Chapter 2
Recovery. Ivarstead. The eastern road. Borgakh tells a story.
By dawn, the storm is as dead as its maker. The wind falters and the temperature rises, squeezing sweaty moisture from the walls of the dugout. A faint blue glow begins to bleed through the snow. Though I am still weary, I rise. Even after all this time, I cannot seem to sleep in daylight.
The girl is huddled beneath her cloak. Her eyes twitch spasmodically beneath her lids. I think of waking her but decide against it. For a little time at least, I will need to be a version of myself that she can understand and follow. It will be wearying, and I am not eager to begin until I must.
My sword is driven into the center of the dugout to break the roof in case of collapse. I leave it behind me and crawl out the hole into the dawn. The early sun on the snow is like a sea of molten fire, and it wakes a familiar ache behind my eyes. The vista from this vantage is impressive, and I stare out at the land below me for some time. It seems unfathomable from this height that I have been hunting the Horned Man for over a year now. I look upon this delicate little country beneath and it seems I should be able to circumnavigate it in an hour.
I set to removing my armor, dropping the plates in the snow with dull clinks. The gambeson beneath reeks of blood and fouler things, and I am relieved to shed it. The caress of winter air on my bare skin is exquisite.
My arm is swollen and mottled with bruising, but I have had worse. The heat from the dragon's flame has left me with a livid burn along my left side, but that too is easily borne. I am still hale, then, though the usual aches persist. I pack snow in my hands and scrub at my chest and arms, cleaning away sweat and blood and grime. My muscles gradually relax and I begin at length to luxuriate in the kiss of snow. Then a drop of crimson falls past my hand.
I fumble at the wrappings over my face, and find that they are crusted with dried blood below my nose. My hand comes away smeared with fresher red, breaking its newfound purity. I pack the snow against my face and breath out hard, discharging as much of the bleeding as I can until it stops. Then I let the reddened snow fall and pack it down with my boot until I can no longer see the color.
I am clothed and armored again by the time the girl emerges. The morning light etches deep shadows in the rough topography of her features, making her look more brutish than ever. She winces at the touch of the wind and hesitantly extends my sword toward me. I take it from her.
The girl grunts and twitches her shoulders, looking awkwardly at me. "What's that made of?" she says at last. "Your sword, I mean?"
"It is an heirloom. I cannot say."
"I didn't expect it to be so light," she says. "I thought it was a greatsword, but it's so… whippy." She affects a self-consciously bluff tone. "I like a weapon with more heft, me. But it's still good smithing."
Only a fool wields a weapon heavier than it needs to be. "Thank you." I lean it back against my shoulder, looking out over the expanse. After a moment the girl steps up almost beside me, but lingers just a shade behind as if reluctant to impose. That's good. Sleep and rest do much to blunt fear, but something has remained.
"The Dragonborn is ahead of us," I say as I look out. "I know little of this country. Is there a way to make up the time?"
The girl inflates a little, clearly pleased to be consulted. "We are going to Shor's Stone, yes?"
A good question. The Riften connection is tenuous at best, and according to the girl her master had intended to go to Shor's Stone. But he left the letters behind. Perhaps that means he now has a different destination in mind? Or is it only that he does not care about the letters? Maybe this Sylgja is his lover, and carrying mail was only his justification for returning.
"Have you looked at the letters?" I ask.
She seems taken aback. "Of course not. That would… that would not be fitting."
I consider trying to argue with her, but her mulish expression makes it clear that would be useless. Next I think of throwing aside all the vague possibilities the girl represents and simply taking the letters by force. I find deceit distasteful. I find uncertainty galling. Before the coming of the Horned Man, my life encompassed neither. Now I live in a world of vagary and possibility, and some part of me desperately wants to return to that which is clean and solid and sure by cutting through everything else. Literally, if necessary. I could do it. But that is not yet my will.
"We'll go to Shor's Stone. Is there a quick way?"
