The Markarth Incident: The Bear

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world. I've taken the basis for this story from the in-game book "The Bear of Markarth." Some characters from the game appear with fleshed-out back stories, and I've created some of my own to create a more full and compelling story.

Ulfric was a big man. He had a big build and a big presence. He had broad shoulders and when he walked into a room, the crowd hushed and listened to what he had to say. He never had to raise his voice above a low rumble, and his orders were followed without question.

On the road to Markarth, on his large bay warhorse, he spent most of his time lost in thought. It was a slow trip with most of his troops walking, and he was irritable and tired of the sound of mail rattling around him. They'd been on the road since dawn and already the Jarl's son was weary with travel. There was a sense of heaviness to the morning fog; this journey reminded him of the last time he had headed south for war, at the head of a column of soldiers. That trip had ended in his own torture at the hands of that sly elf; he hated to think where this would lead him.

But Ulfric had a big faith in Talos, and this was his holy war. Not only that, but this would finish the Great War; this would finally make him a man in his father's eyes - if he survived.

So; he'd called his troops and outfitted all the soldiers in a flurry of activity. He'd given a kiss to Ahlalira, the girl he'd married just weeks ago, and he'd left Jorlief with instructions on the interment of his bones if they should be all of him that returned to Windhelm. He'd gone to the shrine of Talos to pray for wisdom and Talos's blessing. He'd gone to say farewell to his father.

Asmond was a hard man and a difficult Jarl. Eastmarch was a rough hold to rule, and Windhelm an even rougher city. It had been Asmond that created the Argonian Assemblage when the scalebacks had been drinking too much and making trouble at Candlehearth Hall. It had been Asmond that made the decision to corral the dark elves into the Grey Quarter when they'd started spilling out into the rest of the city. These decisions, though Ulfric questioned them at the time, had maintained order and he saw now why they had been necessary.

And so he had gone to his father's sickroom on his way out of the city and said goodbye, and thank you, and that he was sorry. His father had coughed out a derisive laugh at that, and promised to outlive his son. Now on the road, with the excitement of setting out behind him, Ulfric wondered if he would ever see the hot springs of Eastmarch again, and the reality of this made him sentimental and nostalgic.

He hated feeling sentimental.

He sat on his horse, chin buried in the fur collar of his cloak, and brooded, ignoring the riot of noise behind him from the troops in the column. There was cheering and he could make out four distinct chants – and was that whistling? He could hardly believe someone back there was whistling. It must be a bird of some sort that he hadn't noticed before.

He thought of Ahlalira, sitting in the Palace of the Kings. Perhaps she would sit at a window and wait for his return. She was a delicate girl with fine bones like a bird; she was so small next to him that he could pick her up with one arm, and when he lay with her he was afraid he might crush her. She didn't seem to think much of him either way; their marriage had been one of politics, not love, as she was the daughter of a lord of Hammerfell. The marriage was decided when he was a boy and she was just born; at this point there was nothing to do but carry it out and live their lives as they must. She spent her days ignoring him and their nights lying indifferent as he moved on top of her. She spoke a foreign tongue and often commented that she found their delicacies bland; her voice had an alien lilt to it. It would have been charming had she not been so dull; it would have at least made it more interesting if she was detestable, but she was nearly invisible instead.

Sitting on his horse, looking through the gray morning, he wondered if he would have a son when he returned. He wasn't sure they'd been married long enough for his seed to take root, as it were, and he wondered aimlessly what would happen if he died in battle. Surely Jorlief would rule ably until an heir could be located, and wouldn't expect his father to step back up? Asmond was too old, too tired to handle the petty squabbles and catastrophes of Jarlship. Ahlalira wasn't addlepated and she was capable enough with a blade, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure he wanted her to rule the hold if he didn't return.

Listening to the excitement around him, Ulfric thought back to his first siege, and wondered when he had gotten so old and tired. He was only twenty-one – surely he should have more enthusiasm at this age? Some of the men behind him that cheered and beat their axes on their shields were nearly twice his age. Why did he have to feel so grim?

Perhaps it was the weight of Talos that lay so heavy on him, like the amulet around his neck.

Or perhaps it was his father.

...

