People of Skyrim do you hear it?
Do you know this feeling in our breast?
Men of the North you must answer
The old loyalties we must put to rest
The new dawn of Nirn is upon us
We Nords must remember our pride
The dawn of the new risen people
The time of old kingdoms has died
Cast down your hammer and plough
Take up the black banner and swords
Ready our chains are for breaking
We'll have no more of the powerfuls words
From High Rock to Black Marsh we're united
Brothers across Nirn are we all
We'll shake off the dragons and eagles
And all evil 'cross Tamriel will fall
*****
The people of Skyrim has risen up. No more oppressed by the yoke of a collapsing Empire, they have rejected the false piety of the Stormcloaks. Bursting forth onto the streets of Whiterun where Jarl Balgruff had forced desperate refugees to live in squalor outside of his city the free peoples of Skyrim will suffer no more. Under the Lost Legion's banner of the fallen dragon, representing the inevitable fall of the Third Empire and the defeat of Alduin by the Dragonborn, an ally of the Free Holds since the liberation of Whiterun.
The destroyed city of Helgen has been rebuilt, a secure home for all those who have lost theirs in this pointless war. The corrupt Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreath has also been slain, captured and butchered by the bandits he had forced to harass and rob his own people. The Hold remains troubled however, notably by the uncle of Siddgeir, Dengeir of Stuhn, who still pretains to the title of Jarl even after the Jarls' longhouse has been turned into the town meeting hall.
With the Stormcloaks too weak to attack after being repulsed by the Lost Legion and their peasant auxiliaries at Whiterun, and the loss of Falkreath cutting off land access to Cyrodill for the Empire, the governing council of the Free Holds sought allies. Ulfric, tyrant that he was, demanded fealty and the heads of all those who led the rebellions in Falkreath and Whiterun. Only one man in Skyrim remained who could possibly assist the Free Hold- Madanach, the imprisoned King of the Reach.
*****
The Witch-Men of the Reach, the Forsworn had continued their campaign of liberation even after Ulfric took Markarth from them. Their king languished in Cidhna Mine, The King-in-Rags as he was known to all, even his most loyal followers enslaved with him. With the help of the Free Holds, outsiders who would draw less suspicion than Reachmen, his Forsworn army sought to liberate him from his chains and with him the whole Reach.
The daring escape from Cidhna Mine has now become the stuff of legends, the terrible conspiracy of the Silver-Blood family- the "noble robbers" of the Reach, was uncovered even as the liberated Forsworn cut their way through Markarth and on to freedom. With the Lost Legion at their side the Forsworn emancipated far more than their king, all those wrongly imprisoned by the Silver-Blood family found freedom among the Reachmen, the abused labourers of Markarth's underbelly found their voice and refused to work, outside the city in the valleys and bluffs of the Reach yet more indentured miners joined with the energized rebellion. When the liberating army finally approached the city Jarl Igmund and his Silver-Blood masters were dug in, rebellion within the city stifled and confined to the Warrens. And yet still the ancient city fell, not to assault as Ulfric Stormcloak once did, but to subterfuge. Sneaking along Dwemer passage ways long lost and forgotten a lone agent found their way to Understone Keep, and to the laboratory of the Dwemer archaeologist Calcelmo, and in it a new development- the Dwemer control wand. Markarth was taken from within with mechanised mercilessness of the ancient annimunculi her rulers used as decoration.
Much as Madanach sought to visit upon the city the same treatment Ulfric Stormcloak had visited upon him, facing an army of Dwemer protectors brought him some pause. Though not a Free Hold itself the Reach counts itself as an ally of the new Skyrim and a Free Kingdom, the Reachmen being unwilling to throw aside their beloved King-in-Rags in the elation of their victory.
The loss of Markarth all opposition was forced into action. The Stormcloak militia harassed the borders of Whiterun and were repulsed at the ruins of Helgen thanks to the heroism of its new inhabitants. The Legion took the town of Rorikstead and looked set to march across the open steppe if not for the ferocity of the local Giants in defending their homes against the diminutive trespassers.
*****
Riften, the city of hucksters and thieves and the personal domain of the infamous Black-Briar Clan fell from within. The head of the thieves guild Mercer Frey, a ruthless blaggard by all accounts and more focused on personal profit than the guilds ancient code of helping the needy, was deposed due to an internal power struggle. When his body was dragged from the Ratways, bloated and putrefied, Maven Black-Briar ordered him burned and the city guard to enter the Ratways to root out his killers. Dozens went down into that wet and consuming blackness.
