Chapter Four:

Tracking Thieves

Milos and I clambered up the narrow mountain path, keeping a good distance from each other. If one of us fell, at least the other wouldn't follow. At the base of the mountain, we had an encounter with a few wolves, but they'd been dispatched easily enough. As we climbed higher, the greenery and warmth quickly disappeared and was replaced with the snow and harsh cold that bit through our Imperial armour.

"I should've c-changed while we were i-in Riverwood..." I grumbled disapprovingly through chattering teeth.

"I k-k-know what you m-mean. I'm c-cold-blooded, but that d-d-doesn't mean I enjoy s-s-snow." Milos breathed hot breath into his hands and rubbed them together to create friction.

I summoned some fire magicka into my palms and rested them on Milos' shoulders. He nodded in thanks, not wanting to try to thank me with shivers instead.

Soon, the wind stopped blowing, but it was still snowing. It got a bit warmer for us, so I conserved my magicka and put out the flames. Milos pointed to a watch tower in the distance.

"Two people outside," he told me, his sharp eyes surveying the scene. "Armed. They don't look like Imperials or Stormcloaks."

I drew my bow and nocked an arrow. One of the men was leaning up against a tree, while the other was patrolling inside and outside of the watch tower. I waited until the second man had completely entered the keep before I fired my arrow. It hit the first man in the head with a hollow thunk!, and he fell into the snow, streaking the pure white flakes crimson.

"What was that?" the second man yelled.

I spotted a third man at the top of the watch tower, scanning for us. I nocked another arrow and let it fly into the second man's chest as he exited the tower. He was only wounded by my arrow, but he fell backwards off of the narrow stone bridge that connected the watch tower to the mountainside, and screamed as he plummeted down. We knew he was dead when his scream was cut-off suddenly.

The third man was already charging towards us, fast for his burly size. Milos was there to meet him, his enormous blade slamming viciously into the man's shield. The shield broke instantly, and the man couldn't bring his blade up fast enough to stop Milos from stabbing the man through the gut.

Milos was pulling his blade out of the man when I approached his corpse. There were a few coins on him, so I took the liberty of relieving him of them. After searching the other corpse (and deciding not to go after the one that fell), we pressed on. Bleak Falls Barrow towered above us, its black stones that had been carved from the mountain looming hauntingly. We found more people (who we decided were the thieves who stole the golden claw) and quickly dispatched them, first by killing them one-by-one with my bow, and when there were two left, Milos killed them swiftly by decapitation. We grabbed whatever coin they had and moved on, not wanting to linger.

We approached the door of the Barrow and opened it quietly. It didn't make a sound as we crept inside, wary that there could be yet more thieves around. It seemed we were right. Without listening to the conversation that the thief man and woman were having, I took them both out, though the woman proved difficult since she was furiously searching for us once I'd killed the man.

Milos plopped himself by the fire, pushing away the male thief's body and grabbing the roasted rabbit from the spittle above the fire. One of my eyebrows rose, to which Milos shrugged.

"I'm hungry," he admitted. "I'm not going after a blasted golden claw on an empty stomach."

"But we ate at Alvor's not even an hour ago!" I argued.

"So?"

I chuckled and sat beside him. "Brings back memories, anyhow."

Milos' Argonian smile curved. "Yep. You're definitely right."

I could remember it as if it was yesterday. It had been barely a week after I'd used the Madame's debt money to buy Milos from the slavers, and she was still fuming at me.

I stormed out of the orphanage, and didn't stop until I reached the hills outside of Anvil that had a view of its port and lighthouse. An old farm was at my back, one which was rumored that three women had been killed in, after they swindled men out of their belongings, by none other than the Hero of Kvatch. I sat down and pulled my knees up to my chest, staring out at the free waves as they lolled onto the shore.

"What are you doing out here?"

