Blood of Akatosh - Dragon Rising

by jjaudon

It is a dark time in Skyrim. Civil war threatens to tear the Fatherland apart. The Forsworn are rising again in the Reach. Riften is a den of Thieves. And now the ancient dragon Alduin has returned. A Breton Missionary is sent into this world, where two friends - one a knight trying to ease the suffering of her city, the other a young sellsword - will see him become the Dragonborn.

3. Before the Storm

Before the Storm

---

Perth was shaking his head, looking down, as Erik begged him for permission to enter the mine. After travelling an entire day, Erik had shown up just before nightfall and interrupted the Breton's supper. He was filthy, tired, and carrying twelve pounds of steel and wood designed to kill, and Perth had opened the door with his sword drawn; the man had nearly stabbed him before recognizing his friend's son.

Now, Perth stood outside his small house trying to convince Erik to go home.

"Look, I'm not letting anyone into the mine right now. I told you, there's draugar runnin' all over the damned place. That door's not opening till the Jarl's men get here. Besides, your father would kill me himself if I let you in there."

Erik looked at the boarded-up mine. He felt like he was drowning, being held down by this man's fear. He could see the surface just in front of his face, but he could not get his head out of the water. He was so close to real life, but it was just out of arm's length. He had to reach, now.

"Perth, friend, my father heard from some mercenary that you'd been having trouble with some draugar. He sent me to take care of it. Figured if I could kill ten Foresworn raiders, a few dead men wouldn't give me much trouble." Then, he added, "I've faced them before," just to make certain.

"Hmph." the Breton crossed his arms over his chest, looking Erik up and down. "When did you see a draugr? Nothing your father ever told me about before."

Now Erik had to be very careful; Perth was a Breton, but he was no fool. He had seen every bit of this part of the Reach. He had to think of a barrow where the Breton would not have been - probably somewhere east of Rorikstead. The problem was, he really did not know of many, or where they were.

"Well… as for that, I was delivering a letter for my father to Riverwood, about a month back." He smiled, tried to look natural. "I took the mountain pass, 'cause it's quicker, and found myself a bit too close to Bleak Falls Barrow. Night coming on, I decided I'd sleep outside the tomb. Got woke up by a dead man swinging his axe at me. I rolled out of the way, and picked a flaming brand out of my fire - I didn't have this here axe back then. I set three of the draugar on fire then. And when they stopped moving, I just dragged their burning corpses back to my fire and used 'em for kindling. Warm, they were, if a bit foul of smell." He put on another big smile, playing the proud warrior.

Perth looked skeptical at first, thinking the story over. But then his eyes settled on the battleaxe Erik had strapped to his back. "Well, I guess that would explain why your father would buy you such a weapon, anyway."

"So I have your blessing, then?"

"Just be careful in there, all right. I'd hate to have to tell your father you died and I didn't even have any way to get you out."

"Don't worry, Perth," he said, barely able to contain his happiness. "It's all in a day's work."

---

Mjoll stepped onto a Dwemer walkway without any railing - a steep drop if she were careless. There were two possible directions ahead: straight into another dark corridor, and upward to the left toward a huge door. She had been through enough of these ruins to know that it mattered very little which she took. Building underground, the Dwemer had not usually had much opportunity to make complicated labyrinths of their cities. A novice could be vexed by the lack of visual acuity and enclosed spaces, but she knew that off-shoos usually either met quickly again with the main thoroughfare, or ended within a room or two. She had just decided to take the walkway up to the left when the orange ghosts appeared again, ahead of her and walking straight, into the dark corridor.

"This place is unbelievable," Drennen's shade said.

"Indeed," said the Argonian she could see - presumably Watches-The-Roots. "Avanchnzel is as much a library as it is a city. Built to hold the vast memories of the Dwemer."

She followed them through the hallway as they disappeared. After a few moments in the blackness, with only her torch casting her own shadow on the walls, she emerged again into the light, in the same bronze corridor, the pipes along the walls bleeding moisture and dripping onto the ground.

"Gods," she whispered to herself. "How is this stuff still working after all these years?"

Ahead, the passageway turned sharply to the right. She slowed her pace, knowing better than to charge around blind corners in a Dwarven ruin. Suddenly she stopped. She heard a squeaking sound from further around the bend. She knew that sound: one of those gods damned Spheres, man-sized automatons rolling about on a sphere instead of legs, one hand a greatsword, the other a crossbow. It was rolling fast, she could hear, and coming toward her corner. She tossed her torch back down the hall, and it clattered down into a puddle on the floor. She hefted her warhammer out to the side, holding it near the end of the handle to get the most momentum. The trick with these things was to either break off the head or dislodge the soul gem that powered it.

She heard it come close to the corner, then timed the swing just right, jumping out into the hallway to create even more torque. CLANG! The damn sword was held upright, blocking her stroke. The machine spun a bit with the momentum, rendering its crossbow useless until it could get back around. She could not give it that chance. She brought the head of her hammer up into the middle of the machine, hard, trying to dislocate that gem. No such luck. She only knocked it back, giving it the space it needed for its crossbow. She dove to her right, back around the corner, as a bolt of dwarven metal ricocheted off the wall behind where she had been. She spun immediately back around the wall, before it had the time to reload, her swing this time from over her right shoulder, letting the spinning motion of her body bring the heavy iron hammer over top of the crossbow and into the head of the machine with force. The blow brought the Sphere down, its head breaking off and the rest falling in a crumpled heap.

No time to rest. She heard another squeaking noise from further ahead.

She ran toward the sound. She couldn't let herself get caught in another corner, or worse, retreating. She sprinted down the dim corridor, filled with the shadows of strange machines, listening between breaths to gauge how close and where the next Sphere would be. She rounded the next corner wide, and the Sphere missed its crossbow shot, misjudging her speed. She jumped, planted her left foot into the wall parallel with the machine, and pushed off again. In the air, she swung with all her might as she rounded the Sphere, catching it in the head before it could spin around to meet her. The head cracked forward, slumping - one metal tube the only thing holding it - and the machine went to the ground.

Mjoll took three calming breaths, listening for any other sounds nearby. Just the hissing of the odd Dwemer pistons. She moved on, further into the ruins.

.

A few of the little Dwemer spider-machines jumped at her as she entered a larger room that had collapsed a bit, but they were not as formidable as the Spheres - mostly it was like fighting a skeever: just aim well and swing hard. As she reached another cross-section, the orange specters returned.

"Why are all these metal… things ignoring us?" the human woman asked.

"Avanchnzel is waiting," Watches-The-Roots said.

"Waiting for what."

"No one seems to know. Perhaps the return of the Dwemer. Perhaps the end of the world." The Argonian man walked ahead as the other two stared at two Spheres, glowing an odd spectral yellow.

"Best get rid of the ones we see," the human woman said. "Just in case."

And then they were gone again, and all Mjoll could see was the broken remains of the Spheres.

Further into Avanchnzel, she found herself in a large dark room, trying to look around into the blackness. She saw dim orange light to her right, through the bars of some vault, and a light ahead shining on a dais against the far wall. She made for the dais, hoping to see better with the light to her back - she didn't want to light another torch, give away her position, maybe wake up more of the Spheres.

At the third step up to the platform, she noticed the Sphere to her right springing to life as she entered the light. She had her hammer ready, and her reflexes were sharp. She sprang up the next five steps in one jump, then launched herself backward, soaring over the Sphere, hammer held high. She brought the hammer down as she landed behind the machine, crushing the head. Looking up at the dais, and the size of the Sphere, she marveled not for the first time at the strength of her own legs to make such a jump. She'd received compliments from men about their thickness, but this was the practical application, the activity that bought them their shape. She could move better in heavy iron armor than most men could in furs.

From atop the dais, she could see that there was a wall to her left, and nothing of interest on this side of it - just more bizarre mechanisms along the walls. She walked down, rounded the separation wall and looked left. More light up some stairs. As she reached the top of the stairs, looking into another dark passageway off to her right, she heard voices again, behind her.

"I told you," the human woman said. "We should have hired a thief."

Mjoll turned to see the three orange specters at the door of the vault she had passed.

"We are thieves, you fool," the air said in the voice of an Argonian woman. "We're stealing the cube."

"And yet none of us can pick a damned lock!"

The shades disappeared. Mjoll turned back to her dark hallway, pressing forward into the ruin. She turned left and right, lit her second torch, and wound her way through the most serpentine Dwemer ruin she had ever heard of. She walked down a series of stairs into a massive room, mostly unlit. The ruin continued to her right, but she stopped when she heard the voices again, and almost right next to her she saw the orange ghosts.

"Man, this place is huge!" Drennen explained.

"It is large indeed," Watches-The-Roots said. "I did not anticipate Avanchnzel's size, or the time needed to uncover the entrance. A few hours sleep and we should be ready to continue through."

Sleep sounded so good right. It had to be quite dark out by now, and Mjoll had only slept three hours trying to make good time to Avanchnzel. She yawned at the thought.

"Maybe we should turn back," Drennen said, looking around at the dark room. "I don't want to sleep here."

Watches-The-Roots turned an intense eye on his companion. "Drennen, you do realize that the lexicon at the bottom of this place holds the accumulated memories of centuries of Dwemer."

"Not to mention our pay," the human woman said.

"So?" Drennen asked, looking around him for support.

"So we're not turning back, you fool!" Again, the Argonian woman's voice came from the air.

"Besides," the human woman encouraged, "You're not scared of a few sleeping metal-men are you."

And then, again, they were gone, and Mjoll moved further into the ruins, fighting off sleep.

She moved through a store-room, lined with shelves full of automaton parts reaching up nearly to the ceiling. From a dark corner, she saw a flash of lightning, and suddenly her left arm was numb. She fled into the aisles, trying to stay clear of any more lightning until she could feel her arm again. She ran down one aisle, only to meet the little lightning-spitting Dwarven Spider coming around the corner. She kicked two of its legs out from under it, and it shot a bolt of blue lightning into the ceiling. She sprinted back down the aisle and ran further into the room. Finally, with a thousand knife pricks from her shoulder to her fingertips, the sensation in her arm returned. She gripped her hammer tight, and stilled her breath to listen for the approaching machine. She stood at the end of one of the aisles, listening to the Spider approach on the other side. As it passed her, she pushed some of the spare parts into the floor behind it, then made her move. As the Spider turned to investigate the noise, she came around behind and smashed it with her hammer. She took a deep breath, thinking of how much she hated lightning magic; then the thing exploded on the ground right in front of her, sending blue tendrils out all over her body.

