The weather was absolutely glorious when they found Korst outside Helgen Keep, the sun blazing down through a clear and very cold blue sky. Dardeh and Roggi walked around the town and the keep’s yard, taking note of the progress being made on demolishing and removing the remnants of the burned village. Korst was near the northeast gate, supervising work. He looked up from his papers and smiled as they approached.
“Nothing like a brisk day in Skyrim!”
“That’s for certain,” Dardeh said, smiling back at him. “We took care of the bandits. It was…”
“Interesting,” Roggi finished.
“Yeah, that’s a good word for it. So what’s next on your list?”
Korst grinned and pulled out his notes.
“There’s a new owner of the Upper Embershard Mine down below here, who wants to resume operations there. But the rumor is that the mine is haunted, and he can’t find anyone willing to go to work for him. See what you can find, and report back to me. And take Kar. She needs some training.”
Dardeh looked at Roggi and grinned.
“We’ve been looking for a mine to work in. Maybe this will turn out to be the one!”
Roggi tsk’d. “The one by Pinewatch is closer to the house. This is the far end of the lake from us.”
“True.” Then he snickered. “I could always call Odahviing to give us rides back and forth.”
“Thanks, but no. I’ll ride a horse.”
Kar, it turned out, was a young and pretty blonde Nord. Dardeh approached her and cleared his throat to get her attention.
“You’re Kar? I’m Dar.” He grinned. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Come with us; Korst says it’s your turn for some action in the field.”
She laughed at Dardeh. Then she looked at Roggi; and Dardeh watched her eyes begin to sparkle appreciatively.
“And this is my husband, Roggi,” he said quickly, watching Roggi’s eyebrow and the corners of his mouth rise in amusement. Don’t you dare laugh, Roggi. You’re still a good-looking Nord and she’s obviously unattached. And interested. I want all of this to be straight before we get going.
“Pleased to meet you, Kar,” Roggi said, smiling. “Let’s go.” The smallest moment of disappointment flitted over Kar’s expression; but she quickly recovered, and nodded.
“Yes, right away. But where are we going?”
“We’re going to investigate a mine, supposedly haunted,” Dardeh said. “We’ll see. We need to make sure the new owner can get people in there.”
“Lead the way!”
The mine was in the mountain above Riverwood, up a winding path that led to a clearing long used as a bandit camp. Dardeh had been there before to clear out the bandits but he’d never seen the mine door; the area had always been obscured by shrubs that had since been cut away. There was nobody outside at the moment, so he opened the door and led them inside.
It was silent. The cobwebs that had only been partially cleared out from the entrance revealed that the mine had not been used for a long while. The mine itself angled downward into the mountain; and the thick webs blocking the way not far down the incline said that the new owner hadn’t made it very far in.
“Dar. Do you hear that?” Roggi whispered just behind him.
Dardeh cocked his head to the side and concentrated. There was a faint scuffling sound beyond the thick webs. He turned to Roggi and nodded, then pulled out his sword and sliced through the blockage with a couple of quick strikes.
As he stepped through the opening he’d made, Dardeh was attacked by a giant frostbite spider. He jumped out of the way, startled in spite of himself, and the spider missed him because of it. Roggi and Kar followed him into the passage, and the three of them wasted no time in taking care of the spider; but as it died there was a loud magical explosion. Dardeh cried out as his vision went completely white for a moment. When his sight returned the room looked strange to him – desaturated, shades of blue and grey. That was unsettling enough; but worse was a giant ghostly spider beside the corpse of the one they had just killed.
“Kill it!” Kar cried.
Dardeh raised his swords to attack, not wanting to risk a Shout in this unknown situation. His attack didn’t last long. Even though it was a ghost the spider could still spit poison, a fact Dardeh learned by being hit right in the eyes. It was cold and burned at the same time, and it smelled horrendous.
“Arrgh! Damn it!” he cried, backing up and furiously scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, trying not to retch. He could hear Roggi and Kar chase down the ghost and battle it as his eyes watered and ran and stung. He had just about gotten his vision back when the light surged again and their surroundings returned to normal.
“Dar, are you ok?” Roggi said, trotting up to stand before him.
“I’m not sure. I thought I saw a ghost spider! Did I really see that? Or have I completely lost my mind?” Will he tell me if I was imagining it? Or is he too afraid to make me angry?
