So summer break is here! My sincerest apologies for not getting through this story more quickly. I meant to get a chapter a month done during school, but it turned into a chapter every three months. Now, though, I'm back to having some free time, and nothing will stand in my way of my old chapter a week goal that I held pretty well to during Dragon Rising. I know I can do that much, because my real goal is to put up a chapter and a half every week.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.


A Blade in the Dark


Valdimar crept forward over the slushy forest floor, doing his best to keep to the soft needles without upsetting any fallen branches or loud-snapping twigs. He had not hunted in years, but the skills had returned quickly enough. There was no need to keep upwind of this lot - no Bosmer or Orcs to smell him on the wind - and so keeping quiet was all he need worry about.

The small group of bandits had been raiding along the road for weeks before anyone even knew of them. The native Morthalers were mostly farmers and fishermen, and so no one had noticed that travelers were being waylaid at all until the spring merchants from Whiterun did not come. And when the guards who were sent to inquire of them did not return, Valdimar had decided to look into it.

On the third day of his hunting, he'd found the bandits responsible sitting and taking a meal atop an overturned merchant's cart. The meal, it seemed, was the merchant's horse. What had become of the merchant, Valdimar never learned.

He'd waited out of sight of the group for some time - only a fool charged five men when he could pick them off one-by-one. Finally, when one went off alone to relieve himself, Valdimar sneaked up behind him and killed him. He'd almost forgotten how visceral it was to kill a man with a mace, to bash in a skull with a blunt instrument. He'd felt an almost primal sense of victory. When the others found the body, they'd left the poor wretch there without even a shallow burial.

The next had died in much the same way, except that he managed to let out a shout before his face and vocal cords were crushed. Fleeing the remaining three had been difficult until nightfall. The third, Valdimar had smothered in his bedroll.

The last two were certainly now making for a place they could defend from whoever had killed their allies, but they had no idea where Valdimar was. He'd wanted to keep it that way; but letting them fortify themselves in some shack or fort would make his job harder still. So he had decided to attack just as soon as they thought they were safe. It was frustrating work, chasing and remaining undetected.

The bandits were both ahead of him and to the left.

"Thank the gods," he heard one of the men say. His voice was gravelly, as though he'd taken a throat wound at some point. "It's just up this next hill."

"This place better be worth all the running, Helmar. I'm tired now." The other bandit had a bit of a girly voice for a Nord man, but he was big enough to be dangerous.

"You won't have to do much once we're inside. Place is perfect for an ambush."

Valdimar pulled fire through Aetherius, readying the spell in his left hand. It was something he did almost without thinking, this drawing on Aetherius' power - like speaking or raising a finger.

Long ago he'd learned that some people were connected to the outer heaven of Aetherius, and that such people, mages, could use that connection to bring into existence certain energies, or even bend reality. Such power was what the common folk simply called magic. Mages themselves distinguished between the five uses of Aetherial energy, or magicka: alteration, conjuration, destruction, illusion, and restoration. Alteration dealt with the drawing of Aetherius' creative power to change the physical world, such as creating light or hardening flesh. Conjuration involved piercing Aetherius to bring objects or even creatures into the physical world from Oblivion. Destruction was the directing of violent Aetherial energy such as fire or lightning. Illusion magic was the little-understood ability to draw Aetherial energy through others to affect their minds. Restoration manipulated the life-giving energy of Aetherius to heal wounds. Valdimar found he had some small aptitude with alteration and restoration; but his true talent was in destruction.

The fireball slammed into the gruff-sounding Nord with a sound like an avalanche. He flailed about as he hit the ground on fire, but he was likely already dead. The second bandit - the one with the girly voice - charged Valdimar with a scream of rage, holding his warhammer up above his head. Valdimar moved aside the downward strike, swatting the hammerhead off-balance with his mace as he readied lightning in his left hand. The bolt of Aetherial lightning took the bandit in the arm, but it didn't kill him.

"Son of a bitch!" the large bandit howled in his feminine voice as he stumbled away. He was having trouble breathing, and his left arm no longer worked. "Call yourself a Nord? Use that cursed magic on me? You're a disgrace to your own kind!"

Valdimar laughed at the idea. This was a man killing and robbing his own kind; but he was the disgrace for using magic. Fool!

The spike of ice that he sent into the man's heart started to melt quickly as soon as it hit him; but his life's blood was already leaking through the hole it had made into the soft underbrush of the forest before he hit the ground.

Well, Valdimar thought to himself as he surveyed his work. Suppose I still got it.

.

The trek back to Morthal was easy enough. He always knew where he was in Hjaalmarch, even when he couldn't find it on a map. He was about a day's walk to the east of Morthal, deeper into the woods than he would have liked. The Frostbite spiders were numerous this late in spring, roaming through the forest looking for food. The spiders gave him no trouble today, though, and by nightfall he was walking the planks of the eastern part of Morthal that was built over the marsh waters.

"You've got visitors," one of the town guardsmen told him as he approached - Valdimar thought the young man's name was Runolf, but it might have been Rugnir. "That Breton thane's at the inn with his retinue."

Valdimar ran a gloved hand along his thick mustaches. About time, he thought. "I suppose I should go straight there, then. "Do me a favor and let the Jarl know I've taken care of those highwaymen. They're all dead. Ah… good evening, then." It was definitely Rugnir.

He left Rugnir and crossed the planked walkways to the mainland of Morthal, passing the guards' barracks and what had been Alva's house before she was killed - Hroggar lived there now. Valdimar remembered Alva trying to get him alone once, just after news had reached Morthal of the High King's murder. He probably would have fallen to her charms if he had not been so enamored of Ywla at the time. Damn that Hroggar. Damn that Laelette! Talos Damn that cursed Alva!

Valdimar had loved Ywla long before she'd married Hroggar; but he'd never had the courage to tell her - not when accepting him would have turned the town against her. Hroggar had seemed a good man once, or he would have found himself at the bottom of the marsh. Over the years, however, the man's poverty had changed him. He mourned his wife now, but Valdimar had been sure he was done with her and their child before they were killed. None of it mattered now. Very little seemed to matter these days, not even the dragons' return and the end of the world.

He passed Highmoon Hall, nodded to the guards on duty outside the doors. Few others were out on the streets this late. Before long he came to the Moorside Inn, just before the Bridge that led to the northern section of town and Thonnir's mill.

He stepped into the inn, trying to remember the details of each of the Jarl's prophecies, and immediately he heard the loud voice of his thane's red-headed companion.

"Here's to the Dragonborn!" Erik shouted, lifting a near-full mug of ale to the small group of townsfolk gathered at the tables around the thane.

"Dragonborn!" was the unanimous reply, though Aleron himself seemed much as Valdimar remembered him - uncomfortable with the attention.

Valdimar pushed his way through the cluster toward his thane as politely as he could. The reception he received when he reached him was unexpected.

"I owe you an apology," the Dragonborn said, dropping his head and thumping a fist to his chest in a humble bow befitting a Breton lord. "I left you here by demand, and I'm sorry. I didn't really understand the customs surrounding housecarls and thanes."

The dark-haired Nord girl behind the Breton reddened and tried to force her way out of the group. The golden-haired warrior-woman beside her laughed, then clapped Aleron on the shoulder, saying, "You did nothing wrong, Aleron. Few thanes keep their housecarls by their sides at all times." She was a Hlaalmarcher, or Valdimar knew nothing of accents.

The Dragonborn shot a confused look at the dark-haired girl, then shook his head.

"Your manor is ready, thane." Valdimar did not know who the women were, but he assumed the golden-haired one was his other housecarl. "We can leave for Windstad Manor in the morning, if you wish."

The Breton gave what was almost a smile. "Windstad Manor, eh?"

"That's what the builder named it. The wind is strong off the northern coast on the Karth delta. It's a beautiful sight for a home."

The Dragonborn's companions got quiet then. Aleron looked at the others in turn. "We might have time, after Ustengrav."

The others smiled and expressed hopefulness at the thought, but Valdimar was intrigued. "You're going to Windcaller's resting place? What for?"

"Something I have to do for the Greybeards. We're going. If you will come."

"I'll not leave your side again by choice, Thane."


"Zu'u fen velaaz nau hin slez, joorre!"

