” Silver stopped her. “I’ll do it, you take this.”

   

  He handed her the brandy then took the knife back. Something large crashed into the ground above them, threatening to collapse the cove about them and sent cascades of dust down. A Thu’um was bellowed forth, followed by the sound of great wings beating back off the ground. Silver and Amari exchanged glances.

   

  “We better make this quick.” Silver pointed to the brandy. “Chug that, you’ll need it.”

   

  She took a mouthful, then sprayed it out as the liquid burned down her chest.

   

  “Hey don’t waste it! That’s expensive stuff.”

   

  “Like you paid for it.” but she managed to get a few gulps down, then a few more. She was already starting to feel light headed. With a sloppy gesture at her leg she spoke, her words already starting to slur, “Okay… cut away.”

   

  Silver shook his head and took a swig too. “Teetotaler.”

   

  She took in a sharp intake of breath as he cut the wound wide enough to fit the tongs in. That part wasn’t so bad, a sharp blade hits fewer nerves, but then he had to hunt for the arrowhead with the tongs. Amari screamed as the tongs plunged in; the brandy wasn’t helping! She found herself biting down on something leather, the sheath to one of Silver’s daggers. The tongs latched around the arrowhead in her femur and he pulled. Her leg lifted from the force, but the head remained fast. Waves of pain coursed through her and her eyes were blind with tears, but Silver did not relent, he stepped down on her shin, braced himself, and then heaved with all his strength. With a last scream Amari blacked out as the arrowhead flew out and Silver tumbled backwards.

   

    ***

   

  Amari blearily regained consciousness to beams of soft morning light cast through the cavern's dust. For a long moment she watched the small particles swirl in the light, waiting for her head to clear. All was quiet, no storm, no dragons, no fire, not even birds or insects. She propped herself up on her elbows and grimaced as her thigh gave a twinge at the movement.  She looked down and saw Silver had scavenged someway to crudely sew the wound shut and wrap it with a strip from the hem of her dress.

   

  “Ah, good you woke up.” Amari jumped at the sudden break in silence. Silver sat slumped in the shadows of the corner. His eyes were red and haggard, and his normal sleek wavy hair a tangled mess; it didn’t look like he’d slept at all during the night. He took a swig from an empty bottle of Cyrodilic Brandy. "Wasn't sure you would."

   

  “You lost a lot of blood, and your fancy light went out when you fainted,” he continued.

   

  Amari looked around again noticing more blood stains on their clothing, the dark splatters on the earth, and the burnt out torch scone.

   

  “Thank you, you lost a lot too.” Silver grunted in response, his dark, tired mood at contrast with his normal self. Amari concentrated and focused a golden healing spell on her leg, but quickly felt faint and almost passed out again.

   

  “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.” Silver rose stiffly to his feet and pointed at the ceiling with his stump before remembering he didn’t have a hand anymore. The source morning light was an elaborate spider web of cracks spreading across the ceiling. As if to punctuate his point one of the rocks shifted, releasing a shower of dust.

   

  Amari nodded in agreement, but limped to the far wall and knocked over the rack and crates first. She disappeared behind the mess briefly and reappeared with a sack rattling with bottles.

   

  “What’s in there?” Silver asked.

   

  “Poison.”

   

  When she didn’t elaborate, he shrugged. “Whatever… Let’s go.”

   

  He pulled at the door handle, it stuck. He pulled harder and the whole door fell off. A rush of air, rank with sulfur, assaulted their senses. Cautiously, they peered through the opening to find the cove’s cavern collapsed. The water was filled with boulders, burnt debris, and glittering chunks of ice. Breaks of sunshine highlighted the damage through an overcast sky. Silver peered closer at an object bobbing in the water. Fire damage left the face marred, time had bloated the body, and fish had been hard at work at the rest, but it was still unmistakably the Toad.

   

  “Care to elaborate?”

   

  “No.”

   

  Silver shook his head.“Why do I even ask?”

   

  A quick survey of the cove stores revealed that everything had been either burnt or soaked beyond use, so they carefully worked their way across the fallen boulders out of the cove with nothing but the clothes on their back. Both cripples needed to support each other to avoid slipping off the rubble into the water, black and sluggish from the ash.

   

  Once out of the cove, they could take in the full extent of the battle’s damage. The camp was simply, gone. The largest piece of wood Amari saw was the length of her forearm, the ground looked like it had been tilled with a molten plow, the Captain’s quarters had been replaced with a gaping hole dropping into the cove, and even some of the hillside boulders had been crushed into a fine layer of pebbles across the land. Then over everything was a field of ice spikes the length of Amari’s leg buried into the earth, shining like diamonds as they melted in the morning sun. Finally, in the center of where the camp was, lay the final resting place of the Elder dragon, Stinfelniirspaan.

   

  Amari walked across the field of ice spears in a sense of awe, her fingers brushed the shafts as if she were passing through a field of wheat. To know that such creatures existed, that their very voices could shape the earth so left her speechless. How had their ancestors managed to win the last Dragon War in the face of such power?

