Chapter 76: More carts

[31st of Evening Star 4E 201 – 1st of Morning Star 4E 202]

Our action at Swindler's Den had been a full success. Not only had we been able to defeat Kematu and his Alik'r warriors/assassins together with their allied bandits and Silver Hand, but Aela and Athis had also bee able to retrieve another piece of Wuuthrad. Above and beyond that, we had also found a large amount of stolen goods and septims, and four of our group – Antonius, Lydia, Njada and Vilkas – had been sent to Whiterun to get back with a few carts, so that we could haul the loot away from here. We were going to try to return as many of the stolen gods back to the owners, aided by the Jarl՚s steward, but we rightfully expected to receive our fair share, specifically of the huge sum of septims.

Documents we had found in a safe in the cave suggested that there might be a group of bandit owned carts underway to pick up the large amount of stolen merchandise, likely to to bring the wares to another hold and see them to a fence. When I climbed onto the highest rock outside, I could actually see a dust cloud to the south, indicating movement by more than a few people walking. I watched for some more time, and after half an hour or so I was sure that a number of carts, more than just one or two, as it appeared, were slowly moving in our direction, and judged by their speed, they should be here within one or two hours; with the uneven terrain around, they sure had to go slow. Athis and Jordis were done with the skinning now, and we moved the meat into the cave. Once it was stored, we all sat together, and I reported what I had seen, inviting a discussion.

"So, you think it's some carts to transport the loot out of here?"

"Yes, I assume that Kematu thought that his business here was close to a conclusion, and he probably wanted the stuff in another hold or maybe even another province to sell to a fence. You know, the total value of everything we have found in here might be like fifty thousand septims or more, and even what you get from a fence is a lot of money."

Jordis whistled: "Fifty thousand is more than what you pay for a high level house in the best location in Solitude, even with furniture and decorations!"

"But, are those with the carts more bandits or just honest carriage drives who have been hired?"

"We can't know, but we need to be prepared for all options. It is probably safe to assume that the carts have some guards with them at least."

We decided to play it safe and had Aela waiting hidden on top of rocks on one side, and Fiona, Janina and Rayya were also hidden from view. Only Athis and Jordis got posted directly at the cave entrance, in plain visibility, while I had climbed back to the top of the small hill and got my crossbow ready.

Soon the carts started to arrive, and we saw five carts with two people on each one of them, a driver and a guard, as it appeared; the second cart in row had a third person on it, too, so that we had a total of eleven people approaching us. I was not sure how they should be greeted, but that was up to Jordis and Athis now. At first, I could hear friendly words, but all of a sudden two of the guards had their bows out and pointed at Jordis and Athis, asking them to surrender immediately. I could not see Athis' face from here, but imagined him smiling, while he replied:

"Guys, you do no think that we are alone here, right?"

Both Aela and I stood up and aimed our own weapons at the suspected bandits. I had not paid attention to the second cart, though; there was a mage in there, and all of a sudden a small green cloud rushed in my direction. This could not be good, and I dropped quickly, not fully able to evade the effect, though; I felt my body getting tired, and I tried my best to counteract what I suspected to be a paralysis spell.

Meanwhile, Aela had reacted quickly and sent one of her arrows against the mage, but he was able to protect himself with a powerful ward which also protected him from arrows, as it seemed. I was still a little bit dizzy, but I cast a fire ball at him, and when it was close to hitting, a bolt from my crossbow followed. The mage had focused on the fire and made the mistake to relax his ward, which probably took a lot of magicka, right afterwards, and that was when the bolt hit his shoulder. After doing that, I almost fainted, and it took a lot of effort to fight against the partial hit from the paralysis spell.

