AN: I AM HERE! With another chapter! Anyways, there's a special announcement at the end so please check that out.
Also, pls pls pls comment or review or drop some stones if you like the chapter. I am machine that turns these things into fuel to do more writing. The more reviews, the more chapters, huzzah!
Thank you so much :D, and enjoy the chapter!
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4E 202, The Reach
Balgruuf
The Reach was a strange, lawless place, Balgruuf realized.
Balgruuf had seen wild country before. He had marched through the Jeralls in winter, ridden the tundra in spring floods, fought in the choking dust of Hammerfell during the Great War.
Looking around the rocky highlands—with the sounds of churning water from the Karth River down in the deeper valleys—this place was not so different.
He didn't know what Jarl Igmund was thinking. The man had scarcely stirred since high Hrothgar, keeping nearly all of his soldiers locked inside Markarth's walls.
The man had been the most dismissive to the threat of dragons initially, believing that his seat—which was made entirely out of Dwemer stone and built on the side of the Western Mountains—would not falter at the mere prowess of dragons.
Yet the Peace Summit had proven that stone and rock was useless in the face of the World-Eater. Even the Throat of the World, which had been a point of pride for the Nords of Skyrim as it was the highest mountain peak in all of Tamriel, was not spared.
It was the reason why most patrols were handled by the Legions, and later the Stormcloaks. And now, Balgruuf's own banners.
Markarth should have fielded four thousand men to guard its borders. Instead, the hills crawled with Forsworn like mites in a wolf's pelt. His own host—three thousand strong when they crossed into the Reach—had been harried again and again along the march.
Half a dozen times they were attacked at random hours of the day. Each time, the Forsworn weren't great in number. Yet the constant raids and guerilla tactics had forced them to move slower, with simple defenses needing to be raised.
One of the more daring attacks happened in the dead of night as fires were set near the makeshift stables and arrows came flying from the rocks. By dawn, a hundred of his men were dead and three dozen horses gone into the hills, spooked from the flames.
Balgruuf was forced to answer in kind. Vilkas and his forty companions were sent to hunt them down. Since then, the hills had grown quieter and the attacks lessened.
No sane man would send a mere band of forty to hunt a tribe in their own mountains, but Balgruuf didn't worry. Every member of the Companions were capable warriors and hunters in their own right, more so the Inner Circle. Vilkas himself had proven to be a peerless warrior and commander. Ysgramor Reborn would not die to mere Forsworn.
So Balgruuf pushed the thought away as his mind went to the battle ahead. Beside him rode Irileth, silent and watchful. Four guards in dragonplate formed a moving wall around their Jarl. Balgruuf had not argued for the protection. Not after the Briarheart.
He still remembered the madman's eyes. The way the Forsworn had charged straight through spearpoints, shrugging off all injury, just for the glory of killing a Jarl. He would have died there, throat torn open in the dirt, if Irileth's blade had not struck first, plunging straight where the Briarheart would be.
Since that day, she rarely left his side.
Hrongar had been given command of the garrison he had left in Whiterun, some two thousand strong. The number made a sigh tear out of Balgruuf's mouth. Close to nine thousand men had answered his call at the start of all this, and now only five thousand were left.
From the first attack of Whiterun, to the many times they had ridden out to rid Dragons from their roost, the Night of Convergence, and now this. Slowly but surely, his people were dying.
He knew those nords died proudly, Balgruuf would have been the same had he perished with a weapon in hand. Kings were meant to spend lives, that was the burden of all ruleship. But knowing it did not dull the ache. Especially not when the dead wore your colors. Especially not when one of them was your own blood.
Neither hair nor hide of Nelkir had been seen in any part of Skyrim. Balgruuf had sent out word to all of the Jarls of Skyrim to keep a look out for his youngest son, to no avail.
Some had wondered whether or not the boy was present within the Night of Convergence. But he had to be, considering all the known Champions made their way there one way or another.
Balgruuf didn't know whether to believe it, since hope was a dangerous indulgence, but he tried anyway.
He hired the Companion's best tracker—Aela the Huntress—to scour all of Labyrinthian for any trace of his son.
