The Shrieking Winds

[Akasha]

Half a fortnight after Two Tigers from Hammerfell... (http://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?55590-Two-Tigers-from-Hammerfell)

The setting sun spread its golden fingers over the wilds of Skyrim as two Khajiit females labored up the slopes of the mountain just north of Falkreath. They had left the road for a winding, narrow track that was little more than a deer path, and if not for the edges of old, cut stone thrusting out of the soil here and there they may have thought they were going the wrong way entirely. But as the path steepened and the air grew colder, and a dusting of snow began swirling from the sky, they saw it - a crooked staircase up the side of a sheer cliff, nearly invisible until you were on top of it. When they reached the top of the stairs they stood on a platform of cracked and weathered paving stones, with deep, moss-encrusted reliefs etched into the wall at their right hands, and enormous eagle's heads carved out of ancient black rock menacing the valley to their left. Beyond them and below, the torches of Falkreath glittered like candles on a cake, far too remote to offer any warmth or comfort on this forsaken mountainside.

Akasha rested her paw on a stone eagle's neck and stared down at the town they'd left just scant hours ago, as soon as their lodging at the Dead Man's Drink had expired. Then she turned to take in what lay ahead - the pillars and arches of an ancient Nordic tomb, crusted with ice, rising from the face of the mountain as if they had been carved by the claws of Alkosh himself:


2806

The young Khajiit peeled back her lips in a predator's grin. "This must be it," she said. "Shriekwind Bastion, just as the innkeeper said. Surely Uncle passed this way on his journey back to Hammerfell."

[Ashira]

There was something to be said for this land of snow and mountain, but now, standing beside her sister and taking the moment to stare out at the expanse before them, Ashira could not help the long, low hiss that escaped from between her teeth. This sight, this land below that stretched out for so many leagues upon leagues... it was something that she could never have thought possible to see. Home was nothing like this great yawning land that lay before them now. She was not taken to invoking the Daedra, but she supposed that the view was something that would cause many others to. As it was, the Khajiit simply gave a light hrmph and a slight nod of her head before turning to face the tomb with Akasha.

There was a majesty here, old and worn with time. It was no small feat, she surmised, that this once-majestic resting place was placed so high up, surrounded by only the wild,whipping snow and the howling, shrieking winds. Even this place's name made so much sense, and with a sly grin, Ashira gave her sister a small clap to the shoulder.

"I'd not doubt it one moment," the beginnings of excitement could be heard in her normally level and smooth voice.

"Stay cautious... "

Spoken as she took a step forward, Ashira pulled her own bow from its' clip on her back, and with a swift motion pulled an arrow from her quiver.

"... and walk softly."

[Akasha]

Akasha followed her sister's lead and laid a paw on her sword hilt, though she couldn't imagine what could beset them up here - there wasn't room on this ledge for a bear or a saber-cat to shelter, and a bandit would be mad to camp here. Their only company on the mountainside was the dead.

"Do you remember the Redguard tales of tombs in the Alik'r?" she whispered. "The dead who walk, swaddled and embalmed? This one has always wanted to see one."

They passed by a row of stone columns and up another icy span of stairs, which put them before an ancient iron door sealed fast against the cliff face. Akasha ran her fingers over the the ring pull on the side of the door, which was crusted with corrosion and frozen in place.

"What do the dead remember, this one wonders, if their souls have flown to Aetherius? Or, what do the Nords call it, Sovngarde?"

[Ashira]

"I'm sure if we're not careful, we'll have ample opportunity to ask them what remembrances they have," came to only answer as Ashira gave a last, furtive look around at the windswept, snowy surfaces that made up the front ediface of the bastion. It was regal and breathtaking, despite the nature of the place itself. A last inhale of the fresh, crisp air, and the khajiit felt her body lower into a crouch, prepared for their descent into the mountain. She could smell Akaaha's excitement, and there was not a healthy amount of warning glances sent her sister's way, even as she herself felt her heart beat quicker.


