Author Note: The year is 2015 and the date is the exact fourth anniversary of the completion of Brothers in Arms. I find myself drawn to this fic again. I doubt that I will manage a complete rewrite of this story, but that is my hope. If anybody is still reading this story after all this time, I thank you. Do not be afraid to leave a review because the story has been dormant for so long. Every time I receive a notification about it, it brightens my day a little. Brothers in Arms meant a lot to me, and was truly a labour of love. My only hope is that anybody who reads it gets the same enjoyment from it that I did, all those years ago.

"Each event is preceded by Prophecy. But without the hero, there is no Event."
- Zurin Arctus, the Underking


Chapter 1

In the city of Bruma, high on the Jerall Mountains near the border with Skyrim, the long-term presence of an Argonian was always a cause of confusion. Few Argonians chose to stray this far north and even fewer decided to make the town their long-term residence.

This particular Argonian had raised even more questions since he had arrived here a little over a month previously. His employment in the household of the wealthy Bosmer Baenlin had raised more than a few eyebrows, though it seemed to be preferable to finding his frozen corpse in a snow drift early on a winter's morning. As it stood, the people of Bruma asked few questions about the Argonian or his providence, though there had previously been some talk of his wreaking havoc within the local Mages' Guild chapter with spells gone awry.

Before entering into Baenlin's employ, the Argonian had enjoyed some notoriety, first as a pirate and then as a wandering bard before meeting with the last in a string of serious misfortunes that had caused him to end up penniless and alone on the frozen streets of this northern city. Baenlin, a shrewd businessman, was the first to take advantage of the beggar's poor luck and offered him a roof over his head in exchange for performing out a few odd jobs that his manservant Gromm could not fit into his daily routine. At the time being housed in a frosty cellar had been preferable to facing the elements, however the offer had soon lost its lustre once the Argonian had realised he would never earn enough septims to leave this town even with several years of pay in his pocket.

The stories he had once told in the inns told of the adventures he had had before reaching the city, though whether truthful or greatly embellished it was uncertain. After being forced from the Serpent's Wake, the ship on which he had found passage to Cyrodiil, by the other crew members for being 'bad luck', he had been taken in by the author Quill-Weave for a short time before setting off alone. During his time as a bard the Argonian had travelled from town to town and eventually to Bruma to make his fortune, only to be robbed while staying in Olav's Tap and Tack, he suspected by a member of the Thieves Guild who saw him as an easy target.

Then penniless, the Argonian was forced to take up begging and slept inside the Chapel of Talos to shield himself from the cold until he was forcibly removed from the chapel by a primate who, it seemed, had not studied the section of his faith that called for acts of charity. That night he had almost frozen to death.

He was taken in by the Bruma Guild of Mages for a short time, cared for by the Imperial alchemist Selena Orania and the intensely annoying Breton Jeanne Frasoric. While he possessed some magical ability, his control of this power was tenuous at best. The crisis point came when he started blowing holes in the roof, being attacked by his own summoned daedra and very nearly managed to cost Jeanne a finger, though other members of the guild had found this misadventure among the most creative pranks that they had never dared try and had thanked him for the priceless inspiration.

Two days later he was taken in by Baenlin following Jeanne's recommendation and the threat that otherwise he would be forced to live on the streets again.

The Argonian despised his position with the Bosmer. If he had had anywhere else to go he would have left. He sometimes wished that Baenlin would meet his end so that he could be free of this terrible predicament. People around him often met with dreadful accidents, however at this rate he was bound to be stuck in this position for some time. Though upon his reflection, that in itself was probably misfortune enough to follow with the general pattern of his time in Cyrodiil thus far.

Turner - who had been named by a slightly tipsy Nord woman but seemed to be called all manner of names by people who assumed that it was short for something like Turns-A-Corner or Turner-of-Wheels or Turner-Corner - could feel the storms blowing in from the Jerall Mountains and pulled the blanket more tightly around his chin in some vain attempt to shield himself from the bitter cold of the mountains. He was not a slave as his parents had been, but he seemed to be treated as one. He shivered violently and cursed everybody who had ever short-changed or robbed him for not leaving him with enough money to at least buy some warmer clothes now that he really needed to.

