19: Weariness

As I walked past the bloody, battered guards, I realized that what had happened here was big. These guards were extremely well trained, and it was not easy to damage their morale. Yet the hellish onslaught had worn away at their nerves; they had watched their city be destroyed and their families be burned away. These men were not soldiers. They were not meant to be fighting off an entire Daedric invasion. They were not meant to watch their city burn.

I passed a badly wounded guard and sent my healing spell into his chest. It did not help his weariness, but when he realized that a capable mage had arrived to help, his eyes brightened a little. I healed him one more time and continued up the line.

It was not much of a defensive line. The guards had simply sharpened logs and piled them into a fence. It was sad defensively, but strangely impressive. The guards must have reacted very quickly and efficiently to be able to construct something in the middle of a war zone. I smiled at the ingenuity of man and mer, and finally reached the captain.

“Sir, I’d like to offer my hand in the retaking of Kvatch.” He looked at me with weary eyes and frowned.

“Retaking Kvatch? That is impossible at the moment. I appreciate the offer, but we simply cannot get into the city with that huge Oblivion gate open right in front of the city gates!”

“Well… Close it.” It seemed like the obvious solution to me, but the captain seemed to get rather angry.

“Close it?! How?! In all my years as captain of the Kvatch guard, I have never seen anything like this. I haven’t the faintest idea how to close it!”

“Well, as an experienced Daedra conjurer, I can tell you that all you need to do is disrupt the anchor.”

“Disrupt the what? Look, I don’t know much about anchors, but I’m fairly certain that they are on boats!”

I sighed. I didn’t want to get into an argument about correct anchor location with the captain, I wanted to help! I began to get somewhat annoyed with the captain; he had no idea what he was talking about! I decided to tell him what I was going to do, and then do it. He could mull over semantics all he wanted, and when I returned we would retake Kvatch!

“Look, captain. I’m going in there.” I pointed at the massive, fiery portal, “When the gate has been closed, we will retake Kvatch. Until then, I would recommend staying here and leading your men.” I stepped over the fence and made my way to the Oblivion Gate. The captain said nothing to me, but I could feel all the soldiers gazing at me as I approached the Gate.

The Gate emanated many things. Heat was the predominant force excreted, but I also felt an overwhelming surge of hatred and sorrow as well. I examined the portal for a moment, looking at the fiery red that swirled violently in front of me. I kicked a rock through to make sure I wouldn’t just explode when entering Oblivion. I knew that this portal was essentially a giant conjuration spell, and that it wouldn’t hurt me, but one can never be too careful. I swallowed my fear, drew my axe from my side, and stepped through the strangely cold portal…