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Twisted and monstrous in the situation, my laugh was enough to churn stomachs already roiling with terror and they all looked at me as I chuckled in the gloom. Some made signs to various deities as they beheld the way my eyes glinted in the shadows, thinking that the stress and terror had snapped my sanity.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Viconia muttered, the only individual in the building who seemed completely at ease at the whole situation.
"We’re facing an entire pack of werewolves, and yet these bastards fear us." I laughed. Despite my words I felt a terror that matched all of those in the building with us. The sound of a small child sobbing seemed to suddenly echo from a room within the town hall itself for a few moments that left a group of the militia facing it in a wall of spear-points before the noise moved on. "They fear us that much that they have to use deception and tricks to weaken our resolve instead of being able to rely on the beasts of Hircine."
"Well... it’s working so far." Someone muttered in the group.
Sparing a glance to Viconia I saw the way that she returned the look with a quizzical one of her own. "These illusions; are they imitations, or memories?" I whispered to her so the others couldn’t hear the question.
The expression that formed on her face was one that told me that there were questions that I didn’t want answers for.
My fingers tapped on Sunchild’s sheathed hilt for a moment before reaching and drawing an arrow from the quiver at my feet. Enormously powerful, my bow was strung and in my hands even as my vampiric senses could hear the way the wolf howls moving closer to us.
"Here we go." I murmured and Viconia nodded, the magicka traces in the air before her growing even more powerful as she read the shifting energies. The howls and screams and calls of life-ending horror continued to the increasingly desperate men and women around us, and it was almost a relief when the door shuddered as something large impacted against it.
Rattling and shifting, the group clenched an array of weapons at the heavily fortified entry. Posts and beams had been nailed to the interior of the doors, their bases pressed into rectangular holes carved into the stone foundations for support. All together they braced the doors outward and such thick planks would ensure that even daedric creatures would have to spend time and effort to break through.
Crossbows rattled and the creak of bows being drawn back to half nock could be heard over the muttered oaths and curses at the way the door had shuddered as it was hit.
"Steady." I hissed to the group as they levelled their weapons at the door. "They’re just testing us."
The tiny gap under the sealed doors suddenly blew inwards in a collection of wood shavings and dust as something monstrously large snuffled at the base of the door. The heavy breaths of the creature pressing its nose to the half centimetre gap panted and sprayed saliva and mucous before the scrabbling of claws could be heard. Like a hound digging at a rabbit burrow, the giant creature dug and scraped at the tiny gap, splintering wood and gouging stone but thankfully with little effect. Every few seconds it would stop, snuffle at the door before resuming its scratching.
Everyone held their breaths, watching with a sick horror at the sight of the billowing clouds of dust from the werewolf almost playfully scratching at the exterior. For a minute or two it seemed content to continue on, but without warning the bloodthirsty howl ripped through us all as it bayed into the night sky.
Its hunting howl was returned by the others and we could hear the snorting and roaring as they galloped through the village towards us. being unable to see or watch them we could feel our bowels turn to water as our subconscious minds filled in the gaps using the very worst of our imaginations. My own mind was filled with the memories from that night all those years before and I struggled not to jump as the doors resounded from another solid impact.
Thudding into the outside of the doors the creatures howled and roared, the first now joined by the rest of the pack as they threw themselves bodily at the reinforced wood. Claws tore and gouges, jaws could be clearly heard snapping together as they growled and barked and above it all the cries of pain and agony continued unabated. Men, women and children of all races could be heard screaming and dying or begging and pleading for their lives or the lives of their family and loved ones. More than one of the defenders lost control of their bodily functions as we were forced to listen and hear the never-ending sounds of death and torture and only Viconia appeared inured to it all.
Shuddering and rocking back on the numerous bracings and wooden supports the doors began to buckle slightly in places as the lycanthropes continued their assault. Cracks began to appear in places as unnatural claws ripped into the wood or they hit it with their daedric strength, but thankfully the preparations of the day were more than proving themselves.
"My wives! Please spare my wives!"
