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, Harry Potter books, and WB Games' Hogwarts Legacy. Song lyrics included herein were used without permission.
Chapter Ten: Highever
High King Cailan called the nobility to action and tried to set the bannorn at ease in a holosphere interview, where he joyously burst out that they had special inside information on the Archdemon's actions. Loghain chewed him out soundly for that afterwards. "Cailan, when one has special inside information about the enemy, the last thing one should do is tell the whole bloody world about it!"
"What, do you think the Archdemon watches the nightly news?" Cailan said, laughing a bit.
"No, but it may be watching us. Cailan, this thing communicates mind-to-mind. Who knows whose mind it can and cannot read? The more people who know about Loki's gift, the more danger he's in of exposure. I don't know about you, but I don't particularly like the idea of a Darkspawn hit squad coming after my little boy."
Cailan paled. "No. No, that wouldn't be good at all."
"Too right it wouldn't. So no more talk about 'inside information,' all right?"
Loghain left him to see to the preparations for the long march to Ostagar. Maric's Shield was being efficiently mustered by it's Commander, his foster daughter Cauthrien. For wars off-realm, men could be transported efficiently by the Bifrost, the advanced space travel device that allowed for faster-than-light speed travel without even any need for transport ships, but within realm things were quite different, and much more primitive. Bringing in troops from a long distance was usually done on massive Dreadnoughts, airships designed for war, but for shorter distances, within a single province, the general strategy was just to pick up and march. Ordinarily many men would mount up and ride. While horses were the standard mount in Ferelden, there were also donkeys, mules, chocobos, dracolisks, harts, and even nuggalopes. But no one knew how any of these animals would bear against the Darkspawn, so only a few of each were being brought along with the army, as a sort of test. If any of them managed to hold steady against the fiends, more of that type would be brought in later.
Somewhere in the midst of shouting orders, Loghain felt a knocking on his silverite plate armor, somewhere down by his shins. He looked down and saw Loki looking up at him.
"Yes, Pup?" he said.
"You have to go to Highever," Loki said.
He didn't doubt the boy, but he wanted more information. "Why, Pup? What's going on in Highever?"
"Arl Howe is going to kill the Couslands. You have time, but you have to get there before Lord Fergus takes the men of Highever south. That's when he plans to attack."
"What in the Maker's holy name is he thinking?" he said, taken aback.
"He has papers," Loki said, snarling in a very Loghainian way. "Papers he got from an agent of the Orlesians. They say Teyrn Cousland is in league with the Orlesians. The papers are fake, and he knows it, but he doesn't care. He thinks you'll think they're real, and that's all that matters to him. He wants to be Teyrn."
"Howe is working with the Orlesians?" Loghain said, appalled. He hadn't thought a great deal of the man, but he had never thought him an Orlesian toady.
"No. The Bard just gave him something he could use to say that Teyrn Cousland was. It was… serendipitous, for him."
"Bloody bastard. Now Loki, you are absolutely certain of this? It's not that I doubt you, you understand, it's that I must be sure."
Loki nodded. "I'm sure. I've seen into his mind. It's like… like a pit of vipers."
"How is he planning to do it? Tell me everything you can."
"He's telling Teyrn Cousland that his men are delayed. Equipment difficulties, I think. Teyrn Cousland will send Lord Fergus and his men on to Ostagar ahead and he will wait with Arl Howe at Castle Highever for the men of Amaranthine to show up. Then the two men will go to the Teyrn's parlor to play cards for the evening. At some point, the Arl will jump up and stab him in the belly. Then his men will attack the castle. Everyone will be killed. The guards, the servants, Teyrn Bryce, Teyrna Eleanor… Lady Elilia…"
The boy's green eyes bore into his with a certain significance.
"All right, Pup, I'm off to Highever right now. Go to Commander Cauthrien and stick with her, but stay out of her way and do what she tells you, all right?"
"Yes, Papa. Papa?"
"Yes, Pup?"
"Do you want me to tell King Cailan what you're about?"
Loghain raised a finger in the air, held it there for a moment while he considered, and then brought it down to point at the boy while he started to walk away backwards. "Not… until the outcome is a solid, physical reality. When it is fact, not just foresight, then you may tell him. Whatever that outcome may be."
