Chip stared at the door, straining to hear footsteps, or the sound of the trap door from the basement opening. The only thing he did hear was the Stormcloak banner just above his head, rustling in the icy breeze. He knocked again, and called out.
“Harald?”
There was no response.
“Harald, you home?”
He’d thought to spend a few hours with his cousin before returning to Froki to report success in his hunting efforts. Harald Stormcloak wasn’t literally his cousin, nor was he a relative of any degree at all. Neither his parents nor his uncles were directly related to High King Ulfric. But his uncle Roggi had once been married to Queen Frina’s older sister – a situation that both amused and perplexed Chip – and thus, the entire group of adults had always referred to Harald, the heir apparent, as Chip’s cousin.
It didn’t really matter to him. Even though Harald was two years younger than Chip, they’d basically grown up together. Chip always enjoyed his company. Harald had a solemn and yet very practical outlook on life that had always served as an excellent counterbalance to Chip’s own short temper; and Chip had somehow managed to infuse a little bit of his own sense of adventure into the life of the young prince who would have otherwise been altogether too stodgy.
Chip frowned at the door and gave one more half-hearted knock to see whether he could raise Harald. Once more there was no response.
I suppose he could be up at the palace. But I really don’t feel like facing Ulfric at the moment.
He shuddered. He’d never quite felt comfortable around the so-called Bear of Markarth, not from the time he was very tiny. Maybe it was because the man was so much older than they were – he was probably seventy years old now if he was a day, fully white-haired and yet still as perceptive and cunning as he had ever been. He also had a short temper. Chip never liked running across it. They were well-matched in that sense, Chip and Ulfric, anger for anger; and it was never wise to trigger the temper of the High King of Skyrim. He’d been on the receiving end of Ulfric’s scathing rebukes more than once, growing up. The only voice that could put him in line faster was Dardeh’s, and he’d always suspected that was because Dardeh and Ulfric shared the ability to use the Thu’um.
Plus, something tells me he’d be able to look at me and see a werewolf. I don’t know why I think that. Maybe I’ve just heard Dar and Roggi talk about him too many times and mention how perceptive he is.
Chip’s shoulders dropped, and he stared forlornly up at the banner. He’d felt exhausted and more than a bit rattled after the trip from Winterhold to here – a trip that had taken at least three times longer than it should have. He’d been seriously contemplating sharing the entirety of his situation with Harald, and had been looking forward to getting Harald’s level-headed perspective on things.
“Oh well. I guess I’ll share hunting stories with Harald another day,” he said, turning to trudge forlornly down the walkway and onto the road south.
After killing the Guardian saber cat, he’d elected to stay down on the coastline for the trek east rather than climb back up the ice shelf and potentially face ice wraiths or other nasties. Besides, it was a glorious day, and he was fully enjoying the sun. It helped to lift his spirits in spite of his determination to beat on himself for not being a good enough hunter.
He’d only passed one or two more of the crevasses formed by ice-melt outflow when a familiar snorting sound caught his attention. It was a bear, no doubt about it. He picked up speed. He wanted to hunt, but he was tired, and he needed to get all the way back to the south of the province before he could rest. And then he made a mistake. He turned to look back toward the sound.
The cave bear was worrying at a horker at the edge of the water, and was well on its way to taking the beast down. Chip had stared at the bear. It was distracted, and therefore made a perfect target. And he hated bears, as well as having a healthy fear of them. Before he could peel himself away from the scene, before his common sense could kick in, Chip found Hircine’s bow in his hand and he was drawing an arrow back. He loosed it just as the bear finished the horker – and missed.
And the hunt was on.
He’d sworn quietly under his breath at himself, for being stupid enough to take on another hunt while he was tired. As it turned out, he was right to be angry. After missing several shots at the bear, Chip had run up onto an ice shelf. He’d gone to its edge, assuming that he could get the bear from above as he so often did; but the bear had disappeared. He listened, but heard nothing. He was just about to stow his weapon and resume his trip when teeth raked across his arm. The bear had followed him up onto the ice shelf, almost silently; and Chip, in his exhaustion, had not sensed its presence. In his panic, he shrieked and loosed the arrow; but at almost point-blank range it had no time to build momentum and thus did almost no damage. Chip turned and fled.
The cave bear was, to put it mildly, determined. It followed him as he ran, panting, along the shoreline. He turned to shoot another arrow at it, but that gave the bear time to close the gap between them and rake its claws down him twice. Chip gasped as the memory of a moonlit night outside Markarth filled his mind, the first night he’d turned and had nearly lost his life to a bear. The bears knew their strengths and weaknesses. Chip, apparently, did not. He howled in pain, and in desperation used his one, very basic-level conjuration spell, summoning a wolf familiar that might buy him enough seconds to heal himself as he ran. He heard the spell dissipate after only just a moment or two and drew his bow once more. When he turned, his heart and his mouth, dropped.
