Oh. Must have fallen asleep.
Frina blinked and rubbed her eyes as the ship stopped moving. She rubbed them again, and squinted; it was hard to tell whether she actually had them open or not. There was a light snowfall, true; but what really obscured vision was a dense, clinging fog. She couldn’t see much of anything around the ship, even after she stood up and walked to the rail to check. Beneath her was very cold-looking water. One dark area beyond the opposite side of the ship looked as though it might be a hill, or a tower… or something. She spied Adelaisa Vendicci standing at the bow, scanning the horizon on all sides and looking a bit anxious, Frina thought.
“Well,” Adelaisa said as Frina approached, “here we are. We think.”
“We’ve reached Japhet’s Folly, then?”
“Hard to say. The weather’s taken a bit of a turn here.” She peered toward the dark area for a few moments, then shook her head and frowned. “Haldyn’s been known to obscure his hideaways with magic. If we take care of him, the way should be clear to properly assault the island.”
Frina nodded. That tactic had been used for many an age, and was one of the reasons mages were so prized in war. In fact, it had long been rumored that the Great Collapse that toppled most of Winterhold into the Sea of Ghosts had been caused by magically-conjured storms.
Adelaisa stared at Frina, expectantly, she thought. It took Frina a moment to realize why.
“Oh, let me guess. Taking care of Haldyn is my job, right?”
The woman shrugged. “Well, you have proven yourself useful before. All of these lunks are too afraid to take on Haldyn before the fog’s cleared. So, if you’re willing to perform one more service for the Company… we could put this matter behind us for good.”
Just one little, tiny service. Take on a skilled, dangerous mage by myself. Sure, why wouldn’t I be delighted to do that?
Why did I think this was a good idea, again?
She remembered the sound of Ulfric’s voice telling her it was out of the question, and her ire rose again. Oh yeah. That was why. Tell me what I can’t do, when I’m offering to help? The nerve of the man.
“Yes, of course.”
“Take out Haldyn, and we’ll handle the rest.”
Frina walked to the opposite side of the ship and peered out over the edge. There was thick surface ice all around them, some of it packed between what she could now dimly see were a couple of islands.
Well I guess that’s where I’m going. If I’m careful I’ll make it across the ice and not get too wet.
Nobody had put down any sort of ramp or gangway, so Frina simply hopped down off the side of the ship onto the ice and began making her way across it. The first of what had looked like dark spots from the ship was not too far away, and seemed to be either a very small island coated with ice, or a small iceberg. Frina didn’t stop to fully investigate it, because now that she was out on the ice she could see that there was in fact a large island with a tower on it, just barely visible across another expanse of sea ice. A ship, not quite the size of the one she’d just left, bobbed up and down near what might be a long dock.
She started picking her way toward the island. Progress was slow and she had to backtrack a couple of times when what had looked like a continuous sheet of ice broke up into large gaps of icy water. She slipped a couple of times and nearly fell in, but caught herself at the last moment and only one foot got wet. That foot was going to be mighty uncomfortable; but Frina knew she was going to be far too busy to worry about it for long. She reached a narrow strip of rocky soil at the base of the island – the closest thing to a beach in the area – and walked along it in each direction for a few paces. There was really only one obvious place to go: a cave opening directly in front of the ice she’d crossed.
Well, here we go.
She stepped into the cave and immediately regretted it. The sheltered interior was warmer than the outside air, and the snow that had blown into the opening had melted into puddles that topped her boots. Not too far into the cave the water was a bit deeper, and someone had pulled a small boat into the shelter. A few crates stacked up on rocks just above the water’s surface sheltered several mud crabs that surprised her, but which she dealt with easily. A sloping path led up from the pool to another open space, at the far side of which was a man-made stone structure with a large hole punched through its side. Frina could see light flickering beyond the stone wall, so she dropped into a crouch and kept to the shadows as she slunk closer to it.
It was, she could tell as she got closer, an old Imperial fort. The construction was unmistakable. Why the pirates hadn’t put a door across the opening, she couldn’t imagine; but beyond it were chests and barrels and sacks, and a woman standing with her back to Frina.
Blood Horkers.
Frina took aim with her bow and shot once, striking one of the rings in the pirate’s ringmail armor. She turned and drew a war pick like the one Frina used, then staggered backwards as Frina’s second shot struck her and embedded itself in her belt. She growled and hurtled toward Frina, screaming.
