Gates-to-Oblivion

Shrieking with joy, they race towards the beckoning sea, first through wispy clouds of dry sand, raised by their bare heels, and then across the wet, brownish-gold tide line, separated from the rest of the coast by a thick green belt of dried seaweed and littered with tiny white seashell shards that stick to the skin of their soles. There are about a dozen of them - youngsters from twelve to twenty years of age, mostly Redguards, a couple of Bosmer, a Breton and an Argonian, all of them lean, swift and agile, as though woven out of sunlight and gleeful laughter. They rush into the water with a roaring splash, and then stop, hand in hand, wa

The grey, lumpy bulk towers over me. Through the slits in my helmet, I can see its chest heaving and green mucus oozing out of the lopsided gap it has instead of a mouth. I have worn it out; finally. I clasp the fingers of my left hand round the hilt of my sword, bracing myself for the final lurch forward - and for the shower of slime that is likely to pour over me when I cut this nightmarish creature open. But then, just as I settle on the place where I am going to strike, the monster sways and, bending its grotesque body in two, brings its gnarled upper limbs down into the shallow water with a loud splash. The water, suddenly shaded a brigh