"By the Nine..."

  "They've gotten inside!"

  Twisting and stabbing a finger between the young legionary and Viconia's twitching form I could the whites of his eyes within the shadows of his helm. "Stay here and look after her!" I spat, watching him flinch from my tone.

  Without waiting for a response I exploded into activity, adrenaline returning to my veins as my heart hammered like a drum in my chest. Upstairs the sounds of splintering wood were joined and overwhelmed by what could only be a howl of pure triumph. Somehow while we were fighting them off downstairs one of the creatures had made it inside, aided by the distraction of its pack mates and now there was nothing stopping it from enacting the slaughter that its master demanded. I hurdled the stairs three or four at a time, moving faster than the others behind me and before I realised I was on the top floor, alone and with the nearest militiaman twenty metres behind.

  I found myself feeling as though my boots were sunk deep in the snow of northern Vvardenfell, bow drooping from trembling fingers and staring into the face of a creature that had haunted my dreams for over half a decade. Faced with a sight of utter carnage and devastation as I had all those years ago, I felt little more than a fresh faced recruit faced with the worst oblivion had to offer in the frozen north of the world. The bodies at the creature's feet may not have been those of my comrades in arms that cold winter's night, but there was a terrible similarity between the beast of my nightmares and the one I suddenly faced.

  Even hunchbacked from the animalistic nature of its curse it towered a full head over me, looking down with its canine eyes with nothing but a primal hunger driving it on. Rolling grey-black fur covered every inch of flesh, arms lengthened and longer than its lower limbs for greater power to rip and tear its prey apart. When it walked on two legs its fifteen-centimetre-long talons dragged across the ground, and if it dropped to all fours it could chase a warhorse and use its impossible strength to drag it and its rider down.

  Three times as broad in the shoulders as a regular human it would have almost appeared comical in the way that its waist was barely larger than a regular being's. Instead it was horrifically powerful, muscles twisting and writhing under its taut flesh and short fur to show a musculature that professional soldier would kill to have. Its face had nothing of its original humanity; a twisted amalgamation of a wolf and human that left only feral rage and an all-consuming desire to devour all it came across. There was no reasoning with such a creature, especially how the remains of several of the militia were left strewn about the hallway as little more than slaughtered meat.

  Appearing at the top of the stairs it greeted me with what could have been surprise had it been any other creature. Busily gnawing on the shredded torso of one of the militia it had been oblivious to everything but the desire to feed. Holding up the body with little more than a single hand, the other was busily assisting the fang filled maw to pull and tear at the fleshly remains of the shoulder and neck. The sounds of meat splitting and bones cracking made my gorge rise uncontrollably as it gulped down steaming chucks of human flesh and snapped bone in its jaws. Its loathsome meal was stopped short as it realised that it wasn't alone, its eye twisting and rolling in its sockets as it gazed upon me.

  At my appearance the creature dropped its meal, growling in such a way that not only did its chest reverberate with the sound but so did mine as I could feel it through the soles of my feet and in the depths of my bowels. All thoughts were pushed from my mind as I gazed upon the thing and the devastation it had wrought. My guts clenched, fear trembling my arm and Sunchild wavered in front of me and I suddenly could think of nothing more but the way the snow had risen to mid shin six years before. The werewolf was so similar to the one that had slaughtered my comrades in arms so long ago that I almost felt my bladder give way and I knew that it could smell the fear wafting from me as it sniffed in my direction.

  The howl that ripped forth from its throat and chest cut through me like a knife and I struggled not to turn and flee from the apparition before me. There was something deep and primal in its every movement and noise it made that stabbed into the primitive part of my mind left over from the time when men were little more than animals themselves. It spoke to something in me that urged me to turn, to run and flee from the ultimate predator and attempt to escape from the gory death that awaited me. The world that the creature existed in consisted of only two types of beings. In a facsimile of its infernal master and creator, there were only the predators and their prey. For those heart pounding moments I knew that I was little more than a rabbit to the towering wolf-man.

