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(A/N: Also everyone I have a new novel a Dragon Age Inquisition novel named "From Couch To The Inquisitor", be sure to check it out and give some power stone)
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Aerion turned his gaze back to the burning fortress in the distance. "They will give me medals, they will give me wealth, and they will give me a thousand men to bleed for them. But they will never give me the province. I must build my own foundations." Valerius stood in stunned silence on the ice wall. The brutal, inescapable geopolitical reality of Aerion's words completely shattered his idealistic view of the Legion's meritocracy. He opened his mouth to reply, to offer some form of reassurance, but he didn't know how to answer the stark truth.
"Ensure the night watches are rotated every two hours," Aerion ordered softly, dismissing the political conversation entirely. "The cold can kills faster than arrows as we don't realize until it's to late. I am going to eat with the mena and women, before then I am going to sleep."
"Yes, Captain," Valerius swallowed hard, saluting stiffly before descending the ice stairs.
Aerion remained on the wall for a moment longer, internalizing the silence of the mountains, before heading down to share a bowl of hot stew with Lydia, Jenassa, Eisa, the four mages, and the men and women of his unit. He retired to his heavily guarded tent shortly after, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep, his core humming with the infinite power of the artifact tethered to his soul.
The dawn broke over the Winterhold mountains in a blinding wash of pale gold and brilliant white.
Aerion was already awake, fully armored, and standing at the center of the camp as the regiment broke their fast. The air was electric. The apprehension of the previous day had completely evaporated, replaced by a cold, hardened determination. Today was not a skirmish. Today was an execution.
Aerion walked up the reinforced wooden steps of a supply wagon, turning to face his one thousand men. He did not wear his mask.
"Men and women of the Legion!" Aerion's voice thundered across the basin, bringing the entire camp to an immediate, rigid halt.
"Yesterday, you broke their spirit and you held the line against the fire!" Aerion declared, pacing slowly across the wagon bed. "Today, we enter the fortress. We take their walls, we take their keep, and we take their lives!"
He gestured broadly toward the towering peaks in the distance.
"I could step out onto that plateau right now and blow the rest of that fortress into absolute dust!" Aerion boasted, a charismatic, dark arrogance lacing his tone that made the men grin fiercely. "I could bury them under a mountain of ice and be done with it! But the Emperor's quartermasters would weep over the lost real estate, and General Tullius expects an intact stronghold!"
A ripple of dark, tension breaking laughter washed through the heavily armed ranks.
"So we do this the old way!" Aerion roared, drawing his Ebony Greatsword. "With steel, with shields, and with Imperial discipline! It is time to show this entire province exactly why the Legion is the greatest military force on the face of Nirn! We march until the blue banners burn!"
"FOR THE LEGION!" Hundreds of men and women voices screamed in unison, slamming their weapons against their shields in a deafening, metallic crescendo that rattled the ice walls of the camp.
Aerion stepped down from the wagon, sliding Krosis over his face. He mounted the massive skull of the alpha mammoth, his retainers and apprentices taking their positions behind the herd, and the massive column marched out of the glacial gates.
A mile away, inside the shattered, blood soaked courtyard of Fort Kastav, the atmosphere was a suffocating nightmare of despair.
The Stormcloak garrison was fully awake, standing in rigid, trembling shield walls behind the hastily erected timber barricades blocking the breach. But the fire in their bellies was completely gone.
The rumors had spread through the barracks overnight like a plague. The survivors of yesterday's slaughter had whispered of the invincible beasts, the unyielding Imperial phalanx, and the demonic High Elf who had literally ripped a dragon out of the sky and butchered it in the snow. They knew about the crazy defense of Whiterun. They knew that facing the Captain was a death sentence.
The Stormcloak officers and the Fort Commander were moving frantically up and down the lines, screaming oaths to Talos and threatening to execute any man who broke rank. They were holding the garrison together with sheer terror and the desperate, fading hope that the ravens they had sent to Winterhold and Windhelm would bring a massive reinforcement army before the sun set.
But as the rhythmic, earth shaking thud of forty four massive mammoth feet echoed across the plateau yet again, and the crimson wave of the Imperial Legion crested the ridge, the Stormcloak morale shattered completely.
