Winds of Change: An Elder Scrolls Novel

Greg J Miller

~O~

Chapter 4

Loredas the 29th of Frostfall 4E50 Evening

The five Guild Fighters were all seated about the table in the far corner of the tavern area at the Wawnet Inn. After the passage of a relatively short period of time, almost everyone had finished his or her meals. Of course, that was everybody but for Forester. As was often the case, he was still working his way through it long after everyone else was done.

Though the choice of beverage varied more broadly, everyone had opted for that spicy clam broth that Belwen had prepared according to Nerussa's specific recipe.

Forester had commented only once that the broth seemed just slightly spicier than he'd expected. A retort from his wife reminded him to eat his broth, instead of complaining. Any further complaints were limited to the breathy noise that he made right before reaching for his ale. Even that provoked a dark look from Rena.

At the opposite end of things, Ras'Dar mentioned that he thought that the broth could have been a little spicier, but he still thought that it was quite good. He might have finished it even sooner, if he didn't have the bread-roll to dip into the broth. He saved the last piece of the bread to mop up every last drop of the spicy concoction. The Khajiit appeared quite content by the time that he'd finished.

Waiting for Forester to finish with his meal might have resulted in an uncomfortably prolonged silence. Taking a sip from her mug, Rena looked across the table to Monika. "You been busy?"

Monika returned a mild shrug. "Not lately. Things have been slowing down around Chorrol with the winter coming. This winter might be even quieter than the last one."

Rena nodded. "Yeah, looking that way in Skingrad too. Not much Guild work on the books, right now."

Alex spoke up. "Last spring was fairly busy for us. So was the summer."

Monika wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I s'pose. The spring brought some of the usual kinda stuff. Bit of an upturn in wild animals plaguing some of the farming communities." She paused, recalling that she'd already spoken of some of that the last time they spoke, when they'd visited them in Skingrad. That was only a couple of months before.

Alex rubbed his shoulder, recalling an injury that he'd sustained during the spring. A large brown bear had decided that Odiil Farms made for a better home than The Great Forest and they'd been sent off on contract to go deal with it. During that encounter, even though he'd switched from his bow quickly enough, Alex had been a bit slow raising his shield and was rewarded with a nasty gash to the right shoulder as the bear's claw tore through his leathers.

Once the bear had been dispatched, Monika was able to stanch the bleeding and treat the wound with healing magic. With that prompt treatment, the injury had not been quite so life threatening. Nevertheless, he still thought that he felt a twinge of discomfort in his shoulder from time to time.

During that last time that they'd all been together in the same place, Monika and Alex had also already spoken of some of those other activities that followed during the period of the summer months.

Alex decided to mention some of it again anyway. "There were those bandits during the summer."

Rena nodded. "Yeah, you told us about that."

Alex open his mouth again, then closed it, silently recalling some of what had been previously recounted.

By the time that the summer had come around again, another common problem had returned. The relatively recent goblin culling of the previous autumn had inadvertently made the wilderness of County Chorrol just a little bit safer for roaming bandits and the like.

It hadn't only been about roaming highwaymen seeking opportunity from unsuspecting travellers along the roads. By the time that the summer was in full swing, two distinct groups of bandits had moved into the area about Chorrol. As it passed, neither of those groups had been quite so large, but both had managed to cause a fair deal of alarm.

A gang of five outlaws had come down from Skyrim to try their luck along the roads of northern Cyrodiil. Firstly, in County Bruma, then later making their way westward across to County Chorrol. Since they seemed so adept at avoiding Legion patrols along the roads and hiding in the forest, the Fighters Guild had been contracted to go out to find them.

Upon a number of occasions, abandoned campsites left behind by the bandits had been found not too far from the roads where travellers had been robbed. However, every time that they'd thought that they might catch up with those bandits, they were nowhere to be found.

Though no bounties were collected for the capturing or killing of those northern bandits, it had still been a win of sorts. It had been assumed that the Nord bandits had learned that the local Guild Fighters were after them and that they retreated back to the north. That assumption was supported by the reports from Bruma of a brief run of similar assaults along the roads near that city during the tail end of summer, before it finally ceased altogether. Presumably, they went back up to Skyrim.

