It was nearing the end of that day, and finally the group had reached the foot of the mountain on horseback. Even though they were riding, the countless hours of being awake and emotionally draining work of riding had taken a lot out of them and they wanted to stop in the destroyed town of Ivarstead for shelter. Before they crossed the narrow raging river, they saw in the distance what looked like the forms of people; legionaries to be more precise.
After they had crossed the stone bridge, the sight of the legionaries grew clearer. They were spread out, searching through each abandoned building complex. What was strange to the Dragonborn was the fact that there were so many different races that donned the Imperial armor, and a lot of them had armor that was not in sync with each other; in other words it seemed like a highly disorganized force.
As their horses trotted slowly through the town, snorting, several of the supposed legionaries eyed them. This was until one of the Legionaries stopped in the way of the riders' path, legs spread wide and balancing on a long battle-axe. This legionary was an Orc, bottom buck teeth like the rest of his kiin, and most of his armor being logical to light infantry; but what was an orc doing at light infantry? And why was this light infantry-men carrying a two handed war-axe?
Hadvar leaned in to the Dragonborn from his mount and whispered soldier talk: "Is it me, or is it that these soldiers have a strange vibe to them? Are they from the fifth legion?"
"I don't think so," the Dragonborn said. They noticed more of these 'legionaries' emerged from the ruined buildings slowly and watched as they were passing by. The Dragonborn caught sight of one in particular, a woman with red war paint around her eyes and moving down her cheeks. "I don't think they are legionaries at all; look at that woman right there…" he said motioning to who he was talking about.
Hadvar saw her, and then he asked, "How many women do you know who are in the legion?"
"Only one, and that's Legate Rikke," the Dragonborn said. "Even worse, look what she's wearing: an Officer's helmet with light armor?"
"This is strange," Hadvar said. "And war paint? Is that even allowed in the Legion?"
"It isn't," the Dragonborn said, and then he spoke slightly louder to Jenassa and Erik behind him, "Be on guard." They halted their horses and they whinnied as soon as they were relatively close enough to the Orc that stood in their path with the war-axe. The horses stomped their feet, and the Dragonborn eyed the legionary down. "I'll speak to this man," he said, and he hopped off the left side of his horse. He then grabbed at his circular steel shield that was held at its handle by a hook on the saddle, and he adjusted it to fit in his hand as he walked closer to the Orc, but far away enough to speak so everyone could hear.
"Greetings, citizen of the Empire," the Orc grunted. The Dragonborn kept his shield beside him, but his hand rested on the handle of the imperial sword in his right sheathe.
"Evening, soldier," he said. "May I ask what your unit is doing here in the abandoned Ivarstead?"
"We are here to collect, uhh…, road taxes," the Orc said. "To continue on, you must pay the fee." The Dragonborn looked back at Hadvar, who then nodded his head slightly.
To the other two he turned and whispered what would be the Dragonborn's orders: "Dismount and form a perimeter, but do not draw weapons yet." They each began to do as he said, and the Dragonborn looked back to the Orc. He reached inside the collar of his shirt, and from its leather stings around his neck, he pulled out a necklace that was in the shape of the symbol of the Empire; a triangular like dragon, made of silver. It was standard for every legionary to have this as a mark of their service in the military, regardless in uniform or not.
He held the necklace up for the Orc to see and said, "Soldier, I'm a Legate in the fourth Legion: Skyrim, I do not recall Legionaries being authorized to collect road tax." The legionaries around them went silent for a moment, as the Dragonborn stuffed the necklace back into his collar. "Would you care to give me your name, rank and legion, soldier?"
"Lieutenant Mathul, eighth legion," the Orc replied.
"By lieutenant, do you mean Praefect?" the Dragonborn said.
"Uhh, yes sir, I mean Praefect Mathul of the eighth legion, sir," he replied, stuttering slightly. He was beginning to expose himself more to the obvious.
"That's funny," the Dragonborn said. "Last time I remembered, the Eighth legion is posted down south in Cyrodiil along the Valenwood border. What are soldiers in equipment that's not up to standard from the eighth legion doing all the way up here in Skyrim collecting tax they are not authorized to collect?"
The Dragonborn could hear rustles and light cackles of swords in sheathes. He looked around and saw that some of the fraud legionaries had gained a tighter hand on their swords, or were beginning to raise their two handed weapons in such a silent manor of nerves.
