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Riften in the Autumn. Nestled on the shore of Lake Honrich, the high granite walls and red and orange trees reflected flawlessly in the ripples on the tranquil water. The warm sun of Early Hearthfire dried the brisk water off my body after a morning bath in the shallows. Aela was watching from the top of a boulder while I pulled my clothes back on.
Without warning, the wavering reflection at my feet erupted into a deluge of water and foul-smelling brown slime. Aela howled with laughter behind me, almost rolling off her perch. When I opened my mud-covered eyes I beheld a chunk of rock nearly two feet tall sticking out of the water where I just finished bathing. It might have been cast there by Bertha, Gomlaith, or Potema: any one of the three huge trebuchets parked inside Riften's stubborn walls. Distant figures on the fortifications waved in reply to my rude gesture. Already a week old, the Siege of Riften was not going well.
Re-bathed, I stood quietly inside the flaps of General Tullius' tent with Hadvar and a handful of other quaestors. The general and his legates were grumbling over a map of The Rift. Judging by the red flags, Tullius controlled the southernmost road in the Hold up to Riften and some sections of the Treva River's south bank.
"We simply don't have the men to lock down the lake and cordon the city," Legate Fasendil was reporting to General Tullius. The Altmer officer and his 77th Legion were tasked with cutting off water access to the city. "We'd need a whole navy to keep those barges from landing at Goldenglow Island and stop the raids across the river."
"We don't have the city locked down now. Every night we've lost men when they row out from the city docks," Legate Rikke replied. Her soldiers were the ones massed near the west gate for the inevitable assault.
There was a collective inward wince. The defenders had been using Lake Honrich to resupply almost at will. Every day barges breezed past the meager Imperial boat patrols on the river to land at Goldenglow Estate. Laila Law-Giver, though a lukewarm supporter of Ulfric, was at least dutiful and allowed the officers of her militia and the Stormcloak army to manage the defense of her city. For the whole of the siege, the Goldenglow Estate and its islands had been converted into a huge, untouchable supply depot for the rest of Riften.
"What are the options for attacking the island?" Tullius demanded.
Fasendil shook his head, "Limited. Artillery on the island has stopped our last two attempts to replace the bridge. We don't have enough boats hold off a counterattack from the city if we try a water route."
"We'll come back to the island then. What about this caste overlooking the city?" Tullius pointed to the symbol for a ruin just south of Riften's walls.
Legates Rikke and Hrolod looked uncomfortable. Hrolod's 25th Legion was making its way around the walls to block the east gate and lock down a handful of forts north of the city. Next to me, I saw Hadvar stiffen for a moment. "We call that one Forelhost," Hrolod explained. So far as we know, nobody has used it for several hundred years."
"Why haven't the Stormcloaks garrisoned it?" the General asked.
"There are some places in Skyrim best avoided," Hrolod said vaguely. "Forelhost is one of them."
Tullius closed his eyes, "You Nords and your legends," he looked up. "I'll send an Imperial then. Ieago!"
I had been paying attention and he still got me to start, "Sir?"
"Find a path that can get our artillery to the top of that mountain. You have one day. Dismissed."
I saluted and bent under the flap of the tent. As I walked away I heard Tullius speaking to his Legates, "I want plunging fire into the city within three days."
Having seen one autumn in Skyrim already, I sympathized with Tullius's haste to take Riften. Even as I walked to the tent I shared with Aela, a large raindrop smacked down on nearby canvas. I turned to look east at the low, steep-sided mountain I had been ordered to reconnoiter. Its peak was awash, obscured by a dark grey haze of rain pouring down from the overcast just above the tip. The old wound in my wrist ached, a sure sign of heavy rain for days to come. After just two weeks of Skyrim's cold Autumn rain, half the Legion's camps would be dying from cholera and the other half from consumption.
"You'll get us killed climbing in this weather!" Aela yelled at me beneath our tent. They rain was coming down hard and we were shouting over its concussive roar on the canvas of our tent.
