He crept closer to the door of Redoran’s Retreat, his mouth watering and his rage burning. The wolf inside was hungry to take revenge on the Silver Hand for Skjor’s death. Chip had promised his other self fresh meat once they’d retrieved the fragment of Wuuthrad and meted out a bit of rough justice on their waiting foes.
It was dark enough inside that it took his eyes a moment to adjust. In the meantime, he sniffed the air and extended his hearing. Somewhere off to his left, a voice muttered about wishing he could change wood to gold. Chip smirked, but focused instead on a dog wandering around the cluttered space at the far end of the passageway. He took a slow and careful aim on the dog and released; the dog yipped once, and fell dead. A woman emerged from the corridor beyond the dog’s corpse, and walked slowly across to it, looking down and gasping.
“Is someone there?”
Nope. Nobody at all.
He drew his daggers – Grabber and what had been Skjor’s Skyforge steel dagger. It was his dagger now, and he intended to baptize it in the blood of a Silver Hand. He slipped forward, hugging the deepest of the plentiful shadows in this place, and circling around behind the woman. His father and Delvin Mallory might have despaired of getting him to become a proper thief, but he knew they’d be proud to see how well he’d learned the lessons of stealth if they could have seen him creeping up on the bandit. It took only a single quick combination of strikes to end the Silver Hand. He looked at Skjor’s dagger again, turning it over in his hand and then wiping it clean on the bandit’s clothing.
A good blade. A really good blade.
There was a locked chest on a platform just past where the dog had died; Chip picked it open eagerly, hoping but not really expecting to find the Wuuthrad fragment.
Not that it matters. I am going to be taking out everyone in this place and then I’ll check every corner. They are going to pay for what they did.
The chest contained only coins and a few pieces of gear that he would never use even if he’d been inclined to carry the extra weight. He shrugged and readied his bow, following the sound of the first bandit he’d heard toward a narrow tunnel.
“What was he thinking?” the voice muttered.
Chip reached a bend in the tunnel and stepped carefully out into the opening, ready to fire. He watched, surprised, as the Silver Hand walked back and forth across the tunnel’s mouth several times without noticing him. Past him, a broad stone wall had been pierced with a window of sorts; flickering light from behind it told him there was a cook fire back there somewhere.
Alright then, if you’re too stupid to look around, I don’t care about bagging you with a stealth bowshot. It only takes one.
He released the bowstring and the bandit dropped a moment later.
An angry expletive from a room just beyond the fresh corpse drew Chip’s attention. The movement of a nicely-backlit figure in a window-like opening made it easy for him to snap a quick shot at the Silver Hand. It didn’t kill the man, though; and Chip dropped back a step or two to wait for the attack he knew was coming.
“I know I heard something.”
Chip waited, silently; and a moment later the man came out from behind the windowed wall and into the tunnel. He was looking from side to side, anywhere but in front of him where Chip stood. Chip tsk’d and released the arrow he’d had at the ready.
“Sure did,” he announced as the arrow sank into the man and pushed him back a step.
“Ugh. Lucky hit!” he growled.
“Ok, well then how about these instead?” Chip snarled, pulling out his daggers. Once again, he stepped forward slashing like a whirlwind.
He hadn’t expected the bandit’s remaining strength, nor the sudden, blinding pain of the man’s enchanted glass sword slicing through the front of his armor and into his chest. He turned for a final flurry of dagger strikes, almost in panic as his field of vision narrowed to two tiny pinpoints. Grabber sank into the bandit’s chest and stuck; Chip released his grip on it in favor of casting healing as quickly as he could. He exhausted his magicka and still bled; but at least his eyesight returned to something close to normal and he wasn’t gasping for breath. He had potions in his pack, and made quick work of taking several of them.
He retrieved Grabber from the Silver Hand’s body and grimaced. “Getting a bit too sure of myself, I guess. You were more than I expected. But this is what you and all your kind are going to get from me, after what I saw at Gallows Rock.”
