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The Blight that begins now in the Korcari Wilds spreads behind Duncan and his Grey Wardens. They race to the north to fulfill the duty their Order has always upheld: uniting the lands against the Blights.
Strange creatures, Wardens, and few stranger than Duncan.
But this is not Duncan's tale. This is tale belongs to another Warden entirely.
Far from the Wilds, on the banks of the Waking Sea, we find the city of Highever, a place I know all too well. And in this city, we find a young man, the younger son of the city's ruler, heir to an ancient lineage with which I am also well acquainted.
This young man is content in the life he believes laid before him. He does not yet feel the hand of fate guiding his path, nor does he understand the calling that will soon consume the lesser duties to which he has dedicated himself.
He will become the Warden of whom we speak, but he is not yet a Warden.
Before he takes on their sacred vows – before change sweeps him across its precipice – there is a harsh lesson he must learn.
For men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature...
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DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS
VOLUME ONE: The Fall of House Cousland
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CODEX: On Ferelden Politics
To our neighbors, Ferelden must seem utterly chaotic. Unlike other monarchies, power does not descend from our throne. Rather, it rises from the support of the freeholders.
Each freehold chooses the bann or arl to whom it pays allegiance. Typically, this choice is based on proximity of the freehold to the lord's castle, as it's worthless to pay for the upkeep of soldiers who will arrive at your land too late to defend it. For the most part, each generation of freeholders casts its lot with the same bann as their fathers did, but things can and do change.
No formal oaths are sworn, and it is not unheard of, especially in the prickly central Bannorn, for banns to court freeholders away from their neighbors-a practice which inevitably begets feuds that last for ages.
Teyrns arose from amongst the banns, war leaders who, in antiquity, had grown powerful enough to move other banns to swear fealty to them. There were many teyrns in the days before King Calenhad united all the banns into the nation we now call Ferelden, but he succeeded in whittling them down to only two: Gwaren in the south, Highever in the north.
These two teyrns still hold the oaths of banns and arls who they may call upon in the event of war or disaster, and similarly, the teyrns still hold responsibility for defending those sworn to them.
The arls were in turn established by the teyrns, given command of strategic fortresses that could not be overseen by the teyrns themselves. Unlike the teyrns, the arls have no banns sworn to them, and are simply somewhat more prestigious banns.
The king is, in essence, the most powerful of the teyrns. Although Denerim was originally the teyrnir of the king, it has since been reduced to an arling, as the king's domain is now all of Ferelden. But even the king's power must come from the banns.
Nowhere is this more evident than during the Landsmeet, an annual council for which all the nobles of Ferelden gather, held for almost three thousand years except odd interruptions during Blights and invasions. The sight of a king asking for-and working to win-the support of "lesser" men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.
Excerpted from "Ferelden: Folklore and History"
by Sister Petrine, Chantry Scholar
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CHAPTER ONE: The Beginning of Every Bad Adventure Tale
I am Liam Cousland, the second son of the Teyrn of Highever. My family is one of the oldest lines in Ferelden, and my father is one of the most powerful men in the country; he owes fealty to the King, and no other. When I was born, it was to the duties and privileges of nobility. Today, however, I have been hunting rats. I'm covered in dirt and cobwebs, my arms and legs are sore, and I am drenched in my own sweat.
I'm also laughing so hard I think my sides may split.
"I did!" Aeron insists through his own laughter. "I said to him, 'The shield's a metaphor, it's in all of us.'"
Neither of us exactly decided to take a break, but somehow we have been standing in this hot, windowless basement room for the better part of an hour, recounting childhood exploits and youthful indiscretions with new exaggerations. As it's always been, Aeron tells most of the tales, having barely paused for breath as he moved from his alleged conquest of a comely young Chantry sister to gossip about the culinary habits of a particularly fat Bann to his current tale, about a shield he won in a tournament last summer.
"And he just looks at me," Aeron continues, "and he's got his eyebrows all scrunched up, all confused – like this – and he says…. 'What's a metaphor?'"
I've heard this story before, probably a dozen times, and heard it evolve with each retelling, and still I've found myself leaning on the stone wall, laughing until I'm gasping for breath.
My hound, Madra, paces the room impatiently, sniffing at its corners and whining insistently. She is, unsurprisingly, the only one eager to return to hunting rats.
It's her penchant for the hunt that landed us this duty, in fact, when she went prowling in the kitchen of Castle Highever earlier this morning.
How she got into the kitchen to begin with, I'm not exactly sure, since the doors are kept latched specifically to keep her out. Then again, there's very little in this world that deters Madra once she sets her mind to something, even a locked door. Like most Mabari, Madra is muscular, with the broad shoulders and thick neck that distinguish the breeds, and at five years old she's reached her full weight, just more than two hundred and twenty pounds. For all I know, she just may have simply battered the kitchen door down.
I'm also not sure whether she went to the kitchen hoping to beg for scraps, or because she smelled the rats and was in the mood for blood.
Either way, her rampage was curtailed only when she cornered one of the rats in a small larder off of the main kitchen, and was promptly locked inside by one of the servants. There she remained, barking ferociously and clawing at the inside of the door, and driving the kitchen staff to distraction, until word reached my mother.
...
While Madra was raising her own special brand of hell in the kitchen, Aeron and I were seated at a table in the dining hall on the second floor Castle Highever's keep. Our simple breakfast – eggs, and porridge made from corn – was long finished, and the two of us were muddling through a conversation that, for once, was quite serious.
We've known each other so long that anything meaningful rarely needs to be said, and now that circumstances demanded an honest discussion, neither of us seemed to know where to start. So, instead, we chose to push our utensils back and forth while talking in circles about everything that had led up to Aeron's news, instead of the news itself. For as many words as we'd spent already, we'd gotten remarkably close to nowhere when my mother burst through one of the small doors that lead down to the tower's ground level.
Unlike my father, mother is not noble-born, and it's a matter of pride to her that she retains the fierce pragmatism of her upbringing. She wears the formal gowns of her rank only when there is no other choice, and always seems to don a terrible mood along with the silk and heavy jewelry. As she stalked toward us with purple and white finery hiked up nearly to her knees, it appeared that today was no exception.
