By Gods Forsaken

by inwardtransience

One day, the shadows will part, and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see. (How do you do a summary for something this big? Total retelling, Mahariel!Warden, mage!Hawke, Dreamer!Trevelyan!Inquisitor, worldbuilding, too many OCs, serious plot edits, primarily F/F.)

4. Ostagar — III

9:30 Nubulis 6

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

---

The Joining turned out to be far more grisly than Marian would ever have guessed.

The morning after their return to Ostagar, Duncan found Marian and Alim at the cookfires, drew them away to help prepare the initiation for the new Wardens. He led them toward the back of the crumbling fortress, far from the activity of the King's encampment, beyond even the Circle pavilion — which was essentially the outside edge of the camp, since they'd put the mages as far from the King and his guards as possible — to a little platform hanging over the ravine, facing north and east. On a crumbling altar were a small collection of goblets, the vials of darkspawn blood they'd collected in the Wilds, a few glass bottles.

After a moment, Marian noticed the shape of the room, marked out by the mostly-crumbled walls, was more or less hexagonal, the lower frame of the windows hinting at the Chantry sunburst. This must have been a chapel, once upon a time.

Duncan explained that there was a potion that each Grey Warden drank upon their initiation, the formulation passed down one generation to the next, ever since the First Blight over a thousand years ago. It took magic to prepare, though the magic required was very simple, even the meanest mage could do it — gathering the materials was much more difficult. The common herbs, elfroot and prophet's laurel, weren't hard to come by, and lyrium water was rarer, obviously, but always available to those who had the gold.

One ingredient, there was only one place to get it: in their lands in the Anderfels, the Wardens grew dragonthorn and Silent Plains roses, brewed a liquor made from the berries of the former and the buds of the latter. (Not a drinkable liquor, the process of making it was just similar.) Technically, each Warden-Captain, Warden-Lieutenant, and Warden-Constable was supposed to carry a small bottle with them at all times, the supply managed by the Commander of the Grey.

Due to the rather sorry state of the Wardens in Ferelden, Duncan was currently acting as Commander, their sole Captain, and their sole Constable, and while he was grooming a few Lieutenants none had been officially promoted yet — he was the only person who had any of the stuff in the entire country.

The final ingredient was, of course, darkspawn blood. Marian had assumed it must be, when Duncan had implied gathering darkspawn blood was necessary for the newcomers' initiation she'd thought that was the obvious conclusion. Alim, though, apparently hadn't put that together. His lips curling in disgust, eyes narrowed with doubt, he asked if they were really going to be doing blood magic, how that could be in any way acceptable.

Duncan gave the elven mage a stern look (which he immediately softened when Alim cringed a little), and said simply, "The Wardens oppose the Blight, by any means necessary." Which, Marian could have told him that, they were sort of infamous for not giving a damn.

Not that Marian thought it was that big of a deal. She understood Alim might not know this, she didn't think the Circle really taught these things — especially since Alim had said he'd just gotten through his Harrowing before being conscripted, he likely hadn't had access to restricted texts — but there were multiple different kinds of blood magic, and some were far less horrifying than others. According to Dad, there were two kinds of blood magic, which he referred to as sacrificial and sympathetic, but when a Circle mage said blood magic they mostly meant the sacrificial kind.

Sacrificial blood magic itself came in two types, differentiated by what kind of sacrifice they were talking about. A mage could spill someone else's blood, use the energy of their life to perform some kind of magic — either to augment the power of their spells directly, or to attract the attention of a demon and trade that life energy for a favour. Old Tevinter was infamous for doing this kind of thing all the time, and at horrifying scales, but it was illegal even there these days. (It still happened, of course, but anyone who was caught doing it was immediately executed — without even a trial or anything, they were considered too dangerous to be allowed to live.) Dad said this kind of magic was not only morally reprehensible, but was also very dangerous, due to the attention it often attracted from demons. At least, sacrificing people like this was dangerous, doing it with animals was mostly safe (and also legal in Tevinter and a couple other place in the north).

Mostly safe. Sort of.

The other kind of sacrificial magic was for the mage to spill their own blood, to augment the power of their spells or to offer in trade to a demon. The latter was obviously suicidally stupid, but Dad didn't recommend doing the former either. It wasn't dangerous in the same way dealing with demons was, but to get anything out of it the mage would need to seriously weaken themselves — that's how the magic worked, the power you got out of it was tied to how much strength was sacrificed — so it was almost never actually worth it. Maybe in an emergency as a desperate last-ditch effort where you were about to die anyway, but most of the time, no.

Though, Dad had actually taught her both kinds, just in case. She did not like spilling her own blood as a sacrifice — drawing on her own life to fuel a spell was, just, viscerally terrifying, she couldn't even really explain how. The other kind, they'd caught a few rats to use, enough to do a few practice spells (after which they'd never touched the stuff again). That had just been messy. And also kind of...unsettling? She meant, she'd been able to feel them die, which was just unnerving, it wasn't something she'd ever do again if she could help it.

The other kind of blood magic, the sympathetic kind, that stuff could also be pretty scary. Basically, the blood of something or someone was, on a magical level, still considered part of them, no matter how far it got away from their body, and a person could exploit that connection in various ways. Like, if you had a vial of someone's blood, there were horrible curses you could do, though that wasn't enough of a danger to really worry about — if the blood dried at any point, it was dead and couldn't be used anymore, so it didn't matter if you bled a few drops here or there, nobody could use that. Getting someone's blood to use was so impractical it wasn't really a danger.

Though, it was possible to use your own blood to influence someone, if you could get it inside of them. Put a few drops in a drink, and you can pretty much make anyone say or think or do whatever you want. Dad had recommended she never accept a drink from anyone she didn't trust for this very reason. (Even if they weren't a mage themselves, they could be working with one.) He'd even taught her how to do it herself, just in case. He'd used the example of, if she was being raped — by a Templar, he meant, which apparently happened in Circles often enough he'd been all too aware of it — bite down on her cheek or something until she bled, or just try to get herself hit in the teeth hard enough, then spit her own blood in his face and dominate his mind. Which, Maker's breath, Dad, that was one hell of a conversation for a nine-year-old girl to have with her father...

Though, as unpleasant as it'd been, she understood why he'd felt the need to do it. She hadn't taught Bethany any sacrificial blood magic, or even mentioned it as anything more than the bad blood magic nobody should ever do, but she had taught her the sympathetic kind, complete with that same example. Just in case. (She'd waited until Bethany had been thirteen, though, because holy shit, Dad, she hadn't even known what rape was yet, so he'd had to explain that too — that conversation, just, Maker...)

The really scary thing about blood magic was potentially attracting demons, resulting in abominations and the like, but the sympathetic kind didn't attract demons at all. And Marian was pretty sure the Joining was sympathetic blood magic. It had been very obvious that Lýna and Alistair could feel the presence of darkspawn somehow, and were also stronger and quicker than people of their size should be. Marian guessed they were tapping into the magic of the Blight somehow — that was sort of a scary thought all by itself, the magic of the Blight felt vile. But she didn't think thi was particularly dangerous.

Well, no more dangerous than darkspawn blood was to begin with, she guessed. That shit was poison, after all — the Silent Plains, the Anderfels, the Western Approach...

Duncan talked Alim down without too much trouble, and, after extracting another round of promises from Marian that she wouldn't share secrets of the Order with outsiders — Duncan fully expected he'd end up recruiting her eventually anyway, so he didn't tend to make a big deal about it — they got down to actually making the potion. Shredding up the leaves of the herbs, dissolving them in the lyrium, mixing in a few drops of the liquor, and then pouring in the vial of darkspawn blood, a whole vial in each waiting goblet — one each for Alim, Keran, Jory, Bron, Perry, and Daveth, six total. A quick flash of lightning into each goblet, and they were done.

Peering into the steaming, black fluid in one of the goblets, rainbow sparks flickering over its surface, Marian shook her head. Wow, it even looked poisonous, like a magic sort of poisonous. Poor bastards.

A few minutes later, the rest of the initiates arrived, led by Lýna and Alistair. She didn't think it was her imagination, she thought both of the full Wardens looked rather more solemn than usual. The difference was much more obvious in Alistair, but she thought even Lýna looked somewhat more tense, her eyes sharper. With a few gestures, Duncan and Alistair guided the initiates, including Alim, into a semi-circle facing the altar. Lýna stepped a bit to the side, setting down her bow and her quiver and her sword, whipping off her cloak, and then peeling off her gloves and even her boots, leaving her standing barefoot on the ancient stone.

Marian frowned, glancing between Lýna and the other Wardens. They weren't removing their weapons or anything, just Lýna, for some reason. A Dalish cultural thing, maybe? Lýna did do some sort of weird things sometimes, seemed like a good guess.

"At last," Duncan said, his voice low and soft, "we come to the Joining. When you came to us, you were knights, servants, mages of the Circle, thieves or murderers. Humans and elves. Some of you came to us, volunteered for service, others came because you had nowhere else to go, some of you were snatched off of the gallows. Who you were, where you came from, it doesn't matter now.

"You are no longer knights, you are no longer servants, you are no longer mages of the Circle — though you may yet thieve and murder," Duncan said, a sliver of humor on his voice; Alistair next to him rolled his eyes, Keran and Jory looked almost scandalized, Alim and Daveth giggled. "Starting today, you are Grey Wardens. That is all that matters, to me, to your brothers and sisters, and to the rest of the world.

"Our Order was founded during the First Blight." Duncan nodded at Lýna, who stepped forward with silent elven grace, started handing out the goblets to the initiates, one by one. "The peoples of the world had fought the darkspawn hordes for more than a century, with no end in sight. Entire nations had been killed, swallowed up by the Blight, their lands poisoned, plagued with mutated monstrosities. Generations were born, lived, and died under the Black Sky, sick and weak and hopeless. Surely, they believed, they were living in the end of days.

"Until we came. From all over the world, soldiers, scholars, and mages came together. Instead of simply fighting their foe, they studied it, to find patterns, tendencies, weaknesses. In time, they developed a weapon, a secret kept by the Order all these centuries. With this weapon, they beat back the Blight, killed the archdemon, and returned life to the land. But they did not lay down their arms, because they knew that was not the end, they knew the Blight would return. And so they waited, honing their weapon until the day came to use it again. Today, you learn that secret, and take up our weapon for yourselves.

"Every Grey Warden drinks of darkspawn blood, and by the use of old magics comes to master its taint. We draw from it the strength to fight the Blight — toe to toe, blade to blade, blood to blood."

None of the initiates looked particularly pleased about that. They looked into their goblets, giving the potion there suspicious looks, glanced among each other, seemingly waiting for someone else to speak first.

It ended up being Alistair. "The potion gives every Grey Warden immunity from Blight sickness, and even acts as a sort of cure for those already tainted." The fear on Perry's face lessened somewhat, now looking more curious — it was still very early, but they were certain Perry had been infected during their trip into the Wilds, he'd be dead in six months anyway. "The power we draw from the Blight makes us stronger, and harder, and faster. Through it, we can sense and track darkspawn, and even slay the archdemon itself, a feat no one but a Warden has ever matched."

"This is our secret, our strength, and our sacrifice. Not all who attempt the Joining survive, and those who do are forever changed. This is the price we pay to shield all the peoples of this world."

"Those who survive?" That was Jory, eyes wide with horror. "You mean this can kill you?"

Daveth next to him scowled. "Of course it can, you big damn ponce, it's darkspawn blood." He scoffed. "One way or the other, innit? Die by the blade of a Blighter, die when the taint gets into the food, die right now trying to kick its ass — what difference does it make?"

"But I... There is no glory in this."

"Glory." That was Lýna, but Marian almost didn't recognize her voice — elven voices were normally thin and high and soft, but the disdainful growl she'd put into it, it didn't sound like her at all. "War is no glory, ljèma õ fasethĩ dy-śẽvh."

