It was late afternoon when Farkas felt himself strong enough again to get up. It used to be easier, but since he stopped transforming on his own free will, recovery had taken much more time than before. He was still a little weaker than normal, but strong enough to deal with a few draugrs and bandits, if they met any.
Since Gerdur's horse was gone, Adara hopped up on Allie behind Farkas to ride up to Dustman's Crain. It wasn't far away, but the sun almost set when they finally reached their destination. It was not like they were in a hurry, but their little trip to Helgen cost a lot of time.
They walked down on the ancient stone steps and Farkas pushed the heavy metal door open with his hand – it wasn't locked. They peaked inside, but Farkas turned back to face Adara before they'd go any further.
"What you've seen today—"
"I know," she cut him off. "I shouldn't have. I won't talk, I promise."
Farkas gave a short nod, but narrowed his eyes. He could see something was bothering her. "But…?"
Adara inhaled deeply, wondering if she should speak or just shrug the answer off. She could talk with Farkas more freely than with the others, but it didn't change the fact she was only a whelp. And not even an official member of the Companions yet. "I know the Circle is important to you and I don't say it shouldn't exist, but… at least you could tell the others what you are. It could be dangerous to keep it as a secret, don't you think?"
"Well, I've seen what happens when I tell it to the wrong person," Farkas said bitterly. He clenched his fist, but suppressed his anger quickly. "I understand what you think, but it's safer for the Circle if no one knows about it."
Adara nodded, even though she wasn't completely convinced, she saw it was better not to argue right now. Or, if it came to this subject, ever. Obviously, it was a very soft spot of Farkas, and she could understand why. The members of the Circle were his family.
He extended his arm with a smile and pointed towards the open door. "Well, lead the way."
Adara let out a shaky breath and stepped into the tomb. Her heart was beating faster than usual, but she wasn't as scared; yes it was her Trial, yes she had to march through an ancient Nordic tomb, but she had already done that before and she survived. And this time bandits didn't show up at the entrance, so it made her think they only had to deal with draugrs. But while she overlooked obvious clues, Farkas' much more experienced eyes noticed them at the first chamber of the tomb.
"Someone's been there recently," he said quietly. "They're probably still somewhere. Be careful."
Adara almost asked how did he know, but before she'd open her mouth, she looked around. There were only two sarcophagus in the main chamber, but both of them were opened. Their prisoners, the two dead draugrs were lying nearby. In the corner, a brazier had been knocked over; the embers that had scattered over the floor were still burning.
They left the room and walked down on broken stone steps in the narrow corridors. It was unnecessary to bring a torch, since more braziers and lanterns lighted up the rooms all the way down. Someone had indeed been there.
"Burial chambers," Adara heard Farkas' voice from behind. There wasn't any sarcophagus here, but many hollows carved into the walls, all of them giving place to an undead creature. "We could try to sneak past them. If we woke up one, we'll wake all of them up."
Adara turned around with a smile. "Doesn't giving me instructions with every step count as cheating?"
"Sorry," Farkas smiled. "Force of habit. So what do you suggest we should do?"
She took a slow, silent step forward and now she was inside the burial chambers, which looked like a labyrinth from here. With her light steps, she could easily sneak through, but the clinking of Farkas' heavy armour would wake the undead up soon.
It was dark here, but some candles were burning in small ceramic lanterns, hanging from the ceiling. Adara didn't understand first why anyone would want to make light in this place; she would be happy to sneak past without getting caught. But her curious eyes searched further and she noticed the shiny, iridescent pool on the ground: oil. Someone had reset the ancient traps.
Without saying anything, she took her bow off her back, but before she could reach for an arrow from its quiver, Farkas stopped her.
"Woah, woah, what are you doing?" he asked in a chocked whisper, pulling her back from the chamber.
Adara frowned. "We could burn them."
Farkas let out a small laugh. "Okay, before you'd set the whole place on fire, could you use that smart head of yours?" he asked, tapping his fingertip against her temple. "Unless you aren't fireproof, you'll cut our only way through the chambers.
