One: The Girl with the DragonTattoo
Rhiannon sat cross-legged on her hotel room bed, stroking an emery board over her nails, as she waited for her downloads of Doctor Who and the Strictly Come Dancing semi-final to finish. Being unable to watch them live, alongside her mum and dad, was one of the down sides to working mainly in America. Of course that paled beside being unable to get a proper cup of tea anywhere, even in hotels and restaurants, or a decent curry. And almost no-one understood why it was hysterically funny that Neville looked, and sounded, so much like Ross Noble.
The money made up for it, of course, and she did have a certain amount of fame. She was available as an action figure, and was a playable character in WWE 2K16, and she had over a quarter of a million followers on Twitter. She'd had roles in three movies. Admittedly two of them had been straight-to-DVD sword-and-sorcery potboilers, and she'd always played basically the same role – pseudo-Celtic warrior woman who hit people with swords or axes and then died – but it had been fun anyway. And being announced as the WWE Divas Champion at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, during WWE's recent whistle-stop Live Events tour of the British Isles, had been the proudest moment of her life.
But it was all hollow. She was champion only because a couple of badly-timed injuries had disrupted the planned storyline and she'd been put into the position as a stop-gap. Now the injured divas were fit again and Rhiannon was scheduled to lose the title at next week's Monday Night Raw. Normal service would be resumed, with the feud between Charlotte and Paige taking center stage, and Rhiannon would slip back into a supporting role. Quite possibly she'd be teamed with Paige, which wouldn't be bad in itself as she got on well with the English girl outside of kayfabe*, but she suspected that she'd be the second fiddle in the team and, inevitably, Paige would be scripted to betray Rhiannon eventually.
She had doubts about her long-term future in the WWE; perhaps she just wasn't flamboyant enough to be a real superstar. Sometimes she felt that the only thing that made her stand out from the crowd was the spectacular tattoo of a red dragon that covered her back, its wings stretching from one shoulder to the other, and that novelty (unlike the tattoo itself) was bound to wear off eventually.
And the Americans seemed to have a problem fitting a Welsh girl into their worldview; when she first moved up from NXT she'd been introduced as being from 'Wales, England' and, although Lilian Garcia had never made that mistake again, during Lilian's absence undergoing knee surgery her stand-in had announced Rhiannon as coming from 'Bethesda, Maryland' instead of 'Bethesda, Wales'. And then there'd been the recent TV appearance that had been really hard work because the host had been under the impression that he would be interviewing Rihanna…
She decided that she was satisfied with the state of her nails and slipped the emery board back into her little travelling manicure kit. She couldn't be bothered to get up and put the kit back into her case and so, as she was wearing only bra and pants, she tucked it into her bra for the moment. Then she turned back to her laptop. The downloads hadn't finished and she took a moment to look at the BBC News website to catch up on the news from Wales.
Flood alerts, and gale warnings, as the tail end of Storm Desmond continued to wreak havoc. She found nothing to indicate that her home town had been affected and the last e-mail from her parents had said that they were fine. She moved on to sports news and saw an article about the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year having been won, unsurprisingly, by Dan Biggar. She sighed.
There was no chance that she would ever be nominated for any similar award. Rhiannon knew she was a superbly-fit and highly-trained athlete, who would have been able to make a good showing in quite a few sports, but she'd followed in her father's footsteps and gone into professional wrestling. A 'sport' in name only, choreographed and planned out in advance, that would never be taken seriously. In the hierarchy of British sporting personalities Rhiannon knew that she ranked only marginally ahead of the glamor models who accompanied darts players to the stage at televised PDC events. Most of the time this didn't bother her, as the benefits more than made up for the lack of recognition, but occasionally it got to her and she envied those in conventional sport.
Her gaze strayed to the clock display at the corner of her laptop screen and she noticed that the time showed as 11.11. A fleeting memory of a superstition from her schooldays came to her mind. Supposedly if you happened to look at a digital clock at 11.11 in the morning, without having intended to do so, you could make a wish within that minute and it would come true. Complete nonsense, of course, but on the spur of the moment she played along.
"I wish I could be a champion somewhere where it really meant something," Rhiannon said aloud, with no expectation whatsoever that anything would happen.
A disembodied voice, seeming to come from everywhere around her at once and – weirdly – sounding very like John Cena, answered. "Granted!" it said, and then everything went black.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Her vision cleared and her surroundings swam into focus. She wasn't in the hotel bedroom, or anywhere else she recognized, but in some kind of horse-drawn open wooden cart. Beyond the cart she saw trees, snow-covered ground, and rocky hills. The cart jolted as it went over a bump in the road and the rough wood of its bench seating scraped uncomfortably against the skin of her bare back and thighs. She looked down and saw that she was still wearing just bra and pants and her hands were tied together with thick ropes.
There were other people in the cart with her; a driver, whose back was to her and who seemed to be clad in some sort of Roman legionary uniform; a big man dressed like some kind of Viking, in a quilted tunic – a gambeson, if Rhiannon remembered correctly – over light chain-mail armor, and who bore a slight resemblance to Triple H; a scrawny and unkempt specimen in a grubby tunic; and another big Viking type, in fine mail armor topped by a fur cloak, whose mouth was concealed by a cloth gag. All, except for the driver, had their hands bound. Behind the cart another Roman legionary type was riding a horse; to the front Rhiannon could see another two carts, also full of bound prisoners, and more horsemen.
"So, girl, you're finally awake," the ungagged Viking addressed her. "I was beginning to think you'd never come round. Were you attacked and robbed?"
"What?" Rhiannon looked around again. "Where am I?" She was confused, bewildered, and bloody cold. This didn't look at all like Philadelphia and yet she still felt as if she'd showered only minutes before and she could feel the manicure kit tucked under her bra. How could she have been whisked away somewhere else without a lot of time having passed?
"Falkreath Hold," the Viking answered, "on the road to Helgen, I think."
"What? Where?" The answer was completely meaningless to Rhiannon. Was this a movie set? Had she taken on another movie role and somehow lost her memory mid-shoot? But in that case why had nothing about her changed since she remembered being in her hotel room? Why wasn't she in faux-Viking or Roman costume like the people around her? And wouldn't a Vikings versus Romans movie be idiotic even for the SyFy Channel? Well, maybe not. "What's going on?"
"We are prisoners of the Imperials," the Viking said, "and I suspect we are on the way to the block. They do not treat captured Stormcloaks kindly."
All completely meaningless to Rhiannon. "I don't know the script," she complained. "I don't understand. What am I supposed to do?"
"Maybe they'll let you go," said the Viking, "if they realize that you're not a Stormcloak. I wouldn't bet on it, though. We were gathered around you, wondering what an unconscious and unclad woman was doing on the trail, when the Imperials attacked. I thought at first that you were an Imperial spy, planted there to distract us from their ambush, but then they bound you and tossed you in here with the rest of us. That implies that you'll get the same treatment as we will. Execution, most likely."
