Irkngthand was west of Windhelm, up in the snow-capped mountains. Dagnell had started out on the road but, rather than staying on the established trail, had wound her way up through the snow and rocks so as not to make a target of herself. The Nightingale armor was perfect for slinking about in dark places, but stood out like a beacon against the white of this area.
Just ahead of her was a Dwemer ruin. She stopped and stared at it, then looked at her map. They had told her that Irkngthand had multiple domes clustered together, and was a large structure built into a north-facing side of the mountain. This was too far south, and not large enough to be the right place, but it was in the right spot to be a ruin named Raldbthar. Stairs led up the side of the mountain toward its entrance; she slunk across them and was heading up the hill on the other side when she heard voices.
There were bandits: three of them, and one had spotted her. He started running in her direction, a battle hammer held high.
Bandits needed to die.
She was tired of bandits.
“You won’t leave Skyrim alive!” he shouted.
Dag grimaced. Undoubtedly, she thought. But neither will you. She pulled her bow and shot him, sinking the arrow into his throat.
“That’s for Briinda,” she snarled.
The next bandit came running up behind the first, glanced at his fallen companion, then shouted and started toward her.
“That’s for Roggi,” she shouted as she buried an arrow in his eye.
The third bandit was a woman, and she was screaming like a banshee as she tore through the snow toward Dagnell. Dag stood and looked at her in disgust for a moment, then raised her bow again and launched an arrow that sank into the woman’s heart, dropping her like a stone, red spreading out beneath her in a vivid pool against the white snow.
“That was for me,” she said to nobody, and then headed over the crest of the hill toward Irkngthand.
It was obvious when she reached the right place. There were six or seven separate domes, several different levels of platforms, and a grand entrance in the center, high up. Bandits were camped out at the bottom of the structure and at several other points higher up; they had strung rope and log bridges between the various domes, making a pathway to the upper entrance that didn’t require going inside. It must be faster that way, Dag decided.
She sighed. I really wish Karliah and Brynjolf had cleared some of these people out, she thought. They must have snuck in. Which means either one of them is a whole lot stealthier than I am. I still can’t believe they think I’m some kind of leader. It’s absurd. They must have been feeling desperate.
She pulled out her bow and began picking off the bandits, from high on the hillside overlooking the complex. They ran around, panicking, knowing there was an enemy nearby and not being able to spot it, but whenever one of them would stop moving she would drop an arrow into him and watch him fall. Twice she missed, overshot her target; but the bandits ran to the spot where the arrow had fallen and stopped, giving her the perfect opening for a killing shot. They were far enough away that she couldn’t hear anything of them. They just fell like snowflakes, silent, at a distance, becoming red flowers against the gray of the stone and the white of the snow.
A small part of her was a bit disturbed at how calm she was.
Once she didn’t see any more movement, Dag followed the trail of planks and rope bridges across the rooftops to the upper landings, stopping on one level to lift some jewelry out of a Dwemer chest embedded in the wall, and to relieve the corpses of their coin. It was a magnificent view from the landing just outside the entryway: snowy peaks before her dipping down into a spruce-forested valley, and more mountains just barely visible far to the west, all of it shimmering in the bright sun. She stopped to take a sip of water and enjoy it for just a moment before entering the ruin.
Inside was carnage.
It was a large, dark room that must once have been a glorious sight, with still-impressive stone carvings everywhere and pillars with dwarven metal inlay, some still intact and some collapsed. There was a square depression in the floor here, with a set of slightly raised circles in its center. Bandits had set a campfire burning in those circles, with bedrolls along the edges of the square where they would be toasty warm. There was a chest to one side. And every inch of the area was splattered with blood. Dag counted four bodies, and she could hear coughing and moaning from the direction of the stairs leading upward, on the other side of the room.
She stepped slowly down into the disaster area, looking at the bodies. These had not been protracted battles. Someone had come up behind each one of these people and sliced them open as efficiently as if they’d lined up specifically for that purpose. Two of them were on top of their bedrolls. It seemed as though they’d been murdered in their sleep.
Dag’s heart rate started to rise, and she gritted her teeth.
She walked slowly up the steps toward the moaning man at the top.
“What happened?” she asked him. He was a blonde Nord, holding his side. She pondered trying to help him, for a moment, but with every breath blood gushed out of him. She had nothing close to the kind of healing magic that would save him. He was not long for the world, but he did look up at her and speak.
“How can shadows kill? Impossible. Nothing can move that fast! Impossible!” He coughed and winced as more blood pulsed out from his failing body. “Everything went dark. I didn’t even hear anyone scream. Just felt the blade enter my side.”
