d|b

-Nurrkha'jay-

According to Falen, the wyrms had flown away and north from Markarth, and according to Kierra, they were low to the ground so as to take appropriate refuge among the high cliffs and old highland territory. Nurr believed the both of them.

"There's an old crypt I recall in this vicinity," Falen frowned as they collected themselves in an abandoned troll cave, night setting in heavily around them. "Ragnvald, it's called. Enormous decorative arches adorn the vast entrance outside the old ruin. Those would make perches suitable for dragons young or old, while the plaza below is broad enough for even a full-grown dragon to curl."

"That's their location, then," Marcel announced.

Nurr frowned at him. "So you've seen them gathered there, have you?"

The boy blinked. "Uh…well, no, not yet…"

Nurr's voice hardened. "You haven't seen them gathered in the dale of Ragnvald, nor have you ever been to the dale of Ragnvald, yet you ascertain that that is the only place where our quarry might gather? The rest of the mountains of Markarth are unsuitable for them? They could be found no place else at all?"

Marcel seemed to understand, finally. He ducked his eyes in appropriate shame. "I'm sorry, I just…I thought—"

"You presumed," Nurr interrupted harshly. "You must never presume with these monstrosities. You can never know the true mind of the dragon unless you're half a one, and clearly those poor bastards can be twisted into just as abhorrent abominations." He allowed the impact of his words to sink firmly under the lad's skin. "Never presume, boy. Always anticipate. Maybe then you'll get to my age and have a few kills under your boot."

"I'm sorry," Marcel tried again.

Kierra shot Nurr a look. Growling out the rest of his impatience, and trying to ignore the indignant stare Raegim was certainly sending his way, Nurr continued. "It's most likely," he said crisply, "that the old crypt is where they'd congregate. It's sheltered from the worst of the Reach weather, and there's room for more than one to gather. Currently we are…how many miles south of the place?"

Falen consulted his map. "Three miles or so from here."

"Right." Nurr rubbed his temples. Gods, he hated leadership. How the hell did Lio keep up with it? "For now we need to establish a perimeter. Falen, you know this land best. I want you to find out if the wyrms are outside the crypt and, if they are, to discover an alternative way in that allows Auril and I to get close enough to hear anything they're saying. Marcel—" How that boy jumped. "—go with Falen. I've heard only good things of you from Jor. Prove them tonight." Nurr hoped he'd kept enough of the sarcasm out of his voice so as not to hurt the kid's feelings. Marcel gave no sign of it. His face just lit up, he nodded breathlessly, and scurried after the Bosmer.

Glad the boy was out of the way now, Nurr turned to Kierra. "You're the best at keeping the soul of our mission under control. I continue to entrust his welfare to you. Stay here, manage the horses, don't move more than half a mile from this location."

Kierra rolled her eyes at him. "Aye, sir," she said unenthusiastically. No doubt she was tired of mothering the fretful Imperial, whose eyes jumped nervously between Redguard and Khajiit, his hands seemingly determined to tie each other into a knot.

"Raegim," Nurr continued, "come with me. There's something I want you to see."

They were on their way, and he was impressed she had the tact to wait until they were at least out of earshot of those behind them, when Raegim started on him. "What is it you have against Marcel?" she demanded.

As he did often with Emilyn, Nurr decided to draw this thing out. "I've no idea what you're talking about."

Raegim was far from stupid. "Yes you do. You know full well."

Nurr pictured her puffing up with righteous anger, which succeeded in making him feel slightly wretched. "Marcel," he said at last, "is not suited for this sort of life."

"You don't know that."

"Oh yes I do, girl."

"How?"

"How? Well, not only have I known that gangly lad from his first day in the Temple, I've seen him fight, and each time I see that I want to cringe. Understandably he was confused around a sword as a kid—most are, especially if they've come from non-fighting families—but he never improved. A year on he was the bum of his peers. A year later, the laughing stock, the joke of the Order." Nurr turned to Raegim. "I'm hard on him because it's for his own bloody good. This isn't a nice world, and this isn't a world that's welcome to mistakes. One mistake in this life means you are most likely dead or worse. I can only see Marcel doing just that, and it's going to kill him."

Raegim's brow furrowed. "He's good for other things," she insisted. "He's sensible. He helped me when we had to hide."

