9:30 Molloris 8
Last Watch, Diamond Quarter, Orzammar
Duncan had told Lýna of Last Watch, the fort held by the Wardens in Orzammar. It was a place most Wardens would in time visit, if only briefly.
When she'd first met Duncan, she recalled he'd been very particular that while the Joining might extend Lýna's life far longer than she would make it otherwise, it wasn't a cure. Her Alamarri hadn't been great, and at the time she'd thought he'd meant that she would likely die in battle against darkspawn, which hadn't seemed so great a price to her — in a way, she'd expected she would inevitably give her life fighting the Blight, becoming a Grey Warden changed that very little. It wasn't until later, on the road to Orzammar, that Lýna had come to understand that she was still tainted. The Warden's blood magic ritual instead took the corruption into themselves, making it a part of them, instead of harming them exploited to make them stronger.
But there were consequences to doing something that bold, obviously. The Blight within a Warden would, in time, grow too powerful for their altered body and spirit to contain. Slowly, the taint would inevitably overwhelm them, and the Warden would begin to become a ghoul — people whom had been so thoroughly tainted that their spirits had been corrupted, their minds dominated by the same magics that controlled the horde. (If left alone they would vanish into the Deep Roads, but nobody knew for certain what the darkspawn used the men for.) For Wardens, this process was much slower, their mind left intact for longer, all the while the eerie song of the Blight growing louder and louder, until it become difficult to concentrate on the people around them. The Calling, they'd named it.
Once the Calling became noticeable — most often at least a decade after the Joining, but often longer, and some Wardens never even heard it at all, enduring into old age — the Warden prepared to leave. Responsibilities they might have were passed down to subordinates, students were shuffled around to other teachers, farewells were said. And the Warden left to perform their final task.
What was most typical, done so long as the option was available, was for the Warden to travel to Orzammar. They would stay in the city for a short time, gathering what supplies they might need — preferred weapons and armor, potions, food, water. Once they felt they were prepared, the Warden would step out into the Deep Roads. They would seek out the darkspawn, with one, singular goal: to die in battle against the Blight, taking as many of the monsters with them as they possibly could.
The fortress the Grey Wardens held in Orzammar was where those under the Calling would spend their brief time in the city, before departing to march to their deaths. And so it was called the Last Watch.
Though, the Last Watch wasn't host to only Wardens under the Calling. Orzammar was their greatest, most powerful, and most consistent ally against the darkspawn. While the people living above ground mostly only had to worry about them during a Blight, the darkspawn lived in what had been dwarven lands — attacks on the remaining dwarven cities never ceased, whether there was a Blight going on on the surface or not. (Lýna hadn't known there was a second dwarven city far to the north, near Tevinter, but they were far more cautious of outsiders, the Wardens hadn't a place like the Last Watch in Sharok.) People on the surface tended to forget about the darkspawn between archdemon attacks, seemingly trying to pretend they didn't exist at all, so the dwarves of Orzammar greatly appreciated the unwavering support of the Wardens in the long generations between.
There were always Wardens posted at the Last Watch, though how many changed over time. They worked with the local warriors and something called the Legion of the Dead — Lýna had heard the Legion mentioned before, by Avvar a few times before Duncan, but she didn't know what they were — to keep the Deep Roads nearest to Orzammar, their farms and their mines, as cleared of darkspawn as possible, to protect the city, their largest foothold below the surface. Sometimes, they would foray further out, working with the Legion to search out and destroy broodmothers, doing as much damage to the horde as they could.
Of course, the Wardens did similar things all over the world, rooting themselves over major entrances to the Deep Roads wherever they could find them, but Orzammar was the largest of these efforts they had, and the most important. It was from Orzammar that Wardens got most of their silverite, their lyrium, expertly crafted and enchanted weapons and armor — Lýna's sword was dwarven-crafted, in fact, the design meant for the women of their warrior clans. (As a last line of self-defense, apparently their soldiers were mostly all men.) It was an important relationship they had, one going back all the way to the days shortly after the First Blight.
Alim saying the dwarves might not let them in had really been quite silly — Orzammar had no friends in the world greater than the Wardens, they would always be welcome here. But, the thought had occurred to Lýna, that if they were too busy trying to figure out who their next king should be, they might not be ready to march against the Blight until it was far too late for the Alamarri.
That might be a problem, one Lýna had no idea what she could do about it.
The Last Watch was on what their guide had called the Way of Diamonds, a wide circular road around the top level of the city. They were led along the road, gently curving as it went, passing in front of one enormous stone building after another, all glittering and gleaming in the magical light. They passed many dwarves along the way, men and women — almost every single one of them was armed and armored, though a lot of the armor was colorful and highly decorated, clearly meant more to display wealth than to protect the wearer in battle. As Solana had explained weeks ago now, Orzammar was a city constantly under siege, the residents always at least appeared to be ready to fight the darkspawn at a moment's notice when in public. Lýna assumed it was a way to indicate their loyalty to their people, suggesting they were prepared to fight and die for them should they need to — similar to the obvious displays of wealth all around, but a signal of one's values instead of one's resources — but she didn't really know for sure.
Honestly, dwarves looked even weirder to the elven eye than humans did. Lýna had known humans in the south, sure — but even then, there was still something about their features that instinctively struck her as just...off — but she'd only met a handful of dwarves before joining the Wardens (mostly Avvar, once a pair of brothers from Orzammar). Their proportions were just wrong, hands almost unnervingly large (though she didn't know why she found them unnerving), thick and bulky, faces thick and flat and square and... They sort of looked like monkeys, now that she thought about it. Far too thick in the chest, of course, but their odd, flat, big-lipped faces, the length of their arms relative to their bodies, that was what they reminded her of.
Also, they were all shorter than her, even the tallest of them maybe reaching the level of her eyes. It felt very peculiar being surrounded by people she was taller than — she was small even for her People, she was used to being one of the shortest people around...
As they walked down the road, dwarves ahead of them would make way for them, even the crowd in the market area parted without prompting. Most would give the same salute the warriors outside had, head bowing and pounding their fists against their chests. (The clanking of metal against metal, over and over and over, was starting to give Lýna a headache.) Others would raise a hand to them — open, palm out — calling something in their language. Leaning closer, Solana translated it as Hail, Grey Wardens — these people would either be the heads of noble clans or their closest family members, it wasn't appropriate for them to bow to anyone but their king.
The welcome the dwarves gave them was clearly cheering up the rest of the Wardens. At first, they'd been a bit overwhelmed by the city, quietly gazing around them, occasionally whispering to each other comments about how incredible the place was — and Lýna didn't disagree, it was very impressive. (Dwarven civilization dated back to the time of the Ancients, the People would have been even grander then, with the advantage of their magic and agelessness, but the Keeper said the dwarves came the closest.) But as the salutes kept coming down, the people here clearly pleased to see them, the Wardens and their allies lightened more and more, chattering and laughing easier, returning the welcome with salutes of their own. Probably thinking they'd get far more support here, the suspicion they'd gotten on their trip north (and even from some of the people at Redcliffe) left behind. Their task here must go far more smoothly, if the dwarves were so happy to have them.
Only a few of them — Solana, Alistair, Morrigan, Fergus, Lýna herself — seemed unaffected. Personally, Lýna would be waiting to see what kind of support in equipment and warriors the dwarves would pledge them to help end the Blight before deciding how to feel about their welcome.
In time, after their long walk down the road, they reached the part of the Way of Diamonds set aside for outsiders — places held by human kingdoms where their envoys negotiated their business with the dwarves, Solana explained. These were mostly smaller buildings, especially compared to some of the larger palaces held by the noble clans, but glittering and gleaming like the rest. Solana pointed out the banners flying outside as they passed — Wycome, Antiva, Ferelden. This one was the Kingdom of South Reach — not the Arling of South Reach in Ferelden, but an Alamarri kingdom across the Waking Sea, they'd peacefully split into two separate kingdoms (Ostwick and Markham) nearly ninety years ago now but still shared embassies in most places — and there was Nevarra, Anderfels. The largest embassies were those of Tevinter and Orlais — Lýna couldn't help glaring at the banners of the humans most responsible for the destruction of the People, black dragon on green and gold lion on blue.
