As they head toward the Tower of Ishal, the camp has now been nearly entirely emptied. The air whistles in Talvinder's ears, too quiet and too loud all at once, and her hand flies to the small bag of her grandmother's jewelry, tied under her armor. As silly as it is, its presence comforts her, just enough. Part of her—a not insignificant part—wishes that there was no need to carry everything she cannot bear to lose with her at all times. It reminds her of the reality of her situation, of the way her home, so far away, is nothing but ash and rubble. At least, she thinks, she hopes, this might be the last time. Tali knows, at least part of her does, that it's folly to believe in Cailan's enthusiasm just because he does, just because he smiles so widely and laughs so loudly. But she can't help but feel infected by his optimism. It puts a slight spring in her step as they head toward the causeway that will take them back over the valley, to the northern side of Ostagar. She will let herself have hope—she will see Fergus again soon, and life will continue.
That hope, however, is lessened by the view down into the valley, and the rush of vertigo that it brings. Pinpricks, tiny points of light, illuminate the orderly rows and rows of armored soldiers, a massive army that looks so small from where Tali stands above them, in the fresh dark of night. Head spinning just a bit, she clicks her tongue at Abarie, ushers the mabari away from the causeway's edge, and cleaves a bit closer to Savreen. The vertigo, though, only increases as she walks, following behind Alistair, and along with the spinning in her head comes an incessant whisper, a strange sort of singing. Alistair turns just in time to see Tali shaking her head, squeezing her eyes shut, and Sav blinking rapidly as though to shut out the same strange feeling.
"You can feel the Darkspawn now," he says, and the matter-of-factness takes Tali by surprise.
"Is that what this is?" she asks, glancing at Sav, who is, she can tell, at great pains to keep her reaction hidden. Apologetically, Alistair nods.
"You get used to it," he promises as he turns back around, "but it feels awful at first. Made me puke on Duncan's boots, actually. So if you need to, ah, relieve yourself, please do aim away from my feet." His chuckle at his own joke is nervous, as though it's strung tightly across the tension between his shoulders.
"Is it normal that we can feel them when they're…so far away?" Sav asks, and her voice is a little breathy, unstable. There's no response from Alistair, not right away at least. After a moment, when they've nearly reached the other side of the causeway, he answers.
"Not usually. But when there's this many of them it…can happen, I've heard. It's nothing to be—to be worried about. Well. Beyond that Duncan is probably right and this is a real Blight. But what I mean is, they're not too close yet. There's just. A lot of them. Which. Again, isn't very comforting, I suppose. I'll stop talking, then."
Savreen says nothing, but when Talvinder looks over to her, she sees tension in her jaw, a vein popping in her neck. Gently, Tali clears her throat, raising an eyebrow at the fraying edges of Sav's composure, usually so pristinely kept. But Sav doesn't look at her, instead keeping her eyes straight forward as they walk. The faint sound of mabari barks wafts over them on the updraft from the valley, accompanied by barely audible orders shouted across companies and regiments, but soon they're lost again in the growing sound of the Darkspawn blood, singing in Tali's head.
When they make it to the end of the causeway and step from the stone of the bridge back onto the shattered cobblestones of the road, Tali breathes a sigh of relief. The noise and the vertigo in her head are still a nuisance, but she feels worlds better now that she's on solid ground. The optimism she felt before comes back, easier to believe when she isn't looking down at the valley full of soldiers. Ahead of them, the Tower of Ishal looms, black stone contrasting the crumbling white and gray of much of the rest of the ruins.
"What is the Tower of Ishal, anyway? Is Ishal someone important?" Tali asks Alistair, but he just shrugs. Savreen, though, knows.
"It was named after the Archon who commissioned the bulk of the fortress of Ostagar. But the tower itself is reputed to be of Dwarven make." Tali frowns.
"But that's ridiculous. When did dwarves ever build on the surface?" This is no time for discussing architecture or provenance, but the questions at least drown out the whispering song gnawing at the edge of Tali's mind. From the way Sav answers, her words clipped and a little stilted, she thinks her cousin feels the same.
"That's just what the historians say. If you have a problem with that, take it up with that Brother Genitivi."
"Not him," Tali groans. This is a diverting distraction, at least. Focusing on her complaints with Genitivi's scholarship all but forces anything else from Tali's mind. Surely it can't be that bad just to let her mind wander away from the Darkspawn. "His books were the worst ones Tutor Aldous made us read. So dry. So boring."
