It was a bright, sunny day when I received word from the Jarl's steward that a new bounty had been posted. I'd only been settled in Whiterun for a couple weeks, but the people were beginning to grow on me. I found them down to earth and compassionate… for the most part.
The bounty stated that the bandit chief who had set up his camp in the old Valtheim Towers ruin had a price on his head, one hundred cold septims. Having been made Thane of Whiterun a few days prior, for helping slay a dragon that came disturbingly close to the city walls, I might add, I took it upon myself to head on up to Dragonsreach and ask The Jarl's steward himself about it.
"Proventus, I hear that this bandit chief has been giving you some trouble. Is there anything I should know about the area he controls, how many men he commands?" I asked. The steward shifted uncomfortably, then stroked his goatee before responding:
"Well… The site has been abandoned for some time. It was always an eventuality that bandits would take them as a stronghold. The two towers are an ancient nordic ruin. Between them, they span the river and provide the only safe crossing for miles in either direction. They also sit in a narrow pass, and they guard the only road through with no way around. It's the perfect spot for highwaymen."
He went on to caution me that among the recent escapades of this nefarious band, the leader had stolen a shipment of finely crafted weapons and armor, including a skyforge steel greatsword and a set of plate armor. I was told that the chief had likely taken those for himself. I knew that if I was going to take on this holdout, I was going to need backup.
As Thane of Whiterun, I had been assigned a 'housecarl,' sort of like a personal bodyguard. I was told her name was Lydia, and I didn't know how I felt about taking a woman with me and walking into such a dangerous situation...
That is, until I saw her in person. She stood just as tall as I did, and I'm already tall for an imperial. At her side she wore an old steel sword, but it looked to be in good condition. I could tell she must be very strong, because she wore her steel armor as if it were no more than a linen jacket. That achievement was not lost on me as my own similar set weighed heavily on my shoulders. Before I had a chance to introduce myself, she beat me to the punch.
"My Thane, as housecarl I'm sworn to protect you, and all you own, with my life. How may I be of service to you?" I was a little taken aback. I may have been new to this country, but of all the social norms I could have expected to be inverted, a woman offering to lay down her life for mine was not one of them. A surprise to be sure, but not an altogether unwelcome one.
One look and I could tell this woman was not to be trifled with. She was not some handmaiden of the city, having a play at being a swordswoman for the entertainment of children. She was a warrior, just as I was. I could see it in the set of her jaw and the steel in her gaze. She had fought and killed when it was necessary, and the lack of obvious scars on her unhelmeted head told me she was good at it, or at the very least she knew how to duck. Sometimes that was all it took, so I didn't dwell on it.
"Lydia, I have need of a warrior companion. I am going up against well-armed men and women, for whom plunder and murder are a daily occurrence. They know that their sentence is death and will fight like cornered rats to prevent it. I can tell you're a fine warrior, but I don't want you to just agree because of some sworn oath that I had no part in. Will you join me, of your own free will?" I licked my lips in an inadvertent gesture of anxiety. There was every chance I had just offended her, and the last thing I needed was to turn a skilled warrior against me. I didn't like my odds if she drew on me.
"My Thane…" She looked down a moment, then raised her eyes to meet me, and held her head high "I can see that you are as honorable as the Jarl said. I am sworn to defend you, and that is an oath that I will uphold. You should know that it is by my own free will that I uphold it. I will fight with you." There was something in her eyes as she said those last words. Something defiant. That look told me something about this was personal to her. Only thing was, I couldn't tell what part.
"Lydia," I said, "I have acquired a few pieces of armor and weaponry recently, of which I have no use but to sell. Perhaps you'd like to look them over, in case something would be of use in the coming fight?"
We headed back to where I was set up at the local inn, and I laid out the pieces of reclaimed gear on the bed. I've never been one to let the armor and weapons of the fallen go to waste, as well-made gear is so hard to find. If I couldn't use it, I tended to sell it and hope someone who needs it gets a hold of it. The extra coin didn't hurt, either…
Of the few scrappy armor pieces and jumble of weapons, Lydia took only a helmet with full face guard and conical top, and a two-handed great sword nearly as tall as she was.
"Do you have practice with a blade that size?" I asked, not knowing what to expect from this woman, whom I was growing quite fond of already.
"Some," she said, eying the keen edge and tidy hilt wrappings with a practiced eye, "when I was training." She hefted the full weapon easily and sighted down the length of it, checking for bends or warps. It had none, barely used.
"You said there are several men, and that they're well-armed and armored. With this I can fend off several attackers at once and better sunder armor. Besides," here she rattled her arming sword in its scabbard, "this old rusted nail of mine's coming a bit loose in the hilt. Here," she unstrapped it and tossed it down onto the bed with the rest of the kit "It's served me well enough till now, but this blade is a beauty and it'll serve me better for longer. Give me half of what you get for it and I'll call it even." She cracked a half-smile at me, and I could do nothing but reciprocate.