The dragon raged in the sky as Teldryn ran from tree to tree, trying to think of what spell would be best on such a creature. Fire and ice both seemed likely to be of little use. The thing was spitting fire itself, and those scales did not look particularly flammable; also, anything that lived in the mountains of Solstheim was unlikely to have much care for care for cold.

"AAAaah!"

Galen's scream trailed off as he was lifted into the sky. He was nearly the last of the guardsmer here, five of the other seven having died already. Now, it was just Teldryn, Alanil, and Vonden the sellsword.

"aaAAH-"

The sound of Galen's panic died in the tries above, but his bones snapping against the branches as his plummet continued through the bows was loud enough for Teldryn to hear even over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. It was not an encouraging sound. The sound of the dragon's laughter in the sky was outright disheartening.

Teldryn moved again from beneath the thin cover of the Solstheim pine to a small outcropping within another thicket of larger trees. He found Vonden there, nursing the burn wound he'd taken earlier.

"You gonna live?" he asked the sellsword.

"Aye," Vonden replied, rubbing what looked like guar fat into the burns on his arm and shoulder. "Damn thing tried to cook me. Doubt I'd make much of a meal for that monster, but perhaps he's the snacking type. How many left of us?"

"Three, I think." Teldryn looked around the edge of the rock, at the sky. The beast was still flying around, breathing like an orc's broken-nosed snore, louder than a thunderstorm. "Pretty sure Alanil's still around here somewhere."

"I saw Nals over to the east a bit. Looked worse than me, but he was alive and could still run."

Teldryn spat. "He ran off then? Coward."

"No." The scar-eyed sellsword smiled faintly through his pain. "Said he was gonna try to distract it, give Galen a chance to take the thing out. Didn't sound like it worked out to well for Galen."

"No. The damned thing dropped him into the trees. You think Nals would try it again?"

"Couldn't hurt to ask." Vonden pointed to another thicket of trees a hundred yards or so away. "I think he was headed there, but he mighta' moved by now. Good luck."

Teldryn left the sellsword mumbling to himself, heading for where he hoped to find Nals. The sky lit up above him, and for a moment he thought it might be his last. The air above him seemed to cook. The trees caught fire, and then he could smell the burning pine. He rolled, reacting on instinct more than thinking. It would have done him no good, had the dragon been aiming at him.

"Miraak uth tol daar himdah kos hren nuk fah ok arosend!"

Teldryn laughed, despite himself. All the old stories said dragons were intelligent; they talked to men in one form or another in most of the legends. But for some reason, he had always thought they must really be mindless beasts, at best capable of only rudimentary communication, like giants or daedroths. Clearly this dragon was savage, but intelligent as well; more godlike in its savagery than any true primitive. Through the fire and the tree branches he could see the beast overhead, the rippling dark green scales of its hide catching the firelight and dancing it like an orc at the Festival of the Mad.

He brought his eyes back to the thicket he'd been heading for. It was ablaze, the branches already falling from the heights and setting the underbrush aflame. Nals came running out, unfortunately in the direction of a clearing.

Teldryn readied an ice spike in his off hand - he rarely cast spells with his right - and tried to catch up to the clearing before the dragon reached Nals. The winged beast might not suffer at cold, but he'd thrown an ice spike clean through a nix-hound once - it might get past those scales.

Nals reached the clearing ahead of Teldryn, suddenly looking up at the bare sky as if only now recognizing his mistake. Above him, the dragon blacked out the sky with wings like flattened tents. A great wind came as it buffeted the air to slow its rapid descent. Teldryn, just now coming out of the trees, thought he could see a twisted smile on the dragons face as it aimed massive talons at its prey. Nals screamed.

Teldryn let the ice spike fly. He pushed it, drew on all the Aetherius he could hold to propel it from his hand like a bolt from a crossbow. It tore through one of the tent-hide wings, and the beast careened slightly, landing awkwardly on Nals. The dragon rolled, somehow tucking those massive wings and holding on to the Redoran guard in its claws as it roared in pain or fury.

Teldryn kept rushing toward it. Nals was certainly dead, but perhaps his death could mean something. His sword was in his hand - it would take too long to draw enough magicka to do anything useful. The ebony saber had come from his father, who'd intended it to be an heirloom of their great family, perhaps one day a Councilor's sword. It was a vicious-looking weapon, as most Dunmer blades were, slightly curved forward and then back.

The dragon growled like an avalanche as it righted itself. Teldryn came at its side, but its saw him and thrust back its massive head on a long scaled neck and roared fire at him. Teldryn dove forward and to his left, rolling with his sword tucked to the side. The heat from the fire was painful, but a Dunmer could not so easily be cooked. He left his tumble within reach of the dragon's face, and without hesitation he slashed at its eye, blade sliding off scales until finally bursting the black bulb in its socket.

The dragon reared and screamed, torching the sky and the surrounding earth as it flung its head about in agony. After a moment it took flight, the wind of its lift-off pushing against Teldryn as he scrambled toward the tree-line.

Well, slashing don't work. I'll have to stab it.

His sword was good for stabbing; but he would have to get close again.

He moved through the trees, trying to get away from the clearing, find somewhere he could draw the dragon in without exposing himself. It did not seem to be following him. He stilled his breathing, tried to think of what to do next.

He needed to try a lightning bolt spell next time, but he was uncomfortable with it. Lightning magic was hard for him to aim at the best of times, yet it was normally useful against such large enemies, as it was harder to miss and the damage done always left the recipient stunned. But against this beast, he was doubtful the effect would be as potent without a very precise hit.

Suddenly, he heard a terrible crash and a scream far behind him where he'd left Vonden.

Damn that dragon.


"What does it say," Erik asked for at least the third time.

Aleron just stared at the note. One step ahead of me. No. She's been toying with me. She's had something hidden from me this whole time; I just didn't really want to know what it was. He could feel the anger rising in his throat like vomit. I suppose it's obvious now.

Dragonborn -

I need to speak to you. Urgently.

Head to the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, and I'll meet you.

- A friend.

"Does it say where you can find the horn," Mjoll asked.

Aleron looked around at the tomb of Jurgen Windcaller. The final chamber, the resting place of the first Greybeard's ancient sarcophagus, was mostly an underground pool. Stone walls surrounded the water, with a stone ceiling up above. Behind him, the lone walkway was old worked stone piled to make a straight walking path back to the entrance. Along the walkway, massive stone dragon's teeth rose from the water on either side. The sarcophagus sat on a stepped dais of stone behind two great stone pillars. The thing itself was stone, worked so elaborately and beautifully with carvings in the sides and along the lid, which rose at each corner into shapes of dragons' heads and in the center into a vessel clearly meant to hold a large horn. It had not held a horn, when they had arrived - only the note.

Aleron looked at his companions: Mjoll who dominated his dreams, Erik who reminded him so much of his brother, Lydia with her beautiful stern face, and Valdimar with his easy manor and curious eyes. How far would these people follow him? If he rejected the Greybeards, left this task undone, how far then? He reached down and scratched behind Meeko's ears - he wouldn't have to worry about that one. But these others were here because they thought him some kind of hero. They thought the Gods had chosen him for some purpose. They thought he was the master of some great destiny.

Valdimar crossed his arms in front of his chest. "We're all with you, lad."

Aleron started. Sometimes he was sure that man could read minds.

He sighed, crumbling the note and throwing it into the water. It had been a wonderful dream, to think that perhaps his life - his destiny - was his own. But the bonds had never really been cut. He was the puppet still, dancing on another's strings. "Delphine has it. In Riverwood."


Teldryn sprinted toward Alanil, who danced around in a ring of burning trees, trying to find a way out. The guardsmer had been trapped in this copse trying to run back to the city for more help. Teldryn could hear the mer cursing the dragon as he ran about. He readied an Aetherial blast of cold air. He'd make a way out. He'd cheat the dragon out of this game at least.

The beast flew overhead, laughing now. It was sadistic, this winged monster, like a cruel child playing with ants. Teldryn wondered if there were more, or if this was some long lost remnant of their ancient race. Supposedly, from what he had been told as a youth, they were immortal, dying neither of old age nor disease, but only through their blood spilled. So this thing could have been hiding somewhere for thousands of years. Well, perhaps that was silly. Doubtless any dragon would have little need to hide. Maybe it had been in old Atmora, ruling whatever men were left there. Whatever the case, this dragon certainly enjoyed its work.

He neared Alanil's copse of burning trees, ice storm in hand.

