Skyrim: The Last Dragonborn (The Dragonborn Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 2: Rogger

Rogger split the lab's shoulder in half by sawing through the spine. He set the saw side, tossed the shoulder-halves into a bucket. He wiped his hands against his apron made of Horker skin and sniffled. 

Slipping a knife from his scabbard, he started making deft and heavy slices into the lamb's ribs - violent cuts around the rack that separated them from the shoulder. 

When he was finished, he washed his hands in a bucket of cold water. Outside his house, Geese chased each other. A boy, no more than ten, chased after hiccuping and yelping. His mother wasn't too far behind, pulling up her dress as she gave chase.

"Morn', Master Rogger," she yelped in passing.

Rogger gave her a nod as he dried his hands.  The two ducks in the opening of his wooden fence quacked and scattered at the sight of a broad man as tall as Rogger. Osmunder's smile inside of his gray beard and mustache never ceased to dwindle, even in the frost of Winter.

"Morning, Roggnavar." 

Osmunder took his leather cap from his head and set it down on a wooden chopping block.

"Morning."

"Did you get any sleep?"

Rogger shook his head. Osmunder produced a bladder of water from his satchel and popped the cork. 

"Water?"

Rogger sniffled again, sucking back the snot and took the bladder. 

"Got to get this to Vanske in the tavern."

"May I accompany you?" Osmunder asked. 

Rogger's silence wasn't protest, but Osmunder would have followed regardless. They passed a flock of two dozen sheep as they crossed the road past the clan Eikerdigh raider. The shepherd, Ensom, clutched his crook to his chest and watched the herd keenly. His eyes sagged and his black hair spilled out from under his fur cap.

The waves weren't heavy in the morning as they normally were. Their white foam spat and rolled over the smooth rocky shore and then retreated back into the sea. The girls, Besi and Tola, did laundry in buckets, scrubbing the clothes on boards. One of them, Besi, a younger girl with scarlet hair and matching freckles under her hazel eyes looked up at Rogger. She giggled and blushed, and then looked on with Tola, who was about his own age. She smiled coly at him. 

"They seem to like you," Osmunder said.

Rogger continued walking. Hens clucked through the center of the muddy village. The pigs snorted and rolled in their pens next to people's homes. Kelta, the blacksmith's wife, took a sack by the edges and dumped their food scraps into a trough for the pigs. The Smith, Hammond, and his brother Dugal, hammered away at the forge.

"Rogger," said Hammond as he passed their fence. "Got your nails for you lad, you can come get them when you're done."

He dragged himself and his burdens up the hill, over the wooden planks, to the tavern. It was a longhouse built by the Drikkev family ages ago, a typical Nord building with a stone base topped by wood and covered with a sod roof, indistinct from the others with the exception of its size.

The stench of old straw attacked Rogger as he opened the heavy wooden door. Tallow candles burned in bronze braziers that dangled from the wooden rafters. There was no bar, just a pair of long tables covered with crumb-dusted plates that ran the width of the inn. There were only a few sailors spread from the room that gave him sparse looks. Kegs of ale and beer lined the walls by a small table near a wall with a door that lead to the living area of the family. Lars Drikkev ferried a jug of ale to a trio of thickset sailors.