This chapter and the next two are part of a mini-trilogy arc, explaining Ralof's actions at the end of chapter 35 and what it means for Lena's quest and the fate of Skyrim.
There's quite a bit of violence here. I didn't go into the chapter meaning for it to be so gruesome, but even my husband mentioned it, so I thought I might warn you guys before you start reading.
4E 174
"Please, Ulfric. Don't make me do this."
Ulfric sat struggling in his bonds, across from the golden woman who held the blood-soaked, shining knife. Elenwen, her father had called her, when they took over his 'interrogation' ten long days ago. At first, their act continued in the same vein. Derivative, if a bit more refined: pain, threat. Pain, threat. More pain.
But after three days, Elenwen healed him. As far as it was possible to heal, anyway. She'd walked into the cell and laid glowing hands on his legs, his back, his face…and he endeavored to conceal his shock as most of his injuries faded away.
A purple and green bruise spreading across her own jaw caught Ulfric's eye as he'd held one scarred and gnarled hand before his face, marveling at the simple freedom of movement. He looked closer. A bloom of crimson marred the golden perfection of her right eye, and the shadow of a bruise encircled it as well.
"Why not heal yourself?" Ulfric wasn't curious in the least, but it wasn't often his gag was removed, and he'd not been able to resist taking a small shot. It'd probably result in another episode of paralysis, but he didn't care, he'd realized with a start. After weeks spent in a haze of red-blazing agony, he felt good. And more than a little froggy.
"Sometimes the lesson isn't that simple. Sometimes pain is just the beginning." Elenwen paused, and Ulfric waited for the rebuke he knew was coming, the consequence of noticing an imperfection in one of the mighty Thalmor. The three justiciars who accompanied Elenwen leaned forward a bit, anticipating the same.
But none came, and she'd simply sighed, replacing his gag and checking his bonds. "I can't replace what's gone, what my father…took from you," she said, her eyes boring into his as he reddened from hairline to neck.
The momentary lightness of being evaporated as reality clenched its cold fingers around his heart. Even if he survived this nightmare, he'd never be whole. He looked away, and she sighed again. "He's decided on a new track for you. Rest up. You'll need it."
Next morning, he'd expected more pain, more threats and demands for information, and more creative methods to make him talk. Make him spill secrets he was privy to as a high-ranking officer in the Legion, and that's exactly what happened. At dawn, two justiciars collected him from his surprisingly clean cell. Altmer and their obsession with cleanliness afforded him the basic comforts – he wasn't sitting in his own filth, at least.
The interrogation chamber in which they'd bound him was similar to the previous day's, but larger. Same windowless stone walls, the drain in the floor and hooks dangling from the ceiling as ominous as ever. Let's get this over with. Last night's pain-free sleep had been refreshing, but Ulfric knew its occurrence would be rare, if not unique. He knew what lay before him. Or, so he'd thought.
The door opened and in walked the two Altmer he'd been anticipating and dreading in equal measure – richly dressed in red and gold, their hair loose, held back from their faces by golden circlets.
Not justiciars, in unrelieved black, or soldiers in shining gold armor. What are they…Ulfric's eyes snapped toward the door as three soldiers strode in, carrying three people, their hands and feet bound with rough rope, and their heads covered with what looked like flour sacks.
With mastery as foreboding as the act itself, the soldiers wrapped the captives' torsos in chains and hung them from the hooks in the ceiling. The sacks were torn off, and Ulfric's heart raced as they swung, their eyes open. Terrified. Staring at him. Pleading with him. Ulfric was their countryman, their commander. Surely he could stop this.
A different track, Elenwen had hinted. His muscles tensed, and he swallowed hard behind his gag, praying to Talos for the strength to stand firm. Well, as far as he could stand, helpless and strapped to a chair.
He wasn't sure the gods listened anymore. They used to – he'd seen proof of their existence in the Shouts he'd learned as a child. In the temples as healers tended his small hurts and injuries. So despite everything he'd seen over the last two years, he still prayed to Talos, but lifted a more fervent prayer to himself. Don't give up. Don't give in. Stay true.
