Chapter 87: Uttering Hills Camp

[14th – 15th of Morning Star 4E 202]

My housecarls and I had spent several days exploring the city, meeting and talking to many people, and learning more about the living conditions here in and around Windhelm. We had attended a big banquet and spent most of one day in session with Jarl Ulfric and his advisors, and yesterday evening we had enjoyed dinner in the 'New Gnisis Cornerblub', the inn in the Grey Quarter. A male Bosmer name Malborn had claimed that the Thalmor pursued him, and he suspected a Khajiit with the caravan outside of the city to be a spy and assassin for them. My housecarls and I had decided to investigate after we had eaten, and when Ri'saad, the caravan leader, had called over J'datharr, the Khajiit who had traveled with them recently, he had attacked me without warning after I had mentioned Malborn՚s name.

Although I had expected some foul play, I had not been prepared for such a quick attack, and my reflexes, as usual, had quite some potential for improvement. Thus I received two nasty wounds, one on the right arm and one on the left leg, which almost made me drop to the ground; my light armor wasn't good enough to protect my limbs from high quality daggers. Hanni and Nanni were the first ones to help me, and J'datharr all of a sudden found himself under attack by two angry adolescent saber cats; seeing my getting attacked made them quite the furious beasts. Thus the Khajiit assassin did not get a chance to pay attention to my housecarls, and seconds later an arrow stuck in his chest. He was not dead yet, and we could hear him utter:

"Why struggle? The Thalmor will only send more like me."

Ri'saad had jumped up as well, and he now finished the fight with his sword. When he was done, he said:

"Those like this one give all Khajiit a bad name; he should not have come."

I was fully on the ground now, and Jordis had my head on her lap. At a different time and in a different environment, I might have enjoyed that position, but I felt very dizzy, and I heard Jordis talking:

"Antonius, quick, get a potion against poisoning from his pack."

Poisoning? What? My dizzy mind failed to make the connection, but seconds later she helped me to drink two potions, and I managed to get the content down into my stomach; a few minutes later I started to feel better.

"This one is so sorry" Ri'saad, the caravan leader, said. "Getting my friend injured by a traitor right in front of my tent cannot be excused."

When the potion had done its magic and I could speak again, I replied:

"Ri'saad, it's not your fault. You could not have known who and what that Khajiit really was."

I also turned to Jordis and thanked her for the quick help, and she just nodded. Apparently, she had immediately realized that the assassin's dagger had been poisoned. Yes, having my two housecarls around, in addition to the saber cats, had saved my life once again. We spent a few more minutes talking to the caravan leader and his team, and then we slowly walked back into the city. As I was exhausted and still did not feel too good, Jordis and Dinaria promised to head to the New Gnisis Cornerclub Inn and inform Malborn, while Antonius guided me back to the palace and to my room. Wuunferth, the court wizard, came to check on me, too, and when I got to sleep, I felt more or less healthy again.

After breakfast, we – Jordis, Antonius, my two saber cat cubs and I – talked about the plans for today. The Windhelm court wizard had visited me once more in the morning and declared me fit; a good night's sleep plus the potions and magic had managed to get me back to full health again, after wounds which would have me stay in a hospital for a week or two on Earth.

So we decided to head off towards that mysterious place called 'Uttering Hills Camp' today. Jorleif, the steward, had marked the location on my map, and Jordis estimated that we should be able to get there within about three hours. Once we had left the city and crossed the long bridge across the Yorgrim river, we turned right and followed the road along the stream. Naturally, everything was snow covered, but at least there was no snowstorm, and occasionally even the sun came out from behind the clouds a few times We kept our eyes open for potential danger, and behind a rock Antonius spotted something he wanted to check out. When he got closer, his eyes started to gleam and he told us:

"Will you look at that here. Do you know what that is?"

Following the direction of his finger pointing, I recognized an ore vein, but lacked the expertise to distinguish the various metal ores. Unfortunately, there was no magical pop up stating clearly what everything was, and without a reference I was lost. Sure, I might able able to recognize something like gold ore, but Skyrim had some special metal ores I was not familiar with; my geological and mining background was very limited. My housecarl helpfully explained:

"Unless I am mistaken, this is orichalcum ore, and we don't have much of it, if any, in Whiterun hold. A skilled smith can create Dwemer armor and weapons from that, and those are so much more durable than steel armor and weapons."

