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They'd almost finished clearing the old abandoned fortress of the unholy vampire coven that had inhabited it when Isran heard a shout from one of the Dawnguard soldiers.
"The vampire! She's turned on us!"
Blood running cold and dark thoughts assailing him, he raced in the direction of the shout. Against his better judgment, they'd been working alongside an undead abomination for the past two months. He'd grown used to her presence, even begun to appreciate her skills, but he'd never forgotten what she was, or how she could betray them at any moment. Apparently, that moment of betrayal was now.
He rounded a corner and halted, staring. The vampire female, who called herself Serana, was kneeling on the floor beside two Dawnguard recruits. Both were quite obviously dead, their eyes glassy and staring. She had cast some sort of warding spell that glowed red and encircled her and the dead men. What shocked Isran was not the corpses or the magic, but the fact that she was utterly distraught. She had always been a haughty little thing, yet now she was sobbing openly. He hadn't even known vampires could cry.
Four of his Dawnguard were attacking the magical barrier with swords and axes, while a fifth held up hands that sparkled with magic. "Stand down," Isran ordered, drawing his warhammer and taking a few steps forward so that the vampire could see him. "Explain this, creature," he demanded. "Immediately."
The vampire didn't answer, trying and failing to compose herself. Isran frowned. "You have murdered members of the Dawnguard, turned against your allies. Tell me why we should not kill you now."
"Not--Dawnguard," the vampire choked out, her face contorted with pain. "The real Dawnguard--never would have--touched a woman like--"
Isran felt the hair on his arms stand up. He looked at the two bodies. Both were fresh recruits, men he didn't know well. A Nord and an Imperial. The Nord looked like he could have been a blacksmith, a wall of muscle. The Imperial was slimmer, but a fallen greatsword nearby attested to his strength as well. Both looked more than capable of overpowering a woman. "Did they attack you?" Isran asked gruffly.
Serana shook her head, still trying vainly to stop crying. "Not me... they had a girl... a vampire girl... they'd torn away her clothes... they were--" she broke off, shuddering. "Monsters!" she cried through clenched teeth. "How dare they lay hands on her, how dare they defile her!"
"So you killed them," Isran said with false calm. The idea that two of his own men had assaulted an undead creature was sickening. But right now, his job was to ensure the safety of the rest of his fighters. He still did not trust their vampire companion, not when it came to their war against all vampire-kind. "What then?"
The vampire nodded shakily. "I needed to get them away from her. I used magic, and then they went for me, so I fought. I couldn't bear their laughter."
"And the vampire they were tormenting?" Isran asked.
"I... killed her," Serana said in a pained half-whisper. "Held her. Helped her find rest."
For the first time, Isran noticed the ash pile beside where Serana knelt. He knew the telltale remains of the defeated undead. He turned to his soldiers, who still stood at the ready. "Leave me alone with the vampire," he commanded.
The soldiers looked at each other, bewildered, but retreated. When all of them were out of sight, Isran went to the very edge of the barrier. He noticed the magic flickering, and guessed that the vampire was beginning to tire. Close up, she appeared exhausted. "Lower the barrier, girl," he commanded. "I won't attack unless you do."
The red magic wavered, then vanished. Serana knelt a few feet in front of him, her arms wrapped around her middle in a false embrace, her head bowed. Isran sheathed his weapon and knelt as well. "Look at me," he ordered, his voice quiet but firm. Serana shuddered, but obeyed. Her eyes appeared strange, their pupils enormous, and she trembled. He had a feeling that she was scared, though not of him. There were forces at work here that he did not understand. "Tell me what you're so afraid of," he instructed.
"It's... I can't..." the vampire shook her head.
Isran's brows knit. "As I understand it, you claim to have killed two of my men because they were behaving indecently toward a vampire female."
Serana grimaced. "Is that what you call it? 'Indecent behavior'?" She shuddered. "As though all they were doing was--groping her like a drunken patron--manhandles a tavern bard?" She exhaled scornfully. "They were raping her," she spat. "Violating her, both of them. One of them was choking her too...making sure she couldn't scream." Her voice gained a pleading edge to it. "She was just a fledgling, newly born. She was so panicked, and there was nothing she could do."
"So you saved her," Isran prompted. "But then, why kill her?"
Serana looked in the direction that the Dawnguard soldiers had disappeared. "I knew she was doomed. You never would have let her live. But after what she'd just been through, I wanted her to die at peace, not broken and crying. So I put her to sleep with my magic, then drained her life away." She closed her eyes. "Kill me, vampire hunter. Take revenge, punish me for murdering those men. I don't care. I don't regret doing it. I never will."
