This is the first chapter to feature a significant amount of dialogue. If there is any doubt on who is speaking or you might have ideas on how to improve the clarity of my characters' thoughts, I would be thrilled to hear them. Again, Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks.
"Do you think more will be coming?" I asked in the sudden quiet. I began limping away from the door and over to where Hadvar was looking into a footlocker. In the sudden calm my excitement was wearing off and my foot and lungs were beginning to burn as a result.
Hadvar shook his head, "Looks like we're the only ones that made it. Was that really a dragon? The bringers of the end times?"
"It was a dragon," I agreed. "But I'll believe it's the end of the world when I see it. In the meantime, could you cut my binds?" With a sharp tug of his knife, the powerful man cut the ropes that had held my hands clasped in front of me.
"There should be some gear left in here somewhere," Hadvar said, "See what you can find for yourself while I find something for these burns."
Sure enough I found a set of battered Imperial skirmisher's armor, a helmet, and standard issue boots. The boots were splinted to offer protection and support to their wearer. For that I was grateful. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, my ankle was throbbing and had a swollen patch on it the size of my thumb. On a wall rack I found a notched iron short sword. I gave it a few test thrusts. It was a mediocre blade at best. "It'll have to do," I said.
By now Hadvar had finished dressing his wounds, "Let's keep moving. That thing is still out there," He said
"Where to?" I asked.
"There should be another way out deeper in the keep," Hadvar replied.
"Lead the way."
Before too long, we heard the voices of two rebel soldiers in a chamber ahead. "Stormcloaks!" Hadvar hissed, "Maybe we can reason with them."
"I hope so. My month has already been too violent"
We came into the chamber slowly, hands at our sides. We had our hopes dashed immediately. The fight was short and sharp. The two battered Stormcloaks stood no chance against Hadvar.
Hadvar and I crept onward, looting a store room and fighting another handful of rebel soldiers. In that room I found a healing potion. I downed it in one gulp and immediately the fluid started working on my ankle, easing the pain and giving me full motion again. I felt great again just in time to feel awful entering the next room.
"Our torture chamber," Hadvar explained, "Gods, I wish we didn't need these."
"We don't," I answered.
We came into the interrogation room just in time to see the torturer and his assistant finish off another pair of escaped rebels. The jailor did not believe Hadvar's report. Feeling no need to speak with the sadist, I began to search the dead. I came up with a few lock picks and a dagger. Looking into the prisoner cages, I saw the body of a man in mage's robes. Picking the lock, I helped myself to the few coins he had and a spell tome on healing.
"Oh please! Go ahead and take all my things," the torturer said sarcastically.
"You'll be fine," I said in the same tone.
Things might have gone ill if the interrogator's assistant hadn't offered to guide us to a cave that let out well south of the town walls.
Hadvar and I at length made it out of Helgen. We crouched among the rocks watching the dragon fly off toward the north.
At last I felt like speaking again, "Thank you for all of this Hadvar. I'd be ashes in a street if not for you."
The burly man placed his hand on my shoulder, "You are clearly a man of bravery and worth, Ieago," he answered. "Listen, you should think about joining the Legion. We could really use someone like you."
I almost fell over in surprise, "Are you serious? Your Legion just tried to kill me!"
"I know it wasn't the best of introductions, but if the Stormcloaks have themselves a dragon, we need all the help we can get. As far as I'm concerned, you've already earned your pardon."
We walked along the road in silence for a while. I thought back to the behavior of the two sides in the disaster only an hour ago. The first words out of General Tullius's mouth when the dragon landed were for the safety of the civilians in Helgen. When I saw him last, he was rallying his soldiers to make a retreat. Hadvar and I had been obliged to fight through the blue-clad soldiers Ulfric left scattered behind to ensure his own escape.
"I'll consider it," I said at last. "Where are we going now?"
Hadvar smiled slightly, glad to hear of my easy forgiveness, "My Uncle Alvor is a smith in Riverwood a few miles from here. I'm sure he would be willing to help us."
Hours later we discovered that Alvor, his wife Sigrid, and their daughter Dorthe were very accommodating to Hadvar and me. Alvor was decent enough to buy the rusted iron sword I found in Helgen and between that, and some few coins I looted from the dead during my escape; I was just able to afford a proper steel claymore. I also took the time to read through that spell tome on healing I found. The magic was surprisingly easy to learn. I resolved to study magic more fully in the future. In return for his hospitality, Alvor has asked me to go to his Jarl, Balgruuf the Greater, in Whiterun. So far as we knew, no other news of the dragon's attack had come north out of Helgen. I slept well that night and woke ready for the three-day trek at dawn.