"Your hound has the entire kitchen in an uproar," Mother said, slowing but not stopping as she passed our table. "Nan is threatening to quit again. I don't know what's going on, but you will handle it immediately."
"Yes ma'am," I said, choosing what I've found to be the only correct response when my mother is in a bad mood.
"Today of all days," she said to one in particular as she reached wall. There, she paused at the base of the spiral staircase that leads up to my father's great hall and turned. "Be warned, Liam," she added, the faintest hint of good humor creeping into her voice. "If Nan actually quits, I'll be anointing you the new head cook."
"Maker help us all," Aeron replied immediately.
This made her chuckle, seemingly in spite of herself. "Maker help us all, indeed," she said, before disappearing up the stairs.
Incidentally, I've been told that in other castles, in others corners of Ferelden, the wives of lords do not concern themselves with the running of their kitchens or the morale of their staff. One assumes that in these other castles, the sons of lords are likewise not sent to mollify angry cooks – and do not end up hunting rats. But this is Highever, and we are Couslands; nobility here does not mean the same thing as it does elsewhere, and I would have it no other way.
So we rose, grabbed our weapons, and started for the kitchen. On the way, I paused at another table long enough to ask one of our friends, a guardsman still working on his own breakfast, to convey our regrets to the sergeant-at-arms. In just a few minutes, morning drills would be starting in the training yard. Although not members of the guard, Aeron and I attend so often that the sergeant would almost certainly have waited for us.
We are both armed and armored in anticipation of the drills. Aeron wears heavy, red leather armor over a chainmail tunic, and carries a longsword at his waist; a shield over his shoulder bears the Cousland sigil, green laurel leaves crossed at the stem over a blue background. My armor is lighter than Aeron's, composed of only a sturdy leather vest worn over a thick wool shirt, and a skirt of steel-reinforced leather hanging over my kilt. Like most Ferelden men, I wear a kilt that is brown and rough and without pattern, typical of our utilitarian approach to fashion; the kilt is gathered at the waist by a thick belt, from which I've hung my short-sword on one hip and a dagger on the other.
Although Aeron is by far the better swordsman, we both look forward to morning drills, and I regretted that whatever Madra was stirring was costing us time in the training yard. There was no question of Aeron going to the training yard without me. Madra may be my hound, and mother's instruction may have been directed only at me, but it's understood that wherever I go, Aeron will follow.
Throughout our childhood, the opposite was true: I followed wherever Aeron led, which was into mischief more often than not. Then as now, he was the taller, stronger, and more daring of the two us, with a penchant for picking fights with older boys and pulling the pigtails of pretty girls. We rarely went a day without opening cuts or spreading muddy mayhem, and I occasionally feel pangs of guilt for the endless trouble we visited upon our parents, our servants, and our longsuffering tutor, Brother Aldous.
As good as he was at getting into trouble, Aeron was equally adept at getting out. Even with cheeks reddened from a well-earned slap, or eyes black and lip split, he always had a huge grin on his face and a twinkle in his green eyes. He was handsome but not foppish, charming but never ingratiating, impish but sincere. The girls loved him, the adults couldn't seem stay angry with him, and the other boys, like me, would have followed him anywhere – and did, whether it was to the aid of a sick friend or to a forbidden burlesque show in the port district.
Four summers ago, we both turned sixteen and finished our formal schooling. In Ferelden, this marks the transition to adulthood, and we were entrusted with titles and responsibilities. Our roles changed, even if our natures did not. Aeron is Ser Gilmore now, having formally assumed his family's duties as a bodyguard and steward to the Cousland line, and I am a Ser as well, tasked to learn the art of ruling, with all of its complexities and mundanities.
The majority of my waking moments are spent navigating an endless stream of petty courts and scrivener's errors, granary inspections and formal dinners. Frankly, it's enough to numb the minds of a dozen men. A Cousland always does his duty, however - a creed that has been drilled into me from birth - and the relative luxury of morning drills has kept me from losing my sanity.
It's helped that, despite coming of age, Aeron refuses to take anything too seriously.
When I'm at wit's end trying to arbitrate a dispute over the naming of fishing vessels, Aeron can be counted on to suggest I award naming rights to the captain with less offensive flatulence. When some minor Bann's drunken toast rambles on during a banquet, I can count on Aeron to quietly point out the ample cleavage displayed by the same Bann's daughter.
He is observant about more serious matters, too, and can be counted on for good advice as well as irreverence – but the jokes, the duties shirked occasionally for hunting trips, the sleep lost to nights drinking with friends – those have been Aeron's greatest gift to me these past few years. And now, in the wake of his news, I am left reeling, wondering how exactly I am supposed to maintain my sanity without his influence.
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Really, Aeron's news should not surprise me.
The first signs of trouble had come early in the summer, when a steady trickle of refugees from Ferelden's southern border brought rumors of dark clouds full of purple lightening, of missing caravans and burnt villages, of darkspawn raids well north of the Korcari Wilds. But news from the south was always bad – southerners prided themselves on it, in fact – and so few people paid the rumors much heed, me and Aeron least of all.
Then, a week ago, a courier arrived for my father, bearing a letter sealed with a griffon sigil – the symbol of the Grey Wardens. The Grey Wardens are an order so famously reclusive, so singular in purpose, that the mere presence of their seal gave immediate credence to all of the rumors. Almost as soon as the courier rode through the castle's gate, the word Blight was whispered on many lips, and before the courier's audience with my father was complete, the castle's abbey was filled with the faithful, knees bowed as they sung the Chant of Light.
The Warden courier left through the castle's eastern gate on a new horse, galloping along the old Imperial highway, and less than an hour later, father's own riders went out, scattering to the various Banns and Arls who have pledged fealty to my father. The army of Highever was being called up, and the militias and constabulary placed on alert. A few days later, orders came from the king to prepare for a march south, to the abandoned fortress at Ostagar. Finally, I began to understand that real change might be upon us.
Then last night, Grey Wardens arrived at the tower: no mere couriers but living legends, myths made flesh striding through our castle. They spoke with my father for hours in his private study, and were still there when I retired for the night. I assumed the Wardens had stopped in Highever simply to rest for a night, and were sharing news with my father before they would ride on, but apparently they were recruiting.
