Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softowrks. Thanks for the kind words Dovahkiinrules. It's been a little bit, but I'm still active and turning over events in the next story. I hope the wait is worth it. I'm kind of proud of the next few chapters in this story.
Just two days later Aela and I stood next to Legate Rikke and Hadvar, watching General Tullius give the obligatory pump-up speech to the soldiers within hearing of his grizzled voice.
"You are the elite of Tamriel!" Tullius harangued in the steady rain. "I know that each of you will do your duty! You will take Riften the way you took Dawnstar! The way you took Falkreath! The way you took Whiterun! Follow your officers and protect your tent-mates! Legates, take them forward!"
Trumpets sounded the advance through the predawn downpour. Over the last days the artillery at Forelhost had punished the defenders whenever the tiniest break in the clouds permitted the handful of legion battle mages to aim their shots with accuracy. Most of the time however, visibility was terrible so the rocks fell indiscriminately into the city. Many buildings inside the walls were rubble.
Aela and I marched close together, somewhat apart from the other officers and soldiers that would begin the assault. Before us were teams of soldiers bearing wide ramps. Riften's walls were blessedly low, so Tullius and Rikke decided to try and repeat the use of ramps to simply go over the walls. The soldiers bearing the ramps were all volunteers. After anchoring the heavy wooden planks, they would rush up them and drop into the city. These men and women were the Forlorn Hope: a group of people to be first into the defended city. Any who survived the defenders' fury would be promoted one grade and would wear an iron laurel on their helmets for the rest of their careers. If any were lucky, they would open the heavy doors of the city to the rest of the 9th Legion. Otherwise, the Legion would follow the Forlorn Hope up the ramps.
"Whatever happens Aela, don't go in until the second wave," I told her in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the advancing cohorts and the jeering of the defenders.
"You are not going to try and leave me behind again! Not now!" bit back at me.
"Aela, even I can smell it. The army behind us is furious. Once they break through the resistance, there's going to be an atrocity! Any woman in the open without a uniform will be fair game."
"Whiterun was safe enough," she replied, growing angry.
"Whiterun didn't resist for almost a month while the legions squatted in the rain and withered with consumption. It still burned to the ground!"
Her lips curled back with her rising, "I can defend myself Ieago, I…"
"Not against three thousand men and women drunk on bloodlust! If the locals are very lucky, the legionaries will be killing each other over the plunder! You aren't going to be some prize for a screaming eighteen-year-old who's so drunk he stabbed his officer for you! So stay the fuck back!"
Her wordless, snarling reply needed no translation. I was about to continue the argument when the army around us began to bang their swords on their shields. The ramps thumped against the strangely quiet walls. Rikke tested the ramp with her foot before turning to the men and women around her, "The Dragonborn will show you the way! Now go! Take the city! Let them hear you roar!" She commanded.
My eyes were wide with shock at the news that I was being volunteered. Aela moved to go with me but, I pushed her back and ran up the ramp before I could hear her angry yells. The sound of my footsteps changed beneath me as I left the wooden planks and clomped on the stone wall. I met the defenders on the wall, hacked though them, and leapt blindly out into the city and fell down into a sea of crossed daggers and blue bears.
This is the most dangerous time for the Legion. The men and women of Titus Meade's armies are trained from the beginning of their careers to fight as part of a team. In many ways my training as a guard in Kvatch's militia left me better prepared for the first stage of a city assault. Here, just behind the walls of the city; where the Legion could only send over solders in handfuls, men and women could only fight as individuals. In such conditions, the Nord-dominated Stormcloak army could rule.
As a rule, the Nords are brilliant individual fighters. From childhood they are given heroes like Hrotti Blackblade and Talos Stormcrown to emulate. In close order fights against cohorts they tend to get in each other's way, but here they could take turns fighting legionaries isolated from their comrades. At the very least in these conditions, Nordic virtuosity is worth three legionaries.
So it often falls to auxiliaries and volunteers to go first. People who are unused to having others standing barely a foot away from either shoulder. People who aren't married to a javelin, a shield, and a one-handed sword.
So I grabbed shields and twisted arms, I kicked, I punched, I stabbed, and I hacked. The soldiers following me paired off and tried to join me or edged to the doors. The Stormcloaks hacked them down by the dozen. Soon I was trapped in a ring of spears. Revenant sang as she cut points or reached out to the eyes of the defenders around me, but inevitably we were pressed back to the city doors where the rest of the 9th Legion waited outside. Only five of the Forlorn Hope were standing by me with our backs pressed to the oak beams.
"Fix their spears!" I shouted.
The five men compiled and pushed like their lives depended on it. Pine spears snapped under the pressure as more and more Stormcloaks tried to shoulder in and heave on their weapons and end the first assault on the city.
I finally had time and space to Shout. I turned to the stubborn door and took a deep breath. The tarred beams splintered under the weight of Unrelenting Force, leaving me face to face with hundreds of shocked legionaries.
Centurions and Tribunes bellowed commands at the ranks. I saw spears come over shoulders and dove to the side as the word 'ocare' echoed through the leading cohorts. The massed soldiers followed the heavy javelins though the open doors. They met the waiting Stormcloaks with a roar. What followed was a bloodbath.
The rebel soldiers fell on the narrow column of legionaries advancing to meet them and ripped the outer ranks of the formation apart. Those unfortunate men and women became the bases of a bank of flesh that grew to waist height as the legionnaires and the Stormcloaks took turns falling dead. That first cohort-almost 600 people-was obliterated as the weight of the infantry behind pushed the soldiers forward and out over the morbid barriers. The fresh soldiers widened the breach paid for by the Forlorn Hope and the first cohort. Fanning out on either side of Riften's thoroughfare, they began to push the defenders back.