"Yes, Papa. Come Haakon, come Fen."
Flanked by his massive Mabari, the boy trotted off to find Commander Cauthrien.
It wasn't the first time he'd hidden in a cabinet, but it had been a long time since he'd done it, and it had either been a much bigger cabinet, or he was a much smaller person at the time. The cabinet in question had been hurriedly emptied of silver brick-a-brack, and he was waiting within for Teyrn Bryce Cousland and Arl Rendon Howe to come sit at the game table in the room before it to play a few hands of cards before bedtime. He had warned Cousland to keep the big table well between himself and the treacherous Arl, and to keep his best Wicked Grace face the whole day long. It would not do to tip their hand too early.
Lord Fergus had left with the men of Highever already, as planned. What the Arl didn't know was that Lord Fergus wasn't going to Ostagar, but instead would take his troops a short distance from the castle, out of sight, to wait for a signal. Loghain was giving Howe a chance to rethink his actions, not that he expected the man to do so. Loki expected the man to take arms against his liege lord, and Loki had never given Loghain any reason to doubt him. Besides, it wouldn't really do to bring him before the Landsmeet on charges of treason with only the evidence of Loki's visions, even if Cailan did believe in them. Most of the nobles, hard-headed Nords all and not given to flights of fancy, would not. Teyrn Bryce himself was still terribly confused as to how exactly Loghain had come by the information that his old friend Howe was planning on betraying him, and didn't quite believe it.
Loghain shifted inside the cabinet, trying to better align his eye to the keyhole. He'd traded his famous silverite plate for his tired old practice leathers or he never would have been able to fit. He'd even left his shield behind, though he probably could have wedged it in here with him. He wasn't looking forward to fighting without it, but chances were good that there wouldn't be much fighting to do. Once Howe was down his men would surely surrender and seek mercy.
Ah, there was the bastard now. Bryce just walked in with him, and led him to the game table for the promised night of Wicked Grace. Like he'd promised, Bryce had him sit on the near side of the table, so he was smack in front of Loghain's hiding spot. Bryce looked a bit nervous to his eye, but Howe didn't seem to notice, which was good.
Loghain sat patiently for hours while the men played hand after hand. Would Howe never make a move? It began to seem that way. On the one hand, that was fabulous – perhaps the man remained loyal to his liege and his province. On the other… well… sitting squashed in this cupboard for so many hours for no good reason whatsoever was not at all pleasant, and Bryce would think he'd gone 'round the bend. It also wasn't terribly pleasant thinking that Loki's Shining wasn't at all as reliable as he'd believed it to be.
The men were getting up, now, and Bryce was putting out the lantern on the game table. Howe was saying something – something smarmy, no doubt – and then… by the Maker!
It was lucky for Teyrn Bryce Cousland, very lucky indeed, that Loghain Mac Tir had long ago trained himself not to stop and think before reacting to assassination attempts. The very moment he saw Rendon Howe snarl and reach for the dagger at his belt he burst out of his cabinet and lunged for the man, coming down on him like a ton of bricks. To say Howe was taken aback would be short of the mark by quite a little, but Howe rallied and fought, like the cornered rat he was. He managed to slash Loghain's arm with his dagger, but that was all. Loghain brought his own sword down across the man's fairly scrawny, for a Nord, chest, almost cutting him in half. Howe's life blood stained the expensive Kashamin run in a wide circle.
"Bloody helheim," Bryce said, his voice shaking. "He really did try to… kill me."
"It's not over yet, Bryce," Loghain said. He stood up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. The short gash on his arm streamed blood but he paid it no mind. "Howe's men are surely on the move."
"They're sure to surrender," Bryce said. He sounded more hopeful than certain.
"Most likely. But have your man ready to send that signal to your son, just in case."