The cave bear had been joined by a snow bear.
In his haste, he used another of his wolf arrows to fire at the nearer bear. The distraction caused by its conjuration gave him enough time to plunge headlong into the frigid seawater and swim across a narrow channel. By the time he emerged and turned, shivering, to take stock of his situation, the bears were running away. He sighed in relief and healed himself, starting east again.
The bears had only run away because they were looking for a place to make an easy crossing of the narrow channel. They were following, a fact Chip overlooked until he heard their noisy progress behind him.
He sprinted until he reached the corner of land that marked the White River’s mouth and the turn toward Windhelm. He looked back to check his situation and discovered that it had gotten even worse. Two more bears had joined the pursuit and one of them, a second snow bear, was right on his tail.
Chip flung himself into the White River and swam as hard as he could to the tiny, rocky outcropping in the middle of the channel on which rested the shrine to Shor that Harald was fond of visiting. He pulled himself out, dripping and shuddering, and realized that his fear – for he was genuinely afraid of the swift, unpredictable bears – had been replaced with a slowly-growing flame of anger.
“It’s on, you bastards. You’re all going to die now.”
It had taken at least two hours for all of the bears to meet their ends. Up and down the banks of the river, on and off ice floes, past a patrol of Stormcloaks who helped take down one of the snow bears, and back and forth to the coast Chip had run. He’d fired his bow so many times he’d lost count. He ended up back down the coast almost as far as he’d come, in his determination to finish the first two bears that had attacked him. By the time he took the shot that at long last sent the remaining cave bear to its demise, the sun had slipped behind the western mountains and the sky was rapidly growing grey and dark.
Chip had felt exhilarated. Exhausted, to be sure, but exhilarated; he’d redeemed himself for what he had considered a poor performance against the guardian animals by taking down four bears, several horkers, and a goat in a long, well-fought hunt. Maybe, he had told himself as he finished the trip down the White River’s eastern shore, it doesn’t matter how many arrows I used to kill them. Maybe that’s not what counts in being a good hunter. I made a mistake, I recognized it; I managed to avoid being killed, and in the end I triumphed over the odds.
He’d wanted to run all that past Harald. But that would have to wait for another day.
He shook himself off as he climbed the steps to Froki’s shack. The rain had been good in terms of washing salt off his armor, but he was still soggy and a bit tired of it. He snickered at himself in spite of it.
Just like the dog I am inside, shaking the water off my coat. Ah well. I wonder why I was so intent on proving to Froki that I am a true hunter? And I wonder what he’ll say?
Froki was working some leather at the tanning rack when Chip stepped inside the tiny cabin. He neither stopped his work nor turned to look as Chip greeted him.
“I’ve killed the guardian spirits, as you asked. It was quite the adventure,” he said.
“You do Kyne proud,” Froki told him without missing a beat in his tanning. “Only one challenge remains.”
“Wait, what?” Chip couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Go, and defeat the troll champion,” Froki told him, finally turning to smile at him. “Here’s where you’ll find him.”
Chip felt numb. After all this time and effort to prove something he wasn’t even clear about, he had to do more. He took the map back from Froki silently. Glancing down he saw that, at least, he knew the general area Froki had marked. It was halfway between Whiterun and Valtheim Towers.
Another long trek. Oh well. What else did I have to do aside from hunt?
This had better be the last one, though.
He nodded to Froki and opened the door to leave. The others had come in groups of three, and Froki had given him only one target this time. But a troll was a substantial opponent under any circumstance. The Guardian Troll was likely to be worse.
It was another beautiful day as he worked his way along the White River toward Whiterun; partly cloudy but warm. He’d dropped straight down over the escarpment from his cabin to the roadway, following it to just below Valtheim Towers. Then he’d gone down into the riverbed itself, creeping along beneath the structures far above, his progress masked by the noisy rush of the river toward its steep falls just to the east. West past the rapids was prime mudcrab territory; and sometimes deer and elk wandered down the banks to drink. Hircine had not spoken to him recently; and since the Prince had said he would know when the Bow had collected enough sacrifices, there was nothing for him to do but continue hunting. He certainly still felt the pull to do so.
He worked his way upstream, killing mudcrabs and wading in and out of the water to retrieve the arrows that bounced off their hard shells. He didn’t mind getting wet on such a warm day; if nothing else it continued to wash the salt from the northern sea out of his clothing. By the time he reached the foot of the hillside he was looking for, he had enough crab meat to keep himself well fed for days.
