“That was a nasty one,” Roggi said, wiping his brow. “Thank the gods for this little tunnel or we’d both have been goners.” He sheathed the massive dragonbone greatsword and pried a couple of fresh bones from the creature’s carcass, as he always did.
Dardeh smiled at him through the mask of Dragon Aspect and waited for the dragon’s skin to begin smoking and sizzling, waited for the intoxicating rush of power that he knew was coming next. It didn’t matter how many different ways he’d tried to explain it to Roggi; there were no words adequate to the experience. Roggi said he understood, said that the reasons he’d carried a set of carefully maintained torture tools around with him for more than a decade were similar, had to be similar – but as Roggi walked back up the hill and Dardeh stood in the whirling, pulsing flow of the dragon’s soul, closing his eyes to experience it, he once again shook his head.
There is nothing else like this. Nobody else in the world has this. Not since I helped destroy Miraak.
The place his mind went next always made him a bit uncomfortable, and that part he had not shared with Roggi or anyone else. The last person aside from Miraak that he knew of who could do this, who had shared this power, was Talos. Tiber Septim, the man who had united the Empire, known by many names but worshipped throughout Skyrim as Talos, the Dragonborn who became divine. Dardeh shared this ability, this power, with the very god he worshipped, and every time he thought about it he had to talk himself down from the height of it.
I am not a god. I will never be a god. Even having that thought run through the fringes of my mind is nearly blasphemy. I am a miner from Markarth and that is all I am.
But I do have this ability. It’s hard enough to control how much I want more of it, all the time, without becoming some kind of monster like Miraak was. Some hungers are better left unfed.
Thank the gods for Roggi. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have him to keep me grounded.
The last tendrils of energy flowed into him and he opened his eyes and smiled. Then he knelt, quietly, casting his thoughts toward that other entity he knew could absorb the soul of a dragon. He’d begun doing so some while ago, each time they slew a dragon, and felt the warmth of what he could only hope was some tiny wisp of Talos’ favor when he rose to his feet again.
“Ready?” Roggi called back to him from up the hill near the word wall.
“Yup. I’ll be right there.” Dardeh trotted up the hill and stood before the wall, learning the word SLEN from it. “Huh,” he said, grinning. “Flesh. That’ll be handy if I combine it with the word for ice.”
He ran his hand along the carved surfaces of the wall, reading the words. It still left him a bit awestruck to think that not too long before, relatively speaking, he had not known any of the dragon tongue and now could translate an entire wall of it.
“What’s it say?” Roggi stepped up behind him and slipped his arms around Dardeh’s waist.
“It says ’Noble Nords remember these words of the hoar father: Even best steel may bend and break, but flesh of true men is unyielding.’” He snickered, and turned around inside Roggi’s grasp to leer at him. “I don’t know about that. You’re a true man, last I checked, and yet your flesh yields very nicely indeed.”
Roggi snorted in mock dismay even while his eyes twinkled. “By Ysmir, Dar. You’re beginning to rival Andante. You may even manage to shock me one of these days at this rate, and I thought I was beyond being shocked.”
Dardeh laughed; but then his smile faded. “Well, keep me in line, Roggi. Some days I wonder whether I can do it myself anymore.”
Roggi dropped his hands and nodded toward the trail. “Let’s get going. We need to get back home. I don’t want to saddle Lydia with all three of them any longer than we need to.” He grinned at Dardeh. “Besides, even if I can’t keep you in line she surely can.”
“There’s more truth than fiction in that, Roggi.” Dardeh trudged southwest along the snowy hillside, smiling at the thought.
I’m a fortunate man to have them both around.
He rolled the new Dovahzul word around in his mouth, experimenting with how it would feel to Shout two words of Ice Form at an opponent and watch as he toppled to the ground, frozen. A tiny shudder ran up his spine.
Rival Andante, indeed. I begin to understand what drove him. Power is a dangerous thing to have.
The rest of the world is fortunate I have both Roggi and Lydia around, as well.