"We can cut across country," she says. "It will be more dangerous, but faster. But if he was in haste, he might have done the same." She follows my gaze out over the land. "He can move very swiftly at need. He may be far ahead."
"Not so far," I say. "Not so far yet." I'm not sure if I say it for the girl's benefit or my own. Then I turn away and leave her by the brink. I think she is a little startled by the abrupt conclusion to the conversation. But she does not test me by breaking the silence as we walk. She is not entirely foolish. She may even be wise, in time.
Though the storm is gone, the snow remains, and it takes us much of the morning to reach Ivarstead. The town did not escape the storm, and we follow a trodden-down path of many footprints through the drifts. Though the path shows that the residents have been abroad, no one else is outside as we approach the inn.
The door creaks open beneath my hand, disgorging sweaty heat and a babble of voices. The talk dies away as I lead the girl inside. My eyes are still dazzled from the sun on the snow, and as the many heads turn toward me I see the people as a shadowy mass of twitchy, arachnid movement in the dark. Eyes flash at me out of the gloom, catching the light from the open door.
"It's you," says someone. I blink, trying to focus on him. "Did you find the Dragonborn?"
"No," says the girl. She closes the door, cutting off the light. "He left by another way. He was gone."
"Gone?" I am beginning to see the speaker, a bearded human man with an axe at his belt. He looks troubled. "Gone where?"
"I cannot say," I reply. "But I saw him leave three days ago."
"And who are you?" he asks.
"Roke. A student at High Hrothgar. The masters sent me to find the Dragonborn. They thought he might still be in Ivarstead." Now that I can see more clearly, I become aware that nearly the entire town is crammed inside this timber hovel. Children's eyes glitter from the darkness under the tables. Their parents sit above, propping their elbows amidst a mess of mugs and crude weaponry. It seems I have interrupted a council of war.
"What happened?" says a woman. "Are the Greybeards well?"
"A dragon came upon the peak," I say. "A very terrible beast, and old. The masters bade me flee, and warn what help might come. They hoped that the Dragonborn would hear, and come to them. They said he is the only one who might defeat the beast."
"A dragon?" The bearded man is sweating nearly as freely as I am. Dark patches stain the underarms of his shirt. "Ridiculous. The Worldeater is dead. The Dragonborn has slain the Elders. What dragon could threaten the Greybeards?"
Fear makes him bold. But such boldness is brittle, and easily guided. I step toward him. I am the taller, and he shies back at my coming.
"Do you doubt my word?" I ask him.
"I do not know you," he says. "Who can say if your word is good?"
"I am Roke," I lie, "and my word is good. But you need not trust to that. Trust to what your own eyes have seen. Do you think that storm last night was natural?"
He falters, and lets his gaze drop.
"Not even the masters had such power," I say, turning to the rest of the room. "But the beast has a mighty thu'um. Perhaps the mightiest left in this world. Save one, of course."
"You're telling us the Greybeards are dead?" says a woman by the wall. She has crossed her arms as if to hold herself in place. Still she trembles.
"I did not see them fall," I say. "But the storm began upon High Hrothgar. I saw it as I fled. It was fiercest there."
Some of them turn to look, as if they can see the mountain through the walls. There is a long silence before they begin to speak again.
"I still say we should go up and…"
"Without the Dragonborn, that's a fool's errand."
"The dragon might be gone."
"And it might not. You know they like their mountains…"
I move past them. The girl stands awkwardly to one side, and some of them ask her opinion. I think she gives it, but I do not particularly care what she says. I approach the aproned man behind the bar. He has not spoken yet, nor has he made any motion. I had thought perhaps he was made of harder steel than the others, but as I grow near I see it is not so. His eyes are haunted and his hands are balled and white-knuckled.
"You… you need something?" he asks as I approach.
