Chapter Twenty-Five:

A Cornered Rat

As soon as we entered a levelled chamber, we encountered three Thalmor. Their wizard was the first to reach us, but Javin made quick work of the High Elf. A total and complete, "my-wizard-is-better-than-your-wizard" situation.

"There's the Blades agent!" one of the Thalmor yelled. "Kill her!"

"I don't appreciate being attacked every time I turn a friggin' corner!" I yelled back. "By the Nine...!"

We ran into a tunnel to meet our next adversary. The Thalmor soldier charged at us, his elven blade raised high above his head. Aldren rushed forward and slit his exposed throat in a blur of motion. As we continued, we dodged arrows from another soldier. Suffice to say, his ass was mine.

I drew my sword and plunged it deep into his chest, though it had some difficulty getting through his armour. When I was certain he was dead, I planted my foot on his chest and yanked the blade out.

"The soldier has good loot," Cha'qim remarked. "So did the other Thalmor."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Take what you want and we'll continue. We don't know how far ahead the Thalmor are."

"You've got no problem looting bodies?" Aldren asked.

"They're dead now; they won't be using anything."

Once we'd grabbed what we needed (the Thalmor I'd just killed had a really nice-looking ebony bow, and a new ebony sword. I counted my blessings), we hurried down the tunnels through the Ratway. At one point, we had to drop through a hole in order to get to the door we were looking for.

We were met with not-entirely-sane nattering and the sounds of someone eating ravenously. Taking care to avoid the doors we heard the sounds from when we entered the next room, I led the way up the steps and to another door that looked... Okay, put lightly, it looked guarded.

I knocked on the door. We waited patiently for only a few seconds before an old Nord man with a completely white long goatee slid open a peek-hole.

The old man snarled venomously. "Go away!"

"Esbern?" He frowned at the name. "Open the door. I'm a friend."

"What?! No, that's not me. I'm not Esbern. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Look; the Thalmor have found you," I told him urgently. "You need to get out of here."

Esbern snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh, how reassuring! Most likely you're with the Thalmor and this is just a trick to get me to open the door!"

"Delphine needs your help to stop the Dragons!" I argued.

Esbern's eyes, for a second, shone with recognition. "Delphine?" he repeated. "How do you...? This is just a trick to get me to open the door, eh? I told you to go away!"

Esbern slammed the peek-hole shut, but not before I'd jammed my fingers in it. I bit back the pain as Aldren and Cha'qim giggled at me, and Esbern yelled something profane.

"Delphine said to 'remember the 30th of Frostfall'!" I exclaimed.

The peek-hole opened slightly, but I didn't remove my fingers. I didn't know if it was a ploy or not.

"Ah," the old Nord remarked. "Indeed, indeed. I do remember." I removed my fingers and rubbed them while the rest of the peek-hole opened. "Delphine really is alive, then? You'd better come in and tell me how you found me and what you want."

Esbern slowly shut the peek-hole. "This'll just take a moment..." he continued. "This one always sticks... there we go." Our jaws slowly gave in to gravity as Esbern began to unlock his door. We lost count of the locks. "Only a couple more." After an eternity, Esbern exclaimed, "There we are! Come in, come in! Make yourselves at home!"

As soon as we all stepped in (after collecting our jaws), Esbern grabbed some chairs. I sat on a bale of hay in the corner, more comfortable with that than anything else. Esbern's home/hideout was quaint, filled with alchemical ingredients and books, and it was well-lit. His bed was in the corner, and the sheets honestly looked older than I was.

"That's better," he said as he stiffly sat down in one of his seats. "Now we can talk." Esbern looked at me, probably deciding that I was the person to talk to, since I'd been the one to speak to him first. "So Delphine keeps up the fight, after all these years. I thought she'd have realized it's hopeless by now. I tried to tell her, years ago..."

I wanted to ask him why he thought it was hopeless, but then I realized that we were probably running out of time until the Thalmor tried to break through his million locks.

"The Thalmor have found you. We have to get out of here," I said urgently.

"Yes, yes, so you said." The old Nord shrugged. "But so what? The end is upon us. I may as well die here as anywhere else. I'm tired of running."

I couldn't stop my curiousity this time. "What do you mean, 'the end is upon us'?"

