CHAPTER THREE

THE DESCENT

It was almost a week later that Rojack finally managed to get as far south as the southern reaches of Whiterun Hold, after nearly dying of a horrific combination of exhaustion, exposure, hunger, dehydration and the various hostile wild animals that the land of Skyrim harboured. It had gotten slightly easier once he'd gotten away from the snow-caked tundra of The Pale and into the warmer plains of Whiterun, but it was still hard – wolves had still looked at him as a tasty treat, and if he hadn't found that dead hunter with the padded warm clothes and the spear, he would have died at least three miles back.

It had taken a heavy toll on his body, but at last Rojack could see a small village nestled in the valley below him. If his memory of the map of Skyrim that he'd seen back in High Rock was correct, he must be nearing Falkreath Hold now. Or was it Morthal? He couldn't remember.

Descending with only just enough care to stop himself slipping and falling to his death, Rojack barrelled down the rocky slope towards the village. He knew in his heart that the Nord villagers would instantly band against him when they recognised a Breton, but he was close to giving up. Hungry, thirsty, exhausted and out of options, Rojack was willing to either persuade – or sign his own death warrant.

The village looked cosy – a small pier led out onto a river where a fisherman was busy with his rod and line; a lumber mill stood silent, waiting for its payload; an inn sat on the corner, its door flapping in the wind as people entered and exited; a smelter belched smoke into the sky next to the dark mouth of a mine, and two small rows of houses completed the quaint look of the place.

The fisherman was first to spot him. "Hello there!"

With a sinking feeling, Rojack lowered his hood and carried on towards the town. The fisherman pulled in a single fish, sighed and stood up, walking towards him.

"You okay there, friend? I- "

He stopped dead.

"You're a Breton. A lousy, bastard Breton!"

The fisherman immediately lunged for the large knife on his belt, and Rojack immediately brought the spear up horizontally to his body in a defensive position.

"Wait! Wait!" he shouted, and the murderous Nord stopped, toying with his knife. "I'm not here to fight. I'm not here to spy. I just want some shelter."

"Fuck off, you High Rock scum" hissed the fisherman, charging at him again. Rojack sidestepped and brought the spear up, shoving the Nord away. "I've known good men die fighting against your bloody kind!"

"I didn't kill them!" protested Rojack, dodging the knife again and batting away the fisherman with the blunt end of the spear. "Please! Just listen to me!"

"WHY?!" roared the other man, leaping at him, blade outstretched. Rojack threw himself sideways, rolling in the dirt as the man stabbed the air where he had been standing seconds before. "FUCKING WHY?!"

"Because I'm not here to fight!" gasped Rojack, trying to get up as the fisherman kicked him in the ribs. His abused body wasn't going to take much more.

"Wait!"

It was a female voice – Nord, definitely, as the fisherman immediately stopped and turned around. Rojack rolled over, spitting blood into the dirt.

"Anders, who is he?" asked the woman, gesturing towards Rojack.

"A fucking Breton spy, that's who he is!" spat Anders the fisherman, kicking Rojack again.

"Let him speak!" growled the woman. More people were beginning to gather around the commotion, emerging from the inn or the mine.

"I'm… not a spy…" huffed Rojack with difficulty, sitting up. "Escaped… Daggerfall… Captured…"

And with that, the boy passed out.

"Wait until he wakes up!"

"Why? Why are we doing this?"

"To give him a chance to explain!"

"He's a spy! He'll be full of lies!"

"Spies don't wander into villages half-dead and get beaten up by the populace! Wait until he wakes up and we can question him properly."

"Yeah… Question his neck with a large axe, I hope."

This cacophony of arguing voices echoed in Rojack's ears as he began to come around. Blearily, he tried moving his wrists, only to find that they were very securely tied to something.

"Well, shit" he muttered, causing the people doing the arguing to turn around and look at him.

"Well, look who's awake" snarled Anders, leaning over him. "Betrid here wants to hear you out, and you're damn lucky that she does, because I want your head on a fucking pike right now."

"Look, I'm not a spy! I escaped High Rock because the Daggerfall Covenant insisted that I enlist. I refused and they arrested me. Chucked me into that hell-hole iron mining camp with the other objectors. Well, I soon showed them that giving me something that even passed for a weapon was a bad idea" groaned Rojack, trying to sit up.

"What did you do?" asked Betrid nervously.

"I broke out using two pickaxes and a couple of shivs. A bucket of hot melted iron helps as well, especially when you throw it at people."

At the mention of this, Rojack's lower body spasmed, his legs clattering across the table.

"What's wrong?" asked Betrid again, a note of concern creeping into her voice.

"Sorry" muttered Rojack, grimacing. "I don't like talking about the escape… The guards screamed when I threw that iron over them. By the gods, did they scream…"

Rojack's leg jerked again, and he began to shiver uncontrollably.

"Killing people – bad people – isn't so bad for me. But causing pain… horrible pain… I can't stand it. It's why I broke out."

"And you expect us to just welcome you?" sneered Anders.

"No" said Rojack, trying again to sit up. "I'm willing to work for my keep, honestly. I just want to get out of the Covenant's grasp."

Betrid sighed. "I'll untie you. Come on."

"Betrid, what are you doing?!" said Anders, quickly drawing his knife again.

"For Shor's fucking sake, Anders, he's not a threat to anyone" growled Betrid, cutting the ropes around Rojack's wrists. "He looks and acts like an emaciated refugee. What spy ever tried those tactics?"

Several days later, despite having the suspicions of most of the villagers hanging around his neck like a millstone, Rojack was beginning to prove himself. The mine owner paid him less per kilogram of iron ore than the Nord miners, but it was still something, and by midday, he'd usually earned himself a good pocketful of coin.

After midday, he'd walk over to the woodcutting area and hack away at a tree he'd marked out. To the surprise of the beefy Nords, who couldn't believe that a tiny Breton could pack such strength, the tree fell after a few days, and the mill owner paid handsomely.

Finally, as the sun began to set and the miners and woodcutters retired to their homes for the night, Rojack would trot over to the inn, pay up his 15 gold for a hot meal and a room for the night, and relax with a net profit of roughly 5 gold a day. All in all, life was getting better. Some of the people were beginning to trust him more.

It was only a matter of time before the powers that be would decide to turn everything into shit.

It was a few days later, just after Rojack had come out of the mine. The sun was shining, the coin in his pocket was clanking, and that tree he'd been cutting for two days looked ready to topple. He was just heading over there when the first scream alerted him.

"Look!" cried the daughter of one of the mine workers, pointing upwards at the sun. A small dark dot had appeared on the surface, growing larger all the time, until the sun was entirely blotted out, shrouding the land in a reddish-brown darkness.

"What in Oblivion is this?" asked Anders, his eyes wide.

High above them, a dark hole had appeared in the sky; a purplish orb containing an opening of utter black. Something shifted inside the darkness, and suddenly, long dark hooks and chains shot from the opening, as if thrown by an enormous hand. The landing site of these hooks was not within sight of the villagers, although one did land in the forest, relatively close to the village.

"Do you feel that?" asked Rojack, instantly alert.

"Feel what?" asked Betrid.

Rojack immediately crouched down, touching his fingertips to the earth. "That shaking. It's very faint, but I can feel it."

"Me too" muttered Anders, touching the ground. "What the fuck are we going to do?"