By nightfall, the price of everything doubles. Half the suppliers turn back on the road, and the rest unload everything they have at almost any price they name; everyone knows it's their last chance. By morning, you can't get a metal ingot in Whiterun at any price. The townspeople have bought everything the Imperials haven't, and there's a line at Avenicci's forge of people melting down whatever they can use to armor themselves or reinforce their walls and doors. The farms outside town were bare enough already, this deep in winter, but they sell off everything they've got before anyone can loot it. The Imperial troops suddenly crowding the streets bring their own supplies, but not much for anyone else. They know they could be waiting out a siege.

Farkas goes out with Torvar on the last job they got before the news, but when they get back, the client has fled and his septims with him. "Guess he'd rather take his chances with the bandits," Farkas says, but he wishes he had the damned coin. No other jobs turn up after that.

By the third day, their new protectors have locked the gates of Whiterun. Imposed a curfew. Started building barricades in the streets. Everyone knows the Dragonborn is waiting outside to storm the city. Nobody gives Farkas any trouble, though there seem to be almost as many guards patrolling back and forth in front of his house as at the Grey-Manes'.

With nothing else to do but spar, he works on his stock. Even without access to a forge, he can still cut armor straps and work weapon grips, make potions with Matilda's dwindling ingredient stash, and carve and restring and polish bows. But having nothing else to do but spar also means that he works almost continuously until he runs out of projects. After that, he borrows some thread and scraps of cloth from Tilma and practices sewing. Small, strong, even stitches. At first he has to make dots in ink on the cloth to mark how long each stitch should be, just like Tilma did when he was a pup. The others make fun of him, but he hears Matilda saying, "Practice! That's all!" and thinks about how much better it would be to make clothes for the shop than buy them. You can take sewing anywhere: inns, caves, old Nord tombs, troll dens, mountaintop strongholds of keepers of ancient dragon lore. Might not be bad to have a hobby other than bludgeoning things.


Aela's the only one who can get out easily. She slips past the guards in wolf form one night to hunt and comes back to Jorrvaskr laden down with fresh meat and news.

"The Stormcloaks are camped south of the city," she reports as soon as she turns back, still tugging her armor on. "Three catapults and a lot of tents."

"Do they look ready for the battle?" Athis wants to know.

"They're outnumbered. Not too badly; maybe three or four to one. Stormcloak wasn't there, but his general was." With unusual mercy, she glances Farkas's way and continues, "I saw the Harbinger. Not to talk to, but she was there. The rest of them were drinking and singing that song of theirs, and she was outside her tent writing or something."

Farkas presses: "How did she look?"

Aela stares at him. "She looked fine, ice brain. The fighting hasn't even started yet."

He knows that. What he really wants to know is how she's feeling, whether she's getting enough sleep or tossing and turning like he is, whether the camp food is decent, how she thinks the battle will go, what jokes she's thought of about everything around her. Aela can't know any of that, but he'd take anything. How she's wearing her hair today would be enough.

But he's not going to get any of it, so he goes out back to skin the carcass she left by the steps. Seven of them to feed on this, eight if Aela insists on eating again even though she's already torn out most of the throat. If he knows her, she will. It's going to be a lean night.


It's the fifth day when a knock at the door breaks his concentration and almost makes him place a stitch wrong. As usual, Meeko races him there, barking madly. Farkas just scoops the dog up under one arm and opens the door. It's Ysolda.

"I have a favor to ask," she says hurriedly. "I'm worried about the civilians during the fighting. I'm trying to organize some caches of supplies around the city so we can help people quickly if we need to, but there's not a potion to be had at any shop in Whiterun. Do you have any you can spare?"

"Wait here." He puts Meeko down and goes to the storage room. All the potions he's made are lined up on the table next to the alchemy lab. Farkas sweeps them all up and carries them back out. "Did you bring a bag? Might have one around here if not."

"By Tal—" Ysolda cuts herself off sharply and looks around.

"It's all right," Farkas says.

"I don't have the coin to pay you for all this now."

He shrugs that off. "You don't have to. It's an honorable cause."

She tries to protest for a minute, but then she holds out her basket and he packs the bottles into it. "Thank you so much," she repeats for the third time on her way out. "I won't forget your kindness."


Ysolda must have told someone, because the next day, Lillith Maiden-Loom comes to ask if he has anything that will protect Olava's house, where she's staying, against fire. Farkas hands her his amulets without even mentioning payment. They're two old women, and with no one allowed to enter or leave the city, no money's coming in from Lilith's stables.

Then Carlotta Valentia wants a dagger. He doesn't hesitate then either, even though she's an Imperial. One look at her thin shoulders and you can tell the vegetable seller is no warrior. What she is, is experienced enough to know that enemy women don't always fare well when their cities fall. Farkas wants to reassure her that Matilda would never let that happen, that she'll consider it a matter of her honor to make sure Ulfric's troops uphold theirs, but he's forced to admit even that's no guarantee. Even the Dragonborn has to sleep sometime.

