The shadow of wings and scaled death flowed over the walls and Kaius vanished, disappearing as the winged creature swept over where he had been standing. The dragon was a force of nature, a being of death and power but almost like a snow hare appearing from its burrow it had barely cleared the walls before Kaius reappeared, bow at full nock and loosing an arrow. Another quickly followed, and despite herself Sofia could feel the first traces of hope appear in her stomach. The dragon’s movements and wing beats were suddenly, but perceptibly off. The movements were barely enough to notice, but she could see the way it was suddenly favouring a wing, twisting and wriggling, rather than gracefully flying through the sky. Of all the other arrows and crossbow bolts, none had been successful beyond the few lodged into the leathery wings, but there were hints of weakness now.
She had seen Kaius’s ability with a bow, and while it paled in comparison to his skill with a sword the way that he had managed to hit the dragon in the thinner scales of a winged shoulder twice in quick succession was exceptionally impressive. All the other arrows and crossbow bolts had failed to penetrate its thick hide, lodged into leathery wings or entirely missed and these were the first and only two that seemed to do anything to it, especially as it forced the creature to cease its circling and land.
Opening wide to catch the air, the shadows of its wings almost appeared to blot out the sky as it turned, slowed, and slammed into the ground with all the force of an earthquake. Somehow now that it was grounded, it appeared even larger than it had before, over fifty metres in length and a head larger than a battering ram. Flame weakened walls and damaged fortifications crumbled and broke and with a shuddering roar the watchtower collapsed in a storm of embers and smoke, sending a pillar of destruction over the fort like a battlestandard over a field of corpses.
The creature was down, or landed at least and while many of the survivors continued to flee, a few stood in silent awe at the sight of a lone individual standing before it. Even with a pair of arrows in a shoulder, it was still just as deadly and enormously powerful as it had been in the air which made Kaius’s actions of discarding the bow and drawing his sword again all the more ludicrous.
"I HAD FORGOTTEN WHAT FINE SPORT YOU MORTALS PROVIDE!" Compared to the usual words it spoke that turned air to fire or harnessed other destructive elements, these were almost conversational. They still rippled through sky and land, churning stomachs and vibrating lungs from the deep, throbbing growl. “YOU ARE BRAVE, JOOR, BUT YOU WILL STILL DIE!”
Standing atop the ruined fort walls and even across the distance between them, Sofia could see Kaius’s face and the grim, determined curve of the mouth of a man facing a true challenge. If she hadn’t known him before, it would have appeared to be little more than the last moments leading to his impending death. Sofia knew better. A month of travelling together had shown her much about his skills and capabilities, but in just over a day she had witnessed him kill over thirty elven warriors, stare down a daedric prince in the flesh and now, watched as he stood before a true legend from the depths of nightmares.
"Usstan xun naut treemma dos cer'z." The strange melodic words that Kaius spoke seemed to carry unnaturally across the comparative stillness of the battle now that the dragon was landed. “You will not be the first of your kind I have slain.”
Since its appearance, the dragon had been a nightmarish force of nature, murderous and without hesitation, but as it peered at the man who dared to face it there was a sense of curiosity in its mannerisms. It twisted and faced Kaius, head tilted as it rose from the cratered ground where it had landed, until its eyes matched Kaius’s height on the walls.
"FIN TINVAAK DO FIN MINGOLT?" A growl that sounded suspiciously like a laugh of some sorts sent slivers of fear up Sofia’s spine as she watched with growing amazement and dread. "THAT IS A SURPRISE..."
The creature’s attentions were entirely fixated upon Kaius now, something that many of the survivors were taking full advantage of, but Sofia, like several of the more courageous, curious or shocked remained. Somehow, she knew that Kaius was speaking further words to the enormous being, especially as it writhed and twisted like a serpent, almost as though it was pacing back and forth before the ruined fort. Whatever further words he spoke were lost to the wind and the thunderous impacts of the dragon casually clawing its way over the broken, rocky ground towards him. Neither man or dovah appeared willing to make the first move, at least until a great serpentine head lifted even higher into the sky, looking down upon the being who dared to stand before it and roaring the world-rending words YOL TOOR SHUL to bath both man and walls in dragonfire.
From a few hundred metres away, Sofia and the others who remained were forced to shield their eyes and turn their faces away from the power of the dragon's shout. It was almost as worse as staring into the sun, and even the heat could be felt from where they stood on the plains surrounding the destroyed fort, threatening to singe hairs and even starting fires in the dry, autumn grasses hundreds of metres away from the actual dragonfire. This was what had broken the fort and killed dozens, leaving behind little more than shadows and dust on blasted stonework as the only trace of their existence. There had been nothing that had managed to stand before such elemental fury from a creature born from shards of time itself, and yet, as the rolling thunder of the dragon’s voice faded and the flames died away, something did indeed stand.
