"Like Carrion Men"

Taking a little break from Aeducan. We will return to the Deep Roads shortly.


5. Interlude.

Alistair hated Orzammar. Hate hate hatedy hate.

Well, okay. It wouldn't have been so bad if Aud hadn't left him on his own, dammit. He should've gone with them! Killing darkspawn was what a Grey Warden did. And he was a Grey Warden, wasn't he? He'd been in plenty of dangerous places before. These Deep Roads couldn't be that bad, could they?

He tried not to think about the look in Aud's eyes when she left. He'd seen her grim - in fact, he could probably count the number of times he'd seen her ungrim without needing to take off his boots - but even when they fought the ogre at Ostagar, even when he'd pushed the responsibility of leadership onto her shoulders - and Maker, he'd felt such a coward for that, but he just couldn't, not after Duncan died - outside Flemeth's ramshackle hut, he'd never seen anything put fear in her eyes before.

Not that she'd ever admit it. That seemed to be a dwarf thing, not admitting fear. Or the fact that, actually, they were exiled princesses whose own brother had arranged for them to be condemned to death. And here he'd been whining about how he didn't want to let Eamon make him Maric's heir.

Maker, she must think him craven when it came to responsibility. Maybe he was. He'd never had the fate of the world partly on his shoulders before. And Andraste preserve him, he didn't want a kingdom there, too.

And all he could do was pace around the Diamond Quarter and the Commons and fret. Harrowmont had given them rooms, after they'd dealt with the carta for him, so at least he wasn't spending all their money on sleeping in the overpriced rooms behind the tavern. But he couldn't shake the feeling people were watching him all the time.

Well, they probably were. He had turned up in the company of the exiled Aeducan daughter, after all, who'd immediately thrown them into the same politics that had gotten her exiled in the first place. And there weren't all that many six-foot blond templar-trained handsome Grey Wardens in Orzammar. Just one, in fact. Him.

I should be in the Deep Roads with her. Lelianna's crazy, Morrigan's evil, and Oghren's obsessed. And crazy. How can she trust them to watch her back? How can she?

At least the Proving Master let him take his frustration out on the pells below the Proving Ground. Otherwise, he was pretty sure he'd have already committed a one-man frontal assault on the Assembly in the name of What part of Blight don't you people get? and Why are you making one of Ferelden's last two Wardens risk her life to look for a mad-probably-dead Paragon when we have a Maker-be-damned Blight on our hands?

Which would be bad. Maker knew, Aud would probably follow him into the Fade and kill him all over again if he died and left her to clean up Ferelden's blighted mess without him. She knew how to hold a grudge.


Wynne did not know what she had expected from Orzammar.

She had not expected to find Alistair alone, with an expression on his face somewhere between misery and worn-out hope.

He met them in a vast hall lined with immense statues of stern-faced dwarves. The Hall of Heroes: she'd read of it. So these were the Paragons by whom Aud spent so much time swearing. Some of the Warden's curses were really quite inventive, although the image of the Paragon Ingvald hardly looked like the kind of man to sever his own penis and use it as a weapon.

"Wynne," he said, and clasped her hand. His eyes flicked to the qunari, silent at her back. "Sten. Good to see you."

Reaver whined, and Alistair almost grinned. "Sorry, boy. It's good to see you, too." The mabari thumped his tail, satisfied, and cocked his head. Alistair's grin faded. "Sorry, boy. She's not here."

"Alistair," Wynne said, as severely as she could manage. Being severe with Alistair was like kicking a puppy: you felt terrible about it, and nearly no one approved. Except for Morrigan. Morrigan, who was not alone in being conspicuously absent. "Where's Aud?"

"In the Deep Roads," he said, miserably. "She's been gone over a week. She wouldn't let me go with her. Wynne, I'm going crazy waiting for her."

"I can see," Wynne said, and tried to keep her concern from her voice, "that this is going to be a long story."


It was.

Told the way Alistair told things - back to front, with awkward stammerings, even more awkward digressions, and an allergy to answering difficult questions - it proved even longer than Wynne had anticipated.

Fortunately, the Warden (he was a nice young man, really, even if a little foolish at times) had the forethought to bring them back to the suite of rooms he occupied in Lord Harrowmont's estate, so that she and Sten could hear it in relative comfort.

"Wait," Wynne said, after the whole long tale had drawn itself to its present, worrying conclusion. The Deep Roads... Well, Aud is a very competent young woman, and Morrigan does have a knack for survival, if nothing else. But I do wish they had been able to take more support with them. "How did you get involved in dwarven politics in the first place?"

"Would you believe me if I said Lelianna had another vision from the Maker and told us to?" he said, hopefully.

"Alistair." Warningly.

"Oh, all right." A heavy sigh. "Aud." Alistair bit his lip. "I get the feeling we'd have gotten caught up in it no matter who we'd been - the deshyrs are deadlocked over who should be the next king, and it'd take months for things to sort themselves out in the usual manner of things, and the king's the only one who can order dwarves to fight on the surface - but, well. Aud. She's - she was, I should say: I gather dwarves are very thorough when casting someone out - an Aeducan. Endrin's daughter."

"Oh," Wynne said, faintly, and tried to settle dwarven princess into her mental image of their battle-hardened leader. It fit strangely, like a robe trimmed too tight in the shoulders. For all her grim suspicion and occasional brutal expediency, the other Warden had something fundamentally honourable about her. Not something, from what Wynne had read, to be much expected in dwarven politics.

But then, none of those books had been written by dwarves. And humans did tend to exaggerate the vices of others. Possibly something had been left out. Perhaps she should investigate for herself, when Aud returned: there might be one last monograph in it, if she should live so long.

When Aud returned... Wynne pursed her lips. "When did Aud say we should expect her to return?"

Alistair had a stricken look. "She didn't. Just..."

"Just what?"

He inhaled, rather shakily. "Just that if you arrived and she didn't come back within six weeks, we should leave the Assembly to settle the question of the king, and go find the Dalish. No point wasting time and resources, she said. Don't even think of coming after me, she said."

"Parshaara," Sten growled, and Wynne was almost thankful for the gruff impatience. Alistair irritated was one thing. Alistair gloomy was quite another, and far less tolerable. "Enough of this foolishness. Tell me there is at least something useful for us to do while we wait."


There wasn't.