7
The fateful climb
It was dark when I woke up, the feeling of someone ripping my head apart had faded to a dull thudding ache.
Morning Ebony licked my face. Come on rise and shine.
I pulled on my armour and left my tent, well kind of fumbled my small clothes, the woollen suit thing and then staggered out of my tent, there was a driving storm, the wind blowing so hard that the rain was flying sideways, sitting outside, in the pouring rain his splintmail plate keeping him pretty dry unlike my armour which didn't cover my mid-legs or mid-arms, was Alistair.
"Hey, how you feeling?" He asked me.
"My head aches but better," I collapsed next to him. "I'm hungry, what's for breakfast?"
"You missed it," he said simply.
"Lunch then?"
"That too."
"Anything?"
"Got you this," he handed me a small parcel, some pork, cheese and a bit of bread nothing too exciting, didn't stop me eating it though.
"Thanks, I'm so hungry, no idea why." I said.
"It's the taint, when I took my Joining I was hungry all the time, you'll get used to it, the headache too," he told me. "It affects everyone differently."
"How did it affect you then?" I asked.
"Me? I felt like I was being spun on a roundabout all the time."
"Hmm, maybe a thudding headache is the preferable option," I laughed.
"Maybe, oh yeah I keep forgetting to tell you stuff, Duncan wants you to attend some kind of meeting. Something to do with the king," he told me.
"Oh. Great."
"Not a fan of him?" He arched a coppery eyebrow at me.
"He could be worse I suppose, I could be in better shape to see him though."
"True, but I don't think he really cares."
"Well, I might as well go and meet him then."
"Oh wait!" He handed me a small pendent in the shape of a griffin, it was silver with a black leather thong to tie around my neck. The silver seemed duller than normal, like it was filled with black shadows or…
"You know where we took the Joining? Well when you go up the ramp instead of going right turn left at the top of the stairs."
"What's this?" I asked him tying the thong around my neck.
"Your pendent, it's got the blood you drank in it." As he talked I tied the thong around my neck, as the pendent settled in the hollow the metal was unnaturally cold.
The driving rain chilled me, I was thankful for the thick woollen suit rather than my thin, silk, Orlaesian style smock that went under my old armour. I walked in a daze back to where I first saw Alistair two days ago, was it only two days ago it seemed like months, the king was standing at a long table.
"Loghain my decision is final, I will stand by the Grey Wardens in this assault," the king was saying.
"You risk too much Cailen, the darkspawn threat is too great for you too be playing hero on the front lines." The man named Loghain said.
"Well then maybe we should wait for the Orlaesian forces after all."
"We do not need the Orleasians and their conspiracies to re-usurp power over Ferelden!" Loghain snapped.
Cailen gave a loud cough that sounded suspiciously like nut job and even Duncan's face resembled a smirk.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything!" I called, all of them jumped accept Duncan.
"Not at all. Come join the fun." Cailen said. "I hear congratulations are in order, all Grey Wardens are needed now"
"You rely on these Grey Wardens too much is that truly wise?" Loghain scowled.
"Enough of your conspiracy theories Loghain, Grey Wardens battle the blight wherever they're from."
"Your fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing Cailen, we must attend to reality." Loghain said.
"Fine, speak your strategy. The Grey Wardens and I trick the darkspawn into charging our lines, and then?"
"You will signal the tower to light the beacon, alerting my men to charge from cover to-"
"Flank the darkspawn, I remember." Cailen said.
"Your majesty, you should consider the possibility of the Archdemon appearing-"
"There have been no signs of any dragons in the wilds." Loghain put in looking at Duncan with scorn.
"Isn't that what your men are here for Duncan?" king Cailen asked, even though it was clearly a rhetorical question.
"I…" Duncan seemed taken aback. "Yes your majesty."
"It is vital that the tower is lit." Loghain was really getting on my nerves.
"Then we should send our best, send Alistair and the new Grey Warden to ensure it is lit." Cailen looked at me adoringly.
"And then once you have glorified these Grey Wardens, what then. When, Duncan, will the Orleasians launch their plot to usurp the Ferelden thro-" He got no further because at that very moment Duncan shot him the most venomous look I've seen in my life. "Very well this plan will suffice the Grey Wardens will light the tower."
