The Devices of Uthumiel
With a shake of your head, you turn to Paloma. "I need you to find me messengers. I need to speak to the Templars."
The young woman salutes and heads off to see to that task. For your part, you make your way towards Bann Evlynne. Not for the first time, you find it immensely useful being, at minimum, a foot taller than everyone else. It makes finding people in crowds much easier.
"Bann Evlynne. I would offer my compliments on your defence of the gates, but sadly I fear we have little time. I will be consulting with the Templars regarding putting an end to the enemy's magic. While I do so, can you please see to reinforcing the walls?" You 'ask'.
She gives you a suspicious glare. "Will I remain in command?"
You pause in thought. "I do not think it wise to disrupt the defences by changing commanders. However, remain with me, I shall reestablish your command once the situation stabilises."
"If it stabilises." The woman mutters, but she obeys.
It does not take long for the Templar to arrive. They have been kept in the tower until now, too valuable and few to risk.
"We're going to try and stop whatever this is, aren't we." Jenkins states.
"Well surmised." You reply. "Are such things within your abilities?"
The warriors shrug or look around at each other.
"Never done something this big." Grunts a large man with a scar over his eye. "Worth a shot though."
"Very well." You reply. "I have some ideas on how to do this, and I encourage you to volunteer any corrections, but bear in mind, our time is short."
Eventually the fifteen or so of you are all scattered in what you hope will be a reinforcing pattern. For some reason, that you desperately hope is due to the low ranks of the survivors, none of them know how to combine their abilities in effective ways.
Further, in a typically human display, none of them are as skilled with their abilities as you are. Apparently, most of their training is focused on making it easier to use rather than extending its power. When combined with their relatively weaker wills, it makes you the best at simply enforcing your will upon the world.
Thus comes the plan. You shall pit your strength against that of the Blight directly, hoping to blunt the main thrust of the attacks. Then the Templars will take up the strain and shatter the effects before they reach the wall itself. It is not a great plan, but it is the best you can do in the time you have.
The heavy feeling of dark magic in the air comes to a crescendo. Around the small knot of darkspawn mages, a sickly white light blooms. Tendrils of invisible malice stretch out towards the walls like the fingers of Morgoth himself.
After a single breath to steady yourself, you cast your will upon the world, demanding that it hold to reality as you understand it. Immediately, your knees buckle as you become aware of a great presence. A terrible, malevolent will has its eye upon you and it is all you can do to oppose it.
As the magic thickens and reaches the walls, you become vaguely aware of something like a song. Sickly sweet and soft, it is almost beneath your notice. As the magic begins to shake the walls, your desperate attempts to halt its progress are constantly disrupted by the song's echoes.
White flame burns in answer to the sickening magic of the Blight. Templars raise hands and swords and cry prayers to the Maker aloud. The song pauses for a moment, like whatever creates it is distracted. However, is soon resumes as though it never stopped.
For good reason, the Templar give everything they have to the attempt, but it is not enough. While you are too overwhelmed to see particularly far, one of the Templars is near you, and sweat is dripping down his neck.
Yet it matters little, the walls shake and buckle alarmingly. Whatever good they are doing, it is clearly not enough. They are slowing down the spell, but it is overcoming them.
The song grows in strength, and it almost sounds triumphant. Which gives you an idea.
It is an effort of no small will to force your lips to move. Splitting your attention two ways is madness when wielding songs of power, but you feel you have little choice. As the wall bucks beneath you once more you smile grimly. It is not as though your chances of survival will even plummet particularly far.
Naturally you begin with the obvious, singing of walls and towers tall and strong. Of the futile raging of dragon flame against the walls of Himring. You sing of mountains tall and cold, of forests lush and green, of nature and all it contains.
For a moment the song recoils, in surprise you guess, and the shakes and shudders settle. The Templar's expressions brighten and you can see them redouble their efforts in hope. You dare not share that emotion.
It is a good thing too, as the song soon returns with all is poisoned sweetness. Its tune has no words, merely tone, but you can tell what it means none the less. Its notes are of rest, of sleep, of lying down and embracing the end. The notes promise a gentle, beautiful end. A tomb of marble undefiled.