He was heading for a place called Graywinter Watch – a cavern, really, buried in the hill just beneath one of the old standing stones. The “watch” was not much more than a flat area near the cavern’s mouth, but was a spot that commanded an outstanding view of the river valley and roads in most directions. He’d never been in the cave itself before, but it seemed to him that if ever there was a place that a troll would have made a den, this was that place.
He stepped through the narrow opening of the cave and squinted, trying to let his eyes adjust to the change. It was very dark here at the entrance, but he could see light at the end of the passage before him, where it opened up into a much larger cavern. As his eyes acclimated, a shape at the end of the tunnel made him frown.
I had hoped there wouldn’t be living trolls here along with the spectral one, assuming this is the right spot. But that’s a troll, alright. No doubt about it. Well, Hircine will get his entertainment out of this hunt, I guess.
He pulled out his eleven-make arrows and took aim, drawing a deep breath and holding it for steadiness. His first shot struck the troll cleanly and by surprise, staggering it. Chip had nocked another arrow the instant the first left his grip; and that also landed cleanly. The troll remained upright, though it began jumping in place and flailing its arms about. Chip’s third shot also struck the troll; but as he nocked the fourth arrow he groaned.
There was a second troll there. It rushed up beside the injured troll and began rumbling down the passageway toward Chip.
“Shit.”
He released the arrow, aiming just over the second troll’s head and praying it would reach its mark. He would have hooted out loud in triumph that it did, and that the first troll dropped; but the second was closing in on him fast. He started forward, gathering speed, and then rolled to the side and past it, thinking to run into the larger part of the cavern and look for a good vantage point.
As he neared the corpse of the first troll, a familiar and terrifying glow took shape just below him, where the tunnel he was in dropped into the cave proper. The Guardian Troll of Kyne approached the edge of the tunnel, looming larger and larger until it rose to its full height just as Chip reached it. He let out a terrified squeak as both it and the living troll he had passed roared.
There was a ramp at the far side of the cavern, atop which he saw an unsettling number of human skulls. He dashed for the ramp, hoping to get above the trolls; but his foot slipped off the edge of it and he fell, finding himself within a breath of the guardian troll’s swiping claws. He broke to his right, dashing around the living troll’s outstretched claws, and then ran down the tunnel and outside.
His eyes began watering in the bright sunlight as he emerged, his heart pounding. Not even before his first werewolf transformation had he ever had such a pulse. He plastered himself up against the rocks next to the cave entrance and waited, willing himself to breathe slowly and deeply, readying himself to fight the trolls if they followed him out.
They didn’t.
This is ridiculous. They caught me by surprise, but there’s no reason I can’t take them out. I’m better than this.
Once Chip had himself calmed down, he moved slowly back into the cave, once more waiting quietly while his vision adjusted to the dark. The guardian troll was crossing the cave, just beyond the tunnel. He drew his bow; but by the time he had the shot prepared the troll had moved out of sight. Bowstring drawn back, he crept down the passage, looking for the troll. As the beast made its way up the ramp at the rear of the cave, he loosed the arrow. It struck solidly, and so did the next one; but as Chip backed away still firing, both the spectral and the remaining live troll rushed him. He found himself outside in the blinding light once more.
It’s ok. This will work. It’s “out of sight, out of mind.”
He repeated the procedure once more, sliding down the corridor to loose as many arrows as he could on the two trolls before backing out again. It seemed to be working, but trolls had vast powers of recuperation. He thought for a moment, then pulled out one of his wolf arrows.
I’ll conjure up a wolf. That’ll keep them preoccupied long enough for me to take down at least one of them.
I hope.
It did work, at least to some degree. The living troll was incensed by and focused on the wolf’s snarling attacks. Chip plugged away at the spectral troll until it was kneeling, nearly defeated; but at that moment the wolf ran away, toward him, drawing the living troll behind it. Chip swore floridly and took one more futile, off-mark shot at the guardian troll before being raked by a set of very sharp claws and needing to flee.
He didn’t stay long outside, just long enough to heal his injuries and slip back inside. To his shock, the live troll hadn’t returned to the cavern. Chip cried out in surprise and fired two arrows at the beast, which started bleeding again but swatted at him, catching him in the chest. His armor held, mostly; but he felt trickles of blood running down inside it and suddenly, as it had while he fought the bears, his fear turned to rage.
