Urun gra-Durak and Hrolbjorn the Many
24 Last Seed, 4E 178
Dawnstar, Skyrim
The voice came to Urun in her dreams, as it often did. That voice like living mountains locked in combat, rumbling with such intensity that no other thought was possible, words crashing across her mind, flaying the doubt and the uncertainty of her mortal ego, leaving behind only His command.
You must go deep within the rock, beyond the wood. There you will find the broken houses of the weak and conquered, and the stone that shall be your guidance.
The Orc woke with a start, sweat slick on her brow, breath catching in her throat.
Mauloch. His command was both vague and absolute. And always it was an honor, to receive that direction once more, to be guided toward her true destiny by His hand.
Urun kicked off her furs and rose out of bed, taking deep, even breaths and reacclimating to the silence of the inn room, the current of her own thoughts. Always in the wake of these visions, these commands, there was a moment of terror as she returned to herself and felt her own smallness, her own insignificance in the face of her god.
But she was chosen. Those years ago on the blood slick sands of Hammerfell, Mauloch reached out to her in her dying moments, body ravaged by spellfire and mace blows. She was saved, and in return she was given purpose, a role to play. An essential role, however small.
Her fellow soldiers had called her mad, urged her to see a healer, but they could not hear His voice. Urun knew that nothing her mind could conjure could equal the force of His commands, of His visions. She was sane, and this was the greater burden.
With a sigh, she forced herself out of bed and stoked a fire in the fireplace with a bit of flint and tinder from her pack. She was still new to Skyrim, fresh off the boat after her latest vision and command in Farrun had led her here. His words were still fresh in her mind, and she could intuit the tasks she need take next, but she would still need a guide.
She dressed quickly, pulling on her smallclothes and then her gambeson, and securing the straps and fastenings of her orichalc armor. Out the window, the sun had already begun to rise on Dawnstar.
…
Despite the early hour, the inn was alive with at least two dozen patrons, mostly local miners and fishermen getting a quick breakfast before the day's work began in earnest. It was evident from their stares that none of them had been here the night before when Urun had initially arrived.
Their stares ranged from any a small town local would give a passing stranger to something darker and more suspicious. The room quieted for just a moment before conversations resumed in full.
Urun walked to the bar where a young man with long red hair and a shaggy beard tended a large cauldron over a cookfire. A little girl likely not more than two years old tugged at his pantleg.
"Hail," Urun called out, trying not to speak so forcefully she drew the attention of the patrons again. For Urun, that often required effort. "What's that over the fire?"
"Horker stew," the man replied, not looking up from his work slicing carrots directly into the simmering broth. "It'll always be horker stew, traveller. Care for a bowl?"
"Please."
He carefully ladled a mix of ingredients into a wooden bowl, the contents steaming pleasantly into the air.
"Run along now, Karita," he said to the tiny little girl, shooing her out from behind the bar. As he turned to set the bowl down before Urun, he seemed to hesitate a moment at the sight of her.
"Not many Orcs in Dawnstar," he said simply. "My wife rent you the room?"
"The bard? Yes. She got me all settled last night."
Urun sipped a spoonful of broth. The flavor was savory and the warmth felt lovely on her throat.
"Good. Staying long?"
She shook her head. "Just for the night. I'm heading southeast, past Winterhold. I'll need a guide though."
The barkeep scratched his chin for a moment. "I suppose I know a man that might do the job."
…
It took some time for the barkeep's directions to bear fruit. And after an hour or so of treading outside the town she was beginning to think that maybe the man had just been trying to get rid of her. But no, there it was, a little encampment nestled in a dip in the mountains.
"Hope you mean well," came a voice from down in the valley. It took Urun a moment to fix her eyes on him in the glare of the sun against the snow. There against a rock outcropping stood a Nord man with a bow drawn and an arrow nocked, if not pointed in Urun's general direction.
"Very well," she replied in that confidence that came of having a god at your back. "I have a job for you."
"Who's telling you I'm doing jobs?"
"That barkeep back in Dawnstar."
"Thoring, that son of a bitch. Alright, fine, what's the job?"
"Just need a guide. Heading out east, past Winterhold."
After a pause, he put the arrow back in the quiver at his waist. "What's out there for you?"
"My destiny," Urun replied without thinking.
"You taken a blow to the head recently, lady?"
She couldn't help but smile. "Yes but that's beside the point. I'll pay you five hundred drakes, two-fifty up front and the other after."
The man seemed to start nodding even before he'd decided to accept the offer. "I mean, yeah. Yeah, I can do five hundred. I'm assuming this is going to be dangerous?"
