Charging Beyond the Grave
The lives and deaths of the Bull's Chargers.
Act I: Honour
The entrance to Orzammar was as imposing and solemnly majestic as Rocky had described it. Austere granite columns soared above the thickly frosted tips of the pine trees and struck into the thin, pale sky. Doors as tall as any monument in the gilded capital of Minrathous soared above their heads, clamped tightly shut against the chill of the mountain air, aptly demonstrating the naval-gazing attitude of the isolationist dwarven nation. Hewn into the side of a Frostback mountain, it was a testament to the unparalleled engineering mastery the Dwarven race wielded. Unbidden, a smile tugged at Krem's chilled and chapped lips at the memory of Rocky roaring with laughter by the campfire in the wilds of Denerim. He'd guffawed spittle and tears all over his bushy black mustache as Krem had wielded on him in hot embarrassment, having found out from the polite yet sniggering merchant dwarves the Chargers had camped with that night that dwarves did not actually stand on top of each other, like a fifty-foot totem pole, to carve their monolithic crafts like Rocky had said.
A roar erupting from right beside him wiped the stupid, out-of-place grin off his face. Right now, the imposing doors of one of the most secretive nations of Thedas were doing a damn good job of echoing the shouting match at the top of the dais and deafening them all.
"He defended the chokepoint you were supposed to hold-"
"History repeats itself, Qunari. The cloudgazer embarrassed himself and caused untold damage yet again with his 'accident'-"
"-he saw your legionnaires buckle under the darkspawn and actually did something about it-"
"All he did was blow himself up, just like six years ago-"
"AND SAVED ALL OF YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASSES-"
That one almost deafened Krem as badly as the explosion had and through the gray, static haze blanketing his mind he quickly realized that the Chief wasn't going to play nice anymore. "What the Iron Bull is trying to say is that the explosion was no accident," Krem interceded smoothly. He smiled politely down into the Orzammaran ambassador's ruddy and impressively hairy face and continued blandly. "Rocky is - was, one of the Chargers' best strategists and a quick tactician. His defense of the choke point in the Deep Roads - a difficult position to hold in strange and close quarters against the darkspawn and the rift demons - salvaged both the Legionnaires and the Inquisition forces and allowed them to retreat, serrah," he pointed out.
The dwarf scowled, his braided mustache quivering with indignation over his embroidered gold tunic. "Call him what you will, but Czibor Tadakor was always stone-blind. We lost original records when he exploded the Shaperate and we are still sorting out all the caste legalities because of his little mistake," the dwarf spat out with venom. "The geneologists are as bad as a chitterling nest! So save your breath, surfacer. Orzammar will never cleave the exile back into the Stone."
"You're crucifying him over his past. That should hold no bearing now, six years later, when he died defending your nation, his home," Iron Bull said quietly. The ambassador's beady amber eyes scrutinized the hulking Chief of The Iron Bull's Chargers, wary of his suddenly muted tone. Krem resolutely watched the squat and corpulent dwarf, knowing that the Chief would never give in to the temptation to squelch the condescending ambassador. That they even managed to get an audience with someone from Orzammar was astounding, even if it were insulting to conduct it outside the front door as if they were not even worth an invitation into the foyer.
The burning and heavy hand of guilt clamped around Krem's throat slowly. Here they were debating the patriotism of Rocky's... accident when the fault lay with him and the Chief for even allowing it to happen. Krem blinked and composed himself, once again grateful that the armor and polite mask he wore propped up the semblance of appearing normal.
"Without him you would still be fighting the darkspawn and the demons leading up to Orzammar from the Deep Roads," the Iron Bull continued cuttingly, "a stalemate that you were losing for eight months. He saved what pitiful soldiers and legionnaires you had left, and gave the Inquisition enough time to finally close that damned rift. A little thanks should be in order."
