Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Get comfortable. This isn't the usual 1500-word quickie I usually post. There are a few words of Latin in here and I hope those of you who actually speak that language won't wince too hard if I botched it.
The weeks passed at last. The walls of Whiterun were as sound as they could be made. Every available container held water for the inevitable fires. The banners of the city and her thanes hung from every bastion. In the setting sun a tired and dispirited army began to encircle the city. A large army. My delaying actions had done little to reduce them and their commander was skilled enough to keep most of his soldiers in the trees until the dragons were driven off. The engineers began setting up their equipment on the heights behind the Honningbrew Meadery. Teams of pioneers started digging the approach trenches that would cover the attacking battalions from the artillery we didn't have. My stomach fluttered at the news of each trebuchet rising 400 yards away. The meadows adjacent to the famous meadery turned gray and brown with the rebels' animal skin tents.
A small party of Stormcloaks approached our lowest gate, hands out in sign of parley.
"Jarl Balgruuf the Greater! Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, Skyrim's true king requires your allegiance!" Galmar Stone-Fist, general of Ulfric's army bellowed up at us.
"I have his axe! Let him come for it!" Balgruuf answered from the bastion where he stood with his thanes behind him.
"So be it! Before we begin, my lieutenant, Hjornskar Head-Smasher has business with one of you in Whiterun!"
With that another man dressed in the bear-themed armor of a rebel officer stepped forward, "Let the Harbinger of the Companions come forth!" the man cried, "Let him face me and prove he can fight without using a coward's ways!"
Champions squaring off before assembled armies is a habit as old as war itself. I am fond of neither custom. Aura Whisper showed to my sightless eyes a man approaching middle age, full of confidence and deceit. He was too smart for what he was ostensibly trying to do.
"Is there any way I can refuse without bringing shame to the city?" I muttered to the men around me. I was discouraged by their chorus of negatives.
I sighed and leaned over the parapet, "Prepare yourself for Sovngarde!" I replied aloud, drawing my blade and making for the stairs down to the gates.
At the bottom-most gate the Circle and Lydia waited for me. Aela pulled me close and kissed me fiercely. "Bring me one of his arm-rings," she bade me.
"I will not fail you Companion," I replied while giving my lady a courtly bow, ending one of the few sincere exchanges in the whole of the farce I was performing.
I turned and strode toward the Stormcloak officers, ancient sword in my hand and Lydia behind me with my shield and helmet. I didn't have long to wait before Hjornskar revealed his actual plan.
"I asked for the Harbinger. Not some blind Imperial runt," Hjornskar sneered.
"This blind Imperial runt bloodied your army's nose . . . twice," I boasted.
"There is no honor to be gained from fighting a blind man," Hjornskar said. "Go to your woman and await your fate in the city." With that the Stormcloak party turned to leave.
I felt my face turning red. I thought I was prepared for whatever insults the rebel officer might fling at me. "You challenge me in front of my lord; insult me before my woman; and then you refuse to fight?" I demanded in a voice for all to hear. "Kri lun aus!" I Shouted at his retreating back. "You're marked for death Stormcloak! My blood-filled eyes are the last thing you will see in this world!" I tore off my blindfold and left it in the dust. I grabbed my helmet and shield from Lydia and marched in silence back to the city. None dared to speak and some stories of the battle say even the ground trembled beneath my feet.
Snap, snap, snap. The sound of the artillery's slings raced the blazing pots of pitch and straw to the city walls. The bombardment started around midnight and all of the lower districts in the city were ash and shattered timber by dawn. In Dragonsreach the commanders waited with the Jarl.
"What are they waiting for?" Balgruuf fumed. He paced his solar like a caged animal. A man of action, standing on the upper balcony of the palace and watching other people fight fires in his city had taken a toll on his mental state.
"It won't be long. Midmorning at the latest. Just enough time for a speech to the troops and make the first columns," a faded Centurion Quentin Cipius said. His men had been rotating in and out of the bucket brigades all night.
"Damn it! What are they waiting for?" Balgruuf asked again.
A legionnaire thundered up the stairs gasping for breath. "What is it soldier? Breathe!" Cipius demanded.