She tapped at the hilt of the curved greatsword at her hip. "This isn't for show."
He thumbed the sheath of the dagger at his hip. "But damn if it isn't showy."
He stepped forward then, and at last she got a good look at him. The sides of of the young man's head were shaved and the short beard he grew on his handsome face seemed highly affected. He was bare above the waist save for a crossing of leather straps from the quiver of his bow and that of his satchel. He was dressed in leathers from the waist down with furs wrapped around his waist. He looked surprisingly vain and pretty for the man he'd been described.
She suppressed a smile. "I'm Urun, daughter of Dura. And you?"
"Hrolbjorn," he said back, putting a hand out. The two clasped wrists and gave the other an affirming squeeze.
"Hrolbjorn the Many, son of Snorri, or Surjan, depending on which story my Ma tells. Now first we'll secure some horses, start there. The stables shouldn't be too far a walk."
…
They reached the stables and procured two horses from the elderly Nord woman that seemed to run the place and they were on their way with a few provisions. The first day of riding saw fair weather, and the two talked at length, Hrolbjorn seeming to always want a small undercurrent of conversation while on their journey, and Urun finding herself surprised to feel no great annoyance in complying.
"Why do they call you 'the Many'" she asked, cutting him off at the start of an anecdote. "I've been thinking all day that it's such an odd epithet. I only see one of you."
"Ah but did the good people of Riften during the Midyear Festival in my nineteenth year?"
Urun smiled despite how annoyingly cryptic it was a reply.
"I'm assuming no."
"They did not! Because if you asked the six beautiful daughters of that wizened old Jarl, they would tell you I was many places at once that night."
"Six daughters?"
"And one comely son," he said with a laugh.
"A completionist, I see."
Hrolbjorn merely shrugged, looking pleased with himself. "They still tell the tale to this day."
"They being 'you', I gather. It sounds to me more like they ought to call you 'Hrolbjorn the Speedy'."
The light joviality seemed to leave his face. "There's a lot of hours in a night, you know."
"Perhaps for a Nord."
Then they both found themselves laughing and Hrolbjorn's was a full and earnest one. He clapped a hand on her back.
"You ought to show me this Orc clock sometime, it sounds fascinating."
Urun smiled. "I'm sure you'd like that."
…
And so the next two days passed. They rode, camped, and rode some more, the last leg of their journey through a billowing snowstorm, Hrolbjorn having caved and wrapped a cloak around his shoulders. It was a pleasant gesture to see, Urun had been worried she was too delicate for this land, but if a Nord was cold, then it must actually be freezing.
The two led their horses on foot now, trying to find some shelter from the elements.
"There!" Urun called out over the roar of the wind, pulling her own cloak around her face. She pointed off in the distance below them, through a gap in the chaotic rise and fall of the land here. Just visible was the dark opening of a cave entrance. She wasn't sure what it was about the place that stood out more than those they'd passed along their way, only that it did.
."And you see that?" he shouted back, pointing to the left of the opening. There, just visible was a hunched over figure in dull gold armor. "Looks like Elven armor if I had to guess."
She watched as the figure rose and then leaned against the wall.
"Suppose it must be. Will your bow be any use in this storm?"
"Not very damn likely! Gods I hope it's not the Thalmor, you'll have to pay me a lot more. I'll go on ahead and see what I can do."
Urun led both horses to a break in the wind, and a break in line of sight from the figure in the armor. Hrolbjorn stalked off with his knife drawn, white cloak wrapped tightly around himself. She waited for a time, when at last she heard a horrible crackling sound fill the air even over the blare of the storm. She rose up and started sprinting toward the cave entrance, horses nervously braying behind her.
When she arrived, there lay on the ground one Altmer man in bloodied armor.
"I was going to put my knife to his throat and try to see if I could talk anything out of him, but a damn rune exploded under my feet. Leapt out the way but still caught the brunt of it."
His hide greaves were badly charred, though he didn't look much hurt.
"Let's get the horses in."
The relative silence of the cavern was a shock to the senses after the deafening storm outside. She had to force herself to whisper.
"So the Thalmor, you think?" she asked. She'd not had any run ins with mer in armor like that since the war.
"Who else? I take it we're after some sort of treasure or something? Something magical and deadly?"
"Perhaps. Suppose we'll find out soon enough."
Hrolbjorn blinked. "You mean you don't know what you're even looking for?"
"I figure I'll know it when I see it," she replied, tone sharper than she intended and knowing the words wouldn't exactly inspire his confidence.