Isran surveyed her. His anger had faded, replaced by confusion and an unfamiliar twinge of concern. He hastily tried to quell his emotions. Vampires did not deserve compassion. But this act, this rescue of a fledgling, meant more to the girl than it first appeared. She would not have bothered to save someone already doomed to die unless she'd had some stake in the matter. And she had always seemed unflappable, almost jaded, appropriate for a vampire over a thousand years old. Now she displayed the sort of fear and sorrow he'd only ever seen a few times before, when war-scarred veterans unwillingly relived their worst fights as battles within their own minds. This incident had been deeply personal for the vampire, and given her description of what had happened with the fledgling, he had a feeling that her unwanted memories concerned men who would not stop no matter how many times she told them "No". The thought made him cringe internally. He did not want to think about this vampire, their vampire, fighting against an attacker intent upon violating her. He did not want to wonder whether her attack had happened before or after she became undead. "I won't kill you for this, girl," he said, his voice stilted. "Your word is enough. If you say my soldiers behaved in that manner, I believe it."
Serana blinked, then stared at him searchingly. "Why?" she asked, sounding almost suspicious. "You've never believed me before."
Isran hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I can't claim to trust you. Your instincts and the perversion that runs through your veins may yet prove too much for you. But I have never seen you so shaken. That counts for something."
Serana's lips curved into a half-smile, a shadow of her usual arrogant expression. "I have felt this way many times. Just not since my awakening from the tomb I was interred in by my mother. Perhaps the intervening centuries made the feelings stronger. I don't know." She looked down, her eyes dimming with sorrow. "Perhaps it's simply that I forgot how quickly the images can overwhelm me. Or perhaps I was a fool, and hoped the pain and fear had simply vanished."
"You speak in riddles, girl," Isran said curtly, yet with no hint of reproach. "Tell me."
Serana bit her lip, and Isran remembered something Florentius had once said to him. He'd ignored the priest at the time, but now the words seemed pertinent in a way they hadn't before. "A burdened heart needs more than time to heal it," he told Serana. "Words release the pain in a way that even magic can't."
Serana remained frozen in place. Then, ever so slowly, she met his eyes. "What do you know of Molag Bal?" she said in a half-whisper.
"I know he is the father of vampires, and that all of your kind serve him," Isran replied at once.
"Not all. At least, not in the same way," Serana corrected. "Common vampires are turned undead by an existing vampire. They become fledglings, then age into their true undead selves. They are immortals, and yet they grow older. The rate of aging differs, affected by how often a vampire feeds, how often they are exposed to the sun, and so forth. But the point is, though they cannot die of natural causes, they will eventually become old. My father found this unacceptable." She gave an almost imperceptible shudder. "He wanted true vampirism, granted by the Lord of Domination himself. He beseeched the Dark One to turn him, and in the end the god spoke. He promised to grant my father's wish, on the condition that my mother and I were made vampires as well." Serana's eyes were distant. "Perhaps the Schemer Prince thought to torment my father by suggesting he sacrifice his wife and daughter, but if so, then the Prince vastly underestimated my father's ambition to become a vampire lord."
Serana fell silent for a moment, and Isran didn't rush her. He thought it best if she forgot he was even there as she journeyed back through her twisted memories. He'd felt a certain amount of dread as her story had unfolded. There was a reason Molag Bal was known as the King of Rape, and Isran had no desire to imagine the young woman in front of him suffering in that way. Her story made it clear that she had not aged since she was turned, and her appearance was that of a maiden of eighteen or twenty. An innocent girl, betrayed by her own father. It was sickening.
He watched impassively as Serana swallowed and began to speak once more. "The preparations were made, and at midnight on the longest night of the year, my father invoked Molag Bal, asking him to grant us eternal life and bind us into service forever." She tilted her head, an odd shadow of a smile flickering over her lips. "I don't know what I expected. That the Dread Lord would appear in front of us, to bless us? That his voice would echo through our little chapel?" She gave a mirthless chuckle. "He didn't come to us. We went to him. In an instant, the three of us were transported to a graveyard in Coldharbor. We stood at the center of a circle made up of banekin and daedroth, all of them jeering and laughing. There was drumming, a fatalistic beat that seemed to come from every side. I was frightened. I didn't know what was going to happen. But then... he appeared. And I understood at once."
"Molag Bal?" Isran asked softly.
Serana nodded and looked up at him imploringly. "You know what people call him. You know what he does. What he wants. I can't say it, can't bear to think of it, but you know. You must."
Without thinking, Isran reached out and took her hand. "And afterwards?" he asked.
Serana took a steadying breath. "Whatever happened, he enjoyed it enough to let us live. We were transported back to the chapel at Castle Volkihar. I couldn't...they had to carry me to my room, and I was unable to move for days. My mother made me potions, my father brought a healer to tend me, threatening the man with dismemberment if I was not cured, but nothing worked. I couldn't escape. A part of me was still there, with him. I could smell his rotting flesh whenever I closed my eyes, I could feel his clawed hands on me, the heat of his breath and the scrape of his needle-like teeth." She swallowed. "In the end, I recovered. I don't know how. I was able to resume life, or the strange second life we had been granted. But I couldn't forget. I saw his creatures in the shadows, heard their derisive cackling like echoes through the halls. Every moment was agony, waking and sleeping. I think I would have thrown myself from the tower, were it not for the fact that when I die, I will be returned to the very place that haunts me. I am his creature, after all."