Five additional blankets pilfered from Baenlin's personal supply later and the dozing Argonian was woken by the sound of scraping against the ice-covered trapdoor that opened onto the street above. It was an unusual sound and filled him with confusion, firstly because the trapdoor was frozen solid at this time of year, and secondly because anybody who wished to enter the house legitimately would have used the front door as Baenlin seldom saw fit to lock it.

Quickly alert, he bundled the blankets under the low wooden bed and hid behind the wine racks that Baenlin used so very rarely. Hopefully the intruder would not use any kind of detect life enchantment and was not particularly observant.

His mind racing, he remembered a Black Horse Courier he had read perhaps a week earlier detailing the murder of a pirate aboard his ship the Marie Elena and how the culprit had escaped despite the numerous witnesses. It had obviously been the work of some heinously skillful assassin, and for a moment the Argonian feared that they might have been sent after him this time.

After what sounded like a rush of flames the trapdoor swung upwards and a dark figure descended through the hatch. They were silhouetted in black against the glistening snow outside, their face hidden from view by the dark hood. The stranger turned and pulled the hatch closed, and their eyes then fixed on the door to the main house, completely missing the cowering Argonian in the corner behind the wine rack.

As the intruder passed him Turner observed the fact that they were female, some form of mer - too short to be an Imperial or Nord and too tall to be a Breton, with no tail, fur or scales - and obviously here for some kind of illegal business due to the dagger at her hip and longsword at her back. She was clad from head to toe in black leather, and despite the large weapons she moved silently and gracefully.

He hid himself with an invisibility spell. It was the only spell that he had found himself adept at during his short spell living with the mages, even though he had never expected that he would have a use for it.

Despite every fibre of his body telling him not to, he decided to follow her. He could not sneak silently and questioned whether his luck would hold to allow him to stalk this mysterious woman unnoticed. Turner half expected Gromm to come charging around the corner to see what the noise was about while wielding his huge axe and split the unfortunate Argonian clean in half.

The intruder cursed under her breath when she reached the top of the stairs and Turner stepped a little too heavily on a creaky floorboard, however luckily for him she looked straight through his invisible form and rounded the corner into Gromm's bedroom. The fact that Gromm slept in the house while he was forced into the cellar was just another factor that led him to hate his situation.

Turner glanced over the railing and began to wonder exactly what the intruder might want in Gromm's room. Hopefully, he thought, to kill the detestable Nord before it's too late.

On the ground floor Baenlin relaxed in a wooden chair beneath a stuffed Minotaur head, a trophy from his younger more active days apparently, but probably just bought from a market in Valenwood for around 200 gold. Nearby Gromm sat faithfully, more relaxed than usual but still alert to anything that might threaten his master. He heard Baenlin mutter something about the storms in the mountains making the house creak again and inwardly praised his luck. Turner had always wondered where a useless layabout like Baenlin had ever found enough money to retire, even though he knew that in his younger days the Wood Elf had run a string of successful businesses that he had refused to sign over to his nephew since he had begun his retirement.

Following the armour clad and hooded individual into Gromm's room only to met with the disgusting smell of Nord. Turner was initially baffled that the intruder had disappeared, however he soon realised that she had ducked into the crawlspace adjacent to the bedroom. The Argonian had once been forced to sleep in there when the winter was so cold that the cellar flagstones froze. He didn't dare press his ear to the door to see what he was doing, and instead he sunk down onto Gromm's bed with his head in his hand. What felt like hours ticked by as he renewed his invisibility spell and felt his eyes growing heavy.

Turner was awakened with a start after what had seemed to him to be only a few seconds. A loud crashing sound shook the house to its rafters and there was a sickening crunch. In his surprise, the Argonian almost forgot to renew his invisibility spell again before the door to the crawlspace slid open and the stranger stalked out. She didn't appear to spot him, but he felt his heart skip when she looked through him once again.

He could hear Gromm's anguished shouting on the floor below and it dawned on him that Gromm had not been the target of the stranger after all. Turner wondered for a second why Gromm would be so upset at something falling, but he was too busy holding his breath to follow his thoughts through.

