But for all that excitement, and the barrage of familiar predators he encountered climbing back up over the bluff that marked the eastern edge of the Reach, the third dragon was by far the most frightening enemy he had ever faced.\u00a0 Dardeh had been walking slowly along the road, feeling an odd mix of nostalgia and regret as he entered the familiar surroundings of the Reach, wishing with part of his heart that he could simply return to his childhood home and leave the business of being Dragonborn behind and knowing with the other part that he could not do so until the dragon threat was over.<\/p>\n
Maybe I can never leave it behind. I\u2019m the only one who can make sure they\u2019re gone for good.\u00a0 I can\u2019t just leave it to the authorities.\u00a0 They can kill a dragon\u2019s body but not its soul.<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019d reached the small side road that lead to Old Hroldan, a tiny place that had been the site of a major battle in the Second Era, led by none other than Talos himself before his elevation to divinity, in his guise as Hjalti Early-Beard.\u00a0\u00a0 Dardeh was pondering resting at the inn for a time when the familiar roar came echoing across the water, from the west.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t see the beast, for all the high rock outcroppings, until suddenly the trees and rocks around him rumbled and a spray of flame hit the ground in front of him, nearly close enough to singe hair, the keening of the shout nearly deafening. He ran for the high rocks behind the Old Hroldan inn and tried to find cover.<\/p>\n This dragon, like the one he had met in Eastmarch early on, seemed particularly fixated on him, personally, and was not distracted by any of the Reach guards or Imperial soldiers on the road who stopped to fire arrows at it as fast as they could.\u00a0 It was determined to kill Dardeh.\u00a0 He focused Unrelenting Force on it whenever he could, snapping its neck and head backward and interrupting its fire breath shout long enough to fire off several good bowshots each time. He had the full power of the shout, now, but even it was only so effective against a fully-grown dragon. He tried Frost Breath on the beast once or twice, but his Shout was not strong enough to counter the devastation of Fire Breath at full dragon power.<\/p>\n And then he made a mistake.\u00a0 He ran onto the porch of the inn and was effectively trapped like a rat.\u00a0 The dragon dropped into a hover, just above the clearing in front of the porch, and unleashed a powerful gout of flame.\u00a0 Dardeh was able to escape some, but not all of the flames\u2019 damage, by standing directly behind one of the porch roof\u2019s support beams, but that wasn\u2019t going to be an effective tactic for long.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve done it now.\u00a0 This place is going to go up like a torch and I\u2019ll never be able to save the people inside.\u00a0 I have to make a break for it but I have no place to go, and if I die the dragon will be alive even if the soldiers kill its body temporarily.<\/em><\/p>\n But the inn at Old Hroldan had not withstood centuries by being a weak structure.\u00a0 Whether it was something that had been mixed into the roof over the years, or the power of the spirits that were supposed to inhabit the place, or something else entirely, the roof did not catch fire.\u00a0 The beams behind which Dardeh hid scorched, and smoked, but that was all, and with a part of his mind Dardeh wondered how that could possibly be so.\u00a0 Dardeh played cat-and-mouse-and-Shout with the dragon for what felt like hours until he finally forced it to ground and was able to finish it off with his scimitars.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t stay at the inn.\u00a0 Instead, deciding to stay out of the spotlight, he made his way to a small island in the midst of the river and tossed down his bedroll, resting for a few hours.<\/p>\n The rest was a good idea, as it turned out.\u00a0 He knew he was heading into a big Forsworn encampment near the Karthspire, but having only approached it from the north as a youth he hadn\u2019t realized just how big it was. The encampment spread from the cliffs on one side of the river, across it, and up the other side, effectively blocking access to the eastern route to Markarth.<\/p>\n The Forsworn were natives of the Reach from as far back as men could remember.\u00a0 They were an odd mixture of man and mer, Breton, Nord, and other races who had always been in the area.\u00a0 Some were deadly mages, others simply brutal warriors, and the deadliest, the Briarhearts, had had their own human hearts removed and replaced with briar hearts in a bloody, sacrificial rite. While their original intention had been simply to secure what they considered their own land for themselves \u2013 and they had been successful, briefly, just before Dardeh was born and while he was an infant \u2013 the Forsworn now ruthlessly hunted down anyone who wandered carelessly into their territories.