Story note:
I want to thank all of you who are reading, following, favouring and reviewing my story. Your support keeps me going.
In respone's to one guest's review: I do not intend for this story to heavily feature romance. I'm not even sure if there'll be any, at all. Because I simply think that writing romance isn't my thing and that I'm terrible at it. But I haven't settled on anything, really. Might be or not. What I can say for sure is this: do not expect to read steamy or arousing scenes in this story of mine. It might be that you'll read about implications of romance (like with Isabela), but nothing more. So, alas, if you came here in search of such a thing, and such a thing only, then it'd be best to turn around now. Thank you for understanding.
Dragon Age is property of Bioware. Original characters are mine, and are to be treated as such. If you want to adopt some of my AU changes to your own story, then, please, do so.
There you have it: the battle at Redcliffe Village. AU version. Please be aware that this chapter will contain graphic violence. And will not shy away from it. If you're averse to such a thing, click that red little button up there to the right. In the corner, the one with the X. But this story is rated M, so something along these lines is to be expected from time to time anyway.
Please, enjoy.
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In An Age Full Of Heroes
Chapter VII
Dread of Night
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Night had settled.
The full, silvery moon rode hard the wheel of time. Galloping by glittering stars, alas, not hard enough. Light's mere reflection on a huge piece of barren rock wouldn't suffice. No it wouldn't, only a star's direct light, flaring and bright and full of life, gazing down with an intense stare could hope to prevail against the dark of night. It could never hope to be victorious, but it would prevail.
None of both could ever hope to overthrow the other, by nature's own necessity. In the absence of light there was dark, but without light the very concept of darkness wouldn't exist. In turn, there could be no light without the notion of dark. And wherever the two warred, their struggle ceaseless, mother dark and father light begat their child, shadow.
What a sad triumvirate, ever fighting for dominance, yet also wholly dependent on each other.
Nonetheless, Araris currently truly felt the craving need of all those people around him, restless and frightened. It tasted bitter on his tongue. They reeked of unease and fear and, somewhere swirling between these two layers, of impending cowardice.
They craved for day. All of them. Even those who stood looking straight ahead in defiance, ready to spit into night's face. Apathetic of the consequences.
But the last living member of the Cousland bloodline couldn't really blame them. He only welcomed dark's chilly cajolery because it could grant him what he sought, what he wished for, what he truly craved for.
A sickly green mist rose in front of Castle Redcliffe's massive gate, now no longer barred, whereas it'd been at day. So there must exist some semblance of intelligence inside. Enough to open doors. Not necessarily human, though.
It wreathed and contorted itself spasmodically across the long, ancient bridge. Soon, the nauseating stench reached them, even far away as they were by the silent wind mill, overlooking the gloomy village below. The reek of desiccated and decaying flesh, of festering and burnt wounds made Araris' nostrils flare in disgust.
The dwarven mercenary nonchalantly leaning onto his double-edge battle axe, lured to this burgeoning battle only by the prospect of Teagan's pouch and a share of the gold coins clinking inside, turned sideways and spat phlegm on the ground. Mucous bits clung to his braided beard.
'Sodding Stone,' he proclaimed for all to hear, 'this smells worse than my Ancestors' hoary balls! Which is sayin' something.'
His two human companions, the upper half of their grim faces painted with ash, snorted at that, mad grins on their faces. Each of them cradled a heavy crossbow with affection. Whilst the two formations of Redcliffe knights and militiamen shuffling sullenly rang in the oppressing silence afterwards.
Nothing moved, nothing sounded. No crickets chirped, no birds flapped through the air, not even a gentle breeze caressed the tufts of meagre grass around them. Even nature held its breath at the approaching undead. And approach they did.
Araris took the moment and faced inwards, listening to his heart beating. Still steady, controlled, not frantic. Soon to change, he was sure of that much, if nothing else.
He'd left his travelling cloak behind in the Chantry, it would only be a hindrance in the imminent battle. The local blacksmith had been so kind as to outfit him with a more appropriate attire. A hardened leather cuirass tightly hugged his torso, padded with framed pieces of overlapping chainmail protecting his shoulders. Lean forearms protected by studded leather gauntlets, of which he once again checked the fastening straps. Araris tugged at the leather belt, holding his sheathed longsword, slung across his back, in place. The sword loosened, ready to spring into his eager hands at an eye blink's notice.
In front of them all waited sporadic rows of tapered spears of thick wood, facing towards the gentle slope leading to the bridge. A hastily set up barricade, covered in sticky and foul smelling lamp oil. The flame to be lit in the darkest of moments.
