Chapter I: Uthgerd
That girl had been watching them all night. Uthgerd hadn't taken notice of her at first - the inn was full of people and it wasn't over-large either. Sooner or later, no matter how secluded the alcove, you were going to bump into a pair of wandering eyes.
Brenuin spat into his hand and shook the dice with a flourish.
"You know…" Uthgerd commented, taking a long drag of mead from her tankard, "…I don't think those dice are quite as lucky as you say they are."
"Says the hairy sod who's about to buy us the next round!" he grumbled obstinately, releasing them onto the table with a flick of his wrist. They clacked and clattered across the tabletop, nearly tumbling over the edge but stopping just short. Snake eyes.
"Ahaha!" Uthgerd chuckled, pounding the table with her fist. One of the dice rolled off the edge and hit the floor with a clatter. "Add another debt to your tab, eh, Bren?"
He mumbled a long string of curses under his breath that involved blaspheming just about every Divine as he mucked around on the floor looking for the lost die.
The girl was getting steadily closer. She sat on one of the benches lining the firepit, her back to the fire, her face obscured in shadow and her wild hair catching the firelight like a crooked halo.
"MMPH!" Brenuin grunted, an undertone of pain in his muffled voice. There was a mighty THUD and the table overturned. All the numerous half-empty tankards fell to the floor in a great rush of noise and drink sloshed over the tortured wood planks. The other die rolled away, not to be found ever again on this plane.
"Ooh…" Brenuin groaned, curled up in a ball on the floor, cradling his head.
"Bren!" Uthgerd snapped, frowning at the perfectly flattened pastry now facedown on the floor, "I was going to eat that."
"Not even a thought for an injured old man, backbiter?" he groaned, gingerly rising to his feet.
"Not a chance." she laughed, lifting a tankard from the floor and frowning that there was nothing left in it. "You've burned me far too many times for pity."
"Well, fie on you and every one of your descendant's miserable heads!" he snapped, righting the table with a jerk. "So now what?"
"Well, I'm broke now. And you're always broke…"
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girl move again, sliding from the bench to lean on the wall right mere feet away from them. The girl was starting to annoy her.
"I am not broke!" Brenuin protested, "I have two septims to my name. Look. Count 'em."
"That's great, Bren. Just keep on living the dream."
"Hey, now..." he cut back, flipping the coins in his hand. They winked in the firelight before they vanished into the recesses of his ragged robe. "A man's gotta start somewhere."
Uthgerd sighed, shaking her head. A serving girl with a long scar running down her cheek came over to clean up the mess, glaring at the two of them with surprising intensity all the while.
Uthgerd was thinking. The night was still so young.
"Maybe…we could egg Jorvaskr again?"
"Gerdie!" he gasped, "Do you know what that blacksmith did to me last time? I've still got the scar! Here, look at it…it's terrible. I can't even walk right anymore..."
"Bren, I've seen it, you don't have to…"
He stood up and began untying his pants anyway. At that very moment she felt a small tap from behind. Too light to be purposeful, but too close for comfort.
"You." she snarled, rising to her full height and whirling around. "What it is that you want? Spit it out!"
She towered over the stripling girl like the Nord giantess that she was, the greatsword on her back swinging in its sheath with the force of her movement.
She couldn't quite make out any of the girl's features in the dim, smoky light of the inn. She wore a breastplate several sizes too big for her, her skinny arms sticking out awkwardly, like a mudcrab's tiny legs.
"Ah…I…" she answered nervously, wringing her hands and backing up a step.
"Spit it out or get lost." Uthgerd growled, starting to turn away.
"I wanted to hire you!" she said just a bit too loudly, wincing like she was about to get slapped, "That is…if…you're available?"
"Hire me?" Uthgerd snickered, spitting on the floor, "You couldn't handle me, girl."
The girl's tiny fists clenched at her sides. "You don't think so?" she said softly, her voice low and hoarse.
"All right!" Uthgerd smiled, baring her teeth. An entertainment presents itself! "How about this: we settle it like true Nord women. No weapons. No tricks. First one to hit the floor is out. If you beat me, I'll do whatever you like. If I win…hmm…how about…you buy us all the next round of drinks. What do you say?"
