Chaos in the Kingdom
Aedan growled as he brought his blade down, a heavy blow that dissected the strange demon in two. Instead of blood spurting everywhere, trails of inky black ichor oozed out of its wounds. A sickening, keening sound seemed to vibrate from its flailing corpse instead of its mouth, a sound no normal beast could ever make. Aedan grimaced as the sound rang through him. Its etherealness was more unnerving than their form or their threat.
The Prince-Consort quickly glanced over his shoulder. The remainder of the demons were swiftly being put to axe and flame by his fellow wardens.
Oghren laughed in a deranged snarl as the dwarf decapitated one demon before pummelling the butt of his axe into another in one movement. The berserker was absolutely loving the chaos. He cackled like a madman.
In spite of the danger, and in spite of the lives at risk, there was a part of Aedan that was also enjoying the battle. He couldn't deny its existence, even as he felt a small pit of shame bubble up from within. There was too much at stake to get carried away in the moment.
He threw his gaze over his other shoulder, checking that the cowering civilians were still unharmed as they huddled behind a wagon. The wheel on the damn thing had broken, preventing any chance of a speedy escape.
Those lives were at risk here. Aedan knew he should have been wholly focussed on that, not the thrill of the fight. Yet it was all too reminiscent of his days during the Blight, fighting off a monstrous evil. It was a battle where he didn't have to worry about the faces of the enemies he'd slay haunting him at night. He didn't need to wonder if the demons he killed had wives and children waiting for them.
No, the demons were nothing but monsters, and Aedan was more than happy to put them down as such.
Unlike the two men, Velanna meanwhile made no sound as she worked, not verbally at the least. The elf's face was set into a concentrated scowl as she threw forth a whirling gust of fire, burning the alien husk of another fade dweller into blackening, crackling nothing.
The contrast between dwarf and elf was striking, the former was unbridled chaos and the latter was precise and surgical with her strikes.
In short order, the demons were cut down to nothing. The wardens left no stragglers to escape to fight again.
"Think that's all of them?" Velanna took a moment to straighten herself up and readjust her robes to sit on her shoulders properly once more. Even in the heat of battle, she could never quite forget her pride.
"Better not be, only just got started!" Oghren rumbled, hands tightly gripped around the shaft of his axe. In stark comparison to the elf, the dwarf gave about as much attention to his appearance as he did to great philosophical questions about the universe, which was not a lot judging by the bloody, dishevelled look he sported.
Aedan turned to eye the strange green tear that hovered over the misshapen field a little ways off. It had only been a week or so since the anomalies had first sprung into existence all around Ferelden, and Aedan was little closer to understanding what they were or where they came from. The only thing that was certain was that the tears spewed forth demons and monstrosities whenever they saw fit to. It was always an erratic pattern. Aedan, nor anyone else, could decipher a rhyme or reason behind it all. Nor could they find a way to shut the damn things before they unleashed yet more havoc.
An ethereal, somehow slurping noise broke into the air.
"Hah! Good, I'm not done with the nug-humpers yet!" Oghren's face split into a vicious grin as a pair of unnatural, spiked hands reached into existence and pushed the portal open wider. He was already running straight into the fight.
Aedan and Velanna rushed forward to join the dwarf as the hulking form of a pride demon pulled itself into the world.
Oghren's axe bit down into an alien thigh before it had even cleared the portal fully.
The demon snarled an unearthly growl before batting the dwarf aside with a casual backhand. Oghren went flying into a nearby building, hurtling through oak and stone, bringing the roof down in a grating crash.
"Oghren!" Aedan called.
"He'll be fine!" Velanna snapped, her staff flipping intricate patterns in her hands as magic and mana flew from her like arrows and into the demon. "Let's just bring this bastard down!"
Aedan gritted his teeth. He brought his shield up just in time to catch a blow meant to crush him. He responded by flinging the edge of his blade into the wrist of the offending hand, bringing a strangled cry into the air.
The awful creaking and snapping of wood and tile from behind them was drowned out by the furious bellowing of an enraged dwarf. He didn't see it, but Aedan knew Oghren had surely broken himself free of the rubble by the noise alone.