"I have my orders Aela. I was planning on going alone," I replied. Only a few weeks ago I got to watch a surgeon stitch her skin back together. Somehow I wasn't ready to see her in harm's way again.
A flash of suspicion and hurt appeared on Aela's face before she spoke again, "No. I'm going with you. Forelhost is not a place to be entered lightly."
I shook my head, "I've been in these old tombs before," I replied, knowing too well that I was about to lose the argument.
Aela rolled her eyes at me, "If Lydia and I hadn't been there, Ysgramor's Tomb would have eaten you alive. You aren't fighting me in this Husband."
I swallowed my misgivings and nodded my submission. She gave me one of her more meaningful growls and continued to pack.
The castellated monastery crowning the top of Forelhost was large enough that I figured a road must have led up to it at one time. Aela agreed and proposed that we circle the foot of the mountain until we found its remains. Our luck held out and we found ourselves hiking up a shallow grade in the pouring rain.
Apart from my worries, I couldn't have been happier as Aela and I followed the winding trail up to the peak, taking time every few yards to cut a blaze on a convenient tree. I like the rain. The percussion of the water on the leaves; the hiss of it falling in the grass, it is all one great musical expression. The smell of the cool wet world is one of cleanliness. The sweaty, miserable heat of the late summer was forgotten at last. I inhaled deeply of the chilly air and made my way further up the overgrown road.
The road bed ended abruptly at the base of a man-made cliff. Behind years of moss and vines, the large quarried blocks of a wall more than twenty feet high could be made out. Further to the right the upper half was collapsed, but the base remained strong, capped every few feet with a crude trilithon arch as the fortification curved to enclose most of the peak.
I was impressed with the place. The builders hadn't built on top of the mountain so much as built into it. The only access was a tiny redoubt with a narrow foot bridge leading to a collapsed section of the wall. That small tower's steps led us through a guard room before taking us up to the bridge. The graffiti carved into the walls was typically obscene.
The wind whipped around our legs as we crossed the narrow bridge and passed into the sheltered courtyard where the grass grew to our thighs. The walls ringing us were ten feet high on the inside. At one end of the enclosure a word-wall loomed, its opening facing us and the doors of the temple above us. The summit of the mountain loomed above the high stone rafters of the temple. Red lighting bloomed there in the evening sky. My joy of the rainy day fled, leaving Aela and I shivering in the overgrown bailey.
"We're here now," Aela broke into my thoughts, "Let's find a way up to those ramparts and be done."
I heard the deep anxiety behind her words and had to agree. This was a place best left alone.
"You there! Legionnaire! I have orders for you!" The shouted voice above the autumn storm almost made me leap out of my skin.
We turned to behold an Altmer wearing the Legion's light armor approaching us from around a pile of rocks in the middle of the courtyard. I walked to meet him half way, seeing his camp in the process. His tent was pitched hard against the far wall and though it was in good condition it had been there for several days.
"Who are you?" I asked the elf.
"I am Tribune Valmir. The General promised me reinforcements, though I was hoping for more of you," he said while casting a critical eye over the two of us.
I shot a quick look at Aela, "The General didn't mention anyone else being up here," I said to Valmir with growing suspicion.
He frowned at me, "I was sent here with the utmost secrecy. There is an artifact in the monastery he wants for the war. I was to set up a base and send a party in to retrieve it."
"What sort of artifact?"
"Our research shows that a last contingent of the Dragon Cult came here and built this place to recoup in the aftermath of the Dragon War. The leader's mask was reported to be quite powerful."
I reached out for Aela's hand and began to walk away from the stranger, "If it will help the war effort, I'll look into it sir," I replied.
"Return it to me when you have the mask," Valmir dismissed.
"Something's wrong with that man," Aela whispered once we were at the ground level door of the keep.
"If he's an officer of the Legion, I'll eat my hood," I whispered back.
