Ten: Hell In A Cell

"Be as strong as the winds are stormy," Meridia sang, as she rode across the wild landscape that had replaced the normal appearance of her realm of the Colored Rooms.

"And proud as an eagle's scream
I will ride, I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky
I will fly
Chase the wind and touch the sky"

She had transformed herself into the likeness of a human girl of perhaps thirteen, round of face and with a mane of flame-red curls, clad in a simple dress of dark green cloth. Her horse was jet black save for white fetlocks and a white muzzle and forehead; an exact match for Merida's horse Angus. She held a bow, closely resembling the hunting bows common in Skyrim, and was loosing arrows at hanging targets as she rode. All the arrows hit their targets dead center.

Every tree, every rock, and even every blade of grass matched in the minutest detail those in the relevant scene from Brave. Invisible instruments played a note-perfect accompaniment to Meridia's song.

And Meridia was singing, not in her own voice nor that of Rhiannon, but in the Scottish-accented voice of Julie Fowlis.

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"All right, prisoner, eyes front." The chief of the prison guards was an Orc woman, as tall as Rhiannon and broader across the shoulders, clad in steel armor and with a mace hanging at her side. "You're in Cidhna Mine, now, and we expect you to earn your keep. There's no resting your hide in a cell in this prison. Here, you work. You'll mine ore until you start throwing up silver bars. You got it?"

"Got it, ma'am," Rhiannon said, faking cowed sincerity.

"Although, with thirty men in the prison and only six women, you'll probably spend most of your time on your back," the guard added, sneering.

Rhiannon felt a rush of horror. It was a mixed prison? And… the guard expected her to be… raped? Her eyes darted around, looking for an avenue of escape, but she saw nothing feasible. She was confident that she could overpower the Orc guard, a leg sweep combined with a palm thrust to slam her head into the wall should do it, but the way out was blocked by steel bars with a locked door and five armed guards behind it. The 'Become Ethereal' Shout might get Rhiannon through the bars but she had never tested it; even if it did, she was fairly sure it wouldn't last long enough to get her through the next barred gate. She would have to fight five armed guards at once, without her sword or her armor, and too soon after using a Shout to be able to 'FUS RO DAH' them out of her way. Suicide.

"Now, off with that ring, and the amulet, and that bracelet, and hand them over," the guard continued. "No valuables go into the prison."

Rhiannon complied, reluctantly, at least as far as the ring and amulet were concerned; she had left better ones in Delphine's keeping. Her watch, which was what she assumed the guard meant by 'that bracelet', was another story; irreplaceable, useful, and in this world valuable beyond price. "The bracelet won't come off," she lied. "It was put on me when I was twelve and I've grown since then."

"Huh, we'll see about that," the Orc said. She grabbed Rhiannon's wrist and examined the 'bracelet'. The catch was semi-concealed, and unlike anything the technology of Skyrim had produced, and the guard missed it. She tugged at the watch briefly, finding that it was indeed too tight to come off, and gave up. "You'd be a useless miner if I cut off your hand," she said, "so I'll leave it for now. If you can get it off no doubt you'll trade it for extra rations, or Skooma, in a week or two. Now, you get down there. Open her up!"

The gate that led into the mine swung open without her touching it, presumably operated by a lever controlled by the other guards, and the Orc woman gave Rhiannon a shove. Rhiannon took a few steps forward and the guard let out a gasp.

"What in Oblivion is that on your back?" the Orc exclaimed.

Rhiannon turned her head. "A dragon, it is. Haven't you seen one before?" She contemplated revealing that she was the Dragonborn but decided that it wouldn't help and might attract the wrong sort of attention. Instead she continued to walk on into the prison. The gate closed behind her.

She found herself on a wooden platform, overlooking a cavern that was illuminated by flickering torches on the walls, and she could hear a repetitive clinking noise that she guessed was made by pickaxes striking rock. A fire was burning near one wall, with a cooking pot suspended over it, and a man stood stirring the pot. On the far side of the cavern a very big man stood in front of a grille door set into the cave wall. Other figures, mainly male with a couple of females, emerged from tunnels that branched off from the main chamber and headed for the cooking fire. The clinking of pickaxes was dying away as, presumably, the miners broke from their task and joined the food queue.

'Breakfast time, is it?' Rhiannon thought. She was somewhat reassured by the orderly manner in which the prisoners were approaching their meal, and by the presence of women mixed in with the men. It seemed, at least at first glance, as if the guard's dire warnings about the situation in the prison had been an exaggeration. Rhiannon didn't know much about prison life; she'd seen The Shawshank Redemption, and some episodes of Bad Girls, and had read Mediancat's superb prison-set Faith-centric fanfic April 10, 1997, and that was pretty much the sum total of her knowledge. On that slender basis, she deduced that someone in the prison was a boss who kept order; quite probably by the application, where necessary, of extreme violence.

Extreme violence was something Rhiannon wanted to avoid. Should she try to keep her head down? No, it wouldn't work. She was six inches taller than any Breton woman she'd seen in Skyrim and if she tried to act inoffensive someone with a complex would try to push her around. Then she'd show them why it wasn't a good idea, and then several people would jump her at once… better to make it clear from the start that she wasn't a soft target.

A ramp ran down from the platform, curving along the cavern wall, to the floor of the cave. It reminded Rhiannon of the ramps that led down from the backstage areas into the arenas where she performed. She could see that some of the prisoners in the main cave area had noticed her and were looking in her direction. So…

She went down the ramp in full 'Rhiannon the Dragon, WWE Divas Champion' mode. There were no crowds leaning over barriers, reaching out their hands for her to slap, and no music, of course; she hummed Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon, which had been her walk-on music in NXT before the WWE replaced it with an in-house composition designed to sound as similar to the original as they could get without being sued, to herself as she strutted downward. The wood was rough under her bare feet, an unfamiliar sensation, but she didn't let it distract her from ensuring that her body language said 'I am the champion; don't fuck with me'.

