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The Golden Claw

Winter was cold in Riverwood; very cold, even this early in the season. Evening Star was upon Tamriel, and in the Jerall Mountains of Skyrim that meant cold that kept even Nords indoors. And Aleron was not a Nord, whatever his father had been. Outside, even working Alvor's forge was no protection against the vicious chill. Winter winds cutting through the trees occasionally forced Aleron's muscles to seize, and more work was added to perfect the last piece of his new armor.

He'd found enough good steel links to make a chainmail hauberk that fit him well; wide enough for his thick shoulders and not so long that it hung past mid-thigh. He'd made a fine steel cuirass and an overlapping steel plackart, riveted together to make a strong-but-flexible breastplate to which he could attach the lames of the faulds and culet. Over the left breast was a leather ailette. For his arms, he'd made steel pauldrons that lobstered into lames down his upper arms, attached again with straps around the biceps. His forearms would be totally protected by fully articulated steel couters connected to tubular vambraces. His gauntlets were layered leather and steel, with joints of burnished bronze. His legs were covered by tassets attached to the faulds over steel plate cuisses. Bronze poleyns attached both to the cuisses and the closed steel greaves to protect his knees. Finally, his feet would be protected by steel lamed sabatons. The helmet was nearly done. A great steel barbute, the warhelm would have embossed studs around the crown.

The armor was a source of confusion for Alvor. He'd complained that so much steel along the legs and over the shoulders would weigh a man down, even if it were possible to move in all of it. Aleron had tried to explain that all of the pieces would fit together so that there would be nearly complete range of movement, but the man simply would not believe it. As for the added weight… Aleron did not really notice.

It had taken him three weeks to put together, after he'd finished the armor meant for Mjoll. Hers was somewhat different, if containing the same parts.

The metal for Mjoll's armor he forged with a steel-and-corundum mix that made it lighter. It had an ailette of the same metal over the left breast, worn atop a leather gorget. The pauldrons were more pronounced, giving her a greater range of motion without losing the protection. Also, her armor lacked a helmet. He'd told her that he could make a warhelm light enough that she could turn her head, but she insisted that helmets only slowed her down.

Both armors were fine work; better than he'd known himself to be capable of. He had not made much armor before coming to Skyrim, and never the full plate armor of a Breton knight.

"I'll bet you could likely buy land in Haafingar, and a house to put on it, for what that armor would get you in High Rock." It was later than Aleron expected, if Alvor was coming out to check on him. "Though I suppose you're all but a lord now."

Aleron felt a twinge of sickness at the joke. Not a lord, perhaps; but in High Rock they would consider him a landed knight. Perhaps that had been why he'd decided to make himself the armor. He owned land, a mine, and soon a manor house. Valdimar had sent copies of the plans the builders had drawn up for his home in Hjaalmarch. He'd given the man what he'd thought would pay for a small farm; instead they were building him a great hall with two towers, a stable, servants' quarters, and a farm. And a fish hatchery, of all things - as if he knew anything about fishing. He'd let it all pass, though, because of what would be in the basement. Under the main hall, helping to heat the entire house, would be a fully ventilated forge. He'd sent back only specific instructions on the makeup of the forge. As for the rest, he could perhaps invest in building a library.

"Hopefully, this will sit on a stand somewhere. I'm not very sure why I spent so much time on it."

The big Nord just smiled. "It's fine craftsmanship, son."

Aleron took a firm hold on himself. The man had not meant anything, calling him son. "Thank you, Alvor, for everything. A man goes too long enough without kindness, I think he forgets what it is to be a man. I've not known many good men, Alvor, but know I count you one of them."

The look of embarrassment on the older smith's face was heavy. "Kindness?" he said, laughing softly. "You pay rent, boy. You work the forge to help fill my orders. I've treated you as an apprentice, but I'd dare say you're a better smith than I'll ever be. No, boy, I've done you no kindnesses. Just simple decency, at best."

"A man can forget that, too."

"So long as he doesn't forget he's agreed to have drinks with his friends." Erik walked through the ankle-deep snow, speaking through the brown wolf-fur cloak he'd pulled around him as shelter from the cold. "Alvor," he said in greeting, receiving a nod from the older Nord.

"I'm almost done here," Aleron told him. "Besides, I doubt you'd miss me for long."

Erik made a noise like a dog sneezing. "Are you joking? If it weren't for you, I'd be bored out of my mind. Everyone around here's heard all my stories; and they don't have any to tell except about how much the cows are milking. At least you're never short on stories - when I can drag them out of you."

"You know, maybe you should buy a book once in a while, and you'd know the same stuff I do."

"Where's the fun in that."

.

The Sleeping Giant was busy, as it was most nights these days. The cold winter drove people to huddle together anywhere there was a large enough fire. Here, the village folk of Riverwood drank away the numbness of the snow and ice, only to fill it with the numbness of mead and ale.

Embry was there, drunk as always, and trying to pick a fight with Sven, who was just trying to sing a verse of "Age of Aggression" without having ale spilled all over him. Hod the miller was there, scowling at the bard, with his wife Gerdur, whose family had started the Riverwood settlement generations ago. Orgnar manned the bar, talking closely with Alvor about some business with trade caravans coming up from Elsweyr. And Delphine, as usual, sat in a dark corner watching everyone at once. Fortunately for Aleron, Erik had found a fellow mercenary to chat with. The woman was on her way back to Falkreath, coming from a job she'd taken to track down a journal for a priest. As it was, Aleron sat alone nursing a half-empty cup of dark Nordic ale.

He was anxious of late, and not sure why. He'd spent the last month and a half doing the one thing in which he had always found peace; except that it no longer seemed to work as it once had. The projects had been intense. Mjoll had paid him enough for her armor that he could use whatever materials he needed. It had been interesting to work with the steel-and-corundum alloy. It really was lighter than plain steel, if not quite so strong as steel properly layered and re-heated. And he'd finally been able to make use of all the books he had read on proper plate-armor construction.

He supposed it must be the imminent arrival of Mjoll. He did not know what to make of her. She was beautiful. And why that would be the first thing to come to his mind simply bothered him. She was an interesting woman, to be sure. They'd spent hours discussing her armor. She hadn't been able to find an armorer for quite some time with any knowledge of Breton-style armors. She'd learned to fight with a sword from her mother, but the knights of Wayrest taught her to fight in armor with a shield. But he could not get out of his mind the shame that he'd watched her from afar like some lecherous Sanguine-worshipper.

She was beautiful, though. Her yellow-gold hair had been like sunlight with the back-lighting of Secunda. The severe lines of her face were offset by the softness of her skin and the fullness of her lips. And all of that was made somehow even more beautiful by the small scar under her left eye. The excitement in her large, blue-green eyes as she'd talked of her past made them shine like gemstones set in gold.

And she was older than him, experienced in the world, quite possibly taller, and could probably kill him without much effort. He put his thoughts of her in order. She was a woman he admired, for many reasons. That was enough.

He lifted his cup to take a drink and was surprised to find it empty.

"What's got you drinking?"

He hadn't noticed Delphine moving from her perch in the shadows. That really did bother him about her.

"Everyone in the bar is drinking," he said sullenly; and then he wanted to kick himself for being sullen.

"That's your third. I've never seen you drink more than one."

It couldn't be his third. What was her game? He gave her the most neutral smile he could muster. "A man can't have three ales without questions? Or just me? You know more of me than you say, of where I'm from. How? Why?"

She stared hard at him for a very long moment. Aleron was sure he'd never seen a woman's face so hard. "Who was your father?"

Aleron felt himself go from stone to iron. Something was amiss here; he had known that for months. But his father could not be part of it. His father had been a farrier in Bruma as a young man, before becoming a well-respected horse-trainer. "Tor," was all he said.

He knew that Delphine thought herself a mysterious woman, one who let nothing slip. But what he saw in her face when she heard that name was like an avalanche in the Jeralls. All the pretense fell; he saw her for the first time. He thought he was iron. Delphine was tempered steel, set into an arrow and drawn back to kill. She got up to leave without saying another word, but Aleron grabbed her arm. He was somehow not surprised at how hard she was under the sleeve of her long innkeeper's dress. The look that passed between them could have filled a hundred books of strategy.

