First Act.

Target : Legion Captain, Marvilo Cendari

Assassin : Lauhna

Location : Fort Ashmouth, Northern Vvardenfell, Morrowind

Special Requests : The captain must die in his quarters, the guards outside his door must not be alerted.

Notes : The captain sleeps on the fourth floor dormitory, three windows, two doors ; One into the hallway, the other a small closet. Captain sometimes sleeps in his armour.

Fort Ashmouth, a newly constructed behemoth on the edge of the regenerating region surrounding the old Ghost Fence, was hardly completed a month before the first assassin was hired to kill off a Captain of the Imperial Legion. The Captain was well liked amongst the men and in the small town that grew up around it along with the tough mountain scrub that was replacing the wasteland tundra that previously covered the area.

It's thick, grey walls were still ashed and blackened all along the south-eastern side, and drifts of volcanic dirt crept into every cranny between the massive stones that it was constructed from. The guards patrolled the parapets relentlessly, as they do in every other fort they occupy. A small change was necessary to their uniform, a netch leather scarf, pulled up over their mouth and nose whenever the ash storms blew, as not to clog their mouth with it's burnt taste. This particular morning, the scarves were down, the sun shone strong and true through the wispy grey clouds, and the townspeople went about their day as usual, collecting ash yams, chatting in the market square, bustling from place to place, with the steady clang of blacksmith hammers setting a steady beat.

The sun rose toward the middle of the sky, it's long journey reaching the downturn, while the folk of Ashmouth continued to toil, on into the afternoon. It gave them a crimson tinge as it settled for evening behind the mountains, the people had settled into their homes, oil lamps and lanterns hung from shop corners, and the candlelight from the homely houses afforded the only light as the first of the twin moons filled the sky. About the time when the second moon began it's rise, Launha arrived along with a biting wind, carrying sharp sand and the howling of nature. Her garb, once depthless black silk wrapped over midnight leather was now irretrievably dirtied, the ash having embedded into the clothes, and wearing away the black inks.

Her tail swayed in irritation, the only exposed fur to the ash, aside from her pointed ears, and both were matted and ruffled badly, only adding to her contrary mood. The fort was ahead, it's blurry silhouette still massive in the roaring sand. She headed down the rough hill toward it, slinking from rock to rock, watching for the indecipherable forms of the guards that marched along, the damped stomp of their march hardly audible in the wind. Making it to the wall without incident, her own sharp eyes unable to discern the guards, and they, facing into the ash, would never have seen a hint of her.

She pressed herself to the wall, then tugged one of her tight gloves off. Wiggling her fingers for a moment, she ran them over the rough stone and mortar of the fort, stroking the grooves thoughtfully as the knives and blades hooked to her rattled quietly, making soft patters against the leather. She sighed after another moment of this caressing, and snapped her glove back on, taking hold of the stone just above her head. The lithe muscles in her arm strained, as she struggled to get the thin sole of her boot to fit into the edging, she managed it after a moment, and pushed herself up, rising her other foot to almost waist height, and finding another foothold, pushing up and catching onto another stone, she scaled the side of the tower, claws aching under her weight, thighs burning with the continuous effort. The ash pushed her harder against the wall in a fearsome gale, ripping at her handholds, burning her eyes and drying out her mouth. She kept on with it, as the night dragged on, the dull light of the red moon above giving her naturally night-sighted eyes just enough to find handhold after handhold, sliding up the wall in her own manner.

Just as her claws felt ready to rip from above her fingers, and she was struggling to lift her feet to even knee height above the next, her hand wavered on an open space, a cavern in the sheer wall of hard stones, and with a final effort she collapsed onto it, sitting awkwardly atop the base of her tail on the windowsill. She shifted about, and found a more comfortable position, though she had to sit tenderly with her tail between her legs and hanging down to brush the ash off the wall. Panting, she cleaned a little circle from the paned glass, and looked into a darkened room, only a single, dying candle flickered weakly to lend warmth and light to the room. On the very edge of the circle, lay the woollen covers and hard wood construction of a bed, the boxy plates of armour outlined by the sheets, and a hand with steel bands along it confirming the suspicion of it, sticking out near the table with it's melting candle.