__
They’d just passed the Loreius farm when something just barely visible in the road ahead, between the farm and Whitewatch Tower, caught Dardeh’s attention. There appeared to be carts in the road, but without horses to draw them. Dardeh broke into a jog toward the carts and saw barrels and sacks and crates thrown from them to the ground. And as they drew closer to the place he saw the bodies.
Great pools of blood stretched across an expanse of the ground, and above them – and in them – were bodies. Imperial legionnaires face down in the dirt, Stormcloak soldiers with their arms and legs bent at strange angles and others, bandits judging by their armor, were scattered amongst the remains of what had clearly been a brutal skirmish. There were far more corpses in Stormcloak armor than in Imperial. Most if not all of a patrol lay in front of them dead. Flies buzzed around the carcasses, dancing their dance of death and life over dulled but opened eyes and gaping wounds.
Roggi moved silently among the bodies, his face somber, his mouth set into tight lines. Dardeh glanced at him, and then back down at the Stormcloak soldiers at his feet. The nearest of them was young, very young, younger than Dardeh; and he looked as though he had died in pain, and in fear. Dardeh felt the familiar stab of loss; these weren’t his friends, or his children, or his brothers, but he imagined the shared pain of those who would mourn these men. He thought of the patrol he’d seen on a very cold night near Stonehills, a night that felt like another lifetime ago, and he felt tears welling up behind his eyes.
Dardeh squeezed his eyelids closed, but rather than shutting out the face of the young dead soldier he saw in its place the face of the soldier he’d promised to guide through Alduin’s mist in Sovngarde to the Hall of Valor. The man he’d lost, the most vivid in his mind of the faces of those he had not been able to save but not, now, the most recent.
At least… at least they are safe in Sovngarde now. They died warrior’s deaths, all of them, and they are safe in Sovngarde.
He turned and looked at Roggi and at Whiterun not far beyond them. Roggi was facing him but his eyes were unfocused, seemingly a thousand leagues away.
“They would have been my brothers in arms,” Roggi murmured.
Dardeh took a few more paces among the dead. He could see the battle play out in front of him, based on the positions of the bodies, the places where dropped weapons had fallen to the ground, the angles at which blood had sprayed out from violent wounds to soak the ground. It had to have been a horrible thing. Roggi had seen its like many times in the past, he knew. Perhaps, he thought, that was part of the reason he’d retired from the front lines to work for Ulfric privately. Then, for him, the bloodshed had been under his control, and confined to small numbers and small spaces. He’d have been the one in power.
Dardeh stopped, and shook his head. I can’t go down that road. I can’t think about that.
“I thought I had stopped it, Roggi. I truly thought I had negotiated peace. But I failed.”
Roggi gradually focused his gaze on Dardeh. He nodded, slowly. “This close to Whiterun, Dar,” he said. “It’s going to be war. We need to get home.”
“Yes,” Dardeh said. “And then I’m going to stop it. I failed before, but I won’t fail again. I don’t know how, but I’ll figure something out.”
___
It was setting up to be a beautiful, sunny day on Lake Ilinalta, as far as Dardeh had been able to see. He and Roggi had made it home early on the morning following their finding the dead patrol, and had made certain that the children, their two girls and Sayma and Brynjolf’s little boy, were fine. They’d had a lovely day, full of laughs and good food, mead for the adults and sweets for the children. They’d all gone swimming in the lake, and even Dardeh had admired Lydia’s lithe form as she ran, laughing, and dove from the docks into the cold waters. They’d all done their chores: he’d chopped enough wood to supply the household’s fires for days, Roggi had tackled laundry, and Lydia had spent hours chopping vegetables and stirring the contents of the cook pot. Sofie had swept and dusted, assisted somewhat reluctantly by Lucia; and even Brynjolf the Younger had done his small part, tidying their room and then brushing the fox.
Once the evening meal was done, the dishes cleaned, and the children put to bed, the three adults had sat around the fire drinking mead and talking quietly. Lydia had given Roggi a hard time about everything, as usual, and he’d teased her, his eyes twinkling in good humor and affection. Dardeh had laughed, and marveled once again at his good fortune. Lydia had smiled at him, several times, that smile that told him as it had from the very first that she would always consider him more than just her Thane. And at last they had all said goodnight, and gone to their beds, and Dardeh had held Roggi close and said a silent word of thanks to Talos that he was able to do so when so many others no longer had such a luxury of their own.
