He almost didn’t get into the carriage. Qaralana was already settled, gazing down at him expectantly, with a “are you coming?” look – and he almost mumbled an excuse in order to run away. He checked his pockets and pouches once more to be certain he had what he needed for the trip, then blew out a huge, anxious breath and climbed aboard.
I can’t believe I’ve let her talk me into this.
Qara managed to fill the journey from Riften to Dawnstar with idle chatter, fleshing out the details of the trip she’d taken to the Reach with Harald Stormcloak. He nodded, and smiled frequently at her animated descriptions of the place they’d gone, called Sky Haven Temple. There was a dragon skeleton suspended below the ceiling in the main space, she said, and if he hadn’t known it already he would surely have been convinced that dragons were huge by the time she finished.
But he couldn’t quite keep his mind focused on his daughter’s words.
What am I going to say to the old bastard? What could I possibly tell him? What can he say to me? There’s nothing I can think of that can make up for the way he treated me.
And Ma. I only knew her for a few years, really. What can I say to her? And what in Oblivion will she think of me, old and roughed-up as I am? Both of them are strangers to me, when you come right down to it. Gallus and Karliah were more like parents than either of them was.
Why did I let Qara talk me into this?
Again, as they waited to board the ship to Falskaar, he nearly turned tail. Then he looked at her smile and remembered why. He waited until she’d started climbing aboard and was facing away from him to frown.
She can’t get involved with Dale Perdeti. That’s why. I won’t let him have her. I can’t do anything about the fact that he exists, but I can at least try to protect her. Dragonborn blood is a huge temptation.
He’d discussed that very thing with Roggi and Dardeh, long ago. Sitting on their porch beside Andante he’d been just barely able to withstand the pull of Dardeh’s Dragonborn blood singing in his veins, and he’d done it by distracting himself, weaving a tale for them. And as for Andante –
Brynjolf sighed. It just made him sad to remember those days. He followed Qara onto the ship and settled in for the journey.
She continued chattering, filling him in on all she had done on her own, and later with Chip, helping the Jarl of Amber Creek. It was beyond odd to realize that his daughter knew more about his homeland than he did. The Jarl was likely younger than he was himself. He had no particular emotional connection to Falskaar – aside from the bad memories concerning his father – and yet the few, wispy memories that kept rising to the surface as Qara spoke had a melancholy tinge to them. He remembered beauty. And wildlife. And a freedom that he’d lost the moment he’d had to escape the island.
Or maybe I have it now. Sayma’s gone, and as far as I know I may never see her again. So maybe I am free.
For a moment he had to struggle to keep his emotions in check. He was grateful for the excuse at hand, looking off the bow of the ship and away from Qara until he had himself under control again.
I wonder why Qara hasn’t mentioned her mother, or noticed that I’m not wearing my ring. It was probably just that obvious that I didn’t share the whole truth. But I really don’t know whether we’ll ever see her again.
They were well underway when Qara went below to sleep. Brynjolf, though, couldn’t relax. The unease that had started as a small tickle somewhere inside grew until it filled his whole body with a sense of dread. It was hard to sit still, and yet he couldn’t very well pace the deck without being in the way of the Captain, Wulf. So after fighting with himself for what felt like hours he finally reached into his pouch and downed the contents of one of the small bottles he’d packed.
Here’s to you, lad.
He heaved a sigh of relief and settled down to watch the ship slicing through the waves.
“Are you coming?”
He stood on the deck, staring almost blankly at the shoreline, scanning down its length to the east toward where the lighthouse still kept its vigil. It was an almost overwhelming feeling of otherworldly déjà vu remembering the last time he’d seen this view, just before he stowed away on this vessel’s long-ago predecessor.
More than fifty years? Has it really been that long?
I wonder if this is what it was like for Andante. There’s a moment of happiness with every memory that returns and yet such a sense of loss, besides.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, lass. Did you need something?” He wasn’t really focused on what he was saying as he tried to take in the sights of Falskaar, as if in a dream.
“I need you to get off the boat and come with me. Good grief, Daddy. We came here for a reason, not to stand around on deck.”
With great effort, Brynjolf shook himself out of his daze and gave his daughter a rueful grin. “Sorry. I’m coming. It’s just very strange to be here again.”
Qara paused for a moment and then gave him an understanding smile. “I’m sure it must be. It wasn’t strange for me because I didn’t have any idea what to expect. All I could think about was how I could make it home. And then of course all the other things happened and I was too busy to worry about it.”
He thanked Captain Wulf and followed Qara up the steps toward the small collection of buildings that made up Falskaar’s lone port. As soon as he stepped onto the soil, an involuntary shudder ran up his spine.
