14
It took us several hours to make it back to the fort. Walking at regular speed, it might have taken two hours, but it was slow going, trying to limp along with Gaea, stopping every couple hundred yards so she could catch her breath. Reinhardt checked her bandages several times, taking them off twice and re-wrapping her knee. The arrow wound had not stopped bleeding completely, but Reinhardt seemed confident that it would heal properly once we got some proper healing potions at the fort.
Gaea tried to keep in good spirits, despite the pain. All of us knew that if her leg did not heal properly, it could easily be the end of her career as a soldier in the Legion. If we didn't get some stronger healing potions or better medical attention fairly soon, her knee would never fully heal, and she would probably walk with a serious limp for the rest of her life.
So we went as fast as possible, while still trying to be careful and also be attentive to any more dangers in the woods.
"I wouldn't worry too much about wolves, though," Reinhardt said. "I think we left them with a pretty decent meal back there."
"Yeah," I said. "I suppose so."
"Do you feel guilty about killing them?" he asked, trying to sound casual about it.
"Why should she?" Gaea gasped, trying to walk with her good leg while we carried her.
"They were Nords," I answered. "They were my people. I mean, not my family or anything. But they were still Nords."
"But they attacked us," Gaea said. "They would have killed us without a second thought."
"Of course they would have. They were in battle-trance. And you were wearing your Imperial Legion armor, so they viewed us as enemies. I don't regret defending myself," I clarified. "I just wish that it hadn't been necessary. The battle-trance is an important part of our culture, but it also turns us into victims of our own culture."
"Well said," Reinhardt said with a nod.
By now, I had spent almost all day walking through the forest, and my stomach was growling loudly in protest. The short day had already ended, and the sun had set by the time we reached the fort, making the walk through the forest that much more dangerous. The sky turned a deep grayish blue and the brightest stars were already visible in the growing twilight.
Thankfully, the conversation had not turned back to my fighting skills. Reinhardt surely had his own thoughts on the matter, but I was more worried about what Gaea was thinking about me. Of course, I supposed that she had more important things on her mind at the moment.
Reinhardt stopped suddenly, to catch his breath. He inhaled the cold air deeply and made a strange face. "Do you smell that?" he asked.
I smelled the air and did notice a particular scent on the breeze.
"Smells like smoke," I said. "But not campfire smoke."
"Come on," Reinhardt said, walking forward again. Gaea was getting better at limping with one leg, but she still needed both of us to support her.
As we crested the next ridge, I saw Reinhardt staring hard into the woods ahead of us. I followed his gaze and made out a faint orange glow far beyond the line of trees. The smell of smoke, of burning, became much clearer as we got closer to the fort, and suddenly I had the urge to hurry. Looking through the trees at the hazy orange glow awakened long-forgotten memories in my mind, memories of my childhood.
Although the sky was dark, the area just beyond the edge of the forest seemed to glow brightly. The thick smell of smoke permeated the woods, getting thicker the farther we went. Finally, as we reached the clearing, we could see the flicker of huge flames appear through a choking haze of black smoke.
"By the Gods," Gaea whispered.
Reinhardt's face fell, his shoulders sagging. "Oh no ..."
Beyond the line of tall fir trees, Fort Frostmoth was aflame. Huge columns of smoke erupted from one of the corner towers, and fire swirled energetically along the side of the wall. We could almost feel the heat from over a hundred feet away, and I thought I could hear screaming from inside.
Reinhardt suddenly lowered himself to set Gaea down. "I'm sorry, but we have to –"
"Just go!" Gaea cried, waving us off. "I'll be fine! Go!"
Reinhardt ran off for the fort, with me following close on his heels. Both of us drew our swords as we ran, not knowing what to expect once we reached it. Despite my weariness after the long trip to and from Raven Rock, I felt suddenly energized as adrenaline flooded in my veins. My hair whipped behind me as I ran down the slope to the fort.
Part of the wall was demolished, now a pile of crumbled stone and mortar. I glimpsed one body, clad in Legion armor, slumped in the snow just beyond the wall. But I followed Reinhardt into the fort without slowing down.
The command office was fully engulfed in bright orange flames, so much so that the entire structure seemed like one huge swirling ball of fire. By contrast, the guards' quarters and the Imperial Cult offices seemed untouched, although more fires were burning here and there across the main courtyard. I felt the searing heat from the inferno and had to shield my face as I looked around the yard, my throat closing up with the penetrating smoke filling the air.
Bodies were strewn around, men in their armor, pierced with arrows or cut down with axes, their bodies lying where they had fallen. Again, memories of my childhood surged unwanted into my mind, visions of a Nord village where I had grown up, bodies of innocent women and children cut down, huts and homes burning to cinders. I pushed back the painful recollections and focused on the present. The bodies here were not of helpless civilians, they were the corpses of trained soldiers.
