Chapter 29

Chapter 29

     Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was angriest about right now.  I had a list of several things I could choose from, and all were at the forefront of my mind at the moment.

     First, the Divines-blasted headache wouldn't go away.  I didn't have any time whatsoever to spare for such distractions, and after already having been out completely for nearly a day and a half, I couldn't spend any more time waiting for it to subside.  Unfortunately I also couldn't get drunk because there was still the possibility Whiterun might get attacked and I needed to be alert as possible to deal with that eventuality.

     Second, my shoulder had once more started up that infuriating ache.  I could fight with my right arm, climb onto a horse or a dragon, or secure the rope on a tent without any kind of discomfort, pain, or any other feeling in that shoulder, but apparently every time I used the Death Shout the old injury flared up again.

     On that subject, I now hated the Death Shout for more reasons than just the different aches it caused.  Due to other pressing concerns, I had managed to almost completely forget about that feeling of not being alone when I had used the Words in Windhelm.  Now it was much more than a feeling and I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to.  For lack of any better way to put it, there was something very... wrong, about the Death Shout.  It acted almost the way my dragon soul did when I used a Shout, but I didn't have that and I could tell that whatever was letting me utter this Shout was not actually a part of me.  It was something... else. 

     Aside from these problems, if Jarl Vignar had formed a low opinion of me before, now this opinion was so low it could probably have sunk to the bottom of the Sea of Ghosts.  In his eyes not only had I practically abandoned the city under my charge for an entire two days (it had been a full day before I had woken up from my headache induced coma state enough to force myself onto Odahviing and fly back), but I had said a few things that I rather regretted now to him when he attempted to bring this up.  I had still been half out of things from the pain and I should have just shut up and not said anything, but I had and I doubted any amount of apology would help at this point. 

     There was one last issue I had with my present circumstances, and this one struck at my very core.  It was something I had promised myself never to do, but I couldn't really ask a dragon to do it, I certainly didn't have time to go myself, and it would make no sense to send a valuable soldier. 

     Therefore, I had no choice but to rely on the very couriers that I had so often belittled and mocked to carry the missive I had prepared informing Ulfric of Maven's offer to supply troops and my acceptance letter to the woman herself. 

     This one little inescapable fact irked me so much that I had almost handed the missives off to one of my officers to give to the couriers so I could avoid talking to them, but then I had discarded the idea.  I wanted to see for myself that the couriers had it and were en route and I wanted to give the order myself so there was no confusion of any sort, so I had steeled myself, summoned the messengers, and given my orders in an overly stiff, polite voice that even to my ears had sounded horribly fake.

     Of course, to put the filling in the crostata it was also raining heavily, so any sort of- I wouldn't even say good, but accepting- mood I had ever had had been washed away with the torrent.

     I leaned back in the chair I had placed in the corner of the command tent, massaging my temple as another wave of aching struck.  Gods, I was so tired of this.

     Sighing, I shut my eyes briefly in an attempt to focus my thoughts.  Other than a few more recruits straggling into Helgen, nothing had happened during my rather prolonged absence, for which I was both grateful and worried.  What was Miraak waiting for?  He had more dragons and more soldiers, and while Whiterun would still take a siege to conquer, his chances of winning were fair.  Every day he waited our forces grew in strength as more soldiers arrived and supply wagons rattled into the city in preparation for such a siege, and while his numbers in Helgen and Falkreath grew during this time as well, waiting hurt him more than us. 

     I wonder if Miraak even knows I'm still alive, I thought suddenly.  He very well might not, come to think of it.  Or at least might not have up until I had started handing out party invitations to dragons.  I would be very surprised if there wasn't at least one spy amongst us that was feeding the Imperials information, and I was sure that dragons joining our ranks would be at the top of the list of things to report.  From there the obvious conclusion was that the Stormcloaks too had a Dragonborn on their side, and I was the only other one in the known world.  Even if I hadn't been recognized by sight and the Imperials had just thought perhaps the dragons were afraid of Miraak and wanted to stop him of their own volition, talk of the "Dragonborn General" was circulating like dragonfire.  If I had ever had the element of surprise in regards of my supposed death, I had lost it days ago.

     Of course, before this time I hadn't even known where Miraak was, so I wouldn't have been able to make use of that advantage then either. 

     I did still have one pretty impressive card up my sleeve, but it came with a price that made me extremely leery of playing it.  The Death Shout might easily take out Miraak if I could get him in my sights, but I would only have one chance to use it because I knew from painful experience that I wouldn't be able to focus on anything after that.  The thought of living through the headache again made me feel physically sick, so I decided to stop thinking about it and trust to judgement to decide when and if to use it.

