Chapter 47

Mull spends the next few days hiking through the Rift's aspen forest. After enduring the desolate slopes of the Throat of the World, these wooded lowlands are positively vibrant with the beginning of springtime. There are young deer grazing in the underbrush, squirrels jumping from branch to branch overhead, and at one point even a brown bear sitting by itself in a sunny glade. Insects buzz and frogs croak loudly in the bushes at dusk. It's pleasant, entirely uneventful, and a little boring without anybody to keep him company.

The biggest downside is that there isn't anyone to watch his back, which is problematic at night. He takes great care when choosing where to sleep, always ensuring he'll be properly sheltered and inconspicuous. He doesn't have the misfortune of running into anyone or anything dangerous.

Things become decidedly less boring on the morning of the third day.

He hasn't been doing a good job of keeping up with Mirmulnir's teachings in recent months, but soon after leaving Ivarstead the dead dragon started urging him to expand his senses and keep track of his surroundings. 'It simply would not do for my Qahnaarin to be slain in an ambush by one of our kindred or in other equally shameful circumstances.'

After Mirmulnir gives him a quick refresher on the Sight and how to use it, Mull starts habitually sinking into his subconsciousness while walking during the day and resting during the night, scanning the surrounding landscape for the hints of flickering warmth that represent the presence of fellow dragons. He thinks it's a bit strange that his mental cohabitant is suddenly making a big deal out of this ability, but he decides it can't hurt to follow his advice – this time.

That turns out to be the right choice. On the third day out from Ivarstead, he's approaching a broad south-to-west bend in the road when he delves back into the Sight and instantly notices something abnormal. He feels a hint of pulsating warmth brushing faintly against his soul from somewhere to the south – the exact same sensation that Mirmulnir taught him to worry about.

A dragon.

He freezes. No. Not just one.

There are two of them.

'Qahnaarin, I sense it too!'

He doesn't stop to think twice before turning and sprinting at full speed to the edge of the road. He slides for the last few feet before dropping into a shallow drainage ditch and rolling onto his stomach. He positions himself to peer across the top of the ditch while staying mostly hidden.

When nothing happens for the next minute, he closes his eyes and delves back into the Sight. The sensation of distant warmth hasn't changed in the slightest. If these are dragons, then they aren't coming any closer. Yet.

He opens his eyes. There's a broad hill on the opposite side of the road, that might offer a good vantage point. He wants to see what the situation looks like from a higher angle. There could be a dragon circling around somewhere.

He stands and carefully scans the road for signs of danger.

'This action is bold, but it carries risk,' Mirmulnir warns him. 'Exposing yourself to our kindred at this time might lead to your downfall. You are still much too weak.'

Mull ignores him as he dashes across the open road and dives back into cover on the far side. He quickly scales the hill while avoiding loud underbrush and using tree trunks as cover. Once he's near the summit, he emerges into a rocky area overlooking a shale cliffside that offers a decent view through a break in the trees.

He shields his eyes as he examines the horizon. Across the sea of verdant trees, he glimpses a cylindrical stone tower nestled at the head of a narrow valley in the Jerall Mountains far to the southeast. He gets a strong feeling deep in his gut that one of the dragons is there, which his Sight seems to confirm.

He feels the spiritual heat from the second dragon emanating from about the same distance away, only to the southwest instead. He sees an unbroken wall of snowy peaks in that direction, completely lacking landmarks like the tower.

He watches the tower and the mountains for a while, but they're too far away to make out any helpful details. He doesn't detect movement from either location.

Most importantly, there aren't any signs of dragons soaring through the sky. Wherever they are, they must be grounded for the time being.

'…What will you do?' Mirmulnir asks at length.

"I'm getting the hell out of here," Mull mutters. "No sense in waiting around for one of these dragons to show up. I'm not in the mood for making new friends today."

'So you will retreat without offering a challenge? Will you not even try to exchange tinvaak with our zeymah?'

