Beyond the Stars

"Power always moves in circles, infinite beyond all sense of time." - Earhwalker, In Hearts Wake

Chapter One: The Reach

The shapes of the trees danced gently in the low, blue light of dawn, but Kiara hardly noticed the beauty of a scene that would normally take her breath away. Hungry and exhausted, Kiara's eyes were half-closed as she walked, trying to keep up with the carriage she was tied to as it made its way lazily along the road. She was a prisoner, but she wasn't surprised. Her people, known by the city folk as the Reachmen, were constantly picked on by those who deemed themselves more "civilized" than them. When a cow or someone's child goes missing, they'd rather blame them than the wolves. It's far easier to be angry at people than animals. The truth is it's never them… all Reachmen want is to be left alone, so why would they invite their retribution?

"Faster, savage!" said a man named Jack from the carriage, an Imperial guard and one of her captors, bringing her out of her head. "And open your damned eyes. We don't want you tripping over and frightening the horses."

Kiara opened her eyes to glare at the man but stayed silent. Her mother had always told her not to talk back to proud men.

"Gods," growled the Imperial, spitting at the ground. "Nothing to say? Your kind gets stupider by the day."

Kiara looked at her surroundings, which were becoming more illuminated by the rising sun. Frost littered the grass and clung to the trees, but the wintry snowfall was heavier than she expected, and the terrain more rocky. Sunlight reflected against the white snow and made the world seem brighter.

"Where are we?" Kiara asked out loud without really thinking.

Jack looked at her with surprise. "Western Reach. Near the border of Skyrim."

When these men captured Kiara, they knocked her out, and she'd been unconscious for some time. She assumed it was for a few hours, but if they were already this far east of High Rock, then it must've been for far longer.

"How long was I out?" asked Kiara, fidgeting around with her bindings and scratching her thigh.

"Few days," said Jack before biting into a piece of stale bread. "We thought you were dead for a hot minute. Lucky for you. You'd be a Nord-owned slave right now otherwise."

Kiara swallowed, feeling sick. If these men were slavers then she didn't much like her chances of returning home. Her mind returned to her mother, the stoicism she was determined to maintain melting to nothing as her eyes filled with tears.

The Imperial snickered at Kiara as she tried to wipe them away. "Seriously, you're crying? Ha. I thought Reachfolk were supposed to be tough."

Kiara didn't answer, just bowed her head and continued walking. Her thoughts drifted toward those of escape, but the likelihood of succeeding in that endeavor was low… as much as she hated the guard, he was right; she wasn't tough. Reachmen were typically broadly built and far more physically imposing than their Breton cousins. Kiara's father was a tribal chief, tall and muscular, but her mother was a Breton with High Elven heritage who joined their tribe some twenty years ago. Kiara looked like her, fair and slim, a pretty little token her father liked to wave around at other tribes, promising their men a chance at marrying her if they cooperated.

"What's that, on the road?" someone yelled as they entered a large clearing.

Kiara looked up and tried to see what was in front of the carriage. As the horses drew to a halt she stopped and listened. The world was strangely quiet and her trained senses knew something was amiss. They were about to be attacked.

A hateful and vicious man named Sullivan drew his sword and jumped down from the carriage, eyeing the landscape with contempt. "Men, on your guard!"

A few of the men, including Jack, readied their weapons and looked around nervously.

"They'll come from the trees," Kiara squeaked with a faltering voice. "Be it animal or man, they'll use the cover as an advantage."

Sullivan walked around the carriage to glare at her. "What? Speak up, savage!"

She stuttered and raised her bound hands to point at the tree line.

"Jack, what has she been saying to you? Has her tribe followed us this far?"

Jack gave Kiara a pained look. "I don't, I—"

"I knew taking their prized heifer was a bad idea, no matter how much she'd be worth... Oblivion take them, I should've known they'd come," Sullivan said venomously, approaching Kiara and taking a rough hold of her fine hair, dragging her along with him.

She squealed in pain and brought her hands up to his fist, her fingers trying to wrap around his to loosen his grip. "Please, please stop, let me go!"

"If you want your bitch back so bad, come get her!" Sullivan yelled, pointing his sword at the trees as he projected his voice. "I promise we'll hand her over willingly, just as soon as I—"

Before he could finish the sentence, an arrow flew past Kiara's head. It cut through the air with a dangerous whirling sound and landed in Sullivan's chest, penetrating his armor to make a home in his heart. Kiara looked at him in shock as a second arrow cut clean through his neck. He fell to the ground, blood spurting from his mouth and the wound in his neck as he began to die at her feet.

Kiara felt frozen in time as the flurry of activity played out around her. The men fell one by one as arrows flew from the trees with deadly accuracy, not one missing its target. Some of them chose to run toward the treeline, others away from it, but they all met with the same fate in the end. Trembling, Kiara stood unmoving as the world around her returned to stillness, its silence marred only by the wind in the trees and the cry of a distant eagle.

After a few seconds, Kiara saw movement in the treeline, and several people emerged from it. It became evident to Kiara that this was a raiding party. The concept wasn't foreign to her. Many of her own people formed them to rob unsuspecting merchants when times were tough. The main difference being, however, that they'd rarely murder their targets, as this lot had just done. The party descended on the caravans, looking through them, taking whatever valuables they could find. Kiara stayed still and watched the men ruthlessly loot their victims, even if she could run she knew she wouldn't after seeing what good it did her original captors.

