Chapter 37

Chapter 37

As I dropped lightly down on the other side of Whiterun's wall, I couldn't prevent the corners of my mouth from twitching upward.

"What is so amusing?" Cerawyn asked, her voice barely audible over the pouring rain.

I turned to her, the slight expression slowly morphing into a smile. "It's just... I'm having fun."

She gave me a look that somehow managed to convey condescension, annoyance, and confusion all at once. "This is a serious mission and should be treated as such. Don't risk our lives any more than we must."

I tugged at a strap on my Guildmaster armor, forcing the ill-timed smile off my face. "You're right, of course. Let's get moving." I glanced up at the looming wall, ensuring that the sentries' backs were turned, and made a dash for the nearest stone large enough to hide two people. Cerawyn joined me a split second later, holding the corner of her bow to prevent it from clacking against her back.

Glancing at the sentries again, I darted out from behind the rock, leapt a small stream, and slid down a steep but short hill. This place could not be seen into from the wall, as I discovered when patrolling the structure myself. At the time I had decided that while I would prefer there to be as few blind spots as possible around Whiterun, the dip was only deep and wide enough to hide five or six people, so we needn't fear any kind of concentrated Imperial force finding a use for it.

A little farther and they won't be able to see us through the rain. I abandoned the small dip, this time moving slowly and carefully, crouch-walking to stay below the tips of the rocks that rested all around Whiterun.

By the time I finally slid to a stop behind the Chillfurrow farmhouse and stood straight, arching my back to stretch my muscles, the wall was little more than an indistinct, dark shape in the distance. A sharp-eyed sentry might be able to pick up on something moving this far out, but they would never be able to tell whether it was an Imperial, a Stormcloak, or even just a stray horse or a deer.

"So what are we looking for?" Cerawyn's voice was quiet and even.

I turned to her, going back into my crouch. We had gotten far enough to cease worrying about Stormcloak sentries, but now we would have to contend with Imperial scouts. "Something is causing the tremors, and we need to find out what it is. Clearly they're coming from underground, so I suppose we ought to look for some sort of hole somewhere, most likely in a place that's hidden from the sky and hard to find even on the ground."

"That makes sense. I know of a few places that would fit your description, and most of those are to the east of the city." Cerawyn brushed her soaked hair out of her eyes. "Have you noticed that the rain has again increased?"

"I had," I said, glancing at the sky from under my hood. "With it raining this hard, no one inside the walls will be able to tell tremors from catapult stones. If we hadn't started feeling the tremors before the bombardment began, I'm not sure if we would even be able to tell the difference."

"Then the Imperials made a mistake that we must capitalize upon. We need to move." Without waiting for my consent Cerawyn moved out from under the meager shelter of the house walls, her head swinging from side to side like a hunting sabercat as she watched for Imperial scouts. I followed, avoiding puddles in the attempt to move as silently as possible.

We managed to check one large outcropping of rock before the telltale clacking of hooves on stone and water reached our ears. With a swift glance to find the source of the noise I slipped quietly behind a rock, leaning against the side opposite of the dark shapes moving toward us. Closing my eyes and concentrating on listening, I counted the number of hoofbeats as they came closer. Three... no, four horses, I decided after a moment.

There was no surprised outcry as they drew level, so I assumed that Cerawyn had managed to find a spot to hide as well. I could hear the indistinct mumble of voices, but the rain was loud and they were speaking too quietly to hear, and soon the sounds of their passing were fading into the distance ahead of us.

I chanced a glance around my sheltering rock. There were indeed four horses, three of which carried ordinary Imperial soldiers. The fourth, however, held my interest for a moment. His armor, too, was the red and gold of the Imperials, but it was clearly of a much finer quality.

Cerawyn materialized from somewhere behind me. "What is it?" she asked, her inquisitive expression clearly showing that she knew I was thinking of something.

I nodded in the direction the horsemen had vanished. "I can't be sure in this visibility, but I think one of those Imperials was a general. I doubt that he was the general we've seen standing in front of the Imperial army and masking his face with a helmet, but he's definitely someone important. I would need to see the front of his army to know for certain."

Cerawyn looked thoughtful. "Why would a general ride out on an ordinary scouting mission?"

"Why indeed," I said wryly. "You asked the same of me. Clearly, at least for him, this isn't an ordinary scouting mission. He must have other business out here."