"Not today. No sense in getting myself killed without a good reason." He ever-so-slowly crawls backwards, making sure he doesn't abruptly alter his silhouette in case he's being watched, and scrambles to his feet once he's well below the ridgeline.

Mirmulnir rumbles irritably but says nothing. After cautiously returning to the road, Mull redoubles his pace and hurries toward Steelhead Pass. The sooner he gets there, the happier he'll be. Encountering a dragon by himself in the middle of the wilderness would be a death sentence.

He only stops to take note of the tower's location by sketching a crude map of the surrounding area using a chunk of chalk and a repurposed sock. One day when he's stronger or has powerful allies to back him up, he'll be sure to return to the Rift and explore that ruined tower along with the southwestern mountains. The dragons might've made their roosts here for a specific reason. But until then, he'll treat this as a dangerous area to be avoided at all costs.

When he reaches Steelhead Pass, he's greeted by familiar eagle-headed spires soaring towards the sky on either side of the entrance. Their ancient regality is nothing short of incredible.

There's some flooding from snowy runoff inside the pass, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Seven Thousand Steps. The hardest part is picking his way through the waterlogged entrance of the pass without getting his feet soaked. A full-fledged river is flowing down from the encircling mountains and snaking between the guardian statues into the forest beyond – although 'river' is really giving it too much credit, as its banks are ill-defined and muddy. Still, it's enough to slow him down considerably.

Once he's escaped from the mire and ascended to a respectable elevation, Mull glances behind him out of habit. For the second time today, he freezes in place.

He isn't alone.

As he looks down over the lower section of the pass, a pair of distant figures enter from the same direction as him. Normally that wouldn't worry him since this is a major route through southern Skyrim and lots of people travel on Imperial roads at this time of year.

What piques his interest is the two figures' odd behavior. After monitoring them for a few minutes, he realizes they're actually tracing his exact footsteps. They navigate around the runoff river the same way he did, walk along the same belts of high ground, and leap to and from the same rocks. They occasionally stop and kneel in the mud as if searching for something. It quickly becomes obvious that they're tracking somebody, and Mull doesn't know who else that could be besides himself. He hasn't seen other travelers ahead of him for the entire day.

The dots are easy to connect. These two people seem to be tracking his movements, and Lynly Star-Sung talked about two men looking for him during winter in Ivarstead. What are the odds that these are the same people?

In his paranoid mind, they're extremely good odds.

They must've seen me in Ivarstead somewhere. Dammit. I wasn't careful enough. It could be a coincidence, but his instincts are screaming otherwise.

A shiver runs down his spine and his adrenaline spikes. There are very few things in this world more terrifying than being hunted down by fellow sentient beings – whether they be Men, Mer, Orcs, Khajiit, or something else. It's rightfully nerve-wracking to know that your pursuers are just as smart as you are and can see through whatever tricks you try to pull. I'm glad I sensed those dragons and picked up the pace. If I hadn't, these two might've caught up to me before I reached the pass. He instantly goes into flight or fight mode.

The first step of surviving a close pursuit is to put distance between yourself and the pursuers as quickly as possible. They might already know he's here – if you can see them, they can see you – and if that's the case then they could start actively chasing him at any moment. He needs to break contact immediately. Once that's done, he can worry about proper evasion.

He whirls around and starts running as fast as his legs can carry him, only slowing temporarily to unbuckle his sword from his belt and sling his beneath his knapsack across his back. Running with a long blade sheathed at your hip will leave a nasty bruise.

'Fleeing once more?' Mirmulnir sneers. 'Will you not confront these joorre who have frightened you so? Are you this much of a cowardly worm? You were wise to approach our kindred with caution in the lowlands, but this… this is detestable.'

Mull doesn't bother answering as he sprints down the cobbled road, pumping his arms and moderating his breathing to maintain his top speed without tiring himself out too quickly. In his experience, it's always a good idea to overestimate unidentified opponents. They could be master wizards or Dark Brotherhood assassins for all you know – and by the time you do know, you're dead and it's too late for regrets. He doesn't have enough faith in his Thu'um to overcome those kinds of enemies.

