Origins
10. Siege
Early morning fog rolled through the campsite, coating everything in a fine sheet of dew. Two robins called out, warning each other of their territorial boundaries, and a stoat slunk through the undergrowth, sniffing at the remains of a half-eaten wood pigeon.
Kai sat cross-legged on her sleeping fur, sipping green tea from the small wooden bowl that she had made when she was young and still learning all the skills required of her to become a productive member of her clan. For the first time in months she was alone... albeit with Sten, which really amounted to the same thing anyway.
Though she loved her clan, she also enjoyed privacy and seclusion, finding herself able to think more clearly when others weren't around. Amongst the other Dalish, sociable with each other by nature, if not with humans, she had been seen as something of an oddity. Scouts and hunters rarely travelled anywhere alone, instead preferring to move in pairs or small groups. That way if there was an ambush or if something went amiss, the chances of somebody returning to the clan to report it were greater.
The last time she had truly been alone was when she had hunted Darkspawn in the Southron Hills, on the edge of the Brecilian forest. Granted, she had had Alistair's company for a few hours when she saved his life, but other than that she had not spoken to or encountered any other people, Dalish, human or otherwise. He had given her much to think about, as she had travelled back to her people. She had always thought shemlen to be brutish and violent. Once every ten years, when all the clans gathered together for the great meeting, stories were told of encounters with shems, and the Dalish almost always came off the worse. But Alistair had not been violent or threatening. Ignorant of many things, yes, but in the same way an uneducated child was ignorant. No doubt there were many things she was ignorant of also, things that would seem commonplace to shems.
When she had returned to her clan she had told them of her journey, of the Darkspawn she had killed, of the human she had met and the others she had seen. Keeper Marethari had been suitably impressed at both her compassion in saving the human and her skill in defeating the Darkspawn. Not impressed enough to permit her to hunt and scout alone, of course, but since none of her friends... Tamlen, Fenarel, and others... had been allowed to hunt alone either, Kai had not been unduly bothered.
Since then she had been surrounded by her clan, apart from the occasions when she had hunted with her friends. Then, Duncan had taken her from her own kind and surrounded her with strange humans. Now, Leliana and Morrigan had gone to wash by the river and Alistair had gone to check if the road ahead was clear. It was nice to be alone with her thoughts.
"Would you like some tea?" she asked Sten, offering her bowl.
"No."
"As you wish."
When no other words were forthcoming, she turned her attention back to herself, back to her thoughts. She had woken in the middle of the night to a nightmare, a dream about a dragon leading an army of Darkspawn. Alistair, woken by her thrashing, had told her that what she dreamt was actually the Arch Demon of the Blight, communicating with the horde. Some older Wardens, he told her, claimed they could understand what it said, at least a little. It wasn't something that she was particularly looking forward to learning.
Alistair was the first to return to camp, and he stood gratefully beside the fire, warming his hands over it. As he had not mentioned the road ahead, she assumed that it was safe. Perhaps now, in the quiet of the morning, would be a good time to learn more about the Grey Wardens.
"Alistair, what other changes do Grey Wardens go through, besides the dreams?" she asked. He glanced at Sten for a moment, as if deciding how much he dared to say in front of the Qunari.
"It's ah... complicated. Can we speak alone for a moment?"
She nodded and followed him away from the camp, sorely missing the warmth of the fire. In an attempt to keep out the cold air, she pulled her cloak tight around her body. This was miserable weather for travelling.
"You should have been told this sooner," he said cautiously, "but with the battle and everything... there was just no time. Basically, you don't have to worry about dying of old age. You have thirty years to live, give or take."
"I see."
"The taint... it's, well, a death sentence. Eventually, your body won't be able cope with it. You won't feel anything now, but eventually the dreams will get worse. You won't be able to block them out, and that's when you'll know your time is coming. Most Wardens travel to Orzammar, to go out in one last battle. The dwarves respect us for it. Duncan... he'd started having the dreams again. He told me so in private, not long ago. Anyway, I'm sorry you had to be told like this. It's yet another thing that Duncan would have handled had he been here."
"I suppose none of this is easy for you, either."
"No. Though you're taking this quite well. When they told me about it, I felt angry, and a little hurt that I hadn't been warned about it first."
