CHAPTER TEN

~...THOUGH YOU WILL NEVER USE THEM IN BATTLE ~

"You know," Solen grunted, as he painfully hauled himself over yet another rocky outcrop, "the way Isran said 'she's in the Reach', you'd think he'd assume we'd just be drawn to her in the wilds like a beast to water. Without any solid point of reference. As if the Reach isn't, y'know, the Reach."

And that, of course, meant hundreds of square miles of sheer cliffs, rocky highland, and eternal precipitation. There were few roads and a million secret trails, carved between the stones by rabbits and goats. It was a poor territory for horses, but Ember and Starfire dogged dutifully on, helped up the winding cliffs and around moss-swathed rocks by their equally determined riders.

"Yes, Solen, so you've said," Rayya grunted somewhere below, coaxing her mare along a cliff's edge. "Many times over this last month."

"Sorry, love." Solen reached the top of the plateau and straightened his aching back with a hiss. "Come on, buddy, almost there. Grass is always greener at the top, eh?"

Puffing and snorting, Ember half-wriggled half-sprang up the last bit of bank and finally stood on flattish ground, tossing his head and pawing the thick grass gratefully. Solen patted his lathered neck. "There you go, big guy. Don't worry, it'll be nosebag time soon."

A wolf howled somewhere in the mists. Great sheets of the silver stuff rolled gently by, leeching the world of colour until everything was dimly green or dimly grey. Even Solen's natural palette of brown and gold had washed out to something more greyish. Such was the Reach's effect, a realm of eternal valleys and canyons, shaped by ancient glaciers that had subsided from this part of the world long ago. He stood admiring what view the fog permitted him as Rayya and Starfire struggled up the last bit of the goat trail to join him on the ridge.

"Phew." The Redguard adjusted her headwrap. "There you go, old girl. Solen, check for stones, please?"

Solen peeled away from the view to procure the hoofpick from the saddlebags and start picking out the gravelly stones the climb had driven into the horses' hooves. Rayya unfolded their map against a mossy mound and retraced their route on paper.

"At this rate, we'll be at Bthardamz in two days," she said.

Solen dug the hoofpick into a gravelly stone lodged near the frog of Starfire's hoof and plucked it free. "You don't suppose Sorine already did her thing there and left? That'd be unfortunate, wouldn't it?"

"And if she did, you'd sniff out her trail, just like that rabbit we had for dinner last night. We've already searched the Dwarf-tower at Reachwind Eyrie and revisited Arkngthamz. Sorine doesn't have many places left to be, if she's really still scrapping around with bronze like Isran says."

"Imagine if she isn't. She found what she needed and got out before the Reachfolk got her." Soren slowed. "Or what if she's already been got? We're not in the neutral territories anymore."

"Were they ever truly neutral?" Rayya folded up the map. "We're two weeks overdue a Forsworn ambush. They can't not know we're wandering around the clan turfs, especially if Farrus thinks the treaty's over already."

"Farrus is Farrus. He's never liked the Reachfolk. No one's ever liked the Reachfolk."

"They don't exactly make a sympathetic case of themselves raiding and pillaging."

"Nor do the Nords for stealing their land and keeping them in poverty. All right, they're done." Solen straightened up and patted Ember's flank. "Let's find water and stop for lunch."

One point the Reach had in its favour was that it was always easy to find water. Solen merely had to press his ear against a stonebank to hear the susurration of water humming through rock, a trick he'd learned from the natives. A short ten-minute ride brought them to a shallow snowmelt stream rich and blue, carving its way between the hills and down a cluster of cliffs on its journey to the great Karth River below. Ember and Starfire gorged themselves happily on the lush grass while Rayya and Solen contented themselves with apples, salted meat, and jam biscuit.

A rock thrush fluttered onto a scraggly juniper bush beside them and fossicked among the stems for some of the tart purple berries. Eventually it paused and studied the travellers with beady black eyes. Solen smiled and whistled its two-note chirrup, attracting its attention. He whistled again, and it returned the call. Solen broke off a crumb of biscuit and flicked it its way.

"It's strange, though," Rayya said, watching the thrush snatch the offering and zoom off into the mist. "Normally you don't go three days in the Reach without finding some sign of Forsworn. Even after the Imperial treaty. We've been roaming the Reach for almost a fortnight."

"Well, maybe they just decided to take a year off from reaving and robbing."

"Solen, you know better. Between the two of us you're the only one who's lived among them."

