The wind stopped and Trendil blinked her eyes open. She heard sounds - voices pitched to a conversational tone. Birds chattering as a light breeze ruffled branches. Someone nearby laughed.

 

Trendil’s brain seized up, trying to make sense of what she felt. The pain that had filled her body was gone, except for a small cramp that was beginning to creep up her calf. She looked around in a wild panic and found herself laying under what appeared to be a broken and overturned wagon. She shook her head in confusion; the visage of the ruins of Solitude still danced across her eyes. Her only conclusion was that the wind had knocked her out and then debris had been blown on top of her.

 

Of course, that didn’t explain why the pain had disappeared. Maybe she was so close to death, her brain had just shut down?

 

She tested that theory by shifting; her body responded without pain. In fact, it felt better, as the cramp began to recede. “What in Oblivion…”

 

Voices again and the sounds of many footsteps, then there was a shifting and the wagon was heaved away, leaving her sitting in bright sunlight as four Imperial soldiers leered down at her.

 

“Well! Looks like we found another one for the camp! Good thing we hadn’t left yet!”

 

She swore and tried to scramble to her feet as many hands reached for her, but her feet got entangled in something and she fell back down. The Imperials grabbed her arms and yanked her up and out of the wreckage, then many hands began to grope her, running along her back and legs, squeezing her ass and breasts.

 

Trendil blazed. Not at the groping (although a part of her wondered at how much her armor must have been damaged to allow the hands to reach such intimate parts of her body) – that would be repaid soon enough. No, she was furious at the unfairness of it all. All their work, all the years of toil and struggle, of sacrifices and pain, only to be stymied at the end because a handful of Imperials had managed to escape the dragons’ attack.

 

It was not to be borne.

 

“You cowards!” Trendil jerked back to give herself some leeway, then threw an elbow at whoever was groping her from behind and felt it crunch into their face. The hands removed themselves from her as a voice cried out in pain. Trendil ducked down and spun, still yelling as she slammed her knee into the same man’s groin; his pained cry turned into a wheeze as he began to collapse.

 

“You don’t get to win just because you hid from the dragons!” Her movements had loosened the other hands that gripped her; she took the opportunity to rip out of them.

 

The man she had hurt had collapsed to his knees, arms crossed in front of him. Perfect – it left his sword exposed. Trendil drew it from the man’s scabbard and, in the same motion, swung her body in an arc while a part of her wondered what had become of the Blades’ swords. Probably at the bottom of the estuary. Pity.

 

She had to give the Imperial credit – he took care of his weapon. The sword had a keen edge, as witnessed by the ease with which it decapitated its previous owner and, for good measure, cut into the side of the man next to him.

 

The second Imperial cried out and fell and Trendil dove through the gap created by the two fallen men. She rolled and tried to bounce back to her feet but, again, something entangled her legs and she fell back down.

 

As she rolled again to keep out of reach of anyone coming after her, she took a moment to glance down to see what was going on. Had the wagon been carrying textiles that had somehow wrapped around her legs?

 

The answer was as unexpected as it was incongruous – she was wearing a dress. A floating white – well, it had been white before she started rolling around in it – gown that looked familiar, although she didn’t have time to try to figure out why, along with heeled shoes that were as inadequate for combat as any she might have dreamed of. She slashed at the thin straps that held the shoes on, grazing her ankles at the same time, and they flew off as she rolled to her feet and parried a blow aimed at her shoulder.

 

The Imperials had reacted in admirable time – weapons had been unsheathed and raised, and a circle had formed around her. She noted a few things right away.

 

First, there were many more of them than she had expected. A dozen surrounded her and there appeared to be even more outside the circle. Somehow an entire company of Imperials had survived the dragons.

 

Second, though their numbers were great, their nonchalant stances and the laugher on their lips and in their teasing words to each other told her they did not see her as a threat, even though she had just killed one of them and hurt another. Which, fair enough – one woman against an entire company would not seem like a threat to her, either. Unless that woman happened to be her mother. Then, woe to the company.

 

She smiled at the thought.

 

Third, their surroundings did not seem right – she saw trees and peaks all around, not the shattered spires of the former capital city of Skyrim.

 

This last fact, much like her incongruent dress, was not important in the moment – there would be time to contemplate their meanings once she had finished with the Imperials.

 

Of course, it helped that they had decided to turn the fight into a game – they called out a name and laughed as one of the soldiers, smaller than the others, with a slack, innocent face, was shoved into the impromptu ring.

 

“Let’s go, Greenback! Look, here’s someone you can beat!”

 

“Go Greenie! If you can beat her, you get to fuck her first!”

 

“You can do it! Even you can beat a woman! We believe in you!”

