Of Snow and Bone - Part Eight

24th of Last Seed, 4th Era 201

I awoke and entered the streets of Solitude in the cool light of the stars. The sun would rise within an hour or two, and I scratched Meeko between the ears as I wondered what to do today. I still had the letter to deliver to Whiterun, from Igdrod the Younger. Perhaps I could drop it off, and then follow the White River, north to Windhelm, or south to Riften, whichever struck my fancy. And on the way there, if I was to explore a cave or ancient ruin, who was to tell me otherwise?
As my feet hit the cobblestone, it suddenly struck me how much freedom I had. I was beholden to no one, no creed or army. I was free to travel wherever I wished, take any job offered, fish any river or hunt any valley. I felt uplifted at the thought, as if a great burden had been removed. With a pat on Meeko's rump, I began to sing that Dragonborn tune softly under my breath.

Just outside of Dragon Bridge, a strange Khajiit greeted me. He commented on several random things, such as worrying about where the snow falls, and searching for calipers. Mai'q, as he gave his name, was the first Khajiit I had ever met. I wondered if they were all this way, and bid him a warm farewell.
Past Dragon Bridge, a wagon lay with it's horse dead in the reigns, a Redguard woman pierced with strange chitinous arrows beside it. A bandit attack, most likely. I lifted the woman's hand; stiffness had only just begun to set in, and there were only a few flies around the mouth and eyes of the horse. The attack had been recent. The arrows indicated the attack had come from the southwest, though I could see no tracks. I set off to see if I could find the attackers location, more out of curiosity than any desire for justice.
All Meeko and I found was a sabrecat sitting in front of a cave. It's claws swiped across my armor more than once, but we still put it down fairly easy. Meeko was smart enough to wait till I had it's attention before attacking, but I am concerned one day he'll run head first into an axe swing. I suppose it's his choice, though. Nobody is forcing him to stay with me.

A now-dead Reguard had set up camp near the entrance to the half flooded cave, his body curled up on a bedroll, but I could find no injuries on him. We waded through the water, deeper into the cavern; straight into a massive cauldron of spiders. Meeko did well, and my blade cut through their chitin. We slayed a half-dozen in the first room, and several more in other tunnels.
Then we found them; pale, hunched, gaunt elf-like creatures. They had no eyes, and carried chitinous arrows like those we had found near the wagon. Meeko slew one armed with a bow, and I took down another holding a sword. The third, armed with axe and shield, proved far more challenging. He slew Meeko, driving the cruel spike of his axe through the hounds chest, piercing his heart. As I moved to take advantage of the opening, and avenge Meeko, the elf-beast brought his shield up faster than I could have imagined.
We traded blows for several seconds, it's blade biting through my Dwemer armor to draw blood twice, until at last it fouled itself with its shield; brought it up too close, so that it could not strike well with its axe. I pressed against it with all my weight, drawing my blade up high and driving the point down between it's neck and shoulder. I felt a pang of sadness for Meeko, and was glad his death had at least been swift. After I was done clearing these tunnels of cruel creatures, I would take him outside beneath the open sky and burn him, as I had his master.
It was not the only difficult battle I would encounter. One of the creatures blasted me with frozen winds, and strange beetles with razor pincers spit poison at me. I took one of their strange shield for my own, and a bow as well. Whatever it was these creatures used to craft their weapons and armor, it was effective.
I found a note, written by Firir, on a dead Nord man, in a cage of chitin. It seems he had been part of a caravan assaulted by these creatures, and they had dragged the survivors into these tunnels to feed them to their insectoid pets. I would make sure they never murdered another person again.
After several close calls and desperate retreats to heal myself, I had finally cleared the extensive tunnels and caves of these horrible beasts. I carried Meeko's body outside, and burned it upon a pyre. I had only known the hound two days, but he deserved that at least.

Continuing east along the road, I felt a little lonely without Meeko, but had a feeling things would soon be back to normal. I had travelled longer without him than with him, after all. Out of nowhere, as I was refilling a water skin by a small waterfall, a Nord woman charged at me, sword held high. I blocked her first strike, and followed it with a flurry of my own, never letting her lower her shield. Just as she began to recover and ready a counter, I stepped right and cut her neck to the spine. I wondered what had possessed her to attack a fully armored Orc warrior. Perhaps she was just stupid.
Not long after the Nord's suicide assault, I found a wooden palisade set across a small gorge the road passed through. Along the steps and walls of hewn pine, several bandits eyed me warily. I found myself filled with an inexplicable rage, an insatiable bloodlust as I let out a roar of anger and charged up a dirt path off the road to the fort's entrance. A startled woman guarded the gates, my sword splintering her shield, then her shield arm, and then shearing into her left side.
She fell with a bloodied gurgle as I rammed the gate with my shield, bouncing away with a sharp crack of the wood. I charged again and the gate burst open in a shower of splinters. Bandits rushed to meet me with steel in hand, while archers on the wooden ramparts took aim. I tore through them with a ferocity I had not thought myself capable of.