“Who did this? Do you know?”
“He just came out of the shadows. I didn’t even have a chance to draw.”
And then he grimaced and fell dead, back against the stones of the landing on which he sat.
Mercer Frey. There is nobody else who could have done this, and, she thought, he did it by using the Skeleton key.
Dag had disliked many people during her life. She’d had disagreements with many others, and had simply avoided still more. She’d actively hated very few. Mercer Frey was one of those.
I’m coming for you, Mercer, she thought, growling to herself. I don’t know how I’m going to beat you; you’re stronger than me. But I’m coming for you and I’m going to at least make you hurt for what you did to all these people and to the Guild, and to Gallus and Karliah and Brynjolf. Even if I die doing it. My blades will taste your blood this day.
At the right side of the chamber was a doorway leading to another large, multi-level room that had once been enclosed by tall metal grates. Some of these had fallen over with the collapse of stonework, but some still stood. Beyond them was flickering light. On the lower level, a small, steaming sphere rolled back and forth. What in the world? It looked like some of the artifacts from Calcelmo’s museum, except that it was moving, apparently under its own power.
Dag inched forward, then pulled an arrow from her quiver to ready it.
The sphere stopped, rotated, and unfolded itself into a vaguely humanoid shape, still moving along on the rotating sphere. It raised its arms and rushed up the stairs toward her.
“By Stendarr!” Dag shouted, panicked. What is that thing? She sent the arrow flying at it; when it struck, the creature staggered back a bit, but then resumed its pursuit. Dag saw the arrow fly off and bounce against the wall. She ducked to her right, intending to dart back out into the entry chamber if she had to, and pulled her swords just in time for the mechanism to reach her and take a swing at her.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. Dag yelped.
But this wasn’t the time to stop and examine her wounds. She began hacking away at it, whirling, striking as fast as she could and trying hard to dance around it so as to get in an attack or two from a different side. The machine gave as good as it got. Dag was slowing, bruised, bleeding from several wounds, and getting more than a little desperate. She gathered her breath and whirled into the thing for one last attack. Picture yourself like one of the blades in Markarth, she thought. Whirling blades.
The machine flew apart. Sparks flew. A bright blue stone, much like the ones Gulum-Ei had given her, skittered across the floor.
Dag went to work on her wounds, breathing hard.
A dwarven construct.
I knew the steam mechanisms still worked, she thought. I can barely believe the constructs are still moving.
Near the spot she’d initially seen the construct was one of the fallen grates. Dag crept toward it to find that the next room was going to be dangerous. It was a defensive trap, much like the whirling blades in Markarth, except that this time what was whirling were long arms of flame, from at least three different points that she could see. There was enough of the room in rubble that Dag assumed a stone had fallen on whatever mechanism activated these things, and it now ran continuously.
It wasn’t too hard to get past the first two devices by timing her passage between the individual arms of flame, although it was uncomfortably warm as the others passed by whatever niche she had found to hug the wall. The third set was problematic, though. It had been positioned specifically to prevent people like her from passing by. She could see the gate to the next room, just ahead, and she could also see that the flame would only clear it by mere inches as it moved past. Dag waited until one arm of flame had barely passed her, then scurried behind it toward the gate. This set of flames seemed to be moving faster than the others; there was a sudden intense heat just behind her.
“Damn!” she yelped, then dropped and rolled toward the stairs, barely under the arm of flame. She leapt up the stairs and pushed the gate open, rolling into the next room.
It was still uncomfortably warm under the Nightingale armor, but the armor itself seemed to have held. She pulled off her hood and looked at it; a bit scorched at the back but otherwise intact. Dag shuddered. If I hadn’t been wearing this damned thing I’d be hairless. Or dead. She slid back into the hood and continued on.
Beyond her, at the end of a long, collapsed corridor, a dwarven spider was jumping and clanking about aimlessly, apparently looking for some way out through the blocked end. To her right was something curious: in an alcove was a heavy dwarven metal lever, centered on a stone circle. The circle itself was definitely a separate piece of rock than the floor; there was a small gap around its perimeter.
I have no idea, Dag thought. This has to be the way, but I have no idea what’s going to happen if I pull that lever. What if the whole thing drops out from under me? Same thing that would have happened if Karliah hadn’t given you an antidote. True, Dag mused. I’m going to die anyway. If I die trying to find Mercer, I will at least have been doing something useful.
She pulled the lever. There was a great, deep, hollow creaking, and the stone platform began to sink. Dag closed her eyes and her breath and hoped for the best.