"Sir, they're on the move. They'll be at the gates at any moment!"
"This is it! Time to see what these Stormcloaks are made of." Balgruuf muttered, reaching for his axe.
"The men will already be gathering at the gates. Move it soldier. Spread the word. Go!" Cipius commanded his messenger.
"Oblivion take them. Every miserable last one of them," Jarl Balgruuf cursed.
I tapped the mark on my pauldron and filed in behind Jarl Balgruuf with Vignar Gray-Man and Olfrid Battle-Born. I squeezed the amulet of Akatosh on my neck for extra luck. I always hate the next part.
About half the present Companions and I jogged down to the lowest of Whiterun's three arches. Just a few feet beyond its protection, I scuffed out a line in the hard earth before placing my toes on it. The rest of the warriors fell in next to me and behind me without confusion or many words. I relaxed for just a moment, gazing out over the hedgehogs the legionnaires had placed across the road under the cover of night. I thought back to a day not unlike this one last year when I stood sweating and terrified behind a leader I could not hope to match. Being that leader didn't make me feel any more confident about what was to come.
I hate fighting in the shield-wall. I learned how to fight this way when I joined Kvatch's guards as a teenager. I hated it when my fellow guardsmen and I practiced with the 25th Colovian Legion, looking incongruous in our chainmail tunics and white jupons. I hate it now that I'm a hardened veteran commanding hundreds of men. If I am sent to Oblivion for punishment in the afterlife, I am sure that I will be trapped in the crushing, screaming, terror-soaked press that is the clash of the shield-walls.
The attacking column was about seventy paces away when I gave the order to put our right feet forward. Our shields rattled together as we locked them in place. The brothers Farkas and Vilkas anchored the line to my right, for there are none mightier than they. I was third and to my left were seven more to bar the path beneath the low arch. Behind me Lydia's rank pressed against our backs. That too-familiar tightening of my chest began to work its way around my ribs. Centurion Cipius's first century was behind us, ready to cast their javelins as the enemy negotiated the obstacle. The archers of the town militia prepared to rain arrows down on the coming column.
The Stormcloaks' first assault came in good order, quiet in the brightening sky. Their feet made a soft patter-patter on their approach. Just fifty yards remained. We drew and rested our weapons above the iron rims. My breathing became short and raspy in the back of my throat. Images of my fight at Battlehorn Castle came to my mind unbidden. Once again there was no room to parry, no room to twist or to block, just to keep your shield high and stab and stab and stab.
"Bite the inside of your cheek," Vilkas said into the quiet.
"Huh?" His cultured voice brought my mind out of a loop of rapid flashbacks I hadn't been paying attention to.
"I can hear you grinding your teeth. It's a bad habit," Vilkas explained.
I took a deep breath, rolled my shoulders, and sucked a generous chunk of my cheek between my teeth. I wanted out of the crowd so badly I would gladly have waded up to my neck in blood to escape.
With a shout the first wave ran at us with an awkward step as they sought to keep their shields up against the coming darts. A few paces behind, the main column advanced in a well-drilled lockstep designed to keep their shields tight together. The aura of almost a thousand men and women so unified made me tremble as if beneath an irresistible weight.
"Stand still, damn you," Vilkas swore at me.
A barked command focused my thoughts again and banished fear for just a moment. "Oacere pila!" Centurion Cipius shouted the traditional command in Old Nibenese. The piliium had been reintroduced toward the close of the Great War after it was discovered that Aldmeri armor was able to turn arrows launched by the Legion's unspectacular bow. That medium-range bow was retained by the light infantry for skirmishing and use in the isolated raids that characterized the current civil war. The heavy infantry however, were issued three six-foot oak spears tipped with an eighteen-inch iron barb. The pillium could only be thrown ten or twelve yards, but it could penetrate all but the heaviest armor or shield in that range. The heavy iron barbs lashed out at our assailants, burying themselves in shields or penetrating the leading soldiers.
