[A/N]: Originally this was meant to be one chapter, but it evolved into a bit of a monster so I had to divvy it up into two parts. The not-so-distant Act 3 is a bit notorious for such chapters... Anyway! On we go:

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

~THE SEVENTY-NINTH STRIKE~

PART ONE

"Did I ever tell you," said Solen breathlessly, "that Hearthfire is my least favourite month for hunting?"

Irileth threw herself against the pine trunk alongside him and pulled hair from her eyes. "And why, pray tell, is that?"

The pine forest around them erupted in a surge of roiling dragonfire and a symphony of exploding sap. "No reason," said Solen, as the shadow came and went above their heads.

The Dragon gave a baleful roar, resounding above the scorching pit it had made of the pine grove. The sturdy old pine that had sheltered them groaned dangerously, embers sizzling in its peeling bark. Solen and Irileth darted for the sturdier cover of an old heap of boulders. "He's been tight on our arses half an hour, Solen," the Dunmer snapped as she primed her crossbow. "He's not going away."

Solen glimpsed a flash of patterned black-and-white wings through what remained of the forest canopy. "Just stay in cover," he said, stringing his bow in one swift motion. "Ancients are too big to land in such dense forest. So long as we stay under the branches and keep moving out of the clearings he's making –"

"I heard you the first time!" The Dragon's bellow almost drowned Irileth's retort. Wings stormed over their heads again. Following their ears, the two elves straightened, launching arrow and bolt together. The two projectiles vanished into the smoke, and the ear-grating bellows shrilled with a squeak of pain. "One of them hit, at least," Irileth panted, as they ducked down again.

"Hooray," Solen grunted, as they dashed again for greener forest. Nevermind that Ancient Dragon scales were notoriously hard on their topsides, and their sheer size made even arrows peppering their softer underbellies feel no worse than flea bites. They raced down the forest slope, trying not to bounce too hard off tree trunks.

"And how long," growled Irileth, "are we meant to keep running away like milk-drinking n'wahs?"

"Not sure," said Solen, as they flung themselves into a mossy ditch. "Ten minutes ago he should've gotten bored of us and gone after easier prey. His tantrums should've spooked a whole herd out of hiding by now."

The thick fern undergrowth suddenly thrashed above the ditch – Solen reached for his sword, then relaxed as Aela slid neatly down beside them. "That's not going to happen," she said, as the concussive pounding of wings swelled in their ears. "The undergrowth's too thick."

A firestorm erupted over their heads, showering them with smouldering pine needles and a spray of charred bark. "Well, it was too thick," Aela amended, brushing embers off her mantle.

"And that means?" Irileth grunted.

"There's no Dragon-prey left in this forest. At all." Aela looked hard at Solen. "It's not just hungry, Solen – it's starving."

Solen's spirits sank even as he stood to climb out of the ditch. "Then you're right, Irileth," he said. "He's not going away."

He'd hoped it wouldn't have come to this, but come to this it had. Solen picked out three arrows and tucked them under a finger against his bow, ready for quick-firing. "Where's the nearest clearing, Aela?"

"The biggest one's about a league northwest down the mountainside. Old lumber ground."

"Isn't Pinewatch in that direction?"

"Still twenty miles off. Should be fine."

"Let's head there, then. Irileth, fall back and see if you can find where the horses have gotten to."

"Don't you mean Agmaer and Illia?"

"Them too." The sky pounded with a scorching roar. Solen drew a deep breath. "I'll get his eye."

He set off at a run, the overgrowth of brackens and fern snatching at his cloak. Really, he ought to have recognized the signs far sooner! Hadn't he warned Tullius that the Dragons were being driven to hunger? Shouldn't he have realized all this fresh untrampled undergrowth flagged a lack of elk and anything else big enough to fill a Dragon's stomach? Oughtn't he have remembered that mountain forest was a Dragon's most ideal territory? Well, no use crying over spilled mead – an Ancient Dragon was no beast to ignore. And if it really was starving, then it was beyond all reason.

Wings roared above Solen's head; he raised his bow, but already the Ancient had flown on. Had it seen him? Of course not – the moment he actually tried to start hunting a Dragon on the wing, it got distracted by other prey. Seeing it veer worryingly in Aela's direction, Solen sucked in a lungful of air. "FUS!"