I had a busy few days after reaching Whiterun. The night was old and the sky almost overcast by the time I got within sight of the walls of Whiterun, one of the largest human settlements in Skyrim.
It was through the farms surrounding the city that I was walking when I encountered yet another fight. I saw two people in a nearby field circling a giant; dodging the swings of its massive club. The club connected with one of the attackers, sending the man sprawling several yards away. I had only just taken his place when an arrow passed above me. The giant fell back with the fletching of an arrow sticking out through the bridge of his nose.
"Well that's taken care of. No thanks to you," a deep woman's voice said behind me.
I returned my sword to its shoulder harness and shrugged, "You don't seem to have needed my help," I replied turning to face the archer.
"Certainly not, but even the rawest of the Companions would have rushed to join the battle."
"Who are the Companions? I've only just come to Skyrim."
She snorted her derision, as if I had been living under a rock all my twenty-eight years. "You've never heard of the Companions? We are an order of warriors: brothers and sisters in honor. And we show up to fight if the coin is good enough."
I couldn't believe my good fortune. I had stumbled on a contact with the local Fighter's Guild. I was a skilled ranger and keenly aware that Alvor's charity would only get me so far. "Could I join the Companions?" I asked. Even the man prostrate on the ground nearby snickered at my hope.
"You? A Companion?" the woman looked my scrawny, raggedly clothed form up and down and laughed, "Not for me to say. If you think you have what it takes, talk to Kodlak Whitemane up in Jorrvaskr."
"My thanks. And I'll be quicker to the fight next time," I replied, turning to continue down the road.
I paused for a moment. I turned and saw the other woman in the fight helping the battered man to his feet. A break in the clouds revealed the woman I had been speaking with to be tall and slender. "You never told me your name," I said.
"I am called Aela the Huntress," she answered. The clouds broke further in that moment, and as the starlight caught her eyes, I could swear in the instant before the overcast closed again they were glowing green.
"I am Sir Ieago of Kvatch, a Knight of the Nine," I said, vainly hoping that using my full title would impress them as I walked off. Some distance later as I was crossing the first of two drawbridges that lead to Whiterun's gates. On an impulse, I turned to look back on the three Companions in the distance. Something about that woman pressed on my mind.
One of the local soldiers blocked my path as I approached the gate at last, "Halt outsider! By order of the Jarl, the gates are barred to all strangers until sunrise."
I had just spent the last two nights sleeping in ragged legionnaire armor in the foothills between the settlements. Screw sleeping at the gate. "I am sent here by Alvor, the smith in Riverwood. The people there call for the Jarl's aid. I also bring news of an attack on Helgen."
The guard was a blessedly intelligent man, "The Jarl will want to hear of this at once. Just keep going uphill, you can't miss Dragonsreach."
He was absolutely correct: It's hard to get lost in that admirable city. Whiterun is a large walled city terracing up a low mountain with a large castle perched on the peak. The lowest tiers of the city are occupied by a small industrial section. Here you could find smelters, tanneries, smithies, and the larger warehouses. Further up, the market stalls and wealthier stores surround open cul-de-sacs; though they were deserted at that early hour of the morning. At the foot of the last rise to the palace was wide and comparatively flat space. Here most of the townsfolk lived and the mansions of the two oldest families in town were found: the feuding Grey-Manes and Battle-Borns. The rest of the space was given over to a temple and plaza dedicated to Kynerath. Separated by a bubbling stream flowing down from the palace and through the city streets was a statue and shrine to Talos in quiet defiance of the White-Gold Concordant. Nearby were the stairs leading to the hall of Jorrvaskr: an old long ship converted into the Companions' headquarters.
I pushed open the doors of Dragonsreach to discover Jarl Balgruuf holding court late that night. As I approached the throne of Dragonsreach his housecarl, a Dunmer approached me with sword drawn to learn my errand. Irileth was caustic and rude; but in retrospect I did look like a beggar coming in for a handout: I was in the tattered ruminants of a stranger's armor, my face sported two weeks of unshaved growth, my body reeked from days spent sleeping outside. Yet she found my news to be of sufficient importance to send me forward.