The girl frowned, the firelight casting strange shadows in the caverns of her eye sockets. She thought she saw just a twinge of fear jolt through her clenched fists.
"Done." she answered carefully, holding out her hand.
They shook on it, Uthgerd grinning like a madwoman.
"Bren!" she said sharply, turning on her heel, "I need you to hold my sword."
He was frozen in position, his hand hovering over the drawstrings of his pants.
"Gerdie…" he whispered hoarsely, "Don't make this like last time…"
"Bren, it's just a bit of sport. I'm not going to hurt her. Promise."
She shrugged off her harness and tossed it into his waiting arms. He caught it with a grunt, nearly tumbling into the wall behind him. Uthgerd curtly turned around and took her fighting stance, fists raised, feet planted firmly at the width of her shoulders.
The girl looked like a child playing soldier. Her little fists were shaking, her stance off and awkward. Uthgerd was playing with her, thinking through ways to best humiliate her without causing too much damage. They danced for a bit, Uthgerd sidestepping her blows like they were nothing. She was going to have to get serious soon. All eyes were on them now. Conversation stopped as they backed each other around the room. She caught the eye of the innkeeper frowning at the counter, tapping her finger in an irritated way but doing nothing to stop the fight.
And then she saw it. The girl was favoring her right leg, hardly ever putting weight on it and walking with a limp when she was forced to. Without another thought, Uthgerd aimed a punch directly at her face, slipping her foot under her bad heel at the exact moment. The girl made to duck as the punch soared over her head. Her eyes went wide as the truth dawned on her and her leg shot out from under her. Her mouth formed a perfect o as she fell to the floor, flat on her back.
"Ahhhh…" she groaned, clutching the back of her head and blinking confusedly for a few seconds before seeming to regain her vision.
"So!" Uthgerd said curtly, offering a hand to help her from the filthy floor, "About those drinks…"
The girl shot her an icy glare, her lip curled like an angry dog's. She slipped a dagger from her belt at lightening speed and a jolt of fear shot through Uthgerd's heart. The moment passed as she used it to cut through the straps of a purse at her belt and threw it at her disgustedly before stomping out into the night.
-oOo-
Brenuin spat in his hands and cupped them around the dice, his lips tightening as he shook them with all the force he could muster, winding them up like he was about to throw a ball. At long last, he let them loose, sending them flying across the table. Snake eyes.
"Bahahaha!" Uthgerd laughed, pounding her fist on the table and toppling her tankard of mead, "Your luck tonight, Bren, I can't even…"
"That's because you gave me loaded dice, wench!" he growled, his face turning red.
"I did no such thing and you know it." she said solemnly, looking him straight in the eye, "I wouldn't even know how to weigh dice. You know I just play for fun, right?"
"Hrm…" he grumbled, juggling the dice in one hand. "Winner take all in the next round?"
"Fine by me." she smiled, pausing to take a big bite out of the meat pastry sitting on the trencher before her.
"Here goes!" Brenuin belched, managing to get two syllables out of one belch. He wound up his hand again, preparing to let go.
At that moment she felt the tiniest of taps on her shoulder. Annoyed, she turned around, half expecting to see the innkeeper standing there demanding that they pay for the pillar they damaged last week or the bowl they'd dented when Brenuin decided to wear it as a hat.
But there she was instead. The girl from the night before, her wild hair backlit by the firelight and framing her rail-thin figure.
"Go bother the Companions." Uthgerd groaned, "I told you. I'm not for hire."
"I don't have enough to hire a Companion. So they pointed me towards you. Uthgerd the Unbreakable. That is, you, right?"
"They what?" Uthgerd snarled, rising to her feet with a sudden burst of violence. "That's how it is, then? The Companions see fit to throw me their half-eaten bones now? Tell them I don't need their pity and I don't take the piddling jobs they turns their noses up at."
"Ugh!" she groaned, throwing a purse on the table, "Treat yourself, Bren. I'm in no mood for jesting now."
"I came here…" the girl said, her voice small and wavering, "Because I wanted a rematch."
Uthgerd glared at her, hating every inch of her being, thinking of her limbs snapping like twigs under a rain of blows.
