The land abruptly dropped off near the end of the road, which split at a great rushing river. The left hand path lead uphill to where a series of bridges connected the mainland to the island where the castle was situated. Two were stone and looked both ancient and sturdy, but the one nearest the mainland was a hack job, a rope-and-board thing that surely wouldn't hold any type of host of warriors. The right hand path lead steeply down to the lake and the village, of which half was built right into the cliffs and the other sprawled out onto wooden docks out into the lake itself. Pretty well defensible, thought Ten, if a nightmare to actually live in.
From the vantage point, Ten could see that makeshift barricades had been cobbled together at every ingress to the village. They set up camp within view of the village, but decidedly outside its boundaries. Morrigan, justifiably nervous about being in civilization within spitting distance of the Circle, which was a few miles up the shore, elected to remain behind and make sure nobody messed with their goods or animals, while the rest of them descended down into the village. Out of the corner of her eye as they left, Ten saw her turn into a wolf, and curl up next to Pigeon.
"Everyone's holed up in the chantry," Tomas said as they stumbled down the right-hand path, past a massive windmill set onto a bluff above the lake where the cliffs and buttes above channeled the wind right to it, and back across the river, "Bann Teagan's in town, I guess Arlessa Isolde managed to get a message to him."
"Isolde! That's that the… lady's name. Well there's some good knows his way around a battlefield," Alistair said, "He's Eamon's younger brother. Bann of Rainsfere."
"See, there, Sten," said Ten, "That's subtext. He said 'lady' but he meant 'bitch.' You see what I'm saying?"
"That is a useless lesson. If this Bann Teagan is a mighty warrior, why is he hiding in the chantry with the children?" Sten asked.
"Not all problems can be solved by hacking about with a sword," Lelianna admonished.
"But this one can."
"Well then," Ten said, "Why don't you go teach those poor sods over there how to do that." She nodded at a group of about ten men who were hacking at practice dummies, "Looks like they barely know which end of it to hold."
Sten gave a grunt of approval and strode over to whip the civilians into shape.
The inside of the chantry was Lothering all over again. Dirty, ragged villagers occupied almost every square foot of floor, eerily quiet, even the babies. Barricades had been constructed even there in the sanctuary, and Ten felt the pure stress wafting off everyone in there. The reverend mother of the chantry was standing near the pulpit, talking to who could only be Teagan, given the quality of the armor he was wearing and the insignia of Redcliffe on his shield. He was younger than Ten had thought he'd be, probably early thirties. Tomas strode up, followed by the strange little band.
"I found these travelers on the road," said Tomas, "A few sword arms."
"Maker's breath," Teagan said, looking up. He walked up to Alistair, put his hands on his shoulders, "When did you get taller than me?"
Probably sometime after your brother tossed him out with the trash, Ten thought.
"It's been awhile," Alistair acknowledged.
"When I learned what happened at Ostagar I thought the worst," Teagan said, "The official word out of the palace is all of the Grey Wardens perished there after betraying the king. Though I suppose I should know better than to trust the official word out of Teyrn Loghain's mouth. How many of you are there left?"
"Two," said Alistair, "Me and her."
"You," said Teagan, his eyes falling on Ten for the first time. Ah yes, ever the invisible elf. "You're a Grey Warden?"
"Wasn't my idea," said Ten, "But yes."
"Didn't realize they took elves, let alone elf women. Oh. Ohhhh. You must be…"
"Not this again," Ten sighed in exasperation.
"It must be old news to you, but even the most salacious news out of the capital doesn't get here that quickly. Did you really…"
"Yes," said Ten, "Ax. Deserved it. Would do it again."
"Well, I see I should watch myself."
"Do you make a habit of kidnapping women?"
"...no."
"Then you're fine."
"Well that's good to hear," Teagan said mildly.
"So, it appears I've been roped into this fight as well," Ten said, "Why don't you tell us exactly what is going on here?"
