Alistair

Breath laden with exertion, Alistair glared at yet another flight of stairs beyond the just entered room. Taking a moment to wipe the sweat and blood from his brow, he glanced out a nearby gaping hole in the wall that a projectile the size of his torso launched from yonder catapult had torn. A mixture of flickering torch and moonlight taunted him with momentary visions of ant-like skirmishes, and he was near to tearing his hair from his head with frustration of near inactivity—albeit an idleness riddled with darkspawn corpses—and a lack of knowledge whether his liege and lord lived or not. The brief lack of Fergus' viperous glower boring into his back indicated his thoughts were much akin, save that his subject of concern was most likely for his sister.

"I've told you already; she's out of our reach. You can't go against powers like Loghain and expect to escape without punishment. I'm sure she's having a nice, cozy nap in some cellar or something right now." Alistair said. He usually wasn't so irritable, but the accumulation of unsettling events since the damned Cousland siblings had shown up had made him snappy. Fergus returned his intense scowl to his back. If looks could kill, half the army would be dead by now. They might as well have been, save that Alistair, by some unknown blessing—and quite a lot of force from Loghain's guards had managed to persuade him to stay his hand. After the sudden ending of the war council meeting, Duncan had impressed with a certain intangible eeriness upon him that as a Grey Warden, what purpose for living he had before was irrelevant before the greater and nobler purpose of the Order, and Fergus had obeyed with a certain tempestuous compliance. He had not, as of yet, inevitably exploded, and Alistair thought that his eyes would be plastered to the back of his head with all of the time he spent glancing suspiciously at him.

His preoccupation left him vulnerable to the silently stalking darkspawn lurking just around a turn of the staircase, and he cursed without making an effort to silence it after Fergus decapitated it in an unusually graceful manner that involved him getting a face full of splattered blood. He spat on the floor and blinked.

"Um. Thanks." Alistair said. Fergus inclined his head coolly in a gesture he was rapidly becoming familiar with, and he sighed, taking a moment to rub his calf where Ceostre's trap had left aching wounds. His eyes traced the long, spiraling path of the endless, Maker-forsaken stairs, and he groaned as he began to ascend once more.

—

He lost track of how many floors they had cleared. Long ago had they lost the few sentries who had attempted to assist them in their mission, and he snorted in irony that he was probably having a harder time in what was supposed to be an easy and disappointing assignment than if he was actually down there fighting beside Duncan. What feeble conversation existed died out in favor of saving their breath for the endless climb. He motioned for Fergus to watch his back as he peered out of an arrow slit, straining for a glimpse of the battle below. The figures battling below were as tiny as specks of dust. He ached to be down there at the side of his fellow Grey Wardens, fighting for his country, his blood heated with glory, but instead he was cursed to climb this endless god-forsaken tower with a brooding phantom as silent (and deadly) as his sister. He had to be satisfied that the display Ceostre had put on had convinced Cailan to change his tactics, and grudgingly admitted that if the darkspawn horde was pushed back tonight, it would be thanks to her.

He pushed himself away from the arrow slit and strapped his shield to his back. Keeping his sword loose in his right hand, he took the torch from Fergus for his turn. Fergus moved to the front, his dark eyes burning as he passed, and Alistair sighed. His nose itched, but his hands were occupied and he could hardly scratch it. He hoped they were close to the top.

The last floor greeted them with a roar. An ogre, with skin as purple as a plum, charged at them as soon as Fergus nudged the door open. They both backed away hastily, and the tower shook as the ogre slammed against the door frame. Fergus gave it a few good stabs, and then they wasted valuable minutes clearing the door enough to pass. With many a grimace, they climbed over the mound of muscle and spikes.

"Find something to burn," Alistair said. "I'm going to keep a watch out for the signal."

They were granted a few moments of reprieve. When Alistair looked back it was to see an absurd mound consisting of a shattered table, ripped curtains, a few logs of kindling from a small fireplace in the back of the room, the severed limbs of a darkspawn, and shredded pages from a book Fergus had found. The sight was almost comical with said scavenger standing grim and serious next to it, and Alistair shrugged. It would have to do.

It was even more difficult to see what was going on below, this high up. He shifted his sword in his sweaty grip, reluctant to sheath it. The night wore on. Fergus kept watch by the door while he remained ever vigilant at the lip of a balcony exposed to the stars. While nothing but exhaustion threatened, Alistair found it hard to focus. He almost wished for something to sink his blade into just to clear his mind.

He saw the signal just as Fergus shouted his name in warning.

He threw himself down. An arrow went sailing over the edge of the railing, and he pitied whoever it would land on. He turned around to see Fergus decapitating the darkspawn archer.

