Steel groaned as he woke up to a burning on the side of his face, a scaled hand felt his forehead. "Wake Ash-walker the dragon still tries to reduce this place to rubble, and I would rather be somewhere else when that happens." Steel opened his eyes to see the Argonian dressed in the leathers of his brotherhood.
"Alright, but I can't see out of my left eye." Steel informed the pair, the human had a concerned look on his face while Han-lei just rolled his eyes.
"I bandaged it, you will be sporting a scar but you will see just fine, if not better. I know my medicine." Steel raised an eye at that, doubting that it was just medicine that this brother knew.
"Anyway get dressed, we found a door that leads down into the caves below." The human Hadvar told Steel, nodding Steel got up and dressed in his leathers that Han-Lei handed him.
"The human had the brains to grab out gear while he was running for his life, I suggest leaving him alive for now… at least until we are out of the cave, never know when a meat shield is going to be needed." Han-Lei whispered to him, as he helped still into his leathers.
Steel nodded and swung his bag onto his back, Hadvar led the way out of the room and down into the caves. The few StormCloaks they encountered did not last long, Hadvar was a skilled enough warrior but the assassins were the real killers of the trio. Han-Lei hung to the shadows, striking quickly with a razor sharp dagger or his illusions to give Steel a chance to finish them with his own dagger.
Steel smiled under his mask when finished the spiders they encountered, and Han-Lei began harvesting them for the toxins. Steel watched as Hadvar tried outlining the options when they found a sleeping bear, only for Han-Lei to pull out a blow dart tube and load a dart in. A single shot later and Han-Lei stood and strode past the bear not even glancing at it, Hadvar followed quickly but Steel paused and saw that the bear was dead. Steel smiled again, he had guessed that Han-Lei was a poison master, it was a common trait for his race after all.
###
After Hadvar left them, Han-Lei glanced at Steel with a raised brow. "Well what are you going to do now?" Han-Lei asked, Steel shrugged.
"Not much, my chapter of the brotherhood told me to report to the chapter here once my mission was done. That is a problem though, I have no idea where it is and my guide died in the ambush, what about you." Steel answered, Han-Lei nodded.
"I need to deal with a traitor, a contact for my chapter went rouge and sold out the brotherhood. My mission is find and kill him, then wait for contact from the speaker of the skyrim chapter." Han-Lei explained.
"Then might as well travel together for the time being, as we both need to meet the local brothers sometime and my contact is dead." Steel suggested, Han-Lei agreed and the two moved off towards Whiterun where Han-Lei's target lay.
###
Aela the huntress jumped back to avoid the giant's club, she snarled and launched another arrow into it's hand. She hated hunts like this one, there was no honor in fighting a giant with so many warriors. Her group was four strong, Farkas, Vilkas and Kazder. With three warriors you would think that the Giant would go for one of them, but no instead the Giant was trying to crush Aela the only archer of the group.
"This beast is stubborn!" Farkas cheered, Aela opened her mouth to yell at him only Kazder beat her to it.
"This one suggests Farkas shuts his maw, or This one will shut it for him!" Kazder the pure black Khajiit yelled from where he was hacking at the Giant's knee.
Aela notched another arrow, but before she could loose the arrow a pair of fighters ran past her and straight for the Giant. "Draw its attention away from the cat, Ash-Walker!" The indigo colored Argonian yelled to the Drummer elf.
"Make it count scalehead!" The Drummer yelled back, hurling a throwing knife into the eye of the Giant without breaking stride.
Aela watched in midly shock as the Drummer charged the Giant and slashed it's fingers to draw it's attention, while the Giant was busy the Argonian leapt onto Kazder's back and used him to leap onto the Giant's shoulders. The Drummer backed off as soon as the Argonian had landed on the Giant and now stood by Aela. Aela thought he was died when the Giant started flailing around, but the fighter kept his grip and started stabbing the Giant in the shoulder several times before being thrown off. He landed in a crouch at Aela's feet, shaking himself before standing and yelling to the warriors.
"Get back! You would not like to be under that thing when it goes down." Aela was about to call him mad, when the Giant staggered and groaned before falling backwards barely missing Vilkas.
"What did you do, none of those wounds even together would bring it down?" Aela asked impressed, the Argonian showed her a bottle of poison.
"Sage's tears, best thing for removing Giant pests!" Aela smirked at the pun, Farkas and the others came up to speak with the two new comers.
"Poison, that is not a warrior's weapon!" Farkas mocked, Aela waited for the pair of new comers to get mad but they only smirked.
"Sorry sword swing, next time I will wait to use my poison until after the Giant crushes you like a nit." Aela laughed fully at the joke, the Argonian smiled brightly at her.
"Finally someone laughs at my jokes, this one rarely laughs. I am Han-Lei, the Ash-Walker is Steel." Ham-Lei introduce himself.
"Tell better jokes then." Steel told him, Aela smirked at the strange bond the two had.
"Well fought either way, what brings you to whiterun?" Vilkas asked, Aela watched the pair closely, their armors said that their trade was less that moral.
"An ambush by the imperials for the stormcloaks led to us getting a front row seat when a dragon decided to torch Helgen, so we came to bring warning. I am also looking for someone, need to settle a debt he own, on that note do you know where I can find Nazeem?" Aela scowled at the name.
"That bastard can usually be found in the cloud district if he is not in the market looking down on everyone, what is the Debt?" Aela asked, Han-Lei smirked.
"He left a few of my brothers with a large amount of debt when he failed to meet his end of a bargain. I am to remind him of that debt and see that he goes to meet with the collectors." Aela knew that the man was lying about something, but if that bastard died what did she care?
"Very well, if you seek honor and glory come to our mead hall and join us, we can use more skiled hands." Aela offer, Han-lei nodded before he and Steel left to head for the Jarl's palace.
"Kazder thinks that the Argonian will kill Nazeem, they both smelled of death and shadows." Kazder remarked watching the pair leave, Aela nodded and the group headed to go inform their client that the giant was dealt with.