“This place is a wreck.” I looked over the hall of the fort. The imperials had destroyed what they couldn’t take. Splintered furniture was piled up in the middle of the room, half burned books and maps had actually choked the hearth. Nothing was worth salvaging, sadly. We’d had to send Angven over the wall with a rope, the gates had been barred from the inside.

“But the structure is sound. Mostly. Looks like they gave up trying to sabotage the beams.” Kalor pointed to some obviously chopped timbers running across the ceiling. It wasn’t enough to compromise the building on its own, but that hadn’t been the point.

“They managed to do what they intended to. If they needed to siege down the castle, those beams would give out under a bombardment. They didn’t finish the job because they were hedging their bets on retaking the place. Looks like your loggers will have plenty of work from me. Do you have any builders worth the title here?” The stone was fine, mercifully.

“My father can see to getting these repaired. He’s no southern engineer, but he knows his business.” Grimvald spoke. Kalor agreed.

“Ingar has worked on the keep for the Imperials. He’ll be able to set it right. Furnishing the place will be more difficult, those are all the bunks.” Kalor pointed to a section of the debris pile.

“It won’t be feather beds, but at least everyone has a bedroll to work with. Bedframes won’t take long. What about the kitchens?” I followed Kalor through a side door. They were mostly intact, but the chimneys needed to be cleared. The legion certainly knew how to fuck with things in a way that wasn’t crippling, just annoying. The pantries were entirely bare, save for some skeever shit.

The armory was next on the list, I didn’t expect anything to be left. There wasn’t, the racks for armor and weapons had been smashed too. The iron bar door to get into the cage had been melted strategically. Hinges, locks, the bottom bar that ran across the floor was a puddled lump of iron to stick the door shut. For the time being, I had Riga finish the job. She melted the door right out of the frame.

“Get rid of all this shit in here, and pile up the loot we took from the bandits and Yngdaril. I’ll need to do payroll before too long, I know the men are eager for their shiny stack of gold. Grimvald, go get your father, show him the place, and get him what he needs to start fixing things, be it money or labor. Angven! Take your brother through the fort and clear out the skeevers that have settled in, I don’t want any damned rats eating through our supplies, thin as they are.” It wouldn’t be a ton of work, but in hindsight I should have expected it. The Legion abandoned the fort because they were worried about getting cut off, it made sense that they’d leave it in a poor state.

“Champion.” Adalvald appeared from a doorway that led deeper underneath the castle.

“How’re the cells? Usable?”

“Yes, I’ve set Lyanna and Hinbald to keep a watch over our… guest. He’s still quite angry.” Adalvald had been a very busy man after I’d taken a nap, but he’d done well. He’d spared the vampire, and locked the bastard into an iron banded treasure chest. A bit of blood made sure the vampire wouldn’t go completely nuts, but I could feel how pissed off he still was. Given that vampires didn’t need to breathe, sleep, drink water, we’d kept him chained up in the trunk.

“Really? Thought he would have liked the improvised coffin. No bites or scratches when you moved him?” That had been a concern, after we’d seen what happened on the coast. Six for six was completely unprecedented for vampiric infections.

“None. I bound him in Stendarr’s chains… It’s a spell that binds the undead, lest they incinerate themselves. Any use of his vampiric powers will burn him, the more he tries, the harsher the flame. He’s currently manacled by both hands and feet to the wall, the cell doors are sturdy. Lyanna and Hinbald both have experience with vampires.” Adalvald assured me.

“Good, I’ll deal with him soon, don’t let any of the rank and file wander down there.” I’d give a speech, and tack that bit on at the end. The men knew we’d captured the vampire, but I’d rather they didn’t get curious. I’d need to brand the beast with my sigil soon. If he tried to escape, we’d hunt him down. Seeing as Adalvald had that in hand, I kept on with my tour.

The barracks area was large enough to house a hundred soldiers, more if we repurposed the store rooms. The bailey was fit for training, though it wasn’t like we lacked for space. Seacrest was a large village, but it was compacted together for the most part. Walking fifteen minutes from the castle put us out in the snow. I found Harald and Lodor at one corner of the bailey, poking around the smithy.

“How bad is it?”