Your song swells in answer. The white walls of Tirion, the finest sculpture of Nerdanel, of every work in iron and steel your people have ever made you answer. Industry and energy, then endless pursuit of that which is real and true and meaningful your song proclaims.
The song seems almost pleased by your words. It lends itself to your singing, and too late you realise your mistake. Every pursuit of your people takes a new light in this new song it makes. Tirion stands as a challenge to Ilmarin, every sculpture an attempt to copy Aulë, the iron and steel always serving to make the maker grow in power.
You cannot…
You cannot…
The sound of a harp and a song of old. A bright sword and a freed hand.
You cannot end here!
Now you call upon a different song. A song of brotherhood and hope found in dark places. Interwoven into this song are snippets of another song, one that once called to you when hope had departed and you believed yourself dead.
The song of the Blight, or the Archdemon seems confused by the change in direction, but it still does what it can to twist your thoughts. It sings of the beauty of unity, of Joining, of becoming one with itself.
For your part however, you are struck with a bolt of inspiration. You sing of eagles and a surrendered crown. You sing of the siege and the coming of men. You sing in words not your own.
The sweet song croons at you that there is no need to fight, that such things are possible if only you surrender. That it offers a better, more beautiful world than the one that currently exists.
Undeterred, you sing the Noldolantë.
The song exults in the sorrow of the tale. It burbles in glee as the Noldorin kingdoms fall. It rushes in glee as elf slays elf. It exults in joy as the Silmarils are cast into the sea (an admitted improvisation on your part, but hopefully Kano will forgive you).
'Why would you sing of this?' The song seems to ask.
'Because I was there.' You answer with a grin. 'And it was real.'
The Archdemon screams as the magnitude of its folly is revealed to it. Unwittingly it has leant its might to you as you sang of history, of truth and, though in no language any save you understand, confessed to grim crimes. In short, you have convinced the Blight to join a song of reality.
Never let it be said that you cannot steal a good idea when you see it.
Jenkins felt like he was going to die. He'd known this was a long shot, but he'd hoped to honour the Knight-Captain by trying anyway. It was more than he'd ever expected, like trying to spar with one of the older Templars back when he was a squire, but with magic.
Look, he didn't get recruited for his descriptive abilities.
When Lord Russandol started singing, he thought that the elf had gone mad. Then something seemed to happen. The elf was getting driven down by something, like he was trying to carry something heavy, and there was a feeling in the air, like a bad smell or something.
Then the elf stopped singing in a normal language and started something… Sad.
The words seemed to burn themselves into his brain, for all that he didn't understand any of them. It was a haunting tune, like something you might here at a funeral. The weirdest thing was, at one point, it almost seemed like there was another elf, almost as tall but with dark hair, singing beside Russandol.
Then that mirage vanished and suddenly the magic halved. Then it halved again, as something powerful threw its weight behind Jenkin's efforts. The burning ghost light suddenly went from blinding, to wan, to almost invisible. The walls of the tower seemed, more solid somehow. Like they were the most wall like walls ever to exist.
It was the strangest thing Jenkins had ever seen, and he suddenly wondered how exactly this elf had gained Templar abilities. He'd never drunk Lyrium, at least as far as Jenkins knew…
Then the lights tried one more time. Jenkins and the others were exhausted, like they'd been doing all the work. But still, he called up what he had and threw it against the light. It was a near run thing, but slowly, surely, he could feel the magic dying.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light vanished.
Jenkins almost slumps over in relief. His hands are trembling and his head throbs. Honestly, he's not entirely sure if he even has the energy to pull himself back from the walls.
Speaking of which, he leans over the parapet to check on them. Bizarrely, despite the bucking and shaking, they seem completely intact. Whether this is due to the magic from earlier or they have just managed to hold themselves together, he doesn't know.
"I suspect they are in worse shape than they seem." Lord Russandol said in his strangely accented common. "If the foe had engines of war that could target them, no doubt he would find them a much softer target."
Jenkins turns to face the elf. "Strange they didn't bring any then."
The elf's eyes are not on Jenkins, but far past the walls. "I can only assume that they deemed bringing them would impede the speed of striking while we were reeling from the ambush this morning."
Actually, now that Jenkins is looking at him, lord Russandol's face seems even paler than usual. His face was unnaturally free of lines, and stupidly handsome besides, but there was also a tension around his eyes. Some lingering shadow that managed to mar an otherwise flawless visage.
