"But this stuff is priceless!" She complained, getting hustled through the earthen mausoleum. She did well on her feet, even when being moved bodily by Beren holding her shoulders or half carrying her. They had just officially met no more than an hour ago, but neither seemed too preoccupied with worry about personal space or awkwardness at the moment when the shuffle of feet and rasping croaks of awakened denizens, ones that shouldn't exist in all laws of the natural world, just down the corridor behind them. 

"Look, later when you have supplies and better equipment you can come back. I might even come with you, but for now we need to get going!" He told her, taking a step down the next archway. His booted foot touched down, and suddenly there was a mere moment of low scraping that served as the brief and only warning of a trap being sprung. 

Three scything, axe-like instruments on pendulums slid out of the hall's walls, the first nearly chopping off Beren's nose. Jocasta stumbled into him, as he had stopped on a dime. The axe swung left and passed him just as she pushed him, and he swung his arms wildly to keep balance as its arc ended and it began to swing back at him. He knocked her back by throwing his rump desperately backwards at her and then sprang backwards as well just as the axe descended back into the pattern. It would have completely decapitated him had he kept himself in that position. 

"Are you ok?" She asked him, embarrassed of the very real death she had nearly thrown him into. He had his hands on his knees and idly reached up to feel his neck to make sure his head was still attached. 

"Yeah, I think so." He breathed, pulling back his thick mane of dark hair. 

"Beren!" She said suddenly. He perked up like an alerted hound, and when he saw her eyes looking past him, he moved in pure, instinctual muscle memory. Beren spun and gave a beautiful roundhouse kick to the draugr that he had correctly guessed was behind him, punching into its gnarled chest cavity and sending the corpse stumbling back into the wall to drop to the floor. 

"Nice," she said, impressed.

Two more entered the room. One was akin to the one Beren had (likely) dispatched. A circlet on its head and rags, more dust than cloth, clinging to its wraith-like form. It had a heavy, broad bladed sword it lifted high in the air like the axes still swinging on the path ahead. It swung at Jocasta in a surprising rush, who ducked the blow but couldn't keep a hold of the torque she had on her arm. It reached for it with wicked fingers and grabbed it, having used the blow as a mere distraction. It yanked the cord, but it was made of bronze links and did not break. As it swung again, trying to brain her, Jocasta's short sword lifted up to parry in a clang of metal. Clearly she knew some self defense, as her arm was in the perfect position to give a back-handed blow to its head. The bone and teeth hurt, but it staggered the thing for the second it took to swing her sword back in a calculated move to cut its head clear from its rotting shoulders. 

She relaxed for a split second, until the headless thing grabbed her by the neck and began to squeeze. She stabbed into its stomach with a cry and then shoved it away before she hacked its arm and the rest of the body to pieces. 

Behind her, the third Draugr stood and watched calmly, swaying just enough to showcase it had indeed not lost its unnatural animation. 

When it's 'comrade' died, that was when it lifted its grimril axe, the grey-metal blade glimmering. This was the Druagr that had punched through stone, wearing a crown of iron with gilded rings still on its fingers. The others had shown a bit of cunning, but this one showed full autonomy, or at least some dark will guided it. It moved with an alien gait, both stiff and yet sure footed as it rounded the tombs in the chamber. 

"Beren where are you!?" She called, turning to see her companion. Before her eyes, he had somehow found a stone slab in his arms. It must have weighed as much or her, or even more. He carried it with just a small grunt and leveled it at the archway, and he tossed it into the corridor like it was a log to add to a greater pile. The axes bit into it and groaned loudly, but luckily the slab had stopped the trap for the moment, bits of stone crumbling from its sides. 

"Next time, tell me you have a plan." She said as she approached him, leaping over a small wall and knocking aside a rustic candelabra in her hurry to get to him. 

He didn't respond, his eyes noting the small fragments that fell from the deteriorating slab of stone. Just as Jocasta reached him, the front axe continued its swing as the ass-end of the stone broke just beside them. Beren's eyes widened, and in an instant he reached for the haft that descended from the ceiling and held the crescent blade, stopping it and planting his foot on the wall, arms shaking as the thing threatened to cleave Beren in half. Between him and the quivering blade, there was a small opening Jocasta could just squeeze through. 

"Cutting it close, aren't you?" She asked breathlessly. She didn't quip and wait for a reaction, however. Jocasta moved closer and carefully she slid one leg through and then the other, flattening her upper body as best as she could in the tight quarters, squaring her shoulders. Her generous chest was almost pressed to his face, a hair's breadth away from touching his nose as she slid by him. 

"Not by design," He grunted hoarsely, both from the exertion and the close proximity. His vision having been filled with the danger and the admittedly distracting assets of his new tomb-diving partner, once she was passed him he almost missed the Barrow-King's approach. Suddenly the witch-light from its eyes drew his attention as it stepped just to his right, and it made a rasping gasp, the first noise it had made in millennia. Beren could smell the old, rank air that erupted from its throat, air that could kill a man if inhaled too deeply. It raised its own axe, and he knew it was do or die. 

Beren let go of the scythe-bladed trap as he pivoted and threw his body, hips-first to the left, letting it swing to the wall and block the descending axe-blade of the Barrow-King. Unfortunately, as the blade swung its reverberation made the others shake, causing the slab to crack, seams running through the stone just below Jocasta's feet. 

"Oh fuck!" Jocasta called, and she scrambled across the slab like a crumbling bridge as both the second and third pendulum scythes began to bite further into the stone. Beren hurried behind her, and she dived out of the corridor just as the slab broke. The woman hit the ground in a roll, and lucky for her. Jocasta's shoulder hit a pressure point. Arrows shot by some unknown mechanism were loosed from kill-holes from the left and right walls, cutting across the stuffy air just above her prone form. 

Unfortunately for Beren, he only managed to clamber passed the second scythe-axe before the slab deteriorated and broke into three separate pieces with an enormous cracking sound, much like a wheelock rifle, that rang across the walls of the mausoleum. Nearly getting split open again, he froze between the two blades as they began their deadly rhythm again and waited for his chance. Jocasta had gotten to her feet by then, the arrows harmlessly now splayed across the floor. Beren counted the iterations, one, two, three, and then butterfly kicked out of the hall in a desperate leap. The blades scythed across the air swiftly, so quick were they that even timing it perfectly, its razored edge sliced into Beren's shoulder. Only by the grace of the gods did he land unharmed, the left sleeve of his jacket having been sheared off and swinging with the last blade just a stride from him. It revealed an impressively tanned and built arm, but he seemed more annoyed than glad even standing there unscathed. 

"Fuck, that was my favorite jacket." He growled in a fuss. "My dad got me that jacket."

Across the archway, the Barrow-King watched them impassively as the swinging blades now stood between it and its prey.