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: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, Origins DL content, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.
Chapter Sixty-Five: I Am the God of Hellfire
The Sun-Eater breathes death.
Flemeth told the Dalish she would send the dragon to Loghain. Loghain determined that would happen far from the inhabited areas of Ferelden, and that meant the former Blightlands. He marshaled Maric's Shield, a company of Alistair's apostate army for support and healing, and the half-dozen Dalish archers that volunteered service and headed for the skeletal remains of Lothering.
The dragon's roars could be heard for miles, even the sound of its wing beats carried to their ears days before they ever saw the creature, nearing and receding as it terrorized the denizens of the great southern Wilds. Loghain received the impression that it was toying with its prey, not seriously hungry or even seriously hunting, just flying and roaring and burning things: a dragon's holiday drive in the country. A thick haze of smoke wafted out of the Wilds. Fortunately the wet marshland kept the blazes from spreading or all of Ferelden would burn. Loghain knew it still might. Would, if they didn't kill this thing soon.
They camped for three days, preparing, and on the fourth morning, as promised, the dragon roared a challenge.
So, you are the Little Hero that has come to kill me? Many have tried and failed in aeons past. What makes you think you shall fare better than they?
Loghain heard this in his head, and he knew the voice very well indeed. It was his own.
"Maybe because I'm not a Hero, just the stiff who gets the job done," he muttered. Elilia's ears perked.
"Pardon?" she asked.
"Sorry. Nothing," he lied.
Stay, I will come to you, the dragon spoke in his voice in his head. I shall not keep you waiting for your death, Little Hero.
Good, because I should very much like to have this over with, Loghain thought for himself this time. He did not intend this day to end with his death, but if the dragon brought it to him then so be it. As long as the job was done one way or another, his life didn't matter much.
As long as the job was done, and Elilia came through all right. If anything happened to her, he didn't want to live. He wouldn't have let her come, but who was he to stop her? Only her husband, and if he started acting like that meant he had control of her he would lose her in a heartbeat.
"Get ready," he called out in his louder-than-the-Maker voice to the entire company. "It's coming."
"How do you know?" Elilia asked, even as she immediately began to slather her skin with the many different types of balms and salves the herbalists had crafted for them. Loghain was taking no chances: whether this thing breathed fire, ice, spirit magic, or all of the above, his people would be protected.
"It told me so," he admitted, but in a voice meant for her ears only.
"I…see," she said, though it was clear she didn't.
"I know it sounds crazy, but it spoke to me, in my head. You told me that the High Dragon somehow convinced the Haven cultists that it was Andraste, or at least to protect its nest so that they convinced themselves. Maybe that's how they do it. They get into your mind, like blood mages."
"That…doesn't sound good."
"I agree. Perhaps the mages can do something to help with that? Don't want the army mentally dominated."
"I'll see what can be arranged."
Loghain made sure everyone was in position. All too soon, and from an impossible distance, the dragon appeared on the far horizon. It was like watching sails closing in from far across the sea, but soon enough it was evident that this creature could probably carry away the Fighting Ferelden in its talons if it wanted to. When it was still roughly ten miles away it roared again, and the sound was deafening. Before the ringing in their ears stopped, it was upon them.
It could have killed the entire corpse with one swing of its tail, or breathed fire down on the lot of them. Instead, it landed in front of them, sent a few vanguard soldiers flying with a casual swat of a front leg, and spit liquid fire on several more. These poor souls burned very quickly inside their armor, even with the balms they'd applied to their skin, and in a matter of seconds were no more than a pile of charred bones and ash. Loghain realized that for all the witch's humor about running out of Chasind, the creature did not particularly look to eat humans; it sought to terrify them, dominate them, rule them.
That's right, Little Hero. You poor creatures need ruling. I will show you the one true god: soon, you will all bow to me. And you, Little Hero, shall be the first.
"Loose!" Loghain shouted, and the archers of Maric's Shield bombarded the creature with explosive arrows. The dragon threw its head back on its long neck and made a sound that was much like derisive laughter. Powerful blasts that had taken chunks from solid stone left not a mark upon the dragon's brilliant golden scales.