The sickly green mist appeared at the upper edge of the slope, foreboding and ominous, yet not the dreaded shuffling corpses. Not yet, anyway. Even fouler than before smelled the very air, reeking of death. All life and prosperity absent in its ghostly presence.
This night, Araris knew, would come to be a night of frightening loneliness. None of the here gathered would find comfort or shelter in camaraderie. He hadn't told this anyone.
The Redcliff knights, Ser Stanley among them with shield and sword in hand, guarded by their adamant belief, clung to the Maker's mercy and divine protection. He would not stand with them this night. No god would. Not the Maker, nor his ascendant bride, Andraste, at his side. They might welcome the fallen of faith with arms spread in warm embrace, there at the very steps of their blackened city. But they would not split the sky in lightening and thunder to descend among mere mortals. The dwarven Stone and all its ancestors held no power here, above on the surface, with the yawning sky soaring high over their heads, ready to swallow them. Even if they were inclined to do so, the Elder pantheon, the elven gods and goddesses had left this mortal realm long ago in resignation. War and conflict in all its misery and strife should stay with mortals for all eternity. Who were they to care? The Old Gods and Goddesses, befouled and corrupt themselves, their souls sickened by irredeemable blackness would only spur what would soon happen here. And the Forgotten Ones, well, they were forgotten for a reason, after all.
No, they stood alone. Simple mortal souls facing their impending doom. No one else.
Military doctrine, ingrained in each and every one of these knights present – and probably in Dwyn, the veteran dwarven mercenary, too - would avail them naught when the droves of corpses, as Teagan had described them, would finally arrive.
Wills would break and formations would scatter. All pretence of order left to rot, somewhere forgotten.
A night of loneliness.
Do not fall, this night. Such had been Ser Stanley's last advice for his men.
That was exactly what Araris searched for this night, to welcome it with open arms. A last chilly embrace, chaining my fate.
And he would ultimately find it, for there, around the corner and down the slope now shuffled and huddled and shambled on the endless hordes of dead. In eerie silence.
It is begun.
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Rotting and mouths ridden with blackened tooth agape, silent screams on their peeling lips the creatures' descent quickened to a full out run. Many stumbled over broken and gnarled and malformed legs and fell. Though that didn't stop the horde's overall advance. Without mercy, for they no longer possessed even a notion of what the word meant, the corpses trampled down their own.
The charging undead did not stop for something as meagre as a barricade. They charged the tapered wooden spears, too. Many simply skewered and impaled themselves on them, some slumping down in dismayed defeat, unable to move, they yapped and clawed on nonetheless. Those who fortuitously chose a path that led through, in between tapered stakes, attempted to close the distance of a few paces that stood between them and the living.
The first row, consisting of lightly armoured militiamen, raised their elm longbows, arrows already notched. Hastily, they scrambled around, drawing back their bows' strings, immediately letting go of them. Were the risen dead any more than a few paces away, most shots surely would have been amiss. The militiamen forgot to aim in their abject terror and fear of death.
From behind and above his position, Araris heard as further bowstrings were loosened and the slapping thwacking sound of two heavy crossbows.
Serendipitously, the creatures were already in such close proximity to the poor archers, that accuracy and precision were wholly superfluous.
The first volley of nearly two dozen arrows and quarrels felled the two front rows of undead, their charge briefly halting in its forward surging momentum. All that the wavering row of militiamen managed was another volley of shots, then they surged to the sides, looks of utter horror on their faces and wailing screams loosened on their lips to give voice to their horror.
For snarling in annoyance, the dead, spiked with arrows, rose anew.
A few hapless militiamen weren't fast enough and the undead found their first victims. They were torn apart, bit by gory bit. Unbelievably quick, too. Cloth was torn, flesh rendered apart and stripped from bone, organs laid bare like a delicious feast. They were nothing if not effective, these undead.
Not content with the few famers and fishers they'd managed to catch, the horrid creatures lapped forward like a cool wave rising to attack the dark shore. Yet the shore proved to be a wall consisting of tempered steel and hardened soldiery. The two squads of Redcliffe knights arrayed in wedge formations, shields closed, bit from both sides into the undead like a rabid beast. And once the canines were dug in deep, they didn't let go. In a few heartbeats the two squads had slain dozens of the undead creatures. Swords arched up and fell repeatedly. Slicing off arms and heads, crushing bone underneath and severing desiccated tendons and shrivelled muscle.
Expertly, the two squads had merged and closed rank, presenting a solid shield wall. All the same, a few of the risen dead had managed to break through before the knights had closed their formation. They scrambled towards Araris and the remaining militiamen.