"Should we follow? If this is a general, then he is exhibiting unusual behavior. This whole situation is bizarre, so perhaps this is the thread that will unravel the whole plan if we pull at it hard enough."

"You may be right. Let's follow." I started off in the proper direction, then immediately ducked behind my rock again as I heard a voice say "hail" from somewhere ahead of us. For a brief, terrifying second I thought the words were directed at us, but in the next instant a different voice replied with the same word, then another horseman rode past, this one heading the opposite way from the first four. I glanced at the rider as he disappeared into the downpour, noting that the horse was entirely black. None of the horses in the general's escort had been black, so this was a different man, probably just an ordinary scout. With one last glance to make sure the rider was gone, I cautiously began to move again.

It seemed like an entire era, that time we spent creeping through the rain. The Stormcloak scouts and sentries hadn't overestimated when they reported a large number of scouts. Every second, every heartbeat, every breath was tense and strained as we managed to avoid scout after scout, some horsed and others on foot. I could feel every nerve in my body as I moved carefully, so carefully, every moment watching the surrounding landscape, waiting for the inevitable shapes of grey that were our only warning to hide.

This was worse, so much worse than stealing from a darkened house. There, at least, I could move with absolute silence. I could also halt, standing silently in the center of a room, listening closely to ensure nothing stirred in the house. I could use my mental map of the house to navigate in the dark, remembering the halls and rooms I always memorized before the job.

Here, it was as if the landscape that I had traveled over a thousand times was as alien and unfamiliar as Solstheim had been to me. The rain poured down, running in little rivulets into depressions in the ground and making slippery mud holes that prevented quiet movement. My sense of hearing did little to help me here, as horses could be seen just as soon as they could be heard. The terrain was uneven and slippery, the soaked rocks, plants, and mud doing all that they could to hinder my movements.

I missed doing jobs as simple as stealing things.

"Dragon," Cerawyn hissed.

My head snapped up to her, then in the direction she was pointing. Sure enough, a massive, dark figure floated high above, visible even against the cloudy grey sky. I slid down another slight incline, ending up sitting with my back to a rock. Cerawyn joined me, and I muttered, "Just stay completely still." With bated breath we watched the beast circle overhead once, twice, then three times, then disappear back in the direction of the Imperial camp.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I nudged a rock out of the way with my toe so I could stand, then froze, my heart dropping unpleasantly. My boot had indeed pushed something, but it sure in Oblivion wasn't a rock. Rocks weren't squishy and didn't give under one's foot.

I looked down at the object and snatched my foot back, jerking it away from the human hand that it had been touching. My eyes followed the hand up the arm to the shoulder, but the rest of the body was neatly hidden beneath rock and mud. I glanced at Cerawyn, but she had already looked over and spotted what I was looking at. Gingerly she squatted beside the body and felt the arm. "He's been dead for over a day, I would say. His muscles are cold and rigid, and to be nearly buried with mud he must have been here awhile."

Gathering my feet beneath me, I leaned forward to examine the corpse more closely. It was an Imperial man, his armor making that quite clear, although I could see no weapons. "I wonder who killed him. If it was one of ours I would have seen it in the reports."

"What's this?" Cerawyn brushed a gloved finger over a strange symbol carved into the rock slightly above the body.

I leaned even closer, resting my hand near the dead Imperial's to maintain my balance. The marks were faint but clear, and there were two aspects to the scratchings. Just above the Imperial was a triangle formed by three swords, the two on the sides facing upward so that their points met at the top of the triangle while the other lay flat across both hilts. Directly above this were two crudely scratched letters. "RR," I said quietly, rolling the letters around with my tongue as though I could taste what they meant.

"The killer's initials, perhaps?" Cerawyn guessed.

"Maybe," I said doubtfully, turning my mind again to the symbol. Three swords forming a triangle....

My eyes widened. Three curved swords forming a triangle...

"You see those warriors from Hammerfell? They've got curved swords. Curved. Swords!" Every guard in Whiterun had repeated those words at some point, and I had to admit that I shared their dubiousness. I just couldn't see how any curved sword could ever rival the perfect balance and thrust of a straight weapon, but then again, I had never actually used one.

I felt a smile steal across my face.

"I see you know what this means, so perhaps you would like to share it with me?" Cerawyn said rather impatiently, although the volume of her voice didn't rise.

"Curved swords," I stated triumphantly, still smiling. "Warriors from Hammerfell carry them."

"Yes, I am aware of that."