"What's to stop me from taking a horse and heading back the way we came?"
Urun patted one of the saddle bags, pulling out a hefty coinpurse and fixing it to her waist. "Two hundred and fifty drakes, is my hope. I'll even keep it on me should you feel the urge to loot my corpse."
"That is not what I need to hear right now. Your ass better know how to fight."
Urun rubbed her mare under the chin and took a few measured, even breaths.
"I can. I expected less opposition, though."
She gestured to a set of wet footprints against the stone, heading deeper into the cavern. There seemed to be quite a lot of them.
"Damn," Hrolbjorn muttered. "Damn. And not a single damn horse. How did they get here?"
Urun shrugged her shoulders. "Wizards. Still want to scout ahead?"
He ran his fingers through his hair, eyes still fixed on the footsteps. "Well it certainly shouldn't be you clanking down the passageway first."
"How chivalrous."
"Oh shut up," he shot back, gathering a few loose stones and pocketing them. His rebuke wasn't very heated though; he seemed resigned to the task ahead.
"Why the stones?" Urun asked.
"In case there's any more of those damn runes. Think a stone will trip them?"
"I don't know the first thing about destruction magic," she admitted. "I'd hope so, though that'll be just as loud a solution, if it works."
"Just be quick behind me, eh?"
He grinned at her, but she could tell it was a little forced. She felt worried for him as he disappeared down the dim passageway. She wondered for a brief moment whether she could have made it to this place on her own.
It was too late for that, though. She had to have faith that he had a part to play in Mauloch's plans as well, that their meeting was more than mere coincidence.
She followed after, trying to keep a careful distance but already he was well past her and she couldn't gauge how far away he might be in the twisting passages.
The passages themselves seemed at first natural, but little regularities here and there hinted otherwise. Here a turn possessed an unusual right angle, there a small carving could be seen faintly on the wall. It seemed some great force had both collapsed some halls and passages, and perhaps some action of water flow had weathered it down to its current state.
Though all this observation and musing was just background noise to the calm that was settling over Urun. Her mind neared a state of blankness even as her muscles tensed, her greatsword drawn and held before her.
She could hear only her breaths and her footfalls against the stone, each steady and measured.
Again came the crack of lightning, a blinding flash and a deafening thunderclap crashing through the caverns with a hundred echoes.
Urun dashed forward, one hand on the hilt of her greatsword, the other stretched out before her, palm up. She broke into a larger chamber, lit with the sickly white light of a half dozen magelights, clinging to the rock overhead.
Eyes tightly clenched, she gestured with her free hand, willing her reach beyond the stone and the echoes of violence and off somewhere more silent, more still. A vision flashed across the backs of her eyelids of a place of nebulous dust and ash, a swirl of it gaining shape and definition until another crash filled the chamber.
A massive, lumbering beast rose, the chamber and all else in it dwarfed by its presence. A blast of fire singed across its expansive chest, a strike the creature seemed not to notice,
"Ogrim!" one of the mer shouted, waving for three of his comrades to have his back.
Only then did Urun take notice of Hrolbjorn in the corner, on one knee, one hand gripping the haft of his axe, the other red and slick at his side. He shouted something to her that was lost over the sound of the Ogrim's roar.
The beast charged, unnaturally fast for its size, crashing into the enemy and scattering their ranks. There were a half dozen of them now, with more pouring from the adjacent hall.
Urun screamed in the silence that fell after the Ogrim's roar and brought her greatsword to bear, beheading a fallen Altmer with one flick of her wrist, then dipping her head low and leaping into another sweeping blow from collarbone to hip on a robed mage that fell without a sound.
She willed the Ogrim forward, forcing her command through the 's mind, overriding its objections and sending it charging down the adjacent hall, leaving Urun to deal with the remaining Altmer in the chamber.
One groaned on the ground, her leg bent at an unnatural angle. Urun was ready to write her off before remembering they likely all had some gift for magic. It complicated things.
Those still standing shuffled uneasily with short swords at the ready in one hand, spell crackling away in the other. Urun adjusted her footing, ready to leap out of the way or into the fray at a moment's notice. They stared her down, no one seeming to want to make the first move.
Something whistled through the air and one mer fell to the ground, scream cut short, the hilt of a dagger buried into the base of his skull. Hrolbjorn stood in his corner now, one hand still on his ax, the other outstretched. He seemed surprised at what he'd done.
Chaos followed. Fire blasted overhead, Urun dipping low again and striking hard with both hands against the nearest target. The mer brought his shortsword to bear as some feeble defense but crumbled under the force of the blow. He toppled backward and Hrolbjorn brought his ax down against his neck.
