The Skald crests Pale Pass two days after he's left Bruma behind and he swears the air is already fresher than it was in Cyrodill. He's still in the thick of the mountain forest, somewhere along the less trafficked road in all of Tamriel, but he can already feel the change.
Then the Jerrals rumble their displeasure. He looks up, momentarily blinded by the clear sky's glare and sees the mountain side to his left simply shift downwards, a wide white front snuffing out the green treetops. A moment later, the ground begins to shake.
"Bloody pit dog's luck." Then he's bolting down the pass. Years later, his welcome to Skyrim would be the only the first of many stories to raise cheers and hoot and command a free horn of mead.
But right now he's running, or giving his best attempt at it. The path is covered in fresh snow that has yet to settle and his iron-shod boots dig deep to find purchase on the frozen ground. The winds he chose to ignore in his moment of contemplation come down with a vengeance – "As if the avalanche wasn't bloody enough!" – biting at his face and making his eyes sting.
The rumbling increases, growing in intensity, and the ground rolls along with it. Snow falls in his face from shaking branches, leaving him sputtering and waving down the path, stumbling against hidden rocks and roots, each a threat worse than a sprained ankle.
The scabbard of his sword beats erratically against his thigh in loud thumps that grow fainter as the avalanche closes in. He can hear the trunks groan and shatter now, and then there's no ground under his feet and he's falling off a ledge in the path he didn't see in all that white.
His lungs breath in the crisp mountain air, then diligently squeeze empty when he lands in an affront to all controlled falls, something knotty and hard digging into his side through the leathers. He scrambles on his feet as the ground buckles like a stallion under him and his wound protests jamming his nerves with agony.
'No matter. Remember training, focus on breathing… where's my charm?'
It's a bad sign when he can't find it in himself to swear in his thoughts. Something warm and pulsing streams down his leg, but there's only a thin line of green between him and a crushing, suffocating death now and that's enough to send more adrenaline into his heart and pumping down his legs.
The forest on his right vanishes and that's wrong, the avalanche is on the left, but then he stumbles again and his eyes fall on the jagged precipice the road is now hugging.
And on the body of water a couple hundred meters down.
The choice is taken from him when the snow rips the treeline apart and bulldozes him over the edge, sending him head over heels freefalling into the undisturbed clean waters way down below, as hard as cold stone.
Such elaborate and flattering descriptions are actually beyond the Skald at the moment. Clinging to consciousness by a thread, his mind reels against shock, confusion, fear, anger, an unsurprising bout of nausea and the overarching pain of the wrath of nature slamming into his back.
The reaction is baser than instinctual: his eyes are glued shut against the slashing air, his hearing drowned by his own scream. As his mind foretastes the crunch of bones and organs ripping apart, the well of magicka within the Skald stirs and lunges, and the amulet around his neck reacts.
The black gem awakens to a life of its own, its core pulsating a smoldering red and a shimmering sphere of silver manifests around his body. The shield ripples against the air, putting a stop to the mad somersaulting and flailing of limbs, and when it meets the waters both break with a loud crash, delivering the Skald to icy depths and the comfort of unconsciousness.
On later retellings, the means of his escape would always change: his Voice manifesting its infancy was always the loudest cheered solution, the one that got the mead flowing and the songs roaring the quickest. But at times, when the singing lulled and too many tankards were spilled, the Skald would be seen furrow his brows at the amulet, as if scrying its depths for answers.
When Hadvar gasped at him to stop, clutching at his chest, the Skald knew that something was wrong. Let alone it was the third time in the last hour, the man's face is too pale for someone who got through Helgen with only scrapes and bruises.
"Let me have a look, Hadvar."
"It's nothing," he said back. "I just… need to get my wind back."
"You'd have me fooled." Hadvar's brow was clammy with cold sweat under the Skald's palm. When he pushed down on the legionnaire's shoulder to have him sit, Hadvar all but crumbled under his touch.
"I'm fine," he insisted, yet even sitting he was swaying, one large hand propping him up against a large rock. "We must get going, Hjalti. Reach Riverwood, warn the people there-" His muscles spasmed uncontrollably and a hard cough interrupted him before he could argue any further.
"Whatever that thing was, dragon or not, it's way faster than us," the Skald said. It came out colder than he intended, but it had been a long couple of days for him as well; Hadvar's stubbornness at getting himself killed was starting to grate on his nerves.
Hadvar tensed and made to push himself up with little results. Time for the carrot. "It flew north a while ago, and the only column of smoke is the one back at Helgen. It's gone."
"For now!" snapped Hadvar, but even his bark was a faltering thing. "It could turn back any moment and burn the village to cinders. My family lives there."
Hadvar slumped against the rock, shivering and shaking off the crystals of snow covering it, and the Skald pounced on him. Not literally, but the Nord was not the first legionnaire proud and stubborn to a fault he had to coerce back to health and reason.
A moment later, he tugged at the well of magicka within him, struggling against the recalcitrant thing it had become since the close call at Pale Pass cost him his physical focus. Still, a green glow coiled around Hadvar, poking and prodding, and the Skald's suspects became a certainty.
"It's those damn spiders," he broke the news as he drew as much magicka as he dared without risking over-exertion and fatigue. It wasn't much in normal circumstances, and with his own energy kicking like a mad stallion, the results were even less flattering than usual.
Hadvar groaned, but the magic did part of its job anyway, and with a shoulder to lean on the legionnaire managed to climb back on his feet.
"Not much I can do right now," he continued, pushing down the frustration. "The poison needs to be purged out of your system, and I know no spell to do that."