Her voice was a bit strained and overly polite, so I hurried on with my explanation. "I think this is something the Redguard mercenaries that Maven hired left to let us know that they're here."

Cerawyn's head shot up, her eyes meeting mine. "Are you sure?"

"No," I admitted. "I don't know which mercenary group Maven intended to hire, but most groups have a symbol to head their reputation. Three curved swords arranged in a triangle could very possibly be the symbol of a mercenary group from Hammerfell. If this was the mercenary group, however, this is a rather hidden place to leave a message that the Imperials surely wouldn't understand anyway."

"But as we determined, this body was not so well hidden when the man was killed," Cerawyn pointed out. "If it is the mercenaries, why have they not made contact?"

I grimaced inwardly. "I ordered them not to. When they arrived, they were supposed to send scouts ahead to assess the situation. If Whiterun was still standing but looked as though it would fall at any moment, they were supposed to attack the Imperials' flank. If the city was already taken, I told them to head for Windhelm and ask Ulfric for further orders. If we were under siege but not under attack, they were supposed to wait for some sort of messenger from the city." This time I allowed my grimace to become visible. "I didn't expect this downpour, and I certainly didn't expect the Imperials to be so serious about keeping us from leaving the city. I thought we would be able to send a dragon circling a little wider than normal to find out where they were or make contact through our scouts, but obviously neither approach will work with the way the Imperials are surrounding us."

"Their commander must have realized that and left this message. But what does RR mean?" she asked, touching the letters.

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Maybe those are the initials of the commander's name?"

"Perhaps," she said, sounding unconvinced, "but in any case, that is not our mission. We need to scout the area, then find a way back into the city."

We both fell suddenly silent as we again heard hooves, the horses walking toward our hiding place. I caught a glimpse of them as they neared and recognized the same group of riders from earlier. They passed behind us, but my mind was spinning with a sudden idea and I didn't even register how lucky we were that they hadn't come in front. "New plan. I need you to take out the soldiers for me."

"What are you-" her voice faded as I climbed up the incline and moved swiftly but quietly after the four horses, drawing one sword as I went.

I heard a quiet twang and just managed to keep myself from flinching as an arrow zipped past. It struck the soldier in the back right through the throat, causing him to fall without even a gurgle. A second arrow plunged through another soldier's armor, causing her to jerk forward with a cry as her frightened horse plunged sideways.

I reached the horses just as the third arrow struck the last soldier, this one only striking his arm as he turned to look behind him. A fourth arrow quickly followed the third and silenced him forever, but not before he gave a shout that seemed abnormally loud in a world muffled by the rain. Still, it wasn't enough warning for the general. He saw me coming and gave his horse a savage kick, but I latched onto the back of his armor and dragged him off his horse. He landed on the ground with a muffled oomph as the animal galloped away. I managed to intercept him as he tried to rise, slamming him back into the ground and using my weight to forcibly turn him over.

A bitter struggle ensued as he tried violently to throw me off and I attempted with the same degree of success to draw my sword, his writhing and bucking preventing me from getting a grip on the slippery hilt. Finally I managed to draw the weapon and pressed the blade to his throat along with a quiet order to stop struggling, but when he refused to stay still, I instead slammed the hilt hard into the side of his head. He went limp beneath me and I pushed myself off of him, breathing heavily.

"What was the point in that?" Cerawyn asked angrily, bow still in hand. "They were not going to see us."

"No, but we wanted to follow them to where they were going, right? They've clearly already been where they were going and are now on their way back to the army, so we're too late. With the number of scouts we've been running into out here, we'll be spotted before we can find anything useful, so we'll take him-" I gestured to the general- "back to Whiterun and ask him what he was doing ourselves."

Cerawyn knelt down beside a downed soldier and started unbuckling her armor. "We cannot carry him back to Whiterun, so we must disguise ourselves."

A swift glance about revealed no sign of any scouts, so I followed her example. Luckily, these Imperials were wearing the heavy version of Imperial armor, the kind designed to be worn over a thick leather undershirt. Thieves' Guild armor wasn't exactly trim and closefitting, but it was still possible to hide it beneath the bulky steel. Traditional Imperial heavy armor was worn with a short-sleeved tunic, but in this weather I doubted any scouts we might run into would notice or care about any breach of custom.

I shook some water off the helmet, then slipped it on over my hood. Cerawyn held out a pair of reins to me and I took them, patting the still-nervous horse and looking down at the Imperial general. "Now what do we do with him?"

