by David Gaider
Calling to several of her men to follow her, Rowan turned and raced up the path toward Loghain.
Encouraged by the sight, Loghain urged his knights to continue pushing—and they did. They were shoving forward now, sweeping the line of enemy soldiers before them off the edge of the path like so much debris off the front steps. The bloodcurdling screams as those men were sent falling to their deaths were difficult to bear.
And then they stood at the edge, Loghain and his six men. They stared down at the carnage below, the many men lying broken at the bottom of a hundred-foot drop. Like dolls scattered by an angry child, Loghain thought grimly.
The few soldiers left on the path were now leaping off the side to get out of the way of Rowan and the several horsemen charging with her up the path. Those that stood their ground were cut down mercilessly. One of them was a lone, quaking halberdier who leveled his weapon toward the horse racing at him. Rowan pulled her horse to one side at the last moment and efficiently sliced her blade deep into the man’s neck as she rode past. He went down without so much as a blink.
When Rowan reached the top of the path, she slid off her horse in one smooth motion and ran toward Loghain, lifting up her helmet. Brown hair spilled around her face as she took in the sight of the small number of wounded, haggard men standing there with him. They all stared back at her dumbly, numb with exhaustion and the fading remnants of adrenaline.
“Are you . . . all right?” she asked uncertainly, her expression concerned.
Loghain walked toward her and held out his hand. Rowan hesitated, staring at him as if she wasn’t sure what it meant before she relaxed and shook it.
“That was quite the charge,” he congratulated her. Their eyes met, lingering a moment longer than was necessary. Rowan quickly disengaged her hand and glanced away.
“I can’t believe you lasted this long. I wish I’d come sooner.” She nodded officiously to the other men behind Loghain, several of whom had dropped to their knees. “Well done, all of you.”
“It’s not over yet,” he sighed. Already he could see the enemy recovering below. The charge had spooked them and taken a toll on their forces, but it wouldn’t be long before the Orlesians would recover from the shock. They still had the superior numbers, after all, and if they realized it quickly enough, they could race back into the clearing and surround Rowan’s men. They needed to get out—now.
Rowan was nodding, understanding the situation exactly as he did, he realized. Loghain found himself hardly surprised. “Maric will need us. Let’s go while we still can.”
Maric panted at the edge of the battle during a few rare seconds he could even breathe in the chaos, ears ringing with the sound of steel on steel. His sword arm ached so badly, he thought it might just fall off. He also suddenly noticed an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, the shaft having penetrated between the grooves of his fine armor. Well, that would explain the jabbing pain I felt earlier, he thought to himself .
The ebb and flow of the melee seemed to go on forever. He had lost the ability to judge what was actually going on with the overall battle once Arl Rendorn had charged the line. It had become his only concern just to survive, facing an endless array of opponents that charged at him from every direction.
So far, he remained alive despite it all. The heavy dwarven armor he wore had repelled dozens of strikes without so much as a dent. Far too many rebels had been killed before Maric’s eyes, trying to buy their prince a few more moments of life. Even with all this protection, his sword dripped with the blood of men who would surely have killed him, if Maric hadn’t been a second faster than they. And then, of course, there was the blind luck.
At one point he had been barrelled over by a giant of a man in chain armor, and when Maric had rolled over, he’d seen a great axe ready to come down right on top of his head. None of his protectors had been near enough to help. All that had saved him was an errant gauntlet flung from some unknown soldier nearby, probably by accident, which struck the giant in the back of the head and knocked him off balance. The axe came down just shy of Maric’s ear. His breath had steamed on the metal of the axe-head buried in the ground not an inch away from the tip of his nose.
The giant soldier yanked the axe back up, but this time Wilhelm had intervened. An arc of lightning streaked across the battlefield and left a gaping, smoking hole in the fellow’s chest. Maric had at least enough sense to roll out of the way before the man toppled over like a falling building.
Evidently, Maric’s time on Thedas was not quite up yet.