Marian didn't speak elvish, but she had the feeling Lýna had just called Jory a stupid cunt, to his face. Which was kind of funny, because she was a tiny little girl and he was a knight in armor, he had to be twice her age and three times her size.

"Is it glory, when your lords make war, kill not each other, they make all on their lands kill theirs — burn villages, kill all there? You think it glory, your Exalted March? Break towns, rape women, kill children, kill a People, make them stand never new? You think it glory? No. War is no glory, boy. Glory live only in stories. War is blood, war is fire, war is death. You wear blade, you are no child, this you must know!"

Surprisingly, Jory actually looked chastened, cringing away from Lýna as she lectured him in broken Alamarri, eyes turned down to the floor, pink and shame-faced. Not that Marian could blame him, she wouldn't want to be yelled at by Lýna either — that girl could be seriously scary sometimes. Of course, a lot of the stories and songs he'd probably grown up with would have been set during the Exalted March on the Dales, so she also just had a good point. "I'm sorry, Warden, I... I didn't mean it like that."

Lýna sniffed in clear disbelief, but dropped it.

(...Now that Marian thought about it, how did the Dalish take the way people tended to talk about the Exalted March on the Dales? Not well, she'd wager. No wonder Dalish were so suspicious of humans, bragging about destroying the elven homeland had been part of their culture for centuries...)

Duncan didn't comment on the byplay, just waited for them to finish before moving on. "We speak a few words before every Joining, a litany passed down from one generation to the next, all the way back to the beginning. Traditionally, it is the most junior Warden who thus speaks. Lýna Maharjeᶅ," he said, nodding, "welcome them."

"Join us, brothers and sisters." Lýna didn't stand in one spot in front of the initiates, as Duncan was. Instead she walked among them, slowly drifting between and around them, touching one on the elbow here or there. "Join us in the shadows where we stand, vigilant." The words came slightly awkward, stilted, she'd clearly taken care to memorize it. "Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn."

It could be her imagination, but Marian thought Lýna shot Jory a heavy look with that one. It probably was just her imagination — she kind of doubted Lýna even knew what "forsworn" meant.

"Should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And one day, we shall join you." Lýna had come around back to the front now, came to a stop facing them. "In war, victory; in peace, vigilance..."

She raised both hands, palm up. The initiates took that as an order to drink which, somewhat to Marian's surprise, they all did. Some rather more reluctantly than the others, fear practically dripping off of them, but none of them hardly even hesitated. She was kind of impressed, honestly.

"...in death, sacrifice."

For a moment, there was silence. But only for a moment.

Alim let out a soft choking sort of noise, before toppling boneless to the ground — his reaction was the least dramatic. Keran and Perry and Daveth cringed, let out gasps and cries of pain, falling to their knees and clutching at their heads. After a few moments, pained breaths drawn through gritted teeth, they collapsed too, but weren't so still and quiet as Alim, twitching and moaning.

The other two were horrible. Jory let out a blood-curdling scream, reeling and clawing at his ears, while Bron fell to his knees, shivering and crying. Bron pitched forward and puked, thick black and red, then heaved again, bleeding out of his ears and his eyes, and then a third time, a harsh rattle wrung out of him, before he fell to the floor, covered in red and black smears, obviously dead.

Jory whirled back around, also bleeding from ears and eyes, but his eyes had gone black, the taint spreading in dark lines under his skin, still wailing and keening, ear-splitting, his shaking hand went to the grip of his sword—

And then, in a blink, Lýna was there, the odd greenish-black blade of her dagger vanishing into Jory's stomach up to the hilt. Jory fell to his knees, Lýna stepped out of the way, blood splashing onto the tile, and then she was standing behind him, lifted her dagger above her head with both hands before driving it down into the back of Jory's neck. The inhuman screaming cut off instantly, and he fell, dead.

Calmly and methodically, her face perfectly blank, Lýna wiped the blade clean on Jory's trousers before returning it to its sheath.

"Maker..."

"I think Alim will make it." Duncan had moved, was crouching over Alim, one gloveless hand resting on the elf's chest. He was frowning, his eyes unfocused. Nodding, "Yes, he'll be fine. Alistair."

"Commander." Alistair's voice was quiet and solemn, uncharacteristically so — also, he'd just actually used Duncan's title, Marian had never heard him use it before. He bent over and, gently, scooped up the elf, stood with him cradled in his arms. Marian had known Alim was a small man, she'd noticed elves tended to be, but he had so much energy, always bouncing around and laughing. Now he looked absolutely tiny, weak and helpless, Alistair carried him as easily as he might a child, down out of the old chapel. He laid him out on a waiting bedroll, pulled the blanket up to his chin — he pushed the hair back off Alim's brow, the gesture weirdly gentle, for Alistair.

"Marian, come here. I could use your help."

She jumped, turned to Duncan. He was kneeling over Daveth, who had gotten worse since last she'd looked, shaking against the stone of the floor. Duncan was trying to hold the younger man in place, his jaw clenched and his face tight with frustration. "I'm not much of a healer," she said, though she approached anyway, kneeling next to him.

"You don't need to be. You can feel the magic of the taint?"

"Yes." Of course she could, it was fucking disgusting, like decay but ten times worse.

Duncan nodded. "Push it down. Hurry."

It turned out, what Duncan wanted from her wasn't particularly difficult. Closer to Daveth now, she could feel the vile magic rising in him, climbing and crawling like fire, she could contain it, surround it and squelch it down. She couldn't snuff it out entirely, no, but she could hold it back, for at least a little bit. Like tamping down a fever, but it kept bucking and resisting, much more difficult to keep it controlled.

Keran was moved over to the bedrolls while Marian struggled against the rising taint — at least two of them would make it. But Daveth was getting worse. The Blight was pushing against her harder and harder, harsh and cruel and unyielding, Marian leaned into it as hard as she could, her muscles twitching and sparks dancing in her eyes, but she couldn't hold onto it, it pushed, it jerked, she slipped—

A thick, black fluid started leaking out of Daveth's mouth, mixing with the blood from his nose and his ears. And then he coughed, tainted spittle spraying into the air, Marian flung herself back on instinct, magically pushing the cursed droplets away, and Daveth was vomiting a stream of black-streaked blood—

"Shit! I'm sorry, I didn't, I can't—" Marian reached for him again, but he was a mess of hard edges, she couldn't feel out where Daveth ended and the Blight began.

"He's gone," Duncan said, flat but soft. And so he was — with a last strained convulsion, Daveth went still, as dead as the others. "It's all right, Marian. Sometimes, there's simply nothing you can do. Come, Perry might yet make it."

Kneeling on the hard, cold stone, her eyes squeezed shut in furious concentration, Marian fought the Blight again. It was a hard, slow struggle — it would gain an inch, Marian would push it back, she would gain an inch, only to be pushed back again, back and forth and back and forth, no obvious progress being made in either direction. Absorbed in their silent contest, Marian entirely lost track of time.

Eventually, she didn't know how long later, the magic of the Blight in Perry started to... it was difficult to explain, exactly. Like a lake starting to ice at the approach of winter, crystallizing in the middle and gradually spreading toward the edges. The evil magic didn't go away, but it froze in its place within Perry, still alive but contained — for the moment.

She kept pushing until the last bit of it stilled, and finally relaxed. She sat back, gingerly, her legs stiff and aching, her knees flaring with pain. "He made it." Her voice came out strained and hoarse, and Marian suddenly realized she was very thirsty.

"He did." She couldn't see him, her vision too blurry at the moment, but that was Duncan's voice. "That was very well done, Marian. Thank you."

Marian's throat was dry and sore enough she didn't feel like trying to speak again. She just nodded.

Her vision cleared up over the next few minutes, the shivering exhaustion in her limbs gradually fading away. It didn't really feel like she'd nearly burned out but, when she thought about it, she probably hadn't been in danger of that — burn-out was usually a consequence of casting a big spell, or holding for too long something that pulled magic from her quicker than she could pull from the Fade. She didn't think...whatever she'd been doing to Perry had actually taken that much magic, probably a tiny trickle. She'd just been actively focusing a spell for some time, constantly, without taking a break even for a couple seconds.

Stretching her legs a bit, trying not to wince as her calves throbbed in protest, Marian looked up at the sky. It felt like she'd been working on Perry for hours, but it couldn't have really been that long. Though...the sun was rather higher in the sky than she remembered it being. It had to be nearly midday already. So. Not hours, but maybe an hour.

Which was completely absurd. Most things she did with magic didn't require more than ten seconds to cast. Spell effects might last a lot longer than that, yes, but putting the spell in place usually only took a few seconds of active effort. No wonder she was so tired.

In fact, she kind of felt like she could use a nap. She was having a little trouble keeping her eyes open...

(That little shit better be grateful when he wakes up, focusing magic for however fucking long like that, Marian was lucky she hadn't given herself an aneurysm or something.)

She twitched at a light touch on her shoulder, looked up— "Oh, Lyna." Marian hadn't been paying attention to what was going on around her. They'd tucked Perry in with the others, and the bodies had been moved, leaving streaks of taint-flecked blood behind. Duncan and Alistair were a short distance away, packing the potions supplies and discussing something, and Lýna was leaning over her, holding out a wineskin.

Oh. Yes. Water sounded great. Marian took several gulps from the thing, a little leaking out and trailing across her cheek and down her neck. Twisting it closed again, she made to hand it back, but Lýna, sitting next to her now, didn't reach for it. Okay, just going to hold on to this then, she guessed. "Thanks."

Lýna nodded. She didn't respond otherwise, silently staring at the bloodstains in the middle of the old chapel, face almost eerily still and blank.

After a couple moments of silence, and a couple more gulps of water, Marian was starting to feel vaguely uncomfortable. "So. That was...intense. Is it always like that?"

A few more seconds passed, enough that Marian wondered if Lýna had even heard her at all, before she finally moved. "I don't know. When I..." Lýna trailed off for a moment, the tip of her tongue tracing her upper teeth. "It was me, alone. This is new, for me."

Right, Marian had been vaguely aware of that — Lýna had mentioned something once about getting sick, Duncan coming by, though she hadn't said much more than that. It sounded like she'd joined the Wardens in exchange for not dying a slow, horrible death from Blight sickness, which was perfectly understandable, really. "You okay?"

Lýna's kind-of-not-quite-purple eyes flicked to hers, just for a second before looking away again. "Yes. It is... I learn. How the Wardens are, how I can live like them. I think, with that."

"Ah." She would say getting a taste of the creepy blood magic the Wardens apparently got up to, and how violent their lives were, might have gotten Lýna to take a step back and reconsider what she'd gotten herself into. But Marian very much doubted it. She remembered, when it had become clear that Jory was becoming a ghoul — very quickly, that shouldn't be possible, but blood magic — how Lýna hadn't hesitated for a second. This was someone she'd known, for at least a week or two now, someone she'd shared a camp with, fought with. And, when it had become necessary, she'd killed him — quickly, effortlessly, without the slightest hint of doubt or regret.

No, Marian didn't think this fiasco had weakened Lýna's resolve, not at all. If anything, she got the feeling it'd only shown Lýna she fit in with the Wardens more than she'd realized.

Which was a bit unsettling, but Lýna was kind of scary, and the Wardens in general seemed to be kind of scary, so really, that just made sense, didn't it?

A long silence fell upon them again. Lýna hadn't retrieved her cloak yet, leaving her rather more exposed than usual. Marian hadn't realized how form-fitting her trousers and vest were, smooth, pale leather, presumably Dalish-made. Of course, it was mostly covered up by scrounged bits of scale and plate fixed here and there, so it wasn't weird Marian might not have noticed before. Just, without the armor, if it were only the clothing underneath, that would be scandalous by the standards Marian was used to, her mother would have a fit if she went out to Lothering wearing anything that...revealing. Must be different with the Dalish.