In seconds, they were in front of our faces, half of the soldiers holding their shields high while the other half moved fast to drag the hedgehogs out of the way. Another flight of Imperial spears flew in at them, adding bodies and screams to the partially dismantled obstacle before us. The back of my mind felt like a fuse burning down.
Time ran out. The Stormcloak skirmishers ran off to the side after doing their best to clear the wooden barriers or else shuffled into the main body. The Stormcloaks issued a lighter pine spear with a short iron point to their soldiers. These now lodged in our wooden shields until shaken off and I heard Lydia grunt behind me as one bounced harmlessly off her ebony breast plate. The cheap spears kept our shields over our eyes however, and covered the last steps of the great column of flesh, iron, and wood to test one hundred forty people sheltered under a small stone arch. There was that dreadful shock as the Stormcloaks pushed the last few feet as one, causing our shields to bang into our faces and shoulders. The pushing and stabbing began in earnest.
If shield wall fighting was as simple as pushing the other army out of the way, we would simply tally up the numbers of people involved and let the larger army have the field. No need to bother with all the work and bloodletting. To be sure, there is no chance a two-rank line can hold back a column of a dozen ranks, but even then there are ways to delay the inevitable. There is a science and an art to this breed of war.
The first precept is to keep your shields tight together, either overlapped or edge to edge as habit and training dictate. To accomplish this, we rely on the discipline of our training and the ground on which we stand. By way of discipline both sides were on par. The Stormcloaks were a motivated army led by veterans of the Great War. Against them were the Companions, prepared for this moment by months of drill under the members of the Circle and by years of carrying out our mercenary services throughout Skyrim. The century of legionnaires behind us were young and experienced only in the scattered clashes in the wilderness, but were as well trained as any other legionnaire (Legion training is superb I might add). They were perversely eager to try their swords and skills against so many of their enemy. Last, the city watch was as capable as any in Skyrim and (despite the claims of his many detractors) had a diligent if uninspired leader in Commander Caius.
None of this was going through my head when I heard a rebel soldier screeching blasphemy at Vilkas, inches from my face. I growled something in reply and reached over my shield to cuff her with the dragon bone on the back of my gauntlet.
The second precept is to choose your ground well. The surface under the feet of your troops should be as free of obstacles as possible. In that regard the Legion had served Whiterun well. The first ranks of the Stormcloaks had not been given adequate time to remove the hedgehogs and now some of their bodies made unsteady footing for the second otherwise well-ordered wave to stumble on.
My shield shook and the boards rippled like water when a man in the second rank leaned out over his fellows and drove his splitting maul down. An axe reached over my shoulder and hooked a Stormcloak shield. The wood-and-hide panel gave just an inch. But an inch was enough, the refurbished draugr sword in my hand veered into the weak spot. I felt chain rings pop as I pushed.
The third is to either penetrate or flank the enemy line. Thanks to the stone arch we stood under, the Stormcloaks could not flank us. As for us, an offensive was out of the question. While twelve ranks can hold off one hundred, twelve cannot hope to break one hundred.
I heard Farkas cry out as a pine spear lodged in his left shoulder. Later Vilkas told me that his brother tore the wooden shaft bloody from his wound and drove it into the mouth of yet another soldier. His sword lying at his feet, he started reaching out with his good arm and dragged Stormcloaks toward his brother's sword or punched at them with a giant fist gloved by three pounds of steel.
Fourth, keep the engagement short. For even the most stalwart Orc, intrepid Redguard, ruthless Cyrodiil, or dauntless Nord; the shield-wall is as exhausting as it is horrifying. After half an hour or less, the resolve of the leading troops breaks down and they become a hindrance to those behind. It is best to get those men away from the front so fresh troops can come up. The Imperial Legion's consistent success over its history has much to do with the fact that it had perfected the science of keeping fights short. Here the attackers were at a serious disadvantage. The tightly packed ranks advancing behind them did not permit the leading ranks to fall back. Men wounded, exhausted, and terrified were pressed onto our weapons. I on the other hand, had made plans with Centurion Cipius to fall back though the Legion's traditionally open ranks, re-form my group, and charge as the Legion eventually withdrew in its turn.
