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Chapter Text

Skyrim was beautiful.

Ethne Duval thought so for the first time, and far from the last, having just escaped from the destruction of Helgen. It snuck up on her unexpectedly.

After the darkness of the cave tunnel, she and Ralof the Stormcloak stood on the mountainside, blinking in the bright morning sunlight. Before they could even see properly, they had to duck beneath the shelter of a boulder when the monstrous black dragon roared overhead one last time before winging away to the north. And then the danger was finally past. They were at the head of a path overlooking the forested sides of the mountains to the northwest, and every tree looked dipped in gold, brilliant against the hazy blue summer sky. The smell of smoke and death was behind them, and the smell of pines beckoned. They were alive, and Skyrim was beautiful.

Ethne shocked poor Ralof by planting a sloppy kiss on his face then and there, filthy and blood-spattered as he was—as they both were. But hot-blooded young soldier though he was, he also was a good man, and he knew better than to read more into it than a simple outpouring of survivor’s joy. Smiling, he blushed, grunted, and suggested they get a move on before anyone came after them.

He led her down the mountain at a hard pace, and she struggled to keep up in the hot, ill-fitting armor she had taken from one of his fallen compatriots. It was better than nothing, though, and she bore her fatigue in silence. She couldn’t complain to the man who’d cut her bonds and was still helping her, a perfect stranger and a foreigner, to boot. The only thing they had in common was having been dumped onto the same cart for transport to the executioner’s block in Helgen.

For him, though, that was enough. Anyone the Imperials wanted dead was more likely to be sympathetic to the cause of the Stormcloaks. He suggested that she consider joining, and she told him she would think about it.

In truth, she was ambivalent about the civil war. She certainly resented the Imperial army at the moment, but she had little sympathy for the rebellion of a people she did not know. Ethne was a Breton from a little port town in Alcaire, and she had lived in Cyrodiil for several years until her latest employer, an old healer by the name of Gaius Mellitus, had died, setting her adrift. She had come north in search of work, having heard a rumor that there might be an opening for someone with her skills at the White Phial in Windhelm, only to be held at the border and arrested on suspicion of being a spy for Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm. No one had listened to her protests that she was an innocent civilian. They’d stripped her of her possessions, left her in a damp, chilly cell at Fort Neugrad for days, and loaded her up one night with a convoy of rebels taken in ambush somewhere called Darkwater Crossing. She later learned this would have been on her way to Windhelm; perhaps the Imperials had feared she would tip off the rebels to their plan, with or without meaning to.

In any case, she was grateful to Ralof, and then to his sister, Gerdur, for helping her and giving her a safe place to rest after her ordeal. She was happy to be able to repay their kindness by carrying the news of Helgen’s destruction and Riverwood’s danger to Whiterun.

Gerdur set her up with decent clothes and food for the journey, plus enough gold for a meal and a bed in the city. For defense, Ethne had a rusty iron axe she’d taken in the flight from Helgen. She gave the Stormcloak armor to Ralof to take back to his friends, though, having no wish to be mistaken for a rebel again.

On the morning of her second day out from Riverwood, Ethne climbed up on a shelf of rock between the road and the White River to get her bearings, and she got her first look at the plains of Whiterun Hold: rolling fields of hardy green grass dotted with outcrops of granite and colorful flowers of all descriptions; the river flowing away in a shining ribbon to the northeast; stark, craggy mountains rising up all around; and directly north, a towering structure that had to be Dragonsreach, the palace of the jarl perched on its high hill. The scene was almost overwhelming in its grandeur. She had to stop and admire it. Everyone always spoke of Skyrim as a harsh land, frozen and unforgiving. Why did no one ever mention how lovely it was, too?

She couldn’t stop for long, though. She hoped to reach the jarl before nightfall, and she would have to move quickly in order to make that goal.

By midday, she reached the crossroads where Gerdur had told her she must turn west rather than continue north across a tributary to the river. The road followed the tributary and led her past the Honingbrew Meadery. The richly sweet smell of fermenting honey filled the air. Honingbrew was famous even outside of Skyrim, and had Ethne been on an errand less urgent, she might have stopped by to visit, but that would have to wait for another day.

The shadows were beginning to grow long when she came to the walled border of a field full of maturing leeks and cabbages. Her eyes were on the road, avoiding the afternoon sun ahead of her, but her head jerked up at the sound of a deep, guttural roar and a crunch and snap of splintering wood.

There was a giant. A giant, right in the middle of a cultivated field. Ethne stood stock-still, staring, her mouth gaping open. The towering creature bellowed again and swung its enormous bone club, throwing up a cloud of earth and destroying half a row of innocent vegetables.

Movement drew Ethne’s eye, and she realized there were two people fighting the giant. One darted in and swung at it, his greatsword glinting in the sun, while the other drew back, keeping an eye on that deadly club.

Suddenly the giant flinched as though stung and turned to bellow at a third fighter: an archer, standing atop a wall behind the others, whose red hair shone like a halo of fire. The distraction provided by her shot gave the two fighters an opportunity to move in for twin hits. The man with the greatsword thrust high at the giant’s belly while the smaller of the two, whom Ethne realized was a woman, hacked at its shin with her one-handed blade. They both scored it, but that only seemed to make it angrier. It bellowed in rage and lifted one great foot to stomp on the ground. Ethne felt the shock from yards away, and the two fighters stumbled.

Before she knew what she was doing, Ethne leaped over a low place in the field’s stone wall and went running to help. With a wordless cry, she hewed at the back of the giant’s leg with her war axe held in both hands. It was like striking a hardwood tree, and her arms went nearly numb; but she had at least nicked a tendon, and the giant staggered under the weight of its club, raised to strike. The two fighters scrambled out of range, and Ethne too dodged back.

Another arrow took the giant in the eye. It fell to its knees with a roar of agony, clutching its face. Ethne and the two warriors fell on it together, Ethne chopping at the back of its neck and the others stabbing for its heart. Finally, after several agonizing and bloody seconds, it fell still and moved no more.

The three of them stood panting, looking at each other curiously, but too winded to speak for the moment. The woman was young, twenty at the most, with short brunette hair and light brown eyes. She wore lines of red paint at the corners of her eyes and below her mouth that made her look fierce, but she seemed as surprised as she was elated by her shared victory. The man with the greatsword was something of a giant himself, tall and very broad of chest and shoulder, made even broader by the fur-lined spaulders of his dark steel armor. His hair was long and dark, matted with sweat, and he had ragged circles of black warpaint around his eyes. These were a bright, icy blue, and he had a broad grin that Ethne found mildly unsettling.

The red-haired archer joined them and looked over the fallen giant with a satisfied air. “Well, that’s taken care of.” She had a pleasantly low voice, and she, too, wore warpaint: three streaks of dark blue woad across her face, as though something had clawed her. “Nice work, Ria,” she said to the brunette; then she turned to Ethne. “You handled yourself well, too, stranger. You could make for a decent shield-sister.”

“Thanks,” Ethne said, though she wasn’t quite sure what the redhead meant. “I couldn’t just stand there when he knocked your friends down.”

“Certainly not,” the woman said approvingly. “Any true warrior would relish the opportunity to take on a giant. That’s why I’m here with my shield-siblings. The big oaf is Farkas. This is Ria. I’m Aela.”

Aela held out her arm, and Ethne clasped it.

“Ethne Duval.” She shook with the other two in turn. Farkas had a grip like a steel trap that numbed her hand all over again. She tried not to show it. “So . . . what does it mean, ‘shield-sister’?”

“An outsider, eh? Never heard of the Companions?”

Ethne shook her head.

“An order of warriors. We are brothers and sisters in honor. And we show up to solve problems if the coin is good enough.” Aela put her foot on the giant’s back.

“You should come back to Jorrvaskr with us,” Farkas said suddenly, making Ethne jump with his deep, gruff voice. “We’ll be celebrating Ria’s first giant tonight.” He slapped the younger woman affectionately on the back, staggering her. “You helped, so you should be there, too. It’ll be a lot of fun, and you can talk to Kodlak about joining up. You look strong. I’m sure he’ll take you.”

“Oh,” Ethne said, a little taken aback by the offer. “I would love to . . . but I can’t. I have to see the jarl. It’s urgent—I’ve stopped here too long already.”

“Ease up there, icebrain; you’ll scare her off before she even gets to know us,” Aela said, grinning. “Don’t mind him,” she told Ethne. “But you should come with us anyway. We’re going the same direction, and we’ll make sure the guards let you into the city. There’s a crazy rumor about a dragon torching the countryside, and they’ve locked the gates to visitors. Personally, I think it’s just an excuse to keep out the Imperials and the Stormcloaks without offending anyone.”

Ethne shook her head. “It’s not just a rumor. It’s true.”

Aela raised her eyebrows skeptically.

“I was at Helgen two days ago,” Ethne stated. “An enormous black dragon attacked and destroyed the town. It breathed fire, just like in the stories, and it called burning rocks down from the sky.” The deadly heat of the flames, the thick, choking smoke, the explosions and the screams came back to her. The hairs of her body stood on end. “Mara’s mercy, its voice . . . it was like thunder.” More than that, it had resonated inside her in a way she didn’t understand. It felt almost like something on the edge of memory, just out of reach; something she yearned for even though it frightened her half out of her wits. She shuddered hard and wrapped her arms around herself.

The Companions looked at her with new eyes after hearing her account.

“Gods, you’re not making it up,” said Aela. She looked troubled.

The young woman, Ria, spoke for the first time. “You really saw a dragon? Did you fight it?”

Ethne goggled at her. “What? No! I barely escaped it! One man and I made it to Riverwood. They wanted me to come and ask Jarl Balgruuf for protection for them.”

“Then we won’t waste any more time,” Aela said. “Come on.”

She took Ethne’s forearm and tugged her into motion. The others fell in behind.

As they hurried up the road, now striding, now jogging, Aela turned to her with a question. “Tell me . . . in Helgen, did you happen to see a red-haired man, about the size of Farkas? He might have had a boy with him, or a narrow-faced woman.”

Ethne shook her head, frowning. “I don’t know, it all happened so fast. But . . . ” Flashes of memory returned. She had noticed a boy as the carts rolled toward the town square. His father had sent him inside. Had he had red hair? Maybe. Then, later, as she was fleeing through fire and tumult, a boy again; his father, burned and dying, telling him to run. Imperial soldiers had escorted him away, hopefully to safety. She told Aela, “If I did see the man you’re thinking of, he’s dead. I’m sorry. Was he someone close to you?”

Aela scowled. “Not close, not for many years . . . but he was my brother. Torolf. He worked the lumber mill in Helgen with his wife, and they had a son, Haming. He’d be ten or eleven now, I think. Is he . . . ?”

“No—that is, I don’t know for certain, but the man I saw, his son may have escaped. Some Imperial soldiers were protecting him last I saw.”

“I see.” Aela was silent for a moment, eyes cast down on the road ahead of her. “Thank you for telling me. If Haming’s alive, I know where he’d go.”

She didn’t sound thrilled about it, but it wasn’t Ethne’s business, so she didn’t inquire as to why.

They reached the winding approach to the gates of Whiterun. It was clearly designed with warfare in mind, exposing a potential enemy to attack on all sides, but the walls were old and crumbling, the rickety wooden towers hardly fit for birds to nest in. Ethne wasn’t sure how much good these defenses would do against a determined army, let alone a living siege engine on the wing.

The gates to the city were painted in faded powder-blue and gold. Banners with a horse-head device in the same colors hung to either side.

One of two guards in matching livery stepped forward and called out to Aela and the others as they approached. “Hail, Companions! Who’s this with you? A new recruit?” He sounded suspicious, but it was hard to tell through the faceplate.

“A friend,” said Aela, “with important news for the Jarl. Open up, Arne. I vouch for her.” She clapped Ethne on the shoulder, not warmly, but confidently enough to sell the image.

“All right, Aela,” said Arne, then addressed Ethne. “But don’t go causing any trouble, outsider. We’ve got more than enough as it is.”