Kneeling down behind his massive towershield the young Legionary Hadrgar watched impassively at the doors slowly begin to give under the sustained assault of the werewolves. Kneeling down with his knee pressed to the floor, his shield covered him entirely, his narrowing eyes mostly hidden in the thick barbute helmet pressed to his skull. To look at the young man from the front would only show the massive shield with the Imperial Dragon embossed on the front and the top of his steel helm jutting over the lip. All that could be seen of his flesh would be the glints of his eyes in the helmet’s shadow, but the words that he began incanting were clearly heard even over the growing cacophony.
"There do I see my father’s..." He chanted in his thickly accented voice.
"Daddy, stop the monsters hurting me! DADDY!"
"There do I see my mother’s..."
The howl of something bestial and blood-savage ripped through the air as the creature bounded around the exterior of the hall. For a few heart rending moments it sought and failed to find entrance elsewhere and soon returned to the pack battering the doors.
In a mournful funeral dirge, the young Nord continued his death prayer and I could see that he was not the only one speaking what for all intents their own eulogies. "There do I see my brothers and my sisters..."
A wooden panel slowly began pushing inwards as one of the creatures threw its entire strength and bodyweight into the wood. So heavily built and fortified by the militia, the wooden panel only seemed to bend and show the tiniest signs of splintering before the creature was forced to pull back from the exertion.
"There do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning..."
Another screech ripped through the air; a woman of indeterminable age suffering with world ending pain. It was so close that we all could have sworn that she had her face pressed up against the hinges before she began shrieking.
"Shor bids me to take my place among them..."
We were all flinching now at the sounds of the unrelenting assault and for several moments we all trembled in fear at the sound of one of them scrabbling up the walls and onto the roof. The long bass note of its howl could be felt deep into our bellies, but there were some of us that couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden yelp as its footing slipped on the frosty roof and it fell. The moments of desperate scrabbling could be heard over its kin attacking the doors before it fell three stories and slammed solidly into the ground.
"In the halls of Sovngarde..."
"Dead dead dying dying death..." chanted a sick disembodied voice that seemed to move and float around the exterior of the town hall. "All is death, all is rot. Twist and snap, gnaw and rot... Death death death..."
"Where the brave..."
One of the several supporting beams juddered and bounced as one or more of the creatures slammed heavily into the door with their full force. Cracks appeared in some of the wood and I could suddenly taste the green cores of the wooden planks and beams as they began fracturing.
"Live forever..."
The cry of "They’re breaking through!" echoed from the mouth of one of the militia and I drew back hard on my bow. In a sick curiosity I watched one of the braces bend and snap, the thirty-centimetre-thick post bending like a blade of grass before exploding from the forces on the door panel it was holding back. The wooden echo of the broken wood sounded like the hollow tolling of a funeral bell and before our eyes a plank of wood in the centre of the right hand door exploded inwards with uncontainable fury.
Even before the wood had hit the floor I had released my breath and the hold on the bowstring, feeling it slap the inside of my left wrist as it launched the arrow with all the force of a thunderbolt. I caught the vague suggestion of furred flesh and talons in the rent in the wood before the arrow vanished into the darkness of the night, but the squeal of surprised pain was audible to us all.
"Braces!" Ylfgar roared, all silence and whispering was lost now to the assault and I saw those few without bows or polearms grasp planks and posts from the ready-made stockpile of building materials and step hesitantly towards the door. Moving forward with them I launched another arrow through the gap, seeing movement for a second through the hole barely wide enough to fit my shoulders through.
Using spears and lengths of wood to keep their distance from the doors a handful of the militia pushed a board across the hole and jammed it there with a beam pressed into the floor. They had been preparing for this all day and although their fear was threatening to overwhelm them their instincts pushed aside all their conscious thoughts. Another panel exploded inwards and I suddenly found myself staring into the inky blackness of a hole filled with little more than a pair of burning eyes the colour of a blood moon.
Furred and ghastly, a limb half as long as I was tall groped through tipped with talons longer than daggers that gleamed black like obsidian. Coloured a deep brown like fresh clay it was matted and stank, filling the interior of the hall with the stench of wet hound and the musk of an alpha predator. It slashed and swiped about, knocking down one of the supports with a clatter as all those near the doors suddenly retreated from the sight of their fears clothed in furred flesh.
