Dagnell and Roggi left the inn before sunrise the next morning, while most everyone was still abed, hoping to make some decent progress back toward the Rift before day’s end. They made their way out the gates and around the winding path back toward the road, but as they approached the stables the sound of angry voices stopped Dag in her path. She held a finger up to her lips and motioned for Roggi to follow her quietly.
As they crept up beside the stable, hiding just out of sight around a corner, Dag fought to suppress a gasp. A fully-armed, threatening Redguard man in Alik’r mercenary armor faced toward the road. Talking to him was none other than the Redguard tavern wench who had waited on them at the Bannered Mare.
Dag whispered to Roggi. “It was her!” He nodded, frowning, and moved as though he was about to draw his bow. Dag shook her head. If the other Alik’r were around, this would be a battle they couldn’t win. One of the mercenaries was bad enough; three would be deadly. There was only an outside chance one of Roggi’s arrows could eliminate the first before the other two struck, if they were, in fact, around. Dag scanned the area for signs of life and saw none, but that didn’t mean they weren’t waiting just out of sight.
“What is this, Kematu? Why are you here?” the woman hissed.
“You can’t run from us any longer, ‘Saadia,’ if that’s the name you’re using these days,” the man called Kematu murmured, smiling menacingly. “Come along quietly. There are people who are … anxious to see you.”
Just as Saadia started to protest, chaos erupted. From behind the stable roared a large, dark figure, who hurled himself at Kematu. Saadia flattened herself against the side of the building, trying to stay out of the way. Kematu pulled his scimitars and countered the attack with the skill of a seasoned mercenary. The attacker was impressive, but clearly not as experienced; Kematu scored a slash across one of his arms that forced a hiss of pain from him and set him back a couple of paces. Then, one of the most remarkable things Dagnell had ever witnessed happened.
Kematu’s assailant dropped his arms to his sides, gathered his breath, leaned forward, and created the loudest sound Dag had ever heard a human being make. It was as if his voice had become a giant’s bludgeon; Kematu flew backward through the air at least twenty paces and landed on his back in the dirt. His attacker sprinted forward and finished him off with what she now could see was a set of Redguard scimitars, then cast a healing spell on his wounded arm. It was all over in not much more than a minute, if that.
Dag stared, astonished, certain that her mouth had fallen all the way to her waist. She looked at Roggi, whose eyes were round. “He shouted,” Roggi breathed in awe.
“That’s an understatement. What in Oblivion was that?”
“No,” Roggi said, shaking his head. “I’m telling you. He Shouted. It’s a thing the old Nords used to train to do, or so the stories go. A Thu’um. A very powerful shout. They say that Ulfric Stormcloak can do that, but I’ve never heard one before from him or anyone else, so I always thought it might just be a legend. There’s nothing else that it – that – what he just did — could possibly have been.”
I don’t have a clue what he’s babbling about, Dag thought, but that definitely was something I’ve never seen. Or heard. Then she paused, remembering the guards who she had heard claim Ulfric shouted High King Torygg to death with his voice. I wonder if that’s what they meant. And where are the city guards, she thought, looking around and seeing none. They had to have heard that. She shook her head, stood, and walked forward, just in time to hear Saadia hiss at the man who had saved her.
“You could have warned me that you were going to set me up like that, Dardeh!”
The dark-skinned man who stood there looked like a Redguard, but at the same time not like a Redguard. He was short, shorter than Roggi, but of truly massive build that looked even more massive in a set of well-polished steel armor. His features were delicate, almost pretty; not a typical Redguard man at all. And his hair, arranged in rows of braids, along with his full beard, were blonde. Bright blonde hair, Dag observed, is not a thing one sees often in a native of Hammerfell.
“If I had told you, you wouldn’t have come. Well you’re safe now, aren’t you,” he grumbled in a very deep but gentle voice, settling his scimitars back into place. “They won’t bother you again.”
Saadia sighed and relaxed. “I’m sorry. Yes, you’re right. Here. I suppose you should have this,” and handed him a coin purse. She straighted up and took a deep breath. “Well, I thank you. Now I can go back to my life in Whiterun. You’ll always be welcome at the Bannered Mare, Dardeh.” She turned and jogged up the path toward the city gates.
Dagnell stood up from her crouch, approached the man called Dardeh and cleared her throat. “Um, we didn’t mean to be intruding on that. Whatever it was. But…is everything ok? Your arm?”
Dardeh gave her a long look, then squinted and leaned closer, close enough for her to see that his eyes were of different colors: one bronze and one green. “Sorry to stare,” he said. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting to see another Redguard woman with a scar in the same city.”