Frost spider venom was indeed no rare toxin from Akavir and the beasts themselves quite common on the Southern Jerrals as well. The Skald's doses of antidote, however, remained somewhere in Helgen with the rest of his traveling gear but the scroll in his pocket and the amulet around his neck. Traipsing back through the cave was not an option.
Hadvar coughed. "There's a wise woman in Riverwood. A herbalist," he clarified at the Skald's raised eyebrow as they slogged down the forest path, Hadvar pushing against him to move faster. "She'll know what to do once we're there."
"Fair enough, but calm down now. You're running on a magicka high, but it won't last much longer if you keep pushing your body beyond what it can take. I can't cast that spell another time, and you won't reach your family any faster if I've to drag you there."
"Then leave me –" a fit of coughs. "Leave me here and run ahead, you can come back later."
The Skald rolled his eyes. "Spare me the Legion heroism, Hadvar," he grumbled through clenched teeth. "Been there, seen that. Now focus on keeping your energies up and we'll be there in no time."
Hadvar wanted to protest some more, the Skald could feel it in the stiffening of his muscles that had little to do with the poison, but be it weakness or the Skald's own mark of doctor's glare, Hadvar let out a short breath and nodded, letting the issue slide.
The following hours were cadenced by Hadvar's breathing becoming harsher and more swallow. By mid-afternoon, what little conversation passed between them evaporated. They only stopped where the river ran along their path to replenish their flasks.
To his growing frustration, the boost of his next magickal attempt vanished within minutes. All he found himself able to do was forcing Hadvar to gullet down some water every now and then to avoid dehydration.
Soon after, a pack of wolves tried to make dinner out of the two of them, but the Skald's acquaintance with the Imperial spatha had been refreshed in the caves beneath Helgen; even without Hadvar's help, it's only a matter of minutes before they trudged on, leaving behind the carcasses for the vultures and the forest creatures to pick clean.
And yet, despite the rough last few days, the Skald was not blind or deaf to the untamed beauty of the land around him. The path they followed – the path Hadvar guided him along with grunts and muttered directions – snaked through woods untouched by civilization and the air was so clear that his lungs, accustomed to the Imperial City, ached with the novelty.
"On our right… Bandits…"
Hadvar's wheezing warning shook him out of his contemplation, and the Skald chastised himself for letting his mind wander so far the poisoned cripple was the one to spot the threat.
On an outcrop of stone dominating the area, near what by all rights was a mine's entry, two men stopped their game of dices and clutched at the hilts of their weapons at the appearance of two Nords in legion armor. The taller of the two, an Orc with tresses so long he tucked them in his belt, hefted a two-headed steel ax on his shoulder and took a few steps forward, radiating intimidation.
The Skald didn't stop walking, half-dragging Hadvar's considerable weight along; he answered the silent challenge with his most smoldering glare, ready to drop Hadvar and reach for his weapon in a heartbeat.
'Hadvar's right. Would that I could give them a lesson, but that Bosmer is too twitchy with that bow and Hadvar can't stand, let alone fight.' Still, they seemed content enough to let them pass. There were riper pickings on the road than two blood-covered soldiers.
It was still a close thing, and for long moments he dreaded the two would throw caution to the wind and pounce on them regardless. He harbored few doubts he could take them both, but even he was not got enough in him to stop Hadvar from turning into a pincushion without a shield. The cave bear had mangled the only one they had.
They entered Riverwood in the last of the daylight and were welcomed with no fiery destruction by dragon – 'Dragon!' the Skald's mind tried to elaborate further, but the warrior put a tight clamp on that particular line of thought for the moment.
What he saw instead was a lazy village none too different from dozen others, shrouded by the typical late afternoon apathy. No sentries walking their rounds, no people panicking in the streets at the return of calamities of old.
Without much consideration for decorum and from, the Skald started bellowing for help.
He felt no shame in putting up only a minimal resistance when Hadvar's uncle Alvor and a sour-faced Breton woman in her fifties all but bullied him into the local inn, the Sleeping Giant. The herbalist, who surprised him by being no white-haired crone but instead a no-nonsense young Breton with strong hands, was very much in her element and had Hadvar firmly under her care moments after Alvor and he dragged the unconscious legionnaire through her door.
Besides, the Skald was positively starving and the smells wafting from the large cauldron of traditional mystery soup simmering in the hearth were too compelling an argument for the battered warrior to refute his stomach.
Still, he limited himself to chewing the first serving and washing it down with a tankard of strong ale before he turned his attention back to the impatient villagers.
A small crowd now lingered on benches or leaned against the large wooden pillars. Alvor was almost in his face, the lines of worry on the hard planes of his face having eased somewhat once Hadvar was put under proper care. The Breton woman still looked like the was chewing on nails, propped against the counter, a sharp contrast to the barkeep stoicism and almost apathetic gaze.
The rest were a mix of Nords, a pudgy Imperial with a goatee and clean clothes and even a Bosmer hanging in the background, nursing and oiling a longbow.
The Skald had never been shy before large crowds, and in his past line of work had experienced the combined weight of hundreds and even thousands of stares on his every movement. Still, the topic of his 'report' was so ridiculously absurd that, even after having experienced the dragon's heat almost on his flesh, he was somehow hard-pressed in believing his own senses.
"Out with it, soldier," said the Breton, voicing the collective restlessness. "What's happened up at Helgen? Have the Stormcloaks attacked the garrison?"
He didn't miss the glare a Nord woman sent to the back of the Breton's head, but he quickly shifted his focus back to the Breton and shook his head. Then he snorted, to everyone's indignation.
