The Bound - A Tale Of Tamriel

23

"You feel it too?" Öenthir, her face darkened by shadows, stood beside her. "Like there's some force, some will that is pushing us back, or, maybe, like we're being enveloped in some creature's hate?"

"Well, I probably wouldn't put it quite like that." She rubbed her forehead with the sleeve of her coat. "But there's definitely something coming. Something bad."

Revna, that soft-hearted fool of a Khajiit, looked back at Tilly and Öenthir. It was like she could sense their trepidation and she smiled warm and comforting, the light from Itagaki's torch casting a broken shadow of their friend against the wall.

"Don't linger. We don't want the dead to feel your warmth and want a taste of it." Dark humour aside, the cat had a point. They needed to keep moving. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get to a tavern and drink and joke about how easy this was."

Tilly affirmed her grip on her dagger and the shaft of the torch. Looking at Öenthir, she saw that she, also, had forced her features into a more determined expression and together they followed Itagaki and Revna into the next corridor.

ii. Itagaki.

This felt different to the other tombs. She could feel it with every step. The corridor opened up into a chamber and they found themselves on a mezzanine platform that followed the path of the walls with a rough wooden walkway that led down to the chamber floor.

Several sarcophagi were leant against the walls, or fallen to the floor, some tilted at odd angles. There were more of the ceremonial urns, too. Most made from pottery, some from clay and others even made from metal. In the centre of the chamber, an altar held offerings for the dead. Rotted food, weapons of many varieties and jewellery and ancient coins.

She looked over at Tilly when she saw the bounty of riches upon the altar, but the dark elf surprised her by paying little, if any, attention to the gold and silver and precious stones. It was possible the dark elf had put aside her pilfering ways, or, most like, she too felt the insidious weight of the tomb and had better things to worry about?

She saw another archway to the right and edged her way towards it. Every so often, she would see Revna hold up the Gem of Unison, to check they were going the right way. The gem pulsing with its dim, blue light as it sensed the right direction.

"Does anyone else suddenly feel cold?" Öenthir breathed out and watched her breath condense into a tiny cloud before her eyes.

"Be aware!" Itagaki spun around, searching the shadows, eyeing the sarcophagi, and herded Tilly and Öenthir between her and Revna.

They found themselves greeted, then, by the sound of stone grating on stone. Slow, intermittent at first, and then growing louder as two of the cover stones on the sarcophagi began moving aside.

There was a hollow in the central altar and she placed her torch within it, taking a double-handed grip on her long sword as she saw the cover stones pushed aside, hitting the floor of the chamber with a deafening thud that rebounded from the walls. Dust, thrown into the air by the crashing stones, lingered in a cloud as two tall creatures stepped from within.

They were tall, made to appear even taller with the horned helmets they wore. Dried, parchment-like skin still attached to bony faces. Ragged, rusted armour held on by worn leather straps and bits of rotted cloth beneath it were all the creatures wore, but the weapons they held still appeared to have keen edges. Draugr.

The draugr opened their mouths and, without vocal chords or air from desiccated lungs, managed to make some form of guttural sound. Dim flashes of light winked where eyes would once have gazed from and strips of dried flesh, that may once have been muscles, tensed as they marched forward, weapons held for attack.