Chapter 5 - Back in Business
Jorrvaskr had not been hard to find. Ignoring the din of the mead-hall, Six quickly found the armored man he had met fighting a giant in a farmstead and addressed him.
"I'm looking for Kodlak."
"I'd been wondering when you'd turn up," he said with a grin, "The old man's below." He directed the Courier with a jerk of his head.
Six followed the gesture to see a set of stairs leading down to a pair of doors. He opened the doors cautiously. "Below" sounded ominous to his ears. By contrast, he was pleasantly surprised to find the basement of Jorrvaskr well lit and comfortably furnished. He didn't see anyone immediately who could conceivably be "the old man" so he walked further down the hallway, checking each open door as he passed. He did so with more intensity than the situation called for. After having spent so long in urban combat, scanning a room, even if it was only with his eyes in total safety, still wired his nerves.
Fortunately, for his purpose most doors were not open. The one at the end of the hall however, was. Seemed a good enough place to start if Kodlak was the leader of this merry band. For all his glibness, the dual nature of the Companions confused the Courier. They were a rowdy bunch, as he had seen when he had entered, but there was also a sort of dignified stuffiness that came with it. He could feel it in the age of the building, of the battle worn weapons that hung on the walls. At least when it came to fighting, these people were deadly serious. That was something he could respect. When he came to the end of the hall he entered the room unannounced and a conversation met its abrupt end.
"...you have my brother and I, obviously," said a man who was evidently the twin of the one he had met on the road, "But I don't know if the rest will go along quite so easily."
"Leave that to me," responded the one he assumed was Kodlak.
What they were discussing, he couldn't tell. It seemed there was an internal disagreement of some kind, but he couldn't tell the nature of it.
"A stranger comes to our hall," said Kodlak, meeting his eyes with an unnaturally piercing gaze, "why have you come to Jorrvaskr?"
"I met some of your men fighting a giant. They directed me to you."
"They are not mine, at least, not more than I am theirs." He paused for a moment, before continuing. "Aela told me to expect you. She seemed impressed with your skills against the giant. And by your recklessness."
Kodlak gave him a look that he couldn't read.
The Courier shifted his weight uncomfortably. This wasn't the first time someone had noticed his lack of self preservation in combat. It was a topic he didn't care to think overly much about.
His eyes widened as he looked down to notice the half buried device his booted foot was heading towards. A land mine, he thought dully. He needed to not step on it, something easier said than done at this point. He was off balance with his weight already shifted. Gravity would take its course and a good half of him would go to kingdom come. Suddenly, he reeled backwards, the collar of his duster briefly choking him as he was jolted backwards, arms flailing, his rifle now dangling around his chest by its sling. He managed to regain his feet after a moment, and almost doubled over panting, though he had not exerted himself. The adrenaline of a near death experience made his heart race and his lungs strain.
"Do you have a death wish?" came Boone's unemotive voice from behind him.
"Thanks-by the way," he replied between breaths, "And no, I don't have a death wish. Landmines-" he let out a final deep breath as he got his breathing under control, "are tricky."
"You should know better," said Boone.
"I'll be more careful. I probably would have been fine anyway," he shrugged, "otherwise, I'd be too dead to care."
"You don't get to have a death wish."
"I don't have a death wish. I do what I have to do to win. You can't win without risk."
"I've seen you fight. You're reckless. You don't care what happens to you. I have bad things coming to me but," he paused, "you don't. I'm with you to kill Legion, not to watch you die."
That gave Six pause. Since he had left Goodsprings he had traveled alone. Boone, as reserved as he was, had seen fit to comment on his behavior meant something. His life was not his own to lose. If he died, there was someone who would have to deal with the aftermath. The rage he felt towards the Legion and towards the man that had buried him alive receded for the moment. Now there were other things that were important too.
"You know," said the Courier, "You don't deserve bad things."
Boone's cold eyes met his.
"How do you figure?"
"If my death would weigh on your conscience, you have more than enough of one to deserve better than the wastes can give you."
Silence was Boone's answer. The two continued walking. The Courier moved more slowly than he had. Boone's jaw was less clenched than usual.
The Courier looked at the man in front of him. He and Boone had not returned to those subjects for a long time after that conversation. He hoped Caesar's death had given the man some closure, but he knew there were some wounds that couldn't be healed.
He returned Kodlak's stare.
"I have been told that before," he said neutrally.