An arrow lodged deep into a bicep, but appeared as wounding as an insect bite to the creature that owned the limb. Another pair of arrows lodged into the wood of the door to join mine as those with bows released the strings with trembling fingers. Twisting and roaring with bloodlust the werewolf ignored the impacts of the arrows, and the lone crossbow bolt that appeared as though conjured from its forearm from a shot made with luck more than skill.
Sunchild appeared in my hand and unthinkingly I stepped forward while all the others retreated, screaming in fear and desperation while only a few shouted orders to hold firm and shore up the doors. It was reaching for on the various parts of the barricade keeping the doors closed and even as its talons sunk deep into a beam Sunchild flickered through the air and left the night air ringing with a howl of a different timbre.
Flopping to the ground, the severed limb splattered gore in all directions as its owner retracted the gushing stump. The scream of pain and anguish from the lycanthrope almost sounded human despite the bestial rage inherent in the growls. There was almost a moment of silence from beasts and militia alike as all involved realised what had occurred.
"Get the gods-damned doors barricaded!" I roared on the top of my lungs as the creatures outside redoubled their efforts to gain entry. Some sounded like they were digging into the wood on the outside as though it was little more than soil and they were dogs trying to bury bones. The others clawed and ripped at the holes that they had already made, enlarging them in flurries of talons and shattering wood.
The militia moved with surprising speed and without hesitation, and I realised with a start that I had infused some of my vampiric will into my voice. As the adrenaline grew and thundered its way into my veins my face was growing taut until the fear began sliding away. Despite the memories, despite the terror and the sound and sight of such beasts coming to claim our flesh the vampire was smothering all other emotions until all that was left was rage and anger and a fury that matched the accursed beings outside.
Furred and fanged, the face of one of the werewolves pressed into the right hand hole that had been enlarged by the grasping talons of it and its kin. A yellow, bloodshot eye narrowed in the gap at the sight of the dozen or so individuals that dared to defy it, lips pulling back from a maw of fangs and teeth as pointed and tapered as bodkins. Snarling and spitting it roared its unthinking hatred at us for a second before one of the militia stepped forward and fired a crossbow point blank into the hole.
Mjadhi; bandit and outlaw hissed his own hatred as he pulled the trigger on his crossbow, the weapon’s arms snapping forward with mechanical force and driving the bolt into the face of the wolf. There was a split second of surprise from the creature outside before it realised it was now partially blind and had thirty centimetres of steel tipped wood jutting from a socket.
Another cry of pain from the werewolves rippling through the pack as the newly blinded creature staggered way to the sound of the purring laughter of the Khajiit highwayman. Roaring like a mountain lion he laughed and stepped backwards, pulling another bolt from the quiver on his hip before going through the laborious process of reloading the weapon.
Spurred on from our examples the others moved forward, jamming wood down, pressing beams and posts onto the weakening doors and firing arrows and bolts through the existing holes to the chorus of screams and howls of pain and anger. Furred and talon-tipped paws would snake inside, writhe about grasping and clawing accompanied by the roars of their owners. Another pushed through the left side hole where I stood and I swore constantly and breathlessly as it groped about for flesh to sink its talons into.
"Well... The vith’rellen are consistent to say the least." I swore and one of the militia hooted at my grim expression as I swung Sunchild once more. Another howl of agony was reward for my efforts and a fresh hand flopped like a dead fish next to its brother, still twitching as nerves struggled to obey the commands from a body it was no longer attached to.
Kicking the hand away and watching my footing on the bloody floor I motioned for a pair of the militia to lever a board across the gap before another of the fiends decided to try its luck against my blade. By now the majority of the defenders were huddling around the doors. Some armed with little more than planks of wood, others firing whatever weapons they had into the holes before stepping aside for their comrades to have clear shots of their own. The whole time the roars and bloodthirsty howls continued unabated, their terrible cries striking us deep in our guts while our minds were assaulted by the insidious taunts and dreadful screams of the soul trapped and the dead.
"Faeelorn you fool! Get back!"
Hearing Ylfgar’s shouted command I twisted my head to see the Bosmer caravan hand step forwards with a drawn bow, the arrow wickedly pointed and gleaming with sharpness. Buoyed by their success, those with bows and crossbows had been creeping forward half a pace at a time with each shot into the darkness. Now as the fight was raging in earnest when he released the arrow he was less than an arm’s span from the ragged hole.
