Chapter 88 – Brace for Impact
A/N: Thank you to everyone reviewing and favoriting. It's been a long time, but we're coming upon the end!
Faren's limbs felt heavy.
That was the first thing he recognized as he slowly came to. He was lucky, the fall could have broken something, and instead he simply felt... disoriented. Shaking dust out of his hair and beard, he tried standing and squinted into the expanse of tunnel around him. Leske and Adaldo were still out cold, the poor sods. It had been quite a fall, Faren thought, looking up. A good ten feet at least by the look of it.
The tunnel was covered in claw marks and primitive scraping, from terribly made or stolen swords. Darkspawn had made this, if he knew a nug from a hole in the Stone.
It appeared as if they'd been digging around under the capital for... awhile. Days? Weeks? The dwarf looked about him, as the tunnel hallowed out under Fort Drakon. Ogres had definitely helped with this, no way had a regular darkspawn been able to move these giant rocks around. Not at any sort of speed... Faren and his men wouldn't have even found this system of tunnels if they hadn't been reinforcing the defenses at Drakon in the first place.
What a brilliant plan, though, Faren thought. Come up through the prison, right in the middle of the city. Who would even know until those sodding monsters were running wild through Denerim, slaughtering everything in their path? Nobody. Not the Wardens, not the King and Queen, not nobody. They'd all just be bodies in the streets.
Faren shook his head. He couldn't let that happen. He didn't get out of Beraht's jail just to die down here. He looked around again, this time fully assessing the situation. Those beams could be a good start for a ramp up out of here, but he'd need help from the others to get them set up.
Down the tunnel he heard a shriek, then a roar. They were coming, the darkspawn. Leaning over, he shook Leske harder until he started to come to, and gave a quick kick to Adaldo's leg, who was already stirring.
"Up we go, sods, there it is, let's go, let's go, let's-" Another shriek, closer this time, and Faren grabbed Leske under the arms. "Now, now, now. Help me with this bit of wood here!" The dwarves were slow moving at first, but the screech of a Shriek had a very motivating effect on them.
They needed to get out, now. Leske could fight well enough but Adaldo was another story altogether. As sad with a weapon as he was short, the dwarf couldn't hit the broad side of a bronto even if you gave him the biggest great axe in Orzammar. Faren had no doubt whatever darkspawn were headed their way would be picking their teeth with his bones before long.
Hauling one of the huge beams over to the wall, he set to work.
Her stomach was definitely going to be a problem.
Groaning, Serena tied the laces on her leather armor, expertly let out by Leliana so she could somehow manage to actually fit in it in her current state. It didn't feel great, that was for sure, but at least it would afford her some modicum of protection.
"I'm getting reports from our scouts all around the city now," Fergus said, pacing the rug. He had been doing this for the last twenty minutes while Serena struggled into her armor, and it was beginning to make her feel a bit dizzy. "Hurlocks and genlocks and two orges. Those mages from the Tower have set up wards on the walls- they should hold but not against say, the Arch-"
"No signs of the Archdemon," Alistair said from the doorway. His face no longer held the reddish happy glow from their brief wedding reception. He, too, was dressed in full armor, his father's sword in its hilt at his hip. "Yet."
"But that scout said it was the bulk of the horde, right?" Serena tied the last knot on her pauldron and stood, her hands going over the various daggers she kept on her person. All there. Just in case.
"He wasn't mistaken, but it isn't what we saw in the Deep Roads, or even at Ostagar." Alistair flicked a glance over her way and frowned. "What's the occasion for such special attire, my love?"
"I won't be fighting-" Serena began.
"Damn straight you won't," Alistair replied, unusually sharp.
"But I will be out there, directing troops. I'll have my bow- you know I'm a good shot. And Kallian won't leave my side-"
"Nor will I," Fergus added.
Alistair sighed, his eyes rolling to the ceiling. "I see this is one battle I will not be winning."
"It isn't, unfortunately." Serena went to him and placed a quick kiss on his nose. "Like it or not, my dearest heart, we are figureheads now. Military ones, as well as royal. Imagine the terror people will feel, seeing their first darkspawn, and in their very own capital! In their home! We have become desensitized to it, but there are women, children... people who have never seen one of these monsters up close." She closed her eyes, the visions of the Archdemon were always fresh on the surface of her mind's eye. "How can we ask them to fight when we won't even show ourselves?"