"I am going after the Dragonborn. But before I go, I must have supplies." My pack was lost and abandoned in the fight with the dragon last night, and it held only what I had hastily stolen from the old men's larders. My last meal that I can recall was some goat meat red from the bone. I was in haste before I arrived at the monastery, and did not tarry to gather supplies. Now the aftermath of two battles has taken its toll, and I am sick with hunger. Fortunately, I did not put the old men's gold in the pack.
I produce it now, laying fat coins upon the bar. The innkeeper's watery eyes gleam greasily in the lamplight, and he clears his throat before he speaks. "Hunph. What, ah… what supplies do you prefer?"
"Food. Drink."
"Yes, but what kinds?"
"Whatever won't spoil." Behind me, I can hear the colloquy slowly collapsing in on itself. People are beginning to leave in ones and twos. I turn to watch them go as the innkeeper begins to stack food on the bar. A child takes a capering leap into the snow and slashes at the air with a wooden sword, insensible of any danger from dragons or storms. He swats next at his mother's skirts, but in response she only catches him up in her arms. The door closes behind them, and I am left with the conjoined silhouette of mother and child as my only point of shadow in a bloody afterimage.
Borgakh is conversing with a man by the door, a guard perhaps. He wears mail and his sword is well-kept. They are animated, and I hope that I have not unexpectedly gained a new companion.
"Who is that man by the door?" I ask the innkeeper, but he does not reply. I turn and find him staring down at his hands. He has paused in packing up my food.
"It's funny, you know," he says, though his voice is soft enough that I wonder if he intends me to hear. "We've always been the town beside the mountain. Beside the steps. We'd have people come on pilgrimages. Not often. Once in a while. But… once in a while was enough. It gave us something to be. What will we be now?"
I do not know. I do not care. I say nothing.
"It's funny," he says again. "It's like… like you get used to the world being a certain way. Little things change. This king dies, or that one. Enemies fall or they rise up. But the things that matter, they don't change. Same people. Same town. Same conversations over and over. It never changes. It's comforting, really. But then it does. It does change. And it's only then that you remember that it can." His hands are trembling. "It's like waking from a dream."
I tap the bar with a metal clad finger. He flinches.
"My supplies?" I say. "I'll buy a satchel too, to hold them."
"Of course," he says, obsequious again. "Yes, I'm sorry. Listen to me, rambling on…" He bursts into bustling motion, keeping his eyes on his work and away from me.
It's not like waking. It's like falling into a dream you can't escape. Everything feels less real, less solid, and always you remember the world as it should be. And yearn and yearn to wake. He will see it in the end. He will yearn. He will never wake.
Borgakh approaches as the innkeeper cinches up the pack. "I've consulted with a man I trust," she says, "and I've confirmed our route." Her pomposity is back in force. I hope it fades when we no longer have an audience.
"Good." I dig in the pack and emerge with a wedge of cheese. Then I sling the straps over my shoulders. "It's time we were going."
She is taken aback. "Now? I thought perhaps a bath, a hot meal…"
"The Dragonborn is three days and more ahead of us."
She has no reply to that, but still she dithers for a moment before turning to the innkeeper. "Master Wilhelm. I'll need the bag I left with you."
He seems to notice her for the first time. "Ah. Of course." He bends to rummage behind the bar and emerges with a bulging travel sack. "You'll be leaving, then?"
"It seems so," she says, peevishness in her voice.
I start toward the door, and after a moment I hear the girl curse under her breath and follow, bidding a hasty farewell to the innkeeper.
"Good luck!" he calls from behind. "I hope you find him. I hope…"
I never hear what else he hopes. We are gone by then, out through the door and down through the town. Some of the men eye us as we pass. The bearded man is among them, and I wonder if he intends to climb the mountain despite all. Not that it makes much difference now. He will find nothing but corpses and ruin, a little broken piece of the world that used to mean something. And I will be far beyond his reach.
