"Do you know this general?" Thorunn asked their Altmeri companion. They were on their way to Rorikstead, the nearest non-hostile settlement and one of their few choices for refuge. Thorunn's tone had adopted a new edge to it, something sullen and listless. She'd practically signed Altair to his death. There was no joy to be found in their circumstances.
Eriswe shook her head. Her waist-length golden locks were tangled and could have stood a wash, and her cheeks were tear-stained and dirty. Even in this state, the girl's beauty shone through, from the prominent cheekbones to the arched nose and large yellow eyes. "Not personally," she said quietly. Her voice had worn itself out from crying. "I... I heard about him, though. He is calculated and thinks before every move. If you wish to undermine him, it will take strategy."
"I didn't particularly plan to just storm the gates." As much as I'd like to.
She'd sent Brugi and Hulgi (as she'd learned) to Solitude to deliver word to Ulfric. Undoubtedly, Markarth's fall had already spread to the edges of Skyrim and beyond, but Ulfric needed to know that some of his army yet live. More importantly, his betrothed and child yet lived. At the rate they were going, she didn't know if it'd still be that way much longer.
Thongvor had been brooding throughout the entire trip. She knew he wouldn't yield as quietly as he had and it was only a matter of time before what was happening sunk in. That moment came about a half hour into the trip. "I can't just leave my son and people to die," he said, halting.
"We won't be," Thorunn reminded him. She didn't know where they were going to go for more men if Ulfric didn't dispatch more to them, but they weren't giving up just yet.
"The Dominion will be able to kill my son and half the city before we ever reach them."
"Perhaps."
"Altair could be dead now. Every person in that city save for the elves could be dead. This could be a trap, or... or a ploy..."
"Perhaps."
Thongvor's expression became indignant as he narrowed his eyes. "This isn't something to be passive over!"
"We've already been over this, Thongvor," Thorunn sighed impatiently. "Word to Ulfric is being delivered. Our hands are tied until he chooses to send us more men. I was prepared to fight on the field in order to save our brothers, but there's no way we'll be able to take the city back with what we have. We're Nords, not fools."
He went back to skulking.
Farkas and Vilkas were growing restless. They'd agreed to fight on the field, not take a city back, but if they were made aware of this, they didn't voice their concern, so Thorunn didn't weigh too heavily on it. She did wonder if she could cure herself of the curse, but she didn't know if she quite wanted to. Where Skjor and Aela had been vocal on deeming it a gift and Farkas and Vilkas vocal on deeming it a curse, Thorunn had been indifferent. She supposed she was fearful of what her heart may think. Brand the wolf-blood a curse and be overtaken with the longing to be rid of it. Brand it a gift and risk forsaking her right to Sovngarde.
Rorikstead was a small homely village. A giant's camp wasn't far, and Thorunn had frequently rescued cows and sheep for the farmers back when she was taking the fight to Alduin. There wasn't an abundance of guards, but enough to hold off against petty crime and savages. Thorunn was reminded of the horse-thief Lokir who'd been seated on the captive's carriage alongside herself so many years ago. She wondered if Lokir had a wife or husband here, or children. Like as not, otherwise he wouldn't have been crossing the border without them.
She caught sight of a familiar silvery-colored stallion being herded by a farmer. Aegetha whinnied and shook his head, refusing to be taken by the farmer. Thorunn's expression brightened and she hurried over, yanking the reins from the farmer's hold.
"This your horse?" he said, letting the reins go without a fight.
Thorunn nodded, running a soothing hand over the side of Aegetha's snout.
"Good and healthy steed," he complimented. "Saw him wondering about a bit west to here. He looked lost and hungry, so I fought with him all the way back here. He won't take the damned thing from me, but here, feed him this." The farmer tossed her a red apple.
"Thank you," Thorunn said graciously, raising the apple to Aegetha's wide lips. The horse sniffed, then took it whole.
The farmer ran his eyes over Thorunn and her party. He looked like he'd seen stranger things than this. "You lot from that battle west of here?"
She nodded.
His eyes went wide and he leaned in to make sure he wasn't overheard. Thorunn almost took a step back, inconvenienced by his intrusion of her personal space, but he paid no mind to the motion. "A unit of Thalmor agents rode through here just yesterday," he said, voice just shy of a whisper. "They spoke of going for Whiterun."
"Over my dead body," Aela seethed.
The farmer's hazel eyes were wide and ominous as he leaned back. "How many?" Thorunn inquired.
"I can't count very well, but I estimate six," he answered.
"Then they're scouting, looking for a weak point." She was surprised they didn't linger in Rorikstead, given that the village was part of Whiterun Hold. It came to her then that perhaps they didn't all go to Whiterun. "And still, there is nothing we can do as of yet." She reached in her pocket and pulled out a coinpurse. She dumped a small handful of gold into the palm of her hand, then passed it to the farmer. "Thank you for telling us this."
He bulked at the gold. "No, thank you," he breathed. "Thank you. This is... this is enough gold to feed my family for a month. Thank you. Anything you need, anything, I'm here to serve."
