Our journey to Cheydinhal was much longer and more difficult than I had anticipated, following the study of a map I had purchased from an antiquarian in Bravil. Both of us knew that war haunted the lands of Cyrodiil, but until then, we had not known nor could we imagine what a country might look like during a war that had lasted for years.
The confrontations between elves and humans were sometimes interrupted by necessary periods for the troops to recover from battles or by ceasefires during which sterile and endless negotiations were conducted, it is true. Still, these relatively short respites were insufficient for even the partial healing of the gravely wounded lands. The ancient forests that once lined the southern shore of Lake Rumare had been devastated and cut down for the construction of siege equipment and the countless rafts that transported fresh troops to the endless slaughter beneath the city walls. The villages and inns that had once dotted the rich fields and roads around the city were now only charred ruins, filled with corpses or skeletons grinning their empty eyes towards the sky, so clear and unforgiving at the same time. And the crows and the ravens, these harbingers and consequential witnesses of the war, were everywhere in the sorrowful surroundings of the Imperial City! Larger than in peaceful times, the crows filled the air with their black wings and their joyful or narky cawing... Ah, they are very wise birds and especially the ravens could tell a lot about the deeds of mortal beings in wartime! But friends, please, you better not listen to what they say, it could astonish and terrify you, gravely diminishing the faith in your brethren' good will!
We couldn't think of starting our journey just as the daylight began to reveal everything moving across the barren, desolate plain, so we sought shelter as best we could under the banks of the River Niben and attempted to sleep. Despite the continuous din of the siege, we managed to rest fairly well until evening; after all, both of us were exhausted from the harrowing street battles we had engaged in at Bravil. And our souls were deeply wounded, for we had lost far too many friends; also, as soon as we emerged from the shadow of its walls, Her Holy City began to haunt us—whispering, calling, pulling us back into its rousing embrace. We ached for it, as one aches for a lost paradise, for a forbidden vice that one cannot live without...
By evening, after we had eaten and darkness began to envelop the surroundings, we set out on our arduous and perilous journey to Cheydinhal. Courtney was quite optimistic and cheerful, but my mind was haunted by fears and uncertainties; I was tormented by the thought that we faced so many difficulties and dangers only for a promise made years ago by a man who may not even be alive anymore... But we had no other solution at that moment, nor any other possible refuge. Until Masser rose high in the celestial vault and began to spread its light over the surroundings, we stumbled along the river to the north, but then we advanced much more easily, and by the time the dawns began to take on a rosy hue towards the east, we were very close to where the Blue Road begins its journey through the heart of the Hearthland towards Cheydinhal.
To my surprise, I found the old ruined fortress from that place repaired by the elves and now teeming with soldiers who were just waking up, hastily preparing for whatever they had to do that day. We abandoned the thought of staying in the shadow of the fortress, knowing well that the daylight would only expose us to dangers; taking advantage of the morning mist, we sneaked past the old walls towards the place where the two roads diverged. We continued on despite the weariness that gnawed at our bodies on the Blue Road, which in this area is quite steep, the unforgiving slope sapping the few strengths we had left. Endless, one after another, the barren clay hills stretched around us, and at that moment we had no slightest idea where we could stop to refresh our strength.
The sun gradually rose in the sky, dispersing the last shadows of the past night, and before long, along the road from the east, we saw thick clouds of dust rising and heard rumors of voices and the distinctive sounds of hundreds of feet marching rhythmically, kneading the earth. The noises were clearly getting closer, so we hastily left the road and plunged into the barren and steep hills on the right side of the road. We continued our journey very tired, desperately seeking a resting place. But all around us were only the reddish clay slopes of these mounds that dotted the area and the narrow valleys between them were very damp, some of them even holding small swamps that drained our strength. Late towards noon, we arrived at a relatively flat place full of dry reeds rustling in the wind that had been blowing for some time. The place was dry enough and the reeds tall enough to encourage us to take a break there. We stopped and, without daring to light a fire, ate a good portion of the few provisions we had taken with us.
Ah, what could two city girls know about wilderness life and its hardships!
