I suppose that I could say that as the headsman raised his axe, I thought of all the lingering little regrets that I had picked up along my life, or possibly of those memories that were enjoyable, or perhaps even of what afterlife I might find. As it happened, the wordless whirlwind that ran through my mind could best be described as:

Oh, shit, I'm really going to die.

The noise that I had thought was wind roared again, this time so loudly that my ears rang. I heard someone shout, "What in Oblivion is that!?"

A thing alighted on the top of the tower in front of me. I saw only wings and spikes before the beast opened its maw and unleashed a sound like a thunderclap. A wave of pure energy knocked me back, off of the block, and onto the bloodstained ground.

People all around me shouted, their voices overlapping one another to create a wall of noise. From my recumbent position on the ground, I could see soldiers scattering, running, drawing their weapons, forgetting about we prisoners. Someone tripped over me, and I rolled onto my back. The clear sky had somehow become a mass of sinister clouds that writhed as if the heavens themselves were in agony.

I stared. The thing, a huge mass of scale and muscle, was flying now. It was distinctly reptilian, with black, gnarled spikes protruding from nearly every point on its body and giving it the appearance of a murderous, thorny lizard. It lazily beat the air with massive, leathery wings as it opened its maw again, briefly revealing a mouth of wicked-looking teeth before a gout of fire burst from its throat and ignited a thatched roof. Something about it was wrong, somehow; my eyes watered just from looking at it.

I was startled out of my reverie by a rough hand that grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me upright. "Hey, you, get up!" the hand's owner said, and I tore my eyes away from the beast to see Ralof, the Stormcloak rebel that had been on the prison wagon with me. He was still shouting: "Come on! The gods won't give us another chance! This way!" Just as I dumbly started to follow him, I felt a blast of hot air behind me and turned my head just in time to see a huge, flaming chunk of rock crash into the ground where I had just been laying. I decided to pick up my pace.

The two of us fled to a nearby stone tower. Ralof shoved open the door, shouting again for me to follow him inside. As I did so, I heard heavy breathing behind me. As soon as I was in the relative safety of the tower, I turned to see…

"Jarl Ulfric!" Ralof exclaimed, his eyes wild. "What is that? Could the legends be true?"

Ulfric Stormcloak's mouth was twisted into a grim scowl. His long hair was disheveled, and his bearskin cloak was missing. He was hunched over slightly, and I noticed that he had been shot in the shoulder. The leader of the rebellion cast a dark look out the open door. "Legends don't burn down villages," he growled. It was the first time that I heard him speak. He looked from Ralof to me. "We need to move. Now!"

I wasn't having a particularly good record that day insofar as quick thinking was concerned, but something about the commanding nature of voice of the Stormcloak Leader caused my legs to start moving without so much as consulting my brain on the matter. Before I was aware of what I was doing, I was already moving up the stairs, with Ralof right behind me. Suddenly, something burst through the wall in front of me. Without thinking, I stopped, turned… and looked into the nostrils of the beast.

I saw a reptilian face that looked as if it had been carved roughly from obsidian. Two eyes, red like embers, stared back at me. I thought I saw a hint of a smile twitch across the creature's maw just before, in a voice as black as its hide, it calmly made a noise that sounded like both a word and an intake of breath.

"Yol…"

Ralof yanked me to the side before the ensuing jet of flame incinerated me. I could feel the unnatural heat of the fire stop just short of burning my skin, and I was sure that the rough tunic I was wearing had been singed. As the creature leapt away from the building to terrorize other people, a terrible rumbling nearly caused me to lose my footing again. The stairway in front of me collapsed, leaving us with no escape.

I heard Ralof again. "See the inn on the other side?" he asked me. I looked in the direction in which he was pointing. Below us, next to the tower, a thatched roof had collapsed in on itself, but was not yet consumed by the inferno that was already licking at most of the town. "Jump through the roof and keep going!"

