My first years in the Legion had left me witness to one of Hircine's 'blessed' slaughtering most of a veteran squad of legionaries. The night before I had seen their strength in killing several armed men and women despite Viconia's and my abilities. In the hall of Glenvar Castle and fully lost to the daedric corruption of my soul they were found wanting. The months since I first fed within Kvatch's Oblivion gate I had killed, ripped people apart and once held a juvenile minotaur at bay for a handful of seconds. I was stronger than what I had any right to be. Now the true depths of my strength were revealed.
One of the rampaging man-beasts was ripped from its feet as I simply tackled it, slamming bodily into its chest and smashing a clawed hand across its salivating maw. Teeth shattered and splintered across in an explosion of gore from my blow and even as the other four bore down I had crushed its skull and ground its face to a pulp. The second died as I dragged a one handed Warhammer from where it had fallen, throwing it so it tumbled end over end and imbedded itself into a furred chest.
The third missed me with its powerful swipes that shattered a nearby skeleton and shredded the chest and face of a hapless vampire cowering nearby. Ducking and weaving with an unnatural skill I flowed around the beast's attacks, feeling the wind off its furred paws and talons. Its roars were incredible, buffering me with the volume and where they would have left me terrified and frozen to the spot years before I simply ignored them. A furred arm was blocked, its ribs suddenly caved in with a punch that almost lifted it from its feet from the force of my blow and it fell to the floor with an exploded heart.
By now the hall appeared to be hosting a thunderstorm in more ways than one. The light exploding from the enchanted blade in Viconia's hands was frying vampire flesh with its intensity. Flashing, the scalding light left the bloodsuckers shrieking and trying desperately to flee from its embrace, covering their faces with their hands and leaving themselves unable to defend themselves as Viconia took their lives. The thralls too were starting to try to escape, some trying to haul open the massive doors leading to the castle courtyard. They were set upon by desperate vampires attacking them in an attempt to stop the mortals from opening the doors and letting in sunlight.
The Matriarch was gone, fleeing from the melee into the higher levels of the castle in an effort to escape the touch of the Light of Dawn. Without her willpower and control and Viconia's spells and abilities against the undead, several of the zombies and skeletons had turned wild, falling upon any and all around them with unthinking savagery. This only added to the absolute chaos that had engulfed the castle as a couple of thralls and even a vampire or two found themselves born down by the grasping hands and fingers. A different timbre of screams ripped through the air as a collection of zombies gnawed and ripped at one of the thralls as he tried to crawl away from their hunger, and a vampire shrieked as she was pulled apart. The scouring flames of her demise ignited the zombies' flesh as their potential meal burst into flames and it wasn't long before a couple of figures were seen staggering about aflame.
Rabid and insane, the werewolves had lost some of the Matriarch's control but they only had eyes for me. Two were already dead and a third was severely injured from the haft of a Warhammer sticking out of a furred chest. It was trying to rise and pull the offending weapon from where it had crushed its way through ribs, a task made more difficult due to the fact that it had been one that had lost a hand to me the night before.
Roaring rage and spittle, the fourth rushed me, moving around my side to allow the last of it kin still on its feet to flank me. Moving like the pack hunters they were they bounded through the pandemonium around us, alternating between running on two legs and all fours. They moved like quicksilver despite their muscled bulk, and I knew all too well what would have been in store for the Legionaries of the 2nd against a horde of the brutes.
They leapt together, rushing me in a wall of fangs and fur and I twisted ducking in and around their strikes as they snarled and swiped at me. One was missing an arm from the bicep down and soon lost the other arm as well as I caught it by the wrist, put a boot to its chest and heaved. Its whines were pitiful as it flopped to the floor in a wash of blood, the vaunted regenerative abilities of the lycanthrope struggling to keep death from blood loss at bay.
A knee snapped under my plated boot and the fifth beast was brought low, growling and trying to bite me. Somehow I managed to move through its flailing blows and latch onto its throat with my own fang filled maw. The taste of beast-flesh filled my mouth as I worried at the massive creature's neck as though I was an attack dog myself, bearing it down with my bodyweight and crushing its windpipe. Only after I had gripped it tight and ripped my head away did it finally stop fighting and begin dying.
The greatest threat to me and Viconia were left as cooling corpses after I staggered over to the last wounded creature that was still trying to pull the Warhammer from where it was lodged in its chest. It was badly injured but the wounds were healing quickly. If it had managed to remove the offending chunk of metal and wood from its flesh it would had healed within minutes but I never gave it the chance. I stomped over to it, leaping onto its back, grasping it by the front of the jaw and digging my fingers into the roof of its mouth. For a second it flailed helplessly with my boots in its massive shoulders, before I roared and tore its jaw and the top off in a spray of hot blood.
