Lance had lost count of how many Darkspawn they'd slain – how many he'd slain personally. His sword arm ached. Neria was near him, coughing and struggling to keep up her magic. It was very tiring, very difficult. He was doing a good job of defending them both, though.
Anders was keeping them from collapsing in exhaustion, using his spells to support them. Lance at least didn't feel tired. He was all too happy to skewer another Genlock.
Velanna and Morrigan were doing the most amazing job of keeping the whole horde at bay, launching fireballs and all sorts of magical destruction. They were sweating profusely from the effort, though so were the other Wardens, despite the cold of the underground chasm.
Hundreds of Darkspawn were piled at their feet. Cauthrien was just to his left, staying close enough to defend him, her armor now a mess of Darkspawn gore. He'd lost track of Rand and Saul, though he had a good idea of where Sigrun and Oghren were cutting a bloody swathe through the Darkspawn. In an hour's fighting they'd not managed to get any nearer to the Archdemon.
At least if they died, they would have drained the Darkspawn's numbers enough for the remaining Wardens to muster an army before the full Blight began.
Leliana and Nathaniel were close to the mages, defending them with what arrows they had left, what arrows they had scavenged from the dead.
Darkspawn archers were shooting shots down at them from the high parts of the chasm. Though they failed to hit anywhere close to the Wardens.
The Darkspawn shrank back from Starfang and its glowing runes. He imagined that they knew how deadly it was for their kind, how powerful a weapon it was in his hands. They feared it, they fled from it. Even those Darkspawn that were able to muster their courage to charge were too rapidly cut down to matter.
The pile at his feet grew, necessitating a few kicks to keep it low enough to fight over. The Darkspawn had no shortage of manpower. They had no fear of losses they could not replace. The broodmothers were busy in their hatcheries or nurseries or what have you, churning out more Darkspawn even as the Wardens slaughtered them.
Lance parried swords, dove his blade into the chests of his attackers. Cauthrien glanced over at him, eyes wide, swinging her Summer Sword in wide arcs to lop off heads. She grinned.
He returned it, and slashed the throat of a warbling Hurlock.
This was no good. They could kill all the Darkspawn they wanted but it made no difference if they couldn't gain ground towards the Archdemon. And it was just a matter of time before the Darkspawn circled behind them, surrounded them and overwhelmed them.
Morrigan sent a wide plume of flame through the Darkspawn lines, burning them and scattering them. It wasn't enough, though. For every hole they could carve through the Darkspawn, dozens more rushed forward to fill it.
This must have been what the Calling was like. This must have been what it was like to die. It was suiting, he thought. They would either succeed and stop the Blight in its tracks, or fail and have died gloriously.
Potentially thousands would die on the surface, and that was on his head, but at the very least they could go out in style. Twelve Wardens, shattering thousands of Darkspawn. That sounded good to him.
A black arrow bounced off his shoulder, the scale armor defending him from harm. He glanced up, saw the Darkspawn had filled the bridge above them, were leaning down now to throw weapons, fire arrows. And he grinned at that.
"Velanna," he shouted, and signaled to her. She looked up, saw what he did, and a look of horror briefly crossed her face. And then she was smiling.
And she raised her staff, held it up high. She took a deep breath, held it in. And the stone ceiling began to shake and rattle, pebbles and dust falling down onto the Darkspawn below.
The Korcari Wilds was a thick mess of trees, trees as old as the world itself. And those trees had roots that went very deep.
Velanna summoned them, urged them to break through the stone ceiling, to shatter it, to reach for the Darkspawn-covered bridge.
Huge stone boulders and bricks rained down, crushing the Darkspawn and threatening to do the same to the Wardens. The Mages gathered together. Anders and Neria and Morrigan focusing on their best, strongest shields to defend them from the falling rock.
Lance grabbed Neria's robe, holding it with white knuckles as he watched great pieces of the rock above crash down, reverberating on the shield that defended them.
And then the bridge came crashing down, Darkspawn scattering, falling to their deaths, impaled by roots. The huge, Dwarven stones were not made to easily fall apart, but centuries of Darkspawn corruption and neglect had made the bridge weaker, able to fall into its heavy, thick sections. And fall it did.
