"So… are all the Companions werewolves?"
Farkas shook his head, and he scrubbed at his short beard with the rag to get the rest of the blood out. "Nah. Just the Inner Circle."
"Right... " Haldis tucked a stray strand of hair out of her face. "How long have you… you know?"
Farkas's brow knitted thoughtfully. "Pro'ly… six or seven years now, I think." He rolled his shoulders to stretch until he winced.
"Does it… Does it hurt?" He stared at her puzzled, then realized she was referring to the transformation.
"Uh… yeah. I think . I don't usually remember it, but I always get sore after. Just kinda feels like a weird dream, most of the time." Haldis hummed, and she handed him her waterskin to let him have a drink, since his own ended up trampled and ruptured in the fight.
"Are you going to be alright to keep going?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine." He got up from the floor to stretch. "I've just gotta... " He raised his arms over his head and took a deep breath. "... not stiffen up." Haldis followed him up. He then gave her an expectant look. "Now, can you do me a favor? Don't tell Kodlak you saw that. We'll both get in trouble if you do."
Haldis swept her hair out of her face and stuffed her waterskin back into her bag. "I guess that's fair enough." She gestured to the open gate. "Shall we?"
Those men that attacked weren't just thugs. According to Farkas, they were part of a band of werewolf hunters who called themselves the "Silver Hand."
"They're nasty," he told her with a shake of his head, "and they don't like werewolves, so they don't like us, either."
Dustman's Cairn wasn't nearly as expansive as Bleak Falls Barrow, nor was it infested with Draugr. At least, it wasn't infested with walking Draugr. There were a handful of ancient corpses that were scattered throughout the hall that led into the inner sanctum, which they hit within twenty minutes of slow, cautious walking.
The inner sanctum was a massive stone chamber, with a ceiling supported by rotten rafters nearing fifty feet high. A qethsegol stood firm in the furthest reach of the chamber, and lining the walls before it were two dozen coffins. In the center, a table was erected with a little platform that held a glimmering scrap of metal.
They both came up to it, then looked at each other.
"I have a feeling something bad involving all those coffins is going to happen the second one of us touches that shard," Haldis murmured. "Tell me I'm not being crazy."
"You're probably right." Farkas geared up and hauled himself up onto the table, then reached out for her. "Get up here. If you're gonna end up in a bad fight, get to high ground, if you can." Haldis took his hand and let him help her up.
"Can't we just… head back and get help to get it? If there are going to be this many?"
"Those Silver Hand might have friends nearby who'll go after this. We can't leave it." Haldis stared at him. He gave her a nudge. "I ain't gonna let you get killed. Just stay up here, swing first, and ask questions later. Alright?" She held his gaze steadily, then looked down at the fragment, then at her boots, then back at him. She nodded, and she stooped down to grab the shard to plop into her bag.
The room was silent. They both looked around. Nothing.
"What'd I tell ya?" Farkas started. "Nothin' to-"
A loud crack echoed through the chamber, followed by stone collapsing on stone. The two froze and looked to one of the nearby coffins where a Draugr stepped out. More cracking sounded, going down the wall on each side. Out from each coffin stepped one of the accursed corpses.
Haldis swallowed thickly, for her count made the horde's twenty-four.
"Just keep your head," Farkas uttered to her. "We'll get through this."
She didn't answer, just raised her axe from its hitch on her hip and readied herself.
The Draugr all stretched and shifted in their places, as if groggy from their centuries' long sleep. And then, collectively, suddenly, they all sprang. Screaming, they all went sprinting for the table.
Haldis's teeth clenched. Farkas raised his greatsword and brought it down in a sweep, taking two down at once. Haldis shook her head and slammed her axe into another's head. It fell to the floor, only to be replaced by one of its brothers.
One by one, she struck her attackers when the chance arose, but they just kept coming. Some whose heads she split open got right back up, though they staggered a little.
One clambered up to the tabletop. The Thu'um itched in the back of her throat, made her chest swell. She held it down. Now was no time to give away her secret. She geared up and kicked it over the side. She just kept on hacking, but it wasn't long before her arms started getting tired. Black chunks of blood and other viscous substances were caked under her nails, between her fingers, on her arms.
Draugr clawed at her legs, pulled at her breeches, tried to tug her off the table.
Farkas suddenly cried out. Haldis paused in her ceaseless fighting for a brief moment to look. An arrow was sticking out of his shoulder. A short distance away, one of the Draugr was standing with a freshly drawn bow, hoarsely laughing.
It loosed another arrow. Haldis narrowly dodged it with a jerk of her head. Farkas had blood streaming down his arm, and was weakly swinging his sword at the Draugr with only one hand.
Haldis watched that briefly, almost numb to the Draugr that groped at her legs.
She didn't have many other options, at this point.
