It was a horrible, ragged thing with breath like a morgue and eyes like obsidian. Its white fur was unfit to line even the cloak of a beggar, ratty and stained red from the blood of the dozens of bodies the Thalmor had unwittingly fed it. Angrily, it stomped its feet ferociously at the bottom of a snowy cavern slope, ankle-deep in a pile of half-finished meals. Long, muscular arms flailed, apparently in an attempt to make it look even larger, and a loud, rolling cry echoed throughout the glittering snow cave.
Taarie stared. She had heard of frost trolls from the travelers at the Winking Skeever during her lunch breaks, but she had never seen one face-to-face. It didn't seem as deadly as the snowy saber cats they had stumbled across on their way down the rocky hills from the embassy, but it was certainly more impressive than she imagined, in a gross, monstrous, this-looks-like-something-from-the-Aldmeris-Tapest ries sort of way. They'd fit right in, wedged in between the roaring welwas and malformed Ilyadi.
It turned to her, snarled, and without warning it charged. It loped on all fours, knuckles carrying it along with surprising speed. It closed the gap between them quicker than she anticipated, taking a mighty swing at her with large, clawed hands. She anticipated the blow, waiting for those ungodly talons to rip into her armor, and was quite surprised when it stopped just short of her and let out a deafening shriek, throwing its head backwards. Its body followed and, within seconds, the beast was on its back in a pile of snow, its jaw slack and an arrow neatly lodged in the center of its third eye.
"You dress like a warrior and you won't even defend yourself. I swear to Auri-El, dear sister…"
She turned in time to see Endarie holster her bow on her back, her face stuck in its permanent scowl although there was something of a smile to her eyes. Blinking, she watched as her beloved sibling marched past her and stopped at the side of the frost troll's corpse. She considered it for only a moment before violently ripping the arrow from its face and placing it back in the quiver.
"Did you see how disgusting that thing was?" Taarie snapped. "I didn't want to touch it."
"Kemmeron probably looks worse, so I would get over it if I were you."
Taarie sighed and followed as her sister began to walk the perimeter of the small cavern. Ondolemar had called it the "reeking cave" for a lack of better words, citing that it was well hidden but that they could probably follow the smell. It had still taken quite a while to find it, the three of them pacing the roads below the Steed Stone for what seemed like hours before their glorious leader had the presence of mind to make use of an old illusion spell. A little training in clairvoyance went a long way.
She had expected more, though. Though the cave did give off a horrific scent, the accumulated stench of years of decomposing corpses, it was so much smaller and more barren than she thought it would be. Snow had blanketed everything in a deceptive layer of innocent white and light filtered in through gaps in the stone to make everything almost blinding. While there was a neat pile of bloody bones and sinew where the troll had been eating, there was far less gore than she expected. Most of it was animal remains—a mammoth ribcage here and a deer skull there—and the only fresh corpse seemed to be that of a Dunmer mage in black robes that had apparently been a kill of the troll itself.
Looking over her shoulder, she could see Ondolemar standing on a rocky outcropping near the entrance, his arms folded and his eyes fixed toward the top of the north wall. He seemed completely withdrawn from everything going on around him, consumed in his own thoughts. The only thing that made him budge was the realization that he was being watched and, with a sigh, he jerked his head towards to Taarie's left.
"There's a ledge."
His voice was dry and matter of fact, but loud enough to attract Endarie's attention from the other side of the floor. She whirled around and cocked an eyebrow, following his gaze until her eyes came to rest on an opening in the rocks above the corpse of the mage. Her scowl vanished for a brief moment, replaced with a look of arrogance.
"Oh, it's up there? That is the 'hell of a climb?'"
Ondolemar shook his head and snorted a laugh and Endarie's smile fell. Taarie only grimaced as she walked a bit closer to the ledge and looked up. A sheer wall of rock that was easily twice her height? Her being clad in steel plate armor? She wasn't sure what kind of miracle Ondolemar was expecting, but there was no way in hell she was going to manage to get up that high. She was a terrible climber even without the extra fifty pounds of metal weighing her down.
"Above that and about twenty paces beyond is the chute I was telling you about," he explained. "There's a trap door at the top of it, possibly locked. Possibly guarded. I'll ascend first and take care of both of those problems."
"Oh, how kind of you," Endarie sighed, traipsing over beside her sister. She brushed past Taarie with an almost affectionate sweep of the hair before coming to rest beside a large mammoth bone that had been picked clean of all flesh. Rising beside it was a peculiar pillar of stone that ran up to the ledge Ondolemar had pointed out, with just enough of a gap between it and the wall to give Endarie room to squeeze her petite frame.
