Skyrim: The Last Dragonborn (The Dragonborn Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 8: The Dragonborn

Roggnavar opened his eyes. A single shaft of light stole its way through the clouds and covered the smoldering ruins of Rulton. A fog had crawled its way up through the Ghost Sea and settled over the island. Waves rolled up and down the pebbled beach. His nose was stuffed with the stench of blood, burnt flesh, and sulfur. His muscles ached and his head felt like someone had been chiseling at it for days. 

"I think he's back," said someone with a thick islander accent.

"Dragonborn?" said Drikkev. 

Drikkev had knelt beside Roggnavar to inspect his wounds as Sigdrr chanted to Kyne to bless his healing touch. It must have worked because most of the lines of blood and raw flesh the vampires had drawn with their weapons were just miscolored scars on his hip and thigh. 

"Easy lad," Sigdrr said as Roggnavar tried sitting up with a groan. "You saved me lad, and the others." he nodded his head in the direction of the few townsfolk that survived. 

"I did?" Roggnavar asked, his eyes cast on the gray ocean and roaring waves. 

"Those damned bastards," Drikkev said with a fury that sent spittle flying over Roggnavar's tunic and breeches. "Where'd they come from?"

He didn't ask anyone in particular, but Sigdrr shrugged and followed the men's gaze into the fog and mist. 

"Who knows," Sigdrr said after a moment's thought. "Why vampires? Why now? It doesn't matter for one thing is certain, the Dragonborn saved us."

Drikkev blinked as if he could hardly believe it as if seeing Roggnavar use the Thu'um was hardly proof enough. 

"I had my suspicions, I'll admit, but I didn't believe it."

"Another story for another time," said Sigdrr and he waved Drikkev away. 

"Where'd they go?" Roggnavar asked, referring to the vampires.

"No one knows," Sigdrr said. "After your power, they ran so fast I had never seen anything like it."

"So they know about me too, then."

"Appears that way."

Roggnavar massaged his throbbing head and closed his eyes; he saw his wife, his death and he saw himself slaughtering dozens with no remorse. All within a beat of his own heart.

"Plague!" a woman hollered somewhere behind him. "Death follows you everywhere you pox! Now you have brought it to us."

"Shut it," hollered someone else. "He saved your life."

"My life wouldn't need saving if he weren't here!"

"Enough!" Drikkev thundered. "They would have come either way, at some point or another. We are no strangers to raids, it has happened before."

"Please." Tola stepped out of the crowd. She took Rogger by the hand and looked up at him with her wide doe eyes. "My dad and mom... Besi! They're gone. Taken by them. All that's left is my little brother and I and we don't even have a house to live in. Please, Dragonborn, you have to bring them back."

To Roggnavar, Tola looked like the Gods had sent her to him. In the thin sunlight, her hair shone the color of pure gold, and he liked that. But, that feeling of longing and desire had faltered in him. He was helped to his feet by Sidggr.

"We've taken you in," Drikkev said. "Took care of you like you were one of our own. Please, you have to help us. Those bastards took my wife and child from me. You have to get them back."

"If not for us," said Sigdrr. "Then at least for Osmunder."

***

Roggnavar returned to his hut beside the ocean and tore up the floorboards. With a shovel, he dug until the spade's end struck the wooden box he buried two months ago.

Don't do it, the voices of his past wife and father told him. Please don't do it.

He heaved the large chest out from the dirt and slammed it onto the floorboards. His throat tightened and it was impossible to swallow. His heart bled all over him. His fingers trembled over the linen. He brushed the dirt off and revealed the relics inside. He emptied his lungs with a painful and slow breath.

There is only one way to reach Sovngarde, his father's voice echoed.

Roggnavar opened the chest and traced his fingers along with the etchings of a horned helmet. It was chipped and slashed from countless fights. 

"Please," Sigdrr said as he walked down the dirt trail to Roggnavar's hearth by the sea. "They have no hope for survival on their own."

Slow and calculated, Roggnavar assembled his equipment. He fastened a leather belt around his waist. He pulled on his leather boots lined with fur. Next was an old harness with a steel plate resting on his solar plexus. He fastened his bow, arrows, banded iron shield on his back, sheathed his steel sword, and covered himself in a gray cloak.

The last item was a curved blade. Etched with akravri runes, he held the blade up to the gray sky.

"Gods," Sigdrr gasped. "Is that the Dragonbane?"

Roggnavar nodded his head and sheathed the blade on his other hip.

"Don't go," Valeria said. She stood in his way. Blood dripped from her nose.

The Dragonborn blinked a few times and she had gone.

"You will go then? Find them?"

"Yes," Roggnavar answered.

"Come." Sigdrr waved his hand for Rogger to follow him up the hill.

Roggnavar's uncle walked alongside him in the grass. You'll never be a hero to them.

I know, he thought. He didn't care to be their hero or their savior. None of that mattered to him. None of it at all.

***

Roggnavar watched the bay from Telik of Folka's trade ship. The merchant had lit a pipe and leaned against the rail and watched the bay too. Sigdrr watched the townsfolk lay their people to the pyre with items they prized the most. Many held torches in the night.

"We bid farewell to those who we have held dear," said the Druid from the top of a wagon. "We now send them to the embrace of our ancestors. They will be joined with their ancestors in merry song and eternal peace. May they sit around fires and tell stories of past. We are guests of the land that we reap and that when the next life comes, we shall brave the sea with those that have gone before us. Together."

Through the muffled sobs, Sigdrr gave the signal. Seven townsfolk and guards touched the torches to the pyre. A horn blared through the dark. One islander started to play the flute while another soon joined in the plucking of a string.

"What was the next life like?" Telik asked. "What was Sovngarde like?"

"The peace they deserve."

Telik sucked in his nose and emptied his flask of mead.

As the trade ship left the bay and rocked in the sea, Roggnavar knew the voices had returned. His shadow watched him from the cabin wall. Its eyes were golden. For the first time since in two months, the voices returned. The silence was loud as a quake. Vicious and consuming.

Why? Father asked.

He had to save Osmunder and himself.

And so, the Dragonborn left Rulton for Skryim.