\u00a0 They particularly disliked the Nords they felt were responsible for taking their ancestral lands.<\/p>\n You would think I might understand them a little better.\u00a0 I know what it\u2019s like to be neither one thing nor the other.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t.\u00a0 I hate them for making it unsafe for my Nord mother to leave Markarth for all those years, and for attacking people just traveling on the roads, trying to keep bread in their bellies like everyone else. I don\u2019t understand why they have to make war on everything around them rather than building up their encampments into proper homes.<\/em><\/p>\n Or maybe I do.<\/em><\/p>\n He shook his head at that thought, not really knowing what it meant.\u00a0 And then he became too busy to concern himself with it any longer.\u00a0 The Forsworn were everywhere, they wanted him dead, and some of them had frost spikes to share.\u00a0 It seemed as though hours had passed by the time he spotted Delphine, Esbern, and Esbern\u2019s frost atronach on the other side of the river, all fighting every bit as furiously as he was.\u00a0 The numbers of Forsworn were dwindling and the piles of bodies growing higher as he moved in hoping to join them.<\/p>\n Then a hagraven entered the fray, making her slow but deadly way down from an altar higher up the hill on Dardeh\u2019s side of the river.\u00a0 He discovered that she was there when an enormous fireball exploded in his face, sending him tumbling down the hillside into the water.\u00a0 He was glad for the water; it kept him from cooking alive inside his armor.\u00a0 But he was too injured to do much more than scramble up the opposite side of the hill Delphine occupied, and pull out his bow.\u00a0 There was a platform, higher up from where Delphine stood; he took down the one Forsworn guarding it with a well-placed arrow, then made his way up to its vantage point.<\/p>\n The hagraven was distracted by the frost atronachs. She blasted them apart easily with her fireballs, but as soon as one disappeared Esbern cast another, and frustrating as it must have been to Esbern, they did manage to do some damage before being destroyed.\u00a0 The hagraven croaked and staggered back with each blow, and it seemed to Dardeh as though she was taking longer to recover each time she was hit. \u00a0Dardeh started raining arrows down on the hagraven while she was looking elsewhere.\u00a0 He heard Esbern yelling \u201cI could use a hand here!\u201d just as he loosed an arrow.\u00a0 It flew straight and true and pierced the hagraven\u2019s skull, dropping her to the ground.<\/p>\n There were just a few Forsworn left, determined to take them and then all of the Reach in spite of the carnage surrounding them. By the time Dardeh made it to Delphine she had taken out all but one of them and they dispatched that one with no trouble.<\/p>\n The three of them stood, panting, and made their way slowly up the hill and into the Karthspire.<\/p>\n Dardeh was happy for his Shouts then, as the three Forsworn inside met them with arrows, axes and frost spikes.\u00a0 He was able to fling the spellcaster backwards with Unrelenting Force and then finish him off with swords while Delphine and Esbern defeated the other two.\u00a0 They continued upward, toward what he knew had to be the mountaintop temple he\u2019d seen from a distance so many times before, through a winding path with several stubborn and dangerous puzzles including a gigantic stone face guarding the entry to Sky Haven Temple proper. And without his physical presence, Delphine and Esbern would have come all that way for nothing, as only he could open the door.<\/p>\n At the end of it all, Dardeh had found himself staring almost in a daze at a huge bas-relief wall. He examined it, taking in every detail of an intricate tale told in pictures, of the kind he\u2019d seen in the Hall of Stories in Bleak Falls Barrow, while Esbern droned on about history, and prophecy, and the return of Alduin.\u00a0 And a shout that would defeat him again. That roused Dardeh from his reverie.\u00a0 A Shout?<\/p>\n Delphine turned to Dardeh.\u00a0 \u201cHave you ever heard of anything like that? A Shout that will knock a dragon out of the sky?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve only heard of a few Shouts at all, Delphine, and you\u2019ve heard them. So no. I haven\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0 Sorry to be bad-tempered but I am truly exhausted right now.\u00a0 Three dragons, a hagraven, saber cats, wolves and gods know how many Forsworn in just a few days. And sacrificing blood to get in here, as well. It\u2019s a wonder I can stand.<\/em><\/p>\n She frowned.\u00a0 \u201cWell I guess there\u2019s no help for it.\u00a0 I had hoped to avoid involving them but we\u2019re going to have to ask the Graybeards for help.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with that? Do you have something against the Graybeards?\u201d<\/p>\n She snorted.\u00a0 \u201cIf they had their way you\u2019d do nothing but sit up there on the mountain with them and talk to the sky, or whatever it is they do.