Aerion did not wait for the enemy archers to loose a volley. He wanted to break them immediately.
He tapped into the Eye of Magnus, drawing a staggering, volatile surge of magicka. He raised both hands and unleashed a relentless, rapid fire bombardment of overcharged Fireballs.
Because his magic was augmented by the artifact, the spells did not act like normal destruction magic. They acted like heavy artillery.
The massive spheres of superheated fire plasma shrieked across the snow and slammed into the surviving stone towers and the timber barricades. The explosions were deafening and loud kabooms that sent massive shockwaves rippling across the courtyard.
Watchtowers violently detonated, raining crushing stone blocks and burning men down onto the tightly packed Stormcloak shield walls. The timber barricades were instantly vaporized into clouds of lethal, burning splinters.
"CHARGE!" Aerion roared over the explosions.
The eleven armored mammoths charged.
They hit the disorganized, terrified Stormcloak lines with vastly more aggression and brutality than the day prior. The beasts, sensing the fear in their enemies, became feral engines of destruction. The alpha mammoth swung its trunk like a scythe, snapping the spines of five men in a single, devastating arc before plunging its iron capped tusks entirely through the chest of a heavy berserker, lifting him into the air, and tossing him violently over the fortress walls.
The Imperial legionnaires flooded through the breach behind the herd, maintaining their flawless, two line phalanx, systematically executing the staggering, disoriented rebels with brutal, mechanical weapons slash and thrusts.
"DON'T LET THEM BREATHE!" Aerion commanded.
To completely shatter whatever lingering hope the Stormcloak officers possessed, Aerion reached back into the void of Oblivion.
Forty Daedric Atronachs violently tore into reality, filling the courtyard with roaring flames, freezing winds, and crackling lightning. The Atronachs immediately fell upon the flanks of the Stormcloak defenders. Frost Atronachs waded into the melee, their massive ice fists literally punching through the cheap iron breastplates of the rebels, while Storm Atronachs hovered above, calling down targeted lightning strikes that electrocuted entire squads.
The sheer, overwhelming sensory overload of the assault, the exploding magic, the roaring beasts, the screaming demons, and the unstoppable wall of Imperial steel, was too much.
"RETREAT! FALL BACK TO THE KEEP!" a panicked Stormcloak officer screamed, completely abandoning the defense of the courtyard.
The order was the final nail in the coffin. The Stormcloak lines completely disintegrated.
Men threw down their heavy shields and battleaxes, turning and sprinting in blind terror toward the heavy wooden doors leading into the deep interior of the fortress. Others, realizing the keep was a death trap, scrambled desperately over the broken, snowy walls, attempting to desert the battle entirely and flee into the freezing mountain passes.
"Hold the courtyard!" Aerion ordered Praefect Valerius as the mammoths finished grinding the last of the vanguard into the mud. "Secure the perimeter! Have Tribune Arcturus take the archers and line the walls. Shoot down any deserters attempting to flee, and ensure no one flanks us from the mountains!"
"Yes, Captain!" Valerius shouted, immediately deploying the cohorts to lock down the exterior of the fortress.
Aerion slid down from the alpha mammoth. The massive beasts were too large to navigate the narrow, heavy stone archways leading into the inner courtyard and the keep itself.
He drew his Ebony Greatsword, the dark metal hissing in the cold air.
"Lydia, Jenassa, Eisa. Mages," Aerion commanded, his voice cold and absolute. "With me. We finish this in the dark."
Aerion led his elite strike team through the heavy, iron banded doors and into the claustrophobic, torch lit confines of the inner courtyard.
Inside, the Stormcloak Fort Commander and his final retinue of elite, heavily armored officers had massed their remaining forces. They had formed a desperate, multi layered shield wall blocking the entrance to the main keep, assuming that because the towering mammoths and the Daedric army could not fit through the doors, they finally had a tactical advantage in close quarters combat.
They were catastrophically mistaken.
Without the necessity of protecting a massive legionnaire formation behind him, Aerion was unchained. He was vastly more dangerous in a confined space.