The pass twists and snakes upwards into the highlands at a steep incline that wreaks havoc on his calves and thighs. It's a miracle he doesn't pull a muscle or roll an ankle. He uses Whirlwind Sprint a few times to rapidly accelerate, but the Shout is really intended for covering short distances instantaneously and doesn't help much in the long run.

He doesn't stop to regain his bearings until several hours after sundown, when his legs are shaking so badly that he literally can't run anymore. He drains the final dregs of his waterskin and weakly collapses against a spruce tree, filling his lungs as deeply as he can with each inhale while fighting against the powerful urge to vomit. He feebly wipes the sweat from his face and diligently keeps watch on the road while he gathers his wits. There's no sign of anyone coming up behind him. Good.

Then comes step two – finding a good hide site. He needs to regain his strength before he can continue, and running headlong through the night would be an excellent way to crack open his skull by tripping on a rock.

He forces himself to his feet and staggers into a grove of dark conifers on a hillside north of the road, stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other even though his lungs feel like they're about to explode.

The shallow slope is overgrown with thorny bushes and terminates in a sheer stone cliff guarding its rear, exactly the kind of defensible geography he wants to be seeing. It only takes a few minutes of blindly searching through the undergrowth to find something he can work with. He stumbles across a thick bed of nettles about thirty yards from the road, does a quick reconnaissance to make sure it offers adequate concealment from all directions, and belly-crawls underneath the brambles. Once he's settled in, he rubs mud all over his face and covers his gear with leaves and pine needles to better hide his presence.

This position gives him decent line of sight to the road below through gaps in the vegetation, although the darkness makes it difficult to see much and he doesn't dare light a fire to rectify that. He lays on his side, props up his head with his hand, and hunkers down to keep watch until sunrise.

Sometime after the moons have begun descending from their zenith, he sees a few hazy shapes moving around near the edge of the road below. They're accompanied by noises that are clearly out of the ordinary for this time of night, but it's too far away for him to tell what's going on. All he knows is that they don't fit with the usual mosaic of nighttime sounds in these mountains.

A sudden shout from the road makes him jump, followed by the faint rasping of steel against leather. A second distant shout and some sort of animalistic hissing noise follow shortly after. Eerie red light flares in the shadows near the road, only to be immediately countered by a blindingly bright flash of gold. Mull grasps his sword and presses his cloak against his face to muffle his breathing while intently watching the lightshow below.

The loud voices and strobing lights of various colors continue for several minutes before dying away abruptly. Once they're gone, silence reigns again in the windy mountains. The only noises for the rest of the night are entirely natural – the humming of insects and the tinkling of flowing water.

When dawn breaks, he's tired but alive. He warily emerges from his hiding place into the pale greyness of dawn. He scouts around the vicinity and confirms he's still alone.

Before getting underway, he takes the risk of wasting half an hour to poke around the area where he saw lights and heard voices down by the road. What he finds there is thoroughly confusing.

There are large tracts of churned soil along the muddy roadside that look like dozens of footprints all jumbled up together, but someone raked over them with bundles of leaves to disfigure them. Whatever happened, there were definitely at least four individuals involved.

In addition, there's a patch of dirt that was heavily scorched by fire or magic. Given the lights he saw last night, he's willing to bet it was the second of those.

Finally, he discovers two large piles of greyish-purple ash that don't resemble anything he's seen before – certainly not natural ashes from a campfire. He pokes through them with a stick until he's satisfied they don't contain anything interesting.

The people who caused this strange mess are nowhere to be seen, whether they be his pursuers or somebody else. They had to have gone somewhere, but where? At the pace I was setting, those two couldn't have overtaken me unless they traveled straight through the middle of the night, which would've been a stupid thing to do in these mountains. Especially with the mud from the spring runoff making everything slippery.

Either the people following him were in fact that stupid and did keep going after nightfall, or… Or something happened to them when they reached this point.