The first to meet me as I stepped through the gates was a large Nord man, armed with a crude iron battle axe. As he charged, raising the axe high overhead, I thrust my sword forward into his gut. It pierced him through, and as I kicked him away a gaunt Imperial mage began casting tendrils of lightning at me, making my muscles tingle more and more with each passing second. Until I raised my chitin shield, dispersing the tingling to a dull prick. I charged toward him as an arrow glanced off my helm, another embedding itself in my pauldron with a metallic 'plunk'. I could feel the tip just barely grazing against my shoulder.
The mage panicked as I charged him, abandoning his spell for a short sword on his hip. I cut his face from temple to cheekbone, two inches deep. An instant death. Shield raised against a hail of arrows, I charged up wooden steps to face the two archers. One of them planted a steel arrow straight into my chest at the last second, the bladed tip biting through the Dwemer breastplate and past the padded leather to be stopped by my sternum. I barely felt the pain through the heat of battle.
Cutting down the archers, two blows to the first, one to the second, I headed down the bridge of ropes and logs to what I thought was the final bandit. He raised a simple iron shield and prepared to stand ground; I bashed him with a shield of my own, making him lose balance and stumble back. That was all the opening I needed, and I lunged forward with a twist of the elbow and flick of the wrist, opening his throat.
I heard nothing but the sound of heavy boots on the bridge, warning me just in time of my final enemy. Her shield slammed into me, snapping off the shaft of the arrow in my breastplate and sending me tumbling. Clad all in steel armor, forged in the Nordic style, this must have been the leader. The others had all been using rusty steel or furs, but she had decent equipment.
Her charge had left her slightly off balance as well, and she was a moment too late in delivering a follow up blow as I rolled, the momentum taking me to my feet. We faced each other, shields raised, heads down. I struck, my blow deflected by her shield, and she countered by slamming it's steel rim into my helmet. I felt her blade scratch across my breastplate, not cutting through. We traded a dozen blows, and I fled, throwing the broken gates of the fort closed behind me as I put all my reserves into my simple healing spell. Slowly I felt the pain dissipate, my strength returning slightly.
It was a small respite, and she was on me again in seconds. This time, though, she had grown arrogant. Certain her victory was assured, she lowered her shield and pulled her sword arm back, for a final powerful blow to end our duel. I parried her strike easily, and jammed the edge of my shield into her face with all my strength. I felt bone crunch as the guard of her helm gave way, crushing her nose. Stumbling backwards, she dropped her shield and brought her hand up to her face, unable to see through the pain.
I thrust at the soft spot, where the buckle met the chest plate. The tip of my blade glanced off the edge of the buckle and slid into the gap, through the leather and into her guts. She died as blood streamed down from her broken face.

It took an hour, but I healed myself using magic, slow but sure. Stripping off my damaged armor, I repaired it as best I could, using a round stone to hammer out the dents and holes on a wooden bench. At this rate I would need to start carrying around repair tools, a hammer certainly, and perhaps some steel punches of various size. I would have to remember when I got to Whiterun.
A large wooden shack had been constructed withing the fort, but it held little of value. Hidden in one corner was a cellar door leading to some caverns. Beside a lantern on a wooden table lay a leather bound journal; it seemed to have been written by the bandits previous leader. Whoever it was had seen an eminent split of leadership coming to the band of robbers, and had begun skimming gold from every take. They had stashed it 'on an island to the south, by an old tree stump.'
I would go try to find it. I tucked the journal into my haversack, having dropped my pack by the entrance to the fort, and made my way out of the cave, grabbing a small coin purse on the way. Gathering my things, I checked my map. There was a large island just south of the camp, but after scouring it I could find no treasure. Just as I had given up hope, I noticed a tiny island in the middle of the river, with a large rotted stump. Next to it, half buried, was a chest.

