Leaving the castle next morning was an exercise in frustration. Arl Eamon had never been involved in organizing the sort of large-scale movements of men that a real army required, having only been leader of a small group fighting to free Redcliffe after the worst of the Orlesian forces had already been driven from much of the remainder of the country. His lack of experience showed in how disorganized the departure of the army from the environs of the castle was; overseeing the muster should never have been left to him. Loghain cursed to himself, annoyed that he hadn't realized this was likely to be a problem and warned the dwarf ahead of time.
He glanced at Right. The dwarf was standing patiently, looking across the courtyard to where Arl Eamon was pontificating about something to Anora and Alistair, all three of them in armour, Anora and the Arl in red steel and Alistair again in Cailan's gold-washed set. And how long would it take for him to begin thinking of it as Alistair's armour, rather than Cailan's, he wondered. Forever, at a guess.
"I hope your daughter isn't planning to fight," Right muttered softly.
Loghain snorted, relaxed slightly, thinking of how Anora used to regularly thrash Cailan when the two had sparred as teens, until his skills with a sword finally caught up to and surpassed hers. But then she'd always been better with a bow than a blade, a skill Cailan had been entirely hopeless with.
"No," he told the dwarf. "Though if a fight comes to her, she is at least able to defend herself; she is an adequate warrior. Or at least, she was when she was younger; I don't know how well she's kept up her skills since her teens. But she knows which end of a weapon to hold, and has some idea of what to do with the dangerous bits," he said dryly.
"Good," Right said, and turned his gaze back to Alistair, who was looking rather harassed.
Alistair looked up just then, and noticed the group of them. A brief look of longing that flashed across his face as he looked at each of them in turn, as if he wished he was over here, with them, instead of over there, with Anora and Eamon. Alistair frowned just slightly as his eyes rested for a moment on Loghain, then he looked at Right. A slight smile twitched the corners of his lips, and he mouthed something... "good luck", it looked like.
Right nodded in acknowledgement. Alistair returned his attention to whatever it was Eamon was saying to him and Anora.
"Come on, let's get a move on," Right said, sounding saddened.
They edged around to the bridge, and crossed over to the shore. It was as chaotic over there as the castle courtyard had been, though at least in a considerably more organized fashion, as the bands and troops of soldiers, dwarfs, elves, and mages who'd been encamped in the hills around Redcliffe pulled up stakes and started moving. Right had told him that even more would still be moving out from the Circle's tower, the Brecilian forest and Orzammar, headed to a secondary muster closer to Denerim since word of the end of the civil war spread. They would be a formidable army once it all met up.
It was a long hard push to Denerim. They could see the smoke rising from the burning city long before the distant city itself came into view; the darkspawn had beaten them there by a sizable margin. The archdemon was visible at intervals, circling through the smoke and clouds, occasionally dipping down out of sight in the city as something somewhere in the streets below briefly caught its attention.
Anora gave a rallying speech to the troops before they charged the final distance to the city. It was at least adequately done, though Loghain thought it would have been carried off better by a more martial figure; the bastard, or even Arl Eamon, who at least looked impressively military even if he barely knew which end of a ballista was the dangerous one.
Then the soldiers roared, and their charge began.
It was a long, hard fight after that, beginning with clearing the gates so that they could enter the city. With all of the companions and the vanguard of the army, the task was easy, and all too soon it seemed it was time for Right to make the final selection of who would proceed into the city with him – Riordan had recommended using a small, fast-moving party rather than leading in the entire army, and Right agreed with with him.
"Loghain, Zevran... Oghren," Right named who he would take along.
Riordan nodded solemnly. "Fair enough," he said. "Anyone else will need to remain here and assist in keeping more darkspawn from coming in the gates behind us. Who will lead them?"
"Sten would be suitable."
"Good. That should be sufficient," Riordan said, then took a deep breath, and smiled at all of them. "Nothing you have done has prepared you for what you face now. May the Maker watch over you," he said, then turned and moved off toward the smashed-open gates.