"Help us!" came a cry to our right. "For the love of the Gods, please!"
In the corner of the fort, in between the guards' quarters and the Cult offices, there were half a dozen people walking around in a daze, standing over more fallen bodies. Some were guards, but most of them were the regular staff and Cult members.
Standing at the front of the group was Liman, his white cook's uniform now splattered with blood, and stained with black ash and mud. His forearms were smeared with blood, and his face was etched in despair.
"Sasha!" he cried out, reaching for me. He grabbed my shoulders, as if unsure if I was real. "You're alive!"
Not wasting any time, Reinhardt immediately ran to the people who were lying on the ground. They were the wounded ones, and they writhed and groaned in pain. Reinhardt took charge and ordered one of the Cultists to fetch as many healing potions as he could find.
"They attacked us!" Liman said desperately. "No warning at all! I was in the kitchen and I just started hearing the soldiers shouting!" Tears streaked down his face, mixing with the ash to create black smudges under his eyes.
"Who attacked the fort?" I asked him, trying to keep him calm and failing at it.
"Barbarians!" Liman shouted. "They wore wolf skins, and they just ... they just attacked us all at once. There were so many of them ..."
"I need help here!" Reinhardt called out.
There were a dozen wounded people, and only one of them was not serious. The rest were all badly hurt, stabbed or slashed with swords or axes, or suffering burns and broken bones. I watched with amazement and new found respect as Reinhardt attended to the wounded, quickly assessing their injuries and deciding how to proceed. One of the Cultists returned with some healing potions and a few bandages and rags.
It was not going to be enough to heal all of them here, but thankfully, one of the Cultists was an amateur spellcaster and knew some restoration spells. His magic was used to stabilize the worst injuries while Reinhardt carefully rationed out the healing potions.
"Liman," I said. "Gaea is out there, just north of the fort. She's wounded though, so have a few people go and help her and bring her back here."
Liman seemed happy to be doing something, so he grabbed a few of the other survivors and went off to retrieve Gaea. Reinhardt directed the others to put out the smaller fires and keep an eye on the burning command office, to make sure the flames did not spread to the other buildings. The fire continued to burn, illuminating the entire fort in dangerous, flickering orange light.
We tried to get more information out of the other survivors, but none of them seemed to know much about the attack. Most of them had been inside when it happened, only to run outside and find half of the guards dead and the command office already burning. Only a few of them even saw the attackers, and like Liman, they described them as Nords or barbarians wearing wolf skins.
Sobbing, Liman told me that the barbarians had rushed into the guard building and killed both the young boy Tomas as well as the elderly woman Grilda. He sat on the ground and cried into his hands, unable to deal with the slaughter.
We could not help all of the wounded, as some were too badly hurt for our attempts at healing to be of any use. Although I did not see him do it, I suspected that Reinhardt withheld healing from the most badly wounded in order to focus his work on those he felt he could actually save. In his place, I think I would have done the same. Our meager healing supplies and Reinhardt's medical knowledge were not enough to save those with severe injuries and internal bleeding.
I let Reinhardt do his work, while I directed the survivors in their efforts to put out the fires and get supplies. We had to be extra cautious of the burning embers that drifted away from the inferno. If they landed on the other buildings it could spread the fire even more. The heat from the blaze was so overpowering that I took off my hooded jacket and my second pair of thick pants, so that I wore only my thin shirt and regular leather pants. Even then, I was dripping with sweat the whole time.
Eventually, the fire died down, as there was nothing left to burn. The huge command office was reduced to a stone foundation and some large wooden timbers in the middle of a mountain of smoldering ash. We were lucky enough to keep the flames and burning embers from spreading to the rest of the fort.
When it was all said and done, only sixteen people survived, not counting myself and Gaea. Four guards survived, but all were wounded, and the rest were Cult members and other Legion employees.
Our next task was to tend to all the dead bodies that were scattered around the entire fort, a job that no one wanted, but still had to be done. As soon as the thought occurred to me, I realized that in all the confusion and frantic work, I had not asked the most obvious question.
Perhaps my subconscious had deliberately forced the question from my mind, in order to help me work without distraction. But now that I was clear to think about it, I suddenly ran to Liman and grabbed his arm.
"Liman!" I shouted. "The Captain! Where is Captain Carius?"
Liman stared down at me, his face distraught, and merely shook his head. His arm feebly pointed at the remains of the command office.
"He was in there ..." he whispered. "In the office."
"No," I said, suddenly desperate. "No, he must have come out, he must have ..."
"I'm sorry, Sasha. But I think the Captain is dead."