He could not fight her - would not. But he needed to know why she recognized that name.

"Please," he said. "Tell me what's going on."

He knew as soon as he'd spoken that it was the wrong thing to say. This woman understood strength and position. She could calculate the risk, judge what he wanted and what he could give for it. She could measure a man to his smallclothes. But there was no room in those eyes for giving because it was asked. Age difference or no, she could have been Gregory's twin for that.

"I don't know any Tor," she said with all the innkeeper façade flooding back into her. She pulled away from him, and he let go of her arm. "Might have known a Bors, once. I don't know any more about you than you've told me. It's been some thirty years since I've seen County Chorrol."

And Aleron knew, sure as sunshine, that not one word of that was truth.

Mjoll made her way through the snowy pass with as much speed as she could. Leading Mista through the Helgen Path south of the Throat had been trying on the animal; most of the road through was fine, spring through autumn, but winter for made hard passing in the narrow ravine. She had turned north yesterday, which was an even less hospitable a path. This was not actually so much a path as crossable terrain. Few people came to Riverwood from the east.

She hated travelling through forests at night, especially in winter. But she reminded herself that morning was only an hour or so away, and that she had needed to wake so early, had wanted to. It'd had nothing to do with that dream.

Finally, she saw the road ahead. Or at least she thought she did. Hard-packed dirt and stone was covered as easily as forest undergrowth, but she thought this must be the road. If not, it was the most conveniently placed clearing of trees. The snow under her feet felt different as she reached the clearing, and she knew she had guessed right. She stayed to the road from here. She knew that once the road started, it was only a couple of miles to Riverwood.

That couple of miles took her some time, however. The deep snow made movement sluggish, and her voluminous cloak of snow wolf fur was beginning to soak at the bottom and drag. Still, she was happy to have beaten the sun to Riverwood when she saw the stone wall between to hills that indicated the village's eastern gate.

There was no gate, in truth, just a stone entryway that crossed over the road before the homes and gardens of the village began.

Riverwood was a good-sized village; nearly a town. Perhaps it was a town now. It seemed bigger, certainly, than Kolgrimstead had been, if not so large as Helgen. The distinction between village and town blurred often enough in Skyrim. Hold-capitals were often simple towns built around Jarls' longhouses. She was sure Helgen had been larger than Morthal, and possibly even larger than Falkreath, its own capital. Dawnstar was populated enough, with miners and sailors, anyway; but she was unsure whether even with so many people it could be called a city, having no walls. She respected Skyrim for that independent spirit, though. In High Rock, as well as in Cyrodiil, there was a structured system of growth; of kings and nobility and knights in High Rock, and of Counts and governors and mayors in the Imperial Province. Cities, towns, villages, and settlements were always rising and falling in Skyrim, depending solely on the will of the people. Riverwood, it seemed, was rising.

She made her way through the eastern street to the main road, passing thatch-roofed farmhouses and hovels, and a two-story trade shop, to come out in front of a medium-sized home next to a fine smithy. She remembered Alvor's, from when she'd passed through here a few years ago. The big Nord made good steel. He had, however, scoffed at her questions of Breton-style armor. This, she knew, was where Aleron was staying until his home in Hjaalmarch was completed. She passed it by, though, not wanting to wake whoever was inside, and not wanting to seem too eager. The Sleeping Giant Inn was close enough, and there might be able to get breakfast.

.

At the inn, Mjoll found that breakfast was lamb sausages and groats, which was much to her liking. The innkeeper, a Breton woman named Delphine who had not been the owner when last Mjoll visited, gave her a wry smile when she asked for mead with her breakfast, but Mjoll always thought it wrong to eat lamb sausage without some honey-wine to wash it down. The look the innkeeper gave when she told her that she was meeting Aleron was completely strange. The only comparison Mjoll could give to it was a carpenter piecing together a particularly complicated chair; which was a very odd expression under the circumstances.

As she was finishing her last sausage, Mjoll heard a familiar voice come out of one of the rooms to her left. She looked up through the long wooden hall to see Erik the Slayer emerging from a room near the bar. He was a tall, attractive young man, with wild red hair that now was so wild she laughed. He had clearly just rolled out of bed. His beard had grown in a bit since she'd last seen him, and she was surprised to see it quite thick, if cut quite short. It was handsome, on him, and almost made him seem older than he was. Yes, he was a very attractive man, come to think of it. Other than his youth, he was far more to her liking than… most men. Yes, far more than most.

He saw her straight away, and hailed her boisterously. Grabbing a few sausages from a tray on the bar, and a bottle of ale from behind it, he sauntered over and sat across from her, chewing his sausage while he talked.

"Greetings, Mjoll. Come to get your armor, have you?"

She smiled. Aside from his being so handsome, she liked Erik. He was like her brother, in a way; all swagger and farm-boy charm. "Good morning Erik. He is done, isn't he?"

"Oh, our boy's done. As far as I know. Strange armor, that. Don't think I could move in it, myself. Don't think I'd know how to get into it. Though I'm sure he'd be willing to show you how to get in on, if you asked him." The smile on his face, bits of un-swallowed sausage still in his teeth, said he had noticed far more that night in Riften than she thought anyone had.

"I think I might take his help if he offers it," she said, only half aware of what she saying. "It has been a while since I've donned full plate." It would give her an excuse to show off her curves to the man, at least.

His sardonic nod pulled her out of her musings. What was she thinking? She would not do any such thing. She was far too excited about the armor, that was all.

Erik's eyes went to the door, and his smile widened even further. She looked, and as if summoned by her embarrassment, Aleron strode in like a bear, face as stony and soft as it had been in her dream. No! She would not think of that dream.

He nodded to Erik, clasped the man's arm and received a slap on the shoulder in salute. She cursed herself for not standing, letting him approach looking down on her like a child. He smiled at her, the faintest of things, more polite than endeared, and she could not have stood if she tried.

"Hello, Mjoll." Gods, this was bad.

He could not take his eyes off her. He was like a thirsty man at a well, trying to drink it dry. He'd dealt with this, or so he'd thought. He hoped to be her friend, however small hope that might be, her living nearly two hundred miles south and east, and him soon to be moving even further north and west; but that was all he would allow himself to feel. He stamped down hard on whatever was rising in his stomach, forced himself to iron-hard indifference.

"Your armor's ready, if you want to have a look at it."

"Absolutely," she said. She seemed out of breath, likely from all the hard travel she must have done to get here in the winter. She had clearly been through a lot of that, and not been here long enough to freshen up. She was sweat-soaked, her hair a tangled wet ruffle of golden silk; and her clothes were wrinkled and slept-in. He was not quite sure why that made his blood rush and his fingertips seem to hum, but he had a notion and he squashed it.

She grabbed her cloak off the chair beside her, while Erik rushed to his room to fetch his own. As they were waiting for Erik, Delphine approached, and Mjoll paid for her breakfast. Aleron tensed as the Breton woman eyed them both suspiciously, before letting out a short breath when she left.

Erik returned, and started out of the inn. On the porch, Mjoll asked him, "Are you related the innkeeper, Delphine?"

Inadvertently, Aleron's eyes shot back to the inn door. "No," he said. "Why would you think that? My family was all dark-haired, even my father."

"Oh, you don't look alike," she said. "Not really. Something in the eyes, though…"

Something in the eyes. He really hated Gregory, sometimes.

.

Mjoll beamed at the armor like a child on her nameday. "It's wonderful," she proclaimed, as she bent at the edges of the cuirass. She'd spent some time examining the armor, checking the rivets and the strapping rings, putting pressure here and there on different pieces, before finally becoming very excited. "This is master's work, Aleron. I doubt the castle smiths in Wayrest could do any better."

She was flattering him now, he was sure. He knew he was good with metal; and he'd taken more care with that armor than he ever had with anything else. Only because he hadn't made it's like before, he told himself. But he could not be so good at making armor, not when he'd spent most of his life making farm tools and horseshoes and the like. Still, he thought the armor was worth what she'd paid him for it.

"It's so light," she went on. "Gods, I think I could sleep in this."

"I wouldn't advise that," he told her. "Though it should be comfortable enough. I haven't had time to try mine on, but the measurements are right."

