We left first thing in the morning, rising and dressing ourselves as the sun made its presence known by the greying of dawn. Clad in our armour, pouches, packs and weaponry the two of us set off, bidding Jauffre and the monks of the Priory goodbye and travelling south. All major roads and tracks to the southern colovian cities first headed east towards the city, before looping around the outskirts of the great forest in a south-easterly direction rather than brave its depths. Stories of the great dark forest were plentiful, and even stories of entire legions vanishing in the greenery were not unheard of. While not entirely civilised or even remotely tamed it was not impassable. Tiny hamlets of woodsmen and hunters eked a living within the forests depths and to the experienced it was not somewhere to be entirely feared. Respected and wary of yes, but not feared like most of those who lived in the Great Forest’s shadow. We would travel due south west, cutting through the heart of the forest to where the rolling hills and deserts of Hammerfell met the Gold Coast and the fertile floodplains of County Skingrad; a three-day journey on foot compared to eight days by road.
My feet were wrapped in in a uniform layer of rags, stuffed tightly into my boots which meant no slippage or rubbing while I marched; a trick long since permanently ingrained into my mind from countless patrols. Having the thick leather boots being a little on the large side helped as it allowed for the eventual and inescapable swelling after the first few kilometres. Viconia had listened well to my advice and had done similar preparations despite her outwards appearance of disdain and lack of interest. While obviously not suited for such lengthy exertions she kept up the pace, never wavering or hesitating and stoically chewing through the kilometres as though pain was simply something that happened to other people.
After her display with my bow the previous day, and what I had seen of her the week we had been together, I now knew full well not to underestimate this beautiful elf. While she only stood up to my nose in height and would’ve only weighed half of my mass if fully dressed, armoured and carrying her pack loaded to the brim I knew that any fight between the two of us would not be an even fight. If I had been prone to gambling I wouldn’t have put a wooden septim against my chances of surviving anything with her as my opponent.
Our progress was good however, easily making our way through the forest despite the places where the greenery hemmed in a little too close and we were forced to find other paths around thickets and dense shrubbery. All the while I kept my eyes roving around us, watching and ensuring that nothing was going to approach or ambush us. Cyrodiil may have been the heart of the Empire and home to men and mer for millennia but it was far from tamed. Wolves and bears prowled the forest and were some of the lesser threats to be concerned with unless it was winter and hunger drove them closer to civilisation. Minotaurs were still a danger, as were ogres, land dreugh, and other assorted beasts of the wilds. On the eastern portions of the forest goblin tribes were ever encroaching as they migrated from the depths of Blackmarsh and generally made nuisances of themselves. With all these threats in mind and as Chorrol and the other hamlets faded into the distance my bow found itself strung and in my hands more often than not.
Viconia travelled mostly in silence through the journey, keeping to herself and keeping up with my pace. I noticed how she too constantly kept an eye on her surroundings, hand resting on the hilt of her sword while moving with a sublime grace that I had no hope of matching. Her movements were more pronounced than mine however. At every sound within the forest, whether it be the far off howl of a wolf pack, or the sudden flutter of wings as some bird flew aloft at our intrusion her head would dart in its direction, fist tightening on the hilt of her sword and eyes darting about for the threat. Eventually I managed to make her relax somewhat mostly just with my mere presence and lack of fear to the situation and we actually found ourselves in a stilted form of conversation from time to time. I learned that she had never been outside of County Bruma before and after having grown accustomed to the towering mountains and sheer cliffs of Bruma and the Pale Pass she expected everywhere to be the same. Now, trapped in the enclosing depths of green and under the roof of towering Redwoods she admitted feeling more at home where she could no longer see the sky, and feel the heat of the sun upon her flesh.
As the day wore on I found myself growing unaccustomedly fatigued. The gnawing sensation in the back of my mind of a thirst that could not be quenched was making its presence known with far greater force each passing day. I found myself consistently parched, throat strangely dry in the late winter humidity of the forest that the mouthfuls of brackish water from the skins did little to subside. It was at this point that I knew that something was terribly wrong, a worming fear growing stronger in my gut. This sensation only grew more pronounced after walking through a tiny clearing in the forest in the middle of the day and feeling a strange tingling and burning sensation over my exposed flesh.