"Hiding would have been less risky; we blended back there," Nurr corrected. "But yes," he admitted, "he has a bit of sense. At least he knows when to put his head down." He frowned at the girl. "Good thing you didn't panic, though if you did you'd be afraid of the things, am I right?"

"Probably, Nurrkha'jay. The wyrms weren't a threat, anyway. They didn't even notice us."

"So imagine the threat they'd be if they had seen us."

"They would've attacked? How would you know?"

"How?" Nurr repeated incredulously. "They would have! Wyrms are desperate little beasts determined to grow into their wings, and there's no faster way than stuffing themselves—preferably on us, men and mer. What in Nirn makes you think otherwise?"

Raegim shrugged. "I thought you didn't know everything about the dragons."

"We know enough," Nurr growled, "and I know enough about those brutes to know that Marcel is not dragon slayer material. I can't understand what the hell Jor saw in him."

"Jor believed in him," said Raegim, "so why can't you?"

Nurr laughed at that one. "Because," he said, "Jor and I have never seen eye to eye. If I say 'right' he'll say 'left'. We're opposites like that."

The last of the sunset was fading from the sky. Patched cloud revealed glimpses of two astonishingly bright moons, though mist remained thick throughout the valleys. Nurr would have preferred it darker, but at least that meant the girl could occasionally see where she was putting her feet.

"He's a good heart," Raegim insisted eventually. "He's kind. He's practical."

"Good qualities," Nurr admitted, "but that doesn't make him a slayer."

"So what else could he have been, if not like you?"

"Several things. He might have made an excellent acolyte, for example. The physically inept often gravitate to that sort of service. Keep working at that trade, and Marcel would have earned a good deal more respect as a junior archivist than he currently has as a warrior. I doubt he would have made as good a spy. Too timid."

"Are those all the occupations of an Order, then?" asked Raegim. "Slayer, archivist or spy?"

Nurr shook his head. Oh, how to explain? "If you want to get technical, there are only two occupations available in the Blades Order however you'll see it: agent or archivist. That was the way of it three hundred years ago, and that's the way of it again. The Apprentice enforced that, bringing together a smattering of all she knew of the present, the past, and the very distant past to create this future, making us more than a match for our ancient enemy."

"Could you explain?"

"I'll try, I haven't had a drink in a while. Used to be that Blades worked for the Empire, as you'll probably know quite well at this point. We had agents scattered throughout the entirety of Tamriel, in the most obscure of places. Farmhands or merchants, alchemists or sellswords, no occupation was too high or too low to play the most effective cover. All reported to the Grandmaster, the most reclusive of them all. The Grandmaster was the pinnacle of the agents, just as the Chronicler was the pinnacle of the archivists."

"Chronicler?"

"The fellow…ah…" How did they phrase it in the old history texts? "The person in charge of not knowing the mission in detail," said Nurr slowly, "but ensuring that it was never lost. Something rather vague and cryptic like that"

Raegim tried to puzzle it through. "Would Rendal be our Chronicler then?"

Nurr snorted. "No idea. I tend to stay well away from that side of affairs in the Order. All I know is that Rendal is the old wise man who tends to the old tomes and texts to make sure they're never lost. Guess you could consider him a Chronicler, if anything.

"Going back to the original topic, you're either an agent or archivist. This new Fifth Age Order focuses on two branches of agent work. You're either what we once were in the past, monitors of the enemy's activities while playing good cover as an ordinary citizen of this twisted new empire, or what we once were in the very distant past, echoes of our predecessors the Dragonguard. Those ones, me, Lio, Kierra and so on, are bladed and reside permanently in the Temple, awaiting further instruction. Our spies only come back to us if they're compromised or if they have new recruits."

"And archivists?"

"If we're the brawn, they're the brain. Their duty is to make sure the rest of the Order isn't blind stupid when they head out. Insight is practically foresight in these dire times—especially when it concerns dragons." Nurr gave a dry laugh. "You've no idea how much preparation goes in before each raid, child. Before every one of them, we learn the type of dragon we're about to kill, whether it be brown-skins or the rarer Reds. Each fellow selected to join the hunt studies an anatomy chart the archivists provide and update at the first opportunity, which is infrequent, to say the least. Rarely do we capture dragons alive. In any case, studying those charts gives us the benefit of knowing where to aim when we confront the horror."

Raegim seemed thoughtful. "Capturing dragons? You capture them?"

