II
The next morning
Hob's Fall looked like a long, thin scar that sliced into the shoreline of northern Skyrim. A little-known story surrounded the place: long ago, a bandit called Hob had decided to move into an old Nordic tomb northeast of here. Now Hob was not the smartest of bandits, and by the time he realized the tomb he'd broken into belonged to no less a person than Ysgramor himself, the spirit of the Nordic hero had—so the stories went—quite literally kicked Hob out of his tomb. The unfortunate bandit had landed on the shoreline opposite the barrow, and the furrow in the frozen earth that his body had left behind had been known as Hob's Fall ever since.
Of course, the story was considered apocryphal even in Skyrim—every Nord worth his salt could recognize Ysgramor's tomb, no matter what his state of mind, and would thus know better than to desecrate it in such a way.
But even so, Grimnir found himself wondering if he was about to commit a similar act of folly as he approached the jagged gash in the frozen earth. The object of his gaze was a narrow hole, barely large enough to fit a man, and beyond which was a pool of infinite blackness.
"I hope you understand what we're dealing with here," he told the three mages behind him. He hadn't bothered telling J'zargo, Brelyna, and Onmund to wait back at the College until he got back—the four had been through enough together that there wouldn't have been any point. One way or the other, they were joining him in all this.
"Just another cult of necromancers, right?" Brelyna said with a rueful smile.
"Even if they're connected to the Thalmor somehow," added Onmund, tightening his gloves.
"Sh!"
Everyone whirled around at J'zargo, who had hissed just now. Every last one of the Khajiit's whiskers was standing straight out, and quivering slightly. His eyes were not straying an inch from the entrance to the cave.
"Someone comes," the Khajiit whispered.
Instantly everyone was alert. "Friend or foe?" Brelyna asked uneasily.
J'zargo was silent for entirely too long. "This one cannot tell. He does not smell blood magic—only blood."
Grimnir didn't like the sound of that. It certainly wasn't a necromancer, if what J'zargo was saying was true—but the worst people in the world, he'd learned, didn't always practice necromancy. Therefore, he brought his magic to bear, and his fingers sparked with lightning, as did Onmund's, while J'zargo and Brelyna readied fire and frost.
J'zargo sniffed the air. "There!"
He pointed at the entrance to the cave, and for a moment, Grimnir saw nothing. Then, a moment later, a figure slowly emerged from the maw, shrouded in a tattered black cloak that hid all flesh. The figure hardly made any noise at all as it walked—almost glided—towards the four mages. Unless Grimnir's eyes were deceiving him, the figure was hardly made any footprints in the snow, either. And there wasn't the slightest breeze of wind in the air right now.
The figure drew closer, finally stepping out of the shadows—and Brelyna gasped. Grimnir couldn't blame her; he himself had started as the shredded cloth had shifted for only a moment, revealing a slice of a woman's pale face, white as a skull, and two sunken eyes caked in makeup as jet-black as the eyes themselves. There were no whites to those dark eyes, giving Grimnir the uneasy feeling that he was staring into the face of death itself—a notion not helped when he noticed the glint of a dagger among the folds of the cloak.
There was a moment of silence as the five people stared at one another. Was that the north wind from the sea, Grimnir wondered—or was that the woman's breathing he was hearing, high and hollow as a draugr's death rattle?
And why—why now, of all times—did he have the feeling he'd seen this woman before?
Brelyna chose that moment to break the silence. "Who are you?" she demanded, raising a frost-encrusted hand to bear—ready to turn this woman into shards of ice at a moment's notice.
The woman looked back at her without the slightest trace of fear. Grimnir thought he saw those black eyes flicker from one mage to the next, as if they were being sized up before the fight to come. He felt a chill just then that he felt had nothing to do with the cold, and the Arch-Mage wondered if those twin pits of the void had passed over him.
The woman moved, and now it was J'zargo's turn to raise his paw, his unsheathed claws brimming with mage-fire. But he need not have worried—the woman, Grimnir noticed, wasn't drawing out another dagger, but a round, wooden tube about as long as his forearm.
Onmund saw it too, and frowned in confusion. "Is that … a flute?" he wondered out loud.
His question was immediately answered when the woman blew at one end of the tube, and began to play a short little ditty. Grimnir was not one for music; he couldn't identify what song that might be if his life was on the line.
Even so, as the song went on, he felt that feeling of familiarity prickling at the back of his mind again.
Suddenly, just before he sensed the last note of the woman's song was coming, her flute made a funny fhoomp noise, and Grimnir heard something fly scant inches past his ear with a noise like an angry wasp just as he realized what had happened. He whirled around, expecting one of his friends to be face-down in the snow—
—and someone was.
But it wasn't one of his friends.
Somehow—Grimnir had no idea how—a man had managed to sneak up behind them. He, like the woman, was also clad in a black robe—though Grimnir was just able to see the dark red skull painted on the front of his garments, right before the man tumbled face-down before the mages, a sharpened steel dagger falling from his fingers.
Brelyna did a passable imitation of a river betty as she stared at the slain sorcerer, blood and white foam pooling under his mouth, staining the snow beneath him. " … What just happened?" she asked, thunderstruck.
J'zargo recovered first, diving for the body in a furry blur. A moment later, he'd carefully plucked something long and thin, like a needle, from the body with two claws. "Blowdart to the jugular," he was heard to say. "Obsidian, too. That woman must have been carrying it in her flute."
He handed the object to Grimnir; the Arch-Mage gingerly held the three-inch-long shard as though worried it would sting him. He was right to be apprehensive; obsidian of this shape and size was very dangerous to hold. Assassins of the old days would use shards of this black volcanic glass in the heads of their arrows and the edges of their throwing knives, as even though obsidian was very brittle when worked into a shape so thin, the edge it possessed—for however brief a time—was sharp enough to penetrate flesh, bone, and even armor as if it was paper. In this case, even holding this blowdart the wrong way could cut through Grimnir's glove—and likely the flesh of his hand as well.