On the way down to breakfast this morning, Aeron told me that he was awakened around midnight by a knock at his door and summoned to the study. Only one of the wardens was there, a dark haired man who gave his name as Duncan, and said he was commander of their Order here in Ferelden. He was looking for warriors, and had heard stories of Aeron's skill with a blade even before coming to Highever.
Of course, Aeron accepted the offer. He has dreamed of adventure since we were in small clothes, and I can easily remember a dozen times he led our friends in make-believe crusades against imaginary darkspawn. That fire has never died, and I have no doubt that life as a traveling warrior will suit Aeron well. Perhaps even more important, if the darkspawn truly are stirring in the south, there can be no greater service than as a Grey Warden, and the Gilmore's value duty and service as highly as we Couslands.
I should be happy for him, and in a way I am.
But what I struggled to say over breakfast is that I will miss him. I could have just said so, but those words don't begin to touch the depth of my sentiment. Aeron is more than just my friend: he is closer than my brother, and I will feel his absence like a lost limb or a missing sense.
Change has been in the air for weeks now. I felt it in the refugees and their rumors, in the couriers and the muster of soldiers. It is real change, not just the incremental changes of growing older, but the sort of change that will be written into history, the sort that reshapes nations and defines lives. I just didn't expect the change to touch me on such a personal level.
My whole world shifted this morning, I know this and I feel it in my soul, but around me the world hasn't caught up with the change. As we descended the stairs to the kitchen to find Madra, or even now as I lean against the cold stone, my sides sore from laughing at Aeron's story of the shield and the metaphor, I could easily believe that nothing has changed, and nothing ever will.
...
We could hear Madra barking as soon as we left the dining hall. Before we reached the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen, we could hear Nan yelling, as well. It is not an unfamiliar sound.
Nan is undisputed lord and master of the kitchens, which are built around an enormous central fireplace on the keep's ground level. Smaller kitchens, each of which serves a specific purpose, are furthest back, built against the northern wall of the keep, where it meets the castle's rearmost curtain wall. The rest of the keep's ground floor is taken up by one large cooking space, which must be referred to exclusively as the Kitchen Proper in Nan's presence.
Her kingdom extends up to the dining hall, but also down, through the basement, which contains a bakery and the wine cellar, and into the sub-basements, where enough food is stored to the see the castle through months of siege or a week of determined feasting.
Her subjects, a small army of elven servants, are busy day and night, stoking fires and slicing roasts and carrying trays and ferrying messages and serving wine. Collectively, they hear and see almost everything that goes on in the castle, and nearly all of that information is reported to Nan.
She runs the tower as surely as my father runs the Teyrnir, and if she yells more than he does, it is only because her first job was not in the kitchens at all, but as nanny to me and my older brother, Fergus – and by proxy to Aeron as well, who proudly claims to be responsible for at least half the grey in her hair.
When the two of us pushed through the Kitchen Proper's side door, we found Nan had backed several of her servants into a corner and is gesturing rather wildly with a small sieve. "You mean to tell me that the lot of you can't get one bloody mutt out of my larder?"
"But mistress!" one of the elves protested, "It won't let us get near!"
"If I can't get into that larder, I can't get to the meat." Every few words, Nan took another step toward the elves, brandishing the sieve as though it were a knife. "And if I can't get to the meat, I'll skin the lot of you worthless elves and serve you in the pies instead, I swear it!"
"No need for that, you old crone," Aeron called out happily, prompting Nan to wheel on him, sieve raised to attack
"You! I knew that smell was something worse than the soup Cath's burning!"
You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but Nan was clearly glad to see us.
"Do you ever bathe?" she demanded of Aeron, before turning her glare to me. "And you!" She pointed a crooked finger at my face. "Your bloody mongrel keeps getting into my larder! That bitch ought to be put down!"
"She's not just 'a bitch,'" I said, smiling in spite of myself. "She's a pureblood Mabari, and if I recall, you helped me pick her out."
Nan advanced on us menacingly before abruptly tucking the sieve into her apron and pulling us into a hug, one arm around each of our necks. "A blight wolf is what she is," Nan grumbled after letting us go and gestured helplessly at the mess. "How am I supposed to work like this?"
The kitchen was indeed in shambles. Baskets of bread were knocked over, loaves scattered on the floor, and several sacks of flour and cornmeal had been torn open. Spices were spilled nearby, congealing in cracked eggs. The trail of devastation stretched in several directions, but clearly ended at a blue larder door, from behind which Madra was barking fiercely.
"You really ought to keep the dogs out of the kitchen in the first place," Aeron suggested, and had to duck back from a swat.
"I ought to lock you out of the bloody kitchen!" Nan looked at me and shook her head, throwing her hands up. "That's it! I'll quit. Tell your mother. I'll go cook at some nice estate in the Bannorn. Maker knows there are nobles enough poking around my tower, I'm sure one of the bastards needs a cook!"
Nan threatens to quit almost every time I see her, so there was no real worry there, but I could tell she was genuinely upset by the havoc wrought by my dog, and her initial pleasure at seeing Aeron and I was giving way to frothy fury. I pulled her into another hug before she could get going, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"It's good to see you, too, Nan," I said. "And stop worrying. We'll get her out of your kitchen and help you tidy up the mess, besides. Just – take a breath."
"Don't you go telling old ladies when to breathe, Master Cousland," she said, leaning back from my hug, but she was smiling now. "You just get that bitch gone. I've enough to worry about with a castle full of hungry soldiers." She wheeled around on the elves. "And you lot, stop standing there gawping like idiots! Get to cleaning!"
I crouched in front of the larder door, waiting for Aeron to man its latch.
"How did she get into the kitchen, really, though?" I asked over my shoulder.
"How in blazes am I supposed to know?" was Nan's reply. "She up and walked through the wall, I expect. That hound isn't natural. It's in her eyes – she does this on purpose, just to torment me!"
"No, Nan," Aeron corrected, taking up his position, "that's my job."