We then lay down with the intention of sleeping for a few hours and then continuing our journey towards the area where on our map was drawn a lake that seemed appealing to us at that moment. It didn't even cross our minds to fill our flask with water from Lake Rumare, and perhaps it was for the best because the lake was in those days teeming with corpses, old and new.
But when we woke up, the light around us was already diffuse, and the Sun appeared pale and cold through the mist of dusk, far off towards the western horizon! Hunger tormented us, so with a heavy heart from me and joy from Courtney, we almost finished our meager provisions, after which my friend revealed a bottle full of flin. I tried to stop her, but she laughed in my face, saying she was cold and didn't want to catch a chill. So, in the end, we emptied the bottle together and both felt a little better. But meanwhile, the Sun had set, and the night seemed to promise to be foggy and misty, so we decided not to venture further among the arid mounds and spend the night right where we were. We still didn't dare to light a fire, and even if we wanted to, there was nothing combustible around except for the reeds, which wouldn't have been much help. So we lay tightly embraced and wrapped in Courtney's wide cloak, but luckily for us, during the night, she did exactly as she usually does in such situations. In the time of our sleep, she pulled the entire blanket over herself, and I woke up in the middle of the night shivering with cold and a vague sense of fear in my heart.
The first thing I spotted was a pair of green, blazing eyes fixed on me while a faint growl assaulted my ears. I jumped to my feet, shouting, and the eyes jerked backward, the growl intensifying into a sort of deep, throaty howl. Courtney was up immediately, lighting the lantern we had brought with us, and what we saw around us froze us with fear. Six wolves had taken a circling position around us, while the seventh, a grayish mongrel, cautiously approached us with the typical prudence of these very wise beasts.
Initially a bit puzzled by the dim light of the lantern, the leader of the pack resumed its sneaking movement towards us, and I could clearly see it was ready to attack at any moment. The others gradually closed the circle, following their leader. I tried to catch its gaze to attempt to exert my hypnotic power over it, but the beast averted its eyes, peering at me warily. Desperate, I drew my knife, knowing I stood no chance against the seven predators... Courtney was trembling behind me, gripping my shoulders tightly, and at one point, strange sounds came from her mouth, resembling the words of a melodic language, and then one of the six members of the pack halted his advance, whimpering softly, and, with a dreadful howl, lunged at the leader! A fierce battle ensued between the two, the leader completely caught off guard by such an attack, and during this time, the other five stopped in confusion, whimpering softly. I managed to catch the gaze of one of them and, not allowing it to tear its eyes away from mine, I exerted my will. The beast, after a brief resistance, suddenly bolted, whimpering in desperation. Two more followed suit almost immediately, melting into the chilly, foggy night.
Meanwhile, the leader had managed to kill its opponent but was gravely injured and now approached us almost crawling on his belly. From Courtney's mouth came again those strange sounds, akin to a peculiar, sad, yet sweet song, and one of the last two members of the pack immediately attacked the other. But then I felt my friend trembling all over, and it didn't last more than a few moments before, slumping to the ground, she fainted. At that moment, the leader hesitated and attempted to retreat, but as it turned slightly towards me, I threw the knife, severing its throat fatally. Courtney's wolf won the battle against its opponent and then came crawling and whimpering alongside us.
The beast laid down beside Courtney, who was just beginning to regain consciousness, and the first thing she saw were the wolf's blazing green eyes. She started screaming and thrashing, but I tried to calm her down and said, "Stop yelling, Courtney! The beast is now your baby!"