"They can't execute me!" the unkempt man protested. "I'm not a Stormcloak. I'm just a horse-thief. I would have been half-way to Hammerfell if the Imperials hadn't swept me up along with you. You have to tell them I'm not with you."
"Very well," said the Viking, "but I doubt if they'll care. We're all brothers and sisters in bonds now, thief, and we will share the same fate."
"Shut up, you back there!" the driver called.
The thief ignored him. "What's up with him with the gag?" he asked.
"Watch your tongue, thief," the Viking growled. "That is Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King."
"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? Leader of the rebellion? Oh, by the Divines, they really are going to execute us! This can't be happening. I don't belong here. Jail, fair enough, but not the block. Not for horse theft."
"You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like the girl," said the Viking, "and that is your bad luck. What village are you from?"
"Why do you care?"
"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home," said the Viking, "and you will be on your way to Sovngarde soon enough."
"Rorikstead. I'm from Rorikstead," said the thief.
"What about you, girl? You look more like a Breton than a Nord, but I've never seen a Breton girl anywhere close to your height. And I've never heard an accent like yours before." The Viking's own accent sounded vaguely Scandinavian to Rhiannon but she couldn't tie it to any specific nationality.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. Breton? Someone from Britanny? How would that fit in with a Vikings versus Romans scenario? "I'm from Bethesda, near Bangor, in Gwynned, North Wales."
"Never heard of it," said the Viking, "but it sounds vaguely Breton. You came to Skyrim at the wrong time, girl."
The convoy had travelled out of the area where snow lay on the ground and now was drawing near to what appeared to be a fortified medieval village. A stone wall surrounded it, the rough road entering through a gateway with the gates being of heavy wooden beams, and inside there were a number of wooden buildings and the stone towers of some kind of keep. A soldier atop the wall called out to the horsemen leading the procession.
"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"
"Good," one of the horsemen replied. "Let's get this over with."
"Look at him," said the Viking. "General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this." All totally meaningless to Rhiannon. "This is Helgen, as I thought," the Viking continued. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in? Funny… when I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."
To Rhiannon this sounded like the sort of exposition a mediocre movie would use to give the audience some background on the setting. Except that she couldn't see any microphones, camera crews, or any of the other paraphernalia she'd seen in her movie work. As they entered the village everything she saw was consistent with it being an actual settlement, with genuine inhabitants, rather than a movie set where only those parts in front of the camera would be authentic. Some of the villagers called out to the soldiers, and made comments to each other, but she missed most of them because she was concentrating on looking for cameras and the like. Those she did hear she didn't understand.
The wagons came to a halt and their occupants were hustled out, by pseudo-Roman soldiers, and formed up into two lines. A fairly tall and well-muscled man in Roman-style leather armor stood in front of them holding an open book and a quill pen. He didn't look very Roman, with hair the same reddish-brown as Rhiannon's would be without enhancement from L'Oréal Paris, so presumably a Germanic or Celtic auxiliary. Beside him a much shorter woman, wearing armor that resembled the Roman lorica segmentata and a helmet with a tall crest, stood and shouted out orders.
"Step forward when we call your name! One at a time!"
"Empire loves their damn lists," muttered the Viking.
"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," called the man with the pen. The gagged man walked forward and a tick was made in the book.
"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric," the Viking called out. Ulfric dipped his head, obviously unable to reply in any other way, and then was led off to one side.
"Ralof of Riverwood," the man marking the lists continued. The Viking who had been talking to Rhiannon strode forward, his name was marked off, and he was moved on.
"Lokir of Rorikstead."
"No!" cried the thief. "I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" He leapt away from the line, sprinted past the woman officer and the muscular clerk, and ran off through the village.
"Halt!" shouted the officer and then, as the thief ignored her and ran on, "Archers!"
A Roman soldier with a bow loosed a shaft and it struck the thief in the middle of the back. He fell to the ground, twitched a few times, and then lay still.
Rhiannon gulped. She'd seen the tricks used on film sets to simulate people being hit by arrows and she couldn't see how any of them could have been used here. The arrow looked to have sunk into the thief's back to half the length of the shaft and, as far as she could tell, he'd really been shot dead.
"Anyone else feel like running?" the officer growled. No-one answered.
"You there. The woman without clothes," said the man with the book. "Step forward." Rhiannon obeyed. "Who are you?"
"I'm Rhiannon," she answered. "The WWE Divas Champion. And I have no idea what's going on."
"Are you a Breton? You look like one but you're as tall as a Nord," the soldier went on. "A camp follower, I would guess, from your lack of clothing. You picked the wrong people to follow." He turned to the officer. "Captain, what should we do? She's not on the list."
"Who cares about a camp follower?" the captain sneered. "She goes to the block."
"By your orders, Captain," said the man with the lists, and then he turned back to Rhiannon. "I'm sorry," he said. "It seems unfair but there's nothing I can do. We'll try to return your remains to your people."
"Hurry it up," the captain snapped. A soldier pushed Rhiannon to the side and she joined the Viking, Ralof, and the gagged Jarl Ulfric. Other prisoners were processed and added to the group. Not far away Rhiannon could see a wooden block and, standing beside it, a powerfully-built man holding a huge single-bladed axe. He was wearing a black hood covering all of his head except for an eye slit; an executioner's hood.
A grey-haired officer, wearing molded leather armor with gilded decorative insets, stood in front of them facing Jarl Ulfric. He was much shorter than the gagged Viking chieftain but looked tough and grim. "Ulfric Stormcloak," he addressed the Jarl. "Some here in Helgen call you a hero, but a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne."
The gagged Jarl could only grunt in reply.
"You started this war," the officer continued, "plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down and restore the peace."
A roaring noise sounded in the distance. Rhiannon couldn't tell what it was and, from the way they reacted, neither could the other people around her. Everyone, prisoners and guards alike, looked around and up at the sky.
"What was that?" the man who had been marking off names in the book exclaimed.
"It's nothing," said the grey-haired officer. "Carry on."
"Yes, General Tullius," said the woman captain. "Give them their last rites." She walked over to the wooden block and stood waiting.
A woman in robes began to recite blessings and the names of gods that meant nothing at all to Rhiannon. The recitation was interrupted by one of the prisoners striding forward.
"For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with," said the man in Viking-style armor.
"As you wish," the woman, presumably some sort of priestess, said. The Viking strode over to the block and knelt down in front of it. The woman officer put her foot on his back and pushed him down so that his head and neck rested on the wooden surface.
"My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials," said the prisoner. "Can you say the same?"
"Executioner!" the captain snapped out. The big man swung his axe up and then brought it down.