The beast that had fed upon me had passed along its curse, and for hours I pondered my fate in silence. As we continued moving I tried to understand how the disease had managed to survive the medicinal herbs. The Mandrake root alone should’ve been a powerful enough to annihilate any trace of the blood plague but deep in the back of my mind I knew that I was doomed.
Making camp in the depths of the forest for the first evening it was uneventful despite my increasingly poor sleep. The cravings were growing stronger exponentially now and my dreams were now nightmares of wanton excess and hedonistic gratification coloured in shades of red. Being so deep in the forest and the threat of danger being high Viconia agreed with my suggestion for the both of us to sleep in shifts. Taking the dusk to midnight shift I sat uneasily near the fire, staring into its swirling mass and the twisting shapes it projected as it consumed the wood. I was hunched over, left leg crossed while leaning on my bent right knee idly poking the fire with the tip of my sword. The desire for blood was growing ever more insistent until it was almost a deafening roar in my mind, drowning out all other thoughts as I struggled to comprehend how it had happened.
It was as I poked the fire, sword gripped in the tightened ball of my right fist that I looked up the length of my bare forearm. Looking past the fresh burns that were beginning to seal properly with my magicka I saw the faintly visible streaks of an older set of injuries from the month previous. Suddenly I knew. In the mad scrabble in the darkness of that cave the beast had clawed its way down my arm as I vainly attempted to fend it off. Jaw locked open wide, incisors buried into the flesh of my throat like burning needles of agony I had struggled vainly at first, pulling my knife with my left hand while my right desperately tried to haul the creature off me. In the seconds it took to plunge the dagger to the hilt repeatedly in the creature’s withered chest it’s lukewarm blood; now a mixture of its tainted liquids and my blood had sprayed all over me. It had coated my chest but it had more importantly coated me up to the elbows, covering my fresh scratches and creating a crack in my body’s defences for the curse to whittle away at over the coming weeks.
Not all the magicka in the world could save me from what I was becoming, and I knew that it was only a matter of time until I gave in to the vampiric curse. As soon as I fed I knew that I would be eternally damned but I had no idea what to do. Suicide was an option, but despite the darkness threatening to overwhelm me it was not something I could bring myself to do. Dying in battle would be my preferred choice if it came down to it. A storm of adrenaline, a flash of pain and then darkness would be a better alternative to an existence cursed as one of the undead.
My fresh burns brought the image of how expressionless Viconia had been as she applied the burning sword tip to my arm. Could I rely on her to put me down when the time came? Undoubtedly so I decided with little thought. She’d cut the head from my shoulders and walk away with a clear conscience before I’d be able to finish asking her. If she thought I was a threat to her in the slightest then my head would have already been rolling on the ground for quite some time already.
I looked over her prone form, huddled next to the fire and laying on her side facing towards me. Still fully clothed and mostly wrapped in her cloak and hood she lay with her pack under her head for a pillow, face illuminated by the crackling campfire and framed by the loose strands of hair protruding from the hood. In sleep she seemed peaceful enough, the habitual scowl that seemed permanently engrained into her features relaxing enough that her true beauty was obvious. High cheekbones, perfectly unblemished skin the colour of polished ebony, hair while gradually becoming more and more tangled as we travelled still seemed to remain straight and flow as she moved. Laying there peacefully, one hand tucked under her pack for support, the other resting lightly on her curvaceous hips she was serene and tantalisingly beautiful.
But my attraction to her was growing darker with every passing hour. I found myself unintentionally staring, eyes gazing up over the tiny strips of flesh that were not covered by the cloak, hood or armour. While little was visible beside a single collarbone, neck and face it was enough that I could easily see the slight depression where her smooth skin of her neck reached her shoulders. In sleep, and even with her light breathing the rise and fall of her chest revealed the vein running under her skin from collarbone to jaw.