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/SB1.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/SB1.jpg.html)

"Open it."

And open it Akasha did, with a forceful shove that sent slivers of ice and puffs of dislodged snow out, and with a groan the heavy door gave way.

Was she expecting some grand reception of the dead, or some skeever laying in wait? Perhaps. But the emptiness and silence that greeted them as they each stepped inside was deafening in its' own way. A slight crackling sound that could only be fire could be heard, and as her eyes adjusted to the sudden dimness, Ashira noted the stairs that led down into an entryway. Eyes probing for any triplines or footplates that might trigger a trap, she started through the doorway, her body low to the ground and her ears forward to catch anything that might mean them harm. A pillar jutted up into the ceiling, occupying the center of the entry stairs, and each Khajiit went to one side. And when they met once more at the bottom of the stairs, Ashira couldn't help but note the ancient braziers; one lit, and the other long empty.


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/SB3.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/SB3.jpg.html)

But it was the opening that lay before them that kept her whole attentions, and in one quick motion her bow was up, arrow half-drawn in anticipation for what might lay beyond.

[Akasha]

There was little to see but sheer and barren rock as the passageway wound on and downward into the darkness. Akasha followed just behind her sister, ears twitching at the soft scrape of their feet on the dusty floor and the basso moaning of the wind outside, until a sudden and resounding crash behind her nearly made her jump into the ceiling. The iron door at the tomb's entrance had swung free on its hinges. For better or worse, they were shut inside now.

Akasha beat back a quivering thrill in her heart as her keen eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. She aimed another eager look at Ashira, and they pressed onward.

But within another ten paces there was a change in the air, and they could hear their footsteps echoing back toward them. Around the next bend they saw why: the tunnel simply ended in a bulging rock wall.

"But... this one doesn't understand," Akasha murmured. "There were no other tunnels..."

She stepped past Ashira and ran her fingers from the center of the barrier and toward its edge. Between the bulging stone and the wall of the tunnel was a hairline seam, just barely wide enough for her to place a clawtip inside. She followed the seam up toward the ceiling and found an old, rusty chain that disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.

"I wonder," she whispered, and she grasped the chain in her gauntleted paw. She looked back at Ashira and said, "Get ready to run."

She pulled hard on the chain, which rattled and sent down a shower of dust, and some ancient mechanism behind the ceiling began to churn. The rock wall before them lurched, and with a thunderous scraping noise, it slid downward into the floor, opening the way into a new chamber beyond, and disgorging a mutilated skeleton at their feet.

[Ashira]

A grimace, and Ashira hopped back a step as the skeleton tumbled along the stone floor. Teeth bared as the stench hit her, she knelt, poking at the still-rocking skull with the tip of her arrow.

"This is not a good sign," was all she could think of to say.

Looking up at Akasha, she let out a breath through her nose. Would the rest of their time down here be so terrible to their olfactory senses? She hoped not, but wasn't about to put any coin on it. A look was sent up, through the passageway that the secret door had revealed; musty and stale air came through on a slow breeze, and the darkness was only broken by ambient light that was coming from... somewhere. It was enough to give her pause, and Ashira set her sights back to the skeleton before she reached forward, plucking two septims from where they had been stuck between a few ribs. One of these she tossed to her sister.

"I hope that this is not all we will find."

Standing, the Khajiit stepped over the remains and cautiously made her way through the doorway, feeling as the stone beneath her feet gave way to hardpacked dirt and rough-hewn rock.

[Akasha]

They stood at a T-junction with another corridor: to the left was an open doorway that receded into misty blackness, and to the right was a short flight of weathered stairs. "The higher ground," Akasha whispered, and as one the sisters crept up the stairs and into a grotto of moss and ferns fed by a trickle of water that spilled down from somewhere in the ceiling. Another set of iron doors opened the way into an ancient hallway lined with stone arches, like the ribs of some enormous beast, with tattered cobwebs fluttering in the moaning breeze. The air was moving - which meant there was an opening to the outside.

