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Chapter 4
Xighden Lienx
Last Seed 20
The city
of Suran was small, but I liked it. There were interesting people and
well-paid jobs. Not to mention that Deselle’s House of Earthly
Delights was more than an acceptable place to spend time. There was
all the moon sugar a Khajiit could want.
I had
finished the work that the Imperial Guard Captain had given me.
Clearing out a single nest of bandits. It hardly seemed important
enough of a job to release a prisoner for, but I wasn’t complaining.
Up until a few days ago, I had spent the last three months in
Imperial jail cells. I had taken a job to kill some Dark Elf who was
causing trouble. Turned out however, that he was actually the son of
a very powerful nobleman. When the Dark Elf father found out of his
son’s murder, he sent out a small army to track me down and have me
fully impaled by Imperial law. And that was how I had ended up in
Vvardenfell. The prison trip had been torture. Those Imperials didn’t
like you if you weren’t a human or an elf. They had barely fed me the
entire time. Ever since I had stepped foot in the Hlaalu run city
though, I had been feasting to regain my strength. I no longer
resembled the thin, gaunt, Suthay-Raht’s. I had recovered my broad,
Cathay-Raht body. I still had of lot of muscle to rebuild, however.
Yes, the
city of Suran was good, and there were few problems. As I rested in
the House of Earthly Delights, however, with a meal and a skooma
pipe, one of those problems walked in the door. It was Daric Bielle,
a Breton mercenary. He walked in the room and to no surprise, was
drunk. He hadn’t much cared for me ever since I had taken all the
jobs from Avon Oran away. I turned my attention away from him, but
that did little. He approached me anyway. “So, you’re still here,
huh? Xighden? That’s your name, right? You just planning on sticking
around and taking all the work, cat? Or are you going to see what you
can steal and make your way out?” he asked me, with his hands down on
my table.
“I am just
here until tomorrow and then I’ll be leaving. And I won’t have to see
the likes of Daric Bielle anymore,” I responded. He became angry.
“You
Khajiit are all the same. You sneak in and take whatever you can, and
then get hopped up on your sugar.” he aggressively proclaimed,
knocking my skooma pipe off the table. A few patrons turned to see
what was happening. I rose to my feet, and glared into the Breton’s
eyes.
“First
off, Cathay-Raht do not need to sneak. And about the sugar; I
understand that the Breton prefers the drink, but it doesn’t need to
break my pipe,” I said to him, as I walked much closer. I could have
slashed out his throat so easily, but I refrained. “Perhaps the
Breton should leave, before he gets himself in trouble.” I then
growled deeply, baring my teeth. Daric may have been stupid, but he
did have enough courage to take a swing at me. Whether it was the
alcohol or not, his punch was wide and not a threat to me. I avoided
it, and grabbed him. He was light, and I used my superior strength to
lift him up and easily heft him across the room. The Breton drunkard
stayed down. One of his friends, however, the Nord, Snorri, did not.
The human rose to his feet and took a few steps towards me. We were
the same height and about the same weight. At that moment, I lowered
myself into a proper stance and prepared for a good fight.
“Hey! Cut
that out!” Deselle yelled at us. The owner of the building was
standing on the bar, and had a stern look on her face. “No more
fighting in here! I’ve got a business to run.” Helvienne Deselle was
a good person, and I liked her enough to respect her wishes. Snorri
and I both took our seats, as Daric left the building. The patrons
then turned their attention back to the girls dancing on stage. I
left the establishment after a short while longer and returned to my
temporary dwelling.
The
Imperials had not made any effort to contact me, though frankly, I
didn’t much care. I had mostly just been traveling around Tamriel,
and I figured that Morrowind was as good of a place as any. I did
however, have plans other than running errands for the local Hlaalu
noble. I was going to Vivec, to join the ranks of the Vvardenfell
Fighters Guild, and get back into my old profession. I could use a
good bounty to get the vigor back in my system.
The
following evening, I made my way out of Suran. I had decided to leave
on foot. It was evening, and the sun had just set. I usually
preferred to travel by night. Less cliff racers. As I stepped though
the gates, however, I found myself being followed. It wasn’t just
that I could hear them clunking around behind me, trying to sneak, I
had even caught the human scent. As well as the scent of mazte. I
continued walking a bit further out of town until I turned around and
confronted them. It was Daric and Snorri, to no real surprise. It was
dark, but that was no problem. All Khajiit had a good level of
infravision.
“Leaving
so soon? We haven’t even had a chance to say good-bye,” Daric
sarcastically stated to me. His attempt at intimidation was
unsuccessful though, and I did nothing, short of reaching for my
battle axe. Daric looked surprised, but Snorri did not, and welcomed
the confrontation by pulling out a battle axe of his own. While I was
equipped with bonemold pauldrons, greaves, and a cuirass, he wore
Nordic chainmail, and fur gloves. That was the good thing about
Nords. They could always be counted on to give a demanding fight.
Daric backed off, with his dagger in hand, and Snorri stepped
forward.
“Xighden?”
he asked.
“Yes.” I
responded with a nod. He held out his arms, as if welcoming the
fight, and bowed.
“Snorri,”
he said, simply. I liked his battle ethic. It was probably quite
intimidating for most.
At the
same time, we both pulled up our heavy axes and swung at one another.
There was a loud clash of steel. Recovering from the jolt, I reversed
my direction and, with excellent speed, swung around to sweep him off
his feet. He was more nimble than I had imagined, however, and had no
problem hopping over my swing. He even added a swift kick to my face.
I reeled from the strike, and became a bit more excited, and a bit
more weary of my opponent. The next few minutes offered nothing less
than sheer chaos. Our axes made contact more times than I could
remember. There were several dodges, kicks, tackles, and leaps,
although, neither of us landed a solid blow on the other. We stepped
back, pausing momentarily, before engaging in our final attack. He
rained down the edge of his Nordic weapon with an overhand chop. I
raised the base of my weapon to block it. We stayed like that in a
contest of pure strength for a few seconds, before I twisted his
weapon away with the flat edge of my own. At that second I felt the
calming, almost sad feeling of victory. I knew that I was in the
position to make the final strike. All that was left was to finish
it. And I did. From that twisting motion, I continued to spin around
and with all my strength, finished the swing by slicing into the
right side of his torso. My blade penetrated his chain mail armor and
made a deep cut into his body. Not fatal, or as deep as I had
predicted, but enough to bring him to the ground. Daric made no
advances towards me, as Snorri lay bleeding on the ground. I backed
away, and continued on to Vivec. The two of them were left to return
to Suran. I hoped that I would encounter Snorri again. He was a good
fighter.
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