He rubs his arms to stave off the early morning chill while peering through the gloom at the high crags and wooded ridges surrounding the pass. That's an unpleasant thought.

Now thoroughly spooked, he gives up his fruitless investigation and continues onwards at a steady run. There's a possibility, no matter how slight, that his pursuers could be using magical means to track him. He can't afford to rest for too long since they might still be hot on his trail.

Or they could have dogs. He fucking hates dogs. There's a pair of nasty scars on his left arm from the fangs of a tracking dog that once went for the kill. The involvement of hunting dogs always makes life more difficult than it needs to be.

With steps one and two of his grand survival strategy now completed, he commences step three – evasion. He considers taking the main road all the way to Helgen this time around, but now that he's focusing on evasion, his main priority is to stay away from major avenues of travel. That means Helgen isn't an option.

Back to Skybound Watch it is then. Wonderful. He's pretty sure Skybound Watch Pass is supposed to be some big Stormcloak smuggling secret, so he's hoping his pursuers won't know it exists. It's his most discrete option for getting back to Whiterun.

He gets back to running. No rest for the weary, as they say.

After a while, he realizes he's close to the site of the Stormcloak encampment belonging to that man called Sun-Killer. Driven by his curiosity and a desire to recruit allies to help him out of his predicament, he climbs a short ways up the slope on the north side of the road and takes a look around. He quickly finds the clearing that once housed the camp of rebels, but it seems to be uninhabited. The only signs that a large number of people once lived here are patches of dead grass trampled by many feet and the occasional chunk of firewood or rusty nail left rotting in the dirt.

He returns to the road disappointed and keeps jogging for another few uneventful hours. The only noteworthy event is a scattered rainstorm lasting a couple of hours on and off, worsening the conditions of the pass but not quite bad enough for him to take shelter.

As soon as the northern side of the pass opens up into a familiar forested valley, he hurries away from the road and delves into the fog-shrouded gloom of Orphan Rock Vale. Ribbons of mist are slithering through the dense foliage and standing stones of varying sizes suddenly appear from within the haze at irregular intervals, as if rising from the depths of Oblivion.

Oh, how happy he is to be here again.

Not really.

Instead of focusing on speed in this rough terrain, he begins 'step three – evasion' by hopping from rock to rock, backtracking over his own footsteps, and intentionally fording streams to throw off his pursuers. He won't claim to be the best woodsman who ever lived, but he's picked up a few things over the years. That's why he took the lead against the witches during his first foray into this vale.

From what he remembers, the site of the witches' camp was near the center of the vale – at the titular Rock, he supposes. He has zero desire to go back to that place, so he swings in a wide arc skirting the foothills of a low mountain range to the east. It's a longer and more circuitous route which should help throw off anyone who's tracking him. The thick vegetation gradually thins out as he climbs higher, although the same can't be said for the ever-present fog.

It takes well over half a day to pick his way through the vale's dense groves of wizened pine trees and prickly purple-flowered shrubs. Rivulets of burbling snowmelt form deep ruts in the earth as they stream down from the mountains, further hindering his progress but also giving him opportunity to hide his tracks.

He reaches his destination at the northernmost edge of the vale with a few hours to spare before nightfall. Skybound Watch Pass looks much the same as before. He glares up at the carved eagle heads protruding from the semicircular roof of the aboveground structure. The inanimate birds of prey seem to glare right back.

He doesn't remember much about the layout of this half of Skybound Watch, but it's a small enough place for him to find his way to the tunnel easily enough. The entrance to the underground pass is a pair of wrought-iron door set directly into the side of a sheer cliff beneath the main structure, where the mountainside falls away into an enormous valley with a single half-bridge edifice suspended above the misty abyss. He vaguely remembers having dreams about this overlook after his previous visit.

He places his palms atop the door's warmthless iron surface. There are countless undulating ridges and crevices chiseled into the iron beneath his fingertips, forming an intricate geometric pattern. He couldn't begin to make heads or tails of its meaning, nor would he particularly care. What he does care about is that they provide excellent traction for his hands.