He turned and unlocked the gates with an outsized iron key. It took both guards to force one of the leaves open—the wood had to be six inches thick. Ethne, Farkas, and Ria followed Aela inside, and the lock clanked shut behind them.

The Companions went on without pause, but Ethne fell behind, looking around at the city. The first sight that greeted her was the smithy on the south side of the street, with its facade as red as the coals of the forge in the light of sunset. A little farther along, to the north and above the street, was a tavern whose shingle depicted a frothy mug of ale over a hop flower and two ears of wheat.

Farkas noticed that she was no longer with them and dropped back beside her. “First time to Whiterun?” he inquired. When Ethne said it was, he went on. “That’s the Drunken Huntsman. Don’t stay there. It’s all right if you’re fancy, but the Bannered Mare is better. Come on. It’s a long climb to the palace.”

She did her best to stop gawking and keep up, but Whiterun was full of fascinating sights and sounds. They came to an open plaza surrounded by shops with a well in the center, clearly the heart of the city. The marketplace was lively with people closing shop and heading either home to their families or off to their watering hole of choice.

“See, that’s the Mare up there,” Farkas said, pointing to a large two-story building that lorded over the plaza from a higher place on the hillside. “When you’re done talking to the Jarl, you can get a good, hot meal and a bed there. Tell Hulda the Companions sent you, and she’ll treat you extra-nice.”

“Thanks,” Ethne said. It was heartfelt. She’d always heard that the Nords were a people as rough as their country, brutish and unfriendly to outsiders, but even this big, dangerous-looking warrior was proving that wrong.

Aela and Ria had gotten ahead again, and Aela turned to shout at them from a stairway leading to the next level of the city.

“Come on, Farkas! She’s not here to see the sights!”

“Sorry!” he said, though he didn’t seem quite sure whether he was saying it to Aela or Ethne.

“It’s all right,” Ethne said. “I’ll be grateful if I have to find my way back here after dark.”

They hurried to catch up again. The stair was ingeniously flanked with streams of running water, chuckling merrily over the rocks of their beds.

“This is the Wind District,” Farkas told her when they reached the top. “Back there was the Plains District. It’s mostly shops down there, and it’s mostly houses up here. That’s the Temple of Kynareth.” He pointed northwest of a huge tree in the middle of the courtyard. The streams of water drew a circle around it. “Jorrvaskr’s there.” He pointed east, to an enormous hall with a roof that looked like an overturned boat, hung with shields all along its length. Warm light shone from within. “That’s where we live. Us and the rest of the Companions.”

“This is where we leave you,” Aela said. “Just follow the stairs up to the palace; you can’t miss it. Tell the guards what you told us, and you won’t have any trouble. When you get inside, talk to Irileth, the housecarl. A Dark Elf; you can’t miss her, either. Jarl Balgruuf can be a bit prickly, but he’s an honorable man and he cares about his people. He’ll be sure to hear you out.”

“Thank you—all of you,” Ethne said, and clasped their arms again. “I hope we meet again.”

“You can always come by Jorrvaskr if you’re interested in joining up,” Aela said. “The life’s not for everyone, but if you survived a dragon, you must have some strength in you. There’s no better way to win honor and glory while earning a living, too. Think about it.”

“I will.”

Ethne watched them make their way up to their hall and for a moment really wished she were going with them. But no. She would deliver her message, spend the night at the inn, and in the morning she would start asking around for work that didn’t come with such a high risk of death.

As Farkas had said, it was a long climb to the palace of Dragonsreach, and the stone steps were slippery with spray from twin waterfalls that spilled from fissures in the hillside into a deep pool below. Here, then, was the source of the streams below. Clever.

She kept on doggedly. At the top, she paused to slow her breathing and compose herself, then approached the palace guards.

“Halt!” cried one, a woman. “Who are you, and what business do you have here?”

“Ethne Duval of High Rock,” she answered smartly. “I come bearing news from Helgen and a request for aid from Riverwood.”

“Helgen? You were at Helgen?”

“I was. I saw what happened with my own eyes.”

“Go, then. The Jarl will want to hear this.”

The guard opened the door and ushered Ethne inside.

The long hall was dark in the fading light of dusk, and the central fire threw long, eerie shadows against the supporting pillars and the walls. The place felt even bigger on the inside than it had looked from below.

Ethne could hear the sounds of a conversation echoing from the far end of the hall as she climbed yet more stairs to the main level.

“My lord. Please. You have to listen. I only counsel caution. We cannot afford to act rashly in times like these. If the news from Helgen is true . . . well, there’s no telling what it means.”

The speaker was an anxious, mostly bald man with a Cyrodiilic accent. He stood beside the throne, in which lounged an imposing figure of a Nord with his yellow hair braided back from his face and his beard immaculately styled into a blunt cone. His rich clothes and the gold circlet on his brow, set with large gems, marked him as a lord, though his demeanor and manner of speech would have been enough without them.

“What would you have me do, then? Nothing?”

“I just think we need more information before we act, my lord. Please—”

“Who’s this, then?” The Jarl fixed his gaze on Ethne.

She had crept as close as she dared to the dais and come up beside the head of the fire pit, before a hard-faced Dunmer woman who must be the Irileth of whom Aela had spoken. Ethne was no longer certain whom she should address, but Irileth solved the dilemma by marching toward her.

“You! Why do you interrupt a meeting between the Jarl and his steward?” Her voice was deep and melodious, like many Dunmer women, but there was nothing soothing about her. She fixed her ruby-red eyes on Ethne and glared such that Ethne was sure she would get a sword in the gut if she said the wrong thing.

“I . . . ” Her voice broke. She swallowed and started again. “I beg your pardon, my lady, my lords. I have just come from Riverwood, bearing urgent news for the Jarl of Whiterun. Riverwood is in danger and calls for the Jarl’s aid. Despite the late hour, I must humbly request an audience.”

The housecarl looked as though she were about to say no, but the Jarl intervened.

“It’s all right, Irileth. I want to hear what this woman has to say.”

Irileth’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Very well. You may approach the Jarl. But carefully.”

Ethne gave her a stiff bow and edged between her and the fire to stand before the throne.

Jarl Balgruuf leaned forward to peer at her more closely. “What’s this about Riverwood being in danger?”

Ethne gulped again, though her mouth was dry. “My lord, I was at Helgen when the dragon attacked. When I last saw it, it was flying north. Gerdur is afraid that Riverwood might be next, and she asked me to bring you this news and her request for protection.”

“Gerdur? Owns the lumber mill, if I’m not mistaken. Pillar of the community. Not prone to flights of fancy.” Balgruuf paused and weighted his next words with irony. “And you’re sure Helgen was destroyed by a dragon? This wasn’t some Stormcloak raid gone wrong?”

“No, my lord. I saw it,” Ethne repeated. “Neither Men nor Mer could do what this thing did. It leveled the town—there’s nothing left but rubble and ash.” Again the horror of that day overtook her. She fought down the urge to vomit and held her balled hands stiffly at her sides lest she seem feeble before the Jarl.

However, he had turned to address his steward with an air of vindication. “What do you say now, Proventus? Shall we continue to trust in the strength of our walls? Against a dragon?”

Irileth spoke up from his left. “My lord, we should send troops to Riverwood at once. It’s in the most immediate danger if that dragon is lurking in the mountains.”

The steward, Proventus, argued back. “The Jarl of Falkreath will view that as a provocation! He’ll assume we’re preparing to join Ulfric’s side and attack him.”

Jarl Balgruuf raised a hand, cutting them off. “Enough! Irileth, send a detachment to Riverwood at once.”

“Yes, my Jarl.” She snapped off a precise bow and turned on her heel to go and give the orders.

“We should not . . . ” muttered Proventus.

Balgruuf rounded on him angrily: “I’ll not stand idly by while a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people!”

“Y-yes, my Jarl,” stammered Proventus. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll return to my duties.”

“That would be best,” Balgruuf said stiffly. When the steward had gone, he turned to Ethne, who had stood like a statue throughout the exchange. “You there. Well done. You are a stranger to Whiterun, yet you’ve done me a service, and I won’t forget it. Tell me your name.”

She told him.

He nodded. “Ethne Duval, I will make you known to my household, and you will be allowed to select a reward from my armory. A small token of my esteem.”

“My lord is generous.” Ethne hesitated. The Jarl was giving her a speculative look that she couldn’t interpret. “Will that be all, sire?”

It seemed not. “There is another thing you could do for me. Suitable for someone of your particular talents, perhaps. Come, let’s go find Farengar, my court wizard. He’s been looking into a matter related to these dragons and . . . rumors of dragons.”

“Yes, my lord.” She tried not to let her frustration tell in her voice. She was tired, thirsty, and heartsick, and wanted nothing more than to find her way back to the Bannered Mare and shut out the world for the night. And just what did this jarl think her “particular talents” were? The fact that she had seen a dragon and escaped with most of the skin on her back didn’t make her some kind of expert.

However, one did not argue with royalty, so she held her tongue and followed him to a laboratory off the east side of the greathall.

“I’ll introduce you to Farengar,” Jarl Balgruuf said softly. “He can be a bit . . . difficult. Mages, you know.”

She did know, having spent more than enough time around them as a youth. Every child in High Rock was routinely tested for magical ability and trained accordingly—at least as far as their parents could afford, and Ethne’s merchant father had afforded quite a bit. Unfortunately, she had never had the slightest aptitude, despite the claims of numerous teachers that she had a great untapped potential. True or not, her simplest spells had always fizzled in seconds, no matter how she concentrated, and they had finally allowed her to give up and pursue other interests.

Farengar’s room was the typical cluttered mess Ethne associated with serious wizards: a table covered in books, papers, a map, and a scattering of small soul gems and other materials; an alchemy array; an enchanting table; shelves and shelves of more books, potions, reagents, and Divines knew what else. The man himself was a hatchet-faced Nord with brown hair and an impressive set of muttonchops.^[1] He stood at the table, poring over one of his books, and didn’t look up until the Jarl said his name.

“Farengar, I think I’ve found someone who can help you with your project. Go ahead and fill her in on all the details.”

“Hmm? What? Project?” Farengar had apparently been lost in his research and took a moment to come back to Nirn. He blinked owlishly at Ethne. “Oh, yes, the Jarl must be referring to my research into dragons. Yes, I could use someone to fetch something for me. Well, when I say fetch, I really mean delve into a dangerous ruin in search of an ancient artifact that may or may not actually be there.”

Ethne’s heart sank. She was in no way prepared for a treasure-hunting expedition to gods-knew-where, and she had sworn she was done with this sort of thing when she settled down to keep shop for old Gaius. She tried to think of a polite way to say no, she wasn’t the woman they wanted, but she couldn’t. This was work, a voice in the back of her mind told her. Better, it would put her in a jarl’s good graces, and that could only be a good thing in the long run.

And, if she were honest with herself, she had to admit she was curious. “All right, tell me more. What does this have to do with dragons?”

Farengar seemed pleased with her response. “Ah, no mere brute mercenary, but a thinker—perhaps even a scholar?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond; his passion carried him on, pacing back and forth behind his table. “You see, when the stories of dragons began to circulate, many dismissed them as mere fantasies, rumors. Impossibilities. One sure mark of a fool is to dismiss anything that falls outside his experience as being impossible. But I began to search for information about dragons—where had they gone all those years ago? And where were they coming from?”

Ethne wanted to know that herself. “And you found something? This artifact?”

“Yes. I, ah, learned of a certain stone tablet said to be housed in Bleak Falls Barrow: a ‘Dragonstone’, said to contain a map of dragon burial sites. Your task is to go to Bleak Falls Barrow, find this tablet—no doubt interred in the main chamber—and bring it to me. Simplicity itself.”

“Right.” If that was a joke, the wizard had a rotten sense of humor. The way he’d avoided her eyes when he said “learned” was not particularly heartening, either. “And how do I get to—wait.” Ethne frowned. “Bleak Falls? I know that place.” Ralof had pointed it out to her during their flight to Riverwood; said it gave him the chills.