Once the other bandits had seen that their mage was down, they seemed to be less willing to fight on their own, and I sent Hanni and Nanni and Spirit out to further discourage them. A single guard decided to fight and needed to be killed with Rayya՚s and Janina՚s scimitars, but the others surrendered, and one by one we could now take them into custody. All of a sudden we had ten prisoners again, including the injured mage. One of them was willing to talk, and we learned that they had stopped for a few moments at a pond southwest of here, and they had been supposed to find some kind of sign there, telling them that everything was all right. They had not found the proper sign and known that something had happened, and they had expected to quickly overwhelm the two people at the entrance. Naturally, we had also searched the new prisoners, but as most of the others before, they had little of value on their bodies, and even their armor and weapons were of low quality. The mage was an exception; his robes were quite valuable, and he had a considerable amount of septims on him, too.

At least now we had five additional carts available to transport all of the wares back to Whiterun. Jordis took care of the horses, detached them from the carts and provided food for them, and the rest of us checked ourselves for injuries. I was still feeling dizzy from the spell which had almost hit me, Athis had a few minor injuries, and Nanni needed some healing, but that was it.

While I rested I thought about the recent events. We had been lucky during the encounter with the carts, as none of us had severe injuries and we had been able to overcome the drivers and guards easily. The mage had been a problem, though, and while I could be mistaken, it had looked like he had been able to stop an arrow with a ward. When I had played the game, I had usually neglected wards altogether; I had found it easier to evade incoming fireballs or ice spikes instead of trying to raise a ward quickly enough. However, I thought that wards only protected from magic and not from physical attacks. Either that was different here, or there was some special ward also deflecting arrows and such. Apparently this took a lot of magicka, and even a capable mage might not be able to keep it up for longer than a few seconds. It would be so great to find the time to visit the College of Winterhold and find out more about magic and magical effects! However, for the time being, I doubted that this would make it onto my short term agenda.

Meanwhile, my comrades had started to interrogate our new prisoners. We had five cart drives, one injured mage, and four guards; one of the guards had died as he had refused to surrender. The cart drivers were all male, and two of the guards were females; almost all of them were Nords. Aela and Athis ran the interrogations, and they were smart enough to talk to each person separately. Based on what we learned form the wagon drivers, they had been lured into their service and had also been threatened. Once they noticed that we had two Companions of Whiterun with us, they were convinced of our good intentions and willingly offered to work for us instead of the bandits, specifically after we promised that they'd get paid after arrival in Whiterun. That was helpful, as it implied that we'd have drivers at least for the five carts outside; in addition to that they also had to take care of the horses.

For the rest of the day and the next night we had to stand watches, as we had a number of prisoners to guard. They were all properly bound, but we needed to be careful nonetheless. In addition to that, we could not be fully sure about the loyalty of the cart drivers. Fortunately, Hanni and Nanni were a big help, and we could be sure that they'd alert the person on watch if something odd should happen, like wild animals or any more bandits approaching.

For the first part of the next day there was not much to do. I tried to find some time to talk to Janina, but she made herself rare, and I got a feeling that she was not particularly eager to spend much time with me, for whatever reason. Instead, I saw her training with Rayya a few times; the two Redguards were both very talented in dual wielding scimitars, as we had seen a few times before, and a couple of times I watched them from some distance.

Fiona was more available, and during late morning we found a nice spot on a rock outside, warmed by the sun, and talked about our former lives. I told her that I had been in her home area for vacation a few times, spending time in a nice place around one of the small scenic lakes in Kärnten, both for swimming and hiking. I mentioned:

"When I was younger, I mean younger in my old life, I spent many weeks in and around Heiligenblut, mostly in summer and early fall, but also once or twice in winter for skiing. I had a friend who also liked hill walking as much as I did, and we had a lot of fun together. Once we tried to get to as many of the hiking checkpoints as possible within ten days, you know, those where you could collect stamps to show that you were there, and once we had done that and showed our collection at the local tourist office to get our reward, the young lady there told us: 'Oh, now you are sure ready for some vacation.'"

Fiona laughed a little bit, and then she responded:

"Yes, I know Heiligenblut, and I was there once or twice, too. However, I always preferred the slightly flatter areas in Kärnten, like around the 'Wörther See' or the 'Ossiacher See'. I told you that I learned how to sail a small boat, and those lakes are really great for that. My aunt's house was in the northeastern part of Villach, not far from the southwestern edge of the 'Ossiacher See'; and she allowed me to take her small boat out occasionally, after I had properly learned how to handle it before. That had been one of the few positive highlights of my former life."

