The path through the mountain pass where the official gates to Orzammar met the surface was not nearly as arduous as the one to the village Haven. It was also much better trod, wheel tracks and hoofprints already worn into it. Though the path was somewhat damp with snowmelt, the bulk of it was channeled into a narrow elevated gutter that ran along the uphill side of the winding path at around shoulder-height on Ten. That was, it turned out, the first bit of dwarven engineering that Ten had the privilege of seeing - if you didn't count the time that Hanne rigged together a keg tap that would somehow sense exactly how large the vessel you were attempting to fill was and pour out exactly the correct amount of ale with a perfect three-quarter-inch head every time. The gutters, Ten realized, served the dual purpose of keeping the road from washing away every spring thaw and also providing weary travelers with reasonably clean water, unsullied by the urine of draft animals and ill-mannered men.
The journey into the mountains took most of four days, but did not take them nearly as high as the trip to Haven, which Ten was thankful for. They were fairly sure they were within spitting distance of the gates, but the days were still rather short, and so they pulled off where there was a spot that appeared used for such a thing frequently, and so they set up. Since the encounter with the strange girl in the woods, Ten had been feeling a bit more upbeat. She didn't want to take too much credit for her mood improving that of her companions, but there was a bit more chatter along the road. Bickering as well, of course.
Ten had read about the dwarven kingdoms below the ground, but still had trouble picturing what it must look like. According to Hanne, the gates to Orzammar were set right into the side of a mountain, and were pretty much the only sanctioned way in and out of there. Though, to hear Hanne speak of it, the great dwarven empires of yesteryear were shrunk down to a shadow of their former glory, the dwarves themselves reduced to holing up in the capital while the rest of their territory had been ceded to darkspawn. The fact that Orzammar had gates at all represented a sea change in the culture, apparently, previous generations having preferred to remain completely sequestered from the world above. Now, though, as many dwarves lived fulltime on the surface as dwelled below. Ten got the sense that the ones below saw the ones above a little like the Dalish saw her own people, somehow diminished, less valid. This was, of course, completely bullshit, ignoring that both surface dwarves and city elves had just as much of a claim to their heritage as their counterparts. After all, the city elves did not come from the Dalish. They and the Dalish came from the same place and were split apart by existential catastrophe. Same with the surface dwarves - most were not like Hanne, who had grown up belowground and left somewhat voluntarily. Most had been driven above-ground generations before by the same forces that drove those below to close themselves up tight in their city under the mountain. And she felt fairly prepared as they approached the gates.
She was not, however, prepared for what lay outside these gates, especially so close to the end of winter. A village appeared to have popped up right in the middle of the pass, merchants of various stripes hawking wares of various origins. They can't possibly live here fulltime. That would be insane, right? She looked over wagons and carts, but saw no evidence that that was the case. Must be some mountain village within spitting distance. No way are half these people climbing up here all the time.
There was, in fact, only one campsite in the pass, looking completely out of place. More so when they drew closer, and Ten recognized both the style of tent and the colors on the banner staked on the periphery.
"Am I losing my mind?" she asked, as much talking to herself as anyone around her.
"No, that does appear to be a camp of Teyrn Loghain's or… whoever's… soldiers," Lelianna offered.
"The queen couldn't have ordered them up here already. And why would she?" Alistair commented.
"Well, that leaves one explanation…" Ten said.
"They've been here all winter, haven't they," Alistair sighed, "They have no idea that the man who issued their orders is no more."
"Do we tell them?" Ten queried.
"I mean it would be a little bit funny if we didn't," Lelianna said.
"I suppose it's too much to hope that they just ignore us," Alistair said.
"Well unless they're tripling up in those tents we outnumber them," Zevran pointed out.
"Well nobody in their right mind would do that, would they," Ten commented.
As if their ears were burning, first one and then three and then six soldiers had exited their tents. It was nearly noon, and they were fully armored up, no inkling that they had been sleeping. They all sort of nodded at each other and approached the grand gates. The gates themselves stood about thirty feet high, stone braced with bronze. They would have been ostentatious anywhere but the fact that they were guarded by several men, the tallest of whom was no more than four and a half feet tall, made it all the more out of place. As the human soldiers left their campsite, a great gong sounded from somewhere within the mountain. The dwarven soldiers - four of them - two at the top of the short, broad staircase leading to the gates and two at the bottom - marched towards each other and up and through a smaller door which Ten had not even seen camouflaged in the very center of the gates. Their replacements, two women and two men, all of similar stature, marched out directly afterwards, taking up their posts. Ten saw one of the women, stationed at the lower right corner, cast her eyes over the human soldiers and roll her eyes.
