It was tiresome to retrace her steps to the south, Dagnell thought, but better than getting lost on a road she didn’t know. She passed by Kynesgrove, pondering another night in a decent bed. No, she decided. I don’t want to chance running into Roggi empty-handed. Instead, she hiked a short way up into the hills above the town, and camped out again.
She got going early the next day. The road took her back through the stench of the bubbling pools and past the wreckage of J’hall’s cart. He was no longer there. Well at least he’s not rotting in the sun, she thought, hoping that some passerby or the giant, and not some animal, had seen to his body.
Not far beyond, the road turned east and began to climb, steadily, through foothills and then sharply up into the mountains themselves. At one point, a dirt path took off straight up the mountain, heading directly south. She stood and pondered it for a moment, but then looked herself over. She was barely equipped and certainly had nothing extra with which to get herself out of a tight spot. No, better to keep to the road. If nothing else she could see what was coming that way. She sighed and set out again. Climbing mountains on foot hadn’t been part of her original plan. She wished she had J’hall’s horse. On the other hand, boots that fit surely made the climbing easier than it might have been.
A few hours of slow uphill trudging and several wolves later, Dag saw what appeared to be a guard tower. Something about it felt wrong. There were no signs of guards patrolling the area, and it seemed much too quiet. Was it deserted? Was it an ambush waiting for the soul stupid enough to be travelling alone, like her? She dropped into a crouch as she neared, and crept along in the brush at the roadside. More bandits were not what she needed.
When she reached the base of the tower she discovered that there had been no need for all her attempted stealth. There was a fire burning just outside the entrance, and a guard propped up against the tower wall. Dead, he was, and recently so. He’d been pierced by at least three arrows and showed signs of having more plucked out of his dead body. The ground was covered in his blood. Another equally-dead guard sprawled in the grass nearby.
Dagnell entered the guard tower and crept cautiously up a set of blood-spattered stairs. There were two more dead guards, one at a landing halfway up and one at the top of the tower. She stood and ran a hand through her hair. “Well this sure is ugly,” she murmured. There were things here she could use, though: a bow that she grabbed eagerly, some iron arrows, and a couple of swords, and a few septims of gold tucked into an old chest. For a moment she pondered the dead guards. Stripping their armor off to sell it was more than a little unsavory, but they wouldn’t need it any time soon. And she was basically destitute. Sighing, she gathered up the armor and headed back down to revisit the guards outside.
On a table just inside the door, she spotted a note. “We’ve word of Legion soldiers advancing on your position,” it read. “Reinforcements are on the way. Talos guard you.”
Ah, Talos, she thought. Emperor Tiber Septim; Ysmir. He was the ancient hero who had united Tamriel and, according to legend, had been elevated by the divines to take his place alongside them. The Empire had banned Talos worship, though; they held that no man could be divine. According to J’hall it was one of the reasons there was a civil war going on. Dagnell didn’t know whether that was really the case or it was just a handy excuse for the Nords and Imperials to kill each other, but it was good to know how this part of Skyrim leaned. She didn’t want to open her mouth the wrong way, especially in a place where guards were being left lying around full of arrows, probably by Imperial soldiers. She bundled the looted gear into a package with some of her leftover leather strips, heaved it onto her back, and headed south again.
Not far beyond the guard post the road ran though a settlement. A smelter and piles of unsmelted ore told Dag that it was built around a mine; and, like Kynesgrove, it was small and tired-looking. Outside one of the few buildings, a group of men had gathered around a cooking fire. An old man sat roasting a rabbit, frowning at a dark haired Nord and a hefty green Orc who were arguing loudly about, of all things, housekeeping. “Cut it out, you two,” he snapped at them. “You’re just going to have to live with it until we can build another house.”
Dag smiled and approached the group. The old Nord looked up.
“I hope you’re not here looking for work in the mine,” he said, frowning. “It’s closed up.”
Dag shook her head. “I wasn’t, no. I’m just passing along the road, but you’re the first folks I’ve seen in awhile. Tell me about the mine.”
“Redbelly Mine. It gets its name from the red mist that’s always in there. Nobody really knows where it came from, but you get used to it after awhile. Smells a bit like those hot pools out on the tundra.”
Lovely, she thought. “So what’s wrong with the mine that you’ve had to close it up?” she asked him.
“It’s full of spiders, that’s what’s wrong with it. Moved right in and made themselves at home. Almost killed Grogmar and me when they showed up. I’m afraid they’re going to come out looking for food soon and then we’re in even bigger trouble. If we can’t get back into the mine soon our little town will be done for.”
That’s strange, she thought. Spiders? Killer spiders? She knew some people were deathly afraid of spiders but how likely was it that a whole group of grown men would be? And Grogmar was an Orc name, undoubtedly the man sitting here at the fire. Orsimer men – Orcs – were large to begin with, but this fellow was big even for an Orc. The spiders had nearly killed him?
“Can’t you ask the guards for some help?”
“Pfft,” he snorted. “The town guards are as useless as a fifth wheel on a wagon. Always handing me some line about needing to keep an eye out for enemy soldiers on the road. Idiots.”
