The Demands of the Divines Chapter 2 in The Demands of the Divines

Nearly a month prior to Fakhriya’s reunion with Mikael in Whiterun, she and Jenassa had been traveling north with Delphine, the proprietor of the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it before nightfall,” Delphine said as the party approached the point where the Yorgrim River met the White River, “but I would rather press on to Kynesgrove than spend the night in Windhelm.”

Although both women were cold and tired, Fakhriya and Jenassa gave their agreement.

During the last days of Morning Star was not the best time to travel near Windhelm, even with the benefit of the midday sun. But as the sun set behind the women, cold winds whipped down from the summits to the north and snow blew so wildly, it was hard to tell whether the flakes in the air were new snowfall or had been blown from the high banks already on the ground.

The winds subsided and there were fewer clouds in the sky as the women passed to the south of Eastmarch’s capital and then turned south again on the other side of the White River. The stars and the two moons were bright in the sky almost as soon as dusk gave way to night. The road south was on a steep ascent that was made even more treacherous as the day’s melted snow refroze into puddles of ice.

The hamlet of Kynesgrove was nestled on the leeward side of an arm of the Velothi Mountains some distance north of Eastmarch’s expanse of hot springs. The narrow forest road that led up to the town was nearly free of ice, which made the climb much more manageable. The mood of the party lightened as the women discussed their plans for hot food and a warm bed once they reached their destination.

It had been a difficult and lengthy journey, but Delphine had insisted that they reach Kynesgrove as quickly as possible.

Delphine was not simply an innkeeper. She was one of the few surviving members of an order called the Blades. The Blades had been accomplished dragonslayers long before the rise of the Reman Dynasty of the Second Era. Once the Order learned that the Divine Akatosh, the Dragon God of Time, had granted a human the ability to consume the souls of fallen dragons to protect humankind from the end of the world at the hands of Akatosh’s first born, the Blades committed themselves to the reverence and protection of the recipients of Akatosh’s gift, the Dragonborn. The power to consume dragon souls was contained in the Amulet of Kings, which was entrusted to the Emperors of first the Reman and then the Septim Dynasties.

At the close of the Third Era Mehrunes Dagon, the daedric prince of destruction, opened several gateways between the spiritual realm of the daedric princes and the mundane realm of mortals in what came to be called the Oblivion Crisis. After failing to relight the Dragonfire that maintained the barrier between the daedric and mundane realms, Martin, the last of the Septim Dragonborn Emperors, destroyed the Amulet of Kings so that he could take the dragon form of Akatosh in order to force Mehrunes Dagon back into Oblivion and reseal the barrier.

After the destruction of the Amulet of Kings, there were no Dragonborn for nearly two hundred years. The Oblivion Crisis had been a staggering blow to the entire continent of Tamriel. In the chaotic aftermath a minority faction of militant Altmer, the Thalmor, gained an upper hand in Summerset Isle, which was renamed Alinor. From that base the Thalmor asserted themselves throughout the continent. The Thalmor recognized Akatosh’s gift to humankind as the biggest threat to their goal to secure the dominance of elves over humans and sought to destroy the Blades to prevent the return of a human Dragonborn.

In 4E 171 the Thalmor were powerful enough to bring an ultimatum to Emperor Titus Mede II which was designed to crush the Blades once and for all. The Great War began when the Emperor refused the Thalmor demands. Thalmor forces brought the Empire to its knees, but they were not powerful enough to overrun the combined forces of Cyrodiil, the seat of the Empire, and the loyal provinces, which included Skyrim. After five years of brutal fighting, Titus II sued for peace and agreed to the terms laid out by the Thalmor, which included the disbanding of the Blades and the outlaw of Talos worship. Talos was the birth name of the mortal Tiber Septim, a Nord who unified Tamriel under the banner of Cyrodiil and established the Septim Dynasty in the Third Era. As Talos, he was worshipped as the Ninth Divine.

