Dragon Age: Wars of the Wolf
The fall of the Wolf
Well, this took forever. We are quite close to the end of this unreasonably (and quite unexpectedly) long tale, and I am now forced to confront some choices I've been postponing forever. Thanks to all readers, faves and reviewers!
Paperwork, paperwork…. Even at war, it seemed the Empire's passion with bureaucracy never abated.
Arnaud Villeneuve, Comte d'Arcon, raised a heavily bejeweled hand to scratch the patchy stubble on his cheek. In normal times, the Comte would never have gone a day without shaving, but those were not normal times. There was a war going on, after all, and that meant Arnaud could shave when he pleased and didn't have, thank the Maker, to endure the ministrations of a face-painting artist at the small hours of the day.
On the other hand, the camp's food was decidedly lackluster, and had been so ever since the master cook had taken an arrow through the eye, poor soul. Replacement was on the way from Val Royaux, but it had been a fortnight since Arnaud had eaten anything remotely decent, and he was in poor spirits as he perused the small mountain of mail delivered by the morning courier.
A silver bell rang, announcing a visitor, and an instant later the thick neck and cauliflower ears of Luc Gascon, the Militia Commander in charge of the blockade of the Minanter bridges, peered into the General's pavilion.
"Can I enter, Your Highness, Sir?" the man asked with an embarrassed grimace.
"It would appear you've done so already, my good man. Come on, get in already. You're letting in the cold."
"Yes, Your Highness, Sir," Luc replied, hastily letting the pavilion's heavy curtains fall back behind him. He then stood before Arnaud's desk, shifting on his feet and looking even more nervous than usual.
"Well, talk, man. Or did the Nevarrans eat your tongue?" In general, Arnaud didn't mind the little people's skittishness in his presence; he took it in stride, as was becoming of an Imperial cousin. It was only fun for a time, however, and Arnaud despaired to one day be able to communicate normally with the old soldier. If Luc was not so darned good at his job, he would have replaced him an eternity ago.
Luc blushed deeply. "Yes, Your Highness, beg your pardon, Your Highness. It's about the Highway bridge, Your Highness. Our troops there, huh, found five people trying to get across to the Nevarran side. They were captured, Your Highness."
"Oh, my… Your men captured some Nevarran filth. How utterly exciting," Arnaud said with a yawn.
"Ah, no, beg your pardon, Your Highness," Luc said piteously. The man was sweating profusely in spite of the less-than-balmy temperature. "It's our men were captured, Your Highness. The, ah, captors asked after you, Your Highness, my General, Sir. Gave me an envelope with the Imperial seal and all." Luc reached into his pocket and respectfully placed a sealed envelope on the General's desk, then stood sweating and looking every bit as though he was going to faint.
Arnaud examined the seal with curiosity. As a general and distant relative of the Empress, he was relatively familiar with such things, and he immediately recognized the mark of Celene's personal guard – a trademark of her cherished secret police. If it was a forgery, it was a good one. Arnaud broke the seal with a little thrill; one of the things he'd missed most about Val Royeaux was the excitement of intrigue.
The envelope, it seemed at first sight, was empty, but something in it rattled softly. Arnaud held the envelope upside down, and a small, rectangular piece of hard paper fell onto the mahogany desk.
"My, my, but this is positively exciting," Arnaud murmured. The card was virginally white, except for the Imperial crest etched in gold in the upper right corner; the bearer's odd name, "To The Dwarf Toast", on the left; and in the lower right corner, traced by a nervous, fast hand: "Celene Drakon."
The carte blanche.
Arnaud got to his feet stiffly; he was being summoned by the Empress, and it was unhealthy to wait on Celene's summons. Perhaps, he thought as he called onto his servants to help him don his ceremonial armor and his great hat, the one with the scarlet ostrich feathers, perhaps he should have had his face painted today.
Madness, it seemed, was a contagious disease. But why worry? Zevran was having fun.
Zevran spun lightly and caught the militiaman's wrist, drew him into a brief embrace, then released him with a little chuckle and turned to Toast, just in time to catch a smile on the dwarf's scarred face.
