The sun had retreated behind a thick wall of clouds and a dreary light rain by the time Chip neared the bridge west of Morthal. He’d been in a foul mood ever since waking up in the bandits’ cabin and taking full stock of what he’d done there in the camp. He only remembered part of it, the beginning.
I wanted to help them, the merchants. They looked like they were in trouble. I wasn’t expecting to…
He hadn’t purposefully changed shape, but the truth was that a werewolf had a much better chance of taking down all those people than a lone, young archer would have. As he’d slowly made his way through the camp and back onto the road it was clear that’s what he’d done – taken them all down.
And he was appalled. He was particularly appalled when he reached the body of the woman in light clothing.
I remember this one. She was just a merchant, and she was being set on by two bandits. She’s the reason I wanted to help. And I ate her. I ripped her apart and I ate her! I kept myself from harming Talsgar, that first night; why couldn’t I do that today? Why couldn’t I save the people I wanted to save?
What good is it to be so strong, so powerful, and yet not be able to control my own actions? Am I really to be no better than a beast?
It had gnawed on him ever since he’d left the camp. He didn’t really have a choice about being a werewolf, as far as he could tell. He thought, though, that Hircine had removed the curse on Sinding’s ring, and that he was supposed to be able to control himself better as a result. Maybe he’d completely misunderstood his own situation. If so, he was very unhappy about it.
Deer ran across the road on the far side of the bridge, and he picked one of them off without breaking stride. A noise to his left caught his attention and he sneered at a large mudcrab down at the water’s edge. That one fell to a single arrow, as well.
No better than a beast, and yet such a good hunter. And improving by the moment. What does that mean?
He grimaced as the sour answer to his own question came almost immediately. It was an answer he was familiar with.
It means I’m not good enough, that’s what it means. I’ve never quite lived up to anyone’s expectations before. Why should now be any different?
The conversation he’d had with his father had been bouncing around in his head ever since he left Riften. It wasn’t Brynjolf’s revelation that stuck with him, though that was surely astonishing and somewhat troubling. No, it was the way he’d been greeted that still bothered him. There hadn’t been any recognition of the important thing he’d done, helping kill a dragon and save the city from what would have doubtless been another great fire, like the one that burned it down to the waterline centuries before. Instead, he’d gotten chided for taking risks, and then directed to go talk to his mother. If he hadn’t spoken up, even the small acknowledgement he’d gotten from his father might not have happened.
And now this. This… lack of control.
I wonder if I’ll ever really be in control of my own life. It’s not that I’m not excited by this; I am. Definitely. To think that a Daedric Prince actually took an interest in me. Me, of all people! But I do wonder if I’m just a puppet, and Hircine’s pulling the strings.
He shook his head, still chewing on the situation as he looked at the short stone bridge between himself and the deer he’d dropped. It was time for a decision: cut across the swamps straight toward Dawnstar, or take the more circuitous route on the higher elevations across snow country? He pondered for a moment. The swamps contained things he didn’t care to fight, principally chaurus. Those were nasty under the best of circumstances. In the higher elevations there would be deer, and bear, and wolves. He wouldn’t hunt the wolves, of course, not ever again; but he would hunt the deer, bear, and frost trolls. The decision having been made, Chip crossed the bridge to collect his pelt, and then up the hill to the higher, colder ground.
By the time he reached the top of the hill, he’d bagged both a grey fox and another deer. Even though the rain had given way to a driving, sleety snowfall, he’d gotten the deer with one arrow and the fleeter-footed fox with two. Anyone else might have been impressed by his skill. Chip wasn’t.
I missed one of the deer and took two arrows to kill a fox. Not good enough. Just never quite good enough. I keep trying, but I’m always falling short. I thought this was a thing I could do that I might be better at than almost everyone else; but so far I’m failing. Maybe I’ll measure up some day.
And so it went, for that entire day. He stopped a few times to rest, and even caught an hour or two of sleep at one point. He killed a dozen more animals along the way. It was once more growing dark as he neared the great buried Dwemer city of Mzinchaleft. Somewhere near here, between this huge monument and Dawnstar itself, was Kyne’s Guardian Skeever. He’d been inclined to laugh at the idea of a spectral rodent as a foe, but after having seen the size and ferocity of the mudcrab, he was going to take the threat more seriously this time. He still didn’t think he’d have much trouble with it, but that’s what he’d thought several times before, too.
