Chapter 33

Chapter 33

I stood down below the city, leaning against one of the walls of the stables and staring at the Imperial army. They had moved during the night when all the soldiers on watch on the walls of Whiterun could see of their movements was an array of torches. Now that dawn had come their whole force was sprawled across the plains for all to see, and the Imperials were presently busily digging trenches, setting up barricades, and pulling their catapults into place.

It was these machines of war that made me ignore the fact that a good, sneaky scout could probably get a shot off at me as I was just standing here and watching their preparations. I needed somewhere quiet to think, but I also wanted to see the catapults as I pondered what in the names of the Divines to do about them. Dragonsreach had been a thought, but it was too high up and too far away for any proper observation. The wall was as busy as a skeever den, and nowhere else provided a good vantage point. Thus, here I was on the ground, possibly not at the best vantage point height wise but still able to see the catapults clearly enough.

The council had agreed as one that if possible, something needed to be done about the catapults. The Imperials had exactly four, and while I couldn't remember how many the Stormcloaks had possessed years ago when we took Whiterun, I did remember that the machines had been instrumental to our victory. They had forced the Imperials to focus valuable forces on quenching the flames inside the city instead of fighting our advance, not to mention the large number of casualties they had inflicted. And the chunks they had taken out of the walls and Dragonsreach. And the terror they had instilled amongst their soldiers.

We really couldn't afford any of these things to happen. It was bad enough for morale to be facing a potential fight against dragons, and if at all possible I needed to prevent the Imperials from adding the fear of flaming rocks falling on one's head to that.

But how? They were much too far away for flaming arrows, and anyway, there was no way a flaming arrow would get anything to ignite in this weather. After three days of rain straight, I had finally determined that there was magic behind the constant downpour. Come to think of it, there was a Clear Skies Shout, so why couldn't there be one to cause perpetual rain too?

Yet another thing I could blame Miraak for, and yet another thing that made me even more uneasy. Clear Skies lasted only for a couple minutes. Either this Shout lasted for days straight, or Miraak was nearby somewhere and kept renewing it every time the downpour began to slacken. Either option was a testament to how much power the older Dragonborn had.

I turned my thoughts back to the catapults. Could a small, swift force possibly break through the Imperials' fortifications and destroy them?

After only a moment of studying the defenses I concluded it would be impossible. The force would have to first make it over the spike-filled trenches, then through the archers behind the barricades, then somehow fight its way through multitudes of soldiers to four different points in the center of the army. Oh, and then somehow destroy the catapults while holding off the three dragons poised protectively behind the army in preparation to deal very decisively with any such impetuously stupid action.

I hauled myself up to sit on the side of one of the stalls where I could still see the distant forces. So a force of humans wouldn't work; what about dragons? There was no guarantee the wet wood would catch even under dragonfire, so they would have to actually land and rip the war machines apart with their claws. Here, again, arose the problem of the three watching dragons. I didn't know where the other three we knew they had and the additional four we suspected they had were hiding, but I would bet my Daedric sword that they weren't far.

The four Stormcloak dragons might, might be able to fly above the clouds until they were over the Imperials, fly down, and destroy all four catapults before the enemy dragons could react, but that would be incredibly risky. Archers were stationed around the catapults in preparation for just such an assault, and while the cloud cover was thick, as soon as the dragons left its safety they would be pelted with arrows. The fall from where the cloud cover was thick enough to hide a dragon to the catapults would probably also be too far to fall before the Imperial dragons could react, and Odahviing had told me that dragons could see quite well in the dark, so waiting for nighttime wouldn't do anything to better the venture's chances of working.

Besides, with only four dragons we could hardly stand to lose a single one. All four were needed to protect Whiterun, and that brought another concern to mind. What if an aerial strike was exactly what the Imperials were waiting for? If we committed all four dragons (and we would have to in order to destroy all four catapults simultaneously) to the attack, the seven Imperial dragons that were waiting somewhere out of sight could swoop down and wreak havoc on Whiterun while the Stormcloak dragons were otherwise engaged.

So an attack from either humans or dragons was out. What did that leave me to work with?

