Author's Note:

WELL ALL OF THE BALLS ARE UP IN THE AIR NOW.
Oh wait, that was an earlier scene. Hurrhurrhurr.

Seriously, though, if it looks like I'm dropping anything, please let me know. I've never done anything quite so complex as all this. Apologies for the shifting points of view. I'm feeling experimental. I also feel that if this was a movie it would be directed by Michael Bay.

Summary: MICHAEL BAY EXPLOSIONS.

In which all the secondary characters scurry around, battening down the hatches and holding onto their arseholes.

Warnings: Attempts to be epic, non-beta-ed, magic, murder, mayhem, lizards, swearing, banter, cliffhanger.

Recommended Playlist:

Two Steps From Hell – Dark Ages, Our Last Hope, Caradhras,
Saints Row: The Third (video game) – Killbane and the Syndicate (evil!Hawke, all the way)

Walk Softly and Carry a Big Axe

Chapter Fifty-one

Zevran and Isabela would not be denied. On the strength of their relationship with the two Generals, with Isabela's powers of persuasion, and with Zevran's knives' powers of persuasion, they convinced the Grey Wardens, magisters, and senators to allow them into the University.

"What harm can they do?" grumbled the bare-armed magister, glowering into the centre of the University's largest hall. "The Eluvian is broken."

The two rogues paced into the vast hall. Isabela kept half an eye on Zevran, but, though he limped, he made no other sign of distress. He carried his bow with the same confidence he always had, as though the loss of an eye served a mere annoyance rather than a debilitating injury.

The Eluvian immediately drew their attention. It stood, draped by a crimson sheet, amongst yard upon yard of protective runes. Every inch of the stone floor bore a glittering mark; even as they watched, dozens of warden mages, magisters, and their apprentices continued to inscribe more around the hall perimeter, on the walls, and on the rafters and ceiling above.

"It's broken?" Isabela repeated, brows lifting.

The magister pushed back loose wisps of hair, armlets jangling. For the first time, Isabela saw her lose her composure. She hadn't been so upset when Danarius lay decapitated before her. "It's dead," she snapped. "Those idiots must have done something to it. Who knows what an abomination like that could do?"

"All the better, then," Zevran said, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Destroying it was the plan, was it not?"

She glowered, cheeks reddening.

"Our plan, maybe," Septimus interjected. Sweat coated his face and he wore only his barest underclothes, a thin tunic belted at the waist and sandals. He eyed the magister critically. "I suspect that a functional Eluvian may have fit their plans a little better. Hawke will not negotiate if we have nothing to negotiate with. No Generals. No Eluvian." Though his words were grim, he spoke with a little lilt of humour, obviously enjoying the sight of the magister's fury.

"You will not be laughing, Warden, when the Viscount is through with you!" She whirled on Isabela and Zevran. "This is your fault, you scurvy, pirate bitch. If you had told us—"

"I did," Isabela interrupted mildly. She crossed her arms, putting her hands within easy reach of the new daggers standing sentinel on her shoulders. "I told you as soon as I was ready." Once she searched for Anders and Fenris herself, anyway, and came up against resistance in the University vaults.

"It does not matter," Septimus chided. "You waste your breath. Use it to cast protections or give orders to your people, we've better things to do than listening to your complaints. Especially now."

"He's almost here," she screeched. "His army darkens the horizon and you are so calm. But I am not going to die here! I am not going to die!" She went at him, fingers curving into claws.

He grabbed her wrists and shoved her aside, to be caught by two of her burly, armoured servants. She collapsed, weeping, in their arms.

"Take her home," Septimus directed them firmly. "She needs rest." He watched them carry her off, then sighed and rubbed his face. "Gods help me, I wish that was me."

"Why all of these runes, if the mirror is broken?" Zevran asked.

"Well, we're not completely certain that it is." Septimus scratched his stubble, his expression troubled. "It no longer radiates power. It reflects normally, like any other mirror. Some fool looked in it and ... nothing happened. He should have died or gone mad."

"Perhaps they put it to sleep?"

