Pushing aside all my unease and nervousness, feeling the pounding of my heart in my chest I rose to my full height and began casually striding towards the ruins and its infestation of daedra worshippers. It reminded me all too much of the time in Vvardenfell that the detachment of Legionaries I was supporting dealt with a coven of Namira worshippers. That situation had hadn't gone anything resembling the original plan and I had a sneaking suspicion that this was going to be the same.
Eschewing stealth, I simply moved forward without the slightest attempt at hiding. I knew that Malulain's Rangers were all around, moving slowly and carefully through the knee high grasses and bushes but my walking pace was faster than what they could manage. I was going to be the decoy and hopefully allow the rest of them to get in close to do some serious damage.
The closer I got, the more I could see of their ritual. The more I saw, the less I wanted to and I could feel my stomach rebelling against me as I saw the fate of those chosen as sacrifices. Their organs were spread out, the blood and other fluids used to draw ancient symbols of hideous power around the altar. The air itself was throbbing with energies, dark and foreboding and interlaced between the sounds of their chants were the groans and gurgles of the mortally wounded.
Only a handful of sentries were placed around the outer edges of the ruins, and those few were not paying enough attention. Their trust and faith in the skill of the few slain by Malulain's party was their undoing and while they quickly spotted me advancing upon them to reacted with confusion and uncertainty. They were expecting the other Rangers, not the appearance of a heavily armoured and armed Imperial breaking into a run at them. With Sunchild in hand, I went from walking to a flat out sprint seeing the gaping expressions of amazement on the corrupted Ranger guards turn into realisation at what I heralded.
Cries of alarm all around the edge of the ruins were stopped in mid breath and those few who reached for weapons were cut down without warning. Arrows flickered out of the darkness to rip them from where they stood, and the two standing before me died instantly. One slumped onto his face with an arrow in the heart, the other fell slack but remained upright from the fact the arrow had pinned his skull to the broken pillar he was leaning against. All around me I could hear the sudden rush of noise as Malulain and his forces shed their concealing magicka, launching the assault a dozen metres behind me as they chose speed over stealth for the first time.
Chaos erupted all around us, the ritual being undertaken suddenly breaking in mid chant as a large portion of the cultists were felled by arrows or reacted to our presence. I had seen kwama nests react with less singlemindedness than these daedric cultists did, as most reached for their arms, but a significant number of them continued the ritual unabated.
We were outnumbered though, even with the Rangers that Malulain had brought with him to Cyrodiil and after months of hunting and picking at Eregor's forces, he still commanded a significant number of Bosmer. Our only saving grace was that most of those Eregor had at his command were not Rangers. A huge majority of his clan had followed him down the path to damnation but while they weren't skilled warriors we soon found ourselves facing a desperate horde.
The ruins were lit with a combination of Braziers, lit torches and the building light illuminating the Armoured figure standing on top of the altar. Shadows danced and cavorted about in the light as the mass of loyal Rangers clashed with the surge of resistance. There were dozens of them in the expansive area within the heart of the ruins. It was easily fifty metres in diameter, framed by a circle of pillars and a concentric circle levels that sunk into the ground. Eight separate levels, each only a few centimetres difference in height had been carved out of the soil and built with marble blocks, and all lead down to the altar at the mathematically perfect centre. Each level had a single crucified victim placed parallel to a side of the Altar, and it was no doubt that this particular ruin had been chosen very, very specifically for this ritual.
Several dozen Bosmer had crowded the ruins and even as the Rangers swarmed through the gaps in the pillars, hacking and slashing with their daggers and blades they reacted. Some were almost entirely naked, covered only in strips of foul braids and daubed in horrific runes drawn with blood and other liquids. Those that wore clothing were as varied as the individuals themselves. Some were dressed in typical Cyrodillic tunics and togas, others were in similar clothes to the Rangers themselves of leathers and spiders silk.
