Chip made sure to be outside the walls before the sun disappeared behind the western mountains. It wasn’t that he was concerned about his fellow Circle members. None of them aside from Farkas had said anything at all about his being a werewolf. He’d been given an assignment to carry out and intended to do it shortly. But given how insistent the call of the moons had been the previous night, he was fairly certain what would happen on this one.
He made his way out the gates of Whiterun and well out around the corner of the mountain on which the city sat. He gathered some alchemical plants and picked at some ore deposits as it grew darker, and was just packing the ore away when his heart started pounding. He ran into the dark, wanting to get as far away from prying eyes as he could before the inevitable happened.
The wolf emerged from the cocoon of pain that seemed inexplicably easier to endure with each transformation. It ran out into the wilderness, turning back to glance at Dragonsreach’s windows glinting with firelight beneath the overhanging moons. Then it sniffed the air for prey. The dark smell of damp soil and growing things was overlaid with the sharp tang of burning wood and the musky scent of mammoths. The wolf turned to the west; there was a huge fire farther out onto the plains. It grinned and loped in that direction.
Meat.
From deep within the great beast Chip groaned. No, that’s not a fire we want to explore! That’s a giant’s bonfire! Stop…
But he’d stopped the wolf the night before, and it wasn’t taking no for an answer this time. It made a beeline for the fire, ignoring the elk that passed by and pausing as it reached the crest of the hill just before the camp. There was a giant next to the fire, and the sound of heavy footsteps said there was at least one more out in the dark. It raised its snout to the sky and howled, and a pair of werewolves appeared beside it.
The wolf accelerated toward the fire and collided with the giant, sending it flying backwards. Its claws ripped at the giant’s skin, the smell of blood driving it onward; but when the giant rolled over to its knees and began to rise, the wolf backed off and allowed its two companions to take over. It circled around behind the battle, waiting for an opening, and then crashed into the giant once again. It landed hard with no chance to recover. The wolf shredded the giant and then eagerly set about devouring the huge body.
Meat.
Snarling and growling from the far side of the fire grabbed the wolf’s attention as it finished consuming the giant. The summoned werewolves were chasing another giant; he dashed gleefully after them. It felt good to run, to feel the breeze riffling through his fur, to sense the terror from the behemoth fleeing the power of three werewolves as if it was nothing more than a rabbit. Again, he purposefully collided with the giant and staggered it; this time it took only moments before he was gulping the creature’s meat and blood, crunching its bones, and collecting its soul.
Lord Hircine will be pleased.
Chip blinked as he recognized that thought. He wasn’t certain whether it had been his thought, or the wolf’s. Maybe it was both of them.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
What he knew, though, with a sudden clarity that he’d not experienced before, was that he needed more souls for Hircine. He needed them this very night.
He ran west for a minute or so but then stopped, and sniffed the air, and thought hard. There were men, in a place to the northeast. His smaller, weaker form knew the name of that place. It mattered not; it was a place to collect souls, and to gorge on meat and sinew. He ran back toward Whiterun until he neared the encampment surrounded with sharp stockade fencing. It was late, and yet he heard at least one human chopping wood inside the fencing.
He ran through an open gate and tossed that human through the air. The man’s shrieking, though, alerted several other humans in the enclosure. The wolf backed up, wary of taking on so many adversaries at once, and roared at them; all of them turned and fled. It took the wolf one leap and one swipe to kill the man who’d been chopping wood; he devoured the carcass eagerly.
One.
“Come on, you monster!”
The woman’s voice from just outside the palisade was followed by the snapping sound and pain of a lightning spell. The wolf yelped, but hesitated only a heartbeat before rushing forward into the mage. She, like the others, fell over; and in spite of the arrows flying in their direction she, like the others, was consumed.
Two.
The archers in the enclosure gave up their souls to Hircine just as easily. The wolf looked around, his tongue lolling out in amusement. There must be more. Inside, perhaps.
The werewolf nearly filled the narrow mine tunnel and inadvertently tripped the rock-fall trap set up near its entrance, although he did avoid the rocks. He leapt down the passage and took a gigantic swipe at the man mining iron. That bandit didn’t have time to react and, like all those outside, was consumed in a moment or two.
He could smell more people below him, through a passage behind a locked gate. He swiped at the gate with his claws, over and over, but it wouldn’t break open or budge. He roared down the mine in frustration and heard voices yelling, as though the bandits were fighting each other.
We need our human hands to open the lock.
The werewolf whined, but acquiesced. A moment later, Chip found himself gasping for air as he emerged from the transformation. He shook his head and stretched his back out.
