The gates had fallen and the city burned that night. Imperial officers rode the streets on their war chargers, proclaiming that the city had been liberated from tyranny and the citizens would be safe as long as they returned to their residences. Orcish soldiers, gripped by their battle madness, beat anyone who tried to flee. The Imperials could not allow a flood of refugees out of the city; it would have put the lie to their propaganda.
Henri and Lauren watched the eastern postern gate from an alleyway, their packs filled with loot from the burning city. Their destination, if they could sneak out this smallish gate, was Skyrim. “Bloody Skyrim,” swore Lauren to herself, “As though life was not tough enough for us here.” Henri was Redguard, while Lauren was Breton. Henri had left his career as a caravan guard to stay with her, and she’d been cast out of the Healer’s household for marrying him. Since then, the only employer either could find was the Thieves Guild. “The Divines work in strange ways, those will be the skills that save us tonight,” thought Lauren. “Guess maybe I am to see the World, after all.”
Henri darted forward, slipping smoothly into a shadowy doorway. He wore the shadows well, as the thieves put it. Lauren could still see traces of the Battle Dance in his movements. She could never have kept up with him in the shadows, were it not for the fact that she was cloaked in her invisibility spell. He slipped through the shadows. She just ran from point to point, cloaked in magic.
Two of the orcish gate guards argued in their language of growls and snarls. One shoved the other, and then it was on. The third guard--a hunchbacked female--watched from her post, letting the males settle their argument in the customary way of orcs. Henri signaled Lauren to wait. Drawing a long knife out of his sleeve, he advanced to within a few feet of the fight. When one of the orcs was pushed against the wall near Henri’s position, he silently slipped that knife under its armor and back out. The orc fell dead, leaving his rival panting over him in stunned confusion.
The hunchbacked female cursed. Lauren could recognize a curse in any language, even orcish, in which everything sounded like a curse. The surviving male whimpered his innocence: I didn’t mean to… that is, I don't know how… The female cut him off with a bark. With a hand chop and a quick command, she sent him away to find a replacement.
The female watched her subordinate slink off down the narrow path between the wall and the outer fortifications. Just before the male was out of sight, Henri darted forward and stabbed quickly up under her floating ribs, through the lungs and into the heart. She slumped to the ground without sound or struggle. Henri motioned for Lauren to come through the gate. She laid a hand lightly on his shoulder to tell him when she had arrived. Henri advanced again and focused on the path forward. They weren’t free yet. There was no easy path through the broken pickets and army encampments.
Suddenly a high-pitched wail pierced the night from right at Lauren’s feet, where the dead female lay. Lauren realized that what she had taken for a hunchback was actually a baby slung across the female’s back. Its cry carried even across the shouting and screaming of the city.
“Silence it quickly!” hissed Henri, glancing back for only a second. Lauren dropped to a squat, lay a hand on the baby’s forehead and muttered a soothing spell over it. The infant gurgled and fell back asleep. Lauren’ rapidly assessed the baby for injuries. Despite the fact that its mother had rolled over it when she fell, the baby suffered only a few bumps and bruises, easy to heal. She was a girl. At this age, the baby’s tusks had not erupted. “She doesn’t look like an orc at all,” thought Lauren. “I might have guessed dunmer by the complexion, sweet little thing.”
“Time to move,” called Henri softly, and then he was gone, down the trail to the next corner.
Lauren’s heart skipped a beat. She’d been so engrossed, she’d almost forgotten their situation. Awkwardly, she tugged at the straps of the baby’s papoose, but it was reinforced with steel rings and plates, and was too heavy to move pick up. Lauren had heard the saying that orcs wore heavy armor before they could walk, but she’d never taken it literally until now. “Lauren! It has to be now!” called Henri in a hoarse whisper. In desperation, she pulled the baby out of its bundle and hugged it to her own breast. By the Divines, she was heavy!
Her invisibility spell had worn off by the time she reached her husband. Henri grabbed her hand with barely a glance and pulled her down the path, through several rows of pickets, across a burned field and into the trees. They didn’t stop running until they were out of sight and sound of the city. Taking cover in the willows that grew along the bank of Storm Creek, they caught their breath. Only then did Henri see what she was carrying.
“You brought it with you? I meant for you to…” But he stopped himself when he met his wife’s eyes. It had not occurred to her before that moment how he had meant for her to silence the child. If he knew what was good for him, he would never bring it up again.
She read his face though. They were a mixed race couple, fleeing into an unfamiliar country with only what they could carry, and now, to top it off, they carried with them an orcish infant. Orcish! Who in Skyrim would take them in? She knew he had a point, but leaving the child was not an option for her. She stared him down. Like so much of their communication, the entire argument was settled in near silence. Henri sighed deeply, and his face relaxed as he made peace with his wife's choice.
Lauren decided to wait until later to mention that she’d dropped the recently deceased earl’s family silver to carry the baby.
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