Past the embassies was another market area, and past that they finally reached the Last Watch. Their guard didn't have to tell them this was it: looking at it from the outside, nobody would ever mistake it for anything else. The building was made of night black stone in simple, blocky shapes. It was completely without decoration of any kind, but the surfaces polished smooth, gleaming like obsidian in the lamplight. The tile outside, red and gray on most of the rest of the road, had been replaced with the same pure black — a design done in glistening silver straight in front of the entrance, an enormous two-headed griffon, wings spread and claws bared. A similar design had been stitched into the banners flying here and there, from the corners of the building but also from the lampposts and along the fence blocking off the drop, white on sky blue. In building this place, they'd left absolutely no room for doubt who it belonged to.
Someone inside must have seen their approach — even as Lýna's foot crossed onto the black tile, she heard a deep clanking and then a faint creak of hinges, the tall double-doors at the front of the building were pushed ponderously open. A small group of figures stepped outside — three, a shorter in front and two taller a step behind to their left and right, the shorter one clearly their leader — all dressed in Alamarri clothing, linen and wool, black and blue and gray. They stopped a few paces beyond the gate, waited for their group to approach, watching.
Lýna felt the tension build in her shoulders, tried to relax. Whoever these Wardens were, they'd certainly be more senior than Lýna herself. She had absolutely no idea what they would think of Lýna taking over, raising herself to Commander, any of it — and she had no idea what would happen if they didn't approve. She'd known there would be Wardens here, yes, but they'd needed to come, so this confrontation was always going to happen, she wouldn't be able to put it off forever. At this point, there was nothing to do but hope for the best.
An anticipatory quiet built in her people as they approached, they were still some distance away when Lýna twitched in surprise, her pace hitching for a second before jerking into motion again. The Warden in the lead, a woman with bright sunny-blonde hair cropped even shorter than Lýna's, was an elf.
Once the head of their group was only a few lengths away, the elven Warden called out, "Welcome, Brothers and Sisters." There was more after that, but Lýna understood little of it — she was speaking in Cirienne.
Coming to a stop, her people gathering behind her with a clattering of boots and hooves against stone, Lýna grimaced. "I'm sorry, do you speak Alamarri?"
The woman blinked — this close, Lýna could see she had deep blue-violet eyes, very similar to Lýna's. A second later, the surprise was wiped away, replaced with a pleasant smile. "Of course, I apologize. I was asking where you were sent from — we are expecting a large party from the Anderfels in the next weeks, but I don't suppose you are they." There was an accent on her Alamarri, a bit stronger than Leliana's but still easily understandable.
"No." Lýna took a short breath. "I am Lýna Maharjeᶅ, Commander of the Grey in Ferelden. This here," she said, tilting her head toward Fergus behind and to her right. "Is Fergus Cousland, Teyrn of Highever."
All three Wardens stiffened in surprise, eyes flicking over the group behind Lýna, one of them hissed something in a language she didn't recognize. After a few seconds, the woman gave Fergus a little nod, "Your Grace," before turning back to Lýna. "So Duncan died at Ostagar, then? We feared he likely had, but we've gotten no news one way or the other since before the battle."
"Yes. He sent myself and a few others away from the front to carry on should he fall."
The woman nodded. "I'm truly sorry to hear that. Duncan was a good man and a great Warden." Turning over her shoulder, facing toward the open gate, the woman called out something in...not Cirienne, maybe dwarvish? There was an odd tingle in Lýna's ears, the slightest hint of song carried in the woman's voice — she must be a mage. "Yes, yes. Let's get your people squared away. Your timing was excellent, it should be soon enough the cooks can add enough for all of you." Nodding back at the group, she asked, "May I?"
Lýna wasn't really sure what she was asking for, but nodded anyway. She nodded back, and took a few steps to the side, putting herself more directly in the middle of the entire band, where it would be easier for them all to see her. Planting her hands on her hips, she smiled out at them, what few mutterings there'd been a moment ago trickling off as they realized she meant to speak to them.
"Brothers and Sisters, Your Grace," with another nod at Fergus, "welcome to the Last Watch." She had raised her voice a little, but not by very much, Lýna assumed that tingle of magic was carrying her words to all of them somehow. "My name is Sidona Andras — I am a Captain of the Grey Wardens of Orlais, and marshal of our forces here in Orzammar.
"May I only say, it is a great relief to see you all here. We had gotten no further word from the Wardens of Ferelden since before the battle against the darkspawn at Ostagar, and we worried your country had been left without Wardens of your own once again. With the talk coming out of Denerim, we worried further that coordinating a quick response to the Blight would be made most difficult. But now you are here! With native Wardens to lead the effort, our chances of success are that much greater. Soon, I hope, we can end this Blight before it has hardly begun, or at the least delay it for a time.
"So, come!" she called, clapping her hands together. "We have much work to do and little time to do it in. Come, come!" The Orlesian Warden, Sidona, led them through the gates, waving them onward, and they filed into the entrance hall of the ancient fort.
The Last Watch was larger on the inside than it appeared. The parts of the structure visible from outside were mostly common areas: the stables were not far from the entrance, stocked with plenty of feed and water, enchantments keeping the air clean, currently housing the mounts of the Orlesian Wardens (the others had taken boats to Jader and walked the rest of the way); there was a large armory, stocked with armor and weapons of all sorts, along with large open areas to practice in; nearby, a forge complete with all the tools necessary to make repairs, alterations, or entirely new pieces (waiting on hand several people to work it all); rooms littered with tools and supplies for enchanting and potion-making; a dining hall connected to a large kitchen, storage space large enough to hold enough to feed a hundred people for months, enchantments to keep things from spoiling; their own bathhouse, which Sidona said was large enough to fit dozens of people at once, but yet the water was heated (must be more enchanting); some rooms for the Wardens to relax, hearths and chairs and bookshelves and so forth; and then there were rooms for guests, allies of the Wardens who for whatever purpose were staying with them here — there was one such ally here at the moment, Sidona would introduce them later.
Taking stairs down, below the level of the road outside, they reached where the Wardens lived. The dwarves had carved a branching network of halls and chambers out of the stone, one branch assigned to the Wardens of each country — for the most part, like with their embassy Ostwick and Markham shared one, and so did Tantervale and Hasmal. (Lýna had never heard of any of these places.) While leading them into the rooms set aside for the Fereldans, Sidona told Lýna that these had once belonged to the Wardens of the Republic. The elven branch of the order had continued to exist for nearly a century after the Fall, when they finally disbanded their rooms passing to the Rivainis. As the borders the humans drew shifted, kingdoms rising and falling, things had gotten passed around until these were assigned to the Wardens of Ferelden, centuries ago, when the kingdom was still new.
Lýna wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about that. Sidona must have told her for a reason, but she couldn't imagine what it was.
The place was nice enough, Lýna guessed, the hard black stone mostly hidden with carpets and tapestries and furs. Sitting rooms here, with seating and tables and hearths, a library, plenty of space to store equipment and supplies. It had a very unlived-in feel, cold and bland in the absence of any sign of life — reminding her of nothing but old ruins left abandoned, despite how whole and clean everything was — which she guessed made sense, given there hadn't been many Fereldan Wardens for a while — like after the Fall, the Fereldan Wardens had continued in exile for a time, but they'd folded into the Wardens of other countries and disappeared long before Duncan. To her surprise, there were a few servants kicking around down here, mostly dwarves, telling in broken Alamarri for the Wardens to come to them if they needed anything. And they did mean practically anything, since most of the Last Watch's expenses were covered by the city's leaders, even if it was something they had to run out and buy that was fine.