"What baby? Are you crazy?" she croaked, trembling all over, and the wolf whimpered softly and licked her face! Despite the unpleasant situation we were in, I couldn't help but burst into laughter when Courtney jumped up like a spring and started running around like mad, screaming... The poor animal was terribly frightened and leaped aside, howling horribly, and I couldn't hold back my laughter, oh, sometimes the tension built up from great trials is released in the strangest ways... Eventually, all three of us stopped our partially comical and partially insane outbursts. Courtney approached me hesitantly, and I stood there, motionless, waiting by the wolf. It too had settled down, now licking its frightful wounds with slow, deliberate movements. "We won, my dear! You won, actually," I said, embracing her. Courtney was still trembling all over, her body cold as ice, and large tears streamed down her pale, drawn face. And the wolf hadn't moved. It just watched her, its green eyes glowing. Still gasping, she slowly lifted a hand and, with an uncertain, almost involuntary gesture, touched its rough fur. The wolf remained still, only its tail twitching slightly, and then Courtney whispered, as if to herself, "I... I don't know what this means..."
In a weak voice, she continued as she gently stroked my hair, "No, I don't know how I did it... But I heard stories when I was a child, lurking in corners of taverns, waiting to receive some leftover food from the kitchen. They talked about people who can instantly tame wild beasts, befriend them, and even speak with them in a certain way! But they also talked about beast-men, people who turn into bloody and horrifying creatures when Secunda is in the phase of the full moon. And about centuries-old dead rising from their hiding places when unwelcome guests disturb their ancient dwellings..."
"I've seen the undead with my own eyes, Courtney, and as for the beast-men, I've read about them in a book of legends from the distant land of Skyrim! And about the wild beast tamers, they surely exist nowadays and are quite numerous; practically all citizens of Valenwood can do that!"
"So, my dear, I think at some point I'll have to take a closer look at your ears... who knows, maybe you're not as human as you seem!" I laughed, before pulling her into an embrace and stealing a kiss.
The night was bitterly cold and foggy, not a trace of any of Nirn's moons, and we both still trembled with fear. We huddled together tightly wrapped in Courtney's cloak until towards morning when, exhausted, we managed to doze off. And as the timid light of day began to emerge, the wolf came and licked our faces, and we woke up, remembering the terror and unprecedented events of the night. Courtney had fully recovered by now and was laughing cheerfully, asking for food while the wolf whimpered softly at her feet!
I watched them for a short while; she was so beautiful with her hair untangled and her shining eyes, and the wolf, with its fur matted with coagulated blood, friendly licked the hand she gently caressed it with. I must admit I was desperate then because I felt that after a quite long period of calm, the strange and incomprehensible manifestations that had overwhelmed me in recent years were starting again.
Ah, that distant dream, the beautiful and terrible woman who insulted me and caressed me with sweet words at the same time, the fact that I knew with certainty that the manifestation belonged to a foreign entity, so alien that my mind often refused to believe in the reality of the strange events in my short life, all these created a strange emptiness in my soul... But above all, just as the skooma addict feels an urgent need for the stuff when it is lacking for a while, I began to miss Bravil! I already yearned for its winding streets, the lively hustle and bustle of the port district, the wonderful statue guarding the central square of the City, and most of all, the coolness perfumed by the scent of incense and burnt spices from Her Temple! But there was no time for such thoughts, so we hastily ate what was left in our bag and set out on the terrible road, terribly thirsty because the alcoholic beverage from the night before was now taking its full revenge!
We wandered a good part of the day among the pale hills, occasionally climbing to the top of one of them to try to survey the area. We took turns doing this because we found it terribly difficult to ascend those steep and slippery slopes, devoid of any vegetation or roughness that could have made our ascent easier. The weather didn't help either, being overcast, and around noon a light rain started, and even a light mist settled over the entire region.But, by a stroke of luck, we emerged late in the afternoon in a wide valley, in the middle of which the trembling water of a lake could be seen. A smell of smoke lingered around us, and soon we spotted a few huts on the water's edge. Sharp barks of dogs began to be heard, and then we heard whimpering behind us; when I turned around, I saw that the wolf that had patiently accompanied us until then had stopped and was staring intensely at us with his blazing green eyes. "Ah, it's time to say goodbye!" I said, smiling, and added, "Courtney, go and kiss your little one!"
