Chapter Text
Kaidan shaded his eyes with his hand, peering up at the steps that led to the front porch of Bleak Falls Barrow. “Archer standing guard on that outcrop,” he said, pointing to the lone figure surveying the landscape. “Another on patrol at the top and a warrior on the steps. I reckon we’ll get one clean hit before the other two detect us.”
Avis rubbed her chin thoughtfully as she studied the scene. “Priority are those two archers,” she said slowly. “I’ve got Fury as a spell but that warrior’s at the outer reach of my spell-casting range. What about that ebony bow of yours?”
“I’ll be able to hit the sentry pretty easily,” Kaidan admitted as he unlimbered the warbow. “They’re just out of easy earshot of each other. Could be useful.”
She nodded. “Take out the sentry. That’ll bring the warrior within range of my Fury spell and hopefully he’ll take care of the rest. At worst, buys you enough time to get up those stairs to deal with him and distracts the archer.”
“Right.” Kaidan nocked an arrow to his bow, sighted the target and aimed along the shaft in one smooth motion. As the sentry turned, presenting a broad target, he loosed and the arrow flew straight and true to knock the bandit from his perch with a distant clatter. That immediately drew the warrior’s attention and he barked an order at the archer to find the enemy.
Gathering blood-red light that he recalled from darker days into her hands, Avis waited until the warrior was halfway down the steps before casting the Fury spell. It struck true and the bandit bolted up the stairs to hack down the astonished archer, giving them enough time to reach the base of the barrow themselves before he shook it off. Kaidan had switched his warbow for his nodachi and charged up at full speed to meet the iron-clad fighter in a clash of steel and ebony. It wasn’t much of a fight and soon he stood over the bisected corpse of another dead scumbag.
Casually looting the dead of their meagre valuables, Avis cast her decay spell and turned them into snowberry bushes that produced handfuls of the luscious red berries. It was a little morbid to eat them and they were powerful alchemical ingredients, so she stuffed them into her sack and rested her hands in the small of her back to stretch until her spine cracked. “Seems like there’s more bandits than civvies,” she remarked.
“Lots of deserters,” Kaidan explained shortly, wiping off his nodachi. “Or sellswords who aren’t quite good enough to make a name for themselves.”
“That’s depressing,” she observed, shaking her head. “Civil war’s wreaked a lot of havoc, hasn’t it?”
“Aye,” he agreed. “And now dragons…”
They opened the doors to find two more bandits standing sentry by the fire, warming their hands, and neither fur-clad renegade stood a chance against his nodachi. Avis unlocked the chest with a flare of magic and disposed of the corpses with her spell, retrieving skeever hide and tails of all things before they ventured deeper into the barrow. It stank of stale air, dead man’s dust and cold stone. Kaidan wished they could be back out under the open sky once more.
More bandits, a few skeevers and a giant frostbite spider barred the way to them acquiring the golden claw, which was the key to the puzzle door of this tomb. Kaidan had no qualms about pocketing ancient coins and grave goods while Avis’s spell worked on insect corpses as well as humanoid ones, producing fungi and moss that she stuffed into her sack. After a roomful of urns came the draugr and traps… and that was where the going got tough as there were so many of the undead bastards. Whoever had been buried here must have ranked high in the Dragon Cult to have so many thralls buried with them.
Avis eschewed from using healing spells as they made their way to the puzzle door, instead saving her magicka for the blasts of solar energy that consumed draugr or uses of Telekinesis to disarm traps. She even scraped the ashes and bonemeal into her satchel, citing its use in alchemy potions of a darker sort, and Kaidan wondered how she’d learned so much about the medicinal (and other) properties of reagents. Farengar was a known Conjurer and she’d already demonstrated an ability to sell almost anything to anyone, so there was a market, but he couldn’t help but recall Rosalind and the Blooded Dawn. He hoped that Avis never found out about that because she’d despise him.