Half-way down, seeing the stares of the prisoners below, she wondered if she had made a mistake; if perhaps her attitude might be taken as a challenge and provoke the trouble it was meant to deter. It was too late to change now, however, but at least she could present a friendly face once she spoke to the prisoners… the other prisoners. Speak softly and carry a big stick was a principle she understood very well.

It would have to be a very big stick to deter the man who had been standing by the far door. He was… huge. Not quite the size of Big Show or Braun Strowman, and not as tall as Colin Cassady, but a good six feet six and built like Brock Lesnar. She estimated that he would weigh about three hundred pounds. His size wasn't the most noticeable thing about him, however; his skin was olive green and his lower canine teeth protruded up past his upper lip like tusks. An Orc. Rhiannon thought, at first, that he must be the boss prisoner but changed her mind when she saw him take two dishes of food and carry them out through the door behind him. Not the boss prisoner, then, but the boss's right hand. Or right fist. The real boss would be behind the door.

"The women's quarters, and our privy, are down the tunnel over there," one of the women, who looked to be in her thirties and was short even by Breton standards, said. She ladled some of the pot's contents into a wooden bowl and offered it to Rhiannon. "My name's Belladyna. I'm in here for poisoning my husband. Want some dinner?"

Rhiannon couldn't hold back a laugh. "How could I resist an offer like that?" She took the bowl from Belladyna; it was the apple and cabbage stew popular throughout Skyrim and she hoped that the mine was well ventilated. "Rhiannon ydw i. Diolch yn fawr."

"Croeso," Belladyna replied, but switched straight back to Cyrodiilic. "After we've eaten I'll see if we can find a tunic to fit you, and some footwraps. You can't go around in that state of undress. It can get cold in here, sometimes, and it will be distracting for the men. I'm surprised they didn't give you at least some basic clothing after they confiscated your armor. Did you get taken before the Jarl like that?"

"I never saw the Jarl," Rhiannon told her. "They dragged me out of bed and threw me straight in here."

"They caught you in bed? Did they raid one of the Redoubts?" It seemed that, like Nepos the Nose, Belladyna had jumped to the conclusion that Rhiannon was from one of the Forsworn camps in the wilds.

"I was sleeping in the Silver-Blood Inn," Rhiannon told her. "I'm not actually a Forsworn. I'm from High Rock. The Western Reach." There was no point in telling the truth, as it wouldn't be believed, and she was growing accustomed to her cover story.

"No trial?" Another woman, probably around Rhiannon's own age, joined in the conversation. She was about five feet five, her hair was tawny blonde, and her pretty face was marred by a scar that ran down her face and across a blank and sightless left eye. "Even I got a trial, if a fairly perfunctory one, and I was caught red-handed."

"Literally, if what I heard is right," Belladyna commented.

The one-eyed girl laughed. "True," she said.

Belladyna turned back to Rhiannon. "I didn't poison my husband," she said. "I've missed him every day for the six years I've been in here. We had a glass-blowing business. The Silver-Blood family wanted it." She bared her teeth. "A lot of us in here have similar stories."

"It was Betrid Silver-Blood who claimed she'd seen me committing two murders," Rhiannon said. "I'd never even met one of the people I'm supposed to have killed and what little contact I'd had with the other was friendly."

"Just like me," a young man chimed in. "I was sleeping off some mead in my aunt's house when the guards burst in. I don't even know who they said I'd killed." He gave a short, mirthless, laugh. "I didn't even have anything the Silver-Bloods might have wanted to steal."

"Your aunt wouldn't be Bothela, would she?" Rhiannon asked.

"You know her? Really she's my great-aunt," the young man said, "but she's my only living relative and I call her aunt, or sometimes Nain."

"In that case I know why you're in here," Rhiannon said. "The Silver-Bloods are shaking Bothela down for protection money. They wouldn't want you around to support her." She grimaced. "In fact, that might be why they framed me. I was friendly with Bothela and I don't think their thug Yngvar the Singer liked that."

"Then you have my thanks," said the young man, "and my apologies that your friendship with my aunt has brought you here. I am Odvan." He extended his hand.

Rhiannon took the hand and shook it. "Rhiannon," she said.

"I'm Eola," the one-eyed girl said. "One of the few people in here who's actually guilty. I'm in for desecrating graves, murder, Daedra-worship, and resisting arrest."

"You seem very… cheerful about it," Rhiannon said.

"I spent eight years in Honorhall Orphanage," Eola replied. "Compared with that, this is luxury. And I've no intention of staying long."

"Remember, they say no-one escapes Cidhna Mine," Belladyna said.

"And no prison can hold me," Eola said. "Someone is going to be proved wrong. I'm betting it will be those Silver-Blood bastards."

"I need to get a message out of here," Rhiannon said. "Urgently. I have friends who are going to be ripping Markarth apart looking for me. The problem is that they'll be starting in the wrong place and innocent people might get hurt." Not that Nepos the Nose qualified as an innocent, in any sense of the word, but Rhiannon was pretty sure that he had nothing to do with her imprisonment. Delphine and Jenassa arriving at his door, no doubt ready to resort to lethal force at the slightest provocation, had all kinds of potential for catastrophic misunderstandings. "I need to tell them to go after the Silver-Bloods."

"You'll have to speak to Madanach," a man who had not yet spoken told her. "He's the only one who can get messages out."

"Madanach?" Rhiannon queried. She studied the speaker. He was older than Odvan, his fair hair was going grey, and he was thin but wiry of build. His face was streaked with yellow war-paint, running across his eye-line and down his nose, in a pattern she had seen before. The woman who served as 'housekeeper' – actually bodyguard – to Nepos the Nose wore exactly the same markings.