"We don't know." He shook his head. "If they ever return, maybe they'll tell us. But I ..."

"They'll be back," Isabela asserted. "They've never been the type to run from a fight."

"And Hawke owes them blood." Zevran's lone eye darkened. "As he owes us all." He shrugged and glanced about speculatively. "So we must defend this place, even though the mirror might not even work any more?"

"Yes." Septimus examined the walls and ceiling. "We have done the best we can in the limited time we were given." Unlike the magister, he held the reproach from his voice. They lost a day because Isabela kept Fenris', Anders', and the key's absence to herself.

"And we will be here," Zevran said, offering a thin smile and shrugging his bow and quiver higher. "I would like to face Hawke again. It will end much better than the last time."

"Good. Good. We need you. We need everyone."

Shouting drew their attention to the room's double doors, moments before they slammed open and a Tevinter youth, one of the University students, skidded to a halt directly before them. "Lieutenant Septimus," he panted. "Word has come. Hawke is a day away."

"Then we are needed upon the walls." Septimus turned on his heel and lifted his voice to summon the toiling mages. "It is time!" he bellowed. "To arms. Take up your staff, take up your mantle, and take your places!"

/.\./.\

Handsome Vinicius cowered behind an intimidation of gargoyles atop the Vol Dorma wall, ducking lower when a ball of flaming pitch roared by, showering the stones around him in burning agony. He clutched his staff, the best weapon he could dig out of his inn storerooms, and reminded himself that pissing his trousers wouldn't keep the enemy from slaughtering him.

A grappling hook clanged and scraped onto the arm of one of the gargoyles, directly over his head. His breath caught as he stared at it. It jiggled and the rope attached to it creaked, indicating that something—some horrible Darkspawn, probably—had begun to climb. He glanced around, hoping someone else would notice, but the two City Guard, three magisterial soldiers, and half dozen other citizens were busy doing other things, pouring boiling oil and throwing stones and the like.

It was up to Handsome Vinny.

He mentally pulled himself up by the sandal straps, grit his chattering teeth, and reached out. The hook had imbedded itself rather firmly, and the weight of the no doubt five score Darkspawn held it in place. With until-now-unknown determination, Handsome Vinny set the pointed end of his staff against the hook, wedged it under, and threw his weight against it. The hook gouged the gargoyle and tore away. Handsome Vinny lunged forward to peak under the gargoyle's arm and over the parapet, glimpsing the tumbling bodies of a handful of Darkspawn fall back among their seething brethren.

He laughed delightedly—perhaps he really was cut out for war, despite what his mother told him. And all along the wall, people like him, honest Tevinters, fought back against the Viscount's supposedly undefeatable army. The fool! He could not simply expect Vol Dorma to open her gates like some whore's legs.

Something creaked above him and stone chips tumbled over his shoulders and neck. He hurriedly pulled back, worried the hook had damaged the gargoyle arm enough to make it fall, then gasped in terror and fell to the ground.

Stone cracked and showered off the gargoyle as it flexed, its gaping jaw opening and closing, its eyes glowing a beastly yellow. Its huge wings snapped open, blotting out the mid day sky.

Screams rose up around him as the entire intimidation came to life, their growls mingling with the din of the army below.

The gargoyle Handsome Vinny had cowered behind turned toward him.

"Friend?" he whispered as his bowels swiftly ruined his resolution and filled his trousers with warm, salty fear.

It pulled back, blinked, then lunged at him. Its claws sank into his chest. The parapet, his fellow warriors, and the Wall fell away as the beast leapt into the sky. Vol Dorma spread beneath him, golden domes and silver stone streets, a delicate filigree of a city around the jewel of her University.

A black sea surrounded her. Ant-like figures crawled up the walls, fell, and crawled again, mounding at their bases. Siege engines and ogres stood out like beetles amongst the swarm. Patches of ivory marked the undead, ragged areas of bright colour delineated the criminals of the Free Marches and the Dwarven people. Fires and explosions rained down on Vol Dorma's stones. The Viscount's army threatened to simply swamp over the walls and flood the city.

