Chapter 17 – A Deadly Debate

Even when staring death in the face, Kjartan could not help but find something magnificent about the dragon now standing before him.

Its scales were such a shade of grey that it could have lurked on a mountainside without anyone noticing it was there, and its hide was crisscrossed by scars and wounds from battles both old and recent. He did not know why this dragon had not immediately attacked him, though he was certain that its motives were far from benevolent.

"So, we meet at least, Dovahkiin, and this time there is nowhere for you to run or hide." The dragon's voice was so powerful it felt as though every word were rattling Kjartan's bones. "Many of my kin you have slain, and always by treachery and guile. You have never faced a Dovah alone in battle. Instead, you run and hide yourself with your pathetic magics and attack only when there is no danger to you. I name you coward, Dovahkiin, and curse you in the name of all those whose souls you have devoured, you who have never once fought honourably."

Dragons were prideful creatures, he knew, and so it made sense that this one would want to pour its scorn upon him before killing him. "If you were attacked by someone intent on slaying you," he answered, trying desperately to quell the terror within him, "then would you rather be dishonourable and alive or honourable and dead?"

The dragon snorted, blasting Kjartan with hot air from its nostrils. "The reply of a craven coward. But what could be expected from a creature such as you? You are not a human, but neither are you a Dovah. No, you are an abomination who should have been strangled in its crib. But I am nothing if not courteous, so I shall allow you to defend yourself in a debate?"

He took a step backward. "A debate?"

The dragon raised its head, anger blazing in its eyes. "Yes, debate! Do you think me a mindless savage? It is only on the field of logic and reason that the truth might be uncovered. Shall we begin? Let us start with the supposed defeat of Alduin atop Monahven. They say he shamed himself by fleeing before your might, but who can say what happened atop that mountain? Should I trust your word, the word of a weakling milksop?"

"Speak with Paarthurnax. He witnessed the battle."

The name prompted a growl of rage. "The word of an abomination means little, but the word of a traitor means even less! How fitting that a loathsome creature such as you would associate with the weakest and most treacherous of our kind. Your faults are beyond counting, Dovahkiin, and your virtues so few that they are scarcely worth speaking of. You are utterly bereft of courage, honour, and dignity. A pitiful wastrel and misbegotten wretch, so lowly and weak that to slay you would be no greater deed than the swatting of a fly."

At last Serana spoke, having remained stock still through the entire conversation. "You say you want a debate, but instead you just insult him."

"Silence, vampire!" roared the dragon, snapping its head towards her. "How fitting that one who feeds upon the blood of the living should travel with one who feeds upon souls!" It then turned its head back to Kjartan. "I see you have taken another companion, Dovahkiin. I wonder if she shall live longer than the last."

If the dragon were trying to anger him, then it was failing, but it was doing a fine job of irritating him. "Now you leave Lydia out of this. The poor woman didn't deserve what happened to her, and I don't deserve to be lectured at by some pompous, overgrown lizard. You say that I'm a coward? Maybe…maybe…but somehow I've survived long enough to foil Alduin's schemes and send his soul back to his maker. You speak of 'courage' and 'honour,' well, what use are those to the dead? What good is bravery when it accomplishes nothing? You see, sir dragon, you have apparently mistaken me for a typical example of my kind. I have no desire to martyr myself by dying in battle. As a matter of fact, I find that whole notion quite absurd. There is nothing wrong in fleeing before a superior foe, or choosing not to fight them in the first place."

The dragon remained unimpressed, however. "You have still not advanced a single argument, Dovahkiin. Are you even aware of what a debate entails? No, I do not think you do."

Time was rapidly drawing short, he knew, and his only hope lay in distracting the dragon long enough to unleash the shout that was deadly to their kind.

It was unbelievably stupid, but Kjartan could think of nothing else to do.

"Yes, well, debate is fine and all, but…" He trailed off, and then pointed to horizon. "Say, what's that over there?"

The dragon turned its head to look, and Kjartan spoke the first word: "Joor."

It was as though a great, disembodied hand had suddenly snatched his body and was now squeezing the life out of him. Despite the pain, he spoke the next word, his tongue writhing with every barbaric syllable. "Zah."