She smiled at him, perhaps remembering his embarrassment when he'd taken her measurements. She was surprisingly soft, for a warrior. He should have expected that; he had seen her half-bare, and he'd marveled then at the softness of her curves. But putting his arms around her like that, he was confronted with all the reality of what he had only guessed at. He'd fumbled the measuring cloth three times during that ordeal, and all the while she'd stood red-faced and short of breath from trying not to laugh at him. It had been the first time he'd realized just how obvious his inexperience with women must be.

Erik was chuckling softly when Faendal came storming out of the Valerius trade shop, Camilla trailing behind him.

"Erik!" the Bosmer called, his honey-colored skin contrasting starkly with the snowy world around him. He stopped short of the steps that led up to the forge shed. "We need your help."

Aleron watched Camilla as Faendal told them that the shop had been broken into the night before. She looked… wrong, somehow. Apparently, while he and Erik had been drinking at the inn, three bandits had come into town and attacked the Imperial traders. He felt himself growing harder inside, felt that anger that seemed to turn him to ice rise and encircle his heart.

"Thank the gods," Faendal said, "they didn't do more than rough her up a bit."

It was a lie, Aleron knew. He saw the way she looked away when the elf said it. They'd done more than rough her up; they had violated her! He thought he could imagine that kind of helplessness, what it must feel like. He knew what it was to be alone, destroyed by something he couldn't fight. He took a step toward the woman on instinct, everything in him wanting to comfort the poor woman.

She jerked away, hiding behind Faendal. Every eye went to her, then to him. He closed his own. Something in the eyes, she'd said. If his eyes were as hard as Gregory's, he'd probably frightened the woman near to hysterics.

When he opened his eyes, Camilla was standing in front of him, peering up from the bottom step. "Kill them," she said in a voice as soft and hard as the wind coming off the Throat of the World. "They said they were going to Bleak Falls Barrow. They came for the claw… my brother's golden claw statue. They said," she stopped for a long moment to gather herself; Aleron thought she might not go on. "They said they were going to Bleak Falls Barrow. It's north of here, in the mountains."

He took the young Imperial woman's hands in his own with all the gentleness he could. "We'll find the claw," he told her; and he saw in her eyes that she understood. We'll kill them all. We will avenge your innocence.

.

Surprisingly, it was Erik who knew the most of the barrow. According to the tall Nord, there was a little-used road through the mountains that passed a mile or so south of the barrow. It seemed his father had a story of crossing that road with General Jonna and the Legion on their way down to Cheydinhal, before the Battle of the Red Ring that took the Imperial City back from the Thalmor twenty-five years ago.

Mjoll had leaped at the chance to see the ancient Nordic ruin as much as she'd wanted vengeance for Camilla. She went with Erik to the trader's shop to stock up for an uncertain journey into the snow-covered heights. Aleron went to the stables by the Sleeping Giant to ready the horses. Caddock was anxious to be out of the stable, battering at his gate as he smelled Aleron approach. Aslak, as usual, seemed to have been sleeping before Aleron brought his saddle. Mista, Mjoll's dapple mare, was a fine animal. Aleron had admired her on their journey to Riften from Cragslane Cavern. She was not as fierce as Caddock, but there was an intensity about the warhorse that fit well with its strong ankles and muscular haunches.

Mjoll and Erik found him as he finished packing the bedrolls and camp equipment.

"The trader's a good man," Mjoll said, as they pulled heavy bags of foodstuffs from their shoulders. "Paid for all our provisions himself. Said he'd give us more in gold if we get the claw back."

"I'm not taking any of his money," Aleron told them.

"Of course not!" Mjoll said, incredulous. "What kind of woman do you think I am? I'd have paid for the food if he'd have let me."

"We should probably be armored before leaving," he told them both. "If they left just last night, we might catch up to them on the road."

"I know that," Erik said, turning toward the inn. "Why did you think I hadn't packed it up yet?"

Aleron watched him go, then turned to Mjoll. "Yours is all together at Alvor's."

She smiled at him, an almost embarrassed expression. "I'll need help getting it on."

It often amused Erik, how his life had turned. Just a few months ago, less than half a year, he was an innkeeper's son, a farmer, a stable hand. Now he really was an adventurer. When he'd spoken to the mercenary woman in the bar, even she had been impressed by how much trouble he'd gotten himself into so quickly.

After so much adventure in so little time, the last month had felt like watching crops grow. But now here he was again, setting off to win back a precious item from bandits who'd taken refuge in an ancient ruin. He was like a hero in a bard's tale.

They took the northern road out of Riverwood, but not the Whiterun Road. There was another passage, almost completely unused, that wound quickly up and into the mountains that loomed just north of Riverwood; the northernmost reaches of the Jeralls, unless you counted the Throat. To Erik, and to most Nords, the Throat of the World was the Throat of the World; it was not part of the Jeralls, except perhaps as their patriarch. It was a place of reverence, not only because the Greybeards made their home up in High Hrothgar, halfway up the mountain; and not only because it was taller by half than any other mountain in a Skyrim, a land of mountains. It was where Nordic myth said man had first been made, when Kyne, or Kynareth as the Imperials called her, breathed man into existence atop the mountain.

Into the mountains they climbed, up a path more ancient than Jarls and holds. Erik knew one thing about this ruin - one thing historically, anyway. It was a Dragon Cult ruin. Most of the old barrows that dotted Skyrim's landscape were Dragon Cult in origin, he knew. Of what that really meant, he wasn't sure. He had been unconvinced that dragons were not myths before Aleron told him of the one that destroyed Helgen. He had thought the Dragon Cult must have been some religious order dedicated to Akatosh - or Alduin the World Eater, more likely. Some said Akatosh and Alduin were the same; Erik just thought that those Nords who wanted destruction called him the World Eater, while those who wanted to believe in hope of a future called him Akatosh. Who could say that a god did not have two sides? He'd certainly known men with both evil and benevolent intentions. Whatever the gods were, apparently dragons were real. So it seemed that there really were, so many ages ago, a group of men who worshiped the beasts, and interred their dead in great tombs where they could be reanimated by dragon magic, whatever that was.

He'd faced these reanimated dead before, and they did not really scare him. He had taken some hurt there, but he was alone, then. Now he had two companions, whom he considered to be quite capable fighters, each probably more so than himself. Bandits did not frighten him, either. He had killed plenty of them. He was a bit worried that whatever the bandits could have stolen, they had only wanted the claw. That sounded too much like something to do with old legends and dragon magic to him. He disliked magic, though he trusted healing magic more than most Nords. It was all just out of his area of understanding. But even the threat of evil magic didn't really scare him.

Mostly, he was just excited to use the axe Aleron had made for him. After the Butcher's blade ruined his ancient draugr axe, he'd needed a new one. Aleron had made him a brutal-looking battleaxe with a blade shaped like an upward-pointing dragon's fang and a sharp triangular-shaped balance, mounted to a long graywood shaft infused with a thin rod of steel through the middle. It was carved all about with Nordic runes, most of which Erik did not know, but Aleron did. According to the Breton, they identified him as a warrior, among other things. Holding the axe for the first time weeks ago, he had been shocked at how balanced it was, and how solid and heavy it was despite the thinness of the blade. Aleron had said it was the quicksilver-infused steel; similar, he said, to what the elves made, but without something called moonstone. Whatever metal it was, he was sure it would stand up to anything he faced again, even that black ebony steel.

The snow was falling in thick, fat, flakes now. It was not quite a mountain blizzard, but it would force them to stop and make camp soon enough. They'd expected three days of travel to Bleak Falls Barrow, if not more; they had prepared for five. In summer this road would not have taken more than a day, not with horses. But the snows of winter slowed everything down times over, and a proper camp was life in the freezing dark.

