Skyrim: Rise of the Dragonborn

Chapter 24: The Mountain's Cold

Beric trudged through the mountain snow as his legs screamed for relief. It was colder than he knew was possible. He wondered if the Nordic blood in him was enough to keep him alive in this frigid environment. Lydia seemed to be fine. She was shivering, but not near enough. He felt numb all over, even more numb than he had felt in the Jerall Mountains. The cold had beat him so much that he had stopped moving several times, but Lydia insisted that he keep moving. She was a full-blooded Nord. She could withstand this extreme cold, but he was not. She had said multiple times that if he staid still, he would freeze to death. His nose and ears started to feel as though they'd fall of if he so much as touched them.

He had the intelligence to ignite fire in his hands as if he were about to cast flames. That kept his hands from freezing to solid ice for a bit, but he couldn't keep the flame going for longer than a few minutes due to the wind that would blow it out. He was starting to wonder just how much he was actually hurting as he thought about how sore he was despite how numb he was. After four full days of climbing up the mountain path, Beric started to wonder if they were really close or not. Lydia had said that they were almost halfway up on the first day. She was obviously off a bit on her calculations. On the third day, he started to wonder if seven thousand was just a poetic number. Now he was sure of it.

The steps started to approach a small ravine. Beric sighed in irritation as the wind blew stronger through the rocky hallway. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself as he ducked his head closer to his torso. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back to see Lydia with a look on her face that told him there was about to be some blood in the snow. She nodded in the direction she was looking as she rested her hand on her sword. He looked up to see a gigantic fury monstrosity that was perched on the top of one of the rocky walls.

"It's a troll," she whispered just audibly, "A frost troll. The worst of its kind,"

"Great," Beric shook his head as he sighed a cloud of breath in front of his face, "Easy to kill?"

"Hardly," she shook her head, "Its weakness is fire, and unless you have a strong flame spell, this is going to be quite the fight,"

"Can we sneak past it?" Beric asked doubtfully.

"It's staring right at us," Lydia said raising her eyebrow, "We don't have a choice," she said pulling her shield off her back, "I'll keep him busy. You hit him with as much flame as you can,"

"Hold on, we can't just go in like this,"

"You've got a better plan?"

"No, but..."

"Then follow my lead. We obviously can't turn back, so forward is the only option," she said drawing her sword, "Stay as inconspicuous as possible. Trolls are strong and fierce, but they aren't they're pretty dense," she said as she started walking into the ravine with her eyes focused on the troll. Beric rolled his eyes as he took his shield and crouched. He slowly crept from rock to rock as Lydia started hitting her shield with her sword and taunting the troll. Beric shook his head as he watched. This couldn't be a good idea. He focused his mind as he felt his hand start to heat up. He looked down to see flames starting to dance above his palm. He looked up to see the troll growling and pounding the ground with his fists. He could have sworn that he felt the rocks shake below him. The troll then jumped off the top of the ravine and landed a few feet away from Lydia. She sidestepped as she kept her guard up.