29th of Frostfall, 4E 201.
The war in Skyrim had spread into Windhelm. Fires raged everywhere in the city, and thick smoke billowed into the sky. The Stormcloak soldiers had either already fallen in battle, their bodies strewn across the ground, or been forced to flee...
Of course, plenty had also thrown down their weapons and surrendered in despair, knowing they had no chance of winning.
Now, burning walls, towers, barracks, and some homes, along with billowing black smoke, had become the city's defining features. Meanwhile, the terrifying Pureblood Fire Hawks circling overhead—almost as large as dragons, but far more numerous—had dyed the entire sky red. It was a fearsome sight, as though the fires of the apocalypse were consuming the city.
By now, the Fire Elemental army from Firefall Keep and the mixed force made up partly of Nords had completely secured the city. They had cornered Ulfric Stormcloak and his men, who had suffered one defeat after another in recent days and retreated all the way from Valthiem Towers at Shadowgreen Pass to their den, inside the still largely intact Palace of the Kings.
The fortress was still intact not because it was especially sturdy, but because the besieging troops had been ordered to deliberately avoid attacking it.
"Ulfric!"
"Come out and surrender! You have no chance!"
"Hiding in that castle of yours won't do you any good. Come out!"
"Come out and surrender to my righteous judgment, Balgruuf's! I promise you'll have a respectable end, in the name of the Nine Divines!"
Although Balgruuf the Greater, lord of Whiterun, no longer worshipped the Eight Divines or the Ninth Divine, Talos, that didn't stop him from invoking their names in an attempt to persuade Ulfric Stormcloak—a man who was clearly at the end of his rope, yet still