Aedan Of Highever

by Milton Garby

  "Yes. I-I was there. But I didn't…Koff!" the man whimpered right as Aedan kicked him in the stomach.

  Everyone paused at this realization. This man was involved with what happened to the Couslands? He had no chance. "Who sent you?" Wynne asked.

  "O-one of our spies told us you were spotted leaving Denerim." The officer answered. "Teyrn Howe ordered us to-Eeeaargh!" Aedan sliced off one of the man's ears before he could finish answering.

  "Don't you dare call him that in front of me! Howe is not a teyrn!" Aedan spat as the man rolled on the ground howling in agony. The other Howe soldiers were now practically pissing themselves at the prospect of being at the mercy of this savage. "Bodahn!" Aedan called. "Bring me three shovels!" Aedan had Shale dragged the prisoners over to the edge of the tree line and had them start digging, those who didn't have a shovel dug with their bare hands. Zevran and Morrigan watched more intrigued than anything else. Sten watched on with his usual thousand-yard stare, but Leliana's eyes were filled with horror.

  Alistair tried to walk over to his brother-in-arms but was stopped by Oghren. "Leave it alone, kid. Trust me, ya don't wana get in his way right now." The dwarf warned.

  "W-what are we digging?" One of them asked with fear in his voice.

  "Your grave." Aedan's answer shocked and horrified his companions, but the prisoners were terrified even worse. The now earless officer threw the shovel down and dropped to his knees before the Warden.

  "Please, Lord Cousland!" He begged. "I didn't know what Howe was going to do to you, I swear! But I had no choice! We were only following orders!"

  Aedan was unmoved. "And now you get to pay the price for that order. Just like everyone in my house had to."

  "Please, ser! I beg your house's legendary mercy!" The officer sobbed. "I have a family!"

  Aedan picked up the shovel and for a brief moment the rage in his eyes faded away. But then it returned, burning with greater intensity. "SO DID I!" Aedan smashed the flat of the spade into the man's face, splitting his lips and breaking nose and teeth. The man spiraled on the ground sobbing in agony. Dane barked furiously at the men as Aedan knelt down to the dog and brought his ear close to his mouth. "You remember what they did, Dane? What they did to our home? What they did to little Oren and Oriana?" Dane barked and snarled viciously at the officer as he was reminded what happened to his master's family. The earless officer saw the murderous intent in the massive mabari and tried to crawl away.

  "Ithe a feoil!" Aedan commanded viciously. None of them knew the old tongue very well, but the message was obvious. Dane charged down on the man and began to rip him apart. He screamed for mercy, but Aedan just watched on as Dane sunk his teeth into the man tore his flesh with a twisted look of hatred and glee in his eyes. The others watched on in horror and the other prisoners literally began to piss themselves as the mabari mauled and dismembered his victim. As soon as the man was done screaming and the dog finished shredding the man's flesh, Aedan looked down at the other Howe soldiers. "Get back to work! Or I'll feed you to the dog next!" The prisoners went back to their dark task of digging their own grave with renewed urgency, weeping and wailing as they did it.

  When they dug a deep enough hole everyone was sure he was just going to kill them and be done with it. But they had another thing coming. "I'm going to give you a chance." He announced as he tossed them his hunting knife. "I'm going to let one of you traitors live, but I'm going to let you decide who." The soldiers all looked down at the knife at their feet. "Last one standing gets to live."

  Leliana could take no more of this brutality. "Aedan! Please! Stop this!" the bard begged. "I know these men wronged you, but surely they don't deserve this!"

  "Please! Listen to Leliana." Wynne urged. "We've followed you this far, but we can't be party to such barbarity."

  "I agree." Sten confirmed surprisingly. "If you're going to kill them then kill them. There is no honor in making an enemy suffer like this."

  Morrigan remained silent but looked at her lover with concern and even sadness in her eyes. She did not want to see Aedan become like this.

  This only peaked Aedan's anger. "What the fuck do any of you know!? None of you ever had a family! None of you knew the peace I knew!" Aedan turned to Wynne. "You, Wynne, never raised your son. You couldn't possibly know what it's like to see a child of your own flesh and blood be snuffed out so mercilessly!"

