Chapter 39

The cave was almost totally dark, only a few glowing tube worms visible in the distance. The passageway was narrow, forcing us to go single file. It opened into a large chamber with narrow ledges circling the edge, descending rapidly. A structure of some kind filled the middle of the chamber. Because it was so dark in here, even darker than in the other cave system, I had Lydia and Jordris break out torches. Annekke stayed ready with her bow, Argis was ready with sword and shield, while I had sword and a spell, detect life, ready. Serana was our rear guard and ready with combat spells as need be.

We’d descend a little, I’d pause, cast detect life, and we’d continue. I saw a couple of Falmer hives along the wall, but they were empty. We continued creeping down through this dark and mysterious chamber. I stopped quickly. My detect life spell had noticed a Falmer ascending from below. I hissed, “Here comes one, get ready.”

Annekke ambushed him with an arrow when he was just around the curve of the chamber from her, and as he recoiled in pain from the arrow in the shoulder, Argis had an opportunity to slice him open from gullet to gut. We continued down the spiral rock path, finding an odd and completely inoffensive creature off in a side room. I took a couple of pieces of chitin from it for smithing experiments, and left it alone in the dark. Further down things finally leveled off.

I could hear in the distance the chattering sound made by the chaurus, so I knew some of them were ahead. As we assumed our regular battle formation, Serana quietly warned that there were a couple of Falmer and at least two of the large insects ahead of us. We readied things, and I cast magelight so that it would give us more light to see than just torches. The sounds of bows releasing their arrows came from behind me as the spell went down the hall in front of us and my companions could see their targets. The two Falmer died immediately, as did one of the chaurus. Ice spikes started flying from Serana into the other. It spit its acid poison back at us, but missed. Another flight of arrows took care of that.

We continued exploring but there was nothing else in the cave. “Okay, it’s getting late. There’s enough room here, and it’s in out of the wind, so let’s get bedrolls spread out and sleep. Regular watches tonight.” The next morning we ate and left the cave.

We continued upstream, finding some chaurus hunter cocoons. I decided to try something, using only part of the Unrelenting Force shout, from a distance. That would cause them to pop open, and if there was a hunter in the cocoon, it was disoriented. That would last long enough for it to die from arrow poisoning. We did that several times, which made it quite easy to continue on. As we proceeded closer to what were obviously some Falmer bridges, a heavy snow and fierce wind started to fall.

“My Thane, this is a serious storm coming in. We need to find shelter and wait it out.”

The temperature was dropping quickly, and under normal conditions she would have been right. Instead, I smiled at her as the snow was quickly sticking to her helm. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Lydia. Remember going up High Hrothgar?” With that, I looked into the sky and Shouted, “LOK VAH KOOR!” In seconds, the Clear Skies Shout cleared the storm and it was a regular bright and sunny day.

“I ... didn’t know it would do that, Martina.”

“It comes in handy at times. I wouldn’t want to use it to often, as we need snow and rain for the farmers. But in here? The only things here that aren’t enemies to us are each other and the ghosts at the wayshrines. The last thing I want to do is get trapped in this valley by a heavy snowfall, especially since we’re getting into winter.”

In the distance I could see where the stream flowed out of a cliff face ahead. To our left, a stone ramp led upwards. “Well, this looks like the way to go, back up the cliff sides and crisscrossing it on those bridges. Let’s be careful, I know we’ve killed a few of the Falmer patrolling up there from a distance already, but we don’t know how many more of them there are.”

We followed the pathway up. There were a couple more Falmer that we saw at a distance and then killed. I didn’t particularly like the height of these bridges, although they seemed relatively sturdy. The ledges and bridges wound their way back towards the opening, near the frozen lake as they climbed higher and higher. A Falmer gate that blocked our path seemed to lead to a cavern entrance. I opened the gate and started through, looking for the path beyond.

From behind me, I heard Lydia yell, “Look out!”

