Starting working towards finishing up this thing. Got stuck on Sigrun because she was the last recruited for me, so I didn’t get any time to spend with her the first (and only) time that I played. I’ll probably take a while with the next chapter as well, as I’ve scheduled Kal’Hirol for it and it’s not a super catchy quest, although discovering the past through ghosts is really fascinating to play.
I also beat Dark Forces 2 and its horribly annoying final boss, although I appreciated the Star Wars take on the trope where you rush at each other, slash at each other, and wait like 10 seconds to see who actually struck and who dies. XD
Chapter 6
I wandered into the dining hall after the first night watch in late fall to find it not empty; Elizabeth and Oghren and Anders were sitting at the table closest to the wine cellar, mugs of beer in front of them. From the way they behaved, they’d been at it for a while.
“Hey, Nate!” Oghren called. “Come join us!”
“What’s going on?” I asked, taking a seat on the other side of Elizabeth from him and accepting a mug of beer from Anders, who was sitting across from us.
“Reminiscing, mostly,” Anders said. “She was just telling us how she met Zevran.”
Damn. I had been meaning to ask her about her stories from the Blight, and now I’d missed a bit. “Go on, then. What part are you at?”
“You missed the best part,” Oghren said. “Go back to the beginning, Eliza.”
“Fiiiine.” She swallowed some beer. “Th’ beginning-beginning, or th’ beginning of Zevran?”
“What happened on the day you met Zevran?” I asked. “I’d like the whole story eventually, but you can tell me that later. It’s a bit late at night for that now.”
“Hmm, we’d just come from th’ Circle Tower…”
I heard all about the assassin’s failed ambush, and the infamous Cousland shield-to-the-face that Elizabeth was so fond of using, and some of Zevran’s persuasive arguments to join her group, and some of their later exploits together. She looked happy, talking about him – and she was talking more than she usually did. Whether it was the alcohol or just that she liked talking about Zevran, or both, it was interesting to hear so much from her, and so freely.
“Even Wynne came around to th’ idea of ‘us’ eventually,” she finished. “Sh’ said it made her happy to see us happy.”
“Except when they kept the camp awake at night with their shenanigans,” Oghren said, waggling his eyebrows.
Elizabeth took a larger gulp of beer than usual and slammed her mug back on the table with a little more force than necessary. “Tha’ was one time. One time, Oghren, and ’twas your bloody fault anyway.”
I raised my eyebrows and she elaborated. “Shared some of ‘Oghren’s Special Brew’ with me. I passed out th’ instant I drank it!”
“That doesn’t even sound possible,” Anders said. “I mean, you’ve only had four beers, you’re clearly a light-weight, but…”
“It’s possible for Eliza,” Oghren said, and slapped her on the back, sending her head lolling back and forth as she giggled.
Now was not the time to ask how she felt about the propriety of sleeping with a man before she married him, given her status in Ferelden society. Although… I could put the pieces together myself. A lonely girl, an attractive man, and a hopeless task with little hope of even having a status in Ferelden society again – it made sense. Although that didn’t quite explain how casual and open she was about it now. She was a proud woman; perhaps she felt it would be insulting to hide it?
“I know you miss him a lot,” I said. “You don’t seem to want to talk about him normally, but his name comes up frequently-”
“No you don’t!” Oghren barked. “The reason why we’re all drinking is to get her to stop crying from loneliness in the first place! Don’t talk about missing him!”
My eyes widened. The Commander of the Grey, crying? Well, yes, she was young and under a lot of pressure, but… I hadn’t imagined her crying before. I had never seen her cry before. “I apologize-”
She sniffled. “I miss him so much! He’s off being chased by th’ entire Crow guild, an’ I can’t do anything about it! And I just want – I just want him back, so I can see him and hear him and hold him…” She put her head down on the table, still sniffling. “An’ he can’t come see me because then it puts me in danger! Selfish twit!” Her voice was muffled.
“There, there, Eliza,” Oghren said, awkwardly patting her shoulder. “He’s a slippery bastard. He’ll find a way to do it someday soon.”
