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The Mountain Pass
He was still giggling like an idiot when the Pachk-Seelith carved out his heart and ate it.
“Hey, you!”
Gasping for breath, I woke with a start as the nightmare faded along with the heat of Black Marsh. My heart pounded frantically in my chest as I looked around wildly. Where was I? Who were these people? What was that?
“Xhuth, what was that?” I groaned, cradling my aching head. I felt wrung out, like I’d just wrestled a sabre cat and a bear. At once. While drunk. At least I wasn’t… wherever that place was. I struggled to think back through the pain, but my mind felt full of sap.
So where was I? Memories trickled back: Skyrim, homeland of the Nords. I was Footfalls-in-Ash. And I appeared to be sitting on a wooden cart along with three other passengers. All Nords, I supposed, wincing as I rubbed a tender spot on his forehead (though as to whether they really were Nords I couldn’t say for sure: after all the years spent living as a huntsman between Cyrodiil and Skyrim I still sometimes found it difficult to differentiate between the races of men). One of my companions was a thin, wiry, and anxious-looking. Another had dark, angry eyes and a gag on his mouth. The last, a bearded blonde, was speaking to me. And all of them, including myself, were tied up. Prisoners, then. I tried shifting the bonds around my wrists to no avail, wondering if I should try saying something to the driver, a grizzled soldier dressed in the armor of the Imperial Legion. I decided against it – if I was a prisoner, I wouldn’t be getting out of this predicament by asking nicely.
“Finally awake, eh?” frowned the speaker sitting opposite me in a solemn voice. “You alright? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” I nodded warily. “Ah, well that’s understandable. You were trying to cross the border, weren’t you? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.” I nodded again. That sounded about right. I tried to remember. I had been... hunting, yes, though, for some reason, there was no game to be found even though I had been at it since daybreak. I remembered cursing my luck and wondering whether I should head to one of my fishing holes instead when I spotted a group of ragged-looking soldiers running in my direction. I watched, curious, then noticed a tall, hooded figure emerging from the crest of the hillock behind them. It raised its hand. The back of my neck prickled. All of a sudden, the ground exploded, sending gouts of flame, dirt, and men flying through the air. In my mind’s eye I saw trees falling as they were pulled up by their roots, once smooth earth becoming pockmarked by gaping craters. There was shouting, a terrible roar… and a thunderclap? My ears were ringing. My eyes were watering. The air was thick with smoke and screams; I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see. A great wave of heat blew past me at an incredible speed, and I dove to the ground instinctively. Then something struck my head, and I knew no more.
Magic, I thought with a chill, shaking off the memories. I had never been comfortable around it, and this encounter had not helped one bit.
And so, here I was. My thoughts turned back towards the present, letting the bearded Nord’s further words wash over me like water over stone as I took it my surroundings.
Our caravan was traveling through a mountain pass lined with verdant green pines, lightly dusted with snow, and desolate granite hills, gloomy and ominous. The clouds above were dark and grey, while the grounds around them were completely covered in a dull fog. And finally, towering so far above the hills of the pass that it was lost in the clouds loomed an even greater mountain: the Throat of the World.
I still remembered my first time seeing the fabled alp (from Cyrodiil, I had never been this close before). Even from a distance, it felt ageless. Ancient. So tall that I imagined one could touch Masser from its peak. So old that I felt like an ant, standing in the shadow of something had existed since the birth of Nirn. I remembered wondering what it would be like to climb it. The tallest peak in all of Tamriel.*
“Snow Throat,” I whispered to myself unconsciously. It was not a phrase I had read in any book. I wasn’t sure where it came from.
The forest was beautiful. A perilous beauty, perhaps, but beauty nonetheless. But there was also something strange about all of it. A muffled silence surrounded the caravan as it traveled. I frowned – the forest felt empty, just like this morning. I couldn’t smell a whiff of fur, spy a single animal trail, or even hear a solitary note of birdsong. The fog made it difficult, yes, but even then…
Perhaps… it was to be expected, I rationalized, what with all the racket we were making winding our way through the pass. That made sense; unlike humans, most animals made themselves scarce when they sensed even the slightest of dangers, and a large group of armed humans certainly qualified.
Of course, some other animals seemed to have the exact opposite sense. Tied up as I was, I just hoped the caravan wouldn’t attract any bears.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. The air here tasted of Skyrim – clear, clean and crisp. And cold, I realized, as my breath misted up in front of him. Bitterly cold, even. An icy wind blew over the caravan, sending flurries of snow flying off trees and giving us a light dusting of snowflakes and pine needles. I shivered, sending half-melted flakes falling off my shoulders. The Nords didn’t even flinch, of course. The cart jerked and juddered beneath us all the meanwhile, kicking up more snow and dirt behind as it rolled over the uneven cobblestone road. I was dressed in nothing but rags. Where had my clothes gone; had they been looted from me while I was unconscious?
I heard a name, and instantly sat up.
“… Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King.”
Kaoc. I continued to listen in growing horror. The Jarl of Windhelm? Somehow, I had managed to stumble into a trap meant to capture the leader of the rebellion that was plunging the Nords and Skyrim into civil war. And that leader was sitting right next to me! “This can’t be happening,” the thief moaned, “This isn’t happening,” and I could not help but agree emphatically with my companion. By the Hist, was I going to be executed? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time? To think that today of all days... I could have chosen to hunt in the south instead, or visited Bruma, or gone fishing even! I looked all over the cart, searching for a way to escape. A loose nail, perhaps, to cut my bonds, or maybe a–
Then the cart rolled over yet another stone and jolted my thoughts.
Hold on.
I froze (metaphorically, even though it was bloody cold).
I wasn’t a Stormcloak.
Ha.
I wasn’t even a Nord!
Ha!
A great sense of relief flooded me. ‘In fact, whoever heard of an Argonian joining the Stormcloaks?’ I thought to myself, grinning inwardly. Now that would be a fine joke. No doubt my Imperial captors would let me go once they realized I had nothing to do with any of this. If it weren’t for my bonds, I would have danced a jig right there and then.
Things, I decided, were looking up. If I was lucky enough, I might even have the time to find my way back, have a long drink, and put this whole incident behind me before nightfall. Though the thief probably wouldn’t be as lucky, I reflected soberly – the Imperials I knew were not known for their leniency with thieves.
The wind picked up again, sighing through the trees. I rubbed my hands together, suppressing another shiver – I’d never ventured this far north before. This land was too cold, I thought bitterly as the fateful caravan rolled in to the town of Helgen.
^I'd first learned about the Throat of the World from the books of my youth (my favorites being the ones filled with strange tales of distant lands).
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