The Hard Way

The definitive memoirs of the Champion of Kirkwall, Garrett Hawke

Fear and Lothering

Lothering. A brown, dingy little backwater notable only for its strategic placement upon the old imperial highway. And when I say placement I really mean dribble, as though some magnificent town-planning monster stopped by the side of the road on its way to more important things and simply let the town ooze out from between its legs. I really couldn't stand the place and there are few things the Blight improved in Ferelden, but the eradication of Lothering was one of them.

The people seemed to draw their charisma and style from the town. To a man they were pathetic, whiny, disgusting and greedy. When they weren't hypocritical religious types, they were drooling dirt farmers. And when they weren't either of those two, they were even worse. No good thing ever came out of Lothering, present company excluded.

You see I don't really consider myself from Lothering. My mother and father both came from Kirkwall, the City of Chains, Emerius. I might have been born in that hell hole of Ferelden, but my seed came from the Free Marches. As soon as I could, and as often as I was able, I fled Lothering. My first stint was with a freeholder company from the Bannorn. Easy times, those, marching up to bandit hideouts and clearing the place. Good money and good friends.

I returned to Lothering time and again to see my family and friends. I never really felt connected to that town, though I spent my formative years there. Father wasn't happy about my running off all the time, fighting wars that weren't my own. He never said it to my face but I know he called me mercenary more than once. "Leandra, the Mercenary's home! Oh here comes the great Mercenary!" Mother didn't seem to worry though, never thought that I was ever in any real danger. She didn't like looking at my scars, or hearing about the heads I'd collected, but it was never too hard for her to forget that I was putting my life on the line constantly.

Carver looked up to me, I guess. He was a brat, really, mommy's little boy and all that, like he never let go of her skirt tails or something. I see now that I was a little hard on him. When I was young our family was still new in Lothering, still untrustworthy. It was as if the people of that town knew that no one would willingly come to it, not if they had any choice. But over time this feeling faded and my father showed he was a hard worker, and my mother a good woman. They worked hard to build up their reputation and their place in the community. Not me though.

All I ever got was ridicule and distrust. It eased after awhile but even though they smiled at me and called me by my real name (instead of a jeer or a curse) I remembered how they treated me, and what they really thought. I knew.

Carver and Bethany didn't have to go through that. We were accepted by the time mother squeezed them out and they might was well have been Lotheringers through and through. Good for them. Like I said, they never had it real rough until the Blight, but I'll get to that shortly.

Bethany was Carver's twin, and inherited from our father the gift of magic. From our father she also inherited the disdain and revulsion for the Chantry and the Templars compulsory to be found in all apostate mages. Mother could never let go of her precious twins, neither one. Bethany was largely kept out of sight, to the point where some of the other kids in town didn't even know I had a sister. I liked Bethany. She had some moxy, some real flavour. I guess all that being cooped up and under surveillance made her twitchy or something, because she was always the one suggesting we sneak out at night and go meet up with the Valer boys across the stream.

She was a good kid though, loved our family and tried to do what mother told her. But I guess father's devilish streak was just too deeply ingrained in her, cause there was no shortage of trouble on her part.

I remember a fight Carver got into with Lanek Hool and Jersey Fyerd. They messed him up pretty good one afternoon, and he clammed up real tight about it. Eventually I got him to confess that Hool and Fyerd had been arguing over who had had Bethany first. Carver overheard and thought he'd settle the argument for good, but didn't count on Fyerd being a sneaky son of a bitch.

"Hit me in the back of the head with an iron whilst I had Hool by the throat."

"Don't worry, kid" I remember telling him. "I'll take care of it."

Carver never thanked me for that and I don't really blame him. Considering the history of how I had treated him I guess he saw it as just another in a long list of times when I'd had to bail him out of trouble, or how I'd showed him up.

Truth be told I was surprised when he wanted to come to Ostagar with me. I'd made arrangements to join with a merchant who'd organised a small band largely made up of hired swords and thugs. There was good coin in it and I thought that, if I have to fight he darkspawn I might as well make some money out of it. Why not?

As I was packing to leave for the rendezvous, mother came up to me in private, worried just about out of her mind.

"Carver's going too!" she practically screeched at me. "Carver's off to fight as well, and I don't think he can do it alone." I calmed her down and got the story out of her. Carver had been secretly saving up some money and had bought himself a big old sword like mine, as well as a leather jerkin and some good boots; I'd always told him that if he had a choice between good boots and a better sword, he should take the boots. Waging war is ninety five percent marching, and five percent killing.

