Chapter 48: The Rift Imperial Camp

[8th9th of Sun's Height 4E 202]

Once again a nice and peaceful time at High Hrothgar had ended. Fiona had done lots of shout training with the Greybeards, and I had received permission to meditate on the second word of the 'Kyne's Peace' shout. Like he had done during my first stay, Master Wulfgar aided my meditation by sometimes just sitting next to me. Eventually we had hiked down to Ivarstead again, where Jordis and Lydia had been waiting. This time, though, no saber cat attacked us half way down. During the walk we had already made plans for where to go next.

Over breakfast one day later I had spread my map on the table, and after some discussion, we confirmed the earlier decision to try to find a place called 'Arcwind Point' first. From the game I vaguely remembered that the location had a word wall, and Master Arngeir had explicitly mentioned the place. Even if we did not find a word wall, though, at least the trip there might be interesting. None of our housecarls had ever been up there, and we were not sure what the best way to get there was. Wilhelm had a suggestion:

"As far as I know, there is a trail leading up the mountains right south of here. You'll have to leave the road and continue south when you reach the main road between Helgen and Riften. Not sure if the way is safe, though; travelers report that they've seen Imperial soldiers in the area."

"Are they known to be plundering and such?"

"Not to my knowledge, no, but with you, B'lushona, and you, Fiona, Thanes of Whiterun and thus allied with the Stormcloaks…"

Of course, yes, he had a point. And, based on what Mia had told me earlier, it seemed likely that an Imperial camp was somewhere in the area. Naturally, the Rift Imperial Camp wasn't marked on the map, but the direct and most easy way to getup to Arcwind Point might start from around there. We should be able to find the camp, but somebody might recognize us there; thus we were going to see if there was a path we could use further west, between Mia's former shack and the mountain pass maybe.

South of Ivarstead, about half way between the bridge and the main road, we found something amusing. To our right, a few hundred meters away from the road, we could see some rocks and what looked like a cave entrance in the background, and some of the trees there had large beehives hanging from the branches. Well, of course I could not be sure that 'beehives' was fully correct, but a brown bear was apparently trying to get something there, and its efforts were continuously interrupted by some kind of whimpering. My assumption was that the bear wanted to steal some honey, and the bees objected. I could not help myself and smiled, and Fiona also showed some amusement on her face. She could probably see fewer details than I could, and she asked:

"That's bees over there, right?"

"I guess so, and it looks like the bear is getting stung repeatedly for stealing honey."

"Funny. Iona, by the way, is it possible that there is a cave over there?"

"Indeed, my Thane" the redhead replied. "Fittingly, the place is called 'Honeystrand Cave'."

"Anything interesting there?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"All right, so no reason to delay our trip for now, I guess. Spelunking will have to wait."

"Spelunking? What is that, my Thane?" Lydia asked.

"Cave exploration" I responded.

"There is a special word for that? But all right, you do claim to be a scholar."

"Yes, I do." I replied, without taking the bait to discuss this further. My face showed a wide grin, though. As a matter of fact, I had actually done some spelunking in my first life. A friend of mine had done this as his big hobby, and I had gone with him and sometimes a few other interested people several times. On Earth, though, or at least in Central Europe, when going into caves, one did not have to worry about dangerous animals at least. There were only bats in some of them, and some caves were closed in winter because of hibernating bats which should not be disturbed. Caves here in Skyrim were an entirely different story. Not only were they sometimes inhabited by bears and other animals, some also served as lairs for bandits or other evil people, like necromancers and such, and that was not yet mentioning Falmer and goblins. No, wait, goblins were in caves in Cyrodiil only, right? Anyway, according to my estimation, Skyrim caves without any dangerous encounters inside were clearly a minority.


We moved onto the main road between Helgen and Riften, and once there we planned to discuss our options for finding the trail up to our target. Just when had reached the main road and decided to follow the road west and see if there was a way to get south and up from there, the situation changed, as we saw a group of soldiers approaching on the road from Riften. The detachment was larger than what a normal patrol supposedly had, and I was getting worried at first, but soon I could recognize Stormcloak uniforms and colors. Thus, we waited for them to get close, and the troop leader greeted us promptly:

"Hi there, I am Gonnar Oath-Giver, the Rift military commander. There's no need for you to introduce yourselves; B'lushona, I have seen you a couple of times in Windhelm, although you may not remember me, and Lady Dragonborn, you match the description Commander Ralof provided quite well."

