Chapter Text
Much to Bishop’s relief, Laina woke up before dawn and kindled the campfire to life with a lick of magic. He sliced off chunks of venison and offered one to her with a bit of mead to wash it all down by way of a quick breakfast that was quickly devoured. Her robes were a bit scorched but still wearable and her wrists, ears and neck shone with silver that glimmered with enchantments. Maybe that was how she’d survived Helgen. That or she was a powerful mage with the silver amulet of an Evoker around her neck.
After eating, they banked the fire once more, collected the necessities and crept up to the back entrance of Embershard Mine with as much stealth as they could manage. Bishop relied on his skill while Laina cast a spell that muffled the sounds of her movements, though she was naturally light on her feet, and they achieved entrance easily. Avoiding the traps at the back was child’s play and they reached the main cavern, where Rigel’s people were making weapons from the iron gleaned from the cave. It was surprising that the Jarl hadn’t claimed the mine for himself as a money-earner because iron was the third most popular metal in Skyrim. But then, Siddgeir was an idiot and Dengeir was senile.
Laina held up her two fingers for his attention before nodding at the archer that prowled the bridge across the cave. “If I can hit her with an Illusion spell, she’ll attack the other two for us,” she murmured into his ear. “That should even up the odds.”
“Do it,” he mouthed back to her and she nodded.
Whatever spell it was, it was a nasty one, a scarlet spark that struck cleanly and had the archer shooting first the lightly-armoured brigand closest to her and then the orichalcum-clad Orc who led the warband. By the time that they realised someone else had cast the spell, the former was dead and the latter storming up towards the back entrance with an arrow in his shoulder. Laina cast a spell that sheathed him in ice and then followed it up with an ice crystal that exploded, leaving his head in red ruin. He fell over with a clatter and the archer shook off whatever spell had been cast. Too late because Bishop shot her in the back with one of his precious steel arrows, killing her instantly.
“Nice work,” he complimented. “I think there’s another six or seven of them to go.”
They ignored all potential loot for now, quickly making their way to the next cave in the complex where a snoring bandit sat on a chair by the barred room that contained their treasure. Bishop shot her in the throat as Karnwyr, trapped in the room, began to whimper happily at seeing his master. There was no key but Laina quickly used her magic to unlock it, releasing the wolf.
“Ah, there you are, you mutt!” Bishop said as he endured the wolf’s happy romping for a moment. “The hell were you thinking, getting trapped and making me track you all the way to this godforsaken place!”
Karnwyr licked his hand, tail wagging.
“There, there. What do you say we go play a little game for old times’ sake?” Bishop asked grimly. “I'll shoot an arrow into one of these bandit bastards’ knees and you can go rip his face off?”
Karnwyr barked happily.
“Let's make these sons of bitches pay!”
And pay they did. The two who came to investigate the barking fell to arrows and a nasty ice spear that Laina called and then after she’d lowered the bridge, two more came running up to die in similar fashion. Rigel ought to be embarrassed her people were so incompetent. But when they reached the front door to the mine, there were no more bandits but for the guard, who died trying to flee with an arrow in his back. Just like that, Karnwyr was rescued and the bastards were dead.
“Well, that’s done,” Bishop said in satisfaction as he slung his bow across his back. “Now for the looting. Never turn down the opportunity to plunder a bandit camp, ladyship. You’ll make a decent amount of coin that way.”
“This isn’t my first Arena match, hunter,” Laina said amusedly.
“Ranger,” he corrected. “I’m a ranger.”
“There’s a difference?” she asked – curiously, not condescendingly.
“Yeah,” he told her as he knelt down to rifle through the bandit’s pockets. “Hunters are amateurs who poach from the Jarl. Rangers are paid by the nobles to do things for them.”
“I see.” She folded her arms. “Well, I’m claiming anything magical by default. Will do me more good than you. And I decide what happens to the corpses.”
Bishop raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve got no problem with that, ladyship, but I thought the Synod frowned upon Conjuration?”
“It does,” she confirmed. “But Alteration is still allowed. And I have a spell that turns this sort of trash into something useful. Waste not, want not as they say in Cyrodiil.”
This was news to Bishop. “What do you mean by ‘useful’?” he asked curiously, finding a few coins and a bone amulet of Kyne.
“I accelerate the natural rate of decay and use their bodies as fertiliser for useful plant reagents,” Laina said with a grin.
“Huh?” Bishop asked. He hated it when mages used long words.
Laina’s eyes rolled upwards. “I turn their corpses into alchemical plants and harvest them for potions.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place, ladyship?” Bishop took the iron dagger as well but left the rotting club there. Selling glorified sticks wasn’t worth it in his eyes.
“I just did.” She held out her hand and a green spark flew like a bird to settle on the dead Nord. Within moments, a tangle of thistles grew there, only the glint of iron betraying that it had been a corpse. “Wood, leather, flesh and bone are consumed by this spell but not metal.”
“Handy.” Bishop rose to his feet, dusting off his breeches. “We’ve got a few more to go.”