I nodded to Aeron, and Aeron flipped up the latch, and I was nearly bowled over by Madra, who immediately planted her front feet on my waist and strained up to lick my neck and chin. My hands went to her collar, but as her hot breath hit my face I saw blood flecked across her muzzle and coating her lips and teeth.
Not wanting any of the blood on my face, I pushed her down and tried to hold her collar, thinking to check her for any injuries, but she tore out of my grasp immediately only to bounce happily around my ankles before rushing back into the larder. She spun in place inside and then dropped her haunches to sit expectantly over the wet, mangled corpses of three rats.
Tongue lolling and stubby tail wagging furiously, it was plain that Madra was quite pleased with her find. For the rest of us, however, even the deadest of rats are not something to be celebrated, especially in the kitchen larder. Worse, however, was the size of the corpse between Madra's front paws: the rat's body was nearly the size of a loaf of bread, and easily twice as long and three times the weight of the other two.
Local farmers call these monstrosities bog rats, and I understand they are common in southern Ferelden but occasionally migrate north. I've seen them only a handful of times, usually in abandoned farmhouses or the back alleys of bad slums, and found them unsettling on each occasion.
Bog rats enjoy a reputation as ferocious burrowers, voracious eaters, and tenacious fighters, and are generally the last thing one wants in a castle's kitchen. Nan wasted no time conscripting me, Aeron, and Madra into a hunting party. Nan assigned a servant to us, a young male elf named Varren, and equipped him with a heavy-looking broom and a large wicker basket for corpse duty.
"Don't come back until you've taken that mongrel through every room in the Kitchen Proper, the support kitchens, and all of the lower levels," she said. "The bitch can pay me back for the damage she's done."
Bitch or no, however, Madra was rewarded by Nan with a generous handful of bacon trimmings, which she threw back in a single gulp.
"You can have the whole slab once you've dealt with the vermin," Nan told the hound, and then shuffled us off to our hunt.
...
We found no more rats on the keep's ground floor, but as soon as we descended to the basement bakery, the chase was on. Madra worried several rats from a cold cupboard stacked with sacks of yeast, and more still from a storage room full of grain bins. She did the majority of the work, while Aeron and I commandeered brooms and used the long handles to club any rats that made it past Madra. Varren watched it all with a bemused expression, and as we cleared each room, he added dead vermin to his basket before directing us to the next storeroom.
We didn't find another bog rat until we had descended to the first sub-basement, when one of the creatures burst from behind a stack of barrels. Easily larger than a cat, with yellow fangs and pink eyes, the rat was improbably intimidating, and I dropped my broom immediately in favor of the short sword hanging on my right hip.
From there on, we encountered bog rats almost exclusively. The bastards were quick, and once they were backed into a corner they'd become desperate, baring their teeth and charging at our legs. Aeron's shield and longsword immediately proved the next best thing to useless, so he commandeered the broom from Varren and spent most of his energy kicking the rats back toward me or Madra. My sword, much shorter than Aeron's, was not particularly lethal, but if he kicked them hard enough or I landed a swat with the flat of my blade, it would stun the creatures long enough for me to finish the job, or for Madra to tear into the rat's throat.
Usually there was only one to a room, but twice we encountered nests, and the combat was more frenzied. One of the rats actually managed to bite Aeron, sinking his teeth into the leather greaves that guard his shin, missing skin by only millimeters.
"I'm glad we were on the way to drill," Aeron said after, examining the twin cuts in the armor. "It'd be embarrassing to die in the basement from a rat bite."
The work was hard, and hot. The fires and ovens in the kitchen and basement burn day and night, and the very walls on these lower levels radiate warmth. The only light in most of the passages comes from torches set in the walls, or braziers on the floors, adding acrid smoke to the already-oppressive atmosphere.
By the time Varren guided us to the lowest sub-floor, three levels below the Kitchen Proper, Varren's basket was so full he had to drag it behind him, smearing the stone floor with blood. All of us were breathing hard, and Madra's flanks shined slick with sweat. Our water skeins were long empty, and when Varren offered to refill them, Aeron and I both jumped at the chance to take a breather.
Really, it would have been the right time to talk to Aeron about the Wardens – to tell him I was proud of him – to tell him I knew he'd make Highever proud – to tell him how much I'd miss him when he left – but instead, I reminded him of the time we snuck through this same basement as schoolboys, trying to catch my older brother, Fergus, with one of his paramours. We found nothing but cobwebs and ended the excursion with boxed ears, courtesy of Nan, who at the time was actually my Nanny. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about the memory, but we both find it inexplicably hilarious.
We had lost interest in the rat hunt and lost ourselves in old memories well before Varren returned. He brought us wine in the skeins, not water, and a pitcher of milk for Madra, and seemed content to sit in the corner cross-legged, nursing his own skein and listening to our raucous laughter. I suppose even our inanity had to be better than Nan's kitchen, or bog rats, for that matter.
And so almost an hour passed.
...
"I swear," Aeron is saying, the tale of the metaphorical shield at an end, "some of you high born, I don't know how you remember your own names!"
In an effort to catch my breath after what feels like a solid hour of laughing, I'm leaning against the wall wand clutching my side, still chuckling. Beside me, Madra whines incessantly, bumping her nose against my hand. Then she rushes to the far door and sinks low the floor, growling ominously for a few seconds before bouncing back to me. She's been repeating this cycle for several minutes now. Clearly there are more rats on the other side of the door, and Madra is letting us know our break has gone on long enough. It's an odd coincidence, surely, that her patience expired about the same time she finished her pitcher of milk.
"Well…shit," Aeron says, sighs, and looks around.
Taking the cue, Varren rises fluidly, seeming to stand straight up without having to adjust his weight or even move his legs. Other than their pointed ears, elves look so similar to humans that it can be easy to forget they are an entirely different species; when they move that way, with such effortless grace, it's easier to remember the distinction.
Varren walks to the door and Madra bounces after him, eager to continue the hunt. His hand resting on the latch, Varren turns to us and cocks his head, waiting for our signal. Madra is growling fiercely, her nose pressed to the crack of the door, which means there are almost certainly rats in the hallway beyond the door; after the last skirmishes, none of us are interested in taking chances.
