Foreword:
Fifty years after the Oblivion Crisis and more than six years since the events of the Infernal City, the story continues. Karl gro-Baroth had been raised by a Nord, but his blood was as Orcish as his bothers. With the Guild Master gone, the Fighters Guild needed leadership. The first question was obvious. What was he going to do about it?
Authors note: With some artistic license, all reasonable effort made to maintain general parity with existing canon established in Oblivion, The Infernal City/Lord of Souls, and Skyrim.
Rated M for mild adult content.
Although it should go without needing to be stated, let it be said: Bethesda owns The Elder Scrolls and all related materials. I am merely contributing my own interpretations in a public forum and no profit is derived or intended from my work.
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Additional note: The story follows on from "The Hammer and the Anvil: An Elder Scrolls Novel". Some effort has been made to allow this story to function as stand-alone. However, I still recommend reading the previous story for a more complete perspective.
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The Sons of Baroth: An Elder Scrolls Novel
Greg J Miller
~O~
Chapter 1
Morndas the 31st of Second Seed 4E49
The bells of the Chapel of Stendarr had just marked the hour of eight. As usual by that time, Karl gro-Baroth had already been sitting at his desk for quite a while. The open space of his office was situated on the uppermost level of the Fighters Guild of Chorrol, overlooking the common area of the second level just below.
The bunks of the second level were all abandoned by that hour. Everyone else in the Guildhall was down on the main level by then. That suited Karl just fine. It was much quieter upstairs, that way. He wasn't in the mood for any of Catius and Henik's bullshit that early in the day. If it came down to it, he was actually expecting problems with Varro, if something didn't come up soon to keep them all occupied.
Of late, the big Orc was feeling rather less comfortable in that chair behind the big desk. Almost three months had passed since the former Guildhead had died. Of course, he wasn't just the head of the Chorrol office. He had been the Guild Master and head of all the affiliated Guildhalls of the Empire. That meant that Karl wasn't just keeping that seat warm as usual. It meant that he was effectively stuck with it, whether he wanted it or not.
Karl smoothed his bushy eyebrows as he cast his thoughts back a few weeks. That was the last time that things seemed relatively normal.
Pinewatch had gone off with Northwind to visit her family back in High Rock. Even with those two absent, they weren't really shorthanded. There wasn't all that much work to go around. Karl had sent Montrose with the Odiil boy to go look into animal attacks at a nearby farm. He also sent Henrik off with them, just to get him out of the Guildhall. It turned out they were only dealing with some wolves again, nothing too big.
Of course, the boss was out somewhere with Sergius Varro and Jena Nonius. As usual, Karl held no idea of what they were up to or where they were. It was probably more unusual if the boss actually told him anything beforehand. He wouldn't generally expect a lot of detail when he did get to hear about it. Still, that was what passed for normal.
It had been late in the first week of First Seed when Varro and Nonius brought the boss's body back to Chorrol. A mechanical trap in the ruins of an ancient Ayleid tomb had taken off his head. Karl had always half expected something like that would eventually happen. The boss was almost as fit as a man half his age, but he had to be over sixty.
The Guildhead had never been one to remain at the Guildhall for any notable length of time. He was almost always off any place else but there, leaving Karl to manage the day to day operations of everything.
Thinking about it, Karl realised that it had pretty much always been like that. It only seemed worse over the past five or six years. The Guildhead would just take off with Varro and Nonius in tow. Nine times out of ten, Karl would remain in the dark until it was all done and dusted. Only after the fact, filing some sort of half-arsed paperwork to justify whatever they'd been doing.
Karl held no idea of how the man had fit in with the Imperial Legion before taking his role in the Fighters Guild. The boss had been a lesser general in Titus Mede's renewed Legion for a brief time. He'd commanded one third of the forces responsible for pacifying County Bravil and bringing it back into the fold of Cyrodilic rule.
Karl had always assumed that he'd been granted the position of head of the Fighters Guild as reward for his service to the Empire. It was reasonable to think that Mede wanted a properly regulated Guild that answered to the throne. During the chaos of the Stormcrown Interregnum, a whole bunch of rag-tag and rogue-like mercenary companies had sprung up all across the land. Just a few of them ran respectable operations. Far more of them seemed more like bandit gangs. Still, Karl wasn't real sure how the boss represented 'properly regulated' anything.