Now Carver was insisting he was going off to join the King's Army at Ostagar, just like everyone else. He was making noise about hitching a ride with Arl Bryland of South Reach's company and fighting the good fight. Didn't make sense to me why he would at the time, but Leandra was convinced. She begged me and pleaded and finally I gave her my word;

"I'll watch out for him."

"It's not enough. He might get away from you. You might get separated, Promise you'll take him with you, in your band. You can vouch for him. And then watch over him at all times. Don't let anything happen to my little boy!"

It was tough. Honestly. It seemed like she wasn't talking to her son about his brother, but to a stranger about her reason for living. I distinctly remember my teeth grinding and my face going bright red, my cheeks burning with shame.

"Fine" I said.

"Swear it" she demanded.

"I swear." It was more a hiss because by this point my jaw had locked and the air could only just pass between my teeth.

She fell against me, exhausted, and she clung to me desperately whilst she sobbed out her stress. After a time I pressed my arm around her shoulders and rubbed her back, letting a little of my frustration slip out as well.

Basically I bullied Carver into coming with me. There was little other way as he was never in the mood for a hand out from me. I told him Bryland's outfit was small-time, and that I'd already talked him up to my boss. I told him that it'd make me feel better to have him watch my back, as the thought of travelling with sell-swords against the Blight had me nervous. Any old lie that would work. And after a tense evening Carver relented and the next morning we were off, headed for the rendezvous at Caul's Hill. Though I'd promised mother I would, I really was surprised that he did come with me in the end. I was certain he'd resist to the end, but I guess that wobbly backbone of his eventually gave way and he thought it might be better to hang around with big brother after all.

I don't care to go into the details of the fiasco at Ostagar, it's covered in much more depth by poets more eloquent than I could ever hope to be. Our little band was assigned scouting duties, screening, and raiding mostly, things unfitting for the proud knights of the Banns to undertake. We had some good scraps, and found a little treasure, but expected a bigger haul after the King had had his "big battle". There was lots of talk of it, this one decisive battle to end the whole thing.

I think I knew, or felt, even as early as then, that something was going wrong. We clashed with the darkspawn a couple of times, a horrible affair I can tell you. If you cut them wrong, the blood can splash on you. If you've got open wounds you're as good as dead; the blood's poisonous and I heard more than one fellow say it turns you into one of them. Maybe that's how they kept coming. Because no matter how many we killed, more seemed to arrive the next day. We were losing ground, and knew it too, only the folk at the top wouldn't look at it like that. Soon enough you couldn't go outside the fortress at Ostagar without running into a raiding band of the blighters, sometimes as many as fifty swords strong.

But still they were saying about how one good battle would sort it all out, how one decisive victory was all that was needed.

Well the battle went wrong, like you know, and all kinds of wrong at that. The King was killed, the Wardens wiped out almost to a man, Teyrn Loghain in charge, nobles being wiped out by rivals and all sorts of madness in their wake.

During the battle my unit had been on the edge of the battle, watching and waiting for the signal from Ishal's Tower. It was late coming and for a while I remember thinking that something had gone awry. But sure enough it came on. We began to march forward and started engaging. I had Carver stay behind me, barked at a couple of the other knuckleheads to make sure he stayed put, and started laying about with my steel. But then we realised that we were alone. A handful of units had marched forward, started attacking the horde's flanks, but the rest of the army was withdrawing.

Panic spread like wildfire through the ranks.

"Loghain's retreating! King Cailan's dead! The Wardens have killed the King!"

It's a strange sensation, a rout. I have a vivid recollection of the feelings and emotions of the moment, but the clarity is all blurred and distorted by them. I don't remember how it happened, but I knew I had to get away. It starts like a rain shower; just a few drops at once and then all of a sudden it's raining cats and dogs and it's hard to remember what it was like before. That's how an army routs, slowly at first but once it starts it can't be stopped.

We broke as easily as dried twigs and fled into the Korcari Wilds which was our only hope. At first the unit stuck together, a little battered but largely intact. Three days in the darkspawn infested wilds took care of that and one by one the men started dropping, whether due to the madness, to the diseases in the swamps, or to darkspawn steel isn't important. I don't know about all the others from those desperate moments, but I grabbed Carver tightly and dragged him kicking and screaming back home. I didn't know where else to go.