Into the Maelstrom
Chapter 1
The pounding in his head told him he had the mother of all hangovers. He shouldn't have had those last few shooters, but they just went down so good! Lynne seemed to be enjoying herself as well, but assured him she'd be 'designated driver' for the night.
The brightness behind his eyelids hurt, and the dog must be on the bed again, because he was being jostled around. But something didn't seem…quite…right….
Without opening his eyes, he reached out for his wife, but both hands moved at once. Oh, was this the bondage game again? This early in the morning? And here he was with a hangover the size of Cleveland. He had to tell her he just wasn't up to it today. He cracked his eyes open. And shut them again, immediately.
That couldn't be right. He would have sworn he was in a rough, wooden, horse-drawn cart. He took a deep breath to steady his stomach and immediately wished he hadn't as his olfactory glands were brutally assaulted by the smell of body odor, piss, shit and vomit. His vomit, he realized, as the sour smell was much too close for comfort. Great. He'd thrown up in his sleep. At least he hadn't choked on it.
So, where the hell was he, if he wasn't at home in bed? He cracked his eyes open again and peered through the blurriness. A pine forest…horses…a wooden cart…four other people with him. The cart was jouncing most unpleasantly over a rugged, rutted road partly paved with cobblestones. The sun was shining, but it seemed very cold, almost like October or November. That couldn't be right. It was the twenty-fifth of June; he knew that for a fact. He struggled to sit up, pushing against the front of the cart.
Across from him were three people: a large blonde man in some kind of leather and steel armor in shades of blue, silver and bronze; a wiry little dark-haired man in a dirty ragged tunic, who looked about as miserable as he felt himself; and at the end a small, curvy red-haired girl in a tunic no less ragged and dirty, with an undefinable expression on her face. It could have been shocked recognition or fatalistic resignation; he wasn't sure which. All three of them were bound at the wrists, as he was.
Next to him, to his right, was another man, as large and imposing as the blonde man across from him, but this one was gagged as well as bound. The gagged man looked at him shrewdly, then seemed to make up his mind about something and stared instead at the young woman across from him. She met his gaze steadily and raised her chin just a little. A gesture of bravado, perhaps, but the gagged man seemed to approve, and the corners of his eyes crinkled just a little.
By this time Blonde Guy noticed his eyes were open.
"Hey, you…you're finally awake! You were trying to cross the border and walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." Blonde Guy nodded to the small, dark-haired man sitting next to him.
He barely paid attention to the burly blonde man; he was more concerned about where the hell he was and how the hell he was going to get back home. Had he been kidnapped? No, that was ridiculous. He wasn't important enough or rich enough for someone to go to the trouble. This had to be a hallucination. That was it! There had to have been something in the shooters last night. He was still dreaming. All he had to do was close his eyes and wait to wake up.
Except he didn't, and the people talking around him seemed very much alive and real.
"Where are they taking us?" he heard the little man ask.
"I don't know where we're going," Blonde Guy replied stoically, "but Sovngarde awaits."
At this the little man began to panic and called out several words or names that had no meaning, ending with a plea to the "divines".
"What's your name, miss?" Blonde Guy asked her.
"Tamsyn," she said softly. She had a nice voice; he'd give her that.
"Are you from High Rock?"
"M-maybe," she hedged. "Why? Do I look Breton?"
Blonde Guy chuckled, but there was little humor in it, given their situation. "About as much as I look like a Nord," he said. "And what about you, Imperial?" he turned back to the young man across the cart from him. "What's your name? What village are you from?"
"Village?" he repeated stupidly. Des Moines was hardly a village!
"Yes, I'm Ralof, from Riverwood. Where are you from, horse thief?" he asked the little man next to him.
"Why should you care?" the man sneered sourly.
Blonde Guy shrugged. "A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."
There was a brief pause as the little man seemed to struggle with his conscience and finally replied. "I'm Lokir," he offered. "I'm from Rorikstead."
Ralof turned back to the young man with the hangover, eyeing him expectantly.
"I –" he began, then paused. None of those towns sounded familiar to him. Just how far from home was he? "My name is Mark…uh…" he stopped again, unable to remember his last name, but sure it began with an 's'. He shrugged helplessly. "I can't remember where I'm from," he ended lamely.
"Marcus, eh?" Ralof mused. "I thought you looked Imperial." He spat on the floor of the cart. "Turning against their own kind, now, are they? Figures."
"I'm not –" he began, but Lokir broke in.
"What's wrong with him?" the wiry little man jibed, indicating Gagged Guy.
At this Ralof frowned. "Watch your mouth!" he warned the little man. "That's Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King of Skyrim!"
Lokir's response was lost as Marcus stared at Gagged Guy – or rather, Ulfric Stormcloak. A real king? It couldn't be. The only royalty these days were over in Europe, and none of these people sounded European, except maybe Ralof. He might be Scandinavian. Marcus couldn't remember who the King of Sweden was currently, but he was sure it wasn't anyone named Ulfric Stormcloak. Maybe these people were part of some group of re-enactors or…what was it his daughter called them? Cosplayers! That was it! These had to be cosplayers, and somehow, he'd gotten caught up in their game.
Feeling a bit more confident, now that he'd figured it out, Marcus decided to play along, at least until they got where they were going. Perhaps he could borrow a cell phone and call his wife to come and get him. She would be furious with him for running off and leaving her at the party like that.
