It was a beautiful day, and yet Chip was in a somber mood when he left his cottage to head to Windhelm. He’d slept, fitfully, for a few hours; he’d refilled his water skins, stowed the various materials he’d collected along the way, and then packed up to leave. He should have felt much better; but he didn’t. He didn’t like the fact that he’d taken lives without being aware of it. He had argued with himself about it. They’d been attacking him. He’d had not only the right but the absolute necessity to defend himself. But he didn’t remember doing it, and it clearly hadn’t been done at the behest of Hircine, for it wasn’t done in his werewolf form.
He closed up the gate to his property and shook his head, sighing at himself. He had a tendency to over think things when he wasn’t hunting, and he was doing it again right now.
I can drive myself absolutely crazy with this, or I can keep investigating. Maybe I’ll find some answers. At least I have a direction to go in.
“East, to start out with,” he said aloud as he headed out across the fields behind his home. He intended to run overland and meet the road to Windhelm by dropping down off the escarpment to the northeast, rather than either going south or west to find the other roads. He was used to jumping down the face of the cliffs and wanted to get where he was going as quickly as he could.
He reached the edge of the high lands. From here it would be two quick hops down to a nearly-flat clearing halfway down the escarpment. As he looked up from making certain of his footing after the first drop he saw something he hadn’t expected: a figure in a dark robe standing on the flat area just below him. His momentum was such that he couldn’t stop himself from continuing down the slope. When he landed he found himself in a clearing before a cave he hadn’t ever seen before. He realized with a fair amount of consternation that he’d picked the wrong place to start his descent.
He also felt himself being pierced by ice spikes. The woman in front of him fired two of them at him. Both of them caught him in the arms; and he groaned in pain as he backed up quickly, pulling out his bow.
I need to be able to draw my bow.
He heard an odd growling sound behind him and to the right and swiveled to see a Khajiit woman coming at him with her paws raised and claws extended. She looked odd, her movements slightly jerky.
“Kill,” she moaned slowly.
Oh damn. She’s dead. This woman firing ice at me is a necromancer.
He fired at her as he backed away from the barrage of ice spikes. But because his arms were partially numb, the shot wasn’t powerful enough to down the undead Khajiit. It was far too close quarters on this small clearing to get decent firepower out of his bow; so he drew his shortblade in his right hand and slashed at her. Fortunately, probably luckily, it was enough to stop her. She fell to the ground groaning, and dissolved into a pile of ashes. At the same time, the necromancer was advancing on him. She drew a dagger as she approached.
OK, so she’s low on magicka. Time for me to use mine.
Chip, while he was by no means a mage, had some few spells at his disposal and a small pool of energy from which to draw. It was important to be able to heal oneself, after all; he also had the ability to conjure a familiar – a wolf – who was not strong by any means but often served him well to distract an enemy while he found higher ground from which to attack. This time, though, he called on his ability to cast flames.
Fire burns, even if it’s not a huge fireball.
He fired at her, one long blast; then, as he backed away slashing with his blade, one short burst, another, and yet a third. She screamed, and raised a frost-covered hand to cast her own spell; but just as she did so Chip managed to connect with his blade – a deep cut that finished her off. He was bleeding, himself, because she had given him a real fight and had cut him in a dozen places. Panting, he stood over her and shook his head as he changed his spell to one of healing, and staunched the flow of his own blood.
“Now then,” he said to the corpse on the ground. “What were you guarding, my necromantic friend? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this spot before.” He turned back toward the hillside and spotted a set of doors, like those one might find securing a mine. He eased the doors open as quietly as he could and slipped inside.
As his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, he took stock of the place. This was no mine. Perhaps it had been meant to be one, at some point. But all it was at this moment was a large, round cave. It had clearly been used as a dwelling for some time; a wooden ramp led down into it, and several bookshelves and tables lined the walls. There were a couple of barrels near the entrance; he checked them and found only some alchemy ingredients, which he left behind. He dropped the lids back onto the barrels, not being especially careful to be quiet. After all, he’d killed the necromancer.
