The next morning I woke early, not that I had slept all that well in the first place. I ordered breakfast and some provisions to take along with us. As it was well before daylight I let Marcurio sleep awhile longer. I talked with the Inn Keepers son and learned all the happenings around town. Nothing changed much here, fighting over the silver mines and over blood-lines still seemed to be the thing to do.
About an hour before dawn I went and knocked on Marcurio's door to wake him. I quickly walked away as I had learned he wasn't much of a morning person. He walked out a bit later dressed and ready to go. I urged him to eat the breakfast I'd ordered, but he turned his nose up at it, with a slightly ill look. Serve him right to drink to much, seeing the shadow exit his room, I wondered if he had passed out before or after a romp with the bar-maid, by the ill mood it might have been before.
The walk to the barrow we had been told to look for, was very uneventful, normally I would have been happy about that, but with my partner in a cranky mood, running into some bandit's or a dragon might have let him vent some of that bile. As we entered the place Marcurio took the lead and blasted ahead of him with spells, but anything that didn't die from the fire-ball he hacked into tiny pieces. He wasn't very elegant with that sword, but neither is a mud-slide and both will kill you just the same. Draugr or vampire, it didn't matter we found both umm dead, Marcurio took care of the victor. It didn't take long to get to the main chamber, Marcurio looked tired as we paused outside the door's. I raised my eyebrows at him and he looked down, I just shook my head and stepped back so he could open the door, while I readied an arrow.
I quickly let off the string and leaned against the door frame to watch the scene in front of us. You ever watch two thing's that aren't really "alive" try and kill each other? The Draugr Deathlord seemed to be having a problem, one arm was missing...well until you looked at the Master vampire and realized He had sword stuck through his back... with the arm still attached. The Master vampire must of been thinking with a dead brain cell or something because he was using a drain life spell, it wasn't really having much effect. Just as the Deathlord decided to use a Thu'um, the Master vampire decided to unleash a blast of lightning. Both went flying across the room in opposite directions. I burst out laughing, hard enough to have tear's running down my face, I went and checked on the Deathlord while Marcurio went to see about the Master vampire. I turned and looked at him and said "Well they appear to be dead, again, for good this time one hopes." He choose that moment to fall into a fit of laughter, literally, he ended up half sitting half laying in a crypt. Thankfully they former tenant wasn't there any longer.
Still laughing softly I wandered around the room looking for any loot light enough to take on the next part of our trip. Nothing really great in this one, just a few gem stones and one very nice dagger.
After Marcurio managed to get up, we walked back out to the barrow's door's. As I pushed against the door it resisted, so I pushed a little harder, when the door gave it slammed open to show the world bathed in white as a blizzard was rampaging outside. I pulled the door shut and started gathering what wood I could find to make a fire. Most of it was furniture that had seen better days a thousand years ago. When I though I had enough to last the night, plus a little more, I put together a makeshift spit and found a bowl to make stew in. I shut the doors to the inner part of the barrow and jammed a sword into the ring's, so that the dead would stay on that side of the doorway. I took another and jammed it in the door to outside. It's not that I wouldn't allow anyone in, I just didn't want a surprise.
As I sat on my bedroll to eat our dinner Marcurio asked if I had ever been married, since he had seen the amulet of Mara I kept in my pouch. With a sad smile I said yes, I had, almost 200 yr's ago.
"Let me tell you about the first time I met him." I said as I leaned back against a pillar and looked into the past. " I was in Understone Keep, Oh about 2 or 3 in the morning, amusing the Jarl's new baby with a ball of light, that I sent swirling around his head. He would "catch" it and then try and jam it in him mouth, the way babies do. As he kicked his leg's and arm's out, a shadow passed over the two of us from a Hulk of a Nord that had gotten between us and the fire. He gurgled and laughed as I looked up into the bearded face of said Nord. Who asked me where the Jarl was, my answer was, "sleeping good sir, as most people around here do in the middle of the night. If I can help you in anyway?" He laughed and said he didn't need the Jarl's nanny, but a couple good fighters. Just as I was about to make a sarcastic retort, a young Nord girl came running out from the kitchen area, with a makeshift baby bottle in her hand's. " Oh thank you so much Captain, it's hard to hold him and get this thing filled and warm." I sent another swirl of light around the babies head and told her it wasn't a problem.
As she disappeared from sight, I asked him exactly what he needed a couple of fighters for? I turned toward's him and realized that he stood head and shoulders taller than I, something that didn't happen often and usually it was another Altmer. He didn't immediately answer so I looked up at him and realized he was starring down my sleep-shirt, I refused to blush and snapped my fingers in front of his nose. Asking if he had never seen a woman's breasts before and do you know that big hulk of a man blushed solid red?
He then started stammering something I really couldn't make out. I just stood their waiting til he could gather his scattered whits, it's not like I'm built like the Lady Dibella. When he finally got his composure back, he said the the farm stead he lived at was being attacked by giants. That they normally were very peaceful, but they were coming around killing the cow's for some reason.
I asked him if he had eaten since he left the farm or slept, because I would make sure he got a good meal and a couple hours of sleep before the Jarl got up. I motioned for him to follow me and I went to the kitchen where I found the sleepy night cook and asked her to fix the man a meal, I then went in search of one of the maid's and asked her to fix the man up a bed and then show him to it and tell him that I would see him at 8 the next morning.
You see Marcurio the Jarl had lost his wife in child birth, but the little tike was well loved by all around him. The land was rather unsettled then, not that it's much tamer now, Skyrim being a very harsh land, it was hard for all the deadroth to be hunted down. That is what I was doing their at that time, I had come with Amy to her home and we found that while the majority of the deadric creatures had been banished to Oblivion, there where still some left. I had become the Captain of the guard in Markarth, most people would retire from that job, I just moved on. I wasn't completely impressed with Bjorn when I first met him...well by anything other than his size, that changed soon enough though. Get some sleep, soon as this blizzard is over we are heading to the College in Winterhold, the Librarian is an old friend, he may know something about these Elder Scroll's we are supposed to find.
That said I rolled up in my sleeping fur's and thought of the second time I had run into Bjorn, with a smile on my lip's, I fell asleep.
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