Sure enough, they made their first camp not long after, Aleron grumbling that they could make a few miles yet, and Mjoll trying to calm his temper and reason with him. It had to be that order; a man wouldn't listen to reason when his blood was hot. Erik laughed to himself, watching the pair, as he staked down his tent with deep spikes that would hold against the harsh winds. There was romance there, he thought. And he was all but certain that Aleron would never see it. The Breton seemed to know everything; about fighting, about history, about everything. Everything, that is, except women. He'd had a mother once, Erik had gathered - a saintly woman from what Aleron said of her; but he was fairly sure that had been the only woman the Breton had ever really known. He seemed to think sometimes that they were like men, only gentler and weaker. Erik did not boast a thorough knowledge of a woman's mind, but he knew enough to be wary and to look for hidden meanings in things. Aleron was distrustful of just about everyone, especially if they didn't speak plainly. Knowing that, Erik would be shocked if Aleron ever got to know more of a woman than her name, unless she pressed him. Though Mjoll did seem the type to press, if she realized he needed her to.

Once the camp was made, the group sat down together, huddled around the fire, to share salted dried beef. Even Meeko did not stray from the fire. The dog seemed agitated by the cold, trying curl up underneath Aleron's feet. The Breton loved that dog. Erik doubted the Breton knew that, or realized just how much he favored the animal. It tried to crawl under his legs, all twelve stone of it, and he just laughed and petted the thing and let it crawl into his lap. How a man who couldn't smile properly for all his cold anger could be so affectionate to a dog was beyond Erik.

He noticed, though, that the Breton still did not really smile. He had seen the man smile sincerely once since meeting him: that morning, when he'd seen Mjoll.

Aleron took the first watch that night, followed by Mjoll. Erik noticed once he'd taken his place to watch the night that Mjoll dragged her bedding over to sleep snuggled up underneath the Breton. He supposed she thought the man wouldn't wake, but then she didn't know him that well yet. Aleron woke with a start, hand going straight for his axe, before he noticed her there. The Breton stared at her as if she were a Dwemer crawled up from the deep, then curtly asked what she was doing. He was a gruff man when woken suddenly, all the politeness he usually hid himself behind gone. Erik heard Mjoll mumble something about being cold. After a moment of seeming to debate with himself whether or not she would knife him in his sleep, he turned away from her, but said nothing when she cuddled up to his back.

Erik chuckled to himself. Yes, Aleron would perceive Aetherius before he realized the woman wanted him. It came to mind, then, that the woman might not realize Aleron was likely a virgin. Certainly a blind woman could see he had no experience with women; but Erik could see how the man's mannerisms could be taken as contempt. He chuckled again, a bit more heartily this time. This was going to be fun to watch.

.

By the morning the snow still had not stopped. If anything, it was worse. Erik could not see more than a few yards in front of his face, so the group stayed close together as they packed up their camp and headed along the road.

They had not been moving long when a tower became vaguely discernible in the distance.

"Is that the Barrow?" Aleron asked doubtfully.

"No," Erik answered him, speaking loud so that his voice could carry the ten feet to the others through the snow. "But it means we're closer than I thought. That's a Legion tower. We might reach the Barrow by tomorrow morning. The road should cross upslope at the tower, then back again in a couple of miles."

"We'll rest there, then," Aleron said, looking toward the gray haze. "For an hour or so."

They trudged along through the snow, toward the gray outline of the stone tower. Erik found himself falling behind, as Aslak seemed to have something irritating his bit. He would stop and turn to check the thing now and again, but he didn't find what was bothering the horse.

Up ahead, Meeko started to crouch low and growl. Someone was in the pass not too far ahead of them. Whatever he felt the dog, Aleron had trained it well to react during a fight. When the hound had first started following them, it would charge ahead into anything it thought a threat. Now, a staying hand or a tsking from Aleron was enough to keep him back until actual fighting started.

The group crept forward, wary of wolves or trolls coming out of the white. Erik was fairly sure there were no bears in this part of Skyrim. What they heard, though, was not a bear, a wolf, or a troll.

"HAAAAAAAA!" a man's voice roared from the snow-veiled world ahead. It seemed they had caught up to the bandits.

Erik did not see much of the fight, save his own part. The dog he saw leaping at a man's throat. He sincerely hoped the dog survived; it had a calming effect on its owner. Other than that, though, Erik saw little.

He pulled his axe from Aslak just in time to be tackled by a broad Nord man all in furs. He felt a dagger stab at his chest, and was glad for the wide steel disk sewn into the leather armor at the center of the chest. He wrestled with the man for a time, feeling not only the man's blows, but the bite of the cold snow seeping through his cloak as he rolled along the ground. Suddenly, Erik found himself on his back with his opponent straddling him and raining blows on him from above. On instinct, Erik stretched his arms out and grabbed the man's head. He did not hesitate before plunging his thumbs into the man's eyes. The blows stopped as the man clutched at his ruined face. Erik felt the strange, liquid feel of the man's ocular fluids pouring over his thick leather gloves. He wiped blood and clear-white fluid from his armor with snow as he rose to his feet. The bandit was whimpering miserably, curled in a ball, holding his hands to his useless eye sockets. Erik picked up the man's dagger and silenced him.

Listening closely, after a look around proved futile, Erik thought the battle must be done. Damn, he thought. Didn't even get to use my axe.

Mjoll looked around frantically, trying to find a way down into the little ravine. It was only fifteen feet or so to the ground, but she could not see Aleron anywhere.

How could she have been so careless? She'd fought in this kind of weather before, a dozen times. She knew better than to let her guard down until the battle was over a day or the sky was clear. She was very lucky he hadn't let his guard down.

When the steel-clad bandit had charged her from inside the tower as she crossed the narrow rail-less bridge over the small ravine, her sword had already been lowered, and her back had been turned. Aleron had dived from somewhere on the outcropping before the bridge to tackle the man, sending them both into the ravine. If she hadn't been knocked over she would have seen what happened down there; but as it was, she took too long in getting up. By the time she got back to her feet, they were gone.

Finally, she found a way down, a narrow ledge that tapered as it descended. She let herself onto the ledge and followed it down to the ravine floor. The ledge had taken her some thirty feet from the bridge. From above, she heard Erik's voice calling.

"Where are you two?"

"Down here," she called back up to him. "I can't find Aleron. He fell off the bridge, there, but I don't see him down here yet. There's a lot of blood, though."

To her shock, the tall red-head leaped from the bridge, spun and caught himself on the edge, then let himself fall the last ten feet with a clumsy landing. He looked around a moment, closer than her to where Aleron had fallen, as she hurried to catch up.

Before she could, she heard him mutter, "This way," as he waved her on.

She followed him around the bottom of the stone tower until he stopped dead. She followed his eyes to see Aleron sitting, back against the wall of the ravine, covered in blood. His helmet was in his hands; his face was turned from them, but was pointed up into the sky. He was not moving.

She raced Erik to reach him, the man's long legs carrying him much faster, especially without any real armor. Erik's face softened when he reached the Breton, but he followed Aleron's eyes into the sky. Mjoll's breathing started to calm, and she told herself it had just been the running that had her panting. Nothing else, surely.

Aleron's face was covered in blood, but he was conscious. She knelt in the snow to get a better look at him. Clearly he was in shock. She'd seen men go blurry-eyed from pain before, but for some reason she had not expected it of Aleron. She took his face in her hands, gently as she could, and forced him to look at her. He seemed surprised anyone else was there at all, darting eyes between her and Erik standing nearby.

"Where are you hurt?" she asked him. It was always best to let them tell you when they could. Better than fumbling around and possibly making things worse.

"I'm fine," he said, then looked up into the sky again.

She pulled his face down once more, willing him to understand. "You're covered in blood, and you're lying on the ice."

He looked down at himself, as if just noticing all the blood. "Just a flesh wound," he said absently, his hand going to the back of his neck. "He got a dagger in between my helmet and gorget. It's nothing." His had came away more bloody than before, though.

"Erik," she said, not taking her eyes from Aleron. "Find a way back up and get a healing potion from one of the horses. In fact, find the horses."

"The horses are up by the bridge," she heard him say; then she was surprised when he started climbing the tower. There was a window big enough to crawl through about twenty feet up, and apparently, he knew how to climb.

She brought her eyes back to Aleron, who was watching the sky again. "What do you see?" she asked, afraid of what he might say. If he'd hit his head in that fall, he might have hurt his brain.

He looked at her and smiled; not the smile that had weakened her knees earlier, but one that was reassuring all the same. "Nothing, now," he said. "But there was a dragon earlier."