He made his way into the cave proper, helping himself to whatever seemed of value. In the darkest corner of the space behind the windowed wall were more barrels, the cook fire, and a large chest. This one contained a large sum of gold, two excellent weapons that he could sell, a map of some kind and, at the bottom, a jagged piece of metal with one sharpened edge.
“There you are, Wuuthrad! Now to get you back to Jorrvaskr.”
Just then his stomach growled, very loudly. He smirked.
“Yeah, yeah. I did promise. And I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to send a few of these particular souls Hircine’s way.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe it was practice; maybe it was new strength born of the blazing anger that had been driving him ever since he’d picked up Skjor’s dagger to carry. It didn’t matter. Not knowing exactly how he did it but with a seamless ease the likes of which he’d not had before, he transformed to the huge red werewolf and devoured all of the Silver Hand in the cave, leaving not so much as a strand of hair behind.
It was quiet in Jorrvaskr when he got back; and, seeing nobody about, he wandered into Skjor’s quarters. He could still picture the older wolf rising from his bed, and ground his molars together in anger to think that it was likely the last time anyone had seen him alive in this space. He moved around the room, touching items on the shelves almost reverently and scanning the titles of Skjor’s many books. There was one on the table that particularly caught his attention. Picking it up, he saw on its spine “The Totems of Hircine.” He flipped it open to read.
I thought I had Hircine’s artifacts. I do. I have his bow, and his staff, and his ring. What else…?
The book described three more items that Chip had never heard mentioned. One, the book told him, was a carved wolf skull that could cause a great fear in others. The second, a carved thighbone, granted “a heightened awareness.”
Interesting. And the third?
The third was a drum, said to be used by “our forebears in the blood” to “call their allies to them with its pounding.” Chip wasn’t certain what that meant, but it sounded a great deal like what the staff he carried could do. He stared down at the pages for a moment longer and then placed the book carefully down in the place it had been.
“I wish I could have asked you about this, Skjor, but I’m sure you had it here for a reason. Perhaps Aela can help me discover what it means.” In the meantime, I need to get this fragment back to her and find out what we’re doing next.
When he returned to the great room upstairs, Chip found that Kodlak and Aela were both seated at the long table, eating. He nodded to Kodlak and walked past him to stand quietly at Aela’s side.
“I’ve been running interference for you around here,” she whispered. “I don’t think anyone’s caught on to our little campaign. Yet.”
Chip glanced down the table at Kodlak, who in fact didn’t seem to notice that they were speaking. But if his own ears could pick up things at a distance, he wasn’t going to place any great reliance on Kodlak’s not being able to hear them. He nodded.
“I have the fragment of Wuuthrad,” he said quietly, making sure that Kodlak would know he’d had a good reason to be hunting. “Nothing remains moving in that cave.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Another piece of glory. Good work, shield-brother.”
He watched as Kodlak rose from the table and made his way toward the stairs down to his living quarters. Only after the old man was well out of sight did he speak again.
“What’s next? Give me a target.” We want to hunt, the wolf and I.
She gave him a perfectly predatory grin, and chuckled. “It’s good that you’re so eager. I’ve caught wind that one of the brighter Silver Hand has been sniffing around Whiterun. If you can sneak into their camp and steal her plans, we’ll have the advantage. They’re holed up in Valtheim Towers. I assume you know the place?”
Chip gave her a grim smile. “Of course. I’ll get right on it. I’m, uh, too full to need an evening meal.”
Aela chuckled. “Show them no mercy.”
“You know it.”
It was dark as he approached Valtheim Towers, but there was such a brilliant aurora in the sky that he was concerned about being seen by the Silver Hand patrolling back and forth along the bridge. Across the river, high atop the far tower, he saw the white of a fur cloak reflected in the starlight – probably the chief. Chip got as low as possible behind some bushes and considered his choices. The guard passed by the center of the bridge several times without seeing him. A movement from the platform above the nearer tower caught Chip’s eye. There was another of the Silver Hand, walking from one side to the other, making a perfect target of himself. Chip moved his bow slowly into position and carefully lined up his shot; then he held a deep breath and released. A moment later, the form on the platform dropped out of sight.
