A note from one of the authors:

All of the stories uploaded to this account are roleplays written by two people. They have been edited into a more novel-like format but sometimes you may notice a bit of jankiness, like upbrupt POV shifts. Some of our stories include sex scenes but they will be buried somewhere in the middle and will be a very small part of the story. For the most part, these are plot-heavy adventure tales set in The Elder Scrolls universe. This particular story contains very graphic descriptions of violence, gore, and other types of imagery that may be unsettling.

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Prologue

The day Saraven Gol came back from his tour of duty in the Imperial City he had a saddlebag full of septims, two horses big enough to pull a plough, and a shiny new suit of iron armor. He couldn't wait to see Velaru again, to see how much Dorova had grown. He had ridden up to the farmhouse in the warmth of the afternoon sun, filled with hope and anticipation. He had just turned fifty-two years old. The fellows in the barracks had bought him a few drinks the day before, but he'd been careful not to get himself hung over before the long trip North on horseback to the lovely stone buildings in the rolling fields south of Cheydinhal.

Two days after that the pyre had run out of fuel and there was nothing left but ashes. He bestirred himself to eat eventually. Then he cleaned up the house as best he could. It would need to sell for a high price. Iron armor wouldn't be enough.

A week after that he was the new owner of one fleet black horse, a suit of mithral chain armor, and a silver longsword and dagger.

Almost a year after the day he came home he actually found her. He had wasted so much time down mines, chasing goblins through reeking caves, gaining great proficiency against ghosts and zombies that he disturbed quite by accident because his grieving and implacable rage admitted of no stealth. And all of that time she was in Cheydinhal, beautifully dressed in velvet, fair of hair and fairer of face. He knew her because she was still wearing the torc bracelet he had given Velaru when they first found out they were going to have a son. He had worked the metal himself, crudely and without finesse, but he had been proud, and she had been happy.

He narrowed down the street by checking the beggars for punctures, by asking around about people who had disappeared or died suddenly in their beds. And finally he caught her on the way out of an evening party, on the arm of a smitten young Breton wearing a shirt whose collar was too high for the summer heat. He ran her through without the slightest hesitation, without stopping to ask why them, why us; and he took up the torc and scooped most of the ashes into a bag, leaving the young man stunned and staring in the street.

Two years after the day he came home he was almost dead from sheer lack of a reason to go on, walking his horse through a wood west of Skingrad with no real memory of how he'd got there, still carrying that sack of ash, and he came to a statue of a lady. The people of the shrine told him what to do, and so he laid the ashes at her feet and was transfixed by a light such as he had never seen, pinioned by the voice of the great daedra herself.

In the year that followed he learned to sleep in the daylight, and he cut a bloody swath through the undead wherever he was able to find them - necromancers where he had to, vampires where he could. In Frostfall he nearly died when one of the creatures found him in the late afternoon. He looked like an Altmer and he wore a hood to protect himself from the sun, and if Saraven had not shaken off his hypnotic influence unexpectedly he would have drained the Dunmer of blood without anyone in the little inn even noticing.

After that he started wearing a leather gorget and bracers every second he wasn't bathing, even to bed. In Sun's Dawn he killed two of them on separate occasions that were trying to nudge his leg aside to get to his femoral arteries. Both in daylight. Both hooded or masked. Something in his blood seemed to call them. That year he bought three spells and started practicing their use: one heal, one fireball, and one disease cure.

Ten years after the day he came home he joined the Fighters Guild. It was harder for the bloodsucking bastards to get to him there in the daytime, with people in and out at all hours, and he didn't mind the company. He had the odd liaison with a guildmate, rough and rapacious in the barrack rooms or out in the bathhouse. It was important that it be satisfactory to them, in case he wanted to do it again; but just as important that it not mean anything. People who meant something attracted vampires.

He was in and out of the Guildhouses for the next twenty years. It was bed and board while he was in town, and when he bestirred himself to whatever job nobody wanted this week he made enough septims to buy his clothes and travel food and help maintain his armor.