"We are all dying, Alistair. Maybe I won't even have thirty years... maybe I will die tomorrow, or next year. The only thing that is certain in life is death, but exactly when we leave this world and enter into the Beyond is the will of the gods."
"I'm glad you think so. Would you like more bad news, or should I wait until another time?"
"I would prefer to know what to expect; there is nothing worse than living in ignorance."
"Okay. I wouldn't even have thought of it if you hadn't mentioned to Leliana last night about the whole elves and humans having only human children thing. The thing is... you probably won't have any. Again, the taint, it does something to us. The chances of a Grey Warden fathering... or conceiving, in your case... a child are very, very slim. It would be a miracle, if it happened. I'm sorry."
"Thank you for telling me, but I was not planning on having children. Not within the next thirty years, anyway. This news does not really affect me."
"Good. Don't get me wrong, everything will still... work as it should. Up until you come towards the end of your life, you really shouldn't notice anything amiss, other than the dreams."
"Is there anything else I should know about?
"No, I think that's about it."
"Then we should see if the others have returned, and break camp. Morrigan said we will reach Redcliffe in a few hours."
"Oh, right. Redcliffe. Yes."
"Is something wrong?"
"Not... exactly. Though come to think of it, there is something else you should know about. It's not about the Grey Wardens, though. It's about me. And I probably should have told you days ago, but with one thing and another... well, now's as good a time as any, right?"
"Very well," she said, curious at his apprehensive tone of voice. It was quite unlike him.
"I told you about my mother, right? She was a serving girl at Redcliffe and died after giving birth to me? Then Arl Eamon took me in and raised me?"
"Yes, I do recall you mentioning it."
"Well, the reason he did that is because... my father was King Maric, which makes Cailan my half-brother, I suppose."
"Hmm. Now that you mention it, you do look a little like King Cailan. You have my sympathy for the loss of your brother."
"Oh, thanks. But we weren't a real family or anything. I doubt he even knew about me. I was pretty much kept a secret."
"Then why tell me of this?"
"Because I didn't want you going to Redcliffe not knowing about it. I wanted you to hear the truth from me, rather than picking up rumours in the castle... or anything like that."
"If you are brother to the King, does that not make you King now?"
"I hope not!" he said, aghast. "I'm the son of a commoner, and a Grey Warden to boot. If anybody has a claim to the throne, it's Eamon."
"I hope you do not expect me to bow to you."
"Of course not! That's one of the reasons I didn't tell you sooner."
"You feared I might prostrate myself upon the ground at your feet?"
"Well... not really. It's just that... once everybody finds out, they start treating me differently."
"I am not everybody."
"True, true. Apart from you, Duncan was the only other Grey Warden who knew about it. I think that's why he didn't let me take part in any of the battles, why he tried to keep me out of danger."
"You said that your mother died when you were young?" she asked, setting out back to the camp. "Then why did your father not raise you himself?"
"It would have damaged his reputation, if people had found out. Not to mention the queen wouldn't have been very happy."
"If he did not want his reputation damaging, perhaps he should have considered the full implications of his actions before laying with your mother. His actions were neither honest nor responsible. It speaks ill of your people that you would let such a man rule over you."
"Perhaps. Or maybe he just made a mistake. Everybody does, from time to time. Haven't you ever made a mistake before?"
"Of course, I have made a great many. But those in positions of power must guard their actions more carefully. They should not make rash decisions, or act without considering the implications, nor should they act solely for their own benefit. This is why your governing system is flawed."
"What do you mean?"
"Your rulers are picked because of their blood. But blood does not care for wisdom or responsibility. Your system would place a tyrant on your throne, simply because he was born to the right family. Amongst the Dalish, future Keepers are picked early in life and apprenticed to the current Keeper, so that they can learn magic, and how to be a wise and caring ruler. If any apprentice is found unworthy, because of a cruel streak, or a lack of wisdom and insight, another is chosen. The right to govern is chosen by the people, based on favourable character traits. It is not pre-determined by being born to one set of parents."
"Have you ever been an apprentice to a Keeper?"
"Of course not. I have no aptitude for magic." She glanced at him sideways as he walked beside her. "But if I did, would you have me dragged off to your Chantry?"
"No. Though I still have the abilities of a templar, I gave up that life when Duncan conscripted me. To be honest, it's a change for the better. Anyway, I just thought you should know about me before we arrive in Redcliffe. And again, I'm sorry for not telling you sooner. I suppose I just hoped you'd like me for who I am."