Rhiannon gasped as she saw the blade chop through the prisoner's neck. The man's head fell free, into a basket, and a massive gout of blood spurted forth and soaked the ground. This couldn't have been faked. Unless… a shorter man with an animatronic false head? No, she'd had too clear a view of him as he moved and spoke. It was real. The thief, and now this man, really had been killed.
"As fearless in death as he was in life," Ralof said.
"Next, the camp follower!" the captain shouted, as she used her foot to push the corpse's torso aside from the block.
They were going to kill her. Rhiannon could feel herself shivering and not from the cold. What was this, a snuff movie? She'd always been sure such things were an urban legend. And it made no sense. Kidnapping someone as high-profile as her, whose disappearance was bound to attract a lot of attention and serious investigation, and then killing her off in a single scene? It was crazy. Surely a homeless person, or maybe a hooker, would be a lot less risky to snatch and kill. Why take the extra risk without at least giving her some wrestling scenes before they killed her? And the Viking-type seemed to have gone willingly to his death. She didn't understand at all.
But she wasn't going to 'go gently into that good night'. The first soldier who approached her was met with a knee to the groin and a head-butt into the middle of his face; not pulled at the last instant, as she did in the ring, but with everything she had. The man went down as if shot and writhed on the ground with his nose smashed to pulp and his face becoming a mask of blood.
"Brave girl," Ralof said, approvingly, but her resistance was of no avail. With her hands bound she couldn't stop two other soldiers seizing her by the arms and dragging her forward. She struggled, and spat out curses both in English and in Welsh, but she was hustled to the block and forced to her knees.
The roaring noise sounded again, this time seemingly much closer, and it caused some consternation among the soldiers. Rhiannon paid it no attention; she had other things to worry about. The woman captain put her foot on Rhiannon's back and pushed her down, onto the blood-stained wooden block, and the executioner raised his axe again.
"What in Oblivion is that?" exclaimed General Tullius.
"Sentries! What do you see?" called the captain.
Past the headsman Rhiannon could see a stone tower. A massive winged creature, black as night, swooped down through the clouds and landed on the building with an impact that shook the ground. The headsman stumbled, dropped his axe, and it fell past Rhiannon's head without touching her. The pressure of the captain's foot on her back was gone.
"Dragon!" someone yelled.
The creature, and yes it did look like a dragon, seemed to stare directly at Rhiannon. It opened its huge, fanged, maw and spoke in a deep, rasping, voice. "Joor lost ilir do dovah nau ek zek," it said. "Zurun*."
The headsman recovered his footing, bent down, and picked up his axe again. Then the dragon spoke again, louder, its voice like a thunder-clap and the words indistinct. Some kind of energy pulse came out of its mouth and struck the executioner. He was blasted backward and out of Rhiannon's sight. She heard the general shouting "Get the townspeople to safety!" and then the dragon roared again. Flaming rocks began to fall from the sky and everyone around, soldiers and prisoners alike, scattered.
"Hey, girl! Rhiannon! Get up," Ralof called, as he ran past the block. "Come on, the gods won't give us another chance! This way!" He turned and ran.
Rhiannon got to her feet and ran after the Viking. She tried to make sense of what she had seen. A dragon? It couldn't be CGI, not if they were seeing it in actuality, and she couldn't see how it could be a hologram. And how could an animatronic creature have flown? Some kind of flying machine? But flapping wings were far too complex for existing technology on anything but a very small scale. It had every appearance of being horribly real.
She followed Ralof across the courtyard, through a door, and into a tower. A few of the Viking types – Stormcloaks – were already there and another ran in just behind her. One, a woman, was huddled on the floor moaning. The others were busy untying their comrades' bonds and taking weapons from racks that stood against the wall.
"Jarl Ulfric!" Ralof said. "What is that thing? Could the legends be true?" He held out his hands and another freed prisoner began to untie him.
"Legends don't burn down villages," Ulfric, no longer gagged, replied. "The Imperials will follow us here. We need to move. Now!"
"Up through the tower!" Ralof said. "Let's go. This way, girl!" He started to climb a flight of stairs. Rhiannon held out her hands but no-one offered to untie her. She grimaced and followed Ralof up the stairs.
"Ralof! Help me," the Stormcloak woman who had been lying on the floor called. She had risen, and begun to climb the stairs, but it appeared she had an injured leg and was having difficulty walking.
"You carry on up," Ralof said to Rhiannon, and she continued on as Ralof turned back. Then, with a tremendous crashing noise, the wall of the tower burst inwards between her and Ralof. The dragon's snout appeared in the gap.
"Yol Toor Shul!" the dragon roared, and a jet of flame shot from its mouth and into the tower. It missed Rhiannon, and Ralof, but enveloped the injured Stormcloak woman and she tumbled, screaming, down the staircase. The dragon pulled its head back and moved on.
Ahead of Rhiannon the staircase had collapsed, making onward progress impossible, and behind her a pile of fallen stone blocks cut her off from Ralof and the other Stormcloaks. She looked out through the gap in the wall and saw no sign of the dragon in the immediate vicinity. Roman – no, Imperial – archers were firing, presumably at the beast, but she couldn't see their target.
"See the inn on the other side?" Ralof called up to her. "Jump through the roof and keep going. We'll follow you when we can."
Rhiannon looked over at the building, now lacking most of its roof, which must have been the inn to which Ralof referred. Some of its timbers were alight but the flames were still relatively small. It would be quite a drop but falling without hurting herself was a skill at which Rhiannon excelled. She leapt.
She rolled on landing and, even with her hands bound, came to her feet all as part of the same move. Briefly she considered trying to burn away the ropes against the smoldering timbers but decided she was likely to injure herself in the attempt. Instead she jumped down through the shattered wall of the inn and out onto the courtyard once more.
She was now back not far away from where she had started, making the flight into the tower seem almost pointless, and there were Imperial soldiers all around. None of them seemed interested in attacking her, however, as their attention was concentrated on the dragon. Civilians, their garb not dissimilar to that of the Saxon peasants in the most recent movie she had acted in, were running around in screaming panic. Rhiannon felt like doing the same.
The Imperial soldier who had been marking off the names against a list came into her view. He seemed to be trying to organize the fleeing civilians and get them to safety. "Still alive, girl? Keep close to me if you want to stay that way," he addressed her, and then turned to an elderly man who wore armor not matching that of either the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. "Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense."
"Gods guide you, Hadvar," said the old man.
The soldier, presumably Hadvar, ran off and, not knowing what else to do, Rhiannon followed. They headed in the direction of the main gate and she saw a group of Imperial soldiers ahead of them. The general was there, shouting orders, and then the dragon swooped down again and incinerated a soldier just ahead of them.
Rhiannon could smell burning flesh. She barely managed to hold herself back from vomiting, and then only just avoided a jet of flame from the dragon, and when she recovered herself she could see no sign of the general's soldiers and a wall of flame between herself and the village gate.