He doesn't ask who Carlotta plans to use the dagger on if it comes to it, just reminds himself to keep an eye on her house when the fighting starts. And when it's over.

But when Amren comes to ask for nails to reinforce his door, protect his own daughter, Farkas doesn't have any. He looks all over for ingots, ore, anything. Finally he hauls out one of the iron swords and hands it over. "Take this to Warmaiden's or the Skyforge. Either of them will melt it down for you and forge nails with it." The former soldier hesitates before he takes it, but not for long.

After that he stops looking for reasons to convince himself to help people. The iron and steel pieces go quickly—melted and reforged to shore up walls and doors and bar windows. The cloth and leather are cut into bandages and strips to secure them with. He takes a few coins, when people offer them. Most of them don't. He doesn't ask.

"You're too damned kind for your own good," Vilkas complains. Farkas just shrugs.


People say the Jarl had food stores, but Farkas hasn't seen much from them. He's seen the Imperial reinforcements carrying in supplies—the ones that make it past the Stormcloak raids, at least—and they'll trade food for loyalty. If you're willing to line up in the Wind District, swallow your pride and stick out your hand and swear not to take up arms against the Empire, you can get some of it. And the stronger your oath, the more you get—word is the Battle-Borns have the fullest table in Whiterun. Farkas keeps his honor and lets his stomach rumble.

They keep some stores in Breezehome, but not for a siege; their housekeeping always relied on hunting or eating at Jorrvaskr or at least going to the market every day or two. And so his house starts to run low, like most of the rest of the city. At least it lasts longer than the Mare's stock—the tavern goes through its food in three days. At first people try to fill their half-empty bellies with drink, but the curfew and the Imperials' keen interest in breaking up groups of Nords dry even that up before long. The few Imperial officers relaxed enough to drink during a siege prefer the Drunken Huntsman. Better drink, fewer barbs from Hulda.

"Whiterun was badly prepared," Eorlund pronounces one afternoon when Farkas goes up to get his blade sharpened—not because he's using it, more for something to do that feels useful. "A city this size should have enough stores to last for months, at least. Balgruuf misread Ulfric. Gambled that the war would come as a dagger in the back, not a siege, and sold off everything to arm the city guard against a surprise attack. Fool." That seems to fit with what Farkas saw weeks ago, but Eorlund talks like he thinks Balgruuf always meant to side with the Empire if he had to. Maybe he knew something the rest of them didn't.

The Companions are better provisioned than most, thanks to Tilma's good sense and Aela's ability to sneak out at night and hunt. But Tilma also gives what they can spare when people ask, so in the end they're only a little better fed than anyone else. Only Adrianne Avenicci adds to their stores, passing on extra cheese wedges her father sneaks her from Dragonsreach. She hasn't taken the Imperials' oath—Farkas overheard her telling the Legionnaires exactly what she thought of the damned foolish war when they came to her door to ask—and she tells him quietly that's causing problems for the steward. He still dines at the Jarl's table, though. For now.

"Where is the Dragonborn?" Ysolda hisses to Farkas in the street a week and a half in, just too low for the guard patrolling nearby to hear. Her wrists look almost as thin as her dagger. He tries to think where he can come up with some food before her before she collapses. Can't find any answer. "She must know it's her allies who are being weakened by this siege, not the Imperials. Why doesn't she push the Stormcloaks to attack?"

He doesn't know. They wouldn't just put Matilda in charge, with Stone-Fist there, but he doesn't know what kind of influence she has over him. He does know she'd want to push for an attack as soon as she thought they could win it, but she might be cautious about the Stormcloaks' strength, or overestimate the city's supplies. There's no knowing what kind of information they have. There are too many variables, and they all make his head hurt. But before he can muster any kind of explanation, the guard orders, "You two! No lollygagging."


Toward the end of the second week, someone comes by after nightfall. "Sit," Farkas orders Meeko as soon as he hears the first knock. And by the gods, the dog actually does it. Even Matilda could only get that to work about half the time, he thinks proudly as he gets up to open the door.

Three Legionnaires in full uniform are standing outside. Two actual Imperials and a Nord. "Are you the Dragonborn's husband?" one of them asks.

Meeko growls. Dogs know when something's wrong, just like wolves. "Sit," Farkas orders again. He has no idea what's coming next. Are they going to tell him Matilda's been captured? Killed? Is he being arrested?

"Aye," he says. Calculates how many of them he could kill, if they call in reinforcements. Twenty? Thirty? He doesn't have a helmet. That's never a problem until you get overwhelmed, but sooner or later, one of them would get in a good strike to the head and it would be over.

"We heard you had a shop here."

"Aye." He manages to stop himself from saying Sort of.

"What do you have?"

Oh. They're here to seize his stock. He should probably be flattered. Waste of their time, though. "Not much the Imperial Legion would want," he says. Not that talking's likely to do any good.

The three soldiers look at each other for a minute, and then the one who seems to be their leader—most Imperials don't have beards, so that's no help; it's just that he's doing the most talking—says, "We're not here to provision the army. We're, ah—private customers."

"Our commander doesn't even know we're here," the other Imperial says. The Nord elbows her in the side.

