I kept perfectly still, feeling the sense of sharpness hovering near my leather wrapped flesh. The bones of my face pulsated and writhed, my fangs pressing uncomfortably into my lips as I struggled to sense the being behind me. There was no sensation of heat, no trace of life-force or a heartbeat. I couldn't even pick up any sound of breathing or of any movement.

  "Who are you?" Breathed a voice that had no rights of being there at all and it made me jump even more than the blade at my throat did. It confirmed that it was indeed a normal flesh-and-blood being behind me and not some supernatural creature from Oblivion.

  "Kaius Desin." I replied simply, feeling the sensation of sharpness drawing closer. "I'm with the Fighter's Guild."

  Right on the very edge of my hearing there was a rustle of noise, like the tiniest movement of skin-tight fabric on flesh. It was so minute that it was almost non-existent, but I knew that the blade was no longer hovering nearby.

  "Turn around..." The voice said, this time slightly further away. "Slowly."

  Ensuring that I kept my hands by my sides and away from my weapons I followed the being's instructions, keeping my hands clear of my weapons. I was thankful that for my travel in the wilds I had strapped Sunchild alongside my backpack on the opposite side to the Light of Dawn. If it had been where I normally wore it, it would have been impossible to keep my hands away from a weapon of some kind. Between Sunchild, the Light of Dawn on my back, the pair of knives strapped to my breastplate and my bow kept in easy reach I was a walking arsenal.

  At that point though I was more concerned with the fact that I had been ambushed just as surely as the dead marauders in their camp. What was worse was that I knew that not only had I been ambushed despite my enhanced senses, but that I was now somehow surrounded. The only thing that I had going for me was that I had not been killed before knowing I was no longer alone.

  Standing barely two metres away was a figure similarly dressed to myself. He was shorter than me by a considerable margin but there was no doubt that his skill and stealth far surpassed mine. Only the soot blackened sockets and gleaming eyes could be seen of his flesh, as everything else was covered in layers of grey-black leather. Just like me, a mask covered his face to protect his mouth and nose from any possible irritants and to hide the skin's natural sheen from view.

  Even standing in the flickering light from the campfire, it was almost impossible to focus upon him or his shape. He seemed to naturally sway with the shadows as they rolled and twitched, and as he moved there was not a whisper of sound from his clothing or any pieces of his equipment.

  "Well... Shit..." I said simply, sighing and looking at the way how he held the shortened blade in his hand. Similar in make to the dagger on the ground, it too was made from carved and polished bone. Unlike the dagger it was only single edged and tapered to a pointed edge similar to a katana but it didn't really matter what material it was made from as I knew it could kill me just as surely as any other weapon.

  Everything in the Ranger's stance and ability spoke of countless years of practice and a natural ability passed along through hundreds, if not thousands of generations. It was humbling to know that even despite my vampiric abilities that mere mortals were better than a creature cursed with darkness itself.

  We both stood silently, staring at each other from within the darkness of our hoods and despite the tingling of my body I forced the vampire back once more. At that point I knew that if I wasn't dead already, then they weren't going to kill me unless I gave them cause.

  The silence between us was wearing on my nerves very quickly and I shrugged, raising and eyebrow and looking down onto the short shadow of an elf. "Well? Are we just going to stand here all night?"

  "You talk a lot for a scout." Said a second voice that yet again came from behind me. For the second time in just as many minutes I almost felt like I had jumped out of my skin and I was very quickly becoming tired of the game.

  Turning carefully, ever aware of the blade in the hand of the first Ranger I faced the second. Unlike his kin he was unarmed, or at least was not wielding or pointing any weapons in my direction. A pair of glinting eyes peered from the depths of his hood, the twinkle of amusement somehow evident in them.

  "I'm not entirely sure what else to do in this situation." I said simply and honestly. "I'm somewhat surprised that I'm not dead but then that leaves me a little confused on what you want with me."

  "You are right. If we wanted you dead, then we certainly wouldn't be having this conversation." The second Ranger's eyes seemed to roam up and down me from head to toe as he took my measure. "You are also a lot better of a scout than the last member of your guild we met. That was not something we expected from the Hero of Kvatch."

  "I would take that as a compliment, but I never thought that Rhano was much of a woodsman."