No one has yet beaten a path out of town, and we are forced to wade through the drifts. I remove my helm to eat the cheese. The gauntlets are not dexterous, and I am indelicate, bending my head into my palm to bite and tear. I can almost feel the girl's eyes on me, but she does not comment until I have replaced my helm.
"Has something happened to your face?" She is trying to be casual.
"No."
"But those bandages…"
"I have a condition," I say. "I was born with it."
"Are you… you're not a vampire, are you?"
That had not occurred to me. "No. I am… malformed. It makes me recognizable. People talk, and my family would pay well to hear of my whereabouts." I like the lie. There is a kernel of truth in it that makes it feel stronger. I feel I have chosen well.
I expect the girl to ask further questions, but she surprises me. "I see," she says. "Then I shall ask no more." Her voice is gentler than usual. I have chosen well indeed.
We travel to the East for some time, skirting the edge of a ragged ridge. A wild tangle of broken peaks stretches off beneath us, fiercely white in the blaze of the sun. The mountains fade into a dull haze on the horizon, where even the blue of the sky is consumed by the grey eternity that overhangs the sea. We come to a stream that froths out over the edge and into empty space. I leap it at a bound, but the girl tarries to step carefully over the rocks. She does not look at me as she crosses, and I do not speak.
We pass a lonely tree and an ancient tower manned by a single aged orc who surveys us from a craggy embrasure. The girl raises a hand to him. It takes him a very long breath to return the gesture, and he does not smile.
Next we cross a bridge and a stretch of long road. The snow grows shallower as we progress, until we walk on hard-packed earth and rock. We climb a slope into the highlands, driving heavy boots into marshy soil and tufts of scant and yellowed grass. We walk then some time in the heights, traversing a narrow band of stone and barren earth overlooking a slope on either side. At length, we pass a crude campsite, where dirty men and women huddle beneath lopsided tents. A threadbare banner of blue homespun flops disconsolately back and forth in a mocking wind.
The girl halts. "Stormcloaks," she murmurs, gazing out at the camp.
"Weren't they defeated?" I ask.
"Aye," she says. "The Dragonborn took Ulfric's head himself. He has a commission in the Imperial Army."
"Does he?" I am surprised.
She seems startled. "Yes, of course. Haven't you heard the songs? He has the honor to be a Legate."
"He works for the Empire?"
She begins to respond, but then she hesitates. "Well… no. I mean, I don't know. I don't think they pay him. And they never tell him what to do, of course."
"Of course," I echo. Who would? Who would tell the Horned Man what he can and cannot do?
"I think it's more… I think he just wears their colors, and…"
"An alliance of convenience," I say. "He gets the rank. And they get to say he sided with them." My voice is soft.
"It's not just that," says the girl, blustering. "It's necessary. The Stormcloaks are shortsighted. Something had to be done to halt the Dominion. He often says…" She stops, looking quickly at me, then down at the camp. "I didn't realize anyone still flew that banner. They're probably no better than common bandits now."
Below, one of the soldiers has noticed us. "You're trespassing here!" she calls up to us. "You'd better clear out!"
The girl tenses beside me. Her hand rises toward her sword's hilt. "There aren't many. And they're weak."
"Not worth the trouble," I say, turning aside.
She pauses. "But they're Stormcloaks. We should… "
"Their commanders are surprisingly durable. Some sort of training in ignoring pain. They take a long time in dying. Better we press on."
"How do you know all that?" She hurries to catch up.
"I've met their kind before."
There is a pause before she replies. "I thought you didn't know anything about the war."
"About the war? No. But I remember the flag." I look back at her. "It's like you said. No better than common bandits."
We walk on in silence.
As the day grows old, we come to more pleasant country. White birches shed crisp golden leaves in our path. One catches in the girl's hair, and she makes a production of trying to get it out without sacrificing her dignity. When the path rises toward the heights again, we turn North and begin to descend. According to the girl, it is here that we shall rejoin the road that will take us to Shor's Stone.