The arcane forces were gathering around him, shifting and altering reality around him the second the words left his throat.

To speak the third word was almost impossible. The pain was unbearable, to the point where he could not even think of anything except uttering the final word, even though he knew it would only double the agony.

"Frul."

The words became truth, and the dragon was suddenly thrown into a reality it could not understand or comprehend. Its mind was blasted with such sheer wrongness, such pure and crystalline SHOULD NOT BE that its physical frame could not longer contain the energies amassed within. It let out a short, sharp howl, and then its head exploded.

Kjartan stumbled backward, his body wracked with agony so intense that he wanted nothing more than for someone to kill him and put him out of his misery. The slain dragon's soul, now freed from its mortal shell, was drawn inexorably towards his own. He closed his eyes and prepared for himself the oncoming mental onslaught.

If there was one mercy in being the Dragonborn, it was that the process of devouring a dragon's soul did not force him to relive every moment of its existence. Instead, it came to him as a brief flurry of images, a phantasmagoria of incomprehensible visions flashing before him.

He would remember none of it, at least not consciously.

And while it was happening, he could feel the dragon's terror and confusing over what was happening. It knew that its existence was coming to an end, but this fact was so beyond its understanding that its soul could do nothing but scream in horror.

When the visions stopped, Kjartan felt himself falling backwards. A pair of strong hands reached out to hold him, and for one brief instant the pain subsided, and all he felt was the comforting sensation of being held tightly by someone close to him.

He opened his eyes and saw Serana looking down at him. Gods, she's beautiful, he thought. He tried to speak, but all he could muster was a painful moan.

With considerable effort Kjartan managed to steady himself. The pain had subsided to a dull throb, though his body was still shaking uncontrollably. Using the Thu'um always felt as if a giant had stuffed his body into sock and then proceeded to spend the next few minutes swinging it against a stone wall.

"I…I can't believe it fell for that trick," he said, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

The dragon's flesh had already burned away to ashes, leaving only a skeleton, albeit a headless one. Serana looked at it with astonishment, but all Kjartan could think of was how she had yet to release her hold on him, and the two of them were now perilously close to an actual embrace. If anyone saw them now, they would find their behaviour shockingly lewd.

"I…I think I need to sit down for a bit," he said.

She let go of him, though somewhat reluctantly. He sat down atop a small outcropping of rock and waited for his head to stop pounding. One of these days, he reckoned, he would speak a Shout so powerful that it made him drop dead on the spot.

"I never imagined anything like this," said Serana, sitting down beside him. "You killed that dragon with just a word."

"And I nearly killed myself in the process," he muttered. "I keep saying that I'll never use the Thu'um ever again, but something always forces me to. You can't imagine how much it hurts. The mortal frame is just not meant to channel that kind of power. My head feels like I've got a bloody horse kicking it."

"Who was Lydia?" she asked a period of silence between them. Their situation was so absurd he almost laughed: the two of them sitting together on a rock in front of the skeletal remains of a dragon.

"She was a housecarl assigned to me after I became a thane of Whiterun," he began. "Not the best conversationalist I've met, but it was good to have someone to travel with after what happened at Helgen. She knew how to handle a blade while I knew how to cast a spell or two, so I'd say we worked well together. The draugr killed her while we were exploring this one tomb."

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have asked."

"It's all right. I would have told you earlier, but I didn't want to convey the impression that I'm some luckless oaf haplessly bouncing from one misfortune to another." He took in a deep breath. "But I guess that's what I am, aren't I?"

"You're not an oaf, Kjartan."

He laughed softly. "Well, it was pretty oafish of me getting apprehended trying to cross the border. I don't think I ever told you about that, did I?"

"No, I don't think you did."

"Right, so there I was, crossing into Skyrim from the east. That was Stormcloak territory, but at the time I had no idea what was happening in the country. I was alone in a foreign land, so when I saw a group of heavily-armed folks walking along the road I thought it might be safer to travel with them than by myself. Well, everything was going fine until we were suddenly found ourselves surrounded by Imperial legionnaires. Turns out those friendly people I had been travelling with were Stormcloaks, and we were all hauled off to Helgen for execution. I tried telling them I wasn't one of them, but I might as well have been shouting into the wind. To make a long story short, my neck was on the headsman's block when Alduin attacked, and I'd have a whole lot less above my shoulders if it weren't for that. He wanted to kill me, but ended up saving me instead. Of course, the entire town was reduced to ashes, so that's three settlements that have been burnt to the ground because of me." He remained silent for a few seconds and then added, "But I don't want you thinking that I've everything I've done in Skyrim has ended in disaster. Sometimes things actually work out for me. Not very often, but they do. Occasionally."