Whatever tears I'd had were gone in an instant. The Argonian boy I'd rescued, who said his name was "Hides-His-Heart", was standing a few feet away from me. He was wearing some of the old clothes that I'd had, since the Madame had refused to pay for any. His eyes were large and yellow in his skull, and his horns were stubby, not sharp like many other Argonians. Not yet, anyway.

"This place is haunted!" he continued.

I snickered. "Did the guards tell you that?" When he nodded, I grinned. "They like to scare us. As long as we're good little kids and never disobey our elders, we make them happy. But it doesn't make us happy."

Hides-His-Heart sat down beside me and was quiet. I smiled at him, and he returned a toothy one, but that was only for a moment.

"You can go anywhere now, you know," I told him. "Not like me. You're free. I have to stay here."

"But you bought me—."

"I freed you." I grinned. "Like Saint Alessia and they Ayleids."

"You're a Nord?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I don't feel like I belong with the rest of the Imperials here, but this is my home. I've been here ever since I can remember."

Hides-His-Heart looked down at his hands. "So, you've been an orphan all this time?"

I nodded. "What about you?"

"I was not a slave," he said quietly. "My parents were close to the King of Black Marsh, but they contracted a disease while traveling once. I don't remember much, but it was serious, and my parents were killed for fear of others getting the disease. The King thought I had it too, so I fled, and I was picked-up by the slavers near the border of Black Marsh."

"That's... terrible." Hides-His-Heart stood up and started gathering some wood, which he stacked into a pile and surrounded with stones. "Here—I'll help."

We stacked the wood on the hill and then I used some magicka to set the pile aflame. We sat there for hours, staring into the flames, laughing and joking around, and just talking.

"So, how do you have a name if you never knew your parents?" Milos asked.

I smiled. "The Madame before this one wasn't a hag at all. She named me."

"And your last name?"

"I made it up. Makes me feel more like I'm a person, and not just another name in this place." I patted Hides-His-Heart's head and grinned. "Besides, Greystone sounds cool, doesn't it?"

He nodded.

"I have an idea!" I exclaimed. "Since this is your new life, and since we're friends, I'm going to give you a name!"

"But I already have—."

"It'll be fun!" I interjected. "I'm gonna call you... 'Milos'!"

"Why Milos?"

"I'm not telling."

I grinned at the thought. "So, how'd you find your way into Skyrim?"

"Same as you; I was crossing the border." He snickered. "Though my entrance was a little less humorous."

"What? You've never seen anyone bounce down a mountain before?"

"Not in that manner." Milos fingered the last of the rabbit. "Taryn, what happened? Why did you come to Skyrim?"

"It's..." I frowned. "It's a long story, for another time. We should just go after this thief."

Giving me a "look", Milos popped the rest of the rabbit into his mouth. "Then answer me this: what was with you earlier? When we were escaping Helgen?"

I bit my lip. "Well... Didn't you hear it? The Dragon?"

"I heard it roar. I nearly went deaf from just that."

"The Dragon said something!" I insisted. "I heard it yell something, and then it was like I knew what it was saying!"

Milos shrugged and stood up. "Maybe it was the adrenaline talking. But you're right; we need to find that thief."

I sighed and followed Milos into the caverns of Bleak Falls Barrow (after grabbing what money was on the corpses, of course). We descended several levels until we saw another thief ahead of us, carrying a torch. I crouched and poked my head out of the doorframe. He didn't seem to notice us. Milos was about ready to bury his sword into the thief's back, but I held him off. The thief approached a lever in the middle of the room and pulled it. For a moment, nothing happened, and then arrows shot out of the walls. The thief didn't stand a chance. When the arrows ceased, Milos stepped out into the room first.

"Great. So now we have to find a way to open the gate there," he said, pointing at the portcullis opposite us.

"There has to be a trick to this..." I studied the room, glancing quickly over the walls. To the left, there were three stones that looked like the could be moved, and each had a symbol on it. The first was a snake, the second was a whale, and the third was a bird.

