Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

by David Gaider

  “Yes,” Maric amended. He looked at Loghain. “We all are, in fact.”

  “It’s not ready just yet,” the female dwarf grumped, “but for you I’ll make an exception.” She dug up several bowls and scooped out the stew into each. When no one was immediately forthcoming, she cleared her throat at Maric until he belatedly rushed forward to take his bowl. The others followed suit, followed by Nalthur.

  They followed him out into one of the side caves, ducking their heads to get through the door. It was his quarters, Katriel assumed, though it was also neatly packed with enough barrels and crates and piles of fur and odd weapons that it might have doubled for a storage room. The cot was thick but sturdy, and Nalthur sat down on the edge of it. The others found seats wherever they could and began to eat.

  Maric dug into his stew ravenously. Katriel picked at hers gingerly, sipping on some of the broth. The dwarf all but gulped his down greedily, finishing it long before the others were even half done, and then belching loudly. He wiped his beard with the back of his hand.

  “Not as hungry as you thought?” he asked, watching their progress.

  “No, it’s fine,” Maric quickly commented. “What is it?”

  “Deep stalker.” He grinned.

  Loghain paused. “Deep what?”

  “You would have encountered them before the darkspawn if we hadn’t been hunting them around these parts for more than two months, now. We ran out of our perishables a few weeks back. What I wouldn’t give for a good nug steak.” He eyed them closely. “Don’t suppose you’d have one in those packs of yours?”

  Rowan looked down at her stew queasily. “Nug steak?”

  The dwarf sighed, disappointed. “Thought not.” He put his bowl down and watched them eat, and then his eyes drifted over to Maric’s longsword. “That’s quite a weapon. Mind if I see it?”

  Loghain looked like he was about to object, but Maric waved a hand at him. He stood and pulled the stained sword out of his belt, handing it to Nalthur. “It’s dwarven, I think.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “We found it on a skeleton not long after we left the ruins. Maybe it was one of your men? Even if it wasn’t, if it’s a dwarven weapon, your people should have it back.”

  “You went through Ortan thaig?” Nalthur seemed impressed. “That would explain it. We don’t go near the thaig on account of all the tainted spiders. So I don’t know what you found, but it wasn’t one of mine.” He studied the blade with interest, running a stubby finger over the glowing runes, before finally handing it back hilt-first. “I’ve no use for it. It’s your blade now, human.”

  Maric took the sword back slowly, looking confused. “But . . .”

  “It won’t get back to Orzammar through me,” the dwarf explained with a grin. “I’m not going back, or didn’t you understand that part?”

  “They’re dead,” Katriel explained hesitantly. “They . . . have a ceremony before they enter the Deep Roads, a funeral. They say good-bye to their loved ones, pass on their possessions, and then they go and they don’t come back.”

  Rowan blinked in surprise. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  Nalthur chuckled ruefully. “To clear our debts. To clear our names. To clear our houses’ names.” His face went grim. “Orzammar politics are more deadly than the Deep Roads, by far. Best to have left it behind, really.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Maric sighed.

  “That so?”

  Loghain frowned. “I don’t think you need to explain that, Maric.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Maric shook his head. He held out a hand to the dwarf. “My name is Prince Maric Theirin, and these are my companions.” He introduced each one of them in turn.

  The dwarf stared at Maric quizzically, and then shook his hand in an awkward way as if he had never performed the gesture previously. “Human royalty, eh?”

  “Sort of.” Maric smiled. “I am fighting to regain my family’s throne. That is, in fact, why we’re down here.”

  The tale took surprisingly little time to tell. Nalthur listened to it quietly enough, nodding his head empathetically. “We dwarves do things much the same, when it comes time for the Houses to contest the throne,” he admitted. “Though there’s rarely any of this bystanding business you speak of. No House is neutral in the Assembly, not ever. In Orzammar, things are solved quickly and with as much bloodshed as we can stand . . . and then a little bit more.” His grin was sardonic, as if sharing a private joke. Seeing that none of them got it, he shrugged. “Which is all well and good, I suppose, but if it’s Gwaren you were headed to, you were going the wrong way.”