Time seemed to compress and my sight narrowed to that spot of flawless skin, where the throb of her heart made the tiniest of movements in her throat. My mouth was suddenly drier than an Elsweyr desert as I subconsciously felt the dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum of her heart in the pit of my stomach. Eye twitching, fingers clenching tighter around the hilt of my sword until I felt my knuckles creak I fought back the overwhelming urge to leap upon her, press my mouth to her neck and bite…
The glint from under her hood caught my attention and my attention snapped back into reality as I realised that her eyes were open. Like a deer instinctively sensing the eyes of a wolf upon it, she had woken from her light slumber and now looked accusingly into my eyes with anger shining behind them.
“See something you desire?” she said softly, voice equal parts alluring and dangerous. Seemingly of her own accord her hand ran lightly down the toned flesh of her neck and chest that was visible under her clothes.
My breath caught and I suddenly felt as though my heart had indeed ceased beating. For a moment I sat perfectly still, as though carved from granite before her face twisted into the all-too familiar expression of feral hatred. Her lips, peeling back from white teeth that gleamed in the darkness formed a snarl at me like a starving lioness.
“You will know your place Jaluk.” She hissed threateningly. “Now avert your eyes elsewhere lest I do it for you!”
I looked away, blood rushing to my face in a bloom of heat and the bloodlust fading with it. She rolled over into a sitting position, flicking the few wayward strands of hair out of her face and glaring at me as though she sought to stop my heart beating with a look alone. “You best get some sleep while you can, for I doubt that I will gain any further rest with you feasting your eyes on me.”
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Attempting to murmur a poor excuse of an apology that was stopped before it escaped my lips by her thunderous expression, I lay down with my back to the fire and her and struggled to snatch some fitful hours of sleep. Between the guilt of being caught looking at her, and the hellish cravings that staring at her had awoken within me I woke up even more fatigued and drained than before. My time was running out quickly and I knew it would not be long before I lost myself wholly to the growing bloodlust.
Once again we awoke at dawn, dressing and shouldering our packs for the day ahead. This time we travelled a little more swiftly, both emboldened about the fact that we were reaching the half way point on our journey and that my growing desire for blood was driving me ever onwards voraciously. By the time the sun reached its zenith I was constantly clawing at myself mentally, using every trick and skill to avert my mind from the overwhelming desire for blood and the growing perception of Viconia’s heart beating no more than a dozen paces away. While I hoped that it was nothing more than hallucination somehow I knew that it was most definitely not. I could feel her heart beating, a rhythmic tattoo that beat against the barriers of my mind like the sea eroding an ancient coastal fortress. It was only the sudden sighting of a small herd of deer in a thinning part of the forest that broke through to my diseased mind.
Running purely on instinct I motioned for Viconia to stay where she was, watching with pleasant surprise how she slowly lowered herself down below the height of the shrubs as not to alert the herd of our presence. I carefully began to pick my way carefully through the vegetation, pulling the string loops over the horn-tips at the end of its limbs. One of the deep-tanged broadhead arrows slotted into the string, the fingertips of my right hand gripping the arrow with thumb pinching it tight. Carefully stepping through the shrubs and leaf litter I ensured that not a single sound from my passage or my equipment was made to startle the deer away. The forest was almost entirely silent to outsiders, but as I stealthily advanced forward I could hear the wind in the trees, the birds resting on their high branches and the soft sounds of smaller creatures in the undergrowth. Moving ever closer to the deer I kept my eyes away from them, looking only through my peripheral vison to ensure that they didn’t spook from the sensation of being gazed upon like Viconia had the night before.
Within 80 paces I stopped, gazing indirectly at the small herd and picking my target. Carefully and slowly, moving in time with the swaying bushes as the wind plucked at them I raised my bow and controlling my breathing. Completely ignoring the protests of my wounded arm I drew back to the ear, holding it steady and aiming not with my eyes but with my mind as I willed the arrow into its target.
The slap of the bowstring against the leather bracer protecting my left forearm and wrist was the first audible sound I had made. The arrow flew through the air, straight and true and punched into the side of one of the younger does. With a clean hit through the lungs it dropped with barely a sound and the others stopped in mid motion before bolting away into the undergrowth. I watched for a moment, nocking another arrow if in case against all odds my quarry managed to rise with a such a wound and try to escape. Supremely confident that it wouldn’t be rising with such an injury I stood to my height and hurriedly made my way over to it to see the results of my handiwork.