The dwarf crossed his arms, bristling in the Chief's shadow and blind to the ridiculous height difference; he was cloaked in Orzammar's power and ignored the threat of an angry and grieving eight-foot-tall Qunari when most were much more prudent with their words. Rocky would have been egging the Chief into squishing the self-important dwarf into a snot-trail from the sidelines. "All anyone saw was that he broke rank and leveled the tunnel, a tunnel leading to an unexplored thaig and untold Dwarven history. There's no proof that it was intentional or not," the dwarf sniffed, "which is why I brought up his history to explain his character. And I don't care if you are with the Inquisition-"
"We aren't here on Inquisition business," Krem said quickly. No way would the Chargers drag the Inquisition back from Skyhold into a personal spat with Orzammar and risk their tenuous alliance. The Inquisitor had done enough already, risking her life by venturing into the tunnel with only three companions to seal the rift. "The Bull's Chargers are here on Rocky's behalf as his friends. We only want to fulfill his last rites. He wanted his remains kept in his family holdings when he 'finally went out with a bang'. That's all."
The dwarf's thick mustache twitched and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his bulbous nose. "Look, Charger - the Shaperate's memory is long and its grip on the Assembly stronger, and the Tadakor clan have no voice there. There is no one who will vouch against Harrowmont's decree that no exile will be a citizen again."
"And there's no way to reach the Tadakors and tell them about their exceptional sapper?" the Chief asked guardedly. "We aren't asking for much, and we're not even asking for a lot of space," he said, turning to point down at the center of the dais. Dalish, Skinner, Grim and Stitches were loosely standing in a row, holding what was left of Rocky's prized belongings and Rocky's battered traveling tankard.
The dwarf peered at them in confusion, then stared in outright bafflement at the silver seal and black ribbon which universally marked a container as an urn. "You keep his remains in a tankard?" he asked, a strangled hint of laughter in his voice.
Krem's jaw creaked as he ground his teeth, firmly reminding himself that they really needed to let the dwarf live. But it was hard to bear this amount of abject condescension and insult, and it warred with the years of holding his tongue at home in the presence of his mother and the years he'd served in the Tevinter army. At least he wasn't alone in fighting to keep his tongue between his teeth - the Chief was doing that thing, the breathing patterns which glaringly meant that he was just barely holding on to the end of his rope. Krem carefully schooled his face into a blank mask, reminding himself that this noble moron didn't know what the oak-and-copper tankard had meant to Czibor Tadakor, to Rocky. Let him laugh like a boor - though it may be the last thing he did.
The dwarf read their stony faces, grimaced then shook his head, the sunlight spraying off his golden threads. "All messages go through me, and I have specific orders from the king. I can't even pass on what we speak of to his family, let alone smuggle an exile's ashes inside."
"Would some grease help things along?" the Chief's horns bowed as he cocked his head and asked quietly, knowingly. "I have some gold that-"
The dwarf burst with laughter. "No," the dwarf wheezed between chuckles, "you cannot afford to buy out dwarves, of all peoples. You cannot afford me let alone overturn Orzammar. You surfacers - ha!"
The Chief coldly surveyed the laughing ambassador decked out in dwarven finery with his lone eye, his scarred face unreadable. But Krem caught the corner of his notched lips dip down and his shoulders sag, the wind escaping his sails. A hot buzzing was filling Krem's head - he'd thought, they had all thought, that if Orzammar had heard about how Rocky had sacrificed himself for all of them that they would grant his humble final wish. They'd all learned to avoid even remotely talking about Orzammaran politics with the sapper around since he'd heatedly start on one of his rants again which were mostly comprised of wild gesticulations and spitting curses which usually ended with a bar fight of some sort. But the Chargers had also noticed how Rocky would turn in the direction of the Frostbacks each night, seeking out Orzammar before heading to his bedroll. As much as the sapper had griped about the 'rock hermits', he'd missed his home.
Krem's careful control over his emotions was starting to buckle. This noble prat, Rocky's whole nation, would turn away and refuse to recognize the exile's sacrifice. He cast about for any other angle, but in the end, they were just a small mercenary company. Granted, they were contracted to the Inquisition, but in personal matters they had no power to leverage against the isolated Dwarven nation. And he knew that the Chief would never ask the Inquisition for influence, and Krem suspected that the Inquisition would refuse anyway since they needed all the political support they could get in order to take down Corypheus.
The thin veneer of composition cracked and a storm broke over the Chief's craggy face. The ambassador's small eyes bugged wide in alarm and he started to reach to the Dwarven guards stationed at the Orzammaran entrance. But without another word, the Chief turned on his armored heel and stomped down to the rest of the Chargers.