A wild- no, insane- idea slowly unfolded in my mind. Yes, I was a Stormcloak general in charge of a great force, and I was also a soldier, sworn to fight on the battlefield.

But I was also a thief, and thieves were quick, quiet, and invisible, and maybe someone with those qualities could disable the catapults just as quickly, quietly, and invisibly.

Or maybe not. If I tried something like this and got myself caught, I was dead. If I found the Imperials general sneaking around the streets of Whiterun, I wouldn't hesitate to kill him in an exceedingly public and preferably spectacular way in order to lower Imperial morale and raise that of the Stormcloaks.

But then, feeding ten dragons must be difficult, so maybe I should hope that the Imperials would execute me and not hand me over to them.

Vex had once told me that expecting to get caught on a job was the first step toward that end, but here I had to consider the possibility, and not just that it might end in my untimely death. Say Nocturnal favored me and I did manage to destroy the first catapult. Then I would have to move on to the second, then the third, then the fourth, somehow managing to disable them all in a way that no one would notice until I had finished the last one and escaped. With each catapult escaping notice became less likely until the chances of me getting out of the Imperial camp with all my limbs attached reached a solid nothing.

Just for a moment I permitted myself to think about how this would go if I had three other thieves from the Guild to help me. The results were far brighter and much more satisfying, at least until they dove back under the shadow left by Brynjolf's angry words. I had no idea how much the rest of the Guild knew about Aetra or what had happened with Babette, but it would take a blind and deaf thief not to have noticed my extended absence and Brynjolf would have warned the Guild about Aetra and her Summerset Shadows.

Honestly, I didn't know how anyone in the Guild would react if I walked into the Cistern right now. Well, I knew how Brynjolf would react, but he and Cynric were the only two who really knew anything about recent happenings. How the rest of thieves reacted would depend on what they had told the rest of the Guild.

In the past couple years when I had made a questionable decision and Brynjolf had disagreed with it in some way, he had come directly to me with his grievance so we could sort it out without involving the entire Guild. However, this had been before Miraak and Aetra had manage to dig and claw their way into my cozy little burrow like wolves after rabbits and upend my life. This time the stakes were higher for the Guild, and if Brynjolf was angry enough to shove me into a door and almost slice my neck open, he was certainly angry enough not to care what the other thieves thought of me. Anyway, he owed them some sort of explanation as to why Rune had been attacked, and a guild war with the Dark Brotherhood was not something he would or could keep secret.

Actually, I owed them an explanation, even a few of them, but I had effectively brushed that burden off of my shoulders and straight onto Brynjolf's.

In short, thieves from the Guild to help with my catapult problem were absolutely out of the question. Even if the Guild had no problems any more serious than minor clients refusing to pay up for a completed job I would still think long and hard about asking for such a favor, and all I needed right now was for Brynjolf to punch me in the face for getting the Guild involved in a civil war too.

My brow furrowed as a new thought struck me. In this morass of problems, there was one small, bright spot. The Imperials couldn't order the dragons to attack and use the catapults at the same time. With dragons from both armies dashing around like angry bees, poor visibility through the heavy rain, and aiming systems that were far from exact, it would be far too easy to accidentally hit an Imperial dragon. This thought didn't exactly comfort me because it would be just as easy and far more efficient to pummel Whiterun with burning rocks, then send the dragons in, and for all I knew that might be exactly what the Imperials were planning.

But then, if that was their plan, why hadn't they attacked earlier? Pure common sense dictated that battles were harder to fight at night for both sides. Although the sun failed to emit any sort of real light from behind its thick blanket of angry grey clouds, I knew it was late afternoon. Even if the Imperials gathered their force together and attack right at this very second, they would only have a few hours to attempt to take the walls before night fell and added an unnecessary layer of difficulty to the battle, so we could expect them to hold off at least until tomorrow.

Shifting my position, I sighed heavily. The truth of the situation was that it didn't really matter how long the Imperials held off the attack. Even if they waited until the Redguard mercenaries got here, I wouldn't be able to do anything about the catapults. An individual couldn't feasibly sneak in and disable all four, the dragons couldn't be spared on such a risky venture, and sending any kind of human force out there would be a suicide mission.

