Kris came unsteadily to her feet, lifting her blood smeared sword in a loose grip. Her muscles ached but the adrenaline in her system was enough to get her ready to face a new threat. The argonian looked oddly black in the aurora light and his axe was menacing.  Fighting an opponent armed with a heavy weapon on a narrow defile where there was nowhere to avoid the broad sweeping strikes such weapons favored was not something she would have been excited about even if she was fresh. Fortunately it didn’t seem that murder was on the Argonians mind.

Taking a step forward, Kris crouched down and plucked the fallen slavers knife from his belt and tossed it underhanded to the lead slave. The Khajit caught the weapon and began sawing at the thick rope that bound him. The slaves seemed to be recovering themselves, talking in quit whispers as the Khajit cut himself free. The had been taken in Blackmarsh and Elswher and sold cheap in the slave markets on the coast. Such slaves would doubtlessly be valuable in the ebony mines of the far north, where they would be condemned to a lifetime of brutal and back breaking labor. Kris wondered if Vorn had been the owner of these slaves, buying them to turn a quick profit on his trip to Black Light. If so she was pleased to cost him a small fortune even if he had escaped.

“I’m no friend of the slavers,” she declared in her Breton accented Imperial, making a gesture with her blade to the crumpled body of the man with the whip. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of opened entrails and burnt hair odor from her own body. She wanted very badly to vomit but that was probably more to do with the aftereffects of the potion as her vision dimmed down to its normal levels.  

“I don’t know how energetic the garrison at Black Light is likely to be, but a Thaelmor and a former Imperial officer escaped to bring word to them of what happened here. It probably isnt a good idea to linger very long.” She bent down and rifled through the pouches of the first Mer she had killed. There was a small purse of coins, a book and a number of scrolls and letters, she pulled the Mer’s robes free and tossed them to the shivering slaves, before tying her cloak into an improvised napsack for the rest.

Throughout the process she kept her eyes on the armed Argonian, wary in case he made a sudden rush. Curiously she glanced down into the ravine, but it was too dark to make out the shattered body of Vorn’s horse far below. By now most of the Slaves were free, though they still seemed to be milling around rather than taking definite action.

“Who are you?” she asked the Argonian. He was no slaver, perhaps a family member on a quest to free one of the slaves? In any case he was brave to travel this way alone, and risk ending up in an ebony mine himself.