27th Last Seed

'So where was Khargol gro-Mashnar next spotted, that you know of?' asked Lalaine as the trio gathered up their things to head out of the tavern.

'The next hold he was spotted in was Falkreath, to the southwest,' said Drelis, finishing his ale and putting the mug back on the table.

The candle was guttering and spitting; Lalaine blew it out as they left. 'And the dragons?' she asked. 'When do they turn up again?'

'Oh there was one before he reached Falkreath hold,' said Drelis nonchalantly. 'In Riverwood as a matter of fact.' Phane and Lalaine looked at the dark elf incredulously. 'Oh, I don't have the documentation with me for that.'

'Documentation!?' Phane spluttered.

'There was a dragon at Riverwood?' Lalaine spread her hands and grimaced. 'Why didn't you say?'

'Like I said, I don't have the journals and accounts of what happened. Well, not on me. I mean I know what happened but...'

'Damn your accuracy, Drelis!' Phane shouted, a little too loudly as left the tavern. 'Tell us what happened!'

'Oh, very well.' Drelis was clearly uncomfortable relating the events in the story without a journal or record to back it up. 'But any mistakes I make in the retelling are your fault.'

'Granted,' allowed Phane. 'Besides, you already said that the story was somewhat unreliable regardless of the source. We can't know for sure what really happened, so make your best guess.'

Drelis sighed. 'Let me think for a moment. Khargol left Whiterun before dawn, I know that much from Lydia's diary. She also mentions news that Riverwood was attacked by a dragon, although it took a day or three for word to reach Dragonsreach.

'The jarl had sent soldiers to stand guard in Riverwood, just as he had promised. There were not many soldiers, but how many men do you want to spare to guard a woodland village on the hold's outskirts? Dragons can fly, after all; they do not need to follow roads like an army, so Riverwood was not necessarily the next place to be attacked after Helgen.

'The dragon attacked in the early morning. The archers took shelter where they could, loosing arrows at the beast to deter it from coming too close. Many houses had to have their roofs repaired afterwards though - the dragon was not intimidated and burned the hovels at its leisure.

'But that's when Khargol turned up, as close as I can estimate. He helped the last of the villagers get to the inn, which had not yet burned. The dragon did not land to fight the soldiers directly, though. The village might have been small, but it was a community with little space between its buildings. The dragon did, however, land on the roof of one of the structures and proceeded to breath its deadly flames on the lumber mill.'

'The village's sole industry,' remembered Lalaine. 'How horrible. To have your life's work destroyed out of the blue like that.'

'The mill survived mostly intact,' Drelis reassured her. 'It did require some attention to repair, but most of the damage was done to the lumber waiting to be sawed. I'm sure it was devastation nonetheless, but the villagers all escaped with their lives.'

'So how did Khargol slay the dragon?' Phane asked pointedly. 'That's what is important!'

'When he saw that there was no way to reach the dragon from within the village, and that the houses would be burned down if the monster stayed there much longer, Khargol ran into the woods. He used his shouts to lure the dragon away, taunting it and goading it to follow him from Riverwood into the forest.

'Now the battle itself is certainly conjecture,' he warned. 'No one actually saw it, only the aftermath. Sounds were heard, assumptions made... this is the best estimation we have. When he was sufficiently clear of the village, Khargol made his stand. He had never been a particularly good archer and I doubt he was prepared to wager his life on his skill with a bow. The dragon flew overhead, breathing fire on its orc opponent, but the foliage of the woodland's trees kept most of the flames from reach Khargol. The dragon was forced to swoop down to attack!'

'Swooping is bad!' Lalaine exclaimed.

'Well, it turned out to be a very good thing for Khargol. The dragon could only dive at him at certain points where there was space between the trees. After that it would have to land or fly back up into the sky and circle around. As it was, Khargol managed to hack at the beast once or twice as it passed, until the dragon became so infuriated that it abandoned all caution and rushed at him when it should have paid better attention to its surroundings.

'One of the dragon's wings must have been battered against the trunk of a tree when it attempted to pull up out of its dive. It careened into the ground with an earth-shaking impact that could be felt back in the village. There was one final, defiant roar, and then silence. Khargol had taken advantage and slain the dragon where it lay.'

'Amazing!' Lalaine cried.

'Now that's a story worth telling,' agreed Phane. 'Why can't you tell us more stories like that instead of the travelogue Khargol's legend is in danger of becoming?'

'There is more to the story than just dragon-slaying, Phane,' said Drelis with a touch of impatience. 'Hopefully you'll realise that by the end.'

