Not Alone (A Skyrim Fanfiction)

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

My arm broke with an audible crack and I stumbled backward, grasping the useless appendage in agony. Falling to one knee, I reached one hand feebly toward the ruthless shadow. A dark hand flashed out, grasping my wrist and twisting it painfully behind my head while stepping behind me in the same fell motion. I felt the point of a dagger at my throat and froze, staring at the invisible ground before me and gasping, somehow unable to catch my breath.

I made a feeble effort to break free despite the weapon at my neck, immediately stopping with a groan as the steel grip on my wrist wrenched my good shoulder until spots entered my vision.

"You left when the Guild needed you most," Brynjolf's accusing voice hissed into my ear, his breath hot on my sweating skin. "I should kill you right here and now."

I opened my mouth to argue, but no sound came out. The dagger lifted away from my throat, swinging away and then back with savage force-

"Dragonborn General?"

I woke up with a panicked gasp and scrabbled at my broken arm, trying to shrink away from the dagger coming toward my throat.

My arm was not broken, and while there was a hand stretched out toward me, it belonged to a startled Stormcloak soldier and held no knife.

I sighed loudly and pushed myself back upright, rubbing my face. "What is it?"

"Um... I- that is, we- I was asked to inform you that one of the dragons has eaten a horse," the man said nervously.

I sighed again, this time with annoyance. "Then tell him not to do that again and direct him to the cows."

The man's eyes grew wide. "I-I tell him, Dragonborn General?"

Gods, it's like talking to a bunch of halfwits. "Yes, you!"

The struggle was plain for all to see on the man's face. Either he could disobey me and refuse to speak to the dragon whom he had probably just watched disembowel a horse, or he could accept the command and not be caught up in the forefront of however I decided to express my displeasure.

I supposed I looked scarier than a dragon at the moment because after a brief time of deliberation, the man saluted and walked away, albeit none too quickly.

Sighing for a third time, I checked my arm. The limb was indeed not broken, but the wound I had suffered during the battle was bleeding heavily once more. The flow had stopped sometime in the couple of hours since the battle, but I had been too busy directing the cleanup to pay it much attention.

First I had started dreaming of killing people I cared about, and now I was dreaming about those same people killing me. No doubt there was some sort of greater meaning to these dreams and I should pay close attention to them so I could understand why they were happening, but I had other things to worry about at the moment.

Stifling a fourth sigh, I hauled myself stiffly to my feet, double-checked that in my haze of exhaustion I had actually put my helmet in my pockets and not on some fencepost or table somewhere, and headed from the comfort of my warm chair in Breezehome back into the relentless rain. Carefully stepping over a body unidentifiable except by the red armor, I got a grip under what I thought were the armpits and heaved it onto the nearest wagon. Two more followed, then I decided it was full enough and grabbed the reins of the horse hitched to the wagon. Trying to maneuver the clumsy thing around the various obstacles in the road, I led the horse down outside the lower gate to where we were piling the slain Imperials.