"...And upon the Wings of Storm..." - Part 1: Storm

> Pointedly ignoring Twilight's stage whispered comments, Balefire looked around
> at the surrounding members of the party, noting their lengthening shadows, and
> said, "The sun sinks near to the horizon, and dusk will be upon us soon.
> Night falls quickly in the desert, and while I am loath to leave this oasis
> where the Art may be used, I would fain advance closer to the citadel before
> full dark forces us to camp.  Distances in the desert can be deceiving, but I
> fear that citadel may best be attempted by day, and I do not think it
> reachable, even for a reconnaissance, while light lasts this day. Shall we
> move out?"
     K'tarin immediately sprang to his mount, eager to move on. Without
waiting for the others, he spurred on his horse. Soon he remembered himself
and slowed his mount to allow the others to more easily catch up. Balefire
was the first, followed closely by Alduin, and then the others. The scribe
had an uneasy feeling growing in the small of his mind. Once the party had
left the pocket of magicka, the air had taken on a different quality. Alduin
muttered to himself about wild imaginations, but the air seemed...empty. Not
empty as in dry or windless. A vital component was absent.
     "Ho there, redguard!" cried the warmage. "I asked if we should move out,
not run a race."
     His voice was tempered with amusement, but the redguard gave no reaction
as to whether he heard the humor or not.
     "Magicka!"
     Balefire glanced at the scribe questioningly. The scribe realized he had
spoken aloud and flushed.
     "I, uh, felt something in the air was missing. It is magicka, of course."
He felt rather silly and dismissed his comment with a wave of his hand. He was
letting his nervousness get the better of him. A quick glance around, however,
showed everyone on edge. There was something about the air other than lack of
magicka. Something like--
     "Storm!"
     The sun, now low on the horizon, was swallowed in a pall of dust. Ahead,
the sheer walls of the Citadel turned ruddy, as if the very stone were
bleeding. Shortly, a wind whipped up and tugged at the traveler's clothing.
     "Ugh! Where'd this wind come from?" shouted Mea, for the wind had
quickly grown to a howl. "And this sand is getting under my armor again!" she
muttered under her breath.
     K'tarin looked back at the others, a thin smile on his lips. "Storms
come with little warning here! However, this one has caught even me by
surprise!" He pointed through the failing light. "Look! There are hills there!"
     With his keen eyes, Balefire saw the crumpled outliers of rock marching
from the base of the cliffs ahead. Elfiran came up and nodded.
     "Ah! If we could get on t'other side ah those hills, we'd be in better
shape. Ye say storms come on a sudden in the desert. Well, this storm dinna
seem natural by any standard. We must hurry!"
     The party had begun to string out in the approaching storm. The front
had hardly come upon them and already their numbers were being scattered.
     "Hold together!" boomed Balefire. Without thinking, he summoned up his
will and let loose a blinding flash of red-white light from his staff. Those
who were wandering off true saw it and leaned into the wind to regroup.
     The rocks were a black shadow, indistinct. The most experienced horsemen
of the party took up positions to the fore and aft. The journey seemed to
stretch on interminably. The wind would at times come in gusts strong enough
to stagger even Balefire's and Twilight's mounts. Suddenly the wind died.
Alduin had become separated from K'tarin and found himself beside J'layah.
     "What a storm!" he exclaimed. "Never have I felt the like since the
tempest at the Bay of Dogs nearly a decade ago. Now that was a storm. Not
dry, of course. Very wet. Why, the streets were swimming with fish!"
     "J'layah!" Twilight gestured urgently. Alduin started to turn his pony
to follow, but a look from Twilight stayed him. J'layah's face shouted "Thank
you!" at the elfish-mix. Alduin had, in the tavern before all this desert-
crawling, bent her ear for over an hour about a tale of his adventures in
some enchanted wood in northern Daggerfall while he was doing the biography
of a prominent pixie queen. Twilight had seen her distress, and had saved her
another hour of names and places of which she had no interest. This was two
J'layah owed her now.
     While the storm front had passed, the sun had set and the stars came out
to soften the harsh desert features. The dark rocks were closer now and were
far larger than they had at first appeared. These were not merely rocks but
great pieces of the cliff face blasted away by forgotten storms. While the
fury of the storm seemed to have spent itself, the wind still whipped around
them, stinging their exposed skin with sharp grains of sand.