Using the tip of a thin stiletto she unhooked the window, and squeezed through, landing on the other side with proper feline grace. Her fingers brushed the floor, slinking forward on her toes and balancing herself low to the floor with her tail, there was a groan as the captain rolled over, facing away from the window now. The candle stuttered in the wind that had managed to slip through the window that had been left open a crack. She was almost atop the bed, when the captain, bleary-eyed with sleep began to climb to his feet. She pounced, wrapping a forearm around his face, forcing the soft leather and silk into his mouth as her other hand came round with a sickle shaped dagger, slitting first his neck, letting forth a bubbling burst of blood that sprayed onto her arm, and then embedding it into his spine. The candle sputtered out. Then, with a jerk she withdrew it, and leapt onto the inside windowsill. And with a blown kiss, she proceeded to slide back down the wall.

In the morning, the body was found there, blood staining the front of the golden plates, the bed tousled and the room coated with a fine glaze of ash. On pillow was left two fine hairs of golden fur, missed by the guards, and later the worksmen who cleaned out the room, falling from the bed as it was taken from the room, and left there on the dank stones for years to come as it remained empty and unused.

And so ends the first assassination. I will be writing more, and they'll feature Khajit, Argonain and the occasional delusional orc. If anyone wants too, they can fill out a form like the one at the beginning, and I'll write a story around it!.

Not a bad short story, Silver. You defined what you had in the story well, with a very definite beginning, middle and end. There was also some good description in there and interesting technique of infiltration (finger daggers? Nice!).

Only real problem was that there were a fair few typos in there, for example; "Nessecary." Just sort them out and you'll have yourself a story to be proud of.

Aaand, there we go. Managed to fix the vast majority of my spelling mistakes. And a few grammatical ones, while I was at it.

Hey Silver, first of all I'll just say I very much agree with Bean, it was a good little excerpt, and the finger daggers were a great touch. I also think it's a very intriguing idea this, doing small tales centred around an assassin, with different people to kill and different situations to write about each time. I'll certainly be sending in some forms (I'm gonna start with this pesky guy I know called Bean ).

I do have a small bit of crit though, but only because I used to do the same mistake too before someone pointed it out to me.

This sentence is a bit too long and you use too many commas here like I used to do. There's at least two maybe three sentences to be had out of this portion of text. I've put a slash in where you could've put a full stop and shown deleted text in red, and added text in blue.

This is also a bit of a long sentence to read.

You've got it perfectly here, and this I think is one of the best-written sentences in the story.

I hope that helps and I didn't come across as too harsh , but it will make your story flow much better you'll see. Great little story, keep it up!

Alright, and now the grammatical mistakes have all been patched up as well.

...no requests for the next one? Planning on doing a bit more characterization on whatever assassin I pick. (No, it's not going to be the orc on Moonsugar.) Time for a bit of practise making them seem more lifelike.

Seggund Ahkt

Target : Mathais Redennul

Assassin : Grobash-sha-Kagrah

Location : Redennul Estates, Nibean region, Cryodiil

Special Requests : Must appear to have been a botched robbery.

Notes : Lord Mathais is known to sup in his solarium around 6 every afternoon.

They sat across from one another in the bright, candle-lit room, the red glare of the setting up illuminating the end of the table with a fierce glow. The silverware clicked gently on the gilded plates, servants milled, bringing in new dishes and delicacies for them. Red faded to crimson, and finally to midnight darkness as the great burning light fell below the horizon, leaving the soft candlelight to fill the stuffy room.

They finished the great meal, the servants entering once more in a mass to remove the platters, and clean away the table, leaving the pair of Imperials to look out of the broad-paned window and at the dusky lands below. Laterns of the nightly farmers chasing away scavengers from the crops, and the flicker of fireflies provided light entertainment while they talked slowly and quietly about thier plans in the empire. A rattle shook the crystal glasses in thier holders along the walls, "Hm." One murmured quietly, imagining the Mage's guild nearby that had been raised despite his vehment disagreeal.

The chandelier shook with the second bump, and the two nobles looked at each other, plaintively. "Do you figure those bloody mages have gone and blown themselves up." The other shook his head sadly, "Were we that lucky." And just as he finished, the glass paned exploded inward in a glass storm, sending razor shards skipping into thier skin, and knocking askew carefully hung paintings. "LOOK AT MY PRETTY TAIL."