Fumbling with his quiver there was nothing he or anyone else could do when an arm as black as ash erupted from the hole, talons as sharp as shortswords punching into the elf’s gut with a shocking savagery. There was enough time for the look of stupefied amazement to appear on his gaunt tattooed face, staring at the way how the werewolf’s fingers vanished to the knuckles in his leather and chainmail. The hairy palm faced to the sky, fingers obviously curling inside of his torso but before anyone could move or even react it ripped him from his feet and wrenched him through the hole.
Far too small to accommodate a body, let alone an upright one the wood elf died in an explosion of gore as he slammed into the wood and was pulled stomach first through the hole. Bones breaking and snapping, the sheer power of the creature ripped him apart, folding his corpse in half at the waist and leaving everyone within five metres misted with his blood.
"Back! Back you fucking idiots!" someone shouted over the sounds of gory feasting and the tearing of flesh outside. What little remained of the wood elf was nothing more than a boot sitting comically near the base of the shuddering doors, while his blood dripped everywhere and pooled around the lip of the hole.
Grey furred and terrible, the snarling face of one of the creatures pressed the advantage and the momentary lack of arrows and bolts being hurled from hole. Ears flat to its skull and lips pulled back to reveal a mouth filled with fangs it pushed through the gap, barking and salivating at the huddling mass of humanity standing before it. Too small to accommodate its entire mass it pushed and heaved, attempting to drag itself further into the hall with the only arm it had managed to get through. Stuck in the hole by its impossibly broad shoulders, we could hear its hindquarters scrabbling for purchase even over its snarls and growls. Faced with such a monstrosity everyone in the room shied away from the angry lycanthrope, almost tripping over themselves in terror as they swore and screamed in terror.
Broad, heavy and designed for the utmost protection; the dragon embossed weight of a towershield smashed the creature hard in the face, shattering fangs and breaking bone with the impact. Impossibly calm and determined as though entirely detached from the situation, young Hadrgar had fallen into the routine and drills imparted onto all those in the Legion. There was no shouted battle cry, no roar of exertion or shouting as there was in other forces and military units within the Empire. When the Legion went to war it did so in silence, broken only by the screams and cries of the dead and dying.
There was nothing of the emotion or fear of earlier in the day, no tremble of a limb or palsy of the hand. He struck quickly and precisely, not overexerting and remaining behind the thick layers of metal and wood as he jammed the gladius to the hilt in a furred jugular. The creature howled and swiped at him, blood gushing from the opened smile in its neck but doing little more than dig furrows through his shield as he twisted his shoulder and glanced it away with a veteran’s skill. Another short stab and part of its face hung away, its baying maw splattering blood and drool over the impassive helm of the Nordic soldier.
Fully intending on eviscerating the legionary daring to stand between it and its prey it roared, ignoring the wounds that would have incapacitated a minotaur. Before our eyes the pulsing spurts of blood from the stab wound in the throat dribbled away into nothing, not because of death claiming the beast but because the wound began closing on its own accord. The unnatural healing of the creature brought the full memories of that night long ago in Vvardenfell to the forefront of my mind and I reached forward and pulled the young man back before his guts were left slithering across the ground. He fell heavily onto his rear, the weight of his Legion plate leaving him winded as the werewolf simply redoubled its efforts to gain entry.
Weighted and hooked, the polished head of a billhook slammed down hard on the creature’s skull, caving it in with a crack and spraying blood and brains on those who were closest. Designed for pulling riders from their saddles or cleaving through platemail, even the unnatural regenerative nature of Hircine’s blessed could survive such an injury. Its scrabbling and howling was cut off in mid breath, head and body slumping to the floor and tongue lolling in a mouth and jaw broken from the impact.
"Got the bastard!" shouted the militiaman wielding the enormous polearm as the creature died with one last ragged breath. The look of triumph was short lived though as he was left desperately wriggling the bladed staff from where it was lodged in flesh and bone. Even more shockingly than before the entire corpse of the werewolf was pulled from the hole with terrible force, sending even more blood spraying the already soaked wood and stone floor and pulling the billman from his feet. He slammed against the door, his grip on his weapon instinctively loosening and letting it fly out of the hole with the corpse it was imbedded in. While quick to let go of the wooden staff, he had not been quick enough to save him from a concussion as he head-butted the thick oak planks; the padded hood he wore proving insufficient to protect him from injury or the pair of grasping hands that quickly appeared in the space above him.
