Chapter 37
Alistair
They'd ridden hard for nearly three days, stopping only briefly at Redcliffe Castle to summon what troops they could, and get maps of Honnleath and its surrounding area from Eamon's study. The Dalish had two hundred warriors, about three quarters of them archers and the rest melee fighters. Eamon had only one hundred soldiers to spare, the rest were either in scouting parties or in the Bannorn helping the fight against Loghain. Both Alistair and Malcolm scowled at the idea that Fereldan blood was indeed being spilled by other Fereldans, but Loghain's troops had attacked first, and it would do no one any good to allow them to freely slaughter those who would stand in their way. Still, it left over five hundred darkspawn, from the scout's reports, against barely three hundred. From Redcliffe, they'd had a forced march to Honnleath, trying to beat out the darkspawn.
Already, before he could see anything, Alistair felt the burning pull of the taint. There were indeed darkspawn, and there were a lot of them. The group galloped over the crest of the next hill and Alistair pulled his horse up short. From their vantage point, they could see the entire valley where Honnleath sat, and it looked worse than Alistair had imagined. The farmland surrounding the village was blasted and blackened by both the Blight and fire.
He held up his fist to signal a halt, and it was passed down the lines.
Malcolm pulled up next to him. "Andraste's ass, we're too late."
"For the villagers, maybe. But we can still deal with the darkspawn before they rejoin the horde," Alistair replied, and then signaled for the Dalish and Redcliffe commanders to approach. The village sat in a circular valley ringed by hills on all sides, with only a narrow gap along the river's edge that was entirely flat. Because the land had been dedicated to farming, there were few trees in the way. The darkspawn were currently either in the village proper or in the fields to the east of the village. Alistair and his party had the high ground, and for the moment, the element of surprise. "How many darkspawn do you estimate down there?" he asked as two commanders joined him and Malcolm.
The Dalish commander, Ailís, frowned as she studied the fields below them, her polished ironwood bow on her back reflecting the mid-morning sunlight. "I'd say around four hundred."
"Garvan?" Alistair asked the Redcliffe commander.
"I agree," said the stocky, powerfully built man. "We're looking at about four hundred darkspawn down there. Most in the eastern field, the rest in the village."
Alistair studied the field for a few more minutes. "Ideas?"
"Leave the archers on the high ground, ringing around the hills above the fields," Ailís said. "You could run a small force through the gap while the archers gain the attention of the darkspawn. We have enough archers to set up a killing zone across the entire east field."
"Do it," Alistair said. "Quickly and quietly. Wait for my signal to begin firing. One of the mages will fire a bolt in the air. You'll know it when you see it."
Ailís nodded curtly and ran back to her warriors. "And my men, Prince Alistair?" Garvan asked.
Alistair managed not to flinch and internally congratulated himself for not doing so. "I want half of them to stay in reserve with the archers, ready to run down the hill and into the field in case the darkspawn get too close. The other half I want with me, running through the gap into the valley and taking the darkspawn on our flank. We need to get moving and get into position before the darkspawn realize we're here."
Commander Garvan clapped a fist to his chest and rode to his men.
Malcolm gave his brother a sidelong look and an accompanying smirk after the commander had left. "Hey, you didn't flinch."
"Shut up and ride, we've got a lot of darkspawn to kill." Even though he tried to sound cross, he didn't quite pull it off. The humor in the face of the darkness helped, though he'd be damned if he'd tell his brother that. He kicked his horse back into a trot, heading for the gap. Half of Redcliffe's forces fell in behind him, while the others quietly followed the Dalish archers just below the hilltops. It wasn't long before they'd reached the gap, the soldiers close behind them.
Alistair dismounted, and the rest of the party followed. He handed the reins to a Redcliffe squire and they left their horses with a small group of squires and a few soldiers. At a nod of Alistair's head, Wynne sent a bolt of lightning into the sky and the Dalish rained arrows onto the unfortunate darkspawn. They were deadly accurate and the first two volleys took out nearly half of the darkspawn in the eastern field. The rest of the darkspawn dropped what they were doing and ran for the archers. Alistair signaled the charge for the melee fighters and they poured through the gap and right up behind the howling, raving darkspawn. Then his contingent entered the fray.
