Dragon Age: Last Flight

by Liane Merciel

  “Trust me,” she implored the griffon.

  It was hard to tell whether Revas heard her. One tufted black ear twitched, but that could have been the wind. Nonetheless, the griffon flew straight and level, veering around the taller trees instead of attempting to pull the aravels over them.

  And then they were skimming across the Free Marches, flashing over rocky outcroppings and scrubby trees and patches of meadow that had begun to grow wild after the sheep and cows that once grazed them had been slaughtered in preparation for the siege. Creeks and streams flicked by in twinkling silver, gone almost before Isseya saw them.

  She knew Revas wasn’t flying as swiftly as she could. If anything, the griffon was pacing herself for a long journey. But, when they flew so low to the ground, the landscape seemed to race by far more quickly than usual.

  In half an hour, Wycome was nowhere to be seen behind them. The tributaries of the Minanter River flowed around them, dimpling under the pressure of Isseya’s force cone when the caravan crossed their waters. Maintaining the spell over water was treacherous—the river roiled and eddied unpredictably under them, making it hard to hold the aravels steady—so the elf guided her griffon quickly across the tributaries and then kept Revas flying along the shore.

  To the north, where Antiva City had been and might, somewhere, still exist, the black cloud-cloak of the Blight was a smudge of dirty smoke on the horizon. Mostly, mercifully, the trees obscured it from view. But occasionally the trees thinned, and then Isseya would catch a glimpse of a sky purpled with clouds that swelled like boils on the verge of bursting, and of soundless lightning that stabbed from cloud to cloud in an electric manifestation of agony.

  Never any break of daylight, never any rain. Only the looming shadow of the storm on the horizon.

  It was seldom visible, though, and they never saw anything of Ansburg, although Isseya knew that city lay not far from their route to the north. At twenty feet above the ground, most of what they saw was trees and hills. They passed empty farmhouses where skinny dogs lifted their heads and howled hopefully at the aravels, and they passed occupied ones where the inhabitants peered at them suspiciously through wood-shuttered windows.

  The sun arced steadily upward from morning to noon, and then began to slide inexorably toward nightfall. Twice the aravels stopped, allowing a brief respite for the griffons and the mages, and enabling their passengers to eat and relieve themselves and stretch their cramped legs. The terror and urgency of their journey was such, however, that few people wanted to do any of those things, and most of them were visibly relieved when their travels resumed. They all wanted to be safe behind the walls of Starkhaven.

  And in the red glow of sunset, those walls finally came into view.

  They were imposing: a curved mountain of earth crowned with concentric rings of tall gray stone, gilded by the setting sun. On the northern side, the Minanter River rushed through the city’s water gate, creating a constant low roar like the sound of the sea. The city itself, glimpsed only as a glory of marble palaces set on green hills and ringed by broad boulevards, receded behind the height of its walls as the caravan approached.

  Pennons snapped from the towers on those walls, depicting three black fishes encircling a snowy chalice on a field of red. At least, Isseya thought they were fishes. It wasn’t easy to tell, with all the spikes and curlicues. Whatever they were, they were being vigilantly defended by ranks of soldiers in red surcoats and steel chainmail.

  One of the soldiers, who appeared to be an officer by the plate mail under his surcoat and the rope of gold braid around his chest, raised a gauntleted forearm to hail the Grey Wardens as they came within reach of his shouts. “Wardens! Be welcome to Starkhaven!”

  “Thank you!” Garahel shouted back, mustering a cheerful tone even though he was as exhausted as the rest. The elven Warden guided Crookytail back to the ground, while Isseya and the other mage lowered the aravels gently behind the descending griffons. It took them a cautious five minutes to land; now that they knew the floating aravels could work, it was crucial to keep every one of them intact.

  But the aravels landed smoothly, settling onto the Minanter’s riverbanks with a series of wooden creaks and squawks from the caged fowl on their sides. The refugees of Wycome began to disembark, looking around uncertainly.