One down.
He stayed in a crouch and continued toward the tower, keeping to its deepest shadows. There was a cook pot just outside the doorway, with a woman moving around near it. She stopped stirring the food and looked down the hill toward him.
Crap, she heard me.
Heard, but didn’t see, he realized as she moved slowly in his direction glancing from side to side. He took a shot at her; but it was close in, and his arrow had no real momentum behind it. She grunted in pain but didn’t stop. Instead, she started toward Chip as he backed onto the cobblestones and pulled out another arrow. This one struck her in the heart, to bring her down.
Inside the tower, a standing lamp one level up cast just enough light for him to make it up the stairs without tripping and throwing his face against the stones. From the open doorway at the top, he spied a guard patrolling the mountainside across the river. Chip frowned. An arrow could come from there to almost any spot in the complex. He tried to lob an arrow into the man but it was too far to gauge correctly; the guard turned and the arrow landed harmlessly in the grass above him.
A wooden ramp sloped up to the bridge. Chip slid carefully up it and took aim on the bandit he’d seen from the road below. This time it was much easier to reach the target; and even though the close range meant he needed to shoot twice, the bandit dropped dead in short order.
The sounds, though, had alerted another Silver Hand, who ran across the bridge toward him just in front of the woman with the white cloak, who had come down from her tower. The first bandit dropped like a stone with a single arrow. The chief, however, did not. Chip unloaded several shots into her – probably caught by that very same fluffy cloak – and then growled and pulled out his daggers.
“You call yourself a Nord?” she cried derisively.
“Nope. I call myself a half-breed,” he snarled, slicing at her so violently that he laid her throat open almost to the bone. And I’m going to have you to eat, just as soon as I’ve found your plans and taken care of the last guard.
It was still just a bit too dark and a bit too far for him to hit the last Silver Hand across the way. He grinned, pulled out one of Hircine’s arrows, and shot it into the general area of the guard’s chair. The ball of conjuration magic that formed was followed by a howl, and a scream. Chip merely smirked and trotted across the bridge to find what he’d come for.
There was a rudimentary bedroom set up in the far tower. Above it were stairs up to the platform on which he’d seen the chief originally, and beneath those stairs was a chest holding the plans Aela wanted. He then took the steps two at a time and found a bow that would be worth some extra gold. He looked around and had an unexpected moment of dizziness. It was too far up, this watchtower. Too open. And far, far too large a drop to the river below. He had a momentary vision of falling over the railing – falling, falling – and a huge shudder ran up his spine.
“Time to go, Chip,” he mumbled to himself. “You’re losing your composure.”
He walked out onto the mountainside and checked the dead Silver Hand lying there in a pool of his own blood. He closed his eyes again, and breathed deeply, willing himself to turn and consume all of these Silver Hands the same way he’d done those in Redoran’s Retreat. But nothing happened. He opened his eyes and snorted.
“Too full, eh?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lord Hircine. I’d have liked to take these monsters for you, as well. I guess it’s not to be.”
I feel like I’m the only one who never gets a decent night’s sleep around here, Chip thought as he approached Aela’s chambers. He could hear Farkas snoring robustly from across the building, and a lighter sound that was presumably Vilkas’ night song.
Figures Farkas would be the one who could shake the rafters, doesn’t it?
He wanted to laugh at that, but a glance to his right, toward Skjor’s chambers, sent a sharp pain through his heart and made him feel just slightly sick. He didn’t understand it, really. He hadn’t known Skjor that long. But Skjor and Aela had planned that outing to celebrate him; between that and the gruesome predicaments of the werewolves and werebears in that ruin, it felt personal. Cruel, and personal, and hurtful; and he wanted nothing more than to tear each and every one of the Silver Hand to shreds.
Aela was breathing quietly; not necessarily snoring, perhaps not quite asleep. He reached out and shook her by the shoulder, gently; she rolled toward him and stood.
“I’ve got the plans,” he whispered.
“Perfect! Hopefully this will let us know more about their movements. I think we’ve got them on the run. But…”
Chip raised an eyebrow. “But?”