"Well, sailing isn't really my thing. I wonder, though; maybe, when your task is done and you have much time to relax and enjoy life, you may want to consider traveling to Cyrodiil or maybe even Elsweyr; they have a lot of coast and probably plenty of opportunities to sail a boat. You may be even get a chance to teach them a thing or two about how to properly build and operate such boat!"

"You think so, really? So, Cyrodiil is right south of Skyrim, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, and Elsweyr is further southwest, I think, with almost tropical climate."

"This is where the Khajiit are from, correct?"

"I believe so, yes."

The Bosmer closed her eyes for some time, and when she opened them again she mused:

"You know, that might really be something for me. Warmer weather, beach, swimming, sailing – at least something to dream about."

"You might even be able to make a business from it; you could offer short cruises on a sailboat and call it something like 'Dragonborn Cruises' or such. Maybe you will eventually have a few dragons as friends then and they can make a show around you, too. I assume that people will gladly pay to see that."

The petite wood elf laughed again and grinned. We talked a little bit more about this and that, mostly related to our former life. We both had some good and pleasant memories, for sure, but neither of us longed to be back. The petite Bosmer was still a little bit cautious, or maybe uneasy, around me and made sure to keep her distance, but we did have a similar background after all, and she had opened up a little bit. I was really happy to have a person I could openly talk to about my former life on Earth, and I assumed that Fiona also felt like this.

In mid afternoon another dust cloud was visible in the distance, and the time was about right for the trek we expected from Whiterun. We were on guard anyway, but relaxed when I could see Antonius himself driving the first cart. There were only two carts in total, with Lydia being on the second, and each of them had a hold guard next to them. Without the carts we had gained from the bandits, that would not have been enough by far; we'd need at least one cart for the new prisoners alone. The two housecarls were visibly surprised when they saw five other carts of various sizes parked around the cave, and Antonius asked, as soon as the dust had settled and we had exchanged greetings:

"Where did you manage to get five more carts from, boss?"

"Well, you see, the bandits were thinking ahead and making sure that we could get all of the goodies out."

The Imperial raised a brow, and I added:

"Seriously, they sent the carts to likely move the stuff off to another hold or even another province. Kematu must have assumed that his business here was almost concluded, and they could not have sent the carts at a better time. Now we have a few more prisoners, of course, but with seven carts in total I guess that we can use two for prisoners, unless we want to have them walking."

Lydia just shook her head, and she quickly went inside to see how her Thane was doing, while Antonius added:

"This is fortunate. It was not possible to organize more than those two carts on short notice, and we had been planing to do several trips, but now we should be able to cope with one trip."

Fiona had stayed in the cave, and Aela and she were still doing some sorting and cataloging.

We spent the next few hours loading the carts, and while one of them was going to take our five prisoners – we considered having them sitting on a cart and bound to be safer than having all of them walking – the other six were loaded with chests and barrels. Fortunately, some of the carts were large ones and drawn by two horses, and we managed to fit all of the loot, except for some of the least valuable items, before the daylight was gone. With all of the goodies outside, we had two people standing guard during the night, but nothing happened, and after a quick breakfast we started our trip back to Whiterun in the next morning.

Fortunately, there were enough of us around to not only drive the carts, but also have a few people guarding them and looking around for potential danger. Horses did not like my smell very much, and as I was more comfortable walking than riding in a cart, I just followed the trek at some distance, playing the role of rear guard. Hanni and Nanni gallivanted around as usual, as they always enjoyed being outside in the wilderness, and seeing them running around filled my heart with joy. In my previous life, I had never had any pets. I had liked dogs in particular, but I did not want to be bothered with having to walk them two or three times a day, and in a city the options you had were somewhat limited. Here, they could be in nature most of the time, and I did not really need to supervise them closely; soon they'd be big enough to be fully safe on their own. For Whiterun, though, I'd have to think about the future. I did want to keep this city as my residence for various reasons, and while I had free lodging at Jorrvaskr, this was not the best place for my cubs, not only because Jarl Balgruuf had hinted that he did not want to have grown saber cats in the city. If I had a choice, I'd have a house of my own, outside of the city walls, and my bedroom was going to be on the top floor, with big windows and a great view, somewhat similar to my attic room at Jorrvaskr. I'd really need to think about making this happen, and while I expected to be able to find a suitable plot of land, collecting the money to have a nice home built was an issue. Sure, I had a few thousand septims already, but that was not going to be enough by a large margin. My share from this adventure, though, should help a lot.