The small stone courtyard door ground open onto total darkness. I lit Revenant and held it aloft like a torch above our heads. The luminescent blade did little to light the ground at our feet, let alone the rest of our end of that first hallway.
"Ieago, something's wrong here," Aela said.
"What? Apart from the obvious?" I asked.
"I can usually see in the dark, but here, nothing. And I can't hear anything, not even the wind through the door.
My less keen senses were also suspiciously dulled. "A few things to try," I said. My attempt at a night-vision spell yielded nothing against the gloom, and it was several tries before I was able to cast a magical spark to the roof above me. I regretted my success.
The floor was covered with bodies, skeletons in truth. Hundreds of men and women lay were they fell in some forgotten battle. Most still clutched their weapons and wore rusted armor. Two badges dominated the shields where paint still clung to the rotten wood. One was a bear not unlike Windhelm's and the other was a familiar black dragon with orange eyes. My hand went to the red diamond of the Knights of the Nine engraved on my shoulder.
Aela inhaled in surprise while I whispered, "Las yah nir."
It's impossible to give justice to the torment I perceived while my shaking hand sought Aela's and clasped tight.
"What do you see?" She asked me.
I swallowed to clear a dry throat, "They know who I am. And their master is angry."
Aela started to pull me back to the door, now a black shape in the harsh light of my spell. We were only a few feet away when it slammed shut in our faces with a clang that echoed through the hall. An ugly, angular funeral mask was carved in relief on the back of the door. I tried several times, but the door steadfastly resisted both the Thu'um and Revenant.
"Shit!" I swore, kicking the door in a final petulant act.
The two of us looked back into the hall as my spark dimmed out. I mustered another and sent it floating to the other end. The shadows slid and stretched until the bright white light caught a distant obstruction. The bones on the floor cast short, jagged shadows. Aela tugged my hand and we began to pick our way among the dead.
I read the journal by the light of a spell. Aela leaned over my shoulder and followed every word as I traced them with a finger; translating where the old Nordic escaped my understanding. We were in a barracks away from the horror of that first hallway. The main path to the temple was blocked off by heavy gates that we were trying to detour around. Surrounding Aela and I were beds. On each was a skeleton. Some clutched a sword, or an amulet, or reached for the hand of a neighbor, or they simply folded their hands across their chests. Time-warped shards of broken glass were everywhere.
Read aloud from the journal:
27th of Sun's Dusk 1st Era 139:
An army of the Usurper Harald has found us. We've fled to Forelhost and made all ready.
"21st of Evening Star:
The gods continue to bless Lord Rahgot. The army of the heretics surely would have taken Forelhost had a storm not come. We still hold the walls."
The final entry was stained by tears:
"4th of Morning Star, 1st Era 140:
Lord Rahgot has decreed that none are to fall to blasphemous arms. I held the cup to my baby girl's lips. Gods my Gods! What have I done? The look of betrayal on her sweet face...
Papa's coming Aline.
Aela's warm hand was on my shoulder. I held mine over hers for a moment. Our keen hearing told us nothing moved. The only smell was that of dust and old linen. Yet I remain convinced that other grieving hands reached out from the beds around us.
The early evening light descended down into the large airy room, lending a gentle quality to the greys and blacks after so long in a darkness lit only by spell and blade. The stones paving a large section of the hall were removed beneath the open ceiling, allowing a thick growth of death bell and nightshade. The green and purple of the flowers were the only color we had seen so far.
Beyond doubt, this room was the still heart of Forelhost. In Aura Whisper and the less logical, more feeling part of my mind, it felt like a thousand people pointed mutely, trying too late to scream for help.
Aela and I walked to the edge of the wild garden and looked in. I gasped aloud and fell to my knees, feeling my stomach implode. Alea knelt beside me, weeping at the sight before us. I clasped the amulet of Akatosh around my neck and prayed. Though they had been buried two thousand or more years before I was even conceived, I felt somehow that I had a hand in creating the tiny linen-wrapped forms in the midst of the flowers.
