The carts rolled over the roads of Skyrim for several days, headed west. As this time passed, the vampire found himself sleeping more often than not. The warmth of his body diminished quickly, and his muscles grew weak and hard to control.
On the seventeenth of Last Seed, a Sundas, S'Rukoh cracked his eyes open. The bag had been removed, and the grey expanse of the sky yawned above him. Heavy clouds mirrored the rough, grey rock to either side of the road the train of carts trundled down. They were on an incline, mountains behind them and solemn, iced trees before them. The sound of hooves and wheels on wet ground was deafening. He looked to each of the people in the cart with him. He was in the front left seat of the cart, with a young woman to his right, and a tall, gagged man with wild hair on the other side of her. Opposite him were two more strangers. One of them had excited, frightened eyes and dark hair, the other a calm, resigned expression and a big, almost boyish face. S'Rukoh noticed that most of the people in the other carts were wearing similar armor, and the boyish Nord wore it, too. The brown-haired Nord had been stripped and placed in rags, much as the Khajiit and the woman next to him. But as he looked, he realized that it was no woman next to him, she was but a girl. Perhaps a teenager, but certainly not fully grown. The cathay-raht could only guess that this was Jori.
"Hey, you. Finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us. And that thief over there." He gestured with bound hands toward the man seated next to him.
The brown haired Nord grunted and growled, to the entire cart, to anyone who was listening. "Damn you Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell" He snapped up to look at S'Rukoh and Jori. "You there. You and me and her-we shouldn't be here. It's these stormcloaks the empire wants."
The blond shook his head slowly. "We are all brothers and sisters in binds, now, thief." Fog surrounded the cart, filling the spaces between trees and obscuring the forms of wildlife.
"Shut up back there!" The driver of the cart attempted to shoot a look over his shoulder, but fell short.
A terrible pounding filled S'Rukoh's ears. Hearts. He was hearing their hearts and their blood. Jori woke up next to him, pulling her head off the gagged man's shoulder. He looked to her with wide eyes.
"So what's wrong with him, huh?" The brown haired Nord gestured with his head toward the gagged man, and Jori tried to drag herself closer to the Khajiit in order to be further away from the subject.
"Watch your tongue. You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King." Thump, thump thump. Too much thumping.
"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion. But if they've captured you…" He looked nervously about the group. "Oh gods, where are they taking us?"
"Solitude. Where else? We've got to try you boneheaded rebels. We must just be stopping in Helgen to restock or something." Jori spoke up, head tilted back and voice tired.
"Then surely Sovngarde awaits." The blonde spoke slowly, and then looked to the fore end of the cart. He lifted his bound hands. "There's the walls of Helgen." He nearly yelled trying to speak over the panicked brunette. "Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?"
"What's it matter? Does it matter to you?" He leaned toward Jori with wide eyes.
"I'm from Helgen, and I know we're not stopping here. The General said so, earlier." S'Rukoh ducked to hold his head between his knees. It didn't help at all with the dizziness or the thumping, and the wilderness of the new province was much prettier than the muddy wooden floor of the cart. He swung his head up and looked down the hill toward the gates, stone with thatched roofs over walkways. The cart rounded a slight bend and the stone tower of a legion keep crept into view. He could see the distant wilderness past the city, the shadows of far-off places that he could have explored. His ears flattened against his skull.
"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."
"Rorikstead. I'm... I'm from Rorikstead."
The first cart in the train approached the tall gates of the wall. They slowly swung open, as though this road and the road forking off to the right of the cart were being poured into the mouth of the city. S'Rukoh studied the flowers bobbing further and further away from the cart in order to avoid acknowledging the thumping.
Somebody called from the red cat's left, and his ears snapped up to listen. "General Tullius, sir. Theheadsman is waiting."
S'Rukoh sank in his seat. He growled and gave a firm stomp to the innocent planks of the floor. "Of course the headsman is waiting." Thump thump thump thump. Jori's eyes shot open as General Tullius spoke, and the brown haired Nord called to the divines. "S'rendarr have mercy on this one."
"Mercy on you two? A thief and a…" Jori sighed and gave up as the cart rolled in through the gates, the shadow sliding over the group in a line. S'Rukoh gave Helgen a cursory look, identifying several houses and the curve of the wall off into the distance. Various buildings and huts lined the streets, gold roofs in the sunlight, drab gray walls in the morning fog. S'Rukoh couldn't focus on any of them. S'Rukoh, in fact, found it very difficult to focus on anything, his vision was blurred mess and he felt many things touching and speaking to him that weren't really there. For a moment he had four arms, and another, he had none. His tail went numb then felt on fire.
"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me." The brown haired man pleaded into the open air. He trembled and closed his eyes, and the Khajiit looked over the blond Nord's shoulder to see the horse that had headed the train pulled off into a road on the right, its balding rider conversing with several tall, golden Altmer in black robes.
"Look at him. General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like theThalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this." His tone was acidic and his brow knotted upward. As they passed a wide porch, his face softened and he looked around. "This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with the juniper berries mixed in." The cart passed a tall stone tower on the right, and a child's head popped out over the railing of a house to the left. "Funny. When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."
The child mumbled, and the father answered sharply for him to go inside. The cart began to slow, the first in the train coming to a stop at the wall at the side of the road. People milled about on their porches, and an angry, authoritative voice barked orders off near the tower they'd passed. Jori leaned back and twisted to look at the voice. "Hey, do I get out here, or what?"
"Get these prisoners out of the carts. Move it!" She was ignored. The young Nord turned back around and slumped in her seat.
"They can't do this to me! I'm one of them!"