Reaching for a sudden burst of strength, the Warden-Commander shunted his shield up, forcing the demon and its hand to stagger backwards. Aedan rolled to the side. The space he vacated was almost instantly battered through by a raging Oghren.
The dwarf's axed buried itself deep into the demon's chest, biting like a bear's mighty jaws.
Howling in pain, the demon staggered back further. Aedan rushed forward to press the attack.
Velanna meanwhile hurled fire and lightning in equal measure, sapping the great demon of any strength the warriors could not contend with.
Oghren struggled for a moment to bring his axe free from being lodged in the demon's chest, even resorting to reaching in with his bare hands to claw the wound open wider. He was soon covered in a strange, black ichor that burned and fizzled from the dwarf's skin. When he'd finally rescued his weapon, he just kept on hacking. A mad laughter shook through the froth in his mouth.
From there, the kill was merely a formality. Oghren's persistent assault combined with Velanna's and Aedan's more surgical strikes soon brought the pride demon down. The dwarf didn't stop chopping until the body had faded away entirely.
"Finally." Aedan panted, taking a step back as the hulking corpse dissolved into nothingness before his eyes. "Everyone alright?"
"Better than alright!" Oghren cackled, still astride the demon's chest as it slowly collapsed beneath him. "Never felt so alive! Where's the rest of the damn nug-humpers?!"
Aedan could well believe that the berserker would happily have thrown himself straight into a fight with another ten pride demons if he could. The scary thing was that he wasn't entirely sure which side would win in such a fight.
Velanna rolled her eyes at the dwarf and turned Aedan's way. "Just fine." She huffed, brushing more dirt from her robes with a faint scowl.
Aedan nodded. He turned back to where the civilians were still hunkered behind their wagon. One of them, a leader of sorts it seemed, gingerly crept out from his hiding place.
"Is it- Is it over?"
"Yes, you're all safe." For now, Aedan added silently. He looked to the broken wagon. "How fast can you get it moving again?"
"Oh, err, shouldn't take us too long, milord." The man turned to inspect it himself. "Not if we all work together."
It took some time, more than Aedan would have liked, but eventually they managed to get the wagon into some kind of serviceable shape.
"There, that should hold," Aedan stepped back to admire their handiwork, "for now at least. Best to make tracks before more demons arrive though."
"A thousand thanks, my Lord." The lead farmer bowed his head low in gratitude. "We'll never forget this we will."
"Then stop tarrying and get going!" Velanna snapped waspishly, advancing on the group with a snarl. "I'll not have my time and efforts wasted by a bunch of drooling imbeciles!"
The poor civilians flinched at her words.
Aedan threw the elf a quick glare before turning a more sympathetic gaze to the farmers. "You really should get going, and quickly. There's no telling when the next attack might come."
"A- Aye, right you are, sir!"
Soon enough, the farmers had all mounted the wagons and were rolling on out of the village.
"Praise be to the wardens!" One of the farmers shouted out in gratitude as they were turning out of the village. "Maker, praise the wardens, and praise the Hero!"
"Praise the Queen." Aedan called back half-heartedly.
"Aye, her an' all!"
Then, the wagon was trundling down the road and had turned a corner out of sight.
"There must be something we can do to close them." Velanna sighed, frustrated.
Aedan turned to follow her gaze to the demon portal once more. It seemed still for the time being. The flickering green centre shimmered and danced about oddly, unnaturally, yet it seemed to be calm. If he had to put money on it, he'd wager that there wouldn't be any more demons coming through the tear for a while yet, though Aedan knew better than to trust on the reliability of anything to do with demons.
"We'll find a way." He then turned to his fellow wardens. "Come on, we'd better be moving on ourselves."
xxx
The road back to Denerim seemed longer than Aedan remembered, though he'd never travelled it with it so abundant with demons. It wasn't all that far a distance to travel, yet they encountered no less than seven other demonic portals on their way to Ferelden's capital. Each time it happened, they'd pull their horses to a stop and dismount with weapons in hand to deal with the threat.
As they were passing the Brecilian Forest, they came upon the rear of a refugee column. People from Lothering, Redcliffe and other settlements in the West of the country were there huddled together, all trying to make it to Denerim and safety.
Aedan and his wardens stuck with them the rest of the way for added protection, which only slowed them down further.