"It does not look like this vein is used much, right?"

"You are right – it appears like nobody cares around here."

Maybe that could be a valuable trade item? I stored that information for later, and we walked on, following the road close to the river. Contrary to the game, the river next to us, which originated in Lake Yorgrim and joined the White River just short of the Windhelm bridge, was not a tame creek just a few meters or so wide, but a real river with roaring rapids in some places, with the width varying between twenty and fifty meters; swimming across should have been possible, but cold and demanding. When we had passed the bridge leading towards the mill and continued on the south side of the river, I saw a couple of people with fishing rods sitting on the northern side, but I could not tell if they actually managed to catch some fish. Were fish actually able to live in water close to freezing? Probably yes, but I did not know which ones. On Earth, I had seen documentations on fauna and flora in the antarctic area and deep in the oceans, with the latter environment being at a constant four degrees, which was the temperature where water had its highest density. Maybe, at some later time, I might be able to find somebody to educate me on Skyrim fish variety?

Across from Anga's Mill we turned left, leaving the river behind us, and followed the side road into the hills. When we had turned into that road Jordis mentioned:

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that so many people seem to know about the place we are heading to? I mean, normally bandits try to hide at an unknown place and don't want to be found, but here, everybody seems to know that Uttering Hills Camp is a bandit location, right? Not only that, but people seem to be sure that whatever has been taken from them must be there."

"You are right, Jordis, this is very odd, and this has not escaped my attention at all. Maybe the bandits are sure that the Stormcloaks have better things to do but chasing them?"

"Or maybe it's a big trap" Antonius suggested. "Maybe they are luring adventurers out deliberately."

"Also possible, yes. But we are three capable warriors, and we are going to be fine, right?"

Anyway, my housecarl got me thinking, and I found that I did not like the topography; I asked:

"Jordis, how much further is the camp?"

"About quarter of an hour."

"Alright. Antonius, I want you to stay back and find your way to one of the sides here, away from the road and on top of some elevation. Jordis and I will walk slowly, and I want us covered just in case."

The Imperial nodded and vanished to the side, and Jordis and I walked south, but much slower than before. Soon we could see a few tents and a campfire in the distance, and it appeared that a couple of people were sitting around the fire. Now, I could have used my crossbow, but we did not know for sure if those people were bandits, so that we needed to find out first. Jordis, my two saber cats and I got closer under cover of some trees, but the people were not talking; they almost looked like they were asleep while sitting. That was unfortunate, but there were only two of them, and the cave entrance was at some distance, so nobody should be able to surprise us from there. After some waiting I stepped next to the campfire and offered a greeting, when I suddenly realized that the two shapes around the fire were not people at all, but some kind of straw puppets. Jordis had kept close to me, and I told her:

"Look out; that smells like a trap."

It turned out that I was right, indeed, but I had realized it too late. From both sides of the road bandits stepped out from wherever they had been hiding, and we suddenly saw ourselves surrounded by about a dozen of them. Most of them were clothed in fur armor, and they were all armed with swords; four had a bow, and all bows had arrows nocked and were now pointed at us.

If I had been prone to cursing, now would have been a time to use it, but instead I looked around to see if there was any way out. The leader told us:

"Surrender now, before our arrows find their targets!"

Of course we could not be sure if they'd really accept a surrender, but a fight would have been close to suicide. Even if Antonius was in position and could hit one or two archers, there were just too many enemies against us, and my own fighting skills were still not the best. Even a full power dragon shout would have only affected a third of the enemies and would not be enough to save us, according to my estimation. I quickly looked at Jordis, saw her shaking her head, and then I dropped the axe I had pulled on the ground. Hanni and Nanni had kept close to me, and I told them to run, which they eventually did. The bandit leader commanded that we not only drop our weapons, but also our armor, down to our smalls. We did not have a choice and complied; that left me in a loincloth and Jordis in her underwear. Some bandits stepped closer and bound our hands, like they had been bound by the Imperials in Helgen, in front of us, and we were marched into the cave.