Two hours later, the darkspawn were all dead, along with ten Dalish and twenty Redcliffe soldiers.
The commanders told him that considering the odds, their side had done incredibly well, but to Alistair, thirty dead was thirty dead. He assigned details of unwounded and gloved soldiers to gather the darkspawn bodies and burn them, with Oghren directing them. Then he had Morrigan, Wynne, and Leliana with two Dalish healers set up a field clinic of sorts, enough to get people well enough to go back to Redcliffe on their own two feet if it could be done. Then he gathered up the Wardens left to him and headed for the village proper. They had a final sweep and burn to do before they could leave the remains of Honnleath behind. As they walked, Alistair noticed things they hadn't taken the time to see before. Bodies hanged from lampposts, as it seemed to be a calling card of sorts for the darkspawn. To Alistair's dismay, the town's walls seemed to have fallen into disrepair many years ago. Had they been properly maintained, they could have held the darkspawn at bay a bit longer.
Once they reached the first house, Alistair took a deep breath, and then explained the process to Zevran and Líadan as Malcolm scowled nearby. "We have to go into every house and check for anyone who is still living. Keep your taint senses as aware as you can. If you sense the taint in anyone, kill them. Do not hesitate. Do not falter. If they are tainted, they will either die a slow, agonizing death, or they will turn into ghouls, which is just as agonizing and poses a huge threat to everyone they would come into contact with. I know it hurts to do it. I know it seems wrong even though they don't look like ghouls yet. But it must be done. If we don't kill them, they will die a horrible death and they will end up Blighting as much as the darkspawn would until they die from the taint. As Grey Wardens, this is something we do so that other people don't have to. And once we finish going through every house, we burn the village to stop the spread of the taint."
Zevran gave one short nod, his jaw firmly set, his light brown eyes pained, but understanding. Líadan looked less convinced, but nodded anyway.
Malcolm picked up on it. "Líadan, they will turn into what Tamlen did if we don't kill them," he said softly. "We talked about this the other night."
"I know," she replied. "I just hate it."
Alistair reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We all do."
The Dalish nodded again, this time with confidence, and they set into the houses. It was as agonizing as the search in Lothering had been, perhaps even more so because the battle here had been so recent that finding people still living held a much higher possibility. But as they looked, they found bodies upon bodies, and none of them still breathing. Each dead body they passed served to flare Alistair's anger at Loghain. If they had more Grey Wardens, they wouldn't have been so far away when the scouting report came in. If they had more Grey Wardens, they could've done something when they'd located the archdemon. Maker, if they only had more soldiers, they could've attacked the darkspawn right away, shoved their army right down the horde's throat and stopped them from Blighting anything else. Instead, they were left to clearing out already sacked towns and having to kill those who had been tainted by the darkspawn and left to die.
As they stepped outside a house, the tall tower in the center of the village rumbled mightily and collapsed, its top half crashing into several homes, crushing them underneath its stones. No cries of terror sounded, no screams came from the buildings that had been crushed. Dust rose up from the rubble to join the pall of smoke over the valley.
"I guess that means we don't have to search those houses," Malcolm said. "Though I don't know if that's good or bad."
No one had a reply, and so they continued up the worn wooden steps set into a small hill running near the middle of the village. Wordlessly, the group swept the rest of the houses until they were left with only the door at the bottom of the broken tower to check. As they stood outside the door, Zevran pointed at a statue in the middle of the clearing. "That looks like a golem, no?"
"Remarkably so," said Malcolm. "A lot like the ones Caridin had with him, in fact." Frowning, he squinted at the statue to get a better look. "It's even got dwarven runes on it. Too bad Oghren isn't here to read them. And too bad the Anvil of the Void needed souls to make golems. Otherwise, an army of golems would've been great to have."
"We'll make do with dwarves," Alistair said, and then sighed. "Come on. Let's go finish the search under this tower and get out of here. The sooner we get back to Redcliffe, the better." No one disagreed, and they opened the door and descended into the darkness of the tower's basement. The anteroom was empty, but the taint pulled Alistair in the direction of the next room. The four of them walked through a doorway to find a few darkspawn growling their way through a library. On seeing the Grey Wardens, they snarled and attacked.