A small noise below and to his left drew his attention. There was another necromancer, bent over an alchemy station. Chip knew he hadn’t been spotted yet; and for the briefest of moments he wrestled with himself. The necromancer wasn’t attacking. He didn’t have to do anything more than back quietly out the way he’d come in. But he drew an arrow anyway, and took a deep breath.
It’s a necromancer. If I make a noise, she’ll try to kill me and what might happen if she raises me from the dead? I don’t know anything about raised lycanthropes.
He fired. The arrow flew slightly wide of the woman, who flinched and said “what was that?” She cast an armor spell on herself and ran forward, gathering more magic in her hands.
More ice spikes. Well, it’s on now.
She shot him. Three times. He cried out in pain and backed up again, hoping to avoid the third, and decided to use his conjured wolf to get between him and the necromancer. It would give him long enough to heal himself and stay alive.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you!” the woman snarled at the spectral wolf, using her magic to cast a stream of frostbite at it. It snapped at her and barked; and as Chip had expected, by the time his arms had loosened enough to draw the bow once more it yelped and disappeared.
I’m not very good at that, but at least it gives me a chance. Which I clearly need, since I don’t seem to be good enough with my bow in spite of everything.
Just as the familiar was disintegrating, he fired an arrow at the necromancer. She hadn’t had a chance to refresh her armor spell, and the wolf had apparently done some damage. The arrow struck home. She cried out and went down on one knee; and Chip, leaning far over so as to get the best angle possible, finished her with one last arrow. He harrumphed and stowed his weapon, shaking his head at himself.
There wasn’t anything particularly interesting in their cave. It certainly hadn’t been worth nearly dying over. He did find a book on alchemy that he’d never read before, and tucked that into his pack to look at some other time. He stood near the necromancer’s body and shook his head.
“Why was it worth dying? Why didn’t you just tell me to get out?”
It seemed a terrible waste. He was once again in a somber mood as he left the cave and trotted down the path, across the fields that would lead him to Shor’s Stone.
Why, he wondered, had he not transformed? Why had it not happened coming through the pass from Helgen, or just now when his life had been in danger? He peered at the sky up ahead and frowned, for the phase of the moons was such that the moons were already visible, albeit dim in the still-bright day sky. Would they exert their influence on him just as he made it to one of the cities? Did he have any way to predict that, at all?
I want my life back. Why has this happened to me?
He reached the roadway that went through the center of Shor’s Stone and slowed to a walk. Chickens on one side of the road clucked and fussed and pecked in the dirt, while on the other side the blacksmith hammered away at something or other. He nodded at Chip as he walked by. It was all so normal.
I want to talk to Da.
He turned and ran back to the south, uphill toward the fortress that spanned the road between Shor’s Stone and Riften. But when he reached the path that would have taken him back across the Rift to his own home, he stopped.
Da doesn’t know anything about werewolves. Why would he? I can’t ask him what’s wrong with me. I need to find the family of them on Solstheim, if there really is such a thing. I need to go north.
Reluctantly, but with a sense of purpose, he turned and started running north again. The trip down the mountainside out of the Rift was uneventful, aside from catching a goat with a single shot, completely on the fly. That put him in a better mood. Running across a sizeable patrol of noticeably on-edge Stormcloaks, however, did not. He couldn’t help wonder what was going on, especially given the encampment of Imperials he’d dispatched on the plains of Whiterun.
Once he hopped down the final embankment onto the volcanic tundra of Eastmarch, he breathed a sigh of something like relief. He was too close to Windhelm, and a ship, to turn back now. It was a fairly short run between his current location and Kynesgrove, where he could stop if he needed to; and if he didn’t need to, and it hadn’t gotten dark, he would push on toward Windhelm. He stopped here and there to pick up a flower or a few jazbay berries as he trotted along, feeling better about his decision by the moment. He saw a goat wandering between himself and the impressive bulk of a mammoth farther out onto the tundra, and drew his bow to try his luck at bagging it.
Then he froze.
Off to his left, near the ancient monuments atop the hill nearby, a huge, yellow-winged shape vaulted into the air with a cry that echoed across the entire tundra.
A dragon! What do I do?
