Dragon Age

by David Gaider

  Loghain doubted they had much to fear. Those who had declined to offer their support to Maric had done so with heavy hearts. He had seen the fear in their eyes. Deep down, they just couldn’t bring themselves to hope that Maric might do better than his grandfather had back during the invasion. They feared the repercussions that would follow a loss by the rebels, and to tell the truth, Loghain could hardly blame them. Not a one had offered argument when they were informed they would be Maric’s guests for the next several weeks. No doubt the idea that it could potentially be argued to King Meghren that they were Maric’s prisoners crossed their minds.

  Of those who did offer their support, it came with one major requirement: that Maric be kept out of the battle at West Hill and out of danger. The idea took Maric rather by surprise, but when it was brought up by an earnest female bann, it was quickly championed by others until finally Maric had no choice but to agree.

  Their concern was a simple one: a dangerous assault made by the rebel army was acceptable, but the last Theirin could not be risked in such a battle. If he was lost, so was Calenhad’s bloodline.

  It was Calenhad’s memory, and the memory of Maric’s mother, that truly made them offer their support in the end. To these men and women, that tradition was Ferelden, and for Ferelden they would offer the rebels whatever support they could afford. Food, equipment, even soldiers. Some of them even knelt before Maric and pledged themselves just as Arl Byron had, tears in their eyes and hands on their hearts.

  If Ferelden called, they said, then they would answer.

  The size of the rebel army would be increased almost by half again, once all their men were added to their ranks. It was strength they would need if they were going to take West Hill, whether the gates opened or not. Loghain was pleased, as it very easily could have gone in a different direction.

  Loghain also noticed that none of the nobles would look him in the eye. Maric they adored, but to them he was nothing but a killer. It didn’t bother him.

  Severan walked briskly down the dark hallway, ignoring the luxuries he passed. The paintings of ancient battles on the walls, the plush carpet of delicate geometric patterns, the vase of red crystal forgotten and dusty in its cubby hole . . . all these things had been brought from Orlais to decorate the palace, and yet none of it seemed to please Meghren. How could one appreciate such beauty, he cried, when all one could smell was dog dung and cabbage?

  The mage snorted derisively at the memory. His yellow robes swished behind him as he approached the great double doors that led to the King’s private chambers. The doors were wooden and extremely old, carved with a delightfully detailed relief map of Ferelden itself . . . as well as the two hounds rampant that served as the nation’s symbol. For that reason alone, Meghren swore daily that he would have the doors removed, chopped into kindling, and burned in the Chantry’s brazier. Thankfully he had not done so yet, as it would be a shame to waste such artistry.

  Severan used one of the knockers to pound on the doors, and without waiting, he shoved against one to push it open. The room within was adorned with the finest furniture from Orlesian woodcrafters, blue silk draperies, an enormous four-poster bed made of mahogany, and a gilded mirror gifted to Meghren by the Marquis of Salmont himself, yet none of these furnishings could disguise the fact that the room was oppressive and dark, the windows small, and the wooden beams loomed large overhead. It suited the Fereldan character for everything to be sturdy and large and preferably made from wood, as if they were still barbarians living in their great forests. Naturally it didn’t suit the King.

  At the moment, however, Meghren hardly cared about his surroundings. He had acquired a bout of fever after his latest escapade; a night spent frolicking in the gardens with barely two stitches of clothing on during one of his parties. Severan had warned him that it was too cold this time of year to be running about so, but had the King listened? He had told Meghren his fever was proving resistant to magical cure. Perhaps a few days spent miserable and sneezing in bed would remind him that Severan was a voice to be heeded.

  At the moment, Meghren was surrounded by bedsheets that looked as if they had suffered through a windstorm. They covered the mattress in great disarray, no doubt the product of some fever-induced rage, while the King lay sweating in his nightgown and looking very much like an overgrown and forlorn child.

