The worn dirt path softly crunched under her boots, the air was crisp and clean, nothing but clear sky above. Fenora was glad to be back on the road again. Something about the road always felt like finding a long lost friend.
Morthal had vanished from sight almost an hour ago, and the fog that surrounded the town had finally given way to the light of the sun. But even so, she still had aches and pains all over from the fight with Movarth. All of them did.
Stross had been easily the worst off. Easily.
When she woke up with her head still lying in the dried pool of melted changeling, she had no idea how much time had passed, but her first instinct was to see if he was really dead or not, stupid and hopeful as it was. He didn’t look much better than when she’d passed out next to him, still nothing but crumbling shell and exposed bones. But somehow… he was actually breathing, shallow and slow. Nowhere near conscious, but alive, and that made her feel a million times better.
As for her and Lydia, chugging that potion may have kept them going through the fight, but they been beaten to Oblivion and back. Lucky for them, the vampires had been lavish and greedy enough to hoard entire rooms full of everything she needed to get them back on their feet.
The spoils of war, hard earned.
There were barrels of fresh water to clean their wounds, several beds to rest in (even if they were shaped like coffins), and the spare sheets made great bandages when torn into strips. Next to the living quarters there was some sort of ritual area littered with alchemy reagents, battered tomes, and more than a few soul gems.
Those soul gems were exactly what Fenora was hoping to find. She took any that were full, and stuffed as many as she could into Stross’s decaying mouth. A couple of loose teeth fell out when she did, but if he could feed on the souls in the gems it would heal back with time. That was the hope at least.
In truth she wasn’t sure it was actually working, but Stross was… looking a little better each time she checked back on him. Or at least he wasn’t looking worse. It was hard to tell.
Whatever the case, she knew it would be a while before it was even safe to move him, just as it would take some time before Lydia felt well enough to walk. So after Fenora finished brewing up a few more healing potions and administering them, there was really only one thing left to do while she waited.
Loot the place.
Did I mention that the vampires were serious hoarders? Well I’m mentioning it again, because they were SERIOUS hoarders.
The first thing Fenora pillaged was their wardrobe, an entire wall of dressers stuffed with whatever stolen clothing they’d seen fit to keep for themselves. She’d been wearing her current outfit since the escape from Helgen almost a week ago, and to be honest, it couldn’t take much more abuse; the front had a giant claw-shaped hole from her fight with the hagraven, plus the new patch on the back burned off by Movarth’s fireballs. With all the other general damage and caked on dirt from traveling like they did, it was practically falling apart.
Luckily there were a lot of clothes to choose from, though some of them were pretty strange. There was a black ninja getup with a metal headpiece, and red and black jesters’ outfit, and even a pair of red and green plumber suits. Finally she settled on a plain white shirt and brown work pants, trying to look at least a little normal.
That isn’t to say she didn’t take anything else though, because she took at least ten other outfits in case a fresh set of clothes was needed. She also figured Stross would appreciate a variety of clothes to complement his disguises. That is… if he ever got bet-
When. When he got better.
There was quite a bit more to loot, including several pieces of jewelry, and enough septims to fill a comically large sack of gold.
The only the only thing the vampires didn’t keep was food. Sure there were plenty of barrels full of “wine” and a more than a few fresh cuts of “meat”, but Fen knew not to trust any of those. She could only guess what the vampires were feeding their thralls, and the less she thought about it, the better.
After shoving some more soul gems in Stross’s mouth, cocooning his body in a bedsheet, and loading up their plundered items in a handcart, Fenora was planning to go back to Morthal for some breakfast.
It surprised her to find a group of townspeople waiting for them when they got out. Each of them were slumped over, loosely cradling some improvised weapons while they slept. A couple small fires were smoldering down to the cinders.
At first she thought Idgrod had sent a search party to find them; they had been gone for some time. But it turned out they were actually planning to kill the vampires themselves. A ragtag group of townspeople, unarmored, equipped with makeshift weaponry… were going to defeat a master vampire.
Having actually faced Movarth and his small army, Fenora could almost visualize how that would have turned out. Spilled takeout noodles indeed.
Thankfully the townspeople became aware of their odds before they delved headlong into the vampires’ lair, and fearfully stayed outside the cave entrance, waiting outside all night long to ambush them. The lot of them walked back to Morthal together, humbled and unsatisfied… but still very much alive. And that was what mattered.