"Come on, carissima, just one dance," he called cajolingly, "I promise I will keep my hands to myself, unless you insist of course…"
Toast did not budge from the spot where she sat in the shadow of a stone bridge head. Zevran saw her make a visible effort to frown, but she did not quite succeed. Magic, of a kind unknown to the severe magi in their towers, buzzed and throbbed around Nyx's companions, and even though they were not the targets of the spell, it was all but impossible to completely shrug off its effects.
It was easy to forget that beyond the spell's boundaries, the world was consumed by war. Beyond the barricades at both ends of the bridge, arrows were trained on Nyx's companions. The dancing Orlesian soldiers, their faces frozen in dreamy expressions, were but a human shield. But life was good, and it was hard to feel worried. There was only the here and now, the present begging to be enjoyed. Even Morrigan looked pensive, albeit a little sad, as if she were contemplating things long lost: her soul, perhaps.
All around Zevran, the Orlesian soldiers turned and danced slowly, dreaming of things unknown. The little reed flute that had started the spell was nowhere to be seen, but somehow the melody endured, lingering on the air like a wisp of perfume.
It wasn't just Leliana's music; Zevran knew that it must be Nyx's blood magic that lent it such pervasive power. Yet the spell lacked the sorceress's trademark ruthlessness, and it seemed to Zevran that Nyx's expression was as dreamy as the dancing soldiers'. Leliana held Nyx in a close, protective embrace, her eyes fixed on things only she could see.
Zevran heard a little commotion rise among the soldiers massed beyond the reach of the spell; moments later two men emerged from the Orlesian ranks. The first man was tall, graying and a hardened warrior; the second was shorter and younger, soft under the gilded armor. The soft man raised his hand in command.
"Stand down! Stand down! I want all weapons sheathed immediately!"
The dancing men and women parted to let them through, but the soft man didn't step into their circle. Holding up Toast's envelope, he called to Nyx's companions in a cultivated, high-pitched voice.
"Greetings, my lords and ladies. Which one of the honorable company is, huh, The Dwarf Toast?"
Zevran chuckled, and Toast made a vulgar noise as she rose to her full height, all four feet of it.
"Seen as I'm no Qunari, I guess it must be me," she said drily.
Muffled laughter mounted from the Orlesian ranks. The second man silenced it with a deep scowl.
"I am Arnaud Villeneuve, General and Comte d'Arcon," the soft man said, bowing deeply, "at the Empress's service, and ready to lend assistance, by the Empress's will."
"We are your humble servants, Your Highness," Leliana intervened tactfully. The remainders of the melody waned as the bard curtsied; a number of the dancing militiamen fell to the ground, panting with exertion. "I am Leliana, at your service. This gentleman here is Zevran Arainai, artist extraordinaire, and this lady…"
"Hi," Nyx interrupted with what may have passed for a friendly smile, "I'm Nyx. I kill Archdemons and stuff." The General-Comte's jaw dropped a little, and Leliana bit her lips as the assembled soldiers started babbling excitedly.
"Ah, yes… As I was saying, Your Highness, this lady is a highly regarded Grey Warden, from Ferelden," Leliana added apologetically. The little General-Comte's expression brightened. Zevran could feel the man's relief; Fereldan equaled boor equaled no need to feel offended by the very, very scary elf. The General-Comte bowed again, although imperceptibly higher than he had before.
"Truly an honor," he said. "Allow me to welcome you to my personal quarters, where a light collation will be served in your honor. It would be unwise to linger here, so close to the False Divine's rabble."
Zevran raised an eyebrow. So that was what the Orlesians called Diane now: False Divine. No doubt the soldiers would have other, less kind titles for their enemy, too. Zevran wondered if Celene might, in time, take the mantle of Divine for herself, turning the Andrastian two-way split into an uneasy ménage a trois. So much strife, so much blood spilled over the souls of the faithful. So many juicy opportunities… Truly golden times for an assassin, and here he was, Zevran Arainai, set on a crusade to take down a myth.
Sighing deeply, Zevran followed his friends into the Orlesian camp.
