Chapter 19: Burn to Ash
No one had bothered to even think about a well needed bath, there were far too many preparations to make now as the sun dipped lower into the horizon. All her companions met with each other one time to pass along information about what was going on at their side. Alistair was in with the spare knights from the Arl's castle and had gotten in touch with the town Blacksmith after Aria was able to insist he help them prepare for battle.
It hadn't taken long, but the men with the bows had been wrapped around Leliana's finger as she showed them how to properly use them. They were by no means talented marksmen, the bard had mentioned in that polite accented lilt of hers. But they were more likely to hit a target now than the last few days of hell they had been experiencing. Sten, of course, was much more blunt. He was not pleased with the skill the men attempted to hold their blades with. However, they were running out of time and learning how to block is just as helpful as learning how to cut your opponent down.
She watched as spare men coated the wooden barriers with oil and the Town Head bark out orders to those that were sheltering in the Chantry. All had to be done swiftly with the sun setting, and Aria already held her staff in a tight grip.
Passing Morrigan, who was shoving poultices into the hands of flustered men, acknowledged her with a wrinkle of her nose in distaste at the men gawking at her in a way not dissimilar to a lost puppy. Aria shrugged in an unhelpful manner before finding the back of the blond Warden's head surrounded by others dressed to the nine in well made steel armor.
Squeezing through the thin throng of villagers suiting up for the battle, no one looked forward to tonight, she tapped the arm of her fellow Warden so he would know she had made it to his side. The blond warrior looked down and sighed.
"There you are, I was beginning to worry the children had swept you up and hid you under their bed or something." He joked, the elf huffed and tapped her staff in the dirt under their boots with a dull 'thump'.
"What is it you needed me for, Alistair, I wanted to find Sten and Leliana before the night comes." As she spoke more of the knights around them had turned their attention to her and Alistair. She could feel curious eyes on her, but she swallowed down her trepidation and kept her back straight and her eyes on her friend. Her pointed ears could not be hidden now and surely she could hear a few of the men around them whisper.
"Sorry about that, but I wanted to make sure you knew who was leading the front lines of this little battle." The Warden shrugged before waving over a man, just a few inches taller than Alistair with his dark hair shaved back short. He was up there in human years, she could see the laugh lines through the scruff that needed to be shaved. His full armor clanked with every footstep and he clutched his helmet close. He looked just as conflicted as Aria felt as he cleared his throat and crossed his arms and bowed slightly as is standard greetings to a respected figure of Ferelden society. Aria bit her lip, no one had bowed to her since she had met King Cailen that short moment before all hell broke loose at Ostagar. She held up a hand.
"Please, uh…You do not need to bow." She stressed and the man lifted his head, unsure. It was a humble expression and she had to wonder if he treated all people like this, and not just the ones he held in high regard. It was a gesture she both wanted to see targeted at her not just by other mage's at the tower that had been impressed by her mastery of her talents when she was still young, but by others in general. It was a heavy feeling in her stomach that she realized it took her becoming a 'respectable' Grey Warden to get it. But it would have to do despite her not feeling as though she had done anything meaningful as a Warden beside not die.
"Forgive me, I admit, I do not know what to do or how to call an elven woman of your standing. I do not wish to insult the Grey Warden who agreed to help us in our time of need." He admitted. And Aria had to admire the honesty the man showed her.
"I will simply accept you calling me Aria, I may be a Warden, but I require no special treatment, simply talk to me as you would anyone else." She said with a nod and she could clearly see the man's shoulders sag in relief. The tense and questionable soldiers around them also seemed to accept what she had said, holding their heads just a little higher and backs a little straighter at the assumed 'Leader' of her ragtag pack. The elf smiled grimly up at Alistair as he nudged her with an elbow. The twinkle in his eye seemed to be perfectly on board with following her lead in this
"Then you may call me Sir Perth, I am the commander of these men." The Captain greeted at attention and Aria had to crane her head up to look at him as he spoke.
"Getting to the point…ahem Aria," the knight cleared his throat as he spoke her name without a given title, the men around them cracked smiles and some snickered in a good natured way as Perth scratched the side of his nose in what must have been a nervous habit. Aria nodded her head as a sign to go on. Whatever could be the matter with calling her by her given name?
Alistair leaned down to murmur jokingly in her ear as the Captain muttered words under his breath.
"Sir Perth is not very good at being 'casual'." He explained. Aria's lips twitched as she tried not to snort.