Paying dearly for every yard, the cohorts advanced to the narrow bridges that linked the market with the rest of the town. The Stormcloaks made their final stand there and for a long while checked the invaders; but it was clear that they knew they wouldn't be holding Riften. By the time the first legionnaires were hacked apart crossing the canal bridges, more half the remaining defenders were though the doors leading to the town docks.
From my vantage point, I saw a group of Riften's guards ringed tight around Jarl Law-Giver following the last few Stormcloak companies to the door. I lit Revenant again and tried to follow, but there was too much in my way.
The fighting was not yet over, but the Rape of Riften was already beginning. Every army does this when it takes a resisting city by force. It's only wrong when it's the enemy doing it. The Legion's pretty term for the phenomenon is 'letting slip the dogs of war.' The Stormcloaks, following Ysgramor's example call it 'crying havoc.' The Ayleids and the Chimer probably had fancy-sounding names for it. Whatever the term, it is flowery prose masking unadulterated cruelty. When havoc is cried and the dogs of war are loose inside the walls, nothing is safe or sacred. Even as I ran to chase down the fleeing Jarl, I heard screams and laughter coming from the large building adjacent to the south gate. Three legionnaires: a Dunmer, a Nord, and an Imperial dragged a young woman wailing into the street. A Nordic fist battered her into silence.
"Wuld!" I covered the space in an eye blink.
Revenant cut deep into dark elf as he worked with a dagger to cut the girl's nightclothes away. The Imperial lunged at me with a snarl, only for Revenant to flash into his neck. The Nord ran off to seek easier prey.
"Get back inside!" I commanded the beaten woman. She stared at me stupidly as ran and blood ran down her blackened face. She cringed away as I lifted her off the ground and pushed her hard toward her broken door. Small silhouettes within screamed at her to come home.
They were already out of sight and mind as I sought my next targets. In the market district, all the stores and smithies were broken open, some were burning. The laughter and screams punctuating the din suggested that the woman I rescued was one of the lucky ones. I'm sure in a few weeks many of Riften's comeliest would be making an unwelcome discovery. I walked toward the market bridges. Legionaries were already killing each other over the plunder and civilians scattered on the cobblestones.
I was about to rejoin the fray when a steel shield smashed into my back. I crawled out of the way to see a tightly ordered cohort pace into the Riften behind Legate Rikke. They beat their shields in time as they advanced. The smarter legionaries immediately dropped their plunder or disengaged. Those too drunk or stupid to break off were beaten and bound. I felt nothing for those men and women caught in their pillaging. By tomorrow they would be on crossed wood ringing the legions' camps. If they were lucky, they'd be cut down before they died. If Rikke was skilled, she would be able to spare the half the city from the horror that burst through the west gates.
I saw Hadvar and his troops entering Riften, I waved them to follow and began running down the path cleared by Rikke's cohort. I wanted to get that Bosmer bitch if I could.
My boots slapped on the paving stones as I made my way to the docks. Aela, Hadvar, and his soldiers followed. Stormcloak and Riften soldiers began to block our path. I lit Revenant and they parted in fear of the famous blade. The door to the docks nearest Mistveil Keep was clogged with barrels and guarded by Jarl Laila's personal guards. Aela sent an arrow through the eye slot of one helmet and Revenant snaked in to kill the other guard. Hadvar's powerful leg booted the obstacle aside and we continued our pursuit of the Jarl and her household.
Jarl Laila, her housecarl, and youngest son were pushing away from the dock in a boat packed with retreating Stormcloak soldiers. I could have given a shit about Laila, but wherever she went her steward was sure to follow. I wanted Anuriel. Anuriel's testimony would be enough to get Tullius and Rikke to let me back into Solitude and settle Erikur. I saw her tiny form among the tall men in Riften purple. Our eyes met across the water. I was hard to overlook with Revenant glowing in the early dawn light. She smiled and extended her fist at me with her index and little finger hooked up in an imitation of Clavicus Vile's horns.
I didn't bother responding and followed Hadvar and his soldiers back into the fray.
The chaos was over by midmorning. Apart from the west gates, and the larger warehouses where the legionaries returning to discipline were marshalled, most of Riften was a mess. A mix of legionnaires, civilians, and paroled Stormcloaks were occupied with clearing the debris of the siege from the streets. I was inside Mistveil Keep, observing as Laila's disowned son, Saerlund, was installed on his mother's vacant throne. Maven Blackbriar stood behind his new seat, having 'suggested' to the Imperial officers that she be the new Jarl's steward. The daunting matron had brought in a hulking beast of a man to act as the new Jarl's housecarl. The Jarl Saerlund repeatedly glanced up at the intimidating creature.
After Jarl Saerlund made a proclamation of support for the Empire, the officers present in the room came up to congratulate him on his new station in life, "Turn to Mjoll and Aerin," I whispered to him when my turn came. I felt greasy enough to be fit a certain stereotype that Nords enjoy applying to us Cyrodiils. The Empire may have restored Saerlund Lailasen to his inheritance, but we didn't do him any favors.
I swallowed hard. Now that the battle was over, I had to face Aela.
I hope to have more coming in the next week or so. In the meantime, drop some reviews and hammer the fave/follow buttons. They're a great motivation.