"Yes, serrah, thank you for hearing us out," Krem scrambled to say, trying to smooth over the Chief's rude exit and not meaning a single word, "the Bull's Chargers appreciate your time." The words left a nasty taste in his mouth and only the thought of Skinner's stink eye kept his spit in his mouth. Rocky hadn't been the only one who had learned political manners the hard way.
The dwarf harrumphed at the forced pleasantries. "You're most welcome. Orzammar extends its condolences for your loss, and thanks for your role in restoring our defenses. Since the terms of our contract were technically fulfilled, your payment will be sent to the Inquisition - reparations for the damages caused withstanding, of course. Atrast tunsha."
Enormously regrettable and justified razor-sharp curses aimed to cut down the dwarf's pretentiousness and unbelievable indifference nearly wagged from Krem's tongue when the doors to Orzammar creaked forth and golden light spilled out. Heat and the tang of molten metal fanned out from the gap, just wide enough to allow the ambassador to quickly retreat. Krem glimpsed impossibly high vaulted ceilings and intricate gold statues, displaying Orzammar's impressive power and wealth. Krem's stomach dropped as crushing disappointment settled in with the realization that Orzammar had never meant to seriously consider their petition. The Dwarven nation had no need to seriously placate them - they had only sent the one ambassador out in order to shoo the Inquisition-related annoyance from their doorstep to save face with their political ally.
In Krem's mind, Rocky rolled his pale jade eyes under his cocked, heavy brows. The sapper's rumble of a voice said sarcastically: Sure, we have the best foyer of any nation, but sometimes it's just lacquered nugshit. Party in the front and sad, dusty poverty in the back.
The doors closed with finality, and Krem was left alone at the entrance steps. He could see why Rocky had flipped between pride of his homeland and drunken belligerence. After all the years of listening to Rocky gripe about Orzammaran politics, he'd thought that maybe the resident-alchemist-and-sapper-by-trade had exaggerated - but if the nation couldn't accept a single urn of ashes of a former citizen who had died to defend it... he'd have to give Rocky more credit than he'd thought.
"Looks like we'll have to take up Lavellan's offer after all," Dalish sighed resignedly when Krem limped down to the Chargers. The lovely Dalish elf cradled the battered tankard to her waist, tears trickling freely down her fair cheeks. With a sharp pang, Krem remembered that she and Rocky had had something, something they hadn't defined to their inner group. It had just started a few months ago, so tenderly new and nebulous. They'd all wondered how a star-crossed romance between a dwarf and a Dalish elf would work out and had teased them mercilessly, marveling at how Dalish could coax a blush out of the unflappable dwarf. The two together had formed a duo frighteningly adept at pranks during their courtship, despite their conservative background cultures. The memory of Dalish beaming a smile down into Rocky's eyes crinkled in merriment strickened Krem's throat.
"Bury him at Skyhold? You're shitting me," Stitches retorted with a jackal's white grin. The older Fereldan healer had been bitingly curt since they'd escaped the collapsed tunnel; he was mourning by pouring his anger out into the absurd world that had stolen his best friend. "He started clinging to the rocks up in that gods-cursed frozen mountain again like when we first met him, thinking that he'd fall into the sky." He jabbed a scabbed finger at the tankard, "he would curse us if we buried him on top of a mountain."
"What other choice do we have?" Dalish replied hollowly, cradling the tankard closer, "we can't make them bury him in his family holdings and none of us have any land." The pale sunlight traced the hollows of her cheeks and the deep purple bruises ringing her neck from the battle two days ago.
Skinner's obsidian eyes glinted with a thoughtful light as she studied the impenetrable mountainside entrance, seemingly lost in her thoughts when she spoke up. "The Dragon's Breath? The one with the nug jerky," she suggested, an uncharacteristic note of hesitance in her customary blunt manner.
Grim snorted and Stitches let out a disbelieving guffaw. "A pub? Yeah, Rocky loved nug jerky but not enough to be buried with it under a piddled pub floor."
The Denerim elf's ruby lips peeled back in a deadly snarl. "What do you suggest? All you do is tear everyone else's-"
"Dalish, I know we've talked about this before, but have you thought of a burial place for Rocky?" Krem asked the sniffling mage gently, "you knew him best in these past few months."
The mage shook her head, her pale unkempt hair haloing around her. She bit her lips, staring at the doors. "I wish we'd never gone down there," she choked out in a fierce whisper.