The girl on the end — Tamsyn, was it? —seemed to be shrinking into herself, drawing her knees up and lowering her forehead until it touched them. Maybe she'd been shanghaied into this cosplay thing, too, and didn't belong here anymore than he did.
They were approaching a small, walled enclosure now, that resembled a sort of Renaissance Fairgrounds, but he'd never seen anything this elaborate before. Those towers seemed to be made of real stone, not just faced with it. The people running around inside were all dressed in costume, and there were no obvious tourists here. Marcus hoped there was some kind of main office here, but first he had to get the ropes off his wrists.
"Okay," he said, "I think this has gone far enough. Can you get these ropes off me so I can make a phone call?"
The three men stared at him in disbelief before Ralof burst out laughing. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Fool!" he exclaimed. "Do you think if I could do that I'd still be here?"
He noticed the girl staring at him, and she was starting to creep him out a bit. She was young, and rather cute, but he was married, and had been for almost forty years. But the look she was giving him didn't seem like attraction; her expression was unfathomable, and he tried to shrug it off.
Irritated at Ralof's unhelpful attitude, Marcus turned to the driver of the horse cart. "Where can I find the main office here?" he asked. "I need to call my wife and get a ride home."
"You're mad!" the man exclaimed. "You're not going anywhere, you traitorous scum!" He hauled back sharply on the reins and the horse snorted and stopped suddenly, throwing Marcus back down on the bench and against Ulfric, who scowled and grunted at him around the gag, shouldering him away.
The next thing he knew, he was being pulled roughly off the cart and made to stand with the others while two soldiers, a man and a woman who were clearly officers by their armor, read names off a list. Ulfric went first, then Ralof. When Lokir's name was called, he panicked.
"No! I'm not a rebel!" he screamed. "You're not going to kill me!"
"Lokir, don't!" the girl cried as the skinny little man made a bolt for the gate.
"Archers!" the female guard called. She seemed to be in charge, because several men with bows took aim and shot Lokir in the back as he ran. He plummeted face-first into the road, and even from here, Marcus could see the blood pooling.
Appalled, he gasped, "They killed him! Those sons-of-bitches killed him!"
"Silence!" the female officer commanded.
The girl hung her head. "I tried to warn him," she whispered. "I knew he'd never make it to the gate."
"You there," the male guard said, directing his gaze toward Marcus. "Who are you?"
Numbly, Marcus thought about not answering, but wasn't sure they wouldn't treat him the same way they had poor Lokir. "Marcus," he mumbled. The man with the papers shuffled through them, confused.
"You a renegade, then? Turning against your own people?" He turned to the woman next to him. "Captain, what should we do? He's not on the list. She's not, either," he added, pointing to the girl. "There are no more names."
For a brief moment, hope flared in Marcus. Maybe Lokir's death was just faked. A pouch of fake blood under the costume, a few rubber-headed arrows, and all he had to do was lie there until the "guests" were pardoned and freed. Marcus didn't know who was responsible for this, but it had to have been someone at work; someone had set him up big time, and he'd nearly fallen for it.
The Captain's eyes narrowed, filled with hate as she glared at Marcus. "Forget the list," she ordered. "They go to the block."
WHAT?
"You can't be serious!" Marcus protested as he was dragged off. The girl followed behind, head bowed and silent tears coursing down her cheeks. "Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, it's in really bad taste! I want to speak to your director, or supervisor, or whoever it is who's in charge here!"
"General Tullius is a bit busy right now, rebel scum," the guard pushing him snarled. "And if you want to enjoy these last few moments of your miserable, worthless life relatively pain-free, you'll shut your mouth!"
"You've got some nerve!" Marcus shouted. "I demand to speak to this Tullius fellow! Where is—"
SMACK!
Marcus reeled and the world spun in front of him as the guard back-handed him.
"I said shut…the fuck…up!" the man said dangerously, drawing his sword. "Or the headsman will have one less rebel to behead!"
Behead? Did he say behead? Cold fear gripped Marcus' gut. Just past the man's shoulder was a stone block splattered with blood. A shallow depression in the center was just about the right size for a human head. Nearby, a bare-chested man in black leather straps holding a long, evil-looking axe stood at the ready.
Frantically looking around for any kind of evidence that this was all just a bad play he'd wandered into, he locked eyes with the red-haired girl a few feet away.
"Are they serious?" he whispered.
She nodded. "Deadly," she whispered back. Her face looked bleak and her eyes were haunted.
"But they can't!" he hissed. "We haven't done anything!"
"They think we have," she said in a low voice, as if that explained it. "For all they know, we've broken some Imperial Law and must be punished."
"Well, someone's got to stop them!" Marcus said, panic rising in his voice in spite of his efforts to keep it down.
She shook her head, refusing to meet his gaze. The look on her face was one of resigned terror.
"There has to be something we can do!" Marcus insisted.
"Pray to any gods you believe in for a miracle," was all she said.
The one they called General Tullius had been speaking to the rebel leader, Ulfric Stormcloak, and now a woman in a long gold robe was giving some kind of benediction. Or at least, she was, until one of the men in blue and bronze stepped forward.
"Oh, for the love of Talos," he sneered. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"
Offended, the robed woman said stiffly, "As you wish."
The man stalked over the stone block and stood in front of it. "Come on," he said impatiently. "I don't have all day."