She turned to the Jarl, who had stood quietly observing the exchange. “My lord, I would fetch this Dragonstone for you, but . . . I lost everything I owned in Helgen.” Not quite the truth, but close enough to avoid questions that would make everyone uncomfortable. “I hate to beg favors, but I have no proper gear, food, supplies . . . ”

Balgruuf gave her a hard, measuring look. Ethne thought she might slip off the hook after all, but then the jarl gave the barest nod. “If you succeed in this, Whiterun will be in your debt. I will see that you have gold enough for what you need. Consider it a down payment on your reward, and do not fail.”

He didn’t need to say what would happen if she did: she’d be a dead woman, one way or another.

“I won’t,” said Ethne. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Good. Now, it is late, and you have come a long way. Go, rest, and come back in the morning. My steward, Proventus, will see to your needs.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you. Goodnight.” She bowed to him and, less deeply, to Farengar, then hurried out.

The Jarl’s voice followed her into the hall: “This is a priority now, Farengar. Anything we can use to fight this dragon, or dragons. We need it, quickly. Before it’s too late.”

Farengar replied: “Of course, Jarl Balgruuf. You seem to have found me an able assistant. I’m sure she will prove most useful.”

She had better, Ethne thought, smiling grimly to herself.

It was challenging to get around Whiterun in the dark with all its stairs and levels, and seeing Jorrvaskr again, its windows glowing brightly and smoke rising from the cookfires within, almost made her reverse her decision to decline Farkas’ invitation. A drink and a song or two would be just the way to get fired up before a dangerous quest. But she really had no business there, and she needed to rest, not stay up carousing.

Thanks to the tour she’d received earlier, she made it to the Bannered Mare without getting lost or breaking her neck. As soon as she stepped through the door, she wondered whether she were really any better off here than up at the mead hall. The common room was full of people, mostly locals by the sameness of them: on benches around the central fire, at the bar, at tables in the corners. Over the hum of conversation, a bard played a lilting melody on a horn flute.

The locals were curious about her, but she kept her conversation brief and polite, and they soon got bored and left her alone. The innkeeper, an officious middle-aged woman named Hulda, noticed her quickly enough and set her up with a frothy ale and a bowl of rich venison stew. Ethne hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she smelled it, and then she could think of nothing else. She tucked in gratefully and was not disappointed. The meat was tender and not too gamy, the large chunks of potato dissolved creamily on her tongue, and the gravy was well seasoned with pepper and some other spices that reminded her of Hammerfell.

She went to bed happy and roused when the sun, slanting through narrow slats in the roof, fell on her face. Hulda fed her a complimentary breakfast of new bread and honey with a small pot of heather tea, and so she got a better start to the day than she had ever hoped for.

She made her way back up to the palace with a spring in her step, thinking that this adventure wasn’t such a bad idea after all. She was alive; she’d landed on her feet after a harrowing near-death experience, and she had a patron in an important lord who, if she pleased him this time, might have further use for her in the future.

And she liked his city. Whiterun was impressive and a little daunting in twilight. In the fresh light of morning, its true character shone through. It was an ancient settlement, and it showed in the worn cobblestones underfoot and the darkened wood of the buildings, but it was also a well-kept one. The water channeled so cleverly from its source below the palace looked fresh and pure where it flowed in its sparkling courses above-ground, but Ethne suspected that there were below-ground sewers, too, which would account for the cleanliness of the streets. The doors of shops and houses were painted in cheerful hues, and there wasn’t a moldy bit of thatch or missing shingle to be seen. Grasses and flowers grew wherever they could find purchase on the rocky bones of the hill, giving lively color to the whole place. Maybe it wasn’t as grand as the stone capitals of High Rock and Cyrodiil, but it was by no means unsophisticated, and she found it comfortable, like a favorite old chair that had shaped itself to the contours of its owner.

Balgruuf’s household was just finishing breakfast when she arrived in the greathall. He himself had already taken his place on the throne and was engaged in conversation with Irileth, Proventus, and a man in Imperial armor whom she didn’t recognize: fairly mundane talk of agendas, stores, soldiers, and gold. The watchful housecarl spotted her first and pinned her where she was with a sharp look, then bent to the Jarl’s ear.

Balgruuf nodded and shifted in his seat to face Ethne more directly. “You are prompt. Good. I trust you remember my steward, Proventus Avenicci.” He gestured to the balding Imperial. “He will escort you first to the armory. You may take any spare piece of armor that suits you and whatever gear you think will be of use in your quest. If there is anything you require that Dragonsreach cannot provide, Proventus will purchase it for you, within reason.”

Ethne noticed the pinched look on the steward’s face and guessed that he wasn’t too happy about this order. She couldn’t blame him. A steward’s job was to take greater care with his master’s money than the master himself. If he was any good, spending always went against the grain.

“I understand, my lord,” she said.

Proventus beckoned her impatiently and led her through the halls of the palace. “Come on, let’s get this over with. I have more important things to do than take the Jarl’s new pet for a walk.”

Behind him, Ethne rolled her eyes. “Yes, my lord steward.”

He looked at her sharply over his shoulder. She looked up curiously, as though wondering what he wanted, and he hurried on with a huff.

Fortunately, the palace stores held most of what she needed: a decent if battered steel cuirass and gauntlets from the armory; stained boots with good, thick soles; a warm blanket, only slightly moth-eaten; a patched change of clothes; a spare flint and steel striker; a small iron pot; a sturdy rope and sheet of canvas; a pair of minor healing potions for emergencies; a stout leather backpack to carry it all in.

Dragonsreach did not have travelers’ food on hand, though. For that and a few other odds and ends she had learned never to travel without, they went out into the city.

Proventus cheered up markedly in the sunlight; perhaps he didn’t get out much. Ethne made a simple passing remark about how nice the waterfalls were, and he was off to the races, telling her everything he knew about the history of Whiterun. Parts were quite fascinating, and she wished he would slow down a bit. As it was, she felt sure she wouldn’t remember half of it.

He appreciated a receptive audience, though, and they managed to end the excursion on friendly terms with each other. He wished her well on her endeavor and even pressed a few extra coins into her palm, for whatever came up. “The Jarl has many cares,” he said. “If this Dragonstone eases his mind, you’ll have my gratitude. Good luck.”

She thanked him for everything and, having no preparations left to make, set off back to Riverwood.

Chapter Text

Gerdur was surprised to see Ethne again, but happy that her appeal to Jarl Balgruuf had been successful. The detachment from Whiterun had arrived a day ahead of her, and the townsfolk felt more at ease.

Most of them, anyway. The guards hadn’t been there in time to stop bandits from robbing the Riverwood Trader of an invaluable gold ornament, as Ethne learned when she stopped in to resupply herself with fresh food. Just her luck, they were most likely holed up at Bleak Falls Barrow.

Bandits didn’t scare her, though. She got some helpful directions from the shopkeeper’s sister, who probably would have gone with her if both Ethne and the woman’s brother hadn’t been against it, and went on her way.

Bleak Falls Barrow had been impressive from a distance, the high, pointed arches of its portico dominating the face of the mountain on which it was built. Up close, the sense of weight supported by those ancient stones made Ethne’s breath catch in her throat. The carved guardians perched atop the arches might have been dragons, or eagles, or some beast she had never even heard of; they were pitted and worn down by the elements, yet they still watched the approaches to the tomb with stern, reproachful eyes, warning all who would enter to be wary.

They had not succeeded in keeping the bandits away. Ethne had marked their tracks as she came up the path. She was no tracker, but the disturbance to the ground was obvious. There were several of them, she guessed, not at all bothering to conceal their passage. They must have thought no one would follow them up here, and they would have been right if her mission from Farengar had taken her anywhere else. She didn’t relish a confrontation, but one way or another, she would have to get past them.

It had taken her most of the day to climb up to the barrow from Riverwood, and the sun setting behind the mountain cast the portico in shadow. It was a blessing: her approach up the broad north stair was hidden, and the bandits on guard lit torches, telling her exactly where they were. There were two at the doors to the interior, and one, armed with a bow, on a short promontory jutting out to the east. The latter would be the first to see her if he happened to look in the right direction.

She decided to save him the trouble. “Hey! You there!”

The bandit spun around, swinging his torch wildly in his surprise. “What? Who’s there?”

Ethne reached the top of the stair and raised her arms to show she wasn’t holding her weapon. “I don’t want trouble. Let’s talk.”

“Are you crazy?” The bandit got off the promontory and came toward her, dropping his torch to free up his hands. “Get out of here! This is no place for a lost little girl!”

“I’m not lost,” Ethne said, choosing not to dignify the rest with a response. Slowly and deliberately, she dropped her pack and loosened her axe to show she meant business. “I’m here to enter the barrow and reclaim what your lot stole from the Riverwood Trader, and I’d rather not have to kill you all to do it. Are you here on your own behalf, or working for someone else? Is it worth your arm? Your head?”

She hoped they, like most bandits, would be self-centered enough not to want to risk their skins for the dubious chance of profiting off any one job. Unfortunately, she didn’t cut a very impressive figure in her battered second-hand armor, and they didn’t take her seriously. The first man laughed at her, and she could hear the other two joining in from the landing above.

“Tell you what,” said the first man. “I’m gonna give you one last chance to turn around and walk away from here, and since I’m feeling gentleman-like, I’ll even promise not to shoot you in the back. How’s that for fair?”

Ethne sighed. “Damn it. I tried.”

She drew her axe and charged with a yell. The man was startled, and he couldn’t draw his bow or drop it for another weapon fast enough in any case. He tried to block her swing, but the axe chopped right through the simple wood staff and bit down through his leather armor into his shoulder. Ethne felt the impact of the old iron blade with his collarbone. He screamed in rage and swung at her with his other arm, but his fist was nothing to the steel of her cuirass. She ripped the axe out of his shoulder and hewed at his neck. The blade wasn’t good enough to go all the way through, but she hit the major blood vessels and windpipe. His cries were cut off, and he dropped, gurgling, to the ground.

Ethne whirled around. The other two bandits had come running when she attacked, and now they leaped down the stairs to her level, swords drawn.

“Damn it,” Ethne said again. In a glance, she picked her first opponent: a younger-looking man in wholly inadequate armor that left his torso mostly bare but for a single spaulder above his sword-arm and a round plate over his heart.

She looked him in the eyes and rushed him. He had probably never been in a real fight in his life, and he came to a staggering halt, sword forgotten at his side. Ethne turned sideways and slammed her elbow into the soft spot below his sternum, knocking him down to the stairs. He lay there wheezing, his wind knocked out.

“Stay down!” she barked, and turned to meet his partner.

This one was a Bosmer woman with the wild look of someone willing to kill. Ethne had to raise her axe quickly to stop the elf’s sword, and she grunted at the shock down her arms.

“You never should have come here,” the elf snarled. She jogged back and swung again fast; the blade clanged against Ethne’s breastplate.

Ethne dodged the next slash and feinted right, then drove left at the bandit’s off-side. The elf belatedly turned her sword to block, but her grip was awkward and weak. Ethne brought her axe down hard, high on the blade, and knocked it out of her hand. The elf was quick, and she managed to whirl away from Ethne’s next blow, taking only a glancing cut to her arm, but she was finished and she knew it.

“Enough! I surrender!” she cried, hands raised to protect her head.

Ethne watched her warily. “You’ll take the boy and leave?”

The elf glared at her with nothing but hate. “Yes!” she spat. “Spare us and you’ll never see us again.”

“Fine.” Ethne marginally lowered her axe.

The elf watched her a moment more, then slunk off to pick up the young man. She had one last remark for her enemy: “I hope the skeevers feast on your entrails.”

“Worse than skeevers have tried,” Ethne replied, annoyed. “And thanks for the warning!”

She watched the two bandits limp away down the north stair. Once they were well out of sight, she picked up her pack and made her way up to the entrance of the barrow. The ancient ebony doors were wrought with the images of dragons and every spare inch was decorated with spirals and crosshatching. They were huge, imposing, and heavy, but still moved with relative ease, and she was able to slip inside with little noise.