By numbers, they were evenly matched, but in skill, the darkspawn were quickly slaughtered. The tug didn't go away once the first group was dealt with though, so they kept their weapons drawn as they crept through the rest of the basement. After another hallway, they quietly stepped into a lab with an emissary and several hurlocks and genlocks. Alistair and Malcolm both called a holy smite on the emissary and Zevran flanked and finished him off. The worst threat taken care of, they entered into a melee with the hurlocks and genlocks.
Alistair used his shield to crush the throat of one hurlock and his sword to run him through. Malcolm fought at his side, methodically working his way through the small darkspawn crowd. Zevran dropped in and out of the shadows, crippling several darkspawn for Líadan to finish off with her magic-driven sword. Once the darkspawn were taken care of, Alistair noticed that some sort of magical barrier blocked off a third of the room and he counted six people and a little girl behind it. He frowned.
Zevran noticed Alistair's frown from his spot collecting a letter and a battered journal from one of the lab's desks. He pocketed the book and paper and walked over to where his fellow Warden stood. "Problem, yes?"
Alistair sheathed his sword and folded his arms across his chest."I don't know."
"I don't sense the taint in them, either," Malcolm said, stepping up beside them.
Líadan stared at the barrier. "I've never seen a force field like this."
"I have," Alistair said. "It's like the one Wynne used to keep the demons from getting to the children at the Circle Tower."
"So if they aren't tainted..." Líadan started.
"Then we save them by letting them out and escorting them to the camp," Malcolm finished, and then grinned. "Actual survivors."
Alistair grinned as well. Something good had come out of this after all. He approached the barrier.
"By the Maker, we're saved!" a woman behind the barrier called out.
A tall, blond headed man hit a trigger on his side of the wall and the barrier disappeared. "You weren't sent by the bann, were you?" he asked. "To save us?"
"No, we're Grey Wardens," Alistair replied. The bann for the Honnleath area had sided with Loghain and was, by the last report, in Denerim. And these refugees could find out about the whole prince thing later, from the soldiers and everyone else they'd be traveling with back to Redcliffe.
The man smiled at them. "Grey Wardens? Here? Thank the Maker for our luck!"
Alistair resisted a sarcastic comment. They rarely heard that sort of happy sentiment anymore. Usually, Wardens showing up lately meant bad news, death threats, and other kinds of general crankiness. "Who are you?"
"My name is Matthias. My father was Wilhelm, mage to the arls of Redcliffe. That was one of his defense mechanisms that kept the darkspawn away from us. This was my father's laboratory."
Wilhelm. The name sounded familiar. Alistair remembered learning that a Wilhelm had been present at many of the battles of the Rebellion.
"Is this the Wilhelm with the golem?" Malcolm asked from beside him. "The one that fought with King Maric and Teyrn Loghain in the Rebellion?"
The statement brought a scowl to Matthias's face. "Yes, that was him. A hero in the war against Orlais and what did he get? One day my mother found him outside the tower, with so many broken bones she could barely recognize him, and Shale standing over him just like it is now out in the center of the town. My father deserved better than that."
Alistair frowned. "You mean that statue of a golem out there is actually a... golem?"
"Yes. Why? Do you want it? You know what, the control rod is over in that desk. Well, a control rod, but who knows if it's Shale's. The activation phrase is 'dulen harn.' Though I'm not sure you'd really want that damn thing. But if you find a way to wake Shale up, it's yours now. Maybe you can get it to fight darkspawn for you." He sighed. "Now, while we appreciate the rescue, if you'd just let us get to getting things right in this village again—"
"You have to come with us," said Malcolm. "Your entire town has been sacked and is already succumbing to the Blight. Once we get you out, we have to burn it all. I'm sorry."
Matthias gaped at him, and then looked to Alistair. "He's kidding, right? He's just got a really serious case of gallows humor?"
Alistair slowly shook his head. "He's quite serious. If we don't burn the town, we risk the Blight spreading even further. There's already four hundred dead darkspawn out there. When we leave here, we'll light these darkspawn on fire as well."