Frina took two steps backward and drew her own melee weapons, planting her feet and timing her first swings to catch the pirate before she could stop herself. The woman howled, raised her pick and caught Frina a solid blow in the side. She felt the pick’s deadly spikes raking down through her armor, and her blood start to trickle down inside it, and in her panic she began flailing wildly at the pirate. Two or three sets of matched blows did the trick and the woman fell.
“Damn!” She healed herself as quickly as she could, ruefully examining the damage to her armor and making a mental note that she was going to need to protect that side of her body. After a few minutes she was able to look around for valuables. She took a few coins from the chest the woman had been guarding and then made her way up a short staircase to a wooden door just beyond the stacked barrels.
On the other side of the door was a round tower; undoubtedly the tower she’d seen from the ship, of the same basic construction as every other Imperial tower she’d been in. To her right was storage; the real target was undoubtedly up the circular stairs to her left.
Near the top she heard a deep voice muttering.
“Gonna start keeping a knife in my boot. Tired of gettin’ disarmed.”
She crept up a few more steps. There was a trap at the top, a spiked gate with a pressure plate mounted in the floor. The pirate walking away from it was definitely not the man with the deep voice, but rather another average-looking woman. Frina decided to take advantage of the fact that she was walking away and fire an arrow into her back.
I’ve seen too much at this point to worry about whether it’s an honorable kill or not. These people surely won’t be. Two of them. One of me. I should even the score a little.
She pulled out the staff that had served her so well against dragons, and used it to conjure a wraith. The Horkers were instantly on the attack. The wraith disappeared around the corner above, and Frina could hear the man yelling at it as Frina backed down the stairs. The woman followed her, weapon raised.
“Ha! You think you can take me?” she cried, pounding on her shield with a mace. Frina fired several arrows into her but did not fell her; as she reached for her own melee weapons the pirate landed a solid blow against Frina’s left arm.
The pain almost blinded her for a moment, and she gasped trying not to cry out. Then she once more hammered an opponent with the moves that had served her well in the past. Sweep the legs; bury the pick into the assailant’s side. Pull the pick out and do it again. Her arm was shrieking with pain but she gritted her teeth and kept moving, for to do anything else at all would mean death.
When the pirate dropped to the floor, Frina backed down toward the wooden door and healed herself, listening for signs of battle above. The man was still shouting; either he or the wraith tripped the pressure plate and the spiked gate swung forward with a clang. She couldn’t tell which of them it had hit, but decided to play it safe and assume that her wraith was gone.
She ran halfway back up the stairs only to meet the pirate, his bow drawn and aimed at her.
“There you are!” he shouted.
Frina cast another wraith and ducked to dodge an arrow as the wraith ran ahead. Frina changed weapons, drawing her bow; but she’d only returned a few steps up when she heard the pirate cry out and his weapons clang to the stone floor. The wraith came scurrying back to her.
“Nicely done!” Frina murmured.
There was the usual open space at the top of the stairwell: a semi-collapsed storage room on one side held foodstuffs and another alcove had a door embedded in it. She made for the door and pushed it open as quietly as she could. It opened onto a long hallway, largely empty aside from a couple of shelves holding food supplies. About halfway down its length, on the left, was another wooden door. She passed by it, heading instead toward the large, open circular room at the hall’s end.
She had just enough time to take stock of the circular room and its surroundings. A room to the left. A descending staircase to the right. And just at the top of that staircase a pirate. Frina had her bow in hand and used it to fire an arrow into the woman as she was disappearing down the steps; then she turned and ran to the far end of the hall to take up a more secure position. She would have a very long, safe shot to make if the pirate followed. Several minutes passed, though, and nobody attacked; so Frina slipped back down the hallway to see whether her arrow had dropped the woman.
It had not. Frina nearly jumped out of her icy-cold, wet boots when the woman sauntered back up the stairs. She sank another arrow into the pirate and ran back down the hall; this time the woman followed and Frina used the long straight corridor to her advantage. One arrow. Two. She could see that the pirate was bleeding; still she ran forward. Frina stepped back into the room behind her and around into the semi-collapsed storage room, hiding behind one of the toppled columns to consider her next move. She pulled out the staff and waited.
Nothing happened. Frina crept out into the open and looked around; not only had the pirate not followed her into the area, she had closed the door that opened into it.