"If I did not like you, you would most likely be dead."
"I guess that's one way of looking at it."
"You have no need to apologise. Everybody is entitled to their secrets. If you have any more, I am sure you will tell me when you feel the time is right, just as Sten will speak when he feels the time is right."
"Thank you. So... you're really not bothered?"
"Who you were born does not interest me," she assured him. "Who you are now, who you may become... perhaps."
"If only everybody else in the world thought the same," he said wryly. "But I'll let you get back to your tea, now. I know you're eager to be off."
She nodded, and returned to the fireside. Her tea had cooled, and she quickly swallowed the rest before it grew even colder. Sten was still sitting in the same place, silent as ever, and she wondered how truly different his people were to the Elvhenan, and to humans. He seemed to have his own strange sense of honour, but he did not show emotions, other than occasional impatience. Where were the rest of his people? Why was he here alone? She knew that answers to her questions would come slowly, over time. And so she put them aside for the moment, content to wait for him to open up on his own.
o - o - o - o - o
The cold wind gusted briefly and Alistair repressed the urge to shiver. He had learnt that if you ignored the cold, refused to acknowledge it, your body seemed to believe the lie. The cloak he had picked up in Lothering was a little too small for him and did not keep out the worst of the wind. Still, it could be worse. At least he was still alive.
He kept expecting Duncan to speak, to tell him what to do, where to go, to groan at his jokes and lecture him about the seriousness of being a Grey Warden. But that would never happen, now. Duncan would never speak again. He was gone, along with the rest of the Grey Wardens, and Alistair was alone. He had nobody to tell him what to do next, nobody to guide him onto the correct path or tell him if he was doing right. All the things he'd never had to think about before, because there were others to think and deal with it instead, he now had to worry over.
Was he doing right, in going to Arl Eamon? Would Eamon be happy to see him, or would he turn him away? Would the Arlessa demand that he leave? He hadn't seen her since he had been sent away some thirteen years ago. Would time have tempered her dislike for him?
Or should he be leading Kai instead to the Circle of Magi, or one of the other peoples that the Grey Wardens had treaties for? There was just no easy choice. He desperately wanted to go to Redcliffe, to see Arl Eamon's condition for himself, but he didn't know if it was the right choice. Maybe he was being selfish. No doubt Kai missed her clan, but she hadn't once asked to go to see them.
Since nobody had objected going to Redcliffe, he was content to think of his path as the correct one, for the moment. Once they got to Redcliffe they could always reassess their plans. Duncan had often said that the ability to fluidly change plans and strategies where necessary was the sign of a good Grey Warden. And Alistair desperately wanted to become a good Grey Warden.
He turned to survey the group of people following him. Though they walked behind him, he knew that Kai was the one truly leading. The others looked naturally to her to make decisions, which she did quickly and without all the self-doubt that he experienced. In a way, it was almost comforting to have her making decisions; it seemed that in her view, her way of doing things was either the best way, the right way, or the only way. She listened to the views and opinions of others, but once she'd made her mind up nothing could sway her.
Leliana was following close in his footsteps, her gaze turned towards the floor. She barely even seemed to notice the wind whipping her cloak around her. In fact, she looked more sad than cold, and he felt guilty for taking her away from her quiet life in the cloisters. Still, she had been a bard in Orlais, so it wasn't as if she'd been sheltered by the Chantry her whole life. And if the horde was truly on the move, Lothering would not have remained safe for very long.
Behind Leliana was Morrigan. The witch was also affecting to ignore the cold, and she looked around alertly as she walked. She moved with an air of casual arrogance, as if truly afraid of nothing. Perhaps she had no reason to be afraid; perhaps she was truly powerful enough to not be threatened by anything that the road might conjure up. He suspected that her confidence was more of a facade. Even Flemeth was concerned about the Darkspawn, sure that they would overwhelm the whole of Thedas, including her home, if left unchecked. But why had Flemeth sent Morrigan along? Was it truly because the old woman thought her daughter could be of assistance? Or was it to act as a spy?
