They arrived at Orzammar in mid-afternoon sunlight a couple of days later. Right went off on his own to take care of some errands he wanted to get done, and detailed Oghren to take the rest of the party and find lodgings for them. Loghain looked around curiously as he followed along behind the warrior. It was over a decade since he'd last been in Orzammar himself, when Maric had brought a then-teenaged Cailan here to meet his fellow ruler, King Endrin Aeducan. Maric had spent several days in intense trade negotiations with the dwarfs, while Loghain had ended up escorting the young prince all over the city – everywhere except for Dust Town and the mines, at least – to sight-see. He remembered how enthralled Cailan had been by it all, and how seriously he'd approached the task of buying a small gift to bring back to Denerim for Anora. He'd bought... what had had it been... some article of jewellery. A brooch? That sounded right.
And they'd attended a Proving, of course, held in honour of the Theirin pair, Maric and Endrin with their heads together drinking and joking and only paying enough attention to the fights for politeness, while Cailan had all but hung over the rail, watching in astonished envy and wishing he could take part in the games. Loghain had brought him back the next morning, by special arrangement, and he'd been allowed to spar in the arena with several of the king's own best fighters. His eyes had shone so brightly...
Loghain swallowed and returned his thoughts to the present. They'd reached a door down one of the dim side-passages off the main throughfare, and Oghren was knocking loudly on it with the hit of his sword. A small panel in the door snapped open, he heard a brief string of profanity, then it closed and the door opened, a stout dark-haired male dwarf popping out to exchange arm buffets and a back-slapping hug with their companion.
"Heard you'd turned surfacer on us, Oghren," the other dwarf exclaimed, grinning widely, showing off a wide expanse of gleaming white teeth, one incisor shining gold.
"Yeah, well, after what happened with the wife..." Oghren shrugged. "Didn't seem much point in staying here any more. Anyway, I'm travelling with that Grey Warden now."
"The duster? Heard he's something pretty special in a fight."
"Yeah, that's the son-of-a-nug. We need some rooms, if you've got any free."
The dwarf snorted. "Damn place is standing near empty, so many have gone off for this damned war up above already. How many rooms you want?" he asked, running an appraising eye over the part. "Oh, hey, nice golem."
Shale snorted and folded her arms, giving the dwarf a wary look.
"Three should do us. A single bed, a double, and a room with three singles. Or two doubles and a single, come to think of it, I'll fit in a single but you can see how tall some of the blasted surfacers get," Oghren pointed out, gesturing vaguely toward where Sten and Loghain stood.
"Must be the lack of a proper stone roof overhead," the dwarf muttered. "Yeah, two doubles might do better, or they'll run out of room for all that leg. Come on in, I'll see what I can arrange."
They ended up having to help re-arrange some furniture. Moving all but one single bed out of what was normally a 6-single dormitory room and a couple of doubles in, but in the end they had rooms suitable for their whole part. Wynne and Shale put their things in the room with the single, Zevran piled his and Right's belongings in the double, and Oghren, Sten and Loghain got the former dormitory.
"Might as well head on over to Tapsters and get on the outside of some food and drink," Oghren suggested. The others agreed, except for Shale, who preferred to head up to the Diamond Quarter and spend some time in the Shaperate. They left Stench behind to look after their things, not that it was actually needed, but the hound wasn't likely to be welcomed in the tavern.
They ate well, the meal built around strips of nug fried with mushrooms with a side of roasted root vegetables, all of the companions except Wynne digging into it without complaint. She, it seemed, did not much care for the thought of eating nug after having seen one of the creatures on the way to the bar.
"Better then what we had to eat in the Deep Roads," Zevran said darkly. "I will be quite happy to eat nug... at least it is not deep stalker."
"Or spider," Oghren said, making a face.
Zevran shuddered theatrically. "Do not remind me. Believe me, my dear Wynne, there are far worse things to eat then nug. At least the little naked bunny-pigs taste like real food."
She gave in and tried it, and had to admit the flavour was 'not unpleasant'. After the meal they ordered more drink, and waited for Right to arrive.
Loghain sat back, nursing his drink and listening quietly as the others talked. It was almost... relaxing. He could forget for a while the ongoing disaster of the last year, and just enjoy sitting there, safe and ignored and not needing to make any decisions or contribute anything to the conversation, listening as Oghren, Sten and Zevran traded reminiscences of their previous journey to the dwarven kingdom and their travel through the Deep Roads.
"I think the worst part of the whole trip was seeing the archdemon," the elf said after a while.
Loghain looked up, startled. "You've actually seen the archdemon?"
"Yes," the Sten said. "At a place called the Dead Trenches. It had gathered together a vast army of darkspawn, and was there to lead them out of the Deep Roads. We had only a brief look of it before it flew away."
"That was bad," Oghren agreed. "The two wardens keeled over after it flew away. Was a couple hours before they finally woke up again; by then the dragon and its army were long gone. But I think the broodmother was way worse then the blighted archdemon. We had to fight her."
"Broodmother?" Loghain asked, puzzled. "And what is a broodmother?"
Zevran and Oghren shuddered, exchanging equally disturbed looks. Sten pressed his lips together, frowning unhappily. "I will tell you later," Zevran said softly. "It is... not something to speak of here."
