Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Hi everyone. I could give you a laundry list of reasons it's been so long since I last posted, but my personal life isn't exactly why you're here. Thanks for the daily hits on my stories after so much idleness and even more for the handful of follows and faves that trickle in.
Over the following week, the artillery and mage duels continued. A ring of black ash began to stain Windhelm's ramparts. Stormcloak soldiers from the city quays were a continual headache. The river pilots knew their trade. That group of skillful people often made use of the last days before the river choked itself with ice to deliver swift, damaging raids anywhere from the falls below Morvunskar to the remote outpost near Yngol's Barrow. Admonisher, a tremendous steel-capped battering ram was carefully assembled in the 9th Legion's camp. Cohort after cohort was sent onto the bridge to clear its obstacles, often at a tremendous cost as the legionnaires came closer to the doors.
In a moment of fuming impatience, I overheard Legate Rikke grumbling, "By the time the bridge is clear, the river will be frozen solid."
It was shortly after the new year, and the river was indeed frozen over. It was that time in northern Skyrim where the pale, watery sun struggles halfway into the southern sky, only to give up and fall below the horizon late in the afternoon. The air was frigid and so dry that the skin on my lips and knuckles was rough and frost white apart from where seams of blood welled up through the cracks.
No one in the legions was fairing any better, apart from the 25th in Castle Morvunskar; and even for them fuel wood and coal were carefully rationed.
The morning I answered Tullius's summons and appeared in his tent, he was breaking ice in his bowl every time he dipped his razor.
"Quaestor, I've selected you for a very important assignment," The general spoke with a sardonic tone that put me on guard immediately. It was the tone he and his officers adopted when handing out orders to people who'd made their way onto one shit list or another. He tossed a rolled letter with a broken seal on the desk before me. I picked it up and read aloud:
"To the Worthy General Crassus Aslanius Tullius, by the Grace of His Imperial Majesty, Imperator of Skyrim, Commander of the Legions and Auxiliaries, Patrician of the Imperial City, long may…
…At any rate," I interrupted myself,
"It has come to Our attention that one Anuriel, Steward of Riften and East Empire Company Purchasing Agent has been carried by her rebel mistress, Jarl Laila Law-Giver, within the walls of Windhelm and surrounded by the traitors your legions so valiantly work to destroy.
"This upstanding Bosmer woman is in possession of information that would be dangerous to The Company and His Majesty, and useful to The Rebels should it be made public."
My face broke into a smile of gratitude. I read on,
"We request, and His Imperial Majesty's Dignity requires that you make every effort to rescue Anuriel and render her into the custody of The Company Agent who liaisons with your valorous legions.
Your guile and bravery are the toast of the Blue Palace, General.We have every faith that you keep the Empire's interests first in your mind and will accomplish this feat with your customary genius.
-Dictated on this 29thday of Evening Star, the 202ndyear of the 4thEra.
Thane Erikur of Haafingar, Baron of Solitude"
"Oh my gods! He refers to himself in the first person plural?" I laughed, "Has the Baron of Solitude expressed concern for any of the dozens of other EIC employees and managers in Windhelm?"
Tullius smiled back as far as his grim demeanor would permit, "Not a word. And what information could a middle-level agent of the EIC possibly have that would be damaging to the EIC and a boon to Ulfric's Rebellion?" Tullius wondered rhetorically.
"Good money is she's the only one in the city that knows the contents of the unmarked crates coming off the Summerset boats every few weeks. I suppose I'll have to break into the EIC's dockside offices, find out, and extract her if she's there," I replied.
Tullius straitened to receive my salute, "Get it done Quaestor. Happy hunting."
The Legion's battle-mages by the river were curiously idle that night, though the artillery's efforts were redoubled to keep the defenders from casting their own illumination on the frozen river. Far off to my left and high above, spells flashed and battle roared as elements of the 9th Skyrim made an unusually vigorous effort to clear the final obstacles from the bridge and capture one of its fortified arches.
We were all lightly armed. My housecarls and the Circle were devoid of their heavy plate armor and for once my only weapons were Revenant and my curved elven dagger. Behind us Hadvar and his troops were using light wooden shields and had shed the heavy metal layers of their armor. Their customary metal helmets were replaced by leather caps to save every pound. We crossed the inches-thick ice, cringing at every pop and groan beneath our feet and halting at every sight of water weeping to the surface. The frigid White River was as willing to kill us as the army within the city.
The wharf was chest height and covered in glistening frozen slime. A guard stood just above me, looking at the dazzling spectacle on the distant bridge. My warriors, Hadvar, and his century lined the piers. He nodded to me in the dark and I jumped as high as I could.
I caught the unfortunate guard about the waist. We fell together with a cry and landed in a heap with cracks in the ice spidering out around us. I rolled on top and shoved my moonstone knife under his chin, withdrew it and stabbed deep into his neck, withdrew again and kept stabbing until he went limp. All around the docks similar struggles ended. Farkas and Vilkas began boosting my housecarls and me up onto the docks with powerful arms.