Thorunn mercifully decided not to let him know that he'd be serving her whether she paid him or not. "Is there anything else you know?" she asked as she pocketed her coin purse.
"No, sir, nothing. There's apples in the basket on my porch if you're hungry. Or your horse. Or your friends."
Thorunn nodded. "We'll be on our way, then." Holding Aegetha's reins, she turned back to the road and began descending.
"What's the plan?" asked Thongvor.
"We're going to take out those scouts," Thorunn said, not turning to face him. "But first, we need to rest. A night, no more, for recuperation." She tied Aegetha to a post outside Frostfruit Inn, then entered and used more than half of her coin to pay for rooms. They had to bunk- Isha and Dra'hana and Volediri, Vunthar and Malnuk, Farkas and Vilkas, Thongvor and Vunthar and Ralof, and Thorunn with Aela and Eriswe.
Dinner was sweet and hot. Bacon-wrapped trout with blueberry tarts, sweetrolls and seasoned cabbage, with honeyed mead and salted water to wet their parched throats. Mralki was nothing but smiles and pleasantries, eager to give them anything they asked for. Thorunn thought that had little to do with the kindness of his heart and everything to do with the coin they put in his pocket. Even so, she was grateful, and better yet, there were no signs of Thalmor within the village.
There were three people and two beds in her room. In the end, Eriswe got her own bed while Thorunn and Aela squeezed onto the other one. An injustice, considering Thorunn was nearing six feet tall and her stomach steadily growing with child, and Aela was only a few inches shorter and wide-hipped. They'd flipped coins to decide who got the single bed. Thorunn regretted just ordering them to the other one.
When she woke, she was aching all over and her wounds felt like they'd been salted. She replaced the bandages first thing, then donned her armor and left her room behind. Being the blood of the wolf, she never felt like she'd had enough sleep. Rest was a liability more than anything. Aela and Eriswe were already having breakfast with the rest of their party when Thorunn joined. It appeared Farkas and Mulnak were the only two left sleeping.
When Thorunn went to wake Farkas, she was intrusive: She whacked him in the face with a pillow, sat on his shoulder and bounced, forcibly rolled him over thrice, then finally resorted to tossing a cup of cold water on his face. Waking Farkas was like telling a stone wall to get out of the way. He spluttered and sat upright, crying out in dismay.
"I'm up!" he grumbled, rubbing his eyes.
Thorunn smiled passive aggressively. Waking Mulnak was much easier. His eyes were open the moment she opened the door, and she was grateful for his sharp mind. Light sleepers were invaluable when it came to being soldiers. "We're leaving within the next hour," she told him, then closed the door again to give him his privacy. It was a good thing she didn't value modesty, else she would have been disturbed to find out he slept naked save for his blue warpaint.
Instead of eating, Thorunn elected for a bath. Using the soaps and tub that Mralki provided, she scrubbed relentlessly at all the dirt and blood and grime coating her body. Her skin was sunburned in some places and tanned in others. Scars were a regular part of her skin, so she paid them no mind and scrubbed at them like every other part. She was careful with her wounds, hissing when they touched the hot water and sighing in relief once they adjusted and relaxed. It felt good to cleanse them.
She braided her platinum blonde hair in traditional Nordic fashion. It was in dire need of a cut, nearly reaching her waist, but she couldn't spend time on that now. Tired brown eyes looked back at her in the mirror she stood before. She wondered if they'd ever regain the brightness they'd harbored when she was a girl, still untouched by war and loss.
That was too much to ask for. When she was fully dressed and finished, and the others were done with breakfast, they took to the road again with Thorunn mounting Aegetha. In the word they sent with Brugi and Hulgi, they said their location was indefinite in Whiterun Hold. Luckily, Ulfric could just as easily send a raven to the Jarl, which would then be passed to Thorunn via courier. It was risky passing letters around like that with the Thalmor running amok, but they didn't have much choice. Nords had never been good at secrecy and stealth, anyway.
Spirits were higher when they traveled this time. There were less annoyed sighs to be heard whenever Dra'hana started rambling, and they didn't ask to rest every half hour.
"Dra'hana mislikes this city of superstition," scowled the khajiit as the walls of Whiterun came into view. "I cannot enter, lest I would see myself in chains again. I will not."
"You don't have to enter," Thorunn assured her, slowing Aegetha to a halt and scanning her eyes over the perimeter. "Being a Stormcloak would grant you immunity to laws forbidding you from the city, though."
"Dra'hana would not enter even with allowance," she insisted. "My name, 'Dra'', it means wisdom and wit. Wisdom denotes not to play with fire, as it leads to burns. Whiterun has walls of flame for the Khajiit."
She wasn't wrong. Khajiit were not looked on kindly throughout Skyrim. The Nords presumed they were all thieves and cutpurses. Cities had laws forbidding them from taking up residence. Thorunn would like to see that changed when she became High Queen. "Spread out," she ordered her men. "Blow your horn at the first sight of Thalmor. If they run, don't bother to chase them."
