CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

~TO SHED THE MANTLE OF FEAR… ~


With a whooped choking scream that raked across the ears, it lunged out of the blackness with chitin blade bared and dripping. Sinewy and pallid, with sprawling hands and feet, cobwebbed in the greenish strings of its own veins, and a tortured eyeless face pulled taut with ghastly folds of straining skin, the creature hewed with unsettling accuracy towards Aela's neck. The Huntress jerked back and under, and her dagger flashed in a swift arc across its bared chest and up into its armpit; blood sprayed in a thick arc and the creature yelped with pain, took two staggering steps, and slid to its knees.

Serana finished it off with a lightning bolt that left it jerking and sizzling on the cavern floor. "Watch out! There's another one!"

This one was armoured head to foot in the black chitin of the chaurus, which like the thing wearing it lived deep in the sunless underground. Solen stepped to intercept, Eldródr humming as the heavy greatsword caught the poisoned blade; with a deft flick the chitin weapon was knocked back, leaving the creature open. The battle-blade whacked a white scar across the creature's armour-clad chest, knocking its crouching form almost to standing as it staggered backwards. Solen swung the greatsword back and drew a swift breath. "KRII LUN!" The Thu'um that sizzled forth was dark purple in hue and lit up his opponent's body in a pulsating violet mesh. Eldródr's next swing shattered the chitin armour like glass.

Aela reclaimed her dropped bow as the dark corridors again resonated with the rapid shuffle of bare feet, and the vile odour of fungus mould and wet stink assailed her senses. Two of her arrows whistled through the blackness, finding their marks in bare throats and leaving them gurgling piteously on the ground; a white wintry blast blazed down towards them, and dissolved on Serana's ward. In a flash the vampire retaliated in kind, and two icy spears the length of longswords returned fire in perilous succession. The first made the caster squeal, the second silenced it.

"That's the last of them," Serana declared, as Solen extracted his greatsword from his opponent's opened ribcage. "From my end, at least." Her lambent eyes saw much better in the dark than either of her companions'. "You?"

"Just dying heartbeats and changing stink," Aela answered. Her hearing and smell were much sharper. "The dark will still be crawling, though. Don't get too far." The floor around them was littered with bodies, and Aela frowned down at them, skin prickling with distaste. "Ugh. I didn't miss these."

"Neither did I." Solen shook off the excess blood on his blade. "Let's keep moving, shall we? The Bow won't find itself."

He sounded a little too jaunty for Aela's ears. "We'll rest first," she said, firmly.

"Aela, it's fine. I'm fine."

"I said we'll rest, Solen. It's been hours. Clean your sword properly."

Solen huffed and fidgeted restlessly. "Light a fire, at least. I'm not resting in this pitch."

The little subterranean camp they'd run across had the remnants of a firepit. They located some flammable materials and piled them up. After Aela's flint and tinder failed, Serana stepped well back as Solen Shouted a golden fire to life, alleviating the omnipresent gloom and chill of the deep caverns at least a little. They drew gratefully around it, even Serana; they were all still damp after their freezing plunge into the aptly-named Darkfall Cave.

Solen sat closely beside it, his attention firmly riveted to cleaning the gore out of his battle-blade's engraved fuller. "He's not… scared of the dark, is he?" Serana murmured, watching him across the flames.

"Not the dark." Aela jerked her chin at one of their attackers' stiffening bodies.

Serana grimaced; the pallid things looked even worse in the naked light. "What are they?"

"Falmer. Once they were a race of mer, like him. Driven mad by some bargain they made with the Dwarves."

"They're – Elves?" The vampire's voice hushed with horror as she regarded the creatures' wrung faces anew. Their long, pointed ears were the only trace left of their merish origins.

"Not anymore." Aela took inventory of her remaining arrows, keeping her voice soft and her eyes averted. "They're monsters now, tales mothers warn their whelps about if they don't sleep quiet in their beds. Hateful beings who loathe Nords and anyone else who walks the world above. They unsettle Solen to the bone. Won't go near them if he can help it."

"I can see why." Serana tucked her knees up to her chest. "What kind of bargain could do this to someone – to a whole race? I knew the Dwemer were cunning, but this –"

"Desperation," said Solen flatly. He didn't look up from Eldródr's edge. "They were driven underground when the ancient Nords conquered Skyrim. The Dwemer took advantage; their 'alliance' with the Falmer blinded and enslaved them. They've been in the dark ever since. Changed, embittered husks."

Aela's disdain of Serana had softened somewhat; the vampire had proven steady enough in a fight. "It was Alftand, wasn't it, Solen? Alftand and Blackreach when we first encountered them together. Machinations of steam and brass aren't the only things still wandering Dwemer ruins. First time I ever saw Solen freeze in a fight, when they came out of the dark."

Solen smiled at Serana. "They terrify me," he said flatly. " Not because of how they jump out at you from absolutely anywhere in the dark, or because they brew poisons so potent that you'll be barfing your own guts out your mouth if they cut you. No, they scare me because they're reminders."

"Reminders?"

"Of what blind hate reduces someone into. By the time the Dwemer had the decency to vanish off the face of Nirn, those elves had known generations of darkness, hopelessness and betrayal. Nothing of what they'd once been was left, just faceless hatred and purposeless suffering." Solen waved listlessly at the Falmer corpses. "Those creatures mark the end of the road my own people are walking. Take the light out of someone's soul, and you're left with something that's no longer even a person anymore."