  There was a hint of a smile under the mask as the Ranger stared me in the eye. The two of us were mentally sizing each other up, and I knew that whoever he was, he was someone of authority. His armour and clothing was heavily detailed, the leather cloak and hood embossed and etched with rolling scenes and markings that covered every millimetre of surface. Even the mask that covered his face was decorated with trailing vines and other plants, interwoven with images depicting animals native to Valenwood. His armour was unique, and while it was similar to my own how it covered most of the body, the materials were completely different. My breastplate of ebony-plated mithril was in stark contrast to the boiled leather that covered his torso, and the plates of sculpted bonemold that hung from his hips, covered his groin, stomach and chest. Every piece of his armour from the vambraces that protected his forearms to the plates that covered his shins and ankles were made from powdered bone. What little I knew of the creation of bonemold and other similar armour is that once turned into powder, if would then be mixed with other materials, turned into cement and then poured into casts of the desired shapes.

  What truly surprised me was the shirt that lay under the armour of leather and bone. A shirt of seemingly fragile strands had been woven together with hundreds of tiny scales taken from some kind of reptile. In a way it matched my daedroth scale chainmail but made me feel shabby in comparison. I could tell that my armour was by far the superior in make and for protection, but his wasn't designed for any kind of straight-up fight. Stealth was far more important to him.

  "You wear the mantle of a great beast." He said, making a mild gesture to the cloak and hood that I wore. The grey-black leather was lighter in shade to theirs and whatever creature's skins they used, it definitely wasn't minotaur leather.

  "Taken from the back of a minotaur titan I killed myself." I replied carefully, suddenly feeling awkward and grimacing "Myself and my companion I mean."

  "Viconia DeVir... Of course. We know of your shared exploits master Desin. This is one of the reasons why you aren't currently joining these individuals here."

  "Is this some of your handiwork?" My gesture to the dead woman at our feet drew his attention for a second before his eyes snapped back to my own. "And you seem to know of Viconia and myself, but I don't know who you are. Or, more importantly what brings you so far into Cyrodiil."

  "We are hunting our own kin." The Ranger said matter-of-factly. Despite the lack of emotion within his tone I could tell that there was a deep pain within him. "While you hunt outlaws and criminals, we have been waging a war against our own kind."

  "So other Rangers did this?"

  "Yes. Those who we once counted as our closest brothers and sisters. Now their souls belong to something far darker."

  The silence dragged on as I stared at the Ranger, ignoring his kin standing close behind me. His armour was definitely of greater make, and now that he was somewhat visible I could see that the armour was not the expected dark grey or black but instead a deep bronze. Almost a dark brown, the colour made me remember the few autumns I spent in Cyrodiil when I was younger where the trees had darkened and the leaves had died. It also made me remember more recent memories of the sunrises that I had watched from the walls of Fort Ironhand as the light flowed through the dust and ash of Red Mountain. It was a calming colour, but one that could also signify coming hardship and death in the form of deadly winters. It was a suitable colour for them I decided.

  "Daedra?" I said, immediately knowing that I had struck a nerve with the electric jolt that ran through him at the mere mention of the word.

  "You are smarter than you look."

  The creaking of my leather and armour was the loudest sound in the campsite filled with death as I shrugged. "And luckier too."

  "That I believe remains to be seen." Continuing the stare that was the hallmark of a veteran archer and hunter, he again studied me before nodding almost imperceptibly. With a quick, smooth motion he reached up, pulling his hood back and mask down to reveal his face for the first time.

  His skin was weather beaten and lined, not with age but from the life he had lived. It didn't take more than a glance to know that it was extremely likely that this particular Woodelf had never slept indoors in his entire life. But, like an old gnarled tree root there was a lot of life left within him. What skin was visible was also heavily tattooed, the pigments injected or pushed under the surface of the skin to match the intricate markings of his armour.

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  "I am Malulain." He said, his strange musical accent flowing the syllables of his name like water over rocks in a stream. "I am father of the Rangers of the Grove Circles."

  As I revealed myself in a similar way, pulling my own mask and hood down, he was able to see my expression of confusion. "I am what you would consider as the commander of the Valenwood Rangers." He added to cure my unfamiliarity.

  "Sir." The word was simple and seemed to satisfy him, but even as I lifted my head from the very slight bow I was carefully looking and listening to the area around us. If he truly was who he said, there was going to be a lot more than just himself and the Ranger who had ambushed me nearby.

  "You are correct Master Desin; my brothers and sisters have been corrupted by the daedra. Unfortunately, not just any daedra; but by Molag Bal."

  "They wouldn't happen to be vampires by any chance?" I said, feeling the comforting weight of the Light of Dawn strapped alongside my pack.

  "If only it was so simple. If it was, then this threat would have been extinguished months ago." The head shook sadly and I found myself mesmerised by the collection of braided dreadlocks that hung like creepers from his skull. Unlike the foul braid attached to the dagger, these braids were threaded with effigies depicting various trees bearing humanoid features. They were also pure in comparison, despite the way the hair had originally clumped together with the use of tallow and months of not being washed.