The delays irritated Velanna in particular, who griped to Aedan about the waste of their precious time in particular. Still, she didn't as much as snap at a little girl who nervously gave the elf a small bouquet of wild flowers as a thank you.
"What?" Velanna directed that acid at Aedan instead when she caught the Prince-Consort smirking at her. The elf held onto the flowers in a clenched fist.
"Nothing. Nothing." Aedan smiled innocently.
Eventually, they reached the familiar walls of Denerim, and wardens and farmers alike piled inside the city gates. People were waiting for them, anxious family and loved ones who swept the refugees into their arms.
Aedan and his wardens carried on through the mass of people, heading for the royal palace. Once there, they found the grounds to be a whirlwind of activity. Soldiers ran back and forth as efforts to adapt to the demon invasion were rushed into action.
Nathaniel and Sigrun were there too, helping to coordinate the defensive efforts. In some ways, it was a boon that Amaranthine hadn't been affected as severely as other regions had been, as it allowed Aedan to keep his wardens in one place for the time being while they coordinated their response to the demons. The risk was if the demons suddenly launched a major assault in another part of the country that the Wardens couldn't reach easily, then there would be little they could do but pray what defences they had in place could hold until they could reach it in time. It was a risk, but everything that had happened so far didn't seem to indicate a coherent plan at work, so Aedan had resolved on tackling the threat whenever and wherever it appeared.
The demon attacks did seem to be happening all across the country, but the fact that there were portals opening so close to Denerim's walls was striking, and certainly unnerving to the city's residents. There was a complete randomness to their appearance that couldn't be explained by conventional tactics.
Had Aedan been generous, he'd have thought that the demons were trying to strike at the capital first in order to cut the nations throat before moving onto the next target. Yet that didn't seem to be the case at all. The portals weren't opening in strategically important locations, and the demons that poured out of them didn't strike with any particular purpose. They just wandered upon travellers, farmers and anyone who strayed outside the city walls and cut them down. He just couldn't understand it. It was as though they were missing a crucial part of the puzzle.
Aedan was far from being an expert on demons or the Fade, but as far as he knew, demons preyed on mortals through their negative emotions. So why weren't they opening their rifts in the heart of the city, laying waste to entire residential districts filled with fearful civilians? Why wasn't Amaranthine, Highever or Gwaren under siege? Why were most of the portals seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, where few people and few emotions could be found? Aedan had no answers, but plenty of questions.
Upon seeing the other wardens, Velanna immediately headed up to Nathaniel. The pair shared a few private words, and the archer presumably made a sly remark about the flowers Velanna still held in her hand. The elf blushed, and tried to hide them behind her back while Nathaniel just smiled back at her with a tender fondness in his eyes.
"You know, as cute as that is, I never really understood it." Sigrun murmured at Aedan's side as she watched the two wardens from afar with a smirk. "He's human, he's a noble, he's pretty much everything she hates most in the world."
Aedan smiled. "Love is never simple."
"Speaking from experience?" Sigrun gave Aedan a nudge in his side with her elbow.
The Prince-Consort chuckled. "Well, I suppose I am married to the daughter of a man who tried to have me hunted down and murdered, so you tell me."
"That's nothing." Oghren huffed from Aedan's other side. "Remember Branka?"
"Hmm." Aedan murmured with a vague nod, belatedly remembering Oghren's first and disastrously ill-fated marriage. "Fair point."
"Still, she was a real firecracker that one." The berserker snickered to himself. "Ooh yeah." Then, Oghren sauntered off ahead of them.
Aedan and Sigrun watched him go in mutual silence.
"Do I want to-?" Sigrun began.
"No." Aedan shook his head. "Probably not."
xxx
Anora gazed out of the window of her study, overlooking the western side of Denerim and beyond. Even from her position, deep enough in the urban environment that most of her view was of rooftops and smoke from chimneys, she could just about see a sickly green shimmer a short way off beyond the city walls.
She'd been watching that shimmer for a while now, she'd watched it flash and flicker as new demons wandered on out of it. She'd watched as vague shapes approached the shimmer and moved against what she knew to be the demonic threat. She even thought that she could hear the clash of battle somehow. A sooty plume of smoke grew from the site, though just who and what caused it was a mystery to her. She just prayed to the Maker that the shapes she saw leaving the battlefield at the end of the skirmish were her own men, safe and unharmed after claiming victory. She wondered if Aedan was among them.