One Word of Power was enough – the trees lashed as if stung by a whip, sending a pulse of shattered branches into the sky – but it was the crack of the Thu'um that snatched the Ancient's attention. One wing folded against itself as it pivoted in a hairpin. Its shadow swept over Solen again.

"Come on, then!" Solen bellowed, as its shadow crossed rapidly towards him. "I'm right here! All by my lonesome, all garnished for tea!"

The Ancient's telltale inhalation was all the signal Solen needed. He turned and bolted. The world went up in a scorching strike behind him, but Solen ran on, chartering his course by the direction the moss on the trees were growing on. The Dragon bellowed frustration, wings creaking as it lunged in maddened pursuit.

Starving as it was, it was still remarkably quick – Solen could barely outrun the strings of fire that snarled in mad zigzags in his wake. The thick forest growth helped not at all when one wasn't trying to hide in it, either – he practically had to kick and punch a path for himself, as if elbowing for barspace at the Bannered Mare at happy hour.

Again his cloak snagged on a bramble patch and lurched him off his feet; Solen was seriously considering getting rid of it, even though he was rather fond of it, when the Dragon's shadow engulfed him. He swung his bow skyward as the Ancient's silhouette lunged towards a gap in the trees – wait a moment, was that pine tree bent backwards? Without warning, as the Ancient's jaws ripped open to Shout, the pine tree straightened up and whipped it square in the face. The Dragon roared in bewildered frustration and swept on, its Thu'um unsung. Solen swore he heard Fiirnaraan's fluty laugh in the shadows.

I'll have to remember that, Solen thought, bundling his cloak around his elbow and hurrying on.

All too soon the Ancient's wingbeats stung his ears. Damn, was it seriously still so fast on the wing, or was he really just that slow? Solen considered throwing caution to the winds and calling on a Whirlwind Sprint, despite his last attempt Sprinting in such an obstacle-ridden space nearly pulping him with terminal velocity against a tree trunk, when the Dragon soared right over his head, passing him – and dived.

What is it doing?! They weren't anywhere near that clearing yet, where the Ancient could be invited to land and battle on an open field – it had literally thrown itself into a dense cluster of living pines. Timber snapped and shattered in a deafening cacophony as it half-fell half-clawed its way to the ground. Solen hurriedly arrested himself as the copper-and-white leviathan crashed down on the forest floor just ahead of him and swung its eyes his way, the Shout already poised on its tongue.

Solen had anticipated a fire breath, not a cone of force – either way, he had the correct response. "FEIM!" he bellowed, barely becoming ethereal before the conifer between them shattered like glass, splintering the world around it with lethal jags of timber. As the last shards punched harmlessly through his ghostly form, Solen raised his bow. Corporeality returned in a rush as he pulled the arrows down on the humming bowstring, one after another in quick succession. Two shattered against the Ancient's broad muzzle as it jerked its head back to protect its eyes – the third found one of the grazes its forced descent through the pines had opened on its softer neck.

Such a shot shouldn't have winded an Ancient, yet it recoiled with a gasp. And suddenly Solen realized he wasn't dealing with an Ancient at all, but a shadow of something that had once been Ancient – its scales hung off it like curtains, dragging across a frame of wasted muscle hardened into ropy sinew. Its bones bulged under its skin, a skeleton already. Its eyes were… devoid. No intelligence, no cunning malice, no savage joy in the struggle. They were crazed. Desperate.

Solen had never seen a starving Dragon like this before. Sure, they'd always boasted about eating him after they killed him, but that was meant as an insult, not because they needed to. And this one seemed of no mind to bandy words and exchange Thu'um, either – it crawled straight for him, uncaring how its wings snagged on broken pines or how its softer belly dragged on the shard-ridden ground. Saliva swung from its jaws in rivers.

No pride. No poise. This was no Dragon, just an animal crazed with hunger. Solen wasn't even sure if it recognized him as Dragonborn.

He stopped reaching for his quiver. He didn't need it, or even Eldródr to finish this.

"FAAS RU MAAR!"

