Ulfric didn't summon me again for the rest of my time in his city but I did notice the guards he had watching me. I ignored them and on the last day began to stock up on supplies for my trip towards Winterhold. Once I was set on that front I made my way to the docks and grabbed the fur clothes I needed from that odd Argonian mage. It only cost me fifty gold but then again the fellow flat out told me he just took a complete ice bear pelt and set it into my shape. -
It looked pretty good if I say so myself. The entire thing fit snuggly and basically made me look like I had white fur all over my body from a distance as the seams were tight. I said my farewells to Dar-La and the rest of the caravan and headed out the path on the dock onto the snow and ice covered shore of the river. I held my right hand up and a purple portal came into existence as my toad was summoned from whatever plane of Oblivion the thing was native to. -
"Ribbit!" the thing croaked in protest as it felt the snow and ice beneath it.
"Oh shush, we both know you are being dramatic." I said with a chuckle.
I had naturally long since tested the things ability to handle the cold so I knew for a fact it was complaining just because it could. The damned thing croaked at me with a look that all but told me it had cursed at me but I just rolled my eyes at it and hopped on it's back.
"Let's go. The faster we get to Winterhold the faster you can go back to whatever plane you are from." I said calmly and that was all the motivation the fellow needed to launch itself forward at full tilt.
I didn't intend to make any stops along this trip as I couldn't remember any worth mentioning stops between Windhelm and Winterhold. Other than Snow veil sanctum that was the place Gallus was entombed that is. I had no intention of getting near that place though as one, Draugr, and two, Karliah. More the latter than the former in this case as I had no clue if she was watching over the place or just happened to decide to confront Mercer there in the game.-
Whatever the case that was a whole lot of nope as far as I was concerned. Mercer had only just gotten his new place in Riften from Maven and so hadn't gotten comfortable with leaving the key there yet. I imagined it would take at least another two years before I could sneak in and nab the thing. I almost wanted to see the smarmy pricks face when he discovers it missing. For now though I needed to focus on reaching Winterhold first and not getting caught up in any nonsense.-
Without having to keep pace with the caravan my traveling speed was vastly increased. My toad was blitzing over the snow covered barely visible road fast enough that a small cloud of the white powder was being kicked up from sheer air pressure behind us. If I had to make a comparison it was like when a car drove over loose snow or a snowmobile doing the same. My mount might be an ugly bastard but if there was one thing it had it was stamina. Even after three hours of full on running the big fucker wasn't even breathing too much harder than normal.-
The city was already out of sight as we rounded the bend around the small mountain to my left when I had to forcefully throw myself off to the side suddenly. It was a good thing I did too as even while I rolled through the snow violently and painfully nearly a dozen spikes of ice nearly invisible to the eyes pierced through the air right where I had been sitting on my toad moments before. I didn't get much time to recover from basically jumping out of a moving car though and had to blast myself away with magic in a hurry as more spikes rained down at me.-
I scanned my surroundings rapidly as I got to my feet and had a restoration spell healing my damaged body as fast as I could. It was not hard to spot the source of my danger as they stood on the snow covered mountain side in black robes that fully covered them and had golden edges. There were five of them and each one was holding an identical wooden staff with a soul gem at the tip that they were pointing towards me.
'Fucking Thalmor, of course.' I thought with a mental sigh.
I had always known the possibility that they'd come after me existed, I just didn't think it would be so soon. I wasn't just going to roll over and kick it though.
'At least fifty yards, range advantage is theirs. That might be a slight pain in the ass. All mages to boot so they'll definitely fight me for every inch. How to handle this?' I contemplated as my mind sharpened from the surging adrenaline flooding my veins.
The would-be assassins weren't going to just give me time to think though and three new spikes of ice formed in front of each staff's tip and came flying at me no slower than any arrow let loose.-
I quickly reached for my chest and pulled out my blade and swung it awkwardly but with purpose. Angling my blades flat with each strike at just the right moment to strike multiple spikes and deflect them off course enough to miss was really fucking hard and each impact on the blade made my wrist ache. Clearly this caught the elves off guard and earned me a moment of respite that I didn't waste and taking a deep breath unleashed one of my trump cards.
"Wuld-Nah!" I shouted as I stepped forward.
In that exact instant my acceleration was pushed to an unnatural extreme and I covered nearly thirty yards in a blur. The thu'um strained my throat slightly but after my magical modification it was barely a tickle. The elves immediately panicked however as they understood even without much context what just happened and what it meant for them. I could visibly see the wasted magicka rolling off them as they started rapid firing ice spikes at me without giving the proper time to fully control their magicka efficiently.-
It was a trade off really, the correct one in fact. Using another [whirlwind sprint] shout to close the rest of the distance was a suicidal idea with the constant machine gun fire of magical murder ice getting thrown at me. The biggest downside to that shout was that it worked by changing your rate of acceleration based on whatever movement you made at the time of it's use. A single direction acceleration with no turns. I could use it to go sideways and backwards but forward would get me put so full of holes cheese would get jealous.