Elilia Merwynnan Cousland went to bed early that night, a little put out with her mother and father for making her stay home to play Lady of the Castle while the menfolk got to go south to fight Darkspawn. She was at least as good a fighter as her brother Fergus! Probably would be at least as good at leading men into battle, too! All she needed was the opportunity. In any case, there was no thought in her head at all that anyone was planning anything underhand. Even when her father presented her to old Arl Howe that very evening and he smiled his simpering, sneering smile at her and yet again lobbed one of his pointedly snarky comments about how very odd it was that she had been allowed to train as a warrior, she hadn't sensed anything unusual in his behavior. It was just Uncle Rendon, smarmy and disingenuous as always. Her Mabari Kiveal panted happily at her feet and did not growl to warn her of anything he sensed that was wrong with the man.
When she woke to the sounds of steel clashing on steel, however, Kiveal most assuredly was growling. Bristling and staring at the heavy wooden door of her chamber, the big hound was in full-on attack mode.
"What is it, Kiv?" she asked, but of course the dog could not answer her except with more deep, throaty growling.
Unnerved, Elilia slipped out of bed and sidled over to the armor stand where her practice leathers hung ready for her. She strapped them on as quickly as possible and grabbed her mighty Claymore. She burst out of her room with her hound by her side and found her mother standing there in her own armor, with her bow and quiver on her back, in the process of reaching for her doorknob.
"Darling! You scared me! Something is terribly wrong. I hear fighting. We should check on Oriana and Oren."
"What's going on, Mother?" Elilia asked.
"I don't know, dear. But if our men are on their way to Ostagar as they're supposed to be, your father may need us to help defend the castle against these invaders, whomever they may be."
"Right," Elilia said, and followed her mother to her brother's rooms across the hall. Eleanor tried the handle, but it was locked, which was good, of course, but it wouldn't keep out a truly determined group of invaders.
"Oriana? Oriana, dear, it's me, Eleanor!"
A sound of scuffling came from inside the room, and some fumbling, and then the door creaked open slightly. Oriana's pale, scared face peeked out at them. "Eleanor? Elilia? Maker's breath! What is going on out there? I was so frightened!"
"I fear there may be just cause," Eleanor said. "Elilia and I are going to see what aid we can be to Bryce and the home guard. I pray that whatever sort of incursion is happening, it is not as serious as it sounds. Relock the door, my dear, and pile the heaviest furniture you can before it. Do not come out for anything, until you hear from one of us that the castle is safe!"
Oriana's dark eyes widened still further, and she gulped and nodded. The door closed, and there was the sound of it locking. Then came the sound of large pieces of furniture being moved in front of it.
Eleanor and Elilia raced to the Main Hall, where the fighting seemed to be taking place in large part. In Castle Highever, the Main Hall was roughly circular, circling around a large formal meeting room, with smaller halls radiating off the sides leading to guest rooms, storage rooms, the kitchens, the Chapel, and some of the more important servants quarters. Men in armor filled this corridor, most common Asgardian men-at-arms wielding the devastating force-weapons that were common issue in the Asgardian army. Such weapons required little training to use and were horrifyingly effective, searing through flesh and even most metals without difficulty. The numbers were overwhelming, but the home guard held them at the chokepoint where the hall met to lead upwards into the Family Quarters. The home guard themselves wielded force-weapons, but it seemed that they owed a good portion of their success in holding back the enemy to one person: a massive warrior taller even than Elilia, dressed in disreputable leathers and wielding what appeared to be peasant's iron, as if he were not even a proper army recruit. But how he fought! He flowed through the motions of combat like a trained dancer in an entertainment, and his homely blade cut men down with terrible ease. Elilia was struck at the sight of him, but she did not recognize him in the slightest, for neither he nor she attended many social gatherings and her father had never taken her to the yearly Landsmeet. She might have seen him on the nightly news a time or two, but out of his shining silverite plate he hardly looked like the Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, and she found news programs tedious. She rarely paid them any attention whatsoever.
She might have stood staring at him the whole night long, but her mother reached up with her longbow and rapped her on the back of the head. "Don't just stand there, girl! Help your father!"
She shook her head to clear it. Her father, she realized now, was also in the fray, fighting side-by-side with the rough-clad warrior. With an inarticulate growl, Elilia waded into battle. She was not battle-tested, so she herself did not carry a fine enchanted weapon, but she did well with what she had. Maybe she wasn't on the same level as the rough-clad warrior, but she supposed she would hold her own, and might even earn herself her properly enchanted weapon here tonight.