The chest had some large gold septims in it, and an enchanted two-handed sword of Dwemer metal. I took the coins and left the sword, not wanting to lug it all the way to Whiterun. Not much of a haul for all the effort, but at least the bandits wouldn't be raiding any more caravans.
With a start, it suddenly occurred to me how lucky I had been. Not just in this battle, but ever since I had left the stronghold and entered Skyrim. So many others had died; the Vigiliants of Stendarr I had met that second day, Meeko, and countless creatures and bandits. To be sure there had been close calls, moments when I was certain death waited for me. But my healing spells, potions, and shield had always saved me, staving off death just long enough to assure victory.
I felt very tired all at once, and sat down on the chest, watching the waters of the river flow by. Was I special, or just damned lucky? I was a good fighter, certainly, but surely not THAT good. Was Malacath looking out for me, or one of the divines, or some other god or spirit? Removing my helm and letting it fell to the damp earth beside me, I rubbed my face wearily. What did it matter, anyway. Whatever the reason, I was good at this business of killing, very good.

With a sigh, I picked my helmet up and brushed of clumps of dirt and sand, placing it back onto my head. Lucky or not, gods or not, it didn't matter. Eventually my luck would run out or the divines would grow bored with me. Might as well make the best of it in the meantime. No man (or woman) knew when death might come for them, only that at some point it inevetably would. Rising, I jumped from stone to stone back across the river and continued on to Whiterun. Judging by the sun, I had a few hours of daylight left yet.
A mile or two down the road, four bandits milled around a hand cart holding a chest. I slew them all easily, two blows each, a thrust to the chest and then back around for a slash across the face. The chest had about a hundred septims worth of coin and a silver ingot, which I took, then continued down the path. I longed for a piece of hot roasted meat, dripping with juices, and a tall mug of cold, dark ale. A warm bed, and maybe a comely lass or lad to share it with.

Strangely, there were no brothels in Skyrim, no streetwalkers even. Maybe I just didn't know where to look. Either way, I doubted I would be making it to Whiterun before nightfall, so it would be another night in the wilds. That wasn't so bad, either, but the thought of salted slaughterfish, grainy bread, and riverwater wasn't very appealing. If I set up camp early, maybe I could use my bow to take some fresh game.
I found a small hovel a while later, swarming with skeevers. A dead man lay on the bed, obviously chewed at by the pests. A fire still burned in the hearth, a burnt stew hanging over the cooking spit. He couldn't have been dead more than two or three hours. Flinging the skeevers out the door by their tails, I set more logs on the fire and took the stew pot from the spit, setting it aside. I left my pack inside and dragged the man out, leaving his body to be scattered by whatever scavengers were hungry. There were few trees nearby to build a pyre for him, and it would take too much effort.

Hefting my bow, I set out in search of meat not gnawed on by skeevers. There was the river nearby, but I was sick of fish. For a time I found naught but half-starved wolves and a sabrecat; stringy, tough, and not very tasty. Then, out of nowhere, a stag came charging at me! There was no time for the bow; I dropped it and drew my sword just as it's antlers impacted me, knocking me off my feet and denting my armor. I chopped at it's legs from the ground, before it could trample me, and the beast fell. I finished it with a blow to the neck, then slipped my knife from it's belt sheath and carved off a large flank from each side. There was no reason to waste time dressing and butchering the beast when I had no need of all the extra meat.
I cut the meat into thin steaks and roasted it well, to purge whatever disease had driven the stag into madness. The meat was tough, but much better than sabrecat or wolf. I filled my stomach till I felt I would burst. Two bottles of mead, and some alto wine, all chilled in the river while the meat was being prepared and cooked, topped off the meal.
As I sat, contented before the hearth fire, my eyes roamed around the cabin. Everything that had been in reach of the skeevers was chewed, torn, and scattered, but an item on a cabinet shelf caught my eye. It was a folded fur, shimmering faintly with the magic of an enchantment. Unfolding it revealed a long, trailing cloak of finely woven, thick grey wool, lined with silk and trimmed in fur. An oversized fur hood was sewn into the collar.

A wonderful find! I tossed my old brown cloak onto the bed, and draped the new one over me as I crawled into bed. Something about the cloak seemed to make my movements quieter, perhaps it was the magic. The cloak seemed to reach out to shadows and blend with them. But I was tired, and had no desire to ruminate over magic I knew nothing about. My heavy eyes closed, and I drifted into a contented sleep of great battles and epic feasts.