The Bound - A Tale Of Tamriel

21

21

i. Itagaki's dream.

This was all as it had been, all as she remembered. Every grain of sand. Every drop of blood. The heat of the day and the cries of the dying. It had burned into her memory, seared into it and she would never forget this day.

Her liege lord, her chief, was dead. His head a foot away from his prone body, staring at her with empty eyes. Nineteen of her brothers and sisters, on each side of her, also lay in the scorching sunlight. Headless. Dead. And she, with blood drying from the cut above her eye, knelt in the sand, hands tied behind her, stared with undiluted fury at the man before her.

He held her sword, the sword her father had forged for her, with the blood of her tribal compatriots still dripping from the blade, examining it.

"A strange sword. Too thin. Too light. But it removes heads as well as a real sword." He used the tip of the sword to lift her chin. "To think you killed three of my best warriors with this toy."

"It would have tasted your blood if I had not been surrounded." Her throat was dry from the day's fighting, yet she was still able to growl her hatred at this man.

"My offer remains the same." He was the chief of a great tribe. A man forcing other tribes under his control, but her tribe had defied him. "Return to your people. Tell them to kneel before me, or I will take the heads of every man, woman and child and I shall make you watch before you die."

She looked at the head of her chief once more. She had given her life in service of that man, respected him. Loved him, even. He had honour, but where had honour got him now? Headless. His army crushed. And now his people threatened with the same fate. Her people.

Something caught her eye. Something that wasn't how it should be. She couldn't describe it. Couldn't see it, but something was there. Something not right.

"What say you?" Her mind returned to the memory. Playing out as it always played.

She had tortured herself with this decision for so long. It was her shame. She should have refused and died with honour, as her fellow warriors had, but she had thought of her people. Of her ageing father. She thought of the children.

The rival chief removed her sword from beneath her chin and squatted before her, looking deep into her eyes. He did not look like an evil man. He thought uniting the tribes, by diplomacy or war, was the best for them all, he had said as much. Strength in unity.

Her people had refused, although some had counselled hearing this chief out, and they had sealed their own fate. Join the united tribes, or have their tribe wiped from the face of Nirn. She couldn't countenance losing her friends or family. Little was she to know that in saving them, she would lose them.

"I will tell them if I have your word they will not be harmed." She dipped her head, incapable of hiding her shame.

"You have it. But a payment must be made for your defiance and the warriors you killed." Without any warning he slid her own blade into her. It entered her side, exiting through her back and was then removed. The chief wiped the blade and returned it to its scabbard before sliding it and the companion sword into her sash. "If you ride fast, you should reach your healers before you die. We are even, now. Get her a horse!"

She still felt pain from that injury, to this day. The memory of her own sword slicing into her body would never go away, nor the pain of betraying her liege lord or her people. It was this moment, this event, that had formed her pact. To find redemption, even forgiveness, for this act.

"You shame yourself, Itagaki No Sha-Aram!" This was wrong. This did not happen. The decapitated head of the man she had followed as chief was speaking to her! "You shame your family. You shame your tribe. There will be no forgiveness for this."