//Here's Chapter 2!//
I wake staring into the eyes of my brother.
He’s pinching my nose.
“Ah- ah- fah!” is the effect of my spluttering, loud enough t’wake the dead.
We was underwater in this hell-shabby Palace like a Dwarven city gone to flood, and a million fishes swarmed around us, watchin –
-wait a minute. Now we wasn’t.
But the only reason I knew it was Margeth was dead, and the fellow starin at me wasn’t no dead brother, and nor was he any sort of fish I’d ever seen.
If he kept starin at me, either his eyes’d fall out or I’d punch him in the mouth. Wanna win some gold, bet on the latter.
He kept starin.
I take a step up to hit him and the cart hit a rock and I fall flat on my face. Far out. My hands are stuck behind me. Unfortunate experience familiarised the sensation. I get to work right away untying myself. So I was under arrest. My brother was dead. There’re a bunch of leery Nord cousins in place of sweet shiny fishes giving audience.
I roll off my face and onto my side. The action affords me a view’a the rest of the cart and the cart behind it. Couple sturdy old horses on each, not ‘perial stock. Wouldn’t fetch much of a price second-hand less it was in ransom, and horses like that can make a thief regret they was born.
Guess one thought leads to another, cause I look at the only dark-haired fellow in our congress, member #3 of the second gilded chariot, and know who he is.
“Bloke’s a horse thief,” I says to my neighbour across the prison cart.
He smiles this real mean wistful smile like he is right then wishin he was jerkin off in the outhouse of a Cloaker camp. T’be brutally honest, between the prison cart n the Norgy, I’d any day take the outhouse.
“I’d be a horse thief too, if I was luckier,” he tells me.
Another cousin snorts, “Hn. If I were luckier, I woulda been shot in the neck at the Border.”
He gestures vaguely to the fore of the cart, making it a consequence of his non-death. To oblige a cousin I follow the gesture, and low n behold beyond the bobbing grey heads of the draught horses are the chipped granite walls of Helgen.
Now just hold on one skooma-shootin second. We might’a been arrested on the Border, but the keep closest was Falkreath, and if they wanted to slap our hairy wrists then that oughta be where we were headed. Not Helgen. Only folks went to Helgen were folks destined for-
“The chopping block,” nods my neighbour, reading all this off a stricken man’s face. The stone gate rolls over our heads, for a moment bouncing the noise of the horses’ hooves back at us like captured thunder. “Sorry, cousin. That’s what happens when ‘perials dogs can’t pick a Nord soldier from a citizen.”
Another of my three companions in the cart nods to the second vehicle. “With Ulfric bein with us, every Nord in Falkreath is gonna be headed this way.”
Either he said “be headed” or “beheaded”. One made more sense than the other, but that wasn’t the one which had me so alarmed.
People from houses screeching at us like they had no business to do, the carts stop. By the keep tower ‘perials had set up a tea party for us.
Now I might come from Shor’s Stone, and it might be a decaying turd heap, but as a turdboy I can say with full authority that Helgen is grade-A ‘perial manure, and this was even before the place burnt down and the bandits drifted in like the stinkin gloating buzzards they are. I don’t want to die here. Come t’think of it, I don’t want to die at all. Wasn’t havin my brother die enough for one day? Couldn’t we do this tomorrow, or after I told Maw?
A ‘perial pulls the back’a the tray down and grunts for us to get out. Rest of the silvers are standing round a short wooden guillotine they’ve taken all the care to put on the dirt.
“Step forward, prisoner,” says the ‘perial to me, when I don’t skip after my cousins.
Not budging, worried they’ll notice my undone bonds, I say, “You got me wrong, man. Me’n my brother were just pickin deathbell there on Angi’s Grove-”
“Trespassing,” bellows the ‘perial broad beside him. “Resisting arrest by attempting to cross the Border. Step forward.”
I do, cause these ‘perials got their swords trained on the ratty death pyjamas some smarty replaced my armour with. “Lady,” I tell her a bit hopelessly, “I wasn’t crossin no Border. Reason I got in that water was to chase down the mare for your boys. I know what trouble you ‘perials have with horses. Kindness itself, I am, to think of gettin’ it for you.”
The lady says to the son of Septim beside her, “Write him down as ‘idiot’. Let’s get this over with.”
I want to be offended, but actually I’ve already forgotten the broad. Reason being Ulfric himself is standing beside me. It’s my first time meeting him, one billionth time having heard about him. He’s this big blonde bloke got a fur cloak offa bear by the looker him, but if that’s the case I can’t figure why they call him Ulfric Stormcloak and not Bjorn Bearcloak. He doesn’t even look much like a bear or a bloke who shouted apart such a man as a high king, and my being impressed quickly muddies to disenchantment. Here I was hopin His Nibs Ulfric was going to sprout wings and fly us over the wall.
