Skyrim Audio-Adventure

Chapter 5

(The Road to Whiterun)

The hunter had always imagined the road to Whiterun to be fraut with danger. That the knolls and bushes beside the road would be filled with beasts of monstrous size and disposition. The reality was notably more mundane and pleasant. The path snaked down the slope following a series of switchbacks through the trees. One switch back brought the pair very close to the tumbling rapids as the white river ran down to Whiterun hold. They could see mist spraying up out of the rocky riverbed. Bracknel carefully scrabbled up some rocks to look down into the flow; when he turned back to grin a childish grin at the hunter his beard was sparkling from the mist. The hunter had to smile when the midmorning sun turned the old man's beard to shimmering glass, but he did not join him on the rock.

The air tasted like ceder and musky decaying leaves, higher on the mountain it tasted of pine, and lower... he wasn't sure what to expect. Manure and wheat maybe. But he was wrong, the smell was that of something bloated and dead. The hunter glanced at Bracknel to see if he was smelling it too, the old mans brow told him he was. The pairs' eyes scanned the edges of the road and after a moment the hunter stepped off into the brush chasing a spect of red.

Much to his surprise the red was not blood, but the crimson thread that formed the gilding on imperial legion armor. A solder lay dead at there feet. Bracknel knelt over the body while the hunter began to circle around looking at the surrounding scene.

"Who do you think killed a solder?" asked the hunter.

Bracknel rolled over the body to see the face of a young man with dry vacant eyes and imperial features, his face a death mask of surprise. "Stormcloak probably or a fool. Or a Stormcloak fool. They slit his throat."

The hunter found the a patch of stale blood on a rock higher on the slope. He turned in time to see Bracknel attempting somewhat clumsily to close the solders eyes. The old man whispered a soft prayer. "He was killed up there and thrown down. Do you see a shield anywhere?" the hunter asked.

Bracknel finished his eulogy and peered around "No his sword is still in his sheath. Oh joy!" the nord started rummaging in pouches around the mans waist and held up a half bloody coin pouch. "We're in luck there must be at least a twenty coins in here." Bracknel stood and started walking back to the road.

"Wait." called the hunter.

"For what?"

"Aren't we going to bury the body?"

"Oh sure, with the spades we always carry around."

"Shouldn't we tell the guards?"

"Thats two bad ideas in a row. You get one more."

"Well if we're going to loot it why not take the sword."

"Never carry an imperial sword unless you want someone to ask you why you have it. Thats three bad ideas now lets go."

The hunter huffed and strode off after Bracknel and back to the road. "You carry a legion bow." he said snidely when he caught up the old man.

Bracknel tossed him the bloody money pouch, "and as I recall you asked me about it. Here, count this, we'll probably be able to spend the night at the Bannered Mare. Have you ever had real bread from a tavern? It's brilliant. I miss the braided sort from Cyrodil. They might have some in Solatude these days."

"What do you think happened back there?"

"Well lets see if you can figure it out, why would a legionnaire not be carrying a shield."

"He was trying to save weight, I thought about that too."

"Why would a brigand kill him but not take his gold?"

"... they didn't want the gold?"

"Then what did they want and why was the legionnaire alone?"

"... He... he was messenger or a currier"

Bracknel nodded, "An urgent currier and a failed one. Mark my words, this rebellion is real. The Penitus Oculatus wont be happy about this."

"So the Penitus Oculatus is real then."

"Of course its real." Bracknel said with a hint of impatience.

The hunter had more questions but honestly he was tired of asking them, he was beginning to feel like a child. So instead he fell silent and focused on the road.

He'd lost count of the switchbacks when he noticed the land start to change, the trees were growing thin, flowers were losing their color, becoming more akin to little blooms of cotton and there were notably less flying insects.

At last the land began to level out then all at once the trees just stopped. The hunter turned back to get an outsiders looked at the forrest for the first time in recent memory; the trees seemed bigger somehow, when he was surrounded by them he never stepped back to admire them like this. Then he turn and was faced with the tundra.