"I..." but Matthias gave up the argument before he even started. Instead, he shrugged, picked the little girl up, and started up the stairs. Zevran grabbed the control rod Matthias had pointed out, and then he and Malcolm quickly piled the bodies together and set them on fire, having procured more of the fire potion.
The fire crackled behind them as they walked. The little girl looked fearfully behind them, as if she expected a darkspawn to hop out at any time and kill them all. Alistair wished he could make the child's worries go away, that he could make the Blight disappear and her home be safe and not wiped away from the face of Thedas by the darkspawn. But he couldn't. There was nothing he could do except lead her to Redcliffe, where he hoped he could keep her and her family safe.
"What's your name?" Líadan asked the little girl.
"Amalia," she answered in a shy voice. "What's yours?"
"Líadan."
"Are you a Grey Warden, too?"
"Yes."
The girl's eyes opened wide with surprise. "I didn't know a girl could be a Grey Warden!"
Líadan grinned. "Someone has to keep the boys in line, right?"
Amalia, little girl though she was, shared the conspiratorial smile of women with the Dalish elf. "I suppose."
Alistair, though he was one of the parties whom the slight had been leveled against, was grateful anyway. Líadan had done a good job of distracting the little girl for at least a little while. As they got to the tower's door, he pulled Líadan to the side. "Can you take these people back to where Wynne has the field clinic set up? I want them checked out for injuries in case we missed something. We'll see about this golem and join you there."
Líadan gave a short nod and the group exited the tower.
Outside, they found Oghren waiting for them, tapping his booted foot on the hard ground. "About time you came out here," he said. "Bodies are being burned as we speak. Everyone that was injured is mobile, so we've got the troops readying for the march back to Redcliffe now, and we'll stop for a night camp just before sundown." He waved his hand at the refugees. "Who're these folks?"
"Survivors," Malcolm said.
Líadan stepped forward and motioned for the small group of villagers to follow her. "Let's get you up to the camp before the soldiers start their march back." The villagers quietly followed her lead. The Wardens left behind watched them go.
"Don't know if you noticed, Warden," Oghren said to Alistair, "but there's an actual golem standing right in the middle of this village."
"We noticed," Alistair replied. "One of the villagers gave me the activation phrase and a control rod, but he wasn't sure if it's the right particular rod for this particular golem. I figure I might as well try it out anyway before we burn the village. It would be stupid not to."
Oghren nodded. "Aye. Let's give it a go."
The four of them cautiously moved to the front of the golem and studied it closely. Alistair wondered if it truly was the golem that'd fought with his father during the Rebellion. It would be fitting if it was, in a way.
After a few minutes, Malcolm glanced over at his brother. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Are you going to say that stupid phrase or not? We can't just keep staring at this golem, no matter how cool it looks. Because, not only do we have stuff we need to be doing, but we look pretty stupid just staring at it."
Alistair sighed. "Fine. Dulen harn."
For a moment, nothing happened. And then the ground shook as the golem moved, stamping its legs as if shaking off stone dust, rolling its stony shoulders as if getting the kinks out of muscles. Slowly, its head drew down from its gaze at the sky to regard them with eyes of white light. "I knew the that the day would come when someone would find the control rod. And not even a mage, this time. Probably stumbled across the rod by accident, I suppose. Typical."
Alistair scowled up at it. "You could be more thankful, you know."
The golem's stony brows drew together. "It thinks I should be thankful? Well, of course it does. Why would it not? I stood here in this spot and watched the wretched little villagers scurry around me for, oh, I have no idea how long. Many, many years."
"That would be really, really boring," Malcolm said.
"You have no idea," the golem, Shale, if Alistair recalled correctly what Matthias had told him, said. "Tell me, are all the villagers dead?"
Alistair glanced in the direction where Líadan had led the survivors. "Not all of them, no."
He could've sworn the golem frowned. Yes, that was distinctly a frown. "Some got away then? How unfortunate."
He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't care for them, I take it?"
Shale scoffed. "Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and after thirty years as a captive audience, I was as familiar with these villagers as one could be. Not that I wished their fate on them, no, but it did make for a delightful change of pace."