Onmund cleared his throat as he turned around. "Thanks for saving our lives," he said. "I think we owe you—" But he broke off suddenly, and even before he turned around, Grimnir knew why.
The woman was gone.
"—one," Onmund finished lamely, as his mind also finished processing the empty space of snow before them.
"Where'd she go?" Brelyna asked indignantly, turning in a full circle, as though she was expecting the woman to pop out of hiding from one of the jagged rocks on either side of them. "There's only two ways out of this crevice—and we're blocking one of them."
"Perhaps she doubled back inside the cave," J'zargo suggested.
"Why, though?" wondered Grimnir out loud. "It looks to me like she was already busy doing … something in there."
"Either way," Brelyna said as she crossed her arms, "we know two things. One, it looks like this Nelacar was telling the truth—there's definitely necromancers in this cave. The one that woman killed must have been the lookout. Invisible, probably—that's why we couldn't see him before. And two—if that woman really did go back inside, who's to say there aren't more of those mages waiting for her? We should back her up, try to keep her alive."
"We don't even know if she's on our side!" Onmund protested. "If that necromancer hadn't popped up behind us, how would you know that dart wouldn't have ended up in your throat instead of his?"
"I don't," said Brelyna grimly. "Right now, I just want her alive because I have some questions for her." Her gaze turned to Grimnir. "If Nelacar was right, Ancano's the only one who knew about this place hiding a necromantic cult. So why was that woman here?"
Grimnir knew the Telvanni hopeful had a point—but even so, he was not altogether reassured by what he had just seen. "Well," he eventually said, holding back a swallow, "I suppose we should at least check out the cave. With any luck, she could even take a few necromancers out for us."
Before Brelyna could object, he raised a hand. "Don't worry, I'm not ruling out the possibility she'll kill us, either," he went on. "I'll go in first—no matter who attacks us in there, they'll have a much harder time of it if I'm the one in front. Onmund and Brelyna, cover me from behind. J'zargo, bring up the rear. If we get any more lookouts trying to sneak up behind us, you'll be the first to know."
To Grimnir's surprise, there were no objections—although Brelyna was definitely chewing her lip.
Only then did the Arch-Mage's words sink in. "Hm," he said, half to himself and slightly embarrassed. "Listen to me—Arch-Mage for not even a day, and I'm already ordering my friends around. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that," he said with a little laugh. "I'm not sure I want to, if I'm totally honest."
"Just mind where you point that dart in your hand," Brelyna said with a half-smile. "Dragons have a pretty big ego, if you're any indication. Wouldn't want yours punctured so soon, now, would we?"
The quartet laughed at the jibe—none more so than Grimnir, though he was alert enough to keep his voice down. "Let's head inside," he finally said, stepping towards the yawning maw of the cave. "And stay on your toes in there," he added warningly, "because if these people end up killing you, we end up having to fight you."
And the four mages made their way inside, swallowed up by the darkness in a single, silent gulp.
Hob's Fall lay on the western edge of a crumbling glacier that made up nearly half the area of Winterhold. The entrance to the cave beyond took the four mages much deeper into the dense formation of ice, a narrow series of holes and crevices that looked as if they could collapse at any time.
To make matters even more tense, the frozen walls of the cave were so perfectly clear that they almost behaved like giant mirrors, catching the reflections of Grimnir, Brelyna, Onmund, and J'zargo as each walked past, and distorting them past the point of recognizance. Twice in as many minutes, Grimnir had whirled around at a sudden flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye, though relaxing as each turned out to be his own mirror image, the crystalline walls warping his face into a lopsided leer that seemed to taunt him more and more every moment.
After a while, they entered a large cave, enough to swallow a fair-size house with room to spare. This was welcome news for Grimnir, whose nerves were already frayed from the false alarms. The icy walls spread further away from them, turning their reflections into formless, harmless blurs.
"Is there someone out there?"
The four mages froze—the voice they'd just now heard had come from some distance away, slightly above and to their right, atop a ledge that divided the cave in two. It wasn't much more than a rather loud whisper, but it echoed just enough in the chamber to where Grimnir could barely make out the words—and the pure, unadulterated terror they carried.
J'zargo, having the best and largest ears of the quartet, was better able to identify it. "Human female—a young, delicate maiden, no doubt," he spoke half to himself, a small smile playing about his lips. "A Breton, by the sound of her."
That caught Grimnir's attention right off the bat. "Isabelle," he breathed. It had to be—he knew it.
"They left me here—but they'll be back, there isn't much time," the voice continued.
"J'zargo," Grimnir said quietly, "can you climb up that ledge?" The Khajiit was the best climber out of anyone in the College, he knew—his keen eyes were just as adapted to finding claw-holds and crawlspaces as they were to spotting jewels and valuable trinkets.
But the Arch-Mage's heart sank as J'zargo shook his head. "It is too slippery," grumbled the cat. "This one's claws are worse than useless on all that ice."
"You have to help me now," Isabelle whispered frantically. "They're going to kill me!"
Grimnir swallowed. Apparently there was only one way ahead of them—and the odds of them getting there in time were very slim indeed. But however slim that chance was, it was a chance all the same.
First, however … "Everyone get ready," Grimnir muttered to the mages around him. "I'm going to try and talk to her, let her know help's on the way—there's a Shout I've been working on that might just let me get the word out, just quietly enough for her to hear. But I can't guarantee that any of these necromancers won't hear it either.
"So the moment I give the signal"—he pointed to a small passageway leading off to the left—"we make a break for it down that way. We won't have much time from there—we can't afford to double back. Anything that moves, make sure it doesn't move again. Understood?"