"Wished they had, even if Ulfric Stormcloak was there with a number of his followers. Chained and gagged," he specified with a hard gesture when a few piped up to interrupt him. Eyes bulged, but he soldiered on. "That's not the point. Helgen was attacked by a dragon."
He usually relished those moments of utter, shocked silence where a pin could be heard drop, as the old saying went. Much better that the roaring disbelief usually hot on its tails.
"A dragon?"
"Do you think we're touched of mind?"
"What does it mean 'a dragon'?"
"It is as I say," he repeated, barely needing to raise his tone to silence the crowd. "A dragon attacked Helgen. Hadvar will confirm it once he awakes if you don't believe me. No doubt Imperial couriers are riding hard right now to wherever the army is stationed to carry the news."
'If any survived in the first place.'
No, the Skald berated himself. There were plenty of battlemages in General Tullius retinue, and even some of those accursed Thalmor, Talos blast them. There ought to be survivors, at least in the complex of dungeons and galleries spanning under Helgen. The Legion would soon know about this if it already didn't.
"Hilde kept rattling on about a dragon in the sky earlier," mused Alvor, scratching his chin and leaning heavily on the roughly cut table.
"Hilde is an old chatterbox a few arrows short a quiver," the barkeep grumbled back, handing him another serving of mystery stew with a grunt. With the edge of his hunger blunted, the Skald cursorily tried to recognize what type of venison was hidden among the mashed potatoes and vegetables, coming up with nothing.
For the next few minutes Hjalti focused on his rumbling stomach, letting the impromptu village council sort out on their own whether they believed the – admittedly – unbelievable tale on his word alone, a legionnaire whom none of them had ever seen before.
Surprisingly enough, the sour Breton, Delphine, was the metaphorically loudest voice in his favor, for the woman spoke by glares and clipped sentences rather than flaying her limbs around and challenge the rest at a bellowing competition like the Nords and even the Imperial were intent on doing.
The impasse was unraveled by the tavern's door creaking open and the herbalist making her way in. The gloves she donned to treat Hadvar were tucked into her belt and her hair hung in a practical ponytail, revealing a round face browned by long hours in the sun.
"Hadvar will live, Alvor," she immediately reassured the smith, who let out a sigh of relief to rattle the shutters. A bit of the tension seeped out of the large common room. "I expect he'll make a full recovery in less than a week. Sigrid is with him now."
"Thank you, Ferys. Anything you need, anything, you only have to ask."
She shook her head, craning her neck to pop a joint and rubbing the sore muscles with a grimace. "Don't thank me. Someone stopped the venom from spreading too far; otherwise, I could have done nothing by the time you took him to me."
Alvor's head whipped to the Skald, catching him stuffing his mouth as he followed the conversation cursorily, mind on other matters.
"Was it you?"
The warrior swallowed and let the spoon clank on the empty plate, nodding. "I know something of Restoration, but not enough to treat the poison without the antitoxin. We barely got out of there with our hides." He shrugged, as if in apology.
"I was not accusing you, son," the smith said gravely, but there was no condescension or anger in his voice. "Havdar is my nephew, and Ferys said you saved him. I only wished to thank you."
The smith reached out with a hand across the table, and after a moment's hesitation, he clasped it. It was a quick handshake, but firm, and when Alvor let go the Skald made to stand up.
"Where are you going now?" asked Delphine, arching an eyebrow.
"I can't tarry any longer, I'm afraid," he said, choosing his words carefully. Legion armor or not, he had been inches away from the chopping block when the dragon started raining hell on Helgen. Better to put as much distance between him and that place as possible before anyone got strange ideas in their minds. And he had killed two legionnaires, even if he felt justified doing so.
He fingered the unbroken scroll in his pocket, cursing again the willful blindness of the Redguard Quaestor in refusing to hear him out.
"If you're heading north, take word to Jarl Balgruff in Whiterun," Gerdur said. "Riverwood has no defense against a dragon, and he must send troops our way. In the meantime, we can fortify, build barricades and stock up for an attack if that… thing returns."
"You forget about our minders, Gerdur," the pudgy Imperial scoffed, and the Skald noticed the sneer in his voice at the word. "First sign we are arming ourselves, the village is done for. And they have sentries up at Bleak Falls Barrow. Even if they let him through," he pointed at Hjalti with a frown. "They'll see the Jarl's troops a day ahead. And this time it won't be taxes or my claw they take away."
"And what should we do then?" Gerdur snarled. Her husband put a calming hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. "Lie on our bellies and die? Some of us have more than milk in their veins, Imperial."
"And we'll see all of it soon enough if you have your way, you old battleaxe," snapped Valerius. To the Skald's ears, it all sounded like some old argument being rehearsed. A quick glance at Alvor's weary scowl confirmed that.
Yet the whole matter bothered him, more than any annoyance at the argument. He had a pretty good idea who the minders were, even if it was the first time he heard of this Bleak Falls place. Those bandits had taken on preying on the village for protection, safely tucked away from the authorities' eyes. The road to Riverwood didn't look like it saw much traffic at all too, which meant it could be months, even years before someone outside the village caught wind of the odd merchant caravan disappearing, and decided to do something about it.
Thing was, he already knew why it all bothered him so much. It was the same reason why he scuttled after Hadvar into the keep despite Ralof being the one who freed him from his bounds and breathed the life into his lungs. It was the same reason why he had barely hesitated to mow down the Stormcloak when he met him and his fellows in Helgen's caves.
"Bloody Legion and bloody two-penny morality."
