#haaki

Cold air huffed over him as the stag strode past. Haaki froze. It didn't turn off from the path. Its master must have lost sight of him when he dived into the bushes and was hoping to flush him out, like beating a rabbit from its warren. He gritted his teeth, secured his crossbow to his belt, and crawled forwards slowly on his stomach, going still whenever he came too close to the stump of bone and the smell of rotten meat.

The tracks continued through a narrow passage in the ferns, which suggested someone who knew how to keep themselves hidden, and was reasonably skilled at it, too, had it not been a seasoned hunter on their trail. That ruled out some of the freelance and mercenary mages Haaki occasionally encountered on the road, most of whom considered it a badge of honour to attract the attention of everyone in a five mile radius with their flashy spells. Who did that leave? Not another hunter. Between them, Haaki and Hjolrin knew nearly all of the hunters between Riverwood and Falkreath, and in any case, no self-respecting hunter would make a mockery of Kyne with the shambling, dragging beast.

Another roar from the stag, and as the sound churned around the forest Haaki realised he had been caught between two shelters, the safety of the bushes and the narrow path the footsteps followed. Faced with retreat or darting forwards, he sprinted for the ferns.

It was the wrong decision.

Seconds before he made the cool, shady safety of the ferns, Haaki saw it. A whisper of a shadow, the hem of some robes disappearing behind a tree, the very edge of the boots he had been following. It distracted him. For a second, a vital second, he forgot the danger behind him in favour of the quarry ahead, and a second was enough. As he ran forwards, teeth locked onto his arm and wrenched him backwards, growing tighter with every attempt to struggle free. Blood began to well up around the bone.

A deer's jaws were not designed for attack, but that didn't stop the pain, nor lessen the strength of the hold it had on him. Haaki was dimly aware of Hjolrin's voice somewhere inside his head telling him to be careful. Funny. It hadn't meant anything at the time. Mortality never did feel real, until, suddenly, all at once, it became very real indeed.

He swore, for want of anything more constructive to do, and fumbled with his free hand for the dagger Chira had given him. About as useful as a crossbow bolt in the situation, but it was something. Haaki lifted it more for reassurance than any expectation that it might help. The angle of the beast's grip on him meant he couldn't aim it towards the heart, and he doubted it would achieve much if he did, but he was able to swing it around against the stag's muzzle.

It helped, in a way. Most of the skin and muscle was already gone, which gave him a clear shot where the bone connected. The dagger smashed against the hinge of the lower jaw hard enough to dislodge it from the skull. It wasn't much, but it gave Haaki enough leeway to pull himself free.

So far so good, but he was still bleeding, and although the beast's jaw swung sickeningly around, it still had antlers, which it now lowered, ready for another charge. Haaki barely had time for a prayer to Kyne, to Stendarr, to anyone who was listening, if his soul hadn't been lost entirely to the Void, for some kind of sanctuary and safety, before he launched himself in the direction of the boots.

The chase was short, but it felt like hours. One arm flapping uselessly at his side, the other holding the bloodied dagger, Haaki leapt over brambles and dodged from side to side, trying to keep the stag from a clear charge without losing sight of the trail. Occasionally he thought he saw the flicker of the robes again. Never for very long. Prayers alternated with curses. Finally, when the blood was streaking down his wrist, when his breath was spent, when the deer readied itself for a final charge, everything somehow got worse.

The ground disappeared beneath him. The drop was quick, at least. Haaki thudded over the edge of a small cliff, onto the dirt, and winced at the crack from somewhere inside his chest. No time to worry about it, though. He reached up a hand for support as he forced himself to his feet. His palm fell against stone, carved stone, cut into the shape of bones. His blood dripped onto the cold surface and silence filled his head.

Not silence. Not completely. There was a voice, the one which haunted the darkest corners of Haaki's nights. It whispered,

'What is the blessing of existence?'

The gods had answered his prayers, with their usual twisted sense of humour. Haaki had found a sanctuary. It wasn't the one he had been looking for. With the stag not far behind, however, he realised he had no choice. He swallowed and let the old catechism come to him, all too easily.

'Mortality, my brother.'

Once between the trees he paused and tried to collect his thoughts. No point in panicking like Frithjofr. Haaki prided himself on being better than his brother-in-law, even if the thumping in his chest suggested otherwise. He forced himself to stop, and breathe, and wait.

Soon he began to get a sense of the forest around him, another skill imparted by Hjolrin many years ago. Falkreath Hold was subtly different to Riverwood. Instead of sharp and clear air, everything was muffled by moss, distant among the ferns, always sounding further away than it ought to. It was how Haaki imagined the dead viewed the living, another thought which he pushed down and ignored. More important things to focus on. He listened until he heard a scuffle and a crunch and then, crossbow cradled in his arms, he followed it, keeping tight to the thicket of weeds.