The telltale sounds of fire, ice, and lightning magic being primed on their fingers was all he needed to know.
"Good," Grimnir grunted, before turning his attention to the ledge in front of him.
The Arch-Mage's ears weren't nearly as good as J'zargo's, but he still possessed a good sense of direction. That would work in his favor; the smaller an area he could concentrate this Shout, the less chance there was of anyone else overhearing him—but it also meant that his message would have to be very short indeed.
"You can't just leave me here!"
Grimnir bit his lip. Very, very short.
He spent all of two crucial seconds aiming his head in as accurate an angle and direction as he could. Then, Grimnir breathed in, concentrating the ancient magic of the Voice in his lips, and Spoke. "Hon … zul gut."
He felt the sensation of a gentle breeze being expelled from his lips, and some loose snow on the ledge stirred in its wake. One second later, Grimnir spoke once more—though not in the commanding language of the dragons, but in a hoarse whisper that seemed to echo all throughout the cave.
"Don't raise your voice, don't react at all—just listen," he said, as quickly as his tongue would let him. "We're with the College of Winterhold. We've come to get you out—we're on our way for you now. Divines be with you."
And without further ado, he wordlessly stuck out a finger towards the left-most cave. One second later, the four mages were sprinting blindly down that cave—all manner of magic at the ready, every last mage prepared to eliminate any obstacle in their way.
"You never told us you were working on new shouts," Onmund whispered to him, eyes shining with amazement. "When did you—"
"I've been looking over some texts—books to tell me more about the language of the dragons," Grimnir explained, as quickly as he could while running. "That way, I won't have to delve into any more ruins, or pore over any more burial stones just to learn how to use one more word. The knowledge of the Voice isn't worth breaking into someone's tomb for," he finished, looking at Onmund—Nordic culture was very reliant on respecting ancestral beliefs, and Onmund, mage though he was, was no exception.
Brelyna looked amazed. J'zargo had overheard, and merely looked envious. None of the three mages, however, paid close attention to the look on the Arch-Mage's face as they raced on.
As a Dragonborn, Grimnir was capable of absorbing the souls of slain dragons. These souls carried invaluable knowledge to him—knowledge that allowed him to broaden his understanding of the dragon language, and utilize the Words of that language in the same way that the dragons could—from breathing fire and frost to slowing time itself.
All this he had discovered a little more than two years ago, shortly before he'd started at the College of Winterhold. But Grimnir had soon learned that even among the Dragonborn, he was unique—for he was the Last Dragonborn, prophesied in the Elder Scrolls to strike down the dragon god Alduin, the World-Eater. He had met the reclusive Greybeards atop the towering mountain on which they had built the monastery of High Hrothgar, and they had shown him the potential of the power he had unknowingly possessed all his life. And from there, his prophecy seemed to simply fall into place, like giant puzzle pieces. Alduin had been defeated, yes. Skyrim—indeed, all of existence—had been saved, yes. Grimnir had fulfilled his destiny as Dragonborn … yes.
But where did one go from there, Dragonborn or no? For Grimnir had not been content to savor the triumph of his victory, retiring comfortably to live out the end of his days as a hero—no. He wanted to know more about the power of his Voice—to explore its outer limits, no matter how many dragons he had to fight. And so he had continued his studies at Winterhold, even as Ancano intruded into their lives, and turned them into a living hell. He had continued to slay one dragon after another, until he could no longer count them. And he would not rest until the whole of their language was know to him—until the power of their Words had been fully realized.
Grimnir Torn-Skull was the Last Dragonborn. There would be no more after him, he knew. None.
Which was why, deep inside, he wanted to be the best of them all.
And it was this, perhaps paradoxically, that made another, smaller part of Grimnir wish he'd never found out he was Dragonborn at all—that someone else had been chosen to hold that dubious distinction instead.
He had seen how Onmund's eyes had shone with reverence; Grimnir knew the man saw him as a hero—not simply as the Dragonborn, but as a fellow Nord who was also drawn to the mysteries of magic.
He had looked back into those eyes … and lied.
But Grimnir forced the thought from his mind. There would be time to brood upon it later. Right now, their mission was clear … and their clock—and Isabelle's—was slowly ticking away.
After another minute of racing through caves, Onmund spoke again—this time voicing an unsettling thought.
"Where is everyone?" the Nord wondered, huffing and puffing. "Unless they're all grouped up in one place, this cult must be incredibly small! We should've seen someone else by now—even a skeleton!"
Grimnir frowned. Onmund was right—they hadn't seen anyone since they'd arrived in here—not even in the last cave they'd passed, which had contained a tiny little study—with the candle still burning merrily in its stick. Something was definitely wrong—and there was also the fact that they'd been seeing several piles of ash and bones lying here and there. They all looked as if they'd been recently animated. And yet … Grimnir felt his mind returning to the mysterious woman once again. How deep inside this cave had she journeyed?
He turned to Brelyna. "Can you spare some magic for a detection spell?" he asked. "Something I want to check—but my detection skills are worse than useless when it comes to necromancers. I need to be sure on this one."
The Dunmer nodded, her face twitching as she did her best to ignore a sudden stitch in her chest.
Grimnir Spoke once more. "Laas." A scarlet haze settled over his eyes, and for a moment all went black. But Grimnir could still see well enough; enough to see the life force of every single thing inside this cave—including the arcane energies that necromancers used to animate their thralls like puppets.
At the same time, he saw Brelyna out of the corner of his eye. The dark elf's eyes were blazing with violet light, and her expression of great concentration doubtless looked no different from Grimnir's.
Then, suddenly, she gasped. "Arch-Mage!" she stammered. "How many did you count up ahead?"
Grimnir was just able to count out two scatterings of necromancers some distance away. "Two groups," he muttered. "The first looks like four, the second … five. Including Isabelle."
