The Battle of the Red Ring

  Cyrodiil

  Spring, 4E175

  (Twenty-seven years earlier)

  Silent and implacable as the mountains a hundred kilometres to the north, the armoured figure stood amidst a sea of swaying wheat. It rippled and flowed with the breeze that caressed the stalks, twisting the greenery in rolling and billowing waves that brought the smells of ripening crops, blooming flowers, and the hint of storms. For months, spring had held the land tightly in its grip, but such a grip was loosening in the approach to summer, roasting the soil until it became a fine powder that was crushed underfoot. The spring wheat was ripening, almost ready for harvest, but for now it swayed and flowed around an armoured warrior who stood hip deep within it. It would have appeared as little more than a statue of metal and leather, an overprotected and expensive scarecrow, if not for the way that a gauntlet caressed through the stalks of grain that surrounded it.

  Outside of this tiny patch of tranquillity, war seethed and devoured; a war that Tamriel had never before seen in its thousands of years of history. Even the great conflicts of the First and Second Eras paled in comparison to the bloodshed and destruction that had raged incessantly for four years. Only the Oblivion Crisis had seen such death and conflict, but somehow this war was even more terrible as it was between the armies of mortals, rather than against daedrakind.

  “The Great War” some were already beginning to call it, as though that there could be anything ‘great’ about the two most powerful empires Tamriel had ever known caught in a gruelling, grinding war of attrition. When it had begun, no one had been overly surprised that the Mede Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion went to war. In fact, a lot of those living on both sides were surprised it hadn’t begun sooner. Over the four years since however, tens of thousands of lives had been lost, Cyrodiil had burned, and even the majesty of the Imperial City had fallen into Aldmeri hands.

  For kilometres in all directions, the skies were darkened with thousands of crows and other scavengers, the air increasingly filled with the stench of metal, mud, blood and shit, and the ground was being pulverised under armoured feet. Fields that had once been the lifeblood for thousands were being trampled into destruction, but they would soon be fertilised with the blood of countless men and mer.

  "Master Blade?"

  Grim faced, forged from the darkest ebony, the scowling mempo mask, and horned kabuto helm turned slightly, regarding the young Hastatii with its cold, metallic gaze. The messenger was young, not even out of his teens and stood rigidly to attention, arms flat by his sides, and choosing to stare straight ahead rather than looking at the man visible only through the mask’s darkened vision slits.

  "The... The E-Emperor requests your presence."

  Not even the slightest tremble was to be seen from the black armoured warrior. He stood as quiet as the grave, not moving or flinching and barely even noticing the enormous formation of legionaries that snaked their way a few metres beyond them. The distinct black splint mail, made from dozens of metal strips overlapping each other in traditional Akiviri craftsmanship, set the figure apart from the solid steel plate of the Legions. There were many within the Empire that had immense hate towards the warrior's Order for their failed part in the war, but despite this, there was a distinct curve in the cohorts' path as they chose to march around him, rather than demand he stand aside.

  ‘The Emperor requests…’ Another sign; somewhat less subtle than the Legions bending their path, but a sign nonetheless. It wasn't as simple or as ludicrous as fear, or a sign of the Order's power and authority. It was a sign of the respect that was given to this member of the Blades.

  A stalk of wheat was crushed in a gloved fist, breaking it as thoroughly as snapping a spine, and the figure turned on his heel before marching past the cringing messenger. Unseen by all, the young soldier breathed out, releasing the pent up emotion from standing before the Eternal Champion of the Mede Dynasty.

  For kilometres in every direction the Legions were marching for war, and for the first time in centuries of their long and illustrious history, they had met a foe that they could not simply batter into submission. Under the leadership of six centuries of Emperors, of both the Septim and Mede Dynasties, they had held the future of Tamriel firmly in the grasp of an armoured gauntlet. Now they were preparing to besiege the very heart of the Empire, but only after bloodily cutting their way through those who currently claimed the Imperial City.

  The camps had been struck, and the hundreds upon hundreds of tents that lined from horizon to horizon had been set aside for the moment, as their owners began preparing for battle. Foresters moved through the armoured blocks of cohorts and castas as they took up their positions, stabbing the soil at their feet with bundles of arrows. It wasn't long until the crushed wheat was pounded into a dusty slurry underfoot, and was replaced with a forest of fletching's jutting into the air. Five ranks deep, and a hundred wide, enormous blocks of men formed up, their shields locking together into an impenetrable wall of metal and lacquered wood. Casta after casta. Legion after legion. The tens of thousands of legionaries could feel the earth tremble from their numbers as they arrayed for battle.

  Stalking through the growing press like a shadow, the black armoured Blade seemed to glide from place to place. He slid between cursing and grunting legionaries as they shuttled forward spare pilums, shields, helmets and gladii. Others moved about with dozens of sloshing waterskins tied over their shoulders for the inevitable flood of wounded and injured. Especially how the future killing was guaranteed to infect everyone with the most terrible of thirsts. Others carried further bundles of ammunition to the plate armoured foresters, as they transformed from the stealthy skirmishers and hunters ,to the disciplined and precise archers. Their leather and chainmail now thickened with armoured plates. Everywhere, in the strange confusion and chaos of the military, a great ballet of logistics and strategy was being conducted, a battle of organisation that needed to be won before the first drop of blood was spilt.