Teagan sighed, "It started about two weeks ago. Eamon took to his bed, nobody could figure out what was wrong. He's still with us, as far as I know. Then Isolde sent the knights out on her ridiculous quest. It's like whatever is doing this knew the village was not defended."
"As far as you know. So nobody's been in to check?" Alistair asked.
"Well that's the thing. The castle's been sealed up tight as a…" Teagan's eyes fell on Lelianna and he swallowed the comparison he was about to make, "...ship for about a week now. No soldiers on the battlements. The gates are closed. And every night, these… things cross the bridge, fall upon the village. We've lost a third of the villagers and most of the soldiers who remained."
"You're going to have to be more specific than 'things,'" Ten said.
"Walking corpses. Most of them look like they were once soldiers, with their weapons still on them, but some are just… people."
"And they can fight?"
"It's like the muscle memory of a twenty-year veteran is still in them," Teagan said, "It's uncanny."
"Well what else can they do? Can they scale cliffs? Go up stairs?" Alistair asked. Ten could see the gears turning.
"Stairs yes, cliffs… haven't seen them do that."
"Numbers?"
"More than fifty, less than one hundred."
"And how many fighting men are left?"
"Twenty," said Teagan, "Counting myself. And most of them aren't fighters. They're fishermen and farmers who never held a blade before."
"Shit," Alistair said, "How many archers?"
"Six."
"That last bridge across to the castle," said Ten, "It looked like just ropes and boards when we came in."
"It's temporary," said Teagan, "Well it was supposed to be. An engineer from Val Royeaux was supposed to be in last week to make a plan for something better since the original one was damaged, but given the unrest he canceled the commission."
"And you say they're coming from the castle, so they have to cross that bridge," said Ten.
"What are you suggesting?" the bann asked.
"Seems simple enough," said Ten, "Wait until the mass of them are on there, burn the bridge. Or cut the ropes if you want to be boring. They go in the lake, problem solved."
"And now the castle is cut off."
"The castle is already cut off. And that bridge is a span of what, twenty feet? Thirty?" Ten said, "The whole thing could be replaced in a day with enough hands. And surely you would rather we have those hands left standing rather than throwing them at a hopeless fight."
"If we put archers on the cliffs above the path on the near side of the bridge," Alistair added, "They can pick them off from our side. If you're right and these things can't climb, they can't put up much resistance. Keep the sword arms in the Chantry protecting the civilians."
"They've been known to cross the lake," Teagan said.
"Do they swim or just kind of walk across the bottom?" asked Ten.
"Swim," said Teagan, "It's honestly the most unsettling thing I've ever seen."
"All right," said Ten, "This is a fishing town, I can smell it. They must build and repair boats here as well. There's got to be a supply of tar somewhere."
"Tar?"
"Floats on water, you light it on fire, nobody's swimming across anything," she said.
"You just love lighting things on fire, don't you," Alistair observed.
"Oh, come on. Burning the surface of the lake would be pretty cool," she countered.
"Yeah it would be pretty cool," he admitted.
"Wait, hold on," Teagan said, narrowing his eyes at them, "That would put much of the village at risk."
"The village is its people." You pompous, out-of-touch idiot. "You think we should just throw the last twenty able bodied men at their certain death because you want to save a bridge and a few fishing boats?" Ten asked incredulously.
"You're advocating destroying that which we're charged with saving!" Teagan said.
"Bridges and boats and houses can be rebuilt," said Ten, "I know you probably just see the common folk as disposable, but I assure you we are not."
"This is not the time for a class war, Ten," Alistair muttered.
"It's always time for a class war," she said, "Ser, I don't know you, but I don't think you're stupid. So why have you let these people even be in the position they're in? The topography of this land alone should have put you at an advantage. There are cliffs all around - fuck, it's in the name. But no, you've put every able-bodied man - and some of the women, if my little corpse census is correct - in town out on the square with six hours of training and a three foot barricade around them, just waiting to be run through by some undead soldiers because you didn't want to, what, cut your brother's castle off from its lands for a few days?"
