"Honor to you, Thane."
Nariilu nodded in response as the city's guards bowed their heads in respect before sliding open the heavy gates to Riften. The loud calls of merchants advertising their wares was heard throughout the city, even near the north gate about as far away from dockside as one could get within the walls. It was a welcome change from the quiet sounds of Skyrim, as was the warmer air of the south. She hadn't seen any snow on the ground for hours.
"Come on, then," she said under her breath, keeping Stormcloak just inside her vision as she made her way through the winding, dim streets towards Dockside. She'd rather keep Stormcloak in Honeyside, where Iona could keep him from doing anything shortsighted, like murder, or keeping anyone else from doing anything shortsighted to him, like murder.
But, of course, the hardheaded Nord was unpredictable at best and outright predictable at worst. His signature tactical style was to confuse and overwhelm; an excellent strategy, even to an enemy that is aware of it. But aiming to overwhelm will eventually do nothing but overextend your resources and leave you open to attack from all angles.
The Stormcloak siege on Whiterun was nearly insurmountable. The city's walls barely held against his catapults, but that meant nothing once his soldiers began scaling the walls and catching the city guard, waiting for the gates to breach, off guard. In addition, a sizeable number of Stormcloak's army had adopted a ruddy brown scarf, just in between Imperial red and Whiterun tan. Nariilu wondered how many died believing an ally had just cut them down.
Stormcloak's tactics were also underhanded during his defense of Windhelm. Nariilu recalled being caught off-guard more than once as Stormcloak soldiers burst out of the many buildings in ambush. Many of the corpses she had seen being cleared from the streets had wounds in their backs, showing how successful the strategy was, for a short time. His army had still been severely outnumbered, but Stormcloak had managed to make the most of a horrible situation and give the Imperial army one last devastating blow.
Even more of his tactical prowess had been outlined in his Thalmor Dossier. Pages upon pages of hindsight analyzations of his tactics early in the Great War, his reclaimation of Skingrad, the defense of Weatherleah, numerous small skirmishes; in all of which he had led his soldiers to overwhelming victory. She had poured over the Dossier by candlelight in Breezehome the day before Whiterun's siege, memorizing each misdirection that seemed so obvious in hindsight, every tiny subversion of the most basic formations. Ulfric Stormcloak was a master tactician, even at barely over his second decade.
The Dossier seamlessly transferred into his capture, something Nariilu felt was full of half-truths and shameless bragging, and then to gruesome detail of his time in captivity, along with pages of his reactions to different torture methods, finishing with an analyzation of the techniques his 'interrogator' believed to be the most effective in leading to him breaking.
Nariilu found herself vomiting more than once reading the passage as she forced her way through it. She had passed the section without a second thought on both her initial skim of the Dossier soon after she acquired the three Dossiers in the Thalmor Embassy, and in her more in-depth reading before Whiterun's siege. Still, she felt it was necessary before the final battle of the War, especially if her plan went as she intended, and Stormcloak was allowed to walk away from the battle with her.
It was torture in and of itself for anyone with empathy; the Thalmor were overly fond of sparing no hideous element, and it wasn't difficult for her to connect it to her own time in a Thalmor interrogation chamber. Their interrogators had similar style, though Nariilu doubted that she had earned such a detailed Dossier of her time in captivity.
It nearly skipped over the Markarth Incident, save to say that it had proved valuable to the Thalmor, to the near complete instability in Skyrim. A shame, Nariilu thought. She had been kept far away from any mention of the world outside her interrogation chamber during the Incident. The various views of the people of the Reach were hardly impartial, and Nariilu felt she would gain a better understanding from the easily seen prejudice of the Thalmor Dossier than from the Reach citizens, each with their own hidden agendas.
From there, the Dossier was a rather hostile description of every semblance of a political move Stormcloak had made since becoming Jarl of Windhelm. The thick book was finished with a page or so on Helgen, and a scrawled note in the margin about herself. "Nariilu Therel, assumed 'Dragonborn', -Dunmer. May be used to undermine Stormcloak heritage and traditionalist values if needed."
It was a useful tome; the comprehensive analysis of nearly every facet of Stormcloak's mind left Nariilu feeling as if she already knew the man. It also provided some insight on the probable Thalmor response once they caught wind of her post-war conditions. Though, she figured Ancano was a bit more hot-headed than most Agents, and Stormcloak was under quite a bit of stress and turmoil given the sudden upheaval of his entire life.