“That lump of iron used to be the anvil. The forge and the furnace need to be repaired. I can have it running by the end of the week Champion, I just need to send word to my father for tools.” Harald sounded confident.

“Good. How much will it cost to get you the tools you need?” I thought to all the things a smithy should have. Hammers, tongs, anvil, bellows, grinding wheel, dozens of little things flashed through my head, courtesy of the steel smithing mastery I’d picked up.

“My father will provide, he always said he’d give me what I needed to start my own smithy.” Harald bowed his head.

“No.” Handouts from father to son were fine, if that’s what this was, but it wasn’t.

“Champion?” Harald looked nervous.

“This will be your work, but you’re working for me. I’ll pay your father his due. How much would it cost for a normal person to buy everything you need from your father?” I had money, plenty of it, and I intended to spend it.

“Five hundred septims should be enough.” Harald spoke after thinking for a moment.

“Easy. I’ll pay your father six hundred to get it done quickly. Rest, get something to eat, then you’ll be leaving with Jorn in the morning. I’ll be behind you shortly, with pay for the work. Lodor, if you want to go with them, you can, otherwise I can find something for you to do around here.” There wasn’t much to do for the moment, aside from clearing out the trash.

“I suppose this will be my last chance to see my father and mother for a while?” Lodor asked.

“You won’t be far, but we will be busy once this place is repaired. Training soldiers, patrolling the ice, prospecting the coast. I wouldn’t mind if you went to visit them sometimes, but not when I need you here.” It was half a day’s ride to Frozen Wharf. He’d have time to spend a day with his family if he wanted it.

“I’ll go with them, you’ll be coming too meet with us once things are in order here?” Lodor asked in return.

“I will. I need your father’s help for the dealings with the Jarl. It shouldn’t be more than three days. We spent enough time at Yngdaril to put the Jarl on edge already.” The time had been worth it, if our haul was anything to go by, but it did make for a tight schedule. The Jarl would be expecting Hemjar to come back with my head any minute now, every day that passed would drive him further up the wall. If he was still alive, that arrowhead had enough time to kill him by now.

I let to the two men get back to… well nothing really. The next stop on my list was the commander’s quarters. The fort had been built strictly for military use, rather than a feudal estate, but it had plenty of rooms for the officers. The largest of them was reserved for the legate, occupying the top level of the keep’s tower. Unlike the rest of the fort, it had been left untouched. There were the dregs of burnt papers and scrolls in the fireplace, but the bed was intact, the furniture completely fine.

“Clever fuckers, very smart.” I shook my head at it. I didn’t need to go looking to know that all the other officer’s rooms would be the same. While the rank and file slept on hard stone floors, the commanders of whoever took the fort would be warm and comfortable inside. The Legion were no slouches, they knew how to put their enemy down without fighting.

I checked for traps, but came up dry. There was no blade hidden in the mattress, no runes printed on the underside of the table. They had probably decided against it, in case a different commander was sent to retake the place. It would be an awful waste to accidentally kill their own men. I did find a note, perfectly folded, and well written, sitting on a study table before a large window overlooking the bailey.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

To whomever it concerns, do not become too comfortable. The Imperial Legion will return, and we expect to have our fort back. Enjoy the view.

“Maybe you should have stayed, and I wouldn’t have had to clean up this mess. Twats.” I crumpled the note and threw it back on the table.

“Left one of those here too?” Riga was standing in the door way.

“Seems so. Have you picked out a room?” I pulled out a chair at the large table in the middle of the room, and offered it to Riga. She took it as I found a chair across from her.

“There’s two smaller rooms on the other side of the tower, mine has a nice view of the sea.” Riga nodded. They were meant to be adjutants rooms from what I’d seen of it. Small, close by, but still worthy of an educated officer.

“Who’s claimed the other one?”

“Nobody yet, but Hania seemed interested.” Riga frowned slightly.

“She’s been watching me like a hawk since I woke up. Probably wants to stay nearby. Don’t look so worried, she’s not interested in me like that. She’s devoted to her cause, her god named me a champion.” I waved away the lingering grimace on Riga, she started to go red.

“I wasn’t worried…” She shifted to crimson, trying to hide her face by playing with her hair.

