Chapter XI

Just before the break of dawn, Rasha had awoken, promptly making her way into the main room of the Nightgate Inn. She made sure she didn't wake Faldan, who slept in the bed on the opposite side of the open room. The owner Hadring was nowhere to be seen, which she expected considering what time it was.

She walked over to the large rectangular fire-pit and stared at the flames as they flickered, giving off smoke that settled high in the rafters. All around her, the scarce furniture gave off strange shadows in the firelight and a sense of tranquillity washed over her.

It was rare that she felt as though she had the time or the privacy to just stand in silence, and simply take in her surroundings. But here she was, doing that very thing. It wasn't nearly as peaceful as it was standing on a hillside in Cyrodiil, overlooking the forests and meadows, but it was probably be the best she'd get up here in the frozen lands of Northern Skyrim.

"What are you doing up at this time?" Rasha nearly jumped out of her fur at the sound of the innkeeper's voice right behind her. "I didn't scare you did I?" Hadring asked with a chuckle as she spun around.

"Don't sneak up on people!" she sputtered.

"Nah, it's fun. Did it a couple of time to a fellow by the name of Fultheim, but he was often too drunk to react. He's gone now, in search of a brewery or something, but he'll come back, he always does."

She moved over to a table and sat down. "Me and Faldan will be moving on in a little while," she told the innkeeper.

"The two Imperials already have, earlier this morning. Were on their way from Dawnstar to Riften I think." He moved over to the bar "Looks like I'll be on my own for a while."

Rasha turned to face him. "Not worried about it?" she asked. "Folks see one man on his own, they might take advantage."

"Nah, nobody bothers me because they know I've barely got anything worth taking. 'Cept the mead of course."

"Speaking of which, there were some bandits setting up a trap on the road south of here. Half-way between here and the wood mill."

"Don't worry, they don't usually come up this far."

"Usually doesn't mean never," she warned.

"I have no worries."

"If you say so."

"I do. Anyway, enough of that. Will you be having anything to eat or drink before you go?"

"Probably, I'll just wait till Faldan is awake."

"Okay."

Rasha didn't have to wait long, as a few moments later he appeared from out of the side room, with a long yawn and a stretch. He looked over at them, with his dark violet eyes.

"Good morning!" Hadring greeted loudly.

"You two up already?" the Bosmer asked.

"Yes," Rasha replied. "We'll be setting off in a half-hour or so."

"Bit early isn't it?" he said to her. "Couldn't we wait till after lunch?"

"I want to get the upcoming journey over with," she told him firmly. "I don't want nightfall coming while we're walking up there. I've had enough of the freezing weather, and nights up here get stupidly cold."

Hadring smiled. "Well the road to Winterhold from here is pretty much straight. Not a lot of anything. Might run into a bear or a pack of wolves, and on a rare occasion, a sabre cat. Other than that though, if you keep up a brisk pace you might get there by evening."

Rasha glanced at Faldan, remembering back to the wood mill, and how he had offered to help. Much to her annoyance. "No towns or mills or anything between us and Winterhold is there?"

"No," Hadring said. "Nothing till Winterhold."

"Good, because my companion here likes to stop at places like that."

"Hey, we'd been walking for hours and I was tired," Faldan said defensively. "I offered work in exchange for a place to rest for a few hours."

"You're also an incredibly slow walker," she added. "It takes forever to go anywhere with you."

"I don't walk slow," he said defensively.

"No, it only took us two days to get here from Windhelm."

"That wasn't my fault. Bandits were on that ridge."

"But would they have been if we hadn't stopped at that mill for several hours?"

Hadring laughed out loud. "You two argue like a married couple," he joked.

Faldan stared at him open-mouthed. "No, not at all," he stammered. "We aren't, no, not anything like that, never."

Rasha noticed the Bosmer go slightly red in the face. Is he blushing? She wondered, before quickly dismissing the notion. He was probably insulted by the innkeeper's comment, she knew she was.

Rasha gestured Faldan over to the table before addressing Hadring. "We'll want some breakfast. Nothing too harsh on the stomach. Maybe some bread and stew or something."

"Considering you might be the only paying customers in a while, you can have a good lot of stew. The stuff only keeps for so long, and I certainly can't eat it all before it goes bad."

"Thank you, it's appreciated," Rasha said with gratitude.

Soon they had eaten and were heading out the door into the frozen wasteland beyond. The road to Winterhold would be long. Especially with mister snail feet beside her.

Magoza was shaken awake by the Argonian, Hides-In-Trees. She shouted out in shock after opening her eyes to the sight of his lizard-like face staring at her. She quickly settled down as she gathered her wits, and he informed her that it was time to leave.

