A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 2: Resolution, Part Two

• Posted by ilanisilver March 30, 2018 - Filed in TSC: Skyrim - 3,337 views

   

   

   

  

   

   

   

  Farkas woke with a start and grabbed his dagger from under his pillow, the cold steel hilt comfortable in his grasp. He sat up on the edge of the bed and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. A warrior never sleeps, Kodlak liked to say. Well, Farkas sure slept better now than in his werewolf days, but he had to admit there was truth in the Harbinger’s words. According to the candle stub on his dresser, it had to be after midnight, but Farkas felt wide awake as he’d ever been.

   

  Nothing seemed amiss, though. No strange noises – no noise at all save whistling wind. The town of Dawnstar boasted no trees with limbs to scratch against walls and windows, and it was too cold for hunting. Even the hungriest wolf would run to shelter on a night like this. But something had dragged him from sleep, he knew, and not a nightmare or a call of nature.

   

  Although…

   

  No. He forced himself to focus, scrubbing his face with his free hand, and stumbled across the room to grab his tunic from a chair. Running naked through Windpeak Inn while brandishing a dagger might make for an interesting story, but not one Kodlak would want to hear in his report – something Farkas knew from experience.

   

  A few years ago he and his shield-sister, Njada, tracked a smuggler from Pale Pass, but lost him at sunset near Helgen. They’d stopped at the inn, determined to pick up his trail again the next morning. Helgen’s butcher saved them the effort. He’d stumbled upon the exhausted smuggler camped out under a shed near his smokehouse a few hours before dawn, and had yelled loud enough to wake the entire town. Including Farkas, who’d bolted through the inn and out the door, pausing to grab his sword, but not his pants.

   

  Njada left that part out of her report, but rumor traveled fast, and Kodlak had been less than impressed with what he’d termed Farkas’s ‘ludicrous display,’ explaining that he’d made the Companions look unprofessional. Well, he’d caught the damned smuggler, hadn’t he? And his ‘display’ had earned him a few more visits back to Helgen over the years, and for pleasure, not business, so he counted the mission an overall success.

   

  He really did have to pee, though. Call of nature wasn’t so far off. He chuckled, but the forced lightheartedness did nothing to quell a sense of unease building in his belly. Something hovered at the back of his mind – a voice, a distant, echoing voice – but he couldn’t quite place it. Had someone called out for him, and he’d slept through it? He must be groggier than he’d thought.

   

  Perhaps it had been only a dream.

   

  Farkas threw his tunic over his head and silently slipped from the room. The feeling of wrongness, of being beckoned and pulled toward…something, intensified. But the common room was dark, cold and quiet, and –

   

  It was too quiet.

   

  “Fucking hired hands,” he whispered, leaning against a wooden column and staring at an empty table in front of the room across the hall. His gaze traveled to the inn’s front door – unlatched and left open a crack. Tiny hairs stood up on the back of Farkas’s neck, and he tiptoed across the room and opened his charge’s door, peeking inside. He shut it again, and let out a sigh of relief that turned into a short, irritated growl.

   

  Ysmir’s beard, he’d never understand the Legion’s fascination with pipeweed. Mead was warmer and didn’t stink near as much. And you didn’t have to go out in the damned cold to drink it, he thought, glowering and throwing the front door open, a gust of wind screaming through his thin tunic and setting embers ablaze in the common room’s firepit. Sure enough, the guard he’d assigned second watch leaned, shivering, against the carved bannister, blowing thick rings of smoke into freezing air. Farkas cleared his throat, and she jumped, fumbling her pipe and dropping it into the snow.

   

  A lazy, malingering little bastard she might be, but options lay thin on the ground after Ulfric Stormcloak’s little stunt last month. Jarl of Eastmarch had gone and killed King Torygg and disappeared into the mountains; according to rumors, he’d used magic, which surprised Farkas more than the deed itself. Especially once he’d reappeared a few days ago in Windhelm with a bloody army, calling for all ‘true sons and daughters of Skyrim’ to join up. Wipe the elves and Imperial scum from the motherland. Earn honor and glory. How killing his sworn liege with filthy magic earned Ulfric honor and glory, Farkas didn’t understand.

   

  But Skyrim had answered Ulfric’s call, in droves. Every Companion who’d arrived in Dawnstar with Farkas had bolted, unable to stay on, thinking of their brothers and sisters back home who’d be joining the Stormcloak rebellion. All in all, a roundabout answer to a simple question – how Farkas ended up stuck in Skyrim’s frozen backwater, waiting for someone he could hire to help him escort Ulfberth War-Bear’s niece down to Whiterun.

   

  “You deliver Britta in one piece, or I can promise you, my man, you won’t be for much longer.” The steely gleam in Ulfberth’s eyes told Farkas he’d meant business, and the gleam on the deadly ebony dagger his wife, Adrienne, had quietly sharpened behind them said the same.