  Even as they struggled to find their bearings after their long travels through the air, the gates of Starkhaven swung open. People poured out, holding offerings of food and water and wine. “Hail the heroes of Wycome!” one man shouted, and soon the crowd took up the cry. “The Wardens! The Grey Wardens! Hail the heroes of Wycome!”

  “Wonder how long that’ll last,” Isseya muttered under her breath. Starkhaven might be thrilled to have a victory over the darkspawn now—even such a limited victory as saving some of Wycome from the horde—but she wondered how long their enthusiasm would hold up when they realized they’d have hundreds more refugees to fit into an already strained city.

  She wasn’t the only one to wonder such things.

  “Will they find places for us all, truly?” an older, moonfaced woman asked Isseya in a querulous tremble. A gaudy silk scarf, painted with brilliant azure peacocks and scarlet roses, covered her round shoulders. It was probably the finest thing she owned, and it stood in sharp contrast to the homespun plainness of her dress. The wrinkles at the corners of her mouth trembled as she looked up at the guards. “No one wants extra mouths in a siege.”

  “They do want extra soldiers in a war,” the elf replied. It was the only honest hope she could offer. Helping hands were always welcome in hard times.

  The woman clutched at the carved wooden brooch that held the ends of her scarf pinned over her bosom. “I’m a grandmother, not a soldier. I can’t fight.”

  “This is a Blight,” Isseya said. A flinty edge crept into her voice; she heard it, and she saw the round woman flinch in response, but she didn’t stop herself. She was too tired for that. “You can fight, and you will. You made that choice when you stepped into the aravel. We won’t be able to get everyone out of Wycome. We don’t have enough boats, or enough griffons, or enough mages to save them all. Someone else will die because you took their place. So you will fight, or I’ll gut you myself for wasting my effort and a spot that could have gone to someone with some courage.”

  The woman’s mouth hung open in shock. She stammered something indecipherable and turned on her heel, fleeing back into the crowd of townspeople who were unpacking their belongings from the aravels. Within seconds, she was gone.

  Garahel unbuckled the last of Crookytail’s harness straps and, with a final slap on the griffon’s flanks to signal that he was free, walked over to Isseya. “That was a … unique way of rallying the troops.”

  “You rally them,” Isseya growled at her brother. “You’re the charismatic war leader. I’ll get them here for you, but after that I don’t care.”

  “That is not even close to true,” Garahel said airily, “but that’s all right. I know you’re tired. Come, let us enjoy Prince Vael’s hospitality for a night. We have only the one, you know.”

  “Tomorrow we’re going back to Wycome, I know,” Isseya said wearily. They’d already planned to make as many runs as they could until the darkspawn came to Wycome’s gates. It had seemed a more reasonable prospect before she’d actually experienced the exhaustion that came with guiding and supporting the caravan for a full day.

  “No. Kavaros and three of the Starkhaven Wardens will be taking the aravels back to Wycome. Warden-Commander Senaste will replace them upon arrival, and we’ll continue to have teams relay the aravels for as long as we can. But you and I are neither returning to Wycome nor staying in Starkhaven. We have work to do in the Anderfels, if you’d forgotten. So drink their wine and enjoy their cheers. Let yourself be a hero for a night. In the morning we’ll just be Grey Wardens again.”

  9

  9:41 DRAGON

  “What happened to the griffons?” Valya asked.

 
It took the Chamberlain of the Grey some time to answer. He was not an old man, precisely, but he could easily be mistaken for one. Gentle and dreamy, he often seemed lost inside his own wispy-haired head. Caronel had told her that visitors sometimes mistook the chamberlain for one of the Tranquil, and while Valya wasn’t entirely sure he’d been serious, she could imagine that the story was true. The Chamberlain of the Grey did have something of their foggy air.

  He turned and blinked owlishly at her. “The griffons?”

  “After the Fourth Blight. They all vanished, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” The chamberlain shuffled down the library rows, passing from pools of gray light into shadow and back again. Valya trotted alongside him, adjusting the satchel that carried the chamberlain’s letters for the day. Most of the correspondence was really meant for the First Warden’s attention, but for the past few years, if not longer, it had been the chamberlain who’d handled Weisshaupt’s mundane letters. The First Warden’s mind was on grander things.