"Description like 'tiny Bosmer', I assume?"

"I believe that the term 'petite' was used, my lady, but it's mainly you traveling with a big wolf at your side. That information made it to Windhelm."

Fiona smiled, and I also greeted the soldier:

"It's good to meet you, Commander. May I ask if you have specific plans, unless that is secret?"

"We are supposed to find and eliminate the Rift Imperial Camp, which we know is somewhere in the western part of the Rift, but we don't know exactly where. You don't happen to have a clue, do you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do" I answered with a smile on my face, although I could not be sure that what I thought to be a friendly smile would be seen on my Khajiit face by others as such. "I am reasonably confident that it is almost exactly south from here, at the border of the mountains, close to where the path to 'Arcwind Point' starts. We had been planing to circumvent the place, but if we join forces…"

I looked at Fiona to get her opinion as well, and when she nodded, Gonnar grinned and suggested:

"Great! Would you mind leading the way? If an outpost guard sees us, you will look less suspicious than we do in our Stormcloak armor."

I did not really agree with that; even without wearing a faction armor, I stuck out; I doubted that there were many Khajiit with my size in Skyrim, and thus I objected:

"I don't think that I'd less suspicious. Why don't we have Fiona and her housecarls take the lead, and I keep back a little. Let us look at the map together first."

The Stormcloak leader looked at me again, and then he nodded, got his map out and unfolded, and said:

"Yes, I do get your point. All right, we are about here, right where the road to Ivarstead branches off."

"Right; that's where we came from. I believe that the camp you are looking for is almost exactly south of here, with mostly rocks around, in one of those small areas we see here."

I pointed towards the region, and Gonnar agreed:

"That seems to make sense. Far enough from the main road to not be noticed from here, between half an hour and one hour, but close enough to be able to use the road when needed. Possible they could also be next to or even in the 'Ruins of Bthalft'."

"True, they could, but they aren't according to what I heard."

"All right, then we assume that the camp is somewhere hugging the rock walls to the West."

I nodded in agreement, and we started to leave the road in southern direction, with Fiona and her housecarls leading. It was true that I did not know the camp's precise location, and of course it was not marked on the map either, but I should be able to find it, or so I hoped, based on some hints from Mia and my own vague memory from the game. About ten minutes later a pack of wolves approached, but they quickly got discouraged by the about thirty Stormcloaks behind us. The terrain got more hilly, and from one elevation I could see some artificial constructs and ruins to my left, partially hidden from direct view by trees. There seemed to be some movement there, but only two or three people, and we ignored that. We proceeded to head south, and eventually Fiona raised her hand to stop the group and have us stay where we were hidden by trees and bushes. Gonnar and I cautiously moved to the front, keeping a low profile, and when the Bosmer pointed ahead, we saw something which looked like the top parts of large tents, a trace of smoke from a campfire or so, and we also heard horse noises; one of the animals whinnied from time to time. The Stormcloak commander nodded:

"Yes, this looks like it could be our target. What about that – give us about half an hour, and I'll split my soldiers in half and have them proceed under cover on each side, taking advantage of boulders, trees, and bushes. When they are in position, you just walk ahead, and when they attack you, we'll crush them from both sides."

That sounded like a plan, and both Fiona and I agreed. I did not really like the idea to attack and kill other people deliberately, but I had to accept the fact that the Civil War was happening, and the chances to surround the others and make them surrender were probably slim to nil. Besides, considering how General Tullius had treated Fiona and me in Solitude, I was not really hesitating; although, of course, this had not been any individual soldiers' fault. But anyway, there was likely not even a slim chance to get both parties to skip fighting by approaching and saying something like 'peace, brothers'.

When the wait time was over, we – the Bosmer, our housecarls and myself – slowly walked forward, and a few minutes later, when we were seen by those in the camp, somebody called:

"Halt – who are you, and what do you want?"

"We are travelers, and we're looking for the path up to 'Arcwind Point'. Who are you?"

"The path starts not far from here, indeed, and it does not matter who we are."

The uniforms gave the two away, though, when they showed themselves, but we just followed them. Another small group of Imperials came out from the camp, which was now very clearly visible, and one of them recognized us:

"Wait – you are the two who are wanted by General Tullius – the Dragonborn and the big Khajiit!"