"Fine." she spat, smiling like a cat, "Same rules. But this time I don't hold back."
She began unbuckling her sword, struggling with the clasp in her anger. when a hand closed around her elbow.
"Gerdie, don't!" Brenuin hissed in her ear, "This isn't going to end well for anyone."
"Get off of me, Bren!" she snapped, nearly throwing him to the ground. "I need to teach this chit a lesson."
For a moment, he looked stung. Then his eyebrows knotted together in a single mass of pure rage.
"Fine!" he spat out, "See if I give a skeever's arse! Don't come crying to me when the Watch comes knocking on your door! Gods…"
He stomped out the front door, slamming it behind him and startling the people sitting near it. Uthgerd pulled the sword from her back and laid it gently on the table. The girl was ready, her stance slightly improved, a new confidence in her eyes. Uthgerd took a step to the left, as though she was about to flank her and then abruptly changed positions, sending her fist through the girl's nose with a devastating crunch.
A gasp traveled around the smoky room. Several people announced that they were getting out of here and did just that in the blink of an eye. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the innkeeper slip out in a speedy manner, her skirts hitched up to her thighs.
The girl was still standing, her bared teeth slick with blood, her thin fists raised in defiance. A dark bruise was slowly spreading across the center of her face. With a cry, Uthgerd lunged at her, meaning to shatter the rest of her face. The girl leapt out of the way, sending Uthgerd stumbling haphazardly across the room, nearly falling face-first in the firepit. Before she could quite regain her balance, it seemed as though a tendril of flame shot forth from the firepit and wrapped itself around her pant leg.
"Oh!" she gasped at the sudden shock of heat, panic growing in the back of her mind.
In that instant, it was decided for her. She was falling through the air, her legs flying out from under her, the floor rushing up to meet her. Her forehead banged hard against the mead-soaked floorboards and a crack of pain spread through her skull.
She laid there for a moment, face down in the crumbs of last night's dinner, trying to parse through what exactly had just happened. With a groan, she hoisted herself up to sitting position and turned around.
That girl was standing over her, her bad leg extended, a look of utter shock on her broken face. She bent down and offered Uthgerd her hand. Looking at it warily for a moment, the warrior took it and pulled herself to her feet.
She saw the innkeeper, drenched in rain, a guard on her arm, rush back through the front door, pointing and shouting in her direction.
"Ssunrise." the girl hissed, spitting blood down her chin, "At the gate."
She slipped into the surging crowd, melting away as though she had never been there to begin with.
-oOo-
Uthgerd found her leaning against the old gate in the early morning, frowning at a piece of paper in her hands. There were two small scraps of rag stuffed up her nostrils and a thin bandage running around the bridge of her nose. An old rusty axe hung at her belt and a leather bag was slung over her shoulder. The armor looked so much worse in broad daylight - dented and tarnished, like it had been several dozen wars and not come out on top once.
"So…" Uthgerd said quietly, resting her thumbs in her belt loops, "Where to?"
"Bleak Fallss." she answered with a slight lisp, frowning at how the words came out, "I have a map."
She handed over the piece of paper and Uthgerd looked it over. It was a crude sketch of a series of hallways and chambers, with a big charcoal X scrawled in the center of the furthermost one.
"What's the pay?" Uthgerd asked, rolling it up curtly and handing it back.
"Half of the loot from the tomb and a quarter of the payment from retrieval of the artifact."
"Ah. Artifact?"
"A sstone sslab. With a map on it, I think. There sshould be ssome kind of defender guarding it. Dead royalty or ssomething."
"Yeah…" Uthgerd muttered, "There's always a lord or somesuch at the end, isn't there? What'd they do with peasants? Just put 'em in the ground like normal people?"
The girl smiled, shaking her head.
"Well!" Uthgerd went on cheerily, kicking open the doors with her foot and tightening the strap of her harness just a bit, "Shall we get a move on, then?"
The girl tucked the map in her bag, trying not to wrinkle it too badly and hurried after her.