Sighing, he sat down at the table again, the scabbard of his spatha rattling against the bench. When he spoke, the argument winded down as if someone had robbed it of fuel, and the room's attention turned to him immediately.
Inwardly, the Skald chuckled. His Captain always said that a good voice was as important as a strong arm and a sharp mind for any commander. Your orders were of little use if you couldn't be heard atop the clash of steel. And that was one problem the Skald never had even years after the man who spoke the advice was rotting in the Blackwood bogs.
"Lend me some decent armor, and I'll see what I can do."
The Skald knelt in the underwood, peering through the low branches at the mine's entrance and at the two bandits on guard duty. He didn't recognize them from the afternoon's encounter, but there was little doubt these were guards surveilling some honest business.
An Argonian and a Nord, both shooting cursory glances to the shadows hugging close to the small island of light their lantern provided. It wasn't cold enough to justify a fire and he suspected that even if it had been, they would have lighted none, forget the reptile's cold blood. Guard duty, especially nighttime, was a thankless job on either side of the law.
He saw the Nord, waddling around burly and bushy as they came, cast a worried glance south, where smoke still curled above Helgen even in the dead of night. The Skald resisted the itching urge to hazard a look himself; he looked instead at the ridge leaning heavily above the cave's entrance, searching.
'There.' "Come, it's time." Behind him, Orgnar the barkeep grunted, shifting the grip on his mace as the Skald drew his spatha. They broke out of the treeline with only a minimum of rattling and charged silently up the disused path leading to the cave's entrance just as a Bosmer head poked out of the bushes above the entrance and let his arrow fly.
The Argonian, bereft of a helmet, crumpled choking, an arrow sticking out of his throat. The Nord spun as he heard the body crashing onto the ground, one hand going for his mace, only for his limbs to lock up, stupid surprise in his beady eyes.
Then the Skald covered the distance, metal slid through ribs and the Illusion constraints vanished, letting the dead Nord join his colleague on the mossy ground.
"Come down, the coast's clear," he said, motioning Orgnar to the rickety door to the mine.
Faendal shouldered his bow and swiftly climbed down, landing softly on his feet and giving the two dead bandits a critical look. "We leave them here, in the open?"
The warrior shrugged. "The rest are in the mine, there's little point hiding the bodies."
"And if the sentinel's shift at the old tower is tonight, Alvor, Hod, and Gerdur can take care of a couple of them," finished Ferys, emerging from around the bend having taken a long way down. She had discarded her stained apron for an old cuirass of boiled leather, albeit without the metal reinforcements his had, courtesy of the smith. "We ready to go?"
"Bloodthirsty?" He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Hardly. It's going to be a long night, and I'd prefer to be back at dawn to check up on Hadvar," she said, eyes distant.
They entered the mine, Faendal and him in the lead: the former had the better eyes, while he the only shield in the group, another courtesy of Alvor. They skirted around an amateurish tripwire and he signaled a halt at the mouth of the first large room. They complied. At least they remembered the crash course on hand signals.
A long wooden bridge spanned from one end to the other over a basin of clear water, vestige of a time when that was indeed a mine. Veins of iron glimmered glumly in the walls in the dim light of torches, but what interested him more than the idle chatter of bandits somewhere down and on his right was the solid drawbridge on the left, closing off the rest of the mine.
'These leeches don't do things small.' "You see a lever somewhere?"
"There." Faendal pointed with a gangly finger at a small opening in the wall, where a brazier burned merrily and another bandit leaned on the railing, rifling through a book. "Beside the scholar, see the handle?"
"I'll trust you on that. Ferys, close enough for you?"
The herbalist nodded and wedged between the Bosmer and him, murmuring under her breath. A moment later, the book slipped through the bandit's numb fingers and the man flopped over like a broken marionette.
The Skald charged out of the shadows and vaulted over the bridge railing, taking in the three disbelieving bandits huddled around a campfire as he landed with a loud splash in the cold water. A moment later one of the bandits fell shrieking, clutching at the arrow in her gut.
He charged as shouts of anger and confusion rose all around him, stepping into a bandit's wild swing and slamming the hem of his shield in his face, shattering his jaw. Stepping to the side, he bashed away a second axe and his spatha found the first bandit's throat; he slashed it open and the bandit's howl turned to a weak gurgle.
The Khajiit with the axe recovered quickly just as the bridge's mechanism activated and the end of the drawbridge slammed on its end supports. The Skald felt the hair on his neck stand to attention as lightning crackled through the air, turning a battle cry into a choked, curdling scream, followed by a body crashing into the waters.
He backstepped a swing and slashed at the Khajiit's arm, then ducked under the backswing and drove his sword into the feline's belly. The Khajiit's paws gripped and scratched at his shoulder in a bad imitation of a lover's embrace, then the warrior kicked him, slipped the blade out with a wet slurp and barreled up the stairs just in time to see the last of the gate crew stumble, an arrow in her shoulder, before Orgnar caved her head in and kicked the body over.
"Think they've already sent a runner out?" panted Faendal, recovering his arrows and shaking off the brain matter. Nearby, Orgnar grimaced as a long cut along his thigh slowly seamed shut, coaxed by Ferys' spell.
"Might have," he grunted, feeling the familiar rush of battle lull back into a restless wait, straining against its bindings now that it had been provoked. "You fit to go on?"
Orgnar matched grunt with grunt in true Nord fashion and the small band crossed the drawbridge, weapons at the ready.
