A/N: Hey. Almost wasn't able to post this today. I had classes all day and then had to go straight to work for a closing shift, but then felt really sick and ended up coming home early. So I'm just posting this before I hopefully don't end up puking and can just go to sleep and be good to go in the morning. No notes for this one I don't think. Everything should be explained within the chapter or has been at some point before. So just go ahead and read and wish me a settled stomach. As always, many thanks to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin.

Rating: M for strong language and mild violence.

The halls of Ustengrav were dark and damp, and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust. As Dany began to continue onward, she stumbled, and Sandor reached out a hand to steady her. Thanking him quietly, she looked down at the body that had caught her foot and her companion sighed heavily.

"Looks like a group of bandits beat us here. Let's just hope that they're all as dead as their friend here and they didn't make off with the horn."

Dany nodded silently in agreement and allowed Sandor to lead the way, following his footsteps as they passed the corpses of several more highwaymen.

The tomb's entrance opened into a large room as they continued, similarly littered with bodies, not yet rotten, but not fresh either.

"I'd say they got here a week ago or so," Sandor mused idly as he knelt to take the coinpurse from one man's belt. "Looking for riches and glory, most like." The corpse wasn't bloodied in the least, but its skin was black and cold, as though the man had died of frostbite. Frowning, he stood back up and continued onward, hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Aren't we doing the same?" Dany asked wryly, following the sellsword through the passageway that led deeper into the ruin.

"Of course I am," Sandor replied cheekily. "I'm a mercenary. But you?" He glanced back over his shoulder at her and cocked his eyebrow. "Gods no. They're being handed to you on a silver platter, Dragonborn."

Though he said it in jest, there was a hint of bitterness in his tone, and he quickly moved on, dropping into a crouch beside the corpse before him.

"This is no bandit." He softly rubbed the fabric of the dead woman's robes between his fingers. "She's a mage of some sort." The tips of her fingers were scarred and cold. "There must have been a fight between she and the bandits." A trail of blood led from the path ahead to where her body lay and he stood with a grunt. "Neither won."

The path before them split, and after a brief moment of contemplation, Sandor jerked his head toward the passageway to the left. "Here first. We may find something of value."

As Sandor rooted through the cracked and broken urns that they found in the rooms at the passage's end, Dany wandered over to an old stone bookshelf. After a moment, she removed a tome and brushed the dust from its cover almost lovingly.

"The Mystery of Talara," she whispered, smiling softly. "My mother used to read me these stories when I was a girl."

"What are they about?" Sandor asked to humor her.

"The princess Talara of Camlorn. Her family was assassinated when she was but a girl, and she managed to escape, but lost her memories. Years later she is working as a..." A slight blush rose to her cheeks and she spoke hurriedly before continuing with her explanation. "A whore, and when she meets the present King and his daughter, her childhood best friend and cousin, Lady Jyllia, she begins to regain her memories. In the end, she remembers the plot against the royal family and realizes that she herself is the Lady Jyllia, daughter of the assassin and now King, and that the false King's daughter is Princess Talara in truth."

When she finished, Sandor snorted, obviously unimpressed. "That sounds like a load of bloody nonsense." Daenerys looked quite offended by his words and clutched the book tightly to her chest. "But," he continued grudgingly, "I suppose you can take it with you, if you're willing to bear the extra weight."

With the book at her side, they continued onward, and were nearly to the end of the bloody path beneath their feet when they heard the scuffing sound of footsteps on stone. Sandor's hand flew to the sword at his hip and he made a hushing gesture as Dany moved to his side.

"We aren't alone," he murmured, sliding the blade from its scabbard and nodding to the bow across her shoulders. "Get ready."

He could see her hands trembling as she nocked an arrow, but she steeled her nerves nonetheless and gave a nod of feigned confidence. Quietly, he entered the room, and a pair of pale blue eyes met his gaze.

Sandor knew what the creature was, of course: a draugr, he had heard them called. Ancient Nord heroes buried long ago in their tombs and then raised again by some form of dark magic. He had fought one in the depths of Bleak Falls Barrow, but beneath its armor, it had been easy to imagine a living man.

This one was clothed only in tattered rags, its flesh gray with age and rotting away from the muscles beneath. Its glassy eyes bulged from their sockets as it took in the two forms in the doorway, and then with surprising speed, it was moving toward them, greatsword lifted high above its head.

Sandor readied his own blade, but before it could reach them it was knocked back slightly, an arrow protruding from its chest. It stared at the fletching for a moment with a complete lack of comprehension and he took the opportunity to swing his sword. When the head rolled to Dany's feet, her face paled, but she managed to keep their last meal in her stomach as she looked away and slung the bow back around to her shoulders.

"Here lie our fallen lords, until power of Alduin revives," she said gravely, walking over the body and continuing onward. Cocking his eyebrow but staying silent, Sandor followed.

