A Skyrim tale - Vengeance and Redemption, Eilidh MacAuley's Tale Options

[PhonAntiPhon]

HELGEN

"What's your name, Elf?"
The shouts of soldiers and the clatter of weapons echoed around the windblown courtyard. Someone's discarded linen shawl blew between the legs of the small group of guardsmen standing lazily to attention beside an old and scarred desk set up in the middle of the wide space.

Behind this desk, holding a quill pen poised over a ragged sheet of parchment, sat a hard-eyed and angular woman of maybe 50 summers, bedecked in the regalia of a captain of the guard.
She sighed, and waved the quill at a soldier standing behind the prisoner.

With a grunt of acknowledgement the soldier lifted his spear and slammed the butt end of it into the small of the captive's back.
She fell to her knees on the hard dusty ground, sucking a pained breath in through between dirty, clenched teeth.
"Your name." Demanded the captain once again.

After a moment longer, the prisoner looked up at the captain behind her desk; regarded her with large, nearly black eyes set in a gaunt face framed by lank, straw-coloured hair from which protruded the pointed tips of distinctive Elven ears.

The Elf opened her mouth and said in a low, cracked voice; "Eilidh."

The Captain regarded her a moment longer.

The Bosmer - (who, incidentally smelt... well she smelt terribly, but she also smelt like a wolf or a bear; slightly "meaty" and "musty"; sour and rotten. All her kind did, it was as distinctive as it was unwholesome; a result of their twisted diet. And yet, the Captain had to admit to herself, she found this one more than a little fascinating) - The elf's face and body betrayed no small degree of history and hardship; thin she was and yet beneath the ragged sackcloth shirt her body was nevertheless sinewy and bowstring taut, the compact muscles hard and surprisingly powerful; at least one of her men had found that out the hard way when they had attempted to capture her.

Her skin was heavily freckled, beneath a layer of greasy filth, and marked by innumerable abrasions, pocks and marks of all shapes and sizes. She was heavily tattooed with any number of vulgar designs.
But it was her face, more than anything, that told of the hardness of her life until now, it's end.

The left side of the Bosmer's face was a mass of scarring, the damaged skin pale and livid against the dirt that covered her. Dark warpaint was smeared across her cheeks and the sockets of her eyes, which were black and moist; vastly deep like some animal's and rimmed with a livid red as of an incipient infection.
The woman's mouth was set in a thin hard line, the lips bloodless.

But enough of this.
She sighed, waved the quill again and once more the butt of the spear connected with the kneeling Bosmer, hitting her shoulderblade with a crack barely muffled by the thin material that covered her.
"ALL of your name, bosmer." She said, spitting out the last word like an insult.

"MacAuley, Eilidh MacAuley." Said Eilidh finally, her dry voice heavily accented.
The captain grunted in satisfaction and carefully wrote down the name on the parchment, poking out her tongue in concentration.
When she had finished she looked up at Eilidh again, saying; "So, bosmer, have ye anything to say in ya defence, afore I pass my judgement?"
It was a pointless question, and she knew it.

Eilidh knew it too.
"Téigh gnéas féin agat soith..." She hissed through yellowed and gritted teeth.
"Speak Imperial!" Snapped the Captain. Eilidh winced as the guard behind her applied his spear to her back once again.
She glanced hatefully at the woman behind the desk and then, a cold half-smile flickering across her lips she said; "Go **** ye'sel' *****."

There was an audible gasp from the men around her at this display of blatent insolence, and for a moment even their leader looked taken aback.
The Captain gathered herself.
"Even if you were not already dead, bosmer, now you are for sure..."

Silence held sway for a moment and Eilidh, naked but for the thin cloth shivered a little in the chill air blowing through the garrison's courtyard.
She ached all over, or at least more than usual. Her brains were pounding in her ears and her mouth had a dry and phlegmy taste in it. Her condition was not helped in any way by the fact that she had not had wine for some 3 days now.
More though, was the pain of what that pig of a legionary had done to her.

Hers had been a hard life, she had had to fight every inch of the way barring a few brief patches of respite. She looked, she knew, every one of the 173 seasons that she had spent on this Gods-forsaken world.
During her time she had committed... dubious acts, both physically and morally, and yes amongst those had been the auctioning of herself, when money had been tight and survival the only factor.
But that was different, she had been in control; calling the shots she had run the game and come out the victor in those encounters.
Yesterday though, that had been something else entirely, that was evil even by her standards of behaviour. There had been a wrong visited upon her the likes of which should never happen.
Ever.

And then, out of the corner of her dark eye she saw him, standing just behind the guard Captain's entourage he was.
He was a big man, broad of girth; fat, sweaty jowls, and sallow oily skin. He was wearing a helmet and facing slightly away from her but she knew him; his stinking greasy body, his breath hot and sour against her, his little piggy eyes.
Oh, she knew him alright.
The blood in her veins ran cold as ice, her heart pounded against her ribs.