Sten followed Morrigan, seemingly unconcerned about the weather. Whether his didn't truly feel the cold, or whether he was pretending not to be bothered about it, Alistair couldn't guess. The Qunari were obviously made of sterner stuff than humans... Sten claimed he'd been inside the cage for twenty days without food or water, and might have lasted another week, had he not been freed. As the Qunari giant didn't seem predisposed to exaggeration, it was entirely possible that his people could live for longer without food or water than any human, dwarf or elf. No wonder they were so feared during their religious excursion from their homeland.
Bringing up the rear of the group, Kai had pulled her cloak close around herself. Her lips had something of a blue tinge to them, and he wondered if elves were more susceptible to the cold than humans. There was so much about her people that he didn't know. Almost everything he had heard was either rumour or Chantry lore, and the Chantry, he was coming to realise, were quite capable of making mistakes. Depending on who you asked within the religious organisation, the Dalish were either godless heathens or worshippers of vile and barbaric gods. Most agreed that the free elves were violent and blood-thirsty, possessed of great cunning if not intelligence.
Kai had already proved them wrong once, when she had saved his life at risk to her own. It was only after his joining ritual, when he had time to revisit in his mind the events leading up to his becoming a Grey Warden, that he truly came to appreciate what she had done for him. Seeing him drowning she had risked becoming a second victim of the river to swim out and pull him back to the shore. She had spoken so nonchalantly of it that he hadn't really considered it at the time, but there was no doubt it had been a difficult task for her. Her physique spoke of delicacy and endurance, but not of great strength. How she had managed to pull him to the opposite bank of the river to which he had fallen, weighed down in his heavy chain armour, he could not understand.
Then, when Darkspawn approached, putting her at further risk, she stayed to defend him. She could have left him to die - the Maker knew he was probably close to it, paralysed as he was - but instead she chose to help him again. Granted, she had been hunting Darkspawn anyway, but she could easily have left and tracked down others, or waited until they had killed him before attacking.
She had sacrificed again when she healed his injury with the potion that her Keeper had given her. No doubt she had been saving the healing potion for herself, in case of emergency. By using it on him she had risked herself in the event of future injury. Even Grey Warden recruits were not expected to hunt Darkspawn alone, away from their people. They were taken out with a veteran, who could help them, guide them and tend their injuries if necessary. Finding himself curious about what other strange rituals the Dalish might practice, he dropped back to speak to her.
"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" he said, speaking loudly over the wind.
"You just did."
"Ha. You're right. Well, do you mind if I ask you a couple more?"
"No, I do not mind, though I cannot guarantee answers."
"I was just wondering if all of your warriors go through the same thing that you did."
"You mean, do all warriors run off into the Southron Hills to rescue humans from rivers and hunt Darkspawn by twilight? No. Most of our hunters must make a kill to be considered worthy of protecting the clan. Usually it is simply a deer or a boar, or an animal whose meat and fur that is of use to us, or a predator that is a risk to the clan's safety."
"So... why did you hunt Darkspawn if you could just kill a deer?"
"It would have been no challenge."
"And that's why you went off alone to hunt Darkspawn?"
"Not... entirely," she said, looking somewhat sheepish. "A hunter is not considered an adult until he or she has made their first kill of a large creature. Even though I had been hunting small things like birds and rabbits for some time, the Keeper said that I was too young and inexperienced to join an organised hunt of a larger animal. She said that my presence might risk the safety of other hunters.
"Naturally, I was did not listen. I was convinced that I was the equal of any hunter in the clan, and that the Keeper was sheltering me by not allowing me to hunt. I told her that if my presence was endangering the others, then I would hunt alone, then I would be no danger to anybody other than myself. Then I left, and swore to her that I would not return until I had killed three of the greatest threat our clan would ever face; the Darkspawn. And that when that day came, I would no longer be a child."
"Was it difficult going back? I know that when you fall out with someone it can be hard to speak to them again, to admit your mistakes."
"I had no mistakes to admit. By my actions I proved the Keeper wrong," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"How long had you been hunting the Darkspawn for?"
"Many days. I tracked the Darkspawn as best I could, but they quickly disappeared back underground. I was loathe to follow them beneath the earth... it would most likely have led to an ambush."
"Was it lonely for you? Being on your own, with nobody to help you, nobody to talk to?"