The next turn of the cave revealed the bandit's treasury, uncharacteristically unguarded and overflowing with gold and goods behind a solid gate of forged iron. Faendal assured them the lock was far less of a fuss, but Ferys furrowed her brow and slipped a hand through the bars after checking for magical trappings, grasping a handful of coins.
"There'll be plenty of time later," Hjalti said, trying to hide his eagerness to press forward. The herbalist sent him a scolding look, then waved an ancient looking gold coin before his nose.
"You can add grave-robbing to their list of crimes, legionnaire. Buggers are emptying Bleak Falls Barrow and profaning the dead, Daedra know for how long now."
Orgnar shrugged, examining an amethyst in the torchlight. "Not the first crypt to be emptied, and surely not the last."
It looked like Ferys wanted to snipe back at the corpulent Nord, but Hjalti silenced both with a sharp gesture and readjusted his armor. "Enough, we've given them enough bloody time to prepare already."
They emerged from a natural bottleneck with their weapons out, expecting and ambush. They found the bandits bunkering down in the last chamber instead, a tall thing on many levels with its own back exit higher up.
He spotted the Orsimer with the oblong war braids barking orders from a slope, arranging archers along a suspended bridge and waving his mace in sharp gestures of command. There were more invited at their welcome party, ensconced behind barricades along the slope leading to the bridge and around a forge on the ground level.
There was also a bold Dunmer, lurking in a recess in the wall, who jumped out and spewed flames on them. The warrior deflected the first bout with his shield, hissing at the blisters forming on his arm, and snapped the mer's wrist before tossing him bodily over the edge and straight into the forge.
As the elf raked in the coals and screamed his lungs off, the Skald shouted his challenge. His battle cry sounded off the walls, making everyone – friend and foe alike – recoil away from him in surprise.
The battle for Embershard Mine was short, brutal and worthy of no ballad. It passed in a red blur for him, drowned in the roaring singing of his blood. He was back to back with Orgnar, shattering the resistance around the forge, severing the hands begging for mercy as Faendal's arrows picked off the competition on the bridge.
He was storming the barricades on the upper ramps, his shield arm jolting with the incoming arrows. The air around him hummed with magicka as Ferys's fireballs exploded among the surprised bandits, leaving them open and confused and dead.
He was crossing blades with the Orsimer, his spatha lost somewhere and replaced with a longer blade of truer steel. The last of the bandits' morale broke when he run the Mer through, and so did they, lacking any motivation beyond greed. They scampered for the back exit, tripping over each other and their own feet, only to find their escape cut off by Delphine and two of Riverwood hunters. The Breton lady proceeded to mow the scum down with disdain and the cold professionalism of a mop-up crew.
Then there were no more enemies, and the field was theirs. But the night was far from over.
He is twenty-two and angry at the world, but he has stopped fingering the scroll in his pocket after the first time his hand curled into a fist around it.
He's twenty-two and has seen more horrors than he can describe in the last six months – Leyawin's uprising and then the nightmare of the Blackwood bogs– and now he's been discharged by the army. Rejected as unfit for duty, after everything he bled and sacrificed for the Legion.
He figures they'll come for his head at the next turn of the public opinion, but he's tired of waiting. The discharge pay is trickling dry and soon he won't have two septims to rub together.
So he figures that if they want him so much, then he'll bloody spare them the trip.
The Imperial city is the seediest hive of hypocrisy and cheap backstabbing he has ever visited. He expects it from the politicos and the higher-ups in the Provinces – and really, nobody without a politico bone in their body reaches the laurels – but in the Imperial City it oozes in the air and rolls in thick waves from the White Gold tower to the Waterfront, choking honesty by the throat and shaking the corpse for gold.
By chance, he glimpses the Emperor in the distance at one point. Titus Mede II, the Liberator. Titus Mede II, the Betrayer, the Emperor who lost his Empire.
He only sees an old man hiding the tatters of his dignity behind a pleasant smile.
That night, the guards don't toss him into the dungeons after he goes and picks a fight in the Arboretum. They usually don't waste the time to drag scum like him all the way to the Imperial prison: either a good beating in a not-so-dark alley or a short trip to the Arena, to give the Blademaster fresh meat for the morning opening matches. Or both.
He awakes to the stench of blood, infection and bodily fluids, all sprinkled with the staleness of cheap oils. Even addled and groggy he pieces it together easily. The Bloodworks. The Arena.
An old Altmer woman hovers over him, face a work of spiderwebs and hands awash with magicka as she goes through the motions with the ease of practice. Even her attitude stems from experience and over-exposure: her eyes tell she has long since learned to stop caring for her patients.
But she can speak and answers his questions, and when he sees the shrine to a pale Orc to the side, clad in armor that is more regalia than protection, he can't stop but ask.
"He was the Gray Prince," she says. "The greatest Grand Champion the Arena has ever seen since Gaiden Shinji of Diagna. Also, the only to die in his bed, undefeated."
He calls her bluff immediately.
"Believe me or not, I don't care." And why should she, he realizes, when she knows he'll probably be dead in the morning? She's already talking to a corpse, albeit one who has yet to realize its condition. The warrior who will become the Skald, mind light on a magicka rush, swears he'll prove the old crone wrong.
"The bastard son of a fallen noble, that he was. Hence the name. He remained Champion for thirty years, through the Oblivion Crisis and the Fall of the Septims. Fought in the Battle of Bruma beside the Hero and Emperor Martin. Faced a Daedra Prince in the flesh, if you believe the tales. Even had little ones of his own."
