Chapter 9

It was late afternoon when we reached Ivarstead again. I saw Klimmek fishing by the river. “Your delivery has been made.”

“Quite a climb, isn’t it? Thanks again for the legwork.” He tossed a bag of coin my way, and went back to fishing.

“Let us get something to eat at the inn again, and rest a bit. I’m still a bit upset with Arngeir, I am not his lackey to go hither and yon at his beck and call.”

Lydia responded, “So what do you think, My Thane?”

“Back in town again, yes, you’re correct to use my title. Anyway, I’m thinking I have a claw and a barrow right over there that we can explore first.”

She smiled. “Whatever you desire, my Thane.”

“That could get us in trouble, my dear. Let’s eat first, if nothing else.” I smiled as well.

We entered Wilhelm’s inn again. The bard was playing her lute. Without disturbing her, we purchased some food and mead from Wilhelm, then sat and ate. I felt the tension seep from me as the peacefulness and warmth of the fire took the chill from my bones. It seemed the next thing I knew was Wilhelm, shaking me. “Your pardon, milady, but it’s not seemly for one such as you to sleep out here. I will allow you and your companion to have the room you shared for free for the night, as a favor from me for taking care of Wyndelius.”

I helped Lydia into the room so we could get comfortable. We took our armor off and slipped some regular clothes on. “Wow, apparently that took more out of us than I thought. Let’s get our armor and weapons ready for tomorrow, and then get some sleep.” And we did.

The next morning we quickly broke our fast, and then headed back to the depths of Shroud Hearth Barrow. At the puzzle door, I pulled the claw out and examined it. Turning the stones to match – Moth, Owl, Wolf – I put the claw into the spot needed. The door descended into the floor, and we entered the hidden depths that had driven Wyndelius mad with desire.

The passageway turned, and a room lay ahead of us. Several coffins were on the floor, and I pointed those out to Lydia as potentially containing draugr. I decided to try something, since with five of them at once, that could cause an issue. I had noticed before that they didn’t seem to return to their undead life unless something triggered them. So I simply stood to one side, with my sword ready, and shouted at a coffin with Unrelenting Force.

That did the trick, and the draugr inside started to push the lid off to the side. Before it could even sit up, I hacked it back down. “That’s the trick, my Thane!” I felt my power restored, and shouted at a coffin next to her. That draugr started to rise, and she cut it down. We started to move closer to the coffins on the other side of the room, and suddenly they opened. Rushing towards them, Lydia and I each killed one. In the back of the room, a coffin standing upright fell open, and another draugr, differently equipped, stepped out. Lydia charged towards it, screaming her battle cry, “For Whiterun!” She hit the draugr, but instead of swinging back at her, it began spraying her with frost from a magic spell. She staggered back, and I again shouted, this time at this restless draugr. My shout picked the draugr up and flung it back into the wall, killing it.

I ran to Lydia, but she brushed me off. “I am fine, my Thane. It takes more than a little cold to hurt a Nord.” At the end of this room, a doorway led to a spiral staircase going up. We climbed the stairs and found a doorway. I carefully pushed it open. I could see a couple of trip plates on the floor, and from around a curve in the passageway ahead, I could also hear the noise of bone rubbing on bone, signifying only one thing. An undead skeleton warrior was ahead.

I still ended up setting off the first trap, but since I wasn’t rushing, the darts that sprung from the walls wasted themselves on the opposite wall. I crept forward, and saw the skeleton warrior simply standing guard in the hallway as he’d no doubt been doing for many years, if not decades. As I began to ready my weapon, my foot touched the pressure plate on the floor. From the ceiling to the side, a battering ram came swinging down – and smashed into the skeleton, bashing him to bits. I couldn’t help myself, I actually giggled at the humor of the situation.