"This way!" Hadvar called to her. "Into the keep."
Rhiannon followed him again. They passed archers aiming up at the dragon and, to Rhiannon's amazement, a soldier who was sending jets of fire from his hands in the direction of the creature. She couldn't see any sign of any apparatus that could be producing the flame, or tanks holding flammable gas, and had no idea how he could be doing it. Then again she had no idea how the dragon could exist.
But everything seemed to be horribly real. She saw burnt corpses, and bodies that seemed to have been bitten in half, and living people with horrible injuries that would have required hours of make-up and prosthetics to fake. Some of them she had seen, alive and uninjured, only minutes before. This was all impossible but it was really happening. She couldn't be dreaming; a couple of minor burns were smarting painfully, and she was still feeling the chill of being outdoors in her underwear, and she'd never experienced any dreams in which she felt cold or in pain. And the smells…
"Ralof! You damned traitor! Out of my way!" Hadvar yelled. Rhiannon saw Ralof, a sword in his hand, ahead of them.
"We're escaping, Hadvar! You're not stopping us this time," Ralof called back.
"Fine!" said Hadvar. "I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde."
"You! Girl!" Ralof called. "Come on. Follow me!"
"With me, girl!" Hadvar said. "To the keep! We need to get inside."
Both men ran off in opposite directions. Rhiannon hesitated for a moment and then was distracted by seeing the dragon swooping down again. It passed by and attacked somewhere else. When she looked again she had lost sight of Ralof and so she ran after Hadvar. She followed him through a door and into the keep.
She found herself in what appeared to be a barrack room, with beds and equipment chests, with no other people there except for herself and Hadvar.
"Was that really a dragon?" Hadvar muttered. "The harbinger of the End Times? And why do you have a picture of a dragon on your back?"
"It's the emblem of my country," Rhiannon said. "They don't really exist. Do they?"
"That one does," said Hadvar. "It killed a lot of good people. And nearly us, too. Come here. Let me see if I can get those bindings off you."
Rhiannon held out her hands and Hadvar drew a dagger and sawed at the ropes. After half a minute they parted and Rhiannon was able to free herself. She tossed the remnants of the bonds to the ground, revealing that she still wore her watch, and flexed her fingers. A glance at the dial showed the time as 1:55 and the date, just as it had shown when she last looked at it, was the 14th. Either a whole month had passed, someone had fiddled with her watch, or almost no time had passed at all between being in the hotel room and being in the cart.
"There should be some clothing and armor in those chests," Hadvar said, sheathing his sword. "Find something and put it on. Even a camp follower shouldn't be wandering around nearly naked."
Rhiannon detected a note of contempt in his voice and felt a sudden flare of anger. She grabbed Hadvar's right hand, put it in a gooseneck lock, and twisted his arm around. She raised a leg, brought it down on his arm, and forced him downward before he could do anything with his other arm. He tried to resist, and she could tell that he was a strong man, but against the leverage she was applying he could do nothing and ended up face down, on the floor, with his arm locked in a position where Rhiannon could snap it like a twig with a minimum of effort.
"Apologize, pen-coc*, or I'll break your arm," Rhiannon growled. "I'm not a bloody whore, right?"
Hadvar strained for a second, realized it was futile, and relaxed. "You have my apologies, my lady," he said, in what sounded like genuine contrition. "You are a warrior. I should have known from what you did to Caius. If your clothes were taken from you by soldiers of the Legion I shall see that they are punished – if the dragon has not killed them already. Or was it the Stormcloaks who stripped you of your clothes?"
Rhiannon released him and stepped back. "I had a shower – a bath," she amended, guessing that if this really was some kind of medieval environment showers would be unfamiliar, "and I'd only just started getting dressed afterwards. And then I found myself… here, wherever this is, tied up, in a cart, with people I'd never met. And your people were going to cut off my fucking head! I have no idea what is going on, or who Stormcloaks and Imperials are, or why you're fighting, or anything." She managed to stop herself from bursting into tears and took a deep breath. "I just want to go home. Or at least back to the hotel in Philadelphia."
Hadvar got to his feet and grimaced as he flexed his arm. "I don't know that place," he said. "By the divines, you're strong, girl – my lady. Grab yourself some armor and a sword. I'll look for something for our burns."
Finding some clothes seemed an eminently sensible idea and she wouldn't say no to some armor. Yes, she was used to fighting in a costume that didn't cover much more than her underwear, but in the ring her opponents didn't have swords, axes, and bows and arrows. And they weren't fire-breathing dragons. She made her way to the nearest chest, found it empty, and moved on to the next. In that one she found a tunic like the one worn by the late thief, a helmet of stiff leather, and a few gold coins. She pulled on the tunic; it was big enough, if ugly and shapeless, and might at least keep her a little warmer. The helmet she ignored, as she doubted it would provide much protection and it might obscure her vision, but she scooped up the coins and took a quick look at one.
It wasn't any currency she recognized. On one side it bore a head in profile, presumably that of some sort of Caesar, and on the other an emblem that appeared to be a highly stylized figure of a rearing dragon. The coins looked like real gold, which would be unlikely in mere movie props, but she didn't know how to tell for sure. She had a vague memory of hearing Stephen Fry on QI saying that the popular idea that you could tell by biting them was a myth but that was all. There were no pockets in the tunic and so, although she thought the coins could well come in useful, she dropped them back into the chest and moved on.
The next chest held a brown leather jerkin, styled like Hadvar's leather armor but lacking the mail reinforcements, and a pair of boots. She wriggled into the armor, which was tight across her breasts but otherwise more or less fit her, and then tried the boots. They were a little tight, and uncomfortable without socks, but she'd put up with that rather than walk barefoot on the cold stone floor. There was a pouch on the outside of the armor and so she doubled back and retrieved the coins. A few more coins on top of a table caught her eye and she took those also.
"I can't find any healing potions," Hadvar said, "so we'll just have to endure the burns a while longer. Here, take this." He held out a scabbarded sword to her.
"It's dangerous to go alone," Rhiannon said, as she took it, unable to resist quoting the Internet meme about The Legend of Zelda.
"That may well be," Hadvar said, frowning. "It doesn't look like anyone else is coming in here, though, so we'd best move on. There's a back way out and hopefully the dragon won't be watching that way."
Rhiannon drew the sword from the scabbard and examined it. The blade was longer than Hadvar's, more like a Viking or Saxon sword than his Roman gladius, but didn't seem to be as well-made as the replica swords she'd seen and handled on movie sets. She sheathed it again and fastened it to the armor's sword-belt. "I thought you were going to join General – Tullius? – and help with the defense," she said.
"That was my intention," said Hadvar, "but he shouted for me to save myself. I think he managed to make it out the gate. I hope so, anyway. Without him Skyrim will be in trouble." The outer wall of the building shook and a set of antlers, mounted on a column supporting the roof, came loose and fell to the ground. "The dragon's still attacking. Let's get out of here quickly." He turned and led the way through a doorway, out of the room, and along a stone-flagged corridor. Flaming torches, in brackets set into the walls, provided illumination.