Though it was slick from frost and blood, Endarie wasted no time. Her leather boots dug into the rock, slipping a few times before she found a good foothold and she pressed her back against the pillar. In any other situation, Taarie would have found the sight of her awkwardly scooting up towards the ledge hilarious, her leather armor squeaking against the moist basalt and her face contorted into a mixture of discomfort and determination. Her feet shuffled awkwardly and, on a few occasions, she forced herself to bounce like a woman on a bumpy carriage ride to throw herself up more than a fourth of an inch at a time.
Her final "jump" almost ended disastrously, her threatening to slip when her boot hit a patch of hanging moss and slid. Slamming herself backward and jamming her feet forward, she knocked the wind clear out of herself and let out a strangled curse. Then, carefully, with her butt still pressed against the pillar, she leaned forward and wrapped her fingers around the top of the ledge. With a bit of determination, awkward twisting, and positioning that gave everyone an unwanted view up her skirt, she managed to drag herself through the opening in the stones.
Although she remained crouched, looking down at her sibling and superior with a snotty look of pride, it was obvious that there was enough room to stand. Taarie let out a sigh of relief, then looked back expectantly at Ondolemar.
"How do you propose we get up there?" she asked after a pause. He arched an eyebrow and huffed.
"I know the jump spells. You? I do not know."
As dry as his voice was, she could read it as a joke. It was more apparent when he approached her side and, like some manner of curious child, threw open her pouch and began thumbing through her belongings. She snarled at him, a meaningless threat about keeping his paws off of her things, but he paid no more mind to her than the men in the moons. He sighed, leather glove squeaking as his fingers slid across thick glass phials, shaking his head and mouthing words to himself as he sorted.
The square bottle of paralysis poison was obviously not what he was after. Neither was the lovely, thin green vial of stamina tonic. The red ceramic finish of cheap health potions did not catch his eye. Instead, he plucked out an oddly shaped, opalescent bottle the color of alabaster, scented faintly of copper and fungus. He took a bit of time to pop the cork, giving a good whiff before tilting it toward Taarie.
"Strength potion?" he asked, and she tilted her head away in disgust with a nod. Without so much as asking permission, he took a quick swig and squeezed the cork back into place. It was one fluent motion as he tucked the bottle back in her pack, closed the flap, and lifted her up as easily as a load of firewood. She protested at first, until she realized what he was getting at.
Ondolemar—ranking Beautiful member in Skyrim and born of the same blood as Saririil the Zealous—was allowing her to use him as a stepping stool. He didn't seem pleased about it, grunting and snarling at her as she clambered up him awkwardly like a bear scaling a tree, but he remained still as she fit her feet upon his shoulders, hobbling as the weight of her bag threw off her balance.
"Anytime before this bloody potion wears off," he growled. Taarie almost cursed back; it wasn't as though she was purposely trying to take her time. Up on her toes and clinging to the wall like a scared cat, she still found it impossible to reach the ledge. Her fingers curled around roots and rocks, dislodging them before they proved of any use. Endarie watched curiously, smirking arrogantly with a shake of her head.
Fortunately, there were no jabs made at her ego. She fell to her stomach, reached out as far as her arms would allow, and knitted her fingers into Taarie's own. It was surprising how powerful such a petite mer could be but, following a brief struggle rife with kicking and Ondolemar's loud curses, Taarie found herself up beside her sister. Sore and cold but only slightly annoyed, Endarie leaned back against the cavern wall and chuckled breathlessly.
It had been far too long since they had done anything active. It was shameful how out of practice they were.
Slowly, Taarie climbed to her feet and examined this portion of the cave. There was no snow, only soaked rocks and icicles, a couple of startled bats that regarded her with weary eyes, and mounds of bones that were stripped by both scavengers and rot. A fresh heap of dead bodies, unceremoniously piled upon one another, signaled the end of a dark, winding path that cut deep into the rock. They were of all kinds and stank to the heavens, the same horrific odor that had permeated the rest of the cave. It was just stronger here.
A strange sound, like a high-pitched purr, sounded from behind her and caused her to jump. Endarie didn't seem too concerned, but Taarie whipped around with her hand on her weapon's hilt. Even as she watched a dark figure rise up miraculously from the edge of the ledge, her heart still beat furiously. Ondolemar practically hovered with his robe billowing all around him, dazzling violet sparks dancing around his body like wisps summoned straight from the Soul Cairn. As graceful and awe-inspiring as his appearance had been, his landing lacked grace; his feet slipped from under him on a slick patch of moss, and he fell to his hands and knees with a grunt.
"The glories of the old magics," Endarie mocked in an empty tone, holding out her hands in a gesture that would have been grandiose if she hadn't been so listless. "Praise Auri-El that you saved them from obscurity."
