VII. New Blood
Gallows Rock lay just ahead. It was an ancient, single-tower fortress with tumbled ramparts and little left to defend. I thought I could smell the presence of living bodies within, just out of sight beyond the unguarded stone portal. That sensation was new, and unsettling. It's the wolf, Aela said. Sometimes, the heightened senses of the change continue for a while afterward. Just enjoy. It will pass.
I caught the scent of something else, too, and then I saw it….sharpened wooden stakes at the entrance to Gallows Rock, each topped with the slowly dripping head of a werewolf. The work of the Silver Hand. Why do they hate us so much?
Skjor was nowhere to be found. Aela spoke once more: He should have waited for us. But Skjor is not one to stand around when there's a fight to be had, especially with the Silver Hand.
Had he already paved the way for us to get into the bunker without resistance?
Just to be sure, we approached the dilapidated garrison cautiously, hoping to spot any remaining sentries in the inner courtyard before they saw us. Too late. A Khajiit swinging a big Orcish battleaxe came flying at us, and his two companions, now alerted as well, rushed in to help. One began hurling heavy barrages of frost at me. I am not much accustomed to fighting magicka users, and for a few precious seconds, I let myself be slowed by her attack. Then something just kicked in. I felt my body simply shrug off the cold, even embrace it as I have seen the huskies in winter country seem to do when they smile and snuggle into a snowbank. Was this the wolf, too? I cross-slashed that robe-wearing bitch with my honed war-axes, and she dropped into the remains of her own slush with a thud. Aela had no trouble at all dealing with the Khajiit, and the third sentry practically fell at our feet of his own accord.
The door was unlocked, and we passed two more piked werewolf heads to enter Gallows Rock. The Silver Hand must not be allowed to continue their vendetta against us.
Just inside the place, we found a floor-mounted spike-gate raised to bar our progress.
They know we're coming, and they fear us, Aela said.
It wasn't much of an obstacle, since the control mechanism was in easy reach, but I suppose it's anything at hand when you're running scared. A short distance ahead, a couple of unwary Silver Hands sat chomping their bread rolls by a cooking fire. We interrupted their last meal. In a nearby alcove, I discovered a freshly dead werewolf hung high on the wall by one arm....a hideous sight. Nothing we can do for him, Aela said sadly. Who was it, I wondered, but I did not ask. She answered anyway: No one we know by the smell...some can't separate the animal from themselves. Poor sod.
We moved on, battling the Silver Hand as we went, and there were plenty of them. When we'd found the cellblock deep inside the fort, I knew afresh that we had to destroy these monsters. One cell held a decaying werewolf corpse, and severed heads lay scattered about. The place reeked of brutality. How many had they killed? And what about Skjor? Still no sign of him. From the absence of dead Silver Hands on our way in, he could not have come this way.
If he came after us, he would definitely see our trail markers.
We're getting close now, Aela whispered. Be prepared. The Silver Hand leader calls himself Krev the Skinner. I don't think I need to tell you why.
I was on point, and I crept slowly forward, straining to see or hear the next enemy. Just ahead, the passage widened out into a large circular room. On a raised platform, someone rhythmically scraped at a tanning rack. Higher still there seemed to be some sort of ceremonial dais littered with bones and stemmed cups. Just out of clear line of sight, at least two other targets moved about.
Which one is the "Skinner" I wondered? I want to kill him first.
That was not to be. From my hidden vantage point, I raised my bow and let fly my best arrow at the clear target. This Silver Hand fell, immediately inert, but the others stirred into frantic action. Aela ran screaming forward with her own bow firing rapidly. I switched to my twin axes and found the Skinner. He was the strongest man I had ever fought, but if I failed....it did not bear imagining what the Skinner would do to me. This time I needed those quick recharging potions I carry too many of, and I was glad I had them. His slashing battleaxe grazed my head, and I knew I was fighting for every additional second of existence. I could tell he had no such doubt about his outcome. He thought I was easy meat. Maybe it surprised me, too, when he finally slumped at my feet. Next time, I need better weapons. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford them.
Afterward, Aela and I stood panting from the struggle when we finally recognized the body. Skjor, dead on the altar. Skjor, the man.
Look what they've done, I said. How could this be--Skjor the Companion of the Circle, the mighty Nord wolf?
Numbers can overwhelm any of us......he should not have come without a shield-sibling. I'll tell you this though. The Silver Hand will tremble at the sight of us, Aela said through grim-set teeth.
