But I'm a Black-Briar! (A Skyrim Fan Fiction)

Chapter 12: Death Follows

Chapter 12

Divines only know what I was thinking, but instead of cowering in a corner like I probably ought to have done I jumped to my feet, one boot lace flailing around in dire danger of tripping me up, and dashed over to the door and pulled it open.

There didn't seem to be any present danger, but what seemed to be every occupant of the inn was gathered around one of the tables on the far side of the room. Relieved that the building wasn't under attack by bandits (or worse, vampires) like I had half been expecting, I pushed the innkeeper and another one of the guests out of the way in my curiosity to see what they were all gawking at.

I did see, and I instantly regretted it.

In the past week or so I had seen more death than I felt like anyone should or needed to see in a lifetime. Before finding Jarl Laila, watching Jiran kill those four bandits outside of Whiterun, and finding a dead body in the middle of the road, had I happened to chance upon any form of human death when I was living at the manor I would most likely have panicked and screamed for Silron.

Even though these events had somewhat accustomed me to the concept of death, the sight of Lurburk laying outstretched on the table with wide open, surprised eyes, a slit throat, and a simple iron sword impaling his chest and pinning him to the table still caused me to make a small choking sound and hold my hands over my mouth.

Aside from one woman's sobs, the entire room was silent. So silent, in fact, that you could hear the steady drip, drip of the Orc bard's blood draining through the panels of the wooden table and joining the still growing puddle on the floor.

Every single person in the room jumped out of their skin when the door slammed open, revealing four guards.

"Everyone back up please," the captain of the guard ordered. "We'll handle this. Please, stand back."

I joined the group of people moving away from the body to stand near the bar, listening to their angry and worried muttering but still unable to tear my stunned gaze away from the bloodied sword.

"Citizen, move out of the way," a guard ordered.

I finally tore my gaze away from the Orc and noticed for the first time that Jiran had been among the crowd ogling the body. He was gazing down at Lurburk with an unidentifiable expression on his face. It wasn't horror, or regret that someone's life had been cut short suddenly, or any other emotions I had been experiencing myself. It was more like... thoughtfulness mixed with confusion, as though Jiran didn't understand why this had happened. Not that I did, but his brand of confusion seemed different from my own. I just couldn't say why.

Whatever he was thinking, he looked up at the guard and nodded, backing out of the way to stand beside me. "We need to leave," he murmured. "Get your things and meet me outside."

The group of people was thinning out as others acted on the very same idea. "Why, do you think the killer is still here?" I asked, my heart pounding faster at the thought. What if the killer was someone in this very inn?

"Something like that. Just hurry." Jiran moved across the inn and disappeared into his own room, presumably to gather his own belongings.

I hurriedly walked to my room, shut the door, than began madly rushing around to gather everything, an unreasonable fear of being left behind spurring my movements. Since I had fairly few things to begin with, I was finished packing and out of the door a full minute before Jiran.

I was anxiously stroking Ilinalta's neck when he appeared, Dar'kida in tow. I had completely forgotten about the black Khajiit in the excitement and hadn't noticed him in the crowd, although with how observant I was he could have easily been there anyway.