Mathais' mouth almost literally hung open, both Imperials' staring in sheer disbelief, dumbfounded by the Orc who had just burst through the window. "ISN'T IT NICE?" The Orc bellowed, a cartoon grin plastered from ear to ear on his face, revealing dirty tusks as he rose his hand to his face and inhaled a handful of moonsugar. "Bwa-wa-wa..." Mathais got out, just before his disbelief was promptly split with a great golden battleaxe, that cleaved first through his skull, then into his chest, before twirling into the side of the other Imperial's skull, bursting it like a mouldy watermelon.

The Orc happily splattered the blood about, before ripping paintings from the wall, and making a speedy exit, just as the servants entered the room to the butchery. They stopped in thier tracks, and he lept beastlike off the balcony and into the night.


*cough* Couldn't resist.

I liked the finger daggers mabey the next one could be a count meeting with some other guy and there are gards surrounding the palace and u gotta find some underground passage way using a map pickpocketed from a warden of the highest cournt in the world and then infiltrate the palace and pickpocketing the guy the count is meeting to get some amulet the enchant the ammulet to inflict damage on the werer and put the ammy back in the guys pocket

"LOOK AT MY PRETTY TAIL!!"

I have to use that some time.

Since the next update is going to take longer than I thought, I'm going to do it in two parts... so without further adue...



Aha! A challenge! ... and please don't say the word ammy, it's bringing back memories of 2D Runescape. And the 1990's. The NES nostalgia is killing me.

Third Act

Target : Count Duekoo

Assassin : Hieja-Malli

Location : Imperial City, Cryodiil

Special Requests : Must die gradually through a life draining enchantment.

Notes : To access the meeting room, the catacombs and sewers will have to be successfully navigated ; the Warden in the White-Gold Tower has had a map made recently. The count is going to be picking up a rare amulet from an adventurer in the basement of a lockhouse, this is the only chance in the next few months that the Count will be picking up a amulet that hasn't been inspected by guards.

His thighs were on fire, his eyes burned, arms ached and his tail felt like lead. He edged up another few inches, his strained muscles relaxing with the scant inches that he had decreased between them. The first hundred meters of climbing up the side of the White-Gold Tower had taken little effort, the natural traction of his scales, and the thousands of little hooks on his gloves giving him easy access for the gradual slope, but now it ramped up into an impassable ascent. He had to shimmy the last few hundred meters, taking more than most of the night, seeing as the sun was now glimmering faintly as a tiny shard across the horizon.

The early morning light shone on his faded blue-grey scales, coated in chalk, and they drank the warm red rays in, and he continued to drag himself onward, tail swaying slowly. He glanced over his shoulder to see his progress, and instantly wished he hadn't. Below, falling away as if he was in the star-touched heavens, there was the Imperial City, shaped like a great disc upon the ground, with the thick outlying ring of the walls. The people were indiscernible from the ground, and houses were nothing but children's blocks. He continued on, shaken. Assassins were trained not to feel fear, no terror, no shock, but this was beyond anything he was prepared for.

He finally got to the window that he was headed for, marked days earlier by a carefully inserted spy posing as a maid. He ripped the red towel away, and used it to clean the chalk from his back, shaking vigorously with the joy of being free of the dry powder. Here, so high up and in the Imperial province, his scales itched the sheer lack of moisture dying them out, some peeled away leaving shinier scales beneath, the scales and chalk went with the towel into his pack. Out of the pack came a dreary plain brown robe, and that went over his assassin's garb, masking it's bulk almost perfectly.

The room was empty as planned, but he only opened the door a silver, peering through with a sharp, reptilian eye. It was empty, aside from the stray dust bunnies that now laid claim to the expanse of cold stone, their empire of dirt momentarily invaded by his clawed feet. The bunnies mounted a fair defence, drifting around his ankles and exploding against the hem of his robes, but their opponent was too fiercesome even in his ignorance, destroying their forces with an absent swish of his tail and obliterating their kingdom that had taken weeks lurking in forgotten corners to build.

He followed the corridors along, their cool interior reminding him of the tightly enclosed spaces of the jungle in the Black Marsh, broken here by grand intersecting corridors, and in his home by open expanses of water from which it's name was derived. It was spectacular nonetheless; the Ayelids who built this tower in ages past were truly masters of stonework art, grand arches and the sheer height of the tower attesting to that truth. Unfortunately, he didn't have the time to admire the scrolling edgework, as he walked impassively through the halls toward the Warden's office. After a few minutes of wandering the bone-white halls, he found the solid oak door, it was open a fraction letting the warm glow, and the soft snap, of a crackling fire out into the lonely hall.