Moving on, Urun tried to engage them methodically, relying on her partner to break their focus and sow disorder. Hrolbjorn whooped and dashed, ducking out of the way of thick spears of ice and light flying past him, inches from his flesh.
She laid in, chopping now in a wild pattern, hands outstretched and wrists whipping the blade, edge crashing against armor, finding gaps and weaknesses where she could and letting Hrolbjorn fell another with his ax.
It didn't take long before the two had evened the odds. The two that remained split their attention evenly, each to an adversary and again the flow of the battle slowed.
Hrolbjorn circled his foe. "Not good enough for Thalmor. Who are you?"
He was right. They weren't unskilled as fighters but they had no unity, falling into disarray at the merest provocation.
"Why are you here?" she added.
Neither responded, instead whispering to one another.
"She was wrong," she thought one said.
"Then we die," replied the other.
They broke into pairs, Urun's opponent a surprisingly capable swordswoman, deftly sidestepping the quick, measured blows of her greatsword. She had a dancer's grace, that same sidestep giving way to a slash and a lunge, bounding off Urun's plate but dangerously close to a gap in the armor.
She was only barely aware of Hrolbjorn, rolling out of the way of a wall of flame that gouted from the floor like a geyser.
And in that moment her opponent struck, blade bounding painfully against her cheekbone as she darted back, sword mostly grazing against skin and bone. A wet heat settled down her face and neck and under the gorget of her armor as she struck back, blow after blow parried in a flash of sparks.
The Altmer had more finesse, more grace, Urun could admit that. In whatever school of swordfighting the woman had clearly been taught, she was the victor. But this was not a dueling hall, and Urun had the larger blade, the greater reach, the greater strength. She pressed that advantage, hard, slashing and chopping and hoping to tire her enemy, forcing her back against the stone wall, Urun pressing her full weight against her sword, anything to get the woman to break for just a moment.
Which was all the opening Hrolbjorn needed. He drove his ax through her neck almost to the shaft, leaping and throwing his weight into the blow. She dropped, body slumping weakly to the ground, trailing blood.
The two locked eyes for a moment as they tried to catch their breath.
"Not the most honorable duel I've had," she said between breaths.
Hrolbjorn placed his boot on the fallen Altmer's pauldron for leverage and yanked his ax free with a grunt. Blood gouted freely from the wound and onto the ground. He wiped the blade against the furs at his waist.
"Not the cleanest, either. At least it's over."
"Aye", she replied, clapping him on the back. "Thanks for the save there."
"When were you going to tell me you were some master conjurer? You seemed so ignorant of magic a moment ago."
It was only then she became aware that her link with the Ogrim had been severed at some point during the battle. That was concerning.
"It's just the one spell," she admitted. "But the beast is gone now. Shall we see what mess it left behind?"
He pointed at the Altmer on the ground with the mangled legs. "What do you propose we do about her?"
Urun placed her boot firmly on the woman's chest. "Will you talk or will you die?"
"I'll talk," the woman spat and gasped out the words, blood dripping down her chin. "Gods, just don't kill me."
Hrolbjorn repeated his question. "Who are you?"
"I'm just, I'm just," the mer stammered, still more blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth. "I'm just in over my head. I'm sorry. I'm not like those fanatics. Please."
"Then who are they?" Urun asked. Her voice was casual but she dug in just a little with her heel.
"She drew us… drew us from the Thalmor. Renegades, discharges. Idealists."
"Who is she?" Hrolbjorn asked. His arms were crossed over his bare chest. Urun could tell he was trying to put up a tough front, but he seemed shaken. That and the wound on his side still looked rather nasty.
"I don't—" she coughed and sputtered, a sickly wet sound in her chest. "I don't know. They call her 'the Mistress'. Some rogue wizard."
Urun sighed. She seemed useless, and from the glassy look in her eyes, soon to be unconscious.
"What were you doing here, then?"
"Just following Narfirion. He knew. Something about an artifact. Please, that's all. Please."
"Let's go, Hrolbjorn, I think we've gotten all the use out of her we'll get."
Hrolbjorn stared at her for a moment, eyes unfocused, expression unreadable.
"Right. Right let's move on."
Urun led the way, no longer fearing some magical attack from behind given the state of the girl. Memories resurfaced of her time in the Legion, of youths broken in battle, trampled underfoot by horses.
The passage the Ogrim had taken was smeared in blood and viscera. The creature had apparently been busy. It wasn't until they entered another, larger chamber that the trail of destruction ended.