This is my home. These are where my life began. But all I feel is strange.
Well, Brunulvr, for whatever it’s worth I’m back, at least for a minute or two.
He smiled politely at Qara’s animated discussion with the woman and her son busying themselves in front of the trading post, and then happily followed her up the hill and into the forest. He vaguely remembered it as a long walk from Amber Creek to here. At least, to a seven or eight year old boy, it had seemed like an epic journey.
I ran the whole way, too. I’ve always loved to run. I don’t know how I ended up working in a place where I stayed still most of the time. That’s probably why I loved being…
By the Eight. I need to stop this. I need to focus on what’s here, now.
It was more than a long walk, he realized as they traveled along the well-trodden roadway. It was, in fact, a journey. There were paths branching off toward the east in several spots along the route; one of them led toward an old fortress, where Qara told him she’d found the first solid, irrefutable evidence of Yngvarr’s plans for war.
“Yngvarr?” he asked. It was an unusual name, and he couldn’t place it.
“Yngvarr Unnvaldr, late Jarl of Staalgarde. He thought he should be the King since one of his ancestors was part of the scouting party that founded Falskaar. Or something like that. I tried not to pay any more attention to him than was absolutely necessary. He was a bad man.”
Brynjolf couldn’t help but be amused. “Like me, lass?”
Qara snorted. “No, Daddy. Not like you. You move things around – sometimes without permission.”
“Most of the time,” he chuckled. “That’s what had me leaving Falskaar in the first place.”
“Well, ok. Most of the time. But you don’t plot against people and kill them without reason, and you don’t try to manipulate them.”
This time he broke out into a full laugh, startling some of the birds that had been watching their progress. “That’s why I’m the best,” he said. “Manipulation. How do you think I’ve gotten all those things done without killing people right and left? You’d have grown up in a hovel if not for that.”
Qara gave him an annoyed glare as they approached a crossroad. “Don’t argue with me. Yes, you’re good at what you do. Yngvarr threatened people, backed them into corners, made promises and then reneged on them. He just flat-out lied to them. He had an entire army’s worth of people convinced that they were being robbed of their birthright in some way. You don’t do that kind of manipulation. And,” she added, pointing to their right and up to the top of the large mesa dominating the scenery, “you’ve never blown up an entire town with innocent people in it. Come on. We need to turn left here and cross the river.”
Brynjolf looked around with the same unsettling feelings he’d had since stepping off the ship. It was familiar and yet it was entirely new. “I remember the name. Unnvaldr. I wasn’t old enough to really understand all the details. And that up there. Borvald, yes? He blew it up?”
“Yes and yes,” Qara said with an angry frown on her face. “One thing’s certain, though. He won’t be bothering anyone any longer.”
They reached the bridge Qara had mentioned, and Brynjolf paused halfway across it to look around. Off to the east and quite a way downstream from them, he could just about make out a windmill. He might not have noticed it if not for the motion catching his eye. He didn’t recall what was there. After wracking his brain for a moment he tsk’d and shook his head.
That could have been built any time in the last fifty years. It’s foolish of me to wonder why I don’t recognize it.
“Daddy?” Qara called from up ahead.
“Coming. Just trying to get my bearings.” He trotted to catch up with his daughter, wondering why exactly he felt so unsettled and anxious. Even telling himself that it was just the strangeness of the situation didn’t seem to help. He was grateful that they were moving; it helped keep him from coming completely out of his skin.
The road made a sharp turn to the left after the bridge, then swung gently right toward what he presumed was the base of the cliffs. Those, he remembered. The small, frightened boy living inside his sixty-winters-old body remembered the nearly uncontrolled, nearly catastrophic run down those steep cliffs. He’d been barely able to keep his feet securely under him, and yet he’d been too afraid of being caught to slow to a walking pace. All he’d wanted was to get away to some safer place, no matter what it took.
I need to relax. This is ridiculous. I’m an old man now. He’s an even older man. And I can still run, even if I’m not as fast as I was when…
Shor’s beard. I need to relax.
Soon enough, they happened upon something that distracted him. A hundred paces or so ahead of them, there was something on the side of the road that did not look right to Brynjolf – or, apparently, to Qaralana, who grabbed his arm.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“I don’t know, lass. Stay back a bit and I’ll go look.”
Brynjolf crept forward, keeping low, until the object came into clearer focus. It was a cart – or what had once been a cart. One wheel was off, or at very least broken. There didn’t seem to be any activity around it, at least from where he stood, but he smelled death as clearly as if he’d been standing next to it. There was something about that scent that had stayed just as clear to him as it had been when he was one of the undead himself.