Assuming that Fiona did not want to have me around for next task – she had hinted in that direction – I might also want to talk to some people in Whiterun and find out ways to make additional money. For instance, Adrianne and her husband were always busy in their store and around the forge, but how did they get their supply of ore and other materials to work with? There were some ore veins around the city, but somebody would have to get busy and work hard to chop the ore – was ore chopped or cut or harvested? What was the proper term for that? – and transport it to Warmaiden՚s; that might be something I could help with, and my strength should be a benefit for that, too.

While walking behind the carts, I used the time to look around and enjoy being outside in nature again, compared to inside in caves and such. Sure, exploring could be fun, but the smell of nature, like the wet grass after rain, was so much better. Fortunately the wind blew from the side and moved all of the dust swirled up by the large wooden wheels away; otherwise walking behind the carts might not have been fun at all. Looking at those carts, I mused about the way they were built, and I was somewhat surprised to realize that the carts were not very sophisticated in construction. They had the normal four wheels, either all wooden or with a few metal parts, and were mostly pulled by two horses each, or even a single one for the smaller carts, but I could see that the horses struggled for those carts which were heavily loaded with various loot. The terrain was, for now at least, somewhat rugged, and the wooden axles in wooden bearings were likely not very easy to turn; also, the carts did not have even the most rudimentary suspension system. I had been an electrical engineer in my previous life, specializing in electronic circuit design and not mechanical stuff, but I could not help thinking about options to potentially improve the carts. Surely inflated rubber tires would not be easy to come up with, but maybe I should talk to some artisans and smiths in Whiterun to see what we could come up with? Maybe I could find somebody to work from the limited general ideas I might be able to suggest, or at least take them as inspiration?

With all of my thinking I had not paid much attention to the environment, but that changed quickly when Hanni and Nanni growled and warned me. From the right I saw a big saber cat approaching, and it did not really look like it was intimidated by our large party. Some of the horses started to get uneasy, and I was thinking about using my 'KAAN' shout, but Hanni and Nanni ran over to the adult saber cat and apparently played the 'small cute cub' card. This actually worked, and the adult saber cat started to pay attention to my cubs rather than to us, so that our group could pass safely. Only once we had gained some distance from the predator, Hanni and Nanni ran again and joined me, while the adult saber cat turned in another direction. We had almost reached the main road, and the last obstacle turned out to be the narrow gap between two hills, with the western one having a cave in it – 'Broken Fang Cave' as Lydia explained. Navigating the carts through this area was challenging, and Antonius told me that it had been easier with empty carts. However, after some sweating and several attempts we managed, and soon we were on the main road towards Whiterun.

Traveling with a group of fully loaded carts was slow and tedious, and we could to expect the horses to pull the carts with anything but a very slow pace, slower than my normal walking speed. Thus we decided to spend the night in Granite Hill; we parked the carts in a row at the side of the road, booked a few rooms, and organized guard duty. After all, we not only had lots of merchandise on the carts, but also prisoners to watch; fortunately, the town guards were willing to help with that, for a little bit of extra payment. We made sure that the horses were properly taken care of and well fed, and I volunteered for duty during the last two hours in the night, the time just before sunrise; I'd be awake at that time anyway, and during the current season the sun rose quite late. Yes, this real Skyrim had seasons and the time of sunrise and sunset varied with the seasons, as did temperature levels and such, too.

[Author's Notes: A review from Petrox encouraged me to bring some more engineering ideas to the story, and Balu thinking about the carts was inspired by that; let's see what he can do.]