"Why do you do this?" He asked. "Bandits are probably better off dead." This seemed to have angered the Orc, and so he lifted the war axe and readied it in his hands to strike. The others around them drew their weapons as well, and the woman with the war paint lifted her hands and a magical aura appeared from her palms and a sizzling of frost could be heard. The group had drawn their weapons too, Erik and his Greatsword, Hadvar and his sword and shield, and Jenassa with her bow drawn back and an arrow trained on one.
"You have one chance to hand us over your loot," the Orc threatened. The Dragonborn with a straight face, unsheathed his sword but stood rather lazily in form.
"I don't negotiate with bandits, or frauds," he said.
Jenassa noticed the female ice mage with her hands ready to cast spikes, and she took her as the most prominent threat to them right now. Suddenly she adjusted quickly so the arrow was trained on her and she released. The arrow flew forward at a hundred miles per hour and struck the ice mage clean through the eye, the point protruding out the back of her head when she fell flat on the ground.
Then the engagement began; all the bandits in the legionary armor, now without a mage to back them up, leaped forward, jumping over fences and bursting out of doors. Jenassa expertly drew her shots and downed three more coming at her with extreme precision, nailing them clean through their skulls or dead in their necks. Hadvar engaged one with a critical shield bash, sending him backwards to the ground, and then blocked several more. Erik, with his brute Nord strength swung his sword over top like a rainbow and countered the incoming sword of another, then he swept the weapon underneath at his legs and tripping him to the ground; he then flung the giant weapon over top again and brought it down on the bandit beneath him, the blade cutting him clean in half in a mess of guts and spinal.
The Dragonborn, refraining from using his new-found power of the Thu'um, allowed the Orc to charge at him and swing the war-axe overhead; his mistake. He stepped once to the side, and the war-axe's blade struck the ground instead. This left room for him to drive his sword into the Orc's neck, to cut straight through the tendons and larynx; and that he did.
The moment was too fast for him to pull out his imperial sword, so instead he switched to the sword on his back sheath and drew it. It was a steel sword, longer than the Imperial one; for this he threw to the side his shield as it was how he fought with a longer sword.
Several more came at him, and he expertly dodged, swung, twirled his sword, blocked, and countered each one. The first, he drove the sword clean through the leather armor of his chest; the next, he had blocked flexibly enough to send the opponents sword back, and he spun around once like a dancer and used that as his memento to slash across the bandit's neck. Another, he swept at his legs, slicing through the tendons and bringing him to his knees; then he drove the sword through his back, the tip poking out his chest, and he ripped it out with full force.
As he finished slashing down one more, he could sense a presence charging behind him. He turned quickly and saw the face of another angry bandit. The Dragonborn lifted his sword to counter the attack, but the Bandit was stopped dead. Confused, the Dragonborn looked down to see the large end of a greatsword sticking out of his stomach, and then retracted back in. The Bandit dropped to his knees and then face down onto the floor, making way for the Dragonborn to see who thrusted the sword inside for the kill.
Surprisingly, nobody he had recognized. It was a woman in Iron Armor, a larger woman at that; probably a Nord. He could see blue war paint shaped like a razor going down the right side of her face; her hair was blonde and her exposed arms were rather toned for the size of a woman. Just what he thought, she wielded a great sword in her two hands, and a shield rested on her back.
Arminius would've thought of her as a bandit; but what bandit would kill another bandit of her own group. She, however, didn't have on any Imperial armor to act as an imposter; she couldn't have been a part of this group, but maybe another.
Regardless, Arminius' grip on his steel sword tightened, ready to receive an attack from her, though he doubted she would give him any. He eased while facing her in the next couple of seconds though; she did not have an expression any angry bandit part of a group being defeated would have. Instead, she caught a look at Arminius and then gave a sly reassuring smile before snapping past him to counter another enemy that came behind.
Arminius watched as she took this one down with skill, and then another, and another. He, however, after her third kill, was snapped out of his gaze with the yell of another bandit charging straight for him. He reacted with a simple stab through the bandit's chest, and he turned back to her.
Above the scuffle, he yelled: "Who might you be?" And he swapped away another attack from a battle axe.
She pulled her sword out of a body and answered: "I'm Mjoll! I thought you might need a hand!" Arminius held his blade downward and stabbed another bandit in the stomach and sliced sideways, creating a massive bleeding hole for intestines to drop out.
"We have it under control!"
Mjoll brought another to his knees and in one swipe, decapitated him. "What's your name?"
The Dragonborn fought one to his knees, and grabbed him by the throat; pulling out the hunting knife from his lower back sheathe, he flipped it downward in his grasp and roughly drove it through the bandits skull. "Arminius."
