Dragon's Era- No Man's Land

by Jacon Winfree

  "Forgive me," she said to the girl, looking up from her work, "but I did not catch your name."

  "Maude," the girl said, with an odd, sad smile curling her rosily perfect lips. "Warden Maude will do."

  "You have our thanks, Warden Maude," said Freya, her quill scratching the parchment.

  Loghain glanced back at her, and lowered his voice. He asked the girl—Maude— "Can we expect any more of your order to turn up?"

  "I doubt it," she said, with irritating nonchalance. "You've made them pretty angry. They wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. The First Warden wants to make an example of Ferelden and ordered everyone to stay away from you. Good for the tithes, you see."

  "But you are here."

  She gave him a nod. "I am here. It's all very well to feud with difficult heads of state, but not if it puts thousands of innocent people in danger. I'm here for them. The rich and noble can always buy their way onto a ship."

  Freya sealed her writs and handed them to the girl.

  "Again, Warden Maude, my heartfelt thanks,"

  "Your Majesty."

  A limpid smile as the girl tucked the documents away in her splendid black armor. Another graceful bow, and the girl turned smartly and swaggered away. The big mabari, after a last melancholy look at Loghain, trotted after her.

  Freya was already angry with him, so Loghain refrained from sneering. If this young firebrand had disobeyed orders and come to help them, they certainly should do nothing to prevent her. Loghain felt that anyone with such a fine dog deserved at least a modicum of respect.

  "Probably from a noble family." Loghain grunted. "Howe told me that the Wardens have always been a haven for superfluous noble offspring and the like. Very likely the family gave her her dowry in the form of weapons and armor. Still, if she can recruit another Warden to do the deed—or can do it herself—she's worth the trouble. It's not like she's costing us anything!"

  Freya looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "We're very lucky she's here," she said tightly. "Summon a messenger. We need to get those people in Fort Drakon to her at once. And allow Senior Enchanter Wynne to heal the bard! If possible, she should join the Warden, too."

  She did not sweep away, which Loghain expected, but waited there, watching him, obviously expecting him to drag his feet. He was not so suicidal as to prevent what might be their only hope from succeeding in her mission. As to the bard, if she survived, it was his fault for not having her killed earlier. Freya even watched and liArvided as he issued his orders. She even put them in written form and made him sign them. Not a bad idea, since they ran contrary to most of his orders in the past.

  "Go to Fort Drakon and give these orders to the commander. The mage named Wynne is to be allowed to see the Orlesian spy Wanda and attempt to heal her. If the spy is fit for it, she is to be taken with the rest of the Warden traitors to the Arl of Denerim's estate and be put under the command of the Marcher Warden Maude. Warden Maude is to be given every courtesy."

  Then Jowan was summoned, and was told his new duties. Such a sickly, hangdog fellow. Loghain wondered why he had ever imagined Jowan competent enough to follow his orders.

  "Go to the Arl of Denerim's estate. A Grey Warden from the Free Marches, by name Maude, is there. You are to assist her in any way she requires. Henceforth, you are under her command. She will be focusing on fighting the Archdemon. If she wishes to conscript you into the Grey Warden order, you are to submit. Go."

  To his astonishment, the man looked at Loghain as if he'd been reprieved from the gallows, rather than being sentenced to death. He bowed low and slunk away, almost running by the time he reached the door. Loghain rolled his eyes.

  Only then did Freya stalk away in a swish of silk, not giving Loghain time once again to urge her to pack and leave. It was annoying, but not any more annoying than having to depend on the unknown quality of a foreigner. Loghain growled audibly, thinking of the jumped-up little interloper. He hadn't even thought to ask which city in the Free Marches she hailed from.

  Glamor girl. Adventuress. Idealist. As bad as Cailan. No. Not so bad, since she was apparently a gifted warrior, and she had attracted the loyalty of a fine mabari. She was what they had, which was infinitely better than nothing.