It was awe-inspiring, it was elegant, it was breathtakingly terrifying. He felt like a bug being abruptly been exposed when someone turns over it's rock. The hunter's heart skipped a beat and his eyes darted around a sky. He found an angle where his entire vision was blue skies and lazy clouds; a moment later he was blinking rapidly at the ground. The sky was bright on it's own; he'd never realized that.

"Stranger?"

"Hm?" the hunter looked up to see Bracknel waiting ahead of him. Behind him the road ran straight and true over fields and farmland. The hunter could make out the faint image of a bridge, and beyond that a towering outer wall sat at the base of the rocky hill top city that was Whiterun. From on high the plains had looked like a flat field with waves of grass but that was wrong, there were waves in the land too. The tundra was roughly hune, mountains were like trees and their roots and pushed up the earth creating lonely outcroppings of rock; the rivers, however modest, cut the land and carved out their own basins. Instead of one horizon he saw many.

"Stranger?!"

The hunters eyes snapped back to Bracknel on the road ahead. "Yeah?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"Well come along then, we're making good time, at this pace we'll be at the Bannered Mare before nightfall." and so the hunter followed, staring around like a newborn.

In spite of all Bracknel's talk of making good time, when the two had drifted down to the river to fill their waterskins, the old nord had become transfixed buy the fish darting around in the now calm current.

"Thats Histcarp in there, lest my eyes are playing me for a fool, what the blazes is it doing over here?" The elder hunter set down his pack and pulled out a what the hunter thought was a folded handkerchief but turned out to be a very tightly folded drag net. The hunter watched eating dried goat in quiet impatience and begrudging fascination as Bracknel unfurled the net; iron weights and draw lines at the corners and began casting.

It took him three casts to get anywhere near the fish, he didn't ask for help and the hunter didn't offer, there was a fine line between helpful and insulting and the hunter respected that line. Or at least thats what he told himself, he might have just been lazy. Truth is after the dramatic entrance to the tundra he'd been dwelling in his own head quite a bit. He was determined not to linger on the choice he'd made with the letter, but for some reason nothing in the outside world could hold his attention for long. So he found himself compromising by just existing, he was good at that. Mistakes, pains, and confusion, perhaps if he were a wiseman he'd walk through the world secure in his actions, confident that he saw all ends. But then again perhaps not, perhaps he would only be frozen by the weight of possibility.

"There we are." Bracknel said, as he pulled the net in for the third time and began delicately extracting the small ruddy gold tinted fish. "They are histcarp, I normally don't see these this far down stream, theirs a breeding population in lake Illanalta but the eggs never survive the rapids... or the salmon." Bracknel looked up and down the river "Where are the salmon?" he thought allowed. "The salmon should have got them before they got to Riverwood." There was a long pause, the hunter didn't answer. Bracknel threw three histcarp back and quickly killed the two he kept. After gutting them and pocketing the livers for some reason, the nord stood and handed the hunter one of the small fish. "Theirs something wicked out there. Something thats killing salmon and chasing elk across rivers. Its gotta be on bleak falls mountain, it has to be." Then he bit off the head of the histcarp and walked back to the road.

It was well past midday when the pair finally approached the bridge. When they got there they found a crossroad, there was some kind of tributary crossing in front of them necessitating the bridge but to their right there was another bridge a ways off that crossed the white river. Leaning arms folded against a squat cobble stone wall was a muscular nord swaddled in an earthy yellow sash over a chainmail shirt and some kind of scaled armor. A sword rested on his hip, a thick wooden shield with a stallion emblazoned on the face rested against the base of the wall and a thoroughly bored expression rested on his mustachioed face.

Bracknel raised an arm as they approached "Good-day guardsman, what brings you to such a lonely post?"

"Good-day citizen," responded the guard in a well rehearsed manner. "I stand for protection the people and hold of Whiterun."

"Of course of course." Bracknel nodded "But really who'd you piss of to get stuck out here."

The guard pursed his lips and spoke in that same diplomatic voice "Commander Caius is the captain of the guard here in Whiterun he is a good man."

"I see, but shouldn't you at least have a partner?"

