A Skyrim Story

Chapter 2

That was definitely a dragon. Brick was just knocked down when it shouted. If his head was hurting him before, it was killing him now. His vision swam for a few minutes before clearing up, revealing the chaos that was created in the wake of the dragon.

"Kinsman! Get up! The gods may not give us another chance!" Ralof was shouting at him.

Brick stood up as quickly as he could with his hands still bound and followed Ralof into a tower. Once inside, Brick looked around and realized that Ulfric Stormcloak was standing beside the door. On the floor, another Stormcloak tended over a wounded soldier.

Ralof and Ulfric exchanged some quick words before Ralof was telling Brick to follow him up the stairs. They reached a landing before the dragon broke through the wall, killing another Stormcloak instantly. Brick and Ralof ducted down on the stairs; the dragon's fire singeing the top of their hair. As soon as it was there, it vanished back into the sky.

"See the inn on the other side? Jump through the roof and keep going! Go! We'll follow when we can!" Ralof yelled over the ringing in their ears.

Brick looked out the window, uncertain if he could even make it. Ralof was encouraging him that he'll be fine and that they'll meet up again, and that was all Brick needed before he took the lead out of the hole. He landed with a solid thud, just barely missing the flaming remains of the inn. Quickly, he found his footing and took off to the other side of the inn, falling thought to the floor below. Brick ran outside but turned back around as he saw the dragon land and nearly cook a child. The Imperial from before helped the child away from the flames.

"Still alive, prisoner? Keep close to me if you want to stay that way," he yelled over the Brick before turning to talk to the child and another Nord. Brick would have been insulted if not for the fact that clearly the Imperial knew what he was doing.

Brick followed the Imperial, who he thinks is named Hadvar, while his hands are still bound. As they were about to go through the remains of a house, the dragon came back and sat on the wall. Brick and Hadvar ducked below the wings as the dragon breathed fire, killing another Imperial soldier.

Once the dragon took off again, so did the two Nords. Racing by soldiers shooting at the dragon and the townspeople on the ground made Brick's blood pump even faster. He was about the go into the Fort with Hadvar when Ralof came out of nowhere, sparking an argument about who Brick should follow. Brick was stunned for a second, mostly because he was more worried about not dying compared to who he should follow. With a quick thought, he followed Ralof, if only because he actually knew what to expect from him considering they were both about to die only minutes ago.

Inside the keep, there was an already dead Stormcloak. Ralof ran right up to him, saying his goodbyes to him. He then turned to Brick, pulling out a knife.

"Come here and let me get those bindings off," he said as he motioned cutting the rope. Once free, Ralof instructed Brick to take the armor off the fallen soldier. Brick was a little wary of just taking the armor off of a dead man and looked over to Ralof as to make sure of it. Ralof was looking the other way, towards a door, and shaking the bars.

"Damn... locked. Let's try the other one," he said as he ran to the other side of the room, only to realize that that door was also a dead end. Brick was starting to suspect he went with the wrong guy. He looked down at his own rags before looking at the armor on the corpse in front of him, thinking that if he was going to die then his clothing didn't matter considering he almost died in this outfit before. Brick's thought process was broken by more voices.

"It's the Imperials! Take cover!" Ralof whisper-shouted over to Brick, who crouched down beside the corpse. "Maybe we can take them by surprise"

Brick looked behind him, thinking that maybe he should have taken the armor. He reasoned that there was no time now and picked up the axe that was left by body. Once the door opened, Ralof was up and swinging at the Imperials. They fought back with vigor, but were studded, obviously expecting the room to be empty. Brick took a few swings, and knocked the captain to the ground. Ralof finished both of them off. Brick stood above both the now lifeless bodies. While he was catching his breathe, something shiny caught his eye. It was a key that fell out of the captains hand when he fell. Picking it up, he ran over to the door and unlocked it.

"That's it! Come on, let's get out of here before the dragon brings the whole tower down on our heads," Ralof said as he clapped Brick on the shoulder, running down the stairs a bit in front of him.