Solen snorted. "If you'd call three weeks in that rotten Cidhna Mine 'living'." He certainly didn't. The mine shafts tight-packed with stinking bodies toiling in labour, the air hot and stagnant, no food for six straight days at a time, nothing but the oily glow of torches to serve as light. For someone who lived for the sun and the wind, it had been the most torturous experience of his life. Those had still been during his lycanthropy days, and Solen still looked back on those harrowing weeks toiling in the dirt and wondered how he hadn't lost his head and gone feral; the wolf within had hated the cage as dearly as he had. He hadn't gone underground for at least two straight months after he'd escaped, and to this day he still avoided Markarth whenever he could. Bad luck always seemed to find him there.

Rayya sensed his thoughts wandering and drew him back with a touch. "You did what you had to do to survive," she reminded him. "Nothing in there sheds a shadow on the man you are."

"I know." Solen scooped up her hand and kissed her fingers. "It wasn't all bad, you know. Otherwise I might've delayed even longer asking you for this."

"As if I'd have let you stay in there longer than a month. The Circle were ready to carve you right out of there. They weren't about to let their Harbinger stay rotting underground mining silver for those ghastly Silver-Bloods. Jarl Balgruuf was about to sanction trade with the Reach if his Thane wasn't promptly released."

"Nice to find out I was so appreciated, if anything." Solen's good mood wilted slightly. "Has it really been two months, Rayya?"

"Time moves fast on campaign." Rayya carved an apple with the point of her dagger and passed him a slice. "I know we've gotten ourselves involved with something much bigger than we originally thought, but I won't say this isn't nice."

"Nice?"

"We're out travelling again, just us and the beasts. Camping in the wilds, fighting off the odd bear and wolf pack. We'd be doing no differently in Hammerfell if we'd gone as intended."

"I suppose. Only they'd be welwa and harpies."

"Sep's scales, I do not miss those shrieking windbags."

"Nostibar and I got ambushed by some once during the caravan years. One of them shrieked in his ear. Burst an eardrum. We spent three months in Belkarth until he got his hearing back, and even then, he complained it was never the same. Maybe it was an excuse not to 'hear' me when it was his turn on dinner duty."

"Sounds like just another excuse for you to wear your helmet more often."

"Well, my poor old ears are attuned to the Thu'um now." Solen patted his helmet, which was presently planted at his feet. "If they can withstand the Greybeards greeting me in old dragon-verse, they can handle some mangy old bird-woman serenading my face."

Rayya chuckled and shook her head. "You ever wonder how he's doing? Nostibar?"

"All the time. Probably still tucked down in Satakalaam with his wife. Bet he has a whole score of little ones running around his ankles by now..."

"Please, Solen. We Redguards don't breed that voraciously."

"You want to know who does? Bosmer. Get this, the average Wood Elf family has ten children."

"You're pulling my leg."

"Not this time. One of my uncle's shipmates, Jegothar, he was from Valenwood. He had nine brothers and four sisters. They're certainly not lacking in size when it comes to family clans. What are the rations looking like?"

"Sad." Rayya patted their much-deflated haversacks. "We'll need to start foraging soon."

"I'll make a start. Where there's water, there's life." Solen had kept his ears trained on the rustling and the cries of the beasts throughout their rest. The Reach teemed with life. He pecked Rayya on the cheek and hopped up, unlooping Eldródr from around his shoulders. "I'll be back in an hour."

Solen crossed to where Ember stood gnawing at a thick tussock, and turned the big horse around to get at the saddlebags. He exchanged his sabatons and battle-blade for his hunting boots and the long war-bow and quiver belted to the saddle. The bow was pure dragonbone, and the finest Solen had ever made. It shot a little excessively at ninety pounds (one only needed thirty for hunting and seventy for chainmail) but it could send an arrow through a Dragon's belly-scales without trouble. The arrows were made of a similar material; anything less usually warped or shattered under the strain. With quiver on his hip and bow in hand he set off at a noiseless clip into the misty highland, following the stream northwest.

Solen kept to the strong-smelling heather as he foraged for tracks. All animals were drawn to water, and had to visit a source eventually. After a few minutes he picked up the fresh scat and tracks of rabbit and goat. The rabbit would serve as dinner, but the goat would be many days' worth of meat. They came small and hardy in the Reach, easily slung behind a saddle and quickly dressed down beside a fire. Solen set off after it, noting down landmarks to find his way back to the makeshift camp. Somewhere far off, a sabre cat yowled its eerie territorial cry.

