All-Flag Rangers: Part III, Shield-Frostbiter
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Skyrim, 4E 97
Pale Pass had made for a difficult journey but the small group of Rangers didn't complain. They'd purchased a huge fur coat in Bruma that the breton seller had been more than happy to lose since it stank the place up a fair bit. Nevertheless he insisted on telling its history, hoping it would earn some extra coin.
"That there's what you call an antique. Ancient work, werebear fur and in the style of the Atmorans of old. S'why it's so big. Back then the nords were real men, so tall their upper lip would scrape the clouds and their lower lip would strike the earth each time they spoke."
Aurelius had heard this before but Iszir and Alessandros looked confused, so he decided he'd play the straight man.
"If that's the case then where was their body?"
"Oh they're a lot like modern nords in that respect," said the breton cheerfully, "They're all mouth."
The coat was a perfect fit for Alessandros, covering his broad chest and trailing down to just above his hooves. He wore that and a thick leather loin cloth and nothing else. The rest Furioso had already acquired winter clothes for. When they'd entered the frozen pass and set up the first night's camp it was a bitter fate to be the one slated to leave the warm flames to gather more firewood. When Alessandros' first turn came up Iszir expressed some concern about him leaving the fire to walk in the freezing night so underprotected, but neither he nor Furioso showed any concern, and Aurelius didn't care for the minotaur at all. He returned, arms laden with more firewood than the rest could carry combined, humming happily. After that it became his sole duty to get firewood every night.
Aurelius and Iszir took turns keeping watch throughout the night. Iszir asked about having Alessandros take a shift but the Imperial didn't trust the bull-boy any more than he could throw him. The nights could be tense, Aurelius was a strict captain and Alessandros was not used to such discipline.
They crested the mountain pass and entered Skyrim proper, navigating towards the nearest road and heading northwest. They passed several signs pointing the way to a settlement called Ivarstead that implied they were getting closer even though they never took the path the signs advertised.
It was somewhere west of the mountains that they first heard the noise. Iszir said it sounded like a harquebus, which ze explained to Furioso and Alessandros as ancient war ballistae that ze'd once watched some pirates try to use, shortly before it exploded in their face. Furioso said it wasn't a machine, it was a person. They began climbing the mountain.
As they drew closer they realized the moth priest was right. It wasn't a machine, it was somebody shouting.
"Sound like Lord when he get angry," said Alessandros, who had began to drag his feet, "I don't like." Nevertheless they continued.
As they got nearer and nearer they heard birds screeching and cawing, a great cacophony. But as they neared the summit there was another shout,
“DAH!”
And a winged beast jettisoned screeching into the sky behind them, it fell several feet before managing to get the angle right. It flapped and flapped until it caught a wind and rose up into the air, but the squall pushed it westward and it slammed head-first into the side of the mountain. The creature screamed in pain, but it was cut short when it suddenly dissipated into a cloud of purplish particles.
"Shouting," said Furioso, "Old nordic art. Words of power."
“And that was a Winged Twilight,” said Aurelius, “That explains the bird soun- “
He was cut off by the raucous of what sounded like a massive angry crow screaming above them. The group ran up the last slope to the very summit, and thus they saw,
There was a twisted creature, like an old haggish witch but with long talon-like claws for hands and feet. Feathers sprouted from her head and back down her spine into a long fan-like tail. Two beady black eyes gazed out from her bloodied face. She was hunched over cradling a broken claw. She screeched and thrust out her other arm, a massive ball of roiling fire tore through the air, melting the snow off the mountaintop. It was heading towards a figure on the other side of the summit, a being that seemed to be made of animal furs and distilled rage. As the fireball neared the creature, it let out another shout and the monster-hag instinctively threw up a magickal ward, the rangers braced themselves for the power of the fur-clad being's throat.
“FUCK!” said a woman’s voice.
Then she leapt aside, the fireball tearing through the air. Aurelius watched it as it dwindled into nothing more than a shrinking glow in the swirling snow. He stood from where he was crouched, began to pull his blade before a hand on the hilt stopped him. He looked at it, a stark dark contrast to the white snow all around. Iszir tilted hir head at the moth priest. Furioso shook his head. Let us 'see' what she does, is what the gesture said.
The witch was shambling across the mountaintop toward the downed fur-clad woman who had dropped her hand-axe in the attack. Clack clack clack came the sound of her talons as she stumbled through the snow, cawing in rage she raised her clawed hand for a final strike. The claw lowered but the woman rolled to the side, turned her head and shouted,
"FO KRAH DIIN!"
For a moment it seemed as if the shout had just thrown up all the snow and frost that remained on the mountain and caused it to charge at the witch. Then the rangers realized that all that frost had come from the woman's mouth. The hag's arm was covered in frost, in moments it stuck to the mountaintop stone and the hag found herself trapped, one arm broken the other frozen to the earth. She struggled and cursed and screamed as the fur-clad woman crawled to her axe and struggled to her feet. She was obviously exhausted as she ambled over to the creature, raised her axe high, and said something only it could hear. The thing snarled at her right before the axe split her face in two. The woman put one foot on the hag's collarbone and pulled the axe out, bits of bone and brain spilling out of the open wound. The woman stood, breathing heavily.
After a moment her head, clad in a dented iron helm, turned to where they lay.
"Why have two southerners and a black man brought me a little karstaag-man?" she said.
Aurelius glanced at Iszir, who shrugged. They stood warily, hands on their hilts. Alessandros, who'd been waited down the slope, stayed crouched over Furioso intending to keep him safe.
"It's not a... one of that," said Aurelius, "It's a minotaur."
"Minotaur? That is a southern giant, is it not?"
Aurelius shrugged, "More or less."
"Is it tame?"
Aurelius shrugged, "More or less." He took a step forward, Iszir ghosting him, "I am Captain Aurelius Leto-Shaihe of the Imperial Legion, and I want to speak to you ab- "
"I am Lagerta Storm-Wife and I do not care what you want," said the nord woman. She reached up to tighten her helmet, then before Aurelius could even form a rebuttal she turned around and ran to the west side of the mountaintop. Then she jumped off.
A half-second later Iszir seemed to materialize where she'd been, arm outstretched to try and catch the woman that had already fallen too far. Aurelius dashed to Iszir's side at the summit's edge and peered down.
They watched as the crazy nord woman was falling, arms and legs outstretched. She was quickly nearing the western slope of the mountain where she would impact so hard her limbs might just blow off, but just when they thought she was done for they saw her tilt her head forward so she was facing the approaching slope, and then suddenly some unknown force pushed her several feet back, safe from harm. A moment later the sound reached them,
^"FUS ^RO ^DAH!"
She repeated it farther down, using the shout to change her trajectory. And they watched as they finally reached the floor, shouting straight down to cushion her landing. She stood up like nothing had happened, glanced up and waved before running on.
Aurelius looked at Iszir. They both grinned.
"I think I like this one, mothbrother," said the Captain, "but we just lost her."
He turned to see the priest climbing onto the minotaur's shoulders, grasping Alessandros' horns like handles and slipping his feet into the fur coat's pockets. He turned his blind face to them and said,
"We need to go, now. She's heading to Orphan's Rock to finish the job, and judging from what we've seen here she'll need our help."
The imperial captain, the sword-singer apprentice, and the minotaur ran down the little mountain as hard as they could.
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