Brelyna looked grim as they crossed a wooden footbridge over a considerably deep chasm. "Then we've got a problem. I just cast a Detect Dead spell—and I'm counting at least that many people. Dead. Not just skeletons and thralls, either. Corpses. Some of them are right in front of us."
J'zargo suddenly looked down, his furry face wrinkled in consternation—and suddenly, to Grimnir's shock and horror, he jumped over the bridge and into the abyss.
"J'zargo!"
But Onmund need not have shouted—even as gravity began to assert its immutable grip upon the Khajiit, J'zargo had already produced a steel dagger from inside his robes as his paws closed over one of the ropes holding up the bridge. The rope was cleanly cut with a single slice, and J'zargo swung downwards, looking for all the world like an Imgakin of Valenwood. Grimnir barely saw him dismounting the rope out of the corner of his eye, landing with Khajiit grace on a vertical ledge and rebounding onto the snowy bottom of the chasm.
Grimnir swore. "Onmund—scrye!" he said breathlessly, out of not only fatigue, but exasperation at the antics of the Khajiit. "We need to regroup now!"
The Nord was already murmuring an incantation for a clairvoyance spell, and Grimnir slowed his pace just enough to let him take the lead.
"This way!" Onmund cried out, ducking down a crevice that was just wide enough for them to squeeze in single file—Grimnir with some difficulty—while still keeping up a brisk trot.
Bones and gore crunched and squished underfoot as they reached the bottom of the chasm seconds later. A rudimentary hovel had been erected here, including some crude shelves and an alchemy lab. J'zargo was kneeling over a necromancer lying in his bed. Something about the way the sorcerer was laying under the covers told Grimnir that he wasn't simply sleeping.
But the Arch-Mage only had eyes for the Khajiit in front of him. "What the devil were you playing at?!" he thundered at J'zargo. "Are you trying to be the first person to give a Dragonborn a heart attack?"
To his annoyance, J'zargo continued to show the tips of his fangs in a smile as he rose up. "Sorry," he said, with a shrug as unconvincing as his apology. "But the necromancer here intrigued J'zargo. Khajiit wished for a closer look—but as you said, we did not have much time to rescue the maiden Isabelle. So, J'zargo had to improvise."
Grimnir knew J'zargo had done worse in the time they'd known each other—his reputation of having ten very sticky claws was already legend among the College—but that didn't stop him from seething at the wily cat. Luckily, Grimnir was saved from acting on it when Brelyna promptly clubbed J'zargo between his ears with one of the longer, heavier, and cleaner bones strewn about the area.
"Will you stop it with the showboating?" Brelyna hissed at him. "For all we know, Isabelle's already gone! And if she is, I'm blaming you! Fat lot of good it'll do for you, trying to impress a dead maiden!"
That was enough to make the Khajiit's smile fade—but even as he rubbed the newly formed bruise atop his head, his expression immediately looked gravely concerned. "J'zargo examined the necromancer," he said, as though he had not just been set upon by a dark elf with little tolerance for showing off. "There is something you may wish to see."
He held up the something in question by the tips of two claws. Grimnir caught just a sliver of reflected light—and then his breath caught in his throat.
"Another blowdart," he murmured, his anger at J'zargo completely forgotten. He peered up close to the impossibly thin shard of obsidian. Was it his imagination, or was something dripping from the tip of the dart?
"Check it for poison," he said quickly. There had to be something—now that he looked back on the death of that lookout, there was no way a simple dart could kill a fully-grown man in such a short time.
J'zargo sniffed the dart, and promptly pulled a face. "Lotus extract," he muttered. "Poisoned, indeed—and a very difficult agent to come by. That woman in black is very well taken care of, to have such a weapon. Only the provincial guilds would have ready access to something like this."
"Provincial guilds?" Onmund wondered. "D'you mean the Thieves' Guild?"
"Mm." J'zargo's expression did not waver. "This one thinks it more likely she is with the Brotherhood."
Everyone, including Grimnir, winced at this. At one time, the Dark Brotherhood was widely considered the assassin's guild of Tamriel; however, little had been heard of them for decades until very recently—some had even believed the shadowy organization was extinct. But there had been whispers of late—rumors of random, grisly murders being committed for no apparent reason, and in every case, the perpetrator had never been found.
The latest of these, of course, had none other than Vittoria Vici, murdered at the reception of her own wedding—in the courtyard of the Temple of the Divines, no less. While Tamriel was largely left in shock at the senseless murder, most of Skyrim had remained insensate to the attack—the Stormcloak Rebellion still raged on, after all, and there was no indication it would stop for her funeral, whether the Emperor came or not. In fact, the only indication the Stormcloaks had even known Vici had been slain was that their leader, Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm, had vehemently denied his role in the events, and had wasted no time in publicly denigrating the perpetrator.
No one could doubt, though, that the hopeful High King was secretly glad at such an important Imperial meeting such a sticky end—even if, as many rumors suggested, that the Dark Brotherhood had been the ones behind it.
"What would an elite assassin be doing in the den of a necromantic cult, though?" Onmund wondered out loud. "Surely you'd send in a specialist for this sort of thing—a Vigilant of Stendarr, or a Knight of the Lamp, right? Sending in a hired killer sounds to me like this was meant to be kept quiet."
"We don't know the whole story behind it," said Grimnir. "Probably never will." He stretched. "We'll speculate later—we've delayed enough down here as it is. We need to make our way to Isabelle, now."
He shot a look at J'zargo as the mages resumed their hasty journey.
Even before he had scanned the cave for any trace of life force, Grimnir had had a suspicion that the woman in the black shroud had been either unable or unwilling to clear out its occupation of necromancers and undead.
Once, twice, and three times, however, the four mages had come across several more piles of bones, ash, and gore, and the occasional body with it. Grimnir had the distinct impression that the woman had indeed been trying to get deeper into the cave, but she had been rebuffed by something stronger.