“Sure, not worried. Anyways, we’re going to be headed back to Winterhold while Kalor and Grimvald get things started here. I don’t know which way it’s going to go, but if you want to see your father before we get settled in here, this will be your last chance for at least a little while.” I changed subjects, much to Riga’s relief.

“Oh, I hadn’t really thought about that…” Riga frowned, seemingly lost in thought.

“What have you been thinking about lately? Aside from killing necromancers and bandits.” I got a grin out of her.

“I really enjoyed the time I spent at the College. I was thinking, I’d be more useful if I knew more magic, you wouldn’t worry about me so much. I know what I need to learn, and this ring is something special.” She held out her hand to show off the piece, she rarely took it off.

“I figured that’s what you’d be leaning towards. If that’s where you want to be, I say go for it, live that dream you’ve had. Live up to your grandfather’s name, Riga the Stormblade, or maybe something new? Storm Maiden? Lady of Lightning?” I smiled to her, which brought out another flash of crimson.

“I’m still getting used to the blade. It’s bigger than the ones Jorman had me practice with, I need to get stronger before I can really swing it.” Her hand fell to the pommel of the mentioned weapon, hanging on her belt. Even hanging at an angle, it nearly dragged along the floor as she walked. Riga was a little lady. Fierce, but little.

“Tomorrow I’m going to run the company through the first of our real exercises. If you stick to them, you’ll be strong enough to wield that sword in one hand. You may be a mage by trade, but a good left hook will take you a long way in life.” I raised my fists in a mock boxing stance. Riga just laughed.

“So you don’t mind if I spend some time at the college? I want to stay here, and be useful, but I know that you’ll be busy with Jori and Adalvald, I don’t want to take their time up with lessons.” Riga’s voice took on a mix of emotions. She seemed happy, but nerves and a bit of sadness seeped in too.

“No, not at all. I think it’d be good for you to get some formal education, and take some time for yourself. You’ve done better than I could have ever asked for the past few months, but I know it wasn’t easy. I asked you to do things that would be hard on a veteran soldier.” I hadn’t broached the subject with Riga, mostly because she hadn’t seemed too bothered with the death we’d left in our wake. It was true she had an axe to grind with the bandits, but she had killed a lot of people. My count was a dozen at least, mostly with fire.

“It wasn’t that bad… Really, I’m not, I’m not trying to play it off, but this is the world. There’s horrible people out there, I’d rather kill them all off than hide from them.” Riga held up her hand when I started to interrupt.

“I know I’m just a common girl, not a soldier like my brother was, my father isn’t some hero, it’s hard to believe the things we’ve done. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone told me last summer. Someone had to do it, I’m glad you asked me to come along.” Riga looked conflicted, but I didn’t want to press on the issue too much. If she said she was fine, and she wasn’t fighting tears talking about it, that was good enough for me.

“If you do need someone to talk to about all of it, I’m here. Killing people is a hard thing to start doing. It wasn’t easy for me either.” The memory started to form as I spoke the words. Riga must have noticed something about my face.

“My brother and Rolvar used to talk about their first fight until the moons were setting. Olam never mentioned the fact that he shook and felt sick for days after to anyone. Once he got over the worst, he looked like that when he thought about it.” Riga pointed to me. I shrugged.

“Mine was messy. Olam’s must have been too, with the weapon he used.” I patted the mace. It had served me well, and I’d been good about maintaining it as well as Olam had.

“You remember? You saw my first kill, with the bow. The snow caps? Ice caps? The bandit woman. Tell me about yours.” Riga leaned in towards me. I had to think quick…

“I remember it, and what I did years ago, before I ended up here. I was a guardsman, not sure where. Someone reported that a few men had been bothering people outside of a, er, tavern.” No lies, a State Trooper was about the same job as the Hold’s guard… minus the paramilitary aspect, usually.