-oOo-
They were moving excruciatingly slow and the sun was starting to wear on the back of Uthgerd's neck. In the back of her mind she thought about how fast she could have gotten there has she been on her own. But no. The girl limped incessantly, plodding down the uneven road like an old nag, sometimes spreading her arms for balance and managing to look exactly like a goose trying to make its way across land without the use of water or flying.
Uthgerd had made a conscious decision not to mention it. A bet was a bet and you didn't mess with your employer no matter how you fell into business with her.
"So…" Uthgerd said slowly, trying to fill the empty air with something more than the sound of blowing grasses, "What is your name, anyway?"
She took entirely too long in answering for there to be any degree of accuracy.
"Tanner." she finally answered, her eyes darting back and forth as though expecting prying eyes to jump out of the bushes at any second.
"Is…that what you do for a living? Or…?"
"Well…" she said softly, looking somewhat conflicted, "Not sso much, no."
"Ah."
They walked in silence for a while longer, plodding along like a pair of stubborn cows.
"I'm actually the court mage's pet errand girl right now." she went on, as though there hadn't been a break in the conversation at all, "He's paying well, at leasst. And if I keep working for him, maybe…I'm trying to get a housse in the city."
"Not been here long, then? Where're you from?"
"Uh…" she was taken aback, grappling for an answer, "Kynessgrove?"
"Right…" Uthgerd sighed, rolling her eyes and skipping ahead.
-oOo-
The draugr crept out of its casket slowly, delicately, blinking the long-congealed sleep from its misty eyes. Its ancient joints popped and cracked as they moved, sending small shivers of agony down his spine. Some half-forgotten thought of sunlight and soft grass flitted across the dark recesses of his consciousness before drifting into shadow again. He sighed, an unknowable, implacable sorrow weighing on his desiccated shoulders. The stagnant air of the tomb caught in his weathered throat, choking him, gagging him. He coughed, sending a burst of swirling dust into the abyss.
There was something different in the air now - not musty like the tomb. Fresh. Living. He saw a light come around the corner, too bright for his dead eyes, bobbing along the stone walls. He squinted in agony at it, his every withered sense betraying him.
There were two figures rounding the corner, one a warrior in armor up to her chin, a sword half her massive height slung casually over her shoulder. The other was smaller and slight, a lantern tied around her waist and a piece of paper outstretched in her hand. He saw the warrior stop the other with her arm. She pointed a finger at him and said something in a language he didn't understand. A memory of fear stirred in his dusty mind as she readied her sword and stepped towards him.
His eyes had adjusted to the brightness, to the stark play of shadow and fire on the walls of his grave. With glazed eyes he glared at her, the hatred in his gut solidifying into one hard mass. With wheezing breaths and dragging steps he wrenched himself from his sarcophagus, hefting the rusty axe in his bony hand.
Their blades met with a mighty clang, sparks illuminating the shadows for brief seconds. She cut and slashed at him, but pain was only a memory now and his sinewy muscles were stronger than they ever had been in life. He let her cut at him, leaving himself open as he swung his axe with one mighty swing after another, any one of them capable of taking off her head. She was getting slower now, growing tired of dodging and running out of space to back up. Her back bumped into a wall and he saw a look of terror flit across her weathered face. He made to make one final swing, to shatter the sword she was blocking so feebly with.
All of a sudden, there was blinding light, searing pain, the wretched sound of his own howls reverberating through the surrounding chambers. Gritting his teeth and squinting through the all-consuming blaze, he groped blindly, his waxy fingers catching fire like candles. His bones cracked and popped in the blaze. The flesh peeled from his bones. What little hair he still possessed caught fire and dwindled into ash. But still he shuffled against it, bolstered by sheer hatred that only burned hotter as his skin melted away.
It was the young, fresh-faced woman dressed in battle-scarred armor much too big for her. Her skinny arms trembled as she held them aloft, a spewing ball of flame cradled between them. Her teeth chattered loudly enough to wake the dead and her eyes widened in terror as he drew ever closer. Sweat poured down her face and her breath came in great heaving gasps. She shook with one last effort, her eyes going glassy.
And all was darkness again.