Adara sighed. "Then just let's go and see what happens."
Farkas didn't argue. They tried their best to made their way through the chambers as quietly as possible, and it seemed even the noise of Farkas' armour couldn't wake them up. They almost reached the end when a low, grumbling sound broke the silence.
Adara drew her swords from its sheath and cut the dragur's head off quickly. If they really couldn't stay dead, at least they had the decency to get killed easily. Two more followed the first and then one more, and Farkas only helped with the last one. He smiled at her when they were done, before continuing their way deeper into the tomb.
They walked through silent, dusty rooms, and even though they met nor living nor undead, torches were burning all the way down on the walls. Farkas walked right into a huge spider web; he quickly wiped the sticky strands out of his hair and face, but Adara could see him visibly shivering. She couldn't choke back a laugh, but quickly covered it with a fit of coughing. "The air is so dry here," she said, but Farkas only rolled his eyes at her, still feeling hundreds of tiny legs running up and down on his skin.
They reached a room that was the biggest they've seen so far inside Dustman's Crain. Braziers were burning all around the circle hall, dead draugrs lying across the floor. Their only way to the next chamber had been closed with an iron gate.
Farkas stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. "I have a bad feeling about this."
Adara scanned the place too with her eyes. Inside these Nordic tombs, where a door was closed, usually there was a puzzle to solve, but now she couldn't see anything. At last, she found a leveller in the little room that led nowhere, and before Farkas had time to follow her, she was already inside.
It was hard to push it up. She put all of her strength into it, but it didn't move. With a sigh, she lowered her arms. She heard a movement behind her back, so she said quietly, "Farkas, I can't—"
"Shh, shh, shh," Adara was cut off by a hushing voice that definitely wasn't Farkas' and a dagger pressing against her neck. "Don't move, or I swear I'll cut your throat."
Even if she wanted to, she couldn't. The feeling of the sharp blade pressing against her thin skin made her numb, barely letting her breathe. It took only a moment until the man behind her made sure she wouldn't protest, before his other arm wrapped around her, and he dragged her out to the hall.
Farkas was just examining something that looked like a trap door when he heard the noises behind him. He spun around, and he felt all the air leaving his lungs when he saw Adara being trapped in someone's grip, a dagger under her chin. After a moment of hesitation, he drew his sword, but not a second later the iron gates raised and half a dozen other men and women ran inside the room. The Silver Hand was here.
"Drop your weapon, Companion, or I'll kill her."
It was a trap. They'd want to kill both of them anyway. Farkas' grip tightened around the handle of his sword, and his darkened eyes wandered to Adara. Their gaze met, and for a second, Farkas could only think of one thing. She knew it well what it was, and ever so lightly, she shook her head from side to side, a pleading look in the depth of her eyes. She could only hope he didn't believe she had a part in this.
Farkas dropped his sword onto the dusty ground and in the second he did, two men who looked the strongest of all went to hold him. Another one stepped forward and stopped between Adara and Farkas, letting out a malicious laugh. He had a cut across his cheeks that looked like someone had tried to slice a piece off his face.
"See? It wasn't that hard at all."
Farkas let out a deep growl. "Let her go."
The man glanced at Adara, before he looked back at Farkas and tilted his head. "The noble Companion. Always try to save the others first. Is she one of you?"
There was deep despise in his voice when he asked the question.
"No," Farkas growled angrily, though he was sure they wouldn't believe it.
The Silver Hand shrugged. "Well, easiest way to find out…"
Adara had never seen Farkas being scared before. Not from draugrs, never from bandits, not even from the people of the Silver Hand. Even his phobia of spiders was more like a wave of anxiety and disgust. But when he saw the twinkle of silver as the man drew his sword, Adara could see the flicker of fear in his eyes.