And she wasn't wearing gloves, her arms below about her elbows bare, Marian had only seen her a handful of time without them. She was sitting with her feet planted on the ground, her knees bent, her arms resting on her knees just under the wrist, her hands hanging limp. Her wrists were too narrow, the base of her thumb taking up much less space than a human's, her fingers long and thin and delicate. They looked so fragile, but Marian knew Lýna could probably kill her with her bare hands if she wanted to (if Marian didn't have magic to stop her, anyway). Certainly couldn't guess that just looking.

Since she didn't have a hood over her head at the moment, Lýna's hair was flittering around a little bit, the light wind tugging bits of it this way and that. She still thought it was slightly weird how very white Lýna's hair was, not like in a bad way, she was just saying, human hair never looked like that. For a moment, Marian watched one lock rub back and forth against her cheek, a couple of the tiny flowers tattooed into her skin flicking in and out of view, before noticing how strands were almost constantly tracing the length of her ears — she wondered, did that ever tickle, a little? Marian thought that would be distracting. Maybe that was why Lýna usually wore a hood...

Hmm...

"Six to the Joining, and three survived."

Marian jumped at Duncan's voice, coming suddenly from far closer than she'd expected it, hard enough her breath caught and her boot scritched against the stone. She'd been staring at Lýna again, she hadn't noticed, how long had she been doing that, damn it...

"And three died. They didn't go easy, either."

"Death isn't easy, and it should never be. Half of the initiates making it through is...not as good as we might wish, but it can be much worse. I once witnessed a Joining where only one initiate out of fourteen survived to see the morning." Duncan, only a few steps away now, turned to Marian with a grim sort of smile on his face. "I wanted to thank you again, Marian. Your assistance over these last weeks has been much appreciated, and now Perry would be dead if not for you."

"Oh, um." Marian scrambled for words for a second, feeling unaccountably twitchy. And was she blushing, fuck, why was she blushing... "Ah, it's no problem. I'm glad to help." Grateful for the opportunity to keep an eye on her idiot brother, really... "I just wish, Daveth..."

"Don't let that trouble you too much. Even the most powerful, most talented of mages might not have been able to save him — sometimes, there is simply nothing anyone can do. All any of us can do is all that we can. And for that, the Grey Wardens owe you a debt."

"That's, ah..." She trailed off, watching how Alistair was glancing between Marian and Lýna, the corner of his lips curling. Fuck, had he caught Marian staring? Dammit. Knowing Alistair he was definitely going to be an ass about that. Marian really hoped she got all the teasing, she still had no intention of letting Lýna know, doing anything about it... "I mean, that's really not necessary, Commander. Covering my ass with the Templars is thanks enough."

And if this battle coming up went badly, hopefully she'd be able to snatch Carver out of here and cart him off back home in one piece. If she were being perfectly honest, she didn't actually care that much about the rest of it, the King and the army and the Wardens or whatever. She was here to look after her brother, the rest was secondary.

She'd probably spend a lot more time spying on him if this damn elf weren't so annoyingly distracting.

(She was so damn pretty, she just wanted to reach over and— Maker, what was wrong with her, focus, damn it...)

"Right!" scrambling up to her feet, "I am very tired, from all that stopping Perry from dying, so I'm going to go take a nap. Right now. Bye." Without waiting for a response, Marian stalked off in the direction of the Wardens' camp, putting the horror of the Joining and the distractions of Lýna and Alistair firmly behind her. And apparently she'd forgotten to give the wineskin back, oops, she guessed this was hers now.

The whole way, she pretended she couldn't feel Alistair's mocking eyes on her back. The smug bastard.

---

9:30 Nubulis 10

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

---

Alim watched the meeting in progress, trying to pretend he couldn't hear the Song.

The darkspawn were getting closer. And they were many.

Which was what King Cailan and Teyrn Loghain and their commanders and Duncan were discussing right this moment, he knew — the approaching darkspawn horde, and how exactly to arrange their forces to meet them. Alim wasn't part of this conversation, wasn't close enough to hear what was going on. The Teyrn wanted guards watching over their strategy session, to ward off possible darkspawn incursions or unwanted interruptions (or Orlesian spies, apparently, because the Teyrn was weirdly paranoid), and the King had suggested the Wardens fill the role. And so they were, watching over the big hats around their table, pairs of Wardens scattered in a circle around them.

Somehow, Alim had ended up paired with Perry...which he guessed did make a little sense. He had been a blacksmith's assistant before leaving for the Wardens — an assistant, not an apprentice, because having elven blacksmiths running around simply wouldn't do — so Perry didn't have the combat training most of the others did. He was almost certainly their weakest fighter at the moment. In fact, he was the only one of them who'd gotten injured at both of their little skirmishes out in the Wilds...but he'd also survived where two others hadn't, so he was skilled at not getting dead, if nothing else.

He was also not bad with a knife, and very sneaky — almost suspiciously sneaky. Alim suspected Perry had actually been a thief, and he was lying about the blacksmith's assistant thing (or maybe he'd also been that, who knows). Which, sure, whatever, he didn't care. Duncan had made a whole thing, both before and after their Joining, that it didn't matter where they'd come from and what they'd been before, they were Grey Wardens now. Besides, Perry had been an elf living in South Reach, it was very possible he'd taken to stealing because he hadn't any other choice, that he'd needed to to survive. Alim knew other people would still say he was responsible for his own choices, or whatever, but he personally thought the world was more complicated than that. (Alim doubted Jowan would have resorted to blood magic if he hadn't been in desperate fear for his life.) And, well, Duncan also liked to make the point that Wardens fought the Blight by any means necessary — who knows, maybe the skills of a thief ended up being very useful down the line.

Assuming they survived the battle, anyway. But if they didn't, whether Perry was a thief or not didn't really matter, did it?

So, if they were going to be put into pairs, putting their strongest asset — excluding Marian (debatably, it was a toss-up which of them was the better mage), who didn't really count, Alim was the only mage the Wardens had right now — with their weakest fighter just seemed like common sense. Even if part of Alim couldn't help wondering if Duncan had done it just because nobody else wanted to spend too much time with the shifty elf.

Because, they were the only elves in the Ferelden Wardens right now — Perry, Lýna, and Alim himself. There were the more senior Wardens Duncan had brought with him when he'd come to reform the Order in this country. They were all northerners like Duncan, Revainis and Antivans, and all human men. None of them spoke much Alamarri. The only other senior Warden wasn't at Ostagar, holding the fort back in Denerim. Riordan's parents were Ferelden — obviously, his name was Riordan — but he'd actually grown up in Jader. So, while he did speak fluent Alamarri, he had a noticeable Orlesian accent — according to Duncan, the Teyrn had accused Riordan of being an Orlesian spy more than once (because he was weirdly paranoid). He was back at the Wardens' lodge in Denerim, because politics.

The point was, none of the ones here spoke Alamarri, so they'd all been paired together. Since there were only six of them, that worked out.

Then, there were they junior Wardens — Alistair and Lýna less junior, and then the rest of them, Alim and Perry and Keran. Keran had been a member of the Denerim city guard, apparently, and was a more proper, knightly type. (Apparently, her father was a bann, though Alim didn't recognize the name.) So, she and Alistair got along, more than she did with most anyone else in their motley group, so they'd been put together. And Lýna was...

Well, honestly, Alim wasn't certain where Lýna was. The ruin of the building they were in did have a few crumbling columns stretching over their heads, like the bare ribs of some stone beast — maybe Lýna was up one of those, or hiding in a bush or something. She wasn't paired up with anyone, but they had an uneven number of Wardens, and nobody could sneak around quite as well as a Dalish hunter. She was probably more effective, keeping an eye on their surroundings without some clumsy human around to distract her.

And probably happier — Alim got the very clear feeling Lýna didn't like any of them very much. She'd probably avoid them all the time, if she could help it.

Or...he had gotten that feeling, before. He wasn't certain how much of that impression he'd gotten was actually the way Lýna felt about them, and how much was her being very Dalish and very foreign. (And also maybe traumatized a little — word had trickled through the Wardens that Lýna had been orphaned as a small child, and had already been widowed, which was ridiculous, she was what, maybe sixteen? He knew the Dalish expected their children to grow up fast, compared to civilized people, but come on...) Out in the Wilds, when Alim had dragged Marian back to the group after killing that fucking darkspawn mage (that thing, Maker...), she'd just stared at him, said, Oh, you're alive, all flat and cold in that way she had, and Alim had apparently read...something out of that that he no longer thought had actually been there. When Alim had joked that there was no reason to sound so disappointed they'd survived (only mostly joking), Lýna had seemed taken aback, confused and maybe slightly offended.

He'd been watching, since then, and he thought she was just... That she was quiet, and cold, and a little creepy, but she wasn't being a bitch on purpose? That she was just like that, she didn't mean anything by it. And, at the Joining, giving her whole welcome to the Wardens speech, she'd been being softer than usual, touching each of them, and...

Marian focused on her brutal execution of Jory, how she hadn't hesitated a blink — she was clearly horrified by the whole thing, but just as clearly still wanted her, which was hilarious (especially because she didn't realize Alim knew, they all knew, she wasn't that subtle) — but Alim rather thought Marian had missed the important part. Lýna had touched them, she'd touched all of them. She did all the time now, just little things, here and there. And she was Dalish.

Maybe Marian didn't know enough about the Dalish to pick up the significance of that. But Alim did.

He remembered particularly, it'd been a couple days ago now, he'd been sitting with the newer Wardens, talking about how...weird some of this Warden stuff was. And he'd mentioned the Song, and been a little confused when the rest of the Wardens had said they didn't hear music. They could feel the taint, of course, but they couldn't hear it, not really — at least, outside of their archdemon dreams, anyway (and holy shit, those were terrifying). Alim had been a little confused, but just brushed it off, maybe he was imagining it.

Lýna had sat down next to him, taking his hand, her fingers slipping between his. And she'd said, she heard the Song too, magic felt different to elves than it did to humans. (Which was something he was aware of, obviously, the Circle just didn't know very much about the magic of the Blight.) The archdemon was singing, through its connection to the darkspawn and the blood connecting the Wardens to them, calling to them. Don't listen to it. He couldn't help hearing it, of course, but don't. Listen.

And then Lýna had just gotten up, walking away again. The rest of the new Wardens had given him odd looks, asked what the hell was up with that, he'd just shrugged it off. He didn't know how to answer.

He was all but certain Lýna had decided the Wardens were her clan now. With everything that came with that.

Dalish could be very...intense, about their family.

So, as weird and creepy as she could be sometimes, if she was hiding somewhere unseen keeping an eye on them, that didn't really bother him. It was oddly comforting, honestly. In an I-have-a-primitive-barbarian-super-deadly-assassin-watching-my-back kind of way, which was weird, but hey, he'd been conscripted by the Commander of the Grey before the Templars could execute him for using blood magic (which he hadn't) and undergone ancient blood magic to tap into the Blight itself (ironically) and had an evil dragon god singing at him. Life was weird.

Sometimes, though, he really did wish the archdemon would shut the fuck up. All that creepy, eerie singing really was quite distracting. Lýna said he'd get used to it, which, any day now would be nice...

The big hats were having some kind of argument at the table, though whatever it was was settled quickly. Over the next minutes the group broke up, the commanders heading back toward the camp, the army gathered below. While the King and the Teyrn continued bickering, Duncan waved them over. Alim and Perry started picking across the rubble toward the table, the other Wardens trickling in around them.

He noticed Lýna halfway to the table. He hadn't seen where she'd come from, she'd just appeared, as though out of nowhere. That girl was a ghost, honestly.

As they neared, Duncan spoke — in Antivan, which was related to Orlesian but different enough Alim only caught a few words. With the thumps of fists on chests, the senior Wardens turned right back around, disappearing into the camp, leaving the five junior Wardens behind.