The draugr stood still, listening intently and sniffing the burnt air. There it was – the sound of heavy breathing, the scent of living flesh. He hurled himself toward it, his bony hands seizing on something warm and soft. Girlish cries filled his ears and something sharp pricked at his abdomen. Her squirming legs were tangled up around his own. There were fingers clawing at his face, at his sunken eyes. The shrieking went on and on, unabated in its shrillness, sobbed in a language he couldn't comprehend.
He was so tired. The weariness came down on him all at once. His bones ached and he felt his age lying on him like a leaden mantle. Fumbling, he groped blindly for the location of her throat, just to stop the screaming, this infernal noise that scraped and screeched on the edges of his consciousness. Failing that, he seized upon a tuft of hair and knocked what it was attached to against the hard cobbles of the floor.
Once it was silent, he'd sleep again. He'd rest at last, perhaps for an eternity this time and in his dreams he'd remember the glory days of what was. In his reverie, he barely heard the clang of steel-shod boots upon weathered stone. His blinded eyes could not see the approaching light of the lantern. And then, he felt something colder than any Skyrim winter slide between his ribs. For a crystalline moment, he waited, trying to understand, to piece together the disparate shards of thought that were crumbling to bits inside his head. The thing twisted in his emaciated heart and he fell.
-oOo-
Uthgerd braced her boot against the draugr's bony back and pulled her sword free. Frowning at the brown sludge encrusting it, she hurriedly wiped it on her hip and sheathed it. With a grunt, she kicked the smoking body free of its entanglement and bent to the ground.
The girl was deathly pale, covered in little cuts and bruises, a fine layer of ash seeping through every visible pore on her body.
"Here." Uthgerd whispered brusquely, offering a hand.
With a gasp like a diver coming up for air, she sprang back to life, her eyes wide with terror, her hands scrambling to get up.
A little ways down the hall there was a stone bench. Shaking a little, the two of them lowered themselves onto it and took a breather.
"So…" Uthgerd said, breaking the silence, an undertone of disdain in her voice, "…you're a mage."
"Yesss." she lisped back quietly, looking utterly ashamed of herself.
She couldn't keep it in any longer.
"Do you know how close that was to me? An inch further and there goes my face! Were you planning on telling me anytime soon? Or would that be after my corpse was cooked beyond recognition?"
"You were in a bad way." she said carefully, measuring her words, "I wass hoping that I wassn't going to have to usse it. Would you rather I let him corner you?"
"And the fight in the inn!" Uthgerd roared, the pieces of the puzzle finally coming together in her head, "The spark that caught my pant leg. That - that was you, wasn't it? Why, you little…"
Before she could even react, Uthgerd's greatsword was at her throat. She swallowed thickly, looking at her defiantly in the eye. A drop of sweat ran down her brow.
A moment passed and the warrior's senses gradually came back to her. What was she doing?
"Ugh!" she made disgusted sound with her throat, abruptly sheathing her sword and turning away, "New deal! Three quarters of the loot goes to me. And half the finder's fee for the artifact."
"Fair enough." the girl gasped, managing a crooked smile. The bead of sweat dripped from her chin and vanished into the dust below.
"And keep away from me!" Uthgerd called back, already down the hall, a vein throbbing in her head, "No more magic unless I'm on the other side of the room!"
-oOo-
Uthgerd stretched out on her bedroll, staring up at the stars high above, through the hole in the stone ceiling. It smelled fresher in this chamber. Bits of grass grew here and there and insects fluttered among the stalks. She tried not to think too hard about the pile of dead draugr in the pit below them. Or what they'd gone through to put them all there.
But she rested easy in the fact that all the exits to the chamber were safely barricaded. And her heart was gladdened to rest in a place where she could smell the outside air. Just as she was drifting off, into a dream of adventures and glittering gold, she was awakened by the crinkling of a paper. Her eyes sprang open at the sound. It shouldn 't have mattered, but something about it and this entire expedition just infuriated her.
She heaved herself up and glared in her companion's direction. The lantern was still burning what little oil they had left as she examined a piece of ancient parchment, squinting at whatever it was.
She crawled over in a huff, thinking to grab the lantern and blow it out when she peered over the girl's shoulder at the collection of strange symbols she was reading. They were sharp and black and seemed to bleed and shift into the paper as she looked.