There were bunks for the Wardens, a handful of beds in a room, but there was a separate room for the Commander (or whoever happened to be leading the Fereldans here at the time). Lýna scowled at this for a moment before lifting a shoulder in a shrug, letting her bag fall onto one of the padded chairs sitting around a little table. She was aware she still made most of the new recruits uncomfortable, and if the demon-inspired nightmares cropped up again she could always ask someone to come here — the bed was more than large enough for...well, probably three or four people, if they were all elves. Besides, she thought she'd appreciate the privacy when she was practicing her reading and writing.
Though, there was also another of those weird indoor baths humans liked attached to the bedroom, which was completely unnecessary. Much smaller than the one upstairs, but still.
Sidona was a little surprised that Lýna just let the Wardens figure out who would be sleeping where on their own, a response which honestly baffled Lýna. She meant, they were all adults — she was all but certain that she was still the youngest person in their now much larger band — surely they could sort that out for themselves? Was that the sort of thing Alamarri expected their leaders to dictate to them? Weird...
By the time the Wardens had all found their beds, freeing themselves of packs and weapons and armor, dinner was almost ready upstairs. (They really had had great timing.) The dining hall was one of the largest rooms in the whole thing. Long and rectangular, the ceiling stretching up probably twice Alistair's height, made of the same black stone as everything else. There were three hearths along each of the side walls, all filled with moodily-flickering flame, over-large banners hung high on the walls — Lýna recognized the Wardens', of course, and Ferelden's, and there was Orlais and Tevinter, but she didn't know the rest. Down the center of the room were two long tables, lined with benches, a shorter third table set at one end of the room, chairs at one side. There had to be room to seat a hundred people, more, though there were only a few dozen Wardens here at the moment — Lýna's and Fergus's people didn't double their numbers, but they weren't too far short — which was more than usual, but the Last Watch could hold far more than this in a pinch.
The Fereldan Wardens were close to the last to show up, the others already seated at the tables, platters of food and pitchers of drink being set out on the tables, Wardens cheerfully chatting and joking with the servants. The leaders here, including Lýna and Fergus, were to sit at the smaller table — she couldn't help a little exasperated sigh at that (Alamarri were weird). There were only a few other people at the front table, who Sidona immediately went about introducing them to.
Reynaldo Lozano, one of the men who'd greeted them at the door with Sidona, was a large, thickly-muscled man, with dark hair and eyes, but wearing a bright, friendly grin; he was a Warden-Captain from Nevarra, the kingdom to the north of Orlais. (Mẽrhiᶅ was from that part of the world, Lýna was pretty sure.) He'd come here with eight experienced Wardens and a newly-Joined team of expert dragon-hunters, who'd been recruited with the explicit purpose of killing the Archdemon if they managed to track it down in the Deep Roads. The non-Warden guest here was with them, a mage from the Circle named Fabricio of Perendale.
"Excuse me," Fergus interrupted, his eyes gone wide. "Do you mean the Dreamer? That Fabricio of Perendale?" Lýna twitched in surprise, turned to look out over the gathered men and women — there was a Dreamer here?
Reynaldo's grin only widened, a slight curl of a smirk at one corner of his lips. "Yes, that is the Fabricio I speak of." His accent was stronger than Sidona's, though clearly not the same accent, with more of rolling bounce to it, his voice carrying a deep, almost playful drawl. "In all the Circle there are—"
"The Southern Circle," another man interrupted — one Lýna hadn't been introduced to yet, the other one with Sidona at the gate.
Looking slightly annoyed, Reynaldo nodded. "Yes, yes. In the Southern Circle, there are only three Dreamers altogether, I believe?"
"Four," Sidona said, scooping herself some thick stew out of a nearby platter. "I got a letter from a friend in the Circle at Montsimmard last week, with news a Dreamer was just discovered in Ostwick a couple months ago. But, in the Circle, many of us think there are more Dreamers than we know of. They only keep their abilities to themselves, out of caution."
Well of course, with how ridiculous the Alamarri could be about their magic-hate sometimes, it would only make sense that they'd try to stay hidden if they could. Lýna was a little surprised the Templars didn't just kill Dreamers in their beds at the first opportunity. "Which one is he?"
"The human man at the front just there, see?"
Honestly, she would have never guessed — the man Sidona pointed out looked...well, perfectly normal. He was a mousy little thing, slight and pale, hair a plain brown, features bland and unremarkable for a human, would hardly stand out walking around Redcliffe. Perhaps too clean and soft — Lýna could believe this man had never worked with his hands even once in his life — but otherwise ordinary. Lýna had met two Dreamers before (including the All-Mother), and this Fabricio was the least impressive of them by far.
Not that it mattered what he looked like, she guessed. If this little man were truly one of those greatest of mages, he could easily kill more darkspawn than the rest of them put together, single-handedly.
Or perhaps not. Reynaldo explained that Fabricio had never truly studied magic meant for battle — which also made sense, Lýna would think he didn't want to make the Templars any more nervous than necessary. He was extremely powerful, of course, and a good, friendly sort, but he'd never been in a real fight before. Reynaldo had been honestly surprised when, visiting the Perendale Circle to ask for volunteers to join the archdemon-hunting team, Fabricio had stepped up.
They were definitely pleased he had, though. One of the greatest difficulties when it came to fighting an archdemon was that, being actual gods, they'd all been Dreamers before their corruption: in addition to being enormous damn dragons, each of them could freely cast magic, and they were all overwhelmingly powerful. It didn't matter how many common warriors the Wardens brought to bear, they'd all be annihilated easily. They needed either a bunch of Templars or several mages working together to keep the archdemon from slaughtering them before they could blink.
Or, in the proper circumstances, a single Dreamer. During the First Blight, a skilled Dreamer faced the first archdemon (Dumat) at the Second Battle of Minrathous, alone, while the rest of the (Tevene) warriors fought the horde — and he won, slaying one of the most deadly beings to ever exist single-handedly, in a magical duel of awe-inspiring scope that had gone on for hours. Lýna had never heard of this before, reminded her of some of the tales of the greatest feats of the Ancients or legendary Avvar warriors, but apparently in the north there'd been all kinds of stories and songs about it over the centuries. (Though Dumat had returned, of course, only a Warden could kill an archdemon permanently.) Fabricio didn't have nearly the skill to do something like that, but he could counter Urthemiel's magic to prevent it from killing them all easily. They were also training him with a spirit-blade, hoping he might be able to fly up and cripple the archdemon's wings, forcing it to the ground where the Wardens could more easily kill it — darkspawn as a rule were terrible at healing magics, so that could actually work — but they had no idea at this point whether he'd get good enough with it to be worth the risk.
(Fabricio was an ally, but not a Warden — they didn't want to risk losing him to the Joining, which was reasonable. If they did end up going with that plan, he'd be aiming to cripple alone, not kill.)
Sidona next introduced her to the other man who'd joined her at the gate. This one was rather smaller than Reynaldo, with somewhat darker skin — tanned by long exposure to the sun, Lýna thought — solid black hair tied back with some kind of ribbon — surprisingly colorful, blue with silver threads that sparkled in the light — honey-brown eyes looking almost amber in the fire-light. This one was named Iaşneru, a Warden-Captain...of Tevinter.
For a moment, Lýna could only silently stare at him. She'd never met anyone from Tevinter before.
Iaşneru let out a little sigh. Folding his arms on the table, he leaned forward, so he could more easily meet her eyes around Reynaldo and Sidona. "Let's hear it, then," his accent putting a bounce on the words, similar to but different from Reynaldo's, more delicate. "Get it out of the way."
"What...?"
"If you spout at me about the evils of my home country, you are not the first. Not the first Warden, even — half of Sidona and Reynaldo's people look at me and my comrades like we may do something vile if they don't watch us careful. And even more than looking."
Sidona grimaced. "I already apologized for that incident with Feliç and Liviă."
"Yes, and I already accepted your apology, I am only saying. And the People," turning back to Lýna with a little nod, "have far more cause to hold grudges than Orlais. So, please, let us get it out of the way now."