"No. At first my anger fuelled me and kept me going. Then, when I had calmed down, I began to enjoy having time to myself. I woke when I chose, slept when I chose, ate when I was hungry, and was beholden to no other. It was a liberating experience. Because I was reliant on myself, I felt more in touch with my surroundings, became more aware of my body and learnt to know my mind better."
"You know, when you saved me, I thought you were a beautiful agent of the Maker come to guide me to His realm."
"Yes, I suspected you were delirious with pain."
"Actually, I didn't feel any pain at all."
"So you were simply delirious?"
"Maybe. I also wanted to ask you... why did you decide to save my life? You could have let me drown."
"To the Dalish, life is precious. When I saw you fall, I did not know you were a shem. You could have been an elf, or a dwarf. All I knew was that you were not Darkspawn, and therefore you were not my quarry, nor were you my enemy. I acted on instinct; I could not sit by and watch somebody die without trying to save their life."
"But after you dragged me out, and the Darkspawn came, you could have let them have me. What's one less human in the world, right?"
"To be honest, I was curious. I had never seen one of your kind before. Perhaps a more experienced hunter would have left you to die, but I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about your people."
"And what did you find out?"
"That you are not as bad as I was told." He laughed at her sentiment, and she looked at him quizzically.
"I was just thinking the same thing myself, actually."
"Oh?"
"The Chantry tells us that the Dalish are all violent and bloodthirsty and such."
"I suppose it makes it easier for your people to fear and hate us if we are seen that way."
"Hey, you said yourself that even your elders tell you untrue stories about us humans," he said defensively.
"No, I said that you are not as bad as I was told. Before I was made ill by the Tevinter mirror, Tamlen and I were hunting not far from our camp. We came across three shemlen men. Tamlen did not want to let them go; he said they would bring others. But I talked him into being lenient, into allowing the men to live. I thought that they might be like you. I thought they might have honour. More fool me. Even as I left my clan, they were preparing to head north, fleeing from a mob that had been raised by the men we allowed to live. It hardly reaffirmed my trust in humanity."
"Well, I'm glad that you trust me."
"What makes you think that I do?"
"You haven't tried to kill me yet. That was my first indication."
"Perhaps I am merely biding my time, waiting for you to let your guard down before striking?"
"Ah, but now I know to expect it! Now I'll never let my guard down. I'm afraid you just tipped your hand."
"Tipped... my hand?" she asked, a confused look on her face.
"It's a gambling phrase. It means that you've shown me what you're planning."
"Now if only we can get Loghain to do the same. I already tire of this bounty on my head. No doubt it will make our tasks much more difficult."
"Don't worry. Arl Eamon will make everything right. You'll see." On the inside, he hoped he was right, that he wasn't letting everybody down.
o - o - o - o - o
Kai stood atop the hillside, looking down at Redcliffe. Below, winding steps had been cut into the side of the hill, providing access down to the town. Much larger than Lothering - and more prosperous, by the looks of it - Redcliffe seemed oddly quiet. Was it normal for shemlen towns to be so silent at midday? Where were all the people? In the centre of the town she saw perhaps two or three tiny figures, but surely there should be more?
On the opposite side of the valley stood Redcliffe Castle, looming ominously over the village. To Kai it was a monstrosity of stone and slate; how anybody could stand living within its shadow she did not know.
"At least there are no refugees," said Morrigan, following her gaze down to the town.
"Are you looking forward to returning home, Alistair?" Kai asked.
"Yes... and no. I haven't been back in years. To be honest, I haven't really thought of it as home since I was a child. But I suppose standing around up here talking about it won't get us there any faster."
He set off down the steps and she fell into line behind him. Behind her came Da'len, with Leliana keeping a respectable distance away from the hound. Morrigan followed her and last came Sten, silent as ever. The Qunari was so large that he made even Alistair seem small in comparison; he dwarfed Morrigan and Leliana, and made Kai herself look like a child's toy.
There was something wrong with the town, Kai began to realise. The flat-ears who joined the Dalish had told stories of human settlements... hamlets, villages, towns and cities. According to them, even cities were home to wildlife; birds and rodents and feral cats. Villages and some towns were often quite abundant in their variety of animals present. But now, no birds sang from the trees. The silence that surrounded the settlement here was pervasive and unnatural. Kai shivered, but not because of the cold.