Teagan was struck dumb. Clearly nobody had ever spoken to him like this.
"That's the problem with you people," Ten scoffed, "Willing to just throw the rest of us at it with absolutely no regard for the lives lost until you're so helplessly outnumbered that there's an actual existential threat to you. So you do what you see fit, you fucking lords always do, but I'm going to have a chat with the militia, and see about finding some tar."
She turned and stormed out of the Chantry, Lelianna at her heels.
"Did you see his face?" the sister squealed, "You shamed him into next winter. I do so love watching nobles get, what is that charming phrase you Fereldans use? Ah! Knocked down a peg."
"Now that, Lelianna, is a man who hasn't heard the words 'shut the fuck up' nearly enough in his life," Ten grumbled, as they strode out into the town square, "So Sister, do you know your way around a bow?"
"I've been known to dabble," she said.
"We'll need more ranged weaponry up at the cliffs," Ten said, "How about you grab one and test it out?"
"Not a problem," she said. She took a bow from beside another pile of corpses, and went to the makeshift range where the remaining six yeoman were testing theirs out. One of the archers, clearly amused at the sight of a young clergywoman taking up a bow, handed her his quiver. She sent three arrows in swift succession into the very center of the straw target.
"Dabble, huh," Ten said, "You're an absolute crackshot."
"One doesn't like to brag," she said.
"See that? You just got outshot by a nun!" one of the yeomen called to the man whose place she had taken.
"It's not fair, the Maker's probably helping her!" the first protested.
Ten chuckled, and walked out into the larger part of the town square.
"Who's in charge here?" Ten asked a group of four men who'd been standing and talking in tense tones.
"Well apparently it's the Qunari now," a middleaged man with a drooping mustache and a harpoon on his back. He gestured to where Sten was putting a dozen swordsmen through their paces, "But until about twenty minutes ago, it was me. Murdock Inman. I'm the mayor of the village, as much of it that's left."
"Ten Tabris," she said, shaking his extended hand, "Look, I don't want to step on any toes here. Well not yours. But you have to know that this has been an absolute disaster."
"Two of my sisters are on that pyre," said Murdock, "So yes, I am very well aware."
"Sorry to hear that," said Ten, "Look, I have a few ideas and by my count we have about three hours until nightfall. The bann doesn't like them, but his leadership hasn't exactly done this town any favors."
"I have a few thoughts on the bann myself," Murdock muttered.
"Good man. Now, I'm going to need a vast quantity of tar." She explained her thinking, and the mayor confirmed the path that the unearthly invaders had taken for the previous two nights, and that it would, in fact, not be much of a trick to bring the bridge down. Within the hour, the fishermen were hauling in their boats to save what they could.
"I admit I have no idea how big this lake is," said Ten, "Does it have tides?"
"Barely," one fisherman said, "It's generally quite placid, at least this end of it."
"Good," she said, "My aim here is to get you out of this with minimal casualties. You might lose a few boats."
"Rather lose my boat than my sons," said the fisherman, "Though it's too late for three out of five of them."
Ten sighed, "I'm sorry. That's awful. All right, so here's what we're going to do…"
They raided the shipwright's workshop. She had apparently perished in the first night of fighting and thus was not there to stop them.
"We empty the barrels into the bay just before nightfall," she said, "I'll be here with some of the swordsmen, and I guess as many of you as can hold a harpoon. There'll be archers up on the cliff there." She pointed, "And we're going to bring down that shitty ass bridge. If any of them survive, we light the lake on fire, and none of them will be coming here. If they do, harpoon time."
"Glad someone with half a brain showed up," said Murdock, "I'm tired of burning people I love."
Satisfied that the fishermen knew their part, Ten climbed the path up to the bridge to the castle. She found Alistair there, examining the bridge.
"How much trouble am I in?" she asked. She walked out onto the bridge and jumped up and down a few times. Damn thing was rickety as hell. She was impressed the sheer weight of a hundred walking corpses hadn't already brought it down.