She sighed. A dragon. He had hit his head. She heard Erik clambering into the window above. "A dragon?" she repeated. "Aleron, there are no dragons. Not anymore. They died out a thousand years ago." Maybe he was just delirious? If she could bring him back to his senses, perhaps it was not so bad.

He did not look at her. "More like six hundred years, really. Tiber Septim… Hjalti, Talos, whatever you want to call him… he made a pact with dragons on one of his conquests. That was around the beginning of the Third Era. Third Era ended after 433. Two hundred years into the Fourth Era, it's about six hundred years since the last dragon was seen. But I saw one at Helgen." He looked at her then. "What did you think happened to Helgen?"

Mjoll was stunned. She had seen men addle-brained. This was not in that. Either he was telling the truth, or he had been crazy long before falling off that bridge. Certainly she had heard the rumors. And there was no doubt something had happened to Helgen. All the rumors said it was burned and deserted. But she had thought that must have been done in Ulfric's escape. Setting fire to a town would have been a brilliant plan to distract the Imperials for a rescue, and it sounded like something the Stone-Fist would do in desperation. Ulfric's Second was zealous that way.

"You really mean it? A dragon?" He nodded, and she looked nervously to the sky. Gods! "Does that mean it's the end times?"

Aleron did not answer. Why had she thought he could? He probably thought the question had been rhetorical, but for some reason - maybe it was the way he had been talking, his obvious knowledge of history and lore - she had thought he might know.

"You were there? You saw a dragon?"

"And I saw one a few minutes ago. Or, at least I think I did. I saw a shadow, but nothing else flying could make a shadow that big."

She could not help wondering. "How big was it?"

"Big as a mammoth. Maybe bigger."

"Gods." This was pointless, right now. "Let me have a look at your neck."

He leaned forward, and when he did there was a look of pain on face that must have come from more than a slash on the neck. He didn't breathe while she looked at the wound. It was deep. A less muscled neck might have been more seriously injured. A healing potion would close the wound quickly enough, though. As for the rest of him:

He bared his teeth as she leaned him back again. "You've got a broken rib."

"Yes," he said breathlessly. "In the fall."

"A healing potion's not going to fix that, not quickly. It'll get you moving at best."

He gave her a wry look. "Really?" He was cranky when he was hurt.

She had been right about him, it seemed. All that politeness was a mask. That was clear enough last night. She'd not thought he would be such a light sleeper; but even still. He had been offended. She'd been in a few men's beds before, and not one had less than swooned over the feel of her next to him. Men were odd that way. Where she liked to cuddle up against a man and feel his strength, the comfort of safety wrapped in muscled arms and chest, men liked softness. She thought a pillow would do as well for most men. Mjoll would likely have slept in her armor if she had known her own pillows would have no effect on the dour Breton. It seemed he hated her as he seemed to hate everyone else.

.

The fool man refused to rest. Once he'd taken the healing potion, he jerked to his feet and started up toward the horses. It seemed there was a path further back from the ledge she'd used that led back up to the bridge of the tower. He'd stomped up the hill toward Caddock, his fiery black warhorse, and pulled a strip of dried beef from the saddlebag. Once he was done eating, though, he started up the path that wound toward the barrow.

"There's no time to rest," he said. "We've wasted enough time already."

They'd found no golden claw in the tower. More, these bandits looked to have been entrenched in this place for some time. They'd found at least three days of refuse, thrown out of a window of the tower, and it was not old enough for these men to have been gone just two nights ago.

They had planned to stop here for awhile, and Aleron certainly needed it; but if these were not the bandits who had been in Riverwood, those must have moved on to Bleak Falls Barrow. Mjoll wanted a good rest after that fight, and she needed more of a meal than what she could chew walking up a mountain. And besides, it was not as if the bandits or the claw were going anywhere they didn't know about.

She and Erik both argued. Meeko just jumped about at Aleron's heels like he always did. She could not understand how the dog got along with that horse. The animal seemed to bite at anything else that came near it, including Erik and his blond, Aslak. She'd known better than to get that close. A warhorse was better the less people it liked, anyway.

In the end, the Breton led them up the mountain, pretending that he didn't wheeze every breath through more-than-sore ribs. She was beginning to wonder what she had ever seen in the man. He was infuriating.

Bleak Falls Barrow was huge. Aleron stood amazed, staring at the great arches of its many-stepped porch. Porch was a poor name, but that is what Erik had said it was called. It was a courtyard, really; crumbling and skeletal, but an impressive courtyard, nonetheless.

There had been three bandits walking the courtyard, guarding the entrance to the barrow, but they had not seen the intruders coming through the snow, and Meeko had torn out one's throat before the others even knew they were under attack. Aleron and Mjoll were quick to dispatch the other two. Erik complained afterward that the dog had taken his kill, and that he had not really got to use his new axe. It was about noon, nearly a full day since they'd left the tower, which frustrated Aleron to no end. He'd hoped to be here in the morning, when men might still be breakfasting.

They hobbled the horses and left them in the courtyard. The entrance to the barrow was as impressive as the porch. Doors as big as the gates of Whiterun were made of quarried stone. He did not understand why anyone would create such monstrous stone doors, or how anyone could think to open them; but they opened as easily as if they had been new-made of wood on oiled hinges.

Inside, Aleron thought immediately that this was not just a tomb. It had been a temple once, or he was a fool. More arches framed a high, domed ceiling in a room that looked to have been made to house a dragon. It was the only explanation he could think of the absurd size of it. At very least, he guessed, the priests had met with dragons here, centuries ago. There were altars lining the walls, and grave ports in the walls.

At the far end of the entry hall, there was a dim light showing. A fire. And around it, two bandits warmed themselves.

"Guntar," he heard one of the bandits call. "You all want some of this stew? The damned elf has locked himself in the depths, so we're just waiting now."

Aleron just kept moving forward. Meeko was calm for now, but he would want to charge once the bandits realized they were not friends.

Finally, when the group was only twenty feet away, one of the bandits thought to look up. The woman tried to reach her weapon, but at a command from Aleron, Meeko lunged at her throat. The dog had a knack for that, once Aleron had made it clear to him that was the best way. The other bandit, the man, lost an arm at the elbow to Mjoll's Grimsever before he could more than grab hold of his shield.

She finished the man with a cold efficiency, and they moved on to a stone-walled tunnel further into the barrow, Aleron still at the lead, despite the grumbling of Mjoll.

Erik talked incessantly as they moved through the halls lined with more graves and altars and burial urns. He recalled the draugar he'd fought below a mine somewhere in the Reach, claimed they were slow and dim-witted. All but one, he said. Of that one, he would say only that it had frozen him near to death with dragon magic before he'd been able to kill it.

They did not see another bandit for some time. When they did, he was dead, lying beside a lever in front of a large gate, feathered with arrows.

Erik reached for the lever, but Mjoll reached out to swat his hand away.

"How do you think the man died, fool?" She seemed to like the red-headed Nord, but had a funny way of showing it. She ran him down constantly, treated him like a childish little brother. But he only ever laughed, and so Aleron left it alone.

They all stared at the lever for a while, and then all around the room, before Erik asked the obvious.

"Well, how in Oblivion are we supposed to get through?"

Aleron thought he knew. He'd read a little on the subject of ancient barrows. The Ayleids, ancient elf rulers of Cyrodiil before the Alessian rebellions, made traps to keep grave-robbers and animals out of their barrows. Actually, the Ayleids built traps into their cities, even, presumably to keep their human slaves from restricted areas. It stood to reason that the ancient Dragon Cult might have done the same. He looked around the room to find something that told of a puzzle to be solved. That was often how the Ayleids did it. After while he thought he'd found it.

"Look up there," he said, pointing to the wall above the gate. There were two inlaid figures carved into the wall; a snake and a whale. Between them, there was a hole where another figure might have been. "And there." To the left, against the wall, there were three pyramidal stones, each baring three symbols: an eagle, a snake, and a whale. His guess was that facing the correct symbols away from the wall would work as a key for the lever.

"We're missing a symbol," Mjoll said, catching on quickly.

Aleron was thinking that perhaps, if all three symbols needed to be used, it must be the eagle for the middle symbol, when Erik called from around a pile of rubble beside the gate.

