by David Gaider
It never came. As they got closer to the Gwaren outpost, water began to appear in the passages, dripping down from above and draining from stagnant pools into cracks in the wall. Crusty limestone piled wherever the water appeared, the smell of rust and salt thick in the air. Once the group encountered water that filled almost an entire portion of the passage, forcing them to wade through it with equipment held over their heads. Here the dwarves stared resentfully at the taller humans and the elf among them, but said nothing.
All the water made Loghain nervous. Did these tunnels go underneath the ocean? If so, then wouldn’t the first cave-in fill the entire system with seawater? Nalthur dismissed the idea, but still Loghain kept thinking about it. He didn’t know enough about dwarven architecture to be reassured.
The outpost, when they finally found it, was inside a great cavern mostly filled with seawater, an underground lake with a narrow path of rock that led around the water’s edge. Stalactites hung down in multitudes from the cavern ceiling, each dripping water into the murky lake. The echoes of dripping water resounded everywhere, a cacophony of sound that greeted them as they entered.
The other side of the lake was too far off to see, the dark water disappearing into the shadows. Loghain wondered if it didn’t perhaps meet up with the ocean, an underground “port” just as Gwaren above was? An interesting thought. The air was still in the cavern, if heavy and moist.
A great steel structure stood half submerged in the lake, just off the rocky shore and over a hundred feet across. It was now mostly crumbled from rust and covered with white streaks of limestone. Many long pipes reached from it into the rock walls, those, too, brown with rust and falling apart.
It was impossible to tell what the purpose of the structure might have been. The dwarves didn’t say, and merely stood at the entrance to the cavern and hung their heads in reverence. The sounds of dripping were all they could hear. Nalthur eventually remarked to Maric that once there had been hundreds of pipes, that they wouldn’t have been able to see the roof of the cavern for all of them. Now most of them had fallen, no doubt rusting beneath the water on the cavern floor.
Maric asked what it had been for, if it had been some kind of fortress, but Nalthur only looked at him in disgust. “You humans wouldn’t understand,” he muttered.
The way up to the surface required them to march along the precarious edge by the water until they found another door much like the one that Maric and the others had found all the way back in the hills. This one, while covered with lime and rust, was still closed. The lime was so thick on it, in fact, that they couldn’t even see any evidence of a lock mechanism.
Nalthur immediately sent his men to work with their picks, chipping away at the lime and rust to see what lay beneath. The dwarf seemed unsure if it was going to do any good, however. “Even if we manage to get through,” he muttered, “there’s no telling what’s at the top. You humans might have built over it, for all we know.”
Rowan frowned. “I don’t remember anyone mentioning anything about a passageway going down to the dwarven outpost.”
“It would have been sealed centuries ago,” Katriel said. “When the darkspawn took the Deep Roads, the townsfolk would have closed it up to keep them from attacking the town.”
Nalthur sighed. “Then we’ll have two seals to break, if we can.” He glanced at Maric. “Otherwise you’ve come all this way for nothing.”
Loghain stared at the cloudy water in the cavern, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “If you swam out that way, would it lead out to the ocean? Could you swim up to the shore above?”
The dwarf looked at him incredulously. “If the sluice gate is open. And if you can hold your breath long enough. And if the pressure doesn’t kill you.”
“Maybe not, then.”
The ringing of the picks went on for hours, until finally the great doors had been scoured enough that several older dwarves could take a closer look at the lock mechanism. One of them, Nalthur assured Maric, had been a smith “when he was alive.” After a time, the smith reported the bad news: the lock was rusted shut. They would need to burn their way through.
This process required the use of acid, which the dwarves brought forth from their equipment wagons in the form of small vials full of brackish liquid. They opened the vials with tongs and poured the acid into the lock. The result was a lot of acrid smoke and blue flame, and after three applications the smith finally declared the door ready to open.
Nalthur commanded the Legion to attach several large hooks to the door, each tied to a rope that five dwarves pulled on with all their might. They strained, gritting their teeth and digging their feet into the rock, and ever so slowly the doors opened. They groaned at first, letting out wrenching sounds that reverberated throughout the cavern. Then they began to give, parting by inches and generating an excruciating squealing noise as the rusted metal dragged along the rocky floor.
As the ancient doors opened more quickly, a great cloud of dust began to billow in, blown in by what was immediately recognizable as fresh air. As the dust made the dwarves cough, Loghain stepped forward.
Fresh air? His brows shot up. If there were fresh air, then that meant . . .
Suddenly a great form began to rush forward out of the dust cloud. It was a stone golem, over ten feet tall, and with a great roar it began to swing widely with its fists. The dwarves reacted with surprise as the creature charged into their ranks, its blows sending them flying into the air. Many of them slammed against the rocky walls, while others were flung into the nearby water.
The dwarves began to fall back in shock, drawing their swords as Nalthur charged toward them. “We’re attacked!” he bellowed. “To arms, Legion! To arms!”
Coming from behind the golem, a crowd of human soldiers began to rush into the chamber with swords drawn, and they clashed against the dwarves that held their ground. The sound of steel meeting steel rang out, the golem continuing to swing its great fists. As the deadly melee spread, Loghain’s eyes went wide in horror.