“Why are you drinking, anyway?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem like something she would do to distract herself.”
She raised her head and hiccoughed. “Oghren always does it? There must be something to it, having your head all heavy and dizzy… The room’s spinning! Whee!”
“I would recommend against taking Oghren as a role model in anything, especially drinking.”
“Shurrup, Nate Howe,” she slurred at me, and giggled.
My eyes gleamed in amusement. It was funny to see her this drunk, although not a little disturbing, too. “Shut up yourself, Lizzy Cousland.”
She rocked back and forth with laughter. Laughter that turned hysterical, and then into sobs.
I stood. “All right. I think it’s time for the Warden-Commander to go to bed.”
“I think you might be right,” Anders said, and sighed. “And we were having so much fun, too.”
“I’m going to keep having fun,” Oghren said. “Want to stay with me, Anders? No talking about schleets, mind. I’m wise to your game, now.”
“Oh, all right,” Anders said, but I saw his eyes twinkle. “But have I told you about the yuffins?”
“Andraste help us all,” I muttered, putting one of Elizabeth’s arms over my neck as she stumbled drunkenly at my side.
The stairs up to her bedchamber were dark, very dark. She was mostly asleep before we got even to her floor.
I froze as she suddenly swung her other arm around me. “Zeeeevvvv…” I had to catch her before she fell over, and was now standing with her awkwardly in my arms. Her hands shakily snaked up to my hair. “I’ve missed you so muuuch… Kiss meee…”
I swallowed, hard. She was drunk, asleep, and thinking of someone else. Maker, I was trying to see if Velanna would give me the time of day. But… she was a lovely woman, even drunk and asleep and thinking of someone else, and her lips were right there…
I put her away from me, gently. “You’re drunk, Commander.” No one would know? What was I thinking? I would know, and I wasn’t so dishonourable that my conscience wouldn’t bother me. “Come on. Just a little further.” I unwrapped her other arm from my neck and tugged her up to her door.
She tried to drag me into her bed, and she was strong even when inebriated, but I disentangled myself as gently as I could and went to get Elra to attend her mistress. “Be careful, she’s… lonely.”
“Yes, ser,” Elra said, and hurried in. “There, my lady, let’s get your boots off before you get your blankets all dirty…”
The next day, she was all business, and I would never have guessed that she had so much as a hangover except for the way she winced whenever she had to go outside in the morning. She made no mention of the night before, and I doubted that she even remembered it.
As for Velanna, she was still not overly fond of me. “So you not only gave up on killing the Grey Warden who murdered your father, you actually joined the order.”
Well, she had joined the same order, she needn’t have said it like that. “Are you trying to pick a fight, Velanna? Baiting me like this is juvenile.”
“I just wanted to know how you felt,” she said, but the tilt to her head and the snide tone in her voice told me that she was after something more than that.
Two could play at that game. “How do you feel knowing you murdered all those people because you were too arrogant to check your facts?”
She glared at me coldly. “Warm and fuzzy.”
“You’re a terrible person,” I told her, finally nettled. “And your ears are clownish.”
She made an exasperated sound. “Who’s the juvenile one now?”
I tried not to pout as I strode off to my spot on the walls – pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to be there, Glavonak had almost finished with the towering front gate and there was really only the east wall left.
That fall, Elizabeth began a weekly habit of heading to one of the local villages with one or another of her fellow Wardens, to visit the taverns there and hear the local news. She even went with Justice a time or two, although I understand he kept his helmet down the entire time. He was beginning to get a bit of a reputation as “the Mysterious Warden”, which amused Anders and me greatly. I think we all enjoyed our casual outings with her, and although Garevel huffed about security, the villages near Vigil’s Keep seemed happy enough to see us too.
Today was no different; she slid into her usual seat, and when the innkeeper came around with her beer, she asked: “What’s the news?”
