82. On Properly Equipping your Berserker

They were finally going all the way to Branka, and it was about nug-thumping time.

Not that Oghren blamed the kid for waiting for back-up, no. That was the main reason the Warrior hadn't run off and gone all on his lonesome years ago, what with being just sane enough to realize what a sodding death trap the place was. Unlike his wife and her entire house, apparently. As far as Oghren was concerned, more Wardens meant a better chance of making it to her and back with his skin intact… unless Branka decided to flay him himself when he dragged her home. Heh, crazy bitch. Damn, he missed her.

But still, it felt good to finally be on the move after so many years of waiting. Even if Brosca and Lady Marnan did bicker like a pair of married old alemakers.

"…irresponsible to give him any more authority, you must realize this. He'll turn the entire Assembly on its head!"

"Maybe that's what I want, princess. Ever thought of that?"

Oghren was a little worried, honestly, seeing just what kinds of Wardens Ferelden had to offer. Kids, all of them. There was the golden-boy kid who was some sort of angsty fancy-pants; there was the smarty-pants kid who was a real blabbermouth; and there was the twitchy twiggy kid kid. Oghren was pretty sure that, at the twig's age, he'd still been learning how to swing his axe.

The ex-princess was the only one of the lot he'd have put any confidence behind, but whatever. They were going after Branka, so he'd take whatever help he could get.

"What you're advocating is civil war." Marnan had been marching with the rest of them, but she whirled on the duster now. The rest of the Wardens stopped walking as well, all sighing with different levels of frustration. "Bhelen has always been prone to grand ideas and strange ideals. It may bode well for your kind, but the rest of Orzammar will not sit quietly and let such things happen. Not without a fight."

Garott crossed his arms defensively. "And just what is 'my kind' exactly?"

"You know exactly what I'm referring to."

"Say it. Go on."

Marnan sputtered for a moment, then spun on her heel and started forward again. "I don't need to justify myself to you."

"That works both ways, princess. If you don't got to justify it, then I don't either."

Marnan threw her hands in the air in frustration. "He murdered his own brother and father, and blamed the former on me and the latter on his political rival! What more proof do you need that he's evil?"

"And what's the alternative, then? Sodding stasis? Harrowmont is all about the old blood club. He'll let Orzammar suffocate on its own tradition, you mark me. That's evil, by my reckoning."

Marnan responded, of course, but the rest of them stopped listening as Morrigan groaned, "Must they really carry on in such a manner?"

Twiggy watched them with narrowed eyes. "It's like being back at the Circle, listening to the Loyalists arguing with the Libertarians. How annoying."

Felicity cast Twiggy a curious look. "I would have thought you would sympathize with the Libertarians, Kazar."

"You kidding? I don't care squat for politics." He huffed. "I just want to burn darkspawn."

"Wasn't Uldred a Libertarian?" Golden-boy asked Felicity.

Felicity nodded. "They're not all necessarily that extremist, of course. But the divide among the College of Enchanters does lead to some interesting political treatises."

The witch made an incredulous noise. "I fail to see how a collection of theoretical drivel and so much air could ever be interesting. Action is interesting."

"It is such things that drive action, Morrigan," Percival said firmly. "Words can cause wars, and stop them. Are not the treaties we currently pursue such a case?"

"And see where it has led us… delving into the Deep Roads with nary an idea where we are going save by the word of this… creature."

Oghren realized belatedly that the witch was referring to him. Bah, he'd been called worse. "I know exactly where we're goin'. Keep your panties on." He paused and chuckled. "Or better yet, don't."

"One more word out of you and I am turning you into a toad."

Oghren belched, to show how much he thought of that.

"In all honesty, Morrigan," Goldie said mildly, "I suspect a toad might be an improvement."

"You have a better suggestion? Shall I turn him into a mouse instead?"

Goldie considered it. "No, still a step up."

"A slug?"

"Closer."

"Really, you two," Felicity cut in. "It is such threats of transfiguration that promote superstition about mages among the uninitiated. Percy, you should have more manners than that."

The witch crossed her arms under her fine rack. "Are you implying that I should not?"

"Well, you did grow up in a forest, so it would stand to reason that your civil skills are underdeveloped…"

"Ha ha, yeah!" Oghren brayed. "Come join me on the crass end of the pond!"

"Ugh." Morrigan wrinkled her nose. "I would rather have my toenails pulled out one by one."

"In other news," Kazar cut in. "Percy has a sense of humor. Who knew?"

Goldie cast Twiggy a dark, very non-humorous look, and Oghren didn't bother to stifle a guffaw. The look swung to him, but they were interrupted from further conversation by the Wardens all tensing at the same time and looking around the walls.