We sprinted to the East Empire Company's office, behind one of the several well-spaced doors in the wall of Windhelm. To the right, Hadvar was whispering orders for his men to assemble a barricade across the narrow passage leading up to the city's only postern door.
I was not surprised to find the warehouse locked. Revenant hissed to life for the first time in months, only to do something as mundane as forcing a door. The searing white blade sheared through the wood and after a hard shove, did the same to the iron bar that secured the door. The door flew open under the impetus of my boot.
The guards within were barely worth the label. They were longshoremen with wooden clubs, trying to earn a few extra Septims by driving off petty thieves. Their loyalty stopped well short of protecting The Company's money from professional soldiers. The four Nords, a Redguard, and an Argonian packed into a small side office under Farkas's and Argis's malevolent looks.
I stalked through the shipping crates stacked in a grid throughout the modest warehouse beneath Windhelm's south wall. Toward the back, I found all I could hope for. In an improvised room made of crates with the shipping labels burned off, I found Anuriel crouched on a simple cot. Her childlike hands clutched a curved knife to her chest, as if an assassin would be deterred by a waiflike creature four and a half feet tall. Anguish made her face tremble as I held Revenant's tip to her face.
"You!" She screamed at me while driving her weapon deep into the panel of a crate, "Fucking you! That idiot Jarl drags me away from Riften to suffer among these cretins. I change beds every night to avoid Erikur's killers. Ulfric has noncombatants on half rations. And fucking you, the reason I was driven from Riften in the first place, shows up so the Empire can do what Erikur's thugs can't! Why can't someone do the world a favor and just fucking kill you?"
Her outburst spent, the sagged back against the crates of her wooden cell. Vilkas and I bound her unresisting arms and dragged her to her feet. Jordis and Iona began the task of dragging her out to the docks while Vilkas and I broke the lid off one of the vandalized crates to expose the moonstone weapons within. On a small desk near Anuriel's cot, we discovered a manifest detailing where her temporary walls were to be sent in the coming weeks.
I smiled over at Vilkas, "She'll squeal to Tullius if she wants anything less than a sentence for treason."
"Welcome back to victory Harbinger," he congratulated me.
The cries of alarm outside drew us out to witness the beginning of the defenders' counterattack. Men and women of the city rushed down the narrow passage to the quays. Some among them threw small, narrow-bladed axes at Hadvar's men. Shields splintered and more than one axe penetrated the leather caps that the legionaries wore that night. Hadvar's men threw their heavy spears in reply. Screams filled the dockside alleys. More and more soldiers rushed headlong down from the city to meet Hadvar's feeble barricade. Lydia and Aela were waiting for Vilkas and I, but the rest of my warriors were well on their way across the river.
Hadvar and his optio were scrambling to push their troops into a pair of boxes to repel the open order attacks and work to cover each other during their retreat across the ice. I advanced with my friends to join the fray, but looking back Hadvar spotted me.
"Get out of here Ieago! Finish your mission!" Hadvar ordered me above the yelling of the rebels.
He and I looked up to the city at the renewed shouting of the defenders, "Stormblade!" they cried as a tall man in plate that glittered in the torchlight made his way to the front of the growing press. A legionnaire caught apart from either square Hadvar was forming turned to face Ralof.
Ralof used the whole of his body in one fluid motion to smash the imperial soldier's shield far off to his right, preventing his sword-arm from coming into the action. Ralof stepped forward and lifted his gleaming ebony and quicksilver axe, slashing the man's face on the way. With a twist of his hips, Ralof brought the axe down again, hard into the legionnaire's neck. The man cringed, letting the leaf of his leather helmet take the blow, but Ralof's stroke was just too heavy. The legionnaire screamed as blood drenched his armor. Ralof punched with his shield arm to clear the dying man from his path.
Seeing his soldiers wavering and edging away from the Stormblade, Hadvar shouted a challenge to his friend and advanced on him with his angular blade hovering next to his shield.
Gods forgive me, I didn't stay. I made my way across the frozen river and waited with my friends and that despondent Bosmer.
Two small squares of legionaries made their way across the ice a few minutes later. They moved slowly in the moonlight with their shields facing all directions. A few Stormcloaks with better weapons than sense rushed up to the formations to hack at the wooden shields with great axes and two-handed swords, but the imperial soldiers stuck together and drove the rebels back.
"Hadvar?" I asked when they reached the south bank and I found the optio.
The orc woman just shook her head.
I felt a little sick. I looked back over the river where the Stormcloaks were cleaning up the mess left by the skirmish. The first friend I'd made in Skyrim just killed the man who cut my binds.
It was only the coldest consolation that morning when I dragged Anuriel in front of Tullius and Rikke and she squealed on Erikur like a stuck pig.