Chapter Twenty-Six

Danders delivered me to the stable in one piece, as he promised. He lifted me into the cart and kissed me softly on the cheek, though I felt it was more to anger Mal then for me. As he was about to walk away, a small boy in ragged clothes ran up and handed him a note. He paid the boy a coin and opened up the parchment. Mal saw the look on his face and quickly ordered the driver to get the cart moving, but it was to no avail. Before the carriage could even reach the road, Danders jumped up into the seat next to me.

"Looks like you've got yourself a thief, General," Danders smiled at Mal. "I would tell your driver to move rather quickly, too."

Once we were across the long stone bridge and far from any guards, General Malpenix spoke for the first time that morning. "I believe you both have some questions to answer. For some reason I have a horrid suspicion that the two situations are connected."

"Aye, they are," Danders started, but Mal cut him off with a movement of his hand and looked at me for my explanation.

"The insurgent never showed up to the party. The only explanation is that they've been caught. Danders must have been figured out soon afterwards."

"Gods be damned," Mal whispered under his breath. "This isn't good. Driver, push the horses as hard as you can! We need to get back to the camp as quickly as possible!"

"You don't think…" I gasped.

Mal's hard eyes met mine and I knew his answer. The ride up the mountain felt as if it took days, but in reality it only took a fraction of the time of the ride down. We sat in quiet panic; Danders didn't even attempt to ease the tension. Fear caused every hair on my body to stand on end. Even men who looked suspiciously like bandits on the side of the road backed off away from our cart once they saw the fire in General Mal's eyes.

We could see the smoke when we reached the Silverfish River. The men at Fort Entius weren't at their posts. Though the driver was pushing his horses as hard as he could, they could only creep up the steep mountain. Halfway up, Mal's anxiety got the better of him and he jumped out of the cart and began running to the camp through the woods. I decided that even if my short legs weren't quicker than the cart, it would be better than the sitting and waiting so I followed suit with Danders's assistance.

The smoke clouded our view, but we wouldn't be able to see any of the camp until we were on top of it anyways. My pulse grew more frantic and my nerves became more of a jumble in my chest as we climbed the mountainside together. Then, finally, we surmounted it and stood at the edge of the Boethia Camp.

Smoke rose in pillars from a few burning tents. Injured and dying soldiers lay everywhere. The few that could walk were running from person to person in attempts to help those they could. Danders tried to clutch me to him in order to comfort me, but it was to no avail. I broke free from his grasp and went sprinting to the other side of the camp where the General's tent stood.

Part of it had been knocked it and even more had been ripped. I pulled back the tent flaps to see Mal's body hunched over in the floor. In his lap was Ormvard's limp body.

My friend. My protector.

"You damn Nord. You damn stupid Nord. Wake up, please. Wake up!" Mal cried.

With tears running down my face, I put a hand on Mal's shoulder in attempts to console him. He quickly brushed me off and continued to hold the Nord who was practically a brother to him. I numbly looked around the tent and noticed Lugrub for the first time. He was standing hunched with both hands on the large wooden table. One side of his face was covered with blood due to a huge gash and his armor was severely dented in several places. Rather than looking up at me or the sight of the two men on the floor, his eyes burned into a single piece of parchment on the large wooden table.

All the other documents were missing, presumably taken by the intruders. The map lay in ripped bits on the floor and all the markers scattered about. The piece of parchment had some blood splattered onto it and was held into the table by a bloody elven dagger. With stiff hands I removed the dagger and lifted the parchment.

To the leader of this pathetic rebellion,

We have caught your spies. We have destroyed your camp. Give up your cause before more men are killed. The War was fought twenty years ago. Your pathetic Emperor signed the White-Gold Concordant to keep you weak people safe and this is how you thank him? You deserve this fate.

This is your warning. If you do not disband then we will hunt down every single soldier of this 'White-Gold Rebellion' and slit their throats as easily as this Nord's.

Legate Korilina

"How did this happen?" Danders voice came from behind me. I had forgotten he was with us.

Lugrub ripped his eyes off the place the parchment had been and he weakly grunted, "I don't answer to you."

"Answer to me, then," General Malpenix demanded. I hesitantly looked back at him and found that he had draped a ragged blanket over our friend.

With another angry glance towards Danders and me, Lugrub answered, "They ambushed us during the night. They moved silently and carried to lights. Stone-Eye was in here waiting for you to return. They must have killed him first and then started with the rest of the camp. It was a massacre, General, and you should have been here to protect your men."

To my surprise, Danders spoke to Mal's defense, "You can't put the blame on him. The Thalmor caught a spy and tortured the camp location out of them. Your General was doing the best job he could."

"Stone-Eye wanted to go down to the city with the stinking elf. If the General hadn't been thinking with his dick then the Nord would still be alive."

"You shut your damn mouth, Orc!" I suddenly shout, pointing the bloody dagger I still had clenched in my hands at him.

"Emerald, stand down," General Mal ordered.

A sudden chill entered by body and I look back down at the bloody letter. I knew what I needed to do.

"I'm sorry, General," I began, "but you can't give me orders any more. I'm no longer your soldier."

"What does that mean," Mal asked carefully.

"It means that I'm leaving your service. It means that I'm leaving the Rebellion. I'm going to hunt down this Altmer bitch. I'm going to kill Legate Korilina."

"Leaving? That's treason, elf," Lugrub bellowed and began to reach for his blade. Before his hand even touched his hilt, Danders was behind him with a dagger to his throat and Mal had his sword point to his good cheek.

"Emerald," Mal said without taking his eyes off the Orc. "Is Legate Korilina the one responsible for this?"

I hadn't even considered that he hadn't had a chance to read the letter. I placed it in his free hand and he read over it.

"You will not be leaving my service. You will be doing a special mission for me. You and the thief will hunt down this woman. You will slit her throat with the same blade she used to murder Ormvard. Then, you will return to me carrying her head. Now come here." He laid his blade down on the table, trusting Lugrub to Danders. He opened his arms and pulled me in them. He gave me a long kiss goodbye, no longer caring that Lugrub would see. I hadn't realized a kiss could be so sad.

"Goodbye, my skeever."

Mal then picked up his blade so Danders could lower his. After exiting the tent, I dug through the wreck that had been my dwellings for a single night and recovered what I could of my things. Then, I went to the blacksmith's forge and recovered my repaired leather armor from his chest. We left the camp without another word to anyone and headed down the mountain on towards the Imperial City.

Emerald's story will continue in future Flormaers of Tamriel books!