It seemed now that the sound of the scuffle has died down; Arminius looked around to see nothing but the dead bodies, the blood stained dirt, and his fellow comrades who had stayed alive. They had won this conflict. Arminius breathed heavily, relocating his blade back with its proper sheathe, and he rested his tense shoulders.
"Nice to meet you, Arminius," now that it was clearer to hear, the Dragonborn could tell that she had a very thick Nordic accent; a lot of tongue clicks to her words. He faced her, and noticed that she was splashed with dots of blood, which she was rubbing at to get off.
"Likewise, Mjoll," he said. "We could've handled these guys on our own, but thanks anyway." Mjoll had darted her head around until she had caught her focus on something, like some bandit that was wounded trying to hobble away with an arrow in his knee. She sprang after him, and with no effort at all, she caught him in a tackle to the ground. The bandit shrieked in fear as the large Nord lass turned him over on his back and caught a tight hold of his collar, pulling him close to her face.
"Where is it?" She interrogated.
"Where is what? I don't know what you're talking about…ahhh!" She threw a punch into his face.
"My sword! Where is Grimsever you cowardous Milk-Drinker?"
"Ehh! We took it away, to a fort!"
"What fort?" she eyed him closely.
With hesitance and a terrified stare, he answered: "Helgen." Mjoll stared down at him angrily, but sighed and in moments released hold of his collar, allowing for him to crawl into a stance and start limping away.
Arminius and the other three strolled up beside her kneeling form as they watched the bandit try to escape.
"He's a bandit, I would've killed him," Arminius said.
Suddenly, a bow string had squeezed and flew forward an arrow which struck the bandit in the back. The bandit threw his hands up, letting out a yell, and he splashed face first into mud. They each looked beside them to see that Jenassa just lowered her bow.
"Like you said, you would've killed him," she said. Arminius looked at her in disbelief for a few moments more; she wasn't the kind to shoot someone while they were retreating. Regardless, the threat had been dealt with, and the man she killed was a bandit. He nodded, and then looked back to Mjoll, who had gotten up to face them.
Suddenly, Hadvar piped in to introduce himself: "I'm Hadvar," he motioned to Jenassa. "That's Jenassa, Erik," he said, then Erik waved with a goofy smile to her. Hadvar patted Arminius on the shoulder; "This is Arminius, the Dragonborn."
"Dragonborn?" Mjoll stood up stiff. "Is that true? You're Dragonborn?"
How Arminius answered: he put his hand to her chest and she slowly backed off to the side, eyeing him as he stepped up to face a clearing. Once he was ready, he huffed in his chest, and spoke out loudly the words of Unrelenting Force.
"FUS ROH DAH!" With a strike of thunder, the great big aura shot forward from his mouth, expanding as it went. In its path it left a trail in the ground from which the force made contact with, and pushed away most things in the way; bodies went flailing and tore apart, a carriage was thrown and it forcefully rolled away, losing most of its parts. Arminius took clumsy steps back in shock, blinking while being supported by two of his friends by the shoulders.
"Are you okay?" Jenassa asked. Arminius covered his eye with his palm and cringed, attempting to hold back a headache.
"Yeah," he grogged, "Yeah, I'm fine; I'm just not used to this kind of power, is all."
"So you really are Dragonborn," Mjoll said, crossing her arms. "What need of the world for a Dragonborn at this day and age?" Arminius sniffed, and gently held back his two friends from his shoulders.
"Dragons," he answered. "My own kinsmen if you would like to say." He could hear Erik behind them give a small chuckle. Mjoll brought her hand up to her chin and slowly paced back and forth, thinking.
"So the stories are true...dragons have returned, Dragonborn has returned," Mjoll stopped again and faced him once more. "And fate of all rests on the shoulders of heroes."
"If you can consider two soldiers, a mercenary, and a beast slayer, heroes, then sure," Arminius said.
"We did slay a Dragon once, at Kynesgrove," Jenassa said. Mjoll's eyes widened in shock, and she leaned forward.
"You slayed the dragon at Kynesgrove?" She asked. "I heard about that Dragon sighting; they explained that it was frantic, just breathing fire everywhere on a hill."
"More like shouted fire," Arminius said.
"But it wasn't seen again," Mjoll said. "And you said you slayed it."
"Erik here had kind of the same reaction just before he joined us," Hadvar said.
"So you are on a journey to stop the dragons…would be an interesting tale to tell," Mjoll said.
"Again, Erik said the same thing," Hadvar said.