He grabbed his shortblade and dagger and started attacking the troll as fast as he could make his arms move, screaming as he struck. Behind it, the Guardian troll ranted and jumped, snarling but unable to get past the living troll in the narrow corridor. Just as Chip was wondering whether the pounding he himself was taking would force him back out of the cave, there was an explosion and a sizzle; the troll sank back to the ground, its soul captured by the Bosmer short sword. Chip tried to maneuver his bow into position, but the guardian troll was too close; and as it took a swipe at him he stepped backward, inadvertently leaving the cave once more, out into the light.
He downed a potion or two; they soothed his wounds but didn’t dampen his anger. All that was left was to defeat the Guardian. He could do it, so long as he had room to move, which meant getting to the back of the cave in one piece. He rummaged around in his pack. He’d made one very weak invisibility potion the last time he’d been practicing alchemy with his uncle Roggi. He also had a number of Wolf arrows left. He readied one of those, downed the potion, and stepped into the tunnel again.
The troll swiped him across the neck, and howled.
Gods damn! It can see through invisibility?
Chip rolled to the side and ran past the beast, down the tunnel, healing himself yet again. Maybe it had smelled him, rather than seen him. Maybe the tight quarters at the entrance had caused him to brush against the troll. It didn’t matter; he needed to finish it before he ran out of strength.
He turned at the back of the cavern and fired a wolf arrow, aiming just above the troll’s shoulder so that the wolf would appear behind it. The sound of the conjuration caught the troll’s attention and it whirled, flailing away at the wolf’s snapping fangs, while Chip switched to elven arrows again. One shot landed, then another, while the wolf kept up its attack. Chip ran toward the troll then, sensing that it was losing strength at last. Just as he reached it, the conjured wolf snapped at it one last time; and where there had been an enormous specter, there now was a small puddle of ectoplasm.
“Thank the gods!” Chip yelped. The wolf raised its muzzle toward the ceiling and howled its own cry of triumph before dissipating.
Or thank Hircine. I may have made those arrows, but I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t told me to do so. They’ve made the difference between life and death several times now.
He took a few moments to search the cave. Up the ramp at the far back of the cavern, he found the bodies of two unfortunate bandits who had decided to set up camp there and had made the short acquaintance of the pair of trolls he’d just killed. Chip found some arrows near their gear, and took those as well, then heaved a sigh and took his leave of the place.
The battle had clearly gone on far longer than he had expected it to. From his position, the city of Whiterun was the most prominent feature on the horizon; and the sun was winking out from behind it as it dropped slowly down in the west, preparing to slip behind the mountains of the Reach. Chip just stood and stared for a few moments, and looked around at the beauty of the place.
Then he heaved a sigh. He had to make one more trip back to Froki’s cabin. It was a long trek, and he was tired; but there was nothing to do but begin putting one foot in front of the next.
Froki was sitting at his tiny table when Chip entered the cabin. He looked at Chip and cracked the smallest of grins; Chip nodded and took the few strides across the room to greet him.
“As you likely can tell, I’ve defeated the Guardian Troll. It was quite a battle, I must say.”
“Then you finally know what it means to be a true hunter, the Nord way. For this, you have earned the blessing of Kyne and can count me as a friend.”
Chip looked at the old man, thoughtful. He could, in fact, feel warmth about him, unfamiliar warmth that must be Kyne’s acknowledgement.
But it doesn’t matter whether or not Kyne thinks I’m a hunter.
“Well, Froki, I’m glad if you count me among your friends. I have to tell you, though, that I didn’t do all of these things for you, or for the glory of Kyne.”
Froki furrowed his brow into a deep frown. “Oh?”
Chip grinned. “Yes. I did these things to prove to myself that I am worthy of the trust my master has placed in me.”
“And who would that be, exactly?” The old man’s voice was dropping to a growl as it began to dawn on him that he’d given Kyne’s blessing to someone he might not have wished to honor.
“I hunt for the glory of my lord Hircine, Master of the Hunt.”
Froki stood, eyes blazing.
“I expected more from a fellow Nord, a fellow hunter, a follower of Kyne!”
Chip knew he was being unnecessarily cruel to the old man, but somehow he couldn’t seem to help himself. As though he was watching someone else, he heard his own voice speak.
“I never said I was a follower of Kyne, Froki. You just made an assumption, and you were wrong. I have nothing against Kyne, of course. If she has granted me her favor I am glad of it. But I follow Hircine.”
“Get out!” the old man screamed, practically incandescent with anger. “Leave me!”
Chip nodded, and backed away to the door. Once outside, he shook his head.
What has gotten into me? There was no need to be cruel to him. He gave me targets to hunt and hunt them I did. I’ve proven myself capable of hunting on my own, and of using whatever necessary to overcome odds greater than I’d expected. I’m good enough. I can see that now, and that’s what I needed to see. Why be a jerk about it?