"Alanil!" he cried. "Run to the north end of the trees! I'm going to get you out!"

At the guardsmer's shouted compliance, Teldryn released his storm of cold wind and icy water; it shot from his hand and spread out in a cone two shoulders' lengths apart, squelching the fire to make a hole in the flaming barrier.

"Hurry!" he called. "This won't last long. And that dragon is still up there!"

He saw Alanil rushing toward him through the trees then, not a hundred yards ahead. But as if on cue, the dragon came.

"Meyye!" it laughed.

Alanil never looked up. He just kept running for the break in the fiery wall. It wouldn't matter, Teldryn realized, if he saw it coming. It was too close. There was no running from this.

On instinct, as he saw Alanil being consumed by a column of fire shouted from the dragon's mouth, Teldryn drew all that he could through Aetherius and summoned Kono. Ten feet of ice and snow materialized in front of him, looking quite unpleased, and he ducked behind the Frost Atronach.

A rumble of pain came from the massive form, but Kono stood his ground as dragon fire scourged his back.

"I am not a shield," Kono said, his low monotone carrying over the sound of the dragon's roar. "This strains the bargain."

The bargain was a poor term for the summoning of a daedra from Oblivion. Usually, summoned daedra - Dremora or Scamps or what-have-you - were given to mages as payment for large numbers of souls or other services rendered to the Daedric Princes. Sometimes, though, a mage would find a daedra who wanted something in return for their own services. Kono had been one such.

"I'm not sure," Teldryn told the Frost Atronach as the fire stopped and he rose to his feet, "given the amount of magicka you get out of our little bargain, that you are in any position to complain. Patamon and Sanuye require far less of me. Besides, it's not as though that dragon can kill you."

"Magicka is nice," the hulking form rumbled. "But banishment is painful; much like dying might be - just less permanent." He turned his frozen body to look into the sky. It was inaccurate to say that Frost Atronachs resembled mer or men. In truth, Kono looked like a giant ice wedge with arms and legs. What passed for a head was more of a pointed mound covered with a layer of frost. He had no neck to speak of, so he had to turn his whole body to see anything.

Staring at the sky, he shrugged icy shoulders. "So dragons have returned. That is bad for all realms."

Teldryn smiled at his old friend. "Just help me kill this one."

Kono gave him a concerned look. "You should have called to Patamon for that. The Storms were always the favorites of the Blades when they would kill dragons."

"I don't need you to kill it. I just need a distraction."

The Frost Atronach grabbed hold of the nearest tree - he had no hands, but he could mold the icy ends of his arms around anything for grip - and uprooted it without much apparent effort. Without a word, he hurled thirty feet of pine into the air toward the dragon. The mid-air collision was impressive, complete with an explosion of lumber and pale-green needles. The dragon dropped like a stone, but it was clearly not dead.

Teldryn smiled at Kono, who was already shifting back into Oblivion. Then he ran for where the dragon had gone down, sword drawn and lightning bolt ready.

"Duraal Mukaronahs!" the thing roared as it stumbled up from the forest floor. "Zu'u fen fustir hi!"

Teldryn reached it as it was disentangling itself from the limbs of the tree. It saw him, that one black eye conveying more menace than a horde of angry orcs. Teldryn kept charging, hoping the thing was caught well enough that it couldn't use more than its head. Still, fire came from that head, not to mention the sharp teeth as big as his forearm.

It tried at first to pull free, yanking at the tree limb and nearly flipping itself over as one of its wings caught in a limb that had apparently skewered the leathery skin. By the time Teldryn was close, it reared back its huge head, readying a roar of fire.

He released the lightning bolt, sending it straight at the beasts remaining eye. It was more effective than he'd thought it might be. The dragon's head flew back as the lightning coursed through its eye and into its brain. It fell back, then, thrashing lightly against the tree. Its chest was exposed. Teldryn's sword found a crease between two scales and pierced the soft hide beneath. The dragon made a low sound like far-off thunder, but it still could not move freely. Teldryn tried another spot in the chest, nearer the center than a mer's heart would be. This time, the beast shuddered, then slackened.

Teldryn pulled the blade free, and when that got no response, he deemed the dragon dead.

He grabbed a handful of pine needles to wipe his blade, then stared at the dragon. Just once, he thought, I'd like to be able to celebrate a victory with other survivors. That was how it always seemed to be for Teldryn Sero. Lone survivor of an impossible battle. A mer could get a big head that way - except Teldryn knew exactly how lucky he'd been every time. Only fools thought skill could carry them through a battle. Skill could tip the odds in one's favor; but luck got a mer through battles. And every time Teldryn survived one battle, he knew that the next one was that much more likely to kill him.

He was about to start back for the city when the dragon started to smoke. It started to cook, from the inside. He could see fire between the scales as more and more smoke rose from the dragon's corpse. The thing started to disintegrate into the air like steam rising from a boiling pot of water. Then, the dragon-steam started to swirl about and funnel off toward the north. Teldryn walked around the dissolving dragon to see a man standing among the trees, almost translucent himself, receiving the funnel of dragon-mist into him. He was draped in deep green robes, with what looked to be bones adorning the shoulders and forearms like armor. And he wore a bone mask, yellowed and shaped unlike anything he'd ever seen. The closest he could compare to it were the Seekers of Hermaeus Mora's realm, tentacled beasts with horny bulbous heads and more arms and legs than he could count. They were, without a doubt, the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen in a daedric realm - and that was saying quite a bit.

The man in the dark green robes shuddered as the last of the dragon's essence dissolved into him. Then he looked straight at Teldryn.

"Thank you, Dunmer. Soon, I will be strong enough, and you will be rewarded for your aid in the coming age."

And with that, an ink-black hole opened up behind him and consumed him.

Teldryn started for Raven Rock, running as fast as he could. He knew that voice. He'd heard it speak to him before, in his dreams; it spoke to him of the end of the world. He'd get some rest tonight, and then in the morning he would leave this cursed island, for good.


Northern Hjaalmarch was mostly marshland, but here in the east, with the northern arm of the White Mountains looming, seperating Hjaalmarch from the Pale, there was a sparse forest, solemn and beautiful. The marsh was some ways to the west, now, and Aleron knew from the maps he'd seen that it must come back around by the time they all reached this Windstad Manor on the Karth delta.

He had felt strangely at home in this hold when he'd been here before. It had not really been a welcome feeling, and he could not have placed a reason for it during the autumn while the cold had already robbed all but the evergreen trees of their wealth. Now, though, with the spring growth and the morning sun peeking over the mountains, it was obvious. It was the way the mountains looked through the trees. They were whiter mountains, to be sure, than he remembered from County Chorrol - and the mountains here were to the east and south, where in northern Colovia the mountains rose in the west and the north - yet still it was closer to home than any other place he'd seen here in the North. In Riverwood, as throughout the Jerralls, the mountains were all around, springing up in cliffs and narrowing into slender valleys. Haafingar had been no better, and the Reach had been worse. Here alone in Skyrim did the land roll so gently upward toward the mountains the way it did in County Chorrol.

They rode through the forest in silence, now, each of his companions seeming in deep thought. Oddly, Aleron could not seem to focus his mind. He wanted to see this home the craftsmen of Jarl Idgrod's house had build for him. Valdimar claimed it was a master work, that it would please a lord of High Rock. Aleron doubted that. He'd seen so far that Nords had a great sense of aesthetics about their architecture, when it was called for; but they were not given to the opulence of even Colovian nobility. The lords of High Rock were said to live in palaces that put to shame even the great Castle Chorrol - probably the largest building Aleron had ever seen, only rivaled by the grandeur of the Blue Palace of Solitude.

He tried to think of what he'd heard of the house, what Valdimar had told him, but his mind kept going back to the note and the horn. He did not have the information to understand Delphine's game. Why take the horn? Clearly she wanted an upper hand with him. But to what end? Who was she, and what was her interest in him? Had she known before that he was Dragonborn? What else did she know about him? About his father?

.

Tor of Bruma was a tall man. Aleron knew that he would never be so tall, that his mother's blood was stronger in him. He watched his father, a true Nord in all of his appearance, walk the sleek stallion around the stables. It wanted to run, clearly, to bound about and show its dominance. But Tor spoke soft words and stroked its mane as they walked along in unison.

