Chapter Fourteen:

The Blade

We stopped in Morthal at the Moorside Inn to rest once we left Ustengrav. I was livid, upset that our hard work had turned up nothing. Someone had taken the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller before us. I was going to find that person and punch them in the face for doing that.

We had rented two rooms for us all. Aldren disliked the presence of many people and retired early, while Hiemdall, Milos and I were in the main area drinking mead and having a bite to eat (Aldren had brought his food to his room with him).

I glared hatefully at my tankard while I thought about the letter. Why would someone do that when they knew I was coming? Why couldn't they just leave the horn for us, and the note?

Milos and Hiemdall were having a drinking competition with actual beer instead of mead, and they were being cheered-on by the other patrons. Hiemdall could hold his own, but Milos' Argonian endurance proved helpful. In the end, Hiemdall lost to Milos, but neither of them were very drunk at all. I think Milos didn't like the taste of beer.

I, instead, was listening to the bard, who was singing a song I was becoming fond of. I liked the tune better than the lyrics, only because it reminded me of the Civil War and, incidentally, the Thalmor.

"We drink to our youth, to days come and gone.
For the age of aggression is just about done.
We'll drive out the Stormcloaks and restore what we own.
With our blood and our steel we'll take back our home.
Down with Ulfric! The killer of kings!
On the day of your death we'll drink and we'll sing.
We're the children of Skyrim, and we fight all our lives.
And when Sovngarde beckons, every one of us dies!
But this land is ours and we'll see it wiped clean.
Of the scourge that has sullied our hopes and our dreams."

Milos came to sit beside me and dug ravenously into his rabbit haunch. "You should really eat something," he said through mouthfulls, "instead of giving off all the 'hate' vibes. It's really pshycing people out."

"When I have a reason to be happy, I will," I growled, taking a gulp of Honningbrew Mead.

"Music then?" he suggested. "You've always loved it, though you've never been able to sing very well." I narrowed my eyes at him. "C'mon! You sang whenever you were cleaning yourself! It sounded like something was dying!"

I rolled my eyes at him. Milos got up and gave the bard a few coins, to which she smiled and thanked him for.

"What'd you ask her to play?" I asked when Milos sat down again.

"Whatever her favourite song was," he replied, taking a swig of my mead (that bastard...).

"This one's a favourite of mine," the bard said as she strung her lute. "A legend we all know and love..."

Everyone quietened while she finished tuning the instrument. She cleared her throat once it was done, and smiled the trademark smile of a bard.

"Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart.

I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes.

With a Voice-wielding power of the Ancient Nord art.

Believe, believe, the Dragonborn comes.

It's an end to the evil of all Skyrim's foes.

Beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes.

For the darkness has passed and the legend yet grows.

You'll know, you'll know, the Dragonborn's come."

At the mention of the first "Dragonborn", my head slammed violently against the table. Milos was sniggering, making me seriously question if he had planned it. At every other Dragonborn, my head would hit the table again.

"I'm going to bed," I grumbled, defeated.

When I woke up in the morning, everyone was already packing for our long trek to Riverwood. I wasn't sure if we were even going to stop in Whiterun, so we supplied ourselves to the best of our abilities without wasting much coin.

Within the hour we were on the road to Riverwood. I was silent for half of the trip, thinking about the possible ways I could visciously torture the "friend" who'd written the note. When Milos decided to speak to me, I was favouring bludgeoning that person with the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller… if they still had it and hadn't pawned it off to Lucan Valerius.

"You're awfully quiet," Milos observed.

I snorted. "No, really? I thought I was pretty talkative… in my head."

"Still angry about that song, eh?"

I heard Hiemdall giggling behind me. I frowned. "I can't get that stupid song outta my head, and it annoys me. Plus, our hard work was wasted because of some idiot!"

"Well, as soon as we get that horn, we can give it back to the Greybeards and continue on our way." Milos pointed to the companions trailing behind us. "Hiemdall can go back to working for the Companions, and Aldren can hunt you down to kill you while we go do whatever the hell we'll do. Everyone'll be happy."

"Our hero, our hero, claim's a warrior's—."

I glared at Hiemdall, effectively cutting him off. "No, please continue. I don't think you've got a taste of my damn Shout yet!"

Hiemdall wisely stayed silent. Well, until he whispered, "D'you think it's that time, guys…?"

I sucked in a breath, but Milos stepped in front of Hiemdall. Seems like they got close after drinking together back in the Jorrvaskr… I exhaled and continued on, muttering darkly.

