Chapter 17: The Wild Chase
The land was slowly turning a pale shade of violet as the sunlight shone dimly over the eastern horizon when Brynjolf decided to stop and have a quick meal. He was dead tired, having spent all night on horseback, furiously urging Shadowmere into a wild gallop. The black stallion seemed unaffected by the insane pace but even he could not manage to keep up with the treacherous Dunmer who appeared more than blessed by the daedric magic.
Curse the Daedras, Brynjolf cussed in his thoughts. But the more he thought about it, the more he had to blame himself. If only he had not proposed the theft. If only the lass had not wanted to beat him and Karliah to it. This competitiveness went with being the boss of the Thieves Guild, of course, and Nocturnal would always welcome it, that he was sure of. But what can the Dark Lady do against the power of the Dunmeri Pantheon? Surely Marilis did not worship just one of them, he was simply too powerful for that.
He sighed and found a nice boulder to sit on, watching the White River meander the land in a series of rapids, swirling around the scattered rocks and washing over them, covering them with white caps of ruffled foam. He could see Dragonsreach from his place, a proud two-winged fortress dominating the land, competing with the surrounding mountains in beauty and might, with its Great Porch opening to the plains that lay down the path he would soon ride. The land seemed withered around here, a few pine trees presenting all the green in the area. Apart from those, he could only see a few dead oak trees and low bushes with unhealthy looking yellow leaves which crumbled apart when he picked them up.
He pulled an apple out of his backpack and looked at it with distaste. Although he felt exhausted and weak, his stomach was tumbling and he could barely bring himself to take one bite. Never in his life had he felt so scared and hopeless and if somebody had told him two years ago that he would feel like this, he would have laughed them off hard. He who had never had a family, maybe except for a few friendly Guild members, he who had learnt to survive in the dirt and shadows, robbing people of all the extra stuff they surely did not need for their living, would never feel attached to anything and anyone. But how mistaken had he been. She had struck him the very first time they had met, in the awful grey city of Riften, a young woman with short hair and determined look, so different from everyone else roaming the city. She had seemed so honorable, yet not afraid to do a dirty job if it was necessary to gain results. Her pockets had been empty but somehow she had always managed to get a hold of anything she had wanted. She had seemed uninhibited, not bound to anything and anyone, and he had admired that about her.
"Running a little light in the pockets, lass?" he had asked her just to attract her attention. He would have never guessed that she would take the bait and actually do the job with that all too innocent look in those golden eyes of hers. Never mind it had taken her three tries until she had managed to steal the ring. Now he knew that she would never give up anything, even to the point when she would become stubborn and he had the urge to just tie her up and pull her out of whatever trouble she would find. Unrestrained, that was the word. She was definitely unrestrained. It drove him mad and attracted him at the same time, for he knew he would never be able to become such a person.
Unless someone dear to him was in danger, it seemed. He laughed at the irony of it, that the one who crushed all his ideas of him being a free guy without attachments became the one binding him and would also make him throw away his boundaries when it came to a desperate situation. He was ready to do anything to save her. All the dragons and the ever scorching fires of Oblivion could stand between them but he would never give up.
He could hear Shadowmere snort behind him and the sound of it made him turn around curiously. The horse was walking away from him, the countless fringes of his long dark tail waving at Brynjolf in the morning breeze. He frowned.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" he barked at him, jumping on his feet as he threw the apple core to the river behind. He darted the way the beast was heading. The path went uphill to a small grove of long-needled pine trees sprinkled by snow mildly, opening into a cozy levelled space enclosed with a tall rock which created a natural wall around it. In a small nook in the middle of it stood a pedestal and a statue of Talos loomed on top of it, a mighty figure in a winged helmet and scale armor with his sword raised, ready to pierce the giant serpent that crawled at his feet. An ornate symbol reminiscent of a dagger with double-edged axe in place of its guard stood on the platform on its right along with a pair of candleholders. The shrine was intact, obviously spared the recent Thalmor ravages for now. But he was in the Whiterun hold, after all, and the freedom of the Dominion members was quite restricted here.
