Alistair woke up early the next morning and went out to meet the merchant and his fellow mercenaries. The job was a simple one. Estienne and his assistant would be taking a horse-drawn wagon to Val Royeaux laden with incense, spices, and tapestries and carpets in the designs for which Andoral's Reach was famous. Alistair, along with three other footman and two crossbowmen, were to look menacing enough to deter anyone who might try to rob the merchant. "After all," observed Geoffroi, their leader on the mission, "the so-called Freemen of the Dales are deserters, cowards. They'll be looking for easy pickings, not robbery that they have to fight for." Like the mercenary captain he had met the day before-but unlike the other mercenaries-he spoke in the style of Orlesian familiar to Alistair from the Chantry and Sybille's household. He wondered if the man had been born a nobleman, but fallen into disfavor through the machinations of the great Game.
The other foot-soldiers were Eudes, a big, balding man with a scarred cheek, and Piers, who looked even younger than Aedan had been during the Blight. The archers were Melisende and Raimond. Melisende was a tall, plain, flaxen-haired woman and Raimond had grey in his beard and walked with a slight limp.
As they traveled, Raimond walked in front of the wagon while Melisende guarded it from the rear, and the others made a square perimeter around the wagon, with Alistair being forward and to the left. They did not talk much when the wagon was moving, but Alistair gained some sense of the group's dynamics when they stopped and made camp. It seemed that young Piers was as new to them as Alistair, while the other four had worked together for some time. Though they did not say so directly-at least, not when Alistair was an earshot-he had the sense that they would have preferred to not have a green youngster and a stranger on this mission. But they worked for the mercenary captain, and they had all been assigned this mission. They would be tolerated, as long as they did what Geoffroi told them and didn't get in the way.
After a few days, they left the steppes of western Orlais for the wide expanses of plains that were the Orlesian bread basket. But the fertile farmlands that Alistair had seen on his last journey to Weisshaupt five years ago were not as he remembered them. He had expected to see peasants out plowing and planting their fields everywhere, but many fields were overgrown with weeds and some villages seemed entirely abandoned. The war between Empress Celene and her cousin Duke Gaspard had been fought here last fall. They may have called a truce, but it would be years before the farming communities of the Exalted Plains recovered.
He also saw vestiges of another, far older, war. The crumbling figures of elven gods could be glimpsed, peering out from copses of trees and shrubs These had been the lands of the Dalish Elves once, before the Exalted March that lent its name to these plains had driven them into a nomadic lifestyle on the fringes of Orlais and Ferelden. Seeing them brought back memories of his days of studying history in the Chantry...and the fury with which the Dalish storyteller they had met had given their side of the story.
They saw few travelers on the road, but also saw no sign of the Freemen of the Dales. Nor did they see any sign of patrols, which Alistair thought increasingly odd as they approached the ramparts of a large fortress complex. Though he knew many of the forts in the area were long-abandoned, Geoffroi had said that Fort Revasan was an active stronghold held by the troops of Duke Gaspard. As they followed the road skirting its western ramparts, Alistair expected to be challenged, to be asked to identify themselves. Yet he saw no Orlesian solidiers at all.
"I don't like this," said Geoffroi. "They may have called a truce, but I can't believe Gaspard's men would abandon the Fort to the Freemen. Keep your eyes and ears open for trouble."
Alistair nodded in agreement. But it was neither his eyes nor his ears that provided the first warning. It was his nose, as a stomach-turning charnel house smell wafted his way on the easterly breeze. The odour was soon followed by the sight of six decaying corpses scrambling over the ramparts toward them. They were still clad in the remains of Orlesian uniforms and armed with swords.
"Archers: retreat up the road, with Estienne and the wagon! Fire only if you can get a clear shot" Geoffroi roared. "The rest of us will hold them back."