“I’ve been hearing rumors of activity. There’s a group of them out in Hjaalmarch.”
“I’ll be happy to take care of them.”
“Good. Run fast, my friend. We’ll have the cowards on their heels.”
The place Aela had marked on his map was a cavern tucked into the side of a hill, alongside one of the many tributaries that criss-crossed Whiterun’s plains. It was slightly overcast on this early morning, the perfect light for hunting wildlife, and Chip found himself grinning at the opportunity. It had been some time since he’d taken normal prey with this bow, and he didn’t want to lose Hircine’s favor as a human hunter. He missed the first elk he shot at, but grinned anyway.
Out of practice. Time to remedy that.
It was exhilarating, running west through the chill morning air. He passed several pairs of mammoth and heard saber cats screaming somewhere just out of sight, and smiled. The hunt was why he’d never felt comfortable living in Riften proper. His father and his people favored a different kind of hunt; Chip needed to run, and see the wide spaces, and breathe the cold air. A small pack of wolves ran alongside him for a bit before being distracted by the chance to nip at some mammoths’ heels; Chip laughed and silently wished them luck on their hunt. As he neared the range of hills that marked Whiterun Hold’s northern boundary he got his first kill; a deer across the stream saw him but hesitated a moment too long. There was another kill, as well: a slaughterfish wriggled about just at the surface of the stream and was skewered by a quick, standing shot. Chip sighed in contentment. He’d needed this simple hunt, removed from the weight of vengeance or anger or the expectations of other people.
Finally, he rounded the edge of the hills at the rocky point where waters began dropping toward their eventual destination at the mouth of Solitude’s fjord. Corpses impaled on upright spikes and skulls piled near the cave entrance told him that he’d reached the place Aela had sent him – the cave called Orotheim.
He stepped through the cave’s opening and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. There was the steady clanking of a blacksmith’s hammer somewhere ahead and to the left, where the tunnel curved; he stepped into the corner and peered around it to survey the cavern. It had at least two levels that he could see, and the lower and nearer of them was where the smith was working. Someone else was busy doing alchemy on a wooden platform just above the smith.
The smith started complaining loudly. He straightened up and turned around just in time to be struck in the throat by Chip’s first shot. The woman on the platform immediately ran toward the dying man, but didn’t seem to see Chip. A second person ran out of the opening beyond her, to join in the search for the enemy they couldn’t see.
Chip snickered. His father had taught him that sometimes, turning the enemies against each other was the best tactic. He only knew a few spells, but fury was one of them; and he cast it at the woman. The Silver Hand who’d followed her out attacked instantly, burning her with a blast of flame. He wasn’t expecting the arrow that cut him down a moment after he’d killed the woman. Chip was checking the bodies for valuables when two more voices, through the passage beyond the wooden platform, started threatening him.
Crap, they know I’m here. Of course they do.
He slipped through the opening and down the wooden ramp on its far side, his blades at the ready, only to be met by the leader and his huge maul. Chip laid into him, doing a fair amount of damage; but the maul did the same to him, and shortly he was gasping in pain. There was nothing for it but to flee back up the ramp and through to the other cave, healing himself. He turned, readied a wolf arrow, and learned to his relief that the chieftain hadn’t healed himself. It took only a lone bite from the conjured wolf and one more arrow from Chip to finish him. After that it was mere moments before the final bandit followed suit, slumping to the cave floor before the wolf’s snarls.
The trip back to Whiterun was joyful. It was a glorious day, now that the early-morning haze had burned away. Chip ran, and laughed, and hunted. He took down a saber cat from across the stream and watched in glee as its body slumped and slithered down the side of the cliff. He bagged two deer as they ran, feeling the power in his bow growing as his accuracy improved. At the top of a crest he stopped, entranced by the view of High Hrothgar off in the distance, and sank to his knees to breathe a prayer of thanks to Hircine.
Thank you, Lord, for the skill you’ve given me to defeat the Silver Hand. And thank you for your continued guidance as I gather the riches of the fields in your honor.
