The encounter with the dragon on top of the mountain proved long, difficult, and dangerous, but thankfully not impossible. It was one of the worst possible foes Loghain had ever encountered in a learning-by-doing situation, and for a while there he was wondering if the group was going to be able to pull it off. Bad enough the sheer size of the beast, but the gust from its flapping wings was enough to bowl over the more light-weight members of their party. And it breathed fire. And there was no safe side of it to attempt approaching; it could kick freely in any direction, lash out with head or tail, buffet with its heavy wings.
In the end, Loghain managed to slip in close and clamber up on top of its neck, clinging to the long scale-spines there. The dragon snaked its head around frantically, almost tossing him free, but he managed to recover his hold at the last minute and regain his seat behind its head. He locked his legs around its neck, as if riding a horse, raised his sword in both hands, and plunged in into the dragon's skull. It gave a final shriek, and collapsed to the ground, the impact sending Loghain tumbling away.
He rolled to his feet, clearly winded, but with sword in hand, ready to attack again if the dragon still lived. But that final blow had done it; the dragon was dead, its foul-smelling ichor a spreading stain on the stone.
Loghain groaned and dropped down to his knees, pressing one hand to his side. Wynne hurried over, lips pursed with disapproval, and soon had him peeled out of his breastplate, her hands glowing with healing energies as she fixed the worst of the damage he'd taken in the fight; cracked ribs and torn muscles, she tartly informed him. Once he'd been taken care of she made the rounds of the remainder of the group, doing what she could for them; not a one hadn't taken injury of some kind in the fight.
They camped right there, too tired to seek a more comfortable spot, the elf preparing a hot meal for them in a pot half-submerged in one of the hot springs that dotted the plateau. They were sitting around eating when the dwarf suddenly jerked upright, staring in surprise at the far side of the plateau. "It's gone," he exclaimed.
"What's gone?" Loghain asked, frowning.
"The entrance to the Gauntlet, where the Urn of Sacred Ashes was – it was right over there," Right said, gesturing with his bread and melted cheese to a small cut in the mountainside that passed directly under the ledge where the dragon had been.
Nothing would do but they all go over and take a look. Where they told him a massive carved entranceway had been on their previous visit was now a tumble of rock, a massive slide that looked like it had been there for ages, judging by the lichen and weathering.
Zevran grinned. "I guess we do not need to worry about Brother Genitivi bringing chantry scholars here," he pointed out. "The Urn seems capable of defending itself from casual intruders."
Right nodded agreement. "They'll still be excited about that temple complex, I'm sure," he said. "But I'm glad they won't be able to disturb the Urn itself."
They returned to their fire, and spent the rest of the evening talking about the fight with the dragon; what had worked, what hadn't, what had seemed to be its weak spots.
The golem shook its head ponderously over its own part in the fight. "I was of little use to it," Shale said. "I could withstand the dragon's breath, but am not nimble enough to dodge its blows, and standing back and throwing rocks at the beast seemed more likely to damage it and its companions then to damage the dragon. As enjoyable as the thought of accidentally squishing the painted elf is, I doubt that would improve the fight."
Zevran and Right had managed to do reasonable amounts of damage once they got used to dodging the legs and tail and staying well back from the dangerous jaws, while Sten, Oghren and Loghain had all fared well in the fight as well. Stench, on the other hand, was still limping from the injuries that had taken him out early in the fight; he lacked the armour of the warriors and was small and light enough that he'd been sent flying every time the dragon flapped its wings.
Wynne was also displeased about her performance in the battle; while her healing spells had been of some use in the early stages while they were learning to combat the dragon, by the end of the fight they hadn't been much needed, and her combat magic had proven almost useless on the dragon; its natural resistance to such was just too high for her to be very effective against it. She suspected it would be even worse against the archdemon itself.
"Well, at least this detour has done what it was supposed to do," Right said tiredly. "We've all got a much better idea now of how to handle fighting the archdemon, anyway. Tomorrow we're off to Redcliffe."
Loghain was surprised to find himself actually feeling comfortable with his companions over the coming days, as they travelled toward Redcliffe. He still wasn't sure how trustworthy any of them were individually, but as a group... he trusted them to be at his back in a fight. More, he trusted them to perform their roles in a fight well, to do what needed to be done. For all their seeming eccentricity, they were, he decided, a remarkable group. That they might succeed in killing the archdemon, ending the blight... he wouldn't have believed it before seeing the dogged determination and ruthless focus, the casual dismissal of personal injury with which they had approached killing that dragon. Now, he could at least believe it was possible, that the group of them might succeed in killing the archdemon, might finally set Ferelden back to rights.
For the first time in far, far too long, hope returned to his life. And deeper fear, that his hope would prove ill-founded, but he clung desperately to the feeling, not willing to abandon it, not after a year spent spiralling down into ever-deeper despair.