Inside the mine, Laina harvested every mushroom and moss patch she could find, transforming the dead bandits into more of the same while he pocketed enough coin and trinkets to make it worth his while. They took all the loose ore and treasures, food and other supplies from the mine, and Laina proved delightfully pragmatic about such things. It was about noon by the time they returned to the camp, Karnwyr ecstatic to be outside again. Bishop could hardly blame the wolf.
After clearing up the camp, they went to the smithy and general store of Riverwood, selling everything they could in return for coin and potions. Laina took the herbs she’d collected to the Sleeping Giant, where she turned them into cheap potions that Orgnar bartered for cheese, hardtack, pickled vegetables and salt. She was as shrewd a haggler as she was skilled a mage; generous too, sharing half the share from her labours with him out of fairness. Bishop had to admit she was proving to be a decent partner so far.
It won’t last long, his brain reminded him. She’ll leave just like everyone else.
At his advice, they left Riverwood for the tundra midafternoon, walking along the road that followed the river towards the crossroads where two major routes met. Bishop got their destination – Mzulft – out of her and a little of what happened at Helgen. Bastard thing could have waited ten minutes for Ulfric to be dead though. Inconsiderate of him, really.
They pitched another camp on the other side of the White River Gorge away from Whiterun and all its farms. Hajvarr’s men at White River Watch took one look at them, realised that Bishop and Karnwyr were there, and decided to choose life by leaving them alone. Laina kindled another fire and they ate what was salvaged from the bandits’ supplies, leaving themselves warm, happy and fed. Neither of them talked, which he appreciated, and soon they were asleep under the stars.
A dragon swooped over them in the early hours of the morning, the wind of its wings wakening them with a cold blast, and it flew across to the watchtower to breathe fire on it. Laina’s curses were long, alliterative and descriptive of the dragon’s ancestry, probable descendants, sexual habits, personal hygiene and dietary preferences. If it wasn’t so dire, Bishop would have been impressed with her command of language.
“So… keep going or get involved?” he asked when she’d stopped cursing.
“I think the Synod will want information on the bloody things, so we better intervene,” she said with a sigh. “Hopefully it’s a lot easier to kill than the black one at Helgen.”
Black one? sh*t. Bishop had grown up with stories about Alduin World-Eater because Torban liked to scare the crap out of his family. But he wasn’t going to tell Laina that right now. “Well, failing that, it’ll be so busy with Balgruuf’s soldiers that we can run away,” he pointed out as they grabbed their things and slung them across their backs. No need to tempt Hajvarr’s men after all.
Laina gestured, glowing a faint green, and then she cast a similar spell on him. “Longstride,” she said succinctly. “It will help us move faster.”
“Next time, ask,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Sorry. I did it automatically. I’ll ask next time.” She began to run with a preternatural grace that could only come from the spell and after a moment, Bishop followed her. Hopefully this dragon would be easier to kill than legend stated they were.
Within a dozen yards of the dragon as it blasted the western watchtower, Laina gestured again with both hands, sheathing herself in the crystalline glow of a Flesh spell and producing an ethereal staff from nothingness that swirled with frost, fire and shock. The sole remaining guard huddled inside the tower as the dragon circled, taunting him, and Bishop was beginning to wish that they’d just minded their own business. But Laina pointed her staff at the dragon and blasted it with a mixture of frost, fire and lightning. Magic danced across the bronze-green skin, earning a mocking laugh from the dragon.
Bishop quickly realised that the fire-breathing dragons were vulnerable to frost because one of his precious frost arrows left a nasty wound in its side but the agility of a Khajiit acrobat was required to dodge its attacks. Laina lashed out with her magical staff as much as she could, relying on the Flesh spell to keep her alive even as she left marks on every strike that had the dragon roaring in pain. And she was just an Evoker? The Synod Masters had to be veritable arcane juggernauts.
More guards, led by Irileth, joined them and the dragon turned to strafe them with fire – much to its woe when the womer retaliated with Sparks. “Lightning spells!” she yelled to Laina. “Shouting’s a kind of magic!”
“Of course.” Laina dropped her staff, the spell-wrought weapon fading away, and produced a stream of lightning that peppered the dragon’s flanks like starbursts of power. She then worked her way behind the dragon and threw a shard of ice that gouged out a wound in the dragon’s right back leg. It roared, losing its momentum in the air, and careened into the tower to fall to the ground.
That, then, was the end because it couldn’t get up to lift off because of the leg wound. Like ducks nibbling a crocodile, the defenders of Whiterun bludgeoned, stabbed, slashed, blasted and shot the dragon to death until it cried, “Dovahkiin? Niid!” and breathed its last. The total casualties, not counting the three dead from the watchtower, were two.
“Well, that’s that,” Irileth said happily as she sheathed her blue-flamed khopesh. “Someone make sure this overgrown lizard is dead.”
“I’ll do it,” Laina volunteered. “The Synod will be very interested in the physiology of a hitherto believed mythical creature.”
She walked over to examine it but all the flesh burned away, becoming streamers of power that wreathed her in ethereal fires. Staggering, she absorbed it all until there was nothing but bones left.
“By the gods,” one of the guards said. “She’s Dragonborn.”
“Dragonborn?” Laina asked in dismay. “Oh, f*ck.”
And then she collapsed.