Arnaud's – Nyx really couldn't be bothered with remembering the General-Comte's full name – Arnaud's light collation comprised sixteen dishes, and as many wines. Nyx remained silent during most of the meal; Leliana had asked her, gently but firmly, to let her handle the talking. And so the sorceress sat at a fair distance from the General-Comte, and contented herself with nibbling at the dishes and waiting for dessert, which, when it came, was plentiful enough to make her forget her initial distrust.
By the time Nyx wolfed down her third chocolate éclair, she was about convinced that Leliana had been right when she had demanded that they spare the bridge guards instead of blazing through them like Fen'Harel's very wrath. Plus, she thought as she greedily eyed a platter of choux, there would certainly be plenty of fighting ahead anyway.
If anything, this momentary respite from the rigors of the road was doing Leliana good. Nyx smiled at the sight of the bard, resplendent in a dress borrowed from one of the junior officers' mistress, the dirt and distress of the road now erased from her features. Leliana sat among the Orlesian officers like a queen holding court, effortlessly goading the men and women into giving away every last detail of the ongoing campaign while feeding them only the tiniest crumbs of information about her own person and motivations.
Not that it really mattered what the officers did or did not know. It turned out that Toast's papers were a pretty big deal for the Orlesians; if Nyx understood correctly, the dwarf had the authority to order everyone around, including the feathered clown who appeared to be a Teyrn of sorts.
Nyx took a sip of wine and closed her eyes. She was unused to alcoholic beverages. Circle mages were not allowed to drink, for fear that they may lose their control and blow up a Chantry or Andraste knows what ridiculous excuse the Templars had made up. The wine was cool and sparkling; she could feel it spread along her veins, and she wondered how much it would affect her magic. Leaning back in her chair, the sorceress allowed herself to slip into her mind's vision. The tent and the polite guests gave way to the shimmering storms and fragrant colors of the Veil, in a whirlwind of sensations that was made maybe just a little too intense by the wine.
Here and there among the Orlesian camp, Nyx recognized the faint swirls of energy that were the auras of healers and Circle mages: frail, constrained, pathetic. They were dwarfed by the trine tempest that was contained in this very tent: Nyx's own aura, of course, a barely contained storm that threatened to rend the Veil even as she sat idle and pensive, and Morrigan's, dark and deceptively unassuming, a thing of simmering venom and ancient appetites bidding its time just beneath the surface of reality. And then there was Leliana's. The bard shone in Nyx's mind-eye like the reflection of the sun on distant snow.
So strong. When had she become so strong?
"Well," Zevran whispered, "what do you think?"
Nyx groaned and opened her eyes to look at her fellow elf.
"I think I should have ignored your advice about the wine."
Zevran smirked. "No, I meant, what do you think about the General here," he whispered.
Nyx examined the little man again. "Pansy," she said flatly, and probably louder than was polite.
Zevran tsked disapprovingly and leaned closer to her ear. "My dear Warden, for all your magic and near-divinity, you are quite inept at reading people. Don't let the ribbons and makeup fool you. This is an ambitious of the worst kind; one who wouldn't mind selling his own mother into servitude, if that could land him another title to add to his long name."
"So?"
"So I think our bard friend has picked on this the minute she has seen the man, and I wouldn't be too surprised if she was now working out a way to put this knowledge to good use."
"Good. As long as her plan doesn't involve getting too bardy… Huh, pretend I didn't say anything," Nyx added precipitously, but not fast enough that Zevran didn't flash a wide, toothy grin.
"Possessive, hmm?"
"How about you mind your own sodding business, Antivan?"
"So I was wondering, did you ever feel concerned that I might follow your advice? You know, about, hum, filling in your shoes?"
Nyx grimaced and took a sip of wine. The drink, combined with the fatigue of the road and a full stomach, made her feel pleasantly mellow. Sometimes, it was best to humor Zevran, if only to shut him up. "I was Tranquil, Zev. I didn't give a shit. Disappointed?"
"Curious. So you really wouldn't have cared if..?"
"Nope. Not one bit. That is, not until I was freed," Nyx added with a mischievous smile; "then, I would have tracked you down and torn you limb from limb. And that's for starters."
"You know, I will always wonder if it may not have been worth it," Zevran said dreamily. The two elves looked at each other for a second, ears and nostrils twitching slightly, and then they burst laughing.