"Incoming," Marnan said, like it wasn't obvious.

The skittering of a dozen feet echoed through the tunnels ahead, and Oghren drew his axe and took a swig from his aleskin for luck. Yeah! Time for some action!

They came out of the tunnels hard and fast (heh). A wave of them came in, and the Wardens met the buggers with a wave of their own. Marnan led the charge, and Oghren fell gleefully in behind her, with a Qunari, a Goldie, and a dog all coming in with him. He met a hurlock with his axe, and the squelch of its insides squishing were just what the healer ordered after two years of sitting on his hands doing nothing.

He let loose the grip he always kept on his frustration and anger, and slipped into a full-on rage like a long-lost pair of trousers. The tunnels went red, and he gleefully dove into the melee with his weapon a-swinging.

Splorch. Down goes Mr. hurlock!

Splosh. Sit, genlock, sit.

Gurgle gurgle squish. And now your insides are your outsides, emissary!

He was kinda aware of the others, in that way that you were in a rage, where you only registered them in that 'oh yeah, don't kill that person' way. Sten was nearby, lopping off heads like a pro, while Marnan kept calling more of the spawn to her... which was weird, because usually that was the sword-and-boarder's job. But nope, Goldie was tearing through the back line with more ferocity than his dog.

That startled Oghren right out of his raging, and he stopped and gave Cousland a good look. Huh. If he didn't know better...

A genlock jumped him from behind. Whoops, right. Killing stuff.

Oghren whipped around and skewered his attacker, and Felicity's healing magic made up for his loss of focus. Not that focus in battle was ever Oghren's thing. Or avoiding damage, actually. Eh, she meant well.

The fight didn't last long, anyway. One last fireball detonated, and Sten splattered a genlock against a wall, and then they were done. Oghren found himself feeling pretty refreshed after their little bout. Which meant that he turned his head and saw just how the golden-boy had to take a second after the battle to get his head back together.

His suspicion from before clicked into place, and he threw back his head and laughed.

Twiggy looked at him dubiously. Garott, though, smirked as the party wiped the Tainted blood off their weapons. "Something funny, old man?"

"Yeah, I'll say. You, Goldie!"

The boy in question looked at him uncertainly. "It's Percival."

"Whatever. You got no idea what ya are, do ya Goldie?"

"I know what I am: I'm a Warden."

"Naaah." Oghren laughed again at the boy's indignant look. "You're a berserker, kid. The way you lost your head in the fight… that's a rage. Never seen a human do that before… then again, ain't seen many humans."

This piqued the boy's interest. He finished wiping his sword and closed the distance between them, intensity in his eyes. "You know why I'm so angry when I fight? Do you know how to stop it?"

"HA! Stop it? Kid, you should nurture it! C'mere: show me that toothpick you use as a weapon." Oghren stood his axe up in the mud and gestured for the sword. Percival hesitated, but Oghren grunted impatiently, and he handed it over.

"Now gimme that board."

After glancing around at their companions, Percival unhooked his shield and also gave it to Oghren. Oghren hefted the pair for a moment. Then, he flung them aside.

"Hey!" That rage Oghren had identified flashed in the human's eyes.

"Flimsy little toys!" Oghren hefted his axe and tossed it to the boy, who caught it with a grunt. "Give that a few swings, now while you're still riled."

Percival glared. "Shall I imagine I'm chopping you in half? That's my family's sword you just threw into a wall!"

"Go for it, if it helps ya rage."

The boy grit his teeth, then turned his back on Oghren and gave the axe a hefty, angry swing, stumbling a bit from the unfamiliar weight of the weapon. Oghren nodded… it was rough, but a berserker wasn't supposed to be graceful, was he?

"You think he should use a two-handed weapon?" Marnan asked curiously, stepping up beside him. Good tactical head on her shoulders, this one. "He was trained on a sword-and-shield."

"A good rager is wasted on a shield," Oghren said with a snort. "We're good at killing… fast, messy, and brutal. Can't do that if we're hiding half our strength behind a sodding shield."

Marnan nodded thoughtfully, then stepped toward the boy, who was still testing the weight of the weapon in his hands. She drew her own axe. "Percy, up for a bit of a spar?"

The human nodded, and the two turned to face one another, the other Wardens clearing enough room around the pair to afford them a decent sparring ring.

Garott moved over to Oghren's side, sitting down on a stone while he watched the fight. "Anyone wanna make bets?"

Twiggy leaned back against Garott's rock on his other side. "Come on," the elf said. "Percy's got no clue what he's doing with that thing." His point was proven a moment later as the human misjudged the range of the axe, whiffing a blow against the dwarf. "It's gonna be Marnan."