The Chief abruptly walked away past the surface merchant dwarves and their stalls to the edge of the forest beyond the dais. Krem halfheartedly began to argue against her when she interrupted him. "I know it's not entirely the Chief's fault," she confessed haltingly to the ground, a tear sliding down to the tip of her pert nose, "sure, he pulled us out in the nick of time but no one had a clue what to do down there. We never had a job so deep under before..."
"And the rock-heads weren't telling us what was happening on their end," Stitches muttered bitterly under his breath, glaring at the dwarven shopkeepers. "How were we s'posed to coordinate? We didn't know a blighted thing - they needed help and we couldn't even see half the time-"
"I saw." Skinner wrapped her arms tighter around herself, her expression crumpling, "I saw the dwarves fall to the demons near the rift and the darkspawn snapped 'em up. We would've been eaten alive in the dark with that point wide open-"
"I can't stop seeing the flash," Dalish said numbly, steel-blue eyes wide and unseeing, "when the - the bomb went off. And he just... flew apart in pieces-" Stitches hushed Dalish as Grim wrapped her into a tight embrace.
"It wasn't an accident," Stitches insisted adamantly, practically pacing a trench into the dais and glaring at the Orzammar entrance. "His experiments didn't always work, but he was damned good at his job. He was brilliant with alchemy and cooking; he could always read the land. He took down that noble's wall with one bomb since he saw the fault line in it. They can't say that he just made an amateur mistake - he knew exactly what he was doing..."
Rocky had been an alchemist by profession and a sapper by trade. He'd always been tinkering with something at odd hours of the day and night, usually up to his eyebrows in strange-smelling powders and tankard in hand. Every single Charger had learned to give the resident alchemist a wide berth when he was in one of his tinkering moods; they'd quickly learned to dive at the ground when a customary small explosion rocked the air from his tent with a curse on their lips. He'd retort that they should be thanking him for their excellent reflexes and that he should charge for the practice he gave them. The effect was usually ruined when he was stamping out his burning tent or bedroll, although in the last few months Dalish had been fire-proofing them with magic, earning them more support from the Chargers. They had also learned to accept his cooking, as bizarre or questionable it may have looked or smelled. The Chargers would prank new recruits by tasking them to assist Rocky with cooking, a task they quickly learned to avoid for fear of vomiting no matter how delicious it turned out to be.
The muted burning and drowning flared again in the horrible silence; the memories and leaden air were suffocating him. "I failed him," Krem said faintly, feeling an echo of the numbing horror. "I should've-"
Skinner interrupted by gripping his shoulder and with a cutting glare. "Not again, Krem," she scolded without fire, her deep and rich voice tinged with sadness. "You did right. You got us out. Rocky chose to go back."
Dalish wouldn't meet his eyes, but she was nodding at the ground. Stitches was chewing his tongue, but he nodded tightly too. "He was a grown-ass man. You had three groups to oversee in the dark and we all heard you call. No one's blaming you, Lieutenant." The use of his rank instead of his name was lost on no one, and Krem knew that while Stitches wasn't blaming him, he hadn't entirely forgiven him either. The older and dark-skinned man had been against the mission from the start - he'd always hated the Blight and the darkspawn. Fighting in uncharted territory in the Deep Roads and losing his best friend meant Stitches may never forgive Krem and the Chief for leading them down there.
At the time, undertaking a mission on behalf of the Inquisition sounded like a fantastic way to boost their reputation, especially since they had the rare opportunity of working with the recluse Orzammaran dwarves. Krem had personally vouched for it. They'd win influence for the Inquisition to further peace across and under Thedas, the Chargers would be swimming in exotic Dwarven gold, wine and songs. Everything would be planned and taken care of, the Orzammaran diplomat had said...