Loghain frowned, but forbear to press for further explanation. The companions made a pointed effort to change the subject after that, talking of other parts of their adventures over the last year, Loghain learning snippets about the relief of Redcliffe, the fight through Kinlock Hold, an encounter with werewolves in the Brecilian Forest.
"That's where we got that fancy armour you're wearing." Oghren informed him. "In the ruins there. Damned nice stuff."
"Alistair only got to wear it for a couple weeks," Zevran observed. "From Redcliffe until the Landsmeet. He looks better in the other set anyway, the gold it brings out his eyes. And his hair."
Loghain snorted softly. The boy had looked good in Cailan's gold-washed armour. Regal. Like the king he would someday be, married to Anora once this Blight was dealt with. Loghain felt something ease inside him slightly at the thought. Maric's blood on the throne again. Yes. That was something worth hoping for, working toward.
He raised his head to find the elf looking at him, a slight smile on his lips. Then right was there, greeting them all, a smile stretching his lips into a wide grin, calling for more food to be brought – they'd been there all afternoon, and might as well eat dinner there as well before leaving – and then they headed back to the quarters Oghren had found for them, to spend a quiet evening in maintaining their gear.
The next day they finally got around to what was the apparently the point of their visit here, a brief audience with King Harrowmont followed by a stop to visit with Right's family. Loghain was mildly surprised to find that the casteless dwarf had a mother and sister living in the noble quarter, until he heard mention of an Aeducan nephew and divined that Right's sister must have been a successful – what did the dwarves call them again – oh, yes, a successful noble hunter. One who'd apparently landed one of Endrin's three sons before their deaths.
Right's visit was not exactly welcomed with open arms by his family, but Loghain could tell there was some variety of affection in the brief conversation he had with the drink-taken dwarf matron who was apparently his mother. And more then a little air of meeting the prospective family in how Right introduced Zevran to her. It was only then Loghain noticed a small detail about the pair that had escaped him earlier, that the pair were sporting a pair of earrings, unmatched yet still somehow similar, that they'd not had on the day before, the piercings still fresh enough to be reddened and swollen. Apparently 'meeting the in-laws' was exactly what the occasion was.
Afterwards they collected Shale at the Shaperate, exited Ozammar, and continued their briefly-interrupted journey.
"Dare I ask where we're going to next?" Loghain asked as they walked back down the pass toward the distant highway.
"Dragon hunting," the warden said, firmly.
Loghain blinked. "Did I hear you correctly? Dragon hunting! Don't we have better things to do with our time?"
Right glanced up at him. "If you can think of better practise for killing an archdemon, I'd love to hear it," he said.
Loghain frowned, then sighed. "Point taken," he said, and remained silent the rest of that day.
Their journey was largely uninteresting for several days after that, apart from encountering a force of dwarfs being attacked by darkspawn and giving them some assistance in defeating them. Much more challenging then the bandits outside of Denerim had been, and it gave their small group a better chance at adjusting to their differing fighting styles, the group as a whole having to adjust to the difference between how Loghain fought and how Alistair had fought; only subtle differences, thankfully, but there none-the-less.
Their ultimate destination proved to be a small village up in the mountains that Loghain had never heard of – some backwater place named Haven – and he had Right show him where on his maps it should be marked.
As they climbed the final winding pathway to Haven a couple of days later, the group seemed surprised to see a guard standing watch at the head of the trail. The guard seemed equally startled to see them, his mouth gaping open in surprise, then he yelled, grabbed the bow off his back, and fired at them, thankfully missing.
Loghain cursed, pulled out his own bow, and sent an arrow winging in return, with much deadlier aim; it sank into the man's unprotected throat, killing him.
"What was that about?" Loghain asked as they walked up to the corpse.
"They don't like me much here," Right explained shortly.
"Possibly because we killed pretty much the entire town the last time we were here," the elf pointed out, grinning affably.
"It appears we missed one or two," Sten said solemnly, glancing down at the corpse.
"Dare I ask why you saw fit to slaughter an entire village?" Loghain asked dryly as they climbed the hillside from the lower reaches of the sprawling village after determining that the houses there seemed to be uninhabited.
"They attacked us; they were dragon cultists, and had already killed a number of Arl Eamon's knights who had come here in search of Andraste's ashes. We found one of the bodies. It was... not a pretty sight. I'm not sure if they butchered them as food for the dragonlings, or practised cannibalism themselves..." Right said, trailing off with a grimace. "You can fill in the picture yourself, I'm sure."
"Quite," Loghain quietly agreed.
As they reached a clearing with additional buildings halfway up the path they encountered a second villager, a woman, who screamed and fled at the sight of them. They declined to pursue her, and instead proceeded cautiously further up the path, but saw no one else.
Right didn't allow any of them to relax until they were well up the mountain toward where he said a ruined temple lay, Haven well out of sight far below, the snow-drifted path in front of them devoid of any signs that anyone had travelled along it any time recently. They didn't stop to rest until they'd reached the temple itself, an impressive structure even half-destroyed and buried under a mountain of snow and ice as it was. They set up camp in a defensible side-chamber off the main room. Everyone was very quiet that evening, most of the group seemingly lost in thoughts of their previous visit here. Loghain was curious to hear more of it, but didn't push for details, preferring to respect their silence as they'd so far respected his.