"Whatever for? It's just calling me by my name instead of 'elf', 'mage', or some other gods awful slur." She whispered back before Sir Perth coughed again to catch their attention and start speaking of stretching out the few knights they still had at their disposal. There were roughly a dozen fully armored and trained men at their flanks, listening to their Captain's words as they spoke strategy.
They would have to be spread out between the main road out of Redcliff towards the stone bridge connecting their closed off town to the castle on a neighboring hilly outcrop, to the docks, to guarding the Chantry where the civilians that couldn't fight would be taking shelter.
Aria agreed that whoever she was not bringing to the front lines, that is to say, the main road, should be stationed where she thought was best.
In the end, Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan were to fight with her, the women knew just how to slow and cripple the undead and keep them open for the townsmen to slaughter the creatures. Though she was sure Sir Perth and his few men and Alistair would be doing most of the slaughtering. She expected to be doing much of the destruction against their enemies as well, she, out of her and Morrigan, was far more apt at causing more physical pain against their enemies than the witch was.
She was sure there was some sort of ironic joke to be made that the least confrontational of the two mages was more apt at burning her foes alive or making them explode from the inside out with a magical bomb that could be thrust into her victims body without them being none the wiser. The elf grimaced at her own train of thought. Her teachers at the Circle had been…of the gruesomely morbid sort. They had wanted to teach Aria all sorts of disgusting, painfully violent spells that would have her in tears by the time her lessons were over. She was both thankful and loathsome of them though in the long run. They taught her everything she knew. And what she knew, was how to destroy her opponents with fire, electricity, and using their bodies against them, no matter how shameful or disgusted with herself the gore made her feel.
Aria shook her head free of her branching train of thought and pointed at the crudely drawn map of the town. The Chantry was where she would place Sten and her mabari, Uthnehn. Protecting the few civilians that still populated the town was more important than the stores or homes right now.
The soldiers agreed then promptly separated into their groups to get into their positions. Aria looked up at the sky just as the sun began dipping into the shadows and the clouds overhead became an ominous, almost black, grey.
It was the calm before the storm. Redcliff was deathly silent as the townsmen and Aria's party stood, tight lipped and heads craned upwards towards the blacked silhouette of the bridge that extended across one side of the valley the castle was situated in to the other where the town lay. The bonfires built in key locations around the town to keep the darkness of the night at bay crackled and popped faintly as Leliana and Morrigan glanced between each other from where they were posted at the main road.
Alistair cracked his knuckles up front with the rest of the knights that made a wall of steel and muscle that she and Morrigan stood behind as the witch prepped her debilitating spells and behind the duo of mage's Leliana had the archers at the ready with their bows drawn and an arrow in their hands.
Aria could feel the radiating heat from the torches lit around the clearing they were stationed at. She waited, as the rest, on the balls of her feet. Hoping beyond all hope that she, her friends, and these people all got out alive.
There was a loud gasp from one of the archers in line on Leliana's command. Everyone turned their heads to focus on the silhouette of the bridge as the men around her murmured darkly. The tension in the air as thick as Alistair's weird oat gruel that no one liked. There were the sounds of metal scrapping as swords were pulled from their sheaths as many of the men on the main road quivered in their boot. The archers had a look of nervous fear so clear upon their faces that the elf had to turn away to watch the encroaching storm of footsteps and garish moans that steadily got louder the closer the creatures from the castle got to their side of the valley.
Already she could hear the frantic cry of the sentries shouting from their posts.
"They're coming!"
"Get ready!"
From the lead position, Sir Perth called for the barricades to be set aflame as the rumble of enough footsteps to assume a small militia was charging towards them by the sound.
The sharp, pungent stench of oil and fire filled the already dank air of the tormented town as Aria lifted her staff and sent her magic across the clearing and through the men around her. The energy was bright, reddish-orange and in moments the blades of every knight was enchanted with an unnatural fire that would burn no one but their enemies. A few of the younger men yelped at the enchantment, unsure how to handle the fact their swords were on fire. Aria ignored them for eying further down the path that veered off in either the direction towards the castle bridge, or the kings road.
Through the smoke rising from their burning defenses the elf could see the shifting of bodies, thin yet bulky all at once.
From the back lines, Leliana prepared her archers, they drew back their bows, arrows aimed right for the path as the creatures gave tortures battle cries that set Aria's nervous heart beating in frenzy.
They burst through the flames, brandishing their rusty swords and shields, gaping mouth opened, showing rotten and missing teeth. Their leathers were ripped and worn, as if they died in it, some wore rags and skirts of civilians that burned away to reveal their emaciated bodies underneath. Brown, decomposing skin dangled from those protruding ribs and skinny arms.