On the floor, she clung to consciousness. Her whole body was without sensation. She tried to clench her fingers, her toes, to work some feeling back into her muscles. She writhed like a dying snake, trying to keep the panic from closing off her mind. It'll come back. It'll come back. And finally, agonizingly, it did. And then she wished it hadn't. Everything hurt, every muscle and joint. She felt like she'd been boiled. She dug a healing potion out of her pack - thankfully it was still unbroken - and upended it into her mouth. She lay back and let the alchemy do its work, soothing her aches and calming the tremors in her muscles.

Gods! That was new.

She had lost another torch. Dropped it the gods knew where when she was shocked nearly to death. There were many more storage rooms. In one, the orange phantoms came again.

"I thought you said these things were sleeping," said the human woman.

The Argonian man smiled, his sharp lizard teeth showing brightly. "You said sleeping. I said waiting. It appears, for someone to try to take the lexicon."

Mjoll looked around. Where was Drennen?

"Great," the human woman complained, and then they all disappeared again.

Mjoll was sure Drennen hadn't been there this time. Had she missed his body in the dark? Oh, well. Nothing for it, now.

The next room was massive, with huge tables holding giant Dwemer Centurions only partly assembled. On the floor around the tables were three Spiders, buzzing with the blue fire of lightning.

This is going to be awful.

Wait.

She saw a way to maybe not have to fight them. A balcony wrapped mostly around the room, and the room was well lit enough to see that the next exit wasn't anywhere she could see. That meant that it had to be on the same wall that she came through, on the other side of the room. The balcony didn't go that far, but there was a shelf that she might be able to climb on and cross the rest of the way, if she could keep from being seen.

The balcony was clear, and she kept quiet enough to go unnoticed, but the shelf was further out than it had looked. She could see the little machines milling about on the floor. They didn't seem to know anyone was in the room at all, but jumping to that shelf would be loud, even if she could make it.

Well, here goes.

She jumped, landed hard, and flattened herself against the top of the shelf. All the Spiders heard the crash and came skittering her way. They surrounded the shelf, tilting upward to try to sense where she was. It was no good. There among the rest of the metal, her iron armor fit right in.

She lay there for a while, waiting for them to go away, but they didn't. Resilient little shits. Finally, she thought of a better plan. She moved her foot up against the wall, and got a tight hold on the shelf. Then, with a grunt, she pushed with her foot, toppling the shelf. She sprung away, just before the whole thing came down on top of her. Then she brought out her hammer and looked to make sure none of the little Spiders had survived. One had, but one of its legs was trapped under the shelf. She destroyed it quickly, before it could shoot her with any of that blue lightning, and headed up a flight of stairs to the next exit.

The exit led to another corridor, which led to another small storage room. Mjoll was so tired, now. She just wanted to rest, but she dared not sleep in here. Her foot bumped something soft in the dark. A body; Drennen's body.

Mjoll knelt down over him. He'd been torn apart by one of the automatons. "Find rest, poor soul."

She kept moving. Suddenly, the orange ghosts were ahead of her - three of them again.

"I can't do this," Drennen said at the others. Then he started to run, shouting back to them "We shouldn't be here. I'm sorry."

"Drennen!" the human woman called after him.

"Let the field mouse run," said the Argonian woman's voice. "Your pay will be doubled."

"My pay will be nothing if we die in here!"

The Argonian man, Watches-The-Roots, put a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Calm yourself, Breya. We are closing in on the lexicon. I can feel it calling. We'll continue without Drennen."

The next hallway was a long passage down a set of stairs, and the two ghosts walked before Mjoll, talking to each other.

"We are close now," Watches-The-Roots said. "Can you hear the lexicon calling out?"

"Sure," said the air.

The human woman, Breya, looked even more nervous, now. "So we grab it and get out, right?"

Watches-The-Roots shook his head. "Once we have the lexicon, we'll need to take it to its podium. I know what to do from there. Soon, the lexicon's knowledge will be mine."

"Ours," the air said. "Soon the lexicon's knowledge will be ours."

"Of course."

There were no branches to the path, now. It was just a long winding path, with more dripping orange pipes along the walls. The floor was different now: an orange metal grating suspended over innumerable machines, gears, and giant pipes.

Mjoll followed the specters through the grated-floor hallway into another small storeroom. Watches the roots seemed to get more agitated by the moment, trying to rush ahead of the others.

"We're almost there!" he exclaimed. "I can hear the lexicon! Come on, quickly!"

Breya was looking around anxiously, practically shaking with fear. "Something's not right." They crossed a huge threshold through a massive bronze door. Breya was trailing behind, and she shouted, "Wait!"

Mjoll crossed through the doorway, but the ghosts were gone now. Before her, a ramp led down another long hallway, with columns along the walls and some strange pistons between the columns. At the end of the ramp was another great door. Something was on the ground just before the door; it might have been another body, but it was hard to tell from this far away.

At her first step down the ramp she knew she had made a fatal mistake. She heard a familiar click as she felt the floor shift slightly under her feet. Only then did she notice the open track in the center of the floor, running down the length of the hall. At the bottom of the ramp, near the far door, something shot up from inside the track; a metal rod stretching about three feet from the base. Then, blades extended out to its sides and started to spin. The death trap rocketed up the track toward Mjoll, and she had to dive behind one of the columns before being chopped in half.

This was going to be complicated. The trap ran along the track, up and down the ramp. The pistons on the wall were pumping, extending rods into the center of the room to force anyone trying to cross outside the reach of the blades back toward the death trap. The tubes from the pistons were huge - too large to jump over. She approached one, tried to clamber over it. It was slick, covered in oil and grease, making it impossible to climb. Her only option was to time her route down the center.

Her first thought was to run down halfway and then find a space between the pistons to wait for the blades to pass her; but she saw that once the pistons started there was no space between the rod heads and the columns. There was, though, space between the first column and the first piston - perhaps enough to get in front of the blades and make a run down the ramp. The body at the end of the track seemed to indicate that someone had at least tried this. Mjoll squeezed herself between the first column and piston, and waited for the blades to pass. They came, cutting through the air just inches from her arm. As soon as she was out of their reach, she pulled herself into the center of the aisle and sprinted for the far door. The spinning trap reached its apex just beyond the first column and started down behind Mjoll, moving faster than she was. She ran with all her strength, powerful legs pushing her down the hall with greater speed than she thought she had. Still, the blades were gaining; she could hear them just behind her. Just before the door she tripped, fell forward onto her stomach. The blades whizzed over her legs and then started back up the hall in the other direction. She rolled forward another few feet, and stood.

She shook her head at the body at her feet. Watches-The-Roots, cut nearly in half at the waist and almost decapitated. Well, I can't very well leave this lexicon with you now. I suppose I should find the podium. She walked through the door, into the next room.

It was the largest, most impressive room she had yet seen in Avanchnzel. The ceiling was at least thirty feet high, and the stone floor was etched with Dwarven runes. Across from Mjoll, three sets of stairs led to a dais that stretched into darkness. At the base of the center set, a podium stood amid some incredibly complicated apparatus. Just in front of the podium, a body lay sprawled in a pool of blood. Mjoll came forward, and she could see that the body was Breya. Her limbs were smashed grotesquely, and her flesh looked as if it had been boiled. The blood trailed off to the right, first in a streak, and then in drops; it ended in a small puddle under the crumpled form of a Dwemer Centurion, a fifteen-foot metal monstrosity with a greatsword at the end of its left arm, a giant spiked hammer ending its right. The central gyro and soul gem had been taken out of this one - she supposed by the Argonian woman who had given her the lexicon.

As she backed away from the Centurion, toward the podium, she heard a loud hiss and a pop of metal breaking. She spun to see another Centurion coming to life from under a great arch that had held it in place.

Shit!

She had nearly been killed by one of these things, years ago in Mzinchaleft, where she'd lost her beloved sword, Grimsever. They moved slowly, but once they got going they were nearly impossible to stop - and they spit steam hot enough to cook her in just a few seconds. The last time, she had crawled her way to the lift after the Centurion knocked her fifteen feet across a room. She had broken three ribs, her left leg, her right hand, and her collarbone, punctured a lung, and had a piece of Dwarven metal lodged in her right shoulder, under her armor - and she had nearly been steam-cooked to death while she crawled away.

She couldn't let that happen again. She had to beat this thing.

She sprinted toward it, trying to get to the gearbox that held the soul gem before it could get fully awake. She was too late. It shot a blast of steam at her before she got within ten feet. She dodged to her right, but felt the heat in her left foot as she ran. Running from this thing was a bad idea - that was what had nearly gotten her killed before. She had to keep moving, find some way to get close enough to destroy that gem. Looks like that Argonian woman used Breya as a distraction. Bitch. It stalked toward her, building up more steam as it came. She had to take her chance now. She ran for it again, hammer held out to the side, ready to strike. The Centurion's own hammer swung toward her, and she jumped back just out of range. But the damned thing just extended the arm; the hammer caught her in the shoulder, spinning her across the room. She lost her hammer. Can't let this thing get another steam shot in! She charged the Centurion one more time, picking up a large Dwemer strut from the floor. This time she dove forward into a roll as it slashed at her with its greatsword, sprung up and to her left as it tried to squash her with its massive hammer; and then as it tried to back away for a better angle, she aimed and slammed the strut into the machine's midsection. She heard crunching metal, and the tink tink of the soul gem on the ground. She had to dive away to keep from being crushed as the Centurion fell, but she was victorious.

"Not so tough after all, huh?"

After catching her breath, she took the lexicon out of her pack. The little black square glowed a dim blue at the edges. On the podium, the lexicon's receptacle was fairly obvious. When she set the thing in its place, the pedestal seemed to hum. Mjoll watched as the light of the lexicon's edges went from blue to purple to red to orange to yellow to white. And then the humming stopped. It seemed more than the noise of the pedestal went quiet, but the whole city; all of Avanchnzel was silent.

"Gods you Dwemer were strange." Her voice sounded strangled, almost non-existent in the hush of the ruin.

The lights from the braziers on the walls started to dim. She lit her last torch before the room went totally dark. At the back of the huge room, atop the last set of stairs, there was a lift much like the one that had saved her life in Mzinchaleft. If she knew the Dwemer at all, it likely led to the spire she'd seen near the entrance to the city. She hoped it was still working, that the Dwemer would have made sure that it worked when everything else shut down.