The world flashed red, and the Ancient flinched back with such a tortured squeal that for a moment Solen wondered if he'd accidentally stricken it with Dragonrend instead. It thrashed backwards, waving its head, beating its wings until they cracked painfully against what pines still stood around it. The snapped branches tore ribbons into the fleshy membrane as the Dragon flailed clumsily onto its rear legs, clawing open its wings, scrambling for flight. Solen dived flat as its wide blade-ended tail whipped blindly over where he stood. With great destruction, as much to itself as to the forest around it, the Ancient took wing and fled into the sky without looking back.

Solen stood up slowly, staring after it long after it had vanished from view. When the first cautious trill of birdsong broke through the resounding silence, Solen brushed off what needles and bark shavings clung to his cloak, recalled his bearings, and set off into the forest.

Fiirnaraan melted neatly out of hiding as Solen passed his perch. "Oh, but that was a peculiar way to end the game, Dovahkiin. Did you win?"

Solen stopped and met the Dragon's gaze. "You tell me."

The Blood Dragon looked back in the direction of the fractured clearing, then down to Solen. He had, of course, heard or witnessed the entire thing, as only the stealthy creature could. "He was not well, that brother," Fiirnaraan said after a moment of contemplation. "That one who dresses in such powerful scales should not have been so simply Dismayed, not even from you, Thuri."

"No," Solen agreed, "he shouldn't have been."

Fiirnaraan's frills flattened against his neck. "So, it was not really a battle, then."

"No, it wasn't."

Aela at least understood Solen's disquiet. The Dawnguard operatives were simply glad to see the last of the Dragon, and mildly indignant that he hadn't left its bones steaming on the mountainside. "It wouldn't have shown us the same mercy," said Illia, frowning, as the five of them unburdened their agitated horses. "And supposes it comes back again? What will you do?"

"Whatever needs to be done," said Solen, with such a lack of lightheartedness that even Irileth frowned.

"Well, what's done is done," the Housecarl said decisively. "The Dragon's gone and we can get back to searching. The wretched thing drove us back by a day, I'm certain we camped under these trees last night. But, nothing for it. We're not risking the horses in the dark."

"The way forward didn't seem too promising anyway," Agmaer reasoned, squinting at the distant southwestern faces of the Jerall Mountains. "It could be good to retrace our steps. Maybe there's something we missed."

"That's the spirit," Illia smiled, and grunting she hauled her hefty saddlebags down from her mare. "I'll get the fire going."

So they camped down, as if it had merely been another day combing the southern fringes of Falkreath Hold for any sign of the secret Ancestor Glade, and not one where they'd spent half of it avoiding the jaws of a ravenous Dragon. Fiirnaraan had already disappeared to hunt – with the forests devoid of opportunity, and Dayspring Canyon now too great a distance to return to daily, he'd taken to scratching a meal off mountain goats high among the Jerall's frosty peaks. The shaken forest was much too skittery for Aela or Solen to unearth a rabbit or two, so tonight they made do with their dwindling cold rations of rubbery jerky and stale biscuit, then pored over the map together.

After consulting her compass, Irileth shook her head and sectioned off another corner of the map with crossmarks. "It's not a nixad tale," she said, sensing Agmaer's and Illia's deflation. "Clever men don't die for such things."

Solen's mind wandered briefly to the northernmost corner of the province. "Mages do it all the time."

"I said clever men, Solen." Irileth tapped the stretch of mountain range directly southwest of Falkreath. "We'll search this area next."

"There's not much Jerall left to search," Aela noted, and again they eyed the string of crossmarks that stretched from the mountains above Helgen all the way to below Falkreath's city mark.

"Then we're getting close," said Irileth flatly, folding her arms. "Between a Dragon, two hunters and six sets of eyes we've turned over every stone and peered into every bear den and foxhole. We can't have missed it."

They paused briefly as a soft gust of wind sighed among the lush pines, bringing with it the scent of frost. It promised to be another frigid night.

Solen hunched himself as close to the fire as one could without catching aflame. "Wonder how the rest of them are doing."

Irileth flicked him one of her looks, which didn't bode well. Solen supposed he was being a little more pensive tonight. He'd driven his little group off to search for the Ancestor Glade with an almost manic energy – because there was no way in all the planes of Oblivion that Solen was going to let Gendolin snatch victory from under the Dawnguard's nose – under his nose again. Nor, Solen had vowed, was he going to let Gendolin get away from him unscathed again.