A few other uninteresting things happened before they got on the road. They ate breakfast in an awkward silence; they learned that Fallion had finally perfected his cure for vampirism and used it on Alva; Alva was being sent the prison in Whiterun despite the townspeople demanding they get to hang her themselves; lastly Laelette, Thronir’s wife, was still nowhere to be found, but they said they’d keep looking for her.
Things were finally wrapping up in the foggy little town, life going on as best it could for them. Fenora even bothered to return the auto-crossbow and as many of its bolts as she could find to Idgrod.
The Jarl let her keep the whip and hat though. Fenora just wished Lydia would stop calling her Indiana Jones. She didn’t even know who that was!
All things considered, it felt good knowing the vampires were finished, and moving on felt liberating. She briefly wondered how great it would feel once she saved the world from Alduin, and finally got to go back to her little farm in High Rock.
With her thoughts wandering back to the dragons, Fenora suddenly remembered their presence, looming in the distance like a growing storm. Suddenly the lightness she felt knowing she’d helped save Morthal was squashed under the weight of the larger task at hand. Moreso by the fact they’d wasted so much time in the process.
Two days ago they set out from Whiterun to get Jurgen Windcaller’s horn. Two days had passed and they still didn’t have it. She knew they did a good thing for those people, but the current doomsday schedule was making her more than a little nervous.
Traveling the rocky countryside was slower than normal thanks to their trove of treasure. Lydia was an absolute lifesaver, agreeing to drag the cart for her. Fenora had considered leaving the stuff behind in Morthal, or even stashing it in Movarth’s lair so they could double back for it later. But nice as that sounded, she was certain it was as good as gone if they did, if they even remembered to go back for it.
Her own burden started to sag on her shoulders again, and she shrugged the straps back into place for what seemed like the hundredth time.
Stross...
She hoped he’d be okay. When she wrapped him up he was bones and mush held together with spindly tendons of changeling stuff, looking almost like one of the countless draugr they’d slain together. She wondered if he’d ever be the same, if she’d ever have her lovable little changeling back.
Lydia's voice suddenly pulled Fenora out of her thoughts.
Snapping back to reality, her eyes were drawn to a lone man standing in the middle of the road. His clothes looked like that of any farmer or wandering merchant, but Fenora knew by his face what he wanted from them.
“Good day to you ladies!” he called in a flippant tone, “That’s quite a lot of cargo you’re hauling. It would be a shame if something happened to it!”
He raised his left hand and waited for something to happen.
“I said… It would be a shame if something happened to it!”
He clenched his teeth. “I SAID! It would be a SHAME if something happe- GET OUT HERE AND POINT YOUR BOWS AT THEM ALREADY!? Gods sakes we practiced for this!”
Finally a quartet of archers burst out of the bushes, previously hidden from view.
“Now,” the man said, stepping forward, “as I was saying, that’s quite a lot of cargo you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it, so how about you give it to us? For safe keeping.” He gave a dark chuckle, showing off the gaps in his teeth.
Fenora took Stross off her back and placed him ever so gently on the ground, never taking her eyes off the man.
“Sure. Okay.” She said plainly.
“That’s right, and don’t even think of- wait really?” the bandit stopped himself in shock.
Fenora nodded with a smirk. “Yeah really. Here… let me give you my sword first. Wuld… NAH KEST!”
A sound like a whip-crack rang out, Fenora instantly closed the twenty feet between them, and the bandit found himself impaled though the gut before he could react.
“Sorry.” Fenora said venomously, “I should have warned you it was sharp.”
She wheeled herself around, using the bandit’s body as a shield against the rain of arrows from the four archers behind her. Two on either side, neither side much closer. She chose to charge at the ones on the left, hoping Lydia would distract the ones on her right. Hefting the lifeless body in front of her, she shambled forwards at the archers who kept firing more arrows at her instead of doing something smart, such as getting out of the way.
Using the length of blade protruding out of her human shield’s back, Fenora sliced open the first archer’s chest with a quick pair of stabby swipes.
As he collapsed in a bloody heap, Fenora felt her arms go weak and she dropped her first victim to the ground along with her sword, heaving with exhaustion.
“What’s going on?” She thought. “I don’t normally get tired this fast.”
Her second thought was, “Woah fuck!” as the other archer lunged at her with a dagger the size of her forearm.
She managed to dodge by a hair’s length and Fus Ro Dah him to the ground.
Retrieving her sword, she finished him off before he could recover. Yet the question on her mind remained as her arms gave out again and she hunched over on her blade. Why was this happening? Why was she getting so tired all of a sudden? It was like something drained the strength right out of-
Oh gods, of course…
Changelings fed on souls to keep their bodies intact. He was dying and there was no one nearby but her.
