Crossfire (A Skyrim Fan Fiction)

Prologue

 I can help us.

"No," I growled aloud, narrowly avoiding a jet of noxious green poison. I swung at the attacking creature but it levitated higher, jettisoning itself above my strike and causing the Daedric blade to meet nothing but air.

I can find the way.

"No!" I shouted, my left hand darting to my forehead as a searing pain stabbed at my temples. The ridged handle of my sword shifted as my right hand spasmed, nearly sending the blade to the ground, but my fingers tightened just in time. "I don't need your help!" The creature floated swiftly to the right and sunk into the deadly sea of green, hardly a ripple revealing its movements. My grip on the sword didn't loosen; I knew it wasn't gone. They were never gone.

You cannot escape alone.

"A Black Book got me here once, a Black Book will get me out." Except that I had found seven of them already. None had worked.

Mora controls the Books. We will not escape that way.

"I don't care," I hissed through bloodied teeth, the place where I'd bitten through my own lip during a particularly bad headache tearing open again. "We're not escaping your way either."

What do you want, Dragonborn? To live here in Apocrypha for ages, as Miraak did? To allow Mora to slowly destroy you spirit until you swear to obey him? These are the things that will come to pass if you do not let me help us.

"There is no 'us'. There is no 'we'. There's you and what you want from me." I staggered backward as the creature of Apocrypha burst through the patchwork ground directly in front of me, acidic tentacles waving madly as it sought to grip me in its deadly embrace. It half succeeded; my neck burned horribly as one tentacle managed to wrap around it, but I severed the poisonous green limb.

My blood accelerated, flowing through my veins with the speed of a diving dragon as the blood of the Dovah ran hotter than the very fire from one's mouth. "Yol Toor Shul!" I Shouted, unable to hold the overwhelming feeling at bay any longer. The creature erupted into flames, writhing and shrieking hideously, then melted back into the acid from whence all monsters in Apocrypha spawned.

Only to reappear as one, two, then three more.

I dodged the first as it flew at me, sliced the second across its twisted version of a face, then I staggered backward as the third dragged its claws straight through my armor and an inch into my side. My Daedric swords reflexively slashed at the creature but it had already melted back into an intangible mist that I couldn't strike with a weapon.

"I can't... keep this up!" I shouted across the oceans of acid as I blocked another tentacle and dodged a stream of acid. "If you're going to kill me, just-" I bit my tongue as a tentacle wrapped itself around my ankle, sending me to my knees and constricting remorselessly with crushing force. Desperate to relieve the pressure before it broke bone, I opened up a bloody cut in my own leg to slice through the slimy thing.

A quiet chuckle echoed all around me, the sound increasing in volume until the very acid below my feet rippled.

He will not stop.

"I'd send you both to Oblivion if we weren't already here," I growled, testing my weight on my now-injured leg. My arms were getting tired and I was getting sloppy. Swiping a trickle of blood away from the corner of my mouth, I raised my swords to the twisted things before me.

The bruise from the tentacle and the bad cut from my own weapon left me far less mobile than before. This unfortunate fact showed itself first in the form of an acid burn on my side where the corrosive liquid managed to eat through my armor, then in a cut just below my eye that sent tears of blood trailing down my face to join the stream from my mouth.

Forgetting my leg, I tried to step forward to take a stab at a creature floating tantalizingly just out of reach and instead fell heavily into a stack of immovable books. Something heavy slammed into my right hand, knocking my sword out of my grip. Gasping as a searing pain shot through my hand, I lashed out blindly with my left sword.

I missed. The object drove through the palm of my hand and out the back, then jerked me off my feet, sending me to my back with a speed that cracked my head against the ground and forced me to drop the sword in my left hand.

Giving in once more to the Dovah blood, I opened my mouth to Shout, but a slimy tentacle wrapped itself swiftly around my throat, effectively gagging me before I could make a sound. Panicking, I wrapped my fingers around the tentacle that impaled my hand and jerked hard, sending the monster off balance, and grabbed the Daedric blade. The razor-sharp edge cut through my armored gloves and added another layer of searing pain to my hand, but the tentacle retreated.

With a wordless growl, I slashed at the tentacle around my neck. The tension on my throat loosened as the severed limb fell to the ground and I rolled over, gasping air into my lungs as I tried to push myself up. My lacerated hand, side, and leg screamed in protest of a movement that proved futile anyway.

A tentacle drove itself through my upper arm, pinning me once more to the floor. I didn't even try to rise this time. If Mora wanted to kill me, I was ready to let him.

Instead, my arm shuddered as the greenish limb retracted. All went silent.

I didn't move, just lay there on my stomach, watching through the stylized grate that made up the floor as my own blood trickled through the gaps, hissing and releasing little clouds of steam as it struck the acid below. It was making so much steam that it was hard to see... or was my vision just clouded?

He will not stop.

A shudder shook my body as my torn hand spasmed. I was so tired of Mora's games, both physically and mentally.

Then let me help us.

My good hand twitched, desperate to assuage the sudden onslaught of pain in my head, but I couldn't get my arm to move.

Mora cannot sense my presence yet. You must let me act before he discovers me; otherwise, escape will be impossible.

My eyes wandered across the acid, following the bubbles that formed and popped. How many times had I stared into the green oceans, wondering if Mora would stop me if I hurled myself into them? If he would stop his creatures if I failed to block a fatal attack?

You would kill us both? I would see us both free of this place. If you choose to no longer resist, at least choose not to resist me.

I could ignore the voice in my head no longer. "How?" I whispered through bloodied lips.

Give me control. I will use my strength to find the knowledge we need to escape.

"I can't even... control my own... body."

I can. You must let me.

Choices. Life was made of choices... or rather, life was created and sustained by choices. Hard choices and easy choices. Easy choices were ones like what to eat for breakfast, which book to read, which sword to wield. Hard choices were ones like which unit to send into battle, who to kill or save, who to trust.

Yes. Make your choice. Trusting me is to choose life; refusing me is to choose death.

There was no right choice here. Every decision I made would be a mistake.

I might as well make the mistake that would free me of this Divine-forsaken place.

The presence coiled and stretched, radiating triumph. We will not be stopped.

Kisvar

is

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I actually missed him so much and I'm so excited for this book.