Malcolm snorted beside him and Alistair shot him a glare before asking the golem, "Do you have a name?" He wanted to make sure he called the ten feet tall stone creature the correct name so that he didn't get crushed for bad manners.
The golem shrugged. "Perhaps. I may have forgotten after all the years of being called 'golem.' 'Golem, fetch me that chair.' 'Do be a good golem and squash that insipid bandit.' And let's not forget 'Golem, pick me up, I tire of walking.'" Then it frowned. "It... does have the control rod, doesn't it? I am awake so it must."
Alistair frowned. "Is something wrong?" A golem gone wrong seemed like it could be a very bad thing. Along the lines of a golem killing its former master sort of bad.
"I see the control rod, yet I feel... hmm. Go on, order me to do something."
"Um, throw Oghren as far as you can."
"Hey!" Oghren shouted. "No dwarf tossing!"
"Too bad, I'd like to have seen that," Malcolm said. Oghren punched him in the leg, but it just made Malcolm laugh.
"And... nothing," said Shale, ignoring the human and the dwarf. "I feel nothing! I feel no compulsion to carry out its command. I suppose this means the rod is broken?"
Alistair tapped a finger on his chin. "So, what now? You go on a killing rampage?"
"Don't be ridiculous," the golem said, sounding a lot like Morrigan in some respects. Alistair was starting to think that the golem and the witch would get along wonderfully. "Well, I wouldn't mind killing the birds. Those evil birds and their foul droppings. I could crush them all! Hmm. I suppose if I can't be commanded this means I have free will, yes? It is simply... what should I do? I have no memories beyond watching this village for so long. I have no purpose. I find myself at a bit of a loss. What about it? It must have awoken me for some reason, no? What did it intend to do with me?"
"I hadn't given it much thought, actually."
"I see," Shale said in a tone that sounded so much like Morrigan that Alistair started to suspect the witch had shapeshifted into a golem. "Wonderful. I suppose I have two options, do I not? Go with it or... go elsewhere. I do not even know what lies beyond this village."
"You could go with us," Malcolm said, "but you did kind of kill your former master."
The golem's eyebrows raised. "Did I? I remember that I had a former master. The mage with the furry brows who poked and prodded and barked orders. Did I kill him? I hope I did kill him. Perhaps the last order he barked was, 'Golem! Stop crushing my head!' Ha!"
Malcolm laughed. "Okay, I like you. Alistair, it's got to come with us. Come on. Besides, Loghain will see it and he might wet himself. This could even be the same golem that fought with our father in the Rebellion."
"True." He turned to the golem. "All right. You're welcome to come with us if you want."
"I will follow it about, then. And I am called Shale, by the way."
"Alistair," he replied. "Even though I have a feeling you'll keep calling me 'it' anyway."
"Yes. Very likely," was the golem's reply.
They took the same path out of the village that they had taken into it, lighting the houses on fire as they passed. The squires had brought their horses to be with the main section of the army, so they continued toward the eastern fields, where the thickest smoke was at this point. The smell was horrid and they were of no mind to stay in the area longer than they had to. Quick explanations about Shale were made once they reached the edges of the battlefield, and then the soldiers, Dalish, and the Wardens and their companions set out. They left the smell behind them after an hour, the smoke behind them after three. Half an hour before sunset, the commanders called a halt and ordered for a camp to be set up. Alistair realized happily that he and his companions wouldn't have to stand guard. For once, there would be rank and file soldiers for that chore.
The feeling in camp, despite the casualties, was a cheery one because they'd killed so many darkspawn in the battle. Alistair knew that for these people, it was a large horde they'd dealt with, because they hadn't seen the true horde. The horde that was now pouring out of the Deep Roads and onto the surface in Ferelden. He caught bits of chatter here and there about him and his good leadership in the battle, which was a surprise to him, as well as the success the Grey Wardens would have, and the possibilities of Loghain stepping down. Already, they said, the bastard princes had done more against the Blight than Loghain had. Maker, Alistair thought, it'd just been a single battle, and not even a large one at that.
"You hearing what they're saying?" Malcolm asked him as he fell into step next to him as he walked toward the mess tent.