“No, you’re not crazy,” Kar said from just behind Roggi’s shoulder. “Look on the ground there.” She pointed to an area just in front of Roggi’s feet.
Roggi knelt down and touched the glowing remains Kar had pointed to. He shook his head and looked up at Dardeh. “Ectoplasm,” he said. “That ought to prove to you that the thing was real. It certainly felt like a real enemy to me. How are your eyes?”
Dardeh sighed in relief. “They’re ok. And thanks. Sometimes these days I’m not sure whether I’m sane.” He looked around the area and shrugged. “Ok, let’s keep going.”
He headed forward, toward an opening shaped something like a keyhole. Just as he reached it the light flashed again, the explosion loud and shocking. Kar yelped in surprise.
It’s like that spell Sayma used to take us to Hammerfell, but white instead of red!
Just in front of the keyhole doorway was a small open area. A ghostly skeleton rushed him. Dardeh had no trouble dismantling it, as it seemed spectral skeletons were no tougher than corporeal ones. As it died, another ran out from behind some nearby scaffolding. It also was easily dispatched. Then two spectral warriors – like armored skeletons with mist rather than legs – floated into the area and began attacking. Dardeh took one of them on, striking with both swords and readying his Fire Breath in case it was stubborn. Roggi and Kar both attacked the other. They were tougher to kill than the skeletons, but eventually went down.
Dardeh stopped to catch his breath and examined the room. He pointed at the scaffolds. “What do you think? Do we need to find a way up there?”
Roggi peered up at them, and then walked around their base. “No, I don’t think so,” he said after a moment. “It looks like just a support structure to me.”
Dardeh nodded. “I’ll trust your judgment. I’ve usually worked in short tunnels.” He took a sip of water and pulled out his swords once more. “Are we ready?”
“Lead on,” Kar said, smiling.
Through the keyhole-shaped opening just before them was just such a short mine shaft. As soon as Dardeh stepped through it the light shifted again, a noisy explosion revealing a small shape. This time Dardeh found himself face-to-face with the ghost of a little girl.
“Hello! Did you come to play with me?” the ghost asked in a tiny, sweet voice. “I don’t have any friends here and I’m so lonely. Come and play with me, and we can play forever and ever!”
Dardeh took one step forward, but stopped when Roggi’s solid grip on his arm held him back.
“Wait, who are you?”
“You’ll see,” she said, her voice taking on a sneaky quality. She giggled. “Come on, let’s play! You’re not scared, are you?”
She turned and ran down the corridor, at the end of which Dardeh could see a large multi-story pit mine.
“Careful, Dar,” Roggi said. “I don’t trust this.”
“Neither do I,” Kar agreed. “Did you hear the way her voice changed?”
“Yeah, I did,” Dardeh said, moving cautiously in the direction the girl had gone.
A moment later, Dardeh cried out. His vision doubled, pulsating. His stomach threatened to empty as dizziness washed over him. There was an enormous magical explosion and colors around him faded yet again. Even if they hadn’t seen their enemy the three of them would have heard it, for an unmistakable roar filled the space and a huge cloud of frost rolled toward them. Dardeh’s mouth dropped open. In another opening on the far side of the pit, across a rope and wood bridge, was a spectral dragon. Dardeh found himself frozen, not by dragon breath but by fear.
“By Ysmir! What is that?” Roggi yelped from behind him.
It’s a dragon. Why am I panicking? It’s a dragon. I’m Dragonborn. I killed Alduin.
He sneered at it, not knowing or caring whether it could see him, and inhaled deeply.
“YOL– TOOR SHUL!”
Dardeh watched the ball of flame roll across the gap between him and the dragon. It struck the creature, which flinched – and that was all. It roared once more and another huge plume of frost spread out from it.
What? It didn’t do anything?
“Come on!” Roggi screamed, running across the bridge with his sword held high.
“Roggi, no!” Dardeh felt his temper flare as he pulled his swords and started after Roggi.
Gods damn the man. When will he learn? If I couldn’t damage it with a Shout how does he expect to do anything with just a sword?
Damn it. It’s as much second nature to him to fight a dragon as it is to me at this point. I shouldn’t expect anything else.