"One of us can hold him on the horse in front of us. If we run into any Imperial scouts and they question us, we can tell them that a couple Stormcloak scouts attacked us and wounded him." She swung lightly up onto her horse. "Unbuckle some of his heavier armor and pass him to me."

Between Cerawyn's pulling and my pushing, we somehow managed to get the general's dead weight onto the horse. Cerawyn hooked one arm around him and gripped the reins with the other, holding back the nervously stamping animal.

After a moment of hesitation, I gestured for her to wait while I dragged the bodies of the Imperial soldiers behind the rock we had just used to hide. It wouldn't help much, I knew. The Imperials would know their general and his escort hadn't returned even if they didn't find the runaway horses, but hiding any obvious evidence might at least cause some uncertainty and buy us a little time. When I was finished I mounted my horse, gave the surrounding landscape a quick scan, then nudged the animal on a course paralleling Whiterun's wall.

"How do you intend to reenter Whiterun? You cannot hope to keep this outing a secret and also return with a captured enemy general," Cerawyn said in a low voice.

"I wanted to keep my absence a secret, but there would be no way to keep our little outing a secret after we return. Even if we could get back into the city without being spotted, if we had found any kind of information to report Vignar and the captains would have wanted to know where and how we got it." Pleasant though it would have been to avoid Vignar ever finding out about this escapade, it simply wasn't possible.

"I see. Hail," she said, raising her voice.

I glanced at her sharply in preparation to make a shushing sound, then jumped slightly as a voice from somewhere to my left replied to her greeting. My head snapped around in the direction of the sound, allowing me to just catch sight of another horse disappearing into the deluge. "Good eyes," I commented when I judged we were safely out of earshot, trying not to go limp with relief that the scout hadn't spotted his unconscious general.

"One of the many requirements of a hunter." She looked away toward the wall, adding so quietly that I barely heard, "And the hunted."

"And what?" I asked, unsure if I had heard correctly.

"Nothing" was her reply, and I decided to drop it. We both fell silent, instead concentrating on maneuvering around the obstacles that seemed to jump out of the greyness ahead.

Such as the stream, for instance. The rushing water seemed to appear out of nowhere, and I really couldn't blame my horse for stopping dead and backing quickly away from the mass of writhing froth. Cerawyn's horse ignored the water and walked straight through the stream, but mine decided that the froth was a mass of slaughterfish that would grab its legs and pull it under if it walked through them and jumped the stream, surging forward in a sudden and violent motion that nearly left me behind on the other side.

I managed to stay on the animal, but not without a quietly growled curse and what I could have sworn was a muffled laugh from Cerawyn.

Some sort of presence must have been watching over us that day, but whether it was Talos protecting his followers or Nocturnal blessing her Nightingale, I would likely never know. Whichever it was, we managed to near Whiterun's main gate without any Imperial scouts approaching us directly, although we saw several dark shapes moving on the plains.

The moment I could make out the dim shadow of the destroyed stable in front of us, I reined my horse to a halt and started fumbling at the straps on the Imperial armor with one hand. Cerawyn looked at me questioningly, but caught on and began to do the same. "You ride in front," I said, my voice tight as I strained to undo a buckle at my back. "That way if the sentries shoot at us, they'll hit the general and not us."

"Won't that make this excursion pointless?" Cerawyn pointed out.

"Maybe, but neither of us will be dead," I rejoined, dropping the last of my borrowed armor on the ground and flipping my hood down around my shoulders so that my face could be easily seen. Well, as easily seen as anything could be in this weather.

The Stormcloak sentries did shoot at us, but the arrow that buried itself a couple feet in front of my horse was clearly a warning shot, not an attack. "Halt!" a voice that I assumed belonged to the archer called out roughly. "Who goes there?"

I resolved to later commend the man for his restraint and replied, "General Kisvar and Harbinger Cerawyn."

There was a short silence during which I could practically feel the surprise radiating out of the cloak of mist that hid the speaker, then he responded cautiously, "I didn't know you had left Whiterun, General."

"Just for a short trip around the walls to check our defenses," I stated, trying to decide if that would be the same story I told Jarl Vignar when he asked where we had found an Imperial general.

A figure on horseback appeared from the mist ahead, reining in the animal as soon as he was in view. I could just make out his face as he squinted in our direction. "Welcome back, General, Harbinger." He nodded to us, ignoring the unconscious Imperial Cerawyn was holding in front of her.

