Flight from Helgen
"Hey, are you two alright?"
Emily opened her eyes and looked up into the torch burning in the hand of the red haired man she'd seen presiding over the execution. Standing at his side was one of the prisoners, a young man with blonde hair wearing the same livery as the others in the cart. She nodded, sitting up.
"By the Gods," he was saying, "A dragon in Skyrim." Serana got to her feet and looked back at the door which was smoking at the edges.
"By the blood of my ancestors," she said quietly under her breath. She then held out a hand to Emily and helped her to her feet.
"Could it really be, Ralof?" Hadvar was asking the Stormcloak prisoner, "The bringers of the end times?"
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," he replied. He looked around the room. It looked to have been used as a place of rest by the Imperial soldiers. Swords and axes hung upon racks at the far end of the room and at the end of each bed was a wooden chest.
"We need to get out of here," he continued. He looked back at the door they'd come in by. "Going back is out of the question."
"There's a tunnel out the back of the Keep," said Hadvar, gesturing over his shoulder at the wooden portcullis that separated this room from the next, "Down through the torture chamber and out through a natural cavern at the base of the hill."
"Right, let's go," said Emily, looking over her shoulder at the smoking door. The four of them hurried over to the far side of the room where Hadvar pulled on an iron pull chain forged into the likeness of a dragon. The portcullis lowered into the ground and they passed through, making for an iron door opposite.
Emily gulped. She could hear the dragon's roars faintly as they descended deeper below the Keep. As they rounded a corner at the bottom of the stairs Emily heard a deep rumbling in the ceiling above. Dust fell, littering the floor at their feet. Suddenly the rumbling became a deafening roar as great chunks of rock rained down from the ceiling and Emily staggered back as they struck the ground, generating massive shockwaves. She looked around quickly and spotted a door off to the side.
"Come on, before this place comes down on top of us," she said as she wrenched open the door and darted through. Serana, Ralof and Hadvar followed. The room they found themselves in looked to be a living area for the soldiers furnished with a large fireplace and several tables and chairs. Pheasant and rabbit hung on racks by the fire alongside herb drying racks that held garlic, elves ear and frost mirriam.
"There should be some potions around here," said Hadvar, "We'll share them among ourselves. I don't know what we'll be faced with once we get outside."
"You take them," Serana said to Hadvar and Ralof, "We've already enough to last us." Hadvar nodded.
They found the potions in a barrel at the far end of the room, close to the door which led out into another corridor like the one they had just left. Hadvar and Ralof divided the health and stamina potions up among themselves, leaving the magicka potions in the barrel.
They then left the room and followed the corridor to a set of stairs which took them still further beneath the keep. The deeper they went the fainter the dragon's roars became until none but the two vampiresses could hear them. The next room they came to carried a smell which made Emily hesitate and take note of its source. It was the smell of blood.
"The torture room," Hadvar muttered under his breath. He peered around the corner, wrinkling his nose up at the smell of fresh blood. On the floor lay two men in Imperial armour. The one closest to them, a weasel faced man with greasy black hair, was riddled with stab wounds. It looked less like an act of killing in self-defence and more like a brutal massacre. He lay in a pool of his own blood and his jaw and limbs were slack. Evidently he was not long dead and rigor mortis had yet to set in.
"Looks like your friends were here," Hadvar said darkly, glaring meaningfully at Ralof.
"And this is a torture room," Ralof shot back, "I doubt your colleagues were making my friends welcome." As the soldier and rebel glared at one another Serana had a look around the room. The cages she avoided, along with their grisly contents but a book lying on a small wooden table caught her attention. It's cover was black and its cover was decorated with the silver insignia of the Empire. Below it in sharp, angular lettering were the words, 'The Book of the Dragonborn.'
"Em, you'd better hang on to this," she said, tossing the book to Emily. This had the dual effect of catching Emily off guard as she fumbled to catch the book and caught the attention of both soldier and rebel, reminding them of their current situation. Emily stowed the book in her bag and they left the torture room, following a stone corridor that led past a long line of holding cells. Most were empty save for a pile of hay and a bucket. One, Emily noted, housed a skeleton and she wondered how long it had lain there undisturbed.
Presently the stone walls, floor and ceiling of the Keep gave way to a structure that was somewhere between a natural cavern and the stone structure they had just left behind. A shallow stream tumbled over rocks and the sound of it and the steady drip of water into shallow pools was all they could hear.
"We must be nearly there," said Emily, resting a hand on the stone wall. The air about them was damp and chilly and a faint mist hung above the water. Serana put out a hand, motioning her to be silent and pointed to the far end of the cavern.
