Seven: You probably think this song is about you…
"You look like you could use a drink," said the innkeeper. "We have drink for the thirsty, food for the hungry. You're not watching the execution? Everyone else is, which is why the place is almost empty."
Rhiannon could feel tears welling up behind her eyelids. "I… don't like executions," she said, just about managing to hold herself together. "I came in for a meal, and to see if you'd buy some wine I took from a bandit lair…" and to get away from the sight of the execution block before the axe fell… "but, yes, I think I need a drink."
"You do look a bit shaky, I have to say," the innkeeper said. "How about some Stros M'Kai rum? That will put some fire in your veins and help you pull yourself together."
It sounded good. In fact, Rhiannon felt like guzzling rum until she sank into blessed oblivion and could stop thinking about executioners' axes, and the way she'd choked the bandit to death even though he'd passed out, and having to skin Sinding's corpse, and… She took a deep breath. "Just put a dash of rum in a tankard of snowberry juice," she said. "I have to keep a clear head."
"And you, lady Dunmer?" the innkeeper went on, turning to Jenassa.
"I will have the same," Jenassa said.
"Right, that will be thirty septims for the two drinks, less what I give you for the wine," the innkeeper said. "Let's see. Two septims a bottle for this ordinary wine, three for the Alto, two each for the mead and the ale. Call it five septims you need to pay me. And you mentioned a meal?"
"A meat pie, with boiled potatoes," Rhiannon decided. They didn't do chips here, the concept of frying food in hot fat didn't seem to have reached Skyrim, and mashed potato was similarly unknown. But having to mash them herself was hardly laborious. "And some boiled cabbage."
"You'll have to wait a little," said the innkeeper. "It's a little early for most customers to be wanting luncheon and the cook went out to watch the execution. Ah, good, he's coming back. The show must be over."
"Oh what a circus, oh what a show," Rhiannon muttered under her breath. She handed over the coin, took her drink, and sipped at it. She and Jenassa took seats at a nearby table and she took a moment to look around the inn's common room.
It seemed to be a higher class of establishment than the Bannered Mare in Whiterun or the Dead Man's Drink in Falkreath. The furniture was more polished, pots of flowers served as decoration in addition to the animal heads mounted on the walls, and, most notably, there was a proper fireplace, with a built-in oven, instead of a fire pit. The air was free of the smoke that drifted through the Bannered Mare, that had made Rhiannon feel as if she was being kippered when she'd stayed there, and consequently the atmosphere was much more pleasant.
When Rhiannon had entered the only people around had been the innkeeper, a young girl of perhaps twelve or so, and a lizard man. Rhiannon tried to keep herself from staring at the creature, who looked to her like a man-sized Allosaurus dressed in human clothes, who was sitting in an alcove and drinking from a tankard. He must be an Argonian; she'd seen references to them in books but this was the first she'd encountered. She averted her eyes, not wanting to seem rude, and watched as more people entered the inn.
An elderly man, clad in studded leather armor that hung loosely on his frame, as if it had been made for him when he'd been a lot more muscular. An iron-clad warrior whose hairstyle, long at the back but receding drastically at the front, reminded Rhiannon of Hulk Hogan minus the moustache. A blonde woman wearing a long quilted jacket, rather ugly to Rhiannon's eyes, that seemed to be the preferred garb of nobles and the wealthy around here. A man, in workman's clothes, who was as dark-skinned as a Jamaican or Nigerian. The beautiful blonde girl with the lute. And two men and a woman who entered together and whose conversation caught Rhiannon's ear.
"Now that was a horrible sight to greet us when we come into port for a bit of quiet shore leave," said one of the men. His clothes were cut like those of the local nobles but were faded, threadbare in patches, and his boots were distinctly down at the heel.
"Don't worry about it, Xander," the woman in the group told him. It was the name by which she addressed the man that really grabbed Rhiannon's attention. "Worse things happen at sea, as they say. Quicker and cleaner than being hung from the yardarm."
"Hanged," Xander corrected her.
Rhiannon couldn't help staring, and listening intently, as the conversation between the three continued and confirmed that yes, she had heard correctly, the sailor really was called Xander. He was even similar in height, build, and hair color to Nicholas Brendon, although facially there was little resemblance.
"I see you are smiling for the first time since we entered Solitude," Jenassa remarked. "The dash of rum has helped, then?"
"Actually it's the name of one of the other customers that's cheered me up," Rhiannon told her. The trio of sailors had collected drinks and moved on, taking seats over at the far side of the room, and as the girl bard had now struck up a song Rhiannon was pretty sure they were out of hearing range. "He's called Xander. That's the name of a famous hero in the stories of my world. He was one of the Scoobies, the companions of the Slayer, and was known as the White Knight and the Defender of Mankind. In the original stories he was just a sidekick but in the later stories, written by fans, he became the mightiest hero of all, able to do almost anything, wise and multi-skilled and irresistible to women."
"Did you not identify yourself with the Slayer when you spoke to Delphine?" Jenassa remembered.
"I did," Rhiannon confirmed, "and, as I was a werewolf for a while, that would make me Oz too. You'd be Willow, except that you don't do magic, so maybe Spike, is it? And Delphine would be Giles."
"I would counsel against recruiting that man," Jenassa said. "I suspect that those three sailors are little other than pirates."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything based on a coincidence of name," Rhiannon assured her. "It's cheered me up a bit, that's all. Once we've eaten, and sold off our loot, I should be feeling up to kicking the necromancer out of Meridia's temple."
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The first thing they saw when they entered the temple was a corpse. It wore Imperial armor, still relatively intact, but the body inside was horribly blackened and withered. A pouch at the corpse's belt had rotted away sufficiently to reveal the glint of gold coins inside.
"Do not ask me to take treasure from this place," Jenassa said. "I will not risk the anger of the dead."
Considering that Jenassa had shown no compunction about taking the valuables from the bodies of the bandits they had slain, sometimes even before they had stopped breathing, Rhiannon found her present attitude to be somewhat inconsistent. "I'm not thrilled about the idea myself," she said, "but we need the money and he doesn't have any more use for it. And if we're freeing them from undeath I don't think they'll object." She bent down and, grimacing, took the coin purse. "At least I don't have to drive a stake through his heart."
In order to proceed through the chambers of the ruined temple, and open the internal doors that Malkoran had sealed shut, they had to activate a series of refracting crystals that stood on pillars within the rooms. Meridia was projecting a beam of light that bounced from crystal to crystal and, each time it entered a new chamber, broke the seals and opened the doors. Straightforward enough, although it meant laboriously making their way through a series of corridors, and before long they encountered the first of Malkoran's corrupted shades.
These undead resembled skeletons wrapped in a shroud of darkness, floating above the ground rather than walking, armed with whatever weapons they had born in life. Some wielded swords, the Imperial gladius or the longer Stormcloak sword, some were armed with bows, and others swung war-hammers or battle-axes. All were tough opponents, who withstood several arrows or sword-strokes before melting into a puddle of ectoplasm, and both Rhiannon and Jenassa suffered painful wounds as they fought their way through the temple.
Healing spells and potions kept them going and Rhiannon noticed that she was becoming more proficient and able to keep the healing energy flowing longer. "I'm getting better at this," she remarked. "Just as well. We're running low on potions. I'll have to learn to make my own. Are you any good at… alchemy, is it?"
Jenassa shook her head. "Alas, no, sera," she said. "My poor attempts have resulted only in an unpalatable sludge. I have no affinity for any form of magic."
Rhiannon had seen Irileth using spells, very effectively, in combat and her reading had implied that the Dunmer were naturally talented at magic. Jenassa, Rhiannon decided, was a Squib.