"The King in Rags," the man elaborated. "The chief of the Forsworn. Our leader."

"I'm guessing he lives behind that gate, is it?" Rhiannon said.

"That's right," the painted man confirmed. "To see him you have to get past Borkul the Beast."

"Not a very… approachable king, then," Rhiannon said, raising her eyebrows.

"Uraccen jests with you," Belladyna said. "You do not need to fight your way past Borkul. Explain to him why you wish to speak to Madanach and he will pass on your request. It is likely that Madanach will want to see you before long anyway."

"Oh, so Borkul is like the Housecarls that the Nord Jarls have, is it?" Rhiannon said, remembering the way Irileth intercepted anyone who approached Jarl Balgruuf. "That's a relief. I could beat Borkul but it wouldn't be easy."

"You, beat Borkul the Beast?" Uraccen scoffed. "He's tough even for an Orc. They say he ripped a man's arm off and beat him to death with it."

Rhiannon regarded that as pure hyperbole. "My opponents submit before I need to go that far," she said, her tone making it clear that she wasn't impressed. She had no intention of challenging Borkul unless she had no choice, however, and so she sought to move the conversation in a different direction. "You're wearing the same war-paint as Uaile. Are you related to her?"

Uraccen's eyes widened. "You know my daughter? How is she? I haven't seen her for… I don't know how long. You lose track of time in here. She was a little girl of eight when I saw her last."

"She's grown up now, but younger than me," Rhiannon said. "Twenty-one, twenty-two, around that, is it?"

"So, I've been in here thirteen or fourteen years," said Uraccen, nodding. "That'd be right."

Rhiannon shuddered. The prospect of spending years in this forced labor prison was horrible. She didn't want to show weakness, though, and so she forced herself to speak calmly. "What are you in for?"

"A Nord nobleman I served was stabbed in the night," Uraccen related. "It wasn't me, but I knew I'd be blamed. So I ran. Joined the Forsworn. Started killing. Got caught. Now I'm in here."

"How come no-one escapes?" Rhiannon asked. "We have pickaxes. Couldn't we dig a tunnel?"

Uraccen averted his gaze to avoid meeting Rhiannon's eyes. "One day," he said. "Then we'll paint the walls of Markarth with Nord blood."

Rhiannon perked up at once. She guessed, from Uraccen's reaction, that the idea of a tunnel had occurred to the Forsworn prisoners long ago. A quick glance around the other prisoners reinforced that impression. They all knew something.

Except Eola. "That would take much too long," the one-eyed girl said. "I will be going out through the main gates and wading through the blood of anyone who tries to stop me."

"That wouldn't work," Belladyna said. "They take too many precautions. When they come to collect the ore, and leave our rations, they make us back away out of reach before they enter. And the inner gate is locked behind them before they open the front gate."

Eola grinned. It wasn't a nice grin and something about her expression sent a chill down Rhiannon's spine. "They'll slip up eventually," Eola said, confidently. "I have ways of… influencing people."

"They have weapons and armor," Uraccen pointed out. "We just have a few shivs. And pickaxes, of course, but they're too slow and unwieldy against swords."

"Pickaxe handles are faster," Rhiannon suggested, "and they can do quite a bit of damage."

"I like the way you think," Eola said, repeating her predatory grin. "I prefer a sword, to slice through… flesh, but bludgeoning does have its appeal."

Rhiannon was beginning to wonder if Eola was a vampire, as her comment about being able to influence people implied that she had an ability like a vampire's thrall, or possibly a werewolf. She had been tucking into the apple and cabbage stew without any sign of distaste, however, and Rhiannon didn't believe that either vampires or werewolves would be enthusiastic about such an exclusively vegetarian dish. It was more likely that Eola was just a mage with a bloodthirsty streak a mile wide; perhaps something to do with her upbringing in what sounded like a brutal orphanage. Basically, Rhiannon thought, if Cidhna Mine was Azkaban then Eola was Bellatrix Lestrange. That would make Rhiannon herself, innocent and imprisoned without even a trial, Sirius Black; not the role she'd ever envisaged playing if she'd managed to get cast in a Harry Potter movie.

"Speaking of pickaxes," Belladyna said, "we'd better get back to work. If we don't produce enough ore to satisfy the Silver-Bloods they cut down the amount of food the guards leave. Sometimes they don't leave any and we have to get by on mushrooms and rats."

Rhiannon grimaced. The thought of eating rats was disgusting and going on short rations didn't appeal either. Keeping up her weight could be a struggle and if she didn't get enough to eat the first thing that went was her bust. Normally she was a 'B' cup, which was fine with her but small by WWE Diva standards; she'd kept getting not-so-subtle hints that getting implants would benefit her career, something that she was dead against especially after what had happened to Eva Marie*, and her appearances on promotional posters tended to be Photoshopped up to at least a 'C' cup. If she went short of food for any length of time her tits… dwindled. Once, when she'd been on antibiotics that upset her stomach and made it difficult for her to keep food down, she'd gone down to an 'A' cup inside a week. In this mine, eating rats and mushrooms… she'd be as flat as an ironing board in no time.

"Someone will have to show me how to use a pickaxe," she said. "I come from a mining town but I've never done any mining."

"It's not hard," Belladyna said. "You hit the rock with the pointed end."

"I find it helps to think of someone you hate," Eola added. "I pretend the rock is Grelod the Kind. One day I'm going to go back to Riften and make that old crone bleed." The last word came out in a venomous hiss. "If Jenassa doesn't beat me to it, that is."

"You know Jenassa?" It was possible that Eola was referring to someone else of the same name but Rhiannon doubted it. "She's my… best friend."

"She was my only friend at the orphanage, until her aunt eventually turned up and took her away," Eola said. "That was when I decided to escape."