Aeron hefts the broom, I draw my sword, and we both nod to Varren. The door is thrown open, Varren jumps back, and suddenly Madra is lost in a tangle of fur, barking, and inhuman growling. For a second, Aeron and I don't move, shocked by this rat's suicidal charge, but then we advance, weapons up.
The dog and the rat are locked too tightly in their struggle for either of us to intervene, and I realize that this one is enormous even for a bog rat – about half Madra's size. Do rats have queens? I wonder, recognizing the thought is ridiculous as soon as it rises, but not sure how else to explain what I'm seeing.
Madra and the rat tumble through the door, into a long corridor. Stone archways open up, three on each side of the corridor, and at the far end, a single, barred window looks out to blue sky. We are in the keep's basement, underground on three sides, but the north side of the keep is built down into the cliff face that falls away beneath Castle Highever's north curtain wall. The window must be cut into the cliff's face, which from below appears to rise straight up to the castle walls. Appearances are deceiving, however, and I know there are many crevasses and outcroppings where trees grow and birds nest, and - one assumes - rats can find space to nest.
Wooden shutters hang open on either side of the window, the latch undone, likely forgotten by whoever last used the room. Even if it has only been open a few days, that's easily enough time for rats to find their way in, make a home, and spread.
Confirming my suspicion, at least a half dozen small shapes scuttle across the corridor, from one archway to the other.
I call out a warning to Aeron in case he didn't see, and as I do, several of the bog rats burst out of the shadows, rushing toward Madra and the big one, sensing the chance for a kill. I wish I had my bow. I am much better with arrows than with a blade, and there's no doubt in my mind I could pincushion the little buggers as they run, far more easily than I can catch and finish them with a sword. The morning drills I expected to attend are specific to close quarters combat, however, and so my bow and quiver are in my room, at least seven stories above.
Madra breaks free just as the other rats reach her, and leaps sideways, catching one in her jaws and shaking as she soars through the air. She crashes into one of the pillars between archways and tosses the rat aside, back broken, to twitch on the floor, while Aeron and I advance through the door, weapons up. Aeron has handed the broom back to Varren and drawn both sword and shield; he is crouched low to the ground, the tip of his shield trailing on the stone floor and his sword held high and ready.
As we clear the door, I begin to wonder if this is actually a good idea. Bog rats are emerging from all of the archways, and although half of them are heading for the window and freedom, the other half are moving slowly toward us. Now that I'm in the corridor, I can see that this corridor housed bags of grain, many of which are split open, grain spilling across the floors and mixing with rat droppings. The rats found a feast here, and they are either defending their bounty or hoping to add us to the menu.
Madra has killed another of the smaller bog rats and is circling the big one that charged us, her growl low and menacing.
The door slams behind us, and I risk a glance back, thinking Varren may have abandoned us. Instead, I see he has the broom in one hand and a torch from the storeroom in the other. "To keep them from getting out, milord," he says simply, and steps up beside us.
Then several of the rats leap at Madra's exposed haunches, and the battle begins. If I try to tell this story one day, to my family or perhaps to friends over drinks, I know it will sound ridiculous, but for several minutes I feel like I'm fighting for my life. As they swarm around my boots, none manage to draw blood, but I can feel teeth finding holds on the leather, and I am forced to kick wildly to fling them loose, sometimes two or three at a time. They are trying to climb my legs. I stomp as many of them as I cut, and I see the reason Aeron has crouched so low is to use his shield as a battering ram, smashing several rats at a time aside.
Varren surprises me. He stays slightly behind, but wields the torch effectively, keeping the rats from swarming too heavily behind us, and occasionally lands a strike with the butt end of the broom, stunning or outright killing one of the vermin.
Madra moves between our legs and in front of us, killing when the opportunity presents itself, but focused on the biggest of them. At one point, her adversary lunges past me to escape, and the sheer weight of the rat as it strikes my knee staggers me. I lose my footing and collapse against a stone pillar, dropping my sword into the swarm of rats. Varren leaps to my side and pulls me back to my feet, waving the torch back and forth, driving the big one and its comrades back while I right myself and retrieve my weapon.
I thank him, but there's no answer as the elf retreats nimbly to our rear, lashing out at a number of the beasts that are trying to climb the back of Aeron's greaves.
It continues like this for what feels like five minutes. The only sounds are squealing and growling, the thud of kicks, the grate of shield and swords against stone, and the wet sounds when rats are broken or cut apart. By the time it's over, at least twenty rats are dead, strewn across the corridor and around the grain bags. The rest have retreated out the window.
The big one is slumped on its side, square in the middle of the carnage. Madra stands over it, triumphant. Her flanks are heaving as she catches her breathe, but her tongue is lolling contentedly and her demeanor tells me there are no more nearby. The Battle of the Lower Scullery seems to have reached its end.
"This is the last room, milord," Varren says, still brandishing the torch and broom. "That should be the last of them.
"Let's bloody well hope so," Aeron remarks
"We just spent an hour killing rats together," I tell Varren. "You don't have to call me 'milord' right now."
He nods politely, and then regards the corpses with uncertainty, glancing around the room and then back to our basket, full enough before we encountered these monsters. "We could use some of the bags of grain, milord," Varren suggests.
Aeron walks up to the big one's corpse, and Madra steps aside as he pokes the rat's belly with the point of his sword.
"It's bigger than a fucking turkey!" he exclaims with awe, and Varren and I both laugh.
"I've never seen anything like it, sers," Varren says, "and I hope not to again."
"Do you think it was their leader?" Aeron asks no one in particular. "The Arl of Rats, perhaps?"
"Darkspawn follow an Archdemon," I point out, walking over to the rough burlap sacks that held the grain. "Maybe that's an arch rat?"
Aeron throws his head back and laughs. "Maybe this is my test! Kill an arch rat before I have to face an Archdemon!"
He closes the window and secures the latch, still chuckling, then shakes the shutters just to be sure.
"It's closed up tight," Aeron says. "All the same, maybe we should string some of them up on the columns? Just as a warning to the others?"
"If Madam Cook found that, she'd have my hide," Varren says. "I'd prefer we not, sers."
"We just killed an arch rat," Aeron says, incredulous, "and you're afraid of an old woman?"
