"I congratulate you on your artistry, and the balance and heft of your daggers. The knife blade is whisper thin, elegantly wrought, but impractical. It must have a bolder edge, for arteries, when cut, have a tendency to self-seal, preventing adequate blood loss."
~"Fire and Darkness", by Ynir Gorming
-B-
I began to feel like I was wasting time—wasting time without being able to stop. From High Hrothgar I went back to Whiterun to find that Adrienne was still working out my dagger. Apparently the tooth defied her at every turn (so she said) and the only way to get it to bow to her will was to be patient and careful.
So I continued to Riverwood. Delphine, terse and busy, was trying to rustle up leads, something we could follow up on. I had to admit it was nice that someone knew what to do. It was awkward talking to her, because Kathutet's and Arngeir's warnings echoed in my head.
I did the only thing I could: I stayed the night in Riverwood and moved on to take the Horn back to Jurgen Windcaller's tomb in Ustengrav. Although Delphine wanted to keep me close at hand, I couldn't bear the idea of sitting around at the inn with nothing to do. I couldn't really help her—and she rebuffed my offer politely but firmly, just as I rebuffed her arguments about me not wandering around the countryside—and I couldn't really think of anything I could do about Alduin.
So I considered the matter in silence as I made my way to Ustengrav.
The winter snows left me wading through frozen wilderlands and shivering in the wind.
For once, I traveled alone, eschewing Kathutet's dubious company—not when I was still mentally snarling at Delphine for being so suffocating.
Although I did wonder, though, what the Dremora was up to in the Deadlands—this being more idle curiosity than practical curiosity.
But everything came back to my immediate problems.
How does one defeat something like Alduin? Obviously I'd have to find him first…but somehow I don't think that any of my little Shouts, barely cantrips compared with a dragon's ability, would do much good. I'd probably need a better weapon, too. The idea of a dragon-based sword appealed to me—I'm thinking a claw or talon or whatever. Something large enough to be used as a sword. Surely dragon talons are fairly adept at piercing another dragon's hide?
But where would I find him? Lurking on a mountain somewhere? He certainly didn't think of me as a threat. He wasn't impressed by me (which was understandable, I suppose, but left me feeling chagrined).
I wonder if he knows Sahloknir is dead. Somehow…I doubt he would care. The important thing would probably be the inconvenience I cost him. I didn't like the practical question: if I killed enough of his lieutenants or adherents or whatever, would he care about the inconvenience enough to bring his scaly hide down here? For any other conventional enemy, I'd say that would be the way to go—
A spell hit me with the force of a thrown boulder, though unlike the boulder it left me on my feet. Fear pulsed through me, for I knew what it was: it coiled around my lungs and turned my tongue to lead, it reached towards my inner well of magicka like a stone being rolled over the entrance. Silence. And very well-cast, at that.
I opened my mouth to cry out in surprise; predictably, nothing came out but a column of misty breath. I turned sharply, in time to see a flash of steel arcing towards me.
The blade sliced harmlessly through my cloak, the jacket beneath and glancing off the mail beneath that as I sprang back. It was a slow response, for Silence (apart from feeling very unpleasant) has a way of leaving a trained mage to grapple with a few moments of time in which they cope with their best tool being stripped away.
Fortunately, I'm comfortable with the sword. And a great many other things. The low hiss of inner anger, combatted the knee-jerk sense of panic at having such a stifling spell laid upon me.
"The Dark Brotherhood sends its regards," the assassin announced, his voice low, not unpleasant but definitely malevolent.
I would have snarled at him to piss off, but the Silence he'd placed upon me prevented it. Since I couldn't, I took his moment of speech to consider the spell that bound my voice. The word 'voice' brought a possibility to me: my magicka is not wonderfully effective against dragons. It works, but not as well as it could. So how well would this assassin's spell hold up against the Thu'um?
I whipped my sword free and took a deep breath, parried when the assassin lunged at me. He danced out of the way with a nimbleness that seemed inhuman. In-elven, I should say. The first Shout that came to mind was the one with which I was most familiar, Unrelenting Force. I sucked breath, this time as the assassin threw something at my feet. The object broke on impact, sending smoke hissing all around me, blackening the world and hiding him perfectly.
I threw myself to the side, hitting the snowy ground hard, and rolling until I could see again.
Unfortunately, the assassin's advantage of being able to see before I could, of being able to see which direction I emerged from, meant he was almost on top of me before my head stopped spinning.