Maybe the Imperials would just forget that they had the catapults at their disposal at all.

Finally deciding that I should listen to both the soldier and thief inside my head that were telling me I was far too exposed, I got up and slowly walked back up the path to Whiterun.

Just after I crossed over the bridge, I felt once again a small, hardly noticeable tremor. Not even a tremor, really, more like a shiver of the topsoil, but it still caused me to look nervously back at the net holding up the rocks that I had just casually walked underneath. The net had held and the rocks hadn't even shifted.

"Did you feel that, soldier?" I asked a random Stormcloak walking by.

"Yes, Dragonborn General. One of the dragons landing, maybe?" the man suggested.

"Maybe," I agreed while secretly thinking probably not. When a dragon landed, everyone nearby would know it. Still, it was a possibility.

Or not, according to the dragons. "You told us not to take to the skies, and we have not. Do you question our ability to listen?" Odahviing said crossly when I asked him whether he or Silsivhir had landed anywhere nearby recently.

"No, of course not," I assured him hastily. "I just felt a tremor, that's all."

Odahviing's eyes narrowed a bit in thought. "So did I, Dovahkiin. So did we all." Silsivhir didn't disagree.

"Any idea what's causing them?" I asked.

"Giants can make the earth shake. Although not like a dragon can, of course."

Since there were certainly no giants about, this was of absolutely no help, but I thanked the dragons anyway and moved away through the rain, pondering this new development.

Maybe it was nothing. Thunder could make the ground shake as well, but so far I hadn't seen a hint of lightning or heard a single crack of thunder from this storm. Aside from that and the already-ruled-out dragons and giants, I had no clue what could be causing the tremors.

I also wasn't even sure it was tremors, plural. I could have imagined the first one. After all, the dragons hadn't felt anything, and I trusted their senses above my own for the most part.

Pushing open the door to Breezehome, I picked up a pastry at random and ate half of it in one ill-tempered bite. I didn't know why, but just like the delay in the Imperials' attack, this tremor business was giving me an ominous feeling. I had been to Whiterun hundreds of times and never felt anything like it. Why, during an important turning point in history, should these tremors suddenly start acting up?

There must be something I'm not thinking of, I decided. I started into the fire, focusing my thoughts. What else had I encountered in my days of being an adventurer that could cause tremors?

Potema, I suddenly remembered, the name putting an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Before I had joined the Stormcloaks and won the Civil War, I had handled a job for the previous steward of Solitude, Falk Firebeard. He had received numerous reports of strange noises coming from a place near Dragon Bridge called Wolfskull Cave, some of which had also mentioned shaking in the area.

Throwing the rest of the pastry in the fire, I realized I was grasping at elusive butterflies. I had failed to stop Potema, also known as The Wolf Queen, the first time I had entered Wolfskull Cave and interrupted her resurrection ritual, but I had put her back in the depths of history for good when Falk had called me back after realizing she could still come back. I had handled that situation, and although Frea had made me somewhat doubt my belief that ghosts from the past generally wouldn't bother me again, Potema was one problem that wouldn't be returning.

I was probably overreacting, anyway. These tremors probably had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. It just worried me that they'd chosen just before a siege on Whiterun to start, and the Imperials still weren't attacking. That was the real root of my nervousness, which was starting to translate into just pure paranoia over anything unusual.

Sighing, I stood up. Clearly this whole earth shaking thing wasn't going to stop bothering me, so I might as well try to investigate a bit and see if I could find the source. Or rather, see if a dragon could find the source by doing a short reconnaissance flight over Whiterun. It wouldn't do to have the movement seen as a sign of aggression, but if the dragon just circled over the buildings and didn't go beyond the walls, it should be fine. After all, the Imperials themselves were doing the same thing. Every once and a while, even through the heavy rain and cloud cover, the ghostly shape of a dragon could be seen winging its way through the sky over the Imperial army.

Odahviing seemed pleased at the prospect of a flight. "Dragons were made with wings for a reason, Dovahkiin. We were not meant to reside this long on the ground," he said reproachfully, unfurling his own wings with a flourish that flung thousands of raindrops every which way.