And he had. For a full week, he'd screamed behind his gag and soaked it with tears as they'd broken his brothers in arms. A medic, several Quaestors, one of the cooks, even a servant of Dibella who'd followed the Legion, her doe eyes and warm hands seducing and comforting in equal measure.
Ulfric hadn't betrayed the Empire. But he died a little inside every time he made the choice to hold his silence. Again and again.
Today, he began to feel his own breaking, the process slow, yet inevitable. These elves had found his weak link, their delicate, murderous fingers probing and searching until they figured it out. Figured him out. Ulfric knew – they did, too – that the chain of his resolve couldn't hold much longer.
"Please," Elenwen said again, and sobbed, tears streaming down her cut-glass cheeks. She'd been breaking for a while, as well. When they'd taken over, Elenwen's father was obviously the more enthusiastic of the two. He'd smiled, laughed, and joked as he'd hurt Ulfric. Flayed the skin from his back and cut…pieces…from his body. Elenwen said she couldn't give them back, but Ulfric didn't want anything. He knew he would die. He only hoped his strength wouldn't desert him in the time he had left.
But Elenwen, while she'd gone along with her father's instructions, hadn't displayed any enthusiasm for the sport. And into their third week together, she showed signs of deterioration. The knife shook in her hand, wavering as she approached the struggling captives.
Three again, today, as usual. And, as usual, those he'd sworn to honor. To protect. Well, two of them anyway. Ulfric looked the two men in the eyes. He could at least do that. Acknowledge their plight. Their suffering. Accept the requisite blame. He understood now why Lorcan had insisted on healing him: his good health shone bright, a badge of cowardice before those persecuted in his stead. How were they to know he'd once hung where they did now? I did, didn't I? Guilt smothered Ulfric anew, choking his lungs like ash from a wildfire. Twisting his memories, poisoning his mind with doubt.
The third victim was a woman. An Altmer, young and lovely behind her bruises. But he couldn't place her. What were they playing at?
"Please. I don't want to die, Ulfric. My father…you heard him, it's me or them. You're honorable enough to make a different choice, I know. But I'm not," Elenwen croaked, the knife slipping in her hand as the door opened.
Her demeanor changed from grown woman to lost child in an instant. She cringed before the golden, ebony-haired man, her eyes shuttered and blank, her lips pressed together in her whitening face. Ulfric flicked his eyes toward the older Altmer and studied him. Lorcan almost floated across the floor in his robes, such was his grace, his composure.
He was older than his daughter, but as with all Altmer, it was difficult to tell by how much. Ulfric didn't blame Elenwen for her fright. He'd seen what her father could do. He'd seen terrifying sights all over Skyrim, the horrors of war, and nothing much scared Ulfric. Lorcan did.
"Why is this filth not yet dead?" He raised a finger and lightning streamed from it, hitting the nearest captive's stomach. Ulfric's own Auxiliary, a young Nord who'd joined up a month before the ambush, vomited behind his gag. His fox-red hair had been shaved close to his head, and blood streamed down his face where interrogators had been less than careful with the shears.
Ulfric forced his eyes up to meet Lorcan's, and tried to Shout around his gag. No use. If only power could stream from his eyes. He'd been holed up in this prison…fort… whatever it was the Dominion used for a torture chamber north of the Imperial City, for weeks now. Had it been weeks? Months? He'd been trying to Shout the entire time. But even if he got lucky, they'd just paralyze him again. It was a futile struggle, he understood. But it didn't stop him from trying to save the boy he'd barely gotten to know. A boy he'd failed so completely.
Lorcan turned his expressionless gaze on Elenwen. "I told you what would happen if you disobeyed me," he said, lazily lifting his hand and shooting another violet blast square at her chest.
Elenwen screamed, and Ulfric's eyes shone with unconcealable satisfaction. She seemed genuinely afraid of her father, but she'd also genuinely abused Ulfric and his friends for weeks now. His sympathies only stretched so far.
Lorcan grinned, his eyes glancing over Ulfric as well. "Now you will do your duty. Sympathies should not be spared for animals, daughter." He walked over to an ornate metal table and picked up a dagger, casually running his fingers over the edge, spreading fire over the golden blade.
