The two elves didn't respond with words, but the subtle, immediate tightening of their postures was a confession in itself. Larethil's knuckles went white on his daggers, and Anariel's jaw clenched so hard Torin thought he could hear her teeth grind from a distance.
He let out a dark chuckle. "That must have been bad," he mused, his voice carrying easily in the tense air. "You see, Skjor here told me a few stories about his days with the Legion..."
He gestured casually toward the veteran warrior, who was watching him with a look that very clearly said, 'I absolutely never did.'
Torin pressed on, his tone becoming deliberately crude and insulting. "Apparently, he killed so many of your kind that he developed a bit of a reputation. The seasoned ones, the ones who'd seen him work... they'd see him coming and just start pissing themselves."
He shook his head in mock sympathy. "Course, no one would ever know, what with the color of your armor and all. That's why his unit started calling your lot 'piss-elves.'"
He let the vile term hang in the air for a moment. "I can't even imagine it. Getting a relative's corpse back, thinking he died a hero, only to get a whiff and realize he'd pissed his fancy breeches. Tragic, really."
The effect was instantaneous and volcanic. The polished composure of the Thalmor agents shattered. They trembled, not with fear, but with pure, undiluted rage. Anariel's face contorted into a mask of hatred, the fireball at her staff swelling with her fury.
"You ignorant savage!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with venom. "I'll burn the flesh from your—"
That was as far as she got.
A small, brown-furred cannonball launched from the rocks behind her. Echo hit the Altmer mage square in the back, her powerful jaws clamping down on the woman's shoulder.
Anariel's cry of rage turned into a scream of shock and pain as the bear's momentum sent them both tumbling over the ledge in a chaotic whirl of limbs, fur, and black robes, crashing down into the deep snow of the clearing below.
Torin's eyes, which had been alight with mockery, flashed with cold, predatory intent. His warhammer felt light in his newly healed hands.
"Echo! Hang in there!" he roared, and charged toward the downed mage.
Seeing his partner fall, Larethil moved to intercept, a blur of green-hasted speed. But Skjor was already there, his shield slamming down like a portcullis to block the elf's path.
"Not so fast, 'piss-elf'," Skjor growled, a grim, approving smile finally touching his lips. "Your dance is with me."
Oblivious to the duel unfolding nearby, the female elf and the bear cub tumbled down the slope in a furious, snarling ball of robes and fur. They hit the flat ground with a heavy thud, snow flying in all directions.
With a desperate, strength-born-of-panic shove, Anariel finally managed to push Echo off, following up by cracking the cub hard across the skull with the shaft of her staff.
Echo yelped and scrambled back, shaking her head violently to clear the stars from her vision. Anariel, her robes torn and her shoulder bleeding, struggled to find her footing in the deep snow.
She was just standing up, her eyes wild with pain and fury, when Torin's figure materialized in front of her. He didn't roar, he didn't taunt. He was just there, his warhammer already in a devastating, full-armed swing.
"Curse y—"
The rest of her sentence, and her life, were cut short. The heavy, metal head of the hammer connected with her temple with a sickening, wet crunch. Her body went limp, flung sideways like a ragdoll to land in a broken heap against a rock.
Torin didn't spare her a second glance. His eyes immediately found Echo. He let out a sharp breath of relief as he saw the young bear shake her head again, more deliberately this time, before fixing a low, rumbling glare on Larethil, who was still locked in his deadly dance with Skjor.
Torin himself felt no urge to join the fray. Without the mage raining fire from above, the assassin was on a timer. Skjor was a force of nature in a stand-up fight, and the elf's hit-and-run tactics were losing their effectiveness against the veteran's unyielding defense.
Instead, Torin walked over, picked up the gnarled staff from the snow beside the dead mage, and gave it an experimental twirl. It was warm to the touch.
"You need any help over there?" he called out, his voice casual.
Skjor deflected a flurry of dagger strikes with his shield, the clang of metal on metal ringing out.
He scoffed, not taking his eyes off his opponent. "No. Especially not while you're holding that thing. I'd rather not be on the receiving end of your 'clever ideas'."
Torin shrugged. "Suit yourself. But hurry up and finish him, will you? We don't have all day, and I'm starting to get hungry again."