  For a moment he looked far older than what he should as the weight of his duty pressed down hard. "We have been hunting these members of our kind for over a year now and the chase has led us through three provinces. The Silvenar has commanded that we stop our lost brethren, and tonight we are grappling at the last dying breaths of our journey."

  "Well then." I began, carefully wording my sentences. "If I was to guess, I would say that there has been a schism or some recent influx of daedra worshipping that has forced a group you're hunting to flee Valenwood. But, judging by the fact that you have been hunting them for so long and for so far; that means that it is more than just trying to rid the Empire of their existence."

  Seeing the strange, steel-like eyes of the Ranger commander I gave a slight grin knowing I was right. "They took something, or have something that you and your subordinates want."

  The tenseness that ran through him left his body humming like a taut bowstring and while we spoke my enhanced senses were roaming. With the assistance of the vampire I was starting to get a picture of exactly what I faced.

  "Your reputation against the daedra is not given lightly." Making a brief gesture to the forest that was less for emphasising his words and more giving some unseen individuals a signal he nodded. "Yes. They took something sacred to the forest and the Bosmer. What is of far greater importance is that which they currently seek. The Rangers are protectors of the Graht-oaks and the loyal servants of the Storyteller, but our kin have turned their back on Y'ffre and his teachings. They seek ancient artefacts of dread power, most of which had been placed under our charge for thousands of years. Some of these were what they stole when they fled the Groves."

  "Artefacts?" The crawling sensation making itself felt made me remember how the group of Necromancers that had been killed off nearby had similar interests. "These artefacts wouldn't happen to be necromantic, or Ayleid in nature?"

  The shrug that he provided me did not help allay my fears. "Their true nature and histories have been lost to time. At first glance they are Necromantic but they contain something far more powerful than simple enchantments. The magicka within the pieces of this particular armour are to necromancy, as what summoning a bound dagger is to summoning a Valkynaz."

  "Armour?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Ancient armour. Ancient, and immeasurably evil. We do not know whether Graithlan was man or of mer or something else entirely. What we do know is that even the King of Worms would sacrifice all he had for the hints of power that Graithlan had at his command. His armour acts as vessels not only for his soul, but vessels to the realm of the dead itself. With it he could control the very spectral essences of the un-living, potentially more."

  "I can see why you are trying to stop those who stole it."

  "Trying is unfortunately too accurate of a term. We have been trying, for months now but they have been one step ahead of us the entire way. They must have been planning this for years and despite our best efforts we have been unable to do little more than bleed them and hound their footsteps."

  I could almost feel my mind swirling inside my skull as I tried desperately to understand what was happening. It was too much, too quickly. Between the adrenaline, the unease of coming across the campsite and being ambushed, I could barely grasp onto the words the veteran Ranger spoke.

  A sudden flicker of movement caught both my eyes and Malulain's and we twisted towards the source. From the edge of the clearing a third ranger had exploded into view, moving far more quickly and less carefully than what I expected of one of his ilk. What astonished me the most was the way it was not from the foliage and greenery of the trees and bushes that he had appeared, but from the shadows themselves. His cloak was pulled away from his body as he hurried over to the three of us and as his hand dropped I could see how the carved bone amulet hanging from his chest glimmered with energies. Their natural stealth was incredible, but I knew that to be able to hide from the senses of a vampire that they needed more than just skill and luck. Their clothing and equipment was enchanted as well.

  "Father." The new ranger said as he jogged over to Malulain and myself. In mid motion he suddenly realised that I was not one of them, his keen perception noticeably affected by the weight and importance of whatever news he was bringing and making him blind to everything but his commander.

  Providing me little more than a distrusting glare that was almost comparable to Viconia's usual intensity, he bowed at the waist to Malulain, clasping his hand over his mouth in a strange salute before rising to his usual height. "We've found him."

  "Eregor?" Malulain's words were little more than a hiss of determination between clenched teeth. "He's here?"

  "In some nearby ruins, a few hours away to the east." The words seemed to tumble out of the Ranger from behind his mask and hood and the eyes were bright and framed in sweaty flesh. He had obviously run a good distance of the way back to his commander but despite that I could only marvel at the way that he kept his breathing quiet. I doubted that even with my vampiric nature I could have been so calm and controlled after a run of comparable distance.

  Malulain immediately moved, twisting and casting his gaze across the entirety of the campsite while making the noise of what sounded remarkably like crickets. Between the curt gesture he made and the brief motion of covering his mouth in salute to his subordinate I could only stand in shock and a measure of horror as Rangers appeared from all around me.

