To the Block
#1 of The Rise Of Lilmoth
"What...is your name prisoner?" The guard was pale, as most nords were. The rich reds and browns of the armor even matched to silvery steel only made him look more so. Heracles always found it strange that the Imperials would wear armor that made them look so...frail. He much preferred the dark black of ebony, the ominous plate over his green scales was a very imposing look. He redirected his attention back to the shorter man when he spoke again.
"I said, what is your name prisoner?" He paused for a moment before calling out. "Does anybody here speak lizard?"
"I apologize-." He paused for a moment to note the rank insignia. "Soldier, my name is Heracles. Why am I here? I was on a contract with the-"
"Shut up Prisoner!" He glanced over to Hadvar's side, seeing a redguard woman in captains plate. "He was caught in the ambush with the rest of them. I don't like it. That mage he was with teleported out too. We need to finish up here, now. Send this one to the block." She glared for a moment before trotting off to one side.
Heracles stared after her as she walked away, slack-jawed. The block? What? Sure enough, as his gaze panned over he saw a hooded figure with a massive axe, and a damning stone, covered in dried blood at their feet. "Hey! I'm an imperial, you can't do this. I'm with the guild-"
Hadvar sighed. "I'm sorry. Heracles, right? I'll make sure your remains are returned to Cyrodil."
He stared for a long moment as the situation became clear. He was going to die. It wasn't the dying that bothered him so much though. He was a warrior, and a good one.
It was the how that caused despair to settle in his heart. Going out with honor, giving everything he had, and coming up short, the way a warrior should. That was how he expected to die. Executions were different, humiliating. Paraded like cattle and slaughtered at your captor's leisure, the very concept made bile rise in his throat, and now it was his fate.
A redheaded Nord laughed, long and loud. He must have had a rather dismayed expression if a Nord noticed. "Ha! At least the Imperials are good for that; Keeping lizards out of Skyrim, shows you- Ow!" A pair of soldiers grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and hauled him towards the block.
They stopped a few feet away, as a priestess of Mara approached. She stopped just outside the small courtyard and began to speak. "As we offer up these souls to Atherius-"
The redheaded nord snorted as she began to pray. "Oh, spare me the drivel, wench. Just get it over with. I don't have time to waste on making Imperial cowards feel better."
The priest scowled at the rude interruption."As you wish." She turned to leave, as she should. Mara's love had nothing to do with what was happening here. The guards pushed the nord forward and kicked his legs out from under him. His head landed hard on the bloody stone.
"My gods are smiling on me Imperials. Can you say the same?" The Nord was fearless. Heracles had to respect that. He wondered if he would be so brave when it was his turn. The captain nodded as the Nord continued to rave. The ax fell, and the head rolled. He watched as it slowed to a stop, right at his feet. The head's glassy eyes for no longer was there a man behind them, seemed to stare right into him.
The captain laughed, an ugly and mean sound. "Well then, it looks like the Gods want the lizard next. Let's not disappoint them!"
Heracles didn't notice much of the following moments, but soon he too kneeled on that damned stone. He could feel the nord's blood against his cheek. The worst part was the body, with its missing head tossed to the side. He resolved to look the headsman in the eyes. He could manage that much.
There was a distant roar from the mountains, and several of the townsfolk murmured about something in the sky. It didn't matter, he kept staring at that hood. His killer would know his face, and they would remember the eyes that didn't look away.
The axe rose, though a bit unsteadily. Heracles took satisfaction in that, preferring to believe that his stare had unnerved him. When the blade reached the highest point, he glared. It was disgusting, enraging even that he would die here, like this. He had earned better. The axe began to fall.
A massive figure slammed down onto the watch tower, knocking the crowd, but most importantly the headsman off balance. The axe bounced off the ground a few feet away. He was alive. He was alive!
"Fuus-Ro-Dah!" The world twisted; a massive wave of force flew out from the dragon all the way to the outer wall. Nothing survived the blast. People were crushed into paste and scattered into the air like a horrific mist. It was as if the hand of an angry god had leveled everything out to the wall. For the first time in his life, Heracles felt small.
Heracles awkwardly forced himself upright, it was a bit of a struggle with bound arms, but at least he had a tail to balance himself. Standing he took stock of the situation. The legion was fighting with everything they had to hurt the beast, but it wasn't going well for them. It didn't even seem to notice the torrent of arrows uselessly bouncing off of its scales. Nor did the bolts of elemental magic for all their visual spectacle so much as scratch the creature.
The dragon seemed amused by the struggle. It shouted at the sky, and a hail of fiery meteors began to fall across the town. Then it took off. Its wings spread as wide as most castle walls before it launched itself into the air. It kicked up dust and debris in a shockwave. The force pushed Heracles down onto one knee.
In the air the dragon flew as fast and agile as a hawk, occasionally shouting massive lines of fire into pockets of soldiers and townspeople. He was distracted from observing the monster, when a blond nord, Ralof if he remembered, jostled him. "Heracles, right? We need to go! If we stay here we'll die, no matter if it's the Imperials or that dragon. Follow us. If they want you dead, that's enough reason for us to keep you alive, eh."
The group quickly shuffled into a nearby watchtower. The one soldier inside didn't have time to do more than draw his sword before a massive bear of a nord tackled him bodily against the wall. Pinned down he couldn't resist as another nord kicked him in the head. He stopped struggling after a third man cut him down with his own blade. A moment later they had sliced everyone's bindings.
One of the Stormcloaks ran up to scout the rest of the tower. He was nearly halfway up the stairs when the wall in front of him burst open, a stream of fire hotter than any mage's spell roasted the nord, leaving only a pile of scorched bones.
