Qaralana and Chip stopped for a moment beside a road sign. She scanned down the pointers: Borvald, Northern Pass, Pinevale, Staalgarde, Amber Creek.
Chip pointed up the hill toward the mesa. “We’re not heading to Borvald, right?”
Qara couldn’t help feel a twinge of regret. “No. Borvald is where the first big battle was. I barely got out alive, and the Jarl – well, he wasn’t so lucky. Yngvarr’s people had been stockpiling oil under the city and they blew it up and him along with it.”
“Good grief,” Chip said. “You know, I’m beginning to feel about all this like I did when the Silver Hand barged into Whiterun and killed Kodlak.”
“What’s that?”
Chip shook his head. “Long story, and you don’t need to hear it right this minute. Let’s just say that I’m definitely behind Agnar at this point.” He pointed at the road sign. “What’s in Pinevale?”
Qara thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “I don’t know, but it sounds familiar. Maybe we can ask Brunulvr later. But for now we need to get to Staalgarde. Let’s go.”
“After you.”
Even in the fog they made good time east of Borvald, across the river, and then south past the road where they’d fought Yngvarr’s men. Qara found herself grimacing in anger as they passed it, wishing she’d had a chance to Shout Yngvarr’s horse to the ground, or him off the horse.
He has so much to answer for. He has no right imposing his own wishes on the rest of Falskaar – especially when the people are simply trying to live their lives in peace.
The mist persisted as they ran south and then southeast toward the mountains. The limited visibility in this strange place made it feel like a dream world, where endless running made no forward progress. Trees seemed to emerge from the murk, only to give way to fog that was deeper and eerier still. Qara could hear Chip’s quiet footsteps behind her, and his occasional testing of the air; and in spite of how unsettling it was to know that he was a werewolf it was reassuring that he’d be able to sense danger long before she could.
At last they reached the mouth of the valley, the spot where the roadway began climbing up the side of the island’s eastern mountain range. Chip sped up to tap her on the shoulder.
“Up ahead,” he murmured. “People. I’m pretty sure I smell Ulgar.”
Qara shivered. “Gods that’s weird, Chip. But I’m glad you can. All I can smell is fog.”
At the base of the first switchback they met Ulgar and a group of Amber Creek soldiers. Ulgar gave them a grim smile as they approached.
“Ahh! Good, you’re here. There’s no time to waste, my friends.”
“What are we up against?” Chip asked him.
“There’s a fort with only a few men in it up the hill, and a small camp just beyond. We need to clear both areas. Once we’re finished I’ll let Agnar know he can move the troops in.”
“Sounds good,” Qara told him. “As long as it’s no harder than Fort Urokk was, we’ll be fine.” She cast a sideways glance at Chip and at the staff he carried. If they were in a pinch, she thought, he could unleash the werebeasts and finish the job.
It was obvious that Chip knew what she was thinking. As soon as Ulgar was a bit uphill from them, he turned to her and whispered.
“I can’t use it here, Qara.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it. It was one thing to unleash a bunch of beasts out in the open against giants, when everyone else in the area was hiding or well out of the way. But this is going to be close fighting. It’s like I told you; people don’t deal well with werebeasts. If one of Agnar’s men got frightened and attacked them, we’d have chaos. I won’t be responsible for losing Agnar’s people that way. Accidents are one thing. Idiocy is another.”
Qara felt a flash of anger, and glowered at her brother. “So you’re calling me an idiot, now?”
“No. I’m calling you inexperienced with this one particular thing. Same way I don’t know how to Shout. Let’s focus on the enemy. With any luck we won’t even need to think about this staff. And if it comes down to it…”
She peered at him again as they ran uphill. “If it comes down to it, what?”
He hissed. “I’ll transform. Myself. I can tell the difference between friend and foe, even as a beast. But I won’t be happy about it, and neither will anyone else.”
Qara considered that, remembering the one time she’d seen a werewolf attack near the gates of Riften. Everyone in the area had gone into a rage-driven killing frenzy until the werewolf was utterly destroyed.
What if that had been Chip? It wouldn’t have mattered to any of them. They just wanted the beast dead. No wonder he’s happy to have his house out in the wilderness.