.

As she felt the rush of the lift speeding up its shaft, she thought to herself, Gods I missed this.

---

The mine was not large. Perth had been in Skyrim for some ten years, but he only bought the mine last winter. He worked it with his friends Tuthul and Bjord, and they had not expanded it much in less than a year. They had done nothing at all in a week, since Tuthul and Bjord broke through into the barrow and found angry draugar waiting for them. Tuthul had barely escaped with his life; Bjord had not been so lucky.

Erik was unfamiliar with mines in general. And this one was totally dark. Perth had given him a lantern, but he needed to light the torches along the walls - it would be hard to use his battleaxe with one hand. He found the first on his left, set in a basket attached to a support beam.

The mine tunnel turned right, and Erik followed its path. Perth had told him the sinkhole was at the end of that path - the draugar were supposed to be down there. He let his lamp lead the way, doing his best not to trip on the uneven cave floor. This place smells awful, he thought, wrinkling his nose at the putrid grave smell that permeated through the mine. If I didn't have this lantern, I bet I could find my way to the sinkhole by the smell.

Suddenly he stopped short. There was a light ahead. It was not coming from the main path, but rather off to his left from within a tangent channel. Clearly, however simple these draugar were, they knew enough to sustain light. He stepped forward, not cautiously enough; he stumbled over a loose rock in the floor. The sound of the rock shooting out from under his foot, skittering across the floor, was impossibly loud.

"Aah!" he heard from within the lighted room, a rasp of a voice like sand over dry paper.

Erik hung the lantern on a bent nail above his head, and then he readied his axe. It was slightly heavier than his woodaxe, and had two blades, but he had done his best to get used to the weight and balance while on the road. He held it low and out to the side, hands shoulder-length apart, ready to swing at a moment's notice. He was certain there were none behind him, so there was only one direction to worry about. He decided he would rush the thing whenever it emerged into view.

And then there it was, slowly revealing its grotesque form: six feet of rotting green flesh and bone that had once been a Nord woman. It wore grave rags and carried a cruel-looking black steel blade, wide and rough-hewn. It looked his way, and shouted something in an ancient language that Erik did not understand.

With a wordless shout, he rushed the dead creature. It raised its black blade high, preparing to strike, but it was not quick enough. Erik's battleaxe sheared through the draugr woman's head and arm, like chopping rotten wood.

And then beside him, Erik heard another rasping voice. "Faas paak dinok!"

He caught his attacker's sword-arm, surprisingly firm just below the surface. This draugr had been a man - a rather tall one, if not so tall as Erik, and strong. They grappled for a moment, Erik dominating but unable to topple or disarm the draugr. And then he jumped up and with both feet kicked the dead man, gaining himself some needed space. The draugr slashed at him as he came close again, but he turned the black sword away with a swat from his axe, then whirled it around for a killing stroke. He spilled its innards, releasing a fresh wave of foulness into the air, then drove the axe deep into its skull.

As he kicked the draugr off of his blade, Erik thought to himself, I suppose Vorstag was right. This isn't so hard.

.

He found the sinkhole where Perth had said it would be.

It was a twenty foot drop to the bottom. There must have been a ladder at some point, though Erik did not see it anywhere. There was, however, a support beam cutting through the center of the hole about midway down. This was going to be fun. He leaped down to the support beam, slipped, and fell the rest of the way.

He landed face-down and out of breath in a pile of broken earth. When he looked up, he found himself in a musty room dimly lit only by the lamp above the hole, around him a half-dozen coffins lined against the wall in a circle - all broken open from the inside. Four more, then. Gods be praised.

He stood slowly, searching the ground for his axe. He found it just in time, as he heard at least two more draugar coming into the room.

"Bolog aaz mal lir!"

Three draugar charged him from a tunnel between two of the coffins, one a female archer, the other two males, one with a greatsword, the other with a fearsome bearded battleaxe, both made of that rough ancient metal.

He did his best to keep the two males between him and the archer, at least until he could get closer. The axe-wielder slashed at him wildly, and he dodged with a spin, leveling his own counter-strike to take off its head. The draugr with the greatsword was less simply put down. It took a high guard, slashing down at him without ceasing. It was remarkably strong, especially for a dead man with rotting limbs. Eventually, though, Erik figured out its timing, and swept aside to take off its right arm, and then half its face. A jagged arrow flew just past his head, stirring his long red hair. He lunged toward its source before the draugr woman could reload. He landed on top of the creature, his axe blade buried deep in its chest. It clawed at him with long, filthy fingernails; its teeth snapped at him beneath his face. He rolled off, but the thing didn't move below the waist - he must have crushed its spine somehow. He dug out his axe and finished the draugr off, before starting down the tunnel from which they had all come.

The tunnel was dark, completely without light, but that was the worst of it. At the end, there was a wide circular room with a lever in the floor in front of a barred-off exit. He pulled the lever, assuming it would open the door, and barely dodged the incoming volley of arrows in time.

Damned booby-trap? Gods, these ancient Nords were a friendly bunch.

After looking around a bit, he noticed another lever to the left of the gate, and yet another to the right, both hidden behind ancient moss. He pulled each of them, and the bars came down individually with a hissing sound as they lowered, allowing Erik to continue.

In the next room, he found a set of wooden stairs spiraling upward. He tested each ancient stair for stability before putting his weight on it; he had to skip a few, but he made it to the top.

At the top, through a heavy black metal door, in a room with more coffins and tables carrying scattered embalming tools, four more dead men were waiting for him. The first lost a leg, then the second was nearly cut in half as Erik ducked its wide slash; the next got a caved-in face while it raised its sword, and the last lost both arms and most of its head before it stopped moving.

Erik was thinking that speed and strength, coupled with aggressiveness, went a long way in a fight, when the first draugr cut a deep gash into his leg below the knee. He had crippled it, but neglected to finish it off. With a cry of pain, he stumbled away, dropping his axe. It crawled toward him, cursing him in that strange tongue. He picked up one of the other draugar's weapons - a fearsome battleaxe, black-bladed and looking almost like some giant's twisted scythe - and finished the creature off. He checked his wound. It was bleeding pretty badly; he needed to get out of here, to be somewhere less covered in death, with clean water and bandages.

Another series of tunnels led him, limping, into a large room. As he entered, he heard another draugr voice.

"FO KRAH DIIN"

And all of a sudden, he thought his bones had frozen. He had felt magical cold before, when a Foresworn bandit had tried to freeze him; but that was mild in comparison to whatever evil magic those words had unleashed. He felt on the brink of death, like all his energy was gone, like his body could no longer even understand heat.

But he didn't stop moving. He was a Nord, and however blinding the cold, ignoring it was in his blood. He looked to his right and saw an altar of some kind; light shone onto it through a shaft in the earth above. Behind that altar, just visible by the moonlight shining through, was a draugr like none he had seen before. For one, it looked barely decayed - its skin was green and broken, but it was mostly intact; and the muscles beneath looked healthy. Also it wore armor, ancient and primitive. On its head was a helmet festooned with ram's horns. It stalked slowly around the altar, frighteningly lithe and alive for a dead man.

"Aav Dilon," it drawled in a deep voice like an avalanche.

"Think a little cold's gonna stop me, dead man. I am Erik! Son of Mralki! I am the Slayer!"

The armored dead man laughed then, a sound like boulders falling down a well. Erik charged, crossing the room in four strides, and swung his axe with all his might. To his shock, the draugr beast parried his attack with a greatsword held in one hand. The strength behind the movement was unimaginable. Then it swung the massive black sword at Erik, and he barely dodged in time, taking a shallow cut to his shoulder.

"You'll have to do better than that, bonewalker!"

They danced around the dark room for a time. Erik cut open its bowels, which slowed it down some. But the thing was so strong. He could not catch any of its attacks with his axe, or the shock of it would leave him vulnerable. Once more it threw its head forward and shouted at him, but it was too close, and Erik stepped aside easily. After a while, though, Erik was exhausted, the wound in his leg aching and burning; he knew he would have to either end it soon or die. He timed his moment, kept his distance; until the draugr warrior slashed in a wide half-circle. He jumped back and slid his grip wide on the axe; as the thing jutted forward again to shout at him, he brought his axe up, cleaving its face and throat in two.

Erik could feel the strange magic die in the air.

"That's Erik the Slayer! Remember it in Oblivion!"

---

Even from a distance, Whiterun was impressive; a city on a hill - a mountain, really - in the midst of a tundra that stretched nearly unbroken from the White River to the Reach. Ancient stone walls rose in moss-covered dignity, timber braces supporting sections where here and there the stone was breaking down; to Aleron, they seemed the battered armor of an old warrior. And visible above the walls, with a commanding view of the outlying country farms and pastures, was the extraordinary palace called Dragonsreach, the seat of Jarl Balgruuf the Greater, ruler of Whiterun Hold.

Aleron had followed the valley northward from Riverwood, marveling all the while at the mountain to the east that the Nords called the Throat of the World. He could understand the name; it seemed to hold up the sky. Alvor had refused to let him go any further in the blood-stained Stormcloak armor - in fact, the big Nord had insisted on burning all of his armor from the escape under Helgen. To replace it, he had given Aleron some new clothes and iron armor - breastplate, shin boots, and gauntlets, with a horned iron helmet - as well as some food and supplies for the nearly seventy-five mile trip to Whiterun.

Now, as the sun was high on Middas, he followed the road west toward the city gate. He approached a settlement: a pair of buildings with a sign at the surrounding gate declaring the Honningbrew Meadery. Two men stood outside what Aleron assumed was the boilery, one a bald Nord who berated the other, a long-haired Imperial. It seemed there was some kind of rodent trouble in the meadery, and the Nord was impatient to have it taken care of. As he walked past, distracted by the argument, Aleron nearly collided with a group of Imperial Soldiers.

One soldier, a dark haired Colovian with a hawk nose, eyed him suspiciously. "Imperial business, citizen. Step aside."

Aleron stared, not at the soldiers, but at the prisoner they were escorting. He had been in the cart with Aleron on the way to Helgen. This could go very badly, very quickly. His hand slid nervously to the iron axe hanging in a loop at his side. The Stormcloak glanced blankly back at Aleron, no recognition in his face. Aleron was not one of his countrymen. He was certainly no Stormcloak; the prisoner knew he would get no help here.

