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

Chapter 7: Egil

Ocellina and Egil rode Merchant's road from Blackmoor north towards the intersection between Hjaalmarch, the Pale, and Whiterun Hold. The hold border was marked by the Pale Mountains at the northern edge where the Great Forest of Whiterun ended. Their path wouldn't take them directly through it, but some of it, which bothered Ocellina greatly. She expressed her desire to stay out but she couldn't argue with Egil's logic that the pine trees broke the heavy wind and snow.

Their horses were slow, slogging in the deep snow, eventually slowing their progress on the journey. They came upon a dozen of merchants and guards trudging through the snow too. They traveled on sleds guided by horses which also had a hard time moving through the snow. Ocellina objected to Egil traveling with the merchants but he did so anyway.

When the sun was low the caravan reached the totem of the bear.

Skinraskr, a fur-trader from Eastmarch. He took off his fur cap and set it aside from him. He scratched his flaxen whiskers and looked at the stone totem. A laced bear carved with intricate knots and runes blessed all Nords on its path. He explained how his father took him and his brothers to the totem every winter before he passed in the Great War. It was a totem dedicated to the Nordic God Tsun, the God of Trials and Adversity. He then explained how he and his company was traveling to Dawnstar, then to Windhelm, and ended at Winterhold.

"What about you, friends?" he said after emptying a bottle of ale.

"We are traveling to Solitude," answered Egil.

Skinraskr added more wood to the fire. "Better watch it there. Fighting is getting worse in the Pale."

"What's happening?" asked Ocellina.

The fur-trader shifted uncomfortably on his blanket he laid out in the snow. "Warbands are taking to the sound of coin. The Stormcloaks are attacking the Empire as the Winter means nothing to us Nords. The Empire's solution is to hire mercenaries who will do the fighting where their southern men cannot. You travel to Solitude? Watch, for a fierce battle raged in Stonehills and who knows which way it went. The fighting is getting closer to Morthal, would be there too, if it weren't for those bogs. Be careful on Mud Way, it isn't safe."

Isn't it ever? Egil thought.

When night fell and the caravan fell asleep, Ocellina stayed awake by the fire. She didn't break her stare. From a necklace around her neck, she rubbed a purple stone between her fingers. Her lips quivered and she sneezed softly a few times.

Egil couldn't see her shake in all of her clothes but he knew she was. In his journal that night he wrote how he still didn't know much about Ocellina. That they had been riding for a couple of days and she has yet to divulge anything other than what she said in Whiterun. He also wrote that he began to regret his mission.

***

The next day they entered Hjaalmarch. Egil's heart sank to see barren wagons covered in snow overturned on the sides of roads. Their supplies stripped and littered about. Limbs of bodies poked out of the snow. Frost clung to them and their skin the color of the ocean.

Farms were flattened and black skeletons of cottages rested on scorched squares. More bodies hung from poles staked at the side of the road.

Egil stopped, dismounted, and examined the leather etched with runes nailed to the pole.

"The Military Court in Solitude," he read aloud, "has sentenced this individual to death by hanging for acting as an agent of terrorism and insurrection having heard his testimony and defense. Removal of the condemned body for burial in a marked grave is strictly forbidden."