The Chargers had swelled with pride as they descended into the pitch-black Deep Roads entrance by a lift, the fading sunlight shimmering on the Inquisition emblems sewn onto their armor. Pride had transformed into wonder as they stared in awe at the ancient Dwarven remnants deep under the surface, ensconced in amber gaslights. Shadows plunged beyond the cliffs on either side of the wide bridges they marched over, faint echoes returned from the cavernous ceilings. Far-off glimmers from lyrium veins twinkled gently in the dark; it had felt like the velvet night sky had nestled warm and close under the mountains. The scale and breadth of the Deep Roads were almost unimaginable and surpassed any level of ambition Krem had expected; the ruins may be collapsed, but they alluded to a scale of majesty Krem had not seen even in Tevinter... they had all been walking over a whole and self-sufficient world on the surface without a clue. Krem had expectantly looked over at Rocky, the self-appointed 'Dwarf Guide' who'd jokingly promised a thorough tour including all the nug breeds they came across for an explanation. But the alchemist had been silent, his rough-hewn features pulled into an unfathomable combination of pain and happiness, unshed tears gleaming in his eyes as he watched the ruins rise up out of the shadows. The Chargers had quickly looked away, allowing him a private moment, remembering that this was Rocky's first time back into Dwarven territory since his exile.
All Void broke loose after they'd met with the last survivors of the Legion of the Dead and the grim warriors of Orzammar. Even with their numbers, they had been unprepared for fighting blindly in the tunnels. The sickly yellow-green light from the rift had thrown writhing shadows of the demons and darkspawn on the walls of the once-majestic Deep Roads; it had been impossible to count the endless monsters marching in and out of the shadows towards them, impossible to discern orders over the inhuman screeches echoing in a din over the clashes of battle. More alarming were the screams of panic and terror and Krem had known that some were from the Chargers, those who had never fought in pitch blackness, those who were felled without seeing the monster that killed them. Cold sweat chilled the back of his neck when he'd realized that the darkspawn were intelligent enough to target their torches and stamp out any flares they'd lobbed into the tunnel, that they were far more adept at killing in the dark than the pitiful and naive surfacers. These darkspawn were nothing like their withered and aimless cousins in Old Crestwood; they were a focused and coordinated army. Each Charger's pride and certainty had long since faded, and each had fought only for survival.
Krem had initially been afraid of blindly striking out and slashing a fellow soldier; but he'd been more terrified of being captured as a potential brood mother from one of Rocky's horror stories, kept alive and sane to birth monsters forever miles underground. That had been his secret fear, the terror that kept his shaking blade swinging more than defending his comrades. Light flares exploded - the icy fear would retreat when he could see the monsters but he could read the shadowed battle and knew that they were losing badly. Chargers and dwarves shouted in the dark, needing help and he'd wracked his brains when it wasn't paralyzed by blindness and panic for something, anything...
Something had boomed and harsh, bright light had thrown the tunnel into stark relief. Glistening, decayed grey flesh and oozing yellow sores dripping from skeletal ribcages were highlighted and suddenly it was easy to behead the blinded darkspawn. Demons screamed as swords found weakpoints then burst into ghostly green flames, disintegrating into the Fade once more. But the light also illuminated the flood of eerily human darkspawn pouring down the tunnel towards them and the demons walking through the rift to march alongside them - Krem hadn't needed the Chief's horn signal to retreat. The battle had been lost a long time ago and the light only served to help them realize that fact.
Amidst his calls to his platoons to retreat and fending off the darkspawn, Krem had glimpsed a short shadow stumble against the tide of retreating soldiers; towards the chokepoint just before the rift. The flare had begun to die so he hadn't paid much attention, instead focusing on counting heads and buying time for the Chargers and darkspawn to retreat back up the tunnel. He'd willed his feet to stay planted in the cavern instead of following everyone else back up the tunnel, away from the poisoned fangs and monstrous talons until he'd bought every second he could-
And then there was a distant shout, a smudged short shadow by the ghoulish green light of the rift holding something aloft. Larger shadows twisted into horrifying silhouettes were closing in - everything swallowed by darkness. He'd scrabbled behind him for the wall, trying to follow the Chief's horn, when an explosion from behind him knocked him forward off his feet and shooting pain up his right leg, white light burning his vision, the groan of the granite walls cracking and collapsing in slabs, burying the darkspawn and demons behind them - relief...
...until he'd completed a head count on the blessedly dusty ground on the surface. Then he'd remembered that lonely, little shadow.
"How are they?"
Krem startled out of his reverie, finding that he'd wandered away from the group to stand just a little behind and to the left of the Chief, his customary position. The Chief leaning against a young tree, the trunk groaning under the formidable weight as the Qunari watched a bird flit through the branches of a nearby pine tree, scarred and still-bloodied face unreadable.
"Mourning," Krem answered dully.
