A Fight at the Docks

[Nekyn]

In the evening, I observe a sailor bump into one of the thugs who bother our cold Windhelm docks. It comes to a quick brawl, but before the salt-weathered man notices the nasty blade stuck in his guts, his head splits on the ancient slabs our forefathers carved out of the mountains. I am the only man to kneel at his side and beg Kyne to adopt his tears as those of a warrior.

Later that night, a letter falls from my desk. The Master of Fishmongers has urgently raised his demands again and I am reminded of my aching back, still bent from the last month I had spent hauling ghost-fins out from underneath the ice sheets. I thrust the paper back under my debts.

In the morning, the Jarl promises to defend our rivers by granting each capable hand a sword and each unwilling head the axe. Guards have to break up the crowd, but our shouts would have made Wulfharth proud. She did not speak of aiding us with trained soldiers, and as I rub snow on my blackened eye, I fear she has not heard that the raiders arrive on Dunmeri vessels. A pity that slaughterfish make for such terrible meals, because soon they will be the only ones to swarm the White.

During my temple visit, I muse who I should pray to. Violence had crossed the horizon long before I noticed, drawing nearer with every lunar cycle. I do not wish to ask Kyne for strength, lest she rejects my previous plea in sight of self-worry, and I have never dared to invoke the Dead Gods. Although mighty warriors, they too have fallen to that endless brutality, and now their hearth sits among the wrathful draugr.

Instead, I turn to Cyrod’s Zenithar, as my empty purse is growing into a larger threat than a chitin-clad slaver’s knife. May Stuhn be merciful and await my call when the cycle turns on me.

[Sips-Much-Tea]

Interesting piece!

If you write a follow-up, I'd certainly read it.

[DrNightstone]

I'm expecting an anthology series.

[Nekyn]

Thank you! Already hard at work on the sequels "Another Fight at the Docks" and "They Don't Stop Fighting at the Docks"!