Roggi held up his hand to stop Dagnell, and pointed. They were outside Cragslane, looking at a set of large cages holding what looked like pit wolves. There was a small campsite set up near them. The wolves knew they were there, judging by their howling. Next to the cages, though, was an Orc in Nordic armor, holding up a wicked-looking warhammer, peering anxiously in their direction. He knew they were there, too, but he hadn’t spotted them yet.
Dag had her bow at the ready, but Roggi shook his head and waggled his. The enchantment on it would help take down the big man. She nodded and moved a little farther into the bushes to give him as much space as she could for the clearest shot possible.
Roggi drew the bow, taking a deep breath. It seemed like a lifetime before he loosed it. When he did, the arrow flew straight and true and buried itself in the Orc with a resounding thud, and he dropped to the ground. Dag released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Great shot,” she whispered to him.
“Thanks,” he replied, with a grim smile. “Let’s go.”
They crept forward, ready for an attack, but there was nothing else outside the cavern door except the wolves. “Ok,” Dag said. “I don’t know what we’re going to find in there but I’m ready. You?”
Roggi nodded. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”
Bless him, she thought, he doesn’t know why this is so hard for me but he knows that it is. I’m so lucky he’s here. “Yes. This operation needs to be shut down. I don’t want them making even one more bottle of skooma in this place.”
The door into the cavern was like the one at Steamscorch Mine, wooden and on creaky hinges. It seemed to take forever to open it, because it threatened to wail a notice with every inch they moved it. Nobody came rushing out at them, though, and they finally slipped into the cavern and discovered why. There were wolves howling and men talking loudly, the sound echoing up the long passageway from a well-lit cavern at the far end. Whatever was going on, the people there had expected their door guard to keep it free from intruders and weren’t worried that they were making enough noise to raise the dead.
Near the end of the corridor was a lone figure standing in the shadow of a roof support. Dag had the better line of sight; she drew her bow, used some spider venom to poison an arrow, and dropped him silently. Nobody else came rushing out at them, so they continued moving toward the larger room.
The corridor opened up onto a platform overlooking a pit wolf fighting ring. At the far end of the room there was a bar with a big Nord behind it; three men were lurching about near the ring, yelling encouragement to the two wolves trying to rip each other to shreds.
Dag frowned. This gambling den was ugly enough, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a skooma manufacturing setup.
Suddenly, as though she had tapped him on the shoulder, one of the men looked up and stared her straight in the eye.
“Well what do we have here?” he yelled, and headed for the ramp. The other two men took a second to collect their wits, but when they finally spotted her they ran too; and the bartender reached under his bar and then darted out from behind it.
“Crap,” Dag muttered. She pulled her bow and shot at the bartender, but the arrow struck the rope railing in front of her instead of going where she’d aimed. “Damn!” Roggi had backed up into the corridor, just high enough to get a good angle on the first man up the ramp, and managed to catch him in the shoulder, sending him flying.
Dag wasn’t going to have time for another arrow. She drew her swords and rushed the second man in line, slicing his arms hard. He yowled and dropped the dagger he’d been flailing about, grabbing at his wound; that was all the time she needed to take him down.
Roggi came running up beside her with his greatsword high and in front. The third gambler never had a chance against it. The bartender, though, was tougher, and sober; and he’d seen the carnage happening and backed up to get more fighting space. Dag was having a hard time to scramble over the gamblers’ bodies, but Roggi rushed down the ramp toward the bartender, knocking him sideways. Roggi’s swing missed. The bartender took a wide swipe at him; but it ended when Dag sliced off the hand holding the dagger, and then kept him from screaming with a quick slash across his throat.
Roggi nodded. “Thanks for that. I think he would have gotten me. I was off-balance.”
Dag looked around in disgust. “So this is a gambling set-up. Where’s the skooma?” She stomped down into the room and behind the bar. There were a dozen or so skooma bottles behind the bar, and she happily smashed them onto the floor; but there was nothing here that looked like a place to refine moon sugar.