The Thieves Guild had fallen far from their roots, but their allies always lay among the poor and desperate of any city, and the desperate of Riften spoke only of Whiterun and the great experiment taking place there. Weapons were smuggled into the city even as Maven's mercenary cutthroats set out into the Hold, tormenting locals to discover any who may be assisting the Free Holds. In truth the Stormcloaks had proved well dug into the treacherous passes between Helgen and the Rift, Maven's own workers sabotaged her assets. Along with the arms for rebellion a messenger was brought into Riften, with an ultimatum for Jarl Laila Law-Giver- "Your house is rotten. Take care of the Black-Briar's or you will join them."
No army of the Free Hold ever entered the Rift, not until Maven Black-Briar's tar soaked head was thrown at the feet of the Stormcloak commander of Ivarstead and Jarl Laila was safely south of the Jerral Mountains.
*****
Where there is oppression, injustice, and unchecked authority, there you will find the tinder which will be sparked into a Free Hold! In Windhelm however perhaps there was too much injustice, too many beings willing to trample each other to dust for a taste of liberty. In keeping with his discriminatory ideal of Nordic supremacy Jarl Ulfric ran his domain much as how he would have run all of Skyrim had he not been brought down. The Dunmer population of the city, many of them citizens of Windhelm for over a century, were confined to the slum of the city- the Gray Quarter. Working primarily as labourers and in other menial work left over after much of the male population of Nords had been drafted into the Stormcloaks, the crushing poverty and misery of their existence saw many Dunmer reduced to drink, drugs, and criminal activity. Boetiah's Children ran the Gray Quarter, and whilst their presence kept out the abusive city guards their behaviour more than made up for their absence. The Argonians of the city also had their place, outside it, on the freezing dockland of the cities Argonian Assemblage, facing the biting winds coming off of the Sea of Ghosts. Indentured servants of the Shatter-Shield Shipping company, a family as infamous as Silver-Blood's and Black-Briar's for their cruel mistreatment of those beneath them. The Coldblood-Cutthroats ran these docks, the meager profit of their smuggling barely making up the pitiful rations doled out to them.
The historic enmity between these two groups, and lack of presence of the Windhelm Guard made the border of the Gray Quarter and Assemblage a bloody alley of gang warfare more familiar to Bravil or the Imperial Waterfront than Skyrim. Charred bodies and remains which looked to have been torn apart with claws and fangs were regularly pulled from the rubbish when the Guard were forced to enact some measure of the rule of law, and as ever it was the poor of the city who suffered their judgement.
Agents of the Free Holds saw only one option, one side must be supported over the other- only then could any sort of solidarity be created between the cities Nordic and migrant populations. The suggestions of how to remove the Mer or Beastfolk are the stuff of conspiracy, hidden transcripts and messages locked deep in the bowels of Dragonsreach. The only thing one can say for sure is that the New Gnsis Cornerclub was indeed raided by the Windhelm Guard, their Jarl receiving concrete information that the cities Dunmer population planned rebellion and a massacre of the cities Nords. Weapons and armour, Imperial in make, was seized by the crate load. The purge brought upon the Gray Quarter was swift and brutal. The owner of the cornerclub, the Legion veteran Ambarys Rendar, was named as the ringleader in the planned rising and as such as flogged on the steps of the Palace of the Kings before being held aloft in a cage, to die of exposure. His kinsmen, those not butchered in the raids, were bound and forced to march east under armed guard, back to a country some of them had never even seen, Morrowind.
In the following rebellion, the people of Windhelm shocked at their Jarls brutality, a communique was discovered in the house of Clan Shatter-Shield, an offer from a potential partner in Raven Rock who was interested in purchasing the debts of his Argonian labourers in exchange for a lucrative deal in ebony weapons, to be handled by newly employed Dunmer dock hands.
Windhelm today is a city still in shock at what has transpired there. There is no love lost between the Nords and any Elves, the historic enmity between the two running back to Skyrim's founding legends, but to see Dark Elf women and children cut down in the streets, and men flogged within an inch of their lives only to freeze to death on the cities bridge has strained at the Nordic population to some extent, convinced once that freedom from the Empire and its laws would fulfill all discontent. Many have migrated away from the city as a result, to newly founded settlements such as New Helgen and Heljarchen, others who have moved to Windhelm in their stead often note the ease which the cities Argonians walk the icy streets.
Injustice cannot be met with injustice, and the hypocrisy which has liberated Windhelm can never be allowed to see the light of day.