"If you'll excuse me for a moment." Duncan turned to me. "Go and tell Alistair the plan, I will be along in a moment."
"Sure, if it's not dangerous I can do it with Ebony, you'll need everyone you can get in battle." I said.
"No you go up there according to the plan." Duncan said, I suddenly realised there was something I needed to know.
"Um Duncan?" I asked as he turned back to Cailen.
"Yes my lady?"
"Why did you do it?" he cocked his head. "Jory, what happened?"
"He, well he refused to take the blood. He was warned, as you all were, that there was no turning back."
That hacked me off, "How could you do that? I may not have liked him but he didn't deserve that!"
"When he went for his blade he left me no choice. I'm sorry." He looked sincere at least.
I made a noise of disgust and left to find Alistair before I could say what I really thought which would probably be something along the lines of "you bastard how could you do that he may have been a whiny dumb arse but he didn't deserve to die for it!"
Just as I left I heard Loghain say "Yes Cailen. A glorious moment for us all." I had heard that tone once before, the day, just over a week ago, when I walked into the great hall at home whilst my father talked to Arl Howe. Suddenly I had a very, very, very bad feeling about the battle.
At least in the ruined stone building there was some kind of cover from the rain, outside however my soaked woollen underclothes that had gone cold were soaked in freezing rain again. My limbs had gone numb from the wind and the rain stabbed me thousands of times every minuet, I was cold, wet and thoroughly miserable by the time I got back to our little camp Alistair wasn't there and Ebony wasn't either, which was odd. I decided to put on my other clothes from home in some attempted to keep warm I decided to strap my sword and dagger to my back I was getting used to the sashes.
When I came back out Ebony and Alistair where walking towards me.
Hey! Ebony licked my face.
"I took her for a walk, I realised she hadn't been walked and I figured you wouldn't want to walk her when you got back." He said. "What did the king say?"
"Not a lot, some old guy with him was being a real bitch though. Stuff about Orlais and them trying to usurp the throne, even asked Duncan when they were going to invade Ferelden." I replied.
"That would be Tyrne Loghain, the king's general." He smiled. "He is a bit nuts."
"Tyrne Loghain? The Hero of River Dane? My dad fought with him in the Orlaesian war."
"Right that's him, has your opinion of Cailen changed?"
"There are three things I love when they are strong and rich, all three of them are coffee, men of the other hand…" I trailed off because at that moment two things happened Alistair snorted and I saw Duncan coming down the path. "Oh, bum. I was supposed to tell you the plan."
"We have a plan now?" he grinned. "Let me guess the best thing they could think up is me running to into the bulk of the hoard and saying 'excuse me Mr Archdemon ser, would you mind ordering your darkspawn to kill you so we don't have to?'"
"Uh well, no. we're supposed to go up to the tower and watch people lighting a beacon so that someone knows when to run over to the darkspawn and kill them. So yeah we kind of have a plan."
"I see you have told Alistair." Duncan's voice sounded behind us.
"Duncan, why do we have to stand over people whilst they light some wood?" Alistair seemed to be trying to keep his temper.
"This is by the king's personal request Alistair, without it-"
"Some bloke won't be able to kill some darkspawn." I put in.
"You two aren't happy about this are you?" Duncan was just stating the obvious.
"No." Came the unanimous reply.
Duncan gave us the 'yes well tough' look.
"Come on it's not that bad, you could be dancing the Cha-cha-cha in a pink frill ball gown," I said to Alistair.
"Hmm a make-the-best-of-a-bad-situationer are you?" he frowned at me.
"After a fashion."
Duncan sighed and turned to me. "The tower is on the other side of the gorge, the way we cam when we arrived, once I leave move quickly you'll have less than an hour." He told us.
"Duncan, may the Maker watch over you." Alistair's anger seemed to have drained totally.
"May he watch over us all." Duncan left wondering off toward the battlefield.
Alistair led me through the muddle of tents across to the stone bridge, we looked over the edge at the battle, I pictured all those men and women standing on the battle field in the freezing rain swords raised, axes in hand.