Kar followed as he dashed across the bridge. Just as they all reached the far side, there was another flash of light, another explosion. Dardeh squinted into the brilliant light and saw the dragon disappear, to be replaced by a very solid and very colorful Dremora.
“Who seeks death?”
Its hollow, almost disembodied voice rang across the space between them. All three of them sprinted for it, but found that the bridge ended at a ramp which angled down just below the spot both the Dremora and the dragon had occupied. Roggi started to leap toward the edge of that opening; but as he did so the light shifted again and the world went back to normal, the Dremora having disappeared. Roggi paused for a moment before loosening his grip on the ledge and dropping back down onto the bridge beneath. In the sudden quiet, the sounds of pickaxes on stone from below them were vivid.
“I thought nobody would work here,” Roggi murmured, his head tilted to one side as he listened.
Movement on the bridge just above them caught Dardeh’s attention. He looked up to see the small ghost peering down at him.
“Did you see him? Did you? He was up there on the ledge for just a second. You must have made him really mad to come out like that!”
Dardeh frowned.
“Do you mean the dragon? Or the Dremora? I saw them both. But I want to know what that was all about and who you are. And after all that I think you’d better tell me.” Dardeh hoped his voice didn’t sound as threatening to her as it obviously did to Kar, who was standing beside him, staring at him looking appalled.
“I’m Hanna. And he’s a very mean and nasty man.”
“Thank you for telling me, Hanna. What are you doing in here?”
“My mommy and daddy used to work in here, and they’d bring me along to play sometimes. But one day there was this big cave-in and I haven’t seen them since then.”
Roggi cleared his throat. Dardeh glanced at him to find Roggi staring down at his feet.
Yeah. Roggi’s not big on death among families. Can’t say that I blame him.
“Hanna,” Dardeh said softly, “I’m sorry to tell you this but…”
“Yes, I know!” she snapped. “They’re dead. And I know I’m dead, too.”
Dardeh’s mouth fell open again, for just a moment. She’s probably heard this a hundred times before and is very tired of having adults treat her like a fool.
“Alright. I should have known better. Why are you still here?”
“Because of the bad man.” She took a deep, shuddering breath; and when she spoke again she sounded like the little girl she’d been in life, a girl who shouldn’t need to be dealing with ghosts and Dremora and other specters.
“He won’t let me leave and go be with mommy and daddy. And he makes me be mean to other people who come in here. I’m scared all the time. I just want to go home!” She paused for a moment and peered more closely at Dardeh. “Hey, I know what – if you can make him go away…”
Dardeh opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a quiet, deep voice from beside him.
“What makes you think we can help you?” Roggi asked her.
“You killed his spiders, his skeletons and even his dragon! I’ll bet you can kill him, too. Can you help me? Please?”
Roggi was staring at Hannah with an expression that nearly broke Dardeh’s heart.
He’s thinking of our girls. And he’s thinking of how terrible it would be if something were to happen to them. And he’s thinking of Briinda, and how he still misses her after all these years. I know he does.
“We’ll try, Hannah,” Roggi said. “What do we need to do?”
“Ok, first you have to go to the bottom of the mine. It’s scary there, and you can hear miners, but you can’t really see them much. I think they’re trapped here, too. They won’t ever talk to me. You might need to kill them all. It will make him mad and he’ll probably come after you again, like he did when you killed the others.” She stopped and looked around warily, almost shrinking into herself. “I’d better go before he comes back. He won’t like me talking to you, but I’ll try to see if I can talk to you later.”
Hannah ran a few steps away and then dissipated like a puff of smoke.
Dardeh looked at the others and shrugged. “I guess we go down, then?”
“Well, I have been hearing pickaxes,” Kar said. “I don’t see anything, though.”
“Let’s go, then.”
It was a circular pit mine, with a spiral ramp around its perimeter. They hadn’t descended very far before the magic exploded again, the light blinding them all for a moment.
“What was that?” Roggi shouted.
“They’re everywhere!” Kar yelped.
Suddenly, it was chaos.
Dardeh pulled his swords and began flailing about, almost blindly. It was dark and confusing in the circular space, and he could barely tell where the edge of the walkway was. He was hit from behind and staggered forward, striking the rock hard with his double-edged sword. The shock ran up his arm into his shoulder, and his bones ached from it.