Yet whether it was human or demon that walked away the victor, that unsettling green shimmer flickered on, completely unperturbed and unmoved by the battle and bloodshed before it.
How could anyone, any nation or any alliance even, fight against such a foe? The demons just kept pouring through into the realm of men. If things carried on as they had been, then they would surely win eventually through sheer attrition alone.
Is this the end? Anora thought, forlorn. Is this how the Maker casts aside his unwanted children?
Anora jumped slightly as the door behind her opened. She spun around to see Aedan step over the threshold.
From outside the room, Ser Cauthrien shut the door behind him. Anora had asked her bodyguard to step outside earlier, not because she was up to anything nefarious, but simply because she didn't want anyone at all to see just how useless she truly was in this crisis. She had no plan to counter a demon invasion! She could not negotiate with the Fade!
"Aedan." Anora swallowed thickly, somehow resisting the urge to run into his arms. Maker, she hated feeling so helpless. "What's the situation?"
Aedan's grim look was all the report Anora needed. "We're holding them back from the city gates and the main roads as best we can, but there's just no predicting when and where they'll strike next. We're still getting these portals popping up across the countryside too, seemingly at random. We can't possibly cover the entire kingdom like this."
"I see." Anora nodded numbly. "Do you have a proposal?"
"I've already sent word across the Bannorn." Aedan murmured, already moveing to the desk that stood between them, pointing to the map of the realm laid out over it. "For the most part, the other cities haven't been hit as we have been here. It seems the bulk of these portals are in the countryside." – 'For now' went unsaid – "So we use that while we can. We move as many people as we can to the cities, to the castles. To anywhere with walls we can hold."
Anora managed a smile. She was never gladder for her husband than in that moment. While she was toothless in this fight, Aedan was at his most adept in a crisis, no matter the nature of the threat or its magnitude. It didn't matter if it was a struggle against demons, darkspawn or even against the Maker himself, Aedan always rose to the occasion.
Looking back down to the map, Anora furrowed her brow a little. "What about all the farms in the Bannorn? It'll be harvest time soon surely? The country won't have enough food stored to survive unless that food is harvested, yes?"
"We don't." Aedan agreed, gazing at the map for a long moment before looking back up at her. "We won't pull everyone in from the Bannorn. We simply can't afford to."
The Queen held her husband's gaze for a long moment. She nodded slowly. It was an almost horrifying decision, but what was worse, risking the lives of a few thousand people to be slaughtered by demons in the fields, or risk tens, or hundreds of thousands to slowly starve in the villages, towns and cities?
"We must be able to protect them somehow?" Anora asked almost angrily, though her anger was directed at the demons for forcing that choice upon her, not her husband.
"We already have troops positioned throughout the Bannorn, but they're too spread out to provide sufficient protection everywhere." Aedan explained, indicating the large heartland of Ferelden between Denerim in the East and Redcliffe in the West. "If we're attacked in force anywhere here, then we simply won't be able to hold for long."
"Couldn't we send more men from here?" Anora asked. In most matters she wouldn't even think to look to another for guidance, even her beloved husband, but she knew that she had only a modest grasp of military doctrine at best, and thus bowed to Aedan's greater wisdom in that field. "Denerim seems safe enough for now, surely? We have our walls, and it's not as though the demons are running riot in the streets."
"If we could somehow close the portals outside the city walls, I'd agree with you." Aedan grimaced. "There's only a few of them in the area nearby, but they just keep pouring out demons of all shapes and sizes, and we've no way of knowing what will come next, or when. Just earlier today, we fought and killed a pride demon. It was easily big enough to smash down the city gates, if given the chance."
Anora swallowed thickly, the uncomfortable pit in her stomach only growing.
"But we stopped it." Aedan gave her a small smile. "And we will keep stopping them, wherever they emerge, whatever it takes."
"Of course." Anora nodded numbly.
Aedan quirked his head at her a little, a gentle concern coloured his expression for the first time, tempering the steely determination of the Hero of Ferelden just a little. "Anora? What is it?"
"I …" Anora had no idea how to answer that.