The year Saraven Gol turned eighty-two, thirty years after the day he came home, he was on his sixth or seventh black horse, his second suit of mithral chain, and his fourth set of leathers. It was almost dawn one night in the spring of that year that he started up the long hill to Kvatch. The hood of his chain shirt hung down his back behind him, revealing a thin fuzz of white hair on his skull. He was about five feet ten, lean and sere, lines dug deep in the dark gray skin around the corners of his eyes. He had a nose with a sharp bend in it near the bridge, like the beak of an eagle. He still had the tattoos he'd gotten just after he joined the Legion. The angular, stylized likeness of a dragon wing on each cheek had originally been meant to show his pride in his Imperial citizenship, far from the provincial intolerance of the Vvardenfell his parents had known.

He could see two other horses far ahead of him, but could not make out much about their riders other than that one was armored. That was not so suspicious. Many people traveled by night for perfectly innocent reasons. Still, the red-on-red eyes narrowed slightly as he clicked his tongue at his horse, increasing the black gelding's pace slightly as they started up-slope.

Chapter One

The night roared with the song of Nirn; Kynareth's fingers stroked through the treetops as a chorus of crickets chirped from every corner of the forest. Far in the distance, wolves sang their mournful dirge. The thick forest of the West Weald nearly blotted out the starry sky above, but tiny slivers of moonlight mottled the two figures on horseback who passed beneath the canopy.

They rode along at a leisurely pace, their horses' hooves clomping on the hard-packed dirt road, leather tack creaking. Zudarra raised her white muzzle to the wind, smiling contentedly at the sweet scent of flowers carried by the breeze. Long fangs reminiscent of those worn by her wild cousins protruded past her lips even when she did not smile. It was a beautiful night, pleasantly cool, and the warmth of a recent meal in her belly left her energized and alert. What a night to be alive!

Zudarra was a large Cathay-raht Khajiit, thick with muscle and armored in gleaming steel plate. The greaves had been specially designed to fit Khajiiti legs; it was not hard to find a smith who could do it in Cyrodiil, the most diverse province in all of Tamriel, although like most Khajiit she did not wear shoes. Sometimes her hands were covered by black gloves and her feet with cloth wrap, but not tonight.

The fur of her face, hands and paws was a soft, creamy white that tapered to gray spotted tabby at the top of her head and the middle of her forearms, although this coloration was largely hidden by her armor. Her gray ears were ragged with cuts and nicks. She had never worn earrings in them, for fear they would be ripped out in battle.

Her gray and black banded tail hung to the side of her saddle, swinging ever so slightly with the heavy steps of her gelding, blacker than the sky above aside from his white feathered socks and a blaze on his face. She did not know Shadow's breed other than there was draft somewhere in his lineage, which certainly helped him to bear the weight of Zudarra and her armor.

A rather pale Altmer followed several horse-lengths behind on a red, unsaddled nag, his long white-gold hair in a single braid. He was dressed in a blue and gold doublet with matching blue hose and soft-soled leather shoes that did not seem particularly suited for travel. His horse plodded under the weight of bulging saddle bags and the mer himself smiled dreamily at the passing scenery.

Zudarra's ear turned slightly at a sound from down the road; someone was coming from behind. She did not bother to look, keeping her luminous red eyes focused on the road ahead of her. They would reach Kvatch by sunrise. She licked her fangs in anticipation. A steel warhammer was slung across her back, two-headed and flat on each end. She couldn't wait to feel the skulls of her enemies crushed beneath it. She resisted the impulse to urge Shadow faster along; the fights would go on at their scheduled time regardless of when they arrived.

The hooves from down road were drawing nearer now, faster. Zudarra glanced behind to see if it might be a guard on patrol; it was not. She wondered if perhaps this armored gentleman were on his way to Kvatch for the same reason as she. There was something odd about him, although she couldn't put her finger on what it was, exactly. He had an intense energy about him that she could_feel_prickling across her skin, but it was different from the aura of magicka one could feel from a powerful mage or a vampire. Whatever it was, it was strangely alluring.

Zudarra never bothered to conceal her face when she didn't have to. Cathay-raht were uncommon enough that most other races assumed her long fangs to be a natural feature, like those of the Pahmer and Senche. The red eyes were harder to explain, but still not completely implausible. People who did notice her condition were usually wise enough to keep it to themselves.

She raised a gauntlet-clad arm in greeting as the stranger came within earshot. Vandalion's glazed eyes followed her movement, but he didn't turn to look.

"Hail, friend. Heading to Kvatch, are we?"