She’d unknowingly parted with some of her soul to keep him alive. How much, she didn’t know, but she’d likely saved his life with a chunk of her own. It was a fact that made her feel both proud of herself and violently sick at the same time.
Then another thought came to her. If soul energy could keep him alive and help him recover, like with soul gems, technically any soul energy would work.
“Lydia, wait!” Fenora called, just as Lydia was about to finish off the last of the bandits, an imperial woman by the looks of her, with a face mottled with dirt and scars. “Bring her over here. We can use her.”
Fenora went to Stross’s bundled form and started undoing the knots around his face.
“My thane?” Lydia asked as if wanting some reassurance, but did as Fenora asked and dragged the wounded bandit with her.
“What are you doing? Get off me you nord scum!” the bandit woman yelled, thrashing against Lydia’s grip.
Fenora ignored the scuffle and uncovered Stross’s face. His sockets were still empty, and his lips were still missing. Inside his mouth the soul gems had lost much of their glow and started to crack. But his scaly skin was showing signs of reforming, and there was actual muscle around his face and neck now.
“Gods, what is that?!” the bandit yelled, suddenly full of fright upon seeing him.
“My friend.” Fenora answered and grabbed her, forcing her face to face with the changeling. “You’re going to help him get better. Stross, if you can hear me, feed. Feed all you want too, she’s just a random bandit who attacked us.”
The woman struggled in Fenora’s grip. “What? NO!” she screamed, “Gods please no! Let me go, I’ll do anything! Don't let that thing eat me!”
“M-my thane…” Lydia said nervously. “Forgive me but, I must object to this. Killing bandits is one thing, but surely you don’t think this is…”
Fenora continued shoving the bandit’s face closer to Stross’s, despite her constant, frantic struggling. “Is this what; cruel and unusual punishment? She’s gonna die one way or the other! Why’s it matter how-”
“What Stross would want.” Lydia cut her off, and Fenora looked up at her relaxing her hold in the bandit. “Do you think this is what Stross would want?”
Fenora stared at Lydia, then back down at Stross past the back of the bandit’s… the woman’s head.
Fenora’s fingers loosened on the mess of tangled hair, but didn’t release her. She was about to feed a person to Stross, sacrifice another living being so her friend could get better.
To her it just made sense not to waste a soul if the person was going to die anyway. But she could only imagine the things Stross would be screaming at her if he only could. He had no eyes, but could he hear her? Did he know what she was doing right now?
“Stross... you’re my friend. I love you, and I want you back. I don’t know if you can hear me or even control how much you take, but if you can... try to take some. Skim her excess life force or whatever you call it. Just come back.” Fenora tightened her grip on the bandit woman and shoved her face to Stross’s mouth. “And please forgive me when you do!”
Fenora worked on rewrapping Stross.
The bandit lay safely on the side of the road. She was alive, breathing steady, but too weak to get up. Her face wasn’t the grimace of pain like in Bleak Falls, nor had her screams been the tortured howls she remembered.
Still, before she covered his face again, Fenora looked for some kind of judgement, some kind of sense if he forgave her or not. She placed a hand on his cheekbone, feeling the beginning of skin starting to grow back over his face.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know whether she was apologizing to Stross, Lydia, the bandit, or to herself. Probably, it was all of the above. “Please… don’t hate me for wanting to save you.”
She checked her pockets. She had three tiny soul gems left, probably filled with the souls of rabbits, mice, or possibly a deer. They were alive at one point, but at least they weren’t people, and she felt comfort in knowing they weren't still alive. She swapped out the cracked and empty gems with fresh ones and finished covering him up.
Then Fenora looked over to her housecarl, who was hitching herself back up to the loot wagon and trying to look indifferent about the whole thing.
“Hey, Lydia?” she called, slowly walking over. “I’ll take the cart for a while if you like.”
“Thank you my thane, but I’m fine. I am sworn to carry your burdens after all. And to do as you command.” She said coldly, all the while avoiding eye contact.
Fenora clapped a hand on her companion’s shoulder until she looked at her. “Lydia. I’m sorry I’m not always the hero you, or Stross want to see. But I’m the hero Skyrim needs.” She said stiffly.
Lydia met her glare. She hadn’t realized until now how much taller her houscarl was, or how imposing she could be. She matched her stare though, piercing through her. Finally though, both their expressions softened.
“I know my thane. I know.”
