Mythal bless them all, the forest had given way to Redcliffe. The mabari had served them well, despite the numerous times its master had made Rastaban think otherwise.
"I once loved a girl who could charm down the sun," Edgar sang out. "Was perfect in every part!"
"Odd," was all the qunari would say.
Adele shrugged. "I think it's a drinking song."
"We have no drink," Sten replied.
Edgar's laughter upset his rhythm, so when he started up again, he began to sway to the beat. "She could banish my cares with a smile, but instead she has broken my heart!" He leaned down and patted the dog's flank. "I think my notes are wrong, Chester. Help me out, will you?"
With a wag of its tail, the dog howled piteously.
"Oh, wandering eye, a wanderer I,
I wander and nowhere I'll stay.
Oh, wandering eye, a wanderer I,
for wandering I wandered away!"
Rastaban felt his jaw tighten. "I thought we left the bard back in Orzammar," he said.
"We need a bard to enjoy ballads?" Edgar laughed. "Bards simply remind us of the things that make life so enjoyable."
The more Edgar tried to befriend them all, the less Rastaban liked him. Edgar with his perfect nose and unmarred face, with soft hands that had never known a hard day's labor. Perhaps if Rastaban had also lived as gilded a life as Edgar, he too could sing idly as the world burned around them.
"It was my fifteenth year," Edgar was saying. "And so my brother Fergus set me up in a room with this Orlesian woman. It was all to teach me the lute and the art of storytelling, of course, but I'm sure you can all see what it looked like. Fergus had her brought to the estates in secret due to her being from Orlais, and what with that scandal of Silfee's we were already concealing, Mother would have been livid if I also started up gossip so soon after that."
"You play the lute?" Adele asked.
"Maker, no." He grinned like a child. "My fingers are far too indelicate to perform adequately. But I did have an interest to learn. When Father found out, because he always finds out, he furiously insisted that I be a man and send her away. But Fergus defended me. He said, 'He'll be a man, when he's a man. For now, let the boy enjoy himself'."
That Edgar still spoke of the deceased teryn in the present tense stilled Rastaban's tongue. The Dalish man had more important things to consider. Redcliffe was diseased and wrong. It wasn't the darkspawn, Ostagar had taught him that darkspawn felt differently.
There was an excitement with darkspawn. Something unspoken that began at the base of his spine and spiraled up behind his ribs until it had wrapped around his heart and upset its natural beat. Rastaban liked fighting darkspawn. Facing them was facing the flaws in himself. They were a warped mirror, the other side of an Eluvian. They were everything wrong with him and he had been given the okay to destroy them. Perhaps that was what the taint did, provide the Wardens with an insatiable bloodlust for their ruined brethren.
Brethren. Some of these thoughts as of late did not sit well with Rastaban.
It did not matter. Redcliffe's poison was not darkspawn. Something else was afoot. Twisted, gnarled roots in the soil that led to nowhere. The quiet in the air, the absence of birds. He had to think. He had to-
"Teagan!" Elgar'nan, he would silence Edgar with violence if necessary.
The mabari yipped as excited as a pup. It, alongside its master, galloped toward the group of men coming into view. Up the path to Redcliffe just beyond the small bridge, stood a small convoy of knights surrounding a regal looking man. The knights had their swords drawn by the time Edgar had reached the nobleman and clapped his hands on his shoulders.
"Bann Teagan!" Edgar exclaimed. "Bann of Rainesfere."
Teagan blinked, a bit startled, but he motioned for his guard to drop their arms. "I beg your pardon?"
"It's me," Edgar said. "Edgar. Edgar Cousland. Son of Teryn Bryce Cousland. It's been years!"
"Edgar..." Teagan let the name sink into the air as he thought. Recognition crept across his features and he smiled warmly. "It has been years! You've filled out, friend. How is your sister?"
"Silfee is in Orzammar." Edgar let his hands drop from the other man's shoulders. "She is going to secure dwarven aid against the Blight for the Grey Wardens."
"The Grey Wardens?" Teagan raised an eyebrow. "So am I to assume you are also a Warden? Or is your visit to Redcliffe due to some other pleasantry?"
"Silfee's not a Warden," Edgar said. He placed a hand across his breast. "I am a Warden. Rastaban here is also a Warden, as is Adele. And Sten? Well, he's a qunari. I suppose you don't need to be a Warden when just being a qunari is impressive enough."
There was a slight, barely detectable twitch to Sten's nostril.
Teagan nodded them on and the group began to climb up the path into the village. "If you're here to see my brother, that might unfortunately be a problem. Eamon is gravely ill. I've only just arrived so that I could be at his bedside."
"In part," Edgar told him. "We promised our friend, Sten here, that we would locate his sword. We've tracked it all the way to Redcliffe."
Simple thatched homes came into view as they entered the village. It appeared to be a mundane, bustling hub complete with a chantry in the very center and smoke billowing out of the smithy. Houses pushed out onto the docks of Lake Calenhad and the people teemed with a very typical sort of activity.
Everything looked fine, but it smelled off. When Rastaban stuck his tongue out in the air, he tasted death. As the sun began to dip behind the rust colored cliffs, there was a strange, whispering promise in the wind.
"Arlessa Isolde was desperate enough to send out Eamon's Knights in search of Andraste's ashes," Teagan told them. "I even sent out a plea for remedies and healing magic throughout Ferelden. I was surprised when I received no reply from Highever."
"Well, that's because..." Edgar faltered. His carefree smile broke and he reached for the comfort of his dog. "Does no one know of Rendon Howe's coup against my family?"
"A coup?" Teagan's face darkened. "What did that fool man do?"
The dog whimpered as Edgar pulled it closer to his side. "Assassins sent in the night," he said. "They murdered us while we slept. Silfee and I only just escaped and that was because Mother gave her life to guard our retreat."
"They killed everyone?" Teagan asked. "Even Oren?"
"Mother, Father, Oriana..." Edgar's eyes squeezed shut. "Oren didn't make it."
That gave Teagan pause. "Oh. I am deeply sorry, Edgar."
In the purple twilight, their faces all looked like ashen specters. There was an anxiety wound up like a tightened spring at the tip of Rastaban's fingers. Something was wrong and his body kept flinching with the anticipation of an attack. It was near tangible, like a syncopated thudding, like the pounding of footsteps.
A pounding of footsteps, in a cloud of hate. They raced across the bridge from the castle and toward the windmill. Hollow shrieks swallowed up their path. Rastaban thumbed the hilts of his blades. Elgar'nan would grant him strength.
Teagan eyed Sten. "You came to Redcliffe for a lost sword?" he said. "It would be wise of you to find it."