Surrounded by partially molten, and rapidly cooling stones, forced down onto one knee and surrounded by a shimmering halo of energies, Kaius remained defiant, his magicka protecting him from the power of the dragon. The ward was heavily weakened, the capability of both the spell and the man channeling it pushed to the very limits, but he had survived something that no one else had, putting pause to his draconic adversary.
Like he had shown through Bleak Falls barrow, and against dozens of Dominion soldiers, Kaius was not one for wasting such an opportunity and this time the thunder crack of arcane powers was not of draconic origins. Sofia caught the traces of magicka in the back of her mind as the purple-black bolt lashed out from Kaius’s hand, smashing into the dragon’s maw with all the force of a ballistae. Fangs shattered, scaled flesh ripped, and with a howl of pain and anger it twisted away from the tiny figure attacking it, but Kaius was already moving.
Up until this moment the only options were to run, or to hide, and neither of those choices had offered more than a few minutes survival against such a being, but Sofia and the others were now stuck watching as Kaius went on the offensive. Against a creature that had destroyed a fort and slaughtered dozens in mere minutes, he immediately attacked, and proved he could hold his own.
Sword in one hand, the other surrounded by a veil of flickering, magical un-lights, Kaius leapt from the still-cooling wall and rolled as he hit the ground. The dragon’s maw was bleeding and while only momentarily distracted he covered the distance between them at full sprint, taking advantage of the moment and slashing his sword through a leathery, folded wing before it could react.
Wounded twice within minutes, by the same individual and three times if the pair of arrows lodged in a shoulder were counted, seemed to be more incredulous to the dragon than the handful of soldiers that watched from afar. It was almost as though it was struggling to understand that a lone human was not only standing up to it but was successfully injuring it, even despite the relatively inconsequential nature of such injuries. The fact that it had been wounded, not once, but twice seemed to confuse it for a moment which Kaius wasted no time in exploiting.
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Steel met dragonflesh, swiping at a clawed wing and drawing blood from the thinner scales in its fingers, causing it to recoil as he tried to maintain his proximity to it. Somehow, its enormous size and bulk in comparison to the tiny, darting figure was proving to be a considerable hindrance as it struggled to turn to use tooth and claw to fend him off, or spin and try to lash him away with its tail. Instead he remained close, stabbing, slicing and cutting the weaker, thinner spots on its body where his sword could gain purchase. Throat, seams in its limbs, wings and even hind legs felt the kiss of his blade, drawing out the creature's blood in pressurised spurts as it roared with pain and annoyance at the comparatively tiny injuries.
Fire and frost, lightning and unfathomable energies ripped and annihilated the ground and air around the dragon as it attempted to call upon the terrible powers contained within its words, but Kaius was proving to be far too close and agile. Each pulse of ancient syllables ripped through the air and ground, but not once did they manage to strike or injure the man daring to fight a dragon with a sword. Some were blocked or splattered harmlessly across other wards cast at just the right moments, others simply missed as the dovah was forced to redirect them away lest it caught its own body in the energies that it roared into existence. Instead, it was forced to redirect its efforts, relying less and less on its arcane strengths and more of that contained within its body and muscles.
Even without its breath and the power of its words, the creature was enormously powerful. A head as solid as the mountains slammed down like a whip, impacting with rock shattering force before being dragged in a wide semicircular arc that filled the air with powdered stone and rock shards. Pulverised dirt, crushed masonry and several dozen centimetres of topsoil fountained into the sky, and yet even such an attack failed to touch the darting figure that hacked and stabbed into its flesh.
"Ysmir's grace…” Sofia stood in a small group of hold troops, a mere handful of the bravest bearing witness to such a battle and the huskarl’s muttered oath was merely giving voice to what they were all thinking. “How can he stand against such a thing?"
None of them could notice, but she could see the signs now that she knew what to look for. His movements were too precise, too clean and smooth and above all else, far too fast to be of a mere mortal man’s. It was his curse, his vampirism, and all the long years of his life and their experience that had been provided by them that was allowing Kaius to stand alone against a destroyer of armies. He dodged and weaved attacks that would have obliterated any of those witnessing before they could realise they were already dead, he cut and stabbed and continued to wound the creature relentlessly.
That was not to say that it was a one sided fight, Sofia had seen how hurriedly cast wards had managed to stave off the worst of the dragon’s words of power, and at some point he had shed his cloak as it was reduced to ash and embers on the breeze. His armour too was battered from glancing blows that even his vampiric speed and reflexes had failed to evade, but cut by cut, he was beginning to wear the creature down.