Yet to unsheathe his longsword, Araris tensed in anticipation, waiting for the appropriate moment. A foolish notion, these were no expert swordsmen, but it proved thrilling. A cold smile marred his blue-blooded features. Though, as it quickly turned out, his elation at the prospect of bloodshed was premature.
The dwarven mercenary Dwyn bellowed a maniacal outcry and launched himself into the heat of combat. His double edged battle-axe described a perfect arc over his head. With one vicious slash he scythed open one creature's chest, exposing shrivelled and foul organs and brown and brittle bone underneath. Further two, who chose the unfortunate moment to stand in the heavy weapon's path, were simply sliced in two, vertebrae snapping like twigs. As another undead tried to rip out the dwarf's throat, Dwyn hammered the creature's head aside with the long stock of his weapon. The sudden impact twisted its head so far, the neck broke with a satisfying crunch and the creature slumped down.
At the front, the knights were hard pressed by the continuous onslaught the undead delivered. Slowing wounds and bloody gnashes slowly opened up and covered them all. They would not hold for much longer. A bit of relief arrived by another volley of arrows and quarrels.
The shield wall retreated step by step. Bruises already forming on every one of them, some hobbled back with broken bones. Unrelenting wave after wave clashed with them, scratching and clawing and tearing. Thankfully, so few of the creatures were actually armed with weapons. Though a hammer or a pitchfork could be as equally deadly, as one of the knights just experienced. His iron helmet brutally bashed in on one side, the remains of his face flowed and spurt out beneath the helm's rim as he fell.
Meanwhile, Dwyn had routed the last remaining corpses behind the shield wall, now corpses in truth, he spit on them. Half a dozen militiamen had tried to aid him in his fight, and had paid dearly for that foolishness. Their cooling bodies now covered the stained ground. The rest of them had fled down into the village. Only the two mercenary crossbowmen, Dwyn's associates remained, position above on the wind mill's balcony. They did their best to spick the droves of undead with heavy quarrels, still rushing down the slope.
A though hit Araris' mind, like a fist to the chest.
Horseshit and virginpiss! The militiamen, they fled.
Araris turned round and ran towards the wind mill. He picked up a discarded elm longbow from the ground. Feverishly, his eyes darted around, searching. Then he found one. A single arrow, probably slid down between sweaty and trembling fingers.
The knights' formation wavered, nearly a dozen paces had they retreated from the stake barricades by now.
Araris tore out a piece of woollen cloth from a nearby human corpse's garments and wrapped it round the arrow's shaft, directly beneath the head. With a quick yank he affixed it in a permanent knot.
Another knight fell, his throat flayed and mangled, the creature who had taken him went down with him, feeding vigorously.
Arrow already notched, Araris held the tip over a torch, clinging to the mill's cylindrical edifice. He waited until the piece of cloth was on fire.
Inhaling deep into the twin caverns of his lungs, he drew the bow string back to his cheek. Aimed up. And released.
The burning arrow flew through the cool night's air like a flickering miniature sun.
It hit the oil-drenched ground around the battered barricades.
The miniature sun extended.
And the world was alight with raging fire. Expunging the cool of night in a single instance. Barrels filled to brim with lamp-oil suddenly exploded. The shockwave send the undead creatures scattering in every direction, some were flung against the low ravine's jagged stone enclosing the downwards leading slope. Turned into bony and fleshy pulp. Countless of them were vaporised to smouldering ashes in a mere heartbeat.
The air smelt, pungent, of burning flesh.
The remaining knights, barely on their feet, raised their shields to ward of the sudden heat. Still they were driven to their knees, armour creaking, skin blistering.
The raging fire towered twice as high as a grown man, a barrier conjured by natural forces, oppressive and unrelenting was its heat.
But the dead do not fear fire.
The residual droves of vile creatures plunged through the wall of fire and emerged. Skin blistered, bubbling and peeling off, if eyeballs remained they now burst in a splash of foul fluids, their clothes and flesh aflame they continued their advance.
Thus, too, broke the knights' discipline. As predicted there'd be no sanctuary in camaraderie this night. The Redcliffe knights now stood alone, each swarmed by dozens of burning creatures.
With an impressive litany of profanity and curses and threats, Ser Stanley managed to rally the weary half dozen knights that were still alive around him.
Dwyn, sent flying by the concussive wave from the explosion, pulled himself up. He looked over at Araris, and smiled an insane smile.
Araris answered in kind.
The undead rushed towards the tall human and the dwarf. Swallowing the single wedge formation of knights during the process.
