To the people who know Skyrim: yes Katniss does have a Dragon Priest mask! She has Krosis. And yeah, she's like way too OP (over-powered) for sure; the bow is an ebony lightning bow, and those are fire-glass daggers she uses.
For the people who don't know Skyrim, but are curious anyway, there are 8 dragon priest masks in the game, and to get them you have to defeat one of the 8 undead dragon priests—the hardest bosses in the game. So it stands to reason if she has one, she's clearly very accomplished. They all have special properties; Krosis in particular boosts your archery stats, so I thought it fitting.
Heading into the ancient stone structure was the last thing Cato wanted to do. Not after hearing about its dangerous depths, and more importantly, the undead that walked the halls.
He looked around; it was a remarkably nice day. The sky above was a quiet, tender blue, speckled lightly with stars in the morning light. The prowling mist seemed to sparkle with the sun, the snow glittered like diamonds and glass, blinding and brilliant. As they trudged up the side of the mountain, he was reluctant to let it go. He had a feeling he was going to come out of that thing and lay himself in the snow, kissing solid ground—if he even got out of there at all. Katniss did not appear all that uneasy about the prospect of hiking into the land of the undead. Actually she had notched an arrow, and shot a mountain bear clean through the head.
The girl walked over to stare down at it forlornly. She sighed. "That would have made an excellent pelt." Katniss noted, sadly. They couldn't carry it in with them, but hopefully when they came out of the crypt the ice and snow will have preserved the body long enough for her to lug it somewhere to sell.
A clang jerked her attention away from the fallen animal; Cato had encountered some bandits. She made no move to help him, simply folding her arms and leaning against the stone cliff, observing him. It was clear to see he was born to fight. Probably trained since infancy, or something very close. He had the instinct for it, surely; that kind of intuition couldn't be taught. He parried the blade of one, dodged the arrow of another, and then threw the first off balance to get under his guard. Katniss's brow rose; the sword was definitely his weapon. She couldn't think of anything better suited. Maybe she had been remiss is getting him the broad sword though—next time they went into town, she'd see to making him a regular sized sword.
"Were you even planning on doing anything?" Cato turned to her, exasperated, once he'd killed them all.
In answer she pushed off the ledge, notching an arrow and shooting it to the cliff above him. He looked up, just in time to avoid a falling body as it dropped from the cliff. Another archer.
He grumbled at Katniss's smug smirk, not even bothering to respond. You could never win with her, seriously.
His debatably good mood fell flat when they finally reached the summit. There were more bandits camped out there, posing an opportunity to let off some steam. But even they weren't enough to distract him from the looming structure above them. Black stone archways rose from the snow, as high as the mountain peak, casting striking shadows against the ground. The entrance to Bleak Falls Barrow spoke of opulence and royalty; at some point in its life, it was clearly a palace fit for kings.
The regal columns and staircases had long since succumbed to the elements, leaving only remnants and a haunting image of what could have been.
Katniss finished up with the bandits, tossing a sack of coins up and down in one hand with a satisfied grin to her face. A good haul then, apparently. She took the stairs calmly, not even blinking as they came to the towering doors. She turned to him, searching him deeply.
"You don't have to come, you know." She said, quietly, surprising him. "No one would blame you; the undead are no laughing matter, and it's normal to be afraid."
He spared her an incredulous look. "You're not afraid." He pointed out.
A smile quirked into existence. "I've been in my fair share of dungeons." She returned, vaguely.
Cato huffed, looking back towards the stone courtyard. She had a point. What kind of rational person with any self-preservation would voluntarily go into a crypt full of the undead? It was perfectly reasonable for him to sit this one out. He looked back at her, observing her just as deeply as she was him. So, what, he would stay back, and let Katniss go alone? He reminded himself that Katniss was more than capable of handling herself; more to the point, she had apparently done it many times before. And yet the thought of letting her descend into the depths of the mountain alone didn't sit well with him. Not to mention, he had this stupid urge to… to impress her, somehow.
Against his better judgment, he shook his head. "I'll be alright."
She narrowed her eyes at him, studying him closely. Finally she shrugged. "If you're sure…"
And then opened the door.
