HEROES OF FERELDAN


Chapter Nine

SO LET IT BE—

Next, Artha climbed up towards one of the larger ruined structures which was probably the Main Hall; with towering columns and statues. He imagined a grand roof of emerald, must have been nothing short of breathtaking. He imagined windows of exquisite colours, shimmering as the sun passed through. He could look down the hall and marvelled at the scale of it, almost as big as a castle in its entirety.

He walked up to the head of the hall, elevated above a platform where two giant stone magisters silently guarded an archway. As he approached he saw two men on the platform, a robed mage and a man in Warden armour and it appeared he'd stumbled in the middle of some tension.

"…tell the revered mother that I will not be harassed in this manner!" the mage bellowed, his index finger poised accusingly at the armoured man. "What her Reverence 'desires' is of no concern to me. I am busy helping you Grey Wardens, by the king's orders, I might add."

The warden simply chuckled, coyly grinning with amusement. "Yes, I was harassing you by delivering a message."

The mage was further aggrieved, looked like he was going to explode in a rage. "Your glibness does you no credit, Alistair," he shot back and began to stomp away.

"Here I thought we were getting along so well," Alistair chuckled after him. "I was even going to name one of my children after you…you know, the grumpy one." His gaze followed the mage as he over-dignifiedly marched away, his staff banging along the stone as he did so.

Artha stood next to him as he watched the mage vanish into the camp and suddenly the man's face fell into sombre contemplation.

"You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

"Sorry, what?"

"Oh, nothing," Alistair sighed. "Just trying to find a bright side to all this." He then began to walk away as well, Artha followed behind him. "Wait, we haven't met, have we?" Artha thought for a moment but decided they hadn't. "I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?"

"You must be Alistair," Artha said bemused.

Alistair then smiled finally remembering, "And that makes you Duncan's new recruit, I suppose?" He stuck out his hand to him and as usual, Artha grabbed his forearm. "Glad to meet you…"

"I'm Artha, Artha Cousland."

The man smiled and nodded. For some reason, the young Warden looked rather familiar though he could not pin down just where he'd seen him from. Cropped dirty blond hair, a little spiked at the front and bright, golden eyes that told him in his short life he had seen just as much as he. "You can call me Alistair…just Alistair is fine. As the junior member of the order I'll be accompanying you in preparation for the joining."

Back into the encampment, its bustling atmosphere hit him once again. The loud banging of the smithy hammering away at a fresh hot piece of steel, or the screeching of a blade being sharpened. Fereldan was a home of warriors, fierce and strong for often times in their opinion, battle solves everything, every problem. Now it seemed the only step to take against this enemy.

Alistair inquired on whether the young northerner had ever encountered a darkspawn before, to which he just shrugged. "I've heard the stories," he said. "Beyond that, no."

Artha followed the young Warden up toward the Warden's division where a large crowd of soldiers stood around a Grey Warden soldier, an undiscernible mass lay on the ground covered in an old and mouldy shroud.

The crowd gave the two way as they approached the front, everyone trying to lean in closer to see what was going on.

"When I fought my first one, I wasn't prepared for how monstrous it was. I can't say I'm looking forward to encountering another." Then when the older Grey Warden in front revealed what was under the shroud, everyone recoiled, taking a few swift steps back. The mass on the ground was nothing other than a darkspawn, a lump of decayed flesh, black and rotted, no more recognisable as anything living.

"There are lots of darkspawn, different kinds," the Warden Archivist began and then stuck a hooked rope into the creature before leveraging it up by a branch overhead. "Our short friend here, for instance, is something called a 'genlock'. They're pretty common in the horde, but we've seen others much larger." Then the experienced Warden produced a sword from his belt and stuck the genlock in the ribs, twisting it before pulling the blade out and showing the black substance left on its shine. "Their blood is black as sin and quite poisonous. I would not recommend even touching it. You get tainted by that blood and you may as well slit your own throat. This, it's a long and painful way to die.

The darkspawn are soulless, they don't need to eat as the taint already sustains them, however it won't stop them from eating for reasons other than dietary. They don't even need to healers because the taint does all that for them, and they heal quickly." He then started pacing around. "There is a reason why we call them darkspawn and that is their enhanced vision in darkness so don't call on the night to shade you. That is, however, impaired in the sunlight, they aren't destroyed by it but they are physically weaker and more timid than they are at night."

