"She has been like this since the four of you arrived," Sharn said to Clesa while Naar sat nearby gazing at his reflection in a piece of polished metal as he tended to his excellent teeth.
"She was subdued for the entire journey," Clesa said, "she did not seem sad, but her mind was certainly elsewhere."
"She sat at her desk, wrote three words on a piece of parchment, and then stopped. She spent an hour staring out the window, which such a look on her face that I was certain the Rapture was upon her. As we speak she wanders the hills above our village with that same look, singing a tune in her native tongue."
"Perhaps it would save time if Sharn or Clesa simply asked Gwenyfe?" Naar suggested as he turned his head from left to right and viewed his reflected incisors.
"I did just that," Clesa replied as she continued to braid Sharn's coarse locks of dark hair. The Orsimer warrior had complimented her Redguard friend's hair on several occasions, and had finally taken Clesa up on her offer to at least attempt to duplicate some of the effect on her own head, "when she finally reappeared after almost a day's absence, in the company of the Companions Ria and Njada I asked her what she had been doing all that time. She turned as red as a beetroot, and simply said that she had been delayed."
"It was not connected to the two Companions that arrived with her?" Sharn asked.
"No, they arrived at the Hall together, and after a short period for them to rest their horses we all proceeded directly here, but hardly a word was spoken between them."
Gwenyfe's mind was certainly elsewhere as she rode north in company with Clesa, Ria and Njada; it was, in fact, still in the large bed, in the private room in the large house in the Pale, and on the man with whom she had shared it for an afternoon, an evening and the early portion of a morning. They had bathed and then shared a simple breakfast at the same table at which she had recounted the details of her attack, a breakfast that she interrupted twice when the urge to kiss Aric's lips overwhelmed her, her hunger for him unsated by their rapturous lovemaking.
They had fallen asleep after their first joining, their damp bodies still entangled. A soft rapping on the locked door woke them both an indeterminate time later when his Stewart called softly for her Thane to attend to an urgent matter.
"Ria and Njada ask permission to lodge here overnight," Aric said after he had returned to bed, his bare feet already cold from standing on the unprotected floor, "if you do not object, they will accompany you to the Silver Hand's village when you return tomorrow."
She had not objected, but then again he had not given her a great deal of time to do so before his hands and mouth began to erase all thoughts save one from her mind. They repeated the cycle twice more before the God of Sleep finally took firm hold of them, not to release them again until the sun had already shown its face to the world.
"Something they said when you spoke to them has upset you," she said to him after he had returned to their shared bedchamber. Her hair was still damp from the bath. He had given her a clean shift that belonged to one of his daughters, and it was all that she was wearing as she stood next to him where he sat on the edge of the bed. His own hair, which reached past his shoulders when it was not held in place by a bit of leather, was also damp; but his bath had been first, and he was still deep in conversation with the two Companions when Gwenyfe had returned from hers. The two women exchanged smiles with her as she passed them on her way back to the room, but no words were spoken. The three Companions continued their conversation after Gwenyfe had closed the door, and it was only then, when she could still hear their voices, though not the words they spoke, that she realized that they could not have failed to hear her last night when Aric's skills had drawn a series of sounds from her mouth.
"One of our brothers has gone off on an ill advised search. They are concerned for his state of mind. I will return to Whiterun to inquire, and offer my assistance. You three will ride north, and I will ride south. I freely admit that you will dominate my thoughts for the entirety of that journey."
Gwenyfe walked to the edge of the bed and used her hands to part Aric's legs so she could fit herself between them. She stood there for a moment, her left hand on his shoulder as her right hand came up to trace his face. She could look at him until the ending of the world and not grow tired of the sight.
"I love you. I realize that we hardly know one another, and you will think it a silly thing for me to say, that it is merely a girl's crush. But it fills my heart to bursting, and I feel that I will die if I do not say it."
"You are no girl, my precious jewel. You are an extraordinary woman. And I do not think it is the least bit silly. When your heart cries out to speak you displease the Divines if you stand in its way."