“That was weird, Wolf,” he murmured. “But thank you. I think there’s a key on this body.” He turned to find a tattered pile of leftover bits where the bandit had been and knelt, grimacing in distaste as he moved material around looking for the key. It was there, beneath what the wolf hadn’t eaten, and he picked it up gingerly, wishing he’d paid a bit more attention to the lock-picking lessons he’d had as a boy.
The gate swung open. Chip readied his blades and slipped down the tight passage to a platform overlooking a cavern full of mammoth parts, tusks, and meat. This was obviously a poaching operation gone sour, with two of the poachers standing over the body of a third. He wished he knew exactly how to change back to his wolf form at will; but since he didn’t, he jumped the guard railing with daggers flying. Whether they simply hadn’t heard him approach or whether he just got lucky, he wasn’t sure, but both of the poachers dropped within moments of his reaching them.
He took coins and potions and a few other things that looked as though they might be useful, and then left the camp behind. As he trotted across the darkened tundra heading southeast – toward Riverwood, where his assignment was – it finally occurred to him to wonder why it had seemed so important to take on this bandits’ den.
He grinned to himself. “Meat.”
He trudged along the road leading through Haafingar, amused that it was once again dark. He needed to get all the way down the peninsula to its far end in order to find his next job.
I’m beginning to be a night creature in spite of myself. I wonder if this is what Da felt like.
Nah. I can’t imagine that he felt like… THIS.
At least the job for Aela had been simple enough. The blacksmith’s home had been invaded by – of all things – a hagraven. Ordinarily, Chip might have been nervous about such a problem, but he had with him a potion of paralysis. Coating Grabber with that had allowed him to burst into the house, catch the hagraven off-guard, and put her down before she had a chance to stand up again. He’d been surprised by the praise and gold he’d gotten for that job. And yet, hagravens were fearsome adversaries, so perhaps he had earned it after all. Aela had been pleased, at any rate.
Skjor had stopped him. “I have a job for you. It’s a bit of a sensitive matter that the Companions have been asked to help with,” he’d said. A son from one of the leading families – Skjor hadn’t specified which one – had left a family heirloom behind, fleeing from Bruca’s Leap Redoubt. It wasn’t an especially valuable weapon, just a steel war axe; but it was something the family had passed down for generations and the person who had approached Skjor was anxious to have it back with a minimum of public embarrassment. Chip had been quietly amused. But he’d agreed, and had happily settled onto the wagon’s seat to spend a warm day in a comfortable trip to Solitude.
He’d just passed the switchback that led up to the Thalmor Embassy when he started feeling as well as hearing the pounding of his heart. He looked up into the skies in dismay. The moons were in their waning phase on this night. He shouldn’t be turning in response to their influence, not this night; the previous night’s adventures had been bad enough.
“Damn it!” he cried out, breaking into a full run. It was vital to get as far away from any possible encounters as he could, given the inexorable nature of the transformation. He was still on the road, but in the deepest of shadows under an overhanging dirt embankment, when the change took him. He gasped, and doubled over; but it seemed only a moment or two before the wolf rose in the place he’d been and howled at the orange crescent above him.
The wolf didn’t hesitate at all. He just hurtled down the road toward his human host’s destination. It was one advantage he had over those shorter, weaker legs: he could move at great speed. He’d made it halfway to Dragon Bridge in no time at all and only slowed down when there was a cry of distress from the road just ahead. He dropped off the side of the road into the brush, hoping to remain unseen; but it wasn’t to be. One figure, a woman, hurtled past him. He thought he caught a whiff of decay, but couldn’t take time to analyze the scent because the two figures just behind rushed forward to attack him.
Vigilants.
They started beating on him with maces that burned like fire. Farkas’ warning against silvered weapons bubbled up from somewhere, and made him angry. He snarled at them; then he roared at them and they scrambled out of his way in fear, just the way the poachers in their enclosure had. He took a few steps forward and swatted at the nearer of them, a woman in steel plate. She flew through the air and crashed into a boulder on the far side of the road. As she groaned in pain, he took a single leap and was on her, claiming her meat for himself and her soul for Hircine. The other Vigilant ran toward them, shouting; but the man was wearing only light robes and fell to a single swipe of the wolf’s claws.
He looked around for signs of the first figure that had run past. Vampire. But he neither saw nor smelled any sign of the creature and he didn’t intend to go looking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to taste vampire flesh, and he didn’t think there was anything of them to claim for Hircine. Instead, he dashed down the road again, toward the gate of Dragon Bridge. It was very late now, and very dark, and if he hurried he might get through the town without alerting any of the guards.
