Markarth! I fucking hate Markarth. ~Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, High Tide
Igmund welcomes the arrival of the bulk of Ulfric's army with open arms and an impatient glare. Slowly the never-ending column of soldiers rolls into the valley, the wagons reaching as far as the eye can see, which is getting less the thicker the cloud of dust raised by hundreds of feet becomes. It has taken longer than anticipated, but then the soldiers needed training and Ulfric is painfully aware that the militia he has is mostly composed of the sons and daughters of farmers and woodsmen and miners, not professional fighters and even fewer experienced commanders. The Reachmen have magic at their disposal and the strategic position of the higher ground and of holding a well fortified city.
The retaking of the Reach is a complicated undertaking. Ulfric does not have the resources to feed a stationed army and the Reach is not exactly teeming with game. For a year a part of his forces have laid siege to the city in order to starve out the enemy while several teams of sappers worked on weakening its defences. The rest of the army was scattered around the countryside with their respective officers. They are those whose arrival the five men standing atop the hill are watching now. Soon, the battle will begin.
While Galmar counts troops and makes notice of the units not yet here, Ulfric hopes that everything is ready and will go as planned. They will only have one chance and they must succeed.
Markarth is surrounded by mountains on three sides and built on a foundation of solid rock. Any attempts to undermine its walls have failed and the Forsworn managed to smuggle enough food in to stay alive. There are a multitude of paths and goat's tracks that lead into the mountains and while he tried to have most patrolled, there just isn't enough space for larger numbers of soldiers. One mage can hold off a dozen warriors and while the Forsworn only have primitive arms and armour and no discipline at all, they do have magic aplenty.
Should he fail, Ulfric doubts he will ever manage to pool together as many resources again. The Reach will be lost and already its 'king' has made overtures to the Empire. Ulfric is no longer surprised that the capital would rather have a bunch of Daedra-worshipping savages as allies than to allow the worship of a god who is also their greatest hero and the founder of the Empire itself. And should anything go wrong, Titus Mede can always hand off the little rebellious kingdom to the Dominion, just as he did Hammerfell.
Ulfric will not allow that to happen. Skyrim needs to stay strong and united or its enemies will tear her apart like wolves the cadaver of a sheep.
The sheer logistics of this battle have kept him up long into the night for the past months and by the time he falls into his field bed he is so exhausted he usually passes out the moment his head touches the pillow.
One year since he set out from home for a second time. The thought creeps up on him unbidden and Ulfric's fingers wander to the amulet his father had given him out of their own accord. He will prove worthy of the Bear's trust yet.
"When do we begin?" Igmund, the Jarl of Nothing, asks eagerly. As if he intended to partake of the fighting.
Hrolfdir is dead, killed during negotiations when one of the Reachmen buried his axe in the old Jarl's head for no other reason than the talking was taking too long. He failed to quench the uprising, but his brother and son carry on, the former a pampered noble and the latter scared of his own shadow.
"When all the troops are accounted for," Ulfric replies, not bothering to avert his gaze from the procession below them.
"The Heavies are missing," Galmar grunts with one hand shielding his face from the sun.
The Silver-Blood brothers say nothing. They have brought their own hirelings to bolster the ranks of soldiers and Ulfric grits his teeth in silence because those men do not answer to him. It is an obvious ploy to retain power in the family and to indebt the Jarl but as long as Igmund plays along there is nothing he can do.
Thongvor is a man who professes his dislike of the Empire and its Thalmor-accommodating ways despite wearing a Legionnaire's armour and his younger brother Thonar expresses his confidence in how they will win back their city soon enough.
Igmund clears his throat loudly. He is ignored by everybody present.
Ulfric dislikes the two of them at first sight.
oooo
For two years the Reachmen have now ruled Markarth and the surrounding country. Depending on whom you ask, either peacefully or by the threat of bloody rituals performed on anybody who dares to resist them. Behind their walls the enemy believe themselves to be safe. They observe the army amass and they jeer, trusting in the city walls to protect them. Those might be weakened, but still they stand.
Ulfric is confident that he can change that.