  Two footmen stood by the wall, alert and ready for their king’s slightest command. Mother Bronach, meanwhile, sat on a stool by the King’s bedside, the red robes of her office neatly spread about her. She closed a book as Severan entered, placing it on her lap and looking as if she had swallowed something distinctly unpleasant. He noticed that the book was a transcription of one of the longer verses of the Chant of Light. It seemed he wasn’t the only one interested in torturing the King today.

  “Tell me you have news!” Meghren shouted in exasperation, wiping the sweat from his brow with an embroidered towel. He lay back on his pillows with a great sigh.

  Severan removed a rolled-up piece of parchment from his robe. “I do indeed, Your Majesty. This arrived not an hour ago.” He offered it to Meghren, but the man waved it aside weakly and continued to nurse his forehead.

  “Oh, just tell me what it says! I am dying! The terrible diseases that swirl about in this land, it cannot be borne!”

  Mother Bronach pursed her lips. “Perhaps His Majesty might consider the possibility that his illness is a lesson sent to him by the Maker.”

  Meghren groaned loudly and looked to Severan for support. “This is what I put up with now. This from a traitor who actually spoke to that rebel dog!”

  She frowned deeply. “I did not arrange the matter, Your Majesty. Perhaps it is the mages you should be eyeing more closely.” She stared suspiciously at Severan, a look he pointedly ignored.

  “You spoke to him!” Meghren suddenly shouted, sitting up in bed and looking rather wild-eyed. “Exchanged words! And here you sit and lecture me!”

  “I bring the word of Andraste and the Maker, Your Majesty. Nothing else.”

  “Bah!” He collapsed back onto his pillows, defeated.

  Severan unrolled the parchment and glanced at it, though he didn’t really need to see what it said. “Our agent says that the plan is a success. They intend to attack West Hill, and have gathered up all the other Fereldans still willing to defy you. They have even agreed to use her as an integral part of the attack.”

  Meghren chuckled, taking a rumpled napkin from a small pile of equally rumpled and soiled napkins and blowing his nose into it. “So she does well, then?”

  “Oh, yes. Our rebel prince is quite enamored of our agent, it appears.”

  “For this we sacrificed so many chevaliers?” Meghren snorted. “We should have crushed them in Gwaren when we had the chance. Burned it down, all of it. Shoved it into the sea.”

  “Now we can get all of them,” Severan assured him calmly. “We can eliminate the rebellion for good. Prince Maric will be delivered to you before the month is out; that I guarantee.”

  King Meghren thought on this for a moment, playing idly with the soiled napkin in his hand. He wiped his nose with it again and then chanced a look over at Mother Bronach. The woman glared at him unrelentingly, and he sighed. “No,” he finally said, “I have changed my mind. I want him killed.”

  Severan frowned. “But you said—”

  “And now I say this!”

  Mother Bronach nodded approvingly. “The King has given his order, mage.”

  “I hear him,” Severan snapped at her. He rolled up the parchment irritably. “I do not understand, Your Majesty. Had you wanted Prince Maric dead, we could easily have—”

  “I have changed my mind!” Meghren shouted, and then collapsed into a fit of coughing. When he was done, he looked miserably up at Severan. “There will be no trial, no gift to the Emperor. I . . . wish him to vanish! To disappear!” He waved a hand about dismissively. “He dies in the battle; the rest will go as you planned.”

  �
�Is this your desire, Your Majesty? Or the preference of the Chantry?”

  Mother Bronach stiffened her back in her chair, her lips thinning into a single line. “It benefits no one to have the last son of Calenhad paraded in front of his people,” she snapped. “I have reminded His Majesty of his duty in this matter. It will be better this way. Final.”

  Meghren did not look thrilled by the notion, but waved his assent absently at the Mother’s words. He snatched up a large pewter goblet from his nightstand and gulped down the water greedily before belching.

  Severan glanced between the two and frowned. He had hoped to get his own hands on the rebel prince, once he had been delivered to the palace alive. They had expected losses at Gwaren, but he had been quite embarrassed to report just how many chevaliers had been killed. Worse, they had lost three mages sent by the Circle in Val Cheveaux. Severan had been humiliated in front of his colleagues, and now neither they nor the Fereldan Circle were being cooperative. He would have twisted Maric’s spleen in his own fist, given the chance. Now he would have to be satisfied with another.