He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and cast an eye over the battlefield. The first thing he wondered was what had happened to Rowan. He couldn’t see the green of her helmet, either racing across the field or lying on it. Nor were there any horsemen in the battle. How long had they been fighting? Was the bulk of the enemy force about to fall on them from the south?
He found himself worrying about Loghain most of all and the possibility that he might have asked the man to commit himself to a useless sacrifice. If Gareth’s son died trying to keep him alive, as well . . .
And then the horn sounded. Belatedly, to be sure, but it still had the desired effect. In the distance he could see Rowan’s horsemen charging into the enemy line, scattering them in every direction.
It proved to be enough. Over the next ten minutes, desperation surged among the soldiers on both sides. Maric could hear the Arl shouting to the men, urging them to press toward the hill, and Maric began to do the same. Blood was spilling rapidly as casualties mounted, but as the horsemen took their toll, the enemy began to pull back. The enemy commanders ordered a retreat, shouting for their men to regroup outside the valley.
Maric was almost tempted to give chase as he watched the enemy soldiers scrambling to get away, but Arl Rendorn’s arrival prevented him. “Let them go! We must make a run for it!” he shouted. The man was clutching his chest and bleeding heavily as he was supported by two others. Seeing this, Maric merely nodded and began calling for the men to fall back.
It was not a victory.
In the end, after hours of confusion and running as the rebel army retreated out of the valley, they managed to regroup at the edge of a small river several miles to the north. The men arrived in dribs and drabs, exhausted and wounded and sometimes carrying each other. Men on horses were sent out to look for others who had fled in different directions, but in the end it looked as if they had lost at least half their numbers. On top of this, much of their supplies and equipment had been left in the valley out of necessity.
But it felt like a victory to Maric. Instead of losing everything that his mother had built, they had survived. They had evaded the usurper’s trap and even dealt him a bloody nose on the way out. As sore as their condition was, the usurper’s forces would not be so quick to be on their trail. Not tonight, and that was all the rebels needed.
When Rowan finally brought a bruised and bloodied Loghain to the fire at their new tent, still wearing fancy leathers and the soiled, tattered remains of the Queen’s purple cloak, Maric cried out with glee and ran forward to sweep up the startled Loghain in a great bear hug. Loghain winced in pain but tolerated the display, staring down at Maric as if he had gone mad.
“It worked!” Maric cried. “Your plan bloody well worked!”
“Enough,” Loghain griped, shoving Maric away so that he was quickly dropped.
“Have a care, Maric,” Rowan chided him with amusement. “Loghain’s taken several wounds to his chest.”
“Bah! He’s invulnerable!” Maric laughed, and then danced away exuberantly. He circled the fire like some kind of barbarian shaman performing a strange victory ritual, all the while laughing maniacally.
Loghain watched him, mystified, and then looked incredulously toward Rowan. “He does this often?”
“I’m thinking he may have taken a blow to the head.”
Arl Rendorn walked up then, now out of his armor and sporting thick bandages around his midsection,
the cloth already darkening with bloodstains. One of his eyes was likewise bandaged, and he limped heavily. His expression was angry enough to draw notice, and when Rowan went to offer him support, he waved her off with a glower. “Apparently,” he stated with muted rage, “you have decided that my orders do not need to be followed.”
Maric detected the tension and stopped his wild careening, turning to address the Arl. “Your Grace? Is something amiss?”
“Plenty. As she well knows.”
Rowan nodded soberly, accepting the recrimination. “I know you are angry, Father—” She held up a hand to stave off any further outburst from him. “—but I did what needed to be done. Had I not routed them, at least for a time, they might have marched north once Loghain was slain.”
“She also killed one of the Orlesian commanders,” Loghain pointed out. “Quite spectacularly.”