The second group of bandits had been a trio of Khajiit. The group comprised of a pair of Cathay of typical stature and appearance and another much larger Cathay-raht covered in dark coloured fur. They'd been robbing travellers along stretches of The Black Road. In response, Guild Fighters had gone out a couple of times after the Khajiit, but ultimately failed to locate them.

According to reports, after an altercation with a pair of Legion soldiers along the main road just near Fort Ash, the three felines fled into The Great Forest, never to be seen again. It had been assumed that they'd also moved along to other territories.

Rena glanced to her husband, noting that he was taking even longer to finish his meal than she would've expected. "Yeah, we'd been on the lookout for those three Khajiit, but they didn't show up around our area. It's been fairly quiet on the roads outside Skingrad. Least as far as that sort of thing."

"Not so quiet on streets inside Skingrad." Ras'Dar's ears flattened back a bit.

Monika narrowed her eyes. "How's that?"

Rena responded first. "Ras'Dar had a little run-in with someone a few weeks back."

The Khajiit looked agitated. "This one believes that there is Thieves Guild inside the walls of Skingrad. Clever thief took Ras'Dar's new sword in the Low Street marketplace without being seen."

Rena interrupted. "You got it back."

Ras'Dar continued. "Only good fortune allowed Khajiit to spot the thief and give chase. Thief worked with another, trying to confuse the chase. Ras'Dar's sword only dropped from walk-bridge to provide escape."

Rena reinforced her previous comment. "Yeah, but you got it back. As far as thieves go, they weren't all that clever."

The Khajiit's fur ruffled along his neck as his ears twitched. "Not more clever than Ras'Dar, but still thieves."

Rena shrugged slightly. "Doesn't make 'em Thieves Guild."

With a frown, Alex looked to Monika. "You have always said that the Thieves Guild is not… well, not really real."

Monika's eyelids fluttered. "That's not what I said. What I said… is that it doesn't officially exist. There most likely is some sort of Thieves Guild, but as far as I can tell, you gotta be in it to really know about it."

Rena added her own thoughts. "Wouldn't be much of a secret organisation, if they put up banners on a Guildhall and held open recruitments."

Monika nodded. "Yeah, that's right. As far as the rest of us are concerned, it's just something that you hear about from time to time, but it's not like you're gonna hear much more than stray whispers and rumours. Like the Dark Brotherhood. That's s'posed to be a guild of assassins that operate like some sort of Daedra worshipping cult, but nobody really knows."

Ras'Dar responded in a somewhat sullen tone. "This one still thinks thieves on streets of Skingrad are too clever by far."

Rena spoke again. "Yeah well, if there's anything more to it, then I guess we'll see. I was more worried about vampires on the streets of Skingrad."

"Vampires?" Alex sounded surprised.

Rena returned a wide-eyed expression. "Oh yeah, I didn't say. That was just after we saw you last. The Count's people contracted the Guild to go find some vampires that were s'posed to be coming into the city at night. We hadn't even heard anything about it beforehand."

"I hate vampires." Monika sneered.

Forester nodded his agreement, without verbally entering the conversation. He was just about finished with his spicy broth.

Rena was about take a sip from her mug, but held off. "Yeah, me too. But wasn't all that big of a deal, as it turned out. There was just the two of 'em, holed up in a cave not far outside the city."

Monika interrupted. "Not that abandoned mine out past Silorn?"

"No, no. A cave just near the city. To the south. Just about right under the castle."

"Ah, that one." Monika knew all too well which one she was referring to.

"They didn't give us much trouble. Weren't real smart or real tough. Went down fairly easy. The cave's all boarded up again. That was that."

Having finally finished his meal, Forester changed the topic of conversation by giving voice to something else that came to mind. "Did you hear about those wildfires down in County Leyawiin, at the end of the summer?"

Reaching for her mug, Monika nodded. "Yeah, read something about that in The Black Horse Courier." That was only about a fortnight after they'd been over to Skingrad.