"It was a snake up there before."

"How do you know," he asked the tall Nord.

"There's a piece of the fallen symbol here. It could only be a snake from what I'm seeing."

Aleron walked over to take a look for himself. Standing with the other two, he could see that Erik was right. It was the bottom of the symbol, but only the snake had the curly tail there.

Mjoll moved fastest to the stones. She situated the first as Aleron and Erik turned the others. Erik moved fastest to the lever, saying that he had the best chance of getting out of the way if they were wrong - which actually made sense to Aleron. They were not wrong, though, and the lever lifted the iron gate's bars so that the next room was accessible.

In the next room, they followed a spiral wooden stairwell down to a lower level of the barrow. At the bottom of the stairs, Mjoll cursed.

"What's wrong," Aleron asked, noticing that Erik looked pale as well.

Mjoll spoke up first. "This is a spider's lair. Not a nest, I think. A lair for one of the big bastards. Look at how the webbing is laid out on the walls."

Aleron looked, and indeed the walls were no longer lined with dust and old cobwebs. These webs were new, and arranged not only to give warning, but in what must have housed a clutch of eggs once.

"I've seen these big spiders before. Bigger than a man, but their nest looked different."

Mjoll gave him a look that communicated surprise and approval. "That's right," she said. "But those you saw were likely males. Females are rarer, but much larger. They roam, sometimes, leave nests of males with eggs to look after. Most winters, though, they stay in a lair like this one. They ambush."

"How big?"

She shrugged, a smirk of resignation on her lips. "Depends. Often enough, bigger than a horse."

Aleron sighed. He remembered fighting the spiders with Hadvar under the keep at Helgen. They'd been dangerous enough, but not big enough to simply wrap either of them up and bite, not while they were fighting. But one of those things bigger than a horse would likely find any man or woman easy prey, regardless of shields, armor, or swords. There were three warriors here, though, and he would not be turned aside by fear.

"How do we kill it?" was all asked.

Erik laughed, tapping his long axe-haft against his palm, and Mjoll smiled expectantly, then frowned looking at his ribs. She did not mention leaving Aleron behind, though. "Two to distract while one charges."

Aleron smiled. Simple, effective Nord fighting tactics; they worked well against animals, usually. He shot a mischievous grin at the tall, red-haired Nord man. "Erik, you feel like using that axe?"

.

They found the spider in a large room with walls completely covered in thick whitish webbing. They had to cut through a wall of spider-silk covering the door to the room, and they were sure it knew they were there. Upon entering, they heard a voice crying out for help, and Aleron looked to see a Dunmer man wrapped up in a massive web in the doorway at the other side of the room. Before he could take in more than that, though, the spider jumped down from a hole in the ceiling and it was all he could do not to gape. Even Meeko darted out of the room to bark from a safe vantage. The body of the spider was as big as a horse. The legs made it seem bigger.

As planned, he and Mjoll charged forward, keeping the attention of the massive creature on them, away from Erik. It chose first to lunge toward Aleron, until he slashed a large wound into its foreleg. It landed nearly on top of him as it stumbled, and he thought might be about to die as it scratched at his plate armor and shied with its massive fangs and feelers.

Mjoll cut off one of the rear legs then, and the beast forgot Aleron. The thing made no noise, not a scream of pain from the severed leg or a hiss of aggression. It bent to its work in a methodical, detached fashion as if it were a machine. Unseeing eyes bulged from atop its massive head, but they were all black and told nothing.

Mjoll went down to another charge, but Erik finally found his moment. As Aleron was stabbing into the beast's abdomen, the tall Nord man leaped forward, between the hairy legs, and planted his axe into the eyes of the giant spider.

They had to drag Mjoll out from under it, but otherwise she was unharmed. The Dunmer man was screaming, begging to be set free. Aleron made his way to the elf as Meeko bounded into the room at his heels, still staying clear of the huge spider.

"Please," the man begged. "Get me down from here, for Arkay's sake!"

Aleron just stared at the man. He had been involved in a horrendous crime, but there was no certainty he even knew of the rape. Camilla had mentioned nothing of race or description.

"Were you with those who broke into the Riverwood trader's?" Mjoll had not moved to cut the man down either. Her sword was still drawn.

The elf looked to Mjoll with a sickeningly flirtatious expression, but wiped that away when he saw it did not affect her. His face darkened more when he looked back to Aleron. He knew that Aleron knew about the rape, and thus thought Aleron must about him.

"Listen," he said defensively. "About the girl. That was regrettable. It certainly wasn't part of the plan, but… when the other boys were done, I thought one more wouldn't really matter, so-"

Grimsever plunged into the elf's throat, and he made a gurgling noise around the torrent of blood. Mjoll pulled the sword back and thrust it into his abdomen. Twice. Three times. She set to cutting him down then, slicing the thick webs that held him in the doorway. Once the elf was on the ground, facing upward, she stomped on his crotch so hard that Aleron heard bones crunch. He saw Erik wince; the pelvic bones were not easy to break. After another few stomps, she stepped away, only to charge back and swing her green blade to sever the man's head. It took only two tries. Throwing the head across the web-strewn room toward the spider, she sat in a heap on the floor, sobbing.

Erik gave Aleron a questioning look. Aleron looped his axe and shrugged, though he thought he had an inclination as to what was happening here.

After a moment of Mjoll crying alone on the floor, Aleron took off his helmet and sat next to her. He had long ago tried to bury any specific memory of his family; but some remained and would never leave, for whatever reason. One of those memories was of his mother crying, when she'd seen what his father had dug up of Avenall's body. The big Nord man had said nothing, just gathered the little Breton woman into his arms and held her until the tears were done.

Mjoll clung to him when he put his arms around her. It was awkward, two people in armor embracing. It should not have had any of the warm calming effect that a real embrace held, but she seemed to appreciate whatever she could get. She looked up to him with eyes now gray-green and still pouring tears.

"You knew." It was not a question "You knew they'd raped her. That's why you came. You're not a sellsword. Not an adventurer. You came for her."

"I am what I am," he told her gently. "I do what I must."

.

After Mjoll had cried all her tears, with Aleron holding her and Meeko trying to climb into her lap, they talked of what was left to do. Erik had fished the golden claw out of the elf's backpack, along with a rather detailed journal explaining why the bandits stole the claw and came to Bleak Falls Barrow. The last entry had been done recently:

My fingers are trembling. The Golden Claw is finally in my hands, and with it, the power of the ancient Nordic heroes. That fool Lucan Valerius had no idea that his favorite store decoration was actually the key to Bleak Falls Barrow

Now I just need to get to the Hall of Stories and unlock the door. The legend says that there is a test that the Nords put in place to keep the unworthy away, but that "when you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands."

"The journal mentions there might be draugar further in," Mjoll said, quite under control now. "I know Erik says he's faced them before, but… Aleron, they can be a lot of trouble if there are many of them. Are you sure you're up to this? We can go back, take the claw to Lucan; tell Camilla they're all dead."

Aleron was not sure why he felt so strongly about moving further on. They could go back, and he would not feel guilty. He had not let curiosity lead him into disaster since Avenall's death, and that memory alone should turn him back around. But something pulled him on. Something more than curiosity.

"If there's treasure of some sort behind the door," Erik put in, "we might at least fund this adventure. The draugar won't be too much trouble for the three of us. Right Aleron?"

Aleron just nodded his head. His ribs still hurt, and being slammed to the floor by a giant spider hadn't helped that.

They made their way past the door where Arvel the elf had been suspended in the web. The next room was some sort of altar room, with a raised ceremonially adorned platform and a few burial urns, but no grave slots in the walls, no mummified corpses. Erik snatched a ruby the size of an eyeball from the altar, explaining that it was not wrong to steel from dead men who had worshipped dragons instead of the gods.

Further in, they came into a large, low-ceilinged room with many stone columns, lined with rows of burial slots along the walls, each occupied by a not-quite-rotted corpse. Aleron slid his axe from its loop, and he heard the others free their weapons as well. Mjoll had warned that draugar often did not wake until they felt an intruder's presence near.

Sure enough, as they crossed the first columns, they heard breathy noises from the walls all around.