He watched Shadowmere walk to the statue and noticed him sniffing behind it. Curiously he stepped on the rocky ground beneath the pedestal, leaned to the wall and looked behind the stone carving. There was a set of daedric armor behind it and a pair of blades. Brynjolf's stomach knotted when he realized what he was looking at. Carefully, he pulled the gear up, one piece after another, and placed them on the ground beside the pedestal. He studied the armor until he found what he was looking for – a number of patches and mends on the right arm, barely visible to an untrained eye.
"Well," he murmured uneasily, more to himself than to the stallion standing nearby, "at least we know they passed here. Just how far could they have gotten?"
Whether his crimson-eyed companion knew it or not, he was silent as ever, his only reaction being a slight shake of his head. Brynjolf sighed tensely, his eyes fixed on the armor. The lass had no protection and it would be best to have her armor ready when he saved her… if he saved her, and that thought made his stomach turn. But how was he supposed to carry all that stuff? It certainly did not fit in his backpack. He furrowed his brows. The light ebony-scaled armor he had obtained from Endon and kept ever since seemed easy to fit into it but that would mean he would have to wear a set of heavy armor himself. He was not pleased with the thought but after a while of weighing all the pros and cons, he decided that the security of the lass was the top priority and took off his current outfit. It took him a while to put the red-creviced harness on and he felt a little odd when he tried walking in it.
"Just how can the lass wear this and move around in it so easily?" he whined to Shadowmere, who, at that moment, looked purely amused, his ears twitching merrily.
"And you don't give me that," he smirked at the horse dryly. "I'll make sure I have a daedric attire made especially for you when this is all over. And you're going to wear it every day. And I'll get five kegs of Black-Briar Reserve if you can't keep it up for a month."
Shadowmere snorted at him sourly and shot him a glance which could not be described by words.
Try it and you're going to have to answer to Sithis himself, it said. Brynjolf shuddered a little but refused to withdraw.
"You're such a pony," he teased his steed.
The stallion seemed ready to dart towards him and do something unthinkably awful but the thief raised his hand in a warning gesture and shook his head.
"The lass is still out there and I believe that out of us two I am the one with the better chances of saving her, like it or not," he said cunningly. He gained a nettled snort but the horse ceased his threats.
"That's a good lad," Brynjolf nodded. Then his expression turned serious and he gave Shadowmere an exhausted look.
"I am going to sleep for a while," he announced wearily. "Wake me up in three hours. We can't waste any more than that."
The horse twitched his ears in comprehension and shifted his weight. Brynjolf attached Aislinn's blades to his sides and headed uphill to a group of withered bushes which looked like they would provide at least some degree of cover for him. Too tired to set up a proper camp, he carelessly dumped his baggage on the ground and used it as a pillow. Sleep took him immediately, bringing a lot of disturbing dreams filled with fear and anxiety. He tossed and turned restlessly, and when Shadowmere's muzzle finally nudged him awake, he did not feel rested at all.
He forced himself into eating a few slices of bread with Eidar cheese and then drowsily climbed down the slope to refill his water supplies from the White River. If the Dunmer was headed northwest, it meant that he would have to be ready to enter the inhospitable plains of Whiterun and then cross the mountain ridge which separated them from Hjaalmarch. The first source of water would be the Hjaal River which was a few hundreds of miles away. And although Shadowmere was amazingly fast, he doubted they would get there sooner than in three days, and the weather would have to be perfect for that. He felt a clutch of pain in his heart when he thought about the lass being carried away from him, into an unknown danger.
"I'm starting to think that the one leading the Thalmor might be Alduin himself."
A cold shiver ran down his spine as he remembered the words. What would they do to her? She had seemed to know something but had not found time to share it with him. What would the World-Eater want her for? The thought made him feel sick, paralyzed, and he quickly brushed it aside. Whatever it was, it was not going to be pleasant, that he was sure of. He plunged his face into the cold water of the White River and let it wash away his exhaustion. Then he climbed back to the road, quickly checked the contents of his backpack and mounted Shadowmere who was waiting for him, standing at attention and ready for the take-off. He darted out the moment Brynjolf settled on him and the fast and furious ride through the wilderness continued.