Before he’d reached Whiterun, he’d bagged at least four more elk. It was the best he’d felt in weeks.
As he approached Aela’s quarters to check in with her, he heard Kodlak’s voice.
“How are the young ones coming along?”
Farkas answered. “Some are too happy to fight. Their blood runs hot.”
Chip smirked. Well, yes, Farkas my friend. It does. But you knew that already.
“I remember when you were the same way,” Kodlak answered dryly. “The more they train, the more they’ll cool down.”
“Gosh, I hope so,” Farkas rumbled. “Otherwise there may be trouble.”
“Just have them focus on the calm in the battle. Control the rage, don’t let it control you.”
Chip felt as though he’d been struck by one of his own arrows. That may be the wisest thing I’ve ever heard. He knew the rage had been powerful in him, lately. It had come close to getting him killed several times, just recently. Kodlak wasn’t speaking to me, directly. But I’d be willing to bet he knows I’m here and was speaking to me anyway. He’s smart. No wonder he’s the leader.
Aela looked up as he entered. “Have you been bringing the battle to the Silver Hand, friend?” she asked quietly. “I wish I could be there with you. Soon enough.”
“Yes. They’ve been dealt with. I took a great deal of pleasure in it.”
“Excellent. You’ve driven them into hiding. Keep this up, and we’ll wipe them out yet. We’ve heard rumors of another group, in the Rift. One last piece of Wuuthrad. Do you know Treva’s Watch?”
“Of course. My home is near there. I’ll clean the place out.”
He’d taken a day to rest and regroup at his home before heading out to Treva’s Watch in a beautiful early morning sun. There was an older man sitting just outside the cave entrance Chip had intended to use, that led into the lower levels of the old fortress.
“Are you the reinforcements?” the man asked with a worried frown. “I was expecting more.”
“Um…”
“We left to help with the war,” the old man said. “And these filth bags swooped in and seized the place! My family is in there. They’re everything to me. Get in there and open the gate, and on top of the posted reward you can have whatever items you’d like.”
“I wasn’t here for a reward, but I’ll be sure to open the gate for you. I’ll see you on the other side.” The only reward I need is seeing the Silver Hand gone.
Chip slipped silently into the tunnel and inched his way along it to the place where it turned up toward the fort. Three men stood at the landing, and none of them looked like an easy kill. He decided to try his fury spell again. It struck the bandit on the right, but as Chip scrambled back into the shadows behind a support beam, the sound of footsteps told him the man was coming closer, rather than attacking his fellows.
Damn it.
Chip held his breath as the bandit emerged into the tunnel, looking about for an enemy. He turned then, and yelled “Ha! Found you!” A moment later Chip breathed a sigh of relief as clashing swords and shields told him the Silver Hand were fighting each other. After a few moments there was a resounding groan, and a thud, following which two of the bandits emerged from the darkness and started looking around.
Hmm. No space to sneak past. Time for a diversion.
He had three wolf arrows left, and placed one just behind the two bandits. They turned to meet the wolf, of course; and as they did, Chip started sinking elven arrows into them. In the nearly pitch darkness he missed several shots, but the wolf had them too distracted to look around for him. He drew his blades and, creeping up silently behind them, took first one and then the other. The wolf ran up the ramp into the fortress proper and attacked another bandit; Chip followed and helped end that one, as well. The wolf he had conjured dissipated, but he continued up a stair to the right and found himself behind the smith he’d heard earlier. The noise of the man’s hammer masked any sound Chip might have made as he approached from behind and slit the man’s throat.
Not my usual style, but you’re a Silver Hand and you don’t deserve to die with honor.
Through a nearby door was another set of narrow hallways and stairs, beyond which Chip could both see and hear a number of the enemy. He lobbed one of his two remaining wolf arrows past the nearest foe and then stepped back to consider his options while the wolf took point. It was far too confined and cramped for him to take on multiple enemies. He saw one man running out of the dark and shot him; but the one behind him had a two-handed weapon and looked tough. He fired one arrow and then stepped back a few paces to where he could plant Hircine’s Totem. It seemed fitting that the Silver Hand should be defeated by an onslaught of the very things they hated most.
