Chapter 38

Chapter 38

I knew what I was going to do. During the few minutes it had taken me to don my Daedric armor, I had managed to come up with a strategy.

This, however, was a radically different strategy from what I was accustomed to conceiving. In this, there were no armies, no battles, no landforms, no aspects I was used to taking into account when deciding my and others' next move.

Once I had decided something, I typically stuck by it. I wasn't averse to listening to the opinions of others, but I worked best when I could come up with a plan and put it into action without explaining myself and my thoughts. Questions, comments, and concerns tended to unravel my plans like a weaver plucking ill-placed threads, and there often wasn't time for me to allow for the insecurity and doubt conflicting opinions their words seeded into my mind.

Right now, however, my own mind was offering up more opinions and doubts than Vignar or any number of captains were capable of voicing. I could say there isn't time. Vignar already agrees with that. Or I could find someone else to do it. It might take a while, but surely in this army there's someone who hates the Imperials enough to actually want this.

I sighed heavily, staring at the prison door in front of me. But there is time, and even if I could find someone else, I would have to oversee it. I need to hear this information firsthand.

There was no way out of it, and I needed to stop searching for one or there really wouldn't be time, not only for this, but for everything.

I straightened my helmet, transferred the plain steel dagger from my right hand to my left, and pushed the door open, staggering just the tiniest bit as another tremor rocked the ground.

The three guards saluted, and one started to speak. "Dragonborn General, we-"

"Keys." Over one of the guard's shoulders I could see the Imperial general sitting on the egde of the rickety bed in the corner of his cell with his hands tied behind his back, a sullen expression on his face.

Every single second the guard spent rifling through his pockets in search of the keys was another second that nearly caused me to lose my nerve. When he finally located them I snatched them out of his hand and shoved past him.

I headed straight to the cell door, unlocked it, tossed the keys to the side, intercepted the Imperial as he tried to stand, spun him around, and wrenched his right arm out of its socket.

He let out a sort of shrieking gasp and I dropped him, watching dispassionately as he writhed on the grimy stone floor. After a moment he gathered a bit of composure and lashed out with one foot in an attempt to kick my ankle. He came up a few inches short, and I retaliated by driving the armored metal toe of my Daedric boot into his side.

I knew from personal experience how much broken ribs hurt, but I forced myself to ignore the snapping of bones and the sounds of pain that followed. Instead I placed one boot on his left hand, placing my full weight on the limb.

He tried weakly to push my boot away with his other hand, but the way they were tied left him with no leverage. Mercilessly I pressed even harder, resisting the urge to dry swallow.

"Stop- Divines, stop!" he choked out finally. "What- what do you want?"

I removed my foot, moving a couple feet away in case he decided to try to kick me again. My fingers tested the edge of the steel dagger I held in a motion that was more automatic than intended to unnerve the man, but it appeared to be doing just that. "Let's start with something simple. Your name?"

He eyed the dagger in my hands, clearly considering whether such a simple thing was worth finding out what I intended to do with the weapon. "Varcessus," he said reluctantly, massaging his bruised hand with his other one.

"Varcessus what?" I demanded.

"... Prellius."

I'd never heard of him, but I hadn't really expected to know whatever name he gave me. I didn't even care if this was his real name or not; it didn't matter. Miraak's plans were what I really needed him to divulge, but jumping straight into demanding something like that would probably cause him to clam up like a mudcrab in its shell. At least, I would react that way if I was in his position.

"Well then, Varcessus Prellius, let me tell you what we already know." I leaned against the bars of the cell, still twirling the dagger between my fingers. "In your first attack, you hardly managed to get any forces through even the first archway, let alone over the drawbridge. The few soldiers that managed to climb the walls were ineffective, ill-led, and easily disposed of. I've been fighting Imperials for a long time, and I know they aren't that incompetent. Either Miraak is in total control of your army and has no tactical experience at all, or-" I let the words hang in the air for a moment- "you have another, easier way to take Whiterun."

I was watching him carefully, but there was no obvious widening of eyes or stiffening of muscles that would indicated I had struck a nerve. But then, he was still somewhat writhing around in pain, so I might easily be missing something.

