Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel Comics, Dragon Age, Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or any of their related characters. Character Warjen Zevonishki or "Zevon" is an homage to my favorite musician, long deceased, no disrespect intended, I included him because King dedicated the novel Doctor Sleep to his memory. 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 Doctor Sleep, Dragon Age Origins, Origins DLC, Awakening, and Dragon Age II, Dragon Age II DLC, Dragon Age Inquisition as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling. May also contain spoilers for Marvelmovies, series, and/or comics. Song lyrics included herein were used without permission.

Chapter Five: Challenge

Loghain had participated in a ghastly number of duels since his rise to nobility. Some few were from Fereldan nobles, angered at this jumped-up peasant being lifted above them, but many more were from far across the Empire of Asgard, many people with no real quarrel with him, simply the desire to prove themselves greater than the Legend of Loghain Mac Tir. That he still drew breath was a testament to the folly of these challengers. All of them were unsuccessful.

But never had he issued a challenge. There were many people he disliked, and some he actively hated, but Loghain generally practiced a live and let live attitude so long as people weren't actively engaging in acts of warfare against him, though he had a somewhat loose definition of acts of warfare. The sword he carried was a greatsword, something most warriors would wield with two hands. In his hand it appeared no more than a longsword, and he carried it opposite a great kite shield with the Gwaren heraldry of a rampant yellow wyvern. When not in his hand it was on his back in a harness. Even when he didn't have his shield, which was fairly often when he was at leisure, he always had his sword. He would sooner be caught without his trousers.

It was not a particularly fine sword. It was, in fact, plain iron. He kept it clean and sharp and free of rust, and replaced it when it grew too worn, but always with another sword of plain iron. A matter of economy? He could certainly afford a better sword. As a matter of fact, he had many better swords, all decorating the walls of Gwaren House in Denerim and the Keep in Gwaren. Many of them were noble greatswords and well-suited to his hand, but he left them hanging as decorations and stuck to peasant's iron. When asked why he did not switch to something better he would only grunt unintelligibly. He could not explain why, but one person felt they knew him well enough to ascertain the reason.

His third daughter. He did not have a third daughter, not really, but in point of fact he did. Cauthrien Landsman, once a bruised and battered young waif with a drunken father who had seen him beset by bandits as he rode the Imperial Highway to Denerim carrying the yearly tax dues, and come running to his defense, hollering a battle cry to curl your hair, waving a scythe that probably weighed more than she did. He never knew exactly what had possessed her to leap to his defense like that, but he was grateful for it. The distraction she provided made those bandits' slaughter quite simple. She was quite impressed with his fighting skill, and breathlessly exclaimed that he was "as good with a sword as the bleedin' 'ero of River Dane!" It was amusing, but her bruises were not. A ham-handed father who can't control his fists or his vices did no child any good. He took her into his service as his squire, and now she was the Commander of Maric's Shield, the High King's special forces. He was very proud of his protege.

Cauthrien understood the iron sword and the fancy wall hangings, or thought she did. All those swords hanging on the wall, they were trophies, taken from the dead hands of felled foes, in war and in duels. Rich men, highborn men, all felled by a peasant-born man with a peasant-grade blade. It was actually quite… poetic. At least she felt it was. It was doubtful that Loghain actually saw it quite that way. He probably saw it more as ironic.

As he strode to the Palace to issue his first challenge, Loghain wasn't thinking about poetry or irony, but rather on the injustices Vaughan had committed against the Alienage elves. He knew what kind of "abuse" those young women had suffered. They had been beaten, surely, and they had been raped, probably by Vaughan and his friends in turn. Possibly by Denerim guardsmen as well. He couldn't mete justice to men whose crimes he was not sure of, whose names he did not even know, but he could get justice of a sort on Vaughan himself. That would make a difference, and a big one. The others, he felt, would not be courageous enough to seek revenge. Arl Urien, too, could be brought to heel easily enough.

It was an ancient law, not simply in Ferelden but in all Asgard, that nobility could challenge each other to duels of honor, more or less for any reason whatsoever. These duels were to the death or the mercy of the winner, if one combatant yielded. It was generally not considered good form to kill a surrendered opponent, no matter what the grudge, but it was an acceptable outcome. If, on the other hand, a challenge was not accepted, the challenged noble was considered bereft of honor and lost all standing. Literally. Title, inheritance, family name, all gone. It was a rather brutal law, but Asgard was a rather brutal land. Given that he stood to lose his life, and was rather a coward, Loghain did not know if Vaughan would accept his challenge. But since he would lose everything he held dearest in life if he did not, he rather thought he would.

Of course, if he'd been knocked cold by a bottle just this very morning, who knows when he'd be in condition to accept his challenge? But he doubted that a young elven woman like Shianni, even empowered by rage and fear, could have the strength to incapacitate a Nord like Vaughan for long. He was probably already up, smarting, and plotting his revenge.

