Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Pretty Monster
*The next day, somewhere off the main road, Eastmarch hold*
"I'm sorry, but we have to."
"I - I'll dress differently or something. Please don't..."
"Trust me, it's not what I want either", Teldryn replied as he held his dagger up to Fayleen. "It's what has to be done...for your safety."
Fayleen made a grimacing face and her pale hands wrapped around the length of her long black hair that hung past her shoulders. She sighed in defeat, knowing he was right. Finally she nodded and Teldryn spun around behind her, gently clasping the last several inches of her black curls and bringing the jagged edge of his dagger to the thin strands, cutting a straight line across. Fayleen looked down at the ground and saw long pieces and chunks of her black hair strewn around her. She reached her hands up to her head and ran her fingers through her still choppy hair that now hung just below her pointed elven ears.
"Still just as beautiful, you know.", Teldryn softly said as he sheathed his dagger to his side and looked upon her porcelain skin face with a small smile. Fayleen tried to offer him a smile back, but she knew why it had to be done. If anyone from the College of Winterhold remembered who she was or what she looked like then her very life could be in danger. The Arch Mage was murdered, and no doubt every kingdom and hold all throughout Tamriel was aware of it by now. If changing her appearance was a precaution she had to make for her own survival then she considered it a small sacrifice that paled in comparison to the greater situation she found herself in.
"You're only saying that because you like me.", Fayleen said to him with her eyes slanted up at him.
Teldryn's eyes flicked down to her chest quickly then back up at her. "You're right. I'm only trying to bed you.", he replied in almost a sultry voice. The two of them exchanged sly grins with each other.
"Where are we?", Katara spoke up from several feet away, looking up at the trees then back down at the open map in her hands.
"A mile or so off the road.", Teldryn replied as he stepped closer and looked up at the cluster of mountains on the near horizon that met their treeline. "We're a couple hours shy of Cragwallow Pass."
"Cragwallow Pass, there seems to be a bridge or trench through there?", Katara pointed out as her eyes flicked over the cluster of mountains on her map.
"Yes, it's a mountain that sits over the Black River and the only way of crossing is through that Pass - built gods know how many centuries ago."
"I've heard it's treacherous.", Fayleen chimed in. "Never ventured through myself. Never really came this far before now come to think of it.", she finished, looking at the snowy wooded landscape around her.
"We should make camp just on the other side of the mountain, it'll nearly be nightfall by then.", Teldryn replied. "We should be alright, but we've got to move carefully and swiftly through.", he finished with a serious trailing in his tone.
"Why not just stick to the main roads? I can't be that noticeable, Teldryn. I think we'll be fine.", Fayleen remarked irritably as she pulled her brown leather hood over her head.
"It's the safest option, Fayleen. For all of us."
"He's right.", Katara spoke up from beside Valkyrie. She reached up to his saddle and pushed aside a brown blanket on the back of his hide, revealing the edge to one of the golden jewel-crested pommels of the Elder Scroll. It was fastened tightly to the stallion. "We can't take any risks. Staying off the main roads and crossing Cragwallow Pass may be the best option."
Fayleen looked at both Teldryn and Katara with defense for a second, then she reached up to her neck and gently proded the Dragon Priest amulet that hung at her throat. She sighed and looked to the rose staff that was strapped tightly to Namiira, finally nodding in agreement.
"Alright, alright. But I've heard bad things about that Pass, I'm telling the both of you.", she warned as she hoisted herself atop Namiira.
Katara turned to Teldryn. "How dangerous is it exactly, Tel?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "You know - frost trolls, slick ice, the occasional bandit. I told you, it can be more treacherous than the main roads. But if we can still cross the Pass in daylight, and do so quickly, then the risk shouldn't be high." He informed them. Teldryn stepped up to mount Ashlander's saddle. "Besides, we've got three quick steeds, good steel, and a Dragonborn.", he added with a smile of surity. Katara stuck her foot in the stirrup and sat upon Valkyrie. She trusted in Teldryn, but she didn't trust the certainty of an icy crossing called Cragwallow Pass and hailed dangerous by Fayleen, one of the most desensitized people Katara had known. Still, she clicked her heels and Valkyrie followed Teldryn's lead into the thickets of the forest and straight for the cluster of snowy mountain peaks.