They did as bade, dispersing into opposite directions. Thorunn led Aegetha into a calculated stroll. If Altmer were lurking about, no doubt they wouldn't be easy to find. Thorunn didn't put invisibility potions past them. She'd always been wary of mages and alchemists. Tricky businesses, they played, almost moreso than rogues. Minutes passed uneventful and without sight of anything unusual.
Thorunn was becoming dubious when the first horn sounded. It came from the east and she reeled her horse to follow it when another horn sounded from the west. Then another from the north, and another from south. Southeast, southwest. Aegetha spun awkwardly. When he halted, Thorunn came face to face with three Altmer of her own.
"Shit," she hissed. She quickly did her calculations. The one in the middle was tall and muscular, wielding an elven shield and glass axe. He was the vanguard, she knew, and would be the hardest to take down. To his left was another man, slender in form with an arrow notched and pointed directly between her eyes. She'd worry about how she was going to safely dodge that in a moment. To the right of the vanguard was a robust female with frost magic swirling around her palms. At least it's frost and nothing else, Thorunn thought. Her natural resistance to it would be invaluable.
"Lay down your weapons and come quietly. No harm will come unto you henceforth," the vanguard declared.
Thorunn's eyes passed between the three Altmer. All held scornful glares. The air reeked of their superiority complexes. Thorunn knew that if she reached for her sword, the archer would loose that arrow and the mage would loose that ice spike, while the warrior rushed forward to hinder her steed. Clenching her jaw, she held her hands up in surrender and waited for the vanguard's nod of approval before carefully descending from Aegetha's saddle. The stallion whinnied and confusion and bucked his head. Thorunn didn't reach out to comfort him, suspecting that the Altmer would mistake the motion for drawing a weapon.
"Your weapons," prompted the warrior.
"I was getting to it," Thorunn snapped. She unsheathed her sword and dirk, tossing them to the ground, then unclasped her shield and added that to the pile. A dagger remained at her thigh beneath the loincloth that draped from her codpiece, but she wasn't removing anything the Altmer couldn't see. With the way they saw things, they probably assumed Nords were too stupid to have more than what the eye could perceive.
The warrior elf approached and snatched the weapons from the ground. He was lucky Thorunn didn't kick him in the face while he was down there. He threw the weapons out of her reach, then grabbed her by the wrists and started to tie a knot of rope around them. "What is your name?" he asked as he worked.
"Fridevi," she lied. Telling them she was the future High Queen would be bad for her health.
"Nordic names are so ugly," commented the archer. He began lowering his bow as he grew more comfortable. "What do your mothers do? Cough until something that sounds like a name comes out?" His buddies laughed.
"My mother named me after the Queen That Vowed," she said. It wasn't a lie, this time, only the Queen That Vowed's name had been Thorunn, not Fridevi. The elves wouldn't know that. They never bothered to learn about the places they sacked. "The second Aldmeri Dominion had killed her husband and children and family. The only thing they left her was her crown. With it, she vowed vengeance, and more than half of Skyrim was there to see it. It's said they heard her weeping through the towers even long after she died."
The archer scoffed. "Typical. You Nords have a habit of making vows you cannot keep." She suspected he was alluding to the White-Gold Concordat the Stormcloaks had recently decided to ignore.
"I never said she didn't keep the vow." Thorunn grinned. The Queen That Vowed had led her armies against the Dominion alongside Tiber Septim himself. She had her family's murderers captured instead of killed, then one by one, she mounted their heads outside the gates. They withstood various tortures beforehand, of course. Death had been a mercy in hindsight.
And it'd be a mercy to these fools. Thorunn reeled and thumped her head into the vanguard's as hard as she could. Stars shone for a moment, but she was moving before she even recovered. With raw strength, she pulled her wrists apart, apart, apart, until her binds shattered. She snarled viciously, senses starting to go red.
The vanguard recovered and started to level his shield with her, but she had already gotten out of his reach. She'd torn the throat from the mage and bitten two fingers off of the archer's bow hand. Aegetha shrieked and padded away at full speed. Among that chaos came the confused shouting of the Altmer. "What is that?!" one called, while the other yelped and whirled about in pain at the loss of his fingers.
She picked up her discarded sword and plunged it through the archer's gut, then danced with the vanguard for several moments, biding her time. She hadn't consumed any flesh, though she had bitten it. The wolf's blood was already starting to subside. With one last haul of strength, she thwacked the Altmer's sword from his grasp and ended it by thrusting her sword hilt-deep into his gut. His blood painted the iron red. His feet lifted from the ground as he incoherently spluttered his last breaths away.
Thorunn pulled her sword free and his body fell to the ground, as dead as his brothers. She stood and heaved heavily for a couple moments while the last of the wolf faded away into the pit of her gut, back to lying in wait for its next chance to resurface.
Breathing hard, she started moving to look for the others, crimson blood dripping from the tip of her sword.