Killing in the Emperor's Name, A collection: An argonian assassin's world Options

[canis216]

Here you, the reader, will find works associated with Always-He-Lingers-in-the-Sun's life and work all together. His future stories will be found here, primarily. I think it's appropriate, as his tales have taken on a more serialized form--if not strictly so. I still intend to experiment with different perspectives and styles within his general narrative, so don't expect every installment to flow perfectly into the next--that isn't what I'm going for. I'd like to think that I'm using Always-He-Lingers-in-the-Sun's stories as a medium--evocation of the rough existence that is life on Vvardenfell.

[canis216]

An Obsession – Part Seven

A tower, pieced together from fired bricks of marsh mud and a few wooden beams harvested from the swamps or from the north, stands at each corner of the slave compound. If you were standing at the top of the tower, seventy feet above the muddy ground below, you would see an unending procession of slaves being moved in and out of cages strung together with marsh reeds and thin wooden poles. The slaveyard of Tear never rests, for there is always a deal to be made in the largest slavemarket in Tamriel. On another night it might have been possible to see one of the reclusive sload touch down in his airship, purchasing chattels for necromantic experimentation. Tonight it was raining, so it was not quite so busy, but the slavers still liked to march their captives about from cell-to-cell, if only to enjoy their power over the assembled argonians and khajiit, even the occasionally human or elf.

Tonight, up on the tower, you would also see a slumping figure in bonemold reclining against the parapet as the blood flows from his throat and pools down to his feet, trickling down to the open trap door. Go down into the tower, down the stairs, and you would see two more bodies in bonemold lying upon the floor, force of life ebbing away. At the tower bottom you would find two argonians propping crates and tables, anything they can find, up against the door.

“We should use the bodies, too, Nine-Toes. A lot of extra weight on the tables, armored like that.”

“Sounds good. Let’s haul them down here.”

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“I’ll take out the archer on the northeast tower, you can take the southwest, and whoever gets the northwest first can have it” Nine-Toes announced, placing a bolt in his steel crossbow, “Then we open up the one’s below. They probably won’t even notice us taking out the archers, so we can take out a few more of them before the fight really begins.”

Heik-Auri nocked an arrow and took aim to the west. He could scarcely see the other tower through the rain, yet it was there, a lit lantern revealing yet another figure in bonemold, this one seated on a stool. As he drew back, he heard the crack and whistle of Nine-Toe’s shot and thought, “I guess he’ll be getting the northwest tower.” Then he released the arrow and the figure in bonemold fell back, tried to get up, then stayed down as it was pierced by another arrow. He turned to north, Heik-Auri, but he had beaten by Nine-Toes, as he had thought.

“I really need one of those crossbows.”

Nine-Toes just smiled, a bit sheepishly.

“I’ll give you a head start, this time. Pick your shot.”

Heik-Auri nocked another arrow and gazed out over the slave compound below. Off in the corner a khajiit, exiled from the deserts of Anequima, curses the rain, shaking clawed shackled paws at the invisible Masser and Secunda. He is calling on Azura, Heik-Auri thinks, pleading or cursing or crying at whatever gave him his form, his life, this hell. A long-haired red eyed dark elf in flowing robes strides purposefully to the rebelling slave, club in one hand and whip in the other; a cohort of argonians walk past—they are all staring into the mud. He takes aim with his bow, Heik-Auri, searching for the dunmer’s forehead. He releases the arrow.

The khajiit slave looks up as the dunmer falls, but no one else notices. Then Nine-Toes releases a bolt, then Heik-Auir another arrow, and soon half a dozen dark elves are fallen and bleeding and now everyone notices. The slavers and mercenaries either scramble for cover or make for the tower door.

Forty argonians shouting for blood and revenge and for sheer madness charge into the compound.

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How long had the fight been going? They didn’t know, neither Heik-Auri nor Nine-Toes. They just leaned over the parapet, firing projectiles in the muddy, writhing monster below whenever they could distinguish foe from friend.

“Look, Heik-Auri! What the hell is—“

“Levitation!”

A pair of dark elves dropped from the sky onto the tower, swords drawn, while a third hovered in the air, cradling a crossbow. Heik-Auri dodged a bolt and drew his blades to engage the swordsmen, raking one across the chest with the dagger while blocking a blow from the other with his shortsword. Nine-Toes dodged behind the first, wounded and weakening swordsman and placed a dagger in his back. The crossbow-wielding dunmer searched for a target amidst the scrum—until he was struck by a bolt from Nine-Toes, while Heik-Auri sliced open his own combatant’s throat. Two dunmer fell.

A dwarven crossbow fell at Heik-Auri’s feet.

This post has been edited by canis216: Feb 9 2007, 01:15 AM