After the bridge dropped, it was a literal living hell. The Stormcloaks poured in like an endless tide, and the battlefield was instantly drenched in gore.
On that narrow wooden bridge, where there was barely enough room to stand, Whiterun's defenders and the Stormcloak rebels tangled in a frantic, claustrophobic melee.
In the sheer chaos, some soldiers lost their heads entirely, unable to tell friend from foe—a tragedy of friendly fire amidst the madness.
The moment the drawbridge slammed down, I summoned my shield.
A shield wasn't my primary weapon, but if I wanted to survive in a bottleneck like this, it was a necessity.
When you're outnumbered, you have to hold the narrowest ground possible. If you fight in the open, you get flanked and surrounded in seconds. That's game over.
So, every able-bodied man Whiterun had left formed a horizontal line on the bridge to meet the enemy. Across from us, the Stormcloak warriors raised their weapons and charged with a roar.
I gripped the spectral handle of my Bound Shield and braced for the impact.
Since my proficiency was still low, it looked less like a proper shield and more like a flimsy, translucent dinner plate, but I didn't have the luxury of being picky.
They hit us like a stampede of bulls. Finally, their steel crashed against my blade and shield with a bone-jarring thud.
The rebel coming at me was swinging a massive double-edged battleaxe.
Just before we collided, the bastard jumped, using his momentum to bring the axe down in a heavy overhead strike.
My shield, woven from aether, didn't absorb physical force all that well. But it was still a hell of a lot better than taking the hit with my face.
—Clang!
The moment I caught the axe blow dead center, I lunged forward, thrusting my sword toward the man's throat.
The tip of my blade found the narrow gap between his helmet and his cuirass, sinking deep into the soft tissue. One down.
But the numbers were overwhelming. This fight was far from over.
"Imperial lackeys! Die!"
The rebel resistance was fierce. We barely held our ground in the swirl of blades.
—Squelch!
"Gah!"
In the middle of the carnage, someone slashed my ankle.
Thankfully, the blade missed my Achilles tendon, but I was suddenly forced to shift my weight and balance on one leg.
There was no time to wait for a heal from Eloise. In this moment, if even one man dropped out of the line, the formation would shatter. If the formation shattered, we lost the city.
I shifted as much weight as I could off the injured foot to minimize the bleeding, fighting with everything I had against the cold steel pressing in from all sides.
Surprisingly, we were actually holding on—but it didn't last.
Through the press of Stormcloak soldiers, I saw a mage in the back beginning an incantation.
The Magicka inside her churned, manifesting as a freezing wind around her palms.
As a powerful Ice Storm charged in both her hands, she screamed,
"Everyone, get down!"
The Stormcloak soldiers engaged on the bridge didn't hesitate. At her signal, they all hit the deck.
Unlike its name suggests, an Ice Storm isn't actually fast. It moves at a speed that even Eloise could probably see and dodge with her own eyes.
But its destructive power is terrifying.
Even though we could see the frost vortex crawling toward us, we didn't dodge.
No, we couldn't dodge.
The second we moved off that bridge, we were giving them the road. We'd be surrounded by Stormcloaks in heartbeat.
But if we took the storm head-on, the damage would be catastrophic.
It was a lose-lose situation. No matter what choice we made, we were screwed.
That was exactly what they were counting on.
The Stormcloaks broke their own line to avoid the spell, and we had no choice but to take the full brunt of it with our bodies.
Soldiers around me groaned and cried out in agony, but my own damage was relatively light.
This is one of the few perks of ethereal matter. Bound objects have poor physical dampening, but their ability to absorb magical damage is excellent.
Plus, with the Nord blood in my veins, I had 50% Frost Resistance. It was manageable.
"Urgh..."
But being the only one left standing on a battlefield means nothing. Sadly, two of our men died instantly from that blast.
The survivors weren't much better off; most were incapacitated, their limbs heavy from the frost magic and the mounting fatigue of the battle.
"Now! Charge!"
At their officer's command, the Stormcloaks surged forward again. Whiterun's guards were being cut down one by one.
Then, the backlash hit me too.
"Die, Imperial scum!"
Four soldiers converged on me at once. I cut down the first one in front, trying to weave through the attacks of the remaining three,
But in the end, I couldn't block every strike coming from every direction. My body was carved up by axes and swords, and I collapsed.
For the record, the reason I didn't summon an Atronach was because I didn't have a spare second.
Summoning even the weakest skeleton takes at least five seconds of pure concentration. Calling out something strong and durable takes even longer.