He decides to humor her. What's the harm in that? It's not like he can roam around until it's his turn to walk the sands. Gladiators police recruits far worse than the Legions ever could. "And who was worthy of your mighty Champion? The Queen of Orsinum?"
"Why, the Hero herself," the crone deadpans. He almost chokes on his laughter, but the old woman simply levels a flat stare at him, raps his bruised ribs a bit harder than strictly necessary, and continues. "A fine woman, the Hero. Humble and modest, but her spine was forged steel. Enough magicka to hurl the Daedra back into Oblivion and she never let power go to her head like the quill-pushers and warhounds of her time."
The Altmer's lips press into a thin line, her golden skin sickly and thin and ancient in the dim light of the torches. "Too bad she refused the crown when she was offered it. We might still have an Empire to speak of, had she not."
He grasps at the undertones in the woman's voice, anger and regret simmering under the apathy of too many squandered years. There is a small heat in her voice when she says the Names, equal parts reverence and longing. Prince. Hero. Emperor.
It's not a depth of emotion one acquires from hearsay, the warrior realizes.
His lips move, his throat unclenching just enough to let the word slip past and out. The disbelief he hears is faint; stronger is the surprise, the curiosity, the anger. The cheap smile of Titus Mede II burned into his mind eye as he prances around for his handlers.
"Why? Why would she turn down the throne?" The other question goes unsaid, hangs on the assumption that the old woman is speaking the truth and not spitting venom at old legends. Yet he believes her. Divines be damned, he believes her.
Why would she doom us all?
The ghost of a smile curls the edges of the old Altmer's cracked lips. It's a thing that strikes terror in the warrior's bones where the Thalmor's armies didn't.
"Why, for the dumbest reason out there, boy."
"For love."
Delphine finally came to him in the burial chamber of the Barrows, as he was scratching his week-worth of growth in front of the runic slate of stone and trying to figure out what he was looking at. 'Some form of altar, maybe?'. He had felt a sudden dizziness the first time he stared at it, a warping of sound and sight like never before.
It had also almost cost him his head when the Draugr Warlord came back to unlife, hurling the lid of his coffin right at the back of his head.
The word was branded into his mind, even though the rest of the runes remained gibberish to him.
"Fus…" he murmured against his hand. Nothing happened.
"Don't believe you have me fooled," she said, halting at his side, arms crossed over her chest. She was not too tall for a Breton and his own cross-breed heritage didn't rob him of any of his Nord height, so her head reached around his shoulder. "I'd ask for your name, Hjalti," she scoffed as if the name was a personal slight, "but you'd lie anyway, so I won't bother."
The Skald pondered whether to play innocent, but a glare from Delphine saw the notion wither and evaporate a moment later. He looked around for Faendal instead, sprawled on the ground beside the burial offers, his chest heaving up and down as the Bosmer tried to catch his breath after the hectic battle.
He chuckled. The man had his heart in the right place, and sure enough knew how to pierce one with an arrow. But for all his bravery, he was a hunter, a woodcutter.
Delphine and he were warriors.
"Speak your mind then. Surprise me."
She snorted. "You are no more Legion than I am. I'd bet good money you don't even know where Solitude is." He snorted back and the woman continued. "They owe you a debt, the Bosmer more than the rest, so they won't ask any questions you don't want to answer."
"And you don't? Looks to me you were stuck with the bandits as much as everyone else."
"Spare me your rhetorics," she hissed. "Now tell me who you are and what you're doing here."
"You first."
Silence ensued, the kind brimming with underlying tension where neither party wanted to back down first and yet refrained from grasping at hilts, knowing that things could get too ugly too quickly.
He had witnessed the Breton's skill with a sword more clearly as they carved their path into Bleak Falls Barrow through bandits, frost spiders and a small legion of restless Draugr. She was no ordinary barkeep's wife, and he was starting to suspect that she was no wife at all.
He didn't delude himself into thinking the descent would have gone as smoothly without her skilled blade, nor that he could take her one on one with the certainty of living to tell the tale. Her paucity of movement and unflappable poise spoke of experience and an ease with a blade he was hard-pressed to match but strove to nonetheless; so much that, halfway through the crypt the whole thing devolved into a silent competition on his part, much to Faendal's puzzlement and Delphine's grim amusement.
"You're half wrong, by the way," he offered, his tongue working faster than his brain as his thoughts digressed.
"How, pray tell?"
"How can you be half-wrong? Fairly easily I'd guess, unless you're an Avatar or something."
Her glare was all the answer he got for his effort at stalling, and he sighed. "I was Legion, a number of years ago. Happy now?" He shot her an eloquent look, the bite-the-morsel-and-bugger-off kind of look, but Delphine soldiered on with the momentum of a company of heavy cavalry.
"Stationed where? Speak."
"Ninth Legion, Southern Cyrodill," he ground out, struggling to keep his face blank and the seethe out of his voice.
"You were at Leyawiin." 'And failing spectacularly, it would seem'. She pinned him with a glare of naked contempt and spat at his feet, a glob of saliva and blood dripping from his boots, then marched stiffly away to Faendal, quickly sorting out the junk from the loot and stuffing most of it into a sack she hauled on her shoulder.
So it was that the three of them, the only ones out of the Embershard Raid Crew who climbed past the old watchtower to the Barrow, traced back their steps through the ancient desecrated crypts, following his bobbing Magelight and filling their sacks with enough loot to set a man for a comfortable life. The only conversation was of the practical sort, what to take and what to leave, and once or twice if one wished to place dibs on a particular piece.
The Skald exercised paucity and restraint, something the priest at the orphanage often incited the striplings to do. Still, the old cleric, Arkay bless his soul, wouldn't look down at him with favor for such a small act.