After half an hour, by Solen's reckoning, he found his quarry. Three goats had hopped down into a dry sandy ravine, licking at the rocky slopes for salt. Solen knelt down and slowly, almost lazily, set an arrow to the bowstring, sighted an ideal target point behind the goat's skull, and drew. His sensitive eartips stung with the cold, alerting him to the subtle tug and pull of the breeze. Not that it mattered overmuch with such a short shot and such a strong bow, but Solen liked to do the thing properly.

The heather behind him shook, too violent of a rustle to have come from a spooked hare. Solen whipped around as the Forsworn burst out of hiding, a screaming mass of furs and muscle, his bare skin painted in stripes of red and white, and his face veiled in a headdress of gnarled antlers. Solen fired wildly – the arrow hissed under the warrior's arm – and then they collided. Meeting him head-on was like being hit with a boulder. Limbs locked, grappling and snarling, they went over the cliff together, tearing through heather and bouncing off juniper and shrubbery-coated slopes until they crashed in a jangling heap in the sandy ravine. The goats took off with panicked bleating.

Solen recovered first. He kicked his assailant off and found his feet, bow gripped tight and his hand on the quiver. The Forsworn sprang upright across from him, brandishing two primitive war-axes whetted from bone, flint, and plundered silver. He leered at his opponent's weapons. Not ideal, I know, Solen thought, forcing himself to relax on his feet, but far from useless. Aela had shown him a thing or two about fighting ranged in close quarters. Time to find out what he remembered.

The Reachfolk were hard, vicious fighters who worked themselves into savage frenzies if given an inch of advantage. The Forsworn sprinted in, axes hissing in a deadly spin. Solen dodged the first strike and leaned past the second, bow swinging. The strike bounced off the supple ivory, leaving no worse than a small scratch. Solen thrust into the backswing, punching his fist straight into the Forsworn's diaphragm. He was forced back a pace, but only a pace – solid brute, this one. Solen hooked the man's wrist in the bow's upper limb, where bowstring and ivory met, and twisted hard, wrenching him further off-balance as Solen's free hand tugged the war-axe from his grip.

The Forsworn snarled and dug in his heels. His trapped hand twisted, seized the bowstring, and dragged Solen back as the latter tried to disengage. His antlered skull bounced off Solen's unhelmed, knocking the Altmer backwards on his heels, blinking stars. The Reachman reclaimed his fallen axe and scrambled up the rocky ravine slopes, sure-footed as a goat, bearing down on Solen from above with a thudding laugh.

Solen gripped the bow by the point of its limb and hooked the Forsworn's ankles as he leapt. The taut bowstring strained, then held. He upended the Forsworn in his overhead leap and sent him sprawling to the ground. In the same swift motion Solen disentangled, stepped back, and reached for an arrow. The stunned Reachman didn't evade fast enough – the arrow ripped a bloody wound through his thigh, eliciting a pained grunt. The second arrow was cut clean out of the air – which was a recklessly impressive feat for anyone to do point-blank – and then the Forsworn was upright, and it was back to dodging one hacking swing after another.

Solen leaned hard as one strike skimmed his head, narrowly missing his ear. He took the bow in two hands and cracked it like a staff between the Forsworn's eyes. It was enough to interrupt momentum and give pause; Solen followed up with a hefty punch under the chin and released the Thu'um coiled tight in his throat. "FUS!" One Word sent the Reachman staggering. Solen shoulder-rammed him, the fighter's injured leg buckled, and he went down on his back in a cloud of dust. Solen had an arrow to the string and pulled taut against his cheek before the dust had settled, aimed straight for the Reachman's heaving chest. There was no way in all the realms of Aetherius that he would miss this shot, and both he and his opponent knew it.

That was when Solen noticed the hillsides moving. Hooting, cackling, leering. Appearing like magic from heather and stone, at least a score of Forsworn warriors climbed steadily down the slopes of the ravine. Well, we were overdue an ambush, weren't we?

They crowded on rocks and boulders and clung against short tough trees like spectators to a pit-sport, war-painted and hide-clad, ornamented in grinning skulls and claws and horns. The downed Reach warrior across from Solen sat upright, cackling right alongside them. Solen had no choice but to let him up. If he shot, the Forsworn would attack, and no archer in Nirn was fast enough to put arrows in all their eyeballs before they reached him. Even Shouts of Slow Time and Elemental Fury had their limits.