They reached another doorway, with a gate of wooden bars blocking access, and from beyond it they heard voices.
"We need to get moving! That dragon is tearing up the whole keep!" a male voice yelled.
"Just give me a minute to catch my breath," a quieter female voice answered.
"Stormcloaks," Hadvar said. "Maybe we can reason with them." He pulled on a chain set into the wall, the gate slid down, and he stepped through and into the room beyond. "Hold on," he said, holding up empty hands. "We only want to…"
As Rhiannon followed him she saw two warriors in Stormcloak gear. Before Hadvar could finish his sentence they charged at him with weapons raised. Hadvar at once drew his sword but before he could get it free of the scabbard the Stormcloak man swung a massive war hammer at his head.
Rhiannon launched herself at the Stormcloak in a flying tackle. She sent him crashing to the ground, his hammer-blow going nowhere near Hadvar, and then she rolled away before the other Stormcloak, a woman armed with a hatchet and a shield, could attack her. She came to her feet and saw Hadvar stabbing down at the Stormcloak man, trying to finish him before he could get his hammer back into a fighting position, but then the woman closed in on her and she had to avoid a swing from the axe.
"Use your sword, girl!" Hadvar shouted.
Rhiannon backed off, drew the sword, and tried to parry another axe blow. She'd only ever used a sword in movies, where the fights were even more strictly choreographed than wrestling matches, but the parry was successful anyway. Then she thought she saw an opening and brought her foot up and around in a kick to the body. The woman interposed her shield, blocked the kick with ease, and struck with the axe again.
Again Rhiannon parried successfully and, by now, Hadvar had finished off the hammer-wielder and he came to her aid. He struck to the Stormcloak woman's neck and she went down with the wound gushing blood. She writhed on the floor for a moment, Hadvar struck again, and she lay still.
"Why didn't you stab her?" Hadvar snapped. "You handle your sword well but she was wide open to a thrust and you tried to kick her!"
"I'm a wrestler!" Rhiannon wailed. "I've never killed anyone. I've only used a sword in movies."
"In what?" Hadvar said, frowning in what appeared to be genuine puzzlement.
"Acting in plays," Rhiannon explained. "On… stage."
"Well, you'll have to learn fast," Hadvar said, "because the foes here won't be acting. But the moves you've learnt with a wooden sword should work with a real one."
"The pointy end goes into the other man," Rhiannon said, quoting from The Mask of Zorro, and trying to control her shaking.
"That's right," Hadvar said. "You saved my life there. It would be a shame for you to get killed."
"I won't argue with that," Rhiannon said. She stared down at the bodies in horrified fascination. They were really dead, or dying, she was sure. The wounds were plainly visible, there was no technical trickery, this was all real. Impossible, but real.
"Take the shield," Hadvar suggested, and Rhiannon took his advice. She put her left arm through its straps and hoped that it would work the same way as in the movies. And not like her most recent role, in the not-yet-released low-budget movie Whiteblade, in which King Oswald of Northumbria had cleaved through her prop shield and, with the aid of a concealed blood-bag, had given her a convincing death scene.
Hadvar led the way onward, down a flight of stone stairs, and along a corridor that suddenly collapsed in front of them. The dragon, it seemed, was still in the process of demolishing the settlement. When the dust died down they turned back and Hadvar opened a door that led into another, much larger, room. Barrels were stacked against the walls and the bodies of pheasants and rabbits hung from the ceiling. And, just like in the previous room, there were a pair of Stormcloaks ahead of them.
"The Imperials might have potions in here," one was saying. "We're going to need them."
Once again Hadvar tried to make a peaceful approach and, like before, the Stormcloaks ignored his words and attacked. This time, however, he had his sword ready and was able to defend himself. He was at a disadvantage, however, fighting one-handed with a gladius against a long two-handed blade. Hadvar was driven back away from Rhiannon.
She had troubles of her own. Her opponent, too, was wielding a great-sword and when she blocked his first swing with her shield it sent a numbing shock through her arm. "So you are an Imperial spy!" the man hissed. "I'll kill you, traitor!"
His sword swept around again and Rhiannon made a frantic leap backward to evade it. The Stormcloak followed up immediately, raising his sword to strike, and Rhiannon sensed that the wall of the room was now too close behind her for her to retreat again. Instead she went sideways and the great-sword narrowly missed her shoulder and scraped down the stone wall. For a moment he was off-balance and in no position to defend himself. She didn't want to kill him, even though he was trying to kill her, when she knew nothing of the rights and wrongs of this incomprehensible conflict. She performed a leg-sweep and, as he went down, hit him on the back of the head with the pommel of her sword. Then she ran to assist Hadvar.
He was in dire peril, down on one knee, trying desperately to fend off blow after blow from the longer weapon. His gladius went flying as a powerful swing knocked it from his hand. The Stormcloak started to bring his sword down in what surely would be a lethal stroke. Rhiannon was closing fast but there was no way she could get past him to parry the blow, even trying another flying tackle would be too late, and there was only one thing she could do that might be in time.
She thrust out her sword in front of her and, at a full run, rammed the point into the Stormcloak's back. With the impetus of her charge behind it the blade went through his armor, as if it was tissue-paper, and sank deep into his body. The great-sword fell from his hands, striking Hadvar's shoulder as it fell but not cutting through his armor, and the Stormcloak dropped to his knees. Rhiannon collided with him, knocking him to the ground, and she lost her grip on the sword. He rolled over, revealing that the point of the sword was sticking out of his chest, writhed briefly, and then was still.
Rhiannon stood, shaking, looking down at him. "I've killed someone!" she gasped. "I… killed… him. I don't… I didn't… oh, God, I've killed a man."
Hadvar got to his feet. "You saved my life again," he said. "It was lucky for me that you chose to follow me into the keep. I am in your debt." He retrieved his own sword and then wrenched Rhiannon's sword from the corpse. He handed it to her and she took it, looked at the blood-smeared blade, and retched but managed to stop herself just short of vomiting.
"I've killed a man," she said again, and the sword wobbled in her hand as she trembled. "This… can't be happening. I want to go home."
"No good person likes killing," Hadvar said, "but it is necessary in a war. Rest for a moment and recover your bearings. I'm going to search the room for healing potions. This is a store-room and the Stormcloaks were right that there should be some potions here."
Rhiannon stared at the blood on the sword, unable to look away, as Hadvar headed off. She didn't even notice when he delivered a coup-de-grace to the Stormcloak she had left unconscious at the other side of the room. Eventually he returned, his hands full of small bottles, to find her still standing there with tears trickling down her cheeks. She didn't react when he spoke to her.
