Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Takes place ten years or more after the events of Dragon Age: Origins, from the background of a female Human Noble pc who has recruited Loghain and persuaded an "altered" Alistair to marry Anora and rule as King despite his survival, and persuaded Loghain to perform the dark ritual with Morrigan. May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.

Chapter Six: War Drums

Loghain was in attendance at the emergency consult Alistair called immediately thereafter because the King was too distracted to forbid it, the Queen would never think of it, and none of the other nobles present quite had the courage to deny him entrance. He paced restlessly at the back of the war room while frightened fools bickered and whimpered and made themselves a terrific headache.

"We don't have enough men," Arl Eamon said at last. "Your majesty, we've had recruiters out for months and still we can only manage to field perhaps five thousand men, most of them untrained. If the Chevaliers number only ten thousand we shall be lucky, from what the scouts report."

"Seems to me we often fielded rather less than five thousand men during the Rebellion, and we still managed to win through," Loghain pointed out, unable to restrain himself any longer. "We defeated an entire bloody Blight with little more than that. Your Majesty, I don't ask to be put in command of men, or to speak strategy to you, but I beg of you, let me fight. Put me in back of some B-company, for all I care, but do not force me to stand idle and safe while men rush headlong into war."

Alistair ruffled his scruff of hair distractedly. "Actually I was rather hoping you'd have some idea exactly how we are to take our five thousand untrained soldiers and defeat ten thousand or so top-of-the-line Chevaliers before they make it to our homes and fields. I hope you're not saying you won't help with that."

Loghain stopped short, with a near-comical look of surprise on his face. "Are you actually…saying that you'd like me to suggest tactics?"

"Is there another man in this room with more experience at fighting vast numbers of Chevaliers with very little at his disposal?"

"Well, I…let me think a minute…" Loghain contemplated the scale model of the bannorn with its tiny figures of soldiers and cavalry. He ignored utterly the mutinous muttering of angry nobles indignant that the traitor should be put back in charge of their destinies.

"The scouts say the Orlesians are moving toward Sulcher's Pass, correct?" he said at last, as he dashed aside the figurines representing the armies and reset them to his own satisfaction. "That's a nice open space as far as passage through the Frostbacks goes, but it's not as open as Gherlen and it's going to funnel them, and all the nice open valleys are on the Ferelden side. If we managed to get there ahead of them, we could hold them there and their numbers wouldn't make as much difference to them as if we met them in the open bannorn."

"We'd never make it there in time," Arl Vaughan Urien declared. "Why, that's a good solid week's journey, and they've a jump on us."

Loghain looked at the man from under severely knitted brows. "A week for one fat fool riding in luxury in a closed carriage, perhaps, but three days' hard march for an army in haste."

"Even so, it would take the full strength of our forces to keep them pinned down," Eamon argued. "We cannot commit everything we have to one vain attempt to stop them cold in a single blow."

"If not at Sulcher's Pass, then where, Eamon?" Loghain asked. "At Redcliffe, with the screams of innocent women and children ringing in our ears? At the gates of the capital? On the streets outside the royal palace? Are you so eager to sentence our children to the same fate we suffered at the hands of our Orlesian masters? They think we are weak, easy prey, and we must show them that we are not to be trifled with before it costs us more than we can afford to pay."

"You can't be thinking of a direct head-on assault, father," Anora said. "Show us what you truly intend."

He grinned at his daughter, looking more than slightly wolfish with his teeth bared so, and he reached out and placed a single figure of a knight with sword and shield directly in front of the flags and figures representing the Orlesians. "This is what they'll see," he said. "A small contingent of rather weary-looking infantry, not more than a thousand strong."

Anora's gaze sharpened and she nodded as she caught his intent. "They're expecting weakness…and you intend to give them what they expect."

"And then when they've committed themselves to charge against these men, you'll send in the rest of our forces to flank them," Alistair added thoughtfully.

"On both sides," Loghain said, and placed two horsed figures one on either side the horde of attackers. "As much cavalry as we can muster to take lead in the assault, and the rest as infantry to mop up what the horsemen can't finish off. If we manage to take them off guard we can tear their defenses open in a matter of moments. Then it's just a matter of routing them. Easier said than done, I know, but it can be done, which I believe is the point. This is not so different to what we did at River Dane, though we're in a far more defensible position than we were there."

