As they sped south to Dushnikh Yal, Vash applied a simple spell to the carriage itself, reducing its weight and thereby increasing the speed at which the horse could pull them to their destination. The driver, Markus, let out an involuntary yelp at the change in pace.

'Give me a holler next time, Archmage,' he called over his shoulder.

'Sorry,' said Vash, sitting with feet planted firmly, both hands gripped around the edges of the carriage. Yanakh, sitting the same manner across from him, echoed that word.

'Sorry, there's more,' she said. 'More bad news, I mean.'

Vash gritted his teeth and looked away from her. 'Just tell me,' he said. 'And don't apologise. I should have listened to you.'

'Borgakh left Narzulbur. A day or two ago.'

'You thought this would happen,' said Vash, meeting her eyes again.

'I did,' said Yanakh. 'She lasted longer than I thought. And Largashbur. They're running low on food. Another orc left, Ogol. Apparently he wanted to be chief.'

'Damn it,' spat Vash, his own anger surprising him. 'If this is a test from Malacath, I don't like it.' He shook his head. 'But that doesn't matter. We'll go to Largashbur next. Dushnikh Yal comes first.'

'Mor Khazgur seems to be doing fine,' added Yanakh.

Vash snorted. 'One out of four. A new record, I'm sure.'

'You shouldn't be this hard on yourself.'

'Thank you. But I don't think I agree.'

They hurtled on towards Dushnikh Yal, speaking little for the rest of the way, watching the light gradually fade from the sky. Markus refused—quite reasonably, thought Vash—to take the carriage up the steep narrow path to the stronghold, so Vash and Yanakh went on foot from there. Still, they had made incredible time, even if the carriage's axles were rattling alarmingly.

As night took a firmer hold over the Reach and the stronghold came into sight, bandits visible in the watchtowers, Yanakh asked Vash if he had a plan. Lightning sparked in his hands. His arms extended and the bolts shot out, one for each bandit on guard. They screamed and fell.

'I do not,' he said. Casting another spell to harden his skin, he strode towards the stronghold. The gates opened and the bandits came to meet him. Most of them met their end by lightning, or else were skewered on the bound spears Vash summoned. Yanakh had her sword out, but never got a chance to use it.

At the end, the traitor Shel was the only other figure left standing inside the stronghold. Vash trained another spear on her, as she trembled and looked in disbelief at the blood-splattered form of the agent of Malacath, energy still crackling around him. Vash gestured to Yanakh with his free hand.

'Better tell them they can come out,' he said. 'Wouldn't want to step on Burguk's toes here.'

'Sure,' managed Yanakh. She announced herself at the longhouse door, and helped them dismantle the hasty barricade the orcs had established to hold off the bandits. In a few minutes, the stronghold orcs were back under the sky, Chief Burguk alongside Vash.

'I do not regret my actions,' said Burguk. He looked at the spear in Vash's hand, which shone with a blue-white light. 'That weapon only works for you, huh?'

Vash nodded. Already he could feel the cold anger draining out of him. He dismissed the spear and felt adrift in a void, apart from the world.

'Fair enough,' said Burguk. He drew his own mundane axe and locked eyes with Shel. 'Will you kneel?' he asked her.

'Fuck you,' spat Shel.

'Suit yourself.'

It took two blows to get her head off. Vash looked away after the first. In the silence afterwards he found himself staring at the stars. Somewhere in that ocean of time, he felt the light pressure of Yanakh touching his arm.

'Give us a hand, would you?' she said.

Together they carted a bandit corpse out of the stronghold, out to where the orcs were dumping the rest, far enough away that the stink wouldn't reach them. Vash saw that Shel's body was tossed in with the rest, though he didn't see her head.

'If he puts it on a spike, I might make him have some of those regrets,' murmured Vash.

'It would have been worse if you'd tried to stop him,' said Yanakh. She shrugged. 'Blood price. The only way that was going to end.'

'Was it?' Vash looked back at the stronghold. All he could think about was how many people had died there because of him. Maybe it would have been easier to let Shel keep having her little affair. Maybe he could have scared the bandits off. It always seemed too late to make any decisions. 'I know I don't deserve a favour,' he said.

'But?' asked Yanakh.

'Can you make an excuse for us? I don't want to be here anymore.'

Yanakh looked at him for a moment, then nodded. She trod back to the stronghold, while Vash remained outside. He moved away from the bodies and found a spot on the path where he could look up at the stars again. It was only a few minutes before Yanakh returned.

'Largashbur, then,' she said.

Vash nodded. 'Thank you.'

They headed east, travelling on foot through the night, once again taking the shortcut south of the Throat of the World. Vash was present enough in the moment then to be wary of sinister monsters rising from the caves along that route, and kept himself ready for trouble, but there was none. Their way was silent until they descended fully into the Rift, morning establishing itself, and they found Muzgu descending from a tree where she'd clearly spent the night.

'Ah,' she said when she saw them.

'Good to see you too,' said Vash. 'Dar'epha came through, on the warpath.'

'Yeah,' said Muzgu, looking away. 'Um, look, sorry about that. Should've thought it'd make you look bad. Old habits, you know? A guy comes for me, I reach for one of my knives.'

Vash wished he didn't understand. 'Just go see her,' he said. 'Apologise, give up whatever your cut is.'

Muzgu grimaced. 'Well, I can't do that last part, cos I've already sent it to Narzulbur. They're gonna use it to pay for more hands to mine the stone, haul it up, rebuild the place stronger.'

