Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Happy Thanksgiving team. Warning: Domestic violence ahead. This chapter ain't for the kids.
Admonisher, the great battering ram had been completed weeks ago. The bridge to Windhelm's gates was under imperial control; though the defenders still snuck through its hidden tunnels like rats in their warren, biting wherever they could. The docks were a mess of broken boats and cracked ice. The Stormcloaks took every opportunity to send sorties out from that entrance. Only the harassed piquets and regular artillery barrages kept them in their walls. But our reinforcements were close: the 1st Imperial Legion's leading cohorts were in sight of the besieging camps after their campaign through Hjaalmarch and the Pale.
General Tullius and his legates poured over plans of the city; read report after report from spies; heard the opinions of the most experienced soldiers, mages, and engineers; and listened intently to messengers and sent them away with replies. Line by line the final order of battle was written down.
It was snowing hard the afternoon I was called to Tullius's tent. Most of the legates had returned to their legions and the other quaestors had been in and out of the praetorium all day. He and Legate Rikke stood in the tent. I came to attention and waited for my orders.
"At sunrise, after a half-hour bombardment, the 9th will open the assault on Windhelm," Tullius announced.
My stomach fluttered. This was the news that I and every other person in Skyrim had been waiting for. I nodded my understanding and waited silently for Tullius and Rikke to continue.
"You and your Voice have been, ah, conspicuous throughout the war," Rikke continued for the General, looking and sounding uncomfortable.
"To that end Quaestor, you will be required to wear an officer's uniform without your usual devices," Tullius said in a mild tone.
That stung, and I had every intention of painting a red diamond on my armor that very evening. There was no way in Oblivion that I would be a part of the assault without the badge of the Knights of the Nine on my sword-arm.
"You will also wear this through the whole battle," Rikke said, holding out a strip of cloth.
My eyes widened and a look of disgust coalesced on my face. My mind raced back to my first day in Skyrim, a disoriented man watching Tullius yelling at a gagged Ulfric Stormcloak. I accepted the gag slowly, I hated it even if I understood and agreed with the message: The deeds of the Empire speak for themselves.
"If it's any consolation," Tullius spoke again, glancing briefly at his second in command, "The Legate and I would like you to join us at the head of the 9th Skyrim. Your mission in the city will be to locate Brunwulf Free-Winter and bring him to the Palace of the Kings."
"And my cadre?" I asked.
"Only if they're willing. We're behind the Forlorn Hope, Quaestor. You're one of the few we're ordering in first, only volunteers will be permitted ahead of you. Hadvar's men have all done so already.
Some of the gag's sting faded in the face of the compliment these two people were paying me. Only the sting's venom was replaced by trembling, stomach-souring dread. I nodded my acceptance anyway. After Admonisher forced open the doors of Windhelm and was pushed off the bridge, I would be among the first people to enter the defended city. I would be one of less than one hundred people to spring the city's traps and soften the defenders for the following echelons to destroy.
The Forlorn Hope was not meant to survive.
The argument between Aela and me that night was one a long time coming.
"Gods damn you!" She screamed, her face paint muddied from tears of anger and hurt. I pulled my face away just in time to prevent her from leaving marks. "It's not right Ieago! Why do I get left behind? You accepted Lydia, Iona, and Jordis! Why not your wife?"
I shook my head and yelled back, "Because you are my wife!" The tears started to come down my face again, "Oh gods Aela, if we went in together and I outlived you, I wouldn't know what to do with myself!"
"How do you think I feel?" she demanded, "I don't want to go back to the way I was after Skjor!"
"Then don't make me go into battle terrified that I'll lose you to the arrow of some whelp who hasn't started shaving yet!"
"I'm going with you!" She said again for the hundredth time that night.
"To Oblivion you are!" I got angrier with the argument we'd been having for the past hour. "You will obey me in this," I was growling now the way I do at my enemies, "You will not join me behind the Forlorn Hope. Whatever happens to me, you will survive tomorrow. If I need to, Divines help me, I will make you pregnant, right the fuck now, to keep you out of the battle!"
The instant the words left my mouth I knew I'd gone too far. If I could have breathed them back in I would have. Aela's talon-like nails struck the side of my face so hard her fingers came away bloody. I don't understand what happened next. I didn't move my arm, it moved on its own, the motion so fast and easy. My open palm struck my wife's cheek squarely, hard enough that the clap of flesh could be heard in the surrounding tents.
I looked at my hand like it was a stranger. I looked to Aela's face, where the red mark of my fury remained. Betrayal ran rivers down her cheeks. The noise of the camp faded to a whisper as the magnitude of what I'd done set in. Before I could reach out to Aela, before I could speak; she was gone into the night.
I didn't sleep that night. Not with that look on Aela's face so fresh in my mind. I sat on a stool and scrubbed the metal pieces of my armor with a paste of vinegar and sand. In the darkness I found myself crying, by turns blaming Ulfric for picking the worst time to start a war. Blaming the Emperor for taking up Ulfric's thrown gauntlet. Blaming Aela's stubbornness, and my fears. Blaming the ancient imperatives that dictate the men must risk death while the women who love them must wait and pray.