The dark passageways wound slightly to the right as they trudged forward and it wasn't long before they gave way once again to a long open hall with cracked ebony coffins lining its walls.

"Keep your guard up," Sandor warned softly, eyeing the tombs warily.

It was as they were just beginning to believe that they would make it to the other end without the need for violence that the lid on one of the coffins began to rattle. It shook with the force from within, and then flew off, its tenant stepping down to the floor and reaching for the sword at its waist.

Before it could free the weapon, Sandor plunged his blade into its unbeating heart. With a guttural grunt, the draugr fell, and as they watched, its blue eyes gradually began to lose their unearthly glow.

"Was that woman a gods damned Necromancer?" Sandor grumbled as he cleaned his sword. "Bloody things crawling out of their own tombs."

"This is the work of something far worse than Necromancy," Dany responded quietly, though her expression bore the same confusion as her companion's, as though she did not understand how she knew such a thing.

"Aye, well, we should be off." Though he would not admit it, the young Breton made him more than a bit uneasy at times, and he feared what she was truly capable of.

They took the passage at the rear of the chamber and it wasn't long before they reached a staircase with a carved ebony door at its end. They hesitated briefly at the sight of it before Sandor hefted it open with a grunt and they continued through.

There were stairs beyond it as well, carrying them deeper and deeper into the tomb, until they came to their end in a natural tunnel, its walls covered in thick vines and moss. Sandor could feel a breeze from somewhere before them, and he saw Dany shiver as it blew past.

"There is power here," she said absently. "I can feel it."

She began to walk, and Sandor hurried to follow her. Her lavender eyes were hazy as she continued, and he remembered the trance she had been pulled under during their foray into Bleak Falls Barrow. There was a Word here, of that he had no doubt, and her dragon blood was pulling her toward it.

The tunnel stopped at the edge of a cliff, and Dany gasped quietly at the sight before them. The tomb was cavernous, its ceiling ending at the sky and extending outward. Through the fog he saw tall pines growing, and beneath them, a pool, with an ancient wall at its edge, just like the one from the barrow.

Dany saw it too, and he had to grab her roughly by the arm to keep her from walking straight over the edge of the cliff. Gripping her by her elbows, he spun her around to face him and bent to her height.

"Get ahold of yourself, girl," he barked, shaking her from her reverie. "I need you here with me." When her eyes cleared slightly and she gave a weak nod, he released her, shaking his head. "You need to learn to control yourself or you'll end up dead."

She followed him back from the edge to a set of stairs and he fell behind her, urging her forward. "I want you in my sight," he said gruffly. "The Greybeards would kill me if I let their precious Dragonborn wander off to her death."

The stairs led them to a thin stone path over a large dining hall. A few rotted corpses sat at the long tables, and Sandor loosened his sword in its scabbard in anticipation. Another flight of winding stairs took them down to the hall below and as they pushed onward, the corpse at the head of the table began to stir.

Before Sandor could draw his sword, Daenerys reached for her bow without hesitation, nocked it, drew, and released. Her arrow struck it cleanly below the chin, and by the time they passed it had slumped to the table, its blue eyes dim.

When Sandor looked at the young woman, her gaze was distant, and so he kept silent. The room ended in twin sets of stairs, and as they ascended, they found themselves above the room again, parallel to the walkway they had entered from. They walked across it carefully, watching for weaknesses in the stone, and Sandor breathed a sigh of relief when their feet met solid earth again.

The ground before them was slick with oil, and they moved through it cautiously, shaking it from the soles of their boots as they reentered the massive natural cavern on its lower level. The creak of bone greeted them, and Sandor was quick to dispatch the grinning skulls of the risen dead from their spines.

Dany wandered away as he fought with the reanimated skeletons, and when he found her again, she was standing at the edge of the wall, her fingers running absently across the foreign symbols etched into it.

"Well?" Sandor asked, returning his sword to its sheath. "What can you do now, Dragonborn? Fly? Breathe fire?"

She seemed vaguely annoyed at the interruption and when she turned away, she looked frustrated. "I don't know," she said. "It says...zii...but...I don't know what that means. I don't understand it."

"You didn't understand the one in Bleak Falls at first either," Sandor countered reasonably. "But you do now, and you will with this one. For now, though, we have a horn to recover."

Broken from the spell of the Word, she nodded, still visibly disappointed, but followed him back up and across the length of the cavern.

"Gods damn it." Sandor grumbled irritably at the sight before them. The only path forward was blocked by three sturdy iron gates, and he saw no mechanism to raise them, only three large boulders where he and Dany were standing. Frowning, he walked toward them, and as he passed the first of the stones, it gave off a strange red glow, and the closest gate rose from the ground.

"Come on," he urged, continuing forward. As he predicted, the other two boulders had the same effect on their corresponding gates, but as he approached the spot not even halfway to where the first had been, it crashed to the ground again, and the red light dimmed once more.

"Bloody hell!" His fist struck the gate with a clang and he pulled it back, continuing to curse loudly.