The man behind her turned. “You’re looking for news, fair lady? I just might have some to interest you.” His speech was more rough than his words would suggest, and it was awkwardly charming to observe that he was attempting to flirt with Elizabeth. It was not very widely known that her heart was taken, and obvious to all that there was no man at her side currently – although rumour had it that Anders or I was secretly her beau, I was given to understand.
She smiled at him and nodded. “Go on.”
“I’m Colbert, and this here’s my friend Micah.”
“I like eggs,” said the other man at their table, an elf, blandly.
“We was hunting in the Knotwood Hills, although game’s getting scarce at this time of year, when suddenly the ground collapsed in front of us!”
“I lost my lucky rabbit’s foot,” Micah said, nodding.
“There was a big rift in the ground, long and straight, and it looked like someone built a really nice tunnel there at one point,” Colbert continued. Elizabeth traded a glance with me. The Deep Roads? So close to the surface? “But the really weird part was, I’m pretty sure we saw darkspawn down there.”
Elizabeth sat up straighter. “You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. I’ve seen one before, once – from a distance, mind you. But they had the same gait, and the same dirty look – and the same teeth.”
“Where exactly in the Knotwood Hills is this location?” Elizabeth asked.
“It’s half a day’s journey west of here by the North Road, and then south about an hour,” said Colbert. “You’ll know you’re getting close when you see two hills like layer cakes; it’s just past those. It’s pretty big, you can’t miss it, especially with all the leaves coming off the trees right now.”
“Understood,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.” She felt around in her belt pouch and handed the two men an entire sovereign. “You have the gratitude of the Grey Wardens.”
“Cor, thanks, your ladyship,” Colbert enthused. “Say thank you, Micah!”
“Thanks, lady,” Micah said.
Elizabeth looked at me and smiled, just a little. “New leads are always nice. Now we can hunt again.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, and raised my glass.
The weather was getting colder and wetter the day she gathered the Wardens and set out for the Knotwood Hills. The tunnel was just where the two hunters had said it would be, a great rift into the earth where a hill had collapsed into the depths. We found a way down, aided by ropes we’d brought, and Oghren stamped around importantly, looking up at the carven walls that towered above us now.
“Why is it the dwarves build so high?” I asked curiously.
“Why not?” he grunted. “Just because you surfacers are so extruded has nothing to do with how high we’d like to build. Besides, have you seen your great big tower in the middle of the sodding lake?”
“Sure, but…”
“You think we like living in cramped little holes just big enough to run through?” He was cranky.
“It would make the dusting easier,” I said wryly.
Velanna walked over to Elizabeth, looking uneasy. “I am not thrilled with this idea. But it’s possible Seranni could be down here, so I will follow you.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “If you do see her, let us know before you go running off.”
“Very well.”
“Then let us go,” Elizabeth said, looking both ways. One way was hopelessly blocked up. The other looked feasible to traverse, and she pointed that way. “Let’s see what we can find.”
We each took a lantern and headed off into the Stygian gloom.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, unlit and cold, with no sound but the tramp of our own feet. Velanna kept glancing at the ceiling as if wondering if it would also fall in. I hoped that if we were attacked, she wouldn’t use her root spells.
I saw some flash of colour in the light of my lantern; it was an oval green stone, carven with swirly shapes and spirals. I checked my pace for a brief moment and scooped it up. It was pretty, and I slipped it in my pocket.
The tunnel came to a branch, one descending farther, the other keeping on straight as far as we could see by our lanterns. We came to a stop as we looked in each direction.
Elizabeth’s helmeted head turned abruptly, towards the down-facing road. “Weapons.” I readied my bow, straining to see down the vast dark hall, straining my ears to hear among the echoes, a sense of unease building in me. Was this the Wardens’ sense of darkspawn?
Running footsteps in the darkness, a woman gasping and panting as she ran, and behind her, the growls and grunts of inhuman creatures.
“Justice, Oghren, with me,” Elizabeth said, and sprang forward, down into the dark. The rest of us were to provide covering fire, eh? Would help if I could see.