"Hold the choke point!" the Fort Commander roared, his face pale and sweating, pointing his heavy broadsword at Aerion. "He doesn't have his beasts! Kill him!"
Aerion didn't even break his stride. He raised his left hand, weaving a terrifying, concentrated stream of Chain Lightning.
In the tight, stone walled confines of the inner courtyard, the magic was devastating. The blinding blue electricity tore from Aerion's fingertips and struck the center of the Stormcloak shield wall. The lightning violently arced from man to man, the heavy iron armor of the officers acting as a perfect, lethal conductor. The entire front rank of the shield wall convulsed violently, their muscles seizing as the electricity boiled their blood, dropping a dozen men to the stone floor in smoking, twitching heaps.
Before the second rank could even step forward to fill the gap, Aerion charged.
He hit the line with the kinetic force of a battering ram. He swung the massive Ebony Greatsword in a brutal, horizontal arc, the razor sharp, enchanted steel cleanly shearing through the iron shields and the men holding them.
Lydia, Jenassa, and Eisa flooded into the breach behind him like a pack of starving wolves. Lydia bashed a reeling officer in the face with her shield, stepping through to drive her blade into his stomach. Eisa flowed around a heavy axe swing, the Pale Blade humming as she severed a man's hamstring and drove a dagger into his neck. Jenassa moved through the shadows of the courtyard, her ebony bow singing a deadly rhythm at point blank range, burying arrows directly into the exposed faces of the Stormcloak guards.
The four apprentices, staying safely near the entrance, provided surgical artillery. Onmund and J'zargo hurled precision Ice Spikes and Firebolts past Aerion's shoulders, perfectly picking off any archers attempting to take aim from the upper balconies of the keep.
The melee was explicit, lightning fast, and breathtakingly brutal. Aerion cleaved through the elite guards as if they were made of parchment, his massive stamina reserves allowing him to swing the heavy greatsword with terrifying speed and precision.
Within minutes, the inner courtyard was a slaughterhouse.
Only the Fort Commander and two heavily wounded officers remained, backed entirely against the heavy oak doors of the keep. The Commander was breathing heavily, his Steel Greatsword trembling in his grip as he stared at the towering High Elf who was completely unmarred by the combat.
Aerion stopped ten feet away, letting the tip of his Ebony Greatsword rest against the bloody cobblestones.
"Die for your false king," Aerion stated coldly.
The Commander roared, a desperate, final charge, swinging his Steel Greatsword in a massive, two hnded overhead chop designed to cleave Aerion's skull.
Aerion stepped effortlessly inside the swing. He brought the heavy iron pommel of his greatsword up in a vicious, shattering uppercut that crushed the Commander's breastplate and fractured his sternum. As the man gasped, dropping his weapon, Aerion spun the greatsword and drove the heavy, dark blade directly through the Commander's chest, pinning him violently against the heavy oak doors of his own keep.
The Commander coughed a spray of blood, his eyes rolling back, and died instantly.
Aerion ripped the blade free. The two remaining officers immediately dropped their weapons, falling to their knees in the blood and pleading in sheer terror.
Aerion turned slowly, looking back at the massive iron doors leading out to the main courtyard, where hundreds of surviving, terrified Stormcloak infantry had been watching the massacre of their leadership.
Aerion raised his bloody Ebony Greatsword high into the air.
"YOUR COMMANDER IS DEAD!" Aerion's voice boomed, magically amplified to shake the very foundations of the fortress. "YOUR WALLS ARE BROKEN! SURRENDER NOW, OR I WILL BURN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU TO ASH!"
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the crackle of burning watchtowers and the howling of the mountain wind.
Slowly, agonizingly, a heavy iron battleaxe fell from the trembling hands of a Stormcloak soldier in the main courtyard, clattering loudly against the stone.
Then another. And another.
Within seconds, the deafening clatter of hundreds of heavy iron battleaxes, broadswords, and banded shields hitting the frozen cobblestones echoed across the shattered courtyard of Fort Kastav. The sound was a definitive, undeniable death knell for the northern rebellion.