"And I don't belong here either. We'll just have to have a talk with somebody once we get out of these carts." The brown haired man spoke quickly, perhaps even a little angrily, as their cart jostled into place next to the first.
"It's the end of the line. Let's not keep the gods waiting." The group filed out of the cart and stood in a gaggle before the captain and a soft-faced man with a paper. Well, the others filed out, S'Rukoh limply dropped to the ground and then scrambled up, his head and shoulders bobbing up at least a foot and a half about the rest of the crowd. The same was happening at the other cart, somebody in charge and somebody calling names. His ears pricked in that direction but he couldn't hear it. He watched the lips move on the person holding the list, saw the horse thief arguing with the soldier, Jori close behind him. They were the thin, wispy shadows attached to their blood. His head pounded with the sounds of excited and anxious hearts.
"Lokir, of Rorikstead,"
The horse thief cried out, bounced once, then sprinted up the road. S'Rukoh's pink eyes followed him, noticed the weak wobbly gait, noticed his lank hair, noticed his ragged gasp as an arrow pierced his side. Most of all, though, he noticed the spill of red blood on the cobblestones. He heard one of the thudding hearts slowly come to a stop. Jori's heartbeat slowly sank off to the left somewhere.
A voice swam into focus and forced the vampire to tear his eyes from the enticing sight. "You there, step forward." He did so, bare pawpads against stones worn smooth by use, over dirty, wagon-packed snow. It took him only two of his long strides to tower over the little suits of armor and the blood inside them. He heard only their hearts, and squinted as the one on the right spoke. "Who are you?"
A hoarse, gravelly voice cracked and crumbled out of his lips, deep and dark and, worst of all, hurting. "This one is S'Rukoh." His tail whipped twice before falling limp, and his shoulders slumped.
"Are you with one of the trade caravans, Khajiit? Your kind always seems to find trouble." The cathay-raht shifted uncomfortably at the notion, but failed to gather the breath needed to retort. "Captain, what should we do? He's not on the list."
"Forget the list. He goes to the block." A cold, hard voice spoke, and the cat's eyes slowly pulled upward to look at the face attached to the heartbeat.
"By your orders, captain." Beady eyes looked up at the Khajiit and took his attention. "I'm sorry. We'll make sure your remains are returned to Elsweyr. Follow the Captain, prisoner."
The cat grunted in affirmation and turned, following the din of heartbeats until he stood amongst them. There was a light mist in the square, and a block in the middle. Ulfric Stormcloak and a haggard, balding man stood with enmity in their shoulder-width-apart stances. The balding one had the prettiest armor out of the entire group of imperials. Jori stood close to him, lip quivering and tears in her eyes, but made no move to interrupt the two.
"Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero, but a hero doesn't use a power like the voice to murder his king and usurp his throne." The voice was just as aged and weathered as the man looked. It warbled at times, and seemed strong in others. "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace." His veiny hand rested on the hilt of his weapon. S'Rukoh mapped them, blue and winding, up his arm to where they escaped under his armor.
Something interrupted his gaze, a change in the air on his whiskers. It took him a sluggish moment to respond, looking up and about as an echo fell off the mountains, great like the roar of a bear but hollow. Hollow was the word that stuck in the cathay-raht's mind as the best way to describe it. He looked around in confusion as he noticed he wasn't the only one that heard it. There were mumbles and exclamations amongst the assembled prisoners, their captors, and the onlookers.
"It's nothing. Carry on." The Khajiit slowly put two and two together. That was General Tullius. Tullius stalked off to stand nearer to the tower at the other end of the square as the captain took charge, barking orders, before a softer voice spoke. His ears twitched in that direction, but the rest of his head didn't quite make it. It was a prayer, maybe. S'Rukoh liked prayers. His face knit up and tears welled in his eyes.
"As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the eight divines upon you-"
"For the love of Talos, let's get this overwith." A padded shoulder pushed against the cat's side and its body tromped past him, red head bobbing up and down… and right for the modest chopping block and basket on the ground. The din was astounding, and his eyes lingered on the stranger as they stood, staring at the block. Their shoulders trembled in the morning air, hot breath escaping to join the mist.
"Come on, I don't have all day." A crested helm on top of a pounding heartbeat approached the stormcloak, pushed at his back with their hand.
An even louder heartbeat succumbed to the push, and knelt over the block. Some terrible desire lurked in the vampire's mind, an ache to dash over with his aching legs, to throw himself on the soon-to-be corpse. He struggled in his bindings as the axe came down, silencing whatever words the cathay-raht had not been listening to. There were curses from the prisoners, cheering and jeering from the homes behind them. The captain seemed to notice S'Rukoh struggling and pointed him out from the crowd.
"Next, the cat!"
Another hollow sound overtook the gathering. Everybody looked around in confusion. He could hear their hearts hammering, even the ones that had been calm through the execution of the first stormcloak. More murmurs from the heartbeats, little trills and worried grunts and pounding pulses. He stumbled toward the corpse more than the block, only to have it kicked away from him by the captain. Two legion soldiers pushed the big cat back toward the block as he cried out in confusion. He did little to resist as they bent him over the block. His eyes snapped open as his cheek made contact with fresh blood. It frenzied him, and he roared as he turned his head and snapped his big teeth over the wooden block, tongue lapping at the fluid and getting only the slightest refreshment from it. The captain stomped hard on his head.
"What's wrong with you? Stay still!"
He lunged forward with his big body and lapped at the head in the basket before being pulled back and held in place by his ragged clothing. A dark, fluid something caught his eyes, off in the sky to the right of the tower. Powered on so little blood, it was merely a black mess, accompanied by another of those hollow sounds. It drew away, then reappeared at the top of the tower, where he could see it more than well.