"Such as?"

"Um…well…what about when I found you in that crypt? That turned out all right, didn't? I mean, I did get a metal spike driven through my hand, but nothing got burned down."

She thought of it over for a few seconds. "But you were there on behalf of a group of vampire slayers. And instead of slaying the vampire you found, you took her back to her family. I'm terribly sorry, Kjartan, but you stuffed that one up, too."

Their path eventually brought them to the Nightgate Inn, a small, somewhat dilapidated lodging house that stood at the edge of a small tarn. Normally Kjartan would have avoided such a place, but the air had turned bitterly cold with the setting of the sun and he could think of nothing except finding a warm fire to stand next to.

The inn's common room was surprisingly crowed for such an out of the way establishment, but he was given little time to think on such matters. A large, bare chested Nord with a frightfully voluminous gut moved to block his path, and from the reek of his breath it was clear that he had been drinking for some time.

"'Ey now, get out! We don't want your type in here!"

Whoever this man was, he clearly endeavoured to live down to every hateful stereotype of the Nord race. He stank of sweat and stale beer, and the notion of bathing was quite obviously foreign to him. Still, he carried a bloodstained axe upon his back, which meant Kjartan had to tread carefully.

"What do you mean, my 'type'?" he said, trying to affect an air of indignance mixed with timidity.

"I mean you mages," growled the Nord. "We don't need you flashing your spells about and conjuring up gods know what!"

It was his robes that had given him away, and he knew had to think fast to avert bloodshed. "I'm not a mage," he said, putting on a nervous tone. "These aren't even my clothes! There's a gang of necromancers up near Mount Anthor. I was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Talos up on the mountain when they captured me, stripped me, and tortured me just to hear my scream! I swear, the roads just aren't safe anymore!"

He had no idea if such a shrine existed, of course, but presenting himself a devoted follower of Talos would only make his fictious plight more sympathetic.

The Nord narrowed his eyes. "Necromancers?"

"I don't know what they were doing, but I think they were going to rip out my soul and use it in one of their foul rituals. So I slipped my bonds, knocked one of them out, and then stole his clothes. Thank Talos I managed to get away! The leader was a high elf; I think his name was Arvandor or Ervandel or something like that. Someone ought to head up there and kill every last one of those bastards!"

Someone with a half a brain might have seen through his story, but fortunately for Kjartan, this man barely had a quarter of a brain. "Mount Anthor, you say?"

"Yes, but you're crazy if you're thinking of going up there alone! Those necromancers, they won't just kill you. No, they'll trap your soul in a gem and use it for all kinds of experiments, and you'll never see Sovngarde if that happens. Someone ought to tell the jarl what's going on, assuming the senile bastard even knows what's what anymore."

The Nord grunted in disgust before turning around and returning to his seat. Kjartan followed him with his eyes for a while, and then let out a sigh of relief.

"Did…did you just make all that up on the spot?" said Serana as he sat down at a nearby table.

"It's one of the few talents I possess. When I was a child I use to lie constantly, even when there was no need for it. I'd spin these wild tales about how my family were all Daedra worshippers, or how I once got kidnapped by pirates and spent a whole year sailing with them around Tamriel. My parents were furious when they found out I'd been going around telling these wild stories, and when they asked me why I did it I couldn't think of answer. Looking back, I was just lonely and wanted people to pay attention to me."

He slowly looked around the inn's common room and took stock of those gathered there. Most of the people looked like simple travellers weary from the road, but there was an orc who looked suspiciously well-dressed and distinctly out of place in such a remote place. A bard was singing some dreary tune about a warrior dying in battle (what else did bards sing of in Skyrim?), but no one paid him any mind. Kjartan felt compelled to reflect upon the fact that he himself had performed many times in inns like this one, and his routines had been received with similar levels of apathy and disdain.