She gathered the ebony bow-weapon, and the large knapsack, before they both left the house. Hides lead the way out of the village, out into the wilderness beyond.

"Aren't we having anything to eat before we set off?" Magoza asked him.

"No, we head straight to Narsis. No stops."

The young Orsimer decided not to argue the matter. He was helping her after-all, and she dare not push her luck. Especially after the way she had acted last night.

While she still didn't fully trust him, she had decided to give him free-reign to lead and to at least show him some respect. She didn't really think he deserved it though, not after revealing to her that he had actually once been a slaver.

As they briskly stepped back onto the main road, Magoza watched him. He faced forward with what appeared to be a frown, his fierce demeanour concentrating on nothing but what was ahead of them.

With a deep breath, she asked him a question, hoping he would give some clarification in response. "You said before that you weren't welcome in Narsis City. What did you mean by that?"

He glared at her, he squinted as his nostrils flared. "What I meant is that the guards will be suspicious of me if they recognise me. Also, old friends on both sides will most likely be hostile towards me if they see me."

"Both sides?"

"The friends I had before I joined Talen and his 'business', and those that I knew during my employment."

"Sounds to me like it'd be easier if you didn't come along."

"No," he disagreed. "You don't know who to talk to, I do, even if they won't be best pleased to see me. Besides I've been away for several months, hiding out in Mournhold."

"But how would they know what's going on?" she asked him. "How would anyone outside of this Talen's slave trade business know anything?"

"Because the people I know make it their business. They are secretly going through the motions to get the whole practice outlawed. They see the current slave-trade as a spit in the face to all of our ancestors who had to endure it."

Magoza looked ahead, down the long road. The oddly shaped trees at the sides, reaching seemingly as far as the horizon. "How far is it from here?" she asked him.

"Not far. We just have to walk fast."

"How fast?"

"Faster than we are now."

"I can't walk much faster."

"Than you might have to jog then."

She didn't complain, she just tried to keep up as the Argonian increased his pace. Already she could tell that it was going to be a long walk to Narsis City.

Rasha and Faldan were cold, their knees ached from it, their faces were numb, and their tempers were starting to get short. With a shove, to get him to go faster, the Ohmes-Raht let out a disgruntled sigh.

"Come on, Bosmer!" she yelled in exasperation. "It took us two days to travel a distance that should have taken no more than six or seven hours, I don't want it to take two days to go the rest of the way!"

"It wasn't my fault," he said. "I told you, it was those bandits."

"And you insisting we help those mill workers so you could have a rest." She shook her head. "I still can't figure that one out. Working to rest. It doesn't make sense."

"I wanted somewhere that wasn't out in the cold," he explained. "A little work for a nice warm place to get some shut-eye doesn't seem odd to me."

"Well, unless you hurry we'll be spending the night in this weather. Now stop walking so damned slow and start moving!"

"Okay, calm yourself."

"I will once you start walking faster."

"I'm walking as fast as I can," he complained.

Rasha sped up, moving past him. "Fine, I'll meet you in Winterhold."

"Hey, wait!" Faldan shouted after her, as he began to walk faster trying in vain to keep up.

She began to walk even faster, forcing Faldan to break into a slow jog.

She looked over at him, as he struggled to keep pace with her. "See, you can move faster." She smiled as she looked back ahead. "At this pace we should make Winterhold in good time."

"Can we slow down a bit?" Faldan asked her. "This is too fast."

"No," was her response. "Not until your legs are screaming for you to slow down."

"Why you being like this?" Faldan questioned, beginning to regret coming along with her. "I should have stayed in Windhelm," he muttered under his breath.

"I heard that," she warned. "Besides, I just want to get there. See what her story is."

"You mean Tam?" he asked, as he began to pant.

She frowned as she looked over at him, continuing her brisk pace. "Of course I mean Tam! Who else could I be possibly talking about!?"

"I don't know, there may be a third contract you haven't told me about."

"Yes, I have fifty-seven contracts in Winterhold," she told him sarcastically.

Faldan came to a halt, forcing Rasha to stop also. She turned around, placing her hands on her hips. An angry frown furrowed her features.

"What is it now!?" she demanded.

The Bosmer folded his arms. "You don't respect me," he said angrily. "You think I'm a joke."

"No I don't respect you!" she shouted back. "You know why? Because all you've done since we left Windhelm, is make everything a thousand times harder than it needs to be!"

"You're pushing me too hard!" he complained.

"All we're doing is moving from one city to another. We're not diving into a Ayleid ruin, or whatever ruins they have up here! I'd like to get there before night comes and the temperature falls any more." She pointed her long sharp index finger at him. "If you haven't noticed, It's colder than a Thalmor's heart up here, and I want to get to this forsaken city and get indoors!"