For a long time he thought he must have lost the trail, and had it not been for the idea of Frithjofr only a few steps away, about to run into a ring of belligerent necromancers, he probably would have turned back. The daylight was fading and every shadow of every tree stretched out around him, arms ready to snatch, claws ready to tear apart. There was no sign of Frithjofr. Maybe he had circled round. Maybe what they had heard was a perfectly normal animal, wandering through the forest, doing no harm to anyone. Maybe he was being ridiculous. Maybe.

Haaki crept out from a curtain of ferns and came face to face with the stag.

He assumed it was the same stag, anyway. Wolves appeared to have found it since the encounter in Riverwood, and the pack didn't perceive necromancy as a reason to abandon a hunt. Flesh, torn by multiple mouths, hung in lumps from the creature's bones, clinging on by threads of muscle, and the bones themselves were chipped and smeared with the remaining fluids in the corpse. The legs, too, were in tatters, not from wolves but from the brambles slicing at them. One foot had broken away and the stag was walking, unperturbed, on a stump of bone, giving it a horrible, lopsided stagger. It reminded Haaki of the first time he'd seen a stag shed its velvet, but this was unnatural, as if the process were an infection which had spread to the rest of the body, and unlike that time he didn't have Hjolrin here to explain what was going on.

The worst part was the jaw. Haaki had never thought about a stag's teeth much before. He'd seen deer skulls, on the walls of inns, or as decor in an especially tasteless home, and they hadn't been threatening then, other than to anyone with a sense for interior design. Now he felt differently. The skin of the muzzle had been ripped away and revealed, at the back of the jaw, behind the lower set of incisors,­ a toothy grin curling up into the skull, a grin which persisted as the creature moaned. Some of the teeth were loose. It looked strangely human, until it lowered its head, directed its antlers at Haaki, and charged.

Holding up the crossbow was instinctive, but of course firing it would be pointless. If a pack of wolves couldn't take the thing down then another bolt wouldn't do much. Haaki flung himself to the side as the beast crashed into the thicket. The magical aura trailed behind it. Trying to keep himself protected by the branches, he moved around the clearing, keeping half of his attention on the stag and half for whoever was controlling it.

'Who's there? Come out here and fight properly!'

Teeth chattered behind him as the stag lunged forwards again, mouth first this time, snapping at Haaki's sleeves. It couldn't do much damage compared to the antlers or a straightforward charge, but it could hold him in place. It gave Haaki the distinct and unpleasant sensation that someone, somewhere nearby, was laughing at him. As his foot caught a root and sent him tumbling forwards, he failed to see the joke.

A brief image, of smiling teeth against a starlit sky, bore down upon him, and he rolled away as the antlers plunged into the earth beside him. Before he could be trampled by the hooves, he swung his crossbow up and caught the monster a blow on its chest which bought him enough time to scramble towards safety.

A crossbow bolt seared past his ear, missing the dragon by a several feet. The beast dropped low, over the ruins of an old watchtower, and its talons skimmed across what was left of the stone. A chunk of masonry landed with a thud in the dirt.

'That's helping, is it? Aye, I see, really helpful.'

'Shut up.'

The second bolt found its mark on the dragon's soft belly, but had about as much effect as the miss. A blast of fire tore along the river bank. The dragon ignored every hail of arrows from the guards, Haaki's crossbow bolts, the indignant barking of the dogs, and continued to sweep across the landscape carving out a path of blackened, smoking ruins. Nothing could persuade it to land.

'Joor zah frul!'

One thing could persuade it to land.

The sound of fifty tonnes of dragon crashing onto the plains echoed against the mountains, off the earth, down into Trond's core. He ignored it and ran forwards, drawing his sword, already knowing who he would find on the other side of the battlefield. Beside him, keeping pace, Haaki dropped the crossbow and unhooked his axe from his belt.

Trond's guess was right. As he drew alongside the dragon, someone skidded past him, nocked an arrow and fired with considerably more accuracy than Haaki at the dragon's eye. There was no time to congratulate her on the shot before she was off again to line up another shot. Trond wasn't sure if he could have got the words out anyway. This was not the Arlain he knew.

He could happily have stayed where he was, on the edge of the fight, sword pointing purposefully but not actually doing anything, if it hadn't been for Haaki. Not to be outdone by his sister-in-law – or erstwhile nemesis, Trond didn't know which Haaki considered Arlain these days – he was swinging his axe towards a knee, and only a last-second dive from Trond, shield raised, stopped him being bowled over by a wave of rubble coming in from the side. Haaki didn't appear to notice. He muttered some words Ma Boar-Chaser would have been shocked to hear in her baby son’s mouth and charged forwards again.

Between them, and with the constant fire from the other guards, they brought the dragon to its knees, although how long it took Trond couldn’t guess. Towards the end, panting, exhausted, bleeding in at least three places, he watched the arrows sailing overhead, and although they were lead by Arlain's shots he noticed another, errant arrow, coming from a different direction. As the dragon stooped and whined, finally brought down by – what else? – Arlain skimming her shield towards its knee, he dared to pause and follow this other trajectory, squinting his eyes against the raging light gathering around Arlain. At the edge of the treeline, Hjolrin nodded to himself and fastened his bow into its place on his back.