"What!?" I had time to say before my rescuer unceremoniously shoved me through the hole in the tower. I fell roughly on the upper floor of the inn with a grunt and scrambled unsteadily to my feet. I heard more shouting behind me, but I didn't need any more encouragement; the stench of smoke was overwhelming, and anywhere wooden was not a good place to be. I somehow managed to weave my way past the burning floor, tumble onto the ground floor without injury, and stagger into the open air.

A child was there, standing in the road. The kid couldn't have been older than nine years old. He was staring at a burning building, his face blank. He must have been in shock. My heart dropped into my stomach when I saw the beast circling overhead, just finishing with razing another tower. Soldiers were shouting at the boy, telling to get off the road, to run away, but he just stood there, staring at the inferno that used to be his home.

A voice cut through the multitude. "Haming! You need to get over here. Now!"

The child, hearing his name, turned his head to find the speaker. As I did the same, I found that it was the young soldier that had read from the list of prisoners to be executed. He was kneeling in the dirt, beckoning to the boy.

"That's a boy," the soldier said as the boy started to jog over. "You're doing great."

At that moment, the beast landed heavily on the road, right where the child had been seconds earlier. My breath caught in my throat as I saw the creature turn its massive head to look directly at the boy, which it appeared to watch with some interest.

Another man, not wearing the uniform of the Legion, beckoned to the child. "That's it, son," he said, his voice strained. "Make me proud." I couldn't see his eyes, but I had no doubt that he was staring at the monster in horrified fascination.

Several things happened, almost at once. The creature opened its maw. The soldier leaned forward and grabbed the child in one fluid motion. He was already backpedaling, shouting, "Oh, gods! Get back!" A gout of flame burst from the throat of the beast and superheated the road where the child had just been.

I could have sworn that I heard the beast snort in disgust as it kicked back up into the air.

The soldier appeared to notice me. "Still alive, prisoner?" he said, his expression unreadable. He was still holding on to the boy, who wore an expression of horrified bemusement. The soldier jerked his head in the direction of the road, only just vacated by the beast. "Stay close to me if you want to stay that way." I could only nod. It was the second time in as many minutes that I had seen down the throat of the monster, and part of my brain was insisting that I was dead right now, contrary to the fact that I was still upright and breathing. The soldier turned to the other man that had been there. "Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense."

The man called Gunnar nodded, his face grim. "Gods guide you, Hadvar."

The two of us weaved through the broken and burning buildings of Helgen as quickly and carefully as we could. Several times, we were forced to step over the broken and burned bodies of soldiers and civilians that had already fallen to the monster. Some of those faces that were still intact still wore wide eyes of fear or clenched teeth of determination; others looked like they had spent their final seconds in agony. Many of the corpses were burned beyond recognition, their charred flesh almost indistinguishable from the wood of buildings that served only as kindling for the unstoppable beast's fiery wrath. It was a small mercy that the smell of burning village overpowered the smell of burning humanity.

All the while, the creature lazily circled above the town, igniting buildings and people at its leisure. Arrows soared upward to meet it, but none so much as inconvenienced the monster; those that did not miss or were not blown away by the buffeting of its massive, leathery wings just clattered harmlessly off of its obsidian hide. Before long, only a few archers dared to attack the beast; most, I assumed with a detached sort of horror, had already been burned to cinders.

General Tullius was considerably more ruffled when Hadvar and I found him. His impressive armor now looked as if it had been left in an oven, and his red cape was scorched and tattered. His face looked as if he had stopped sucking on lemons some time ago and was now chewing on charcoal. "Hadvar!" he bellowed as we approached. "Into the keep, soldier, we're leaving!"

Around us, people were fleeing for their lives in all directions. Hadvar looked to me, his jaw set. "It's you and me, prisoner," he said, his expression once again unreadable. "Stay close."

We had nearly made it when I saw a familiar face.

"Ralof, you damned traitor!" Hadvar snarled at the rebel that had just approached the keep from the other side of the small, burning courtyard. "Out of my way!"

Ralof sneered at the Imperial soldier. "We're escaping, Hadvar," he said, his voice laced with venom. "You're not stopping us this time."