He would likely not be at the Palace, which is where challenges were generally issued and made legal. No, Loghain would make it there and someone, a footman or something like that (Loghain still hadn't acclimated to servants and the many distinctions between them, after all these many years of living with them scurrying around underfoot), would run off to the Arl of Denerim's estate to fetch him to the Landsmeet Chamber, where he would either fight or be stripped of all his noble trappings. Either way, he should soon cease to be a problem for Denerim's elven population.

Cailan and Freya were in the Throne Room when he entered, pushing the great double doors open so hard that they rebounded off the walls with a loud bang. They were hearing petitioners, but everyone broke off at his dramatic entrance.

"Your Majesties, I wish to issue a challenge!" he said. It was not a shout, he would have sent everyone bowling end over end if he shouted, but he said it very loudly regardless.

Freya merely arched one artfully sculpted eyebrow in curiosity. Cailan looked much more alarmed. "A challenge? You? Against whom?" he said.

"Lord Vaughan Urien Kendalls, of Denerim," he said.

"On what grounds?" Freya said. He had known she would ask. It was a matter of her curiosity. Strictly speaking, he didn't require grounds to issue a challenge, she simply knew that he would have them, and wanted to know what they were.

"Assault, rape, and murder of Ferelden citizens."

"Well, that cannot be allowed to stand. Fetch Lord Vaughan to the Landsmeet Chamber to meet these charges on the field of honor."

A liveried servant raced off to follow the Queen's command. Loghain stalked off to the Landsmeet Chamber, not waiting for Royal permission to depart Their Majesties presence.

It was a long wait, despite the fact that it was a short walk from the Arl of Denerim's estate to the Palace. Many nobles had time to hear of the challenge and gather in the Landsmeet Chamber to watch before the challenged showed up. Some of them even came in from out of town, as news of the challenge was broadcast on the holovision and many of them saw it, and some of them at least had time to fly in from their bannrics and arlings. Even Arl Gallager Ranulff Wulffe, of West Hills, far on the other side of the province, showed up, though he must have been in town already as even with a velocycle, an especially speedy single-occupant flying vessel, it would probably have taken too long to come so far. Wulffe wasn't as big as Loghain, but he was a very big man indeed, and notoriously unfond of confining spaces. Loghain could no more see him folding himself into a velocycle than he could see him dancing the Remigold in a tutu. The thought brought a wry smile to his lips.

Leonas Bryland was there, Arl of South Reach. He might have made it in from his holdings, though likely he, too, had been in town. He and Wulffe both were good men, rare among the nobility, and Loghain actually rather liked them, though it hurt to admit it even to himself. Of course, he and Bryland had something in common, as Bryland was the bastard offspring of a Nord-Elf relationship. You really couldn't tell it, when you looked at Loghain, but there was a faint delicacy of feature to Bryland that wasn't common to Nords. He wore it well, and his father had acknowledged him, and Maric had raised him to the Arling when most of the rest of his family was annihilated during the war. He had got off far luckier than most half-blood bastards. Not that the nobles would let him forget his standing with them. Once, at one of the yearly Landsmeets, Arl Rendon Howe had gotten angry at Bryland, who had been, up to that point, a friend and war comrade. Loghain didn't remember what the quarrel was about, but he remembered when the fool had snarled "Half Elf Bastard!" at Bryland. While that was nothing less than true, it was not something anyone needed to remind the man of, especially not in such a rude and demeaning manner. Loghain stepped in, and blandly told Howe that his own mother had been an elf, and that he honestly had no idea whether his parents had been properly married or not, but that his father had claimed him as his son, as Bryland's had, which was all the law required. Howe's anger had crumbled, he'd assumed his simpering, ingratiating smile – as phony as a pyrite sovereign – and he slunk away to some other corner of the chamber. Bryland had asked him if what he said was true.

"Do you think I would lie for you?" he'd said.

"If it suits your purpose, then, yes, perhaps."

Loghain shook his head. "I cannot imagine what purpose I have that telling a snake like Howe that I am half Elven, and possibly a bastard, could possibly serve. Indeed, I believe I have put myself on rather a slender limb."

He honestly didn't know why he'd told Howe that he was half Elven. Outrage, most likely, though it had been the cold sort. It served him no good purpose, as he'd told Bryland, but as it happened, to this date at least, it hadn't seemed to have done him any particular harm. Howe was still his ingratiating, simpering, phony self, with no more (and no less) contempt in his eyes than he had when he looked at anyone else, and no one else seemed to know or to be concerned by his blood status. Most Nord families were mixes of some sort, as Nord males were notoriously infertile, and the addition of a more fertile male (or a more fertile female) of any race improved chances of conception. Multiple births and large families were rare, for Nords. Loghain, with his Nord wife and his twins and his singleton, was a lucky man and no mistake. But there were levels of acceptability, and Bosmer and Dunmer were nowhere near as acceptable as any variety of Hume or even Altmer. The only thing that would be considered worse would be one of the beast people, like an Argonian or a Khajiit. They weren't often found in Ferelden, but sometimes they showed up, in merchant caravans or on the docks.

