Torin emerged from the cave's mouth, blinking in the harsh, grey daylight of the Reach. The final stretch of stairs had been more like a ragged slope of earth and exposed roots, climbing right out of the hillside.
He raised a hand, and the handle of his axe—still slick with gore from the last ambush—shot from the gloom below and smacked solidly into his waiting palm. He gave it a sharp, practiced flick, sending a fan of dark droplets spattering across the wet stone.
Clearing the small Forsworn camp that had been nestled just outside the cave hadn't been as effortless as he'd hoped, but it hadn't been hard, either. There'd just been… more of them.
A dozen, maybe fifteen, boiling out of lean-tos and from behind rocks in a frenzied, disorganized last stand. It had been messy, loud, and now it was over.
He took a moment to catch his breath, the cold air sharp in his lungs, and finally looked up at their destination.
The Sundered Towers. Or what was left of them. Two jagged fingers of ancient, crumbling stone clawing at the leaden sky, connected by a collapsed archway. It was a grim, impressive sight.
But it wasn't the ruins that held his gaze. Nor Qasim's, who had emerged silently beside him.
Their attention was pulled, magnetically, to the center of the ruined courtyard. A strange stone altar, roughly hewn and stained dark, stood there. And before it, with his back to them, stood a Forsworn warrior.
He was unlike any they'd seen. He wore only a pair of rough boots and a kilt of fur and leather strips. His torso was bare, a canvas of old scars and woad tattoos.
And on his head was not a helmet, but the complete, hollowed-out skull of a massive elk, the antlers forming a ragged crown.
He was utterly still. He didn't turn. He didn't seem to register their presence at all.
Then, without any warning or ceremony, he moved. His hand closed around the hilt of a sword lying on the altar. As he lifted it and turned to face them, two impossible things became clear.
First, the gaping hole in the center of his chest, where his heart should have been. In its place, pulsing with a sickly light, was a grotesque, thorny plant—a Briarheart, its tendrils burrowed deep into the surrounding flesh, glowing with an eerie red-and-green bioluminescence.
Second, the sword. As he raised it above his head, the ancient blade didn't just catch the light—it caught fire. But not normal fire. A liquid, clinging flame dripped from the blackened metal, sizzling violently as it hit the damp stone floor, sending up coils of acrid steam.
Torin's eyes narrowed. He glanced at Qasim. "That," he said, his voice flat, "looks an awful lot like your sword."
Qasim didn't take his eyes off the Briarheart. He gave a single, slow nod. The weapon was ancient, its blade stained black not by soot but by centuries. Strange, yellowed bones were woven into the hilt and crossguard.
"It is," Qasim confirmed, his voice tight with a mix of reverence and grim resolve. "And so I ask you to leave this to me," he said, his tone leaving no room for debate.
He unsheathed his own, modern scimitar, the steel whispering from its sheath.
Torin simply shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just try not to get set on fire. It's a pain to heal."
He took several deliberate steps back, giving the Redguard a wide berth. Echo, sensing the shift in the air, let out a low huff and padded back to stand protectively beside Torin, her dark eyes fixed on the flaming warrior.
...
Back at the cave entrance, the world was a study in grim, grey stillness. Aela and Auri had each melted into their chosen spots—Aela behind a tumble of mossy boulders to the left, Auri nestled in the twisted roots of a wind-bent pine to the right.
They were two statues of vigilance, eyes scanning the misty slopes and the winding path below.
The silence had stretched for a long time, broken only by the sigh of the wind. Finally, Aela shifted her weight, the leather of her armor creaking softly.
"So," she said, her voice low but carrying easily in the quiet. "This reason you want to leave. It doesn't have anything to do with Torin, does it?"
From her perch in the roots, Auri turned her head slowly, giving Aela a strange, unreadable look. "What makes you say that?"
Aela shrugged, her eyes never leaving the treeline. "My little brother's… dislike for elves isn't exactly a secret. He usually keeps it leashed, but it's there. He lost his mother to the Thalmor." She paused, picking a piece of lichen off the rock beside her. "That was the first time you've spent any real time alone with him. And not long after, you're talking about leaving Jorrvaskr..."
Auri couldn't help but let out a soft, dry chuckle. "I can't say he was the best company I've ever had, no. Quiet. Intense. Thinks with his axe first, or so he'd like others to believe..."
She watched a lone hawk circle high above. "He didn't say or do anything to upset me, if that's what you're asking." Her expression shifted, turning sly and teasing as she looked back at Aela. "But what if he did? Would you challenge him in my honor? A duel at dawn?"
Aela scoffed, a sharp, dismissive sound. "You can challenge him yourself if that were the case. In fact, I'd pay a lot of gold to see it." Her tone softened, just a fraction. "That said, I'm just curious why you really want to go. And why now."
As if to punctuate her question, a single, fat snowflake drifted down, swaying on an unseen current. It floated right in front of Aela's face.
She reached out a gloved hand and caught it, watching it melt instantly against the leather. "This time of year is the worst possible time to head north. You'll be fighting blizzards all the way to Winterhold."
Auri watched the gesture, then shrugged, a small, secretive smile playing on her lips. "Well," she admitted, "that does have something to do with your little brother." She grinned, a flash of white in the gloom. "If I'm heading north, then it might as well be with a… trustworthy companion. Or at least, a capable one."
She looked up at the heavy sky, more snowflakes beginning to spiral down. "And it's always snowing in the north, isn't it?"
Hearing those words, Aela gave her an exasperated look. "So it's that simple, huh?"
Auri merely smiled at her, as if to say, why couldn't it be?