Nevertheless, once the dust had settled over Cyrodiil with a new Emperor on the Ruby Throne, something had to be sorted or it might have been the end of the Fighters Guild. Since Modryn Oreyn was gone and the Guild seemed little more than a shell of its former days, Karl was happy enough to accept Mede's choice of appointment along with the funds that flowed from Imperial coffers.
Of course, none of that had been his choice at all. Back then, Karl was just a lowly first rank member of the Guild. It didn't matter much what he thought.
By that time, there wouldn't have been anybody left in the Chorrol Guildhall but Karl and the old blacksmith, Sabine. His older brothers were lost to him. Even the Guild Porter had been taken away by the unofficial wars. There wouldn't have been anything, if Guildhead Azzan hadn't come over from Anvil to try to keep things afloat. He brought another dark-skinned Redguard with him, Rhano. Still, that didn't make for much of a Fighters Guild head office.
After discussions between the freshly minted Emperor and Azzan, the former General Lusius came in to take the big chair, bringing Varro and Nonius with him. Both of those two were hardly much older than Karl had been. Still, they'd served under the boss in the Legion and he wanted them by his side. So that what was how it went.
Azzan stayed on in Chorrol as second-in-charge for nearly three years. After that, he'd gone over to the port city of Rihad to take charge and look toward the Fighters Guild's interests in eastern Hammerfell. The Guildhalls of Taneth and Elinhir had all but fallen to ruin without Imperial funding and most of the others were gone. He aimed to do something about that. Rhano followed him not long afterward. Azzan had stayed with Rihad right up until he retired. Rhano hadn't lasted quite that long.
The Guildhead soon brought in a few more of his old Legion buddies. More than a few came and went without much fanfare. By now, Karl couldn't even remember half of them. The boss had brought in one of his cousins, another Lusius and former Legion soldier. He'd been quickly promoted to serve as second-in-command. That was when everyone started to just call the Guildhead 'boss', since there were two Lusius's in the Chorrol Guildhall.
Thinking back, Karl recalled that the boss had already started his roaming ways not long after he had his cousin to mind the Guildhall when he was away. Of course, some of it was the proper business of a Guild Master. He needed to visit the other Guildhalls and see that they were all getting back up to scratch. Still, more of more of it seemed to be about just getting out there and getting his hands dirty. The boss seemed to hold to a romanticised image of how the famed Champion of Cyrodiil had handled the Guild during that brief tenure. Of course, the Guild had Modryn Oreyn to keep the wheels turning as the Champion ran about all over the land on endless adventures. In the end, Oreyn assumed the role of Guildhead after the Champion had disappeared. He would probably have still been running things, if he was alive.
The boss's cousin sat in that chair for the better part of two decades, before finally retiring from the Guild. Of course by that time, Karl had risen up through the ranks. Only Varro and Nonius had been with the Guild near as long. Varro wouldn't have been capable of running the place. Nonius might have been capable, but she was far more interested in running around with the boss. The last thing that she wanted was to be left behind.
So, Karl was made second-in-charge. From that time onward, it seemed that most of his days would be chained to the big desk. It seemed the only time that he left the Guildhall was to attend to the visits to other Guildhalls that the boss had neglected in an artful fashion.
Since the death of the boss, Karl had served as acting Guildhead. By now, he'd been serving as second-in-charge of the Guild for nearly eleven years. He knew the job inside out and the place always ran smoothly enough without the boss around, possibly better due to his absence. Nevertheless, Karl remained reluctant to actually assume the role of Guild Master.
Both the Elder Council and Emperor Mede had sent messages, pressuring him to either step up or organise a suitable replacement. So far, he'd not managed to achieve either thing.
Karl gro-Baroth realised he'd been daydreaming, instead of looking to the task at hand. He rubbed the slight ridges along the bridge of his nose. With a sense of weary purpose, he returned his attention to the list of names that he'd previously made.
