It was Vala that begged to be given the assignment now being discussed, the assignment to which they could finally turn their attention. None of them knew exactly who or what they had to thank for the sudden absence of vampire attacks, or vampires in general, but all of them could pinpoint the exact day they noticed the change, the first day or, rather, the first night in many nights that their entire company slept without being woken to defend against a vampire attack. At the time they thought it only a brief pause before an even larger assault but, as the days and nights passed, broken only by small groups of vampires, and those taken in hiding or in flight rather than during attacks, it became obvious that some greater change had occurred. Whatever was the cause, Soran was pleased to see the faces of his company lose their thin, haggard looks, and the added time for bathing, or shaving, or attention to one's coiffure, did not go unnoticed by the denizens of Skyrim wherever his company traveled.
"I will not fail," Vala said as her eyes bore into Soran's, her voice filled with emotion, "please."
"Any man who elicits a reaction of that sort is too attractive by half," Soran said later to Hellina, "I was convinced that Vala and Gwenyfe were about to exchange blows."
"Don't be jealous," Hellina said as she closed the distance between her and her new Husband and placed her hand on his chest, "he is merely a beautiful stranger to them. You are their beloved brother and respected commander."
"I am not jealous," Soran said before asking Arkay to forgive his lie, "it is just unseemly. She literally dropped to her knees and begged me to allow her to be the one to approach him."
Hellina's laughter lightened his heart somewhat, though Soran was forced to admit to himself that he was, in fact, quite jealous of the too attractive Thane.
"It was Vala who stumbled upon him. There is some justice in allowing her whatever fruit that labor might yield," Hellina answered.
"I know exactly which fruit she wishes to pluck from this particular tree," Soran said dryly.
"You know that fruit quite well," Hellina said softly as she leaned forward and kissed Soran sensuously on his lips, "I can attest to that fact."
Soran's hands found her waist as her lips continued to exercise his own before she ended her kiss by catching his lower lip softly between her teeth.
"She has a point, I suppose," Soran said quietly as his hands pulled her closer, "we cannot delay any longer without running the risk that he will eventually change his mind and accept."
"He will never accept," Hellina said, "not after refusing in such a definitive manner. But you are right, it is not wise to delay further."
It had been completely by accident that Vala had spotted Thane Aric. His large house in The Pale, of which Vala had heard but never herself visited, was in the process of being made even larger. It was the nearby bonfire that attracted her attention that afternoon from her vantage in the hills to the west, a fire that proved to mark the home of a giant and his mammoths. Her short journey east soon had a different destination, the giant and his charges virtually wiped from her mind, when she saw the man, who from a distance she mistook for Farkas, his dark hair pulled back and tied with a bit of leather, dressed only in breeches and a tunic which was opened at the neck to reveal a well developed chest, who was conversing with another equally powerful man who could only be the master builder in charge of the ongoing work. Vala's approach or, more accurately, her sudden stop as she beheld the very attractive (though unfamiliar, she quickly realized) face, attached to the equally attractive frame, interrupted their conversation as both men looked up at her where she sat in her saddle, both no doubt wondering what she saw that caused her to lose so much complexion, only to regain an excess of it in quick succession.
"May I help in some way?" The beautiful man asked in an equally beautiful voice as he approached.
You may help in any way you like, Vala thought.
"I apologize for interrupting you," Vala said, her face still hot and her breath still somewhat uneven, "I saw the fire and thought to investigate. I was concerned someone might require assistance."
"Oh, that is just my neighbor and his pets," the man answered, "though it is more proper to say that I am his neighbor, since he has lived here for quite some time, while my home is, by comparison, a recent addition."
"He does not mind you living so close?" Vala asked while thinking to herself, what a stupid question. What is wrong with you, idiot girl?
"He could have knocked down all our work any time of his choosing, but he has not," the builder answered.
"May I offer you some refreshment, or water for your horse?" the man asked as he held the bridle of Vala's horse while he pet her soft nose.
He is too close. He is too beautiful, she thought to herself as her heart began to beat double time, if I step down from this saddle my legs will certainly fail me.
"Thank you, sir, but I must be on my way," she answered, "I detoured only to see if someone's home was burning down."
"Might I at least know your name, lady?" he asked as his smile almost erased her memory of all thoughts save one.
Gods, my name. What is my name? she thought frantically.
"My name is Vala, sir," she replied, her mind still not sure that her lips had produced the correct word almost on their own.
"My name is Aric," he answered, "it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Vala."
This is him, she thought, This is Thane Aric.
"It is a great pleasure for me as well, Aric," she said, barely avoiding the mistake of adding his title Thane.
Vala had ample time afterwards to replay the entire encounter in her mind.
He must think I was dropped on my head as a child, she thought as she rode slowly north.
"That is the house where Carcetta and Dralof found refuge, and were tended until they recovered, and where Cruith obtained the medicines that brought you back to health," Hellina said to Soran, "There can be no doubting it. It is just as all of them described. A large house near a giant and his mammoths, adjacent to a farm and a mine."