"Maybe Delphine can teach me," she said. "She has an alchemy lab in her secret lair. And an enchanter's table. That's something else I'm getting better at. Next time I get a chance I'm going to put a flame spell on our bows."
"That would be advantageous," Jenassa agreed, "but for now we must make do with what we have."
Or perhaps not. One of the upper galleries held an enchanter's workbench and Rhiannon made use of it. A spell on her boots, enabling her to carry greater burdens, and the fire enchantment on both bows. "The more I do this, the stronger the enchantments get, so they do," she observed. "That must be what Ri'saad meant when he called that shonky mace an enchanter's practice piece. Enchant any old rubbish, just to build up your skills, before you work on the tidy stuff. I'll have to start doing that. These flame spells aren't all that powerful and, with only Lesser gems, they won't last all that long before they need recharging. Hopefully they'll last long enough."
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Rhiannon gasped as a jet of super-chilled air shot from Malkoran's fingers and enveloped her. The cold was like nothing she'd ever known, making the Ice Bucket Challenge seem like a hot shower, and she could feel her muscles seizing up. Somehow she kept going, the magic resistance from the Savior's Hide armor protecting her just enough, and with what seemed like her last reserves of strength she drove both her swords into the necromancer's chest.
Malkoran went down, blood bubbling from his mouth, and the swords pulled free. Rhiannon sagged on her feet, barely managing to keep herself upright, and forced herself to turn around. Two of Malkoran's shade bodyguards were still fighting Jenassa. Rhiannon straightened up, with an effort, and forced herself to move. With each successive step the cold-induced weakness in her muscles eased and she could move faster.
Not that Jenassa needed her aid, it seemed. The Dunmer swordswoman deflected a war-hammer blow with her right-hand sword, sending the weapon harmlessly past her, and with the left-hand blade she cleaved through the shadowy skull of the other undead being. She brought her right-hand weapon around and completed the destruction of the corrupted shade and then turned to devote her full attention to the one wielding the hammer.
"Dragonborn, look out!"
It was Meridia's disembodied voice, urgent and commanding, and Rhiannon whirled around to see a fresh shade rising from Malkoran's corpse. It extended its hands toward her in the unmistakable gestures of spell-casting and Rhiannon, too far away to strike it with her swords, threw herself sideways in a rolling dive that took her out of the line of fire and back onto her feet.
The spell wasn't frost this time; it was lightning. Bolts of electrical energy, far more powerful than Rhiannon's Sparks spell, shot forth from the shade of Malkoran and passed through the space where Rhiannon had been an instant before.
And struck Jenassa.
It must have been like being hit by several Tasers at once. Jenassa went rigid, sparks danced along the blades of her swords, and her hair stood on end. Then she dropped to the ground and lay convulsing in obvious agony. Her undead opponent raised its war-hammer to deliver a finishing blow and Jenassa was helpless to defend herself or evade.
There was no time for Rhiannon to reach her in time, or to change over to her bow, or even to snatch her axe from her belt. None of her small repertoire of spells were powerful enough to stop the corrupted shade before it could strike. There was only one option.
"FUS RO!"
Her target wasn't the shade, as she doubted that the semi-corporeal being would be affected enough to drive it away from its helpless prey; instead she aimed her Shout at Jenassa and sent the Dunmer woman skittering away across the floor to crash into a heap of desecrated corpses. The war-hammer blow missed, striking sparks from the stone floor where Jenassa had lain, and the shade seemed to stumble in mid-air and then rotated through a complete circle as if baffled as to where its victim had gone.
Rhiannon turned back to Malkoran's shade and hurled herself at it, both swords flailing in an attack that relied on fury more than technique, blades of fire and ice slicing through the wraith-form and causing it to collapse in on itself and dissipate. Then she whirled about, in terror lest the other shade had renewed its attack upon Jenassa while she dealt with Malkoran, but found that it was heading directly for her. She brushed aside its hammer-blow and lashed out with her left-hand sword in a strike that cut the shade in half at the waist. The two halves melted and poured down onto the floor, the hammer fell with a clang, and at once Rhiannon rushed to her fallen companion.
Jenassa lay unmoving and Rhiannon's heart was in her mouth as she stooped and poured healing magic into the still form. Then Jenassa stirred.
"Uurgh," she groaned. "What hit me?"
"I'm sorry!" Rhiannon gasped out. "I Shouted you away. I didn't know what else I could do."
"This time, sera, I will thank you at once," Jenassa said. "I saw the hammer poised above me and thought that my doom was certain. You saved me."
"Meridia saved us both," Rhiannon said. "If it hadn't been for her warning…"
"Had I not warned you then you would have perished, Malkoran would have continued to exist betwixt life and death, and the cleansing of my temple would remain incomplete," Meridia said. "But you have done well, nonetheless, and the defiler is defeated. When you take Dawnbreaker from its pedestal I shall transport you back to my shrine."
Rhiannon took a step toward the pedestal, at which Malkoran had been standing when they entered the chamber, and then reconsidered. "Loot the bodies first," she muttered to herself, and proceeded to gather up coins from the desecrated corpses and weapons from the puddles of ectoplasm where the corrupted shades had fallen. She went to the body of Malkoran last and was struck by his resemblance to Alan Rickman, as Hans Gruber, in Die Hard. The necromancer's face was frozen in an expression of surprise that matched that of Gruber as he fell from the Nakatomi Plaza to his death.
"Happy trails, Hans," Rhiannon quoted, as she took a pouch of coin from the late Malkoran's belt. "I hope you don't have a brother who'll blow things up, all over Skyrim, in a complicated plot to combine getting revenge on me with stealing a cowing great heap of gold."
"A great deal of what you say is meaningless to me," Jenassa said. "Do you quote from a play again?"
"Die Hard. One of our most famous plays, it is," Rhiannon replied. "Although not quite as famous as the one this comes from." She went to the pedestal and took hold of the hilt of the sword set into it. "Beam us up, Scotty."
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It was the worst Christmas ever. A travesty of a celebration. They had tried to get on with their lives but it was impossible. There was a great gaping hole in their lives that couldn't be filled. Was not knowing what had happened to their daughter worse than if she had died? Sometimes they felt that it was, and at other times they thought that at least they still had hope. Although, with every day that passed with no news, that hope seemed fainter.
The Christmas tree stood in a corner of the room, their half-hearted attempt to decorate it making it seem even more desolate, the Amazon-wrapped presents from Cerys still lying unopened beneath it because they hadn't been able to bring themselves to open them.
She wouldn't have been with them for Xmas dinner anyway, as her schedule didn't allow enough time off to fit in flights both ways across the Atlantic, but she'd been going to link up with them on Skype for a video chat. Now all they had was the photos of her that stood on the mantelpiece flanked by a depressing mixture of Christmas cards and ones expressing sympathy and condolences.
Tom Morgan, who had wrestled under the name of Gareth the Dragon, picked up the wishbone from the chicken carcass and held it out to his wife. Carrying on the traditions of Christmas, going through the motions of normality, in this season of good cheer despite good cheer being conspicuous by its absence. He was heavier than he had been in his wrestling prime, thicker in the waist and no longer as agile, but still broad in the shoulder and strong. Strength that was, in these circumstances, of no help whatsoever.
Cerys' mother Bronwen hesitated and then hooked her finger around the wishbone. She tried to summon up a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. She gave the wishbone a desultory tug, as Tom pulled back, and the bone snapped leaving the larger section in Bronwen's grip.
"I wish we knew what had happened to Cerys," she said.
"Wish granted!" an unknown voice called.
Tom snatched up the carving knife and looked around. "Who's there?" he growled, but there was nobody else in the room. He pushed back his chair and stood up.
"A perfect opportunity!" the voice continued. "Admittedly this won't be quite the way I was supposed to deliver the message, and Akatosh will be furious, but what did he expect from me? And isn't the saying 'Show don't tell' anyway?"
