"I thought we agreed that we would avoid each other in future," Siddgeir said to the man who stood in front of him.
"We agreed that I would not come looking for work," Krev said as he looked at the Jarl, and the man standing off to the side behind him, "and I am not. I have a task in mind, for which I need your help or, more accurately, the help of one of your associates." He spared a brief glance for the man standing behind Siddgeir as the word associates left his mouth.
Krev was out of options. Otherwise he would never have stooped so low as to ask the Jarl of Falkreath for his help. Hylf was long gone, while Frik's absence was a more recent thing. He had simply failed to appear at the appointed time and place, and no one knew what had happened to him. Krev did not know either, but he felt that all evidence pointed to the residents of Jorrvaskr in general, and a certain member of the Inner Circle in particular. It had certainly been Skjor that had warned Hylf that if he wished to continue to draw breath for any amount of time he should flee. And barely a week before he went missing Frik had mentioned that he thought he was being observed, and the general description he gave of the man following him had been a bald man of middling years, though he could not be certain that it was Skjor, and he had not tempted fate by confronting the man in order to find out.
Frik had been the only man left that Krev trusted with any task requiring either intelligence or loyalty, and it seemed that one of Frik's recent missions had brought him to the attention of the Companions. It was now time to pay them back for that attention, but Krev required the assistance of the vain, self absorbed man who slouched in his seat of office, his eyes fixed upon Krev when those eyes were not admiring one of the many expensive rings he wore.
Siddgeir had found himself new associates once it had become necessary for Krev and his men to cease those activities in Falkreath that had drawn too much attention from Soran and Hellina, and resulted in his relocation to The Pale. Nels, the leader of those new associates, was the silent man standing behind the Jarl of Falkreath. Krev made no attempt to hide his hatred for Nels, and the man with dirty blond hair and a dirty blond beard returned the favor. Krev had many faults, but buying kidnapped youths to fill the ranks of his maundering band was not one of them.
"You have the coin, I assume, to pay for my help; otherwise you would have spared yourself the journey," Jarl Siddgeir said, his right elbow still resting on the arm of his ornate chair, the better to display his collection of bejeweled rings.
Krev did not respond with words, choosing instead to remove a small gold filled purse from his satchel before tossing it to the seated Jarl.
"It must be a simple task," Siddgeir said as he hefted the weight of the purse in his hand.
"Quite simple," Krev answered before he began to explain what it was he was paying for.
The snow covered plain at the foot of the Shrine to Azura was dotted with more tents than could be easily counted. Off to the right, far in the distance, stood the College of Winterhold. It was not quite a sea of smaller tents that stood between their larger version and the structure that Eofel had informed Salama was much farther away than it appeared.
"You have been to the shrine?" Salama had asked Eofel as she packed for the journey.
"Sara, her sister Delphine, her father and I visited it once. We met High Priestess Aranea Ienith during a ceremony after the Archmage had recovered an artifact for her."
"What sort of artifact?" the Dunmer warrior asked as she packed extra warm socks and her warmest cloak. She had enough experience with the northern climes of Skyrim to know that she would need both, even in summer.
"She called it Azura's Star. He was seriously injured in the process of retrieving it, and it was given to him by the High Priestess as a reward for his service to the Queen of the Night Sky. He carries it still."
Salama had stopped her packing when the words Azura's Star were spoken and had not moved a muscle until Eofel had finished speaking. When Salama finally found her voice, she could only manage a whisper.
"Sara's father wields Azura's Star?" she asked, not quite believing that she had heard correctly, or that such a thing was even possible.
"Yes. Aranea said that Azura herself directed him to do so. He carries several items that were gifted to him by various Daedra. What is wrong, Salama? Are you well?"
A fair amount of color had fled the Dark Elf's face, as her eyes grew large.
"I must sit down for a moment," she replied, "I feel somewhat dizzy. Azura's Star. Gods. Can a mere mortal truly carry such a thing?"
"He carries it, that much I know. He also carries a sword that Meridia recently gave him for services rendered to her. He wields the Staff of Magnus, which he used to close the magical anomalies and end the danger posed by the Eye of Magnus, a threat that would have destroyed the College but for his intersession. It was after that when he became Archmage. He is very powerful, and if any man born to mortal woman can carry such things, it is he."