And once they had rounded the bend, they saw it. The corridor opened into the side of a vast cavern, much higher than it was wide, with dusk's pale light falling like rain through a small gap in the ceiling, filling the cave with glowing, silver mist. All around the edges of the pit there ran mossy stairways and platforms and open arches that led to more tunnels - the mountain must have been honeycombed with them. But standing in the middle of the corridor and facing the great pit before them was something in the form of a man, but with withered skin that clung to its corded muscles and jutting bones. Wrapped around its middle was a sash of decaying hides, and at its hip was a bearded axe made of pitted black metal, cold and shining in the fey light.

Akasha's mouth opened in wonder. And then she heard the quiet sigh of her sister's bowstring and looked to see an arrow poised and ready to fly. "Wait!" she mouthed, not daring even to whisper, and the dark-furred Khajiit crouched and stalked closer to the idling draugr.


http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/stormfyre/Skyrim%20Screenshots/Akasha-sneaking-draugr_zps00315b77.jpg


As she drew nearer, she heard a pulsing wet rasp - did the creature still breathe? Its pale shoulders rose and fell as it stood and watched the void for divines-knew-what, its long, bony fingers opening and closing at its sides. It carried a weapon. Did it have any skill, she wondered?

Akasha looked back over her shoulder to give her sister a confident grin, and then she lightly tapped at the stone floor behind the beast's feet with the tip of her sword.

The draugr wheeled about with a sound somewhere between a snarl and a cough, caught its axe in hand, and swung. Akasha lifted her shield to catch the blow, keeping her joints loose and flexible, but she still felt the force rattle through her bones down to her feet.

Beaming, she backpedaled and nimbly dodged another two swings of the axe, then tried an attack of her own. The creature intercepted her sword with its axe and barged forward into her shield, sending her skittering back even further. This wasn't the rage of a mindless brute - it was actually thinking!

"Do you see this, Ashira?" Akasha whispered gleefully.

[Ashira]

Her bow was drawn, but at her sister's word of 'wait', Ashira stayed her hand. She watched as Akasha moved forward, taunting the body of undead flesh into combat. While fascinating, the Khajiit could not held but feel a sort of impatient nagging; that to pull the creature into battle - even on a small scale, was folly. Not so much for the fact that there was danger, but for the fact that so soon into their descent, they were engaged with a monstrous and deathly visage of ancient times. It was something that they had little time for.

Ashira hesitated for only so long as to let her sister have a small amount of 'fun', before letting loose her arrow.

The bolt sailed through the air for a split second in time before thudding into the head of the draugr, sending it to the ground in a final rest.


http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/stormfyre/Skyrim%20Screenshots/Akasha-draugr-fight_zps29525307.jpg (http://s4.photobucket.com/user/stormfyre/media/Skyrim%20Screenshots/Akasha-draugr-fight_zps29525307.jpg.html)

"Must you play with the things you intend to kill," she hissed, moving forward and pulling another arrow from her quiver in anticipation.

"We are here to search for Uncle's treasure, not to tease the dead."

Moving forward, Ashira allowed herself at least a small amount of relaxation as she toed up to the edge of the walkway.


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/SB4.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/SB4.jpg.html)

"It is a long way down... "

Her eyes went to the left and up to where there was a stairway, illuminated only in the natural light given from above.

A final look to the draugr, lifeless upon the floor.

"There are more, most likely."

[Akasha]

"All the more reason to study their habits," Akasha hissed back. "Not all of us can strike from a comfortable distance."

Her sword was still clean, so she slid it back into its Alik'r scabbard and turned to consider the walkway they stood on. To the right it collapsed into the level below; she was confident she could make the drop safely, but getting back up would be difficult. Without another word to her sister, she turned to the left, walked under an arch of stone slabs, and up another staircase to the opening of a new corridor. What she saw there gave her pause.