Lýna held Iaşneru's gaze for a moment, thinking of what she should say. Because, she didn't think there was really anything to say. She was a little taken aback, she'd never spoken to any Tevinters before, but it wasn't like... Ancient Tevinter had conquered and enslaved the People, yes, but that had been well over a thousand years ago now, long before even the Republic — it had nothing to do with Lýna's life, and little to do with Iaşneru's. The destruction of the Republic at the hands of the Orlesians was far more recent, it was they who'd driven the People into exile, and if she could set aside all that to work with Orlesians, she didn't see why Iaşneru and his people should be a problem.
(She'd even kissed an Orlesian, and could admit to herself, while it did make her terribly uncomfortable, that she found the memory...distracting? Surely, if she could do that, fighting darkspawn alongside Tevene warriors shouldn't be a problem.)
After what had probably been far too long of a pause, Lýna finally said, "We are both Wardens now, yes? There is no problem here."
Iaşneru's eyes widened a little. "Oh! Hmm." He straightened again, reaching for his mug. "Good, then."
For most of the meal, they didn't talk about anything particularly important. Fergus spoke a bit of what had happened in Highever — or what he knew of it, he hadn't been there — the current state of things in Ferelden as best as he could tell, why he'd decided to travel with them. Most of this went right over Lýna's head — in that Fergus and Sidona were both taller than her, speaking to each other from Lýna's left and right, and in that Lýna didn't know many of the people and places being talked about. Loghain was having serious trouble holding the Alamarri together, she understood that much.
As had been explained to Lýna before, he hadn't had the right to take over the country the way he had — Anora could appoint him to lead her armies, but he wasn't supposed to speak for her in all things the way he was trying to. Some of the lords refused to recognize his authority over them, and rumors of what had happened at Ostagar were spreading despite his attempts to silence them, making the situation even worse. He'd put this Howe who'd killed Fergus's family in charge of the Teyrnir of Highever (Fergus's lands) and also the Arling of Denerim, if only temporarily until they could pick someone new to rule them, but that wasn't the way that was supposed to be done either. A bunch of smaller lords in Highever and Denerim were refusing to recognize Howe's authority over them as well, little armed rebellions or just blatantly not doing what they were told (or paying things called "taxes" and "duties") already sprouting up here and there. It was still early, it took long enough for Alamarri to get onto a war footing that there shouldn't be major battles before the Landsmeet, but it was still going to be a mess.
And that was without bringing up the darkspawn invading from the south, that was just going to make everything even worse on top of that. The Alamarri might be in serious trouble, looked like...
Fergus said he intended to step forward at the Landsmeet — he'd raised the possibility of trying to become the new king before, but Lýna had never heard him speak of it with such certainty until now. Unless something went terribly wrong, or Loghain and Howe got really clever, he thought it was very, very likely he would be picked. And if he did become King of Ferelden, he would ask for assistance from the Wardens and other human kingdoms immediately — not Orlais, though, the Alamarri wouldn't put up with Orlesian soldiers in their country, but the Free Marches and maybe Nevarra, certainly. In fact, it might be better for Sidona to send word to the First Warden right now, just to make sure any force he sent would be able to get here soon after Fergus invited them.
The other Warden leaders seemed a little surprised about all this, but after a short pause they were all smiles. Sidona promised to send a letter to the First Warden tomorrow morning, and Reynaldo would ask his Commander to pass word along to the King of Nevarra. Some in the Free Marches were already preparing to send soldiers south to fight the Blight — particularly Ostwick and Markham, but Ansburg and Tantervale were talking about it too — they'd make sure the Warden-Commanders of those lands knew there was a plan in the works, might help them get things going quicker. The Wardens had already been mobilizing for a short time now, most especially in Orlais and Nevarra, and the rest of them would undoubtedly be ready to arrive in Ferelden in force by the end of the year.
Listening to the senior Wardens talk about the preparations being made all around the world, Lýna was gradually all but overcome with relief, the tension lifting out of her so intense she shivered — she'd been worried they'd be left alone to try to stop the Blight themselves. She focused on eating for a few minutes, worried it would show on her voice.
(This wouldn't be like the war in the south — they would have allies, elves and humans and dwarves from all over the world, more warriors than Lýna could count. They could do this, they could.)
(She wouldn't have to watch the Alamarri die the way she had the Chasind.)
While Lýna struggled to hold in laughter or tears (she wasn't sure which), the others around her went on talking about themselves, where they come from and what they did, that sort of thing, getting to know each other better. Reynaldo had been a farmer once, but nearly a decade ago now Nevarra invaded Orlais in an attempt to take a region he called Guislano and Sidona called Guislaine — Lýna didn't know it, obviously, but she gathered Orlais and Nevarra had warred over the land multiple times in the past. Nevarra had lost the war in the end, Orlais keeping Guislaine and also conquering another region called Perendale. The end of the war was recent enough that the Wardens hadn't adjusted yet, the Nevarran Wardens still working in Perendale, which was why Fabricio had come with the Nevarrans and not the Orlesians.
But anyway, in the months leading up to the war, Nevarran lords sent their knights through their lands, and... Well, it sounded like they'd abducted people from their homes and forced them to fight for them. Human armies tended to have their chevaliers, warriors on horseback with plate armor, a variety of weaponry, and long, intensive training, but the bulk of their forces were made of farmers dragged away from their lands, handed heavy linen and spears. There were also volunteers, who tended to be the shieldbearers and the archers, but numerically these unwilling spearmen outnumbered the rest.
Fergus reassured her that this was practically unheard of in Antiva and most of the Free Marches, and was in fact illegal in Ferelden and Rivain, but it was a common practice in Starkhaven and Tantervale, and especially in Orlais and Nevarra. Which was good, that they didn't do it in Ferelden, because it sounded very much like slavery to her. Surprisingly, Reynaldo and Sidona agreed — so did Iaşneru, and he would know — they both had serious disagreements with their own countrymen and this was one of them.
His issues with this practice was no small part of why Reynaldo was here in the first place: when he'd heard the Kingdom was collecting peasants for their army, he'd grabbed some supplies and gone off to hide outside the village along with some of his friends, where they would wait until after the knights moved on. Unfortunately, they checked the records at the Chantry, and quickly realized several people were missing. Some of the soldiers went out looking for them, and stumbled across Reynaldo's group — they'd had no idea they'd been found out, so they were taken by surprise. Somehow a fight broke out, Reynaldo wasn't really sure how it'd started, and the soldiers were killed or knocked out, and two of his friends were dead. (They'd outnumbered the soldiers, apparently, Reynaldo was convinced they all would have been killed if the knight's people had stayed together.)
After a bit of debate about what they were supposed to do — now the knight would be even more focused on finding them, and they would be executed if they were caught, no matter that they'd been defending themselves — they decided to go to the Wardens for sanctuary. His superiors had quickly recognized Reynaldo's leadership abilities, he'd been promoted up to captain less than five years after his Joining, going on four years ago now.
(Lýna gathered that was supposed to sound impressive — the situation the Fereldan Wardens were in right now was very much not typical.)
Though Sidona had also been promoted up about that quickly, if for different reasons. She was from Delzã, had been born in Halmĩśirèl — like Leliana, she pronounced the name wrong...though she would later mention that her first language was the local elvish, so maybe that was just how they said it there. (It was closer than how the Alamarri said it, anyway.) She'd been maybe six or seven when her magic had been discovered and she'd been sent to the Circle of Montsimmard, which had been very difficult at first, since they spoke Cirienne in the Circle and she'd only known elvish at the time. Sidona had played nice during her time in the Circle, obeying all the rules like a good, meek little mage. So, when one of the local nobles asked for a mage to help him with something (as Alim said they did sometimes), she'd been allowed to go.
At the first opportunity, she'd slipped away from her Templar escort and escaped.