Defeated, she unhitched herself from the wagon and stepped aside. “I could hold onto Stross for a while… if you like.” She offered.
A wan smile crept onto Fenora’s face. “Sure.” She undid her Stross-pack and passed him over, “We’ll carry each other’s burdens. Careful though, he’s pretty heavy.”
While Fenora finished hitching herself up and walking on ahead, Lydia whispered a quick prayer to Stross. “Hurry up and get better. Fenora’s scary when you’re not around.”
Fenora walked in front, constantly checking the magic map Stross acquired. Dirt path slowly transitioned back to snow-covered ground as the little white arrow made its way to the glowing waypoint.
“Alright…” Fenora muttered, “if we keep walking this way we should be there in almost a-“
*Thwack!*
“OW! Son-of-a!” Fenora cursed after walking straight into a tree branch for the twelfth time.
“Watch out for that tree my thane!” Lydia called from behind her.
Fenora grumbled and rubbed her face.
Thankfully they’d arrived at Ustengrav, the resting place of Jurgen Windcaller and, according to the Greybeards, a place where all dragonborns passed their initiation rite to become fully-fledged wielders of The Voice!
Fenora was honestly expecting something a little more grand.
“Geez, this place is a wreck.” she said as they walked through a crumbling entranceway with barely enough standing pillars to hold the ceiling up.
“I guess you could say it’s... ruin-d.” Lydia said with a smirk, and they both had a good awkward laugh over it.
‘Ruin-d’ was a good word for it. Once upon a time this might have passed for a respectable tomb for someone like the founder of the Greybeards, but now the entire place was falling apart. The air was thick with dust and cobwebs, and a lot of the time they had to step around chunks of rubble littering the floor.
It was up ahead near a collapsed passageway that Fenora saw something that gave her pause. She pulled the loot cart aside and hid it near some inconspicuous storage urns, taking only the essentials with her.
Drawing her dwarven greatsword, she stalked closer for a better look.
Bandits. Dead, hacked-up bloody bandits, but bandits all the same.
Something wasn’t right though. Sure bandits would set up camp just about anywhere, but these ones had pickaxes instead of weapons. The rough chunks of stone chipped from the collapsed passage confirmed they were trying to clear it, and with purpose. Only they’d been killed, and recently enough for the blood to still be wet.
“So bandits come in hoping to find treasure, and get killed. But by what?” Fenora thought aloud.
While she was looking around she noticed a hidden side passage leading deeper in, and the doors were open.
She motioned for Lydia to follow behind her, and the pair entered the crypts.
Room after room of dead bodies added more pieces to the story of what happened. They passed no less than ten sorcerers garbed in black, and at least twice that many draugr. Necromancers came, killed the bandits camping out, reanimated the bandits and used them for digging, woke the draugr and got into a fight.
Ah the circle of life in Skyrim.
“Lucky for us they all killed each other.” Lydia commented as they finally made their way out of the tombs.
“I don’t like it.” Fenora said grimly, “Think about it. Fights like that don’t just end with everyone conveniently landing a simultaneous deathblow; there’s always someone left over, even if they’re dragging themselves away and bleeding to death. I didn’t see any blood trails back there, did you?”
Lydia shook her head ‘no’.
“Then there’s still someone in here, and they’re either smart enough to let the necromancers and draugr kill each other off before finishing them, or strong enough to kill them all themselves.” Fenora deduced. “I don’t like either of those options. Keep your guard up.”
The path through the tombs led to the other side of the collapsed entryway, sort of a roundabout way to get inside. This somehow led to a massive cavern in the earth with the ruins carved along its sides. There was no such thing as a ceiling above them, which allowed both sunlight and water to pour inside. The level below was lush and verdant, with trees and grass surrounding the pool of water from a rushing waterfall.
Fenora let out a low whistle. “Nice view.”
As they continued they found a staircase that led back up, and it seemed the only way to proceed.
Fenora didn’t take a single step once she reached the top though. Pressure plates covered the floor in its entirety, and somehow the smell of oil still lingered in the air.
“My thane, a plaque.” Lydia pointed to a nearby carving in the wall. “I can’t read it. What does it say?”
Fenora looked over it. The scratches were the same as the word wall in Bleak Falls. She shook her head. “I can’t either. I can understand the words, but I can’t read a lick of Dovah. It’s not like if I just stare at it hard enough it’ll suddenly make se- Wah tahrovin, feim ni. Mulaag hin zii, gron nii voth ahkrin.”