With one last smirk in Ulfric's direction, Lorcan turned and swung toward the second captive in a low arc. Ulfric met his Quartermaster's steel-gray eyes as he yelled under the blade. Scents of burning flesh and hot, salty iron filled the room, reminding Ulfric of the day he'd joined the Legion. The gruff man had taken one look at Ulfric's swaggering bravado and laughed. "Look around, boy," he'd said, pointing toward the medic's tents and soldiers walking barefoot in the late Autumn's chill. "This isn't a grand adventure. Don't insult it by treating it so."
Lorcan swung again and again until the old Nord passed out, his legs quivering in involuntary spasms.
Rough rope scraped against his skin as Ulfric struggled in his bonds, feeling nothing but his own uselessness. It unraveled him, thread by thread, flaying his soul as bare as the bloody flesh on his arms and ankles.
He looked from Elenwen to Lorcan to his brothers, unable to think. There had to be something he could do to stop it. But there was nothing.
"These are Imperial subjects, Ulfric Stormcloak. Sons of Skyrim. As are you. A hero, fighting to save a dying empire. But where are those you're fighting for? The exalted Emperor. Your High King. Have they come to help? No," Lorcan sneered, not raising a hand to wipe blood spatter from his eyes, his mouth, "and they won't. Because you're nothing to them. Skyrim sent you into this war, but will not lift a finger to save its native son? Even as you're a son of a jarl, you're nothing. Less than nothing. And so are these...people. Your friends. Your family."
He approached the Auxiliary again, ripping his tunic down the middle with the dagger. He didn't bother lighting the blade on fire again, just made a lazy strike upward, smiling at the boy's bulging and darkening eyes. A tell-tale odor filled the air as he died, his guts spilling out and steaming as they spattered the freezing cold stone. "Left to our…care and concern."
Vomit lurked too close to the back of Ulfric's throat and he forced it down, jerking against his bonds once more. His own torture had been excruciating, unspeakable. Hadn't it? The breaking of his brothers, their bodies, their souls…a thousand times worse. I failed them. Failed everyone. I should have stayed on that mountain.
"Then again, what is family?" Lorcan tapped his chin and mused. He might have been discussing the merits of a poem or song given the lightness of his expression. He haphazardly hit Elenwen with more lightning, smiling down at her as she flailed on the blood-and-shit-covered floor, groaning with pain. "My own daughter's a failure. She's let me down more grievously than Skyrim's let you down, I promise you that. I'm trying, out of the goodness of my heart," he said, beating his chest with a fist, "to give her another chance, but…"
Lorcan stalked to the door, throwing his daughter one last withering look before he left. "You will do as I ask, or more will suffer, as will you."
Did Lorcan believe Elenwen cared about the Nords? Those she tortured? No. She didn't care. Couldn't… Ulfric watched Elenwen as she slowly pulled herself up and walked over to the struggling Altmer. And why was this woman here? Ulfric didn't know her, how could they possibly use her against him?
Elenwen winced, lifting her knife once more, blood dripping from the burns on her arms and chest. "Please, Ulfric. Please tell me what I need to know. We'll find out anyway, and no one else needs to die. Please…"
PRESENT DAY
Jarl Balgruuf drained the mead from his goblet and sat back in his chair. He glanced behind his shoulder at Irileth before pinning the Stormcloak soldier with a skeptical gaze. This Ralof wove a compelling tale, true enough. Balgruuf's eyes flicked over the Dovahkiin, sitting further down the table with her husband and the other Companions. And another warrior he didn't recognize. Lena's face was pale, under a greenish cast. Balgruuf understood, given her history with the Dominion. She hadn't been subjected to their tender mercies, but she'd seen those who had. Not a sight easily purged from memory.
But Ulfric? It wasn't a topic of polite conversation, but everyone knew what he'd done. It took a masterful and charismatic man to turn treachery into justice, but given the strength of the Stormcloak army, that's exactly what happened. "And that's why Ulfric betrayed the Empire? To save a few prisoners? And he was interrogated by the Dominion's First Emissary? Lena," he said, ignoring a spluttering Ralof.
Lena jumped, startled, and Farkas rose to stand behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. Balgruuf huffed. Only a bit overprotective. But given what the two had gone through over the last year, he couldn't blame the man. "What do you think? Did you hear anything of Elenwen as an interrogator?"