With the exception of two shorter breaks and a few hours of sleep, they galloped non-stop through the wild plains and up the mountains. Shadowmere did not bother taking roads and ran through the rough terrain, skillfully hopping over boulders and puddles of mud. They met a pair of giants in the plains but the creatures would be too slow to catch up to Brynjolf, even if he ran in the daedric armor, let alone his black steed for whom there was no substitute in this world, and so they managed to proceed without resorting to fighting. The weather worked in their favor, casting just a light haze of clouds over the sun so the heat would not get to them. Even the breeze seemed to blow their way, as if it supported them from behind. They reached the mountains sooner than Brynjolf had expected, but the next day the Divines seemed to compensate for it.
As they started climbing, a wild snowstorm struck the land and made the thief bend his back in defense against the rough wind which kept swooshing around and filling his sight with a veil of snowflakes, making him almost completely blind to his surroundings. He soon had to dismount the black horse and continue on foot. With his right hand put on the hilt of Aislinn's daedric sword as a precaution, he paced heavily through the rifts. Luckily, Shadowmere kept guiding him through the treacherous mountain paths, finding unexpected shortcuts while avoiding dead ends and hidden traps.
Later in the afternoon, the storm had subsided into a mild snowfall, its roar ceasing only to be replaced by a different type of roar. Brynjolf froze when he realized what it was.
Turning left, he spotted a large winged creature over the line of pine trees before him, its voice like a thunder, bouncing from one mountain peak to the other. The beast was rising steadily, casting a shadow over a massive structure below. Compared to the structure itself, the shadow seemed miniscule, insignificant. There lay the great ancient city of Labyrinthian with its mighty walls and countless posts and lookouts, spreading in the valley like wings of the dragons it had once belonged to. It was pale and covered with snow just as the rest of the land, and yet it seemed to shine brighter than anything else around. And then Brynjolf gasped because he realized that it was not just the city that was shining.
Myriads of colorful dragon scales arose from the jagged structures and filled the air, the sound of wings rustling and humming and the powerful voices resonating against the faces of the mountains. The thief went pale in his face. Not just one dragon. Not even two, or ten, but a whole army, a whole nation. The immemorial city of Bromjunaar would be reborn in all its might, the winged rulers of the skies presiding over it again.
Breathing heavily, he quickly mounted Shadowmere and heeled him to canter.
"Run, lad," he urged him, refusing to look at the terrifying sight again. "Run as fast as you can and don't you dare stop or we're dead meat."
He did not have to tell him twice. The stallion broke into a gallop so wild that Brynjolf would not have thought it possible. The land turned into a haze of blurry smears in shades of grey and dark green, swirling around as they ran. Several branches whipped the thief and for once he was glad that he wore the reliable daedric armor which protected him perfectly. He could still feel the cold wind and frosty snowflakes which landed in its crevices and sent chills down his body though, making his limbs go numb. Then he winced when he realized that the roar was not stopping. He glanced over his shoulder, registering one of the enormous creatures flying above him, circling over the land like a giant bird of prey.
This is not happening, Brynjolf thought desperately. Lass, where in Oblivion are you when I need you? I can't fight a dragon by myself!
But he had to and he knew it, if only to save the lass he was calling to at that moment. He stopped Shadowmere and quickly jumped to the ground, rolling away the moment a blinding pillar of flames scorched the very ground he had landed on a second before. Sudden heat ran over his body, melting his frozen limbs, and a dull pain spread through his flesh. He reached for his ebony bow and nocked a daedric arrow in it, waiting for the dragon to still itself. Shadowmere helped him achieve that by luring it to him but the thief cussed when bright flames licked the black horse and set him ablaze.
You cursed fool of a pony, Oblivion take you! he shouted in his thoughts. How am I going to get to the damned Dunmer if you die on me here?