The interior wasn't so bad, was his first thought. Dilapidated, broken and covered in dust, but it was spacious and open and not what he had expected. Clearly it had been ransacked at least a dozen times since it had fallen into disuse, and true to for Katniss motioned for him to duck low, and as they crept further inward he could hear voices. A camp fire casted flickering lights along the stone walls; more bandits. Katniss wasted no time ambushing them, taking two out silently with a knife. He didn't really have the finesse for stealthy kills, so he just jumped over a fallen pillar and took the other two by surprise. Once that was over he had a moment to catch his breath, and truly survey their surroundings. It looked to be the grand entranceway.
"This isn't so bad," he reasoned aloud, staring up into the support beams, wondering how they were still standing.
Katniss snorted. "We're not in the dungeon yet."
He blinked. "What?"
She motioned towards a door on the opposite end from the entrance, locked tightly shut. He swallowed thickly; it was clear that it had been boarded up and covered over many times, as thick steel beams held it tightly shut, and fallen pillars and debris had been pushed towards it… as if trying to keep something out. Or rather, trying to keep something in. The beams had been peeled off, and there were scorch marks on the door. Recent ones, from the look of it.
Katniss moved towards it, inspecting the marks before she moved to open it. She paused. "Last chance," she called, turning to him.
He scowled.
She seemed to take this as an answer, smiling slightly as she propped it open with one foot.
He gripped his sword tighter, and followed her into the darkness.
.
.
.
Cato's first thought was that it was far colder in hear than it had been outside. Which seemed strange, considering the interior was protected from the outside elements. Then he remembered his first and only encounter with the undead; how unnaturally cold it had been, how his breath seemed to freeze in his lungs. Katniss stood beside him, and when he turned to look at her he was startled to see her features covered again by that stone mask. It was unnerving, really.
"You alright?" She asked, casually. It was difficult to tell her tone without being able to see her face.
"Fine." He replied, stiffly.
He eyed the path in front of them; ancient stone, forming a winding dark tunnel into the abyss. The dungeon had clearly fallen into disuse long ago, for he could still make out the dilapidated remnants of pillars and altars—but not nearly as dilapidated as the outside.
Katniss moved ahead of him, as silent as a wraith. She made no sound, even when the grating stone around them seemed to shift and close in on them. He followed, far louder than her.
His first encounter with the undead came soon enough. They moved quietly through twisting turns and ominous halls, with voluminous cavern ceilings that seemed to end in the sky. There were candles and torches still lit, he noticed. Ancient scrolls and vases torn about, not to mention dozens of traps still effective. But the true deterrent of the dungeons had made themselves for the duration of their trek—until now. They descended into a narrow, crooked stone corridor, quietly moving down the steps. He heard a growl from behind him, and had a moment to throw his guard up before another heavy sword clashed with his own.
He met the (empty) eyes of his opponent, blue and shriveled and skeletal, and for one horrified moment found himself incapable of moving. A chill shivered up his spine, rendering him immobile. Then he heard Katniss behind him, notching her bow and flinging an arrow just past his head, piercing another one through the head. He jolted back into action then, cutting down the undead man and moving for his companions. Objectively they were not any more or less difficult than the bandits they had faced outside.
But the idea that they were trapped down here, so far from the exit, with nothing but hordes of undead as company was daunting. He looked down, where his hands were still shaking, from both adrenaline and fear.
"Still doing okay?" Katniss asked lightly, lowering her bow.
"I think so," he answered truthfully. It wasn't really the draugr themselves that made it so difficult, rather his own mind twisting his fear into something corporeal. "They weren't… as horrible as I thought."
Katniss snorted. "These are just draugr—the foot soldiers, if you will. Long ago they were just the simple guards and soldiers; the lower we go, the more powerful they'll be."
He whirled around at that. "Seriously?"
"Very much so." Katniss replied, pivoting smartly on one foot and continuing down the path.
They met more undead on the way down, not to mention their fair share of dangerous creatures. There were spiders larger than himself, monstrous trolls, and even ghosts; much to his relief, they all met their end with his sword in the exact same way. There was something reassuring to that, at the very least.
After the fourth or fifth time a horde of draugr found them they had stopped horrifying him on sight alone. He didn't think he'd ever get used to them, or even the idea of them, but he had come to terms with them at the least.
"What… what are they, really?" He asked, after they had encountered at least a dozen of them coming undone from caskets embedded into the walls. He noticed not all of them came to life. Some of them really stayed dead, lying in a festering of dust and bones in their graves.
"Draugr?" Katniss replied, idly. She was kneeling on the ground, tracing patters in the flagged stone floor; tracking the wayward thief who apparently had come in here.
