Ulfric wondered why he expected his conformation as a Companion to be anything other than a brief exchanging of words. They obviously weren't the type for ceremony, or lingering on a moment unless there was ample violence or wit involved.
The Circle were all walls of muscle that agreed with Kodlak's affirmation that Ulfric was a Companion with a surprisingly noble formality. Even still, it was only four words of 'it shall be so', and then they returned to their battle-hardened exteriors. But there was a warmth in their eyes that accepted him as one of their own, if he looked hard enough.
He settled into his new routine as a Companion easily enough over the next two weeks; sleeping in Jorrvaskr's simple barracks with the other Whelps at night, training in the morning, helping less experienced warriors with their stance and grip in the afternoon, outdrinking most everyone in the evening. It was easy to slip into a reality where this was all he ever knew, even if he refused to run errands around Whiterun when asked. No point in riling up the populace for a side of elk.
And contracts were plentiful enough that he was able to take his pick, if he were to be interested in any of them. But Tovar had been right; a new extermination job came in from somewhere around the province each day. Not much else to choose from, and Aela told him to stop asking the fifth day in a row he inquired about more fragments of Wuuthrad. They got word of one every decade or so, she said, twirling an arrow between her fingers.
Still, when she approached him in the yard a week later, he couldn't help but hope she came bringing word of another. "Ulfric," she said, after waiting for his duel to end. Athis, the lone elf of the Companions, had decided he had a personal vendetta against him, and not for the reason Ulfric would've expected from a dark elf who, by his own account, spent too long in Windhelm. Instead, Athis hated how Ulfric could outlast his brutal style of swordsmanship. His footing was beyond sure and his attacks came fast and fake before switching aim to strike where it was least expected. It was a devastating style that could utterly destroy any duelist used to fighting a single enemy at the time. Unfortunately, Ulfric was far too familiar with facing attacks from all angles.
Aela continued, "Housecarl Lydia's here. She's got a contract, and specifically requested you."
"What kind of contract?" Ulfric asked, shaking out his hand. He nodded in respect to Athis, both of them breathing hard.
"Didn't say. But it's probably on behalf of Nariilu to clear some barrow," Aela answered.
It was, in fact, on behalf of the Dragonborn to clear some barrow. "Shouldn't be too difficult, though I'm sure some of the Draugr have started walking around again," Lydia said, leaning against a pillar inside Jorrvaskr.
"What barrow? Are they raiding a village?" Ulfric asked. Draugr usually kept to themselves, but the long-forgotten tombs in the wilderness seemed more likely to venture out and attack than the ones that were well-kept by descendants. He would rather not have corpses up and moving, but to kill them, as adventurers were prone to, felt to be in poor taste whether the Draugr were aggressive or not. They were once respected dead, after all, even if they had savaged themselves to necromancy.
Lydia shrugged. "Nariilu said the deep sanctum hadn't been touched since the First Era. Ancient place full of ancient riches. She wants us to clear it out."
"Rob the dead, you mean."
"They're not using it. My Thane has quite a list of things she'd like to spend a mountain of gold on."
"Such as?"
"Such as things that I won't discuss outside of a secure location." Lydia glanced around the Companions, none of whom were paying any mind to their conversation near the door. "Look, I really needed to get this done days ago, but you never came back to Breezehome. You didn't even take your armor! I don't know if you're making a fresh start or something, but I tried it on and it doesn't fit me. And it's enchanted. Nariilu doesn't like it when people don't accept her gifts."
Or when things went mildly different from her grand, outlandish plans. He hadn't missed his armor, but he also hadn't been out fighting dragons, not that there were any shortage of them around. At least one of the twins had been gone each day except for his confirmation in the Companions fighting the winged beasts. If Ulfric hadn't been enjoying his almost mundane schedule, he'd half a mind to ask to join them, if only just to watch how one man could take down a dragon with nothing but a great sword.
"You'll be paid well, like any Companion I'd usually hire to come along."
"I'm not interested in money," Ulfric replied. He had no use for it, especially now with the Companions.
"Congratulations. What about Korvanjund?"
Ulfric froze. The crypt Galmar had sworn up and down was the resting place of High King Borgas and the Jagged Crown, the site of a skirmish that led to no survivors for neither his army nor the Empire's. "What about it?"
"Nariilu thought you'd be interested in the treasure it holds. She wrote you'd understand and likely wouldn't explain it to me," Lydia said.
The Jagged Crown. She wanted him to have it whether she lived to see him crowned or not. The mission Galmar sent to retrieve it had been a colossal failure. A full loss on both sides, his spies reported. No survivors to even tell the tale of slaughter. Had she been at Korvanjund, killed her own allies to keep Tullius from interfering with her own plans? Had she wanted him High King the entire time she slaughtered his army? She could've joined the Stormcloaks and had him sitting comfortably in the Blue Palace by now. Instead, she seemed content to destroy his reputation and wait around for Maven Blackbriar to die before even beginning to take steps to make him High King.