"I'm warning you, citizen. Step aside." The soldiers had all drawn their swords. Standing in a very precise wedge around the Stormcloak, they looked less passionate about the possibility of having to cut him down than they would the prospect of rain.

Finally taking notice of the soldiers threatening him, Aleron moved off the road, out of striking distance, with a muttered, "Apologies."

A few miles past the meadery, Aleron saw something he knew right away he would never forget: in the middle of someone's vegetable field, three armored warriors fought what looked almost like a man, except that it was nearly as tall as and probably heavier than the warriors all put together. He had heard of giants before, in some of the books Gregory had let him read, but he had always assumed they were exaggerated. This thing was fifteen feet of lean-muscled horror, wearing nothing but a breechclout over dirty pallid skin. Its face was primitive, with a proportionally huge brow, heavy-lidded eyes, filthy matted brown hair, and an expression that would have looked more at home on a bear, a mixture of fear and rage. It swung at its attackers with a ten-foot club fashioned out of some massive animal's thigh bone.

As Aleron watched from the road, the warriors kept clear of the swinging club fairly easily. Two of the warriors, one a gruff-looking Nord in steel-and-fur armor, the other a very young Imperial woman in leather and fur, danced around the beast, hacking at its legs and dodging its swipes. The third warrior, a tall, lithe Nord woman in strange-looking black steel and leather armor, stood thirty feet away, firing arrow after arrow into the giant's thick hide. The beast raged when an arrow punched through, and began to stomp about aimlessly, shaking the ground in its fury. Then suddenly, as its attention turned to the woman firing the arrows, the Nord man sliced his greatsword through its knee, bringing the beast down. He then drove his sword through the giant's throat, releasing an absurd flow of blood and effectively killing it.

As the Imperial girl praised the work of the angry-looking Nord hero, the archer came toward Aleron.

"Well, that's taken care of… no thanks to you. You wear armor, and you have the look of a warrior. Why just watch while others defend this land?"

Aleron stared hard at her for a moment. She was beautiful, really, behind the blue war paint and tousled red hair. She had the haughty air, though, of one of the Cyrodiilic lords that used to come through the priory on their way to Chorrol. "Didn't look to me like you needed any help."

"Certainly not. But a true warrior would have relished the opportunity to take on a giant." She seemed angry, for some reason. Her light green eyes had a strange fire to them - something almost inhuman.

"I suppose I'm not a true warrior then," Aleron said, not wanting any trouble.

"Just watch yourself in the future." She said as she walked away, toward the farmhouse, her companions following her.

.

Whiterun was, in many ways, the heart of Skyrim. It was a major trading city, where merchants from the Rift could buy iron ore from the Hjaalmarch mines, or Dawnstar merchants could trade fish for timber with the Falkreath merchants. Aleron knew all this from a copy of Holds of Skyrim he had once read, back during the brief stretch when Gregory had been showing an interest in his education.

What the book had not been able to convey, not to any satisfactory level, was that the city was beautiful. Inside the walls, it was quite open. Wide streets snaked through hills slowly ascending toward the summit at Dragonsreach. Flanking the streets were houses much like Aleron had seen in Bruma, half underground and roofed with straw or clay tiles. There were three levels to the great diamond-shaped city: the lowest level was the Plains District, a mostly commercial area, with some of the less wealthy and connected families living in the straw-roofed houses behind the main street; the middle section was the Wind District, the more stately residential borough, where also the Temple of Kyne and the Hall of the Dead were located. In the highest section, the Cloud District atop a rocky outcropping, Dragonsreach loomed with its ornate bridge and its Great Porch.

In the Plains District, near the city's only gate, Aleron found himself staring at yet another quarrel, this time outside a smithy. A Nibenese Imperial wearing a blacksmith's apron argued with a blond Nord in the leather armor of the Legion.

"We'll pay whatever it takes," the Nord said, "but we must have more swords for the Imperial solders."

"I just can't fill an order that size on my own. Why don't you swallow that stubborn pride of yours and ask Eorlund Gray-Mane for help?"

"Ha! I'd sooner bend my knee to Ulfric Stormcloak. Besides, Gray-Mane would never make steel for the Legion."

"Have it your way. I'll take the job, but don't expect a miracle."

The Nord's curt nod ended the negotiation rather abruptly. He turned to leave, and nearly ran over Aleron.

"Excuse me, Breton," the blond man said, about to continue on. As he noticed that Aleron was a newcomer, though, he only stepped back and asked, "Gray-Mane or Battle-Born?"

This sounded like some kind of feud, likely over positions on the war. Aleron wanted no part in it. "I'm not on anyone's side. I'm just here to see the Jarl."

"Sooner or later, we all have to choose a side. Long live the Empire." And with that, the big Nord walked up toward the Wind District.

"Great," Aleron said aloud to himself. "I've been here a minute, and someone here already found a reason to hate me.

"Don't judge Whiterun by that one," the voice of the Imperial directed at him. He turned to see her leaning against a post beneath the overhanging of her shop. "Idolaf's just a lesser member of an old house, without much future despite all his family's money. It comes with the territory that he's a horse's ass."

Aleron smiled, despite himself. "Well," he said as he nodded up toward towering Dragonsreach, "Hopefully I'll find hospitality up there." He started to resume his trek as the Imperial woman stopped him.

"You're going up to Dragonsreach, are you? I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking something to my father. He's the Jarl's steward. It's a sword; a gift for the Jarl.

"I don't see why not."

"Thank you."

As the woman walked into her shop to get the sword, Aleron was surprised at how good this simple thing made him feel. No one ever entrusted him with anything. He was a murderer, an orphan. Brother Julius used to check occasionally to make sure he hadn't somehow sold any of the priory's tools. But this woman he'd never met before wanted to entrust him with her father's gift to the Jarl. He couldn't decide whether or not that made her insane.

.

Past the Gildergreen Courtyard surrounding the great dead tree that gave it its name, up the stone stairs that ascended along a stunning waterfall on the left and a serene pool to the right, Aleron finally crossed the bridge that vaulted the source of the hot spring over which Dragonsreach was built, the source of all the water running through the little canals in the city. It really was an impressive building. The view from this height was of more than just farms and homesteads; the long tundra of Skyrim stretched beyond the western horizon, and to the southeast was the tangent arm of the Jeralls where the Throat of the World loomed like a god over the lesser mountains. The palace was a marvel. Enclosed within a stone ring atop the lonely mountain, Dragonsreach itself was a marvelous timber structure of the highest Nordic style, calling to the mind ancient memories of sea voyages and Atmoran legends. Behind the palace was the Great Porch - a somewhat inauspicious name for something so unique and awe-inspiring - the stone construction half again the size the palace proper, where legends said Olaf One-Eye had trapped and held a dragon.

Aleron was somewhat surprised that none of the guards even questioned him as he approached the massive, ornate doors. As he pushed them open, the air of the great hall met his face with surprising heat. Once inside, the majesty of the place overwhelmed him. If the high-pointed rooftops of the exterior palace recalled sea voyages, the interior of the great hall was meant to be the vessel. Massive round beams, lavishly carved and lacquered to shine in the firelight, came to vaulted points in a row down the center of the hall that gave the impression of the beams of some massive ship's hull. To the sides of those beams, balconies looked down on the long table and the huge fire pit that led to the raised throne of the Jarl of Whiterun.

Up a wide flight of stairs between the third columns, Aleron passed court members sitting at the table before he was stopped at the fire pit by a Dunmer woman in leather armor come down from the dais with her steal sword drawn. The expression on her grey-skinned face was less than inviting.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" she asked him in a rough warrior's voice. "The Jarl is not receiving visitors."

Aleron wondered if he had made some fatal mistake. No one had questioned him before this point, and he had not shied away from any of the guards or dignitaries; but this woman was looking at him as though he were an assassin come in the dark with blade dripping blood.

"I have news from Helgen, about the Dragon attack."

The Dark Elf's pointed ears twitched forward at that. "Well, that would explain why the guards let you in." She sheathed her sword, but her expression changed little. "Head on up, but keep your distance from the Jarl."

The Jarl, Balgruuf the Greater, was speaking with his steward, a bronze-skinned Nibenese Imperial with thinning hair and a pinched face.

"Jarl, these are just rumors at this point," the steward assured his lord. "There is no reason as yet to make hasty decisions based on claims made by a bunch of desert cats."

Jarl Balgruuf seemed not to be listening to his steward. After a moment, he replied without looking at the well-dressed Imperial. "Rumors they may be, but we need to be prepared. There are enemies enough to ruin the peace of my hold without dragons come back from old legends."

He noticed Aleron then, his eyes focusing for the first time out of his deeper thoughts. "Who's this, then?"

Aleron stepped up the platform then, and wondered whether he should kneel, or knuckle his forehead, or some other such show of fealty, before realizing that he didn't care enough to honor this man's title - he owed this man nothing. "My name is Aleron, Jarl. I come from Weynon Priory. I bring news of the destruction of Helgen."

"So the rumors are true, to some point, at least. Continue, boy."

Boy. Aleron hated to be patronized so, but he supposed it was to be expected from a Jarl. The Jarls were kings, really, with far more autonomy and power under their High King than the various counts and dukes had under the Imperial throne in Cyrodiil.

"As I said, Helgen was destroyed. Burned, mostly, by dragon fire… and some kind of storm of fiery death called down by the beast. The Imperials were about to behead Ulfric Stormcloak when the dragon came, but it spared neither Legion nor Stormcloak soldier."

"Ulfric!" the Jarl cursed. "I should have known he'd be mixed up in this."

He turned to his steward. "What do you say now, Proventus? Should we continue to rely on the strength of our walls? Against a dragon!?"

The Dark Elf spoke up. "We should station some troops in Riverwood. It's in the most immediate dang-"

"Riverwood is too close to Falkreath Hold, my lord," the steward interrupted. "Siddgeir would view that as a provocation. He'd assume we were readying to side with Ulfric, and move against him."

The Jarl's fist came down on the arm of his throne. "Damn it man! I'll not stand by as a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people!"

The Dark Elf woman tapped Aleron on the shoulder then, beckoning him to descend and leave the hall.

"Whiterun thanks you, traveler; but leave these discussions to the court."