"It's a real burden," Arminius said. "And as you can see…" he lifted his arms to have her gander at the bloody mess of dead bandits around them. "Dragons are not the only threat to us." Hadvar stepped up and piped in, tapping his fingers to each word he said in a count off.
"Bandits, Thieves, Assassins, Thalmor…" he said, though funny enough, they only just come across bandits; but Arminius has no doubt that they would run into others out here.
"Giants, Trolls, werewolves, vampires…" Erik added, though silly to mention werewolves and vampires. Arminius thought of those creatures only as legends, but even before when sitting in an Imperial encampment he would hear howls at the dead of night. He would tell himself they were just wolves, but the howls had a chilling sound to them, far beyond any wolf he has listened to. As for vampires, he didn't believe in such a thing. What he did believe in was what he saw and fought hand to hand once in a tomb when he was searching for the Golden Claw.
Calmly, Arminius added that new threat himself; "Draugr…"
"Hmm," Mjoll nodded her head. "There was one thing that was my nemesis and that was thieves, but now it's bandits."
"Why the sudden change?" Arminius asked. Mjoll stepped off and knelt down to search the dead body of the bandit she decapitated.
"Well, after years of adventuring, I decided to settle down for good," she said. "Riften was the only option for me. Unfortunately, the city was plagued with corruption; the Thieves Guild and the Black-Briar family. I've fought to keep them at bay for years, but then the Imperials came along and stopped everything; they even saw me as a threat and forced me out of the city."
"You've got to be kidding me," Hadvar said.
"Under Governor Hardeen, they have complete control over all aspects of business there; I just hope that their negotiations with the Black-Briars don't end with Maven taking over."
"So you're banished from your own city…what have you been doing now?" Arminius asked. Mjoll pulled out a pouch of coins tied in at the top with a string and she stuffed it into a bag of her own.
"The next best thing I could do: bring justice outside of the city; as you can see, I've made a habit of fighting bandits to keep the roads safe. I've been doing this for many months, bringing justice to wherever is needed." Mjoll stood back up and faced them once more, but an awkward silence had fallen.
"You know," she said. "During my time in Riften, they called me the Lioness."
"Mjoll the Lioness, eh?" Hadvar said. "Suits you quite well seeing how you took care of those bandits."
"Bandits aren't as much a problem anymore, right? With Dragons about…" she said. "I have followed stories of certain villagers across the holds; and like you, I've been trying to figure out where these Dragons are coming from, and why they are returning."
"We believe it has something to do with Alduin; have you ever heard that name before," Arminius asked.
"Alduin?" Again, Mjoll brought her hand to her chin and began to think. In moments, she answered: "Yes, I have heard that name. My mother and father used to tell me stories when I was just a little girl. The Nordic God of Destruction, the eater of worlds, brings pain and suffering to Nirn so it can be reborn again, and he can do it once more."
"Then you understand how dire this situation could possibly be," Arminius said.
"If no one took action, then where would the justice be in the end of the world? But here you four are, taking action; yet, we're all stuck just fighting bandits who have turned a blind eye to the future."
"Are you imposing to join us?" Arminius said.
"Well, yes of course, but…"
"What is it?"
"I don't have my sword," she said. Confused, Arminius looked over her to see the handle of her greatsword; this was in his sight, yet she said she didn't have a sword.
"But you have one right there," Hadvar said, as though he had read Arminius' mind.
"No, I mean my real sword, the one that was stolen by bandit trash," she looked over to the body of the dead bandit she interrogated lying face down in the mud with an arrow sticking out of his back. "Thankfully, that one over there talked."
"What's important about this sword that needs to be recovered in place of your current weapon?" Arminius said.
"Have any of you ever wielded an enchanted sword?" They all shook their heads.
"Is that sword enchanted?"
"Frost Damage, it could freeze someone's wound once they are slashed with it; Grimsever is what it's been named."
"Arminius," Jenassa said to him. "The use of an enchanted sword could prove well for us on this mission."
"Indeed," Arminius nodded, and he turned his gaze back to Mjoll. "Where is this sword now?"
"It's been driven off to Helgen, the fort that was supposedly attacked by a Dragon."
"It was," Hadvar said. "Arminius and I were there when it happened."
"I suppose you're lucky to live another day then," Mjoll said. "Well, Bandits have made use for it as a headquarters. If I was to help you out, you must first help me out and get that sword back." Arminius looked to each of his comrades, who each gave him a nod of approval for this new task.
"Right, our destination is past that way anyhow," he said, and took a step. "We'll help you get your sword back, and then you will join us, right?"
Mjoll nodded: "You have my word; I want to see justice done."
"Let's not waste anytime then."