They could tell that they had arrived, or at least come very close, to Cragwallow Pass. The horses had to make several steep climbs and sharp twists around mountains. All three of them felt the change in altitude in their heads, the pressure that built the higher they climed. Still, it was nothing compared to High Hrothgar.
Teldryn slowed his steed and rode alongside Katara, Fayleen just riding within earshot. They began to approach a final curve in the mountainous peaks they had ascended. Past that lie the old bridge itself. As they trotted closer Katara could see it was nothing but a mere rock bridge connecting one peak of the mountain to the other, narrow and icy. There seemed to be a small wooden railing on either side of the bridge's ledges, a small sign of human interaction on a rather mysterious and ancient thing. On either side of them was the Black River, rushing and thrashing hundreds of feet below them all.
Katara heard the low but distinct "shink!" of Teldryn's jagged dagger being removed from the scabbard at his waist. He threw his head back only for a moment to the girls. "Step lightly, and quietly.", he reminded them, keeping his weapon drawn on his lap as he tentatively moved forward. "And don't look down.", he added with a gulp in his own throat.
Fayleen gripped the reigns of Namiira tightly in one hand and the rose staff in the other, her hood pulled up against the cold but her eyes watching everything as they trotted cautiously along. Teldryn kept a low burning hand extended into the snowy path in front of them. They could not see the other side of the bridge, save that Black River was so wide in its girth. The wind whipped at them but it was not enough to stutter their steps, so hurried along they did - until Teldryn stopped them abruptly.
"Shh...", he whispered. Ashlander's ears flicked, to the front then to the back again. Suddenly several figures began to emerge from the snowy trail ahead of them. As they drew nearer the three of them could make them out as folks wearing furs and pelts, scraggly clothing and warpaint, and weilding sharp steel - bandits.
It only took a split second for Teldryn to glance back to Katara and Fayleen, who understood his eyes. Katara tightened her fingers around the pommel of her new sword, and Fayleen steadied the rose staff with its bud aimed at the rugged bunch. Teldryn kept his blade low at his thigh but held onto it readily as he stared down the approaching bandits.
"It's a bit cold to be traveling this far off the road, wouldn't you say, elf?", one bandit spoke up, he had yellow hair that was mangled and wet from the falling snowy. A deep red scar ran over the apple of his cheek. He was wearing a dirty steel armor that was stitched and bound with leather. Beside him stood at least a dozen rugged men and women, paint adorned on their faces mixed with dirt and blood.
"I could ask you the same, travelers.", Teldryn eloquently replied back. Silence for a moment. "We're just crossing to the other side of the Pass if you don't mind."
"You know how these things work, do you?", the bandit chief asked them as he gently nodded his head towards them. One of the bandits behind him stepped forward and grasped his axe with both hands. "You can hand over your valuables, nice and easy." With a swift motion Teldryn swung his leg over the saddle and climbed off Ashlander.
"Oh, come now. Surely we can discuss this and work something out.", he plainly said, stepping closer to the approaching bandit. Once they were within arms reach of each other Teldryn flung the hand that held his dagger from his side, sending a quick slice straight to the unsuspecting bandit's throat, his body going limp with the red wetness that pooled at Teldryn's boots.
The bandits sprung into action at the same time as Katara. She dismounted Valkyrie and the stallion stuttered back for a moment at the hooting and hollering of the bandits as they charged. Fayleen gave her mare a quick kick with her ankle and she was sent charging at the bandits with her rose staff barred. The sight almost took Katara off her guard, never had she seen the beauty of the staff before. From a beautiful copper rose came shooting the brightest green electricity one has ever seen. It was deadly and beautiful all at once. Her bolt hit one of the bandits square in his chest, his lifeless body falling to the cold stone ground.