She whipped around on her heel and sucked in a deep breath.
"FUS!"
The Draugr went tumbling back, for the one word didn't do much, other than shove them. Still, it was enough to give Haldis time to back up and compose herself.
"What-" Farkas started to say, having grabbed her arm, only Haldis to shush him.
"Faal Thu'um?!" one of the warriors cried.
Haldis ripped herself out of his grip and let loose another word into the horde to drive them back.
Some of them started to run for the door. She ignored them and just dealt with the ones that still clawed at the table. She kicked the nearest one in the face, then grabbed Farkas's arm and pulled him up to the back of the table. Before the Draugr could pursue, Haldis geared up yet again.
"YOL!"
Flames surged up from her throat and engulfed the opposing Draugr almost instantly.
They screamed and scrabbled at their wounds, some rolling on the floor to put them out. With his hand still in her grip, she bolted off the table and down to the door, out of the sanctum.
On the way out, some of the fleeing Draugr decided to give chase, screaming in their tongues, weapons raised high.
The two kept running through the twisting halls, the Draugr close on their heels. An arrow whizzed past Haldis's face, left a notable scratch on her cheek. She huffed, her lungs burning from Shouting and fighting for so long, blood pouring down her face. She stopped in her tracks and faced the Draugr head on.
"FUS…" The Draugr all halted so suddenly, they nearly fell over. "ROH DAH!"
The sheer force of Haldis's Voice sent them all flying backwards, far enough to hit the distant wall of the hallway. The rafters creaked and sediment misted over her. The crackling stone groaned. She looked up. The rafters snapped.
Farkas suddenly grabbed her and pulled her along to get out of the way before the ceiling could collapse.
The trip back up to the surface was a blur. By the time they both fell into the snow-caked grass, it was dark. Masser and Secunda offered only a meager lightsource.
Haldis took a moment to catch her breath. Her legs were tight and numb. Her throat was still sore from fire-breathing. She always hated doing that, hated practicing it. She was surprised her Voice didn't backfire on her, given she was barely focusing on it at all.
"That… that could've gone smoother."
Farkas turned over to his back and groaned, "I'll be puttin' that on my headstone."
Neither laughed.
It was almost instantly decided that they'd just spend the night on the cairn's mound, given it was nighttime, cold as the grave, and they were both exhausted. A fire was thrown together and lit, and they settled atop their bedrolls in the snow.
Haldis, cringing, removed the arrow protruding from Farkas's shoulder and worked on patching it up with what they had. "What they had" consisted of ale and some threadbare bandages. It worked well enough. She pulled the roll around his arm again and again, occasionally looping it around his chest to keep everything in place. As she fixed him up, her mind wandered to just how in Oblivion she was going to explain all this. Could she even explain it sufficiently?
The problem was quick to solve itself.
"So, uh…" he started. "You're gonna tell me what all that was about, right?"
Haldis puffed, and she wrapped the last of the bandages around his wound before she tied it off and swept her bloody hands against her pants.
"It's hard to explain…" She swept her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. "... but I guess I owe you that much." She thought for a moment. "Do you know what a Dragonborn is?"
He stared at her. " Dragonborn? You mean like Talos?"
"Yes."
"Uh, kinda. They're people who can Shout, right?"
Haldis's lips drew into a firm line. "That's… the simplest way to put it. 'Shouting' is one of the oldest kinds of magic used by humans, and like any other school of magic, any human can use it, but it takes countless years of training and sacrifice for it to be possible. Dragonborn, on the other hand, don't need much training at all. Their connection to Akatosh and the Atmoran goddess, Kyne, gives them the inborn ability to Shout, like the Dragons who invented it."
Farkas tapped his fingers on his legs. "So… you're sayin' you're a Dragonborn?"
Haldis nodded. "The last of my kind, actually." She coughed. "I… I plan on keeping your little secret, so I hope you'll do the same for me. I don't know if there are people out there who might not want a Dragonborn around, right now."
He bobbed his head. "Yeah, sure, don't worry." He let out a heavy breath and rubbed his undoubtedly sore arm. "Thanks for patchin' me up."
She smiled meekly, her innards churning. "Of course."
Farkas frowned. "You okay? You're uh… lookin a little pasty."
Haldis got up from the ground. "Excuse me."
She proceeded to jog over to the bushes to heave her guts up. She dry heaved for a good minute into the brush, startled when she felt her hair draw back behind her shoulders.
When she finally stopped retching, she turned her head to see Farkas holding her hair out of the way.
"Figured you wouldn't want your hair gettin messed up…" Haldis sniffed and just stared back at the ground. He patted her back. "I'm right here. You're alright."
She took another moment to breathe. When her heart slowed enough for her to feel normal, she sighed and kicked some snow over the mess she'd made.
She didn't have much trouble sleeping that night.