I dove forward into a front roll. The frost giant that I hadn’t seen swung his club over me. If I’d still been standing there, he would have taken my head off. My three housecarls immediately leapt into action, drawing the giant from me with their sword blows. Annekke started shooting arrows into him as well, while Serana shot ice spikes at him. I instantly realized that this would be a difficult combat if it proceeded normally. While my companions were able to confuse the giant for now, at some point he’d get lucky and hit someone, probably fatally.

I reached down and pulled a poison from my pouch and slapped it on the arrow I still had ready, then stabbed the giant with the arrow rather than wasting time shooting it. The paralyzing poison worked instantly, and the health damaging effects killed the giant even as it fell to the ground. “Sorry about that, are all of you okay?”

“That was too close for comfort, but other than a scrape on my shield, I think we’re okay. And ... thank you for this armor, my old steel would have been crushed from that blow. As it was, I barely felt the glancing blow from the club. Don’t get me wrong, it still stings a little, but...”

“You’re welcome, Jordris. You ... all of you ... are precious to me.” I sighed. “And apparently I fucked up. I thought this would lead us back to the top, but instead this dead ends here.”

“Hey, if it was easy, Auriel’s Bow would have been found millennia ago, right? None of us are dead, or really even hurt at all. Let’s just keep going, even if we have to backtrack.”

It was hard to argue with her. We ended up getting back to where the stream came from the cliff face by early afternoon. “Just in case anyone cares, I’m not going to enjoy this. You Nords and your cold climates. I think I prefer warm beaches.”

“You don’t like us, my Thane?” Lydia asked. “Aren’t we your warm bitches?”

She easily blocked the snowball I threw at her.

We had to walk into the freezing cold water to follow the ice cave pathway into the mountain. Once we made it through the waist deep water, things got better. We were on a ledge that had an assortment of ice floes pushed up against it. I could see a frost troll in the distance, which I killed with an arrow.

“Okay, I have no desire to walk through a frozen cave dripping water, having it freeze on my smalls. In fact, it’s damned uncomfortable right now. Half on watch, let’s get dried off as quickly as possible.” Serana and I both used fire spells so that we could dry our leg armor and boots off. While the first group was getting redressed, Lydia and Jordris shot a Falmer that started coming closer. We switched out drying off, but had no further incidents with Falmer.

“Okay, let’s just keep going up. I’d rather not spend the night in here if possible.” One good thing was that this crevasse was lit from above. We wound around, continued to climb for hours, killing Falmer as we came across them. It was just starting to get dark when we found the exit.

Ahead of us I could see a Falmer village. To our left was a slope upwards, with an alarm rope running across it. Two Falmer were visible beyond that, and I quickly killed both of them. A small Falmer gate was at the end of the path they were walking on. Guessing what was behind that gate, I opened it carefully from concealment. In the far distance, I could see another frost giant. The others also saw it, and we filled it full of arrows from a safe distance. “We know the Falmer aren’t going to come in here of their own free will, so ... let’s grab a quick bite to eat and get some sleep, so we can take the Falmer town out in the light.”

Serana came to my bedroll. “My dear, I hate to bother you, but...”

“You’re hungry. I understand. Go ahead.”

She fed from me. “Can ... can I do something for you in return?”

“It’s a bit chilly out here for some lessons on Dibella love, don’t you think?” She looked disappointed. “But ... there’s plenty of room in here to practice kissing, if you’d like.”

We both slipped from our armor, and she was quickly in the bedroll with me and in my arms. We started kissing, rubbing our hands over each other, allowing our hands to roam to our private spots. I slipped a finger inside her and found her to be warm and moist inside. Her eyes opened wide in realization that she was that excited, and her body was allowing her to show it. We also found a release in each others arms in that night, then fell asleep while intertwined.

I woke up just before our shift on guard would start. Serana was peacefully sleeping, and I could see small clouds of steam coming from her as she breathed in and out. Lydia was crouched beside us, and whispered to me, “That’s something I don’t think I really thought I would see. She really is becoming alive again, isn’t she?” I carefully moved an arm out, grabbing a small ball of snow. I moved it down into the bedroll, then placed it in the small of her back.