“We might have been away by then,” the Arl snapped. Then he looked at Loghain and softened somewhat. “But . . . it is good that you live, lad. And your plan did succeed.” From Loghain, he turned toward Maric, frowning. “I would be happier, however, if our condition were not so poor. We have lost a great number of men and much equipment. Moving forward will be difficult.”
Maric walked over to Rendorn and put a comforting hand on the Arl’s shoulder, grin remaining even if his enthusiasm was diminished. “I agree, but still I think there is much to celebrate. The rebellion drew blood, and lives on.”
Arl Rendorn attempted a wan smile. “Your mother,” he began, voice thick with emotion, “would have been very proud to see you today, my boy.”
Maric was startled at both the display of emotion and the tears he fought in his own eyes as he and Arl Rendorn hugged roughly. Backs were clapped fondly, and when Maric stepped away, he could only nod awkwardly to the Arl in the silence.
Maric turned then to Loghain, who had taken a seat by the fire. He held out a hand, and Loghain slowly shook it. “Thank you for everything you did today, Loghain. I do hope you’ll consider staying with us.”
“You should have seen him up on that bluff,” Rowan said. “He was magnificent. The knights that fought with him are already talking about it.”
Loghain smiled, a bit shyly. Maric wondered if it was, in fact, the first time he had actually seen the man smile. “It was a difficult situation, and we did what we had to.” He then looked up at Maric almost apologetically, holding up what remained of the purple cloak. “I, ah, also ruined your mother’s cloak.”
Maric laughed, and Rowan joined in. “You’re being modest,” she teased.
“Indeed.” The Arl limped up to Loghain and shook his hand as well. “I misjudged you. You clearly have excellent instincts, and we could use your assistance.”
Loghain’s blue eyes shifted among the Arl and Maric and Rowan, and for a moment Maric thought he looked almost trapped. He glanced down at the fire and stared at it for a time before reluctantly nodding. “I . . . very well. I’ll stay. For now.”
Pleased, Maric turned at last to Rowan. Even bruised and battered, she looked radiant: it was just her way. She brightened as he took her hands in his. “When you hadn’t charged, I thought perhaps we’d lost you,” he said seriously. “Don’t scare me like that again.”
Her eyes teared, though she grinned and laughed. “You don’t get out of it that easily, Maric.”
“Funny,” he answered wryly.
Loghain looked up from the fire, nonplussed. “Get out of what?” he asked the Arl.
“Maric and Rowan are betrothed.” Arl Rendorn smiled. “She was promised to him when she was born.”
“Ah,” Loghain said simply, and returned his gaze to the fire.
Not much later, Maric slipped away from the fire and walked alone under the night sky. The moon shone down, and glowing moths fluttered in a great swarm nearby. It was strangely peaceful, he thought. The campfires that dotted the riverbank were far too few, and the faint groans of wounded men were the only sounds that punctuated the silence.
He walked nearer to one of those fires, wincing as he saw the huddle of bandaged and exhausted soldiers around it. Some tents had been hastily erected, but there were a great number of soldiers who were sleeping on the ground, some without even blankets. The men around the fire stared into it blankly, trying very hard not to hear the anguished cries of those who would not survive the night coming from farther upriver.
Maric watched, hovering just out of sight and yet feeling strangely drawn. He tried to tell himself they might all be dead now had he not insisted on the battle.
“Your Highness?” he heard from nearby.
Maric started and turned toward the sound. A soldier was there in the shadows, lying against a tree. As Maric approached, he noticed that the man was older, probably too old to still be fighting. Then he saw that the man’s right leg stopped at the knee, a mass of bloody bandages showing a recent amputation. The fellow was pale and shaking, drinking liberally from a wineskin.
“I’m . . . so sorry about your leg,” Maric offered, feeling inadequate.
The man grinned, glancing at his new stump and patting it almost affectionately. “It doesn’t hurt so much now,” he chuckled. “The mage even said he might come by and do what he could.”
Maric didn’t know what to say. He stood there a moment until the man offered up his wineskin as a toast. “I saw you on the field today, Your Highness. Fought not twenty feet from you at one point.”
