Chapter Eight - Bleak Falls Barrow - 18th of Last Seed 4E 201 - Umbra
The wooden staircase finished into the room where large cobwebs would have normally occupied most of the walls and ceilings, and instead were now lacking in those. The braziers inside the room were lit and burning, the table was set with moth-eaten linen as if to prepare a feast, and the two Draugrs that occupied the room were unarmed, and largely busy with their tasks.
I rushed forward, swinging my mace as quickly as possible against the one giving me his back, smashing his head against the table with a sickening crunch. The second received an arrow swiftly nocked and loosened onto his bare chest, making him jerk back, but without much of a noticeable effect, since the creature didn't seem capable of bleeding. I slammed my mace into his midriff, forcing him down before lifting my mace back up to slam him on the ground with the second blow.
They were zombies. Smashing their heads was a good way of dealing with them, while arrows didn't seem to do much more than hold them back.
"These two weren't armed," Berry whispered as she neared, "I guess it's typical of the Imperials to excel in taking down unarmed foes."
I exhaled, "Perhaps so," I acquiesced. "Though I wonder what that makes you if I managed to beat you."
"I was annoyed by your incessant chattering," Berry retorted, "But we can have a rematch once we leave this place, it's giving me the chills."
The nearby shelf was empty of anything of worth, and the stairs that led down were lacking in webs too. The Draugr were efficient cleaners, I would give them that much, and as the corridor opened up to the left into a wide open hallway, they were also quite hefty in numbers.
I held back my voice as I backpedaled behind the corner, nearly hitting onto Berry whose eyes widened at my sudden retreat. With my back against the wall, she furrowed her brows and then peeked past, before hastily retreating. "There are dozens of them," she mouthed.
I nodded, glancing once more into the wide hallway that ended into a circular and large room. Weaponless Draugr were cleaning the walls with dirty pieces of linen, and even though something had nothing to use but the palms of their hands, they still religiously cleaned those spots without a second thought. Some were cleaning the floors, and in the large room I could swear there was some chanting going on.
Between the giant spider and a dozen of Draugr, I admittedly didn't know which was the best option. "In times like this," I muttered, "The better part of valor is using our brains."
Berry looked at me as if I had an answer to our current conundrum. "They didn't check for noises," I whispered, "I guess being undead and all dulled their senses," I gestured at her to take a few steps back along the corridor, and I did the same before nearing my mace to the side of the wall. "Ready?" I whispered.
"No!" Berry hissed out, "That's foolish!" she looked around, before coming to a halt by the side of a large brazier, "Let's go get all the linen we can find instead," she continued. "I have a better idea." She patted her pure spirit potion, and I grinned.
I understood. I understood, and I approved. The linens we gathered from the previous rooms and shelves formed a neat bundle, which she wet with her alcoholic potion before plastering the ground around the corner with the strips of it. Meanwhile, I kept watch on the Draugr. They didn't move. It was like they didn't care that they were polishing the same stone for hours, because to them, hours meant nothing.
"Trap set," Berry murmured as I glanced down to witness the results. A sticky field of wet, inflammable linens stood ready to burn. "Be the bait now," she continued as she neared a brazier by the stairs, bringing one of her arrows to start burning over it.
I slammed my mace against the side of the wall, "Stendarr protects!" I roared as the Draugr that had been meticulously polishing the walls suddenly looked up to gaze at me, "Dir Volaan!" one of them yelled, and as they began to rush forward like a wave of undead might, I found my feet most valiantly jumping in the middle of the death field, and then with a second jump clear it as behind me the horde rushed ahead. As their feet were tangled in the oily substance, the burning arrow let loose from Berry's bow impacted and ignited with blinding speed the entire thing, crafting an inferno that burned brighter than what I believed could be possible.
The patch of fire didn't, however, stop the dead from still rushing forward even as the flames devoured their legs, making some lose their balances and fall down on the ground, where the flames hungrily ate at their dried skin. They had the flammability of parchment after all, and so they burned, they burned, and yet some moved past the wall of fire.
I slammed my mace against the face of a burning Draugr, sending him to tumble back as my shield hastily blocked the claws of a second one, the third receiving the pommel of my mace in the side of the face from my right. I jumped back, the claws and fingers doing their hardest to hold me down and yet failing, because they had no feet to hold on to, and so they tumbled and fell, my mace coming in a wide swing to open a path in front of me.