They'd planted the rumours of the Glade, and Gendolin would confirm them one way or another – through his subordinates' ears if not the poor Priest himself, if Dexion managed to stay alive so long – and Solen had plunged into Falkreath deeply aware that their time was borrowed. That somewhere in the woods the Volkihar were already crawling among the pines, seeking the mythical cavern of singing moths where the untrained might safely glimpse into the Elder Scrolls' mind-melting secrets.

But it'd been nearly three weeks and not a murmur of detection from the enemy – even Aela, who spent her sleepless nights ranging the forest in one form or another, hadn't picked up any sign of their vampiric foe. And though the Falkreath forest dimmed the light beneath their clustered branches, they were still vampires, who'd revile toiling in the sun. Besides, the tree growth grew only sparser the higher they climbed into the foothills. So for now, they could all tentatively say they were ahead of the vampires, couldn't they?

Still, Solen was quiet.

Aela lightly touched his arm. "Fancy coming with me tonight? I could use another pair of eyes."

As if she needed his – it was her invitation for them to talk alone. Solen shook his head. "I'll be all right. I could use the sleep. Dragon chased me halfway to Hammerfell and back."

Aela frowned, and Solen frowned back, pointedly – no, thank you – before she leaned back and said, "Well, you needed the exercise anyway." She stood and brushed off the pine needles clinging to her guards. "I'll be back an hour before dawn."

"Does she ever sleep?" Agmaer murmured nervously, as the Huntress vanished noiselessly into the undergrowth. "I don't think I've seen her close her eyes once since we set out."

"Does it scare you?" Illia teased, punching his shoulder. "Come on, we've all been around Isran long enough."

"And Isran scares me! But at least he's not – you know –"

"He's already a bristly force of nature," said Solen, straightening out his bedroll. "Doesn't need the Huntsman's help with that. Dibs not taking first watch."

But Solen took it anyway, because after ten minutes of tossing and turning he decided he might as well be useful with his restiveness and let the youngsters kip. He sat listening to the horses crunching in their nosebags and the Dawnguard's slumbering breaths, Eldródr across his lap, an oilcloth forgotten in his hand.

His thoughts went through the usual motions. First they went to Rayya, though Solen did his best to follow Aela's instruction in not worrying over her. Of course she'd be safe in Whiterun, with Companions and familiar neighbours and Lydia for company, though he wondered what her choice had been, and felt the usual squirm in the pit of his stomach. The suspense of it really was torturous. Then he remembered how he'd learned the news at all, in Fort Kastav after she'd been pulled half-alive from the snow, and his mind settled firmly on the riddle of Gendolin again – and more damnably, who in Zeht's tears he was. Solen had concocted half a hundred mead-washed theories as to how he might have earned Gendolin's ire, everything from a shamed bandit he'd spared to a Thalmor lackey whose mother he'd insulted, and none of them seemed satisfying enough to explain what could have driven a Wood Elf to seeking the patronage of a Daedra lord or recruiting the thrice-damned Thieves Guild to his cause.

But Solen didn't end up dwelling too long on Gendolin. The sight of that Dragon crawling its way towards him like some flesh-starved zombie… that was what itched his skin that night. He frowned, recalled the oilcloth in his hand, and ran it thoughtfully down Eldródr's fuller.

"Back to sleep," he said automatically, when Irileth's blankets stirred. "I know it's not your time yet."

"Who said I was sleeping?" The Dunmer sat up and swept her russet hair back into a knot behind her head. "Besides, you're grinding your teeth too loudly."

"Am I?" Solen lightly touched his jaw. "Goodness. You've got a hellishly good pair of ears, Housecarl."

"Don't I just." Irileth beckoned for the oilcloth. Solen balled it up and tossed it neatly into her palm.

"You still have it," Solen observed, as Irileth withdrew the broken sword from her scabbard.

"Of course." Carefully Irileth traced the oilcloth along its ragged, adamantine-tipped edges. "I made an oath on this steel. Neither of us rests until it's fulfilled." She raised her red eyes, scintillating in the firelight. "That is the weight of vengeance sworn, Solen. This jagged blade is who I am, and no more than. No matter where it takes me, or where it leads me, no matter what is left behind, I will follow it."

"And I've no doubt you will," said Solen, leaning back slightly from the formidable mer.