He grinned at Farkas before he walked to the young woman with fast steps, but stopped close to her suddenly. She could feel his breath on her face, before he tore the leather down on her right arm. She tried to struggle out of the grip of the man behind her, but stopped when she felt the blade digging deeper into her skin.
By now, Farkas stopped standing idly and only three man could hold him down. The man before Adara completely ignored him as he raised his silver sword to her upper arm.
"You're a pretty little thing," he said quietly. "I hope I don't have to kill you."
In the next second he cut into her skin, slowly, like he was enjoying every moment of it. Looking back, Adara had no idea how she didn't scream up in pain. The man watched as blood slowly streamed down on her arm, and waited and waited, before he lowered his sword.
"So you aren't one of them," he said, then added. "Yet."
Adara didn't know what the silver was supposed to do with her if she was a werewolf, and she didn't want to wait and find out until they presented it on Farkas. By now, four of the Silver Hand held him down on the ground.
"Let her go," Farkas said through gritted teeth, but loud enough to be heard. "She isn't even a Companion yet."
"Yet, yet, yet," the man said calmly, shaking his head. He stared at Adara for a while, before he spun around and walked to Farkas, crouching down beside him, suddenly speaking more angrily. "Do you think we will spare her just because she isn't one of you yet? Clearly, your little girl here knows very well about your disease, but hasn't done anything about it," he paused to take a deep breath, before he stood up and continued. "Don't misunderstand us, the Companions should exist. But not like this. Not while some of you pretend you're protecting the people of Skyrim while you haunt them down during the night."
He spit on the ground and turned away from him.
"Can't we just skin him already?" a woman asked, clearly having a hard time to keep Farkas down anymore.
The man didn't take his eyes off Adara while he said, "Take him to Krev. I think he'd be happier to do that," then he stepped closer. "I'll take care of the girl."
While all the others struggled with trying to pull Farkas up on his feet without accidentally releasing him, the man walked closer to Adara with a grin that disgusted her terribly. He brushed a finger along her jawline.
"Don't touch me," despite of the fear that started to creep up on her neck, her voice was surprisingly steady.
"Oh, that's sweet," he said. "You really think you're in the position of telling me what do to do?" he nodded at the man behind Adara, so he slowly pulled the knife away from her throat. She shifted her arms a little, but he was still holding them steady behind her back.
His fingers came to wrap around her neck, his thumb roughly rubbing against her cheek. "You are not, sweetling," he said before his hand slid lower, from her neck to her collarbone, grabbing the hem of her light armour to rip it open, but Adara raised her leg to kick him away. She missed the place where she wanted to hurt him, but she still managed to boot into his lower stomach, making him to bend forward and backing away.
The man's grip behind her tightened, and his knife was against her throat again.
"Well, you wouldn't be a real Companion if you didn't try to fight," he said, before he stepped closer again. "But I suggest you to stop fighting. It'll only hurt more."
Adara felt the tip of his dagger against her stomach and she looked away from his mangled face. The others were still trying to drag Farkas to the door: three of them holding him with all of their strength while two others held torches in front of him.
If she wasn't in a situation like this, it would even made Adara laugh, as the Silver Hand tried to scare Farkas away with fire, like people usually did with wolves in the wood.
Then it clicked to her.
Fire!
She could count on one hand how many times she used magic since she left Winterhold, and while she so desperately tried to reach for her sword, she didn't even think of casting a spell.
The man behind her back was holding her wrists and arms together and she knew she will burn herself first before the flames would reach him, but being her only chance, she cast the spell. The fire from her right palm burned her left, but a couple moments later she felt his grip loosening around her.
"What the—"
The small flames burst into something bigger, and the man let her go whilst screaming from the pain as both of his arms were on fire. She drew her sword before the other one could attack her, and thanks to the element of surprise, she plunged her golden blade through his stomach, while his hand was only on the handle of his sword.
