On my journey to Tava’s Blessing I was looking forward to paying a visit to the Aswala Stables, home to the horse breeders of the renowned Yokudan Chargers. The stables themselves claimed that their Chargers were bred from the off-spring of the legendary stallion of Divad the Singer who is said to have rode across the entire Alik’r desert in but a day.

Apocryphal claims perhaps, but I still remember the first time I saw one of these noble beasts ridden into battle by a Redguard Gallent. Its glossy ashen coat seemed to roll as fluid as water over its muscled body and stocky limbs as it drove with artistic brawn across the plain. Its flowing mane unfurled whipped at the wind, and its coursing hooves were almost mesmeric as they pounded the soft soil, sending sod flying in an arcing spray in its wake. It was a grand sight and such a pity that he rode against us, and that it was to be a legionaries spear that brought its majestic charge to an inglorious end.

I am awoken from this memory by a booming horn that echoed across the Hollow Wastes like a thunder clap, and to my horror I watched a circular rift open up in the sky above the stables and four huge black grapnels of Oblivion fall to the ground below.

I rode the breath from my steed but the anchor was already repelled by the Fighter’s guild and the mercenaries of the desert before I could make it. The battle for the Aswala stables however had already been lost long before this Dark Anchor dropped.

The stables were all but deserted but for vicious Clannfear and hulking Daedroth picking at the carcasses of the dead horses lying all about. Doors hang broken from building and barn, torn saddles, halters and bridles litter the pathways, water troughs overturned, and straw and saw dust flurry upon the arid air.

It is a desperate scene, Is this to be the fate of all Hammerfell should the Fighter’s Guild fail and the Dark Anchors of Oblivion go unanswered?

As I grieve the loss of the Aswala Chargers, the sky suddenly darkens and the dread clarion bellows once again.

S.K