18th Last Seed

'I love warm mead,' Phane said, lowering his tankard and sighing contentedly.

'You love anything fermented,' Lalaine remarked.

'It should get us into the right frame of mind,' Drelis said, 'The following also comes from Lydia. It seems that Khargol told her quite a bit about his introduction to Skyrim and his first impressions of the place.'

'Didn't he keep his own journal?' asked Phane.

'What did I say about interrupting?' Lalaine threatened him with her tankard.

'What a terrible waste of mead!'

'Actually Khargol did keep a diary,' Drelis explained, 'but that wasn't until much later. Here, listen to this.

'This must have been the eighteenth of Last Seed that year. Khargol was introduced to Ralof's sister, Gerdur, and brother-in-law, Hod. He spoke fondly of Hod so I presume they struck it off and became fast friends.'

'Maybe they had a drinking competition,' suggested Phane.

'Maybe. In any case, Khargol put his orcish muscles to use chopping wood and hauling lumber for Hod in the woodyard. He also met the village smith, a man named Alvor, and forged an iron warhammer that he was particularly fond of. Lydia mentions that Khargol was already familiar with blacksmithing, so one would presume that he worked as an apprentice in Orsinium.

'At any rate, Khargol also met the local trader, Lucan Valerius, who took Khargol for an adventurer or sword-for-hire and asked him to retrieve a trinket that had been stolen from his shop. The item in question was a golden claw, and it had been taken by thieves who then hid in a place called Bleak Falls Barrow, an abandoned old temple from time beyond memory. The barrow had an interesting history, but that comes later. Despite his original intentions of moving to Skyrim to pursue smithing rather than battle, Khargol agreed to climb up to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve the claw.

'Khargol might have been used to the climate of the Wrothgarian Mountains, but Skyrim's wind blew snow and ice mercilessly as he ascended the mountain slope. The warhammer must have felt like it was frozen in his palms when he finally reached the barrow, but I'm sure he was glad of it when he encountered the bandits who had stolen the claw!

'Khargol fought his way into the barrow. He had some experience with warhammers and battleaxes, and he had little to worry about from petty thieves and their meager equipment.

'Within the ruins, our brave orc warrior found one of the bandits stuck in the webbing of a gigantic frost spider! Such a terrible creature might have slain a weaker opponent, but Khargol's orcish rage gave him the strength to slay the monster and free the unfortunate thief. Lydia suggests that the thief was unwilling to part with the claw, and tried to double-cross Khargol. More fool him. Khargol chased him down and took the claw by force, leaving the thief in a pool of his own blood.

'Deeper within the ruins, Khargol found the dead themselves defending the secrets of Bleak Falls Barrow. Undead nords, called draugr, attacked him in the catacombs; but their old bones shattered and their dried skin split under the weight of Khargol's warhammer.

'Finally, after battling fearsome draugr and avoiding deadly traps, Khargol found the door to the inner sanctum of the barrow. The golden claw itself proved to be the key to unlocking the door; it appears that the bandits stole it from Lucan in Riverwood with the intention of using it to unlock an even greater chamber within the barrows.

'The inner sanctum was some kind of ancient nordic shrine to the dragons they used to worship ages ago. There was a wall engraved with writings in the old dragon language, and its power drew Khargol like a moth to the flame. When he was close enough, the mural bestow upon him the power of the dragon tongue itself! The power to shout the dragon language and invoke its power, like in the stories of King Wulfharth.'

'That's amazing!' said Lalaine. 'I've read The Five Songs of King Wulfharth, but didn't the thru'um require a special power to use? It wasn't just knowing the dragon language that allowed him to use the power of the voice was it? Something else was required.'

'Ah, I see you have read more than just novels and play-scripts.' Drelis took advantage of the pause to sip his mead. It had gone cold, but remained sweet.

'More than just the one about the argonian maid at least,' laughed Phane. Lalaine picked up one of the books to hit him with but Drelis grabbed her arm.

'Not that one, if you please,' he retrieved the book and placed it on the far side of the table. 'That one is particularly important. In fact, all of these are important. Without them, I would only be able to recount the empire's loose records of what happened in Skyrim around the time of the stormcloak rebellion and the return of the dragons. Do you want to know what else Khargol found in Bleak Falls Barrow?

'From a sarcophagus in the middle of the chamber rose a draugr overlord much more powerful than the ones gro-Mashnar had faced so far. It used the shout that Khargol had just learned, and Khargol learned that it was a power to be respected. After a bloody struggle, Khargol finally defeated the undead monstrosity and took its enchanted axe as a trophy.