His oilcloth paused in his hand. He looked grave and distant. "Snow Elves were said to be beautiful. A race of mer as brave and clever as any of their cousins."

Serana looked again at the Falmer's pinched faces and twisted spines. "I'm sorry. I had no idea. Hatred twists anything beyond recognition."

Solen glanced at her. "Like your parents?"

Serana stiffened, and Aela watched her with interest. They hadn't challenged the vampire's motives since Fort Dawnguard, almost a month ago, but that strife felt very distant as they crouched in the dark underbelly of the Haafingar mountains, drying themselves by the fire. Serana grudgingly nodded. "Hard to remember a time when we were ever a family. But there was a time, before prophecy, before Elder Scrolls… even before vampirism. When we were happy."

Solen raised his head. "What made you all become vampires in the first place?"

It was a question asked honestly, for once without a trace of judgement. Serana rewarded him with a humourless smile. "Mortality was my father's enemy long before the sun."

"Ah." Solen nodded. "The good old fear of death, then. So, who had the unhappy privilege of nibbling his neck?"

"I already told you my father was a prideful man. He wasn't going to accept any lesser mistwalker as his blood-sire; he entreated with Molag Bal directly. A thousand innocents was a small price to pay for everlasting life, or so he said."

"A small price!" Solen's temper flared. "Just when I think you're turning out okay –"

"Look!" Serana snapped, tensed, and sighed. "I know it's wrong, Solen. I knew it was wrong. But before you get all high and mighty with me again, just stop a moment and understand that the girl that went along with it didn't have your hero's courage. She was young, impressionable, more scared of losing her father than her soul. And if it's the slightest consolation to you, receiving the reward –" If Aela wasn't mistaken, she hunched tighter into herself. "– was not… enjoyable. But it meant we stayed as a family. It made everything worth it." Serana's eyes dimmed. "It had to."

Solen glanced again at the Falmer's corpse – the reminder – then sighed slowly, pulled the wolf's teeth off his temper, and rested his sword flat across his lap. "You must've realized what accepting the patronage of a prince whose whole sphere is scheme and torment would do to you all."

"Maybe my father was prepared for that price." Serana frowned. "Maybe he'd already paid it. Maybe we all did. We were never the same after. My parents certainly weren't, not after that wretched prophecy came to my father's ears."

"And you?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "Nothing I ever said changed their minds."

They brooded quietly awhile. Solen suddenly sighed briskly and leaned back. "If it's any consolation, Serana, my parents were pretty awful, too."

"Yours?" Serana looked surprised.

Solen grinned sadly at her. "Altmer are obsessed with alaxon. Perfection. All the more so since the Dominion took power two hundred years ago. Anything less than perfect is discarded." He gestured at his face. "Like I was."

Serana was astonished. "Just for that? Because of your eyes?"

"Oh, I wasn't born like this. I was a perfect little elfling once. My brother and I were playing one day – he hit me in the head with a stick, or I hit a rock when I fell over, or something. When I woke up, the eye had changed colour, and nothing could reverse it. So my deeply concerned parents tossed me into the wilds to die quietly. I was four."

Serana managed to match his rueful smile. "Our parents wanting us dead is not the common ground I expected to find with you, Dragonborn. How did you survive?"

"My uncle. As chance had it, he'd just pulled into port in Alinor to meet his nephews. He's a worldly man, my uncle. His idea of perfect was a lot different from the rest of his people. When he learned what happened, he went after me. Found me, he said, in fine health among a herd of indrik, a deeply magical creature of the Isles rarely seen even by those who look for them. A godly blessing of my life in this world if he ever saw one, he always said. He cut his portage in Alinor short and took me with him when he left." Solen puffed a sigh. "I wanted for nothing growing up with Uncle Torendil. Still… I couldn't help but wonder what might've happened if things had turned out differently."

"Sounds to me like you dodged an arrow," Serana remarked, "considering what your kind's doing to the rest of Tamriel."

Solen's smile vanished. "It's easy to hate my people. I know that. And I don't blame where it comes from. They're on a course of self-destruction, and if it doesn't change… well." Another glance at the Falmer. "We know what's at the end of the line.

"But being Altmer isn't being Aldmeri Dominion – superiority complexes and ethnic cleansing. We're a people of painters and artisans, sorcerers of incredible talent, and the best damned sailors this side of Nirn. Our coral forests are right out of a storybook and our architecture is the most spellbinding you'll ever see anywhere in Tamriel. And the world's forgetting that. Just like it's forgotten that these poor creatures once walked in the sun."

Solen shook his head. "But I won't. I refuse to jump ship and forget the truth or the pride of my people. It isn't about the ideals of perfection or supremacy, it's about finding the beauty and light in all we do. Maybe it's getting left to die by your own parents, or maybe it's knowing your 'superiorly-bred' countrymen plan on wiping humankind off the face of Tamriel, but I find nothing more beautiful or brighter than life itself, and I'll defend it from anyone who considers such a thing expendable."

Serana stiffened with understanding. "That's why you protect them so fiercely, isn't it? Even strangers. Even in a country that hates your people."

Aela nodded. "It's never been about glory for the Harbinger, but making a point. The Dominion are monsters. The Altmer are not."

Solen turned earnestly to Serana. "Taking a stand takes courage," he said, "and gods know that doing what's right isn't an easy thing to do. Evil doesn't hold you accountable afterward. But it's never too late to start fighting."