There was no better horse-trainer in all of Colovia. Aleron knew that only because the men who came to have their horses trained by Tor of Bruma would always say it as they left. The tall Nord could take any beast, no matter how violent and unruly, and soon it would be as placid as a priest.

Aleron looked at the forest around them, the creeping cold of an autumn wind rustling the leaves and the underbrush, giving the forest a slightly haunted feel. Aleron did not like the exhilaration he found in that small sense of danger. He crushed it, smashed it beneath sterner thoughts. Danger was not a thing of fun. Death was horrible, an end to joy. That exhilaration was an enemy deep within him that he must find and kill, or it would kill others. Death had already robbed his family of joy; they could afford no more loss.

Suddenly, he noticed his father beside him, staring into the woods to the east. Tor's face, usually so smiling and bright, was hard as stone, and as cold.

"Go inside, Aleron. Take the stallion."

Aleron tried to follow his father's gaze, see what had him looking so stern. After a moment, he saw something, though nothing that should arouse such a response. A traveler was in the woods - and from the look of him a poor one. Even at a distance, Aleron could see that his clothes were torn and hanging as if they were not meant for him. His hair was matted and long, almost like a beast's. And then Aleron realized there was another traveler, much the same in dress and state of dishevelment. And then a third, this one bigger than the other two, and even dirtier - he had no shirt, and Aleron thought he had no boots. Still, three travelers were no so strange. Often travelers were seen in the eastern woods, headed for Hackdirt in the north or Brindle Home to the south. Often they got lost, and the sight of Weatherleah brought them to look for directions. These seemed of that sort, as they were clearly coming straight for the farm.

Aleron started for the horse. Hackdirters were always unpleasant to him. They thought him a murderer, and often spoke openly to his father of sending him to the priestesses of Gottesfont Priory. The herb-gatherers there, the Hackdirters said, would work the evil out of him through hard labor. Tor never listened to any of it, though Aleron was sure his father must think of it himself at times. Both of his parents assured him that his brother's death had not been his fault, that they still loved him as much as ever they had; but still he saw how his presence sapped the joy from them. It had been years since there was laughter at Weatherleah. Surely Tor knew that would change without Aleron. Yet he stood by his son always, showed him what love he could. It spoke volumes of the man's strength, his sense of duty to his son.

Aleron took the lead of the dark bay stallion and looked back to his father. He was surprised to see a sword in his large hands. The travelers, he could see now, had clubs where he had thought he'd seen walking sticks. And their faces were enraged.

Aleron could not move. He had only been exhilarated by the feel of danger for a moment. He had not acted on it. He had purposefully rid himself of the sensation. Was death so stern a master; did it have him so firmly in its grip?

The strange men came forward, shouting at his father.

"The Deep Ones have called for his blood, son of Atmora!"

"He has desecrated the halls! He must die!"

The Deep Ones! The ogres wanted revenge on him! These men served the ogres, were going to take him back underground!

Fear never rose in Aleron. He thought, as he let go the horse's lead, that he probably should be afraid. These men were here to kill him. He was only twelve. He should be frightened out of his mind. Instead, he found that he was rushing toward the men.

These men served the ogres! These men served the things that had killed Avenall! Revenge would be his, today!

As the men reached his father, Tor's sword flashed. It was a thin, slightly curved, long-handled blade with a single edge and a circular crossguard seemingly made of bones. Akaviri, Tor had called it, when Aleron had asked why so many travelers thought it strange. It was a family heirloom, passed down from the time of Uriel VII, father of the great Martin Septim. Now it was a blur. His father was not graceful with the sword. He did not dance. He slashed with quick movements, faster than Aleron's eyes could track. The first two strangers were down and shaking violently in pools of blood before Aleron realized what was happening. The third man, though - the biggest - was more cautious than his companions had been. He snarled at Tor, cursed and spat as he looked to find a weakness in the Nord's stance. He never got the chance.

Aleron planted his shoulder into the filthy man's kidney. He had been so focused on Tor that he hadn't noticed Aleron charging him. Once on the ground, Aleron rolled and struggled with the man. He was strong for his age, muscles built by years of hauling wood and mending fences, of carrying sheep and felling trees. But he was still just a boy, fighting on the ground with a very large man. He pounded at the man as they struggled. Not at the face, where he knew he could do little lasting damage. He punched and kicked at his opponents ribs and kidneys, under the arms where his father had shown him men were vulnerable. Finally, though, the man tossed him aside.

"Cursed boy!" the man screamed through a bloody mouth - apparently, Aleron had hit his face at least once.

Aleron reached to his side as he rose, picking up the man's discarded club. It was too heavy for him, really; but he could make do. The man had risen to his knees when Aleron charged him again, planning to batter him to death with the great spiked club.

Suddenly, his father was in front of him, holding his shoulders.

"Leave him be, Aleron." His voice was so soft; so controlled.

"That boy must die!" the man said. "The Deep Ones demand it!"

Tor turned slowly, one hand still grasping Aleron's right shoulder. "You have two choices. You can go back to your people and tell them to reconsider what the Deep Ones have said, or you can die here."

"I've no fear of death, son of cursed Atmora!"

Aleron saw his father's sword take the man's head off as he tried to lunge forward. Again, the movement was so quick that he wasn't even sure what he'd seen; and there was that violent twitching afterward. Tor wiped the blade then on his own shirt and replaced it in its odd bone casing. He looked up at his father's face. There was a cold fire there, if that made any sense. It was a rage so fully controlled that it was itself like a weapon.

"What does it feel like to kill a man?" he heard himself ask.

"It feels like nothing," his father replied, staring into the bleak gray forest, his knuckles white around the sword in its sheath. "Like a dark cave in your heart where light never reaches. Like horrible, blinded nothing.

.

The return of the marshlands to the west pulled Aleron out of his remembrances. Valdimar had said that once the marsh was visible again, his new home would be only a few miles northward, along the outer edge of the Karth delta. In fact, he was technically even now on his own land. Looking around, he saw that it was good land - for farming anyway; he would find no pasture in this part of Skyrim.

"There will be a city here someday," Valdimar told him from atop his broad black and white. "Idgrod saw it in a dream. She said Windstad would be a wealthy port city, a little sister to Solitude across the water."

"She saw it in a dream?" Aleron asked, confused. "That is her aspiration for this place?"

The tall mustached Nord laughed. "No, it's not that. She sees things in her dreams, our Jarl. Her daughter, too, though not as strongly. The boy, though . . . I fear for him; I think the dreams are scaring him."

"The boy? That's . . . Joric?"

"Aye. The things he sees in his dreams would frighten me."

"What does he see?"

Valdimar sighed. "He sees fire. Fire that consumes everything. He sees the end of the world."

Aleron let the silence draw on, then. The end of the world. Alduin. The World-Eater. Somehow, he was supposed to stop that. He'd seen only two dragons, so far. Not so many, all things considered. Maybe that meant Alduin would not return for some time. He hoped so. Mirmulnir had been as much luck as skill. He doubted that larger dragon he'd seen at Helgen could be taken down by a simple axe to the head. What would Alduin be like? He was a god, the Nords said. How could a mortal stand in the way of a god? True, the Nerevarine had killed gods; but he'd had Trueflame, a sword made for that purpose. Aleron had a simple steel axe, a crescent blade and a leaf-shaped balance spike. Sure, he could Shout. But what fire would burn through that hide? What shout could kill a dragon?

If just to look away from Valdimar, he looked over to Mjoll, who was riding along to his right. Just as every time, she took his breath away. She rode along atop her gray Mista, ignoring him as she looked out to the forward horizon; but even in that she was like a beacon of light in his growing hopelessness. I may very well love her, he thought in a recently rare moment of clarity. It was not simply that his body wanted her. That was true, certainly; but more than that he wanted her. Everything about her, everything he could find out, was beautiful to him. She was remarkably honest, something he'd never known in anyone since his mother. It was not just that she always told him the truth, but she shared the truth with him. He didn't think he knew everything about her - in fact, she talked little of her childhood; but what she shared with him was completely transparent, without anything held back. She had a sense of duty that he envied. There was no question, for her, of leaving the Dragonborn. She would fight at his side and give her life to protect him; and because she saw it as the noblest thing, she was not troubled by it. It was not a fanatical devotion to him, but to what was right. Her life was service, to the helpless and poor and anyone else who truly needed her. And her view of herself, her utter confidence in who she was, amazed Aleron. He'd seen other women fuss over their appearance, seeming to care for little else. But she rolled out of her blankets every morning, washed out her mouth with a swig of minted seawater, then found him to help her don her armor; she never wasted time scrubbing all the dirt from her face or brushing through her hair, as Lydia did. She spent more time primping her horse. He'd come to realize that, physically, she was broad, even for a Nord woman, with shoulders wider than Valdimar's. Yet still she managed a wild femininity that drew his eyes and forced them to linger. The way she walked maddened him. She did not swing her hips like some city women; but her confident swordswoman's strut was somehow far more sexual. He'd seen her with her blood hot, both in battle and in lust, and in both she was equally ferocious and focused.