Delphine had escaped from Cyrodiil at the start of the Great War and had been in hiding in Skyrim ever since. She had expected that she and any other surviving Blades would be tasked with defeating the dragon that attacked Helgen in 4E 201, but that changed when she learned there might be a Dragonborn.

Certain that the Greybeards in High Hrothgar, who taught the meditative discipline, the Way of the Voice, would summon the Dragonborn to retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, Delphine found the object herself and left in its place a message for the Dragonborn to come to the inn in Riverwood. Delphine had previously come in possession of a Dragonstone that mapped the burial sites of dragons throughout Skyrim and believed she had discovered a pattern in the order of their resurrection. Delphine hoped that if she could reach a site with the supposed Dragonborn as the dragon buried there was being resurrected, she could determine if the rumors were true.

Fakhriya came to the inn with the message in her hand and asserted that she was the Dragonborn. Delphine intended to find out in Kynesgrove.

Any thoughts that the women had about rest or sustenance were dashed when they were confronted by villagers raising an alarm and running for their lives down the mountain road.

“There’s a dragon up there! Run! Run! There’s a dragon!”

Delphine and Jenassa unsheathed their weapons and ran up the road. Fakhriya took a moment to cast a spell on herself and removed an ebony bow from her back before she followed.

The road flattened in the middle of the village and circled around the inn that dominated the center of the town. Fakhriya lost sight of her friends and her sense of direction. She looked to the sky and saw the dragon circling overhead. A Stormcloak with his sword drawn ran past her on the road and ran up a path in the direction of the dragon. Fakhriya followed him.

The path led up a small hill behind the inn. When Fakhriya reached the top she saw the dragon hovering in the air above a stone mound. Its black wings made a terrifying sound as they flapped against the canopy of stars. She saw Jenassa and a couple of Stormcloak archers shooting arrows at the dragon, but the dragon seemed unfazed. Fakhriya sought cover in a copse of trees. In the confusion she could not find Delphine.

The dragon was Alduin, the dragon that had attacked Helgen. The first born and the destructive aspect of Akatosh. The World Eater.

Alduin shrieked. The stone mound exploded and sent debris – some pieces as large as boulders – in all directions. The animated skeleton of the dragon Sahloknir emerged from the pit inside the mound. A vortex of visible energy swirled around Sahloknir. The air seemed both to burn and to substantiate as it drew closer to Sahloknir’s bones and the dragon’s flesh was reconstructed seemingly piece by piece. When the physical restoration was complete, the empty pits of Sahloknir’s eye sockets seemed to light from within. Alduin spoke to Sahloknir in the dragon tongue and the newly resurrected dragon responded in kind.

Alduin then turned in Fakhriya’s direction and spoke to her in the dragon language. She understood only the word “Dovahkiin,” the dragon term for Dragonborn. To be addressed that way made her blood run cold.

“You do not even know our tongue, do you?” Alduin mocked. “Such arrogance, to dare take for yourself the name of Dovah.”

Dismissing the Dragonborn, Alduin turned to speak again to Sahloknir and then disappeared into the night. Sahloknir took to the air.

Sahloknir circled the burial mound and set a stream of fire onto the soldiers on the ground. The skrieks of the burning people were deafening. The dragon assumed a hovering position above the injured defenders of Kynesgrove. Fakhriya took the opportunity to fire several arrows into the dragon.

The hovering dragon turned to face Fakhriya and sucked in air.

“Wuld nah!” Fakhriya cried before the dragon could send a stream of flames in her direction. In the dragon’s tongue the words meant “whirlwind fury”. The force of the words propelled Fakhriya forward at a speed unmatched by any creature on Nirn. The energy of the words dissipated and Fakhirya turned around to find herself behind the dragon. She fired one more arrow into the creature’s hide before she ran under her human strength to an outcropping of rocks.

