13

There was nothing for us to do there, and no reason to stay any longer, so we left the office and headed out of the compound. As we exited the building, we could hear the faint echoes of clanging and pounding from inside the mine. Gaea looked around and merely shook her head in disgust.

By now, my stomach was rumbling painfully, since I had completely skipped breakfast and it was already past lunch. I was in a hurry to get back to the fort, so I could finally get something to eat. I was also anxious to talk to Carius, since I really hadn't had the opportunity to do that either.

"So," Gaea said casually, as if reading my mind. "Are you going to move out of the bunk room and move in with the fox permanently?"

"I don't know yet," I said with a chuckle. "I was thinking about it. I don't want to give him the wrong idea, though. I still intend to leave Solstheim in a few weeks. I'm not going to stay here and marry him or anything."

"Why not? That might be kind of fun. I could be your Maid of Honor."

"Yeah, and we could get that weasel Magius to be the Best Man."

Gaea laughed. "Well, I'm sure the men would enjoy a good wedding. It would give them the excuse to get roaring drunk again."

"Tell me about it," I said. "Everyone certainly had enough to drink last night."

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We didn't have anyone passed out in the hallways, or puking from the top of the walls."

"Now that would be entertaining."

We chatted for awhile longer, but the conversation died down as we walked deeper into the forest. We both kept a sharp eye out for wolves, bears, or anything else. Gaea walked a few paces in front of me, but I could have made the trip back to the fort on my own, since I had our tracks in the snow to guide me back.

We walked perhaps two miles through the wilderness before I spotted something and hissed at Gaea to get her attention. She stopped and looked back at me, her sword drawn. I pointed in the snow off to the right.

"Someone's been here," I said quietly. "There's footprints in the snow."

"I see them. Are they from a person?"

"Yeah, looks like three or four of them," I said, taking a long look at the jumbled footsteps. If I'd had a couple minutes to spare, I could have been able to discern exactly how many, and if they were men, women, or children. But I didn't want to waste time.

"Come on, let's keep going," Gaea said.

We hadn't walked fifty feet before I heard something out in the trees. I paused and was about to say something to Gaea, when suddenly, a high-pitched scream burst out from the trees maybe twenty yards away. I spun around, sword in hand, eyes scanning the woods.

Gaea backed up to get closer to me, her head whipping left and right. Suddenly a man jumped up from behind some bushes and leaped towards us, and one more nearby appeared as well. Gaea faced then and that's when I heard the distinctive wet thwap of a bow from behind us.

"Get down!" I shouted, hurling myself at Gaea.

An arrow whistled out of the trees far behind us and struck Gaea in the back of the leg right above her knee. She shrieked and went down, grabbing her leg with her free hand, trying to hold her sword up with the other.

I jumped up and raised my sword as the berserker came at us. He was a burly Nord with a scraggly beard and wearing nothing but fur pants and boots. His chest was bare, marked with splashes of blue paint. He screamed and swung a huge long sword in my direction.

I ducked backward and the sword swished right by me, the blade whipping just a few inches past my face. As soon I was free of the blade, I jumped forward and stabbed my sword directly into the berserker's stomach. His scream turned into a gurgle as he stared at me in shock, his legs going out from under him. He slipped free of my blade and collapsed to the ground, a fresh splatter of red marking the white snow.

The second berserker was bare-chested like the other, his long blonde hair tied with strips of cloth, his beard covered in snow and bits of ice. He stomped towards me and lashed out with his sword. I dodged the blade and swung back, our swords clashing with loud ringing noises, the cold blades cracking into each other. The berserker fought more conservatively, having witnessed the quick death of his companion, and I managed to gain ground on him quickly, countering his size and strength with my own speed and skill.

"Sasha!" Gaea cried.

I dared glance over my shoulder to see two more barbarians creep out of the trees, one of them with a bow slung over his shoulder. They advanced on Gaea, who pulled herself backward, her leg useless with the arrow jutting out of it, blood pooled on the ground underneath her. She lifted her sword desperately, looking at the two berserkers with a panicked expression.

I jumped forward, my sword a blur as the berserker tried to defend against me. I saw a terrified look in his wild eyes, a look of blind panic. His sword thrusts became more wild and off-balance as he tried to keep up. Whatever he had expected when he attacked us, it certainly was not someone like me.

I knocked his sword aside and swept sideways as he tried to swing down at me. My sword slashed across his stomach and he groaned once, his hands fumbling at his torso in a dying attempt to keep his intestines in place. He fell to his knees and then flopped face down, his sword falling from his bloody hands.

I turned and in one quick motion drew one of the knives from my belt. I hurled it through the air as hard as I could, and it flipped end over end before embedding itself right into the arm of one of the other barbarians. He howled in pain and grabbed the blade, with a stunned look on his dirty face. He yanked it out with a shout of pain, blood spilling down his bare arm, and tried to throw it back at me, but it fell into the snow.

Both of them stared at me indecisively and then back at Gaea, who had propped herself up against a tree and was holding up her sword with one hand, and gripping her bloody leg with the other. Her face looked pale from the blood loss. She was an easy target, but I was much more than they had bargained for, as their two dead companions could surely attest to.

They both came forward, coming in from different angles, trying to flank me. I was about to take my best shot at the first one when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked, thinking that a fifth berserker had somehow come up behind me, but it wasn't another barbarian.

