XVI - Alduin's Wall

They left the following morning, quietly slipping out of Riften before the sun rose. Merill lagged behind Silronwe and Nalimir, listening as their chatter filled the dark air around them. She pulled her fur hood low over her face, her breath floating in clouds from chapped lips as they moved steadily northward. She kept quiet, Nalimir’s words still ringing harshly in her ears. Not everybody’s out to get you.

Nalimir, Vex, Brynjolf, she thought sourly. Wonder who I can piss off next.

Silronwe and Nalimir talked a great deal their whole trek east, and Merill let them. Since the fire five years ago, she had lost her willingness for idle conversation, and her stomach squirmed as they neared the Reach, memories of her panicked flight from Falkreath with blood in her eyes racing back.

It was a strange landscape, almost alien from the rest of Skyrim, with paths cut into narrow stone valleys and gnarled, pink-leafed trees perched precariously atop rocky peaks. Years ago, Merill had found some small sense of safety climbing in the jagged hills, concealed – if only slightly – from the pursuers that she was sure had followed. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest as the three traversed the road toward the city – she felt too exposed, wide out in the open for anyone to see. She imagined Thalmor lurking in the twisting branches overhead, waiting to ambush them with stones and knives. The scar over her dead eye ached.

She was beginning to wonder if Delphine had given them wrong directions when she heard the familiar screech of a dragon overhead. Insanely, some small part of her relaxed. A dragon. I can handle a dragon.

“Across the river,” she called, and Nalimir and Silronwe turned, as if startled to hear her speak. Merill whipped her bow from her back and jerked an arrow from her quiver, using it to point southward, toward a stone bridge that crossed the river. The Forsworn camp was up ahead, and sure enough, a dragon had swooped down just over it, Shouting flame down on its inhabitants. “Go on!” she shouted, taking aim, and Nalimir and Silronwe sprinted across the bridge to help while Merill let her arrow fly. She had aimed just right – the arrow struck the tender flesh around the beast’s eye and it let out an earth-shattering roar, turning its blazing eyes on her.

Merill rolled to the side as the dragon dove toward her and it crashed into the ground, sliding in a spray of dirt and rock until it hit the base of a mountain, making the ground shake. Merill guessed the Forsworn had peppered the monster’s wings with enough arrows to make it lose its balance before she’d gotten there.

“About time you showed up!” someone shouted, and Merill turned to see Delphine and Esbern jogging toward her, a Flame Atronach drifting behind.

“I see you’ve been keeping busy,” Merill called in reply, nocking another arrow and letting it fly as the dragon regained its footing and turned its great head toward her with a mighty roar. The dragon darted forward, quicker than Merill would have imagined possible for such an enormous beast, and Merill let a shout build inside her until it shot forth and propelled itself from her lips.

“FUS RO DAH!”

The dragon stumbled backward, surprised, and Merill took the opportunity to end it with one more well-placed arrow. She wiped blood from her lip as the dragon’s scale and flesh began to melt away, and she felt the familiar rush of energy as the dragon’s life force funneled into her. When she turned away from the dragon’s skeleton, the Forsworn had gathered by the ridge, disbelief in their eyes.

Silronwe and Nalimir hung to one side, and Merill felt a little stab of pride at the wonder in their eyes. She supposed Silronwe was smart enough to have figured out Merill’s identity as the Dragonborn and Nalimir already knew, but she imagined it was different to see it firsthand.

“Not going to try to kill us then?” Delphine murmured under her breath as one of the Breton barbarians came forward.

“You’re Dragonborn?” he asked, his eyes wide beneath a helmet fashioned from a troll skull and decorated in fading red feathers. His knuckles where white on the handle of his spear.

“Aye.”

“We need to get to the Temple inside Karthspire,” Esbern interjected, and the Forsworn looked to him. “Can you help us?” The Breton nodded, pointing up the hill with his spear.

“The Temple is just inside the cavern. I’ll lead you there myself. But it has been sealed for many years.”

“We just need to get there,” Delphine said shortly. “Come on.” As the Forsworn moved forward to examine the steaming dragon skeleton, Merill followed Esbern and Delphine up the rocky path inlaid with wooden stairs to the cave that overlooked the camp. Silronwe and Nalimir fell into step behind her.

“It’s been here all this time,” Silronwe was saying in a hushed tone. “And we never knew. Incredible.”