“Not to worry,” Anders said, as if reading my mind, and cast a small fireball high down the hall. It illuminated a dwarf woman in armour running from a crowd of twenty or so darkspawn. I let fly an arrow; beside me, Velanna flicked her hand and several of the darkspawn fell with a gurgle. I had time for one more arrow before Elizabeth and her two men crashed into them. The dwarf woman turned to fight alongside them, wielding two small axes.
“Thanks for coming along!” I heard her say as I got closer, looking for more chances to snipe genlocks without hitting Oghren… much. “Don’t know what I was going to do all by myself. Are you Grey Wardens or something, or just crazy people?”
“We’re Wardens, yes,” Elizabeth answered, sounding taken aback. I was a bit, myself. This woman sounded entirely too cheerful for someone who had been running for her life.
“Sounds like you don’t mix fighting and talking,” the woman said. “Fair enough. Not many of my mates do, either.”
“Er-” Elizabeth made no further answer, whether out of concentration or confusion, until the darkspawn lay dead.
The dwarf woman pulled off her helmet and breathed a sigh of relief. “That was pretty close. Thought I was going to join the Legion of the Actually Dead.”
“Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m fine. Everything hurts, but I’ll be fine. I need to go back. See if there’s anything I can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something going on in the old fortress of Kal’Hirol. I think the darkspawn are breeding an army. The Legion went to investigate, but it… proved too much for us. And now I think I’m the only one of my band left.” For the first time, her head dropped. “It was a massacre.”
“What is your name? Where is Kal’Hirol? Is that why there have been so many darkspawn aboveground in Amaranthine?” Elizabeth asked in a rush.
The woman chuckled. “My name’s Sigrun. Kal’Hirol’s down thataways. Can’t say I know anything about Amaranthine, is that a human land?”
“It’s part of Ferelden, yes,” Elizabeth said. “I currently lead it and while the Blight has ended, darkspawn attacks have not, which is not normal. If the darkspawn are breeding an army, I will help you discover it. My name is Elizabeth, Commander of the Grey.”
“Oh! Great!” Sigrun perked up. “Then my mission is no longer impossible, just… improbable!”
“An optimist, then,” Anders murmured to himself.
“Can we go right now, then? I want to see if anyone else survived.” Her cheerful mask seemed to be slipping, just a bit, and I didn’t blame her. “Please? Darkspawn left to their own devices get up to all kinds of nonsense.”
“Don’t I know it,” Elizabeth said. “Lead on, then, but please tell me you’re not thinking of assaulting a darkspawn-held dwarf fortress with only our few numbers and no planning, no information?”
“Eh, we’ll see, right?”
Elizabeth seemed satisfied by that vague answer, and off we went down the dark corridor at a jog.
Oghren, of course, wasted no time. “Well helloooo, there. Ever been to the surface?”
“Nope! Is it nearby? It must be if all you humans – and elf – are down here, right?”
“Yep. Let me know if you want me to show you around! I’ll take you anytime. Aaaanytime.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Oghren,” Elizabeth said chidingly.
He paid her no mind. “The name’s Oghren, by the way, though the ladies pronounce it ‘Ohhhhh’-ghren.”
Elizabeth sighed and Sigrun smacked her forehead with a hand. She learned fast, not that there was much to learn about Oghren. “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “Please, ignore him. The rest of us do. Is there anything you can tell us about Kal’Hirol before we get there?”
“I don’t know that much myself; never was a good student of history. The others told me it used to be important, a centre of learning for the smith caste. When the fortress was lost, a lot of their knowledge was lost with it. They’ve never built anything quite like it since.”
“An unfortunately common story, I am coming to notice,” Justice said.
“I realize I have neglected to introduce my companions,” Elizabeth said, and did so.
“Good to know you have names,” Sigrun said. “If we get in a fight I can actually talk to you, instead of saying ‘hey, you, the tall one’.”
“Except me,” Oghren said.
“I wouldn’t want to talk to you even in combat if possible,” Sigrun retorted.