In hindsight, she really should've seen this coming.
As they approached Dockside, the eyes shrouded in alley shadow staring them down became fewer as the wooden houses and shops broke way to a maze of bridges and market stands. The symphony of merchant voices was punctuated by rhythmic chopping from fishmongers cleaning the days' catch, turning the water beneath the bridges a muddy red.
Nariilu went down to the lower docks, where the class divide in Riften suddenly became apparent. The homeless slept here, even in the middle of the day, and what merchants were set up here sold much lower quality goods. The fish and meat and vegetables on rugs laid out near the inner walls could be found by smell alone, the clothing that was sold was limited to undyed, rough looking fabric, and no jewelry could be found in contrast to the many stands that sold from simple bands to complex circlets on the upper docks.
The door to the Ratways was slightly ajar and pushed open with a loud groan. Inside, more people loitered near the entrance, cooking, gossiping, eyeing the pair as they made their way past the first chamber lined with small rooms these people called home. The stairs leading deeper into the Ratways appeared to be more uneven than they were in flickering torchlight.
"Keep a hand on your sword," Nariilu warned. "Desperation and Skooma is a dangerous mix." She was well aware of how out of place they looked; with Stormcloak's nobleman wear and her own glowing mage robes, they might as well hand out invitations for someone to rob or attack them. Her last trip into the Ratways had left her fending off half a dozen attacks, not including the Thalmor, since they weren't technically attacking her, only Esbern. She hoped they'd have much better luck, especially considering most of those attacks occurred beyond the Ragged Flagon.
The torches became further and farther in between, allowing large shadows to form along the edges of the wide corridors and inside the occasional rooms the corridors opened into. Nariilu was unwilling to cast a Light spell, no reason to attract any more attention than necessary.
"Hey." A voice rasped from just inside a hallway that branched from the main corridor. Nariilu ignored it and kept walking, but Stormcloak turned his head and paused his step for a second. "Yeah, yeah, you, hey." Stormcloak resumed his pace, turning back to face ahead of himself. "I got Hist Sap, yeah? Even better than Skooma."
Nariilu heard uneven footsteps behind them. The man had decided to follow them. "I got Skooma, too, if you want that."
"We're not buying," Nariilu firmly stated, not breaking pace. "Leave."
"Alright, yeah. I'll be here when you come back. Always want something when they come back." The footsteps stopped.
They passed through a number of chambers, each one looking familiar enough that Nariilu had a hard time determining if she had been leading them in circles or if she remembered them from the last time she entered the Ratways. She hadn't exactly made a map, though she wished she had. Aimlessly wandering through the musty halls for an hour had worked before, though.
A skeever ran beside her, close enough to graze her robes. Ugh. At least it hadn't attacked her. She paused just inside a wide chamber; a woman sat in the far corner mumbling to herself with a dozen skeevers surrounding her. Nariilu couldn't make out what she was saying, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Still, the only way out of the chamber was past the woman, and Nariilu resumed her path.
The woman groaned over and over, barely audible above the squeaks of the skeevers. As they passed her, Nariilu granted herself a glance in her direction. The woman was being eaten alive, if the smell and glisten of blood and the wet noises from the corner were any indication.
"Hey!" Nariilu called, changing direction towards the woman, drawing her sword. The skeevers weren't phazed, even as she skewered one, two, all of them. The woman didn't react; she was too far gone to help, be it from drugs or a curse of Sheogorath. Nariilu shook her head, turning away. "Come on."
Suddenly, the woman began screeching. Ulfric whipped around in time to see the woman rise to her feet with speed and agility that countered her ruined body. She lunged at the two with her arms raised, aiming for the closer of the pair, the Dragonborn.
The Dragonborn held her sword in front of her, grimacing at the woman skewered herself on the blade. She kept flailing wildly even as the sword buried itself deep within her abdomen as she came closer and closer. Ulfric watched in horrified awe as the woman managed to tackle the Dragonborn to the ground even in her state, blood pouring from multiple open wounds and sores, staining the woman's ragged clothes a deep crimson. He quickly drew his own sword and aimed for the woman's neck as she hit and scratched at the Dragonborn's face.
The woman slumped down. The Dragonborn pushed her off and stood, retrieving her sword buried in the woman's abdomen. "Thank you," she said. Ulfric lingered on the ruined corpse. "Don't let it get to you, we'll likely encounter more like her. I should've just let her be. We need to get moving. Her screaming may have attracted someone else."