"It seems we are in luck." He continues. "The foe believed victory at hand and sent many ogres forth. They cannot scale the walls unaided, and so we are not so outnumbered as I feared."
The elf's knuckles are white upon his sword hilt.
"Are you alright?" Jenkins asks. "You seem… off."
The elf gives him a faint smile. "I am tired, but I will be fine."
"Still, if you're not feeling good…" Jenkins begins.
"If Felagund," Russandol's lips twist into a sneer at the name, "Can slay a werewolf bare handed after losing a duel of song, I can manage a few orcs with a sword after winning one. Go. Your part in this has ended, and it would be foolish to lose you now."
Knight-Corporal Williams calls Jenkins away before he can argue.
Maeglin only understood maybe one in three of the words of that song, and even less of the grammar, but he recognises Noldorin laments when he hears them. He also knows words like 'Sirion' and 'Doriath'. There was a story there that he is very interested in.
Unfortunately, there is a small army that was rather rudely insisting that he focus on them in order not to die. He will have to ask Maedhros about it later.
"What's happening?" Asks one of the humans nervously.
"None of that, we need to prepare to restock our ammunition." The worm with delusions of authority interrupts.
"Be silent." Maeglin commands. "See how your warriors are shaken. They are blind and afraid, they must be reassured."
The insipid mortal drew himself up to his pitiful height and puffed up his chest. "I am in command here!"
"Had you the ability sufficient for such a role, you would not need to assert that." Maeglin replies with a smirk.
An arrow buzzes between them, and the shouts of battle call their attention away from the argument. The two share a quick glare at each other as they turn to face the oncoming Blight
The creatures in this wave had far fewer of the larger Alphas and none of the much rarer Vanguards. He had gotten an earful from someone who really should have better things to do when he slipped up and called the former the latter. Thus, it was far easier to face the wave.
That said, Maeglin's mind was largely elsewhere. Certainly, Anguirel and Persilima sang in deadly harmony and reaped a dreadful toll among the foe, but his heart was not in it. Perhaps it was the exhaustion slowly creeping up on him again, or maybe he was just bored.
Blood spurts from the decapitated darkspawn. Arterial spray strikes him in the face, causing him to flinch away. The metallic taste of blood fills his mouth and he coughs viciously.
'Perhaps' Whispered a voice that sounded eerily like Idril. 'You are grown over proud and allow your concentration to slip.'
In response to the (probably) phantom voice, Maeglin savagely cleaves one of the smaller darkspawn in two. Anger unsated, he plunges the Persilima into a gaping wound of another. The screams and bubbling black blood fail to soothe his anger.
The prince of the Noldor does not notice the concerned looks and the way the defenders around him shy away from the sight.
"Fall back! We need to rally and counterattack!" The human commands.
"Ignore him, we can't surrender the walls." Maeglin counters.
Warriors hesitate, unsure of which command to follow. Maeglin briefly distracts himself with slaying one of the alphas, then whirls back to face them.
"What are you standing around for, stay at the parapet, don't surrender the advantage!" He snarls.
"Disregard him, I am in command here!" Cries the 'official commander'. "Fall back!"
"Fool!" Maeglin roars. "Should we fall back we lose all advantage of height and permit the foe to mass!"
"We need to redress our lines and allow for our superior teamwork to drive them back. More importantly, we need to get out of sight of their archers!" The human argues. "Stop arguing and get back in line!"
"Sir!" Someone calls.
"What arrogance, who are you to command me?" Maeglin speaks over whoever it is. "I am a prince of the Noldor, experienced in this war since before you could crawl. It is you who must fall in line."
"Sir!" Someone else calls.
"I was placed in command, elf." Hisses the worm. "You must defer to my authority!"
"Orders sir!" Screams someone.
The Persilima burns in Maeglins hand, and his throat convulses. Black bile spews from his throat, temporarily preventing him from speaking or fighting. When he recovers, he has to desperately fight to keep himself alive.
When he has a chance to look around he finds himself in a rather precarious position.
With command divided the way it was, perhaps it was inevitable that it would eventually become a problem. However, the way it did present itself was easily the worst form it could have taken.
