Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights

by Patrick Weekes

  Then Strife, still down, squeezed Myrion’s hand once.

  The pain in his arm made Myrion queasy, but he held on. “Stupid ox-man,” he snapped, rising slowly to his feet, “you cannot kill me! Look at me!” He raised his uninjured arm, sneering in the moonlight with an arrogance to match Bas-taar’s. “How many of your guards did we kill? Do you know what you did when you chained us together, Bas-taard?”

  Bas-taar brought his ax up under Myrion’s chin. “What is that, little bas?”

  “You taught us to work as one,” Myrion said, and then added, “Inside foot!” and kicked out as Strife did the same.

  The shackle that bound Myrion’s leg to Strife’s caught Bas-taar just above the ankles, and the big Qunari crashed to the ground with Myrion beneath him, his ax falling away into the darkness. Myrion pushed and Strife kicked, and Bas-taar slipped, rolling onto his back as he tried to halt his slide down into the clearing.

  “Now! The chain!” Strife yelled, and as Bas-taar slid off Myrion, Strife leaped over, coming down on the other side and pulling the chain across Bas-taar’s neck. “Pull!”

  Myrion heaved as Bas-taar’s weight tore at his shackled leg. The giant Qunari had his hands up, grasping at the chain around his throat, and Myrion saw his legs kicking freely as he dangled over the hilltop’s edge.

  But it wasn’t going to be enough.

  Myrion’s cloud of lightning had faded away, and other Qunari were already climbing up. They would free their commander and kill him.

  Myrion scrabbled at the soft earth to keep Bas-taar’s weight from pulling him over the edge. All his and Strife’s work, all their pain, and it had been for nothing.

  Bas-taar gave a strangled shout, clawing at the soft dirt with one hand and the chain around his throat with the other.

  A pair of Qunari reached the top of the hill, pulling themselves up. They towered over Myrion, their axes shining in the moonlight like bones.

  Then a snowy white owl drifted overhead, a ghostly form in the moonlight.

  It landed between Myrion and Strife.

  “And that’s midnight,” Strife said with satisfaction.

  The air around the owl shimmered, and then suddenly, it was a great bear standing atop the hill. It roared at the Qunari and swatted one with a great claw that ripped through armor and flesh, sending the Qunari flying from the hilltop down into the clearing below.

  The other Qunari swung his ax, but the bear caught the haft of the weapon in its mouth and shattered it in its jaws. A moment later, another clawed swipe sent the warrior tumbling down into the clearing as well, and the bear roared with all the fury of the forest behind it.

  “Huntmaster!” Bas-taar shouted, his legs still kicking as he grasped at the chain around his throat. “Do your duty! Destroy those who threaten the Qun!”

  “Yes,” called the Huntmaster, “that’s the idea … Bas-taard.”

  A sudden shocked silence washed across the clearing as the Huntmaster tossed his bow aside.

  “Antaam, to me!” Bas-taar choked out.

  “I am not Antaam.” The Huntmaster smiled as the Qunari beside him looked at him in confusion.

  In one fluid motion, he swung the spear down from his back and hurled it across the clearing. Bas-taar shuddered as the spear struck, then went silent and still.

  Now weaponless, the Huntmaster raised his hands, and then, as though they stood at a fancy ball, he placed a hand across his waist and bowed politely, his stoic expression melting into a polite smile beneath the face paint.

  “I am Saarbrak, of the Ben-Hassrath,” he said, and the other Qunari scrambled away, turning their backs on Myrion and Strife and the bear as though he were suddenly the greatest threat.

  “I heard rumors,” he said, walking forward and looking to the Qunari in the clearing, “that the Antaam who took Ventus did not act in accordance with the Qun.” He sounded disappointed. “Some of the bas now call us monsters.” He gestured up at Myrion and the others on the hilltop. “And they are not wrong. This is what threatens the Qun.”

  “Hass ebala-varaad nehraa,” he said as he pulled his spear from Bas-taar’s body. “For those I watch, of which I am one.” He held his spear loosely, not raised but ready if needed.

  The bear shimmered in the air and became Irelin, her furs and leather sparkling in the moonlight as she looked down at the Qunari. “Go and live, Saarbrak of the Ben-Hassrath,” she said. “This is not your place.”