Serana snorted. "Not even for the reviled vampire?"

"Not if you choose to."

Something moved in the vampire's lambent eyes. "Because choice is the destiny we write for ourselves, right?" She leaned back and considered Solen anew. "I think I'm starting to see why Skyrim calls you their saviour."

"Well – that, and I'm tall enough for the part. Nords dig tall."

"Not as much as beards," said Aela, and smirked. "All that 'superior breeding' and you can't squeak out more than a few chin-hairs. Disgraceful."

"Look, I'll have you know, fine beards do run in the family. Uncle Torendil had an excellent beard."

"Your uncle was also two hundred and six, so clearly that part of you's yet to antler."

"I don't know why you're such the expert. You can't even manage stubble."

"In this form."

For the first time, laughter rang between the three of them, and some old reserve still lingering between the bloodcursed companions seemed to come crumbling down.


The caverns seemed to stretch on forever and then some. When they weren't splashing through icy streams or fending off more frightful ambushes from the Falmer – and the giant insectoid monsters that menaced the dark right alongside them – they were bouncing off tunnel walls and generally staving off doubt. "Sep's scales," Solen cursed, as they sat catching their wind after yet another dreaded assault, "if this turns out to be the wrong cave after all this…"

"We can hardly turn back if it isn't," said Serana wryly. Darkfall Cave had been another dead-ended cavern, at first – until the rope bridge spanning across its chasm had snapped to splinters under their feet, pitching them into the underground river and washing them all into the bowels of the earth. On the bright side, Solen reasoned, it might have meant Gendolin had completely overlooked the cave, as they almost had. Or it means we're stuck down here in freezing caverns crawling with Falmer and chaurus until our food runs out.

Aela punched his shoulder. "Chin up, brother. Bends in the road are what adventurers like you live for. Besides, the last time we got stuck underground with the Falmer, we found what we were looking for."

"We were never stuck underground in Alftand or Blackreach. Gods, Blackreach had about ten different back doors all over Skyrim, we spent days chartering that place, remember? Besides, we knew we were in the right place for the Elder Scroll. We had a crazy old hermit tell us and everything."

"Right. Because he was the picture of reason and sanity."

"Hey, he gave us directions and a key to the door, didn't he? It's certainly more than Serana managed."

"Oh, do excuse me," said Serana acidly. Having seen the master vampire's arsenal of ability in battle – a terrifying understanding of cryomancy paired with a rather unsettling proclivity for corpse reanimation – Solen decided against annoying her further.

But the chambers rang empty of danger as they continued on, deeper through the twisting passages with the black weight of the mountains hanging over their heads. Neither Solen nor Aela detected any fresh Falmer scent in the stagnant air. "We must've passed through the village," Solen murmured, more than relieved at the thought of putting those anguished creatures behind him at last. "Thank Morwha. Now we just have starving to death in the dark to worry about."

"If you should be so lucky." Serana's old assuredness was fading a little. "I've spent long enough trapped underground. Being trapped and awake… I don't want to think about it."

"So don't," said Aela, pragmatic. "Eyes on the prey, not the horizon. These caverns haven't ended yet."

At least the natural passages were widening, and the stagnant air began to move. Water plunged in streams through crevasses in the ceiling, the barest whisper of the outside world borne on the spray. Solen lingered mournfully by the fall for a moment, remembering the sun, when Serana's voice stirred him sharply from reverie. "Do you smell something?"

Aela stood poised and alert, nostrils flared, a frown creasing her features. "Aye," she murmured. "Falmer, almost."

"Almost?"

"You smell it, right, Solen?"

"Vaguely," Solen muttered; his senses were nowhere near as powerful as Aela's in this skin. "It's… definitely almost, though."

"Cleaner," Aela decided, after another moment concentrating. "Fresher. A bit more… outside." She shrugged her bow off her shoulder. "Maybe we're near an exit."

Galvanized by this hope, they proceeded quickly along. Then, without warning, the tunnel opened into a wide and airy cavern, pillars of stone bearing up the weighty ceiling with its floor swathed in a shallow lake of water – and, Serana assured them, completely devoid of carapace tents and snarling Falmer. Still, Solen liked to be sure. "LAAS YAH NIR."

The Thu'um swept forth – and Solen tensed as a lone, flickering red aura appeared far through the darkness. "There's one," he murmured. "Far."

"The scent's stronger," Aela whispered back. "Still faint, but stronger."

They moved slowly through the airy chamber, sifting their feet slowly through the floor's blanket of icy meltwater to avoid splashing. The oppressive stench of the cavern lessened, and it was no longer a hopeful imagination – the lighter scents of snow and sun and wind mingled with the chamber's heavier stench of stone and earth, paired with a distant glow that permeated the absolute blackness.

"Oh," Solen muttered, as they stepped around the corner.

A fissure in the ceiling made a natural skylight, and silver rays glowed down upon the vestiges of what appeared to be an old shrine of pale stone and brass ornamentation. Yet the shrine glowed with golden candlelight, and the brass wasn't blistered by time. Nor was it empty. The lone life force Solen had detected belonged to the person that stood straight-backed in front of a golden altar, hands upraised in prayer, clad in a curious design of silver armour trimmed black. Both his skin and hair were pale as new snow.

"I don't get it," Aela muttered. "He smells like Falmer, but –" Then her eyes widened. "By the Hunt, it can't be."