He watched her as she rode, rising and falling with the movements of her mount. She was not armored today, and Aleron could see the curves of her through her spring clothes. Her almost ridiculously thick thigh straddled the horse and the saddle, ending in an equally mesmerizing buttock that clenched and firmed when the horse rocked her forward. He had to force his eyes upward at the motion of her core, but that only lead him to her breasts. They seemed ready to burst her shirt open, perched atop her forearms as she held to the horse's reigns. Her shirt was unbuttoned just below her neck, showing the buttermilk pale skin of her collarbone and her long neck. He had the terrible urge to suck at her neck, just below the jaw-line, close to her ear.

He closed his eyes and found comfort in the thought of her. He let her fill his thoughts, her beauty, her self-awareness, her goodness. He did not focus on any one thing of her, but let all of her swirl around him, through him. He breathed her into his mind. It was like a worship trance; a dream-like focus on her, who she was, what she was to him.

"Look at that!" he heard her voice shout.

He opened his eyes, and followed hers to the horizon, where, atop a hill between two rocky outcroppings, Windstad Manor came into view.

It was, as he'd been told, beautiful. He was surprised to see that it was every bit as large as Highmoon Hall, the Jarl's longhouse in Morthal. He had not thought it likely the builders would allow a thane's home to outdo his Jarl's, yet this home certainly pushed that boundary. It was a gabble-roofed manor with an annexed entrance looking south, a much larger main hall, and circular, conical-roofed tower wings to the east and north. It was timber-framed, with naturally curved braces and wattle and daub infill.

The grounds were primitive, at this point; but Aleron could see where improvements would be made, where building projects could be laid out. There was, now, in terms of outbuildings, only a stable. The stable yard was small, but he could see where land was being cleared for more room. There was a fenced in area where chickens and a cow were being kept, against the western wall of the entrance; and on the opposite side there was a potato garden.

"Are the builders still working here?" he asked Valdimar. "I thought you said they were done. Who's keeping the garden?"

Valdimar smiled, then shouted toward the house. "Benor! Engar! Stop lazing about and come to greet your thane!"

Aleron was puzzled. He'd mentioned in one of his letters that it might be possible, with the money coming in from Embershard, to hire someone to watch over the manor; but he had not thought that could be done so easily. Uprooting someone from their life to bring them out here must have been expensive. And it seemed there were two.

"I can afford two?" he asked.

"Haven't spoken to your elf friend in a while, eh?" Valdimar clapped him on the back. "Son, you're a wealthy man. Already enough gold has come in from Riverwood to hire more. Though I'd put that off - two is enough for now. What I've had Engar working on for me is a plan to build a road from here to Morthal. It seems there was a road, once, but it's been mostly lost. Engar's traveling the wilds trying to find it; and where it can't be found, he's finding paths where a road could be built. There's a northern road - more of a track, really; a trail, even - but it will only get you to Dawnstar. Now's not a good time to be in Dawnstar."

"The war has reached the Pale?"

Valdimar frowned. "It has. Though this far west we should be safe enough. The Pale is just on the other side of that mountain range there." He pointed to the east, where in the distance white-peaked mountains rose. "But it's more than eighty miles as the bird flies to Dawnstar. And there's nothing really between here and there but those mountains - nothing for soldiers to care about, anyway."

Aleron voiced another of his concerns. "Isn't Benor the drunk from Morthal?"

"Benor's a good man," Valdimar told him, laughing. "He's only drunk occasionally. Truth is he needed the job. He grew potatoes with his father as a boy, so he knows the work. And he's a good fighter - the right man to protect against bandits."

Mjoll rode up beside Aleron looking oddly flushed. "Did you say Benor? Benor of Kolgrimstead?"

An odd grin appeared for a moment on Valdimar's face. "Aye. He and his father moved to Morthal just before Kolgrimstead was burned." He looked to Aleron as he added, "Bit of bandit trouble some years back. Small village to the west, beyond the marshes, was burned by a troupe of raiders. Gave us all kinds of trouble for a couple of years. Then someone started hunting them, killed them all one by one." He shot Mjoll a measured look.

"Sounds like they got what they deserved," she said flatly.

Valdimar shook his head. "Yes, Kolgrimstead's been gone . . . what . . . fifteen years or so now." Again the measured look to Mjoll.

"Eighteen."

"Well, anyway," Valdimar went on. "I was just telling the Dragonborn here that Benor's something of a house man for Windstad Manor. He's kept the place when I've had to be away."

The bald Nord looked toward the house. "And here he comes."

.

Benor was a jovial man; and he was especially excited to meet the Dragonborn. In truth, they'd met briefly last autumn. He'd been one of those who turned back outside of Movarth's lair. Aleron didn't bring it up, but Valdimar felt the need to defend him. It seemed he was particularly superstitious, even for a Nord. While he was not the type to hate all mages - he seemed to get along just fine with Valdimar - anything he considered of the accursed Oblivions he would not willingly face. Bandits, though, he seemed to hate with fervor - he claimed he'd already killed three since the snows started to thaw.

Mjoll clearly knew him. They embraced like brother and sister when he saw her, and after Engar arrived they went out to talk together as he finished some bit of work he'd been doing in the garden.

Engar was a wiry blond Nord of an age with Valdimar. He was far less impressed with the Dragonborn. In fact, he seemed the type of man it would be nearly impossible to stir in any way. He spoke only when spoken to, though he was polite when he did speak. Mostly, he told them what they already knew: that any road to Morthal would be mostly for wagons. Anyone on horseback could cut through the marshes much more easily, so long as they knew the way. He laughed when Aleron complained of the inaccuracies in the maps he'd seen of this area - they would have had him looking across the delta for Solitude, which would have been a solid fifty miles away; as it was, he could look northwestward and see the great land bridge across the bay. Engar claimed that, for whatever reason, dry land maps were always far more accurate than those made of the wetlands. The only new information was that there was a good source of drinking water a mile or so to the southeast. Valdimar was happy to hear that, as he had feared the brackish bay water had made its way into all the surrounding streams.

Inside the manor house, Aleron was amazed at the size of the rooms. The entry hall was big enough to live in by itself - bigger, Mjoll reminded him, than many of the poorer houses in Whiterun and Riften. The main hall beyond was almost like that of a longhouse. There was a massive, six-seated dining table that took up the center of the room, with open stairs on either side which led to a second-floor balcony that wrapped around three sides of the room. At the far end of the room was a great fireplace set into the back wall. It climbed, along with the wall, into the rafters, and let out in the center of the main roof. Behind the main hall was what Aleron would call a parlor, but Valdimar called it a den. There were two smaller tables, with chairs, three large cupboards along the walls, and an anvil on a block of wood. A door at the far end of the den led into a storage area of the circular northern wing, which Aleron thought he could use to stock rare alchemical ingredients. To the right of the main hall was the lower section of the library tower, which even in this one room had more bookshelves than he could ever fill. Upstairs along the balcony, there were more cupboards and a very large wardrobe, a mannequin for displaying armor, a long glass-topped case on a dark wooden table that looked as though it would be good for displaying a sword, and something Aleron did not expect or even understand: an enchanting table.

An odd thing to find in Skyrim, he knew. It was a four-posted table of ebony wood, but the top was a flat pentagon with the two upper sides extended into shelves on either side of a horned scamp's skull from oblivion. Above the skull, supported by the horns, was a glowing green translucent ball that he knew was also an artifact from oblivion, called an infusing orb. On the table was etched in black a five pointed star, surrounded by another pentagon. Within each section of the star was inlayed with a blue-green luminous substance one of six arcane symbols. It had no use except to a mage of the school of Enchanting.

When he questioned Valdimar, the older Nord looked confused.