"Kaius!"
The shout snapped my head around and I witnessed Viconia kick a vampire's legs out from under it. The blade flashed in the dim light of the hall as the bloodsucker landed heavily on its back and she pinned it squirming to the floor. The searing light turned the vampire to ash and scorched armour and clothes and she gave a quick nod in the direction of the stairs.
"Elgg l'ssindossa!" She shouted, ripping the Light of Dawn from the floor and swiping it at a pair of thralls behind her. For a second one managed to stare at how he was left holding the hilt of his sword after the Light of Dawn had cut the blade away. Before he could react further she had stabbed him in the throat, folding his head over the gleaming bade from the force of the thrust.
She saw my momentary hesitation and snarled. In her fury she had fallen back into speaking Drow rather than common. "Alu! Alu dos wael!"
Spinning around she jammed the enchanted blade into the groin of the second thrall, leaving him dropping to the floor with a pained expression on his face. With a firm grip on his wrist she using his sword to block a blow from a vampire who had lost half his face to the scorching energies of the Light of Dawn.
It died, spitted upon the enchanted blade that seared its flesh from its bones. She kicked its burning remains off the edge of the Light of Dawn, ripping it from the tumbling bones and scattering ash and turning to hunt for more foes. The swarm of undead, thralls and the corrupt seemed all too willing to oblige her hunger for death. By now there were less than two dozen vampires and thralls left standing, and even less undead. The Light of Dawn was carving through them like they were mist, and being wielded by someone of Viconia's skill and ability there were none who could stand before it.
The steaming corpses of the werewolves were left behind me and I plucked a long sword from the floor where its owner had burned into ash and bone. Blazing light from the Light of Dawn and the Viconia's spells crackled through the hall, and strangely enough I could feel it lending strength to the man within me. The beast was still wholly in control, the blood lust and desire for revenge and death would be insatiable until every last one of the creatures were dead. Out of the horde that had awaited us when we entered, only a pitiful few remained but the Matriarch was still alive. I could smell her rot over the incense and gore lingering in the hall, and even despite it I could smell the fear. Her underlings were dying by the score, her greatest forces ripped into bloody chunks and now there was little between her and the demon that she had thought she had mastery over.
Taking the stairs six at a time I hurdled my way upwards, exploding into bats before I reached the top and swarming my way over the pair of vampires wielding the censers. Their screamed as they felt the dozens of fangs mouths rending the flesh from their bones, tiny mouths worrying and tearing and leaving them coated in their own blood. In an instant I rematerialized, ripped both their heads from their shoulders and swarmed away again before the corpses burst into flames.
"Where are you?" I called out, bounding along the floor as I returned to my daedric form. The sensation of using my more esoteric abilities was indescribable but strangely comforting to the sensation of being clothed in the flesh of a daedra. The man within me was struggling for control but the creature was not having any part in it.
"Where are you?" My words echoed from the halls of the upper levels, the long passageways branching off to the handful of rooms where the most powerful individuals within Glenvar County once lived. Blood and destruction had not been wreaked upon this portion of the castle yet, but my presence heralded coming bloodshed.
The cloying smell of her flesh and her fear was tantalising close and even blinded I would have been able to find my way through the darkness. No torches or lanterns had been lit in this portion of the castle, no mortal serfs having been allowed in their mistress's inner sanctum. It was clean and perfectly ordered but the carpet was soon playing host to a series of bloodied footprints and a trail of ash that fell from me.
"Where are you!"
A thrumming sound reached my ears and I ducked, feeling the wind off the blade that sliced across where my neck had been a second before. Inhumanly muscled, the first of her bodyguard appeared out of the darkness despite the toga and golden pieces of armour he wore. Shifting out of the shadows with all the ability of the vampiric and cursed he hacked and sliced with his greatsword, sliding about with a liquid grace that I staggered away from.
The second appeared from behind, using the same ability to flank me and take advantage of the distraction of his comrade. Their golden masks revealed nothing of the vampires' features, showing only hatred and love respectively. Like the masks worn by the troupe of travelling bards and performers I had seen years ago, they were polar opposites and both seemed to attack with opposing techniques.
The hate-masked vampire attacked with wild swings of immeasurable power and speed, his blade narrowly missing me and smashing through several pedestals holding carved busts of long dead counts. Shattered stone and chunks of marble pattered across the floor and my armour as I shifted into mist, feeling the cold pressure of the love-masked vampire's sword as he stabbed it precisely into where my spine had been.