Was that the reason for the ill-feeling between Jenassa and Irileth? Almost certainly, Rhiannon thought, but this wasn't the time to go into it. "I suppose we'd better go and hit rocks," she said. "First, though, I need to speak to Borkul about seeing Madanach."

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"You two," Borkul growled. "New bloods. Madanach wants to see you both. Now."

Rhiannon was a little surprised that the summons was for both her and Eola but she wasn't going to protest. She laid down her pickaxe, as did Eola, and then the huge orc led the two girls to Madanach's chamber.

The women's living area was almost bare, devoid of furnishings other than simple bedrolls. Madanach's room couldn't have been described as luxurious but it did have basic furniture. A bed, a chair, and a table on which lay sheets of parchment, an ink bottle, and a quill. Two barrels stood upright beyond the table and on top of one of them was a wine bottle.

"So, our two newest, and most unusual, residents," Madanach greeted them. He didn't stand, merely turned on his chair to face the two women. "A real killer, not an innocent scapegoat like most of the people who end up in here, and not connected to the Forsworn either. And someone who the Silver-Bloods think is one of the Forsworn – but I know she isn't."

Rhiannon studied the King in Rags. He was somewhere between late middle age and old age, probably a few years older than her father, but looked fit and carried a reasonable amount of muscle. His hair was white and worn long and swept back, with a slightly receding hairline but otherwise no signs of baldness, and he had a horseshoe moustache resembling that of Hulk Hogan. She assessed him as being intelligent, strong-willed, and dangerous; as, of course, was to be expected in someone who was running a resistance force and an assassination ring from inside a prison.

"The Nords have caged us like beasts," Madanach went on. "They think that makes us harmless. Tamed animals dancing to their tune. What do you think?"

"I think you're about as harmless as me," Eola said, that feral grin appearing again.

"It suits you for them to think that, doesn't it?" Rhiannon said.

"Exactly," Madanach confirmed. He sighed. "I had Markarth, you know. My men and I drove the Nords out. We had won, and the Reach was ours again, or so we thought. Retribution was swift. Ulfric and his thrice-damned Voice broke us. I was captured, quickly tried, and sentenced to death but my execution never came. Thonar Silver-Blood stopped it. He wanted the Forsworn at his call, that I would point their rage at his enemies and spare his allies. And I have. Humiliating at first, but I knew he would let his guard down eventually. That he would come to trust I was under control."

"You're having his enemies killed, just as he wants," Rhiannon speculated, "but you're sneaking some of your own enemies in too, is it?"

"Correct," Madanach confirmed. "More and more, as time goes on, and I'm making a few other arrangements ready for when we leave this place."

"You've been digging a tunnel," Rhiannon said, "and my guess is that it's nearly done."

"You're sharp," Madanach said. "Now, I hear that you need to get out of here sooner rather than later."

"If I don't, people will die," Rhiannon said. "The wrong people. The last letter I sent to my friends said that I was going to see Nepos the Nose. When I don't go back to them they'll be coming here looking for me and asking very pointed questions. I'd rather they asked the right people, starting with the Silver-Bloods."

"Your friends are that loyal?"

"They're not just friends," Rhiannon said. "They are sworn to protect me with their lives. And they're very good at it. The Thalmor sent a whole assassination team after one of them and she killed them all. I've seen the Thalmor dossier about it."

"The Thalmor!" Madanach spat out. "They promised me aid for our rebellion but when we needed their help they did nothing and left us to be slaughtered by Ulfric's militia. I'm all in favor of anyone who kills them. Hmm. Your 'friends' sound more like an organization. Who are you? Thieves' Guild? Dark Brotherhood?"

Rhiannon hesitated for a moment and then decided to go with the truth. Madanach wasn't likely to go blabbing to the Thalmor. "The Blades," she said. "I'm the Dragonborn."

Madanach scowled. "That's a Nord thing," he said. "That bastard Tiber Septim was a Dragonborn. And the Blades don't exist any longer. The Thalmor had them all killed."

"They tried," Rhiannon said. "They failed. That's what the assassination team thing was about. There aren't many Blades left, that's true," she conceded. One, or three if you counted Rhiannon herself and Jenassa, certainly wasn't many. "But we're the best of the best."

"Is Jenassa one of them?" Eola asked. "You said she was your best friend."

Rhiannon hadn't meant to give away any identities but she decided not to deny it. "Yes," she said. "She is my sword-sister, the shadow at my back."

"Then count me in too," Eola said. "I'd like to fight alongside Jenassa."

"You don't even know who we fight against," Rhiannon pointed out.

"I don't care," Eola said. "As long as you're not like those fetching Vigilants of Stendarr, trying to wipe out Daedra-worshippers, that is."

A fleeting thought crossed Rhiannon's mind about the use of 'fetching' as a swearword. She'd heard Jenassa call enemies 'fetchers' and she guessed that 'fetch' was a corruption of 'fuck', bowdlerized like 'gorram' in Firefly and 'frak' in Battlestar Galactica. Or like Seth freakin' Rollins. She dismissed the stray thought and replied to Eola.

"We wouldn't do that. I'm fairly sure that Jenassa worships Azura, is it, although she hasn't said so straight out. And I've met Meridia. I don't actually worship her but she saved my life and I like her. Even if following her advice is what got me thrown in here."

"Oh?" Madanach raised his eyebrows. "Explain, please. And also tell me why, if the Blades are sworn to your service, you came to Markarth alone."

"Meridia told me that my parents are captives of the Forsworn, and that my best chance to retrieve them was by coming here," Rhiannon told him. "I was alone because I'd been infiltrating the Thalmor Embassy, that's how I saw that dossier I mentioned, and she advised against bringing my friends if I wanted to convince you that I had no hostile intent. They do tend to be a little… quick to resort to deadly force."