Well alright then. Be that way. A couple more arrows should do the trick nicely.
Sure enough, the pirate clumped back into the room not long after she’d reached the end of the hall. One quick arrow finished her off.
Frina looked around and weighed her choices. The opening to her left led to another circular staircase up. The pirate she’d just killed had been on a descending staircase.
Down, or up?
Has to be up. They always put the leader up high where he’s well protected, right? Haldyn must be at the top of the tower.
She’d only gone up a few steps when she heard the sound of metal bars sliding into place, and jumped. She didn’t remember seeing any barred openings on her way in but had the uneasy feeling that she was now trapped inside the stairwell.
Better be good, then, Frina, or Ulfric will be able to laugh at your corpse.
That thought made her frown, and it made her anxious.
Would he laugh at my corpse? Would he miss me at all?
She shook her head. Foolish girl. This is not the time to be wondering about that.
She walked up the stairs, slowly.
“Two threes? What was he thinking?”
She dropped into a crouch and slid up the remainder of the stairs at a snail’s pace; hoping desperately that the voice she heard was Haldyn, and not some additional lackey that she would need to kill to get to him. There was a man there across the room, leaning against the doorframe. She couldn’t tell whether he was in armor or mage’s robes, whether he had a weapon at the ready or nothing at all. She just pulled her bow and fired at him, sinking an arrow into his shoulder.
“Arrgh!” The man cried out; and yet Frina had time to strike again before he finally turned, saw her, and cast an armor spell on himself.
Damn. It’s Haldyn. Has to be. That’s good, but… mage.
She fired one more arrow, which went just wide of him. Then she grabbed for the conjuration staff and called forth her wraith.
And then she screamed. Haldyn had hit her with a lightning spell and every muscle in her body contracted, painfully, taking her breath. She stumbled to the side, praying to Talos that the wraith would be able to hold Haldyn off long enough for her to get her weapons up and ready. She heard its attacks firing at him – pop, pop, pop – and swung around with her weapons held high. She hurled herself at him, forcing herself to run even as another lightning spell struck her.
Howling with pain and trying to dodge the wraith’s spells, she barreled into Haldyn swinging. To her utter disbelief, he cried out and turned away from her.
“Please don’t kill me!” he shrieked, running to the back of the space and cowering. She followed, swinging hard; the wraith fired one more spell, Frina took one more swing, and the mage died.
She stood there and stared at him. This powerful mage, powerful enough to change the weather, had gone down to just a few arrows, a couple of hits from her weapons, and the power of a conjured wraith.
“Well there. Now to go back to Windhelm.”
Frina descended the stairs, noticing the row of slots where the bars she had heard must have been. They had retracted again, but clearly she’d been locked in there with Haldyn. She retraced her way down the hall but rather than go through the damp cave she decided to try the door, now on her right, midway down the hall. It opened to the outside. She smiled to see that the fog had cleared.
Frina stepped out the door into the sun. A moment later, a burst of fire and a deafening roar wrung a scream from her throat. The projectile had landed at a gap in the stockade fence just in front of her, and the wood was now ablaze. Motion to her right drew her attention and she watched aghast as a body flew through the air.
It’s Whiterun all over again!
Panicked, she drew her weapons and darted left, out of the way, looking for some place to hide. There were some downed columns ahead of her; she ran for them.
Behind her, she heard footsteps and a woman’s voice. “I’ve had enough of you!”
She whirled. A Blood Horker pirate wielding a nasty-looking battle axe was almost on top of her. Behind the woman a mage fired lightning bolts. Frina’s heart pounded; she rolled to the right to dodge the lightning, then popped up under the axewoman’s wide swing and took her down with a couple of carefully aimed strikes. The mage had ducked back behind the fence, but jumped out again and cast a shock spell that caught Frina. She gasped, and once more prayed that her wraith staff could help.
To her horror, the wraith did not appear in front of her. She heard its spells being cast, but it must have appeared outside the stockade fence. The mage, an angry Dunmer, was bearing down on her, firing his shock spell over and over. Frina doubled over in pain and managed to wrestle a healing potion out of a pocket, just enough to allow her to stand and fight; but it wasn’t going to take much for her to be dead.
Please, Talos, let me live long enough to see Ulfric once more.