A strange sound filled the air, echoing around the hills surrounding the village. It was something he'd never heard before, and had no idea what made it, but the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling in warning. The girl seemed to stiffen, her face betraying genuine horror. Her mouth was moving, and he caught her whispered words.
"No, please, wake up! You've got to wake up!"
So, she thought this was a dream, too? If so, it was the most vivid dream he'd ever experienced.
He turned back just in time to hear the condemned man call out, "My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperial. Can you say the same?"
And then the axe fell.
Marcus felt his stomach heave at the sight. One moment there was a living man kneeling there, his head on the block, and the next moment, blood was spurting everywhere as the head rolled one way, eyes still open, and the body rolled the other. Getting shot with an arrow could have been faked, but there was no faking a decapitation of this magnitude.
He heard the girl getting quietly sick nearby. He would have joined her, but the captain said, "Next, the renegade!" and he felt himself pushed from behind. She gave a cruel smile as he took a few slow steps forward.
The strange cry came again, and now, even the crowd was looking around nervously. But another firm push from behind, and Marcus found himself being propelled to stand in front of the block, facing the male officer, who looked at him in sympathy.
"I'm sorry," he murmured kindly. "We'll make sure your remains are returned to Cyrodiil."
He should fight his way free, he thought. But they'd shot down that little guy for running away. If he tried, he knew he wouldn't get far. Attempting to go over their heads hadn't made any difference; they didn't seem to care that he was innocent of any crime.
Marcus felt a foot kick his knees from behind and he dropped to them. Then the foot was on his back, pushing him down on the stone block that was still warm and sticky from its previous victim.
But I haven't done anything! his mind continued to protest. He sent a silent entreaty out to his wife, Lynne! I'm sorry! accepting for the first time that he was really going to die here, still not understanding what had happened to him.
A dark shape swooped over the village and landed on the stone tower above him with an earth-shaking impact. Bits of rock and other loose debris scattered down the side of the keep. I'm already hallucinating, he thought. It was a dragon; an enormous, black dragon. He'd seen a few in movies. The reality was much more horrifying. The dragon's maw opened, and within its deafening roar he heard words he could not understand, but which strangely resonated somehow within him.
"STRUN BAH FILMAH!"
Almost immediately, the skies darkened, clouds roiled across the upper atmosphere, and huge flaming chunks of rock began raining down. The percussion of the dragon's roar knocked everyone still standing to the ground, including the headsman, who lost his grip on his axe. It fell to one side, narrowing missing Marcus as he lay there, bound and helpless.
"What in Oblivion is that?" Marcus heard someone cry out. It sounded like the General who had been addressing Ulfric Stormcloak.
"It's in the clouds!" someone yelled, and "It's a dragon!"
Utter chaos ensued. A second percussive roar knocked him clear of the stone, but he hit his head on something in the process, bringing his headache back with a vengeance. His vision blurred, and for several heartbeats he was tempted to just lay there and let the end take him.
Screams and shouting rolled around him.
"Somebody get the battlemages out here, NOW!" the General's gravelly voice roared. "Guards, get these people to safety!"
"Arrows are useless!" a desperate voice called. "What does it take to kill this thing?"
Above all the cacophony, the roaring of the dragon continued.
A familiar voice cut through the chaos. "Imperial! Come on, get up, man!" Ralof, that was his name! Peering through bleary eyes he could barely make out the man standing a few yards away, his hands no longer bound. Just behind him was a bright flash of red. The girl, Tamsyn, was hovering there, waiting. Waiting for what? She should be getting the hell out of Dodge, if she was smart!
"Come on!" Ralof urged again. "If you love the gods, get up and follow me!"
Well, he didn't know about gods, but while he did love God, he certainly wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to postpone a meeting with Him. Somehow, he staggered to his feet and lurched after Ralof and the red-haired girl, but the action made him sick and dizzy. He narrowly avoided becoming a smear on the pavement as a boulder the size of a beach ball smashed into the ground not two feet away. It shattered, and bits of flaming rock went everywhere, cutting him deeply on the legs. He stumbled, but got back on his feet and hobbled after Ralof. He wished his hands were free. That would make everything so much easier!
Overhead, the dragon was swooping low, diving down to grab people and lift them high into the air, only to drop them from dozens of yards up. No one could have survived that. Every time it breathed out a gout of flame, Marcus heard the words, YOL TOOR SHUL!
Finally, he made the relative safety of a stone tower and fell to his knees in exhaustion.
"By Ysmir, that was a dragon," Ralof was saying. "Just like in the old legends!"
"Legends don't burn down villages," came a deep, authoritative voice, and Marcus looked up to see the rebel leader standing nearby, only this time without the gag. Ulfric Stormcloak, Ralof had called him, the Jarl of Windhelm. If memory served Marcus correctly, a Jarl was some kind of Scandinavian mayor or lord.
He was about to ask this Jarl if he knew what was going on when the entire tower shook, and bits of dust and stone rained down on everyone. Panicked voices raised, and Marcus realized there were others here as well, all wearing the blue and bronze armor that Ralof sported. Stormcloaks, one of the brown-clad guards had called them. They must have taken their name after this Jarl fellow.
"We need to move, now!" Jarl Ulfric ordered. "Head up the stairs. We'll see if we can escape through the roof."
