A/N:
March 10, 2015: Edited to cut out overtly obvious plot points, and fixed the horribly random perspective shifts.
the restless wolf/the pale
[silver on a mountain]
Vilkas woke.
Woke was a relative term; Vilkas never really slept. Every night, his body walked itself to his bed, lay down, and slid bruised eyelids over bruise-ringed eyes. Every night he lay awake, watching his dreams play beneath closed eyelids; it was the sleep of the wicked, a sleep with neither rest nor respite.
And the wolf was never far away at night. It snuffled at the door, pawed at the floor of his belly and peered out through his eyes. It roiled restlessly in his veins with every whisper of forest beasts; there was no closing his ears and the night sang to him in soft whispers between crisp autumn leaves and in the smell of dirt and fur, blood and fury. Vilkas could feel his hands and feet twitch beneath his bedroll. He wanted to run. He wanted to strip naked, shed his skin and howl at the stars and run and run and run; he wanted to chase the smells carried on the cold night air, from the little mouse tunnelling through the snow beneath the snowberry bush to the men tramping up through the brush.
And as it would turn out, this was precisely why it was nigh well impossible to sneak up on a werewolf, nevermind two.
Autumn in the Pale was very much like its winter: cold, and full of snow. The air smelled crisply of pine and creeping ice, so clean he could taste it between his teeth. And so, naturally, he smelled the old man first.
Piss, shit, and old ale. Vomit dried in rivulets down a greasy beard full of fleas and an unsteady heartbeat that whispered secret weakness in the lungs and arteries. Vilkas could divine more sin and failure in one breath than most priests could pry from a hundred confessions: Hircine's curse, Hircine's blessing.
His twin lay across from him, dark figure still and steady beneath the bedroll. Farkas' eyes gleamed in the wan light, a wild beast looking through the bars of human skin. Vilkas wondered if his twin saw the same in him; the wind shifted, bringing with it more scents, more fragile creatures who thought themselves hunters, and the brothers prey.
His heart thumped in its cage, pulse beating a hunter's rhythm as the night called him.
There were four of them, just a small, ragtag group bent on murder and money. How they had found the Companions' camp – dark, fire-less and thus smokeless – was a mystery to be solved later, at leisure. Right now, there was an assassin stealing her way in, steps quiet in the new-fallen snow that blanketed the Pale. Vilkas and Farkas lay still in their bedrolls, breathing slow and steady as though vulnerable in sleep.
One would-be killer stealing in. Two manoeuvring behind the snow-laden brush – for Farkas, no doubt, the giant of the two – and the last, reeking of piss and failure, closing in from the west, skirting the copse of pine. He was keeping his distance – an archer, then.
Farkas' eyes flicked to the brush. Two in the bush, one in your hand. It was true; the sneak-thief was closing in on Vilkas, thinking to get him out of the way quickly. Farkas looked at him. On a night with no moons there was none to see the elder's mouth count down an ending to the stuttering heartbeat of a failing bandit lord – none but the children of the Lord's own wild hunt. None but the blessed of Hircine.
Three...two...one. They moved as one. One moment, the woman was leaning over Vilkas, knife in hand; in the next moment, a sudden surge of movement as a hard hand clamped over her mouth, another hand engulfing her knife wrist to direct her intended thrust upwards, over the pulse in her own throat.
She died without a sound. Blood sprayed, hot and dark over white snow and a rumpled fur bedroll.
Farkas rolled over with a sleeper's grunt, one last rouse buying him precious seconds as he continued rolling, up into a crouch then simply up, powerful legs launching him into a skulker skirting the edge of the brush. Farkas used his head – literally. The bandit wasn't wearing a helm – not on a night like this, where the gleam of metal or a soft clank of a gauntlet against helm could mean that fine line between success and failure, life or death. Lucky they were so thoughtful: Farkas hadn't worn one either. Not to sleep in – that would have been stupid. The last Vilka saw was Farkas moving faster than any man his size had any right to – then a tortured crunk followed by a thin howl of agony.
Farkas would be just fine.
Vilkas took to the trees. No fire made the task easy, shadows swimming with every sway of gnarled branches crowned with ice and crackling leaves. Starlight shone bright as torchlight to his eyes, lighting the way into the thicket where the archer lurked.