The intruder began to sneak out of the room and back towards the stairs. Turner rose awkwardly and followed her. On the balcony he glanced down to see what the commotion was about downstairs. At first glance it seemed as if the stuffed minotaur head had finally fallen from the wall and crashed to the floor loudly. He had always felt nervous cleaning around the area beneath it because its fixing to the wall seemed so flimsy.

But underneath the minotaur head a pool of blood was forming and Turner barely managed to contain the urge to vomit. A small blue suede shoe on the end of a small broken limb protruded from beneath the heavy decoration. It seemed as though fate had finally caught up with old Baenlin and he had been crushed to death by the ugly thing. The perfect accident.

The Nord manservant stood over the wreckage with his axe drawn, a terrifying expression of anguish on his face. Turner realised suddenly that he was probably Gromm's first suspect in the event of foul play. He had never made a secret of his disdain for his situation and his employer, and he knew that he had commented on the instability of the ornament's fixings at least once. While he was shocked and saddened by Baenlin's death, the Argonian knew that he would have to leave this house immediately if he valued his head. Turner decided that for want of a better plan, following the intruder out through the cellar trapdoor was probably his best chance of escape.

Turner tiptoed after the mer down the stairs and into the cellar. He hoped that Gromm was too blinded by his grief to hear the squeaking of his feet on the stairs. He had always wondered why rich old Baenlin had never invested in a more sturdy set of stairs, but he supposed that it was a mixture of laziness and frugality. He prayed to any gods that would listen that Gromm would fail to notice him attempting to sneak between the stairs and the cellar door that he had left slightly ajar. His invisibility spell was beginning to fade and he knew that he was too stressed to even attempt to renew it. The Argonian prayed with every fibre of his being, even though current events seemed as though the gods had abandoned Cyrodiil right now.

Gates to Oblivion had opened up everywhere recently and the daedra from inside had not long destroyed the city of Kvatch before they had been saved by a person they were calling the 'Hero of Kvatch'. From what he had heard, they were a Dunmer but the only thing people seemed to be commenting on was the fact that they had a bad attitude and a sharp tongue. Apparently they'd also been there when the Emperor was murdered. Turner supposed that they might well have wielded the blade that killed him if the rumours about them were all true.

The Argonian followed the intruder out of the cellar and into the freezing streets of Bruma. He was wearing nothing more than sack cloth rags and cursed himself for not having the sense of mind to grab one of the bundle of blankets from beneath his bed. However now that he had effectively incriminated himself in the murder by fleeing the scene, he had the sense of mind not to try to climb back into the cellar to find something warmer.

The mer pulled a plain black cloak from somewhere within her armour and slung it around her shoulders for warmth. She drew it tightly around her and he saw the shimmer of magic wash over her as she cast a heating spell under her breath. Turner wished that he was able to cast a similar spell as the frigid wind whipped through his unsuitable clothing, but he knew that with his skill level he would sooner cause a fire than warm shield himself from the cold.

The fresh snow crunched under his bare feet as he trailed after the stranger through the back streets of Bruma. The gods seemed to have other plans though as he slipped on a patch of icy ground and skidded onto the end of the cloak worn by the murderer. In an instant he felt his back impact the wall and a dagger dig sharply into his abdomen while fierce red eyes burned into his skull from beneath the black hood. All he could do was swallow, curse and pray that he would make it out of this encounter alive, even though luck seldom chose to favour him.

"Watch where you're going, fool!" she snapped. Turner recognised her accent from his travels and knew that she had spent a significant amount of time on the east coast of Vvardenfell. She was a Dunmer and was perhaps in her early twenties, but he had trouble making out any other details other than the knife near his gut.

"I saw you in my master's house," he said in panic. He had decided, in his wisdom, that it was either speak now or die in regret.

"Your master?" she spat. She pulled the end of her cloak from beneath his feet and glared at him. "And who might your master be, pondscum?"

Turner regretted having chosen to speak. "The Bosmer Baenlin," he stuttered, watching the Dunmer's expression briefly change from anger to shock and back again.