Katara went to work on the bandit that closed in on her. She sliced and spun and dodged with her skinny blade whirring through the air with every twist and turn. She could hear the tip of her steel connecting, slicing, flesh. It could be felt in the pads of her fingertips in the skinny pommel, reverberating back like their screams. Until it was Katara's turn to yelp when one of their axes found her forearm. Luckily it was just the searing edge of the steel that caught her, but it was enough to draw blood and slow Katara down. She cried in a fit of anger and pain and drove her long blade straight through the bandit. It's sharp tip could be seen poking out the man's back. But just as he fell to the ground off her blade, two more bandits closed in on her.
Teldryn sent fireballs hurling at the chief, but despite his clunky armor he was swift in dodging them at a distance. They danced across the length of the narrow bridge. Finally they were within arms reach and both drew their steel, loud clashes and grunts exchanged.
Fayleen galloped in a circle around the fighting, shooting the bandits that she could within reach. Within moments she had a handful down, deep burn wounds oozing blood while they on the floor. She turned her attention to Teldryn and fired a charge directly at the bandit chief, hitting him in his shoulder and knocking him several feet away to the ground. Teldryn steadied his balance and drew his jagged dagger back out from his side as he lifted the injured bandit chief off the ground by the leather breast plate of his armor. Teldryn plunged his drawn back dagger into the throat of the chief, up and out his mouth, his eyes gone wide and bulging in his final breath. He dropped the bandit's body to the ground and turned to Katara, who had a couple bandits against the ledge of the bridge.
Katara held her sword in hand, but she did not need it. Her weapon welled up inside her as she stared down the frightened but angry remaining bandits, their weapons outstretched and waved in his face. She felt its power radiate from within her gut and make its way into her throat.
"Fus...RO DAH!", she Shouted at the bandits. Each of them had eyes that widened and mouths that dropped split seconds before they were sent soaring off the side of the bridge, their collective cries and screams growing more silent by the second. Katara's breath came heavy in her chest, as it always does after she uses her Thu'um, she turned towards the other two.
The three of them looked out over the dead bodies strewn about the bridge in front of them. Fayleen fastened the staff to her back and climbed off her horse, stepping over the bodies and searching their pockets. Teldryn was a little short winded but he managed to let a throaty laugh escape.
"Gods, I haven't had a good bandit fight in ages.", he said as he stretched back his arms then placed his dagger back in his scabbard. "I told you we could handle anything that came our way."
Katara rushed to Valkyrie's side, lifting the brown blanket and refastening the Elder Scroll to his hide. She was grateful he hadn't run off during the scuffle but she couldn't take any more chances, he was more skittish than the other two steeds. "Let's just get off this thing, yeah?", she asked as she mounted him and looked over to Fayleen, who was holding up a fat sack of coin as she knelt over the bloody bandit chief.
Just then it got colder, the temperature dropped and they felt the wind pick up. It got colder and stronger to the point where it didn't feel natural. Fayleen and Teldryn rushed to their horses and they all steadied their footing on the bridge as the wind swayed them all over.
"Oblivion! What is this?", Teldryn hollered over the whipping winds, tightening the pelt over his head. Then they heard the shriek in the sky, the familiar one. It echoed even over the winds and Katara tried to follow its chilling roar in the snowy sky. They couldn't see it but they heard its flapping growing closer from overhead. It stopped briefly then they felt the bridge shake beneath them as something crashed up ahead on the snowy bridge.
The three of them readied their weapons as the crunching of ice and creaking if rock beneath them and ahead of them echoed. It was a dragon, no doubt. And they could feel its footsteps as it walked closer to their end of the bridge.
"Is that a...a...", Fayleen stuttered as the beast's figure began to take shape through the raging blizzard. It's head emerged first and Katara nearly fell off Valkryrie at the sight of his red head and blue protruding horns.
"Odahviing..." The words escaped out of Katara's mouth like a hush.