 

The little man seemed to take confidence in the shouts – his dull expression turned into a wide grin and he lifted his sword and pranced about as the Imperials cheered. Someone started up a chant that was immediately picked up by all the observers: “Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!”

 

Trendil thought furiously as she took advantage of the delay to cut the skirt of the dress off above her knees so she would stop tripping on it.

 

If the Imperials wanted to play, she could do the same – pretend to struggle against this idiot who couldn’t even grip his sword correctly, maybe make it look like an accident when she beat him. Maybe they would keep just sending in one fighter at a time, although as she kept beating them, they would probably start getting antsy.

 

Perhaps better to tear the bandage from the wound all at once and just get on with the killing.

 

She was still undecided when Greenie finally finished his prancing and turned toward her. The continued chanting seemed to buoy him up – he raised his sword, howled, and charged.

 

It was in that moment that Trendil realized she couldn’t do it. Every instinct screamed at the mere notion of giving the appearance, even for a split second, that she could possibly be challenged by someone like Greenie. Also, she had felt her mother’s scornful gaze the moment the idea had trickled across her consciousness.

 

When Greenie got close, Trendil sidestepped, cut off the hand holding the sword, and, in one motion, stabbed Greenie in the spine while catching the sword with her other hand. She allowed the natural impetus of the movement to spin her and used the generated torque to throw Greenie’s sword into the chest of the Imperial unfortunate enough to be standing at the particular spot where her spin placed it.

 

In the following moment of stunned silence, Greenie flopped face-first into the dirt while his hand, jarred loose by the impact into the Imperial’s body, fell limply off his sword, and Trendil, who had leapt after the sword the moment it left her hand, grabbed it again, shoving the already dead Imperial off it with her foot.

 

Then all hell broke loose.

 

A wiser person would have fought defensively, adopting on ezh to keep blades away while taking advantages of opportunities as they came up. It would have created a long, slow slog of a fight, but it would have given her the best chance at survival.

 

However, Trendil was long past caring about such trivial things as survival. It was only by the sheer luck of being smashed over the cliff that she was not dead herself. So dying now would just right that small wrinkle in the universe’s plan.

 

Besides, she was furious. She had watched, helpless, as her regiment was whittled down in The Reach before being completely decimated at Solitude. All those lives had been hers to protect, and she had failed them. And here, in front of her, at long last, were the Imperials she had come all this way to kill.

 

 So she eschewed the safe route and went full keep ke dud’.

 

The Imperials nearest to her never had a chance to realize their danger, and those next closest had just begun to understand the implications. By the time the Company of Imperials caught onto the truth of the threat they had unleashed, they were already nearly two squads down.

 

To their credit, they rallied. An officer barked out orders and the remaining soldiers formed up into ranks even as Trendil hacked down the last of the strays. A wall of shields was placed down and a matching row of spears pointed outward. Another order and the back row pulled out crossbows.

 

A couple of crossbows would have been no challenge, but Trendil would get nowhere just standing back and waiting for them. Instead, she took the track they had formed up to keep from happening – she charged forward.

 

The spears defending the opening she was heading for pivoted toward her, attempting to close the gap. Trendil deflected the crossbow bolts that came near, then jumped as she reached the spears.

 

They were disciplined and good at their jobs – the spears rose with her, threatening to pierce her torso through the soft material of the strange dress. Trendil brought both swords down, banging the spears with the flats, using their momentum to propel her into the shield wall.

 

The two men stumbled at the impact and Trendil took the opportunity to slash at their legs. They fell to the side as she dodged a swing from an axe that took a solid chunk out of the ground where her head had been. After two rolls, she was back on her feet.

 

This time, she was forced to use on ezh. Her opponents were no longer off guard. They were also probably seasoned killing machines and she was nearly surrounded. Her blades flashed as she turned in a constant pattern, edging herself as far away from the center of the group as she could while she took advantage of any mistakes her opponents made.

 

There were aggravatingly few – whoever these particular Imperials were, they were more than competent. It took a solid ten minutes for one to slip off guard just enough for Trendil to slice open his shoulder.

 

As hoped, the man’s stumble interfered with the others’ actions and Trendil was able to use the chaos to strike two more and then dance out of the mass.

 

Each side took a breath, then lunged at each other again. Since she hadn’t started surrounded this time, however, Trendil was able to switch stances again, this time to the more balanced keep ke us, and the killing pace improved. When the Imperials had been whittled down to three, they turned and ran.

 

“Cowards!” Trendil threw one of her swords and was rewarded by the impaling of one of the fleeing men, but the others continued sprinting, yelping over the crest of a hill, and disappeared, leaving Trendil alone, surrounded by dead and dying men.

 

 

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