I was not really surprised that somebody recognized us, not at all, and we had planned for that. Immediately the other soldiers around us started to grab their weapons, but I used the opportunity to hit the next two ones with my fist before they had a chance to do something about it. Right now the Stormcloaks emerged from their cover on both sides, and the Imperials had to fight for their lives; most of them had focused on us and failed to notice that more enemies had approached from the sides. The number of people in the camp seemed to be similar to our own number, between thirty and forty, but we had the surprise advantage on our side; besides, some Imperials were sleeping, maybe after a night patrol. I worked my crossbow, and Fiona shouted her 'FUS RO DAH' into a group of enemies; this was the first time I observed her using all three words, and the result was literally deadly. The Imperials who were directly hit were killed instantly, and even those who had been standing a little bit to the side got knocked out temporarily from the blast. With the odds on our side like this, the fight was over quickly; all of the Imperials were either dead or taken prisoners by the Stormcloaks, who had suffered only two casualties and a few with injuries.

Gonnar thanked us for our assistance, and for now we focused on healing the wounded, both allies and enemies, while a few soldiers used the opportunity to prepare a lunch for everybody, using the big campfire and the equipment which had been placed there. The commander decided that there was no rush and they'd move back to Riften on the next day, and we also preferred to have a full day available for our ascent to 'Arcwind Point'. We relaxed during the afternoon and listened to some stories, while some of the soldiers improvised a burial for the fallen people. They were fair and also buried the dead on the other side, and one of them explained:

"They are humans as we are, after all, and many of them were likely just misguided. Maybe we'll see some of them in Sovngarde, although I'm not sure if they let Imperials in."

Right, the Nords had a very distinct idea about their afterlife – Sovngarde. I did not know, though, what comparable concepts were for other races, including my own, and I had not yet bothered to learn about it.

Later the Stormcloak commander admitted:

"Those Imperials had been bothering us for a long time. Every once in a while they headed out west into the pass and tried to kill some of our own from our Falkreath Camp, and they also attacked patrols on the main road from time to time. We did not know where they had come from, but this is now history. We appreciate your help!"

Fortunately, our group was excluded from the night watch, so that we could all rest during the night. Naturally I needed some time before I managed to sleep. Once again I had been part of several people being killed, and this was nothing I accepted with a shrug of my shoulders. Yes, they were our enemies, and yes, they had tried to kill Fiona and me at Helgen, but still, it seemed bad and concerned me. Logic told me that there was no realistic way to just arrest our enemies instead of killing them, for several reasons, but my feelings were not dictated by logic. I was not a soldier, although I had served time with the German military, which had at the time been mandatory. Maybe I was never going to get used to killing people, and likely this was even a good thing. I would not want to wake up one morning just to find out that I considered killing people normal.


In the next morning I rose just before sunrise, and I started the day by doing somebody exercises. It turned out that I was not the only one doing that, as a few Stormcloak soldiers also stretched and worked their bodies nearby. One of them, a tall and athletic female Nord who looked remotely familiar, addressed me:

"Wait, you're that big Khajiit I met a few months ago at Valtheim Towers, right?"

I looked at her and tried to remember, and she helped me out:

"I'm Hlakana, and we exercised there together in the morning before the Valtheim Alliance was signed."

Now I recalled her and replied:

"Ah, yes, indeed, I remember you now, and my name is B'lushona. Shall we train together once more?"

"Let's do that, yes."

With Hanni and Nanni jumping around us, we spent about half an hour exercising, and as I had done so frequently before, I included Hanni and Nanni as well whenever possible. They did not really need a workout, but considered that as kind of play time. Hlakana smiled and suggested:

"Last time we worked out together, you threw your saber cats up in the air to reward them. Are you still doing that?"

"Hlakana, this was almost half a year ago, and they have grown a lot since. Doing something like that is getting difficult nowadays. I can still do it, but not very high, and it is demanding on my muscles. Maybe I need to keep my eyes open for a weight reduction spell or so."

"Do you think such a spell exist?"

"I do know that there is magic to enchant backpacks and make the wearer feel the weight less, and for satchels to keep ingredients fresh and store a larger amount than normally possible. It is at least conceivable for a spell to exist to reduce weight of objects or animals, at least for a short time. However, I'm speculating now."

I did indeed not know if there was such a spell either in the base game or in any of the mods I had used. Was there anything like a spell for levitation, even similar? The only one close I could recall was Telekinesis, but that wasn't quite the same, and it likely worked only for objects, not animals.

