Part of the Morrowind Writing Competition organized by the Morrowind Writers’ Guild (Discord Link: https://discord.gg/ZfmEHtxWjE)
Scroll to the bottom for the context of this story.
Fara laid the sickle across her knee, wiping the soot from her brow. Around her, other farmers toiled silently, shoulders hunched as if the sun itself leaned upon them. Somewhere in the distance, a netch moaned—a low, mournful sound that always seemed too much like weeping.
“It grows poorer every season,” Drel mused, his shadow long and dim under the evening glow. He was a broad-shouldered man with a face weathered and scarred beyond his age. He snapped a saltrice stalk in half and showed its withered core. “Blight, even this far.”
Fara frowned, taking in her surroundings. Something felt off today, a tension she could not place. Then she heard it. The sound froze her—first a low, rhythmic groan, then the unmistakable crunch of packed ash under footfalls. She paused mid-swing, saltrice stalks dangling from her fingers, and squinted toward the horizon. Figures were there, moving where the red sky met the land. The others were still bent over their work, knives scraping against blighted stalks, the only sound until she spoke.
“On the road,” she muttered, swallowing the sour taste rising in her throat.
Heads snapped up. Drel’s face twisted into a scowl. “Pilgrims?” Drel’s voice was low and grim.
“Walkers,” Fara shot him a glare. He knew damn well pilgrims had not come through in years. The figures came closer, their shapes crooked and uneven. Their heads swayed unnaturally, left and right with each step. Her scythe hand tightened. “Six. No, seven.”
“Take Valen and Fathis,” she said. “Safeguard the pastures. The rest of us will start moving the harvest.”
“But—”
“Now,” she snapped. Drel knew as well as she what losing the Guar would mean. Their scrappy little village would be broken by diaspora, its once-loyal inhabitants scattering across the ruined province in search of stability—though they would find none.
He hesitated a moment before stomping off, Fathis and Valen following. The other two workers gathered behind her, eyes wide, unarmed and frightened. They had encountered blightwalkers in the past, but none that looked like these.
The first of them stepped into view—a bald figure draped in loose, tattered robes, its legs stained with ash up to the knees. Fara tried to focus on its face but immediately regretted doing so. Its features were stretched and disjointed, as though someone had smashed its skull and reshaped it in crude form. She could not tell what manner of being it had once been. Its mouth opened, awkwardly. It can barely remember how to speak, Fara thought.
“He dreams you… still…” it said, at length.
Its voice was not quite right. On the surface, its speech sounded deep and refined. But beneath the veneer of propriety there was something altogether wrong like a beast attempting to simulate the tones of a nobleman. Wet, sloshing sounds resonated gently in its intonations, only barely perceptible due to the deliberate delivery of its words.
She glanced back to the reapers behind her. “Mehra, take what you can back to the granary. And gather the men. Pass out arms. This might be—” she stopped short as the figures before them reached the edge of the field. As the first of the walkers waded in, the saltrice stalks at its feet bent backward and wilted. The other figures soon joined, and within seconds, the entire harvest was blackening before their eyes.
Bile rose in Fara’s throat. Months of toiling and suffering to get anything to grow in the ash-ridden soil, fighting against blight and grazing kagouti—for it all to wither and die in mere blinks of an eye.
The lead walker stretched out its arms. “He dreams you all…” it continued.
“Azura save us,” Llos muttered behind her.
As if anyone—god, mortal, or kingdom—still cared for this place or its people. The Emperor had not been heard from in nearly a decade—presumed dead. Fara, once believed King Gortwog behind his assassination—it would have been trivial after Cyrodiil City’s fall. But with the reality of the Brass God ever harder to ignore, she had recently grown to doubt his death was caused by anything so mundane. Regardless, she had buried such speculation ages ago; Tamriel no longer had need of political theorists.
She took a step back, her heart hammering, but her legs knew better than to run. Turning your back on the unknown rarely ended well.
Mehra stumbled back into the field, broken rake in hand. “What are they?” she whispered.
“I dont know.” Fara’s voice cracked, but she steadied it as best she could. “They aren’t staying.” Irritation crept into her voice as she looked back at the cowering Dunmeri girl. “I told you to alert the village. Gather the men!”