She found results, much to his relief. There were signs that someone of small stature—light footed and young—had been prowling in Shalidor's Maze.
Aela had followed the tracks, until they vanished as though the earth itself had swallowed them.
If even the Chosen of Hircine could not find Nelkir's trail, it only meant that Mephala must've been the one to hide him somehow.
The thought that his son was in the clutches of a Daedric Prince chilled him still.
But that had been weeks ago. War did not wait for a father's grief.
Instead of rejoining the Companions march to the Reach, Aela had sent a messenger in the shape of a small wolf that appeared to Vilkas saying that she was to rendezvous with the Dawnguard, who was meant to charge Northwatch Keep.
Vilkas had no issue with it and neither did Balgruuf, so they merely told her good luck. Though, a coy smile appeared on Vilkas' lips as they heard the message, as if he knew something Balgruuf did not.
It didn't take them long to arrive, cresting through the jagged terrain as they neared the Western Mountains.
The Dwemer ruin loomed from the mountainside like the ribcage of some long-dead titan. Smoke drifted from the Stormcloak encampment below. Wooden palisades, trenches, and other modest fortifications surrounded it, which Balgruuf approved of.
Their arrival was met with panic and chaos, until the sentries noticed the banners of Whiterun standing proud. Riders approached them, Galmar Stone-Fist 'the Brown Bear of Windhelm' at the head.
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"Your journey seems eventful, Jarl Balgruuf," said Keeper Carcette as they all converged within the war tent at the center of the camp. Torches line the wooden posts of the interior, casting everything in a warm orange light.
Even now, Balgruuf could hear the rhythmic crashes from the constant lobs the catapults are throwing to the walls of Bthardamz, yet it seems Dwemer stone is stronger then most.
Maps of the surroundings, as well as Bthardamz itself lay pinned beneath daggers on the large oaken table. There were also stacks of parchment that detailed the past few weeks of activity of the Dwemer ruin, courtesy of Vipir the Fleet.
The man was a capable scout, but a warrior he was not. He had done his duty, so none denied it when he asked to return to Shor's Stone, especially with Karliah's blessing. Ulfric bid Captain Aldis to give him an escort of six men as well as supplies that'd last him the ten days of travel from here to the Rift.
Balgruuf lowered himself into the carved chair across from Ulfric. "Indeed, the Forsworn kept testing us along the way. But Vilkas and the Companions will have that handled sooner or later. Luckily, we managed to push back the attacks before they could harm most of our supplies."
Ulfric nodded once. "Good. With our lines to Markarth secure, we can hold this siege for months if we must."
Carcette frowned. "Breaching the gates will not be simple. We must also assume more Dremora awaits within. Lords, perhaps even Xivilai."
Balgruuf was grateful for her presence, for few held more experience in combating the Dremora than the Vigilants.
Balgruuf considered himself experienced in warfare. He was a veteran of the Great War, having fought side by side with Ulfric and even the Emperor. But his experience was limited to regular men, mer, or beasts. Not supposed demons that came from the depths of Oblivion itself.
"Have you spoken with this Mankar Camoran?" he asked.
"No," she said. "He has not shown himself once."
Balgruuf frowned. "Then it seems diplomacy or negotiations are off the table."
Ulfric snorted. "We never expected it to begin with."
Balgruuf conceded that with a nod. Still, he had thoughts to entice some of the remaining cultists loyal to Mankar with promises or gold in hopes of making this easier.
"What about their numbers? Do we know how many defenders are within the fortress?" Irileth spoke at his shoulder, the jagged scar on her face making look all the more fearsome.
Only six of them were present here in the tent, the leaders of the three factions as well as their right hand men. Alongside Irileth were Galmar Stone-fist and Vigilant Tolan, standing by their respective leaders.
Galmar was the one who answered Irileth's question. "Not too sure about the total, but my scouts report at least a thousand seen on the walls.
"So few?" Balgruuf frowned. "The Mythic Dawn fielded ten times that at Labyrinthian."