My breathing was short, and my arms bruised and covered in angry red lines by the time the last of the Draugr fell and stopped moving, which was different from simply falling down because even when down, they'd still try to near to chew on my boots. Thankfully the leather kept the chewing to a mere bother rather than an actual threat for my calves, but seriously, these things weren't willing to surrender until a mace met the back of their heads. It took dedication.
"We make a good team, don't we?" I huffed out as I wiped my forehead with my leather bracer.
"In murdering unarmed corpses? Sure we do, crybaby, sure we do," Berry replied as she wrinkled her nose in disgust, glancing at the burning corpses. The flames died off enough to let us through a couple of minutes later, enough to catch my breath and pass through with a sure gait. This was the biggest hurdle, wasn't it? There wasn't going to be anything else as dangerous. Sure, there was no Arvel the Swift at the end of the large hall, but that was mainly because there were no cobwebs, and the giant spider's carcass was nowhere to be found.
The large hall had more than one corridor, and while Berry went towards one that I knew nothing of, I headed to the one that more resembled the game's own. I peeked around the corner, before hissing towards Berry to catch her attention. She gestured at me in turn, pointing at the corridor I had no knowledge of, while I shook my head and pointed at the one I was by the side of.
"This way there are voices!" she mouthed.
"Draugr!" I quipped back, "This way's safe."
She huffed, and then quickly moved towards me. "If they come back and close us off, we're not going to make it out in one piece."
"There's another exit to this place," I retorted. "There's always another exit to a Draugr temple, one that either leads back to the entrance or that leads outside. It's a safety tunnel to allow for the priests to escape while letting the invaders fight their way into the center of the complex, before coming down on them on both sides in the middle and killing them off," I swallowed, "Also, this leads deeper into the complex. If there are any intruders, they'll have been brought in front of the dragon priest."
"If you say so," Berry muttered, "Did you learn that in a fancy imperial academy?"
"No," I replied. "I...I just know. It's complicated. When we find my siblings, if you're still curious, you can ask them."
I began to trudge along the corridor, my eyes adjusting to the light as the braziers lit the next room as if it were midday, candles spread out across uneven stone tables upon which I saw embalming tools, linens and ceremonial urns...as well as the bandits' missing corpses. I turned my sight sharply away from the gory scene, while Berry instead neared with a quick step to her pace. "No, no, no," she cried out. "Harknir, Bjorn—" she moved her fingers towards the shoulders of a tough looking man, "Soling," the dunmer nearby received the same treatment, "Arvel," she turned to look at me, but I wasn't looking at her directly. I was concerned with the doors on the other side of the room, where armored Draugrs had arrived attracted by the noise.
They growled as their eyes shone with the bright blue light typical of their kind. "Bolog Aaz, Mal Lir!" the first of them gnarled, a mighty war ax in both of his hands. The second had a sword, but no shield.
"Fus! Ro! Dah!" I howled back right at them. That actually worked. It didn't work in the sense that I achieved the Thu'um, but it worked in the sense that the Draugr recognized those words, and knew what they meant, and so the two paused and braced themselves for impact, as if expecting an attack that didn't come. I took that as the cue to charge forward and slam my mace home into the knee on the warhammer wielding Draugr, sending the bone to shatter from impact and the creature to lose its balance. There hadn't been fear at the Thu'um, but simple preparation to withstand an attack.
So when that attack hadn't come, I had caught the first one by surprise. I spun as I screamed, the mace spinning as it hit the side of the face of the falling Draugr, whose head neatly sailed off in an arc.
"The Emperor protects!" I roared, "Tiber Septim, witness me!" the still standing Draugr rushed forward, but this time, while I wasn't ready for him, Berry most certainly was. An arrow hit him in the shoulder, and as he lost the balance for his charge, I bent my knees and shoved my shoulder and shield arm forward to bash the weapon arm. The blade sparked against the shield as I pushed it away, my mace arm coming downwards from behind my head to strike at the open chest, slamming home and shattering the breastplate as the Draugr fell on his back, my arm trembling from the momentum of the blow. I slammed my mace down on the Draugr's head again, smashing it to a pulp as I shakily gasped for air.
Berry was short on her breath too, her arms trembling only slightly before she quickly recovered, shaking her head. "Well," she said bitterly, "I'm done with this place."