Solen had already guessed. He stepped out of the darkness and strode towards the altar. It couldn't be – it couldn't be – and then the elf turned his head and Solen saw his face, saw his eyes, and stopped dead. Because it was.

"Come forward," said the Falmer, as if coaxing a nervous acolyte. "You have nothing to fear here."


"You can't be serious," said Solen, once the disbelief had passed. "You'll give up Auriel's Bow in exchange for us killing your brother – who could well be one of the last Snow Elves alive?"

Gelebor, the last Knight-Paladin of the Great Chantry of Auri-El, dipped his head in grave assent. "The kinship between us is long gone. I don't understand what he's become, but Vyrthur's no longer the brother I once knew. It was the Betrayed… they did something to him." His frown deepened, and eyes – unblinded eyes, hued pale gold as spring sunlight – flicked away, troubled and uncertain. "I just don't know why Auri-El would allow this to happen."

The Betrayed, he called his degenerated kinfolk, and Solen knew he would name them as no other again. He ran his hands through his hair and paced, agitated, before the altar where the flaming sun of Auriel stood gleaming in the candlelight. "Honestly, I… I don't know if we can do that."

"You know what's at stake," Aela reminded him. "The Day of Black Sun –"

"– will never happen if we turn and leave, will it? It needs Serana's blood and the Bow. But we can turn around and go home, the Bow never leaves, and the prophecy is never fulfilled, right?"

"Solen." Aela caught his arm. "For the first time, we're finally ahead of Gendolin. We can't afford the risk."

"You are not the first travellers who have come questing for Auriel's Bow," Gelebor added, and every head swung back his way, "and I daresay that you will not be the last. In the thousands of years I have served as this Chantry's sentinel, they come for no other reason. They request Auriel's Bow. I request their assistance."

"To kill the Arch-Curate of Auri-El? Your brother?" Serana arched her brow at Gelebor's nod. "Seems we've all got family issues, don't we? What happened to them?"

"They never returned. I can only assume they fell victim to the Betrayed."

Solen tugged free of Aela and resumed his anxious pacing. Gelebor watched him with an almost gentle expression. "I understand your reluctance, brother Elf," he said, "and I appreciate it. Both of us serve Auri-El in our own way. But I fear that my people are beyond all help now."

"But you're here," Solen protested feebly. "You escaped the bargain. Gods' eyes, I don't even know how all of this hasn't driven you crazy."

Gelebor smiled faintly. "There is refuge to be taken in purpose. But I've given long thought to the fate of my people, and how they became the Betrayed. We were a people of air and sunlight, and Auri-El was our most sacred sovereign." More for Serana's and Aela's benefit he added, "Among the children of the Aldmer, the tie between divine and mer is very strong."

Solen nodded quietly. "Just like the Dragons and Akatosh."

"The Dwemer's price was not intended to weaken our flesh, but destroy our spirits. I believe that the physical loss of their connection to Him exacerbated their descent. Now the Betrayed have corrupted Vyrthur – he is no longer the brother I once knew. For his sake, and yours, he must end."

"But he's an Arch-Curate, you said – a high priest, the closest alive to Auri-El in this plane – surely you can reason with –?"

"I cannot enter the Inner Sanctum. To leave the wayshrines unguarded is to violate my sacred duty as Knight-Paladin."

"So you haven't even seen –?"

"Oh, I've seen him." Gelebor's frown deepened. "Vyrthur's alive, but… there's something wrong. I feel it, deep in my soul, a certain… malignance, the same kind as I feel among the Betrayed. He doesn't appear to be in pain or under duress, but he just… stands there and watches, as though waiting."

Tentatively, Aela asked, "What exactly did the Betrayed do to him?"

Gelebor sighed and sat down below the altar. "Our Chantry was once a place of peaceful worship where our kin could find enlightenment, then an enclave for the few hundred of us who escaped the Dwemer's bargain. Then one day the Betrayed swept into the Chantry and began killing everyone without pause. I led a small group of paladins, but we were no match for their sheer numbers." He shook his head, anguished. "They stormed the Inner Sanctum, corrupted Vyrthur, and slaughtered the rest."

"But… why? Why did they attack? You're both…?"

Gelebor smiled at Aela with an ancient sorrow. "I fear that is no longer so. The toxin that blinded my race was not enough to devolve them into the sad and twisted things they've become. Nor did they become this way overnight."

"So those things are what they'll be forever? Kyne's mercy, that's a fate worse than death!"

"Both our peoples fought bravely. But in war, there is always a victor."

Aela looked away, and Solen suddenly understood the shame that had seized her. Aela had always been proud to claim descent from Ysgramor's Five Hundred Companions – but they'd won their glory by driving the Snow Elves from Skyrim. In this moment, beholding the face of that ancient enemy and the cost of their defeat, that bloody legacy ashamed her as it never had before. It was, Solen thought, a bitter lesson in battlefield renown; that no matter how it was sung, glory was always reaped in the blood of another.

Maybe now she understood his reluctance. Solen looked back at Gelebor. "Please. Surely whatever's been done to your brother can be undone. Your people have suffered enough."

Gelebor tensed, and a shadow of old pain briefly darkened his fair features. "You will have to reach him," he said finally, "to find the Bow. It lies within the Inner Sanctum wayshrine. Only his blessing – or his death – will unseal the holy bonds that protect it."

The hand that settled on Solen's shoulder was Serana's. For a moment, meeting those burning red eyes, his temper surged up again. "Don't bother saying it. Kill to get what we need. You know who that sounds like, don't you?"