Vilkas could smell him; could smell the fear and failure, the days and nights with nothing but mead in his mouth and despair in his belly. Pathetic. He crouched, moving carefully over the snow, timing his steps to the clash of steel on steel and the rhythm of swaying branches. The snow was harder here, tipped in ice; Aela would have ghosted over the thin crust without a sound, light as a snowflake.
Vilkas was not a snowflake. Not anything close. He manoeuvred around the scalloped edges that had formed beneath the relentless wind, skirting through soft powder to keep his steps silent.
The old man had rock joint. Vilkas could see it, could see the stiffness as he pulled an arrow from the quiver at his waist, saw his elbows lock as he tried to pull back for a killing shot.
He was old. Weak.
Prey.
He did not snarl when he struck. He did not growl. He made not a single sound from his throat but the simple noise of air pulled into straining lungs; his dagger came softly from its sheathe, the hard slide of Skyforge steel muffled against a thick hide lining.
When he struck he struck hard, like a smith's hammer against the anvil: technique and strength, turned to a single purpose. Beneath their hall and honour, the Companions were all the same, every last one of them. They were trained killers, hard hearts beneath the songs and valour.
Vilkas took him from behind. A sudden spring from beneath the low-hanging branches of a half-withered pine took him well within arm's length of the old bandit. It was a simple matter of clamping one hand over his nose and mouth, the other hand coming in with the dagger to press the fine steel edge against his jugular.
"Drop it." The bandit made a noise, halfway between a keen and a wheeze. He obeyed. Vilkas kicked the hidebound bow away, down the small hill where it disappeared into a snow bank. Vilkas glanced down towards the camp site, eyes tracking the large looming shape that was his twin as it stalked a slight, stumbling figure. Beyond the two moving figures, dark shapes lay still in the snow, darkness leaking into the white. The air tasted of metal and death.
Without a word, Vilkas kicked the old man to his knees. His dagger didn't shake, didn't give an inch; Vilkas pressed his knee in between the man's shoulder blades, shoving him face-down into the snow. He gripped the man's shaggy mane in one fist, the threat of the blade an omnipresent kiss against the filthy throat.
He let the old man angle his face to the side to breathe. "Who sent you?" The interrogation was calm, dispassionate. Vilkas didn't bother to shake the man. To do so would be to surrender to the blood song throbbing through his veins; the temptation to grip that frail neck between his jaws, to worry it until the blood flowed hot over his tongue and teeth, until the stiff bones of the neck yielded with the satisfying snap of separating vertebrae...
No.
Vilkas grit his teeth, forcing the phantom sensation away. "I will not ask again. Answer me."
The old man wheezed out a rattling breath. He opened his mouth as though to speak, then spat, one last act of ineffectual defiance against a stronger enemy. A sharp snap echoed through the wood, followed shortly by an agonized howl. Vilkas let him scream just long enough to hear himself before shoving his face into the snow.
"Try again." The bandit snorted the snow away from his mouth as he panted.
"Your whore mother. Fucked her 'til -" This time Vilkas slammed the man's face full into the ground. There was a meaty, wet crack as his nose broke against the immutable ground. The man would have screamed but for Vilkas, who smashed his face down again, with a sort of ruthless efficiency that was the particular domain of men of violent honour.
"Last chance."
"Fuck yourself." Or at least, that's what Vilkas assumed he'd said. It sounded more like, "Phhhgggk nnrrsffng," and Vilkas angled the bandit's head sideways to keep the blood and mucus that sprayed with every laboured, huffing breath away.
"I'm going to kill you," Vilkas said, blunt and unhurried, "but how I do it is up to you." The old bandit suddenly strained against his grip, tearing his head from the Companion's unyielding grip. Hair and skin tore away, leaving blood weeping in its wake as the bandit turned to stare Vilkas in the eyes.
And Vilkas saw him then; he saw how the young boy survived his paces to be come a man, an old man. His rheumy eyes were hard beneath the meat, a killer's soul shining though the windows. This one would tell no tales.
So Vilkas slit his throat.