The doe was wounded but not quite dead. The arrow had punched cleanly into its side, the design of the arrow head slicing arteries and veins and cutting through its skin with almost no resistance. I may have missed the heart but the wicked nature of the arrow meant that it would soon bleed out.
But I stopped in my tracks at the sight of the arrow lodged deep into it’s flesh. Blood, bright red and arterial pulsed from around the shaft protruding from its hide and I found my gaze locked upon the ruby flow. Sickeningly the deer tried to get up and move, pitifully incapable and with flecks of blood puffing into the air with every laborious breath. I moved purely by instinct, my skinning dagger finding its way into my hand without conscious thought and kneeing over the dying animal.
The dagger pressed into its throat, slicing deeply and with little resistance cutting the major neck artery in a wash of blood. For what seemed to be an age as time slowed to a crawl I found myself staring, watching as the animal went about bleeding to death from the mortal wound. The desire to drink was overpowering, the smell of the liquid permeating the air and constricting my throat and lungs with its fragrance and before I could even think to stop myself I had hunched over the creature’s prone form and fastened my lips around the gushing wound.
Warm liquid welled into my mouth and throat and I drunk as though a man dying of thirst coming across an oasis. The blood jetted into the back of my throat and I could hear an animalistic groan rumble from deep within my ribcage as I sucked away, teeth sinking into the warm deer flesh as I sought to gain greater purchase on its neck. It struggled fitfully at the intrusion, kicking feebly as all strength was leached away before its heart finally stopped beating.
With the sudden lack of movement from the deer whatever hold my unnatural desires had over me vanished, and I found myself spiting a wad of hot blood out onto the ferns nearby, desperately trying to rid myself of the taste and the self-loathing. While strangely, sickeningly satisfying it was nowhere near what my body truly desired but instead serving as though a few drops of wine to the lips of a drunkard. It was enough to satiate me for the short term, but I knew that it wouldn’t keep the darkness at bay for long.
Quickly cutting into the deer while it was still warm and supple, I carved several large pieces of flesh away. A couple of kilograms of steaming deer flesh was soon attached to the pair of hooks attached to my pack for this very purpose, the cooling essence of life dripping onto the forest floor in shining streams. Swigging from my water-skins I washed as much of the blood out of my mouth until the tang had gone and I was satisfied that my teeth were no longer stained pink. Conflicting emotions wrestled for control within me as I stood and made my way back to Viconia, but there was no denying the overwhelming need for more…
That night we feasted on venison. Viconia seemed to thoroughly enjoy the taste as she ravenously devoured her roasted meal, white teeth gleaming and uncomfortably reminding me of how I had killed the animal. Like most of the day we sat in silence, both seemingly looking everywhere else except at each other but there were at least the first signs of initial trust growing between us. At least as far as me not waking up with a cut throat or being set on fire, and so far she hadn’t had to contend with me attempting to force myself on her while she slept. We were still undoubtedly wary around each other, but not so much as worrying about going to sleep or turning our backs to the other.
The camp we had made was on the outer edge of the Great Forest, giving a clear view across the rolling hills and rocky plateus of the southern highlands. There in the distance a rise of rock dominated the land, raising the construction of stone and brick upon it above the surrounding fields and farms. Our destination was still almost a full day’s journey away but even from this distance the sight of the city of Kvatch was almost humbling, giving us strength for the last hours of marching.
“Did that guard tell you why I was locked away?” Viconia said, wiping the fat of her meal away on the corner of her cloak.
“You murdered a farmer and his son.”
My reply seemed to satisfy her for a moment, and her gaze hardened at the memory. “When I awoke to find myself in this living hell I had truly expected to be dead.” She began, not looking at anything in particular and idly drumming her fingers on the hilt of a knife.
“The first time the sun rose I found myself in agony, skin blistering and peeling as I sprinted like an animal in search for shelter. Only pure luck allowed me to stumble into a cave. It was more a cleft in the side of a hill than anything but it was shelter enough, at least for the first days until I regained enough strength to venture outside.”