Brick followed, only for the dragon to bring the tower down in front of them, missing their heads by about 10 feet. When they both realized they were not harmed, they entered in a door on their left. Inside was a storeroom where two more Imperial soldiers were standing around. As soon as they spotted the new Nords, they unsheathed their swords. Brick and Ralof, having already been warmed up with the fight in the previous room, won quickly.

"A storeroom. See if you can find any potions. We'll need them," Ralof said over his shoulder as he walked to the other side of the room.

Brick carefully stepped over the bodies and looked into the barrel they were near. In the bottom were the potions. He fished them out and ran to get to Ralof.

"Don't you want any armor or..." he trailed off as brick just tightened his hold on the potions. "Suit yourself. Let's get moving."

As soon as they started down the hall, fighting could be heard. Ralof mentioned something about a torture chamber. At the bottom of the stairs, a blast of lightning nearly missed Brick. He look at the source and saw it was the torturer. Along with him was another man in Imperial armor, fighting two Stormcloaks. Ralof took immediate action and downed the assistant. With one less target and two new men to the mix, the torturer didn't stand a chance.

After the battle, Ralof questioned the other Stormcloaks about Ulfric before walking over to one of the jail cells.

"Wait a second, it looks like there's something in this cage," he called out to Brick. "Ah, its locked. See if you can get it open with some picks. We'll need that gold when we get out."

Brick was flipping through a book that was sitting next to a backpack on a table. Upon hearing Ralof speak, he picked up the backpack, threw the book and potions he was holding into it, and walked over to the cage with it. He peered in before getting down on one knee and unlocking the cage pretty smoothly for someone with such thick fingers. He walked in and picked up the coins and books, then hesisted. Brick put the backpack down before carefully removing the mage robes from the corpse inside the cage. He then did a quick change and put his rags on the corpse and was wearing the mages robes, and picked the backpack back up before following the Stormcloaks down further into the Keep.

The structure eventually lead into a cave that was part of a blown out wall. Followling the cave down eventually lead to a bigger room with water and more Imperial soldiers. The three Stormcloaks took out their weapons and started to battle, but Brick saw arrows wizzing by. He ran past all the other soldiers to try and take on the two archers. Lucky for him, they were standing on oil. He threw the axe he was holding unto the ground and brought a tiny flame into his hand. Casting in onto the ground a bit in front of him, the entire room shook and the archers both fell, charred and lifeless. Brick turned around to see that the Stormcloaks had taken care of the other Imperials in the room.

The Stormcloaks all seemed wary of him suddenly. Ralof just wanted to get out of the ruins more and more. The two Stormcloaks decided to stay behind and wait for Ulfric, and Ralof and Brick would continue on. It was a good thing, too, as when they crossed a bridge, a boulder fell, making it impossible to cross.

Brick and Ralof continued on their journey, following the caves in the slight hope that eventually it would lead to daylight. They found a room with spider in it, and Brick lit them on fire before Ralof even took his axe off his belt. At that, Ralof looked over with a slight chuckle.

"Hah, I guess magic isn't half that bad," he signalled for Brick to get a move on, only to signal for him to slow down once there was a bear in sight. "Hold up! There's a bear just head. See her? I'd rather not tangle with her right now. Let's try to sneak by. Just take it nice and slow, and watch where you step. Or, if you are feeling luck, you can take this bow. Might take her by surprise. Go ahead, I'll follow your lead and watch your back."

Brick looked at the bow he was just handed and then back up at the bear. He looked back at Ralof, tipped his head in a sign of thanks, and continued on sneaking slowly. Ralof was whispering encouragement, but Brick just wanted to try and get by without anything bad happening. Quite honestly, he had had enough near death experiences within the past hour, thank you very much.

They did eventually make it to the other side of the bear and took off running. After a bit, there was some light coming from a hole in the wall. Both of them realized they made it to then end of the cave. They would survive this ordeal.