Mjoll sprung into action, darting to one wall and slicing open the rotting heads of as many draugar as she could before they could be out of their niches. Aleron followed suit on another wall, and Erik on a third, but before long there were standing and advancing draugar on all sides. Meeko crouched beside Aleron, clearly not understanding the walking dead.

Once there were a few draugar free, the group all moved into the center of the room, keeping their backs to each other. Aleron counted quickly; ten or eleven draugar at the most, but surrounding them as the dead men were, they might be in trouble if they lost their wits.

Mjoll caught a slowly-swung axe on her shield, and stabbed through the head of the draugr who'd swung it. Ten, Aleron thought. He sprung out to bash the nearest dead man with his shield, then took one of its legs out from under it. The finishing chop to the head he performed while blocking the sword of what had once been a Nord woman. Erik's axe took her head at the shoulder. Eight. He looked back to see Mjoll slashing open the belly of another dead man, then knocking it over with her shield. As she finished it, he leaped to take the sword arm of the draugr advancing on her back, then stabbed forward with the crescent blade of his axe splitting the dead man's skull. Six. He saw Erik slice through the head of another behind him, with yet another at his feet, while Meeko tackled one and tore at its throat as it scratched at the dog's fur with dead hands jolted free of axe and shield. Aleron crushed the knee of a draugr woman before cleaving the top of her green head from the rest. He felt steel scrapping and gouging into the back of his plate armor, through the fur cloak, but before he could turn to retaliate, Mjoll's Grimsever slashed through the back of the offender's neck.

Aleron looked around; Meeko still gnawed at the throat of the dead man he had taken down, trying now to break the head free of the spine. The last draugr stood in the passageway leading forward, defiantly shouting, "Join the dead!" Or, at least that was what Aleron thought he heard. He could not quite make it out, as if it were speaking half in another language.

He ran forward and bulled the thing over with his shoulder, then stomped its head in with his steel boots. These draugar were strong, it seemed, but their bones were brittle.

Meeko trotted over beside him, then settled to coughing and spitting up a piece of rotted flesh, shaking his head as if in disgust. Aleron was disgusted. "Don't eat any more of that, boy. Just… knock them down and we'll take care of the rest. Okay?" The dog barked, for all the world as if he had understood.

.

Making their way through the rest of the barrow was easier. More draugar attacked them here or there, but never more than three at a time. They passed through narrow stone corridors and more altar rooms until it seemed they left the barrow for a network of caves following an underground stream. All the while, they seemed to be slowly descending. They followed the stream through a cave lit with strange glowing mushrooms. Aleron took a few of the odd fungi and put them in his pouch. They might produce some interesting alchemical results.

Beyond that cave, the stream fell into a deep chasm, over which a narrow natural bridge was guarded by a draugr woman with a bow and set of arrows. There was no way to cross around her and no way to destroy her at a distance.

"Mjoll," Aleron asked, "may I borrow your shield?"

"Um… alright. What for?"

"You'll see."

Aleron grasped Mjoll's shield with his right arm, and then crouched low to hide behind a barricade of two shields. He faced the draugr and the bridge, and felt the first impact of an arrow shaft driving into the thick wood. This draugr used an ancient bow. It might have once been fierce, and whatever magic kept it usable at all after so much time was impressive; but it could not punch through good solid oak and steel.

The draugr had no other weapons. When Aleron was close, the dead woman tried to rush forward and batter him with the bow, but he thrust out the bottom shield at an angle, tripping her and throwing her into the gorge.

Mjoll walked up behind, laughing softly. Looking over the edge of the bridge, she said, "Well that's one way. Brilliant."

Aleron gave her a grateful smile. "I read something similar in a book."

Erik laughed behind him. "I'm not sure I believe you didn't learn to fight from a book."

The next passage led them back into more of the man-made barrow. Through heavy wooden doors with rusty hinges they found themselves in a large foyer, lined along the walls with caskets and grave slots. A walkway, suspended on columns, stretched over the room from a balcony on one side of the room to an exit on the other. Two draugar carrying heavy bows, with bristling quivers at their hips, paced atop the walkway, back and forth between the balcony and the exit.

Abruptly, one of the dead men noticed the newcomers. "Beg for mercy, little worms!" it howled before firing its first arrow straight at Erik.

The group's luck seemed to run out all at once. The arrow took Erik squarely in the shoulder, spinning him and sending him down to the stone floor, while Mjoll took an arrow slash to the side of her head that knocked her unconscious. Meeko bounded toward the stairs that led to the balcony. Aleron looked around for a solution only a moment before hurling his axe at the draugr on the right; it struck well enough to knock the rotting man from the rail-less walkway. He slid out his dagger and drove it through the draugr's skull, then retrieved his axe and raced up the stairs before the other one finished with Meeko and decided that the thrashing Erik was still a threat.

When he reached the walkway, though, the dog had forced the dead man to drop the bow and was now gripping tightly the rotting arm. Aleron rushed forward as beast pushed the dog away. He leaped over Meeko as he swung his axe wide, and the crescent-moon blade ripped through the dead face and sent the top of the draugr's head down on one side of the walkway while the rest of its body dropped down the other.

Looking down, he saw Erik pouring the last of their healing potions into Mjoll's mouth and trying to make her swallow. Aleron was ten feet at least from the ground, but he jumped down, regardless of any chance for injury.

He'd watched the healers work at Weynon Priory for ten years, as often as he could. He knew something of how to check for serious injuries. He tossed his helmet to the side and examined Mjoll's head. The potion was doing its work, but it would work faster if she were awake. It was dangerous, though, to wake a person after a head injury; so he let her lie for now. He dug into his pack for a red vial that he knew contained a potion that was meant to clear the mind during fighting, not heal wounds. He knew also that any potion that helped to clear the mind would speed the recovery of her senses, though it was dangerous at this point.

He found the vial, and went back to Mjoll. He cradled her head in his lap, smoothed the beautiful golden hair out of her face, and forced her to swallow the liquid. He brushed a smudge of dirt off of her high, wide cheekbones. She really was beautiful. Gods, let this work! I've had enough of the deaths of good people! Let this work!

After a few agonizing moments, Mjoll's eyes opened. They were a deep green now with lines of gold. He'd noticed her eyes changing color before. It was a trait more common in Imperials and Bretons than in Nords, so he had read. He'd never been so happy to see any pair of eyes in his life.

She stared at him a moment. Her hand went to her head. He could not take his eyes off of hers, and she did not look away from his. He realized how heavily he was breathing. Had he breathed since he saw her lying there? She reached up and grabbed a handful of his hair, a look of intensity very different from those he'd seen when she was fighting. He thought perhaps she was fighting the urge to vomit. That happened when focus potions were taken with a head injury, but hopefully that was the worst she would have to deal with. Then, as she tried to pull on his hair to sit up, she lost her battle with the sickness. She turned her head just in time to throw up a stomach-full of water and bile.

"Gods!" she exclaimed through trying to still her breathing. "What did you give me? Oh gods! Not again-" She bent over to empty her stomach a second time, and Aleron held back her hair. After a moment she had nothing left to give, but her stomach still tried. She dry-heaved a few times before curling up into Aleron's arms for the second time in a day.

"AAAHH!"

Aleron and Mjoll both jumped, causing another bout of heaving from the later. Aleron looked to see that Erik was passed out a few feet away, a bloody arrow in his hand. He'd pulled the thing out of his shoulder himself.

.

They waited there for a while, Aleron not bothering Erik more than to clean and bind his wound. Passing out from pain was short-lived, generally, and Mjoll needed to rest anyway.

Aleron searched ahead, going up the stairs again to the walkway and into the room beyond. He entered a long hallway through a pair of iron doors with surprisingly well-oiled hinges - he wondered just how much these draugar were capable of doing to keep the barrow from disrepair. The place was at least a thousand years old, very likely much older. And yet there were lamps and braziers lighting and warming the passages, and the walls had not crumbled overmuch. Through the door was what Arvel's journal had called the Hall of Stories, where legend said the histories of the ancient Nords were depicted in friezes along the walls. The reliefs were quite beautiful; shown in the dim light of the wall sconces, they seemed quite cryptic and severe.