Irileth narrowed her eyes. "But can you do the same?"

Seconds of silence dripped between them.

"You may think you want this," said Irileth eventually, "but you still have plenty to lose. A path of vengeance is an inferno. It'll devour everything, even you."

"I didn't take you to be so sagacious, Housecarl."

"I've seen the way you turn when Gendolin enters your mind. Your blood boils. Your spirit darkens. Your hands long to take up your blade. You want to pursue him to the ends of Nirn itself. Or you think you do."

"Think?" Solen exploded at last, and shifted Eldródr off his lap. "You've seen what he's done – what he'll do, every second he walks free and victorious! Of course I want him dead!"

"Just dead? Or by your hand?"

"I'm not that presumptuous." Yet Solen looked down at the ivory blade, humming gently with latent flame and frost, and wondered.

Irileth sheathed the broken blade and tossed Solen's oilcloth back. "There's no time-bound prophecy marking him as your enemy this time. You've marked him yourself."

The maddened Dragon seared Solen's mind again, and his face went flat as iron. "So what if I have?" He scabbarded the broad battle-blade with firm finality. "Gendolin's already marked me as such, and given me more than enough cause, so I'm sure he'll take it as a compliment. Call it what you like, Housecarl. I won't let him win again. You take the rest of the watch, since you're so awake. I'm going to sleep."

He promptly rolled himself up in the blankets and lay with his back to Irileth and the campfire, annoyed that she'd managed to dredge a talk out of him, of all people – and worried that she might be right.

Come morning, neither Solen nor Irileth made any indication of their fireside discussion. Like the others they brushed the carpet of frost off their possessions without ceremony, destroyed all trace of their campfire, and set off in their usual order to resume the search.

Aela had brought a horse with them into Falkreath Forest, but had hardly saddled it since arriving. She went everywhere on foot, leading them on the hopeful trails she'd eked out for them during the night. As usual, they went nowhere. Caverns and hopeful-looking indentations in mountainsides ended up just being caverns and indentations. Old ruined structures were abandoned watchtowers from some bygone Era, or the lairs of irate primitive necromancers, or the dwelling-holes of exceptionally bad-tempered spriggans.

At least the day was fine. Morning drifted into noon, then afternoon. They stopped to water themselves and their horses by a mountain stream. Thoughts began to turn towards where would serve as their next campsite, where else they could search while they still had daylight left to them, if they ought to chance visiting Falkreath to refresh their supplies since the city was barely a day's ride from them. Solen felt a faint bite of restlessness as he watched heavy clouds drape over the Jerall peaks. Much longer searching like this and they'd be looking for the Glade in prewinter snowfall. The short days of autumn were only getting shorter.

The uneventful afternoon became slightly more interesting when Fiirnaraan majestically reappeared above the watering hole, making the young Dawnguard operatives yelp and the horses throw up their heads with fright. "Hello," said the Dragon, without the least sympathy. "I have made a discovery."

Illia's annoyed expression veered sharply into hope. "You found it?"

"Perhaps," said Fiirnaraan, coyly, and all indignance within the party vanished on the spot. He nibbled delicately on the claw of his wing thumb. "I grew hungry, and went looking for goats. The wind blew me off-course, and I missed my lunge."

"Nevermind that," said Irileth impatiently. "The Glade, Dragon, where is it?"

"Irileth," Solen warned.

The Dunmer gusted a sigh and crossed her arms. Right, right – you couldn't hasten answers from these creatures. "Sorry. Go on."

Fiirnaraan's flattened frills popped back open. "I chased the goat. I was still very hungry, and did not want to find another. It led me high into the mountains, and into a cave. It did not seem like a cave from the outside, but when I looked inside, there was a tunnel, and the goat did not come out."

"It wasn't just another troll den, was it?" Agmaer asked tentatively. "I'd rather not endure that surprise again."

"No, little joor, I do not think it was a troll den. The smell inside was sweet, scented of summer flowers, and its air was warm."

"Where can we find the cave?" asked Aela, already poised on the balls of her feet.

Fiirnaraan arched his neck and nodded at the mountain slopes straight to the south. "The goats have made a trail up the mountain slope. I followed it down. The trail begins half a mile back where you have already walked."

Irileth yanked out her map. "But we checked there already… Dragon, are you certain it is the Glade?"