He crept closer, the only sound was the brush of the robes as he drew up to the door, pressing against the frame and peering in. Normally, such a movement would be suspicious and could attract the attention of a passer-by, especially a bored servant or maid with little else to do. But after the Oblivion crisis, the use of this great tower had been slowly dwindling, without an Emperor to look after and the Council staying in their private villas, only convening in the lower chambers. He listened at the door, and upon hear the soft snort of a sleeping man, he closed his fingers around the edge of the door and slowly pushed it inward, stopping when it met the resistance of a high-seated rug, and slipping between the door and jam.

Meeting the warmth of the blazing fireplace head-on, the first thing that his eyes snapped to next was the peacefully slumbering form of the Imperial, Costra Mondades, who was the current Warden. The man, with his grizzled beard and thick features resembled nothing better than a hibernating bear, especially considering his bulky physique. Hieja murmured a soft-spoken prayer to whichever God, or Goddess, of luck had granted him this favour. Slinking across the room with grace that would have shamed a Bosmer in the trees, he lifted the map of the sewers from the desk, rolled it into a tight tube and slipping it up, and into his sleeve.

Whatever god of luck had been with him previous both abandoned and betrayed him now, and his ever so careful step came down upon the haft of a halberd, imported from Vvardenfell, and so happened to be balanced against a rack of broken spears. They clattered to the floor, rousing the Warden in a surprisingly quick fashion. It must have been the soldier training kicking in, or some long dormant trait that the man possessed that brought him to full attention in a flash, though he was a touch too slow to catch the dart of Hieja as he sprinted down the hallway, cutting through the hindering robes with a blink-slash of steel. Even so, when he darted into the room that he entered from, the Warden, clad in full armour by the jingling stomp of his step, was close enough behind to follow the Argonian in.

There were a few moments before the massive hulk of a man entered the room, quick thinking along with quick movement is needed for every assassin, and Hieja measured his choices in moments. Hiding would be worthless, the Warden would know he was somewhere in the room. Fighting would ruin both the assassination, and the Imperial might win. He took an option he hope wouldn't turn out to be fatal, leaping from the balcony. Doing so in the traditional sense would obviously kill him outright along with contact on the ground, so he spread his arms and the broad map, trying to slow himself in the air as his feet scrabbled at the smooth surface of the White-Gold Tower. Down, down, down, speeding toward the ground so quickly that he felt as if a team of horses were surely drawing him there, but he skipped off the final slope of the tower, and crashed into a number of thin wooden crates with a horrific clatter.

The nearby citizens backed away, unsure of how this explosion of wooden splinters had occurred, and deep within the wreckage, a blue tail twitched slightly. He was alive. Surviving through sheer luck, and the mass of pillow crates he had impacted, even still there were painful spears of wood driven through him, and his scales were torn in a bloody mess. The map, made it out unscathed. Stuck in the mess, the Legion guards had decided to leave it for the day, he waited patiently with the noon sun dragging across the sky searing down with scorching heat, and he was stuck in this burning hell of feather down and wood, blood slowly congealing all down his side. The throb of the impaled limb slowly faded, which could only be taken as a bad sign, and as dusk finally over took the light, he would have traded the Emperor's Sceptre for a pond.

Crawling out of the wreak, leaving a splash of darkened blood along behind him and dragging his bloodless leg along behind him, he slowly made his way along the street like a dying cripple, which he technically was at the moment. Reaching the nearest healer he knew, an apothecary in the Market Quarter, he promptly collapsed on the doorstep. He was dragged inside a few minutes later, with a surprised gasp and a conspicuous glance up and down the street. Another person left a few minutes later, dragging the bloody rags furthur on down the cobblestones, leaving a long trail toward the Arena.

...

Good stuff though it did have rather too many errors in grammar and spelling.

You might want to consider writing it in word or openoffice writer or another similar program as a spell check would largely eliminate the spelling errors and typos. You also might want to think about leaving it overnight and re-reading it before you post it as this often catches things which don't quite work.

was derived. (<- Spelling.) - looks like you left a note in there...

Having said that the actual stories are good and you manage the very short format you use well.

Continued...