"I do," she said evenly. "I also know that sooner or later, Gendolin will find this place, and he won't hesitate at all. A few Falmer aren't going to stop him. We can't walk away."

Most unfortunately, Serana was right – and Solen, wishing more than he ever had before that he could refuse the call of adventure, looked back to Gelebor with a heart heavy with resignation. "How do we reach Vyrthur?"

The Knight-Paladin inclined his head, then turned. Across from the candlelit altar was a domed mound of white stone, atop which another brass totem of Auri-El's sun blazed triumphant. Golden magic flared between his fingers, then arced gracefully to hit the sigil. It tolled a haunting note, like a strange bell, and the ground trembled lightly. Out of the earth ascended a magnificent arched pavilion, clad in silver stone and trimmed in golden plating. Gelebor's audience gave soft sighs of wonderment.

"Wayshrines like these were used for meditation and transport throughout the Chantry and the vale above. You must follow in the footsteps of the Initiate and travel between these shrines to earn your audience with the Arch-Curate. He, and Auriel's Bow, awaits you at the end of this path."


The fight had moved right above Jorrvaskr; Rayya's bow was at full draw against her cheek, but she didn't dare loose. Nor did any of the archers and arbalists strung along Whiterun's walls. Odahviing seemed to have it well in hand.

Bellowing like thunderstorms, the three Dragons swooped in astonishingly graceful tangles between one another. But Odahviing was the biggest and strongest, his two opponents gaunt and haggard, dull of scale and breed, and the instant he'd hurled himself upon his brethren all those below knew how the fight would end. His fangs and talons seemed everywhere at once, reddening the Dragons' hides with bloody streaks and ripped scales. When his Thu'um sang forth, it lit up the sky. The two Dragons who'd been so daring as to try and snatch a mouthful from within Whiterun were soundly drubbed and sent winging frantically away, yawling, with the Red Dragon hard on their tails and the city's cheers chasing them out of sight.

"Mauloch's eyes," grunted Ghelb, squinting against the sky through Jorrvaskr's raftered canopy, "now there's a sight you don't forget. Suppose it's one you've seen many a time, regent."

Rayya unstrung her bow, reluctant and unspent; she'd been sorely reminded how badly she itched for a good fight. "No," she admitted. "That was a first for me as well. Solen and I are usually fighting them on the ground."

Ghelb unstrung his own bow – twice the size of Rayya's own, a solid stout pole of ebony timber, elegantly carved in chiselled stripes and fangs. It was his pride, and he permitted no one to touch it – not that anyone else had the strength to draw the two-hundred-pound longbow. "Partly the reason I left the stronghold was to fight Dragons," he said, running his thumb lovingly along the shaft. "Still awaitin' the chance."

"The thrill wears off faster than you think. They're awkward opponents. Impossible to manoeuvre around."

"We ain't all sand-vipers like you, regent." Ghelb grinned, his tusks stretching it wide. "Give me a head and a skull to split, I'll give you a bowshot fit to make the Ashpits roar."

"I've already told you, I'm not regent anymore, just a guest. Vilkas has that well in hand again."

"Doesn't mean I answer to him. No Companion's answered to a leader since Ysgramor. So, I'll name regent who I care to name." Ghelb winked. "Presently that's you, Housecarl Rayya."

Rayya snorted. "I'm flattered, but don't let Vilkas catch you saying that. He's in a bad enough mood as it is."

Odahviing's shadow flashed across the courtyard as he soared back over the city, unscathed and glowing with his victory, saluted by a cavalcade of trumpets. A few young bloods resuming the training yard muttered darkly about how a Dragon patrolling over their heads every day still felt like some godly jape. Rayya leaned back in her seat, her hand on the now-noticeable curve of her belly, still feeling a bit cheated. She might've at least gotten one arrow off. Ghelb, watching her, chuckled. "Good that your battlefire is still burning, regent. The father may provide the metal, but it's the mother who forges the warrior."

Lydia pointedly pushed the remnants of Rayya's forgotten lunch back across the table. "Is that an Orcish saying?"

"Stronghold fact," Ghelb corrected. "The wives of the chief do not sit idle and soft until the child demands birth. My own mother was hunting a bristleback when she had me. She laid me out in the heather, wrapped me up, and killed the beast with me at her breast. She returned to the stronghold with two victories." He grinned again. "A strong woman, my mother."

"Well, they do say Orcish endurance is a breed apart," said Lydia, shooting her charge a warning glance as if she planned to go Dragon hunting until labour. "Finish eating, Rayya."

Rayya huffed and obediently returned her attentions to the food. It was far too much, she thought – yet her appetite seemed only to swell with the babe within. She'd promised herself to stop being guilty about being fed to fullness while others went unsatisfied; her choice would be all for nothing if she let herself and the baby starve. Still, the signs of hunger were starting to show even among the Companions as autumn deepened and the Skyrim winter swept ever closer.

Not that it troubles them overmuch, so long as there's battles to fight. And battles there finally were for them; the night assaults had resumed with suddenness again over the last week, and with Vilkas's and Njada's experiences among the Dawnguard firm between their ears, the Companions had taken to wandering the roads at night, spoiling for chances to relieve vampires of their heads. Opportunities to fight seemed reward enough for them. So far only one of their whelps had suffered any serious injury, and she was recovering well in the Kynareth temple.

