We left the following morning before the sun had even reached its zenith. Weebam-Na and Bejeen had made arrangements for our passage via the rivers on board one of the several trading vessels using the Panther River to reach the more inland settlements and for the first five days we did little but wander the decks of the massive river carrack while trying to keep out of the way of the crew. Like many of the ships that headed north past Leyawiin, these ships were designed for use in the potentially shallower waters of the Niben and as such did not have the size of their larger, ocean going counterparts. While advantageous, these river vessels were unable to traverse the oceans and were mostly limited to sailing very close to the coasts, or in the case of the Sparrow; restrict themselves to a single trading run from Leyawiin to Greenspring in the heart of Blackmarsh.
From all accounts it was a profitable run for the captain and crew despite the fact that the ship was technically sailing up river and against the wind. My boots had always tasted soil, and maritime matters were a mystery to me but it was impossible not to notice that one of the crew, an Altmer by the name of Raveumaire was a skilled Alteration mage. It was her role in ensuring that the sails, no matter the direction or strength were always filled with the wind. It was a potentially boring role, but one that paid exceptionally well for one of her talents.
The first days of our journey into the depths of the Blackwood were almost overwhelmingly calm, peaceful and in my opinion exceedingly dull. So used to the freedom and ability to choose my own path and wander the lands, being stuck on board a single ship less than fifty metres in length was excruciating. Even more so by our new companions.
Alexi was bar far the most welcome of the group, and surprisingly I found myself with a considerable amount in common with Weebam-Na and Bejeen. As Tamriel’s premier swordsman and a pair of hunters with backgrounds and experiences similar to my own respectively, we spent a considerable amount of time chatting or sparring in Alexi’s case. There was no possible way short of full vampiric transformation that would allow me to contend with his overwhelming skill, and the more we practiced the more I struggled to decide who would have been greater; Alexi, or Amiel Lannus.
Other than meals or during our own practices I saw little of Viconia. She busied herself with exploring and learning as much as she could about the ship and how it sailed and the life of those on board. Her and Raveumaire spent a lot of time together whenever the mage wasn’t busy with her duties discussing the finer points of magicka and enchantments, and on one very brief occasion I witnessed the Altmer allowing Viconia to weave the magicka infusing the sails herself. Both of us shared the similar passion for learning and understanding, but Viconia’s tastes were in the arts of Magicka while mine were more direct and focussed on the art of the sword.
Our other companions were not as easy going, nor were they as sociable as the rest of us. Falid would stalk the decks of the ship in full plate and for the most part he spent a considerable amount of his waking hours training, mediating or praying. He was concerning for our expedition but in a different way to the others as his appetite was almost equal to four others combined. However, his enormous strength lifted a considerable amount of our concern as he was more than equal to the task for any heavy lifting. Especially when we witnessed him training below decks using a ballast stone that weighed more than I did. Although it was difficult to decide what was more impressive, the fact that he was picking up the stone and conducting lifting repetitions with it or the fact that Mazoga was soon seen taking part as well.
Mazoga was more an enigma that most of the others. Her unusual name aside, there was no doubting her determination, drive and especially strength as she out muscled all of us by a considerable margin with the exception of Falid. Again, the only way that I could contend with either of them was if I was fully transformed and against the likes of Falid I knew it wouldn’t have been as simple as it should have been against mortals. Both he and Mazoga were brutes of individuals in term of raw strength, but both knew their limitations which made them dangerous. Falid’s enormous two meter greatsword had the utter advantage of reach and when wielded by an expert like himself allowed him to contend with the likes of Alexi’s skill. As for Mazoga, her mace was simplistically brutal but when wielded by someone with her physical prowess, meant that even shields and the best armour would amount to nothing. One hit from any weapon, whether it be a simple wooden club or her flanged orichcalum mace would shatter bones, pulp flesh and crush armour into scrap.
There was one individual that we didn’t see for most of the journey. Several times we had even suspected that Detane had simply skipped ship at one of the several minor river towns we docked with along the journey but just as we thought he was truly gone, he would simply reappear. The rest of us had signs of gaining familiarity with one another but if anything, Detane was going out of his way to ignore or otherwise distant himself from the rest of us. He spent most of his time in the quarters that had been allocated to him, door closed and silent and other than appearing for meals he would only appear on deck once or twice a day at most.
It was very quickly obvious that he was certainly no slouch in combat. One of the nights that the ship lay at anchor, Viconia and I found ourselves on deck and witnessing Detane going through some of his own training. For those few minutes that he practiced with his rapier, both Viconia and I were muttering between ourselves at his level of skill. The way that he had drawn his blade within seconds of meeting Mazoga had proven that he was extremely quick and had a high degree of control, but after that short time that he practiced before he realised he was being watched we had both realised that he was easily our equals. His armour may have been excruciatingly poor but his ability with the sword was immaculate.
After a brief stay at Rockguard where we bid our farewells from the Sparrow and its crew and disembarked for the final time, we began our true journey. While relatively close to the border between Cyrodiil and Blackmarsh, the region we were throwing ourselves into was among the least populated and remote within the Empire. Little in the way of resources worth journeying through the marshes and swamps or simply too difficult to traverse, the whole region was void of major settlements and only the odd town or village could be located within its depths.
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In my mind, the clearest fact to the worth or value of the region lay in the fact that no two maps had the border located in the same place. Depending on the year, century or simply by the personal opinions of the cartographers the borders shifted and moved. In other regions this was more than enough excuse for regions or entire provinces to go to war, and there had been more than one time that the Legion had to step in between the great Dunmer houses when one map or another showed the border shifted as much as a hundred metres in either direction. Here instead there was the opposite, where neither the authorities from Cyrodiil or Blackmarsh really cared too much, and those who chose to live there could do so outside of those who would otherwise be considered their rulers.