"This is why I remember history and you don't, Tali," Sav says, and she says it almost smugly. Surprised, Talvinder looks at her cousin, and when she finds her smirking, she leans over and shoves her shoulder against Savreen's. The force of the action throws Sav off balance, and Tali takes advantage of that to dart up the last remaining stairs, past the guards and up to the entrance of the tower. Behind her, Sav yells out—hey!—but Tali doesn't care, not as she passes Alistair, not as she opens the door, not even as one of Loghain's guards tosses her a disapproving glance. Smile still on her face, she walks through the stone arch of the doorway into the dark and cramped space of the tower. More guards mill about, a little aimless, certainly bored, and it only buoys Tali's mood. To be bored before a battle must be a good sign, surely. All will be well, as the King believes. She turns back around, throwing a call over her shoulder, one hand petting Abarie's head, ready to joke about 'how many Grey Wardens does it take to light a fire,' still thinking about the exact delivery of the words as she opens her mouth.
The whispering song in her head rages into a roaring shriek, close and loud and terrible, and it makes Talvinder grip her head in pain, stumbling and stopping short. There is an explosion, a huge clamorous noise of rock ripping and splitting, and it is inside her and around her and Alistair and Savreen are yelling, Abarie and Sher are barking, and some of the guards are screaming. When it clears, the song is still loud, but the ringing fades, and Talvinder can see a huge hole in the middle of the tower floor, rubble and stone surrounding it, clouds of dust wafting on the air. She has an instant to gather that that was the source of the explosion, and that the living remainder of Loghain's guards are mostly turning to run, that the song is still blaring in her mind, that the air smells of ash and rotted meat, and that Alistair is telling her to draw your sword, now, before they begin to teem forth, out of the hole.
The Darkspawn.
They issue out from the depths of the hole and the tunnels beneath in a rippling mass of limbs, rotten flesh and rusted armor and sharp teeth and yawning maws. There are so many of them, Tali thinks, gripping her sword almost dumbly, staring at what seems a boneless pile of writhing bodies. Lost, so utterly off-guard, she turns to look, wide-eyed, at Alistair. His face mirrors her own for a second, shocked, drained of blood, and then he swallows, twirls his sword in his hand as though it will somehow help bring him comfort, and sets his jaw.
"Defeat the Darkspawn," he yells, the words fast and barely audible, "we need to secure the base of the tower, or there'll be no getting out after we light that beacon." It seems impossible, but it's spoken like an order, and that's enough to force Tali into action. Though many of Loghain's guards have already fled or fallen, there are still some who stand beside their group, ready to fight, and fight they do. Everything moves at a furious pace, and Talvinder feels almost that her limbs are going too fast for her brain, her body thinking before her mind as her sword swings—nearly with a will of its own—to cleave the arm clean off an approaching genlock. There is blood, mostly black and viscous, but some red and warm, almost everywhere. Wherever she looks she sees Darkspawn, Darkspawn, Darkspawn, and her mind goes empty and lets her limbs take over, lets her sword and her shield carry her forward through flesh and bone and bodies.
It goes on for ages, it seems. She's sweating, she can feel it collecting along the sides of her patka and around her temples; can taste it on her lips. Alistair and Savreen hold their own next to her, and together they cut down countless Darkspawn—hurlocks, genlocks, emissaries. For a moment, it seems as though beating back the waves of monsters is possible, that they might hold the base of the tower—reclaim it, even. As Tali slashes a hurlock across the face, cutting open its skull, and then bashes a genlock to the floor with her shield, where she steps on it, rips its throat out with the blade of her jangi mojeh, she thinks, perhaps, that they will repel the assault. She looks up, at Savreen, who has a pile of bodies at her feet, and at Sher and Abarie, who snarl and lash out at any Darkspawn they can reach, and then at Alistair, whose eye she catches. The same sort of reluctant hope is on his face, though his expression is obscured by the droplets of Darkspawn blood that cling to his skin.
But then, when most of the Darkspawn in the first wave have been defeated, there's a deafening roar from the hole. Alistair freezes, sword held out in front of him where it's sunk into a genlock's chest, and again his face blanches, as pale as it can go this time. Distracted by the sound, one of the remaining tower guards fumbles his sword and fails to block the blow of an approaching hurlock. His scream is short, cut off and turned to a gurgle by the teeth that rip into his neck. There are so few guards left now, and, frantically, Tali looks around, trying to take stock. There's her, and Savreen, and Alistair, and Abarie and Sher, and then one, two, three—
Before she can finish counting, the roar sounds again, closer and more furious this time. More Darkspawn begin to creep forward, out of the hole, and it becomes clear that another wave is about to arrive. With a swear, Alistair decapitates the last genlock within his reach before turning and screaming a single word.