"The house of Thane Aric of The Pale," Soran said as he contemplated how it came to be the this one man kept reappearing in their lives, "It seems that his fate and ours are intertwined."
"It is not right that it was you who saw him so closely, and talked to him," Gwenyfe said to Vala later, practically stamping her foot, her protesting voice exhibiting the unique lilt that could be traced back to it's common ancestry with the Bretons of High Rock, after the Imperial woman had described to the Reachman woman each detail of Thane Aric's face and voice, "Sharn and I followed him for days, never getting close to him, and all we received in payment was an attack by vampires."
"Did you truly never leave your saddle?" Sharn asked Vala.
"Truly," Vala answered, her embarrassment plain in the tone of her voice, "I do not believe my legs would have borne my weight if I had attempted to stand."
"I would have leapt from the saddle, thrown him over my shoulder, and carried him into the forest and we would not have emerged for the better part of a day," Sharn said with a lecherous smile.
"How do you know he would not have resisted?" Gwenyfe asked defiantly as she came to the defense of the man she had only ever seen from a distance.
"He might have, at first," Sharn said, her smile still present, "but that resistance would have melted into passion quickly."
"Gods help me, that is all I will be thinking of when I meet him next," Vala said in anguish while she buried her face in her hands, "I will see him and blurt out something inappropriate, or idiotic."
"Divines hear my plea and break this spell," Soran said, raising his eyes to whatever deities existed in the sky above, "we have an opportunity before us that we cannot waste. He has rejected the Circle. He would be a powerful ally if we could only convince him to join us. I know it will be difficult, but you must force your thoughts as they concern him in that direction. If he joins us you will all have ample opportunity to acquaint yourselves with him. But before we can convince him that we are natural allies we must first convince him that we are not enemies."
"Neither Njada nor Ria consider us enemies," Hellina said, "Kodlak Whitemane himself wrote to you regarding Krev's plot, and his captured assassin. Vala is acquainted with Aric's daughter Lucia, and the twin members of The Circle. We now employ a young woman that Aric himself instructed at the College. She has been with us for two months, and can attest that we are not monsters. How much more convincing will he need that we are not his enemies?"
"And he made no comment about my armor when I met him," Vala said, "he had no reaction of any kind when he saw me."
"Except to ask if you were well," Gwenyfe said.
"He did not ask if I was well, he asked if he could help in some way," Vala answered, the thought of the encounter bringing color to her face.
"I know what way I would have requested," Sharn said, her smile appearing again.
"Peace, I beg you!" Soran said as he held up both his hands. "Hellina's point is well taken. But Vala's information may also be important. It is, at least, interesting."
"He either does not remember, or he remembers but he does not consider anyone wearing such armor a de facto enemy," Hellina said.
"That possibility eases my mind somewhat," Soran said, "I cannot approach him wearing anything but our true colors. He would interpret anything else as some form of disguise, that we fear showing ourselves to him. What man would join a group that behaved in such a manner?"
"True, but how would he interpret it if five of us, all wearing the armor of The Silver Hand, approached him?" Hellina said, "would he not, with just cause, interpret us as a threat?"
"Any member of the Circle would do so," Soran said, "Thane Aric, perhaps not. But we will not approach him in numbers. Vala will approach him alone, with an invitation to meet with me."
Vala's face held equal parts excitement and terror as the blood left her head for points south, and she became dizzy.
Gods, I will stutter, or babble, or lose the power of speech completely, she thought at the prospect of meeting him again.
"This is so unfair," Gwenyfe said, her voice and face indicating how close she was to tears.
"Can you not take both of them with you for your meeting?" Hellina asked, resulting in a smile from Gwenyfe that would have lit up a much larger room, "if only to save me from the incessant whining I would have to otherwise endure?"
Soran was quiet for a few moments, but only so it appeared that he was giving the matter proper consideration.
"I do not suppose it would hurt matters," Soran replied as he looked at Gwenyfe's face, which Soran believed was about to burst from an overabundance of joy, "and should one of them faint in proximity to such beauty, the other can complete the task."
The winter had been mild indeed, which aided The Silver Hand, and the builders, in the construction of three new structures. But it was not only the weather that Soran had to thank.
"Is there not a ban on the use of levitation spells in Skyrim?" Soran asked after watching Eofel use just such a spell to remove a medium sized tree stump, complete with its roots, from the not yet frozen ground.
"Yes, there is," she replied simply as she wiped her brow before turning her attention to the next stump. It yielded just as its brother had earlier, with a tearing sound not unlike an arboreal wail as it was pulled free from the earth.
Soran did not speak again until she had completed her task, the five stumps stacked in a disordered pile nearby. He had every intention of making full use of this illicit spell, and no intention whatsoever of interrupting until her task was completed, ban or no.
"How did you learn such a spell if it is forbidden?" he asked as he stepped close to the former home of one of the stumps, a hole that would soon be filled in with dirt.
"It is not illegal in Morrowind," she answered as she consumed half a loaf of crusty bread and a fair amount of cheese. It seemed that uprooting tree stumps was ravenous work. "I learned it from a friend and fellow student who came to us from Narsis."