"What…?" Tom began, but his voice cut off as the couple vanished from their seats at the dining table. The pieces of wishbone fell to the table. On the TV the Queen's Christmas message played to an empty room.
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"A new day is dawning," Meridia proclaimed. She had raised Rhiannon high into the air, possibly as high above the ground as High Hrothgar was above Ivarstead, and was hovering in front of her in the form of a pulsating sphere of light.
Rhiannon, despite her unusual position, couldn't help chuckling. "New Day rocks," she agreed, quoting the slogan of the WWE tag-team of that name. She wasn't a big fan of their act, especially the annoying gimmick with the trombone, but the crowd seemed to find it amusing.
"An odd expression," Meridia said. "but I sense that you meant it as approval. The new day, as you put it, 'rocks'. My light has returned to Skyrim. Take the mighty Dawnbreaker and with it purge corruption from the dark corners of the world. Wield it in my name, that my influence may grow."
"That doesn't mean I have to worship you, does it? I'm not sure I can do that. Not that I'm not grateful for you saving my life, and all, but I'm not into worship. If you ask the church, then I'm an unbeliever. Spend Sundays asleep, I'm just another dreamer," Rhiannon said, quoting Rudimental.
"It matters not. The plant cares nothing for the rays that bring it the warmth of the sun. As you carry Dawnbreaker, so shall my light touch the world. Farewell."
Rhiannon felt herself start to descend. "Wait on!" she called. "Can you send me back to my world? Jenassa could wield Dawnbreaker just as well as me, I'd bet."
Her descent halted. "Alas, no," Meridia said. "That is something outside my sphere of control. I cannot fulfil your request. As you have served me well, Dragonborn, I shall aid you one more time as some small measure of compensation. On leaving this shrine turn and go up the slope, for some one hundred paces, and there you will find something to your advantage." After speaking those words Meridia returned Rhiannon to the platform in front of her statue.
Jenassa hastened to join her. "To see you rising so far up into the air was disconcerting," she said.
"Well, it's quite a view from up there, it is," Rhiannon said, "and I trusted her not to drop me. Pointless, that would be, after she saved my life. And she says that if we go a hundred paces up the hill we'll find something useful."
It was a Word Wall. One of the glyphs on the wall lit up as Rhiannon approached. She read the word as 'Su', meaning 'Air', and recognized that it was part of a Shout called 'Elemental Fury'. It would enable her to wield her swords with greater speed, for a short time, giving her an edge in combat; although first, of course, she would have to kill yet another dragon.
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HEDDLU GOGLEDD CYMRU – NORTH WALES POLICE
Gogledd Cymru diogelach – A safer North Wales
News and Appeals
Update: Parents of Bethesda girl missing in America now also missing.
A search is under way for Thomas Morgan, 56, and Bronwen Morgan, 55, after friends reported that their home in Bethesda was empty with the TV on and the remains of a Christmas dinner still on the table. The couple's daughter Cerys, a professional wrestler with the WWE, was reported missing in Philadelphia on 14th December and the American police have so far failed to locate her. The investigation into the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan is proceeding with police underwater divers conducting searches of sections of the river Ogwen. Members of the public who have any information regarding the couple should contact North Wales Police on…
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"So the dragon you slew had laid waste to Granite Hill?" said the young Jarl. "Unfortunate. Such a tragic waste of human life. And no more taxes coming in. Oh, well, it's only a small part of my, that is the Hold's, revenue."
Rhiannon would have like to Shout the pathetic excuse for a Jarl off his throne and across the room, possibly following up by giving him a tour of Suplex City, but the trouble it would cause wasn't worth the momentary satisfaction. She kept her mouth shut.
"And I hear that you've made quite an impression on the common rabble," Jarl Siddgeir went on. "Even that dour and depressing priest, Runil, seems a little less gloomy thanks to you recovering his lost journal."
Rhiannon couldn't help smiling at the mention of Runil. Not due to the Elven priest himself, he was a worshipper of the God of the Dead and town undertaker – with a small 'u' – and so wasn't the most cheerful of people, but because his name was so similar to 'Rúmil' from The Lord of the Rings. She was reminded of the 'Return-verse' fanfics, in which Rúmil was a central character and had married Dawn Summers, although Dawn would never have married his elderly and unattractive near-namesake in this world.
"It's a pity that you haven't done anything about the bandits in Embershard Mine," Siddgeir said, "but I suppose one can't expect everything at once. You've fulfilled the conditions that I set," he confirmed, "and so I grant you the right to purchase property in the Hold. I am informed that there's a prime plot of land available, just off the road to Riverwood, and a house built there would give you a pleasant view over Lake Ilinalta. Have a word with my steward if you're interested."
A house in that location might have been convenient, Rhiannon thought, but a plot of land with no house was useless to her. "I'll think about it," she said.
"And, by my right as Jarl, I hereby name you Thane of Falkreath," Siddgeir proclaimed. "Congratulations. It's mainly an honorary title, of course, but there are a few perks. For a start I'm inviting you to a banquet I'll be hosting tonight. You can regale us with the tales of your adventures, I'm sure they'd be enthralling, and perhaps entertain us with the song I'm informed you performed for the rabble in the tavern last night."
"I'm afraid I won't be able to accept," Rhiannon told him, feigning a regret she didn't feel. She had a horrible suspicion that Siddgeir would use the occasion to make a pass at her, a prospect that made her skin crawl, and she'd sung Let It Go for the patrons of Dead Man's Drink, after a couple of tankards of mead, only as a quick way of making herself 'known throughout the Hold'. "I have to set off for Riverwood at once. The Greybeards gave me a mission to carry out and I need to get started without further delay."
"Oh, that is a shame," said Siddgeir. "I might as well cancel the banquet, then. Still, no doubt there will be other opportunities. Do hurry back. Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I present you with this weapon from my armory, to serve as your badge of office, and I hereby appoint Rayya to be your Housecarl."
Rhiannon managed to keep her face impassive but felt like wincing. She hadn't expected Siddgeir to have a candidate already picked out and, perhaps naively, had thought she'd be able to get him to regard Jenassa as her Housecarl in the same way as Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun had done. Now she was going to be saddled with a stranger, who was likely to report back on her to Siddgeir, and who'd have to be kept in the dark about Delphine's secrets. This would be… awkward, to say the least.
"Rayya! Where is that woman?" Siddgeir called. "Nenya! Where in Oblivion is Rayya?"
The Steward of Falkreath, a High Elf woman with golden skin, golden hair, and golden eyes, emerged from a room at the side of the Jarl's hall. "You sent her to Riften to bring you a case of Black-Briar Reserve," she reminded the young Jarl. "She isn't due back for at least another two days."
"Oh, yes," said the Jarl. "Blast. You'll just have to wait for your Housecarl, then."
Rhiannon suppressed a sigh of relief. "That's not a problem. It might be a while before I can get back to Falkreath," she told him, inwardly resolving to stretch that 'while' out as long as possible, "but I can wait until then. You can… assign her to me when I return."
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"I hope it's a long time before I see that… twll tin… again," Rhiannon said. "He reminds me of Tyler Breeze, except that Tyler is just a role that Matt Clement plays and Matt is a decent bloke when he's out of character. Jarl Siddgeir is… dim gwerth rhech dafad."
"I take it that is an uncomplimentary term," Delphine said. "Don't bother to translate. I'm well aware of Siddgeir's faults. But unless you intend to return to Falkreath there seems little point in you having devoted considerable effort to becoming a Thane there."