He was eager to do just that, but Aleron had yet to get a chance to leave the Jarl's sword with the steward. He supposed the Dunmer could be trusted enough to finish the job, but that was not what he was asked to do. "I was asked to bring this sword to Proventus Avenicci, the Jarl's steward. I will leave when I have done that."

The Dunmer woman looked him hard in the eyes at that defiance. She was clearly the kind of woman who gave orders without needing to question whether or not they would be followed.

"I can make sure Proventus gets the sword. I said leave."

Aleron stood staring back at her. He had not had much experience with Nordic culture. It was, perhaps, taboo to offend this Dunmer, but he was never one to worry too much about how he was perceived. He was one to make sure a job got done.

As the grey warrior began to reach for her sword, the steward interjected. "Ah, thank you for bringing that," he said as he descended the steps to stand between the Breton and the Dunmer woman. "Aleron, wasn't it? Again, thank you."

Aleron nodded in response, and shot a quick glance to the Dark Elf to see her staring daggers at the steward. Clearly no love lost there, he thought.

The Jarl spoke with his court members as Aleron left the Hall. It was getting dark outside. There was sure to be a room at the inn at the bottom of the hill; hopefully at a reasonable enough price.

---

The moons shined brightly in the night over the city of Riften. Mjoll leaned back against the low stone wall that surrounded Riften's merchants' square, sweating in her armor despite the cool of the night. She normally would have left her armor at home, but little Sapphire was quick, and far too ready with her daggers.

How long is this woman going to take, Mjoll thought, as she kept a close watch on the Scorched Hammer's entrance. Balimund was a good man, and he worked hard enough that he didn't deserve to be ripped off because he was in Shor's Stone buying ebony ore. He'd asked her to look after his shop while he was gone - apparently, he didn't trust Asbjorn to stay awake through the night. That, or he was still trying to get her to marry him. When they'd first met, he had tried to convince her that he could forge her a sword to make her forget Grimsever, if only she'd let him. She had refused him as kindly as she could; she knew too well what that meant to him, a sword as a gift to a warrior woman.

There was movement on the roof of the Hammer. How the hell did that woman get up there? Sapphire's silhouette scurried atop the building like a squirrel, looking around frantically and moving in quick, energetic spurts of motion.

Mjoll didn't move. Her iron armor blended in nicely against the stone behind her.

With a last look around, Sapphire leaped down from the roof and landed gracefully, despite the small bundle slung over her back. She straightened, brushed herself off, and headed straight toward Mjoll. She needed to get across the square to reach her little hideout in the Ratway.

Sapphire walked right in front of Mjoll before seeing the larger woman. Mjoll's gauntleted hand reached out to grab the bundle, but the dagger was quicker. The leather underside of Mjoll's gauntlet separated, and Mjoll cursed as the blade bit shallowly into her soft skin in a quick slashing movement. As she pulled her hand away, the thief planted a kick to her chin, getting enough separation to run before Mjoll could free her battleaxe. She was running the wrong way. The little thief ran between the lakefront shops and the Bee and Barb, toward the Canal, and Beggars' Row.

Mjoll followed quickly, but not quickly enough. By the time she reached the alley, Sapphire was nearly to the Canal. The thief stopped at the wooden railing to look behind her. She waved at Mjoll as she leaned backward over the top rail, before catching the planks of the upper walkway to swing her down to the lower city below. Her landing sounded graceful, again. Bitch. Mjoll listened for only a moment to the sound of Sapphire's boots running along the lower walkway below her before rushing back through the merchants' square. There was only one place Sapphire could be going, down there: the Ratway. The entrance was in the lower city, along the catwalks practically beneath Balimund's shop, but the wooden stairway that led to the lower catwalks was across the bridge that stretched over the Canal.

She needed to time this right. As she neared the railing where the Scorched Hammer backed up to the Canal, she threw her battleaxe, shaft first, low along the planks. It came to rest perfectly, the iron blade wedged in front of two rail posts with the shaft extending over the water. She leaped over the rail, suddenly not so sure of this idea as she saw the water below and thought of her armor's added weight. She reached out to grab the haft of the axe. Her hands slid a bit before getting a firm grip. The wedged axe swung her in the direction of the lower catwalk, and she let go before it snapped or the angle cut her short. She covered the last two feet of air over the water, and…

CRASH!

Mjoll's armored body broke through the sodden, rotting wood railing directly into Sapphire as she was nearing the iron barred door that led into the Ratway.

On the ground, tangled bodily with the other woman, Mjoll fumbled for a handhold of hair as Sapphire's dagger stabbed futilely at heavy iron armor. Finally, Mjoll found a clump of brown hair and used it to slam Sapphire's head into the walkway beams. The second blow knocked the smaller Nord unconscious.

"Well," said Mjoll to the unresponsive thief. "Let's see what you almost got away with."

She tugged the bundle free, and stuffed her gauntleted hand inside. At the soft, smooth feel of gold, she pulled out a two-foot statue of Dibella, naked and wanton god of beauty. Mjoll shook her head. Stealing someone's sacred statue. Thieves truly were the lowest sort of people.

She gave the unconscious Sapphire another kick, and hauled the smaller woman up over her shoulder as she stood, muttering to herself. "Got to drag your skinny arse up those stairs and all the way to the guardhouse. I ought to just dump you in the gods-damned canal and think no more of you."

---

Aleron pounded lightly at the long blade, his forge hammer tinking against the anvil between louder ringing against the steel. Looking at the slender piece of metal, he thought he might be able to finish hammering out the edge before it needed to be heated again; he was a patient man, though, and his pace with the tools did not quicken. Heating it again at this point would only strengthen the blade once it was all done. This was to be a blade for Hadvar, in thanks for all of his assistance - if the man ever came back to his childhood home, it would be for him.

The Stormcloak War seemed to be going well for him. His letters, the ones Alvor had shared, spoke of a possible promotion coming soon, if all went as planned. Last week, he had been a part of an expedition into some place called Korvanjund, where they had found the fabled Jagged Crown, and apparently fought old King Borgas himself - or at least that was what Hadvar had said he believed. He had befriended some new recruit, an Orc named Matuk, whom he claimed was as tall as a cave bear and twice as strong. New recruit or no, Hadvar seemed to think this Orc would be a Prefect before the war ended. Though he still claimed Aleron would rise as fast if he would but join the Legion. He had not sent a letter yet without counseling him to come to Solitude.

"I'm just anxious, I suppose," Faendal said. He certainly looked anxious; his pointed Bosmer ears seemed to twitch. "Camilla deserves a man of some wealth, and I think with this I can give her that."

Faendal had taken a liking to him, for whatever reason. All Aleron had done was deliver a particularly insulting letter to Camilla Valerius from Sven. The Nord bard had wanted Aleron to tell her it was from Faendal, but lying for others was not something Aleron was comfortable with, even had he liked Sven. The elf had taken his honesty as siding with him in some battle for the merchant woman's affections. It all seemed silly to Aleron, two men fighting over a woman. If she wanted one of them, surely she would let them know. If not, surely she should tell them that. If she wanted them both, or could not decide - or just liked playing men off one another - she was not the kind of woman worth the effort. Then again, Aleron had little experience with women under any circumstances. None of the Brothers had had anything to say about the subject of women. His father had taught him only two things that he could remember: never expect to understand what a woman wants, but always try; and always remember that women are stronger than they look, inside and out.

"Are you alright?" Faendal asked, concern clear in his voice.

Aleron wiped at a tear streaking down his left cheek. "Just a spark in my eye. I'm fine." Gods, he wished he would stop doing that. Ten years, and still he would tear up at the thought of either of his parents, if he did not guard his emotions carefully. Ten years since I last really laughed, it seems. Ten years in the dark, alone.

"Well, I tell you," continued Faendal. "As soon as this mercenary gets here from Rorikstead, you and I will get rich clearing out that mine. It's just eight or so bandits in there, and they're a haggard bunch. Supposedly, this Slayer character killed twice that in one battle out in the Reach."

Faendal had come to Aleron a week after he had come back from Whiterun, telling him all about Embershard Mine. It had been abandoned for years, but supposedly that had been for the death of the mine's owner, not because of any lack in production. The mine had no owner now, the previous owner having had no family or heir. Apparently, Faendal had written to the Jarl some months back about rooting out a group of bandits who had taken up residence in the place, only to receive a message from the Jarl's steward that soldiers could not be sent so close to Falkreath's borders without better cause, but that anyone who took care of the bandits would be legally considered the owner of the mine. That had given the Bosmer the idea that he could hire a mercenary to help clear it out, pretending the whole time that the mine belonged to him already. Unfortunately for him, he did not have enough money to hire a mercenary. Aleron had agreed to help him fund the venture with what little he earned helping Alvor, even to help the mercenary clear the place out, but only if the mercenary was aware of the whole story, and only if the mercenary was given part ownership with Faendal and himself. Without much other choice, Faendal had grudgingly agreed.

"If the man even comes into the village," Faendal whined. "I still say there's nothing to keep a mercenary of such skill from clearing the place out alone and taking the prize for himself. I wish you hadn't made me put that in the letter. He could have learned it as easily from us after he arrived, and there would be no chance of being double-crossed."

Aleron simply tapped away at the blade. Surprised, suddenly he realized that it was well finished, ready for cooling. He thought of heating it again, just to be safe, then decided against it. Patience was a good thing, caution necessary; but too much so was an easy trap to fall into.

.

That evening, Alvor had some news from the south.

"I got a letter from Weynon Priory today," he said as Aleron walked into the Sleeping Giant Inn. The big blacksmith sat at a table near the bard, beckoning him over with a hand.

"Brother Gregory, I assume?" Aleron frowned as he sat down beside the big Nord. At the next table, Delphine, the dour Breton innkeeper, nearly dropped a mug of mead onto a patron. She stared at Aleron for a moment, but quickly turned away and began shouting at Orgnar to make a note to buy more ale. What was that about?

Alvor seemed hesitant. "Well… no. As I said, I got a letter. It was addressed to me, from a Brother Julius."

Aleron felt cold. A darkness in the other man's voice warned him that something was wrong. Julius had always hated him. Could the bitter old man have written accusations of murder just to spite him?

"There's no easy way to say this," Alvor went on. "Your friend, Brother Gregory, is dead. It seems he took ill a few weeks ago and never recovered. This Julius wrote to let me know that I should stop you if you try to return. They've already given him his burial, and apparently whatever mission you're on is not finished." He paused a moment, licking his lips. "I know it's hard when you lose a friend. If you need some time away from your work for awhile, I suppose I can-"

He cut off as he realized Aleron was laughing quietly to himself.