Solen lowered his bow and slackened the string, and the Reachmen hooted and jeered, shaking their weapons. His dual-axed opponent barked a quick, rough laugh – until he heard the elf draw a swift, sharp breath. "RAAN MIR TAH!"

Collectively the Forsworn flinched as the world briefly wavered in a pulse of watery gold. When seconds passed and nothing happened, they resumed their leering. Put arrows to their bows, licked the edges of their axes and blades, prepared to leap down into the ravine. Right until the first wolf lunged out of the mist and mashed its jaws at the nearest heads and hands, sending the Forsworn scrambling back, yelping in surprise and terror.

More arrived, growling in challenge, prowling through the highland mist. Direwolves that stood as high as a man at the shoulder. Sabre cats rumbling like avalanches, lips peeled back to reveal the full length of their fangs. Cave bears scarred and grizzled, scratching furrows with their long black claws. Even mountain goats and one great brown elk bull appeared to stand shoulder to shoulder with their natural predators, tossing their horns and antlers. They filled Solen's side of the ravine.

The Reach was full of life. Solen had listened to their calls all day. Now he'd called them to him. He raised his bow again, the arrow pulled taut. The Reachmen brandished their weapons, their leering jeers replaced with snarling whoops as they worked themselves to frenzy. The panting, puffing beasts tensed, attuned to Solen's every move. One arrow was all it'd take.

"All right, that'll do." A single Forsworn slid halfway down the slope and crouched on a spur of rock above Solen's head. "We've seen enough."

"Pity," the axe-wielding warrior growled. "I wanted to see what happened next."

Solen didn't lower the bow until he peered beneath the red and black warpaint of the first speaker to find a familiar face. "Uraccen?"

"That's right. Surprised you didn't recognize Borkul right away." The Reachman nodded to Solen's opponent, who removed his headdress to reveal he was no Reachman at all, but another old acquaintance, the meaty Orc bouncer of Madanach's cell in Cidhna Mine.

"Borkul," Solen said, slumping where he stood. Now he saw the green tint to his adversary's skin beneath the bold white and red strokes of his body paint. "Couldn't you have just come and said hello like a normal person?" As if Borkul the Beast, a confessed murderer and bandit-turned-Forsworn, was anything normal.

"No." Borkul grinned and rested one axe over his shoulder. "Couldn't pass up the chance at real battle with you, toothpick. Had to see if you were really a killer."

"Let me go get my greatsword and I'll give you a real battle."

"Bah. Sword-swingers bore me. You know what I wanted to see."

"I don't shift anymore. Got rid of it."

"Damn. Giving up raw power like that? Bloody waste."

Solen jerked his chin at the snarling menagerie behind him. "I'm not exactly without. Where's Rayya?"

"Your girl's all right," said Uraccen coolly. "It's your arm we wanted to test. Had to make sure you hadn't gotten soft living the Imperial life before Madanach lays eye on you again."

"Yeah, of course you did." Solen relaxed his bow and dispelled the Shout's influence over the animals behind him. They sprang away into the wilderness in the blink of an eye. "So what are we now, your prisoners?"

"Prisoners? Hah." Borkul's skull-painted face stretched in a grin. "Maybe another time, toothpick. Tonight, you're our guests. King's orders."

Madanach had once been called the King in Rags. Now there was not a rag to be seen. He wore the war-dress of a chieftain among chieftains, ivory and sabre-cat hide and scavenged metal scrap, ornamented with raven skulls and feathers, and crowned with the antlers of a boreal deer. Four years living off the lands of his ancestors, reunifying the scattered Reach clans, had renewed and transformed him from a ragged, wild-eyed prisoner of the Nords to a fully-fleshed warrior restored to his prime. But he had lost none of his savage humour, manic energy, or bristling moustache, and greeted Solen and Rayya with such.

His stronghold was Druadach Redoubt, a hidden subterranean cavern among the northern mountains of the Reach kept wonderfully temperate by natural hot springs. There his clan had grown, from his fellow escapees from Cidhna Mine to a thriving horde. Tents were pitched on every terrace, milk-goats bleated in their pens, and the industrious Reachfolk kept themselves busy tanning hides, sorting stolen loot, and testing each other in various forms of combat. The cavern hummed with the voices of men and women and the shrieking of children at play. Madanach overlooked them all from the highest point of the cavern where he and his closest advisors had pitched their tents and kept a bonfire blazing day and night. Solen had a good view of the thriving Reachfolk settlement as he sat weaving a fresh bowstring. He hoped the horses weren't too unsettled by the Reachfolk's favoured décor of spiked heads, of beasts and men alike.