I opened the doorway the skeleton had so diligently guarded, and a larger room opened before me. Two upright coffins were along the wall to the left, with a central room open and below us. I crept closer to the opening, and saw several skeleton warriors standing guard in the center of the room. Hanging from the ceiling over their heads was an oil lamp, and I quickly fired an arrow that knocked it down. It hit the floor in the midst of the skeletons. The oil trap they had been standing in exploded, scattering bones everywhere.

Beside one of the coffins was a lever that I triggered. The door to the coffin fell down, a draugr stepping out. Lydia and I both swung at nearly the same time, cutting him down. I saw another lever by a third coffin lid and triggered that one. When that lid fell down, it went into a room with some small treasure inside.

We took the stairs down to the lower level, then climbed the stairs leading up on the other side. As we did, two more sarcophagi opened up. Lydia charged one, I the other. It only took a couple of swings to cut these draugr down. I opened the doorway that was just passed them. A small flight of steps led up, with a draugr waiting for us at the top of those steps. I moved towards him to swing, but didn’t realize I’d hit a tripwire. From the walls, swinging blades came down, and sliced the draugr to bits.

“Well, if I’d know the Barrow was going to kill off it’s own defenders, I wouldn’t have waited so long, eh, my dear?”

I rushed through the blades and pulled the chain, stopping them. Turning, I saw several draugr along the walls, as I had in Bleak Falls Barrow. I said to Lydia, “Watch this.” I did the same as I’d done there, shooting the draugr with arrows before they could come back to life and attack.

“Is that fair combat, my Thane?”

“They’re using magic to return to life to attack us. I see no reason not to use any advantage we have against them.”

I pointed out a pressure plate on the floor to Lydia, so that we both avoided it. A long hallway had two more draugr resting along the walls. Two more arrows ensured they would remain resting there. The doorway beyond them was locked, and I quickly searched the two corpses. One of them had a key on him, which opened the door. Beyond it lay a narrow rushing stream with a bridge over it, with a small waterfall at the other end of the room. A set of stairs led up one side.

We climbed the stairs, where I saw several movable columns, like I’d seen before. I didn’t see any kind of key symbols, though. Hmm, there was a pressure plate on the floor, and a door behind it. We went through the door and quickly killed a draugr that was waiting on the other side. This room also has a pressure plate in it and what looked like four rotating doors. I wonder ... I stepped on the pressure plate, which then caused the doors in this room to begin to spin. I watched as they opened at different times, and then closed again. The symbols for the other room are here, whale, eagle, snake, and whale.

I had Lydia turn two while I turned the other two, and then I stepped on the outer pressure plate. I heard something release, a bridge dropping down across the upper level. In the far distance, I could barely make out a draugr standing guard. But if I can see him, I can try to shoot him – and I did. It fell, and there must have been another trap, because I saw rocks fall from overhead.

We crept passed another swinging door trap. Another doorway off the hallway was locked. That was a tougher one, I broke several picks before finally getting it open. I looked in, but the only thing I saw worthwhile in the room was a gold ingot. I grabbed it from the pedestal it was sitting on, and once again the training I received from the best thief in Cyrodiil came into play. Never, never, EVER, stand in front of something when you’re suspicious. So the flames that shot out from the wall behind the ingot wasted themselves on nothing.

At the end of this hallway, there was another room with carvings on the wall. These were easier to see for some reason. Priests off to either side, as in the curved rooms with the puzzle doors. But I could see the priest in the middle is wearing a mask that resembled the face of a dragon. Things began to make sense now. These tombs were sacred places to these dragon priests. At the bottom of some steps, another set of doors awaited us.

We went through the doors and descended some steps. Through an archway, I saw a room full of sarcophagi. “Let’s see if we can whittle them down a bit from here, shall we?” I used Unrelenting Force, causing the four coffins in the middle to spring open, with skeletons arising from them. Skeletons still ‘die’ again when shot with arrows. Lydia stood guard in front of me, as I worked my way around the room, shouting at the tombs, then killing their occupants with arrows when they come forth to do battle.