"Dovahkiin. Nii aan ol.", he bellowed softly from his gut. Katara jumped off her stallion and rushed towards the red dragon, who lowered his massive neck to meet her eye level.
Katara approached his snout and extended out her hand to run it over his scales. "I've been worried about you ever since I called upon you months ago.", she said.
She could hear his deep breathing in his massive chest. "Geh, it was not safe, Dovahkiin. I've been in hiding, waiting until I no longer could."
"Hiding where?"
His bulging yellow eyes looked into hers. "Your home - Solstheim. That's why I'm here."
Katara stepped back from him and looked up at him. "What about Solstheim? What is it, Odahviing?"
He was silent for a moment. "You should see, Dovahkiin...I've come for you."
His words hit her hard yet she stood frozen in place. She looked back to Valkryie, the Elder Scroll strapped to him. "Back to Solstheim?", she repeated to him. Its what she's wanted for so long, but now she was so close with the Scroll...
"There's someone you should meet, Dovahkiin...", Odahviing very plainly said, and with a seriousness in his deep bellow. Katara slowly turned her head to look at him, confused by his words. "He is known as Miraak."
*Windhelm*
He sat at the wooden table and picked at his chicken breast. With a side of grilled leeks and a cup of wine to wash it down it made for a nice meal. However Aventis felt as if he couldn't relax and enjoy it. All day he had been looking behind his shoulder. He drank entirely too much last night, he knew that and admitted the havoc it wreaked on his stomach played a part in his lack of appetite. He remembered everything he did last night in the secrecy of his bedroom, every detail. But had he done it wrong, the Black Sacrament? He knew he should be expecting a visit from one of their assassins to recieve their pay. From there the assassin would carry out the contract, or so Aventis read in the book last night.
He was sure he performed it right, the nerves of leaving for Fort Hoag in the morning built in him all day and made him question himself. No, he thought, he'd just have to trust in the Dark Brotherhood and their process. He'd done all he needed.
The music played at Candlehearth Hall, which was surprisingly crowded for tonight. Aventis somewhat enjoyed it, enjoyed being surrounded by a crowd that he could meld himself into. It was comforting, combined with the bard's lovely lute playing, Aventis found himself able to sit back in his chair, cutting a juicy chunk out of his chicken. Behind him he could hear conversations from the other patrons in the dining hall around him.
"There's been blizzards in Solstheim, holding up our shipments back and forth to the dreadful grayskin island.", one scruffy man said from the bar to another man. He was dressed like he worked on one of the ships down by the docks. The man adjacent to him scoffed and they drank together. A few seats down from them sat a girl, looking to be Aventis' age, wearing a creme colored maids dress that hung down to her feet.
"Did your aunt make it out of the College before the collapse?"
"We haven't heard from her, but she was always a fighter so we have faith she made it.", one man answered another's question on the other side of Aventis. The conversations weren't always cheery nowadays in Skyrim, what with the the return of dragons and the uncertainty of the war. But somehow Aventis was able to calm himself and take a smooth swig from his wine cup. Something caught the corner of his eye.
This time she was staring at him, the girl who looked his age at the bar. With her face to him Aventis could see her tan completion and high cheekbones. Her eyes were a lavender and they were shrouded beneath full dark lashes. Her hair was the color of chocolate, and it was held half up by a small iron barrette, the lower half hung just past her shoulders and curled up on the ends in a silky wave. Her lips curled into a smile as her eyes met Aventis'.
A warm feeling bubbled in his stomach, she was indeed beautiful. Aventis offered her a smile in return and he could see her white teeth. Then she surprised Aventis by swinging her legs around the side of her stool and hopping off, making her way through the crowd and towards his table. He straightened himself in his chair and took another quick sip of wine, emptying his cup.
"You look like the loneliest thing in this inn tonight.", the girl spoke very plainly as she approached. Her voice was sweet on his ears as he extended his hand in an invitation for her to sit down across from him. She obliged and sat down quietly.
"I prefer my own company over others.", he replied. "As you must as well, sitting by yourself over there."
She smiled. "You could say that."