With a labored breath, Mull firmly plants his boots and heaves. His arms quiver from the strain and the doors don't move an inch. If this is barricaded on the inside somehow, I'm going to be really upset. As he pauses to readjust his stance, it occurs to him that the Stormcloak smugglers might've returned and reoccupied this place. The thought never crossed his mind before, but he and his companions did kill off the Orphan Rock coven as well as the Frostbite spider that was living inside the pass itself. Perhaps the smugglers locked the door against future intruders. If that's the case, then I don't know what I'll do. My only choice will be to go all the way back though the vale. That's a possibility he doesn't want to consider.

Suddenly, he hears voices echoing in the ruins above him. "…that?"

"Did you…?"

"…thought I heard something."

"It must be…"

"…split up!"

He paces backwards, careful not to back up far enough to fall off the cliff, and looks up at the ledge twenty feet above him.

A few seconds later, a head pokes over the edge. It's a pale-skinned man with short dark hair and no beard.

"He's here!" the man barks. He raises a hand and a sphere of crackling sickly-green light forms in his palm.

Shit! Mull ducks and narrowly avoids a magical green projectile that whizzes two inches away from his skull. Static washes across his skin and his hair turns frizzy. He's been on the receiving end of this spell a few times before, unfortunately. Getting paralyzed by an Alteration mage is never a pleasant experience.

How did they find me?! Either these bastards are using clairvoyance spells or they're damn good trackers. He charges the door with his shoulder but bounces off ineffectually.

"He's below us! Find the stairs!" the newcomer yells. The overhanging design of the ledge prevents him from getting an angle on Mull as long as he stays close to the doors.

Mull shakes his head, bares his teeth, and pushes against the door with redoubled ferocity. He gasps as he strains his muscles to the point of pain, but he doesn't let up.

Something gives and the doors shift minutely. Ever so slowly, inch by inch, the doorway begins to crack open. A stream of dirty water seeps from the interior and starts pooling around his feet.

"Stay there! I'm headed down!"

"Gah!" With one final heave, Mull shoves the double doors far back enough to wedge his arms between them, keeping them from swinging closed again. More water washes across his boots, an inexorable torrent that threatens to disrupt his footing. He feels himself slipping and desperately scrambles to keep from faceplanting.

"Don't let him get away!"

Mull glances to the left just in time to see a man skid around a corner and start bounding down the stairs towards him. This one is fair-haired and doesn't seem to have any spells prepared, but he's brandishing a nasty-looking steel sword in his hands.

"Stop right there! Raise your hands and step away from the door now!"

Mull clambers forward on his hands and feet, powering through the deluge of water and diving bodily inside the tunnel. He twists around and kicks the doors shut behind him, which is much easier with the torrent of water on his side instead of working against him. Total darkness overtakes him as the light of the sun is abruptly cut off.

He feels around the doors with both hands and quickly finds a mechanism with an iron bar and a toothed gear. He's willing to bet it's some sort of lock.

Sweat pours down his face despite the cool subterranean temperature as he works without seeing, slowly but steadily struggling to understand the mechanism so he can keep his pursuers from following him inside.

After what seems like an eternity, he manages to engage the gear and hastily yanks the bar into place, locking the doors down tight. He gives an experimental shove and releases a ragged breath when the doors remain firmly closed. Success… thank Shor.

He turns around and leans against the door while wiping his forehead. There was a lot that could've gone wrong just now. For starters, the released stream of water could've washed him down the mountainside if he hadn't been ready for it. There wasn't much space between me and the cliff. Whooo boy.

He's startled by a loud impact against the doors from the other side. The impact repeats again and again, but eventually his pursuers give up when they realize its locked. Everything goes quiet.

Once his racing heartbeat is back under control, he fishes around for his flint and steel and ignites a torch by feel alone. He tucks a second unlit torch into the back of his belt for easy access in case the first one goes out unexpectedly.