Without saying a word Kjartan stood up and walked towards the counter, intending to buy himself a tankard of wine. As he did, he noticed that the well-dressed orc was staring at him, and when Kjartan looked in his direction the orc suddenly looked away.

He returned to the table, and once again he marvelled at the way Serana seemed to blend into the shadows. Everything about her, from the way she carried herself to the way she spoke, exuded an air of confidence that he could not help but envy.

"Lot of people here for such an out-of-the-way place," he said, looking around. "It might be hard to get a pair of rooms."

Serana leaned back against the wall. "A pair of rooms? Kjartan, I'm hurt. All this time we've spent together, and you still don't want to sleep with me!"

She spoke just as he drank from his cup, and her words so surprised him that he nearly spat out his drink. He was overcome with a brief fit of coughing, all the while Serana smirked giddily.

"That was cruel of you," he said after regaining control of himself.

"You told lies to make people pay attention to you. Me? I said outrageous things whenever the urge overtook me." She reached across the table and gently grasped his left hand. "But we can share a bed, Kjartan," she said quietly, giving him a sultry look. "I don't bite. Well, unless you want me to."

His heart started pounding. He had never seen this side of her before, and deep down, he wanted to see more of it.

A shrill, raspy voice jarred him from his reverie. "Filth!"

An old woman, wearing a faded green dress, stood at the side of their table, pointing her finger at them accusingly. "Look at you two, holding hands like a pair of degenerates!" Her eyes blazed with righteous indignation. "What is Skyrim coming to these days? Folk ain't got no sense of decency; think it's fine to just hold hands in front of everyone..."

She stormed off, shaking her head all the while. "Have I ever mentioned that this entire country has gone mad?" Kjartan said. "I haven't even told you about the honeymoon sack yet."

Serana stared at him. "'Honeymoon sack'? Do I even want to know?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but either way you won't believe a word of what I have to say. It goes something like this: Nords think it's improper for a man and woman to…perform the Dibellan Arts…before marriage. But even on their wedding night, they don't want the experience to be…um…too pleasurable. So the happy couple has to don these burlap sacks with holes cut in the groin area so that the physical aspects of lovemaking can be performed without anyone's bare flesh coming into contact with the other's."

He watched, with no small amount of amusement, as Serana's face went through fifteen different expressions less than a second. "So let me get this straight, Kjartan. In Skyrim, love is hate, holding hands is obscene, and you can't even bed someone without being overcome with so much shame that you have to wear a sack. Is that about right?"

"Yes, that's right. Now you understand why I have no desire to get married."

"But…when did this happen? In my time, people thought that Nords were all shameless libertines. At least that's what I gathered from the books I read."

Kjartan shrugged. "It's a recent development, from what I can tell. I can't say for certain, but I think it has something to do with how Nords see pleasure and pain. Pain makes one hard and tough, while pleasure makes one soft and weak, so anything pleasurable ought to be shunned and avoided."

Serana let out a sigh. "Maybe I should have stayed locked in that sarcophagus for another hundred years or so." Once again, she reached across the table to take his hand into hers. "But now that I think about it, I don't think I would have wanted anyone else but you to find me."

He felt his cheeks flush. "Serana, I…"

"People see us as abominations; monsters to be slain and destroyed. Anyone else would have run me through the moment they realised what I was. When you said were a vampire hunter, I could have killed you where you stood."

"So why didn't you?" he said. "I have to admit, it was very stupid of me to say such a thing."

"Yes, it was. But there was something about you, something that told me that I had nothing to fear from you. That you would never, ever hurt me."

Kjartan looked down. There was a nagging doubt in his mind, one that grew louder with each passing moment. It told him that Serana's friendliness was but an act, an exquisite demonstration of the old saying that one caught more flies with honey than with vinegar. It was possible, perhaps even likely, that she despised him, that she found him unbearably tedious, and that she was counting down the days until she could finally be rid of him. Such fears were wholly unreasonable, he knew, but he could not quell them.

"May I ask you something?" he said quietly. "It has to do with your father, and it's been bothering me for a while now."