"Run!" As a huge hand and a gigantic horned head clear the top of the hole, Tali complies, heart battering the inside of her armor. The ogre emerges from the tunnels, the muscles of its face sunken and desiccated, its mouth pulled into a rictus grin, lips taut against massive, wicked teeth. Tali looks away when it opens its jaw—she doesn't want to see its tongue—and hears the scream of an archer as they're grabbed and ripped apart. As the ogre pulls itself further out from the hole, Tali follows Alistair, trying to focus only on the back of his head and where she must put her feet. She lets out one frantic whistle for Abarie, who shoots past her and toward the door Alistair holds open. The urge to turn and look back, to make sure that Savreen and Sher are behind her, battles with the fear inside Tali's chest and, before too long, she loses. Turning her head just enough to see over her own shoulder, Talvinder finds her cousin and her dog there. The reassurance brought by their presence just at Tali's heels, though, is almost inconsequential when compared to everything else Tali sees.
She had thought the first wave of Darkspawn was huge. She had thought they were numberless, without count. The Darkspawn flooding forth behind them, though, are utterly endless, and the song of their blood magnifies to a roar, crescendoing in the base of Tali's skull, blocking almost everything else out. Sav races past her, to the stairs, and then Sher, and Tali follows, her pulse thudding in her ears as Alistair shuts and bolts the door behind them.
"It won't hold them, but it will buy us time." His voice is almost breathless, and yet all five of them run up, up, up, ignoring the protests of their lungs for air. "We need to get to the beacon, before we're cut off." Neither Tali nor Sav object. They have no breath for it. There is no time for it. Instead, they run. Up the stairs, from floor to floor, bolting whatever doors they can behind them, and then listening for the moment when the ogre smashes them open, wooden beams clattering ineffectually on the ancient stone steps. All thought of what they will do once they light the beacon vanishes from Tali's mind. There is nothing but the climb, the beacon at the end of it, and survival for this moment, right now. Up, up, up, up, up the stairs they go, truly breathless now, the climb dizzying. Occasionally, one of them turns, hacks at a single Darkspawn that's caught up to their heels, and sends it tumbling back down the spiraling stairs, but other than that they face only forward, look only at the stone beneath their feet. Terror reigns in Tali's mind, the singing of the tainted blood drowning out everything but her own gasping breaths and the pounding of her blood in her ears.
Halfway up the tower, they stumble out into a large, open room, and Alistair and Tali hurriedly slam the huge, stone doors shut behind them. Grateful for the reprieve, they pause, gulping for air as Savreen runs to a crank, lowers the monumental stone crossbeam in front of the door, and bars it behind them.
"Should buy us a few minutes," Alistair gasps, hands on his knees. Tali's chest heaves, but she wants to keep running, wants it almost more than anything else. She knows the doors won't hold forever, even if they are dwarven stone. The floor, after all, the Darkspawn had made short work of.
"How would the Darkspawn know to hit us here?" Savreen asks once she's caught her breath enough to speak. Strands of her curling black hair have escaped their braid, and the flush of the run is bright like dark wine in her cheeks. Looking up at her, Alistair pauses, shrugs, and swallows.
"Has to be a coincidence," he finally says, wiping his hand across his forehead. He draws himself upright, then grimaces and clutches the stitch in his side, panting a bit more before continuing. "There's no way they—" Another roar, distant but growing ever closer, sounds from the staircase, behind the sealed doors. All five of them—even the dogs—turn to look, falling completely silent. Nothing follows it immediately, and Alistair goes to a small arrowslit in the wall, peering through in an attempt to see down into the ruins, onto the causeway, maybe even the valley. "There's no way they're smart enough for that," he continues, voice slightly more hushed, as though by being quiet, they can somehow escape the Darkspawn barreling up the steps behind them. As Tali watches, though, Alistair seems to hear something. His ears twitch and his shoulders tense, and he presses his face as close to the thin hole in the wall as possible. "Unless…" his voice is a murmur, only just audible, but Tali catches it, steps closer, almost leaning over his shoulder.