“You did?”
“I’m going to tell my grandchildren one day: I fought beside the Prince,” he said proudly. “You were quite the sight, my lord. I watched you take down three men in a row, like it was nothing.”
“I’m sure you were distracted.” Maric grinned. “I was scared.”
“I knew we were going to win,” the soldier insisted. He looked at Maric with shining eyes. “When you came back to us this morning, we all knew it. The Maker sent you to us. To protect you.”
“Maybe He did.”
The man grinned at him and drank deeply from the wineskin. “To the Queen!” he toasted drunkenly to the moon. “You rest in peace now, Your Majesty. You did your part.”
Maric felt tears well up in his eyes but ignored them. Quietly he took the skin and drank deeply from it. “To the Queen,” he toasted to the moon.
And suddenly it all didn’t seem quite as daunting as before.
6
“To the King!”
Severan heard the toasts to the King even before he entered the throne room. The chamber would be near bursting by now, filled with nobles from throughout Ferelden who had arrived to honor the day of His Majesty’s birth.
Honor, of course, might not be quite the word for it. The native Fereldans were terrified the King would strip them of their land as he had done to so many of their fellows in punishment for some crime, real or imagined. The Orlesians, those members of the aristocracy who had chosen to seek out their fortunes away from the Empire and had been given those stripped lands, feared much the same. The King, after all, was a bored and capricious member of an ancient aristocracy, who had been sent to assume the Fereldan throne only after angering the Emperor—his first cousin and, so the scandalous rumor claimed, onetime lover—and now took out his own displeasure on subjects who had little choice but to bow to his whims.
Severan had tactfully informed the King that the rebels might have been curbed by now if he just took a lighter hand with the locals. Despite his hatred of the rebels and the embarrassment they represented, the King refused to heed the advice. He would do as he wished, and no one could tell him otherwise.
Just as he did with his court, Severan thought, recalling how the King had tried to bring the Orlesian tradition of wearing masks to the Fereldens. He had declared that all members of the nobility would be required to wear as fancy and as beautifully adorned a mask as they could acquire, and that at the end of each court, the wearer of the mask that pleased him the least would be punished. Needless to say, the frantic run on masks and the dem
and for those who could make them almost resulted in riots in the streets. Finally, when a would-be assassin managed to slip into the palace by wearing such a mask, the commander of the royal guard begged the King to lift the edict for the sake of security. The collective sigh of relief when the King finally did so was almost palpable.
King Meghren was a tyrant, and one did not honor tyrants; one appeased them. So the nobility put on a great show of adoration for their beloved monarch, their smiles a thin veneer covering their terror. The King, meanwhile, knew the nobles were acting. The nobility understood this, but also knew that the charade was required of them, nevertheless.
Such was the sad state of things in Orlesian-occupied Ferelden.
Severan could not have cared less. He was from neither Ferelden nor Orlais, but from across the Waking Sea and far to the north, as his swarthy skin implied. He would have watched his own land be subjugated with no more than a raise of his eyebrow, for mages had no true home at all. His interests were his own, and the King accepted this. Severan’s ambition was as reliable as the rising sun, and that was why he remained King Meghren’s closest advisor.
“Amaranthine brings to its beloved King a sword of finest silverite, fashioned in the dwarven halls of Orzammar! May it serve him well in the years to come, and offer proof to all of Thedas that his might cannot be denied!”
As Severan entered the throne room, he saw the young Arl was standing amid the rows and rows of nobles seated at their supper tables, giving an overdone speech as several elven servants scampered up to the throne to present a long ornate case to the King. King Meghren, meanwhile, was the very picture of boredom. He was slumped low in the throne, one leg thrown over an arm and propping up his head with a hand. The King was a handsome and virile young man, all dark curls and olive skin to go with that crooked sneer—yet today he looked very much like someone who had overindulged for too many days nonstop. Which was exactly the case.