"You are right, of course." Alistair sighed again, frowning slightly. "You are always right."
Fergus chuckled. "It's annoying, isn't it?"
"Very." There was a long moment, and then Alistair straightened his back and bid them to follow. "Let's go find you a good perch where you pick off these Fade-wrecked goblins."
The Alienage was a little better than a ghost town when Serena arrived with a few of her guardsmen, Peanut the mabari, Kallian, Fergus and Alim in tow.
Normally, the area bustled with activity- elves outside working on their houses, celebrating an event, plying their various wares, or simply enjoying the shade provided by the great Vhenadahl tree's branches. Now houses were boarded up or abandoned completely, with anyone not involved with the militia or city guards volunteer corps having fled to the docks or out of Denerim altogether.
"You know, Your Highness," Kallian said slowly, "the roof of my house isn't so bad." The blonde elf had stopped and was gazing up past the Vhenadahl tree to the roof where she and her father lived.
"See? It sort of slopes onto the next roof, which slopes to the next-" Kallian pointed. "You could have space to move around, get a good shot. Alim could be up there, too, doing magic whosiwhatsits, and then Fergus and Muttly and me could be right down here..." Beside her, Peanut woofed his agreement at the plan.
"Knocking them flat on their darkspawn asses!" Fergus said excitedly. "Great find, Kallian, this'll do. I don't know if those gates over there will hold for long, so we may have more-"
"Help! Please, help!" A woman came running from one of the seemingly abadoned houses, her eyes wide. "Darkspawn!" Behind her, a shriek came whipping out, screeching in its loud unholy way.
"To the ground!" Serena yelled at the woman, her bow already taut with an arrow. Swish, reload, swish and the shriek fell to the ground, only to be replaced by an enormous genlock lumbering out of the house now. Luckily they were slower, but it took a more well placed arrow to fell them.
"There must be a hole!" Fergus signaled to his men and two large Fereldens stepped forward. "Donaldson, Mikhael, we need to secure that and block any other entrances the darkspawn might be popping up out of-"
"Ser!"
Another screech sounded and the Alienage erupted into chaos as more shrieks and darkspawn began to trickle out of nearby houses. Serena's eyes went wide as she backed up to the Vhenadahl tree for cover, loosening arrow after arrow at the fiends while Peanut acted as a barrier between her and any darkspawn that broke through the line.
This wasn't even scouted to be a primary fighting area, Serena thought, and yet darkspawn were pouring into the open areas of the Alienage, fully armored and clawing and scraping with Fergus and his men as if this was planned.
Near her Alim was radiating green energy as blasts of light shot out of his hands and staff, circling the darkspawn. The ones struck seemed to slow, allowing her guardsmen the advantage. The elven woman they'd saved was between them, her eyes wide and terrified. Serena could only see flashes of blonde hair as Kallian moved like a tornado through the small horde.
"Don't get their blood on you!" Fergus yelled. "Back to back, men!"
Minutes seemed to pass like hours as they fought the oncoming waves of darkspawn, though it couldn't have been more then twenty or so, all told. By the end, they'd lost one of Fergus' men to a darkspawn spear, but nearly 50 bodies lay around them in reply.
"What... was... that?" Serena asked, breathing heavily. Alim was already touching her with a pale blue light, strengthening her with his magic.
"They dug under the Alienage!" the woman cried. "Up out of the houses from underground, thank Mithril my family had already left... they just tunneled right up out of the ground like corpses!"
"They could be doing this all over the city," Alim said slowly. "Digging under the wards the mages have placed... The Archdemon is truly cunning, isn't it?"
Kallian scoffed. "Well, it's like a God, ain't it? God Dragon thingy?"
"We have to tell the others," Serena said quickly. She pulled a bit of paper from her hip pack and scribbled a quick note to Alistair. "Peanut, boy, I need you to take this to Alistair! Please, hurry! He should be near... Fort Drakon." She pointed in the direction of the enormous tower that loomed not so far away to the west and her mabari shot off, woofing his delight.
"We need to burn these bodies, to stop the contamination," Serena said aloud to the others, indicating the darkspawn.
Alim nodded, his staff catching light at the end. "And plug up any holes, just in case that wasn't the end."
Kallian heaved a shriek corpse atop a smaller pile of dead genlocks. "If there's anything I've learned traveling with you lot, it ain't never the end."