  Unlike most other beings and humans, there was no longer a single set of instincts that fuelled my mind. The primitive and superstitious core of my being left over from my genetic heritage of thousands of years of ancestors urged me to flee, but there was a darker layer now infusing my soul. As it had when I had fallen from the heights of Lake Arrius, the survival instincts of the Vampire came to the surface. Overwhelming the weak and frail man within my mind and it consumed by very being with a dark and terrible bloodlust. It too was a predator, but was not beholden to the lord of beasts. Infused with the darkness of Oblivion there was no way that the dual natures of the vampiric and the daedric would ever back down or submit to a threat. The man might wish to run and hide and flee, but to the daedra and the vampire such emotions or options didn't exist.

  Cheekbones rippling under my flesh and snapping with twinges of pain, my face elongated and fangs peeled my lips apart. The fear, while still making itself felt in the back of my mind was put aside for the moment as the darkness of my daedra infused vampiric side rose to meet the werewolf's challenge head on.

  The enormous brute paused, seeing and sensing the changes rippling through me as Sunchild suddenly found itself in a firm grip once more. Chainmail creaked and my shoulders broadened as the vampire consumed my flesh and the werewolf hunched down and growled. Acting even more wolf-like it tilted its head away from me, protecting its throat instinctively as it sniffed the air and my sulphuric taint on the air. Of all emotions from such a creature, confusion and unease was not among those I believed it capable of. Instinctively it knew that I was not like the others it had feasted upon, and there was something akin to caution within its bestial mind. My daedric scent mixed with its wolfish musk as I met its growled challenge with one of my own.

  With all the force of a ballista bolt it launched itself at me, roaring on the top of its lungs and spraying bloody spittle in an explosive puff of rank air. Moving faster than any creature had any right to it crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, slamming heavily into the space that I had been occupying but missing me entirely. With the vampire's strength and speed filling my limbs and controlling me by instinct alone, it allowed me to meet the creature strength for strength, slashing a deep cut through its flesh and dragging Sunchild's edge across its ribs. Further blood added to the layers coating the floor as my Ayleid blade tasted the werewolf but even before it had fully landed it had pounced at me again.

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  Wood splintered and furniture exploded into kindling as it raked its claws millimetres from my body. The force of the creature allowed it to tear a door from its hinges with a casual ease and I felt my clothes and flesh buffered by the force of the wind from its blows. As strong as a minotaur, yet almost as fast as Lord Volmyr I knew all too well that had I not been accursed myself there would have been no chance of survival for any more than a second. Instead it found itself victim to my sword, hunks of flesh being rent from its bones and its life-force spraying the walls as I hacked at it with all the skill of Ylfgar felling a tree. Weeks of practice with the Blades allowed me to dance across the floor as lightly as a mist but my blows were anything but graceful. Against a creature of such brutality there was no place for elegance, and only by smashing my way through it and fighting it head on did I manage to keep myself alive.

  Bleeding and gashed in several places it dropped back on all fours like the canine in whose image it had been fashioned. Although the injuries were serious and would have even felled a minotaur it seemed oblivious to them and didn't seem to feel pain. Every cut only fed the burning fires of its hunger and rage, and I watched with my face taut and hissing as its wounds slowly closed before my eyes.

  Crushing the vampire aside slightly a small huddle of militia rounded the top of the stairs and stumbled to a halt at the sight of me facing the creature down alone. My speed at sprinting up the stairs had left me facing the werewolf alone for a handful of seconds, but in doing so I had somehow found myself standing between it and the splintered hole where it had gained entry. It was now trapped between me and the group of militia, just as I was trapped between it and its entrance.

  In such confines and facing against inexperienced and wavering villagers there was the potential of a bloodbath greater than that of the Faregyl Inn the night before. Hiding my fangs behind my lips I growled in my throat, trying to keep the creature's attentions on me as the greater threat. It hunched there in the middle of the hall, blood dripping from the dozens of wounds it had sustained from my sword and appearing as though a coiled spring. It was enraged even more now at the hubris of prey daring to act as predators but as I tensed for the attack it suddenly did the unthinkable.

  It stopped; pausing in mid breath and mid growl to face me and tilt its head in an all too canine way. From their positions flat against its skull its ears twitched and suddenly rose upright, moving and swivelling around as it stopped and appeared to be listening to something that only it could hear. There was a sensation of pressure in the back of my mind for a handful of seconds as the giant brute convulsed and stared into nothingness but it suddenly and violently faded at the same time as life returned to the lycanthropes limbs.

