Chapter Four: Hurlocks and Hoarders

"Let's cross the bridge, and get to the Tower of Ishal!" Alistair hollered over the din of battle.

"Screw you!" Darrian snapped. "Duncan left us in charge, remember?"

"Okay, what do you want to do?"

The elf hemmed and hawed for a minute, his face flushing scarlet. "…Fine, we'll go to the damned tower. Stupid clone."

"Hey, you can't talk that way about Alistair!" Elissa protested. "He's a brilliant strategist and…and his rakishly tousled flaxen hair makes my heart flutter like a hummingbird caught in a Large Claw Trap," she sighed dreamily.

Alistair, Darrian, and everyone else within earshot stared at her. "Er, did I say that out loud?"

"Really, Cousland, this is neither the time nor the place," Lyna admonished. "If you're going to try and score with someone, you should do it in the middle of a crowded camp, with all your friends and a couple of strange dwarves looking on."

"Sorry, you're right."

The Wardens charged across the bridge, ducking fireballs. Near the end of the bridge, one came crashing down on their heads, instantly killing a squad of archers and singeing the Wardens' hair ever so slightly. "Ah, come on, get up you big babies!" Neria jeered, nudging the char-broiled corpses. "You're not afraid of a little fire bomb, are you? Amateurs."

After sharing a good laugh, the Wardens continued on to the tower, where they were met bya tower guard and a mage. Both were dressed in the same flaming red shirts as Jory and Daveth. "Help us, Wardens, the tower has been taken!"

"Taken how?" Alistair demanded.

"I-I-I have no idea," the guard stammered nervously.

"Yeah, how should we know?" said the mage defensively. "We certainly weren't using my flame spells to roast marshmallows instead of watching for darkspawn."

Duran was appalled. "So, what, you didn't try to fight them off with all your fancy magic? Just ran off with your tails between your legs, like some kind of shifty-eyed teyrn?"

"Cut me some slack, I used up all my mana, er, not roasting marshmallows."

Faren took out a little blue flask. "Here, take this lyrium potion I totally didn't steal from the mages' encampment." The dwarf's fellow wardens frowned disapprovingly. "What? I said didn't."

The motley band charged toward the tower, stabbing and burning darkspawn as they went, and heroically preserving the lives of the surviving tower guards. "Victorious once again!" Faren gloated. "Shows what you know, Mom!"

"Come on, men!" Duran ordered the survivors. "Let's regroup and take back this tower."

"You're not the boss of us," replied one of Loghain's soldiers. "We're staying right here."

"Yeah, this is more than we signed on for. That shifty-eyed jerk promised me a desk job!"

"He promised me a cool uniform." A third soldier plucked disdainfully at his ugly chainmail. "How am I supposed to pick up chicks in this?"

Neria was incensed. "You mean after all the trouble I went to not to set you guys on fire during the fight, you're just going to stand there doing nothing?"

"Yup."

"Damn humans," growled Darrian. "Can I at least kill them?" he asked Alistair hopefully.

"No time," Alistair apologized. "We've got to go light the beacon and save my long-lost doppleganger, before it's too late."

They cut a bloody swath through the tower, while Faren trailed behind, idly rifling through locked chests and dead bodies. "Brosca!" Alistair screamed. "What part of 'before it's too late' did you not understand?"

"Eh, that ogre ain't going anywhere," said the casteless thug dismissively, reaching into a dead hurlock's pocket. "Hey, cool, a lottery ticket!"

At the top of the tower, sure enough, the Wardens found an enormous ogre. He was checking his watch impatiently and wearing the legendary shield Havard's Aegis as an earring. "RAAAAAH!" he roared deafeningly in their faces, spittle flying everywhere.

Lyna pulled out her Dalish Towel (Reinforced) and wiped her tattooed face dry. "Say it, don't spray it, vile fiend!" Seemingly out of nowhere, she drew a dainty little butcher's knife. "I'll teach you some manners!" She flung the knife at the ogre's head. The small blade barely glanced the hulking monster's skin, but nevertheless, it immediately dropped dead.

"Woah!"

"Cool!"

"I want a knife like that!" Lyna's comrades exclaimed jealously.

"Did we win?" asked a pile of copper coins, old weapons, and crafting components with Faren's legs sticking out from under it.

"Brosca, put that stuff down," Alistair nagged. "We've got to light the beacon!"

"So light it, already. You've got two hands, same as we do." The dwarf reached into the pile and handed Alistair a Zippo lighter he'd found on a chain-smoking genlock emissary.

In the distance, a pair of shifty eyes watched the beacon flicker to life. "Sound the retreat, you stupid sheep," Teyrn Loghain commanded. "Bwah hah hah!"

"But what about the king?" stammered his loyal second, Ser Cauthrien.

"Yes, what about me?" said Loghain pointedly.

"I choose not to understand the meaning of this," said Cauthrien decisively. "Let's move out, men."

"What, seriously?" The troops looked doubtful.

"Desk jobs and cool uniforms for every man who shuts up and does what I say!" Loghain proclaimed.

"All hail the Hero of River Dane!" cheered the troops, running toward Denerim as fast as their legs would carry them.

Back at the top of the tower, the Wardens were being overwhelmed by darkspawn archers. "Ahhh!" Duran screamed, clutching his skewered shoulder. "My missile resistant armor is useless against these attacks! That jerk on Ebay lied!"

"Lyna, quick!" cried Elissa. "Use that all-powerful knife of yours!"

But the Dalish elf was still crouched over the dead ogre, making fancy stabbing motions. "I can't! I'm still stuck in slow-motion!"

"AAAAAAAHH!"

Below them, on the field of battle, King Cailan was being crushed to death in the grip of another profusely drooling ogre. "This is going to make a really crappy ending to my screenplay," he wheezed with his last breath.

Duncan cradled the lifeless body in his arms. "NOOOO! My old friend's long-lost son's estranged half-brother! You'll pay for that, monster!" For possibly the first time that decade, Duncan unsheathed his awesome blades. He climbed the ogre's body like an Aggro Crag, then sank his sword triumphantly into its heart. "Take that, jerk!" Then the reality of his situation sank in. "Uh oh. How am I going to get down from here?"

The giant darkspawn tottered precariously. "Fall backward! Backward!" Duncan shrieked frantically. But it was too late. The ogre fell on its face, crushing Duncan beneath it.

The Warden-Commander dragged his broken body from underneath the ogre. "All right, it's still not over," he gasped. "I'll just drink a healing potion and be back in the fight, good as new." He dug into his pocket for a Potent Health Poultice, but found nothing. "Aw, damn it, Brosca!"

In the Tower of Ishal, a certain dwarven pickpocket pulled several arrows from his chest, reached into his loot pile, and came up with a Potent Health Poultice. "Heh heh heh. No near-death experience for me!" he crowed, chugging the potion, scooping up his loot, and bolting for the stairs. "So long, suckers!"