Truth be told, he already carried the pick of it on his person: the ancient tablet the Warlord guarded in his not-so-final rest pointed at more burial grounds for the Dragon cult, a promise of future riches.
The blade flapping against his thigh was a new acquisition too, claimed by right of kill: the Warlord sword was of old steel engraved with ancient runes, but the edge was still sharp and the frost enchantments on the blade in working order, as the lingering stiffness and ache of his muscles didn't fail to remind him.
The gems, soul gems and hard, gold coins were always a welcome added weight, however; he made sure to keep his pack modestly light, leaving the lion's share to the altar of Riverwood's future prosperity. All things considered, he was comfortable he'd have little trouble hauling his share to the end of the world once he bartered some of it for a few handy potions at the Valerius' supply store.
On another note, his magicka continued to answer erratically since the loss of his charm on the Jerrals. With enough mulishness on his part the Restoration spells slowly took over the natural healing of the worst of his injuries, but the warrior still grimaced. He'd have to stop at the herbalist's to have her give him a once over before leaving, but at least it wouldn't be wasted time: he already intended to check on Hadvar and have a few choice words with the man anyway.
So it was that the trio emerged from the Barrows as the sun reached his peak over Skyrim. They all squinted their eyes shut and breathed the stale, musty air of the crypts out of their lungs, welcoming the chill of the mountain air.
The steps were soaked with the blood of the resident brigands, making the ancient stone slippery under his boots. He trod carefully to the edge, admiring both the view and his handiwork in the daylight; what with reaching the peak at the crack of dawn after a lengthy climb, he had had no time to appreciate the view before.
From up above, Riverwood was fairly small and ordinary, but Faendal was a mine of nervous, bubbling chatter now that the Claw hung tightly from his belt.
"See, on the other bank? Plenty of space to build more houses, expand. With all this," he patted the bulging sack of loot on his shoulder, grinning with well-deserved satisfaction, "I'll manage to build a place of my own. The first new household in Riverwood in years. Mother's been complaining for a while that we're too cramped at home anyway."
"Got your eyes set already, don't you?" the Skald teased at one point, and to his surprise the Bosmer didn't cough or look down, but set in jaw in a determined line and nodded to himself.
"Good for the two of them, this boost in confidence. Shy Bosmer never won fair Camilla. Besides, Sven is a primp."
He let the elf prattle, giving the appropriate bland answers to egg him on without really paying attention to the conversation. Despite Delphine watching him like an hawk, her glare dripping with disgust, he remained in a fairly good mood. His crave for battle was blunted, for the moment, and his body was just in the right stage between weariness and relaxation he had learned to recognize as peace – or the closer resemblance to the state he could ever reach. Hauling large quantities of gold was a pleasure on its own, too.
Worries, however, lingered at the edges of his mind. He didn't know if the Legion had reported him as a criminal already; he kind of figured they'd have more pressing matters, namely a dragon, than concern themselves with a lone traveler found half dead in a rebel camp. Still, he'd be foolish to rule out the possibility and find himself nailed and short a head as a result.
Delphine was a more pressing matter. He had slipped in the crypt and only the Divines knew why he blundered in the first place, but it was useless to cry over spilt milk. Delphine knew, and soon enough the rest of the village would too.
People, the warrior often found, even the self-appointed 'broad-minded' kind, were quick smart to forget the benefits someone wrought them when confronted with the weight of ignominy and established truths. He discovered that in the first few weeks upon his return from Black Marsh, when suddenly his coin was not good enough and even the rest of the Legion looked down at him like he was a rabid dog. At the time, he had done his damnest to prove them all right.
He didn't delude himself now. Riverwood was no place for him to settle down like Faendal was so eager to do. Not where he couldn't trust those around him with an identity that wasn't a poorly fabricated lie, like the Legion rags that granted him haven in the village in the first place; not when the sole mention of his past had people spit and curse at him, like Delphine did.
Not when his blood urged him to the fight and the undying thrill of besting one's enemy.
"It will be different further North. The Stormcloaks ought not to care overmuch about the southern reaches of Cyrodill."
The words sounded awfully hopeful even to his ear.
He found Ferys in the process of confining Hadvar to his bed with a paralysis spell. The Nord was having none of it however, but he was too educated to shout, even if his shoulders shook with frustration.
"I have to report to Solitude, Ferys," he said with the inexorability of a storm. "I am part of General Tullius' personal guard, and I've already delayed too long."
"Put it out of your mind. You can barely stand without toppling over." Ferys stood like the Throat of the World, unheeding of the winds and thunders. "You were poisoned! Most people can't even feed themselves for a few days with your kind of exposure."
"The war can't wait another couple of days," stated Hadvar, eyes hard and shining. The Skald, leaning against the doorsill, didn't like the gleam in his eyes. He had seen it countless times before but it lasted only as long as the first shoveful of earth hid the dead's face in an early grave.
'They sure have you deep in their clutch. Bloody Legion.'
"And what difference can one man make, for a couple of days?" It was the wrong thing to say, and he couldn't blame Hadvar for glaring at the herbalist. She almost flinched back, biting on her lower lip, but stood her ground.
"A man can make all the difference," spat back the legionnaire, finally noticing him. "As my friend here can tell you. In fact, I'll leave you to him." He took a couple of steps in the direction of the door, then he swayed and stumbled, one hand reaching out for purchase.