He turned then, and saw her.
His plump mouth spread open in fat grin, the thick lips pink against his pale cheeks. He pointed at her with a stubby finger whilst with his other hand he made a sign, the meaning of which was only too clear to the Bosmer.

The sound of the Captain's voice droning on - a litany of her crimes, chief amongst which was simply of having been born a Bosmer - had long since faded into the distance, to be replaced by one repeated thought:
"HE MUST PAY. HE WILL PAY."
Over and over and over, a cold and hard nugget of vengeance.

Had she been able, she would have leapt at him then and there even though her hands were bound.
Indeed, even as she thought it, her body moved of it's own accord, her mouth twisting into a snarl...

...Then hands grabbed her and lifted her roughly to her feet, through a red haze of bloody murder she vaguely heard the Captain's voice; "...for the crime of being an unwelcome element in the Imperial Province of Skyrim, for numerous

breaches of our laws, I hereby refer you for summary execution."

Her captors walked her across the courtyard to the block that sat lumpen and solid; bloodstained and chipped, in the centre of the courtyard. A mute symbol of oppression and arbitrary justice.
She passed him and their eyes met - his, mocking and leering and hers, hate-filled.
She kept her eyes on him as she was led away, maintained contact even as the tendons in her neck began to creak and ache.

Finally she faced the front, faced her future.
173 years.
He Would Pay. Even if in Death she made a pact with all of the Daedra themselves to send her back, He Would Pay.

173 years.

They forced her roughly to her knees, pushing her head onto the block.
Rage boiled within her.

173.
He Would Pay.

She sensed the headsman raise his sword.
1...
7...

The world exploded into roaring fire, and everything around her went insane.

-x-

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: Mar 10 2014, 08:42 PM

[PhonAntiPhon]

TO RIVERWOOD
PART 3 - WOLVES

She awoke with a start, still seated as she had been. There was screaming and the sounds of a desperate struggle from off to her left. She got to her feet blearily, blinking and trying for a moment to get her bearings.
Again a high-pitched wail, counterpointed this time by a low and viscious snarl strangely muffled, as if some wild thing had hold of something in its mouth.
Eilidh rubbed at her eyes to clear them of sleep, spat thick saliva onto the ground.
...A mouthful of...

...A distance away from the Bosmer, around the other side of the rock, Larellee was engaged in a gruesome tug-of-war with a young wolf, the object of their struggle being the bloodied remains of Larellee's brother, Atticus.
Spurred into action, Eilidh grabbed her hammer and sprinted the short distance across the scrubby ground to the macabre scene.
The wolf, inexperienced and clearly mangy, had evidently picked the corpse as the easier objective - (though the young woman was herself not exactly a force to be reckoned with) - presumably coming upon Larellee and her brother as she was attempting once again to escape from Eilidh, dragging Atticus' corpse across the ground.

The animal had its jaws clamped around one of Atticus' forearms and was attempting to pull the body away from Larellee, who was maintaining a death grip upon her brother's ankles. Shrieking now at the top of her lungs, she was frantically trying to wrestle the body away.
Eilidh leapt, swung her hammer in midair and brought it down with all of her strength.

The wolf, intent upon gaining its prize to the exclusion of all else, was caught completely unawares by the Elf. Eilidh's hammer mashed into its skull; there was a loud crack followed almost immediately by a thick, wet, pulpy sound. Bright blood exploded in a red mist from the creature's ears, nose, and mouth as Eilidh's attack connected squarely on the top of its head, the hammer's downward force crushing the skull between the weapon itself above and the stony ground beneath.
So hard was her blow that the creature's teeth sheared completely through the arm in its jaws, amputating it from Atticus' body. The animal, its head catastrophically ruined, one eyeball almost completely evulsed from its socket, shuddered violently upon the ground, and was still.
Using the momentum of her swing, the Bosmer pivoted over the top of the stricken creature and rolled as she hit the ground, rising smoothly to her feet holding the hammer in both hands. Whipping round, she turned to face the other woman.

Larellee had pitched over backwards as her brother's arm came off, the body landing on top of her.
Time slowed.
A shape spun in the air, rolled and landed, stood and turned sharply to face her.
Black eyes in a gaunt face.
filthy tattooed skin, armour; ragged and battered.
dirty yellow-blonde hair, large pointed ears; a mouth stretched in a snarl.
A gore-streaked hammer held low in gauntletted hands; arms wiry, the sinews standing out.
She had scars, all over her.