He turns and walks back to his tent that he ordered erected on higher ground, out of the dust. He is quite proud of that bit of foresight since he can sit down at a table with a jug of cool water while Igmund and the Silver-Bloods are now stuck, unwilling to descend into the midst of the chaos below. It serves them right for not listening to him.
Galmar sinks down into a chair next to his lord while the rest of the guard take their positions outside. They are veterans of the Great War, all trusted friends. Gonnar Oath-Giver, the second-eldest after Galmar, Istar who lost an eye to the elves, Daugr the crazy redhead who survived an axe through the head, Jytte who can get drunk and arm-wrestle with the best of them and Fjori, her lover – a cheerful enough man, a killer with his hammer and fiercely protective of those who win his friendship.
A total of six warriors charged with the sole task of keeping their lord safe. It seems excessive and Ulfric has the bad habit of dismissing half of them despite his housecarl's misgivings.
"What did we forget?" Ulfric asks suddenly, as he has done before every major battle in which he held a commanding position. It is almost a ritual between the two of them.
When he can think of nothing, Galmar drums his fingers on the table's surface and shrugs. "We'll see soon enough."
The last of their troops arrive a week later and there is a celebration to end their time as recruits; they will be soldiers soon. And great many of them will not live through the day after tomorrow.
On the morning of the battle Ulfric wakes as he always does; with the first light of dawn. He and Galmar help each other into their armour and when they are finished the brazen ring of trumpets announces the beginning of the day. Soldiers begin to run to and fro and form ranks and the army becomes a living beast, waiting for the last signal. It comes in the form of drums, to inspire courage and bolster confidence. A collective sigh of relief goes up as the waiting is finally over.
Ulfric takes his place under the tortoise, a mobile shelter that will allow him to reach the walls in relative safety. It is not for fear of injury or death that he is so well protected, but out of necessity, for he is the primary target and should he fall, their mission will fail.
Arrows and stones bounce off the roof, and Ulfric has long ago learned not to pay any attention to the screams of those dying around him. When he arrives at the spot the sappers marked as the most susceptible to a forceful attack, Ulfric finds himself for a loss; the massive walls towering above him. Of Dwarven make they seem indestructible. Does he still have the Voice? So much hinges on this moment and he has not Shouted since the end of the War.
For a long while nothing happens and then a ball of fire explodes in the midst of the soldiers to his right.
The wall blows inward from the power of Ulfric's Thu'um, raining down boulders and clearing the way for the four hundred soldiers that will storm the city.
Ulfric and his guard retreat again, their task accomplished. He has a rearguard action to fight against the ambush he has knowingly let his army walk into. He and Galmar embrace briefly before each man takes his place with his unit.
The housecarl would rather stay at his lord's side, but Galmar is no rider and Ulfric is not yet fit to fight on foot. Besides, Ulfric trusts his best friend as he does no other. He would have nobody else as second-in-command.
Ulfric's mare is saddled and lightly armoured and a soldier holds the stirrup for him as he mounts up and presses a lance into his hand. Ulfric wraps the reins around his right arm and takes the weapon in his left and then there is nothing left for him to do but wait and listen to the sounds of the battle coming from the front.
He does not have to wait long until the Reachmen storm from the surrounding valleys and fall into their back. They are ready for them. He orders the signal and from the other side of the valley he can see Galmar's flag rise. With a bellow at his soldiers to charge Ulfric kicks his horse into a full gallop and lowers the lance.
oooo
The fight goes as planned. The defence suffers heavy losses but holds and between Galmar's warriors and Ulfric's cavalry they crush the enemy forces. A squire comes running to hand the leader a waterskin when they stop to survey the progress of the battle.
Ulfric spits out the first mouthful, dust gritting between his teeth and then drinks deeply.
"What's the situation in the city?" he asks one of the commanding officers; a man with hair as grey as the armour he is wearing.
"Bad." The answer is terse, as is the man – these are his units to be the first ones in.
"Send a messenger," Ulfric decides. "Tell them to retreat. We regroup and take the city in an orderly fashion." Enough of his forces still stand to allow for a more cautious approach.