"Jarl Balgruuf is loyal to Whiterun above all else. We are in good hands."

"I see, since Balgruf isn't choosing a side in the war you have to cover all fronts and are stretched a bit thin."

"The whiterun guard is well capable." the guardsman said, still in that formal voice. Then in a more relaxed tone. "What brings you two whiterun, please forgive my rudeness but you two aren't exactly dressed for the city."

"No we are not, we make our way in the wilds of Falkreath, but news of Whiterun's heros and artisan smiths has brought us to your doorstep."

"I understand, Skyforge burns hot I assure you, but good luck dealing with Eorland. He knows the value of his trade and you don't look like his normal costumers."

"We're decent enough folk, I'm Bracknel and this is the idiot."

"I am guardsman Urgalas, it's good to meet you."

"Stranger, offer the man some of that meat you had." The hunter held out the bag and the guard took a couple strips with a grateful look in his eye. "We must be off may we meet again at a more favorable posting." The guard only nodded as the hunter started across the bridge to the city. "Stranger where are you going?"

The hunter looked back to see that Bracknel had instead turned left onto the road that skirting the tributary. He look ahead of him to the towering spires of Dragonsreach castle. "To Whiterun?" He said unsure.

"Thats the back wall, the front gate is over on the other side this way."

"Oh, ok." the hunter jogged back to Bracknel, silently annoyed.

"See what I mean Urgalas? Idiot."

The hunter thought that they were almost there but now knowing that they'd be walking parallel to the wall for another hour that whole fishing excursion felt all the more unnecessary.

The pair remained silent as they passed by mills, fields and farmhouses. There was one very large stately building with a gaudy sign next to it that read "Hunningbrew Meadery". The hunter had to stare at it but didn't say anything.

Then suddenly, apropos of nothing, Bracknel began to sing. "There once was a woman as fair as an evening in springtime at old Stros M'kai. The night tossed her hair as I kissed her cheek, her bottom and bosom and thigh. HAHAHA."

"That's not how it goes."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah."

"I've been trying to get a rise out of you for ages but you've just been a soggy sack the whole way."

"No I haven't."

"Boy, you've been quieter than a priest in a tavern. Sure engage him in a mystery, call him an idiot, but you sing a dirty song and oh no you've awoken the beast. Strangers coming to tell you how it is."

"I'm just saying that's not how the song goes."

"Then why don't you sing for a bit. Enlighten me."

"No I don't sing."

"Then you've got no room to complain do you? Her words were a river of passion, her hair was a field of gold. I told her her feel had me truer than steel and she loved me for being so bold. We made lo-"

"Ok! Ok! I'll sing! Gods! Anything to get off your wet dream."

"That whole song's a wet dream, I defy you to try to change that."

"Oh yeah, watch me...There once *cough*- there onc- *cough*"

"Well this is already high art."

"Shut it."

There once was a woman as fair as an evening

in springtime at old Stros M'kai.

She danced on the sand with a lute in her hands

and a sapphire sea in her eyes.

She sang when the sailers were loading and leaving

she sang when the sailers came home.

But every man knew if she's singing of you

you'd find fortune where ever you roam.

One day I was crawling so listless and drawn

on the sands of N'gasta by sunset

When I floated along on the wings of a song

to that beautiful island brunette

She pegged my leg and she patched my eye

and told me that I would be strong

Then bathed in the moonlight she was all mine

till she faded away by the dawn

Now I've sailed the world, i've tamed every sea

from the Red Mountain back to Khubi

I've seen all the wonders but nothing compares

to the woman of old Stros M'kai

As the hunter's timid voice croaked to the end of the song, Bracknel offered hardy applause and raised his waterskin. "Well done! A toast to the song bird of Helgen!"

The hunter took swig from his own waterskin and offered Bracknel some dried goat. "Mark my words I'm never going to do that for an audience."

"All the same they do have sex in the song."

"Of course they have sex in that song, but it's just one line and thats all the anyone remembers."

"It's all anyone cares to remember. I've heard some pretty ronchy versions myself."