"Well considering I've already sawn halfway through two of those ropes, quite a lot at the moment," Alistair said.
"Shit," she said, scurrying back to land.
"As for Teagan," he said, once she'd reached solid ground, "I managed to soothe his ego. I don't think he'll try to have you hanged. But you might want to think about easing up on the whole… insulting the gentry to their faces bit."
"Oh come on, he deserved it," said Ten.
"Of course he did," said Alistair, "The cliffs alone should have been an advantage, even if the village was outnumbered. If he'd thought for a second, he could have avoided most of the casualties. He's got some sort of mental block about this place being his brother's and not his, so has this idea that he can't do anything to change it."
"It doesn't belong to his brother," said Ten, "It belongs to the villagers."
"Are you any good with a bow?" he asked, changing the subject to avoid another lecture on the rights of the common folk.
"Never held one in my life," Ten replied.
"We're going to have to work on that, I don't like your chances hand to hand with an undead knight."
"Well good news is I can climb. And I can jump. And I can throw things."
"Can you climb up that cliff right there, tell me what you see from the top?"
"Gonna need a boost onto that first ledge, but I can take it from there," she said.
At the top of the cliff, Ten could see down into the town on one side and into the castle courtyard on the other. "I've got a clear shot to the portcullis from here!" she shouted, "It'd be like fish in a barrel for a skilled archer, and apparently the good sister has been hiding her talents from us."
"Lelianna, really?"
"Yeah, she just publicly emasculated every yeoman in town. Except the one girl," said Ten, "Put her up here I think we're in pretty good shape."
"Can you see into the courtyard?"
"Yes. Nobody's moving in there. There is a…. disturbingly large pile of corpses right in the middle of it, though. I suspect that's the source of our little problem. Wait." She flinched and nearly tumbled back off as a bright light flashed from one of the guard towers, "Someone's signaling with a mirror in the sunlight." She waved her hand over her head. She couldn't see through the arrow slit where the light had come from but there were two more flashes. "Someone's alive in there!"
"Well that's the first good news of the day."
"I guess not all is lost," she said. She clambered back down the cliff and jumped the last six feet.
"We still have to survive the night."
"Sun's getting low," she admitted, "I'm going to go see about lighting the lake on fire."
"That is gonna be so cool."
"Right? Can't believe Teagan's mad about that."
She made her way down the path back to the village, where Sten was now fencing with a burly militiaman and Lelianna was standing behind one of the archers, adjusting her posture with a hand on the small of her back.
"Might be time to head up to the hills," Ten suggested, "Take a look at it in daylight so you don't get confused in the dark."
Lelianna nodded, "Come on let's go." The archers, who had apparently in the intervening hour decided that the sister should be in charge, followed her up the path to the cliffs.
"Miss Tabris, a word," Teagan called to her as she passed the chantry.
Ugh, here we go. She strode up to him, crossed her arms over her chest, and waited for the lecture that was sure to come.
"Let me guess," she said, "You're about to call me an uppity knife-eared bitch and warn me about taking that tone with my betters."
"What? No!" he exclaimed, color rising to his cheeks, "I was going to say that I appreciate the help you are giving us. And you may have had a point with the tactics I had employed. I'm not a commander."
"I'm just a street rat from Denerim who's used to being outnumbered," she said.
"Yes, I can tell by how you talk," he said, though more like he was giving her a friendly ribbing than actually criticizing her, "Mile a minute, grating accent, overly aggressive…"
"Well you should hear what we say about the provincials," she said dismissively.
"You seem very dedicated to saving as many of them as possible," he said.
"Well of course I am. I'm not a monster," she said, "Look, if it's any comfort, I was just on the cliff across from the castle and someone in there had the wherewithal to signal me with a mirror in the sun. Damn near blinded me. Someone's alive in there."
"That's good to know," said Teagan, "I imagine once this is dealt with you're going to go storming in there next."
"That was the plan," said Ten, though she hadn't actually thought about it. It should be the plan, though. If whatever was causing all this was in the castle, that was the next logical step. Though she didn't relish the idea of storming a castle with twenty men.