"Sheggorath's bile," she swore.

At the end of the corridor was a doorway sealed off by an iron portcullis. But the hallway itself was littered with corpses in varying states of decay, all of them blackened and charred.

[Ashira]

The stench of charred flesh and burnt bone hung in the air like some oppressive cloud, and Ashira couldn't help but bare her teeth at the onslaught to her nose. It was beyond offensive, and the Khajiit could not recall ever smelling anything so foul. And while the pedestal that sat before them hadn't gone unnoticed, her immediate attentions were solidly on the corpses that lay scattered ahead of them. One ear ticked back, then the other, so that both lay flat against her skull.

"This one does not like what lies before us," she hissed out between clenched teeth, her shock evident in her words.

Did she expect these bodies to rise up and come shambling towards them? Perhaps. But as the sisters crept slowly forward until they stood at the pedestal, no movement showed that these corpses would indeed be staying where they'd fallen.Flanked by two short, stone pillars that ended in points, Ashira tapped at one of the iron rings that adorned the upper edges with the tip of her bow. The sound of ebony on age-old iron was both dull and clear, as much of an enigma as the bodies before them.


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/SB5.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/SB5.jpg.html)

Another sniff of the horrid air around them, and Ashira lifted her free hand up, fingertips grazing the pullhandle that had been built into the center pedestal. A look to Akasha, and her hand tightened around the wood.

"Be ready."

And without ceremony, the Khajiit pulled up, turning the handle as she did so.

For what seemed like an eternity, yet was only a few moments, passed. The handle went back down into its' cradle, and...


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/SB6.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/SB6.jpg.html)

[Akasha]

Akasha's ears flattened against the roar of the flames as they scoured the walls and ceilings and guttered under the corpses that lay smoldering in their path. Even from the corridor entrance, she could feel her whiskers curling in the heat, and her eyes stung in the smoke of whatever fueled the ancient fire trap.

"Do we wait for it to run out?" she said. "It can't last forever... can it?"

They watched the spitting flames in silence for a while longer. Akasha sank down onto her haunches and rested her chin on her knees. Then, growing bored with the spectacle, she unslung her pack from her shoulders, pulled out a package of cured venison, and skewered a piece of it on the end of her ebony sword. Then she shuffled forward and stretched it toward the flames.

[Ashira]

While her first instinct was to rebuke her sister for such an act, Ashira held her tongue, realizing that this offered them a chance to formulate the best plan of action to take, and how to get past this new obstacle. Aswell, a small amount of food in her stomach would help. They'd not had anything to eat when they'd left Falkreath, and using the time allowed to fill their stomachs - at least some small bit - would allow them energy for any future happenings.

Moving to crouch beside her sister, Ashira kept her eyes on the flames as they continued to spill forth in jets, unrelenting for now.

"I do not think that the can last forever," she finally ventured, taking her gaze from them to look first at the venison, then to Akasha. Her next words were spoken more quietly.

"Unless there is magic involved."

[Akasha]

Akasha curled her lip at that. "There would be magic, wouldn't there?" she said. "How else would so ancient a trap still be working?"

She pulled her sword back and gingerly pawed at the steaming venison, then tore the meat in half an offered a portion to her sister. Chewing thoughtfully, the younger sister studied the pattern of the flames, the tiny, charred nozzles that issued them, the patterns of the scorchmarks on the ceiling and walls of the corridor. There were no spare nozzles that she could see, nor any stray marks to indicate that the flames might change direction.

"Is this all there is to it?" she said around her mouthful of venison. "How did those corpses end up there? Did they just walk into the flames like idiots, or were they standing there when someone pulled the switch?"

Akasha craned her neck this way and that. On the far side of the corridor, hanging down near the open portcullis, was another chain. "This one could make it through," she said. "There are gaps in between the flames. It wouldn't be that hard."