Wish Bishop were here, he thought reflexively as another draugr revealed itself. The ranger had been preternaturally gifted at sensing ambushes and an extra bow would have been handy. But that ship had sailed for Hammerfell a long time ago after they’d killed Thorn at Rosalind’s behest and Kaidan had fallen into the Breton woman’s bed. It didn’t stop him from missing his old lover though.
Eventually they reached the puzzle door and Avis leaned against the carved stone wall, panting slightly. Her bright Khajiiti garb was now streaked with grave dust, sweat from casting constantly beaded her forehead, and her ash-brown hair was tousled from frantically dodging draugr’s weaponry. Both of them had cuts, scrapes and bruises from the undead but nothing that required medical treatment. “Are we finished?” she asked hopefully.
“Almost,” Kaidan assured her. “Just got the king-draugr and his entourage past the puzzle door. Then we’re done.”
“Oh, fuck me,” she cursed. “’King-draugr’ sounds ominous.”
“Aye, well, he can probably Shout,” Kaidan confessed. “So better be quick on your feet or you’ll be knocked arse over tit.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned ‘Shouts’,” she noted, raking back her sweaty hair. “Something tells me you’re not talking about yelling.”
“No. The old Nords learned to wield their Voices from the dragons,” he explained. “Dragonish is a magical language that can produce different effects, the old stories say. King-draugr usually know the force Shout or the one that disarms you.”
“Oh, lovely. That explains all the roaring I heard at Helgen,” she said sarcastically. “How badly are you bleeding? I’ve got a couple weak healing potions.”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Let’s do this before I get exhausted.”
“Fine.” She pulled out the golden claw and read out the order of the symbols as he turned the rings into place. Then she unlocked the puzzle door and it grated as it sunk into the floor.
The inner sanctum was lovely, with a stream bubbling through it, a crack in the ceiling opening it to the sky, and a flock of bats that fled when they entered. Kaidan pointed to the Word Wall just before they crossed the bridge. “Dragonish,” he said. “And one coffin. That’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?” she asked wryly.
“Once I lift the coffin lid, anything from a king-draugr to a Dragon Priest will come out.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
They reached the black stone sarcophagus and Kaidan shoved off the lid with a resounding crash. The tablet they were looking for was sewn into the king-draugr’s chest, giving the creature makeshift armour, but that didn’t stop him from using his spiked gauntlets to shatter limbs and skull as it began to stir. Finally, the light in its eyes died, and he pulled out the relatively intact torso to strip it of the Dragonstone while Avis walked over to examine the Word Wall.
He was severing the thongs that bound the tablet to the chest when he saw her stare at the wall fixedly, seemingly in a trance, and trace one particular word with her fingers. What in Oblivion was going on? He’d never spaced out staring at Dragonish, especially when it was carved into the blade of his nodachi.
When she returned to herself, she blinked and looked at him like he was a stranger, the pupils of her gaze flashing red-green in the light. Then she was present again, shaking her head in bemusement.
“What the hell was that?” he asked as he sawed through the thongs with his steel dagger.
“I… don’t know,” she admitted. “I understood one of the words. ‘Force.’”
“Force?” he asked. “Of all the words…”
“Yeah.” She shook her head sharply to dismiss the last of her bemusement. “I’ll see if there’s anything else to loot. I want to get out of this place.”
An hour later they retraced their route, returning to the path that led down to Riverwood, and crossed the bridge to deliver the golden claw to Lucan and get themselves a decent amount of coin. The Cyrod was overjoyed at his trinket being returned and gave them two gold septims each, a permanent discount on his goods, and generous deals on the stuff that Avis traded with him. It was sunset at this point but neither had the desire to spend another night at the Sleeping Giant, knowing how terrible it was, so they headed back across the bridge in search of somewhere to camp.