'He also found a stone tablet with what appeared to be a map etched into its surface. He took it out of interest before leaving the tomb with perhaps more questions than answers.'

17th Last Seed

Drelis sat with his friends, placing his books noisily upon the table.

'That looks like heavy reading, Drelis,' remarked Phane, sipping his wine.

'More history?' asked Lalaine.

'Saga,' Drelis claimed, smirking. 'From Skyrim!' He opened the first book and leafed through its pages. 'I had to hunt high and low for this one, it's the oldest and most important.'

'What is it?' Phane put his wine down and leaned in. 'Haven't I read that name before?'

'In more than one context perhaps,' said Drelis. 'Battle, smithing, history, heroic tales, embellished stories. The list goes on.'

'Khargol gro-Mashnar,' read Lalaine. 'An orc? Who is he?'

'Wait, wasn't he the one who...'

'Don't spoil it!' Drelis warned. 'If Lalaine hasn't read the stories, then we can make an evening of it.' He shuffled through the books until he found a thin, leather-bound tome. 'Lalaine, sit back and relax. Phane, order us some more wine. Or better yet, some warm mead. I'm sure the barkeep has some hidden away in storage.' He cleared his throat and opened the book to a faded sketch of a wide-chinned orc with broad shoulders and beady black eyes. 'This,' he declared, 'is Khargol gro-Mashnar, master smith and forger of dragon armour.'

'I'm listening,' said Lalaine, studying the orc's brutish face.

'This account is written by a housecarl named Lydia, a nord who came under Khargol's service in Last Seed of the third century, fourth era, after the death of Torygg, high king of Skyrim.

'It is important to know where Khargol came from, although I'll save the most intriguing details for later. He was from the Wrothgarians of Orsinium, but for his own reasons he travelled to Cyrodil, walked the Jerral Mountains, and crossed the border into Skyrim. He was trying to find somewhere he could put down roots and start a new life. Unfortunately it seemed as though he would lose the life he already had. He was mistaken for an outlaw and arrested by imperial soldiers.'

Drelis cracked open the spine of the old book. 'Lydia mentions that one of the imperial soldiers pointed out the mistake, and although Khargol's life was still forfeit, he was told that his remains would be sent to his family in Orsinium. The soldier could not have known how far from Khargol's wishes that could be, but the orc did not resist as he was led to the headsman's block.

'He was condemned to death, but it was death that saved his life! Death made fire and flesh, with black wings for a cowl and a terrifying roar for its trumpets. A dragon! The first to appear in reliable imperial records for an age! The beast brought death and ruin to Helgen; Khargol and some of the other prisoners escaped in the confusion, amongst them was Ralof the stormcloak, a rebel in the eyes of the empire.'

'Khargol was going to be executed?' Phane said. 'That's not what I read in the empire's accounts.'

'Phane, stop interrupting!' Lalaine shushed and turned back to Drelis. 'Come on, what happened next?'

'I am citing this from Lydia's diary, she knew only what Khargol gro-Mashnar would have told her. Still, I'm not surprised that the empire's account of what happened at Helgen differs from Lydia's.

'Ralof took Khargol to a nearby village called Riverwood. The two sheltered there in Ralof's sister's house. It was a small, quiet logging community where the imperial soldiers would have little reason to hunt for rebels and convicts.

'Ralof told Khargol of Skyrim's recent plight. Torygg, the high king, was dead. He had been slain by Ulfric Stormcloak. Now the empire had branded Stormcloak and all those loyal to him as dangerous rebels to be captured and executed. Ralof claimed that Ulfric had challenged the high king to single combat, and that by ancient nord tradition he had won fairly. The stormcloaks claimed that Ulfric should be the rightful high king of Skyrim, but the empire disagreed, calling him a recidivist and assassin.

'Ralof asked Khargol to join the civil war and aid the stormcloak cause. Although Khargol must have had some sort of grudge against the imperials, he asked for more time to think things over. He was a stranger in a strange land, so in hindsight it was a level-headed decision given the circumstances.'

'Yes but didn't he eventually...'

'Phane! Shut up! You're going to spoil it' Lalaine picked up one of the books and swatted him with it. 'Stop interrupting or I shall pour that wine over your head.'

'Alright, alright! Drelis, my apologies, please go on.'

Drelis licked his lips and checked his place in the old diary. 'It appears our mead has arrived. Now, where was I?'