...
Torin sat on a fallen block of masonry at the base of a crumbled pillar, his axe resting across his knees. He watched the dance of death unfold in the ruined courtyard for what felt like the hundredth time.
Clash-hiss—scrape!
Qasim darted in, his scimitar a silver blur aimed at the Briarheart's side. The Forsworn champion, moving with a speed that belied his hulking, plant-pierced frame, brought the flaming sword around in a parry.
The moment the two blades met, liquid fire sprayed from the ancient weapon. Qasim didn't try to hold the bind; he used the impact to push off, leaping back a full ten feet, putting precious space between himself and that withering heat.
They'd been repeating this exact, frustrating pattern for ten straight minutes. Lunge, clash, retreat. Lunge, clash, retreat. Torin was bored, but he wasn't stupid. He saw the deadly calculus at play.
In pure, refined swordsmanship, Qasim was peerless. Every move was economical, every feint purposeful. He was an artist with that curved blade. The Briarheart, on the other hand, wasn't fighting with skill; he was fighting with a curse.
The ritual that had torn out his heart and replaced it with that glowing, thorned abomination had gifted him with unnatural physical prowess. His strength was monstrous, his speed preternatural.
Torin knew that matching that raw power would require him to layer on spells—Greater Haste, Ebonyflesh, maybe even Gigantize again. Qasim didn't have that luxury.
He was fast, incredibly fast, but so was the Briarheart.
The Redguard was clever. He could read the Briarheart's brutal style, creating tiny, perfect openings in its guard. He'd see a gap at the hip, a delay in the recovery of a heavy overhead swing.
But every time Qasim's blade shot toward that opening, the Briarheart would simply move, using its savage speed and strength to forcibly interpose its own sword, turning what should have been a killing thrust into yet another ringing, fiery clash.
And that was the real problem. The fire.
The enchantment on that old bone-hilted sword wasn't just for show. The heat radiating from it was intense enough to make the air shimmer. When steel met that blackened blade, it didn't just spark; it softened.
Torin could see the fine edge of Qasim's prized scimitar beginning to warp, to glow a dull orange at the point of contact. One solid, held parry, and Qasim's weapon would be a molten, useless twist of metal.
So Qasim retreated. Every single time. He couldn't afford not to.
It was why he was stuck in this lethal stalemate, wearing himself out with constant, explosive movement, while the Briarheart, powered by that grotesque plant-heart, showed no sign of tiring at all.
Watching the two warriors clash yet again—a dance of silver and flame—Torin had to admit, grudgingly, that the Briarheart would give him a fair bit of trouble. If he was fighting it straight up, trying to prove something. If he was just trying to win? Different story.
The truth was, for all their cursed power, Briarhearts were like some monsters from his old world's myths. Take a cyclops—if those even existed here.
Terrifyingly strong, nearly unstoppable… but with one huge, obvious weakness you could build a whole strategy around. The Briarheart's weakness was literally glowing in its chest. It was an invitation.
Unlike Qasim, Torin wasn't limited to just swinging a piece of metal.
A well-placed Dispel spell aimed at that pulsing plant-heart would probably make the whole thing shrivel up and die, leaving a confused Forsworn with a very large hole in his sternum. If that didn't work, he could always just reach out with his mind and yank the damned thing out with telekinesis.
There were a dozen ways to make the Briarheart's life very short and very miserable.
He was mentally cataloging these options when a new sound cut through the rhythmic clash-hiss of the duel.
CLANG—scree-scree-scrape-THUD.
That wasn't the clean ring of a parry. That was the sound of something metallic hitting stone, then bouncing, skittering, and finally coming to rest.
Torin's eyes snapped back to the fight.
Qasim was stumbling back, one hand frantically slapping at the smoldering hem of his robe where a glob of liquid flame had landed. His other hand held his scimitar… or what was left of it.
The fine steel blade had sheared cleanly in half just past the hilt, the broken end glowing a dull, angry red.
The Briarheart, sensing victory, let out a guttural roar that echoed off the towers. It began a slow, deliberate advance, its flaming sword trailing sizzling drops on the wet flagstones.
Echo surged to her feet beside Torin, a deep, rumbling growl building in her massive chest, the fur on her shoulders bristling. She was a coiled spring, ready to launch herself into the fray.
Torin didn't move. He just grinned, a sharp, knowing expression, and reached out to rest a calming hand on the bear's shoulder. "Easy, girl," he said, his voice low. "Sit. Watch. Let the preachy bastard have his moment."
Qasim straightened up, ignoring the smoking tear in his robe. He tossed the useless, glowing hilt of his broken sword aside. It clattered on the stones. He stood empty-handed before the advancing monster.
Then, his remaining hand—his right hand—curled into a fist at his side. Not a fist of desperation, but of focus. A ghostly, pure white light began to emanate from his clenched fingers, seeping through the cracks.
It wasn't fire. It wasn't lightning. It was colder, sharper… a light that seemed to cut the very air around it.
The light intensified, flowing up his arm, coalescing, stretching… forming the faint, shimmering outline of a blade. A sword made of solidified spirit, of will and memory.
...
I'm motivated by praise and interaction, so be sure to leave a like, power stone, or whatever kind of shendig this site uses, and more importantly do share you thoughts on the chapter in the comment section!
Want more chapters? Then consider subscribing to my pat rēon. You can read ahead for as little as $1 and it helps me a lot! -> (pat rēon..com / wicked132)
You can also always come and say hi on my discord server -> (disc ord..gg / sEtqmRs5y7)- or hit me up at - Wicked132#5511 - and I'll add you myself)