Vash fought down the surprised expression, realising his first instinct had been that Muzgu would hoard all her ill-gotten gains for herself. His first instincts were getting him in a lot of trouble lately, it seemed.

'I wonder if the stronghold would mind using stolen gold,' said Yanakh.

'I suggest we preserve that mystery by not telling them,' said Muzgu.

Vash threw his hands up. 'At least apologise to Dar'epha,' he said. 'I owe her so much at this point it's not funny.'

'Ugh, fine,' said Muzgu. 'But I'm doing it for you, not her. She's got good ideas, but I dunno why she bothers with that guild. It's bloated and full of fools who don't care about what makes a good thief. They just like the little clinkle-clinkle noise that coins make against each other. No fucking principles.'

'I think she knows,' said Vash, remembering how tired Dar'epha had seemed even on her brief visit.

The three, together again for the first time in months, headed east towards Largashbur. They fell in alongside each other, Yanakh relating quietly how Vash had dispatched the bandits at Dushnikh Yal, with Muzgu scoffing at the extravagance of the tale. As their old rhythms emerged, Vash realised, though he had been content in Winterhold, how much he had missed this. The open road, on a mission from their god, the thorny problems ahead that surely, between the three of them, could be untangled.

It was a brief burst of optimism that died in Vash as they came into Largashbur. All that was left now were the chief, his wife, and the aged sorceress. Even with the visitors doubling the number of orcs inside the stronghold, the place was hollow, the memories of what it had once been growing fainter and fainter.

The three locals came out of the longhouse to meet them: Gularzob, Ugor, and Atub. Muzgu had some mostly fresh bread in her pack, and they shared it out, sitting near the shrine. Vash stared at his feet.

'I don't know what to do,' he said.

'It is not your doing,' said Gularzob. 'We have always been cursed. Me, this place, our entire people. I begin to think that there is no escaping it.'

'That's not true,' said his wife, Ugor. 'You have held yourself with honour. The tribe could not have asked for a finer chief.'

Gularzob shook his head and did not speak further. When he sat down, he had dropped the great hammer Volendrung beside him. Now his hand hovered over it, about to pick it up. He hesitated, and left it in the dirt. Atub, the sorceress, rose slowly to her feet.

'I will perform the summoning ritual,' she said. 'Perhaps Malacath will advise us.'

The others watched as she prepared the rite at the shrine. She went through the correct processes, made the correct offerings, but there was only silence afterwards. Wherever their god was, he had decided not to speak to them.

'You see,' said Gularzob. 'He has deserted us. We are unworthy.'

'Just because your faith was not rewarded, does not mean it was displaced,' said Muzgu quietly.

Vash found himself nodding. 'There is no easy way to say this,' he said.

'We know,' said Atub. 'We have known for a long time. That does not make it any less painful.'

'But it doesn't mean your lives are over,' said Vash. 'There are other strongholds.' He ran through them in his head. 'Mor Khazgur has the least—'

But Atub was shaking her head. 'They have a sorceress already,' she said. 'Sharamph. We do not like each other. I do not think I will live in a stronghold again before I die. I cannot recreate the decades I spent here. I do not want to.'

At last Gularzob took up the hammer again. 'I do not deserve this gift,' he said. He rose, and placed it again where it had once appeared all those years ago, balanced on the antlers at the top of the shrine.

'There are always places where strong warriors will be welcomed,' said Yanakh, looking at Gularzob and Ugor. 'The Legion, the Companions, the Dawnguard.'

'The Dawnguard,' echoed Ugor. 'I hear their fortress is mighty.' She approached her husband and placed her hand on his shoulder. 'We could make a new life there. Do something of worth.'

'Hard life,' said Muzgu, almost to herself. 'Probably spend most of your time on the road.'

'A hard life,' mumbled Gularzob. He nodded, and slouched off into the longhouse.

'You could join the College,' said Vash to Atub. The older orc laughed.

'No, that is no place for me,' she said. 'I will head west, into High Rock. There is always someone willing to pay for the knowledge of poisons.'

First Atub departed, then Gularzob and Ugor did the same. The three agents were left in what had once been the stronghold of Largashbur. They stared up at the hammer where it rested on the shrine. It seemed wrong to leave it there, where any passing travellers could snatch it down, yet none of them wanted to be the one to take it.

'I met some Dawnguard recently,' said Vash, mostly just to be saying something. 'They said they were saving the world.'

'Everyone says they're doing that,' said Muzgu. She stepped forward and once again performed the summoning rite for Malacath, muttering something under her breath. Once again it seemed as if there was no response, but when Vash blinked, Volendrung was gone.

Yanakh was surveying the stronghold. 'We should burn it,' she said. The others looked at her in surprise. 'We can't have bandits taking it over. It's a defensible location. It's only a matter of time before someone occupies it.'

'Skyrim has enough ruins filled with bandits,' said Vash. He strode to the longhouse, a great spell flickering between his hands. Better to raze it all, he thought, than to have a monument to their failure. Better to forget it had ever existed; though he knew that would be impossible, that the memory of this empty space would remain in him.

He burned the longhouse, and the smaller huts, and the empty animal enclosures, and the exterior walls. Only the shrine remained, flames surrounding it on all sides. The empty eyes of the antlered skull at the shrine's peak stared into Vash, and he felt them on his back as the agents headed north, the thick smoke of their mistakes clouding their passage.