"That old woman?" Varren asks. "I should think so."
...
Most of the only-modestly-enormous rats fit in the basket, although its wicker frame is creaking in protest by the end. Only one of the burlap sacks that the rats got into is salvageable, but we fill it as well with bodies. Helpfully, Madra lifts two more in her teeth, her stubby tail wagging furiously, and that leaves only the arch rat, which Aeron hefts over his shoulder without a second thought.
Aeron leads the way, Madra following close at his heel, Varren and I bringing up the rear with the basket hanging between us. Varren gives directions as we walk back the way we came, and after several left turns we arrive at a short stairwell.
As we descend the cobblestone steps, I see the foundation stones give way to bedrock, and I realize this passage was cut into the rocks of the promontory on which Highever Castle stands. The stairs end at a large room, also carved out of the bedrock on three sides. Opposite the stairs, however, the far wall is built from the same stone as the rest of the castle, and at its center stands a heavy, wrought-iron door, barred from within. On either side of the door, arrow loops have been cut in the wall for archers, stretching from floor to ceiling.
Crossbows hang on one of the side walls, above several crates full of bolts, and several heavy shields lean nearby. Racks hold an assortment of pikes, axes, and longswords are set along the opposite wall. It's an impressive collection of weaponry, but not enough to be called an armory. Besides the armaments, the room contains an empty brazier and a wooden table with benches on either side.
Three guardsmen are seated at the table, playing cards spread between them as they gape at us and our grisly luggage. We have interrupted a game of Wicked Grace, apparently, and flustered the guards in the process. They clearly recognize Aeron first, and from there it is an easy leap to my identity.
"Ser- Ser Cousland!" the one of them stammers. Insignia on his armor identifies him as a corporal of the guard. "What…what are you doing, milord?"
"A better question might be what you are doing," Aeron says sharply, tossing the enormous rat at the corporal's feet and staring pointedly at the cards. I know Aeron well enough to know he is having a bit of fun, but the corporal is clearly terrified, his face going sheet white almost instantly.
"We were just, ah…" He looks hopelessly at the cards, down at the rat, back at Aeron, and finally back at his two companions, who are at least as stunned as he is. It's not hard to guess their thoughts: Are they about to be punished for playing cards on duty? More importantly, why is Ser Gilmore throwing dead rats at them?
"Playing cards on duty, corporal?" Aeron demands, and I see the corner of his lip twitching. "While savage demon rats plague the castle and your liege lord battles them alone?"
"My lord?" the poor man asks, now desperately confused as well as afraid, and I feel compelled to step in before he collapses.
"What is this place?" I ask, my voice intentionally calm as I set down the rat basket.
"My lord?" the corporal asks again, now with a note of hope in his voice.
"There aren't many parts of this castle I haven't been to," I tell him, walking forward and peering out one of the arrow loops. "I've stumbled into a great many storerooms and cupboards today that I never knew existed, but this is more than a storeroom."
"This is the servant's exit, my lord," the corporal says, stepping around the table and walking up beside me.
"Ah, yes," I say, absently, examining the door itself. "I wondered if it might be." As soon as I saw the door, I knew, but asking the question seems to have calmed the corporal's nerves.
The servant's exit leads to one of Castle Highever's most prominent features, a long stone stairway cut into the north face of the promontory. The stairs double back and forth several times, descending almost three hundred feet straight down to the shallow, grassy embankments that rise up against the cliff face. From there, a dirt path leads to Highever's alienage, where most of the castle's elven servants live with their families.
"Would you like to see outside, my lord?" the corporal asks hesitantly, and I nod assent.
"We'd like to do more than see," Aeron remarks, gesturing at the rats, "unless you'd like to keep these as decoration?"
The corporal shakes his head and hurriedly removes a ring of thick brass keys from his belt. He uses a different key to free each of several padlocks holding bars across the door, and then slides the bars into recesses in the wall. Finally he grips the door handle and, with some effort, swings it inward. Immediately, a blast of salty air rushes into the room, and with it the of morning sunshine, almost blindingly bright in the basement's torch-lit darkness.
Hesitantly, my hand held up against the sun, I step out through the door and find myself on a sturdy wooden bridge. On my right, the cliff face drops away precipitously, but on the left, smooth rock stretches forward perhaps ten feet, and I realize the servant's exit has been built into a natural outcropping of rock. I suspect the granary that was the site of our battle with the arch rat is inside that rock outcropping.
The bridge runs parallel to the outcropping, perhaps an arm's length from the cliff face; its entire length is covered by the arrow loops on either side of the door. There are no handrails on the bridge, and although it is probably wide enough for two people to walk abreast, the effect is dizzying as I walk its length, perhaps six feet, to the point where it meets the outcropping. Here, a landing has been cut from the stone, and the first flight of steps descends left, around the nose of the outcropping. Wooden posts are set in the rock at the edge of the landing and down the steps, not a full railing but enough to steady yourself against fatigue or wind.
I rest a hand on one of the posts and allow myself a few moments of quiet. Highever seems to stretch out from beneath my feet, a confused pattern of streets and alleys, houses and markets, bounded by the city walls to the east and west, and the Waking Sea to the north. The sea itself is especially breathtaking, a living mosaic of deep blues and greens, sparkling with reflected sunlight. Most of the fishing boats will be tied up to docks in the port district by now, but I can see a few sails, red or green, riding the waves.
The port district borders the alienage, which is separated from the rest of the city by a wooden palisade. There are gates built into the palisade at each point of the compass, with the southern gate opening to the dirt path leading to the stairs and the northern gate opening directly into the port district. In times past, the gates were manned, and elves were required to present work visas or travel permits before coming or going, a practice my father did away shortly after becoming Teyrn.
Hearing a series of thumps behind me, I turn and see that Varren and the corporal have emptied the basket over the edge of the bridge. Rat carcasses cascade down the cliff face, which I notice now is stained with what looks like years of grime and grease. I wonder how much refuse is piled at the base of the cliffs, and who collects it for transport to the waste yards outside the city gates. I've spent the last two years of my life studying the management of this city, and there are still so many things I don't know.