  “What!” Loghian shot up, shocked.

  Nalthur put his hands up. “Now, now, big fellow, no reason to get upset over it. You were headed north. Didn’t you figure that was the wrong direction?”

  “We can’t tell such things underground,” Katriel explained. She knew that dwarves could, their vaunted “stone-sense” being as much a part of their religion as it was a matter of practicality. A dwarf who didn’t have stone-sense was truly blind and considered a figure of pity, rejected by the Stone that had birthed them.

  “Oh,” the dwarf seemed surprised, looking askance at Loghain and Maric as if his opinion of them now had to be revised to include such a sad handicap. Then he shrugged. “Well that explains it, dust to dunkels. You’re actually closer to Gwaren here than you were, though there’s not much there to see. The sea’s gotten into the outpost, last I heard.”

  “We need to get to the surface, actually,” Maric said.

  “Ah! Of course!”

  “If you could direct us there . . . ,” Loghain suggested.

  Nalthur grinned. “We can do better than that. We can take you! By the Stone, anyone who’s willing to journey through Ortan thaig deserves some respect. We’ll not send you back out there alone.”

  Rowan’s eyes went wide in surprise. “You would do that?”

  “We don’t want to keep you from your dying, or anything,” Maric said.

  “Hah!” The dwarf clapped Maric on the back, just about knocking him off his seat. “To tell the truth, it gets a bit dull killing the darkspawn, day after day. There’s always more of them. An endless sea of evil to drown ourselves in, yes?” He shrugged and belched loudly once again.

  Maric paused, suddenly churning something over in his mind. “So you don’t just fight darkspawn?”

  “We cannot go back to Orzammar. What else is there to do in the Deep Roads?”

  “You could probably survive out here a long time, if you wanted to,” Rowan said.

  The dwarf snorted. “We’re dead men. What would be the point in that?” He waved his hand irritably. “There’s honor to be found in slaying the darkspawn, anyhow. If we’re to find our peace, we’ll do it fighting like true dwarves, fighting to take back what was once ours. Even if we never can.”

  Maric smiled slowly. “How do you feel about fighting humans?”

  Nalthur looked at Maric curiously. “You mean up on the surface?”

  “I imagine there’s far more of us up there, yes.”

  “Under the sky?” The dwarf said the word as if it were terrifying.

  “Unless we’re already too late, we could use your help at Gwaren,” Maric said earnestly. “I don’t know what I could repay you with. I’m not King yet. I might never be. But if you and your men are looking for their deaths, I can at least offer you a glorious battle with something other than darkspawn.”

  “Deaths on the surface,” Nalthur said without enthusiasm.

  Maric sighed. “I suppose dwarves just don’t go up there, do they?”

  He snorted. “Ones without honor, perhaps.”

  Rowan arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you already exiled from Orzammar? What honor do you have to lose?”

  The dwarf considered the idea, his face twisted into an unpleasant scowl. “We’ve none to gain, either. It’s not our business what you cloudheads get up to, up on the surface. Down he
re we’ve darkspawn to kill, and the Stone to return to when we die. That’s our business.”

  Loghain stood up. “Let’s go, then. We’ll find no help here, Maric.”

  “I don’t know . . . ,” Maric began.

  “They’re cowards,” Loghain interrupted. “They’re frightened of the sky. They’ll find any reason not to come with us.”

  Nalthur leaped up, drawing his warhammer in a flash. He held it threateningly at Loghain, bristling. “You’ll take that back,” he warned.

  Loghain didn’t move, but eyed the dwarf carefully. The tension rose in the room as Rowan and Maric exchanged worried glances. Slowly he nodded to Nalthur. “I apologize,” he said sincerely. “You’ve treated us well, that was undeserved.”

  The dwarf frowned, perhaps considering taking further offense, but then merely shrugged. “Very well.” Abruptly he chortled with amusement. “And it’s true enough, perhaps. That sky of yours is more frightening than an entire horde of darkspawn!” He bellowed with laughter at his own jest, and the tension in the room dissolved.