"...it would perhaps be wiser for you to remain with—"

"No, Loghain," the King said, somewhat wearily. "I know where I am needed, and it is at the front."

"I beg you reconsider, Cailan!" Teyrn Loghain looked, somehow, older than Alim had expected — his face long and lined and strained under his heavy brow, silver threading the edges of his hair — which was weird, that shouldn't be a surprise. He had to be in his fifties by now, at least... "The darkspawn are a dangerous foe, and they are too many. We cannot guarantee your safety if you insist on this foolishness."

Alim blinked — just, coming right out and calling the King a fool to his face? He guessed, the Teyrn had been King Maric's closest friend for decades, had known Cailan his whole life, and was even his father-in-law and everything. But still...

"Which is precisely why I am needed at the front, with Duncan and the Wardens at my side. You have a brilliant mind for tactics, Loghain, but some things you still overlook too quickly. Why should our men and women risk their lives facing a foe so frightening their king cannot bring himself to fight alongside them?"

The Teyrn reared back a little, his mouth working silently for a moment — probably because that was actually a good point, Alim didn't think he'd expected that. (Fereldens were a very willful people, their leaders usually had to convince them to fight for them, mass desertions had been frequent issues in their history.) "In the numbers they have gathered here, I am not certain we can prevail, even if all goes according to plan. What use is there, throwing your life away in such a place as this?"

The King hummed, nodding. "Perhaps we should wait for the Orlesians to join us, after all."

His shoulders squaring, gauntleted hands clenching, the Teyrn growled out, "We do not need the Orlesians to defend ourselves!"

"No Blight has ever been halted by one country alone. We do not have the men to hold back the darkspawn indefinitely — you have said so yourself, as I recall."

"Then send word to the Marchers! Kirkwall, Ostwick, Starkhaven! Even Markham or Tantervale, if we must!"

"Loghain, the Marchers have no standing armies to send. Except Starkhaven and Tantervale, but the former is too concerned over border conflicts with Nevarra and Tevinter, and the later with Antiva and Kirkwall. If we want to stop the Blight before it consumes the Bannorn, Orlais is our only option."

"I will never stand aside to see Ferelden be handed over to those who enslaved us for a century!"

"Then we'll just have to end the Blight here and now, won't we?" The King turned away from the Teyrn, bluntly ending the conversation, to turn a pleasant, sunny smile over the gathered pack of Wardens. (The surly glare the Teyrn was aiming at the back of his head lessened the effect somewhat.) "So, Duncan, this is the team you've selected for the role?"

"They are, Your Majesty." Duncan shot the Teyrn a brief, uncomfortable glance. "They are all junior Wardens, but fully capable — and all native Fereldans. With the exception of Lýna, of course." The point being no Orlesians, Alim suspected.

"Good, good. Come," the King said, gesturing them closer, "let us briefly go over the battle plan."

Ostagar sat right at the boundary between two drainage basins — to the north emptying into the Amaranthine Ocean by way of the River Drakon, and to the south through the Korcari Wilds, presumably emptying into the Frozen Seas somewhere. The arlings of Redcliffe and South Reach form a sort of bowl, Lake Calenhad and the Drakon at the bottom, sloping up to the west, south, and east, the rim a band stretching from the foothills of the Frostbacks all the way up to Dragon's Peak, not far south of Denerim. The difference of elevation between the rim of this bowl and the basin the southern wilds sat in was rather dramatic, cliffs a couple hundred feet high stretching for hundred and hundreds of miles, steeper in the west and slowly shifting into a line of rocky hills far to the east and north.

Here and there along the length of the cliffs, the stone had crumbled, forming thin, craggy valleys allowing passage between Ferelden and the wilds — beds cut by ancient streams, perhaps, though they were mostly dry now. The old Tevinter fortress of Ostagar had been built over one such valley, one of the more navigable ones. The larger part of the complex was situated over the western side, facing south and east, and there was a smaller structure on the eastern side, facing south and west. The eastern fortress was smaller in size, but it was in rather better shape than the western, having been in use more recently. The general structure of the few outlying buildings were easier to make out and the Tower of Ishal at its center still stood, though it was unstable and leaky enough it wasn't really considered liveable.

Stretching over the narrow slit of a valley, connecting fortresses west and east, was a wide stone bridge, from which old Tevinter guards could fling arrows and spells down at Chasind attempting to travel north, from at least a hundred feet over their heads. Surprisingly, given the thing was over a thousand years old, the bridge itself was still in good condition — some cosmetic damage here and there, but it still stood, and likely would for hundreds of years to come.

From what their scouts could tell, the darkspawn were heading directly this way. It appeared they intended to ascend into Ferelden through this very valley, after which they could spill over the Hinterlands and Redcliffe to the west or South Reach to the east, or perhaps push straight north into the Bannorn, driving a dagger into the heart of the country — if the darkspawn penetrated the Bannorn, Ferelden would probably never recover. Given the relative openness of the lands between here and the River Drakon, Ostagar was the best place to try to prevent that from happening.

Their battleline was drawn across the little valley below them, the bulk of their army dug in there. When the horde approached, the ballistae and trebuchets on the bridge and cliffs would cut into them, hopefully slowing their charge a bit. When they got into bow (and spellfire) range, they would loose the hounds, a portion of their infantry charging out behind them. This would break their lines, hopefully. They would then retreat, drawing the darkspawn in behind them, pinning them between the cliffs to the left and right, the army ahead, and continuing fire from above. Then, once the horde was in place, the Teyrn would lead the cavalry around behind, surrounding them.

According to Duncan, darkspawn had a tendency to go into a frenzy when trapped. While this did make them fight more wildly and fiercely, they also tended to strike randomly — if all goes well, a good quarter of the darkspawn might end up being killed by other darkspawn. The standard tactic for fighting battles against darkspawn was to encircle them if at all possible, entice them into doing some of the killing themselves. Given their respective numbers, they had to pull the same trick here, it was the only way they could win.

The cavalry would be lying in wait, some distance around a bend in the cliffs. In order to keep themselves concealed somewhere they can charge into place in short order, they couldn't actually be in view of the battle itself. So, when the commanders on the ground gave the signal, a fire would be lit at the top of the Tower of Ishal — that the Teyrn would be able to make out from his staging field, the cavalry would move as soon as they saw it. It would take some minutes for them to cross the distance between them, the people on the ground would just have to hold out that long.

Alistair figured out what was going on first — or at least he spoke up about it first, anyway. "No! Duncan, I should be on the ground with you."

The King just looked faintly amused, but the Teyrn gave Alistair a stiff, unimpressed glare. Duncan's expression was actually very similar to the Teyrn's, hard and stern. His voice low, cold, without the usual gentle rumble, "You should go where I put you, Warden."

Alistair winced. "Yes, Commander. I apologize." He almost seemed legitimately sorry, voice meek and eyes downturned, but Alim wasn't certain whether he should buy it.

Duncan held his steady stare for another couple seconds. "Don't fret too much, Alistair. Darkspawn are drawn to civilization — if any manage to sneak around our lines, they're more likely to show up at the Tower than anywhere else. I imagine it's not unlikely you'll come across a few small parties, at the least."

"And we should probably come down to join the rest after the Teyrn comes in," Keran said. "There will be more than enough Blighters to go around, I expect."

A smile twitching at his lips, Duncan nodded. "Just so. Now, we have other business to discuss. Your Majesty, Your Grace, if you would excuse us?"

"Of course, go. I think we're done here." The King swept them all with another warm, sunny grin. "It was an honor to met you all, Grey Wardens. I wish you luck in the battle to come."

With a few bows and mutters of thank yous and Your Majestys from all the Wardens — with the exception of Lýna, of course, who just gave him a polite (but wholly inadequate) nod — they started off, in the general direction of the Wardens' camp. Practically the moment their backs were turned, the King and the Teyrn started bickering again. Alim confessed to being a little surprised how...undignified King Cailan Theirin and Teyrn Loghain Mac-Tir had turned out to be, but he probably shouldn't be, when he thought about it. The Fereldan kings were not exactly known for being particularly cultured, and the Teyrn had literally been a thief living on the run from the Orlesian magistrates before joining the Rebellion, so.

Duncan spoke as soon as they were out of earshot. "After lighting the signal, you will not rejoin the battle."

"What?!" Alistair had jerked to a halt, the rest of them stopping one by one as they each realized Duncan had stopped too. "What are we supposed to do, sit up the Tower and—"

"We may lose this battle, Alistair."

"Exactly, that's why we need every—"

"No! If we fall here, the darkspawn will move on into the rest of the country — a country with no Wardens! There must be a second line. If we lose this battle, you five will retreat to Denerim. You will meet up with Riordan, and together you will bring together any allies you can find — the Marchers, Orzammar, whatever Dalish clans might be in the country at the time — and you will prepare to continue the fight."

Alistair looked extremely unhappy, jaw clenched so tightly the tendons in his neck were sticking out, but after long seconds glaring he finally nodded. "I understand, Commander."

"I hope so. It is an important duty I am leaving in your hands," he said, eyes flicking over the rest of them. "Surviving to prepare the rest of the country for the rising Blight in the event of our failure is more important than killing a few darkspawn in the battle. You may not think it glorious—" He gave Lýna a significant look, clearly referencing that little outburst of hers at the Joining. "—but those things most critical to victory often aren't. If we do appear to be losing, do not hesitate. You turn, and you leave. I don't ask this of you because I think you are cowards, or incapable of acquitting yourselves in a battle — in fact, the very opposite. I ask this of you because it is necessary.

"Lýna," he barked, the soft, solemn tone to his voice falling away to be replaced by something more stern and military-sounding. The voice of the Commander of the Grey, Alim guessed. "I am promoting you to Warden-Lieutenant, as of this moment. I have already sent a hawk to the First Warden informing him of my decision, but it will be some time before a reply comes. Consider it so anyway."

Lýna's eyes widened, just slightly, the only sign she was even a little surprised.

"You will be in command of the team at the Tower for the battle, and will lead them to Denerim should I die. Should we fall here, and should anything happen to Riordan, you will be the ranking Warden in Ferelden. Do you understand?"

Her eyes widened a little further. She nodded, slowly. "Yes, I think. I will do."

"I know you will." Turning back to the rest of them, "We expect the darkspawn will be attacking midday tomorrow, at the earliest. You may have the rest of the day to yourselves. All the Wardens will be meeting at the bonfire at sunset, until then you're dismissed. Lýna, come with me — we have some officer business to discuss."

Duncan started off in the direction of the Warden camp, Lýna a step behind him on his left, as silent as a shadow. Before Alim could hardly blink, Perry was slipping away, disappearing off toward... Was the quartermaster that way? Picking up a last few supplies ahead of the battle, probably. So, in the space of a few seconds, Alim was left with Alistair and Keran.

Keran spoke first, turning a narrow-eyed concerned sort of look up at Alistair. (Keran might be big for a woman, taller than Alim, but Alistair was a big guy.) "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Hmm?" he hummed, distractedly.

"Lyna being promoted out from under you. Don't you have seniority?"

Alistair actually seemed to be considering it for a moment, lips quirking in thought. "No." Letting out a heavy sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head to himself. "No, I'm not command material. Duncan knows that. Lyna would do a better job than I ever could, I think, it was the right decision."

Well, Alim wasn't about to disagree — it was pretty damn obvious Alistair just didn't have the temperament to make difficult decisions. Thought too much with his heart. Which wasn't a bad thing, of course, just not necessarily the kind of person ideally suited to a leadership role in an organization like the Wardens. "Yeah, Alistair would get us all killed in a week, tops." Alistair shot him a betrayed look, comically over-exaggerated. "Did you notice how Duncan pointed out Lýna could easily end up Commander of the Grey in Ferelden if things get bad?"