The rest of the journey went relatively smoothly. Yes, there were a few wolves that wandered onto the road and decided that we looked relatively harmless, but they were quickly shown their mistake when I set their fur on fire. I decided that I wouldn't get a dog, just-in-case it pissed me off and I accidentally set its fur on fire as well.

When we arrived in Riverwood, we crossed the bridge into town, the opposite way we'd come from when we had only just arrived in the village with Hadvar. I felt like we had just taken three steps back from our single step forward.

Without dallying, we went straight into the Sleeping Giant Inn. I recognized the woman from before, Delphine, when she approached us.

"Welcome to the Sleeping Giant Inn," she greeted. She probably didn't recognize me, but it looked like she remembered Milos. Not many Argonians passed through Riverwood, I guessed. "What'll it be? Food? Drink? Beds?"

I cleared my throat. "Erm… We'd like to rent your attic room, please."

She placed her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Attic room, eh? Well… we don't have an attic room, but you can have the one on the left, and the one beside that as well." I handed twenty septims to Delphine, who added, "Make yourself at home."

It wasn't an hour later, when the sun had gone down, that I laid down on the bed and just stared blatantly at the roof. I was sharing my room with Milos, whereas Aldren and Hiemdall were sharing theirs.

"I give up," I grumbled.

"Huh?"

"I give up," I repeated, a little louder. "Someone steals the horn, there's no attic room in the inn they wanted to meet us—."

"You."

"—And I am currently the most pissed-off Imperial in the history of Tamriel."

Milos snorted. "I think the Hero of Kvatch was probably pissed too. Can you imagine what they went through, travelling to the planes of Oblivion?"

"I'm not the Hero of Kvatch, Milos." I sighed. "Whatever that person went through was their problem, just like this is mine. But they're a legend! I'm sure they handled their duty with a spring in their step!"

"Duty? You said it like being Dragonborn is your duty too."

"Well, sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound like that. Because it's really an inconvinience."

"I don't know about that. Think of all the nagging you can do using the power of the Voice…"

"If you would let me do it instead of standing in front of the people I wanted to do it to," I remarked.

"You would've blown him to bits," Milos replied. "The way you looked at him and the state you were in… You'd have regretted doing it later. I didn't want Hiemdall to end up like High King Torygg."

"Torygg?"

Milos scratched the underside of his jaw. "I heard a few guards from Whiterun talking when you were unconscious. One said that Ulfric Stormcloak fought Torygg in a one-on-one duel, and that he had Shouted Torygg to the ground, finishing him with his sword. But another guard argued that Ulfric took Torygg by surprise and Shouted him to pieces."

I rubbed my temples. "Great. Conflicting opinions. The world can't run without opposing factions." I sighed. "Idiots! Idiots everywhere! Can't they just see that the Thalmor are the real threat and put the Civil War aside for two seconds? Everyone can be bitter with each other when the Thalmor are retreating back to Summerset Isle!"

"I'm actually surprised how you're not joining the Imperial army," Milos said, lying down on his bed.

"Believe me, if I had the option, I wouldn't. There's no point to it. I didn't leave Cyrodiil to be tied down to something I'll have an obligation to."

"I can't wait until you get married and have kids. I'll take that moment to say, 'I told you so'."

"But you haven't told me anything."

"I'm saying it now: you're gonna be travelling for a while, and then you're gonna find a nice boy who you'll want to spend your life with and make little short-tempered babies with, because they'll most likely take after you."

I considered this, and then sat on my bed and stared at Milos accusingly. "Who are you, my mother? And by the way, I'm not short-tempered." I laid down in the bed again and brought the covers over me. "I just have a quick reaction to bullshit."

Milos chuckled and then crawled under his own covers, blowing the candles lighting the room out.

It was only a few hours later that we were woken up, since there was no light from the sun quite yet, and the sounds from the main area had died down. It must have been extremely early in the morning. Anyway, Delphine shook me awake, gently enough so I didn't Shout her face off.

"So you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about," she remarked, smiling thinly. "I think you're looking for this."

She handed me the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller as I sat up in the bed. I stared at it for a while, the thoughts of bludgeoning coming back. It was grey (unsurprisingly) and smaller than I thought it would be.

"We need to talk," Delphine continued. "Follow me."

I slowly crawled out of my bed, placing the horn on my pack as I went. I made sure not to make any noise so I wouldn't wake Milos up. Delphine led me across the hallway to where I supposed that she slept. She stopped in front of the wardrobe and glanced back at me.