While Fergus chuckled, a little derisively — Lýna got the feeling the mess at the Tower had tarnished the Templars in his eyes somewhat — Iaşneru leaned around the other Captains again, so he could give them a crooked smirk. "Sidona here may put on the show of being all sweet and kind, but don't believe it for a minute. To fool the Southern Circle so long, since she was a child, no, she's a vicious, devious little thing, and always has been."
Sidona grinned, bright and cheerful, and simply moved on with the story. Over the next few years, she wandered around Delzã, never staying in one place for too long — the Templars knew she'd escaped, of course, it wouldn't do for any of the locals to get suspicious about her and for word to spread. There had been a few close calls, but there were so many elves in those lands, it was easy enough for Sidona to suppress her magic and disappear into the crowd when Templars got too close.
It wasn't an easy life, exactly, but things went more or less smoothly until she happened to stumble across darkspawn, in the foothills somewhere. She managed to get away without incident, but a couple days later a band of them attacked the village she was staying in — such raids were far more common during a Blight, but they still happened outside of them. It wouldn't have been difficult for her to flee, but she'd felt responsible for leading the darkspawn to the village, so she'd stayed to fight. In the next weeks, they found she and several of the others had been tainted. Studying at Montsimmard, Sidona had come across rumors that the Wardens could cure (or at least delay) the Blight, so she'd left for the Warden post in Halmĩśirèl, along with the tainted villagers — a few others had also survived the Joining, she pointed out an elven man among her people as one who'd come with her.
Due to her education at the Circle, her initiative and bravery in defending the village, and her leadership shown in their march to Halmĩśirèl, she'd been made a lieutenant pretty much right away...but that led to difficulties. In most countries, the officers were expected to deal with important people in the lands they were protecting — it didn't take long before Sidona doing this started causing problems. Orlesian nobles didn't tend to like elves much, and her being a mage didn't make it any better...and she had a bad habit of repaying insults with insults, and Orlesian nobles definitely didn't take well to being insulted by an elven woman. (Lýna wasn't sure why being a woman should make a difference, but Sidona seemed to be suggesting it did.)
She was even challenged to duels, multiple times, the men apparently assuming (at least the first few times) that an elven woman would be easy to beat, and that as a mage she was unlikely to know how to use a sword at all. Of course, not being an idiot, Sidona had started learning how to defend herself without magic years before, so if the Templars caught up to her she wouldn't be defenseless — some of the duels had been close, but Sidona never lost...which only made the Orlesian lords hate her more.
In time, it grew so bad that somebody somewhere convinced the Templars that she was too dangerous to let live outside the Circle. While returning from a training mission into the Deep Roads under Delzã, leading a band of mostly newly-Joined Wardens, they were ambushed by a larger number of Templars — they'd even brought along a Knight-Enchanter, like the Kenrick Alim hated so much. While the Templars suppressed her magic, the Knight-Enchanter tried to cut her down with a spirit-blade, but luckily the enchantments on the sword she'd carried at the time were good enough to block it. It had been a hard, desperate fight, but the Wardens managed to distract the Templars enough Sidona had an opening, taking the Knight-Enchanter with a surprise curse, picked up his spirit-blade to help her people cut down the Templars. By the end, three of her men were dead, but the Templars were slaughtered to a man.
She still had that spirit-blade, in fact — she was training Fabricio, since she was the only other person around who knew how to use one. She wasn't an excellent swordsman, by any means, but the thing could bisect a darkspawn with a single stroke, so she didn't really need to be.
"That sounds useful," Lýna said. Dinner was almost over at this point, Wardens already beginning to trickle out of the room. The first out had been the Wardens here on their Calling — there were six at the moment, which was more than usual, but it always came faster during a Blight — but the others must have things they could be doing, those lingering focused more on chattering with each other than eating. Lýna caught herself watching Lèlja, turned back to Sidona with a twitch. "Can only mages use those?"
Fergus chuckling again to her other side, Sidona silently blinked at her for a moment. "Ah...I think so? You must be a mage to make one — it requires bridging a spirit across the Veil into the hilt, so Tranquil can't do it. It doesn't take much magic at all to... No, I don't think it takes any magic to use one, but you must be able to communicate with the spirit controlling the blade, and I'm not certain non-mages can do this."
"We can," Iaşneru called from down the table. "At the least, I know for other spell-bound objects, this is possible. I never try it with a spirit-blade, so it could go either way."
"Hmm, the communication between the spirit and the user is far more complex in this case than most..."
Oh, that was disappointing. Lýna liked the silverite blade Duncan had given her just fine, yes, but these spirit-blade things sounded extremely useful. Although, "What if I took lyrium first? Alim says I'm close enough to being a mage I might be able to do magic with lyrium. Would that help?"
That seemed to surprise Sidona again, twitching a little, eyes widening. "Ah... Well, even a small dose of lyrium would—" Sidona let out a hum and sat back in her chair a little, eyes tipping up to the ceiling. She must be trying to decide how to explain it without the very specific language the Circle used, Alim did the same thing sometimes. While waiting, Lýna swished her cider around in her mug, watching the liquid slosh back and forth — this stuff was quite good (though not as good as the spiced wine), but the pulp and spices had a tendency to sink to the bottom.
After several seconds, Sidona said, "I believe the best way to say it is, having lyrium in your blood makes your presence louder, but not necessarily move focused — the spirit would be able to hear you easier, but whether it would help it understand you, I don't know. We can try it later, if you like. Without lyrium first, using the stuff on the regular is not a habit you want to get into."
Anyway, as shouldn't be a surprise, the Templars were very, very angry about Sidona killing a whole band of them, despite the Wardens only defending themselves — that seemed to be a common theme in Sidona and Reynaldo's stories. And, as also shouldn't be a surprise, the Wardens were just as angry with the Chantry about their not-really-warrior-shamans killing Wardens and trying to capture or kill one of their officers. There was a lot of arguing — the Chantry, Circle, Templars, and a bunch of nobles on one side, the Wardens and a few of their allies among the Orlesian elders on the other — but in the end the Wardens agreed to punish Sidona for it. She was exiled from her home, sent out of Orlais to Last Watch, where she would have to stay indefinitely.
That was what their Commander told the Orlesians, anyway. In truth, the Wardens had been impressed with Sidona and her trainees for their defeat of the Templars — especially their most senior Constable, a human mage named Clarel Sidona seemed to respect — more pleased they'd managed to survive than anything. They had sent her to Last Watch, and she couldn't return to Orlais, but the post came with a promotion to Captain, the Commander personally apologizing to her for the whole thing. Sidona actually liked being here, in large part because she didn't have to deal with Templars and chevaliers and marquis and barons anymore, so it was hardly a punishment in any real sense.
The previous marshal — not a proper rank, but what Wardens leading a group made of warriors from multiple branches in the order were called — at the Last Watch had left on his Calling nearly two years ago, and Sidona had been in charge here ever since. It'd been rather busy here lately, her Wardens trying to track the Archdemon and doing their best to cut down the darkspawn forces as much as possible before they could reach the surface, but that was how these things went sometimes, Sidona wouldn't return to Orlais even if she had the option.
The reason why all her Wardnes were at the Last Watch right now, and not off making more strikes against the horde, was because they were coordinating a major offensive with the Legion of the Dead. It was still in the early stages, they might not be ready to go for another month or two, but if it went well it should be a significant victory against the Blight — if nothing else, afterward the dwarves would be better situated to protect themselves, and they'd be free to commit more forces against the Blight on the surface. Sidona would explain all that later.
By that time, the dining hall had been mostly emptied, only a couple Wardens left lowly chatting over their drinks, servants clearing the tables. Lýna hadn't seen a single elf among the staff here yet — dwarves, some humans, but no elves. She wondered if there was a reason for that. Sidona said they had some things to discuss, about the Wardens in Ferelden, the situation in Orzammar, and what their plans would be from here. They would be talking about Warden secrets, so Fergus couldn't come. When Sidona smilingly told him to get lost, Fergus said something about how he couldn't imagine why the Orlesian nobility hadn't taken to her, such a charming woman. He sounded amused saying it, a hidden laugh in the rumble of his voice, so he clearly didn't actually mind the rudeness — but then, Lýna had noticed Fergus didn't have the same easily-bruised pride the Guerrins did...