"I'm pretty much incapable of turning down a shot at a title," Rhiannon confessed, "even one that doesn't really mean much. And I expect I will go back to Falkreath eventually, especially if I'm supposed to run around this country fighting dragons." She sighed, "I hope I don't have to do any more of that any time soon. I've done enough running these past few days to wear even Mo Farah out. If we hadn't found a load of stamina potions, in a bandit camp, I'd never have been able to do it." She glanced across at Jenassa. "And I'd guess Jenassa feels the same way."
The Dunmer woman nodded agreement. "Indeed so, sera. More so, perhaps, for it was I who had the greater need of stamina potions." She turned her gaze upon Delphine. "I pride myself upon my endurance but Rhiannon outmatches me. She can run further and faster than I can."
"I've got longer legs," Rhiannon said, "and my mum was a distance runner. Third best in Wales, she was, behind Angela and Susan Tooby. She never quite made it into the Great Britain team but she did compete for Wales in the 1986 Commonwealth Games." Thoughts of her mother suddenly filled her head and she felt tears pricking behind her eyelids. She tried to blink them away, not entirely successfully, and picked up her cup of tea.
"I'm afraid I'll be asking you to do more running around Skyrim," Delphine said, "and there will, most likely, be dragon-slaying involved."
Rhiannon sipped at her tea. It had been brewed by Delphine, using Rhiannon's tea-leaves, and served in a pottery cup instead of the pewter goblet Rhiannon had been using previously. It hadn't registered on her at the time but the goblet had imparted a slight metallic flavor to the tea. This cup, free of that taint and with the addition of a little milk from Delphine's pantry, was almost as nice as if her mother had made it for her back home. Tears welled up in her eyes again and she realized that her hand was trembling. Hastily she set the cup down before she spilt the hot liquid.
"Are you all right?" Delphine asked.
"I'm just… missing my home," Rhiannon said, fighting to keep her voice level. "I've missed Christmas. That's our… midwinter festival," she added, as she saw Delphine's look of blank incomprehension. "And I was going to get together with some of the other girls and go to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We'd been waiting for it for months and I've missed it."
"Midwinter festival? But it is Last Seed," Delphine said. "Midwinter is four months away."
"Not where I come from," Rhiannon said.
Delphine shook her head. "I won't ask you to explain," she said. "I suspect I would be left none the wiser." She broke off for a moment, sipped at her own cup of tea, and then continued. "I don't know if there is any way to return you to your own home. If the Divines brought you here, to fight the dragons, then it is possible they might send you back once they are defeated – but I can make no promise to that effect."
"I asked Meridia to send me back," Rhiannon said, "but she said she couldn't."
"I wouldn't mention your little adventure with Meridia to anyone else," Delphine cautioned her. "The Vigilants of Stendarr are adamantly opposed to any dealings with the Daedra and they might even attack you if they found out about it."
"The Vigilants of Stendarr? Who are they?"
"An order of holy warriors dedicated to Stendarr, god of mercy and justice," Delphine explained. "They see it as their duty to stamp out Daedra worship, even of relatively benign Daedric Princes like Meridia and Azura, and they can be over-zealous in their pursuit of that objective. If they recognize your sword, and your armor, as being of Daedric origin they may try to take them from you."
"But… Dawnbreaker is purpose-made for killing those draugr things, it is," Rhiannon protested. "Why would they have a problem with that?"
"I know it isn't logical," Delphine agreed, "but it's the way they think."
"Well, they can't have it," Rhiannon said. "It's mine and it's cowing lush. It balances just right and it holds its charge great. The swords I enchanted myself lose their charge quicker than an iPhone 6."
"Hopefully it won't arise," Delphine said. "I didn't recognize it, and I'm fairly knowledgeable about legendary weapons. And I've seen a picture of the Hero of Kvatch wearing the Savior's Hide and it doesn't look much like the version you're wearing. If you do get questioned about them, say you took them from a dead bandit. That might be a good enough answer to get them to drop the subject."
"I'll do that," Rhiannon said.
"But now I'd better get back to business," said Delphine. "I need you to come with me on a special mission."
"Getting that Horn of Jürgen Klinsmann thing for the Greybeards, is it?"
Delphine frowned. "You mean Jurgen Windcaller. No, I'm afraid I need you to do something else first. While you were off in Falkreath and Haafingar I was following up on some information about the dragons and I've learned something… disturbing. You know there have been no dragons in Skyrim for centuries, right? Most of them were killed in the Dragon Wars, millennia ago, and the rest were killed by my predecessors, one by one, in the centuries that followed. Now they're back. And I've found out that they're not just coming to Skyrim from somewhere else; they're the dead ones coming back to life."
"Back to life, is it? They can raise the dead here? I didn't know that," Rhiannon said.
"They can't," Delphine said. "I've never heard of any conjurer or necromancer who can bring people back as fully aware, thinking, beings. Dead Thralls are the closest and they're not really self-willed. But maybe dragons are different. Or the Thalmor have created some new, more powerful, spells that can fully resurrect dragons."
"What makes you think the dragons are coming back to life, then?" Rhiannon asked.
"I know they are," Delphine said, "because I've been visiting their ancient burial mounds and found some of them empty. And I've figured out where the next one will be rising and we're going to go there. We'll see how it's being done, you can kill the dragon, and hopefully we'll be able to see how they're being raised and work out how to stop it happening again."
"You make it sound so simple," Rhiannon said, "but there's no way I can kill a dragon on my own."
"I will fight alongside you, of course," Delphine said, "and no doubt so will Jenassa."
"Indeed so," Jenassa confirmed. "I will stand at Rhiannon's side against any foe."
What Rhiannon really wanted to say was 'I don't want to fight a dragon because I'm frightened'. The thought of facing another of the huge, fire-breathing, creatures sent a cold shiver down her spine. But the confidence of the other two women, and the trust they were placing in her, made it impossible for her to voice her fears and doubts. You didn't let your tag-team partners down. She tried another tack.
"If the dragons come back to life, won't it be a bit… pointless me killing them?"
Delphine shook her head. "If you kill them, or at least are close by when they are slain, you take their souls," she said. "I'm pretty certain that will rule out any possibility of bringing them back again. Anyway, we have to try."
Rhiannon remembered the devastated wreckage of the little hamlet of Granite Hill. "I suppose you're right," she said. "So, where are we going?
"Eastmarch Hold," said Delphine. "A little mining town called Kynesgrove."
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It wasn't what Rhiannon would have called a town. She'd pictured something the size of Tregarth, just next to Bethesda, which had been built to house workers from the nearby slate quarries and which had a population of about 1,000. Kynesgrove's population probably didn't even reach 100.
A track led uphill from the 'town' – hamlet, more like – to the mine and smelter where almost all the inhabitants, apart from a few farmers and the staff of the inn, worked. Delphine led them up the track, past the mine, and further up the hill. They reached a point where they could see, ahead of them, a stone structure set into the ground. Three concentric rings of stone slabs, rising slightly above the surrounding ground, with a flat circular area, like a lid, in the center.
"It's still closed," Delphine said. "Good. We're in time. It shouldn't be opening until mid-morning tomorrow, according to my calculations, but I wasn't totally certain of their accuracy. Some of my estimates of when the others opened were based on unreliable reports." She looked up at the sky. "It's getting late. I don't fancy spending the night out here, when it's likely to be unnecessary, so we might as well go back down to the inn and get a room for the night. We'll come back here after breakfast."
"I've seen one of these before," Rhiannon said. "Not far from Bloated Man's Grotto, when we were checking out what had happened to Granite Hill. It looked just like this one, and you say this one hasn't opened yet, but a dragon had pretty much erased Granite Hill from existence before we fought it on the road between Falkreath and Riverwood. Are you sure this one is still closed? Or could the dragons be coming from somewhere else?"
