The Dead
Alistair
There they are, stumbling towards them on bone feet. Wardens, some of them.
He remembers the others at Ostagar, wonders if he knew the descendants of these... corpses.
He draws his sword and waits, taking heavy breaths, weighing the sword in his hand. His hand shakes slightly, and he catches the worried look Morgana shoots him.
He'll be fine, he tells himself. They are long dead; he has steel in his hand and friends by his side.
He hears the first inhuman, rattling gargle, and then he's forward, a spring in him finally uncoiling, and free. His world merges into the things around him and his heart pounding in his ears. The sickening crunch of steel on bone; a shout from Morgana, and he's stepping back from a blast of flame, feels the Veil forcefully rip open in a way that's almost physically painful for him. Her magic? No, he realises - this is blacker, sharper. He turns.
Skeletal mages? Oh, this day just gets better and better.
He dodges crackling lightning, trying to rush the dead mage, but a dagger from a Warden skeleton catches him at the last moment, missing his chest but leaving a painful gash across his knuckles. He has to fight not to drop his sword, and backs away, looking for his attacker, when there's a loud sound of breaking bone, its ribcage breaking into pieces; Leliana, still standing behind it, watches it fall for a moment, then looks to him with the sweetest, most innocent smile he's ever seen and is gone.
He barely feels the hand on his arm in the haze of it all, but there Morgana is, pulling him back from the battle. "What - ?" he gasps, uncomprehending.
"Quickly," she says. "The emissaries." He sees the stone set behind her eyes, and finally understands; she steps back from him, ducks the greatsword of another skeleton. Concentration is difficult here, in the middle of the creatures, but he manages it somehow and pulls on the tear in the Veil, releasing the smite with a gasped breath.
The undead are knocked from their feet, as are Leliana and Zevran, but he feels a weight on his shoulder and opens his eyes to see Morgana holding tightly to him, an arm thrown round his shoulder, sword still raised at their oncoming foes; for a moment, he almost laughs at her shock - she looks into his eyes, both of them still breathing heavily, and something burns behind the blue of her irises. Then she pushes herself hastily away, briefly squeezing his hand, ignoring his surprise as she does so.
The noise of an undead soldier behind him, and the spell is broken, the two of them taking advantage of the moment to wade back into the fray, cleaving the drained mage corpses in half.
He spots Morrigan and Leliana killing some of the recovered skeletons too, exchanging the odd glance of acknowledgement...
When it's over, he's left standing in the bloody snow, struggling for breath, and it finally sinks in, flooding his chest with ice.
He walks slowly to one of the corpses, gently plucking the distinctive griffon shield from the bones, looking at it silently. His hands are shaking, he notices somewhere at the back of his mind, but it barely registers.
Some of them were like him, once - Wardens. Maker, what happened to tear the Veil so badly, cause these kind of... abominations? The Grey Warden fortresses are some of the safest places on Thedas; surely they can't have been infiltrated by maleficarum?
Duncan's words echo in his ears, and he has to take in a shuddering breath, closing his eyes. We do what we must. Darkspawn are a far greater threat than blood mages.
Fresh out of the Chantry, still relishing his freedom, he'd stopped speculatively eyeing the inn's ale and stared at the older man disbelievingly, sputtering old lines from his training, while his mentor had simply raised his eyebrows and filled him in on some of the... less savoury aspects of Warden history.
They're not above recruiting blood mages, he knows, and the thought slithers into his brain, unwelcome - pehaps his adopted family aren't as noble as he believed. An inside job? One of the Wardens' own?
No. This is just... disrespectful, not even allowing them a true rest. No-one would...
His thoughts stray back to Ostagar, to the many killed, and he shivers.
He sees her step up behind him in the shield's reflection, hears the crunch of her footsteps, and she looks at him in concern. "Alistair?"
His eyes don't stray from the shield, the silence echoing, and he sees a flash of fear cross her eyes. "I know it was... unpleasant, seeing your own like that, but... we need to get moving," she tries.
His mouth is too dry to speak, words dying in his throat, and he's unable to tear his eyes away from the emblem; he opens his mouth, then closes it again. Her eyes are scared now, and he knows she's remembering the period after Ostagar, of silences and tense black air.
She exhales, but it shakes; he almost doesn't catch the murmur from her lips, is sure he must have heard wrongly when he does, but it makes him suddenly turn, nodding resolutely and exchanging his old shield for the Warden's.
He follows her as they begin the walk to the Keep's entrance, the merchant rambling terrified monologues, her quiet words still in his head.
Please... Come back to me.