"Can you read that?" she asked, unable to hide the amazement in her voice.
"Almosst." the girl hissed, frowning at something, "Farengar's taught me a little. But it's not sso much about reading it, I think…"
"Then what use is it?" Uthgerd huffed, reaching for the lantern.
"It's a sspell. The power iss in the paper itsself. I…want to usse it on the guardian of the artifact."
"More magic?" Uthgerd grumbled, seizing the lantern.
"It could work!" the girl protested just a bit too loudly, her voice cracking on the last word. The lantern's flame flared in Uthgerd's hand and she dropped it with a gasp.
"Thiss iss the plan…" she said softly, righting the lantern, pulling out the map of the tomb and unrolling it between them. "Before the final chamber, there's thiss passsageway. You hunker down in there while I draw out the guardian. I casst the sspell and whatever issn't dead by then, you can finissh off. Deal?"
"I…uh…" Uthgerd mumbled, still feeling the heat in hand from the lantern's flame, "I'll sleep on it."
She curled up like a cat inside her bedroll, feeling colder than when she'd started.
-oOo-
Sometime in the night, Uthgerd was awakened by the sound of sobbing. She lay in bed listening to it for a while, watching Masser make its way across the hole in the ceiling. When she at last came to the conclusion that it showed no signs of stopping, she sat up with a sigh, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
The girl was dreaming. She could see her eyes racing frantically about below her closed lids. Tears poured down her face as she shifted in her sleep, twitching impotently at some foe only she could see.
Biting the tip of her tongue, Uthgerd carefully stretched out a hand and touched her shoulder. Her eyes popped open, a look of sheer terror on her face. It vanished as quickly as it had come. She tried to wipe the tears from her cheek and left a big smudge of soot in their place instead.
"Are you okay?" Uthgerd whispered.
The girl shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again.
Uthgerd dug through her satchel, pulling a goat bladder from the depths of it.
"Here." she said softly, dumping it on her companion's chest, "Black-Briar Reserve. It's yours. Now go back to sleep."
The warrior rolled over and was soon snoring away.
-oOo-
Uthgerd trudged on, her sword getting heavy in her hand, her lungs longing for just one breath of fresh air. It felt like days since she'd last seen the outdoors. Everything about the endeavor was wearing on her. Things would be so much better when she was back in Whiterun with a tankard of mead. Having gloriously stupid arguments with Brenuin about odds…
All of a sudden, the girl stopped dead in front of her.
"Shor's ass!" Uthgerd exclaimed, bumping into her and nearly knocking them both to the ground. "Say something before you do that."
The girl was ignoring her, looking intently at the map instead. As though a spell was broken, her attention snapped away, she curtly rolled up the map for the first time in hours and put it away.
"Thiss iss it." she announced, pointing down the hallway.
It wasn't a particularly impressive looking hallway. Just like every other one they'd been traversing for the past day and night. Uthgerd shifted the weight of her traveling bag to make it more comfortable and carried on, plodding behind her slow-moving companion.
They turned the bend and the warrior stopped in her tracks, amazed. The lantern 's dim light glittered on a hallway whose walls were covered in intricate carvings. Forgotten heroes, rings of fire, half-formed figures that she couldn't quite make out…
She turned and saw the girl run her fingers over one of the carvings, spellbound herself. They looked each other in the eye and as one, broke free of the spell and slowly strode toward the end of the hall.
There was a great stone door there, an old rusted mechanism holding it in place. The girl spun the dial with her pale fingers, straining to make it work. There was the sound of something pinging deep inside the stone and with a whoosh of dusty air, the slab of stone cracked open.
They both nearly screamed when a cluster of bats from the ceiling sprang to life and rushed them, the sound of their wings echoing noisily on the empty walls.
When the commotion had passed, Uthgerd surveyed the dim chamber inside. Grand pillars rose from the cavern floor into the heights of the mountain above them. A stream trickled from the cracks in the walls, carving the stone as it had done for millennia. On the wall in the back were written words - at least, she thought they were words - of a strange, scratchy language. Swirling carvings circled the room, all leading into one central, focal point - the onyx casket standing alone in the center, like a piece of midnight that had been left sitting there since the dawn of time.