We donned the rest of our kit and set off at once, heading northwest around the mountain. I wished I had been able to reacquire my horse after the imperial guard had relieved me of it when I crossed the border. After all the chaos that followed, though, I would be happy if the old girl was just still alive, grazing out in some field somewhere.
I was still lost in thought, hypnotized by the rhythmic clanking of our respective armors, when I heard the growling. I tightened my grip on my shield, and with a slither of steel on leather, I drew my sword. Lydia unslung her long blade, and we stood back to back as three wolves slowly surrounded us. Their fur was black as night, and their eyes were murderous, piercing yellow.
As I stared into the eyes of the wolf in front of me, it let out three sharp barks, splattering my face with spittle from quite a respectable distance. At that precise moment, another wolf lunged at both of us from the side. Not expecting such tactics from mere beasts, I was caught off-guard, and it was Lydia who saved my arm from severe mauling when she twirled her blade gracefully and impaled it through the chest. It let out a pitiful yelp as it died. As I raised my shield to protect my face from the first wolf's fearsome lunge, I heard Lydia's blade sing behind me as she protected my now-exposed back from the third wolf, who I hadn't seen. There was a meaty smack and another yelp, followed by a low growl that told me the beast had survived the blow.
I was, however, a bit more preoccupied with the gigantic hound clawing my shield. I was surprised to see it rearing so high up that it was peering down over my guard. I took the opportunity and stung him deeply from around the shield with my arming sword. The creature writhed and tried to bite at the blade, but I shoved him with my shield and rammed the point of my sword home. The wolf let out a final gurgle, then lay still. Two down, one to go.
Then I heard a thumping of paws behind me and as I turned, I saw a sight I shall never forget. Lydia was chasing the wolf, which was fleeing with its tail tucked between its legs, in full steel armor with her great sword held high over her head. I tried to call after her, but the war-cry on her lips must've drowned it out. I stood there, leaning on my sword, breathing a little hard, while she disappeared behind a large rock and vanished from sight.
A minute or so passed, and she returned carrying a shaggy pelt over one shoulder, clearly carved off with some sort of hunting knife. It was only then I noticed the iron dagger in a light thong at her waist.
She smiled behind the helmet and said, "You take armor and swords, which I assume is your custom. Here, we take pelts as well. Wolf hide is good money!" and she tossed the pelt to me. "If you help me skin these, we can earn a few extra gold coins for our trouble."
Since fancy knife work was hardly required to take what was apparently needed, we had cut the hides free in a few moments. I'd been hunting many times, so I knew the work, and I could have done better if we weren't in a hurry to get to the towers before dark. When I finished, Lydia, who apparently had been only half watching her own work, frowned and nodded approvingly at the hide I was neatly rolling and lashing to my pack.
"I figure, I killed one and you killed two, so this one's for me, eh?" I said, wiping blood off my hands on the grass. I tossed her hide back to her. Lydia nodded once, and we set off again.
The bandits didn't try any of the usual drivel about paying for passage when we arrived. By the look of us, spattered with blood and equipped with heavy weapons and armor, they must have known we were not simply passing through. When we rounded the corner, a dark-skinned woman in half-steel and half-leather armor came charging at us, wielding a sword in both hands. I barely had time to realize that the top of the towers had been in sight for long enough that we had probably been spotted for minutes already, when the woman charging me was already within a stone's throw. I was drawing my sword and raising my shield, when I noticed a second bandit popping out of the door at the base of the near tower, nocking an arrow to his hunting bow.
I parried the wild swing of the first bandit easily. That exaggerated swing might have been enough showmanship to put the fear of the gods into merchant traders, but it was too well-telegraphed to scare me. I drew a cut across her side, and as I did Lydia engaged.
Seeing this, I put her out of my mind and advanced on the archer. With Lydia's sword singing a deadly song behind me, I moved steadily towards him, bobbing left and right to throw off his aim. The first arrow whizzed past my ear and harmlessly past the dueling women behind me. As I saw him draw a bead on Lydia, I jumped in front of the next arrow and it ricocheted off the steel of my diamond shield, shattering against the angled wall. I saw him go for his knife, and I charged.
Knife on sword is never a good matchup for the knife wielder, and I ended him swiftly and without much struggle. At the same time, I heard the fatal cut dealt by Lydia's heavy sword. It made the distinctive sound of splitting a skull. I shuddered a little as I realized that she was right about sundering things easier.
As we rushed into the first tower, I could hear boots tramping on wooden planks at the bridge. I quickly snatched up a pair of healing potions conveniently placed on a shelf just inside the door. I wouldn't be able to drink them mid-fight, but they could come in handy after the fact.