His vision cleared enough to see two of the enemies before him and he gasped. He’d been expecting ghosts, certainly; but he’d been expecting the ghosts of miners. These were something that looked like a cross between a dremora and a specter, and they radiated evil.
Dardeh didn’t often panic in the face of enemies any longer but he’d done so several times in the past hour. With the strength born of panic running through his veins, he threw himself at the two beings before him. Kill them, he thought. Make them go away! Kill them! He heard Roggi get hit a couple of times, the particular tone of his gasps telling Dardeh that he was injured, and that made him panic all the more. Kar fought quietly, as ever, but he could hear her grunts as she made hard contact with the enemy. He didn’t dare Shout, for he couldn’t tell at any given moment whether he was facing Roggi and Kar or away from them. He was struck several times by weapons that were no less effective for being spectral and which seemed able to penetrate armor; he could feel blood running down the inside of it and started getting dizzy.
He wanted to scream, the dark, guttural howl of anger and despair that had so often carried him through battles in his youth; but he didn’t dare for fear of unleashing his Voice and reducing Roggi or Kar to ash. The horror of the thought made him fight even harder.
As dark and confusing as it was, and as loud as it was with three of them shouting and grunting and fighting specters, it seemed almost a miracle when first one and then the other of the enemies before him fell. He found himself spinning around, desperately searching for the others in the darkness.
Somewhere below him, he heard Roggi yell “there you are” and the sound of magic dissipating. Suddenly it was normal again, colors returned to the mine, Roggi having taken down the last ghost.
“By the gods!” Dardeh gasped, tears welling up in his eyes as he saw that both Roggi and Kar were intact, both reaching for healing potions but alive. He fired up his own healing spell and joined them. “Are you alright?”
“I will be, Dragonborn,” Kar said, smiling. “It was quite the thing to fight beside both of you.” She turned and smiled at Roggi, who gave her a grin and then looked up at Dardeh.
He heaved a sigh. “I won’t lie to you, Dar, that was a close call,” he said, smiling. “But we made it.”
“Praise Talos,” Dardeh muttered.
“Or whoever was looking out for us,” Roggi answered with another grin.
Dardeh watched Roggi, and saw Kar gazing at him in something approaching adoration. Love at first sight. Well I certainly can appreciate how she feels. I’ll bet that’s exactly what I looked like when I first saw him. He looked down at his armor, trying to assess the damage, and couldn’t quite suppress a grin. Sorry, Kar. I found him first. Or…well… fourth, I guess. He raised his eyes to find Roggi smiling back at him, and the joy he felt for that moment warmed him and eased his aches and pains.
They checked the pit for exits or more enemies and found nothing, then headed back up the spiral ramp. They were almost to the top when Hanna met them.
“I knew you were here to help me. Now I know you can help me to go home!” She sounded so hopeful and excited that Dardeh found himself having a hard time to force his voice out past the lump in his throat.
“Ok, Hanna. What do we need to do next?”
“Well, he has this secret place on down in the mine. I think it’s where he comes from. You’ll have to go in there and kill him.”
She started looking nervous, glancing around toward the corners and exits, and shrinking back into herself again. Dardeh glanced around, as well, but saw nothing; he gave both Roggi and Kar questioning looks but they both shook their heads.
“I don’t think I can talk to you anymore right now. But if I can, I’ll try to talk to you, um, well, after … you know.” She started shaking, the wisps of her ethereal form trailing off around her. “I think he’s gonna come for me! I’d better run and hide.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Goodbye!” She ran ahead of them and dissipated in an explosion of magic.
The corridor beyond the pit extended straight ahead, with apparent branches extending from it at intervals. Dardeh led them past an innocent-looking descending tunnel to their left, for the branch just beyond it had a strange red mist that captured his attention. At the top of the descent there was a barricade, with a picked-clean skeleton on the ground outside it. Dardeh took several hefty strikes at the barricade with his swords, but it refused to break. After looking back at Roggi and getting a nod from him, Dardeh maneuvered around the near end of the barricade and started down the incline.
Halfway down the ramp on the left, was a structure that looked like some sort of sinister claw. Dardeh stopped to stare at it.
“What in…”
“Oblivion,” Kar finished. “It’s an Oblivion spike.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Roggi muttered.