  Slowly Severan bowed. “The rebellion will be destroyed at West Hill, and Maric will die. Quietly. It shall be as you say, Your Majesty.”

  “And do not forget, good mage,” Meghren muttered between miserable sniffles, “you will not fail me again, yes?”

  Severan walked out without comment. It seemed the King’s fever would prove resistant to a cure for several days longer than he had initially thought. Pity.

  11

  West Hill was a drafty, poorly maintained place. Sitting high in the rocky hills overlooking the Waking Sea, the stone fortress had once existed to watch the waters for signs of Marcher corsairs raiding the coast. The decline of the corsairs had brought a decline of the fortress along with it, and today the tall watchtowers stood mostly empty. The fortress was useful mainly for its position along the coastal roads bringing sparse traffic from Orlais.

  Still, it felt forgotten. Soldiers were stationed here, with a handful of freeholders and servants to attend to them, but once the fortress had held many more. Thousands, whereas now it held hundreds. Many of the upper floors were closed off, as well as most of the underground chambers that weren’t still used for storage. Some doors hadn’t been opened in decades. It was very easy to make a wrong turn in West Hill and end up in a dark hallway full of crumbling furniture covered with drapes and layers of dust. There were many old ghosts here, or so it was said, and the locals spoke only in whispers as if fearful of stirring their wrath.

  Katriel waited quietly in the shadows, listening to the wind whistling through the dark rafters overhead. She didn’t like this place. Too often business required one to pass through the lonely hallways where the only sounds were the echoing of your own footsteps.

  It had been one week since she and the other rebel agents had arrived, sneaked in one by one to take their places among the servants. Katriel had been brought in with the washerwomen, a replacement for an older woman who had taken ill and been forced to move back to her home village. The guards hadn’t given her a second glance, and why would they? Katriel had been here before.

  Prior to finding her way into the Prince’s company, she’d spent almost a year insinuating herself among the rebel sympathizers, slowly making herself indispensable to them. She had seduced a guardsman into introducing her to Arl Byron as a trusted contact, and that had been all she needed. The guardsman disappeared easily enough afterwards.

  Now she had returned. After a week of quietly leaving notes in prearranged locations, she noticed that the other rebel agents had disappeared. So too had the sympathizers, those simple folk she had worked with for so many months. She quickly quashed the pang of regret she felt in their behalf.

  She could take no chances. In the courts of the Empire, there were no innocents—there were only fools and those who took advantage of fools, as the saying went. Those who had any power were forced to play the same game as the rest of the aristocracy. Whether one was a bored provincial magistrate’s wife or a fashionable count living in a glorious manse in the capital city, one used others to get ahead. Others must be made to look worse so you looked better, gossip and intrigue being the weapons of choice to carve out your niche. It was a blood sport, and all who partook enjoyed it as such or quickly got left behind.

  In all her years there, she had never met a player who did not deserve their fate. Smiles hid daggers and even the poorest servants connived to attach themselves to the fastest and strongest horse.

  Yet this was not Orlais, was it? Here it was quite different. Here the people knew little more than hardship, but they looked each other in the eye. It had taken a long time for her to become used to that.

  And then there was Maric. Katriel found herself smiling as she thought of her blond, grinning fool of a prince. He would not have lasted five minutes in the courts of Val Royeaux. If she had known it was going to be so simple to draw him into her confidence, she needn’t have tried so hard. How very earnest he was!

  And yet how very much like his country he was, as well. Completely without artifice. She had kept expecting to find some vile secret hidden within him, some taint floating just beneath that gleaming surface, and yet there was nothing. She told herself it was that he lacked depth, but when he had looked into her eyes that first night, even she had found it difficult to maintain her composure. The Master who had trained her all those years as a bard would have been ashamed.