At long last, the servant returned, leading not Vaughan, but Arl Urien Kendalls. The man, who was rather portly for a Nord, with a pudgy face and pronounced jowls, was red-faced and florid, even by his usual standards. He was huffing and puffing, as if he had come at a run.

"Arl Urien, to what do we owe the honor?" Freya said from her place in the Royal Mezannine. She sounded both bored and put out. She clearly didn't want to hear what the man would say.

"Your Majesty, this is an outrage!" he said, and it was as if the words exploded from his lips. "What right does this man have to challenge my son to a duel of honor? He is no true nobleman!"

"Would you like to present evidence for that assertion to the Crown?" Freya said, tartly. Perhaps it wormed its way into Urien's mind at that point that she was the man in question's daughter, and the Queen, because he changed tactics slightly.

"Your Majesty… King Cailan… Good King Cailan… you cannot allow my son to face this man in combat! He is only a boy!"

"He is older by far than that man was when he entered combat for the first time," Cailan said. "Older even than he was when he had his first duel as a nobleman. The challenge was issued properly, with grounds even, Urien. Your son cannot back out and retain his honor."

"What grounds?" Urien said, rearing back.

"Serious grounds," Cailan said, affecting to look grim and upset. It didn't wear well on his affable face. "Charges that he has been severely abusing and even murdering Fereldan citizens that he should be protecting as their Lord."

Urien opened and closed his mouth a few times before sputtering, "Poppycock!"

"You knew, didn't you?" Loghain said, very quietly. "You knew all about it, and you let him go on his merry way, raping and killing his own people like an Orlesian Marquise. After all, it was just Elves. Not lives that matter."

"I… I… I… I will not stand here and listen to these preposterous accusations against my family and my honor!"

Loghain moved so swiftly that no eye could track him. Suddenly his sword was in his hand and pointed directly at Urien. "Are you challenging me, Urien?" he said, still in that deadly quiet voice. "Because you know I'll accept."

"It did rather sound like a challenge," Cailan said. He sounded a bit eager. Cailan wasn't much on bloodshed, but he did like a good show, especially involving such fanciful concepts as offended honor and acts of chivalry. It was unlikely that the reality of the situation, that one of the men, likely Arl Urien, would potentially die, truly occurred to him.

Urien's eyes fairly popped out of his head. "N-no, of course not! I would n-never."

Loghain sheathed his sword. "Of course you wouldn't."

"Regardless of what you would or would not do, Arl Urien, your son has been challenged, and must rise to meet that challenge, or his honor, and all that entails, is forfeit," Freya said. "Someone bring him forth. At once."

He turned out to have been in the vestibule, apparently hoping that his father would talk him out of this. He was a young man, surely, but only about a thousand years younger than Loghain, if that. Old enough to go to war, if it were called for. Loghain certainly hadn't been, even as a peasant, but he hadn't had much choice. Dressed foppishly in gem-studded silk and velvet, Loghain's lip curled involuntarily at the sight of him turned out so. Freyr in a ballgown probably looked quite respectable – that boy had taste. Vaughan in his emeralds and rubies looked like a tawdry man whore.

"Your Majesties, I must protest!" Vaughan attempted, but he was silenced with a gesture.

"Lord Vaughan Kendalls, whether the charges against you be false or true, you have been challenged to a duel of honor this very day, by the ancient rites of Asgard, and you must respond," Cailan said, not hiding his excitement at the chance to preside over this, his first duel as High King. "If you refuse, you are bereft of honor, title, family name, and inheritance, and cast forth upon Mundus as a peasant. If you yield in battle and are shown mercy, you retain your rights as a noble, but are forever bound in service to the man who defeated you. If you fall, you are afforded a full noble funeral with all the trappings of your current standing."

Vaughan had the look of a doe caught in the headlamps of a fast-moving, ground-rolling skiff. Loghain actually felt a bit sorry for the lad, who had clearly never realized that there could actually be any such thing as consequences for his actions. Pity he had learned too late. But then, the real pity was the lives he had ruined with his actions.

"Your response, Lord Vaughan?" Freya prompted, when long moments passed without a sound from the young Lord.

There was truly only one for him to make. The life of a peasant was no life for a pampered brat like Vaughan, and Loghain had shown mercy to surrendered duelists many times in the past. Being in his service wasn't a welcome idea, but it was better than death. He would fight, and make the best show of it he could, and stay alive long enough to surrender when he appeared properly subdued.