Surviving Stormcloak soldiers, their faces smeared with soot, blood, and the ash of the Daedric Atronachs, fell to their knees in the snow. They raised their empty, trembling hands into the freezing mountain air, their spirits entirely broken by the execution of their commander and the apocalyptic violence they had just witnessed.
The siege was over. Fort Kastav had fallen.
Aerion stood in the center of the carnage, his golden eyes sweeping over the kneeling, broken garrison through the jagged slits of his bronze mask. He lowered his bloody Ebony Greatsword and turned smoothly toward the heavily armored Imperial phalanx that had maintained its flawless discipline just beyond the inner archways.
Praefects Valerius and Quintus stepped forward, their breathing heavy, their crimson cloaks torn and stained, but their eyes wide with the sheer, intoxicating shock of absolute victory.
"Captain," Valerius breathed, his voice hoarse. "The courtyard is ours."
"Do not let the adrenaline dull your wits, Praefect," Aerion commanded, his voice carrying a calm, unyielding authority. "Have the men move in. Bind every single one of these surrendered Stormcloaks. Use heavy rope, and strip them of any hidden daggers or lockpicks. Confiscate their dropped weapons immediately and pile them under heavy guard near the breach. Do not give them a single scrap of steel or a momentary lapse in attention that they might use to free themselves."
"What of the deserters, sir?" Quintus asked, gesturing toward the shattered curtain wall where dozens of terrified rebels had fled into the treacherous, snow filled mountain passes. "Shall I dispatch Tribune Arcturus and the light infantry to hunt them down?"
"No," Aerion dismissed the idea instantly. "Let the cold and the wolves have them. Our outmost priority now is securing this fortress and neutralizing any remaining threats within its walls. We do not divide our forces for cowards."
The two Praefects saluted crisply, turning on their heels to bark rapid fire orders to the Tribunes. The Imperial legionnaires immediately broke their rigid shield wall, advancing in tight, disciplined squads to systematically tied and bind the kneeling Stormcloaks, kicking their discarded weapons far out of reach.
Aerion sheathed his greatsword and walked purposefully toward a cluster of prisoners. He easily identified a high ranking Stormcloak officer by the heavy, bear pelt mantle draped over the man's iron armor. The officer was bleeding from a shallow cut on his forehead, looking up at the towering High Elf with a mixture of bitter hatred and paralyzing terror.
Aerion crouched slightly, bringing the terrifying, expressionless bronze visage of Krosis level with the officer's face.
"Your commander is dead, and your outer garrison has yielded," Aerion stated, his voice a low, echoing rumble. "I am going to ask you exactly one question. If you lie to me, I will drag you over to the mammoth herd and let them use you to clean the mud from their cleats. How many of your men are still holding out inside the depths of the fortress?"
The officer swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the colossal, blood stained beasts lingering near the breach. The threat was not an empty boast, he had seen those beasts trample his brothers into paste.
"Fifty," the officer spat, his voice trembling despite his defiance. "Maybe fifty men and women. The interior guard. They are the ones responsible for the deep armories and the dungeons. They didn't come out for the courtyard slaughter. They are the true sons and daughters of Skyrim, Elf. They will hold the narrow corridors to the absolute death."
Aerion stared at him for a long, heavy second before standing back up. He offered a slow nod. "Then they will die."
He turned back to Valerius and Quintus, who were overseeing the disarmament of the prisoners.
"The exterior is secure, but the interior remains a threat," Aerion informed his command staff. "There are approximately fifty die hard holdouts entrenched inside the keep and the cellars. Praefects, you will remain out here. Keep this courtyard perfectly secure, stabilize the prisoners, and treat our wounded. I will take my personal retainers and the four battlemages to clear the inside of the fortress."
Quintus frowned slightly, his veteran instincts flaring. "Captain, fifty entrenched men in narrow stone corridors is a meat grinder. Allow me to send the first and second units in with heavy shields to clear the rooms. You have done more than enough today."
"I gave you your orders, Praefect," Aerion replied smoothly, leaving absolutely no room for debate. "Hold the yard."
Valerius and Quintus exchanged a brief look before snapping into crisp salutes. "Yes, Captain."