Agata couldn't quell her excitement. She was trying to remind herself that this was serious, that she was going to war and might never return, but there was still a nervous butterfly in her chest that fluttered every time she thought about the fact that she was headed to Markarth. It was another kingdom now, but once it had been part of Skyrim, and it was still her city. Her home.

Her city. Her home.

She hadn't been there since she was a wee girl, when her father died and her Nord mother had taken the children north to live with their grandparents on a small settlement near the old abandoned prison. During the Great War, her brothers had all marched south to fight and she hadn't seen any of them since; they'd had word that three of them died in Cyrodiil, but one had made it to Markarth and opened up a shop. Arnleif had written to her several times, telling her to come visit and meet his new wife and children, but there had always been some reason she couldn't make it – first she'd been training as a soldier and couldn't secure leave, then their mother had died and someone had to arrange the burial.

He hadn't made it back for that – his wife, Birgit, had been expecting their third child and he couldn't see leaving her at the time. Agata understood this, but was disappointed just the same. It seemed lame, somehow, to leave her alone the last four years and still not return for their mother's last rites. It had been pathetic, with just her standing alone at the Hall of the Dead, listening to the priestess of Arkay drone on and on, though the woman had barely known her mother.

She couldn't stay mad, though; it wasn't in her nature, not with travel from the Reach so dangerous – even in her memories, she wondered at the ability of the mountain goats to climb the rough terrain there.

Fastening on her armor this morning with the practiced ease of someone who wore it every day, she'd found herself hoping she could secure leave while they were in the city to find her brother's home and meet his wife and children. She wanted to see him again, to forgive him for leaving her and Mother, and to show him how well his baby sister had turned out. She hoped that the siege would be gentle on his family and that they were well-prepared and wouldn't be killed or reduced to eating rats.

She hoped they would be happy to see her.

In the cool morning, Agata whistled a tune to the beat of her footsteps, and she tried to fight her smile.

She was going home.

...

The room was dark, lit only by flickering candles and firelight from one corner. It didn't matter; Bothela had attended enough births that she wasn't rattled by the poor position of this baby; he was coming out now if she had to reach in there and pull him out by his feet. The woman on the bed writhed in pain, moaning and panting, her voice a ragged wail.

"Stop all that crying and breathe," Bothela scolded her kindly, patting the poor woman's stomach. When the breathing under her hand had become more regular, the old woman checked again to see the progress of the baby and was pleased to see the mother fully dilated and ready to push. She nodded to her assistant, and the timid girl went off to fetch the hot, clean water from the kettle.

"Now we push," Bothela told the mother. The rest happened in a blur – the mother pushed for some time, and then there was a baby. There was the baby to clean up, the placenta to deliver, the sheets to dispose of and tinctures to administer. By the time Bothela and her assistant were ready to go, the sun was setting outside and the shadows of Markarth were long. The city was safer than it had been a few years ago, but still not an ideal place to wander around after dark, and if they didn't get headed out soon, they'd have to stay with this family for the night. Despite how much Bothela liked Birgit and her family, a house with three small children and a new baby was not where she wanted to spend the night.

With hugs all around and a small purse of gold passed to her by Arnleif and tucked into her belt, Bothela and the girl left for home. Their footsteps tapped out a rhythm on the cobblestones and echoed off the stone walls around them. They passed the Silver-Blood Inn and Bothela thought back to when she had been young, and unmarried, and spent her evenings there around the fire – it had been the Silver Mine Inn then, before the Silver-Blood family bought it. Before Bothela married Peric and began curing people, she'd had some reckless nights at that Inn. Peric hadn't come back from the war, and now she lived alone with the girl, her daughters grown and married and living their own lives.

Walking along the stream that ran through the city, she watched the water running so fast from her and reflected upon how quickly her time had gone by. Births always made her moody – somehow, more so than deaths – and the girl knew by now to be quiet while the old woman reflected.

Inside her home, everything was the same as when they'd left that morning. Bothela liked things in order, and while they'd left in a hurry – Birgit's labors were usually fast – all her herbs were still in their baskets, and supper was still bubbling over the fire. The girl hustled to the cabinet and pulled out two bowls as Bothela sagged into a chair. She pulled off her shoes and stretched her toes in the firelight. She'd lived all her life in Markarth and the dark stone rooms never made her claustrophobic.