"I'll take that bet," Garott said with a rumbling chuckle, extending his hand. "Loser washes the darkspawn crap off the winner's shoes?"

The elf snorted and shook his hand once. "You're on."

They settled down to watch the sparring match, which the princess really did seem to have the upper hand on. She had the experience, after all. The smarty-pants and the witch were on the other side of the circle, looking fretful and amused, respectively. The Qunari was off to the side, watching attentively.

Then, Garott hopped off his seat and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Hey pretty-boy! Where's Howe at these days?"

Oghren laughed as that proved to be a trigger. Heat flared up in the human's eyes, and he threw himself at his opponent with all the unbridled fury of the best dwarven warriors. He lunged right into Marnan's axe, throwing her off guard, and knocked her on her ass with two swift, brutal strokes. The cavern was silent and still as the human stood over her, catching his breath and shaking off the burst of rage.

Then, Garott and Oghren both whooped in laughter.

"What'd I say?" Oghren laughed. "Berserker!" He offered his flask to Garott, who raised it in toast and took a sip.

"Ah, crud," the elf groaned.

"He's still inexperienced with it," Felicity said. "He was taught with the sword. Would equipping him with a greatsword help the transition at all?"

"Perhaps," Marnan said, picking herself up. "What do you think, Percival?"

The human shrugged, still playing with Oghren's axe. "It… does seem a lot easier to handle one of these when I'm… raging."

"Yep," Oghren said.

"Sten?" Marnan said, turning to the Qunari. "Might we test his talent with your greatsword?"

"Do what you will," the Qunari said, tossing the sword at Percival's feet. "It's too small for me anyway."

"Lovely, being provided Qunari castoffs," Percival muttered. Even so, he handed the axe back to Oghren and hefted the two-handed sword. He and Marnan faced off again.

As they began trading their first swings of this match, Garott called out to the Qunari. "I hate to say it, big guy, but you're probably not gonna find much bigger here. We're kinda in dwarf territory."

"Any two-handed weapon will suffice, for now."

Good thing he wasn't picky… all they had was darkspawn weapons, at the moment.

Felicity spoke up. "Once we leave, we will be able to equip you properly. Come to think of it…" she turned to address Garott, "whatever happened to those oversized weapons you found at Lake Calenhad?"

Oghren was looking in the right direction to see the Qunari stiffen.

"Wait, what?" the elf asked. "You found weapons at the Circle Tower?"

"I recall those," Marnan spoke up, her and Percival now leaning on their weapons in rest. "They were indeed large. You said you got them off a battlefield. Were they Qunari?"

Garott shrugged. "It was getting dark. I couldn't tell."

And then, Sten was suddenly on top of Garott. The gigantic man yanked the dwarf in the air by his collar and slammed him against the wall, a good three feet off the ground. "Where are the weapons?"

"Whoa, whoa!" Garott cried out. "Easy, we'll get you something your size!"

"I don't care about that," the Qunari said. "The weapons you stole from that field: where are they?"

This was the first time Oghren had seen Garott honestly fearful—whatever he was seeing in the Qunari's eyes apparently scared the bravado right out of him. "I sold 'em. In Ostagar."

Sten dropped the dwarf in the dirt and turned away, his face blank. "Then we will go to Ostagar."

"Well, now," Morrigan said with some amusement. "That is something of a long trip, for a simple weapon."

Felicity made a noise as if to speak. She was looking at the Qunari thoughtfully. Then she seemed to decide to go ahead and say whatever she wanted to. "I've read accounts… the Qunari carry personal blades. It's some sort of spiritual significance. Sten, you were one of the Qunari on that field, weren't you?"

The Qunari didn't answer right away, just stared at the girl. Then, "I was."

"So one of the weapons Garott took was your sword?"

"Yes."

Felicity nodded in understanding. "We'll get it back."

Again, Sten stared at her. Then, he nodded almost gratefully.

Marnan looked amused. "Nice to see you making decisions for all of us."

Percival shook his head. "One of us took something important from one of our companions. It is our duty to get it back."

Marnan shrugged. "Very well. Sten, as soon as we're done here, we'll head back toward Ostagar."

Sten nodded, his eyebrows raised in thought as he considered Marnan in silence. Stone, but Oghren wished he knew what that guy was thinking sometimes.

"It is the right thing to do," Marnan continued. "Wouldn't you agree, Garott?"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't be preachy, princess."

"In the meantime," the witch said. "Tis getting a bit rank in this cavern. Now that we've established the importance of proper weapons amongst warriors, may we move on?"

"I'm with the foxy witch," Oghren said, replacing his axe on his back and starting toward the cavern's exit.

"If you even try it, dwarf, I am turning you into a fly and squishing you."

"Heh heh… kinky."