   

  The skeleton towered over her, driving home just how small she was in the universe. Her fingers traced a deep gouge raking across its ribs, the bones were still warm. She closed her eyes and opened her sight. The bones still thrummed with residual energy, but the soul was gone, although what surprised her was the landscape around her.  There was no life, not even grass or insects, an empty void surrounded her. She shuddered, was this the message the Dragonborn was sending; was it a threat, a warning? Towards who? The mortals? The dragons? The gods?  

   

  Why did Hermeaus Mora tell her he was coming? Were the rumors true; was he really the Prince’s new champion? Her mother never believed the tales that the Dragonborn had defeated Miraak. She had said, ‘after all his years of service, The First would only be allowed to die if the Prince wished it.’ That same Prince had taken her away from Amari too. Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone! Hadn’t they taken enough from her already?

   

  Amari looked back at Silver, he hadn’t moved from the cove entrance. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, but it concerned her. She called out, but he only turned away and started walking towards the bridge. Amari limped after him, skirting the revealed cavern and weaving through the blades of ice. She didn’t catch up until he stopped at a crossroads, ahead lay the unusually prosperous farming town of Rorikstead and to the right lay the mining town of Karthwasten.

   

  Amari leaned against Silver catching her breath, and then looked behind her. The dragon’s skeleton was still visible in the distance surrounded by a lake of ice. The clouds were breaking away and the summer sun steamed the ravaged land. Soon the Robber’s Gorge disappeared behind a cloud of mist.  It was as if the camp never existed and with it the nightmare of the past year. She was free.

   

  She took it in with a deep breath and closed her eyes. The long grasses, sagged by the storm’s rain, rustled in the morning breeze as they rose to meet the sun once more. She couldn’t contain it any longer and let out a long laugh, a light but full sound from deep within her belly without a care of who heard. She was free! Silver just stared at her, still sulking under his personal rain cloud.

   

  Amari turned to him after she ran out of breath. “Come on try it!” Amari urged Silver up by tugging on his sleeve. “It’s a beautiful day and no one is around; let it all out!”

   

  He rose, looked at the mist enshrouding the gorge, then let out a long lamenting sigh and dropped back down. Amari put her hands on her hip and glowered down at him like her mother was known to do.

   

  “You’re doing it wrong! Who else can say they survived a three-way battle between bandits, the Dragonborn, and TWO dragons?” She kicked him in the shin, forgetting about her arrow wound. She yelped in pain and started hopping in circle. He chuckled at that.

   

  “Hey! That's not nice!. Why were you even with that camp? You weren’t like the rest of them.”

   

  “No, no I wasn’t. I thought I could find a new sanctuary there, but I brought an end to that…” He trailed off, so Amari picked up a stick and poked him with it. He tried to swat it away, but the phantom hand was no match for the stick. He glared at her as new waves of pain shot down his arm.

   

  “And?” She asked sweetly.

   

  He shook his head, “I was banned from the Thieves Guild in Cyrodiil and fled north. I studied a few bandit camps choose the one with the most ambitious and skilled leader, a place I could work up the ranks and find a new allies.” That familiar grin Amari loved returned. “And fund grander heists. It’s that thrill of knowing you could be caught at any moment and that look when the mark realizes he wasn’t untouchable after all that I live for.”

   

  “Then why did the thieves ban you?”

   

  The grin faded as fast as it appeared. Memories of a pained past clouded his face. “I have a habit of overreaching myself.” He looked at his stump. “Apparently I haven’t learned.”

   

  The vision of the Dragonborn, with burning eyes and greying blond hair turned red from the blood of the fallen, stalking towards Silver with the glowing axe passed through both their minds. They both shuddered. Amari lowered herself to lean against him. There was one more question that had been nagging Amari.

   

  “Silver, why did you help me?”

   

  “Call me Trebonde, Silver was a bandit, he died with the rest.”

   

  “So who is Trebonde?”

   

  “I don’t know anymore, nothing...”

   

  “By Peryite’s bowels, you’re dramatic!”

   

  “Such is the life of one cursed to walk these back alleys of moral. You were completely alone with darkness all around, yet you still had that spark in your eye. The enemy lay this path before you, but you would walk it anyway and survive it your way. It reminded me of myself. That, and the challenge of pulling it off under the Captain’s nose was irresistible.”

   

  “Oh… nothing more?” Amari mumbled.

   

  “What was that?”

   

  “Nothing! We should get moving; there’s a town nearby to the south right?” Amari got up in fluster turning away to face the south.

   

  “No! Not that way, we’ll go west towards Karthwasten.”

   

  “Why not south? Isn’t that town closer?”

   

   “Yes, but west doesn’t have an inn full of husbands that want to flay me.” An inn where a Vigilant of Stendarr was currently breaking fast with said husbands before setting out on his quest to Markarth.

   

  “What?! This is a story I have to hear.”

   

  “No, it isn’t.” It was Trebonde’s turn to walk away in fluster. The sight of the one-handed thief covered in dried blood, ash, and dirt trying to fend off an equally filthy and blood encrusted teenage girl with a limp harrying him with questions about his sex life would be one to make a mad god proud.

   

  The rising sun warmed their backs, casting long shadows before them as they set out on new beginnings.