Esbern rolled his eyes. "Haven't you figured it out yet? What more needs to happen before you all wake up and see what's going on?" Esbern met all of our eyes, and declared, "Alduin has returned, just like the prophecy said! The Dragon from the dawn of time, who devours the souls of the dead! No one can escape his hunger, here or in the afterlife! Alduin will devour all things and the world will end! Nothing can stop him!" Esbern hung his head, gently sliding his hands down his face. "I tried to warn them," he said quietly. "They wouldn't listen. Fools. It's all come true... all I could do was watch our doom approach..."

Javin leaned forward. "You're talking about the literal end of the world?"

"Oh, yes. It's all been foretold. The end has begun. Alduin has returned." Esbern looked crestfallen. "Only a Dragonborn can stop him. But no Dragonborn has been known for centuries." Everyone but Esbern turned their head towards me, but I shook my head. Mostly because I didn't like what I was hearing. Esbern continued, undaunted. "It seems the Gods have grown tired of us. They've left us to our fate, as the plaything of Alduin the World-Eater."

"It's not hopeless, Esbern," I assured him. "I'm... uh, Dragonborn."

Esbern's eyes snapped up to meet mine. "What? You're... can it really be true? Dragonborn?" He grinned. "Then... there is hope! The Gods have not abandoned us! We must... we must... We must go, quickly now. Take me to Delphine. There is much to discuss." Carefully, the old Nord stood up. "But give me... just a moment... I must gather a few things..."

I was examining the new ebony blade I got while Esbern rambled and searched for the things he wished to bring. Cha'qim stood up to help, and Hiemdall was quick to look through the peek-hole to see if any Thalmor were coming. Aldren sat quietly while Javin wrote something in a notebook he'd had tucked in his robes. I wondered where the Mage had gotten his quill and ink.

"Well, I guess that's good enough," Esbern said as he walked to the door. "Let's be off."

Hiemdall stuck out his arm to prevent Esbern from leaving. "Thalmor," the Companion mouthed to me.

We were quick to extinguish the fires inside of Esbern's hideout. The locks were still unlocked. I formulated a plan.

"Esbern, get behind me," I whispered. "Cha'qim and Aldren, strike from the shadows. Javin, use some magicka to draw them here. Hiemdall, come here and help me protect Esbern."

I assumed that everyone had nodded. It was too dark for me to see if they hadn't. Javin quietly opened the door while two Thalmor, a wizard and a soldier, were climbing the stairs. He sent out a burst of flame, one that the Thalmor wizard had sensed. Javin immediately suppressed his flames and hid in the shadows. The Thalmor wizard ignited his palms with lightning and fire while the soldier drew his elven sword.

As soon as they'd entered, they were dead. We hurried to the nearest escape, with Hiemdall at the head, Javin at the rear, while Cha'qim, Aldren and I protected Esbern. The old man seemed to have a few tricks up his sleeves though. We hurried through the Warrens, avoiding tripping on random tree roots and taking staircase steps three at a time. I wasn't keen to keep encountering the Thalmor. They always brought back a lot of bad memories and made me want to hit the nearest one.

We eventually made it to where we'd been before in the Warrens and into the small tavern in the Ratway. It was there that we could breathe a sigh of relief for not being caught or encountering any other Thalmor.

"The Ragged Flagon is always a welcoming sight," Cha'qim muttered.

Oh. So that's the tavern's name.

We didn't exactly stop there. We left the Flagon in a hurry and retraced our steps back to the surface, into Riften. Night had already fallen. I hadn't realized how much time we'd spent down there, and I hoped we'd find a late-night carriage driver instead of waiting for the morning.

We bounded up the steps to Riften's main level. Only the lights of Mara's Temple and Riften's inn were lit, besides the Jarl's torches in the front. We all probably stank up a storm, too.

Avoiding the gaze of the guards, we made our way to the main gates. Cha'qim waved at a guard who immediately let us pass. It made me wonder just how much pull the Khajiit had in the city.

Hiemdall went to see if he could rent a carriage. While everyone else stayed with Esbern, I looked around the small stables that were against the walls of Riften. What I was trying to find wasn't there.

Hiemdall returned with good news, and we immediately loaded the wagon. We'd accomplished our mission.

But Milos was nowhere to be found.

I was alone.