I called the retreat and we thumped through the Imperial ranks. The legionnaires didn't wait for the Stormcloaks to recover their stride and rush. The midmorning sun broke into a hundred points of light on the Legion's angular blades raised high. The invaders were shocked by the fresh energy of the Cyrodiil troopers and rank after rank was stabbed down until the century reached the arch. Only then did Cipius check his soldiers. I kept my comrades in open order, waiting for the legionaries' inevitable withdrawal.
Fifth, support your line infantry with other types. The Legion traditionally did this through auxiliaries. Khajiit cavalry, Breton mages, and Bosmer archers at one time were regarded as the hammers to the Legion's anvil of heavy infantry. As the Thalmor systematically tore apart those alliances, the Legion adapted by diversifying its own soldiers. The Stormcloaks missed this lesson on their assault, relying instead on speed and numbers to crush us beneath iron nailed boots and bring battering rams up to the gates.
Whiterun's archers decorated the walls and the parapets above each gate. The best bowmen among the Companions directed by Aela; every member of the town Militia not waiting at the upper gates as a reserve; the other Imperial century; every local huntsman and poacher that usually wandered the plains. Hundreds of experienced marksmen packed the walls. Their arrows shot into the Stormcloak ranks like bands of cloud on a strong wind.
Arrows in their hundreds rained into the Stormcloak ranks. At last the assault began to break. It started with a despairing officer calling a retreat and soon it became a rout as those nearest to the gate began to panic.
"Companions! Forward!" I bellowed. The time to do the most damage is when the enemy is running.
Not one Stormcloak turned to fight. Their backs became the practice dummies in the rear yard of Jorrvaskr. Every soldier of the Militia and the Legion at the gates was behind us, eager to avenge the night of fire. Those on the wall shot until the arrows could not reach the enemy. Soon I thought, an officer must check the Stormcloaks' flight. Someone must order them to turn and punish us for our reckless attack.
Then I perceived him, still marked for death in the cloudy world of Aura Whisper. "Hjornskar!" I screamed his name across the din, "Fight me Hjornskar!" A group of soldiers had set up a shield-wall in front of their officer, but I stood out in front of my own men. I am credited with hacking apart a line if fifty men in that minute, but it was no more than ten between me and the officer who insulted me before armies and a city. I did not even kill most of them, they just scattered clear of the path between the Dragonborn and his enemy.
If Hjornskar Head-Smasher could not fight a duel with a blind man, he couldn't be seen running from one either. Especially when the blind man was a head smaller and half his weight. He held his claymore in a high guard and perhaps it was foolish, but I shed my shield. The rest of the battle around us seemed to stop as the Harbinger and Hjornskar Head-Smasher began to trade blows. I am told that the crash of our meeting could be heard in Solitude and Windhelm. In my anger I almost forgot his size advantage and nearly paid the price three times before I remembered myself.
He was the type of Stormcloak soldier that scares me. Hjornskar, like Vilkas and Farkas, was a big man who favored a big sword. The three-and-a-half foot claymore is a heavy weapon but not unmanageable. If the blade is kept sharp and the arms holding it are skilled, it can stab like a spear or swing hard enough to crack helmets. My reforged Nordic sword had nowhere near the mass needed to properly block the great sword in Hjornskar's hands. I am lucky that dragon bone and scale are so dense. As it was, I came away from that duel covered in bruises and welts. The Stormcloak carried his sword through a series of brilliant feints that left him poised for a last mighty blow. But my own kata circled to his right and the tip of my sword blasted through the back of his knee before coming up to a high guard. I cut down hard and felt the blade rip the chain and skin of his arm with glee. Hjornskar fell before me with a crash.
"Not a fucking chance," I told the beaten man on the ground and kicked his weapon away from his grasping hand. No way would I allow this piece of shit die with a sword in his hand. I stabbed down hard. As I looked down into the dying man's face, a miracle occurred: My eyes could see the outline of his crippled body in the fading Aura Whisper.
I became aware that Galmar Stone-Fist's voice was ordering a renewal of the attack. "To the gate!" I bellowed. I recovered my shield with its dirt-stained badge and ran hard for the city.