"Hey, look at this!" I turned and saw Milos pointing to the ground. He was standing on the snake symbol, but it didn't look moveable like the others. "It must have fallen from the wall."

I looked above us and saw the symbols. The first on the wall was a snake, and the third a whale. I immediately went to the moveable stones and rotated the second until it was a snake as well, and the third until it was a whale.

"Nine help me," I muttered as I pulled the lever.

Luckily, there were no arrows. The portcullis opened, and both Milos and I released a sigh of relief. We continued past the puzzle-room and deeper into the barrow. A chest awaited us, and we looted it easily enough. I picked up a book that had a few good tips to lockpicking as well, and I decided to sit down and read it soon. There were spiraling stairs down into the barrow, and despite the rotting wood we managed well enough, even though some skeevers attacked us as well.

"I hate these things..." I grumbled absently. "So much bigger and more annoying than the rats back in Cyrodiil..."

Milos coughed and suddenly stepped back, wiping something off of his face. "Damn! All these webs are getting in my face!"

"Well, if you weren't so tall, that wouldn't be a problem," I said smartly. "And don't blame it on genetics; I've seen how you eat."

I led from there, bringing down what webs I could with my bow, while Milos crouched and avoided them altogether. We moved past a table and descended more stairs when we found a place that we could not get past without hacking through the tougher webs.

We emerged into a chamber that was barely lit by the light from the outside, peeking through the holes in the ceiling as it was. A man was caught in a web on the other side of the chamber.

"By the Nine... What could have done that?" I wondered aloud.

"That," was Milos' curt reply.

He shoved me out of the way as a gigantic spider crashed to the ground, screeching and spitting venom everywhere. I grabbed my sword and scrambled to my feet, remembering when we'd faced spiders this size back when we were escaping with Hadvar.

Milos hacked at its legs. The frostbite spider shot out a web and stuck him in it. It approached him, as if it wanted to wrap him in a cocoon, but I leapt forward and got its attention by stabbing it in what would probably be its ass.

It screeched and whirled on me, but my blade was stuck fast in it, and I wasn't letting go. It spun me around with it, and I slammed hard into Milos. At the very least, he wasn't in the web anymore. Milos grabbed his blade and plunged it deep into the frostbite spider's eye, twisting it for good measure. The giant spider groaned as its limbs crumpled beneath it, and it lay there, unmoving.

I pulled my sword from it once I'd gotten up and rubbed my back. "Well, that was fun."

"I enjoyed the part where the spider threw you into me," Milos added, a wry grin on his face.

"You did it," the captured Dark Elf sighed. "You killed it. Now cut me down before anything else shows up!"

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Arvel the Swift," he stated proudly.

"Are you the thief who stole the claw from Lucan Valerius and his sister?" Milos prodded.

I gave him a "look". "There you go, right to the point again."

Arvel didn't seem deterred though. "Yes, the claw! I know how it works. The claw, the markings, the door in the Hall of Stories! I know how they all fit together! Help me down and I'll show you. You won't believe the power the Nords have hidden there."

I could tell just by looking that Milos didn't like it, but he used his bloodied sword to cut Arvel from the webs. He didn't trust the Dark Elf as far as he could throw him (which, literally, would actually be pretty far).

Arvel hit the ground in a crouch, and a wry smile attached to his lips. "You fools, why should I share the treasure with anyone?"

He spun on his heel and sped through the tunnel that had been revealed once he was free. Milos and I sprinted after him, but Arvel was living up to his name. We followed him into a chamber with several corpses on display, all of them centuries old. Just as I reached out to grab Arvel's shoulder and run my blade through his back, something beat me to it. A gigantic battle axe suddenly swung from seemingly nowhere, slamming Arvel the Swift backwards into my blade. I stared in utter horror as one of the corpses—eyes glowing blue with ethereal power, skin rotting on its skeletal body, a helmet adorning its head—rose from its grave, the battleaxe tight in its grasp. It came closer to me, its rancid breath and rotten smell stinging my nostrils, and roared.