Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Hi readers, thanks as always for the recent faves and follows. Knowing people are engaged enough in my writing is a tremendous motivation to keep this up. That being said, expect slow updates to be the norm until I have the next story in a decent state (This one being more than 60% done). I'm sorry to say it's still very much in a second draft: The bulk of it is down on paper, but it needs more work before all its pieces fit together.
A week later, I was thrilled to be back in armor again. Eorlund's masterwork of dragon's scale was a beautiful gift that I was loath to have left in the care of a nervous Legion quartermaster. The supplies I borrowed were returned and the familiar weight of my gear hung off my body.
"With their fancy banded armor scraping away, we'll hear legionnaires long before they can reach us, lad. And with all that polished metal, they shine through the leaves even in dim light," I overheard an experienced soldier say to a recruit on the other side of the boulder I crouched against.
I traded an amused glance with Hadvar. The dragon-stamped bracers and greaves I wore when on the Legion's business had been ground in mud to prevent just that eventuality. Hadvar and his century were only wearing the leather backing of their customary lorica and their shields were covered with wool blankets. We were a hundred or so dull brown and grey shapes drifting between trees.
We were shadowing the wagon train that Vulwulf Snow-Shod had gathered for the Stormcloak divisions camped in the Jerall Mountains. It was twenty wagons long. Each needed two horses. The crates and barrels were piled so high that the escorting men and women were obligated to walk at all times. I guessed that there was enough material in convoy to equip a thousand soldiers. Each wagon had two drivers, a spare horse, and an individual escort of four soldiers each. As they bedded down for the night, none of them were aware that a whole century was stalking their roadside camp. Even as I listened to the soldiers gossiping in the dark , the most silent of Hadvar's troopers, people like Farkas and me, were killing the rebel piquets outside the long line of campfires.
Hadvar spent the time rolling a small wooden whistle between his fingers. The caravan's escorts were being dutiful, but complacent. Nobody appeared willing to check on the piquets after a hard day's march. Eventually I began absently rubbing the red diamond etched into my bone pauldron. It took me a minute to realize what I was doing. I glanced over to Hadvar's black shape in the night. He looked back at me and Farkas, nodded once, and brought the whistle to his mouth.
I was vaulting over the large rock with Revenant in my hand before the shrill blast ended. Farkas was running around the barrier with his claymore ready. I leapt high and lit Revenant with a roar. A man in blue looked up from where he was seated on a stump honing his axe. He never had a chance.
I withdrew my shimmering blade and went to Farkas's side. Hadvar and his soldiers materialized in the light of the fires. The Stormcloaks fought hard, but their total surprise ended the skirmish before it began. At a second blast from Hadvar's whistle, some of Hadvar's men parted to open a route for the defeated soldiers to make their escape. Two men refused to leave.
"Get back here you craven bastards!" Vulwulf Snow-Shod shouted at the flying escorts. He and his son stood together with their backs against one of their carriages.
But the flying escorts didn't return. Some of Hadvar's soldiers formed a line a careful distance from the two civilians. Hadvar's optio looked to him for orders.
"Hold them there," Hadvar commanded, "Don't hurt them unless they force you."
He looked to the wagons, "Axes! I want the wheels and tongues broken before they come back!"
Half the wagons were ruined and many crates of weapons were consigned to a bonfire when I heard Farkas cock his head to the side and sniff the night air. I strained my own ears, but Hircine's gifts to me were faded since my rejection of Aela's blood.
Farkas got a fresh grip on his claymore and nodded slowly up the road. The leather of my gauntlet creaked around Revenant. Farkas let out a low growl while I strained my senses into the black beyond Hadvar's torches. I whispered the words to the Ironflesh spell.
I heard the tread of people moving quietly in the woods a long minute later. Hadvar and his men were still making their racket a few yards away. "Quaestor?" I called as casually as I could.
"Skyrim for the Nords!" Soldiers shouted as they burst from the tree line and ran hard down the road.
I lit Revenant and swept it down when the leading Stormcloak soldiers came close. My foe parried skillfully. I let my blade bounce off his to angle for a waist height stab, but wound up parrying around his thrust. I sidestepped and reversed my grip. Maneuvering my weightless blade was like twirling a baton. I struck out behind me and heard the warrior cry out as the tip found its way between the rings of his mail.
"Ieago, Farkas! Get back here!" Hadvar commanded. The closest of his troops were assembled in a shabby line next to Snow-Shod's ruined cart.
"Let's go brother!" I said after Farkas shoved his enemy off his feet and into the man coming up behind.
He and I had barely slid behind Hadvar's men when a familiar form emerged from the shadows.