His shrieks were terrible as the claws tasted deeply of his flesh, shredding flesh and ripping bone as though they were little more than twigs. Blood sprayed in all directions and he twisted and writhed in agony, another furred maw appearing in the hole that wasted no time biting him and worrying great chunks of flesh from his shoulder. Some of the militia tried desperately to drag him away from the furred embrace of the creature but within seconds his screams were transformed into gurgles.
With Hadrgar by my side and half a dozen militia behind us we stabbed and hacked at the creature, trying to swipe our way past its flailing limbs while the others tried desperately to pull the hapless militiaman away from the bloodthirsty beast. Hadrgar took a swipe across his shield that left another series of furrows through the Imperial Dragon and I narrowly slashed at a paw as it tried to grasp me as well.
"Get down!" the voice from behind us called out, and I twisted and saw Viconia standing there in the corner of my eye. Without thinking I grabbed Hadrgar and for the second time in just as many minutes left him sprawled on his back as Viconia strode forward with a crescendo of energies plucking at the air around her. In the minutes while the rest of us had been fighting she had been calling upon her magical strength and casting a spell that left her throbbing with latent might. The witchlight of her eyes bubbled and coiled like smoke, streaming down her face as though she was crying liquid light and burning brightly until none of her original eyes remained. Whispering and chanting, her fingers danced and weaved the air that shimmered like the surface of a road on a summer’s day and left the taste of metal on our tongues and a migraine in the back of my mind.
With the near-dead man still grasped firmly and half pulled through the hole, the werewolf growled through a mouthful of flesh at the Drow suddenly standing before it. Crackling with power she continued to whisper words of increasing complexity even as she pointed her finger accusingly at the beast-man mauling the near-dead villager.
Spitting out the last of the spell, we all were rocked from the sheer intensity of the magical blast. Similar to those she had used against the minotaur lord of Nonungalo but several times more powerful, the spell cracked from her outstretched hand, pouring the contained energies within her body in one single blast of earthshattering force. The werewolf had enough time to realise the threat that she faced, twisting and trying to move aside even as the bolt of energy struck it between the eyes.
The peal of thunder silenced everything, the howls of the werewolves outside, the shouts of anger, screams of pain and the sounds of fighting. Even the ever present howling and screams of the damned was silenced in the crescendo of energies that Viconia had unleashed. The raw power that she had wielded had left the wood around the hole smouldering and blackened as though transformed into charcoal, and as for the werewolf; it was no longer counted among the living.
Burnt hair, scorched flesh and the smell of wet dog wafted, and there was almost nothing left of the creature. It had been kneeling in the breach, gnawing on the near-dead villager one second and the next it was half an exploded corpse. As though it had been struck by a boulder hurled by a trebuchet, everything above its sternum was now nothing more than steaming giblets covering half the market square in a cone of gore.
Eyes rolling into the back of her skull, Viconia staggered and fell backwards, utterly spent from the discharge of her powers in such a way. The assault on the doors had ceased however; the explosive death of one of the pack and the way the magicka had left the other creatures singed and burned had forced them to retreat whimpering and yowling. Silhouettes of enormous beasts scampering away on all fours could been seen before they vanished from view between buildings and down darkened streets. For the moment at least they had been beaten off.
"Ysmir’s beard!" Hadrgar swore as he rolled over from where I had pushed him, watching as I leapt forward and caught Viconia before she hit the floor. "I always thought that magicka was for the weak!"
Ignoring him I quickly looked over her. Her heart was racing, eyes fluttering in her skull and I could feel her mind and body struggling to deal with the energies that not only she had contained but had released on the werewolves. I had seen Legion Battlemages and Telvanni Magister’s unable to control such raw power. She was weakened and exhausted but thanks to her efforts she had almost singlehandedly beaten off a lycanthrope assault.
"They’ve run off." Someone exclaimed to a handful of muted cheers of those unable to believe they weren’t introducing themselves to their ancestors in Aetherius.