Alex frowned slightly. "I thought it was just some parts of the southern forests that were affected."

Forester cleared his throat. "Well, yes. For the most part. From what I'd heard, it was only the Blackwood on the eastern side of the Niben. Still, I imagine that it must have been an unusually dry season for such a thing to occur. As I understand it, there's quite a bit of swampland throughout the eastern parts of those woodlands."

Glancing to her husband, Rena interjected. "We'd spoken with some traders that had just come up from Leyawiin, via Bravil. They told us that they almost lost Blankenmarch."

"Blankenmarch?" Alex didn't seem to recognise the name.

Monika enlightened him. "Small settlement, just east of Leyawiin."

Forester continued. "From what we'd heard, it was rather fortunate that the Count of Leyawiin was in a position to enlist the aid of the Legion contingent stationed in the south and that the Imperial Navy also had vessels in port at the time."

Rena chimed in. "Yeah, we heard that the Imperial soldiers helped beat back the fires just outside of Blankenmarch. Woulda lost the settlement, otherwise."

Forester resumed. "Added to that, they managed to keep the fires from reaching any of the drawbridges along the river. I did also hear that there'd been some serious concern down at Water's Edge. Most of the structures there are primarily timber and there are no stone walls to protect the township."

Even though half of them had never been there, they were all aware of how important Water's Edge had become to the south over the past few decades. Though the township was perhaps no more than a third of the size of either Leyawiin or Bravil, the docks of Water's Edge had become almost as busy as those other ports. Of course, its proximity to Rimmen played some part in that. That easternmost kingdom of Elsweyr still viewed Water's Edge as the most convenient path for trade with the Empire and beyond.

Outside of the eight regional cities of Cyrodiil, Water's Edge had become the only other place to host a permanent Fighters Guild office. It wasn't really a proper guildhall, like in other places. It was more of a makeshift arrangement for the three or four Guild Fighters tasked with operating from there. After all, Water's Edge was still within the boundaries and authority of County Leyawiin.

Forester continued. "Fortunately, those fires didn't actually cross the Niben or reach any further north than the Panther River. Still, we'd heard that the southern tip of the Valus Mountains remained aglow for several days and nights before it burned out."

Monika released a breathy sigh. "If something like that went through The Great Forest…" She didn't need to say any more. It was a sobering notion.

Forester cleared his throat. "Yes well, that would be a matter of terrible concern."

It didn't require a great deal of imagination to conceive of the potential devastation that might result from a wildfire raging across such a vast tract of forest. There were no notable waterways running through that area and the roads were hardly broad enough to adequately serve as sufficient barriers.

Though the larger cities might escape unscathed, there were a great many farms and smaller settlements that might not fare so well in such circumstances. Townships like Aleswell and Hackdirt would be especially vulnerable. Forester's father and his brother's family lived at Brindle Home, along The Hackdirt Road. That small farming community was surrounded by some of the thickest woodlands of the western part of the forest.

Even with all the resources of the Imperial Legion and all the battlemages of the Synod, a major wildfire raging through The Great Forest of Cyrodiil would most likely prove impossible to contain.

Forester again shifted the topic of conversation. "Tell me, how have those new recruits to Chorrol's guildhall worked out?"

Monika finished the last drop from her mug. "Yeah, I think they're gonna turn out to be okay. It's still early days, but both of them seem like they'll work out."

She'd spoken of those new recruits a couple of months before when they hadn't been with the Guild for all that long. One of them had previously served as a guard with the Chorrol City Watch. The other was a Nord from the Whiterun region.

Forester nodded. "Very good. I expect that Karl gro-Baroth is rather pleased to have some fresh members at the Chorrol guildhall?"

"Yeah. Should make a difference." Monika affirmed.

Rena stifled a yawn. "What about Loran. He went to Bravil, didn't he?"

Monika sneered at the mention of Janus Loran. "Yeah. I still don't trust him, but Karl's the boss. What he says, goes."