Before Dardeh could ask for more information the world shifted again in an explosion of magic. This time his vision was so disturbed that he saw triplicates of everything, and when it returned to normal there were dremora before him.
“A challenger is near!” one of them shouted.
Dardeh drew his swords and started toward the noisy dremora only to be stopped short by an explosion in his face. It acted like a fireball – loud, compact, and full of force – but it felt like an intense frost spell. For a moment his experience of the world shifted completely, his vision tripling again. He flailed wildly with both swords, connecting with something and praying to Talos that it wasn’t either Roggi or Kar.
Suddenly he could see again. Both of the Dremora were gone, but Kar and Roggi were still on high alert, their weapons in hand. All three of them were scanning the area, Roggi’s brows drawn down into a scowl so deep in nearly reached the bridge of his nose.
They inched cautiously forward and toward the left into an open area. There were crosses – whether of wood or stone he could not say – pounded into the ground, surrounded by flames that burned but did not appear to consume them. More of what Kar had called Oblivion spikes ringed the room, and at the far end was an ominous structure, an archway with spikes on its outer edges.
Kar inhaled sharply. “It looks like an Oblivion gate,” she whispered. “I’ve seen drawings of them before, when I was studying about the Crisis. This is bad. I think we’re in some kind of pocket of Oblivion!”
“Meet your end, mortals!”
Before them was the same Dremora Hanna had called the “bad man.” He vanished for a moment, and Dardeh spun around, looking for him.
“Where’d he go?” Roggi growled.
“A challenger is near!”
The voice came from behind Dardeh, near the wall. He turned in time to see the Dremora rising from the ground, clearly about to cast a master-level spell of some kind. Kar yelled and rushed the creature.
No, Kar!
Dardeh didn’t even stop to think. He stepped to the side, to make certain he wouldn’t hit Kar by mistake.
“YOL – TOOR SHUL!”
He watched the ball of flame explode outward toward the Dremora warlock and pulled his swords, anticipating a flurry of attacks.
Then he found himself stumbling backward, toward the gate. A frost spell of some kind, a very powerful one, had exploded directly in front of him. He was gasping for breath, his muscles refusing to respond to his commands. He wanted to shout to Roggi but couldn’t push enough air out through his vocal chords. It was all he could do to keep breathing. He started to cast his healing spell, and struggled to regain his footing.
Three more frost explosions happened behind him.
He found himself on his back, gasping, but had no recollection of how he had gotten there. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t raise enough magic to cast heal on himself, and he couldn’t reach for a potion. The space was already dark but the area he could see began shrinking, as though he was looking through an ever-narrowing tube.
Where’s Roggi? I can’t see Roggi.
By the gods I’m going to die. I don’t want to leave him. I’m not done yet. Talos help me.
“Is that your best? Eh?” Roggi’s voice sounded harsh, angry. Dardeh heard several impacts and the Dremora’s wobbly, hollow answering cries that were equally as angry as Roggi’s. Then he heard footsteps approaching him.
“Dar! Dar, are you alright?”
He swallowed hard and focused on Roggi’s eyes, shaking his head no as best he could. Roggi’s eyes widened.
“Hang on, Dar. Hang on just a second longer.”
He knelt and turned away for a moment; and then Dardeh felt his helmet being pushed back and found a potion bottle at his mouth. He swallowed, and felt the soothing warmth of a healing potion spread through his body.
Saved. It’ll be ok.
He nodded at Roggi and mouthed the word “go.” Kar was fighting the beast by herself; Dardeh wasn’t about to take a corpse back to Korst if there was anything he could do to prevent it. Roggi nodded and stood to face the warlock. Then he uttered one of the most guttural howls Dardeh had ever heard, raised his sword over his head, and rushed at the creature.
Dardeh shakily pushed himself up to his knees and then, as his strength returned, healed himself further, pulling his helmet on again. Roggi and Kar were fighting as if they’d always been a team, dodging frost runes and slashing at the creature one after another. Finally Dardeh was able to draw his weapons and join them. The warlock kept teleporting from one place to the next in this space, but because there were three of them fighting him they were able to keep him contained. They hammered at him, over and over until Dardeh wondered whether his arms would ever lift again.
Finally, the Dremora groaned and fell to the ground. The light in the room flashed, and color returned to their world.