"I just assumed you'd want one. None of your gear is enchanted, but I know an enchanter when I meet one. I thought maybe I was wrong, when I heard you were Dragonborn; but there's no mistaking it now. I understand hiding your connection from the general populace, but surely these here aren't going to judge you."

Aleron was at a loss. "What are you talking about? Connection to what? I'm no enchanter. Not all Bretons are mages; surely you know that."

Valdimar looked vexed. "Look, I'm not College-trained or anything, but I can sense your connection to Aetherius even now. You're strong in Healing and Enchantment, from what I can tell. Not any way of masking it that I know of."

Aleron looked around for support. It was just the two of them, and Meeko. Erik was off preparing supper with Engar and Lydia. He scratched the dog's ears as he tried to think. He had been tested by Brother Julius for any magical talent. The man had been downright chipper when he'd found none. Aleron had hoped, of course. Connection to Aetherius was nearly as common in Bretons as was in the Altmer - in both cases those without at least some connection were a rarity. He had thought he could feel something during the test, a connection to Julius, at least; but Julius had told him it was simply the effects of the test itself.

"How could you not know," Valdimar finally asked, amazement coloring his voice. "I know you grew up in a priory. Did they not have even one healer?"

"They had three." Julius, Godfrey, and Victus. "They all said they felt nothing from me." He felt like the world was going dark around him. It was unraveling in the darkness. Nothing was what he thought it was. Gods damn it! When will my world stop spinning out of control!

"Calm down, boy."

The man really must be able to read minds. Aleron knew his own face rarely showed what he was feeling.

Valdimar put a hand on his shoulder. "They lied. I don't know why; but they aren't the first priests to do it, and they won't be the last. As for being a mage . . . it's not so bad, is it? Most Bretons are mages to some degree. You're strong; I can tell that. Healing's complicated, but I can teach you a few things . . . if you want. You'll have to learn enchanting from someone else, though." The tall man laughed.

Aleron settled his mind. He thought of Talos, how the man he'd been must have felt while conquering all of Tamriel. He focused through the suffocating wave of questions that tried to force their way into his mind all at once. He looked up at Valdimar again, feeling lost in another sea of hopelessness.

"Are you sure?"

The bald Nord gave him a fatherly smile. "Aye. I'm sure."


Mjoll came in from the chilly spring evening and undid a button on her shirt, already feeling the heat of the roaring fire in the main hall. She felt such a tangle of emotions that she ignored Erik when he hailed her in the main hall, except to ask him where Aleron was hiding himself. Insufferable man. Dragonborn. She wanted to scream at someone; and right now he was the only one who'd given her a reason.

Benor had been much as she remembered him: amusing, companionable, and utterly useless for anything other than drinking or a fight. She had wanted to talk of old times with him, to take advantage of the rare opportunity to mourn in company her childhood home, her memories of innocence. But Benor had all the emotional depth of a draugr. He'd been interested enough in finding out whether she had seen any of the village's other survivors - precious few those were. But he'd had no interest in reminiscing. Apparently he'd tried to convince his father not to leave, all those years ago. He had even planned to return to the village himself when he was old enough. But after the place had burned, he'd tried mostly to forget about it. He'd asked about her life since they'd last seen one another. And he'd been obviously interested in her stories of battle and adventure. But that was it. Just how have you been doing? rehashed in a dozen different interpretations.

She took the stairs by twos as she ascended toward Aleron's room. She gave a too-curt nod to Valdimar, who was standing next to an enchanter's table, of all things, reading a book.

She swung open the door to Aleron's room, heedless of whether he was changing - maybe it would loosen him up, being caught naked. What she found there, however, was not a naked Breton demigod changing his smallclothes, but a somewhat clothed Breton man sitting on his large bed, clearly on the edge of tears, wrestling with some emotional turmoil. Well, I'll show you mine, she began to think, when his eyes shot up to her and all thoughts fled. The intensity there was so great that she almost fled with them.

And a moment later, as he sprung to his feet and crossed the room to pull her in and kiss her as though it were his last day alive, she was glad she'd stayed. She had him. All this time waiting and, whatever the reason, she had him.

She swung the door shut behind her as he buried his face in her neck. She needed to break away from him long enough to get her shirt off - he wasn't likely to do it for her. Oh gods!

He'd found that spot on her neck, just below her jaw line near her ear. His tongue moistened the skin there, then his teeth gently set it on fire, and finally his sucking motion sent waves of pressure into the spot, which shot waves of pleasure all throughout her. Normally, for a man to find that spot standing he would have to nearly break her back in bending down to her, or he would have to be carrying her - which was always awkward, as most men couldn't hold her easily without her help. Aleron was of a height with her, and so she only had to tilt her head. She went limp in his arms, the feeling of his lips on her skin too much to handle.

He held her there, showering her neck with kisses. He moved down to her collar, and as she rolled her head he made a complete circuit of her neck, kissing, sucking, and biting softly. She realized he had picked her up to get at her neck, and she wrapped her legs around him. He didn't need the help; he was holding her as easily as a child in his arms. But the pressure of her core pressed against him was intoxicating. He buried his face in her cleavage, and she thanked the gods for the heat of that hearth.

He made not a sound but heavy breath, not even a low moan. She didn't know what noises she was making, but she didn't care. She wanted him - needed him - now more than anything she'd ever wanted or needed in her life. Damn that she was emotionally compromised. Damn that he clearly was, for whatever reason. This was bliss.

She pulled at his shirt as she bent down to kiss him, not realizing until it was in his armpits that he would have to let her go to get it off. Freakishly, without any apparent strain, he held her up with one thick hand under her buttocks while he let her pull the other arm and his head out of the shirt. Their lips met again as he switched hands and threw the shirt across the room. He walked her over to the bed, nibbling at her collarbone again as she grinned and cooed at the ceiling. How long had it been since a man made her coo like that?

He dropped her on the bed, and she giggled at him standing there looking at her with hunger in his eyes, then gave him the most come get me NOW! look she had ever conjured.

Suddenly, he growled in anguish, swung his head, and turned violently away from her. He picked up the small cupboard by the bed and tossed it against a timber beam in the far wall, shattering it. He backed into the wardrobe behind him and she heard the wood strain against the hinges. Then he sat down there with a look of war on his face.

For a moment, as she stared at him and he at her, she didn't know if he would pounce on her without renewed passion - she sincerely hoped he would - or stalk out in anger. He did neither. She waited, trying to calm herself, to understand what was now happening. Finally, he took a deep breath, held it as he closed his eyes, then let it out slowly.

"Apparently," he said in a deep, low voice, "I'm a mage, now, too."


Erik was excited to leave for Riverwood. Three days doing nothing was torture, even if Engar was full of terrific war stories. Aleron seemed to think the man was quiet, but Erik had found that he just liked talking about the things he'd seen while scouting for the Imperials. He'd been a scout during the Great War, only seventeen then, and he made it very clear that scouts had the best war stories.

Now, though, the group was leaving Engar and Benor behind to get the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller from Delphine in Riverwood. Why the Breton innkeeper would have taken the thing was beyond Erik. She had always had a strange air about her, especially around Aleron - she gave him the sense she was trying to sneak up on him, even when he was looking right at her. It didn't really matter, though. She wasn't exactly a threat; not to this group of warriors. She would have some hoops for them to jump through, for sure. But in the end, Aleron would get the Horn and they would all be back to stopping the end of the world. In fact, most of the legends Erik had heard saw the heroes sidetracked in a similar manor, and it tended to somehow be useful later on. Either that or someone died.

Erik finished saddling Aslak, piling and tying bags of dried fish behind the saddle. They had plenty of fish for the journey, which was just fine with him. He liked fish. Apparently Engar had spent some time with a fishing vessel out of Farrun, so he knew the craft. Everyone packed armor and weaponry. He was back to his scaled jerkin and thick fur kilt, but he packed his winter furs just in case. He thought he might look for something a bit more dignified, once he reached civilization again. He was a companion of Aleron, the Dragonborn. Kilts harkened back to the days of Nordic conquest, yet in the minds of most they signified raiders, bandits, or, at best, mercenaries. His axe, which he had begun thinking of as Lopper, a wordplay he was quite proud of, as loppe was a very old term for the giant Frostbite Spider, the first thing he'd killed with the axe.

