O/K: On our way

The Thalmor soldier alone had been bad enough, but being exposed to his superior made Kiara feel as if she had just taken a dip in the Sea of Ghosts - of which she instantly informed her four-legged companion, who had followed her straight into the Keep, despite all the meaningful glares of the Thalmor soldier.

Ondolemar regarded her more than audible complaint as one might regard the buzz of a gnat, and proceeded to shower her with even more iciness, pacing up and down along his usual route on the top of the Keep's stairs, his hands thrust behind his back, his lips barely moving, as though he was reluctant to waste the treasures of his speech on a human.

'My duty demands that I travel to a certain remote location in the wilds of the Reach. Naturally, the very notion of my travelling alone is inconceivable, a high-ranking member of the Thalmor that I am. My life is an asset of greatest value, and I require personal protection - which will be provided by you'.


Kiara blinked several times, a bit at a loss what to say. Much unlike her typical employers, this 'snotty bloke in a fancy hood', as Barbas had called him under his breath, was not as much asking for her help as informing her of what she was obliged to do; she was not quite used to that.

Receiving no reply, Ondolemar slowed down his incessant pacing and glanced at the sellsword and her hound over his shoulder, baring two teeth on the right side of his mouth, just like Kiara had described it to Ogmund.

'That is within your capacities, isn't it?' he asked, his voice deliberately slow. 'The Jarl seems to trust you with menial tasks like clearing out Forsworn camps and hunting down vagrants with bounty on their heads...'

Kiara scratched her head thoughtfully.

'Bodyguarding a Thalmor... That's, like, the oddest job I've ever been given - that is, if you don't count the time when I had to steal a prize-winning goat from a giant that I myself had sold it to, because a Daedric Prince in disguise had tricked me into drinking myself into a state when I couldn't tell how many fingers I had on my hand - and I must say, normally, I don't drink at all... Well, I do drink water, of course... And milk... The Nords seem to have a grudge against milk and all who drink it, but it's just so tasty! Especially when it's warm... Goes wonderfully with sweetrolls...'



Ondolemar came to a sudden halt and, for the first time since Kiara was brought to him, deigned to look her straight in the face. She cocked her head to one side, wondering to herself why she had never-ever-ever noticed how gorgeously, magnetically green (Could you even say that? Magnetically green? She made a mental note to consult Viarmo) his eyes were.

Presently, he turned away again and said, his voice a bit strained, as if he was struggling to maintain his customary arrogant tone, 'I require your sword arm, not your tongue. Understood?'

Kiara nodded silently, with a small discomforted gulp. That was definitely too much magnetic greenness for one day.


'And one more thing,' Ondolemar added, resuming his pacing. 'You will leave the dog behind. I detest dogs'.

Kiara swiftly came to her senses and blurted out, 'No way! Not Barbas! He is my favourite sidekick! I never go anywhere without him! And I mean it! Besides, he has only been a dog for the last two hundred years or so - and he talks!'

'Oh, he talks, does he?' Ondolemar echoed. 'Well, that changes everything!'

Kiara beamed, 'Of course it does! I'm sure the two of you will become the best of friends!'


Her cheerful exclamation was met with an exasperated sigh.

'I was being sarcastic,' Ondolemar said, his tone once again Sea-of-Ghosts-like. 'But what could I expect? You lower beings do not understand sarcasm'.

'Hey fella,' Barbas piped in, 'I don't like your attitude. Why do you need us anyway? Don't you have your own soldiers?'


'They are needed to maintain order in the Keep and in the city,' Ondolemar explained, somewhat reluctantly - he was clearly not accustomed to relating his plans to a dog, even to a two-hundred-year-old, talking one. 'And I cannot trust any local mercenaries - every ounce of hired muscle in this, uh, hold is paid for by the Silver-Bloods'.


'Oh, so we are your only option, right?' Barbas grinned at him slyly. 'Then we make the rules, buddy. Either you let Kiara here guard your sorry Thalmor hide the way she sees fit, which is with her waggling her tongue and me doing my sidekicking - or you guard your sorry Thalmor hide yourself, and save it from the things that go lurking in the night. This is our deal - take it or leave it'.


After a long and heavy silence, in a voice filled with the stewing venom of suppressed rage, Ondolemar announced his decision to 'take it' - and the trio exited first the Keep and then the moonlit stone maze of Markarth's streets, on into the awaiting wilderness.




'So, you had a horse waiting for you at the stables? Neat! Don't like travelling on foot, huh?'

As Ondolemar and Kiara climbed into their mounts' saddles just outside the city gates and set off on their journey, moving slowly side by side, the friendly Redguard decided to start the flow of the genial small talk she was so good at. 'What's his name? My horse's name is Spidey - that is, I called him that because he can totally climb sheer vertical rock walls... But I have no idea what his real name is, because I found him in an icy gorge up in the mountains, next to his master's overturned cart, fighting off the bandits that had killed the poor kitty... Must have been one of those Khajiit merchants, ambushed in the wilds...'

Ondolemar waited for her to pause for breath, barely containing his rising impatience, and then, without a word, leaned over and thrust into her rein-free hand a folded sheet of parchment that he had fished out of his saddlebag. As far as Kiara could make out by the uneven light of a floating orb she had conjured before mounting Spidey, it was a map of the Reach, meticulously compiled, with one location circled in a bold stroke of red ink. And though Ondolemar's face remained rigid and mask-like, a frozen image of arrogance below a gold-rimmed hood, and his voice betrayed no emotion when he said, 'This is my destination,' his gloved hand seemed to have acquired a mind of its own, obstinately lingering on the parchment, in a position where it just barely touched Kiara's fingertips. In a few moments, however, he regained control over the rebellious limb and jerked it back hastily, as though stung. Kiara noticed nothing - or so she pretended.

'Oh, I know this place,' she said, peering down at the map, her explorer's instincts beginning to awaken, 'It's gotta be in the hills somewhere. A Forsworn redoubt, from the looks of it... Why on earth would you...'

Her curiosity was to remain unsatisfied, for just at that moment Spidey sniffed loudly at the air, pressed back his ears and reared to his hind legs with a neigh of warning, which was soon followed by another sound, a sound that rang through the wilderness, shrill and ominous, making Kiara stuff the map carelessly beneath the belt of her armour, reach out for her bow and quiver of arrows, which were fastened to her saddle, and lift herself up in the stirrups, her face intent like that of a school child working on a written task. It was the call of a dragon.