He heard a faint cry, shaky and pleading.
“Hello?”
Brynjolf hurried to the downed carriage with Qara on his heels. They reached the man, only to find a grisly scene. Emptied chests and a second broken cart lay in ruins as though they’d been simply thrown aside like garbage. At least half a dozen men and women lay dead in puddles of blood. The man who had called to them wore what looked to Brynjolf like a guard’s uniform. He was propped up against the cart’s remaining intact wheel but was hunched over, his expression pinched and desperate.
“H-hey! You!” the man called out weakly, his words gurgling in his throat.“P-please help me.”
This one’s not long for the world unless we do.
“Thank the Nine someone finally came by,” the guard mumbled. “I’ve been out here for days.”
“What happened?” Brynjolf asked.
“I was on my patrol when I heard screaming down the road. I rushed over only to find a caravan under assault by bandits.”
Brynjolf heard Qara tsk, somewhere behind him. “More of Yngvarr’s thugs, I’ll bet,” she grumbled.
“I tried to help,” the man continued, “but there were too many. I’m afraid I was wounded during the fight. Took a hefty blow to the stomach. The bandit must have thought he killed me because he moved on. I just pretended that I was dead.”
“That was a good choice, lad. It probably saved your life.” Brynjolf began rustling through his things, looking for a healing potion amongst the other flasks and ingredients he’d brought along.
The man nodded. “After the fight ended, while they were looting the carts, I overheard them talking. The leader of the group was a – a dangerous marauder we’ve been trying to catch for months now. His name is Jarrik. They call him Jarrik the Crusher. If you’re on your way to find him, well – be careful. He and his gang are a dangerous bunch.”
“So are we,” Qara hissed.
“They’re holed up in Mammoth Cave, far to the northeast.”
“Do you know where it is, lass?” Brynjolf asked quietly. “I’m afraid I don’t remember well enough.”
“I think so, Daddy. We can certainly find it.”
“If… you have any potions you could spare I’d be thankful,” the guard asked, almost wheezing.
“Of course,” Brynjolf said “That’s what I was looking for just now. Take it.”
“And I have more if that’s not enough,” Qara added.
The man shakily lifted the flask to his lips and downed its contents. Only a moment or two later he sighed, and his features relaxed. “Ahh, that’s much better,” he said quietly. His breathing slowed and deepened, and color began to return to his face. “Thank you kindly.”
He looked around at the bodies strewn around the carts and sighed. “Now please, leave me to bury the dead and pay my respects.”
“Are you sure, lad?” Brynjolf asked. “Because we could help, easily enough.”
“And you’re just barely recovered,” Qara added.
The man shook his head. “No, I’m fine now, thanks to you. I need to do this. I hope you’ll understand.”
Brynjolf nodded, and walked solemnly back to where Qara stood. “So let me guess. You think we should go get this man.”
Qara’s eyes flashed. “Of course! I can’t just let someone like that live after what he did here! Besides, if we don’t take care of him he might try to pick up where some of Yngvarr’s lieutenants left off. I can’t have that. Jarl Agnar can’t have it. There were too many people lost.”
She looked as serious as he’d ever seen her. It was impossible not to give her a grim smile in return. “Lead on, then. Let’s take care of this problem.”
They needed to backtrack all the way to the crossing and then take the road that curled gracefully around the base of Borvald’s mesa. Brynjolf kept pausing to stare up at the place; even from here at the base of the plateau he could see signs of the conflict Qara had described. There were stones missing from the wall here and there, as well as scorched treetops visible behind it – all pointing to the power of the fires and the huge explosion that Qara had barely escaped.
The road branched again on the far side of Borvald. The sign at the crossroads there pointed toward Fort Urokk in one direction, and an arrow marked “Mammoth Keep” had fallen to the ground.
“Do you know which way this used to point, lass?”
Qara shook her head. “No, I’m not. But I have gone down the eastern road here, to Fort Urokk. I don’t remember seeing any other big buildings on the way. I think we need to cross the river again to find Mammoth Keep.”
“Aye. Let’s go.”
Across the bridge the road headed directly north. Not far up it, though, a smaller dirt path branched off toward the northeast. Qara stopped and looked around, carefully studying the horizon.
“Ok. I know where the main road leads, up to the north. My guess is that the keep we’re looking for is down this dirt path. See how close we are to the mountains on this side? Staalgarde – or what’s left of it – is up in the mountains that way. So are Fort Urokk and the fane where Yngvarr died. This is where all the keeps seem to be in or next to the mountains. I say it has to be there.”
“Good thinking. Let’s go.”