  As he quieted, Katriel touched the dwarf’s arm to get his attention. “There is one thing that Maric could do for you,” she suggested. “Should he ever become King, he would be in a position to visit Orzammar. He could tell the dwarven Assembly how very valuable your help was to his cause.”

  “Oh? You don’t say?”

  “Your people treat human kings with great respect, do they not? The dwarves that assisted in the Siege of Marnas Pell during the Fourth Blight received many accolades at the word of a human king. One of them even became a Paragon.”

  The dwarf’s eyes lit up with interest. “That’s true.”

  Katriel smiled sweetly at him. “So there is, in fact, honor to be had on the surface. Honor for the houses you left behind. Honor that depends on Maric winning his battle, yes, but . . .”

  Nalthur chewed on the idea. Finally he looked at Maric. “You would do this?”

  Maric nodded, his look intense. “I would, yes.”

  Loghain glanced at the dwarf warily. “Maric may never be King. There is no guarantee he can do what you ask, you understand this?”

  Nalthur seemed amused by the caution. “You don’t seem to have much confidence in your friend. Are all you humans like this?”

  “Just him, mostly.”

  “I am being realistic,” Loghain muttered.

  “I just ask one thing,” Nalthur stated slowly, “that if any of us fall as we aid you, we will not be left up there. Return us to the Stone, do not bury us in dirt. Do not bury us under the sky.” The prospect seemed to unnerve the dwarf, but his jaw was set.

  Maric nodded again. “I promise.”

  “Then you have our help,” he finally announced. Resolute, he turned and strode from the room out to the main cavern, where he immediately began shouting for the other warriors. The incessant ringing of the picks halted.

  Those in the room stared at Maric, not quite believing this had just happened. “Well,” Loghain said dryly, “it looks like we have our help.”

  Within the space of two hours, the Legion of the Dead was under way and traveling through the Deep Roads with all their equipment in tow. Loghain found himself quite impressed by the efficiency. Maric walked up front with Nalthur and the most senior of the warriors, all of whom listened grimly as Maric did his best to explain what they were likely to find on the surface.

  The idea that the usurper might already have reached Gwaren and that they could be walking into an impossible situation they seemed to understand and accept quite readily. The notion that there would be no ceiling over their head, however, no comforting miles of heavy rock, just vast empty space that went up and up forever into an endless sky, made them blanch and fidget nervously. Maric had to explain several times that, no, no one had ever fallen up into the sky to be lost forever. Yes, there was indeed a hot sun in the sky, and, no, it had never made anyone blind nor had it ever crashed to the ground and set someone on fire. These things they had trouble with.

  Loghain and Rowan and Katriel walked with the supply carts in the middle of the procession, the rear guard watching warily for any signs of darkspawn attack. As near as Loghain could tell, they had stripped down the outpost completely and had left nothing of importance behind save one: the great statue of the dwarven king that held up the cavern. As the dwarves efficiently went about their tasks collecting their supplies, each stopped in turn at that statue to respectfully touch its base. They closed their eyes, and Loghain wondered if they offered a solemn prayer to their ancestor. Perhaps they asked him to watch over them, or to send a speedy and honorable death. Perhaps they apologized for leaving him alone once again, to be defiled by dust and the darkspawn taint.

  The few members of the Legion of the Dead who were not warriors, such as the cooks they had met earlier, pulled the carts quietly and stared at Katriel out of the corners of their eyes. Rowan asked one why they did so, and the answer was simple. They had seen few enough surface folk during their days at Orzammar, but not a one of them had ever seen an elf.

  They made good time. The dwarves knew the Deep Roads well, and the farther they traveled, the more it became apparent that Katriel’s idea of navigating the passages to Gwaren was unlikely ever to have worked. Even if there had been no darkpawn, it was likely they would have become lost. With little food and water, the chances that they would have made it out alive at all would have been slim.

  But fortunately they had found the dwarves, Loghain reminded himself. Katriel’s plan was going to succeed after all. He watched her as they traveled, saw her hover away from himself and Rowan and keep her gaze focused solely on Maric up at the head of the procession. Either she knew how Loghain and Rowan felt or she had guessed. Loghain supposed that they had not gone out of their way to keep their suspicions hidden.