Six walking dead against four fighting men, backed up by two archers. Should be easy enough, if there are no more. Alistair thought of the waves that had nearly overwhelmed them at Redcliffe village years ago with a shudder. But this was manageable. He advanced on the monsters as the four melee fighters formed a line, Eudes to his right, Piers on his left and Geoffroi on the other side of Piers.
Walking dead were physically tough, but not challenging opponents. They were slow and wielded their weapons with little skill, but their lack of vital organs meant they were unfazed by wounds that would disable a mortal fighter. Chopping off limbs-preferably heads-would slow them down, and even then you had to burn the remains. Alistair lopped off the shield arm of his opponent, and was preparing his next strike when he felt a familiar chill, that threatened to sap his strength. Oh, no...there's a shade here. Or a revenant...
It wasn't the one he was fighting. He glanced to his left where Geoffroi was taking on two of them. He saw Geoffroi's shield arm crumple with weakness when he was struck. It must be that one.
There was no time to waste. He parried the attack of his own opponent with his sword, and spun to his left, flattening Piers' opponent with his shield. He then leaped over the falling corpse, planted his feet behind the shade and tried to strike off its head with his sword. So much for trying to pass for an common mercenary. But what choice did he have? Unfortunately, his cheap grey steel sword was not sharp enough to separate its head cleanly. He had to strike it a second time, fending off its sword with his shield as it whirled around to defend itself, its head wobbling on its half-severed neck. But the second sword-blow finished the job. With the creature's defeat, Geoffroi's strength returned and he was able to resume fighting the other one.
Alistair paused to survey the situation. Piers had taken the opportunity presented by Alistair's shield bash to his opponent to press his attack and seemed to have it under control. But Alistair's move had left Eudes facing three of them, and the one farthest to his right had broken past him and was headed for the archers and the wagon.
Actually, it hadn't travelled far at all. It was Melisende who was being dragged involuntarily toward the corpse. A revenant, damn it! He ran directly toward the creature, lowering his head and moving into a crouching position behind his shield before making contact.
Success! His weight and momentum had knocked it over. The revenant would not be stunned as a human opponent would, but it lost its grip on Melisande who was able to pull away. Alistair slashed at the thing twice while it came to its fee then blocked a sword blow with his axe. He could feel the coldness of it, trying to drain his strength away but he held firm.
The dangerous moment in the encounter had come and gone. The shade was dead, and Alistair had taken on a revenant by himself at Redcliffe long ago, when the rest of the party had fallen. He was more skilled now, and while the arrows Melisende and Eudes tried to shoot at it were little more than a distraction, he was confident in taking it down. The other mercenaries could handle the ordinary walking dead. It was soon over.
"We must burn the bodies, or they may rise again to trouble other travelers," Alistair warned the others.
"And you know this how, Alan Redcliffe? Where have you fought such things?" asked Geoffroi.
"I-grew up in a town called Redcliffe in Ferelden. I was a bastard, that's why I'm named after the town. About ten years ago, there was an attack on the town by an army of such things. The townsfolk formed a militia to defend ourselves." It was almost all true.
They gathered the bodies up on a pyre and then made their way down the road. "Will there be more?" asked Geofrroi.
Alistair shrugged. It worried him that there had been any at all. A few walking dead might happen spontaneously after a battle, from the unquiet spirits of the fallen. But the shade and revenant required demonic spirits to enter the fallen. It seemed unlikely that the Freemen could be responsible unless there were apostates in their numbers. But he kept these thoughts to himself.
Geoffroi turned toward him as they walked. "I may owe you my life and I suppose I should be thankful. But you were described to me as a fighting man of ordinary skill, and I cannot believe the Captain would misjudge you so, unless he were deliberately misled. Why are you pretending to be less than you are? You could have earned far more money. What are you playing at?" He spoke in a low voice, so the other members of the company could not hear them.
Alistiar took a deep breath. "I'm not playing. Well, I...may have downplayed my skills but I-I have my reasons. I'm not an outlaw or a deserter, if that's what you're thinking. You have nothing to fear from me."
The older man scowled at him, but said nothing more as they continued down the road.