The effects of the spell she had cast on herself earlier had dissipated as well. The spell provided the protection of armor. Without its effects, the mage robes she wore offered only the meager benefits of ordinary cloth. There was a flash of blue light as the spell was refreshed. Fakhriya then looked to the skies to see the dragon landing in the field directly in front of her.

It takes some time to concentrate the energy necessary to use a thu’um to evoke the magic of the dragons’ words – the word thu’um means “shout” in the dragon language. Fakhriya could not use a thu’um to escape again so soon and under her human power she could not hope to outrun the dragon. She hastily put her bow on her back and unsheathed the ebony sword at her side.

She was going to have to fight.

Fakhriya slashed at the face of the beast. The dragon’s head bobbed back and forth as the creature tried to find a way to snatch Fakhriya in its jaws without exposing its mouth to the swinging sword. The dragon snapped at Fakhriya and although it could not get hold of her, the force of its teeth was as damaging as any blade.

Fakhriya stood her ground, but she knew she could not face the dragon directly for too much longer.

There were several other people dealing blows to the dragon as well. Fakhriya was certain that if she could just get herself out of range of the dragon’s jaws the beast would turn its attention to the immediate threat rather than pursue her.

Praying for the benevolence of Mara, Fakhriya located the copse that had offered her cover earlier in the night and shouted.

"Wuld nah!"

Fakhriya gave her thanks to the Divines as she came to a stop just short of the trees. She turned on her heels to see the dragon snapping at the people to its side. She fired several arrows into the beast. Finally, the beast reared its head and gave a horrifying shriek as it collapsed to the ground.

In the pit of her stomach, Fakhriya felt a pulling sensation compelling her to draw closer to the body of the dragon. As she approached, an eddy of energy emitted from the body and enveloped her. Her mind was cleared of all thought as she surrendered herself to the energy. The skin of the beast seemed to tear apart and burn, but instead of smoke, the tattered skin produced a visible energy that looked like licking flames. The flames rode on the vortex of energy that surrounded Fakhriya and were absorbed through every pore of her body. She felt consumed by a light that seemed to blind her without damaging her eyes.

Fakhriya’s senses came flooding back as the energy surrounding her subsided and the bones of the fallen dragon turned cold. She had undone Alduin’s restoration.

She had absorbed Sahloknir’s soul.

“By the Nines, it’s true.” Delphine stared at Fakhriya in utter amazement. “You are the Dragonborn.”

While the Stormcloaks who survived the fight with the dragon took inventory of themselves and their fallen comrades, Fakhriya and Delphine located Jenassa and the three women started down the hill to the village.

The women had been pumped from the thrill of the fight when they found each other, but their energy had left them by the time they reached the Braidwood Inn. They opened the door to find the common room of the inn empty. Figuring it would be a while before the proprietor felt safe about returning, the women left 30 septims on the bar to cover the cost of the beds they were about to commandeer. They could deal with any other incidentals after a couple of hours of sleep.

Fakhriya entered the common room to find Delphine and Jenassa sitting together enjoying a breakfast of cheese, bread and ale.

“Sit down and eat,” Jenassa said as Fakhriya approached.

“Yes, sit down,” Delphine said. “There is much to discuss. I’m sure you have a lot of questions about who I am and how I know so much about who you are. Now that I know for sure that you truly are Dragonborn, there is a lot of work to do.”

After relating a brief history of the Blades and the events of the Great War, Delphine explained that she needed to know what the Thalmor knew about Alduin’s return and whether they were, perhaps, even responsible for it. She outlined a plan to get into the Thalmor Embassy near Solitude to acquire whatever information could be found there.

“It’ll take me some time to work out the logistics,” Delphine said as her conversation with Fakhriya neared its end. “I’m heading back to Riverwood this morning. Join me there in a couple of weeks and I should have everything set.”

Fakhriya and Jenassa remained at the table while Delphine collected her things and headed out.

“Since we have some time,” Jenassa started, “can we visit my brother?”