  The Warden's words stung Wynne like an arrow in her heart. "Your family would not want this Aedan." She implored.

  "No! No, they wouldn't want this." Aedan admitted. "They would've wanted to see Oren grow up. Watch him become a man, fall in love and have a life of his own. But these men stole that! They drew first blood! I am merely responding in kind."

  "Yeah!" Oghren blustered. "If these dusters are gonna kill whole families then I say killin' 'em too good for these nug-lickers!"

  "This doesn't honor your family, Aedan." Wynne continued. "Destroying these men will not make it any better."

  "I would have destroyed ten thousand lives to protect my family, Wynne. How many do you think I'll destroy to avenge them?"

  Seeing that there was nothing they could do to change Aedan's mind, they all left back to the campsite, but not before Leliana said a prayer for the doomed men and then left so she wouldn't have to see Aedan preform his macabre task. Alistair stayed a little longer in hopes of deterring his fellow Warden. "Are you sure you want to do this, my friend?"

  "These men betrayed my family the same way Loghain betrayed Cailan." Aedan answered. "These men committed a terrible crime against my family and will pay a terrible price."

  This was…true. Loghain left not just the Grey Warden, but his own soldiers, his own son-in-law to die a horrible death at the hands of the darkspawn. All the men who had been devoured and all the women who were dragged beneath the earth to be transformed into monstrous broodmothers, such heinous crimes could not go unanswered. Perhaps Aedan was the kind of man capable of answering such crimes, after all, despicable crimes deserved brutal justice. That is the Fereldan way. Alistair hesitantly turned away from his fellow Warden and tried to ignore the screams of those men and ebbing of his conscience trying to tell him that this was wrong.

  The men down in the pit turned into animals the instant one of them dove for Aedan's knife. He managed to stick one of his fellows in the ribs but was quickly killed when another jammed the edge of his shovel into the back of his skull. The remaining three darted their horror-filled gazes back and forth between each other, none wanted to kill, but none wanted to die. Their fight for survival was much like a bar room brawl, wild swinging with no real aim, rolling around, ducking and hoping to get lucky, all accompanied with screams of determination that were quickly followed by screams of agony. The lucky bastard that was left standing frantically smashed his shovel into one of the other soldiers until all that was left was a ruined mass of wet bones. When he was done he leaned on his bloodied murder weapon screaming and sobbing in horror at what he had done, but at least he was alive. Shale yanked the man out of the death pit and Aedan ordered Oghren to bring him the remaining heads of the slain soldiers. When the dwarf was finished Aedan turned to the traumatized survivor.

  "Bury them." Aedan ordered coldly, kicking the bloody spade back to him.

  "W-what?" The man questioned aghast.

  "You killed them, and now you get to bury them." Aedan told him with ice and poison lacing his words.

  The man grabbed the shovel and set to his dark task, wailing and sobbing loudly, crying for the Maker's mercy, for the Maker to help him. But there was no Maker there, only Aedan, and he had no mercy left to spare. When it was done Aedan bagged the heads of his victims and tossed them at the feet of his weeping prisoner.

  "Pick it up!" the sobbing soldier obeyed. "You're going to take these heads back to your master and you're going to give him a message for me. Do you understand?" The disturbed man nodded his head frantically. Aedan clutched his hunting knife tightly in his fist and gave the man his
message.

  Back in the Arl of Denerim's Manor….

  Howe sat in the main hall of his new manor lauding over his new title as the Arl of Denerim as he sipped his Antivan red wine. It was such a shame about Vaughn Kendalls, at any other time Howe would have liked the lad, they had so much in common. But circumstances being what they are, Vaughn was now another unfortunate "casualty" of the tragic elven rioting that had been plaguing this fare city. Howe was now the lord of the entire north! Arl of both Amaranthine and Denerim, and at long last he held the title of Teyrn of Highever that he so richly deserved. For too long the Couslands overshadowed the Howes and kept them from their rightful place in Ferelden's nobility. And now they were no more and his power was seconded only to Loghain's. Could life get any better?