The tunnel opened up into a vast cavern, much too big for our little lanterns to illuminate. Sigrun had us shut them anyway, to avoid giving away our presence to the darkspawn. But there was light, of a fashion, luminescent fungus growing over much of the roof of the cavern, and we could dimly see a great wall in the distance, wrapping around a fortress built into the wall of the cave, with a town filling the cave floor. It was impressive, from what little I knew of dwarven architecture.
But the feeling of unease I’d had before didn’t go away. In fact, it was stronger.
We kept to the shadows as we came down the ‘main street’ of the town, and froze suddenly. Something had groaned near us, and it sounded like a man; a wet, throaty, pained groan.
Sigrun crept forward. “Jukka?”
“Si-Sigrun…?” It was a male dwarf, wounded near death.
“Jukka, be still, try not to talk. I found friends.”
“No…” the dwarf said. “I feel my death upon me… and it is sweet release.”
“I have bandages, I can-”
“Listen,” the dwarf panted urgently. “I… overheard the darkspawn speaking.”
Sigrun stiffened. “Th-they speak?”
“They mentioned a broodmother… maybe more than one. And… they mentioned “the Children”. I don’t know what they mean, but… Sigrun… you are the last of our band. You are the last… of the Legion in Kal’Hirol. You must… stop them…”
“I will,” Sigrun said. “Now, hold still-”
“That will be easy, as he’s dead,” Velanna muttered, but she was standing towards the back of the group and I don’t think Sigrun heard her.
I heard a step on gravel from outside our group and turned. “Commander! Ambush!”
Having been spotted, the darkspawn wasted no more time on stealth but rushed forward with gurgling cries of rage. I dropped to one knee to steady my aim in the gloom and shot an arrow back at them.
Among their number were those horrible man-faced worms that we had been told were the Children while we were in the Blackmarsh. I shot one in the side and it kept coming, until I jumped to my feet and drew one of my swords to destroy it. Velanna was faster, though, using the end of her staff to smash through its face.
“Thank you,” I said to her, and she grunted before casting another spell at the monsters behind it. I stayed by her side, loosing arrows as fast as I could.
“Why are you so close to me?” she demanded as we fought.
Could I come up with a satisfactory answer while distracted by not dying? “Since I happened to be in your vicinity to begin with, should I not aid you? Does my presence displease you?”
“Mmph,” was her eloquent answer. I had to smile. Truly, she was a wonderful woman no matter where she was.
There were still darkspawn running from the fortress through the village to attack us. “We can’t stay here,” Elizabeth called over the melee. “We must bring reinforcements if we are to assault Kal’Hirol.”
“But these monsters-” Sigrun began.
“I don’t want to leave a broodmother unchecked,” Elizabeth said. “But we are in danger of dying here with your friend if we don’t retreat and regroup.”
“You’re the Commander,” Sigrun said reluctantly, and we began to disengage from our foes and draw back. I shot my last arrows at as many of the white worms as I could – they made nice targets in the faint glim from the ceiling.
We tramped up to the surface, the darkspawn having abandoned their pursuit of us a short while ago. Elizabeth was suspicious. “Do they not normally hunt their quarry until they die?”
“There must be something in Kal’Hirol they are trying to protect,” Sigrun said. “Why are they talking? I’ve never heard of talking darkspawn before.”
“Well, there are two sets of darkspawn,” Anders summed up, “and they don’t like each other. One of them wants to use us Wardens to make darkspawn into people, and one of them wants to kill everyone just like normal darkspawn, just with more talking.”
“I suspect the latter type is infesting Kal’Hirol,” Elizabeth said rather dryly.
“How awful on all counts. Perhaps they’re protecting the broodmother Jukka mentioned,” Sigrun said. “What is a broodmother?”
Elizabeth shuddered, just slightly. “An abomination that produces more darkspawn, as I’m sure you guessed… My question is, is this Mother we’ve been told about one of them? The ‘Children’ were there, and they seem to show up when she is mentioned.”
“Well, there’s one thing for certain,” Sigrun said. “I’d like to join the Grey Wardens.”
“Hmm? Why is that?”
“You’re strong! Very strong!”