"I'll definitely fit in well, then," said Eola.

"You… infiltrated the Thalmor Embassy?" Madanach's eyebrows climbed still higher. "That's quite an achievement. I'll ask you more about that later but, first, let's talk about you being the 'Dragonborn'. What makes you one, and what does a 'Dragonborn' do?"

"We fight dragons," Rhiannon told him. "At least, that's what we're supposed to do. There weren't any dragons in Tiber Septim's time, I'm told, so maybe that's why he fought to conquer an empire."

"You fight dragons. Interesting. I have something of a… dragon problem myself," Madanach said, "but I'll get back to that. There's something I want you to do first. Go and talk to Braig. Ask him to tell you his story. Once you've heard it, come back to me."

"Braig?" Rhiannon queried.

"He's my age, or older, and wears his hair and moustache much like me," Madanach said, "but he's a lot balder than I am. He wears war-paint on his forehead in the shape of an arrow pointing upward."

"I've met him," Eola said, "although he hasn't told me anything about himself. Do you want both of us to talk to him?"

"I do," Madanach confirmed. "It will give you some… perspective on why we fight. Go now."

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"Before I tell you my story," Braig said, "I want to hear yours. When was the first time you felt chains upon your wrists?"

"In the orphanage," Eola said. "Not chains, just leather straps, but I'd say it counts. Grelod the Kind would strap us down and whip us with a belt."

"She did that to Jenassa too?" Rhiannon asked.

"More than to me," Eola said. "I could pretend to have been beaten into cowed subservience. She couldn't pretend not to be a Dunmer."

Rhiannon felt a flare of anger and a desire to introduce Grelod to a Crossface Chickenwing. She suppressed the feeling and looked at Braig as he turned his attention to her.

"What about you?" he asked. "When have you felt the chain and the lash?"

"I was on my way to the execution block at Helgen," Rhiannon related, "and then the dragon attacked and I escaped. I hadn't done anything. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Most of us here could say the same," said Braig. "You know what it's like to have your life in someone else's hands, then." He sighed. "If Madanach wants you to hear my story I'd better tell you. I had a daughter, once. She'd be about your age, now, I think. It's hard to keep track of the passing years in here. She'd be married to some hot-headed miner, most likely, no doubt with children of her own."

Rhiannon could see traces of tears glistening in Braig's eyes. She began to get a very bad feeling about what he was going to say.

"The Nords didn't care who was or wasn't involved in the Forsworn Uprising," Braid went on. "I had spoken to Madanach once. That was enough. They seized me and started to drag me away. But my little Aethra didn't want to see her papa leave her. She pleaded with the Jarl to take her instead." He choked back a sob. "And after they made me watch as her head rolled off the block, they threw me in here anyway, to dig up their silver. She… she was five years old."

Rhiannon growled deep in her throat and bared her teeth. Anyone who would do something like that deserved to die.

"That's… terrible," Eola said.

Braig turned his sad-eyed gaze to Rhiannon. "Do you have family?" he asked.

"My parents are captives of the Forsworn," Rhiannon said. "I came to Markarth to try to get them back."

"Strange," Braig said. "I didn't think we took prisoners."

"I think they were prisoners of the Stormcloaks when the Forsworn found them," Rhiannon explained, extrapolating from what Meridia had told her about Clavicus Vile depositing her parents into a similar situation to the one in which Rhiannon had found herself.

"That would explain it," Braig agreed. He turned back to Eola. "And you?"

"I am an orphan of the Markarth Incident," Eola told him. "My mother and father were killed. I was only two and I don't really remember them. A Nord couple, who thought they couldn't have children, took me to raise as their own. But then, a few years later, they did have a child and they just dumped me in Honorhall."

Rhiannon winced. It seemed that Eola's childhood had been horrible enough to make Harry Potter's seem idyllic. It was no wonder that she'd grown up to be a vicious killer. It then struck Rhiannon that Madanach, unlike Braid, hadn't shown any surprise at her mention of her parents' predicament. It was only when she mentioned Meridia, and then told of her infiltration of the Thalmor Embassy, that he had reacted. Did that mean that he knew something about her parents before she had spoken? She suspected that it did.

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"Imagine hearing a story like that, over and over, each time a different family," Madanach said. "My own story is little better. My wife and daughter were slain when Markarth fell. Do you understand, now, how we feel, and why we will never give up our struggle?"

"I understand," Rhiannon said, "and I'm on your side. In the words of a song of my homeland, 'If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.' I will not tolerate it. And Eola has… lived it." In more ways than one, Rhiannon realized; the song was about Welsh volunteers in the International Brigade that went to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and Eola's forcible adoption was reminiscent of the 'Lost Children of Francoism', the children of dead or imprisoned Republican parents taken by Nationalist families during and after the war.

"I'm an orphan of the Markarth Incident," Eola said. "I've been away from the Reach for a long time but now that I'm back I'm only too happy to kill Nords."

"If you want to join me, and fight alongside Jenassa, you'll have to keep that desire under control," Rhiannon warned her. "A lot of Nords are perfectly decent people and killing them would be wrong. Jarl Balgruuf is a good man, for instance, and there's a Nord woman in Whiterun who I'm thinking of asking to join me. Can you work with a Nord?"

"I have some Nord friends, or at least associates, myself," Eola said. "They are not the nicest of people, not at all, but we share the same… tastes. I can work with Nords."

"Good," said Rhiannon, and then she turned back to Madanach. "That goes for you, too," she said. "No indiscriminate slaughter. You want to prove you're better than the cachgŵn who committed atrocities against your people, don't you? And it would be counter-productive. You don't want to scare off prospective allies."

Madanach laughed. "You have spirit, girl," he said. "What prospective allies do you mean? Not your Blades, surely."