We are a long time in the foothills, and night falls. As dusk slips about us, I begin to breathe easier. The girl is not so serene.
"We should find a place to set up camp," she tells me. "It's getting dark. And I mislike the look of those clouds."
I had intended to travel on into the night. But I am growing weary earlier than I should. Perhaps another night's rest would help me recover my full strength. "Very well."
As I speak, there is a huffing noise in the dark. The girl stiffens. "Bear," she whispers. "Back off. Slowly."
I ignore her, walking forward toward the noise. I cannot see the animal in the gloom, not from this distance, but I can hear his heavy paws as he approaches. I can smell the reek of him, the heavy musk of wet fur and old fish. As he looms up out of the black, twelve feet of roaring fury, he comes not as predator but as a player on the stage, entering precisely on his cue. I judge my moment, stepping around his ungainly swipe. As he falls back to all fours, I take the pommel of my sword in my free hand and swing once. Once is all it should ever take, for a beast.
The brute falls forward, lurching and twitching drunkenly. These creatures are tenacious. Even with so much steel embedded in his skull, he refuses to admit defeat. I let him have the sword, and it flops obscenely back and forth as he shudders through his final protests to his own mortality. At last he lies still, and I place a foot on his muscular neck to wrench the blade free.
The girl approaches as I do it, lowering her shield and her sword. She looks unsurprised to see the corpse. "W-well done," she says.
"He may have a den nearby. That should serve for a camp, yes?"
She nods, crouching beside the bear. "Big one," she says. "You could sell the claws for good money."
"Take whatever you want." I turn away, crouching to feel at the earth. I find the pawprints easily. Tracking is so simple in this muddy land.
Behind me, the girl rises to follow, but before she leaves the bear, she murmurs "poor old fellow" very faintly. Maybe she thinks I cannot hear.
After some searching, we find the lair, an outcropping of stone at the base of a cliff. It will do little for protection, but it should at least shelter us from rain or wind, and it is open enough that the bear's stink is not bad. The girl leaves to gather firewood and I pull off my armor, tossing it in a heap beside me. I rebind the wrappings about my face to hide the blood, and tug my sleeves over my hands. When the girl returns, I am sitting with my back against my pack, my legs stretched out before me. She peers at me through the night, but when I look back she hastily sets about building the fire. She does not ask for help, and I do not offer.
The fire snaps and smells of musk and evergreen. Tiny sparks rise like errant dreams, fading as they encounter the vastness of the night. The girl removes her armor piece by piece, checking each in the firelight before stacking it carefully beside her. Beneath, she wears a sleeveless jerkin and breeks.
For all that she is still a stripling, I am impressed by her size. I had thought that the pauldrons exaggerated her build, but I was mistaken. Her shoulders and arms are perhaps the heaviest I have seen in a female, and her calves are like the trunks of young trees. She is an uncouth thing, but all the same I cannot deny the latent power in her body. She reminds me of the bear's brutish, awkward force. But where the bear never had grace, she is young enough and still might learn to temper her power with speed and skill. She will be dangerous then.
She turns from her armor and begins to fuss over her sword. I grow bored with watching and take up one of her pieces of firewood. I draw my belt knife and begin to carve. The wood is harder than expected, but I can shape it. I find some calm in the work. It reminds me of the many times I have done it before, working by touch in the deeps.
Time passes. We eat from our bags and attend to our tasks, saying nothing. The moon is long risen before the girl puts aside her shield and breaks the silence. "I can't even see you in the dark there." She tries a laugh, but it is weak and hollow.
"Because you've been looking into the fire," I tell her. "Light makes you strong in some ways. But it weakens you in others."
"Dangerous not to have a fire in the wilderness," she says.
"Only if your enemies fear you more than you fear them. Unless you can chase the dark away entirely, all you ever say is 'I am here.'" I pause to blow away a curling strip of wood. It drifts into the flickering ring of firelight, milky pale. "And there's no fire that can fill all the night."