Uthgerd heard the crinkle of ancient paper and turned back to see the girl withdrawing the spell scroll from her things.
"So…" Uthgerd whispered, unsure if the dead could hear them and not willing to take any chances, "You're…going to go ahead with that plan?"
"I am." she answered resolutely, though the paper quivered in her hand.
"Is this a safe distance for me? Or…" she trailed off as the girl shook her head confusedly.
"I don't know. It'ss ssome kind of fire sspell. But what exactly it doess or how far itss reach…"
"I'll…just hang back as far as I can." Uthgerd said slowly, scratching her head. "Within reason."
The girl nodded, her lips tight, the fear in her eyes not as disguised as she seemed to think.
The warrior clung to the doorframe, ready to duck behind the solid comfort of rock at any second. She looked so small out there, slowly limping up the stone stairs, the paper held out in front of her like the flimsiest shield. After an eternity of walking, she reached the casket, staring it down like an angry bull, the spell ready in her hand.
The lid cracked and a bony hand pried its way out.
At that moment the girl's hand rushed to her head and clutched it as though in extreme agony. Her knees buckled and her legs gave out from under her, the paper slipping from her hand.
The guardian rose from his casket, his rusted armor jangling and jingling on his bony frame. Cold gold and frosted gems glittered on his arms. His eyes shone like two sapphires in their sockets. Languidly, he pulled a mighty axe from his resting place and raised it above his head in two hands, the thin neck of the one who had disturbed his rest falling under its shadow.
Uthgerd ran - sprinted - across the room, her chest heaving with every breath, her feet flying as though she had wings. She slammed into the monster like an untamed horse, knocking the axe from his hand and sending them both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
They tumbled head over heels, Uthgerd struggling to break free from his devastating grip. With a well-placed kick, she knocked him loose and scrambled to her feet, drawing her sword and gritting her teeth. She took a brisk step toward him, meaning to slice straight through his leathery little neck. That was when he opened his jaw and a sound that reverberated through her entire being shook her to the core and sent her flying backwards.
"TANNER!" she shrieked as the sword flew from her hand and skittered across the room. She was falling through the air, the dark world falling away from her and turning upside down as she watched. Her head struck a sharp corner of stone and her vision was all stars, every constellation that ever was whirring dizzily across her shattered mind.
-oOo-
"TANNER!" Uthgerd shrieked, terror and anger in her voice.
Something in the name snapped Taniale back to reality. Her head was pounding, her vision going in and out of focus. Covered in a cold sweat, she staggered back to her feet. The chanting intensified in her head, a thousand voices pulling her mind in every which direction. A pathetic whimper forced its way out of her throat and she nearly fell again.
When she finally forced her vision to focus, Uthgerd was on the ground, her sword flung far away from her. The draugr drew a rusty dagger from his belt and leaned down for the kill.
There was the spell, on the floor. She snatched it up and the paper came to life in her hands, the words written turning to fire and scorching the page. The inferno bloomed from her hands like a deadly flower, growing and glowing, the flames unfurling until the entire room was consumed and the light hurt to look at.
Taniale gasped for breath, coughing and gagging as the inferno died down and the resulting smoke choked her. Through it, she saw lumbering movement and the hair on the back of her neck stood up on end.
The draugr still walked, shrouded in flames, inching ever closer, his skeletal hand extended toward Taniale's throat. His right arm hung limply from his charred shoulder, the cruel dagger in his burning death-grip. Taniale stood still for a moment, watching its progress, frozen in the horror of her approaching end, of all the collective failure that had led her to this very place and time. Then with a scream, she seized the old axe from her belt and lunged at him.
His charcoal bones gave out with a snap as he fell to his knees. The dagger hit the floor, clanging against it noisily, its echoes bouncing across the cavernous walls. Taniale stood over him in shock, as the glow from his sapphire eyes dimmed and the fire died in his bones.
The chanting was still pounding in the back of her head, insistently drawing her in, striking terror in her heart. She clapped her hands over her ears and tears poured down her face.
