While he waited for the nord ranger to answer his question, Orien took in their surroundings. To an outsider, like an elf or the mysterious khajiit woman, it was just all part of the snowy, tree dotted landscape that surrounded the city of Bruma. To Orien, however, every metre held some significance. Namely, it was the exact path the fifth legion had taken on its' way to subjugate Skyrim. Of course, the road was something that the young battlemage had not seen before...so covered with muck, slush, and ice as it was, he couldn't make out the 'paving stones' of the road, but he knew as well as any other what they were. The bones of slain rebels, put in place by the enslaved citizenry of the province. Orien hadn't agreed with slaughtering so many prisoners to pave the road, but the confessors had insisted. It was the will of the emperor, they'd said, and Orien, being a lowly battlemage, had said nothing to stop the executions. Who was he to challenge the wisdom of the immortal emperor?
As they walked higher and higher into the mountains that bordered Skyrim, towards the pass that would allow them into that lawless country, the battlemage felt a sense of relief growing within him. True, any surviving rebels that had escaped the fate of their comrades would come after him, possibly prioritizing him over the others in the ragtag company of mercenaries. On the other hand, the confessors in Skyrim would likely be too preoccupied 'converting' the populace of the major holds to bother with a single rogue battlemage. As they reached the top of one particularly high hill, not far from the pass, he stopped. Looking back over the great forest, he could just barely make out the city. Tiny specks were all that could be seen of the fifths' encampment. "I'll return some day, brothers. I swear it." He promised solemnly.