Was she reflecting on his earlier explanation on how Blades would willingly exterminate entire nests, including the babies? Nurr shook his head to that, and answered, "Rarely, I repeat. Rarely. Originally, when the Temple was unsealed over a century ago, it wasn't as extended as it's become today. Saying this, we didn't have the Dragon Trench."

"Dragon Trench?" she echoed.

Nurr knew that tone. "You haven't been down to the cells yet, then."

"I didn't know we even had anything of the sort."

"Know now, we do. The Apprentice herself oversaw its construction in the bowels of the Temple. Would-be wayfarers seeking the Temple, dragonmen patrols that came by too close, dragons themselves, the cells are constructed to hold any and all of our mindful enemies. That's how most of our anatomy papers originated, from dragons ensnared by the growing Blades Order—all in secret, which was what made the Apprentice all the more remarkable—archivists jump at the opportunity to examine a live specimen."

Raegim shook her head. "That's barbaric," she muttered.

As barbaric as killing hatchlings, you mean? Nurr flattened his ears. She could be right, but we know no longer. She's just a child. She still sees our ways with foreign eyes. Forgive her. Be patient, as Gelwin was timelessly with you. "These wyrms we're tailing," Raegim went on, "are we going to kill them or capture them?"

"Neither," said Nurr firmly. "This is an observation. Strictly. We want to divine the purpose for their recent rowdiness. Their manner of performing such destruction is…unusual, to have Emilyn describe it. Wyrms don't operate in packs like wolves. Usually they're competing for resources."

She'd gone quiet at the mention of wolves. Nurr hastily left the subject.

"Going back to the function of archivist and their acolytes: history is theirs to keep, to preserve and to build upon for the next generations to come. We draw strength from the past to last out the present. You spend years under Rendal's tutorage as an acolyte, and then they have a quiet little ceremony of their own when you are burdened with that responsibility of archivist—which is, essentially, a librarian who can boss everyone else about. Only they don't. Humility appears to be drilled into every acolyte from day one."

Raegim picked her way over a particularly gritty bit of highland before she asked next, "So we are the agents of the very distant past, then?"

"You could say that," Nurr replied, helping her up. "Slayers, I suppose. We never call ourselves that, though. Forget I ever did. Blade suffices. If we hang around Sky Haven Temple donned in the proud armour of our predecessors, our purpose is pretty clear; we're the fellows who transcend into the perfect dragon slayers." He eyed the girl to make sure she was taking all this in. He needn't have worried. "But almost half of our Order isn't to be found in the Temple. They play the part of spy, scattered throughout Skyrim, playing the convincing roles of simpleton farmers or servants in warden courts, all the while providing Emilyn intelligence of current affairs. You'll find our influence has spread to almost every settlement. A most effective way of keeping our ranks filled."

They had a short reprieve as they scrambled over a treacherous yawning canyon, where mist swirled coolly far below them. The ground was arching uphill. They'd made good time, Nurr considered. The last of dragonsong had faded slowly from the world. He wondered if all this scrabbling and riding had been for nothing; if the wyrms had decided to sleep out the night. At least, if Ragnvald did serve as it, they'd uncovered their lair, and where better did creatures loosen their tongues than in the comfort of what they considered home?

"There are ranks in all this, I hope you know," Nurr added, as the moons slipped behind a drift of cloud. "We've a master-of-arms, usually the greatest warrior of his day now retired, responsible now for shaping the new generation of warriors to come after him. We also have a blacksmith, who's trained in the old Akaviri arts of smithcraft and keeps all our bits of metal sharp and shiny. Yes, even he gets initiates like that Orc lad, what's-his-face…"

"Slag."

"Knew that. Emilyn, of course, is Grandmaster, the matriarch of this entire operation, and Rendal we just agreed is the closest thing to a Chronicler we've got. Those are the formal ranks. We have ranks among ourselves, unspoken and undeclared, but we all know it, and we tick along nicely like clockwork. And that brings an end to the lecture." Nurr studied his apprentice thoughtfully. "Something tells me that you'd do rather well in both regards of agent, but you've been assigned to me. That means you're probably going to follow in my footsteps one day." More seriously, he added, "So it's my job to make you ready for that day."

Raegim caught up to him and looked him dead in the eye. "I'll train hard," she vowed. "This is my life now."