They all moved fast, but Kiara's keen eye observed much from the little she saw of the men as they went in and out of her sight. Their leader appeared to be a typical Nord, a tall blonde-haired man with thick biceps and an even thicker accent. He never said much, but he had a palpable air of authority. The diverse group was made up of a pair of Khajiit, who looked so remarkably similar that Kiara got them confused for one, an Argonian, a Redguard, two Orcs, and a Breton. They definitely weren't your run-of-the-mill bandits, these men wore serious armor and were extremely organized and well-armed. The raiders all noticed her but made no effort to talk to her as they looted the caravans and corpses, some of them nodding in her direction as they murmured to each other. Kiara knew that if these men wanted her gone, she'd be dead already. But she was old enough to know of the things men like them do to women, especially lone women such as her with no ties to civil society. A fresh wave of fear washed over her, and she became light-headed.

The Nord Kiara guessed to be their leader soon walked away from the others to stand before her. Kiara, still tied to the carriage, stepped as far away from him as the rope would allow. The Nord, wearing a calculating expression as though he was trying to make up his mind about something, turned to one of the Khajiit who now lingered behind him. He gestured in Kiara's direction with his head and the Khajiit strode over without hesitation. Kiara gasped and knelt down before he got to her, her bound hands in the freezing snow, which had been stained red by Sullivan's blood. The Khajiit, who didn't even look at her, searched through Sullivan's corpse which lay only inches away from her. Kiara glared at him in the most menacing way possible, something he noticed, as she watched him pull the arrow from his chest. The Khajiit looked through Sullivan's pockets and relieved him of its contents, as well as his sword and the simple golden necklace that hung around his neck. He glanced briefly at Kiara and met her gaze before he stood, his unreadable blue eyes the color of the winter sky. For no particular reason, or perhaps in response to the dirty look she'd given him, he lifted his heavy, booted foot and crushed Sullivan's head beneath it, making Kiara cry out in horror as she was splattered with gore. Without a word, the Khajiit threw a look at the landscape behind Kiara and turned around, pocketing Sullivan's smaller items and swinging the sword over his shoulder, the blade resting on his lean back.

The Nord took a step toward Kiara, making her flinch. He narrowed his eyes and scoffed, promptly walking up the small incline that led out of the clearing toward the others, most of whom were now standing near the road ahead of the front carriage.

One of the raiders, the Argonian, approached Kiara. He wore a mask over his mouth and sinister armor which was almost completely black, but his eyes were kind. Kiara gasped at him and he put his arms up in a non-threatening manner to denote his intentions. He produced a dagger from his belt, knelt down, and left it on a small mound of snow. He nodded at her, his eyes downcast. "I'm… sorry," he said softly, his tone strangely melancholic, before standing up and jogging away to rejoin the others.

The Nord watched their exchange somewhat disapprovingly but did nothing to intervene. When the Argonian reached him, he uncrossed his arms and turned away. "Let's move," he told his band of adventurers, who all silently obeyed him, heading north into the wilderness beyond the road.

Kiara was shocked. "Hey!" she yelled, getting to her feet. "Where are you going? You can't just leave me here!"

It seemed that they could. None of them turned around or even gave any indication that they'd heard her. Kiara just stood there, her breath furling in front of her as a shiver rippled across her body, the gentle beginnings of new snowfall and a lick of ice in the breeze promising a night that'd be cold enough to kill her.

Shifting her weight from one leg to the other, Kiara thought about what to do. She could stay put and wait for someone to rescue her, or free herself and go it alone, but in this part of the world, doing so brought its own risks. The roads weren't safe, nor were they heavily patrolled by guards these days. This was wild, unruly country. Wolves, bandits, mercenaries, criminals… daedra. Kiara shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold. She knew there was worse out here than the raiding party, but at least they could defend themselves. Even though she knew nothing of them, if she was with them, she knew she'd at least be safe from the dangers wandering the barren wastes of Skyrim and the Western Reach. And they obviously knew how to stay alive out here.

With her mind made up, Kiara understood that she had to move fast or she'd lose them. She lunged toward the dagger the Argonian had left on the small mound of snow but gasped as she ran out of rope, her bindings mercilessly snapping and becoming taut, causing her to fall over. She seethed in pain, the newly minted cuts on her wrist stinging and making her eyes water. He left the dagger further away from her than she thought, it was firmly out of her reach. Groaning, Kiara sat up and took one of her sandals off, repositioning her body to reach for the dagger with her foot. She shuffled forward and fully extended her leg, fearful of not being able to reach it, but the long length of her legs had yet to fail her. Her toes curled around the hilt of the blade and she grinned in triumph. Luckily, the blade was extremely sharp and she managed to cut through her bindings in no time. Finally free for the first time in days, she got up and made a dash for one of the carriages to look for something, stepping delicately around the corpses of the men and horses, wondering if one of the raiders had managed to find it while they were looting the area. Lifting up a part of one of the steps revealed a hidden compartment used by Jack, and Kiara smiled when she found what she was looking for, sparkling in all its glory. The treasure had gone unnoticed by the raiders. She pocketed it and ran off in the direction the men had taken, leaving the scene behind her to its eerie silence, perhaps for some other unfortunate soul to find.