Saraven slowed as he drew even with the Altmer, eyeing the elf impassively, then looked up the road at the Khajiit. Cathay-raht, you didn't see so many of those in this province. From here her teeth looked longer than they ought, but Saraven was old and paranoid, and he knew that to be the case. He could not yet see her eyes clearly.

"Evening," he said, in a way that could be supposed to include them both. His voice had a quality more common in Dunmer from Vvardenfell than from Cyrodiil, a gravelly rasp; immigration around the environs of Cheydinhal resulted in that sound more commonly than elsewhere. "Yes, I am bound for the Fighters Guild."

"I see," she replied in a smooth, dark voice, reigning back her horse for the others to catch up. A lifetime spent in the Imperial province had left no trace of any accent in Zudarra's speech. She remembered some Ta'agra and could speak it if necessary, but her thoughts were in Common.

"I am Zudarra the Bloody and this is my squire, Vandalion," she paused for a moment, watching the mer's face for any spark of recognition. Vandalion's tired nag had veered to the right around her without any input from himself so that Zudarra now rode between them. The Altmer belatedly nodded to the Dunmer as if suddenly realizing that would be the polite thing to do, still with a cheerful, absent-minded smile plastered on his face.

The wind shifted and Zudarra's nostrils flared at the scent of this stranger, the pulsing blood that coursed just below the ashen skin. He was healthy, strong, perhaps a little weary but who wasn't these days? She could smell that, and something more... Her tongue curled in her mouth at the imagined taste of his coppery blood. She would never act on her inclinations, of course. Unless he deserved it.

"I will fight in the Arena tomorrow."

As he drew nearer he could see that her eyes were crimson. That by itself did not have to mean anything. That plus the fangs plus the fact that she was traveling at night... No aura of sharp predation reached out to stir his blood, but that was more apt to emanate from older creatures of the night. If she was less than a hundred years old it would not be so obvious to him.

It momentarily amused him that she was obviously more interested in whether he knew her name than whether he would be missed from his destination. His austere features showed no trace of this, he merely looked mildly interested.

"Is that so?" he said. "'Fraid I don't get out to the cities above once a month or so. I'm Saraven Gol." His eyes slid over to examine the Altmer again. The man could be absent-minded, as Altmer sometimes were; or he could be cattle. "Squire's not a talkative mer."

This close it was evident that he wore a pair of silver scabbards on a baldric, a longsword on one side, a dagger on the other. They were not highly decorated weapons. They were scratched from heavy use.

The tip of her tail flicked against Shadow's side in minor irritation, but Zudarra just smiled at the Dunmer. Vandalion was an annoyance she would rather not live with; he was so foggy-brained most of the time that he wouldn't remember to eat unless she ordered him to, and she hated when anyone tried to talk to him. He's just a stupid squire, who cares what he has to say? But he was a necessity she could not discard. It was hard to find anyone who wouldn't be missed who was also in good health.

The Altmer was presently looking around at the passing trees, oblivious to the fact that he was being discussed.

"That he is," Zudarra agreed bluntly, uninterested in offering an explanation. Her eyes danced over Saraven's armored neck for a brief moment before she looked ahead at the road. Silver weapons, protected neck... Her smile widened.

"And what business do you have with the Fighter's Guild?" she asked. "Not to be nosy, but we've been traveling for several days and, as you so accurately pointed out, my single companion is no conversationalist."

The Dunmer flicked a white eyebrow upward briefly. His answering smile was small and sour in the sharp planes of his face, drawing lines around his mouth.

"I won't know 'til I get there," he said. "Sometimes it's goblins. Sometimes it's bandits. Sometimes if I get lucky I'll get to do some real work. Then it's people dying quiet in their beds younger than they ought, disappearing out by some cave, showing up all... stupid and weak after parties at some particular nob's house. Just depends on how subtle the bloodsuckers think they are. It varies more than you'd think."

As he spoke he casually loosened the sword in its scabbard. It made no sound. The interior was silked.

Zudarra tossed back her head and laughed, a loud, short bark.

"Isn't it hypocritical, when one really stops to think about it, how we condemn a creature for feeding when we slaughter animals to feed ourselves? It is no great travesty when a pig is killed. That's because we view ourselves as superior, isn't it? It is only natural for the superior to feed on the inferior. What do you say, Vandalion?" She leaned in her saddle towards the Altmer, hand on her chin as if seriously anticipating his enlightened answer.

