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The Redguard tossed his armload onto the flat rock, and sat down, his back against the wall. The bits of ore clattered against each other, the rocks, and Borkul's foot. He nudged one back towards the pile and glanced down at the new blood.
"Hungry?"
The kid looked up, frowned, and shook his head. "No more than usual. Why?"
Borkul nudged the ore again. "Biggest reason to dig. Prisoners dig more ore to get enough food to get by. You'll never be full again; they make sure of that. But a few leaves of cabbage, an apple, maybe some rabbit if you're lucky - you won't be - they'll stave off the pangs for a while."
"Oh." He shrugged, and turned the pickaxe over in his hands; calloused, a warrior's grip, or a hard labourer's, Borkul noticed. "It's just something to do. I don't intend to stay here forever, but this'll pass the time until we're out."
"Heh. No one escapes Cidhna Mine, kid. Not even the young and arrogant." He'd moved like he had a chance, though. That brawl was something else; the kid wanted answers. Borkul glanced at the pick again, thoughtful. "You're fast, for new meat. You mined on the outside?"
He shrugged. "Some, when I could. Sometimes for gold, but mostly just for my own needs. Not anything like this silver, though." He glanced down at the raw silver and a shudder passed over his face. "Not a fan of silver. Iron, Corundum, sometimes heavier stuff. Weapons, armor, that kinda thing."
The orc snorted through his facepaint. "Yeah, I had you down for a fighter. It's been a while since anybody managed to take me down in here."
"That's what happens when you only have to fight starving prisoners," the kid told him, with half a grin. Borkul shook his head. He really oughta take a pickaxe to the upstart's head tonight for the lip, but Madanach apparently needed him, and against his better judgement, Borkul found himself liking the young Redguard. He'd probably die in the uprising, which would be a good thing. Attachment would make you soft, in here. Kill you, sooner or later. Better to be rid of him sooner.
"What're you doing in here, anyway?" As long as he wouldn't be around much longer, Borkul figured he might as well sate his curiosity. "You talk like you meant to wind up in here, you claim you didn't kill anyone - I can still tell you're lying, by the way - but even the craziest of the Forsworn don't show up here by choice."
"Yeah, it wasn't exactly choice." He stood, and pulled a pair of apples out of his pocket, filched from one of the barrels in the mine. Tossing one to Borkul, he sat back down, pickaxe across his knees. "I mean, I figured I'd wind up in here sooner or later. But I was hoping to sneak in on my own terms, not get thrown in like so much slag."
Borkul raised an eyebrow. "Usually, somebody figures they're on their way into Cidhna Mine, they do the smart thing and make tracks. To Whiterun, or out into the mountains, somewhere away from this level of crazy."
"Call it some kind of crazy, yeah. Curiosity? This city - damn this city. Wish I was back in Whiterun."
"So what're you - Forsworn? No Thalmor sympathiser, bein' from Hammerfell. Not a Stormcloak, either - not pale or dense enough."
He grinned again. "Nah. I'm just passing through. Got caught up in this mess - I was just outside the blood splatter when this girl was murdered, in front of the gates. My first five minutes in the city. A good start, yeah? Not as bad as Solitude. I walked in on an execution that day, too. I'm starting to think it's some kind of tradition in Skyrim. Greet newcomers to your city with a ballad, a dragon, and a murder." He took a bite out of the apple. "This one struck me a little funny - at least in Solitude, nobody was afraid to talk, afterwards. So I asked one or two people, got nowhere. Then somebody asked me to dig up dirt on the Forsworn killer. One thing led t'another, and next thing I know, I'm fighting my way out of the house of some lunatic who swears he's taking orders from the king of the Forsworn. The guards picked me up on my way through the Shrine, and - here I am."
Borkul surveyed him for a moment. "Nepos - that, I wouldn't call a murder. He wanted to die. Even Madanach knew it. Only good reason to get that sloppy with his orders."