They watch as the man rides off and wait for him to come back again and when he does not, Ulfric swears. Of their vanguard there is no sign. Ulfric forgoes planned-out strategies and orders the attack.
He enters the city at the head of his soldiers, weary of another ambush, but the sizzling crackle of magic has died down some time ago. Galmar is at his side, battle axe at the ready, but they only to find the remains of their two units of heavy infantry. Their enemy took apart several houses and erected a second wall, one that trapped the soldiers between them.
Ulfric thinks of the Great War as he sloshes through the corpses, some that pile up as high as his waist. The dead messenger and his horse are one of the first he can make out amongst the fallen; four hundred Nord men and women and half as many Reachmen lie here. Their blood and various bodily fluids covers the cobbles in a soft mush that in places he sinks in almost to his knees. On the scale of battles Ulfric has been in this one is laughable.
He is taken aback a moment later - not by the bloodbath, but the sight of a single soldier holding his own against a number of Forsworn at the only breach in the secondary wall. The warrior's hair might have been blonde, but grime and blood have stained it a reddish brown. In fact, there is not much of him visible beneath the dirt, covered as he is from head to toes in blood. Ulfric half believes him possessed for the garbled nonsense he cries and the ferocity of his fighting.
Ulfric's war cry 'For the Nord' is picked up by many others and the remaining Forsworn point fingers and scatter in fear upon realizing that they have lost. They do not flee him, though.
The lone soldier drops his blunted, bent blade. He looks dead on his feet.
Ulfric turns to the grizzled officer at his side. "Lieutenant, take care of that man."
He continues on without waiting for a response. He has a city to seize.
The remaining Reachmen are run down and hunted and Ulfric's soldiers execute all those who would give them shelter or aid. Thonar Silver-Blood's men seem to take his instructions as an invitation to run wild and before order is reinstated every able bodied man and woman who did not pick up arms against the remaining Forsworn is killed or captured.
Ulfric knows the violence that is to be expected when the blood of warriors boils over, but the slaughter tints their victory with a bitter aftertaste. After all, this was supposed to be a liberation and not a sacking. For his brother's imprudence he sentences Thongvor to pay the compensations to those who suffered losses unnecessarily. The head of the Silver-Blood family accepts the verdict without argument, and Ulfric can tell that today's events have put a lasting strain on the brothers' relationship.
He wipes the sweat from his brow and the gore from the blade of his axe and squints into the sunrise, watches the streets of Markarth run red and knows that no amount of silver will bring back the dead. The uprising, however, is well and truly crushed and his job here is done. Markarth may be a city of stone as well, but Ulfric hopes that soon he will be able to return to Windhelm.
oooo
There are too many causalities to count in the first day, but the survivors of the vanguard are easily accounted for, since they are only fifteen in total and Ulfric orders three hanged for desertion. He presides over the execution, his thoughts turning to his tent and bed rather than the people he condemns.
Two die instantly from the drop, their necks breaking with an audible snap. The third keeps kicking and Ulfric watches as two soldiers take a leg each and pull until the resounding crack makes some of the onlookers flinch. He sees the erratic twitches of death and urine drip from one of the corpses and thinks they can count themselves lucky they were not in the Legion. The Empire nails deserters to crosses.
He lets them hang as a warning to others.
From there it is straight to the parade grounds; the celebration of the liberation of Markarth and the heroes of the battle is in order. The contrast could not be more crass.
Ulfric tries not to let his exhaustion show as he marches up the main road that has been mostly cleared of corpses. He holds a brief speech in front of a blur of faces, notices Galmar grin and nod as the cheers go up and manages to crack a tired smile for his friend's sake. They have won. Ulfric watches the man of the hour arrive, not really seeing him. A lad barely old enough to grow a beard, now cleaned up and dressed in a ceremonial armour that he never could afford with a look of stunned shock upon his face Ulfric knows well from his own looking glass. Ulfric gives him a fancy name and the possibility to continue upon a warrior's path, now that he had had a taste.
He frees several serfs, appalled that under Igmund's father and the Silver-Bloods there are still unfree men in Skyrim and bestows honours upon various other warriors.