Nurr's whiskers twitched. Her constant seriousness for such a young child never ceased to amuse him. "So it seems. You've clicked in quite well with our affairs, haven't you?"

They continued on. "Well enough," Raegim confessed. "There's much to learn, and this is a dramatic change from the life Agalf and I once led…but we will prevail, I know we will. Like heroes in the stories our parents told us at night, who conquered the impossible because they wanted to. Will drives us forward. It's the only thing that can, really."

Nurr chuckled. "Who taught you that one, then?"

She blinked. "No one," she answered. "It just made sense."

"Keep telling yourself things like that, then. That'll help you stay alive."

The wind was growing stronger. They were nearly where Nurr wanted them to be.

"Where is it we're going?" Raegim asked, puffing a little. Nurr was suddenly reminded that the girl wasn't used to moving in such heavy armour, even if it was shrunken to her size. She was doing quite well in this. "What was it that you wanted me to see?" she added, at his responding silence.

"Wait."

Nurr hauled himself up and over a cliff, and reached down and pulled Raegim up after him. He stood her up. The wind was so strong it slapped them both in the face and brought water to their eyes. It tore Nurr's hood clean off and stung his ears. He gestured to the dark countryside sprawled out below him. "We're at the pinnacle of a ridge of stone," he said, "and we can see days' journeys from this point. Wait for the moons to come out, and you'll see what I want you to see."

They didn't have to wait long. Cloaks flapping in the gale, they stood on the cliff peak. Raegim's senses were drifting across the Reach, but Nurr's attention was focused to one distant dark smudge only his eyes could see in the darkness.

Until the moons were aglow in the sky once more.

"Find the Karth," he murmured without turning away. "Find it. Should be a streak of silver in all this mud and stone."

"I see it," the girl said after a second or two. "I think I can even see the shelf where the Temple's hidden."

"Follow it north," said Nurr.

Raegim seemed puzzled, but obeyed without question. "There's…something on the horizon," she mused. "Looks like a little town. What's there to see?"

"Look again," Nurr ordered.

This she did, and her face, pinched with the cold, paled somewhat. "Do you know what that is?" Nurr asked her.

She didn't tear her eyes away from the sight beyond. "Ruins," she breathed.

Nurr studied the ashen skeleton of what once had been a hamlet, tucked in the shadow of the mountains overlooking the Karth River. "Falen would know its name," he rasped. "Think, child. Think on what you see. Once it was a prosperous little town, able to scratch a living off rock just like all the other settlements to be found outside the city walls. Then dragons found it, and whether those townsfolk were supporters or secret crusaders, they all burned one day or night."

He gestured as he continued. "Someone of high regard must have lived there, you know; there are ruins of a longhouse amid the blackened stones of cottages. I can see what used to be a blacksmith's workshop. His forge is fallen to pieces, his home reduced to dust—and the smith? Well, he probably made a juicy mouthful. I wonder if he had a family, and if their fates were his when this town fed some dragons' insatiable appetites."

"I've seen a burned house once," Raegim whispered. "One of our townsfolk didn't quell his fire one night, and it spread. Nobody died, though…they all got out, and the house was burned out, a black shell of what it once had been…such destruction amazed me…"

"Be amazed further," Nurr muttered, flattening his ears. "Dragons have done this—and do you know how I know, Raegim? If it were stronger light, I'd show you—there are vast streaks and scorches in the earth, long black lines that prove that it was dragonfire, for those brutes love nothing better than laying waste to their crawling foes while they glide above us on bone-and-blood wings.

"Now have a deeper think about this; you don't know the town, you don't know the people, you don't even know its name—but just imagine its soul. That shouldn't be hard for one who once was a part of such a community. Labouring men, labouring women, children at play and elders at rest; various animals, pets and livestock, shambling about on their business; travellers, spending a night at an inn, having their weapons sharpened and armour mended at that blacksmith's, or merchants simply come to trade. There was a thriving soul here once, and the dragons, for seemingly no reason, decided to kill it. They burn the houses, devour or slaughter the people, and gorge themselves on the flesh of the defeated while they savour their bloody victory. The town's defenses are badly designed, for dragons are our overlords now, and so to arm ourselves against them would be viewed as an act of treachery. But it's right for them, apparently, to kill their slaves when they want to be fed and can't be bothered tracking goats through the mountains. Of course the settlement didn't stand a chance. Those who didn't run were lost. Injustice after injustice was performed that night the town died, whatever it once had been—and what happened then? The cinders were left to taint the air, the dragons departed to whatever business awaited them beyond, and the town was abandoned and forgotten."