Ulfric dropped his voice low. "How much has she told you about her plans?"
"I'll admit that I have no idea why she's made an ally in you, but my Thane must have her reasons," Lydia replied. "As to her goals, I can say they're…well, I've been trying to talk her out of them since she came up with it. I thought she was just drunk, or on Skooma, or something, but, no, she's dead serious. And that's all I'll say. She's forbidden me from discussing them with anyone."
Nariilu held her ribs, prodding with restoration magic until she healed the cracks on her left side. The effort left her head spinning; she'd had to do the same twice already from Deathlords that Shouted her against a wall and down a set of stairs. At least this one had the decency to Shout her over a balcony into a pit, so she at least had time to heal herself before fighting the latest group of corpses that blocked her path to the Dragon Priest.
A Draugr finally found where she had ducked under a ramp to hide from at least half a dozen archers and hissed at her. It swung a mace at her. Nariilu held up a ward to block; she was too tired to dodge. She lost count of the hours a long time ago, and sleep wasn't a reliable way to track the time, with her frequent naps. The sheer amount of magic she had to cast kept her in a near constant state of drowsiness, especially as more and more Draugr ripped her swords from her hands with one Shout after another. They couldn't do the same to a spell.
And the number of Draugr was promising. She had to be close; she promised herself at every turn that the Priest would be right there, sleeping soundly with the staff somewhere off to the side, completely unguarded. Nariilu fired one, two ice spikes into the Draugr and leaned out from under the ramp just enough to throw a frenzy spell up at the archers. The arrows stopped just as three more Draugr found their way to the bottom of the pit.
"Yol!" The Draugr fell in flames. Nariilu swore to herself she'd go and learn the rest of Fire Breath before entering another damned crypt.
"Or this one could learn to cast a simple ember."
Nariilu jumped, looking up from the burning bodies to see J'zargo staring down at them, arms crossed and head shaking. Head whole, no gaping wounds anywhere. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. He was gone.
She pressed herself against the wall, listening to the frenzied Draugr kill each other above her, running through the symptoms of magical exhaustion. Hallucination, not an uncommon thing for mages to report, but nothing she'd ever had herself.
But these certainly weren't normal circumstances. She'd been fighting for days, at least, and food had run out two sleeps ago, instead taking sips of health potions whenever she felt hunger gnawing in her gut. And beyond that, her sleep was plagued by visions of all the soldiers she'd failed to save in their last moments demanding to know why she had never put more than a passing effort to healing, of Erik's broken body begging her to tell his father he was sorry, of J'zargo blaming her for his death, for all of their deaths.
She hadn't had such dreams since she accidentally gained Vaermina's favor in Dawnstar. Nariilu was beginning to entertain the idea of praying to the Prince to get a bit of restful sleep. Waking up in sweats and tears wasn't doing much to refresh her.
The sounds of combat died down above her. Footfalls of at least four Draugr sounded instead, much better than the twenty or so she'd counted on the quick look she got before falling down the pit. She snuck up the ramp, keeping close to the wall, and waited for the patrolling Draugr to group up. "Yol!"
Nariilu squinted and rubbed her eyes against the outside light, tucking herself away from the cracked door as she slowly adjusted to the brightness. She cursed to herself after she could finally look out without becoming snowblind, gaze landing on the portal glowing in the center of the courtyard. Ten Deathlords and their warriors stood at attention in a circle around five dragons. The dragons, all fiercely horned and each a different color rested conversing with themselves and the Dragon Priest in an ornate black mask, who was flanked by two other unmasked Priests.
She tried to pick out words to no avail. They were probably talking about her, anyways.
And now what? Nariilu peeked through the door and tried to come up with some plan, strategy, sheer dumb luck, that would get her through that portal before the Dragon Priest took up his staff and closed it again, or she died in a horrible, painful, world-damning way.
She didn't have anywhere near the magicka to cast another blizzard, though the last one had been exceptionally successful, judging from the piles of snowbound corpses around the courtyard. Dragonrend would only deal with the dragons, not the Draugr. Sword Singing was an option until a Deathlord Shouted her swords away, and with ten of them, Nariilu figured that would occur within seconds of her charging from her hiding spot.
Unless she could cross the entire courtyard in less than that. There was no way she could Whirlwind Sprint through the enemies blocking her straight path. Become Ethereal would keep her safe, for a time, but after the effect wore off she'd be out of luck, out of breath, out of options. Think, think! What would Talos do? He wouldn't even be in this situation, would he? Talos would send Numidium or his grand army to deal with Skuldafn, instead of stooping to such a lowly struggle of a siege as this.