He knew dragons still existed, because he’d heard the stories. Every so often, his uncles still got the call for the Dragonborn to go kill one of them. But in seventeen years he’d never seen one for himself, nor been near enough to hear it roar. A voice in his head gave him what he needed.
Hunt! This is prey truly worthy of my Champion!
Ok, he thought, pulling himself into his hunting stance. Ok. I can do this. Uncle Roggi told me to be careful around these things and Uncle Dar said to find cover. So… I look for cover. Carefully.
There were several large stone outcroppings in and around the giants’ camp nearby, and they looked to be his best bets. He wasn’t certain how the giants would react – or the mammoths, for that matter; they were already trumpeting and stomping from place to place as he moved closer to the center of the camp. But still, he might be able to duck in and out from behind the stones to shoot at the dragon.
He got to the top of the rise where the stones lay just as the dragon spotted him and flew overhead. It was hard not to panic as the beast came close enough to disturb his hair. If he’d been reaching out with a hand, he might easily have grabbed it by one leathery wing. As it was, he fought down his fear and nocked an arrow, trying not to be distracted by the sounds of a mammoth directly behind him. He turned as the dragon banked and turned back, coming back to hover directly in front of him. He fired his shot and rolled to the right, getting mostly behind a boulder just as the dragon unleashed a huge gout of flames at him.
Mostly behind the boulder, but not completely. He felt exposed areas of his face and hands being scorched and smelled singed hair, remembering a bit too late that he had a perfectly good hood to cover that hair. He wrestled it up over his head and sensed that it not only covered him but doused a few minor flames, as well. He then cast healing on himself as he turned to slide from his current position across an opening to a different boulder. The mammoth he’d heard was swinging around angrily as well, looking for an opening to attack the dragon.
I see how it is, now. Well, I’m not fireproof, but I surely can fight well enough knowing what I need to do.
The dragon circled back around toward him again and he crouched down just enough to block any flames it might breathe. Just as he stepped out to shoot at it, however, the creature veered off toward lower ground. It had spied the nearest giant and was taking position to attack. As it slowed, Chip fired two quick arrows at it and then backed around the boulder. The dragon screamed and flew away, once more banking and turning back toward Chip, the giants, and the ever-angrier mammoths.
The next attack singed Chip a bit – but only a bit, as he was able to circle downhill onto a ledge and away from the flames. The dragon landed, shaking the ground and setting Chip a bit off-balance. One of the mammoths, which had been running away, turned back toward the dragon and bellowed. Chip jumped down from the ledge he was on and turned around, back toward the creature, just as a resounding thud and guttural growl told him the giant had decided to take on the dragon face-to-face. Chip used that distraction to swing around to his right far enough to be in range of the dragon’s back quarters, and started firing one shot after another, ducking back behind the ledge after each, just in case.
The dragon launched itself into the sky again. It was then that Chip realized that the sound he was hearing, the sound of the giant running, was coming toward him and not receding toward the dragon.
Oh crap! Does this fool not realize I’m trying to help?
He darted around the end of a dirt ledge just as the dragon came to ground once more. Surely that would distract the giant, he thought; but as he turned to look the giant emerged onto the top of the ledge, yelling something at him and waving its enormous club.
Chip ran, as fast as he could. The dragon, somewhere behind him, roared; and he could feel the blast of heat from its fire. The giant roared back. Chip couldn’t tell whether that meant it had turned to face the dragon, had been downed by the dragon’s flames, or whether it was right on his heels, ready to launch him leagues into the skies over Eastmarch. The only place he could see that might possibly provide some safety, as well as a very good perch for archery, was the tall hill with the curved wall atop it. Some of the ledges to the outside of that wall were narrow enough that he would likely be able to jump onto them but the giant would not.
As he scrambled up the rocks, moving as quickly as he could with a drawn bow, he heard the giant directly behind him. Panic was starting to set in as he caught a foot on a protruding edge and nearly fell; but he got free and pushed up as high as he could go. The sound of wings came very close. The dragon had taken to the air again. Chip turned just as it swooped over the area, just in time to see it breathe fire not at him, but at the giant. He took advantage of the distraction to run back down from where he’d treed himself, and across the flat area in front of the wall. As he ran, the sounds behind him said that the giant had followed and the dragon was attacking it.