The gargoyle carried its squirming burden through the sky, revelling in its newfound freedom. Freedom granted by one terrible, wonderful will.

Revenants and flocks of gargoyles joined it in the sky, cackling their glee and raining terror upon the frightened Tevinters atop the Wall. The gargoyle carrying Handsome Vinny caught sight of the immensely powerful creature that had brought it to life. With a glorious bellow, the gargoyle swooped lower and dropped Handsome Vinny in the path of its master, before flapping away in search of another victim.

/.\./.\

Septimus watched the man fall, mere feet from his position, powerless to stop it. He trembled already from the strain of casting an aura that would protect the wardens and City Guard on this section of the Wall. The seven powerful, long dead Archon Revenants streaked against the midday sky, horror following them. Joined by hundreds of gargoyles from Vol Dorma's battlements, they threatened to turn the battle sour.

No. Septimus repelled a flash of magic and swung at the skeleton that tried to clamber over the parapet. The creatures brought ladders, catapults, siege towers, and grapples to bear against the Wall, but the defenders would not falter. He would not falter. He was a warden—his only purpose was to defend Thedas against ancient evil. And one could not get much more evil than the horde they faced. Darkspawn rubbing shoulders with ghouls and ghasts and the wretched souls of human civilization. So unholy a match that it made his skin crawl.

The stones under his feet trembled. He braced himself, expecting it to pass as all the other tremors from catapult barrages. But the trembling continued, increasing in violence. He stumbled back, raising a cry. "Retreat! The wall is falling!"

But it did not fall.

A horned, reptilian head rose above the parapet, red eyes gleaming in enraged hunger, followed by a serpentine body. Its clawed feet pulled it up and over, and Septimus saw what the drake bore upon its back.

The Viscount, a shape that drew in and devoured light. Septimus laid eyes upon him and knew terror. He knew the ancient fears of humans, hiding in caves and knowing that the night held death; he knew a fear of obliteration, nothingness, a forever of absence; the fears lashed out from his bones and heart, winding around his limbs and paralyzing him.

The Viscount's head swivelled and a face, features shifting from a human, bearded man, back to emptiness, then back to human, stared down at Septimus where he lay prone on the parapet stones. He smiled.

"You know."

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a whisper woven into the screams and battle cries around them.

"You know where it is."

The Eluvian, surrounded in their protective efforts, appeared in Septimus' mind and was immediately torn out. He gasped in agony and the Viscount chuckled.

"You wrapped it like a gift," he murmured. "You shouldn't have."

The stones shook again. Septimus maintained barely enough awareness to recognize the presence of another two drakes rising to either side of the Viscount. Upon one rode a withered, sickly mage, and upon the other a cruelly-smirking Dwarven woman. She glanced down at Septimus and her drake, hissing, slithered toward him.

A loud ululation and a blast of spirit energy made the drake recoil. Commander Titania and six wardens charged at them, thundering past Septimus.

The sickly mage lifted his staff and a shield slammed into place before the wardens could reach them. He and the dwarf gathered themselves to retaliate.

"Stop." The Viscount's whispered order effectively froze his subordinates. "We've more important concerns."

"But," the dwarf began.

"You'll taste suffering soon." The Viscount twisted in his saddle to stare into the east.

The clear peal of horns rippled over the din of battle. The warm sound eked strength back into Septimus' limbs, enough to rise to his knees.

In the distance beyond the dark swarm of the Viscount's army, silver limned the hills. Banners flew, helms and spears flashed in the midday sun, and the deep baying of hounds took up the call of horns.

"Fereldans," he breathed, barely daring to believe his eyes. "And the Freemarches."

Movement drew his head around in time to see the drakes scurry over the inner wall. Titania shouted and darted after them.

A gargoyle swooped down at her. Septimus lurched to his feet, released from the Viscount's hold, and slashed, batting the beast away. Others of their ilk descended, then a flood of undead clawed over the parapet, following their master's path.