Perhaps that was because of the dreams.

They'd gotten worse lately: gusts of wind blown by leathery wings, and an incoherent scream. The smell of rotten meat and sulfur on the breath of the great beast; the giant teeth, like needles, looming large above her. Trees burning, or lakes freezing – these visions haunted her as they always had. But somehow, in the last year, the dreams had become more frequent, more intense, more real. The world-eater flying above her, setting the world aflame –

But in Markarth, she'd be safe. In Markarth, the stone walls and floors and roves and beds made by those long-forgotten Dwemer would keep her and her family from burning. If the dragons came back – the dragons couldn't come back, they were long dead! – they could flee indoors and wait out the beasts.

Markarth had been built to resist attack. Its inhabitants would be safe.

With a sigh, Bothela began eating her bowl of stew, trying to push thoughts of mortality and dragons from her mind. She'd seen too much of the fringes of life, she sometimes thought, to think of much else.

...

Before they'd set out, Agata had not been on a march before. Tonight they camped on the banks of the White River, not far from Whiterun. As they'd passed the fork in the road that would lead to her home, she'd thought for a moment of setting out down that path, to stop at her mother's grave and say goodbye. Then, in seconds, she was too far to consider it and the time for second thoughts was gone.

She sat now at fireside with several others from her unit. They grouped around the campfire, their flimsy tents in a circle, their straw beds already rolled out and waiting. The thing that she found most surprising about the march was the mead: it was everywhere. Angrenor had been drunk since dawn and rambling about dark elves, as usual, and many of the others weren't far behind him. She'd waited until her tent was set up to find a mug and by then it hadn't been difficult – the drink was everywhere and a cup was practically shoved into her hand.

Ogmund was playing his lute now, and singing along in a fine baritone the old song about Ragnar the Red. His eyes seemed to twinkle at her in the firelight and she wondered if she was imagining the looks he seemed to be casting her way. Perhaps it was the mead playing tricks on her. She tried, discreetly, to check her reflection in the mug in her hand, but all she got was an impression of tangled strawberry hair and dust. She wasn't bad looking on her best day but now, with the scent of sweat clinging to her and covered in dirt, she couldn't imagine any man particularly wanting her, especially not Ogmund, who seemed to be covered in women at every turn. Her mother had always described Agata as "strong," which, while an apt term, didn't make her out to be any sort of beauty.

Besides, if she was to be taken seriously as a warrior, she shouldn't join another soldier in his bedroll. There was no shortage of female fighters in Skyrim, but they were still in the minority and there were some men who still thought that a good Nord woman belonged at home, tending the hearth and protecting the children.

Just the same, she thought somewhat drunkenly, it might be best if she cleaned up a bit. No one – male or female – wanted to be around someone as gamey as she was. She set down her mug and headed for her tent, where she dropped her sword belt and pulled off her armor. Armed with only a small knife and a sliver of soap, she grabbed a cloak and headed for the river, hoping to find a small bend hidden from the eyes of the other troops.

It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for: an oxbow fringed by trees. Away from the fires, the stars were obscured by the skylights. She waited for her eyes to adjust and, making sure no one appeared to be nearby, set her cloak, knife, and soap on the ground. She pulled her tunic over her head and let it drift into the water, joined shortly by her pants. Naked, she knelt in the stream and scrubbed her clothes, then laid them on a rock to dry. She turned back to the river and waded in, her skin prickling at the cool water.

Agata couldn't have told you how, exactly, she knew someone was there. Whether it was the snap of a twig underfoot, or a sixth sense she hadn't known about. Either way, she became suddenly, acutely, aware that she wasn't alone.

Fear crept in.

She turned and ran for the shore, for her knife. It was too late, because the big man was upon her before she could stop him. Even with the glow of the lights overhead, she couldn't see who it was, could only smell the stink of mead and unwashed skin as she kicked at him. She felt one foot connect with his pants and she flipped, scraping her side along the pebbles beneath her. With his weight off her for a long moment, she was able to scrabble for her knife.

But it wasn't enough. He recovered too quickly, punching her and sending her temple into the ground, where she banged her head on a rock. She bit her tongue, she tasted her own blood, hot and metallic.