"I'm sorry, Alvor," Aleron said. "You're a good man, and I appreciate everything you've done for me. But Gregory was never my friend. He taught me history and lore, because he wouldn't have an 'ignorant savage' in his priory. He taught me to fight, because if I was going to live by his charity, I would have to be able to protect it. The man lied as easy as breathing. He manipulated everything that happened in that priory, even if he never ordered any of it. This mission I'm on for the priory… there is no mission. I was there when Gregory maneuvered Julius into sending me to Skyrim. I could hear them talking just outside the chapel, while I hid inside. Julius wanted to send me to Hackdirt, or Woodhaven; just somewhere away from Chorrol. But Gregory argued against anywhere so close. He never mentioned Skyrim; he just found reasons against any other place Julius came up with."

"So what did they tell you when they sent you off?" Alvor asked.

"They told me I was to go to Skyrim and preach of the divine Talos," Aleron said wryly. "They told me the Ninth God would guide my steps and protect my path. You know how well that turned out."

As Alvor went on about the letter, letting him know that the brothers would send his way anything they found that Gregory had set aside for him, Aleron noticed, again, Delphine staring at him with a peculiar expression. Again, she turned away when she saw him staring back at her. What was going on? She had known he was from Weynon Priory; most in the village knew something of who he was and where he came from, and that, in itself, shouldn't be anything worth note. It couldn't be that. It was Gregory's name, specifically, that had her jumping. Could she have known him? She hardly seemed old enough to have been a friend. Gregory had been old, even for a Breton. According to him, he had been born during the first Titus Mede's reign, well over a hundred and fifty years ago. She couldn't have been older than sixty. He was just about to excuse himself from Alvor and see what this was all about, when the door to the inn banged open.

The Nord in the doorway had to crouch slightly to get through it. He looked as ragged and travel-weary as any man Aleron had ever seen. He was covered in layers of dirt and mud more befitting a farmer after a hard day in the field during the rainy season. His hair was the color of ginger, and there was more of it than seemed decent on a man; and it splayed out behind him like a mane. He wore layers of hide and fur, and a corundum-scaled leather jerkin under a harness with a small steel chestpiece and steel-embossed leather spaulders, looking every bit a barbarian warrior from some old epic. On his back he carried a massive axe, of some dark wood and darker metal, that looked somewhere between a scythe and a headsman's tool.

"Someone, get me a drink!" he cried out to the whole inn, with a surprisingly boyish voice.

Orgnar, standing behind the bar at the far end of the inn, eyed the man cautiously, stroking the hilt of his dagger without noticing. The rest of the patrons went silent, clearly unsure of this man's intentions. Delphine just shook her head and reached around the counter to grab one of the mugs Orgnar had been filling with dark ale a moment ago.

"You Erik, Mralki's boy?" she asked. Then, without waiting for a response, she nodded toward where Aleron and Alvor were seated. "There's the one you want, there." She handed him his drink.

Erik thanked her, then sauntered over to take the seat opposite Alvor. He took a long draft of his ale, and then slammed the drink down, wiping at a mouth surrounded by the red-tinged scruff of a new beard.

"So, you're going to help me clear out this mine?" He looked doubtfully at Alvor, then pretended the question had always been meant for Aleron.

"You're Erik, the mercenary Faendal wrote for?"

The tall Nord smiled broadly. "That's me. Erik the Slayer. Though I prefer to be called an adventurer. Mercenary makes it sound like I'm one step up from a bandit."

Alvor clapped Aleron on the back and got up from the table. "I'll leave you boys to it, then."

Aleron made his goodbyes, mentioning that he needed to take some time to make himself another hammer - Alvor's spare was too light. That made the man laugh, but he said he would allot him some time tomorrow or the day after. When Alvor was gone, Aleron looked back to Erik, who sat quietly finishing his ale, clearly without a care in the world, much less worry over an imminent battle with a mine full of bandits. Yes, this mercenary was a youth, now that he saw him closer; five or six years younger than himself, or Aleron was well mistaken.

"You certainly look like a warrior," he said as the young man was raising his hand for another ale, "but can I count on you not to get me killed in there? I don't mean to be rude, but I want to be sure you're not some young fool, with a head full of his father's old war stories, who thinks because he has a vicious-looking axe he can take on the whole world."

Erik smiled again - a smile Aleron was sure had gotten him into a lot of trouble wherever he grew up. "This axe I took off a draugr when I got this." He lifted up the heavy studded fur kilt he wore and stuck out his leg to show a wicked scar just below his right knee. And after a moment, "If that's not enough, feel free to test me at any t-"

The blow Aleron aimed at the young Nord's head missed, and was immediately countered by a shove that sent him nearly into the firepit behind him. Erik was standing now, looming dangerously, but with a playful smile that reminded Aleron of something that he could not quite place. The mercenary stood with his left foot forward, his legs apart; he had moved away from the table. His hands were low, but his shoulders looked tight - not stiff, just ready.

Aleron looked this Erik the Slayer up and down for a moment. Quick as he is strong. Seems to know his reach. Smart enough to get away from that table. He could take the Nord if he really wanted to, but it would cost him.

"Well, let's get on the road, then," he said, finally. "It's just five miles or so, and if we leave now, we'll probably catch them mostly sleeping. Faendal is scouting the place for us."

Erik drained the second ale he had ordered before shouldering his axe and following Aleron out of the inn.

---

It turned out that the Wood Elf Faendal was a reliable little scout, whom Erik could see right away would have been useful inside the mine, had he been willing to go in at all. There was apparently a back entrance to this mine, hidden in the forest, nearly half a mile from the wood-awninged main entrance which they now watched. He and Aleron had been worried that that would make Faendal's scouting worthless, but the elf assured them that the back entrance was never really used.

"We should make some use of it, ourselves," he had told the elf. "Sounds a better place to start our assault than the front door."

Faendal shook his head, though. "No, they've got the place pretty well covered, there, even though they don't use it. There's a tunnel there that I think opens up into their main living area, but they've set bone rattles to warn against anyone trying to sneak in that way. I'm not sure I could pass them without sounding alarm enough for every one of the bandits to be waiting for me at the end of that tunnel; and I know Aleron's not getting through silently, no matter how quietly he says he can move in that armor. Too big across the shoulders to keep from disturbing those rattles. No, the best way is to go at them from the front entrance. It seems like there's been some disagreements over shares, so they've split into two groups, and they aren't all sleeping in the same room anymore. If you're quiet enough, maybe you can take them bit by bit, without having to confront the whole group."

The thick-shouldered Breton looked thoughtful. "So, there are two separate camps in there?"

"Right," the elf returned. "There's a front guard - you'll spot him easy enough: big Orc, sitting in a chair under the awning. The only other real precaution they've taken is setting up a rock trap. I couldn't get in to see it; but whatever it is, it's set up right before the second torch post, just outside the light."

The little elf had been very useful, indeed. It was surprising what you could learn from listening in when no one knew you were there; not a trick he himself possessed, though. Likely, he was a worse sneak than the big blacksmith.

Now, though, sneaking was not really the objective.

The Orc had given them little trouble. He was half asleep, and didn't see them till it was too late. Erik had almost felt bad about killing the man, and he noticed that Aleron hesitated as well; of course, once the man had reached for his axe, swearing their deaths and their damnation to Oblivion, Erik had found himself quite ready to split the bandit's head open with his axe.

The problem was that in killing him, they knew no more about the rock trap. Was it a tripwire? A pressure plate? It could be anything, really. Faendal had gone to cover the back entrance, in case any of the bandits tried to escape that way, once the fighting started. He carried his hunting bow with a familiarity that said he should know what he was about. So Erik stood at the front entrance with Aleron, arguing that if the trap were a pressure plate, hidden out of the light, they wouldn't know it until it was already too late. The wide blacksmith seemed not to care what kind of trap it was. He said they should just grab the torch from the first post, since the trap apparently came after that.

"But if we move the light, we might be given away before we can thin their numbers," he tried to say, for some reason finding it hard to meet the other man's eyes. There was a coldness there that chilled the marrow.

Aleron turned to look into the darkness of the tunnel in the mountainside. "We won't know what we need to do until we get in there. Come on."

And with that, he just stalked off toward the mine. Erik followed a moment later, hoping this Breton knew what he was doing.

.

Inside, the mine was little different from Soljund's Sinkhole; wooden supports lined the ceiling and walls, with center struts running down the middle of the wide tunnel. This one did not smell like death, though.

True to his word, Aleron grabbed the first lit torch off the sconce hanging on the third center strut. He was in drab iron armor; a breastplate over a leather jerkin, arms bare down to the fur-lined leather gloves strapped with heavy iron vambraces. His shins were covered by ridged iron greaves, worn over layers of fur and leather. On his head was a horned iron helm that lobstered down the back of his neck, but left him bare below the cheeks in front. He stepped lightly as he moved forward, keeping the torch low to the ground, searching carefully for a pressure plate or a tripwire.

Erik kept behind, but his eyes were well ahead. He could just see the lights from some opening in the tunnel ahead; and if he could see the lights up there, anyone watching the tunnel could see changes in the light here.

Suddenly, Aleron stepped back as the light shined on a tripwire, looked behind them - back at the entrance to the mine - and made a face that could have been a smile, except for his eyes.

Erik followed those eyes, and thought he realized what that almost-smile was for. "You want to push that cart down the tunnel, don't you?"

The blacksmith just nodded.

"Well, we'd better be ready to fight," Erik said, shifting his axe into both hands.

Aleron threw down the torch he carried and stomped it out. He stared into the ceiling over the light, where a mass of rubble was poised to crash down when the trap was sprung. "Stay out of the light. When the rock trap comes down, whoever is beyond that tunnel will come to see what they caught. We'll take them by surprise."

The cart rolled down the tunnel at Aleron's shove, and Erik watched as stones rained down to crush the cart as thoroughly as they would have an unwary guest. The noise was certainly enough to interest anyone nearby.

Only two bandits came, though, looking as though they had been startled from sleep. The bigger of the two, a Nord with a face that looked as though it were carved from the bark of a cedar tree, grumbled to himself as he came into the light.

"Clear this shit out," the smaller figure said, not coming into the light. "Maybe whoever set this off had some coin on them."