Nurr shook his head. "How many times this has happened, Raegim…some of your Blades Brothers can tell you of surviving such incidents. It's how so many have fallen among our numbers. We've agents scattered across Skyrim, disguised in plainclothes, residing in hovels and cities under guises and aliases clever enough to fool even a dragon's ever-knowing eye. Their job is to keep track of our enemy's movements, and to keep our Order supplied with new vengeful souls to join our crusade."

Raegim turned away. "Like what happened with Agalf and I, and Valheim," she murmured.

"Aye." Nurr planted a hand on her plated shoulder. "That town, girl, was just a glimpse of what villainies these creatures do. You'll hear a dragon proclaim his honour, but that's a poisoned perception at best; true honour is about keeping your word, and those townspeople rightly believed that so long as they showed loyalty to the dragon cause, they would not be harmed. Their banes didn't even need a true reason. Hunger and lust for destruction drove them to that attack. A foreshadowing of what our unchecked horrors are capable of committing."

She closed her eyes. "I still cannot fear them," she said. "I'm only disgusted, and angry."

"I've mixed feelings about that response," Nurr muttered.

Raegim's brow furrowed. "Is anger bad to feel?"

"It's like fear, girl; when you can channel it right, nothing serves you better in the fight."

"Strange. I would've thought that anger would have been a burden. A distraction."

"It takes practice, and years and years of it, to master our emotions so that even in the high tide and flush of battle, our heads are clear and our wit is as sharp as an assassin's blade. Anger reinforces the purpose and the drive. Fear keeps us, for the most part, out of harm's way. Ever wonder how you can achieve the impossible in a flush of adrenalin?"

She considered this a rhetorical question. Nurr sighed. "Come on. Seeing a dragon's destruction, and seeing a dragon, are two very different things."

He wondered if it had been a good idea to bring Raegim on this hunt after all. All she'd learned was not really of dragons, but of the Order itself, which she could have gained in good time from skulking about the Temple eavesdropping on various conversations. Nurr suspected a full report to Emilyn when (if!) he returned, and he didn't like the face she wore when he presented said report in his mind…

He was jolted from his thoughts by the descent down. Apparently, climbing up something was a good deal easier than climbing down. In the darkness, it was treacherous even for a Khajiit. The ledge they'd been using for a path became precarious at best, resulting him often scrabbling for purchase. He often had to turn back and haul Raegim down from something he considered too dangerous for a kid to scramble down in the pitch. She really is too small for this, Nurr berated himself. Maybe bringing her along was a mistake after all. No way am I letting this on to Jor, but she's only been in the Order barely a month. Remind me, why did I take her with me?

He answered his own question. To let her experience dragons without restraint.

And eavesdropping on, quite possibly, an entirely Draconic conversation will really help.

Nurr cast the dubious thoughts from his skull. Only one way was ever open to a Blade; forward.

They came back to the cave, where in the gathering brume a small fire had been kindled. Kierra sat huddled beside it, stirring something in a small iron pot. Auril was feverishly going over his notes. The horses (and pony) dozed placidly behind them. Nurr had barely opened his mouth to speak when his ears tingled to the sound of scrambling footsteps. He spun around, hand automatically on his bow, to the sight of Falen and Marcel bounding into the depression.

"They're there!" Marcel gasped, with eyes shining from a bloodless face.

"In the crypt dale," Falen clarified. "They're still awake, and gorging when we found them. They'd raided farms outside the city walls."

Nurr's countenance darkened as he released his weapon. "How many?"

"Five—Marcel counted six," Falen added, frowning.

"There was!" Marcel piped up. "Six! It wasn't a shadow!"

"Silence, boy!" Nurr snapped, and Marcel's mouth clapped shut. Ignoring the look Raegim sent his way, he turned back to Falen. "Any alternative route in?"

"There's a good climb to a ridge overlooking the dale. Your map, Nurr. I'll mark it in. I'm not going back there." There was a crispness to Falen's tone that suggested no argument was required.

Nurr, of course, argued. "Why the hell not?"

Falen's amber glare hardened. "It's not just livestock they're eating."