  Saarbrak nodded. He picked up his bow and raised it in a brief salute. “I was better with the spear than I was with this.”

  “Seemed like a good shot to me,” Strife called back, holding his injured stomach.

  “I was aiming for your arm.” Saarbrak grinned and placed the great bow carefully back on the ground. “Good luck.”

  He stepped back into the forest with a stern look at the other Qunari, and they followed him, heads down and shoulders bowed. In moments, the clearing held only Myrion, Strife, Irelin, and Bas-taar’s corpse.

  Strife shuffled forward and lifted his leg, and with a groaning clank of metal, Bas-taar’s body slid free and tumbled down the steep slope to crash at the bottom. “Cut it a little close, lass.”

  She gave him a look. “It is at least two hours before midnight. You’re lucky I came at all.”

  Strife laughed. “Fair enough. I don’t suppose you remembered to bring the lockpick.”

  “I was in a hurry.” She shrugged. “We can still cut the human’s foot off.”

  Myrion blanched, but Strife just laughed again. “Maybe I can shoot it off with the bow he left me.”

  “As though you could even draw that thing,” Irelin said, rolling her eyes. “It’s as tall as you are.”

  “It may require a bit of practice,” Strife said, and limped over to Bas-taar’s massive ax. He lifted it in both hands. “This will do for now, then. Myrion, you’re going to want to stay very, very still.”

  Myrion lay back, trying to ignore the throbbing of his injured arm. “Not a problem.”

  It took three great blows, each of which sent painful reverberations up Myrion’s leg, but finally the bolt on his shackle snapped. Strife staggered back, the shackle trailing behind him and rattling in the grass. He dropped the ax and stretched out his back. “Ah, finally.”

  Myrion stretched his leg, shaking the broken shackle free. “Try not to miss me too much.”

  Strife laughed. “I think I’ve gotten my exercise for the day. Irelin, if you wouldn’t mind making camp, we can rest up, then head back to the clan in the morning.”

  “What about him?” Irelin asked, pointing at Myrion.

  “I know, I know. This isn’t my place, either.” Myrion waved it away. “Let me get my arm bandaged and a night’s rest, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Strife clapped him on the shoulder—the one without the injured arm. “You’re right, shem. This isn’t your place. But then, once upon a time, it wasn’t mine, either.”

  Myrion smiled up at the older elf hesitantly. He wasn’t sure exactly what morning would hold.

  But at least he’d be there to see it.

  DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

  SYLVIA FEKETEKUTY

  He’d done everything he could to avoid being drafted into the funeral guard: swapping duties, extra shifts, tasteful bribes. Nothing had worked. Audric’s friends in the city watch had assumed it was the tedium he hated, and Audric, embarrassed, let them. Now, spear straight, he listened to the old priest’s surprisingly hale voice boom off the stonework with prayers for a dead man.

  “And the Maker, clad in the majesty of the sky, set foot to earth, and at His touch all warring ceased.”

  Audric hadn’t known the dead nobleman, but Penrick Karn’s funeral was well-attended. A few mourners appeared genuinely heartbroken. Audric kept his gaze away from their red eyes and grief-twisted faces, maintaining a respectfully bland stare into the middle distance.

  “From every corner of the earth the Chant of Light echoed, and the Maker walked
the land.”

  Audric’s eyes wandered to the majesty of the copper-tiled vaults. This temple complex had been built to celebrate the retaking of Nevarran lands (3:65 Towers, helmed by King Caspar II, long may he rest). That it was a marvel among a city of marvels didn’t diminish the glittering craftsmanship. What did sour it was the dead man on the bier behind him. Audric squirmed at the thought of the hollow pits that were his eyes …

  Curiosity, his father had said in their clay-walled home on the outskirts of the city. That was Audric’s trouble. Curiosity and too much schooling for a boy that wakes up crying from nightmares, my lad.

  “By the Maker’s will I decree harmony in all things.”

  Audric had grown out of those nightscapes as he entered the tedium of a guardsman. He missed them in an odd way, their crooked sceneries, their strange terrors that felt tailored only to him. The vaults here had faint echoes of that majesty, blurred greatly by memory and time.