"That was with four gates open," said Vigilant Tolan. "Yet opening such gates requires sacrifice and preparation, and not just anyone could do so. Mankar's children could open one together, proven in the attack on the Hall over a year ago, but they're dead now."
That was good news.
"Then aside from the walls, this siege may not be as dire as I feared." Balgruuf nodded thoughtfully as a thought struck him. "Where is the Champion of Nocturnal? I was told Karliah would be here."
"She is," Carcette said. "She's making her way inside as we speak."
Balgruuf's brows rose.
"We had realized that charging up the hill to batter the gate with battering rams was folly." Ulfric folded his arms. "The cultists and their dremora pets use bound weapons, so they'll never run out of arrows. A direct assault up that slope would bleed us dry. The rocky terrain also meant we can't use siege towers since the wheels would break before we're even halfway up the tilt. So she volunteered to slip in alone. If she can open the gates from within, we strike."
What an incredibly bold plan, a risky one too. Were all Champions so reckless and daring?
Balgruuf's mind flashed back to the Breaker of Iron, a ballad written for Gerron's actions in the Western Watchtower, where he wrestled a dragon and broke its neck with his bare hands.
'Yes they were,' He realized with mirth. Then again, perhaps a little daring is what's needed in times like these.
"How will we know she succeeds?" he asked. "Preparing a charge uphill takes time."
Carcette shrugged faintly. "She said we would know when we saw it."
Balgruuf stared at her for a moment.
Then he shrugged as well.
"Well, alright then."
…
4E 202, Castle Volkihar
Kiera Fendalyn
Dawnbreaker surged forward as she aimed for the Reaper's throat, only for the blade of living sunlight to meet black iron instead.
The strange axe the Daedric creature wielded caught her strike a hair's breadth from her mark, shrieking as gold fire scraped across its edge. The force jarred her arms to the shoulder, a feeling she had not felt since absorbing at least forty dragon souls. This Reaper was strong.
He loomed over her, taller than any Dremora she had faced. Its armor was wrought of jagged void-metal, its cowl was like what Kiera had seen worn on many executioners, crimson fire burned in the hollow of its eyes.
Things had turned for the worse since Kiera got Tullius and the Legions out of the vault room. The portal they had found was unstable, and they found the reason not a few seconds later.
Six dragons, each one larger and more imposing than the last, had poured from the portal above the shattered keep. These were not the young wyrmlings or freshly risen-from-the-dead drakes that Kiera had seen prowling Skyrim's skies—but rather ancient, scarred, and immense dragons whose might was only short of the Kruziik themselves. Their scales were cracked and their wings were torn as if they had just returned from a great battle, yet their roars shook the Sea of Ghosts all the same.
The Reaper let out an unholy screech at their arrival. Not of rage alone, but something deeper.
Hatred.
"They killed my partner," she remembered him say.
And now they were here.
She had no idea what in Stendarr's name was going on or where these dragons came from, but it was clear here they were all enemies. The Reaper was obviously Daedric, though not from any realm that Kiera recognized.
Below the crumbling towers, the battle fractured into chaos.
"Adventus, form on the gates!" General Tullius' voice thundered above the din. "Shields high! Hold the line! Don't let the undead get through!"
His initial order of evacuation had borne fruit. Kiera could already see most of the ships getting ready to leave the docks as the sailors were unfurling sails and lifting anchors, though they were slow to do so, for they were waiting on the engineers and triage teams to finish carting all the injured civilians onto the ships.
Legate Adventus stood at the fore, legionnaires slammed into formation around him beneath the broken archway, spears bristling outward. Many of the legionnaires were lost when the inner keep fell—buried beneath the rubble—and the Legate did not escape unscathed.
His face was caked with dust as one arm bound uselessly to his chest, a long gash over his right brow continued to spill blood over his eye. His shield arm trembled but did not lower.
Then the dead began to move.
Clawing their way through the rubble of the broken keep were Bonemen and Wrathmen, lumbering over the broken stone and wood as Mistmen drifted behind them.
"Loose!" A legion sergeant screamed as arrows flew unbidden from the men lining up the walls.
She followed the arrows trail as the first lines of undead were pulverized by the rain of steel, yet it did not deter the ones behind them from continuing their charge.