In a high-speed melee where every second is a matter of life and death, there's no room to stand around casually casting spells.
"Mister!!"
I heard someone screaming for me, but I had lost far too much blood.
The hemorrhage deprived my brain of oxygen. My consciousness simply drifted away into the dark.
Choi Ha-neul fought with an intensity born of pure, localized focus. She parried, she flowed with the strikes, and she countered.
Because she could spare so little time for any single enemy, she had to inflict maximum damage with minimum movement.
She fought until her muscles screamed. But how could any one person perfectly evade the synchronized attacks of over five trained soldiers?
Not just her, but Lydia, Irileth, and even Rikke were fighting through their own wounds.
Then she saw me fall at the very front. In a desperate bid to save my life, she used her final trump card: the Thu'um.
It was an act that could reveal her identity as the Dragonborn to the whole world, but my life mattered more.
"Fus Ro Dah!"
—That voice... it's just like Lord Ulfric's!
—Gwaaargh!
In a single shout, over a dozen men were swept away by the concussive shockwave.
She sprinted forward to pull me out of the meat grinder—
—Slash!
"Ngh!"
A freezing shard of ice grazed her shoulder. It cut her, but didn't bury itself deep.
The same mage who had decimated our ranks with the Ice Storm had now aimed an Ice Spike at Ha-neul.
Ha-neul had already used her Shout and lacked a ranged weapon like a bow.
So, she squeezed out every last drop of Magicka she had left to conjure a Fireball.
A sphere of intense, roaring flame manifested in her palm.
"Wa-Wait! Aaaah!"
Whatever the mage was trying to say didn't matter. Ha-neul threw the Fireball with nothing but pure spite behind it.
The projectile slammed directly into the mage's chest, turning her into a blackened piece of charcoal instantly.
While the Stormcloak soldiers were still reeling in confusion, she hoisted my bloody frame onto her back and carried me to Eloise.
As Eloise reached out, a golden light—warm as sunshine—enveloped me. My wounds began to knit back together at an unnatural speed.
"Gasped! Ha-neul, look over there!"
Following Eloise's pointing finger, Ha-neul turned her head to see cavalrymen armed with long spears galloping toward them.
In terms of height, reach, and velocity, infantry are no match for cavalry.
And there were thirteen of them, charging in a tight formation.
"Keep treating the Mister."
"Don't go! It's too dangerous!"
Ha-neul ignored her genuine concern, standing her ground against the cavalry with the Blades Sword in one hand and a steel axe in the other.
Before she was the Dragonborn, she was just a slender girl.
The riders wore full helmets, making it impossible to see the expressions or emotions hidden beneath the steel.
And perched atop their mounts, the height of the cavalry reached nearly two meters.
That overwhelming presence and sheer scale only added to the mounting dread.
—Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
Watching them kick up dust as they bore down on her, Ha-neul gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her steel.
And the moment the cavalry neared the bridge—
The lead rider and his horse collided with a boulder flying through the air.
For some reason, the catapults weren't targeting the wooden bridge anymore; they were lobbing stones directly at the cavalry.
The horse struck by the projectile collapsed with a sickening groan, and the rider was thrown violently from his saddle.
"Eh?"Ha-neul looked toward the catapults. The truly shocking sight was just beyond them.
The Stormcloak base camp was currently being overrun by Imperial Legionaries.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of fighting, reinforcements had arrived.
The salvation we had desperately held out for had reached us at last.
"You can rest easy now. You held the line well!"
The Legion forces swept away the Stormcloak remnants. The remaining cavalry and infantry broke rank and fled in utter panic.
Against absolute odds, we had successfully defended Whiterun.
"I can't believe it..."
Rikke muttered as she looked at Ha-neul. As a Legate, she had stayed and fought because she had to, but even she had expected this battle to end in defeat.
This was, quite literally, a miraculous victory.
And even in the middle of that mindless carnage, Rikke had heard it clearly. The girl's Thu'um.
'So this is what General Tullius meant by that "strange energy."'
Rikke finally understood that the anomaly Tullius sensed was the blood of a Dragonborn.
"Mister! No..."
The joy of victory was short-lived; I still hadn't opened my eyes.
"Pfft. Don't worry, he's just sleeping."
In reality, I had just passed out from sheer exhaustion, but Ha-neul had jumped to a much darker conclusion.
Whether it was thanks to the restoration magic or simply the relief of victory,
For some reason, it felt like I was having a very good dream.