A problem, no doubt, she was hoping they would solve for her, he thought as they ducked their way through a series of magickal traps. J'zargo's kleptomaniac tendencies had not diminished in the slightest since their forays into Mzulft and Labyrinthian; here, after taking the time to raid a nearby supply chest, he spent several dangerous seconds plucking the soul gems of the traps off their plinths, even as they sprayed his paws with frost magic.
"One of these days, there'll be a piece of treasure that blows your paws clean off," Brelyna grumbled as J'zargo healed his frostbitten hand for the third time, "and I hope to Azura that I'm there to watch it happen."
Suddenly, just as the Dunmer had finished patching up J'zargo, Grimnir threw out his hands and skidded to a halt—they had just ran headlong into another cave, larger than the one they had just left. A square stone altar had been erected in the middle, and several bloody skeletons were strewn about the area.
Two necromancers had clearly been busy painting sigils upon the altar, while a pair of skeletons patrolled the perimeter. Unfortunately, Grimnir and the others had made so much noise walking into this cave that even the dead could have heard them blundering in. By the time they'd rounded the corner, the sorcerers had already cast flesh spells upon themselves—easily noticed by the green glow surrounding their bodies—and had their magic to bear.
Immediately, the four mages sprang into action. As the necromancers drew back, they cast reanimation spells on more of the skeletons lying around the cave walls. With a clatter of bones and a rattle of new breath, the skeletons came to their feet, drawing rotted bows and pitted blades as they charged for the wizards of Winterhold.
J'zargo and Brelyna took the skeletons out with calm precision, and an ample helping of fire and frost from each. The Dunmer's icy needles showered the cave, lodging themselves into the joints of the skeletons, freezing their movements and rendering them helpless against the onslaught to come. J'zargo's paws waved this way and that, and mage-fire lit up the cave walls with such intensity that the necromancers—in spite of their distance—had to cast ward spells to keep themselves from being consumed as well. Two of the skeletons fell to the flames almost immediately, and J'zargo aimed a hefty kick at a third as it aimed an arrow at Brelyna, scattering its bones to the far reaches of the cave.
Onmund and Grimnir, meanwhile, went after the two necromancers. Forked lightning spat from the hands of both Nord men, flash-burning one sorcerer straight through her heart. But necromancers possessed a notorious disregard for the sanctity of life—not even for the flesh and blood of their own. One incantation later, and that same sorcerer was back on her feet, her mortal wound swirling with shadow and arcane energy—
"Fus … Ro DAH!" Grimnir bellowed, and a blast of blue wind erupted from his mouth, speeding for the other necromancer. Onmund ducked away just in time—but the warlock had been ready for Grimnir; his ward spell deflected the brunt of the Shout in every other direction but his own. Bones, gore, and detritus flew as thick as arrows, pelting the mages like heavy rain. Grimnir himself felt something heavy, wet, and very smelly hit the hood of his robe, hard enough to leave him dazed for a few moments.
Damn!
He recovered just in time to see the reanimated necromancer firing ice spikes by the dozen at him, and Grimnir found himself having to create a ward of his own to stop the worst of the attacks. Fortunately, Onmund saw that he was pinned down; one whip of lightning later, the necromancer was dissolving before his feet with a final, guttural moan.
There was still one more necromancer to take care of, though—and J'zargo, for his part, was doing a good job of keeping him on his toes. The Khajiit was throwing fireballs of such intensity that Grimnir could feel their heat from the other end of the cave. But all that was going to do was burn out his reserves much quicker than anyone. The necromancer knew this, and was doing his best to weather the storm with the ward in his hands.
Unfortunately, however, the numbers were not in his favor.
"Iiz … Slen NUS!" roared Grimnir. The wind that burst from his lips was a much lighter blue this time, and much colder as well. It washed over the necromancer, ward and all. By the time that the icy Shout had passed over him, the warlock's flesh had been frozen solid—a sitting duck for one last fireball from J'zargo.
"I'm getting sloppy," Grimnir grunted, before all the pieces of the necromancer had fallen back to earth. "Not as young as I used to be. The new office is already sucking the life right out of me," he added with a chuckle.
"We killed them, though, didn't we?" Onmund was looking over an ebony dagger that one of the necromancers had been carrying.
Grimnir nodded. "Still, I was hoping I could have left that other one alive," he said. "Maybe he could have offered me some clue to what the hell's going on in this cave."
"Well, you might get your chance yet," Brelyna spoke up. Her eyes were blazing with the violet light of another detection spell. "But we can't crack any more jokes, either. I'm seeing five more necromancers in the next cave beyond this—and Isabelle's with them!"
Grimnir's heart rose. "How can you tell?"
Brelyna set her jaw. "Because her life force is already starting to fade."
That sobered the mages completely. "You mean … they're going to kill her?" Onmund swallowed.
"That's right," said the Dunmer. "She's a ritual sacrifice. And I'm afraid I might know why."
Another set of frost traps lay waiting for them in the corridor beyond—Onmund had to tug J'zargo by the scruff of his robe to prevent the Khajiit from wasting any more time removing the pinkish soul gems from their pillars. From there, it was a mad dash down a long, narrow crevice to what Grimnir hoped would be the last of their troubles in this cave.
Unfortunately, that was not to be; a little ways before the fissure opened up, a glowing array of runes and shapes blocked their path.
"Barrier," Brelyna hissed, studying it intently. "I shouldn't be surprised, really—all that noise we made on the way over? They'd have to be deaf not to have heard us."
"Can we break through?" Grimnir asked impatiently. "If these people really are going to trap her soul, like you said—"
"Shh!" hissed Brelyna. "I can hear someone on the other side!"