"Like it?" Madanach's wolflike growl reattracted Solen's attention. "Count yourselves lucky. You two are the only outsiders we'll ever let lay eye on this place. And you two are the first we'll kill if anyone else ever finds out about it."

Rayya wore a rather fixed smile as she picked cautiously her haunch of roasted goat. "We'll be certain to keep that in mind, King Madanach."

Madanach chuckled and leaned close, his pale eyes intense and unblinking. "I'd reckon you'd take half my clan with me if I set them on you. Those are some mighty fine bone-lickers you have."

Solen looked up, but he needn't have worried. Rayya remembered. She straightened up in one smooth movement, flourished the scimitar around her wrist, and brought the Skyforge-edged blade up against Madanach's neck. "Care for a demonstration?"

Pulling a weapon on an authoritative figure at the drop of a hat was seen as a threat and an insult, for most. Among the Reachfolk, it displayed a willingness and readiness to fight, anyone and anything, and garnered only respect. Madanach's laughter cracked the air like a whip. "You've taught your woman well, Solen."

"A conversation with Forsworn isn't one without involving a death threat." Solen neatly looped and knotted the end of the woven bowstring. "It's been a while, Madanach."

"A year, if I'm not mistaken. Uraccen hardly recognized you without those Imperial thinbloods cringing in your shadow. In fact, he told me you no longer bear the Hunt-Lord's blessing." At Solen's nod, Madanach's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. "Why? Any one of my warriors would slaughter a village for Old Elk-Eye's favour."

"Making me an honorary Reachman doesn't mean I worship the Daedra. I saw where I wanted my spirit to end. Hircine's side isn't it."

"In Sovngarde? Drinking mead with Nords? Bah." Madanach spat. "I ought to send you there right now. A man of your power, spurning the spirits' blessings."

Solen rested his hand on Eldródr's channel. "I make my own blessings. And I'll carve them into the backside of any Reachman that says otherwise."

Madanach chuckled with rusty laughter. "Now that, I can respect."

Solen smiled cautiously. Always best to stay cautious around the volatile Forsworn. "How are they all? The old gang."

"Uraccen and Borkul still breathe, as you know. Duach died well, two winters back. Braig's my eyes and ears in the Black-Moon clan, further west. Odvan's gone north with the Cinder-Hearts. Picked out a woman, earned some whelps."

"Not unlike yourself," Solen noted, as a small horde of children scampered through their sitting place.

Madanach plucked one of the boys from the others and set him giggling on his knee. "Life is good beneath the old ways," he said, ruffling the lad's hair with affection. He couldn't be older than three or four. "You ought to consider it, my beast. You and your woman are strong. Your whelps would be, too."

Both Solen and Rayya shared a stunned glance and turned away, flustered. "It's – it's not something that's ever – come up," Rayya managed.

"Oh, I doubt that," said Madanach slyly.

Which was correct – it'd definitely come up, once or twice, because Skyrim was a dangerous land in multiple extremes, and everyone knew if you were going to have a family you'd better hurry up and get on with it. And because people had asked. Rayya didn't care for it because she had no intention to watch her belly grow fat and her sword-arm soft. Solen didn't care for it because the whole concept just depressed him. He was forty-six, to begin with, and most young Elves didn't care for family burdens until the vigour of youth had faded – and that could take centuries. There was that matter, too. If he wasn't killed, he'd live for hundreds of years. His family definitely wouldn't. Rayya was human; their children would be too. Watching his children, then their children, grow old and die, over and over, while he remained... He'd accept that with the Companions, but not his own flesh and blood.

"We don't plan to," Solen said finally.

"We don't plan for a lot of things," said Madanach, "but Lorkh knows they happen all the same." For the first time, a shadow clung to his words. "Best you be ready for them when they do."

Solen recalled Farrus's unhappy rumblings from Fort Amol, and prodded carefully, "Has something happened with the treaty? Rayya and I have never found the hills so quiet. When we do find you, you're axes out and battle-ready. Well, more than usual."

"You think that's to do with that Imperial nonsense?" Madanach snapped his fingers at Kaie, the Reachwoman who attended him, and she slipped away on some unspoken errand. "Think again. But you first, my wild beast. What's brought the two of you disturbing my stones and soil?"