It was a Nord with flowing blonde hair and leather armor: Reinhardt Red-Spear, the Nord that I had met outside the fort a few days before. He ran into the fray with a shout, his long sword swinging down at one of the berserkers. The two of them fought backwards, their swords clashing.

The other berserker, the one with the wounded arm, shouted at me and swung a mace. I danced backwards and he almost lost his balance, but he quickly regained his footing before I could jump in for a killing blow. He grimaced and shouted a garbled curse before launching into another attack. I deflected three mace strikes before the berserker over-extended again, swinging the mace too hard so he was momentarily off-balance.

I swung my sword up in a vertical thrust and cut through his wrist. His severed hand, still holding the mace, went sailing over my head, and the berserker screamed in pain, staring in shock at the spray of blood jetting from his wrist.

I stepped forward and buried the tip of my sword right into his heart. He gurgled once, and then he went limp and flopped over sideways.

In front of me, Reinhardt Red-Spear spun around and slashed his blade across his opponent's exposed stomach, and the berserker cried out as he died, his stomach sliced open. Reinhardt stopped and stared at me, his breath coming fast.

"It's good to see you again, Sasha," he said.

"Come on," I said, running over to Gaea.

She winced in agony, blood spilling freely down her leg and across the snow. She was breathing heavily, and her face was dotted with sweat from the exertion of pulling herself along the ground.

"Potions," she gasped. "In your pack."

I fumbled in my pack for the potions as Reinhardt knelt beside Gaea and placed his hands on her leg. She winced in pain again and he said gently, "Listen, you have to turn over and lie on your stomach so I can get a good look. It's going to be okay, I know what I'm doing."

Gaea did as she was told, moaning in pain as she rolled over. Reinhardt took out a knife and cut through the fabric of her pants to expose the wound. The arrow shaft was jammed deep into her leg, and blood seeped freely out, smearing all over his hands.

I handed him the potions. "Minor healing," I said.

"It will have to do," he muttered, and placed his hand on the arrow.

"You're going to pull it out?" I asked. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"We have to pull it out or it won't heal right," he said. "Listen, Gaea. I have to pull the arrow out. Okay? Just hold on tight, it will be over in just a second."

"What if it doesn't come out?" I asked.

"They don't use barbed arrows," he said. "Trust me. I've done this before. Now hold her leg down."

I did as I was told, and Reinhardt placed one hand on her thigh. And then with one quick jerk, he yanked the arrow out of her leg.

Gaea screamed in pain and thrashed, but we held her leg down. Blood spurted up and splashed across my hands. Reinhardt quickly poured one of the potions over her wound and placed the other into her hand.

"Here, drink this," he said. Then he took a rag from his own pack and wiped away most of the blood from her leg. He dabbled more of the healing potion onto her leg and the blood slowly dried up. The cut didn't heal right away, but at least the bleeding stopped.

I handed him the bandages from my pack and he wrapped them expertly around her leg, using strips of cloth from his own pouch to tie the bandages in place. Gaea panted for breath and laid there, exhausted. I leaned back and took a handful of snow to clean the blood off of my hands, while Reinhardt did the same. He examined his handiwork and nodded.

"It's good enough for now," he said, brushing loose strands of hair from his face. "Until we get back to the fort, anyway."

Together, we managed to get Gaea back onto her feet. She was unsteady and light-headed from the blood loss, but she stayed upright and was soon able to limp along, her arms over our shoulders. It was kind of awkward because Reinhardt was taller than me, so Gaea had to lean sideways, but there wasn't much else we could do.

"Good thing I got here," Reinhardt said. "Of course," he said, glancing back at the dead bodies, "It looks like you didn't need my help fighting them off."

"What were you doing out here anyway?" I asked, redirecting the conversation away from myself.

"I was following them," he said. "I found their prints in the snow this morning and I've been tracking them since. I heard you screaming and got here as fast as I could. What were the two of you doing so far from the fort?"

"Delivering a message to Raven Rock," I said.

Reinhardt nodded and seemed to accept that. "Well, like I said, it was a good thing I got here when I did."

"Yes," Gaea said tiredly, limping along with us. "I think I would have been stuck there alone while Sasha ran for help."

"That certainly was some impressive fighting back there," Reinhardt said, swinging the conversation back at me. "I didn't even see you kill the first one. I have to admit you surprised me a bit."

"Yeah, well I bet those barbarians were pretty surprised too."

"He's right, you know," Gaea said. "I know you can handle a sword, because I've watched you practice in the armory. But you fought those men back there like you knew what you were doing."

"I told you," I said, "My father was in the Fighter's Guild. I worked with him a few times, I've fought people before."

"You've killed before?" Reinhardt asked.

"Yes," I said testily. "But I'd rather not talk about it."

Reinhardt looked forward and nodded slightly to himself. As soon as we returned to the fort, I would have to have a little talk with Mr. Red-Spear and find out exactly what he knew, or what he thought he knew about me. He knew my real name, although how he knew that was an unsolved mystery. But just because he knew who I was, didn't mean he knew anything specific about me. There were surely false rumors about me floating around, and who knows what information had spread about me since I'd been in prison.

For the moment though, I was glad he kept quiet about it. The last thing I wanted was for Gaea, or anyone else at the fort for that matter, to learn about my past.