For the next while – a time that seemed like hours but which was probably only minutes – Chip played hide-and-seek with the dragon and the giant. He would step out into the open, drawing the dragon’s attention down from the sky toward the mountaintop where he and the giant were in a standoff. He would then slip back behind one of the ancient stone sculptures, just long enough for the dragon to shift its attention to the giant, and then emerge to shoot one or two more arrows. Most of them hit the beast; some didn’t, but he could tell that he was doing damage, and that was all that mattered for the moment.
After some time it suddenly went quiet. Chip could hear neither the roar of flames nor the flapping of gigantic wings. The giant, too, had gone silent and was peering around the area, clearly in as much confusion as Chip was.
Weird. Very weird. Where did it go?
He looked around and saw no sign of the dragon. It might conceivably have been the moment in which he could escape, except for the fact that it was full day and there was nothing like the kind of cover he would need to sneak out of the area. If he was going to be able to leave at all, to continue on to Windhelm, he was going to have to get rid of the giant. He stepped back out into the open and pulled back his bowstring, taking aim on the befuddled-looking giant across the way.
Without any warning, not even the sound of wings flapping behind him, a wall of flame erupted directly in front of Chip. He howled in surprise and pain and scrambled out of the way as far as he could; but he wasn’t certain of the footing behind him and didn’t dare back up very far for fear of plummeting to his death from a simple fall. He closed his eyes against the heat and prayed that he would live long enough to try again.
The dragon paused for breath and flew away; and Chip opened eyes streaming with tears – whether from fear, from gratitude, or simply from trying to counteract heat, he didn’t know. Casting healing on himself, Chip turned to find that in fact only two steps behind him was a sheer cliff face. He would definitely have fallen to his death had he not frozen in place.
He ran back across the open mountaintop, pausing to catch his breath for a moment before the great curved wall. People said that the deeply-engraved scratches in its face were words in the dragon language. His uncle said that when he approached such a wall, a word might glow with power that he then took into himself, learning the word. Chip saw nothing but scratches. As his breathing slowed to normal, he heard the rush of wings beating against the air. The dragon returned and, spying him running like a rabbit, followed with its fire.
“Damn it!” he shrieked, running behind the great curved wall as the dragon strafed him again and healing himself as it flew past. “I’m not going to end up my life like somebody’s chicken dinner! Go play with the giant!”
To his astonishment, the dragon did exactly that. It circled the hilltop. Chip heard the shrill overtones of its fire breath followed by the giant’s grunts and howls. It occurred to him that if Hircine really did revel in the hunt, he must be enjoying himself at this moment. It was a three-way hunt, and none of the three of them was clearly winning.
Huh. Well at least I got a breather. I’ll take it.
He jumped down several feet, onto a narrow ledge hugging the mountain, and spent a few moments searching for a safe vantage point while the dragon attacked the giant once more. Then he saw something that had his jaw dropping. The giant was running away down the path from the wall to the tundra floor, as quickly as its very long strides would take it even as the dragon attacked something Chip could neither see nor hear. For a moment, it looked as though the giant might make an escape to safety. Then, out from behind the mountain, the dragon emerged, circling the giant and thundering to the ground to attack once more.
The giant turned to take the dragon on. Their battle gave Chip exactly the opening and advantage he was looking for. He shot once, twice; and then, just after the third arrow struck home, jolting the dragon, the giant brought its club down onto the dragon’s head for the final time. It jerked backward and then fell forward, dead. Chip turned just slightly to his right and continued firing; for he still was going to have to finish the giant if he hoped to leave the area alive. With the first strike, the giant staggered, whirling around looking for its adversary; with the second it went down on one knee. The third shot finished the giant, which crumpled into a very large ball.
Chip straightened himself up, slowly, not quite willing to believe that both of these enormous creatures were actually dead. As the moments ticked past and neither figure moved, he stowed his bow and arrows and hopped down from the ledge, moving very slowly and cautiously toward the carcasses.
If nothing else I’m getting some of my arrows back.