The dragon shook the entire tower when it launched itself back into the sky. He knew he wasn't safe in the tower, and the debris knocked off the tower had sealed the entrance he used to get in.
Heracles took the steps two at a time as he ran up to the new window. His jaw dropped when he looked out at the town. Half of it was on fire and a large chunk was simply crushed or blown to pieces. He couldn't believe that minutes ago this had been a lively Imperial fort. He looked down to see a half-destroyed inn, on fire, just a few feet away from the window. Best options right? He jumped. The floor gave way under him when he landed and he fell hard on a table, bouncing off onto the ground. Heracles groaned and stood up.
The upper floor creaked and groaned ominously. A moment later the sound of splitting wood began to move through the building. Heracles ran out seconds before the second floor gave way with a massive cloud of fiery dust and debris.
The cobblestone street was the only thing on either side of the road that seemed intact. Various buildings of different sizes had all been at least halfway destroyed, whether by smashing force, the scorching breath of the dragon, or even the flaming meteors. The only safe place in this town would be the keep. Any lesser wall wouldn't even slow the dragon down.
As if summoned it slowed to a hovering stop over the street in front of him. He staggered a bit under the wind of its mighty wings. Then their eyes met. For a brief instant it felt like he knew this creature, could feel the overwhelming desire to dominate, and to feed that drove it- No....Him.
Heracles found himself torn from reality. The eyes of the creature seemed infinite; like a doorway into the beginning of all things, and the end. For a brief moment, he had a vision of an enormous wheel viewed from the side, its spokes forever in motion. Occasionally it would split or spin in reverse as well as forwards. It was all true, and yet it was also a lie. It was madness. The eyes turned away, and Heracles struggled to breathe again as he returned to himself.
The dragon inhaled, a fiery glow building in the back of its throat. From the sky a large black sphere wreathed in flame slammed into the dragon's side, hurling it out of the sky to the Earth into a stone tower. A shockwave spread out from the impact, and the projectile arced away into the fortress walls. The dragon lay there dazed and confused, and Heracles could swear that a large patch of scales was missing. He stopped staring when the dragon began to rise, rubble falling off its back.
It was only a short way to the fort. Heracles ran it like his life depended on it; Because it did. Turning a corner he found Hadvar opening a door. The Imperial waved him inside. "Prisoner! Get inside if you want to live." Heracles decided he had better odds against a lone Imperial than a dragon.
Several walls further into the keep and two sets of stairs down, Hadvar led him into a smaller side room. "This one should have some armor and a blade for you."
Several bunk beds and a few small chests took up the majority of the floor space. Heracles found a few sets of imperial armor on one of the chests and some iron swords on a nearby weapons stand. The armor was nearly useless, he had killed enough bandits dressed in legion colors to know this stuff wouldn't stop much more than a pointy stick. Still, it was better than his shirt, maybe. The swords weren't great either.
Hadvar was silent as Heracles equipped himself, it wasn't until he finished securing the armor that he spoke. "Listen, I-"
He moved right into the nords space and grabbed his throat with one clawed hand, a second later he slammed the nord against the wall. Heracles stood there claws twitching against the soldier's throat for a long moment. Oh, how he wished to rip the man's throat out, to watch him die as Hadvar would have watched him. "What, didn't want to risk a promotion? Didn't care about watching an innocent man get beheaded? Spare me the sympathy you only grew after I lived." He released the man, no the boy, to fall to the ground.
Hadvar recovered fairly quickly, to his credit. He was however stupid enough to start talking again. "That's not it at all. I'm a soldier. I couldn't do anything. The captain does outrank me, but I would have- It was the Thalmor ambassador- I couldn't. She wouldn't just have me killed. She would have my whole family tortured to death if I had argued. Surely you can understand-"
There had been a small party of moonstone armored figures and a high-elf talking with what could only be a general as they were carted into Helgen. Heracles didn't want to forgive him. But he was right. The Thalmor were vicious bastards, known to do far worse than that. He couldn't fault the man for that fear. "Fine, just get up and lead me to that escape tunnel. I don't want to look at your face anymore."
They walked for several minutes through the groaning walls of the keep, before they found something that made them pause. Heracles stared, it was the same object that had smashed that dragon out of the sky. The one that saved his life for the second time today. If the trend continued, he'd get saved from this thing too. "Do you have any idea what this thing is?"
The nord spoke for the first time since they left the sleeping quarters. "None at all." He traced one hand over the shimmering black object.
Object really was the only way to describe it. It was round but shaped more like an egg than a ball. Mirror polished with a color like the dead of night. Occasionally a wave of something would traverse the circumference from one end to the other. The script changed as the waves traveled past. Then it pulsed. The whole thing seemed to almost shift, though nothing visibly changed about it.
A moment passed as they stared at it. Then it almost seemed to fade. It gradually grew less and less real right before their eyes, like a mage's spell flickering out.
And suddenly it didn't exist. Something dropped, from the space where it once was; It crashed down onto the floor, hard. Hadvar was quick to rush over.
Heracles was more distracted by the hole all the way back to the outside of the keep. He was astonished. He counted at least twelve layers of stone fortifications between him and the sky. It must have hit with an incredible amount of force to do that. This was after bouncing off that dragon.
"Heracles... they're alive." He looked towards the nord and saw what at first glance looked to be the most deformed kahjiit he had ever laid eyes on. As he studied them more he realized that couldn't be. Mostly because kahjiitt were all based on cats, whereas this being looked more like a fox had grown tired of being quadrupedal.
The creature's fur was primarily a dark red color, secondarily patterned with white and black. He was tall and thin, though he looked more than strong enough to be a warrior. They were clothed in what looked to be the underlayer to a full suit of armor, with rips and tears scattered randomly. What in the Hist's holy bark is happening today?