"Still closed, boys," she called, her voice husky and completely out of patience, "Just like it has been every sixteen hours for the last three months."
"We demand an audience!" the leader of the armed men insisted.
"The answer's still no. Just like it was the last time I had to look at your sorry excuse for a face."
"Surely your assembly must have elected a new king by now," another soldier.
"Nope, still deadlocked. Believe me I'm about as amused by this as you are."
"I don't see what that has to do with anything," a third soldier said, "There's only one king in this land."
"Right, right," the dwarven guardswoman said, "Sovereignty? What sovereignty? You think we're just supposed to bend our stubby little knees whenever you malformed louts show up in your fourth-rate armor swinging your poorly-made swords around? We've had this conversation four times in the last week, Cuthbert, I don't know why you think it's going to go differently today."
"Lieutenant, please let me teach this wench a lesson!"
"Oh, lieutenant, please, please do," the guardswoman said, her voice a high pitched, lisping mockery. The other three dwarven guards silently turned their heads, and shifted their weapons to a more active stance.
"If one of those idiots commits an act of war, I don't suppose they're going to discriminate between them and the rest of us," Alistair muttered.
"Did I hear something about an assembly deadlock?" Wynne said, "They can't possibly be having their own succession problems."
"It's not really a succession, not the way you people do it," Ten said, repeating what Hanne had told her about power under the mountain, "Their monarchs aren't hereditary… well, not automatically. They get voted on even if the last sovereign has an heir. They can name one but it's not binding unless everyone agrees. And by everyone I don't actually mean everyone, only certain houses get votes. It's still a terrible way to do things. I mean who decided it was a good idea to have people in charge until they're old enough to just drop dead?"
"I take exception to that," Wynne said.
"Well you're not minutes from death's door, are you," Ten said.
"Not at the moment."
Ten glanced back up at the standoff at the gates. The soldier called Cuthbert was being physically restrained by three of his brethren-in-arms, shouting all sorts of foul curses, while the dwarven guardswoman was dancing around in a circle with both middle fingers in the air and a manic grin on her face. Given how boring sentry duty must have been, Ten imagined that the daily standoffs with this out-of-place surfacer militia must have been the highlight of her shift which, if she had not heard, was an entire sixteen hours. She also must have been the ranking officer of that particular group as none of the others seemed to be reprimanding her for behaving in an entirely undisciplined manner.
"Tell me someone has the treaty," Ten said, sighing.
"Are you sure you want to?" Alistair asked, handing her the document in question.
"I don't, but I think maybe someone not human might be the best choice and unless you want to send Sten…" Ten looked over to where the qunari was examining a table full of exotic weaponry entirely too closely. He picked up a sword forged from blue steel and held it up to the light. Then he turned the flat side edge to his face and licked it from hilt to tip. The merchant selling it looked torn between saying 'don't taste the merchandise, what the fuck is wrong with you,' and not wanting to risk a fight with a seven-foot-tall man who'd just licked a blade he didn't own. "Yeah, no."
"Is that normal?" Lelianna asked, "Do they just… do that?"
"No idea," Ten said. She tucked the document into her belt and made her way to the gates. A whole season of camping plus human bathing habits had the six of them all smelling like various stages of decomposition. She put a hand discretely over her nose, wondering how the dwarven guards were not passing out from the stench. She addressed the one with officer's epaulets, "Lieutenant, right?" she asked, trying not to make it obvious that she was breathing exclusively through her mouth.
"Fuck do you want, knife-ears?" he asked.
"I am going to let that one go. Whom do you serve?"
"Why, King Loghain, of course," he said, looking at her like one might examine something one scraped off the sole of ones boot. Bold for someone who smells three days dead.
"I see. So… about that," Ten said, hesitantly, "When's the last time you heard a word from the king?"
"He ordered us to parlay with the dwarves. We don't return without fulfilling our mission."
