Making a snap decision I chose an option that was definitely not what would be expected, I went up. I used my powerful legs to leap as high as I could and then proceeded to use a banned spell to kick off the air and go up and over the spikes. [levitate] was an alteration spell that technically didn't actually let you do as the name suggested but rather solidified air under you to give you the illusion of flight. It was still a banned spell however as everyone agreed that forts and city walls lose all meaning when you can go right over them.-
Figuring out how to recreate the spell wasn't particularly hard once you understood how it worked but I'd get in serious trouble if anyone knew I used it. Damned good thing I had no intention of leaving witnesses. I didn't bother using the spell for sustained aerial movement since that was a waste of time and magicka but I did use it to give me solid platforms to kick off of. These Thalmor mages clearly weren't trained to improvise as they panicked at this unpredictable movement path and scrambled to try and gain some more distance as I rapidly approached.-
When they seemed to forget they were on the side of a rocky incline and tripped in their haste I landed and dashed towards the fallen with my blade at the ready. I swung the edge swiftly as I dashed past the first fallen cleaving their head from their shoulders and moving on without stop. The second managed to send off a volley of spikes at me with their staff that I weaved around and claimed another head. The last three quickly realized that they were definitely going to lose and silently chose to leave two to stall while the last tries to escape with this information. -
Obviously I couldn't have that and waved my free hand creating spikes of ice of my own that I rained towards them without stopping my charge. The two who stopped to stall dodged the obvious attack but I just grinned cruelly. They gained looks of horror as they heard the fleeing one scream as the spikes sank into his legs, crippling him.-
"Face your deaths with courage!" I roared as I got within striking distance and slashed my sword at one of the stallers.
He instinctively tried to block my blade with the handle of his staff only for my blade to cleave through it and then him in one smooth motion. I wasn't surprised by this as my blade was heavy and sharp with my full strength behind it, a mere normal wooden staff was little better than dry firewood to be chopped. With that one taken care of I hopped back as the last two elves sent spikes at me again. I clenched my left hand and sent a [lightning bolt] to the closest before dashing towards the crippled elf.-
"For the glory of the Thalmor!" the elf screamed madly before crunching on something inside his mouth and almost immediately seizing up as a potent poison took hold.
"Tch! Death before capture is it?" I muttered with a little annoyance since I had intended to interrogate the fucker to find out who told them I was coming.
I would need to be blind not to spot the obviously suspicious timing of the ambush. Maybe this hit squad had always been there and only chose to take the opportunity to kill a lone traveler but the timing tickled the paranoid part of my brain.-
I ignored the blood and carefully searched the bodies for anything that would tell me how they knew I was coming. On the first person I killed I found a slip of paper that did it.
(Potential threat Alexan of Riften has come to Windhelm. He has made no secret of his intent to travel to Winterhold. You know what to do. - A)
'A? That could be any number of people. This only tells me that this was planned, not who tipped them off.' I thought with annoyance.
I checked the staves and gear of the would-be assassins and sighed as I understood why they only seemed to use one spell. They were a point and shoot unit. The term refers to a group trained to hold staves and rain ranged spells of a single type on distant targets and nothing else. Expendable mages with little actually cost when lost to put it bluntly. If I had to guess the reason this group was used was because with the sheer amount of snow and ice in the surroundings the ice spikes were damned near invisible, perfect for ambushes. The staves weren't even of great quality as they had the [ice spike] spell matrix branded on them with a magicka channel and materials at the lowest possible quality. -
The wood was plain nonmagical birch and the soul gem was a low quality petty one. I'd be lucky to get twenty gold for the four intact staves, the cut in half one was a lost cause entirely. Because of this I didn't even bother taking the staves and pried off the soul gems alone. None of the corpses had anything else on them, no money, jewelry, nothing. I sighed in annoyance at this but headed back towards my toad that had stopped to wait for me to finish up with the elves.-
The rest of the day was tense as I kept my head on a swivel but there were no more ambushes. I used [shape earth] to create a small cave in the mountain side for the night and cooked a simple steak dinner using [flames] to keep the smoke from possibly giving away my position. I slept lightly and twitched at any slightly off sound I heard from the entrance and beyond. It was not a good sleep but it was better than nothing and I could only thank the gods that coffee existed in this world.-
It wasn't very popular in this world and if anything mostly was used in stamina potions. I myself had a collection of the beans in my storage plane of Oblivion. I took out a handful of them and with a quick roast in a pan ground them up in a kettle that I held while I used [flames] on it to boil the coffee. Once done I put the cloth filter on the kettle spout and poured a cup of the rich brown liquid. I then added a spoonful of processed moon sugar for sweetness and enjoyed.-
I shared some with my toad and once the kettle was empty I cleansed it and set out once more. At the speed my toad was going none of the wildlife that saw us could do anything about that fact though not for lack of effort. There was a pack of ice wolves stalking the road that tried to chase us but failed miserably. The frost troll that tried the same was so much slower than even those so could only roar at us in impotent rage.