She looked back to the walkers and spotted, far out on the horizon, many more figures rising over the hill, the sky behind them painted blood-red.
Mehra fled the fields, running south toward the huts. “The women too!” Fara called after her. They would need every able body they had.
Llos dropped his scythe. “This isn’t the Legion,” he spat. “Now’s the time to flee, not stand our ground!”
Fara scowled at his spinelessness before looking back at the rising tide cresting the hill. There were dozens of them. They would be unable to stand against them all. Llos was right. They were farmers and herders struggling to survive, not soldiers. And she was but one amongst them, no longer a general.
The first figure neared them, its head twitching in response to every word they spoke. Its eyes burned faintly, amber flames dying in the sockets. “The dreams are beautiful…” it said, its voice still a mimicry of princely charm.
Every syllable it uttered sent chills down her spine. How could she demand these settlers to stand against this thing, when it instilled such discomfort in her—she, with decades of training?
“Go catch up to Mehra,” she said. “Then saddle the guar. Everyone will flee. The old shall ride and the young shall run. I will hold them off.” She gripped her scythe, nearly laughing. It was not a proper weapon. And these were unknown enemies. She would be lucky to last minutes. “Tell any who wish to help they may join me here.”
Llos stumbled. “B-but, you can’t—”
“Go!” she shouted.
Hesitantly, he nodded before darting south, away from the fields.
The people would run and, along the way, some would die. But they would find new land and settle again. Until the tide of death rose against their new home. Then they would run again.
It was the way of things. She knew it. They all had heard the stories from across the province—from across Tamriel. She had been deluding herself to think they would be ready. They were not fighters.
And she was no farmer. Despite understanding the wisdom of a tactical retreat, she would not spend the rest of her life running.
A chorus of haunting murmurs filled the air, words tangled and indecipherable. Fara backed toward the ashen remains of a tree, ensuring no enemies could flank her. The scythe felt heavier now, but her resolve hardened. She glanced at the horizon—no reinforcements, only the crimson glow of dusk.
She was a fighter.
She charged, a blaze of motion against the encroaching army. The blade sang through the air, meeting its marks with lethal precision. Limbs fell, and bodies crumpled, but the horde on the rise appeared endless.
A sharp pain ignited in her shoulder—a walker had clawed her, its nails biting deep. She drove an elbow into its face, bone crunching beneath the impact. The wound throbbed, warmth spreading down her arm, but adrenaline surged stronger.
The ground became a battlefield of ash and decay. Her breaths grew ragged, each one a battle in itself. Yet, surrender was not an option.
Darkness crept at the edges of her vision, but she forced it back. This was her stand. Here, among the ruined crops and tainted soil, she held the line.
Let them come.
This is piece of “fanfiction” set within the universe of the video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It’s an alternate future/present story imagining the world of Tamriel if King Gortwog’s ending in The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was the only one to occur. No Warp in the West, no miracle of peace, and the Imperial City was destroyed. With Numidium still in operation, rather than rebuild, the Emperor likely fled to safety.
I imagine that under such chaos, the Emperor never saw fit to release the Nerevarine to Morrowind. And, without intervention, Dagoth Ur was free to complete Akulakhan. Though I doubt he felt the need to, as Numidium was never destroyed.
Due to his proximity to the heart of Lorkhan, I surmise would have been able to easily take control of Numidium and begin spreading the divine disease much earlier and farther than he originally intended.
That is when this story takes place.
However, if things were to continue on into the Oblivion crisis, I’m not sure there would be anyone around to stop it. The Emperor is likely dead or not in Mundus, having never met the Champion of Cyrodiil. If the Amulet of Kings exists, there wouldn’t be anyone around to use it to relight the Dragonfires. If Martin is still alive, there’s probably no one around to inform him he is the bastard son of Uriel.
I’d like to think that Numidium faces off against the imposing giant of Mehrunes Dagon, in a sort of fantastical Daedra versus mech fight.
If anyone was alive before such a face-off, I doubt they survived it.
Taking Skyrim into account, Alduin was of course scheduled to return, no matter what. It’s highly unlikely the Dragonborn still exists, even if the Greybeards still do, meaning there is probably no one to stop the old time-dragon from eating the world and putting this kalpa out of its misery.
© 2025 Copyright — Forrest R. Roberts, All Rights Reserved