When Alistair led them around a bend she noticed a small stone bridge arching over a gushing mountain river. Upon the bridge stood a shemlen man, a bow in his hands and a quiver at his hip. Her first instinct was to reach for her weapons, but when the others made no such movements she decided following their lead would be wiser. After all, they were more used to dealing with shems than she was. At least, Alistair and Leliana were.
In the end, her caution was unnecessary; the shemlen man stood down his weapon and greeted them in a manner that, if not friendly, at least wasn't hostile.
"You... you're from the outside?" the man asked. He didn't seem to believe his eyes. Strange, though she had observed that often, shemlens did not seem capable of believing the sights their eyes showed them. Why? Did they think their eyes might lie? "Thank the Maker! It's been over a tenday since we've seen anyone else. Have you come to help? Did the Bann's messages get through?"
"Come to help Arl Eamon?" said Alistiar. "Yes, we've heard about his illness."
"Then... you don't know what else has happened?"
"Something other than illness has happened here?" asked Kai, stepping forward to address the man directly. Why couldn't shemlens just say outright what they meant? Why did they have to play with their words like a cat playing with a mouse?
"Redcliffe is besieged by monsters that come every night from the castle. It's all Bann Teagan's been able to do to hold us together and defend against them, but I don't think we can last another night."
"Bann Teagan?" said Alistair. "The Arl's brother? He's here?"
"Yes, he arrived on the night of the first attack. We'd all be dead if it wasn't for him. He organised our defences and fought by our sides. I should take you to see him... he'll want to speak to you immediately, armed as you are."
"Please lead the way," said Alistair, gesturing to the road. The shem nodded, and began the march down the steps. Kai followed, curious about the monsters which plagued the village. Were they Darkspawn? If so, what were they doing in the castle? Regardless of what they were, she suspected her weapons would be drinking a lot more blood before the next day dawned.
o - o - o - o - o
The corridors of the Tower of Magi, situated in the middle of Lake Calenhad, were silent, and for all the wrong reasons. Tables and chairs had been overturned. Beds had been left unmade, meals abandoned mid-way, chests hastily looted for anything useful. And the blood... the blood was everywhere. It pooled on the floor, making the marble tiles slippery underfoot. It coated the walls, spray patterns of deep red across the grey stone. The patterns themselves were beautiful, as if somebody had lovingly and painstakingly painted them, paying great attention to detail. But the medium was the blood of innocent men, women and children, and this act had been committed by a great evil, an evil second only to the Darkspawn which gathered in the south.
Wynne carefully stepped around the puddles of blood on the floor, trying not to see the bodies that were their source. At first, as she made her way through the tower, she had catalogued every body she had come across, recording their names on a scrap of paper so that she could arrange for them to be buried and mourned properly. Now, she didn't bother; a list of the survivors would be far shorter.
The bodies hurt her, so, so much. It pained her to see their faces; the faces of the people she once knew. Some of them she had taught herself. Some had been her apprentices. Now they were nothing but lifeless shells, bent and twisted in horror, their blood drained to fuel the dark rituals of her enemy. And it was not just her companions and students that had been hunted; templars, too, had been caught up in the slaughter. All of their training, all of their arms and armour, had done them no good here. They were trained to hunt down rogue mages; apostates who practised blood magic or made deals with demons, and abominations and malificarum, the apostates who had become enslaved to Fade-demons. The templars, where faced with a whole cadre of blood mages, had been almost as defenceless as the true magi.
Unlike most mages, she did not fear or resent the templar guardians. Instead, she considered them a necessity, though she did not approve of the Chantry's methods of controlling them. Only the King could command an army, or so the law went. So the Chantry did not call their templars an army, though in truth that's what they were, and they controlled their warriors by giving them lyrium. In large amounts, lyrium was poison, and only Dwarves with their natural resistance to magic could handle pure, raw lyrium. But diluted into potions, lyrium was valuable; it allowed a mage to recover his or her magical strength instantly. The Chantry's use of lyrium was less benevolent; they gave it to their templars, augmenting their natural spell-disrupting abilities. But lyrium was a double-edged sword; the templars quickly became addicted, and after more than a couple of days without it they fell into withdrawal. Sometimes the withdrawal could be deadly.