  Still, it would be a shame to see the man dragged off to a dungeon. His smiles would vanish into those dark depths and never return, and that was because men like Meghren knew that the game existed everywhere—even here in Ferelden.

  The wind howled in the rafters once more, and a pigeon was startled into sudden flight. Its flapping wings high overhead almost masked the distant sounds of footsteps on the stone.

  Katriel turned and watched the hooded figure approach, fingering the dagger hidden inside her surcoat. A young lordling had once mocked the small blade when she drew it on him—he had stopped laughing when its razor-sharp edge had opened his throat before he’d a chance to lay another finger on her. She had little doubt that this was the mysterious contact she had been feeding information to since her arrival, but there was always reason to be cautious.

  The hooded figure stopped a few feet away, bowing slightly from the waist as a sign of respect. She nodded to him but said nothing. His robes were filthy, and she couldn’t judge if they covered armor or not. He reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing a swarthy-skinned Rivaini face with sharp features, one Katriel had not seen among the fortress denizens. A hidden agent, then? Certainly there were many places to hide in West Hill.

  “You are Katriel,” he stated, his accent clipped and foreign.

  “And you are Severan’s man.”

  He glowered at her. “You should not mention our benefactor’s name so casually, elf.”

  “And you should remember who it is that has delivered this fortress to you.” She arched a curious brow. “I’m assuming that you’ve dealt with all my fellow agents by now?”

  He nodded curtly. “We waited until last night, as per your instructions.”

  “I wanted to wait until we received the last message from the army.” She reached into her surcoat and pulled out a rolled-up parchment. Though she held it out to the Rivaini, he did not move to take it. “They have been marching in small groups in the hills and will be in place by this morning. They will attack as soon as the gates are opened, as I promised.”

  “They are opening now.” He smiled coldly. “There is a great force hiding beyond the western ridge, ready to strike. They will be crushed. Severan will be pleased, and sends word you shall be rewarded as he promised.”

  “There is one problem.” She tapped the parchment thoughtfully against her forehead. “Prince Maric is not riding with the army. There is a camp to the south of West Hill where he will be staying during the battle, an arrangement he made to—”

  �
��We know this,” the Rivaini interrupted, his voice sharp and impatient. “It is being taken care of.”

  Katriel paused, frowning. “Taken care of? What do you mean? I was hired to deliver the Prince to King Meghren personally. I can hardly do that if—”

  “It is taken care of,” the man snapped irritably. “The rebel prince is no longer your concern. He must perish, and so he shall die as the battle begins.”

  “What?” She took an angry step toward him. His black eyes followed her warily, but he did not flinch or retreat. “This is preposterous! I could have easily accomplished that my very first night with the Prince. What is the meaning of this?”

  He shrugged. “What does it matter? The fool would have been executed eventually, surely. It is faster for him to die this way, no?” He sneered at her, his eyes knowing. “They say he is handsome. But you have done what you came to do. Now it is done.”

  “I came here to deliver him,” she insisted. “Not to kill him.”

  “You have delivered him, and his army. To us.” One of his hands slipped gently into his robe, reaching for whatever weapon he had stored there. She made no indication that she was aware of it, however, and continued to meet his steely eyes. “I came here to give you your new orders, elf. It would be a shame if I were to send word to the mage that his little spy met an accident during the battle instead.”

  She paused, very aware of the distance between them. The tension was punctuated only by the shrill howls of wind overhead. “I am not Severan’s servant,” she said clearly.

  “No? Are you not in his employ?”

  “I was brought here at great expense to perform a specific task. Once that task is done, he and I are through.”

  He chuckled, low and menacing. “Then I suppose you are through.”

  The Rivaini made to draw his blade and lunge at Katriel, but she was too fast for him. Her dagger was out and flying through the air before he had taken half a step toward her, and his eyes went wide with shock as he realized a blade was stuck up to its hilt in his throat. Stumbling to a stop, he let out a muted gasp and reached up with a hand to pull the dagger out. His eyes widened still at the resulting fountain of blood gushing from his neck and running down his robe.