I reacted on instinct, shooting out a hand and grabbing him by the cowl, fingernails scraping his face. This didn't mean much, since my nails are necessarily short, but he had to close his eyes, so his swing was not as well-aimed as he would have liked.
I dropped my sword, grabbed his head as best I could with my other hand and dragged him forward. Since most people push away from danger, he hadn't expected me to drag him on top of me. I took a sharp breath and barked: "FUS!"
It partially worked, coming out as a thin whisper that splintered—but failed to break—the spell holding me silent. Conventional magic doesn't always work right, and this proves it, when faced with the Thu'um.
The whisper shocked the elf who, no doubt, thought his spell strong enough to subdue anyone but an archmage. I'll admit, it was well-cast; no normal magic of mine would have broken it in one two or possibly three attempts. "FUS!" this time it came out as a hoarse cough and only with great effort. The elf's spell tried to lock around my lungs, coiling like the great snakes of Black Marsh were said to do, but the Thu'um would not be contained.
The elf planted a hand over my mouth, forcing my chin back to bare my throat.
He had a strength advantage, superior position, and the way we were tangled I couldn't knee him in the groin.
I let out a growl, muffled by his hand, still checked by the Silence he'd place upon me. The gteowl was instinct-level, a low rumble full of nascent Thu'um that shook and shivered through my body, causing the Dunmer's eyes to widen above his cowl. The Thu'um had no direction, no purpose except to rub against the Silencing spell, like a saw against a tree bough, rasping and eroding. I put into it all my anger, all my resentment until I would have sworn I saw a faint veil of smoke between us—though the lack of smell indicated this was only in my mind.
I twisted my head, chin down as the air around us rattled, writhed and squirmed like a snake. Suddenly, his hand slipped, and in the split second I had my mouth I managed. "FEIM!" The Silence broke with a pop any mage would have felt.
The assassin, to his shock, fell through me to land on his elbows in the mud. I struggled to my feet, not wanting to find out what might happen if I solidified while we were still occupying the same space. The possibilities all seemed too gruesome to contemplate.
The assassin turned onto his back, looking dumbly at my form, faint in the daylight. He got to his knees, regained his footing. Since I wasn't attacking he must have assumed I was either waiting on him or—correctly—that I couldn't do anything until the Shout wore off.
Fortunately, 'fade' doesn't last very long.
My benefit was that I knew, to the second, how long it would take, so the instant I could act, I did.
"FUS RO DAH!"
The assassin flew backwards with a yelp, striking a tree and landing painfully. I was on him in a moment, but shrieked in pain as his dagger slashed at me. The strike was badly executed, hitting below the collar of my mail which absorbed most of the initial impact. The graze that carried on to my neck, almost to my ear, didn't cause me anything more than pain—and that went numb within seconds. I could fight on without being distracted by it.
Poison on the blade. And probably a nasty one, too.
I grabbed his wrist in one hand, aware of my own iron grip, and his throat in the other. A strange thrill rushed through me, from the heat in my face to the toes of my feet. He was a mouse. A little grey mouse that had picked a fight with the wrong foe.
My knee went on his knife-arm, the better to restrain him, and I wrenched the weapon free of his hand. The blade glittered sickly at the edge, and mingling with the tangy smell of my own blood was something herbal and faintly sour. Unclean, even.
It was not, I forced myself to remember, his presumptuousness in attacking a dragon—or one akin to them—but that he'd attacked me at all. No need for this to be personal.
But I wanted it to be personal. Someone had been personal enough to send the damned Dark Brotherhood after me. After me, and he hadn't even known what he was tangling with. That was, I realized, what upset me: he'd walked, like an idiot, up to death and poked it in the eye!
As I mentally articulated this—with all the rapidity battle imparts upon thought—I hesitated, aware that although my grip was strong it was not really superhuman, and the reason it seemed that way was because I was angry enough for fear to work against him. So, he realized his error in planning, too.
The hesitation, however, was followed by sudden squeamishness: I could burn him alive from head to chest, but it seemed like such a horrible way to go. The squeamishness did not last long: the strength advantage was still his, even if the positional advantage was mine. And he wouldn't hesitate if he realized it.
I brought his knife in my hand slicing across his throat a split second before that did it. The knife was merciful.
I staggered back from him, turning around. The emotions building up in my chest reminded me too much of that day at the Western Watchtower. I knew how to deal with it now, though, and allowed the symbol for 'yol' to burn in my mind's eye. "YOL!" Snow vanished in a puff of steam, leaving more mud and puddles around the place the assassin and I had torn up during our fight.