Soran looked at the wide expanse of newly cleared land, and the pile of evidence that no eye could miss, or mistake.
"Are we free to use such a spell in Skyrim without being abused in some manner? Will some authority seek to punish us?"
Her face broke into a conspiratorial smile as she gulped down half a mug of small beer.
"Not if you do not tell."
"He will take it all off our hands, but only to turn it into charcoal," Lyra said, "but he will pay us in nails and iron fittings and hinges which, in my opinion, is a very fair trade for five misshapen, many armed, tree stumps."
Hellina could not believe that she had ever thought the woman standing before her had been nothing more than a common strumpet, catering to the whims of Krev and his men. The heat of shame still came to Hellina's face as she recalled how poorly she had judged the Imperial woman. Thank the Gods for Dyus, and his sharp eyes, and sharp intellect.
"He is generous because he wishes to keep us close by, as are all the vendors who sell us building materials," Hellina said as she rubbed her sore shoulder, "They know that the closer they keep us, the farther away they keep werebeasts and trolls and, until recently, night walkers."
"Can what we have heard be true?" The woman with bright red hair, and equally bright green eyes, asked, "Can the lord of all vampires truly be dead?"
It started as no more than a whisper from a single voice, which quickly became a rumor. More than one of their sources eventually confirmed that such a lord, however official his title, had met his end on an island off the northern coast of Solitude. That island, perched in the Sea of Ghosts, was now occupied by men and women of the Dawnguard.
"I am not sure whether alive or dead are proper terms when describing those creatures, but it seems accurate that an important night walker walks this earth no longer. And it would explain their absence in any large number."
"Well, whatever the reason, those of us who still sleep under canvas are glad of it; and of the mild weather also."
"I am sorry that we have still not found you better accommodations," Hellina said to the woman who, while still in Krev's band, slept in whatever abandoned fort or structure she could find. Lyra had explained in graphic terms the promises of food, or gold, or shelter, or any other comfort that came into the mind of the man offering it, that were made in exchange for sharing that man's bed that Lyra had endured. Several of Krev's men, at random intervals of weeks or months, had attempted to take Lyra, or Salama, or Anja, by force; and Hellina realized that those incidents, when Lyra had recounted them to Hellina, coincided with men from Krev's gang going missing, and never being seen again. "I am sorry for a great many things you and your sisters endured. Soran is mortified that he was so ignorant, and remiss. We, he and I, are guilty of terrible neglect. If not for Dyus, well, you owe him much; we all do."
The titian haired woman stood silently, and respectfully, as Hellina spoke, and waited until she had finished before she replied.
"It is a hard land, and you have chosen a hard life within it. You have assumed a great responsibility, and there are many things that call for your attention. Including a new Husband. But I thank you for your words. Salama and Anja would thank you as well."
Hellina's face broke into a smile when Lyra mentioned Soran.
"You are very kind, sister. Now, how do you propose we transport our multiarmed tree stumps to Dawnstar?"
Hylf had still not returned, and he never would; of this Krev was now certain. He was either dead, imprisoned, or fled; Krev did not know which, and he had no one he could send to Whiterun to inquire except, possibly, Frik. Frik had remained loyal, almost never leaving Krev's side once it became clear that Hylf had met some sort of misfortune, either on the road to, or from, Whiterun, or within the city itself. Frik was the only one who had shown any concern at all, and that concern had been for Krev as he became more and more unsettled by Hylf's failure to appear. He had not asked where Hylf had gone, or what orders he had been given, which was not unusual; Krev knew exactly how Frik felt about the tall assassin from Eastmarch. Frik did not pry, he simply remained Krev's loyal lieutenant.
"I might ask Dyus to send someone to search for him, but you would have to tell them where that search should be directed," Frik had offered.
"I will walk into a den of werewolves naked as the day I was born before I ask for help from those people," Krev replied as he sat in front of the hearth, a blanket wrapped around him, his eyes gazing into the embers and the fire they produced.
Hylf was not the only member of Krev's band to vanish, never to be seen again. It was not unusual for men to disappear without notice, though most were found later, at least parts of them. Men wandered off drunk, stopped to relieve themselves, and were attacked by one of the many predators that lurked in the dark, waiting for an easy meal to wander by. Frik was certain that some of their missing ended up on the sacrificial altars that dotted the countryside, or had simple tired of the conditions under which they lived, and went off in search of greener pastures. But Frik knew of one man who had found a novel way to end his life; though, when Frik thought of it, he admitted that greed was in no way novel, not in any band such as theirs.
Frik's habit when moving his buried treasure was to leave a parting surprise for anyone who had been skilled enough to discover Frik's hiding place. Frik would occasionally pass those old sites for one reason or another, and this is how he found one of Krev's men, his hand still inside the hole, and the bear trap inside of it. He died there as his life drained out into that hole. For whatever reason his body lay undisturbed.
too filthy even for the carrion eaters, Frik had thought as he squatted and looked down at him. Frik could not even remember the man's name, except that it started with R.
or did it end with R, Frik wondered as he stood and walked away.