  Lost in a gloomy churn of thoughts, Audric didn’t hear the whisper of silk on the bier as the priest thundered the end of the chant. He missed the crowd’s faces turning quizzical, then horrified.

  “Let Balance be restored and the world given eternal life!”

  But Audric would always remember the moment a withered hand grasped him by the shoulder, and a corpse in jangling gold crunched its teeth into his neck.

  * * *

  “What happened then?” the older mage tilted a pot of tea encouragingly toward Audric. The younger mage, a woman with pulled-back hair and a severe gaze, sipped her own tea and regarded the guardsman silently.

  Audric shook his head—he didn’t feel like tea, particularly—while his eyes soaked in the room. He’d never been in a necromancer’s study before. Ornately decorated skulls hung from hooks in the high, dark ceiling. One wall was made up of shelves with books and tiny labeled drawers. The other was fronted by tables full of bubbling flasks, scales, alembics, and tortured-looking glass. A smartly attired assistant ground away with a pestle and mortar. Despite himself, Audric’s eye kept settling there.

  “Please, don’t mind Manfred.” The older mage refilled his own cup. “He’ll finish mixing that tincture before you know it.”

  Manfred, a clean-boned skeleton, held up a bowl. Audric read something helpful in the cant of its skull. The younger mage looked critical. “It needs half a cup more elfroot.”

  The corpse pulled out one of the drawers on the far side of the room, took out a withered root, and shook it inquiringly.

  “The royal elfroot, please.”

  Manfred moaned and fumbled at more drawers.

  Every mage in the kingdom of Nevarra was part of the Mortalitasi, a group that trained the gifted in the mysteries of magic. They served as Nevarra’s arcane protectors and priests. Within the Mortalitasi was a group of select mages invited into an old fraternity called the Mourn Watch. The Watchers served as elite guardians, keepers of the Grand Necropolis and its sacred repository of the dead.

  “Yes! That’s the one.” The older mage beamed. “Very good indeed, Manfred!”

  This was the first time Audric had met a Watcher. They had been the picture of courtesy, but Audric thought it would be futile to explain to them what the sight of a skeleton ambling under its own power did to a simple guardsman.

  “Now, where were we?”

  Audric dragged his gaze back to the older Watcher across from him, with his silvered hair, tidy mustache, and long face full of concern. His expression reminded Audric of the Chantry scholars when they’d caught him reading by candlelight in the library. The good brothers and sisters had kindly tried to dissuade Audric from living in pages for so long he couldn’t think straight come morning. It never worked.

  “Is there anything else you can recall about Lord Karn’s funeral?” the mage asked gently.

  “No? I think … not much, sir. Another guard, she, well … Dellah even had to peel him off me, sir.”

  The necromancer waved a hand. “Emmrich will do, please.”

  Audric nodded absently, touching the bandage on his neck. “It’s … sorry, it’s a blur of screams, sir.”

  “Some of it your own, I’d bet,” the necromancer joked, but looked so sympathetic Audric relaxed by a degree.

  “Yes, sir.” He had screamed, falling to the floor as the snapping, well-dressed corpse dug into his shoulders. He’d screamed as Dellah tried to pry it off and was smacked into the altar for her trouble. He’d screamed as he braced a boot against the corpse’s rib cage and kicked over and over.

  “The Mourn Watch can track down the absent Lord Karn, guardsman,” the younger mage commented. “This is our bailiwick. You are fully committed to this venture?”

  Audric tried to recall how she’d been introduced. He’d been trying to stay as far as possible from Manfred at the time.

  “The captain, well, they want the city guard to be involved, madam,” Audric said.

  What the captain had actually said was That bloody ceremonial duty is supposed to be ceremonial! and Make sure those musty corpse-botherers bury Karn’s body before his family blame us somehow for this. And then she had, rather unexpectedly, patted him sympathetically and gingerly on the shoulder.

  “If I can ask, if it’s all right—” Audric fumbled. He’d never dealt with necromancers face-to-face, outside seeing them at funerals. “Do you know what’s been going on?”