“Hold up,” Delphine barked suddenly, as if just noticing Silronwe. She turned to face them, glaring down at the three of them. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked Silronwe shortly.

“Just curious,” Silronwe replied simply, and Delphine’s eyes narrowed.

“An Altmer following the Dragonborn around? You think I’m stupid?”

“She’s not Thalmor, Delphine,” Merill interjected, and all three turned to look at her in surprise. She could feel Nalimir’s eyes on the back of her head. “She can come.” Delphine looked as if she wanted to protest, but said no more, turning and hurrying up the trail after Esbern and the Forsworn tribesman. Merill refused to look back at Silronwe. She was no nearer to trusting the Altmer, but if it was between letting her into an empty old tomb and losing Nalimir, she’d take her chances.

“Why do you seek to enter the Temple?” the spearman was asking as they ducked into a cave and started along a narrow path lit with oil torches.

“You don’t need to know,” Delphine said tersely, and Esbern shot her a look. “Damn thing melted half my blade.”

“I hate those beasts,” Merill muttered in agreement, remembering the way their eyes seemed to burn when they looked at her.

“The Temple’s through there,” the spearman said then, pointing through a mossy, low-ceilinged passage. “But there’s no way in.”

“Thank you,” Esbern said, leading the way through the passage, almost at a run. The rest of them followed, and they came out into a narrow passage that stood open to the sky, sunlight funneling in. The Temple face rose up at the end of the chamber, cracked and covered in moss and vines, and a broken set of stairs led up to the side of the cavern.

“Look at this!” Esbern exclaimed as Silronwe suppressed a noise of wonder. The ground was spongy, coated in plantlife, and Esbern’s voice echoed on the high, pillared walls. “Incredible!”

“That’s Akaviri stonework,” Silronwe said suddenly, moving past Merill to stare at the crumbling pillars that flanked the temple’s face. Esbern appeared impressed.

“And, ah, where did you come from?”

“Merill was kind enough to invite me along,” Silronwe told them, casting Merill a smile, and she forced herself to return it, if only halfheartedly.

“It – ah – looks easy enough to climb,” Merill said then, her eyes following the path she would take up the mossy walls – over the sconces and onto the next landing, then up one of the broken pillars, over to the next one, and a final well-placed jump onto the side of the Temple.

“There’s a bridge, see?” Delphine offered, pointing. Just opposite the landing was a long platform that looked like it was meant to descend. “We just have to get it down.”

“See these pillars?” Esbern said, pointing to the three small carved structures on the landing. “These are Akaviri symbols.” He knelt before the pillars, running his hands along them. “Let’s see…you have the symbol for ‘king’…and ‘warrior’…and of course the symbol for ‘Dragonborn.’”

“That’s the late-century symbol, isn’t it?” Silronwe asked curiously, kneeling beside Esbern. “See the scriptwork?”

“I have my own symbol?” Merill said lightly, leaning against a wall as Esbern touched the middle pillar, carved with something that almost looked like a horned heart with an arrow through the center, pointing south.

Moving to the left, he braced his weight against the pillar and turned it with a heavy grating sound until the Dragonborn symbol faced out on two of the three pillars.

“And the last one,” he said, and Merill turned it. The moment she did, the bridge was released and it slammed down on the landing, sending dust showering down from the cavern’s partially-opened roof.

“Let’s see what those old Blades left in our way,” Delphine said, lighting her torch on one of the landing’s sconces before leading the way across the bridge. They made their way through a narrow passage hung with spiderwebs that circled up around the Temple, then finally to a set of stairs that led directly into it. They came out into a wide cavern that stood mostly empty. The back wall was dark with carvings and vines that had nestled into them, and at the back, a great stone face protruded from the stonework.

“Wonderful! Remarkably well-preserved!” Esbern exclaimed, hurrying past her, his voice rising high in the chamber. Merill followed him, staring up at the carvings. “And here’s the blood-seal,” Esbern continued, stopping in front of a round platform on the ground before the stone head. “No doubt triggered by…well, blood.” He turned to look at her as Delphine lit the sconces around the room. Light flared across Esbern’s face. “Your blood, Merill.” He moved on to study the pillars around the room, running his hands along the carvings and talking loudly of Akaviri worship with Silronwe as Merill looked down at the seal.

