I found out that week that Aunt Irrillia was the youngest daughter of an important political family in Alinor, she had married my Uncle Harroid without her families blessing. She said we would start heading in that direction, though we may not make it all the way their and our reception might be rather cold.
She taught me to use magic, told me I would make a much better mage than she. Calm, fear, frenzy a couple distruction spells and healing.... she taught me much of healing. You wonder that I don't use much in the way of magic now? The reasons lay with that time, lulling even a monster into vacant stupidity and then stopping it's heart, will play very hard on the mind. Back then with the little training I had and the sheer amount of Deadroth we ran into, it was the best thing to keep us among the living.
I prefer to use the sword and bow, unless I have no other choice and very rarely have I had to use magic to kill in the last couple hundred years.
I went out of the tunnel first had had a good look around, our house was gone and the barn mostly burnt also. What animal's left were to skittish to catch, except our old plow horse. I found a saddle and rope to tie on his halter. I found some grain and a sack and put that together with what supplies we had left, vegetables from the garden and tied them to the back to the saddle so Irrillia could ride if need be. I could run along side the horse, Irrillia could not, not that he would go faster than a trot, but better than nothing.
We both carried bow's and a couple of swords, also Irrillia had made us some traveling cloths, by taking our dresses and splitting them into a loose pant, with hidden pocket's for our money and jewels. We started out under a blood-red sky, with horrible smelling wind's blowing from differing directions.
The first people we met were a couple of young children from the neighboring farm, who said they had been in the barn when the creatures attacked and climbed to the top of the hay stack's and then across the beam's to a small "hiding place". They were scared and hungry, having only eaten raw vegetables from their home garden.
We ran into many deadroth over the next couple day's. I would calm them and Irrillia would stop their hearts. Sometimes if we saw a small bunch and could hide before they saw us, I would cast frenzy on them and they would kill each other off, fear sent them running when we could. Those children picked up both of our spell's very quickly and used them just as well as we did. Irrillia taught us to use runes placed on the ground in front of us at a distance as trap's that the Deadroth would run over and it worked well.
The children and I would place runes of frost and lightning around our camps at night, fire making more light and noise than we wanted at night. It helped those not on watch to sleep better, even if it wasn't the best sort of defense. That poor horse got so used to thing's exploding and disintegrating in front of him, that he rarely so much as twitched an ear.
Am I making it sound like to much of an adventure? Trust me it wasn't, we often found people torn apart or half eaten. Once or twice we found horribly wounded people that Irrillia would "mercy kill" as she called it, their bodies were so infected from their wounds, she could not have healed them even with a group of healers.
We avoided other people after we were attacked by a small group of men. At first we had been happy to see two of them, but one of the children noticed a third hiding in some brush. Irrillia said to be ready with our spells. We ended up having to kill those men, which Irrillia said was a pity because so many had died and we would have shared everything we had with them anyway. This was the first time I used magic against my fellow Altmer on that trip, it wasn't the last.
We made it to the coast and started heading south for Alinor. Irrillia thought it rather strange that we hadn't already run into a large military patrol. Remembering things my father had told me, I wasn't really to surprised, we hadn't stayed on the roads, but usually within a mile or so of them. Patrol's, like the deadroth they were hunting, would take the easiest route, the road. We might have passed a few patrols when going around hill's trying to avoid the Portal's or Gate's to Oblivion as we were to learn later and never knew it.
We could see the smoke from Alinor when we ran into our first patrol, or rather they ran upon us heading back to their garrison. There leader a particularly tall man, with new claw scar's running down his handsome face, asked if we could keep up with them. Irrillia told them that the horse would only go at a slow trot and she could not run at all, obviously, as she placed her hand's around her belly. The commander nodded and said they would travel at our pace, though it would be right after nightfall when we got to the garrison at our best speed.
I continued to lead our horse, with Irillia riding as the children asked questions that from an adult would be seen as rude or tactless. We learned they were Thalmor troupes and many were now flocking to their garrison's that before snubbed their noses. I remember my Father and Uncles talking about them, they didn't like what they stood for, called them terrorists of a sort.
Even though I would later agree, right then and there, I was happy for the promise of a warm bed and a hot meal.... and a bath.
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