Salama had found no one able to confirm Eofel's fantastical tale until Aranea Ienith herself had done so. The High Priestess of Azura had placed the repaired, purged star into his hands personally; and she had had a clear, though somewhat distant, view of the College as it radiated light and sound during the existential threat posed by that questionable Eye, though it had taken some time for her to learn what actually unfolded there.
Those were not the only far fetched tales Salama had heard regarding the Archmage.
"He captured a dragon in Dragonsreach, and then released it, only to climb upon its back and ride off to what we all believed was his doom," Irileth, Housecarl to Jarl Balgruuf The Greater, stated plainly after they had met her on their ride north and she had been invited by Nora to join their party. They had collected a wagon in Heljarchen, which had made their horses quite happy once the bulk of their belongings had been transferred into it, to keep the large tent, as well as its poles, ropes, stakes, and assorted bits and pieces, company.
"Never," Salama had replied skeptically, and a bit too forcefully.
"I was present for both its capture and its release. I felt its breath upon me, and when it turned and looked at me I thought that its face would be the last thing I saw before taking my place in Necrom," Irileth answered, seeming to pay no mind to Salama's irreverent tone as her mind went back to that eventful day.
"The giant near our home took offense to one of our chickens, and chased it for the better part of an hour a short distance from our house," Nora added, "I drew my sword, said my last prayers, and prepared to die defending my Thane and his property. But for the Thane himself, and his order to stand down and allow the two combatants to settle their differences themselves, I would be no more than a small container of ash in my ancestral tomb."
The Housecarl's story lightened the mood of the group as they continued to travel north. Now, several days later, the holiday festivities nearly concluded, their medium sized tent, filled with six women and one man, was more subdued than it had been in days past. Theirs was the only tent large enough to host the high priestess, and they had done so twice. Aranea was a northerner, and spoke the Dunmer high speech with the distinctive cadence of the west country, which Beylan had found so enchanting that his wife's elbow found his unprotected ribs more than once to free him from the priestess's spell. Some of the smaller groups, those that had the farthest to travel in returning home, had already departed. Their own departure would commence a short time after sunrise tomorrow when the tent stakes were pulled up, the poles lowered, and the tent carefully folded and placed in the cart. Until then they remained a community of Dark Elves, though not a uniform community by any means. Variations in height, weight, ear shape, skin color, and any other feature were just as numerous in the Dunmer as they were in Nord, or Imperial, or Redguard, though the Nords in Eastmarch liked to group all Dunmer together and claim that they could not tell one from another, at least those Nords that spit their vile prejudice at the Dark Elves who lived in the Grey Quarter. Salama had expected some of those Nords to appear and cause trouble during the celebration, but no such disturbance materialized.
"Like all cowards and bullies, they are very brave when they have the advantage of numbers," Suvaris Atheron, a woman in attendance who was a member of the Eastmarch Rangers, and who lived in Windhelm, explained as she turned in a full circle to take in the tents, and the Dunmer men and women that numbered above one-hundred, "they would not dream of appearing here, not now. They will wait until we are scattered again before showing their faces."
"If I had my way, they would wait until the sun burned itself out," Nora said with some emotion.
"Why do you speak so?" Cruith asked her, "You are Housecarl to a man who is too beautiful for words, and you live in his house with his son who is only slightly less so. No one in your household has a prejudiced bone in their body, especially not that young man that looks at you so longingly."
Nora had begun to blush at the mention of Aric, and it had only grown worse when Cruith mentioned Samuel.
"You have turned a most unhealthy color," Salama said with a friendly laugh, "perhaps you should place your head between your knees?"
"You are one to talk," Cruith said to Salama with her own laugh, "I see how you and Terek look at each other and how you act when you think no one is watching. It is positively scandalous."
"What can be the reason for this level of noise?" Aranea asked as she appeared in the tent opening in response to the amount of laughter emanating from within, "how can so few people make such a racket?"
It took almost a minute before anyone could regain enough speech to answer her.