Finding a good spot behind Honningbrew Meadery, Avis kindled the campfire and put the haunch of smoked venison that she’d purchased from Lucan to cook while Kaidan set up their new bedrolls and tent. By mutual decision they didn’t discuss what happened to her in the barrow, instead focusing on a delicious meal and the tending of their injuries. He winced as she wiped his cuts and bruises with an astringent wash that banished infection, sewing the deepest one with silk thread and a fine needle, and handed him a weak healing potion to speed up the healing. But she was very good at her work.
“What will you do after tomorrow?” she asked, yawning into a fist as Kaidan cut away chunks of meat to put into bread for dinner. “Balgruuf will have the Dragonstone, so…”
“Follow you wherever you go,” he admitted. “I wasn’t doing much beyond trying to find some answers about my history, so I can go where you go.”
“I’m hoping that this will convince the Jarl to hire me as a medica for the guard,” she said wearily. “Delving into tombs and fighting undead really isn’t my style.”
“Worse places than Whiterun to serve,” he agreed, feeling a pang that it could all end so soon. “But why become a guard in the first place? We make a pretty good team.”
“Aside from a few years in Bruma, I never really had a home,” Avis said sadly as she looked into the fire. “And that ended when Neela-Tai handed me the divorce papers when I was assigned to Skyrim.”
Kaidan sighed and handed her a venison sandwich. “Never had a home myself,” he admitted. “Brynjar – my guardian – and I always wandered Tamriel. Closest I ever came to it was the Rift. Something about the cold mountains and broken hills feels familiar to me.”
“That’s Bruma for me,” she admitted. “But I know I was born there.”
“Mmm. Maybe I was born in the Rift. Brynjar promised me once he’d tell me about my mother, but he died before I could.” Kaidan made his own sandwich and took a bite. It was delicious. Better than anything he’d have gotten at the Sleeping Giant. “Reckon if you get that guard job, things will be interesting. Balgruuf’s neutral but the Empire and the Stormcloaks will force him to pick a side eventually.”
Avis made a face. “Empire’s the best choice of a bad lot. I’m still salty at being indentured into the Legion but I saw a lot in those ten years. Ulfric’s lot don’t have a bloody clue.”
“Well, the Elder Council’s gotten disconnected from the ordinary folks, and Ulfric’s a racist who got a following because of his racism,” Kaidan said with a sigh. “I was raised to worship Nine Divines but outside of Kynareth, don’t really feel connected to any of the gods.”
She leaned back against her bedroll, taking a bite from her sandwich. “Kaidan, I’ve been thinking. Your arms and armour… They’re Akaviri in style.”
“I know that much. Count Desilus Carvain offered me a lot of gold for them,” Kaidan admitted. “But I inherited the sword and bow from my mother and the armour from Brynjar.”
“That’s what has me thinking.” Her eyes were bright blue-green in the firelight. “I think your mother and possibly this guardian of yours were Blades. That explains the armour and why the Thalmor made the assumption you were one.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But I’m not. Why don’t they understand that?”
“Because the Blades under Arius Aurelius became Daedra worshippers who nearly overthrew the Empire after the Great War,” she said softly, shuddering. “Now and then I got pulled up by a Justiciar for being Cyro-Nord and a Bruma orphan. Had to perform the ‘test of faith’ more than once until they realised I wasn’t a heretic.”
“Bastards,” Kaidan said softly. “If the Thalmor come for me again…”
“Do the test of faith. If Talos is a real god, he’ll understand, and if he isn’t, you haven’t offended him,” she suggested pragmatically as she finished her sandwich.
“Maybe you’re right. Feel like I’m spitting on Brynjar’s memory though.” Kaidan sighed and finished his meal. “Let’s get some sleep. We can give Farengar his Dragonstone tomorrow.”
“Works for me,” she agreed, banking the fire. “Sleep well.”
His dreams were full of dragons and flame, Avis among them, and a grave bearded visage who looked like a statue of Talos telling him that he was the only thing between her and them. When he awoke, the dream shattered like glass, and he couldn’t remember a thing at all.