"If you continue to look at me in that manner neither of us will leave this room until the sun is about to set again," she said as she drew herself closer until she could feel him pressing against her.
"I would do so quite gladly, but duty calls each of us away; and both Mara and Dibella know that even love must give way to duty at times."
She could feel his body respond to her advances, and she knew that if she did not break the spell immediately it would drive her to madness.
"The Gods gave us the better portion of a day together," she said as she forced herself to disengage from her beautiful lover, "for that I owe them much. I may make a pilgrimage to a location we discovered, one that contains more shrines than I could easily count. I will stand before each one, and give a prayer of thanks."
"The Divines will hear your prayers of thanks no matter where you speak them, or think them; just as they will hear mine."
The sound of knocking on the bedroom door interrupted then.
"Father, you asked to be informed when the farm's wagon was loaded and ready to depart," said the voice of a young man, whose face Gwenyfe had still not seen.
"Thank you, Samuel. I will come in a moment."
The second man that Krev had stationed as a look out arrived approximately ten minutes after the first.
"He is here," the man said excitedly, though a portion of his breathless state was also due to the fact that he had run as fast as his legs would carry him to deliver the message the Skjor had arrived earlier that Krev had expected. But that was not a cause for concern; their preparations were completed, and an added day or two would not have improved them.
"Take your positions," he said to the ten men who stood around him. They had rehearsed their plan enough that everyone knew their role. But knowing your role in practice was very different from performing it in the presence of a man who could theoretically transform into the deadliest creature known to man.
But it was the nature of underground structures such as this that very little airflow was present. Stagnant air, contaminated with ancient dust and the fine particles of sand that worked their way through the gaps in the ceiling, were a common companion to anyone who visited locations of this sort. Krev was betting his life and the lives of his men that Skjor would not notice the nature of the dust that now filled the passageways between the entrance and the room where the bulk of the men waited, those men who were not already concealed in hidden alcoves, biding their time until the Companion had passed them by. Once he reached Krev any discovery on that topic would occur too late.
Very few torches lit the path that Skjor would take; just enough to guide him to his death, just enough for the marksman armed with crossbows and enchanted bolts with enchanted forged tips designed especially to pierce armor to see their target clearly.
Krev took one last look at the four men who positioned themselves so that they would not be in Skjor's immediate line of sight. Two of them were clearly shaking. All four of them wore faces painted with fear; and with good reason. But it was Krev who would be Skjor's primary target. It would be Krev sitting in the chair at the desk at the far end of the room, directly in front of Skjor as he entered in search of the absent Hylf and the imagined fragment. One last look, and then Krev turned and sat. He felt a calmness come over him as he looked at the open text in front of him.
Among the brave crew of the Krilot Lok were Roeth and Breff the Elder, the great Shield-brothers who often swapped spears, and their war-wives, Britte and Greyf, the fair child, Shield-sisters in their own right who could bring the face of terror across the ice-chilled seas. Together these four stared into the abyss of trees that formed the foul-smelling homeland of the snake-men. And as they were blessed Atmorans who feared no shore of Tamriel, they ventured forth to seek out their glories in the most dangerous...
He finally heard footsteps behind him as someone entered the room, but he did not deign to turn around. The hood of his cloak was still up, his head covered, but his ears were preternaturally attuned to any sound in the room.
"You were warned what would happen to you if I ever saw your face again," said the deep voice that Krev had never heard before, but which had been described as what it might sound like if a bear gained the power of speech.
"Well, you have still not seen my face yet," Krev said, his eyes still directed at the volume 24 of Songs of Return, "NOW!"
At the command two crossbow bolts, released from their prisons, flew the short distance required to strike Skjor in the back, punching through his armor before coming to rest in his chest. A gasp came from Skjor's mouth as his breath was driven out of him just as Krev stood and turned to look at him. Only then did Skjor realize that he had been deceived. It took him a moment longer to realize that something else was amiss when he attempted to transform but was unable.
Krev dropped his hood before he reached back and picked up the enchanted war hammer from its resting place on the desk just as the four men in the room converged upon Skjor. He could hear the footsteps of his remaining men as they ran down the corridor towards the room that now was the source of much noise.
