Not Alone (A Skyrim Fanfiction)

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

     I just stared for a good minute and a half.  I would most likely have stared longer, but I felt a tugging on my elbow and looked back to see Aetra pointing off to the right, where I could see the patrol coming back our way.  Still, I turned back and looked for about another ten seconds before finally following Aetra back down the incline.

     We returned to the horses, but I didn’t immediately mount up.  I just stood there with one hand on Gormlaith’s mane, staring at a swirl of hair in her coat. 

     I had cleared the last Imperial camp out of Skyrim a year ago.  Ulfric had sent out scouts all over the reaches of Skyrim and sent his generals to ferret out the last few camps those scouts had found.  I well remembered the final stand of the last Imperial general because I had been there, fighting by Galmar Stone-Fist’s side.  We had struck him down together as two of Ulfric’s most trusted generals.  We hadn’t just missed one, this was a new camp. 

     I now had a pretty good idea of what Ulfric wanted me for.  Somehow, impossibly, the Imperial Legion was again building up its presence in Skyrim.

     “We should really keep going,” Aetra urged me.  “We’re still too close to the camp here.”

     Aetra only knew me as the Guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild, unlike Brynjolf, Vex, and Delvin, who knew me as a Stormcloak and the Dragonborn as well.  She had no idea what this meant to me personally, and I didn’t want her to know.  Still, I stated, “That was an Imperial camp.”  I think I really just needed someone to affirm in words what I had just seen with my own eyes.

     “Yes, it was.  Who cares if the Stormcloaks and the Imperials fight for the rest of the Fourth Era?  A war would mean a lot of opportunities for the Guild.”

     I couldn’t get angry at her because I knew that was true and any other response besides agreement would be completely out of character for the Guildmaster.  “It also means more dangerous roads and possible attack on Riften,” I pointed out.  I climbed onto Gormlaith.  “Let’s just go.”  I nudged her into a trot despite the blackness of the woods.

     A few hours before dawn we finally reached the plains between the Darkwater River and the Throat of the World.  Gormlaith was still trotting strongly and showing no sign of tiring, so I urged her into a canter.  I heard hoof beats from behind me and Aetra came into view on my right.

     “You’re on the wrong side,” I called over the wind.  “Whiterun’s that way.”  I pointed to the left.

     “I’m coming with you.”  She brushed hair out of her eyes and looked at me obstinately.

     No, you really aren’t.  “No, you aren’t.  You’re going to go do that job in Whiterun.”

     Aetra glared at me, then clucked to Vipir’s horse and sent him galloping in front of Gormlaith, only to halt him suddenly in her face.  Gormlaith slid to a stop with a snort and a half-rear and I let out a curse as I was almost thrown over her neck.  “Do you think I’m dimwitted?” she demanded angrily.  “You get as emotional as a little girl who spilled her milk when you talk about the Civil War!  Whatever you’re going to Solitude for, I doubt it’s for a simple job or any other lie you try to concoct.”

     As much as I really wanted to use Unrelenting Force to throw her of the horse, I felt a little prick of admiration for her spunk.  “I really don’t have time for this.”  I steered Gormlaith around the white horse, but Aetra caught her bridle and tuned her back around.

     “And what will Delvin and the rest say when I just left you to do a simple job and you run into some sort of trouble?  I thought you didn’t like traitors.”  The red sun was starting to rise, and it just served to make her expression all the more fierce.