He shifts his weight and winces. His boots are full of water and his trousers are soaked from the knees down. With no means of drying his clothes inside the tunnel, he'll be in for a miserable time.

He finally risks stepping away from the doors. The chamber is as dark as a moonless night beyond the range of his torch.

The scent of burning pitch is overpowered by the miasmic smell of stagnant mold. It's completely silent except for droplets of water dribbling from the ceiling at irregular intervals. Brown waterlines are marring the walls at about shin-high.

There must've been a lot of water in here. From seeing the state of this place, I think my theory about the Stormcloaks reoccupying the pass probably doesn't… hold much water. He groans internally. Dammit. That was terrible.

There's definitely more water in here than he remembers from before – enough to make him extremely concerned about the state of the lower levels. Even so, he forges ahead before he can give himself too much time to worry. This is risky and stupid, but the alternative is to go back outside and confront his pursuers head-on. It goes without saying that he isn't going to do that.

There's no need to worry, he assures himself. If this tunnel hasn't collapsed for gods-know how many hundreds of years, then what're the odds it would happen now?

Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.

He proceeds to a cobwebbed staircase plunging downwards into the earth, takes a deep breath, and descends into the deepest depths of Skybound Watch Pass.

At the lowest part of the tunnel, he encounters a pool of standing water rising up to his chest. There's no way to go around, so he grits his teeth and gets ready to ford the underground lake. He bundles his belongings together, hoists everything on top of his head along with the torch, and wades into the drowned passage. He moves carefully and tests each step before committing his weight. I'd better not get any of this water in my mouth. There might be a dead Frostbite spider floating in here somewhere. He shudders.

He reaches the other side without incident, dumps filthy water out of his equally filthy boots, and starts reorganizing his things. Just as he's almost finished, he unexpectedly hears noises behind him – loud clanging and rhythmic impacts that can only be footsteps.

He looks over his shoulder with trepidation. Red firelight is dancing further down the tunnel, but the source is out of sight.

Something distantly splashes in the water.

His stomach drops. Those men found a way inside!

He hurriedly pulls on his boots, grabs his torch, and throws caution to the wind as he starts running. Loud voices echo through the tunnel, bouncing off the walls.

He doesn't dare stop running as the tunnel turns steeper and steeper. Soon there are stairs carved into the living stone beneath his feet, beams of light shining faintly in the darkness through gaps in the ceiling, and leafy vines forming curtains along the walls and floor. He pounds to the top of one final circular staircase, sprints through a short stretch of open tunnel, and finally comes to a halt in front of another set of double doors. He's reached the exit.

Mull leans against the doors and they swing open surprisingly easily. It's dark and much colder outside, causing him to hesitate as he douses his torch and pulls his cloak more closely around his shoulders. His panic is superseded by caution. It isn't likely, but there could be more pursuers waiting for him on this side of the pass.

He silently but swiftly exits the tunnel and shuts the doors. He finds himself alone inside a crumbling stone tower with no roof, a place he remembers from last time. After double-checking the corners to make sure he really is alone, he crouches low to the floor and quickly moves across the tower to a doorway on the opposite side. Once there, he presses himself against the wall and cautiously peers outside.

The tower grounds are full of shifting shadows that the wan moonlight isn't strong enough to dispel. He blinks a few times as he eyesight adjusts from the light of his doused torch to the inky darkness.

At first he doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. Just rocks, snow, and icicles. He flexes his knees and rolls his shoulders as he gets ready to run out of the tower. He needs to escape from those men in the tunnel and it doesn't look like there are sentries lying in wait for him here.

But then he catches sight of peripheral movement near a cluster of frozen rocks. He pauses and focuses on the anomaly.

A ghostly figure seems to manifest from thin air in the middle of an icy clearing. It shimmers uncertainly in the gloom like a heat mirage or a magical illusion. He squints and looks closer.