  The momentary pause over, the creature launched itself in my direction once more but it somehow appeared as though it was no longer intent on ripping me limb from limb. It bounded between the two of us on all fours, shuddering the floor with its weight even as I met its charge head on once more. Sunchild speared out and punched through a rib with a crack of bone but while it seemed intent on leaving the building by the way it had entered its bestial nature still yearned for my death. Biting down hard it latched onto my shoulder with the full force of its maw, its upper limbs digging their claws into my back as it tackled me with its ogre like strength.

  Roaring and screaming at the pain and the intense pressure exerted by its powerful jaws I ludicrously found myself amazed at the way that the daedroth scales resisted not only its claws but its crushing teeth. My bones seemed to grind inside of my body but the razored tips of its talons and fangs didn't sink into my flesh. I was left screaming in agony as it bit down hard and crumpled the steel plates of my armour, feeling as though I was trapped in a vice or a bear trap that was closing millimetre by millimetre.

  Slamming me hard into the wall, it shook its head like a terrier with a rat, throwing me about even as its enormous paws scrabbled for purchase on the daedroth scales. Despite the unnatural nature of its form, it could not contend with the daedric substance of my armour. The sheer bite force and the strength of the creature was a different thing entirely and I knew with a horrid certainty in the back of my mind that most of the bones in my torso would have stress fractures.

  Sunchild punched into its side again and again as I roared into its face with agony and six years' worth of repressed fears and nightmares. All the guilt, the self-loathing and the hatred for such creatures flowed out of me through my sword arm as I jammed it again and again to the hilt in the thing's chest. Ribs shattered, lungs were punctured and bowels opened as I wet my arm to the elbow in its blood. While it battered and slapped at my chest armour with its enormous wolf-hands I stabbed. While it bit down and crumpled my left pauldron and rerebrace I stabbed. Even while its breath turned ragged and frothy with blood I stabbed again and again, ripping Sunchild deep and sawing it back and forth in great rents of furred flesh. Soon the damage was becoming so great that even its unnatural regenerative abilities could not keep up with my frenzied attacks.

  Slipping in the spreading pool of gore under us we fell, the weight of the creature pinning me to the floor even as its strength began fading from its limbs. Somehow my left arm, while crushed and semi-nerveless from the beasts clamped jaws managed to pull the dagger from its sheath strapped my chest and it too found itself buried in cursed flesh. Both Sunchild and the dagger continued stabbing and cutting, even as the creature began choking and vomiting gouts of blood and gore all over my shoulder and chest.

  Its breath rattled and its hot rank blood coating both arms and the majority of my torso as the enormous stinking carcass of the creature slumped and had the last of its life pump out onto the floor and me. Gurgling, it struggled to rise unsuccessfully from the sheer amount of damage that I had inflicted on it, whining and whimpering as its hindquarters dragged uselessly on the floor. At some point in my crazed flailing I had somehow managed to jam and twist Sunchild between a pair of vertebrae, leaving it paralysed from the stomach down. While near death it still struggled to end me, its jaws releasing their hold on my shoulder and trying to latch onto my blood soaked head. There was moment where our eyes met, the vampiric staring into the bestial before the point of Sunchild rammed into an eye socket and out of the back of its skull.

  The full weight of the beast slumped over my prone body, driving the wind from my lungs and making me feel every single inch of the array of bruised and semi-fractured bones from my waist up. Blood coated me, soaking through my armour and sticking to my bare flesh in steaming layers of crimson, but I was alive and suddenly aware of the waves of pain now that the vampire returned to its nest in my subconscious.

  The soft, cautious footfalls of a handful of militia reached my ears as they moved through the carnage, armour creaking and weapons rattling in nervous hands as the werewolf breathed the last of its hot rank breath over my face. They had seen me tackled and mauled by the brute, and expecting me to be greeting my ancestors in the afterlife I almost laughed as I raised a hand and coughed and spat the blood out of my nose and mouth.

  "A little help please?" I called out, hearing their cries of surprise and shock at my waving hand appearing from under the mound of dead flesh.