"You know," Nyx said as she motioned for a servant to pour more wine, "I think I know just what you mean."
That night, Toast and Leliana stayed with the General-Comte for a long time, discussing strategy and drawing plans. Later, Leliana went back to the pavilion she shared with the sorceress to find Nyx snoring, lost amidst of an ocean of silk and pillows. Leliana undressed silently, blew the lantern and slipped between the sheets, but Nyx didn't wake up.
And so it was that when the vision came, Nyx did not stir, not until Leliana's thrashing awoke her.
And perhaps it was better this way.
Andruil stands on a snowy platform, atop a peak so high that the air here feels stretched out, and carries nothing but the smell of fresh snow and empty space. Below her, and below the surrounding peaks, the mountains are hollow, a honeycomb of intersecting tunnels that house innumerable generations of elves, all of them frozen in the long sleep.
Uthenera.
A few steps away from the goddess, her king and mate paces with an impatience that would be comical in a less terrible being. This is to be Fen'Harel's glory day, his crowning achievement. Today the Dread Wolf will bring the gods' enemies to justice.
On and on the Wolf paces, his nervous step telling of barely restrained anger, of a hunger so terrible it threatens to overwhelm even his overwhelming pride. The War must stop, at any cost. Yet, Andruil feels strangely uneasy. She growls softly, and Fen'Harel finally stops his pacing and turns to his queen.
"The plan will work, my Lady. Trust me as I trust in my strength."
"I trust your strength, my Lord. My brother's intelligence, less so."
"I understand your reservations about him, but so far, his advice has been sound."
Andruil nods drily. Even though he seemed loath to share his knowledge, Falon'Din has shown his king how to merge his mind with the complex magical construct that is Uthenera, effectively taking control of the Ancestors' last and most beautiful creation to create a rift in the Veil. Much to Falon'Din's dismay, the young god was the first sent into the Beyond, and then only for a few seconds. Falon'Din came back exhausted and terrified, and the "experiment" sent out a powerful tremor that knocked down a few buildings in faraway Arlathan, but it was a success. Yet Andruil is not reassured.
"My Lord, we still do not understand what waits behind the Veil. Why will you let no one fight at your side?"
Fen'Harel shakes his massive head impatiently. "We cannot send all of the gods into the Beyond. And who shall stand by my side? June, the tinkerer? Dreamy Sylaise? Sickly Falon'Din? Only you, my Lady, would be of any use to me," he says pointing at Andruil's taut belly, "And you have more sacred duties to attend."
Andruil stares unhappily into the faint line of the horizon, where the hazy green of the land melds into the sky.
"The Protector could help," she says at last.
"Mythal? What love does Elgar'Nan's mate harbor for me? How is that better than going alone?" Fen'Harel growls.
Andruil says nothing. After Dirthamen's death, Mythal has retired to her dominions under the Northern Sea, mumbling vague prophecies about the fall of the gods. The Protector wields impressive magic, but by Elgar'Nan's assessment she has always been a little touched in the head, and the successive losses of her mate and son have not improved things. By any reckoning, the All-Mother is unlikely to help.
"No, my Queen, I will end the Trespassers' threat, as the Sun God intended," Fen'Harel concludes, placing a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder. "And I will come back to a more peaceful world. Come, it is time."
The rock under Andruil's feet has started to vibrate, imperceptibly at first, then more strongly, until the very air and the peaks around the divine couple hum and pulsate like the heart of some gigantic, primeval creature. Far below the snowy crests, Falon'Din works his strange magic, and thousands upon thousands of elven bodies, covered in the rocky accretions of time, moan and stir in their disturbed sleep. Great clouds form around the peak, the air grows thick with the smell of ozone, and howling winds rise, as though nature itself protested the imminent violation of her most sacred laws.
In the eye of the storm, a single point of light appears, the focal point of energies so great they dwarf even the Wolf God's power. Fen'Harel steps forward, his face a mask of savage resolution, and the light wraps around his body like a carnivorous flower around a fly. The earth shakes as something, deep underground, reacts to the outrage that is being perpetrated, and the tunnels of Uthenera fill with the groans of millions of dreamers.
