Four days after they had defeated the dragon, the corpse still lay across the broken western wall. It was an unfortunate time for the weather to give them a break from the cold -- the smell had started on the second day, sweet and metallic. By the fourth, the men had stopped walking on that side of the fort unless they had to. The carrion birds had arrived soon after, black specks circling lower with each pass until they grew comfortable enough to land. At first, the soldiers had chased them off but after one day of that, they gave up and let the birds have their prize.

 

Marcus had assured them it would rise again but could offer no answers to their questions. He wasn't even sure it would happen this time -- other things had changed, so perhaps this had well. Even if it did, he had no real idea when it would happen -- the first timeline's dragons had come back on their own schedule, not his, and he had only stayed in place to witness it himself one time. He only knew it took about a week, which left anywhere between two and four more days before the thing opened its eyes and the whole fort had to fight it again. Assuming it did not simply fly away first.

 

The fort had settled into a rhythm after the dragon. The men moved differently now -- quicker to respond, slower to complain. Killing a dragon together had done what twenty-eight days of waiting could not: it made them a unit. They had a story now, a shared victory that helped cover some of the bitterness left over from Whiterun. They watched Marcus with something closer to trust than tolerance.

 

But four days of that trust was a fragile thing and the novelty of the dragon was long gone. Now they were back to their routine of playing cards and dice and watching empty roads, only now with a cloying stench on top.

 

Marcus shook his head and continued his rounds, circling past the armory, nodding at the watch on the eastern tower, stepping around a puddle of meltwater in the main yard. The routine was calming in its own way -- a checklist of small assurances; gate secure, stores adequate, no blood in the dirt where it should not be, watch routines maintained -- and helped him put aside his concerns for the moment.

 

He was passing the old storeroom near the northern wall when he heard it -- a muffled sound, not quite a voice, not quite an animal. It came from beyond the heavy wooden door, low and rhythmic, buried under something else -- a creak, the scuff of boots on packed earth. Marcus stopped and listened. Another sound: a wet, choked noise, cut short.

 

Then a man's voice, low and rough: "Hold her still, damn it."

 

Marcus did not remember drawing his swords -- he only remembered the door slamming open and the scene that spilled into the light.

 

Three men. He knew their faces -- knew their names, their voices, the jokes they told at supper. One had a woman pinned face-down over a crate with his hand clamped over her mouth. Another knelt between her legs, trousers around his ankles, hips working in short mechanical thrusts. The third stood by the far wall, half-undressed, waiting his turn or recently finished. The woman's dress had been torn from her shoulders and her wrists were bound with rope. Bruises bloomed along her arms, her jaw, the skin of her exposed hip. Her face was wet with tears and snot and blood from a split lip, and was filled with desperation and fear.

 

The standing man held out his hands. "Marcus…"

 

Marcus killed him first. A single step, a pivot, and the edge of his blade opened the man's throat from left to right. The man made a sound like a punctured bellows and collapsed. The man at the crate let go of the woman and reached for a knife on his belt, but not in time to be of any use -- Marcus put his second sword through the man's chest; felt the resistance of ribs, the wet slide of steel parting tissue, the sudden give as the blade sank home. The man's mouth opened and closed like a fish thrown onto shore, then he folded.

 

The third man tried to scramble backward across the dirt floor, trousers still bunched around his ankles. His hands went up. "Wait, wait, we were just..."

 

Marcus stepped over the first body and drove his boot into the man's chest, knocking him flat. Then he reversed his grip on the sword and brought the pommel down. Once. Twice. A third time, harder. The man's skull gave with a sound like cracking an egg on a stone countertop.

 

Then, silence.

 

Marcus stood over the bodies, breathing hard while blood dripped from his hands and blades. The storeroom smelled of sweat and release and copper. The woman had curled into herself against the crate, arms wrapped around her knees, making small sounds he could not quite parse -- sobs, maybe, or the ragged edges of shock. He wiped off and sheathed his swords, slowly, so as not to startle her, then pulled off his heavy cloak and knelt in front of her.

 

"It's all right," he said. His voice came out hoarse. "You're safe now."

 

She flinched when he raised the cloak, so he simply set it in front of her. After a moment, she took it and wrapped herself in it; it pooled around her like a tent. She clutched the edges and stared at him with the wild hunted look of an animal.

 

"It's all right," he said again. "I'm not going to hurt you." Her reaction when he pulled out his dagger showed she did not believe him and she was shaking hard by the time he had cut away her bindings and removed the gag. “You’re going to be okay.”

 

She did not answer, just dropped her eyes to the floor. 

 

Marcus stood and looked at the three bodies and let out an aggravated sigh -- he had just killed three of his own men. The thought sat in his chest like a stone dropped into still water, sending rings of likely trouble outward in all directions. They had deserved it, but that did not change what it meant -- they were Stormcloaks, HIS Stormcloaks, and he had executed them without trial, without witnesses, without any of the forms that turned murder into justice. He would have to make it make sense to men who had been cooped up for a month with nothing to do but repair walls and wait for a war that refused to arrive.