"Yeah."
"They—" She paused. "Well, they're the undead. Skyrim has a long and illustrious history, and I'm afraid I'm not really the best person to tell you about it; I don't know very much myself. As I heard the story, the land was ruled by the ancient Dragon Priests, and their armies of both dragons and humans alike. They all died out a very long time ago, but as you may have noticed, their presence still lingers in the bowels of Skyrim."
"So these zombies were… Dragon Priests?" He repeated, perplexed.
Katniss paused for a moment, before bursting into laughter. "No—definitely not! There were only eight of them, and they are dangerously powerful; I would never recommend searching one out. Or, searching for their graves, at the very least. The undead here were their minions."
Cato swallowed. That was terrifying. He'd made his peace with the idea of Dragons roaming about the skies, but apparently there was a lot more to the story than that.
He shook his head. What did it matter, anyway? It was all ancient history, and it wasn't like he was going to be sticking around here anyway. He planned on finding the first way out of here and taking it, so it wasn't like he needed to know.
"Wait." He paused. "What do you mean, you don't know much yourself? Aren't you from here?"
Katniss stilled. "I…" Her voice was muffled by her mask, but he thought he could hear a beat of hesitation. "I don't know."
He spared her an incredulous glance. "You don't know? How do you not know?"
"I just—I woke up here, one day." She confessed. "By the border of the sea—in Dawnstar, actually. The place we're going."
"You woke up." He repeated, perplexed.
They continued down the silent stone sarcophagus, nothing to accompany them but the flickering gloom. "I don't know how else to explain it." She replied. "A fisherman found me in the sea; they brought me to land, surprised I was even still alive—the water up there is deadly cold. I couldn't remember anything when they revived me."
Cato simply stared at her for a long moment, questions swimming in his mind, answers not forthcoming. "The sea—?" He wondered what that could mean. She washed up in Skyrim from the sea.
She nodded. "The Sea of Ghosts," she explained, barely above a whisper. In the deep, besotted gloom the mask took on a soulless, dangerous quality of light and shadow. "The Northern Sea. The north… well, let's just say if you thought it was cold here, the icy coasts of Skyrim are a whole other level of cold."
"Great." He grumbled. He had thought it was unbearably cold. Apparently he was in for that and much more.
A deep rumbling reverberated from the deeps, shadows and echoes. Cato started at the noise, holding his sword out in front of him as he turned all his attention to the matter at hand. He could ponder about Katniss and all her secrets later; when they weren't hundreds of leagues into the mountain, surrounded on all sides by he undead. They crept farther and farther into the crypt, and he found that the longer they went without encountering enemies the more his trepidation grew. His eyes darted towards the flickering shadows, as if sensing movement; his breath came in shallow, frantic huffs. It was so cold and quiet down here, one could drown in it.
Finally they came upon a narrow, craggy stairwell, broken pillars somehow managing to keep the pass from total collapse. At the bottom was an embellished, intricate door of solid gold. He could recognize the seal on it as something he'd seen quite a bit on their way down here; on tapestries, sculpted into coffins and walls. Katniss narrowed her eyes at it, moving closer to inspect the center of the door.
"What is it?" He asked quickly, darting his gaze back to the top of the stairs, as if waiting for more of the undead to appear at the top.
"Hmm…" Katniss said.
"What?" He turned back around, watching her inspect the door with abated breath. He felt as if the walls were closing in on them, and every second down here was one more second too much.
"It's locked," she announced.
He felt his stomach drop. "Well?" He hissed, frantic. "What are we going to do?"
"Hmmm," she said, again. "There's probably a key around here somewhere—
And Cato did not fancy the idea of back tracking through the swarms of undead in search of a key that could be anywhere.
"—but I can probably pick it." She ended, unearthing a handful of lockpicks from her seemingly bottomless packs and pouches.
She wedged the pick into the lock, pressing her ear to the door as she carefully wiggled it around. Her first one broke, but her second did the trick. The door clicked open. Cato breathed a sigh of relief.
He shouldn't have, though.
The catacombs were even more terrifying. It was as if they had been immersed into a night without stars, so deeply pitched in gloom it felt as if they had entered some strange new world without an exit.
The first room they stumbled upon looked to be the remains of some kind of bandit camp. There was blood all over the place—blood that had been there a long time. He could make out the skeletal remains of humans strewn about the floor, some still shackled to the wall. One appeared to have been dragged away from the others and down into the shadows. Oh hell. The undead had clearly gotten to them. How long would it be before the undead found him?