...
The trek back down the mountain was a grim, silent affair, broken only by the crunch of their boots on the snow. Both Torin and Skjor were spattered with dark, drying blood, and a bloody-muzzled Echo padded contentedly behind them, occasionally licking her chops.
Out of nowhere, Skjor let out a short, sharp chuckle that echoed in the quiet. "Piss-elves," he grunted, shaking his head. "That's a good one. Crude, but effective."
Torin sighed wearily, the adrenaline of the fight fully drained from his system. "Ironically enough," he remarked, "that pointy-eared milk-drinker actually did piss himself right before you put him down. Guess the name fits better than I thought."
The brief amusement faded from Skjor's face, replaced by a grim, concerned scowl as he remembered the few, hissed words they'd managed to pry from the assassin before silencing him for good.
"I can't believe the Thalmor are carrying out operations like this all over Skyrim. Hunting down veterans in their own homes..."
Torin shrugged, though the gesture was heavy with the weight of the revelation. "There's nothing weird about it. It's just smart tactics. The Empire handed them the keys to the kingdom with the Concordat. They'd be fools not to use their access to tie up loose ends."
He kicked a loose stone, sending it skittering down the path. "Call it revenge for their dead, or call it rooting out future threats. A lot of reputable legionnaires who made a name for themselves in the war are going to find a dagger in the dark."
Skjor's face twisted into a mask of bitter resentment. "Damned Empire. We gave our best years, our blood, fighting their wars. And this is how they repay us? By letting these golden-skinned bastards hunt us like animals on our own soil?"
A slow, knowing grin spread across Torin's face. "I knew you weren't as indifferent about the whole situation as you pretended to be back in Whiterun. Still, it's not all doom and gloom. If nothing else, there's a steady supply of Thalmor for you to kill."
Skjor didn't deny it. He just let out another low chuckle, this one devoid of any real humor. "I think I've killed enough of them for one lifetime, boy."
Torin scoffed, his gaze turning toward the distant, snow-capped peaks. "Well," he said, his voice dropping to a cold, determined edge. "I most definitely haven't."
Skjor shot Torin a look that was pure, unadulterated exasperation.
The boy was a walking contradiction. He had the mind of one of those eccentric, gray-haired Imperial battlemages—the kind who'd spend days muttering over scrolls in their tent, only to emerge and annihilate an entire enemy regiment without blinking.
Yet, he wasn't so detached.
He'd quit training drills before he was fully spent, unlike the other whelps who pushed until they dropped, yet he never seemed to fall behind. He was cautious to the point of paranoia, but when the moment demanded action, he was as decisive as a headsman's axe.
A complete enigma.
They walked in silence after that, the only sound their footsteps and Echo's occasional snuffling. When they finally arrived back at the wayshrine, the sight that greeted them brought them both to an abrupt halt.
Scattered around the base of the ancient stone were several small birds, lying motionless in the snow. Their tiny bodies were perfectly intact, but utterly still.
"What in Oblivion...?" Skjor muttered, his hand instinctively going to his sword hilt.
Torin's eyes scanned the scene, his mind working. He noticed the way the birds had fallen, the lack of any physical wounds. He winced. "Poisonous gas," he concluded, his voice grim. "Must have been in the coin purse. A delayed-release mechanism, triggered by movement or time, hells, maybe even magic. We would have been royally fucked if we'd taken it with us."
Skjor let out a low, impressed hum. The boy's paranoia had just saved them a nasty, undignified death. "So we just forget about the coin, then?"
Torin shook his head, his gaze fixed on the shrine. "There can't be that much of the gas left. It's probably dissipated by now, or nearly so. We can just keep climbing up, and grab the purse on our way back down. But for now?" He took a deliberate step back. "Better to steer clear."
Skjor let out a groan that came from the very depths of his soul. "You still want to make the climb? After all of that?"
Torin simply shrugged, as if they'd just had a minor disagreement over the weather instead of surviving a Thalmor assassination attempt.
"We're already halfway through. Doesn't make sense to turn back now. What's more," he added, a glint in his eye as he looked up the endless steps, "I still want to see the top."
...
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