"I'm sure you don't count yours among them."

"Of course not, I'm a damn poet."

"Sure you are. Anyway now that you've got me talking, what was that Hunningbrew meadery place? You ever heard of Hunningbrew mead?"

"I've seen it around, never actually had any myself. It's quite new, probably the first real competitor to Black-brier Mead this side of the throat of the world."

"I think the only mead I've had has been from local nord shiners like Vilod back in Helgen. Never tried the big name stuff."

"Well hunter's like us can't afford the big name stuff."

"We might yet; We got 8 gold, 12 silver, and 5 copper from that soldier"

"Hm, the legion isn't paying like it used to."

"Or maybe he was just a big spender. So do you like the sweeter meads? Or the harder meads?"

"Quiet."

"Oh is that a personal question?"

"I said quiet, stranger!" the hunter looked back to see that Bracknel had stopped dead and his pale blue eyes were scanning the crop field to their left.

The hunter followed his gaze, only seeing waving wheat and squat little pumpkins "What's going on?"

"We're being hunted. No sudden movements now." he came up next the hunter and pointed to one of the half broken cobble walls who's role seemed to be to divide the crops. "I know you're there Aela! Come out from behind that wall!"

There was silence but for the winds of the prairie whipping past his ears and making the grass hiss. Then he jumped as a clump of buckwheat to they're right stood up and turned into a lithe nord woman.

The hunter stared as she stepped out onto the road her auburn hair whipping across steely blue eyes not dissimilar to Bracknel's. She was wiry like him, built for speed. Her armor was minimalist and bizarre, she had heavy shoulder and hip protection, but everything that would normally be covered by a shield was made of unarmored hides. Her sides and the inside of her thighs were completely uncovered, open to attack and the cold; it was practically a skirt. Three steel bars inlayed with green pearls he didn't recognize crossed over a her bosom. She wore long green sleeves under her gauntlets that went up past her elbow, finishing in tight rings above her biceps. A strong bow was held loosely in her right hand and fine arrows peaked out from behind her back. The striped fletching of eagle feathers made him feel a bit self-conscious of the ratty crows feathers on his arrows. She grinned at the elder hunter from behind three streaks of olive face paint.

"You're losing your edge you old hound." she called in a voice that lacked any feminine trill. This was not a delicate lady, this was a warrior. The hunter didn't always know why he felt threatened when he did but this time it was clear. She was skilled, well-armed, camouflaged, fast, bold, immune to the cold and there was something predatory in those eyes that made him sure she was leagues ahead of him.

"Ah, horse-piss, I knew you were here didn't I?" Bracknel puffed up in his furs a little. The woman stepped over swiftly and abruptly threw an arm around the old nord. The elder hunter laughed and hugged her back.

"It's been too long Bracknel. I was beginning to worry, I thought that you got taken by a bear or something."

"Oh if I was ever taken by a bear you'd hear the battle all the way up in Jorrvaskr." The hunters ears perked up at this, Jorrvaskr. That meant that this woman was one of the companions. Bracknel continued "How's Kodlak."

"He's better, he's better than he was. He can't move very well and I fear his fighting days are done but he's healthy."

"Good, good, I'll have to pay him a visit. I doubt any of the others remember me, the self-obsession of youth and all."

"Skour might remember, he's heard me talk about you enough."

"Oh no, how will I look him in the eye."

"Relax, just some of the lessons from when I was a pup."

"I was hoping to run in to you but what are you doing out here? Surely you can't smell me from way up in the city."

"Oh Severio Pelagia told us that a giant has been stealing his cows, I've staked this place out for a couple days but so far nothing. Enough about that, what did you want to see me about?"

"Well it's this little ferret right here." Bracknel turn back to the hunter. "This ratty looking fellow is Stranger, and Stranger this is Aela the Huntress, one of the inner circle of The Companions."