It took all our might to drag ourselves from that monument of grief, away from the sunken eyes and pursed lips. We found tables nearby covered in decayed alchemy equipment and rotten plants.
"This is where they must have made the poison," I murmured.
"Why is that one pinned to the chair?" Aela pointed to the desiccated body of a woman. She sat upright in moth-eaten robes. A sword skewered her through the heart and anchored her to a chair. Beneath her hand was a letter. I twisted to read the text more easily, not daring to touch the fragile sheepskin.
Froda,
Do not deter the other alchemists from their work. Your views are known to me and we shall have words about them shortly.
-Rahgot
I looked up to Aela, "She trusted a man who took the name 'Rage,' I murmured.
I turned around and grasped the sword propping poor Froda up. Aela saw what I was trying to do, "Ieago, no don't..." I pulled the sword free and the unfortunate woman fell in large pieces to the floor. "...They're fragile when not preserved correctly."
My face was flushed with shame and embarrassment as I gathered Froda's remains and laid them on one of the tables.
The door beyond Froda's laboratory led us back into the castle's unnatural darkness. The large room smelled of dry wood and old paper. My spell of light revealed a massive low-ceilinged library. The inward curving shelves reached within a hand's breadth of the roof, creating a claustrophobic grid of squares with concave edges. And while we took in our new environment, we heard the sound of slate lids breaking.
Apart from the lids' fall all was silent in the darkened library. Aela and I hastened away from the brilliant light shed by my spell. Aela clasped a hand tight over mine and pulled me around a corner. My hearing, not as keen as hers, picked up on light footsteps where she and I had been. Peering back around the corner, we saw the shape of a tall figure in a cloak silhouetted in the harsh white light. A needle-like dagger hung from its right hand. It walked through the light, its shadow melting into the black as my spell faded.
Aela heard it shuffle off and pulled me away. I clutched my own unlit blade and let her lead me though the dark. Our pace was painfully slow. Each step was placed with care, lest we attract the guardian. I dreaded using even Aura Whisper, fearing that the monster was close enough to hear the murmured words.
The guardian was always within a step of us, or so it seemed. The soft beat of dried leather on stone would give it away. My thumb itched over the activation stud on Revenant. Every time I thought the guardian was before me however, I would hear its steps coming from another direction. Or I would hear the tip of its dagger scrape on a shelf. Aela's hand, invisible in the dark, pulled me onward.
Silence reigned for several minutes before I heard Aela sniff and gasp. Her grip tightened around my hand. I lit Revenant in panic. The white sheen stung my eyes after the prolonged darkness. I had just enough wit to raise my guard before a narrow black blade crossed it. Or weapons became intractably locked: the guardian too angry to relent and I too frightened to withdraw.
The light of my blade gave me a look at the librarian. The creature guarding the books was little more than a skeleton. The lower jaw was missing, revealing the dark pit of its throat. A cowl hung low over its face, exposing only the oblong holes of its nasal passages above rotten, twisted teeth.
"Fus!" I shouted in fright. The librarian staggered back. It melted into the nothingness once it was beyond the reach of my blade's light.
"Where is it?" Aela asked after I had called out Aura Whisper.
"It's three of them. They move fast," I replied, trying to make sense of the Shout was showing me.
The other undead I viewed in Aura Whisper during my adventures had showed up as dim luminance. The creatures held only the weakest spark of life within them. These librarians in contrast, were wisps of smoky red malevolence moving like clouds in the wind. I turned and cast Magelight. Our mundane senses caught one crawling along the ceiling. Its wicked dagger pointed at my face.
I threw myself hard into a bookcase as it dove at me. Aela's elven short sword was out faster than thought. The blade bit into the creature's cloak. It dispersed into the dark again. The only sign it had come at us was the shred of moth-chewed linen on the floor.