For an instant, Hadvar's expression seemed to crumple. The moment passed as quickly as it had appeared. "Fine! I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde!" he shouted, his face with rage.

This time, Ralof was the one who, for a fleeting moment, allowed a pained look to cross his face. He ran for one door into the keep, and Hadvar approached the other, on the opposite side of the building. Both of them stopped, each one with their hand on a door handle, and looked at me expectantly.

I could feel the universe pressing itself into me. Either path I chose, if I survived it, would be a small yet irrevocable decision for one side or another in a distant conflict from an alien land. One man would welcome me into a shared struggle to survival, while another would shake his head, cast aside any solidarity we might have had, and think of me as only a potential enemy. I stood for a time that was agonizingly long and far too brief, transfixed.

Then the beast in the sky spoke a strange language in a voice that chilled me to my very soul and a volume that suggested that it was nearby, and that it was getting closer very quickly. I chose a direction and ran.

As I sagged against the closed door, my heart nearly bursting from my chest, Hadvar said, "Looks like we're the only ones who made it."

Hadvar was panting, his face pale. "Was that really a dragon?" he asked me. "One of the bringers of the End Times?"

I shut my eyes tightly. I was dead. Surely, I was dead. No one brushes with death that many times in that short a period and actually survives. No one sane, at least. "A dragon?" I echoed. My voice was hoarse. "I don't know. I just know that it's a huge godsdamn creature that torched a whole godsdamn town."

Hadvar sighed. "That sounds like a dragon to me," he mumbled. He looked to me again. "We should keep moving. Come here. Let me see if I can get those bindings off." I obliged, holding out my arms. The Imperial soldier made short work of my restraints with a steel knife from his belt. "There you go." He gestured toward the wall. "Take a look around, there should be plenty of gear to choose from. I'm going to see if I can find something for these burns."

I took a look around the barracks. Several beds were placed against each wall, with an adjacent chest for storing equipment. I opened one of the chests. Inside was a pile of leather armor that looked as if someone's dog had been gnawing on it. It was a sight better than the rags I was wearing, so I grabbed the chest piece. It had the insignia of the empire set in the center. Once I was changed, I grabbed the iron sword that was lying on the bed and examined it. It had several small nicks in the blade, but it wasn't in too bad a shape for iron. At least its previous owner had understood that allowing rust to accumulate on a blade was not a life-enhancing decision.

My memory treacherously reminded me of those burning corpses that the dragon had left in its wake. It was likely that the weapon's previous owner was no longer in any state to worry about the quality of his equipment. I silently thanked whatever Divines that might have been paying attention for the smoke that still made it impossible for me to smell anything but embers.

Hadvar nodded to me. "I hope you know how to use that weapon," he said.

I nodded in response. Even in Cyrodiil, only an idiot or a really, really rich man doesn't bother to learn how to fight. "Thanks for helping me," I said. My voice was starting to return to me. "I would have thought that you were all fine with me and the rest of the prisoners being kindling."

Hadvar grunted. "If you're a Stormcloak, you're the worst I've ever seen," he said. "You didn't have anything on you when you were captured with the rest of them. Besides, you weren't on the list, Mister…" he trailed off expectantly.

"Sedgwick,"

"Right. They didn't even bother to identify you before they signed your death warrant." He started down the corridor, and I fell into step. "I understand that needs must, in times of war, but sometimes…" He trailed off and shook his head. "There is always a need for due process. As I see it, we can probably consider this an unofficial pardon."

"Fitting, seeing as how I got an illegal sentence," I said, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. I don't think I entirely succeeded, because Hadvar said nothing.

We had only been walking for a minute before Hadvar stopped short. There were voices ahead.

"We need to get moving! That dragon is tearing up the whole keep!"

"Just give me a minute. I need to catch my breath."

"Hear that?" Hadvar whispered. "Stormcloaks. Maybe we can reason with them."

I certainly hoped as much. "And if we can't?"

"Then you just make sure it isn't me you're sticking that sword into."