  “Premature possession,” the younger Watcher said crisply. The older one, Emmrich, nodded and added: “It must be, but that should be nigh impossible this close to the Grand Necropolis.”

  “How come?” Audric asked.

  “Excellent question!” Emmrich swirled the tea in his mug, looking too cheerful, Audric thought, for a man framed by so many racks of skulls. “The simple explanation is the wards inside the crypts deter most minor, errant spirits. Penrick Karn is either a man of great and unfulfilled passions, or very unlucky.” The necromancer took a swallow. “After the funeral, Karn’s corpse was spotted heading toward the necropolis. It would be easier to locate him if we had any remains, but there was very little spare material left after his body was displayed.”

  Audric reached into a pocket and brought out a handkerchief. He unrolled its contents onto the polished desk. “Will, um … will this do?”

  The younger Watcher raised one thin eyebrow. Myrna. That was it. Her name was Myrna.

  “I found it … got it in the fight, madam. With Lord Karn. Woke up with it scraping my palm.”

  Myra picked up the curved rib bone. One end was jagged from where Audric’s boot had connected with Karn’s rib cage. She handed it to Emmrich. “Excellent. Emmrich? This is your remit.”

  “I’ll have it ready before sunset.” He sighed. “It would be faster if we’d managed to replace the librarian by now. The students have naturally left the books a mess.”

  Myrna nodded and swept to the door, robes flaring. “Guardsman? Come along.”

  “What for?”

  “A gentle inquiry into the manner of Penrick Karn’s death.”

  * * *

  “My brother was stabbed to death by Duke Janus Van Markham in an alley.”

  Audric was already wilting under Ivona Karn’s hawkish gaze. “Are you … are you sure, Lady Karn?”

  “Utterly.”

  “It’s only, the guard was never told … I don’t think the captain knows how he—”

  “What of it?” The deceased Lord Karn’s older sister sniffed, her handsome face wrinkling in disdain. “Why should I let the details of my brother’s death become the barracks’ gossip? Janus was a bitter rival of Penrick’s. They bumped into each other at a drinking establishment, overindulged, and bickered about who’d slain more dragons on the field. Then they fought, and disgraced both our houses by killing each other on a common, public street.”

  “We, um—but the bodies—”

  “I arranged for the footmen to deliver my brother’s body to the priests. The Van Markhams did the same for Janus.” Lady Karn scowled.
“The involvement of the city guard in a matter of private grief seemed most unnecessary.”

  Audric rallied. “Were there any witnesses to Lord Karn’s death?”

  “The staff of the tavern, my brother’s attendants, Janus’s attendants, and several passersby who stopped to watch the sport.”

  Myrna’s presence had meant Lady Karn couldn’t turn them away—the Mourn Watchers had absolute authority over funerary dead—but the noblewoman had practically ground her teeth when inviting them into her parlor. Frilly and gilded, Audric couldn’t help note, in that Orlesian style that was all the rage in the Free Marches forty years ago.

  Lady Karn rose. “If this has wound to its end, my household is still in mourning.”

  “One last inquiry, Lady Karn,” Myrna said. “Was there a similar disturbance at Duke Janus’s funeral? Was it as restless as Lord Karn’s?”

  Lady Karn glared. “Duke Janus was interred in the Winged Halls of the Grand Necropolis, a day before my brother’s funeral. Without incident or delay.”

  * * *

  “I promise, guardsman: You will be perfectly safe by my side.”

  Audric hung back from a set of massive stone gates. They were lit by braziers and flanked by statues of robed and skull-faced men. Carved in a style favored in the Exalted Age, Audric’s memory inanely reminded him. Basalt from northern Ferelden, onyx inlays from Cumberland. Note how precisely the light falls on the skulls.

  “Why, well … why would Lord Karn go into the Necropolis?” Audric crossed his arms, hoping they didn’t start to shake. “I don’t understand. Why not let himself be buried if he wanted inside?”

  “The Mortalitasi believe that when someone dies, an inhuman spirit is pushed out from the Fade into our world.” Myrna waved a gloved hand at the panorama of the Grand Necropolis, whose upper levels could be seen past the gates, quarried into the stone. “In exchange, we invite those inhuman spirits to house themselves in the empty bodies left behind. Correct?”