The slain undead littered the floor as we finally entered the room, and I heard more lids spring forth from coffins in the very rear of the room. They looked about in confusion, their glowing eyes seeking their enemies. Neither of them realized where Lydia and I were, and they fell back in their coffins with one of my arrows in each of them. As I had suspected, when these last ones died, the center coffin lid was flung to the side. This draugr was more fierce than the others, and I assumed that he was similar to the last one I’d slain in Bleak Falls Barrow. Since he also didn’t see Lydia and I hiding in the shadows, instead of a harried chase around the room, two arrows into his chest destroyed the magic that had returned him to life.

I gathered up what of my arrows I could, then Lydia and I looted the corpses. The last one had a nice magical axe. A narrow corridor behind his tomb led around a corner and up a hill. As I climbed the hill, I could see the ceiling in the room ahead of us. There were many small protrusions coming from it – dart or spear traps. We entered the room, and saw a chest sitting under the traps. It was actually fairly easy to disarm the trap on the chest, and we quickly pulled the useful things from it. I saw a curved horn helmet inside as well.

“Lydia, my sweet, I think this is for you. As much as I love seeing your hair blow in the breeze, I think that perhaps you should have a helm of some kind. And even better, it still lets me see your eyes and your lips are easily accessible should I have need of them.” She laughed at me, but still put the helmet on.

Ahead of us, I saw another wall like in Bleak Falls Barrow, one that I now knew was a Dragon Word wall. I could see the word of power glowing, beckoning me. I approached it, the energy of the word streaming towards me. ‘KAAN’ ... Kyne, or Kynareth, her peace unto her kingdom. I tried to use the word and realized that even though I knew the Word of Power, I had nothing to help me with it. I would need another dragon soul before I could use this.

A door off to the side of the chamber led to another, empty room. A chain hung on the wall, and I pulled it. It opened a small door that led into a tunnel. The dark tunnel wound it’s way through the rocks – this was something that had barely been carved from the stone, I suspected simply as something for an emergency in the past, a priests bolt hole. Debris littered the floor, broken pots, a damaged war hammer. The passageway seemed to end in a blank wall, and Lydia pointed out the chain, hidden in the shadows.

I pulled it and the rock doorway sank into the floor. We went through, and I laughed at the irony. This door opened into the room that Wyndelius had been using as his base for exploring the ruins. He had been so close to a treasure unimaginable to himself, and yet so far. With nothing further to find, we followed the path and stairway out of this barrow.

It was early evening. “As much as I want to get to Ustengrav, I think we need to stop at Breezehome first. I stored many ingredients for potions there, and just in case we run into more trolls or other, more dangerous beasts – and we’re now likely to see dragons at times, I fear – we’ll need more healing potions,” I said.

“I suspect you are correct, my Thane. Wait, what is that ahead?”

In front of the inn was something we hadn’t seen there before, a horse and wagon. We walked up to the driver. “Need a ride?”, he asked.

“Certainly, I would like to hire your carriage. When did you get to town?”

“Word has spread that the town is no longer haunted, so those of us who regularly haul freight and passengers have added it back to our route.”

“I seek passage to Whiterun.”

“I can take you to Riften, Windhelm, or Falkreath, and you may be able to take passage from there. We drivers have arrangements for our routes to pass undisturbed, and I don’t have the Whiterun ... er, run.”

“Very well. Thank you for your time, then.” We turned from him, and I started walking up the road. “Well, my dear, are you feeling up to a bit of an evening stroll?”

“I will do whatever I can, my Thane.”

“Then let us be off. We know the way now, and other than sneaking by that one bandit tower, we should make good time.” At a fast stroll, not quite a run, we took off down the road.

Alternating between a fast walk and a run, and aided by a nearly full moon, we had an uneventful trip back to Whiterun. It was past the middle of the night and thus early in the morning on Turdas, the 26th of Last Seed, when we arrived at Breezehome. We hadn’t spoken much on this trip, with most of our breath needed for running. I pulled my helm off and set it on the table. Sweat from the run made my hair damp.