A DRAGON'S BEGINNING
THE MANY ADVENTURES OF ELSEBET KIND-HEART BOOK 1


CHAPTER 4
THE START OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP


Elsebet left the Riverwood Traders with lighter pockets, more gold, and an extra quest. She didn't think anything of it; she'd quickly go through the ruin, give the claw back to Lucian, then head to Whiterun. She was sure she could put down a couple bandits, but just in case she headed into the Sleeping Giant Inn to see if there were any sellswords available.

As soon as she entered the inn, she heard the resident bard strumming lightly on a lute, obviously practising for later on in the day. Her eyes wandered around the room, looking for the tell-tale sign that someone was waiting for someone to hire them, and her different coloured eyes landed on an Imperial wearing a set of steel armour, a battleaxe over his left shoulder. He was sitting at one of the tables that lined the walls, drinking from a tankard.

She made her way over and sat down next to him.

He looked over, chestnut eyes full of curiosity. "Why are you sitting next to me?"

"Are you a sellsword?"

He shrugged taking a swig of whatever was in his tankard. "What's it to you?"

"I'm heading to Bleak Falls Barrow, and I need someone to help clean out the bandits and the draugr." She saw him raise an eyebrow and lower his tankard slightly.

"And why are you going to the Barrow?" He asked, turning fully so his shoulders faced her, giving her his full attention.

"I need to get something from there."

The Imperial thought for a moment, before shrugging again. "Why not? Five hundred gold, and I'm yours."

After swearing a little in her mind about the amount of gold she was about to spend for him to accompany her through one ruin, she counted out five hundred septims and handed them over to him.

He smirked at her. "I'm guessing we're leaving now, right?"

She nodded at him, and together the two stood up. "I'm Elsebet, by the way."

"Risorallen."

X - - - - - - - - - - X

Bleak Falls Barrow was extremely bleak, as its name suggested. The grey ruins stuck out like a sore thumb as the snow fell hard on Elsebet and Risorallen. They were taking a small break from walking up a mountain and a short fight with bandits halfway up, as they were sure more bandits would be roaming the ruins, and they couldn't do that if they were tired. After a couple minutes, Risorallen got to his feet and brushed the snow off of him, his black hair dotted in snowflakes.

He held out a hand to help Elsebet up, and she smiled up at him in thanks as he pulled her to her feet. She shivered as she wrapped her cloak around her, suddenly wishing she was smart enough to bring some padded armour, instead of her having to pry a set of hide armour off one of the dead bandits from earlier and put it on. It was freezing, and the armour revealed too much skin to be comfortable in that type of weather. Really, she was lucky she and that woman were the same size. Otherwise she would have still been in the dress she wore at Helgen, though it had been washed and cleaned by Sidgrid.

Walking low in the snow wouldn't work for them, since Elsebet's cloak was a bright red and her hair was the same colour, and Risorallen's hair was as black as night. The pair stuck out like sore thumbs in the snow.

So, they charged at the ruin when they got to the grey stone stairs, Risorallen hoisting his battleaxe over his head to bash one of the bandits and Elsebet pulled an arrow out of her quiver and aimed at the archer above them. It hit him straight in the chest, and he fell heavily onto the stone floor. Risorallen kicked a bandit in the stomach and put his axe in her head. Another arrow loosed, and the man that was running towards the duo fell to the ground.

Risorallen pulled his battleaxe out of the bandit in front of his and put it over his shoulder, securing it to his back. After they searched the bodies for money and things they could sell, they headed inside the ruins.

It was damp inside, and Elsebet could hear the quiet chatter of two bandits not much further into the ruin. The two stepped lightly on the stone ground, careful not to step on any of the dead skeever corpses. When the bandits came into Elsebet's vision, she raised her bow and knocked an arrow, aiming for the one facing her, a blonde Nord woman with her own bow strapped to her back. She let the arrow fly, and it hit the woman square in the shoulder.

She was jerked back as she screamed, her hand going up to where the arrow entered her shoulder. The bandit whose back was facing them drew his sword, the steel glinting in the light of the campfire next to him. An arrow hit him in the knee, and he crumpled as he let out a cry. The woman had drawn her own dagger, as her bow was now unusable thanks to her shoulder, and charged at the two. She didn't get far before Risorallen's battleaxe was buried in her neck. She fell down when he wretched it out of her. The other bandit's cries was silenced by an arrow in his chest.

Risorallen wiped the blood that spurt onto his face with the back of his hand, and he wiped the battleaxe off with the hide of the woman as Elsebet put her arm through the string of her bow and walked over to the chest in the corner. She tried to open it, but it was locked, so she picked it open and took what was inside—a coinpurse, a couple gems, and a few daggers.

The two made their way down the tunnel connected to the campsite. It twisted and turned, and Elsebet kept her bow out with an arrow knocked, the string slack, just in case they were jumped by a bandit or a draugr. After about half an hour of walking, they got to a set of stairs that led down into a chamber, smaller than the first one, with a bandit standing in front of one of three stones, the outside ones with a bird on it, the middle one with a whale on it. The bandit nodded, then went over to the lever that was situated in the middle of the room. He pulled it, and a bunch of poisoned arrows rained down on him, and he fell to the floor, his body convulsing for a moment before stilling.

Dead.

The darts stopped and Elsebet and Risorallen gingerly descended the stairs and stepped into the brightly-lit chamber. On the far side of the chamber was an iron gate, with an antechamber on the other side. Above the gate were two heads, the left one with a snake in its open mouth, the right one with a whale, with a crumbling face in the middle, and a stone snake, almost crumbled, rested against the wall between the iron gate and the three stone pillars.

"I've heard of these things," Elsebet said, pulling her hood off her head, showing Risorallen that her red hair was braided, and heading towards the first pillar. She pushed one of the sides and it turned slightly, a loud grating sound filling the air for a second. "You need to find the right combination to open the gate. A lot of them have traps integrated into them, and it looks like this one does too."

Risorallen stood next to her and tilted his head to the side. "Do you know the combination?"

She shook her head. "No. There must be something in this room that says it, though."

The two of them looked around the chamber for a moment before Risorallen pointed to the head statues above the gate. "Are those it?"

"Yes!"

She turned the pillars to show snake, snake and whale and almost ran to the level in the middle of the room. With her heart thumping, she turned to Risorallen, who was still standing near the pillars.

"If I die, give the golden claw you find later in the ruin to Lucan Valerius at the Riverwood Traders and head to Whiterun and tell the Jarl that Helgen was attacked by a dragon."

He shook his head. "You won't di- wait, Helgen was attacked by a dragon?"

"Yes, I was there," she said, wrapping her hands around the cool metal of the lever. She glanced down at the dead bandit who had tried to solve the puzzle last. "Promise me, Riz."

"One," he said, holding up a finger, "don't call me Riz. Two," he held up another finger, "I'm not promising, because you've got the right combination. Three, you survived a dragon attack, I'm pretty sure you'll survive a few poisoned darts."

She gulped down air and nodded. "Okay. Okay."

She gripped the metal lever harder and pulled.