It was getting late, so they decided to spend the night at Ansilvund making use of the campfire and bedrolls inside. Lena turned in early, but Hauk and Stenvar sat by the fire for a while.

Stenvar was waiting for Hauk to tell him why Lena had been crying, but he didn’t want to ask. When they were sure that she was asleep, Hauk passed Stenvar a bottle of mead, moved closer and started to talk quietly.

“It was just last week. Some bandit sneaked up on me and put a dagger through my heart.”

Stenvar froze.

“I died. She went after me.”

Hauk took a sip from his drink, staring in front of him.

“To Sovngarde?” – Stenvar whispered.

“To the Fade – the place you have to cross to get to Sovngarde. I stood there in front of the gates, but they wouldn’t let me in – said someone was searching for me. They’d let me in when that person stopped searching.”

They sat there in silence – it wasn’t a story you heard every day.

“Which is why we came here for a bit of diversion” – continued Hauk. “Some diversion this crypt proved to be! But may be it’s for the best. We’ll try to find a Dwemer ruin tomorrow.”

“Her grief was so intense” – said Stenvar looking at Lena sleeping. “But she’s so young! Just early twenties by the looks of her…”

“Yeah, she looks early twenties… but she went through the Oblivion Crisis.”

“Two centuries ago?” – Stenvar was taken aback.

“Yes, she was in her early twenties then” – Hauk confirmed. “But she isn’t as old as that. Those other realms she spent time in – time passes differently there. She has probably lived around 50 years in all.”

They sat drinking mead in silence for a while.

“You’ve got to keep her close, Da” – Stenvar said quietly.

“Yeah…” – Hauk was lost in thought. Then – something Stenvar had said jerked him out of it: “Da?”

“Oh, I figured it out a long time ago” – Stenvar smiled. “You must be.”

“It’s not certain. It could be your Ma’s husband.”

“That worthless git? No, I’d rather it be you.”

“I wasn’t around enough. Not what a father should be” – Hauk looked at Stenvar with unease. “I loved your mother though.”

“It was the War – you were in the Legion. You were around more than many others. And you kept coming back until she died…”

“At which point I abandoned you!” – Hauk sounded guilty. “Something a father should have never done.”

“I was almost twenty already! You didn’t need to look after me any more!” – Stenvar protested.

“Yeah, I suppose you grew up by then…” – Hauk passed Stenvar more mead. “But still…”

“I’m glad you are back” – said Stenvar. “Ma was happy around you. We both were.”

They sat by the fire deep into the night.

6 Rain’s Hand

“Oh, something smells good!” – Hauk woke up to the aroma of toasted sweetrolls. Lena was cutting up fruit for breakfast. Stenvar woke up too.

“Did you two drink all the mead you could find here last night?” – she asked pointing at a pile of empty bottles.

“We might have done” – Hauk grinned.

“Where’s my armour?” – Stenvar looked bewildered.

“Oh – here” – Lena tossed it to him. “I found some pelts, thought you could use a bit of extra padding, seeing how you kept complaining of cold yesterday…”

“Oh” – Stenvar turned bright red. “Thanks.”

“It’s like I said…” – Hauk laughed, but Stenvar glared at him and Hauk didn’t continue.

…

“There’s supposed to be a Dwemer ruin here to the East” – Lena was pouring over a map. “Kagrenzel. And no, I am not holding the map upside down.”

“We must have taken a wrong path up the mountain” – said Hauk soothingly. “But here is a cave – you never know, it could be fun.”

Tolvad’s Cave was not a cave but a cave system. It was large, complicated and filled with falmer. Some Dwemer pipework was visible too, but whatever stood here once, had long collapsed. The caves also housed several ghosts of unfortunate Dunmer fleeing the eruption of the Red Mountain some two centuries ago.

“I suppose it is not surprising to find them here, so close to Morrowind. And they almost made it!” – said Lena with regret. “But the falmer got them…”

“The falmer nearly got us as well” – Hauk reminded her. “How many did we fight at once in that chamber with the waterfall? A dozen? More?”