"Have you been here… all winter? Nothing out of the capital?"
"Well no," he said. He was clearly not terribly pleased to be speaking to this strange elf, but her voice did absolutely smack of 'from the capital' and 'might know more than he did about the state of politics' so he had evidently decided to continue the conversation.
"So there's no King Loghain. Never was," she said, "And ah… there's no Teyrn Loghain either. His daughter had him executed. She's in charge now."
"Executed. And why would I believe you?" the lieutenant asked. Ten glanced and saw that Cuthbert had turned his attention from trying to start a fight with the guardswoman and was listening intently.
"Why would I lie?" asked Ten, "What a stupid thing to lie about. Anyway, he's definitely dead. Actually, the kid over there in the armor too big for him was the one as did it. I was in the room. Didn't watch it. Bit squeamish, myself, but I did definitely see the man's head at least twelve feet away from the rest of him afterwards so… I am fairly confident that he's dead."
The soldiers looked at each other. On the stairs, the four dwarven guardsmen craned their necks to see what had apparently finally gotten through to the men they'd been putting off for months.
"You're listening to some scullery maid with delusions of grandeur?!" the one called Cuthbert exclaimed.
"Why would she make that up?"
"Look," said Ten, "Nobody's coming out here for your heads anytime soon. It's less than a week's march to Highever. Just go. Talk to a herald or two. I promise I'm not fucking with you."
"I mean… nobody has been here to check on us," one of the soldiers said, "Nobody's even sent word. That is weird."
"What, do you want to spend another three months harassing these poor guardsmen every shift change only to be told to fuck off in various ways? Look, if I'm lying, you'll make it back up here before anyone can accuse you of dereliction of duty," Ten pointed out.
"Ranulf, you're fast. Go on, check the broadsides on the north road," the lieutenant commanded.
"Aye sir," one of them, a younger man whose beard had grown in patchily over the several months they had been without the amenities of civilization. Not needing to be told twice, he saluted, and went to back his things for the journey down the mountain.
"Rest of you, back to camp. She's not amused with us today."
"I'm never amused with you lot," the guardswoman said, "And you stink!"
Ten waited until they had returned to their camp, "Maker's breath they really do," she said, "Nazhda, right?"
"Well yes, but what do you want? You think getting rid of one set of strange humans means I want to talk to another?" the guardswoman scoffed.
"Human? Seriously?" Ten said, "I have been called many a thing in my day, but I have never once been accused of being human."
"You're not?" At first, Ten thought the guardswoman was taking the piss, but she seemed genuinely confused. Up close, she was younger than Ten had thought, given her voice.
Ten pulled her cap off and gathered her hair at the back of her head with one hand so her ears were clearly visible.
"I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, Miss," Nazhda said, clearly confused.
"Exactly. Points!" Ten said, gesturing at her ears.
"Oh. You're one of the other ones. What are they called…"
"Elves," Ten said. She felt the blood rush to her face and hoped that the days on the road and the early spring sunlight had darkened her face enough that Nazhda could not see it.
"Right, but… that's a type of human, right?"
There were very few times in her life when Ten had been struck entirely speechless, but this was certainly one of them. She knew on a sort of rational level that dwarves didn't involve themselves in the everpresent drama between humans and their elfin neighbors, neither joining in on the subjugation nor agitating against it. It was her predecessor Leonara's great ambition to convince the dwarven population of Denerim to identify with the elves and join the struggle, but this battle was in vain. Dwarves kept to themselves. Occasionally one would marry out, like Hanne had, but for whatever reason dwarf-human and dwarf-elfin pairings didn't tend to result in natural children very often - she had heard tell that such a thing was possible but she had never met one. So, it was not like the human-elf hybrids who apparently moved among them in every part of society and whose loyalty could be pulled one way or another. That said, the idea that someone would not be able to tell the difference…
She glanced behind her over the merchants and travelers and she saw that all of them, aside from Zevran and Sten, were dwarven or human… or close enough. And then it occurred to her that perhaps this Nazhda had never actually seen an elf before.
"Not really," she said, "But, well, that's not the important part I suppose. I've got a treaty here, the thrust of it is that your boss owes my bosses military support. The darkspawn have breached the surface and… well it's about to get very bad up here." She handed the yellowed parchment to the guardswoman.