...and also the Orlesian leaders, apparently. She was starting to get the feeling that Fergus was unusually dignified compared to most of the humans' leaders, which was a little odd. His treatment of his people and his allies struck her as perfectly normal, if a little overly formal sometimes — he reminded her of certain Avvar war-leaders she'd known in the past, truly. Lýna didn't know how she should interpret that.
While Iaşneru hung back for a moment, speaking with a couple of the servants, Sidona led the way out of the dining hall, then up some stairs. They walked down a couple hallways and then into a room — the stone walls mostly hidden with colorful rugs and tapestries, a couple bookshelves here and there, there was an unlit hearth with firewood sitting ready (flames burst into life a moment later at a careless wave of Sidona's hand), a few chairs arranged in front of the fire. These chairs were cloth-shrouded cushioned ones, as the Alamarri liked to do, Lýna probably shouldn't sit...
"We might as well get started while we wait for Neruş to catch up." Sidona plopped into a chair, leaning against one of the arms, her legs draped loose over the edge; Reynaldo sat with a far more upright posture, his back straight, legs folded calf resting on his knee. "I suspect we'll be here all night, so why don't you go ahead and start at the beginning. I didn't know the wandering clans were in Ferelden at all anymore — how did Duncan manage to pick you up?"
Oh, Sidona wanted to go all the way to the beginning. All right, she guessed. "It was luck. There are old trails through Èvhreshiᶅsã, and— The Brecilian, I think it's called?" she added, picking up on the incomprehension on their faces.
"Ah, the forest in the far east, yes? I know there are many elven ruins there, but I thought the area was uninhabited."
"Some clans summered there, but not mine. I lived in the south, beyond Ostagar — the wetlands just there, we would stay during the winter, and the hills further south in the summer. We were fleeing the darkspawn north, we happened to be passing through Èvh– the Brecilian at the same time Duncan was checking the old trails. We only met by chance." Which was fortunate for Lýna, she would be dead now if Duncan hadn't looked for them in the exact right place at the exact right time.
"Hold there a second," Reynaldo said, leaning forward in his chair a little. "You were fleeing? The darkspawn are so thick in the south?"
It took some effort to keep a scowl off Lýna's face. "Yes, this Blight started longer ago than people think. We've been fighting them in the south for years now. I was nine the first time I saw darkspawn, they were always around. Many died, but mostly we could keep going — until these last two years, when things got very bad. Those who still live all fled north, my People, the Avvar, and the Chasind."
Her head tipping back against the top of her chair, Sidona hissed a breath through her teeth, Reynaldo ran a hand through his hair, muttering something under his breath — an curse of some kind, she assumed, it wasn't in Alamarri. "I'm sorry, Lyna," Sidona said, low and solemn, "we had no idea the horde had surfaced that far south. We've been monitoring them as best we could, these last few years, but we thought they were still building their forces in the Deep Roads, most of the horde concentrated around the Archdemon. If we'd known they'd already surfaced, we would have mobilized a long time ago. This is why we have Wardens spread all across Thedas, so we'll know if—" She cut herself off, her eyes tipping up to the ceiling again. "We should have tried to get people down there, just in case. This shouldn't have happened, I'm so sorry."
Lýna didn't know how to respond to that. Honestly, that the Wardens had failed somehow in not being there from the beginning hadn't occurred to her until just now — to them, the Grey Wardens were part of the greater world beyond their isolated little corner of it, that they should have any particular loyalty to the people of the south was... Well. Sidona was right — if nothing else, the horde they faced now would be much smaller if there'd been more warriors in the south to help them — but it was far too late to do anything about it now. She couldn't say it was okay, because it very much wasn't, but also there was no restitution Sidona could possibly make for it now, so Lýna ended up just shrugging, feeling a little awkward.
Sidona's lips twitched, trying not to smile. "I would like to hear about the Blight in the far south, if you're comfortable speaking of it — if you wish not to, we can return to Duncan and Ostagar. We'll be here a while, go ahead and sit down."
"I might tear them," Lýna said, tapping her fingernails against the armor over her hips.
"Oh, of course." Sidona flicked her fingers at one of the chairs — there was a twitter of music on the air, a flash of pale yellow light, before both faded away. "There, I can hold that for you indefinitely, go ahead."
Sitting in the chair, Lýna could hear the spell inside of it, but it was quiet, not too distracting. She skipped over most of the Blight in the south pretty quickly — it wasn't pleasant to think about, and it was over now anyway, so she didn't see how it was relevant. Besides, even as little detail as she was giving it was obvious by the expressions on their faces that Sidona and Reynaldo could tell how bad it'd been. She was just talking about the horde attacking the city — her clan had left for the north well before the battle, but they'd later bumped into a fleeing Chasind family who'd told them what had happened — when the door opened. Iaşneru walked in carrying four mugs, the handles clutched in his fingers two to a hand, followed by a dwarf woman with a jug.
"I heard of it," he said, responding to Reynaldo's surprise that there'd been a city in the south at all. "It's on Kunesc maps, and some small Antivan and Şelănesc traders go that far." Bending over to carefully set the mugs on a low table between the chairs, Iaşneru tilted his head at the table, said something to the dwarf woman in what Lýna assumed was dwarvish. The woman walked around the table to set the jug down near Sidona.
Shooting Lýna a glance, smirking a little, she translated, "Qunari maps, Rivaini traders." Sidona leaned forward in her chair a bit, reaching out to lay a hand against the jug. There was a quiet twitter of magic, so soft Lýna almost didn't notice.
"Oh yes, apologies. In my defence, Şelăneşti peoples most call themselves Serani, and Qunari is a noun — don't try this again, Reynaldo, I haven't stopped speaking Qunlataja."
Reynaldo, who had been opening his mouth to speak, lifted both hands in surrender, lips curled in a private smile.
Sidona lifted her hand from the jug, the dwarf immediately picking it up again, started pouring a drink into the mugs. The deep red color, the hint of spices already rising into the air, that was wine. "I still think it's funny how you keep using clay mugs — this is a hanging offense back in Halamshiral, you know." Lýna was only mostly certain she was joking.
"And I continue to not care what aristuţi think. Thank you, Komvétsj," he said, plucking up one of the mugs shortly after the dwarf was done pouring. There was more after that, but it was dwarvish again. Smiling up at him, the dwarf answered in the same language, gave a quick, shallow bow to Sidona before walking out, closing the door behind her.
Once the wine was passed around — as usual, spiced wine was great — they got right back to the story. Thankfully, there wasn't so much to say after that. Travelling through Èvhreshiᶅsã, their journey slowing a bit as they left the darkspawn and then Alamarri lands behind. Stopping somewhere pleasant for a little while, Lýna and Tallẽ exploring an old ruin they'd found off on a hunting trip, Lýna tainted and Tallẽ lost. She left off the detail that they were to be bonded soon — she knew from telling this story before that they would want to linger over that, and she didn't want to talk about Tallẽ.
(She hadn't enjoyed kissing him, it hadn't even quite clicked that she was supposed to, and looking back on it now she was beginning to feel really weird about that.)
Iaşneru — the other Captains kept calling him Neruş, but it sounded like a nickname, Lýna wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for her to use it — pointed out that it was curious just how quickly Lýna's Blight sickness had worsened. Normally, it could take months, in rare cases even years for someone to progress from their initial exposure to actually becoming seriously ill, but Lýna likely would have died (or become a ghoul) within a week. After a bit of discussion, they decided it must have something to do with the ancient magics on the mirror, but without being able to analyze them Sidona said there was no way to know what exactly had happened.