"Oh, yes," said Fiirnaraan, against even the Housecarl's expectation. "It is most certainly the Glade."

"Just from the scents?" said Solen incredulously.

"Oh, no, Dovahkiin. From the hole in the top." Fiirnaraan stretched out one green-patterned wing. "In the mountaintop was a hole big enough for me to put my head through. It was like an egg inside, warm and full of life. A little forest, fluttering with moths."

Aela still insisted on travelling ahead to the hopeful cavern, to spare them the arduous climb up a frigid mountainside with night descending just in case if Fiirnaraan might be mistaken. The others were left waiting and madly anxious in the greener hills below, daring to wonder if their search had finally ended. As the sun set, they almost started to hope that the cave was not the hidden glade; already they shivered and stamped in their boots to stay warm, and thoughts turned longingly towards blankets and a fire.

Just before moonrise, Aela's wolflike howl climbed down the Jeralls into their ears, and that was that. They didn't dare risk any delay now.

In single file they gingerly led their burly horses up the narrow, snow-sown trails eked out by the mountain denizens, heads buried in scarves, squinting through frosted eyelashes against the pitiless wind. Halfway up, the brooding snowstorm Solen had spotted earlier broke over them in earnest, lashing them with snow. Solen, leading the way, could soon hardly pick out the trailmarks Aela had left for them. But he didn't dare risk a Shout – the vampires might be searching for the cavern too, but no need to flag them along.

They passed below a rocky overhang, and the path blessedly widened out a bit, and the snow plunged by them in less severe curtains. Aela waited for them outside, her eyes aglow with wonder. "This is the place," she said, before the four snow-coated mountaineers had even had a chance to pull the scarves off their faces. "I looked inside. It's… it's brilliant. Solen, it's like the cave of the Eldergleam all over again."

"What?" Agmaer spluttered. "That place is real?"

"The Gildergreen cutting had to come from somewhere, didn't it?" Solen shook the snow from his hair and stepped in front of the cave mouth. It was a remarkably unremarkable entrance, barely large enough to even permit him. "You sure, Aela? I've seen Draugr holes with more grandeur."

"Surely even you can smell it," said the Huntress indignantly, "or hear it." At Solen's shrug, she looked beseechingly among the others. "Seriously? None of you?"

"I hear it," sniffed Fiirnaraan. The Blood Dragon was settled among the cluster of rocks above them, his sinuous body pressed tightly into what shelter they offered from the wind. "Perhaps they simply are not trying hard enough."

"All right, we don't all have your ears, you showoffs. Anyone have a torch?"

The frigid mountainside vanished behind them as they filed into the tight tunnel. Height didn't often have disadvantages, Solen thought, as his head bounced off the sloping roof yet again, but this was assuredly one of those times. Then the tunnel widened, and their flickering torches outlined a dry cavern full of growth. Bracken, tussock grass, small trees.

"All right," said Solen, unamazed, as the others filled out around him. "Not exactly what I'd call an Ancestor Glade… But sure, it's warmer in here."

"This isn't the Glade, icebrain." Aela slipped past him and showed them to another tunnel, a shorter one, at the far end of the cave. An odd glow emanated from it, much too soft and steady to be firelight. "Go on," she prompted, so Solen stepped through first…

…and nearly dropped his torch as he entered the far larger chamber on the other side. "Oh. Oh. I get it now, Aela. This is definitely like the Eldergleam cave."

The Glade wasn't as big as that hidden slice of paradise deep below Eastmarch's steaming tundra, but it was no less beautiful. Eked into the stony flesh of the mountain was a tiny, vibrant forest valley of brooding conifers, yet scattered among the cliffs were trees of an almost deciduous appearance, with pale incandescent leaves that shimmered pink and gold and silver as if enchanted with some ageless magic, each one giving off a soft glow. The marvellous forest sloped steadily downhill into gently gurgling hot pools. A decidedly unnatural formation of dolmen stones stood timeless attendance, and old stone steps led down to the pools, the only traces of mortal precedence to be found within this chamber frozen in time. Centering the warm pools was an island of pale flattened stones and a single enchanted tree, a natural dais illuminated by a column of light, descending from the oculus Fiirnaraan had earlier peered through from above. The whole grand chamber shimmered with moths.