Either way, he refused to talk, but I wasn't finished yet. "That aside, you made a mistake." I smiled grimly. "Oh, I don't mean you personally. I doubt you're even smart enough to come up with a plan like the one in the works. Your army is camped too far away to feel the tremors and our scouts still had control of the plains at the time, so you misjudged when to start firing the catapults to cover them up."

The word tremors elicited just the barest reaction, just a short flick of his eyes away from mine and the drawing of one eyebrow, but it was enough for me. "So I'm right," I stated evenly, keeping any hint of triumph out of my voice. "The catapults were supposed to start firing just before we could feel the tremors in the city. The rain was supposed to lessen so that we could easily see the rocks, then get harder again to hide that not all tremors happened when a rock hit the ground. It was a clever plan, and if you hadn't given the order to start firing too late, we would probably have never noticed. By the way, what's your name again?"

This startled him out of silence, as I had correctly surmised it would. "How by the Divines did someone like you become a general if you can't even remember a name someone told you two minutes ago?" he snapped, a bit of supercilious condescension lacing his voice.

Unperturbed, I tested the point of the dagger in an overly exaggerated and obvious fashion. "Tactical experience and just not being good with names are two entirely different things. Come on now, answer the question."

"Varcessus Prellius," he growled angrily, eyeing the dagger.

I had pulled this trick countless times in my career as a thief, the most recent example being... well, Aetra. People who gave fake names on the fly often didn't remember them when asked again moments later, so using the "I forgot your name" tactic often revealed when someone was giving a fake. I couldn't be absolutely sure, but I would stake a considerable amount of wealth on the assumption that Varcessus wasn't clever enough to keep his false name in mind and reassert it without some sign that he was lying.

"That was it. Thank you. Now, how about telling me what exactly Miraak is planning and why he so badly wants to keep us from scouting the plains around Whiterun?"

He shut his mouth like a Nordic ruin trap.

I went from lounging lazily against the bars to lunging forward in an instant, giving him no time to react beyond widening his eyes. Getting an iron grip on his throat, I jerked him off the ground and slammed him onto the bed, forcing the full weight of his upper body to twist his dislocated shoulder. Carefully ignoring the sounds he was making, I stated calmly, "I apologize; that wasn't polite of me. I forgot to say 'please'. Please tell me what Miraak is planning and why he wants to keep us from scouting the plains." There was no answer, so I placed the hilt of the dagger against his right shoulder right behind the dislocated joint and pressed.

Only when Varcessus was sobbing, gasping for breath, and pleading for me to stop did I finally remove the pressure. "Please tell me what Miraak is planning and why he wants to stop us from scouting," I repeated, the word please laced with steel sharper than the dagger I held in my hand.

The Imperial growled out several curses, a few of which I might have been inclined to take offense at if I hadn't been busy trying to control my own stomach. I gave his arm a warning wrench anyway, however, just to show that I wasn't going to put up with his nonsense.

"Fine," he ground out abruptly. "I'll tell you what you want to know."

His response was sudden enough to take me off guard, especially after the rather defiant insults he had just spent several seconds wasting his valuable time to breathe firing off at me. I kept my left hand resting lightly on his throat and waited expectantly.

His eyes met mine for a second, then flicked away to look at something behind me.

My paranoia was usually unwarranted. Noises in the dark were usually just normal night-time sounds, and yet when I was camping in the wilderness of Skyrim, I always turned to look for their source anyway. When I was sneaking through a darkened shop and searching for a ledger to change on Thieves' Guild business, every tiny sound was a footstep, every gust of displaced air a breath.

When someone looked behind me, I automatically expected something to be there. I was usually wrong; today, this instinct saved my life.

The moment I saw his eyes flick away from mine I was releasing my hold on his throat, spinning around to the left while simultaneously stepping to the right, so as a result of this action, the steel sword aimed for the gap in the armor between my helmet and chestplate instead got caught between the collar and shoulder spikes.

The Stormcloak soldier that had swung the weapon went from having a triumphant grin on his face to stumbling backward in terror as his blow missed, then his expression went slack as I sheathed the steel dagger in his right eye socket. Another Stormcloak guard was just behind his compatriot and he had a battleaxe, so I released the dagger that would be far too small to block something like that anyway, raised the newly freed hand in preparation to grasp the shaft of the weapon as he swung it, and reached for my Daedric sword.