"Ralof you traitor! I knew you would be here!" Hadvar shouted at the man commanding the rebel counterattack.
"The only traitor here is you Hadvar!" Ralof replied as his troops formed their shield wall before him.
"You don't have to do this!" Hadvar called out.
"Ready piles!" the optio called. The soldiers gripped the weighted javelins they carried strapped to the inward face of their shields. Stormcloak shields rattled tight together in reply while the men and women among them with two-handed weapons withdrew behind.
"You stopped being my friend the day you turned your back on Skyrim," Ralof replied. "Archers, unmask and loose!"
In reply his men parted their shields; allowing a second rank armed with bows to squeeze to the front, kneel, and draw.
The optio thundered at the Legionaries to throw their javelins. Missiles crossed each other in the thirty feet between their targets. A handful of soldiers in each line fell hard among the clamor of iron points hitting shields and armor.
I grabbed the shoulder of one of the men in front of me and pushed him aside, "Fas ru maar!" I belted out Odahviing's cry of fear at the Stormcloaks.
What would have been the slaughter of two companies of soldiers in the woods evaporated in an instant. Even Ralof's eyes glinted white with dread in the torchlight. He saw his men retreating, gave Hadvar one last evil look, and turned to begin corralling his panicked men.
The Legionaries turned to stare at me, awe in every face.
"Get back to work!" the optio shouted.
The remaining wagons were dismantled in silence. The attitude of the men and women around me, particularly of Farkas and Hadvar, cooled faster than the night around us. Over the days we had stalked the convoy together, the soldiers treated me with the respect due to the officer I was, but also with the welcoming attitude of a group meeting someone known for competence. Their avoidance of me and sullen silence was a jarring change. For lack of a better word "suspicion" best describes the looks they gave me. Even Hadvar, who had been a good colleague since I met him at Helgen, now held himself distant from me. As he supervised his century's work, he periodically shot me a sidelong glance and a tightlipped frown as if I had disappointed him somehow. When he thought my attention was elsewhere, I saw him pacing with short steps and a tightly clenched jaw. I glanced over at Farkas, who was keeping himself conspicuously between me and the largest number of Hadvar's men. The brooding sense of unwelcome and hostility grew unbearable. I caught Farkas's eye and inched my head toward the trees outside the reach of the flames.
"Farkas, what just happened?" I asked as soon as we were well away from the others.
The huge man turned to face me with arms crossed over his barrel-like chest, "Harbinger, never get in the way of another man's battle."
My jaw fell open, "What? As I recall there were almost forty people between Hadvar and Ralof. They weren't in the way of the grudge between those two?"
Farkas shook his head, "You don't get it. You stopped two men from having their battle. You stopped the new bloods from showing what they could do in front of their officers and the Dragonborn! You just showed those people that they don't matter. Their skills don't count. . ."
Farkas's mouth kept going for a second after his eloquence failed him, but his meaning was clear even if I didn't like it.
I felt my throat tighten and my mouth draw down, "Farkas, I saw two officers about to throw away their men to settle a score. If I ever do anything that irresponsible, the Circle has the right to throw me out of the Companions."
I could feel Farkas scowl down at me in the dark, "So we didn't come running for you at the Second Battle of Whiterun?"
The memories of that terrifying afternoon flickered to life in my mind. Against all good sense in the face of an advancing army, I'd dropped everything for Aela. The Companions had rushed to my defense almost as fast as my housecarls, risking death for one man's attachment. To a man and woman, I knew they'd do it again.
I came back to the present with Farkas still frowning at me with arms crossed in the dark, waiting for the lesion to sink in. "Shit," I admitted after a long pause.
Farkas nodded slowly, "You owe these people a debt of honor, Harbinger."
I rocked left in right on my feet, tapping the red diamond on my shoulder, "I'll talk to Hadvar," I said slowly, "But I don't think this is one I can make right."
Farkas's black silhouette relaxed, "They will forgive you, after a while, but you're going to have to work your ass off to get their respect again."
The weeks passed by and the pale green leaves of the Rift in spring became the dark green forest of summer. Far to the north, the Imperial navy intercepted East Empire Company ships bound for Windhelm. The smuggling ships became smaller and faster. Somehow Thane Erikur got richer as he evaded the brand of treason.
More centuries of the 77th Valenwood Legion slipped over the mountains from Whiterun and set up camps throughout the Rift. They struck at Stormcloak fortifications and interdicted their supply wagons. Fewer and fewer exotic weapons were seized. Quaestors like Hadvar and I led legionaries to their targets. By degrees Ulfric and his generals were obliged to send more and more soldiers from the forward camps to patrol the roads. With the instinct of a dragon, Tullius sensed weakness and pushed the rebel armies back.