"Vilkas," said Kodlak, turning to address the man seated next to him, "leave us."
Vilkas nodded and left wordlessly.
Six took the opportunity to direct the conversation away from himself.
He addressed Kodlak.
"So are you not the leader of the Companions?" he asked.
"No, I am not," said Kodlak, a sparkle of pride in his eyes, "The Companions have not had a leader since Ysgramor. I fulfill the role of Harbinger. I advise companions that need or seek my assistance, but I do not command."
"So you have no authority over any of them?" said the Courier, raising an eyebrow and shooting a glance at the door through which Vilkas had just left. He had taken note of the deferential manner with which he had treated Kodlak.
"No. No more than age and experience grant me. They are free to accept or reject what I say. Though there are some that weigh my words more heavily than they ought to, when they would be better served trusting their own hearts."
Kodlak's gaze moved past him and towards the door as he spoke.
The Lone Wanderer understood the implication, but wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Apparently Kodlak had more influence than he would wish as Harbinger? He could understand how someone could feel that others were too dependent on them, but despite all indications that Kodlak was being sincere, he was nonetheless skeptical. He couldn't help but do so when faced with claims of altruism. Especially from someone who was "first among equals" of a mercenary company.
"So you want to join the Companions lad? How old are you?"
The Courier waved off the question, "Does it matter?"
Six pressed his own questions. "What do the Companions do exactly? Aela didn't elaborate much."
"She was never one to waste words. Suffice to say we're a brotherhood of warriors, united in the purpose of seeking glory and upholding honor. At least, that is our aim."
Kodlak sat forward. "So why do you wish to join? What is it you seek here?"
Six shrugged. Honesty may not have been the best policy, but it was unlikely to hurt in this context.
"I'm adrift here from farther away than I can reckon, and this seems a good way to seek my fortune."
"I suspected as much," Kodlak nodded, "to tell you the truth, your performance against the giant has made quite the stir in Jorrvaskr. The idea of a stranger from unknown lands with uncommon valor certainly captured the imaginations of Aela and Farkas. Seeing you for myself I feel you have a warrior's heart, wherever you are from. Ysgramor himself came to found our order from far Atmora. Welcome to the Companions lad."
The Courier inclined his head in thanks. "Where do I begin?"
Killing bears seemed a bit below his paygrade, considering Yao-guai were simply more dangerous, however without the advantage of firearms and stimpaks the Courier was forced to reevaluate. In any case, the task paid well and was not terribly difficult. Aela seemed to have no end of creatures that needed to be put down. He was grateful for that. Farkas had once tasked him with eliminating a group of bandits. He had done so with little difficulty, but even the execution of an armed band of marauders was uncomfortable. Killing people was never easy, but particularly in this strange place where he had to trust what others told him. What was the world coming to when killing raiders was ethically challenging? He didn't have an answer to that question. He suspected that his preference for firearms meant the brutality of impaling someone with a piece of sharp iron was more personal than he was used to. Doubly so when he felt entirely out of his depth in the dynamics of this new land.
And so he had stuck with being a glorified exterminator to make his cash. It suited him well enough and it paid well enough that he was not bothered by the relative ingloriousness of the task. With his hard earned septims (as he learned the currency was called) he began to improve his armor, integrating crude iron platemail into the structure of his Courier Duster. While the Duster had a ballistic weave to it, the fabric would not stop more than a couple attempts at gutting him before it gave out. Without stimpaks or power armor, more conventional solutions would have to suffice. Through this, he had come to know both of Whiterun's blacksmiths Adrienne and Eorlund, both of whom seemed a mix of amused and horrified at his methods of improving armor.
He had intended to continue in this way, adapting to his new, low-tech circumstances, until he was either satisfied with the progress he had made or something more pressing made itself apparent when Aela informed Six that Sjor had a mission for him. Apparently he needed to complete a "proving" for ceremonial reasons to be considered a full companion. Not only did it seem like he had little choice in the matter, the Lone Courier had enough pride that being recognized as a full member of the Companions appealed to him. It was this that had led him to spend three days on the road with Farkas, trudging his way across the frigid windy plains of Whiterun to find some old standing stones.
For all of Three Dog and the wasteland's talk of the "Lone Wanderer" and "Lone Courier," he tended to be anything but. But the presence of his companions didn't fit the profile of a legend, and so the myth of him as some kind of lone gunslinger spread. As his time on the road with Farkas demonstrated, he much preferred some kind of company. For all his bluntness and-for lack of a better word-oafishness, Farkas made a good traveling companion. His laconic manner gave him a solid tolerance for Six's often insufferable acerbity and his simplistic optimism was welcomed by the Courier as an appropriate rejoinder to his ever-looming cynical tendencies.