"I've seen ones that have opened," Delphine said, "and that disc in the middle had collapsed down into a hollow. The difference is plain to see. And the dragons don't necessarily attack in the same vicinity as where they appear. The one you fought could have come from fifty miles away from that burial mound. And there were a lot more dragons, back in the days of the Dragon Cult, than just the ones that were buried in the mounds. There could be dragon remains in a lot of places, besides the ones shown on the Dragonstone, and those dragons could well be coming back to life too. I've no way of knowing."
"You're the expert," Rhiannon said. "I'll take your word for it."
Delphine took out her map and unfolded it. "Great Henge," she said. "That would be the one you saw, I believe. I can't predict when that one will open. There are too many possibilities, after this one, for me to tell which way the pattern will go." The map jerked in her hand and, simultaneously, Rhiannon felt a raindrop strike her face. Delphine folded the map up hastily and stashed it away. "It's starting to rain," she said. "Let's get inside and come back tomorrow."
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"What's this filthy Dark Elf doing here?" the young man growled. "Bad enough that we have to put up with Dravynea the Stoneweaver without more of the gray-skins stinking up our town."
"Leave her alone, Little Kjell," the innkeeper called from behind the bar. "Those ladies are paying customers."
"We don't need that kind of customer, mama," said the young man. "They should go back to Morrowind. Skyrim is for the Nords."
"I was born in Skyrim, fool," Jenassa responded with acid in her tone.
Delphine put a hand on Jenassa's arm. "Calm yourself," she advised. "Do not rise to his baiting. To be thrown out of the inn would be extremely inconvenient."
She was cautioning the wrong person. Rhiannon's lips were compressed into a tight line and her eyes were blazing. She rose to her feet. "Apologize to Jenassa," she ordered, "and then leave us alone. Or I'll hurt you."
Delphine groaned and covered her face with her hands.
The young man took a step backward, and for a second it seemed that he was going to comply, but then his face hardened. "You don't look so tough," he said. "I'll bet I could take you."
"Kjell, no!" the innkeeper cried. "She's a mercenary. She'll kill you."
Again Kjell quailed slightly, and took another step back, but once more he recovered his nerve. "She wouldn't dare use her sword," he answered his mother, and then turned back to Rhiannon. "My pa runs this town," he said. "He owns the inn and the mine. If you draw a weapon on me you'll be in big trouble."
Rhiannon unbuckled her sword-belt and handed it to Jenassa. "No weapons," she agreed. "Now you either apologize to Jenassa, or you fight me. Which will it be?"
"I'm not going to apologize to a filthy gray-skin," said the young man; teenager, rather, Rhiannon realized. His weather-beaten complexion had made him look older at first glance, to Rhiannon's eyes, but a second look revealed that he suffered somewhat from acne. The childish petulance in the way he had spoken to her, and his use of 'mama' when addressing his mother, also pointed to him being younger than he first appeared. Sixteen or seventeen, eighteen at most, Rhiannon would guess. "You need to learn respect," he went on, "and I'm going to teach you that lesson."
Kjell was shorter than Rhiannon, probably about five foot eight or nine, but quite stocky of build. It was likely that he engaged in hard manual labor, and he'd be stronger than the average teenage boy of twenty-first century America, but Rhiannon wasn't in the least worried. Even if he was stronger than her it wouldn't help him at all. "Bring it on, boyo," she challenged, advancing toward him. "Hit me with your best shot."
"Kjell, don't do it!" his mother ordered.
He ignored her. "You asked for it," Kjell said, and swung his right fist in a clumsy blow.
Rhiannon caught his wrist, twisted it, grabbed his arm with her other hand as well, and wrenched him around and down. She swung her left leg up and over his arm, brought it down, and used it to force him further down until he lost his footing and ended up face-down on the floor. Rhiannon sat down on his back, with his arm between her legs, and heaved his straight arm up and back in Becky Lynch's 'dis-arm-her' version of the seated Fujiwara arm-bar submission hold.
Against a really strong man, like Cesaro or some of the larger male wrestlers in the WWE, it might not have worked. Kjell wasn't even remotely in that league. In seconds he was groaning in pain and his struggles to get free were futile. "Let me go, you bitch!" he demanded.
"Only when you submit and apologize," Rhiannon told him.
A young girl had been watching from behind the counter of the inn. She was only about five feet two, and her body shape was only beginning to show the curves of a woman, and Rhiannon guessed her age at perhaps thirteen or fourteen. The girl came out from behind the bar and approached.
"Serves you right for throwing me into the goat pen," she told Kjell, with a wide grin on her face. "Maybe you'll learn that you can't just push people around because they're girls."
"You can apologize to her, as well, while you're at it," Rhiannon said. She wrenched his wrist around still further and leaned back to put still more pressure on the arm.
"I yield! I yield!" Kjell cried out. "I cannot best you!"
Rhiannon eased back on the pressure, very slightly, but didn't release. "And apologize," she prompted.
"I'm sorry, Froa," Kjell said, almost in a whimper. "I won't do it again."
"And now to Jenassa." Kjell hesitated and so Rhiannon intensified the pressure again.
Kjell yelped. "I am sorry, lady Dunmer," he gasped out. "I will bother you no more."
"There's tidy," said Rhiannon. "See that you don't." She eased off on the pressure but kept hold of his arm, as she stood up, and did not release her grip until she was clear of any attempt he might make to strike back at her. He made no such attempt and simply climbed to his feet and stood rubbing his shoulder.
"Can you teach me to do that?" the teenage girl asked. "My brother pushes me around," she shot a fierce glare at the young man, "and I'd love to be able to get my own back."
"It would take a very long time," Rhiannon said. "I started training when I was about your age and I'm twenty-seven now." She sucked in her bottom lip as an idea occurred to her. If she couldn't get back to Earth, and once this thing with the dragons was over, she'd need to find some kind of job. Being a mercenary, or a bandit hunter, didn't appeal to her – she'd prefer something that didn't involve killing people – and she didn't have the knowledge base for most other mediaeval-type trades. But she'd already considered training as a likely post-wrestling career, if she didn't get her break in mainstream movies or television, and it might be a viable option here too. Something to consider for the future.
"You could teach me a few things now, couldn't you?" the girl pleaded.
"Not enough to do any good," Rhiannon said, shaking her head, and dismissing the uncharitable thought that she could get the girl up to the standard of a couple of the WWE Divas in twenty minutes.
"But you could at least teach me something," the girl pleaded.
"I'm sorry," Rhiannon replied, "I won't be here long enough. I'll be leaving in the morning." She saw relief on the face of the young man, and possibly a flash of triumph, and suspected that he might take his resentment at his defeat out on his sister once she had gone. "I'll be back," she added, as a deterrent, and managed to resist the temptation to say it in a Schwarzenegger voice. "I might teach you a few moves then."
"Ooh, that would be great," said the girl. She looked as if she was going to say more but Rhiannon turned her back, and returned to her table, and the girl gave up and headed back toward her mother at the counter.
"That was, perhaps, unwise," Delphine told Rhiannon.
Rhiannon shrugged. She saw the young man head off back to the bar, still rubbing his shoulder, and heard his mother start to berate him for being an idiot who deserved the lesson he had received. "The thought of facing a dragon tomorrow… scares me," Rhiannon confessed. "That fight – if you can call it a fight – made me feel better. More confident. It reminded me that, to quote Chris Jericho, 'I'm the best in the world at what I do.' I just hope that also applies to fighting dragons."
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The immense black dragon flapped its wings and hovered above the burial mound. Rhiannon tried to nock an arrow but her hands were shaking too much to complete the task. She abandoned the attempt, lowered her bow, and flattened herself against the rock she was using as cover. She glanced across at her companions, hoping that they had not noticed her nervousness, and watched as both of them loosed arrows at the dragon. Arrows which failed to reach their target.