Araris' heart quickened in anticipation at the dawning violence. He blinked. As he reopened his eyes, his longsword had already appeared in his hands, flickering left and right. Faces split and painted him in bodily fluids. Chests ripped open from sword slashes, unveiling the intimacy of inner workings of dead bodies. Bellies were ravaged, torn open as if by a massive beast's claw, innards and bile spilling forth.
The dwarven mercenary fought equally as mad at Araris' side. He gifted the undead nothing, other than a permanent end of their miserable condition.
With a quick upwards slash, Araris scythed open one of them from crotch to chin. Another risen dead took its peer's place, eagerly to meet finality at his gory blade. Araris fought on.
Through the maze of death and dying bodies and the fine mist of blood clouding the air, appeared the knights. Three still stood, on wobbly feet, but upright nonetheless.
Ser Stanley stabbed one of the creatures making a try for Araris' life. The middle-aged knight looked deathly pale. He had lost his helmet and a brutal wound covered the entirety of his pate. It looked deep. Blood spurted forth, covering his features, even as he screamed over the rattle of iron.
'We cannot hold!'
I know.
Araris blade danced with a life of its own, slaying two undead. Taking of them their means to walk. So they crawled, stumps leaking behind them. And Araris took from them their heads.
'We must fall back!' The knight grasped his arm in a hard grip, rattling Araris, as if to wake him from a nightmarish illusion.
What Araris saw in the Redcliffe knight's eyes nearly broke his heart. So much compassion.
For him.
It brought him out of his adrenaline rush and dulled his frenzied bloodlust. Slowly he felt the flaring sting of dozens of negligible wounds, scratches from overly long fingernails drawing fissures across his legs and arms as much as his neck and face.
'Fall back, Araris. Bring them to safety. Defend them!'
Weakly, Araris Cousland managed a nod. More he could not. His hammering heart would not allow it to deny Ser Stanley this . . . mercy.
One last gaze back over the field of slaughter showed him Dwyn fighting side to side with the last Redcliffe knights. Ser Stanley joined them.
Araris turned round and hurried down the slope towards the village.
A night of loneliness.
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A high-pitched scream pierced the Chantry building's courtyard.
'Milord, they're comin' from the lake!'
At the sudden exclamation, Teagan's head snapped towards the shore, cast in gloom. And true to the man's words, in between the decrepit and abandoned buildings of the village, figures rose from the lake's dark surface. Like demons, ghastly. They must've crossed the lake's bottom. Again.
Drenched, leaking water from empty eye sockets and gaping mouths and vicious wounds, they shuffled heavily towards the barricades of stone and wood blocking the numerous entrances into the courtyard.
'Ready yourselves!'
Militiamen archers sent volley after volley of arrows over the barricades. Few of them hit anything at all, even fewer managed to actually fell one of the risen corpses. As long as the barricades held fast that would be no matter. They had enough arrows.
Teagan just hoped that the knights could hold the slope at the wind mill. Otherwise the entire bulk of the undead would push down on them with crushing force.
He saw a figure rushing down the slope and into the courtyard. His lean frame and conspicuous hair told Teagan immediately who approached. Though when Ser Araris of Highever stepped into the blazing bonfire's circle of light, Teagan gasped in shock. Eyes widened, every militiamen in the vicinity experienced likewise reactions.
The young knight was spattered with blood and bile and other inhuman fluids covering all his features. Bits of gore clung to his hair. His armour hung in ragged and mauled tatters, mail broken and torn. Slices and tears covered his flesh, steadily seeping blood.
Yet, he still stood straight and approached with steady steps. He halted in front of Teagan, speaking in hushed tones, 'Get them inside, my lord.'
Teagan frowned, whilst a feeling of chill dread overcame him. 'What? Why?'
Ser Araris pressed, 'Get them inside.'
'What has happened? Tell me!'
The young knight grasped Teagan and shoved him aside, away from the Chantry building's broad double doors. With a push he opened them.
Then he turned round and bellowed, loud for all to hear, 'Get inside, now!'
The militiamen, farmers and fishers one and all, rushed inside like kicked dogs. Not knowing what they had done wrong.
Ser Araris stepped aside to let the throng of frightened people pass.
'By now they'll have broken through. We could not hold them at the mill. There were too many. That's what's happened, Bann Teagan. Now, get inside, barricade the doors with everything you can find and pray to the Maker for the dawn to arrive quickly.'
'Without a proper defence they'll tear these doors down in no time, we must get the men-'
'No, bann. These are no soldiers, sending them out here will gain you nothing, not even time. They're even poorer archers. But, nonetheless, barricade yourself and position archers at every window and every balcony. Tell them not to stop shooting until the sun has risen. Or they'll die.'