She looked uphill at Ulgar and his men and picked up her own pace, frowning. There was something important about that, but she couldn’t put a finger on it at the moment.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think I get it. I’d rather not have to take you back to Riften in a box.”
“Right.”
Ulgar led them up the roadway, back and forth across the face of the mountain, twice crossing an icy-cold stream that found its own way down from the summits. He raised his greatsword high, his shoulders rising and his head lowering in a posture of threat. The higher they ran, the more she could feel dozens of men’s anxiety leeching out over the mountainside, blanketing it as thoroughly as the fog. One glance at Chip told her that he felt it too.
“Just ahead,” he snarled.
“For the King!” she heard.
But which King? Agnar or Yngvarr?
Then there was no more time to wonder.
A substantial gate straddled the road just in front of them, as thick as she was tall, with the space just beyond its opening filled with men and women fighting. Qara groaned. Once more the opposition was mostly hired mercenaries, thugs, and others dressed in armor not much different than what Ulgar wore.
This is going to be awful.
There was a Khajiit just in front of her. The only Khajiit Qara had seen on Falskaar were bandits; so she went after him while Chip slipped by her on the right and into the fray. The Khajiit went down easily. She could hear both Chip and Ulgar, so she knew they were alright.
A lone mercenary raced down from the fort toward her, holding a mace in one hand and wearing a shield on the opposite arm. She ran forward to block him, slashing as soon as he was within reach. They traded blows, most of hers clattering against the man’s shield; but he had a bad habit of lowering that shield after a swing, and she used those moments to slice at him. He nicked her once or twice – the blows hurt, but didn’t stop her. She saw him getting winded, and then beginning to bleed; but the more damaged he got, the angrier he became.
I can see it. You’re mad that a girl is going to take you down, aren’t you?
She grinned at him. That was the last straw. The man wound up into a tremendous sideways power attack that caught her hard in the shoulder, taking the air from her lungs and replacing it with red-hot pain.
Oh gods, no, I can’t die here! I have to finish this!
Nearly blinded by pain, Qara struggled to breathe, flailing wildly with the ebony dagger in her off hand. The man wound himself up for another attack and somehow – whether by dumb luck or through divine intervention she couldn’t tell – she caught the man in the throat, his momentum helping to rip it open. He fell, gurgling and twitching, and she backed up into a corner to heal herself. She watched as Ulgar and his men ran uphill toward the fort. Chip dashed to her side, panting.
“You alright?”
Her temper flared for a moment, but she fought it down. “No. I almost died. Go catch up with them!”
“Nope, I’m waiting for you. As soon as you can move we’ll go.”
Qara took a moment to down another healing potion and rotated her still-painful shoulder. “Ok, let’s go. That’s just going to have to be good enough.”
They followed Ulgar through the fort’s yard and dashed up the roadway toward the campsite, just inside another substantial gate. There was a guard on either side. The man on the left raised his weapon and sneered.
“Come to play? Or come to die?”
Ulgar snarled and headed for him, the other Amber Creek soldiers right behind him. Qaralana found herself facing down the other mercenary – another Khajiit – by herself. She grinned. There was plenty of open space on all sides of that Khajiit. She inhaled deeply and then expelled all of her anger in one gigantic Shout.
“FUS- RO DAH!”
Chip came up beside her on the left, and she feared he was going to rob her of her kill, her revenge for her wound. At the last moment, though – as the Khajiit flew end over end through the gate and hit the ground hard – he veered left to take out a foe threatening Ulgar. Qara darted past the rest of the fighting and finished the Khajiit before he had a chance to rise from the dirt.
The sudden quiet took her by surprise. She turned back to see Chip, Ulgar, and the rest of the soldiers sheathing their weapons, the various mercenaries dead at their feet.
Ulgar turned toward her. “That was simple enough, but probably the easiest part of this whole damned mess. I’m going to get Agnar and the troops. Get some rest if you can. Once it starts, we’ll fight until we are victorious or we die.”
Well, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?
“Thanks, Ulgar,” she said. “I’ll do that. I took kind of a hard hit.”