At the end of the hall was the Dragon Door. It looked more like a blacksmith's puzzle than a door. It was ornately carved around a circular locking mechanism in the center. The mechanism was remarkable. Around a golden disc there were arrayed three concentric bands of carved stone that rotated into a pocket at the bottom of the circular device. On each band could be seen an inlayed disc showing a symbol. The topmost disc showed a moth, the middle showed an owl, and the bottom showed a bear. In the golden disc there were three holes in an irregular pattern. Aleron thought the holes must be catches for the tips of the golden claw; the pattern looked right. Of the bands with the symbols, he had no idea. They were clearly a combination of some kind, but he had no way of knowing what combination they needed. He would need to have another look through the journal.

Mjoll waited for Aleron to return. She hoped he would not go too far ahead, or try to face any rooms full of draugar on his own. She was worried that he might, though. He was a headstrong man, but she could not deny to herself any longer what she felt for him. That was strange, in itself. In romantic stories, the heroes fell in love at first sight, or hated one another before suddenly realizing that their hate had turned to love. But she just did not understand exactly what she felt for Aleron. It was more than friendship, she knew. But she also knew that it could be just friendship if she really wanted it to be. She was connected to this man she had only known a short time, and in some way that she could not escape. If only she could understand what he felt for her.

"He's a complicated man," Erik said, as if he had been reading her mind. He smiled at her as if he still was. She had not even realized he had woken. "I didn't think I would ever see him scared, until he saw you hurt. Don't think I'd ever seen him smile before you showed up in the Sleeping Giant, either."

It was clear enough that Erik understood how she felt, at least. If this was not a brother teasing, then she didn't remember very much what that was like. "He has an odd way of showing interest, if he is. Most of the time he looks at me like I'm some strange new tool he doesn't know what to do with."

Erik laughed at her. The man laughed! As if this was somehow funny.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment, wiping tears from his eyes. "You haven't known him long. I suppose he hasn't told you much of himself?"

"No." She liked that about him. The man didn't talk about his own past, which meant she likely wouldn't have to talk about her own. True, she loved telling stories of her adventures from when she was wondering Tamriel; but no one knew anything of her before that. Even Aerin knew better by now than to ask about her childhood.

"He's had a rough life. Spent the last ten years before coming to Skyrim in some priory in Colovia. Don't know how many friends he's ever had, really. I think everyone there hated him… but you're gonna have to ask him about that."

"He's a priest?" Mjoll was shocked. She had no idea what Aleron's religious beliefs were, but he certainly didn't seem a priest.

"No, he was a… guest, I suppose. I know that's where he learned to work metal, and I think that's where he learned to fight - though who taught him either I have no clue. Look, I know things I probably shouldn't. The important thing for you is: I don't think he's ever been around a woman before. At least, not for any long time. You understand?"

"He's a virgin?" He didn't seem the type. Most men would be jumping on any woman they could find by twenty. Aleron had to be at least a few years older than that. Maybe he didn't like women that way.

Erik laughed again. "I think virgin is too simple. He has not had any contact with anyone but old priests for ten years. I don't know what that would do to a man, but I think it's safe to assume that he's unique in the way he sees things."

"People came every once in a while to worship or for healing." Mjoll and Erik both jumped at the sound of Aleron's voice from above.

How does he walk so quiet in that armor? Mjoll thought, irritated and horrified at what he might have heard. "How long have you been standing up there?"

"Not long," he said, his face as stone as the walls around them.

"Well, I think we're good to go. My head feels fine."

Erik pushed himself up with his uninjured arm. "I'm as ready as I'm gonna be."

.

The Hall of Stories was certainly worth seeing, even if Mjoll could not understand anything that she saw. If this was the history of the ancient Nords, it bore little resemblance to the histories she'd heard. Aleron sat leafing through the raping elf's journal, trying to find something that would tell him about the lock to this Dragon Door. She wasn't sure what he had heard before, but his temperament had not changed any. Still, she wanted to keep her distance for a while.

She walked along the edges of the hall, looking at the reliefs with more interest than she could remember having for art before. They really were beautiful. Most seemed to depict the deaths of great leasers, though some others might have been the crownings of ancient kings.

She came at last to the door. Aleron was sitting with his back against it, but he would not chase her off. She looked at the symbols on the lock, and the golden disc in the center. It seemed fairly simple, really.

"What are you trying to figure out?" she finally asked Aleron. "You just slide these bands to the right symbols and use the claw like a key to turn that center disc."

"Yes," he said a bit too patiently. "But how do I know which symbols? If I know anything of ancient barrows, the wrong combination will have us boiled in oil or feathered with arrows or burned from some sort of flame trap."

"Turn the damned claw over, Aleron."

The Breton did as she told him, and a look of embarrassment came over him. He shook his head. "Simple Nord logic."

.

The door opened with a grating sound of stone sliding over stone as it sunk into the floor. The room beyond was dark, but Mjoll could see a stone table not far from the entrance. They all went in with weapons drawn. Meeko crouched low beside Aleron. The dog never left the man's side unless he commanded it to.

The place was dark, just beyond the firelight from the torch Erik carried. He could not fight with his shoulder so injured, so he had volunteered to carry the torch.

"Do you hear that?" Aleron asked. She'd heard nothing, but he was ahead of her.

They left what must have been some sort of anteroom, to find themselves stopped dead in awe. Ahead was an enormous cavern, skylight pouring in from holes in the mountain's surface above. The light shone on a great raised platform of stone that housed a bending arched wall, covered in strange etchings carved into the stone.

"Do you hear that?" Aleron asked again. He started toward the wall.

There did not seem to be any treasure here, whatever that bloody elf had thought. There was a trickling stream flowing around the circumference of the raised platform, running noisily over a bed of smooth rocks. They crossed a bridge over the stream, and ascended short stairs to find themselves bathed in light.

Aleron had not taken his eyes from the wall. And he really did seem to be listening to something. Mjoll followed him to the wall; he was staring so intently, with his ear cocked to one side, that she wondered if he might really be hearing something from the wall. The markings on the wall were clearly some sort of writing, all straight harsh lines and dots here and there.

"I wonder what it says," she mused. "Must be some ancient language."

To her shock, he spoke as if he knew. "Het nok faal vahlok deinmaar do dovahgolz ahrk aan FUS do unslaad hahgol ahrk vulom."

Suddenly he fell to his knees, catching himself with a hand on the wall.

She could hear him whispering. "Here lies the Guardian, keeper of the Dragonstone, and a force of eternal rage and darkness." He was out of breath, as if he had been just run a mile.

"Are you all right?" Mjoll asked him. The man looked like he was dying. He looked at her then, and she straitened, backing away. His eyes were always blue, a beautiful dark blue like the sky before a storm; but now they… glowed. They glowed with a paler blue light like the draugar's eyes.

She heard a loud sound behind her, like the breaking of stone in a quarry, but her eyes were only for the man in front of her. He looked anguished and rapturous at the same time, as the light seemed to fade into his eyes and they returned to their darker color. He just kneeled there, breathing heavily, for what seemed like an eternity but could not have been more than a few moments.

Then Erik cried in warning, and Aleron's eyes went to something behind and to her left. The Breton stood, then, and Shouted: "FUS!" and a force she could not understand rushed past her - it was not wind, she knew, but it was a moving, powerful force that stirred the air. She knew as soon as she heard it that it was a Shout, like the old legends told, like Ulfric had used to kill High King Torygg. He could not use the Voice. It was impossible! The man had never been to High Hrothgar, never studied with the Greybeards. What was happening?

Suddenly he shoved her out of the way. She spun to see a massive draugr with a horned helmet and a black greatsword. Knocked to one knee by the force of the Shout, the dead man laughed at Aleron as he rushed toward it and cut off its head with a single, violent swing.

"How did you learn to do that?" she screamed at him. She realized she was beating at his armored shoulders with her fists, and he was not even noticing. He just stared at the wall now behind her. Erik looked dumbfounded behind him - he'd dropped the torch, and now he was just staring at Aleron, as confused as she felt. Only Meeko seemed unconcerned.

She took his face in her hands and forced him to look her in the eyes. "What are you?"