"What? With the dragon still out there?" Marcus gaped in disbelief. "Are you insane?"
"I'd rather face the dragon out there with a sword in my hand than to wait here to be recaptured by those Imperial milk-drinkers," Ulfric sneered, looking Marcus up and down. "I'm not afraid to commend my soul to Sovngarde, boy. Stay here and wait for your friends to run you through, if you wish." His voice was heavy with censure and ridicule, and Marcus was about to protest he was no boy, but stopped.
He had no idea how old he appeared to these people, but somehow, in all the confusion and without understanding how it could have happened, he realized he felt younger and stronger than he had for at least a couple of decades. The aches in his body were due to the injuries he had recently suffered, and not because of age. The stiffness in his back and knees were gone, and the hair that threatened to get into his eyes was a dark brown, not gray. Even the hair on his arms was darker!
Clearly, these 'Stormcloaks' thought he was one of the Imperial soldiers, though, and that made him the enemy in their eyes. But as the tower shook again, he knew this was no time to argue semantics or allegiances.
"These people are hurt, Jarl Ulfric," the girl said, speaking for the first time since Marcus entered the tower. She was kneeling next to an injured Stormcloak soldier, her bound hands gently soothing the woman's forehead. "Some of them are badly wounded. They can't be moved."
The Jarl's eyes softened for a moment, looking at her. "I'm sorry, my lady," he said gently. "We have to get out of here, and they will only slow us down. But you are very kind to think of them. Such compassion from one so young and beautiful is refreshing."
The girl blushed, even as she frowned at his response.
She seemed as upset as he felt at Ulfric's decision to leave the injured behind. Realistically, however, he knew Ulfric was right. The wounded would slow their escape. It was likely the dragon would take them all out before they could get to safety, but that didn't mean they shouldn't have made an attempt.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask to have his bindings cut, to make his escape easier, but Ralof was nudging him.
"Come on," the Stormcloak urged him. "Up the stairs! I'll be right behind you."
He offered his hand to the girl, and Marcus realized with shame that he should have done that himself. Ralof helped her to her feet, then ushered them both up the stairs. Ulfric remained behind, giving orders to those still able to defend their injured comrades.
Halfway up, however, the girl stopped, twisting her body to the side with her bound arms extended in front of her to keep them from passing her.
"Tamsyn, what-?" Ralof began, but she cut him off.
"Wait!" she cried. "The dragon is going to burst through here!"
"How could you —?" Both men spoke at once, and suddenly the side wall of the tower shattered, dust and debris flying everywhere, and a large, black snout was forced into the hole.
"YOL TOOR!"
The heat was so intense Marcus felt his skin prickle. He pulled Tamsyn back, but her skin was already blistering.
"Augh!" she cried out as the dragon retreated to find other prey.
"Tamsyn!" Ralof gasped, more than a little scorched himself. "Are you alright?"
She hissed in pain. "I will be," she whimpered. "Give me a moment…"
"We should go back downstairs," Marcus said. "The top of the tower has collapsed. We can't get out that way."
"We can't go back out into the streets," Ralof insisted. "If the dragon doesn't get us, the Imperials will!" He peered through the opening in the side of the tower left by the dragon. "There! See that over there? That's the attic of the inn next door. Jump through the hole here to the attic. I'll be right behind you both."
"Are you crazy?" Marcus protested. "It's a good ten feet away!"
"You don't have any other choice!" Ralof scowled. "Unless you want to take your chances with the Empire, or the dragon."
Irritated and hurting, Marcus gauged the distance and backed up a couple feet. It wouldn't be a very long approach, but for some reason, he felt younger and stronger – despite his injuries – than he had in quite a long time. If someone had asked him to do something like this last week, he would have laughed sarcastically and politely declined. But now, he could feel strength in his limbs that hadn't been there before. "Alright," he muttered. "I'll do it."
"Tamsyn?" Ralof turned to the girl. "Can you make it?"
She looked out of the hole and shook her head. "No," she said. "You'll have to toss me."
"What?" Ralof looked perplexed.
"You'll have to give me a boost," she said firmly. "It's too far for me to jump. I'll never make it."
"I know what she means," Marcus said. "Would it help if we both tossed you? I'd be right behind you."
She looked at both of them very carefully, then nodded. "Yes, if you both swing me across, I should be able to make it."
In a matter of seconds, both men got on either side of her, scooped her up under her arms. It was a bit tricky, since both Marcus and Tamsyn's hands were still bound. The two men swung her gently at first, then stronger.
"On three," said Marcus. "One…two… THREE!"
They released her at the same moment, and the red-haired girl sailed through the air, landing lightly in the attic. Marcus backed up as far as he could and ran for the opening, leaping out into the intervening space.
He landed hard and started to fall, but turned it into a roll. That was one thing he remembered from his martial arts classes.
"Show off," the girl muttered, then looked back for Ralof.
Flames were licking up the side of the building, and they couldn't see the Stormcloak soldier through the smoke.
"Ralof!" Marcus called, coughing as he got a lungful of smoke. "Ralof!"
"We have to go," Tamsyn said, pulling at his arm.
"But Ralof didn't jump yet," he protested.
"I don't think he's going to," she insisted. "The building is on fire. We have to go now!"
Reluctantly, Marcus allowed himself to be led to a hole in the attic floor where stairs used to be. They lay smashed and burned on the first floor, pushed to one side, no doubt from the percussive force of the dragon's roaring.