"I did, yes." Keran seemed vaguely concerned, biting her lip staring unfocused in Duncan's general direction.

Alistair seemed much less bothered, which was sort of funny, given Lýna had basically just usurped him as the senior Warden around here. "Yeah, and did you see how calmly she took it? All yesser, I understand ser — I would've been losing it if it were me. No, Duncan knows what he's doing, it's fine."

Then again, Alistair seemed to have a very realistic understanding of his own limitations, despite his occasional self-adulatory dramatics.

Keran shook her head. "And you're certain she noticed that?"

"I'm sure she did." Keran's doubtful look turned to Alim now, he shrugged it off. "Lýna didn't barely react because she didn't understand what he was saying, Keran, Lýna barely reacted because she's Lýna. She's just like that. Try not to worry about it too much. Lýna doesn't know anything about Ferelden or its people — she'll still be asking us for advice all the time, I'm sure. Running the Wardens in Ferelden would turn out to be done by committee, I expect. And that's assuming it comes to that, it might not."

"And how likely do you think it is we'll win this battle, exactly?"

Alim sighed. There was that. "Right, well, if this might be my last day before I meet the Maker, I think I'm gonna spend it drunk. Who's with me?"

---

9:30 Nubulis 11

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

---

"She likes you, you know."

Lýna frowned. "What?"

"Marian. She's got it bad."

That 'explanation' didn't make her any less confused. Turning away from Alistair, Lýna glanced in the direction Marian had gone off in — not that she was there anymore, she'd jumped right off the bridge to get back down, because mages did things like that sometimes.

It was right just after sunset now, the sky to the west still brilliant with red and orange fire, bright enough even the humans should still be able to see well enough. After some discussion, they'd decided they would wait for the battle to start toward the east of the bridge over the trail, closer to the Tower but somewhere they could still see what was going on. Leaning against the edge, the fires and torches through the army's encampment extending across the trail were clearly visible, in the increasing darkness yet illuminating the figures there, so small from this height she could cover them with a finger, but also starting to throw wildly dancing shadows against the cliffs, too indistinct to make out the shapes, flicking in and out of existence.

There were also fires to the south, just starting to emerge from the trees a few miles away. Torches, hundreds of them, thousands of them, the little points of light blurring together into a single uniform glow, outlining the size of the horde coming at them. (Darkspawn didn't actually need the torches to see, they had better night vision than elves did, they just liked setting things on fire.) It was hard to tell, but Lýna thought they had maybe half again the numbers of the Alamarri army (including the cavalry, who she couldn't see from here). Which, according to Duncan, was a problem, but not an insurmountable one — with superior weaponry and superior tactics, it was still winnable.

More concerning was the Song. It was always there, after almost a month she hardly even noticed it most of the time. The eerie, wordless singing was louder now, but with a harsher edge to it, evil magics crying out in gleeful hatred.

The archdemon was excited.

There was some debate, Duncan said, over how clearly the archdemon could see through the eyes of its enthralled darkspawn. It also wasn't certain exactly how...coherent the archdemon itself was — it was intelligent, but it was less certain just how clearly it was capable of thinking, or if the Blight drove it fully into wild madness. But Wardens in previous Blights had noted the feeling that an archdemon could identify threats to it, and work to eliminate them in particular.

The archdemon knew the humans' greatest leaders in Ferelden were here, with a Commander of the Grey. It was eager to kill them.

It also wasn't here. That was part of the news Marian had flown up to give them.

Lýna had heard stories of mages who could fly, but Marian was the first she'd met who could actually do it. Alim could zip around a bit, seeming to disappear from one spot and appear in another, but it had a limited range and only went in a straight line, he couldn't fly like Marian could — apparently, the Templars controlled what magics the imprisoned mages of the north were allowed to learn, and they didn't want them to be able to fly away whenever they wanted. (Which was incomprehensible, people making sure old knowledge was forgotten on purpose, these people's magic-hating religion still seemed very strange to her.) He'd said he'd also heard stories about it, and he'd tried to get Marian to teach it to him, but the way she'd described it had been very confusing and he hadn't been able to figure it out. The feeling Lýna had gotten from Alim was that he thought Marian was a powerful mage, but ignorant and poorly-trained, the few occasions she knew magic he didn't and he couldn't figure it out seemed to irritate him a little.

Their only warning had been the sound of a cloak flapping in the wind, and then a formless, blurry shape had appeared over the lip of the bridge — the brown and silver of her clothes, the black of her hair, streaks of orange light and dancing green sparks, the colors all mixed up into an indistinguishable mess — startling the soldiers manning the ballistae to either side (and Perry and Keran, Alim and Alistair would have felt the magic first), the swirling colors resolving into Marian as she landed, more green sparks skittering across the stone as she skipped to a stop. Ignoring people shouting in surprise around them, Marian had turned to Lýna, told her Duncan said the battle was about to start, and that the archdemon wouldn't be showing up.

And then Marian had paused for a moment, giving Lýna a look she hadn't been able to read — but Marian did that sometimes, it wasn't really worth noting.

Lýna had already known that, about the archdemon...though she couldn't say how she knew. Her vague feeling was that the archdemon was somewhere to the northwest, and far enough away that it was simply impossible it would be participating in the battle. Which meant, on the one hand, they didn't have to worry about actually fighting the thing — archdemons were like fully-grown dragons, but worse, they were very deadly and very hard to kill — but on the other, this could not be the final battle of the Blight. No matter how many darkspawn they killed, the Blight wouldn't end until they took down the archdemon.

Which did make sitting here waiting for the darkspawn to come at them seem sort of pointless...but they couldn't let the darkspawn pour north into Alamarri lands either. The chaos they would spread would make it much harder to organize the forces necessary to hunt down the archdemon, they needed to stop the horde here if at all possible.

After that inexplicable hesitation, Marian had hopped up onto the waist-high wall lining the bridge, and then jumped off. They were so high up in the air, and she just jumped! Lýna heard the whip of her cloak again after she dropped out of sight, she didn't doubt Marian could fly back down to Duncan perfectly safely — she had flown up here in the first place, after all. It wasn't nearly as dangerous as it looked, but that didn't mean it wasn't very impressive, when Marian did things like that.

Marian being impressive, but also not an awful person, was what had started getting Lýna to actually think well of her — the second human ever she'd formed much of a positive opinion of. (Or, northern humans anyway, Chasind and Avvar didn't count.) Though there were a few more now, she'd simply never gotten to know many humans very well before Duncan. So, turning back to Alistair, she said, "I too like Marian. But, what is bad?"

Alistair grinned, enough his teeth were showing very clearly. "I don't mean it's bad bad, I think it's great. You should have went for it, gotten in a big dramatic moment of romance before the battle."

...There were a couple words there she didn't catch. She wasn't even certain it was all Alamarri — "romance" in particular sounded very Orlesian. "I don't understand."

An odd sing-song tone coming into his voice, he chirped, "Lýna and Marian sitting in a tree, 'kay I ess ess I and gee."

"What...?"

Alim bounced over from where he'd been helping one of the ballista teams with something, sighing with exasperation, but also smirking with amusement. "Oh, honestly, Alistair, you know Lýna can't read. Poor girl has no idea what that means. And she never would have heard the rhyme before either."

...What did Lýna not being able to read have to do with anything?

"Right, right. I was saying, Marian would like to be alone with you, if you know what I mean."

Lýna blinked. No, she did not know what he meant. They'd spent quite a bit of time alone, actually, teaching her how to fight, but she was pretty sure he wasn't talking about that.

He must be able to tell she still didn't understand, rolled his eyes. "I'm saying Marian wants to get herself some sweet elf ass — yours in particular."

...Okay, now it sort of sounded like Alistair was referring to cannibalism, and that couldn't be right...

"Oh, come— I'm saying she wants you. You know." Lýna blinked. "Please tell me you know what sex is, you're not that young..."

"Sex, I don't know this word."

The disbelief on his face vanished, and he was grinning again. "You see, Lyna, when a man and a woman love each other very much — or, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or sometimes a man and his dogs—"

Alistair was cut off when, at the sight of a flaming arrow rising from the camp below, the ballistae fired all at once. The clanking and the twanging was ear-splitting — Lýna winced, cringed away from the noise instinctively. In the distance, she could barely make out the man-high bolts slamming into the figures of charging darkspawn, killing a dozen at a time, half of them torn to pieces. A moment afterward, fired from the trebuchets set up on the cliffs, large boulders started falling from the sky, most of them wreathed in flames, each crushing another dozen darkspawn on impact, then several more before they rolled to a stop. Some trebuchets had instead lobbed over barrels and smaller pots filled with fire potions, exploding as they hit the ground, flinging liquid flames in all directions, spreading over the darkspawn and leaping one to the next. She could hear the monstrous screaming from here.

Lýna watched the devastation, unmoving and unblinking, thankful she was on the humans' side this time — this sort of thing was why her People didn't attack human towns anymore.

"Maybe this isn't the time to fool around?" Keran had to raise her voice to be heard over the men reloading the ballistae, Alim breathlessly giggling.

"I don't think you know me very well, Keran."

Alim finally calmed enough to cry, his voice strained with laughter, "And– And his dogs! Because, Fereldens, get it?"

Keran sighed, her eyes tipping to the sky for a moment. "Yes, Alim, I get it." Lýna didn't get it, but she was used to most of the jokes the other Wardens told each other going right over her head. "It wasn't that funny."

"Well, that's a filthy lie, I'm very funny."

"I know Fereldens love their mabari, but— Maker, I needed that..." Alim let out a long sigh, wiping at his nose. "So, that's the battle getting started. Should we be going now?"

"Yes." It didn't take that long to get up the Tower, Lýna expected they'd get there in plenty of time, but they should be waiting at the top when the signal went off. The longer it took for the cavalry to come in, the more people would die. Lýna checked quick to make sure Perry was with them, he hadn't said anything in some time — the man was far better-armed than he'd been on their hunt, a hand axe on each hip and many little knives stuck into his belt, Lýna approved. Not that she was assuming he'd fare better now, but they'd find out. "Come."

Lýna set off at a light jog — internally cringing at the racket the others were making, they hadn't muffled their things — but they hadn't even made it to solid ground when there came a sharp, high keening and then a heavy rumbling from ahead of them, the stone shivering under her feet.

She had heard that sound, only once before: dwarven explosives. They were coming up from below. Taking a quick second to string her bow, slipping it back in place, she skipped ahead, "Come, come!"

The eastern fortress was very noisy, the trebuchets to the south still firing in a constant rhythm, the soldiers operating them shouting at each other. Standing on the circular trial cutting through the fortress — from there following the cliff before turning north, then turning west until it met the road north, where stood ruins of a Tevinter town, then continuing west, turning south to the cliff, then into the western fortress through to the bridge again — were a couple dozen Alamarri soldiers, standing around uncertainly, looking through the gaps in the old wall toward the Tower.

Through the gate ahead, Lýna could see the first signs of smoke, curling out of doors and windows to twist up into the air.

"Come, come!" She passed the soldiers, stepping backward through the gate, beckoning them onward with both hands. "Come!"

Thankfully, a few seconds later there was a deep bellow in a human voice, "With the Wardens!" and then a bit she didn't catch, covered by more creaking of trebuchets and the scraping of swords being drawn.

Between the Tower and the wall ringing it was a narrow courtyard, overtaken by grasses and bushes, the faded outlines of what Lýna guessed must have been housing for soldiers long ago sticking out of the green here and there. The spiky arched main door into the Tower was belching smoke, flickering orange from the firelight inside.

Lýna was about halfway there when a pack of darkspawn started running out to meet them. About twenty of them, looked like, maybe a little more.