She let out a trill of laughter and ran towards the animal, then lay down on the ground and stroked its thick coat. Then the wolf slowly headed towards the hills, stopping and looking back occasionally. As it moved away, it seemed hesitant at first, turning its head toward Courtney a few times. But gradually, its gait changed—from cautious to confident, from regretful to determined. Its back straightened, and the fur along its neck bristled slightly, a sign that its instincts had fully awakened. Its ears perked up, attentively catching every sound of the wilderness, and its tail lifted slightly, marking the moment it ceased to be a temporary companion to humans and became, once more, a beast of the wild. Before vanishing into the hills, it cast one last glance at us—not like a dog searching for its master, but like a friend bidding farewell forever!
We continued our weary journey and arrived near what turned out to be a small temporary settlement of war refugees who had come, according to their words, from the South, from a fishing village near Leyawiin. Most of them were women, elderly, and children, with only one mature man among them, and they received us with some initial fear, but this dissipated almost immediately as we began to tell them the purpose of our adventure in the wilderness where we found ourselves. They then taught us how to reach Cheydinhal, following the course of the river that flows somewhere north into the adjacent lake. But they also warned us that Cheydinhal was a closed city and that bands of refugees roamed the roads around the city where there were many overcrowded camps plagued by a cholera epidemic. According to them, from the early days of the Imperial City siege, the city had permanently closed its gates, allowing no one to enter or leave. Well, except for some merchants and their convoys that, oddly enough, always manage to supply both parts in a war!
Ah, those merchants of war... As we spoke to the refugees, I could see the disdain in their eyes every time they mentioned these traders. With their heavy-laden carts and well-fed horses, these men traversed battlefields as if strolling through bustling markets. In their eyes, death was but another opportunity, another coin to be collected. They moved between the camps of men and mer, their goods filling the bellies and arming the hands of both sides, indifferent to the cause or the cost.
Courtney, with her innocent curiosity, asked one of the older women how these merchants managed to pass through the sealed gates of Cheydinhal. The woman snorted bitterly, her gaze fixed on the horizon. "Gold opens more doors than any key, child. In this war, it speaks louder than the cries of the dying. They walk freely where we starve and beg, their laughter echoing over the groans of the wounded."
And as night fell, tales spread among the refugees—stories of how these traders would send their lackeys to scavenge the dead in the aftermath of great battles. Under the cover of darkness, their hands rifled through bloodied clothes, prying rings from stiff fingers and lifting coin purses from the cold. Their faces remained blank, indifferent, like the gods who watched from above, untouched by mortal suffering.
We stayed there that evening, and those poor people welcomed us to their humble table and allowed us simply to sleep next to them in their humble resting places, spread with leaves and grass. We wanted to pay when we left, but the man smiled bitterly and told us that money couldn't help them in any way, so Courtney gave him her cloak and I gave him my knife, which apparently pleased him greatly. He led us himself along the lake to where the Reed River poured its swirling waters into it. We parted from him there, and both of us followed the direction of the river, towards north.
We walked among the course of the water through a narrow valley flanked by the same steep, short hills, like mounds, characteristic of this area of Hearthland, except that those in the valley were wooded. The very rugged terrain of the winding river valley made our progress much slower, but late in the afternoon, we arrived in the vicinity of Cheydinhal.
Even before we could see the city walls, we entered the huge refugee camp that had formed here. We saw then terrible, moving and revolting things, endless crowds of hungry people dressed in rags, their miserable shelters and heaps of unburied corpses lying everywhere. We had already seen enough bodies floating on the surface of the Reed or hanging tangled among the branches of the old willows dipping their lush branches into the river. We feared then for our poor friends who had sheltered us by their pale fires and we tried to stay as far away as possible from the hesitant and skeletal human specters haunting the camp.
We saw exhausted and starving men fighting over a meager piece of moldy bread; we saw small children crying pitifully beside the bodies of their dead mothers; we saw almost mad women rocking their dead babies while singing softly to them! The terrible smells and the muffled or sharp cries that dominated the area deeply impressed me and added new notions to the image I had begun to form about war. You see, my friends, in my mother Alisanne's home I had read some historical books that extolled great heroes and skilled leaders of past wars, their deeds of arms and the glorious battles they had participated in. But there was nothing written about the silent and ghostly masses of ordinary people melting away in the flames and miasmas of such shining wars! For that's how they are described by historians who write in their warm and clean chambers, after or before enjoying their sumptuous meals and emptying their goblets of noble wine! But all of them, with few exceptions whose writings never reach the eyes of ordinary readers, are paid from the generous pockets of the war winners because, oddly enough, wars build fortunes that in times of peace could only be accumulated over many generations!