We entered another room. Two Stormcloak rebels stared at us, their faces registering surprise. One was wearing the leather, sash and chainmail that I had come to associate with the Stormcloaks and was also wielding a mace. The other held a war-axe, but only wore prisoner's rags. Both of them quickly got over their mild shock and advanced on us, their faces grim.

"Hold on, now, we only want to—"Hadvar was cut off by a mace that he deflected with his sword. "If you want to die, so be it."

With that, Hadvar and the armored Stormcloak began to fight. The Stormcloak wearing the rough tunic didn't bother to speak before he began to charge at me, his war-axe raised to strike.

Without bothering to consult my brain, my legs swiftly moved me to the side. I could hear the whistling of the air as the axe sliced it, inches from my ear. I swung my sword wildly and caught the rebel on the elbow with the flat end of my blade. He grunted, then swiveled and lashed out with his axe, aiming for my chest. I just barely managed to redirect the strike with my sword and staggered backward. The rebel swung again, just narrowly missing my throat. As he readied his weapon for another strike, his face now just a foot from mine, I blindly thrust my sword forward and stabbed him in the abdomen.

The rebel's eyes widened and he gurgled. He tumbled over backwards, bleeding profusely from the hole in his belly. I stared, horrified. Then, a hand offered a waterskin to me.

It was Hadvar. "All right, there?" he asked. The Stormcloak that he had been fighting was lying in a pool of his own blood, making bubbling noises. I nodded wordlessly and took the waterskin. It was only then when I realized that my hands were shaking.

I drank greedily from the leather pouch. When I had my fill, I gasped, "It hasn't been a good couple of days."

It was an understatement. Hadvar smiled mirthlessly. "Better than the one these two are having," he said, indicating the fallen Stormcloaks. I shivered, once again thinking of the carnage outside.

I took a deep breath, realizing that I had been shaken up more than I had known by the chaotic events that had taken place in the last twenty four hours. I had just nearly died again, this time because I was paralyzed by my own fear. I needed to get it together, or I really wouldn't survive for more than a few minutes.

We continued to traverse the keep in silence. Before we could get very far, the entire building shook, accompanied by a ferocious roar. The corridor in front of us collapsed.

"Damn, that dragon doesn't give up easy," Hadvar said once the rumbling stopped. "This way."

We ducked into what looked like a storage room. Two more Stormcloaks were here, one rifling through the contents of a barrel. They were both armed and armored.

One was saying to the other, "What are you doing? We need to get out of Helgen!" Then he noticed us and drew his weapon. "Imperial scum!"

This time, I was more prepared when the four of us met in battle. I deflected two of my opponent's wild strikes, noting in a small corner of my mind that wasn't focused entirely on survival that he seemed to be relying more on strength and adrenaline than anything else. We traded blows for a few intense seconds before I managed to slice through his thigh muscle, sending him tumbling to the ground in agony. He didn't get up, and appeared to opt instead for cradling his injured limb. Hadvar did a sight better than me, running his opponent through after only a couple of deflected blows.

I looked from Hadvar to our recumbent foes. "You know," I breathed, my mind still foggy from the spike in adrenaline, "I would have thought that enemy soldiers would be…" I searched for the word and settled for, "Better-trained?"

Hadvar scoffed, his weapon still drawn. "These aren't soldiers. Not really," he said. "Just a couple of dumb kids with their grandad's sword and a gut full of misplaced bitterness or patriotism or whatever else inspires someone to fight for a stupid cause." He looked sideways at me. "Don't get me wrong. The Stormcloaks have damned good fighters. They're sons – and daughters - of Skyrim, after all." He spat on the bloodstained ground. "They're the ones that understand that surviving in war is a habit, not a hope. Just like any soldier that lives past their third battle."

I was curious, but didn't ask further. Instead, I picked my way through the room. I managed to find red and green vials, two each, on one of the shelves. I also found a pouch to hold them, which I tied onto my belt.

"Ready?" Hadvar asked after I tucked the potions into the pouch.

I was about to respond when a battle cry echoed from further into the keep. Without a word, we both rushed out of the storeroom and into the keep's prison.