The blur of golden-orange lanterns left streaks across his eyes as they blinked slowly, he tried to raise his arms, and hiss. Neither worked out exactly for him, as his arm moved upward at an awkward angle, yanked by the sling to graze his cheek, and the hiss started out better, but ended in a death rattle, and a slight gurgle. He struggled to sit up, but a searing pain that spread from along his back kept him down as effectively as a net. As he settled back, the cool amenities of the room became apparent, soft balms flowed up along his sides, and a soft sparkling light drifted across his chest and down along the shattered arm.

There were no windows in this enclosure, scarcely larger than a broom cupboard, with only just enough room for someone to sit on the stool at the head of the bed. Hours passed, or they could have just been incredibly dragging minutes, the dull light of the lanterns lulling him back to sleep. It felt like no sooner than he closed his tired eyes than a soft tsk signified the changing of oil in the only source of light, it puttered out, and was soon replaced by a brighter light. He sighed heavily as the figure slipped into the room behind the back of the retreating maid. "Hieja... You secured the map. You have our thanks."

The Argonian struggled to focus his eyes on the black robed other, it had a lilting Bosmeri accent, and though the hood was draw far down over the other's face, the height and voice could only fit with one of the Wild Elves. "Yessss..." He rasped back. "You don't look fit to finish the assig-" The Argonian tore himself from the covers, spatters of salve dripping to the floor and fleeting out from the whiplash of his tail. "The target, is mine." The long puckered scar that split the right side of the lizard-man's ribs gleamed as light as a robin's egg, matched by a puncture hole through his upper arm and thigh. Despite this, he drew up to his full, impressive, height, flaring angrily. "I worked for thisss. His blood ssshall be on my blade. No other." The mer seemed nonplussed, "Very well. But you only have a day left, and by the looks of the sewers, you will have no time to waste."

An hour later, and no one would find a trace of the Argonian who stayed in the secret little enclosure, and would have nothing to find of his equipment, all replaced with new midnight leather. Hieja himself would only be noted in the next few hours at all by few living creatures, most being the vicious red-eyed rats that, though mad with disease, knew better than oppose this stalking figure. The only true violence that occurred was brutal and swift as it's beginning, marking the messy end of a dirty goblin that stood in front of a grate that was blocking the path, clogged with detritus and flotsam.

He only just resisted the urge to dive into the waters down in these abandoned aquaducts, instead he found a complacency in brushing his figures across the inlaid patterns of the walls and slender pillars, the trail of water or the scent of it for the guard's hounds. It was a simplistic journey from there, weaving through the labyrinth of tunnels and crossways, until he came to the rusted ladder that ascended into the dark cellar of a townhouse above. The trapdoor creaked dangerously, and the thick rug slid away with a thud, letting him slide through and press himself to the clammy brick wall, almost invisible in the darkness.

The rug was carefully edged back into place, even the mould was shifted back into a seemingly untouched position, and he waited away the time for his target to arrive. The adventurer entered the basement first, setting up a little table and a wax candle upon it, Hieja press himself harder against the wall, willing the light to bend off the unassuming enchantment that hid him from unobservant eyes, and though he normally had no belief in the magic of the Guild that was plied in Cryodiil, he found himself praying that he had an expert's hand on his shoulder instead of a newblood apprentice. It held, and he slid along the wall slowly, inch by inch over the space of minutes, the warrior sitting at the table busying himself with drink and a tattered set of playing cards.

The six of Dragons was set upon a dark seven of Blades, a globule of wax slid down the side of the candle, and with a careless, iron clad, hand it was pushed away from the deck. The three of Septiums slid gracelessly between thick fingers as the player muttered sailors' curses under his breath. It found a spot back in the deck as the cards were reshuffled with a steady patter of a trained dealing hand, and this soft flitting of cards covered the assassin's approach as he first slid the amulet off the rough belt, a belch and the flop of redealt cards covered the muttered cantrip, and the engrossment of the game kept the mercenary from noticing as the pendant slid back onto his belt with a soft red glow.

It was some motionless hours later that the Count arrived, words were exchanged, and a bottle of flin along with a hefty bag of golden coins found their way into the dealer's hands, and Duekoo left with the deadly jewellery, dying weeks later during the convening of the council as the last of his life drifted away from his grasp, leaving his body that had been sickening for weeks to sit slouched in the high backed chair, grey, pallid and decorated with only a single vanity, a thick golden amulet that contained a dark ruby, an ellipses of cracks making it seem like a feline eye. He had no family to claim it, and by the time the piece was removed from the study lockbox of the legion the killer curse had long since died under it's own weight throughout the years.