But I digress again, so I'd better return to my story... As we approached the Blue Road, the wretched hovels haunted by sick and hungry creatures became sparse, and, here and there, were huge mass graves partially covered. The road was deserted and clean, nothing of the dreadful drama unfolding in the sparse forest could be guessed from here and on its edges, piles of burnt bones and remnants of large fires that had consumed the bodies of the dead could be seen from time to time... Because, as I would later find out, detachments of heavy cavalry periodically emerged from the city and cleared, let's say, the road of the ragged and sickly creatures that dared to approach the walls in hopes of any small help from their fellow beings inside.
We hurried along the road towards the huge gates and a tall, mustached sergeant shouted from afar for us to stop as he aimed his crossbow at us. But then I took a bulky pouch from my bag and began to shake it in such a way that the divine jingle of gold caressed the soldier's ears. He lowered his crossbow and gestured for us to approach and I told him that we would pay whatever he asked if he could slip us into the city. I saw then his crude and greedy look, and I could clearly read the thoughts passing through his mind at that moment. But I looked intensely into his eyes and smiled, and he unexpectedly relented and said hurriedly and in a hushed voice, "Both of you come after dark to the small gate in the north of the wall. It will be open!" I smiled at him again and let a few heavy gold coins fall as if by chance onto the dusty ground, and then both of us melted into the thickets on the north side of the road where we waited for nightfall.
As promised, the gate was slightly ajar, and the light of a torch could be seen trembling beyond it. Expecting the worst, I took the crossbow out of the bag and gave it to Courtney, who had meanwhile lit the small lantern. She propped her weapon demonstratively on her shoulder, although neither then nor now does Courtney know how to use such a weapon and I hurried toward the gate. In my right hand, I held up the pouch, and in my left hand, which was held close to my body, the dagger. I showed them both to the sergeant, who had meanwhile come out and was thoughtfully looking at Courtney. A struggle then took place in his soul and I knew that he deeply regretted coming alone to the meeting... But that would have meant having to share the money and this is not a pleasant thought, is it, my friends?
I stopped and whispered to him to approach, leaving the gate open and he followed my instructions exactly, stopping a few steps away from me. I then had a strong and wild desire to kill him, but I restrained myself and threw the pouch at his feet, ordering him at the same time to remain still.
"Go!" I told my friend, who dashed into the city, melting into the darkness, and then I felt the scoundrel tensing up and reaching for his sword hilt. "You'd die..." I said with a sweet voice, looking at him intensely. "It would be a shame; there is a lot of gold in the pouch... Why not enjoy the money and, who knows, maybe we can even be friends?" He relaxed suddenly, smiled, and said, "You're right, lady! Maybe we'll meet again in the city!"
"Of course!" I smiled sweetly and walked backward to the gate through which I entered. We both hurried along the wide, deserted streets of Cheydinhal, stopping only when we were sure no one was following us. We stopped then, Courtney burst into laughter and said, "Ah, my dear kitty is actually an old fox!" and I hugged her warmly.
It didn't take us long to find an inn, its door lit and open, the air thick with the divine scent of food—a temptation too great for two tired, hungry souls! We took a room and ordered a rich meal, which we sprinkled with many goblets of the sweet wine produced from the vineyards on the hillsides overlooking Anvil, and then we both fell into a sweet sleep.
My mistress appeared to me that night in a dream after so many years of not seeing her but I won't talk here about our conversation... Many sad things, reproaches, and insults were said then... Lies and threats as well, but also sweet words and oaths of eternal love... And late in the morning we were awakened by insistent knocks on the door, and when I opened it, there stood Cicero in front of me!