With the change in his own attitude, he began actively trying to fit better in with his chance-met companions, to find his own place within their tight-knit fraternity outside of battle, even spending time talking to the qunari, drawing him out into a discussion on two-handed weapon technique. He began joining in the nightly sparring matches that they partook in any evening that the camp had a suitable spot that was large enough, and was amazed anew at the skill of each of the party members. He and Right, with their taint-given strength and speed and stamina were almost frightening in their effectiveness as fighters, but the non-wardens in the group were all supremely skilled examples of their type, and gave the pair of them a hard workout.
They were a day out of Redcliffe. Loghain spotted Right leaving their encampment, climbing a nearby hill. He hesitated only a few minutes before following him away, realizing he wanted a chance to speak privately with the senior warden before they were plunged back into the maelstrom the next day. He finally relocated him sitting on a log on top of the hill, staring off into the darkness, and made a point of stepping on a twig, the snap of it warning the dwarf that he was approaching before he emerged from the bushes. Right looked up curiously at him as Loghain took a seat near him on the log.
"I want to thank you," Loghain said after sitting in silence for a minute.
"For what?"
"For ridding me of that bloodthirsty weasel, Rendon Howe," Loghain said.
Right raised an eyebrow. "You seemed put out with me at the Landsmeet for having murdered him, as you put it."
Loghain snorted. "Please. He was my ally; the lords would have expected no less. And I could hardly applaud your actions when I was trying to turn people against you," he pointed out dryly.
He picked up a twig and sketched in the dirt with it at his feet for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. "I think one of my biggest regrets will always be that I didn't slit his throat myself when I returned from Ostagar, and found out what he'd been up to – the slaying of the Cousland family being just one of the better-known examples," he added, letting his distaste for the man leak into his voice. "Many of my decisions this past year would have been very... different, if not for his influence," he continued after a moment. "Better, I would hope. But he was my only ally, and I was in desperate need of any help I could get, if it would only save Ferelden."
He suddenly stopped his idle sketching, broke the twig in fragments and flung them away. "I find myself wondering how many potential allies I had that he made sure never reached me," he added bitterly. "The man was nothing if not ambitious."
The dwarf bit his lip for a moment. "I... suspect you're right about that," he said as neutrally as he could. "Were you aware that he had Vaughan Kendalls locked up in his own dungeon? And was torturing Oswyn, the son of Bann Sighard?"
Loghain's lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment. "No, I wasn't," he answered in clipped tones, then frowned. "What possible reason could he have for torturing Sighard's son..."
"I suspect it was for his personal pleasure," Right told him. "He'd captured the young man after Oswyn started questioning the disappearance of his milk-brother, a veteran of Ostagar. Just locking him up would have been sufficient to deal with that. Torturing him was excessive."
He nodded, scowling. "And you say he also had Bann Vaughan imprisoned? What happened to him?"
The dwarf shrugged. "I slit his throat for him."
Loghain turned and stared at him, shocked, and not sure he'd heard what he had. "You what!" he demanded.
"He was Rendon Howe writ small," Right answered calmly. "A nasty little ferret to Howe's bloodthirsty weasel. I think the only thing that prevented them from being allies and wrecking even worse havoc then Howe did alone was that Vaughan had something Howe wanted. I didn't think Ferelden needed a second Howe," he said grimly. "Not after what I'd already seen in the dungeons, and heard of Vaughan's character from a prisoner that had been there since before Howe took over. Locking Vaughan up may well have been the one unintentional good deed Howe did this past year."
The dwarf frowned off into the darkness for a minute, then turned to Loghain. "Is it true you and Howe were planning to kill Anora, and frame the murder on either the Grey Wardens or Arl Eamon?" he asked.
"WHAT!" Loghain roared, feeling himself flush with rage.
"That's the story her maid, Erlina, brought to us at the Arl's estate. That Howe was holding Anora, and had let slip that the pair of you were considering killing her for political advantage," Right explained coolly.
Loghain let loose a string of vile curses, followed by exacting descriptions of just what tortures he would have liked to visit on Howe if he'd yet lived. It was several minutes before he finally wound down and went silent again, scowling in thought. Finally he turned to look at Right. "Is this what you meant at the Landsmeet when you said you'd been protecting my own daughter from me?" he demanded.
"Yes. Though in retrospect I don't think Howe would really have killed her. He certainly had ambitions to be the power behind the throne – with her in his hands, how hard would have been for him to become the power on the throne instead? Especially if he found a way to dispose of you without losing his own power in the process."
Loghain felt his blood drain away for a moment at the thought. Maker, yes, he could imagine that lying ambitious weasel planning exactly that, forcing Anora into a political marriage and making himself King, not just Arl or Teryn. He loosed another lengthy string of vituperation, not for the first time wishing he could resurrect the man's corpse and kill him himself. Creatively.