On this morning, he stood laughing at the fox on the floor and wondering how he’d ever let the girls talk him into it back so long ago at Breezehome, when he heard Lydia’s quiet voice from the kitchen behind him.
“Dardeh,” she murmured. “Could you come here for a moment?”
He turned, smiling, and then stopped cold.
Lydia was standing quietly in the kitchen. But in place of the dress and jeweled circlet he’d gotten used to seeing on her was an equally-familiar full set of steel armor. She gazed at him, calm but serious, and his heart fell.
“What’s this, Lydia?”
“What does it look like, Dar?”
“It looks like you’ve had a message from Whiterun.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “As we expected, Jarl Balgruuf has rejected the overture from Ulfric. He’s called me back to his service. The message came yesterday.”
Dardeh shook his head, feeling the cold fingers of dread clawing into him. “Please don’t do this, Lydia. Please don’t leave us.” His voice, usually the largest thing about him, was barely audible.
“You know I have to, my Thane,” she said.
“Don’t call me that, Lydia, you know it makes me crazy.”
“Well,” she said calmly, “it may be the last time I’m able to call you that. Balgruuf’s calling in the Imperial troops from General Tullius. Unless, of course…” She stared at him, questioning, the hint of a plea dancing in her gaze.
Unless what? Unless I go to Balgruuf and agree to serve the Empire? Agree to help them enforce the White-Gold Concordat and wipe out worship of the one and only deity who has ever meant a thing to me?
No, I won’t do that.
“Lydia.”
“Dar. Come outside with me. I have to leave and I don’t want to upset the children.”
Dardeh nodded, and followed Lydia outside. He swapped one glance with Roggi, who sat quietly in his chair looking stricken.
Of course he figured it out as soon as he saw her. He’s smarter than me. And the only time Lydia’s worn armor since I met her was the day she rode to Riften for our wedding.
It was, in fact, a beautiful day outside in Falkreath Hold, but Dardeh couldn’t see past the mists in his own eyes. Lydia had been by his side since he’d first come to Whiterun, and he was having a hard time imagining life without her there.
“I understand why you’re doing this, Lydia, but I wish you wouldn’t. Is there anything I can say that could keep you here with us?”
She glanced at him and then away, and Dardeh blurted out the only thing he could think of to say.
“With me?”
What am I saying? I could no more be with Lydia than I could be with… the Night Mother. He shuddered, thinking of the desiccated corpse he’d seen briefly in Dawnstar.
Lydia chuckled. “Dar. You know better than that. I know better than that. You’ll never be with anyone but Roggi. I’m going to pretend that those two words never happened.” She took his hands and squeezed them.
He felt himself turning red. “Yeah. Just as well. That was stupid and ridiculous. And insulting. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Dar. You know how much it has meant to me to serve you. And to be your friend.” She smiled, and her eyes glistened. “You truly are my friend. I didn’t know what to expect when Balgruuf assigned me to you, but a family was not the thing that came to mind. I’m going to miss the girls so much,” she said, swallowing, her voice dropping. “And little Bryn as well. But Balgruuf is my Jarl. I owe almost everything I have to him. I can’t refuse his summons.”
Then she dropped Dardeh’s hands and nodded.
“I have to go now, to report for duty.”
Dardeh ground his teeth, not wanting to say anything else stupid. Then he realized that there was one more important thing he needed to tell her.
“I understand. You do know, I hope, that Breezehome is yours. I’ve long since let Balgruuf know that.”
Lydia’s eyes got wide for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes, really. I wanted you to have a place that was yours when you went to visit… whoever it is that you visit.” He grinned at the flash in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m not prying. That’s your business. Um… you remember the document I wrote before I went to Skuldafn? I changed it a while back. The new one is there in the safe. It has your name on it, as the sole owner of the house. Please, take it with my gratitude.”