Roughly, the young knight shoved him into the Chantry building. Ser Araris turned round, longsword in hand, he waited at the top of the few stairs leading up to the double door. Realisation dawning, Teagan shook his head in denial. An icy grip clenching down hard on his chest, relentless. He asked his question, though he already knew he wouldn't like the answer.
'What will you do?'
'Barricade the doors, Bann Teagan,' commanded he over his shoulder.
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He inhaled deep the salty air. The reek of burning wood filled his nose. The hacking and clawing away on barricades of inhuman creatures filled his ears. From the left, above on the slope the rush of water's sudden fall and the tremble of countless feet rushing down sounded foreboding.
Behind him the door shut. With finality. The scraping of tables and shelves could be heard, thumping against the double doors.
He readjusted his grip, clutching his longsword with sweaty and bloody fingers.
Araris breathed deep. Eyes closed he cherished this last moment of stillness. His and his alone in this night of dread.
Ready, he returned to the world and faced his enemy.
One last time.
Many a man breaks, Araris, when faced with impending doom. They're afraid, paralysed by the surrounding horrors. All so alien and unknown. Yet, for all that, it is a choice. So choose!
Her words ringed true, now more than ever, in his memories.
Finally, he had his answer.
His stance widened.
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Teagan watched through a slit in the barricaded window. Those of the frightened, crowding the Chantry building's insides, who still possessed some kind of morbid curiosity huddled around him, peering out into the night. All eyes on the lone, fair figure.
Yet, to all who witnessed that moment when Ser Araris made his first move, undead creatures lapping up all around him like a rushing wave, was too fast to register. His longsword guided by a single hand as if it weighed nothing flashed and flickered from enemy to enemy creature. It whistled a mournful song of death as it cut through the air. Even his body was a blur, too fast to track. The frenzied flurry of his movements did not abate. Ser Araris did not break his contact with the pressing droves of risen corpses. It went on and on, impossibly on. Two tidal forces, neither willing to yield. Neither willing to grant the other a step. Forward or backward.
As they arrived and lapped up the small staircase, they fell back down. Throats slashed open. Faces carved deep, heads sent flying into the courtyard. Grasping claws and arms severed. Bones shattered, tiny shards splintering off. A mist of fluids arose, covering everything, even fouling the air.
By the Maker.
Teagan remembered. Of course, now with such brilliant clarity. He remembered a tournament, so many years ago. How could he have forgotten? The young man who, so unexpectedly, triumphed. How, indeed, could he have forgotten? Blindness had dimmed his memory. Blindness and dread. This young man out there, readily preparing to give his life, was no knight. Never had been. No, he was anything but.
Forgive us all our sins, dear Maker, for we are befouled by sins, beyond count, all of us are thus, your children.
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Araris felt vivid. One, not with the world, but with the moment.
As much as the undead lapped up like rising water fighting against a ragged cliff of rock they were repelled again, thrown back into the sea. Solid, stubborn, unmoving stood the stone. They moved, unrelenting, though slow to his eyes. Their movement dull and broken and unimaginative.
Araris' gaze turned ouwards, he fixed on nothing. He did not need to. His muscles knew what to do, guided by his reflexes. Body writhing, he voiced no outcries or bellows. Now his sword spoke. And it spoke with grace and beauty, its song like life itself to his ears. To disrupt would be a crime.
Slashes and thrusts and stabs and low-edged ripostes and deft sidesteps filled the moment.
But as it was with ragged cliffs and hungry, rising waves. Such was it with him.
Time would eat away at anything. Stop at nothing. Until the cliff was reduced to a shore.
Such was it with him. Time his mortal enemy.
The undead creatures closed in on him, ever so slowly. In his mind he perceived the sound of angry waves. Cold and hungry. Ready to do what nature bid them to do. Time was not of the essence. For time was nature's ally.
They closed in, soon near enough to embrace him like countless lovers. Their hot breaths gently caressing his cheek, a blush rising. Araris felt their harsh touch. A brutal tug on his head, a ravaging claw biting his neck and leaving marks, a vicious thrust intend to break.
Araris felt his blood roar in defiance. A bestial temper boiling his blood, ever hotter and stronger with every wound they forced to open. Not the cold and clinical haze he usually felt when stepping out of his body, no this was different. He was still there. Another alien thing entirely.
The beast roared, vengeful, one last time.
The world trembled and nearly cracked open in response.
Before Araris embraced darkness.
Down into the Abyss.
Finality.
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Author's note:
If there were parts you liked or didn't, I'd tremendously appreciate it if you took a few minutes and submit a review. Constructive criticism will be well received and answered to. Furthermore it'll keep me going, content and happy.