The interior was not as stuffy as she expected an old tomb to be. Light and air penetrated the gloom through large openings in the ceiling. Some were the result of structural collapse, and fallen roof stones lay beneath them in piles tumbled across the floor, but some were apparently by design: pillars rose through these to support the largest of the arches she had seen from the outside. Moss grew along cracks in the stone floor where rain would gather.

She could smell smoke and hear voices, faint and echoing from the other end of the long chamber. Hoping to get the drop on them, she moved as quietly as she could through the hall, keeping a central pillar between her and them. The Bosmer hadn’t been kidding about the skeevers: Ethne almost gave herself away when she stumbled over one, dead. Near it lay the corpses of several others and two unlucky bandits who had been bitten fatally in the neck and groin. These people really had no idea what they were doing.

Creeping closer, she made out a Nord man’s voice: “Arvel wants to go on ahead, let him. Better than us risking our necks.”

A woman answered: “What if he doesn’t come back? I want my share from that claw!”

“Just shut it and keep an eye out for trouble.”

Good advice, Ethne thought, but too late. “Trouble’s already here,” she said, stepping out from behind the pillar and into the circle of their firelight.

“What the—?”

Two men and a woman scrambled to their feet and reached for their weapons. Ethne cursed to herself; she’d only heard two.

“Your friends outside are dead or fled,” she told them. “Which will it be for you?”

“Oh, no, you’re not taking our treasure!” the woman cried. “Kill her!”

She attacked, but her weapon was only a dagger. Ethne side-stepped her lunge and bashed her over the head with the side of her axe. She dropped and stayed down.

The bigger of the two men charged next. He wielded a warhammer, and he was clearly strong enough to do some serious damage with it, but he was slow: all bulk, no finesse. Ethne dodged his first two swings, taking the measure of him, and then rushed under his guard and hacked into his knee. He fell with a cry of agony, clutching the wound, and Ethne finished him off.

The third bandit was smarter. Once he saw how the fight was going, he turned and ran off down a tunnel leading deeper into the barrow. Ethne swore and chased after him. The bastard was quick, and the tunnel was poorly lit with dying braziers. She could have turned an ankle on a loose stone or uneven step at any moment, but she couldn’t let him escape to warn Arvel, whoever he was. She pushed herself, and she almost caught up to him when he reached a chamber whose exit was barred by an iron gate. He pulled a lever in the middle of the floor—and shuddered, struck by a barrage of arrows fired by hidden mechanisms in the walls. He fell dead.

Ethne skidded to a halt and stood panting, looking around the room for a clue to understanding what had just happened. The bandit had expected the lever to open the gate, but it was trapped. What had gone wrong?

To the left were three alcoves set into the wall, each containing a pillar depicting a stylized animal figure. Above the gate were similar figures, set into the open mouths of graven stone heads. There should have been three, but the middle head had fallen to the ground, and someone had rolled it over, away from the gate, until its face was upright. It held the figure of a snake. The other two, left and right respectively, were a snake and a whale.

Three pillars, three heads. Surely it couldn’t be that simple?

There was nothing for it but to give it a try. Ethne found that the pillars rotated easily, and she turned them until they matched the heads: snake, snake, whale.

She approached the lever cautiously. Every instinct was screaming at her that it couldn’t be this easy, she was going to be shot to death if she pulled that thing, but try as she might, she could come up with no other solution. She took a deep breath, pulled as quickly as she could, and leaped back over the body of the dead bandit, throwing her arms over her head.

After a few moments, she had to admit she wasn’t dead. There had been noise, but no arrows pierced her. She lowered her arms and found the gate standing open, her way forward clear.

“Huh!” she said aloud. “Rough luck, mate,” she added to the bandit. “You should’ve run the other way.” She went through his pockets and turned up a handful of coins, which she would spend on the honest businesses of Skyrim and thus redeem the distasteful act.

Ethne found a corresponding lever on the other side of the gate, and she got to thinking about how it had come to be locked. This Arvel character, perhaps, really didn’t intend to share with his fellows, and didn’t mind if he got them killed. She disliked him already. Even bandit scum weren’t usually that scummy to their partners.

Going on, she descended a spiral staircase with more dead skeevers at the bottom. The light was even worse in this lower level. Ethne lit a torch from one of the failing braziers, and even so, she found herself running afoul of thick cobwebs that clung to her face and hands. This was bad. Whatever made these had made them recently, and Ethne was almost certain to meet it. Though she searched carefully for an alternative path, she found only dead ends, and had to backtrack to an intersecting hallway filled with webbing that could only be parted by the blade of her axe.

While slicing her way through, she stumbled over an old, empty urn and cursed the sudden noise.

From the depths beyond came a voice: “Is . . . is someone coming? Is that you, Harknir? Bjorn? Soling? I know I ran ahead with the claw, but I need help!”

That must be Arvel. What slime, to abandon his friends behind a trapped gate and yet still try to sponge off their loyalty in a pinch. She was glad he was in trouble; it would make getting the claw off him much easier.

She cut through a final layer of webbing and emerged into a large chamber with a grate in the floor. The whole room was lined with webs, and silk sacs hung suspended from the ceiling. Most were small, skeever-sized, but one or two were larger. Ethne didn’t like to think about those.

“Hey! Over here!” Arvel called. “Get me out of here!”

It took a moment to spot him: he was trussed up in the only other exit from the chamber, on the opposite side from Ethne, and her torchlight barely reached that far.

She started toward him, and he screamed.

“Ah, kill it! Kill it!”

An absolutely enormous spider dropped from a hole in the ceiling, almost on top of Ethne, and she screamed, too. The thing lashed out at her with its forelegs, trying to trip her, and she leaped away in a shambles, barely keeping her feet. She scrambled pell-mell back through the door, barely avoiding a stream of venom spat from the spider’s fangs. It scratched at her through the doorway, but its body was too large to fit through.

Ethne stood panting behind the wall on the other side. Her mind raced. She’d seen giant spiders before, they were ubiquitous in the dark, forgotten places of Tamriel, but this was a particularly beastly specimen, with a corpse-white body, huge spiny mandibles, and black, dripping fangs. This thing must have engorged itself on the vital fluids of the unfortunate victims in the sacs, and Arvel was still alive because he was being saved up for later. Even a rat like him didn’t deserve agony like that.

She came back swinging and smashed her axe into the spider’s face, if it could be said to have one. One of its eyes was crushed and oozed a sickly greenish fluid. The creature hissed in pain and withdrew from the doorway.

Ethne followed, but she didn’t go far from the door. “Come on, ugly, come and get a piece of me!”

The spider hesitated to chase her—it had a full belly, and this prey had already cost it an eye. Ethne dared to get close enough to strike at one of its legs and danced back, out of range. That did the trick. Ethne was an annoyance, and she would die for it if the spider had its way. She retreated back through the door, and the spider pursued, thrusting its legs through after her, trying to snare her with its claws. Ethne hacked one off, then another. The creature withdrew again, hissing and clacking its mandibles in fury.

Ethne followed. With two of the beast’s main weapons disabled, she felt confident enough to take it head-on. All she had to do was avoid its venomous fangs. With Arvel shrieking at her to keep it away from him, kill it, save him, she ran circles around it, randomly switching directions to confuse it, and at every opportunity she cut into its swollen abdomen.

Its hide was old and tough, and didn’t easily part. Ethne felt herself losing strength. It was late, she had spent all day climbing and the last hour fighting and running, she had recently been a prisoner, and she was not used to this anymore.

She tripped on the grating in the floor, and thought it was all over. The spider leaped on her, fangs raised to pierce her. At the last second, she unfroze, tossed her torch aside, and rolled under it. Its fangs snagged on the iron bars of the grate. Ethne looked up and saw its belly above her. She struck, struck, and struck again, and finally a tear opened its innermost membrane, spilling its guts. Ethne was coated in gunk. Gagging on the stench, she crawled away. The spider shuddered and collapsed.

“Is it over?” Arvel called. “Is it dead?”

Ethne cautiously picked up her torch and went for a closer look. The thing didn’t even twitch when she put the fire up to its eyes. “It’s dead,” she answered.

The bandit was overjoyed. “You did it! You killed it! Now cut me down, before anything else shows up!”

“First things first.” Ethne approached him. He was well-muscled for a Dunmer, with a typically long, narrow face, and he’d affected a pointy mustache that made him look like the rat she already thought he was. “The claw,” she demanded.

He nodded, constrained though he was by his silken prison. “Yes, the claw. I know how it works. The claw, the markings, the door in the Hall of Stories. I know how they all fit together!”

Ethne had no idea what he was talking about. “Is that why you stole it? Some ancient puzzle?”

More nodding. “Help me down, and I’ll show you. You won’t believe the power the Nords have hidden here.”

Power? That was a new one. Most lower-order dungeon delvers were after gold and jewels, like Arvel’s friend Soling.

“Here’s the problem,” Ethne said. “I don’t trust you. I noticed you ditched your friends and reset that trapped gate behind you. One of them died to that. Why shouldn’t I just kill you now and take the claw off your corpse?”

“Oh, but you have to help me!” he cried, struggling ineffectively against the webbing. “You’ll never get through the tomb on your own, and you don’t know the secret of the door. You need me!”

“I’ve made it this far,” she argued, but unfortunately, he had a point. She was tired, and she didn’t know how much farther she had to go or what dangers she might have to face on the way. Even an untrustworthy ally might be better than none. She sighed. “All right, look. I’m here for the claw and some old artifact which I’m sure is of no interest to anyone but a scholar. You help me and let me have what I’m after, and you can keep any other valuables we find. That’s the deal. Got it?”

“Yes, of course, my friend. Very fair. Now please, get me out of this!”

Ethne couldn’t help but notice that he looked anywhere except her eyes when he talked. She considered “accidentally” chopping off one of his hands as she began cutting through the web—she was pretty sure that was still the punishment for thieving in some places; it would be fitting—but that would rather defeat the purpose of keeping him around at all.

“It’s coming loose, I can feel it,” Arvel said. Ethne sliced through a thick tangle of webbing, and his weight did the rest. He dropped to his feet, a little unsteady at first, but he quickly regained his balance and tore away tufts of silk still clinging to his body. “Sweet breath of Arkay, thank you.”

“Save it,” Ethne snapped. “You can show me how grateful you are by not fucking with me. Do you have a torch?”

“I did, until . . . ” He looked around the room and spotted it. “Ah, there!”

She re-lit it for him, and he beckoned her to follow him through the passage that had lately had him as its door. She was happy enough to let him go first, so she could keep an eye on him.

They passed through an odd chamber containing some sort of altar on which sat several urns. Arvel didn’t hesitate to rummage through these for loot, and as far as Ethne was concerned, he was welcome to it. She was unnerved by the combination of soul gem sconces beside the altar and spiraling grooves carved into the floor from the altar to grates in the wall, which surely could not have been used for anything wholesome. She wasn’t interested in touching any of it.

Beyond the chamber was a hallway lined with niches where the remains of ancient Nords lay. Some were wrapped from head to toe in yellowed linen; others had rotted away to skeletons. Some, however, were in remarkably good shape for corpses, the techniques of their embalmers aided, perhaps, by the cold, dry air down here. The years had taken their toll nonetheless. Their skins had withered to gray leather that cleaved to their bones, leaving dark hollows where their organs had been removed and their flesh had desiccated. Some were fully armed and armored, some had only tattered rags to cover them, some had nothing at all. All were eyeless and noseless, and they stank faintly of decay and whatever alchemical concoction had been used to slow it.

“Draugr,” Arvel whispered. “They wake up sometimes. We wouldn’t want that.”

The hair on the back of Ethne’s neck stood up. “No.”

They crept through the hallway as quietly as they could, and nothing stirred.

Not until they reached the next large, pillared chamber. As their torches flickered across the niches, cold, blue pinpricks of light flared in the eyes of some of the corpses. They growled. They moved.

And that was when Arvel chose to break faith with her. Barely ten minutes had passed.