"Where in Oblivion are we supposed to go?" came a voice up ahead, "Where's the way out?" This voice was answered by another.
"Just give me a minute," he said, "Let me think." The voices belonged to two Stormcloak soldiers who were standing in the mouth of a stone tunnel, looking out into the natural caverns beyond. Emily considered their options quietly. Then she turned to Serana.
"Stay here with Hadvar," she mouthed quietly. Serana nodded and watched as Emily motioned to Ralof.
"If we're to get out of here in one piece we're going to need to set aside any differences we may have," Emily said quietly to Ralof as they made their way across the stone bridge towards the Stormcloaks, "If they see Hadvar before we can get talking to them, it'll likely be a bloodbath."
"And what do you plan to do once we reach the other side?" Ralof asked, "Are you with Hadvar? Do you plan to arrest us the moment we're free?" Emily shook her head.
"We're just trying to get out of here," she said, "Nothing more complicated than that." As they drew nearer to the Stormcloaks recognition dawned in Ralof's eyes and he called out to them.
"Yngvar, Lemkir," he called out. The two Stormcloaks whirled around and the one who had spoken first laughed aloud when he spotted Ralof.
"Ralof," he said, "You made it. Tell me you cut a bloody hole into the Empire on your way out." Then they spotted Emily.
"Who's the waif?" asked the second.
"She's helping us escape," Ralof explained, "There are two more back there." He gestured over his shoulder.
"Look," Emily spoke up, "Fair warning: one's an Imperial soldier. But I think a dragon is a bigger problem right now, don't you think?" Both of the rebels scowled at these words and one clutched his war axe in both hands.
"A little support here," Emily muttered to Ralof, "Our survival could depend on it, remember? That dragon could be waiting to burn us to cinders outside."
"She's right," Ralof said, "I don't like it any more than either of you but we can't deny what's out there." The rebels continued to scowl but they nodded, loosening the grip on their weapons.
Emily turned back, waving over to Serana. She and Hadvar joined them, Hadvar looking uncertainly at the Stormcloaks who glared back with a similar uncertainty. They said nothing and followed the two vampiresses further down into the caverns. Abruptly the stonework came to an end past a wooden bridge and gave way completely to a natural tunnel.
A muffled roar echoed down to them, followed by a rumble and Emily found herself thrown forwards onto the earth. She looked back over her shoulder and saw that the wooden bridge they had just crossed had been reduced to matchwood by a large boulder that had evidently fallen from the ceiling.
"Looks like we're not going back that way," she said before getting to her feet.
"We'll need to get word to Whiterun as soon as we get out of here," said Hadvar, "The Jarl will need to hear of this. My Uncle's house is in Riverwood. We can stop there."
"What are you going to do?" Serana asked Ralof who was still looking at the broken bridge.
"We're going back to Windhelm," Ralof answered without hesitation, "Jarl Ulfric will be waiting for us."
"He escaped?" Emily asked, "I didn't see him."
"It'll take more than a dragon to stop Ulfric Stormcloak," Ralof replied proudly, "And if I know Ulfric, he'll have given that dragon something to think about before he left."
"It still sounds in fine form to me," Emily said, looking up at the ceiling which still shook with the dragon's muffled roars.
They continued on into the tunnels which took them past more underground streams and the skeletons of those unfortunates who had sought shelter in the tunnels at some time long since past only to perish in the dirt.
"What do you think killed them?" Emily asked as they passed a grinning skull lying on a ledge next to what remained of its body.
"Hard to say," Serana replied, "Wild animals most likely."
They soon found the likely assailants in an adjoining chamber which was thick with webbing. Egg sacs dotted the walls and floors and hung from the ceiling. But these seemed mostly abandoned. Ralof squashed a spider the size of a small dog beneath his boot as they crossed the chamber. This, of course, had the unfortunate effect of calling the attention of the rest of the brood which ranged in size from the like of which Ralof had squashed right up to the size of a hand cart. With the two Stormcloaks, Hadvar and Ralof, this did little to slow them down though the very sight of them still served to send shivers down Emily's spine.
The next chamber they came to was vast and Emily was pleased to note that at last she could hear the dragon's roars no more. It was lit by glowing mushrooms and a small stream ran down the centre of it. At the far end was another tunnel and this tunnel at last gave way to the night air. They felt the breeze on their arms long before they caught sight of the tunnel's exit. Outside they could see Masser reaching the highest point in the night sky.