Just as her first arrow brained the lead hurlock — the wretched beast, the size of a large human man and leaking black blood from the seams of its ill-fitting armor, collapsing backward to the grass instantly — a streak of blue light passed by on her left, frigid air clapping over her back, and Alim was in front of her, both hands wreathed with flames he planted his feet and threw a thick stream of fire at the darkspawn, pouring over the center of the group, setting alight three, seven, ten. A dense pack of arrows, maybe a dozen total, cut into the flailing, burning darkspawn, a few clattering into armor but most finding flesh, a couple more dropping dead.

Alim hadn't caught all of them, archers had already split off from the pack, Lýna spotted three slipping away to the left. She paused for a second on the ball of one foot, loosed, ran a few steps as she reached for another arrow, her first shot taking one of the archers in the throat, she drew, paused, loosed, running and reaching, her second shot was as perfect as her first, there was another streak of blue as Alim zipped over to the right, an ear-splitting crackle of lightning tearing through four archers on that side all at once, she drew, paused, a couple arrows hit the archer she was sighting, one skipping off its chest plate and the other digging into its shoulder, it reeled from the hit but it wasn't down, she was tipping over waiting for it to slow so hopped to her other foot, paused, now! a feathered shaft sprouted through the genlock's visor, it flopped down to the dirt—

The other three had passed her, Alistair and Keran tromping over still-smoldering grass to meet the remains of the pack, Perry flitting along in their wake, hitching to a stop, a two-handed swung bringing the head of his axe down and around and up into the neck of a scorched darkspawn as it tried to rise, Alistair slammed into a hulking hurlock with his shield at full speed, knocking the thing to the ground, ducked and sidled forward past the swing of a heavy axe from another hurlock, his foot coming down right on the first one's neck, Keran stabbed the one with the axe under the armpit, another round of arrows from behind finished the rest of the injured, Alistair slapped away an incoming sword, twisted around on his heel to cut down at the genlock's neck — also probably crushing the throat of the one he was standing on, the black hands scrabbling at his knee had gone suddenly limp — Keran whirled around to smack a genlock across the face with the edge of her shield, Lýna picked off the second genlock approaching her with a shot in the throat, Keran yanked her sword out of the hurlock she'd stuck it into and whirled it around to cleanly cut off the thing's head, Alistair ducked under a swing from a hurlock and stabbed it in the knee in the same motion, drove up shoulder-first to knock it off its feet, the genlock Keran had slapped was coming back, she was busy gutting another at Alistair's back but Perry was there, smashed the back of its elbow with the solid back of the blade, knocking its sword from nerveless fingers, whirled around to chop into the back of its head—

"Help!" Alim was a bit ahead, facing an absolutely massive hurlock, over a head taller than Alistair and as broad as him and Keran put together, sheathed in more carefully-crafted armor, black with ribs of white traced with bronze, twisted horns stretching from its full-face helmet. The shield Alim had been carrying on his back was strapped to his arm now, he slipped out of the way of an overhead swing from the thing's mace, tried to scramble back but it darted ahead after him, a few arrows clattered uselessly against its armor, a sideways swing came in at Alim but he turned to catch it on his shield, the force of the impact still taking him off his feet, crashing to his back and rolling over his shoulder he popped back up, teetering dizzily back a few steps.

Lýna frowned — why didn't Alim just kill it? Was that armor magic-proof? Was there such a thing?

Alistair charged as Keran and Perry finished off the last of the pack, barrelled into the huge hurlock shield-first again, only knocking it back a few steps — though successfully distracting it from killing Alim. It swung at Alistair, the blow caught on his shield, pushing him back a couple steps, he sidestepped a jab, stabbing it in the gut, but the point glanced off its armor. Alistair staggering, off-balance from the turned stab, the hurlock raised its mace, Lýna's shot struck it in the throat, but the arrow bounced off, didn't seem to do any real damage — though it did make the hurlock retreat a step, shaking its head as though dazed, distracting it from killing Alistair.

Keran slashed at its arm, her blade too skipping off its armor; its return swing was caught directly on her shield, Keran fell hard on her back. Dropping to her knee, Lýna drew another arrow, and she waited, the fletching tickling at her lips. Alistair stepped in to cover Keran, turning its mace aside and giving it a good kick, forcing it back a few steps. He traded blows with the thing back and forth for a moment, sidestepping or redirecting its blows instead of catching the full weight of them, his deft swordsmanship — quick and darting, slipping in and out before the hurlock could react — drawing a few guttural shrieks as he penetrated its armor, but they were only shallow cuts, hardly slowing it down. Another volley of arrows came in from the Alamarri, clattering against the thing's armor, forcing it back again, Keran was on her feet, coming in to—

Slipping in from behind with a hard two-handed swing — probably the most powerful he was physically capable of, even using the momentum of dropping to his knees — Perry buried his axe in the back of the hurlock's knee. The force of the blow tore the haft from his hands, Perry scrambled away, but the axe had cut deep enough it stuck where he'd put it.

The hurlock screeched in pain, a wild flail of its mace forcing Alistair and Keran to retreat a step, it raised both arms and bellowed out a challenge, and—

Lýna's arrow stabbed deep into its armpit.

It screeched again, Keran came forward, slashing for its wrist, it stepped back, nearly collapsing as it put weight on its injured knee, Alistair was charging again, it tried to bring its mace up but its arrow-pierced shoulder didn't quite cooperate, before it could get a good swing going Alistair had crashed into it. Overbalanced, it couldn't backpedal quickly enough with a bad knee, it fell heavily onto its back. Alistair hopped to its left side, then forward, driving the point of his sword into its throat.

The hurlock was still screeching, though it sounded strained this time, wet with blood. Alistair set his shoulders, leaning hard against the pommel.

It abruptly went silent.

"What the fuck was that?!" Alim's voice sounded rather higher than usual, jittery with an edge of panic. He was staring down at the monstrous hurlock, his eyes wide and his fingers shaking, stuttering, "That– It– I couldn't— Was that a darkspawn Templar?!"

Oh, okay, that's why Alim hadn't just killed it — it had anti-magic, like Alistair. That made perfect sense, then.

His sword already wrenched out of the fresh corpse, Alistair moved to stand on its thigh, so Perry could retrieve his axe. Giving the hurlock a speculative look, he said, "Right, Duncan said some of these can do that. Congratulations, recruits: you just took down your first alpha. Hard sons a bitches, and some can nullify magic too — keep an eye out for them."

Looking horrified and a little green, Alim shivered.

"All well?" she asked, stepping up to them, idly reaching around to count the arrows she had left with her fingers. Most of the ones she'd shot had been set on fire or crushed or were too far out of the way, not worth retrieving any.

"I'm good to go, boss lady."

Perry finally managed to get his axe out of the hurlock's knee, stumbling back a couple steps. Wiping at his forehead, he nodded. "I'm fine."

Still staring wide-eyed at the hurlock, Alim said, "If I ever have to see another one of those monsters in my entire life it'll be too fucking soon, but I'm all right."

"Strained my shoulder a little," Keran said, tenderly stretching her arms, "but I'm okay."

Lýna nodded. "Alim, help her."

Keran opened her mouth to protest, but before she could get a word out Alim was already there, hands glowing white with healing magics, so she shut her mouth. Good — there was no point letting one of their swordsmen walk around injured when they had a mage on hand, that was just begging to get her killed.

Around this time, the Alamarri finally caught up. They were looking around at all the darkspawn corpses, wide-eyed, some of them open open-mouthed. Impressed, clearly, some of them cheered a bit, smiling and joking with their neighbors. Their leader, a tall, barrel-chested man with a very hairy lip — which always struck Lýna as odd, elven men didn't grow hair on their faces like humans did — gave Alistair a look. "Sure you need our help? You lot took care of them pretty well on your own."

"Don't be so sure, there's a lot more where those came from. We may need you yet."

"Well, we were guarding the Tower anyway, not about to walk away. Press on?"

Alim had just finished healing Keran — not surprised, probably just a little bruising from that one good hit from the big hurlock — so Lýna opened her mouth to— "Hold on, a friend taught me a spell to shield you all from the Blight. I just need a second."

Lýna nodded. "Okay." It was probably that rain-blocking spell Marian had mentioned, if Alim thought he could keep that up on all of the soldiers and still fight she trusted him. She started toward the door, but at a walk, slowly enough the others could catch up easily once Alim was finished.

She hung back a bit, not far from the entryway — the flood of smoke had cut down somewhat, still trickling out but not quite so thick and dark as it'd been before. Glancing around for a second, she spotted Perry, sidled over to him, set her hand on his shoulder. He jumped at the contact, whirled around to face her. "Ah, uh—" He coughed. "Yes?"

She still made Perry nervous, apparently. "This was good. From now, keep their backs, Alistair and Keran." They hadn't discussed his place in a fight beforehand, Lýna hadn't been certain he'd be much use at all, but that had actually worked out very well. She was pleasantly surprised, honestly.

Perry blinked, taken aback. "Oh. Sure, I can do that."

Once they'd all caught up, Lýna nodded, and Alistair and Keran barrelled through the entryway, closely followed by Perry and a few of the better-armored Alamarri soldiers. Lýna slipped in after them, glancing around the bottom floor of the Tower. Once she'd learned what her role in this battle would be — and once Duncan was finished talking her through a few things Warden-Lieutenants were expected to know, which her improving but still terrible Alamarri hadn't made easy — Lýna had taken a couple hours to explore the Tower and its surroundings, mapping it out in her head. Each level was roughly circular and somewhat smaller than the one below it, the bottom one so wide Lýna felt certain it was the single largest closed space she'd ever been in. Well, mostly closed, there were a couple big arched doorways and a few narrower windows here and there, but still, it was huge, larger than the Wardens' camp, the ceiling high over her head. And almost completely empty — along the outer wall there were a few racks of falling apart wood and bits of equipment so badly rusted she couldn't tell what they were supposed to be, but other than that, flat tile floor and nothing else.

That flat tile floor had been ruined. A big hole had been punched through it, wide enough for five hurlocks to walk side-by-side, chunks of stone scattered across the room seemingly at random, the smaller pebbles and the larger bigger than Lýna. The explosion had clearly set everything in the large room on fire, but there wasn't much to burn, only small fires still smoldering fitfully here and there, some of the debris smoking, the air thick enough she couldn't make out the ceiling.

And there were, of course, more darkspawn.

A thick pile of debris to the left mostly blocked off that side, the others were curving around the hole in the floor to the right, but Lýna noticed a few hurlocks on the other side of the rubble, already raising crossbows. "Alim! Left!"

Alim zipped past her, smoke curling in his wake, reappearing on top of one of the chunks of displaced stone, his boots skidding. He shoved out his hand, there was an odd hard thrumming noise, and the archers were flung backward, in the direction of another several darkspawn back that way. To the right, Lýna picked off an archer aiming for their people, and then another just before it got off a shot, loosing the arrow in its death throes but too high, skimming past a soldier's shoulder and across the room before clattering against the wall over Alim's head.

A messy scrum had developed ahead, three Wardens and several Alamarri warriors meeting the main pack of darkspawn in a melee too chaotic for Lýna to follow, but at a glance it looked like their people had the advantage, Lýna ignored it in favor of picking off another archer. There was an ear-splitting roar of thunder and a crackling of electricity coming from the direction Alim had shoved those archers, probably taking out the whole group he'd pushed them at all at once while he was at it. She was just sighting what she believed to be the last archer when the genlock was stuck with a hail of arrows, few of them well-aimed enough to be deadly on their own but together more than enough. Darting closer to the melee, she scanned the room, looking for—

Her heart leapt into her throat: standing not far from the doorway leading to the stairs was a genlock, fingers of lightning flickering around its hands.