She stabbed blindly, felt the knife cut skin and then disappear into the dark. He was back on her, his hands slick with blood but reaching for her breasts all the same. All her training, she thought, and still somehow this was her life. She was going to die in the dark, naked and bleeding and some unknown man's plaything.

It was then that she felt him move away from her. There was sudden lightness, a lifting of his weight, and she realized that there were two more people at the riverside. She couldn't see their faces but knew they were there by the black outlines they created against the night sky. Her head ached and was heavy on one side; she felt a tooth that had become loose during the fight.

A hand reached down and gently grasped her elbow, then slowly helped guide her to standing. Dizzy and exhausted, she spat blood on the ground and looked into the face of the man who'd saved her. It was a very long moment before she realized that it was the Ulfric, her commanding officer.

She tried to drop back to one knee, but he held her up. His voice was a rumble, a kingly whisper that held her in place as surely as his hands did.

"I will see to it that he is sent back to Windhelm. If you need to ride tomorrow, please see the quartermaster about a horse in the morning. Can you stand?"

For a long moment, Agata waited for the world to make sense again. Then, when she was sure up was up and down would stay there, she nodded. Her knees wobbled a little, then steadied. She felt his hands release her elbow.

"Ogmund will stand guard if you would like to finish bathing," the Jarl's son told her formally. She turned her head and saw the skald nearby, a knife in one hand. She felt Ulfric move away, then saw him grab her assailant and head back towards the camp.

A wave of shame overcame her. Not a half hour before, she'd been considering inviting Ogmund into her bed, and now here they were: she was beaten and bloody, naked and scared and defiant. It was almost embarrassing to consider the difference only a few minutes made. She would never want a man again.

"You would have had him," Ogmund said after a moment. "We just saved him from you."

And just like that, she fell in love with him.

...

Ulfric pushed the man through the bracken to the outskirts of the camp. Finally, near his tent, he paused and let the man – more a boy, really, for all his size – speak. The boy was familiar but not someone who had stood out. He was unremarkable, with dishwater hair and dull eyes. The long slash in his chest from the girl's knife wept blood, and Ulfric was pleased to see that while she had missed any internal organs, she had cut through a large area of muscle and this boy would be in a lot of pain for some time.

"I should have you killed," he said to the boy after a moment. "Attacking a fellow soldier is stupid and ill-considered. You are drunk and useless and I should put you to death."

There was the smell of urine as the boy shook in front of him. Ulfric felt a small ping of satisfaction deep in his gut. There was nothing more pathetic than a big man who couldn't stand up for himself.

"I should let her cut your balls off to ensure that you wouldn't try to rape again."

"Please, sir," the boy began babbling. "Angrenor was teasing me about never having had a woman and I'd had too much mead, and I'll never do anything like this again." There were tears running down his face. This close, Ulfric could see the minor wounds the woman's hands had left on him: the long scratches down one cheek, the bruise forming under his chin where her elbow had connected in their flailing. She was a sharp one, no doubt about that.

"You will go home to your mother," Ulfric told the boy. "You will go home and tell her what you've done and beg her forgiveness. If she forgives you, you will go to the Temple of Mara in Riften and make a donation. You will never attack a woman again."

"Yes, sir, I will sir," the boy was nearly incomprehensible in his fear.

"You will go now."

"Now?

"Now."

There was the sound of feet against dirt as the boy took off. A rustle of tree limbs, and he was gone, probably headed in the wrong direction.

Ulfric wondered for a moment if he had made the right decision. Perhaps he should have taken the boy's head – raping a fellow soldier was not something he should stand for. But the boy was young – perhaps only fourteen – and he'd been beaten fairly well by the girl he attacked. Perhaps a second chance was the right thing to do?

Perhaps the decision was wrong. Perhaps he would never know what would become of the boy. He wondered if his father ever second-guessed himself, then decided that Asmond didn't even know the meaning of the word. Asmond would have killed the boy without another thought, but Ulfric had been uncertain from the moment Ogmund came to tell him what was happening.

Talos forgive him, but since he'd left Elenwen's dungeon it was hard to believe anything. It seemed all his decisions could be catastrophic and it was only luck that kept them from being so.

