Author's note - many thanks as always to those of you reading and following and especially those reviewing! I was very disappointed in game with the Alienage part of the Battle of Denerim when I had Loghain in my party, it just made no sense at all that the elves did not even comment about his presence given everything that he had done, and therefore I'm taking this opportunity to let them have their say. :)

Muirnara would have said that nothing could actually have made the Alienage an uglier place than it had been when she visited it last before the Landsmeet. Then it had been a mass of tumbledown houses, mended badly with whatever scrap materials came to hand, and filthy streets with rubbish littered everywhere. The stench had been in the air of too many people living in too small a space, and if it was indeed true that the Alienage in Val Royeaux was far far worse, then that was yet another reason for never wishing to visit Orlais. But now the filth was overlaid with ash and soot from the burning city, blackening everything they touched, and the stink of ordure was overlaid with the smell of blood both old and new. And the darkspawn taint tugged at every sense.

She had hoped to get through the place as fast as possible, but the elves who had stopped them at the gate had put an end to that particular hope.

So they have decided that the best time to settle scores is in the middle of a siege. Why is it that we can never do anything the straightforward way?

Muirnara was about to attempt to reason with Shianni, when Leliana nocked an arrow into her bowstring and took a deliberate pace forward to stand in front of Loghain. "Now, ladies and gentlemen," her voice was a soft purr. "While I am well aware that nine of you will almost certainly manage to get at least one arrow into my companion here, even with me standing between you and your target, all I can say is that I hope you also plan to shoot me. Because if you don't, the first one to loose an arrow is dead."

Zevran also took a pace forward, raising the small crossbow he carried. The jesting companion was no more, this cold eyed elf was entirely the Crow assassin at this moment. "And frankly, my friends," he added, "you had better hope that you are indeed the first one to fire. Because my comrade here will at least kill you cleanly. I on the other hand have no such intent, I prefer your lingering and thoroughly painful death to act as a deterrent to anyone considering anything this stupid again."

Oh great. Just how to defuse a situation.

Wolf had already crouched to spring. Muirnara signalled him back down. Then the glow of magic surrounded Morrigan and suddenly the whole group were surrounded in the clear shimmer of a force shield. "There." the witch commented. "Now, you cannot fire at any of us, we cannot attack you. Tis a pity that while we are indulging in these amateur theatricals, there is actually an army of Darkspawn overrunning the city. But clearly 'tis not of any importance to you. So since we cannot move, and you cannot slay us, we can either stand here until the Archdemon destroys the whole place, or else your spokesman and our Warden can attempt to have a conversation like two rational beings. Which is it going to be?"

Loghain had watched the events unfold with little more than a raised eyebrow. "Perhaps I might be permitted to add something here, since any attempt to shoot me down where I stand seems to have been forcibly delayed?"

Muirnara raised a hand as Shianni's face darkened. "Go ahead, Warden." She deliberately made use of Loghain's new title, an attempt to underscore the fact that the man behind her was no longer the Teyrn of Gwaren and the Regent of Ferelden. "Shianni, I dragged your kinfolk out of a slaver's cages. You owe me at least the courtesy of hearing this out. Whatever you may think."

"Very well then, Warden." Shianni's voice was icy but she lowered her bow to point at the ground and the other elves did likewise. None of them eased the strings. "Go on then, you misbegotten bastard. Make this good. I can't wait to hear you defend the indefensible, it will probably give me the first laugh I've had in a sevenday."

Loghain shook his head. "Why should I defend it, girl? You rightly say it was an indefensible action. I violated Ferelden law, knowingly. I was fighting a civil war, I saw Orlesian troops on our borders, which I thought were just waiting for an excuse to cross. I had no money to fight that war, no way to evacuate or defend the Alienage if the war came to Denerim, and I had constant drains on my men and my resources trying to control the unrest in the Alienage. The decision I made was bitterly wrong, and it was not the only wrong decision I made that year. It is only thanks to the mercy of this Warden that I am here to have this conversation with you at all. I am a felon convicted of a capital charge and sentenced to death. The only difference is that the Warden chose to delay that death in the hopes that I would manage to help her to stop the Blight."

"Words." Shianni's mouth twisted. "Words, words, words. Now tell me you'd make the same decision again. Go on, shem. I'm waiting."

"Shianni!" The protest came from the elf standing next to her, who had eased his bowstring.

She turned on him like a feral cat. "Oh tell me, Dirrlis. Tell me just what I ought to be saying to this walking piece of shit? Tell me what your father would have said, if he was still here to say it? But of course, he isn't, is he?"

At that, two other elves returned their arrows to their quivers. "Shianni," the older girl of the two said, "whatever evil the shem did, you owe Dirrlis more than that." They turned away with a glance to Muirnara. "Warden, we will be at the bridge."

The face of the first elf was rigid with pain and Shianni sighed, offering a hand. "Maker's breath, Dirrlis, I'm sorry, my foul mouth runs away with me. Forgive me."

"You look familiar." Loghain had turned to Dirrlis. "Your face...Are you any relation to Dirrlion?"

"He was my uncle. And Falissian was my father."

It was clear to Muirnara that both those names meant something to Loghain. He stood silent, waiting for Dirrlis to continue. It had not escaped her notice that the elf was speaking of both his kin in the past tense.