Not idiots from what I just saw at the tower, Dag thought; but she decided to keep quiet about that. “Well, um… how about if I clear them out for you?” How hard could it be? She’d certainly squashed plenty of spiders in her lifetime, after all, some of them pretty big and disgusting.
He looked at her. It was clear that he didn’t think much of her chances, but Dag saw a hint of desperation in his eyes. “If you hold true to your word, I’ll give you as much as I can scrape together. But I don’t want to be responsible for sending you to your death. Be careful in the mine.”
She was thoroughly puzzled. Spiders. A coin was a coin, though, so she shrugged, dropped her bundle at the door, and entered the mine.
There were rope-and-plank bridges leading across the main shaft, but she couldn’t quite see across to the other side for all the red mist. It smelled bad, alright; she had hoped not to revisit that scent for some time, but there it was again. And there were definitely spiders.
These weren’t your average cobweb spinners. These were half her height and at least twice as big around, and they spat gobs of venom that seemed to freeze the skin when it landed. For a second, she wanted to turn tail. She had a bow now, though, and decided to have a little target practice.
They weren’t, actually, too hard to kill. Each arrow connected with a juicy splat, taking the spiders out with a single shot apiece. She crept across the bridge and started down a side ramp, feeling more confident, listening to the skittering sounds beneath. There were lots of webs, lots of huge spider egg sacs, and a lot of spiders, none of them any harder to drop than the first had been.
Until she got to the bottom.
An enormous spider, fully three times the size of the others, was pulling itself up into an aggressive stance and moving forward, getting ready to spit. She had never seen anything like it.
“By Stendarr!” she yelped in surprise, and started unleashing arrows as fast as she could draw the bowstring. The spider flinched, but didn’t seem to slow much as it approached her. Panicked, Dag drew her sword with one hand and started slashing, and fired off as much flame magic as she could muster with the other. The creature, smelling horrid as it burned, advanced, gnashed its fangs, and spat its poisonous venom at her. She mostly dodged, but when she couldn’t, it hurt. It hurt a lot, and it froze the affected part, slowing down movement. Finally, just as she was running out of any energy to cast more flames, she managed to find the spider’s brain with her sword; it shuddered and slumped to the ground.
She stood, panting, rubbing life back into the spots where the spider’s venom had splashed her. No wonder the miners hadn’t wanted to go back in. If that thing had gotten its fangs into her she’d have been a goner. For that matter, the little ones – if “little” was the right word – wouldn’t have done her much good either. She didn’t blame the miners at all for being afraid. She climbed back up the ramp and headed out to the fire.
“Nasty little buggers, aren’t they?” said the old man as she neared the fire.
“Yes, but they’re gone now. That big spider was really something.”
“They’re gone? All of them?” He looked astonished. “That’s incredible! Well you’ve more than earned this!” He handed her a pouch with what felt like at least 100 septims inside, a good payment for her efforts. “Thank you!” he said again. “Now we can reopen the mine and put Shor’s Stone back on the map!”
“Well, you’re welcome. I was happy to do it.” No, I wasn’t, she thought. I was absolutely appalled to do it. But a coin is a coin.
“Fortune to you and your children,” he said, waving as she shouldered her bundle and walked away. She laughed to herself. No children here and nobody to make them with. The coin purse felt good in her pocket, though, as she continued along and up the road, passing through ever more rugged hills. It was beautiful country up here, but stark, and very slow, strenuous climbing, especially carrying a heavy load of gear. Still, the sounds of birds fussing about in the tree tops and the wind whispering along with them made for a peaceful climb. At least it wasn’t snowing here.
Not much more than an hour down the road, the peace ran out. Dagnell heard the battle before she saw it – shouts, men’s screams, and swords clashing against shields. Stepping off the roadway into some shrubs nearby, she crept toward what looked like an old but substantial fort. In front of it, soldiers in two different uniforms – one set draped with blue, the others red and brown – were doing their best to slaughter each other, and appeared to be succeeding. Dagnell watched for a few moments, amazed at the skirmish’s intensity. It was clear that skirting the fort would be the best bet. It would be the only bet, in fact, because as she got closer she saw that the road ran through the fort, and was barricaded. She made it past the area safely, but was appalled by the number of men and women on either side of the fort who hadn’t.
The civil war was real. No wonder J’hall had wanted some backup on his trip through Skyrim.
The road on the far side of the fort took a series of switchbacks up the side of a steep rise, snaking past three more towers like the one that had held the dead guards. The guards here were alive and well, thank you, and looked her over carefully as she passed but didn’t challenge her. The road turned sharply right, through a deep cleft in the rock. On the far side, the terrain opened out into an enormous plateau with dozens of yellow-leaved trees filtering the sun. She could hear birds calling and caught the unmistakable scents of water and fish.
The familiar sounds of city life drifted out from behind a large wooden gate set into a substantial stone wall. A road sign set near the point where the cobbles split into paths around the outside of the walls read “Riften.”
At last, another city. And this one, she knew from what J’hall had told her, was the closest one to the border with Morrowind and the route to Cyrodill.
Finally.