Dag felt Roggi tense beside her, and looked at him, shaking her head. “It’s ok,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. Then she returned to Dardeh. “It is odd, to be sure. I wasn’t exactly expecting it, either. Can I ask why you were looking for… one of us?”
He chuckled. “Well, Saadia there was being pursued by those bounty hunters for reasons that aren’t mine to share. Let’s just say that I couldn’t just leave a kinsman in trouble like that. There were too many of them to take out as a group, so I picked off a few here and there and then figured out a way to lure the ringleader out here,” he said, pointing at Kematu’s body. He stretched and rotated his massive shoulders, loosening up tight muscles. “Wasn’t expecting him to be quite that tough,” he said, sheepishly. “But yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
He cracked his neck, looked surprised, and then laughed. “That sounded awful, didn’t it? As for me, I’m looking for my sister. Well, half-sister,” he said, waving his hand at his hair. “Same father, different mother. My mother was a Nord.”
“Good,” said Roggi.
Dardeh smiled and looked Roggi over. Thoroughly and with great appreciation, Dag thought, grinning, noticing what she thought a particularly mischievous twinkle in Dardeh’s eyes. I see how it is. Roggi just appeals to everyone, I guess.
Roggi didn’t seem to be aware of the way in which he was being regarded, though, and just nodded back at Dardeh. “I’m a Nord,” he said, as though he needed to explain the single most obvious thing about himself. Dag had to stifle a cackle.
Dardeh smiled, an attractive, genuine, good-natured smile that went right up to his odd-colored eyes. “I guessed as much.” That was generous of him, Dag thought. A dumb comment like that would have fully deserved a sarcastic response, and would have gotten a fine one from her.
“Anyway, it probably seems a strange thing to do. I’ve never actually met my father, but just before my ma passed she told me about this girl. If she really exists, she’s the only family I’ve got. I was told that she has green eyes and a scar, and you…”
“…have green eyes and a scar,” Dag finished, nodding. “But my family has been gone for a very long time now, since I was not much more than able to hold a sword. I was the only child, unless ma and da were hiding one somewhere. Sorry about that. I guess I’m not the only one who was prone to scratches from sharp blades,” she finished, laughing.
Dardeh glanced at her again. “Speaking of which, what in Oblivion are those things you’re hauling around? Don’t you have some proper weapons?”
Dag felt herself flushing. “Well I’m sorry they don’t meet with your approval. They were the best I could come up with after mine got liberated by some bandits. I wasn’t exactly in a position to head back home to replace them.”
Dardeh laughed. “Wait a moment.” He walked over to Kematu’s corpse and pried a perfectly matched set of desperately sharp-looking scimitars away from its stiffening fingers. “Take these,” he said, handing them to Dag. “I already have mine, he doesn’t need them any longer, and I’d hate to see some…” he paused, glancing at Roggi, then finished, awkwardly, “someone who isn’t Redguard have them.”
Dagnell looked down at the scimitars and felt her eyes filling up. No. I will not cry, she told herself sternly. But these weapons felt as good in her hands as the ones she’d lost. Her mind’s eye saw herself emerging from her hiding space, wailing over the gaping maw that had been her mother’s neck, finding the dead raider’s scimitars and, in her grief, adding a few fresh wounds to his stiffening corpse. She saw herself practicing with them, taking down prey, fending off attackers, becoming more and more expert in their use. She saw what had once been J’hall, and her hands weighed these new scimitars again, testing them for balance. It was like being able to breathe again. “Thank you,” she said quietly, her voice catching. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”
She cleared her throat and looked back up at him, smiling. “Here, at least take these off my hands, would you? Run them up to the smithy and sell them off for as much as you can get. Please. Maybe they’ll buy you a couple of nights in a soft bed.” She handed Dardeh her old swords and settled the scimitars into place with a satisfied sigh.
“Well, I suppose I need to go start searching for yet another girl with a scar.” He smiled and started to move toward the city.
“Wait a moment,” Dag said, reaching out to touch his arm and stop him. “I really need to know. What that was? The thing you did?”
Roggi sighed. “I told you already. It was a Shout. He Shouted. Listen to me sometimes, woman.” Dag had heard the tales, too, as a kid, but outside of Nord country they were told in the way you’d tell a story about a constellation in the sky; dim, often mis-told, folk tales with no bearing in reality at all.