“Over here,” Roggi said. She looked up to see him pointing behind the wolf pens. There was light flickering out of another opening. She nodded and moved toward it, to get a look at the next room.
There was definitely an alchemy station set up in the far room, with a beefy Dunmer leaning over it, singing quietly to himself. Roggi took out his bow and indicated that he was going to try to dispatch the man. She nodded and stepped back out of the way.
But the Dunmer only jerked upright when Roggi’s arrow hit him. He yelled and reached for a massive warhammer that glowed with some enchantment, then ran up the passage toward them. Dag and Roggi exchanged one startled glance and drew their swords.
This was one of the ugliest Dunmer she’d ever seen, and he was mad and had that hammer raised over his head when he reached Dag. She’d seen him coming and moved to block the blow, but he was bigger than her and the hammer was heavy; even rolling at the last moment didn’t save her from being clipped in the shoulder. It was then that she learned what enchantment it carried. The shock magic it poured onto her sent every muscle into painful cramps, and the sheer force of the blow threw her back against the fence surrounding the pit wolves, making her drop her swords. The wolves were in a frenzy, snapping and howling, and as she fought the pain she realized that one more step backward would have her tumbling over the fence and into their jaws.
Roggi rushed the Dunmer while he was trying to raise his warhammer for another blow. His greatsword was also big and heavy, but he was able to use the diagonal slicing motion she’d seen him use before to catch the Dunmer’s side. Roggi whirled away while the Dunmer shrieked.
Dag fought the cramps to reach for the swords she’d dropped and to force herself upright. Her muscles started to respond, and she moved forward just as the Dunmer raised his weapon to hammer at Roggi. No, she thought. You won’t have him. She ran forward and began hacking wildly at the man, her control poor at best. He dropped the hammer. Roggi turned back, raised his sword, and brought it down on the Dunmer’s shoulder. He gasped once, then dropped to the floor, dying.
Roggi dropped his sword and grabbed Dag by the shoulders. “Are you alright?” he asked urgently, scanning her for wounds.
Her shoulder was on fire from the glancing blow, and her muscles ached abominably, but she nodded. “Yeah, I’m ok,” she said. “That hammer hurt. I’ll be sore for awhile but nothing feels broken. But that shock magic was ugly.”
Roggi blew out a deep breath. “I thought he had you.”
“And I thought he had you. I’m glad we’re ok. What say we go break up a skooma operation.” She shook herself a bit to work out the cramps and walked toward the door; Roggi picked up and sheathed his sword and followed.
But in the far room, Dag saw nothing. There was a chest. And a bed. And a table set with wooden bowls and forks. And a normal alchemy station, topped with empty bottles and the ingredients to make some common poisons; the Dunmer had been about to work on some, by the looks. There was a set of shelves facing away from the door, with a few bowls of moon sugar and maybe two dozen bottles of skooma. There were a few books, a couple of changes of unremarkable clothing, and spare candles. There was nothing that looked like a refinery, and no hidden openings to another chamber. Dag started rummaging through the room, grabbing unrelated, everyday things and hurling them aside, her anger and frustration mounting with every second that passed.
“Where is it?” she growled. “Where?” She grabbed bottles of skooma from the shelves and started hurling them at the wall. “Where! Is! It?” she yelled, smashing a bottle with each word. “I came here to shut down a skooma refinery! WHERE IS IT??” She swept clutter off the shelves and table, ransacked the bedside table, upended the bed, smashed every bottle of skooma. I thought I could make it right. I thought I could fix it. But it would never be fixed, and she would always be alone. The more things she threw, the more she felt as though she would explode, until she found herself wailing, shrieking, howling along with the pit wolves in the next room.
“Dagnell. Dag. Stop.” Roggi came up behind her and put his arms around her, his voice deep and soothing, but sad. “Stop. We got them. This is all there is here. It’s ok. Stop now.”
Dag turned and looked up at him. His expression said that, even though he couldn’t know what the circumstances were, he recognized deep sorrow when he saw it. Dag threw her arms around Roggi, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed. He just held her. They stood there like that for a long time, him holding her and stroking her hair, while she wept for Coyle and Doran and Wujeeta, and for herself.