"Do you see something?" She can't help but ask, her own voice barely above a whisper. Though the singing of the Darkspawn blood has been at the back of her mind this whole time, its volume varying, she wonders if, perhaps, the way it shifts now means they're coming closer, up the stairs. Maybe they're just at the other side of the doors.
"What? What is it?" Savreen is by Alistair's side in an instant, squinting as she tries to see through the arrowslit better, too. When Alistair turns, there's fear, real fear in his eyes, writ plain across his face.
"We need to move. Now." He turns, slides between Tali and Sav, and looks around for a moment, searching for the stairs that will lead them the rest of the way up the tower. Before they go to follow, Sav looks out, craning her neck to see towards the valley.
"What did you see?" she asks, still trying to discern the shapes of the armies out there, leagues below.
"Didn't see anything," he says, the edge of a grunt in his voice as he shoves his shoulder into the door, pushing it open. "Loghain's men need to be on that field now."
"Why? Is the signal fire lit? Did we miss it?" Sav's eyes widen as she asks the question, turning back to face Alistair, away from the arrowslit.
"No. It's not lit yet." He beckons, ushering Tali and Sav back to the staircase. They follow the motion of his hand, and so do Abarie and Sher, whose paws pad softly against the floor as they run.
"Then what?" Tali asks as they start climbing again, legs burning. "What is it? Why say 'unless?' What does that even—" Abruptly, Alistair answers. His voice has none of the carefree tone Tali has come to expect.
"The only thing that would explain them knowing the beacon is up here—the only thing that would change the song like that, like it just did. The Archdemon is coming. It has to be." Behind Tali, Sav stumbles. Tali almost stops in her tracks, stunned.
"You just—you just know that? How?"
"I don't know for sure it's just—just the only thing that would explain it. Now we need to move, before that ogre catches up to us and gets those doors open." As he speaks, a thud behind them punctuates his words, and they all redouble their pace. A few floors later, Tali hears the sound of stone shattering, the doors falling open behind them, and despite the fact that she has no more breath in her lungs, nor any strength left in her legs, really, she pushes herself forward, faster. They still need to reach the top of the tower, still need to make it to the beacon before they're cut off. And that possibility is rapidly growing more likely. With the ogre's roars behind them once more, spurring them forward, the five of them climb the stairs as fast as they can, taking them two, three even four at a time.
Until, that is, they reach the top of the tower, almost spilling off the stairs and onto the flat stone floor. Tali looks around, panting, chest heaving and burning, and behind them, she can hear the ogre getting closer. There are no more stairs. There is nowhere left to run. Tali supposes she should be glad: they've reached the beacon after all, it's there across the small room, waiting for them to light it. But despite having reached their goal, she knows that nothing is over, not as the ogre roars and tramples up the stairs behind them, growing ever closer. The single beacon guard left at the top of the tower stands before the group, terrified, eyes glancing and jumping from the Wardens to their two snarling mabari and back to the stairwell. They gulp, and with shaking hands, pull their bow from their back.
"We have to fight." Alistair's face is grim, as sweaty as Tali's must be when he faces her. Savreen has already decided as much, and both her swords are in her hands before the ogre is even in sight.
"Distract it so I can get close," she orders, intense and focused as its shadow approaches in the stairwell. Alistair forces out a chuckle, strained and high-pitched and anxious.
"Right. Easy. No trouble. A quick job, really." Normally, Talvinder might roll her eyes at Alistair's babble, smile ruefully. But now there's no time for that, and this most assuredly is no place to laugh. As she finishes fitting her shield on her arm, gripping it tight, the ogre finally crests the top of the stairs, its massive horned head roaring into view once more, the putrid stench of its breath and its filth and its blighted body billowing forth.
"Now!" Sav yells, and even though they've still not caught their breath from before, all of them plunge back into the fray, and everything moves fast and slow all at once. Abarie and Sher lunge past Tali, muscles rippling as they move, faster than an arrow loosed from a bow—faster than the arrow the beacon guard lets fly. They slam into the ogre's legs and begin ripping at its flesh, trying to sever tendons, to slow its approach, leaping out of the way of trampling legs as their movements anger the ogre. Sav darts around its back, flitting and jumping and trying to stay just out of reach even as she tries to land blows in its thick, leathery skin. Tali and Alistair barrel forward, shields raised, swords aimed for the ogre's hands, their feet trying to keep them moving and out of the crushing grip of its massive fingers.