Sidona knew of the mirrors though, like Duncan, she'd thought they were made by Tevinter. She had the additional explanation of Tevinters having used them as mirrors or just decoration — they'd likely looted them during their conquest of the old elves, the knowledge of where they'd originally come from lost since. There were a couple in the vaults of the Circle in Montsimmard, but one was cracked and the other the magics had been broken in efforts to study them, examining those ones probably wouldn't do any good. And that was assuming the Templars would just let her waltz in to poke around the vaults — Sidona didn't expect they'd be any less tempted to try to capture her as a Warden-Captain than they had when she'd been a Warden-Lieutenant.
From there, there wasn't anything particularly interesting until they reached Ostagar. Lýna had mostly been focused on altering her armor, improving her Alamarri, and training Marian, so she didn't know a whole lot about what had gone on between the leaders there. Perhaps if she'd been an officer she would have been included, but she hadn't been promoted yet at the time. (In fact, the very last communication the Wardens had gotten from Duncan had been telling of her promotion and that the battle would start soon.) She and Alistair had led the group of recruits out into the wetlands, partially to prepare for the Joining and partially to recover an original copy of the Blight Accords — yes, they still had the treaties, though they hadn't actually needed to use them yet. Perhaps they would be useful later in getting all the Alamarri lords behind them when the time came, they'd keep them for now just in case.
Sidona claimed they shouldn't need them at all, as everybody was aware of the Blight Accords and what they obligated people to do. But recovering them hadn't been a waste, if only for historical value — after a dozen centuries of change and war, that case in Alistair's pack might well hold the only original copy still in existence. Which was kind of interesting, Lýna guessed, but not of immediate use.
"Don't get too excited, Sidona," Reynaldo drawled. "All this time in the Wilds, I doubt they're legible. Paper doesn't last so long."
Lýna shook her head. "They are, we checked. If you can read old Tevene, I mean."
"How..." Reynaldo blinked at her. "That isn't possible. Unless the ruins down there are in better shape than Ostagar, but I can't imagine that's so."
"The All-Mother kept them. I don't know how long she had them, but it must have been for some time." Lýna hadn't realized at first how unlikely it was for writing to last that long — most of the books and scrolls and things in the library in that ruin had been practically falling apart, if the treaty had been left there it probably wouldn't have been any good. The All-Mother must have rescued them centuries ago. Come to think of it, she had no idea how their scouts had even learned there was an intact copy to be found. They hadn't seen the papers themselves, they hadn't even made it as far as the tower...
She was having the sudden suspicion that the All-Mother had slipped the idea into their heads while they slept to begin with. To what purpose, she didn't know, but it didn't really make sense otherwise.
All three of the other Wardens gave her odd looks — skeptical, confused. "Pardon me," Sidona said, more slowly than usual, a delicate sort of tone on her voice, "but I was under the impression the All-Mother was one of the old elven gods."
"Yes."
"I thought she was..." Iaşneru trailed off, gave a little shrug. "...well, dead."
"Yes and no." Her original elven body must have died long ago, but the spirit could live on without the body — obviously, just the fact that spirits existed in the first place was proof of that.
"...Okay. You're saying the All-Mother had the treaties."
"Yes."
"Like, the actual All-Mother, the same one from elven legends."
"Yes, that is what I said."
There was a brief moment of silence. "...I don't understand."
Lýna shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. There have long been rumors among my People about She-of-Many-Faces — an immortal Chasind mage, they have their own—"
"Hold up a second," Sidona said, the hand not holding her wine rubbing at her forehead. "She's Chasind? So, she's human?"
"I don't understand any better than you. Perhaps, this was simply the first way she found to make it back from the Beyond."
"So this woman is an abomination, then. How do you know she truly is the All-Mother, and not a spirit or demon who claims to be?"
"She didn't claim to be, I..." Lýna frowned, filled the silence with a sip of the wine. (Heated, spiced wine was still great, she was probably going to be a little drunk by the end of this meeting.) The problem was, she didn't know how to answer that question. She'd just...known. "It is hard to describe. When I came close to her, I... I knew her, somehow. Like a ringing that I felt all at once, everywhere, as though...as though every part of me, body and spirit, recognized her. I knew who she was, at a glance. I can't explain how."
How did Lèlja recognize her god? Lýna had never asked, but she assumed it was the same thing — it wasn't something you thought about, you just knew.
None of the others knew how to respond to that — Lýna was pretty sure they didn't believe her — so they just moved on. They were surprised that Marian hadn't done the Joining, were possibly a little annoyed that Duncan had trained and equipped someone, even let them know Warden secrets, without actually recruiting them. Reynaldo, at least, said Duncan had probably known what he was doing, and Lýna had to agree — if Marian had come to be a Warden, it should have been her choice, not something that was demanded of her. Besides, it didn't matter if she knew Warden secrets, she'd most likely died in the battle anyway.
"Yes, the battle." Sidona took a sip of her wine, then sat back in her chair, slumped and languid, her hands folded over her stomach. "I confess I don't understand what happened. Duncan was sending updates, and from the sound of it things were going well. Not ideal, no, but they had a good plan. And yet, their forces are routed, Cailan and Duncan are both dead, and Loghain returns to Denerim accusing the Wardens of murdering the King and betraying Ferelden. What the hell happened down there?"
Lýna let out a sigh, covered another pause with another sip of wine. The story wasn't truly complicated, quite simple, really — the problem was she didn't understand why it'd all happened the way it had. "The plan was to draw the darkspawn under the cliffs, and Loghain was to take the cavalry and surround them. Yes?"
They all nodded. "We know of the plan," Reynaldo said, "it was a good plan. It should have worked."
"The cavalry didn't come. At the right time, Alim lit the beacon, but Loghain's men never came. We didn't stay to watch, we had orders to leave and start another defense if something went wrong, but the soldiers must have been overrun without the cavalry — at that point, nothing would have stopped that."
"Loghain Mac-Tir quit the field, leaving his King to die?" asked Reynaldo, rumbling voice heavy with skepticism. "That doesn't...seem possible."
Iaşneru nodded. "Unlikely, to be certain, but yet it came to be. Do you have no idea why?"
"It wasn't an attempt to usurp the throne," Sidona said. "Fereldans are too willful, it would never work. And besides, he was already halfway ruling the country through the Queen. Everyone knew Cailan hadn't the head for statecraft, Anora was the power in Denerim — and Loghain was the power behind her. Unless he grew tired of playing retainer to the prancing popinjay, but I doubt it."
There was a brief silence, it took a moment for Lýna to realize they were waiting for her to say something. "Oh! I don't know. I was thinking about this... At first, soon after it happened, I thought maybe he was doing what he thought was best for his people, but now I'm not so sure."
"How is abandoning his own army to die, his King besides, best for his people?"
"It is..." Lýna let out a sigh, biting her lip. "I wasn't often in planning discussions, you see — my Alamarri was bad then, I wasn't Lieutenant yet. But I know Loghain thought fighting at Ostagar was a bad idea. The horde was bigger than expected, we were too few, he thought it was wasting lives to no good end. He wanted to wait, to gather more soldiers, to call help from the Marches. For the Archdemon to come, so this could be ended for good. His idea, I hear, was to retreat, evacuate the people in the path of the darkspawn, and with smaller bands try to slow them down. Split off and kill small groups here and there, hunt leaders, these things, until they have enough soldiers and the Archdemon shows itself."
Sidona grimaced. "And the great Loghain Mac-Tir reveals his shortcomings at last. Darkspawn are not chevaliers." Lýna frowned at her — chevaliers were Orlesian liðsmenn, right? what did they have to do with anything?
"She means to say," Reynaldo began, sounding rather amused, the hair on his lip making the subtle curl of a smirk very obvious, "that Loghain planned to fight the darkspawn the way he fought Orlais in the Rebellion. One thing to recall about Loghain is that he is like us, a commoner — he is the son of a farmer, was reduced to banditry when an Orlesian lord forced his family off their land. He is uneducated, and in the years since is well-known to dismiss the expertise of others, thinking them blinded by their ways. He is skilled, yes, he lead the Fereldans to bloody the largest and greatest army in all of Thedas with only—"
Iaşneru cleared his throat.