“What the ... hey, that’s cold, what are you doing?” Serana looked irritated at being woken that way.

“Proving a point. You noticed that it was cold. I’ve been laying here watching you breathe for several minutes. Breathe in and out like this.” I demonstrated for her, blowing a small cloud of steam out as I took in a deep breath, held it for a minute, then let it out into the cold air. She did so, then stopped in amazement. She did it again.

“By the Nine! I still have fangs, but...”

“But you’re nearly human again. The power of Dibella and what it’s doing for you is removing the problem you had with Molag Bal.”

We got dressed and stood our watch. Serana was experimenting with feeling cold, as well as making steaming breath like a child would who’s never been in the snow before. I let her play with her new abilities since it was harmless fun for her.

The next morning we went through the Falmer town fairly quickly and easily. It definitely was easier in the daylight, being able to see the Falmer from a distance and taking away their advantage in the dark of being blind. At the end of the town we found another small cave passageway that led upwards again. Killing a few Falmer in there and avoiding a tripwire led to an opening with several elaborate Falmer structures. In the midst of those buildings stood the final wayshrine.

I filled the ewer, then looked behind myself. A bridge of ancient construction was visible. Across the bridge was a huge building. This had to be the Chantry. A large statue of Auri-El was in front of the sweeping staircases that led to the entrance. The protective coverings over the openings on the ground floor were the same as the Falmer still use in their gates and buildings.

A large basin was at the top of the staircases. I dumped the water from the wayshrines into the basin. It flowed out a hole in the bottom, and then down some channels that were cut into the walkway, finally ending up in a small pool in front of the door. The magic in the door was still working, as a green crystal high above the entry sent a beam of light down into the pool, which then caused the sun carving on the doorway to spin, and the door was unlocked.

We entered the main room. It was filled with frozen Falmer and chaurus. Some of these frozen statues seemed to be holding things, swords, potions. I ignored all of them and kept going through this room, opening a door that looked like a bigger version of a Falmer gate. This wound around through the interior. We passed additional frozen statues. Deep inside the building, we found a spot where the ice had cracked from some upheaval, and had to jump down to proceed.

At the end of the ice hall, I could see another room filled with frozen Falmer and chaurus statues, then at the far of the hall, a throne with a man sitting in it. We pulled our weapons and prepared for a battle of some kind. I started walking down the center of the room towards the throne. As I got closer, the man on the throne spoke. His voice was gravelly and coarse, as if he hadn’t used it much over the years.

“Did you really come here expecting to claim Auriel’s Bow? You’ve done exactly as I predicted and brought your fetching companion to me.”

Serana said, “Wait, is he talking about me?”

“Which, I’m sorry to say, means your usefulness is at an end.” With that, he made a gesture and some of the frozen statues started moving to attack. There were many of them, easily three times our number. It was touch and go for a moment, with the chaurus still able to spit their acid poison and having their pincers. We took several bruises and some minor burns from the acid, but between the six of us, we quickly defeated all of them.

Vyrthur then spoke again. “An impressive display, but a wasted effort. You delay nothing but your own deaths!” With that, he started using his power to pull down parts of the ceiling. “Finish them!” More frozen Falmer came to life to attack us.

We were busy dodging the falling ceiling so these Falmer took a bit longer, but the results were the same. Jordris was shaking her arm where a chunk of roof had hit it, and she drank a potion to set the broken bone.

“This has gone on long enough!” Vyrthur then summoned a frost atronach releasing the rest of the frozen Falmer to attack as well.

Serana yelled, “Your life will end here, Vyrthur!”

As he watched us battle his minions, he replied, “Child, my life ended long before you were born!” But he realized that it wasn’t going his way, as we quickly killed the rest of the attackers. “No! I won’t let you ruin centuries of preparations!” With that, he used his magic to pull down the rest of the ceiling in this room. I started to dodge and then felt a blow on the back of my head, and things went dark.