Nurr wanted to protest further—dragons ate mortals all the time, that was the very soul of this goddamned tyranny, was it not?—but something stopped him. He'd heard Falen's story once, several years ago, while he was rather drunk…but he recalled snippets of it now. Rogghart had patted the Bosmer on his back and assured him that he understood, quite horrifically well.

"Fine," he grumbled, passing the map to Falen, who took it wordlessly and settled by the flames. Nurr then turned to Raegim. "You're still awake, I take it?"

She blinked, startled. "You mean…?"

"You're coming. I want you to see this."

Raegim, still bewildered, ducked her head in acceptance. Kierra, meanwhile, had fixed a mistrusting stare upon Nurr, and she irritably beckoned him to a dark corner where they could mutter in peace. Nurr stumped over.

"You sick or something?" Kierra hissed. "That sort of sight might scar her!"

"And all the better it does," Nurr snapped back, "else she'll never get her head into this life."

"Give her time!"

"Time is of the essence, damn it," Nurr retorted. "The girl has to know what monsters they can be."

Kierra folded her arms. "She's ten, Moon."

"That's old enough." Something most bitter crept into Nurr's tone, souring his tongue. "Don't tell me children her age haven't seen horrors. Her entire village was slaughtered by wolves. She knows the sight of a corpse."

"Nurrkha'jay!" Falen proffered the map. "Best of luck."

Kierra glowered at him and stalked back to the flames. Nurr closed his eyes, sighed, and went to collect his folded parchment. "Raegim, Auril!" he rasped. "Come on. Those sprats will be lively for a while yet after their meal."

They came, one more quietly than the other. Nurr drew his cloak tighter about himself and led the way into the highland fog.

Without Kierra to shut him up, Auril's frenzied mutterings rang unchecked as they progressed deeper into the highlands of the Reach. The Imperial jumped at every shadow. Nurr wondered what sort of hellish past he must've had to have made him so timid; he was certain books and parchment didn't terrorize their tenders to that extent. That was probably the only trifle that came close to amusing him as they walked the miles north, the moons slowly climbing higher and higher into the sky. The clouds were growing thicker, less light slipping free. There were times when even Nurr had some slight difficulty seeing.

Unexpectedly he turned to Raegim, who trod quietly just behind him. "You tired?" he grunted.

Raegim blinked, then shook her head.

"It's like late-night hunts at home," she said, "but…to be honest, I've had trouble sleeping ever since Krentuld was lost." Something nostalgic crept over her face. Nurr decided to shut up while he was ahead.

Auril skipped up behind them, nervously running his palm over the flat of his head. With an accompanying noisy swallow he asked, jittering, "How…how…how many did the boy say there'd…there'd be, of the dragon youths?"

Nurr snorted. "Does it matter?"

"Just that…just that…" Auril caught himself and tried again. "How many can you shoot?" he asked with infinite care.

"As many as that need shooting," was Nurr's gruff answer.

He consulted his map. "The trail is just up ahead," he announced, softly; in the thickening fog his senses were muted, which meant there could be an enemy close at hand and they might not even realize it. "Everyone, keep near." At this he halted them and looked firmly at both child and adult. "I presume you know the first rule of following a Khajiit in the dark?"

Both appeared respectfully blank.

"Don't pull on his goddamned tail."

They began the climb to what Falen had labelled the summit, a good observation point for happenings below. Nurr soon found himself appreciating this little group, which surprised him. Despite her tripping, stumbling or near-falling every hesitant step, Raegim persisted without a sound of protest, and a most interesting change had come over Auril. He stopped quavering, his head finally screwed on the right way, he shut up, and in his eyes gleamed the focused expression Nurr had seen many times in the stares of his fellow Blades as they prepared to assault a dragon's lair. Unparalleled concentration. This was Auril's moment, his area of expertise; perhaps he was glad to finally be of use.

Beyond came the distant sound of muted snarls, thuds and growls.

Nurr soundlessly motioned both to wait while he bounded up the last few rocks and crawled on his front to the edge of the risen peak. Ragnvald stretched below him, a treacherous valley of stones and gritty earth and ancient carvings that had survived since the Dragon Wars. Clinging to the broken arches or sprawled across the spacious plaza below were the wyrms.