"Anyone quit?"
"One from the Throat Cutters. Three from the Archers."
The Chief's horns scraped a low-hanging branch as he nodded. The news wasn't surprising with sixteen of the Chargers wounded and one of them dead.
"And any of you?"
"No." He'd never leave the Chargers and he'd never leave the Chief - he didn't think any of the inner circle would. He'd follow those horns and the accompanying stupid puns anywhere. But this time...
"How are you holding up?" the Chief asked. He almost sounded like he was asking about the weather.
Krem shifted on his feet, chewing his tongue. "Guilty. Like I sent him down there. But, sometimes, it... it doesn't seem real," he confessed, knowing that he should be drowning in sorrow like the rest of the Chargers. And sometimes he did. But out of the tunnels and in the bright sunlight, surrounded by trees, it almost felt like the whole disaster had been a nightmare sent from the Fade. He'd caught himself pouring seven tankards of mead last night instead of six and wondering where Rocky had gone off to without his usual drink in hand before realizing his mistake. Someone had accidentally detonated a flash bomb in the camp that morning and Krem hadn't been the only one who had reflexively hit the ground and shouted 'DAMNITROCKY!' Krem had seen Stitches' look of shock and agonizing realization before the older Fereldan man had angrily swiped his face and stormed away.
Horribly, sometimes he'd stare at Dalish's slumped shoulders or the grief in Grim's face and look into himself to realize that he felt nothing for them. It was usually so easy for him to reach out to someone and know exactly what they were feeling, to empathize with them... and if it didn't click right away, he'd listen to their hardships and walk in their shoes to connect with their heart. But sometimes, in the last few days, he'd suddenly wonder why he was making an effort to cheer the Chargers up when it didn't matter. They'd get to the next tavern and Rocky would burp a greeting from his customary seat by the bar, well into his third mug of mead. The brief episodes of disbelief made it hard for him to connect with the Chargers and Krem felt monstrous during those moments.
The Chief looked over at him, his bloodshot eye softening with understanding. "Don't force it," he said cautioned, "it'll come with time. Nothing will get you on to everyone's shit list faster than if you pretend."
Krem nodded, still feeling like he was dishonoring his fellow Chargers and Rocky's memory. "How're you, Chief?" he asked, needing to talk about something else. He cast a critical eye over the Chief. The Chief had had no time to mourn - Krem had watched and helped him to salvage the situation, help the wounded, locate and cremate Rocky's remains, talk with Orzammar and Inquisition representatives... he knew for a fact that the Chief had had no time to shave and had barely slept in the past few days, let alone have private time to mourn one of the founding members of the Bull's Chargers. Rocky had been one of the mercs who had followed the Chief from their previous mercenary band. Looking at him now, Krem could see the toll it was taking in the dull tone of the Chief's grey skin, the way he seemed to slouch into himself, the bags under his eye. He looked... not old, but he looked his age in his fading thirties. Krem had overheard the Chief refuse further healing for the nasty, green-tinged gashes from Stitches, insisting that the others were looked after first despite the risk of 'some Fade bullshit' infecting his wounds.
The Chief shrugged his massive shoulders under the equally massive pauldrons he wore. "Not much better. Things should have been different," the Chief muttered, scratching his scraggly chin. "It's too little, too late now, but we'll play by our rules next time. No more of this sub-contracting bullshit. We get an equal say at the table or we won't take the job."
Krem couldn't help but snort in disbelief at that. It truly was far too little and much too late for such a costly sacrifice. Sure, they'd met their objectives, but Krem was just so... disappointed in himself and the Chief,even though he knew that Stitches and Skinner were right. Rocky had chosen to return. But he still felt like a rotten sack of garbage for letting it happen.
"Look, Krem," the Chief sighed, tilting his head down to rub his temples just below the roots of his horns, "yes, we should have looked out for them better. Yes, the conditions were against us. Point is, enjoy the guilt. It means that you're shaping up well. But don't disservice Rocky - he chose his own path, too."
Krem was just opening his mouth to argue when he spotted the moisture in the Chief's lone eye between the gaps of his thick fingers. His mind was stuttering on a question when the Chief swiped his face and gave a mighty sniff, straightening up.
"I should've invested in a bit of land," the Chief muttered hoarsely, watching a bird fly away, "so at least we'd have that for Rocky. That's another lesson."