The hunter was no expert on the subject but he did know this, a long time ago there was big nord hero named Ysgramour, what he did, the hunter didn't know, but his fellow warriors and those who followed him were known as the companions. Today the companions still existed as a guild of warriors and protectors, not bound buy code or oath but simply by honor. Their members have songs and books written about them, they're heroics over the years were legendary. Some warriors come to the companions to make a name for themselves others already had names when they got there. The names of companions were as renown as those of sitting jarls, especially Kodlak Whitemane. That was a name he'd heard repeatedly back in Helgen. What the inner circle was he was unsure but the companions were a very big deal in Skyrim.

Now this old man who lived in a tree was greeting them like old friends and Aela the Huntress was staring him down like a pack-leader stares down a challenger. She was an inch or two shorter than him but in his eyes she towered over him. He did his best not to weather beneath her gaze but felt that just by trying he had somehow failed already.

"You want this one to become a whelp?"

"No not exactly, I just wish for him to learn his way around a sword."

"It would be hard to convince any of them to train him without him committing to serve the hall or at least showing the ambition to join. There are no binding words or contracts but there is honor. What reason would we have to wast our time on someone who isn't even a whelp?"

"Oh thats not even the worst of it." Bracknel said solemnly, he grabbed to hunters injured hand and held it up for the huntress to see. "This just happened recently in a run in with some vampires, he'll need specially made weapons that he can wield without this finger."

"He survived a vampire attack?"

"Yes, I haven't known him long but it seems like surviving it what he does."

"I see." Aela's eye's found the hunter's again, this time there was something warmer there; not just cold steel. "Do you at least have coin to pay for a blade or even a commission?"

"He's got some dried goat, but we might have eaten most of that."

"So you're asking for a favor then."

"A huge favor, yes. From you to me."

The huntress's eyes flashed cold at Bracknel for a moment, but when he didn't flinch warmth returned to them and she smiled softly. "I'll see what I can do. No promises. Now come on lets get to town."

The walk past the stables and up to the gate felt familiar to the hunter, the stonework and the guards on the ramparts and parapets reminded him a bit of Helgen. It was a winding path through ruin and rubble, in some places wood replaced fallen stone. Whiterun guards in their sashes of wheat gold stood like statues under the wooden roofs of their wooden towers, themselves standing on the stone rubble of the tower that used to be there. Where walls could not be replaced sharpened wooden steaks protruded to detour any attackers. The comparatively short walk spoke of years of siege and the slow erosion of time. Yet the city still stood a centerpiece of Skyrim in more ways than one. The gates were different, proud and gilded in golden powder, emblazoned with roaring stallions.

"Hale companion!" called a guard by the gate. Aela proudly dipped her head as the gates where opened for her. That same guard offered Bracknel and the hunter a squinting mistrustful gaze as the pair followed her through.

"I wouldn't worry about that," muttered Bracknel, leaning into the hunter. "Most of a guard's job is to sit around and look mean."

Hot air blew into their faces as they walked in; sheltered by the high wall of a gate and the hill the city sat on, a forge was burning to their right. As they crossed a small mound the hunter didn't recognize as a bridge until they were across it, the modest sign of the blacksmiths shop came into focus, "Warmaiden's" it read. The hunter turned to see a dark skinned imperial woman diligently working a bellow in the porous dome of the forge. For a moment he pictured little Dorthe, all grown up, working away at her craft. He looked ahead too the three or four dozen quaint hut-like houses at varying distance from the the central path.

"The city looks good," Bracknel noted "You think I could get a sturdy footlocker at Belathor's?"

Aela cocked an ear "A footlocker?"

"Yeah you don't think I came all this way just for him do you?"

"What do you need a footlocker for?"

"Well you know me, always finding little treasures..."

"Where have you been sticking your nose now?"

"No where so bad, I'll tell you over a drink but to leave it to say I've got something that I cant exactly mount on a my wall and can't fit in my safe."

"What on Nirn did you find?"

"Over a drink over a drink!" the old man insisted. "So what do you think, bits and pieces?"

"Hmm well you could try but I think Adrianne back at Warmaiden's is a better bet, if Belethor doesn't have it he'd probably just outsource it to Adrianne anyway. How do you plan on getting a heavy footlocker into the tree?"

Bracknel nodded to the hunter, "This one right here, so don't go and break him will you?"