Aerion gestured to his inner circle. Lydia, Jenassa, Eisa, J'zargo, Onmund, Brelyna, and Eirik immediately detached themselves from the Imperial lines and formed up behind him. Together, they stepped over the shattered, bloody remains of the fortress doors and entered the dark, torch lit interior of the main keep.
The air inside was thick, smelling of stale ale, sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of drawn steel.
As they walked down the first dimly lit stone corridor, Jenassa let out a soft, exasperated sigh, wiping the blood from her sword and dagger.
"I must ask, Patron," the Dunmer mercenary murmured, her crimson eyes scanning the shadows. "Why are we doing the final sweeping? You have a hundreds of armored legionnaires outside who would gladly take a cut for you. Why not send the grunts to clear the cellars?"
Aerion did not break his stride. "Because, Jenassa, relying entirely on an army breeds complacency. A blade that is not swung rusts in its scabbard. We are not fighting disorganized bandits today, we are fighting hardened, cornered Stormcloak veterans. If you do not test yourselves against true warriors when the opportunity arises, you will never grow stronger. You must push your skills."
Behind his back, Eisa and Lydia exchanged a look, both letting out a quiet, synchronized sigh. 'He is a battle junkie,' they thought collectively. They respected and admired their Patron/Thane, and they respected his unyielding drive, but his desire to personally butcher every high level threat in the province bordered on obsession.
If only they knew the truth. Aerion was not a battle junkie. He was a pragmatist. Fifty of the Stormcloak veterans represented a massive, concentrated pool of combat experience. He needed to farm them to continuously push his newly reset combat skills back toward their maximum thresholds. He was not going to let random infantrymen steal his experience points.
"I will not be relying on my Destruction magic for this clearing," Aerion announced as they approached a heavy set of wooden double doors leading to the main barracks.
He reached over his shoulder, but he did not draw the Ebony Greatsword. Instead, he drew the Black Prism. The exquisitely enchanted ebony longsword hissed in the damp air, its blade immediately pulsing with flickering flames, crackling static, chilled frost, and a deep, blood red aura of health absorption.
Then, Aerion reached his left hand casually into the empty space beside his hip. He tapped into his dimensional inventory.
With a soft, localized displacement of air, a heavy, brutal weapon materialized directly into his grasp. It was the Poacher's Axe, a weapon he had claimed months ago, featuring a viciously sharp woodcutter's head mounted on a reinforced steel haft, perfectly balanced for brutal, close quarters hacking.
Eirik, the mercenary mage who had joined them recently, stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw literally dropped as he stared at the axe that had just been pulled from the absolute void.
"By the Eight..." Eirik gasped, rubbing his eyes. "Where... where did that come from, Master? You don't have a scabbard for an axe! Did you just pull that out of thin air?"
J'zargo immediately reached over and slapped a heavy, fur gloved hand over Eirik's mouth, while Onmund immediately shushed him.
"Quiet, Nord!" J'zargo hissed playfully, his feline eyes narrowing. "You ask too many questions. The Master possesses many secrets. If he has shown you the invisible pocket dimension, it means you are officially considered one of his closest retainers. Be grateful, keep your mouth shut, and focus on the task ahead. He will explain later."
Eirik nodded frantically against the Khajiit's hand, his respect for the Captain soaring into uncharted, terrified heights.
Aerion ignored the whispered exchange. He stepped up to the heavy wooden doors of the barracks and kicked them violently inward, splintering the heavy iron lock.
The room beyond was a sprawling, stone pillared mess hall. Over thirty Stormcloak veterans had overturned the heavy oak dining tables, creating a makeshift, jagged barricade across the center of the room. They crouched behind the wood with heavy crossbows and drawn broadswords.
"There is no escape!" Aerion's voice echoed off the stone ceiling. "Your commander is dead. The fortress has fallen. Throw down your weapons and surrender, and you will be treated as prisoners of war!"
A heavily scarred Stormcloak lieutenant stood up from behind the barricade, leveling a heavy steel crossbow directly at Aerion's chest.