The Skald was fast, but Ferys beat him to the punch. Grunting, she caught the man under the arm and shouldered him back to the cot, where Hadvar sat heavily, face in his hands. Ferys left him at it, stepping up to the fire to stir the thick soup hanging over the hearth, but the warrior saw the pleading look she shot his way.
"She's right, you know. Every green recruit from here to the Summerset Isles could kick your arse to Oblivion." He stepped over to Hadvar and gave him a light shove, sending him toppling against the wall. "Weak as a mewling kitten."
"I'll recover on the way to Solitude."
He sighed. "You'll die on the way to Solitude. Provided you reach the closest stable without stumbling and breaking your head on a rock, or drown in a puddle of dog piss."
Hadvar groaned, lifting sunken eyes on him. The warrior saw the lingering pallor and the slouch of the legionnaire's large shoulders. The poison had taken an evident toll on the man, larger than his Nord pride allowed him to admit, maybe even to himself.
He patted the legionnaire on the shoulder. "There ought to be other survivors from Helgen to tell the tale, and I bet my new sword against a rusted septim there is a convoy moving from the nearest Imperial outpost as we speak to go retrieve the wounded. Give yourself a few days' time to heal, and I'm sure the resident despot will give you leave to travel."
Behind him, Ferys snorted in a very unlady-like manner, then placed a bowel of thick stew and a jug of water in Hadvar's lap.
"Besides," she took up in a lighter tone where he left. "Dorthe has been pestering me all morning to see her favorite uncle. And you haven't seen Alvor in what? Two years?"
Hadvar's eyes dropped on the stew, his hand curling around the spoon in a fist. "I'm fighting out there for them, Ferys," he murmured, tone low but resolute. "So that they can leave in peace."
"You won't do them any good if you fall on your sword," she said, tone soft. She patted his shoulder to encourage him to eat. Her hand lingered for a few moments before she turned to face the warrior. "Now, I take you evicted the squatters from the Barrows?"
"Squatters of all kinds. Some quite attached to their property." He fingered the enchanted sword at his hip, seeing Hadvar's eyes widen in surprise and awe, but the Skald wasn't there to brag. Not too much, at least. Old Bloodworks habits died hard.
"I need you to check my wounds. The blade is enchanted with some frost runes and my magicka has been acting up recently."
She cocked a speculative eyebrow, then showed him to a rickety chair by the table that occupied much of the single room. An assortment of herbs, roots, flowers and grinders covered one half, and a few dishes were piled close, waiting to be stocked.
His senses hummed pleasantly as she got to work and he easily ignored the by now familiar sensation of muscles and skin knitting up under the gentle coaxing of Restoration magic. She was seeping the cold from his bones as well, to which he let out a small sigh of relief. After a while, he spoke over the sounds of Hadvar's munching, answering her silent question.
"Nothing much. I lost my charm as I fled the avalanche at Pale Pass, or somewhere around then."
"A charm? Like an amulet of some kind?" Ferys stepped around him, bowing over his shoulder to reach another cluster of bruises. "Why would you need one to access your magicka?"
"Let's say my affinity is not up there with Archmage Trevan or the Hero of Kvatch," he snorted. Hadvar guffawed as he gulped down his chew and half-choked on it, but Ferys simply swatted him on the arm in a 'stop-being-so-modest' kind of way.
"No, really. I thought I was a Mundane until I was twenty-two. Even after that, I never went further than the basics and some cheap tricks in Restoration. My teacher got me hurt on purpose to have a 'willing live subject', the bitch." His tone remained light, but a shadow passed over his face and he fingered the black stone around his neck. Thankfully he was turned the other way and the others failed to notice it.
"All done," said Ferys moments later, straightening and stretching, popping a few vertebrae doing so. A yawn threatened to split her face, but he had to give her points for trying to suppress it. "Right, sleeping. Cleaning this mess first, though."
"I should get going," Hadvar said again. Ferys pinned him with a glare, but the legionnaire wearily rose his palms in surrender. "Just across the street, Ferys. I've imposed on you too long already."
"More like you're biding your time to slip away unnoticed, away from the doctor's watch," she grumbled back, hands splitting and tying together a number of herbs with the ease of long practice. Those calloused hands stopped then and she seemed to deflate a bit.
"Ferys…"
"Go Hadvar. Just… go, fight your war and earn yourself a ballad. I've no right to hold you somewhere you have no intention to stay."
An awkward silence followed as Hadvar gathered himself and half-marched, half-wobbled out of the door. He offered the Skald a small nod and then the door clicked shut behind him.
"He'll be gone by morning."
Ferys sighed. "And only because Sigrid will insist on keeping him around for dinner. Fool." He waited patiently, giving her space as she recovered her composure and collected herself, but even then the gentle smile on her face was strained and crooked.
"I wish I could help you. We all owe you so much." She picked up a peeled, gnarled root and stared at it absently, then shrugged. "But I don't know the first thing about magickal foci and the likes: I'm more of the hedge witch school myself." She pursed her lips in thought a moment longer, then a light switched behind her eyes. "You could seek help at Winterhold, though, if you find yourself on the north coast. Word is they've branched a lot ever since the new Archmage took the reins, and the College is the best Skyrim's got to hold a candle at the University. You could receive some proper education at the very least, though that might come at a steep price in gold."
He filed the information away for later, though by his vague recollection of Skyrim's map Winterhold wasn't really behind the next corner. 'I'll check it up later. But still, North it is then.'
The Skald nodded in thanks, then offered her his hand. The Breton's grip was firm, her hand covered in calluses.
"Safe travels to you, nameless man. May you find what you seek."
He doubted that. He'd need to know what he sought in the first place.