\u00a0 Power’s no good if you’re too afraid to do anything with it. Think about it. The people who had power but never used it \u2013 do you ever hear about them?\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh nodded.\u00a0 It had rather seemed that way, the last time he\u2019d seen the Graybeards.\u00a0 He had trudged back up to the monastery to return the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller on his way to find Esbern in Riften.\u00a0 Arngeir had seemed pleased to have the Horn back, and had taught him Da, the final word of Unrelenting Force; and the four Graybeards had welcomed him to High Hrothgar as one of their own. But Arngeir had been quick to point out the need to follow the Way of the Voice, which basically amounted to quiet contemplation.\u00a0 Dardeh understood it, the philosophy they followed.\u00a0 Arngeir had explained it carefully, and it made sense for them; but it did rather amount to talking to the sky, all told, and seemed rather useless for someone with no intention of living life as a monk.\u00a0 He had more pressing matters to tend to.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Delphine.\u00a0 I\u2019m not afraid of my own power.\u201d\u00a0 What a bald-faced lie.\u00a0 I\u2019m terrified by it.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t have a choice.<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll go ask Arngeir if he knows anything about this Shout.\u00a0 Maybe he doesn\u2019t, but I think it\u2019s the only option we have at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Delphine\u00a0 nodded.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll look around this place and see what else the old Blades might have left for us.\u00a0 It\u2019s a better hideout than I could have hoped for.\u201d\u00a0 She smiled, a small and slightly grim expression but a smile nonetheless.\u00a0 \u201cTalos guide you.\u201d<\/p>\n Talos guide me<\/em>, Dardeh prayed silently as he walked down the hillside and toward Markarth.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what I am doing or how I should proceed. But I do know that I have to climb all the way up that godsforsaken mountain yet again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Unrelenting Force.\u00a0 Fus-Ro-Dah.\u00a0 It was a devastating weapon when he allowed himself to release its full power, and it was the reason he had survived those three dragon attacks in such a short period.\u00a0 He\u2019d aimed wrong, once, and seen the effects of it on a human. An attack that could push back a beast the size of a dragon could pick up a large man and send him head over heels through the air. He\u2019d been lucky that the man had landed in a spot well-cushioned by grasses or he might have had yet more blood on his hands.<\/p>\n And who am I to have power like that?<\/em><\/p>\n Son of a sweet Nord mother and a Redguard father I know nothing about aside from this pair of swords.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Why me?<\/em><\/p>\n Oh yes, Delphine, I am afraid of this.\u00a0 I am afraid of what it is doing to me.\u00a0 I am afraid of what is to come.\u00a0 But I have no choice. It is a thing that just \u2013 is.<\/em><\/p>\n He eventually found himself before the little thatched-roof hut that had belonged to his mother, and let himself in.\u00a0 He sighed, tossed his pack onto the bed, and then shed his armor.\u00a0 The house seemed dead now, dead like his mother, even after he laid a fire for light and made himself a cup of her favorite tea. There were no old Nord stories, no giggles from a child chasing her pet fox, no answering chuckles from a beautiful warrior pretending to be a mother.\u00a0 It was empty, and dead, and he wanted to go home.<\/p>\n There was an old set of his mining clothes in a chest.\u00a0 He smiled and put them on, then gathered his pickaxe from the corner where he had left it.<\/p>\n They\u2019d been surprised to see him, at the mine, but had gladly accepted his help for the time he was there, especially when he told them no, don\u2019t pay me, I just need to hit the rock for awhile.<\/p>\n He did just that, thinking about nothing aside from the rock, and where the minerals were, and where the weak spots were so as not to strike them by mistake.\u00a0 The things he knew, the things he could see, and feel, and control with the force of his muscles; those were the things before him and nothing else mattered for a long time.<\/p>\n When he finally fell into his bed that night he slept without dreaming.<\/p>\n Dardeh was very grateful for his new armor on his journey back to the Reach.\u00a0 Yes, there was the usual complement of wolves, and bandits in Whiterun Hold.\u00a0 He even ran afoul of a group of three relatively weak vampires on the first evening and was fortunate to avoid being contaminated with Vampiris Sanguinaire. He … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-1-17-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2-1-17-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2-1-17-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2-1-17-4.png\")
<\/p>\n