"About us? Yes. It's disconcerting."
"It's a good thing. I figure, anyway. They think you're a good leader."
"I think they're delusional."
Malcolm grinned. "Aw, they love you, too, I'm sure."
Alistair rolled his eyes. "Why are you in such a good mood? You know the reality of the situation as well as I do. The darkspawn we defeated today are nothing compared to the real horde that awaits us."
"Because everyone else is. Yes, we lost thirty people today. Good people. We couldn't save the town. But even though we got here to find a sacked town, there were still actual survivors. You remember what Riordan said back at Lothering, right? When darkspawn sack a town, there are never any survivors. Guess what? We beat the odds today. We found untainted people even after darkspawn had demolished their village. We had a force of just about three hundred and we managed to kill over four hundred darkspawn. Even in the face of thirty deaths, that's still success. And just... just look at these people, Alistair. Feel the emotions in the camp. These people have hope. When's the last time you felt any hope from a group of Fereldans?"
Then Alistair thought over the past several months, reaching more and more into the past, until the night of the Battle of Ostagar, when they had all hoped, they had all believed, that they would win the battle. That Cailan and Loghain and the Grey Wardens would bring them through to victory over the darkspawn. Hope had been massacred that day, along with the Fereldan army, by the darkspawn and Loghain. He looked around the camp again, listened to the bits of conversations he caught, eyes jumping from campfire to campfire dotting the clearing, and heard what his brother heard—hope. For the first time since the defeat at Ostagar, they had hope.
He smiled.
Malcolm threw his arm around his shoulder. "Glad you see it, too. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?"
"It does." And it did.
They arrived at the mess tent in good spirits and with wickedly growling stomachs, courtesy of being Grey Wardens. As they walked into the large, open-sided tent, the soldiers grouped there noticed them and immediately stood up. Alistair and Malcolm came to a sudden stop, startled at the reaction, and having no idea what to do. Really, they just wanted to eat, and Alistair had no idea how to tell these soldiers that without sounding rude.
"Carry on," Malcolm said.
The soldiers fell right back to their eating. Alistair gave his brother a curious look.
"What? Oh. Raised the son of a teyrn. I've dealt with that before. Get used to it. And just wait until they really like you and start cheering. That gets awkward."
"I'll bet." Alistair quickly got food and practically ran back to their little camp's area placed in the middle of the entire encampment. The commanders and their lieutenants had insisted on the positioning, and Alistair couldn't fault them for their arguments. And, it had led to the happy result of not having to pull a watch at night. The others were already there and gathered around their own small campfire, looking weary but each of their eyes reflecting the same feeling of hope that seemed to have taken over the entire camp. Even Morrigan looked hopeful, though she complained bitterly that she had to be surrounded by this many people. Alistair's eyes lit to Leliana, standing further away from the fire than the others. She was the one who had always been hopeful even when the rest of them felt nothing but defeat. Her eyes should be brimming with it—but they weren't.
Of all the people in the camp, the one person who should be the most positive of all had nothing but emptiness in her eyes. No, not emptiness. Despair. It made no sense. He placed the food he hadn't eaten on one of the logs they used for chairs and walked over to her. She watched his approach silently, the look in her eyes not changing even as he got closer. When he was near enough, he reached out and cupped her chin. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Can't you feel it?" she asked, her chin quivering on his fingers.
"Can't you? Everyone here, Leliana, they're filled with hope. It's a pestilence all over the camp, and it's wonderful."
"No," she whispered, and then moved his hand away from her face. After she'd done that, she reached down, removed the gauntlet from her left arm, and thrust the arm into the light of the nearby fire.
And then Alistair saw it.
A bite mark.
"It was a genlock," she said, "and I didn't even see him until it was over. It bit straight through my gauntlet when I lowered my bow to nock an arrow."