She forced herself upright and swung the staff in a sharp backhanded blow that caught the mage across the cheek. He shrieked, and stumbled backward; and that was just enough time for her to bring her pick down on his neck. He crumpled to the ground, dead, and Frina marveled at it; for he was wearing armor almost as sturdy as her own.
And then a sharp razor of pain sliced through her side. She turned to see a grubby blonde pirate wielding a halberd and getting ready to thrust it at her once more. If he struck her, she would die. It was just that simple. She whirled and lashed out at him with her pick.
The man’s head, still scowling at her, separated from his shoulders and flew up and away to her right. It seemed almost to happen in slow motion, a graceful, elegant execution the likes of which Frina had never experienced before, much less caused.
The pirate’s body slumped to the ground, and Frina cast healing on herself with as much power as she could muster. When she ran out of magicka, she found more potions in her sack. Once she stopped shaking, she headed for the opening in the fence – still in flames from the explosion – and slipped through it. The dock had to be below her, beyond the fenced yards; and that was where she needed to be.
There was another explosion, just to her right. Frina startled so badly that she nearly dropped her weapon, but steadied herself and pushed forward. She slipped through the ruins of an outbuilding, shaking uncontrollably.
Another bomb exploded almost directly in front of her. She screamed, and tears started pouring down her cheeks.
Make it stop, make it stop! I hate the explosions! I’ll fight all you want but make them stop, I want to go home now!
Two more explosions happened, altogether too close to her, before she’d made it out of the yard. Her face was starting to stiffen with frozen tears.
What is wrong with me? What is wrong? I fought at Whiterun! I fought at Solitude! I’m Stormblade!
Suddenly, it was a battle again, and she stopped thinking. Three more Blood Horkers ran from the lowest fenced yard toward her, one of them casting shock spells. Frina turned and ran, back up through the yards, back through the stockade, all the way to where she had beheaded the bandit, and turned to face them. This was a narrow spot. She could take them on one at a time, with the help of the wraith.
The first pirate closed in on her. She swung her pick down, harder than she could ever remember having done, and caught him in the neck. He dropped. The mage came close on his heels, carrying only a knife in her right hand, and her spells readied in the left; Frina struck her two times, four times, and on the fifth blow she fell lifeless.
Frina drew her bow and waited. Ten seconds went by, then another ten, and the third pirate did not appear; so she walked, slowly and purposefully, her bow at the ready, back down through the yard and out toward the gate. At the last opening she saw him; a Khajiit archer with an arrow waiting for her. His first shot caught her in the right shoulder, but just at the top of her armor; it pierced her skin but did not penetrate far. She unloaded several rounds at him.
“I’ll kill you!” he growled, running toward her.
She sent a wraith after him and cast healing on herself several times, then drew her pick and her axe once more and attacked at a full run. The cat was wearing armor that looked toggled-together from pieces of steel plate and Dwemer metal, with layers of leather beneath, and it took everything she had to hammer through it far enough to draw blood. The wraith, meanwhile, was pelting him with magic attacks; they had him struggling. Finally, through some combination of their skills, he dropped.
Frina shuddered, and scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand.
I’m so ashamed. I fell apart. I cried. What is wrong with me? I was so scared.
But the explosions had stopped. She didn’t hear any more voices telling her how she was going to die. All she could hear was the cold wind, and she wanted nothing more than to go below deck on the East Empire Company’s ship and return to Windhelm.
She trudged through the bodies, and the burning wood, and made her way down to the docks. Adelaisa Vendicci was standing there, her weapon ready, scanning for danger; but when she saw Frina approaching she relaxed.
“I’ve killed Haldyn,” Frina mumbled.
“There you are,” the woman said, smiling. “Impressive work. We started the attack once you made the fog scamper away like that.”
“I made the fog scamper?” Frina heard herself speaking but it felt as though the words came from somewhere far outside her.
“Hope you didn’t catch any of the fire,” Adelaisa said, almost as thought she hadn’t heard Frina’s question. “We can head back whenever you’re set. There’s celebrating to be done.”
“I’m set,” Frina said, feeling dazed. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t feel much like celebrating.
__
Ulfric was pacing in his quarters. Back and forth he walked, back and forth, stopping from time to time to look out the window.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t very well go after her myself. I am needed here.