"King Alistair, you would not allow this man to lead another such assault after what he did at Ostagar, would you?" Eamon demanded. "You could never trust him not to quit the field and leave you in the lurch, as he did to poor Cailan."

"My plan does not call for me to stand with either flanking army," Loghain said, loudly enough to shout Eamon down. "Indeed, there is only one place I need be, and that is at the head of the small contingent of infantry that draws the Orlesians into position."

"Why is that?" Alistair said. "It seems to me that you'd be more effective at the head of a cavalry division."

Loghain chuckled. "Not in the least. As Anora said, the Orlesians need to see weakness. I intend to show them that. When they see that Ferelden has only managed to field a small army led by a decrepit old man, they'll be practically falling over themselves to have at us."

Alistair's eyes, and Anora's, were not the only pairs of eyes to turn incredulously upon the immense and stalwart figure of the champion. He drew himself up to his full height, taller than anyone else in the room, and inquired irritably as to exactly what everyone was looking at.

"Decrepit old man?" Alistair said. "Perhaps you haven't taken a good long look in the mirror lately, Loghain, but except for a bit of snow on the mountaintop, you don't look particularly feeble. You look, in fact, very much as though you could fold me five ways and toss me across the Waking Sea to Kirkwall."

"Ah, but after half a week of hard trudging and short commons, I shall not be looking especially intimidating. I will go out of my way to ensure it, in fact. While I was in Orlais I learned something rather interesting - the Chevaliers are still very much afraid of me, more so than I had ever believed they were. I'm practically an Archdemon myself, to hear the ridiculous tales they tell, and I often amused myself when my duties for the Wardens were done by feinting at Chevaliers I met at training grounds - they practically wet themselves to avoid me. I believe that if we show them evidence that the once-mighty Loghain has grown old and tired they will lose all sense and caution and fling themselves pell-mell into melee against me, all so very eager to be the one to strike me down. They'll be ripe for a good old-fashioned lesson in why it is never wise to incite the ire of a true King of Ferelden."

"One good thing, at least," a young nobleman Loghain didn't recognize said. "Most likely the Chevaliers won't have any mages with them."

"We won't either, however, and we'll sorely miss their aid," Eamon said soberly.

"I think I can help you there," a new voice said from the doorway of the war room. They turned to look and many jaws dropped at sight of a tall woman in heavy armor emblazoned with the griffon of the Grey Wardens. She removed her helmet and shook down her long tail of blonde hair. She was not pretty but she was certainly striking, with fierce blue eyes peering out from heavy makeup like warpaint, and a dark black tattoo boldly across one cheek. "Ferelden's magical community owes me something of a debt of gratitude, and I believe I can persuade some of them at least to leave off fighting the templars long enough to come to the aid of their country."

"The Warden Commander!" someone exclaimed, and the cry was taken up by other voices. "The Warden! The Warden! The Hero of Ferelden!"

The woman strode forward, moving easily despite the weight of her encumbrances, and held out a hand to Loghain. He took it and shook it firmly. "I'd heard you were back in the country. Nice to see you in your proper element, Ser," she said. Then without relinquishing his hand she cocked her head to one side and looked at him curiously. "You are untainted."

"A story perhaps for another time," he said. "If it so happens that another time comes to pass."

She laughed, a disarmingly merry sound considering her ferocious mein. "That's what I like about you, Loghain. Always so willing to spin a good yarn, but always 'at another time.'"

"Warden," Anora greeted politely, stepping forward with a slight curtsey. "Good to see you are well."

"And you, Anora. It's been awhile, hasn't it? You haven't aged a day."

"Elilia," Alistair said in cautious greeting. He nodded but the Warden stepped up and hugged him tight round the middle.

"Don't be that way, Al - I explained to you all the many good reasons I had for doing what I did, and I'm under the impression you've come to understand them better of late. In all these years you'd think you could have learned to be friendly with me again." She stepped back and took a good look at him. "You've put on weight. Being King agrees with you, it seems. Or perhaps it's being Daddy."