"I suppose so, Mistress," he responded happily. She sat back and looked at the Dunmer.

"I jest. I, for one, feel much safer traveling this dark road while someone with your expertise is present. I suppose you've killed a lot of those 'bloodsuckers'?" Zudarra asked, head cocked to the side.

"Over thirty-odd years it's been a good number," the Dunmer said mildly. He could not muster much outrage at an argument he had heard many times before. "Talked with a few of the smarter ones. But the argument that you_ought_do something because you_can_is older than vampires. Molag Bal existed before any of you, y'know."

"First of all, that is not my argument. I_should_because it is_right_. It is the natural order of the world for the strong to prey upon the weak; you see this in every aspect of life, from the fly caught in the spider's web to the snake oil sellers taking the rubes for all they're worth. The smarter and stronger have earned their right to exist.

"Secondly, who is this 'you' that you address? I am but one person, I have nothing to do with the others you have slain. You know nothing of me and what I may have done or not done," she huffed in false offense, but the smile was back in the next instant.

"I know you're hauling along a blood-thrall that was once a mer with a will," said Saraven. He jerked his head at the Altmer. "And you think you're toying with me, which is a little game your kin invariably think is cleverer than it is." He still couldn't muster any anger. It was harder, lately. Maybe he wasn't getting enough sleep. "But by your own argument, what you've done or not done does not matter. If I am able to kill you I am right to do so, because I will have then proved myself to be the stronger."

He kept waiting for her to attack. Most of them started to lose patience at around this point, the ones who tried to engage him in conversation in general. He had grown mildly curious to see the pattern repeat, and that was stupid, and that would probably get him killed one of these nights.

Not far up-slope was a broad green in front of the great gates of the City. Guards stood in front of the gates and on the wall, wearing the city's heraldic sigil, the stylized face of a wolf. There was not traffic in and out yet. The sun was just peeping over the Eastern horizon, and it was a long trip down to the road to anywhere else. Kvatch stood on a high hill, overlooking miles of surrounding terrain.

"You don't know anything," Zudarra laughed. "He may have asked for this. Being fed upon can be a very..._erotic_experience, you know." She purred the last words, batting her lashes at Saraven from behind her curved steel pauldron. "In fact... would you like to try? Vandalion is not a jealous man, I promise."

She'd had no intention of breaking the law, as appealing as it was... as appealing as_he_was, in particular. _Gods, that scent. _

They were too close to the gates, his horse might run and be found before she could catch it, she would be known as one of the few, if not only person to have arrived that night, and on and on. Zudarra knew her power; knew she could easily take down the odd hunter that might come after her, but she could not take down the entire city guard if they decided she were guilty of some crime. If she were willing to kill any random person she would not go through the trouble of clothing and feeding a thrall.

On the other hand, he clearly meant to kill her. Her hands were tied; this was all on him. Pity, he could have lived. Her hands were a blur as she squeezed her right leg against Shadow's side, urging him to sidestep to the left and bring her in closer to Saraven, and slung the warhammer from her back, carrying the momentum of the heavy hammer head towards his own.

"Nah. Never cared for it," said Saraven. Trying to put him off with an outrageous statement was a logical prelude to an attack, so when the horse moved toward them he was already nudging his black gelding with his heel. It was not so high-bred as to jump at butterflies and shadows, but it was certainly agile enough to get him out of the way of an enormous thing like the one she was riding; now it danced away, head up and teeth bared. Saraven hooked one leg over the saddle horn with practiced ease and lay back almost flat against the horse's back as the warhammer whistled over his head, then rolled to his right and dropped to the ground. He struck on one shoulder, rolled, and came up to his feet with his weapons in his hands, the heel of his dagger-hand jerking his mithral hood up over his head.

Vampires were stronger than mortals. Vampires were faster. But they weren't as fast as myth would have you believe. Even the ancient ones could not outrun an arrow, though they might outrun a horse, and if you had fought enough of them you could even learn to react just about fast enough.

Just about. There were scars on his very bones.

Fire crawled beneath his skin, sullen but not yet dead. You had to wait until they were close. You'd never hit one that was running.