"Yeah, and they might come back." Ylfgar spat, moving forward and gesturing to the door. "The night’s still young, so get this damned thing secured and boarded up."
The towering shadow of the woodsman loomed over me and I could somehow hear the smile in his tone. "That’s one helluvar thing to witness."
Before I could reply there was the sound of scraping wood from upstairs, followed by the sound of something heavy impacting on the floorboards. Everyone seemed to freeze in place at the noise, listening and straining as something shattered and a bloodcurdling scream was cut off in mid breath.
"By the Nine..."
"They’ve gotten inside!"
Twisting and stabbing a finger between the young legionary and Viconia’s twitching form I could the whites of his eyes within the shadows of his helm. "Stay here and look after her!" I spat, watching him flinch from my tone.
Without waiting for a response I exploded into activity, adrenaline returning to my veins as my heart hammered like a drum in my chest. Upstairs the sounds of splintering wood were joined and overwhelmed by what could only be a howl of pure triumph. Somehow while we were fighting them off downstairs one of the creatures had made it inside, aided by the distraction of its pack mates and now there was nothing stopping it from enacting the slaughter that its master demanded. I hurdled the stairs three or four at a time, moving faster than the others behind me and before I realised I was on the top floor, alone and with the nearest militiaman twenty metres behind.
I found myself feeling as though my boots were sunk deep in the snow of northern Vvardenfell, bow drooping from trembling fingers and staring into the face of a creature that had haunted my dreams for over half a decade. Faced with a sight of utter carnage and devastation as I had all those years ago, I felt little more than a fresh faced recruit faced with the worst oblivion had to offer in the frozen north of the world. The bodies at the creature’s feet may not have been those of my comrades in arms that cold winter’s night, but there was a terrible similarity between the beast of my nightmares and the one I suddenly faced.
Even hunchbacked from the animalistic nature of its curse it towered a full head over me, looking down with its canine eyes with nothing but a primal hunger driving it on. Rolling grey-black fur covered every inch of flesh, arms lengthened and longer than its lower limbs for greater power to rip and tear its prey apart. When it walked on two legs its fifteen-centimetre-long talons dragged across the ground, and if it dropped to all fours it could chase a warhorse and use its impossible strength to drag it and its rider down.
Three times as broad in the shoulders as a regular human it would have almost appeared comical in the way that its waist was barely larger than a regular being’s. Instead it was horrifically powerful, muscles twisting and writhing under its taut flesh and short fur to show a musculature that professional soldier would kill to have. Its face had nothing of its original humanity; a twisted amalgamation of a wolf and human that left only feral rage and an all-consuming desire to devour all it came across. There was no reasoning with such a creature, especially how the remains of several of the militia were left strewn about the hallway as little more than slaughtered meat.
Appearing at the top of the stairs it greeted me with what could have been surprise had it been any other creature. Busily gnawing on the shredded torso of one of the militia it had been oblivious to everything but the desire to feed. Holding up the body with little more than a single hand, the other was busily assisting the fang filled maw to pull and tear at the fleshly remains of the shoulder and neck. The sounds of meat splitting and bones cracking made my gorge rise uncontrollably as it gulped down steaming chucks of human flesh and snapped bone in its jaws. Its loathsome meal was stopped short as it realised that it wasn’t alone, its eye twisting and rolling in its sockets as it gazed upon me.
At my appearance the creature dropped its meal, growling in such a way that not only did its chest reverberate with the sound but so did mine as I could feel it through the soles of my feet and in the depths of my bowels. All thoughts were pushed from my mind as I gazed upon the thing and the devastation it had wrought. My guts clenched, fear trembling my arm and Sunchild wavered in front of me and I suddenly could think of nothing more but the way the snow had risen to mid shin six years before. The werewolf was so similar to the one that had slaughtered my comrades in arms so long ago that I almost felt my bladder give way and I knew that it could smell the fear wafting from me as it sniffed in my direction.