The three of them stood staring at their surroundings, catching their breath. Kar was nearest to him; he marveled at how strong she was and how resilient she seemed to be. She reminded him of Frina: fearless, courageous, and well-prepared. He smiled, even though he knew she couldn’t see his smile through his helm. Roggi wandered through the Gate to the other side, checking the area for anything they might have missed. Then he turned back toward Dardeh.
“Are you ok, Dar?” Roggi asked quietly.
“Yeah.” He pushed his helmet back off his head. “But I wouldn’t have been if not for you two. I think that’s the closest I’ve come to dying since the first time I fought a dragon out in Eastmarch. I really thought I was gone. Thank you. Thank you both.”
Roggi cleared his throat, his eyes moist. “Well, I guess we’re even now, my love,” he murmured. “You saved me from dying when the cultists got me.”
Dardeh slipped a glance at Kar. Her head had dropped at Roggi’s words, and she heaved a large sigh. I’m sorry, Kar. I can tell how hard you fell for him. But nothing’s ever going to tear the two of us apart. We’re both done. He looked across the space at Roggi and smiled, inclining his head toward Kar just slightly. Roggi smiled back, and nodded.
“We’ll be telling Korst that there’s no doubt we couldn’t have made it through this without you, Kar,” he said. “Maybe you’ll get a promotion out of it. You should.”
She looked back up at Roggi. A small smile turned slowly into a wide one, and she nodded.
“Thanks, Roggi. It was an honor to fight alongside you. Both.”
Dardeh stretched his shoulders and groaned. “I think we need to get back.”
“I don’t care what he has for us next, Dar,” Roggi said, rejoining them. “We’re taking a couple of days off.”
“Yeah. I agree. Let’s go.”
As they neared the exit from the mine, a small ghost appeared quietly before them.
“Hello, Hanna,” Roggi said. “We killed the bad man.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Now I can go and be with my mommy and daddy. Now I can rest.”
Dardeh tried to say something, but his throat closed up again. He suddenly remembered Jine, smiling at them as they gently arranged the bones of his skeleton in the coffin in Hammerfell. It must be so wonderful – to rest, after you’ve been unable to. Who knows how long Hanna has waited to join her parents. This place says that it’s been a long time.
She approached him and reached up to take his hand. He couldn’t feel her, but something small, cold and hard appeared in his palm; he looked down to see a ring there. He could feel magical energies emanating from it.
“Here. Take this. It’s a ring I used to have when I was alive. But I don’t need it any more. Bye, now!”
She turned and scampered back down the corridor, dissipating as she went.
___
It was night by the time they made it back to Korst, who was outside standing guard near the gate. He greeted them with the nearest thing to a smile that Dardeh had seen from him.
“Did you need something, friend?”
“We cleared out the mine. They were right, the people who refused to go in. The place was haunted.”
Roggi cleared his throat and smiled at Kar. “We came really close to losing Dardeh, Korst. But we didn’t, in large part because Kar was with us. You’re lucky to have her here.”
“I know we are,” Korst said.
“Thank you, Roggi,” Kar said, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go rest for awhile.”
Dardeh sighed, watching her walk away. She was a good person. He hoped that her temporary infatuation would fade quickly.
I know what it feels like. The sudden rush of emotion followed by the awful embarrassment, almost shame, when you find out you’ve been rejected. I wish there was something else I could do for her.
“Now then,” Korst said, consulting his list once more. “Hmm. This says some archaeologists have been trying to dig their way into an old buried ruin and woke up all the draugr in there. The archaeologist says they must have dug up something evil, because they ran for their lives!” He started laughing, but Dardeh frowned.
“Don’t laugh. We’ve found enough to run from recently that I have no doubt they’re telling the truth. Listen, Korst… we’ll do whatever is next, but only after we get rested up for a couple of days. I hope that’s ok.”
“Of course, Dragonborn. The evil presence hasn’t left the ruins. It’ll wait for you to show up.”
“Thanks. We’ll be back to get our next recruit.”
He turned to Roggi and took hold of his hand. “What do you say we go get some sleep?”
Roggi smiled, and gave his hand a squeeze. “You know, for once sleep sounds like a very good idea, Dragonborn. Let’s go.”
They made their way back through the western gate of Helgen and headed slowly for home.