She was running out of time; the portal would only stay open so long, she could only stay hidden for so long, survive on dwindling health potions for so long. Stop. This isn't helping. Task at hand.
Nariilu shook her head to clear her mind. Ten Deathlords. Five dragons. Three Dragon Priests. Maybe two hundred Draugr. One portal. She'd made it through worse odds before.
And that was it, wasn't it? She just had to make it through the portal, nothing else. One step at a time. Make it through before anything could kill her. Before. Before!
She sat her sack down and swallowed the last half of the last healing potion, the earthy sharp mixture settling heavily in her stomach, spreading a tingle through her body. The sack was empty, save for a few handfuls of gold and gems she tossed in it along the way, but Nariilu didn't dare slow herself down for a few pounds of riches she already had enough of back home. Not like she would be able to put them to good use if she failed here.
Nariilu stretched briefly, one final time just in case, bounced on her feet, and, on the likely chance something went horribly, horribly wrong, drew both swords. Techniques long forgotten and forbidden flooded her mind, ready to serve her and teach her how to angle her blade and twist her body to keep her alive and her enemies dead. "Tiid, Klo!"
The world slowed to a thick, hazy honey around her as she charged through the door, weaving past still Draugr and impossibly slow Dragons. And then the Dragon Priest, in his glowing, black as night mask, turned to her, unaffected by Slow Time. Shit.
"Zu'u uth naal thurri dein daar miiraak," (I have been ordered by my lord to guard this portal.) He announced, calmly raising a hand and spraying her with flames. He approached her quickly, meeting her away from the portal. "Hiin las los dii." (Your life is mine.)
She tried to ignore the burning on her face, her eyebrows catching fire and her skin tightening to crack and then loosening as the potion made its way to her wounds. Nariilu ducked below the spell, twisting one sword around to strike with the other in unison.
The Dragon Priest floated up, out of her range. She recovered and sprinted towards the portal, ignoring the Priest and his flames warming her armor on her back.
Nariilu couldn't ignore the hand that grasped her armor, holding her in place inches above the ground. "Fent ni filok." (You shall not escape.) The sigil of a summoned Daedra burst to life, each stroke of the runes appearing like they were being written instead of casting nearly instantly. The Dragon Priest grunted behind her.
She pulled herself up to flip around the Dragon Priest's bony grasp, kicking him in the face with a satisfying crack. Nariilu fell to the ground in a clumsy roll, nearly cutting herself on her own swords. The dragons had their mouths partially open in the beginnings of Shouts, their movements speeding up by the second. Not much time. The Priest floated down to face her, on the wrong side of the portal to block her.
He cast ice spears faster than anything she'd ever seen. Nariilu dodged what she could and held her swords in front of her face to block what she couldn't. She caught his lightning on one blade and touched the other to the ground, the shock passing through her shoulders. The Dragon Priest approached her, altering his aim to try and get past her defense. She grit her teeth against the intensifying lightning, the hair over her arms prickling like needles pushing further through her skin with every inch he came closer, arms and legs shaking with effort to keep upright.
Until he was close enough to strike. Nariilu threw herself forwards, all too aware of the spell passing through her entire body at near point blank. Her swords danced in her hands, her mind filling in the gaps of where to strike, how to angle her wrist just so, what part of her foot to land on and bounce off instantly. It was exhilarating, addictive. Knowing that she was perhaps the only Sword Singer in all of Nirn, and definitely the only ever who wasn't some old Redguard monk in the desert, another lost power she made hers.
Even Daedric blades had difficulty slicing through the Dragon Priest; no doubt he had cast some Mage Armor spell in addition to the enchantments on his robes. She spun blade around sword to slice at the Dragon Priest again and again, all too aware of the ever speeding motions of the dragons and Draugr around her. And yet she didn't want to stop; the flash of swords reflecting sun, enchantments, snow, the sound of each cut, stab, strike, her body moving almost without her input in a furious dance, it was almost too satisfying to give up.
Almost.
If it weren't for the gnawing at the base of her skull, begging her for more, more, more, Nariilu would've been more than happy slaughtering every foe that came her way with her two swords and forbidden knowledge. The Dragon Priest's arms collapsed to dust as they fell from his body, his mummified form following suit not much later as the gnawing turned to an itch begging to be scratched. The mask fell with a thud, sending up a cloud of ash.
Nariilu sheathed her blades despite the protests in her head, ducking down to easily dodge the first of the dragons to react, frost and hail pouring over her growing too fast for comfort. She grabbed the mask and ran for the portal, slipping and crashing to the stones, sliding along the ice to hit the stairs of the portal's grand platform. Her Shout wore off, its timeless haze melting to sharp yells and inhales from the dragons and Deathlords.
She scrambled for her footing, throwing a ward behind her as she sprinted up the stairs and dove through the portal.