We made our way through The Reach with minimal difficulties; restocking our supplies at Markarth. The pack horse was stabled at the city, with instructions that if we didn't return for him within a month, to sell him off. The Reach was no place for a pack horse, what with the Forsworn swarming about. The Reachmen were people who worshiped some very old gods, and some rather vile Daedric Lords. Stories of human sacrifices, necromancy and cannibalism were all confirmed at one point or another over the years. Since we both knew we would be going into a cave, we knew we couldn't take the horse with us, even without the Forsworn roaming about the place.

We reached the entrance to Darkfall Cave after spending our days hiking along the steep paths. Since we didn't know whether Darkfall was going to be a hole in the wall or a complex cave system, Serana and I had packed everything we could think of.

The cave was yet another hole in the stone wall of a mountain. At this point, Serana and I were so used to it that we just ducked inside with resigned sighs.

We found ourselves in a natural passage that began its descent immediately. To both of our surprises, a burning torch lay just ahead. These things only lasted a few hours or so, and I couldn't help but wonder who had come in ahead of us. The Volkihar vampires that had found us in the Ancestor Glade had all died without knowing our new path, so I doubted they had beaten us here. Serana had hunted every night, doubling as a scout along our path; both in front and behind; and no one had been following us. Or at least… no one who survived to speak of it.

Cautiously we continued and found another torch mounted outside of a small room, where a waterfall poured into a pool. Winding our way along the path marked by torches, we killed a small frostbite spider; it was only about the size of a dog. On the ground was an egg sac. After Serana burned the egg sack to cinders, we continued to descend. Just a bit farther and we found ourselves at a narrow suspension bridge over a fast-moving underground river.

The bridge creaked and quivered as we crossed and was in poor condition, with one of the rope handrails missing completely. The far side was mostly shrouded in shadows, and I couldn't see most of it. A warm glow from a torch showed a small, round, wooden table that said that someone had made it across at one point. I tread as lightly as I could, gripping the one handrail desperately and hoping against hope that I would make it across safely. The person, or persons, unknown who had set up the torches might have had an accident when one side had let go. Crossing the thing, I could see how easily the bridge could have partially broken, twisted, and dumped someone unfortunate off the far side.

On solid ground again, we found ourselves on a ledge with two moonstone ore veins; one on the ground and one on the wall. The table sat off to the right, with a pickaxe and a still-lit lantern sitting on top.

I paused with a frown on the far side of the bridge; it was a dead end. I hunted carefully in the deep shadows, but there was no tunnel leading further into the cave system. Even Serana had to regretfully confirm that we would have to go back and look for a missed tunnel somewhere back behind us. Maybe covered by the frostbite spider's webbing. I made a small, unhappy noise, partially lost under the sound of the rushing water below us, and turned to creep my way back along the bridge.

About halfway back, there was a creak, a snapping sound, and the bridge simply disintegrated beneath us. Neither of us had time to scream before we landed in a deep pool below us. Blessing my childhood love of swimming in the river near my village, I managed to immediately head for the surface again. I came up at the same time that Serana did. I was now deeply grateful for the Dawnguard armor I was wearing. It had been made out of hardened leather, rather than the elven metal set I had been wearing before. It was protected against becoming waterlogged, and didn't drag me down.

Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived, as the current seized me in an iron grip and dragged me into a tunnel before I could orient myself. We were swept rapidly downstream, but never in danger of drowning.

I had a split-second impression of three huge frostbite spiders hanging from the ceiling before they dropped below the edge of the water. I shrieked, "Waterfall!" before being sent over.

Bless every Aedra and Daedra in the book, the waterfall was only the height of a man. I then wanted to curse those self-same immortals as the spiders plunged into the freaking river with us! I dropped over another, short waterfall, only to be deposited on my feet, water spilling around me.

My pack immediately became a heavy burden on my back at the loss of buoyancy, and I hastily shrugged it off. The swiftly flowing river had hit a wide, rocky stream bed that spread the volume of water almost instantly into an ankle-deep stream.

I dragged out Dawnbreaker, blessing the immortals yet again that I still had my weapons, and lashed out at the nearest spider that had gone over with me.

Serana landed almost on top of me, and blasted another spider with flames. The two of us fought a desperate, but quick battle with the three spiders. The final spider collapsed with a thick squelch as Dawnbreaker nearly cleaved it in half. I made a face and went back to the cascading water to rinse off the bright green ichor.

The three spiders had quite a thing going for them; climb a wall, cross a ceiling and watch for unfortunate people or animals caught in the rushing river. The part where they had joined us had been such a short stint that the damn arachnids hadn't even been in danger of drowning, themselves. Over a small drop onto relatively dry feeding ground, and could then immediately attack the stunned, or even half-drowned victims. An easy peasy meal... right up until they found themselves fighting a fully armed vampire hunter and a magic-wielding vampire.

I heard a buzzing sound over the rushing water and turned to see Serana blasting another frostbite spider as it started to lower itself from the ceiling farther down the tunnel. Our fight had awakened more of the damn things. Three more disgusting, hairy, venom-spitting arachnids down, and another quick rinse off in the cascading water once we were sure we had gotten them all.