“Definitely more if you count the chaurusses too” – Stenvar joined in. “This is a dangerous place.”

It was nearly 6 p.m. when they came out, not sure what to do.

“Well, it’s getting too cold to go searching for that other ruin” – said Hauk. “Let’s return to Ansilvund for the night and try another path tomorrow.”

They retraced their steps, and just as they were ready to dismount, Lena spurred Roach on and was gone up the mountain.

“Hey, don’t get too far ahead!” – Stenvar shouted spurring on his own horse. Lena had found another path.

Indeed, that was the right path to Kagrenzel, and they soon saw Dwemer steps and stonework. They entered.

“Is that all?” – said Lena, disappointed. “Just the one chamber?”

They stood in a chamber with a high ceiling supported by several columns. In the centre there was a pedestal with a glowing orb over it and a couple of fresh corpses underneath.

“That orb looks like trouble” – said Hauk.

“Exactly!” – exclaimed Lena excitedly and grabbed it.

…

Lena came to lying on the ground feeling thoroughly wet and cold. Someone was removing her armour. She decided not to look.

“How are we going to get it to dry in here?” – someone said. The voice sounded familiar.

“We’ll have to make a fire” – another familiar voice answered. “Or go without – we’ve got some clothes in the pack.”

“She’s still out though. And cold. Why is she not warming up? I mean, I hate cold but I warmed up already!”

“She’s… well… she’s got a condition.”

Someone was rubbing Lena’s body with oil – lavender? – as she slowly noticed the feeling returning to her fingers. The fog started to clear, too. She opened her eyes.

“Hauk!” – she tried to say, but no sound came out of her mouth.

“She’s waking up!” – the other voice said. Stenvar.

“Oh good” – Hauk put away the oil. “Drink this.” He brought a goblet to her lips, helping her to sit up.

It smelled… familiar. Lena drank.

Colour returned to her cheeks almost immediately. She sat up on her own, now holding the goblet, still drinking. The fog lifted.

“More?” – Hauk rolled up his sleeve, removing the clamp from his vein.

Yes, she needed more. Stenvar went pale.

…

“She was a vampire once” – Hauk was explaining it to Stenvar while Lena was sleeping off the lavander oil. “She took the cure, and she doesn’t bite necks any more, don’t worry. But she doesn’t regenerate as well as she should, and sometimes she needs blood to recover. The cure isn’t perfect.”

Stenvar was still looking shocked.

“I fought some vampires before” – he shuddered. “They were terrifying. I didn’t know it could be cured.”

“It’s hard to obtain – practically impossible for most, and as you can see, the side effects are… rather deadly.”

They were sitting on an edge of a deep pool of water – the pond under a waterfall. The water was coming directly from above – so high, you couldn’t see the source.

When Lena had touched the glowing orb in the Dwemer ruin, some mechanism was activated, the floor tilted and they were dropped into this pool right under a pounding stream. The shock of the fall and the ice cold water made Lena black out, and if it wasn’t for Hauk and Stenvar, she would have drowned. They pulled her out, and while Stenvar was getting out of his own dripping wet armour, Hauk cut his vein and prepared a goblet of blood.

“She’ll be back to normal when she wakes up” – said Hauk checking the bandage. “And she’ll be angry with me for this – or at least she was last time I offered.”

“Mmm… thank you, Hauk, I’m not angry” – Lena was waking up. “But what are we doing here?” She looked around.

“Didn’t I tell you that orb was trouble?” – laughed Hauk. “Come on, there must be a path to the surface somewhere.”

They followed the stream and eventually came out in the Stony Creek cave, now devoid of bandits after their visit the day before. Still wet and cold, they stood outside.

“Well, what now?” – Lena turned to her companions. “Where do we spend the night?”

“Ansilvund” – they pointed up the mountain.

Ansilvund. Again.