Loghain climbed the rise that hid the flanking forces from the view of the battlefield, Ser Cauthrien by his side, the two of them taking position where their forms were camouflaged by undergrowth in front of them, backed by clusters of trees that would prevent them from forming a recognizable silhouette against the still-darkening sky. They settled down to wait, watching for the battle to begin.
A mutter of thunder drew Loghain's eyes to the skies. Clouds had been rolling in all day; as the daylight faded towards evening, it had become obvious that a thunderstorm was moving in. Sweeping in along the towering mountains as it was, it would have had a certain degree of majestic beauty, if not for the fact that it appeared likely to arrive here at roughly the same time the advancing darkspawn were expected. Bad enough that the pace they were approaching at made it a nighttime fight – unlike human enemies, darkspawn would not stop and wait the night to attack the next morning – but it was going to be a nighttime fight in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. Doubtless the battlefield would be churned into slick, treacherous mud within minutes. Loghain had ordered bonfires and torches scattered and lit around the edges of the battlefield so it wouldn't be a completely darkened morass, but he had faint hope that those would last long if the rain was at all heavy.
He spotted movement at the forest's edge, and squinted, grunting as he recognized the forms gathering there; squat genlocks, the most common and smallest of the several forms the spawn were known to take, mixed in with the taller, more human-like hurlocks. "And there they are," he said quietly.
For several minutes nothing happened, other then more and more of the darkspawn advancing out of the trees and stopping, forming dark clusters and clots of seething movement along the shadowed eaves of the forest. Loghain frowned. That was unexpected; normally the creatures would have charged forward blindly by now, in dribs and drabs, their lack of co-ordination in battle rendering them easy prey for more disciplined soldiers. Several hurlocks wearing massive horned helmets emerged from the forest as well. They spread out along the growing battlefront, and Loghain felt a chill enter his stomach. The damned things were waiting, while they sorted themselves out for a massed attack. That displayed a level of intelligent action that had been entirely missing in all their previous encounters with the darkspawn.
Thank the Maker that he'd insisted that they plan for not just the worst attack they could conceive of, but the worst attack doubled. The creatures' eery co-ordination would do them little good in the end.
"Is that..." Ser Cauthrien gasped. He glanced at her, then followed where her eyes were looking, to where a cluster of massive forms were pushing out of the forest, bodily forcing aside small saplings and trees.
"Yes, ogres," Loghain said, then pursed his lips. Those could be a problem. He just hoped the rain would hold off long enough for the ballistae to be brought to bear on the hulking brutes; they were as dangerous as siege engines themselves, and would wreck havoc on the battlefield if they got loose among the foot soldiers. And unlike ballistae, a good wetting didn't make them lose the spring in their arms.
Even as he watched, one of the creatures lifted an entire small tree, wound up, and threw it spinning through the air, its fearsome flight lit in all too vivid detail by a well-timed strike of lightning. He winced as it came to earth, tearing a sizable furrow in the grass, all too easily imaging the damage the tree would have done scything through a group of soldiers.
The darkspawn began a slow advance across the meadow toward the lines of defenders in the pass underneath the ruins of Ostagar, more and more of them oozing out of the trees and spreading out, a dark stain across the land. One of the horn-helmed hurlocks raised a hand, made some guttural cry. Behind it, scattered genlocks raised sticks – no, torches, though he couldn't see how they'd been lit. As torches near the front flared to light, more distant ones were also raised and lit, the flicking light spreading out and back, gradually illuminating the horde. The wave of growing light didn't stop at the forest's edge, but continued back into the trees, back and yet further back. As if that had been a signal to the gathering storm, rain began to fall, cold and heavy.
"Andraste's arse!" he snarled, as the extent of the lighted area became clear.
"Maker!" Ser Cauthrien gasped.
Whatever their worst estimate of approaching numbers had been, it had been far too low, judging by the spread of torchlight through the forested valley south of Ostagar. He could only hope that the darkspawn were nowhere near as densely packed back under the trees as they were in the open meadow.
The darkspawn continued their advance toward the waiting defenders, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed until they were running flat out, the pounding of their feet and unintelligible battle cries audible even from here.
Loghain and Cauthrien were too far away to hear the orders being barked on the battlefield, but even through obsuring rain the arrow storm from the waiting defenders was clearly visible, a darkness in the air, sparkling with the fire-bright points of flaming arrows. Loghain frowned as the rain intensified, turning from heavy to torrential, sheets of it occasionally occluding his view of the battle. With the rain coming down as heavily as this, the archers would be lucky to get off a second flight before bow strings were too dampened to use, and the ballistae would only be good for one hurriedly-aimed shot once their protective leather covers were removed. A large chunk of their offensive power was being nullified by the storm, and those ogres were definitely going to be a problem with only hand-arms to bring to bear on them.
He saw the release of the mabari, the hounds streaking forward to attack the oncoming horde. The darkspawn advance only briefly slowed, the mabari disappearing into the oncoming flood of bodies with barely a sign of their impact. And then the charge must have been called, as the defenders flooded forward to meet the oncoming darkspawn.
Loghain scanned the battlefield, judging the course of the battle, eyes darting regularly to the tower looming over the ruins far above. There were more darkspawn on the field then had been expected, but the surge out of the trees had slowed to a trickle, the further torches remaining stationary; were the darkspawn perhaps intelligent enough to have lit extra torches, to magnify the real extent of their forces? A frightening thought, but if they were it at least meant that the force now on the field was all there truly was to deal with. Worse then they'd planned for in even their worst-case scenarios, but... they could still win this, if the defenders held, if the flanking attack was called for before the mass of darkspawn could push the defenders too far back into the pass.