All too soon the plate was cleaned, and Rayya grimaced and leaned back in her seat. Gentle with your feet, damn it. It was starting to kick more often. "The baby doesn't really demand life, does it?" she muttered.

"Well… the mother feels when it's time," said Lydia. "But that won't be for at least another three months, Rayya."

"Three months!" Rayya fumed. It was bad enough that she could no longer fit her armour – or at least, it'd become too uncomfortable to wear properly – but three more months of this! Lazing around the warrior hall, whacking a motionless straw dummy (the others had become too timid to spar her), watching battles from afar! She swung herself out from her seat. "Come on. I could do with a walk."

A light snowfall had started by the time they'd put Jorrvaskr behind him. The city, usually quiet in the mornings, still buzzed excitedly after the Dragon attack and Odahviing's valiant defence. Rayya looked for the Dragon, but for now he'd disappeared from Whiterun's skies – flown back to Fort Greymoor to receive his reward, she assumed. They circled around the Gildergreen a few times, and paused across from the grim-faced statue of Talos, which stood stonily adjacent to the Dragonsreach steps and Jorrvaskr's plateau. Rayya couldn't help sighing as she stared up into that austere face. Solen liked to visit the statue whenever they returned to Whiterun, pondering his Dragonborn predecessor and the mantle of Ysmir. Gods, it was still so unsettling knowing he was out there and she wasn't…

Lydia's hand settled reassuringly on her shoulder. "He's fine."

"I know." I hope. He'd left Jorrvaskr sharper than he'd entered it, but all that had happened to him, and all that still could happen, weighed heavily on Rayya's mind. "Can't help but worry, though. He always gets into trouble without me."

"He gets there plenty of times with you too, from the way I've heard it," said Lydia, smiling broadly. "Didn't he once get in trouble in Markarth for fondling a statue?"

"Only because the long-eared fool got himself drunker than a skeever on skooma," said Rayya irritably, as Ghelb sniggered heartily. "And desecrating a temple wasn't even the half of it –"

"A story like that ought to be told over a tankard," Ghelb interjected, grinning again. "We should see if the Legion's still got any left to give."

"Rationing mead," Lydia muttered to herself as they all turned their feet towards the Plains District market. "Not even the Dragon Crisis led to so dark a time."

She spoke playfully, yet Rayya struggled to find the humour in it, and not just because she couldn't partake in the sweet alcohol herself. Four months behind Whiterun's walls hadn't seen the city much improve its grim situation, although the Legion had devised a far more efficient system for doling out the city's rations. They'd all but commandeered the marketplace with their wagons and queues, tracking every citizen's allotment of bread and mead with their libraries of censuses and ledgers. The Nord citizenry had chafed at first with the Imperial arrangements that came of free spirits forced into dependence, but the security and efficiency of the Legion's intervention had settled most unruly thoughts. Knowing that their Jarl and his court were tightening their belts right along with them had helped the people accept these unprecedented arrangements and take their food shares quietly.

Today, however, something looked like it had snapped, or was about to. Rayya, Lydia and Ghelb drew up atop the staircase leading to the marketplace below and found, instead of the Legion's orderly lines, a shapeless mob sprawled across the courtyard outside the Bannered Mare. "This doesn't look good," Ghelb muttered. The crowd almost throbbed with a restless anger.

A mingling of Imperial soldiers and Whiterun guards had drawn up around the food wagons, hands settled warningly over weapon handles. "Sir," one of the Imperial sergeants told one of the mob's frontrunners, "please step back into line. You'll be addressed shortly."

"Addressed!" A fair-haired Nord threw up his arms furiously. "Huh, you Imperials have a pretty word for everything, don't you?"

His chestnut-haired companion flexed his fists. "Just call it what it is, man. Stealing the food from our mouths!"

"These are difficult times for all, citizens. No one receives less – or more – than their share." The sergeant took a bold pace forward. "Step back into line."

The fair-headed Nord scoffed in disgust and swung around to his wide-eyed audience. "This is what proud Whiterun's been reduced to, huh? Eating out of the Empire's paws, huddled behind our fences like cattle, watching monsters fight our own battles? That might be the Imperial way, but it sure as Shor isn't ours!"

The crowd's anger was climbing. One resentful shout followed another. The guards stirred uneasily; reinforcements were surely already on their way, yet restoring order was the last thing these frustrated townsfolk on the brink of hope would see them providing. It would be a threat, a challenge, and the dark mood that prevailed forewarned a bloodbath.

"Every day," the fair-haired Nord continued restlessly, "we're told things will get better. The High Queen has it under control. The Legion will protect us. The Dragonborn will fix it." More angry yelling. "And where is he now? Not even a day among his own people and he disappeared again, like the milk-drinking goldenrod that he is!"

Rayya's dismay dissolved instantly into anger. Oh – so that's what they were. She started forward; Lydia slammed her hand on her shoulder. The Nord shook her head, her eyes flinty. "I'll do it."

"I'm his wife and his Housecarl. I'm twice sworn to this duty."

Lydia considered her for a moment. The unsaid understanding flashed between them, and though reluctant, her hand lifted away. For now, that duty had become the greater. "Together, then."

"Are you going to stand for this?" the chestnut bellowed, as the mob riled further. "Are you proud of what Skyrim's been reduced to under the Empire and their Dragonborn lackey?"

Rayya thrust her way through the knot of people and burst into the marketplace, her own challenge bold on her tongue. "And I suppose you're about to tell us that Ulfric Stormcloak would have done better?"