“Sorry, ‘friend’, but I have a treasure to get to.” He took off running across the chamber. “I’m too swift for you!”

He might have meant the last remark for Ethne or the draugr, or both; it didn’t matter. He was gone, and one of the undead was already on its feet and lurching toward her with a greatsword raised to strike.

“Shit!” Ethne raised her axe to parry. “Arvel, you prick, I saved your life!” She turned the sword aside and slid away from her attacker.

There was a clang and scream in the darkness, but Ethne had no time to take notice. There was another draugr coming up on her right with a cruel-looking war axe. This one was slower than the first, though. Ethne hacked its weapon-arm off at the elbow. Then the first one was on her left again, and without thinking, she lunged at its face with her torch.

This turned out to be shockingly effective. The draugr’s head lit up like a match, and the rest of it followed. It snarled in rage and swung its sword at her, striking her cuirass across the ribs, but then it staggered and fell, crumbling to stinking ash.

The second draugr grabbed her shoulder with its remaining hand, grunting in some guttural language that Ethne didn’t understand, but that froze her blood regardless. She wrenched away from it and stuck her torch into its hollow abdomen, and it, too, blazed up.

Ethne choked and retched on the chemical fumes, but through her discomfort was a way forward. More draugr attacked her, some quite fiercely. She blocked their weapons with her axe or let them strike her cuirass, just so long as she got close enough to set them on fire. The flames consumed them one by one. Finally, only Ethne remained standing, winded, but remarkably unharmed.

The chamber had filled with smoke, and she hurried through it—but when the next passage came into view, she remembered Arvel and the scream she had heard when the fight began. What had happened to him?

She discovered his body crumpled in a pool of blood against the left-hand wall, pierced with many wounds. A little further searching revealed the mechanism of his undoing: another trap, this time a trick stone in the floor that triggered a spiked wall. Arvel the Swift had been in too much of a hurry to see it. The gods had a morbid sense of humor.

Gingerly, trying to avoid getting his blood on her hands, she detached a large pouch from his belt and checked inside. There was the golden claw, gleaming in the torchlight. To her surprise, she also found a small journal, the pages simply stitched to the inside of a leather cover. The most recent entry proved interesting:

My fingers are trembling. The Golden Claw is finally in my hands, and with it, the power of the ancient Nordic heroes. That fool Lucan Valerius had no idea that his favorite store decoration was actually the key to Bleak Falls Barrow.

Now I just need to get to the Hall of Stories and unlock the door. The legend says there is a test that the Nords put in place to keep the unworthy away, but that “When you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands.”

So he had been telling the truth about that, or at least what he believed to be the truth. She put the book back and decided to have a look at this claw. It was gold, all right: heavy for its size, battered, but completely untarnished, despite being as old as this barrow. On its palm were set three discs bearing more animal signs: bear, moth, and owl. No doubt the solution to another puzzle like the one in the lever room.

Intrigued, Ethne belted the pouch to her own waist and set off again, keeping an eye out for more traps or draugr.

She found both: first three draugr, quickly dispatched with fire as soon as she saw them stirring, then a nasty swinging blade trap that gave her serious pause. How in Oblivion had a thing like this not rusted up centuries ago? Magic? She’d never heard of a spell that could eternally lubricate a metal joint, but then, she’d never heard of lots of things she’d ended up running into anyway.

It took several minutes of watching the blades, counting the seconds between each swing, before she worked up the nerve to make a dash for the other side. She barely made it. The last blade clipped her backplate with a screech of metal as she passed and sent her spinning to the ground. Her cuirass protected her, but she almost lost her torch as she flung out her left arm to catch herself. Mercifully, it stayed lit—and showed her the pull-chain to shut down the blades. Great. Why couldn’t there have been one of those on the other side?

She shut it off anyway, just in case she had to come back this way later, and pressed on through a series of winding tunnels. More draugr awakened at her approach, stepping down from alcoves where they had stood upright, as though on guard. These, too, fell to her axe and flames, but the first one nearly took her down with them when his burning body collapsed into an oil slick on the floor. A fresh oil slick, and how, how was that possible? The sudden explosion of heat was intense enough to take Ethne’s breath away, and her legs were burned through her simple cotton trousers. Her first healing potion went toward recovering from that ordeal. She hoped she wouldn’t need the second one, but she was no longer certain of anything.

On top of bizarrely well maintained traps and eerily talkative undead monsters, she couldn’t make out any sort of order to the architecture of this place. It seemed like the builders had just dug in whatever direction they felt like, with no plan other than onward and downward, as they needed more spaces for bodies. Her impression of aimlessness was compounded when she ran into a cave-in and found that her only way forward was through a metal gate that allowed an underground stream to pass though it. It opened by a pull-chain, allowing her to pass though, too. She followed the stream through a natural cavern, and where the stream tumbled over a ledge too high to jump down, she saw a bridge over the course of the water below, guarded by a draugr. That meant this place was connected to the barrow, and that meant someone had designed it this way deliberately, for reasons completely ineffable to Ethne. The ancient Nords were a very strange folk.

She found her way down to the bridge easily enough and got a very welcome breath of fresh air. The bridge was at the bottom of a deep crevasse, open to the night sky. It was cloudy, and a gentle rain drizzled down. This draugr wouldn’t catch fire so easily, so she goaded him into charging at her. When he got close enough, she lowered her shoulder, rammed into him, and knocked him into the rushing water below. Problem solved.

There was a ramp leading down to the bottom of the crevasse, but Ethne did not have the energy for any diversions. She kept on straight through the next more-or-less-natural passage, which finally led her back to the now-familiar curved stone tunnels of the ancient Nordic tomb. Beyond a large antechamber and a pair of iron-enforced wooden doors, she found a grander, more important-looking section of the barrow, and this was already lit. Her first sight was an enormous brazier set about with what she was now sure were stylized dragon heads, and past it, candles and smaller braziers burned on stands along the walls.

She had to get past another fucking blade trap, and this time, having learned from the first, she took it slowly, stepping past each blade in turn. In this way, she got through unscathed, only to find herself in a lantern-lit room crawling with draugr that seemed to have been awake even before she got there. The impossible thought struck her that they must be the ones maintaining the traps, lighting the candles—and spilling lamp oil.

This time she saw it before she stepped in it, and it was a good thing, too. The draugr down here were livelier than any she’d encountered before, and looked like they meant to give her a mean fight. As they ran toward her, she crouched, touched her torch to the floor, and leaped back, throwing a protective arm across her eyes as it blazed up. The conflagration was short-lived, but it was enough to destroy the first wave of draugr, and she did for the rest herself, though not without taking a serious beating from one who had the sense to get behind her and hit her with a warhammer. That put a dent the size of a man’s fist in her backplate, knocking Ethne to her knees and the wind from her lungs. Even as she coughed and gasped to get her breath back, she flung herself at the draugr and fired him up before he could cave in her skull. He was the last.

Really the last. The upper level of the chamber was clear, since everyone up there had come running down to confront her. Across a suspended walkway over the chamber floor, through a small room and past another set of doors, and she found herself in a long, low vault, lit with braziers. She knew immediately it must be the Hall of Stories.

Between the ribs of the vault were set carved stone reliefs depicting what Ethne assumed were religious scenes. She couldn’t interpret them, but each panel contained a central figure, each with its own animal totem above. She made out a moth-woman, a fox-man, an owl-man, and a dragon-man. Who they were and what their totems symbolized, she had no idea, but the room filled her with awe nonetheless. There was a sort of subliminal hum in the air, like the echo of voices chanting rites of worship. Probably just the crackle of the coals and air whistling through tiny fissures in the walls, but then again, maybe not.

At the end of the vault was the door, and it was not like anything Ethne had ever seen before. It appeared solid, with no hinges or handles she could see. There were three concentric arches built into it, each bearing an animal roundel, with a disc in the center, pierced with three holes. Well, she could guess what fit there. Arvel had described the golden claw as a key, and she saw now that the door was indeed a puzzle. Absurdly simple if only you knew the trick, which she did. The arches, actually rings, turned easily, and she matched their totems to the ones on the palm of the claw: bear, moth, owl. The nails of the claw fit neatly into the slots in the central disc. Gripping the claw by its turned-out wrist, she rotated it.

The door clanked, and shuddered, and sent dust cascading down on her. She staggered back, coughing and brushing herself down—and saw the door sink entirely into the floor.

The hum got louder.

No, she must be imagining things. She was exhausted, and her brain was fogging up with wild fancies.

But she was close to her goal, she had to be. The main burial chamber would be behind a big, important door like this. She hurried up the stairs on the other side, through a tunnel that was dark with no draugr able to get through the puzzle door to light the braziers, and out into a vast, pillared chamber. She startled a colony of bats that took flight around her, their leathery wings churning the air around her head, and flocked up and out into a cavern that put all other caverns to shame.

Water spilled into it from fissures in the wall and a hole in the ceiling. The ancients had channeled it into a moat surrounding the raised center of the cavern, and there . . .

The clouds parted, and moonlight fell through the hole in the roof to light the face of an enormous black wall, worked all over with mystic designs in ebony. Carved on it was . . . Ethne didn’t know. A strange helm? Some beast of the ancient world, lost even to legend? Something about the flaring side pieces suggested rushing jaws and sweeping horns. The eyes, though, the eyes were those of a dragon. They caught her, held her, and she had crossed a bridge over the moat and begun climbing the stairs up to the wall without realizing she was doing it.

And there was a sound. The air around her thrummed with voices, chanting syllables she didn’t know to the beat of a drum that echoed the beat of her own heart, drawing her in.

The lower part of the wall was inscribed with angular marks, and some of them glowed with magical fire. Once her eyes fell on it, she couldn’t turn away. As she approached, tendrils of light shot out to her, dancing over her body, sinking into her veins, and setting her nerves alight. Every hair on her body stood on end. A voice was whispering to her. She couldn’t understand it, wasn’t sure it was even using words, but the marks on the wall glowed brighter and brighter, excluding all else from her sight, until finally, a corresponding light snapped on in her brain, and she recognized them. A word.

Fus.

She felt, deep in her bones, the gravity of the earth pulling her down to it. She felt the wind bending the trees and the waves crashing on the rocks. She felt strong wings beating against the sky. She felt force.

The magic let her go. She staggered back in a half-blind daze, gasping for breath.

What the fuck? What in all the bloody hells of Oblivion had just happened to her?

A noise from behind: the crack of stone unsealing. Ethne whirled around, blinking rapidly to clear the streaks from her vision. There was a black sarcophagus; she had been so engrossed with the magic wall that she hadn’t noticed it before. Its lid flew up and smashed face-down on the ground. Out of the coffin rose up a draugr. This one was different from the others. He looked much the same, but the way he glared at her with those awful glowing eyes, Ethne knew he hated her.

“Drun volaan?” he coughed in his harsh, guttural voice. “Dovahgolz?” He laughed. “Dir ko maar.”^[1]

Ethne raised her axe and her torch, but he didn’t charge her. Instead, he opened his lipless jaws and sucked down a dry, rattling breath.

“FUS RO DAH!”

Something invisible slammed into her. She flew back, cracked her head against the wall, and dropped to her knees on the ground. Sparks exploded before her eyes, and for a moment she had no idea which way was up, but she knew if she didn’t move she was dead. Forcing her legs and arms to push, she lurched up drunkenly and fell again. The draugr’s battleaxe clanged against the stone where she had just been. She didn’t try to get up a second time, but crawled as quickly as she could away, toward her torch, which was guttering nearby. Her enemy’s footsteps followed her. She lunged for the torch, laid her hand on it, and rolled to the right, avoiding another deathblow. Lying on her pack, she saw the draugr turn toward her, his cold eyes stabbing out hatred and fury. He opened his jaws to draw breath again. If he finished, so she would be.

She made herself leap up and fall on the draugr, torch thrust out before her. She shoved it up into his ribcage, where it lodged. He began to burn.

“Ni!” He shoved her away from him with one bony hand and raised his battleaxe, but already the weight was too much for the cinders of his spine. His torso collapsed into his pelvis. He fell. The lights of his eyes went out forever.