He scowled unhappily, cursing that he'd agreed to this foolishness with the beacon and the tower. He should have insisted that the decision of when to charge be left up to him, but Cailan had argued – rightly, to some degree, especially in light of the obscuring rainfall – that his view of the battle would be incomplete, while watchers in the ruins above could more accurately judge the overall course of the battle and signal for the flare to be lit at the opportune moment. Still, as long minutes dragged by, and the defenders were pressed back to their original lines, then further back again, he began to chew his lip and fret.
Now, now, now was the time to charge, his every instinct screamed at him. Now, while the darkspawn where compacted against the plug of bodies and weapons the defending forces had formed across the front of the pass, the meadow largely empty behind them. If the charge was called now, they'd impact the unguarded flank and rear of the darkspawn horde like a hammer, and smash them against the anvil of Cailan's forces. He considered ordering the charge even without the beacon having been lit, but – Cailan had forced a promise from him, in front of witnesses, to stick to the battle plans as agreed upon at the council, and he could not undercut the boy's growing assumption of his proper authority by defying him so openly. Not after so many years of labouring to get him to begin acting like the leader he should be, that Maric had already been for years by Cailan's age.
Long minutes passed, broken only by the flashes of lightning, the deafening roars of thunder, the muted sounds of the distant battle. Loghain felt an ache in his hands, realized he had been clenching his hands so tightly he'd have been driving his nails into his own flesh if not for the encumbering gauntlets. He tossed his head, shaking rain-soaked hair back from his face, raised his eyes again to the tower. Still no flames! By the Maker's prick, what was taking them so long!
He heard a muttered curse from Cauthrien, turned his attention back to the battlefield in time to see the defending line bending, bowing as the middle was pushed back by the surge of darkspawn. He loosed a string of curses himself. While the line held the smaller defending force had an advantage, as only a relatively small number of the darkspawn could come in contact with them. If the horde managed to break through, that advantage would vanish, and the narrow pass would become a slaughtering ground. The line needed to straighten itself, not bend... he heaved a sigh of relief as the two ends dropped back as well, retreating marginally into the pass and reinforcing the centre again. Someone over there was on the ball.
Another look at the tower. Still no flame. He stared for long minutes, willing the fire to be lit. Surely, surely it should have been lit by now! This endless waiting was intolerable...!
There! A flicker – was it the beacon? Yes, he exulted, as an explosion of flames spurted out of the arched openings at the uppermost point of the tower. Heard a roar of anticipation from the men gathered down the hill behind him.
He quickly turned back to the battlefield, ready to order the charge... and froze. In the minutes he'd spent staring fixedly at the tower, the tide of battle had turned; turned entirely, disastrously, against the defending force. The plug of defenders was gone, the darkspawn horde surging through where they'd been, vanishing into the long, narrow pass like a snake running for cover down a hole. A flanking attack was now impossible; the best he could hope for was to harry the rear forces, and the darkspawn would now have the advantage that had previously belonged to the defenders, that of their larger force being forced to only engage the darkspawn along a small point of real contact.
Worse, the torches further back in the woods were stirring into movement, advancing slowly toward the meadow. They were not decoys; there was an additional force of darkspawn approaching. If he charged now, he'd be taking his men into the exact same trap they'd planned to have the darkspawn in; caught between two forces.
It felt like all the blood in his body had left his head for his feet, leaving him bloodless and cold. He swallowed heavily. Cailan. His prince, his king... he was out there, somewhere, in the darkness and rain, surrounded by darkspawn, desperately fighting for his life, if he wasn't already dead.
"Sound the retreat." He didn't recognize the voice as his own, at first, so flat and empty and lacking emotion.
"But... what about the king! Should we not..." Cauthrien protested, eyes wide with horror.
He snarled, angrily grabbed her wrist in a punishing grip. "Do as I command!" he grated out, flung her hand free, then turned to watch the battlefield, hearing her stride away, hearing her give the necessary orders, hearing the shocked, disbelieving murmuring of his forces as they began to march away. He forced himself to watch the darkspawn advancing into the pass, forced himself to listen to the distant shouts and screams of pain and terror as the defenders died to darkspawn hands and weapons and teeth.
He wanted... he wanted time to stop. He wanted time to roll back, so he could somehow stop this from having happened. He wanted himself to stop, to not have to live beyond this moment, when he had failed his father, failed Maric, failed Cailan, failed utterly his life-long promise to protect the prince. It would be so easy, to draw his sword, to charge forward down the hillside to the meadow, to try and cut his way through the surging darkspawn and find his king... to die, fighting to reach his side. To have an ending to this overwhelming pain that held him frozen and motionless, heart labouring in his chest, head aching with the savage surge of returned blood. But he had never in his life been allowed to take the easy path. Someone had to pick up the pieces, salvage whatever could be salvaged, do whatever must be, could be, done after this... this debacle.
"If you hadn't come after me, you might have made a difference in that battle. At the very least, you might have gotten more of them out alive." Maric's words, so many long years ago, after Rowan and Loghain had abandoned the field at West Hill to fly to his rescue. He remembered them as clearly as if Maric stood before him even now, face a mask of anguish after being informed of the cost of that rescue – Rowan's father dead, the army decimated and scattered to the winds, the rebellion seemingly broken.
Remembered, too, the promise Maric had then forced out of him. Whispered the words, though they broke his heart, his voice broken and hoarse. "Next time, I don't come to your rescue. You're on your own."
A promise that it seemed Maric's son had all too bitterly inherited. There would be no rescue for those still trapped in the narrow pass; they were all, every last one of them, on their own.
He forced himself to turn his back, and walked blindly away, into the rain-swept darkness.