The howl that ripped forth from its throat and chest cut through me like a knife and I struggled not to turn and flee from the apparition before me. There was something deep and primal in its every movement and noise it made that stabbed into the primitive part of my mind left over from the time when men were little more than animals themselves. It spoke to something in me that urged me to turn, to run and flee from the ultimate predator and attempt to escape from the gory death that awaited me. The world that the creature existed in consisted of only two types of beings. In a facsimile of its infernal master and creator, there were only the predators and their prey. For those heart pounding moments I knew that I was little more than a rabbit to the towering wolf-man.
Unlike most other beings and humans, there was no longer a single set of instincts that fuelled my mind. The primitive and superstitious core of my being left over from my genetic heritage of thousands of years of ancestors urged me to flee, but there was a darker layer now infusing my soul. As it had when I had fallen from the heights of Lake Arrius, the survival instincts of the Vampire came to the surface. Overwhelming the weak and frail man within my mind and it consumed by very being with a dark and terrible bloodlust. It too was a predator, but was not beholden to the lord of beasts. Infused with the darkness of Oblivion there was no way that the dual natures of the vampiric and the daedric would ever back down or submit to a threat. The man might wish to run and hide and flee, but to the daedra and the vampire such emotions or options didn’t exist.
Cheekbones rippling under my flesh and snapping with twinges of pain, my face elongated and fangs peeled my lips apart. The fear, while still making itself felt in the back of my mind was put aside for the moment as the darkness of my daedra infused vampiric side rose to meet the werewolf’s challenge head on.
The enormous brute paused, seeing and sensing the changes rippling through me as Sunchild suddenly found itself in a firm grip once more. Chainmail creaked and my shoulders broadened as the vampire consumed my flesh and the werewolf hunched down and growled. Acting even more wolf-like it tilted its head away from me, protecting its throat instinctively as it sniffed the air and my sulphuric taint on the air. Of all emotions from such a creature, confusion and unease was not among those I believed it capable of. Instinctively it knew that I was not like the others it had feasted upon, and there was something akin to caution within its bestial mind. My daedric scent mixed with its wolfish musk as I met its growled challenge with one of my own.
With all the force of a ballista bolt it launched itself at me, roaring on the top of its lungs and spraying bloody spittle in an explosive puff of rank air. Moving faster than any creature had any right to it crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, slamming heavily into the space that I had been occupying but missing me entirely. With the vampire’s strength and speed filling my limbs and controlling me by instinct alone, it allowed me to meet the creature strength for strength, slashing a deep cut through its flesh and dragging Sunchild’s edge across its ribs. Further blood added to the layers coating the floor as my Ayleid blade tasted the werewolf but even before it had fully landed it had pounced at me again.
Wood splintered and furniture exploded into kindling as it raked its claws millimetres from my body. The force of the creature allowed it to tear a door from its hinges with a casual ease and I felt my clothes and flesh buffered by the force of the wind from its blows. As strong as a minotaur, yet almost as fast as Lord Volmyr I knew all too well that had I not been accursed myself there would have been no chance of survival for any more than a second. Instead it found itself victim to my sword, hunks of flesh being rent from its bones and its life-force spraying the walls as I hacked at it with all the skill of Ylfgar felling a tree. Weeks of practice with the Blades allowed me to dance across the floor as lightly as a mist but my blows were anything but graceful. Against a creature of such brutality there was no place for elegance, and only by smashing my way through it and fighting it head on did I manage to keep myself alive.
Bleeding and gashed in several places it dropped back on all fours like the canine in whose image it had been fashioned. Although the injuries were serious and would have even felled a minotaur it seemed oblivious to them and didn’t seem to feel pain. Every cut only fed the burning fires of its hunger and rage, and I watched with my face taut and hissing as its wounds slowly closed before my eyes.
Crushing the vampire aside slightly a small huddle of militia rounded the top of the stairs and stumbled to a halt at the sight of me facing the creature down alone. My speed at sprinting up the stairs had left me facing the werewolf alone for a handful of seconds, but in doing so I had somehow found myself standing between it and the splintered hole where it had gained entry. It was now trapped between me and the group of militia, just as I was trapped between it and its entrance.
In such confines and facing against inexperienced and wavering villagers there was the potential of a bloodbath greater than that of the Faregyl Inn the night before. Hiding my fangs behind my lips I growled in my throat, trying to keep the creature’s attentions on me as the greater threat. It hunched there in the middle of the hall, blood dripping from the dozens of wounds it had sustained from my sword and appearing as though a coiled spring. It was enraged even more now at the hubris of prey daring to act as predators but as I tensed for the attack it suddenly did the unthinkable.