The tension in my chest vanished, leaving me feeling tingly and ready for another fight—a more challenging one, my inner dragonish-ness put in. The Hand-me-down conversations agreed: this was hardly a worthy trial for such as I.
Worthy or not, he still could have killed me., and I resolved not to make what seemed to be a dragon's mistake in thinking that just because a foe was not 'worthy' or 'challenging' did not mean that foe couldn't kill me.
I put a hand to my neck to find the blood flowed far worse than it should have.
Not only a numbing agent—something to keep the blood from clotting? I had to fight not to start breathing too fast and too shallow. Calm. Be calm. Was there something else in the mix? Something to induce panic?
"Kathutet!" I practically screamed it, fumbling to get my backpack off. Surely that little slice couldn't have been a full dose of whatever concoction the assassin had used?
"What?" he demanded sharply, appearing in his normal cloud of smoke before cursing the weather vehemently
The wound felt fringed in heat and there seemed to be too much blood. Whatever poison he'd had on there, surely a good deep slice would have killed me by now. "P-poison…" I managed, my tongue numbing, "On the b-blade…" I tried to remember how to expunge poison with magic. I know Deirdre teaches everyone the basics of how to do it, so poison can be slowed if not stopped…but the knowledge, it just wasn't there.
The world was spinning. Her hallmark as lemony fresh and healthy…
"Pack," I managed, trying to undo the straps, "purple bottle. On the wound."
Kathutet threw me to the ground as he ripped my pack open, throwing out this and that and cursing all the while. The mud was soothingly cold against my fevered skin. What is…this stuff?
I rolled onto my back, forcing myself to look into the bright sky overhead, tried to think back to Deirdre's lecture about expunging poisons.
His manner, however, was that of someone accustomed to this, as if a poisoned comrade was normal. He grabbed my hair so he could wrench my head to the side—he wasn't gentle at all, but the pain was so distant. He yanked the stopper, wax, cork, and all, free, spat it aside and upended the salve onto the wound until the viscous liquid came out only in threads. He chucked it away and began to smear the salve over the wound, over as much of my neck and throat as he could reach. His gauntlets caught at my skin, probably making the injury worse, but I didn't care: the salve was cold and within moments began to sting.
Having disemboweled my pack, it did not take him long to find bandages. With the same rough but competent handling, he jerked me to a sitting position and contrived to hold me up as he wrapped the linen tightly, too tightly, around my throat.
Halting the poison's progress bought time. "Yellow bottle," I slurred, "need to drink it."
Kathutet swore and cursed, letting me flop back into the now-marshy ground as he searched for the 'damned bottle' with many castigations about the weather, my stupidity, his having to deal with both…the list went on and on, but it gave me something to focus on and he stopped once he found the cheerful yellow bottle.
He opened the bottle and poured it down my throat, shaking me when I choked but, effectively, getting most of it into me rather than on me. The potion is designed to break down poisons (or, rather, some of the integral features that make them poisons—Deirdre was vague about it); it was never designed to 'cure' them, since poisons themselves are widely varied.
Regardless of how, it worked, for within minutes I began feeling…not better, just as though I were sick with some common wintertime ailment. It was better than dying, and realizing how close I may have come to it made me shiver.
"Is it working?" Kathutet demanded, prodding the bandages on my throat with a dubious expression.
"Yes." I struggled to sit up, but found it easier to fall back, even if that meant lying in the mud. "Need to search the body."
Kathutet, with a low growl of disapproval—though what he disapproved of I'm not sure—vanished from sight, his heavy weight squelching in the slushy mud.
The cold revived me a bit. Or maybe it was the uncomfortable feel of mud seeping into my hair and clothes. Regardless, I managed to roll onto my side, aware of the pain in my neck, but equally aware that I could have been killed. So pain in the neck is not a problem.
Kathutet appeared a moment later, hauled me to a sitting position and steadied me with one hand before thrusting a piece of paper at me with the other.
I shook it open and scanned it quickly.
It contained a handprint of black ink and the words 'one more for the Void' in a spiky, unrefined hand.
"It's really them," I breathed, a cold that had nothing to do with the mud or the weather sinking into my bones.
"I don't understand," Kathutet snapped.
"The Dark Brotherhood. Everyone knows that a black hand, like this, is their calling card. Someone paid those thugs to come after me." I shuddered inwardly. The Cult of Sithis is one of the shadiest, scariest factions out there.
"Who?" Kathutet asked.