He could smell people – men and Orcs – and their encampments all around the base of Mzinchaleft and up through its heights, so he skirted it with a great deal of caution. That, too, would need to be a hunt for another night, in another form. Right now he was more focused on proving what he could do with a bow, as himself, without any supernatural intervention.
Once safely around the upper edges of the Dwemer ruin and back onto the road, he began to feel the pull of his target more strongly. He followed his instincts toward an old burial mound, the type that opened at the front and held a semi-protected central chamber inside; and he drew his bow and prepared an arrow. He could smell animal life from inside; doubtless real skeevers had taken up residence in the ramshackle place. Whether or not the Guardian Skeever was there was yet to be determined.
As soon as Chip stepped into the ruin’s outer ring he saw the bright glow of the spectral skeever through one of the narrow openings into its center. It was huge, as had been the other two guardian beasts. As soon as it saw him, it turned, undoubtedly making for the entrance somewhere in the back, obscured by the scraggly pine sapling that had taken root inside the chamber. It never got there. Chip took a chance on a shot through the pine branches and landed it. The skeever dissolved the same way the other two beasts had done.
He didn’t get a chance to celebrate having passed these trials. A pair of living skeevers rushed out from around the circular opening to attack. They were no great trouble to dispatch, but he wrinkled his nose at them once he was done. Skeevers stank; there was no other way to put it.
Now then, Froki. I’ve passed your tests. Let’s see what you have to say about my hunting skills now.
Another full day had passed by the time he climbed the hill to Froki’s cabin. He’d stopped at his own house to rest a bit, to stow pelts and salt the meat that he’d collected. He knocked on the door, anticipating the conversation that would follow, when he would undoubtedly receive praise for his prowess as a hunter.
Just once, it’ll be exciting to be recognized.
“Well, Froki,” he said, smiling, as he took the few long strides that moved him the full width of the house, “I’ve defeated all three of the guardians.”
“You’re not so soft after all,” Froki said with the hint of a smile.
“Soft? What would have made you think I was soft?”
Froki grinned. “Young. No beard. Soft-looking skin. You look like you’re barely more than a lad. But you’ve done well. Now you’re ready for a real challenge.”
What?
Chip’s mouth fell open for a moment in stunned silence. Then he started sputtering, inarticulate sounds that were interrupted by Froki.
“I’ll anoint you with the symbol of the bear, the saber cat, and the mammoth. Tread carefully. These are mighty beasts. Return when they are defeated. Here, let me show you where to go.”
Once again, Froki marked three very broad areas on his map and handed it back to him. Chip wanted to object. He’d been expecting praise and had gotten the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head, and had been told he looked like a child. But as Froki sketched out the locations he had to admit to himself that this made sense.
Even I thought the first three targets were laughable when he gave them to me. I wondered why there wasn’t something big, like a bear, on the list. I guess this makes sense. Well Kyne will have nothing to complain about if I kill these three.
And neither will Hircine.
He choked back his own disappointment, realizing that he’d been expecting praise prematurely. He bade Froki a pleasant evening and left to plot out his next moves.
Chip stepped out into the evening and sighed. More trips across-country to make, and none of them near each other. The closest to him was north of Whiterun, at least if he crossed down into Ivarstead and took the shortcut around the mountain.
Some day that tree bridge is going to rot out and fall into the river; but everyone says it’s been there as long as they can remember. It’ll make for a shorter trip, at any rate. I’ll head that way and cut around behind Valtheim Towers instead of going through the pass.
He hadn’t gone far down the hill when something caught just out of the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. On the next ridge over from Froki’s shack was a pair of old watchtowers just in front of a large curved wall, set far up on the side of the valley between two adjacent peaks. He’d passed the towers before coming across this area and had gone quite close to them on his way down from Froki’s cabin the first time, but he’d never before seen any sign of life near them. Today, though, there was something different about the complex.