She smirked, raising her dagger to strike him dead. "You would have been better off confessing to the crime of killing your master than admitting to seeing me inside. When I'm done with you there won't be enough pieces for a proper burial anyway."

"By the Nine!" a voice quivered from behind the Dunmer. She didn't flinch, but Turner was startled. "Murder! Murd-argh!" The voice had once belonged to a beggar from the streets of Bruma, an annoying Imperial who Turner had never wanted to know and now never would. He had hit the nosey man with a rather powerful frost spell that he had never managed to perfect and killed him instantly. He was dead before his body slumped to the ground.

"Great," the Dunmer sighed angrily. "Just what I need!" Then she turned back to the Argonian she still held to the wall and growled: "Do exactly as I say. If you don't then I will kill you, cut your body into small pieces and then burn the pieces, understand?"

Turner nodded as she sheathed her blade and took him by the wrist to lead him through the streets and out of the gate. He was too lost in his thoughts to pay attention to much of the journey. He had killed someone, albeit intentionally. He had really killed someone innocent. He was not a killer and he never would be, but all he could see in his head was the image of the body crumpling. It had all happened so fast that he couldn't even remember saying the words to the spell, let alone casting it.

The Dunmer dragged him through the city gates and pointed at a paint horse that stood in the stables. "Get on it, now!" she ordered him, and the tone of her voice showed how little she planned to be meddled with.

"But that's stealing!" he objected before he realised that he probably ought not to have questioned her orders if he enjoyed his life. Of course, as an afterthought his mind added unhelpfully: you've just murdered someone and now you've got qualms about stealing a horse, what kind of screwed up fugitive are you?

She rounded on him furiously and her dagger was in her hand in an instant. "Get on the horse. Now," she repeated through gritted teeth. "For Sithis' sake, it's my horse."

He highly doubted that the horse was really hers, but nevertheless he climbed onto it. He watched the Dunmer storm into the stables and grab ahold of the nearest horse, leading the animal away towards the gate and mounting it without a saddle. An Imperial man ran out of the small shack next to the paddock and began yelling at her about the consequences of stealing his horses.

In a flash of silver the man's head was severed from his shoulders and flung half way across the paddock. His body gurgled blood as he fell, and Turner's heart skipped a beat as he watched. The sight of blood made him feel queasy and he gripped the reins tighter hoping that they would keep him on the horse if he fainted. She was galloping away, her sword still stained with blood, and the Argonian spurred his horse after her.

After a full day of riding Turner felt brave enough to ask her where they were heading. The answer was blunt: "Cheydinhal." And the malice in her voice was unmistakable, though she didn't find the time to fix him in another death-like glare.

An hour had passed before she decided to speak again. "You may not be a Brother, but your murder back there - however sloppy - will have garnered the attention of my superiors and very soon they'll be paying you a little visit in order to... welcome you to the family." She chuckled and the Argonian began to fear that he might have been taken from Bruma by a madwoman. "Though your kind are pretty much useless as anything except slaves, I suppose that we should get to know each other before we become... related. So, I guess I should ask you your name, lizard, unless you plan to refuse the generous offer and be killed."

About a hundred false names must have run through the Argonian's head in the seconds that followed before he decided that honesty might well be the best policy when dealing with a woman who would certainly make him pay for lying to her. "My name is Turner," he murmured, trying to avoid meeting her eyes.

"That's not an Argonian name..." the Dunmer mused to herself.

"Well if I had an Argonian name, or even a Black Marsh name, I would tell it to you and laugh as you failed to pronounce it," Turner snapped back. "Unfortunately for me I don't so I can't."

"A pathetic name for a pathetic lizard then," she smiled, unperturbed by his sudden bout of attitude. "Nice to see a little flare in there though. Maybe you'll get somewhere if you don't manage to get yourself slaughtered by wild beasts before we arrive. Throughout Cyrodiil people know me by many names, but my Brothers and Sisters know me as Idari Mortha and you may call me by that name once you become my Brother. Unfortunately for you though, my Brothers and Sisters do not take kindly to any sort of failure, so you shall have to be extra diligent in order to stay breathing with all your blood inside your body."