Tamsyn dropped lightly down to the first floor, despite her bound hands, and Marcus followed her. At the open doorway the full enormity of the situation met their eyes. What had once been a quiet, sleepy village with stone towers and wooden buildings surrounded by a wooden palisade was now a scene from hell. Not one residence or business remained intact and standing, and the towers themselves were as battered as if an army with catapults had been knocking at their door for a week. Fire and smoke were everywhere, scorching their skin and stinging their eyes, making them cough and choke from the smell of charred wood and flesh.
"This way," Tamsyn said, pulling him along, and he blindly followed, having no idea where they were going, and wondering vaguely how she could know. He had lost all sense of direction in all the confusion, and had no idea in which direction the main gate lay.
Suddenly, overhead, a black shadow swooped low and Marcus and Tamsyn both instinctively ducked, scanning the sky for the dragon. The people still out on the streets, fleeing for their lives, screamed and panicked, stampeding as fast as they could in the opposite direction. The dragon landed at the far end of the street, just beyond a burning house. It looked their way and took a long, indrawn breath.
He'd seen the Hobbit movies. He knew what was coming next.
"Get back!" he cried, pulling Tamsyn out of the way behind the building where an elderly man was crouched, hiding. One of the Imperial soldiers was pulling a boy to the side as well.
"Torolf!" the soldier called out, and Marcus recognized the Imperial officer who had been kind to him at the block. "Hurry!" the man called out to another man several yards away, but just then the dragon unleashed its deadly breath, and the Imperial soldier was forced to take refuge behind the building with the rest of them.
"PAPA!" screamed the little boy, and Tamsyn immediately grabbed him and slipped her arms around him to keep him from running out to his father. She cradled his head against her breast, crooning to him, as the Imperial soldier noticed them all there.
"Still alive prisoners?" he blinked in surprise. "You'd better stick with me if you want to stay that way." He carefully pulled the boy from Tamsyn's arms and handed him over to the older man. "Gunnar, keep the boy safe. I have to find General Tullius and organize the defense."
"Gods bless you, Hadvar," Gunnar mumbled, comforting the sobbing child as best he could.
Hadvar, Marcus thought. Well, at least I have a name for the face. He seems a decent sort.
"You two, come with me," Hadvar said. He took off at a run, in the direction the dragon had been, but the huge lizard had already launched itself into the skies once more to find easy targets upon which to unleash its deadly wrath.
Marcus deliberately didn't look at the charred husk that had been Torolf. Obliquely, he hoped the boy would be alright.
He trotted after Hadvar and Tamsyn. Once again, the girl seemed to display an uncanny sixth sense, for she stopped just after they leaped off the foundation of a destroyed home and crouched against the stone wall just as Hadvar exclaimed, "Stay close to the wall!" A heartbeat later, the dragon settled itself briefly on top of the wall, its curving talons of death just inches from Marcus' face. A few seconds later, after flaming a group of soldiers – Marcus couldn't see whether they were Imperial or Stormcloak, and it really didn't matter – the dragon buffeted them with the downbeat of its colossal leathery wings as it clawed its way back into the air.
For the briefest of moments, as the dragon lifted off, it turned its head in their direction. Red eyes glared into his, and though Marcus felt as insignificant as an ant, there was a wordless exchange between them; a sort of primal acknowledgement of hereditary enemies.
Eventually, they emerged into a wider street, following their Imperial escort – or was he their captor once more? Or perhaps their savior? Marcus shook his head. He wouldn't think about that right now. Several yards away, he could see a large gatehouse. The dragon swooped down again and grabbed a soldier off the wall, taking him high into the air. In horrific fascination, Marcus watched the man plummet to his death when the beast released him.
Dimly he heard General Tullius bellow behind him, "RUN, you idiot!" and he wasn't entirely sure the order wasn't directed at him.
"Ralof, you damned traitor!" Hadvar yelled.
Marcus snapped out of his misery long enough to see Ralof not twenty feet away.
"We're escaping, Hadvar," Ralof sneered. "You're not stopping us this time!"
"Fine, then," Hadvar growled in frustration. Escaping prisoners were a bit low on the list of priorities at the moment. "I hope the damned dragon takes you all to Sovngarde!" He turned to Marcus and Tamsyn. "Come on, you two, follow me!" He took off toward the fortified building behind him, not looking back to see if they followed.
"Tamsyn!" Ralof called. "Over here! With me, both of you!" Nice to be included, Marcus thought sourly. The man still probably thought he was an Imperial spy. Tamsyn looked torn, looking back and forth between Hadvar's retreating back and Ralof beckoning them his way. Oh, for crying out loud, Marcus thought. Pick one!
"Well?" he demanded.
She gave him a look of pure exasperation and made up her mind. She moved towards Ralof, only because he seemed to be closer to them, and Marcus followed her. Good. He didn't exactly have anything against Hadvar; the man did get them through the rest of the village to this point. But he was clearly working for the side that wanted to relieve Marcus of his head, and that was just a bit too much to ignore.
They made it inside what appeared to be a fortified bunker, and Marcus felt some of the tension leave him. It was quiet in here, though they could still hear the dragon raging outside, and it seemed relatively safe against its attacks. Perhaps they could wait the beast out until it left.
Perhaps.