Ethne lay panting and trembling on the floor. She felt sick and dizzy after that last effort. Her head pounded, and tentative exploration with her fingers found a goose egg about the size of her fist. How stupid of her, not to have a helmet. But she still had a healing potion, and thank the Divines that the bottle hadn’t broken during the fight. She chugged it down and willed her stomach not to revolt on her until it had done its work.

Gradually, the pain receded to a tolerable dull ache, and Ethne sat up and had a look around. She was surprised that she could see at all, but the skies outside had cleared, and moonlight picked out the contours of the cave in silver-pink lines.

The Dragonstone, she remembered. Where was the Dragonstone?

There was a large chest next to the coffin, so she checked there first. Amazingly, it was not locked, and it contained an impressive set of ancient armor that she supposed must have belonged to the dead draugr. She considered filching it, but she didn’t fancy carrying it on her back all the way to Riverwood in her condition, never mind Whiterun, and she also didn’t fancy bearing arms and armor that announced to the world that she was a graverobber. Anyway, the horned helmet looked silly. She promised herself that she would get a practical one as soon as possible once she was back among the living.

She didn’t find anything that might be a Dragonstone in there. A small shelving unit beside the coffin was also a bust. She’d avoided looking into the coffin itself, but finally she had to. Of course, there she found it. Farengar had suggested that it would be “interred,” after all.

Ethne couldn’t make much out of it in the moonlight, but she recognized the emblem at the bottom of the stone as the same as the one on the top of the wall. Definitely a dragon, then, and why a magical dragon wall had talked to her and shot her full of alien knowledge, she had no strength to contemplate.

She bundled the stone into her backpack—gods, it weighed a bloody ton. After using her flint and steel to light a fresh torch, she climbed a tall staircase on the far side of the wall, hoping that up meant out. When she came to a dead end, she despaired at the thought of walking all the way back the way she’d come. It took her fatigued brain a moment to realize that the odd thing on the pedestal in front of her was a handle. She spent an embarrassingly long time searching for nonexistent traps before she finally pulled it and opened the hidden door. Cool, rain-washed night air rushed over her sweaty face, and she knew she was free.

She set up a rough campsite beside an odd little shrine about halfway down the tunnel, covered with old flowers with a dry wreath of something like holly at its foot. It seemed like a benevolent sort of worship had taken place here, and maybe that benevolence would lend her some protection in her sleep.

Chapter Text

No attack came from within the barrow or without that night. However, Ethne’s sleep was haunted by chanting voices, burning cities, and the rush and clap of dark, leathery wings. Over it all, the word Fus thrashed around in her mind like a blind bird searching for somewhere to roost. She knew that it meant “force,” but how did she know it, and why? What language was it? What was she supposed to do with it? The answers eluded her.

Before dawn, she gave up on rest and decided to make for Whiterun as quickly as possible. If anyone would know anything that could help her, it would be Farengar.

First she had to get back to Riverwood and return the golden claw, and that proved more difficult than she expected. The tunnel dumped her out onto the side of the mountain, with no obvious path down. She was all over aches and pains, and not all of it was due to enemies or traps—a fair bit was simple strain, the price of getting mixed up in serious combat after years of soft city living. She picked her way gingerly down the rocks, stopping frequently when an abused muscle threatened to drop her to her death. At last, she found herself in the valley of the White River, and from there she was able to navigate back to the town.

For all the danger of the route, it was direct, and she reached the Riverwood Trader by dusk. Lucan and Camilla Valerius were overjoyed to have their claw back. They couldn’t pay her much, what with business being hurt by the war and the loss of Helgen, but they found her some fresh clothes to replace her stained and burned ones. They also put her up at the Sleeping Giant Inn for the night, and stuck around to make sure the flinty-eyed Breton innkeeper fed and watered Ethne to her heart’s content.

Word got around that something had happened, and half the town piled in to see what the excitement was about. Between the three of them, Ethne and the Valerius siblings told the story of the claw at least half a dozen times. (Ethne left out the Dragonstone and the mysterious black wall.) The local bard, Sven, was already setting the tale of Arvel the Swift and His Swift Demise to music and would have continued picking Ethne’s brain all night, but the innkeeper finally kicked everyone out so they could all go to bed.

Full of hot food and heady Nord mead, with soft furs and straw under her, Ethne managed to sleep better. She got an early start the next morning.

Back on the road, she put her head down and walked as hard as she could bear, stiff and sore as she was. Her progress was slow on the first day, little better on the second. She looked on with envy when she was passed by a rider on a swift Imperial horse. Ethne would have traded her armor for so much as a sway-backed nag as long as it could carry her.

It was well after dark on the second night when she reached the gates to Whiterun Hold. She wasn’t sure she would get in, but the guards had been told her name and that she was on an errand from the Jarl himself. They let her though with no trouble.

The moons were high; it was late even by mages’ standards. Ethne slept the rest of the night and a bit of the next morning away at the Bannered Mare and went up to the palace after midday.

She was surprised to find Farengar with company when she arrived at his study: a woman by her build; her face was hidden by a deep hood. She wore high-quality leather armor with a sword belted at her hip. She and the wizard were deep in conversation, heads bent over a handsomely bound folio. Ethne didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she didn’t want to interrupt, either. Wizards hated interruptions. She stepped just inside the doorway and waited to be noticed.

“You see?” Farengar was saying. “The terminology is clearly First Era or even earlier. I’m convinced this is a copy of a much older text. Perhaps dating to just after the Dragon War. If so, I can use this to cross-reference the names with other, later texts. Let me show you . . . ” He turned to root through his bookshelves.

The woman nodded in her hood. “Good. I’m glad you’re making progress. My employers—” She glanced up and spotted Ethne. Her hand jerked reflexively toward her sword, but didn’t quite touch it. “You have a visitor.”

Ethne could just make out the impression of a sharp nose and sharper eyes, glinting from the hood’s shadow. She thought the woman’s voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“Hmm?” Farengar spun around and smiled upon recognizing Ethne. “Ah, yes, the Jarl’s protege! Back from Bleak Falls Barrow? You didn’t die, it seems.” Such confidence he had in her! Or maybe that was just what passed for his sense of humor.

“No, not quite,” Ethne said, coming to the table. She kept an eye on the hooded woman, who stepped aside and turned her head to keep her face obscured. “And I’ve fetched your artifact for you.” She pulled off her pack, withdrew the stone tablet, and set it in the clearest space she could find. She was careful, but it still made a satisfying thump.

Farengar was delighted. His spidery hands danced eagerly over the face of the stone, which Ethne now saw bore an inscription of the same wedge-shaped characters as those on the black wall. To her relief, she recognized none of it and felt nothing calling to her.

“Ah!” Farengar sighed. “The Dragonstone of Bleak Falls Barrow! Seems you are a cut above the usual brutes the Jarl sends my way. My . . . associate here will be pleased to see your handiwork. She discovered its location, by means she has so far declined to share with me.” He turned toward the woman. “So your information was correct after all. And we have our friend here to thank for recovering the tablet for us.”

“Nice work.” The woman gave Ethne a curt nod of acknowledgment. To Farengar, she said, “Just send me a copy when you’ve deciphered it. Time is running, don’t forget. This isn’t some theoretical question. Dragons have come back.”

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry.” The wizard waved a hand, already studying the Dragonstone again. He turned it over with another thump, revealing a curiously marked map of Skyrim above the dragon emblem. “The Jarl himself has finally taken an interest, so I’m now able to devote most of my time to this research. Although the chance to see a living dragon up close would be tremendously valuable.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Farengar. You might get it,” said the woman.

He just grunted in response. His eyes flicked from the tablet to the folio and back again. He probably hadn’t heard a word.

The woman shook her head. “I’ll be off now. Good day.” She gave Ethne a sidelong look and a nod, then left.

Ethne watched her go, taking a read of her movements: sure, smooth, and alert. Someone ready to leap into action and take her foes apart with her sword before they could blink. What did she have to do with Farengar and the dragons, and who were the employers she mentioned? Who was she?

Perhaps she would ask Farengar. But she had more pressing questions. And she would have to get his attention back first. She waited.

After a moment or five, he realized she was still standing in front of his desk and tore his eyes away from the Dragonstone to squint at her. “Ah. You’ll be wanting your reward, I suppose.”

Ethne hesitated. “Actually, I wanted to ask—”

He waved her words away. “No, no, you’ll have to speak to Avenicci about that. I have no time for petty pecuniary matters.”

“But—”

“I’m very busy,” the wizard said without pause. “Now go.”

Firmly, before he could lose himself in the Dragonstone again, Ethne said: “I have a question. About the stone.”

Farengar stared at her as though she had spoken in Yoku. “What?” He blinked rapidly as he caught up. “A question? Oh—taken an interest in my studies, have you? Very well. Ask your question.”

Ethne sighed in relief. “Thank you. The place I found the stone, the crypt, it wasn’t just a crypt. There was this huge, black wall, covered with markings like the ones on the tablet, and it had that symbol on it, too.” She pointed at the dragon emblem.

“Really? You discovered a Word Wall?” She had Farengar’s full attention now. “What else can you tell me? Did you transcribe the writing, by any chance?” Taking in her pained look, he sighed. “No, I don’t suppose you did. Not many people know that dragons had a language, a spoken and a written language, used to impart knowledge to their followers. Here, take a look at this.” He pulled an old, battered book from the pile on the table and passed it to Ethne.

“Dragon Language: Myth No More?” she read. Both fascinated and discomfited by the concept of dragons writing, she paged through the book.

“Look at Hela’s transcriptions,” Farengar urged her. “Do they resemble what you saw?”

“Yes,” Ethne whispered. The short passages of angular markings were all of the same form. The book’s author, Hela Thrice-Versed, had translated them. It seemed the “Word Walls,” as she called them, were memorials to honorable persons who had died.

“Such a pity you didn’t copy the inscription,” Farengar tutted.

“I was a little busy,” said Ethne, not looking up. “The chamber was guarded, and—”

“Ah, yes, it would have been.” Farengar nodded. “Hela indicates that approaching these Word Walls is a dangerous business, not for the faint of heart. She also suggests they contain some sort of power.”

Ethne’s head snapped up. “What?”

Farengar was oblivious, as usual. “Perhaps it was reserved for the worthiest of the dragons’ worshipers. We can only speculate. The secrets of the Dragon Cult are, alas, long since lost.”

The question Ethne had wanted to ask splintered and grew into an impossible multitude. What was the Dragon Cult? Who did they consider worthy? Who worshiped a dragon? What did any of this have to do with Ethne? What on the face of Nirn had happened to her? What did it mean?

More than ever, she was sure it couldn’t be anything good. Farengar might not know the answers, and she was afraid to find out if he did, but she had to ask.

“Lord Farengar . . . ?”

She got no further. There was a commotion out in the greathall, and Irileth the Housecarl barged into the room, shouting the wizard’s name. “Farengar! Farengar, you need to come at once. A dragon’s been sighted nearby.”

Icy fear and foreboding shot down Ethne’s spine. No. Not now.

“Are you serious?” Farengar said. Then he realized who he was talking to and shook his head, grinning so widely his muttonchops bristled. “Of course you are. How exciting! Where was it seen? What was it doing?” He hurried around the table, toward the housecarl.

Irileth scowled. “This is not a lark devised for your amusement, wizard. If a dragon decides to attack Whiterun, I don’t know that we can stop it. Let’s go.” She started off, but paused and fixed her garnet eyes on Ethne. “You should come, too.”

“What?” Ethne yelped before she could suppress the reaction.

Irileth explained impatiently: “The Jarl will wish to see that you have returned from the mission he gave you, and to learn anything you know about dragons that may be of use. You are involved. Come.”

The housecarl turned and strode briskly from the room, Farengar right behind her.

Ethne shook her head and hurried after them, her head spinning. A dragon, here! Was it the same one as before? She wasn’t sure she could face the sight of that black demon again. She certainly didn’t know anything that would help Whiterun fight it.