"There's a back way in," said Teagan, "Someone… probably the Avvars, managed to tunnel under the lake, from the bluff with the windmill on it, into the dungeons of the castle. The tunnel's been there ever since. Nobody's really supposed to know about it."
"But you're telling a random elf you just met two hours ago?"
"You're a Grey Warden," he said, "And from the probably sensationalized word out of the capital about you, you know a bit about sneaking around in castles."
"I suppose I do," she said, "But the daylight's waning. I've got to go light a lake on fire."
"It's gonna look pretty cool isn't it," the bann admitted.
"I hope so," said Ten, "But I'd settle for it working."
On the end of a wharf, surrounded by the grizzled fisherfolk, Ten stood, her eyes on the castle across the water as the sun slowly sank behind it. They had soaked the wood of the docks in water before pouring a film of tar on the surface of the lake and buckets were at the ready in case they, in fact, lit the whole place up.
A torch in one hand and the other on her ax, she tried to keep her breathing even as the last light finally died away. She stood there, her eyes turned upward and fixed upon the great portcullis in the distance. The moon began to rise, and she caught movement on the horizon. There was a groan that echoed across the silent town and lake, for apparently every other man and beast there was also holding its breath. The gate opened, and with an eerie glow, the host of the dead started across the bridge.
She could hear the zip of the arrows as half a dozen of the ambling corpses fell as they left the castle gates. She held her breath as another volley laid a few more low. Those still ambulatory pushed their fallen compatriots out of the way and made for the bridge. The archers continued firing, the corpses continued to fall, until the bulk of the host made it out of the portcullis and onto the bridge. Come on, she thought there's no way that bridge is going to hold.
As they tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get to the far side and murder those on it, she saw one rope snap, and then the other. Alistair had cut the bridge, top and bottom, only on one corner, leaving the bulk of it intact but now unstable enough to send forty or more of the unsuspecting dead sideways and down a hundred feet into the lake. She watched the sky and a fiery arrow sailed over the lake. She knelt and touched her torch to the surface. The film of tar that the fisherfolk had spread over it went up in an instant, forming a carpet of flame on the lake's still water. She watched as the walking corpses - no longer walking but floating - went up like kindling, floating amid the flames on the water and exploded as the gasses trapped within them ignited.
"Oh that is… foul," Murdock commented.
"Probably not going to smell great around here for a good while," said Ten.
"I'll take that over the rest of us being slaughtered."
The tar on the lake burned for more than an hour while more corpses poured from the castle and, the ones who did not find the wrong end of an arrow had no choice but to drop into the lake or try to climb, hand over hand, on the bridge, which was now only attached on three sides and swayed dangerously every time another of them got on it. The sequence of zip - splash - pop as they were shot down, hit the water, and then exploded from the methane within became a macabre rhythm, until the flood of them out of the castle became a trickle, and eventually the last one toddled out, and was welcomed with an arrow clean through its head.
"Is that it?" she asked.
"Looks like all of them," said Murdock, "Probably. Let's not get our hopes up."
They took turns keeping watch, harpoons at the ready, and sleeping sitting up with their backs against the walls of various houses until the sun came up over the mountains to their back, when all of them tromped back to the town square, where the archers had already reassembled, exhausted, but largely unhurt.
"That was hardly an honorable fight," Sten, who had been positioned outside the chantry door, blocking nearly the whole thing, and brandishing a two-handed sword in case any of the dead made it down the path or out of the lake. To his disappointment, none had.
"Next time we'll send you in solo," said Ten, "Casualties?"
"Only my pride," muttered one of the male yeomen, "Shamed by a nun."
"Two fishing boats," said one of the militiamen, "One of the docks got singed pretty badly, it will probably need to be replaced."
"Even the bridge is salvageable," one of the yeomen said, "Just need to run a new line. Could get it done before nightfall."
Ten looked pointedly at Teagan, but said nothing further, and went to take a nap in the Chantry.