The binds were, as I noticed, stronger than those in Helgen, and the ties had been done properly, so that I did not think I could easily shake them off. For now we had to go where they wanted us to go, and inside the cave we followed a long icy tunnel and passed a guard post. The tunnel ended in a room with a campfire and some food, and were were pushed through a door into an underground circular tower with stairs. A couple of levels down they unlocked a door which lead to a larger room, with five or six doors on one side. They unlocked and opened one of those doors and we were pushed in. The room was L-shaped, and with the door at one end, we were guided to the other one, which had some shackles attached to the wall. Rather than directly using those for our limbs, though, they tied some more ropes between our hands and the shackles, so that Jordis and I were now tied to the stone wall with thick ropes, with our hands still bound together and fixed above our heads. One of the bandits told us with a chuckle:

"Why don't you make yourselves comfortable. The boss will want to make sure that you're at your best when he starts the interrogation later, once he has eaten properly."

With those words the bandits left. Once they were gone, Jordis looked at me and said:

"I am sorry, my Thane, that I allowed us to get into this situation."

"It's not your fault, Jordis. They had a trap ready and we walked right into it. I guess that not all bandits are dumb, and I should have been more cautious."

"But I'm your housecarl and sworn to protect you! I should have done something!"

"Jordis, this may have been one of those situations where you could have done nothing; there were too many of them to fight, and none of us saw the trap; I have to admit that the bandits here are smarter than I had expected. Now let us see how to get out of here again."

"Get out of here? How?"

I was, as I had to admit, scared; after all, there was no 'reload' button, and I had to take what I got. Yes, I should have been more careful, but neither Jordis nor me had noticed the trap early enough. I had to focus to not let my emotions overwhelm me, but fortunately I had a vague plan at least. Since quite some time ago I had practiced to cast magic with my tail, and at first all I had been able to achieve was something akin to 'St. Elmo's Fire', some blueish aura. After diligent exercising I had made some progress, and eventually I had learned to cast low level shock and flame spells from the tip of my tail. They were weaker than those cast by my hands, but they also took less magicka. Now, with my arms stretched and my hands bound in a way to prevent any casting, my tail was free, and while it appeared to be very difficult to aim it at my own ropes, I could get the tip reasonably close to the ropes which bound Jordis hands to the wall shackles, also aided by the fact that Jordis was much smaller than I was.

"Do not be afraid, Jordis; I will try to burn your ropes!"

She looked at me with big eyes, and once I had aimed my tail properly, I focused on flames. It took some time, as always, but about ten seconds later small flames licked out and caught the ropes, at some distance to my housecarl՚s hands to be safe. As the flames were pretty tiny and barely reached the binds, it took some time, but I managed to weaken the ropes a lot. I needed a couple of breaks to wait for part of my magicka supply to refill, but eventually Jordis was able to pull with all of her weight, and the weakened rope ripped apart after the third attempt.

She smiled at me, looked around, and moved to a table in a corner. The table had some tools on it, including a knife, and while the Nord could not easily untie or cut her own hand binds, she cut me lose – she needed to step on a chair to reach the ropes fixing my hands – and managed to cut my binds, which allowed me to cut hers afterwards.

"Wow!" she said. "I did not know that you could do that!"

"I try not to advertise, if possible; let's keep that a secret, will you?"

"Of course, my Thane. But we are not out of here just yet."

"No, we are not, and according to what I heard, they locked the door when they left. Even if we found some lockpicks here, which I seriously doubt, I am ready bad in picking locks, so this is not an option. However, when they come back, we can hide behind the door, and we should be able to overwhelm them, specifically as they assume us to be tightly bound. Are you decent at unarmed combat?"

She smiled at me and nodded, and now we had to wait; I tried not to ogle my housecarl in her underwear too much. We were fortunate as the waiting time was neither too long nor too short; at least my magicka pool had a chance to restore almost fully. We heard voices from outside, the door was unlocked and opened, and two men and one woman walked ahead without looking back. Just before they could see into the corner where Jordis and I had been bound, I shot my best shock spell into the man who was the tallest and also looked strongest; he wore some metal armor, which hopefully amplified the effect. Jordis took the woman, and the third person turned around quickly. He tried to pull his sword, but I used my considerable body mass and pushed him into the stone wall, so that his head hit the wall and he lost consciousness. Jordis, who was still in her underwear, had her opponent under control, and the strong man I had attacked first was just about to recover from the shock spell. Jordis and I both got swords from the bandits on the ground, and the strong one found himself with two sword tips at his throat.