Lýna fired without thinking, or even pausing to aim properly, the arrow thunking against its chest and bouncing off. But she'd distracted the darkspawn from whatever it was casting — she assumed the same really dangerous lightning spell the one they'd met in the wetlands had used, might have killed the whole group with that. It twitched, turning to look at her, its hand raised, greenish-white light gathering in its palm—

Another shot was already streaking in at it, it abandoned the spell again, smacking the arrow out of the air. It tried to ready another spell, but Lýna had already fired again — it couldn't cast faster than she could shoot, she just had to hold it there long enough for Alim to finish up—

The darkspawn mage twisted, stretching into a swirl of black shadows and flickering green light — it had taken flight, just as Marian could. (The magic looked very similar, Lýna assumed it was the same.) Lýna watched for a second, it was moving toward her, apparently assuming she'd be more vulnerable at melee range, she dropped her arrow and yanked out the silverite sword Duncan had gifted her after her Joining. It would probably try to come up behind her and— Yes, it was curving to the left, Lýna stepped back, spinning to the right, a back-handed slash arcing down and—

With a warm brush of wind and a snapping noise the darkspawn landed, magic crackling in its hand, silverite dug into its leg, just above the knee, black blood spraying across the shimmering white-silver metal. It staggered, but it wasn't down, it would take a moment to get the blade out of its leg, Lýna released her bow and drew her dagger, a burst of icey air slapped against her face, she rose to slam it home under the rim of the darkspawn's helmet, deep enough the hilt clinked against the metal. It toppled back, limp, nearly dragging her with it, a torrent of dark blood spilled over its chest when she managed to slip her dagger lose again.

A foot against the darkspawn's knee helping her wrench out her sword, she gave both a harsh flourish, blood and gore whipping off them to splash to the tile — and nearly cutting Alim, whoops, she hadn't realized he was standing that close. He blinked at her for a second as she sheathed both blades and bent to retrieve her dropped bow and arrow. "Well, I was coming to rescue you, but never mind. Remind me not to piss you off, Maker..."

She was lucky, really — if that mage had been smart enough to appear a couple steps further away that never would have worked — but she smirked at him anyway.

At that point, the fight was already pretty much over, only a few more injured darkspawn to finish off. While the others wrapped up, Lýna walked to the edge of the hole in the floor, leaned over to look down into it.

And then leaned back again, the bolt from a crossbow whizzing by inches from her nose. Well, that was closer than she'd like...

Before she could even open her mouth to say anything, Alim tossed a fireball from somewhere behind her, drooping down into the tunnel — there was a crackling of released magic, a fwooshing of fire exploding to life, a screaming of dying darkspawn. "This," she said, pointing, "you..." She trailed off, frowning to herself. "Fix, can you fix?" That wasn't quite what she meant to say, but it would do.

Alim came up next to her, leaning over to gaze down into the hole. Scowling a little, probably at the smell of burning darkspawn flesh, he nodded. "I think so. Give me a minute." He reached for his belt, a pouch hanging there, and flicked a large pinch of glittery powder into the air, a pale violet with a silvery shimmer to it. Lýna blinked — was that lyrium dust? Before it could fall very far, Alim shoved out a palm, the dust freezing in the air with a heavy thrum, sparks shivering across the floating specks. The dust attracted to his finger, he drew a shape in the air, glowing a sharp blue-white, then paused a long moment, frowning to himself in concentration.

Mm, some kind of enchantment, probably — Lýna had seen the Keeper do something similar on two occasions. Leaving him to it, she wandered back to the rest of the group, checking up on them quick. A few of the soldiers had gotten minor scrapes, only one hurt badly enough to be out of the fight. Alistair and Keran were completely untouched. Perry had caught an elbow or something in the face, which would bruise pretty badly if Alim didn't take care of it, but was otherwise fine.

If Perry was going to be in the thick of it all the time, they should probably find him a proper helmet. Humans didn't tend to shape them with elves in mind...

"Hey, is he okay over there?" Alistair said, nodding over at Alim. "That's a hell of a lot of magic he's pulling."

Lýna just shrugged. Alistair wasn't wrong, Alim's spell was powerful enough the air tingled, and she could even hear it — a much more pleasant song than the Blight's, bouncy and cheerful. She could probably count on her fingers the number of times she'd been around magic powerful enough she could hear it. But Alim knew his limits better than they did, there was no point in second-guessing him.

Alistair was about to say something, but he cut off as a high, clanging snap ran through the air, followed by a noisy rumble of stone grinding against stone. A few of the soldiers teetered a bit as the ground shuddered under the feet, only for a few seconds before settling into place, the noise ended. Whatever Alim had done to the hole in the floor, it had thrown a cloud of dust into the air, grains of sand raining down all the way to Lýna, halfway across the room.

It had also clearly taken quite a bit out of Alim — he was doubled over, his hands on his knees, taking thin, shaking breaths. Alistair started moving toward him, Alim plucked a little glass vial from somewhere, threw his head back and downed it. "Woo!" Alim threw the vial away, shattered glass skittering across the tile. All signs of strain gone he was bouncing on his toes, "Let's kick some Blighter ass, let's go, let's go!" clapping his hands with each go, little blue sparks flung out with the hits.

The Alamarri soldiers looked a little disturbed, even Keran and Perry a bit, but Alistair chuckled. "You know, you're going to be feeling that tomorrow."

Alim turned a grin on him — wide and toothy and half-mad, his eyes sparkling. "You shiny cunt, I'm already feeling it. Let's go! Woo-hoo!" He hopped off the bit of debris he was standing on, started skipping toward the stairs up.

"He is well?"

"He's fine," Alistair said, lip curled with an odd sort of smile (reluctant?), "it's just a lyrium high. It'll wear off in a few minutes. But if he takes too many more of those he's gonna regret it tomorrow — the hangovers from lyrium potions are brutal."

Well, they might not be alive tomorrow, so that didn't really seem like a problem to worry about too much right now. Lýna nodded, to let him know she understood, waved for their group to get moving again.

The wide stairs led them up to the second level, which was somewhat more closed in than the first, both in that the ceiling was lower and that the space was split up into multiple rooms. Well, sort of, the internal walls weren't in nearly as good of shape as the outside — they were thinner, and made out of a different material, Lýna thought — so they were crumbling apart a bit, little holes showing, in a few places sections entirely collapsed. Which was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. Her People, as a rule, didn't tend to spend much time in hard-walled enclosed structures. The Chasind did, more often than not — Lýna had visited this one village's lodge a couple times, and she didn't like it, felt uncomfortably surrounded, she didn't know how they could stand it. (The humans all around had probably played a big role in feeling surrounded, yes, but the solid walls didn't help.) The inside of the Tower was open enough, enough holes poked through it here and there, that it didn't bother her the same way.

(If they didn't die today, Lýna would leave to live with the Wardens, mostly in human spaces in the north. That was going to take some getting used to.)

Oddly, there didn't seem to be any darkspawn on the second floor at all. They hadn't killed all of them yet, Lýna could still feel them around, they must have continued climbing. Lýna lead the Wardens and the Alamarri on a few shortcuts through holes in the walls, the quickest path to the way up — at least, it was the quickest path for her, she hadn't realized some of the larger men would have trouble getting through a couple of the gaps. It took a little longer than she would have guessed, but before too long they made it to the stairs.

In the lead, Alistair jerked to a stop, his shield whipping up in front of his face even as a hail of arrows fell on them. She heard a few high clinks of arrowheads hitting shields and armor, a few shouts of pain, bodies falling down the stairs, one caught in the hood of her cloak, yanking it back off her head, she ducked in behind Alistair, using his larger, better-armored body as a shield. While the others scrambled out of the way, Alistair lingered on the stairs longer, leaning up to peek over the top of the stairs a couple times; Lýna waited, pulled the darkspawn arrow out of the cloth of her hood, confirmed it was in good shape with a quick look over before sticking it in her quiver. Finally, Alistair was moving, carefully stepping backward, his shield held between himself and the steady stream of arrows falling from above.

They'd taken a few nasty hits this time. Naturally, they'd been going up with the most well-armored people at the front, just in case they did run into an ambush exactly like this one, but some had reacted to the attack quicker than others — they'd lost three men to unlucky shots in the throat, a couple others had arrows sprouting out of shoulders and thighs. Alistair would have a few bruises on his legs tomorrow, but his armor had done its job, and the rest of the Wardens were fine. Alim set into quick healing the less serious injuries — the leader of the soldiers argued at first, but Alim pointed out the ones with the worse injuries would probably live without his help (probably), but with it the less injured would be able to fight on, so they were the priority, which their leader accepted — and the rest quickly settled in to working out how to push through the darkspawn's position.

Lýna wandered around, scavenging darkspawn arrows from the mess scattered across the floor, turning the problem over herself. They could have all their people carrying shields make as solid of a wall as they could, but they didn't have the equipment for that, even if it went perfectly they might end up losing several more people before they got to the archers. Someone suggested Alim cover them with a barrier, but Alistair shot that one down. Barriers against physical objects were harder to cast than ones against magic, and he could only cast one spell at a time — he might be able to hold back the arrows, but he'd have to go first, which meant one of the darkspawn could just run up and gut him, and he probably wouldn't be able to react quickly enough to save himself. (Mages were very dangerous, but they were just as vulnerable to a blade in the gut as normal people, as Lýna had just proven downstairs.)

Frowning to herself, she measured the distance with her eyes. If the top of the stairs was there...they would want to have some cover, just in case, and given how the walls on the third level were placed... If Lýna were setting up an ambush, she'd put her people there, and there...which meant...

Alistair, Keran, and the Alamarri leader were still talking strategy, so Lýna slipped away, sprinting through the crumbled rooms to the outside wall, about a third of the way around the Tower from the stairs. There was a gap in the outer wall here, a window that had been worn away by time, cutting a gash into the stone. Gripping the edge with one hand, she leaned out as far as she could, looked up the outside of the Tower. There was another gap in the third floor, exactly where she'd thought, more to the side than straight up, and... Yes, that looked good.

The men were shouting at each other when she got back, Alistair and the Alamarri, about...Lýna herself, it sounded like. They both sounded rather angry, actually. She didn't have the context to get what they were talking about, but it probably didn't matter. She drew attention to herself with two quick claps of her hands — she doubted she'd be able to make herself heard over a few human men yelling at each other. Everyone turned to look at her, surprise and relief flicking over a few faces. Confusingly, Keran looked almost guilty, Lýna probably wasn't reading that right.

"There you are, Lyna!" Alistair said, grinning — though, there was an odd, crooked edge to it, Lýna wasn't sure what that meant. "Figure out a plan?"

She nodded. "Which can climb?" Lýna raised her hand.

"Climb? You mean the outside of the Tower?"

"Yes. We climb, attack from the back. Those here, they go up stairs when they hear. Both side, kill easy."

"Oh, that's good, I like it. Let's do that." Alim raised his hand.

Hands started going up, Perry first and then several of the Alamarri, somewhat more reluctantly. "Right, I'll stay down here — my armor's too heavy to climb the Tower, I think." Well, obviously, Alistair was wearing heavy plate, Lýna would be seriously impressed if he could keep up in that shit. Waving at a group of the Alamarri, "You lot go with them. Is there a signal we should be listening for?"

"Lightning," Alim said. "Lots of lightning."

Alistair's lips twitched. "Right. See you on the other side."

Back at the gap in the wall, Lýna slipped through it, her feet coming down on a narrow ledge at floor level. Looking at the others over her shoulder, she pointed, "Left." She sidled along the ledge for a bit, jumped across a narrow gap to one of the Tower's ribs — at least, that's how she thought of them, bits that stuck out a few feet, made of a somewhat lighter stone than the main body, strips running to the ground and curving all the way up to the base of the top floor. Lýna had noticed at a glance they had ledges at regular intervals, very climbable.