Nurr disliked wyrms. How they appeared tended to annoy him. Their grand crests, distinctive horns and the fullness of their colouring were all yet to come out, which was probably not going to be for several decades or so; for now they just appeared lean, scrawny lizards with massive talons, an absurdly long tail and oversized wings that sort of drooped everywhere. The very definition of gangly youth, adapted for dragonkind.

So he saw six of them gathered there, a few dozing off their meals, the rest guzzling the scraps with disquieting enthusiasm. Marcel had counted accurately, though Nurr had never really trusted Falen's perception around dragons themselves. He scraped together all that he knew of the dragon species and attempted to divine their separate breeds, in the murk and their lack of adult body growths. Two looked to be young Bloods, by the growing frills around their skulls and the greenish hue of their scales. One would one day be an Elder, by the tawny splotches on its pale wings. One was, quite unmistakably, a Frost; even the young ones were fiercely shaded white, indigo and black. The last pair were ordinary common brown-skins. Perhaps what was most interesting about them was that one of the brown-skins was the largest in the group, while the other was the smallest.

Corpses were strewn on the ground between them; remnants of sheep, cattle, even a horse; and Nurr was just in time to catch someone's arm disappearing down the Frost's quivering gullet. It seemed to eat slower than its brethren, given that there were still half-eaten bodies it guarded and attended to every few mouthfuls.

They were still speaking, and it seemed to Nurr that it was urgent; their voices bounced about the old stone and indistinct words made themselves clear to his ears; words he could hardly understand.

He backed carefully back down the hill and beckoned Raegim and Auril up to his position. They came, creeping as quietly as they dared to. "Voices down, not a sound," Nurr growled to them both as they rested flat on their stomachs staring down into the vale. "Even young Bloods have keen senses."

"Will they see us?" Auril breathed.

Nurr rolled his eyes. "If they could, this kind of compromises the mission, no? Now, what are they talking about?"

A great burst of clipped snarling sprang forth from the gathered dragons. "What the hell are they doing?" Nurr demanded.

"Laughing," Auril muttered. "They were muttering about how delectable they found mortal flesh…ghastly brutes…one joked about how we tend to fight back."

"They didn't name us?"

"The Order? No, we're still a phantom to them, fortunately…" Auril seemed hardly timid. He listened intently, forming the sentences under his tongue. Nurr was resigned to watch. Raegim's eyes were glued to the Frost slowly devouring its prey. It had not participated in the bout of its kindred's mirth.

Dialogue went on, and within moments they were laughing again. "The smallest one warned that we can be fearsome if we must be," Auril hissed, "and one of the others jeered at it…"

"Just mimic their dialogue directly," Nurr hissed. "I'll find out who's talking to who."

So with Auril's whispered drone on the edge of his hearing, Nurr searched among the wyrms, looking for the moving jaws, the glittering eyes, the twisted expressions upon their faces. The laughter subsided and it was the smallest brown-skin that spoke next, in sharp retort to its tormentor.

Through its distant spit, Auril translated flawlessly: "Don't mock me, unspeakable! Was a mortal not foretold to destroy us all?"

Nurr's ears pricked. "Dragonborn?" Raegim breathed, who was listening just as intently. "But isn't he…?"

"Shh," Nurr chastised her.

One of the Bloods answered, kinking its long throat. Even its growl was mocking. "That mortal is now a pawn of the Firstborn. Faithful, too. I only wonder why Master Alduin kept him so long. Perhaps he delights in a pet."

The other wyrms bellowed with laughter. The smallest snapped its wings in an indignant fashion.

It was at this point the Frost's head jerked up. Its hiss was long, frigid and bitter, and Nurr marveled at how Auril managed to discern anything the thing had said: "Mind your tongue, outspoken. I have heard that Master Alduin treats Joorpaalrah as an equal, and there is no equal to the Firstborn, our Elder of Ancient Eldest. I have heard that he has given that 'mortal' secrets beyond our comprehension. Insidious powers and gifts that resonate with his soul…"

The Blood made a mixed sound somewhere between a bark and a sneeze, apparently which was equal to, "Bah!" Its rumbled response was swiftly unraveled by Auril's quick mind. "A mortal body that bears an immortal spirit…it is a blasphemy upon our noble race!"

The young Elder dragon interrupted, snarling eagerly, "He was to be our greatest fear, our hunter to the end. It was prudent that Master Alduin turned him to our cause."

There's too much talking about those infamous two for my liking, Nurr frowned. What in Oblivion have those scaled bats been up to?