He waited until the body stopped twitching, cleaning his blade against the bandit's filthy rags. Not that Villas smelled of roses himself; he hadn't managed to avoid all the blood, hadn't angled himself quite right.
Villas left the trees to find his brother.
His twin was a dark shape looming in the clearing, a hulking bear of a figure in pursuit of a stumbling, fleeing figure. Farkas' wide, lopping strides ate up distance the way certain Jarls did their treasury; he caught up momentarily, simply gripping the smaller figure's head with one large hand, dragging the figure towards him until he could get both hands around the skull. Farkas gave one, violent twist the the body sagged, convulsing. Vilkas watched as Farkas gently lowered the twitching body to the snowclad ground and closed its eyes.
The elder frowned. "That boy was a pit skeever." Vilkas strode into the disheveled campsite, wiping a handful of snow over his face. There were dark streaks over his collar and down his shirt. In his hand he still held his dagger in a loose, dexterous grip that betrayed nothing.
Farkas shrugged. "I know. Dead." Vilkas grunted, striding past him to their small, dark camp. As though on cue, they heard a lone howl over the crest of the hill; it was soon joined by other voices.
"Leave them for the wolves." Vilkas stripped down in the snow, crumpling the stained clothes into a ball before stuffing them into his bag. He shrugged on his weapon-shirt, then started tugging on his armour. Not the full plate they wore in Whiterun – it was too heavy, too cumbersome for fast travelling – but a fine set of scale mail that sat well with fur surcoats and cloaks. As always, the collar and gauntlets were adorned with the snarling head of a stylized wolf. Suddenly, he paused, eyes narrowing as his gaze swung to Farkas' hand. "Your hand. What's wrong with it?"
Farkas blinked, looked down. Still dressed in his sleeping clothes he had gone into battle with naked hands. Across one palm was a livid red welt, as though he had carelessly picked up a red-hot poker.
"Oh." Vilkas watched the battle replay over his brother's face. "There. I grabbed his sword by the blade. Blunt. Didn't hurt." They walked over where a bald bear of a man – big, though not bigger than Farkas – lay sprawled in a heap. Vilkas crouched, searching the body for the tell-tale sword.
"Unalloyed silver." There was a mutual pause.
"Dress. Then we'll check the rest."
They went about the rest of their business in silence.
In the end, it had only been the short sword. Vilkas had been thorough, going through each of the bandits possessions methodically, even going as far as to backtrack down the valley until the bandits' tracks disappeared beneath a light pre-dawn snowfall; the discovery had soured the elder twin's mood irreparably. It was impossible to tell why a common brigand would have held such a weapon. Perhaps he had pilfered it, or looted it from a corpse. Perhaps he had been a werewolf hunter come upon hard times, forced to join with a group of highwaymen. Or perhaps this had been merely a taste of things to come; perhaps -
- perhaps they had been set up.
They returned to the road, setting a brisk pace in the chill of an early morning snowfall. Vilkas always knew the way; he never left Jorrvaskr without first memorizing a map, and getting lost in the Pale was a death sentence, werewolves or no.
Even so, the unrelenting white landscape made navigation a chore.
His first inclination was to hunt. Coincidence or design, the answer would come if he greased the right palms and broke the right noses; surely someone would recognize the sword, a sword of unalloyed silver that had once been a thing of beauty, before its owner had allowed time and negligence to dull its edge to a club-like forbearance.
Yet Kyne had other plans for the day.
"Storm's coming." Farkas' breath steamed up to the darkening sky.
"I know." It was true; the weather had begun to turn, rapidly and with little warning. What had started as light, seasonal snow was rapidly thickening to become a curtain of white death. Farkas grunted.
"Maybe we should camp. In the trees." Vilkas shook his head.
"Might be a bad one. We don't have supplies for more than two nights. Three if we stretch it." They continued walking, the road nearly gone beneath their feet. Thank Imperial cobblestones – they could feel the stone study beneath their boots, though they could not see the tell-tale grey. "There's an inn just up the way. Nightgate, they call it. We'll make it if we hurry."
The twins travelled on.
It was past noon when they saw the lights of Nightgate Inn glowing through the snow. Past noon, though the sky was grey and the snow so thick that it seemed the twins were locked in some perpetual twilight; the wind had started to howl, snow and ice striking their exposed faces like tiny darts of pure winter malice. They nearly slammed through the doors.