Cautiously – no-one would want to startle someone holding a naked sword – he reached out and gently shook her shoulder. "Girl… Rhiadda… come to your senses," he said.
She shook herself and turned her head to look at him. "Rhiannon," she corrected him, and then her gaze drifted back to the sword. "Aslan scolded Peter for not cleaning his sword," she murmured. "Whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword, he said."
"Not a bad rule to follow," Hadvar agreed. He dug a piece of cloth, already blood-stained from wiping his own sword, out of his pouch and proffered it.
Rhiannon started to raise her left arm, encumbered by the shield, but then winced and shook the shield free. She looked at her bruised forearm, winced again, and took the cloth.
"I have found some Potions of Minor Healing," Hadvar said, as Rhiannon wiped clean her sword. "One of them should clear up that bruising and any burns you may have."
"Potions of Healing? Like in Dungeons & Dragons, is it?" Not that Rhiannon had any deep knowledge of the game but she'd played it for a while, with school-friends, until most of them got bored and the gaming group drifted apart.
"What? Yes, there are dungeons in the keep – just a little further down, in fact – and a dragon rampaging outside. I don't know what that has to do with these potions. Are you going to take one or not?"
Rhiannon sheathed her sword and exchanged the cloth for the bottle that Hadvar was offering. She pried off the cork stopper, put the bottle to her lips, and sipped at it. The taste was mildly unpleasant, rather like moldy bread, but she put up with it and drained the bottle. The effect was immediate. Her arm stopped hurting, the discomfort in her feet eased, and the smarting from places where burning embers had touched her skin cleared up. Her eyes widened. "It works!" she exclaimed. "That's incredible!"
"Your homeland must be far away indeed if you don't know about healing potions," Hadvar said. He scratched his head. "We'll talk about that later. Damn. There was an iron shield back in that room where we first fought Stormcloaks and I didn't think to pick it up. I could have used it in this fight but I don't want to waste time going back for it."
Rhiannon saw that the man she'd killed had a sword at his belt as well as the two-handed sword that he'd used in the fight. "Take my shield," she suggested. "I've used two swords in a… play. If you'd get that one for me… I… don't want to touch a… dead body."
"You'd better get over that squeamishness if you want to survive," Hadvar said, but he retrieved the sword and scabbard for her anyway. "Keep these in your pouch," he went on, passing her three more bottles. "You might need them later. I've kept a few for myself."
"Thanks," Rhiannon said. The bottles were crude by the standards she was used to but the glass was thick and she didn't think they'd break easily. She used the cleaning cloth to pad them in her pouch and grimaced as she touched the blood-stained material. Then she buckled on the second sword, drew both weapons, and ran through a couple of moves. Of course the two movies in which she'd dual-wielded had been the least historically accurate and the style had been chosen simply because it looked cool. Whether it would work in real life, or not, was another matter but she hadn't done well with the shield and she thought she might as well give dual-wielding a try. Or, better still, avoid getting into any more fights.
Like that was going to work.
The next room they entered must have been the dungeon that Hadvar had mentioned. There were cages there, some empty but others holding corpses, and a skeleton hanging from manacles fastened to the wall. Three dead bodies lay in pools of blood on the floor; two Imperials and a Stormcloak.
"Still Stormcloaks ahead of us," Hadvar muttered. "They must have come through the other passage before it was blocked. Let's hope either they see reason or they've made it all the way out before we get to the exit." He bent down and scooped up a bow from the floor. "This could come in very useful," he said, and then unfastened a quiver, containing a few arrows, from the back of the dead Stormcloak. "Have you ever used a bow, girl – Rhiannon?"
"Only at targets, and only a few times," Rhiannon admitted. She'd been enthusiastic about archery, seeing it as part of her Welsh heritage, but there hadn't been much opportunity on the film sets for more than a few practice shafts to help her look moderately convincing when pretending to use a bow during shooting. She had done quite well at targets, for an absolute beginner, but a moving target was likely to be a whole lot harder.
"I'll keep this, then," Hadvar said. "But you'd better put these on, just in case I fall and you have to take up the bow." He stripped a pair of leather wrist protectors from one of the fallen Imperials and handed them to her. "Now, what's this?" he mused, as Rhiannon donned the bracers. "Mage robes? They could be quite valuable. And is this a spell book?"
He found a knapsack on a table and packed the book and the clothing into it. "Take this," he said. "If we get out of here alive you're going to need funds. You should be able to sell the contents for enough to pay for board and lodging long enough for you to find work."
"What about you?" Rhiannon asked.
"I have my Legion pay," Hadvar said. "Once I can get to Solitude, and rejoin my unit, I'll be fine. You need this more than me."
Rhiannon's priority, after getting out of this place, would be to find a phone. Once she could get in touch with the WWE management, or the FBI, or her parents she was sure it wouldn't take too long before someone rescued her. But if this weird Dark Ages enclave was large enough, and had some sort of functioning parallel economy, local currency indeed would be handy. Vital, even. And the backpack could prove very useful.
Onward again, past more cages and prison cells, and out into a cavern that seemed to be mostly natural except for a paved path. A stone bridge crossed a little stream that ran through the middle of the open area. And beyond it were yet more Stormcloaks; four of them, three men and one woman.
"We should wait for Jarl Ulfric," one was saying.
"I don't think he came this way," another replied, and Rhiannon recognized the voice. Ralof. "It's best we press on and find a way out. These passages have to lead somewhere." He broke off and turned as he sensed the approach of Hadvar and Rhiannon.
"Imperials!" another Stormcloak hissed. "That woman – I knew she was an Imperial spy." He unslung a bow from his shoulder.
"Then why were the Imperials going to cut off her head?" Ralof pointed out. "You, girl, why did you go with Hadvar?"
"I lost sight of you," Rhiannon explained, "and I didn't know what else to do. I'm only wearing this armor because I needed to wear something. I'm not an Imperial or a Stormcloak. I don't know what you're fighting about. I just want to go home."
"And I just want to get out of here, Ralof," Hadvar said. "I'll fight if I have to but I'd be happy to agree a truce."
"Of course you would, outnumbered four to two," said the male Stormcloak who had wanted to wait for Ulfric. "Let's just kill them and move on. Or, better still, kill the man and take the girl with us. We could have some fun with her later."
"You are without honor!" Ralof growled. "No true Nord would make such a vile suggestion."
The Stormcloak woman levelled her sword, not pointed at Hadvar or Rhiannon, but at the man who'd wanted to take Rhiannon captive. "Take that back, Jurgald, or fight me!" she snapped.
The man lowered his head. "I… apologize," he said, not sounding terribly sincere to Rhiannon. "Make a truce with these Imperials if you must, Ralof, but don't blame me if they turn on you."
"Hadvar was my friend, once," Ralof said, "and a good man, even if his loyalties are misplaced. Very well, Hadvar, it is a truce until we are out of here and part ways."