When we were done, I woke my companions; Fiona grumbled when her housecarl shook her awake 'in the middle of the night', as she called it. I never understood why so many people, specifically on Earth, preferred to stay up very long in the evenings, until or even past midnight, and then sleep long past sunrise, if they had a choice.

We enjoyed a nice field breakfast and then took our leave, wishing Gonnar and his soldiers all the best. We had to walk around a small group of hills, and from there a narrow path led uphill indeed. There was no sign, but I was confident that this should be the right way to go; I had grown up on Earth at a time long before GPS and smartphones had been around, and I was quite decent in reading normal old-fashioned maps without position markers. We started to follow the path; we were in mid summer, and thus we did not immediately get into snow regions here. There was an iron ore vein in a corner – I had mined this type of ore frequently enough to recognize it – but little vegetation around in this area. The higher we got, the better the view was, and we could see into the Rift nicely, recognizing Lake Geir to the north and Ivarstead on the western shore. From one of the sections on the path we could look down to the east, and there was actually a dragon sitting and resting near some tower like structure, closer than what looked safe for us. A look at my map indicated that this was likely 'Autumnwatch Tower', and this was one of the locations we had also planned to visit. The dragon was seemingly asleep, and I wondered, asking the others:

"What do you think? Shall we try to attack the beast from here or do it later when we get there below?"

Lydia, practical as always, pointed out:

"From here, the distance is too far for arrows, and only one of your bolts might be able to hit it. Thus we would not to be able to weaken the creature with a coordinated attack while it is still asleep."

The housecarl had a point, but it turned out that we did not get an option anyway. The dragon awoke, rose its muzzle and sniffed the air, and took off, not towards us, though, but flying south. It rose high into the air and attacked somebody or something on the cliffs there, mostly with flame shouts, and it also got counterattacked with arrows and magic. The whole scene looked almost surreal to me, and I felt like I was in a movie theater watching that fight. The engagement took maybe ten minutes, before the flying beast turned around and headed back towards its lair, this time passing close to our location. We did not even try to hide, and when the dragon noticed us, we attacked all at once – I used my crossbow, and Fiona shouted her 'FUS RO DAH' right on target. A human being would have been killed by the direct attack, but this was a dragon. It roared once, and likely because it had been weakened in the previous fight, crash landed on the path above us, slowly sliding down. Fiona's Nymeria and my three saber cats, the two real ones and the spirit one I had already summoned, rushed ahead to distract the beast, I continued to send bolts, and Iona, Lydia and Jordis now also joined the fight. Nevertheless, the dragon managed to get into the air again, but not for long. It was about to crash land again, but this time very close to me. Rather than jumping and running to the side, as I should have done, I kept standing in the center of the path and looked at the creature with fascination, not immediately realizing the danger I was in, until I got hit by a blast and heard 'FUS'. The dragon hit the ground not far away, almost exactly where I had been standing a few seconds earlier, and I realized that the Dragonborn had likely saved my life by shouting me away, or at the very least she had prevented very severe injuries. I'd have to thank her later; for now, we'd better focus. The flying creature was injured, but my strong body had not suffered any serious damage from the shout; of course, the Bosmer had only used the weakest version of the shout, and that from some distance. I continued to weaken the joints and wings with bolts, whereas Fiona blasted ice onto the beast with magic; as far as I knew, she did not know an ice shout yet. Finally, our combined effort overcame the dragon's power and it succumbed, delivering yet another dragon soul to Fiona with the usual light show; we had seen this before, but it was fascinating to watch every time. When we had checked our injuries and done some healing, I addressed the Dragonborn:

"Fiona, that was good thinking shouting me away. For some reason I reacted in a totally wrong way, and you may have saved my life. Thank you very much for that."

She grinned and replied:

"It seems to be our destiny that we're saving each other's lives from time to time; you are welcome, big cat."

I really needed to pay more attention to my environment and the situation, specifically when fighting. Sometimes, I reacted like I was playing the game or watching a movie rather than really being in Skyrim, focused on enjoying the scenery and such. It showed that I was not a born warrior, but more like a scholar, and I had a feeling that Fiona adapted to the harsh reality here more quickly than I did. I sure needed friends and companions around, but of course, most people needed that. This harsh world was not meant for single people to survive on their own, and only very few I had met had even tried, for instance Mia, the alchemist, who had lived on her own for some time in the Rift.

[Author's Notes: I'd like to point out that, while email notifications are frequently broken on thissite, story followers can still see the date of the latest story update by looking at the 'Alerts → Story Alerts' page, selected from the left side menu.]