Monika had also spoken of that the last time they were together. Karl had ridden Loran fairly hard after learning those details of his unspoken past. It had only came out during the time of that goblin culling.

During his time serving with the Legion, Loran had been tasked as an informant for the Penitus Oculatus. He later claimed that had been one of the main reasons that he'd left the Legion behind. Explaining himself, he'd revealed that after he'd joined the Fighters Guild, he'd come under pressure to do the same thing, but refused to do it.

Apparently, though he was thoroughly pissed off over how he learned of it all, Karl was more prepared to take Loran at his word than Monika had been. More of his ire was actually directed elsewhere.

In his capacity as Master of the Fighters Guild, Karl had some serious words with Emperor Mede over the activities of the Penitus Oculatus. He'd demanded that the Emperor direct his senior Inspectors to desist from any further attempt to compromise the independence of Fighters Guild operations. According to Karl, the Emperor agreed easily enough, but the Guild Master still wasn't so sure that the spectres could be trusted.

Alex broke the silence of the lengthy pause. "Karl says that Bravil still needs more people. He says that they still have only four active Guild Fighters."

Forester indicated his agreement. "Yes, I imagine that they could probably do with another one or two down there."

Monika added something else. "Karl's managed to get some cooperation outa Leyawiin's new Guild Head. He got Plotius to send one of his people to Water's Edge. They still got plenty of people down there. More than Chorrol."

With a thoughtful look on his face, Forester added something. "Yes, as I understand it, Leyawiin does have an abundance of Guild Fighters. Still, it seems that the new head of that guildhall must be more gracious than his predecessor."

With a wide-eyed expression, Ras'Dar chimed in. "Fighters Guild has enough in Skingrad, yes?"

Forester responded evenly. "Yes, I should think so. Though I do imagine that we might have need of a new Guild Porter some time soon."

Rena stifled another yawn. "Fadus has gotta be nearly eighty."

Forester agreed. "Yes, I believe so. He's the only one of us old enough to recall the events of the Oblivion Crisis first hand."

Contemplating her empty mug, Rena avoided making comment of the circumstances of Kvatch. The Guildhead at Kvatch, along with her second and her porter were all of a similar vintage. Though since they were Altmer and Bosmer, none of them seemed nearly as old as Fadus Calidius. Rena's departure from that guildhall was a contributing factor toward the shortage of Guild members over there. Still, she just couldn't stand being made to deal with those fanatical Vigilants of Stendarr based at that city.

Forester patted the table with his hands, then shifted the topic of discussion once again, leaning toward lighter matters. "So then, I imagine that the Emperor's Day festivities should be something of a spectacle tomorrow."

Alex sounded enthusiastic. "Nerussa says something like that. She has heard that it is meant to be very special this year."

Forester agreed. "Yes, I should expect so. Fifty years since Martin Septim brought the Oblivion Crisis to conclusion. As I understand it, over the past few decades, Emperor Mede has directed a great deal of his efforts toward rebuilding what has gone before. The legacy of the Septim dynasty, if you will. Of course, honouring that legacy with the festival is sure to reflect well with the people of the Empire."

Everyone present agreed easily enough with Forester's comments. The conversation continued with some further talk of what they expected to be seeing in the Imperial City during the next day. Both Alex and Ras'Dar seemed equally enthusiastic. Forester and Monika appeared rather more matter-of-fact, though in a fairly positive fashion.

During that discussion, Rena started to look like she was just about ready to drift off to sleep at the table. It took a few moments for Forester to notice that she wasn't just resting her eyes.

Even though it was not yet quite so late, they soon agreed that it was time to call it a night. After all, they were planning on getting up early the next morning, with the likelihood of a long day in the city.

Soon enough, Ras'Dar was heading off to his rented room near the bathrooms. After taking turns for quick visits to those bathrooms, all the others made their way upstairs. Forester and Rena were staying in the room right next Monika and Alex. That was the one with the portrait of Titus Mede hanging upon the wall.

Even with the subdued noise still emanating from the tavern, it was a fair call that some would be falling asleep with little trouble at all.

~O~