"I will end you," Ondolemar warned darkly, staggering to his feet. Endarie only smiled, following his lead and brushing bits of dust and bone from her legs and armor. Side-by-side, they pushed down the narrow path past a still-stunned Taarie, although they didn't make it more than a few feet away before she found herself on their heels.
"The body chute is at the end," Ondolemar explained, as though that much wasn't obvious. His nose crinkled with his words as he continued to speak, although Endarie had tuned him out in favor of her own complaints. Taarie's eyes never left the pile of carcasses at the end of the line, her head tilting slightly as she tried to make heads or tails of the tangled mass of limbs.
One was a khajiit, their face partially peeled away so that one side of their skull was stuck in a permanent, fanged grin. He was pinned beneath a mostly nude Nord male whose body had shriveled to resemble a draugr, his mouth open in a twisted scream. His pale blue eyes were focused on an orc, whose neck was twisted at a weird angle and whose lips dripped masses of maggots that hungrily feasted on the soft flesh inside her mouth. The top body was a Bosmer, fresh and beautiful, somehow preserved by the frost and clad in a fancy serving gown that was somehow untouched by the decay around her.
"This is how Malborn and that sell-sword escaped, if I remember correctly. Hard to believe they got down from there without injury," Ondolemar murmured to himself, although he seemed completely detached from his words. He fished around an inside pocket until he found a lock pick and knife and, gripping both in one hand, he cautiously maneuvered around the bodies and craned his neck upwards. A rune was drawn in the air with his spare hand, and within moments he vanished up into an unseen darkness as though sucked up by a great force.
Both sisters bolted forward, almost stumbling over each other and the pile of bodies to get a glimpse at where he had gone. There was nothing but inky blackness looming above until, with a small sizzle, a bright white light ripped across the void like a shooting star and adhered itself to a wall. A magelight, Taarie realized with a smirk, and looking past it she could see Ondolemar precariously holding himself up in the gap between the rocks in the same, awkward pose that Endarie had used to climb.
"Up," he encouraged. "When I get this door open, I want you right behind me."
"It's pretty far up," Endarie protested, her first hint of doubt since their quest began. Ondolemar didn't even look down from fiddling with the lock, the tell-tale scrape and click of metal against metal revealing that he was having an impossible time forcing it to open. If she hadn't seen him previously break the lock on the Crystal Tower library countless times to assist Saririil in his schemes, Taarie's would have thought it was a lost cause.
"Use the bodies," he answered. Much to Taarie's surprise, her sister didn't hesitate. She rested a boot on the Bosmer's chest and, quick as an Alfiq, scrambled upwards. Taarie herself was far more hesitant, a cold rush of disgust sweeping through her as she put her weight on the corpse and felt it give, able to feel the rot and organs shift and squish beneath her metal boot. When she first stepped up, she had been uncertain of whether she could have made it up the gap in the stone.
Then, her foot practically sank into the stomach cavity of the body. Its lifeless eyes stared at her almost pleadingly, dark as night and somehow sad despite being so empty. Immediately, she was up and almost bumping Endarie's leg with her head.
It took a moment to steady herself. This climbing business was far more difficult than her companions made it look, the moisture dripping down the cavern wall making it difficult to keep the steel from sliding. She maneuvered almost wildly, stopping only when something glinted in the air and fell on her stomach just as the magelight extinguished above her.
Even through the steel and leather of her gauntlet, even after being plunged into the dark, she could tell what was on her. It was long and thin and made a metallic ringing noise as it struck her. A lockpick. And seeing as there were no rough edges, it wasn't a broken one.
"Alert when ready," Ondolemar firmly commanded. His voice was hushed and hoarse, almost frightening in the dark.
"Ready," Endarie answered. "Go whenever you get sick of pushing your arse in my face."
Taarie let the lockpick drop, her feet slid, and she barely caught herself by ramming her elbows into the side of the wall. The shriek of her armor grinding against the stone made her teeth grit.
"Oh, for the love of the Eight, just go."
A/N: I normally don't do author's notes, but I figured it'd only be fair to throw out there that I may not update as quickly as usual from now on. I start work again in a few days (I'm a teaching assistant), so my time may be devoured by that and classes. I figured it'd only be fair if I left you guys with something more than Kemmeron having a chat. I do have a few chapters written ahead, so there's that? And I'll try to keep it going relatively quickly, just maybe not an update every day like I have been.
I also want to thank you all for every kind word you have given me. You have no idea how much I look forward to hearing from those of you who're still reading. You guys are great. I don't know you, but I love you, and I would give you all a hug if I could, unless you're not one of those touchy types. In which case, I'd air-five you.