He squinted and stared at the curved wall behind the towers, wishing that his eyes were as keen as his hearing. There was definitely something there. A blob, blending in with the stones of the towers but a slightly greener color. It wasn’t moving, as far as he could tell; but if he tilted his head so as to get a better angle on things he thought he could hear a rhythmic sound, very low and regular, like breathing.
Is that a dragon? Another one? Could it be?
He took a drink of water and pulled out his four best arrows, Argonian make that he had pulled from some body or other. He’d probably gotten them in the bandit camp, he realized, grimacing. At any rate they would do the most damage of any arrows he had; and once he’d used them he would switch over to elven-make arrows.
I know people don’t like the mer, but they do make good quality gear. I’ll bet I can take down a dragon with these.
He raised his bow, sighting the blob atop the wall and silently calibrating how far above it he should aim in order to get his arrow to its target. Up… up… no, that was too far. Down a bit.
He loosed the arrow and waited. One breath in, one out. Another breath in… And from the wall erupted a roar of anger. Dust flew as the gigantic shape leapt from its perch into the air, looking for whatever assailant had disturbed it.
Chip grinned, jumping down from the dirt embankment he’d been on and running forward. It’s on, dragon! As he reached for his hood – because every bit of protection helped and because his bright red hair would make an easy target of him – he looked up to see the dragon in the air, hovering, looking for him.
He leaped from one stone outcropping to the next, watching his footing as he made for a better vantage point. Behind him came the thunderous sound of a large body colliding with the surface; the dragon had landed. He pivoted, raising his bow again. The dragon was there, below him, just about where he’d been when he had fired the first shot. It looked uphill and saw him just as he saw it and, luckily, he was able to duck behind a nearby rock.
The dragon howled, and its breath attack spewed in Chip’s direction, to be mostly deflected by the stones. It was a bright green attack, the color of freshly-unfurled spring leaves.
Another forest dragon. Great. These bastards have been known to fight for days on end before giving up or being killed. What have I gotten myself into?
He took one step to the left in order to fire at the beast, and stepped squarely into another breath attack. The green flames surrounded him. They hurt. He could feel his health diminishing by the moment; but he hadn’t taken on this challenge lightly and didn’t intend to spend the entire battle hiding. He fired the arrow anyway and then turned back, behind the boulder, gasping and healing himself.
He decided to make for the towers. They would give him enough cover that he could heal when needed, and any number of fine platforms from which to attack. As he bolted across the open area he heard the dragon’s wings flapping entirely too close for comfort, and another breath attack that caught him in its fringes in spite of his speed. He grimaced, and turned to fire his last Argonian arrow into the dragon’s belly, catching still more of its breath.
Gods damn. It’s a good thing I’m going to make that tower after all, isn’t it?
As he spilled through the open tower door he heard the dragon go to ground again, and he swore. It was a beautiful opportunity and he wasn’t going to be able to take advantage of it; he had to heal up. He did that, and readied his bow again; and as he had expected, stepped back out of the tower just as the dragon took to the air again. It circled the area once, twice, and then stopped to hover directly in front of Chip.
“Gotcha, you bastard!” Chip yelled as he sank an elven arrow into the dragon’s chest.
The dragon responded by hitting him squarely with the full force of a breath attack.
Chip was stunned, his breath taken completely away. It hurt. It hurt worse than the piercing, stabbing pain of his transformations, worse than anything he could remember. He turned and fled behind the stone walls of the tower, casting healing spells as quickly as he could.
Too big for my britches again, wasn’t I? I’ve fought a couple of dragons before and they seemed easy. I wasn’t taking into account the fact that both times, I had help. In Riften there were four city guards, a Khajiit bodyguard and me; it made a dragon look awfully lightweight in comparison to this, with just me fighting it!
He was afraid that he was going to step back out of the tower and meet his end. An odd thing happened, though. He heard the dragon roar, but it sounded much farther away than before. He ran out onto the narrow stone bridge that led from the tower he was in to the roof of another, and turned to see the dragon disappearing over the ridgeline. There was something up there that had caught its attention; and that was going to give Chip time to breathe and to think.