Lydia and I hurried up the stairs. I didn't want to have to fight uphill, even if it did make cutting at someone's ankles easier. The staircase was cramped and had no handrail, but fortunately there was a wider place to stand at the top. Before us was a long, narrow bridge of stone and wood, spanning the whitewater river below us. The bridge was old, and either never had crenellations or they had fallen off in centuries past. It would be so easy to fall to your death on this bridge…
There was no time to think about that, though, because two men were already hurrying out the door on the far tower. The first was not much different from the rest, but the second man was massive, and I made him out to be the chief. He carried a great sword like Lydia's, but his shone white in the late afternoon sun with a polish I'd never seen before. I had only the time to remember the words 'skyforge steel' when Lydia pushed past me. She put her long blade to work, fluid arcs offending both parties at once while making her nigh-unapproachable on the bridge. I could tell that she was well-taught, and knew she could handle a blade that size better than I could.
An arrow rattled off the stone bridge and I flinched, then I noticed the archer at the highest part of the tower already drawing another arrow from his quiver. I dropped my sword and shield and unslung my bow. I had an arrow nocked and my target sighted before he had finished fitting his arrow to the bowstring, and I loosed first.
The arrow passed cleanly through his head, but I hardly had time to watch him drop his bow before I saw Lydia was being overpowered. I hastily scooped up my sword and shield and ran towards where she was struggling with the bandit chief. The other bandit, or what was left of him, was sliding heavily off of the bridge, his blood slowly forming a wide puddle across the bridge. I saw the bandit smile a smile full of jagged and broken teeth as he half-sworded his blade, and bashed Lydia aside with the flat of it. I was almost to her when she slipped sideways on the black blood, and fell as though in slow motion off of the bridge.
There was no time to mourn- if I did, the bandit chief would have my head and all of this would have been for naught. There was no way I could flee down the stairs and away from him, not that I would consider it for even a half a second. I slowed my pace and stood, eyeing this man who had almost certainly killed my housecarl, taking a measure of him. He stood head and shoulders above me, but his armor was very poorly fitted. From what I could tell, the plate mail was fitted more for a man of my size, and he'd done a hasty job affixing crude leather straps to affix all the pieces of it to himself. There were wide gaps in every seam, plenty of places to jab a knife… or a sword. He must've thought it sure looked pretty though, because he saw me eying it and smiled that jagged grin again. He didn't speak a word, he just started swinging with his great sword.
I ducked the first swipe, which was clearly intended to remove my head while I was gawking at his absurd kit. I could feel the air whump behind it from the poor edge alignment. I would've been a sorry bastard if that had hit- it probably wouldn't have gone all the way through my neck. This man was clearly relying on his brute strength to defeat me. Well, I'd dealt with his kind before, and where size and strength can drive you up through the ranks of rogues and bandits, I always found precision tended to end fights just as quickly.
I could barely get my shield up in time to deflect his next blow, and it knocked my shield up and over my head as I parried it. He was bringing his sword around in a loop over his head, preserving the momentum for another powerful blow when I recovered. So, he did have some training after all. Probably not much though, seeing as he was leaving himself wide open. I yelled and slammed my shield against his chest as hard as I could. He gave a little, and I could see him lose the balance in his blade. I laced two quick cuts across him with my sword. One rang off his armor, but the other slashed the underside of his arm. I bared my teeth. It was not a deep cut, and he would take several minutes to bleed out from it. If I didn't finish it quickly, I'd be dead before that happened.
The bandit chief swung his stolen sword like a club, hard and from the left. I took the blow on my shield, but the impact rattled my teeth in my jaws and my brain in my head as I was lifted a few inches off the ground by the force of the impact. I'd feel that tomorrow, if I lived to see the sun rise. I had barely regained my footing from the first powerful blow when the second one was coming at me from the other side. This time I parried more effectively, using my kite shield's raised centerline to redirect the heavy blade over my head.
As he fumbled slightly at that maneuver, I took full advantage and landed two more quick cuts on him. The first laced across the top of his knee, and the other landed in the wide gap between what was supposed to be a chestplate that covered his stomach, and his leg guards. That last cut exposed a hint of intestines. You're dead, I thought. Stop fighting and realize you're dead. He staggered back a moment and I thought for sure I'd won, but then the madman was dashing for me, blood red eyes bugging out behind his bull-like horned helmet. As he brought his long blade behind his back to cleave my skull in, I delivered another powerful bash to his face and chest, then leapt forward and drove my sword up through his neck and into his head. His completely bloodshot eyes rolled back in his head as his sword slipped from slack fingers.
Withdrawing my blade from him and wiping it clean on my leather tasset, I happened to look back across the bridge to the road Lydia and I came in on. To my surprise, there was Lydia: dripping wet, staggering out of the roaring water and onto the shore, propping herself up with her sword. Overjoyed and incredulous that she had survived, I reached down and gently lifted the skyforge steel greatsword from where it lay with most of the blade sticking out off the bridge and into open space. I had to be careful not to lose it.
"Lydia!" I called, and when she looked up at me, I held the blade high- "This one's for you!"