A good soldier. Not one of those blithering idiots, I thought appreciatively. Not only had he not referred to me as Dragonborn General, but he had also shown the proper amount of suspicion due two mounted figures that suddenly appeared at the gates and not immediately assumed I was telling the truth when we identified ourselves. On top of that, he hadn't apologized for his suspicion like many other soldiers would have.

We remained on horseback until we reached Whiterun's main gate, then handed the animals off to a soldier to care for. Our cavalry had suffered in the first battle on the plains and we had lost even more horses through failed scouting missions, so we could use every steed we could get.

"You and you, take him-" I gestured to the Imperial general- "to the dungeons, put two guards on him, then prepare for battle."

"Then- what?" one soldier demanded, the rest just staring at me, stunned.

"If the Imperials won't even let us fly a dragon over the city to look at the area around Whiterun, what do you think they'll do the moment they find out we've captured one of their generals?" The grim expressions on the faces of those around me told me they understood. "I'll talk to Jarl Vignar and the captains, but right now I need the watch on the wall back at full strength and every soldier who can fight preparing for battle. Get it done." I trudged through a large puddle to the gate, let myself through, then held it open until Cerawyn slipped inside as well.

"Do you truly think the Imperials will attack?" Cerawyn asked as we made our way through the fortified streets toward Dragonsreach.

"Yes," I said heavily. "And I don't think we have more than a day before they do."

"Then we should-" She halted when she realized I had stopped. "What is it?"

"I think I might know what RR means. We need to hurry." I broke into a fast jog, skillfully dodging a cart that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Talos or Nocturnal or whoever must still be hovering somewhere nearby and granting me good fortune, because when Cerawyn and I burst into the throne room through Dragonreach's large double doors along with a blast of rain and wind, Vignar and the captains were all sitting at the long table and discussing something.

"Save it," I snapped the moment Vignar opened his mouth. My brusqueness stunned him into silence and probably indignation as well, but he just closed his mouth and sat in his seat with a tightlipped expression.

I looked around the table to ensure I had everyone's attention, then began. "This is the situation. Harbinger Cerawyn and I went on a brief scouting mission and captured an Imperial general. We know that the Imperials don't want us to scout the area either by dragon or scout, so I expect we have about a day before they attack." One of the captains tried to say something, but I completely overrode him. "Also, we think the Redguard mercenaries are somewhere nearby. We found symbol with three curved swords and the letters RR carved into a rock on the plains."

I looked down at the table and pulled a map toward me. My finger hovered over the paper, pausing at the locations of known caves and structures. "Here," I said triumphantly. "Redoran's Retreat. It's an old bandit hideout a few miles from Whiterun."

"That seems like a stretch," one of the captains said dubiously. "It won't be easy to get someone out there, and we have no guarantee."

"True," I acquiesced, "but we do know that Redguard mercenaries have used Redoran's Retreat before. There was an incident a few years ago with a Hammerfell traitor escaping to Skyrim and they used that place for their base of operations while they hunted for her."

This information sparked a few slight nods, and even Vignar looked a bit less ready to kill me the moment he got me alone. "Even if the Redguards have someone waiting at Redoran's Retreat, why do we need to make contact? If their scouts see Whiterun under attack, they should come to our aid whether we contacted them or not," one of the female captains reasoned.

I carefully prevented myself from rolling my eyes. Maybe I should demote this "captain" and promote that soldier at the gate instead; he clearly at least had common sense. "They don't have enough information to just charge blindly into this fight. We know Miraak is planning something, but they don't even know about Miraak. They know not to attack Stormcloak dragons, but they have no estimate on numbers, and for that matter, we don't even know their numbers. No leader likes unknowns, and right now the Imperials are largely an unknown to the mercenaries and they are an unknown to us," I explained patiently.

"And who would you propose we send?" Vignar asked. He held up a hand to forestall my reply. "Yourself, I know. It was a rhetorical question. I just want to bring up the point that no matter how little regard you have for your position, even you can't deny that you can't just go yourself. If the Imperials attack, you must be here to command the Stormcloaks."

For once, Vignar was right. I couldn't possibly risk going to Redoran's Retreat myself, mainly because if the Imperials attacked while I was gone, there would be no way for me to get back into the city. Any figure approaching the walls would be shot immediately without warning if we were under attack, so there would be no way for me to climb the wall to get back in. I had a brief, comedic image of me trying to reenter Whiterun through the front gate while the Imperials attacked, and it ended in my spectacular death each time I imagined it.