Katniss surveyed the scene without remark, moving into the torchlight and inspecting the bodies.
"How did they die?" He asked, into the thin air. He was not afraid of death, or murder. But all the same seeing the tortured remains of humans killed by the undead unsettled him all the same. It was as if their fear still lingered in the room, like a tangible presence.
"The draugr, I'm assuming," Katniss replied, moving away from the bodies and over to a stone alter. She swiped a large purple gem out of a stone vase, and grabbed some of the potions sitting on the table.
Cato found himself looking around as well, inspecting their camp. There was a journal of some kind on another table. Curious, he moved closer. His blood ran cold; it appeared to be an account written by one of the dead bandits. The tale was chilling—the group of them fighting their way for survival, being chased down here as the rest of their group died at the hands of the undead. They had finally barricaded the entrances and hid by the locked door. Cato looked up, down into the hall they had just come from. The same door they had come through.
The temperature pitched even colder; a hissing growl echoed down the stone. Katniss looked up sharply, notching her bow and letting loose an arrow into the darkness.
A draugr limped its way out of the hall, glowing eyes narrowed upon them as it lifted up its sword.
Katniss released another arrow, and then another, before it fell to the ground. Cato stabbed the one after it through the neck, which seemed to do the trick.
He could hear more coming from the dank abyss. They were going to die down here, he thought hysterically. Just like those bandits.
His eyes grew wide with terror when at least a dozen of them moved into the light of the room, a small army of undead. Katniss shoved him backwards, so forcefully he stumbled and tripped over one of the dead bandits and went crashing into the wall. Cato hit the wall with a heavy thump, watching with wide eyes as the undead continued to advance on them. Katniss jumped in front of him, her bow in one hand, the other hand holding—
Cato blinked. A candle?
She took the candle and threw it at the ground, before leaping towards him. Cato looked at the floor as it clattered to the ground, suddenly noticing an oily substance coating the flagged stone.
He had a few seconds before the entire room exploded and he threw up his hands to cover his eyes. The noise was deafening, and the fire licked against his skin.
The eruption was still ringing his ears when he finally opened his eyes.
The room was charred black, nothing discernible from before. The undead were all blackened heaps on the ground, burnt to a crisp from the sea of flames. Katniss was by his side, catching her breath. He hadn't realized how fast he was breathing until this moment, halfway to hyperventilating. The oil, he blinked with recognition. She had used the oil to light the ground beneath them on fire, burning them alive. Well, they weren't really alive, but she burnt them to death all the same.
"Hell," he breathed out, shakily. That was close.
Katniss stood up fro her crouch, adjusting her mask on her face. "Come on," she held her hand to help him up. "Let's find this guy and get out of here."
"You were the one who wanted to go down here in the first place!" He hissed at her as they left the room.
"I know." She agreed. "You're the only one who's scared."
"I'm not scared—!" He flushed furiously, but was cut off as he ran into something in the dark. He made a muffled yelp, batting furiously at whatever was covering his face.
He wiped his face, grasping at a sticky, clotted substance. Katniss peered at it. "Cobwebs," she said, surprised.
"Great." He groused. Spiders. Just what he needed. Whatever, at least it wasn't more undead.
But maybe it would have been better if it was.
By the time the room opened up again, it was entirely unrecognizable. He could still make out the ornate pillars and decorative designs from the rest of the crypt, but everything was covered in a heavy web of string. Even the floor, he realized, when his feet stuck a bit to the ground.
"Well," Katniss started, idly. "I think I found the guy."
Cato looked up.
In front of them, strung between two pillars was a large wrapping of cobwebs; held up between them was some unidentifiable mass strangled in the webbing. This did not even phase Katniss, who went right up to it and poked it with the end of her bow. The figure did not move. When she peeled away the webbing over his face, it was slack-jawed and empty-eyed, already blue with death.
"I think he's dead." Cato intoned flatly.
Katniss nodded, before she stabbed the webbing with her bow again until she could get to his pockets. After a little bit, a sack of coins and a golden claw fell out.
"Found the claw," Katniss said, cheerfully.
"And we almost lost our lives in the process," Cato muttered under his breath, annoyed.
"I told you, you didn't have to come." He could hear the amusement in her voice.
"Yeah, well, whatever." He scowled. "Can we get out of here now?"
