#ma'dran

“I, well, your grace, I was wondering about... about that bounty”, Ma’dran says, unsure how to address a Jarl. 

“Oh, a bounty, you should speak to my steward for that, she handles these things. Anuriel, take care of him, please”, Jarl Laila Law-Giver says and makes a small gesture towards the towering Altmer. 

“As my Jarl said, my name is Anuriel and I am the steward here. I handle everyday matters for the Jarl. You wanted to know about the bounty for a bandit camp, yes?” Anuriel’s voice is more kind than Laila’s, but still very businesslike. 

Ma’dran just nods, not wanting to make a fool of himself. Inside his head a voice repeats: just a merchant’s son, don’t know a thing about courts, just get me out of here...

“The bounty is still available, if that was what you were here for”, Anuriel says. “Though know that you aren’t the first one to try, the Greenfell Keep lot are a tough bunch...” 

The road to the keep is short, and Ma’dran almost has time to forget about his terrible task on the way, because the sun is shining beautifully through the yellowing autumn leaves in the forest. 

The fortress itself is barely guarded at all, the lone guarding bandit asleep at her post, with several empty bottles around her. Ma’dran gets inside with surprising ease, and from then on it’s a matter of sticking to the shadows and ambushing them. The first bandit he kills, he feels sorry for, wondering what his parents would think if they knew what their son was up to. Not the second one. Every single movement of his is fast, every muscle taut as a bow-string, his heart beating a tattoo on his chest. The armour they wear look like his: cheap, strung-together provisorical solutions made out of iron, leather, hides, pelts. Their weapons are like his, too: the cheapest iron, barely better than pot-metal. They come at him with clubs and maces and hammers and daggers, and him against them with his thin little sword, no shield because the money ran out. They kick and punch and grapple and a fierce little Bosmer tries to bite, and he answers with memories of street fights in his youth and the sheer raw panic of I won’t die today. Eventually he makes his way to the tower where the bandit leader lives, roosting up there like some vulture, and this time the fight is very dicey indeed. Ma’dran manages to distract her by clawing at her eyes, making her scream and cry blood, and then he finds the spot and plunges his sword through her rawhide breastplate, again and again and again until he catches himself and stops.