Rolling his eyes, Reynaldo admitted, "Yes, yes, the greatest in the south, de accuerdo?"
"I'm only saying, Orlais only has the greatest army in Thedas if you ignore two others."
"Yes, yes, fine. As I was saying, Loghain fought the Orlesians by denying them a straight fight. He would ambush small groups and retreat, assassinate officers whenever he could — sometimes, he even had elves sneak into camps in the night and kill them in their sleep. When he did face them in battle, he fought clever, using the land as a weapon itself, doing the unexpected to confuse the enemy and break lines into chaos. It worked very, very well. Orlais had many more soldiers they could send to Ferelden, yes, but Loghain was hurting them badly enough they decided it was not worth the men and gold to keep fighting him, and Ferelden was let go, much as the Free Marches before them.
"Darkspawn are different. Their leaders are harder to pick out by sight, and killing them does less good. A normal army, the officers have the plans, the authority to command the soldiers, and when they are gone the army often has no direction, can fall apart due to confusion and dissent. For darkspawn, it is the archdemon who has all this — the greater darkspawn can pass on the archdemon's will, make its influence stronger, but the fight continues without them. There will be a moment of confusion when you take out leaders in the horde, and after they will be a little less coordinated, but it changes little. Darkspawn have no need for supplies, they do not sleep, they care little for tactics, do not form lines and maneuver the way human soldiers do. It takes time for them to replace their dead, but much less than for us, and they have no worry for gold, or food, or unrest back home. They cannot be confused and split apart and bled by degrees the way an earthly army can.
"Loghain is very good at fighting chevaliers. But darkspawn are not chevaliers."
Oh. Right, that all made sense. "So he was mistaken, yes. But would it have still helped? The Archdemon was not there at Ostagar, and it is so costly in time and equipment for Alamarri to raise soldiers — maybe it would have been better not to commit to a big battle then and there."
The Wardens glanced at each other. After a few seconds, Sidona said, "Well, that's the trouble, isn't it? Seen from where we stand now, it might have been better not to fight at Ostagar. It's true what Reynaldo says, those small strikes Loghain is so good with wouldn't have slowed the darkspawn much. It is also true that if the darkspawn overran the flatlands in the middle of the country Ferelden will have difficulty fighting them back. But even if they had won at Ostagar, I don't know if they could have stopped this. The darkspawn there were only a fraction of the horde, and they would have lost many men even if they won — hell, the King might still have died anyway, and then Ferelden would be in close to the same situation anyway...but with many fewer cavalry and archers. It could go either way, is the thing."
Reynaldo grimaced. "In the Rebellion, Loghain always led from the front — that is common for the Alamarri, even in the Marches. If he meant to do this still, and both the King and Loghain died at Ostagar..."
"Yes, that would have been a disaster. We would have Anora in Denerim trying to hold on, the arls and banns feuding with each other, and a much weaker army to defend themselves with. No, that wouldn't have ended well at all."
"Loghain begged Cailan to leave with him."
The Wardens turned to her, surprised. "What?"
Shrugging a little, Lýna admitted, "What you said, it made me remember. At the last planning talk, Cailan and Loghain stayed late, when Duncan gave us our orders to light the beacon. They were arguing, about this battle being a bad idea, to wait for the Free Marches or Orlais to send help."
"Ferelden would never welcome aid from Orlais," Sidona said, scoffing.
"Yes, Loghain said as much. But when Cailan refused to retreat, Loghain asked for Cailan to keep back, in case it went badly. Very strongly, he seemed...desperate."
The Wardens watched each other for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought. Finally, Iaşneru said, slow and contemplative, "Loghain did not intend for the King to die at Ostagar. At the least, this was not his purpose in doing what he did. Say, Cailan does agree to pull back, retreat if need be, do we think Loghain yet doesn't join the battle?"
"It appears so," Reynaldo said, nodding, thick eyebrows scrunched down in a heavy frown. "I didn't know Loghain argued against fighting the darkspawn there, but if he did... This changes things, no? If he thought they were doomed to lose at Ostagar and leave his country defenseless, that he may act to preserve what forces he has, this is only right for him to do."
"Do we believe Loghain acts to oppose the Blight?" At Sidona's question, Reynaldo and Iaşneru paused — but then, after a couple seconds, they both nodded. "I think I agree. He has made missteps, yes, but this new information you bring us, Lýna, is interesting."
That had been her thought in the immediate aftermath of the battle, yes — she'd kept it to herself, knowing Alistair wouldn't have reacted to the suggestion well. Alistair had known Duncan longer than the rest of them, they'd been close, he'd taken his death very personally. "But what of after? I thought the same, at first, but then he blames the Wardens for Cailan's death. If he means to fight the Blight, this doesn't fit."
Iaşneru snorted. "Well, he can't tell people Cailan's death is his fault, can he? The Wardens are not trusted in Ferelden, we make a good sacrifice for him."
"But he can't end the Blight without us — only a Warden can kill the Archdemon."
"Does he know that?"
Lýna opened her mouth to answer, and then paused. "...Oh." That possibility hadn't occurred to her. She guessed that was the downside to the Wardens keeping their secrets — outsiders didn't know why only Wardens have killed archdemons before, so they might not give that the importance they should. "That is... Hmm. It's still not good, Loghain can't hold the Alamarri together as it is."
"And that is where our friend Fergus Cousland comes in," Sidona said. "If I understand how the Landsmeet works, the question of their leadership should be decided there, no further fighting between themselves necessary. If they choose Fergus, and if Loghain respects their decision — those should be our concern, I think."
Grimacing, Reynaldo grumbled, "We're going to want Loghain with us, unfortunately."
"Yes, that might be a problem." Sidona must have noticed Lýna's confusion, she explained with a heavy sigh. "Too many of the people with the renown and the experience to lead Ferelden against the Blight are gone. Cailan had the authority, as King, but he wasn't suited to lead an army — this is why he brought Loghain, and Urien Kendells. Loghain doesn't have the authority, and Anora will most likely lose it, but Fergus could. But he doesn't have the skill to lead a war either. Who else is there left? Bryce Cousland is dead, Rendon Howe isn't a military man. Leonas Bryland?" She shrugged. "Perhaps. There may be a bann or two out there who would be able, but if I don't know their names they don't have the renown to be immediately respected with that authority.
"No," she said, shaking her head, "we need them both. Fergus to hold together the lords, and Loghain to command the army — or, at least, to lend his fame and expertise to whoever does. If we don't have both, organizing resistance to the Blight will be far more difficult."
Lýna was just going to have to take her word on that. It did make sense — obviously, no one reasonable would follow into war someone they neither know nor respect — but she didn't know enough about the people involved to judge whether they truly had so few options. "I think Fergus might want him executed, at the end."
Giving her a confused sort of look, flat and simple, Sidona said, "So you Conscript him."
...Right, well, if Loghain was a Warden he couldn't be a threat to Fergus's rule, so that shouldn't be a problem. Fergus was a reasonable sort. But that still left, "Alistair isn't going to like that."
"He will get over it. Pentru a purifica putresângele, prin orice fapte necesare." What did that—
"To end the Blight," Sidona translated, "by any means necessary."
Oh. For a couple seconds, Lýna just stared at Iaşneru, struck with an odd sense of...unrealness. Her life had gotten very strange over the last few months, that was all. "I'm in accord with a human of Tevinter. I feel weird."
Iaşneru laughed.
[she was getting the feeling Fergus was unusually dignified compared to most of the humans' leaders] — It should go without saying that Lýna and Fereldan/Orlesian nobility have a very different understanding of what "dignity" means.
This chapter got stupid long, so I decided to split it roughly in half — I don't know about anyone else, but when reading an especially long chapter I always worry I'm going to accidentally hit end or reload the page or something and lose my place. The first half runs straight into the second, but I've cut at a topic change, which will hopefully not be too confusing for those who decide to stop in the middle.
Because I wrote over 40k words taking place in a single day, and nothing is even happening. I clearly have a problem.