The Reaper swung once more as the crimson eyes blared with even more hatred.
Kiera ducked under the arc of the axe as black energy sheared through a courtyard pillar behind her. Stone dissolved into ash where it hit—the Ashen Curse, Kiera realized. Something Gerron had told them about after studying the Razor.
So even a single scratch from that axe would mean death. Kiera remembered what happened to her mother's hand from just a small nick, she had to be careful.
She rolled, came up on one knee, and roared. "FUS RO DAH!"
The Unrelenting Force blasted outward. The shockwave shattered most Bonemen mid-charge, hurled the Wrathmen back into the courtyard, and even staggered some of the Legionnaires who had not braced.
The Reaper only slid for a dozen meters at most, before moving and answering with a downward cleave.
She raised Dawnbreaker in both hands and caught it.
Golden fire met abyssal black as the sky was split in a plethora of colors.
A dragon crashed through a tower to her right—its scales bronze and scarred.
Vermithor roared defiance as two elder dragons descended upon him. Fire and frost engulfed the broken spires.
Right now, the only thing stopping all six dragons from reigning destruction upon the castle was her partner. Yet with all his might, even the Bronze Fury would struggle against six of his kind.
One of those dragons, with beautiful shimmering silver scales and a long serpentine neck, opened its maw right in Vermithor's direction.
"QO SPAAN LOK!"
Yellow lightning, different from Vermithor's own blue, speared through the air as Vermithor faltered mid-wingbeat, slammed against a tower, and sent debris raining down—crushing Legionnaires and undead alike.
The Reaper laughed.
Then he raised one skeletal hand.
Black light erupted from him in a violent wave, spearing skyward. It streaked toward Vermithor like a lance of Oblivion.
'He wants to kill any vulnerable dragon he could find…'
Kiera growled, not on her watch.
"WULD NAH KEST!"
She blurred forward in a flash of speed, slamming Dawnbreaker into the Reaper's side. The golden blade detonated on impact. The wave of black energy skewed off course, grazing the silver dragon instead.
The elder dragon shrieked as void-light burned through its wing membrane. It spiraled out of control and crashed through one of the ships, breaking the masts in half before falling through the waters.
Another angry screech came out from behind his mask as the axe swung wildly, Kiera parrying each one with precision. One heavier cleave forced Kiera to block with both hands, buckling her elbows and sending her ten feet back as she carved furrows on the ground.
The Reaper raised a hand covered in black mist, before slamming it down onto the ground as it spread across the entire courtyard.
From beneath rubble, corpses clawed free. The dead of the previous siege; former vampire thralls, fallen legionnaires. Each one rose, eyes burning with cold violet flame.
"Behind us!" Adventus roared. "The corpses are rising—"
One of them—a fresh corpse still wearing Imperial red—drove a sword through Adventus' side.
"Adventus!" Tullius' voice cracked as he charged with his centurions, smashing into the flanking tide of draugr.
The Reaper came for her again.
Its axe descended in a crescent of void. She twisted, the blade carving a trench through the stone where she had stood. The shockwave rippled outward, flinging legionnaires and Bonemen alike from their feet.
She answered with fire.
"YOL TOOR SHUL!"
Flame erupted from her throat. The inferno swallowed the Reaper and surged past it into the courtyard beyond. Mistmen caught in the blast ignited like kindling, their black skeletons turning to ash.
But the Reaper walked through the blaze as if her flames were nothing more than the warmth of a campfire.
Kiera knew the truth, the way the Reaper's eyes flickered meant it felt pain. The dark cloak caught on flames as it became tattered, yet it seems that pain was merely an old friend for a being as old as he.
It swung again, much slower this time, allowing Kiera to catch the blade on Dawnbreaker's hilt and spartan kick his chest. The impact hurled him through a shattered colonnade as stone exploded around him.
A roar of defiance had her risk a glance upwards.
Vermithor still collided with three of the invading dragons midair, his massive body slamming one aside. Another took the chance to rake talons across his flank, a roar of pain exiting her partner's mouth. Blood like molten brass rained down upon the towers.