The gathering dissolves after an eternity and Ulfric and Galmar make their way up to the Understone Keep. They have rooms there and servants prepare a bath and a meal for both men. Afterwards, Ulfric is too wound up to sleep, but too tired to do anything else than sit on his bed. He can hear his housecarl snore, Galmar having no such troubles, and makes a mental list of everything else he will have to oversee come tomorrow.
The city has to be cleaned up, the dead identified and buried, the outer wall rebuilt and the inner one razed...
oooo
Days later Igmund has yet to make good on his promise. He does support the private worship of Talos whilst Ulfric wants the temple opened and the priests reinstated. Raerek urges caution, Thongvor only wants to hunt down the remaining Reachmen, as their so-called king has escaped his clutches while his younger brother makes snide remarks about how hopefully the Empire won't find out about the Talos worship and decide to attack them in turn, now that there is a huge gap in Markarth's wall.
Ulfric snaps at Thonar to shut up, still angry at the man for not controlling his mercenaries and the resulting bloodbath that will reflect badly on him as the commander. The Legion would never have allowed such indiscipline, but Ulfric can hardly execute one of the few nobles still left, especially since his elder brother possesses all the common sense of the family and Ulfric might yet need his support.
It does not stop the Silver-Bloods from seizing Cidhna Mine, with the argument that it has always been in their family. They toss what Forsworn they captured alive inside and man it with their hirelings and Igmund, now officially the Jarl, does nothing while Ulfric grits his teeth because Markarth's most lucrative source of silver is something he wanted for himself.
They sit in the keep amongst rubble while bands of workers interrupt their dispute every half hour and find no common ground.
Amidst all the chaos Ulfric, who is unsuccessfully trying to massage away a headache, is approached by Fjori one afternoon. He is grinning from one ear to another as he announces that Jytte is pregnant with their first child, and then he asks his lord for a blessing for marriage.
Ulfric shakes his head at their timing, claps his comrade on his back and congratulates them. At least some of them can find happiness. He has to participate in the evening celebrations; listens to Gonnar making lewd jokes, chuckles when Jytte punches Istar in the face and moans with the rest of them when Galmar is drunk enough to try his hand at singing. It feels good to get away from the dreary interior of the Dwemer-built keep and its residents and when mead makes his friends forget that he now is the heir to Eastmarch and lose their inhibition it is just like in the old times.
In the morning Ulfric's tolerance for alcohol, built up over the past year, prevents him from having a hangover like the others around him. He decides to write a letter to his father about how the battle is won and he is well. Once order has been restored in Markarth and the worship of Talos re-established he will return to Windhelm.
Ulfric would be happy to leave Igmund and the Silver-Bloods to their bickering, but without him the two parties cannot reach a compromise, no matter what it is they actually are arguing about. If he leaves now, nothing will get done. It makes him feel like Shouting at them both. Instead he nurses a bottle, one of the few that did not get emptied yesterday.
oooo
Word of Ulfric's success gets out. From Solitude the Legion arrives, their stride crisp and their armour shining and free of dents and scratches.
Igmund curses nervously, Thonar keeps saying 'I told you so' and Ulfric closes the gates.
The two forces eye each other uneasily but when an officer steps forward to parley and Ulfric agrees to receive her, the tension eases somewhat.
Ulfric offers his guest bread and mead and they sit at a stone table to negotiate in good faith. "I take it you are here to convey your congratulations?"
"It seems that I am," the woman replies wryly and takes off her helmet to show a weather-worn face covered in freckles.
Ulfric lays out his demands without any ado. His counterpart is a soldier and appreciates the straightforwardness, he can tell. It is a refreshing change from his dealings with the Jarl and his Thanes. "Talos is our god. We will worship him here, freely, as is our right."
The officer sighs before he has finished. "What you ask of me violates the terms of the Whitegold Concordat."
Ulfric does not need his housecarl to tell the woman where exactly the Emperor can shove the treaty with the elves, but when Galmar does the Legionnaire only rubs her temples wearily.