::I'll go over this with a Microsoft Word, once get out of work for the night. Oh, and le fin for Act Three.

Fourth Act : Cold Shoulder

Target : Garjan North-Foot

Assassin : Lauhna

Location : Tundra, Solstheim

Special Requests : None.

Notes : Garjan lives out on the tundra, in a log cabin, often visited by caravans that he trades with for animal pelts. He has lived out there for fifteen years, and is missing his right eye. Known to wrestle bears.

**** ****

Solstheim, a frozen island just north of Vvardenfell and during the winter, fall, and even late spring, it is a desert of ice and snow, hills of white that melt away in the summer, and glistening brides that cover over the rivers. The new home for some of the Nords that had been driven back ages ago from Vvardenfell itself by Chimer and Dwemer, Lauhna couldn't understand how the bareskins could survive up here. Even with her natural fur, and the thick coat she had bought from one of the caravan trades that she travelled with, it was still freezing and little icicles grew on the wooly inside of the hood. Still, at least she wasn't making this trek alone, and she didn't have to walk as long as she kept on sitting in the back of the covered wagon, her poor frozen paws just brushing the top of the snowfall as the wheels thumped and spun, the Cryodillian horses snorting and shivering in the cold.

This miserable journey had lasted four days already, stopping at night with the wagons in a laeger around a bonfire of the hardy firs that grew in that desolate landscape. The ring of wagons served two immediate and important purposes ; keeping the little 'snow goblins' knives away from thier throats, and reflecting the heat back onto them. It was midsixth day, and the traders were supping on frosty scrib jelly, bread, and the occasional tart was bartered between them. Lauhna spent most of her time with the burly Redguard, Birgilis by name, curled close to him and sharing his food. Not for affection, but because his warrior's form was warmer than sitting on the cold logs that the rest favoured. She looked out across the plains, and just before a looming mountain-like glacier was the blocky, black, form of a hut, a stream of smoke issuing from it's top, looking like a fuzzy line in the distance.

They got nearer as the day went by, until finally the caravan stopped before the great longhouse, made from what had to be ancient logs from some warmer past in Solstheim's past. Just before it was a block of stone, and North-Foot himself, chopping through the trunk of a tree with as much effort as an ordinary man puts into slicing butter, his great twin bladed axe sinking through the wood. Trading got underway, furs for foodstuffs, tribal-like talismans made from teeth for mead, and anything that was leftover for gold pieces. It went on for some hours, as noon ticked by, the sun making it's relentless track across the sky, even it's burning might not piercing the chill wind below.

Being no ameture or new assassin with a lust for blood, she let the wagon train pass on by the house, as he returned to hacking firewood, the broad stretch of his shoulders rising and falling with the mighty axe. They were passing over the next hill by the time he had all the wood chopped, and was now relaxing against the study frame of his home and drinking from a dented metal tankard, shining dully in the shade of the overhang, where he rested away from the early afternoon light.

The wagons creaked, rattled and groaned as the day proceeded along it's way to night, and as dusk fell the wolves were howling paticularly loudly as they formed into the ring once more. Traders chatted idly as the bulky frames pressed together, nervous murmured prayers to ward against wolves and worse. Birgilis looked forward to having the little Khajit girl sit on his lap, she had kept him warm in more ways than one, though he would never openly admit that to her. The other men and mer grumbled angrily about this. All routine, all for the last time.

In the middle of the night, the wolves rose to an unholy chorus, and red light flickered against the blanket of clouds on the horizon, stumbling through the whipping wind and snow was a single figure bundled tight against the gale. Come morning the burnt out husks of two wagons were lodged together with ice and the body of a Redguard was frozen under one, horribly burned but the throat was torn out while the rest of the body remained unmauled, unlike the remains of his fellows.

But that night, the shivering person stumbled away from the ravenous wolves that descended on the caravan and into the dark, toward the distant blinking light of a fire reflected through small-cut windows. The clouds parted to let slashes of moonlight through, one patch illuminating the longhouse in an unearthly glow, and spinning about Lauhna saw possibly the most terrifing sight of her life, the sky itself was alight with multicoloured flames that rippled across the sky like a wave, changing colours as it flickered above the clouds. Then the gap closed again, and she was left shuddering, those must have been the 'polar lights' that the bareskins found so enchanting. Typical of them.


.....