“The Legion of the Dead are also very strong,” Elizabeth said.
Sigrun was frowning in a way that suggested some inner pain, perhaps even… guilt? “Not strong enough. The Legion isn’t supposed to run. We’re already dead, we shouldn’t run to save our lives.”
“If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t know about Kal’Hirol,” Elizabeth said gently. “Becoming a Grey Warden is dangerous, but if you truly wish to, I will not stop you.”
“You would let a dead deserter into your ranks?”
“I don’t believe you’re a deserter, that’s a bit strong,” Elizabeth said. “I know a little of the Legion of the Dead. The Grey Wardens are a different kind of brotherhood, and we’re not quite so suicidal.”
“Could have fooled me,” Anders muttered.
“I trust that you won’t run from our side,” Elizabeth finished.
“That’s very generous of you,” Sigrun said, and lapsed into silent thought. “Yes, I’d still like to join the Grey Wardens! You did save my life. I’ll remember that if I get so terrified again.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Good. We’ll be glad to have you. Assuming you survive.”
“Eh, I’m dead anyway,” Sigrun rejoined cheerfully.
“When we get back, I must speak with Varel and Garevel about Kal’Hirol. I doubt that even now, we’ll have the numbers to attack it directly, but we can’t just leave it under Amaranthine in enemy hands, either. This will take thoughtful planning.”
I approached Velanna after we returned, before she could flee to her chamber in one of the higher towers. “I found something that you might like, Velanna.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“It’s not going to bite you,” I told her, with a bit of a smile, and handed her the green stone. “I just picked it up down there, and I know your favourite colour is green, so I thought you might find it pretty.”
She blinked at it, stared, blinked again, then reached out to take it. “There’s no other reason for it?”
“None at all. I could make up some nonsense about the symbolism of the colour green, but that doesn’t seem like your style.”
“It isn’t.” She looked at it carefully all over. “…Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, and almost turned to go, but she spoke again.
“I… may have… misjudged you a little.”
Now I had to smile. “Just a little?” I teased.
Her face stayed perfectly serious. “I sometimes paint all humans with the same brush.”
“As long as it’s such a pretty brush, I don’t mind.”
She gave me an unimpressed look. “I’m sure I don’t know what that means.”
“It means your apology is appreciated, my lady.”
Now I’d flustered her; her cheeks coloured, just the tiniest amount. “Well, then. …Good.”
I gave her a little half bow and turned to go, but I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps away when-
“Wait. Nathaniel. When you were talking about the pretty brush… did you mean… me?”
I chuckled with good nature. “It can’t be the first time someone’s said you’re pretty.”
Now she was definitely flustered, raising prickly walls all over. “And if it is?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Then you must not talk to many people.”
“Most people aren’t worth talking to.”
“I see. Well, good night,” I said, bowed again, and left, feeling like I’d accomplished something. She’d spoken to me! Even accepted a gift from me! Not that that meant anything, but perhaps our conversations would be less awkward in the future.
Or maybe they’d be more awkward than ever. With both of us being the way we were, it was extremely likely.
Shortly after Sigrun arrived, Elizabeth sent me to lead a team into the tunnels and catacombs beneath Vigil’s Keep to find where the darkspawn had come from. I was surprised by her trust, but gratified as well. Yes, we were friends, I think, but I was still pleased that she was beginning to rely on me as a… an officer of the Wardens, one might say, although we had no official ranks among the six of us who followed our Commander.
She would have wished to lead the investigation herself, and I had the impression that several people were getting impatient with her, but she was busy with a thousand different things that needed her personal attention and could not wait. So it only made sense that she would send someone else, though I wished for her experience in dealing with caves. Training as a knight really hadn’t prepared me for this sort of work. In Elizabeth’s absence, Sigrun was an immense help, especially when we found a great dwarf-made door in one of the tunnels.
