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It is to you, unlikely reader, that I bequeath this brief account, and leave in your tender care the task of being its judge and jury. Though, untempered, perhaps, by the sights of war, I fear you will settle comfortably into your chair and, expecting to be entertained by a tale of valor, nurse a growing grudge as you suspect its absence. Let me therefore disabuse you of your notions ahead of their formations: there is no valor here.
Oh? What say you from the unmolested safety of your shelter? “ Why did you, Stigr Two-Eyes, not stand your ground, you worthless scoundrel ,” you mumble from your perch, “ for did that Great War not call for heroism? Had you and your men, abled-bodied seadogs as daring as any Stros M’Kai pirate, rallied against the rising tide and defended Anvil, perhaps… ” Or further, “ And what prevented you, salt-riddled rascal, from renouncing your wicked buccaneering ways after the war was over to apply thy skills to fairer ventures or worthier deeds? ”
Spare me your bluster, welp. After what I saw that year, I spit thrice upon your notions of heroism. Your home does not burn, your children do not scream in terror, your spouse does not lie charred beneath the rubble. Thalmor curs do not behead your brethren and parade their gory trophies. The lord in charge of your defense does not flay your kin for his entertainment and make you watch. Do you know the name of the one credited with subverting the Dominion’s plans? Do you know the rot besetting Arnima?
Indeed, you do not. For you were not there.
Anvil fell, but in those days news traveled badly or not at all. The Abecean Pearl sailed in the early hours of the 17th of Sun Dusk, 4E172, the city set ablaze in our wake by the rampaging army of Thalmor dogs. I can say with confidence that not a single one of them evinces a shred of mercy, and it would behoove you, who reads these shaky lines penned in old age through the haze of faltering memory, to slaughter any of them on sight should you have the misfortune of encountering them, for after what I have seen of their savagery, a death in a steaming pile of their own offal is the only end they deserve.
Fifty odd years I have sailed the seas, and though my sailing days are over, never before or since have I witnessed more rabid a lot. I will spare you the details of those scenes of fair Anvil falling beneath their boots, screaming beneath their spells, and writhing beneath their battle-fueled appetites, for you can well imagine them yourself. In this tender age of supposed peace, few are left to remember or bear witness, and fewer are willing to undertake the bitter toil of recollection. Suffice it to say that, confident in the Gods-ordained nature of their cause, the Thalmor unleashed upon Anvil unbridled perfidy matched only by the draemora vomited from the Gates of Oblivion. Even the grim code of my Brethren, that uncomplicated rule that demands we exercise honor when it is profitable and mercy when it is expedient, and for which we are summarily set to decorate the gibbets from Northpoint to Lilmoth, stands as a standard of integrity compared to that which the Dominion has birthed after their Tower fell. As with any festered wound, better to amputate then cauterize the stump, than to suffer the slow death of spreading infection. If I remained a pirate through all the twenty some years of this alleged peace, it is because the Empire could no longer muster the spine to do the surgeon’s labor.
But perhaps I am hasty with admonishments and you know of these foul matters already. It is the due of old age to instruct, and few of my original crew yet live to tell the tale. Of those who remain, only two still maintain contact. One, my erstwhile navigator who steered us through the narrows of Iliac Bay when we made landfall in High Rock after refitting in Stros M’Kai—that haven of corsairs where our kind finds shelter—is an esteemed member of the Companions. He writes on occasion and visits my establishment when a bounty brings him to Solitude. Perhaps because he joined us from the island of Stirk, where he and other refugees from Kvatch found themselves stranded, he wears the scars of that Great War with equanimity and no lost sleep. Kvatch, as you may know, was spared Anvil’s fate. His nightmares, if he has them, are born of other matters. The other, also a Dunmer, who stood with me as we sought to rally the last of those survivors—some seventy souls in total left of a city of thousands—visits me still, though his fate is no more enviable now than it was then.
After three weeks at sea we landed in Wayrest. There, in one of its taverns, an establishment frequented by river corsairs from Hammerfell and other characters of ill repute—the object of whose unlikely sympathy me and my crew presently became, since news of the events in Cyrodiil had reached High Rock—a captain of a raiding outfit approached us with a proposal. As the Pearl was in no shape for another voyage, and the repairs would have us moored for several weeks, stretching our coin beyond the limits of what my crew would countenance, I, upon consulting with the interested parties and receiving their enthusiastic agreement to exercise their pent up energies, accepted his offer. Our benefactor was in need of a skilled navigator to take him through the riverways of this rocky, water-logged land, and into the bogs of eastern High Rock. As I recall him, though I shall not disclose his name, he was a broad-shouldered fellow of Redguard descent. Terracotta of face and ocean-green of eye, he cut the sort of figure that transforms seamlessly from seasoned seadog swilling brandy to galant courtier welcome in the venomous halls of the mighty and powerful. The sum he proposed would see the Pearl repaired, the crew outfitted, and our surviving wards lodged in the wayhouses of Wayrest, already at capacity and thus offering charity only in exchange for a well-greased palm.
It was decided that five of us would accompany the Redguard and his crew: myself, my navigator, and three others. In hindsight, I wish I had taken the two Dunmer assassins along, for the outcome of our venture might have differed, but they left my employ in Stros M’Kai to seek passage to Hammerfell. I left the Pearl in the care of my first mate, a stalwart Skingrad fellow, may Sonvgarde’s mead be sweet on his tongue. At first caw, my navigator, Athis, presented himself at my door with that ill-defined foreboding so typical of sailors the seas over, born of intuition more than any present threat. From his reconnoitering among the locals, it appeared that our destination, a small town formerly known as Raven Springs, but renamed to Arnima, a moniker that chilled my blood for no reason I could formulate, was in the grip of some uncanny plague. The local ruler, one Lord Mortifayne, had tightened the noose of his rulership in answer. Accounts of his excesses were so implausible that when they reached our incredulous ears, their veracity appeared apocryphal at best. What our Redguard benefactor wanted with such a place remained shrouded in mystery, though Athis speculated that the matter seemed more personal than pecuniary. His foresight proved correct.
Of our crew, only myself, Athis, and the Redguard captain survived that journey. The Redguard’s river sloop took us east, into a green mist spread over the rolling hills. At the heart of that unnatural miasma lay our target. From the safety of the marsh where our company took shelter, the gruesome ornaments on the town’s palisade were unmistakeable. Flies gorged themselves on the remains thus displayed. So thick they were that the entire length of the fortifications appeared shrouded in buzzing black fog. As to the town itself…But that is another story, and some matters are best forgotten. I owe my life to my navigator’s bravery, and to the Redguard’s steady head and steadier aim. They owe theirs to my ability to spin a convincing lie. The Redguard’s query was dead by the time we found what was left of her, but he was a man of his word. The Pearl sailed three weeks later, headed for Hammerfell where I would augment my crew with those ready to seek their fortune on the seas.
Did we bring the fight to the Thalmor? I hear you ask. Patient reader, surely you jest. After what I had witnessed that year, let me ask you in return—what in bloody Oblivion does it matter? There is neither justice nor fairness in this world: only steel, wit, and favorable winds.