"Talos, just how big is that thing?" Delphine exclaimed. "I misjudged its height badly."
Rhiannon was reminded of the scene in Father Ted in which Ted was trying to explain perspective to Dougal, with the aid of some toy cows, and despite the seriousness of the present situation a smile came to her lips and she almost broke into a chuckle. Her hands stopped shaking and she was able to take control of her voice.
"That's the dragon that destroyed Helgen," she told Delphine. "It just ignored everything the garrison fired at it. I don't think it's worth you trying any more arrows."
"You may be right," Delphine conceded. "What's it doing here?"
The air above the burial mound began to shimmer and swirl as if a twister was forming. The big dragon banked, flew in a descending spiral around the mound, and then resumed its hovering at a lower altitude. It spoke several words in a language Rhiannon didn't speak, then raised its voice and Shouted, and an energy wave burst forth from its huge maw and struck the central disc of the mound. The stone plate shattered.
"This is worse than I thought," Delphine muttered.
"No kidding," Rhiannon agreed, as the head of another dragon rose up from the open mound.
The new, much smaller, dragon seemed somehow… incomplete. Most of the body was covered by scales but in a few areas the skeleton was showing through. The wings were ragged and tattered. Then sparks of golden light began to swirl around the partially skeletal creature, whirling in toward its body, and the incomplete sections seemed to rebuild themselves. The process resembled, in reverse, the way the dragon at the Western Watchtower had disintegrated as its soul had streamed into Rhiannon. Even before the re-assembly was complete the dragon had begun to speak to its larger relative.
"Alduin, thuri! Boaan tiid vokriiha suleyksejun kruziik?"
The huge one replied in, presumably, the same language. "Geh, Sahloknir, kaali mir." It then pivoted in the air to face Rhiannon and spoke again. "Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi." The only word Rhiannon understood was 'Dovahkiin'. The dragon seemed to recognize her lack of comprehension and switched languages.
"You do not even know our tongue, do you? Such arrogance, to adorn yourself with the image of a Dov, and to take for yourself the name of Dovah. You deserve death." It turned back to face the newly risen dragon, which by this time was fully restored, and spoke in an unmistakable tone of command. "Sahloknir, krii daar joorre." With that it soared higher into the air and away. In moments it was disappearing into the distance.
And the other dragon was launching itself into the air.
Delphine and Jenassa were already loosing arrows at the beast. Rhiannon nocked an arrow, successfully this time, and joined in. She missed; the other two didn't, but their arrows had no visible effect. Then the dragon wheeled, dived, and belched out a jet of searing flame aimed downward at the three women.
Delphine and Jenassa scrambled out of the line of fire, narrowly avoiding the flames, and took cover behind the rocks that bordered the road. Rhiannon chose a different method of evasion; she Shouted "WULD" and used her Whirlwind Sprint ability to move fifty feet away in the blink of an eye.
The dragon went past, its fiery breath scorching a trail along unoccupied ground, and then wheeled around and slowed to a hover. "Your Voice is strong… for a mortal," it told Rhiannon, "but no match for mine. You cannot evade me for long."
An arrow struck its underside and sank in to about half the length of the shaft. Rhiannon hadn't seen whether it had been fired by Delphine or Jenassa but she could hear Delphine shouting.
"We have to bring it down!" Delphine yelled. "We've got to ground that bastard." Another two arrows struck home almost simultaneously. The dragon flapped its wings vigorously and zoomed upward and away.
"Skyrim belongs to the Nords!" The war-cry sounded as two guards in Stormcloak armor raced up the path from the village. One bore a shield, and brandished a war-axe, and the other aimed a bow up at the dragon overhead.
Rhiannon followed suit and, as the dragon wheeled around and came back, she tried to allow for the moving target and loosed an arrow. It struck home under the dragon's jaw and bit deep.
"Well shot," Delphine called. Of course she didn't know that Rhiannon had intended to hit the dragon in the belly and had drastically over-estimated the angle by which she needed to lead her target. Delphine's own arrow went through the membrane of one of the wings and Jenassa put an arrow into the dragon's hindquarters. The Stormcloak loosed and missed.
On this strafing run the dragon didn't breathe fire; instead a stream of super-cooled air shot out of its mouth. Rhiannon's ability to Shout hadn't recharged yet but she launched herself into a series of handsprings and flips, hurtling out of the target zone both rapidly and unpredictably, and the icy blast missed her. The bow-armed Stormcloak was less fortunate, or less nimble, and the cold breath struck him directly. Nords had a natural resistance to cold, Rhiannon had learned, but the dragon's breath must have been as cold, or colder, than the frost spell Malkoran had used against her in Meridia's temple. The Stormcloak dropped his bow, doubled up, and fell to his knees.
The dragon glared at Rhiannon and growled out a phrase in its own language. Probably, Rhiannon thought, something along the lines of 'Nimble little minx, isn't she?' Then it descended and came in to land. It faced Rhiannon and, expecting it to breathe out more fire or ice at her, she cartwheeled aside out of the line of fire. The dragon growled again, turned away, and headed directly for Delphine and Jenassa.
The way the dragon moved on the ground, using the knuckles of its wings as front feet like a CGI pterosaur, looked clumsy but its sheer size made it fast. Delphine charged to meet it, her katana seeming to leap into her hand, and Jenassa drew her two swords and followed. The axe-wielding Stormcloak ran in from the side. The dragon swung its head and struck the Stormcloak a blow that sent the man flying back to crash to the ground. Then it turned its attention back to the two women.
Swords flashed and jaws snapped. Rhiannon had lost most of her arrows during her acrobatic evasive maneuvers and so she drew Dawnbreaker, unhooked the Axe of Whiterun from her belt, and started to run back to join in the fight. She had ended up quite a distance from the others and she was still a good twenty yards away when a blow from the dragon's snout knocked Delphine to the ground. Then the dragon's jaws opened wide and, ignoring the blows from Jenassa's swords, it struck like a snake and seized Delphine in its fanged maw. It raised its head, with her legs trapped in its jaws and her katana flailing to no effect, and shook her back and forth in an apparent attempt to disarm her before swallowing her whole.
Rhiannon gasped in horror even as she ran. She was too far away to reach Delphine in time… or was she? Her Thu'um had recharged. And she knew all about using your momentum to increase the force of a blow... She extended her arm, holding Dawnbreaker out in front of her, and Shouted "WULD!"
She slammed into the dragon with an impact that felt like botching a Spear and ramming at full velocity into the ring-post. She bounced off, losing her grip on Dawnbreaker, and fell to the ground.
The dragon… howled. Its jaws opened and Delphine fell free. She landed on her feet but collapsed to the ground immediately, one of her legs buckling under her as if broken, and she ended up sitting on the ground pointing her katana up at the dragon.
Rhiannon tried to get to her feet but was too winded to perform her usual rapid spin-up. She pushed herself up with her hands and made it to her knees just as the dragon lunged at her. She could see the hilt of Dawnbreaker sticking out from the base of the beast's neck, just in front of where the wing joined the body, driven in all the way up to the cross-guard. It had to be badly hurt and the attack was slower and more awkward than the lightning-fast strike it had made at Delphine. Rhiannon swung her axe and connected with its snout. The dragon recoiled but then struck once more and knocked the axe out of Rhiannon's hand. Before she could draw her spare sword the dragon opened its jaws to deliver a final, killing, bite.
"Die, dragon!" Jenassa had climbed to the top of a rock and now she hurled herself from that vantage point in a leap onto the dragon's head. She thrust down with her swords, aiming at the beast's eyes, as she landed. Her left-hand blade was deflected by the bony ridge above the eyes and skidded off, harmlessly, across the scaly skull. The other struck precisely on the dragon's right eye and pierced deep. The dragon reared up, raising its head high, and Jenassa slipped backward and only stayed on her perch by releasing her left-hand sword and clinging onto the right with both hands.