These were their own men. The standards on the soldiers that had surged out of the tunnel were Maric’s own.
“Stop!” Maric shouted. He ran forward into the line of dwarves, heedless of the danger and waving his hands. “Stop fighting! For the love of the Maker!” Nobody listened to him as the fighting surged onward. Blood was being spilled. The stone golem swung a large fist dangerously near Maric, crashing onto the ground and toppling him.
Loghain and Rowan rushed forward immediately to Maric’s side, drawing their weapons. They glanced at each other, wondering if they would need to engage their own men. The irony was that they might have traveled so far only to end up battling the very forces they had come to lead.
Loghain kicked back a soldier that had been about to strike Maric with his sword. “Don’t be a fool!” he roared. “This is Prince Maric!” His words were lost in the shouts of battle and the crashes of the golem’s fist against stone and armor. He looked about, hoping to spot the golem’s mage amid the chaos, but saw nothing.
“Stop fighting!” Loghain roared again, Rowan pushing several men back beside him and trying to pull Maric to his feet. Nalthur saw what they were trying to do but he couldn’t order the Legion to retreat. There was no room on the narrow rocky ledge, and trying to pull back would only end up with them being slaughtered or falling into the water and drowning.
The stone golem charged at Loghain, letting out a bellow of rage. It reared up over him, both fists ready to crash down on his head, and he held up his sword, bracing for the impact. . . .
“Halt!” rang out a new voice from behind the golem, and the effect was immediate. The golem went still.
The human soldiers paused in their fighting and looked around them in confusion. Nalthur took advantage and shouted for the dwarves to pull back, which they immediately did. A gap opened up between the forces, and while it looked like the human soldiers might chase after their quarry, they held their ground.
Like a sea had
parted around them, Loghain was left in the clearing with Maric and Rowan beside him, the golem looming overhead as still as a statue.
“Who dares invoke the name of the Prince?” the voice demanded. The figure that walked around the golem into view wore yellow robes and possessed a pointed beard. Maric recognized him immediately.
“Wilhelm!” he shouted with relief. He jumped up and ran toward the mage.
Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he stepped back as Maric approached, staring at him in disbelief. Maric halted, and looked at the rest of the soldiers that likewise stared at him aghast. Nobody in the entire cavern said a word. The shocked silence was complete.
“Don’t you recognize me?” Maric asked. Loghain and Rowan walked up quietly behind him, lowering their weapons.
Wilhelm’s gaze flickered to each of them but went immediately back to Maric. His eyes hardened, and he held out a hand for the soldiers to stand back. “Be cautious,” he warned. “This may yet be a trick, an illusion to deceive us.”
He raised a hand, and bright power was summoned up from it. Maric stood still as the power surged toward him. He closed his eyes as it washed over him, and nothing changed. Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hand again, summoning a different spell. This one crashed against Maric’s form, and then another followed it.
Wilhelm’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He sank to his knees, and actual tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at Maric. “My lord?” the mage asked in a tremulous voice. “You . . . you live?”
Maric walked cautiously up to Wilhelm and knelt before him, gripping the mage’s hands in his own. Loghain and Rowan approached solemnly from behind. “It’s me, Wilhelm. Loghain, too, as well as Lady Rowan. All of us are here.”
Wilhelm looked back at the rows of soldiers that stared incredulously at them. “It is him,” he said. “It is really him!” As if a wave of shock ran through them, the soldiers began to whisper to each other excitedly. Word was passed back in the ranks, and men in the passage began to run up a set of stairs to the town above. A babble of shouting could be heard up there.
One by one the soldiers followed Wilhelm’s example, all of them falling to their knees and removing their helmets in respect. More soldiers crowded into the chamber, coming down the stairs behind the heavy doors, and as they laid eyes on Maric, they, too, fell to their knees. Some of them had tears running down their cheeks.
“We thought you were lost,” the mage said to Maric. “We thought everything was lost. Rendorn was dead. The usurper declared you dead. We thought . . . we were sure this was another attack, and that this was . . .” His voice choked up, and he shook his head again as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
Maric nodded gravely and stood, looking back at the row of silent dwarves behind him. Nalthur began giving orders to have those knocked into the water collected as well as the injured seen to. The dwarves scrambled immediately.
Maric turned back to look at the rows of soldiers in front of him, his own men. There were so many, crowded here into this dark passage and staring at him with the same hopeful expressions that he remembered when Loghain and Rowan had first brought him back to the camp in the western hills. There were more beyond, up on the surface. He could hear them shouting.
“We’re not too late, then,” Maric said. The relief was so overwhelming that tears rushed down his cheeks. “There’s still an army, and you haven’t disbanded. We made it? We actually made it?”
Wilhelm nodded, and Loghain put his hand on Maric’s shoulder from behind. “We actually made it,” he said quietly.
Maric barely felt worthy. He walked toward the awestruck soldiers, almost unable to control his flood of tears as he looked at them all kneeling. They were hungry and tired and desperate. He could see it in their eyes. And yet they had endured.