It stopped; pausing in mid breath and mid growl to face me and tilt its head in an all too canine way. From their positions flat against its skull its ears twitched and suddenly rose upright, moving and swivelling around as it stopped and appeared to be listening to something that only it could hear. There was a sensation of pressure in the back of my mind for a handful of seconds as the giant brute convulsed and stared into nothingness but it suddenly and violently faded at the same time as life returned to the lycanthropes limbs.
The momentary pause over, the creature launched itself in my direction once more but it somehow appeared as though it was no longer intent on ripping me limb from limb. It bounded between the two of us on all fours, shuddering the floor with its weight even as I met its charge head on once more. Sunchild speared out and punched through a rib with a crack of bone but while it seemed intent on leaving the building by the way it had entered its bestial nature still yearned for my death. Biting down hard it latched onto my shoulder with the full force of its maw, its upper limbs digging their claws into my back as it tackled me with its ogre like strength.
Roaring and screaming at the pain and the intense pressure exerted by its powerful jaws I ludicrously found myself amazed at the way that the daedroth scales resisted not only its claws but its crushing teeth. My bones seemed to grind inside of my body but the razored tips of its talons and fangs didn’t sink into my flesh. I was left screaming in agony as it bit down hard and crumpled the steel plates of my armour, feeling as though I was trapped in a vice or a bear trap that was closing millimetre by millimetre.
Slamming me hard into the wall, it shook its head like a terrier with a rat, throwing me about even as its enormous paws scrabbled for purchase on the daedroth scales. Despite the unnatural nature of its form, it could not contend with the daedric substance of my armour. The sheer bite force and the strength of the creature was a different thing entirely and I knew with a horrid certainty in the back of my mind that most of the bones in my torso would have stress fractures.
Sunchild punched into its side again and again as I roared into its face with agony and six years’ worth of repressed fears and nightmares. All the guilt, the self-loathing and the hatred for such creatures flowed out of me through my sword arm as I jammed it again and again to the hilt in the thing’s chest. Ribs shattered, lungs were punctured and bowels opened as I wet my arm to the elbow in its blood. While it battered and slapped at my chest armour with its enormous wolf-hands I stabbed. While it bit down and crumpled my left pauldron and rerebrace I stabbed. Even while its breath turned ragged and frothy with blood I stabbed again and again, ripping Sunchild deep and sawing it back and forth in great rents of furred flesh. Soon the damage was becoming so great that even its unnatural regenerative abilities could not keep up with my frenzied attacks.
Slipping in the spreading pool of gore under us we fell, the weight of the creature pinning me to the floor even as its strength began fading from its limbs. Somehow my left arm, while crushed and semi-nerveless from the beasts clamped jaws managed to pull the dagger from its sheath strapped my chest and it too found itself buried in cursed flesh. Both Sunchild and the dagger continued stabbing and cutting, even as the creature began choking and vomiting gouts of blood and gore all over my shoulder and chest.
Its breath rattled and its hot rank blood coating both arms and the majority of my torso as the enormous stinking carcass of the creature slumped and had the last of its life pump out onto the floor and me. Gurgling, it struggled to rise unsuccessfully from the sheer amount of damage that I had inflicted on it, whining and whimpering as its hindquarters dragged uselessly on the floor. At some point in my crazed flailing I had somehow managed to jam and twist Sunchild between a pair of vertebrae, leaving it paralysed from the stomach down. While near death it still struggled to end me, its jaws releasing their hold on my shoulder and trying to latch onto my blood soaked head. There was moment where our eyes met, the vampiric staring into the bestial before the point of Sunchild rammed into an eye socket and out of the back of its skull.
The full weight of the beast slumped over my prone body, driving the wind from my lungs and making me feel every single inch of the array of bruised and semi-fractured bones from my waist up. Blood coated me, soaking through my armour and sticking to my bare flesh in steaming layers of crimson, but I was alive and suddenly aware of the waves of pain now that the vampire returned to its nest in my subconscious.

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