With two plans and two commanders disagreeing, neither plan was fully committed to. Perhaps, if Maeglin's mercenaries had not been primarily loyal to him, the official authority of the commander might have overwhelmed him. As it was many saw the mercenaries obeying their commander and hesitated. This led to the worst possible result.
They did nothing.
Now Maeglin looked upon a battle nearly lost. Darkspawn were swarming up the walls and unless something drastic happened, there was no chance to reclaim the ladder sites. Morale was wavering, not helped by the fact that many mercenaries had clearly decided to take the decision to withdraw into their own hands.
If he moved swiftly, he might turn this from a rout into a controlled withdrawal, but unless he received urgent reinforcements then he doubted the Eastern Walls could be held much longer.
Captain Jymes had never been more scared than when the walls started to go. She has never been a particularly great fan of magic, too much power for anyone to wield. Unnatural, is what it is. Seeing it used by the Blight against her…
Well, it's a good thing she wasn't going to be getting much sleep anyway.
Perhaps that is why she's not feeling quite as tired as she was earlier. Watching a hand made of pale corpse light shocking her into wakefulness. That, or something about whatever the Templars and the elf had done woke her up.
'Do not think about the fact that your commander is some kind of super templar with magic singing.' She reminds herself. 'Do. Not. Think. About. It.'
Fortunately, the darkspawn were more than happy to give her other things to think about. Like how much being shot with arrows sucked even in armour, or how she disgusting she feels when holding one of their weapons.
Or wondering which of the hundreds, no thousands, of corpses was lying on top of her favourite sword!
Still, she was making do with what she had. Sure, the darkspawn weapons were brittle, and made her feel ill, but they still killed things well enough. Not as good as steel or even grey iron, but definitely not as bad as regular iron.
She had to turn her head away as an axe head splintered into fragments on a Hurlock's helmet. At least it had the decency of killing the darkspawn at the same time. It made stealing its hammer much easier.
Naturally the other elf, the magic one, is being the opposite of helpful.
"What are you doing!?" Jymes screamed at the bald mage.
Said mage pushed a genlock off the walls physically with his staff. "Everything I can!"
"What do you mean everything you can!" Jessica's voice was not shrill with fear, she wasn't scared of what would happen without the mage.
"Listen, it's very complicated but it is far too dangerous for me to use magic right now!" The elf replied, sounding extremely annoyed.
"The hell it is!" Captain Jymes snaps. "You were using it just fine a moment ago!"
"That was before Nelyafinwë did that, that utter madness!" The elf retorted hotly. "Reality is tangled up and bunched together in ways that are not simple to unpick, here more so than most places. If I were to try casting a spell I give it roughly even odds of simply not working and CATASTROPHICALLY BACKFIRING!"
The elf's voice spikes into a furious shout. The way he starts battering a hurlock to death with his staff suggests that this anger is very much not for show.
"What use are you then!" Captain Jymes yells.
The elf picks up a stone and hurls it over the side of the walls. "We just have to wait until the effect dissipates or Nelyafinwë dissipates it himself. Though I suppose I could make an attempt to undo it myself if you have a spare hour or so!"
They don't and both of them know it, so Jessica gives the elf a gesture to show him how she feels and turns back to what she can do.
Reinforcements have helped steady the flagging morale of the centre, on top of the bolstering effect of lord Russandol's speech. Captain Jymes did not want to let that go to waste. She was determined not to lose control the way she had before again.
In service to this end, she tries her best to keep in touch with everyone. She's managed to find someone who is carrying a banner, and has been using it to try and signal her presence and orders as best she can.
While this is hardly a sophisticated system, it is a way of making her presence felt across the wall. She tries to make sure that she is seen, both with the banner and just in general, by as many of her soldiers as possible. Sadly, the nature of battle means that is not as many as she would like, and far from everyone, but it does give a core that she can control.
She makes a note that, if she lives through this, she is going to find or create some communication system and ruthlessly drill her soldiers in it. This inability to reach out further than her voice is simply unacceptable.
Despite her best efforts, her forces are slowly, step by step, being pushed back. If there is a single deciding factor, it is the lack of mage support, but more pertinently there are simply a large number of foes. There cannot be much fewer than in the initial wave, but without magic support they are simply less able to manage them.