“I will admit, I do not have your skill in hunting the beasts of this land but I managed to find berries that weren’t deadly, and use my own skills in the search for meat.” She looked at me with her strangely glowing yellow eyes, holding a deceptively dainty hand up for me to see it suddenly begin glowing as blue curls of lightning began to coil around he fingers like smoke. The mild electric discharge set my teeth on edge until she made the tiniest of gestures and it faded into nothingness. “The nights of freezing cold, and the days of flesh scalding light kept me hidden in that tiny hollow for days until I felt strong enough to brave the day. I would forage for berries and other edibles in a world where everything was strange and dangerous, using nothing more than my own skill with magicka to protect from the beasts prowling the rocky hills that threatened me and hunting those that did not. It was weeks until I saw another person, and almost just as long before I allowed them to know of my presence.”
Her gazed shifted almost imperceptibly, brow furrowing ever so deeper and she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “In the Underdark, treachery is the normal course of events, the end to which all paths eventually lead. After weeks of interacting, of mild trade and discourse between us when the betrayal finally came it was of no surprise. Taken prisoner, forced into menial servitude, violated…” the sheer level of spite in that singular word was enough to make me flinch “It was as much as I was expecting but simple and crude to my expectations. It did seem to surprise them when I enacted my revenge the first chance that came.”
“To think that those fools thought that merely burying me alive was enough to bring death. The insult was almost more grave than their poor attempt to snuff my life. I started with the boy, his father listening to his screams as I broke his bones and crushed him into the pit, burying him deep into the latrine but not trying to suffocate him like they had with me. His father couldn’t do anything but listen after I chained him to his bed with the same chains they had used on me. His death was neither quick nor painless but I watched until the hut was naught but ash, almost curious to see if he could escape his bonds before the fire consumed him. His son watched as well but didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He too begged and cried when I came for him with the lantern.”
The look of utter horror and morbid interest on my face caught her gaze and she stopped, looking at me with a face highlighted by the glowing flames. Her hood was down, letting her hair flow in the slight evening breeze as she told her story of death and suffering. “Why are you telling me this?” I eventually replied as the silence seemed to drag on for eternity.
“I’m telling you this so you are fully aware of what will happened when you betray me.” She said simply, the threat hanging on every word like poison on an assassin’s dagger.
“And what makes you think that I’ll betray you too?”
The quizzical look that came across her face was not the reaction I was expecting. “Betrayal is as inevitable as death itself. There is no escaping it, merely prolonging the inevitable.”
“Then why stay with me?”
She laughed, an honest laugh despite the darkness underlying it. “Where else would I go? Should I simply wander this hell of stone and greenery until someone else deems to use me for their pound of flesh? At least with you I can learn more about this land and be able see your perfidy ahead of time and be ready for it.”
“Then why didn’t you resist when the guard came to put you in prison?”
“If I resisted then they would have just slew me where I stood. Although if I’m honest I am still surprised that they didn’t do so where they realised what had happened.” She shrugged, her long hair moving with the rise and fall of her shoulders. “I am not willing to simply lay down and die, especially for any male who thinks himself my equal.”
“Well in that regards we are not that similar.” With a flick off into the darkness I threw a chuck of gristle from the last of my meal, wiping my hands and face on my cloak like she had before. “I am not going to sit back and wait for death to claim me. If I have to meet it head on then I will, but I will not be caught skulking and living in fear of it.”
Another smile raised the corners of her mouth, but still somehow not managing to reach her eyes.
We sat in silence for a while, watching as the night grew deeper and the clouds crawling across the sky and covering the stars and moons from view. A storm felt as though it was building towards the coast, many kilometres away to the south and west, and to the north the great plains and deserts of Hammerfell would be growing cold. Viconia concerned me but with the gnawing darkness growing within my mind I had other things to worry about than the duplicitous siren seated on the other side of the fire. I knew that it would not be long until the sun began to affect me just as bad as her first days in finding herself in Cyrodiil and as the far away storm began to growl I somehow knew that the worst was yet to come.