"Those were all of your friends?" I asked as I tried to calm my erratically beating heart, my back against the wall as I kept looking at the corridors still ahead of us, the wideness and the depths of it making me shiver as I recalled that what came next were the catacombs, and those would have way more Draugrs than what the game definitely had showed. Also, there would be traps, deadly traps.
"I didn't have friends, only colleagues," Berry said. "A good bandit is a living bandit. If a bandit's dead, then he wasn't a good bandit," she said, as if quoting someone. "Don't trust your fellow as far as you can knife him, sleep with an eye open...and if you're bleeding to death and slowing the rest down, you'll be left behind."
"Kind of sad," I answered.
"It's life out here," Berry said, "And if you're bleeding, you'll attract wolves if you're lucky, or snow cats if you aren't. If a bear's taken offense and is mauling you...you're dead meat," she huffed, "That's life out here in the Nord. That's us, it's something you Imperials can't understand."
"Yeah, it's not like we faced a Daedric invasion," I replied sarcastically, "Imperials have survived, and conquered. Though the Empire has fallen on hard times, it can still rise again, and when it does, it shall have no rivals for another thousand years," I sighed, "Wasn't Tiber Septim known as Ysmir too? The dragon of the North? The Empire is a birth of the Nord, so I don't understand why you'd have to be so against being ruled by it."
"It's not the Empire the problem, it's the elves. The elves and their hatred of Talos, Skyrim's son," Berry snapped angrily. "All because of that...I lost everything!"
"And the best bet to face them off would be to rebuild faster than the Elves, to stand more united, stronger together, and then push the Thalmor back where they belong," I quipped, "But instead of doing that, instead of standing united in the time of need, brother turned against brother, family were split and friends separated, all because for the country renowned for its voice, rather than talk the Nords chose to pick up the sword," I exhaled. "We can speak about politics later though," I swallowed. "I haven't found my siblings yet, so maybe they were dragged deeper into the Barrows."
"Good luck with that," Berry said as she turned to leave, "Wind guide you, but I won't be risking my life for nothing."
"Kynareth be with you," I answered in turn to her retreating back, swallowing grimly. The chances of finding both Dragnor and Rae alive were now slim to none, but as I slowly began to walk my way through the long and empty corridor that lead further deep into the Barrows, I really didn't see another option. My stomach growled from hunger, but I bit my lips and soldiered on. I could deal with hunger once I was out of this situation.
I also needed to take a leak, but there was no way I was going to do that while descending into the barrows of a Gods-Forsaken temple.
"Stendarr, Kynareth, Akatosh, Talos and whoever else there is," I whispered, "Though I am definitely an unworthy son, I beg your aid in my hour of need. Let the dead rest and the passage be swift and sure," I slowly crept forth, the long holes dug in the stone walls that would have held the Draugrs were empty, not a single one of them holding within an enemy. Wherever they had gone, whatever they were doing, I just didn't want for them to find me.
I crouched behind a stone column, peeking past to the large hall that contained countless Draugrs. These ones weren't asleep, but they were busy praying. The weaponless Draugr bent low and raised their voices to the sleeping Draugrs that instead had armor or blades, the servants willingly waking up their masters rather than letting them sleep forever. I stared as the countless slaves sang, until a few began to fall down unconscious, perhaps truly dead. In that moment, the armed Draugr awoke and slowly moved out from his sleeping spot.
This made an awful amount of sense. The weaker Draugrs all over Skyrim awoke first, and then sacrificed themselves to awaken the stronger ones. If this kept up then, of course, the Death Lords would be the final step. How far deeper, and how more tortuous was the path down? How many halls contained Draugrs of unquestionable might still sleeping off in wait for the return of their slaves to awaken them?
It didn't matter, because past the assembly I saw what I needed. The threatening looking grate meant to be a trap was there, but while I couldn't see the stone that activated it, I was relatively sure that it was found in the middle of the path, and not on the sides of it. On the other side, there was a side passage just by the right of it that I could squeeze through. I kept low as I took a deep breath, and then rushed silently past the Draugr the moment I saw the armed one bellow as he directed his servants to another resting Draugr.
I got past it, thankfully into rooms where no Draugr had yet to be awakened.
Unfortunately, my greatest enemy had yet to materialize itself.
The trap of the swinging blades.
This wasn't going to be easy, was it?