To her enduring pride, the soldiers of Ferelden do not break or flee before the foe. They fight fiercely and the corpses of the darkspawn pile higher and higher. Yet, despite their courage and skill, they are slowly, surely, driven back.
First the parapets are lost, and the fight spills onto the walkway proper. There they hold for a time, but again, weight of numbers begins to tell, more so now that the darkspawn have a foothold.
Now they are slowly being driven apart, fighting in two parts at either end of the walkway. All common military wisdom says that unless this situation changes drastically, and soon, then half of them are going to have to withdraw to either side of the defences and just accept that the two walls are cut off from each other.
It would not be the end of the defence, but it would be a setback, and Jessica fears the worst.
You are tired. While your foolish, reckless, incredibly dangerous…
'Nienna's tears you are lucky to be alive Nelyo.' Kano fusses. 'You have to be more careful, we cannot… We… the twins need us; we cannot leave them alone.'
With a shake of your head, you focus. Though your actions have succeeded and you are alive, it has left you with a deep weariness. Briefly you considered retiring to rest or just take command from elsewhere. However, you do not have time to do so and such thoughts must be abandoned.
It is not so bad as the bone deep weariness after the Third Kinslaying, and nothing compared to the darkness of the despair that took you in the end.
When the darkspawn reach the walls, it quickly becomes clear that it has taken a toll nonetheless. The elegance and grace with which you fight has been severely reduced, hardly as effortless as it had been until now. Instead, you find yourself pulling more and more from the desperate savagery that became your trademark in the late First Age.
Your sword cleaves armour and shield, and you follow it up with shoulder charges that use your sheer mass to drive darkspawn back. The fact that you are so much taller than everyone else is used more to grab from unexpected angles than to strike from safety.
It is undeniably effective, but even you acknowledge that it dances far closer to the edge of danger than you would usually be comfortable with. Sadly, the tempest of battle and your own exhaustion makes it difficult to stop. From the very first moment the darkspawn arrive, you have been their target.
So great has your skill become that you have not taken a single injury despite how fierce the fighting and how tired you are. However, you can tell that even you are growing closer and closer to the end of your strength. While it is a way off yet, should the sun not bring relief you do not know what you will do.
The press of battle is such that there is little chance for more complicated command or manoeuvres. You are forced to trust that those you have entrusted with authority can act to rally those about them for you have not had time to rationalise Ferelden's medley of communication techniques.
All you can do is what is expected of you, stand before the foe and strive to be a shining exemplar for your people. That you do not even need to think about, it is as much a part of you as your hands. More so even.
Distantly you can here Bann Evlynne snarling threats and challenges to the darkspawn. For your part, you try to keep the insults and challenges to a minimum. Partly because you have already delivered the only one that matters, but mostly because your throat feels rather raw right now.
Still, it is clear that those around you are inspired simply by the fact that you are fighting still. When combined with the Light of Valinor, it is clear that the warriors of Ferelden, for all their poor showing earlier, are no cowards nor are they faint of heart.
Clearly, many take your skill as a challenge, to the point that you fear that your exhaustion is obvious to them. After all, Jenkins noticed and you are reasonably sure that he is not fully aware that other people exist.
Between your skill, and the Light of Valinor, you manage once again to hold the position. It was a closer affair than you had hoped, between your tiredness and the sheer mad determination of the darkspawn to kill you in particular.
In many ways that same determination was their undoing, as it meant that the greatest foes fell to you, leaving your warriors relatively free from harm.
Now you have a chance to look about you and you find things in dire straits. Both the centre and the east wall are in precarious positions, and if you do not miss your guess, will soon be forced to withdraw. Idly, you think about pulling forces from the tower to bolster them, but you do not think it will come fast enough.
Then your eyes meet Morrigan's. Or rather, you look at her eyes as she futilely peers towards the walls trying to see what is happening. She is worried, that much is clear, given that two of the three positions seem to be falling, and she cannot see yours as it is the furthest away and humans are blind in the darkness.
Not that the Eldar are entirely comfortable at night either, but half an Elda's sight is still the best a human can hope for.
However, you think you have a chance here. The mages are still largely uncommitted, waiting for the last of your influence to vanish. If you dispel the lingering effects of your reinforcement of reality, they can wield magic in its fullness.
This could be a powerful force to turn this near disaster into something more useful. The only question is what.