"Not to sound ungrateful for your presence, Warden," Eamon interjected cautiously, "but why are you here? I know you are not exactly afraid to put your oar into national affairs, but if you are here to assist us now won't the Wardens object?"

"Don't give a damn if they do," Elilia Cousland scoffed. "I was a daughter of Ferelden long before I was ever a Grey Warden, and while I cannot commit the rest of Ferelden's Wardens to the cause of retaining our sovereignty I most certainly can and I most assuredly will throw my glove in the ring and fight. If Weisshaupt wants to censure me once all is said and done, let them."

"If you can truly sway a few mages to join us, Warden, we'd be in your debt," Loghain said seriously. "Again."

"I'll wager I can go one better," Elilia said. "Maybe two better. Give me a fast horse and I'll rally the werewolves of the Brecilian Forest and entreat Orzammar to send a contingent as well."

"Maker's breath, Eli, do you really think you could do all that? In time?" Alistair gasped.

"I can make one hell of an effort," Elilia said with a grin, "and I think you remember just how the world shakes when I put a bit of muscle into it."

Loghain snorted. "I know I do. Give her her horse, Alistair."

"Straight away," Alistair said with alacrity. "Can you leave at once?"

"Don't need to," she said with a laugh. "I'm only teasing."

"What?"

"Afraid so. You see, I've had King Bhelen on standby for months, after wrangling a commitment from him of ten golems and a company of fifty berserkers. And I brought the dozen mages I was able to round up along with me, and they're ready to march with the battalion. I am on my way now to the Lady of the Forest where she hides with those werewolves that still possess their minds, and while I can't promise they'll join forces with us I believe that they will. So you see the horse needn't be that fast, provided you can spare a messenger to send for Orzammar in my stead."

"Will you put the Warden in command of a cavalry division?" Eamon demanded of Loghain.

"It would be an admirable answer to the problem I have in coming up with a suitable candidate," Loghain said, with a note of inquiry in his tone and the elevation of his eyebrow as he looked at her.

"Not me, my friend, I'm sorry. I can ride but one thing I've never learnt to do is fight from the saddle. I would be far more effective unhorsed."

"Then perhaps you should head up an infantry division instead," he said heavily. "Damn it all, why are good horsemen so thin on the ground in this bloody country?"

"I can fight from horseback," Eamon said. "I will take a division, if no other is to hand."

Anora laughed, a brittle sound. "And what if you were to suffer an attack of gout at an inopportune moment, Eamon? Good Ser, you have grown very fat and old indeed in these last years."

"Then whom?" Eamon said, bridling.

"Me. I shall lead a cavalry," the Queen said matter-of-factly.

There was a loud outburst from the floor, and when it at last settled they found Loghain silent and contemplative. He looked at his daughter with some pain in his expression.

"I strove always to keep you from war," he said at last. "I taught you to fight and to defend yourself and then spent the rest of your life ensuring that you should never put to use what I taught you. So much that went badly during the Blight was directly as a result of my putting myself between you and the commission of your duty as Queen because while I knew you had the strength to face what was coming, I didn't want you to have to. I still don't want you to fight. But I shan't stand in your way this time, if you truly think you must go to war."

"Wait, you can't just let her be a soldier," Alistair said. "What about the kingdom? What about our children?"

"Chances are that even if things go badly for us at Sulcher's Pass, one of the three of us will survive to care for Duncan and Anora, and the country - if any of it remains to us," Anora said calmly. "Even if all three of us were to fall in battle I should not regret it provided our deaths ensure that Ferelden - and our children - are safe, far from the fighting. I will fight."

The Warden stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a loud wolf-whistle in approbation.

"Who will take the other cavalry?" Anora said, after a gracious nod at her ardent supporter.

"Alistair," Loghain said.

"Woah, wait - Loghain, I can't lead a horse charge. I don't know how to fight in saddle," Alistair said, telegraphing panic at his unofficially appointed general.

"My King, you have until we reach Sulcher's Pass to learn." He addressed the entire assemblage. "This is war, ladies and gentlemen, and while our enemy may not be the twisted hordes we faced during the Blight the danger to our homes and our way of life is just as real. The time for political debate has passed, and now we must all commit our full strength and will to the task of protecting our homeland from those who seek to wrest it away from us. It is time again for Ferelden to make a stand."