The truth of her statement hit Isran like a hammer to the chest. Vampires served Molag Bal in the afterlife. He'd known as much for years, but he'd never concerned himself with how such a fate might affect the beautiful vampire maiden who accompanied them on their quest to destroy one of the greatest vampire covens in Tamriel. The idea of Serana dying bravely in battle, only to be taken back to the site of her torture and violation, was too much to bear. "I have heard of a priest," Isran told her. "One who can return the undead to their living state."
"I can't," Serana whispered. "Such cures are for ordinary vampires, not daughters of Coldharbor. And even if, by some miracle, it were to work, it would attract the Dark Father's attention. He would be furious that his work was undone."
Isran tasted bile. He knew she was probably right, and it infuriated him to think that the most monstrous of daedra would ever have another chance to lay hands on Serana. Unable to stop himself, he pulled her into an embrace. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, her head on his shoulder. He could feel her tears against the skin of his neck, as cold as her body, and he cursed the evil creature who had stolen the warmth from her. She did not deserve this torment.
He held her for a long moment, until a sound met his ears: the unmistakable creak of a wooden bow being drawn. Instinctively he grabbed the vampire around the waist and forced her down, covering her body with his own. He was just in time, for an arrow sailed above them, passing right through the place where Serana's head would have been. Isran looked around frantically and spied several Dawnguard members standing in the broad doorway. One of them had his bow drawn and was fitting another arrow to the string. "What in Oblivion do you think you're doing?" Isran roared.
The archer hesitated, looking at his fellows. The one on the left spoke. "She was feeding on you, sir."
Isran made a disgusted noise and sat up. Rubbing his palms along both sides of his neck, he held out his hands to the men to show that they were clean of blood. "She wasn't feeding, you idiot," he shouted. "And if you ever target her again, you'll find yourself rotting in a dank dungeon. And that's if you're lucky."
More of the Dawnguard had approached upon hearing Isran yelling and were staring openly at the scene before them. Isran glared at them all, then pointed at Serana, who still lay on the floor. "This woman is not to be harmed. If you feel you have proof that she has turned against us, then capture her. But don't even think about shooting at her, no matter what you believe you saw." Seeing their confusion, he stood and planted his feet. "I know what she is. I know we hunt her kind. I don't care. She is not a target. She is an ally, perhaps the most valuable ally we have. And she should not be constantly under suspicion."
He offered Serana a hand and she took it, letting him help her to her feet. Isran nodded to her, then released her hand and strode forward. "Our work here is finished. Back to Fort Dawnguard."
"Sir..." one of his soldiers asked. "What should we do with... them?"
He pointed at the two men Serana had killed. Isran thought for a moment. By rights, the men deserved a proper burial. They had been members of his company, after all. But the memory of Serana's tears was too fresh for him to see the men as anything but monsters. "Leave them," he ordered. "Creatures like that don't deserve to be honored or mourned."
He swept out of the room, aware of Serana following close behind. He would have to be much more careful from now on. He'd had a tendency, whether conscious or otherwise, to place her in harm's way whenever they faced the enemy. Now, knowing what would happen if she died, he would need to find less dangerous positions for her without her discovering what he was doing. She was an impressive fighter, and proud as any goddess, so she would doubtless be offended if she thought he was sheltering her. More importantly, he didn't want her to think that, after hearing her tale, he considered her weak. On the contrary, she was one of the strongest women he'd ever met. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that she'd drawn her hood up to shield her face from the light of dawn, in preparation for their departure. Her expression was composed and aloof, the face of a noblewoman. But he knew now how much sorrow dwelt within her heart. And it would only get worse as they came closer to battling her own family. There was no way to shield her from agony and loss. But perhaps, if she permitted it, he could help bring her some measure of peace. He'd seen how speaking of her transformation into a vampire had bled off some of the hurt. He'd felt her relief as he'd held her. There was no reason that tonight needed to be the only time he eased her pain.
As the band of Dawnguard soldiers and their vampire companion left the abandoned fort, Isran was shocked to find himself smiling in relief. He'd been so convinced, for a moment, that Serana had betrayed them. In that instant, all his darkest predictions about her had seemed to come true. But she was not a soulless murderer. She was a young woman, one who had been hurt terribly, yet who fought with such courage to help warriors who would gladly have driven a stake through her heart. He felt grateful to finally understand her, at least enough for him to see her as a person rather than a monster. He would sleep more soundly in his bed, knowing Fort Dawnguard was not playing host to a foul, perverted creature of undeath. Serana was their ally. From now on, he would ensure that the Dawnguard was a proper ally to her as well.