Ulfric stepped back into his tent and pulled off his cloak. He dropped it unceremoniously onto a chair and sank into his bedroll to brood. He fell asleep sometime later, to the rustling of the tent flap and the sweet scent of new hay by his cheek.

...

Bothela woke in the middle of the night with a start. It had been the dreams again, the screaming of the dragons echoing off the stone walls so she couldn't tell where they began or ended, and the heat of fire all around her. The smell of burning meat, so pervasive she couldn't escape it.

She looked around the room, trying to gauge the time in the darkness. Perhaps she'd been asleep an hour, perhaps five; it was hard to tell in Markarth. She ran her fingers through her hair and thought of her daughters, in their homes outside the city walls, their children running about in small yards with chickens and goats. They would all be roasted in the flames, charred beyond recognition.

It took everything she had to sit still in the bed and not leap from it in fear and anguish, to run through the streets in her shift, screaming to everyone to hide, to run, that the dragons were coming.

But that was ridiculous: the dragons had been gone for generations. No one living had ever seen one, except in books or paintings. She'd heard once that there was a dragon skull in the Dragonsreach, in Whiterun, but Calcelmo had seen it once he told her (after several glasses of wine at the Inn) that he thought it was a fake and, in fact, doubted the existence of dragons at all.

"What are all the burial mounds, then, if not dragons?" She'd asked him.

"They're burial mounds, I'm sure, but who's to say there aren't men or horses or something else in there?" He'd replied before beginning another long lecture on the Dwemer and one of his theories on their disappearance. To hear him tell it, the long-dead elves were responsible for everything under the sun (and ground, for that matter), and she couldn't help but think that they weren't the answer to every question.

Besides, she was sure the dragons had been here once. They might not be anymore, but once they had flown the skies and something in her said they were returning.

She lay back down, her head pounding with the screams of children, and closed her eyes. It was the darker with her eyes closed, but just barely. With them open she could see the fire in the hearth, but that reminded her too much of dragonfire. Closed eyes were better.

She knew she was unlikely to sleep again, but lay there, hoping for sweet dreams.

...

Agata's ribs hurt beneath her armor as they began the second day of the march. Though Ulfric had offered her a horse, she chose to walk. Though she could have worn her helmet and hidden the large wound on the side of her head, she'd chosen instead to wear her injury proudly – or at least that was what she told herself when the rubbing made a helmet too uncomfortable.

Ogmund had sat with her the night before, on the banks of the White River, and waited for her to wash herself. Afterwards, he had brought her bandages and ointment for the gashes on her ribs. He offered to bandage her head, but she'd refused him; instead, she'd asked him to shave away the hair around the scab. He had nodded and gone to sharpen his knife.

In the morning light, she'd looked at the bare part of her head reflected in the water of the river. The bard had done a neat job of scraping away the hair on one side of her head. She braided a couple long braids along the edge of the bald side, giving her hair a bit of a style, and gave her reflection a grin. The motion hurt her ribs and the bruise blooming under her chin made the gesture more menacing than she felt. The scab was dark red and a single tear of blood traced its way behind her ear and down her neck.

Let them all see it, she thought. She turned away from the river and went back to her tent to finish armoring herself. Let them all see what happened on the march. And if she saw the man who attacked her, she knew she would finish the job she'd started the night before.

She would kill him.

He watched her march in the column. She had not come to the quartermaster to request a horse and, in fact, was still wearing her sword and shield on the march. He could pick her out easily by the large red laceration on the now-bald side of her head. He felt a tingle of pride at the stoutness of his soldiers.

To his right, Galmar had begun discussing strategies for the siege of Markarth. Should they starve them out? Burning the city to the ground was not an option with nothing but stone structures, and either way, Igmund would never stand for it. They'd start a second war if they tried to raze the city.

"Perhaps there is another way," Ulfric said, taking his eyes off the female soldier ahead of him and turning to his counselor. "Perhaps if we have someone who can get into the city and rally supporters, we could sneak in a few at a time, disguised as merchants or mercenaries. It will take time."

"Rout the city from the inside out," Galmar mused, his fat lips pursing into a smile. "I like it," he rasped, "but who do we start with?"

Ulfric had some ideas.