"They were two of your Night Elves, Commander. I call you Commander because that was how my father always spoke of you. They served you loyally throughout the Rebellion. And when the peace came, they came back to the Alienage, they married, they started to rebuild their lives. Because gratitude never lasts, and no elf expects it to, they kept their heads down, they never boasted of what they did. They worked on the docks, my father raised two children by himself when his wife died. And when the plague came, my uncle was one of the first to die of it. My father insisted you knew of what was happening here, you would send healers, and the healers came. And then we discovered what you already knew and this Warden found out, that the so called healers were slavers, and there was another reason why they were here."

Loghain's face was stone, but Muirnara knew him well enough to read the pain there. Dirrlis continued. "They took my sister into the hospice. We know now she was one of the first slaves that they shipped to Tevinter. When my father realised that something was wrong, and they would not allow him in to see her, he tried to attack the guards and they struck him down in the gutter like a stray dog. He never regained consciousness. He died two days later. So tell me, Commander. What do you think my father would have said to you, if he lived?"

"I do not know." Loghain's voice was low, grieved. "Whatever he would have said, I would have deserved it."

"Then I will tell you what he would have said, Commander. He would have said what he always said about you, that you were the finest soldier that he had ever known, and the greatest general that Ferelden had ever had. That whatever you did, you would have had a reason for it. He would have forgiven you anything. But I won't, Commander Loghain. I am not my father. So, what do you think we should demand of you now?"

Loghain squared his shoulders, slowly, painfully, and looked at the young elf. "Nothing I can do will undo what I have done. Nothing. It may be that the Archdemon will sort the whole question out for you within the next few hours anyway. But if by some sour bit of the Maker's humour I come through this living, then I pledge you this, in front of witnesses of both your race and mine. My daughter is still the Queen of Ferelden, and she will provide what resources are needed to trace and return those shipped to Tevinter, we will find, and we will retrieve all that can be saved. We will pay a blood price to the families of those who no longer live. And if I am still alive, then when this is over I will submit myself to the judgement of your hahren, for the rest of the evil I permitted here. No matter what that judgement is. My word upon it, here in front of these witnesses."

"Oh, rare," That was Shianni's sarcastic voice. "So you'll come back here and accept what an elf judges, will you, shem? Even if that elf puts a rope around your neck and strings you up on what remains of our vhenadahl?"

His eyes as he turned them on Shianni were colder than Muirnara had ever seen them. "Even so."

"Very well then." Dirrlis signalled to the rest of the archers and they backed away.

Shianni whirled. "You mean you people are believing him?"

The other elves were already moving towards the bridge. Dirrlis stared at Shianni. "Yes," he said, simply. "I am." Then he also turned away.

Shianni stared at Loghain, and then suddenly she turned. The noises of the battle which had never quite gone away had been growing in intensity over the last few minutes, and a regular dull thudding noise had been added to them. Loghain's head shot up and he listened for a minute. "They've brought a battering ram to bear on the south gate. I know that gate, it won't hold up for long with that sort of treatment."

The shimmer of magic faded as Morrigan dropped the shield and they were all running, through the narrow streets, past the great tree which somehow was still standing, and up the incline towards the bridge. Many more elves were gathered there, roughly two thirds of them armed with bows, the other third with shortswords and clubs, their ages ranged from white haired elders to a young girl who stood near the front with a half sized bow that it was clear she did indeed know how to wield, and who could have been twelve at most. The gate that stood at the far end of the bridge was rattling with the blows of the battering ram, the warped timbers cracking, the black iron strappings that held the wood together were already warped. Under the bridge, the river waters seethed and churned.

Loghain was doing a swift headcount. The elves clearly had known he was coming, and the expressions on the faces ranged from curiosity to outright hostility, but there seemed to be no more attempts to point a weapon at him rather than at the Darkspawn. Suddenly he seemed to spot a face he recognised and beckoned a middle aged elf out of the throng. "Wirsion, I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again, but under the circumstances all I can say is that it is a relief to see you again, at least I know there is one person here who understand how to command archers! Get this lot over to the right, get some of them up on that house roof. When that gate goes down, angle up to the banner on the fort, half draw, and you should have time for two full volleys before the first survivors get this side of the bridge. After that, scatter, get to high points, and pick off anything you can."

"Commander." The elf saluted him respectfully and beckoned the archers away. Muirnara had gathered those elves with melee weapons and in a few terse sentences was explaining how the archers would be working. "None of you get onto that bridge, you'll be shot down by your own people. Let the spawn come to you. They will be constrained by the width of the bridge, at this bottleneck you actually outnumber them. As they come off the bridge, pull them away to left and right and take them two on one if you can, one of you to engage, one of you to backstab. Clear?"

Her words were acknowledged with nods and surprisingly a few salutes. Loghain came to join her. "Do you sense what I do?" His eyes were fixed on the bridge and the shaking gate.

She concentrated for a moment, and then her face grew bleak. "There is another of those Darkspawn generals beyond the gate. I suppose we ought to be grateful that the Archdemon is busy elsewhere."

"Once the archers have done what they can, you and I will have to try to take the General, he is more than any of these elves can reasonably handle. Have you any sense of numbers? My perceptions are too blurred with all the spawn in the city."

"I would say two, maybe three hundred spawn in close proximity." Muirnara concentrated again for a moment. "Could be fewer, I'm still picking up some behind us in the Market District, the fighting there can't have stopped."

"Three hundred spawn, and maybe seventy elves." Amazingly Loghain laughed, his lips pulled back from his teeth in what was close to a snarl. "Just pray that the archers are good."

A final crash as the mainframe of the gate shattered and he turned back, sword in hand.

"And here they come."