   

  So Farkas had waited, and he’d still be waiting if Jarl Skald hadn’t thrown his lot in with Ulfric and dismissed everyone on his staff who lacked Nord blood. Several Imperial guard had jumped at the chance to travel with him to Whiterun instead of going back to Solitude (and General Tullius) and rejoining the ranks of the Legion. Farkas didn’t blame them – the man was a prick. Sure, Jarl Balgruuf might send them right back to Solitude, but a chance was a chance.

   

  Farkas glowered and jerked his head toward the common room, and the delinquent soldier trotted over the threshold, her cheeks pinking the least little bit at having been caught. Or, he thought, looking down at his dangerously-billowing tunic with a slight flush of his own, maybe his lack of pants had something to do with it. He swore under his breath. He never had to put on pants to answer his door at Jorrvaskr. The sooner they got back to Whiterun, the better. The latch clicked shut and Farkas turned toward the guard, who’d taken her place at the table. “Arrius?”

   

  She flinched, and stood back up, banging her thigh against the table and knocking over a candlestick. “Yes, sir?”

   

  “Sit back down,” he said, picking up the candle and relighting it from the firepit. He slammed it down on the table only a little harder than he had to. “Don’t move until Sprague comes to relieve you. Understand?”

   

  She nodded, her brown eyes flicking over his bare legs again for the briefest second.

   

  “You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll write Tullius myself and let him know you’re currently unemployed.”

   

  Without waiting for a reaction, Farkas stalked back to his room, undressed, and climbed into bed. Morning came early so far north, and he needed all the sleep he could get. He’d almost made it, sinking into a comfortable doze, when his eyes flew open. Dammit. He still had to pee. Well, he wasn’t going to backtrack past Arrius to the privy.

   

  He sat up and looked around the room, eyeing an empty bottle, but a sudden snowy gust lashing against the window revealed a better option. Bedroom was stuffy anyway, Farkas thought, pushing the casements all the way out and filling his lungs with icy air.

   

  Dawnstar wasn’t so bad, especially for a Nord. After all, he stood bare as the day he was born before an open window in the middle of a snowstorm, and felt nothing cooler than an early spring breeze or a chilly shower after a hard training session. Refreshing. Plus, he liked the quiet. Even Whiterun felt a little too crowded every once in a while, and Dawnstar’s stillness made for a nice change of pace.

   

  Yes, things could always be worse. He could have been stranded in Winterhold, and Farkas considered that absolute rock bottom. Not only had the city nearly been annihilated by wizards, the few remaining buildings existing on a precipice thousands of feet above the Sea of Ghosts, but the damned wizards had the gall to remain, safe and sound in their precious college.

   

  A flash of green caught his eye, and Farkas looked up. Aurora streaked across a clear swath of sky, and he stared, entranced by bright blues and greens and pinks swirling and dancing among surprisingly clear stars. Aurora rarely put on a show over Whiterun. Farkas wasn’t sure why, but his brother Vilkas figured it had something to do the Throat of the World, a massive mountain to the southeast, and its constant cloud-cover. Both hands gripping the casement frames, he leaned out, over the sill and into the snow, watching one last arc of light fade behind racing stormclouds. That’s all the magic I need.

   

  The casements creaked under his weight, and another gust blew into the room, coating his chest and unbraided black hair with snow. Farkas brushed himself off, finally feeling the chill, and took care of business, but as he’d leaned out again to pull the window shut, a sound caught his attention. A voice, crying on the wind – a distant, echoing voice that, strangely enough, brought his brother’s face to mind once more. Or maybe writing his name in the snow did that – Vilkas sure was a master of the medium.

   

  He sighed, his blue eyes scanning the woods behind the inn, just visible in the disappearing moonlight, but nothing moved. He sighed again, a heavier gust that set falling snowflakes a-swirl, and slammed one fist against the window frame. It wasn’t Arrius. He knew that now, and his second attempt to lighten his mood had done nothing to curb the niggling sense of unease that, he hated to admit, had lain curled in his belly since he’d awakened. Something felt…off. When he’d found Arrius shirking her watch, he was sure she’d been the culprit, but now...

   

  If his hired hands weren’t the cause of the pit in his stomach, what could it be?

   

  Swearing under his breath, he pulled the casements shut and fastened the snibs. Vilkas would worry about something like that, which was a good indication Farkas needed to stop thinking and go to sleep. More than anyone he knew, his brother had the uncanny ability to see problems where none existed, and to dither himself into Oblivion where there was no need. Nope, one worry-wart in the family was more than enough. Vilkas might be the smarter twin, but Farkas got more beauty rest. He’d happily take that trade. Farkas scrubbed at his face and climbed back into bed, slipping his hand under his pillow to grip his dagger. Again, the steel felt comfortable in his grip. Reassuring. He shut his eyes, allowing memories of the aurora to soothe his troubled mind, and drifted off to sleep.

   

  

   

   

  

   

  Couldn't find a credit for the first pic, but the second is credited to Verticlesmile, DeviantArt. Too much? Not enough? Believe it or not, I did crop it.