Artha was more than intrigued, coming closer to take a better look. He had never seen one in the flesh. They looked almost human. He himself had read some things about them and even that had left him with nightmares. Darkspawn were supposedly asexual and to reproduce they forced captured female prisoners to consume their fellows and become broodmothers."

"…A single broodmother is capable of giving birth to thousands of darkspawn during their lives, and each race reproduces the variants; the shrieks I mentioned before are produced from elvish broodmothers while genlocks come from dwarves and so on. Though they can hardly be considered sapient, possessing no intelligence beyond simple animalistic cunning, they should not be underestimated. Darkspawn are more than capable of coordinated attacks; shrieks and these genlocks excel at ambushing the unwary. Employing poisons and genlocks themselves are familiar with siege tactics."

Once they'd learnt what they needed about their foe, Alistair led them to Duncan, waiting beside huge pyre at the centre of a circle of statues and pillars, with Fang on the side chewing a bone. Soon enough though, they were joined by two more, reunited again with that swiftie rogue from earlier, Daveth shouted to him of course, patting him on the back but the other one he did not recognise, an older man in studded armour and a small amount of red hair on his rounded head.

"I'll assume you are all ready to begin the preparations," he then turned to Alistair and sighed. "Assuming of course, that you're quite finished riling up mages, Alistair."

The young Warden-Ensign raised his hands in defence stating that the Revered Mother ambushed him. "The way she wields guilt…they should stick her in the army." Clearly she forced him to sass the mages.

"We cannot afford to antagonise anyone, Alistair," Duncan looked far beyond annoyed at the whole situation which Artha was only guessing he did not know the full gist of its gravity. "We don't need to give anyone more ammunition against us."

"You're right, Duncan," the young man surrendered. "I apologise."

"Now then, since you are all here, we can begin." Duncan began to pace about them, his hands behind his back. "You four will be heading into the Korcari Wilds to perform two tasks." He handed each of them a small glass vial with a cork on the top. "The First is to obtain three vials of darkspawn blood. There was once a Grey Warden archive in the Wilds, abandoned long ago when we could no longer maintain such a remote outpost. It has recently come to our attention that some scrolls have been left behind, magically sealed to protect them. Your second task is to retrieve these scrolls if you can. They are old treaties, promises of support to the Grey Wardens long ago. So many have forgotten their commitments to us. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have something to remind them with."

"I take it that we had assumed we would return for them?" Alistair guessed.

"A great many things were assumed that have not held true," Duncan responded, glumly. "The archives are an overgrown ruin by now, but the sealed chest should be intact. Alistair will guide you to the area." He looked to the recruits and a shadow of doubt lingered in his eyes yet he held his chin up and said, "I have every confidence you are up to the task. Return quickly and safely."

The three bobbed their heads in compliance and dispersed into the camp to gather supplies. Before he left though, Artha asked the Warden-Commander if he wouldn't mind holding onto his family sword until he got back. Duncan smiled and bowed his head.

Artha was in need of some armour. He was supplied with some metal greaves and braces as well as a light chest plate over his pecks. Daveth and the other man who introduced himself as Jory followed in his suite, their armour bore no sigils like the other Wardens but Alistair then handed each a band with the Grey Warden Griffon on it, to wear on their left arms, show their ranks as Warden Recruits.

Amidst the buzzing of busy soldiers and their squires, he heard the rambling of the sick and the wounded from the last darkspawn assault, bed ridden in the infirmary, tended to by healing mages and surgeons. What that Warden Archivist said about tainted blood really hit him, if he knew anything about war is that it was messy, and bloody. The injured man was still covered in places with the tainted blood, he didn't want to be like that.

Daveth soon came and joined Alistair and he around a warm camp fire close to the infirmary. The rogue had picked out some daggers and a nice bow of Burch wood as well as a quiver full of metal tipped arrows. Jory however was of a bigger build and came with a large greatsword and he wouldn't stop sharpening it as he sat with them.

"That argument I saw…what was that about?" Artha asked the bored Alistair.

"With the mage?" the young Warden clarified. "The Circle is here at the king's request and the Chantry doesn't like that one bit." He then paused and a slight chuckle escaped his lips at a thought. "They just love letting mages know how unwelcome they are. I won't be surprised if it bite them in the arse. That puts me in a bit of an awkward position. You see, I was once a Templar, I was only recruited into the Wardens about six or seven months ago."

"Wow that would be awkward."

Again, the young Warden laughed. "I'm sure the Revered Mother meant it as an insult—sending me as her messenger, and the mage picked right up on that. I never would have agreed to deliver it but Duncan says we're all to cooperate, get along." Alistair then huffed, a little vexed. "Apparently they didn't get the same speech."