  * * *

  The darkspawn actually arrived two days later. Darkspawn, it seemed, did not need to sleep or eat. Loghain saw little of the mysterious Warden Maude, except for one lengthy war council and a final, frantic planning session. The pathetic Jowan was now Warden Jowan and alive, which surprised Loghain somewhat, though it did not improve his opinion of Grey Wardens.

  Not entirely to his surprise, since he actually had done some reading on his own, killing the Archdemon did not solve all their troubles. There was a period subsequent to the Blight, called the Thaw, during which the surviving darkspawn on the surface had to be hunted down and exterminated. Wardens would be useful for that, even Loghain had to admit. The girl mentioned it to him, and suggested that he grant the Wardens their old fortress of Soldier's Peak.

  "It's something of a wreck," she said, "but it will do. You really need at least three dozen Wardens about to deal with the Thaw and keep up training—especially if you don't want the First Warden sending you a pack of Orlesians. Do remember that there are still two Old Gods after this one! Nobody lives at Soldier's Peak: nobody else wants it. I'm sure there's a copy of the original grant in the Royal Archives. If you don't want Wardens meddling in politics, relegate them to Soldier's Peak."

  Not only had she mentioned it to him, but she had made a point of telling Freya, who would certainly give the girl anything she wanted if she killed the Archdemon. She had already signed an agreement given the Wardens all rights to the Archdemon's remains. She had signed a general pardon for all the Warden's companions. Realistically, Loghain knew they would have to allow the grant of Soldier's Keep, and perhaps allowing the Wardens a crumbling old keep in the wilds of the Coast Mountains was better than having the Wardens looking over his shoulder in Denerim at the Palace.

  Early the second day, he finally persuaded Freya to sail, and a fleet of refugees left Denerim harbor for Alamar, white wings on the morning tide. A garrison and a ship were to be stationed on Mourne Island at the mouth of Denerim Bay, close enough to get some idea what was happening, but not close enough to be in danger themselves. Another, even smaller band was hidden on tiny Gull Island in the harbor itself, their little sailboat concealed among the rocks.

  At least the girl had delivered the allies, as promised, though it apparently required a personal visit from her to get them moving. Whatever she said—and the dwarves, Dalish, and mages were not talking much to anyone about it—worked. They made all the difference.

  The Dalish stayed outside Denerim, fighting as snipers and skirmishers, melting away when the darkspawn rallied, returning to harry them from cover. The dwarves joined the dwarves in the defense of Denerim's curtain wall, along with most of the mages.

  A dozen mages were snapped by Warden Maude and taken away for some unknown purpose of her own. Loghain had agreed with her in the basic tactics of the upcoming siege, but he had no time to waste paying court to her—however attractive the girl was.

  At the end of that second day, the Archdemon returned. From then on, Loghain hardly thought about Wardens, since he was hard put to stay alive and keep as many darkspawn as he could out of Denerim.

  Fighting the Archdemon was largely hopeless. When it swooped down and blasted them with arcane purple flames, all one could do was take cover. It soared over Denerim, a vast winged terror, and fires burned sullenly in every quarter of the city. Ballistae on the walls did not work well against it, since they could not track it quickly enough, nor could they be elevated to a useful angle. Fire arrows were no more effective than the normal kind, though a few longbowmen managed to stick the monster in uncomfortable places.

  Its onslaughts made it difficult to man the walls, but Loghain soldiered on, since the walls and the g
ate really did pose a barrier to the rest of the darkspawn—and the ballistae worked perfectly well on ogres. So did piles of boulders. So did boiling water. The darkspawn, if one discounted their great numbers, were not as fearsome an enemy as humans, because they were essentially stupid and uninventive.

  The mages worked wonders against them, casting wide-area spells that made mobs of the darkspawn freeze, burn, or crumple helplessly to the quaking earth. Archers targeted the darkspawn mages, their longbows outranging the tainted spellcasters.

  In short, Loghain, without anyone else to answer to, was fighting the battle of Ostagar over again: fighting it defensively from a strong position, and aside from the wild card of the Archdemon, and the danger of being undermined by the darkspawn—which the dwarves were guarding against—it was not going badly.

  It simply had to be won soon, however, because the city could not hold out more than a month with the supplies they had. If they were to win, they had to win quickly. That, too, was a lesson from history.