"Don't know what makes you think you'll get any coin if you don't help," the bigger man replied.

As the smaller bandit stepped into the light, a rock the size of a fist shattered his nose. When the other man turned toward the screams of his companion, Erik charged in over the debris, swinging his black-bladed axe with all his might. He took off the big Nord's head with one blow, spraying blood into the air from the man's neck. Aleron rushed past him to finish the man he had hit with the rock. From the corner of his eye, Erik saw the Breton's steel hand axe rise and fall, cutting off the pleading sounds from the bandit.

Eyes shining in the light of the torch, Aleron looked different from before as he rose from the mangled corpse. Those eyes, which had been so cold before, were now a bellows fire. Erik could almost imagine he saw the air shimmer from the intensity. The man's arms were bowstring tight, and his jaw seemed locked in place. The inferno did not dissipate as he nodded for Erik to follow. Even from behind he looked menacing, barely contained rage.

The cavern from which the bandits had come was quite stunning, really. A drawn-up bridge could just be seen on the other side of a small underground pond. Light from more torches twinkled on the surface of the water. As the two adventurers walked out onto the boardwalk leading to the bridge, Erik noticed two sleeping pallets outside of the light beside a cook fire to the right. This must have been the smaller of the two camps.

There was nothing in the immediate area that would lower the bridge, but another smaller room with a window looking out over the water looked a sensible place for a bridge control of some sort. Erik waited on the boardwalk as Aleron went through the short tunnel to the small cavern. This was going well. So far, three of the eight bandits Faendal had known of were dead. Two-on-five was not bad odds, really; especially with this Aleron. The man was cold fury in a drum, and he moved as if his axe and shield were part of him. There was something different about him, different from anyone else Erik had ever known. Warriors were dour men, often enough, but this Breton made Orcs seem cheerful. And insist as he might that he was just a blacksmith, he was a warrior.

When the bridge came down, though, it startled two more Nord bandits, a man and a woman, waiting on the other side. They shouted when they saw Erik, standing now just where the wooden bridge had come down on the boardwalk. Thinking they were two against one, the man charged in, taking Erik's axe swing on the arm at an awkward angle as he readied to swing his own iron greatsword; the blow sheared the skin and tissue and scraped along the white bone of the man's forearm, so that it looked almost as though his arm had been split long-ways to the elbow. He dropped his weapon, screeching and trying to hold his arm together with his other hand. Erik finished him quickly, driving his axe into the man's collarbone.

Aleron dove from the overlooking room onto the woman bandit, his war axe ruining her skull before his momentum pushed her off the bridge and she splashed into the pond below. Where she landed, red-black wisps stained the clear water, visible even in the dim torchlight.

Wordlessly, he walked ahead again, toward the tunnel the bridge had been hiding.

Cold fury in a drum.

---

It was late, but the Bee and Barb was never without plenty of patronage. Mjoll sat at the table nearest the Plankside door, trying to decide if she should order another drink. She wasn't drunk yet, and she seldom let herself get more than tipsy, but it had been a good day. The Jarl had finally passed sentence on Sapphire: four months in Riften's dungeons. Jarl Laila Law-Giver had even mentioned naming Mjoll a thane of the Rift. And with Sapphire in chains, Shadr's debt could be dealt with. That was a promise she wasn't sure she would be able to keep.

Shadr was just a poor stable hand, but he had borrowed money from the Guild, to pay for some shipping venture. Aerin said he had always been a dreamer. The Guild being the Guild, they decided it would make more sense to just rob the shipments - and, of course, they still expected Shadr to pay them back the investment. She had spent a week trying to convince Sapphire to forgive the debt, that she had already made enough money off the man; but the Guild really did have no honor at all. Got the bastards on the run, now, though. She had spoken to Brynjolf this morning, paying off Shadr's debt with the coin she'd taken from Sapphire. Ill-gotten gains put to good use.

But no, tonight was no night to get drunk. With all she had accomplished, she was likely staring down even more danger from the Guild, or even the Brotherhood, if rumors of links between the thieves and the assassins were true.

So, she ordered a glass of milk from Talen-Jei, and contented herself with musings on perhaps finally replacing her sword. She hadn't carried a sword since losing Grimsever. It was a matter of honor, really. Maybe if she really did become thane. That should be enough. Likely, at that point she'd be given one, anyway. Of course, there was little real chance of thaneship. The Jarl could say whatever she wanted, but Maven Black-Briar and Laila's Bosmer steward, Anuriel, would surely talk her out of any actual appointment. No, she would go on just being Mjoll the Lioness, protector of Riften's citizens.

That thought made her think of poor Brand-Shei. She was sure the Guild had slipped that ring in his pocket somehow. Probably that little Wood Elf newcomer. Slippery little fetcher! Brand-Shei had been one of the few people in Riften not scared of the Guild. He had actually seemed to delight in playing their members against one another. But then his games were ended when the Guard arrested him for stealing a ring from Madesi. He had been her friend - her only real friend in Riften, aside from Aerin. When he was released from the dungeons, three months later, he was no longer allowed to trade within the hold, even with the Khajiit caravans. He set out two weeks ago, saying he would try his luck in Windhelm.

This city should be swallowed up into Oblivion. She regretted that thought as soon as it came to her. She had to keep reminding herself that it wasn't the people's fault that the Black-Briars were running everything. They were just merchants and farmers and factory-workers, trying to scratch out a living in Skyrim's most dangerous city. They could no sooner leave than push Maven out of power. They didn't even have any say in what side the Jarl had chosen in this civil war. Laila Law-Giver supported the Stormcloaks avidly, but Mjoll thought that perhaps it was an idea strengthened by Maven - an attempt to gain even more power if the Imperials won out. She had connections in the Imperial City, it was said, and Anuriel was hers as much as the meadery. The Black-Briar Meadery was her somewhat legitimate family business, but no more so than the illegitimate family business of crime on every level.

Yes, she was done with this inn for the night. She was feeling less and less like any victories at all had been gained. The more she did, the less it mattered. She wanted her bed.

.

Crossing over the canal to reach Aerin's house, Mjoll realized she may have had too much to drink after all. She seemed to be having trouble keeping her hips straight, and she nearly knocked Wujeeta over the railing, into the canal. Mumbling apologies, she stumbled on. She must have bumped the Argonian harder than she thought - the lizard woman was using the railing for support, and she could barely respond.

There ahead, the house lay, lights all put out inside. Aerin would not still be up.

Inside, she quietly made her way to her room, only knocking over a chair, which she left where it fell. It'll make too much noise putting it back, anyway. In her room she undressed clumsily, her fingers feeling too thick and heavy. She was down to her smallclothes, struggling a shift over her head, when it occurred to her that she was not drunk. She had been drugged.

A noise behind her brought quick movement - or, it was meant to be quick. She stumbled over her boots lying in the floor, then fell onto her bed. She kicked at the silhouette that pursued her, but Maul was a big man, and whatever had been done to her would not shake off easily. Feebly, she struggled. She reached for matted black hair, tried to gain a hold. A fist in her ribs shocked the breath out of her. She rolled away, clutching her side.

On the floor, she tried to take hold of her body, her senses. Everything was like moving through a world of honey. The silhouette of Maul was moving around the bed too fast. Damn it, she thought. Not like this.

---

Erik swung at the fully-armored bandit leader. Behind and below him, beside a primitive forge, Aleron fended off the Orc. They had managed to take the Redguard woman guarding the bands treasure without waking the second camp inside Embershard mine, but Erik had missed a step trying to sneak up on the armored Nord, and a real battle had ensued.

The archer on the bridge leading to the back exit wouldn't take a shot - too much chance of hitting one of his own men - but the bandit leader was a handful on his own. He wore fine steel armor, likely stolen from some wealthy merchant's guard, and he swung his equally fine steel greatsword with a practiced efficiency. Erik had height on the man, as well as youth and quickness, but it was difficult to press an advantage knowing that the moment he was victorious, he would have an arrow in him for reward. He tried to draw the bandit into a storeroom that would hide him from the archer, but the older man was no fool.

They spun, and Erik could see Aleron below. He clearly had the same fear of victory; except that he was toying with the Orc, keeping the shirtless behemoth between him and the archer on the bridge above the water. He backed his way closer to the walkway that would wrap around the cavern, eventually bringing him to Erik's level. It would shield him, for a short time, from the archer's arrows. Finally, he slashed out with his shield, taking the Orc in the face. The Orc screamed, and Aleron cut his throat with a sideways slash of his axe.

Erik knew that it was now or never. He put all his strength into chopping down on the bandit leader's hands, protected by steel gauntlets as they were. He felt small bones crunching beneath the blade, and he planted a kick to his opponent's chest that sent the brigand over the railing behind him, a twenty-foot fall onto a stony cave floor. He dove to the side, and down, not wanting to remain where the archer could get a good shot. None came.

He waited a moment, then heard Aleron tell him to go ahead and get up.

"The archer fled out the back. Faendal shouldn't have any trouble, so long as he's still waiting out there." All the intensity from before was gone. He was stone, again, now, dark blue eyes cold but indifferent. "I think that's all of them. Let's get back to Riverwood."

---

The next morning, back in the Sleeping Giant, Faendal was telling Camilla of the bandit he had killed. He had just picked the man off from behind a tree, as the fleeing bandit ran out of the mine; but he was making it into a great battle to impress the merchant woman. Orgnar still eyed Erik cautiously, but at least he stopped fingering his dagger. The big red-haired Nord had roused Sven from his bed, demanding the bard compose a song of their great triumph. The two huddled together, Sven rubbing the sleep from his eyes as Erik told him the story, rather incoherently and out of sequence, of their fight through the mine. Embry, the village drunk, listened on as he drained his ale to wash away the headache from the night before.

Aleron watched the commotion with a blank expression, methodically eating a breakfast of fried eggs and slow-baked brown beans, smothered in a thick, sweet sauce. He felt a strange sense of apprehension in the air. The village people shot him wary looks as they heard the story, clearly some measuring going on in their heads. They had thought him a shy blacksmith, a craftsman; a man to be respected, maybe. Now he was a killer. He saw it in their eyes. He had seen it before, in others. Most knew that he had been a prisoner before Hadvar brought him here. If he had come into the village proclaiming himself a warrior of a mercenary band or some such, no one would have thought twice. But everyone feared when the quiet young man with a vague past turns out to be dangerous.