In the Courier's opinion, this seemed a lot of effort to retrieve a shard of an ancient battle axe, but he also understood the importance of symbology for esprit de corps. Especially for a group as nebulously defined as the Companions.
"So why'd someone stick a fragment of Wuuthrad in a tomb?"
Farkas shrugged as he struggled to force the doors of the cairn open. "A fragment of the weapon of Ysgramor is always valuable. Or someone really didn't like the Companions."
From what he knew of Skyrim, the Courier had a hard time imagining anyone who had a serious problem with the Companions. Honor and glory were the staples of this culture and things the Companions had in spades. Six made his way inside the cairn and surveyed the interior; carved of ancient stone, various passages led out of the entrance room. Candles burned inexplicably and the rent corpses of what looked like fairly heavily mummified feral ghouls lay on the ground.
"Are we expecting company?"
"No, be on your guard."
Given the evident lack of nuclear fallout, the presence of ghouls raised questions. The Courier nudged one with his foot.
"What are these?"
"Draugr, they're in a lot of old nord tombs. Vilkas says people say they're dragon cultists, but no one knows for sure."
Of course they were. Undead dragon cultists. The Courier resisted his rising headache.
As he and Farkas made their way through the impressive necropolis from various mummified corpses in alcoves, multitudes of draugr sat up to oppose their entrance. They seemed far more intelligent than ferals, able to use weapons in a fairly sophisticated manner. But they were far less durable, with Farkas's greatsword crushing them in a single blow and the Lone Wanderer having little difficulty in beating them down. Nevertheless, beyond the little threat they posed, the unearthly blue glow of their eyes unnerved him. Combat may have remained the same, but the alienness of this place was inescapable. And I've been on Mothership Zeta, he reflected. Courier Six had little difficulty making his way through the cairn with Farkas at his side. The situation increasingly reminded him of clearing out the DC metro. The ruined grandiosity of the tomb was far less morose than that of the metro. The metro served as an unintentional monument to a society cut down in its prime, millions destroyed in a moment. In a deliberately designed crypt he had the luxury of enjoying the fruits of monumentalism and the natural overgrowth that came with the passage of centuries undisturbed.
When the two of them emerged into a large room the Courier had to check his initial impression of awe. A room of this scale underground without modern excavation equipment was a feat. However the existence of "magic" (he could barely stomach the word) meant he could assume nothing. All the exits to the room seemed to be barred by thick metal portcullises.
"There's gotta be a lever around here somewhere," said Farkas.
"There always is," said Six drily.
After rifling through the valuables of the dead for a few minutes he did in fact find a lever. Very satisfied with himself he threw it to its reverse side. A grate immediately came down to prevent him from exiting the alcove he had entered. Which would have been fine, had the lever not been stuck, which left him fairly decisively trapped. Farkas quickly noticed his predicament and began searching for a release lever. The Courier figured that if worse came to worst his cybernetically augmented strength would let him break through the mortar securing the stones surrounding the grate or force the lever. For the moment, he would see if Farkas could find an obvious solution.
It became quickly apparent that even if there was an obvious solution it would be anything but simple to address. A group of armed men and women entered the room and began to circle Farkas.
"We knew you'd be coming here, Companion," said one of them.
"Which one is that?"
Farkas began backing up towards where Six had been imprisoned. If only I had A Light Shining In Darkness. But there was no sense in wishing. The Courier prepared himself to do what he could from behind bars to even the fight.
"Killing you will make an excellent story."
Farkas, to his credit, seemed unfazed by the odds.
"None of you will be alive to tell it."
Then something very strange began to happen to Farkas.
Six blinked. He nearly rubbed his eyes and pinched himself, but instead did his best to accept what his eyes saw as reality.
There was only one thought going through the Lone Courier's mind. Oh God. I've joined a werewolf cult.
AN: Does this count as proof of life? I can't promise anything, but hopefully there will be more updates to this story in the near future. BoW is on ice pending a major rewrite which I made some progress on a few months ago. Not sure if I'll complete that project, but if I give up on it I'll release what I have. Thanks for all the PMs, reviews, and forum posts while I've been inactivate by the way, they're all appreciated.