She nodded. "We're in luck." She looked around. "Spiders usually have tunnels that lead up to the surface."
Well that was a relief.
He looked around, searching for any signs of an exit. There was another corridor thick with cobwebs, but that appeared to lead even further down rather than out. He peered upwards, and then stumbled back with wide eyes.
"Katniss…"
The girl paused, following his gaze. An enormous black spider was crouched in the corner of the ceiling, staring them down. It advanced upon them with titanic legs, a predator encircling its prey. Katniss notched her bow, releasing an arrow like a bolt of lightning. The spider screeched, furious, clawing at the weapon embedded in one of its eyes before it directed its ire back towards them. Cato scrambled back as Katniss shot off another arrow, and then another. Her aim, as always, was impeccable, spearing through each one of its eyes with a deadly precision. But it had quite a few eyes, and Katniss didn't have enough time to hit them all.
It only took a split second for him to realize she wasn't going to kill it in time.
It pounced upon them, and just as Katniss was about to duck out of the way and grab for a dagger, Cato stepped in the way, sword in hand. He used the spider's momentum against it to impale it onto his blade, finding himself with the brunt of the enormous beast's weight as it came crashing down onto him.
"Cato!"
He groaned in response. Hell. It was a lot heavier than he had thought it would be. Then again, it was a gigantic arachnid—what had he expected it to weigh?
The carcass was hauled off him, and he found himself disentangled from its many limbs and staring up blindly into the ceiling. He hadn't the chance to look at it earlier, what with fighting for his life, but it really was quite beautiful. Made of limestone and carved with reliefs of great warriors and dragons ravaging the mountains. Dragons were terrifying. It was still impossible for him to come to terms with the fact that they existed, and were apparently even more terrifying than he could have ever imagined. Now that he thought on it, this whole place was beautiful. Nothing back on Panem had this much character; everything was so utilitarian, cold and impersonal. Made by machines. This wall looked as if it had been painstakingly and lovingly crafted by hand—as did everything else in this godforsaken place.
"Are you alright?" Katniss peered down at him.
"Um?" He turned his attention towards her. He smiled brightly. "I'm peachy."
"Oh no…" Katniss's brow furrowed as he continued to smile up at nothing. Her gaze snapped to the monster she'd just thrown off him—a frost spider. They were known for their poisons. Fortunately they weren't deadly, but still rather inconvenient. "Hold on, Cato," she murmured, rummaging around her packs. "I know I have an antidote somewhere in here…"
"An antidote for what?" His head lolled to the side, as he continued to inspect her.
She didn't answer, attention focused on her nimble fingers as they flicked through all her various items. Cato watched her quietly for a few moments, feeling humbled. "Your hair looks like fire," he said, after a moment.
"Hmm?" Katniss replied, distracted.
"Like fire," he repeated. "In the light."
And it did. In the low warmth of the torchlight her hair had taken on a brilliant, burning light, gold bleeding down the edges, catching at the drifting flyaways around her face, the underside of her curls. He wanted to reach out and touch it.
"That's the poison talking." Katniss brushed him off, brandishing a little blue bottle. "Alright," she popped the stopper. "Drink up."
"What is it?" He asked curiously.
"Apple juice," she replied, bland.
He shrugged, before swallowing it all in one go. "Ugh," he made a face. That was not apple juice.
"It'll take a second to start working." Katniss told him as she got to her feet, hauling him with her. This was no small feat, as he easily towered over her and probably weighed twice what she did. "In the meanwhile, let's get out of here."
"Great idea," he agreed, slowly, eyes closing. "How are we doing that again?"
Katniss looked up. "There."
Cato's head lolled upwards as well. In a crumbling corner of the ceiling two large pillars had crashed into each other, creating a small dark space between them. It was almost entirely covered in spider web. Katniss hauled his unmoving body over towards one of the pillars, lugging him as one would lug a sack of potatoes. He would be more affronted about this, but he couldn't feel his limbs anyway. After a beat it started to feel rather prickly—as if he had somehow managed to simultaneously get every one of his limbs to fall asleep. There was a brief moment of pain when the sensation almost got unbearable, and then Cato could almost feel his blood running again as his arms and legs warmed over, and started to respond to him again. Poison. Hell. He had always assumed that if he died it would be in the arena, and it would be a grievous battle wound obtained with great theatrics. It occurred to him then that there was just as highly a probability that he could die by poison as well. Good to know, he thought grimly. If he ever managed to make it out of this bizarre world, he would make good use of this experience.