“I was sent over to make sure nobody had been hurt, and see about the men causing trouble. When I got there, two men were bleeding. They’d gotten into a fight with the gang over a woman, the two men had been stabbed. My partner and I got a description, and managed to find where they went. I had… The best way to explain it is a crossbow, I think. Not a weapon used here in Skyrim. Anyways, they had locked themselves inside a room at a motel, sorry, that’s kind of like a tavern where you’d rent a room for the night. We heard a woman yelling inside, so we went to kick the door in.” The door had actually been too sturdy with the lock. I’d put a shotgun slug through it before Keith had thrown his two hundred fifty pound ass at the door. Normally we would have waited for local cops to show up, but with a possible hostage…

I paused, Keith. I could remember a real person from my old life. That country boy should have been a linebacker, but ‘I weren’t no good for college, not enough for college ball.’ I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the memory. Riga looked confused at my barely contained giggles. Keith had been a lot smarter than his drawl let on.

“Sorry, I just, I remembered my partner. He’s the first person I’ve been able to remember from before. I thought about something funny he used to say. We got into the room, four men were inside, a woman on the bed. Two were armed, so we told them to drop their weapons… They didn’t listen, one of them tried to draw on us. I put a fist sized hole in him, then it went crazy. Two of them tried to tackle Keith, he killed one, knocked the other unconscious. The fourth made a move for the woman on the bed, I shot him but he lived.” It was a fucking disaster, truth be told. Two dead suspects, one had a shotgun slug lodged in his spine, the woman wouldn’t stop screeching when she saw all the blood. Granted, three of the men had warrants, all had served time before, but it had been a shitshow afterwards. Two fairly new, junior cops shooting up a motel room made the headlines.

State Troopers Go In Guns Blazing!

“There was a big investigation about how we should have handled it better, that we broke half a dozen rules to go after them instead of letting the locals handle it… Different world.” I put up my hands at Riga’s confusion. Nordic justice was pretty straight forwards for kidnapping and rapists, axe meet neck.

“That’s… that’s ridiculous. They had the woman in the room, they’d attacked two men already. You should have killed all four of them.” Riga tried to make sense of it. It was the same thing that more than a few people had said afterwards, corpses don’t testify. Known criminals charged two uniformed cops, had knives and a hostage, and got shot, that would have been the end of it.

“If the same thing happened now, I probably would. Not like anyone’s going to question the champion of justice, right?” I had to careful about that kind of precedent. It was the reason I’d taken hostages at Yngdaril. Adalvald had been right, I could admit that now. Even if it was likely the three bandits would end up dead anyways. I’d give them a trial.

“No, not likely, not when you’re the one that bothered to go and do something about it. The local lord really took some issue with how you rescued the woman?” Riga sounded mad now, the kind of confused anger when something doesn’t make a lick of sense.

“It’s in the past, nothing to do about it now. They weren’t the only men I ended up killing, plenty came later, and there wasn’t much question with them. Shouldn’t be getting hung up about all this, we just won a huge victory, we’ve got money to hand out to the men. We should do something fun for the company, celebrate.” I pushed my private considerations away. I was a world apart from being able to atone for any mistakes I made before, and I don’t think I’d made many here. I had people here that I could do better for in any case. Riga nodded, still thinking about something, but then stood.

“I seem to remember that Fenrik kept quite the collection of mead barrels…” The girl reached a hand out to me, a smile replacing her disgruntled look. I took her hand, she tried to pull me out of the chair, and my prophecy came true. She tumbled forwards, a clank sounding as she fell into me.

“Ow!” Riga rubbed her head where it had thumped into my breastplate. She tried to right her self, but her cheeks went red when she realized what exactly had happened. She’d ended up not quite sitting in my lap, but close enough. Before either of us could say anything, a new voice strode in.

“Champion, I think I’ll be taking the other… Oh, sorry! I’ll make sure nobody bothers you.” Hania stopped cold, took in the scene, and turned on her heel, closing the door behind her. I could hear her laughing all the way back down the stairs. Riga looked mortified.

“This is hardly the worst thing she could have walked in on…” Teasing Riga was fun, but the questioning look she gave back, well, I’d made my bed. That’d be for another time, maybe.

We went looking for Kalor to see how expensive it would be to buy a few barrels of mead, and get hot food sorted for a good dinner. The answer made Riga gasp, she wasn’t used to being filthy stinking rich yet. I still didn’t have a great grasp on what money was worth here, so I just shrugged and paid for it. A few hundred coins was a small price for throwing the first party for my company. Chickens and goats would curse the day I moved into Seacrest.