I was sure he was asking who send them, rather than for further clarification of who the Dark Brotherhood was. "No idea. Could be anyone." Although, and maybe she's wearing off on me, I heard Delphine's voice inside my head: Thamor. And…hadn't Kathutet mentioned an 'unaffiliated knife' in my back?
The shivers I felt turned into shudders, which turned into teeth-rattling involuntary tremors. "L-let's g-get my gear together…" I clenched my teeth for a moment, willing the tremors to stop before continuing with a forced calm that made the shaking worse, "then find a place to make camp. I'm not g-g-getting much further tod-day I don't think."
Kathutet waved a hand, a cloud of smoke coalescing into the cloak he wore when not in his armor. He tucked it snugly around me, pinning it into place with the grim look of someone who was playing nursemaid and resented it. The garment smelled faintly like brimstone, but it was thick and warm. It also kept out the cold better than any cloak I'd ever worn before—clearly it was designed specifically for to keep a warm-climate Dremora comfortable anywhere cooler than the Deadlands (which is probably almost everywhere).
At any rate, the tremors soon reduced to shivers that were more nerves and tension than anything else.
He re-gathered the things he'd thrown about while looking for the salve, then called his horse, which he helped me onto. He didn't say anything to the beast, but it waited for him with rapt attention, swishing its goat-like tail and pawing the ground.
"What are you doing?" I asked as he approached the body and, without hesitation, began stripping it down.
"Takes longer to decide if you've lost an operative if there's nothing to identify him," Kathutet responded. "His gear looks distinctive, best he not wear it when he's found."
I nodded, despite the fact that Kathutet had his back to me and wouldn't see it. It made sense.
Kathutet soon had the assassin's armor buckled with its own buckles into a neat bundle, the elf's smaller effects went into my pack to be examined later.
The body remained where it was as Kathutet climbed up behind me and kicked the horse to a trot. He gestured to the ground, a hair-raising tremor of Dremora magic crawling unpleasantly across my skin. He whistled a single sharp note, as one calling a dog, and the two creatures that guarded out camp at night—clannfear, he called them, once—appeared. They looked covetously at the body, scratching the earth with their clawed feet, sniffing the air hopefully.
Kathutet said nothing to them, he merely clicked his tongue before turning the horse. The sounds that came from the clannfear and the corpse left an all too clear picture of what was going on as we retreated.
"Tell me what I've missed," he commanded.
I did my best, disliking the feel of jostling around on the horse's back. I'm not used to riding double, and every time I tried to hold on with my knees I ended up banging my foot or calf against Kathutet's knee or shin. Finally, he seemed to realize what I was trying to do. He didn't move so I could anchor myself properly, he simply wrapped an arm around my lower ribcage and pulled me back against him. Thus being more secure, I relaxed a little, content to wander in my wits, sleepy and feeling stupid.
As well as muddy.
Kathutet kept going for an hour or more before coming to the unilateral conclusion we were far enough away from the body.
"You're being very helpful," I announced wearily as he lifted me off the horse by my armpits.
He gave me a deprecatory look, "You look pathetic."
Thank you.
Kathutet waited until I showed him I could stand on my own before leaving me to it. "Why didn't you Shout him into Oblivion?" he demanded as he produced the tent from my kit.
I leaned on his horse, knees feeling a bit achy and a bit shaky. The beast growled at me, stomping the ground nervously until a sharp word from Kathutet—in his own tongue—quieted the beast. "Silence spell. Had to break it first." I pulled my braid over my shoulder, then felt at how much mud was on the back of my head. Ugh. Too much. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could do about it at the moment.
I pushed away from the horse and helped set up camp as best I could—and tried not to feel like I was actually slowing us down. Kathutet was grouchy, but he didn't tell me to desist.
"In." Kathutet pulled the flap aside, his expression hinting that if I didn't obey he would throw me in by the scruff of my neck like a naughty puppy.
"You're bossy," I grumbled, but climbed in, mentally bemoaning the fact that I was going to get mud and muck all over my bedroll—
I nearly shrieked when he followed, mostly because he gave me a shove to get me in. The pressure of his hand at the small of the back that sent me crashing to my knees with my backside in the air and my nose almost rubbing the bottom of the tent. I twisted onto my hip (finding the one stone present as I did so) to watch him.
"Stop that racket!" he snarled, flopping onto his side, his back to me. "It's warmer with two and if you start seizing or convulsing or whatever ridiculous things you pathetic creatures do when you're hurt, I'll know about it when it happens."