"I… accept," he said, in a thin, quavery voice. Oh, how he hoped he was able to stay alive long enough to surrender!

An outburst of noise from the gallery, as nobles shared their opinions on the situation. Some few of them believed that the charges were nonsense, but many of them knew better. Vaughan had a widespread reputation for cruel, callous, and even lewd behavior toward women, of all races. And Loghain had an equally widespread reputation for being equitable to all peoples of all stripes. This challenge was quite understandable to the more reasonable nobles gathered. The ones who felt it was nonsense were generally unfond of Loghain in particular, feeling that he was not a true nobleman and thus unworthy of challenging a Kendalls.

Loghain did not unsheathe his sword. He simply held his arms out and bowed. "At your leisure, my Lord," he said. Vaughan eyed him, made, if anything, even more nervous by his apparent lack of aggression, and fumbled for the nicely ornamental, but practically useless, sword at his belt. He had been trained, from a young age, as almost all young noble boys (and many noble girls) were, but he had never been tested, particularly against such a seasoned opponent. Still, he was not without skill. Loghain assessed him as Vaughan made his first charge. He did not draw his sword, but merely stepped out of the way, using his long legs to get out of sword range quickly, as the man drew near.

Vaughan skidded on the slippery marble floor of the chamber, almost falling, as he attempted to change direction. Loghain was almost on the far side of the floor already. Damn, the man was fast! Vaughan charged toward him again. This time, Loghain drew his massive sword. Vaughan's own sword looked like a silverite toothpick compared to that mighty hunk of iron. How was he supposed to compete against a bloody huge man with a bloody huge sword like that? It wasn't fair! But on he came anyway, thinking of the consequences if he surrendered without putting on a good show of effort (if it was thought that he'd thrown the duel deliberately it would be determined that he had forfeited his honor, and he would be stripped of his inheritance the same as if he had not accepted at all), snarling his best war cry (not a very good one, to be honest) and swinging his sword. Loghain sidestepped him again and this time he brought his sword down on his back – the flat of it, quite heavily, sending him sprawling from his own momentum and the force of the blow combined.

When Loghain fought, in war or in duels, he always fought with economy. No games, no flourishes, no playing around. If he was out to kill you, he killed you as quickly as possible, with no wasted effort. Clearly this time was different. He meant to humiliate Vaughan. Vaughan's hopes went up a little. If he wanted to make a spectacle of him, then… perhaps… he didn't mean to kill him? After all, he was the only heir of a very important person! A vassal of Teyrn Bryce Cousland, whose favor he was doubtless eager to keep! Yes, yes, he might well get out of this alive!

With a surge of happy energy, Vaughan bounded to his feet and came at Loghain again. Loghain met his sword with his own, knocking it away easily. Vaughan slashed again, and again Loghain parried. They circled and Vaughan slashed, and several times Loghain sent Vaughan sprawling on his face or his ass, but he didn't attempt to strike a lethal blow or even to draw blood. Even as he was humiliated in front of so much of the Landsmeet, Vaughan grew more and more cheerful. He was going to live! He would keep his rightful title and someday, as was good and proper, he would be Arl of Denerim!

Loghain sent him sprawling backward onto his ass once more, and Vaughan decided that was enough. He pretended his arms were too weak to raise himself and he was too winded to continue.

"You have… felled me, Ser," he panted. "I yield to your mercy."

Loghain regarded him like a curious species of insect; disgusting, but fascinating all the same. "What mercy did you show those women you raped and beat to death, your Lordship?"

Vaughan's brown eyes grew wide. "What are you…" he began, but he didn't get a chance to finish. In one smooth motion, Loghain drew back his sword and lopped off his head. Blood spurted from the arteries of the severed neck to stain the marble floor. Some of it found its way to the legs of Loghain's trousers, but he hardly noticed. He was used to blood.

"Well," Cailan said, in a slightly shaky voice, "that was not at all what I expected."

"Real life, and real death, Your Highness, rarely is," Loghain said, with a bow.

"Well, we must have the… the body… prepared for the funeral rites without delay," Cailan said.

"A moment, Your Highness?" Loghain said. "By Right of Honor I am allowed to claim a trophy. His sword is a useless thing, so I should prefer the head, if I may."

Cailan blanched. "Why on Mundus would you want that?"

"I believe I may have a use for it."

Cailan appeared to be biting back vomit, but he waved his hand and said, "As you wish. It is your right."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Loghain picked the grisly thing up by the hair and turned toward the gallery. In a loud voice he said, to no one in particular, "If anyone thinks of meting out reprisals against the Alienage for what happened here today, just know that I will have absolutely no compunction whatsoever about doing this again. As many times as I have to."

And with that, he left the Palace to the sound of excited, and in some cases angry, voices.