Zudarra grinned at the Dunmer's maneuver, her torso twisting with the weight of the hammer as it sailed over him. Shadow's ears turned back at the unusual shifting but kept on his path without a hitch. She swung up, letting the hammer come to rest over her left shoulder, and used her right hand to push off the saddle horn while leaning forward, swinging her leg over the saddle as she dropped heavily to the ground with a short clattering of steel plates. Her speed and strength could do nothing to improve the restricted mobility awarded by her heavy armor and dismounting was always awkward regardless of the circumstances.

The horse stopped immediately when the weight of his rider was lost, although Vandalion's continued plodding along up the slope. Vandalion stopped his horse farther up the road. He was twisted on its back, watching them from afar, mildly perplexed but unconcerned.

The black horse stood to one side of the road, pawing at the ground with one front hoof as he watched them. He had been with Saraven for two years now. He knew the way things went, and that there was no point in getting a start on cropping the grass.

Zudarra whirled to face Saraven as soon as her feet touched the ground, letting the haft of the warhammer fall back into both hands. He was already up and she wasted no time dashing forward, jaws parted in a bestial snarl and wet fangs gleaming. She had cocked back the hammer for an underhanded swing at his torso, the better to block his possible counterattack, and swung forward towards his belly. That mail might do well to protect against blades, but her hammer could crush his bones and rupture his organs just as well.

Saraven watched the approach of crushing agony with an expression of dull fatigue. He twisted his right side sharply forward past the weapon's head, left hand darting out to catch at the long shaft, and let his boots skid along the dirt as he let the momentum of the blow swing him underneath the weapon. She was much stronger than he was. Even the smaller ones were stronger than he was.

Holding onto the haft, dagger hilt crushed into his hand, he was belly-up for about a quarter of a second. He stabbed upward at the inside of her thigh, aiming for the seam of her greave with the longsword in the instant before he let go and slid to a low crouch on her left side.

Zudarra snarled as the blade punctured woolen padding and underclothes and flesh, eyes widening in shock at the unexpected move more so than the sudden pain. The silver had a noticeable bite to it but she bared her teeth and did not falter, muscles straining against the added weight and pulled back with her right hand to twist the hammer head up over her own. When the head had reached the apex of its flight, hammer weightless for a split second before it could fall, she thrust downward, butt of the shaft aimed straight for the top of Saraven's coifed head.

The Dunmer seemed to avoid the shaft by inches, jerking to one side so that it thunked into the dirt beside his shoulder. For a fraction of a second he locked eyes with the vampire, staring up from the ground. Zudarra grinned maliciously down at him, glee flashing in her smoldering eyes. His face was inert, a dead man's face, fires long tamped in the red-on-red eyes. Then he rolled to one side and up to his feet, slashing upward and backhand at the Cathay-raht's face to buy himself space. He flicked the dagger into its sheath even as he moved, and in his empty left palm a red light began to bloom.

She jerked back when he slashed, bouncing backward with her hammer resting in her palms. Her left hand clenched around the hilt ever so slightly, a simple movement that drew the magicka from her modest reserve. Blue light flashed from her fist, ribbons of magicka twisting up her arm to spread through her body. A wet warmth had spread across her pants, blood dripping over her greaves and down her ankles. He'd missed the major artery but she couldn't leave the wound for long. She shifted her weight evenly across both legs as the pain abated.

The Dunmer twitched an eyebrow as the vampire healed herself. Not many of the creatures mastered any sort of restoration. But then, she had said she was an Arena fighter, and healing was an indispensable weapon in a gladiator's arsenal. He bounced on the balls of his feet for a half-second, considering her. Then he stepped sharply to his right, jabbing at the seam of her cuirass with the longsword. His left hand opened as he held it out toward his left, toward the most logical place to dodge away from the blade. Magicka poured from flesh and bone and became coherent flame, a little light exploding into a great fireball. It would singe him as well if he hit her, but the burns that mithral would inflict through his padding were nothing compared to what fire could do to the flesh of an undead.

She had seen the red light that blossomed in his palm. Did this hunter believe she was born yesterday? Zudarra stepped left, lips pulling back in a grimace as the blade sliced through her flesh at an angle, and twisted her torso sharply to the right, hoping that his blade would be caught between the two halves of her cuirass and wrenched from his hands. As she turned she dragged forward the hammer in another underhanded sweep, straight for the mer's legs.