“Go,” Chip said. “Hurry. I’ll stay here with Qara.”
Ulgar nodded, and ran downhill. Qara admired his resilience as she crawled into a tent in the campsite they’d just cleared out, lowering herself painfully onto the bedroll.
Chip handed her a waterskin. “Here. Have something to drink. And try to close your eyes for a bit.”
Qara nodded, and took a long swallow from the skin. She opened her mouth to protest that she wasn’t tired; but too late she realized that it hadn’t been simply water. She thought she recognized the flavor. Between her exhaustion, her pain, and whatever Chip had added to the drink, her eyes closed before she could say a word.
It’s what I gave Uncle Dar, she thought as the darkness closed in.
She dreamed, or so she imagined it: the sound of feet marching by as quietly as they could was overlaid here and there by the creaking of wheels on stone; weapons in their sheaths, striking against each other but muffled; and soldiers breathing heavily with the exertion of climbing the hill. But she was dreaming. Or so she thought.
“Qara.” She felt Chip’s strong hand on her shoulder – the one that hadn’t been hurt – and her eyes fluttered open. “It’s time to go. Come on.”
She sat up, looked around, and shook her head. “You tricked me!”
Chip ran a hand up over his head and grinned. “Well, yeah I did. But you were pretty hurt. I’d hate to lose you now just because you wanted to look tough.”
She swatted at him. “You jerk!” But the motion reminded her of what a hard hit she’d taken. She was stiff, now, but at least not in pain.
She heaved herself up off the bedroll. “Ok, I guess you were right. I feel better now. So I wasn’t imagining the troops?”
“Nope. They should be just about in place now. Let’s go.”
They started up the mountain again, through the gate beneath the thick wall. Qara peered ahead and could just spot the silhouettes of people moving about, some maneuvering large pieces of gear.
“The damn fools ‘ere makin’ too much noise. An’ I kin smell them fae ‘ere.”
Both Qara and Chip whirled at the sound. There stood Brunulvr, no more heavily armored than he had been cleaning up the streets of Amber Creek, but with an utterly wicked-looking ebony battleaxe strapped to his back.
“What are you doing here?” Qara yelped, completely forgetting that this was her grandfather and she was set on treating him respectfully.
“What does it look lik’ tae ye, lassie?” the old man snorted. “Same as you two gits are doing. Agnar is ma king ‘n’ a’m ‘ere tae defend him. He’ll not be happy wi’ me. I don’t care.”
“Shor’s beard, Grandda, you’re going to get all three of us flayed alive,” Chip grumbled, peering up through the fog. “But we have to go. They’re waiting on Qara. She’s some kind of good luck charm, I think.”
“Aye,” Brunulvr agreed. “Th’ Traveler. Now let’s nae hear another word about it. I kin haud my ain in battle. Been doin’ it fer a lang time. Let’s gae before they start wi’out us.”
The old man trotted up toward the gathered troops, leaving Chip and Qara to stare at each other. She was still annoyed at having been drugged to sleep, and now she found her grandfather preceding her into battle. It was ridiculous, the whole thing.
“I can’t believe he followed us. What did he do, hang back until all of Agnar’s people made it up the hill?”
“He must have,” Chip said. “I never heard him. Or smelled him. He must be really good at covering his own tracks, so to speak.”
Qara sighed. “I suppose we had to have come by the stealth in the family somehow, huh. Well let’s go. This sky is looking heavier by the minute.”
Just as they crossed through the gates, the fog that had been clinging to them damply all day turned into actual drops of moisture. There were just a few, at first; but by the time they reached the back of the assembled soldiers it was steady.
“Great,” she muttered. “All that, and now it’s raining.”
“At least the rain provides some cover,” she heard. It was a familiar voice, and she snapped her head left to see a familiar figure.
“Olvir?”
“What?” he said. “Surprised to see me here?” He puffed himself up. “I am a guard an’ a soldier. I’ve got te help in this fight too, y’know.”
“Of course,” Qara said weakly. “If my grandfather can come fight, why not you?”
Olvir leaned in toward her and lowered his voice. “Are…are you scared?”