We moved fast now. Aela pushed me hard though the twisting corridor that the library occupied. We stopped only to drive off the guardians and their awful daggers when they slashed out at us from the corner of our eyes. The tingling cold from our many cuts suggested poison. We cut and stabbed back, but they seemed to mend in the dark once we drove them back.
We passed through an archway and insensibly, the blackness became less oppressive. Turning back, Aela and I saw three guardians illuminated in the light of my magicka saber. They appeared afraid to enter the long gallery displaying relief carvings of the Divines and a dragon priest adorning the walls.
After the mass grave and those things in the library, the two draugr guarding a reliquary were almost relaxing to fight. They came apart in a flurry of blades and flakes of tar-black skin. The malachite claw they were protecting allowed us entry into Rahgot's chamber. After the circular door slid away, we mounted a last flight of stairs and beheld Rahgot.
The author of the horrors of Forelhost stood motionless in the middle of the huge room. In some places the roof had given away, allowing rain and the dim grey light of the waning day to fill the space. Rahgot was facing away from us, contemplating the body placed in state on an altar. Revenant's furious hiss and excited hum brought no response from the tall priest in his blood-stained funeral shroud. My body hummed with my saber's excitement while Aela and I stalked forward. It seemed that even my weapon was eager to avenge the crimes of this unholy monastery.
I was close enough to touch the priest and smell the old cloth of his brown, splotchy wrappings. I spun him around to face me. The white blade in my hand shot up through his stomach while I pulled the mask away. I fell back in one last moment of terror. There was nothing behind that mask. A deep, mocking laughter came from the emptiness of the burial shroud as it crumpled and fell to the floor. My blade cut through the cloth as the rags fell.
Challenges in the dragon tongue called out to us from around the room. I back peddled hard when the body on the altar woke and used its serpent-headed staff to direct a line of flame at me. The ancient sorcerer rose to press the attack, flame spewing from the mouth of his carved staff and the palm of his skeletal hand. Elsewhere, figures in helms with tall horns loomed; each brandished a long curved sword.
Desperate to get my off hand free, I did what many have later called foolish or dangerous: I put on Rahgot's mask. Through the eyes of the mask, the dim eye-straining light brightened. The sorcerer and the extensions of his will became as easy to see and hear as if I had never rejected the Beast Blood. The world seemed to slow down, the motions of my enemies became fluid and easy to perceive. As one the undead screeched at the sight of me wearing the mask and their efforts doubled. The gouts of flame from Rahgot's corpse came at me like bubbles rising through deep water. The curved ebony swords of the draugr nearest me came at me faster and faster as the ancient priest poured his fury into the animate corpses.
Only the power of the mask permitted me to withstand the fury of Rahgot's bodies. Despite the slowing effects of the mask, the attacks of Rahgot's cadre approached Vilkas's and Farkas's brutal speed. From Aela's view, Revenant moved so fast my body was invisible behind a white wall as the blade streaked up to parry an overhead blow or fell as I dodged a thrust. One by one my enemy's bodies fell. I shoved Revenant into the mouth of the last undead thrall, his nasal cavities and eyes flashed pink and the body went limp. A tremendous chop decapitated Rahgot's staff. I cut up, the blade catching and locking in the unholy priest's skin. Magic of hate and vengeance held Rahgot's body fast together. Revenant roared in anger to be so callously checked. The hilt grew hot in my hands and I feared another failure like the one in Blackreach. "Krii-lun-aus, I belted out in desperation. The deadly Shout broke the bonds of Rahgot's unlife. I felt Revenant part the dried skin like layers of yarn. His body and spells broken, Rahgot fell into ash at my feet.
Alea's fight was not yet over. She had assumed her second skin and was growling and baying for a whole pack of wolves. The ground in a wide circle around her was covered in dismembered limbs and crushed bodies.
Even as I ran to rejoin the battle I saw her swipe an enormous paw at the leg of one of her last two accosters. The limb separated at the knee with a spray of old bone and dust. The draugr fell to the side where Aela's waiting mouth crushed its throat.