Sliding over the ground with a deceptive and terrifying grace, the Dragon slithered and clawed its way up and over the ruined fort’s wall in an effort to distance itself from Kaius’s flashing blade. Blood was streaming from several of the deeper wounds on its body, its face partially torn and bleeding from another pair of magical bolts of energy that Kaius had cast against it, but he was just as relentless. Only the fortress walls and its size allowed it the speed and ability to slip outside of the range of Kaius’s broadsword, twisting around to face him with their earlier positions reversed. Now, it was Kaius’s turn to be stared down upon by the enormous creature, a shimmering glow of energies surrounding him as he prepared for the inevitable assault.
Wings spread wide, a roar buffeted the land and sent pulses of power rippling through the grasses in great expanding rings away from its terrible majesty. From wingtip to wingtip it was dozens of metres wide and almost matched the entire width of the ruined fort’s outer walls, and even from such a distance Sofia could feel her guts clench at the way it seemed somehow… larger still. It appeared capable of blotting out the horizon, a symbol of uncontainable fury and unstoppable destructive power and with great drumbeats it began to rise into the air once more.
On the ground it was disadvantaged, the smaller size of its opponent was too difficult to deal with when Kaius moved within sword's distance and instead it sought to return to its true domain. In the air it had annihilated the fort, killing all those within it and decimating the force that had sallied out to investigate. Now, faced with a single lone man injuring it, it attempted to regain its advantage.
But Kaius, Sofia had learned during their time together, was a careful, precise, and cunning opponent. This was to be something that the scaled creature would learn the hard way.
Leathery flesh as thick as her wrist expanded and took in the air as the dragon beat its wings to fly once more, but during the fight Kaius had been doing more than simply drawing blood. The arrows still lodged and twisting within a winged shoulder joint were a considerable hindrance in the creature’s attempts to become airborne, but were only the smallest of its injuries. Soft flesh across its body had been targeted, sliced, gashed and cut open and there was no softer portions than the great, webbed section of its wings. Compared to the rest of its body, the membranes between the long, finger-like bones in its winged forearms were exceptionally fragile. Within the first few powerful beats, its wings practically fell apart, ripping and tearing like shredded cloth. Its wings were even larger than the sails on the enormous warship Sofia had seen in the port of Solitude several years before, and like the vessel the dragon’s wings were useless when shredded.
Screaming with pain from the movements ripping the holes wider, it lost all chances of becoming airborne and fell those metres it had managed to lift itself into the sky, dropping like a falling mountain. Stone walls crumbled, ruins and piles of masonry shifted and flowed like water, and what little remained of the section of wall exploded, sending chunks of stone hurtling all around like hail.
It had been brought down, a creature of unparalleled ferocity and destructive powers by a lone individual with little more than a salvaged bow and a simple steel broadsword. To those watching, and especially Sofia, she could feel the sense of hope buoying their spirits and despite herself a smile was attempting to break out on her face. All the fears, all the terror and horror was flooding from her and the others remaining nearby. He was doing the impossible, and doing it right before their eyes.
Wounded, writhing and struggling to lift itself from where it had landed, the dragon may have been injured, but it was still incredibly dangerous. Enormous fallows were dragged through stone though they were heat softened butter from great talons and a hole in the walls was torn open large enough for an entire warband to storm through had it not been a blasted ruin. Fire, ice, lightning and pulses of energies rippled and spat into the air around it as it attempted to drag itself free from the ruins, but its prey had become its assailant.
Charging with sword in one hand and magicka wreathing his other, Kaius was moving with all the speed of someone with a very slim, and rapidly shrinking chance of victory. With its wings in tatters, its body cut and gashed in numerous places it was still very much alive, but for little more than a heartbeat it was trapped, stuck and unable to move from the striking figure.
Steel crafted from Skyrim’s iron earthbones flashed and cut deep into a muscular neck where it met the scaled, horned skull, punching between the protection of the scales and into the flesh and muscle underneath. At a glance the strike may have appeared as though he was swinging his broadsword like a woodsman’s axe, but there was a control and dexterity to the movements, A preciseness that allowed the blade to cut deep into the spine and nerves between the thick bones of its neck. There was nothing it could do, its thrashing, twisting motions stopping as legs and wings went lifeless and limp, the damage done to its spinal column leaving it thoroughly paralysed at last, its roars and growling words fa silent.
An armoured boot pressed into a horned skull the size of a battering ram, sword gripped steady and tight in gauntleted fists as dragon and vampire stared at each other. Even where she stood, Sofia could see the burning shape of the draconic eye, an eye larger than both her fists staring in a combination of hatred and horror at the man who had managed to best it. Kaius had no hesitation though, drawing back his arms, and stabbing the enormous reptile through the accusing organ, taking advantage of the softer nature of its eye to thrust his blade to the hilt in search of its brain. With sixty centimetres of nordic steel lodged into its skull, the great wyrm writhed and twitched for a heartbeat, before finally succumbing to the embrace of death.