  Suddenly Howe's captain of the guard, Captain Chase, and several of his men busted in on Howe's self-appraisal when they carried in a sobbing wreck-of-a-man with a bloodied face and carrying some kind of sack into his hall. Howe recognized the pitiable lout as one of his captains. What the hell happened to him?

  "Milord, he came crawling to the front gate. We thought he was a beggar at first but then he told he was one of the men sent to capture the Grey Warden seen leaving the city." Captain Chase explained.

  "Yes. I remember." Howe confirmed disconcertingly. "What happened to the others?"

  The harried captain pathetically cried as he emptied the contents of his sack as four heads rolled out of it. Several guards puked at the sight. "M-milord H-Howe!" he cried. "I…I bring a message from…A-Aedan Cousland!"

  Howe felt his blood pressure spike at the mention of that name. Aedan Cousland? Alive!? This couldn't be possible. Teyrn Loghain had told Howe that he met Aedan at Ostagar, but Howe had assumed that he died with all the other Wardens. "What message?"

  The captain wiped the hair and blood from his forehead and revealed the Wreath of Highever carved into his skull. "He…he said he'll be coming for you. Very soon." The man wept. "And he's going to sink his teeth deep."

  A bitter scowl wiped over Howe's haggard face. This could make things very difficult. Aedan was the most capable and fearsome of all the Couslands; he had a sharp mind for war and politics, and was well known for his brutality streak as evidenced by the mutilated man and severed heads at Howe's feet. If it ever got out that even one of the Couslands had survived he could rally all the lords of the north to fight for his claim to the teyrnir. What's more if Aedan was a Warden then he was an even greater threat than before. He could completely undermine everything Howe had accomplished. He refused to let all his work go to waste and lose everything he deserved. So Howe did the only logical and responsible thing. He motioned over to Captain Chase, and the captain swung his sword across the bloodied man's neck and his head joined the others on the floor. Howe couldn't let it be known by anyone that a Cousland was still alive, it could unravel everything he accomplished.

  "Take these disgusting remains out, they're getting blood all over my Antivan carpet." The nobleman ordered. This was getting more complicated than he liked. But still, what could Aedan accomplish at this point? He was the last of a disgraced order of castoffs and brigands whose use had long since expired. Loghain had acknowledged the treason of the Couslands and consented to Howe's ascension and claim to everything that was theirs. Everything that the Couslands had was rightfully his. And he'd be damned before he let some up jumped son of a traitor who belonged to an order of traitors take what was always supposed to be his.

  Towards the Frostbacks….

  After Aedan completed his brutal act of vengeance he went to bed and slept like log. The next morning they continued their way southward down the Frostback Mountains. According to the map they were near their destination. For almost three days they had been maneuvering a goat's path up the mountains braving not only the weather but the treacherous steps of these high hills and sheer drops. No wonder no one had ever heard of Haven; the only idiots who knew how to climb up here were the ones that lived atop these southern mountains. Aedan wondered at first if these strangers were some tribe of Avvar. But the Avvar have absolutely no reverence for Andraste and see dragons as creatures of sport and glory not worship.

  Aedan could tell that his companions were still put off by what he did to those Howe soldiers and he didn't care. However, Aedan understood why they were concerned for him, after all he was their leader and their friend, and that was something that no normal man would do, but no normal man felt the hatred and suffering he did. Perhaps in this case it was a good thing his family was gone, they would never approve of what a savage he had become.

  Towards the beginning of the fourth day of trekking up the mountains they came across a set of ancient but well-kept stairs going up a crag that lead to an arid but small village. Was this Haven? The guard towards the entrance was less than welcoming. Almost immediately he wanted them to leave and all of the questions they asked got half-assed answers. It wasn't until Aedan gave a veiled threat that the guard gave them leave to go to their shop but as soon as they had supplies they had to leave. Quickly.

  Before they set about the village Aedan noticed that while Haven was built upon high, rolling hills they were still at the foot of a mighty mountain. The company thought it was best that they split into two groups, one to resupply them and the other would look around and ask question about Brother Genitivi and the missing Knights.