These things imprinted themselves upon the young woman's mind in a split second stretched to breaking point, a bubble of coagulated time; All the world seemed immersed in a treacly slowness, the air in her lungs and throat was thick and choking; black eyes locked onto hers, the background receeded far away behind that face; its expression harsh and cruel, murderous; Larellee was conscious of a distant sound as of the rushing of wind, far away yet gathering strength rapidly; the figure began to move towards her, its movements so fluid as to seem almost like water flowing over the rocks, seeming to move faster than everything around it; Larellee felt her head move, tearing her eyes away from that face, her gaze moving jerkily and lazily down towards the bloodied heap of torn flesh and clothing that lay half on top of her, all the while the sound was growing; a hand, possibly her own, reached out and grabbed at an ankle lying across her belly, the fingers digging into the cold, waxy skin; somewhere in the distance her body began to move and the wind-sound took on a keening note, the pressure within her chest grew and pressed against the choking thickness in her throat, forcing her mouth open; the figure was almost upon her now, the hammer in one hand, the other stretched out to her; its mouth opened, there were yellow teeth fading to black in too-red gums; then time cycled up once again, the bubble burst and the hurricane was upon her.
Her lungs exploded.

"Le'goe o' hymn ye fukkyn' eejit!" Yelled Eilidh as she got to Larellee; but the young woman was incoherent with hysteria and as the Elf arrived at her side she let out a shriek so piercing that Eilidh thought her lungs themselves might follow out of her mouth.
Larellee was trying desperately to get to her feet, pushing herself up with one hand whilst the other gripped her brother's ankle, the fingers as white as the dead flesh they held.
Peripherally, Eilidh was aware of other shapes, low and cunning, circling them; more wolves.

"Le'goe!" She shouted again urgently, and grabbing Larellee's arm tried to pull her hand away from Atticus' ankle, almost falling herself as the other woman collapsed back onto the ground.
"No! Leave Him...!" She wailed.
"Moov ytte!" Shouted Eilidh.
For a moment the scene descended into utter chaos; the Bosmer yanked at Larellee's arm again as Larellee tried to fight her, punching at her ineffectually with her free hand and trying to bring her legs around to kick at Eilidh, all the while keeping a vice-like grip on her dead brother's leg.
"Leave Me Alone, You Monster!" She shrieked, her voice cracking and breathy.
She was twisting and writhing like a hooked fish and Eilidh caught a glimpse of her face; as in some unholy vision of suffering her skin was sweaty and porcelain-white, her pasty lips were drawn back from her teeh in a rictus of fear and her eyes were wide saucers filled with unspeakable horror.

The other wolves were closing in now, Eilidh could feel them as stiffening hairs on the back of her neck. She tried one last time.
"Yu'll dye yff'n ye stai heyar!" She yelled into Larellee's face, bending over her. "Wu'll boath dye!"
The younger woman just stared through her uncomprehendingly, slowly she shook her head from side-to-side and a little dribble of saliva ran out of her mouth and down her chin.
Eilidh shook her head. "Shiz gonne fukkyn' meantul..." She said to herself

There was no more time.
"Ai'll nae dye fer ye." Muttered the Bosmer and throwing the sling of her warhammer over her shoulder let go of Larellee and pulled off an armoured glove, then she slapped the other woman as hard as she could around the face with the back of a gnarled and bony hand.
Larellee's head snapped violently round on her neck and with a sound like "Whuuufff!" blood and broken teeth sprayed from her mouth.
She fell backwards, releasing her grip on the corpse; with no time to lose, Eilidh replaced her gauntlet, grabbed a hold of Larellee's arms and pulled her away, back to the boulder. Larellee tried weakly to fight her, making grunting and whuffling noises through her shredded lips as hot blood poured from her mouth.

The wolves, numbering two or maybe three, closed in on the bodies of Atticus and their younger kin and tore them apart.
Larellee, her head lolling, could only burble wordlessly as Eilidh dragged her behind the rock and dumped her unceremoniously onto the ground. She rolled onto her back, head to one side as the Bosmer, crouching, went to peer around the edge of the boulder.
The predators were distracted by the easy bounty that was before them, but even as she watched one of them stopped gorging and looked up at her, its yellow eyes glowing, gore-covered maw snarling.
She estimated that they had maybe ten minutes before, bloated with meat or not, the wolves came after them. In ten minutes she could easily have got herself gone and could have, given the chance, shaken them off.
She looked back at the prone figure of Larellee.
"Nae wi' ye tho'..." Shaking her head, Eilidh chewed on her tongue. "Dyb'la's Teats ai muss mai bow!"