Only for another to begin. Here the corpses of the Altmer were lined up in neat little rows at the face of a great gate of finely worked white stone, standing ajar. Some of the dead had ears and fingers sliced off by some jagged edge. Clearly not the work of the Ogrim.
"What did this?" Urun asked. She'd never seen bodies left in quite such a state before.
Hrolbjorn surveyed the dead. "I've seen this before. These injuries. Farming and fishing folk who live near caves are sometimes found like this by their relatives."
"Well I'm sure it isn't anything we can't handle. Let's keep moving."
Hrolbjorn nodded and followed, but not after a brief pause.
Through the great stone gates, the architecture was unlike anything Urun had seen or heard of before. The stonework was too polished, too refined to be ancient Nordic and too organic and ornamental to be Dwemer. They descended down a dozen stairways, here and there more bodies laid face up with eyes open and ears slashed off littering the path.
When at last they reached the bottom, there came a deafening, crackling sound, echoing off the open walls of a massive cavern. The center of the cavern held a massive statue of some vaguely merish man, one hand holding an image of a sun, the other arm fractured in pieces on the plinth behind it.
"Stop right there!" came a shout from the base of the statue.
Urun fixed her eyes on the man, an older Altmer in black robes with gold trim, half collapsed against the base of the statue. He had his hands outstretched, maintaining some massive wall of sparks and wind, blocking a passageway to the left.
"You seem in no position to stop us!" Hrolbjorn shouted back.
"Idiots!" he shouted back. "I can't lose focus here, theres dozens of them!"
By the sweat pouring down his brow and the strange, jet black arrow protruding from his thigh, Urun felt he was no immediate threat. She walked forward, getting a closer look at the churning storm he conjured and was just able to make out dozens of vague, pale silhouettes in the passage beyond.
It was only as she drew closer that she saw the object at the mage's feet. A spherical white stone, inlaid with pale blue crystalline patterns.
"Think he'll let us take that?"
"That'd be the simplest resolution here."
Urun cautiously edged ahead, toward the mage, but before she could make a reach the man dashed for it, breaking his concentration on the spell.
The wall exploded in a shower of sparks. Strange, inhuman screams echoed through the chamber. Urun threw her entire weight into the mage, toppling the both of them to the ground and off the plinth in a tangle of limbs.
Hrolbjorn shouted as he rushed down the corridor and came in at a sprint. Urun and the mage rolled, the man wrapping his hands around her throat and pinning her to the ground in a moment.
But Hrolbjorn was fast beside, throwing his shoulder into the mage and freeing Urun from his grip. She righted herself and recovered her sword. The two quickly coordinated themselves to tackle the Altmer back into the onrushing horde of horrid, sickly pale, eyeless humanoids that came pouring through the archway.
"Run!" Hrolbjorn screamed, and the two charged out of the chamber and into the hall, Urun frantically trying to conjure another Ogrim, feeling tenuously, then firmly for the creature's shape in the Ashpit, a task made more difficult by sprinting ahead of crude arrows and spells.
At last came that whipcrack as the folds of reality were rent and out emerged a massive hulk of a Daedra, bellowing and slamming its chest.
All not a moment too soon as Urun and Hrolbjorn escaped down the narrow passageway, feeling momentarily relieved at the turn of the events but sprinting as fast as their legs could take them all the same.
The trip out was run at a fevered, frenzied pace, and it wasn't until they backtracked that Urun gave even a thought for the wounded Altmer woman toward the surface. The two passed by her quickly and the two were both wordless as the implicit decision was made to leave her behind.
Out into the snowstorm they emerged once more, the sky an hour darker. They rushed to their horses and fled as fast as they could.
…
"Shor's bloody heart, woman!" Hrolbjorn shouted, slamming the mug in his hand on the back table of the inn. "How could you run so blindly into a place you had no notion of for something you didn't even know what?"
Urun smiled. "I am a servant of Mauloch."
"Aye! And so am I, and to Shor and Tsun and Kyne and all the other old gods! But you don't see me running into a damned warzone without a plan in pursuit of it!"
"My God preserves me. All of this was his plan."
"Damn fool," Hrolbjorn shot back, slamming his mug once more. "That's no way to live! You'll be lucky to see your next Summer at this rate."
Urun laughed, she thought more deeply than the Nord probably deserved at his concern.
"Then perhaps Mauloch sent you to protect me?"
He settled back at that prospect, his face losing some of that tenseness. "And that's a damn fool way to look at this too."
"I think you've done well in your role."