The path’s well-trodden width was a sign of many people passing along it, regularly and recently. It rose gradually as they neared the base of the mountains. Eventually they reached a place where the thick forest opened out to a clearing with signs of fairly recent logging. A few moments later, Brynjolf spotted the top of an old tower tucked in against the foothills. If he turned his head and focused he could barely make out the faint sounds of water and the creaking of wood. People were ahead. He dropped into a crouch and continued forward as quietly as he could.
This keep was just across a short bridge over a wide stream that flowed down from the mountains and disappeared into the rocks beyond the keep. The mill just in front of the stone buildings wasn’t being used at that moment, but the water wheel turned. The rhythmic thumping from just beyond the bridge said that someone was chopping up firewood. Brynjolf turned and signaled to Qara that she should wait, and then slunk up behind the greasy-haired man in dirty leathers and took him down with a sneak attack. The man didn’t even have time to cry out.
Vitus would have been proud of that one.
There was a metal gate barring entry to the keep’s courtyard, but the inset door was unlocked. They pushed it open and moved through it, expecting resistance but finding none. It wasn’t a great surprise given the increasing darkness of the sky at this hour. They were probably having the evening meal. Movement caught Brynjolf’s attention, though, at the far end of the courtyard near a forge. He peered into the murk and finally saw the outlines of an Argonian standing before the smelter. He didn’t want to alert the lizard, so he pulled out his bow.
The first shot went wide. He heard the Argonian say “Huh? What was that noise?” just before the second, perfectly-placed arrow caught it in the heart.
“Good shot, Daddy,” Qara said, coming up behind him. “You’re almost as good as Chip!”
He chuckled. “We can thank Niruin,” he said. He hadn’t trained with the Guild’s master archer for some time, but both he and Chip had had years of instruction, and it often made the difference between success and failure. Qara had taken some training with him, too, the results of which she demonstrated a moment later when a voice behind and above them called out “Aha! Found you!” She swiveled left, located her target, and brought him down all in one smooth motion.
“I’m not as good as Chip,” she said, “but I have gotten a lot of practice recently. I’ll have to get Chip to tell you about the huge cavern we went through. There was plenty of practice there.”
Beside them on the right, stairs led up to another open area just inside the curtain walls. From here Brynjolf had a better sense of the layout of the keep’s four towers. A barred cage door without a lock to pick blocked the tower to their right, but they thoroughly explored the other three, all of which were largely empty. The bandit in the lookout atop the tallest tower met the same fate as the wood-chopper below. The remaining two towers were empty save for one thing: a trap door set into the floor of one.
“The Crusher must be inside,” Qara whispered. “Let’s go.”
Brynjolf nodded, slowly and carefully pulled the trap door open, and dropped down into the keep proper. It was as he had expected – round rooms connected by narrow stairwells and corridors – and from here their sole option was to descend. As he reached the lowest level he began to hear the bandits moving about, and once again missed the superior hearing he’d had for a time. Without it he had to get far too close to the bandits to hear what they were saying, which sometimes yielded valuable information.
The nearest man, though, had no pearls of wisdom to share. “Damn. I’ve got a rock in my boot,” he grumbled an instant before Brynjolf took him down in another well-executed dagger attack.
There were two ways forward, one behind a gate; that was the direction Qara pointed to and he nodded, creeping forward to open the inset door. The lass has good instincts, he thought as he swung it open. Anything valuable will be behind lock and key, and that includes the boss.
Why am I not under lock and key, then? Maybe I have no value anymore.
This didn’t look much like a place holding wealth, though. Beyond the gate and at the foot of some steps the floors were packed dirt and the walls partially collapsed. There were sturdy beams holding the ceiling in place, though, and Brynjolf wondered whether they had inadvertently tunneled into an old mineshaft and simply left it connected to the keep. It didn’t matter, though. There was a woman leaning up against one of those beams, lazily guarding a doorway. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she neither heard nor saw the father and daughter approaching with death in their grips.
They descended once more, this time down a rough slope that made it clear they were in a mine – an iron mine, it turned out, as the veins and chunks of ore in the area revealed. There were a few people here, either actively picking at the rock or leaning up against the walls. Brynjolf and Qara took a few minutes to make certain none of these people would sound the alert ever again and made their way back into the keep proper, back to the first room they’d entered.
The other exit from that room led to what he’d been expecting to see: a large central space, towering up several stories and full of alcoves, rubble, and furnishings. Here the bandits had set up their base, with bookshelves, tables, and crafting stations along the walls. A man bent over the enchanting table, so engrossed in what he was doing that he never knew Brynjolf was behind him – and never knew anything else afterward.