My wife nearly paid for that extra second of brutality. In the slow motion world, I saw the last draugr bring its cleaver down for a mighty blow. I reached out again with my seldom-used telekinesis spell, grabbing its wrists and pushing hard. The unbreakable ebony sparked off the ground by Aela's head. The draugr could only glare with its blue eyes into Aela's glowing green before her growling form tore it to shreds.
She snapped her gaze to me, her head low and claws digging into the stone floor. The red hair on her hackles bristled, making her seven-foot long, 350-pound body look yet bigger. The rumbling growl was enough to make my nerves shake and blood freeze.
"It's alright Aela. It's only me," I said worriedly and struggled to pull at the thongs that held the Mask of Rage to my face. At the sight of my familiar face she let go of the Beast; her naked perfection a stark contrast to the butchery around us.
Her armor was a loss, but she didn't seem to care as she took intact pieces from the bodies scattered around the great chamber. It was all much too big for her slender body. She appeared almost petite as she inspected her new outfit and muttered about getting a smith in the camps to adjust the fit.
With a final glance, I tore my gaze from her body and strode to the great doors at the other end of Rahgot's hall. The large double doors opened easily to let me out onto the walls above the courtyard. As Tullius had hoped, the place was ideal for an artillery park. In some places the walls were fifteen feet wide, joined by narrower sections crowned by square-angled trilithon arches. Best of all, the whole of Riften was visible through the waning evening rain. Exactly opposite me, the word wall beckoned. I was curious to see the final message this place had for the world.
Before we got there Tribune Valmir's voice came from the yard below, "Outrageous!" He was yelling at a group of newcomers, "This is mutiny! You'll be hanged for this!"
Aela and I crept closer to the confrontation, blessedly out of sight from below. 'Tribune' Valmir, wearing the uniform of a Stormcloak officer, was being penned into his campsite by four rebel soldiers.
"Then give the password or name the general that sent you here," A blonde man I recognized as Ralof said in a menacing tone.
But Valmir was out of lies, "Insubordination and mutiny! The only pass I need is my word and the only authority my sword! It's enough to put down rebel filth like you!"
Valmir drew his sword and died, hewn in a dozen places by Ralof Stormblade and his men. They put their weapons away and began a search of the enclosure. The one searching Valmir's body discovered a note, which she read aloud to her comrades and unseen observers:
"Valmir,
The Embassy requires that you will proceed to the ruins of Forelhost and there retrieve a Mask of the Dragon Cult there"
At that statement, all the Nords below us made a gesture of warding with their left hands.
"If you are discovered, impersonate an officer. It is unlikely that anyone from either army will be clever enough to see through the disguise.
Once you have obtained the Mask, you will bring it directly to Labyrinthian."
"Damn the Talos-hunters," another soldier opined from Valmir's tent, where he was examining a legion-pattern helmet. They're using this war, mark my words."
"I don't doubt you Bors," Ralof temporized, sounding like a person going through the motions of an oft-repeated argument, "Ulfric will settle the Thalmor when their day comes, but we have to throw the Empire out first.
"Tristan!" he shouted at the third of his soldiers, who had disappeared toward the door just below Aela and I.
"Sealed tight sir! We'd need picks and a few days to get though!" The voice came from beneath our perch, scarcely five feet from where we crouched behind the decorative stonework.
"Then let's get out of here," Ralof commanded. Forelhost can have whatever Imperials and elves are foolish enough to break in."
The two of us waited until long after Ralof and his party had disappeared in the wall's redoubt before getting up and walking over to the colossal word-wall overlooking the courtyard.
"Darkness, doom, silence," I mouthed next to Aela in the wall's enclosure. The three words burned fiercely from the memorial.
I read the dragon letters to Aela a moment later:
In the darkness of this place
The doom of the children was handed down.
Pilgrims of later days: stand a moment
In silence for their memory.