But the guard wasn't after me. In fact, he ran straight by me and buried the blade of the battleaxe deep in Varcessus' chest, the sword that I put through his back a split second later killing him an instant too late to stop the attack.

I growled out a string of curses that made Varcessus' rant sound like a lullaby, ripping my sword out of the Stormcloak's back with violent strength. No, not Stormcloak. These two guards were clearly Imperial spies that had probably been planted in our ranks specifically to deal with a situation like the one that had arisen when I brought an Imperial general back for questioning.

And deal with it they had, and my own failure to subsequently deal with them left a burning coil of helpless rage in my chest. My clenched fingers tightened on the hilt of my sword until the pressure was almost painful. I had been so close! Varcessus had tried, but he clearly hadn't been capable of holding up for much longer. Another few minutes and I might have actually gotten something useful.

Time. There isn't time. I stared at the blood lacing the Daedric blade, concentrating on controlling my anger. I had no time to stand here and decide why and in exactly how many ways I was to blame for this. This was unfortunate, but it was merely a setback, not something to lose my head over, and I still needed to contact the Redguards.

I wiped my sword on one of the dead guards, sheathed the weapon, stepped over the third, loyal guard's body where it lay near the door to the outside, and left the torchlight of the dungeon for the dim grey daylight of the pouring sky.

I got most of the way to the front gate before I couldn't take the hot anger coursing through my limbs any longer. By the time I was finished with the already partially destroyed cart that happened to be at the side of the street, the wood had been hacked into tiny splinters and some of the tension had left my body.

I found Ralof standing on top of the wall, looking in the direction of the distant Imperial camp. The increase in rain had once more rendered it invisible, so any warning we would receive from the watchers on the wall would be that of an army marching toward us, not one of the Imperials mobilizing.

Ralof assumed a carefully neutral expression when he saw who it was standing beside him. I was taken aback for a moment before I remembered his very outspoken stance on torture. Even from the time we had first met on that ill-fated day when Helgen had been destroyed he had made his thoughts clear, giving his opinion on the subject when our little band had passed through the Imperial torture chamber beneath the keep. Now that I had time to think of it and I wasn't concentrating on controlling every expression, I also realized that Ralof hadn't said a single word during our strategic meeting earlier.

Whether his silence meant that he realized torturing the Imperial general was necessary, he just didn't want to have any kind of responsibility in it, or something else entirely, I didn't know. I also didn't know whether my very definitively involved hand in it would affect his opinion of me, but right now I couldn't afford to worry about that.

So instead of bringing up any questions I might have, I jumped straight to the point. "The two guards we left on the Imperial general were traitors. They killed the general before I could get anything out of him."

Ralof's ambivalence gave way to a startled expression, then his face darkened with a measure of the anger that I myself was feeling. "Who was in charge of choosing the guards?"

"I don't know. I ordered two soldiers who were on duty at the lower gate to take him to the dungeons, but I didn't order them specifically to stand guard, I told them to find two guards. I don't think it's likely that either of them was involved with the traitors themselves. One of the Imperial spies could have easily seen them taking the general to the dungeon and offered to stand guard with his friend." I sighed, a little more of my anger and self-loathing draining away. "Even if the first two soldiers were involved, I didn't know either of their names, and we can't afford to let word of this spread. That would be the last thing we need right now."

"Then the real question is whether or not we should still expect an attack. If the Imperials knew they had agents in the city, they might rely on them to deal with the captured general rather than launching an all-out attack."

"They won't wait," I said with surety. I had already asked myself the same question and come up with an answer. "If Miraak's plan is as strategically important as we suspect, there's no way the Imperials will rely on two men to ensure it doesn't all fall apart at the last moment."

"Then you need to get moving and contact those mercenaries." Ralof scratched at his beard. "And that's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Right. Vignar will probably believe that the Imperials will hold off the attack, so he'll want me to delay going to Redoran's Retreat until we find some sort of actual evidence that the mercenaries are really here. I won't be able to change his mind, so we'll just end up having an argument that there's no time for."

Ralof dipped his head in silent agreement, which I acknowledged, though not without a small twinge of guilt. One of the many qualities I admired about Ulfric as a leader was his willingness to listen to advice and consider the many different sides of a problem, then combine his thoughts and come up with a brilliant strategy. To put it bluntly, my approach to leadership was to order or manipulate anyone and everyone beneath me into doing what I wanted while listening to very little that anyone had to say.