“Yep, that looks like the smiths of Kal’Hirol made it,” she said, inspecting a seal or emblem on the door. “Ridiculously solid, could be operated by a child, will keep anything out short of a High dragon – and they’d have a tough time of it themselves.” She sobered. “It looks like it was nearly complete except for some finishing touches. If they’d been able to seal it, perhaps…” Perhaps some of them could have escaped this way, was the unfinished thought between us.
“Well, if a child can handle it, so can I,” Oghren said, setting hand to lever. Great wheels the colour of bronze spun, and the door swung shut with a very final-sounding clang.
“Fabulous,” Anders said. “Now we can breathe easy. About the ominous hole beneath the castle, anyway.”
“Well, we still have to check the rest of these caves on this side of the door, make sure there aren’t any new cracks that have appeared since the door was made,” Sigrun said. “Make sure there aren’t any beasties lurking around from before we closed it.”
“Sounds sensible,” I said. “Let us do so, in the same manner that we discovered this door.” So we turned to head back to Vigil’s Keep – and were faced with some kind of black, malevolent spirit. It hissed and pounced at us.
“Run!” Anders yelled, blasting it reflexively with ice.
The rest of that day was far too exciting, running about in dark tunnels, trying not to get separated from the others, trying to figure out how to hurt this blasted spirit. It possessed corpses, threw stones at us, and was generally a pain, until Anders and I figured out what was trapping it and how to destroy it.
And even after it was destroyed, we still had to search the caves systematically for any remaining creatures or exits. Oghren nearly mutinied on me, but Sigrun knocked him down.
That evening, very weary, I wandered into the dining hall, but this time Elizabeth was the only one there. “Elizabeth?”
She turned quickly, holding something in her hand, about to hide it in her tunic, but she saw it was me and stopped. “Nathaniel.”
I sat down next to her. She’d been drinking again, and was on her second mug, if the level in the jug next to her was any indication. “Drinking again? What did I say about taking Oghren’s advice?”
She smiled, but it was only with her mouth, not her eyes. When she realized I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, she pulled another mug from farther down the table and filled it for me. “It’s… the anniversary of my parents’ death.”
“Ah.” I sipped my beer, looking down at the table. “I apologize for interrupting.”
“It… wasn’t an interruption. I’m happy to see you, truly.”
“What were you looking at?” I asked.
“…My amulet. My father… gave it to me…”
The way she said that… was there more to the story than that? I was curious, but I didn’t want to intrude on her pain…
We sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking together.
“Will you tell me about it?” I asked.
She glanced up at me. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, and slowly, she told me the tale of the Fall of Highever, how my father had come to them, feigning that his soldiers had been delayed on the road by weather, how Fergus Cousland had led the Highever soldiers off to fight the Blight and left Highever undefended, and how the Amaranthine men had invaded and slaughtered everyone they could find, including Elizabeth’s sister-in-law and young nephew. How she and her mother had fought back, trying to find her father, and how her best friend and knight had stayed behind to defend them with his life. How she had found her father with a grievous wound, and how the Grey Warden Duncan had taken her away, saving her and Elra and Gemmet and another soldier – and that was all who had come alive from the sack of the castle.
She was silent for a long time when she had finished, and I was silent too. Her voice had shaken whenever she spoke of someone dear to her, and when she spoke of how her parents had bid her farewell, she had to stop for tears, but she was quiet now, enduring. I wanted to do something to comfort her, but feared that she would reject me in this moment and did nothing.
She spoke again. “I found letters from Rendon to his soldiers when I took over, here. He went to great lengths to have only his most loyal soldiers in the attack, the ones who would neither mind betraying his allies nor killing civilians.”
“I’d like to see them, sometime, if that’s all right,” I said. As if by this point I needed more proof against my father. But a little more couldn’t hurt.
She nodded, and we drank some more.
“There was one… other… time I saw my father,” she said. “I was searching for the Sacred Ashes of Andraste to cure Arl Eamon’s poisoning, and I had to endure a series of tests to determine if I was worthy to approach them. One of the tests… was apparently to be confronted by a spirit from my past. For me, it was my father. He told me he was proud of me, and gave me this amulet,” and she touched her chest, where the amulet lay under her clothes. “Sometimes I imagine I see their faces in it…” She looked away from me. “You must think me crazy.”