Faldan began moving again, albeit slowly.

"Faster, or I will leave you behind," she threatened.

"Fine!" he said, picking up his pace, shoving past her.

She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, her claws digging into his flesh. "You push past me like that again, and I may just finish your part of the contract after-all." All the colour in Faldan's face drained out of it, his mouth dropping open. He nodded slowly. "I see you understand."

"Yes, I'm sorry," he apologised. "I got upset."

She clenched her jaw before letting out a long, regretful sigh. She knew she shouldn't have said that too him, but her anger was starting to get the best of her. She wasn't built for the cold, and it was starting to make her very bones ache.

Rasha looked ahead. "Look, let's just get to the city of Winterhold as quickly as we can."

Faldan didn't dare disagree. "Yes, okay."

They both continued on, Faldan picking up his pace considerably.

"Stay here, I will be back in perhaps an hour or so," Hides-In-Trees told Magoza, as they stood around an imperial mile distant from Narsis City. The two of them were in the openness of the Deshaan Plain, a large area of grasslands and fertile soil that sloped downhill to the south towards the swamps of Argonia, or Black Marsh as it was also known. He moved off in an effort to gauge if he could see if there was any entry point that they could take, without being seen, or rousing suspicion.

From what she had heard from Hides, the city's mainly Argonian population was actually quite small. The only other races that lived there consisted of a few Khajiit traders and some families of Altmer that had fled from the Summerset Isles to escape the Thalmor.

Hides had explained as they walked, that the initial invasion force was fuelled by sap from some magic tree called the Hist. The sap was originally intended to aid the Argonians in fending off the Daedra in the Oblivion Crisis, but once the crisis was over, they turned their attention onto the Dunmer, who had enslaved members of their race for centuries.

It was house Redoran that had managed to stop the advance and then push them back. It wasn't long till most Argonians had returned to Black Marsh, their homeland. Some stayed in Narsis City, however half of them managed to successfully evacuate when reports of the terrors of a floating city of death was making its way up through Black Marsh up towards Morrowind.

Hides-In-Trees had also made further references to the Hist trees. Whatever they were, they seemed important to the Argonians. The reference he made was of how All Argonians had felt the presence of the floating Island that had appeared over a hundred years ago through the Hist. Some felt the danger, while most were drawn to it. From what she was told, the Island of death did far more damage to the Argonian State than they would reveal to anyone, even their own people. It all seemed like fantasy to her, but there was something in the way that Hides told it that suggested to her that it might be true.

The Orsimer turned her thoughts to Narsis in the distance. From the looks of the city itself, it looked much like Mournhold in its design and strangeness. Not at all like anything in Skyrim, or from what she had seen of the city of Jehanna in High Rock. She thought back to the Karo farmhouse. It had been a far simpler design, made from stone and wood.

She looked around. She could see what appeared to be farms, but most, if not all seemed to be long derelict.

She looked ahead to see if she could see Hides, but found he was no longer in sight. He told her to wait an hour, so that's what she would do.

She just hoped it wasn't too late, and that she would be able to save her friends, and Brendarr.

Then it hit her. She didn't actually know if it was this Talen that had actually been behind their disappearance. She had been led here on the word of an Argonian who had himself revealed that he had once been a slaver himself. In fact she didn't even know if Hides was even a he. He was one of few Argonians she had ever seen, let alone spoken to, and had no idea if they even had the same gender markers.

She had laid eyes on a few when she had been out with her mother finding herbs for the stronghold's Wise Woman back in High Rock. Sometimes they were even friendly, and not out to rob them of valuables they didn't even have on them. Of course the thieves were cut down by her mother's blade, and the ones that had been friendly usually ended up being verbally cut down by her.

Magoza had never understood the odd reaction her fellow Orcs had for outsiders. It had always seemed rather harsh and unwelcoming. They were always so concerned about following the rules of Malacath, and deemed everything else as unimportant.

Which made the eventual violent turn of the chief all the more troubling. How he had broken the tenets of Malacath and brought shame upon himself by needlessly slaughtering those in the stronghold. As to why he did it, she would now never know. he was long gone, perhaps even dead. She could only hope that he was.

The young orsimer pushed the thoughts out of her mind. The memories of home always brought her pain and regret. The Orc no longer wanted to feel the anguish, but recently it seemed that no matter where she went, it would follow her.

An hour or so later, Hides returned and they both headed south-westerly around the city. He told her that they would be entering from the east as that was away from the most inhabited part of the city, giving them easier access to the city.

Magoza didn't question his logic, she just wanted all of this to be over, and for her and the Karo's to be back at the farm. But she wondered if that would ever be possible, or if she was simply chasing hope where none existed.

Updated 05/04/2014