“Dar. Thank you. I hardly know what to say.” For the briefest of moments Dardeh thought that she looked undecided, like she might relent; but then she took a deep breath and blew it out, and smiled at him.
“It has been an honor and a privilege, my Thane. I hope we will meet again in the future.”
Dardeh wanted to cry out for her to stay. But he wanted to honor her service, her forthrightness, her friendship; and so he simply nodded and watched as she walked down the path toward Gavrostead and the road that would take her back to Whiterun.
Gods. Just like that, everything changes. Now what?
He walked back inside. The children had gone to their room and were giggling and playing with toys; but Roggi was at the table writing furiously.
“Roggi, she’s left us. She’s gone.”
Roggi paused in his writing for just a moment, frozen. Then his shoulders drooped, and he went back to the letter.
“I know,” he said, never looking up from his paper. A moment or two passed before he added, “Are you alright?”
“Yes. Well, mostly. No, not really but what can I do? What are you doing?”
“Writing to Brynjolf. He told me to get in touch if things went from bad to worse, said that he was working on an idea. I think this qualifies as worse, don’t you?” He folded the paper up and turned to look at Dardeh, his eyes dark with concern. “And what are you going to do, my love?”
Dardeh looked around at their home and sighed. There was no way that he could justify staying here, in comfort, while the rest of the world burned in open warfare.
I am Dardeh at-Dadarh, born of a Nord woman to a Redguard man. I am called the Last Dragonborn. I defeated Miraak the Dragon Priest, called the First Dragonborn, in Hermaeus Mora’s realm of Apocrypha. I travelled to Sovngarde and, in the company of three great heroes, defeated Alduin, the World-Eater, Firstborn of Akatosh. And yet, my efforts were inadequate to forestall this civil war that is about to engulf us all.
There’s only one thing I can do.
“I think you know, Roggi.”
Roggi nodded. “Well let’s hope Bryn has a good idea. Because I’m coming with you, and there’d best be no arguments from you. I don’t know how the Thieves Guild would feel about housing three children but that’s where they’ll be if Bryn has no better ideas. Karliah helped raise one Brynjolf, I’m sure she’d be willing to help raise another.” He stood and headed for the door. “I’m off to find a courier.” Then he grinned. “At least they’d be underground and out of the line of fire. Those people are absolutely fierce if they’re threatened. I suppose we could do worse.”
Dardeh watched the door close behind Roggi, then sighed and walked heavily up the stairs. He started going through the potions chest, pulling out things that would likely be important to have along.
Keep busy. Then it won’t hurt so much.
He thought about Ulfric and his stomach roiled. He frowned. He still hated Ulfric, hated his arrogance, and his cruelty, and his narrow-minded views toward all people who were not Nords, and his self-importance. Most of all he hated what Ulfric had done to Roggi. But the fact remained that Ulfric had beaten the High King, in a legitimate challenge, and he more than anyone else alive could claim to be the new High King – if they could only get him to that place where he could claim it.
And I could Shout him down. I have Shouted him down. Easily.
As soon as the though ran through his mind Dardeh shook his head. It was not worthy of him, to think such things. His mother would be cross with him if she knew it.
I hate him for his arrogance? How amusing. Look at me.
Perhaps I was the arrogant and willful one, thinking that my status as Dragonborn was enough to prevent the war from continuing, enough to sway people’s minds.
He walked into the bedroom and pulled from his strongbox the amulet of Talos he’d stored away, fastening it around his neck. It would serve as notice to any who saw it that he stood with those who would not accept the Thalmor’s restrictions on them any longer.
I don’t know whether this is the path you warned me against, Ma, but it’s the only path I can travel now. I’m going to have to participate in one evil in order to prevent an even greater one.
Again.
He stood staring around himself at the room he had thought would be the place he’d spend the rest of his life, peacefully and uneventfully, with Roggi. It occurred to him then that it had been a very long time since he’d been nothing more than a miner from Markarth.