As he was winding down, Zevran appeared out of the shadows, a plump wineskin swinging from one hand. "I've been taking notes," he said blithely. "That bit with the glass splinters and salted vinegar sounds particularly nasty. Careful with this, it's some of Oghren's White Shear, not wine," he added as he dangled the wineskin in front of Loghain.
Loghain snarled and grabbed the skin, removing the stopple and squirting a sizable portion into his mouth, swallowing it without even coughing before handing the skin to Right, who took a much smaller drink of it.
"Oghren let you walk off with his White Shear?" Right asked, raising his eyebrows.
Zevran grinned. "I neglected to ask. Besides, he doesn't need so much, now that he's drinking so much less."
"A dwarf? Drinking less? Is that even possible?" Loghain blurted, the strong drink already having an effect on his control of his tongue.
Zevran laughed. "Right won't let him come along on our little adventures when he is drunk," he explained. "And fighting is always more fun then drinking."
Loghain snorted, and reclaimed the skin for another drink. Zevran sat down cross-legged on the ground, leaning back against Right's legs.
"You're that assassin Howe had me hire, aren't you?" Loghain asked, eyeing him sourly.
Zevran grinned and nodded in response.
Loghain snorted again. "I don't suppose the Crows give refunds when their men switch sides? As I recall, hiring you was rather dreadfully expensive."
"Unfortunately not. Though they'll still try and take it out of my hide any time they catch up to me," Zevran said.
"Good thing you have friends who'd prefer that your hide stay in one piece," Right pointed out fondly.
"Yes. And hopefully it will be a while yet before they realize Taliesen failed, and that I am still at large," Zevran agreed. "I would prefer not to be dodging yet more Crows on our way to kill the archdemon."
Loghain gave him a puzzled look. "The Crows are trying to kill you?"
Zevran nodded. "Both of us, really. Our dear friend Right because the contract on him is still open, and myself because our retirement package is garbage - the only way to leave the Crows is as a dead Crow. As you can see I am rather distressingly still alive. Distressing to them, that is, I am quite pleased at still being alive myself. At some point the Crows will hopefully get tired of the truly astonishing numbers of bodies we leave behind us every time they try to kill us, and decide that killing us is more trouble then its worth."
Loghain frowned. "Just how many Crows have you killed?" he asked.
Zevran's forehead creased in thought. "Well, if you count the trainees and junior Crows I had along for that very poorly planned ambush, it was... let me think... at least 20 by now, isn't it?" he asked Right.
Right shrugged. "About that, yes. I think we killed at least twelve when Taliesen tried, anyway, and you had... what, seven or eight? And I suspect a few of those bandits we've encountered over the past year were more then just bandits, too; some of them fought too well."
"Twelve against... what, seven of you?" Loghain asked, thinking the odds weren't too bad, even if it had been Crows.
Zevran shook his head. "Twelve against two," he corrected.
"Three, you're forgetting we had the dog along," Right corrected him in turn.
"Twelve against three," Loghain said carefully. "And yet they didn't manage to kill you?"
Zevran chuckled, and took another swig from the wineskin. "We, my friend, are ridiculously awesome," he solemnly informed Loghain.
Right nodded, reclaiming the skin for another drink as well. "That wasn't even the worst fight I've been in, either. It's too bad you weren't available to go with Alistair and I the next night, Zev – that was when Alistair and I – and Stench! - fought in to Howe's estate and freed Anora. The Crows were at least only dressed in light armour; at the estate we were up against well-armoured guards the whole way through. I think we had to kill about thirty or forty of them just to get to where Anora was, and then I forget how many more down in the dungeons."
Somehow the three of them ended up sitting on that hilltop for several hours after that, trading stories about memorable fights they'd been in, the wineskin going round and round. Right's two battles versus the entire Dust Town carta, Zevran's solo foray into Fort Drakon to rescue him and Alistair, Loghain's rescue by Rowan after decoying an entire army away from the rebel camp, and many other similar stories. They had to help each other walk when they decided it was time to return down to their camp; between the three of them they'd emptied the skin, and their legs no longer wanted to move in correct synchronization.
Loghain had vague memories of singing as they stumbled their way back down the hill, though he couldn't have said later what they'd been singing. He wasn't even sure if they were all on the same tune. He had an impression of Wynne sitting up and scowling in disapproval at them as they staggered into the clearing, the elf and dwarf dropping him somewhere near the fire before heading off to their own bedroll.
He also had the soundest night's sleep he'd had since before Ostagar, even the darkspawn dreams leaving him alone for once. It almost made it worth waking up to the worst hangover he'd ever had in his life.