     What else did I need to see to before Miraak's inevitable siege of Whiterun?  I had already assigned companies to particular stations on the walls and figured out the rotation of watches with the captains in charge of those companies.  Until we received notice of a force moving toward Whiterun, most of these companies would continue to stay in tents outside the city.  It was big enough to accommodate all the troops, but it would be crowded, especially with the necessity to keep the horses safe within the walls as well. 

     To help with this and also move the civilians out of the line of fire I had ordered all non-necessary personnel to make the journey northeast to Windhelm.  This order excluded people such as Ulfberth War-Bear and his wife, Adrianne Avenicci, who besides being a top of the notch smith could also fight like a sabrecat.  She had personally come to find me to inform me she wasn't leaving, at which I had actually been relieved.  The Stormcloaks had a smith, but his work was merely passable and there would likely be far more work than he could handle alone.  

     The only thing I could think of at the moment that I hadn't attended to was assigning the Companions to companies.  I had decided days ago that it would be best to assign one to two Companions to each company rather than keep them in one together, realizing how the soldiers looked up to them and hoping that their courage and fearlessness would bolster any flagging spirits.  Rare was the man or woman who could continue to fight even in the event of dragons swooping and roaring overhead, and the Companions were a group of those people.

     Unfortunately, to complete this rather necessary task, I needed to speak to Cerawyn.  As I had learned, she had about the same opinion of me as Jarl Vignar did, and I was actually unsure whether she would even listen to me.

     Sighing, I stood up slowly, using the chair to maintain my balance.  At least I could make a good impression and go find the Harbinger rather than summon her.

     I used the table to support myself until I got around to the side of the tent with the entrance, then regretfully pushed off and commanded my exhausted... well, everything, to function, pulling up my hood to keep the rain off of my head at least.

     Silsivhir was laying directly in from of my tent, his head tucked carefully under one wing.  I skirted around him carefully, not wanting to startle him awake.  As I walked up the heavily fortified road toward the double gates into the city, I looked up at Dragonsreach, which was just visible above the wall.  The other two dragons had taken to roosting in the top of the Keep where the dragon trap was, claiming they preferred the solitude and height of the place. 

     Two guards opened the gates for me as I approached, and my legs followed the road through the city of their own accord, remaining on familiar paths until I reached the steps that led up to Jorrvaskr, the Companions ancestral home.  I stopped dead for a moment, staring at the roof.  Was the roof of the hall actually a ship?  Divines, either I had never noticed that before when I was walking past it on my way to Dragonsreach or I was just so exhausted I was hallucinating.  I could swear that the building was a ship with oars coming down from the sides and a long, wooden curve running from front to back and denoting the bow and keel.  Maybe I would ask Cerawyn about it sometime. 

     I continued up the stone steps, wondering if I ought to knock at the door before going in or if my position made knocking irrelevant, then heard the sound of metal banging on metal coming from behind the building.  After standing torn for a moment, I decided to search for the source of that sound first, and so headed around the side of Jorrvaskr to the back. 

     I hadn't realized there was a training area behind the building, but in retrospect it would be stranger if there wasn't one.  After all, elite warriors needed a place to train and stay elite.

     Cerawyn was there, sparring with two other Companions in spite of the inclement weather.  One I recognized as being Torvar, but the other I had never seen before.  All three halted when they saw me, and feeling curiously awkward and out of place here I tried to ignore the sudden spike of pain in my head and directed a question at Cerawyn.  "Can I speak to you about the defense of Whiterun, Harbinger?"

     "Certainly, General."  If she had heard about my prolonged trip to Riften and held it in ill regard, she made no indication.  She led the way underneath the overhang of an extension to the building that formed a sort of sitting area that was sheltered from the elements, sitting down at one of the few tables there.  "In what way can I be of assistance?"

     I jumped straight to the point.  "In short, I think it would be good for morale and help keep the troops in order if one or two Companions were assigned to each company.  The soldiers respect and admire your warriors, and I can trust them to continue fighting no matter what happens." 

     I didn't specify what I meant by "no matter what happens" but I got the sense that she understood exactly what I meant.  "I can arrange that.  How many companies are there?"

     "Ten right now.  I wanted to create compact, mobile units that can move into position quickly and be used easily to fill any gaps that appear in our defenses, whether fighting in the fields or holding the walls."