They both smelled of oil and incense, their skin taut across their muscles that threatened to burst through the thin layer struggling to contain them. Every vein and artery pulsated to the surface, coiling like snakes and writhing under the skin and I could almost feel their bodies humming under the stain of wielding their enormous swords.
Each sword was over a metre in length, and only just less than ten kilograms of beaten metal. In comparison my salvaged longsword was half the length and within seconds of trading blows I found myself missing Sunchild. Their blows cleaved the air despite the confines of the passageway, and they held the advantage of greater reach. They used every trick and skill at their disposal, using their vampiric speed and agility and shifting in and out of the shadows to ensure that I always had my back to one of them. I instead was relying on my own daedric enhanced strength, and my ability to transform into mist to force them to take care in their blows lest they fall victim to each other.
I parried and blocked, slashing out at the bare chested bodyguards and cursing at their ability. They were considerable swordsmen and while they lacked the skill of men like Belisarius and Alexi they more than made up for it with their speed and strength. Within a handful of blows my longsword was nicked and dented in several places, the last few centimetres chopped away and leaving the metal gleaming at the end. Their movements flowed into each other, twirling and spinning and using their momentum to slash and slice with ever increasing speed while I danced between them, bursting in and out of my mist form to keep them at bay. Several times I felt my arm jar as they used the gleaming metal gauntlets and vambraces to block my attacks, but I did manage to draw blood on more than one occasion.
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A large portion of the hall way was left in ruins, blood and gore stamped into the carpet and most of the furnishings laying in a combination of stone shards and wooden splinters. One of my kicks had smashed in an oaken door like it had been hit by a trebuchet, and there was more than one that had a long jagged slice hacked into it from a vampiric greatsword.
Concern was creeping into my mind as we fought, as I realised that other than a handful of grunts neither of the vampire ancients had made a sound. They fought and hacked and swung their enormous weapons untiringly, but there were no shouts, no roars of anger or hatred and no even the slightest gasp or cry of pain when I managed to cut their flesh. I was roaring and shouting, cursing and spitting my hatred at them but the two of them were utterly silent.
I caught a descending greatsword on the edge of my battered longsword, twisting the blade around and forcing the other vampire the redress his own attack as the tip cut through the air centimetres from his chest. Moving faster than before I twisted around the descending blade, slamming my heel into the flat of the sword and snapping it cleanly in half. A heartbeat I was within his guard, grasping the vampiric ancient with the hate-mask by the wrist and crushing the bones. He was forced to drop the shattered blade from a nerveless hand and despite the injury he was utterly silent. I was moving now, ripping him around off his feet and putting the wounded bloodsucker between me and his comrade trying to hit me with his unbroken weapon.
An armoured fist caught me right across my face and I felt a tooth get knocked clean out of my enlarged maw. Another rocked my head back but by the time the third punch had been thrown I had turned my head and bit away most of his hand. Even with blood jetting from the wound and the sudden loss of fingers he still didn't make a noise, instead he tried to jam his bleeding stump of a hand into my throat.
My own fist crashed across his face as I twisted him into the path of his comrade's greatsword that speared him in the gut, punching out his back and coating the entire length in gore. Smashing into the metal mask hiding his features my fist tore it away, snapping the various straps that had affixed it to his face. For the first time during the fight, and perhaps for many years the vampire's face was visible.
The bodies of the vampiric bodyguards were beautifully perfect in a way that could only be matched in carved marble, but their faces were not. Scar tissue covered every centimetre of naked flesh and savage knots of ancient wounds twisted the ancient vampire's expression to match my own daedric feature with its hideous nature. The creature's nose had been hacked away long ago to allow the mask to sit closer and more firmly to its face. What was worse was that I could see that its lips had been sewn together with golden strands of an indeterminable string that was almost metallic, before being fused with a glowing crystal. Both these vampires hadn't been making any noise during the fight as they were physically incapable of doing so.
Like the werewolves and the rest of the coven, these two bodyguards were mere thralls to the Matriarch. The crystals allowing their mistress to control them and ensuring complete and utter obedience. In the burning eyes of the creature I could see into the depths of an insanity that could've surprised Sheogorath Himself. Fuelled from decades, if not years of thirst that had not been satiated, both were utterly insane. If not for the burning crystal fused into their maw they would've sought death a long time ago.