Poor Olvir. What would he think about a dragon?
“Yeah, a little,” she told him, not wanting to belittle him.
“I’m sworn to protect this land and her people, but I’m a bloody guard! Nothing on this scale has ever happened to me!”
Qara heard Chip snickering behind her, and slashed a hand behind her back to silence him. Don’t you dare make fun of him, Chip Brynjolfsson, or I will be right behind Grandmama in line for your hide!
“Then again,” Olvir continued, “we’ve got Agnar leading us. There’s no way we can lose! Right?”
She was mentally flailing about for something to say when Ulgar called for attention. He’d taken his place between Agnar and Brother Thorlough, up on a platform no doubt erected to give them a better view forward to Staalgarde. In fact, a soldier stood at lookout to Agnar’s right, with Svegard between them. Agnar held up a hand to quiet his troops, and then called out to them.
“People of Falskaar! For almost seven hundred years you have graciously allowed my family, the Borvaldurs, to lead you. You have worked hard, supported us, and provided unwavering loyalty. Unfortunately, not all who live in Falskaar are content. The Unnvaldrs see the throne as their birthright, and something that can be owned or taken. They have started war after war seeking power. One hundred years ago they agreed to stop fighting, and to accept peace. However, over the last few months Yngvarr Unnvaldr, Jarl of Staalgarde, has repeatedly broken that agreement. He kidnapped my family, terrorized my people, gathered an army, and destroyed the great city of Borvald! Now, the Heart of the Gods is within his grasp, and he has forced my hand. In honor of those who fell at Borvald we must take up arms and return the favor, ending this once and for all!”
And Yngvarr needs to die. I will be happy to do the honors.
Somewhere, someone blew a warhorn. The Borvaldur army started to move forward toward Unnvaldr Keep, passing the catapults Qara had heard moving past as she slept. They’d made good progress before a small group of Unnvaldr soldiers erupted from the tall grass and made directly for Agnar. Perhaps it was just accumulated anger that motivated them all, but the Amber Creek troops swarmed the enemy, their much greater numbers taking the Unnvaldrs down in mere moments. Qara couldn’t find a safe vantage point to join the fray, and she couldn’t hear Chip above the roar of the battle. Instead, she pushed ahead.
Too soon, as it turned out. She heard Ulgar yell “we’ve got trouble!” and pivoted to find a group of Unnvaldr closing in behind Agnar’s guard. She was outside the group and had a clear path to the enemy, so she Shouted. The Unnvaldrs fell to the ground, the shock wave of Unrelenting Force visible all the way past them to the mountains behind the Borvaldur base. She dashed forward, hoping to take on one of them before he could rise; but he was strong, and fast, and had a much longer reach with a sword than she did with her daggers. She soon had to fall back to heal, and for the first time ever rue her choice of weapons. But the others had come up behind her to swarm the enemy; she could hear Svegard and Chip shouting and could see flashes of white hair beneath a leather helm and the sweep of an ebony battleaxe. She managed to return to the fighting in time to finish one enemy from behind; then she took off down the road while the others untangled themselves and followed.
Face it, my style of combat is meant for a thief, not a soldier. I need to be more careful.
They were closing the distance to the keep when the bombs made of burning oil pots started flying overhead. Qara shuddered. It was going to take more than a few nights of good sleep before she could put the sounds of Borvald exploding out of her mind. A small, illogical part of her wondered whether Yngvarr would have created a similar stockpile in the keep, whether she’d be that close to an explosion again; but it was wildly unlikely that they would destroy their own base.
There was a small collection of outbuildings just before the gates of the keep, and it was there that the next wave of Unnvaldrs attacked. Because she was in the lead, Qara had a perfect opening to Shout at the first enemy in line. He landed at the base of a tree. Chip ran up beside her and the two of them finished him.
The next man in line wasn’t so easy to defeat. He had a polearm with a huge reach, and Qara found herself needing to back away to heal after only a few moments. But Chip and Olvir were close at hand and moved in to take her place, Olvir shouting “die, criminal!” as he hammered away at the man’s shield.