"Jarl Elisif, for one," Rhiannon said. "She hates Ulfric maybe as much as you do. He killed her husband in front of her."

"From what I've heard," Madanach said, "she's a mere figurehead. Her Thanes, and the Legion commander, make all the decisions."

"You might be right," Rhiannon admitted. "I only met her the once. But I think the Countess of Narnia could prod her into standing up for herself."

Madanach's brow furrowed. "The Countess of Narnia? Who is that?"

"Me," Rhiannon told him, "with the right clothes and my hair done differently. Of course, you'll have to get me out of here first."

Madanach gave a short laugh. "Back to that, then," he said. "Very well. As you have guessed, we began trying to tunnel out of here long years ago, beginning by following seams of silver ore that appeared to lead in the right direction. Attempt after attempt failed, the tunnels reaching only impervious rock or water, but at last we broke through into a part of the old Dwarven ruins that opens into the city itself. We could get out any time we like. We'll have to get past the guards, and out of the city, so I've arranged for weapons and armor to be dropped off and stockpiled in the ruins."

"So we can leave right away, is it?" Rhiannon asked.

"Perhaps," Madanach said. "We would have been gone before now if an unexpected problem hadn't cropped up." He paused. "A dragon."

"There's a dragon under Markarth?" Rhiannon asked, her eyebrows shooting up. "I didn't hear anything about it and you would have thought people would have mentioned it."

Madanach shook his head. "Not here," he said. "At Dragontooth Crater, about half a day's walk from Markarth. Part of my preparations for our break-out was arranging somewhere we could go afterwards. I need a stronghold of my own to exert my full authority as King, not impose myself as a guest on some Matriarch or Chieftain who might come to resent my presence. I settled on Druadach Redoubt, about a mile from Dragontooth Crater, and it's ready for occupation now. We were almost at the point of leaving when the dragon turned up. It wiped out the camp at the crater, killed one of our Matriarchs and several warriors, and then it settled there. Close enough to pose a threat to my chosen hide-out and make travel in the vicinity hazardous."

"Let me guess," said Rhiannon. "You want me to kill the dragon, is it?"

"My people killed it already," Madanach said, "but the damned thing came back to life the next day. We lost nine men killing it and it was all for nothing. Do you know how to make it stay dead?"

Rhiannon grinned. "That's what the Dragonborn's for," she said. "If I kill a dragon, or even am close by when someone else kills it, I… take its soul. They don't come back from that."

"You take its soul? What, does that magnificent tattoo on your back make you into a… living soul gem?"

"The tattoo is just decoration, my… tribal emblem," Rhiannon said, "although I suppose it might have something to do with why I was chosen as the Dragonborn. The dragon souls power my Shouts. Ulfric had to study for years to be able to use the Voice, and from what I've been told he only knows two or three Shouts. I can learn them in seconds, if I find the old places where they're engraved in stone, and then a dragon soul… activates them."

"So you're better at this Shouting thing than is Ulfric?"

"I think we're equal in power," Rhiannon said, "and I know more Shouts, but he's had years of practice at using them and I've had less than a month. I think that, if we fought now, he'd have the edge. I'll need a bit more time before I'm ready to face him."

"Hmm." Madanach pursed his lips and frowned. "I think we could work together for the benefit of both," he said. "I'll get you out of here, and reunite you with your parents – yes, I know where they are, or at least where a couple of strangers of the right age are – and you kill the dragon."

"I might not be able to kill a dragon on my own," Rhiannon admitted. "I've always had my friends backing me up except once. The only time I was alone when I faced a dragon it was fighting a giant and a mammoth. I jumped it from behind when it was already badly hurt."

"I'll provide warriors and mages, don't worry," Madanach said. "You just finish it off and make sure it stays dead. First, though, I will need some solid proof that what you tell me is true. I'm not saying I don't believe you," he added, hastily, as Rhiannon bridled, "but it's my duty as King not to make decisions without evidence."

"So, what, you want me to Shout, is it?" Rhiannon asked.

Madanach shook his head. "That would attract far too much attention from the guards," he said. "I'm told that you claimed you could beat Borkul the Beast. Prove it. No magic, no Shouts, just bare hands."

"You jest, surely!" Eola protested. "He's twice her size. She won't be any use to you if he tears her apart."

Rhiannon pursed her lips as she thought about it. She had pestered Creative, back in the WWE, to let her fight against a man. They'd always refused, saying that if they had her win it would destroy the man's credibility, and the man winning would be too much like bullying to be acceptable in the PG era. The most they were willing to consider was a mixed tag-team match with her not immediately tagging out when the male wrestler entered the ring; it had been tentatively penciled-in, for whenever a storyline developed in a direction that made it feasible, at the time of Rhiannon's transportation to Skyrim. However when Rhiannon had proposed the idea she'd been thinking of fighting a mid-card male wrestler not too much heavier than her; someone like, for instance, Tyler Breeze at 212 pounds, either solo or in a tag-match with him partnered by Summer Rae. Borkul the Beast was way out of Rhiannon's weight class and would be far stronger than her.

But, she was sure, not as well trained and probably not as fast. The odds would be on his side anyway; some of her favorite moves simply wouldn't work on someone so much stronger. Her signature leg-over-arm takedown, for instance, would simply result in her standing on one leg with the other being held up high. She'd seen the video of the match between Goldberg and William Regal, in which Regal had frustrated and hurt Goldberg with technical wrestling moves before following the script and allowing Goldberg to win, and Regal had been one of her trainers in NXT and had praised her skills highly. However, the weight and strength difference between Regal and Goldberg was far less than between Rhiannon and Borkul, and technical wrestling wouldn't be enough.