Its torment was ended as it began burning, the eyes rolling into the back of its skull with an expression of bliss even as its skin blistered and peeled from the fire that consumed it from within. Now there was only two of us and I was moving even before the love-masked vampire could twist his heated blade from the ruins of his fellow.
A fist slammed into his head, another grasping it by the throat even as I knocked its sword to the side. The burning remnants of the vampire behind me scattered into the carpet and ruined it completely, leaving smouldering embers that were crushed underfoot as I pressed the other into the wall. Despite his size and strength, the other vampire ancient could do little more than lash at me with its hands and grapple with me. Moving like a professional wrestler, he locked a leg around one of my own, dropping us both into the singed carpet while we jammed hands, feet, elbows and knees into whatever we could reach. I felt my lip bust open as he head-butted me, a set of fingers jamming themselves into my armpit in search for the pressure point that dwelled within but I didn't release my hold on his throat.
Instead I smashed my own head forwards as he went to repeat his attack. My ridged forehead mashed into the golden mask, splitting my brow open but deforming the metal slightly. After three head-butts the mask was looking as though it was a wax figure that had been placed too close to a fire. After six, blood was leaking out from the sides and the wearer was growing weaker. After the tenth the mask was crushed into the creature's face, crumpled and leaking blood and other fluids from the tiny eye slits and breathing holes. Only then did I stop using my smashed head to deliver crushing blows and instead gripped it with both hands, roaring and twisting with a series of pops until its head faced the wrong way.
I was slowing down, my body finally beginning to tire and the daedric corruption seeping its strength away. The creature consuming my flesh was weakening its hold but it was not yet weak enough for me to regain any semblance of control. As the last of the Matriarch's warriors burned away into the carpet and fragments of broken furnishings I rose to my feet, looking about at the carnage. Tasting the air with a tongue that coiled like a serpent across my fangs, I could taste the fear and the rot of a vampire far older than any I had faced before; even ones like Volmyr.
She knew I was coming. It was impossible for anyone not to know. The sounds of fighting continued in the hall behind me but it was slowly dying off and was sounding like a minor brawl over the battle it had been minutes before. I strode down the passageway towards the single door at the end, following and feeling her taste and scent on the air grow stronger with every step. Surprisingly the door at the end was unlocked, and even more surprisingly I reached out and opened it gently rather than kicking it open in an explosion of splinters.
The count's bedroom was incredibly furnished. Silks from throughout the empire lavished the walls and the carpet felt thick enough that I could sink into it. I had few beds I had slept in that would have matched the richness and softness of the carpet underneath my blood stained boots. My clawed fingers left a series of crystal glasses and decanters chiming as I gave them the lightest of touches in passing, and I found myself wondering just how much wealth was contained in this single room. What did seem to surprise me was how a large majority of the items within the room had been recently added and were infinitely more priceless. Most of the newer items all shared the same blood-drop symbol of the Matriarch and they mingled in with the dozens of items of the late Count Albric.
Following the scent of fear and taking a passing interest in the dozens of rare artefacts scattered about, I almost walked past her. Overwhelmingly powerful, and a skilled practitioner of several schools of magicka she had been waiting for me in absolute terror, huddling in the main bedroom next to a bed large enough for five or six people to sleep comfortably within.
Her skill with magicka, especially that of Illusion had allowed her to consume and control the minds of dozens of individuals and enslave not only her own kind but of bestial creatures such as werewolves. She could control the unwilling bodies of those who stood before her, paralyse and blind and as I soon discovered, disguise her own appearance.
Despite her immortality, the vampiric curse had withered and eaten away at her own the centuries of her life. Just as Lord Volmyr had felt the weight of the years press down; she too had her skin pale and crease, tightening and ruining her natural beauty. The glamour that she had been carefully maintaining for so long was no more, stripped away by the scalding effects of the Light of Dawn's enchantments that had broken her concentration of so many of her spells. While a good portion of her body had been unaffected I could see the trailing lines of fresh burns and blistered skin where the touch of magical light had caressed her.
"What are you?" She whispered, looking up at me with a face taut and wrinkled from age. No longer the peerless beauty that she had portrayed herself earlier, the visage of a hag looked me in the eyes.
"I'm unique." I growled, looking down at her as she shuddered. The glamour that she had cast was not one entirely fake. Despite the age that had corrupted her there was still signs that she had indeed been that beautiful many lifetimes ago.