Septimus fought, warmth returning to his blood and bones, fear replaced by determination. The horns of Ferelden and the Freemarches sounded again and again, reminding the defenders of Vol Dorma that they did not fight alone.

Between breaths, he worried for the University and Eluvian, hoping that Isabela, Zevran, and the other guardians he had placed around it could stand against the Viscount.

/.\./.\

The double doors slammed open. Malice stepped through and paused an instant before an arrow whistled past her. Her lyrium eye rolled and found the archer in the rafters, and she chuckled. "You'll need to try harder than that, boy," she called. "You missed."

"Oh, I do not think so," he retorted, his accent thickly Antivan. "Merely marking my distances."

She glanced at the arrow, where it protruded from the floor amongst a line of its fellows, all of them wearing a bright ribbon.

"Now, if you would be so kind as to run, my dear, I would like to test my methods."

She scowled at his arrogance and rolled aside as he let fly another arrow. "Aleksandr!" she barked at her fellow General. "Get your lazy ass in here. I need you to get a cat out of a tree. Just don't kill him. He's quite pretty."

He hobbled in, his body twisted by weeks of the Viscount's hard usage. He followed her pointing finger and cast a spirit bolt at the archer, then cried out as a human woman appeared behind him and stabbed two daggers into his back.

Malice cursed under her breath, angry at herself for allowing the archer to distract her. "Elves," she spat. "Good for only one thing." She hurried to meet the human woman, smashing a healing potion on her fallen companion as she trotted by.

The woman danced back, moving like a dancer or a duellist, taunting Malice with a smile and a laugh. "Avast, shorty," she chortled. "I've defeated taller tankards."

A whistle announced another arrow, and a small explosion marked Aleksandr's successful counter, followed by the whoosh of a magical attack. The archer yelped in surprise.

"You might as well surrender now, wench," Malice said, pulling out a bomb and tossing it up and down contemplatively. "I'm sure we'll find some use for you and your little elf friend."

"Tamping down the dirt on your grave, maybe," the woman retorted. She tapped the floor. "I know a few good jigs."

"The battle is over." Malice heard the familiar hard step of her lord from the open doors and grinned. "There is no resistance."

He strode unhurriedly into the great room, each step an insult upon the earth. Darkness wisped up from his heels and burned into the stones at his passage. An arrow blurred toward him, hit his shoulder, sank in, and fell out the other side. He smiled up at the archer and wagged a finger back and forth.

The floor lit up at his approach with intricate circles of runes, all of them no doubt deadly. He lifted an arm.

Wailing filled the corridor behind him. Then, one by one, his seven Revenant Archons soared into the room. They came up against the runes, formed a half circle, and began to chant and moan in their forgotten, twisted tongue. The runes contorted, flickered, and darkened, ring after ring, like decay working its way through the rind of a melon.

The human woman vanished, stealthing like an experienced assassin. Malice put her back to Aleksandr, her eye rolling, her bombs ready. The two rogues could not stop her master, but they could be a terrible nuisance.

She reappeared behind one of the Revenants. As she struck, her partner in the rafters joined her attack with a glittering fire arrow. The Revenant shrieked its dismay and writhed.

Malice threw a bomb and Aleksandr followed it with ice, but the woman whirled away, obscured by a smoke bomb from the archer.

"It won't be that easy," Malice shouted. Her lyrium eye picked out the woman's shape in the smoke. She gripped Aleksandr's wrist and pointed. "There."

He cast something bloody and the woman briefly went down, before rolling to her feet and darting away.

Malice checked her master's progress and laughed. He stood close to the mirror and, as she watched, he tugged gently on the sheet covering it. The deep red material slid off in a smooth stream of silk and pooled on the floor. The Eluvian showed his reflection and the great hall. The light of the setting sun streamed through the high windows and barred the ruined walls and floor behind him.

"Wake," he whispered, his voice thrumming along the fibres of the world. He lifted a hand and reached to touch it.

His reflection stepped closer. The Viscount paused, frowning. His reflection grinned, drew the daggers from its shoulders, and leapt. It passed through the glass and descended, blades extended.