The tent is warded against cold—a tent in Skyrim has to be. Still, he had a point. I frowned as his armor dissipated into his usual black traveling clothes—sans his cloak—then grabbed my pack, opened it, and began sorting through the assassin's things. Poisons in little vials. Small, concealable knives. Gold. The dagger that sliced my neck. When I drew it, I found it still covered in my own blood.
My own mortality, vulnerability, and a lesson in humility were written in crimson blood on that wickedly sharp, poisoned blade. "Thank you," I said quietly, "for your help."
"Go to sleep, you little fool." But the words seemed, to me, a little less harsh than usual.
I put everything back into my pack, settled down on my side, my back to his, and closed my eyes. My neck hurt and my mind raced with questions. I found myself fidgeting, trying to get comfortable, to ignore the drying mud, to ignore the irritation that, the one time I went off alone, I nearly got myself killed.
It makes me look rather inept.
"This Brotherhood of yours," Kathutet began a few moments later, tone a low purr in the dim. "Are they paid to complete a contract, or does the buyer merely purchase a single attempt?"
I frowned, rolling over to look at his back. "I don't understand."
Kathutet considered what he wanted to say before continuing, "Does a buyer's gold simply buy one attempt or does it purchase your life, full stop?"
"I honestly don't know." I'm not sure I understood him, either. "I know nothing of assassins and those who use them. This may have been for political reasons—"
"I can't think of any other reason for it," he interrupted.
Neither could I.
I sighed, trying to construct a plausible 'why' for why this had happened. I found the hand me down memories of the three dragons supplementing my own understanding. I finally decided I agreed with Delphine: the strike was probably paid for by the Thalmor, through intermediaries, so their hands wouldn't be detected. My hand me down memories indicated that zealots like them would not want to be connected to the death of a quasi-mythic figure in a country that already resented them and which was in the middle of a civil war.
Their hand detected in my death might sway people to Ulfric's cause. Might.
I exhaled slowly. Sooner or later, assuming I managed to make a lot of Dark Brotherhood corpses, the Thalmor would resort to their own resources. Hmph. If I can't provoke Alduin to come to me, perhaps I can do it with others. Unfortunately, I would prefer not to be sidetracked.
"There will be more attempts," I declared, softly, in case Kathutet had fallen asleep. "From one quarter or another."
"Yes." He seemed to think it was a question.
I closed my eyes, aware that fear warred with something that bordered on disdain and a desire to confront the troublemakers right this moment. Well, maybe not right this moment.
Kathutet rustled as he shifted, then a warm hand descended on my neck, resting firmly but not threateningly. His skin was slightly leathery, tougher than that of a human, calloused but not grotesquely or unpleasantly so. He said nothing, but the warmth of his palm was reassuring.
"Do Dremora deal with assassins?"
"No," Kathutet answered in a low tone that might have sounded menacing had it not been for the words he used. "Dremora do not murder one another and jockey for favor. It is so with others, but our pride does not permit such underhanded tactics. Still, others, like Boethiah, use them, so we prepare for them."
"Really?"
Kathutet chuckled, the sound pleasant relative to what it's usually; his thumb shifted gently against my skin, almost lazily. "The Daedra have warred with one another for reason and for sport since they first came to be."
"For sport?" I asked, rolling over to face him. The idea of war for sport is…repellant.
His face had lost some definition in the dim light of the tent. His eyes were more visible than usual, glowing faintly enough for me to pick them out. "You're forgetting," he answered, "Daedra are immortal. What else have our lords to do with their time?"
It was a fair question, I suppose. I couldn't come up with an answer.
Then, to my surprise, and without being asked, Kathutet related a tale involving Sanguine and his revelries which had culminated in a friend of Kathutet's running naked through Hircine's Hunting Grounds being chased by Sheogorath's flaming dogs. "Never saw Arphaz run so fast," Kathutet smirked at the conclusion, his fingers twisting absently in my hair.
The gesture was comforting and, as it wasn't menacing or unpleasant, I didn't tell him to stop. "What happened to him?" I asked, feeling sleepy despite my interest in the story.
"What do you think? Four legs run faster than two," Kathutet shrugged. "Arphaz swore it took two or three journeys through the Waters for all the bite marks to disappear."
"Can scars carry over?" It was not the sort of thing one learned in the Order of Julianos, and I'd never given the possibility much thought.
Kathutet withdrew the hand toying with my hair; to my surprise, I missed the warmth of the touch. "Sometimes," he answered, absently rubbing a spot on his ribcage. "Go to sleep, little fool. The world will be here when you wake."