"Have you seen him, the one mortals name the Dread?" the other Blood inquired of the Frost, sliding down its perch a little.

The largest brown-skinned wyrm answered its Blood counterpart: "Dread him they should, for he was once a man; pale softskin meat, like the meal we enjoyed just now. But when Master Alduin named the so-called Dragonborn, he left mortality behind. He ascended, my brothers, into our brotherhood itself!"

Nurr stiffened. This conversation has become quite interesting…

"What do they mean?" Raegim whispered. Nurr motioned her to be silent. Hastily she obeyed.

The response was sharp and self-assured, and came from the first Blood: "Don't be ridiculous. No mortal would dare to."

The Frost raised its head again, effortlessly commanding the attention of all. "Joorpaalrah bears a dragon's name, and a dragon's soul. It must not have taken him long to shed his mortal flesh and assume the wings of one of us. Think. He is older than any of us. Imagine the power that sleeps in his soul! Imagine it!"

A short silence followed, in which Auril recollected himself. The man's lips had moved so fast it was almost as if he were speaking through the dragons themselves. No wonder Rendal had dispatched this acolyte for an eavesdropping.

The young Elder broke the quiet first. "I can almost taste it."

The Frost turned to it. "Undoubtedly many others have also. Yet all who have tried have failed."

The largest brown-skin appeared to cough, but Auril translated it as an echo: "Failed?"

The Frost turned an imperious eye upon its brethren. "Yes—and each failure makes him stronger. It pleases our Master. That is why he does not kill him."

The first Blood appeared daunted by the Frost's certainty. Head weaving, it spat a furious response. "How do you know this? You are as young as any of us!"

The Frost's answer was long and poetic. "Clearly cleverer than you, fool-mind. Together our Master and Joorpaalrah conquer this world many times over. The Firstborn did not succeed in the First Quelling. Mortals defeated him. Even before our brethren were restored from the death slumber our Master and Joorpaalrah completed the Second Quelling, and assured our sovereignty over all."

The second Blood protested. "It was not hard. They are only mortals."

"Mere mortals defeated him once," offered the Elder wyrm, which appeared ambiguous in the debate.

"Mere mortals make good feasting!" the largest brown-skin added, with another rattling bout of mirth.

The Frost arched its throat and spoke again. "They are only mortals indeed, and they were reminded of it in the Second Quelling. Such was our victory that the Eldest decreed the females to breed. We are the new generation of power, my brothers. We must ensure to prove our strength for when Master Alduin returns from the south. We shall be the first to bow our wing to him."

Nurr divined the meaning clearly enough. So these damned sprats are flying about trying to curry favour with their overlord? That's all there is to it? All my gods…what else was there to expect? Damn loyalists…

The smallest brown-skin appeared to have misgivings of this idea. "He will not take us seriously," translated Auril. "He will see us as weak and stupid."

Every movement radiating smugness, the first Blood turned and told it, "Not if we conquer what the Eldest could not."

"Eldest?" Raegim asked.

"The generation of dragons that remember the Dragon Wars," Auril said swiftly, "now hush!" He concentrated on the next speaker, the second Blood. "The stone den of craven-hearted mortals will quake in our rising Voice!"

Nurr snorted. "Markarth, no doubt," he muttered to himself.

The first Blood published a short speech as poetic as the Frost's. "The Eldest of us will bend their wings to us one day, we shall ensure that. The more we feed, the greater we'll grow. Mortals breed so quickly, and there are so many of them. We will grow quickly on their bones."

The Frost snapped and snarled, and it seemed to Nurr its tone had soured.

"Not quickly enough. Master Alduin comes on his great black wings, and they darken the frigid mountains between the Elder Land and the scavenged south. His Ancient Eldest gather there. We cannot outgrow what we cannot outfly." Then Auril froze, as though the translated sentences had at last relayed upon him their meaning. His face drained of blood.

"What is it?" Nurr asked, impatient; the creatures were at it again, bickering as only wyrms could.

"Don't you see?" the acolyte whispered, trembling. "Do you not understand their motive? Not realize why they have commenced such scavenging and slaughtering now, and not before?"

Nurr took a moment to untangle the riddle—and upon doing so, its realized impact was an equivalent of a slap in the face. Though unnecessary, he admitted his revelation aloud.

"Alduin is returning to Skyrim."

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