He raised his hands and asked:

"How did you manage to get rid of your binds? I was quite certain that they were strong enough, even for an oversized cat like you."

We were not going to tell him, and a few minutes later all three of the bandits were tied to the wall in a similar way like we had been bound; they were all Nords and none of them had a tail, so that should be good enough.

The suspected bandit boss had a key ring on him, which I took; once we had double checked that the three bandits were properly bound, we left the room and also locked the door behind us. The area we assumed to be a prison had a number of other doors, too, and I wondered:

"Jordis, do you think that they have more prisoners down here?"

She shrugged; I tried the keys on the next door and managed to unlock it, and right ahead of us there were two Dunmer, a male and a female. The male commented:

"They even have a Khajiit? Listen, we can't tell you anything more; you already know everything we do!"

"We are not here to torture you or so; we just escaped, and we want to help you!"

"Really?"

"Look, do you really think that we are walking around in our underwear just for fun?"

Jordis took the knife and cut their bonds, and they started to rub their hands and arms.

"Can you fight?"

"Of course we can fight. We are not professional warriors, but we can handle a sword if needed."

We had one sword to spare and handed that over, and I went to open the remaining doors. Half an hour later we had four Dunmer, two Bosmer, one Argonian and one Khajiit with us; they had all been caught by the bandits during the last two or three weeks, and some of them looked very weak. Now it was time to get out of here, and the main door into the area was wide open. Once we were in the circular tower, I listened for voices and could not hear any, so that we climbed the stairs. The middle level had another sturdy door, and I tried the key until I found a fitting one. Slowly opening the door I looked at the back of a person who checked something on the shelves. Without looking up that person said:

"Back already, boss? I am not done with counting yet; you will need to give me more time!"

I stepped closer and told him:

"Take all the time you need, my friend."

Now the person turned around, and while he gawked at me for a moment like I was a ghost I used the opportunity to swing my fist against his temple, which made him stagger back; Jordis had him bound in no time, using some spare ropes she had taken with her. We spend a few minutes looking around and looked into some of the chests, and I was happy to see that one of them had my armor and weapons and other belongings. Another one had Jordis' stuff, and most other prisoners also found their respective equipment and personal items, plus some weapons. Five minutes later we were properly equipped again, and almost all of us had some weapon.

The door at the top of the subterranean tower was closed, but not locked, and I thought that I heard some scratching from the other side. I had the others step back with their weapons ready; two of the Dunmer prepared their bows when I slowly opened the door. It was soon pushed against my body, and two off-white animals jumped on me. Hanni and Nanni had found me! Gladly I sat down and cuddled with them, with their tongues licking my face, and Jordis quickly explained that they were no wild creatures but mine, before anyone got the wrong idea and attacked them.

Now I reminded everybody that there were still many bandits around. We had defeated four of them downstairs, three in the dungeons and one in the storeroom, but I expected at least a dozen more around somewhere. As a matter of fact, somebody was sneaking in our direction from the entrance, and I wondered for a moment why a bandit would be sneaking in here, before I recognized Antoninus and called out to him.

"My Thane, Jordis! I am glad that I found you. Hanni and Nanni were going faster than I could safely follow."

"Was it difficult to get in?"

"No, not very much. I got the two bandits who had been standing guard outside, and I also captured one who was preparing a meal in the room with the campfire and the food. Your two furry girls helped a lot, though, and without them the two villains outside would have been a problem."

"Okay, you got three and we got four, so there's probably still about ten of them or even more around. Have an idea where they might be?"

"No, not really. I just came in, and I have never been in here before."

"So we need to search. Actually, those of you who are exhausted and not ready to fight, why don't you sit down around the campfire my housecarl mentioned and get something to eat; you might as well take advantage of the friendly service."

[Author's Notes: How do you like the idea of Balu being able to cast magic with his tail like this? I hope that I managed to provide some surprise here.]