The Fall Of Empires- A Skyrim Fanfiction

Prologue

The bitter cold wind seemed to lash at me, making me wonder what I was doing here at all. When I was young, my mother had told me that I had a tendency to seek out trouble more than even trouble found me by itself. I had to admit to myself, she was right.

After all, why would a merchant who'd come to trade at the ports of Windhelm travel all the way to the bleak town of Winterhold? My reason that I was looking up 'further trade opportunities' seemed rather flimsy even to me. 

My mother had also said more than once, I was going to die simply because I went around poking my nose in places where it didn't belong. And staring at the outline of the vast armada of the Aldmeri Dominion sailing towards Skyrim, I had a bad feeling she was right about that too. 

How rude of me though. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sha'ir al' Arakh, and I'm a merchant from Sentinel, the capital of Hammerfell. At least, I'm a humble merchant now. Quite a few years ago, when I was barely twenty, I was better known as the Desert Viper. Back then, I was a soldier. One of the best too.

But times changed, and here I was, far away from the glory days of my youth, leagues away from home, standing at the front of what seemed to be my demise, and all I could think to myself was how stupid the fleet of the Dominion was, trying to sail through waters like those of the Sea of Ghosts.

Treacherous barely described them. Apart from the massive icebergs that were clouded by the perpetual mists, there were other... arcane phenomena at work as well. Having crossed blades with the Thalmor one too many times, I had a very healthy respect for magic. I'd never had the knack for it myself, so I threw myself into mastering every weapon I could get my hands on. My favorite by far though, was a pair of elegant scimitars that had been a present to me from my parents when I had turned sixteen. Made of ebony, they possessed a dark sheen to them and were so sharp, they could behead a man in a stroke. 

But anyway, I could see the Thalmor fleet was having trouble. And the few that got close enough to land, there was a force awaiting them. A woman was at their front, wearing ornate carved armor that seemed to be made of scales, and lightning flickered in her palm. A mage then. Pretty as well, I mused. I decided to go talk to her, maybe offer her some help against the Aldmeri. Not that she seemed to need it, from the way the elves who got electrocuted screamed. I couldn't resist the call of blood however, and I jogged towards the place, anticipation building in my stomach.

"Hold steady! The bastards can't take this much longer!" she yelled, and her men cheered, with cries of "Dragonborn!", and "Skyrim is for the Nords!" I took another look at the woman and couldn't believe that the slight dark haired woman was the legendary Dragonborn, conqueror of the dragon Alduin, and the commander of the Dragonborn's Battalion, the new name for the combined troops of the alliance between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks. 

So here was the reason why Skyrim troops had finally managed to stop bickering amongst themselves. Not that the Hammerfell factions were united in thought always, but hey, when the country was threatened, we managed to work together and deal with the external problem before coming back to our own little qualms.

After all, we had managed to kick the Aldmeri out by ourselves. Well, it was more of getting them so exhausted that they left voluntarily, but the result remained. And yes, I was one of the men who had a slight grudge against the Empire for cutting us loose when we needed them. And also yes, I hated the Aldmeri with a fury equaled only by my tendency to poke my nose into issues that I'd better off not involving myself in. Like now, al'Arakh. What in Onsi's name are you doing here?

I'd hired a horse at the Windhelm stables and rode hard here, after hearing the news of an Aldmeri attack. I joined a troop of soldiers from Windhelm in marching there, and apart from the occasional comment on my 'curved swords', we'd gotten on well. At Winterhold, they'd left to join the rest of the forces while I decided to take a look at what they, and possibly I would be facing.