"How many like her are down here?" Ulfric asked. He had always thought that Riften seemed a bit too prosperous on the surface, with a smaller homeless population than most cities of comparable size. Jarl Law-Giver was always proud of her social programs; the orphanage, the bunkhouse, guaranteed jobs on the dock, all designed to give the homeless a bed and keep Skooma off the streets.
Off the streets, and under the city.
The Dragonborn shrugged. "A few hundred? There are more deeper in the Ratways, in the old dungeons. We won't be going that deep, but it's actually less dangerous down there, since everyone is half-dead on Skooma or wine. I've only been down here once before. The Guild likely knows more than I do; they live down here."
Ulfric doubted she knew the path she was confidently leading him down from one trip through the winding corridors. The Dragonborn was lying, either about her knowledge of the way, or her experience in the Ratways. "Once before, to meet with the Thieves Guild?"
"Not intentionally, but they had information I needed. I was looking for someone, down deep in the Ratways, and they helped me find him. After I paid, of course. They know everything that happens down here."
"Who? Why?" She had just said everyone here was on drugs. An old friend, perhaps, a relative?
"Are you familiar with the Blades?"
"Of course," Ulfric replied. It was their massacre that started the Great War, and the Thalmor had killed every one of them and destroyed their grand temples, since they worshipped Talos, though in a way different from most Nords. They were unavoidable for anyone wishing to learn about the dragons, the Empire, or Talos, and their comprehensive records had been a valuable tool for historians and priests before the Thalmor destroyed their temples and histories.
"Some managed to escape the Thalmor. One was hiding in the Ratways, and we tracked him down before they did."
"We?"
"Another Blade."
"How many are left?"
"Just the two."
Two. In his youth, the Blades had numbered in the hundreds. Still, two living Blades was better than none, so that was an improvement from what he thought he knew. It didn't surprise him that they would be working with the Dragonborn; in antiquity, they had been the Dragonborn's personal guard before they were the Emperor's. He might as well be a Blade, seeing as he'd saved her life twice now. He doubted the actual Blades could say the same, but their skills as bodyguards were legendary.
Ulfric had traveled to Sky-Ruler Temple not long after he left the Greybeards, eager for lessons the monks on the Throat of the World refused to teach. The Blades' training regimen was intense, both physically and mentally, though Ulfric was not allowed to directly observe either. Blades historians had delivered the requested tomes and scrolls to him as he waited in the grand entrance hall, listening to the sounds of clashing swords and shields and battle calls in the strange Akaviri tounge muffled behind the largest door Ulfric had ever seen.
The tomes provided a valuable-and detailed-insight into the history of the ancient order and Tamriel as a whole, as the Blades had had a hand in just about every major event on the continent since the Second Era, or so it seemed. The tomes alone had taken him days to fully read The scrolls were first-person accounts of the miracles of Talos, the first Emperors, and the ancient Dragonborns, very similar tales to the ancient scrolls locked away in High Hrothgar. The historian told him that the scrolls were copies of the originals, which were with the Greybeards. All the same information he had already translated time and time again.
Not exactly the secret knowledge he had planned on gaining, but Ulfric imagined the Blades kept those tales far from outsiders.
The corridor came to a sudden end where a heavy-looking metal door stood. The torches to either side illuminated a number of carvings nearby, all of them unreadable from what was perhaps centuries of being overwritten by newer marks. The door was embossed with a large diamond shape with an inlaid circle. "Well, this is it," the Dragonborn said, reaching to push the door open. "Let me do the talking."
Beyond the door was a large open room with a large pool in the middle. Voices carried from the far side, where torches flickered nearly as bright as sunlight. The closer walls were damp and dark, not unlike the standard Ratway corridors Ulfric had managed to grow so unfond of in such a short time. The Dragonborn carried on through the door and he followed a step and a half behind, just like he had since stepping foot into Riften.
A tavern, Ulfric realized, or as close to a tavern as anything so far below ground and so deep within the dungeon-like Ratways could get to. The few tables that were set up around a main bar each had at least one patron sitting and nursing a bottle of mead or a mug of ale and a lively conversation freely flowed, only barely dying down as the pair approached the bar.
"Looking for another old man? Or are you trying to hide this one?" The barkeep chuckled.
"I'm looking to employ the Guild's services, actually," the Dragonborn replied.