  They rose from shadows as though the darkness had given birth to them. One seemed to rise out of nothing from where the campfire cast a thin flickering shadow from a still corpse. Others seemed to slide out from behind trees and saplings no wider than my wrist and a few even alighted from the branches that should not have been able to carry such weight. The tingle of magicka made itself felt in the back of mind and the palms of my hands as over three dozen of the Rangers shed their invisibility and began moving silently out of the gorge.

  They left without even a backwards glance and I couldn't help but feel utterly helpless as I saw at least two appear from places that I had moved past. One appeared from behind a shadowed log, a log that if I had walked any closer to I would have stepped on him. In fact, if most of them had been within the campsite when I had arrived then I would have never been more than three metres from at least one of them at any time.

  With mask and hood returned to their rightful places covering his features, once again all I could see of Malulain was the tiny glints for eyes in the cowled shadows. Their quarry was in sight and they seemed content with forgetting all about me and leaving me standing there. That was until I reached out and grabbed their commander by an armoured shoulder.

  "So you're just going to leave me here? After telling me all that?"

  The rage that burned in his gaze seemed to mirror the sudden prickling fear that would have been been visable as soon as it appeared. Within an instant of me laying my hand on him, the other rangers had twisted, nocking arrows and drawing their powerful compound bows back with such a speed that I would be hard pressed to match. Vampire or not.

  Glinting in the darkness his eyes went from mine, to my hand holding him still and back as I sheepishly released my grip. The arrows and the drawn bows didn't waver, nor did they lower themselves away from my vitals.

  "Yes." He said simply as I dropped my hand to my side. "We are."

  "Why?"

  The question stopped him in his tracks as he turned to continue on, obviously intending on leaving me anyway.

  "Why? This is a private matter. One that you have nothing to do with."

  "This... Eregor has stolen things that sound bloody dangerous to me. Not only that, he and his ilk have killed a fair few people in the process." My own gesture towards the bodies scattered about made tiny twitches in the Rangers surrounding me with their drawn bows. "Sure, these lot and those Necromancers a few weeks ago weren't the nicest of people but I'd bet some good coin that not everyone who have died have been guilty of something."

  His obvious pause gave me a tiniest bit of satisfaction despite the fact that death was pointed in my direction. A death that I wasn't sure I could evade even with my unique abilities.

  "I know that you can kill me right now and could have easily killed me a few minutes ago; but now that I have managed to get a good look at you all, I can see some really big issues." Nearest to me, a Ranger made a gesture at Malulain that didn't need translation. Thankfully Malulain shook his head but my heart was still thundering in my chest. "You can all sneak up against unsuspecting people and I am under no illusions of your skill. Correct me I'm wrong though, this Eregor and those he commands have the exact same skills you do. They also know that you coming and I doubt that they would have made it this far if they weren't cunning enough to prepare for your arrival."

  "What do you suggest?" he hissed threateningly, like a snake hiding in the depths of the undergrowth.

  "I'm not suggesting anything; I'm telling you." Despite the sane part of my mind screaming and giving the rest of my brain mental slaps, I couldn't help but bait them. "I'm coming with you."

  Not a sound was heard from the other Rangers but the expressions and body language was far more telling. I knew that at that point it was only Malulain's authority that kept me alive.

  Turning and facing him I cut him off in mid breath, leaving him staring annoyed at me. "Before you get any fancy ideas of pulling your disappearing acts, getting the drop on me once is easy enough. Now that I have managed to get a good look at you all and get a sense of your fancy magicka I reckon I could track you. So I'm coming with you whether you like it or not."

  "Really..." For several moments I surprised the tremble of uncertainty. Hidden underneath his hood and mask I could somehow sense that Malulain was also slightly amused as well as frustrated and angry.

  "Besides all that I don't think that any of you are really prepared for a straight up fight. Eregor and his cronies are expecting more Rangers. They certainly won't be expecting me."

  Silence once again returned and we continued to stare at one another. The arrows of the other rangers continued to point at my direction and I knew that despite their skill and aptitude for archery, their fingers, arms and shoulders would soon be beginning to burn from the strain if they weren't already.

  A nod was all I got in reply, a single, sharp succinct nod that was instantly followed by the relaxing of aching biceps and shoulder blades. At that point I was half expecting an arrow in the spine and was preparing to turn into bats or mist in the unlikely chance I could survive, and felt relief as they turned away again and began fading into the forest.

  Seeing the shadowed forms merging with the darkness in a way that no others could replicate I found myself grimly smiling at the upcoming challenge. My own hood and mask were returned to where they covered my features, leaving me to grin through lips beginning to peel apart from the pressure of my fangs.

  "Time to put my septims where my mouth is..." I hissed gently, so quiet that the words were more in my mind than on my tongue. Without a moment's hesitation I scooped up my bow where it lay in the grass before following the rangers.