They were almost to the keep now. As she moved closer Qara saw Chip using his powerful bow to remove the enemy from atop the walls. Several of Agnar’s men moved into the yard, passing beneath Chip’s arrows. She followed them into the yard and then around the corner to the right, looking for her next target; but she found only a lone, dead Unnvaldr woman.
Aside from the intermittent explosions it was oddly and eerily quiet, so unlike the chaos of Borvald that her hair wanted to stand on end. The Unnvaldrs were silent, focused on their duty, and deadly. One of the Amber Creek soldiers ran past her, between a stone building to her left and the outer walls to her right. She followed him through the gap and around the corner where the passage emptied into the back of Staalgarde proper. The wooden buildings were crushed, or in flames, and she gasped for a moment at the destruction; but then she became far too busy to worry about buildings.
Two Unnvaldr soldiers emerged from the wreckage and moved in on the Amber Creek man who’d led the way. She had almost reached him when a bomb struck just beyond them. Qara’s eyes closed, reflexively, and she flinched at the noise. When she opened them a heartbeat later it was just in time to see – and hear – an Unnvaldr sword slice into her fellow, piercing him through and through and ending his life.
She saw red. There was nothing she could do about his death, but her anger exploded in sound, instead.
“FO- KRAH!”
The Unnvaldr just in front of her staggered, enveloped in her Frost Breath Shout. She sprinted to him and began slashing as hard as she could, her mind screaming “Die! Die!” and willing him to drop before her. It worked, too: the man she’d Shouted at dropped at her feet.
But the other Unnvaldr, the one with the sword, came up behind her and tried to do the same to her as he’d done to the fallen Amber Creek soldier. Once again, Qara’s world exploded in pain.
She found herself stumbling back the way they’d come in, casting healing on herself, hearing the crunch of the Unnvaldr man’s footsteps close behind, wondering how it was even possible that she was still alive – how he had missed her heart – how Chip would break the news to their family that she’d run in ahead and that was what killed her. Then, her vision a tunnel of darkness with only a pinprick of light at the end, she heard a familiar pair of voices.
“I’ll make you pay!” Chip’s howl of anger was followed by the twang of his bowstring.
“Yer makin’ me angry, ye reprobate!” She wasn’t sure, but she thought that low growl was Brunulvr. She heard the whoosh of a large weapon being swung and prayed it wasn’t another Unnvaldr with a polearm; but the resounding thunk and splat that followed made her confident that the wicked ebony battleaxe had found its mark.
Granddaddy must be really strong. The soldier didn’t even have a chance to scream.
By the time she was aware again, mostly healed, not wondering what her next life would be, Qara found herself at the rear of the pack of Amber Creek troops. Olvir was there, yelling at an adversary.
“Not so fast, are ye?” He disappeared around the corner again and she heard “You can’t run from the guard!”
Chip’s bow twanged and an arrow shot past her on the left. He ran up beside her, panting. “You alright?”
She wasn’t. Not really. All she could do was nod at him and keep running toward the rest of the battle. She threw herself toward the next gate and spied Brother Thorlough, doing an impressive job with a simple longbow.
I haven’t given him enough credit. Here he is in just priestly robes against men in full, heavy armor, and he’s not hanging back. He was slow to get moving, but since he did he’s been fierce.
Finally, through the confusion and smoke, and the never-ending trial of putting one foot in front of the next, keeping her daggers in motion in spite of stiffening wounds and shrieking muscles, she saw a welcome sight. Agnar, Ulgar and Svegard were all together, running uphill for another of the city’s gates. She could see many wounds on them, even from a distance; but all of them were alive, and that gave her the energy to keep moving.
There were no further Unnvaldrs blocking them. They dashed through the gate, past the keep’s horses, and up to a door tucked curiously away from foot traffic, in a sheltered corner. Agnar looked at Qara and nodded at the door.
“Yes, sir,” she said quietly, and opened it for him.
“You’re too late!” a familiar and hated voice called out. “I’m off to get the Heart now.”