 

He looked at the woman again; she was studying the ground as if it held the answers to all her questions. He forced his voice to soften.

 

"What's your name?"

 

She did not answer. Maybe she could not. He nodded anyway, as if she had.

 

"All right. We're going to get you somewhere safe. I promise." He turned toward the door. "I'll be right back. I'm not leaving you." He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

 

The yard was quiet. A few men near the cookfire looked up when he emerged. He must have been a sight -- blood-spattered, cloakless, his jaw set in a line that discouraged questions. He ignored their stares as he crossed to the main gate to where Bent sat sharpening his hammer's pointed end with slow, methodical strokes. Bent took one look at his face and stopped.

 

"What happened?"

 

 "I caught some men raping a woman in one of the storehouses."

 

Bent's face went through a series of shifts -- confusion, disbelief, then a hard settling that meant he understood. "You killed them."

 

"Yes."

 

Bent set the hammer down and rubbed his beard with both hands. "Divines."

 

"Yes."

 

A long pause. Then: "The woman?"

 

"She's fine. I left her in the storeroom."

 

Bent’s eyes went wide. “You left the poor thing sitting alone in a room with the dead bodies of her rapists?! What’s wrong with you, man?”

 

Marcus frowned as he looked back at the door. “I…I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about…”

 

Bent was already moving, so Marcus turned and walked with him. “You’re going to have to tell the men, you know.”

 

"I know."

 

"And the woman needs to go somewhere safe. We can't keep her here."

 

"I know. You’re going to take her to Mixwater. "

 

“Where is that?”

 

Marcus frowned. "What do you mean, where is that? We marched through it on the way to Whiterun.”

 

“Oh, that dinky little milling town? Why don’t we just ask her where she lives?”

 

“You can try. She wouldn’t talk, so I just…”

 

Bent shook his head. “You are the best swordsman I have ever seen but you are awful at empathy. You would make for a terrible woman.”

 

“Hey!” Marcus began, but they had reached the storeroom and Bent ignored him to open the door and step in.

 

It took only moments for Bent, kneeling by the woman and talking in soothing words, to get her to respond to him and even give him a timid smile. Marcus had never felt so jealous of anyone for anything in his life. Bent helped the woman stand and the three went into the bailey to find most of the men had already assembled, watching the door with marked curiosity. Marcus sighed, motioned Bent and the woman to stop, then stepped forward.

 

“I was hoping this would be obvious without me having to say it, but if I find any of you raping someone, preparing to rape someone, or helping others rape someone, you will die on the spot. If you have a problem with that, you know where to find me. Bring your weapon.”

 

He started to turn away as mutters sprang up but then stopped as a realization struck him: they had been here for weeks with nary a woman in sight. Marcus had noticed the tension, like a high keening wind that screamed at a pitch just beyond hearing range, but it only occurred to him now what it was – nearly one-hundred horny men with nothing but their hands to relieve the constant pressure created by the lust-infused sacks of torment they inhabited. Well, closer to ninety, since some of the men were gay and had each other. The lucky dogs.

 

Marcus turned back. “That said, I know we’ve been stuck here for weeks and it looks like we’ll be stuck here for longer. I am going to put in a requisition for Fort Amol to be added to the camp whore rotation. Take care of your own dicks in the meantime -- don’t force them on anyone else. Oh, and whoever is on cleanup duty today…” he motioned toward the ajar door, “…I’m sorry about the mess.”

 

“See, that part you’re good at,” Bent said as they resumed their walk to the stables.

 

“How kind of you to say. So I am to understand you think you are more woman-like than me?”

 

“Were you offended by that? Most men would take that as a compliment. Well, most Nords, anyway – maybe Redguards are different. I was the only boy out of six kids, so I have a different perspective on the fairer sex than other Nords.”

 

Marcus kept his voice flat and neutral. “So you would never ever even think about raping someone, under any circumstances.”

 

“Of course not! Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“No reason. Be safe.” Marcus nodded at the woman. “I’m sorry my men treated you like that. I wish there was more I could say.”

 

“Thank you.” Her voice was barely a whisper and she shivered and moved closer to Bent as she spoke, but at least she had spoken. Marcus considered that progress.

 

He turned away as Bent mounted his horse and pulled the woman to a seat in front of him and was halfway through the bailey when the two passed through the gate, and it was only then that it began to dawn on him that he had quite possibly just made the biggest tactical blunder of his life. He cursed under his breath as he looked back at the already-re-closed gate. He should have sent someone else – ANYone else – to take her home.

 

Visions of “I would never rape someone” Bent and the woman (whose name Marcus didn’t know but BENT probably did) falling in love, marrying, and having dozens of happy hammer-waving babies danced through his head, already feeling so real he nearly screamed.

 

With no other way to vent his growing frustration, he yanked out his swords but, instead of going through forms he had no patience to do properly, he started hacking at the body of the dragon, splashing blood, rotting meat, and carrion birds in every direction while screaming with every swing. No one came near him the rest of that day.

 

 

 

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