"Truce, then," said Hadvar. He pointed toward an archway on the far side of the bridge. "The way out should be that way. I've never been down here myself but I know there's a secret escape route, hidden from the outside, and this must be it."
Beyond the archway was a raised drawbridge, which made sense if this was a secret way out; the garrison wouldn't have wanted it to provide easy access to the keep. Hadvar operated a lever to drop the drawbridge and it fell open across a deep, steep-sided, ditch. "I don't suppose it matters that Stormcloaks are learning about this entry," he muttered. "After what that dragon has done to Helgen I can't see it being much use as an Imperial stronghold. Not unless it's totally rebuilt."
He led the way across the drawbridge, Rhiannon right behind him, and the Stormcloaks followed. Ralof crossed the bridge and then, as the other three were still on the wooden causeway, a dragon-roar sounded and the roof collapsed.
Blocks of stone crashed down onto the wood, the bridge was shattered, and two of the Stormcloaks fell into the ditch. Rhiannon caught the woman's hand and pulled her to safety. The bowman flattened himself against the side of the ditch, barely avoiding the falling stones, then leapt up and tried to climb out. He couldn't quite reach the top but Ralof, joined a moment later by Hadvar, lay down and extended their hands to him. The Stormcloak managed to catch hold of their reaching hands and was hauled out of the ditch.
The other, the man called Jurgald, didn't appear. Rhiannon looked down into the ditch and saw him sprawled at the bottom, a shattered piece of wood from the drawbridge impaling his abdomen and a four-foot square block of stone crushing his shoulder and chest. It was quite obvious that he was dead.
"The gods have passed judgement upon him for his dishonor," Ralof said, solemnly. "May you find better mercy in Sovngarde than you deserve, Jurgald."
Rhiannon somehow managed to restrain herself from vomiting and, once everyone had dusted themselves down, the group moved on again. After going down a flight of stone steps they emerged into a cavern which seemed entirely natural, with no signs of human modification, probably carved out by the fast-flowing stream which ran through the middle of the space. Daylight filtered down through holes in the roof, not bright, but providing enough light to see by. The cave widened, as they went on, and they entered an area where the walls and floor were covered in cobwebs.
Big cobwebs. And then the spiders responsible descended from the roof and Rhiannon felt a stab of visceral fear.
These spiders were… absolutely fucking massive. There were five of them; the smallest was as big as a German Shepherd dog and the largest was bigger than Rhiannon. They scuttled toward the humans, moving far too swiftly and surely to be any kind of animatronic, but far too big to be real. They were much bigger even than the gigantic spiders of the Carboniferous Age that Rhiannon had seen in the BBC series Walking With Monsters. And more realistic than that show's state-of-the-art for 2005 CGI.
The spiders scuttled toward the humans, displaying enormous and vicious-looking fangs, and Rhiannon pretty much lost it. She charged the nearest one, screaming and flailing her swords, panic-driven adrenalin substituting for technique. Eventually she came to her senses and realized that she was hacking at the dismembered remnants of a spider, green blood splattering as her blows landed, and the other spiders were motionless and in pieces.
"You could have left some for us, girl," Ralof said, sounding amused.
Rhiannon shook her head. She knew that she had been, in the words of Egon Spengler, 'terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought' and could hardly believe that she hadn't just run for her life. "I… didn't kill all of them, did I?"
"Three of them," Hadvar said. "You were right, you can use two swords."
"Uh, good?" Rhiannon stared at the yellowish-green liquid on her sword-blades, grimaced, and tried to wipe it off on the intact parts of a spider carcass; she really didn't want to use her cloth and then put it back into her pouch.
"There's some moss over there, that will work better than the dead spider," Hadvar said, and Rhiannon followed his suggestion.
And then the bear attacked.
The beast had been slumbering peacefully, beyond the portion of the cave occupied by the giant spiders, but the noise of the fight had disturbed its rest. Now it approached at speed, roaring in rage, and the humans raised their weapons to defend themselves.
Rhiannon had seen the trailer for The Revenant and, consequently, she found the sight of the charging bear terrifying. Unlike with the spiders, however, she did manage to stay more or less in control of herself. She kept the points of her swords aimed at the bear and stood her ground; not the best course of action, perhaps, but she doubted she could outrun it and she had no idea what else to do.
Luckily, at least for her, she proved not to be the bear's initial target. Instead it went for Ralof and delivered a swipe with a paw that, despite his blocking with his shield, knocked him from his feet and sent him sprawling. The bear followed up but Hadvar and the two other Stormcloaks charged in and began stabbing and hacking at the beast from each side. A moment later Rhiannon managed to spur herself to action and she joined in, thrusting and chopping with her swords, from a position of relative safety behind the bear.
The next minute was a confusion of frantic activity, the bear turning first to one attacker and then another, delivering some damaging blows with its claws but weakening as its fur turned red with its blood under a barrage of sword strokes. Ralof picked himself up and wielded a one-handed axe to good effect. Eventually the bear went down and stayed down.
Rhiannon stood still, panting, and only then realized that a claw-swipe had left two bloody gouges along her upper left arm. As soon as she noticed them the pain hit her. She wasn't the only one injured. Ralof's left arm looked to be broken, the other Stormcloak man had been bitten on the right shoulder and his arm was hanging limp and useless, the Stormcloak woman's gambeson was ripped and bloody, and Hadvar's right ear had been sliced through and part of it was hanging down with blood dripping from it onto the shoulder of his armor.
"It is well that we agreed to a truce," Ralof said, breathing heavily, "for if we had fought each other some of us would have perished and, with fewer than five, the fights with the spiders and the bear might not have gone as well."
"True," agreed Hadvar. "All of us might be dead now. Let us heal ourselves and get out of this place. Hopefully there will be no more beasts between us and the exit. The bear will not have shared its lair with any other creatures."
"Except perhaps another bear," said the Stormcloak woman.
"It would have come to the sound of its mate fighting," said Ralof. "I think we are safe. I have a couple of healing potions."
"As have I, and so does Rhiannon," said Hadvar.
Rhiannon stirred herself into action and went to wipe her swords on the bear's fur. She realized, then, that her right-hand sword was broken. The blade had snapped off, some three or four inches from the hilt, and the rest of it was embedded in the bear's body. Poor-quality iron, presumably; she doubted if she could have broken a steel sword even if she'd set out to do so. She tossed the useless hilt away, cleaned off the remaining sword, and sheathed it.
Potions were shared out and consumed. Hadvar helped Ralof to hold his broken arm into a position where the bones were straight as the Stormcloak woman tipped the contents of two potion bottles into Ralof's mouth. Rhiannon held the partially-severed section of Hadvar's ear in place as he drank a potion. The two pieces stayed together, reunited into a seamless whole, when she took her hands away. It took two potions to turn the gouges in Rhiannon's arm into smooth, unmarked, skin and, similarly, the Stormcloak woman had to drink two to recover from the damage the bear's claws had done to the flesh of her stomach. The Stormcloak man's injuries required three potions to heal and that exhausted their stock.