Eregor and his followers had been limited in the number of their Ranger Cadre, but these handful of individuals stood with their backs to the altar and the individuals upon it, facing outwards and gripping their weapons tightly. They were mirrored images of Malulain and his kin, but images that had been distorted and corrupted. Their armour was draped in series of braids matching that attached to the dagger I had pulled from the dead bandit, faces tattooed and bared from their hoods and masks to reveal visages of hate. Everything about them had been altered, their cloaks were made from greasy leather that the vampire identified as human skin, and further sheets of it had had been sewn into breastplates and shell pauldrons. At least one I glimpsed had a mask made from the nose, lips and face of some hapless individual they had skinned, pinning it over their own scowling features and showing nothing more than the soulless eyes of the damned.
To my surprise none of them wielded their bows or used them at all. Only blades and daggers were visible in the last surviving Rangers of Eregor's clan and while Malulain's group loosed arrows in their direction I didn't see a single on felled or hit at all. As I pushed through the press, hacking, stabbing and slicing with Sunchild at the press of cultists before me I realised that Malulain's Rangers were actually missing their foes. For all their skill and ability, the air itself seemed to be turning against them, arrows were being curved away from their targets or in some cases shattering as though the air itself had turned to rock. From the central altar a deep throbbing pulse of magicka was rolling out in time with those still prostrated and chanting before it. It was a pulse heralding something truly terrible and was affecting the very air itself.
Malulain shouted an eerie battle cry a couple of metres away. He and a handful of his veterans were stabbing and hacking at the press around us and while they were extremely proficient with their bows and stealth, they were not the greatest of swordsmen.
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I found myself wishing for a dozen Legionaries as I cut and danced my way through the cultists attacking me. None of them were fighters worth a rusty septim and with all of them wielding little more than daggers I had an enormous advantage in reach. Sunchild's length and make made a complete mockery of their daggers and short swords, cutting through the Bosmer cultists with ease as none were wearing anything resembling armour. A squad or two of Legionaries would have been able to take this rabble apart in minutes, especially with the deadliness of their bows negated by the proximity to the ritual.
"Damn this all to Oblivion!" my shout came out mostly incoherent but the dozen rangers following Malulain heard it and followed me as I stepped forward, dragging Sunchild from a shrieking Bosmer's chest. For a second she clawed at my legs with fury, breaking fingernails on the metal plates protecting my thighs even as I kicked her off my sword.
I went on the offensive, as did the rangers behind me as they rushed forward with their single edged shortswords and double edged daggers. The few daggers that were thrown were also affected by the strange properties of the air and with a crunch both the loyal and tainted groups slammed together to fight to the death. They fought in the way that only families could; a terrible viciousness that came to the fore when siblings turned into bitter rivals or that countrymen turned against one another in civil wars. There was no thought of chivalry or honour or even efficiency, instead they ripped and tore into each other with blades or whatever else they could get their hands on. Within seconds all thoughts of stopping or protecting the ritual were lost to the overwhelming hatred and desire for each side to utterly slaughter the other.
Cutting my own way through the press and using every trick and skill I had learned, as well as a considerable amount of anger. Blades thirsting for a taste of my own blood and flesh were turned aside before their owners were left dying on the ground from ripostes. Others simply had their defences battered through by my superior strength and greater reach, hacking and killing them as efficiently and quickly as possible. Even though those initial moments were fighting against untrained civilians I was still left with dozens of nicks and bruises from blows or impacts I had not managed to block or dodge. It was still a mutual slaughter, as the Bosmer and their Rangers were unmatched in archery and stealth but once those skills were taken away they were not left with much else. This reason and almost this reason alone was why the Legion spent so much time and effort training the Foresters to be able to fight with more than just their bows and do so while wearing heavy armour. To most, it was not surprising that some of the greatest swordsmen and duellists within the Empire could be found in Legion Plate and a bow over a shoulder.