Vexed sure, but surprised, Alistair released a long breath and got up from his seat. He had just submitted his sword in to be sharpened. A travelling merchant had also just arrived and he could have sworn he'd seen a nifty looking shield.

Artha however, was drawn to the infirmary, one of the patients was moaning in pain yet propped to his side he kept staring at the young lad. Like the others, he kept on mouthing the words 'He calls…' over and over again. Soon a healer came to his side, probably to examine his condition. He could tell that hope was slowly vanishing from her eyes as she inspected. The young Cousland walked over to them to conduct his own inspection out of curiosity.

"You may not want to remain here long, Warden," the healer warned, wiping her hands on her blood stricken robes. "Most of these men have been tainted by the darkspawn blood."

"It's okay, ma'am, just curious."

The wounded man then looked up at him, his eyes were puffy, swollen red that he could scarcely see them. His lips were cracked and bloody, all contorted into a fearful expression. "You…you need to convince them!" he croaked. "We…we've got to run! They're coming!" Artha came closer and asked him what he meant by that, though he was not really expecting an answer in the conventional sense, the man looked like he had already taken to insanity. "I saw them…we're all gonna die!"

The healer sighed and tried to place his head back onto the pillow while simultaneously applying a soothing leaf upon his forehead. "I apologise, Warden. He's been like this ever since they found him in the Wilds."

"Is it possible that he has important information?"

She merely shrugged her shoulders and informed him that the commander that brought him in didn't seem to think so. But that was when the man started to speak again, his red had seemingly begun to turn grey before his eyes. "You…you can feel it, can't you? They taint the land, turn it black and sick. You can feel it inside!" And then his voice started to trail off but Artha could clearly make him out. "They'll come out of that forest…they'll come out and spread! Like caterpillars covering a tree, they'll swallow us whole!"

"Please, Hagath, you need to calm yourself," the healer urged.

"I…I don't want to see any more!" he screamed out against the healer's brace. "I close my eyes and…please leave me be…"

The healer glanced back at Artha asking him to respect the man's wishes and just walk away. She looked like she understood his own plight, the anxious look Artha had not noticed was leaking out of him, his tell. He would soon have to venture out into that very forest. He stole a glance behind him, it was like receiving a prophecy, a glimpse into a future so plausible, so close that it shook him to the core. He looked around him, the other beds, all occupied by similar scenarios, murmuring incoherent words of divine providence.

Beside the infirmary was a group of the faithful, kneeling I prayer before a revered mother, dressed similarly to the way that Mother Mallol dressed though this one was dressed in finer robes with golden sun motif embroidery. Mallol, Artha guessed, sought more to humble herself, everything she wore she made herself. "In the name of Andraste, I bless you today. May you find favour in the Maker's eyes," he heard her chant. So let it be.

The priestess spotted him and bobbed her head. She raised her hand to him and with her eyes closed, her head lowered she began to bless him. "I bless you, Grey Warden, in the name of Andraste and the Maker above. May the Chant of Light carry your name to the ears of our Lord."

Artha accepted her prayer and lowered his own head while crossing his arms over his chest. "So let it be." It was strange though, that everyone had already started calling them; Jory, Daveth and he Grey Wardens, something told him that it would not be that easy.

Sooner than they realised, the time had come and Alistair gathered them up by the western gate, a light yet quite tough looking assembly of strung up wood barricading a stone archway. Quaint but if the impaled darkspawn corpses were any indication, it was formidable enough. The sun was starting to set now, Artha dreaded the prospect of traversing the Wilds in the dark of night.

He was allowed to see Fang a final time before heading off. He was whining and pouting, trying to follow them around as though fearful himself, that it would be the last he's see his master. The mabari soon found himself at Duncan's side before long as the four of them stood by as the gates began to part and only three of them were shivering with anxiety and fear.

Alistair hailed the guardsman who proceeded to open the barricades and let them through. Daveth took a deep breath in and Jory cracked his joints, neither of them held themselves up as more than what they were and they were terrified. As for Artha, his fingers played with the hilt of his sword, one that the Quartermaster had given him, a simple blade and transitioned into a wound rope as a hilt, so no cross-guard. He looked back behind him, at the wizened old Duncan, his stern, unmoving non-smiling stare lingered on him as the gates were drawn closed.

He made a silent prayer to the Maker to protect him and his company. For the righteous stands before the darkness… so let it be.


DRAGON AGE—