  The Archdemon, horribly more clever than Loghain had anticipated, had early on flown straight to the docks and burned the few ships still at anchor. It did not fly on, however, seeking out the fleet that was over the horizon. Possibly it did not know about it. Instead it veered back to ravage the city. Too much of Denerim was built of wood. Another lesson to ponder.

  They were lucky, he later realized; or perhaps it was not luck at all. The Archdemon could have destroyed the Great Gate and brought down the guard towers, if it had made a consiArvidt, concerted effort to do so. Instead, it soon turned its attention to Fort Drakon, leaving the horde for Loghain to deal with. Occasionally, Loghain would search the skies for it. As he was commanding the defense at the Gate, Fort Drakon was south of him: to his left and slightly in front of him, since Fort Drakon was situated at the south end of the city wall, where it blended into the lower reaches of Dragon's Peak. It was easy to keep an eye on events there

  The Archdemon circled the tower, sometimes dropping down on the wide flat roof, sometimes backwinging in a bizarrely graceful flutter. In the distance, it looked small and dark; like a shadow puppet dragon against a painted stormy backdrop. Presumably that was where the Warden was, and she was decoying it away, keeping it from Loghain's army, just as Loghain's army was keeping the darkspawn away from the Warden. Good for her.

  Night fell, and the battle raged on. The darkspawn gave them no respite, and seemed to grow stronger in the absence of the sun. Men dropped from weariness and were replaced by the reserves, such as they were. Loghain began to fear that the supplies of arrows and bolts would run out, and then they would be in serious trouble, and would have to rely entirely on their mages. The mages themselves were flagging, and asking for Nacronite potions. The Chantry had sent a limited amount, but now had locked the Cathedral, and were not accepting any communications from outside their barred doors.

  * * *

  The end came on them as suddenly as a lightning bolt in a clear sky.

  A flash of white light, painfully bright, blossomed out from the top of Fort Drakon. A moment later, a crash shook the city walls, knocking warriors and darkspawn off their feet. The light expanded, a sphere of livid fire, and then imploded on itself, as wisps of smoke trailed up into the clouds. The world paused, breathless.

  And then the darkspawn broke. Mindless, leaderless, they fell into chaos; some fighting on, some trampling their fellows, some running away into the night, all without purpose or decision. One moment, Loghain was fighting an army—of a sort—and the next he was directing the slaughter of a milling, squealing mob.

  "She's done it!" shouted one of his officers, face blackened with soot. "The Warden must have slain the Archdemon!"

  In his heart, Loghain knew it was true, and was torn with a mix of elation and pain he hardly understood himself. What mattered at the moment was destroying the darkspawn.

  "We've got them on the run!" he roared. "Kill them all!"

  With a great shout, men who had seemed moribund with fatigue found new strength. It was not over—not quite yet—but it was the beginning of the end of the Blight.

  * * *

  It was not until dawn that he could leave the walls and go to Fort Drakon to find out for himself what had happened.

  A dozen mages were busily scavenging the corpse of the Archdemon, which was certainly sensible. Freya had agreed to it, and it was useless to covet any of it. Barrels and bundles surrounded the vast, stinking corpse. Loghain briefly wondered how they would ever clean up the mess, but apparently, once skinned and drained of blood, the mages could burn away the tainted flesh and organs, and leave the precious bones unscathed.

  There was no sign of the Grey Warden Maude.

  After some brief, unsatisfactory conversations, Loghain realized he would never know the whole truth. Even his own people—the ones he had personally assigned, like Captain Darrow, to watch the Warden—were telling him a story that made no sense, and was as full of holes as an elf's tunic.

  Were they even his own people anymore? They had the air of a band who had seen things that they could never make anyone else understand. He had thought Darrow a sound man, but Darrow seemed to have fallen under the Warden's spell like everyone else.

  "She's gone, sir," was the captain's laconic report.

