Chapter four
Salthjofr had to pass through Riverwood – a boring little village – on his way to Whiterun, and he took the chance to duck into the general store with the intention of getting a map.
Instead, he found two siblings arguing with each other.
"I don't care what you say, someone has to go after it!" the woman shouted.
"I said no!" the man shouted back. "I am not having you heading off into that ruin just to chase a thief! You know what's up there; if they don't kill him, the weather will."
"If he's done off by the Draugr, you're never going to get your claw back," she argued. "At least let me go to Whiterun – I can hire one of the Companions–"
"It's too much," the man shook his head with a sigh, reaching up to rub his forehead. "Just... drop it, okay Camilla?"
Camilla made a rude noise, but didn't make another comment. Instead, she turned sharply and marched up the stairs to the flat above the shop. Salthjofr watched her go with a hint of amusement – mortals were always fretting about and making such big deals out of small things.
"Hey," Salthjofr called, smirking when the man – probably the shopkeeper – whipped his head towards him with an audible crack. He winced, rubbing his neck.
"Ah, er. Good afternoon. You didn't–"
"See that match?" Salthjofr finished with a laugh. "Yes I did. You've a thief in a crypt?"
The man winced again. "Yes. Only stole the one thing, so we've still got lots to sell."
"I only need a map," Salthjofr told him, coming to hover by the counter. He breathed a little deeper once he was there and after a few breaths, he gleaned the information he wanted from the heavily saturated air. Lucan spent so much time in this spot of the shop, the pieces of soul that left him with age had attached themselves to the surroundings.
You could learn so much from soul residue. Names, age, the thing you eat the most. Fears and worries. Lucan was especially worried about the ornament – solid gold, in the shape of a dragon's claw – and wanted so desperately to get it back after all the trouble he went through to get it in the first place.
Salthjofr examined the man as he bustled about, looking for one of the newer maps. Lucan didn't look like the kind of man to do that sort of thing, but looks could be deceiving and greed made men desperate. And Salthjofr knew mortal souls in some of the most intimate ways – they were capable of so many great things, good and bad alike.
"Here you are," Lucan said, handing him a large map folded into quarters. Salthjofr thanked him and placed the required three Septims on the counter. Then he was out the door again, walking slowly as he unfolded his new map.
Well, the landscape hadn't changed. That was good. There were different towns and cities now, but settlements did that, so Salthjofr didn't pay it any mind. Whiterun was in the same place as he remembered, as was Markarth, which wasn't surprising.
He had to sigh when he found Winterhold and noted how small the "capital city" was. The next time he saw Gunhild...
Another time, Salthjofr told himself forcibly. He had to focus on what needed done now, not the discipline he was planning to level on a new agent. Gunhild would get hers later.
Salthjofr folded up and put away his map, settling into a lazy stroll as he left the single street of Riverwood. Going to Whiterun wasn't that urgent – Alduin had attacked before Salthjofr arrived in Falkreath, so it'd been two days already. No one was panicking about other attacks, so the dragon had obviously gone back into hiding.
Salthjofr absently wondered if Alduin had felt him arrive and that was the reason he'd fled. He grinned. Well, if the bastard was afraid of him, all the better. He'd make sure that fear was justified.
Whiterun was the tallest part of the plains in the middle of Skyrim, and even if he hadn't approached it from Riverwood and thus from a higher elevation, Salthjofr would have been able to see it.
Like he'd seen from the map, it hadn't changed. The stone walls were more worn, of course, and the farms outside had grown since he last saw them, but that was to be expected. As was the new meadery. Salthjofr chuckled under his breath as he passed the building, musing on how the mortals loved their drink.
Not that it had anything on Daedric liqueur. That stuff could put him down.
The few farmers outside eyed him curiously as he wandered up the road, but he didn't do anything more than wave at them. And they always looked away once they realized he'd noticed them, which was a tendency that Salthjofr counted on to keep him from having unnecessary conversations with the mortals. That was one of the good things about Tamriel's paranoia – he was left alone when on the job. Unlike some places, where the realms' own afterlife military constantly labeled him a threat just because he was an unknown, and tried their hardest to arrest him.
Idiots. It was no wonder some of their own had defected.
There were a pair of guards flanking the gate, and they leveled duel glowers on him when he approached. "Cities' closed," the guard on the left grunted, shifting his hold on the spear he was leaning against. "No visitors."
"That's a pity," Salthjofr told him, rocking back on his heels. The guard narrowed his eyes, but Salthjofr just waved at him and wandered back to the Khajiit caravan parked outside of the fortress walls. The designated vendor watched him as he approached, and smiled when Salthjofr dropped to sit across from him on the ground.
"Welcome," the cat greeted, smiling in a way that managed to look more genuine than some of his Nord trader counterparts. "If I cannot serve you, I am sure that one of my other traders can do so."
"I was looking for advice, actually," Salthjofr told him. The Khajiit – Ri'saad, a quick search told him – eyed him curiously.
"What is it you wish to know?" he asked. Salthjofr sneaked a glance back at the walls, then leaned forward with a sly smirk.
"Surely you know of ways into the city. Ones less... obvious than the gate."
Ri'saad eyed him long and hard, then his own smirk slid into place. "But of course, my friend. However, such knowledge comes with a price."
"Will this suffice?" Salthjofr asked innocently, pulling a satchel of moon sugar from his pouch. He watched in amusement as the Khajiit's pupils dilated, and handed the bag over when Ri'saad's hands twitched in an aborted move to grab it.
"Ah, moon sugar," he purred, inhaling deeply. He shook himself a moment later, and tucked the bag away before he could get distracted again. "Not many know," he started in a quiet voice, "that the tavern nearest the east wall has a cellar below it. Fewer still imagine that there may be a tunnel leading into it, hidden behind a wood store outside the walls. But, ah," Ri'saad leaned back with a flowing shrug, "this one knows not how true that rumor is."
Salthjofr only just held in a smirk. "No matter, I thank you for telling me." They exchanged farewells, and Salthjofr stood to check out this theoretical tunnel.
