About this image

It was a perfect shot.  The three-pronged arrow had burrowed its way deep inside the altmer necromancer's brain.  An instant kill.  No pain, no suffering.  The silent snap of the bowstring stretching straight and the sibilant, silky hiss of the arrow's flighting, then eternal silence for the victim.  Such a strong word to use; it had been, as ever, an act of necessity.  The dead deserved their slumber.  None had a right to shake them violently from their void-dreams and dance them around like a puppeteer would the marionette.  The moment then necromancer had plucked the strings of the dead, he had invited his own to be cut.

Enigma knelt over the death-cheater's body, silver eyes sweeping the ruins that surrounded the raven and the carrion, but there was no further movement.  The young woman's eyes had gone blank once more.  Hers was the only other body present.  She had released the most pained, relieved, and thankful sigh as her puppetmaster's hand had gone slack in death, her soul returning to the realm of Arkay, where it rightly belonged.

Silently, he reached down and plucked the arrow from the newer corpse, wiping it upon the ground before slipping it back into its quiver.

The night was young, and he would see fresh blood again before the sun rose into view once more...