Someone shouts for this to hurry up. Horse thief suddenly breaks free of the ranks of prisoners and makes a run for it. We all snap our heads up to watch him. Run fellah, run! He runs, the guards go after him, better chances for us to get away.
“Archer!” calls the broad.
Whack and the horse thief is dead. Arrow in the back, face in the dirt. Ain’t no guards running after a corpse.
“Now if nobody else has any objections...” says the broad, and I can think of millions. I reckon I could think of so many objections that if she spent the time listenin to them then she and I both would die of old age standin right here in Helgen.
No one is listenin to me. A Cloaker is pushed onto his knees, head on the execution block. No last rites or nothin’; the broad just tells the minister to can it when he tries. S’pose the ‘perials are scarder of Ulfric than of restless ghosts.
The executioner swings his axe. A meaty thwack followed by a huge and distant roar. We look to the skies. We see nothing.
There’s the grey tower and a few wooden long houses with mummas n kiddies peerin at us. I recall the first execution I ever saw, sittin on my aunt’s knee in the crowd, Margeth and my sister on our uncle’s shoulders. We went all the way to Whiterun to see it. Erkki Cattlethief was the name of the bloke. Afterwards we went to the markets and my aunt bought me a sweetcake.
Funny how the good times come back to you in the worst times.
Funny how I was quite happy to have my whole life slide by in a haze of mead n skooma n bad jobs n worse women, content to die any day at all in my sleep, yet come time for some bloke in leather lingerie to take my worthless existence away from me, I suddenly got all attached to it.
“Next.” ‘perial calls this like this is the dullest thing he’s ever seen. “The prisoner from Cyrodiil.”
Mara above. Sweat prickles my neck. That was me. Wasn’t it? I mean, sho, I’d passed out and nearly drowned before I ever touched Terra cyrodiilus, but out of all the leprechauns I could see around me, I must’ve been closest to the rainbow.
Fobbing my way through a prayer, I step up to the chopping block. I’m nearly there when this buff chap I don’t recall from the Border knocks past me and kneels down, resting his thick neck on the block.
I just stand there. The executioner raises his +1 axe of risqué underwear. I can’t move. Damn, I can’t even die when I’m supposed to. No wonder I can never hold down a job.
There comes a distorted cry from beyond the keep.
Aw, what the f-
Then the ‘perials are screamin and the Nords are runnin and the sky and the keep and the earth itself is on fire.
You know what I was doing this morning? That’s right: picking flowers. Now I was screaming for my very life as a fah-king dragon poured over the top of the tower, spewing flame and instant death and we were chaos, chaos, trying to get away. The worst part of all wasn’t that we were being picked up n eaten n made crispy; it was that all this was happening at the claws of a creature which didn’t even exist.
Despite everything else he had to worry about, the executioner chose that moment to fret for his job security. He took up his axe again. I believe that’s what em fancy folks would call psychological displacement.
Leatherdacks takes a swing at Buff on the ground; I spring up and punch him square in the jaw. Executioner rocks backwards, his axe gripped in his fingers like wire threaded through boiled ham. I hit him again. This time he does down and I lean forward and pick the knife off his belt before he’s hit the dirt.
Hit that dirt real hard did old leatherdacks, which felt to me about the first good thing that’d happened all day. To celebrate I cut the bonds off the first blonde bloke in front’a me. It’d be my pleasure to stand around all day cuttin rope, but seein as there’s a dragon lapping about town, I just extend my generosity to freeing His Nibs Ulfric and count myself done with it. One blonde bloke picks Buff off the ground.
“Get into the keep!” he shouts, pushing Buff towards it. Buff’d been on the chopping block when the dragon showed face, and either from the shock of the beast’s appearance or plain thinkin his head was missin, he’d taken a fall off the block. Way he looked now was prob’ly concussed. I don’t know much about concussions ’cept if you get enough of em you aren’t allowed to dance on the table at the inn no more.
“Ur,” mutters Buff, then the dragon wheels around from terrorising ‘perials n we leg it into the keep tower.
Cloakers everywhere are talking and I’m not really listening. ‘perials outside fighting with bows n swords. Couple injured men on the tower floor. Dragon seems more pissed off than put off at the arrows peppering its glossy grey flanks. Blondes Buff and another called Rolof run off up the stairs, leaving me with Ulfric and a fellah who’s cryin and another one who ain’t.