And then the dragon flopped down like Kevin Nash receiving the infamous 'Fingerpoke of Doom' from Hollywood Hogan. Its neck thrashed across the ground for a couple of seconds and then it lay still. Jenassa regained her footing, wrenched at her sword, and pulled it free. The dragon didn't react and Rhiannon knew that it was dead.
At once she rushed to Delphine. The older woman's right leg was red with blood and her face was contorted with pain. "Are you…" Rhiannon began, then realized that asking if Delphine was all right would be stupid and corrected herself. "Is your leg broken?" she asked instead.
Delphine shook her head, laid her katana down, and clutched at her thigh. "One of its fangs seems to have gone through my thigh muscle," she said. She held her hand over the wound and cast a healing spell.
"You should retrieve your sword, sera Rhiannon," Jenassa advised. "We do not know what might happen to it when the dragon burns." She turned away and began to search the ground for her fallen left-hand sword.
"Good point," Rhiannon said. She took a couple of steps toward the dragon's body but at that moment a golden glow began to show from between its scales. Before Rhiannon could get to the hilt of Dawnbreaker the dragon soul was streaming out, surrounding Rhiannon in a nimbus of golden light, and being absorbed into her being. The corpse broke up and disintegrated, leaving behind a skeleton, a few loose scales and bones, and an undamaged Dawnbreaker.
"You took its very soul!" exclaimed one of the two Stormcloaks. He was supporting the other, the one who had been struck by the dragon's blast of cold breath, with one arm and with the other he was helping his comrade to drink a healing potion. "And you used the Thu'um. You're… Dragonborn!"
"Uh, yes, I am," Rhiannon confirmed. She was caught off balance, still trying to deal with the rush of energy from the dragon soul, and for once she regretted not having a scriptwriter for moments like this. Should she act as if she was doing a promo for WWE, and make a big announcement, or would that be stupidly overdramatic when she was speaking to only two people? Briefly she considered appropriating Buffy's 'One girl in all the world' speech' but perhaps that would sound a little too boastful. She decided not to bother saying anything more and went to pick up the fallen Axe of Whiterun.
"Dragonborn," the other Stormcloak, standing straight and apparently now recovered from the effects of the dragon's breath, addressed her in awed tones. "It is said that you will bring an end to the evil of all Skyrim's foes. No doubt you will go to Windhelm and aid Ulfric Stormcloak in driving out the corrupt Empire, and the treacherous and vile Thalmor, from Skyrim."
"My job is to fight the dragons, it is," Rhiannon said. "I can't get tied up with anything else."
"But you could help our cause so much," the Stormcloak pleaded.
"Who else can fight the dragons?" the other one pointed out. "We would have perished, without felling the beast, had the Dragonborn and her followers not been here. I have heard that dragons have attacked Helgen, and Whiterun, and several farms, and now here in Kynesgrove. They must be stopped."
"They must, indeed," Delphine said. She had risen to her feet and had an empty potion bottle in her hand. She flexed her right leg, testing its movement, and seemed satisfied. "And we must depart from here, at once, in furtherance of that objective."
"Are you up to traveling?" Rhiannon asked. "That wound was a bad one."
"I had a Potion of Extreme Healing," Delphine told her. "Between that, and my Healing Hands spell, I'm more or less as good as new. It might be an idea to stop off at the inn, though, so that I can get this blood cleaned off. Otherwise we'll be fighting off wolves and sabre cats, attracted by the smell, all the way from here to our destination."
"If your mission is urgent we will not delay you further," the Stormcloak axe-man said. "May Talos guide you, Dragonborn… and your two companions also."
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"I never expected it would be a dragon raising the other dragons," Delphine said. They had left Kynesgrove and were out on the road, with no-one else within sight, and she felt it safe to talk freely. "I was sure it would be the Thalmor."
"Who are the Thalmor, anyway?" Rhiannon asked. "You've mentioned them before, and I know they're Elves, but that's all. Elf Necromancers, is it?"
"They're the faction that rules the Aldmeri Dominion," Delphine explained. "They were behind the Dominion's attack on the Empire that led to the Great War. They took the Imperial City, and held it for a while, but were driven out eventually. But they'd weakened the Empire so much that the Emperor signed the White-Gold Concordat as part of the peace deal. That gave the Thalmor the power to station agents throughout the Imperial provinces, including Skyrim, enforcing the ban on the worship of Talos. And it outlawed the Blades."
"Who are the Blades?"
"Originally we were a dedicated order of dragon hunters, sworn to the service of the Dragonborn," Delphine related, "but once the dragons were all gone, and the last of the Dragonborn Emperors died in the Oblivion Crisis, we became the bodyguards and special agents of the Emperors that followed. But the Thalmor have almost wiped us out. I might well be the sole survivor. If there are any other Blades still living they must be hiding out, in secret, the way I've been doing for the past twenty years."
"So you're the last of the Blades, then," said Rhiannon. "Does that mean you're… sworn to my service, is it?"
"I wouldn't put it that strongly," Delphine said. "It's two hundred years since the last of the Septims died and we transferred our loyalties to the next dynasty of Emperors. But Titus Mede sold us out to the Thalmor and made that allegiance void. I'm on your side, now, and I'll help you all I can. That doesn't mean I'll always obey your orders."
"I wouldn't expect you to," Rhiannon said. "You're the expert. And I'm used to being part of a team but not to giving orders. I had to follow the script, as an actress, and it was the same in the WWE." She fell silent for a moment, considering what Delphine had said, and then another thought occurred to her. "Why did you think it would have been the Thalmor raising the dragons?"
"They're the ones who stand to gain by it," Delphine answered. "Think of what happened when the first dragon turned up. The Imperials were about to execute Ulfric Stormcloak. That would have ended the insurrection and brought Skyrim firmly back into the Empire as a unified province. The Thalmor would hate that. They want us weakened. And what happened? A dragon turned up, disrupted the executions, and in the confusion Ulfric escaped. The Civil War is back on. Only the Thalmor benefit from that."
"I can see why you think that," Rhiannon said, "but it turns out a dragon is doing it himself."
"It could be that the Thalmor raised that big bastard in the first place," Delphine suggested, "and he learned from that how to do it for the other dragons. Even if that's not the case I'll bet the Thalmor know something. They have the best intelligence network in Tamriel. If we could get access to their secret files…"
"That would be impossible," Jenassa put in. "They will be held at their embassy and that is far too well guarded. Any attempt to penetrate it would be suicide even for us."
"I don't know," Delphine mused. She gazed at Rhiannon as if assessing her. "You are an actress. That opens up… possibilities. I have the beginnings of an idea. I'll need some time to work out the details. We'll continue on to Ustengrav, for now, and by the time we've retrieved the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller I might have come up with a plan."
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Rhiannon slashed through the spider-webs that covered the exit. They shriveled up at the touch of Dawnbreaker's fiery blade and the way was clear. Through the doorway Rhiannon could see a stone causeway between two long rectangular pools of water and, beyond that, a raised plinth on which stood a sarcophagus.
She glanced back at the room behind her. A true chamber of horrors. The entrance had been rigged with pressure-plate traps, releasing jets of flaming gas when triggered, and beyond that had been the giant spiders. Two the size of the Dudley Boyz and one much bigger; almost as big as Shelob, in The Return of the King, and just as terrifying. All three lay dead now, of course, but that was mainly down to Jenassa and Delphine. Rhiannon had to admit that, when it came to fighting spiders, her technique deserted her and she was reduced to flailing her swords wildly. Luckily her cooler-headed companions, who seemed to be free of the visceral horror Rhiannon felt for arachnids, had disposed of the creatures quickly and efficiently.