She turned away from her husband to gaze back out the window, looking out over Denerim, her capital, her country, and the ominous black plumes of smoke dotted about the horizon.
"What is happening to our kingdom?" The Queen murmured quietly, shaking her head as much in disbelief as in despair.
"We'll put a stop to it, Anora." Aedan swore, moving round the desk to his wife's side. "I swear it."
Anora didn't tear her gaze away from the window. "My court looks to me for answers, and I have nothing to give them."
Aedan followed her gaze for a moment before responding. "You'll do what you always do. You'll rule with a firm, steady hand and lead our country through this."
"How?" The Queen scoffed. "How am I supposed to lead us through this?" She gestured to the scene beyond the glass, the smattering of sickly green portals to hell that taunted them. "Aedan, I'm a diplomat, a diplomat and a bureaucrat. I- I have nothing to offer when it comes to magical portals unleashing demons upon us!"
"You have me." Aedan grabbed Anora by the shoulders, firmly but not ungentle. "Anora, I swear to you, we will get through this."
Anora swallowed thickly as she gazed up into the resolve of her husband's eyes. He really did believe it. In that moment, it was so easy to see the figure of legend who slew an Archdemon and saved Ferelden – saved all of Thedas – from certain calamity.
"I believe you." The Queen murmured. "I'm … not quite sure how, but I do."
"Good, because I'm telling you the truth." Aedan smiled. That smile, more than anything, brought Anora some peace. That smile told Anora that everything really would be ok. "We defeated the darkspawn, we defeated the Archdemon, and we will defeat these demons too. Have faith."
Anora breathed what might have charitably been called a chuckle. "I'm not so sure about the Maker anymore, but I have faith in you." She leaned up to press a desperate kiss to his lips, almost as if it would be their last.
Aedan smiled at her when they parted. Then his gaze fell a little. "Anora, I need to leave the capital."
The Queen blinked. "What?"
"This all started in the West." Aedan murmured. "We saw it with our own eyes. I don't know what's going on, what's causing all this, but if there's a chance that answers can be found where it all began, then I need to go there."
"I see." Anora nodded numbly.
"It won't be for long." Aedan promised. "I'll take my wardens, I'll be faster with them, and I'll be back as soon as I-"
"Go." Anora murmured her command. "Whatever you need to do, do it. Our kingdom needs you more right now."
He nodded, a steely resolve filling his eyes, and then he turned and headed for the door.
"Aedan, wait." Anora called out suddenly, stopping the Prince-Consort in his tracks.
Anora was already striding quickly around her desk as Aedan turned back to face her. Before he could so much as open his lips to respond, Anora had reached him, grabbed him by the face and was kissing him deeply once more. Even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't keep the desperation out of the contact.
"Don't do anything stupid." The Queen commanded with fire in her eyes once they parted. "I'm not raising our daughter alone."
"You won't have to, I promise." Aedan took her hand and pressed a long kiss to her knuckle. Then, he left his wife's side with a final smile in parting.
xxx
Aedan found his wardens in one of the larger halls of the palace. The space was being used to coordinate relief efforts across the country. Servants and adjutants ran about in a frantic chaos with orders of troop movements and messages of demon attacks in equal measure.
The other Grey Wardens were spread about the hall. Sigrun and Velanna appeared to be learning what they could of the latest demon attacks. Nathaniel was using his own experience to offer advice and strong words to steel hearts for the battles ahead. In Oghren's case, he was simply regaling a gaggle of soldiers about one of his more fanciful battles that surely never took place in the realms of Thedas. The men surrounding the dwarf seemed to be hooked on his words however, so Aedan didn't even think to intercede with a stern word or a look at all. Morale always had its place in war after all.
Taking the time to appraise himself of whatever information he could get hold of, Aedan realised his assessment of the situation was about as bad as he'd feared.
He kept his face as neutral as he could however. Even there, in a room filled with many of Ferelden's foremost military minds and strategists, it seemed that every eye sought out the Hero of Ferelden for guidance. Aedan would have laughed if the situation wasn't so unfunny. How was he to know what to do against a demonic invasion? He was a Grey Warden, not a magister!
Aedan gave out what orders made the most sense to him – those that he felt confident enough giving against such an otherworldly foe at any rate – before gathering his wardens together to move out.