"Well," said Irileth, as she and the similarly gobsmacked Dawnguard entered the cavern, "this is a sight, all right."

Aela extended her hand as a curious moth, as broad as her palm with wings patterned in hues of humble brown, delicately fluttered around her finger. "It's beautiful in here," she said, motionless as the moth's feathery body fumbled for a foothold. "It's like the world is young again."

Solen briefly wondered how in all his years clambering around the Jeralls he'd never found this place before. He turned to remark as much to Rayya, then remembered her absence, and why, and how he'd learned why – and suddenly the urgency of the mission reminded itself. "LAAS," he whispered, and almost regretted it as his vision filled with a million red stars. Insect auras were tiny – just how many moths were there?! At least there were none bigger than them, aside from his and his companions'; reassured that they had indeed found the Ancestor Glade before Gendolin and his vampires, Solen prompted, "So, what did Dexion say we needed to do here? Had we come along with the Scrolls."

Illia and Agmaer volunteered to charter the cavern while Irileth, Aela and Solen pieced together the Moth Priest's instructions between themselves. "So, assuming those are the Canticle Trees and not very convincing red herrings," Solen concluded, pointing out the obviously magical trees, "and that all the bugs flying around are the sacred Ancestor Moths, the last ingredient we need is a Draw Knife. It ought to be hiding in a chest or something, special old artifacts always are. They're usually guarded, so be careful, I'm sure there's some primitive guardian we have to overcome tucked away somewhere –"

"There's some sort of tool floating in the donut rock down on the dais –it looks like a draw knife?" Illia reported, returning with Agmaer, and completely taking the wind out of Solen's sails.

"So much for a treasure hunt," said Aela, after they gathered around the solitary holed-out dolmen on the light-lit dais, where indeed the Draw Knife hung floating in its own little halo of aureate importance. "Sorry, Solen, I know that's your favourite part. Now what?"

"Hide it," said Agmaer immediately. "If the vampires find it –"

"We want them to find it," said Irileth sharply.

"Er, do we?" said Solen, of a mind with the young Nord.

Irileth sighed at them both. "We plan to ambush Gendolin and the Elder Scrolls here, don't we? He'll only be tipped off to a trap if he arrives in a supposedly undiscovered chamber and finds the Draw Knife gone."

"But does he even know of the ritual, ma'am?" asked Illia.

"Oh, he'll know," Irileth scowled. "That vampire is anything but an idiot; he won't throw away a Moth Priest in a hurry."

"Then it's all the more reason to hide the knife," Solen said, with unexpected temper. "We can't afford him the slightest chance to use them."

Irileth looked at him evenly, and the previous night seemed to flash in their eyes. "You're a hunter," she said. "Tell me, when you're tracking a deer, when's the best time to make your shot?"

Aela answered when Solen did not. "When it lowers its guard."

"And when will his guard be lowest?"

Solen, unhappily, cottoned on to Irileth's suggestion. "When he's performing the Ritual."

"Right." The Housecarl set her hand on her swordhilt. "I know it's risky, but the last thing Gendolin will expect is someone to attack him when he thinks he's triumphed. There's no telling what the Ritual will even do to him, if Moth Priests supposedly struggle with it. It could weaken him, blind him if we're lucky – but it'll certainly distract him. Whatever he learns from the Scrolls is going to do fetch-all for him if he's dead."

Solen eyed the floating Draw Knife uneasily. The last thing he wanted was to let another ancient artifact fall into that wretched villain's hands – but yes, he could argue Irileth's plan had some sense to it, if it only didn't bring them upon such a wretched knife-edge of victory or defeat.

But it could work. It had to work. He'd been so disoriented after reading one Elder Scroll in the Time-Wound that he'd barely realized Alduin had been hovering over his head when he'd popped back into his appropriate Era. Reading two of them, Ritual or not, surely had to knock even a vampire lord flat on his back.

"All right," Solen said, and put his reluctance aside. "Scroll-baiting it is."

Aela flicked Irileth a respectful nod. "You're a natural at the hunt. Being a Housecarl was wasted on you."

Irileth rested her hand on the broken sword. "In another life, Huntress, in another land. Let's reconvene with the Dragon. We need to figure out how to get Gendolin up the mountain without giving ourselves away before our food runs out."