It was a relief to be indoors. The door shut behind them with a resounding boom as the twins shook the snow from their hair and clothes. The innkeeper called a greeting; Vilkas only managed an acknowledging grunt, his jaw seemingly frozen shut with his mouth in its perpetual scowl. Farkas ambled to the fire, settling himself as close as possible without setting himself alight; a bleary-eyed drunk glared from his corner before going back to his bottle.
"Hello there, travellers. Nasty weather to be out, aye?" The innkeeper was stout and stolid, a proper Nord with a grizzled beard and matching scar over one eye. Vilkas gestured for a drink, feigning absorption in the rack behind the man as he sized him up.
Ale and cheese, old stains sticky on the floor and brown beneath his fingernails. Something sour in his mouth and throat, bubbling up from his belly. Sharp eyes, fast words. Ears perking up like a hunting hound's. Hands curve just as comfortably around cups and weapon shafts. Never one for archery, wrists held too loose and close when he holds the bow.
Glory days long behind him.
Vilkas accepted his cup of mulled alto wine, trading in his septims. The flavour was all wrong but it was warm; there were worse things in the world than weak warm wine.
"Damn storm came up out of nowhere." Farkas sneezed from ten paces behind him, facing the fire. The floorboards creaked as the drunk in the corner shifted, slouching. The innkeeper – Hadring, he'd said – just nodded.
"Happens year-round, hereabouts." Vilkas gestured for another glass. Hadring slid it down the counter in one smooth, practised motion, muscles uncoiling in a way that suggested he had some swing in him yet.
"Road disappeared under all the snow." Vilkas shook his head, convincingly disgusted. "We were hired to clear out some bandits not too far off Dimhollow Crypt. Not damn likely now."
"Bandits off Dimhollow Crypt?" Hadring lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "Not from Jarl Skald, you didn't. He clears them out the moment they start harrying folk on the road." Vilkas took another swig of his wine.
"Is that so?"
"Aye. Jarl Skald rules the old way. And I'd know if he'd posted any bounties. Whereabouts did you say again?" Vilkas unfurled his hand-drawn map. The paper was travel-stained, taking badly to cold and moisture. Still, he had a clear, steady hand and the ink was still good, lines bold and straight. Hadring's eyebrows shot up.
"There? No, no. You were ill-told, friend. That's no bandit fort – not anymore – the Vigilants cleaned them out years ago. It's a prayer hall now."
Farkas snorted ale through his nose, and promptly started coughing. Vilkas didn't even glance his way, grey eyes intent on Hadring's face as the man continued speaking.
"I don't know where you got your bounty, friend, but the Vigilants are no bandits. They keep to themselves, but I don't think they'd take kindly to your trespassing, especially with your steel out."
Vilkas finally smiled. It was not a very pleasant smile; there was a certain wolfish quality to the baring of teeth. Hadring nearly recoiled, catching himself mere seconds before the physical gesture could form. Vilkas watched as the man busied himself with vigorously wiping the smooth, clean counter with his rag. The beast in him wanting to push, to see the man fall back, eyes fearful as death stalked near...
Vilkas pulled himself back, smoothed his expression down to something much more civil; invisible hackles falling, non-existent fangs sliding into a closed, thinly smiling mouth. Transformation complete, Vilkas wore an expression of mild irritation, the sort of expression a hired sword would wear upon hearing his quarry did not exist. Hadring eyed him with residual wariness, instinct warring with the everyday logic of complacent prey. Civilization won out.
"Well, then, it seems we've been lead hunting dragon tales, my brother and I." He slapped down another handful of septims. "A hot meal for my brother and I, and a room for the night. And bathwater." He paused. "If you have it."
Hadring brightened considerably at the sight of gleaming coins.
"Aye, of course. And -" he leaned over the counter, expression suddenly boyish, like that of a child imparting some great secret - "speaking of dragons, it seems you've not heard the news." Vilkas blinked, looked at him in askance. "Helgen. Helgen's gone -" Surprise flickered over the rugged face. "- And they say a dragon did it. Dragons. Dragons have returned to Skyrim!"