He pulled another arrow from his quiver and readied it, but then dashed across the next arched walkway, up to the highest of the towers, the one just in front of the huge curved wall where the dragon had first perched. He ran into the tower and then up its circular stairs, up to the very top where yet another walkway led to the dragon’s wall. Just as he took his first step onto the walkway, the dragon came roaring back down over the ridgeline, and he again found himself staring directly into the center of the beast’s green breath attack. He drew his arrow and shot, catching the dragon square on as it skimmed just above his head.
He had no alternative. He needed to get back into cover. He turned back to the opening into the tower’s roof and got caught by another blast of green fire as the dragon returned to strafe him once again.
This time Chip was truly gasping, hanging on by a thread as he stumbled down the stairs into the cover of the stone. He cast the small healing spells he knew and then downed several potions besides, grimacing.
“What the hell am I supposed to do, use a staff?”
He groaned. Of course he was supposed to use a staff; that’s why he had the damnable thing in the first place. He’d completely forgotten about it.
His sister Qaralana had given Chip a staff to conjure a wraith, just about the time he’d moved out of the house. It was a gift from Queen Frina, she’d said, who had felt odd about using it since she was primarily an axe maiden, not a magic-user. He remembered that day fondly. Qara hadn’t been happy that he was leaving home; she looked up to him as anyone might look up to an older brother, and she’d given him a hard time about it. “Leaving me alone with nobody but Mom and Daddy? You’re mean, Chip,” she’d said. “But take this. And for the gods’ sakes use the thing if you need to. It’s more important that you stay alive than you maintain some kind of pure status as an archer.”
Chip pulled out that staff now, grimacing at it.
Well, I use the dagger Ma gave me too, don’t I? I guess it’s better than dying out here where nobody knows where I am. And a wraith will be a good distraction so I can take the dragon down myself.
He ran back outside, into the open, ready to place the wraith just in front of him. The dragon roared, once again having flown to the opposite side of the ridgeline. It gave Chip another moment to breathe, to think, to prepare. He heard the beating of its wings coming nearer and used the staff, placing the wraith on the walkway just before him.
One moment passed, then another; then the dragon swooped down over the ridge, over the dragon wall, out into the valley. As he turned, following the dragon with his bow, Chip realized that the sun was nearly down, the dragon nearly invisible when it passed over the rock surfaces. It was time to take it down or lose his life.
He took a shot at it, and missed; and he dashed away, once more in the fringes of the dragon’s green breath attack. This time, though, he heard the distinctive sounds of the wraith firing ice spikes at it and breathed a sigh of relief. She was going to make the difference. He would get this beast after all, he was certain of it. He backed up by the dragon wall and swiveled, firing several quick shots as the dragon roared at the wraith. It was just enough. That little distraction was all he needed. The dragon banked, and turned, and landed atop the curved wall, screaming again at the wraith. Chip heard the unmistakable sound of a conjuration disintegrating. He grabbed for the staff again, and placed another wraith on the platform well in front of him.
The dragon launched once more, circling around, and slowed to prepare an attack. This time, both Chip and the wraith landed shots on it at the same moment, staggering the creature and keeping it from roaring. It flew away down the valley, turned, and then came to ground in an uncontrolled landing just below their position. The ground shook as the dragon’s great bulk pushed dirt up to either side, and it skidded to a stop between the two lower towers. It and the wraith traded blows while Chip found a better vantage point, and the wraith disappeared once more.
It took Chip four more arrows to kill the dragon. It finally collapsed into a heap, there where it had landed.
Chip lowered his bow and blew out an enormous sigh of relief. “I hope you’re pleased with that kill, Hircine,” he said aloud, “because that was the worst! Forest dragons are awful. But I killed it.”
He needed to go retrieve as many arrows as he could from the carcass, but first he wanted to look at the wall. He stood in front of its curved stone surface, pondering all the deep scratches in it. He put his hand on the cool stones and his fingers explored how very deep the gouges were. And he frowned.
His uncle Dardeh could not only read these scratches as words, but could turn them into great, powerful sounds just like those the dragons themselves used. Qara had told him over and over that they were words, in another language, though she didn’t seem able to use them herself. He knew for a fact that King Ulfric could speak as the dragons did, as well, although Uncle Roggi had sneered often enough about how little he could do in comparison with Dardeh.