He was almost to the gate of the bridge itself, in fact, before a guard stepped out into the crossroads and raised a torch. It was tempting to stop and eat him as well, but he thought better of it and sprinted across the bridge to the settlement on its far side. He ran past the darkened buildings and then stopped, confused. There was a voice telling him to turn around.
Oh thank the gods. Go back. We have to go down the river from Dragon Bridge to get there. We’re going the wrong way.
The wolf whined. He recognized the voice, more or less, as being a part of himself. But this voice was always telling him no, or stop, or change. He didn’t like it. Still, he thought as he began backtracking, there would be more meat once they got to the Forsworn camp, and that seemed a good reason to go.
He scuttled back down the road and dropped off to the left just before the bridge, working his way slowly along the water’s edge. One or two mudcrabs took exception to his presence, but a quick swipe or two of his powerful paws took care of them. He crossed the river just before the falls, and continued along its edge.
Suddenly, he found himself at Bruca’s Leap. He knew this because a screaming man wearing skins and bones and wielding a sword that looked more like a stick with spines attacked him. He used his weight to knock the man down and eagerly ran forward, slashing with his paws and snapping at the man’s throat with his teeth. As he devoured the man he felt a surge of power, but his attention was taken by the arrows whizzing past his head.
“Die, you filthy beast!” a voice called from uphill to the left. He snarled, and then grinned as the man took a step backward. Then he attacked, taking the man down with a single blow and consuming everything he could of the body. It was silent then; the wolf looked around himself in confusion.
Inside the cave. It’s inside the cave. That’s where they live.
The wolf snarled, annoyed at his other voice – the one that was usually right. Then he shook himself and headed inside the cave.
It was an even tighter fit for the werewolf inside this narrow tunnel than it had been in the poachers’ headquarters. He moved forward, though, as carefully as he could, trying not to let his huge paws knock anything noisy aside. The passage ended at a window overlooking a large, open room. He could see and smell figures moving around on a platform at the far side of the space. He was excited. Meat. A lot of meat. He sniffed the air again. One of them smelled – different, somehow. Wrong.
He roared out through the window, startling the two figures that looked up at him and ran forward and out of his line of sight. The wolf turned down a short side passage lined with sharpened spikes, and turned again at the end of that just as a woman in Nord mail entered at the other end. She raised a mace and howled a challenge at him as she sprinted forward; but the wolf merely sneered and ended her with a single swipe of his paw. As he bent to consume her flesh, an ice spike narrowly missed skewering one shoulder. He looked up, growling, and spotted the creature he’d smelled before. It was a man, but it had a hole in its chest and seemed completely unnatural.
Briarheart. Avoid him.
The wolf was annoyed, but knew his human voice was right. He raised his muzzle toward the ceiling and howled, and two companions appeared. The wolf leapt straight for the Briarheart’s throat but was taken out by a quick ice spike. The second companion, a werewolf like himself, blocked the narrow passage; but he leapt into the air and the companion rushed underneath him to attack. The Briarheart’s magic struck the companion and dissipated him. A second spike struck the werewolf; but he jumped past his target, raking his claws into the Briarheart’s odd-smelling flesh as he went. He swiveled, once his feet hit the ground, and turned back to attack with everything he had, slashing and biting and trying to ignore the painful ice piercing his shoulder.
“You can’t beat me!” the man shouted, just as the werewolf’s left paw sank partially into the opening in his chest and ripped him completely open. He felt the man’s blood spray over his fur, and knelt to devour the body, and collect whatever might have been left of the soul for Hircine.
Down in the open portion of this cave, atop a table, was another body stretched out. It had a hole in its chest, and its heart – still warm – was in a wooden bowl beside the body. The werewolf sniffed at it, cautiously.
Eat.
The wolf panted a few times and then did as he had been told. Then he wandered about, looking at things on shelves, sniffing the contents of barrels that his paws were too large and too uncoordinated to open, and feeling unsettled. There was something else he had to do here, and he couldn’t remember what that was.
The axe. We need to find the axe.
The wolf was still confused.
Let me do it.
The wolf was tired, and full, and had given Hircine many souls on this night. He panted for a moment, shook himself off, and then allowed the human’s consciousness to take control, even though it would hurt.
I sleep.
Thank you.
A moment later Chip, gasping for air once more as the sharp pain of transformation took his breath away for a moment, straightened and looked around the room. The wolf hadn’t failed, hadn’t done wrong. There was no chest in sight that would have held the family-heirloom axe that its owner had lost here. That meant only that the chest was hidden; and while Chip was beginning to appreciate his wolf-self for his own strengths, he had been trained to locate hidden things from the time he’d been very small.