Aleron stood near the stable with Valdimar, going over more magic practice, certainly. It was somewhat of a shock, finding out that Aleron would be a mage. They were all, he thought, somewhat taken aback by the news. Valdimar had apparently known all along, had thought Aleron was hiding it from the rest of them. Erik couldn't see that. Aleron didn't talk about the things he didn't want to talk about, but he was not naturally deceitful. Erik liked him for that as much as anything else.

Mjoll was avoiding the Dragonborn, had been since whatever had happened the other night. Watching those two dance around each other was usually as enjoyable as any adventure he'd ever known. Oddly, though, there was no fire to this particular standoff. It was more, at this point, as if she were giving him a respite.

"Ready to go, Ragnar?" Lydia said as she slapped the back of his head. She'd given him the name in honor of Ragnar the Red, the titular character of the song, who was a red-headed braggart from Rorikstead, beheaded in the end by the shield-maiden Matilda.

He smacked her ass in reply, adding, "I'm always ready to go." He jumped away as she swung at him, but she didn't pursue him further.

.

The ride to Morthal was short, uneventful, and torturous. Aleron still spent all of his time riding beside and chatting with Valdimar, that dog trailing behind its owner like . . . well, like a faithful hound, he supposed. And though there was something primitively erotic about watching Lydia spar with Mjoll at rests, he would rather spar with the dark-haired beauty himself.

The trip should not have taken five days, but it did. When they arrived on the afternoon of the fifth day, the town of Morthal was as quiet and boring as he'd remembered it. They spent the night at the Moorside Inn, where a shady looking Khajiit tried to get them to sneak him out of town. That was the highlight of the entire trip to Riverwood.

He had hoped that at least one troll would try them as they passed through Labyrinthian, but their numbers and horses kept them at bay. He seriously considered bating one. Out of the mountains, the Tundra was in full springtime beauty. Everywhere, the grassy plains bloomed with life and color. Aleron obviously enjoyed the view; he'd never seen the Tundra in spring. But Erik had grown up in Rorikstead, and so he'd seen it all before. No bandits harassed them on their way. A sabre cat stalked them for a couple of days, but it gave up before they reached Whiterun. The group did not even stop in Whiterun; arriving at the Whiterun road in the pre-dawn morning, they passed it by and made most of the last leg of their journey to Riverwood before nightfall. What should always be a two-to-three day walk became a long day and night's ride.

Aleron had gotten more and more anxious as the days drew on. Halfway to Whiterun, he'd suggested they not even make camp at night, but only stop when they were too tired to go on, sleeping under the stars of the cool Skyrim spring night. They hadn't done that, thank Shor. But they did ride on through the last night, reaching Riverwood well after midnight.

It was a welcome sight, Riverwood. For such a sleepy town, it had seen its fair share of excitement over the last year. Refugees from Helgen - those few who survived and were not found lodging by Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreath - swelled the town, many becoming laborers for the new mine. Erik's father was holding his share of the continuing proceeds from that venture.

I should go see him soon, he thought. It's been more than half a year, now, since I've seen him. In fact, spring was passing quickly. It might be the end of summer before he saw his father again, at this rate.

As they stabled their horses, Aleron stared toward the old blacksmith's house. Poor Alvor had been killed this past winter, trying to save Aleron from a dragon. It occurred to Erik then that they'd never spoken to his widow, since. Or his young daughter.

There was a light on within the house, and Aleron started toward it. Erik looked at the moons. It was too early and too late for anyone to be awake.

Mjoll put her hand on Aleron's shoulder, the first time Erik had seen them touch since the first night in Windstad.

"There's nothing there but pain, Aleron," she whispered to the Dragonborn, just barely loud enough for Erik to hear. "You need to concentrate on Delphine right now."

"I can't think clearly with that light on," he replied. "What if she'd in there, not knowing why he died - how he died? I need to talk to her. I need my conscience as clear as possible before I confront Delphine."

As it turned out, Sigrid was awake. Aleron went in alone to talk to the widow of her dead husband. The rest of the group waited outside, even Meeko. No one wanted to be a part of what would happen in there. Even though Erik and Mjoll had been there when he died, neither felt they had the right.

It was at least an hour before Aleron came out again. He looked calm, or at very least resolved. In his hands he carried a folded piece of parchment, sealed with red wax, and a slender sword in a bone sheath.

"How did it go?" he asked before the others could.

"She's having trouble sleeping. So's the girl . . . Dorthe. I agreed to finish her apprenticeship once the dragons are taken care of. She's bright. Already knows a lot."

"What you got there?" Valdimar asked.

Aleron looked at his hands like he was holding a pair of vipers. The parchment he started to crumple, but stopped himself. The sword he suddenly freed from its sheath, and the two women gasped; Valdimar whistled.

"What?" Erik asked, confused.

The blade gleamed, the gray metal glowing in the low moonlight. It was single-edged, slim, and slightly curved. He set the unsharpened edge of the blade on his left forearm and inspected the edge. Erik could see that it was perfect, without a single notch.

"Truly," he continued. "It's a fine blade, but why is everyone gawking."

Lydia slapped him in the back of his head. "It's adamantine, fool."

Now Erik gawked. Adamantium was gone from Tamriel. It had been used up for millennia, mostly in the construction of the Adamantine Tower of High Rock in the Mythic Era. There were some references to ancient artifacts in the legends, though. All said that adamantine weapons and armor were nigh indestructible and especially receptive to enchantments.

"Where in Shor's name did you get that?" he asked.

Aleron gently put the blade back into its sheath. "It was my father's. I buried him with it."

He would say no more, about the sword or the parchment. He simply walked toward the Sleeping Giant Inn.


Aleron was not surprised when Delphine met him at the door to the inn. Sunrise was only a couple of hours away, and innkeepers needed to rise early. Her gaze lingered on his sword a moment, then she led them in.

"Orgnar!" she cried as she banged on one of the bedroom doors. "Get up and watch the inn a while! I've got some business!"

At an ambiguous sound from inside, she nodded and led them to her own door.

"Just you, Dragonborn. The rest can stay here."

A chorus of objections came from the others, but Aleron dissuaded them. "If she gets out of line, I'll shout her back out here - through the wall if I have to."

Delphine smirked, but Mjoll looked as though she would not back down. The golden-haired warrior woman leaned in and grabbed him by the arm.

"If she wants you alone, she's just trying to manipulate you. At least let me go with you."

He smiled at her, trying to look as reassuring as possible. He had known from the start she was trying to manipulate him. Likely she was just trying to get him on the defensive, right away. Defensive people were easy to sway one way or another. "She's not the only one who knows how to play games," he whispered. "I need answers. And I need the Horn."

Delphine smiled. It was like a wolf smiling at a sheep. She opened the door to her room and he followed her in as she stood by the door, ready to close out the others. He whistled for Meeko. She narrowed her eyes as the dog padded in, but she did not forbid him.

Once the door was shut behind them, Aleron stood silent as she moved to the large wardrobe in the far right corner of the room. As she threw it open, Aleron could see that it was empty. He recognized the concept immediately. There was a secret door in the wardrobe, much like the one he'd practiced his lock-picking on back in Brother Julius' study. And sure at that, a moment later he heard a sliding sound like a hammer dragging along a workbench, and the back panel of the wardrobe opened into a stairwell headed down.

Delphine went down before him. He tried to draw some meaning from that: she had waited at the door to her room, but she rushed ahead of him down the stairs. He knew she would not try to ambush him. She needed information from him, or a favor; and she wasn't a poor enough judge of character to think he could be forced into anything once trust was so openly betrayed.

The stairwell was cool, with the distinct smell of a basement completely underground. Once he reached the basement, he saw that she likely spent a lot of time down here herself. There were stacks of books and parchments and maps. On the table, he peered at a map of Skyrim, marked in red in a familiar pattern. The Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow. He'd given it to the Jarl's court wizard, Farengar. He hadn't known what a list of dragon names could be used for, but he'd never thought they might correlate to a map.

Delphine was leaning on the table, opposite him. "When did you retrieve your father's sword?"

He tried not to look stunned. He wasn't, really; he had prepared himself for anything, expected her to know more about himself than he did. But this was a touchy subject.

"I knew I should have intercepted that package from Cyrodiil," she went on when he did not answer. "Oh well."

Silence lingered between them. Their eyes never broke focus from each other's.

"What do you want?" he finally asked.