Varren and the corporal retreat back inside, and Aeron steps out briefly, arm cocked, before he throws the arch rat with all his might. The rat whizzes past my head, sailing out over the landing before curving down and out of sight.
"Farewell, worthy foe!" Aeron calls after the corpse, an enormous grin on his face.
...
As we climb winding stairs from the sub-basement back to the Kitchen Proper, Aeron begins to chuckle slowly, eventually breaking out in a full-bellied laugh. A few steps ahead of him, I turn my head and glance back quizzically.
"Oh, I was just thinking," he says.
"Thinking, huh?"
"Stow it," he says. Then he chuckles, and shakes his head. "Giant rats? Can you believe it?"
We stop now, as much for breathe as to talk. My arms and legs are leaden, and underneath my armor I'm soaked with sweat, but unlike Aeron, covered in chainmail and leather almost head to toe, I can feel a breeze on my arms and legs. His face is flushed and his hair is plastered to his skull, but, as always, he seems in good humor.
"I know you'll miss me when I'm gone," he continues. "Hell, the whole castle will miss me. Nay, the entire Teyrnir! But – you know I'll miss you too, right?"
I nod, not sure what to say.
"You're not just like a brother to me," Aeron says. "You are my brother, and my best friend. But you know – you know this – being a Warden? I'll miss this place, and you, but being a Warden is everything I've ever wanted." He laughs again, shaking his head in disbelief, and I can see for the first time that he is not just excited, but overjoyed, happy to his core. "It's an adventure, isn't it? The start of my adventure, anyway. And giant rats?"
Again, he laughs, and again he shakes his head.
"Giant rats," he repeats. "It's like the start of every bad adventure tale my grandfather used to tell. Nan, too, when we were kids, right? It always starts with giant rats! And now adventure's here, and sure enough…" He spreads his hands, covered in dried rat blood, and grins. "Giant fucking rats!"
...
"Now you definitely smell," Nan says as soon as we walk back into her kitchen.
"No doubt!" Aeron replies, all false haughtiness. "Your basements were a disaster, good woman, a shame. Mold and lichen and rats the size of ponies and…"
Nan came around the edge of a countertop, brandishing her sieve again. "I'll have your ears, you whelp!"
Aeron hopped out of reach, giggling.
"Grab him," Nan commanded, waving at several of the elven servants, "and I'll double your salaries if you can hold him down while I box his ears!"
One of the servants, an elven girl named Cath, looks positively alarmed. "Mistress…?" she asks, but she looks at me beseechingly.
Nan's sense of humor is lost on most of the help, partly because she is not known for treating servants especially well, nor elves in general. A rant from Nan that can be taken as a joke when aimed at me or Aeron might have a cold edge to it when directed at Cath. This may be why Varren elected to stay below and tidy up the rest aftermath.
"Ignore her," I tell Cath with a smile. "Although," I add, to Aeron now, "It has been a while since she boxed your ears."
"And it will be a while longer," Aeron says, before grinning at Cath. "Although you, my dear, can box my ears any time you like."
He winks at Cath, and she flushes.
I know Cath from my childhood, when her mother worked in the kitchens and she played in the courtyard with me and Aeron and a handful of others whenever we weren't in classes. She and Aeron hated each other then. Times, apparently, have changed – although, I've rarely met a young lady who can't be made to swoon with just a wink from Aeron.
He turns to Nan, oblivious to Cath's reaction – or at least, pretending to be.
"Nan, I'm pleased to report, the rats have been vanquished." He bows theatrically. "It was a grand battle, the likes of which-"
"I'm sure it was," Nan interrupts, and beckons Madra over.
A heaping bowl of trimmings sits at the edge of the counter, and Madra has had her eye on it since the top step.
"You probably let them in, you miserable bitch," Nan grumbles, placing the bowl on the floor and ruffling Madra's ears affectionately as the Hound steps forward politely, pauses, then unceremoniously submerges half her face in the meal.
"Actually, I think she killed more than the rest of us combined," I tell Nan.
"Rats?" a child's voice demands excitedly, and I turn to see my nephew, Oren, framed in the same door Aeron and I entered after breakfast.
Behind him, my older brother, Fergus, steps into view. He is wearing formal clothes, a doublet and trousers instead of the smock and kilt he usually prefers, and his hair, usually loose, is tied back into a ponytail, much longer than my own short queue. Although we live on the same floor of the keep, we see each other rarely; Fergus' responsibilities are mostly with the militia and constabulary, and he spends much of his time far from the castle, meeting with banns and freeholders.
"Liam!" Fergus says, smiling warmly, at the same time that Oren yells "Uncle!"
Oren runs at me, barefoot, six years old and all enthusiasm. Unlike Fergus, he wears simple clothing, and a toy sword hangs from a belt he wears crossways across his chest, trying to mimic the way Fergus carries sword and shield when armed. I catch his outstretched arms and spin him, but not as energetically as I would outside, since I don't want to knock him into a pot of soup or, Maker forbid, Nan. Then I hoist him up onto my hip and look him in the fact.
"There were rats, uncle?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so," I tell him in a solemn tone. "Enormous, ginormous, demon-rats."
Oren is thrilled by this and wiggles out of my grasp, drawing his sword with a flourish. "Did you murder them all!?"
"Yes," Aeron says. "Every last one. And threw them off the cliff for good measure."
"Oh," Oren says, and now sounds a bit disappointed. "None left for me?"
"I'm sorry, Oren," I tell him, dropping down so I can again address him face to face, which is somewhat difficult as he hops forward and back in a fencer's stance, jabbing at imaginary rats on the floor. "It's for the best, though. They were so large, they could have swallowed you in one bite."
"You know what I love about you?" Fergus asks over Oren's head, and I look up. "You never exaggerate."
I stand and we clasp hands.
"It's barely an exaggeration, my lord," Aeron says. He is standing by Nan now, drinking from a fresh skein and holding a scone in his other hand. "They were bog rats, some of the biggest I've seen. One in particular – it was almost half Madra's size."
"Ser Gilmore," Fergus says, chuckling, "I'm afraid you are even less credible than my little brother."
Aeron does his best to look chastened. "Alas."