"Hnh," Nazhda grunted, "Well… can I take this in to my captain?"
"I'd prefer if you called him out here," Ten said, taking the parchment back. The last thing she needed was some petty tyrant of a guard captain deciding to take it upon himself to destroy the evidence and send the disruptive surfacers packing.
"Bartek!" Nazhda barked. One of the guardsmen stood at attention, "Go get the captain. Tell her there's a Grey Warden here and she's not falling apart." She turned her dark green eyes to Ten, "Yet."
"Thanks," Ten said.
"Look, between you and me, whole thing's a massive shitstorm. The assembly's deadlocked, there's two contenders for the crown and I don't see it resolving without a damned civil war," Nazhda said, confidentially.
"Two contenders, eh?" Ten said, raising her eyebrows and lowering her voice.
"There's the king's son, and then there's some head of… some fucking house or the other, they both claim the last sovereign named them to the throne before kicking it," she said, "Now that's not really how it works, regardless of whatever the last one said, the assembly still has to vote, but…"
"Right," Ten said, "But the thumbs up from the last king would be pretty convincing, wouldn't it."
"You'd think so," Nazhda sighed, "Not really my business is it. Like I said, massive shitstorm, I've got no dog in this fight."
"Oh but surely there are ideological differences…"
"Does not matter to me. I'm of the warrior caste. They point I go."
"But doesn't it matter if your sovereign's a warmonger or a dove? I mean if they were to start a war, you would be the one to pay that price."
"War against what? The legion fights the darkspawn, we've already retreated into the most defensible part of the underground," Nazhda said, "It would be incredibly amusing to see you folk try and invade, though."
"Not our intention, I assure you."
"Obviously. We have nothing you want. You people can't handle lyrium without going off your damned rockers, the other precious metals are no more plentiful here than in shallower mines where it's easier for you folk to cart them off. And you certainly don't want the territory. Mark my words, girl, if you're granted entry, make sure you come up for air every so often. I've seen you people lose their minds after too long under the mountain. Then again maybe that was the lyrium as well…"
The door within the door creaked open behind them and the guard called Bartek came out with an older woman who could only be the captain. She was armored up, but did not appear to be carrying any weapons. She was armed, rather, with a clipboard and fine pen that looked to have been forged from something expensive. She appraised Ten coldly though pale blue eyes and, without a word, held one thick, dry hand out for the treaty. Ten handed it over, and she read it quickly.
"How many are you?" the captain asked.
"Uh… two elves, four humans, one qunari. And a dog," said Ten.
"Dog doesn't count. And what the hell is a qunari?"
Ten looked back to where Sten was trying out another sword. Fortunately he didn't feel the need to get the flavor of this one, but he was leaping from foot to foot, gracefully swinging it around as though in an intricate dance.
"Wait, he's not human either?" Nazhda asked.
"No!" Ten exclaimed.
"Well we don't have boxes for those, so seven humans. You can come in, the treaty demands it, but just don't hold your breath on there being a monarch to send you troops," the captain said. She looked down at her clipboard and sighed, "The good news is there's plenty of space at the local taverns. I'm sure they'll enjoy the business. Here's your identification…" she handed Ten seven squares of thick cardboard. Something was written on there in a script she did not recognize, "Just make sure you have it on you at all times, though I imagine news of your arrival is going to spread like the surface pox through a regiment and nobody will have many questions. Remember sound carries underground, there is no reason to raise your voice pretty much ever. Odor, too, wind is rare, and so it stays and settles. We expect everyone to bathe at least once every three days, fixtures provided in pretty much any room you rent, which you must do. You are not, I repeat, you are not going to just pitch a tent wherever you please. I do not care that it doesn't rain, it's still gross. We can always smell you people before we see you." She sniffed loudly, "Well, you're somewhat inoffensive, but tell your friends. And remember, I know what the sun is, you know what the sun is, but the city does not. One of you people who stayed here timed it and explained that we are on a forty-eight hour day while you are on a twenty-four, you'll adjust eventually but you'll probably find yourself awake at some random times of night for a bit. Don't go wandering if you don't see the tunnel lights on, no matter how bored you are. Oh, and don't feed the wild nugs. They'll follow you forever." The captain looked wearily up at Ten and concluded, not insincerely, "Welcome to Orzammar."