Leaving aside any unaffiliated Guildhalls in those lands no longer part of the Empire, went some way toward narrowing things down considerably. A few others were just as easily ruled out for various other reasons.
Bravil's Guildhall was already shorthanded and couldn't afford to lose anyone, let alone the Guildhead. It was the same with Elinhir.
The port town of Water's Edge didn't even have a proper Guildhall. It was just those four in that makeshift hall. The only reason there was even any Guild presence in Water's Edge, was due to the unexpected boom of growth that the place experienced during the Stormcrown Interregnum. When Leyawiin and Bravil had rebelled from Imperial rule, that small town had served as an unaligned trading port. Of course, that was only possible due to the support of independent Rimmen. That easternmost city-state of Elsweyr needed safe access to Topal Bay during the turmoil and neither Bravil nor Leyawiin were in a position to provide that.
Karl ran a hand over his baldhead as he considered the others on his list.
Guillard was the Redguard in charge of Bruma's Guildhall. He managed a bunch of unruly Nords. He was certainly competent, but probably not experienced enough to take over all the Guild's operation. At least, not in Karl's opinion.
Drals Vedran of Cheydinhal was a different matter. From the way that he ran his Guildhall, he seemed like a good choice. Still, he did seem mostly motivated by upholding Dunmer interests in Cheydinhal. Almost half the people of that city were gray-skinned Dark-Elves and more than half of those in his Guildhall were his people. If they were looking to rebuild the infrastructure in Morrowind, then he'd be the right one for that job.
That put him in mind of Razaal of Rihad. He was the right person for Rihad, but he was more interested in his own part of Hammerfell than the Fighters Guild as a whole.
Llensi Llaram was the Dunmer in charge of Anvil's Guildhall. She certainly had the experience. She'd started as a fresh recruit under Azzan. In some respects, it seemed that she'd run the same race as Karl. Still, she'd only made Guildhead by being the only one that stayed that long. She was no more motivated to take over as Guild Master than he was.
Karl knew that he'd never persuade Farrel to leave Kvatch. She'd been there since the rebuilding of the city after the Oblivion Crisis. The wily Bosmer liked to run things her own way. It was hard to imagine how she'd take to looking over a broader perspective.
Skingrad's Guildhead was a different sort of prospect. Karl held a lot of respect for her. He always thought that Adrienne Canne would make a perfectly capable head of the Fighters Guild. He wasn't certain she could be convinced to leave Skingrad, but it could be well worth the conversation.
The last one on his list was Etrius Quaspas, head of the Leyawiin Guildhall. By then, Leyawiin had as many people in the Guildhall as Chorrol and Quaspus' second could probably step up to take his place. Karl had only met with him a few times, but he didn't quite take to him, without really knowing why. Maybe there was a touch of Nibenese smugness about him; that would probably do it. He didn't know how he'd feel about working with him.
There was something else. Quaspas' father had fought on the side of independent Leyawiin during the Stormcrown Interregnum and that was a mark against him, of sorts. Still, Etrius had been perfectly loyal to the crown after Titus Mede had reunited all of Cyrodiil.
Karl rubbed the bridge of his nose again. All he was doing was finding excuses for not selecting anyone from the list of possible candidates. If it came to that, he'd just been making excuses for not accepting the role himself for nearly three months.
Once again, it occurred to him that if he'd been serious about finding a replacement in short order, then he should have been out there talking to the other Guildheads, instead of stalling for inspiration from the Nine Divines.
Still, it wasn't as though the Fighters Guild had come to a standstill without the boss around. Karl had kept everything moving along, just like business as usual. The only thing he hadn't attended was actually filling the boss's boots. Either way, it was still all up to him. Well, mostly up to him.
It wasn't like Varro or Nonius were really suited to the job. They weren't even up for the position of second, despite holding the same rank level as Karl. He wasn't even sure that they'd stick around for much longer.
He'd had to promote Francois Montrose up to seventh rank and appoint him as acting second. Before that time, he'd considered Montrose no more than a fair Guild Fighter and an excellent trainer for the younger lads. Over the past few weeks, he was actually starting to think that the locally born Breton might make a good administrator, once he'd been properly brought up to speed. Karl was actually a little surprised.