The stench of the fire was no match for the overwhelming, sickening odor of death and Aria had to swallow back the urge to be sick as the burning, animated corpses began slipping through the knights' ranks into her and Morrigan's view.
Aria wordlessly aided the fire steadily burning the corpses to death—for good. Red hot claws of fire spewed from the top of her staff as she herded the stragglers into the archer's path. They littered the creatures with arrows until they would collapse.
It became a pattern. The knights and Alistair attack, Aria and Morrigan disable the ones that slip through, the archers finish them off.
But then there was a pained cry and a few of the Redcliff knights went down, more than a dozen of the undead that just kept swarming the clearing broke through and Aria had barely enough time to erect a shield as a group of corpses pelted her protection with their weapons. She could hear the shrieks of other men in the distance as the numbers of their foes seem to double in the span of a few seconds as the knights formation crumbled in light of trying to hold the brunt of the numbers back. Yet it was to no avail and the first archer was cut down in a bloody display of blood and gore as his stomach was sliced open with the monster's jagged blade.
The elf squeeze her eyes shut in attempt to concentrate, but the image remained in her mind's eye and she choked on spit. In her brief moment of distraction, the shield that protected her from blows shattered and she was on her knees with her staff above her as a blade connected. She stared, wide eyed at the realization the blade had dug into the wooden part of her staff and not the bit of metal that kept the intricate top from breaking off. She shuffled out of the way just as the wood gave in and splintered, leaving the weapon that would have killed her to sink into the mud at their feet and her without a thing to channel the Fade.
Morrigan wasn't doing much better though; the only thing keeping her opponents away was the ice that encased their feet before her entire body changed to that of a bear before she lopped off their heads with a powerful swipe from her paws.
Stunning the creatures with a mind blast, Aria made a hasty retreat in order to scan the field of battle for something she could use. She skirted around the knights and their enchanted swords and blasted a monster back if it got to close. Leliana whacked one of the undead with the edge of her bow to give herself enough time to pull out a dagger she had kept secure around her thigh before stabbing her felled enemy. Alistair was near her, shield bashing a pair of the undead to leave them open to end them with a powerful swipe of his own burning blade.
Stepping over a fallen knight to avoid an attack on her side the elf raised her hands to create a path of fire that trapped the monsters closing in on her and Alistair who was only able to spare her a passing glance to make sure she wasn't dead. However, in the wake of all the blood, sweat, and stench she was unaware of the other body behind her, the mage's shriek as something grabbed onto her ankle and tripped her up was swallowed by the rage of tortured groans and metal connecting with metal.
Aria landed hard on the ground. Rolling away just in time before a leather boot kicked her head. She scrabbled to get back to her feet in the midst of battle, but the grip on her ankle was strong. Looking to her foot, she was met with the threatening, gaping maw of one of the undead. Its body had been cut in half and she could see the brown and maggoty intestines trailing after its severed torso which had her in its grasp. Her brown eyes pricked with the warning of over emotional tears.
Biting back any sob that could easily overwhelm her, the mage retracted a painful pulse of magic that stunned the monster into slackening its grip. Kicking the head with a sickening, squishy crack as the weakened bones shattered at her kick. The body moved no more once it fell and Aria took that chance to get to her knees just as another of the undead spotted her and charged, weapon raised.
Her breathing was heavy, and her throat dry, Aria had no energy to spar in erecting a shield. She dived for the ground, as she turned; she was so sure she could hear Alistair and Leliana shout for her. However, she was lost to the crowd of fire and death and reached out behind her for anything to defend herself to the next attack.
What her gloved hand clenched was cold and heavy, but in the midst of her panic as the next blow came barreling on towards her head it felt as light as a feather. In her tight grip, Aria cried out, pulling to object out to block the attack with a sharp kiss of rusted metal and newly polished. Grunting at the force it took to hold the opponent at bay with the sword she had picked up was just enough distraction for an arrow to pierce the skull of her foe and drop permanently dead.
Leliana was there in an instant, eyes scanning for more threats that the knights were handling now that the numbers were actually dropping. She held out a hand for the elf to take. Taking it gratefully, the archer helped her up, dusting the dirt and grime from her bottom.
The mage looked at the sword her hand stubbornly held onto, her grip didn't lessen, she didn't let it before finding just enough energy in herself to enchant the blade into taking a shimmery silver outline. Turning back to Leliana who watched with a curiously tilted eyebrow led her back to Alistair and Morrigan as they took the dwindling numbers as a good sign to take a breather as the knights cut down the last round of undead.