“Had to have learned something by growing up in a household full of thieves, after all,” he said to nobody in particular.
The chest he was looking for, as it turned out, was in a place the wolf probably could not have reached. It was below the wooden platform, but behind a grouping of extremely sharp spikes made from horns. He stopped just in time to keep from planting a foot directly into a bear trap. It would have been nearly impossible for him to avoid being caught, as a wolf. He opened the chest and smiled; for not only was the unremarkable steel axe there in the chest, but so were a fat coin purse and an enchanted steel greatsword that he could sell.
He spent a goodly bit of time outside the cave, checking the Forsworn encampment for anything he might have missed. Finding nothing more exciting than a chicken’s nest, he headed back down to the river and along its northern bank, eastward to Dragon Bridge. It was a long run, and he was tired once he reached the carriage driver’s tent to awaken him, but he’d done what he’d been asked to do and was happy for it.
All the way back to Whiterun he dozed in fits and starts. During his conscious moments he thought about his wolf. It was odd. He wasn’t certain whether he was in the wolf during those times the wolf was in control, or whether he was the wolf and his mind just operated on a different level during those times. It seemed as though they had talked to each other, in a way, this time. Almost like a pair of friends might. He thought of Farkas, and how completely comfortable he’d seemed with himself as a werewolf. That made him smile.
And then he thought about Vilkas, the first time he’d laid eyes on him and heard him tell Kodlak “…but I still hear the call of the blood.”
It was unsettling, all of it, even after the amount of time he’d spent traveling about with this shape-shifting as a part of his existence. He still didn’t know whether it was a good thing that he could become “fearsome,” as Farkas had said. And strangest of all, in his mind, was the question of how he had become a werewolf in the first place. Try as he might, wrack his memory though he did, he couldn’t recall a single time when he might have even come near another werewolf – until Sinding, of course, but that had been after he’d already turned for the first time. He’d not met Hircine’s aspect until later, as well. No, there had to be something else to it.
Skjor was in his private quarters when Chip found him to hand over the results of the “sensitive mission.”
“Here you go. I retrieved the heirloom axe and took care of a bunch of Forsworn in the process.”
Skjor didn’t quite smile, but he came close. “Nice work with this one,” he said. “You make us all proud.” He handed Chip a sack of coin.
Chip was a little embarrassed. I make them all proud? That’s an odd thing to say. “Well thanks,” he said. “As long as the job got done. Is there anything else that needs doing right this minute?”
He was hoping, truthfully, that Skjor would say no. He wanted to go back to his home for a day or two, see to the livestock, pull weeds – for the grass was ruthless in growing up through his front stoop and he was forever working at it – and maybe rest for awhile, do some alchemy. To his dismay, Skjor’s eyes brightened and he nodded.
“Yeah, as it happens. The…” he cleared his throat. “So-called ‘prison’ in Riften leaks like one of their fishnets.”
Chip laughed. “Yeah, I know it well. I’m, uh… from that area.”
“This is what happens when you let thieves run your town,” Skjor said disdainfully.
Chip clenched his jaw. It wasn’t the thieves that were the problem; it was the Black-Briars. Who else could arrange for her kin to have cells that rivaled the finest rooms in the castles? But it would do nothing but get him in trouble to contradict Skjor, who was far his superior.
“The prisoners just walk right out,” Skjor continued. “One of them’s escaped, and you’re going to find that coward. At this point they don’t care what happens to him, and neither do I. Best just kill him and be done with it.”
Chip’s hackles began to rise. Da always told me that there’s no profit in killing – that was the Dark Brotherhood’s line of business. I don’t like the idea of just taking a life for no reason…
“Be careful around this one,” Skjor said, in a tone of voice that said he meant it. “This one is known to be dangerous.”
Just as quickly as Chip’s anger had begun to rise, it dissipated. He wasn’t in the Guild. The Companions did things differently, and he was new to their ways. Surely, if they wanted this criminal dead there was a reason for him to be dead.
He took a deep breath as he pushed the doors of Jorrvaskr open yet again, and prepared to take a carriage to Riften. He climbed up into the back of the carriage, realizing that he’d made a decision just while walking through town.
I’m gonna ask Da. If anyone knows who was in the prison, he will.
He stopped to give Snilf, the beggar, a coin. He always did, when he saw the beggars. His Da had given him a hard time about that, once, telling him it was a waste of his money; but he didn’t care. He was pretty sure nobody would sit around the marketplace in Riften, of all places, doing nothing for year after year, unless there was a good reason for it. Snilf smiled and thanked him, as usual, and then shook his head.