Nothing daunted, Loghain signaled for the ballistae. There were three of them, all patterned after Varric's spring-loaded crossbow Bianca, all with as much power as he'd been able to force Dworkin Glavonak to coax out of them. He had three dozen powerful explosive bolts tipped with Archdemon-bone for penetration. Much of his hopes were pinned on these weapons.
They did absolutely nothing.
Well, no, not absolutely nothing. When the blastwaves cleared he saw that the shattered remnants of the bolts were indeed stuck in the creature's scaly hide. Archdemon-bone had the ability to penetrate the dragon's armor, it seemed, but either the bolts weren't powerful enough or the heads weren't sharp enough. They sank in to roughly the depth of a pinky finger and no deeper, leaving the explosive charges outside the dragon where they did no damage at all.
Should've made Dworkin figure out how to bind the explosive to the heads, like he did with the steel, Loghain thought, but this was no time for second-guessing himself.
Hurting me was ill-advised, Little Hero. Kneel in supplication, or I shall slaughter your army, ravage your homeland, and leave you alive to watch it all.
Wasn't that the plan all along? Loghain thought back.
Other than the "Leave you alive" bit: yes, essentially.
Not privy to this telepathic conversation, Elilia nudged Loghain. "Do you see that? We can cut this thing," she said. She drew the magnificent blue greatsword they'd finally prized from Master Wade's hands and, before Loghain could stop her, launched herself at the dragon's legs with a righteous battle cry. The dragon sensed his alarm instantly.
The female is special to you? How convenient.
The dragon reached out and grabbed Elilia around the middle, quick as a flash. How shall it be, then? Shall I crush her? Bite her in two? Burn her? The choice is yours.
"No!" Loghain said, and his panicked shout echoed weirdly off the solid bulk of the towering dragon. "Don't hurt her, please! Eat me, I'm begging you. I…I'll kneel. All I ask is that you eat me and not her."
And he dropped his shield and bent his knee. The resultant posture was more a crouch, but the dragon was perhaps at a bad angle to notice that, so high above.
Loghain's voice laughed at him in his own mind. Submitting so easily? Wise, but so very weak. Very well then, since you have learnt your proper place, I shall grant you your wish.
The beast tossed Elilia into a line of soldiers, who toppled like dominos beneath the impact of her. Open-mouthed, the dragon's head dropped down. As commanded, the Dalish archers loosed their Archdemon-headed arrows directly into its mouth. The sudden sting of half a dozen well-placed arrows in the throat made the creature rear back, but did not stop it. With a growl of irritation, the dragon swooped down and closed its great jaws on the place where Loghain crouched, tensed and waiting. And as that gigantic mouth engulfed him, Loghain did the hardest thing that any man in massive plate could ever do.
He jumped.
He jumped up, straight into the dragon's mouth. The fence-post teeth clamped briefly on one Archdemon-bone boot and he felt the armor crumple but the bone was harder than the dragon was expecting and its reflexive release allowed him to pull his foot inside to relative safety. Very relative. He pitched forward as the dragon raised its head to swallow him down, as it did not much care if he was alive or dead when it started to digest him. He heard Elilia scream and was glad at least to know that she was still alive.
Tell me, Dragon - are you armored on the inside as well as you are on the outside? Loghain thought as he slid inexorably toward the dragon's gullet.
What are you thinking, Little Snack?
I'm thinking you're not as big as you think.
As he dropped into the dragon's throat he drew his sword. A few feet down the hard armor plating on the palette gave way to red flesh and the Archdemon blade sank into it with the ease of a knife cutting a steak. The dragon roared in pain, and Loghain's head rang with it long after the sound died away. The pain in his ears was such that he thought something in them may have exploded. He ignored the agony in his head and worked his sword blade back and forth, trying to cut something important, hoping against hope that there was a vital blood vessel within reach.