He shuffled a few letters on his desk. There was one in particular that offered distraction. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He paused over it again for a lengthy moment.
"Hey, Karl."
The big Orc looked up with a start. He hadn't heard Northwind come up the stairs at all, but he recognised her voice. Her accent was an odd blend of High Rock with a hint of northern Skyrim and then further altered by the past decade she'd passed in Cyrodiil.
"Monika." Karl's grin exposed his tusklike lower canines. "When'd you get back in?"
"Got back last night." She returned a friendly grin and pulled up a seat. Her fair hair was tied back exposing her slightly pointed ears and the lightly bronze-tinged colouring about the back of her neck. Northwind's appearance was a result of her mixed heritage. Her father was Nord, but her mother was Altmer. Still, there was none of that High-Elf snobbery about her.
"Where's Pinewatch?" Karl prompted. Those two were usually joined at the hip, more literally so, on their own time.
"Downstairs with Vinnus." She'd been out on a job with Alex and young Vinnus Odiil for the past few days. "Vinnus stayed at the family farm last night. Must've been up before dawn, cos' he was just coming up the street as we got here." Monika and Alex always stayed at the inn by the south gates, rather than bunking in the Guildhall.
Karl's expectant gaze preceded his prompt. "So, how'd it go then?"
Monika shrugged. "Nothin' special. Just wolves. Legion could've dealt with it." They'd been sent to look into the disappearance of livestock from the farms outside of Weye. That township was just outside of the Imperial City, where The Black Road from Chorrol met The Red Ring Road that surrounded Lake Rumare and the Imperial Isle.
"What took so long then?"
Monika shrugged again and wrinkled her nose. "Wawnett Inn."
Karl understood. Nerussa, the old Altmer woman that ran the inn, had been a close friend of Monika's mother, from back when her parents lived in the Imperial City. Just last year, Monika had bought into the inn, though she didn't have much to do with actually running it.
"So then, how is the old girl?" Karl knew Nerussa, if only very casually.
Monika waved a hand dismissively. "Same as usual. She's okay, for her age. Except for her eyesight, 'course."
Karl nodded. He knew that she'd been going blind for years. She'd been far too fond of those exotic concoctions that she used to collect. Finding the proper document, he pushed it across the desk. "Should get you signed off on that contract."
Monika took up the quill and ink and signed in the proper places, adding a short note about the wolves. Meanwhile, Karl rose from the desk to retrieve payment from the lockup chest, before returning to his seat.
"That's the gold for you and Alex. You can send up Odiil later."
Monika idly watched Karl shuffle through some documents on his desk. "Got anything there for me?"
"Not exactly." Karl shuffled some papers before pausing on one in particular. "Got news about one of ya' friends here. Canne officially accepted Maplewood to Skingrad."
"That's good." Her expression reflected her approval. "Thought Canne might have been hard-arsed about her quitting Kvatch."
"Yeah, well. I reckon ya' other friend mighta swayed her a bit."
"Forester." Monika suggested.
"Yeah, Forester."
"Anything about Sentinel?" Monika was wondering whether anything was going to happen after what went down a couple of month's back.
"Nothin' yet. Sent word over to Razaal in Rihad. Told him that Taimar should stay on in Sentinel and he should send another one over there. That makes four of 'em, now. Still gonna take a bit of negotiatin' to get a proper Guildhall happening. Til then, they can keep operating out of the Legion garrison."
Monika nodded. "Well, who's gonna be doing the negotiating?"
"Off my back, woman. Already gettin' enough of that." His grimace exposed his lower canines in a slightly menacing fashion, but the smile in his dark eyes undermined the threat.
Monika held his stare with her amber gaze. "Y'know, you're gonna have to do something soon."
"Yeah, yeah. I know." He held up a messy list of names with notes and marks. "I been going over the possibilities. Just ain't made no decisions."
"Have you talked to any of the other Guildheads?"
"Sort of. With the usual back and forth messages."
Monika's raised eyebrows served as a silent challenge.
Karl gestured with open hands. "Ain't no one putting up their hand, if that's what you're gettin' at." He released a long sigh. "Might end up with no choice."