Krem closed his mouth and nodded, his own throat suddenly clogged with dammed tears. He wouldn't cry, not when the Chief needed the moment more than he did; the Chief had always listened to his worries and had dispensed both advice and a handkerchief when Krem had needed it most. At the same time, Krem marveled at the moment; he'd never seen the Chief shed a tear before. It was like he'd peeled back a layer of the Chief's tough skin and spied an equally struggling peer for just a fleeting second. The formidable Iron Bull that he admired was fundamentally flawed, which he'd known, but he both rued the cracked illusion of impenetrable strength and savored that he wasn't alone.
Krem cleared his throat and scrambled for a reply. "We never had to worry much about this before," Krem pointed out, when his brain had caught up. "We've only have six die on us since the Chargers formed. Their families took them back."
The Chief tapped his heel, a sign that he was fed up. "I saw that something like this might happen, but didn't prepare for it," he muttered, a note of apology in his tone. "Didn't think it likely. No chance of getting Rocky's ashes in there and we can't just stick his urn in a hole around here and call it a day. What did Dalish say?"
"Not much. Someone suggested the Dragon's Breath."
The Chief snorted with derision. "It'll have to be Skyhold, then. Shit, he's gonna come back and haunt our asses forever."
Normally, he had a fountain of smart words at the ready. Instead, he just closed the small gap between them and slipped his hand into the Chief's and gave it a brief squeeze.
The Chief looked over at him, then grabbed him around the shoulder in a crushing sidelong hug. Krem gave an unmanly squeak from the many half-healed battle injuries and scrambled to find his footing again when the Chief let go. They shared a grin.
"Look, Chief," Krem said, patting the Bull's midback (the highest point he could reach), "accident or not, Rocky bought us the time we needed. He was our brother and we'll do right by him - with a resting place and lessons."
They rejoined the Chargers who had known Rocky best, still loosely grouped and staring off, unfocused in different directions. "Let's get back to Skyhold," the Chief announced, sounding normal again. "We'll put Rocky to rest. Shout if you have any better ideas. Let's move out."
They passed the outhouse that the surface merchant dwarves used when they weren't hawking their wares around the Orzammaran dais. Stitches shot a thin half-smile to Dalish. "Remember when Rocky blasted the outhouse wall down?" Stitches hedged, pinching his nose theatrically.
Skinner grinned, the glint returning to her obsidian eyes. "Bad for the naked arl and maid; good for business."
A rueful smile crept across Dalish's fine features. "I told him not to use the felandaris essence, it caused that nasty side effect that we had to pay for-"
"Like that cough syrup he tried to make for me? I had the runs for days."
"No one can read your notes, Stitches. At least Rocky tried to make your concoction, but honestly, it's better to read tea leaves than go through your journal-"
Skinner had halted from her usual forward scout position in the front. She stared dead ahead into the trees and said distantly, "I won the bet."
They slowed down. Krem looked askance at her. "What bet?"
Realization dawned on Stitches' face. "Andraste's pits, the one about how much mustache he'd blow off the next time..."
Krem vaguely recalled the bet they'd placed the night before the Deep Roads battle. Rocky had been threatening to experiment with powder ratios again before passing out with his tankard in hand at the table. They'd all done the usual and placed bets on how much of his own mustache the sapper would singe off, with Skinner forecasting that he'd turn the whole thing to a line of ash.
They looked at each other, Skinner actually looking vaguely horrified. Until a snicker escaped the healer. "That is so dark."
"Right up Rocky's alley, really," the Chief said dryly with a wink at Dalish. A ghost of a smile tugged her lips and for the first time in days, the haunted look vanishing from her crystal blue eyes for the first time in days.
"Well, at least we'll all end up in the same place in the Void," Krem joked with a bittersweet grin as he flipped a silver to Skinner.