A great stir and a chorus of frenzied whispering rippled through the crowd. The two Nords – Snowborn, of that Rayya was certain – swung round to glare at her scornfully. "And what in Shor's name do we have here?" sneered the chestnut. "A milking mare?"

It took Rayya aback for a moment, the lack of recognition moreso than the insult. Then she remembered she wasn't in armour, just several layers of warm woollens with swordbelts round her swelling waist. Hardly the appearance one imagines of the Dragonborn's Housecarl. "If you can't tell a woman apart from a horse, I feel sorry for your wives."

That earned a few laughs. The chestnut flushed and started forward. Rayya's hand immediately slipped against her scimitar in the easy motion of one who did not wear their weapons for show. "I dare you," she hissed. "Soon as they're drawn, all bets are off."

Lydia and Ghelb flanked her elbows, faces hardened. The Orc cracked his neck. "Words are worthless if you won't draw steel for them."

The mob had quietened. They knew the old proverb as well; now they awaited to see if the men that had riled them would prove the truth of it, under Shor's watchful eye. The Snowborn seemed to weigh their options as they looked between each other and the Legionnaires poised to defend the city's peace. The fair-haired one considered Rayya, then snorted with abrupt recognition. "You're the Dragonborn's woman, aren't you?" He looked insolently over her swollen stomach and suddenly laughed. "Talos help us all. This is what he's been doing instead of fighting for Skyrim? No wonder this country is dying!"

A very different sort of anger suddenly lanced up Rayya's spine. "And what have you been doing, Snowborn scum?" she spat. "Sowing whispers among frightened people while you cower like cravens behind walls that aren't yours."

"These walls are ours. This land is ours. It doesn't belong to Talos-traitors or their hag-faced harlots!"

Swords and axes were pulled free in a disconcerted flurry, and the crowd at once drew back. "No, sergeant," Rayya barked sharply; the steel in her command froze the Imperial soldiers in place. Far more than Solen's honour was at stake now; this had become personal. Her scimitars of Skyforge steel and dragonbone ivory flowed free. "I cannot – will not – stand such insult to my Thane."

"Our Thane," Lydia added, and her longsword hissed from its scabbard. The Housecarl's duty called; their Thane's honour had been challenged.

The Whiterun guards understood well enough, and drew back at once. The Legionnaires, less familiar with such customs, hesitated. Ghelb caught the sergeant's eye and shook his head. "Best you stay out of this one, Imperial. This is Nord affairs now."

"Now there's a rich sight," muttered the blond Snowborn, as Rayya and Lydia stepped forward to engage them. "A pigface that knows the old ways."

Ghelb was an Orc of unusual temperament. Nothing in the Companions' memory had ever seen him quicken to the berserker rage for which Orsimer warriors were famed for; the taunt, like all things, merely made him grin. "Make that one yours, regent. I'd like to see him bleed."

Rayya rolled her scimitars over her wrist. "Gladly."

Lydia moved grinning towards the chestnut-haired opponent, dropping the shield across her shoulders down into her waiting hand. Rayya devoted her attentions to the fair-haired Nord that paced across from her like a pit wolf. His bluster had wavered, but the hands that gripped his dual axes were assured and steady. Weak in wit and spiteful as these wild vermin were, they knew how to fight. The Nord's baleful eyes flashed over her, took in her unarmoured state and swelled belly, and grinned, as if assuring himself of his victory. And though the Housecarl's honour demands it, Rayya thought, as she arched herself into the scorpion's stance, Solen is definitely going to kill me when he finds out.

But if Ghelb's mother could hunt right until she was in labour, then Rayya knew she could fight with her child still growing. Besides, the Snowborn was unarmoured too.

He opened the attack with a roar, war-axes whirling in lethal arcs, and Rayya slid at once into the dance. Her steps fell heavier than she would have liked, and instinctively she found herself on the defensive first, weaving steadily around the Snowborn's flurry. War-axes were slower than swords, but much harder to deflect and easier to be trapped or disarmed to; she found herself suddenly, unexpectedly anxious about committing to any attack that left her centre open. No guesses why, she thought grimly as she swung round behind the Nord, scimitars flashing for his back.

But the Nord was quick – he whirled deftly to counter her, and Rayya jerked back as the heavy war-axes lunged for her throat. She grimaced as her belly tightened and fell back. Dammit, not now! Settle down! Sensing her distraction, the Snowborn renewed his assault. The right axe came down in a feint, the left aiming to bite the shoulder; Rayya correctly anticipated both strikes, and a flash of her swords threw the Nord's arms wide open. Her boot rammed into his chest, knocking him staggering with a wheeze.

"You can still yield," Rayya warned him, a little reluctantly – honour demanded that too. A single opportunity, after the first crossing of weapons, for the offender to withdraw and keep his life.

The Snowborn bared his teeth. "Sovngarde first!"

Ah, good. When he lunged again, Rayya devoted herself to ending it quickly.

Even out of armour, she was slower than she cared to be, and the Nord's vast flurries were as perilous as they were intimidating. Perhaps he mistook her unwillingness to stand still and engage as a fear of getting hurt, and he laughed as he drove her in circles round the marketplace. "Frightened to die, you pregnant cow?" Rayya didn't answer, and the Snowborn switched up his assault with suddenness – he baited a parry then came down, one hand after the other, hammering at the crossed scimitars for an opening. "And you call yourself a Housecarl!"