“I guess the secret’s out, isn’t it?” she muttered to Nalimir, pulling off her glove and watching Silronwe with narrowed eyes. He offered her a hint of a smile.

“I know it’s not easy, Mer,” he told her gently. “But I really think she’s a good one. I think she can help us. I just have this feeling.”

“I know,” Merill replied softly, although she didn’t. She drew the Dwemer dagger she’d stolen off Gulum-Ei from her belt, flexing her hand in the dim light. It looked pale and small, freckled along the back and crisscrossed with scars, the pads of her fingers heavy with calluses. Nalimir stepped back as she pressed the dagger against the palm of her hand, its bite cold against her skin. Merill bit her lip against the sting and knelt, smearing her bleeding hand into the seal. At once, a soft light surrounded her, funneling out from her bloody handprint, and the great stone head swung inward, revealing a door.

“That’s the entrance,” Delphine said in a hushed tone. Merill stood, pulling her glove back on. “You should have the honour of being the first to set foot in Sky Haven Temple,” Delphine told Merill. Merill took the torch Delphine offered her and stepped forward, passing beneath the great stone head to a narrow stairway that curved up to a door carved with the Dragonborn symbol. Merill pushed open the stone doors, and the sight that met her eyes took her breath away.

The Temple was an enormous, high-ceilinged room, every inch of wall space covered in carvings. A long stone table stretched across the centre. The room, despite its size, felt very empty, strangely lifeless, as if there was something great that was missing from it.

“There it is,” Esbern said behind her, holding out his hand for the torch. She passed it to him, and he went up a wide set of stairs to where one wall stood lower than the rest. Merill followed Esbern up the stairs to Alduin’s wall, the enormous carving that stretched up so high that the top was in shadow and ran the entire length of the wall. She ran her fingers along the stonework. It should have been cold, like the rest of the stone in this temple, but the carvings on the wall were strangely hot, as if a fire had burned against them. Esbern lit a sconce on the left end of the wall, and spiky shadows began to dance across the pictures. “Isn’t it amazing?” he breathed, passing her and going to the centre of the wall, where a great dragon curled down onto a robed man that held his arms outstretched to it. Behind them, the others had fanned out around the chamber, Silronwe remarking to the others about the incredible preservation of the stonework.

“Is this Alduin?” Merill asked, staring up at the sharp-edged carving of the great dragon that glared down at her, its eyes dancing in the firelight.

“Yes, his defeat is the centerpiece,” Esbern said, holding the torch up the wall. “Here he is falling from the sky. The Nord Tongues – masters of the Voice – are arrayed against him.” He gestured to the robed man and two others that stood beside him, their worn faces staring up at the defeated dragon.

“Does it show how they defeated him?” Delphine asked, joining them at the wall. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“The Akaviri were not a straightforward people,” Esbern said doggedly. “Everything is couched in allegory and mythic symbolism. This here,” he said, touching the curving lines that radiated from the Nord Tongues. “This is the Akaviri symbol for ‘Shout.’ But…there is no way to know what Shout is meant.”

“They used a Shout to defeat Alduin?” Merill asked skeptically.

“Oh, yes,” Esbern murmured, rubbing his beard. “Presumably something rather specific to dragons, or even Alduin himself. This is where they recorded all they knew of Alduin and his return.”

“So we’re looking for a Shout,” Silronwe remarked as she and Nalimir appeared behind them at the wall.

“Damn it.” Delphine snarled. She turned to Merill. “You ever heard of this? A Shout that can knock a dragon out of the sky?”

“No,” she replied slowly, “but I’d bet my bow that the Greybeards have.”

“You’re probably right,” Delphine murmured, lowering her torch into a sconce. “I was hoping to avoid involving them in this, but it seem like we don’t have a choice.”

“What have you got against them?” Merill asked, and Delphine’s face soured.

“If it were up to them, you’d do nothing but sit in their Temple and meditate all day. They’re so afraid of power that they won’t use it!” She crossed to the other side of the wall, running her hands through her hair. “Look at the Civil War. Are they doing anything to stop it?”

“The War’s got nothing to do with them,” Merill replied coldly.

“It’s tearing Skyrim apart and they have the power to help, but they won’t,” she snapped. “It doesn’t matter now. You just see what they can tell you about this Shout. Esbern and I will look around Sky Haven Temple and see what else the Blades might have left for us.”