They laughed, bickered and traded small stories about Rocky as they trekked. They mourned Rocky's delicious but deadly-looking cooking. The company sapper had been a good listener and had enjoyed long talks into the night. They'd learned tactics to prevent the dwarf from having nine drinks or more, since at that point he'd corner someone and moan about Orzammaran politics. And as stony as the dwarf seemed at times, he was quick to investigate an interesting detail and was happy to keep his hands busy, whether it was meticulously organizing his alchemy powders and materials, making soap and poultices with Stitches, or mending traps with Dalish. Often, he'd get carried away and start experimenting with the task until the Charger he was 'helping' shooed him off. They all vividly remembered when Rocky had tried to help the Chief make a fire pit for a massive bonfire and had ended with exploding the campsite in order to quickly make the pit bigger. Grim and Krem had been enlisted to interest the dwarf in more benign activities, but Rocky had quickly grown impatient with sketching and sewing. The two hadn't minded - it had only been a matter of time before the alchemist would creatively make their hobbies dangerous.
The thick and cloying shroud of grief slowly gave way to an aching lightness that spun from the stories they shared about Rocky, each recounting their favorite memory and joke from the sapper. Czibor Tadakor may have been exiled into becoming Rocky of the Chargers, but he'd never been without a family.
"Ho! Mercenaries!"
The Chargers paused amid the rocky trail and waited with a faint sense of amusement for the surface dwarf swaying under a large sack to catch up with them on the trail. The stocky dwarf puffed and gave broad, gap-toothed smile as he caught up to them. "You need these bricks," he said matter-of-factly as he thrust the bag into Krem's arms.
Krem sort of took it without meaning to and almost buckled under the surprising weight. The bag definitely felt like it held a ton of bricks. "Why?" he asked, completely nonplussed.
"To honour family. It's part of the burial rites for dwarva. Returns them to the Stone," the dwarf said, thrusting his chest out proudly.
Grim cut the string knotting the bag closed while Stitches looked like he was about to breathe fire. "You vultures couldn't wait to hawk at grieving-"
The dwarf cheerfully waved away Stitches' words. "They're free," he said, his forest green eyes creasing as he smiled. "They're from my family. Well, relatives of relatives of relatives of my family from down under. You know how caste families go."
"We don't. Who are you?" Skinner asked flatly. She'd quietly flanked the dwarf, seemingly nonchalant as she crossed her arms. Only the Chargers knew that it was to easily access the daggers hidden up her sleeves.
"I am a Galridin. Related to the Tadakors, nine times removed," he answered, dusting off his broad hands and glancing back up the trail. "I'm just a merchant dwarf offloading excess merchandise." He beamed into each of their faces, his olive skinned cheeks creased into a smile. His jade eyes twinkled underneath his thick, deep brown hair. "Enjoy the bricks."
The dwarf scampered back up the trail, leaving the bemused Chargers behind with a cheerful wave.
"Should we... stop him?" Stitches asked faintly.
"No," Krem said and called to Skinner and Grim, who had begun to follow the Galridin. He'd pieced together why the dwarf had looked so familiar and hope was starting to stir in him.
They crowded around and peered at the shimmery grey brick that Grim pulled out. Veins of silver shot through the granite and a symbol was chiseled into one side. At a glance, all the bricks inside the sack were all the same.
Wordlessly, Stitches pulled out Rocky's mangled belt buckle and laid it on the bricks, the sun glancing off the same symbol etched into the underside of the buckle. Rocky had painstakingly etched that same symbol into all of his belongings after finding that not all the Chargers respected personal property as fastidiously as he did. They all stared at the gift, dumbstruck in the middle of the mountain trail.
"But what do we even do with them?" Stitches asked, plainly confused. "And how did his family even know-?"
"Does it matter?" Dalish asked. Her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink and her watery smile wavered. "They risked a lot by smuggling us some of their family stone."
Grim rearranged the bricks so that they stacked like an open box and then beckoned to Dalish. Almost reverently, she set the tankard within. It fit perfectly. Tears were streaming down Dalish's face now, and she beamed up at the Chief when he patted her back comfortingly.
"I think there's just enough to seal it inside," Stitches exclaimed as he slung Grim into a sidelong embrace. "But will this return Rocky to the Stone?"
"It's better than just burying him in dirt at Skyhold," Krem pointed out. He felt lighter, a buoyancy ballooning in his chest. "We'll be able to honour Rocky properly, after all."
The Chief regarded the bricks thoughtfully, tapping his heel. "Hopefully he won't haunt us anymore. Let's bring all this back home."
Note: so, apologies for not working on my other fics... but this is one of those stories that just popped up and would not leave me alone while I was agonizing over the others. It should be short-ish! Please leave a review =)