Blackened like the bones of the dead vampires in the levels below us, my talons reached down and pressed into the flesh of her jaw, forcing her to rise to her feet and stare me in the eye. She was still taller than me, but there was no hiding the vampiric taint or her flesh. Fear and confusion wracked her body as she stood before me and I revelled in it. Her blood was singing to the beast within me, and despite the aura of death around her I could feel the dark attraction that drew our natures together. There was something within our mutual curse that held an attraction for each other that was far greater than anything sexual. As much as I yearned for the taste of her blood I knew without a doubt that she too could feel the shuddering desires to sink her fangs into my throat and taste my own daedric corruption.
My lips peeled apart in a horrific smile of needled fangs, my black eyes reflected in her own expression of terror at her realisation. So long had it been that she had been resisted by an individual or had even been touched without her permission. The mere fact that I had laid a hand on her was something she was struggling to comprehend, let alone when I pulled her hard into my embrace and sunk my fangs into her throat.
The intrusion left her tensed and arching her back, mouth open in a silent scream even as she clawed desperately at me. I felt claws sink into my face, drawing blood, hands slapping at me and legs writhing against me. Pressing her into the wall I sunk my teeth into her flesh even deeper, feeling the pulsating gore jetting into my extended maw that I gulped down without abandon. The blood was tingling, neither sustaining nor filling like the blood of mortals. What it lacked was more than made up with its potency.
Her struggles rapidly grew weaker as I drained her, feeling the gore shuddering itself into my throat and guts as I greedily slurped every bit I could. The front of my chest was stained anew with fresh blood, and the immaculate dress she wore was left hanging and ruined forever. There was no strength left in her body to resist as I drank my fill from her, ripping away with a mouthful of more than just blood. Spitting the hunk of flesh to the floor just as it caught alight I shuddered with the feeling of her strength infusing me. The closest I could compare the sensation to was when I first fed upon the Dremora, the overwhelming surge of energy and power that it infused every scrap of my flesh. My veins thundered and I could hear the roar of the blood rushing through my body, twisting me about even as she fell limp in my arms.
Death was near, only a few mouthfuls of blood away from meeting her patron lord in Coldharbour. Her blood stained my chin and most of my face, but it was lost to the sheer amount that ensured that I was covered from head to toe. It still tingled in my mouth and throat and I revelled in its intoxicating power even as her eyes fluttered closed.
Roaring with the effort, I dug my talons to the knuckles in her hip and shoulder, lifting her bodily above my head with arms growing tired from exhaustion. She was finally screaming now, despite the proximity to final death the agony of my claws inside of her snapping mind back to mundus once more. I was weary from the fighting, tired from the energy I had expended in the fight but now with her stolen strength inside of me the beast had one last death to claim. With the full strength of the daedra I twisted and folded her in half at the waist in such a way that the sound of her spine snapping was audible over her agonising shrieks.
Without even a second's hesitation, I turned, facing the solid door that I had assumed led to another portion of the Counts private quarters before hurling her through it. Wood splintered and exploded outwards, shattering most of her bones and snapping hinges with the impact. Her screams were cut off in mid breath by the impact, the last of the air being forced out of lungs shredded by splinters of bone and wood. The door however didn't lead to another room in the castle, but in fact led to a tiny balcony overlooking the courtyard. Light streamed in through the shattered hole and began stripping the flesh from her bones even as she flailed in the sudden emptiness. From where I stood her body simply dropped out of sight, burning away and leaving nothing more than a greasy smear of smoke and the distant thump of a body exploding into a starburst of blood and ash.
I stood in the beam of light shining through the ruined door frame, feeling the warmth across my flesh even as the beast returned to the darkness of my soul. There was little of the pain that had consumed me when I had first turned, but I was still left shuddering and drooling into the expensive carpet by the time it was all over. Talons slid back under skin, fangs rounded into molars and my face scrunched back into a man's once more. Under my armour I felt my flesh writhe and shift, the strange protrusions along my forearms fading away and with it the unnatural size and strength in my limbs. Within minutes there was nothing left to show that a daedra had worn my flesh other than the carnage it had wreaked in its path.
Running footsteps echoed from the passageway and I found myself peering upwards and into the scowling features of Viconia. Like me, ash and gore covered every inch of her, streaming and dripping down her armour and bared flesh that left only her yellow eyes peering out of stained ebony flesh. She was panting, bleeding from a handful of scratches but was otherwise totally unharmed.
The Light of Dawn as ever, appeared immaculate and didn't have a single drop of blood staining its surface.
The expression on her face was thunderous, and yet concern broke through the stony exterior. As I rose unsteadily to my feet she glanced between me and the blood splattered remains of door, trying to decide how she felt and how to show it.
"Vith'ez mal'ai." She spat, slapping me in the face as hard as she could before crushing me in an embrace.