And now, it seemed, the end of their quest was in sight. The layout of this room seemed to indicate that it was the final chamber and, therefore, the resting place of the Horn. Rhiannon advanced, warily and with an arrow nocked, and the other two followed behind her.
As they descended a flight of stone steps, leading to the causeway, they heard a loud rumbling noise. The water in the pools swirled and was broken by four objects rising and breaking the surface. All three women stopped, and took up the tension on their bows, but relaxed as they saw what was causing the disturbance. Four stone statues, stylized figures representing dragon heads, resembling the figureheads of Viking longships. They rose up into clear view, standing some ten feet out of the water and looking down over the causeway, and then stopped.
"Damn, that's quite a sight," Jenassa remarked.
Rhiannon had to agree. She was, however, learning that things in these Nord ruins were rarely harmless. "Just wait," she said gloomily. "They'll spit fire at us when we go past."
They didn't. Instead two draugr appeared, from concealed sarcophagi at the far side of the room, and advanced to attack the intruders. One brandished a two-handed sword and the other wielded a war-axe and wore a shield. They came on in single file, along the narrow causeway, and the leading one made for Rhiannon. She used her left-hand sword to deflect its sword stroke and rammed Dawnbreaker through its chest. That draugr collapsed immediately; as it slid limply from the sword that impaled it a pulse of energy exploded outward from the enchanted blade and set the other draugr ablaze. It flailed around in apparent confusion for a moment and then stepped off the causeway into the water. If it sought to put out the flames it was out of luck; the pool proved to be only knee deep.
Delphine didn't wait for the fire to do its work but lashed out with her katana and decapitated the undead creature. It fell into the water and there was a hissing sound as the flames were extinguished.
"Those would seem to be the final guardians," Jenassa said, "unless something lurks within that sarcophagus ahead. And, if I am not mistaken, there is the horn that we seek."
A stone pedestal, in the shape of a human arm and hand, rose from the top of the elaborate sarcophagus. The carved hand held a wind instrument apparently made from a ram's horn.
"On past form," Rhiannon said, "the sarcophagus will open, as soon as I pick up the horn, and something much worse than anything we've faced so far will burst out and attack."
"I suspect you may be correct," said Delphine, "but if we surround it, with our weapons poised to strike, I am sure we shall prevail."
They ascended the steps of the plinth and took up positions around the sarcophagus. Rhiannon sheathed her left-hand sword but kept Dawnbreaker at the ready. Then, cautiously, she used her left hand to lift the horn from its mount.
Nothing happened.
"Well, that was a bit of an anti-climax," Rhiannon said, after several seconds had passed with no sign of anything springing out to attack them. "I was sure the quest would end with an end-of-level boss fight but I'm happy to be wrong. Now we just have to get out of here and trek all the way back to High Hrothgar to hand it over to the Greybeards."
She wasn't looking forward to the journey. She was weary, after negotiating the twisting and trap-filled passages of Ustengrav and battling past hordes of draugr, walking skeletons, and giant spiders, and also her period had started. The local equivalent of sanitary towels, made of cloth stuffed with a kind of dried moss, worked much better than she had feared and healing spells were an effective remedy for period pains. Even so, she'd have felt more comfortable, and much more confident, with the products she was used to on Earth. Certainly she felt no inclination to go swimming, or roller-skating, and she wondered if wolves might be able to pick up the scent of blood.
Delphine slid her katana back into its scabbard. "I suggest that we go to Solitude first," she said. "I need to see a contact there and it's the closest place where we can sell off the loot we've picked up in here. I had thought of going by myself, while you went off to High Hrothgar, but I'll have to go to Riften after Solitude and I might as well accompany you as far as Ivarstead. I'll carry on from there to Riften. There are things I need to arrange there, if my plan to penetrate the Thalmor Embassy is to work, and I'll do that while you're with the Greybeards."
"Riften is where the Thieves' Guild have their lair, is it not?" Jenassa put in. "I suspect a connection."
"A reasonable deduction," said Delphine, "but I will neither confirm nor deny anything until my arrangements are complete."
It made perfect sense to Rhiannon that Delphine would seek the assistance of a Thieves' Guild if she was planning to break into the Thalmor Embassy. It was harder to see where her own acting skills would come into play but no doubt Delphine would explain once she was ready to put her plan into operation. Rhiannon couldn't summon up the mental energy to press her on the matter right now.
"Should we have a look inside the sarcophagus?" she suggested. "We never found any of that dragon lore you were after. There might be something in there."
Delphine shook her head. "If that is the resting place of Jurgen Windcaller, I think we should leave him in peace," she said. "There's a door over there that I believe will lead to a way out of this place without our having to retrace our steps. Let's see if my guess is correct." She opened the door, keeping her katana at the ready, and led the way through.
They found themselves in a treasure chamber. Burial urns lined the walls, a large chest stood on a stone platform, and gold coins were scattered on the floor in front of the chest.
"It's probably booby-trapped," Rhiannon predicted, "or else empty." Neither proved to be true. It held several hundred gold coins and a few small gems. The coins differed from the septims with which Rhiannon had grown familiar, since her arrival in Skyrim, but Delphine assured her that they would be perfectly acceptable as currency. And, beyond the treasure chamber, they found a tunnel that led them through a concealed door into a room near the entrance to the barrow. A short time later they emerged into the open air.
And several hours later they arrived at the gates of Solitude. Night had fallen but the guard at the gate opened it for them with only the most cursory of challenges. They passed through and walked past the platform where the execution had been held. Rhiannon couldn't repress a shudder at the memory. She quickened her pace and led the way to the Winking Skeever inn.
"We'd like a room for three, please," Rhiannon requested, "and meals."
"I don't have a room for three," said the innkeeper, "but I can do you a double and a single." He took their orders for meals, passed them on to the cook, and then served them drinks. "I remember you," he told Rhiannon. "You were here on the day of the execution, am I right?"
Rhiannon shuddered again. "Don't remind me," she said.
"Sorry," said the innkeeper. "I remember, now, you were somewhat… distraught. I didn't mean to upset you again." He turned away and called out to the inn's resident bard. "Lisette, play something… uplifting."
The pretty blonde bard had been sitting at a table, sipping at a mug of ale or mead, and talking with an attractive dark-haired young woman. At the innkeeper's words she set down her mug, stood up, and picked up her lute from beside her chair. "Very well, Corpulus, you're the boss," Lisette said.
It occurred to Rhiannon that Lisette looked rather like The Boss. Somewhat paler in complexion, with a slightly smaller nose, and with hair of a pale ash blonde instead of being dyed a flamboyant shade of pink, but in other respects she did bear quite a resemblance to Sasha Banks. Of course, to the best of Rhiannon's knowledge, Sasha couldn't play the lute.
"This one is a favorite of mine," Lisette announced. "A legend we all know and love." She strummed the lute and began to sing.
"Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart.
I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes.
With a Voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art.
Believe, believe, the Dragonborn comes.
It's an end to the evil of all Skyrim's foes.
Beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes.
For the darkness has passed, and the legend yet grows.
You'll know, you'll know the Dragonborn's come."
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This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Christina Grimmie. May she sing and play in Sovngarde.
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English meanings of Welsh phrases:
* twll tin = asshole
* dim gwerth rhech dafad = not worth a sheep's fart
English meanings of Dovahzul (Dragon language) phrases:
* Alduin, thuri! Boaan tiid vokriiha suleyksejun kruziik? = Alduin, my Overlord! Has the time come to revive the ancient realm?
* Geh, Sahloknir, kaali mir = Yes, Sahloknir, my trusted ally.
* Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi = So, my false Dragonborn? I do not recognize you as a dragon.
* Sahloknir, krii daar joorre = Sahloknir, kill these mortals.