When Rayya lashed back in a counter, his war-axes switched suddenly from their curving arcs to hook her scimitars between the axeblades. With a roar of triumph, the Snowborn wrenched his arms apart to tug the swords from Rayya's grip – only the swords had already slipped free. Not many Skyrim warriors were familiar with fighting against curved swords; those that knew understood that they were much harder to weaponlock. Like serpents they slithered between the Snowborn's axes and flashed across the opening he'd made for himself. He howled with pain, his wrists laid open. The war-axes tumbled from numbed hands.

Rayya's scimitars whirled to their position at the Nord's neck, no longer afraid to commit. Equal momentum, equal deliverance. The Snowborn's head whirled once, fair tresses whirling, and squelched as it struck the cobblestones.

"Because I earned it," Rayya told the headless corpse, and without waiting to watch it topple swung towards Lydia. She needn't have worried; her Snowborn opponent was already limp on his knees, the longsword thrust through his sternum. Rayya's scowl now raked the subdued mob. "Does anyone else," she growled, "wish to air their grievances against my husband?"

A spluttering wheeze answered her. Ghelb stood behind them with two ruddy-faced Nords writhing in headlocks under the Orc's burly arms. "Friends of theirs," he said, mild as ever. "They got a little excited."

Rayya's eyes wandered the swords of cold steel that had slipped from the ambushers' writhing hands. "I see." Of course she should have expected more Snowborn hidden in the crowd, awaiting a chance. "Thank you for mannering them, Ghelb." To the Imperial soldiers she said dismissively, "Those ones you can do what you like with."

The sergeant frowned at the spluttering Nords. "If you could let them down, sir – we'll take them from here."

"Aye," Ghelb said, and dumped the two renegades on the ground.

Rayya shook her head as blood pooled steadily across the cobblestones. Stupid fools. Really she was surprised they hadn't revealed themselves sooner; she'd long suspected the chain of ill rumour had begun with them. They're as desperate as the Dragons now. They've nothing left to lose. Nothing's left for them in the wilderness but death. The vampires must've glutted on their encampments.

Yet though the dissenters were dead, their words still lingered among the crowd. Hunger, fear, hopelessness, grief – such things wore away at anyone's spirit. Rayya sensed their temper lurking like dunerippers below the sand. Given the opportunity, this sort of thing would only happen again. Her eyes wandered them all and she shook her head. "I know times are hard. But whatever you've heard – all that's been sacrificed – it won't be for nothing."

"What of the Dragonborn, then?" someone shouted. "Where is the Thane?"

"Where else? Out there, doing what needs to be done."

"Then why isn't it getting better?" someone called out. "Why won't these attacks stop?"

"Almost every night now, those vampires come – every day there's been more killed!"

"It'll be winter soon. We can't go on like this!"

The crowd rumbled in unhappy agreement. They're losing faith, Rayya thought. In him. In the Empire. In each other. No wonder that the Snowborn's resentment had resonated, why the vampires' midnight assaults had spiked again. The hopeless stopped giving a damn.

I said I'd keep Whiterun together, Solen. I won't let it rot from within. Rayya straightened and set her shoulders back, for a moment crisply reminded of the soldier she'd been. "And you won't," she said flatly, "because you're Nords. When you pick something that matters, you fight tooth and nail to defend it. Did you give up Talos when the Dominion told you to? Did you yield your homes and children when Ulfric demanded them? Did you go quietly into the World-Eater's belly when his black wings heralded the End Times? No! You fought, damn it, because if I've learned anything about your people, by Ruptga, it's that that's what Nords do!"

She glimpsed a few brightening eyes and faces flushing with an inner call. Galvanized, Rayya pushed on fiercely. "That's what you're doing, here and everywhere across Skyrim. Fighting. Not with swords or fists, but with perseverance. Every breath you take is a victory over the menace that stalks your shadow! Every pounding heart, defiance against the death that circles! And if the Dragonborn himself won't inspire you to this battle, then find something that will, and see this blizzard through to spring."

She flicked the blood from her scimitars' edge and sheathed them flashily. "But I'm going to believe in Solen, right through the storm, because he's your Thane, your Harbinger, your defender. This is his city and you're his people. Your enemy is his enemy. He hasn't forgotten you, and he won't fail you."

At last heads were nodding and fists were clenching for the right reasons. Rayya breathed silently in relief, quite eager to shed the mantle of attention. "Right. So. Just… continue on, then. Sergeant." She stepped back and allowed the Legionnaires to reassert order, which they did with surprising speed. In no time at all, the mob dispersed, the bodies were politely removed, and the marketplace resumed its old normality.

Lydia chuckled as she strode over and slapped Rayya on the back. "You're not half as bad at leading as you think, sword-sister."

Rayya caught her balance and shook her head. "That wasn't leading. I just said what they needed to hear."

"And it worked," said Ghelb, with a respectful nod. "This is why I call you regent."

"Oh, come on. Because I can cut off a Snowborn's head?"

"Because of why. Conviction, unwavering as Skyforge steel. That is what a Companion follows, what a city follows, as long as they need to be led."

Rayya shrugged, unexpectedly moved and uncomfortable all at once. "I'm a follower, Ghelb, no leader. Onsi knows there's enough of those to steer us through this."

"They didn't remind the folk of their spirit today," said Ghelb, with a nod at the townsfolk around them. "We've all got our roles to play in this fight – and yours, Housecarl, won't be as small as you seem to think."