No, she'd have to use mainly strikes, trips, and moves in which gravity worked in her favor. Fight him as if she was one of the lighter male wrestlers, such as Neville, or Kalisto, or Finn Balor, who regularly fought much heavier and stronger opponents and came out on top. Yes. She could do this.

"I'll need plenty of room," she said. "If we just stand toe to toe he'll win. Don't let everyone cluster around, okay?"

Madanach raised his eyebrows. "You're willing to go through with it? I was half expecting you to make some excuse and back out. I'll make sure you have room, certainly."

"I hope you have people who can do Restoration spells," Rhiannon went on. "He's likely to get hurt pretty badly."

"Borkul is likely to get hurt?" Madanach's eyebrows climbed higher. "You don't lack confidence, I'll give you that. Don't worry, we might specialize in Destruction magic but we have enough Restoration spells to patch him up – or, more likely, patch you up." He turned to Eola. "I want something from you, as well. A test, and a gesture of loyalty. Kill Grisvar the Unlucky."

Eola gave a grin that wouldn't have looked out of place on a shark. "With pleasure," she said. "I'd have done it already if I hadn't been told that you don't allow killing without your say-so." She looked at Rhiannon, who was frowning, and explained. "I don't think you've met Grisvar. He's a Nord, a petty thief and Skooma dealer, and he's a fetching nuisance to the women in here. He tried it on with me and I told him I'd cut off his balls if he bothered me again."

"He's a spy for the Silver-Bloods," Madanach said. "He's been of some use to me, making shivs and passing on messages that I don't mind the Silver-Bloods seeing, but when we break out he might be able to tell them things I don't want them to know. A loose end that I want cut off."

"I want to watch Rhiannon fight Borkul," Eola said. "Should I kill Grisvar before or after the fight?"

"Before," Madanach said. "The fight will attract the attention of the guards. They won't interfere, perhaps in case a fight is a set-up to lure them in for us to attack them, but it will put them on alert. Dispose of him quietly, out of their sight, and stash the body somewhere out of the way."

"I can do better than that," Eola said. "I'll Raise him as a zombie, set him to mining, and when the spell runs out he'll crumble to ash. I've done this sort of thing before." She tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips. "Hmm," she mused. "I wonder if I can get anyone to bet against Rhiannon? And, come to think of it, I wonder what I can use as a stake instead of money?"

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Rhiannon was still considering tactics as she prepared to face off against Borkul. When she had told Jenassa that she knew Kung Fu she had been telling the truth but she was a long way from being a master. Evening classes once a week for three years, at the Cardiff Feng Shou club while she was attending the University of Glamorgan, didn't equate to going through the 36 Chambers of Shaolin. Even so she had a wide variety of offensive techniques at her disposal, including ones unsuitable for using in the ring, if she could overcome the habit of pulling her punches that had become ingrained during her wrestling career.

She had decided to fight barefoot and had taken off the footwraps given to her by Belladyna. It might be uncomfortable on the rough stone floor, even though the soles of her feet were toughened by all the running she did, but it would give her a better grip and would be less painful than getting hit by a punch because she slipped. Also, the footwraps might cushion the impact of her kicks, and against Borkul she would need every ounce of power.

"Making her way to the ring, at five feet eleven and weighing one hundred and fifty-two pounds, the WWE Divas Champion, Rhiannon," she muttered under her breath. "And her opponent, at six feet six and three hundred pounds, the Champion of Cidhna Mine, Borkul the Beast!" She hummed the opening bars of Rhiannon to herself and, out of force of habit, bent forward, spread her arms wide, and raised her left leg behind her in the Arabesque position that simulated a dragon in flight and was her signature stance when posing for the crowd. In the WWE she performed it standing on one of the ring-posts, high above the floor of the arena, and the crowd all knew the rituals that were part of the show; in Philadelphia, London, or Chicago she would have been greeted by a storm of applause but here it seemed only to puzzle the watching miners.

"Ready to fight, dragon girl?" Borkul growled.

"I was born ready," Rhiannon answered, dropping back into a conventional stance.

Borkul grinned and advanced with fists raised. Rhiannon would have liked to open with her favorite reverse roundhouse kick but could see that his hands were well positioned to block. Instead she went low, kicking to the side of his leg, and connected solidly. It was like hitting a tree trunk. Borkul grunted and shot out a left jab. Rhiannon used a right-hand inward sweeping block, deflecting the blow, and tried to seize the arm. Borkul pulled free, almost without effort, and threw another punch.

For about thirty seconds they exchanged blows, Rhiannon landing three more kicks without apparent effect and Borkul failing to connect, and then Rhiannon decided to change tactics. She backed away, turned, and ran for the trestles supporting the platform and ramp that led down from the prison gate. She slipped past the uprights and stood behind the cross-beams, waiting for Borkul, poised in a Lung Shih stance with her right arm forward for defense and left hand cocked for a strike.

Borkul came on with a sure and steady tread. "You can't hide from me," he said, and lifted a foot to step over a low cross-beam. Rhiannon took a quick step forward and shot out a leg in a scoop-kick under the raised foot. Borkul lost his balance, as his leg was jerked upward, and fell back against a wall. He recovered too quickly for Rhiannon to follow up and regained his footing. "Clever girl," he said, and advanced again. This time he followed her example and went through the gap between the vertical support and the wall.

Rhiannon backed away, hopped over another low horizontal beam, and sheltered behind a vertical pillar. Borkul closed in and shot out a left jab. Rhiannon tried to deflect it into the support beam and met with limited success; his arm touched the wood, and scraped along it, but he suffered only a slight graze. After a further, inconclusive, exchange of attempted blows she tried for a wrist-lock but Borkul reacted quicker than she expected and caught her arm. He heaved, intending to pull her face-first into the pillar, and she avoided that fate only by dropping to the ground. She lashed up with a kick, connected with his grasping arm, and he released the hold. Quickly Rhiannon rolled away, faster than Borkul could follow, and performed a spin-up to regain her feet. At the end of the move she had almost reached the far end of the trestles and had no more space for further retreats; she decided to abandon the position and vaulted over a cross-beam back into the main chamber. Borkul climbed over the beam, warily, and followed.

