All Roads Lead To You (A Skyrim Romance Mod fanfic)

Chapter Twenty-One

Aruna rose just enough to see over the stone slab. Most of the vampires were crowded together, apart from three others, who guarded the chamber entrance. Her gaze swept the chamber and she saw Bishop, his hands bound above his head to a wooden post, which seemed to be all that was holding him upright. His chest was bare and covered in small cuts and bruises and his face was bloodied. Aruna knew he must have put up quite a fight at some point. That sounded like him.

Blood flooded her mouth and she realized that she'd been biting down on her lip. Probably not the wisest thing to do in a room full of vampires. A grunt behind her made her jump and she ducked behind the rock and looked over her shoulder.

Benor stirred, groggily pulling himself to a sitting position. He grabbed his head and moaned.

"Shh," Aruna hissed at him. She crawled to his cage and found that the door opened relatively easily from the outside.

"What...what happened?" Benor muttered, "where are we?"

"Keep your voice down," Aruna whispered, "we were knocked out. We're in the master vampire's chamber."

"Are we...too late?" Benor asked.

Aruna shook her head, "not if we move now. Do you have any of your weapons on you?"

Benor felt around, then shook his head, scowling, "damned fiends. When I get my hands on them—"

"What happened to having a plan?" Aruna asked.

"You got one?"

She shrugged, "not a great one, and we'll probably all die, but I do have an idea."

"Let's hear it," Benor said as he crawled out of the cage.

A few minutes later, Aruna and Benor watched the vampires from behind their rock.

"Are you ready?" Aruna asked.

"This plan is insane," he grumbled, "you know that."

"If you have a better one, I'm all ears," she said.

Benor mumbled something under his breath that was laced with expletives, then stumbled out from behind the rock into the open.

"Ugghhh," he groaned, clutching at his head.

All of the vampires spun around to look at him, shock etched on their gray faces.

"What in Oblivion--?" one of them sputtered, "how did you get free?"

"Uhhh," Benor stumbled as if he were drunk, "help me...please..." He crashed to one knee and retched.

"Don't overdo it, Benor," Aruna muttered through clenched teeth.

The three vampires guarding the chamber entrance moved toward Benor, which brought them closer to the other vampires gathered in the chamber.

"What's wrong with him?" Alva spat.

Suddenly, a vampire rose from the center of the crowd, where he'd been seated at a table. He looked different from the others; his head was bald and his eyes glowed eerily. Movarth. He craned his neck as he scanned the chamber and his strange eyes met Aruna's.

"It's a trap!" he yelled.

Too late. Aruna sprang from behind the rock and relished the burning sensation of her power as it spread through her chest and up her throat. She put everything she had into the shout.

"Yol toor shul!"

Her thu'um was aimed well, and the flames caught immediately. Suddenly the chamber was filled with screaming, burning vampires. Even in Aruna's imagination, it couldn't have gone better. Benor lurched to his feet and risked a burn to his hands as he snatched a sword from a flaming vampire.