“Hey!” is what I shout up the stairs, “You want us to come with?”
All answer I get is this big roar and the wall of the tower comes crashing in over the stairs and the dragon sticks its ugly head in.
I’m ready to run out the door. His Nibs Ulfric is just standing there starin at Old Ugly. It takes its ugly head outta the wall and Buff and Rolof wait a second and then jump out after it. I look around the tower door. ‘perials further down, mostly screened by a building what’s on fire. Dragon seems pretty happy to have charcoal sardines for dinner, not bothering about us little oysters here in the tower.
I look around; south gate’a Helgen is where I recall it. Still you can never be too sure about these things and I’m of a mind to wander over there and double-check my facts.
“Sir,” I says to Ulfric, realising the advantage of additional targets with which to make the sprint, “Reckon the bugger is distracted enough we can run for it.”
Ulfric has this prodigious brow prob’ly made so by the weight of all the weeping mothers he’s deprived of sons. When he draws it up it’s like the curtains closing on a puppet show. Makes kids cry, is what I’m saying.
When he speaks I don’t mind tellin you I feel like cryin too, and I’m no more of a kid than you are. “Speak true, man. Besides the beast, what are our chances of bypassing the guards?”
I stick my head out the tower just in time t’see Old Ugly pick up a silver and flip him up in the air. Lands heads down. Dragon wins. Dragon’s the kinda bloke wins a lot.
“Reckon they’re preoccupied.” I come back into the tower. Crying and Ain’t Crying were looking at Ulfric. Didn’t matter that the tower and Helgen too were gun burn down, those two weren’t game t’shit lest Ulfric said so.
“We’ll go,” he says at last, when I’m thinking of runnin anyway. He tips that heavy brow towards me. “Lead the way, knave.”
Knave? Knave? I’m flattered til I recall the word I’m mistaking for knave is thane, and realise on toppa that Ulfric is calling me simple.
Simple as I might be, I’m not so crude to think myself immortal, and I run outta the tower faster’n that palomino mare hoofed it over the Border. By time Crying, Ain’t Crying, and His Nibs are halfway across the courtyard I’m climbing the oak beams that’d fallen against the fence when Big Ugly’d taxied low over a house. The beams were on fire but then so is my arse (least so you’d think) and I’m up n over the fence quicker’n you can say charred skeever.
The other side is peaceful, the other side is calm. Landing heavy on my bare feet stirs a powder cloud from the light covering of snow on the dead grass, and that’s as close as outside Helgen is getting to a calamity. I don’t like the calm one bit and I wait in a heckova fret while three blondes drag their carcasses over the fence.
“Riverwood’s that way,” I says as soon as they’ve over.
Ain’t Crying puts a hand on my shoulder. “Who’s going to Riverwood?”
“I am.” I give him some distance. For some reason I keep thinkin of how Margeth is dead. Blame Ain’t Crying. He’s the one I woke up thinkin was my best brother. Old Ugly is havin hisself a marvellous time there in Helgen burnin down the houses n killn ‘perials n I don’t really give a god damn. My brother is dead – dead! Crushed by a horse ridden by a horse thief where the horse got away and the thief got shot dead in the back.
Cryin like the big man I am, I finish sayin, “I’m going to Riverwood. Then I’m gun get a ride on a cart back to Shor’s Stone and tell Maw Margeth is dead.”
Sobbin n bawlin I wander off northwards, working my way between the cold face’a the mountain and the burning wall’a Helgen. I’m lyin about the cart, a course; less whichever poor beggar owned these rotten rags afore I got em stashed a mint in the pocket, I ain’t got a single Septim to my name. Nothin’s changed, then.
It takes me a minute to realise the Cloakers are behind me. Only reason I know it at all is on account of Ulfric sayin right up close,
“Travel with us, brother. Good deeds deserve to be repaid in kind.”
I’ve never heard an ebony war-axe speak, but if I did, reckon I’d think Ulfric was in the room. He makes me shiver like a woman.
“Yer Highness,” I says, givin His Nibs some distance, despite it was him what approached me. I still can’t stop cryin about Margeth. “That’s kindly of ya. But I wouldn’t be of any use to ya. Yer better off leavin me t’walk with the wolfs.”
“Wolves,” he says, and would you believe it he puts his noble hand on my arm! He seems to have made up his mind. “No, brother. The wolves will not prey upon you. Not when you walk with bears.”
So His Nibs says, thus shall it be.
Far above us, unconcerned by the affairs of wolves and men, a roar of a flames crushes my faith in the falsehood of fairy tales.
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