Ralof moved across the floor to something lying next to a rude, wooden table. It was a body, Marcus noticed dully. One of many he'd seen today. The man was wearing what he had begun to think of as 'Stormcloak' armor, and Ralof seemed particularly moved to have discovered him here.
"He was my friend," he told Marcus and Tamsyn quietly. "We came up through the ranks together." He put his hand over the man's eyes and murmured solemnly, "We'll meet again in Sovngarde, my friend."
He stood then and drew his knife. After all he'd been through today, Marcus was half-tempted to ask Ralof to send him to this Sovngarde. It seemed to be their word for heaven, and he was ready to make the trip now. But Ralof only smiled and said, "Come on over here, both of you. Let me get those bonds off."
It a matter of minutes, they were freed, and Marcus rubbed the chafed spots on his wrists where the ropes had rubbed him raw. Tamsyn looked to be in worse shape, as her skin was reddened and blistered, but she gave a sigh of relief and smiled, making several curious gestures with her hands. Warm light glowed from them in shades of peach, pink and gold, and suffused her entire body. The blisters disappeared and her skin returned to a normal, healthy color. In a moment, she looked refreshed and ready to go, despite wearing a ragged tunic and with feet wrapped only in cloth.
"That's better," she breathed in relief.
"What did you just do?" Marcus asked, dumbfounded, while Ralof snorted.
"A mage, eh? I'd heard Bretons were good at magic. I don't care much for it myself, but Restoration's nice to know." The way he said 'Restoration' made it sound capitalized.
"I healed myself," Tamsyn said, matter-of-factly, looking at him slightly puzzled. "I thought you knew most Bretons know magic of one kind or another."
Marcus glared at her. "No. I don't know anything of the kind. But, uh…can you do that for me?" His voice raised hopefully, but the girl shook her head in apology.
"I'm sorry," she said regretfully. "That's a more complicated spell. I don't know that one. I can only heal myself. But you're an Imperial; you should be able to heal yourself."
Marcus shook his head. "I don't know how to do that," he muttered.
"Oh," Tamsyn replied. "I could teach you—"
Ralof shot them both a curious look, but said evenly, "We don't have the time for that now. You, Imperial. You may as well take Gunjar's armor and axe. He won't be needing them anymore." He turned back to Tamsyn and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry there isn't anything for you, but you're just a little bit of a girl. Gunjar's armor is way too big for you."
"That's alright," she said kindly. "I'm sure we'll find something else I can wear, if we can get out of here. Go ahead and put the armor on, Marcus. You'll need the protection. Don't forget the boots and bracers, either."
"I know what I'm doing," he said irritably. "Turn your backs, both of you. I'm not stripping down in front of people I don't know."
The girl turned pink and swiveled around immediately. Ralof snorted in derision, but turned his back as well.
As he dressed, Marcus reflected on the fact that 'Imperial' seemed to refer to both the faction of soldiers wearing brown and red, and a race of people somehow different than Ralof, who claimed to be a 'Nord', and Tamsyn, whom Ralof had said was a 'Breton', whatever that was. It was clear that Ralof thought he was an Imperial by race, and not necessarily by allegiance.
Filing the information away to consider later, he concentrated on getting the armor on as quickly as possible, feeling a little better once this was accomplished. At least now he had some kind of protection against the elements. Turning back around he saw Tamsyn shivering slightly in the cold air of the draughty keep and felt guilt slam into him. He looked around for something to give her a bit more warmth and protection, but the only thing available was the ragged robe he'd just taken off. He held it out to her, raising an eyebrow, but she gave a small smile and shook her head.
"I'll be fine, Marcus," she said. "I'll find something I can wear."
In the meantime, Ralof had attempted to open one of the two gates that sat opposite each other on the round tower walls, but it was firmly in place, with no kind of chain or lever to raise it.
"I'm sure this is the way out," he told Tamsyn. "But it's locked, and the other one leads back to the barracks. We don't want to go that way."
"That way is also locked," Tamsyn said. "I can just see a lever on the other side of this gate, but it's just out of reach. I'm sure that was planned."
"Give that axe a few swings," Ralof told Marcus, when he saw him standing there, looking lost.
"What, you mean, like this?" Marcus flailed the axe around in front of him, as he'd seen actors do in movies.
Ralof rolled his eyes. "No, no, no. That's all wrong, stop that," he ordered. "That's a good way to leave yourself wide open to attack. Haven't you ever used an axe before?"
"Not since my Boy Scout days," Marcus admitted, "and then only to chop wood."
Ralof let out an exasperated breath. "I don't know what a 'boy scout' is, unless it's something they do down in Cyrodiil," he said sourly, "but chopping up a man who's coming at you, intent on killing you, isn't like chopping wood. We haven't got a lot of time," the Stormcloak continued. "We need to keep moving and get out of here, so watch carefully."
The five-minute tutorial wasn't nearly long enough, but Tamsyn had hissed at them that she'd heard voices from the other side of the gate.
"It's probably Imperials," she said in hushed tones. "You two stand on either side of the gate. They won't see you there."
"What are you going to do?" Marcus asked.
"Nothing, if they're friendly," she answered. "But even if they're hostile, they'll be able to open the gate. I'll be the bait to draw them in. I'm going to cast a spell, though, so hang back, then come at them from both sides. They won't know what hit them."