"Now you have seen my face," Krev said as he stepped past the chair he had recently occupied and reared back with his weapon before bringing it forward with all his might.
"All I can tell you is I am glad to be farther away from that place," Siggyr said as he sat in his new home, finally taking up permanent residence. He had been speaking to Dralof, but his eyes kept drifting to Ria where she sat on Dralof's bed. Like Njada she wore little more than the sift that failed quite badly in covering her excellent figure as she sat with her legs folded under her, her right arm propped up on Njada's torso that was likewise supported by Dralof's legs.
"You are sure that is what you heard them say?" Ria asked.
"I am positive that they said Wolf Queen. I may only paraphrase what else was said, but I will swear before any God you choose to the accuracy of those two words."
"I know nothing of it," Dralof said, "and I do not know why her return should be a cause for concern. Is she some form of werewolf?"
"No," Ria said as Njada's fingers continued to trace the scar on Dralof's thigh, "it refers to Potema Septim. Aric and his daughters spoke of her recently. I believe they visited the cave of which you speak, Siggyr."
If the large red headed Nord had thought her beautiful at a distance of fifty paces, her barely clothed form, only a few feet away, his name upon her lips, affected him like a narcotic. It was several seconds before he realized that he was staring at her, his mouth slightly open.
"Whatever their mission there, it was at best only partially successful," he answered eventually to the three smiling faces that were completely aware of the spell that Siggyr was now under, and who it was that had cast it, "we had several requests to investigate what was happening there, and I do not doubt that Langely and Aenar will receive more in the coming days and weeks."
"Well, at any rate it is their problem now, not yours; though someone should inform the authorities in Solitude," Dralof said.
"They are aware. It was The Jarl herself that gave Aric the initial task of investigating, at least it was her Steward who did so," Njada said. Those were the first words she had spoken since Siggyr returned with all his worldly possessions in tow to finally live in the cottage that had been built specifically for him and Dralof.
"Mark my words - they will send for him again, and tell him that his task remains unfinished."
Ria stood and gave Njada a mischievous grin.
"As Dralof says, that is someone else's concern. For myself, I am off to the bath house. Would you escort me Siggyr? In case I am accosted on the way?"
Njada was barely able to turn her face and bury it in Dralof's side so that her hysterical laughter did not fill the entire village.
All thoughts of the Wolf Queen immediately evaporated from Siggyr's mind.
"I am entirely at your service, madam."
Their progress towards Driftshade Refuge was necessarily slow. Four of his men were dead, their bodies lying on the same floor, in the same room, as the man who had killed them. Of the remaining six, seven when Krev included himself in the counting, none of them had escaped unscathed. They were a column of eleven horses, but seven of those mounts carried nothing other than whatever equipment had belonged to its owner. Three of those owners were still alive, but so injured that they could not be trusted to keep to the saddle on their own, and so three of their mounts carried two men, both wounded in the frenzy that Krev would not soon forget. Skjor had not been able to transform, or they would all likely be dead, nothing more than a collection of scattered body parts. Even so, he had been a tough nut to crack. Two of Krev's men had died almost immediately but their places were quickly taken up by others; and it did not hurt their chances when two of the men still in the hall, taking stock of the situation in the room, took the short time it required to recock their crossbows and send two more shafts into the still deadly Companion. Even with four shafts firmly imbedded in his body he had continued to fight; though the only question that remained by then was how many of Krev's men would escort him into the next life. Krev wondered if Skjor would spend his time in Hircine's hunting grounds chasing those four men, or whether his prey would be more random.
Krev looked down as he felt blood continue to seep into his gauntlet from the wound on his arm. They had done the best they could at the time, and he did not wish to stop and ask one of the men, none of whom were in much better state than he was, to tend to it. He had also not taken the time needed to collect Skjor's head, preferring to be away from that place as quickly as possible. He had seen enough blood for one day, and did not need to add Skjor's head, tied in a bag and leaking blood all over his horse's flank, to the growing amount of blood spilled.