As succinctly as he could, Solen outlined the Dawnguard and their struggle against the Volkihar clan. He omitted the Elder Scroll – the less that was talked about, the better for everyone. Madanach's scowl etched deeper in his weathered face, and eventually he shifted his little son off his knee and watched the lad scamper off into the lower caverns. "You've had the same problem," Solen guessed, spotting the perilous glint in Madanach's eyes. "Vampire attacks."

"Near every night since autumn." Madanach brandished a necklace of lean, pointed fangs. "Always stringing a few more on. They go after our elders and mothers and little ones. Cravens."

"But you worship Daedra, don't you?" Rayya asked. "And vampires are –"

"The old ones are teachers. Cruel teachers, but good ones. Doesn't mean we like their lessons." Madanach whipped out a broad flint knife and stabbed it ferociously into the ground. "We've never cared for their kind. We care even less with our people's blood in their guts. Their mistake. Nothing brings the free clans of the Reach together faster than a common enemy. That's how we became the Forsworn at all."

"Wasn't that you?" Rayya asked. "You started the rebellion. You're their King."

Madanach barked with wild laughter. "You call me King," he grinned, "and the Imperials call me King. But the blood of the Reach knows better, harrier. We do as we please, and they follow me as long as they care to." His wild, pale eyes fixed on Solen. "You still haven't said why you're here in my land, my beast."

"We're looking for someone. A Breton woman, Sorine Jurard. She should be somewhere in the Reach, puzzling with the Dwarves." Solen heaved a sigh and faced Madanach. "Knowing your regard to outsiders, I really hope I'm not about to hear we're here in vain."

Madanach chuckled briefly, but shook his head. "You aren't. I know the woman. My scouts report her puttering round the old dead stone, no harm to us. Old Elk-Eye knows she'll be prey soon enough. We all will."

Solen straightened in his seat. "Odd thing for a Reachman to say."

"Oh, you want to hear odd?" Madanach arched his bristling brows. "You asked why our hills are quiet, why my people didn't welcome you sooner. I'll tell you why, harriers. The Day of Black Sun."

"The what?"

Madanach shifted forward, his eyes unusually severe and still. "The clan witches have had the same portents, all of 'em, at once, night after night, since early Rain's Hand. Now – I'm no witch, or witchman. I won't even pretend to understand their bond with the spirits. But even a thinblood outsider could see it ain't normal for every witch in the Reach to receive the same vision, every single night. And we'd all be fools to ignore such clear sign from the Spirit Queen."

"Who?" Rayya asked.

"Namira," Solen translated, and then to Madanach, "Early Rain's Hand, you said?" It can't be coincidence.

"I did. What do you know about this, my beast?"

Madanach was a sharp one. Solen shared a glance with Rayya, then carefully explained about the Dawnguard's mission in the Pale – how the vampires had stolen a powerful artifact from them from around that moment in the calendar. "Tell me more about your vision," Solen said, "this Day of Black Sun."

"No," said Madanach, turned, and nodded. "I'll let Elaidh tell you herself."

Kaie returned, leading a Reachwoman clad as imposingly – arguably, even more imposingly – as Madanach himself. When the ferocious leader of the Forsworn rebellion deferred at once to her presence, Solen knew she must be a Reach witch, soothsayer and voice of the Reachfolk's old gods, deeply revered and respected by the clans. She wore an imposing headdress of antlers, bird skulls and feathers, which almost completely obscured her face, leaving only her mouth visible.

"Your eyes," said Rayya cautiously, noticing the arrangement. "Are you blind?"

"My eyes belong to the Spirit Queen alone," the witch answered.

Rayya decided not to press further. Eyes were favoured in Reach rituals for reasons better left unpursued. "So, what's this Day of Black Sun? What's driving your people out of the Reach?"

"Not out," Madanach growled, "only away, to secret corners of our land where what's coming won't find us. You and your mate won't be privy to them, harrier. These are secrets for servants of the old gods alone."

"The Black Sun, then," Solen prompted. "We don't plan on running."

"It is a day that dawns in darkness." Elaidh's voice had grown eerie, tranquil; it sent shivers down Solen's spine. "When Dark and Light become one, and the world-music ends. Flame goes cold. Birds weave lies. Dragons fall silenced from the sky. There will be no stars, no moons, only the hunt of the bloodcursed blessed. I have heard their screams as they die alone."

"The bloodcursed?" Solen asked hopefully.

"Mortals." Elaidh turned to face him. The curtain of black feathers across her face looked almost like tears against her bone-white cheeks. "Such is the vision the old ones bring, with the rise of every dawn. They have never spoken so loud."