"Vermithor!" She screamed with worry.
A third dragon loosed a storm of ice into the courtyard. Legionnaires and Wrathmen froze where they stood, frost climbing their armor.
The Reaper rose from the rubble, breath ragged as she turned her attention back to him.
If Vermithor fell, the sky would belong to the enemy.
If the Legion broke, the docks would be overrun.
If she faltered, the Reaper would carve through them all.
He stalked forward, axe dragging sparks across the ground, a long line of ash trailing behind him.
"ARVAK!" he howled—not at her, but at the sky.
She darted forward, Dawnbreaker blazing. Gold met void in a storm of strikes.
"I do not know your quarrel!" she shouted between blows. "But this is not your war!"
"ARVAK!" it shrieked again, more furious than before.
The name carried grief.
Just as Kiera prepared for another bout, a howl rolled across the Sea of Ghosts.
Every mortal on the field flinched as the sound struck their souls. Legionnaires staggered. Draugr hesitated mid-swing. Even the dragons faltered in their flight.
Only Kiera and the Reaper remained unmoved.
From the clouds above, a blade of pure light descended, falling like the judgement of a god.
The greatsword speared through one of the circling dragons, punching through scale and bone and impaling it mid-flight. The blade tore through its chest and detonated in a flare of divine brilliance.
The dragon plummeted, slamming into the castle's highest tower. The structure collapsed, crushing Wrathmen and sending a tidal wave of rubble into the courtyard.
Vermithor tore free from his remaining attackers with a roar of triumph.
Out of the sea surged a massive wolf the size of a siege tower, water cascading from its silver fur. Upon her back stood Isran, wreathed in Stendarr's light.
The wolf leapt impossibly high, jaws clamping around a dragon's wing. The crunching of bone was heard as the dragon spiraled downward, smashing through a parapet and skidding across the courtyard in a ruin of scales and shattered masonry.
…
AN: Part of the reason why Ulfric's forces were untouched by the Forsworn is because they found a juicier, less protected target in the Whiterun contingent.
5,000 stormcloaks (who the Forsworn have had experience in fighting and losing badly against) with the Vigilants of Stendarr, or a smaller force of 3,000 whiterun soldiers?
The answer was easy for the Forsworn leaders. This was also the reason why Ulfric made it to Bthardamz quicker, despite Whiterun being closer to the Reach than Windhelm. It didn't help that they took different routes, Balgruuf going through the burnt down village of Rorikstead and Ulfric taking the longer route through Markarth.
Anyways, the whole Kiera sequence kicked me in the ass. It was really difficult to write three simultaneous battles (the sky, the gate, and the courtyard) happening at the same time and having each one affect the other.
But I think I did a pretty good job of it in the end. I was forced to split the POV in half since the muse made me just keep on writing it.
I hope you enjoyed this one, probably the most major battle that's happened in this Act since the Night of Convergence, with only the Blades vs the Dragon Priests being the only contender.
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ANYWAYS, FOR THE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I've recently gotten the muse back to continue my Naruto fic. Just in the past week, I've managed to write down two chapters for it, which is cool. My question is, are you guys cool with me posting the Naruto fic cocurrently with this one? That would no doubt slow down updates for Craftman's Journey, but that would mean updating an otherwise dead fic back to life.
Also, which of these two fandoms would you be more interested in me making a fic of, One Piece or A Song of Ice and Fire? I've been having ideas for both (some of these ideas I've posted as one shots in my P-word so check that out :P).
With Skyrim ending pretty soon (less than thirty chapters I think), I'm thinking of what comes next. Please comment on some ideas you guys have, thank you!
Anyways once again, for those of still interested, the sale on 50% off on my P-Word is still on going! All you need is to sign up for an annual sub, rather than monthly, using the code CRAFTSMAN6 to get it (because this sale was to celebrate Act 6 on Craftman's Journey, creative I know).
I've got a lot of content on there for those who would love that and it helps put food on my table :D.
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ANYWAYSSSSSS, that's all for the special announcements. I look forward to hearing from you guys!
Cheers as always lads!