It would have been hard to tell which one of them looked more surprised while Adara pulled her sword out of him and he dropped on the ground. Behind them, it seemed Farkas managed to break out too, but his weapon was too far away from him. She ran there and picked it up from the floor, but she couldn't take two steps towards him before the man with his burned arms stopped her. His head was at least as red as his arms from the pain, he was sweating and painting heavily while he struck down with his sword.
Adara blocked him once and twice, but it was hard to balance with her sword in the right and Farkas' much heavier one on the left. Gathering up all of her strength, she threw it away as close to him as she could, hoping Farkas could pick it up. She didn't doubt Farkas could handle five warriors by himself, but not unarmed.
He hit her head with the back of his sword so hard for a second Adara thought she was going to faint. She staggered, and couldn't see for a moment as she raised her sword; it was probably only godsend she blocked his hit. She straightened up and tried to ignore the throbbing pain inside the back of her skull, leaning repeatedly away from the man's struck. He was almost as tall as Farkas, definitely more muscular; she was sure if he hit her, that would be lethal for her.
She chose the easier way and ran away from him as far away as she could, up on wooden steps. She lifted her bow off her back with her shaking hands. She didn't remember when was the last time when she missed a shot. However, shooting at objects that didn't move was nowhere near a man who was running towards her, ready to kill her.
She still managed to pierce an arrow through his shoulder which at least slowed him down for a second. He was dangerously close to her when she released the next arrow, but it went straight into his eyes, through his head, and he stumbled down on the stairs.
Adara was panting so hard she couldn't hear anything for long seconds. Then, with a wave of shock, she realized there really wasn't any sound besides her own rapid breathing. She ran down the stairs and found all the men and women on the ground, probably dead. Farkas was in a half lying, half sitting position with his back against a wall his eyes closed, but his chest was rising and dropping sharply. She hurried to him and dropped her sword, kneeling beside him.
"Farkas? Farkas, are you alright?"
She cupped his cheek with one hand and he opened his eyes, quietly groaning from the pain as he sat up. Now that she had a better look at him, Adara could see cuts on his arms and legs where the armour didn't cover. But these weren't regular wounds; they were bleeding harder than they should, and the skin around them looked like it was burning with an invisible flame.
Her eyes widened with fear and shock. "Farkas, can I—"
"Yes," he choked out before Adara even had the chance to finish the sentence. She put her hands on the wounds, and cast a healing spell on them, one by one. It wasn't easy to close them up, and the skin was still reddened and irritated by the time Adara ran out of energy to cast the spells for any second longer, but at least the bleeding, along with the burning pain, stopped.
And as the pain stopped making his head spin, Farkas slowly came back to his senses too. "Are you okay?"
The question was simple, but his voice was dripping with a kind of concern or maybe even fear that she hadn't heard from him before. Adara nodded, but looked over her shoulder to see the two men she had just killed.
After a minute of silence, Farkas spoke up. "For a moment I thought…"
He couldn't finish. Now it seemed stupid and he felt himself ashamed for even thinking she could have sold him out.
"I know. It's okay."
Farkas closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry you had to go through this because of me."
"Stop blaming yourself," she said almost angrily. "This isn't your fault."
Farkas didn't argue, but he didn't agree either. They both remained silent for long minutes, trying to gather some strength again. They drank from their waterskins and wiped the blood off their hands, Adara from her shoulder where she had been cut. It wasn't that bad, but deep enough to leave a scar.
"Do you think there's more of them?"
Farkas nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. It was a trap. But I think they sent their toughest to us. The others won't expect us, so it could give us some advantage," he paused for a few moment, before went on. "Or we should go back to Jorrvaskr for help. If there's much more of them…"
"No," Adara said. "That's my Trial, I can't just leave!"
"Adara, no one would have sent you here if we knew the Silver Hand was waiting for us. I don't want you to get killed because—"
"I won't get killed," she said firmly and got on her feet. The back of her head was still throbbing with pain, but it was blunter than before. "You said yourself they don't expect us. We can do this."