  Each of the new recruits took a turn at serving as the chamberlain’s assistant for a day. Ordinarily, the duty was reserved for new Grey Wardens who had passed their Joinings, but the Hossberg mages had been instructed to share that task.

  Valya didn’t mind. It meant a quiet day, light work, and an opportunity to ask all the questions that had been buzzing around her head. The chamberlain was such a mild-tempered man that his rank didn’t seem to matter; she felt that she could talk to him almost as an equal. “So what happened to them?”

  “They died.”

  “But how?”

  The chamberlain raised a graying eyebrow. He had extraordinarily long eyebrow hairs; they drooped until they almost touched his eyelashes. “You’ve been studying the Fourth Blight.”

  Valya wasn’t sure if that was a question. It didn’t sound like one, and she presumed the Chamberlain of the Grey knew very well that she was one of the interlopers who’d been poking around his library for the past month, since it was his project they were working on, but she couldn’t imagine it was meant just to be a declarative statement. “Yes, of course.”

  He nodded, sweeping his sparse yet shaggy gray mane across the shoulders of his robe. “And so you wonder what became of the beasts who bore us to such glory in those battles. You wonder why we no longer have the marvels of magic they made possible.”

  “Yes.”

  The chamberlain sighed. His face creased into a wistful smile. “Everyone wonders that. I did too once. But the griffons are gone, child. They died in the Blight. So many died in the fighting that the survivors could not sustain the population. They grew weak. Eventually the young were stillborn inside their eggs, and that was the end of them. A great sacrifice. A great sadness.”

  A great lie, Valya thought.

  She didn’t say it. She had no real reason to believe that the Chamberlain of the Grey was lying. There were no obvious tells in his manner, and it was true that the griffons had vanished at the end of the Blight. The war had worn on for year after grinding year, and for much of that time it had burned across the Anderfels, where the griffons were said to have hunted and courted and made their nests. Perhaps they had all died in the Blight.

  But she couldn’t squelch the little twist of doubt deep in her soul.

  The chamberlain seemed to take her silence for agreement. He sighed again and opened the door to his private office. It was a perpetual clutter of papers heaped into disorganized piles, many of them covered with a thick fuzz of dust. At some point there had been a second chair for visitors to use, but it was buried in an even higher drift of papers than his desk. Only the carved wooden crest of its back stood out amid the heaps.

  Slowly, with a little creaking grunt, the chamberlain settled himself into the study’s lone functional chair. The leather was old and cracked along both sides of the seat, and permanent indentations in the bottom and back cushions were already fitted to the senior Warden’s form. Leaning back in his chair, the chamberlain beckoned to Valya. “What letters have come today?”

  “Ah…” Valya set the satchel down hurriedly and fumbled through the scrolls and packets. “This one’s from Vigil’s Keep. Another from Denerim, but I don’t recognize the arl’s sigil, I’m sorry. Orzammar, Starkhaven…”

  “Anything from the south? Orlais?”

  “No, I don’t think.…” She looked at the remaining seals and sigils. “Nothing that says so on the outside, or that I recognize by its sign. But of course I could easily be overlooking something.”

  “Mm.” The chamberlain tipped his head back, sank lower into his chair, and waved at her again while closing his eyes. “No, no, I’m sure you’re right. The foolish fancies of an old man, wondering why Warden-Commander Clarel never writes anymore … when it’s likely just that she doesn’t want anything from us at the moment. People always write when they have demands, and never when they’re content. Or making mischief. Either way, no matter. What word from Vigil’s Keep?”

  Valya cracked the wax seal with her thumbnail and opened the folded packet. She scanned the first few lines, then shook her head with a rueful smile. The chamberlain had been right. “The new Warden-Commander respectfully requests a supply of lyrium, arms, and armor to replace some lost during an encounter with … ah, demon-possessed trees. On fire. There’s a list here of specific requests.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” the chamberlain said with a snort. He didn’t open his eyes. “And the mystery arl from Denerim?”