The figure is a woman wearing a cloak of tattered rags that barely does anything to preserve her modesty. Her skin is the color of a suffocated corpse, as pale as snow with a hint of bluish-green, and her face is obscured by a shawl. As he watches, a dozen ghostly lights wink into existence and start dancing around her in complex patterns. She drifts aimlessly through the snow without her feet ever touching the ground. Clearly she isn't a regular human.

What in Shor's name is that? Is it a Nereid? A ghost? Whatever it is, it must've shown up sometime during the winter. First a giant Frostbite spider, then a hagraven, and now this thing. I hate these mountains.

Nereids are water spirits that can be found across western Tamriel including in his native Craglorn. He's never seen one in the flesh but he's heard plenty of stories about them over the years. They're sometimes called Water-Sprites or Water Nymphs by the Redguards and are regarded as unpredictable entities, being equally capable of befriending mortals or slaughtering them mercilessly. They wield powerful elemental water magic and can be extremely particular about their privacy, especially when they've taken up residence in specific locations like old ruins.

The issue with the Nereid theory is the lack of water. Nereids never venture far from a body of water and there are precisely zero in this valley. There's snow, sure, so maybe it's some kind of ice-element Nereid? But if it isn't, then…

Mirmulnir, you got any ideas?

After a few seconds of silence, the dead dragon grumbles and lethargically rouses from his slumber. 'Hmmm. How interesting. This creature is called a gaafmonah in our tongue, but I know not the name that your kind would use for them. These are dangerous beings and exceedingly ancient – so ancient that they were known to us in the time before the rebellion of our joor slaves and the disgraceful downfall of our race. I would advise extreme caution, Qahnaarin. You could benefit greatly from battling against this foe, however… you wouldn't emerge unscathed. True strength can only be gained through suffering. Are you prepared to suffer today?'

Mull goes completely still. Without fail, Mirmulnir always counsels him to fight his enemies head-on in order to prove his strength, but he didn't sound this cautious when they sensed the presence of those two dragons in the Rift a few days ago. If he's changing his tune now, then this mysterious apparition must be very powerful indeed.

He needs a strategy of some kind. He can't get across this clearing without attracting the ghostly creature's attention since there's no cover at all, not even a man-sized boulder or a tree stump. He also can't stay here until it wanders away since he's on a time crunch at the moment.

His best bet is to create a distraction. And luckily for him, he's got the perfect idea.

He shuffles into a dark corner and lies in wait. Sitting there and doing nothing while his pursuers are approaching is very stressful, but he forces himself to stay calm until they emerge from the tunnel. There are still only two of them.

They move as silently as wraiths as they exit the tunnel and creep into the tower, sticking to the shadows with only the occasional glint of moonlight-on-steel to betray their presence. Terror pricks at the back of Mull's neck, but he forces himself to remain motionless until the right moment.

"WULD!"

He's momentarily deafened by his own thunderous Voice as he shoots out of his hiding place with the speed of the wind. His pursuers yell in alarm as he clears the doorway and skids to a halt in the mushy snow outside.

"Wait! Stop right there!" one of the pursuers cries out.

"He's a godsdamn Tongue," the other growls. "Don't let him out of your sight!"

The ghostly woman stops and turns to look at Mull while her wisp-like attendants arrange themselves in a symmetrical formation around her.

"WULD!" He covers another fifteen yards of ground, not completely escaping from the ghostly woman's glade but still putting a lot of distance between himself and the tower.

His pursuers dash out of the tower and instantly halt when they see the ghost. "Oh holy fuck, Akatosh save us," the first man swears. "First vampires and now this?!"

"Get ready!" the second man exclaims. "That's a wispmother!"

A wispmother, huh? Never heard of 'em. But that man sounds like he just pissed his pants, so I'm taking the hint and getting the hell out of here.

He gathers himself and Shouts again. "WULD!" The soles of his boots skid easily across the stony ground as the wind lends supernatural power to his movements.

A ghastly cry echoes behind him and he risks looking over his shoulder. The wispmother's cowl falls away, revealing a delicate face with thin lips and pointed elven ears. She's lovely in a cold, distant sort of way.