Fenora shook her head. “The fuck just came out of my mouth?!”
She looked over at the pressure plates. “Don’t fade from danger, huh?” Taking her sword, she pressed the tip onto the first pressure plate and leaned on it. She heard it click, but nothing came out.
Fenora smirked. “Looks like some of them are safe to step on. We just have to find which ones. Come on up Lyd- LYDIA BEHIND YOU!”
“What? GODS NO!” Lydia screamed as she was plucked off the ground by one of the largest spiders she’d ever seen. “Let go. Let me go!” She struggled and kicked against the multitude of legs grabbing at her, causing her and her captor to swing on the strand of web holding them up.
Fenora leapt from her perch on the stairs and slashed at the sticky rope with her sword, cutting them down.
The three of them fell to the floor, but the spider recovered much quicker. It lunged at Fenora, knocking her down and skittering past them, disappearing up the stairs and further down the tunnels.
“Fenora! It took Stross!” Lydia yelled, showing the bundle missing from her back.
Fenora didn’t have to be told twice. With her housecarl right behind her she stormed up the stairs and sprinted across the pressure plates, not caring for a moment when jets of flame licked at her heels.
By the time they made it to the spider’s web-coated lair, both of them were thoroughly singed, and Fenora was heaving from exhaustion. Her lower endurance was going to take some getting used to.
Through the sounds of her heart beating in her ears, Fenora could hear chittering in the walls.
Suddenly a spider burst out from behind a set of oversized egg sacs on her right, and two more followed suit on the left.
Fenora quickly brought her sword down on the closest one, hearing a wet crunch as its body crumpled.
Turning to face the two remaining, she saw Lydia had already engaged one of them, and was wrestling with its frontmost legs while its pincers hissed and dripped with venom.
The other one charged right for her, knocking her off her feet.
Fenora rolled with the hit, planting her boots on the spider's underside and kicking it onto the plates behind her. The satisfying sounds of flames roasting it met her ears.
Two more crawled towards them from the wall and were just as quickly slain before the big one that took Stross finally showed its ugly face. It reared up, grabbing at them with its front legs while spitting venom form its mouth.
Fenora unleashed her thu’um in a wave of fire breath that stuck to the spider’s outer shell like burning oil. It thrashed and screeched in panic, leaving enough of an opening for Fenora to drive her sword point-first into its face.
While Fenora fell to her knees from the exertion, Lydia picked up the slack and started hacking at the spider’s head with her axe until it was nothing but a green pulp.
“I think that’s the last of them.” Fenora said, looking around, “Now where’d they take Stross to?”
“He was wrapped in that bedsheet.” Lydia reminded her, “We just have to look for body wrapped in something… white.”
The words dried up in her mouth when they looked at where they were: a spiders’ nest, full of long-dead people and animals cocooned in spiderwebs.
Their heads turned until they met each other again.
“I’ll check the ones over here, you check the ones over there?” Lydia offered with a weak smile.
Fenora pulled apart yet another cocoon. Her knife kept getting stuck in the webs, so she’d given up trying and just used her hands instead. She pulled off the last layer of webs, revealing a white skull that dropped its jawbone in her lap. She sighed and tossed the mummified bones with the rest she’d gone through.
“Hey Lydia, found anything yet?” she called over to her housecarl. Lydia had been pretty squeamish the whole time they were unwrapping the dead. Maybe it was Nord tradition telling her it was wrong to disturb them, or maybe it was the fact that some were still… juicy.
“A few coin purses and a book on spider mating habits, but no Stross.” Lydia replied.
This was getting old.
Still, they weren’t going to leave him behind. She was sure he’d stay behind and look for them if they were comatose from magic emotional starvation, kidnapped by spiders and trapped in a cocoon in a room full of identical looking cocoons… or you know, whatever else.
Fenora moved on to the next, stretching the web layer till it finally broke.
“Lydia!” she called, “I’ve got bedsheets here.” she said and undid the knots, leaning closer for the moment of truth.
“Pth-pblulebethr-bleeeeh!” Stross sputtered as he spit out a shower of soul gem bits in her face.
“Stross! You’re-“
“Pleh!” Stross spat out one last piece that hit her in the eye.
“You’re awake!” Fenora said, overjoyed to see him. Even better, he was alive again! She pulled him into a hug and rubbed her cheek against his. He still looked like he’d gone through a thresher, but he was back! Stross was back, baby!
She smiled and looked into his eyes. He smiled and stared back.
Right then, everything was good.
“Who are you again?” Stross asked.