A good number of the Bosmer continued with their chanting, keeping themselves pressed to the floor even as knives and blades sank into flesh and took their lives. One of their number pouring restoration magicka into one of the crucified sacrifices dropped to his knees with the open mouthed look of agony on his face as a dagger speared a kidney. He didn't utter a single word as the Ranger behind him stabbed him to death. Instead he used his last breaths to keep the magicka flowing down his arm and out from his outstretched fingers, forcing himself to stay upright right up until a second Ranger joined in and cut his throat.
"It is about time you arrived brother!" Called out a booming voice, one that cut through the sounds of fighting and the shrieks of the dying.
Standing above the swirling, hate filled violence consuming the ruins, the figure on the altar stood as still as the marble of the altar itself. In the chaos I had seen how the arrows that had been loosed at the armoured figure had either curved away or shattered on the air as though it was rock. Little of the figure could be seen beneath the full-body plate of the armour it wore, but the face and head were clearly visible. Similar to Malulain, the Bosmer standing on the altar had skin turned leathery from years spent in the elements, hair braided into greasy deadlocks and tattoos covering every inch of flesh. Unlike the Commander of the Rangers, this corrupted individual was openly sporting signs of his allegiance to darker powers.
The braids of his hair were threaded with sinew and smeared with blood, bile and other substances I didn't want to identify. Hand carved effigies of a reptilian monstrosity of horns, fangs and claws jingled in the air with every movement he made, and as he turned to face us I could see the strange protrusions of his skull pushing against his skin.
"Have you finally decided to stop skulking in the shadows?" Even over the sounds of fighting all around, he didn't seem to have to shout and I could feel my skin crawling at the sound of his voice.
Malulain was deep in the press of the fighting and I only caught glances of the veteran Ranger as he stabbed one of the toga wearing Bosmer to death. His arm was wet to the elbow in gore already and the mask has slipped down to reveal his face, but in the midst of the brawl he was unable to answer.
"You're too late. The sacrifices have been made! The blood toll is paid! Now that you have arrived your deaths will empower the armour once more!" Another arrow shattered on the air a metre away from his head but he didn't twitch or move in the slightest. Those loyal Rangers who were free of the melee were firing arrows as quickly as they could, but not a single one of them seemed to be able to penetrate the boiling waves of magicka filling the air around us.
Surrounded by the last of his own Rangers and veritable sea of death and fighting Eregor seemed stately and serene as he glanced over us. the Altar was only a couple of metres wide, and he stood there alone and dressed in the cursed, dread armour that he had killed so many for. His cultists were dying by droves all around but with a triumphant grin he stood there before us, holding the final piece of the armour in hands streaked with blood and bodily fluids.
"Graithlan!" Shrieked the female Bosmer standing right at the base of the Altar behind the ring of fallen Rangers. "Collect your bones long since dust! Gather your limbs separated by eternity! Shake the soil of Aetherius from your flesh!"
Her arms raised to the heavens, hands streaked with the blood and gore of cutting open the sacrifices and the look on her face was of utter devotion to the man standing before her. The pulsating energies throbbed like the heart of a skooma addict, the waves of energy being felt as physical impacts against our bodies that knocked some of the weaker cultists to the ground.
Even as we pushed forward we all knew that there was nothing we could do as Eregor lifted the last piece of the armour he held in his hand, the helmet carved into the snarling maw of some monster I had never seen before. With complete and utter reverence and in time to the chanting calls of 'arise!' from his mate and fallen clan he raised it high, before placing it over his head until it slotted into the armoured breastplate.
The pulsating energies ceased as though they had never existed but I had the momentary sensation of them being sucked into the central altar and the armoured being standing atop it. All fighting died away as the cultists dropped to their knees or otherwise prostrated themselves towards the armoured figure standing triumphantly at the centre of it all. Even the Rangers loyal to Malulain had stopped, all looking inwards with various expressions of horror or failure etched deep into their ash and blood streaked features.