There was a bit of mumbling behind her, she looked down to see two Alamarri leaning around, doubtfully eyeing the gap between the ledge and the rib. "Oh, honestly, Lýna. Hang on." A shelf of blue-ish ice crusted with white frost sprouted out from the stone, and Alim stepped way from the wall, standing on the ice. The ice spread, Alim drifting forward to form a platform at the end of the ledge, the ice then spread from both sides across the gap to the rib. Alim took a breath, clenched his fists, and the texture of the ice changed, turning spikier, rougher. He skipped across his little bridge — proving it was both sturdy and not too slippery — lightly pulled himself up onto the rib. "There you go, gents. No more than two on the ice at once, please." He then glanced up at Lýna, rather exasperated. "You know, not everybody grew up running around in the wilds."

Lýna clicked her tongue, continued up without answering. She hadn't given that little gap much thought, honestly — they weren't that far up, if they didn't want to make the jump they could have just lowered themselves to the ground and climbed the rib from the bottom. But fine.

She was nearly to their hole in the third floor, all of them climbing the rib now, when she twitched at a noisy clattering, arrows hitting stone, coming from far too nearby. Leaning around, there were a few darkspawn at another hole in the wall, looked like the fourth floor. At least they didn't have a good angle, she might have been hit before she'd even noticed they were there. Scowling to herself, Lýna reached for her bow — aiming while trying not fall off would not be easy, but maybe she could...

She heard the familiar sound of Alim zipping around, she glanced over to find he'd thrown himself up and back, away from the wall, he hung there for a moment, blue light blooming around his feet, and then a streak as he went zip, right past the darkspawn shooting at them.

A second later, three dark, twisted figures came flying out into the open air, plummeted down to slam into the ground.

Lýna climbed up through the hole a minute later, turned to help up the Alamarri man just behind her. When about half of them were up, Lýna heard that noise again, waved at the next man in line to wait. There was another zip, blue light streaking past her and frigid air slapping her over the head, Alim skipped across the floor, running right into one of the soldiers. She waved them to start coming in again, left them to it.

"Whoops, sorry. I've never tried doing that in mid-air before, dismount could use some work." The men chuckled, gave him a few muttered thanks, friendly pats on the back. Alim winced once he caught sight of Lýna walking toward him, cringing just a little. "Yeah, I know, I shouldn't jump out ahead like that."

"No, is good." So far as Lýna could tell, the only times so far Alim had been in serious trouble had been that big fight in the wetlands, and just now against the alpha — she'd trust him to know his own limits until he gave her reason to think otherwise. He should certainly know them better than she did, she had very little idea of what mages from this Circle of theirs were capable of. "You are very brave."

Alim just stared at her for a second, before breaking into a crooked grin. "I believe the word you're looking for is crazy."

"Yes, this too."

He laughed.

Their ambushers turned out to be exactly where Lýna had expected them to be, crouched behind two half-crumbled walls a short distance from the stairs. A nasty branching lightning spell from Alim took out several of them, a volley of arrows took several more, Alim got off a second lightning spell just as Lýna was setting up her fourth shot, and the other half of their people were charging from the opposite side, Alistair in the lead. Lýna closed the rest of the distance with four quick steps, stabbing a darkspawn trading blows with Keran in the kidney from behind, shoved it away with her foot, brought her sword back around and sliced another across the throat.

And it was finished, they were all dead.

Lýna took a quick glance around, confirming they hadn't lost anybody, and started off again. They didn't run into any more darkspawn on the third floor, and no more than five on the fourth — Lýna, Alim, and one of the Alamarri archers downed them all easily, Lýna barely slowed. The fifth floor was the top, a single room much smaller than the first. There was a large, circular hole in the ceiling, a net of metal descending a couple feet down in a little bowl, at the moment filled with straw and wood.

There were a few bodies scattered across the floor, three humans and four darkspawn. It looked like the ambushers on the third floor had come up here to kill the people manning the signal before going back down to prepare for them, or perhaps the stragglers on the fourth floor had been on their way down after the fight here. Either way, they were alone — assuming the work Alim had done sealing up the tunnel was holding, it would stay that way.

There was some talking and laughing among the Alamarri, but Lýna didn't bother paying them much attention, could hardly understand half of it anyway. She walked up to one of the windows, looked down in the direction of the bridge. Yes, good, she could see it from here. They hadn't called in the cavalry yet, they'd made good time.

She heard a shuffle and a chinking of metal come up behind her — Alistair. "Did you notice, they were trying to stop us from getting to the signal fire."

"Yes."

"How did they know?"

Lýna shook her head.

Over the next minutes, the Alamarri soldiers left, descending back through the Tower to return to their posts on the circle trail. Alistair and Keran had both removed portions of their armor, Alistair on his legs and Keran over her left shoulder, healing magics dancing over Alim's hands. Perry was just wandering back and forth around the room, seemingly at random, fingers nervously tapping at his axes.

There, a green light flared to life just where the bridge met the western cliff, obviously magical — that was the signal. "Alim, now."

The darkspawn had put out the torches when they'd been up here, but it didn't matter, Alim set the signal fire alight with a wave of his hand. He then pushed more magic into it, the fire spreading unnaturally quickly — the old, scared human with the rest of the army would be able to see it sooner, good thinking.

Lýna took a second to reinforce the idea that she should tell Duncan how well Alim had done tonight. They'd all fought well, of course, but Alim had shown creativity, initiative, a willingness to take additional risks onto himself to look out for his people, and had remained in rather good spirits the entire fight — she didn't know how humans thought of these things, but her People considered those to be leadership qualities. The Fereldan Wardens were short people just in general, but they especially needed people who could be depended on to help Duncan run things. He should keep Alim in mind.

Honestly, Alim knew much, much more than Lýna about the people of this country, he had grown up here, and she'd gotten the impression being able to read was...sort of important? Alim was probably a better choice for Warden-Lieutenant than Lýna, but he did act sort of silly most of the time, Duncan might not have realized that.

Though even if he had, he might not have picked him. Duncan had told Lýna, in their private talk, that one of the most important reasons why he'd promoted Lýna and not Alistair was because he wasn't certain Alistair would be able to make terrible but necessary decisions. The Grey Wardens fought the Blight, by any means necessary — Alistair didn't understand that, and Duncan wasn't certain he ever would. Lýna did.

Judging by how he'd reacted to the Chasind mage out in the wetlands, Alim probably didn't either. Oh well.

Lýna turned over all that on the way back down the Tower, mostly ignoring the other Wardens chatting around her. (She wasn't even certain what they were talking about, it was all too easy to miss a few words and completely lose track of what was going on.) Before long they were crossing the courtyard again, walking past the corpses from their first fight — they really should burn those, but they'd keep until after the battle. The eastern fortress was a bit more of a mess than it'd been when they'd left, scorched remains of darkspawn arrows scattered all over the place, one of the trebuchets at the cliffs on fire. It looked like the army on the ground was just barely in bow range, blindly lobbing flaming arrows over the edge. There were even a few darkspawn corpses here and there, but not many, a few had probably climbed over the cliffs trying to stab the people at the ballistae and trebuchets in the back. They were still firing, though, it hadn't worked.

On the way to the bridge, Lýna came close enough to one of the darkspawn corpses to make it out — she scowled, her stomach turning. It was obvious that hurlocks sort of looked like humans, in their size and the proportions of their limbs, genlocks rather more like dwarves. These, which the Wardens called shrieks, looked vaguely elven, in the roundness of the shoulders and narrowness of their limbs and the shape of their heads, but twisted into uncanny monsters, their bodies stretched, arms rather longer than they should be — in fact, they often ran on all fours, with an awkward wolf-like stride — their fingers lengthened into claws, each fixed with deadly razors.

Her People didn't have a name for these, they preferred not to speak of them at all. The others were bad enough, but the shrieks would come in the night, silently picking off scouts only to slip away again. And their appearance, a corrupted mockery of elves, their voices, high and screeching and teeth-grating, the way they fought, light and sinuous and too-graceful, absolutely deadly. Shrieks had been viscerally horrifying to her clan in a way the other darkspawn weren't, and Lýna didn't disagree, these things just looked wrong. And they were scary — she and a few other hunters had gotten in a fight with a small pack of them once, probably the single most terrifying experience of her entire life.

Tearing her eyes away from the abomination, Lýna forced her feet into motion, following the other Wardens back to the bridge.

The darkspawn had reached where the Alamarri were dug in some time ago, and the battle seemed to be going relatively well. Squinting through the darkness, Lýna could see the fortifications and trenches were doing their jobs, funnelling the darkspawn into a thin enough trickle the Alamarri spearmen could kill them all without too much difficulty. As she watched, a wave of shrieks came bounding over their defences — her fingers itched out of want for her bow, but there was no way she could shoot accurately from this distance, not a target moving that quickly — aiming to cut down the spearmen from behind, but they were wiped out in rather short order, torn apart by bolts from crossbows and men with sword and shield. Lýna thought she even spotted Cailan in his shiny golden armor, fighting side-by-side with one of his commanders, that might be Duncan and a couple senior Wardens. Cailan managed to kill three of the shrieks himself before returning to watching the line.

Lýna hadn't been particularly impressed with the Alamarri leader, thought him soft and silly, but it looked like he was actually pretty damn good in a fight. She stood corrected.

"Dammit, I can't see anything down there," Alistair groaned, leaning over the side of the bridge. "What's going on, has Loghain come in yet?"

"The line holds." The humans turned to her, eyes widening as they realized she could see — Perry looked surprised too, which was weird, he should be able to see just as well as she could. "Duncan lives, and Cailan."

But they couldn't hold out for too much longer, Lýna didn't think. The darkspawn had brought in ogres — huge things, two to three times the height of a human and many times their weight, with clawed hands and long, twisted horns, rather like a halla, save for how they bent and kinked in places. (She'd seen an ogre only once before, her clan had fled rather than try to fight it.) They had been tearing at the fortifications, trying to open up holes in them. Obviously, the Alamarri couldn't let that happen, there were a dozen massive corpses along the trench, scorched by magic or impaled with bolts from ballistae. But they were doing damage, they'd break through eventually. And the constant fighting was taking its toll on their warriors, mostly the spearmen, some darkspawn slipping past to harry the swordsmen at their backs.

They still had some time left, but it was starting to fall apart.

Lýna looked up, toward the south. She didn't see any horsemen. How long had it been, since they'd set the signal? It should take some time for them to come around, but...

The humans were arguing, Alistair saying they should go down to help, Keran insisting Duncan had ordered them not to for a reason. And Lýna watched, and she watched, looking for the cavalry to come around from behind, close the noose around the darkspawn.

Lýna glanced over at Alim. He turned to meet her eyes, cold and angry, his arms crossed rigidly over his chest. Grimacing, he nodded.

Loghain and his men weren't coming.

Lýna closed her eyes for a moment, gritting her teeth, forcing back the familiar dread coiling in her stomach, the murderous rage crawling up her throat. Her People had fled from the darkspawn, from the Blight, they'd run so many times. Lýna was so tired of running. But she had a job to do.

By any means necessary.

---

[ljèma õ fasethĩ dy-śẽvh] — Literally, "[slur for human] whose head (has been) emptied"; Marian's translation of "stupid cunt" is a pretty good guess.

So, Cailan isn't a complete idiot, and Duncan had a very good reason for putting his junior Wardens somewhere he doesn't expect them to see any action at all. Which means Flemeth doesn't put the "deus" in deus ex machina, swooping in to save the day at the last second out of nowhere. Which also means she doesn't hand Morrigan off to the Wardens, but don't worry, I have plans.

It occurs to me people might see how easy the battle went for our main cast and wonder if I'm not softening the story a bit, long odds but everyone's fine and they win, yay! Ah, no. I have plans. Evil plans. Mwahaha.

I'll probably post the next chapter in a couple days again. There's an interlude after that, and after that Lothering. Updates will slow then, as I plan out exactly how I want to handle Redcliffe. Also, I should probably work on the collab fic at least. Heh, whoops.