It took him awhile to wrestle the arrows free from the dragon’s scales, and not all of them would budge. Some combination of his shot and the dragon’s momentum had buried a few of them so deep into the scales that they’d be there forever. The dragon also had a great many gold coins wedged into its scales, and he took as many of them as he could get loose. They’d be useful for paying his passage to Solstheim, if nothing else. He stood staring down at the great creature and frowned. When his uncles killed a dragon, to hear them tell it, the dragon’s body would ignite, and incinerate itself, the creature’s energy and power transferring into Dardeh. This was just a great smelly carcass before him.
Well that’s a shame. Still, we killed it, that giant and I. That was definitely a hunt.
He dropped to his knees for a moment, offering his thoughts to Hircine, offering up the two great prizes before him to his lord’s honor. He felt a sensation of warmth spread through him; and, once again, he felt himself being pulled toward the north. He rose to his feet and started on his way once more, trotting east and north, past the giant’s campsite and the two mammoths, seemingly unscathed by the dragon.
It’s not just my curiosity pulling me north. Hircine has left something there, waiting for me. I know it.
There was still plenty of daylight left as he reached the roadway and turned north toward Kynesgrove. A lone wolf by the side of the road howled a greeting to him as he passed; he grinned at it and kept running. He was still grinning as he reached the hill that led up into the snow country. In spite of his uncles having warned him to stay away from them, he’d taken a dragon; with substantial help, to be sure, but given that he’d also taken down the giant he felt justified in being proud of that particular hunt.
The weather, once he dropped over the hill and approached the bridge to Windhelm, was a tremendous contrast to the stifling heat he’d been in just a short time earlier. Of course, he’d been not only in the steamy volcanic tundra but dodging dragon fire; but still, the sudden shift to heavy snow and icy roads had him shivering as he trotted across the bridge and pushed open the great doors.
He couldn’t help but smile. No matter how cold and windy the day, Candlehearth Hall’s windows always called out a warm welcome to visitors. So did the inevitable beggars and working girls hovering around the warmth of the inn’s crackling braziers. One of those girls was someone whose company he particularly enjoyed. He didn’t have time to stop and visit this time, though. The sky was darkening and he wanted to get down to the docks and onto a ship before anything untoward could happen. The last thing he needed was an unexpected transformation in the middle of a major city. He waved to the girl outside Candlehearth and turned right, making his way through to the second set of gates, those leading to the waterfront.
Dockworkers were beginning to leave the area as he arrived. The Argonians uniformly made for the Assemblage, their gathering place. Others headed for the stairs Chip had just descended. A ship at the far left end of the docks was emptying of crew, all of whom seemed bound for Candlehearth. As he passed them on his way to the dock, one of the women told him that the ship’s name was the Northwind. He smiled, and nodded, but said nothing. His destination was the sturdy vessel tied up next to it, the one he knew regularly made the trip between Windhelm and Raven Rock.
There were sailors sweeping and tidying the decks of the ship as he stepped aboard it. A blonde Nord who was clearly the person in charge sat supervising their work.
“Hello,” Chip greeted the man. “I’m here about hiring a ship.”
The Nord nodded. “I’m the captain, Gjalund Salt-Sage. If you’re looking for passage to Solstheim you won’t find a finer vessel than the Northern Maiden.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here. How much will it cost me?”
“I’ll give you a fair price,” he said. “Not many people headed over there these days. But they still pay me for supplies and passage, and as it happens I have a shipment that’s ready to go right now. It’ll cost you 250 septims.”
“That’s great,” Chip said, even though he winced internally. That’s a pretty steep price to sit on a vessel that was already heading out to begin with. But it’s the only choice I’ve got. Good thing that dragon had so much coin on it.
He counted out the coin and handed it to Gjalund, who cleared his throat. “In that case, you’ve got yourself a ship. Get settled and we’ll cast off.”
Chip went below deck and climbed into a bunk. If he couldn’t see the moons, he wouldn’t risk transforming, or so he hoped. What he hadn’t realized was how very tired he was; and as the gentle movements of the ship and the sounds around him told him they were indeed underway, sleep crept in around him and closed his eyes.