The battle continued by intervals throughout the day. Once, just before sunset, the Stormcloaks drove us up to the main gate, but a screaming counterattack by the Militia drove them back to the battered stables just outside the city. There was an hour of quiet as the sky became dark and then the Stormcloak artillery began sending more fire into the heart of the city.
The second day dawned at last. "Sleep" was a few hours huddled in the charred timbers that were the remnants Breezehome. Jorrvaskr was untouched, but was crowded with the wounded among the Companions and noncombatants sheltering there. Under the barrage of fire, the Stormcloaks tried twice in the night to force the walls to the east or come up through the sewer grates that drained the city. They nearly succeeded, but Commander Caius's valor and Morgan's fury of spells destroyed their ramps and ladders on their second attempt to scale the walls.
As the watery Skyrim sun broke over the distant tower of High Hrothgar; Aela, Lydia, and I climbed the steps to the wall again. The Companions had been rotated to the reserves at the gate-the night attacks hurt us badly. The town Militia was gutted. One in three were dead or wounded. The indomitable Irileth was somewhere between life and death in the palace. Quinten Cipius and his two centuries had not suffered as badly, though they too were exhausted from the fighting.
"We can't take another day of this," I said to the assembled commanders. They could only nod their agreement. Black stains ringed all of our eyes. "If needs be Jarl, there are ways beneath Jorrvaskr we can use to get you and your family out of here."
"Get my family to safety," Balgruuf commanded, "I will die in my city."
I turned to Erik the Slayer, who I had been using as a runner, "Erik, find Vilkas or Farkas. If either of them can walk yet, have them assemble the Jarl's children in the Underforge." He looked at me quizzically. "Either brother will know where to go. What about you and your men Centurion?"
"The Legion is committed to Skyrim. I said we would defend Whiterun and so we shall," he said with genuine feeling.
So we turned to watch the Stormcloaks assemble themselves into the column that must at last break the defenders. The final stroke of a great human battering-ram. Yet something was not right about their host in Aura Whisper. "They're nervous," I said.
"And facing west," Cipius observed. My own eyes were still too weak to see even gross details from two hundred yards away.
"The Legion! The Legion comes!" A lookout on the walls higher up shouted.
The hearts of the city soared with relief. I went down to the battlements above the gates to watch the coming army. Centurion Cipius and Aela came with me. In time, I saw Whiterun's relief as a grey blur flecked with the gold of the dragon-headed gonfalon of the 9th Skyrim Legion. As they approached, my vision became clearer and clearer.
"I've never seen the Legion's way of battle," Aela remarked.
"Then you are about to see how an army of 'Imperial runts' tears the guts out of a force twice its size," Cipius replied. The remarks of Hjornskar had not been well-received by his soldiers or himself.
Still a few hundred yards away, we heard a great shouting and the blowing of whistles. The Legion responded by reordering itself from a pair of columns into three lines, each with six ranks of legionnaires. A thin band of skirmishers arrayed themselves before those thick lines.
The two armies were barely fifty yards apart. The Imperial archers were sending scores of arrows into the Stormcloak host. Spearmen, archers, and even a few mages among the Stormcloaks came forward to respond. The darts of both armies for the most part thudded into shields or glanced uselessly off helmets. "Galmar should rush. Right now," I commented.
"Centurion Cipius smirked, "But he won't. He thinks safety for his men lies in waiting behind the shields. Getting Nord recruits of the habit of standing still when their shields come up is always a challenge. I wish we could just issue them great axes and save the time."
"But he is a veteran of the Legion," Aela protested, "He should know better."
"He probably does, but keeping open ranks takes much longer to train. Ulfric needed a large army in just a year or two," I mused.
The legion's skirmishers withdrew through the well-spaced ranks of the heavy infantry and reformed in the rear.
"The Imperials are stand very far apart," a Nord militia man remarked nervously from his post on the wall.
"A three-foot box for each soldier," Cipius confirmed. "A soldier cannot fight as he ought if he is too close to his fellows. Nor can she be so far away that she cannot aid another. You've already seen how we withdraw through the spaces."