Slowly, cautiously, they crept from the mouth of the tunnel and listened as the chill wind whipped back their hair and carried with it the smell of burning from the ruined town. Then there came a blood curdling roar and they flattened themselves against the rocks, their eyes searching the skies. Then they saw it, a great ragged black shape which had risen from the ruins of Helgen and was now gliding Northward. The dragon, it seemed, had had its fill of destruction or perhaps it was merely looking for a new target as its horned head swayed back and forth, scanning the earth below as it flew. No one dared speak until it had become a black speck over the mountains.
"Alright, this is where we part," Ralof said with great deliberation, looking in particular at Hadvar. Then he gathered together the two Stormcloak soldiers and the three of them disappeared into the night. Serana and Emily turned to Hadvar.
"You said something about your Uncle?" said Emily, "Is it far to Riverwood?" Hadvar, whose gaze had followed the three Stormcloaks into the shadows, snapped himself back to reality.
"Not far," he replied, "It's just down the hill, maybe a couple of hours travel."
"Then let's go," said Serana. The three of them left the cave's entrance and followed a dirt track which weaved in and out between fallen logs, woody stemmed plants and bushes hung with red berries. The night was cold but a hot wind blew down from the ruins, following them as they made for the cobblestone road.
"Damn that dragon," Hadvar said as they ran, "The war could have ended tonight if it hadn't appeared."
"Do you have any idea where it came from?" Emily asked.
"None at all," Hadvar replied, "There haven't been any dragons in Skyrim since the last age. I was certain they had disappeared for good. It seems I was wrong."
"Tolan once told me that some people stopped believing in the existence of dragons," Emily said to Serana.
"And he'd be right," Hadvar said, "When there's no one left to tell their story, it quickly becomes legend."
"But didn't they find things," Emily asked, "Bones and what not? Fossils?" Hadvar shook his head.
"If there are any bones in Skyrim, they're all buried in the dragon mounds dotted across the province," he explained, "And superstition keeps away even the most staunch of warriors from them."
The cobblestone road brought them down closer to the river, weaving back and forth in hairpin bends until they were almost level with the rushing water. Emily listened as they ran but she heard nothing save for the chirp of crickets in the long grass.
"We're almost there," said Hadvar. At last they had left the smell of burning behind and when Emily chanced to look back all that marked what had come to pass was a great plume of black smoke rising steadily into the sky.
Riverwood was a relatively small settlement straddling the river from which it took its name. Most of the trade came from the lumber mill situated on the small islet in the centre of the river. The main street was given over to commerce, housing a general store, a blacksmith and a tavern while the sloping ground that led up from the river was given over to residential buildings and small farmsteads. Hadvar led them through the village gates and they followed the main street towards the smithy. Hadvar pounded on the front door and the two vampiresses hung back, looking around.
"It's so quiet down here," Emily said, "Do you think they even know what happened?"
"Probably not," Serana surmised, "If anyone saw that dragon, it was likely only the town drunk. Who's going to take their word on a dragon?" Emily nodded in agreement as the door to the smithy swung open and they were greeted by a man wearing a thick rust spotted apron. He was carrying a lantern and when he caught sight of Hadvar his eyes widened in surprise.
"Hadvar," he said, noting the singed edges of Hadvar's armour, "What are you doing here? What happened?"
"It's a long story, Uncle," Hadvar replied, "We need to talk, inside." Alvor looked past Hadvar and it was then he noticed Emily and Serana standing on the steps.
"And who are these two?" he asked.
"They're friends," Hadvar explained, "Saved my life in fact. I'll explain everything but we must go inside."
"Okay, okay, come insided," Alvor said, stepping back and holding the door open for the three of them. He looked around once more at the quiet village streets before closing the door.
The interior of the smithy was warm, heated by a fireplace that blazed in the centre of the far wall. A few wooden plates still lay on the table, the remains of the evening meal upon them. As Hadvar sat down in one of the wooden chairs with a grateful sigh a little girl sat up in a bed at the far end of the room, rubbing her eyes.
"What's going on, papa?" she mumbled tiredly. She opened her eyes and caught sight of Hadvar.
"Cousin Hadvar?" she said, "What are you doing here?"
"I'll be staying in town for a little while, Dorthe," Hadvar explained, "It's nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep."
"When grownups say that it's because there is something to worry about," said Dorthe unperturbed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
Just then a creak was heard on the stairs to the cellar at the far end of the room and a woman emerged. She was young with red hair and she wore a faded beige and tan dress. She stopped on the top step when she caught sight of Hadvar and the two strangers.
"Hadvar!" she said, "When did you get here?"
It was not Hadvar but Alvor who responded. "He just turned up," he said, "Right out of the blue with his armour singed and these two strangers in tow."