___
Brynjolf looked up from the parchment and fished a sizeable handful of coins out of the purse in his pocket, handing them to the courier who’d made his way down to the Ragged Flagon. The young man nodded and scurried away; and Brynjolf ran his hand through his hair.
“Something up, boss?” Delvin asked him.
Something up. I’d say so. I guess I’m going to have more of a family than I’d bargained for and sooner, to boot. I’d best go see Maven right away.
“Aye, Delvin. It looks like it’s to be war after all. Roggi’s sending the children here.”
Delvin had been taking a sip of mead as he’d said that, and nearly choked on it.
“Is he out of his mind? Children, Bryn?”
Brynjolf smirked. “Yes, children. My boy and their two girls. They can’t very well stay out in that big house in Falkreath on their own.”
Delvin looked almost panicked for a moment, and Brynjolf had to fight the urge to laugh. He decided to play it out a bit longer.
“What, are we going to take care of them here? Kids, boss?”
“You’ll like my son. He’s a little young but he’s smart. If you start working with him early… Besides, can you think of a safer place in Skyrim?”
Delvin squirmed, his eyes shifting back and forth uncomfortably.
“No, but…”
Brynjolf laughed. “Not to worry, Delvin. I’ve been thinking about this. It’s time for me to have a bigger place than Honeyside anyway, and the place I’m going to buy from Maven couldn’t possibly be better, especially now. Besides,” he said, leaning forward and dropping his voice, “as it turns out, I’m going to be a father again.”
Delvin stopped moving for a moment. His eyebrows rose just slightly, and then dropped back to their normal position. He set his tankard down very slowly and carefully, and then raised his gaze from it to Brynjolf’s face.
Poor Delvin. I really should have prepared him at least a little bit.
“You’re going to… with Sayma?”
Brynjolf smiled, and nodded. He hugged the warm feeling that spread through him at the thought close inside while trying hard not to show quite how excited he was at the prospect.
“Yes. We’ve mended our fences and, well…” He stopped, and snorted. “Don’t give me that look, Delvin Mallory. The woman is my wife, after all. We’ve just… sort of…”
“Taken up where you left off, I take it?” Delvin smirked. “Well. I suppose nobody is ever going to get any work out of you ever again. I’ve never seen the like of it. It’s not like you was a complete hermit before you met Dag, boss, but ever since then you’ve been like… I don’t know. A jack rabbit. First Dag, then Andante, and now Sayma. And that’s only the ones I know of.”
Brynjolf tossed his head back and laughed. “A rabbit, is it? Do I detect a slight hint of envy there, old man?”
Delvin gave him a lopsided grin. “Maybe a bit.” He glanced sideways across the room at Vex, who was sitting across the table from Tonilia, deep in discussion.
“Don’t give up on her. You never know. But behave yourself, you old goat.” Brynjolf pushed back his chair and stood. “Now, I’m off to see Maven. If I were you I’d be checking on our supply lines. And get in touch with Torsten up in Windhelm; make sure he’s still good. If it’s going to be war we could come out either very rich or in a world of hurt depending on how it goes.”
“I’m on it.”
He left the Flagon through the Ratway. The humor that had been with him talking to Delvin evaporated.
Damn. I’m sure we’ll survive this, in the Guild. I’ll make sure of it, one way or another. But I’m worried about Roggi and Dardeh.
___
“Well, here it is.” He and Sayma stood before the long, low building filled with large windows. It had taken all the money he’d intended to spend on Proudspire, but this entire, secluded estate was his now. He thought back to the days when he’d not wanted to spend a septim of his wealth, and couldn’t help but laugh.
“Bryn, this place is huge!”
He grinned at her. “Yes, it is. Come on inside.”
He led Sayma into the home and watched her look around with a blank, half-stunned expression.
“Isn’t this a lot of space for just you and me and little Bryn?”
Brynjolf pushed open the door to one of the side rooms and waited while Sayma stepped in and surveyed the six children’s’ beds arranged along the walls. Her hand went to her stomach for a moment, and then she turned to look at him.
“Bryn. Six beds? Why in the world do we need this much space?”