Ralof was grinning in admiration. "It's a good plan," he approved. He looked at Marcus and the smile left his face. "Don't mess this up, boy, understand?"
Once more, it was on the tip of Marcus' tongue to retort he was hardly a boy anymore, but he heard voices approaching. He swallowed his pride and stepped back to one side of the gate, with Ralof on the other.
It worked beautifully. Imperial soldiers saw Tamsyn standing in the middle of the room, looking scared and lost.
"It's one of the escaped prisoners!" Marcus her a woman say. "Get that gate open." Cold fury clenched his gut. It was the Imperial Captain who had ordered him to his death despite having done nothing to deserve it! He gripped the axe tighter as the gate lifted.
He was about to rush in, but a glance at the red-haired girl held him in his tracks. She gestured, and a jet of flames erupted from both hands, engulfing the three Imperials. Screaming horribly, they writhed to escape the fire. Marcus stared in horrific fascination until Ralof called out to him.
" Now!" Ralof cried, swooping in with his axe.
Marcus could barely remember reacting. Instinct took over, and he targeted the Imperial Captain. The next several minutes were a blur as he swung the iron cleaver, blocking the captain's blows and finally slicing across her midsection so hard he almost bifurcated her.
When he finally came to his senses, he was standing over her body, breathing hard. Sweat and blood dripped down his face, and he realized some of it was his. Ralof had taken care of the other two Imperials. He looked at Marcus and nodded grudging approval.
"You learn fast, boy," he commented. "Your technique needs a little work, but as a very wise man once said, 'the best techniques are passed on by the survivors,' so I guess it worked for you."
Marcus felt conflicted: on the one hand he was inordinately pleased by the praise. He'd finally managed to impress Ralof, though he didn't understand why that mattered so much to him. On the other hand, he had just killed someone. Granted, she would have killed him if she'd been given the chance, but it didn't alleviate the guilt he felt. Tamsyn looked troubled, too, and he wondered if she was going to throw up. He wouldn't have blamed her if she had.
"Let's see if they have a key for the other gate over there," Ralof said, rummaging through the bodies. Marcus couldn't take his eyes off the shiny, steel sword the captain had carried. "Go ahead, take it," Ralof suggested, watching him. "You can't be any worse with a sword than you are with an axe."
Refusing to rise to the bait, Marcus took the sword. The captain's armor looked better than his, but he didn't want to take the time to change out, and he sure didn't want anyone on Ralof's side thinking he was with the Imperials.
Ralof got the opposite gate open, but Tamsyn asked him to wait a moment, and disappeared down the corridor from which the Imperials had come. She returned a few moments later with a small sack, into which she had stuffed a couple of books, and a small number of coins, some of which she offered to Ralof and Marcus.
"I don't need them," Ralof smiled, shaking his head. "You two take them. I'm sure you can use them."
"Thank you, Ralof," she beamed, putting her hand on his arms briefly in gratitude. He gave her what Marcus felt was a soppy-looking grin and ushered her through the gate and Marcus felt an unaccountable prickling of irritation at the Nord. Shaking it off, he followed along behind them as they moved through corridors and rooms, trying to find a way out of the Keep.
At one point they found themselves in a torture chamber, straight out of a really bad B-movie, and after a quick skirmish with the head torturer and his assistant, they were able to loot the place of its valuables. Tamsyn showed some skill in picking locks, opening one cage that had a dead man in robes inside. She insisted on taking a few moments to strip him down to his loincloth, declaring she wasn't going to wear her ragged tunic any longer than necessary.
Privately, Marcus wondered why she just didn't take some of the armor off the dead soldiers; it would have protected her better, but the girl was frustratingly insistent. She even went as far as opening the other cages "just for practice", she said, though Marcus wanted to scream at the delay and Ralof waited impatiently nearby. Nevertheless, they both obligingly turned their backs while she changed. He had to admit, the robes, boots and hood were a better fit than some of the armor might have been. She looked much happier, too, claiming the robe and hood were imbued with enchantments that enhanced her spell-casting abilities. It didn't make sense to him, but at this point there were a lot of things that didn't.
The rest of their escape was a nightmare from which Marcus kept hoping he would wake. There were more soldiers to fight, falling debris to avoid, spiders the size of a Buick, and just when he thought it couldn't get worse, a large bear blocking the exit out of the underground tunnel.
Ralof didn't want to disturb it, and Marcus couldn't blame him. No one in their right mind would want to. Clearly, Tamsyn wasn't in her right mind. She made some weird gesture with her hand and a ghostly-looking wolf sprang forth. She launched an arrow from a bow she'd picked up, crouching the whole time, and woke the damn thing up!
"I guess you're not the sneaking type, eh?" Ralof drawled, moving forward with his axe.
"Are you out of your flipping mind?" Marcus hissed. He backed away furiously as the bear lumbered forward, but the ghost-wolf leaped at it and began tearing into it. The bear roared and turned to face the more immediate threat, swiping at the wolf with its huge, clawed paws. It struck twice…three times…and the wolf crackled into non-existence.
But the girl kept calmly shooting at it with the arrows she'd picked up, pausing only long enough to bring back her ghost-wolf, and resumed shooting with the bow, staying out of range of the beast. Ralof charged in with his axe and in a matter of moments it was all over. The red-haired girl calmly took a dagger from her waist and cut off the bear's claws.