“That Edda. She’s as crazy as a loon! At least she doesn’t have the mind to realize what a horrible world this is. She’s the lucky one.”
Chip’s mouth dropped open for a moment. He’d never heard more than a few words from Snilf, and this was startling.
“Just leave Riften,” Snilf continued. “Go far, far away and never return. This place is nothing but a rotten, stinking corpse that’s sat in the sun far too long.”
The hair on Chip’s neck rose again, to the point that he could nearly feel his inner wolf whining to get away. This was entirely too strange.
“But you’ve known me most of my life, Snilf,” he said quietly. “This is my home. You know that. Why would I leave now?”
Snilf looked up at him, blinked, and said “need something?” in a tone that could easily have come from someone else entirely. Chip did back away, this time. He knew better than to make assumptions about people others called “crazy.” Usually they were just odd, and sometimes they had a real gift. But he’d never heard Snilf say more than half a dozen words at a time and never anything like this.
He circled around the exterior of the marketplace, too rattled to approach his father directly before he’d gotten a handle on himself. He should have known better; as soon as he got within hailing distance Brynjolf, dressed in his green clothing as usual, looked over at him.
“How’ve you been, lad? Looks like you’re here on a mission.”
Chip sighed. “Yeah, I can’t fool you, can I?”
“That’s why I’m the best,” Brynjolf said, smirking. “What’s up?”
Chip hopped over the stone wall to stand in front of his father. “It’s like this, Da,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I seem to have joined the Companions.”
Brynjolf’s eyebrows rose, just a bit, for just a second; but he was too accomplished a con man to let his surprise show for long. “Seem to have? That’s a pretty prestigious group to have joined, lad.”
Chip snorted. “Prestigious? You’re calling old Farkas ‘prestigious’? He says hello, by the way. Why is it that everywhere I go, people know who you are?”
Brynjolf grinned. “Practice,” he said. “So what can I help you with?”
Chip gave a quick glance around the slowly-darkening marketplace to make sure they weren’t being watched too closely. He lowered his voice. “What do you know about prisoners recently in the jail here?”
Brynjolf rubbed his chin. “A couple of low-lifes. One of them a Redguard, one a Nord. Don’t know anything about either one of them for certain.”
“And one of them escaped?”
Brynjolf nodded. “The Nord. Bought some armor from Balimund not long ago. Let me guess, someone’s asked the Companions to bump him off.”
It was Chip’s turn to have his eyebrows rise. “Well not exactly to bump him off, but to ‘take care of him.’ I… “
Brynjolf smiled. “You aren’t sure because we always taught you killing is bad for business.”
Chip nodded.
“Well, you see, lad, sometimes that is the business. Nothing’s ever black and white the way some would have you believe. Not even the wars were clear-cut right or wrong, and don’t you ever tell King Ulfric you heard me say that.”
Chip laughed. “Alright. So you’re saying you won’t… I don’t know, disown me or something if I do this thing?”
One corner of Brynjolf’s mouth rose. “I’m saying that if you find this escaped prisoner – and I don’t think he’s gone far – you’re not likely going to have a choice one way or the other. Besides, I think you can trust the Companions’ judgment. They may have a bit of an inflated opinion of their own righteousness but they’re good people and they’ve been around at least as long as…” he cleared his throat. “My organization. By the way, you might want to try out the north gate.”
“Thanks, Da,” Chip said, waving, and trotted back toward the gate he’d just entered. He’d been reasonably sure that Brynjolf’s status as the eyes and ears of Riften would serve him well, and so it had.
And indeed, once he stepped out into the fading light he saw and heard a Nord grumbling about wanting a regular beer, as he walked north past the Khajiit caravan.
“Hey, you! Stop!” he yelled. The Nord turned to look at him and then broke into a run. Chip aimed and shot one of Hircine’s arrows at the man. It struck him in the arm and stopped him cold as he grabbed the wound; but even better, the werewolf that stepped out of the magic swatted him to the ground immediately. To his credit, the man was tough; he stood and battled the werewolf hard, even as Chip drew another arrow. The Khajiit ran from their tents to get out of the line of fire, and just to perfect the chaos of the moment one of the horses from the stables ran down the hill to join in the fray. The Nord had the werewolf nearly down, a fact that had Chip glad he’d decided to stick with archery. He saw the Khajiit’s bodyguard move in with his sword raised, just as he released a final arrow. Who got the killing blow he wasn’t certain. What was certain was that this was the escaped prisoner, and that he wasn’t going to be a problem any longer.
Chip sighed happily and broke into a jog, heading west. He was going to spend a night in his own bed before heading back to Whiterun.