Chapter Twelve : Hands


A ringing in his ears... head pounding out a tattoo... Where am I? What's happened? Weight above me, pressing down, something under me. Someone? So dark. Have I gone blind? What is that smell? All around him was the pungent sweet odor of death. No... it can't be. I can't be! Alistair flailed in his disorientation, gripped by a living nightmare, buried under the heavy weight of a pile of moldering corpses. He couldn't move his arms. Couldn't tell if he was face up or down. Could barely wiggle his fingers, gloved in thick iron gauntlets. Maker, please, not like this...

Suddenly, someone clutched at his heel. The force pulled him downward, deeper into the tangle of bodies. "No!" sprang to his lips, but he could not draw the breath. He kicked, unwilling to go without one last fight, refusing to submit to the rotting fingers of undead hands. But with no leverage to brace himself, Alistair helplessly slid down...

down...

down...

and into the pink morning light.

"Easy, boy, it's done now," soothed a gruff dwarven voice. "Let's set you right."

Before he could protest, a big pair of hands yanked off Alistair's battered helmet. His head ached at the violation, even as his eyes took in the merciful sunlight. Redcliffe village. Still standing, at dawn. A little worse for wear, perhaps, but intact. "Thank the Maker," he breathed, relief forming the prayer.

"No Makers here, kid," the stranger grumbled, helping him up into a sitting position. "Just dumb luck that we made it through."

"Who are you?" Alistair shucked off his gauntlets. They clanked quietly in the dust. "I should-" he took in a shuddering breath of air- "-thank you for, er, rescuing me." The wind was laced with the scent of pitch and fire.

"Fine. You're welcome." The dwarf bobbed his head, clapping him on the back as the coughing began. "Breathe. Name's Dwyn; pleased to see you have all your parts. I'm a Surfacer, obviously. Had the misfortune of choosing Redcliffe for expanding my business operations. Last night, a big nasty qunari press-ganged me and my boys into service. They weren't as lucky as me." Dwyn's eyes narrowed with concern. "Does that head of yours feel as bad as it looks?"

Alistair tentatively palpated the wound at his hairline. Fresh blood came away on his fingertips. "Last thing I remember is my helmet caving in. I was... then Morrigan..." He winced. "It's gone a little fuzzy. Why was I...?" He gestured uncomfortably to the mound, only a few feet away.

The dwarf ran his fingers down the length of his braided beard. "Yeah. About that.. Halfway through the fight, we realized that the undead were dragging the fresh-killed away. To make more of them creatures. So it wasn't enough to just save the living. We had to protect the fallen. What a fucking disaster that turned out to be. Piled them up in one place. Must be how you ended up middle of the stack." He cleared his throat. "The Warden sent me to retrieve your body."

The Warden? "You mean Lady Cousland?" Blood dripped from his crown, into his right eye. It stung madly, and he blinked pink tears down his cheek.

"Yeah, whatever. Your lady was real adamant about it. Said you didn't like to touch dead things," Dwyn harrumphed. "I thought she was just being a woman. How was I to know you were still breathing? We all thought you were dead. One minute I'm fishing for a corpse, the next, it's putting up a fight!"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Alistair chuckled darkly, pulling himself up onto his feet with the dwarf's help. "Can you tell me where I can find her?"

"The chantry courtyard has a tent set up for a field hospital. No one made it through without a story and a hurt to back it up. A lot more people will die before the day is through." He spat into the dust, leaving a little clod of mud at the toes of his boots. "They have no more healin' pots and far too many wounded bad."

The smile fell from Alistair's lips. "Is Lady Cousland...?"

"Nah. Not bad. Couple of scratches. I had the fortune of fighting beside her at the end. We dwarves have great respect for her kind. Never smelled the tunnel dank of the Deep Roads, myself, but still. It was a sight- a human rogue girlie who carves flesh like a mad berserker. The Warden lives up to the reputation of her order."

"I'm a Grey Warden, too," Alistair muttered, but was rather pleased by Dwyn's praise for his companion. Friend? Lover? There would be time for that later.

"Yeah? I'm sure you gave it good, then, before they brained you. Like I said, it's all a matter of dumb luck. These poor people didn't have any." He spat again, as though warding off the hand of death with his superstitious compulsion.

Alistair spun to face the stack of bodies. With a proper look, the swarm of tangled limbs transformed into recognizable people. At the very top was a familiar face, the fat man who ran the tavern. Lloyd. Underneath him was a brown haired elf in splintmail, who had been conscripted into the ranks of the better archers. He didn't know this one's name. Would he want the burial rites of an elf, or was he as Andrastian? Did he have kin to contact?

"The Warden will want these people identified," Alistair instructed, testing out the strange honorific. "The pyres will need to be finished burning before tonight's sunset." The Warden. THE Warden. It felt as though he was talking about a different person. A new person. This "Warden" was... who? Friend of mages, political strategist, part-time spy?