  That was another request for aid: the arl’s wife thought she’d seen a genlock in the cellar when she went down to fetch a bottle, and therefore the arl demanded a company of Grey Wardens to come and hunt down the darkspawn who had, undoubtedly, broken in from the Deep Roads through his personal wine cellar. The letter made no mention of how drunk either the arl or his wife had been at the time of the purported sighting.

  The other letters were less frivolous, but most of them were demands of one sort or another. Both mages and templars demanded aid in fighting their enemies, and both templars and mages wrote seeking refuge. Scouts in the Anderfels sent word of darkspawn sightings and apparent patterns to their activities. The dwarves sent similar word of darkspawn activity in the Deep Roads, as well as notes on the arrival, departure, and deaths—presumed or confirmed—of Wardens who had lately gone to their Callings.

  It was after Valya had finished reading the names sent from Orzammar that the chamberlain finally sat up and opened his eyes. “Enough,” he said, waving her out of the study. “Enough. Go. You have other work to attend to. Leave the rest of the letters.”

  Bowing her head, the young elf retreated.

  She went to the alcove with Garahel’s memorial, intending to resume her research with the rest of the Hossberg mages, but it was later than she’d realized, and the others had already left for their midday meal. The only other person still in the library was the female templar, Reimas, who sat alone at a table with a single book lying closed in front of her.

  Valya would have been just as happy to leave the woman to whatever she was doing with that closed book, but Reimas called across the library’s hush: “You. Valya.”

  The elf froze. She couldn’t help it. The response was ingrained after years of living in Hossberg’s Circle. With a conscious effort, she relaxed, smoothed all expression from her face, and turned to the older woman. “Yes?”

  “Will you come and sit with me a while?”

  Valya stiffened again. She didn’t have to obey, she reminded herself. This wasn’t the Circle. Templars didn’t have any authority in Weisshaupt. But it was still so hard to let go of the old habit of fear. “Why?”

  “To talk. Just to talk.” Reimas’s smile looked awkward on the woman’s long, thin face, which habitually settled into lines of contemplative gloom.

  But the request seemed earnest, if a little awkward, so Valya hesitantly approached a chair on the table’s other side. Not directly opposite the templar; she wanted more distance than that. Across from
her and one chair over was where Valya chose to sit. “About what?”

  “You don’t trust us.” Reimas put her hands on the table in front of her, clasping them over the unread book’s cover. She had big, mannish hands, with broad fingers and callused palms. Old scars left a lattice of marks, some pale and some purplish, on the backs of each one. They were soldier’s hands. Templar’s hands. “None of you mages really trusts us, I can see that … but you’re the most suspicious of them all.”

  “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  “Yes. You don’t need to be suspicious.” Something twisted behind Reimas’s eyes, some old and long-buried pain. “We aren’t here to hunt you. Not everyone joins the templar order because they enjoy grinding mages under their heels.”

  “Why else would you possibly do it?” Valya said, letting her irritation show. She pushed her chair back with a deliberately loud scrape against the library’s flagstones. “Are people so eager to spend their days walled up in a tower of frightened and frustrated mages for better reasons?”

  “Some are. I was.” The templar pushed her lanky brown-black hair behind her ears and dropped her gaze to the book she hadn’t been reading. It was a prayer book, Valya noted: Homilies and Hymns to the Maker. Judging by the stiffness of its spine, it didn’t seem like many other people had read it either. “I joined the order to protect you.”

  “How noble. Am I supposed to ask why?”

  “If you like. My father was a mage. Not a powerful one. He never had any training, and he did his best to hide his gifts. He never mentioned it to any of us children. I’m not sure he even told my mother. She might have known, though. Strange things happened around our house sometimes. Eggs would freeze under our chickens overnight. Torches would burn with blue flames, or green, and every once in a while you’d see little faces in the fire, or hear tiny voices. We knew not to mention these things to outsiders. If anyone else in the village knew—and some of them must have, I’m sure—they kept our secret too.”