Farkas looked away from her and rested his head back against the wall, clenching his jaw. He admired her endurance, but it was dangerous.
Still, he stood up and nodded. "Alright. But be very careful. Oh, and one more advice," he said before they started to walk out. "Before you walk into a room blindly, look around."
Adara nodded with a smile. If she just looked around the chamber where the leveller was before she went straight there, she would have noticed the men who were hiding somewhere there, probably in the corner. Adara was maybe smart and had the tendency to learn new things quickly, but she lacked the knowledge only years and years of experience could give her.
Dustman's Crain was much bigger and deeper than Bleak Falls Barrow. They lost track of time, and none of them had any idea for how long they were down under the ground. More and more dead draugrs followed their way; at least the Silver Hand took care of them already. The dusty, musty air started to become suffocating.
They ran into one or two of the Silver Hand in every bigger chamber, but Farkas was right: clearly they weren't expecting them. After her sixth, Adara thought it would be better to stop counting how many men and women she killed, but somehow, it was impossible. Seven. Eight. Nine. And she didn't stop until twelve, until they finally reached what seemed like the main chamber of the tomb. It was full of chests and sarcophagi, but unfortunately, none of them contained the missing fragments of Wuuthrad.
They went further and further. They met no more Silver Hand, but had to fight their way through draugrs and, for Farkas' dismay, some giant spider as well.
"Where will this fucking tomb end?" he asked out of breath as he wiped the spider web off his arm.
Adara would have loved to know the answer, too—Dustman's Crain seemed endless. At this point, she wouldn't even be surprised if they would come up somewhere around Markarth.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally walked into the main chamber, and now, they were both sure it was really the main chamber. If not from the many sarcophagi, the enormous size of the room itself, then from the Word Wall at the end of the place.
The room was still, silent. They walked across and up a few steps, where, in front of the Word Wall, a stone table stood. In the middle lied the pieces of Ysgramor's old weapon.
"Fucking finally," Farkas said with more relief than ever, before he started to collect the fragments. One of them cut his finger—it was still sharp like on the day it was forged.
But while he was struggling with the pieces, more carefully now, Adara went closer to the Word Wall. It was this strange feeling again that pulled her closer, something that seemed was both inside her and around her. And the glowing word, that one word that made no sense in one second but was everything in the next. Yol.
"Fire." she heard herself say quietly.
"What?"
This time she didn't faint, but lost her balance, and only Farkas' hands stopped her from falling to the ground. He lifted her up and carefully turned her around, scanning her face with his eyes and trying to find out what happened so suddenly.
"I'm okay." she said after a second, stepping back. She turned around—now there weren't any glowing words and the strange but strong feeling vanished, too.
"Adara, what happened?"
She looked back at him, fear in her eyes as she slowly shook her head. "I don't know."
They didn't have time to discuss what really happened, as all the sarcophagi started to open, more and more draugrs walking out slowly, but surely towards them.
"Oh, are you kidding me?" Farkas sighed, but drew his sword anyway.
Adara looked around the room. A stairway led up somewhere that suspiciously looked like their way out. She grabbed his arm firmly, and started to pull him towards the steps.
"I really don't want to deal with this right now," she said while they ran across the room and up the stairs, quickly out in a small exit. Draugrs were at least not just weak, but slow as well.
"Me neither," Farkas said as he followed Adara. After they hurried down a narrow and low corridor, they reached a trap door with a leveller. She pulled it down, and soon, they found themselves in the very first chamber of the tomb.
Adara laughed in disbelief. "I thought we walked across half of Skyrim."
Farkas smiled while they walked towards the door. "Tricky, aren't they? These Nordic tombs."
It was deep in the night when they finally left Dustman's Crain and walked up the stairs. Adara wished she could see the sun, but for now, the fresh, cool air meant more than anything.
A/N: I'm really happy to see there're more and more people who follow this story on FFN too, but please, if you like this story, don't forget to leave some nice words or even tell me what could I do better. Reviews save your writers lives. :D