The Darkspawn ran for cover, screaming. Lance felt it when they died. It was so horrid, so powerful a scream through the Taint that even the Archdemon recoiled from it. The stones crushed a great many of them outright, smashed them into blackened paste.
The rest ran for cover, ran in fear. They were scattered, caused the whole pressing horde to stumble back, to fall over itself.
Dust and dirt rose in great plumes, making it difficult to see, sending unprotected lungs into fits of coughing and spitting.
The Darkspawn stared up at it, horrified, searching.
And then they cowed when Lance leapt through, landing head-on. He slammed against them, knocked them back, used the full force of his weight to get them to stumble, fall. And he rose up faster than they could act, sword in hand.
He slashed left and right, cutting them down as they stared in disbelief. The Archdemon screamed, Urthemiel trying to assert his control.
But before the horde could regroup, before they could muster up, the Wardens charged.
They were an army unto themselves, and they were terrifying to behold. Bards like Leliana would have struggled to put such a sight to words, to convey the terror that rippled through the Darkspawn.
In the end, it wouldn't matter.
All that mattered was that the Darkspawn were dying.
That they cowered from fearsome War Cries, that blades felled them faster than they could follow. Magic shot great holes through their lines, the entire horde came to a stuttering halt.
And now it was the Darkspawn who were on the defensive, who were running.
A blade poked into Lance's ribs, barely able to puncture through his armor. He answered it with a broken Darkspawn nose, a slash. A pair of arrows impacted his chest. He felt blood leaking under his armor but simply snapped the shafts and fought on.
They were in the midst of the horde now, pushing them back. He was hacking, slashing, cutting, anything it took to get the Darkspawn to just die. He felt heat, fire. Leliana was beside him now, fighting with her short swords, cutting the Darkspawn apart.
A sword dance across his cheek, leaving only the smallest scratch. He shouted in wordless fury, found the Hurlock and gutted it.
He turned, looked left and right for another target, another Darkspawn creature to kill. There was none. They had all fled, pushed deeper into the Trenches, towards their master.
And Lance had to look no further for the Archdemon. It came to him.
It screeched, roared its anger. It was flying as best it could in the chasm, swooping right for the Wardens. Lance grabbed Leliana, pulled her aside as he jumped. He hoped the others were doing the same.
Urthemiel let out a breath of atrocious purple flame, rotting away everything it touched. Rand was caught in the blast, his entire body melting to ash. Lance watched as he fell to pieces.
And then he rose up, reached for Urthemiel's low-swooping talon. He grabbed on, held it. The Archdemon was arcing up, trying to get higher for another pass. Lance wouldn't let it happen.
He remembered Riordan's sacrifice, how he had torn the wing of the Archdemon to immobilize it, to give Lance the opportunity to kill it. And he hoped that his try at it would end a lot cleaner.
He leapt, shoved Starfang's point into the membrane of Urthemiel's left wing, slid with it.
Starfang bit right through, guided him to the stone floor even as it descended rapidly. He fell, Starfang still in hand. He landed with a roll, white-hot pain shooting up his leg and filling his eyes with tears.
The Archdemon shrieked its frustration, tumbled to the floor. It was up on its talons in an instant, roaring, challenging the Wardens.
And its Darkspawn horde returned, charged, surged to defend their master.
Lance grabbed up his sword, tried to stand, failed. He stumbled, leaned against the wall to steady himself. This was no good.
Morrigan charged for Urthemiel, staff pointing right for it. And she fired a bolt of lightning that singed its hide. She dodged a tail whip, rolled under a beating wing. She summoned a block of stone from the ground to smash into its ribs, cracking one.
Lance hobbled to her aid, glancing back at the Wardens as they fought with the Darkspawn, keeping them at bay so that their Commander could deal with the Archdemon.
Morrigan fought valiantly, launching bolts of lightning and ice at the Archdemon, dodging his attacks. She was unable to get the upper hand, though, wounded as the Archdemon was. She was only able to keep herself alive, and keep it entertained.
He was unable to run to her, to stand with her. And that pained him. Literally – he had probably shattered his leg. The Darkspawn were being held at bay, but only for the moment. They could very easily muster their numbers to overwhelm the Wardens and kill them all.
Lance was running out of time.
And then Morrigan was knocked back, a claw swipe sending her into the wall.
Lance cried out, shouting to get the Archdemon's attention as he lumbered towards her. Urthemiel craned its neck, looked at him.