She wanted to stay with him for a while, but she already had a place for me to go--another hideout of the Silver Hand: Lost Knife Cave. I could start the payback for Skjor’s death there.
The last thing I saw at Gallows Rock was Aela kneeling beside the body of Skjor, gently stroking his cold hand.
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Lost Knife Hideout was only a few miles south of Gallows Rock, as the crow flies. It was somewhat further as the roads of Skyrim wind. I was wishing for a good map. And a horse.
I don't have much to say about that place, except that I was alone, and it was a hard fight. At least a dozen Silver Hands were camped in the stockaded hollows and plateaus of the slowly rising terrain that led to Lost Knife Cave. Their quest for a bit of privacy from one another was my one advantage. I quietly took them on a few at a time. If I'd had to deal with them all together, it would have been a different story. As it was, four of them nearly ended me just outside the cave. Behind the wood-slat door into the earth, I found their leader, oblivious to the melee outside. Without her crew, she was easy meat. As revenge goes, it wasn’t very satisfying. But then it never is.
On the way back to Jorrvaskr, I had a lot of time to think about Gallows Rock and Lost Knife, and about the way I felt about Skjor's death and the Silver Hand and werewolves, and me. A new warrior mind seemed to have washed over me with the blood of the wolf-woman. Was I still me? When I came to The Companions, I was only looking for a place to be for a while. Now I'm not even sure who I am. But that's been true ever since Helgen, hasn’t it.
And the wolf-power. I probably should have used that when they rushed me at Lost Knife, just the way Farkas did in Dustman's Cairn. I was rested enough. I knew it was there for me. But I couldn’t do it, maybe even if I died for that choice. But why? It's power, a tool of the body, just like a strong bow arm and an eagle eye.
No, it's much more than just a new weapon or skill. I don't think Aela or Skjor would agree, but something inside me cries 'shame' at the thought of letting the wolf out. I am human, and that should mean mind more than might. And then there's the feeding. I have not seen nor experienced it, and I am afraid. Maybe Kodlak would understand.
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When I arrived back at Jorrvaskr, Aela was all business: I've been running interference around here for you. I don't think anyone's caught on to our little campaign....yet.
Her manner seemed oddly conspiratorial. Running interference for me? We were the Circle, for god's sake. Why would I need anyone to cover for me? Did we need authorization for our mission decisions, now? And our little campaign? A large, well-organized sworn enemy of The Companions had just murdered Skjor! Besides, this campaign had never been my project. I was just the junior member taking my cues from the veterans of the Circle. None of this made sense.
Aela continued, heedless of my bewilderment at her words. She'd gotten wind of the location of a document outlining Silver Hand stratagems, and she wanted me to steal it. We needed to know what they were planning. The place was Faldur's Tooth, halfway across Skyrim in the Rift. I would be out of circulation at Jorrvask for quite a while.
I left the mead hall putting one foot in front of the other. It was dark, but I always seem to travel best at night. Whiterun lay quiet under a shroud of slowly dimming stars. Even the scolding, beseeching, inciting drone of the street preacher at the shrine just below Jorrvaskr was silenced. The man actually did leave to sleep. Heimskr spent his days preaching the love of Talos for his people and the devotion that every true Nord ought to show in return. I don't think he makes many converts with his accusatory calls-to-action, but he never gives up trying. I spoke to him once when I was new to the city, asked him about Talos. Something about this divine rattled around in my head from long ago, but it was all pretty fuzzy. I had heard by that time that Talos worship was banned in Skyrim, but yet, here in Whiterun we had a giant idol and a blessing shrine dedicated to Talos right in the center of the wind district. At any rate, I thought I'd make Heimskr’s day. His eyes glowed at having an actual audience for his gospel of Talos: Talos--born a man, ascended to divinity, even to lordship among the divines after death--was once known as Tiber Septim, a ruler with limitless wisdom and the power to read men's hearts. Praise Talos!
What must it be like to live an ordinary life, or even a king's life, and then find out that you are on a path to becoming a demi-god? How do you live with the responsibility, when everyone around you believes you can, will, must save them? The Talos in our statue looks serene and confident. I guess you'd have to be.
Heimskr said something else about Talos that day, that he was "master of the power of the Voice." Sounds like what Tullius said of Ulfric Stormcloak. Strange way to talk about rhetorical skill. But yes, words can be very powerful used in the right way, and I may need to find my voice at Jorrvaskr soon.