His plan, for the moment at any rate, was a simple one, borrowing the broad principles from his time fighting the Blight: While, the army would hold the line and defend the populace, Aedan and his wardens would be something of a spear point against the demon hordes. Wherever there was a sudden influx of demons, or a particularly powerful specimen that threatened the land, Aedan aimed to be there.
So the Grey Wardens of Ferelden prepared themselves to head out and be that spear.
After they gathered their gear and provision for a long journey, they went to go saddle up and head out from the capital. As they were alone in the stables, preparing horses and pony alike, Aedan suddenly felt something.
Something dark, something wrong.
It permeated his very being somehow, like a sinister whisper against his mind, or a sharp grating against his soul. The awful sensation seemed to pass after a moment, but then Aedan realised that it was there still, only less pronounced, hanging in the back of his very consciousness like a phantom in the night.
"Did you …?" Aedan began, turning to Nathaniel in the next stall over. He never finished his question, for he saw a dark look on the archer's face. It was a look Aedan had only ever seen in his nightmares.
Aedan had the answer to his unfinished question before his second even spoke.
"Do you feel it?" Nathaniel murmured.
Aedan nodded with an equally troubled expression on his face. "I do."
He turned round to look at all of his wardens. Each of them wore the same troubled looks.
"That's … not right, is it?" Oghren murmured with a shake of his beard. "Can't be."
"That's not what I think it is, is it?" Sigrun ventured uneasily.
"The Calling." Velanna muttered, scowling slightly at the implications.
"Can't be." Oghren grumbled once more, but didn't sound convinced of it. "It's too damn soon." He threw the saddle in his hands to the ground in frustration, startling a couple of the horses into whinnying and pulling against their reins a little.
"And all of us at once?" Nathaniel raised an eyebrow as he stared off in the distance, his mind relaying back and forth over the dilemma. "When we've all had our Joining's so far apart from each other?"
That was the strangest thing. Aedan had joined the order a couple of years or so before Nathaniel and the others had chance to, and he'd become a warden during a Blight of all times. If anyone had to suffer the early onset of the Calling, then it should be Aedan and Aedan alone, not any of his fellow wardens. Even among his subordinates, they had each imbibed the darkspawn curse weeks and months apart from each other. That some of them might suffer the inevitable Calling at the same time was not entirely out of the realms of possibility, but all five of them, in the same moment no less?
"This isn't right." Aedan shook his head. "This isn't the Calling."
"Then what is it?" Sigrun asked.
Aedan shook his head again, more ruefully. No possible alternative readily offered itself to mind.
"How can you be sure?" Velanna asked with an arched eyebrow. She looked to the others. "How can any of us be sure? Wardens never know what the Calling truly is until they experience it themselves, do they? How can we?"
"We're experiencing the same thing all at once, Velanna." Nathaniel gave voice to Aedan's thoughts. "The probability of us all falling to the Calling at the same time, in the exact same moment even, is slim to say the least."
The elf frowned but didn't refute the archer's words.
"Whatever … Whatever this is, it's gotta be magic, right?" Sigrun ventured slowly. "Could it have something to do with the demons?"
"Possibly." Aedan murmured with a sigh. "Probably. If it doesn't, it's one hell of a coincidence."
"But how could demons imitate the Calling?" Nathaniel asked, pointing his gaze at Velanna.
"What are you looking at me for?" The elf demanded with a scowl. "I've never even heard of such magic."
Oghren snickered. "Look at that, the elf doesn't know everything after all."
"Shut up, dwarf." Velanna snapped with a well-worn sigh.
"Well, let's look at it this way." Aedan murmured, gaze cast off in thought. "Either we have all just reached the first stage of the Calling at the exact same moment, when hordes of demons are pouring through tears in the veil all across Thedas for the first time in history, or we are being target by someone, or something, that wants us wardens out of the picture."
"So, what if … Even if what we're feeling has been set off by some bastard out there, what if it is the Calling we're feeling, huh?" Oghren grumbled. "How do we know some nug-humper hasn't found a way to set it off for all wardens all at the same time?"
The group was silent for a long moment at the thought.