"I want to talk, honestly. I'm not your enemy, believe it or not. I brought you here because you're the Dragonborn. I have things you need, information and the Horn. And you are what I, and others like me, have been trying to find for two hundred of years. We each need the other, and so we can be safe from betrayal."

"Where is the Horn?"

She sighed. "I'll tell you that in a minute. Right now, I need you to listen."

"Why did you take it?"

Anger flashed on Delphine's face. Clearly, she didn't like being interrupted. "I took it to be sure. I knew that if you came for it, that would mean the Greybeards had accepted you as Dragonborn - that you really were what I hoped you were. And, like I said, I needed an equal footing."

"Why were you looking for the Dragonborn, Delphine?" He wanted to stay away from what she knew of his past, for now. He needed to deal with the present, first. Meeko barked as if to reiterate his question.

This time, she covered her anger with a laugh. "Because you're the only one who can stop these dragons. We remember what others don't: that the Dragonborn is the only one who can permanently kill a dragon by consuming its soul. Otherwise, they can resurrect themselves somehow. That's the bad news, I'm afraid. Dragons aren't just coming back. They weren't hiding somewhere all these years. They're coming back to life. I-"

"They don't resurrect themselves," he broke in. "Another dragon has to do it."

Her eyes narrowed on him. "The Greybeards taught you that? Yes, I suppose that makes more sense. But how did it start? Do they know?"

"If they do, they didn't tell me."

"However they are returning," she continued, "they are going to be a real problem, very soon. The Civil War is breaking this land apart, and pretty soon there'll be nothing left with the strength to fight back when the dragons arrive in numbers."

"There were never more than a hundred." He let her sit silent in that revelation for a moment. "But that hundred ruled Skyrim for more than a century. And if Alduin returns, it is very likely he will destroy the entire world, devour every soul in it."

"Then we have to stop that from happening." She was flustered, something he hadn't expected at all. Now was the time.

"What do you know of my father?"

It was like a light went on in her. She changed from flustered to focused in an instant. He'd jumped too soon. He'd given her the advantage. That sly look came back into her eyes. She was suddenly vulpine, a fox in the henhouse.

"More than you, I'd guess," was her eventual answer. "What do you want to know about him?"

"First, I want to know how you know him."

She started to walk back and forth along her side of the table that held the map, tapping at it with her fingers. "We watched him, for a time - my organization and I had an interest in him when he was living in Bruma."

"What interest?"

"In truth, we thought he might be like you. We had reason to believe he might have been Dragonborn."

"Why were you looking for the Dragonborn thirty years ago? The dragons weren't back yet?" She was trying to lead him somewhere, to bring him to some realization without having to tell him. She wanted to confirm something, rather than offer it, so he would never be sure if she was lying.

"Back then, it was for a less immediate purpose."

"Are you a Blade?"

"Yes," was all she said. She clearly hadn't thought he'd get to it so quickly.

"The Blades are supposed to be dead, all of them. They're said to have been killed in the Great War."

"We were hunted. Most of us were killed. Some of us are left, like rats in the cellar, trying to survive in the shadows."

He needed to keep her off balance. "What can rats do for me? You offer little of interest about my father."

"The shadows hold many secrets. If you want to know about your father, it was the sword that first brought him to our attention." Her hard Breton face glowed with the turning of wheels inside her head. "It once belonged to a young Knight-Sister who protected Martin Septim at Cloud Ruler Temple. But it is much older than that. Its history goes back to the first Akaviri to swear allegiance to Reman Cyrodiil. After he defeated them at Pale Pass, they presented him with a rare adamantine saber, saying it was his destiny. He refused it, instead giving it to his most trusted Dragonguard protector. For years the blade was used by the greatest dragon slayer of the time. When the dragons were all dead, it became the customary gift to the top-ranking swordsman among the Dragonguard, who eventually became Tiber Septim's Blades."

Aleron looked at the slender curved blade in its bone sheath. He'd never noticed as a child that everything not adamantine was bone, except for the dark cloth strips wrapped around the hilt. Even the round crossguard was made of tiny dragon bones arranged in a circle.

"How did my father come by it?"

"We never knew, for sure. We only noticed it because there is a prophecy about it. It is tied to the last Dragonborn, so the prophecy states. Since he had it, we watched him." Her eyes were apprehensive, now. She was holding something back.

"What aren't you telling me about this sword and my father?"

She sighed. She was going to be honest with him - or, as honest as she knew how, anyway. "We know when and where it was lost. The Blade who last carried it was Birgitte, who fell outside Bruma, trying to close an Oblivion gate. It was lost in Mehrunes Dagon's realm. Around the time your father was a guard in Bruma, some idiot mage conjured a Deadroth who took a young girl and was dispelled. While the Synod in the city told the people she was lost, your father took three men into the mountains to the east. He came back a month later with the girl and that sword."

He'd never known his father had been a guard anywhere. "Are you saying my father got this blade from the Deadlands?"

"That is what I believe, yes. But none of that is important, now. You are the Dragonborn. You have to stop these Dragons. We need to-"

"Gregory was a Blade, wasn't he? He was your superior, and you thought he was dead."

Stunned silence. He had thought that might shut her up. She must have known he would suspect Gregory by now, but him being her superior was something she probably hadn't guessed that she knew. It was a simple matter of what he knew about Gregory. That man was never anyone's subordinate.

Aleron was back ahead.

"What do you know of Gregory?" she asked in a low voice, as if speaking of some evil spirit.

"I know he was a Blade. He trained me with an Akaviri sword, to fight in heavy armor like a Blade. He was the most manipulative man I've ever known. He sent me here to Skyrim. And he dug up my father's sword to send it to me."

"What do you suspect about him?"

"Nothing else comes to mind at the moment, except that he must have suspected something about me being Dragonborn."

There was a look of small victory on her face. "I need your help. I'll give you the Horn; but I was hoping you knew how these dragons were being resurrected. You say someone else has to do it. Could it be a mortal? A mage?"

He thought about that a moment. If it were done with a Shout, anyone could do it, with practice. He told her that.

He saw her inner wheels turning again, before finally she seemed resolved. "I need to get into the Thalmor embassy, then."

"Why?"

She smiled. "Do you know why this civil war is such a terrible thing? It's because the Thalmor are the only ones who gain from it. It weakens the Empire, or it weakens her strongest military province. When they started arresting Talos worshippers in Skyrim, after years of the White-Gold Concordat's policy banning it serving as lip service at best, they were stirring up trouble. They knew Skyrim would never stand for it, especially Windhelm's impulsive Jarl, Ulfric. In Skyrim, the Divines had still been nine. Now, the greatest force standing between the world of men and the Aldmeri Dominion that would enslave them is in tatters. What better way to finish it all off than with a dragon attack. Think about it. Ulfric was caught, about to be executed. The Stormcloak War was all but ended. Then a dragon attacks, killing Imperials and Stormcloaks alike, but letting Ulfric escape. Who benefits?"

"So what do you want from me?" he asked, still not understanding the purpose of this whole charade.

"I need you to convince Idgrod Ravencrone to get me an invitation to one of Elenwen's parties." She was a quick thinker, for sure. She knew this game. "Not me, but someone else. Someone anonymous. Someone they won't suspect. After that . . . well, I can find dragons with this map." She pointed to the Dragonstone map. "I got it from a friend. It shows all the dragon burial sites in Skyrim, and most were buried near where they originally nested. If we can't stop whatever's resurrecting them, you'll have to be the one to kill them all."

"That could be as many as a hundred dragons."

Shockingly, she extended her hand to shake his. "Then we'd better get busy."


As for this chapter, A Blade in the Dark is perhaps the most difficult chapter I've written so far. To this point, I've been fairly straightforward in what I revealed and what I didn't. I find now that laying out questions is a whole lot easier than answering them. So much is changing so fast with this story, and I find myself a bit like Aleron: struggling to keep my sanity while dealing with it all. It's probably an aftereffect of cutting out Dawnguard, but it couldn't have been helped.

I know some people will be upset about my cutting out Kynesgrove and Solohknir, but it couldn't be helped. Delphine already knew he was Dragonborn. The only real change is that Aleron has yet to confront Alduin since the opening chapter. This is by design. I think what I have in mind will work out well. Again, I hope you all enjoyed this, and I hope some of you feel compelled to give feedback, especially on the Delphine/Aleron confrontation at the end.