"Of course, Kjartan. What do you want to know?"

"He said something about how 'immortality suited me.' I don't know why, but something about those words has been sticking in my mind all this time. You know him better than I do; maybe you could tell me what he meant when he said that?"

He watched as turned the question over in her mind. "Let me ask you this, Kjartan. How often do you think about cattle? You wouldn't go out of your way to hurt them, but at the same time you wouldn't shed a tear if one of them got killed. That's how my family viewed mortals. So when my father saw a mortal with the blood of a dragon in his views, he probably thought that it was all a terrible waste. Someone with that kind of power shouldn't be bound by something like mortality, at least in his mind." Serana leaned forward, and tightened her grip on his hand. "You were right to refuse him, Kjartan. I would never want to accept our gift from my father."

"Why?" he asked, nervously.

"Turning someone into vampire, it…it's intimate for us." Noticing his horrified expression, she added, "Not 'intimate' in the way you're thinking of, but 'intimate' in the sense that there's a bond between sire and fledgling. My father would want you to be a part of his court, and believe me when I say that you don't want that kind of life. It's venal, depraved, and worst of all, boring."

Before he could answer, a young Breton wearing a bright red doublet stepped into the middle of the common room. "Good people of Skyrim!" he said, his voice bright and clear. "I'm here to present you with a tale unlike any you have ever heard. We all know the story of the Dragonborn and his battle with the World Eater, but how much do you really know?"

Kjartan winced. "Oh no, not this again!"

"In my travels across this fair land, I've heard many tales about the one they call 'Dovahkiin.' Some say he had the strength of an ox, and could tear a man's head off with his bare hands. Others say he was ten feet tall and carried an axe infused with a fragment of Talos' soul. Well I, Dunistair Relin of High Rock, have a very different tale to tell. After months of meticulous research and investigation, I have uncovered the true story of the Dragonborn. Be assured, my good people, that there is in this tale no falsehoods or fabrications. Everything you are about to hear is the unblemished truth."

His words did not rouse anyone's interest, and everyone ignored the Breton in favour of their drinks. Still, he continued his story with tremendous enthusiasm. "I know it may shock and offend some, but the Dragonborn was not a Nord, nor was he born in Skyrim. He was, in fact, a Breton born in Daggerfall. As a young man, he fell in love with a beautiful woman named Alana. She loved him greatly in return, but to the Dragonborn's sorrow she was engaged to distant lord in what would surely be a loveless marraige. Heartbroken, he travelled east to Skyrim, where he was apprehended trying to cross the border. Facing execution in the city of Helgen, he was saved by the arrival of the World Eater, Alduin.

"During his travels across the land, the Dragonborn came to the city of Solitude, where he met the shieldmaiden Gunnhildur. Her beauty was such that he could not tear his eyes from her, and when she met his gaze her heart was filled with fury that this foreigner should look upon her with such desire. She challenged him to a duel, and they fought each other for three days and three nights. The two were so evenly matched in skill that neither could gain any advantage over the other, and by the time their strength was finally spent they had come to love one another. Alas, Gunnhildur was tragically slain in the battle against Alduin, and it is said that the Dragonborn threw himself upon her funeral pyre so that they might be together forever in Sovngarde."

"Interesting," Kjartan said. "Our young bard here has managed to combine the cliches of Breton romances with those of the Nordic ones."

Suddenly, a tall, red-haired Nord sprang up from his table. "Take your lies elsewhere, milkdrinker! There is no truth to your words!"

The bard shrank back, clearly anticipating violence. "I assure you, I have done every—"

"You know nothing of the Dragonborn," roared the Nord, "because the Dragonborn is me!"

Serana laughed softly. "So this is the famous Dragonborn I've heard so much about. He's not as handsome as I imagined."

The room fell silent, and everyone turned to their heads to watch as the scene unfolded before them. "All right, all right!" cried the bard. "I admit, I made it all up! But it's so hard to find out anything about the Dragonborn! Every time I ask someone about him they give me a completely different story! How I am supposed to figure out what's truth and what's not?"