"Come on!" Lance shouted. "Come get me!"
He raised his sword, pointed it at the Archdemon.
And the demon regarded him with a slap of its tail. Lance felt something break, and he landed hard, rolling a distance before laying there, bleeding.
He didn't have time to waste, though. He pushed himself up, pain wracking his body. He wasn't unused to pain. He could work through it.
He was on his knees, seeing that Morrigan was lying not far from him. Blood trickled from her mouth but she looked altogether no worse for it.
Lance reached down to grab his sword, felt white hot pain blind him, keep him from grabbing it.
And then Urthemiel was staring him down, his big eyes glowing.
This was it. Lance looked down at Morrigan, and she was looking up at him.
This was the end.
He felt her touch his hand, grasped it.
"I love you," she said. And he looked down at her, giving a last smile.
"I never stopped," he said.
Darkspawn loomed around him and he could hear his fellow Wardens shouting. It was all so distant now. He was faced with his death again, but it didn't seem so foreboding. No, it actually felt… welcome. It was a relief. He didn't have to worry about it anymore.
But then he saw Morrigan, saw the Darkspawn reach for her.
And he reacted without thinking, working through the pain, through the fury.
He grabbed up his sword, Starfang. He struck down every Darkspawn that dared to approach him. He rended heads, stabbed through chests. He used the last of his firebombs to scatter a cluster of them. But more were coming, filing out from cracks and crevices, blades waving.
Urthemiel pounded him with a large claw, sending him smashing into the stone ground to cry out in pain at his battered and broken body.
He saw the Darkspawn close in around him, and reached for his belt knife, one last display of defiance.
There was a shrill cry, and a woman was standing over him, magic sparking around her. He thought it was Morrigan for a moment, but then realized that it was not. It was Velanna, come to his rescue. She slapped her staff left and right, created a perimeter to keep the Darkspawn at bay while she blasted them again and again with magic.
They fell around her, and Lance could only look up in awe. She was so amazing.
But then a dark arrow hit her, causing her to falter. He tried to stand, come to her aid. A second arrow hit home, and then a third. She fell.
Lance dove for the archer, put one hand around his throat while he stabbed with Starfang. He stood, slashed all about him, killing as many Darkspawn as he could.
He looked over his shoulder to see Velanna lying on the floor, bleeding. He already feared the worst. Morrigan was up, and she ran for the Elf, making brief eye contact with Lance as she pulled her away.
And Urthemiel struck him, delivered a slap with his snout so that he pinned Lance between the wall and his large teeth.
"Come on," Lance challenged, feeling blood pour from his mouth.
"Come on. I want you to! Do it!"
And he was suddenly shouting, madly, at the top of his lungs.
"Kill me! Just try it! Kill me or I'll kill you, I swear it!"
He raised Starfang, ready to stab out Urthemiel's eyes.
But before he could be swallowed whole, or attack the Archdemon, a loud horn sounded. It was familiar to Lance. It was a Dwarven horn.
And then there were stocky, armored warriors rushing into the chasm, arrows being launched down from overhead to pepper the Darkspawn. The Legion of the Dead.
The Dwarves were suddenly upon the Darkspawn, slashing and hacking to carve a path through to the Wardens. Some died, but that was a relief for them. And it was for Lance, too.
The Darkspawn immediately near him stopped dead in their tracks, bodies convulsing, arteries bursting. The Archdemon let him drop, craned its neck to see what was happening to his horde.
And Lance couldn't help the laugh that came next, gurgling and bleeding.
He saw Avernus, staff raised. The Warden was grinning from ear to ear as he made eye contact with Lance, and the two nodded to each other, warriors. Brothers.
He had led the Legion while he went to his Calling, had come all the way to the Dead Trenches to kill as many Darkspawn as he could, to find redemption in this. He'd found it.
Lance was up, ignoring all the injuries, the pain. He was stabbing his sword into Urthemiel's side, again and again. The Archdemon called out in fury, turned its head to kill. But it could only cry out again as Avernus hit it with powerful magic, amplified by his research into his Taint.
He laughed, called out in victory.
Lance smiled, a true, happy smile. The first in a long time.
"You lose," he shouted to the Archdemon. And he fell back, landed on the ground with one happy laugh.