It's a dance, both delicate and dangerous, and one that Talvinder knows could easily be her last. They have to be quick, she knows: they have to defeat the ogre before the rest of the Darkspawn arrive and overwhelm them. She searches for openings in its guard as they harry it, noting the way it reacts to every arrow from the beacon guard's bow, every quick dart of Savreen's blades. It's slow, and that has to be her opening—its speed, or lack thereof. If she could just get within reach of its neck—the ogre charges, and she dodges, diving out of its way—she might be able to climb up, jump off one of the fallen pillars—it swipes, and as she dodges back, Alistair lands a blow on its arm—if she can get it over in that direction—and then it's in range, and she can clamber up onto the pillar, and she's sure she can make the jump.
She leaps forward, and the ogre grabs her leg as she swings closer, and so much happens all at once. She feels the shock of her sword cutting into flesh, and in the same moment, the ogre's huge hand closes around her leg. The ogre falls, blood spurting from the gaping wound in its neck, the wound Tali's made, but as it does so, it yanks Tali down with it. One moment her body is moving in one direction, and then her leg is moving in a different direction, and she's following it, winded and unable to breathe, and then there's a pop, and a crack, and someone screams. When Tali moves, turning and slipping off the ogre's chest and onto the floor, she's vaguely aware of the pain, lancing deeply through her calf and ricocheting around her knee, but it feels separate, removed from her. She's on the floor now, yes, that's on purpose, I did that, and she's surrounded by the pooling blood of the ogre, and her heartbeat feels off-rhythm in her chest, but the ogre is down, it's dead, and as she tries desperately to pull herself to her feet, fumbling with the sword she can't seem to let go of, she's aware that Sav is running toward the beacon, torch in hand.
"Sav," she croaks out, "Savreen—" but her cousin is too busy frantically coaxing the stacked pallets of logs and hay and tinder to a bright, roaring glow. Alistair, though, sees her, hears her, and there's concern in his wide eyes as he runs across the stone floor to her, shoving aside the detritus of their fight. She thinks she can hear the archer shout something, but it's unclear, lost in the sound of her own breath inside her skull, echoing.
"Talvinder, can you hear me?" He's so far away, so muffled by the—by—whatever it is that's clogging her ears, and she blinks, shaking her head, trying to dislodge it, trying to hear him better. "Woah, woah, don't move too quickly," and his hands are on her, his sword sheathed, and the heat of the fire and the beacon is suddenly searing now against the back of her neck, and they must all see it on the battlefield, and Sav is turning around, and Alistair is speaking.
"Let's look at that leg, all right?" Her lips are so cold and numb, everything is numb, and all she can see is Alistair's face, and then there's a roar and a crash and there are more Darkspawn, so, so many more. Sav yells, and Alistair turns, throwing up his shield, but he's too late, and an arrow flies past him, and Tali feels its quick bite under her shoulder, at the joint of her gambeson, the weak point of her mail shirt, and it hurts but it is still separate but nevertheless she is falling, falling, and Alistair is yelling and so is Sav and the beacon is so bright that everything dissolves into its licking, flickering flames.
She is vaguely aware of Sav and Alistair and their mabari continuing to fight, but the images blur together and apart, inconstant and confusing. Tali isn't sure if she dreams or hallucinates, or something else, something more, but she sees Alistair and Sav and the tower, and then she sees the battlefield, from some strange vantage point. She's running towards the king's men, toward the Wardens spread out across the front line, and there is a mindless rage in her body—it is not hers, but she feels it—rage that these living fools would try to quell the song of the Old Gods, the gift-curse of the Black City, only it is not something that is articulated in the mental shapes of words, but it is just something she feels and hears and knows all at once.
She runs, jerky and unsteady with clouded vision, not in control, but feeling the purpose as if it's her own. She can taste the Wardens' presence on the air, like her and yet not like her. Pain rips through her leg and she's in the tower again, another arrow in her calf, protruding as the bone of her leg protrudes. But it passes quickly, and she's on the battlefield once more, smashing a heavy, rusted mace about, turning soldiers' heads and faces to pulp. They are not her concern, though, or at any rate, they are less important than the blue clad figures whose blood sings to her, a faded version of herself. The small one, with dark hair, dark beard, roars, tries to attack, swings his sword. There is an opening, though, in his guard, and she barrels into him, sends him off balance. As Roderick lies dazed in the mud of the battle, she steps on his chest. She wants to scream at him, tell him to get away, but she does not. She raises the mace, and swings it down, and it is not her hands, not her doing the killing, but she feels it, as she's felt everything.