And then Andruil stands alone on top of the mountain, staring into blue, serene skies.
The goddess manipulates the snowy platform's environment to suit her needs; walls and a couch of sorts, insubstantial yet solid, materialize from thin air, and she calls forth a tiny particle of sunfire to keep the cold away. Then, coiled like a cat in a nest of sunrays, Andruil closes her eyes and waits.
The vision shifts to a hazy, unreal landscape, and Leliana realizes that she is being shown things that Andruil herself couldn't witness, and could only have learned later. The images carry with them feelings of loss, fear and pain so intense that the bard struggles to awaken, but it is not permitted.
She sees an ethereal vista of ever-shifting land and haze, a realm where colors, ideas and sound are interchangeable. And she sees Him: the Wolf-Lord, stalking the lands of the dead and the dreamers, searching for his enemies.
He moves effortlessly, hardly disoriented by his strange surroundings, sustained by power and pride beyond reckoning. Leliana catches a brief glimpse of Fen'Harel's thoughts and recoils, terrified; the god's mind is alien, even more so than Andruil's. Yet, there are familiar elements in here, and she briefly wonders at the pale reflect of love that burns along with his pride, his hunger, and his all-encompassing rage.
Rage. If there is anything that defines Fen'harel, this is it: rage against the Sun God, who created him to serve his own, unknown purposes. Rage against Elgar'Nan, the usurper, rage against the Trespassers, and last but not least, rage against himself, for not having yet fulfilled his destiny.
The Dread Wolf soars through the yellow skies of this strangely desert world; he flies past bald meadows and nonsensical oceans, moving forests and flat mountains. The tiny forms of the dreamers run into hiding, and strange, ill-defined beings – things devoid of form or purpose – stare at his passing dubitatively. He ignores them all, for they are not worthy of his rage.
He sees it at last.
From afar, Leliana could not say if it is a city or a forest, and perhaps it is both; its structures are impossibly tall and graceful, even more so that the spires of Arlathan, and they sway gently, like trees in the wind. In the hazy light of the Beyond, it casts a gleam like the sun playing on golden wheat. Leliana is smitten by its beauty, but the Dread Lord is not impressed.
Fen'Harel lets out a roar of triumph. There are forms moving about between the golden structures, things with multiple limbs, chrome carapaces and steel barbs that break and refract the ambient light. Here, in their own domain, they seem less menacing than they were on Thedas; they crawl unhurriedly, purposefully from branch to ridge, like a colony of well-disciplined ants, totally oblivious to their approaching foe. There are thousands of them, yet the Dread Wolf does not seem worried.
Fen'Harel shifts into the shape of a titanic wolf and lands on the outskirts of the city, forest, hive, whatever that divinely beautiful construct, crawling with insane horrors, may indeed be. The god's very weight warps the ground, causing some of the structures to collapse with groans of tortured metal and rent flesh; they bleed where they break, and incongruously bright blood cascades onto the bluish earth.
Now the Trespassers are aware of Fen'Harel's approach, and an insane hum fills the air as thousands upon thousands of horned, articulated bodies soar and crawl out of their dens under the golden forest. Fen'Harel's roar shakes the very fabric of the Beyond, and the battle begins.
As far as battles go, this one is rather one-sided. While the Trespassers's barbed armors have the ill-defined haziness of all things in these realms, the Dread Wolf is, by contrast, absolutely, terribly material. The metallic beings throw themselves at Fen'Harel in droves, sting, biting and slicing with all their might, but he hardly feels their attacks. The god moves purposefully, almost leisurely, crushing and mauling the creatures with the professional indifference of an accomplished killer. The Trespassers' essence forms complex arabesques as it swirls around the god's maw, only to be absorbed into his ever-encroaching mass. Soon, Fen'Harel towers above the city, and Leliana feels the very substance of the Beyond stretch and groan as it is pulled in by his hunger. The Wolf Lord cares not. His victory is assured, and so he feasts, unaware that his hour has come.
And then it happens.
It starts with a distant whisper, no more than a trickle, an echo of fear and anger; within seconds, the whisper has become a clamor, the voice of tortured multitudes, terror and genocide being given voice.