****
Winterhold, Dawnstar, and Morthal. The three sisters of the northern coast, all pale in comparison to Solitude, though Winterhold still longs for its lost glory. The College of Winterhold has shut its gates to rebellion, the people of the Hold are used to being cast out and ignored by their betters, and Winterhold was the only Hold to join the Free Holds with no bloodshed at all, its people eager to seize their own destinies and rebuild their homes. Dawnstar surrendered after a token resistance, cut off from all help and unwilling to rejoin the empire, its people struggle under the new regime to find their place in a realm they do not see as their own. New opportunities however have alleviated some discontent, especially as the town mines now do a booming trade with the growing southern neighbour of Heljarchen. Morthal simply struggles, a town which has never welcomed outsiders was one of the last to formally join the Free Holds. Resistance continued for a time amongst the hunters and trappers who lived in the Holds swampy north, but even they soon gave up in the face of hopelessness.
Solitude however was the prize, the last toe hold of the Empire in Skyrim, Haafinger as well the home of the Thalmor in the province. Reachmen harassed the Holds southern fringes as they had done for decades, but to little impact. Haafinger may indeed have held, may have provided a bridgehead to Imperial reinforcements to retake the province, or at least to negotiate. However the assassination of the Emperor Titus Mede II whilst visiting Solitude brought full martial law down onto the province. The Dragon Bridge Bread Riots led to the creation of Dragon Bridge as a Free Hold in its own right, and allowed the Lost Legion to cross the Karth river for a direct assault on the heart of Imperial rule in Skyrim.
Solitude was besieged. It was taken. It was liberated. The now famous tapestry "The Risen North" famously depicts the peasants of Skyrim in awe at the majesty of the Blue Palace, and the surrender of Jarl Elisif to the Lost Legion. General Tulius leapt from the tower of Castle Dour, it is also claimed that he was pushed, however the tale of his honourable suicide over surrender is told by the Empire as much as in the Free Holds. The entire Imperial apparatus of the military occupation was removed from the city, often thrown into the river Karth or from the windows of Castle Dour, but all personnel and the remaining legionnaires of the Empire were allowed to be evacuated to High Rock from Northwatch Keep, Jarl Elisif included.
What began as a peasants revolt in Whiterun, an outburst of the desperate and starving in a country at war with itself, was over. All of Nirn had witnessed the birth of something new and even unnatural as some claimed, a realm where self-rule and the freedom of all was put above the authority of Jarls, Kings, Potentates, or Emperors. The Free Holds of Skyrim was welcomed to Tamriel.
*****
But alas all is not well, even within the near utopia of the Free Holds. The Lost Legion has become a powerful centralising force within Skyrim, harnessing the adulation of the newly liberated to strengthen their influence in the now free villages, towns, and cities. The sulfurous wasteground of Eastmarch, an area hardly fit for human habitation, has been declared "the new homeland of our allies among the Giants, long wanderers of the waste let them settle here and build a garden, and take their place among the free peoples of Tamriel." A homeland as much as a reservation, clearing out large areas of the Giants native steppe land for farming.
Some resist these efforts. The Khajiiti caravans, now permitted access to the cities, remain wandering the wilderness, accompanied with larger entourages now than before. The freedom of the nomadic life appeals to some confined by borders from years of war. The Bosmer prophet Elislas "Tree-Born" Longshot has also been followed by many imitators into the wilderness, setting up rudimentary camps far from civilization to live at peace with the natural world. Some yet have done in the other direction, delving deep into the Dwemer ruins to study how the Deep Elves maintained a society where all mundane functions were carried out autonomously.
These dreamers may not be long for this world. Thunder comes from the south. The Aldmeri Dominion tastes blood, and will not grant the Empire time to recover from the loss of Skyrim and the death of an Emperor. The praetors of the Lost Legion may seek to expand their revolution into an exposed flank, High Rock perhaps, or Bruma even. But there is more abroad too. The exiled Dunmer of Windhelm have brought news to Blacklight, dismissed by the Great Houses there are some remnants who may wish to imitate their western cousins, with some tweaks, "the Free Holds with Dunmereth characteristics" as it were. The ever restless desert province of the Aldmeri Dominion, Anequina, continues to revel in resistance under the bands of the Renrijra Krin, growing ever larger and bolder as they raid in all directions. And in Daggerfall, Sentinel, and even in the Imperial City itself there are muttered discussions about the long-term viability of the Empire- perhaps a change should be considered before it's too late.