-oOo-
She stumbled through the smoke, arms outstretched, groping in the darkness for something she was unsure of. There was a song in her head, thrumming and booming, speaking to her soul, the voice of every ancestor she ever had reaching out for her. It got louder the closer she drew to the back of the room, until at last her fingers brushed smooth stone. She put her pounding forehead against it and basked in its coolness. The sound dropped to a hum, a sweet melody caressing her cheeks.
Breathing, she took a step back - and saw it, her eyes going wide. For a split second, it was as clear as day. She could read the words on the wall before her.
Here lies the guardian
Keeper of dragonstone
And a force of unending
Rage and darkness
She blinked and it was gone, the words dripping from her mind like water from a sieve, patchy details remaining and a sense of unease growing in their place.
It was silent now. Her heart had stopped pounding and the only music she heard was the sound of her own quiet breathing. All of a sudden, there was a gurgle in the darkness, a strangled cry.
"Uthgerd!" she breathed, a terrifying weight crashing down on her shoulders. "Nonono…"
Uthgerd was a mess of charcoal on the barrow floor. Embers still burned in her remaining hair. She was making painful sounds in her desiccated throat. Her arm stretched frantically, with pitiful, mincing movements, blackened fingers curling toward some goal only she knew.
"Just hold sstill!" Taniale sobbed, "I've got potionss, medicine…"
Uthgerd groaned, still scraping about on the floor beside her. Taniale followed her fingers with her eyes. Just out of reach was that greatsword that had served them so well on this adventure, now blackened with soot. She picked it up and dropped it again with an echoing clatter when it burned her hands. Uthgerd groaned in agony as the noise assaulted her. Taniale sucked in her breath and grabbed it again, gritting her teeth as the hot metal seared her palms. She laid it gently across Uthgerd's chest and wrapped the warrior's wandering hands around its boiling pommel.
Uthgerd sighed, her tense body relaxing at the touch of her weapon. She laid back and grew still.
-oOo-
And there was that wretched stone, in a bed of dust at the foot of the black casket. It was pentagonal in shape and flattish in construction, a little smaller than the width of a man's shoulders. It was covered in cobwebs and dust that obscured the identifying markings on it. Taniale didn't care to examine them any closer. She wrapped it in an old gown roughly, angrily despite the court wizard's instructions to be gentle with it, securing the package with a tight knot of the garment's sleeves. When she found that it was too heavy to be supported by the cloth of her pack and would probably crush her stash of healing potions on the trip home, she rigged up a harness for it from a bundle of leather strips that had been floating around in the bottom of the pack for ages. It seemed to be holding just fine. She tied it to her back, staggering a bit at the extra weight, picked up her pack and headed out.
She trod solemnly through the long tunnels, so eerily silent now except for the sound of her businesslike footsteps and occasional sniffles. Uncontrollable fear gripped her once again. She wondered what would happen if the Jarl found out that it was her who had killed Uthgerd. Would there be jail, death for the action? She shivered at her thoughts. She wondered if Uthgerd had a family that was worried about her.
The way back to the outdoors stretched for cold, dark miles, littered with twisted corpses in their death pirouettes. The mage stumbled over them in the dark, kicking them aside in disgust when she realized what it was that she'd stepped in. Her spirits perked up for a moment when the air started smelling fresher again. She was getting closer to the surface. Soon enough, she ran into the corpse of that Dunmer thief who'd run straight into a mass of draugr and gotten himself killed. A little further on was the spider that had entrapped him, its spindly legs curled up under its charred body.
Fighting against sorrow and weariness, Tanniel began running up the stairs in a momentary burst of energy, skipping over the corpses of bandits and skeevers that littered the way. There was the door ahead, iron and merciless in its design. She flung her full and inconsiderable weight at it and its rusted hinges screeched as they yielded.
Snow was falling on the barrow now, in the frozen night. The flakes stung her face like icy pinpricks. It hurt and it was wonderful to feel and it started her crying again down the snowy path to Riverwood. She stumbled down to the river, falling on her knees beside the bridge.
She washed her face in the chilly water, scrubbing off the tears and soot, dipping her aching hands long enough to numb them. Then she breathed in deep, rose to her feet and plodded on as though there was something heavier than a stone on her back.