The large dog, which still did not have a name, had simply wandered into their village and adopted them. His dark eyes, when they could be seen at all past their shroud of fur that had at one time most probably been two shades lighter than the gray and brown coat that still retained too much dirt, were intelligent, and missed nothing. In the month since his arrival he had been bathed three times - bathed, brushed, de-matted and de-brambled, his skin and fur conditioned with a mixture of ground aloe leaf, rosemary and oatmeal. Due to his loving nature there had been no shortage of volunteers to deliver those baths, which was fortunate because of the effort required, and the fact that at the end of the process the groomer was just as soaking wet as the dog.
At the moment Dog was fast asleep, his huge form taking up a portion of the porch that was his preferred spot for napping, his paws twitching occasionally as he dreamed of chasing some imaginary prey or another across The Pale. The rain had finally stopped, and in the intervening days the roads had dried, the layer of mud transformed to a layer of dirt, ultimately to become a layer of dust once the hot summer months and the regular traffic of wheels, hooves and feet did their work. The sounds of hammer and saw and raised voices alerted anyone in the vicinity that the Silver Hand's small village was once again expanding.
"The last of the tents will disappear soon," Soran said as he watched the progress. Three more tree stumps lay in a disordered stack a short distance away.
"We will need to enlarge the stables again," Hellina said from her position on the covered porch of their home, "and we should decide once and for all what to do about Krev."
They had discussed that subject several times already. Hellina was of the mind that since Krev had taken himself and his men away without consultation or permission they owed him nothing, especially not the effort it would take searching for and locating him. Soran felt otherwise.
"I do not like unleashing such a pestilence upon Skyrim without knowing where it resides so that it may be cut out if it grows cancerous."
"Then alert the Jarls to be on the look out for a band of disreputable, ill equipped men who are up to no good. They will add your warning to the growing pile. They know how to deal with bands such as Krev's. So do the Empire and the Stormcloaks."
"But they are not Krev's band, they are mine; Dyus struck that nail squarely on its head when he reminded me of that. Any harm they do will be upon my head."
"I do not believe that is true. Krev's sins do not transfer to you simply because he and his men are theoretically under your command. You know full well that they follow no one's orders besides Krev's. But if it concerns you so much, then you may order us to search, but you will have to send out sufficient men that they will not fall prey to Krev's band, and we do not have twenty men to spare."
"I had not thought of that," Soran replied after a moment as he scratched his unshaven chin, "he would not miss an opportunity to cause us pain, and killing a small search party would serve his purpose perfectly."
"You could ask Falco to request aid from Castle Dour," Hellina suggested, "now that he has let that Imperial cat out of its bag he has given us access to a useful ally, at least until the Empire discovers that we have turned their spy around and now aim it back at them."
"I still cannot believe that he simply marched in here and confessed. It was clear that he feared the worst while he did so; he was sweating as if he was about to place his head upon a block. But he did it anyway. It took a fair amount of courage."
Hellina was bent almost double over a small tub, her shoulders bare as she rung as much water out of her hair as she could before she began to dry her long locks with a soft towel. Her voice when she spoke was slightly muffled by the absorbent material that encircled her head.
"He is brave, I knew that already. So did you."
"That is a different sort of bravery," Soran said before he knelt behind her, took custody of the towel, and continued to dry Hellina's hair before proceeding to her back and shoulders.
"True," she replied as his hands worked their magic on her skin and the muscles beneath them.
"There was a thought forming in my mind, but your hands have erased it," she said after a moment of silence, "which was your intention all along I believe."
"You are too suspicious," he answered quietly as he brought his lips down to caress her bare neck, "what reason would I have to do such a thing?"
"You intend to push me off course," she answered as her hand traveled behind her until it found the back of his head, "but for my life I cannot remember which course that was."
"Perhaps I merely alter your course to one that is more pleasant?" he asked playfully as his lips continued to explore the skin on her back and shoulders.
Hellina began to feel the familiar warmth as it moved through her body.
"Is it not a well known fact that the fires of desire begin to dim once a man and woman become Husband and Wife?" she asked as she felt her heartbeat quicken.
Soran's teeth closed on her shoulder, but only softly. Hellina's gasp, as her hand gripped the back of his neck, was his cue to release her, but only temporarily.
"I have not found that to be true in any way, shape, or form."