Ulfric does not envy her the decision she has to make.
"Alright," she gives in after a long pause for contemplation. "On behalf of the Legion I will agree to Talos worship being reinstated provisorily, but I need to clear it with the Tribune."
"Now which Tribune would that be?" Ulfric interrupts her, not satisfied with the answer but knowing that it is all he will get for now. It appears his stay in Markarth will be prolonged once more. He curses inwardly.
Her next words make him look up though, and ignite a spark of hope in his chest. "Tribune Rikke."
oooo
"Galmar." The housecarl looks up when Ulfric approaches him. "I need you to go to Solitude."
"I was afraid you'd say that," the other man replies, none too happy with his lord's orders. His place is at Ulfric's side, at all times. They were parted once, and it ended with Ulfric being intercepted by the Thalmor. He has sworn to never let anything the like happen to his lord again.
Yet he wants to go; Ulfric can see the emotions war on his friend's face. "Are you sure you will be fine on your own?" Galmar enquires quietly.
"Thanks for that vote of confidence," Gonnar mutters from his corner. Daugr sniggers and Galmar glares at them both.
"Of course. Unless I suffer severe brain damage from spending some more time arguing with Igmund and Thonar," Ulfric attempts at lightening the mood. "And I'm hardly alone," he adds with a wave at his ever-present guard and slowly Galmar nods.
oooo
Ulfric basks in his triumph when Galmar's letter arrives that Rikke seconded the officer's decision. He knew he could count on her; she may never have left the Legion but she is a true Nord. He wonders what her and Galmar's reunion was like and wishes he could have been there.
His success is short-lived, however. When the Legion returns he would let them enter as they had agreed, except that they bring a most unwelcome addition. Instead, he orders his troops to withdraw into the city.
Ulfric can feel the bile rise in his throat when he catches sight of familiar robes and golden skin and slanted eyes.
In the light of recent developments the Jarl and Thanes meet in the Understone Keep to hold counsel.
"They have informed the Thalmor!" Igmund stammers, afraid.
Once more the Empire falls back on their word. Ulfric knows that this time there will be no negotiations. He will be delivered an ultimatum and he can accept or face the consequences. He will never accept. "Are you a Nord, or a milk-drinking coward!?" he turns on his host. "I will die before I deny Talos."
"They might find that quite agreeable," Thonar throws in. Thongvor has left days ago to sort out some problems with the family estate in Karthwarsten and has yet to return. His brother is his usual obnoxious self.
Igmund blanches at the words. "Do not worry, my Jarl, we will not let anything happen to you." Thonar has surrounded himself with guards of his own and Igmund nods, eager for protection. The brutal murder of his father may have left its marks on the young Jarl, but still the two have been spending far too much time together, lately.
"We should just do as they say," Raerek proposes feebly and Igmund agrees immediately.
"It is the only way," he murmurs, the promise he made already forgotten in the face of danger.
Ulfric is done with talking. He has taken Markarth, now he will hold it.
"Gonnar," Ulfric orders. Get the others. Inform Istar and prepare for battle." The man is off at a run and Ulfric turns back to his friends. "Daugr, Jytte, Fjori, you stay with me."
"You will doom us all," the Jarl cries and Ulfric silences him with a glare. Igmund needs to remember who won his throne for him.
"Yes, Ulfric," Fjori replies and gives his leader a tight smile. They have been soldiers for a long time. Ulfric and his guard, Galmar and the other veterans, they know the price of freedom. Sometimes, it is death.
The death of some to buy the freedom of others.
And, they are willing to pay.
oooo
It is the richest of them who are the most miserly.
Daugr never sees the blow coming that takes off the top of his head. Jytte whirls around, hand going for her weapon. Too slow. The hammer catches her full in the face.
Igmund looks apologetic, Thonar smug. As his thugs fall on his guard, Ulfric draws breath – and something smashes into the side of his head.
Another blinding flash of pain, a scream and then...
Nothing.
AN: I was grinning like an idiot when I wrote this story, because well, those of you who have read HT will know =)
The Price of Freedom Series now continues with part 5: A Voice in the Dark.