Alistair is yelling, calling for Savreen to watch her back, and the tower guard is screaming. Talvinder is looking out of a new set of eyes, knocking an arrow, aiming it at the first Warden archer, the taller one, with short, sandy blond hair. She lets it fly, knocks the second arrow, aims at the other archer, the one with black hair and vallaslin. The first arrow hits Oswin in his throat, and as he goes down, the second lands in Wenalen's eye, and he is gone. Somewhere, Dahna yells, wails, horrified and full of disbelief at the sight of their brother. While Sav lets out a roar of a battle cry, Huguette screams as Tali sees another Darkspawn's teeth rip into the flesh of her face, then another and another, swarming her, weighing her down, ripping her apart. From another pair of eyes, ears, she hears Marion's howl of anguish as she, too, watches them. Across the way, running toward their brother, outstripping Caomhin as he follows, Dahna notices what Marion doesn't, and Tali can see them shove Marion aside as the ogre, bigger even than the one in the tower, Tali manages to think, charges forward. Suddenly she is looking through the ogre's eyes, and Dahna is broken beneath her feet, blood and viscera everywhere as Caomhin screams out at the loss. She turns to Marion. Savreen has taken an arrow to her arm, and she is slowing, and Alistair is bloodied.
With Marion's intestines still wrapped in her fingers, she turns, the ogre turns, and roars. The glint of golden armor, golden hair, catches her eye. There are two more Wardens on the field, their blood singing still with a different voice than the dead, but the gold draws her, drags her toward Cailan. As Savreen stumbles, Cailan misses his strike, and the ogre grabs him, and it squeezes. Tali is trapped in this nightmare, horrified, and she can smell the blood and the meat and the fear as the ogre crushes Cailan in its fist. She feels the way his armor and then his skin and his ribs and finally his spine give way. She swims between the battlefield and the tower, desperate for solid purchase on something, but the next concrete thing is the feeling of blades piercing her—no, please, not her, it's not her, it's the ogre's body, scaling its height, and the old one, Duncan, is the last thing this pair of eyes sees. Beneath all the confusion, though, Tali can tell something is wrong, she can see he is not well. Alistair is still on his feet, but the waves and waves of Darkspawn are getting to be too many.
No longer the ogre, but a hurlock, running full tilt across the battlefield, toward Duncan, axe raised. She's slowed by Caomhin jumping in front of the blade, deflecting it, protecting Duncan, but his desperate and tear-filled brown eyes are turned dim and lifeless when another genlock flanks him, digs a dagger into his spine, and severs it. Alistair beats a few of the Darkspawn back, long enough to slam the stone doors shut, though they won't hold, and he stumbles back toward Tali. Everything is spinning, she is so unsure of what is real, where her surroundings truly are, what's happening, which body is hers. Blood drips from Alistair's face and hits her mouth. It tastes human. Once more, she sees through another set of eyes, sees Duncan's realization, sees him look to the lit beacon. She realizes with him: Loghain never came. Why did he not come? Duncan looks up, into the Darkspawn's eyes, into her eyes, the eyes she sees out of, and then he closes his own and whispers a prayer. She raises her blade. Swings it heavily down.
Alistair's hand is on her face, slapping her skin lightly.
"Don't fall asleep, Tali—Talvinder." His hand is at her leg, tying something tight—she can feel it. She can hear Savreen and Sher and Abarie, somewhere, but she is trying her best to keep herself in her own head, looking up at Alistair. "You hear me? Stay with me. You cannot die now, not before I tell you the joke I thought of." He grips her by the cheeks, his gauntlets digging slightly into her jaw, and shakes her. It's only then that she realizes her eyelids are sliding down, and she tries to hold them open, tries to move her hand, to touch Alistair, to anchor herself to him, here, in the tower. She doesn't want to be pulled back to the battlefield, doesn't want to see him from a separate pair of murderous eyes. She Can't bear the thought of it. Her fingers brush his face, and she can barely feel his skin beneath hers, her limbs numb and dry and cold like twigs, but he seems to feel her hand anyway, and brings his own up to hold hers.
There is a roar, earsplitting, and then the tower explodes around Tali. The roof seems to dissolve into flying stone, and Alistair throws himself forward, over Tali, sheltering her head. Dimly, she hears Savreen cry out in pain, and then she is aware of wind, of the sound of huge wings. Savreen—where is Savreen? She has to find her. Alistair shifts, says her name once more, holds her, but she cannot hold on any longer. She sees the Archdemon as her eyes close.