Ignoring him, Daenerys walked calmly around the three stones, examining each with curiosity. After a moment, she spoke. "You weren't fast enough. Try running. The magick will only last for so long."

Still grumbling irritably, Sandor obeyed, walking back to the edge of the platform and then running forward as each stone began to glow. It was just as he reached the first gate that it closed once more and he kicked it viciously. "Gods damned fucking magick!"

When he heard a quiet giggle from behind him he turned on his companion, eyes narrowed, and she shrugged innocently, still smiling slightly. "You just didn't run fast enough."

"Nobody fucking can!" Sandor fumed, gesturing angrily toward the gates. "They close too bloody fast!"

Dany's eyes widened in realization as he spoke, and slowly, she shook her head. "They knew."

The sellsword cooled slightly at her words and he cocked his eyebrow. "Who knew what?"

"The Greybeards knew," she responded, pretending not to hear his snort at her lack of explanation and moving back behind the first of the three boulders.

Shaking his head, Sandor watched her with his arms crossed over his chest as she began to run. She was nearly to the second stone when she opened her mouth and shouted.

"Wuld!"

When he blinked, she was at the other end of the three gates, and he realized as he stared at her in shock that the gates had stayed in their raised positions. Slowly, he joined her, and he shook his head when she smirked slightly.

"Bloody hell, girl."

The room beyond the gates was empty, save for a large brazier in its center, and as Sandor unconsciously shied away from it, Dany reached out and grabbed him.

"Wait."

Reaching into the satchel at her waist, she tore a small morsel of bread from the piece within and tossed it forward. As it hit the floor, a jet of flame burst forth, and only when the bread was a charred husk did it recede once more.

Why does it always have to be fire?

Sandor swallowed thickly and looked out across the floor. As far as it extended, it was carved with a thin swirling pattern, and between each of the lines, a small opening was hidden, allowing the fire to escape when pressure was applied to the individual plates.

Daenerys inched closer as he stared at it hopelessly, and after a moment, she returned to his side. "There are a few that look darker than the others," she said, hands on her hips. "They've probably already been triggered and were scorched by the fire. If it was enough to color the stone, they're likely out of fuel. We can use those to walk across."

Though what she said was logical, Sandor had his doubts, and though he nodded, his stomach twisted uneasily. He could already feel the heat, and smell the stench of burning flesh.

When he made no move to follow her forward, she turned, and he could feel her gaze on the left side of his face for a long moment before she spoke. "Trust me."

Slowly, he began to move across the path she had indicated, and though it took what felt like years to reach the room at its end, they arrived unscathed, and Sandor breathed a sigh of relief.

The feeling was short-lived, however, as they took in their surroundings. The walls were covered in thick webs, and several bodies hung from the ceiling, black with rot and tangled in the sticky strings that held them.

Dany's face looked green when Sandor caught her eye, and he silently gestured toward her weapon before drawing his own. As they stepped forward, a scuttling sound issued from above them, and Dany screamed as a massive spider dropped down to the floor before them.

Dodging its dripping pincers, Sandor slashed at one of its spindly legs, hacking at the joint until it severed and the beast let out a cry of pain.

"Shoot it!" he yelled back to Daenerys, and he saw her reach over her shoulder with trembling hands as he stabbed at the creature's bloated abdomen. It began to bleed steadily from its wounds as Dany's first arrow struck, and it began to crawl away on its remaining legs, straight into the path of the second, far from its intended target. A shrill shriek echoed through the room as the arrow buried itself in one of the creature's beady eyes.

Taking advantage of its pain and distraction, Sandor stabbed his blade deep into its belly, and with a final whine of agony, it fell, its legs curling as it died from its injuries.

Daenerys looked ready to lose the contents of her stomach as she rejoined her companion, and she purposefully kept her eyes from the spider's corpse.

"Can we go?" she asked quietly, and when Sandor nodded, they continued on.

The passage beyond was covered in thick webbing, but with enough hacking from Sandor's sword it gave way, as did the rotted wooden door behind it. As they pushed their way through, they came upon another lowered iron gate, though the chain at its side raised it simply enough without any need for magick or theatrics.

At the end of the room beyond was a large stone pedestal, and atop it, a pair of hands, cradled in the shape of a horn.

"This is it then."

As they entered the room, the ground began to tremble, and from the clear water on either side of the stone walkway to the horn, six ebony statues emerged, carved into a crude likeness of dragons' heads that snarled down upon them as they regained their footing and moved toward the treasure of Jurgen Windcaller.

When they reached the pedestal, however, the hands held no horn, and in their place rested a scrap of paper.

"Gods damn it!" Sandor cried, a savage frown across his features.

Dany, for her part, stayed quiet and removed the paper from its resting place. After a moment, she began to read aloud.

Dragonborn—

I need to speak to you. Urgently.

Rent the attic room at the Sleeping Giant in Riverwood, and I'll meet you.

It was signed simply: - A friend.