“We don’t. Not right yet. But there is wee Bryn, and another on the way, and… well…”
Her eyes narrowed. “And what aren’t you telling me? You’re never this sweet unless there’s something going on or you want something.”
Got me there, doesn’t she?
He nodded, chuckling. “You know me too well. I got a letter from Roggi.”
“And?”
“And it’s about to be war. Lydia’s left them, to go back to Balgruuf. Dardeh’s going to fight. They can’t leave the children there alone, lass. They’re sending them to us.”
Sayma’s frown deepened. “But Bryn. I’m going to have to be on the road a lot of the time, you know that.”
“For now, yes. And I’ll have one of the lads travel with you, especially if things start heating up the way I think they will. I’m sure Thrynn would be overjoyed. But soon enough you’ll need to stay put for a bit. I can’t think of a safer place to hide the children away, can you?”
“Well… the Sanctuary comes to mind. Or the Cistern.”
He chuckled. “And we’ve been over that before. You know those are no places for kids to be. But this …”
He pointed out the windows, toward the gardens, and the small house with room for visitors to stay. His hand swept out toward the impassible mountains in which this valley was hidden, close to Riften and yet almost completely safe from intrusion.
“Nobody is going to get in here without us knowing it, lass. Delvin knows we’re going to have the family here. He’ll have eyes on it when I don’t. And I’ve made arrangements. Maven’s given us Iona again. She’ll stay here and watch the young ones, the way Lydia did for Roggi and Dardeh.”
“Iona! I thought she was long gone.”
“I know you did. But she stayed at the keep, even after Maven took over as Jarl. I didn’t have to twist Maven’s arm very hard. She doesn’t trust having someone around who she didn’t hand pick. Iona was easy to convince. She always wanted to serve her ‘Thane.’”
Sayma’s nose wrinkled. “Don’t remind me.”
“Come over here, I want to show you something else.” He led her to the cabinet with a false back. “This is the other thing about this place that makes it such a good find.”
Under the lodge was a long basement, packed with chests and mannequins and safes, and all manner of carefully designed displays. He sighed, thinking of all the wealth he’d had to leave behind in Proudspire, and how he might have enjoyed seeing it all arranged here in this elegant room.
But we can get more.
“I think that between us we can fill most of this space. Eventually. If things start getting dicey and it looks like Riften is going to get hit we can move almost everything the Guild needs to hide down here and nobody will ever find it.”
Sayma nodded, slowly.
“It is perfect, isn’t it?”
“Aye. It’s not as cozy as Honeyside, but …” He ran his hand through his hair. “Face it. People have seen so many comings and goings from Honeyside in the past few years that they are starting to associate it with the Guild. It could be a real target. And while you and I and our children could live there, still it’s going to be cramped, and not necessarily safe. And…”
“And what, Bryn?”
And what.
“And we need to protect them, Sayma. I … need to protect them. They’re the thing that’s going to get us past all of this, and maybe, somehow, they’ll be able to have the lives we weren’t able to have. They’ll have family, real family. You, me, Roggi and Dardeh. And all our children. Together.”
And they won’t end up feeling as though nobody cares for them, or they’re less-than, somehow, or that they’ll never amount to anything. Nobody will hit them. They won’t be deserted. And they won’t have to sell themselves to the highest bidder to survive.
That’s what.
Sayma smiled at him.
“You surprise me sometimes, Guildmaster. Who knew you were such a softie?”
Besides Roggi, you mean? He knew. He’s known all along. He knew I needed family.
He grinned.
“You did, for one. Now let’s go see what we need to do about moving. It’ll have to be done quietly and at night, but Iona’s already on her way to pick up the children.”
Sayma swatted at him. “You’d already decided, before you even asked.”
“Aye.” He grinned at her. “You wanted me to be the Guildmaster, so now you get to deal with me making decisions. Don’t feel bad, Delvin doesn’t much like it either. But you’re all stuck with me.”
Sayma’s laugh filled the space. He grinned. This was the way it was meant to have been, even during those months when she’d been gone. The two of them were meant to make each other happy.
He couldn’t help smiling as they left the vale and made their way back to Riften.