He was just thinking that Riverwood might not be the best place to settle down, after all, when he noticed Delphine staring at him with an unreadable expression. He stood up, this time, keeping his eyes locked with hers. He would find out what this woman knew about Gregory this time, and no interruption would get in the way.

He stalked over to her, crossing the room like a mammoth through a forest. Any questions or congratulations offered him went unnoticed. By the time he reached her, she had gained a small measure of respect from him. While the whole village was looking at him like a stray dog with blood on his lips, this woman faced him with an indifference that, considering how he approached, would have likely been beyond any hold guardsman. Most women would have been terrified of a man his size she barely knew, but she looked at him as though he were the one who should be intimidated.

"I've seen you staring at me three times, now. Why?" There was no real need to be too polite. This conversation was going to be awkward, anyway. He might as well just get to it.

Delphine's response surprised him. "I can admire a good-looking young Breton if I choose." She smiled impishly, an odd thing on her weathered face. Bretons did not age as quickly as other men - the old elf blood, most said, from the Merethic Era, when the ancient Aldmer interbred with their Nedic slaves - but they did show wear; and she showed plenty. "Besides," she added, "I hear you came from Weynon Priory. I knew a man from that Priory once, when I was younger. He died years ago, before you were even born, I think."

"Gregory?" he arched an eyebrow at her. He would not believe she was watching him for pleasure. No, now that he saw the manner of her, she even reminded him of Gregory. She looked nothing like him, to be sure, but she seemed to carry herself in the same way.

She smiled at him again, this time approvingly. "Don't miss much, do you. Yes, his name was Gregory. But as I said, he died a long time ago. I admit I was startled when I overheard Alvor mention his name, but more from remembrance lost, really."

Had she not looked as different from Gregory as one Breton could from another, she could have been his daughter. Every word of that was true, or she believed it so. Yet still, he could not help noticing the same expression that Gregory had had when he was twisting the truth like wringing out a cloth.

"Now, I need to get back to work," she told him. "These patrons won't look after themselves, not when they can let someone else do it for them."

He let her go, promising himself he would figure this out, one way or another.

---

The hood was pulled off, and Mjoll saw Maven Black-Briar staring at her like a wolf eying a corpse. The bitch was sitting across a small table from her, in a room that must be part of some cellar or dungeon. The stone walls were close all around, just out of the light. The ceiling dripped behind Maven, into a bucket. On the table was a fish knife and what looked to be a bottle of Surilie Brothers wine. Mjoll was tied to her chair with strips of sackcloth. She could hear Maul breathing behind her.

After a moment studying her, Maven finally spoke. "You've caused me a lot of trouble, woman. Since you've come into my city, the Guild has been hounding me to have you killed."

She seemed to expect some reaction to that, but Mjoll had known almost from the start. This woman clearly didn't think any more of Aerin than did the rest of the city. That was the one advantage she had which no one knew about. Everyone knew that Maul kept the Black-Briars aware of any happenings in the city, but few knew that Aerin was nearly as good at ferreting out secrets. He didn't have the connections in the Guild, but he had the friendship of nearly every citizen; and people talked, in Riften.

"When you first started causing trouble, I thought I could use someone like you. I could champion you to the Jarl, build you up as a thane, then feed you what I wanted you to know, let you take care of my enemies for me. But you're smarter than you look; and more foolish. You see this city better than anyone but me, maybe. Better than Brynjolf or Mercer. Fools! Certainly better than Laila, or any of her people. Better than Maul, here, even."

A grunt from Maul let her know what he thought of that.

"It's true," Maven directed at him. And then to Mjoll, again: "you see, Maul sees enemies in every corner. He thinks you can destroy me, what I've built. He doesn't see that this city can't be saved from me, because this city wants me. I give these people exactly what they want. And until they don't want it, anymore, what I've built is all but untouchable."

The woman was gloating. That could either mean that she was trumpeting her victory before having Mjoll killed, or that she was trying to impress. Mjoll wasn't afraid of dying. She'd seen enough death that it held few secrets from here.

"What game are you playing at, Maven? You didn't bring me here to tell me things I already know. You're either going to kill me - in which case, do it now, and get it over with - or you're trying to tell me something - in which case, say it plain. I'm tired, and I'd like some real sleep."

Maven smiled, a she-wolf at a lone goat. "You that eager to die, Mjoll? Well, we're not here to kill you. Months ago, that might have been possible. But now the Jarl might start thinking the Guild had you killed, for what you did to little Sapphire; and that could disrupt business. I don't want my business disrupted because you can't keep out of it. So there are a few things you need to know.

"First, I'm going to win this little war of ours. I have numbers, position, and supply lines. You have a big axe. This isn't a fight you can win. The second thing you need to think about is this Stormcloak Rebellion. Who do you think will win that war? And, do you think it will hurt me, either way? If Ulfric wins, somehow, he'll need me. Even if he suspects my affiliations with the Empire, he'll need the supply lines I can bring him. If, more likely, the Empire wins, who do you think will be the Jarl? They certainly won't let Laila keep her title. Even if she isn't executed, they won't let a traitor to the imperial throne rule any part of Skyrim. You know how they think. You've been down there; spent some time in the city, even, I've heard. You know what they'll do. They'll set up as Jarl someone they know; someone without any real claim, but someone with the power to hold the claim once it's given. Sound like anyone you can think of? And the last thing you need to think about is this: what do you think will keep me from having Maul fillet you like a salmon, once I'm dug in so well into the ultimate power in Skyrim. As Ulfric's main supplier, even the Jarl's will fear me. And as Jarl myself, well, I can do with my subjects what I please." She picked up the fish knife, then, serrated edge gleaming in the lamplight from overhead.

"I don't scare easy, woman," Mjoll said, not even looking at the knife.

Maul was beside her, now, cutting the bond holding her left wrist; gripping that hand in an iron fist. He forced the hand onto the table, pounded on it with his fist until she laid it flat. The jagged fish knife in Maven's hand sliced into Mjoll's, nearly severing her thumb from the rest of her digits.

"No more trouble for the Guild," Maven said. "No more trouble for any of my people. Understand?"

Mjoll never made a sound. Not while Maul hammered her, not while Maven cut her, and not now.

Maven smiled that wolf's grin again. "You really are a tough woman, Mjoll. Be a smart one. Get out of Riften, before it's too late."

---

Aleron swung the axe down, hard, concentrating on the direct center of his target. The wood split, two pieces where there had been one. He grabbed another rounded log, and placed it on the stump. He swung the axe again, raising it high before bringing it down. He had been at this for two hours. His arms were starting to feel it.

"Why aren't you at the forge, again?" Erik asked, chewing on a charred slice of venison. The big Nord sat by the entrance to the mine, under the awning, leaning his chair back till it seemed it should break. "We could use the money, you know. Doesn't do much good to own a mine if you can't pay any miners."

"About as useful as a mercenary who won't guard wagons?" Aleron liked Erik. He asked a lot of questions, mostly about where Aleron learned to fight. But he only asked once about Aleron's parents, about anything Aleron didn't want to talk about. He could barely stop himself talking long enough to listen to any of the answers, anyway. He was jovial, boisterous, and loud; everything Aleron was not. He reminded Aleron of someone, though he could never think of whom. Certainly none of the Brothers acted anything similar. Stolid men, most of them; even the most energetic never reached half Erik's verve.

"I told you," the ginger Nord said. "The world has enough mercenaries. I'm an adventurer."

"Tip that chair back any further, you'll have a small adventure. About as dangerous as this mine ever was, anyway."

"Yes, well, talk all you want of the ease with which we cleared this mine; you didn't have to face the leader. That man knew his business. Shame you couldn't do anything with that armor he had."

Aleron frowned. It had been good steel, that armor. But the fit had been all wrong to begin with, and Erik had crushed the collar when he killed the man who'd worn it. He had fixed the collar, but he would have had to reform the whole breastplate to get it to fit him. It had been easier just to sell it to the lordling who'd come down from the Tundra, on his way to Bruma. Alvor had said he didn't mind if he took enough steel to make some decent armor, but he had never felt right about it.

Suddenly, Erik sprung up, pulling his axe from where it was propped against the awning post.

"Hello Hadvar," Aleron said, not looking up from his task.

"Hard to sneak up on. I wonder how we ever caught you, before Helgen."

Erik sat back down, picked another piece of jerky out of his pouch.

"Well, since you don't remember, I was unconscious in a ditch. I suppose your superiors assumed I was a Stormcloak, despite the lack of uniform, and despite my not being a Nord."

Erik nearly choked on his jerky, laughing.

"That sounds about right," Hadvar said, smiling. "I heard you own this place now."

"The three of us do," Erik put in. "Aleron, Faendal, and I. I'm Erik, by the way. Erik the Slayer. Adventurer, killer of bandits and draugar and Foresworn."

"Yes," replied Hadvar. "I've heard all about you, from my uncle. Quite the drinker, he says."

Erik smiled at that, proud as could be. "I'll drink anyone under the table you can name."

"Really?" Aleron asked. "How about Embry?"

Hadvar laughed, and Erik looked sick. Erik drank like a horker, as comfortable in his cups as he was out. But Embry was a fish; he was never out.

"I wouldn't advise it," Hadvar said, through tears of laughter. "I think if you cut that one, he'd bleed fermented blood."

"Did your uncle give you the sword?" Aleron asked the soldier.

"Yes. A fine blade. I thank you. But that isn't why I came. I talked with general Tullius in Solitude. He remembers you. Says if I trust you, that's fine. No Imperial notice for arrest has been given. But he wants to talk to you, before he'll commit to keeping it that way."

Aleron gave Hadvar a considering look. He didn't think the man was the type to manipulate on this level, but one never knew.

"I promise you," Hadvar said, as if he'd been reading Aleron's mind, "this is none of my doing."

"I believe you." He didn't totally believe, couldn't totally trust anyone. "How soon do I need to leave?"

"You could wait a few days, if you need to get things in order. It's a long trip; more than two weeks travel, sleeping mostly in whatever camp you bring. And the roads aren't always safe."

Aleron didn't have any work to do for Alvor. The village seemed almost afraid of him, now; everyone but Alvor, Faendal, and Erik, anyway. "I'll leave tomorrow morning. I'll stock up on supplies in Whiterun."

Erik hooted. "Sounds like more adventure than here. I'm coming with you."