[Skyrim, Hjaalmarch] After the Dawn

Morning was minutes old and they were already on the move again. Through the thin scraps of mist, the bobbing lights of their torches could still be seen just visible against the first rays of that morning. He could just about see eight before they were obscured from sight. Still far too many to face unaided, especially in his state.

Sitting in a crumpled heap of tarnished armour and ragged clothing, Calith rubbed his sleep deprived eyes with the forefinger and thumb of one hand. Even in the brief hours he had been able to risk to rest between pursuits, it had not come easily. He could not remember when he had last been able to eat, or even approach one of the north's isolated settlements for sustenance, without risk of the riders trapping him. They were wearing him down and they knew it. Between the fitful nightmarish dreams, blinding rays of the sun and the endless chase across Skyrim's frozen borders; Calith was reaching a point close to collapse. His body was all but screaming out for fresh blood and the dull throb of constant hunger usually kept under control had become a maddening howl within his skull. Even with several their number dead it was only a matter of time before he was finally caught and… what? Staked with silver? Flayed alive? Impaled upon Stendarr’s divine horn? He’d yet to discover what these fanatics did to those of his kind they captured. Nothing good certainly, especially for ones carrying daedric artefacts on their person.

Not for the first time since the chase began, Calith removed the heavy tome from his backpack. It had been months since he had looked in the bloody thing, let alone written in it and yet it remained with him. Part of him had been hoping that with neglect it would become bored of the bosmer’s presence and latch onto someone else, allowing him to successfully evade his pursuers without them tracking his every movement. No such luck. Holding it in hands for a few seconds Calith stood upright and then hurled the book down the frozen hillside he had set up camp upon. It was a futile effort and sure enough he felt its weight returning to his pack seconds later. “Nine give me strength” he hissed, resisting the ever increasing urge to take his dagger to its pages.

Brushing the frost off of his cloak he managed to drag himself upright and looked to the north. It wouldn’t be long before he reached the marshlands and then Morthal. No doubt the riders would attempt to head him off in the city, but it would be difficult to ride through that unstable mass of mud and freezing water. Perhaps he’d last long enough to find a tavern wench, a beggar, someone who wouldn't be missed, who wouldn’t… Calith stopped in his thoughts as he caught sight of the vigilants once more, trotting into an open glade shaded from the sunlight by the trees behind them, and for the first time in months a grin broke his craggy features. Four of the horses were riderless. Each fitted with a flaming torch in place of a mount to disguise their true numbers. Clever bastards, they knew his weaknesses, his virtual blindness to sunlight in this state; they’d been gambling he’d not see just how few of them there were. Eight he would have died against but four? Within a settlement in which he could hide amongst the cattle and pick off the fanatics one by one? He might just last that little longer after all.

Staying low to the ground, keeping under whatever shelter he could find Calith departed. Hurrying from the hillside and making for isolated city of the Hjaalmarch.