"So why bother with the shield wall? You insisted we train to use it, Ieago," Aela asked
"The Legion formation is still a wall, just one you bounce off instead of grinding to a halt on. Locked shields are easy to learn and have uses in sieges. Even the Legion will do it when needs be," I explained.
The lines of the armies were close now and the Legion sent volleys of spears into the rebel ranks, doing telling damage and forcing their tight formation to loosen somewhat as the injured withdrew. The Stormcloak army was still confident in their numbers however, and shouted their derision on the Imperial ranks. In reply the Legion remained silent, but began banging their swords in perfect unison on the edges of their diamond-shaped shields. I soon every legionnaire in Whiterun was standing on the parapet, doing the same in time with their distant comrades. The soldiers stood completely silent, the hard cracking chorus drowned out the Stormcloaks until the whole world was filled with the sound of steel blades banging on steel rims. Even the mountains to the north seemed to be covered with hidden legions banging away.
In casual step, the 9th Legion walked up to its intimidated enemy. The stabbing began almost casually. The soldiers reached far out over their shields touch their enemies with their swords. Once combat began, the leading three cohorts stood in place and at intervals the front rank would fall back to the rear of the line; looking for all the world like they were bouncing off the Stormcloak shields. Only slowly did the centurions allow their troops to advance. The second set of three cohorts waited their turn patiently for the leading ranks to withdraw or to give chase. The final pair of cohorts knelt and waited should fortune favor the Stormcloaks and the enemy rout the cohorts in front of them.
"Gods, they just don't stop," the militia man breathed after the first broad line had cycled several times.
An image of the side of the rebel artillery flicked in my mind. Flashes of my housecarls and some of the Companions accompanied the vision.
"Ghent and the Companions are about to hit the artillery park," I announced. "Soldier, run to Commander Caius and suggest to him that the Militia get ready to charge with my men," I told the militia man on the wall near us.
"They still outnumber us," Aela warned as we jogged down to the third gate.
"They won't hold much longer," I replied and turned to the assembling warriors behind me, "For Whiterun! Kill them! Kill them all!" I shouted and signaled for the defenders of Whiterun to follow me. Behind me were the four hundred legionnaires, Companions, and guards who could still fight.
Unrelenting Force signaled the opening of my charge with the splash of dozens of Stormcloak soldiers. From the heights above the meadery, some two hundred Companions and my other two housecarls rushed down to the fray.
At last the enemy seemed to waver and then they scattered before our onset, subdued by enemies on three sides. The fresh soldiers of the Legion's second and third lines sprang after them, chasing the shattered enemy for a short mile before being recalled.
Suddenly weary in the wake of victory, I sheathed my sword and stumbled back to the gate where the city's banner now stood. There Jarl Balgruuf the Greater, covered in Stormcloak blood, waited. I took my place behind him with the rest of the city's thanes. Quentin Cipius stood apart, the tattered remnants of his men paraded behind him.
The legate of the 9th Skyrim Legion strode up to the gate with the Legion's gleaming dragon standard borne behind. The Legate was a woman by the roll of her hips and form of breastplate, but her helmet covered her face. As she passed Quentin Cipius, his centuries saluted as one, a modest clash of right fists to left breastplates. She knelt before Balgruuf and removed her helmet, exposing long sandy brown hair generously streaked with grey. "The Ninth Legion begs leave to garrison at Whiterun," Legate Rikke said.
"The Legion is welcome within the walls of Whiterun," Balgruuf gave the formal reply. Almost on an impulse, he looked at the axe in his hand, the one he had offered to Ulfric weeks ago as a last gesture of peace or war, "This axe of the city, which Ulfric claimed and sent an army to retrieve. By the valor of the 9th, both are safe. I would have it borne on your banner, beneath the claws of Akatosh."
"It shall be an honor Jarl Balgruuf," Legate Rikke replied, taking the axe and holding it high to the distant legion. The shouts of victory started in the legion and spread like a fresh wind through the city's defenders. The shouting lasted until the sun sank low.
I hope you all liked my take on the Battle of Whiterun. This was a big, important chapter, particularly if you choose to read the forthcoming sequel.