Morrigan turned to her with an indifferent expression as she eyed the sword in her grasp.
"Taking up swordsmanship Little Warden?" the witch crooned with very obvious amusement in her tone. Aris smiled and shrugged.
"My staff got destroyed during the fighting, this was the first thing I could grasp before I was almost beheaded." She explained.
"Isn't it heavy?" Leliana fretted as she eyed the one hand she held the shining sword with. It had a broad blade to it and as Aria eyed the weapon and held it out with her hand she amazed herself by realizing that no. No, it wasn't heavy at all.
"Not really, it feels quite light, kind of natural actually. More so than staves, I don't like staves."
"Don't like staves? You're a mage and you don't like staves?" Alistair shook his head as he eyed the short elf handle the sword carefully, giving it the occasional shallow swing. Aria shrugged as a response.
"You don't technically need to use one at the Tower unless it's to channel your magic into a stronger version of itself. However, it doesn't technically need to be a staff per say." She explained.
"I read once, that the ancient elves were able to channel their magic into swords and often fought wielding both during their fall out with the ones who worshiped their Andraste."
"So, you going to keep it?" Alistair pointed to it. Aria nodded.
"I kind of like how it feels." She justified as the cheering of the men and women of Redcliff filtered through the early morning darkness. They had survived another night with the bodies of the risen dead outnumbering those that were once living.
The four watched on as the men around them hugged and cheered, thanking them profusely as they gathered their dead.
With the sun rising higher into mid-morning after the battle to take back the town for its inhabitants, Teagan was adamant that Aria and her followers be given a sufficient time to unwind and rest after such arduous activities.
The elf had made a beeline towards the wash basins inside one of the secluded back rooms of the chantry. Lead by thankful women who warmed her water despite telling them there was no need to fret over her when she could just as easily light a harmless fire from her palms to warm it. She was also overly embarrassed and flabbergasted when a few of the women who usually worked in the castle tried to undo her robes for her. She had drawn the line before even the buckles to the fur lined shoulder guards and pushed the women out the door as the other women she traveled with squeezed inside the space to snag the other basins scattered through the room.
When Aria finally did get to sink into the hot waters to let the soot and grime wash off her body only then did she let out the longest, loudest sigh that had ever escaped her lips.
Closing her eyes to the slight sting of too hot water, warmed by her magic, the mage went through her thoughts at a rapid fire pace. Trying desperately to make sense of everything that was leading her through this…whatever it was.
She had just experienced another large scale battle; the deaths of the knights, a few townsmen, and the mayor were inevitable deaths. She had no skill to save them all. Yet it still hurt. The gripping pain in her chest, not unlike the one when she realized Ostagar was lost.
Leliana at one point during their baths had decided comfortable silence was too awkward for her and began humming the melody of some tavern song or other. And neither Aria or Morrigan really had it in them to tell her to leave them in silence as the women scrubbed their hair and bodies with the soaps that smelled of Andraste's Grace and elderberry.
After rest and a few words of success from Teagan there was food. Aria's stomach growled like a beast three times her size at the skewered beef from cattle that had been taken out in the first couple nights of terror. Just as it was with all Fereldan delicacies, very few herbs were used to distract from the natural taste of wheat and fat, except for a hardy spice. There were boiled eggs and chicken cooked right on the coals of fires sprinkled with sage and salt. Ale was brought out, as was juices of the occasional exotic fruits trading had gifted the town with.
There was of course, still oats and porridge, but it fared far better in taste than either she or Alistair could ever wish to make. Their feast was served on wooden plates, fingers the utensils and that was fine, it was the best meal the mage had ever had in a long time as she tipped the bowl of oats boiled in creams with nuts and apples.
Aria hated apples, but she couldn't quite make herself refuse it when one of the children that liked to cling to her borrowed tunic passed it to her with a grin.
Everyone had piled into the chantry, outside it smelled of oil and rot and looked as such. No one complained.
Looking to around her in the cramped front hall of the Chantry, her companions had all noticeably shed their armor, and most of the dresses or trousers they currently wore were borrowed from the locals as their usual attire had been confiscated to be washed by a few giggling who were chambermaids of the castle who were on break at the time of the attacks.
None seemed to mind, though Sten looked like his broad shoulders and threatening muscle mass would tear through his tunic.
The morning was spend like that, eating together with the strange people she had found herself with, surrounded by good food and a thankful town she had yet to fully fix. The strange happenings in the castle and the Arl himself was still looming over them. But for now, all was well.