Monika had noticed how he kept fidgeting with a particular document, picking it up and putting it back down. He was glancing down at it again. "What's that about?"
Karl blinked with a slightly guilty expression. "Yeah, ah… reports from Wayrest."
Monika frowned. "The ones we brought back from the Wayrest Guildhall? From whatshername… Wickfield?"
"Yeah, Wickfield." Karl affirmed. "And no, these ones came just last week."
Monika knew that the Wayrest Guildhall didn't answer directly to Chorrol. They still followed the Guild Charter, but they'd been on their own since the Interregnum, operating under local funding. They only kept in touch as a matter of courtesy. "So, what's it about?"
Karl released another long sigh. "Most of it's just the usual." He paused. "Been some trouble with local Orcs lately. Some of 'em coming down from the mountains. Goin' on about how the Empire owed 'em a new Orsinium."
Monika nodded slightly. Of course, she knew of how Daggerfall and Sentinel had participated in the sacking of the Orc city near the end of the Interregnum. Wayrest had managed to stay out of it. Afterward, the Queen of Wayrest had lobbied Titus Mede to support what remained of the Orc settlements throughout the Wrothgarian Mountains as an Orsinium state. There were lots of villages, strongholds and one or two small townships up there, but the old city of Orsinium was nothing but ruins.
Karl resumed. "The City Watch had one troublemaker in the lockup for weeks. He was part of a group that were agitating for Orc rights in High Rock and a new Orsinium city."
Monika interrupted. "We saw a wild Orc carried off in the middle of the city, when we were up there."
"Yeah? Mighta been the same one. Doesn't matter. Anyway, he eventually gave up some names of some of the others he was running with." Karl paused to look to her. "One of 'em went by Uzgark gro-Baroth."
"Baroth?" Monika's furrowed brow implied further questions.
"Yeah, dunno. News to me. Far as I knew, I was the last one."
"Uzgark?"
"Yeah, the old man's name was Baroth gro-Uzgark."
Monika nodded slowly. She remembered how traditional Orc sons took the father's name and daughters usually got the same from their mothers, but with a 'gra'. It seemed far too coincidental to just be the son of another Orc called Baroth. She looked back to Karl. "Did they find him?"
Karl shook his head. "If he was ever there, then he got out of the city."
"Maybe, it needs looking into."
"Can't just go running off."
"Wouldn't have stopped the boss."
"I ain't him."
"No, you're not." She paused for a lengthy moment. "If there's a chance you have a brother that you've never known about…"
Karl huffed with another heavy sigh. He shook his head slightly and stared off to the side toward nothing in particular.
Monika broke the silence. "Y'know, if you were serious about talking to some of the other Guildheads, then you should probably be visiting them."
"Yeah, maybe." Karl didn't look at her.
Monika wasn't finished. "Someone needs to talk to the King of Sentinel about getting a proper Guildhall up and running. That's not gonna sort itself." She paused. "I was thinking… if there was a proper conversation, Wayrest might even be convinced to come all the way back into the fold. If that happened, then maybe Daggerfall could be leaned on as well. Daggerfall never sits back quietly if it looks like Wayrest is making the right moves with Imperial concerns."
"Divines, woman. You angling for second-in-charge?"
Monika returned a crooked smile. "Nah, wouldn't want that. Looks to me like it causes premature aging."
Karl only grunted without intelligible response. He knew that only months separated their ages, both of them born in the first year of the current era. She only looked much younger due to her Altmer blood. The Orsimer lived no longer than regular humans.
"So, what are you gonna do?" Monika pressed.
"I'm gonna give it some thought."
Monika decided to leave it at that. "So then, what's next?"
Karl scratched an itch on the point of his left ear. "Yeah, well… until there's something on the books…"
"Training?"
"Yeah, training."
"Got it." Monika started to get up.
Karl called out as she started for the stairs. "Oh, yeah. Can I get ya' to send up Montrose? I s'pose, I might need to have a talk with him."
"Will do." Monika called back as she headed off back downstairs.
Karl again picked over the papers on his desk. He was just thinking that he needed to start doing a lot less thinking and a whole lot more doing. Maybe that was the day to make a good start on that.
~O~