And then her face seems to melt as it transforms into something utterly terrifying, more monster than mortal. It reminds him of a hagraven with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. The wispmother screeches like a little girl having her nails yanked out and one by one the wisps shoot after him with the mechanical precision of bolts being fired from a repeating crossbow. They glow menacingly with colorless flame.

"WULD!" The power of his Voice carries him out of danger, enabling him to outpace the wisps. His amulet of Talos burns hotly against his chest but he doesn't stop to wonder why.

A wave of unnatural frost surges from the wispmother with at least twice the speed of the wisps and almost overtakes him in an instant, coming so close that it freezes the back of his boots and trousers. He pulls ahead of the spell just in time to avoid becoming an ice statue.

He finally draws far enough away from the tower for the surrounding crags to obscure it from view. The wisps break off their pursuit and soar back towards their spectral mistress, leaving trails of scintillating white particles in their wake. He hears desperate shouting and the sounds of magic being unleashed, as well as more unearthly shrieking from the wispmother. He keeps running down the dusky alpine trail at full tilt while using the light of the moons to guide his way. It's dangerous to keep up this pace in the middle of the night but it's a risk he's willing to take.

"Sorry gentlemen," he grunts between labored breaths. "No hard feelings. It's your own fault for getting in too much of a hurry."

He keeps up a steady pace through the network of wooded valleys without stopping to rest until he reaches an overlook above the town of Riverwood. The White River is gleaming in the light of the moons and the town is a fiery constellation in the darkness. The smokey scent of firewood is comforting. It means he's returned to civilization.

He climbs onto a narrow ledge overgrown with snowberry bushes that gives him a good view of the trail in both directions, drapes a few leafy branches on top of himself along with his blanket, and settles down to doze fitfully for what little remains of the night.

He examines his amulet of Talos without finding any irregularities. He isn't sure why it felt so hot earlier, but he theorizes it could've been either because he was in mortal danger or because he used the Voice multiple times in succession. Clearly the item was imbued with a blessing that took effect somehow.

When he awakens, the sun is already high in the sky and there's no sign of his pursuers. He'd love nothing more than to light a fire for brewing some hot tea, but he forces himself to embark with cold tasteless rations to tie him over.

He reaches Riverwood by midday. He only stops to restock his provisions and purchase a cup of warm tea at a tavern before setting off for Whiterun along the banks of the river.

-x-

"By Shor, Kyne, and Talos, I never thought I'd be so happy to see this place."

It's been a long time since Mull had somewhere he called home, but this moment feels closer to a homecoming than anything he's experienced in recent memory. The city walls are a welcoming sight rather than troubling, as Imperial-style fortifications have often been for him in the past. Bandits and walls don't go well together.

Nothing looks out of the ordinary. No farms burnt to the ground, no damage to the fortification, nothing like that. It appears his worries about dragon attacks during the winter were unfounded.

But he can't stop to gawk. Those two stubborn assholes might still be on his tail if they survived the wispmother, so he needs to get inside the city and become one indistinguishable face among thousands before they catch up with him again.

He joins a crowd of farmers and traders seeking entry to the city and waits patiently for his turn to speak with the guardsmen at the gates. He doesn't look much different from everyone else with his soiled clothing, mud-smeared cheeks, and absolutely disgusting boots. He's just another hunter or rundown mercenary returning home after spending some time out in the sticks.

The guards had better believe me when I say I'm a Thane and show them my sword, he scowls. If they don't let me into the city, I swear I'll have 'em all skinned alive. I'm looking forward to sleeping in an actual bed again.

-x-

AN: I'll admit I'm not too confident with this chapter. None of us want the Dragonborn to be a pathetic weakling who runs away at the first sign of danger, but at the same time I was hoping to write something for this chapter that would be interesting and different. Eventually he'll be able to obliterate his enemies with a single whispered word, but not quite yet. Soon. Sooooon…

Let me know what you think, and thanks for all the feedback!