When he found it, he knew it. Blood poured from the wound he'd made right up until he struck the artery, and then it gushed in a blazing-hot torrent that knocked him back and plastered him to the back of the creature's throat. Gallons of fire drenched him, he drowned in it. There was no keeping it out of his nose and mouth, no way to keep from swallowing it, from breathing it. His lungs filled up with it, his stomach churned on it. It was not a pleasant sort of death by any means. He almost would rather have been chomped. Still stuck like a bone in the dragon's throat, he fell into a black pit in his mind, and the oblivion he found there came as a mercy.
On the outside, the soldiers watched as the dragon underwent a series of wild convulsions. The corps retreated, out of the way of the creature's trampling feet. Bann Cauthrien found Elilia, injured with a wrenched hip, and pulled her to safety.
"What's happening? What's wrong with it?" she asked.
"I think…I think it ate something that disagreed with it," Elilia answered, beginning with a grimace against the pain in her hip but ending with a grim smile for her man.
"We've got to move, we've got to pull back - further! Further!" Cauthrien screamed the order. The dragon no longer had any attention to spare them. It tried to roar again, but all that emerged was a glut of dark red blood. Where it struck snow, the snow melted immediately, with a sizzling sound. The dragon thrashed for some time but at last, with a hoarse rattle, fell to the ground with an almighty crash that shook the world like an earthquake.
Still it was not dead. It lay, gasping for breath, and Elilia limped up to its long throat and swung her sword at it with all the strength she could muster.
"Give him back!" she shouted, and wailed away at the beast. Her blade slowly bit into the stronger-than-steel scales and eventually, like a timberjack working a mighty tree, she cut well into it. Once she had a hole started it was easier to work. When she'd managed to burrow a hole in the dragon large enough for her shoulders, she crawled inside even as the dragon's final breaths whistled in and out of the hole past her.
"She's out of her mind," Cauthrien muttered to herself, but she caught and held her breath, waiting. After a minute, Elilia's blue boots backed back out of the hole, followed by her legs, her hips, her torso. When her head and arms at last emerged she spoke irritably to Cauthrien.
"Lend me a hand, dammit."
Spurred to action, Cauthrien knelt and helped her drag the bloodsoaked body of her husband out of the dragon's throat. His enormous pauldrons stuck him fast in the hole and Elilia and Cauthrien had to enlarge it, Cauthrien using the longsword Elilia retrieved from inside. Finally they got him out into the open air, but it was clear that he was not breathing.
"Healer! I need a healer here!" Elilia screamed. With feverish intensity, she tore at the straps that held his armor on and peeled him out of it. She then pounded on his chest, hoping to shock him awake. A mage came running up, staff in hand, but did not act immediately. "What in the blue bloody fuck are you waiting for?" she screamed at him.
"Does he have a heartbeat?" the mage asked.
"What?" Elilia screamed.
"If he doesn't have a heartbeat, you're doing the right thing," the mage said. "If he does have a heartbeat, move out of the way."
Elilia stopped beating her husband and placed her hand flat on his chest. "There's a beat," she said. She scrambled back out of the way and let the mage move in. He made a complicated gesture with his hands over the supine body and cast a spell that forced the blood in Loghain's lungs out through his mouth and nose. The sudden void shocked his respiratory system into response, and he breathed again, raggedly. His eyes fluttered open.
"Damn you, don't you ever get eaten by a dragon again, do you hear me?" Elilia scolded as she used her handkerchief to mop some of the gore off his face. Loghain struggled to sit up and she helped him climb shakily to his feet. Then she placed both hands on his cheeks and kissed him, to the loud cheers of the surviving soldiers.
In his muddled, confused mind, Loghain knew there was some reason why she ought not to do that. He could not for the life of him figure out what it was until…
Oh yeah…that…
His blood-abused stomach rebelled, turned over, and disgorged itself. He vomited directly into Elilia's mouth.
A/N: To say that I had doubts about this would be an understatement. I realize this is a wild hair, but the aftermath is something I've really been looking forward to dealing with. The dragon itself was never the goal.