  Behind him the Warden's companions glared at him with burning eyes. Among them was the Orlesian spy, apparently restored to perfect health and conscripted into the order. Jowan, too, was alive, as were the rest of those pernicious troublemakers—and even some Loghain had not succeeded in capturing at the Landsmeet, including a handsome elf that he was almost sure he recognized. Loghain was too relieved to be rid of the Archdemon to care.

  "Gone?" he asked. "Dead, you mean?"

  "I mean gone. When she drove her sword into the Archdemon, the light blazed up, and when it died away, she'd vanished. Nothing's left of her: not even her sword and armor. Not even her dog."

  "The dog, too?" That was just odd.

  But so it was. Nothing was left; no body, no ashes, no relics.

  What she had left behind were a lot of people who considered themselves Warden recruits, including Darrow himself. Loghain bit back his irritation. The Blight was over, most of Denerim was still standing, and at least some of the new Wardens would be loyal to Ferelden.

  "Well," he said, after a moment's thought. "I suppose you'll be after the remains of the darkspawn, now that we're in this 'Thaw.'"

  Darrow nodded gravely. "Warden Maude told us what to do. She told us lots of things. There are some places in Denerim we have to visit first. There's a blood mage den in the South Docks neighborhood, and a demon in Stealcopper Court."

  "How could she know that?" Loghain scoffed.

  The redhaired Orlesian spy, until then discreetly in the background, pushed forward.

  "Because she was Andraste, you fool!"

  Jowan hauled the Orlesian back.

  "Wanda, Maude said she wasn't Andraste. She said she was sent here by the Powers That Be, because they didn't want Ferelden to be destroyed. She said she was going home once her work here was done."

  Another of Loghain's —former—soldiers nodded sagely. "That means she was sent by Andraste and the Maker."

  "That was just her modesty," Wanda disagreed, with a shrug. "The name 'Maude' means 'mighty battle maiden.' Who is mighty but Andraste? Didn't she have the power to win all to her cause? Didn't she heal me in an instant with Ashes from her own Temple? Didn't she know everything that had happened and that would happen? And she was really Fereldan, not a Marcher. She was Andraste, or her earthly avatar using the name 'Maude' in her aspect as a warrior. The Chantry must be made aware of this."

  Loghain stared at the lunatic. Some, like the elderly mage, were inclined to agree with her.

  "It is certainly…possible, I suppose. It's hard to know how else to explain it. She knew all sorts of things about us. Even our most painful secrets."

  Loghain scow
led at them all. "She didn't know anything about me."

  Contempt from some, a pitying stare from others.

  Darrow said mildly, "I reckon she'd be discreet for the Queen's sake, sir."

  That gave Loghain pause. A little. Then he shrugged.

  "Carry on," he ordered, as if he had any power over them at all. What did they matter? Ferelden was Freya's; it was his. Perhaps it would not be intolerable to allow these Wardens a tiny corner of it. They'd done their duty. It was time to send word to Freya that she could come home. Meanwhile, he would have a meal, a desperately needed bath, and some sleep, in that order.

  * * *

  "Wake up!"

  Loghain was shocked by the hard slap across his jaw. Another followed, the c-r-r-a-a-ack! of it echoing as if he were sleeping in a vast cavern.

  "Hey! LiArvid to me! Wake up!"

  Another slap. Loghain blinked, and tried to escape the assault. Somehow he could not. He was not in his own bed, but in someone else's; in a large, high-ceilinged room, paneled in dark silkwood, the bed itself hung with sumptuous red velvet. It was all strange and dim, with misty borders. Was this a real place? How could it be? KneAstridg astride him was Warden Maude, dressed in—

  —Not very much. He tried to open his mouth to speak…no…to gape.

  She hit him again.

  "Don't you say one word!" she snarled. "I'm royally pissed off at you. You're an even bigger prick than my Loghain, which is saying something."

  She lifted her hand, weighing whether to hit him once more, and then decided not to.

  "Yes, you're in the Fade. No, I'm not dead. I'm just at home, sleeping, and I decided I needed to have a last word with you. I'm really not happy with you at all. You were a huge jerk to me, right up to the moment I saved you and all Ferelden. Again. You could at least say thank you."