Irileth led them up a stairway to what looked like a war room, just behind the greathall. Maps hung on the dividing wall, and more were laid out on a pair of long tables. Jarl Balgruuf was there with one of the hold guards, a young man who stood with his helmet clutched to his chest, breathing hard and trembling. Both men looked to Irileth on her arrival.

“Go on,” Irileth said to the guard, “tell them what you told me—about the dragon!”

The man nodded. “Right. We first saw it coming from the south. It was fast—faster than anything I’ve ever seen!”

“What did it do?” Balgruuf demanded. “Did it attack the watchtower?”

“No, my lord,” the guard said disbelievingly. “It was just circling over Secunda’s Kiss when I left. I never rode so fast in my life! I thought it would come after me for sure.”

The Jarl clapped him on the shoulder. “Good work, son. We’ll take it from here. Head down to the barracks for some food and rest. You’ve earned it.”

The guard nodded gratefully and went on his way.

Balgruuf spoke to his housecarl. “Irileth, you’d better gather some guardsmen and send them down there. If it does decide to attack . . . ” His face was grim. He certainly realized that, no matter how quickly the guard had ridden from his post, it could already be too late by the time reinforcements got there.

“I’ve already ordered my men to muster near the main gate,” the Dunmer replied, undaunted.

“Good.” The Jarl frowned briefly at Ethne, then recognized her. “Ah, it’s you. You were successful?”

She jerked her head stiffly. “Yes, my lord.”

He turned to Farengar. “And this Dragonstone—it will be of use?”

The wizard nodded. “Oh, yes, my lord. Tremendous use. I’ve already begun to correlate the locations indicated on it with—”

Balgruuf cut him off with a raised hand. “Will it help us fight them?”

“Oh.” The wizard blinked. “Not directly. No, it will take further study.” His eyes lit up. “But if I could go along with Irileth and make some observations of a live dragon—? I would very much like to see it!”

After a moment’s thought, Balgruuf nodded. “Yes. You go—Irileth, remain.”

Farengar beamed. “Thank you, my lord!”

“Milord?” said Irileth, just shy of outright protest.

“I can’t afford to risk you both,” the Jarl said curtly. “Farengar must go. He must have all the information he needs to protect the city.”

Irileth gave the wizard a dubious side-eye. “And who is going to protect him?”

“What else are soldiers for?” Farengar replied, grinning. “Don’t worry, Irileth. I am still a master of the elements. It’s likely enough that I shall be protecting them if we come up against dragon-fire.” He sounded giddy at the prospect.

The housecarl’s lip curled ever so slightly. Abruptly, she raised a hand and pointed at Ethne. “What about her? She’s proven herself reliable, and she survived Helgen, so she has more experience with dragons than anyone else here.”

Ethne cringed; she had hoped they had all forgotten about her. She wanted to protest, but Farengar didn’t give her a chance.

“Oh yes, an excellent suggestion. I could use an intelligent assistant.” He nodded to Ethne as though he’d just done her a great favor.

“Then it’s settled,” said Jarl Balgruuf. He addressed Ethne directly: “Go with Farengar. Help him learn as much as possible about this dragon, and keep him safe at all costs.”

Ethne shook her head. “My lord, I don’t—”

He rode right over her. “When this is over, you shall be well rewarded. Now go.”

Well rewarded. Great. That would be excellent, if she was still alive. She thought she must try to refuse once more, but Irileth was giving her a molten glare that brooked no argument. Farengar turned to go, beckoning to Ethne, and she followed though her feet felt like lead. Irileth came, too, saying she would accompany them to give the guards their orders.

As they jogged down the stairs, Farengar chattered with excitement. “I’m ecstatic for the chance to see this dragon up close.” He didn’t seem to notice the look of utter incredulity Ethne shot him. “By all accounts, they’re unstoppable in the air. We’ll have to bring it down to the ground to study it properly.”

“If it doesn’t burn us to cinders first!”

“Ah. Yes, that would be unfortunate.” Farengar said this as though he had realized he was almost out of sugar for his tea. He seized Ethne’s arm and hauled her to a stop. “Just a moment!” The wizard held up one finger, forbidding her to leave until he returned, and darted to his study.

Halted at the top of the steps in the middle of the greathall, Ethne shifted from foot to foot, as unhappy to stay as she was to go.

Irileth reached the doors and realized she was alone. She turned back and beckoned sharply with one arm. “Come on!”

“Yes, ma’am—but Lord Farengar asked me to wait for him.” Ethne looked over her shoulder. He wasn’t coming back yet.

The Dunmer made a disgruntled noise in her throat, but folded her arms, waiting.

Finally, Farengar came running back across the hall with a golden chain dangling from his hand. “Here,” he told Ethne, “put this on. Your skin will be as resilient against fire as our good Housecarl’s.”

“Oh!” Ethne slipped the chain over her head. Hanging from it was a gold pendant set with a trillion-cut garnet the size of her smallest fingernail. Embarrassed to be sporting such wealth, she tucked it inside her cuirass. “Thank you, Lord Farengar!”

“You must protect me in turn, of course,” the wizard said—and Ethne heard, Why, certainly I’ll have another biscuit, how kind. “You can give it back to me when we return with the knowledge we gather.” His grey eyes glittered hungrily.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Hurry up now!” Irileth barked. “Or there may be nothing left to gather but ash!”

Ethne and Farengar shared a look of exasperation and ran down the length of the greathall. They followed Irileth at a breakneck pace down the palace stairs and through the city, and it was a wonder they didn’t trip.

They stopped to collect the dozen guards who had gathered near the stables outside the city gate on Irileth’s order. Ethne stuck close to Farengar, off to one side, while Irileth conferred with a stern-faced Nord woman.

The housecarl then briefly addressed the guards: “You all have your bows and arrows? Good. No questions now; there’s no time to lose. You ride for the Western Watchtower. Sergeant Lydia has the command. Now move out!”

The Nord woman, Lydia, barked at the soldiers to mount up.

Horses had already been prepared for the guards, and the grooms had hastily saddled two additional steeds for Ethne and Farengar. Ethne hadn’t ridden in ages, and her horse seemed to know it: the shaggy black mare shied and rolled her eyes until Ethne was on her back. Farengar seemed equally ill suited to the saddle in his robes, but he just grinned and said “Isn’t this exciting?” Then they were off, and no one had any breath left for talking.

The road was broad, its stones broken down to wagon-rutted rubble by hard freezes and brief summer thaws. Sergeant Lydia put the band through their paces, and Ethne struggled along at the back of the line, expecting her mare to miss her step and throw her rider at any moment. But the horses of Skyrim made up in surefootedness what they lacked in speed, and not one animal stumbled as their mission drove them on.

Yesterday, Ethne had longed for a horse. Now her wish had been granted, and she knew she was a gods-cursed fool. Her legs ached, and the bruise where her dented cuirass dug into her back was pummeled again with each of the mare’s strides. She fantasized about taking the reins firmly in hand and riding off into the wilderness, never to be seen again by Men or Mer—but the thought died swiftly. She was no thief, and she remembered the discipline she’d learned as a young merchant guard to carry on in spite of pain and adversity.

The space between the mare’s black ears became Ethne’s entire world. Her aches faded into the rhythm of trot, canter, walk, repeat. There was no thought in her mind but to endure just until that rock—now that tree—now that hill . . .

After uncounted miles of this, it came as a shock when Lydia finally called the line to a halt. Ethne reined her mare too abruptly, and the horse swerved aside with a startled whinny.

Her senses returned enough to observe her surroundings. It had gotten dark, and the soldiers were lighting torches, bright smears of red against the gloaming. They stood atop a low, rocky hill north of the road. The soldiers were muttering oaths in palpable alarm, and the cause was obvious: the watchtower, across the road a little farther west, had been attacked and burned. Patches of earth were fused into glowing embers, and blazing timbers cast the cracked and blackened stones of the tower in ruddy light. A pile of fire-blasted debris lay at the tower’s foot, fallen from a high section of the wall. Not all of the debris was stone and mortar.

The guards muttered angrily to each other as they took in the wreckage.

“It’s those damned traitors, I’ll bet,” said someone.

“Bloody Imperials, come to take our gods,” said someone else.

“They’ve gone too far this time.”

“Quiet!”

All eyes snapped to the sergeant. She ordered them to dismount and form up. A picket was established for the horses, and the guards made a rough semicircle around Lydia. Ethne hovered at the back. Farengar stood apart, gazing at the heavens, and she had to keep an eye on him. Quite unfairly, the wizard showed no sign of being tired after the journey.

“Here’s the situation.” Lydia’s voice was resonant, but clipped. “You’ve all been hearing whispers about dragons since Helgen was attacked. They’re true. A dragon destroyed Helgen, and earlier this day, a dragon was sighted over Secunda’s Kiss.”

A confused murmur ran through the guards.

“A dragon!”

“What?”

“Now we’re in for it,” muttered the man nearest to Ethne, and she recognized the dour voice of Arne, who had challenged her at the gate on the day she had first arrived. He held his helmet in one hand, and in the torchlight she could make out an egg-shaped head, thinning hair, and a full mustache.

“You heard right!” Lydia bellowed. “I said a dragon! No sign of it now, but it sure looks like it’s been here. I know it looks bad, but we’ve got to know what we’re dealing with. First we’ll see if there’s anyone left. Come on.”

She went down the hill, back to the road, and they all followed. When they drew level with the tower’s entrance, a figure leaned out from the doorway and hissed at them:

“No! Get back! It’s still here somewhere! Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!”

Undeterred, Lydia jogged up a fallen section of old wall that served as a ramp to the entrance, and gestured for her contingent to spread out. “Check for survivors. You two”—she indicated the foremost guards—“up the tower, and keep your eyes peeled.”

Ethne lingered near the bottom of the ramp with Farengar. She wanted to tell the two guards not to go up there, they’d be sitting ducks if the dragon came back, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She could smell the charred earth and the savory odor of cooked meat. Her stomach roiled with nausea.

She could have slipped away through the shadows and found a rock to hide under. No one would have noticed or particularly cared. But she stood firm and focused on Lydia.

The sergeant took the man who had met them by the arm and spoke firmly to him. “What happened here? Where’s the dragon? Quickly now!”

“I don’t know,” the man moaned, shaking his head. “It came up so fast, we barely had time to draw our bows before it was on top of us. It scorched the top of the tower and blasted the side; it clung to the wall like a bat and ripped Hilda and Ole apart.”

Below, Ethne shuddered. The same thing had nearly happened to her and Ralof in those first frantic minutes of flight in Helgen. They had thought the sturdy Imperial tower represented safety, and they couldn’t have been more wrong. The sight of those black, rushing jaws amid the flames and the stink of brimstone . . . she would never trust stone again.

The guardsman went on, recalling as much as he could. “We got a few hits on it from below, but its hide is like armor. I don’t know if we even hurt it, and then it turned on the rest of us. I think . . . I think I’m the last one left.”

“Not anymore,” said Lydia. Her grip on his arm now served to shore him up.

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded and gripped the hilt of the sword belted at his waist. He would fight again.

“Good man.” Lydia gave him a final bracing slap on the shoulder, then turned and whistled.

The guards who had gone looking around the tower came back in a hurry and assembled on the ramp. The wizard followed them up, and Ethne made herself go with him.

“The amount of destruction!” Farengar remarked. “It’s tremendous, isn’t it, the damage a controlled blast of fire can do.”

Some of the guards glared at him, but he was oblivious.

“Nothing,” a woman reported to Lydia. “Everything that isn’t stone is burning.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the others. They sounded scared, and Ethne didn’t blame them.

But Lydia had no time for fear. If she felt any such emotion herself, she kept it well hidden. “Now, listen,” she said. “That dragon may still be lurking out there. We’ll stay here and keep a sharp eye out until dawn. If the dragon comes back looking for a fight, we’ll give it a fight.”

“But Sergeant,” said the woman guard, “how can we fight a dragon?”