"Close the door," she instructed.

I turned around and shut the door quietly. The innkeeper (who was usually behind the counter, but was now sweeping) glanced at me, but otherwise ignored me. As soon as the door was closed, I heard another open. I turned around and saw Delphine stepping into the wardrobe, which turned out to be a secret door. I think my jaw dropped.

"Now we can talk," she said.

I carefully followed her through the wardrobe and down the stairs. We emerged into a well-lit room, with a single table in the centre that had books and maps on it. A few weapons racks hung from the wall, one with a strange sword that had a slightly curved blade and an extended hilt. There was a training dummy in one corner, an alchemy lab in another, and a shelf with a few assorted potions and items.

Delphine went around the table and placed her hands on it, facing me. "The Greybeards seem to think you're the Dragonborn. I hope they're right."

"You're the one who took the horn?" I still wasn't quite convinced. Perhaps she was a leeway?

"Surprised?" Delphine smirked. "I guess I'm getting pretty good at my harmless innkeeper act."

I copied her movement and leaned against the table. I was wide awake now. "What's with all the cloak and dagger?"

"I didn't go through all this trouble on a whim. I needed to make sure it wasn't a Thalmor trap. I'm not your enemy. I already gave you the horn. I'm actually trying to help you. I just need you to hear me out."

I sighed. "Go on. I'm listening."

"Like I said in my note, I've heard that you might be Dragonborn. I'm part of a group that's been looking for you… well, someone like you, for a very long time. If you really are Dragonborn, that is. Before I tell you any more, I need to make sure I can trust you."

"Wait a second," I said, stopping her from saying whatever she was going to say. "Why did you take the horn from Ustengrav?"

"I knew the Greybeards would send you there if they thought you were Dragonborn. They're nothing if not predictable," she answered confidently. "When you showed up here, I knew you were the one the Greybeards sent, and not some Thalmor plant."

"So how do I know if I can trust you?"

"If you didn't trust me, you were a fool to walk in here in the first place."

I frowned. She probably wasn't remembering the huge Argonian and Nord with gigantic swords strapped to their backs, and the Dark Elf assassin.

"You said the Thalmor are after you?" I pressed.

Delphine nodded, her eyes turning cold. "Yes. We're very old enemies. And if my suspicions are correct, they might have something do to with the Dragons returning. But that isn't important right now. What is important is that you might be Dragonborn."

"Why are you looking for a Dragonborn?" At least she'd piqued my interest.

"We remember what most don't—that the Dragonborn is the ultimate Dragonslayer," Delphine explained, relaxing. "You're the only one that can kill a Dragon permanently by devouring its soul. Can you do it? Can you devour a Dragon's soul?"

Devour? Who said anything about devouring? "I… absorb some kind of power from Dragons. That's all I can say."

Delphine narrowed her eyes at me. "This is no time to play the reluctant hero. You either are or aren't Dragonborn. But I'll see for myself soon enough."

"So what's the part you're not telling me?" I asked, ignoring the desire to Shout at her.

"Dragons aren't just coming back," she explained, "they're coming back to life." I felt like my heart stopped. The fear I felt when I saw that black Dragon back at Helgen seemed to be rekindled. "They weren't gone somewhere for all these years. They were dead, killed off centuries ago by my predecessors. Now something's happening to bring them back to life. And I need you to help me stop it."

I shook my head, forcing the image of the black Dragon out of it. "Do you know how crazy this sounds?"

"Ha. A few years ago, I said almost the same thing to a colleague of mine. Well, it turned out he was right, and I was wrong."

"And what makes you think they're coming back to life?"

"I know they are. I've visited their ancient burial mounds and found them empty. And I've figured out where the next one will come back to life." Delphine straightened out and stood tall. "We're going to go there, and you're going to kill that Dragon. If we succeed, I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Kill another Dragon? Are you friggin' kidding me? I groaned, my distaste apparent to Delphine. "So where are we headed?" I asked reluctantly.

"Kynesgrove," she answered, pointing to a village on the map near Windhelm. "There's an ancient Dragon buriel near there. If we can get there before it happens, maybe we'll learn how to stop it."

"But what about my—?"

"I can't wait around for you to make up your mind," she interrupted sternly. "I'll meet you at Kynesgrove. Don't waste time getting there."

Delphine left the room, and left me there. I was making a face that even I didn't register, one that pretty much said, "What the hell?"