Chronicles of the Five Companions 5

 is a book in.

Content
Abnur Tharn, here.

Collecting the Redguard from the Halls of Torment was a simple enough task, in the end. I find it curious that Sai Sahan was affected so by his experiences with the other members of the Companions. Though I find his tolerance of—and affection for—that hulking she-troll distasteful, it cannot be denied that his willpower throughout his imprisonment was nothing short of legendary.

We now know where the Amulet of Kings resides. It is perhaps fitting that he returned it there. Sahan is better-read than I expected, but perhaps a bit too poetic. A clever and patriotic man of Imperial descent might have immediately thought of the ancient citadel of Sancre Tor and its association with Alessia and the covenant of the Divines. It is perhaps a great blessing that the Elven Mannimarco has no such love for Cyrodilic history.

Sai Sahan is a curious individual. I have never considered the Redguards quite as contemptible as many Nibenese lords might, and I find him the most agreeable of the surviving Companions. He understands duty and dedication, serves those he knows to be his betters, and hones his craft with singular dedication. Despite his inability to resurrect a lost tradition—for the best, probably, given its supposed implication in the destruction of the Redguard homeland—Sai Sahan's abilities with a longsword are awe-inspiring.

I recall a time during the war against the Longhouse Emperors when he rode at the head of a column of mercenary soldiers tasked by Varen to assist in the liberation of Leyawiin. It turned out that Leovic, scion of the Tagh Droiloch and then-emperor of the Imperial City, employed those mercenaries as double agents. When Sai came before the gates of Leyawiin with his "loyal" troops, they turned on him, hoping to deliver the severed head of Varen's legendary Dragonguard Commander to Emperor Leovic.

Second-hand accounts of the citizens are often difficult to trust, but even if one takes simple peasant exaggeration into account, it is clear that Sai fought his way through two forces intent on separating his skull from his neck. When he returned to the rebellion base at Bruma weeks later, he did so with the scalps of eighty-six men and the news that Leyawiin had been freed.

He's never really spoken of it to me, despite my pressuring. Varen, of course, did not pry—he used his own charisma and the overactive imaginations of the levies to spin a tale of glorious combat. One man against two armies. Sai Sahan, who single-handedly freed Leyawiin from Leovic's control.

The truth, I suspect, is far more brutal and bloody. One does not saw the skin off of eighty-six skulls unless one is burdened with a great deal of suppressed anger and bloodlust. One man does not take on six hundred at once. I think it far more likely that the Redguard fought a brutal, running battle throughout the city for days, murdering commanders and guardsmen alike until the Reachmen and their mercenaries eventually quit the settlement.

That is what makes Sai Sahan so dangerous. He does not look to be the sort who would remain hidden away in dark alleys and backstreets, surviving by eating garbage, butchering, one-by-one, men so savage that the only way to frighten them is to become a murderous, invisible ghost, haunting the shadows of an occupied city. And yet, that is precisely who he is, and what he has done.