“No, I don’t.” If the Ashes of Andraste truly existed, anything could happen, especially in relation to them.
But when she reached for the jug again, I stopped her. Combining this emotional state with falling-down drunkenness would not be good. She let me, and instead, I poured the last of the beer into my own mug.
“How did my father die?” I asked her.
She stiffened. “Do you truly wish to know?”
“Yes.”
She paused, collecting her memories, then began telling me how she went to the Arl of Denerim’s estate to rescue Queen Anora from being his unwilling guest-prisoner. “I was just supposed to rescue Anora, but I won’t deny that in my mind the whole time the thought was in my mind that I might meet him and have my revenge.”
She stopped, and I looked at her. “Go on.”
“You truly want to know? I know you looked up to him…”
“That was before,” I said, a little quickly. “Things are different now. I just want to know how he died.”
“All right,” she said, but she was tense. “In order to free Anora, I had to find a mage and make him end the spell he had placed on her door. The mage was supposed to be at Rendon’s side… and we finally found him in the dungeons.” Ah yes, the dungeons that were supposed to have a secret passageway straight from the Arl’s bedchambers. How charming.
“Every moment is seared into my memory,” she said in a low voice. “It seems distorted, narrow in focus, but I remember all of it. It’s like the death of my parents, but more so.” She thought for a moment. “We yelled at each other for a bit. He recognized Zevran and was confused as to why he would join me. I asked him why he betrayed my father; he told me of his jealousy for my father – for all Couslands. He told me my father would be proud of me, but that he only wanted me dead more than ever. I charged at him, past his guards – I think there were guards – and struck him with my shield. He hit the wall, but took a swing at me first…” She turned her head a little away from me and gestured to a narrow white scar on the right side of her neck, just under her ear.
I swallowed. An inch in any other direction, and she would have been maimed or dead. “Did you not have your helmet?”
“It fell off in the ruckus,” she said. “It was a common guard’s helmet, for my disguise to get in.”
“Then what happened?”
“He had to hurt me one last time, and tried to tell me how my parents died… I screamed and cut off his head and my sword broke on the wall.” It came out in a rush and she sat with her shoulders hunched and tight, waiting for my reaction.
I thought about it for a while. “He didn’t suffer, then. I didn’t think you would torture him, not even him, but… Even if I hate him now, even if he was a monster who deserved it, I’m glad of that.”
She was still tense and silent.
I sighed and put my hand on the table near hers. “We’re more alike even than I thought, really. Both Ferelden nobility with an interest in martial arts, forced to live with almost nothing to our names, losing our parents and learning to carry on…” I glanced sideways at her. “Falling for blonde elves…”
She relaxed a little. “How are things with Velanna?”
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “She accepted a gift from me, and a compliment, which I think is a good sign. But she doesn’t treat me with any preference above our companions, either.”
“Give her time,” she murmured.
“I am,” I said. “Living in human society, receiving the attentions of one of those evil humans, it must be a lot to adjust to, let alone deciding if she likes me back or not. Are you all right?”
She glanced at me, startled. “I will be.”
“Thank you for telling me about my father, Elizabeth,” I said to her. “I know it can’t have been easy to tell. But… I…” can have closure? Was that what I wanted to say? Could there be closure on such a man as my father? “I’m glad to know.”
She nodded. “I trust you enough to know you wouldn’t ask if you thought you would hate me.”
“True enough. But, our similarities… is that why you associate with me so much, despite the way our pasts were joined?”
She nodded again. “When we first met, at least. You might not have liked me, but you were someone who understood my life. Now…” She looked at me. “Now you are just my friend.”
I smiled a real smile. “And you are mine. Thank you. I’ll retire now. Would you like an escort back to your chambers?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
When we reached her room, she paused and turned to me. “You’re a good man, Nathaniel. I think the Howe family will find its redemption in you.”
I blinked at her. “Thank you. I hope so too.”