They’d come into a long, narrow room with a fireplace at one end, a space that must once have been a fine entry to the rest of the keep. The room was darkened, now, and its hearth cold, the fire long since replaced by the glowing remnants of a partially-collapsed roof. Yngvarr stood at the far end of the room, with two of his elite guards on either side. Qara heard a deep growl behind them and glanced over her shoulder to find that Chip and Brunulvr had followed them in. She felt her own anger rising along with the growl, and started breathing deeply, trying to keep it contained, to focus on the situation without breaking into foolhardy battle.
“How did you find out where it was?” Agnar asked. It sounded to Qara as though he was stalling for time while he, too, assessed the room and the adversaries in it.
“Oh! Well you helped me out with that one. When I took your wife and boy, I intended to interrogate them to find out. However, on my way there I got word that you had flocked in to save them. How… heroic.” Yngvarr’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “With you and your little clan gone from town, it was easy enough for my thieves to sneak in and get that book.”
“You didn’t know where it was until then?” Agnar asked.
“Not until you were all kind enough to show me,” Yngvarr said, an oily smile spreading across his face.
Say what you will about thieves, Qara thought, those of us trained that way do have our uses. She heard another growl from behind.
“How?” Brunulvr whispered under his breath. “How di’ they creep by us? We were watchin’. A’m sorry, Agnar.”
Gods. He must be horrified. He was specifically charged with guarding the town, and they got past him anyway! Do I now need to worry about him doing something foolhardy, as well as Chip?
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going,” Yngvarr said, turning toward a door in the back.
“Kill him,” Chip whispered. “Shred him.”
Qara was inhaling, reading a Shout. By the time she unleashed it, though, Yngvarr had slipped out the door, and the Shout served only to bowl over two of the four elite guards. She saw red, and heard her heart pounding in her ears. She sprinted toward the first of them. Time seemed to slow, then, and she heard a voice.
I will defeat you. I am stronger than you. I am better than you. I will surpass you.
It was her voice – but it wasn’t, at the same time. It was blurred, and muffled, and overlaid with the deep tones of a man’s voice. And yet it said everything she was feeling: the hatred of Yngvarr and his men, and the need to see them fall before her.
She did as Chip had asked, and shredded the man. She slashed, harder and harder, over and over, not quite noticing how much time had gone by, or how many blows she had landed, or how long it had been since the man had died. By the time she came back to herself, noticed the last groan in the room and Brunulvr saying “nicely done,” there wasn’t much left of the guard but a pile of gore. She looked down at it, blinking, and shrank back from it in horror. Her mouth fell open for just a moment before she frowned and sheathed her daggers, fighting to keep from shivering visibly before the others.
He was right. Uncle Dar was right. About everything. So this is what it means to have the dragon blood.
I don’t even know who I am, any more.
Agnar was speaking to her, and she barely followed what he was saying.
“We must follow Yngvarr immediately! His city is razed and his army defeated. His only hope now is to get the Heart of the Gods. We must fight up to the temple containing it, to the west. Let’s go!” He opened the door that Yngvarr had taken, and went through.
Qara turned to her grandfather, to ask whether he was alright, and he glowered at her. “No, go’ damn it, we don’t have the time te be sharin’ notes!”
He left as well, and Qara looked helplessly at her brother. He shrugged, but then put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“I don’t know what just happened, Sis, but I do know that he’s angry. And that he’s right. We really don’t have time to sort it all out right now. Let’s go. We’ll talk about it once we’re all out the other end in one piece.” He opened the door and held it for her to go through.
She stepped outside into the rain that had become a fierce lightning storm, in time to hear Thorlough talking to Agnar.
“You just missed Yngvarr,” he said.
“We tried to stop him,” Svegard said, looking completely disgusted with the situation, “but he was on his horse and he got through us.”
“He is heading for the Heart Chamber,” Agnar said. “We must follow him immediately.”
“Then let’s go!” Thorlough cried, falling into place behind Agnar as the Jarl headed for the gates.
Ulgar grunted, and followed. Svegard, Brunulvr, and Chip started trotting along behind them. Qara looked down at her armor, splattered with the blood of the man she’d just decimated.
It’s good that we have to move. I can’t think about this more. Not right now.
And they all began running, through the dark and the rain.