Carefully gathering up the reins we led our warhorses through the streets, looking about and it wasn't long before both of us were able to hear the noise a little more effectively. The deadened bangs of metal on wood occurred at random, the sounds of a mallet or hammer of some description striking wood and somehow having it's sound dampened by more than just the streets and buildings around us. For a short time we moved through the village, listening and following the sounds until we entered the heart of the town and the open expanse of the market square.

  The tiny marketplace was a simple affair, barely even deserving of the name but still one of the few places that the majority of the village inhabitants could gather for celebrations and trade. Fifty metres wide and just as long, it opened up a great expanse of smoothed cobblestones before the towering height of the town hall. As the tallest building in the village the hall loomed over the square in a solid, squat construction of stone. Once home to the village Aedile and his family and the central administrative hub of Glenvar, it had been transformed into something more militaristic. Like other similar buildings found throughout Colovia it had been built not only as an administrative centre but with defence in mind. In times of disaster, raids or severe storms the town hall would be a refuge that only a determined enemy could hope to breech. While not designed with a lengthy siege in mind it would be enough to keep those inside safe for a handful of days. Any longer than that and they would have been better off within the Castle and the keep on the hill to the north.

  It had since been fortified, further defences built and hammered within and without until it appeared significantly more impregnable. The sounds that had caught my attention was from a handful of individuals on ladders on the outside walls, or working on the pair of massive doors that opened into the centre of the market place. Only a handful of people could be seen, and as we rounded the corner leading our enormous horses I quickly counted over fifteen before our presence was noted. With surprising speed, the whole group of them dropped their tools and hefted a motley assortment of weapons, a collection that I noted uneasily consisted of a handful of crossbows and bows that were soon pointing at us.

  "Halt!" Called out one of their number and Viconia and I shared a glance. "Identify yourselves."

  Keeping my hands away from my weapons and holding them up while still grasping Trygve's reins tightly I licked my lips and called out. "Kaius Desin. Warder of the Fighters Guild and Knight of the White Stallion."

  "Viconia DeVir." Added Viconia with a voice filled with annoyance. "The one going to be responsible for jamming your bows down your throats if you don't point them elsewhere."

  I winced at the tone and saw how despite the fear that the group had holding them tight their weapons didn't waver. It was only when a well-built individual stepped out from the dark depths of the town hall with a massive forester's axe over a shoulder and called out a few commands that bowstrings were released of their tension.

  The sound of hoofs on stone echoed as we moved closer to the group and found ourselves facing a rag-tag group of individuals clad in various pieces of armour and whatever weapons they could get their hands on. Cobbled together armours were mixed with collections of well-maintained chainmail and plate steel, and weapons ranging from cane knives and pitchforks to steel broadswords and arbalests were gripped in nervous hands.

  With the axe over the shoulder the broad chested individual moved over to us, giving us and our giant destriers a once over with his remaining eye. At some point over the previous weeks he had lost an eye to a terrible slice of claws that had left his face a mask of pain and infection hidden away under a collection of stained bandages. He would have the terrible injury marring his forehead, cheek and nose for the rest of his life but for the meantime even the inflamed flesh seemed to do little more than annoy him.

  "So you have returned..." He merely stated with his deep gravelly voice. "Hope you aren't looking for any form of appreciation for what you have brought down on us."

  Solidly built, and clad in a set of ash-blackened armour several sizes too small for his girth he would have appeared comical if not for the seriousness of the situation. A beard covered his face from view, rough and wiry from years of occasional trimming. The axe on the shoulder and the body tempered from years in the elements showed his profession as one of the village woodcutters, but despite the natural strength he was not a trained fighter.

  In ones and twos, the others moved forward and Viconia and I looked over the assorted individuals who had chosen to remain within the town. Most appeared to be locals, their clothing rough and poor but I was not surprised to see most wore some form of armour of varying descriptions. There were members of every race, men and women ,and were of every age from their mid-teens to late sixties. The only thing that they had in common was the fact that they were all armed and all had the looks of desperation and terror plastering their features.

  "Are you in charge?" I asked simply, looking over the wounded woodcutter and seeing him shrug.

  "Suppose so." There was a moment of hesitation before he reached forward with a grubby hand, rough and calloused from years of felling trees. "Name's Ylfgar. You two didn't meet me the last time you were in town but I remember seeing you coming back with those bloodsucker skulls and that fancy sword of yours."

  Wincing slightly, I felt the power in his crushing grip before we finished shaking hands. "We ran into some of the others heading to Bravil last night and we made it here as fast as we could."

  "Trying to redeem yourselves are we?" Spat one of the militia. There was a murmured chorus of anger until Ylfgar turned and stared at the individual responsible with his remaining eye.

  "I won't turn down a pair of warm bodies." He said simply. "Even if there are suicidally stupid at coming here. We've lost count how many people have vanished or died this past week alone, and that's only those that we know of."