I pictured Duncan walking with Cailen to the front lines, I saw in my mind's eye the darkspawn walking through the mist. I saw the terrifying horned helms of creatures, heard them ordering the darkspawn to charge. Heard Cailen yell 'archers!' watched as flaming arrows flew at the darkspawn. Listened as Cailen called 'hounds!' pictured dogs the same as Ebony race at the monsters, saw the get killed with ease. Heard Cailen think 'crap that didn't work as well as I hoped'. With my mind's ear I heard Cailen cry 'FOR FERELDEN!' I didn't need to picture the sound of the battle cry all the men roared.
Someone barged into me jogging me back to reality. We ran across the bridge, hoping I would see Duncan again, I still couldn't shake the uneasy feeling I had had since the meeting. I was jerked back to reality for the second time in one minuet. A flaming rock hurled into me and Alistair, I felt my ribs crack, my shoulder slammed into a corner of the stone wall, dislocating on impact, my arm snapped along with my wrist, I screamed in pain, my vision blurring, Alistair leaned over me.
"Brodie! Are you ok?" he yelled above the storm.
"What does it look like?" I retorted, Ebony licked my face. "Help me up." I snapped at Alistair.
"What are we going to do?" he said in despair. "You can't do anything with a dislocated shoulder. Not to mention cracked ribs and the rest of it!"
"What about you, are you ok?" I asked him.
"Me? I'm fine, what are we going to do about you?"
I put my hand on the wall gripping it against the firing pain all the way down my arm. "Push me hard!" I yelled at him.
"What?" He said incredulously.
"Just do it!" He pushed me gently. "Harder!"
He backed up and then ran at me pushing my body back to my shoulder, the pain felt like fire, but my shoulder was in its socket again.
"Why did you make me do that?" He looked white.
"I couldn't go up the whole tower with a dislocated shoulder, could I?" I yelled
I staggered over the rest of the bridge cradling my arm and trying not to bend over too much or breath too heavily. When we got to the other side we heard shouts, two mages and a guard raced towards us.
"You your Grey Wardens aren't you?" the guard spluttered. "The tower it's been taken!"
"What are you talking about man?" Alistair yelled. "Taken how?"
"The darkspawn came up through the lower chambers they're everywhere, most of our men are dead!" the guard replied.
"Are you alright Warden?" The female mage in red robes asked me, she must have noticed me wincing.
"No," I hissed between my teeth.
"Here" she said, raising her staff she muttered arcane words suddenly my arm felt warm, the pain in my chest was gone. I straitened up nothing hurt.
"Thanks," I said to her.
"You're welcome."
We couldn't talk longer because at that very moment we all heard an ugly sound, darkspawn breathing. We didn't have to fight long, we raced into the tower. Alistair skidded to a halt, with all of us following behind.
"Stop, we can't go in that way." He said.
"Why?" I asked.
"There's an emissary in there."
"A what?" I asked.
"A darkspawn mage."
"What use are you as a Templar if you cannot defeat one darkspawn mage?" Said the male mage in yellow robes.
"What use are you as a mage if you can't toast it from fifty yards away?" I retorted, the mage who healed me sniggered.
"Is that the only darkspawn in there?" the guard asked.
"Yes," Alistair said.
"I could shoot it with my crossbow." The guard suggested.
"That sounds good." The healer said.
I heard a crunch as the bolt hit the darkspawn in the chest.
We fought our way through the next few rooms with very few darkspawn in our way. On the second and third floors that all changed, ten, twenty darkspawn in every room, it was tough but nothing we couldn't handle though.
As we killed the few remaining in the final room, we approached the door to the final staircase, we knew it was the only way up so I took a deep breath and kicked it down. Only to wish I hadn't.
A\N - This chapter is the one where more original dialog comes in to my story, certain things aren't even hinted to in the game but it made it more interesting. I noticed how no-one I have come across details the injuries you would get if you were hit by the flying rocks that can happen in the game, in fact none of them get hit by the rocks so I thought I'd put that in. Also the talk with Loghain doesn't come up but I wanted to get across how paranoid he is about the Orleasians. Duncan has actually met Loghain before in the book The Calling and if you didn't know that was going to happen sorry! The next chapter might be a little slow in the coming I only get two weeks summer holidays which sucks but I get one more week, not so bad.