     "There are twelve Companions plus myself, so we can put one in each with two left to assign elsewhere."

     "Perfect.  Each company has a captain, but I'm sure they'll be more than willing to work with your warriors."  I wanted it to be clear that I wanted the Companions in the groups to take a larger role than just fighting alongside the soldiers.  I was counting on them to help keep order as well as fight.

     "You will discover that although the Companions have many traits, shyness is not one of them," she remarked as though responding to my thoughts.

     "I'm sure not," I responded wryly.  "The companies will take turns manning the walls on watch duty in groups of two, and if we're attacked I plan to have seven companies on the walls with three in reserve.  In the event that we launch a preemptive strike on the Imperials before they reach the walls, at least two companies will be left inside the city to deal with dragon attacks."

     Cerawyn gave a nod of acceptance, looking thoughtful, but offered no objection.  Probably she was about as knowledgeable on the subject of defending sieges as I was.  "Do you expect that we will meet them on the open ground?"

     I opened my mouth to respond, then shut it again and winced as another jab of pain spiked behind my eyes.  Suppressing a growl, I started massaging my temple again.

     "You look terrible," Cerawyn observed.

     "Yeah, well, I don't feel much better."  I didn't elaborate, and she didn't push me to, so I returned to her question.  "It's possible.  Their numbers are greater, so our chances are better if we remain behind the walls and hold them off, but it wouldn't hurt to send out a few groups of mounted soldiers to harass them." 

     "What role will the dragons have in the defense of the city?"  Her voice was calm, but her hand fiddle with a stray splinter of wood on the table.

     "Their job will be to keep the enemy dragons occupied.  I want to try to keep the fighting separated, dragon to dragon and man to man.  Hopefully that will help limit casualties and also keep the city from getting torched."  I glanced at her.  "What quarrel do you have with them, anyway?"

     "They killed my mother," she stated bluntly but not without sadness.  "All they want is to fight and kill without reason."

     I didn't believe that was true of all dragons, but that didn't seem like the right thing to say at the moment.  Instead I said, "Well, for now we need their help.  The dragons wouldn't stay after Miraak and the Imperials are dealt with even if they wanted to."

     "So then, what?"  She brushed her hair back over her ears.  "They go back to roosting in mountains and ripping innocent travelers to pieces?  The world would be a better place without them."

     I felt like this was an accusation at me as Dragonborn, but her words didn't sound particularly bitter.  If she had meant to direct the words toward me, she wasn't showing it.  I sat quietly, trying to formulate a response that wasn't an analogy comparing our need to work with the dragons, which basically considered us prey, to both prey and hunter being forced to run from the same wildfire.  Like the fire, Miraak was a bigger predator than all of us, and if we had to work with creatures that would rather eat us than help us to stop him, there was no help for it.  I didn't know how to put this thought into words, however, and like my earlier thought about the dragons, it just didn't seem the place or time for it.  Instead, I just said "maybe" in a very noncommittal voice.

     There was another silence during which I stared at the sheeting rain, watching it form little puddles and trickle down to the bases of the practice dummies. 

     My head gave another zing of pain and I started massaging again, harder this time.  Can you stop for just five minutes? I asked my head angrily out of exasperation.

     No. 

     I shot up, completely upending the table and throwing the chair down onto the soggy ground.  Spinning around wildly, I slammed my shoulder into one of the supports of the roof but completely ignored the discomfort that caused me.  Breathing hard, I stayed in that position, one arm wrapped around the wood to support me and my fingers digging painfully into the solid surface as I attempted to regain my composure.  

     "What happened?" Cerawyn asked in a half confused, half annoyed voice. 

     I turned to see her disentangling herself from the table, which I had shoved over on top of her.  "Did you hear that?" I asked, hoping beyond hope that I was just extraordinarily paranoid or overreacting or something.

     "Hear what?"  Now she looked rather worried.

     She should be, because she had just confirmed my fear.  That word had be spoken by a voice in my head.  I was not insane and there could be no question that I had heard it, but what in the names of all the Divines was it? 

     I knew the answer already, I realized.  The voice held in it the same darkness, the same anger and sense of consciousness that the... thing I had felt when I used the Death Shout had conveyed.

     I would still use it if I had to, but right now I wasn't sure if I should be more wary of Miraak or the Death Shout. 

I swear the next chapter will suck less. I really don't like this one... I feel like it was a bit... superficial, and it didn't really convey what I wanted it to, but I wanted to move on to what comes next and get this one over with.