  Looking about the small group and seeing the damage that had been done to the steel-reinforced doors of the town hall. Similar rents to what destroyed the doors to the inn marred the hall, but those huddling within had only been saved from the far superior construction of the building.

  "The others had told us that people had been going missing or had been turning up dead in the morning."

  "Aye, that was true. At least until last night at least when we got attacked."

  I swallowed and clenched my fist in such a way that it would be unseen in the folds of my cloak. "Werewolves?"

  The silence that followed from the entire group was shocking and they all looked at Viconia and I with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. The bloodshot eye of Ylfgar peered out from where it had sunken into his skull. "You know?"

  "I guessed." I threw a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the Faregyl Inn. "I saw what happened to the inn and those in it. It reminded me of something similar that I experienced a few years ago in Morrowind."

  "Then you know how deep in the shit we really are." There was fear, exhaustion and determination battling for control in the aging woodsman. "We thought we would be able to ride it out until help arrived but most of us aren't expecting to live through the night."

  "You look like you did pretty well for yourselves though." with a wave of a hand Viconia gestured at the hall.

  "Yeh? That was from only one of the damnable things as far as any of us can tell, and its heart wasn't in it. We could hear them ripping apart the inn for the better part of the night before the screams started. I think they were just testing our defences which means they'll be back to finish the job when the moon's out."

  "How many are there?"

  There was another shrug that rocked the massive axe off his shoulder and he placed it in front of him like a nobleman's walking stick. "Half a dozen at least. We haven't done a proper tally as no one is willing to stick their heads out to do a headcount."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I sighed and looked over to Viconia and the look in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. She was considering jumping into Ultrin's saddle and riding him as hard as she could until the County was lost in the dust behind her. The only thing stopping her was the distance to safety.

  "Well, you have us here now and we'll help as best we can."

  There was grim smile on his face as he nodded. "I think I better tell you both more about what has been going on. Night is a few hours away and for the moment at least we don't need any more bodies hammering nails into wood."

  Motioning for us to follow him the small group around us dispersed back to their duties. Some were gathering supplies from the nearby Inn of Ill Omen further up the street and the various houses scattered around us. Others were busy with hammers, mallets, planks and pouches full of nails as they went about reinforcing every window larger than a mouse hole in the town hall. Others bundled up quivers of arrows and crossbow bolts, some built wooden spikes out of stakes and fence posts and other simply sat and sharpened swords, axes and other various bladed items. Ylfgar led us into the town hall itself, through the thick doors with the deep gouges were talons had clawed and splintered the wood, talking most of the way and explaining as we went.

  "After you both left it was quiet for a while. Just over a week in fact." He had a few quiet words with one of the militia hamming together a massive T out of a pair of planks for bracing the doors before continuing on into the main hall. "Then people started going missing again. First it was the miller and his entire family vanishing from their beds in the middle of the night, and then one of the nightwatchmen vanished on his patrol. All they found of him was his lantern."

  "When did people start dying?" I asked carefully, looking about the interior of the town hall. The main entry was a combination of meeting hall and courthouse, the collections of pews and tables and the tall stands where the village Aedile would have been seen conducting trials and negotiations vacant and empty. Most had already been broken down or piled into makeshift barricades in a semicircle around the only entry into the building.

  "In the village?" for a moment he thought to himself. "About four or five days ago, but depending on who you talk to here, there have been deaths occurring for a few weeks now."

  Viconia looked about at the activity around us and raised an eyebrow. "Such as who?"

  Ylfgar grinned to her and looked about for a moment before calling out to one of the people in the building. "M'jadhi! Come over 'ere."

  The skinny, ragged form of a Khajiit rose from where he had been checking over a collection of arrows and wandered over to us. He had obviously been living rough for quite some time but he still wore a collection of leather armour that hung loosely to his gaunt frame. The leather seemed brittle and faded from the sun and most of the metal components were heavily rusted.

  "M'jadhi and his friends were once one of the biggest bandit gangs in the region." Ylfgar explained while motioning to the mangy Khajiit standing in front of us. "Very popular group they were; each were worth thirty septims a head."

  "Forty." Hissed the cat, and for a moment I saw the same cold, calculating look in Viconia's eyes that usually heralded bloodshed. He too must've seen the expression and grinned with a mouthful of fangs. "But such a bounty is no longer collectable."

  "Why is that?" Viconia asked, almost innocently.

  "Because this one is all that is left of his pack. There used to be eighteen Khajiit on the road to King's Walk, but no longer."

  Ylfgar motioned to M'jadhi and the two seemed to share some mutual amusement. "He's given up his life of crime and has agreed to stay and help until this is all over or until we are all dead." The look of despondency on their faces told me that the expected the latter, and soon. "He told me when he arrived that on the fourth of Morning Star that he and his friends were attacked in the night."

  "The beasts slaughtered this one's kin like newborn kittens." Mjadhi hissed sadly.

  "How did you survive?" My voice was soft at the obvious heartache he was suffering despite what he used to be only a few weeks before.