He could take these three, at least. Farkas pushes the door open wider and motions for them to come in. They stand awkwardly in the entrance, looking around like they've never seen a house before. Their shining armor looks out of place against the simple Nordic design of everything else here. Looks new. Farkas would never trust new armor in a battle this important, but maybe it's all they have.

"I'll bring out what I have," he says. Meeko barks. "Sit!" Third time. The dog sits and keeps a suspicious watch on the clanking strangers. Keeping his own eye on his back, Farkas goes into the storage room and loads up a basket with everything he has left that wouldn't help them in a fight—which is most of it by now. He returns to the main room and holds the basket out for the soldiers to see. "Here."

They lean in to look. He likes watching how they react to everything—holding each piece up for the others to see, comparing, talking through where in their houses the pieces could go when they finally get back home. He hears that the Nord man has a husband waiting back in Karthwasten, a miner; that the leader's second child is due in Rain's Hand; that the second Imperial has developed a taste for Nordic mead. They each settle on something: an unenchanted silver necklace for the leader, a cup he added a small garnet to for the other Imperial, a carved wooden bowl for the Nord. All small enough to smuggle in their gear.

"What's your price for these three?" the leader asks him, taking out his coin purse.

"Food," Farkas answers.

"You wouldn't rather have the coin?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing left in the city to spend it on."

"We could sneak out part of our rations for the next few days," the second Imperial says to her comrades. "The quartermaster and I grew up together in Anvil."

The leader shakes his head. "We'll need them."

"The commander says the Stormcloaks won't be ready to attack for another four, five days. We'll have time to get back to full rations before the battle."

The Nord elbows her again. They keep talking in whispers until the leader turns back to him. "We'll return within the hour."

And true to their word, they do. They step inside quickly and pull out the bags hidden behind their shields: a sack of apples, another of potatoes, and a wrapped haunch of meat—rabbit, Farkas can tell without looking at it. A few days of eating well. First thing the next morning, Farkas carries it straight to his shield-siblings, before he has a chance to give it away to anyone else.


A few more groups sneak to his door the next night, and then they stop—either they decide they need to start saving their rations, or a commander's found out and shut them down. His extra food source has dried up, and so has his stock. Farkas arranges what little he has left in the near-empty storage room, then shuts the door.


He stays late at Jorrvaskr the night before the first possible day of the battle the Imperials mentioned. Nerves grab hold of him the way they never do before his own battles. He'd have to dodge the guards to get back to Breezehome after the curfew, so he stays, going back down to his own room. Nothing's changed but the few things he moved out. Tilma's kept the dust off. It just feels different. All the years he spent on his own in this room, and now the bed manages to feel small and empty at the same time.

Meeko jumps up as soon as he opens the door, barking wildly; Farkas makes him sit before dropping a leg for him. The dog immediately clamps his meal down with his paws, in case Farkas changes his mind, then digs in. When he finishes, he barks with joy and knocks over a shelf-full of goblets with his tail as thanks. Matilda won't be happy that he's spoiling the dog like this, Farkas thinks. Meeko has already gotten used to sleeping at the foot of the bed.

He isn't tired. He slings his armor off as an acknowledgement that it should be time to sleep, then picks up his lute but puts it down after a couple minutes, not in the mood for any of the songs he knows and not in the mood to learn a new one, either. Meeko is still gnawing on the bones.

There's a knock on the door and Vilkas comes in without waiting. "Are you all right, brother?"

"Fine."

Vilkas digests that. Looks like he's weighing whether it's true. Farkas doesn't know himself. Finally, he says, "Fighting is easy. It's staying your hand that's hard."

"Kodlak taught us that," Farkas says.

"He did." They're silent for a minute, then Vilkas adds, "They were good pieces. Just as you said they would be."

"Aye. They were."

After that, they don't need to say anything else. Vilkas pulls out a half-filled roll of paper, a quill and a bottle of ink, and spreads them out on the small table by the bar to work. He just started a chronicle, beginning with the death of the old High King and continuing through the reappearance of the dragons and the war. His idea was to collect accounts from as many people as possible, but no one in Whiterun feels much like reflecting right now. So far it's a glorified journal.

For his part, Farkas reaches into his pack and pulls out the pieces of wool he's been trying to make into a shirt. Actually, they used to be a shirt—he took one of his old ones apart to see how the pieces were cut, and now he's trying to sew them back together the right way. He's gotten better in the last few weeks. His work still doesn't look like the seams on Matilda's dress, but it holds.

After an hour or so, Vilkas quietly packs up and nods to him before going across the hall. Farkas kicks off his boots and crawls under the furs. Meeko jumps up and starts snoring almost instantly, lying on Farkas's feet so they fall asleep much sooner than the rest of him.

Before he drifts off, he tries to pray to Talos, but like most times, he doesn't know what to say.


He wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder and a female voice saying his name. "Hunh?" he asks, bleary with sleep. "Matilda?"

"No, dear. It's Tilma," the old servant says. "You'll want to get up. The battle's begun."