Everyone immediately became silent. Within moments, Grimnir could hear noises on the other side of the barrier. The hum of the construct obscured them slightly, but he could still make out some indistinct chanting—the necromancers' ritual, no doubt—and a series of small, broken sobs.
Isabella.
It was already starting.
"Find a way to bring this barrier down," Grimnir muttered. "Be quick and quiet—I don't want us attracting any attention—" He broke off again, having just heard a louder, clearer voice from the other side of the cave.
"We offer this soul to the Revenant," chanted the voice, who Grimnir assumed to be the presider of the ritual, "he who watches over the opponents of Arkay, and his power over life and death. Fie upon Arkay!" he cried. "Fie upon those who would follow him!"
"Fie!" echoed the sorcerers next to him. Silently, J'zargo held up four claws—four voices, not including the presider. "Fie!"
"We beseech you now," whispered the necromancer, "Darken this gem before us, that we may use its power to restore the Order of the Black Worm!"
Brelyna stifled a gasp of horror, the barrier completely forgotten. "The Black Worm?!" she whispered to Grimnir. "Arch-Mage, these are no ordinary necromancers. They worship the Revenant—they're followers of Mannimarco!"
Grimnir felt a sensation rather like his stomach dissolving as his mind processed this new information.
Every mage worth his salt was taught to fear the infamous King of Worms from the onset of his training, and the Arch-Mage of Winterhold was no exception. Mannimarco and his servants, both living and otherwise, had been the scourge of Tamriel for well over a thousand years, and more than one source claimed to have killed him—only to be proven false centuries later. Even his most recent death, dating back to over two hundred years ago—almost alongside the Oblivion Crisis in Cyrodiil—had not entirely settled the matter among the majority of the general public, and if anything, this form of cult worship that Grimnir was seeing right now had only intensified in the wake of Mannimarco's disappearance.
The Arch-Mage grit his teeth—if this really was the Black Worm, then there was no way he could let this ritual reach its conclusion.
"The Order shall rise," hissed the warlock as he laid one hand on the heavy purplish crystal in front of him, and the other upon the breast of the bloodied, terrified Breton woman on whom the soul gem rested. "Grant us this power, Revenant, that we might vanquish our enemies in your name!"
"Yol … Toor SHUL!"
The necromancers' ward never stood a chance. An explosion of searing flame—Spoken into being with three Words of Grimnir's Voice—billowed out of the crevice, shattering the construct without losing any momentum at all. One of the warlocks was unfortunate enough to be standing guard right at the mouth of the fissure when the fireball roared past. Very little of his robes—or his body, for that matter—remained to topple to the ground.
Grimnir Torn-Skull burst from the smoking remains, all notion of stealth and care gone as he bore down upon the remaining necromancers like a dragon on the wing. He didn't have any care for the three remaining sorcerers as they readied their magic. His eyes were only set on the naked, white-haired maiden tied to the altar before them—and the tall, angular high elf above her.
He saw the purplish-black gem resting in the Altmer's hand, the size of his own fist—and more importantly, saw that it was beginning to glow. Violet tendrils snaked from Isabelle's body, and she convulsed violently with a choking noise. Grimnir saw tiny sigils appearing on her exposed chest, running from hands to feet in an X pattern, crossing directly over the gem held high—
Isabelle began to scream—a piercing, never-ending shriek—Unrelenting Force was too risky, Grimnir knew; he dared not use it again—
There was no more time—he had to act—
"WULD!"
Only then was the Altmer's concentration broken. He turned to see who had spoken up just now—and was immediately hit in the chest by a ferocious left hook from Grimnir. The Arch-Mage's Shout had harnessed the power of the winds, and directed them to his feet, increasing his speed a thousand-fold for the tiniest blink of an eye—and with it, the force of his punch. The gangly high elf was sent flying headlong into a rocky, natural column at least twenty feet away, hitting hard enough to crack the snow-dusted stone. He slumped to the ground, dropped the gem, and did not move.
But the sigils had not faded from Isabelle's flesh—and still she continued to convulse.
"No!" cried one of the necromancers, an Imperial, as he fended off a firebolt from J'zargo. "The gem is crucial to our success! They must not take it!"
He made as if to break for it, but his companion, another Dunmer, held him back. "The ritual isn't finished yet!" she cried. "We just have to hold them off for a few more—!"
She broke off here—unable to finish her sentence on account of the well-timed ice spike from Brelyna that had just been forced down her open mouth. The frozen missile turned a dark scarlet in less than a second as a fountain of blood spurted from the fatal wound.
Even as the luckless Dunmer's companion made to revive her, Grimnir's full attention was now on Isabelle. It wasn't good—the Breton was starting to foam at the mouth now, her convulsions becoming worse than ever. The Arch-Mage's mind began to race—they'd said something about a gem—
Immediately, he dived for the presider's body, recalling the black soul gem he'd seen in his hand. It only took a moment—there it was; he was worried it had been knocked away in the confusion. He turned to Isabelle, and suddenly realized he had no idea how to reverse this—
"Brelyna!" Grimnir hollered, his heart pounding. "I could use a hand here!"
The Telvanni paused only to disintegrate both the Imperial and his Dunmer puppet with the same blast of lightning before leaping over to the Arch-Mage.
"How do I reverse this?" Grimnir asked hurriedly. "I've got seconds, Brelyna—and Isabelle's got less!"
"We need to interrupt these sigils somehow," the Dunmer replied. "If we can erase enough of the inscriptions, we might be able to—BEHIND YOU!"
Grimnir had registered her look of horror a second too late. He whirled around to see the third necromancer, who alone of the cult he had yet to notice. This one, a middle-aged Breton man, had clearly been fighting—a split second's glimpse revealed a smoldering robe; clearly he'd been tangling with Onmund and J'zargo before this—but circumstances had kept Grimnir from seeing him in action beforehand.