"I haven't seen you around here before.", he led. He had been in Windhelm for a time now and hadn't gotten close to anyone, perhaps she had been around and he had been so unfortunate as to miss her in passing until now.
"I'm just passing through, making my way from here to there nowadays as needed.", she replied, her lavender eyes piercing his.
"As needed? Someone important, are we?", he asked coyly. The last bit of his wine had given him a surge of bravery, or stupidity, he couldn't tell which just yet.
She raised a brow sarcastically and offered him a giggle. "Depends on who you ask. Speaking of asking, you seem to have a lot of questions regarding a stranger you just met."
"Well, it was the stranger who approached my table.", he shot back with a glimmer in his brown eyes. She laughed, Aventis continued. "Traveling alone during this time is dangerous, you know."
Her brow furrowed and she cocked her head at his inquiry. "I know the danger that lurks out there in the wilds, probably more than you do I'd wager."
Aventis scoffed. "I've seen a dragon out there before.", he said as he leaned in with eyes wide, expecting her to gasp in amazement. Instead her eyes never left his as she leaned in as well, placing her dainty hands on the table.
"I've seen a lonely hunter in the woods one night, crunching his way through the dry leaves and pushing back the brush in his steps." Her voice was low, but Aventis stretched his neck for every word even in the crowded noisy inn. "He looks up at the moon, it's full and bright. The only light that guided his footsteps besides the torch in his hand. He hears a noise in the woods, the one he's been vying to hear since he ventured out there. The cracking of hooves against the ground, a fat deer in the clearing ahead of him. The hunter readied his bow and docked an arrow in its quiver, already tasting the juicy venison. He inched closer, watching his footing. There was something else in the woods with him, something deadlier though. He felt its small hands wrap around his shoulders, followed quickly by its teeth...a sharp pair of jaws that sunk themselves into the flesh on his neck, piercing his skin deeply. The poor hunter dropped his torch and staggered forward, grabbing his neck in a fit of fear. He spun around and tried to find the bear or sabrecat that had attacked him, but instead he was met with the beautiful soft face of a monster - a monster with eyes that glowed red in the flickering of the torch on the forest ground, and white fangs that dripped with his fresh blood. The beautiful face of the monster was the last thing he saw as his life was sucked out of him.", she finished with a little grin across her face, but a tone of seriousness in her sweet voice. Aventis almost trembled at her words, he was at a loss of what to say to this unexpected beauty and her dark words. The girl leaned back in her chair and took note of his frightened silence. She sighed.
"Since you're clearly lost, I guess I'll have to initiate. And here I expected livelier before I gave you my story. Pity. Do you have the coin or not, Aventis?", she added. Aventis sat up in his chair and stared at her for a split second with wide eyes.
"Wait - you, you're the - are you with the Brotherhood?", he asked her in a stutter and a whisper. She laughed out of annoyance.
"That's what you've been sitting here all night looking dreadful for, waiting on me, is it not?", she replied. "Now, do you have the gold?", she asked a little more seriously this time.
Aventis shuffled his hands into his pockets and pulled out a jingling coin purse, he felt the gold lumps in the bag and scooted it towards the end of the table where the girl sat. "You're just...not what I expected...at all.", he stammered softly.
"I know.", the girl tossed the coin bag in her hand then strapped it to her belt. She stood up from her seat and pushed her chair in. "Quite an advantage, wouldn't you agree?
Aventis lurched forward and grabbed her arm, startling her for a moment until he let go and used his words. "Wait, so you'll get it done? You know...get it taken care of in time?", he asked in a low voice up to her.
"It'll get done, young Aventis.", she replied surely. A confused look spread across his face.
"You can't be any older than I, who are you to call me young?"
"Oh, I can be much older than you, boy. It'll get done, don't worry your pretty head.", she cooed. The girl turned again to walk away but she heard Aventis' voice bellow from behind her once more.
"Can't - can't you least tell me your name?", he asked with a genuity in his voice. She did not look back to him, only cocked her head within his earshot.
"Babette."