She hesitates. "Well. It's cold, too."
I smile faintly in the dark.
The girl's eyes fall on my peelings. "Were you whittling?"
"Yes."
"My f… someone I knew used to whittle. What are you making?"
I toss it to her. She fumbles it and has to catch it between her forearm and chest. When she lifts it to the firelight, she makes a little noise. "The bear?"
"Yes."
"It's… you're not bad," she says, turning it over in her hands. "Were you an artist?"
"No. You can put it in the fire. It's finished." I sheathe my knife and pick up my skin of water, taking a long draught. It feels cool and gentle on my throat.
"Roke," she says, and her voice is a strange contrast of hesitation and bombast, "the things you did on the mountain. Are they part of the Way of the Voice?"
"Yes."
She breathes out softly. I think she is relieved. "You must have been a pupil there for a while."
"For some time, yes."
"Have you known… him for very long? You must have been there when he first arrived."
I stiffen slightly. Is this a test? "No. The masters met him alone. I only saw him later. And I never really knew him."
"Of course," she says. "That makes sense." She sounds faintly pleased, or perhaps relieved. Ah. So that's the way the wind blows. I almost laugh.
"Tell me about him," I say.
"Oh," she says, and a note of pride enters her voice. "Well, what can I say? He is the Dragonborn, the Thane of All Holds. He's a warrior without peer. He…"
"So I've heard," I say, keeping my voice gentle. "But what is he like?"
She blinks. "I…" She frowns, as if in thought. "He laughs," she says at last. Her voice is softer now, more genuine. "He always laughs."
I feel a prickle on my skin, remembering. "Oh?"
She shakes her head. A faint, fond smile is spreading across her face, softening her stern features like some creeping rot. "He laughs at it all. All the monsters. All the bandits and the war. He just laughs. I've seen him walk into a den of frost spiders and just… laugh. I don't know that he fears anything."
"Not even death?"
She giggles, a surprisingly feminine sound. "I think he'd be more angry than afraid. He's the bravest man I've ever known. Once… once he decided he wanted to get an ice wraith in a bag. I don't know why. I don't know that he did either. But he wanted it. And he got it. I thought we never would, but I should have known better. Maybe no one else could, but he did. Damned if he didn't. He caught an ice wraith in a bag." She starts laughing again.
"And then… then… it was just, just bobbing around there." She mimes it with her hands. "And he said… he said 'that's a start. Now find me six more, and I think I can float.'" She shakes her head, still smiling. "I heard one of the bards sing a song about him once. I… well, I can't sing. But I can say it." She clears her throat.
"You came to us condemned and bound in iron.
You came to us a beggar man but then
You changed into a hero out of legend,
For nothing is with you as other men."
The girl hesitates. "I think she was right. Nothing's the same way with him as it is with other men. He's… different. Chosen. Sometimes I wondered… I wonder… if he even can die. He's been to Sovngarde once, and returned."
"Anything that lives can die." She looks up, startled, and I press on. "Or so I fear. But what ever happened to the ice wraith in the bag?" I force jocularity into my voice. "Did he ever float?"
She blinks. "Eh? Oh. No. We couldn't find any others. He killed it."
"Ah."
"He'd… he'd like you, I think," she says. "He'd laugh at you. But he'd like you."
Maybe he already is laughing. But he won't laugh forever. "We should sleep," I tell her. "We rise early."
The girl nods and settles down into her bedroll, folding her cloak over her and clutching the fabric close. In the firelight, I can see that someone has embroidered her name over the garment's left breast. Did she do it herself? I doubt it. Who then? A father? A mother?
I lean my head back against the rocky wall. I have no cloak. I have no fire. My coverlet is the cold stone and the naked night. All the same, it was given to me as surely as the girl's cloak was given her. And betwixt our two gifts, mine is the one that shall never fail.
I close my eyes and sleep.