"They could just be trying to frighten us." Nathaniel offered. "Panic us into thinking the Calling is happening to us all at the same time. Make us take rash decisions."
"You mean like if we all went to go die in the Deep Roads together?" Sigrun asked.
"Essentially." Nathaniel nodded.
"Well, at least we wouldn't go there lonely." Sigrun chuckled dryly.
"It would be a drastic measure on our part," Nathaniel continued, "but from what I know of it, no warden would willingly suffer the Calling's … worse side effects."
"How long's the Calling supposed to last again before … you know?" Oghren euphemistically indicated with a jerk of his head.
"A few months, at least." Velanna sighed. "I've read of cases that have lasted a full year or more though."
"That gives us a little time, if it is what we think it is, I mean." Sigrun offered the group with a smile.
"It isn't the Calling." Aedan assured them all. It can't be. "Whatever it is, we'll figure this out and put a stop to it."
Somehow …
"I sure hope you're right about that, Commander." Sigrun murmured, not at all sounding convinced.
"But our priority has to be the kingdom." Aedan urged. "We don't know what's happening to us right now, but we do know that Ferelden's in peril."
"And what if we all succumb to the Calling before we can save your precious Ferelden?" Velanna asked archly.
"Well, I suppose it won't matter all that much to us by that point." Nathaniel quipped without humour.
xxx
Anora walked through her corridors at a steady pace. She was almost completely at odds with the throngs of hurried footsteps and anxious patter of her courtiers and soldiers around her. Only the steady, ever faultless march of Ser Cauthrien at her back matched her calm facade. The very air of the whole palace was worrisome, yet Anora kept her gait steady. It was a simple thing, but in her mind to be in control was to appear in control. If she were to run around like a headless chicken like everyone else, then the whole country would soon learn just how well and truly she was out of her depth.
So she walked on. Her people rapidly came up to her with questions and pleas: 'How will we fight this?' 'What is our plan?' 'Has the Maker forsaken us?'
Anora put all her diplomatic acumen to play in dealing with each and every one. She had few answers to give to the actual questions, but she could at least assuage some of the worry behind those frantic eyes with calm tones and reassuring smiles.
'Put your faith in our troops', she'd say, 'we will strike back at the demons tenfold' and 'put your faith in the Maker and your countrymen'.
Once free of her subjects and their onslaught of fearful questions, Anora finally found the relative peace and solace of her private chambers. She let herself have the briefest of sighs, confident that only Ser Cauthrien at her back was there to witness it.
Then, the Queen steeled herself for one more show of strength.
Anora could stand before her vassals and pretend to be in control, she could even shake hands with the Empress of Orlais and smile sweet pleasantries. Yet pretending to be strong in front of her daughter however, that was a whole other matter entirely.
"Eleanor?" Anora whispered, entering her daughter's bedroom slowly. "Are you awake?"
Anora almost smiled when she saw Eleanor still very much awake. She didn't smile though for the Princess was up at the window, peering out across the city to where the portals to hell stood proud and menacing. It hurt deeply that her own child should see such horrible things, even as far off and indistinct as they were.
Eleanor turned to her mother with a smile. "I'm still awake."
"Come away from the window, dear." Anora murmured, moving over to the bed. "Come on now."
Eleanor gave one last glance out of the window before jogging over to hop into bed.
Anora began tucking her daughter in, finding a little comfort herself in that moment of normality. "Cute little Princesses need their sleep you know." She smiled.
"I'm not tired." Eleanor shook her head strongly, sitting up to prove it.
"It's getting late." Anora noted the darkening sky outside. "You can't stay up all night."
Eleanor pouted, and though she didn't protest any further, Anora could tell there was something else keeping the Princess from lying down to sleep.
"Eleanor?" Anora asked softly.
"Where's father?" Eleanor suddenly asked, gazing up into her mother's face with worry.
Anora almost sighed. She sat on the side of the bed and pulled Eleanor into a hug, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. "Your father's out protecting us, Eleanor."
"When will he come back?"
Anora glanced up towards the window again, out to where those ghastly portals were spewing their evil into the world. She knew that plenty more were infesting her kingdom at that very moment, hundreds, thousands perhaps, like a festering cancer that no one knew how to cure.
She forced a smile. "Soon." Was all the Queen could bring herself to murmur.