Several things about that sentence were very distressing for the hunter, he looked back and forth between Aela and Bracknel. "I'm sorry what's happening?"

"Something wrong Stranger? Thought you didn't like debts."

"No I mean, I'm happy to help but..."

"Good so it all works out. Which way is the market, dead ahead right?

"Yeah that's right," said Aela, giving a smirking wink to the hunter. He felt his ears darken and the bottom drop out from his stomach. As the group continued through the city he felt himself gearing up for a fight.

A middle aged imperial woman stepped out of a house to there right, wiping her hands on her dark apron. "Arcadia!" called Aela, "How is she?"

The woman named Arcadia shook her head solemnly, "She passed a few hours ago."

"I see," said Aela stoically "It was a good life."

"Who?" asked Bracknel.

"Narrica the knight." the huntress clarified, "she was old and tired. We all knew this was coming."

"Narrica," Bracknel muttered under his breath and bowed his head. "good woman. What will the family do?"

Arcadia pulled her brown her out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. "Benkhild says he's going to move the family to Eastmarch."

"Are you in the market Aela?"

"My home is Jorrvaskr."

"You can go in if you like." Arcadia said.

"No," Aela said stepping off toward the square. "I prefer to remember her as she was."

"Me too," Bracknel muttered and they continued on.

The hunter nodded at Arcadia as he passed. He glanced up at the word engraved above the door way. "Breezehome." it read.

Bracknel had been right about their time after all, the sun had just set and the inviting entrance of an inn called the Bannered Mare was glowing before them with freshly lit torch light. But rather than run straight into the tavern Bracknel swung to the right and stuck his head in the door of a small store with a huge awning. The hunter didn't notice until Aela caught him by his belt and pulled him to lean against the stone well in the middle of the market square. He watched Bracknel's quiver get caught in the door and listened to the brief conversation.

"Hey Belethor, ya open?"

"Oh uh welcome, welcome to Belathor's-."

"Yes yes, listen, do you have a strong footlocker?"

"A footlocker? Hmmm let me think... Well if you'd be interested in a safe-"

"Thank you that'll be all." and just like that, the door was closed and the elder hunter was back with them. "I'll swing by Warmaiden's in the morning."

"Sounds good." said the hunter and once again the group turned to the Bannered Mare.

However it seemed the fates were determined to spit on Bracknel's ambition of haste. As out of the twilight came too very small and exited figures. A young half breed girl in a green and blue dress and a nord boy in a red long sleeved shirt.

"See I told you it's Aela the Huntress!" cried the girl.

"Wow."

Aela, to her credit, did a good job of hiding the her sigh and turned a noble if not kind smile towards the incoming children. "Good evening Mila, Lars. What are you doing out so late?"

The pair at once drew their wooden toy swords and held them up proudly. "We're defending the city from monsters!" Mila shouted.

"Oh then I am in your debt, someone has to protect the city while I am away after all."

"Did you slay any monsters today?" asked the boy named Lars.

"Why just yesterday I bested two trolls with nothing but a dagger, I beat the second to death with the arm of the first."

"Thats so awesome!" roar the little girl displaying a level of blood lust at made the hunter flinch. "Can you show me how?"

"I would love too but thanks to you two there are no trolls in the city."

"What about those two men behind you?" asked the boy. "Are they bandits? They look like bandits."

The hunter's heart raced and glanced behind him, no one was there. When he looked back Aela the huntress was smirk at him again.

"Yes," she said, and the hunter felt Bracknel pull his bow and quiver over his head. "They are bandits. Especially this one." the hunter felt Bracknel slip his bear skin backpack off his shoulders. "Tell you what," Aela said turning back to the kids. "I'll show you how to take care of a bandit. You just have to let me borrow your swords."

"Yeah!"

"It'd be an honor companion."

Aela stood and faced the hunter who only now registered that he had become light and unencumbered. She tossed him one of the wooden swords which he caught in his off hand. His deep brown eye clashed with her steel blues "Defend yourself, Bandit. You now face the wolf of Whiterun."