  "You could find more joy at a funeral." Alistair commented. Every time he tried to ask what little people were standing around they either looked away from them or gave them rushed answers anxiously. And just now they got done talking to a creepy, rhyming kid holding somebody's finger bones.

  "This village is certainly strange." Wynne pointed out.

  "Why do they have revered fathers?" Leliana asked. The guard from before had told them that a Father Eirik was in charge of the village faith. "When the Chantry was founded it was declared that only women could be priests."

  "Unless they're from Tevinter." Zevran added. "After all didn't those marauders have a lizard-like version of Andraste?"

  "Somehow I doubt any Tevinter would want to live this far down south from their power." Alistair put down.

  "Maybe we should go to their Chantry." Suggested Leliana. "We might learn something about these people by observing their version of the Faith."

  "Hmm, if everyone's at church, then that means their homes are empty for inspection." Zevran leaned on. The assassin walked over to the nearest house and quietly unlocked it. Alistair didn't feel comfortable breaking into somebody's home but if it could get them answers to finding Genitivi he'd get over it.

  When they entered the house they found something that made them all feel a little queasy; an altar drenched with blood and if none of them knew any better there were a few severed fingers on it. "Used for food preparations, perhaps?"

  "It truly likes being a moron, doesn't it?" Shale pointed out.

  "I'm trying to stay optimistic." Alistair defended. "I happen to like meat and seeing this just makes me want to go vegetarian."

  "We need to go and warn Aedan and the others quickly." Wynne stepped in. Not wanting to argue they all walked out to try to find the rest of their companions but when they walked out the villagers were waiting for them, and to Alistair it looked like they wanted to put them on the altar now.

  As Aedan made his way up to the supply store he noticed that what villagers were outside looked away from him and his company, some were even brazen enough to point out that they were outsiders. When the entered the shop the proprietor looked startled. "You…you don't belong here."

  "Why does everyone keep saying that like we haven't figure it out already?" asked Oghren agitated.

  "We…don't get any visitors here." The shopkeep said nervously.

  "Why hasn't anyone ever heard of this village?" inquired Morrigan.

  "We keep to ourselves." And they did so well Morrigan thought to herself.

  "What can you tell us of this place, merchant?" Sten deman
ded, obviously aggravated that they were wasting their time in this small and useless village rather than combating the Blight.

  "How do you describe a place you know only as home?" The shopkeep asked back.

  "Is there anything we can purchase here?" Aedan asked knowing that this guy wasn't going to be helpful.

  "We don't have much but your welcome to look." The merchant said hopeful that they will buy something quickly and leave. Just as Aedan was browsing his wares Dane gave him three sharp barks, and that's when Aedan caught the smell of an all too familiar scent: blood. "So, who did you murder in the back of your store?"

  "W-w-what? W-what a-are you saying?" The merchant asked fearfully. Obviously there was a dead body behind his store judging by this reaction. Aedan looked over to Oghren and Morrigan, they gave him a knowing look while Sten glared threateningly at the merchant. Morrigan threw a small frost spell that sealed the merchant's lips closed while Oghren took his Nugcrusher and busted one of the lying duster's shins in! While the shopkeep gave a long, suppressed scream as the Warden and the Berserker went to the back of the building to see what he was hiding.

  What Aedan and Oghren saw there filled them with rage and sympathy. It was the bodies of at least five of the missing Redcliffe Knights and from the condition of their bodies they were tortured to death. Poor men. They had suffered a terrible fate trying to do their duty in saving the life of their lord. Well, Aedan was going to see to it that the ones who killed these valiant knights were served the same courtesy, with interest.

  Aedan walked back over to his companions and the merchant. By this point the frost spell had thawed and he was panting both in pain and anger, but he wasn't going to be doing much with a smashed shin and an angry Mabari growling at him.

  "Do you know who those men were?" Aedan asked holding back his fury.

  "Knights from Redcliffe!" the man answered with a voice full of pain. Aedan lightly placed his left foot on the bastard's ruined leg and the man began hyperventilating.