I have been sick over the past week and this has not left me with enough energy or interest to write. The cough is still with me, but I have recovered enough energy to put down some words. Sun is bright in the sky now. It is nice to see as the past four or five days have been dark with thick heavy clouds. Even early this morning the clouds covered the sky like a heavy dark blanket. The snow fell in thick bands across the valley. Up here I missed most of it, but received enough to be up to my ankle with just the fresh stuff.

Hadvar, I wonder if he is still alive. Hopefully he survived the civil war. It was a bloody affair. Kin fighting, town folk fighting, everyone fighting each other. Some say that nobody really wins a war. This truth is even stronger when it comes to civil war. My ordeal escaping from Helgen was a terrible in it’s own right. Even if I am just one man. The escape is a ghost, I think, that will never leave me even now that I have come peace with it.

On Hadvar’s direction I strapped on some light Imperial armor, boots and a helm. Then grabbed a nice sword that hung on the weapon rack. The sword seemed of good quality if build only for utility. We left the barracks and went down the hall. This is where we walked straight into a pair of Stormcloak soldiers in the gatehouse round. It was a woman with a short sword/shield and fair haired Nord man with large two handed sword. The woman quipped, “Well isn’t this a surprise.”, when we walked in. As if an Imperial soldier in an Imperial fort was somehow out of place. So, despite the dragon outside and that we actually survived it’s attack, they set upon Hadvar like he was sole representative for the Empire in the land.

I stood there for a few seconds stunned, while Hadvar rebuffed their first couple of attacks. He then returned with a swing of his own at the woman. That is when the blond man turned to address me. He opened with a heavy down stroke that I think was meant to split my head in two. I reacted just in time, the blow glanced on my sword hitting into my armor. The power was enough stagger me back. He took another big swing at me which I was able to side step. While his sword was hitting the floor I step forward and thrust straight at his heart. It was enough to pierce through the armor, but not much more than that. He took a step back. Raised his sword as my horizontal cut whiffed through the air. He brought a quick diagonal stroke that came through the armor and bit in to my left arm. It wasn’t deep but it hurt bad and knocked me a bit side way. In response I swung wildly with just my right hand. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and I managed to slice his cheek open. He returned with a horizontal attack which I was able to deflect. I then cut back at him with a diagonal down motion that hit on to his shoulder near the neck, the armor took most of the hit. Then quickly I sliced at him with a horizontal attack on from my left. That one hit home. The sword hit bone before his blade struck mine in defense. When I pulled my sword back, he swung his down. With his long sword being so heavy he didn’t have the strength to hit hard. It bounced on my helmet and then my chest piece. Quickly I batted away his sword, then with all my strength and energy I thrust up at him. The Imperial blade I had went through his armor, belly and back. He looked straight at me.

His face registering the shock as the whole world slowed around us, everything tunred blurry but his face. That big sword of his clanged to the ground. Then slowly his face changed, taking on a weak and sick look. He wasn’t the larger stronger beast that attacked me. He was Nord. He was just a man, a man about to die. As my energy diminished, my pushing strength lowered and that Stormcloak soldier, that man, that fighter of Ulfric start to slump. We were still looking at each other. One man to another. He muttered something about Talos. Then he died; by my hand, on my borrowed sword, looking into my eyes.

That is the day I day I killed my first man. The blame of that man’s death is with Ulfric Stormcloak and his damnable ego. Unfortunately that was not the last man I killed or helped kill that day. Nor was it last in the days to come. Times in Skyrim were hard, bad people were making times harder and bad things were being done. Sometimes by good people.