"But this is all just... theory, isn't it? It's an oracle, a warning – to change the fate of it –"

"Open your ears, hunter. The world is full of whispers, for those with the patience to hear. Even you cannot deny the signs, Dragonborn. The Day of Black Sun is the day the reign of mortalkind ends."

It was exactly the sort of prophetic doom Solen and Rayya had hoped not to hear – in Solen's case, ever again. They shared a sharp look. "When will the Day happen?" Solen demanded. "How do we stop it?"

Elaidh turned away. "That is all the Spirit Queen has shared with her daughters."

"That's all the clans need to unite," said Madanach, his voice low and strange.

"Against the Nords?" Rayya's hand settled on her weapon. "Against Skyrim?"

"Against nothing." Madanach bared his teeth. "We talked of war, and every witch spoke against it. Every single one. Even those from the clans that would slay each other than share the same meat."

Solen spoke frankly. "The Imperials think you're massing to break the treaty. Resume the war on Markarth and the Nords."

"Thinblood lies." Madanach spat. "The Black Sun will target the cities of stone, feast on the fat of the Nords. We will endure and scavenge the remains, as the old gods demand, as we've always done. We're not going to war. We're going to survive."

Solen stared at the ground. It took a lot to spook Reachfolk. A damned lot.

"Until then," Madanach continued, "you tell your Imperial masters they don't need to fear for their precious scratchings. The old ones have named us all hares in the great hunt to come."

"I'll do that," Solen muttered. If there was any truth to these visions, the last thing Skyrim needed was misdirection against the wrong enemy. "I'll pass this... Black Sun warning along. The Dawnguard are vampire hunters, so stopping anything that gives the bloodsuckers an edge on mortals will be right up their alley. Speaking of, that woman I mentioned? We need to find her. Quick."

"You'll find her," Madanach promised, "and you'll get her out of the Reach. Black Sun and bloodsuckers be damned, these are still our lands, and we'll put pay to anyone who says otherwise, as we did those silver-licking dogs in Markarth."

The following morning, with depleted haversacks refreshed, Solen and Rayya were escorted northwest of the Redoubt by a small party of Forsworn, Uraccen and Borkul among them. The Reachfolk rode mountain ponies, short shaggy creatures that were almost as sure-footed as goats, and covered the rocky terrain with ease. Ember and Starfire, as big as Skyrim-bred destriers ever got, were hard-pressed to keep up with their nimble counterparts.

Solen rode side by side with Uraccen and Borkul, and as the misty highland crept by, talk turned to the only topic worth discussing. "Course I don't believe in this Black Sun nonsense, toothpick," said Borkul. "I don't care for magic. Care even less for prophecies. But I've seen what those women can do with their magic, so when the Forsworn sit up and pay attention, you do the same."

"The clans have their differences," said Uraccen, "but it's got the witches distressed. Every clan knows you don't distress your witches. Might as well be cutting your ears from the old ones, and then where are we? The shallow rock-grubbing outlaws the Nords see us as."

"Just makes 'em soft. Easy meat for carving." Borkul grinned. "This'll blow over in a season. Sun or no sun, there's killing to be done."

It was remarkable how much of a difference their guides made; after weeks of wandering in circles, they all but flew to their destination. Around midmorning they landed upon another Reach valley, quite flat and sprawling as Reach valleys went. Through the mists, the tottering remnants of some old unnamed Dwarven structure was visible, distinctive from the grey rock by their tarnished markings of bronze. Raeling, the party's scout and pathfinder, ghosted out of the rocks as they arrived. "Your woman's there," she told Solen and Rayya. "Fussing around after some sort of satchel." To Uraccen she said, "Saw smoke as well, just up the hill. Should have a sniff around."

"Probably the Ramskulls," Uraccen sighed. "The Wolf-Charmer knows they're overdue by two days. All right. We part ways here, Solen." His cool eyes narrowed. "I'd say the old gods keep you, but..."

"...I never did," Solen finished. "Call it a bad bargain. Good hunting."

He and Rayya trotted upstream while the Reachfolk followed Raeling up the rocky hillside and out of sight. They found a red-haired Breton woman hunched over a Dwarven canister beneath a monolithic Dwemer ruin. Once they reassured her that they weren't here to rob her or disrupt her research, introductions were made. To neither traveller's great surprise, Sorine was surprised and reluctant to hear why they were here. "Isran?" she repeated, bouncing a spanner in her hand. "You're friends with Isran?"