The sound was overwhelming. One after the next, were-creatures emerged from Oblivion to press forward into the Silver Hand’s hideout. Chip could barely make out the screams of the humans over the howls of the beasts and the humming of magic; but as he pushed his way up the steps and forward, slipping in the spilled blood and gore, he had no trouble seeing that the Silver Hand in this part of the fortress had come to a sorry end. His ears rang for a moment as the beasts all dissipated with the death of the last man. Chip retrieved the Totem and moved on. He would come back to the bodies later.
He wound his way silently through the maze of corridors, narrowly missing the pressure plate that would have had a spiked wall flying into his face. Just around the corner from that trap he heard a woman’s voice.
“Huh? Is someone there?”
Chip laughed and slammed the totem down into the narrow hallway. “Yes!” he cried out. “It’s Hircine’s own champion and his friends!”
Once again the world around him exploded into a riot of noise, claws, howls, screams, and the overwhelming, maddening scent of blood. There was no room for him to fight, so he stood in back of the pack, his weapons at the ready, and laughed as they destroyed the remnants of the Silver Hand. For a brief moment, once the conjurations disappeared, Chip looked at the ruins of what had been living people a moment or two before and felt a tinge of guilt. Then he saw the cages in the room where they’d been, and snarled, remembering the werebear at Gallows Rock. He would feel no more remorse for these people. There were three more of them, on a wide, circular stairway. Those he killed himself, quickly and brutally; and then he scooped the fragment of Wuuthrad from the chest they’d left unlocked there at the top of the tower.
“Now, my friend,” he said, grinning. “Now we feast, and give thanks to our lord Hircine.” He closed his eyes and transformed eagerly, almost painlessly, retracing his steps through the fortress as an enormous, blood-red werewolf. There were more than a dozen Silver Hand bodies in the place. He consumed them all, feeling his strength growing with each one.
In a store-room just off the exit, in an area he hadn’t checked on his way up, he found three bodies of people dressed in common clothing. He sniffed them carefully.
Not Silver Hand.
No, my friend. But we eat anyway. Claim their souls for our master.
After he reverted to his human form and stepped outside to open the gate for the older man whose home this was, he discovered a few more Silver Hand along the walls. Between the two of them, it wasn’t difficult to finish them off. Even the rough-spoken Nord who sneered at him from the top of a stairwell blanched when Chip said, “Rip me open, eh? Guess what. Everyone inside is dead. I ate them all. You’re next.”
He didn’t like lying to the old man, Stalleo, when asked whether he’d seen the man’s family. He didn’t know, of course, whether the people in common clothes were they, but he had his suspicions. Stalleo would find them soon enough. Chip took his leave and rushed back through the night toward Riften, to catch a carriage back to Whiterun.
He met Aela outside, just past Breezehome.
“I’ve got the fragment,” he said quietly, handing it to her. She stared at him, and sniffed.
“And you got more than that. You have a grim look about you.”
“Yes, I did. A good bit more. So now I’m ready for more work.”
Just then he felt the hackles on his neck rise. Aela glanced past him and nodded, and he turned just in time to see Vilkas walk past them both, heading for the gate without so much as an acknowledgment that Chip was there. Chip had to fight himself to keep a low growl from rumbling in his throat.
I hate him. I really do.
He wondered whether his feelings showed on his face, as Jon Battleborn, walking toward the center of town, looked at him with a puzzled expression. Chip nodded at the man and turned back to Aela.
“There is always more work to be done, Shield-Brother. But I fear that Kodlak has gotten wind of our recent efforts. He’s asked to see you. My advice? Always be honest with the old man, but don’t tell him anything he doesn’t need to know.”
Chip nodded. “Thank you. I have some questions for him as well. I’ll see you later, Aela.”
He left her side and started for Jorrvaskr. Maybe, if he had a private audience with the Harbinger, he would finally be able to learn how – and why – he had become a werewolf.