"Gonna make a necklace out of them?" Marcus asked her, fear of what could have happened putting an edge of sarcasm on his tongue.
"No," she replied calmly, ignoring his jibe. "They're potion ingredients." She carefully packed the claws away in her sack.
Marcus stopped and blinked. "You're kidding."
"She's right," Ralof nodded. "I don't practice it myself, but I'm grateful to those who do. Potions that can restore your health or stamina are very useful on the battlefield." He turned and headed toward a tunnel that seemed to lead downward.
Marcus looked back at Tamsyn. "Is that why you've been picking up bits and pieces of stuff as we've gone along?" he inquired, curious. "The mushrooms and garlic and spider venom and everything else?" She nodded, turning to follow Ralof out of the tunnel.
"Bear claws are just one component of a potion that can restore your stamina," she informed him as they walked. "It needs to be combined with other ingredients, like purple mountain flowers, which I'm sure I'll find along the way. The bone meal is used to help resist fire; the garlic helps to resist poison, as well as helping my magicka to regenerate faster. The spider venom is just a good, basic poison."
"Magicka?" Marcus asked, his brow wrinkling.
She gave an exasperated chuckle. "Yes, magicka," she smiled. "The internal energy I use to cast spells, like shooting flames out of my hands, or summoning that wolf familiar you saw, or casting a healing spell on myself. Every time I cast a spell, it uses up that reservoir of magical energy, and I have to wait for it to fill back up again."
"And potions will make it fill up faster?" Marcus guessed.
She nodded again. "Or they can restore your stamina, make you feel rested and ready to go again. And they can heal you of injuries, just as if you've had a healing spell cast on you. If you can't do magic yourself, it's always good to learn some basic alchemy, so you can make your own potions. Otherwise, you have to buy them."
They had reached the tunnel exit by this time and Marcus was never so glad to see daylight in his life. He practically ran out of the cave, but Ralof stopped him several yards ahead and pushed him down.
"Wait!" he hissed, looking overhead. A huge black shadow passed over them, and they heard the dragon roar as it flew by, heading north. Only when it was gone did Ralof straighten and breathe a sigh of relief.
"Looks like he's finally gone for good," he commented. He looked them both over before seeming to make up his mind about something.
"We should probably split up," he said finally. "I've got to rejoin Ulfric Stormcloak. My sister, Gerdur, runs the mill in Riverwood, just up the road a bit. I'm sure she'll help you out."
This suited Marcus just fine. He knew Ralof didn't think much of him, and while he was grateful to the man for helping them, he didn't necessarily want to spend much more time in his company.
"What?" Tamsyn said incredulously. "You're just going to abandon us?"
"I'm not—" Ralof began.
"What if we run into more soldiers?" she demanded. "We could be captured all over again!"
"You look like you can handle yourself," Ralof squirmed, though Marcus noticed with irritation that he'd used the singular and not the plural.
"And you think your sister will just take our word for it that we know you?" Tamsyn pressed, hands on her hips.
"But I—" Ralof let out a sigh of resignation. "Okay, okay," he chuckled. "I'll take you to Riverwood myself and introduce you to my sister. It's not entirely safe for me, since Riverwood is in Whiterun Hold, and the Imperials can move about freely there, but I owe you that much."
Tamsyn smiled happily and thanked him.
"Are you sure you don't know my sister?" he grinned ruefully. "You sounded just like her!"
The trip to Riverwood was relatively uneventful. Ralof pointed out an ancient ruin on the side of a mountain across the river from them, and showed them three ancient standing stones. Cone-like, with a metal-lined hole near the top, each was carved with a bas-relief of a figure; one that was clearly a fighter, one in a robe, and one with a billowing cloak and daggers. Tamsyn immediately went over and touched the one that had the robed figure on it. The hole in the center of the stone began to glow and a beam of light shot into the air.
"Go ahead, Marcus," she urged him. "Pick one. You might just get a blessing from it, as I did."
Marcus didn't know what to think. He'd long since given up any hope that this was some kind of re-enactment company and that this was some huge, elaborate set. People were casually murdered here; creatures existed that shouldn't have; magic was a real thing. It was clear he was no longer in the world he once knew. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to get back to it. His only hope now was to reach this Riverwood and see if he could find out exactly where he was, and try to formulate some sort of plan for getting back to the life he knew. In a gesture that was more compliance than acceptance, he put his hand on the stone with the carving of the fighter on it.
Shock tingled through him as the stone warmed under his hand, the hole in the center glowed, and a blue-white beam of light shot straight to the heavens. A small part of his mind seemed to unlock, and he understood now what mistakes he'd made in their previous skirmishes. He wouldn't make them again, he knew. He stepped aware from the stone, shaken, but oddly satisfied.
Returning to Ralof and Tamsyn, Marcus saw the enigmatic smile on her face, but she said nothing. Ralof, however, was clearly skeptical.
"Warrior, eh? Hmph. We'll see." Without another word he turned and headed down the road toward Riverwood.
"What just happened?" Marcus asked, still confused.
"You just received a blessing from the Divines," Tamsyn told him. "You may find out very soon that your combat skills will improve." With that cryptic phrase, she turned to follow Ralof, and Marcus could do nothing else but tag along behind.
This had been the strangest day ever. He only hoped when he woke up tomorrow morning that it was in his own bed, next to his wife, with his familiar, ordinary world surrounding him once more. These people were crazy!
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