If I hadn't already been completely saturated I might have been annoyed with the dragon, but as it was I hardly noticed at all. "I know, but we don't want the Imperials to attack any earlier than they want to," I explained, assuming that the dragons, whom I had told about the Redguard mercenaries, would gather why. To many soldiers were walking the streets around me to speak it out loud.

"They will attack sooner or later no matter what, Dovahkiin." I didn't have a response, which was fine because he took off in a motion that made the deluge from unfurling his wings seem like a gentle drizzle.

Sighing, I pushed my hood down around my shoulders and wiped water out of my eyes, then replaced the soggy material. In retrospect, it might have been better to wear my helmet. Or not. The multitude of tiny clinks raindrops made as they fell on my armor was annoying enough, but if I wore a helmet the sound would just drive into my ears until I couldn't take it anymore. Something I had learned, unfortunately, from experience. There would be time enough to put my helmet on whenever the Imperials decided to actually attack.

I tried to look up to see where Odahviing was, but instantly desisted on account of the blinding rain. I didn't really expect him to find anything, but it wouldn't hurt to have him look.

"Do you need another dragon to fly anywhere else?" Silsivhir asked hopefully.

"Not right now, but if I think of something, you'll be the first to know," I promised.

The dragon looked slightly mournful, but didn't argue.

I looked up again, this time shielding my eyes from the downpour. Odahviing's shape was just visible, the dragon appearing as little more than a shadowy shape in the sky.

A horn sounded, the noise echoing over the plains in a single, clear note.

My eyes continued to follow the flying dragon for a moment, my mind almost ignoring the sound. Then, as booted feet started splashing loudly through puddles as their owners burst into a run, it finally clicked in my mind.

The Imperials were attacking.

I was off so fast I nearly fell on the slick stones of the street. Shoving hapless soldiers out of my way, I practically flew up one of the ladders leading up to the top of the scaffolding we had set up and was at the top before I'd even noticed there was a ladder.

Sure enough, the torches marking the location of the Imperial camp were slowly but surely mobilizing, the flickering lights beginning to denote ranks.

"Positions!" I roared, almost losing my voice in the process. "Defend the gates! Captains, organize your commands!" I dashed to the edge of the scaffolding and jumped off, completely ignoring the ladder. Staggering a little from the weight of my armor as I hit the ground, I nevertheless kept my feet and took off running, heading out of the gate and toward the lower one.

I reached the bottom of the path just as Ralof jumped down from a ledge above the path, landing much more gracefully than me. "They're coming," he said grimly, drawing his sword.

"I can see that," I shouted over the sound of the rain. I wasn't sure whether he heard me or not because he had immediately started shouting orders before waiting to hear my response.

Now. The Imperials chose now, of all times over the past few days, to attack? It was nearly five in the afternoon, for Talos' sake! Unless they intended to fight through the night, they would only be able to keep up the assault for a few hours.

They only decided to attack when you sent Odahviing up, a nagging little voice reminded me. But how could that be the cause of the attack? Odahviing may not be a strategic genius, but he was definitely intelligent enough to realize the magnitude of flying in any manner that might appear threatening. What could possibly be threatening about a dragon flying for a few minutes above the city to stretch its wings? I didn't really have any actual assurance that he hadn't done something besides just that, since the rain had prevented me from watching his flight, but I had faith not only in his intelligence but also his ability and willingness to follow orders.

Ralof seemed to share my confusion, his brow furrowed even as he shouted orders. "Why now?" he asked when his company had properly formed their ranks.

He didn't need to explain the words; it was the thought we were all thinking. "I don't know," I replied. "It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense." I glanced up to make sure the dragons were in position, carefully scanning the sky until I had counted four shadowy shapes.

"Kisvar." Ralof's voice was quiet, barely to be heard over the rain and the sudden silence that had fallen over the soldiers.

I looked down, saw all the soldiers standing with upturned faces, then looked back up in the direction they were looking.

There, hovering low over one of the farms across the road, was an enormous serpentine dragon, the entire beast glowing blue with a protective spell that also encased its robed and spectrally armored rider.