     Despite this respite, the party pushed on. K'tarin was leading, urging
his mount over the roughening terrain. Footing had become treacherous, and
the less nimble horses stumbled frequently.
     "Ho there again, K'tarin!" called Balefire. "I may have jested about
this not being a race, but I also meant it. Not everyone's eyes are as good
as mine! We must not get out of each other's sight."
     Again, Elfiran rode up. "The Werre has cause to hurry. Behold! Another
storm approaches, darker than the first. That first one was but a youngin."
     Even as he spoke these words, the air grew cold and restless. A great
hissing arose behind them, and what faint starlight there was, died. In the
rear, Twilight glanced back and caught her breath. With renewed vigor, she 
drove the stragglers toward the great rocks. Not a moment later, the black
storm struck. Horses screamed and riders were thrown. J'layah landed hard on
her back, but could not regain her breath; the sand was too thick in the air.
Twilight saw J'layah's horse, riderless, and circled 'round. She shouted, but
her voice was swallowed 'ere it left her mouth. She dismounted and thanked
whatever god the girl believed in, for the elf immediately found her. She
helped J'layah to her feet and ran the remaining few yards to the rocks,
using her horse as a windbreak.
     The wild roar of the storm dropped noticeably as she stumbled to the lee
side and set J'layah down.
     Mea Culpa caught her breath enough to ask: "Is everyone accounted for?"
     Tabanallis looked around. "Where's the old man?"
     K'tarin was the first on his feet. He let loose a short string of curses
in his native tongue (not reprintable) and made for the rock edge. Balefire
grabbed his arm, but a dark glance from the Werre's eyes made it clear that
the old scribe's life meant more than his own. Balefire released his arm and
the redguard dove into the wind. Tabanallis followed, muttering something
about foolhardy redguards.
     The sands piled against the rocks, and the wind shook them.
     The wind raged on, and soon K'tarin and Tabanallis returned, bent and
weary. At the silent questions, they shook their heads. Only the scribe's
pony was to be found, and it huddled forlornly against the other horses. The
party was silent some time, listening to the sand scrape the rock. Pebbles
slithered about their heads and dusted their hair. A pebble caught in the
small of Mea's back with no hope of being dislodged.
     "Curse this storm and the desert that spawned it!" she hissed.
     K'tarin shot her a look fill with poison. "This place is cursed enough
without you adding to it."
     "This is nay good, us fighting amongst ourselves like this! Let us hope
good Alduin is in one piece when we find him."
     The Werre backed off at Elfiran's words, and Mea sat down heavily. The
wind continued to whip about them, but the air began to grow heavy. The party
soon found themselves caught in a cross wind that caught the flying sand and
brought it back against what had been the lee side. The pressure in the air
grew.
     Balefire shouted something in vain. Even his booming voice was muffled
like a child's under the might of the storm. He pointed urgently toward a
narrow cleft in the rock a small distance away, and the group slowly made
their way toward it. Many of the horses were unwilling to move, but Balefire's
valiant mount helped shepherd them after their riders. Again, the wind died
as they fell into the cleft. There was the sharp sound of rock popping and
exploding under the storm's assault.
     "Oh, Alduin." J'layah's eyes streamed as much from sand as from tears.
"I really enjoyed parts of his story about the pixies. Really."
     Twilight put her arm around her. A wail went up from above, vying with
the thunderous voice of the storm. The wail pierced the air, rising above the
growling sands. Even Balefire's hackles rose, and Alduin's pony fairly fell
over in fear.
     "Oh, Julianos, what a wind!" someone said.
     K'tarin's eyes were fixed skyward, unblinking against the sand.
     "That is no wind!"
     Shapes, blurred by the dark sand-stained wind, separated from the storm.
Great man-shapes with wings spanning many times their height.
     "It is Shee'thos'r. M'agrathra! The Black Voice of the Denigroth!"
     He quickly drew out a talon from under his breastplate. It was long and
cruelly curved, red-stained. The redguard winced at its touch, for it was hot
and throbbing with hatred. Carefully, he pricked his palm and whispered:
"Au nauth Penterah, for nauth osthula. Pere osthula! Pere Penteran!"
     The words were whispered, but carried easily in the cleft.
     "There he goes again," mumbled Mea. Then another thought struck her.
"And Balefire brought up a magic light. Ah! These are too many mysteries for
an innocent girl like me."

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Alduin dor Lammoth