I hope everyone is still enjoying this. At this point in the novel, the story is going to start diverging significantly from the plot of the video game. Basically, from this point onward, I'm taking the story in a totally different direction, so hopefully everyone is cool with that.

25

When I woke up, I was laying in bed, my arms at my sides and the heavy blankets up to my neck. My whole body ached, but I was warm and safe. I sighed and turned my head to the side, seeing that I was in the women's bunk room in my own bed, but no one else was there. Part of me wanted to fall right back to sleep, but first I wanted to know what was going on in the fort. So I grunted in soreness and wiggled my way out of the heavy blankets enough to sit upright in bed.

I leaned back against the headboard and looked down at my right arm, which was wrapped in a bandage from my wrist to my elbow. I could flex the muscles in my arm without too much pain, and I could move my hand just fine, so the damage must not be too bad.

Just then I caught a whiff of food and my stomach grumbled loudly, my mouth salivating immediately. I hadn't eaten all the previous day, and was starving.

Gaea entered the room, carrying a bowl in one hand. She was dressed in leather trousers and a plain gray tunic, her long red hair tied in a ponytail.

"Oh, you're awake," she said with a smile. "Want something to eat?"

"Yes, please," I croaked, reaching out for the bowl.

"It's just fish stew, we don't have much else right now."

"I'm sure it will be the most delicious thing I've ever had," I said, already stuffing a spoonful into my mouth.

Gaea sat down on the bed next to mine and let me eat for a few moments. The stew was watery and the fish was flavorless, but I was too hungry to care. After I had downed half the bowl I took a moment to catch my breath.

"So how do you feel?" Gaea asked.

"Compared to yesterday, I feel incredible."

"What in the world happened, anyway? We got part of the story from Mirisa, but she's still recovering so I didn't want to bother her too much."

"How is she doing?"

"Not great," Gaea admitted. "She lost a lot of blood, but I think she'll pull through. The wound wasn't infected, thankfully. Her boyfriend wanted to try bleeding himself and draining his blood into her but we talked him out of it. We don't have anyone trained enough to try something like that. The healing potions will have to do for now. She just needs a lot of rest."

"Well, that's a relief," I said. I tilted up the bowl and noisily drank the rest of the stew, then set the empty bowl on the bed and wiped my mouth with my shirt.

"She told us what happened to her," Gaea said. "About the Nord who kidnapped her, I mean. She said you were making your way back to the fort when a hunting party of rieklings attacked you?"

"Yeah," I said. I decided not to inquire about exactly what Mirisa had told them, and I could only hope that she had decided to lie about the identity of her attacker, as I had asked her to. "I have no idea what they were doing there. Just stupid bad luck, I guess."

"How many were there?"

"Six, I think."

"Six rieklings?" Gaea said. "And you fought them all by yourself?"

"I didn't have much choice. Mirisa certainly wasn't going to fight them off."

"That's pretty impressive though, killing six rieklings single-handedly."

I knew what she was getting at, but I just brushed it off. "Well, I know how to defend myself. I told you my dad worked for the Fighter's Guild."

"You did tell me that," she said with a smile, "and I didn't believe it that time either."

"Why not?" I asked innocently.

Gaea leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, speaking in a lower voice, although I doubted that anyone was eavesdropping on us. "Because there's a difference between training and experience. You can train someone in combat all you want, but send them out into a battle for the first time and they'll panic and forget half of what they've learned. It's different when the other person is actually trying to kill you. It takes real experience in combat to learn how to handle yourself. I can tell that you've done some serious fighting before, Sasha. I could tell as soon as I saw you fight those berserkers."

"I never said I hadn't been in combat," I said evasively. "I did jobs working as a bodyguard, I did some mercenary work, that sort of thing. I've been in lots of fights."

"Do you really expect me to believe that someone would hire a beautiful young woman like you to be a bodyguard?"

I smiled pleasantly. "I really don't care what you believe. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

"Alright," Gaea said with a shrug. "If you don't want to tell me, I guess it's none of my business. But there is a lot more to you than you're letting on."

"I like being mysterious," I said, fidgeting with the bandage on my arm, as it was starting to itch.

I untied the end and began to slowly unravel the bandage, very gently pulling it when it got stuck on dried blood. Gaea helped me remove it completely, and I finally got a good look at my injured arm.

There was a seven-inch gouge across the top of my forearm, surrounded in an ugly purplish bruise. The cut was stitched up now; they must have done it while I was unconscious. Along the bottom edge of my hand, they also stitched up the goblin's bite mark. I flexed my arm again and moved my fingers, feeling only a little bit of pain when I tried to twist my arm and the cut pulled against the stitches.

"Not too bad?" Gaea asked.

"I guess I should feel lucky that it didn't break my arm," I said. "It's more of a bruise than a cut. It will leave an ugly scar though."

"Better than the alternative. And you're lucky the bite isn't infected."

I got out of bed and went to use the privy, and then began to get dressed. They had tucked me into bed in just my underclothes, so I pulled on a pair of fur pants and grabbed a fur jacket to match.

As I was tying up my boots, Gaea asked, "I almost forgot to ask, do you have any idea what happened to Red-Spear?"

"Not a clue," I said. "He brought me to Thirsk but let me go into the village by myself. He said that he wasn't welcome there. When I came back out he was gone. I waited for a little bit, but I got annoyed and just began walking back here."

"He wasn't welcome there?"

"That's what he told me. He said that the local Nords didn't trust him, they thought he was an Imperial spy."

"Where do you think he went?"

"Someone in the village probably saw him and scared him off. I'm sure he meant to come back for me, but my visit there didn't last very long, I'm afraid."

"Not much luck with the Nords, I take it?"

"Well, they didn't know anything about the attack the other day. They certainly aren't responsible. But the clan chief refused to help me at all, and basically said that if the Legion tries to exact any kind of reprisals against the Nords for the attack, then it might lead to war. The only thing he could tell me is that the men in wolf skins live somewhere on the western side of Solstheim. He said they aren't Nords at all."

"So he didn't tell us anything we didn't already suspect."

"Basically."

"Well, I'll let you explain all that to Captain Cavorian."

"Who?"

"The new Captain," Gaea said. "The reinforcements from Morrowind arrived this morning."