The fireball exploded on the grass beyond the road, lighting the trees and foliage red for a split second before the flame dissipated, leaving behind a spot of blackened grass and tiny flickering flames on the low hanging branches that quickly burned themselves out. Shadow squealed and tossed his head, eyes wild with fear. He broke into a gallop up the road and Vandalion turned to watch the gelding disappear around one of the many bends in the path. The black horse tossed his head and snorted, but he stayed put. None of this was unfamiliar to him.

Miss. Saraven's wrist torqued as she twisted away, but he rolled with her, withdrawing the blade without losing his grip. He knew he would have to take the hit, but to be unarmed against a vampire, with all of their natural advantages, was nearly certain death. His movement pulled him away from the hammer, and it impacted glancingly on his right thigh, a meaty thunk that rattled him all the way down to the bone as it jangled on the mithral. The chain dissipated some of the impact, but the blow knocked him back a step.

Zudarra frowned as her hammer rebounded, annoyed. She was vaguely aware that her horse had run, but it scarcely mattered. She had bet and lost and now was injured for no gain, an injury worse than the one from before. The vampire hefted the hammer up to rest on her right pauldron and backpedaled, releasing magicka even as she moved. She wouldn't have had time enough to wind up another swing and blood was gushing from her side.

Zudarra watched her opponent with a hawkish scowl as the wound in her side knit shut, continuing to put space between them for as long as he would let her. Her ears twitched at the sudden heat on the back of her head. The sun was rising behind her. Thanks to the loyal Vandalion she was strong enough to resist its burning rays, but the light of Aetherius was a constant needling prickle on her skin even through the fur. She couldn't imagine how annoying it must be to smoothskin vampires.

Saraven pursued as she healed herself again, implacable, expressionless, sword held at the guard as he looked for his opening. His leg wanted to buckle, the muscle was undoubtedly damaged, but he had pressed on through worse. You couldn't let them open distance if you were going to be stupid enough to fight them in the open. Distance gave them back all of their speed advantage, let them transform into a blur that could hit from any direction.

This time he feinted with the handful of flame, jerking it forward underhand as if to cast another fireball. Then he slashed violently at her head and face. Once get an eye, an ear, something that hurt outrageously, and they would either break and run or transform into a stupid, snarling monster, an easy kill if you survived the first retaliatory strike.

Zudarra darted left when she saw the flame in his hand and raised the warhammer over her face to block the following slash, sparks flying inches from the wrinkled bridge of her nose as his blade connected with the steel shaft. She kicked out with an armored leg, aiming a foot for the knee of his injured leg.

He was not fast enough to completely avoid the kick. He dropped to one knee on that side instead, taking the blow against his hip. It jarred him from head to toe, pain in his torso matching the pain in his leg as it took his weight, but he hooked his right arm under her shin to stop her twisting away again and thrust his left hand forward. Flame exploded between them.

Zudarra screamed as the burning heat engulfed her. The armor protected most of her body, but still the flames licked at every gap in the joints and against her uncovered face and hands. She swung wildly, blinded by pain and light, and felt the warhammer knock against him. There was no power behind her swing. The blast was over in an instant, leaving the underside of her face charred and devoid of fur, the stomach-turning stench of burned fur and flesh filling the air. She wrenched her leg from him and stumbled back, still screaming in mindless agony, the head of her hammer falling to the ground and dragging along after her.

The hammer hit him in the chest. It was not hard enough to crack his sternum, shatter his heart, but the impact made him lose his grip. He rolled backward over his shoulder, sword arm out to one side to avoid skewering himself, and came up to one knee. His nostrils contracted in self-defense against the stink of burned fur. Now was the time to swiftly pursue, to finish it, to save the poor stupid Altmer and all of her future victims, but suddenly his arm was weak. Saraven stared down at himself and up at her and saw something else -

A human child not twelve years old, the stink of burning hair and the sound of dwindling screams as she burnt to ashes, fangs bared against the destroying light -

For the first time since she had attacked him the muscles of his face moved, brows drawing together, gray lips parted in frozen agony. He literally could not move.

Her wits somehow came to her through the agony of the burn. Zudarra was no stranger to pain, usually welcomed the reminder that she was_alive_and fighting. This wasn't even the first time she'd been burned. Every time was just as excruciating and mind-shattering as the first, but to stop and dwell would mean certain death. She had enough magicka left for about one heal and couldn't risk being hit with fire again. She didn't have time to register the strange look on Saraven's face, she only knew that she had to get away.