The companions stepped forward one by one, each taking the chance to say what might well be their final few words with the dwarf. None knew if they would survive this battle, who might still be standing when the archdemon was defeated. If the archdemon would even be defeated – there were no guarentees in this life, of that Loghain was sadly certain. Only... hope. And determination.
Finally Right turned to the group of them that would be accompanying him into the beleaguered city. "It will be an honour to fight with you by my side," he told the three of them.
Oghren snorted, then spoke softly, his voice intense. "Honour? Nobody's looked at me and seen honour in a long time, Warden. You took in a drunken disgrace of an Orzammar warrior. You gave me a reason to fight and the will to keep going. You helped me find the one woman in the sodding world who might put up with me, and you helped me get past Branka so I could have someone new. I owe you a lot, Warden. I consider it a fine honour to die for you and your cause."
"Allow me to say that it has been a pleasure, my friend. Assassinating you was the luckiest thing that could have happened to me," Zevran said, smiling warmly at Right. "By your side I would willingly storm the gates of the Dark City itself. Do not doubt it."
"Let's get this over with, then. There is little time to waste," Loghain pointed out, frowning in the direction Riordan had gone.
Right nodded, and led the way toward the gates. The gathered soldiers began to cheer and clap as the small group moved forward, then started to chant. "Grey Warden! The Grey Wardens! For Ferelden! Grey Wardens!" they heard over and over again, as they walked forward. As they neared the shattered gate they broke into a trot.
There was heard an excited barking behind them, and then Stench was running in their midst. Right frowned down at the hound, then unexpectedly smiled. "Glad to have you along," he told the hound as they jogged through the gate.
Loghain glanced down as well. He snorted, but a slight smile touched his lips. "It wouldn't be a proper Ferelden battle without a war hound somewhere in it," he observed dryly.
After that, it was just slaughter, with occasional stops to bind their wounds, recover their breaths, eat a bite, rest briefly when what they most desperately needed was real sleep, real rest... but there could be no real rest while they fought their way into the very heart of a darkspawn horde.
Genlocks, hurlocks, shrieks, ogres – darkspawn of all kinds and types fell beneath their blades, as the four – five, including the valiant hound – fought their way through the ravaged city. It hurt to see the state the city had already been reduced to in the comparatively brief time since the darkspawn had invaded its streets, many building in ruins, or flames, or both, entire districts of the sprawling city reduced to wastelands crawling with darkspawn and littered with corpses.
It would have killed Maric to see his capital reduced like this; even the war to oust the Orlesians had done nothing, compared to this wholesale destruction. It was half-killing him, to see the people he'd spent his life protecting, the city that had perforce become even more his home than his own Teryn of Gwaren, in such dire straits.
Grimly they fought on, through the burning ruins of the marketplace, though the comparatively untouched alienage, and onwards through the city, onwards and upwards. As they reached the courtyards surrounding the palace they chanced to witness Riordan's end, as he succeeded in forcing the dragon down on top of Fort Drakon, but only at the cost of his own life, falling from such a height that no man could possibly survive the fall.
Their own fight continued, through the winding courtyards and further up the hill, finally emerging into the courtyard fronting the fort itself.
The fighting there was especially dire. They almost lost, there, the companions falling one by one – first Zevran, crushed by an emissary's spell, then Loghain himself was felled minutes later by a second caster. Only later did he hear of the remainder of that battle, of Oghren falling after buying Right a precious respite from attack in his final moments, of Stench and Right fighting on alone until the dog was felled too, and the dwarf only barely managing to fell the final pair of opponents before himself collapsing unconscious. They were lucky that no reinforcements came upon them while they lay unconscious and unguarded.
The hound apparently roused first, more stunned than damaged from its vicious encounter with one of the pair of dragons that had made the courtyard such a slaughterhouse, and roused the dwarfs. It was a sore and tired party that eventually moved on, their wounds poulticed and bandaged, into the interior of the fort, as the long day slowly darkened towards evening, and night.