“That’s the question,” said Lydia. “And that is why we have Lord Farengar with us. I’m told he’s been making a study of dragons, and he’s here to put that knowledge to the test.”

The soldiers all turned to look at him, and he blinked back. “Oh. Yes. Hello!”

They were not impressed. One even turned and spit over the edge of the ramp.

“And,” Lydia went on, “we have someone here who has seen a dragon before and lived to tell about it. Her.” Lydia pointed at Ethne.

Ethne stood poleaxed. This was low, dirty, and mean, to use her like this.

Arne, once more at the back of the group, recognized her. His eyebrows shot up. “You!” He pointed, too. “It’s true! She’s the messenger who came from Helgen!”

“That’s right!” Lydia called. “This is Ethne Duval. She has faced a dragon and survived, which proves it can be done. If she can do it, so can we.”

The guards took a good look at her: small compared to most of them, poorly armed, and scared stupid. If she could survive, anyone could.

“Besides,” Lydia went on, “think of it: the first dragon seen in Whiterun since the last age. And the glory of killing it will be ours! What say you?”

“Aye!”

“Some of you didn’t hear me. I said, what say you?”

“Aye!” the guards roared.

And another roar came in answer.

All the bravado was undone in an instant.

“What was that?”

“Where is it?”

“What do we do?”

“Everyone inside!” Lydia shouted.

“No!” Ethne heard herself say. Her voice was barely a squeak, but Lydia pinned her with a look.

“No?” It wasn’t a word a sergeant was used to hearing.

Ethne had no air. She sucked down a breath, and another. It wasn’t enough.

Just then, one of the guards keeping watch up the tower shouted, “Here it comes!”

It was too late. Acting on pure animal instinct, everyone rushed into the tower—everyone except Farengar. The damn wizard was gawking at the winged silhouette hurtling from the sky.

Beholding the dragon, Ethne might have been looking death itself in the face, its jaws gaping. And then it called out in a fell voice:

“FUS . . . ”

The word came home to roost.

An instinct Ethne hadn’t known she possessed told her exactly what was about to happen. Without thinking, she tackled Farengar, bearing them both over the edge of the ramp in the nick of time.

A blood-curdling roar ripped through the air like a thousand knives through sail canvas, followed by a boom and a blast of wind. Where they had just been standing, the ramp exploded in a shower of stone and dust. The beast shot past. Ethne’s ears ached from the noise, but she could have sworn she heard it laughing.

Farengar sat up, coughing. It hadn’t been a long fall, but they’d landed roughly on their backs. “Why did you do that?”

“We almost died, you idiot!” Ethne forced herself up in spite of the renewed injury to her back. It wasn’t important now. “Come on.” She pulled Farengar to his feet and dragged him up the shattered ramp to the tower.

They gained the entrance and were ushered in by the nearest guards. “They’re alive!” one called.

Lydia pressed forward and looked at Ethne with wonder. “I don’t know if you’re sharper than you look or just lucky. Thanks for saving him.” She nodded at Farengar.

“Did you see it?” said the wizard. “Did you see what it did? It’s just like the legends say. Its very breath has power!”

“That’s why we need to get out of here.” Ethne’s words were a panicked stampede. “We’re right where it wants us, all packed into one place. When it comes back, it could roast us alive, bring the tower down on top of us, or Divines know what else!”

“So what are we supposed to do?” said the argumentative woman guard. “Go out there and get picked off one by one?”

“No, she’s right,” Lydia said curtly. “Our best chance is to spread out.” She clapped her hands in the air, drawing everyone’s attention. “Listen up! The time for glory has come! Do you want to die huddling in a hole, or do you want to die bravely in open battle? Could you call yourselves Nords if you ran and hid from this monster?”

A chorus of scathing denial answered her.

“Then let’s kill us a dragon!”

Rapidly, she laid out a battle plan. The guards would pair up and spread out, taking whatever cover they could. One pair would draw the dragon’s attention. Whoever had a shot would fire on it.

“Aim for the wings,” Farengar advised. “We must bring it down—but try not to kill it. Not before I can study it!”

“They’ll do what they have to,” Lydia said sternly. “Now, go!”

The guards scattered. Each pair took up a position below a section of the old ring walls so that almost every angle was covered by archers—or a Destruction mage.

It was obvious that Farengar had the best chance of doing serious damage to the dragon, since most of its hide was covered in an armor of thick scales. Lydia had asked the wizard to stay in the tower so he had the advantage of elevation. Ethne, despite wishing desperately that she were anywhere else, stayed with him to watch his back.

They didn’t have to wait long before another roar announced the return of the dragon. This time Ethne was certain it laughed as it wheeled overhead—and then it spoke, and its voice was like the fall of an avalanche.

“Krif krin. Pruzah!^[1] I had forgotten what fine sport you mortals can provide.”

Ethne shuddered, but her eyes stayed fixed on the beast.

“Incredible!” said Farengar. “The Dragon Tongue! We should be taking notes.”

“Focus,” snapped Ethne. “Get ready.” Below, she could hear Lydia’s voice shouting much the same.

The dragon whirled in the air, lining up an attack run.

Farengar’s hands lit with blue fire and a cold steam spilled from between his fingers: frost magic. He caught Ethne’s look and grinned. “Since this creature breathes fire, perhaps it won’t care for the taste of ice.”

Maybe he wasn’t a complete idiot after all. Ethne nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

Just as planned, two guards had darted from cover, one holding a torch aloft while the other drew their bow.

The dragon came stooping for them. The archer bravely loosed an arrow, but too late. “YOL TOOR SHUL!” A stream of fire spewed from the dragon’s maw and blasted the pair of guards.

A dozen more arrows peppered its body, but it took no heed, winging away toward the mountains.

“Fools,” muttered Farengar. He stood and cast: a brilliant spear of ice shot forth and pierced the dragon’s wingsail.

It roared now in surprise, and its head swung toward the wizard. “Kro! Ha! Nin med tuzseveydo.”^[2] Ethne knew it was taunting them, but if her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, its right wing was dragging out of time with its left as it climbed out of range.

“It’s coming for us now,” said Ethne, gripping her axe. It wouldn’t do her any good, but she felt better holding it.

The dragon wheeled on its sluggish right wing, compensating for its injury, and dove for them.

Farengar was already charging up another spell: a ward sprang to shimmering life over him and Ethne as the dragon’s jaws parted.

But no fire came forth, only a bone-shaking roar. The dragon extended its hind claws, backwinging. Ethne and the wizard staggered back as enormous talons crushed into the stones of the parapet. The dragon’s wings beat the air into a torrent; Farengar stumbled and collapsed with a cry, and his ward vanished.

The next thing Ethne knew, she was in front of the wizard and her axe was dripping hot ichor down her arms. The dragon’s jaws snapped on air, blood streaking its chin where a tooth had been shattered, and it reared back from the unexpected pain. One yellow, slit-pupiled eye fixed on Ethne.

She charged. Battle-fire was running through her veins now, screaming at her that this was her only chance. The dragon’s wings were like a bat’s, partially furled to stabilize it on the tower. She leaped for the nearest. One hand seized it by the arm above the wrist joint even as the wing rose—extended—and she couldn’t keep supporting her own weight, suddenly hanging freely, so she swung her legs and let go. Her feet slammed down onto the dragon’s back, where she gripped a jutting spinal ridge and drove her axe down into its hide. The blade stuck fast, and she held on as the enormous wings beat down, up, down.

Part of her knew she was in the sky now; icy wind rushed in her ears and tried to flatten her against the dragon’s back. Her wonder was a mote overwhelmed by terror. The dragon was roaring something as it glared—or grinned?—at her over its shoulder.

“Bahlaan hokoron.^[3] You are brave.”

Ethne forgot herself for a moment, struck by the absurdity of being addressed directly, never mind complimented, by a dragon.

“But can you fly?”

Ethne’s stomach rolled, and her feet swept out from under her. The merchantman pitching down from the crest of a wave; lightning flashing; thunder rolling; the cry: “Hold fast!” She held fast. The axe wrenched free, but she held on to it and the bony spur, and the dragon’s back finally came up beneath her again.

And she had her sea-legs now.

Go for the wings, Farengar had said. Sails shredded; slouching into harbor. The thick membrane was in reach where it joined to the dragon’s body. She swung her axe. She kept on swinging as blood sprayed.

The dragon bellowed. “Feynsedok! Stin dii slen!”^[4] It sucked in breath, sides swelling. “YOL—!”

Ethne ducked into a tight curl as a wave of parching heat rolled over her and sucked the moisture from her body like the deadly simoom off the Alik’r Desert.

But before she was immolated, the dragon’s voice broke into a snarl of anger. Over it, Ethne heard lightning and smelled the rent air, sharp in her nose; the dragon pitched and yawed. Ethne found her feet and hacked again at the dragon’s wing membrane. Something essential snapped; she felt it through her boots. The dragon howled as the forces of flight tore the injury further, and Ethne came as close as she ever had to falling off as the dragon sharply careened into a downward spiral. She could no longer feel her left hand or the spur it gripped. The dragon’s roll threw her into its spines, and she wrapped her other arm around the one she’d claimed, clinging for her life.

A long time it fell, and she fell with it, until she ran out of breath for screaming.

The crash knocked her senseless for a moment. When she came to, she was on the ground, and the dragon was above her, its injured wing blotting out the stars. She heard shouts all around. The dragon lunged, its jaws snapped, and someone screamed. Ethne saw the great tail waving over her head. As unsteady as a drunk, she rolled to her knees and—pausing only to snatch her axe off the ground—lurched away.

Something grabbed her by the arm. Wildly, she swung with her off-hand fist, but only dashed her knuckles against a steel helmet.

“Steady, now! Wait—it’s you! By the gods, you’re still alive!”

Ethne recognized Lydia by her voice. She sagged in relief and gripped the sergeant’s shoulder.

Lydia squeezed hers in turn. “Come on,” she said. “It’s not over yet.”

Ethne nodded.

In the flickering light of torches, she beheld the dragon brought low. It didn’t taunt them now; only roared its fury. The remaining guards circled it, avoiding its head and its lashing tail, to take shots with their bows or rush in with their swords to slash at a vulnerable joint. Arrows had bitten between the scales all over the dragon’s body, particularly its wings and neck, and one lucky archer had even punctured an eye.

Lydia was going for the throat: sword flashing, she charged up the dragon’s blind side, Ethne at her heels. With a great cry, the Nord plunged her blade deep into the groove behind the dragon’s jaw.

It screamed; its head whipped up and away; Lydia was pulled off her feet and fell prone. Ethne leaped over her back and met the dragon’s remaining eye as it spun to see what had dared wound it so. Its pupil widened, and it drew a deep breath.

Slam. A bolt of ice struck it square on the head. With a yelp, it staggered sideways. Its neck drooped . . . just enough.

With both hands, Ethne wound up and swung her axe upward with all the strength she had. Crack. Scales sundered. The dragon’s jaws flew wide, and only a spray of fluid came forth. Ethne heaved her axe free from its throat, and steaming blood gushed down her arms.

She staggered clear from the dragon in its death throes. Its thrashing limbs scored the ground as if trying to bodily cling to the mortal world. Ages seemed to pass before it finally stilled.

And then . . .

It was as though the dragon exhaled one final breath. Ethne thought she heard its voice whisper, “Ni—Dovahkiin . . . !”, but the wind rose to a deafening rush in her ears, and her vision filled with an unearthly glow, bleaching the world white-gold. Something inside her burned, bursting to life, ravenous.

She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. The light was being drawn in, arcing through her flesh to feed the red-hot coal in the pit of her stomach. She could only clutch at her chest, teeth bared in an open grimace at the certainty that she was about to die. Surely the dragon had turned one last trick, and her body was being unmade, leaving only her soul to fly to whatever realm the Divines deemed fit for her.

Funny, though. She had always thought death would hurt.

“Nid, Dovahkiin. Hi lahney nu ol dovah. Dahmaan sahrot Mirmulnir, wo lost kriin.” ^[5]

With those incomprehensible words, the light faded.