Finally, her sobs died down to sniffles. Still, Roggi held her close. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Thank the gods you were with me, Roggi. I’m not sure what I might have done if you hadn’t been.”
He hugged her a bit tighter. “I told you I would keep you safe, and I’m not going to break my promise.”
Dag nodded, not able to speak for fear of bursting into tears again. It wasn’t that she needed him to keep her safe. She was more than capable of doing that, had been doing so since she was a small girl. But he had given her something she needed; because in spite of it all she wasn’t alone, not right now, not when she hadn’t been sure there was a good reason to keep on persevering. There was someone who cared enough about her to have risked himself right alongside her. That meant something. It wouldn’t bring back Coyle but it meant something.
They put down the wolves, both inside and out, to spare them death by starvation. They left everything else as it was, taking nothing with them but a couple bottles of mead that had been stashed behind the bar, and walked up the path away from the cavern, finding a quiet spot to make camp.
Roggi had given her a mead, which she had gratefully accepted, but had barely spoken while he laid a fire. Now he sat down beside Dag and put one arm around her for a moment, a comforting gesture that threatened to make Dag start sniffling again. Roggi was so very different, out here on the road, than he had been when she met him in the mine. He was self-assured and strong and she had begun to rely on that strength. And what else? her sarcastic voice asked. You don’t just rely on his strength, do you?
“So do you want to talk about it?” he asked, disengaging and reaching for a drink.
No, she thought. I don’t ever want to talk about it. But I probably owe him this much. She nodded, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “His name was Coyle. He was… my first.” Roggi nodded. “And his best friend Doran. We all grew up together. They made a mistake, and we all paid for it. I couldn’t help them. They wouldn’t let me. It’s been… very hard.”
“But you helped Wujeeta. That was a good thing.”
Dag nodded; the knot was rising in her throat again. “I had to. I couldn’t see that happen again. Not to anyone, even someone I don’t know.”
“And that after losing your parents. I don’t know how you could not be bitter.”
For several minutes, they sat in silence. Dag didn’t know what else to say, was pretty sure that she couldn’t say anything else, had cried out every shred of energy she had.
Then Roggi cleared his throat. His voice was soft, barely a whisper when he spoke.
“I had a – a girl. Briinda. The prettiest thing you ever saw. Tiny, blonde hair and blue eyes. Strong, a true Nord. She favored war axes. She was…” He gave the merest ghost of a smile, as if looking at her sitting across the fire from him. “She was also a Stormcloak. That’s how I met her.”
He cleared his throat again and looked up at the trees, frowning. “That’s also how it happens that I have – how did you put it? opinions — about Ulfric. He also had his eye on Briinda when we were in Windhelm. She was having none of it, but he surely tried hard. Even tried to pull his rank. What a pitiful way to win a woman. But I guess it’s like everything else. He doesn’t ask. He orders.” His voice sneered as much as his face did.
Then he sighed. “And she could sing a song like nobody you ever heard. Could have been a bard. I don’t know why she picked me, but she did.” He shrugged, and his head dropped.
Dag wasn’t surprised that Roggi had had someone special, but she was afraid she could guess what was coming next.
“Did you sing together?” she asked quietly. “I’ll bet that would have been a beautiful sound.”
“Sometimes,” he said, sadly. “Sometimes we did.” He sighed. “You asked me, before, whether my family was somewhere else. Well, the whole clan was on the road to Riften so that she and I – could be married.” He paused and shook his head. “Bandits. I was the only one who got out alive. If you can call it alive, the way I’ve been living since then. Kjeld’s the only one left who knows.”
He might as well have struck her in the gut with the bandit’s hammer. It felt as though all the air had left her lungs.
Dag looked up at him. He was staring at the fire, but his face was wet where a few tears had rolled down it.
“Oh Roggi. I’m so sorry.” Dag wrapped her arms around him and held tight. No wonder he had seen her pain. The truth was even more painful than what she’d imagined. And she cared about that more than she had ever expected to.
They held each other all that night, but that was all. It would have to be enough.