None of the guards saw. They were crowding around their old colleague, some too awestruck to speak, others whispering. Those who used to work alongside Arlain, the same ones who had refused to train her as a rookie, were now vociferous in their praise. Loudest of all was Jorvin.

'Dovahkiin! Coming back to help us! By all I hold sacred!'

The memory of Jorvin stood in the river, soaked to the skin, smelling of sewer water, while Arlain rescued his stolen scarf was one which still served to keep Trond warm at night. Hearing him grovelling should have been equally satisfying. Instead, Trond saw Arlain's shoulders stiffen, saw her mouth set, heard her total silence, and pushed his way to the front of the throng.

'That's a pile of mammoth dung. She's not The Dovahkiin. She's Arlain. She's one of us. Part of the guardsman family. Right, Arlain?'

She said nothing. Jorvin, unwisely, kept talking.

'She defeated the dragon! No mere man could bring down that beast!'

'She did that? She did? All right, maybe she helped, but it's got nothing to do with being dragonborn. It's all to do with me training her. Isn't that right? It's all because she got a good guardsman's training under her belt. We killed the dragon. And we'll be celebrating it at the Bannered Mare tonight. Someone go and tell the Commander.'

Mention of the inn successfully derailed the argument, and the guards began marching, in ragtag fashion, back towards the town walls. They were in no hurry. With enough dawdling, their shift would be over by the time they got back, and nobody wanted to chase petty sweetroll thieves around after taking down a dragon, not when drinks at the Mare were in the offing. Trond waited until they were gone before he turned to Arlain.

It was then he remembered Haaki, who stood like a wraith behind her, almost as sullen and quiet as Arlain herself. Trond regretted his haste. Maybe the guardsmen family was easier to handle than his real one, after all.

'Look, if you two are going to kill each other, can you wait until I've gone? Otherwise I'll have to explain it to Hjoll, and it'll be awkward, and I'm tired. He's over there, by the way.'

'I know.' These were the first words Trond had heard Arlain speak – the first words not in an ancient Dragon language, anyway – and somehow he wasn't surprised. She glanced towards the trees, where Hjolrin, satisfied that he wouldn't have to deal with strangers, was making his way towards them, then turned to Haaki. Her face was stony. 'Thanks for y'help. Y'did... good.'

Trond could almost see the word thanks sticking in his brother's throat, resulting in a half-hearted mumble. Dog and Splendid, however, were more forthright with their thanks, and at least when they nuzzled affectionately against Arlain's hand Haaki didn't call them off. It was a step towards reparations, at least, and quite a large one for Haaki.

Their reunion didn't last much longer. After exchanging a few words with Hjolrin, and getting a promise from the pair to have dinner together soon, both Haaki and Trond returned towards the city. Haaki separated at the turning to the Boar-Chaser Farm. Trond carried on through the gates and, after a brief detour to change out of his uniform in the barracks, up to the Wind District, and home.

He was so lost in his thoughts that the bundle of stickiness and blonde hair which barrelled into his knees almost knocked him over. Amelie bounced in circles around him while he caught his breath, evidently unconcerned by the bloody smears and bruises.

'Pa! Pa! There was a dragon! Is it gonna eat us?'

'No, sweetroll, it's dead now. You know who killed it?'

'You!'

It never got old. Trond nodded and swung her up into his arms.

'That's right. With some help from Aunt Arlain and Uncle Haaki.'

'Auntie Arlain always fights dragons, doesn't she?' Amelie squeezed her arms around his shoulders as he carried her through to the kitchen. 'Is she a god?'

The question took Trond by surprise, so much so that he almost neglected to give Joldi a kiss in greeting. As punishment, she held the ladle of soup away from him and refused to let him have a taste, waving towards the table instead.

'Hello, dear. You can wait for your dinner like everyone else.'

'But--'

'It's nearly ready anyway.'

Wary of crossing anyone who would provide him with food, Trond sat down next to Amelie. She hadn't forgotten her question, more was the pity, and poked his sleeve with her little wooden spoon.

'Pa? Is Auntie Arlain a god?'

'No. No, she's not a god. She's your aunt, she can't be a god.'

'But you said she shouts dragons outta the sky!'

'Aye, well, she does, but--'

'I never sawed anyone else who shouts dragons outta the sky!'

After the reaction of the guards, who used to consider Arlain as one of them, and trying to smooth things over between her and Haaki, this was the last thing Trond wanted to deal with, especially when Joldi was setting out hunks of freshly baked bread on the table. He took a deep breath.

'Listen, Amelie. She's your aunt. She's family. And even if she was a god, which she isn't... family comes first, sometimes.'