The woman joined Hadvar and Alvor at the table while the two vampiresses stood apart from them, unsure of where to stand. Only when Hadvar signalled for them to join him at the table did they do so. Then he began his tale. Alvor, his wife and Dorthe listened in silence as he told of the capture of Ulfric Stormcloak, the planned execution and the dragon's attack on the town. As soon as he mentioned the word, 'dragon' Alvor shook his head in disbelief, his wife sought his arm, an almost imperceptible fear running the length of her and Dorthe looked at him in awe, eyes wide and a thousand questions just begging to be asked.
"You know how unlikely this all sounds, don't you, boy?" Alvor asked.
"But it is true," Emily affirmed, "We all saw it. I've never seen anything like it." Serana nodded in agreement.
"Then the Jarl will need to hear of this," said Alvor, "We're defenceless out here. No proper walls, no guards. That wasn't a problem before, but now…" He left the sentence hanging and it seemed to Emily and Serana that he was looking to them for an answer.
"We could get word to the Jarl," Emily spoke up. She had passed through Whiterun a couple of times and had heard much of Dragonsreach: the Jarl's palace.
"Thank you," said Alvor, relief evident in his voice.
"But first we must rest," Serana cut in, "So if you could point us towards an Inn that would be great."
"You could rest here if you like," the woman offered.
"Of course," Hadvar added, "You both saved my life back in Helgen. It's the least we can do."
And so they put down their bedrolls in a darkened corner of the house.
"Sera, what did Hadvar mean when he called the dragons the bringers of the end times?" she asked.
"It's an old prophecy," Serana replied, "I don't remember all of it. A series of events are supposed to happen before the world ends. 'When the brass tower walks, when the snow tower lies kingless and bleeding and dragons return among other things.'"
"Are all prophecies this terrifying?" Emily asked, forcing a smile that didn't quite fit. In response Serana rested a gentle hand on Emily's shoulder.
"I don't know, Em," she said, "But not all prophecies come true, remember?" Emily smiled, a proper smile this time, before allowing her eyes to close.
They woke just as the sun set behind the mountains and dinner was being prepared. They politely declined Alvor's wife, Sigrid's, offer to stay for dinner before leaving the house and stepping out into the night air.
They left the village of Riverwood by way of a stone bridge which spanned the White River and followed the cobblestone road to the escarpment that overlooked the city of Whiterun. As she had seen it before Emily once again saw the mighty edifice of Dragonsreach, now their destination, towering above the rest of the city like a great dragon, after which it took its name, gripping the hill it sat upon in mighty talons.
The night was calm, a stark contrast to their previous one; filled with noise and acrid smoke. The air was clear once more and Serana breathed deeply of it, more for its rich smell than anything else. Evidently there had been some rainfall while they slept for the grass hung with the small glassy orbs and the ground glistened in the light of the twin moons.
"When we tell the Jarl," Emily asked as they followed the river down towards the city, "What then?"
"I don't know, Em," Serana replied. It seemed to her a more logical answer to give the Earthling would be to tell her they would go home but she wasn't sure how much she trusted that answer. She had the uncanny feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice with the tips of her boots peeking over the edge. Her companion's question told her that similar feelings were stirring in her breast.
"I guess at least speaking with the Jarl of Falkreath will have given us some practice with Jarls," Emily said ruefully as they reached the base of the slope.
But the Jarl of Whiterun, Balgruuf the Greater, was nothing like the Jarl of Falkreath. They could tell before they even approached him as he had a strong, commanding face and there was nothing in his countenance that reminded them of a weasel. He was deep in conversation with his steward but when they drew nearer the Dunmeri warrior at his side, with sharp red eyes, spotted them and with a sword still sharper raised in suspicion, approached them.
"What is the meaning of this interruption?" she demanded, "Jarl Balgruuf is not receiving visitors." She punctuated this last remark by brandishing the blade at them.
"We've come from Riverwood," Emily said quickly, eyes not leaving the blade for an instant, "Alvor the blacksmith sent us. Riverwood's in danger. Helgen, it was wiped off the face of Nirn."
At the use of the word, 'Helgen,' the Dunmer's eyes widened briefly and she lowered her blade.
"You have news of Helgen?" she asked. Emily nodded. "Then the Jarl will want to speak with you. We've heard rumours of such extreme proportions that it's difficult to separate the facts from the fiction."
She led them back towards the throne where the Jarl sat as she spoke.
"My Jarl," she said as she reached the throne and knelt respectfully before it, "These two strangers have word from Helgen." She then got up and stood aside, making room for the two vampiresses. The Jarl sat up straighter at these words and awaited their explanation.