A small body lay before her, and she closed her eyes, stepping around it. The child was only eight years old. He had been brought to the tower three weeks earlier after his parents had discovered his natural affinity for magic. They had thought that they were doing right by their son. They thought that without the Circle's help, their son would become an abomination, that he would be Tranquilled or slain by the templars. They thought that they were keeping him safe by sending him here. Adain... his name was Adain. Or at least, it had been. Now somebody would have to tell his parents that their son was dead. If there was even anybody left to deliver the news. Even if there was, there would be no body to bring home to cremate, no soul to send to the afterlife to dwell with the Maker. Either the enemy would destroy everything in the tower, or... or... the templars would come, with their Rite of Annulment. They would destroy the phylactery of every mage tied to the Circle, ending the threat to Ferelden. Then they would raze the Tower to ashes.
How could this be happening now of all times? She was getting too old for this. This, and before it, Ostagar... She closed her eyes, stopping to lean against a wall in the corridor. Ostagar. For as long as she lived she would never forget Ostagar. It was as if the hells themselves had opened up and spewed forth the Darkspawn. From her vantage point above the battlefield she had seen everything. She saw the enemy's charge. She saw King Cailan's forces rushing out to meet them; the flight of arrows, the charge of the Mabari, and then the men, running to their deaths. She had seen the ogres throwing boulders at the bridge; she had seen, a short time later, the beacon atop the Tower of Ishal light up, a beacon of hope in the darkness. The Grey Wardens, at least, had been true to their word. They had done their job.
But then... chaos had followed. Teyrn Loghain's forces had retreated, condemning all upon the battle field to death. She had seen the Darkspawn pushing ever forward, and seen Ferelden's forces cut down. She had seen the King, his golden armour making him stand out on the field, picked up and shaken like a ragdoll by a huge ogre. She had seen Cailan crushed and flung aside; one moment a King, the next a corpse. She had seen the beginning of the end, and then... nothing. The last thing she recalled was a huge boulder hurtling towards the wooden platform upon which she and the other half-dozen magi had been standing. The platform had collapsed, and she had been plunged into darkness.
It was probably what had saved her life. Had they known she was still alive, the Darkspawn would undoubtedly have killed her. Unconscious, appearing dead, they had passed her by. When she had awoken the horde had moved on, only crows and jackals were left on the battlefield. Of the mages, all were dead, except Uldred, who was missing. At the time she had thought that the Darkspawn had taken him. It was only when she returned, after her slow limping journey north, that she learnt the truth; Uldred had survived Ostagar and returned the day before her. And apparently he had a lot to say. From the rumours that she'd heard, not long before the attack, Uldred was speaking in favour of Teyrn Loghain, claiming Cailan's naïveté had cost Ferelden the battle, that with Loghain as regent, surely the Darkspawn would be defeated once and for all. Perhaps Uldred was mad with grief. Perhaps he truly believed what he was saying. She might never get to find out.
There was a scream from the common room further down the corridor, and it chilled her to the bone. Hitching up her skirt she set out at a sprint, her staff weapon in her right hand. It had thankfully survived the trials of Ostagar, and as she panted her way down the corridor, feeling the arthritis in her old bones begin to flare up again, she sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Maker that she had been spared so far, so that she might try to salvage what little was left of the Circle.
Inside the common room she saw a young mage backing away from a large, fire-wreathed demon. Spells flew from the young woman's hands, but the demon shrugged them off apparently unconcerned by the magical assault.
"Petra!" Wynne shouted when she recognised the young mage. With her joints complaining she hurried to the side of the woman and began casting a spell of her own, pushing Petra away with her free hand. "Go! Run!" she instructed, and thankfully Petra obeyed, hurrying from the room. As the demon edged slowly forward, Wynne cast a magical shield around herself to absorb incoming damage. Then she began casting spells like she had never cast them before; they flew fast from the ends of her fingers, and at the same time she channelled magic through her staff, sending bolts of arcane magic hurtling towards the demon. It screamed in pain as the magical fire burnt it, and hurried its advance. Desperately, Wynne allowed more magic to flood into her body, channelling at a rate she had never done before, prepared to sacrifice everything to defend one of her former apprentices.
As the demon fell, so did Wynne. Drawing breath hurt too much, and she sank to the floor, barely even noticing the pool of blood that she lay in. Her heart ached so much, a combination of exhaustion and horror at what had happened to her home. As she took one last labouring breath, her heart ceased beating.