Dardeh laughed, and nodded at Roggi. “Yeah. I just learned that I could do that a while ago. A dragon… well, never mind.” He shook his head. “It sounds ridiculous even to me and I’m the one that was there. That shout is translated from the dragon tongue as Unrelenting Force, for obvious reasons. I have a few of them now. It’s a strange thing, but it’s pretty handy in a tight spot. It’s a relief to talk to someone who knows what I mean.”
“Wait,” Roggi said. “Are you saying that dragons are real?”
Dardeh grimaced. “Oh very real,” he agreed. “Big and nasty, and they don’t like people. Some speak with fire and some with frost, and you can’t get too close to the front end of them, for all the teeth. I’d hate to tell you what the first one did to some of these Whiterun guards.” He shuddered. “I’ve had to kill several of them now. I wouldn’t recommend it for a leisure activity. Learning their language is useful for that, though.”
“Dragon… language.” Dag said, shaking her head. If not for the fact that she was standing there, upright, within arm’s reach of two men, she’d have sworn she was dreaming a children’s story.
Dardeh ran his hand across his braids, looking embarrassed. “I know, it’s bizarre. That’s how they explained it to me, though. You have to, well at least almost everyone has to, study the words for a long time before they can make them work in that way.” He paused. “Unless you have the gift. I just more or less knew how to use the words when I heard them.”
Roggi’s brow furrowed. “Who is ‘they’?”
“The Greybeards,” Dardeh said, as though it was the most common thing in the world. “Well, Master Arngeir, I should say. The others don’t exactly talk.”
“Dragonborn?” Roggi gasped. “Can it be? Are you … Dragonborn?”
“Um,” Dardeh said, looking embarrassed. “So it would seem. Whether I like it or not.”
“Would you boys please tell me what in the name of Stendarr you are talking about?” Dag snapped. “I am lost.”
Roggi turned to her. “The old legends say that the dragon language was passed down from the Dragon God of Time, Akatosh, to the ancient Nord heroes,” he said. “But only someone with dragon blood is supposed to be able to learn the words without long training. I didn’t believe it was real. But we just heard him Shout, and he’s not old enough to have trained for years and years. And he went to High Hrothgar. I’m going to have to think about that for a while.”
“Thanks,” Dardeh said. “You explained it better than I could. I’m still trying to figure it all out myself. The only thing I know for sure is that I can do, well, what I did. I’m pretty sure I’m not related to any dragons, but then again I’m kind of half and half anyway, so who knows.” He laughed and gave Roggi another appreciative smile.
Dag looked between the two of them, wondering what to make of it all. Then she decided that it didn’t matter. It made her head hurt, and she had enough things to worry about, up to and including a skooma dealer in the Rift.
“Anyway,” she said, admiring her new weapons again, “we have a long way to go to get back to Riften. If you’re ever there,” and then paused. “Well I was going to say look me up, but who knows whether I’ll even be there. I hope we’ll see each other again someday, though. It was good to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Dardeh said. Then he sighed. “It’s too bad, really. I would have enjoyed having a sister like you, someone tough. And a brother-in-law like you,” he added, flashing another brilliant smile at Roggi.
“Oh no, no, it’s not like that,” Roggi stammered.
Dag laughed. He was always so eager to point that out. “We’re not married, Dardeh. I needed a friend to travel with me on a job, and lucky for me that he is, too. He keeps saving my hide.” Roggi smiled at her.
“I see. Ok then,” Dardeh said, grinning at them but mostly at Roggi. “Be safe out there. And keep an eye on the sky. You’ll probably hear one of those bastards before you see him. And if you do, find some good solid shelter.” He waved and walked up the path toward Whiterun.
He hadn’t quite gotten out of earshot when one of the cityguards came lumbering toward him in what passed for a trot. “We heard a Shout. What is it, dragons?” Dardeh’s deep laugh floated down the path; the guard turned back and the two of them continued on toward the city.
“Good thing it wasn’t a real emergency,” Dag laughed. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Well if that wasn’t the strangest thing ever, I’m an Argonian. Let’s get going, shall we?”
Roggi nodded.
“It’s kind of too bad, actually,” Dag said, glancing back at Dardeh’s retreating form. “It would be fun to have a brother. He’d be a good one.”
“Too bad,” Roggi said, thoughtful. “He seems like a nice guy. Imagine having the Dragonborn for a brother!”
“And he likes you,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
“By Ysmir!” Roggi yelped. “Would you stop that? You have said that about almost everyone we’ve met! I’m getting embarrassed!”
Dag started giggling and couldn’t stop. Roggi, however, did not seem amused.