Sir Henrik had truly chosen the site for the Fortress protecting the Shield of the Crusader well. Rarely travelled, sparsely populated, remote and entirely lacking in exploration and governance, it was the perfect concealment. Only through the notes and rough maps that Viconia had sketched during the time at the priory while I was recovering did we have much chance at all. The directions were mostly vague, but between his directions and Weebam-Na and Bejeen’s local knowledge we knew the best places to look.
We were forced to outright buy a collection of canoe-like boats after the original owner refused to hire them out to those he considered “dead-men-walking” for considering journeying into the Blackwood. After replenishing our supplies and loading our tiny vessels, we began the arduous journey away from civilisation. Splitting ourselves into pairs we all had to paddle down the steams and smaller tributaries that threaded from marsh pockets to mangroves, to flooded rainforests and minor lakes. It was brutal, back breaking work and after the first day I simply crawled into my bedding and slept like the dead until morning. So used to marching and walking for hours on end, there was no way that I could have been prepared for paddling for half a day or more at a time, especially in the noticeably hotter, humid climate that made up the majority of the region.
Every evening it rained and throughout the day when the sun was visible through the canopy the temperature rose dramatically and left the air so thick with moisture that we almost needed our blades to cut a passage. Three hundred kilometres to the west and the north west and in our rough direction of travel back towards Cyrodiil, the temperate Niben beckoned with its sunny days and pleasant nights. My own experience with Vvardenfell was one of cold and snow, of dry heat in the summers and storms consisting of sleet, hail and snow. The Blackwood in comparison was hot, sticky and leaving more than just myself with sweat drenching every scrap of clothing we wore as we left the majority of our armour and equipment in the bottom of our boats.
Despite the climate that I and most of the others found immensely disagreeable, there was a strange beauty to the marshlands. Strange flowers grew from the trunks and roots of the hundreds of trees that grew whether they were in water or not, and everywhere life seemed to swarm and multiply around us. This was the home of reptiles and insects and everywhere they could be seen moving through the air and water almost totally oblivious to the collection of humanoids moving through their home. Dragonflies the size of ravens buzzed through the air, humming across the surface of the water almost faster than the eye could see and resting upon the dozens of roots jutting from the still surface in a riot of colours and shapes.
What little beauty could be found was soon drowned by the hostile environment of the region. Clouds of biting flies and other varieties of insects swarmed around us, burrowing into exposed flesh and sucking blood at every available opportunity. Under the guidance of Weebam-Na and Bejeen, we quickly learned how to keep the various parasites at bay by smearing a layer of tree sap taken from specific trees across our skin and despite the foulness of the substance, it was infinitely better than the dozens of bites and stings that covered us by the time we all had found enough of the plants. We were all warned not to enter the water if we could help it, as many of the things dwelling within it were dangerous to non-Argonians. Several times we saw the dark looming shapes of oversized creatures and carnivorous beasts inimical to our presence dwelling beneath the surface of the water and it was more than one occasion that we were left feeling uneasy as a shadow moved through the muddy waters.
Through the regions of solid ground, we saw shapes of prowling jungle cats; dark furred beasts of size and ferocity that ensured that several times we remained in our canoes rather than stopping to rest and stretch our legs. In other places we came across flat patches of seemingly solid ground, but Weebam-Na showed us that looks were deceiving by throwing a rock the size of my fist into the soil and watching how it sank into the thick muck under the layers of dead leaves.
Even the plants in Black Marsh were deadly to outsiders, as we were told that the further south we headed the more dangerous and outrageous species existed where plants could prey upon the natives and could even reportedly move under their own will. I watched at one point where a large area of ground had been consumed under a layer of creepers and thick green vines with flowers the size of shields. At Bejeen’s urgings we kept a considerable distance from this portion of the shore, but I still managed to see one of the flowers move with a sudden shocking speed and close up around the wriggling form of a small mammal who wandered too close.
Despite the dangers, I was strangely surprised to find that the area wasn’t as thinly populated as I had imagined. In the region we were searching dozens of Argonian tribes could be found and every couple of days we would come across one. I certainly wasn’t surprised to hear that it was possible that many were so remote that they had never even heard of the Empire, nor had met any non-Argonians in generations. Further into Blackmarsh itself there were hundreds, if not thousands of smaller tribes, some perhaps only a dozen or more in comparison to the larger settlements such that were a match of any other city within Tamriel. It also wasn’t just Argonians who made Black Marsh their home. Clans of cannibalistic bog ogres waged war on all those who crossed their paths, and it was from this dark land where the migrating clans of Goblins had swarmed into eastern Cyrodiil and reached as far as Skingrad in their exodus. Even those looking for riches and other commodities could be found plying the northern swamps. Dumner slavers constantly braved the Marsh’s dangers to bring back their captives to Morrowind and Vvardenfell despite the ban that had been enforced since the Nerevarine’s return, as did smugglers of all descriptions attempting to get their goods into Cyrodiil and dodge the Tax Agents.
Despite all of this, we found three villages scattered about the marshes. Each were relatively tiny, one little more than a pair of families huddling together in their wooden stilt-houses, and the others closer in approximation to towns. Each, for the most part allowed us the opportunities to rest and recover, especially how one night we had spent sleeping in shifts in the bottom of our canoes due to the utter lack of stable, safe soil to camp on. After that restless attempt of sleep none of us were looking forward to do the same again.