"Of course not," said Solen, "have you met the man? But he needs your help."

"Hah!" said Sorine. "That can't be right. See, the last time we spoke, he made it exceedingly clear –" She broke off in alarm and pointed over Rayya's shoulder. "Forsworn! Watch out!"

Uraccen and Borkul were bouncing their mountain mares over the rocks back towards them. "They forget something?" Rayya asked.

"A farewell with attempted murder, probably," Solen shrugged. Sorine stared incredulously between them, and hid behind their horses as the two Forsworn pulled up short.

"There's a camp up there," Uraccen said, "full of outsiders."

"Imperial?" Solen guessed.

"Better. Nords." Borkul's dark eyes glittered with bloodlust. "Wiped out the Ramskulls during the night."

"How many?"

"More than us," said Uraccen, "and there's plenty to go round." Meaning: the Reachfolk were outnumbered, and they knew full well that Solen could even the odds.

"Then head back to the Redoubt," said Solen. "Gather your warriors for a little hunting."

Thhwip! An arrow whistled into Borkul's shoulder with a meaty thud. "Why wait?" said the Orc.

Solen sighed and reached for his helmet. "Not having much luck with archers lately, are you?"

"Solen," Rayya started, as the hillsides exploded with warhorns and spinechilling war-cries. Then she caught sight of the tattered blue cloaks appearing over the mountain slope. "Those idiots really pick their moments, don't they?" she snapped, reaching for her scimitars.

Solen stopped her. "No, Rayya. Get Sorine out of here. This won't be long."

Rayya huffed and extinguished the battlefire aglow in her eyes. "As you say, my Thane." Which these days she only said when he said something sensible that she didn't like. Solen winked his gold eye at her and turned Ember up the slope.

"Follow the river," Uraccen advised, swinging his horse's head around. "They all lead to the Karth." Then the three riders were galloping off up the hill towards the distant swarm.

"Forsworn," Sorine repeated faintly. "Those were Forsworn – and you – you are?"

"We're acquaintances," Rayya told her. "We're leaving. Get your things and get on the horse."

"But I can't just abandon what I've got going on here!" Sorine exclaimed, more indignant than frightened, in the usual fashion of scholars disturbed from their pursuits. "I'm at a critical point in my research! I need at least one Dwarven gyro, and some blasted mudcrab's made off with my –"

"Really?" Rayya said, exasperated. "You really want to do this now?"

An arrow whistled above Sorine's head and shattered on the monument behind her. "On second thought," Sorine said, "I think I can make do with what I have."

"Good answer."

Within ten seconds of scrambling throughout her workstation, scraping everything that came to hand into her backpack, Sorine was packed and being hauled onto Starfire's back. "Hup, hup!" Rayya barked, touching her heels to Starfire's flanks, and the black mare set off at a swift clip along the river's edge. Sorine peered back anxiously as the Dwemer ruins were swallowed in the fog. "What about that High Elf?"

"He'll handle himself," said Rayya, then half to herself added, "He'd better."

The Reach valleys behind them echoed with the thunderclap-like crash of the Thu'um. Sorine jumped in the saddle. Rayya didn't have to wonder what Shout Solen had used for long; the cacophony of battle behind them suddenly doubled with a chorus of sabre cat screams and wolf howls. He did always say the Reach was full of life. "So," Rayya began, trying to divert her passenger's attention from the probable bloodbath behind them, "how much do you know about the vampire menace?"

"Vampires? Really?" Sorine sounded more annoyed than concerned. "I suppose now he remembers that I proposed no less than three different scenarios that involved vampires overrunning the population. I wonder if he also remembers the very hurtful things he said to me before I left. Or how exceedingly clear he was the last time we spoke that he had no interest in my help."

"Hold on, you expected this?" Rayya said, twisting around in the saddle. "The Day of Black Sun?"

"The day of what? Well, I didn't exactly name my predictions –"

"The vampires' leader got his hands on an Elder Scroll. For all we know, it's real and it's coming."

"They have an Elder Scroll?! Well, I – that's something I never – I guess that's why Isran changed his mind. By Stendarr, this really has potential to turn into an apocalypse! A once-in-an-Era event!"

Rayya sighed and set her jaw. "If only such things were."

[A/N]: After playing through the Reach storyline in ESO, where their culture is presented with greater depth and dignity than what you see in Skyrim, I definitely ended up seeing the Forsworn cause differently and couldn't resist drizzling a bit of it into the tale. I hope you enjoyed it!