"I'll wait fifteen minutes or so for you to get out of the city, then head over to Dragonsreach to tell Jarl Vignar what happened." Ralof turned away from the misty landscape beyond the wall, finally facing me and looking me in the eyes. "Don't get caught by the Imperials."

I smiled wryly. "Only the High King and Galmar can give me orders."

"Under the Stormcloak chain of command, maybe. This order comes from an old friend." Ralof returned my smile, but the expression couldn't be described as a happy one.

Like me, he was wondering if we would survive this fight, and, if we did, what kind of condition the Stormcloaks, the city, and Skyrim would be in by the end.

There was nothing else to be said, so I clambered back down the slippery ladder rungs and headed back up the road in the direction I had come.

Cerawyn had said that she would wait for me inside Jorrvaskr, and when I pushed open the door I immediately spotted her sitting in one of the numerous chairs around the large central fire pit, nonchalantly consuming a bowl of some sort of soup. Upon seeing me she stood, leaving the soup on the table, and moved in the direction of the door that led to the outside eating and training area. "Come."

I followed, circumventing the table and reluctantly followed her out of the delicious warmth of Jorrvaskr and back into the dismal, cold downpour. "Where are we going?" I asked to get my mind off the weather.

"Up here." She ascended the ladder up to the scaffolding behind Jorrvaskr, edging her way past the Companion standing watch atop the wooden structure. I knew the Companions ordinarily didn't take turns in the watch on the walls, so she must have stationed one of them here so that there were no Stormcloak soldiers nearby to hear the location of the secret entrance.

Cerawyn stopped where the wooden platform ended just short of the cliff side in which Jorrvaskr was situated. She pointed one finger over the wall. "Look there."

I looked in the direction in which she was pointing and saw nothing more than a typical picture of the plains around Whiterun, if slightly more drenched than usual. "Where?"

"That broken stone structure."

Now I could see what she meant, but I still didn't understand the significance of it. I had seen the bit of stone tower from the road countless times, although I had never had occasion to ride up to it myself for any reason. Aside from briefly wondering if it had once been part of one of Whiterun's walls in the past, I had never give the structure much thought, and now that I was studying it more closely, I still couldn't make out anything particularly unique about it.

Cerawyn clearly didn't expect me to ascertain its use, as she followed up her words with an explanation seconds later. "That is where the secret entrance is located. There is a hidden cave located inside that leads into a room beneath the Skyforge. If we are attacked while you are gone, one of the Companions will wait inside that room and listen for your knock." Her gaze sharpened and she turned to look at me, her expression serious. "Please do all you can to hide your return from any eyes, whether they be Imperial or Stormcloak. I have no doubt that I shall hear some choice words from Vilkas later about how I have broken tradition in telling you about this passage, and were it to become common knowledge, the Companions as a whole would come under suspicion."

I resisted the urge to furrow my brow. Sure, some of the Stormcloaks might be more than a little angered that the Companions had been keeping an entrance that Imperials could have potentially used to gain access to the city a secret, but there should be no reason for them to suspect the Companions of anything. Still, I didn't have time to argue the finer points of Cerawyn's wording, so I just nodded. "I won't be seen," I promised, putting some conviction into my voice. Sneaking was something I knew I was good at, unlike leading, and I was fairly sure that I could at least get to the broken stone tower without the Imperials noticing, since they would be focusing mostly on the main gate. The Stormcloaks that would be guarding the wall and waiting anxiously for something they could put arrows into to appear out of the grey mist might be a different story, but I wasn't going to explain that.

Fifteen minutes and one carefully avoided Jarl Vignar later, I had changed out of my Daedric armor and back into my Thieves' Guild attire. My swords rested lightly in their sheaths, their weight a familiar comfort. I was mentally tired and sick of the endless rain, but physically I was as ready to fight as I would ever be.

Everything was in order for my trip to Redoran's Retreat, yet here I was, standing stock still and agonizing over a choice that should have been one of the few decisions I had to make that wasn't difficult.

Should I take Gormlaith or ride another horse?

Bet you didn't know that "avoided Jarl Vignar"s were a unit of time.