"Skyrim belongs to the Nords, you Imperial boot licker!" the lieutenant screamed, his voice raw with hatred. "We die before we yield!"
"As you wish," Aerion replied coldly.
The lieutenant pulled the trigger. The heavy steel bolt snapped across the room. Aerion didn't dodge, he simply raised the flat of the Black Prism, effortlessly deflecting the high velocity bolt into the ceiling.
Then, he charged.
Aerion was a terrifying, blurred force of nature. Dual wielding the elegant, deadly Black Prism and the brutal, utilitarian Poacher's Axe, he bypassed conventional swordplay entirely, adopting a ferociously aggressive, relentless rhythm that his retainers had never seen before.
He vaulted cleanly over the overturned tables, landing directly in the center of the Stormcloak formation. A veteran swung a heavy battleaxe at his ribs. Aerion caught the haft of the axe with the hooked beard of the Poacher's Axe, wrenching the weapon violently out of the man's grip. Without missing a beat, Aerion drove the Black Prism through the man's breastplate, the elemental enchantments instantly freezing, burning, and electrocuting the flesh even as the blade stole his life force to feed Aerion's own vitality.
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[Main Panel]
Name: Aerion
Race: High Elf (Altmer)
Health: 1030/1030
Stamina: 1070/1070
Magicka: 980/980 [External Capacity & Regeneration: ∞]
Level: 267
Skills: Animal Affinity (MAX LEVEL), Fast Skill Levelling (MAX LEVEL), Fast Magic Mastery (MAX LEVEL), Instant Shout (MAX LEVEL), Dragon Master (MAX LEVEL), Eye Of Magnus (MAX LEVEL), Summon Dragon (MAX LEVEL), Destruction (Fire(+7)/Lightning(+5)/Frost(+4)) (Level 0/0/0), Restoration (Healing(+4)/Purify(+2)) (Level 0/98), Alteration (Level 43), Illusion (Level 62), Conjuration (Necromancy/Summoning(+3)) (Level 37/0), Persuasion(+3) (Level 92), Smithing(+1) (Level 79), Sneak(+1) (Level 64), One Handed(+2) (Level 0), Two Handed(+1) (Level 29), Lockpicking (Level 55), Archery(+1) (Level 0), Enchanting(+1) (Level 23), Light Armor(+2) (Level 42), Block (Level 70), Pickpocket (Level 8), & Heavy Armor(+2) (Level 0)
Shouts: Fus Roh Dah (Force Balance Push), Tiid (Time), Krii (Kill), Feim Zii Gron (Fade Spirit Bind), Su (Air), Laas (Life), Yol Toor (Fire Inferno), Kaan (Kyne), Zul Mey Gut (Voice Fool Far), IIZ (Ice), & Faas (Fear)
[Inventory Panel]
1x Small Sack, Poacher's Axe, the Golden Claw, Arvel's Journal, Inkwell & Quill, Thief Book, Parchment Rolls Of Mammoths Farm And Loan, Ebony Claw, The Mirror, Ring of Pure Mixtures, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), Deed to Tundra Homestead, Dawnbreaker, Traveling Backpack (Supplies), Vampire Armor, Vampire Boots, Movarth's Golden Ash (Unique), Potion of Healing, Mage Boots Of Weight, Master Robes Of Destruction, Staff of Jyrik Gauldurson, Gauldur Black Bow, Dwarven Battleaxe, Mehrunes Razor Hilt, Mehrunes' Razor Pommel, Stone of Barenziah (1/24), Mehrunes' Razor Blades, Iron Circlet of Ruby, & Iron Circlet of Emerald
2x Common Soul Gem (Empty), Black Soul Gem (Empty), & Potions of Plentiful Magicka
3x Potions of Minor Stamina, Petty Soul Gem (Filled), Potions of Minor Magicka, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), & Greater Soul Gems
5x Mod Chests
8x Iron Arrows, Ancient Nord Arrows, & Common Soul Gem (Filled)
9x Potions Of Minor Healing
10x Lesser Soul Gems
12x Black Soul Gem (Filled)
Weight: 49.79 KG / 885 KG
Septims: 255,867