  He moved up to walk beside the elf, and she regarded him with sullen wariness. Rowan did not join him, but watched him go with mild surprise.

  “I want you to know,” he said to Katriel, “you’ve been a great help.”

  She narrowed her eyes warily. “Have I, ser?”

  “You have. You obviously knew that the dwarves would value any help we could offer their relatives, no matter how remote the possibility.”

  She shrugged, looking away. Rather than being pleased by his comment, she seemed disturbed. “They become one of the Legion of the Dead,” she said faintly, “because they have no other choice. They are broke, or ruined. The best the Legion can offer them is to wipe the slate clean, set the balance back to zero.” She glanced back at Loghain, her look significant. “If they could do more than that . . . who wouldn’t want to try?”

  “Who indeed?”

  She looked away from him once more, resentful. Her chilly demeanor told him he was unwelcome, but he ignored it. Following her line of sight, he realized she was watching Maric again.

  “Why do you stay?” he asked. “Is it for him?”

  “Do you stay for him?” she rejoined coldly.

  He thought about his answer for a long time. The blue lanterns swung overhead on their long poles, bathing the Deep Roads in their sapphire glow. They passed a dwarven statue that stood long-forgotten against one of the passage walls, now mostly a crumbled and silent guardian that watched them go by like they were intruders in this eternal darkness.

  “No,” he finally answered. “I stay for me.”

  It was a serious answer, and Loghain noticed that Katriel had turned to regard him with a thoughtful, almost melancholy look. “Maric is a good person,” she said bitterly. “And when he looks at me, he sees the same thing in me. He sees the good I didn’t think was even there. The longer I’m with him, the more it seems like it might almost be possible that I really am that person.”

  Loghain nodded knowingly. “Almost,” he agreed.

  His gaze met Katriel’s, his icy blue eyes probing her strange green ones, and she was the first to turn away. She seemed oddly vulnerable all of a sudden, rubbing her s
houlders and looking off toward Maric longingly. He almost felt sorry for her.

  “He’s not ready to be King yet,” he said evenly. “He’s too trusting.”

  She nodded silently.

  “But he needs to become ready. And it’ll be hard for him.”

  “I know.” Her voice was hollow, resigned.

  There was nothing more that needed to be said. Loghain returned to Rowan’s side and the column continued its trek through the shadows.

  Less than a day later, they encountered the ruins of what had once been the dwarven outpost under Gwaren. Several times the Legion had been forced to stop to clear away rubble from collapsed tunnels, and Nalthur grumped at the darkspawn tendency to sabotage even “solid dwarven engineering.” Each time it was uncertain if there would be anything behind the rubble at all, but luckily each time they found more tunnels beyond.

  The darkspawn were present. They lurked at the edges of the blue lights, watching. Always watching. Twice they surged out to make surprise raids, once from the fore and once from behind, but both times the Legion of the Dead assembled quickly and repelled them with bloody force. The calm precision with which the dwarves slaughtered a path through the monsters was uncanny, and sent the darkspawn scrambling to retreat back into their side caves.

  Nalthur let them go. He said that even the Legion wasn’t about to follow the darkspawn down into the side caves. Down there the darkspawn were on their home ground, and only death awaited. While death was something the Legion did not fear, they wished to go out while taking as many of the darkspawn with them as possible. Not ambushed and killed to a man.

  After those two attacks, the darkspawn kept back. They hated the dwarves, that much was clear, but they also respected their numbers. For a time all anyone heard were strange highpitched shrieks off in the distant shadows. The dwarves said that was another type of darkspawn, a tall and lanky thing with long talons that was incredibly fast. This made them nervous, as they said such creatures often brought the emissaries with them—darkspawn who wielded spells like mages.

  The dwarves shrugged off the danger the emissaries represented, proudly proclaiming that their natural resistance to magic extended even to the sort wielded by the darkspawn. That didn’t stop them from becoming extra vigilant, however. Their dark eyes became wider as they scanned the shadows, warily watching for the next ambush with their swords drawn.