  The lips pulled back in a smile that was all too much like a mountain lion's but it was hollow and void of emotion. "This one survived by running faster than the other seventeen..."

  "Most of the other strays were have picked up have similar stories." The bearded woodsman nodded his thanks to the Khajiit as he went back to his collection of feathered shafts. A massive hand pointed out another individual rubbing a layer of tallow and grease into the leather jerkin in preparation of shrugging on his chainmail. "Faeelorn Mosslock over there was a caravan guard for a group of Bosmer merchants who were slaughtered in the night. He and only one other of his kinsmen made it to town but the other died of his wounds. There was nothing we could do for him except make him comfortable while he slowly bled to death."

  At his name the tattooed features of the Wood Elf looked up from his maintenance and shrugged. "I thank the Nine every day that I had crawled into the cart to sleep that night. As soon as everyone started screaming I pulled one of the carpets over me and waited for the noise to stop."

  "It sounds like that people are being attacked all over the county." I said simply, looking over the odd collection of individuals. Faeelorn was a caravan hand, but there were others in the group that were obviously caravan guards and a handful of other various travellers who had found themselves in the middle of a nightmare.

  "Yep, and every day it seems to be getting worse." We followed him as he made his way up the short flight of stairs at the back of the hall where it led to the upper level. Two stories tall with a heavily fortified roof made of sloped timbers as thick as trebuchet arms, there would be no easy way to breach the hall like the Faregyl Inn. The entire building had been designed as a refuge from a bandit raid or an incursion of soldiers during the rare occasions that counties went to war. While not unconquerable, even werewolves would find it a more difficult nut to crack.

  The upper level consisted of a long hallway that ran down the spine of the hall, a window framing each end that had been heavily boarded and barricaded despite the height off the ground. Every few metres doors led into individual rooms, some were offices for the various village officials, such as the Aedile for their day-to-day administration and governance. Others were the accommodation for visiting dignitaries who while important, weren't important enough for a stay in the castle.

  Making our way through to the very end of the hall Ylfgar beckoned us inside of the Aedile's office where something akin to a war-room had been prepared. A map of the entire county had been nailed into the wall; a massive tapestry two metres wide and almost just as high. Every town, village, fort, road and track had been marked with a cartographer's care and Ylfgar stood in front of it, looking between it and us with his remaining eye.

  "As far as any of us can tell, people have been going missing all over the County for over a month, maybe even two. For the most case they just simply vanished but for the past weeks at least it has turned darker. Glenvar has been suffering attacks but so has other places nearby."

  With a finger he pointed out the messenger posts on the roads north to Lake Rumare and Skingrad and south west to Elswyr. "Both these messenger posts are deserted of men and horses. When I sent a few men to the south they found that one filled with enough blood for a slaughterhouse, but without any remains."

  "What about the other villages in the area?" I moved closer, looking at the names and places scattered about. "Pell's Gate and Sweetwater?"

  "Nothing that we know of." There was a moment of silence between us all. "Some of the others went to Pell's Gate for safety but with the sudden lack of travellers arriving here we're starved of information. There are fewer people on the roads of late with daedra raiding the lands but now there are almost none at all. Everyone in every villages nearby could be dead as far as we know. Or, they could be perfectly fine and not having the slightest clue about what's happening here."

  "And the Legion Forts?"

  "Same problem. The two nearest are Fort Homestead to the northwest and Fort Alessia to the northeast. I don't know if they have been suffering attacks but we know that the Legionaries at Fort Homestead have suspicions at least."

  "How is that?" Viconia asked this time, moving closer to the map and tracing over roads and landmarks with a finger.

  "Yesterday morning one of them arrived here. He hasn't said much and as best I can tell he's in shock. Said something about his squad vanishing at the northern messenger post but hasn't said much else since."

  "A Legionary?" my interest piqued and I looked at Ylfgar. "Where is he?"

  He nodded to the door set in the opposite wall to the way we came in. like the front doors it was massive and reinforced with strips and bands of metal. A thick oaken plank was set against the doorframe where it could be used to further barricade it closed and I could see from the hinges that it was designed to open outwards only. "He's on the balcony. I put him out there to stop scaring the others."

  "Is he deranged or something?"

  Ylfgar shook his head. "No, but he's not doing well around people at the moment. Poor bastard was terrified and ran into town before collapsing from exhaustion. If I was to guess I would say that he ran the entire way from the messenger post to us, in full armour too. Since he woke up he's done nothing more than just sit there, staring into nothing and sharpening his sword."

  I gave Viconia a glance and she nodded to me before motioning to Ylfgar to start showing more locations on the map. Carefully I walked over to the door, feeling the heavy latch and pushing the door open into the sunlight while Viconia and Ylfgar continued the discussion. The balcony barely even qualified for the term, barely being more than three metres long and a metre and a half wide and only just having enough space for the door to open. Almost devoid of ornamentation there was, little in the way of furniture other than a tiny table and chair allowing someone to sit and look over the town in the direction of the castle.