"What brings you to the kitchen?" I ask. "Did mother send you to check on us?"
"No, actually, I'm here to bother Nan."
"Oh, you're never a bother, my lord," Nan says, positively beaming. Although she feels the need to dress up her affection for me and Aeron in bluster, Nan has always openly adored Fergus. This may have something to do with the fact that Fergus was markedly better behaved, never trying to sneak frogs and snakes into the kitchens, as Aeron and I did as children, or ale and servant girls out of it, as Aeron still does.
"You may change your tune when you hear my news, Nan," Fergus says. "Arl Howe just arrived-"
"Before lunch?" Nan exclaims, throwing her hands up. "His men aren't due until this evening! How in the bloody-"
"They're not here yet," Fergus interjects, and for a moment Nan looks relieved, but then he adds, "..and they won't be here today at all."
This really sets Nan off. How, she demands, is she supposed to work under these conditions? She's already got a dozen vats of soup going and bread to feed several hundred in the ovens, and what isn't cooking already has been prepared, but suddenly there are no mouths to feed.
Fergus follows her as she stomps away, trying to mollify her with little success. Oren watches for a moment in awe before turning back to me and brandishing his sword again.
"Iona is here," he remarks casually.
My chest seems to tighten, and I see Aeron simultaneously choke on the last of his scone and break into a smirk so gleeful that crumbs fall out of his mouth.
I turn immediately toward Fergus, but he is still busy trying to calm Nan.
"And how did you know to tell us that, young master?" Aeron asks Oren, when he is finished choking.
"Mama said so to Papa, and he said uncle would want to know, and then they told secrets."
"What kind of secrets?" Aeron winks at me.
"I don't know," Oren admits, indignant. "They wouldn't tell me."
"Well, I can tell you a secret of my own," Aeron says, and beckons Oren over.
I'm flushed now, and am looking to Fergus, hoping he'll calm Nan quickly so I can press him further. It's been more than a year since I last saw Iona, and although I hoped she might be coming with Lady Landra, I had no way to be sure.
"Your uncle," Aeron tells Oren in a stage whisper, "is in loooooove with Iona."
"Oh," Oren remarks, suddenly disinterested. "Is that all?"
"Just out of curiosity," Aeron asks, "what sort of secret were you hoping it would be?"
Oren shrugs, returning to his battle with the imaginary rats. "Something interesting."
"Oh, little man," Aeron chuckles, "how much you have to learn."
I've caught Fergus' attention now, and he is reluctantly walking back toward me.
Actually, other than Oren and Madra, both lost in their own private worlds, it seems I have everyone's attention. Aeron still hasn't wiped the crumbs from his chin, Nan is watching with genuine disapproval, and behind her, Cath is beaming at me. She and Iona were close once, I recall. Perhaps they still are.
"Swear you won't tell Mother you heard it from me," Fergus says gravely, locking eyes with me.
I nod, perhaps too vigorously, and Aeron snorts.
"And you," Fergus says, glaring at Aeron. "And you, too, Nan."
"I warned them, but did they listen?" Nan says, by way of assent. "Letting you all play with the rabbits, no good could come of it."
Behind Nan, Cath's face darkens briefly at Nan's use of the word rabbit. It's not a slur exactly, not like calling an elf a knife-ear; I know many humans think of rabbit as more of an affectionate nickname, but they say it like they're talking to a pet, not a person.
"She came in last night," Fergus tells me, "with Lady Landra and I think half their house. I wasn't up, but Oriana said there were at least a dozen people besides Landra. I think Mother put them up in the library, but she was fretting this morning about running out of room."
"Well, I'm sure we can find a place for Iona to sleep," Aeron suggests, but we both ignore him.
"Oriana saw her this morning at breakfast," Fergus continues, referring to his wife. "Apparently she's Landra's lady in waiting now?"
"I…I don't know."
It's true, I don't know. There's so much I don't know. How can it have been a year since I saw her?
"Well, you do know how Mother will react, and she's already in a mood – so whatever you do, try to be discreet with your little affair."
Immediately, my face betrays my anger, I can see Fergus regrets his words as soon as they pass his lips. Something more than embarrassment, more like pain, crosses his face.
"It's not like that," I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
Surprising me, Fergus puts his hands on my shoulders. When I look back up, he is staring straight at me, his dark eyes full of empathy. "I know," he says, also softly. "I know, little brother. Forgive me, I spoke without thinking."
I nod, not trusting my voice with a response. For a moment or two we are quiet, before I remember there are others in the room, for whom this must be an awkwardly public display of private issues. Nan, thankfully, has hustled her servants to another corner of the kitchen, although I see Cath is throwing a worried look over her shoulder at me and Fergus. Meanwhile, Aeron has distracted my nephew with swordplay, wielding a soup spoon against Oren's toy.
Recognizing each of these gestures, and Fergus' as well, a feeling of warmth floods over me, a sense of belonging. These past few years have changed so much more than my age and my responsibilities, and with Aeron to become a Grey Warden in the face of dark tidings from the southern wilds, I know more change is coming, too. The start of an adventure, Aeron said earlier, and I don't grudge him his adventure. But beginnings are also endings, and I have never been one to embrace change.
And yet, in this moment, there is something changeless at play, something almost eternal. This is my home, made so by its inhabitants, family and otherwise: people who care for me and are cared for by me. Years after her departure, I still mourn Iona's absence; no doubt, I will miss Aeron's friendship for years to come. But Highever will always be my home, and even in the wake of tragedies, and even in the face of transitions, there is no small comfort in that knowledge.
"Well, get on," Nan says without looking at me. "We all know you'll be useless until you've seen her, so unless you have some other errand, you may as well go call on your sweet rabbit."
I nod, and step around my brother, who has been distracted by the continuing duel between Aeron and Oren. "Good luck," Fergus says as I pass.
Aeron winks at me over his opponent's head before blocking comically wide and taking a jab to the stomach.
I pass Nan last on the way to the door. She's continuing to ignore me, although I know she's watching me from the corner of her eye as she cracks the lid of an enormous pot and sniffs its contents. "Bloody hell," she mutters, replacing the lid. "All this soup and no bloody soldiers. Typical."