"I'll tell you the truth! My name is Ragnar the Bloody-Minded, and I've killed more elves and held hands with more maidens than all of you put together! When I sound my horn, armies fall before me. When I swing my axe, its blade splits the sky. When I shout, the whole world trembles at my voice. I didn't just stop the World Eater, I punched him so hard that I flung him into the future! I am the slayer of tyrants and the vanquisher of the Thalmor. I am the terror of Dragonkind and the saviour of Skyrim. I…am…DRAGONBORN!"

Kjartan got an idea. A terrible, awful idea.

"Excuse me, sir!" he said, standing up. "If you really are the Dragonborn, then you ought to go to Solitude at once!"

"Ragnar the Bloody-Minded" turned to face him, giving Kjartan a suspicious stare. "Why?"

"Word is that Jarl Elisif is looking for you. I don't know why, but from what I've heard it must be something important."

The Nord just grunted at him, and then stormed out of the inn. Kjartan returned to his seat, wondering if he had just condemned the man to a horrible life as the jarl's husband. "You know, I think might end regretting what I just did."

"I was about to tell him the exact same thing," Serana replied. "How strange that we both had the exact same idea."

"Some would say you're a bad influence," he said, smiling.

"The very worst."

When Ulfric Stormcloak gazed out over the ramparts of Windhelm, he was ecstatic.

Most people would look upon a besieging army surrounding their city and feel nothing but despair, but Ulfric was not most people. He was a true Nord, a proud Nord, and he knew, beyond all doubt, that a heroic death lay before him. Yes, it was sad that his grand rebellion had failed, and that Skyrim would remain under the yoke of the corrupt, degenerate Imperials, but what was the mortal existence compared to the glory that awaited in Sovngarde?

The Imperial Legion had surrounded the city, and their ships had blocked off any escape route by sea. There were old tunnels beneath the streets, he knew, that would allow one to escape Windhelm in this sort of situation, but Ulfric had no intention of fleeing. If the Empire believed they could starve him into submission, then they were sorely mistaken.

"A charge, straight into their ranks, and glory will be ours," he said. "How many do you think we can kill before they strike us down?"

Galmar hesitated in answering. "I would gladly send them all screaming to their ancestors."

For a brief instant, Ulfric felt a pang of sorrow. When the news had reached him that the Dragonborn had to come to Skyrim, it had seemed all but certain that the man would join his cause. Clearly he would have no love for the Imperials after they nearly chopped his head off, and being the hero prophesied in Nordic song and legend meant that he would be drawn inexorably to cause of liberating Skyrim from foreign rule.

And yet the Dragonborn he spurned him. Rejected him. Spat upon his hospitality. And for what? Some misbegotten notion of neutrality?

It was hard to recall what the Dragonborn looked like. And despite his best efforts, Ulfric could not even remember what his name was.

"When the next day is done, I shall be feasting with my forefathers in the Hall of Valour. Can these Imperials say the same?"

The Legion had established a bivouac just across the bridge over the White River, and the rows of tents seemed to stretch out forever. Campfires burned all across the camp, and somewhere among them was General Tullius, the one who orchestrated the Stormcloaks' downfall. It had to have been an Imperial agent who had poisoned his drink and driven him mad, and there could be no doubt that they were the ones who had turned the Dragonborn against him. It was just like the Empire to resort to trickery and deceit to accomplish what their strength of arms could not.

The cold wind whipped his face, and he shivered slightly. Since overcoming his senseless and futile attachment to clothing, Ulfric had developed a new appreciation for Skyrim's harsh and unforgiving climate. This was a land that tormented the weak and punished the foolish, and what better way to test oneself than by throwing aside the useless vestments of civilisation?

Still, walking around Windhelm completely naked had scandalised more than a few of his brothers and sisters in arms. Many called him mad, but they were all going to be dead soon, so Ulfric did not really care what they thought.

But there were regrets. There were always regrets. There was no heir to succeed him; no one left to carry on the fight after his death. As jarl, the question of inheritance had always lingered in the back of his mind. He knew that fathering a child involved a woman somehow, but no one had ever explained the exact mechanics to him (though he suspected they were something shameful and disgusting). Yet he was a true Nord, which meant never thinking things through, never planning more than a day ahead, and always carrying out a boast no matter how stupid and suicidal it was.

Nords never learned, he thought. It was part of their charm.