"There must be another entrance to this level," Fergus shouted. Alistair searched the room for a door, and spotted another arrow notched at him from one hidden by shadow and darkness.

There was no time to grab his shield. He hefted Fergus the torch just as the arrow took him in the shoulder, piercing his chainmail with a sharp pain.

He grunted and pulled it out with an air of nonchalance that would do a Cousland proud.

And thus was the make-shift bonfire lit, not to start Loghain's mad dash to take the horde from behind, but to signal Cailan to do his bloody best to get himself and his army out of the hellish melee taking place below. After all, even though Loghain had demanded her imprisoned to cool her fire, the King had been impressed upon that this skirmish was futile—by Fergus, if not his sister. Calian had not been happy, but even Alistair had been convinced. As his liege fought for his life below, so too did two brothers of the Grey fight for theirs above.

Ceostre

By the time she had lost but a few of her fingers, her mind had finally cracked under the distress. When Howe noticed her lack of response, he finally retired his practices with a tender promise of continuation and went off to rest. One by one the guards filed out, until only the mage—looking noticeably sickened—was left. His lips were moving, as though he was speaking, but she heard no sound, only a ringing that had been her one sympathetic companion keeping such painful vigil with her. She saw naught through the haze that veiled her vision, and eventually he left.

Howe obviously thought—with well-justified reason—that he carried out his sadistic pleasure with enough skill that a physical restraint was not required for the night. The mage had probably sprang a nasty trap lying in wait should she somehow manage to scrape together the will to stumble away, but the lack of guard regardless stung her pride. Supine and akimbo, her chair and bonds having long been taken from her, she stared sightlessly into the dark in a comatose paralyzation. The last dregs of blood draining from her wounds had long dried into a stiff crust, and even the mere action of blinking hurt and disturbed flakes of the stuff.

Having already been impressed the lesson that groaning and shifting was absolutely a bloody horrible idea, she stayed like that for the longest time, unmoving, unthinking, as though if she never thought beyond the now, she'd be spared the inevitable pain the future had for her. The mere moments had a throbbing torment, a different kind, undemanding, gradual, slow, and there on the cold, hard floor stained with her lifeblood, she learned to appreciate it, exquisite and yet soft. There was a beauty in it, pain its traveled path and Howe its avatar. To the observer, one would notice that one often took refuge from torture in madness, but to the beholden it was a sharp and cruel thing to be appreciated. A gentle breath ghosted past her clenched teeth, and it was the last sign of life that she emitted for some time.

What felt like a fortnight later, a shuffling sound and the shifting of metal roused her from her numb, death-like state. There was a sniffing sound at her hair, a growl as though from a hound or dog, and the faintest flicker of eyelash against a linen-pale cheek that indicated that, in fact, her broken and ruined body was indeed still alive. Her eyes wouldn't focus, showing her shadows and doubles of demons that lurked in blurs and illusions, and she closed them once more, lacking the strength to do anything about the being that so disturbed her peace.

It grasped her hair in a brutal, talon-like grip, and that at least granted a measure of clarity to her vision when her eyes shot open and a scream tore itself from her still kicking throat. The cold air was a slap to the face as she was dragged outside and salt to her multiple wounds, and she screamed again, a thin, harsh thing utterly devoid of strength and passion. She looked up, struggling to make out the silhouette in the darkness pulling her after it.

The campfire light shifted, shedding just enough for her to discern a figure. Her blood ran ice in her veins.

Darkspawn.

Even as she convulsed in the agony its ruthless pace inflicted upon her, she turned her unfocused gaze upon the blazing Tower of Ishal spiraling above the moon and torch lit Ostagar, and her heart gave a painful squeeze when she remembered that that fiery structure was where she, Fergus, and Alistair were to have been stationed. Maker…

There was only one person she cared for enough to cause her heart to clench in such a different sense of anguish, and, Ferelden's monarch and armies be damned, that person was her brother, Fergus. What little faith she had in the Chantry's preaching of the Maker had been crushed by Howe, and although she had since only used His and His bride's name as a habitual expletive, in that moment she was praying in whatever deity and heathen god cared to listen.

Fergus... Please, let him not be—

Her head caught against a particularly large rock, and stars burst behind her eyelids. The darkspawn gave an impatient wrench, and she drowned in white, fiery agony.

Author's Note

An update? I know, I shocked myself. Please forgive for the relative shortness of it; I felt as though this was a perfect spot to end the battle of Ostagar, and I'm still getting back into the hang of writing this. I'm actually going back and replaying DA:O again, so hopefully I won't leave the next chapter sitting for so long.

P.S. Be warned, the title of this fanfic may be changed as of the next chapter to something of lesser cheesiness. Sorry for navigation issues. Also, apologies for grammatical errors! I'll try to be more thorough.