That's what her question had meant. Not if he could feel the hope, but if he could feel the taint. He grabbed her arm, feeling it over with his hands, wishing for the bite to go away, to disappear. But it didn't. Instead, he saw the mottled darkness of corruption spreading across her once flawless skin, growing right under his eyes. Instead, his newly found hope disappeared. He squeezed his eyes shut, reached out as a Grey Warden, and found the taint within the woman standing in front of him. When he opened his eyes, his vision was watery, and he could barely breathe. "It hasn't been that long," he said, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. "Marethari is near Redcliffe, she and Wynne can use their magic together. Or you... you could try to take the Joining and become a Grey Warden. We can do something about this." Even as he said it, he knew there were no darkspawn for miles. There was nowhere they could find the last component of the Joining potion soon enough. Wynne's magic couldn't keep the taint at bay. Marethari's could, but she was days away, and that would be days too late.
Leliana gently took her arm out of his hands. "It's okay."
"No, it is not. Not by any means."
"Alistair, I've known this could happen, ever since I first joined you at Lothering many months ago. I accepted the possibility, especially when I rejected the offer to become a Grey Warden. If the Maker wills it, then the Maker wills it."
How could her eyes be despairing and calm at the same time? "The Maker doesn't will this," he said. "There has to be something we can do." He ran his hand through his short hair and looked frantically at the fire, as if it would offer some answers.
Leliana took his hands in hers. "Don't make this harder than it already is."
"Harder than it already is? How could it possibly be any more difficult?"
"By you trying to will a miracle into existence that will not appear instead of accepting what must happen. Instead of letting us have what little time we have together in peace instead of war."
His mouth opened and shut for want of an argument, for a reassurance that wasn't empty. But her skin burned with fever where she touched him and the taint wormed its way through her body even as they spoke. Fear clutched at his lungs, pressing the air out of them, making it difficult to breathe. He shut his eyes again.
"Alistair," said his brother's voice behind him, "there might be a problem somewhere in camp. I can sense... oh, no."
"It's okay," Leliana reassured him, the same as she had tried to reassure Alistair.
"No it isn't," Malcolm told her, the same as Alistair had told her moments before. "There must be—"
"No, there aren't," Alistair said, opening his eyes again. "There aren't darkspawn for miles and we've burned all the bodies. Wynne doesn't know Marethari's magic. Marethari is days from here even at top speed and we don't have days. You can feel it as well as I do. We don't have days. We have hours. She has hours." Another glance at Leliana's arm confirmed his words as true. Already, the corruption had covered her arm and now crept toward her shoulder. Fever began to shine in her eyes and sweat formed on her brow. The confident Leliana had gone and her legs started to collapse underneath her. Alistair caught her and gently lowered her to the ground.
Wynne appeared at his side and cast a healing spell on the bard, and her skin stopped burning as badly. It was still warm, overly so, but lacked the heat it had held before.
"There's really nothing we can do," Malcolm whispered, both a question and an answer.
Pain lanced through Leliana's face, even though Wynne's magic.
"No," Alistair protested, his fingers tracing the contours of her cheek. Yet even as he said it, he felt the taint advancing, ever advancing just like the Blight. Behind him he heard Líadan enter the camp from her visit with the Dalish, her immediate question about a possible ghoul or darkspawn, Zevran's hushed answer, Líadan's shocked reply. Morrigan whispering with Wynne about spells they could use, each of them negated in turn due to the speed of the spreading taint. Nothing, there was nothing.
Leliana winced again and her entire body went rigid with the pain. The grimace didn't go away when her muscles relaxed. He'd never see that hope again. Her eternal optimism and faith in the Maker.
"Help me," she said, so quietly that he barely heard it, a puff off air into a howling wind.
"Alistair." And his brother was there, at his side, pressing something into his hands. Something cold, sharp, balanced, and deadly. "Someone has to give her peace. She wants it to be you."
"Please." Leliana again.
"Where?" he asked.
Zevran pointed to where death would be instantaneous.
Alistair's hands moved to grip the dagger.
The others knelt by Leliana one by one, whispering their farewells.
Then it was just Alistair next to her, a dagger grasped in his trembling hands before he took a deep breath and steeled himself for what had to be done. He placed the tip of the dagger where Zevran had showed him. Then he leaned over her, to look at her one last time. She opened her eyes, the clear blue untouched by the taint. "I love you," she whispered to him.
"I love you," he whispered back, and then as he kissed her, he slid the dagger into her heart, and gave her peace.