Snarling in rage the vampire turned and ran, slinging the warhammer into the harness over her back. To a mortal observer she moved unnaturally fast for a large Cathay-raht in burdensome armor, but from her perspective she moved achingly slow. The glaring sun, the pain of the burn, the armor weighing her down all worked against her.

She launched herself at the Dunmer's black horse, an unnaturally high jump even for a Khajiit, and grabbed up the reigns.

The black gelding was not unfamiliar with the smell of vampires, or of burning. He was unfamiliar with the sudden, heavy weight on his back. He twitched, whinnied, and sunfished, trying to throw her off, but a hard hand on the reins brought him under control quickly enough.

Saraven Gol found himself kneeling in the road, bruised, bloody sword in his hand, with no memory of the last five seconds and no horse. He shook his head as he struggled to his feet. His left hand curled inward as he healed himself, releasing the magicka with more difficulty than he ever found drawing out the fire. Blue light spiraled up around his body.

His head cleared as the pain faded, though his heart was suddenly pounding in a way that fighting a vampire absolutely did not do to him. His saddlebags held his food and money. There wasn't much of either right now, since he was on his way to Kvatch to find work. The loss of the black gelding was a greater one. He pushed back his mithral hood as he stood in the road, and an oath in Dunmeris escaped his black lips.

Zudarra growled, reeling the reigns tight to control the animal's head. As soon as he was done bucking she charged forward, releasing the last of her magicka to heal the burn. The pain was deep and healed irritatingly slow, fresh pink skin crawling over the underside of her chin and hands where the fire had eaten away flesh and fur. She angled close to Vandalion and snatched up the reigns of his horse, yanking angrily at the old creature's resistance.

"Follow me and hurry!" she barked, throwing the reins back at Vandalion when his horse had picked up enough speed on its own.

"Yes, Mistress," he responded cheerfully. She didn't give him a second glance, but glared ahead at the road. Her tail thrashed against the galloping steed, hands clenched on the reigns as she seethed with rage. That had gone horribly, and now the damned elf knew where to find her. The humiliation of having been forced to run was a wound more painful than the fire.

When she had put enough distance between herself and Saraven that he would never catch up on foot, she was too close to the gates of Kvatch to do what she wanted to do: kill his damned horse and leave the corpse on the road for him to find. Hers was cropping grass in the field before the gates. He was easily caught and lead up to the stable just outside the city, where she paid to board all three. There were too many guards that had seen her approach, she couldn't just kill the horse or leave it loose. Only a guilty person would do something like that, and Zudarra's livelihood depended upon never giving the city guards a reason to look twice at her.

After helping herself to potions of healing and magicka and retrieving her black hooded cloak and gloves from Vandalion's bags, they headed into the city. The walk was more pleasant without direct sunlight on her face.

It was times like these when Zudarra felt a fleeting sense of regret for the path she had chosen. It was a beautiful day already, the rising sun a fireball that lit the few clouds closest to the horizon with golden light, the glass panes of the giant cathedral just inside the city gates glowing as if on fire from the inside. The city was just beginning to awaken, shopkeepers unlocking their doors and the scent of fresh baked goods wafting from windows.

The smell of solid foods did nothing for her, now. Zudarra vaguely remembered the joy of warm, flaky biscuits slathered in honey and butter or the juicy sweetness of a good wine. But to think of those things now did nothing at best and turned her stomach at worst. She had a thirst for one thing and it was constant, unquenchable.

Zudarra had always wondered why vampires were stupid enough to kill their victims. Why would anyone ever do that, and risk the ire of an entire town or self-righteous do-gooders like Saraven? But she had learned first hand how incredibly hard it was to stop drinking once the divine taste was on one's tongue, filling the body with an indescribably heady power. She had accidentally killed her first several victims, too. It took great restraint to keep Vandalion alive, especially after particularly brutal battles that left her weak.

She veered right past the cathedral, down a familiar cobble road lined with rows of tidy Colovian style stone houses with their tall, gabled roofs, towards the Kvatch Arena at the Eastern town square. There was nothing she could do about that Dunmer now, but wait and see if he would come.