Looking over them all, Maric raised a proud fist high over his head, and as one, the men of the rebel army leaped to their feet and responded with a resounding cry of jubilation that shook the very ground underneath them and rang far into the shadows of the Deep Roads.
16
Severan’s hands shook as he read the parchment. His mouth thinned into a grimace, and when he finished, he quickly rolled it up. This was not good news.
The mage paused in front of an ornate mirror, smoothing his black hair and telling his heart to calm down. It was beating too fast for his liking, the sweat glistening on his forehead far too visibly. The King would see it and know what the news was even before Severan opened his mouth, and that just wouldn’t do.
Meghren’s moods were bad enough to contend with even when the news could be filtered properly. If he was to take it upon himself to fly into a fury, Severan would much rather he took out his rage on one of the servants as usual. A week earlier, it had been a slender elven serving boy who had failed to notice the cream he brought the King was soured. His screams had brought the palace guard running into the royal chambers, only to stand there helpless as King Meghren beat the foolish boy within an inch of his life.
When the King turned his back, the desperate guard captain dashed forward to gather up the bloodied servant. It was a daring move, for Meghren could just as easily have turned his attention to the guard, his rage renewed by such outrageous interference. But Meghren had done nothing, seething and grinding his teeth as he stared out the window while the guards hastily retreated.
Frankly, Severan thought it would have been better had the fool just beaten the boy to death and been done with it. Instead, he had survived, and when he was returned to his wailing relatives with his tale of the event, there were riots in the alienage. The city garrison reported that it had needed to flee the quarter and lock down the gates, leaving the enraged elves to burn their own homes until a few days of hunger calmed them down. Meghren hardly cared about some rioting elves, but such problems did make things so very inconvenient for Severan.
But now there was worse news to deliver, and no convenient servant to pawn it off on. Severan wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief, a gift from a fawning Antivan merchant who had begged him to arrange an audience, and considered the possibility of not telling the news at all. He stared into his eyes within the mirror, frowning at the fear he saw there.
No, there was really very little choice.
He found Meghren down in the stables, being fussed over by a pair of burly smiths as they strapped new armor to him. It was gold-plated and specially crafted with the face of a lion embossed into the breastplate. It had many grooves, the metal glittering everywhere it wasn’t covered by black leather, the kind of armor one could easily imagine a great king wearing, or even an emperor. Ever since Meghren had led the army at West Hill he had become practically obsessed with everything military-related. This despite many assurances from the commanders on the field that he had been nowhere near the action and mostly got to tour the carnage on the battlefield after all had been said and done.
Severan thought the armor looked impressive, befitting a great king. Naturally Meghren disagreed. He barely tolerated the smiths, constantly shrugging with discomfort and snapping at them for tying a particular strap too tightly or griping that the greaves pinched or that the gauntlets made his skin itch. Several servants hovered nearby, too frightened to make any effort to help the smiths. Indeed, the nervous aura even seemed to agitate the few horses in the stable. The beasts stomped their hooves and looked like they were about ready to kick down the doors to their berth.
He was about to enter when he noticed Mother Bronach seated on a stool against the far wall, observing the fitting. Why she was there, Severan had no idea, but she looked up and noticed him. The slightest smile played across her face.
It seemed she knew. Perhaps she had even come here to watch.
Meghren saw Mother Bronach’s expression and turned to see Severan hovering in the doorway. “Oh, it is you,” he sneered. “What is it now? I hope there is news from Gwaren. This business has gone on entirely too long.”
The mage cleared his throa
t, which had suddenly become rather dry. He couldn’t help but stare at the sword sheathed at Meghren’s side. Ornamental or not, if the man decided to start flailing about with it, it could do more than a little damage. “Yes,” he finally said. “There is news.”
Meghren went cold, looking at Severan with narrowed eyes, and the entire room immediately picked up on the change in temperature. The servants all but scrambled out of the stable, and both the smiths stopped affixing the armor. They backed away, confused looks on their faces.
“What are you doing!” Meghren barked at them. “Why are you stopping?”
The smiths both immediately rushed back toward their king, so quickly that they bumped into each other and then nearly knocked him off his feet. Meghren roared in rage and kicked up with his metal boots, catching the nearest smith in the nose. Blood sprayed into the air as the man flew back, slamming into the stable wall.
“Get out of here, you fools!” Meghren roared.
The other smith stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, but only for a second. Running over to his comrade, who was kneeling by the wall in shock, covering his nose with bloody hands, he helped him to his feet and the two of them ran out of the stable.
Meghren watched them go, a disgruntled expression on his face, and then finally turned back toward Severan. “I would like to hear this news,” he said, his voice low and unpleasant.
“I would like to hear it, too,” Mother Bronach chimed in. She seemed awfully pleased with herself.
Severan tried to swallow, but found his throat constricted. So instead he cleared his throat. The sound seemed very loud in the silent room, with everyone staring at him expectantly. Even the horses appeared to be watching him.
“We . . . have taken Gwaren,” he said simply.
