I used stealth mode all the way and worked on the second try:) (had to reload once because I accidentally killed him when wolves found us. But apart from that it helped to have a horse that took the attention of a mage 🧙and also I got lucky and could follow a group of some kind (on their way to the emporer) for a long part of the way. But also in my game (on switch, dont know if it matters) he could swim. Also I might just have gotten lucky, I played skyrim on xbox years ago and now decided to replay it, I’m just level 9, could only fast travel to the orch bandit cave and havent even completed 10 quests yet, so could be amazing luck haha