Which of these women was he was falling for?

"I can ask around," acquiesced the dwarf, unhappy with the task. He rubbed his hands together. "But I'm not the man for that job. I want breakfast, and my bed- in that order. Good luck finding the Warden."

"Thank you, again." He stuck out a hand to shake, but froze, realizing his fingers were smeared sticky red. "Err, yes, thanks."

"Get that head looked at, kid," Dwyn ordered, rolling his eyes.


He found Leliana sleeping, head cradled in her own arms, sitting on a stool beside Morrigan's cot. The dark-haired witch was in a terrible condition; her skin was clammy and grey, and the dressings around her abdominal wound were spotted with blood. Someone had sponged her clean with great care, washing away the filth of the battle.

Unwilling to streak her with bloody hand prints, he rested only the knuckles of his left hand against her wrist, and pushed out with his mind. He felt the mana in her pulse, how drained she was as her body tried to repair itself, spending her reserves faster than she could regenerate.

"Templar magic," Morrigan croaked, eyelids fluttering open. "Casting spells on me, Alistair? Even without lyrium. Your Chantry has much to explain."

"They're not spells, they're abilities," he responded defensively, but checked himself, realizing how stupid he sounded. Now was not the time for that fight. "You're the one who needs lyrium right now."

"Lissa has... Lissa has her people looking." Her mouth was cracked and dry from bitter mouthfuls of elfroot tea. She spoke slowly, struggling for each word. "But I'm not the worst."

Alistair knew Morrigan was right. Under the shade of the enormous canvas tent, the dying moaned for relief which never came. When they prayed for water more than their mothers, the end was near. It was a final, terrible thirst. "If word made it to Kinloch, they may be sending a whole legion of mages and templars as we speak."

Morrigan laughed weakly. Her lips were so pale. Before her laughter could turn to coughing, he ladled out water from the drinking bucket and helped her sip. After a while, she continued: "You smell like the dead. And your optimism paints you a fool. Even two spirit healers could turn the tide here. But you templars fear a mage with a taste of the air outside a Circle!" She trembled with the effort of her anger.

"You should save your strength," he scolded, tucking the woolen blanket back up to her shoulders.

"You would make a better nurse than a prince." There was no sting to her words.

"You wound me," he chuckled, softly, mindful of their locale.

"T'was not me. T'was that creature with the great battleaxe."

His face darkened. "I remember now. You threw your ward onto me."

"I meant to prevent your death. At the time, I believed I failed." Her dark eyebrows, like bird wings resting on her pale forehead, came together in an ill-used expression. "Are you a spirit? I confess I am uncertain. The veil grows thin here, greedy for the dead."

Alistair shivered. How to answer such a question? "I'm me," he tried. "I mean, I'm as me as I was yesterday. I think. Pretty sure I'm alive." He gathered fresh blood from the wound on his head, and offered it to her as proof. "See? Still bleeding."

"Indeed," she agreed. "As am I?"

"You were hurt because of me."

"No." She shifted restlessly, trying to ignore the hot pain in her stomach. "I will not have you martyr me for the sake of conscience. Alistair, you fell protecting me. Foolishly, I felt obligated to return the favor."

"You-"

Morrigan interrupted. "Elissa and her archers held the right flank, for a time. But the dead were rising from the lake."

"I think... Sten was pulled from the left when the knights were overrun."

It was easier, after, to condense a battle into terse descriptions of position and count.

To forget the hellish sight of flaming undead swarming down the hill, bloodied with the lives of Perth's men, peppered with arrows, and still they came. How the villagers cried out in terror and ran, broken at the scene. How his veins turned to ice when he realized that Lissa was probably among the fallen. How he thrust himself into the melee, with Morrigan casting her spells at his side.

It was easier, to forget.

They were winning, even, the villagers rallying to the triumphant shouts of the surface dwarves, when the first arrow came from behind. He had blindly assumed friendly fire, a casualty to novice farmers clutching bows. But then the line collapsed, bulging, as the left flank rolled.

Dead rising from Lake Calenhad.

It was necessary, to forget.

"I am tired, now," Morrigan sighed, barely audible. "Go away." She closed her eyes. Somewhere close, a wife shrieked for a dead husband, inconsolable. "Bother Lissa instead. She'll... want to know, Alistair."

"What?"

"She needs to know you are not one of the dead."

"Oh. Right. Well, that's easy, isn't it? Just wave my very much alive hands in her direction!"

"You really are an ee-diot," groused Leliana, lifting her head from her cradled arms. "She is mourning." Her round face was lined with pink creases; her accent was thick with her exhaustion. "No one can come near her. She thinks she saw you perish! You were her friend, her first friend. And now she feels all alone. Andraste guide her."