"Feeling up to a climb?" Katniss looked down at him, as he struggled to stand upright.
"Do I look like I'm in the mood for some climbing?" He snapped, rather waspishly. He blamed his bad temper on his incapacitated state.
She didn't respond to that, probably ignoring his sorry state or brushing it off as him being pissy and foul because he got poisoned by a sider. Which was true.
"A spider." He scowled. "A spider, of all the fucking things…"
Katniss leapt up onto the pillar, looking like some kind of long and graceful jungle cat as she stalked up the incline. "At least that poison was reversible," she pointed out. "If we had gone farther down… well, let's just say spiders would be the least of our problems."
"What's a few more zombies after an oversized poisonous spider?"
She looked back at him as she reached the top, staring at him flatly. "The farther down we go, the more formidable the zombies will get. The last thing we need is to find a Draugr Overlord - those ones can still use magic."
He shuddered at that. Magic wielding zombies. Great. Could this place get any crazier?
Katniss crouched down, holding out her hand for him as he approached the top ledge. He swatted her away, not quite feeling up to the help. She must be getting used to him because she didn't even bat an eyelash, simply shrugging before returning to the lead.
Her daggers burned through the sticky webs matting the floor and walls, until with a great plume of smoke she revealed the passage they had seen from below. It looked absolutely unsanitary, but at this point Cato would take what he could get.
He wanted to collapse onto the snowy ground the moment it became visible.
Instead he threw his arms up into the endless sky, feeling relief sag against his shoulders as he stared up into the open light of day. Sunlight. It felt as if it had been an eternity since he had last seen it. Cato had to squint to make out the world around him, the snow so brilliant that everything blinded him. Katniss unhooked her mask, letting it fall into her hand as she closed her eyes and breathed in a lungful of cold, crisp air. Apparently he wasn't the only one affected by the claustrophobic depths.
Her eyes fluttered open, gray green and as bright as the sun.
Finally she dipped a hand into her pocket, hauling out the golden claw. It was the size of her hand, and sparkled in the sunlight; little red and blue jewels were emblazoned down the sides.
He drew closer, looking at it curiously. "How much do you think it'll go for?"
"A thousand gold, at least." She answered, looking triumphant.
He rose a brow. "Is that good?"
"That's great." She said, cheerfully. "Along with all the gold I got from the dungeon, I'd say we made out like bandits."
Cato nodded, not quite sure what to make of it. He had never thought much on money; survival had never been an issue for his family. It was never something he ever had to worry about, had ever had to live without. But it felt as if he could understand its value now; how important and necessary it would be for their journey.
"Great. So where do we sell it off?"
He assumed they couldn't go back to the town they had come from.
"Not Riverwood." She snorted, confirming his assumption. This high up on the mountain, it felt as if all of Skyrim unfurled around them, until it ended in the sky itself.
He turned around, simply admiring the world washed in light. Behind them was an even taller mountain - the same one which seemed to dwarf the earth itself, still towering over them even from this height. He could see the little town they had come from at the base of the mountain, small specks of wooden buildings, smoke pillars rising into the atmosphere. A river wound its way around the mountains, diving off past the town before splitting in two; one leg ran off into the distance. The other leg roped around the largest mountain, disappearing from sight.
He turned back to her, raising a hand to block the sun. "Where to now?"
Katniss pointed out towards one of the river branches - the one that went off until he couldn't see it any longer. "That way."
"We follow the river?"
She nodded. "We follow it to Whiterun." If he looked hard enough, he could see where the plains gave way to sloping hills. Atop one of the higher slopes was what appeared to be a small town. "We can pawn it off there for more supplies."
Cato sighed, suddenly realizing that it was still a long way before they stopped for the night. It seemed as if they had spend days down there, and yet it had only been a few hours. There was still plenty of daylight to go by.
He looked to their feet.
They were standing on a relatively stable cliff, but only a few paces out it gave way to the rocky edge of the mountain. He didn't fancy having to climb down it, but he couldn't see any other way out of here.
Katniss gave him a look of commiseration, as if reading the thoughts right off his expression. But then she was turning away, picking her way through the craggy terrain, making for Whiterun.
Sorry for the typos - I've started to use google docs, which doesn't automatically correct my easier spelling mistakes, so I can only imagine how much worse it will be now lol