"Then talk to the Guild, not me," The barkeep pointed out a man sitting by himself at the table farthest from the bar. "Start with him." The Dragonborn nodded and turned from the bar. "Hold on, missy," the barkeep said, holding out his hand. The Dragonborn sighed and placed a few Septims on the bar.
The man sat in front of a half-eaten plate of fish and two empty bottles of ale, wearing a set of leather armor Ulfric had never seen before. The large circle table could easily sit ten or more, and seemed depressingly empty with just one. "Did I ask to be bothered?" He asked, otherwise not acknowledging them.
"I have business with the Guild," the Dragonborn said. "The barkeep told me to talk to you."
The man laughed. "New at this, huh? Come into the Flagon to talk to the Guild and you talk to the man who takes drink orders." As he looked both of them up and down, he gestured for them to sit across from him, and the Dragonborn complied. Ulfric remained standing behind her. He didn't trust this man, or any of the people in the room, really. For all he knew, there was a thief under the table waiting to steal his boots right off of him. "Oh, come on, Jarl Stormcloak, sit! The Guild owes you one; the war has been a blessing in disguise for us. So easy for things to…go missing during battles. Vekel! Blackbriar Reserve, three bottles, if you'd be so kind."
Ulfric frowned. He didn't like this man, who somehow managed to look both unkempt and tidy at the same time. His arrogance was tangible in his words; of course he'd brag about using the war for his own underhanded benefits. Ulfric had been well aware that anyone with sense had been making some move for a foothold during it: political, mercantile, you name it. It wasn't a surprise that a collection of lawless thieves would be doing the same.
The barkeep brought the three bottles and the man flashed half a smile. Blackbriar Reserve. The mead had always been exceptionally hard to get and the price had soared in the past year. A bad season enhanced by the destruction of one of the Blackbriar meaderies in the war. The Guild obviously had money, even if their tavern didn't show it. The Dragonborn motioned for Ulfric to sit beside her, and he did after a short hesitation. Neither of them touched the bottles of mead.
"Allow me to introduce myself, Dragonborn, Jarl. I'm the Guildmaster. Not one Septim passes through this city that I don't get a cut of, and no thief in the hold would even think about stealing a quill without my permission. In other words, help me and I can help you." He popped the cork on the Blackbriar Reserve and took a long drink. "Now, how can the Guild help you?"
"I speak on behalf of the College of Winterhold. We need a forger," the Dragonborn replied, "that can read and write Aldmeris." The Guildmaster raised his eyebrows.
"What, exactly, do you need forged?"
"Coded documents and letters, addressed to the Thalmor Embassy, to keep any Agents out of the College. We have handwriting samples."
The Guildmaster leaned back in his chair. "I'm assuming this is a long-term contract." The Dragonborn nodded. "Wait here. I've got someone in mind, but coded Aldmeris is not something just anybody knows, obviously. Even if the Thief I've got can do what you need, there's no telling if you can afford it."
"Money isn't a problem."
The Guildmaster chuckled as he stood. He walked behind the bar and into a back room, disappearing from view. The Dragonborn sat with her arms crossed, staring at the spot the Guildmaster's head had just been.
"You had to kill him," she spoke. "That's a fact. Ancano was one of the worst examples of Altmer arrogance and supremacy I've ever encountered. If he wasn't at the bottom of the Sea of Ghosts right now, you'd be disintegrated into a pile of ash. I should've seen it coming when I took you into the College. In hindsight, it may have been safer for you at The Frozen Hearth. Though, I suppose anyone could have slit your throat open while you slept, no matter where.
"Of course, dealing with the Thieves Guild isn't the best, especially if anyone finds out about it, but it's better than Thalmor flooding Skyrim over one dead Agent. I know you probably believe me some criminal conspirator, or, even worse, a Dominion sympathizer. I hope I can prove you wrong one day."
"You're making a contract with the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild. I'm not sure how you imagine that's not criminal," Ulfric replied.
"It is," the Dragonborn answered, "but if this is what it takes to prevent another war with the Dominion, which I'm sure they'll start soon, now that the Civil War has ended, then so be it."
"The Dominion has no reason to start a war. Their numbers are too low."
"Perhaps they were twenty years ago, but how many soldiers died over the past year fighting? Do you ever wonder why any peace talks never seemed to take place, any treaties died with the couriers that carried summons? The Dominion is coming, Stormcloak." The door behind the bar opened, and the Guildmaster stepped out before another man. "Now, let's see what we can do to postpone them."