Lena reached out and picked up her goblet, candlelight wavering over the silver as it wobbled in her trembling hand. "What Ralof describes is…was…not uncommon where I was held. Perhaps not as violent. Ulfric was...before my time, but I did hear Elenwen and her father had been…special. In their field. Before they rose to such prominence here in Skyrim," she said, gritting her teeth as she struggled to set her goblet down softly. She didn't succeed. As it clanked on the table, Balgruuf grunted and turned back to Ralof.
"That seems difficult to believe, even for you, Stormcloak. How do you know you can afford to buy what Ulfric sold you?"
"He endured the physical torment. Everything they could devise, and I've seen proof. Have you ever seen Ulfric's hands? Seen him without a shirt? Ulfric's never been married, all these years. Didn't you wonder why, a man of his stature and position? Use your gods-rotting imagination," Ralof said, rolling his eyes at the guards flanking his chair as they flinched. Given everything his jarl had suffered, their precious jarl could handle an insult or two.
"The Dominion's finest had him for weeks before that witch and her bastard father took over, and he only broke when they turned on his friends and brothers in arms. Finally understood what drove him. His weakness," Ralof spat. The Dominion had a lot to learn about the 'weakness' of Nords. They know a lot more now, in whatever godsforsaken place those monsters spend their afterlives.
"You want to hear how your precious First Emissary treats prisoners of war? Ulfric watched her burn one soldier's eyes out with magic. Her father? Oh, your dragonborn's right - he had a special knack for it. Cut a company cook's leg off, inch by inch. Sawed through and cauterized a little at a time. Drowned and revived another soldier over and over, until –"
"Enough! That's enou-"
"No!" Ralof bolted from his chair, jabbing his finger in the jarl's direction. The guards behind him stepped forward in alarm, but waited on Balgruuf's word. None came, and Ralof shook them off. "You question Ulfric's integrity. His courage. His devotion to the people of Skyrim. How dare you? Do you know how he finally broke? You don't want to know. I get it - you want to sit here in your palace and believe rumors, all the comforting lies, but you're going to listen." Ralof braced his hands on the table and stared Balgruuf down, challenging him to look away. He didn't. Maybe he's ready to understand.
"Elenwen or maybe her father, Ulfric never knew for sure, kidnapped a woman and her kids from a little settlement south of Bruma. Not Nords this time, but Altmer. Their own kind. I don't know why, maybe to show Ulfric that anyone could be slaughtered if it meant victory for the Dominion." Ralof swallowed, remembering Ulfric's face as he'd told the tale. His eyes, wild and haunted, his hands twisting into grasping claws.
"Her father – that sadistic fuck – flayed the woman. Alive. He brought the children in to watch. Watch as she hung, strung up next to two dead, decaying men. Watch as Lorcan peeled the skin from her back, inch by inch. To listen as their mother screamed and sobbed and vomited when she could scream no more. That was Ulfric's breaking point. Can you be so sure of yours?"
Ralof expected guards to grab him at any moment, but he didn't care. Ulfric was…he ran a clawed hand down his face and turned to look at Lena and the Companions. All wore expressions of varying levels of anger. Lena's was tinged with more than a little fear and sadness. She knew. Gods, if she'd just joined with Ulfric back in Winterhold. Ralof closed his eyes and allowed himself to wonder…things might have been so different. Wouldn't they?
Balgruuf poured another goblet of mead and brought it to his lips without taking a drink. Not trusting himself to speak, he set the goblet back on the table and stared into its depths. The man's story couldn't be true. Could it? Was it so different from what went on in Castle Dour's interrogation chambers? In his own? And…when would I have broken? Balgruuf didn't like the answer that gamboled through his mind, and drained his goblet in one desperate swallow.
"And where was the Empire? Where was Skyrim? They made no move to protect Ulfric or his countrymen. So Ulfric did," Ralof said, sitting back in his chair and hiding his face in his hands. He'd be lucky to get through the next part of the story without getting roaring, stinking drunk. But he had to. Skyrim depended on it. On him. Gods, what a thought. "Ulfric did. He just…had no idea what it was he did."