Qara, however, had several decades less experience in moving silently. When one of her soft-soled boots scuffed the floor, a voice from above called out “Helloooo?” Brynjolf whirled, looking for the source of the voice, scanning the balconies overlooking the space. He saw nothing there, and was beginning to get a bit nervous about their position out in the open when a large man with a battleaxe strapped to his back sauntered out from another room.
There was no time to hide, or to formulate some clever attack; Brynjolf just rolled forward and came up to a standing position with his sword burying itself in the man’s chest. As he pulled the sword free and Qara knelt to examine the body, another voice from above them had Brynjolf swiveling again, looking for any further movement.
“Daddy!” Qara hissed. “This is him! Jarrik the Crusher! There’s this note on him… and a key. We should probably find what it opens.”
“Aye,” Brynjolf whispered. “Right after we clear this place out.” He mounted the nearest stairs to find that what he’d assumed was a full balcony was, in fact, just a large open space leading to a dead-end. He had just started back toward the stairs when he heard two things.
“Well, well! What do we have here?” That was a man.
“ZUN- HAAL VIIK!”
Brynjolf heard the words without understanding their meanings, somehow surrounded by and comprised of a sharp, metallic clank. That was Qara – and he watched in awe as the sword the man had been holding flew across the room and landed next to the body of Jarrik the Crusher.
He didn’t have time to stop and ponder the situation, though. It seemed that Qara had managed to draw all of the drowsy bandits from the rest of the keep. They kept coming; just when he thought they might have gotten the upper hand more people emerged from the shadows. The next few minutes – or maybe it was a lifetime, he wasn’t sure – were full of blades, and flames, and arrows fired from above that exploded when they struck the floor or him. And one of those explosions struck him full-on.
For a moment, stunned and gasping, Brynjolf thought he was done. At least I won’t have to face Brunulvr. I wonder if I’ll see Dynny or Vitus in the Evergloam. He began healing himself feverishly, running up the stairs toward the dead-end that would provide at least a moment of cover, to hang on, to make sure Qara survived. The problem, as it turned out, was that one of the bandits was up there already, and two others were hot on his heels. He managed to cast one more round of healing and then his reflexes kicked in; he whirled to face the two bandits that had followed him and darted between them, leaping down from the balcony to the floor below. That afforded him another chance to heal up.
He knew Qaralana was still alive, for he heard bandits taunting and insulting her. He was concerned, though, because he could neither see nor hear her. Then another blast of sound accompanied by the same piercing clank he’d heard earlier reminded him that she was, after all, Dragonborn and was well able to defend herself. And just as well, at that, for the three bandits behind him were catching up. This time he stood his ground and laid into them, one by one, with his blade and his knife. He might well be nothing more than an old thief but he’d seen plenty of combat over a long lifetime and knew how to dance around uncontrolled two-handed attacks and unpracticed single-blade attempts. Before long, the three were down and, to his relief, there were no more explosive arrows in or near him.
He ran across the room and into one of the corridors, to find Qara facing down three foes: two humans and a Khajiit. She was casting flames at them and the part of him that still shrank from fire, even after all these years, had him hesitating for just a fraction of a moment. Then the nearest enemy wound up into a huge swing that would at the very least fracture bones if it landed, and his other instincts – those of a father – took over. He threw himself forward, blades at the ready, and shouldered the man out of the way just enough that the weapon narrowly missed Qara and flew out of his hands. The force of the blow ended with his arms on Brynjolf’s pauldron. It still hurt, it still forced the air from his lungs for a moment, but Brynjolf was able to use the man’s disrupted balance to his advantage and rammed his sword up under the bandit’s ribs. As Qara finished the bandit closest to her, he stepped over the corpse at his feet and slashed at the one remaining man, with the little stamina he had left. It took him several tries before the man finally staggered to his knees, to meet Qara’s finishing blow.
They moved silently, back into the main keep, eyes and ears on alert for more enemies. But it seemed that they’d ended the last of them. Brynjolf sighed and rose from his crouch, turning to face Qaralana.
“Well done, lass,” he said. There wasn’t anything more he could add. It had been a remarkable thing, to him, seeing his daughter mow down her enemies, seemingly unflappable and definitely more powerful than he was himself. “Apparently being Dragonborn really has its uses.”
Qara nodded solemnly. “It does. And I was glad to have the chance to use it. I don’t want to lose my Daddy. Nobody should lose their father.”
Brynjolf sighed. I guess there’s no getting around it, is there.
“I think we need to find what this key opens, though,” Qara continued. “Maybe this note will help. And then we’ll want to get to Amber Creek and let them know that this group has been taken care of.”
“Aye. Lead on, lass.”