He released two arrows, the first one hitting the beast's right flank, the other missing as the dragon yanked and dodged it. Its attention now turned fully to Brynjolf who darted out and ran in panic, barely avoiding getting hit by the scorching flames. He nocked another arrow and fired it blindly, praising Nocturnal when it hit a wing and tore through it with a ripping sound. The dragon faltered, its movements now jerky and uncertain. The thief realized then that the dragon was a good deal weaker than the one they had been fighting back in Eastmarch with the lass and it also lacked some of its elegance, and made a mental note to ask Aislinn about different kinds of dragons when he had the chance. If he had the chance. He shot an enraged glance at the beast and decided that he would definitely see to it, when a series of ice bolts came flying and showered its head and neck. A painful roar tore through the air and the creature fell in a spiral, shaking the ground as it hit it. Brynjolf promptly nocked another arrow and finished it with his next shot. Then he looked the way the ice bolts came from and froze.
He remembered the Altmer woman who was standing atop of the rock which rose before him. Even ragged as she was now, she was still beautiful, her dark hair now unattended, flying loosely about her. There was a savage look in her eyes, one that had not been there before, but he still clearly recognized her. He frowned and nocked another arrow, firing it almost immediately. She jerked and quickly dodged it, sheer shock displaying in her face.
"Stop!" Sinawen shouted at him. "I'm not an enemy of yours!"
"Oh aye, I've heard that one before!" Brynjolf smirked and reached for another arrow. The elf disappeared before his eyes, leaving him blinking in surprise for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure and put the bow over his back. He unsheathed both of Aislinn's blades in one swift movement and readied himself, listening carefully to the sounds around him.
The footsteps stopped a few feet from him but he did not waste any time. He kicked where imprints of two leather boots had appeared in the snow and crossed the swords around the neck of his target at once. Her figure appeared once more, a slender body lying on the ground, weak and defenseless, trembling in defeat. He exhaled.
"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked calmly, a trace of pride still in her voice. There was something disturbing about it, something Brynjolf had not noticed the first time they had met. He knew for sure that this woman had changed but was not quite keen on discovering how much for himself.
"Why are you here?" he asked simply, his expression colorless, unreadable. She smiled at him slightly in a way that planted even more doubts in the thief's already confused mind.
"No particular reason," she said. "I could be just about anywhere in Skyrim, or anywhere in Tamriel, and it would not matter, but it just so happens that I found my way here and met you."
"Care to explain more or shall I pierce a hole in that throat of yours?"
"You're not with the Dragonborn," she stated, ignoring his question. "I take it that something happened to her?"
"Speak or I'll skewer you and decorate that tree over there with your intestines so the next dragon that comes by can roast you good," he hissed, cold fury framing his face.
"Haha, you think you're the first one to threaten me like that?" she grimaced. "Now, you seriously don't make any difference, master thief. But if you insist – I am being hunted. I'm no longer trusted by either the Thalmor or my master. Or my former master, rather."
Brynjolf's mind was racing, loads of questions flooding his thoughts. What should he ask next? He wanted to leave the place as soon as possible to avoid encountering more dragons. This woman had betrayed the lass and she had to pay for it, but still, something at the back of his mind was telling him that killing her would not do him or the lass any good. Rather, he would question her and make her help him achieve his aim. He had to be careful since she was obviously a skilled magic user… but on the second thought, she could have killed him if she had wanted to. Or at least avoid being caught.
"Who was your master?" he asked at last.
"His name is…" A slight moment of hesitation followed before she decided to speak again. "His name is Andariath Torelloy. But you won't ever hear of a person of such name. Not even he is aware that I know his real name."
"That is quite an odd name, even for a high elf," Brynjolf commented thoughtfully.
"That's because he's not one, even though he's pretending to," Sinawen said simply and the thief was sure she would have shrugged if not for the blades pressed against the fair skin on her neck.
"Then who is he?" he asked and failed to conceal a trace of curiosity in his voice.
"An Aldmer," she replied with a smile. Brynjolf winced and his eyes widened in shock.
"And just how old would this… Aldmer," the word was pronounced slowly, apprehensively, "be by now?"
The smile was now wide on Sinawen's face, bearing a mixture of amusement, irony and, surprisingly, remorse.
"I'd say four thousand years, or something around that."