Hard and fast with the hammer, then switch to the knife. But first she needed to attend to the girl.
Hurrying to her, she squatted down next to her, her armour creaking.
Larellee appeared to be unconscious, or at least unresponsive. He head was on one side, the skin where it showed through the blood was still deathly pale. Her eyes were closed and her damaged mouth open and slack, blood and saliva were dribbling out of it and forming a murky puddle by her face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing shallow and ragged.
"Ai cannae lette ye runne, noar mek too much noyze, neetha." Eilidh doubted she would be going anywhere, but judging by the young woman's obvious and demonstrable resolve she was not going to take any chances.

Larellee was wearing what had once been a cream-coloured maid's outfit, ankle-length with long sleeves and with buttons up to the neck. It was now ripped and torn, stained with blood and filth. For the first time the Bosmer noticed that her feet were bare.
Drawing her knife, and after some careful but hurried manipulation, she cut several strips of material from the bottom of the young woman's dress.Rolling her onto her side, she efficiently bound her hands together, and then bound them to her feet.
"Tha' shuid kepe ye owtta truball." She said. Grabbing another strip, she bound it around Larellee's mouth, none too gently; pulling her shoulder length black hair out of the way to knot the cloth tightly at the back of her head.
"An' tha' shuid kepe ye kwiyet."
Turning, she grabbed her warhammer and disappeared around the rock at a run, standing up and rapidly gathering pace as she did so.

++++

By the time she reached the wolves she was at a sprint, though they were only a short distance away. She held the hammer ready in both hands.
There were two of them at the corpse, and one of them spotted her as she drew near; heading for that one, she raised the hammer as the beast leapt at her. Jinking to the left at the last minute, she swung her weapon directly into the wolf's muzzle, shattering its face in an explosion of blood, bone, and tissue.
As the virtually decapitated body slammed limply to the ground and slid, she flung the hammer away from her and spinning on one leg, drew her knife from her belt and changed direction, heading for the next target.

The second wolf came at her now.
She let it strike her, and jamming her armoured forearm into its mouth, rolled over the top of it as they both fell, pulling it down onto the ground. She had meant to land on top of it, but fatigue and a sudden flaring pain in her guts made her miss her mark and instead she hit the ground hard, the creature atop her.
Gasping at its weight and wincing at the pain, she managed nevertheless to thrust her knife repeatedly into its side as it scrabbled on top of her, claws raking at her thighs.
Finally it was still, and after a moment she pushed it off of her, pulling her arm from its mouth; then she lay still for a moment, shaking and breathing heavily.

She felt crushed and her belly ached horribly. Sitting up she grimaced at both the discomfort in her midriff and the sharp pain in her thighs. Looking down at her legs she saw that they had been badly scraped by the wolf's claws and in one place all but sliced open. Blood was pooled in the gouges, little dribbles coursing over her skin.
Sighing, she got painfully to her feet sheathing her dagger as she did so, and started to walk over to where she had thrown her hammer.

She was knocked sideways by the third wolf as it cannoned into her at full tilt, throwing her to the ground.
Eilidh let out a small shriek of surprise and grunted at the impact. The wolf was a snarling, snapping bundle of fur, teeth, and fury and with the breath knocked out of her it was all that she could do to fend off its jaws as it snapped at her face, hot saliva foaming and flying from its mouth.
Unable to reach her dagger, Eilidh frantically hammered at the side of the creature's face with one gauntletted fist whilst with her other hand she strove to push its head away from her. It was to no avail however, the wolf was far stronger than she and with every second she was coming closer to becoming its meal.
With its teeth mere centimetres from her face she forced herself to think.

Its eyes!
Even as the wolf opened its mouth wide to strike the killing blow, Eilidh jammed a thumb deep into its right eye. The orb ruptured, blood and clear fluid squirting out over her hand.
The creature howled in pain, throwing its head back and taking Eilidh's hand, her thumb still jammed in the ruined socket, with it.
The Bosmer winced as her shoulder was wrenched violently. Having been given a chance however, she was not about to let it slip away. Taking her other hand away from its throat, she managed to quickly grab the hilt of her knife and wrench it from its sheath.

Bringing her dagger up she stabbed the thrashing animal in the neck with as much of her strength as she could still muster.
The creature gave a strangled, gargling cry and she turned her face to the side and closed her eyes as its lifeblood sprayed from the wound, covering her head and shoulder. The wolf spasmed briefly, its back arching, before collapsing back onto her.
Exhausted, she pushed the wolf, with some effort, off of her body. She lay there on the ground, staring up at the clouds.
"Nae moar." She gasped. "Ai cannae tek ytte..."

Suddenly she rolled over onto her side and clutched her belly as another sharp pain spiked inside her, a small moan escaping her lips. She lay still for some minutes until the pain had subsided, before climbing to her feet.
She made her way to the warhammer, and lacking the strength to even sling it over a shoulder, walked slowly back to the boulder dragging the weapon behind her by the haft, the hammerhead bumping over the lumpy ground.

-x-