He’d been a soldier for more than thirty years, fighting first in the Imperial Legion alongside Galmar and Legate Rikke in the Great War against the Aldmeri Dominion. He’d been imprisoned by that same Dominion and coerced into revealing information to them; information that in the end mattered not at all to the outcome of the war but which, they told him, had allowed them to take the Imperial City. The shame of it, the horror of believing that he personally had caused the Empire to fall, had been almost too much to bear.
He shuddered, remembering it. Not just coercion, but torture. He’d suffered, and he had survived, but he had committed the experience to memory because he could see how effective it had been when used against him.
The pain. The never-ending pain. I learned why an animal caught in a bear trap will gnaw off its own leg just to escape. Anything at all to make the pain stop.
He remembered the Empire that he loved growing weak, capitulating to the Dominion’s demands by signing the White-Gold Concordat and outlawing the worship of Talos. It was a move designed to break not only the Empire’s armed defenses but also its morale, and that of the citizens who loved and worshiped Talos. It had been nothing short of carefully calculated and designed cruelty on the part of Elenwen and her ilk, the elves who saw the devout Nords up close and knew what would demoralize them most. That was why he had gone to the aid of Hrolfdir, the Jarl of the Reach, in an attempt to take Markarth back from the Reachmen and restore the worship of Talos – only to be sold out once more, and imprisoned by the very Empire he had fought and bled for.
All those betrayals were why he and Galmar had begun to assemble their own forces, first in secret and then in the open. They had begun with those men of unquestioned loyalty who had fought alongside them, and then increased the ranks by reaching out to men like Roggi, young and impressionable, who loved Talos and hated the rule of the elves.
Young and impressionable. And willing to do anything at all I asked of him. Absolutely anything. I knew we had to have him once I saw what a brilliant mind and incredible promise he had. A well-trained soldier with the skills of a thief and the strength to take down the largest of enemies, and yet also possessed of the insight needed to see into a man’s heart and know what would frighten him the most.
I suppose I got exactly what I deserved, turning him into an inquisitor. He might well have ripped my fingernails out, without even thinking twice about it; and I, as strong as I am, would not have stood a chance of stopping him. Perhaps I would not have tried.
He shook his head and paced across the room again, stopping at his table to pour himself a goblet of wine. Soon. Soon someone would arrive to let him know what had happened on Japhet’s Folly. The sniveling Argonian the guards dragged up from the docks had folded at the mere sight of Roggi’s workroom and told them where the ship had been headed. Roggi himself hadn’t been needed; disappointing, really.
Would he actually have come to me if I had asked? I wonder.
Frina was right about one thing, of course: shipping needed to be open. Trade was vital. The pirates had not been uppermost on his priority list so soon after the war but they were an issue. Funds and materials were in short supply and were desperately needed.
But she shouldn’t have gone by herself.
And soon I will know whether she lived or died.
He grimaced, just thinking about it. There’d been entirely too much death. He’d been rotting in a prison cell after the Markarth incident when they brought him word that his father, Jarl Hoag, had died.
Too much death. Too many on both sides. Too many people whom I cared for.
Briinda, for example. He could see her even now, the woman he’d thought might be a proper match for him. The woman he could legitimately present to the world as the next royal consort; someone who would stand up to him and with him, who had the strength of character to deal with Skyrim’s politics and dangers. She’d been an excellent soldier, in the same unit as Roggi, and that had been where the problem began and, ultimately, ended. Because Briinda had said no, she had chosen Roggi, and he had been unable to keep himself from trying to change the situation. It was a decision he rued to this day.
He shook his head. That was the only time he could remember desiring something more than he had desired Skyrim’s freedom, and as he had told Frina, it had led him to do things he deeply regretted. When word had come that Briinda had been killed and Roggi nearly so he had mourned, privately and quietly, away from prying eyes. He’d reluctantly let Roggi go from his daily awareness; because to the best of his knowledge the man had been ruined by the loss of his wife. Ulfric had finally needed to admit that there was nothing he could do to help. More than a decade later, there still wasn’t. Roggi had gone on with his life, and found someone else to be with.
Ulfric frowned at that thought, and drained his goblet, placing it back on the table. He returned to his pacing.
Probably Jorlief is the only one who knew how very sad I was.
And undoubtedly that is why he hovers now. He’s seen me with Frina. So much like her sister was, but so much more. I have finally found someone who might stand with me; and she may be dying as I sit here in my room, slowly losing my mind.
I don’t know what to do.
Talos be with her.