Some of the miners had taken up positions on the platform in front of the gate, to get the best view of the fight, but the action underneath them had been out of their sight and most of them had abandoned the platform and descended. Rhiannon saw that the platform was almost empty and grinned. Excellent. She needed space up there for the next stage of her plan. She ran for the ramp and ascended, glancing back to see if Borkul was following, but he was hanging back.

"There's no point in running away, girl," he taunted, standing with his hands on his hips. "The guards won't open the gate for you."

Rhiannon had no intention of running away. Instead she reached the platform and, immediately, jumped up onto the guard rail. In a continuation of the same move she launched herself up and out, tucking her feet in under her, before gravity took over and she plunged down.

Straight at Borkul. She thrust out her feet as she came down and drove them into Borkul's chest. Rhiannon felt the jarring force of the impact through her whole body; Borkul was smashed from his feet and thrown backward. Almost all of the impetus of the leap had been transferred to Borkul and Rhiannon landed lightly, taking the impact on her shoulders and rolling, continuing on up to her feet. Borkul was down, and looked to be weakened, and Rhiannon followed up by leaping on top of him and attempting to put him into a figure-four armlock.

That would be the end of the fight, or so she thought. She applied the lock on his left arm, with her body weight pinning down his right, but Borkul was so strong he was able to resist the hold, free his right arm by lifting her whole weight with one arm, and shove her aside. He punched her in the side, hampered by his position but still hard enough to send pain shooting through her, and began to force his other arm out of the lock as her leverage decreased. He managed to lift his right side slightly and Rhiannon realized that he would be able to roll her over, as soon as his left arm was free, and end up pinning her down. A 'ground and pound' situation would follow, with her getting the pounding, and she had no option but to release her hold and roll away as fast as she could.

Rhiannon was first to her feet and was ready to attack again while Borkul was just coming up from his knees. He had used his hands to push himself up and was slow to raise them. Rhiannon seized the opening and unleashed a reverse roundhouse kick aimed at his head. She caught him solidly across the side of the head, his hands coming up too late to block, but he partially rode the blow and caught her leg before she could bring it down. Now she was in a perilous situation, standing on one leg with the other held up high, but she knew a counter. At once she spun on the axis of the trapped leg, bringing up the other foot in an enzuigiri strike to the back of Borkul's head, and catching herself on her hands before her head could hit the floor. Borkul reeled, his grip slackened, and Rhiannon pulled herself free and did a forward roll to get clear.

Once away, and back on her feet, she looked at Borkul, expecting to see him groggy and on the verge of collapse, but to her dismay she saw that he had resumed his pugilist's stance and seemed to be steady on his feet as he advanced again. What was she going to have to do to put him down?

His guard protected his head and upper body very effectively and she knew she wouldn't be able to get through until he gave her an opening by attacking. She waited for him to make a move and he threw a punch; not a jab but a powerful right roundhouse.

It was the perfect opening for an over-the-shoulder arm drag throw. She caught the arm, turned, and tried to throw him over her back. It didn't work. He wasn't sufficiently off-balance and was simply too strong and heavy for her to move. She was left holding his arm, with her back to him, pulling to no avail and his left arm came around aiming to wrap around her neck. The fastest way out was down and she dropped under the grasping arm, releasing her hold, and rolled away as he aimed a kick at her. It caught her on the back but she was moving fast enough to negate the impact and it did little damage. He followed up fast enough to just catch her cheek with a swinging fist as she leapt to her feet. It barely grazed her but carried enough power to jerk her head back and leave the taste of blood in her mouth.

Rhiannon backed away quickly. It was time to get gravity on her side again. She turned and, once more, ran for the ramp. This time Borkul followed her; no doubt he expected her to do another leaping kick and didn't want to stand to be hit. His guard was too good for her to try a mule-kick, like the one she had used on the mohawk-wearing thug, and she ran without pausing until she was nearly at the end of the platform. Borkul advanced on her cautiously, keeping his guard up, and sent out a probing left jab. She side-stepped to her left, toward the guard rail, and he threw a right.

That was what she had been waiting for. She caught his wrist with both hands, turned, and immediately threw herself into a back-flip up onto the rail. His arm was wrenched around, even his strength insufficient to resist that much momentum, but that was only the start of her plan. Without pausing she back-flipped again, off the rail, as high and far as she could. He stumbled as his arm was wrenched even further around and then her full weight slammed his arm down to smash into the guard-rail.

The prisoners of Cidhna Mine heard a sound they had never heard before. Borkul the Beast screaming.

Rhiannon released her grip, dropped lightly to the ground, and then headed back up the ramp. Borkul was kneeling, clutching at an arm that was bent at a horribly unnatural angle, and shaking his head.

"Enough," he grunted as Rhiannon approached. "I give up. You win."

The habit of celebrating a victory was too ingrained in Rhiannon for her to let the moment pass without an extravagant gesture. She jumped up onto the rail, repeated her Flying Dragon pose, and held it as the miners cheered. After a few seconds she straightened up. Her favorite quote from Order of the Stick came to mind and she punched the air.

"I'm a shoeless, sexy, god of war!"

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What happened to Eva Marie? Her implants ruptured. The same thing has happened to several other female wrestlers, including Chyna, Gail Kim, and Mickie James.

English meanings of Welsh phrases:

Rhiannon ydw i = My name is Rhiannon

Diolch yn fawr = Thank you very much

Croeso = You're welcome

Nain = Grandmother

cachgŵn = literal, shit-dogs; colloquial meaning, 'cowards'