Then it happened.
Grimnir felt a hand close over the left side of his face, and instinctively he shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to break free of the unexpectedly strong grip.
"Don't try to struggle, Dragonborn," said the necromancer in a savage snarl. "That's only going to make it hurt. And our master was clear that he wants the Arch-Mage alive—oh yes, he has plans for you … "
Suddenly, Grimnir forgot about the fact that he was fighting to save a woman from mortal danger—he even forgot that he might be in mortal danger himself. Their master … the master of the Worm Cult … was he truly talking about M—
"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!"
Pain—pain beyond any he'd ever known—was surging into his skull, where the necromancer was grabbing him. The flesh of Grimnir's cheek was freezing cold, and felt as if it was being pierced with a thousand blades. So great was the pain that it was only much later before Grimnir realized the screaming voice was his own.
He heard screaming from Brelyna too, then shouts from Onmund and J'zargo—or was that the necromancer? Then a gigantic explosion from somewhere behind him unseated him completely—Grimnir felt himself falling even as his face hit the rough, rocky ground, falling into darkness …
"Lucky he moved when he did … "
"This one had thought he was dead for sure."
"I just wish we had enough time to save them both … "
Grimnir snapped his eyes open—or at least, one of them; for some reason, his left eye was being very slow to budge. He felt an unpleasant feeling inside his skull, as if hundreds of ice-cold swords were ripping into the flesh and bone beneath. He couldn't see much—it looked as though he was still lying face-down on the ground. It certainly felt like it, too.
"How do you feel?" Brelyna's voice suddenly rang out from above him. That, more than anything, helped Grimnir back to his senses. He rolled over to where he could sit up, but felt a gentle pair of hands on him.
"Not so quickly," said the Dunmer. "We had to use a lot of healing magic on you. And we're not entirely certain we did a good job of it, either. We were very worried about you."
Grimnir looked around. He could open his left eye now; it was still rather painful, but at least he could still see from it. Onmund looked just as grayish-white as the cave walls. Everything about J'zargo—ears, whiskers, even his tail—had an uncharacteristic droop to them, even though seeing Grimnir conscious again had clearly done a boon for his spirits.
"Well," Grimnir grunted, "I certainly feel like I didn't earn the name 'Torn-Skull' for nothing." He laughed bleakly at his own joke—wondering apropos of nothing which of his ancestors had been the first to use that sobriquet, and why.
To his chagrin, though, none of the other mages were laughing with him. " … What happened?" he asked, immediately sensing something very wrong had happened.
Onmund swallowed several times before he spoke up. "That necromancer did some really nasty work on your face when he grabbed you," he said. "Not just physically, but magically as well."
"Frost magic," Brelyna explained. "Not very powerful, but point-blank all the same. And there was every indication he'd been aiming elsewhere. If you hadn't closed your eyes, tried to throw him off … Grimnir, he could have blinded you—maybe even killed you."
Grimnir gingerly touched his freezing cheek with a finger. The flesh felt rough and shredded, as if by an entire shoal of slaughterfish. Grimnir recalled how his friends had already expounded a great deal of restoration magic on him, and instinctively knew that he would be carrying these woulds for the rest of his life.
Well, he thought, at least no one's going to think I'm Ysgramor in the flesh anymore.
But even as he tried to keep the mood light, Grimnir felt the chill in his skull seeping slowly into the rest of his body as the rest of Brelyna's words sank in. Blinded, she said—even killed?!
But with a great deal of effort, he shrugged that off—the rest of these injuries could be dealt with later. There were more important things to deal with. "What happened to Isabelle?" he asked.
Silence again. Onmund's face looked more white than gray now. Instantly, Grimnir knew he didn't need to hear any more—the cold, horrible truth was sinking into him further still—piercing his heart, choking his lungs, constricting his stomach like an iron vice.
"I-it happened just after you lost consciousness," Brelyna stammered, pausing every now and again to steady her breathing. "Isabelle j-just … it's my fault, Grimnir. I was too busy fighting that last necromancer to see that she'd stopped her thrashing about. I didn't think about what that might have meant until … until it was too late."
"Don't blame yourself, Brelyna," said Grimnir. "Is there anything that can be done?"
Brelyna bowed her head. "Not without that black soul gem," she said sadly. "And even if we did still have it, I wouldn't feel right bringing her back—it'd be for a good cause, I understand, but it's necromancy all the same. Isabelle's dead—it's best for us all that she stays that way."
Grimnir started, forgetting the dull blow to his lungs he'd felt upon hearing Isabelle's dead. "Was the soul gem destroyed?"
"No." J'zargo spoke up for the first time. His normally smooth purr of a voice was gone; now, it bordered on a bitter, spitting hiss. "It was transported elsewhere—exactly where, Khajiit could not tell you. The necromancers believed that soul gem was very valuable to them. When it was darkened, and Isabelle's soul was trapped inside, you were able to throw off the necromancer after he accosted you."
Grimnir cursed the nameless sorcerer under his breath. "So he took off with the gem?"
"Not exactly." J'zargo smiled ruefully. "Reverse Conjuration; he teleported the soul gem out of our reach. It was the last thing that necromancer did—and this one made sure that he paid dearly for his misdeeds."
He waved a paw behind him, spitting on the snow in disgust; Grimnir noticed a charred bundle of robes and … He felt sick as he looked at what was wearing the sizzling remains of the garment. J'zargo had clearly wasted no time in employing his newly-learned incineration spells; the Breton necromancer wasn't even a body anymore—simply a twisted, shapeless mass of reddish-black goo and melted bone.
"We buried Isabelle shortly before you woke up," said Brelyna, indicating a pile of snow some distance away from the altar. "Clothed her and everything. I think it's what Ranmir would have wanted. And speaking of Ranmir … " Here, Brelyna pulled out a small scrap of folded parchment. "This was in the pocket of Isabelle's tunic. It wasn't sealed-but it was addressed to Ranmir."
