Memories of a Past War
Summary
I decided to write this as part of the upcoming #Dragon4geDay, and wanted to share a mix of my love of DA, admiration of first-hand wartime accounts and fascination with the Qunari.
This story is written in the form of journal entries kept by a soldier of the Free Marches during the latter stages of the Qunari Wars, each entry following his experiences as I imagine they would have appeared.
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Journal Entry No. 1
Siege of Bastion, in the year 7:12 of the Storm Age.
By the hand of Ser Oswald Maecon, knight of Kirkwall.
My sister-in-arms, Ser Katrina, insist that I write this journal for the sake of my own peace of mind; that it will help me settle my concerned spirit. We shall see.
I think it of far greater use to scribble down my account for the generations to come after us, to read first-hand what it was like for those of us who fought in one of the greatest and most terrible wars of Thedas's history, against an enemy unlike any other we have known.
I am Ser Oswald Maecon, second son of Frederic Maecon of Kirkwall, proud knight of my home city, and I fought in a war that began before my father was born.
They came from the far north, the veterans say, from even beyond the ocean north of the Nocen; giant, horned men who fought with a relentlessness that bordered on the fanatical, bringing with them a cult the Maker could not tolerate. They took the great islands there and then moved on Thedas proper. They proved their formidable power by quickly subduing the Imperium, who themselves had once been seen as the great malice of the world. How cruelly funny that seems now, in contrast.
Rivain followed soon after, and then Antiva, their peoples overtaken by the oxmen we now know as Qunari. My own homeland, the Free Marches, and Nevarra to the west, are next. In this I summarize half a century of unending warfare, but you must excuse me my brevity, for I am no historian, just a soldier.
I have seen three major battles with the invader already as part of the unified Marcher host under Lord Threnhold. Yes, indeed unified. We can manage such a thing, in times of need. It is nonetheless amusing; in a different time and in a different war, me and my comrades would have shared a pint, all while loudly complaining about those Tantervale prudes, Wycome wildmen or Markham thugs. Yet now, as I watch their colors fly beside our own over the camp, I feel only pride. And at least we have a solid Kirkwaller at the lead.
We arrived outside the walls of Ansburg on the 3rd of Solace, our host six thousand strong. We were eager to fight, doubly so when we regarded what had become of our lost cousin city. Banners showing the strange icons of the oxmen decorated the high walls, and the great marble statues of the Prophet, which had once stood vigil at the gates, had been torn down.
Lord Threnhold had come prepared and so we were able to mount and assault on the walls only two days later with ladders and trebuchet. I did not personally take part, as I fought as part of the cavalry. Useless in assaulting walls, we were held back on a nearby ridge, five hundred in all, ready for the moment the gates would be taken and we could sweep over the defenders in a cavalcade of steel.
This did not come to pass on that first day. But we were offered a fine view of how the Qunari and their thralls conduct themselves during a siege.
I had heard much of how the invader was able to turn their conquered peoples into willing adherents of their heresies with alarming swiftness. Good Andrastian men and women abandoning the light of the Chant in droves to serve some alien belief I could barely grasp. But I had yet to see them for myself, fighting alongside their new masters. Apparently the oxmen did not trust their new followers to hold their own on the open battlefield. Having seen myself what the horned warriors could do, I did not blame them.
And yet now I saw them, moving up there on the fortifications. They were clad as any city dweller you have ever seen, not uniformed as soldiers. Their faces were painted with odd designs, and each one carried a bow or hurled stones down on the heads of those who had come to liberate their city. It was perverse.
They blunted the progress of our men, the commoners who charged the walls and scaled the ladders. Many fell with bodies pierced or bones broken by rocks, and I could tell this would be no easy victory.
And then I saw the Qunari, the true Qunari themselves.
At a distance there were not easy to make out from the humans they commanded, but with a keen eye you would realize they towered head and shoulders over their charges, lade with muscle proportionate to their greater size, and I could imagine the beastly horns sweeping back from their skulls, like those of bulls or rams. I knew from having faced them up close that no sign of panic, rage or even true urgency would show on their faces as they shouted orders, only a frightful determination. Not in any battle before, during or after the siege of Ansburg have I witnessed an oxman give in to fear or fury, nor show his back to an enemy unless he was commanded to do so. Their discipline and drill was the stuff of a sergeant's dreams, and I have never seen its like replicated by mankind.
Both sides pushed and struggled for the wall for the next hour. Once, our boys managed to secure a minor foothold on the western crenellation, but the grey giants fell on them like a man stomping a scorpion he suddenly discovered at his feet.
The worst part came as the sun reached its zenith. By then me, my horse and my fellow knights were restless. The veterans among us could see that the attack must be called off soon and that we would not be needed today, and yet Threnhold held fast. Ser Katrina complained of the baking sun above making her head light.
Then the Qunari began to toss something new over the wall. At first I thought it to be more rocks, but then I recognized the shapes of clay pots. Confused, my first guess was that they might contain oil or grease, something to befoul the footing of our soldiers milling about at the foot of the wall, or perhaps even to set ablaze with fire arrows. Worse, I was brought to mind of an old Tevinter tactic, hurling pots filled with oil and small pouches of lyrium sand, a volatile mix that would explode on impact. This too did not occur.
Instead, the pots scattered on the earth to release a thick, sickly greenish mist among our men; Some manner of alchemical creation? Poisonous, I guessed. It caused our militia to pause and cough, wracked with pains I could not imagine. Bu this was only the prelude. Later, much later, I would learn that the substance the invader called saar-qamek was a truly insidious concoction. It kills, but before then…
It began as an outbreak of scuffles along the western, and then eastern angle of attack, men shouting, clawing and grappling with each other. At first I imagined they were trying to wrangle some insensate victim of the mist back, but then the blades came up, and the Maker's own wrath seemed to spread among our ranks. Our own soldiers, frothing like mad dogs, began to hack and slash at one another like Alamarri berserkers, soon resorting to their bare hands and teeth. The sights and sounds of it will never leave me.
Lord Threnhold called off the attack after that, and the siege began in earnest.
I write this journal, and will continue to do so, to show to you who come after me that this was but the first of the many struggles we faced against this enemy.
Personal Notes:
1) The Siege of Ansburg is a battle of my own creation. The lore gives us few examples of the battles that took place during the Qunari Wars, and instead focus on the big picture. I wanted some up-close context, so I came up with a battle that could have happened.
2) In this fanfic I reference a 'Lord Threnhold' as the leader of the Marcher army, or at least the Kirkwall contingent of it. He is not to be confused with Perrin Threnhold, who became Viscount of Kirkwall some two or three centuries later. I felt that I needed a commander-figure and wanted a name associated with Kirkwall, and so I figured than an ancestor of that noble family could have been present.
3) I make no reference to any Viscount of Kirkwall in this story, because that had not yet become the title of the city's ruler at this time. I also did not want to simply make up a plausible-sounding replacement. This also inspired the choice mentioned above.