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  Barely a glance was provided to the teams of sweating engineers as they wound and pulled back and prepared enormous siege engines by the Blade as he moved by. With enormous bars of metal, they pulled catapult arms down and loaded their varied, and deadly projectiles. Windlasses were pulled back, building the tension in the enormous arms of the siege ballistae under the careful eye of their supervising Praefects. Even the truly titanic arms of field trebuchets were pulled down, the leather loops and their stones as heavy as an orc were placed into position for the forty metre arms to whip them through the sky, and piles of more… esoteric ammunition were also being prepared.

  None of this was truly seen by the stalking Blade. His eyes were focussed on the sight that lay before him, seated on top of a small hill within the depths of this great army and where nearly every eye was constantly being drawn back, by the weight of expectation. A tent. One among many, but larger, grander, and centrally located as though surveying the hundreds of thousands encamped around it.

  Unlike the other tents within this grand army of the Empire, this tent was guarded. In the purest purple and silver, the Praetorians stood out against the white tent, but the black armoured, Akaviri warrior was a shadow among purity. Even as he approached, and despite the reverence and respect granted by the wider army, a pair of hasta spears still clacked into place before the snarling plate helm, the gleaming tips promising blood and violence in the hands of the purple robed guards. For a moment it was as though the Blade would press on, heedless to the warning or the threat implied by the praetorians, but slowly, as though hunting, the Blade stopped, and looked one of the guards in the eye.

  Dressed in his own resplendent plate, and the polar opposite of the grim figure before him, the Praetorian shivered, seeing death in the uniquely fashioned armour. The Blades had once been protectors and guardians of the Septim Emperors, and could trace their origins back to the vaunted elite of the Akaviri Invasion two thousand years before, but since the Oblivion Crisis their roles had changed. No longer were they bodyguards and protectors, but the true ‘left hands’ of the Emperor; spies, agents and rumoured assassins so capable and feared that the likes of the Dark Brotherhood and Moran Tong kept themselves at a considerable distance.

  This man, this black armoured fiend was a representation of that shadowed Order; an Order that had been thoroughly decimated in the four years of gruelling warfare. After all, it had been a hundred and thirty three of their members severed heads tumbling from a wagon, that had set this conflict into motion.

  There was an exclamation, a pause of breath, followed by a quick reply from within, as one of the praetorians summoned another man who appeared in the tent's doorway. Dressed in nothing more than a simple toga with signet rings wrapped around his fingers, he found himself staring into the masked Blade with none of the fear and unease that his presence usually incurred. Years of dealing with the most powerful men in the Empire left the Imperial representative immune to displays of authority, but there was no mistaking that the silent warrior was unnerving to say the least. The Black Blade was a legend within the Empire and had been for the past hundred years at least. A legend that most spoke about in whispered tones if they spoke about at all.

  There was a nod, and the spears were moved away, allowing the Blade to step through without a single word to either of the guards. Inside the temperature dropped markedly, the several layers of the outer walls allowing the morning cool to remain for hours into the day. Despite this, most of the men and women within the central room were noticeably sweating, and they certainly weren't assisted with the visage of armoured death that appeared in their midst.

  "Ah. You are here."

  The armoured figure bowed, hand clanking to an ebony breastplate over a heart, as the grim, scowling mask and helm lowered their soulless gaze to the floor in respect.

  Laying in a bed of silken sheets worth more than an entire cohort's equipment, the Emperor, Titus Mede II, lay sweating even more than the dozen individuals around him. Middle aged, hair slowly turning grey from his years and the stress of the war, he would have normally appeared strong and powerful. Instead, the events during the night had left his body weakened, wrapped in bandages and being treated by the best healers of the empire.

  "Leave us." A hand wrapped in a bandage, with faint hints of red slowly blooming under the fabric, waved in the general direction of the tent’s entrance to the collection of advisors, commanders, servants and healers, his voice a low murmur of pain.

  "But… Sire."

  "I said leave." Titus’s expression was thunderous, and despite the calm, leveled tone of his voice, the threat that hung to every word was enough to make the sweat flow a little more freely. "I'm now better protected than what I was last night, so get out!"

  Carefully they all bowed, fading from the tent and leaving the Emperor to stare in silence at his champion standing before him.

  "It is good to see that you made it back." Titus said softly, laying back into the plush finery. The grimace that crossed his features was of pain and irritation at having his own body betray him, but there was a smile on his face at the presence of the Blade.

  "Sire." The voice was deep and muffled through the mask. Only the eyes, cold and unfeeling and the tightly pursed lips could be seen behind the form-fitting mask. Fashioned into the stylised likeness of the ancient Akaviri people, it almost gave the Blade a daedric, yet reptilian appearance.

  "Don't, 'Sire' me. I didn't send the others away so you could hide behind formality and protocol." Carefully, a hand pressed into ribs covered with bandages and Titus groaned as the movement twisted the wounds he had sustained. "And I especially didn't want to be laying here talking to you behind your mask, Kaius."

  After a moment's hesitation, Kaius reached up, grasping the mask and pulling it away from his face before securing it to his belt. The helmet too was quickly removed, tucked away under an arm and revealing a head covered with short, closely cropped hair, a freshly clean shaven face that was unsmiling in a way that twisted the horizontal scar under his right eye.

  Blood of Dragons is set in Skyrim, there are chapters and volumes throughout this series that directly relate to the card game 'The Elder Scrolls: Legends.' Specifically the 'Forgotten Hero' storyline. This game unfortunately has been cancelled and fully shut down since early 2025, but for those interested in the overall plot and story, check out the following YouTube video: