Part XIV
Down in Ostagar, Team Elf Plus Golem is go!

Xox

"I am not one for judging other people, no matter their personal tastes, but do you perhaps think we should be worried?" said Zevran.

"About what?" said Hosomaki.

"There appear to be two mass murderers of the avian population behind us. Not that this should trouble you, of course."

Hosomaki gave them another quick look. "I don't know, it all seems like good fun over there to me."

"I think it's good that Cel's learnt to divert her attention from shems to pigeons," Kalamari said. "And it's good that Shale's fitting in so nicely."

"Do you get experience and gold for shooting birds?" said Hosomaki.

"It'd be nice if they did," said Kalamari.

"Considering they have been at it for the past two days, don't you think this may have gone... a little too far?" Zevran said.

"Mm, well, I don't know," said Kalamari. "I guess I do miss talking to Cel a bit, but... getting her to talk to anyone is a great step forwards! Plus as long as she keeps talking to someone, her throat should gradually get used to the strain."

"Maybe I should loot those birds," said Hosomaki to himself.

Zevran did not look too convinced, but he supposed he shouldn't argue against three Grey Wardens and a moving statue. "Well then, if you two are happy with it..."

There was a squawk and a wet-sounding "mwushmp" from behind them, and they turned to see Shale and Cel shouting angrily at each other over a feathered and bloody lump on the grass.

"It did not get this one! I crushed it before it had a chance to fire!"

"No, I shot it and then you looked down 'cus I got your attention, and then you crushed it! Other way round! It's mine!"

"Why does it shoot them when they are under my feet? It is wasting its arrows."

"Guys!" said Kalamari, walking towards them with hands raised. "We shouldn't be arguing in the team, okay? Why don't you just claim it as a draw?"

Shale and Cel looked at each other, and then down at what might have been a woodpigeon some minutes previous. Kalamari waited patiently. Then two contestants shrugged (it was quite disconcerting to see a golem shrug, thought the other three elves) and said at the same time, "A hundred and sixteen-all."

Xox

Ostagar was a little snowier than Kalamari remembered. She said this, Cel agreed, and then they found that Hosomaki couldn't actually remember anything about the whole Ostagar affair except that there was a werewolf involved in it somewhere.

"Didn't you write it down in your journal?" said Kalamari.

"I don't write in it; it's done by magic," said Hosomaki, not wanting to seem too enthusiastic about his Codex. "And it's all blank here... maybe there's a bug in these files somewhere..."

Kalamari looked, but she couldn't see any spiders or squashed flies hanging around the journal. "Oh well. Don't worry about it, and hopefully it'll jog your memory as we go through."

"May I ask why we are here in the first place?" said Zevran.

"Certainly!" Kalamari fished out a scrap of paper from her boot. "Okay, I think Tim wrote this one. Let me just read it out: 'The aim of this mission is the attempt in negation for any discredit suffered by the Wardens in regards to King Cailan's demise. It is your duty firstly to reclaim the lost property of the Ferelden king, Cailan, and secondly to bring an end to any humiliation endured by his body. We have intelligence that the key to the king's personal property is secreted by a statue in the grounds of Ostagar – I trust that you will have no problem in recovering it. Signed, Lady Tim Aeducan.' At least, I think it says that. Her signature's really messy..."

"This Lady Tim wants us to search every statue? Surely it knows that there are many statues in this place," said Shale.

"Don't worry," said Hosomaki confidently. "I'll know which one's right."

"Do you mind if I ask how?" said Zevran.

"It'll be marked with 'Buried Key' or something like that, and there might be sparkles," explained Hosomaki. "It's a mage thing, I think it's the Fade leaking in!" he added quickly.

"Well!" said Kalamari, rubbing her hands both in anticipation and in the hope of keeping frostbite at bay. "So we're all good then? Let's go, Team Elf! I mean, Team Elf Plus Golem!"

"Is the loud elf always like this?" Shale asked, once Kalamari had run on some distance ahead.

"Eh," said Cel.

Xox

Two hours later, Hosomaki had found the statue, and was now wondering who the Elric in 'Elric's Buried Key' referred to, and Zevran was hoping that their quest would soon be at an end. Not that he had anything against Grey Warden-ing, or even against the particular Grey Wardens that he was travelling with, but this was miserable weather to be darkspawn-hunting.

"I could try doing a weather spell," said Hosomaki when Zevran said as much to him. "But I don't think I'm very good at them..."

"Ah, how so?"

"Last time, I caused a tidal wave to flood the whole of the first floor of the Tower," explained Hosomaki. "It was just meant to be a private show to set the mood in the bathroom for Mary Sue, but I think I went overboard with it..."

"Was that a pun, good Warden?" said Zevran, chuckling. "And who is Mary Sue? I don't think you've told me about this one yet."

Kalamari, who was walking close to Hosomaki but not quite close enough to really be included in the conversation, found herself feeling slightly left out. Boys and their obsession with sex, she thought despairingly. She glanced back at Shale and Cel. And those two and their obsession with... squishiness. She suddenly felt very lonely.

It was in the middle of these fifth-wheel thoughts that she led the way into colliding with a genlock sorcerer of some description, and found that they had been hurled into battle with a group of skeletons.

"Whoops," she said out loud. Then she noticed the naked body hung up above her, and said, "Guys look it's King Cailan yessss we've found him!" And after that, she was knocked breathless by an arrow to the cheek, and then knocked unconscious by a mighty blow to her head.

Xox

"... not that good at healing spells," she heard Hosomaki saying, and struggled to stay in consciousness.

"Oh, do you have an amusing anecdote about that too?" said Zevran, sounding interested.

"Not as such, but there was that one time with Elisasolonaneriakalli-"

"Shut your face and get on with it before I gut you myself!" snarled Cel.

"There is no need to be rude," said Zevran. "I think she is looking better already, don't you?"

Kalamari realised that she was actually feeling better already, and opened her eyes to blearily note the dead king suspended above her head. "Yaa!" she said when she realised what she was looking at.

Hosomaki jumped. "Sorry!" he said.

"Not you!" said Kalamari, sitting up and pointing at the body. "Him!"

"Oh," Hosomaki said with relief. "We were going to ask you what you wanted to do with him."

Kalamari slumped back down again. "I guess... we should take him down and burn him properly then."

"And how long will it take?" said Cel. "I want to kill darkspawn."

"Yes, not to put too fine a point on it, but this weather is bloody awful," said Zevran. "I'd rather we finished our job sooner than later."

"He deserves a proper sending-off, and Tim told us to do that much for him at least," said Kalamari firmly.

"It wants to waste more time for this squishy human?" said Shale. "We could be doing so much else while the loud elf burns this king." Cel grunted in agreement.

"Kala?" said Hosomaki. "I don't want to rush you, but I can sense more darkspawn coming... if we don't clear out the Tower and the ones under the bridge, they could rush us at any time. And, um, have you ever built a funeral pyre before?"

"You can sense darkspawn?" said Kalamari. "I can't do that! I thought only older Grey Wardens could..."

"It's more of an 'unfinished' feeling," said Hosomaki, "because we're definitely not done here. I think we need to go down."

"Okay, you're the mage, cool," said Kalamari, and got back somewhat heavily onto her feet.

Xox

They passed through the Tower and the tunnels, fought darkspawn and spiders, and finally found themselves at the feet of the great bridge of Ostagar. Kalamari was hoping that Hosomaki had a plan, or at least knew why in the Maker's secret wine cellar they had come down here. Turning a corner, she saw the answer – that genlock sorcerer again.

"Some darkspawn just don't know when to be killed," said Zevran. He looked to her expectantly, presumably for orders. Kalamari still wasn't very comfortable with that look.

"Yeah, um, okay," she said. "Team Elf Plus Golem is go...?"

Xox

Hosomaki would be the first to admit that he really wasn't a very good mage, and that his spell combinations and tactics weren't so much combinations and tactics as they were messes and confusions. He often wondered why exactly he had been chosen for the Wardens. It was rather surprising, since he was quite sure that Amell, for example, with his prodigious skills in all four schools of magic and then some (no-one could bake a pie like Amell did, or darn socks like Amell did, or breed kittens like Amell did – although Hosomaki could categorically state that he was better in bed than Amell was) should have been first on the shortlist.

So far, he'd managed to catch three teammates in a snowstorm while skilfully letting the spell avoid all undead ogres, skeletons and necromancers. Damn it, he knew he couldn't do weather magic! He slapped his forehead and tried again. Only... well, he had a huge – maybe not huge, but definitely more than twelve, which to Hosomaki was an overwhelming number – list of spells that he could potentially do, and a huge number or potential targets for those spells, and which one was he meant to cast first?

Cel was alright, though. There was probably something that made a good team – teamwork, perhaps – but Cel wasn't much interested in that. The only reason she'd missed out on sampling Hosomaki's adept weather handling was because she was currently having fun on the other side of the clearing smashing skeletons and watching them slowly come to life. It was like a never-ending party! What was that strange squealing in the distance? Oh, just the mage.

"Ceeeeeeeeel!" called Hosomaki, clutching his chest (stupid backfiring spells!) and wondering how to cast that group healing spell he'd seen Amell learning from that ponytail-mage. (These thoughts led him onto wondering whether the said ponytail mage had ever forgiven him for what he'd done with Amell and a certain kitten basket in the mage quarters, but Hosomaki was trying not to go down that path just now.) "Weeeee neeeeeeed heeeeeeeelp!"

"Huh?" said Cel. She drop-kicked an undead skull over a hill, and laughed manically at the headless skeleton waving its arms around in alarm.

"Looooooooook!" said Hosomaki. He pointed at the snowstorm. Then he fainted.

Cel rolled her eyes. Apart from various slicing and dicing techniques and axe throwing, possibly her greatest talent was to be almost immune to pain. It wasn't that she couldn't feel it; it was more that she couldn't really care less if she did happen to drop dead, and years of strenuous mental conditioning had taught her pain receptors the same message. (The whole of her clan thought that the reason she was still alive today was either because Tamlen had always pulled her out of it at the last moment, or because there were no regenerating creatures in the forest. They weren't sure whether to curse or thank the Creators for those facts.)

She pulled out a sword that had somehow got lodged in her thigh, and looked at the snowstorm. A moment later the genlock necromancer was on the ground with a knife between his eyes. She debated for a few moments on whether to do the same to Hosomaki for simply being utterly useless, but resisted the temptation. (She felt very proud of herself for that.)

Xox

Cel put a few health poultices on Kalamari, and then she stabbed Hosomaki in the arm to wake him up.

"I don't know how to cast a healing spell on a golem!" said Hosomaki, who was holding onto consciousness only through the force of sheer terror. "They don't even have blood!"

"Shut up! Do it!" snapped Cel, and wondered where the hole in her leg had come from. "And give me another box of poultices!"

Hosomaki looked at the rapidly-growing patch red-stained snow around Cel, gulped and did so. "We should probably rest here and put up tents," he said once he'd made sure that the team were, on the whole, breathing and not likely to die of blood loss in the next twenty minutes. "It's getting dark, and I think I'm going to faint again..."

"Shut up," said Cel. She padded up a few more of her wounds with poultice herbs and went to look for tent poles.

Xox

"Perhaps it would be a good idea to talk about teamwork, no?" said Zevran later that night. Hosomaki had been pushed to the limit casting small healing spells to stem innumerable opening wounds, boiling batches of new poultices every half hour and obsessively looting every single dead body on the battlefield (oh Maker, the sparkles...), but his efforts had paid off. The group were now sat by a warm campfire – well, except for Shale, who didn't like sitting down. And Cel, who was discussing all the ways in which shems disgusted her with the golem. So it was really only three of them who were sitting by the warm campfire.

"I don't think we're very good at it," Hosomaki ventured. "You'd think we'd be a good combination, with one mage, two rogues and two warriors... sort of... but it doesn't seem to be working."

Kalamari yawned. Struggling upwards from battle-induced blackouts was hard enough the first time round – twice in one day was just getting silly. Her rather unhealthy skinny frame made her look close to fainting even at the best of times, and a month of trudging around fending off darkspawn hardly made this the best of times. Right now, she was leaning on her battleaxe for support and feeling rather like a used latrine brush. "What happened with the snow, anyway?"

"Sorry," mumbled Hosomaki. "I'm just not very good..."

"Okay, stop right there!" said Kalamari. "Stop depressing yourself! You're going into an angst session, I can feel it!"

Hosomaki looked dangerously close to giving the whole group the Sad Eyes (TM), so Zevran felt compelled to step in.

"Really, Hosomaki, I doubt you are as hopeless as your words portray you. You managed to save us all from certain death almost single-handedly knowing only a single spell of healing, correct?"

"... certain death which I caused in the first place ..."

Zevran waved him aside. "Psah, technicalities. It was a very good snowstorm, if I may say so, and all that needs fixing is the direction. Small details."

Hosomaki poked the fire morosely. "I don't know."

"You just need to relax, and stop worrying! You know you're good," Kalamari said. "Maybe... I don't know, maybe you should write down all your spells so you don't get confused? 'Cos, you know, you usually stand away from the battle so maybe you'll be less rushed than us in the middle of it all."

"That might be even more confusing..." Hosomaki said.

"Or... just keep away from the weather ones, whatever." She yawned again. "Guys, I know we need to talk about battle tactics and stuff, but... I'm just so tired. Can we sleep and discuss it in the morning? You guys look a bit tired too; maybe we should all get some rest."

The other two nodded their consent, and she trooped off into her tent dragging her axe behind her. There was a thump.

"I guess she's asleep," said Hosomaki.

Zevran looked at him closely. "You do look tired. Not surprisingly, since I hear you've been industriously crushing herbs for the past two hours. Perhaps I could offer you some relaxation?"

Xox

Kalamari woke up with a painfully full bladder. Taking a roll of toilet paper out of her pack, she carefully edged out of the tent, found a small bush and relieved herself. Then she wondered slightly desperately where the nearest well was, because she really needed to wash her hands. Yuk. Was the snow dirty? Was snow cleaner than toilet material? How about snow with dead darkspawn on it? Hmm? She rubbed her hands on the snow and felt very, very awake. And it wasn't just because of the tent next door. (Though it might have been because of the cold, cold snow.)

She sat down by the fire and stirred it a little. Lucky they had a mage with magic flames, she thought. The minutes passed, and then someone sat down beside her.

"AEE-" started Kalamari, and then that someone's hand was covering her mouth.

"Knew you would scream," hissed Cel. "Shut up!"

Kalamari closed her mouth, and the hand was removed. "Cel! Maker's-four-ply-elfroot-infused-scented-waxed toilet paper, that nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing up so late? Aren't you tired?"

"Just dealt with a few darkspawn stragglers with Shale," said Cel. "He doesn't sleep."

"Oh? Really? I never noticed - cool! I think. But... don't you?"

"Not tired. You're awake, aren't you?"

"Okay. And yes... I needed the toilet, and Hosomaki and Zevran are going to keep me up if I try to get back to sleep now." Kalamari poked the flames harder and lit her stick on fire. Fun! "You and Shale seem to be getting on well."

"Yeah, maybe."

"What are golems, anyway?"

"He said the dwarves made them, that's all. Lost his memory, I think."

"Mmm." They sat in silence and watched the stick trace burning after-patterns in their vision. It was a while before Kalamari said, "He does seem to like squishing things an awful lot. It looks rather messy from where I am."

"Yeah. I don't really like squishing," said Cel. "Prefer seeing them beheaded with an axe any day."

Xox

"Does it have a plan for today's activities?" said Shale.

"Yep!" said Kalamari. "We're going to get the chest and then bring King Cailan's body down, and I think we'll just leave him for the Wilds because building a pyre is going to take all day. And then we find Levi Dryden and do whatever Bob and Tim wanted for him. But first I want to talk about what we did wrong yesterday." She looked around at the others, who all made gestures of agreement.

"Wait, Kala? I thought you wanted to give him a proper funeral yesterday," said Hosomaki.

"Um... yes, but I was thinking... how are we going to get enough wood with all this ice? I'm the only one who can cut down a tree, and I don't think I can do it. And it's freezing. As long as we can say we didn't let the darkspawn have him, I think Tim will be okay," said Kalamari.

"Yes, but surely taking him down from such a height would still be wasting time in this infernal cold," said Zevran.

"I don't know," said Hosomaki, looking at them both. "He is a king, so it won't be wasting time at all... It doesn't seem very respectful to royalty to let the wolves eat him, does it?"

"I've made my decision taking you guys into account, so... yeah, it's fine. We'll probably spend an hour on that, and then we can go to the Dryden's."

"It wants to waste another hour in this place? I suppose it is better than the whole day, at least," grumbled Shale.

"Yes, exactly. Anyway, yes, um, here's a list of things... one, Hosomaki I read the spell list you gave me and wrote you a tactics sheet so you get the right combination in every situation; two, Cel you should probably stick with us and please please don't go running ahead; three, me and Shale should be in front of the darkspawn and Cel and Zevran should be behind them not the other way round; and four... four... oh, wait, there isn't a four. Well, four could be that you four listen to me when we're in the battle, and we work together as a team. That means, you shout out whatever you're doing next and when I say we all go for the leftmost hurlock, we go for the leftmost hurlock. Team Elf Plus Golem, okay?"

"You know, dear lady," said Zevran in a tone that was half surprise and half approval, "you do seem be getting more into this leadership business."

"I know, right?" said Kalamari excitedly. "I thought, if Bob can do it then there's no reason why my leadership skills should be restrained to naked purple ladies."

And the realisation that people depended on her, and that if she was the only Warden here that had some idea of what she wanted then really, she ought to take the chance. The werewolf debacle had been enough to propel her into making a stand, so why was she so scared about the whole thing now? It was time for someone to take responsibility (maybe that was what was frightening – the fact that if it all went wrong, it was on her – but maybe it was her responsibility already), and if she thought herself the best for the role... She'd woken up infused with a new sense of purpose, and she was determined to let it stay.

"It makes sense in context," muttered Cel in response to Zevran and Hosomaki's surprised faces.

to be continued...

A/N: Guys guys guys! Ever wanted to know what Kalamari and Cel actually looked like? Then great! Stress makes me draw stuff, so thanks to a stressful week I've been propelled into doing various arty activities. http: / / sapphirecrow. deviantart. com/ #/ d2zngb9 - although the scanner washed out quite a bit of the detail, and you'll just have to imagine Kalamari's ginger hair.

- The tales of Hosomaki's various and surprising conquests (with girls and boys with such names as Gary Stu, Fcousland and Gayalistair) could take up a whole novel in themselves.
- Shale is a 'he' as none of these elves have visited Caridin.
- I would like to write some sordid backstory about Amell, a brief fling with Anders in which kittens were involved (c'mon, Amell breeds the fluffy critters), something about Hosomaki being a complete homewrecker, and Mr Wiggums. Maybe I'll put that in if I continue this fic into Awakening.