It all seemed… magical… to Rhiannon. She couldn't see how, outside of D&D, such things could be possible. But everything looked, felt, and smelt horribly real.
And then, at last, they left the cave and emerged into open air and sunlight. Rhiannon blinked in the bright light and looked around. They were in an area of rocky outcrops and scattered pine trees with patches of snow on the higher areas. There was nowhere near Philadelphia that looked like that, as far as she knew, although she had to admit she was no expert on American geography despite having traveled extensively through the country with the WWE. She could see mountains in the distance, not resembling anything she recognized, and there was an unusual absence of vapor trails in the sky.
There was some smoke, behind them, presumably rising from the burnt-out wreckage of Helgen; and there was… a dragon. It was high in the sky, flying off in the direction of a distant hill, where Rhiannon could see a chain of stone arch-like structures marking out a path up the hillside. She'd never seen anything remotely like those structures anywhere in America – or indeed in the UK.
"There it goes," Ralof said. "Let's get out of here before it comes back." He looked at Hadvar. "I have no wish to fight you now, Hadvar. We should keep the truce until we are back with our own people."
"I agree," said Hadvar. "And, besides, Jarl Ulfric may have perished in Helgen, in which case the war would be over."
"The Stormcloak is not easy to kill," said Ralof. "It may be that General Tullius has died."
"Legate Rikke would take over until the Empire sent another general," said Hadvar. "I shall go first to Riverwood and then back to the Legion in Solitude. And you?"
"We shall head for Windhelm," said Ralof. "When you get to Riverwood tell Gerdur that I made it out safely."
"I shall do that," said Hadvar. "What about you, Rhiannon? Are you coming with me? My uncle is the blacksmith in Riverwood. He can at least give you a meal and a bed for the night."
"You should come with us to Windhelm," said Ralof. "The Stormcloaks could use a fighter like you."
"Better that you should join the Legion," said Hadvar.
"I just want to go home," Rhiannon said. "Where can I find a phone?"
"A what?" Hadvar and the Stormcloaks all looked equally puzzled.
"Forget it," said Rhiannon. Either they were genuinely puzzled, and this impossible set-up was real, or else they were so determined not to break kayfabe* that even injuries and deaths couldn't shake their resolve. "Which is closer, Riverwood or… Windhelm?"
"Riverwood is much closer," Hadvar said. "Just over the border in Whiterun Hold. It shouldn't take us much more than two hours, three at most, to get there. To travel to Windhelm would take two days at least."
"Longer for us," said Ralof, "as we will have to travel by way of the Rift."
"I'll go to… Riverwood… with Hadvar, then," said Rhiannon.
The parting was awkward; enemies, briefly united by shared peril, stumbling through farewell rituals intended for friends. Then the Stormcloaks turned away, intending to circle the ruins of Helgen and strike out for Windhelm, and Hadvar led Rhiannon downhill along a rough track.
After a short distance the track led them to a broader path roughly paved with stones. Hadvar pointed across the valley toward the line of arches that Rhiannon had noticed. "See that ruin up there?" he said. "Bleak Falls Barrow. When I was a boy, that place always used to give me nightmares. Draugr creeping down the mountain to climb through my window at night, that kind of thing. I admit, I still don't much like the look of it."
"Draugr?" The word meant nothing to Rhiannon.
"The walking dead," Hadvar explained. "Corpses that won't lie still but stalk the ancient barrows, attacking anyone who trespasses." He shuddered. "Vile necromancy."
Rhiannon held back from telling him that there were no such thing as walking corpses. There were no such things as dragons, or dog-sized spiders, either and she'd seen both of those up close and personal. Instead she tried, again, to work out where she might possibly be. If they were telling the truth about Windhelm being a couple of days' travel away this crazy place must be a considerable size. Where in the United States would there be room for a Dark Ages reconstruction that big? The only region she could think of would be the forests of Washington State or Oregon, maybe, but they must be well over two thousand miles from Philadelphia. How could she have been taken there in the impossibly short time between being in her hotel and waking up in the cart? It had been 11:11 when… she'd made a… wish.
A wish. To be… she searched her memory… somewhere she could be a champion and it would really mean something.
But you couldn't really just make wishes and have them granted. Not outside of fairy tales. And Dungeons & Dragons, of course, but a Wish was a Ninth Level mage spell and her character had been only a fourth-level Ranger, with one level as a Thief, when she stopped playing. And D&D was just make-believe anyway. There was the Make-A-Wish Foundation, but that was just people doing what they could to make sick children's wishes come true. She'd granted three wishes for the Foundation herself, in fact, although that was nothing compared to the more than five hundred John Cena had… granted.
"Granted." That was the last thing she'd heard in the hotel room and it had been in John Cena's voice. But John Cena granted wishes by doing nice things for kids, not by using magic powers, and he hadn't even been in Philadelphia anyway. He'd been away, shooting a TV show, since Hell-In-A-Cell in October. None of this made any sense.
"Rhiannon! Are you all right?" Hadvar's voice broke into her thoughts and she realized she was standing still, in the middle of the path, staring at nothing.
"I was just… thinking," she replied. "Where are we?"
"Just outside of Helgen, on the road to Riverwood," Hadvar replied, a frown on his face.
"No, I mean, where is Helgen? Where is Riverwood? What country is this?"
"Helgen's in Falkreath Hold, Riverwood is in Whiterun Hold, and they're both part of Skyrim," Hadvar answered.
"And where is Skyrim?" Rhiannon pressed.
"It's the northernmost province of the Empire," Hadvar said.
"What Empire? The Roman Empire?"
"Roman? The Second Empire was the Reman Empire, but this is the Third Empire. The Septim Empire, or it was, but the Septim dynasty are all dead and Titus Mede II rules now."
Reman? Was this some alternate history where Remus, instead of Romulus, had founded the empire that had been Roman in Rhiannon's world? Or, at least, was that the script to which some bunch of crazies were sticking even when acting it out got them killed? Rhiannon shook her head. "Forget it," she said. "Let's just get to this Riverwood place." They resumed their journey and Rhiannon shook her head again. "Damn," she muttered to herself. "Why couldn't I have just wished to be invited onto the next series of Strictly?"
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English meanings of Dovahzul phrases:
* Joor lost ilir do dovah nau ek zek. Zurun. = The mortal has a picture of a dragon on her back. Odd.
* Yol Toor Shul = Fire Inferno Sun
English meanings of an American word:
* Kayfabe = the scripted storylines, relationships, and feuds of Professional Wrestling.
English meaning of a Welsh word:
* pen-coc = dickhead.