The Trespassers' multitude stop their attack; burning eyes and pulsating antennae scan the Beyond's yellow skies, barbed mandibles fidget nervously. The Dread Wolf raises his huge head, maw trickling with silver-like fluids, just as a tremendous shockwave shakes the ground, toppling the golden city's surviving buildings and scattering the Trespassers like toys.
Leliana sees it rise on the horizon: a billowing, wall-like darkness that devours everything in its path, and for an agonizing moment she is reminded of the vision in Lothering, of how she used to believe that it came from the Maker. Now that she sees it through the eyes of the Dread Wolf, she partially understands its nature. It is anger, insanity and above all, betrayal. It is the broken promise of the Ancestors; it is the host of the dead, ripped from the promise of eternity and left with nothing but hunger.
In the seconds before the tsunami of souls is on him, Fen'Harel desperately tries to send his thoughts through the Veil, to command Falon'Din to bring him back. Then the darkness closes in on him, screaming and howling, and as it swallows the Trespassers, the golden city and himself, Fen'Harel understands how he has been betrayed.
Leliana has a last vision of the god standing among the blackening and withering trees of the golden forest, of the flesh being stripped off pale bones even as he snarls in pain, roars his challenge to death, and shifts.
Andruil blazes through the crumbling maze that was once Uthenera. She doesn't stop to take in the extent of the damage to the ancient structure; it is painfully obvious that Uthenera is no more. Instead, the goddess dilates time as she goes, leaving in her track a series of supersonic bangs as she flies through tunnels and great tombs, stopping only microseconds to burn through obstacles. Her mind is focused on one thing and one thing only:
Bloodlust.
She finds her quarry in one of the vast halls of this place, now not much more than a collapsing cave filled with fast-cooling corpses. He kneels by a dead elf's side, chanting softly. Andruil catches a few words of the song, and she snarls at their absurd irony.
vhenan him dor'felas
in uthenera na revas
"I will give you freedom, you betraying piece of shit!" she growls as her first spear pierces Falon'Din's chest, hurtling him off the floor and pinning him onto a far wall. The Friend of the Dead shrieks in pain and summons his bow, but it is a half-hearted attempt at defense. The Huntress's following attacks blow off half his face and most of his ribcage, and the young god collapses in a bloody heap while the divine essence in him strains to heal the wounds.
Her face set in a grim snarl, Andruil kneels by her sibling, slips a clawed hand in the gaping wound of his chest, and grasps the pulsating mass inside.
"What. Have. You. Done." Each word is punctuated with an ungentle tug.
In spite of his suffering, Falon'Din finds the strength to smile.
"I have… freed them, sister…" The younger god's pale eyes drift over the rows upon rows upon rows of now rotting elves encased in their crystal niches. "And I have freed the gods… from a tyrant."
Andruil roars in frustration and, with her free hand, drives her brother's head into the wall, crushing bones and rock. When the younger god's regenerative powers allow him to speak again, she pulls him very close to her bared fangs.
"I swear by Mythal's holy entrails, Falon'Din, if you don't answer my questions properly, I will take millennia to rip the essence from you. What have you done to him?"
Falon'Din nods, as though his sister's anger were confirmation of an illness he has always suspected in her, but was too shy to investigate before. When he speaks, his voice is soft and reasonable, and Andruil hates him all the more for it.
"I freed the elves. I let them all die, and in doing so I sealed the way. I sealed the Wolf into the beyond, so that he can never come back and sit on Father's throne again. Now things can be just like before, Sister. Except…" Falon'Din's voice wavers a little, and his eyes lose focus. "Except that Dirthamen is no more here, of course. But I have avenged him, I have. Father would be proud."
"Father?" Andruil spits the word onto her brother's face. "Elgar'Nan despised you, you stupid runt. You have betrayed the only god who ever thought any good of you. Now help me bring my king back, or I will show you an eternity of pain."
Falon'Din smiles feebly. "You cannot bring him back, Sister. Even if you slaughtered all the elves of Thedas, you would still lack the focusing power of Uthenera. But maybe you shall meet him in dreams…"
In Uthenera verses lifted from the DA wikia, as usual, with many thanks.