Grimnir took the tiny letter from the Dunmer's hands, and began to read.
My dearest,
I know that it was wrong to mislead you, but I didn't want you to prevent me from going.
I know it's been hard on you, on both of us, struggling to survive. I hate to see the look in your eyes every time you think about how little the two of us have, and I know you're too proud to ever say anything. So I'm going to make it all better. I know how to get something that will allow us to live happily, without ever worrying about money ever again.
I love you so much, Ranmir. You mean the world to me, and I only want to see you happy.
Worry not. I'll be home soon.
Isabelle Rolaine
The letter fluttered to the ground. Brelyna's eyes were swimming with sympathetic tears as she bowed her head, having peered over Grimnir's shoulder to read the handwriting. J'zargo and Onmund must have done the same thing; they looked sick, and were shooting looks of disgust at the corpses of the necromancers around them.
But all of this went unnoticed by Grimnir, whose vision was slowly turning a boiling scarlet. He had never felt so angry in his life. These necromancers had torn a young couple's future apart—and for what? Their own personal gain? The promise of power beyond measure? And it had been Ancano who had told them to do it.
He spat on the ground, cursing the elf with every breath he took. Ancano had known he would come here, too—how else would that accursed necromancer have known he was Dragonborn—?
"Grimnir!" Onmund's voice suddenly cut through the crimson fog of his fury. "One of them is still alive!"
The Arch-Mage slowly turned to see where Onmund was pointing. The high elf was still lying slumped against the cracked pillar where Grimnir had thrown him. He didn't look as though he had much longer for this world, though—Grimnir knew if wanted information, he'd have to be quick.
Before the dying sorcerer could think to do anything—even to take his next ragged breath—Grimnir had appeared before him in two long strides, reaching out with a stocky, muscular arm and lifting the necromancer by the scruff of his robes to a more comfortable sitting position.
"You two, hold him," Grimnir told Onmund and J'zargo. "Brelyna—if he tries to attack or escape, I don't want anything left of him. Not even ash."
Not daring to wait for a reply, he stared down at the Altmer with a sense of loathing he had never felt for anyone before—not even Ancano. "I'm going to have a little talk with him," he said. "I suggest you look away now."
J'zargo frowned. "Why?"
Grimnir spoke just one word in reply.
"FAAS!"
A red mist poured from his mouth, and washed over the necromancer. For a moment there was nothing more. Then, the necromancer's eyes suddenly widened to the size of septims, and he pitched forward with a piercing scream of terror as the nightmarish vision Grimnir had just Spoken into his mind began to take effect.
Quickly, before the sorcerer could break free through sheer force of panic alone, Grimnir caught him by the throat, and squeezed just a little to stop the shouting. "What have you been doing here?" he hissed through his teeth, lowering his voice just a little to complete the fearsome illusion he was forcing on the warlock.
The petrified Altmer could only choke out a whisper. "Soul gem … power source. Need … for ritual … "
"What did you do to Isabelle?" rumbled Grimnir. "Why did you need her so badly?"
"Already … dead," burbled the necromancer, hacking out a thin cackle despite the constriction of his throat. "Soul gem … Mzurkunch … Xrib. Cave to … north … near Azura … shrine."
Mzurkunch? Grimnir had never heard of a Dwemer ruin with that name before—but he thought he knew what cave the necromancer might be talking about. He'd never been down there, but …
"Why are you telling us this?" Brelyna interrogated him. "What do you stand to gain?"
"M'Alga … is coming," stammered the elf. "Dragon … born … Cannot … stop him. Death … so much death … to come … " He giggled weakly with childlike glee, as if the prospect excited him even in the face of imminent death.
Grimnir squeezed again at the mention of the infernal name—much harder this time. "Who is M'Alga?!" he demanded. "Tell me now!"
But something had finally darkened behind the eyes of the high elf, and white foam was already dribbling from the sorcerer's mouth as he smiled for the last time. "You … will … see … him … soon … "
Then his neck lolled about limply in Grimnir's iron grip, and the necromancer's eyes were forever frozen in defiance and triumph as his soul sailed for the afterlife. Whatever illusion had been created by the Dragonborn's Voice had proved fatal—too much for his mind to bear.
Brelyna, Onmund, and J'zargo were now staring wide-eyed at their Arch-Mage, with something that could almost be called awed respect … or outright fear. But Grimnir, though he dared not concede it, wagered he felt more fear in his heart than all three of them combined. The knowledge that a Worm Cult had somehow survived the ages had been completely forgotten in his mind.
That was three times now he had heard that maddening, accursed name. Three times in two days—and each time, it had led him and everyone with him from bad to worse. Now, somehow, this M'Alga had figured out who he was, known of his accession to Arch-Mage of Winterhold, of being the Last Dragonborn—perhaps even from the beginning.
And Grimnir Torn-Skull still hadn't learned a damned thing about him.
Next chapter: The Black Worm is no ordinary necromantic cult … and their leader is no ordinary being.
A/N: All right, I think that's enough of a break from writing.
So, now I'm out of school, I'm going to try and get back into some sort of groove. I don't see this story being quite as long as Second Seed—though I've been wrong before—however, I've been looking for jobs left, right and center since the year began, and I'm trying to manage my time enough to where I can try to succeed on both fronts without too much trouble. I'd like to think I can still put out two new chapters every month, though—if only so I can put some regularity back into my life.
HON ZUL GUT (Hear, Voice, Far)—Similar to ZUL MEY GUT in all but function: where the latter is used for distraction, the former may be used for private conversation. Call it the Dragonborn's take on telepathy.
Rate and review if you so desire, and thanks for reading! – K