But to him, they were just deep scratches in the stone.
I’m just never good enough. Not even for this. I was all cocky about that forest dragon in Riften; but I couldn’t take it down by myself, I couldn’t take this one down by myself, and I can’t read these words. I’m not good enough.
It grated at him, all the way down from the word wall, through the towers and to the dragon’s corpse. He pried loose several bones from the carcass, as well as coins stuck in its scales and as many of his arrows as he could manage.
I come from a family of people at the top of their businesses. My da, Uncle Dardeh – they even say Uncle Roggi was someone very high up in his field, though they’ve never told me what that was. Ma takes off every so often on business, and they haven’t told me what her job is, either, although I know that she and Karliah are both in Da’s Guild. Even Harald has a reason to exist; he’s next in line to be High King after his father passes. He’s not exactly family, but close enough.
And then there’s me. What am I good for?
He groaned, straightening up with the dragon bones in his pack. He absolutely had to go back to his home before he could head out hunting again; this was far too much weight to carry. Fortunately enough it was a fairly straightforward trip to make: down the mountainside, across the river and up the hill on the other side. He started trudging down the hill, making for the crossing west of Treva’s Watch. From there he would climb up to the farm where they grew nirnroot in a great, noisy garden patch and cut northeast along the ridge, south of the old Rift watchtower and north of the derelict farm called Redwater Den. His house was atop the next hill over from there. It wasn’t necessarily the best location to live in, but that was why he’d been able to buy the property.
He was getting fairly tired by the time he neared the nirnroot farm. Chip didn’t sleep well under the best of circumstances, and with the exception of one night he’d been on the road for days now, hunting and harvesting in his human form and, to his dismay, doing the same things as a werewolf. The dragon fight had been the last straw. He needed some rest.
He stepped down from the grassy hilltop onto the dirt roadway that skirted the farm, and started across it. Then he fell forward several steps, propelled by a blow from the back that took him completely by surprise. He whirled to find an Imperial man in familiar brown armor slashing wildly at him. He’d been stabbed by a thief. But much to the thief’s disadvantage, his pack full of thick, solid dragon bone had stopped the dagger cold.
But now Chip was in dire straits. There was no room, no time for him to get distance and ready his bow; and even if there had been, he wasn’t certain his tired body could have moved quickly enough to get far enough away. He resorted to something he rarely used, pulling out his Bosmer shortsword and his dagger, and threw himself forward into the thief’s attack.
As usually happened when he used this tactic, his attacker was thrown completely off-balance. Nobody ever expected the victim to come forward purposefully, into the line of fire. The thief hesitated for a moment and then scrambled backward. That moment of hesitation was all Chip needed. He took one more long stride forward and drove the shortsword down into his assailant’s chest.
There was the expected groan, as the thief died.
Then there was a huge explosion. A crack, followed by a sizzle, accompanied by the swirling blue of energies from the thief’s body toward Chip, toward his pack.
Chip scrambled backward, startled.
“What the…?”
He tossed his pack onto the ground and opened it. Inside, the large, dark soul gem he’d nonchalantly pushed to one side while arranging the dragon bones was warm and pulsing with power. Chip’s mouth fell open.
“It’s a black soul gem. I just trapped that man’s soul!” How…?” He held up the shortsword and stared at it as it dripped with the man’s blood. He would have expected it to be somewhat warm given where it had just been. What he wasn’t expecting was to find it another order of magnitude warm.
“It’s enchanted! It’s got soul trap on it!”
He blinked, remembering how his arm had pulsed and tingled when he had killed the frostbite spider with it, the day before he’d spoken to his uncles. “I had the sword, but I didn’t have any soul gems. That must have been it. Oh, this is something special.” He quickly cleaned the sword in the grass and sheathed it; then he scurried across the road, leaving the dead thief behind. He had two reasons to visit home now. He needed to ask his father how it was that a man in Guild armor would have attacked him on the road; and he needed to ask his mother why she’d never bothered to warn him that the blade she’d presented him with could capture a man’s soul.