The Redguard looked away. He was quiet a long moment. "I've killed bandits," he said, glancing back up at Borkul. "No offense. Usually they tried to kill me first." Borkul waited. He took another bite out of the apple, chewed, swallowed. "Rogue mages, necromancers, same thing. Giants. Dragons." Borkul let out a low whistle. That was quite a boast. "A cultist who followed me, screaming, for the better part of a day. The Silver Hand; I figure killing them is probably a favor to the world at large. Likewise the Thalmor. Even the Imperials can't stand them. The Stormcloaks seem to be doing a good enough job at getting themselves killed. Without a Thu'um to hide behind, they're not all that great." He smiled at nothing in particular. "Not that Thu'um is particularly useful in battle anyway. Gods, but I'd love to know how the hell Ulfric managed to kill someone with it."
"Murder," Borkul told him. "Not quests for vengeance, not self-defense." This tale was beginning to sound like something a bit out of his depth. Maybe... he hadn't seen the Sun in so long. "You told Uraccen you were in for murder."
"Yeah. I hate this city." He took another bite out of the apple. "It's cursed. Has to be. That first night, maybe two weeks ago, I walked the city. It's beautiful, you know. I figure the Dwemer put some kind of curse on it. Built this beautiful place, then made sure nobody else would ever live there in peace. Something like that. I walked through the city, all arches and waterfalls, and some paladin type asked me to come through this haunted house with him, knock some daedra-worshipping skulls.
"I don't begrudge anybody their worship of choice, but I needed the gold, so I followed him into this house. We headed through this terrifying heap of - debris, a house turned upside down and shaken for blood. Halfway through, this voice boomed through. Gripped me. I - he didn't feel it the same way, I guess. Maybe there's something to be said for paladins. The daedroth, he locked things up, and I killed the man. Put a sword through his ribcage.
"There's always something they want, the daedra. They want you to go here, fetch this, help their followers, kill the heretics, find the lost relic. So this one, he told me to rescue a priest, the follower of one of his enemies, where he'd been waylaid by Forsworn. To bring him back to the house, where he'd been doing some ritual for his own master. Mistress. I don't know. Everybody belongs to somebody, I guess. I suited up and headed into the mountains. It was a tough battle. I did my usual thing; snuck through, stabbing people in the back and sniping from afar. Wound up in the middle of a nasty melee, somewhere along the way.
"The priest was a nasty piece of work. I untied him, and he ran off. Didn't really even need an escort, but I followed him back here anyway. And down into the house, to the altar." Borkul shuddered. There was a bleak, dead note in the Redguard's voice. He stared at the ground, his eyes distant, unfocused. "He reached for the altar, to perform whatever he was going to do, and - the daedra, he called again, telling him the mortal champion would ensure his doom, something like that. I barely remember the words; just the voice, the calling. I found a rusted mace in my hands. He commanded me.
"I beat him within an inch of his life. That voice, the laughter, the- it was like the perversion of everything in this world that's- it was..." he shuddered. "He wouldn't yield. I had to keep - keep going. To keep striking. The voice commanded. Then he did yield." The pickaxe across his knees trembled; the apple core hung from his hand, browning slowly. "I thought that would be the end. I thought that - that was the point. But he commanded again. That echo - I'll hear it to the day I die."
He fell silent for a long time. Borkul almost asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. He was sure he knew it.
"One more time. And I took the mace, and I beat the life out of him, as he cried for mercy, and the daedric prince trembled with something I don't think about." He looked back up at Borkul. "When the altar stopped shaking, the daedroth, he told me my reward was his relic, the mace. Most powerful weapon I'd ever seen, in my hands, as I stood over that body. To go out into the world and fulfill the purpose of its daedric master.
"It's still there. With the body. And I'm here, still in this fucking town, where there are only the guilty and the dead." He looked back up at Borkul. "The first time I opened my eyes in this land, it was in the back of an executioner's wagon, and a dragon landed and destroyed the entire town - Imperials, Nords, Thalmor, children. Everyone. I went back, once. Bandits were living there, on the gatehouse where I'd escaped. The bodies were still there. Charred, left to lie in the snow. I'm supposed to be stopping that. Learning to Shout. Saving the world. Instead I'm here, in this - this mine, just about halfway exactly between the guilty and the dead."
He sighed, and swallowed the rest of the apple.
Borkul shook his head. "Get some sleep, kid. Tomorrow, we'll be outta this hole. And this city."