"We might be able to send one of the Companions," I suggested halfheartedly. It wasn't as if I didn't trust them, but technically the deal had been made between the Stormcloaks and the Redguard mercenaries alone and the Companions had no part in it. Would the mercenaries even take orders from them under these conditions?

Cerawyn had a strangely pensive, brooding expression on her face, and I couldn't discern whether it stemmed from my suggestion or something else. Whatever it was, she offered no comment, instead letting Vignar echo my own thoughts. "Would the mercenaries accept a Companion as a valid Stormcloak emissary?"

I didn't have an answer, so I didn't try to give one. I could send a captain, but aside from Ralof and possibly Hilrine or Erdii, I didn't know any of them well enough to risk sending them. I trusted everyone in this room to give an accurate and concise summary of what was happening, but what the mercenaries should do next depended greatly on their numbers and class of troops. If they had gotten here this quickly I would be willing to bet my salary as a general that most or even all of them had horses, but I while I would bet money on this, I wouldn't bet the lives of my troops.

I glanced across the table at Hilrine to find her staring into an untouched cup, a thoughtful expression on her face. Of the three I would consider, she was the most likely. Ralof was about as sneaky as a herd of mammoths and Erdii was very much so a stoutly built, heavy armor-wearing, hack-and-slash kind of person. Hilrine, on the other hand, had a trim, lithe figure, wore light armor, and handled herself with grace even when just sitting at a table.

I knew Hilrine could command, but could she lead? Did she have the experience and presence of mind to take whatever information she learned from the Redguards, apply it to Whiterun's situation, and make an educated decision about their next move? I just didn't know. Ralof could do all these things, but I valued his chances of not being spotted by the Imperial scouts at just about absolutely nothing.

One day I would have to tell him I thought he sounded like a herd of mammoths. I should just make sure I was wearing armor when I did.

"Let me hear this plainly. What you need right now, in order to speak to the Redguards yourself, is a way back into the city even if it is under attack, correct?"

Cerawyn's voice was hesitant and unsure, which in of itself was so unusual that it immediately got my attention. "That's right," I confirmed.

"Then I suppose there is no choice. You all believe there is only one way in and out of the city; I know otherwise. There is another entrance." Cerawyn brushed a lock of hair back out of her face. "It has been a carefully guarded secret since the Skyforge was built, and with your cooperation, the Companions would prefer to keep it that way. Knowledge of this entrance should not leave this room."

"Did you never consider what would happen if the Imperials found out there was a secret entrance?" Vignar demanded.

"It cannot be opened from the outside, and it is well hidden. Someone will have to wait just inside to let General Kisvar back into the city when he returns." Cerawyn's eyes narrowed at the anger on Vignar's features. "I understand your concern, but you should be honored that I am even choosing to tell you this. I believe I am the only Harbinger ever to reveal this secret to anyone not of the Companions."

"So where is this entrance?" Erdii asked.

"I will not say. Kisvar is the only one who requires use of it, so he is the only one who shall use it." Cerawyn's voice hardened. "I will not offer this again. These are my conditions."

"We'll accept them," I decided for everyone without a second thought. "I'll need a few hours first, though."

"A few hours for what?" Vignar snapped, the composure he had maintained in the face of my repeated transgressions starting to crack at the apparent insanity of this announcement.

"I don't suppose you know if any of the soldiers are professional torturers?" I asked, my voice deceptively light.

"If- what?"

"We captured an Imperial general. If that's going to cause the Imperials to attack us, we might as well get something out of him before they do. We don't have time to sift through hundreds of soldiers and find a real torturer, so unless you know of one without looking, we'll have to improvise."

No one at the table spoke up.

My expression didn't change, I made sure of that. Neither did my hands clench, nor my leg fidget, nor my throat swallow. Not a single bit of my disgust and hatred for the very idea of torturing someone showed at all.

Nevertheless, it took me a moment to control the sudden sick feeling in my gut so that I could speak without showing my hesitation. "We don't have time to ask around the army, and I won't ask anyone to volunteer for something like this, so I'll just have to interrogate him myself."

This was... 4 pages longer than I expected it would end up being.  In size 12 TNR, it's 9 pages and... 5737 words xD  Hope you enjoy.  Not sure if I'm looking forward to writing the next chapter.