Our location was, blessedly, dimly lit by patches of glowing mushrooms that allowed us to see enough to fight off the spiders. Letting Serana take the lead, we moved downstream, hauling the waterlogged supplies as we searched for a place to hole up and dry off. Serana's keen vision spotted a large, almost perfectly circular hole in the wall, lined with thick cobwebs. We killed a frostbite spider the size of a carriage, but were disappointed to only find the remains of the spider's meals within. With no path to higher ground, we decided to make use of this pocket as a defensible camp, since the water was too shallow to reach inside.

With no need to converse, we set to work. Serana and I hauled the carcass out of the dead-end pocket, and then set about with torches and fire magic to burn away all the webbing. Clearing out the bones and desiccated body of at least one skeever, we unpacked our bags. I set a fire between ourselves and the entrance, and Serana lit it with magic. The wood hissed briefly before catching, and we set out our things to dry in the heat. We had only been traveling for half a day, and had already been forced to stop due to the unplanned dunking. Now we would have to wait. The foodstuffs had been protected by oiled canvas, but both of our sleep rolls had to be strung on a rope and hung to dry. Using these as a makeshift 'door' to our hidey hole, we both stripped out of our sodden clothes and armor, and dried ourselves as best we could.

Serana flushed a bright red as I stripped, not as reserved as she was.

I caught her flush and smiled kindly at her, "It's all right Serana, no one else will see us, and I will not besmirch your honor."

That got a small laugh out of her, and we were soon relaxing by the fire. I set myself much closer to the flames as my hunger for heat made the dunking and the cool air of the cave a miserable affair. We cooked a meal and ate in companionable silence, breaking our contemplation of the flames to check our sleep rolls for dryness and to squeeze excess water from the bottom as they hung.

We slept in shifts that night. The sleep rolls were still too damp to sleep in, and the fire was the only sense of comfort as I tried to doze. Neither of us got a comfortable night's sleep, as neither of us could help but awaken when the other added a piece of wood to the fire every hour.

The next morning, our sleep rolls were finally dry, though smelling of musky wood smoke as we repacked everything. After decamping, we wound our way downstream. We passed pillars, raised shelves, and patches of glowing mushrooms, before we finally came to the end of the stream. It passed under a cave wall, too low to squeeze our human-sized bodies under, but to our left, a large tunnel continued, blessedly marked by a brazier. The flames were gone, no longer attended by human hands, but we were able to follow the path as it began to climb.

At the top, we found a dead campfire, and the body of a Breton woman. Blood was everywhere, and her skin was cool when I touched her in vain hope. I tried to lift her a bit, to turn her over, and then sadly set her back down when I caught sight of the cause of her death... she had been eviscerated.

"This woman was…" Serana started, then trailed off before saying, "By Kynerath, why would anyone want to set up camp here?"

I murmured in agreement; the campsite had been just... set up in a place where several tunnels intersected. Only one shallow, dead-end cove provided any sort of defensible position for the occupants.

"I wonder what happened to her."

"Something big got her. Something with claws," I said, drawing my sword warily.

I was about to head down a tunnel, when I heard the sound of paper crumpling under my foot.

A tearstained, blood-spattered note revealed what we were up against:

.

Sister,

I know that you'll come to find me, but it will be too late. If you find this letter, get out of this forsaken cave as soon as possible. We were fools to think we could live so close to such creatures and live peacefully. I should've headed back to camp with you after we placed the torches down here.

I thought these trolls would be different, that they would somehow understand that we didn't want to hurt them. I am now cornered and it's only a matter of time before one of the trolls decides to finish me off. I hope it is a quick death.

Farewell, my dear sister.

.

Trolls. I shook my head. I still couldn't imagine Gunmar training the carnivorous creatures to be of use to the Dawnguard.

We explored a few of the tunnels, and found a doorway leading back to the very first frostbite spider we had encountered. The door had been concealed behind webbing as we had suspected. So at least we secured a way back out of this place.

Turning back, we followed the path as it descended. We soon found a blood trail leading back up toward the poor woman who had tried to escape. After several turns, the tunnel opened out into a large chamber with several pillars of rock, various ledges, and a large ankle-deep pool of water. Two trolls were wandering along near one wall, which I shot from a distance. At the feet of one of the creatures, was a pile of gory human bones; likely the brother of the unfortunate woman.

I could hardly believe that the man had been so foolishly naïve to think that feral, opportunistic predators would ever see humans as anything but potential meals. Gunmar said they were all right if they weren't hungry. But trolls kept where humans could feed them regularly would be more malleable than beasts in the wild where meals were separated by days, if not weeks. This pair had been wholly unprepared for the dangers of Skyrim's cave systems, and both of them had paid for it with their lives.

At the far end of the cave, I saw several broken stone pillars and what appeared to be the roof of a building, but with strange architecture. A stylized sun topped the roof. As we drew closer, I spotted a figure standing before an altar with an identical sun atop it, his hands raised in silent prayer.

We were not alone down here.