He felt Hircine’s answer come to him, wordless but clear. He’d turned the hunt on its head. He had earned Kyne’s blessing, legitimately, by slaying her guardian spirits in the same way he’d slain the white stag in order to meet Hircine. But he’d also fooled her, and her representative. In a real sense, the giver of the hunt had become the prey. Hircine reveled in that irony, the amusement in that turning of the tables.
Soon, my hunter. Soon I shall call you back to my shrine. It is almost time.
Chip stopped where he was, on the hillside below Froki’s shack, and dropped to his knees in reverence.
“I shall be waiting for your call, my lord,” he murmured.
There were many, many hunts over the next days. The desire to hunt was at least as strong in him then as the need to hunt with tooth and claw had been when he transformed into a werewolf. And since that didn’t seem to be happening – a fact for which he was grateful and yet distrustful at the same time – he was on the prowl with his bow, constantly, and with very little rest.
Surprisingly, and troublingly, was the fact that many of those hunts involved dragons. He’d heard of dragons all his life. It was hard not to when your uncle was the Dragonborn; people never seemed to tire of tales of Dardeh’s exploits both alone and with Roggi. They’d even fought the greatest of the dragons, Alduin. That was supposed to have been the end of things. And yet here they were, fifteen years later, and the numbers of dragons were increasing.
At least, that was what it looked like to Chip as he peered over the edge of the mountains and looked down at a great crystalline beast sleeping atop one of the word walls. He’d taken the creature down, after a fight; but he had been grateful for the time he’d spent practicing his restoration spells. Dragons were worse than bears in terms of unpredictability and speed, and one never knew exactly what kind of horrid breath attack it might make. Being pinned in the decrepit remnants of a mining shack with such a creature looking in the door at you was no fun, either, in his mind.
Then there’d been the dragon at Lost Tongue Overlook. He’d been hunting deer all along Lake Honrich’s southern shoreline when the beast had flown down out of nowhere and strafed him with frost magic. He’d followed it, angrily firing arrows, chasing it all the way south from the Snow-Shod’s farm through the pass and up onto the side of the ancient fane where another of the dragon word walls stood. It hadn’t been a difficult dragon to kill, as such things went; he’d used Queen Frina’s staff to summon a wraith who helped both with distance attacks and distraction, and had quickly brought the beast down and finished it off. He had wondered, though, as he stood looking out over the valley toward the sunset, why it was that there were suddenly so many more dragons and why he, of all people, had been the one to kill them.
I can only kill their bodies. Uncle Dar’s the only one who can take their souls like this sword I got from Ma can do. Maybe they’re coming back even after we kill them, those of us who aren’t him. Is that it?
Not many nights later he’d been working his way across the volcanic tundra in Eastmarch yet again. He’d been near to Bonestrewn Crest – another place where there was a word wall, and one where he’d heard of several dragons being taken – when he found himself once again ducking behind trees to avoid the virulent green breath attacks of a forest dragon. It had flown north to a point at which not only a pair of mammoths and their giant, but also the witch from the magical grove there had joined the fray.
Chip had found himself easing along in the mists, trying to avoid the dragon’s other adversaries but also determined that he would have the kill. After what felt like hours of maneuvering and shooting, hiding and emerging into the open again, he took what seemed like an impossibly long shot at the dragon, grounded and snapping at a mammoth, and shouted in triumph as it recoiled and then dropped to the roadway, dead at last.
He slid around the edge of a dirt outcropping, trying to keep out of view of the giant who wandered back into the tundra, looking back every so often to be sure the dragon was dead. When he finally reached the corpse to take back his arrows and a dislodge couple of bones as his trophies, he was alone. Therefore, he jumped – backward and at least a foot into the air – when he heard the voice around him.
It is time, my hunter. You have proven yourself more than worthy. Come back to Solstheim to worship at my shrine once more, and I shall grant you my boon.
Chip dropped to his knees once more, right there in the road.
“I will, my lord. I will.”
I will as soon as I can prepare for the journey. These bones are heavy, and I need to be certain I have all the pelts I have prepared as offerings.
He ran to his home, as quickly as he could. Over the next day he reordered his pack, brewed as many potions as he could imagine he might need, and gathered the pelt offerings he had accumulated. He tried, that night, to sleep; but as usual his rest was far from restful.
I almost wondered, for a minute, he thought as he stepped out of his cabin, whether maybe the boon Hircine was going to give me was to lift the curse from me. But that night proved otherwise if anything did. No sleep for skin-changers, I guess.
He took a deep breath and nodded to the skies.
“Alright. Back to Solstheim it is.”
