Dragon's Era- No Man's Land

by Jacon Winfree

  "Your Grace!"

  A voice called from outside the closed door: his young aide Kyle, sounding anxious. There must be news.

  "I've got to go," he told Freya. "Tell that maid of yours to start packing."

  "I'm not leaving," Freya insisted.

  Rather than waste time arguing with her, Loghain jerked the door open. His wide-eyed aide was bursting with excitement.

  "Your Grace! There was another assault on the Great Gate!"

  His heart sinking in dread, Loghain forced himself to ask, "Has it fallen?"

  "No, your Grace! A Grey Warden appeared, and almost single-handedly held it against the onslaught! Once the last of the darkspawn were driven off, she asked to be presented to you. That was your command as well, and she is even now in the Landsmeet antechamber."

  "'She?'" Loghain asked, automatically frowning. "This 'Grey Warden' is a woman?"

  "Indeed, yes," enthused young Kyle. "Young, beautiful… and human," he added in an undertone. "She has a mabari with her, but is otherwise alone. Captain Darrow was impressed."

  Loghain grunted. Darrow was a good, reliable man, but everyone was desperate and hoping for a miracle. Somehow, bits of Riordan's dying statement had leaked out.

  "Orlesian?"

  "The captain says not. No accent, and her name's not Orlesian. A Marcher, he thinks."

  The door opened behind him. Freya glared at him, and said briskly. "Well, let us meet this Warden."

  "Freya…"

  She swept past him, lips pressed in a straight line.

  Well, why not? Freya was clever, after all, and might well see through a fraud. If the woman was some sort of plant… an assassin, perhaps… He must watch her carefully. Receiving her in the Landsmeet throne room was a good idea, anyway. Plenty of distance between her and Freya, and the large room might intimidate the stranger somewhat.

  Or perhaps not. The young woman who strode down the oblong stone hall did not appear to have ever been intimidated in her life. She was garbed in impressive black armor that might well be dragon bone. Subtle silver inlay was half-obscured by blood and muck. The helmet resembled a dragon's head, with the two twisting horns sweeping back from the young face. Her sword was sheathed at her back, and the hilt looked both elegant and heavily used. Where had a Grey Warden found such splendid trappings?

  Her mabari trotted at her side, perfectly in step, alert and quick-eyed. Where had a Marcher found such a fine specimen?

  At the base of the steps to the throne was a huge bloodstain that the palace elves had not yet succeeded in bleaching from the stones. It had leached into the mortar, staining it dark brown. The stone itself was discolored. The Wardens and Arl Eamon Guerrin had died there. The young woman took in it as she approached, and raised a brow. She did not flinch, but stopped in the midst of it, removed her helmet, tucked it under her left arm, and gave Freya a most graceful bow. The dog sat like a statue, without even a verbal command. That required superb training.

  "Your Majesty." For Loghain she had a smile… faint…mocking? "Your Grace. I heard that your land was in need of a Grey Warden."

  "Indeed," said Freya. "You do not come before time. We thank you for your service at the Gate today."

  The young woman—indeed, she seemed hardly more than a girl, bowed again, granting them a most winning smile. "It was my honor."

  Loghain liArvided to her, ears straining, eyes squinting. No: no Orlesian accent, but perhaps she was skilled with languages. She could be a Marcher, perhaps. High-born, certainly, with those posh, plummy tones. She sounded like she was from Highever, really: certainly from the north of Ferelden, though Loghain was sure he had never set eyes on the girl before. He never forgot a face, and certainly would not have forgotten a face like hers.

  Skilled, beautiful, charming, educated… she was simply too good to be true. She must be a plant. She must be a foreign agent, trained for long years.

  Angry that she and her handlers could even imagine he would be taken in by her, his questions were harsh.

  "Where are the rest of you?"

  "The rest of us, Your Grace?" she asked mildly. ""I—and Ranger here—are it."

  "What were your orders?"

  Freya made an impatient hiss. Loghain, annoyed, saw that the girl had made a good impression on his daughter. When the girl did not immediately reply, but instead looked amused, he growled, "Your orders! Who sent you here? Your Warden-Commander? The First Warden? The Empress of Astrid?"

  "Father!"

  The girl actually laughed. "I can honestly say that I am not here on the orders of any of those individuals. I don't know their plans. What I do know is that this is the only Blight in my lifetime, and therefore I'm supposed to be here. If you prefer, I can leave, but your men seem to think you need my help. If so, I am at your service. If not, I can see myself out."

  Freya spoke before Loghain could. "We are quite pleased at your offer. Can you recruit more Wardens?"

  Loghain glared, but knew it was a reasonable request. The girl considered it, and then nodded.

  "I didn't come here planning to do that, and I'd need some supplies. By the way, I thought you had some Ferelden Wardens. What happened to them?"

  A silence.

  "Well," the girl said, her voice honey-sweet, "I think that's a fair enough question. Perhaps I should know what I'm getting myself into."

  Loghain said harshly, "They sought to overthrow the Queen. One of their number pretended to be a son of Maric. One was a elf criminal. Another was an Orlesian spy. The pretender challenged me to a duel before the Landsmeet. He lost."

  He looked pointedly at the big bloodstain. The girl glanced at it, and gave them a sunny smile.

  "Too bad for them. Silly idea, Grey Wardens mixing with politics. Rarely ends well. So you killed all your Wardens. Makes it a bit tricky to dispose of the Archdemon and end the Blight, though, doesn't it?"

  "You are free with your order's secrets."

  "It's no secret, but widely known that only a Grey Warden can kill an Archdemon. I'm surprised you didn't know it. Wardens generally confide certain information to heads of state."

  The girl's words were alarming. What had Cailan known? Was everyone else in Thedas in on the joke, and laughing at Ferelden?

  "Myths and Legends!" Loghain fumed.

  "Perhaps there are legends, but the truth is no myth. Only a Grey Warden can kill an Archdemon. Only by killing the Archdemon can the Blight be ended. Apparently you now have independent confirmation of this, which is why you have not already attempted to kill or imprison me."

  "Yes," Freya said concisely, with a warning look at Loghain. "We know we must have Wardens."

  The girl nodded, thinking it over.

  "I also heard that the Grey Wardens had some success in rallying the allies. Where are they?"

  "Camped up at Dragon's Peak. They have refused to march further, saying that their treaties are with the Grey Warden, not the Crown of Ferelden."

  "All right, fair enough. I'll send to them in my official capacity as a Grey Warden. The Wardens also had a compound. I need to check it for supplies. We're obviously going to need a great many more Wardens in a hurry."

  "You can recruit?" The Queen asked anxiously.

  "I can, but I need certain items. I didn't expect to have to do that. I can make one—possibly two— because I'm always prepared for that, but large scale? No. And.. I'm curious," said the stranger. "You were so very hasty in disposing of your Wardens, and yet now you seem rather glad to see me. You originally considered the importance of the Wardens negligible, but now you have apparently changed your minds. Why is that?"

  "Riordan…the...Orlesian..." Loghain said reluctantly. "Before he died, he told us enough to lend some support to your order's claims."

  "Before he died?" The girl cocked her head at them, and asked delicately. "I daresay at that point you must have put quite a bit of— shall I say—pressure on him? My, you have been prodigal with
your Wardens. I hardly feel safe. Are you planning to draw sword on me? Because if you are, I feel it only fair to tell you you're not getting any more Wardens. From anywhere. It's me or no one."

  Freya interposed. "We have come to the conclusion that Wardens are necessary to defeat the Blight. We would be grateful for your assistance."

  Loghain bit back a snarl, but was distracted by the mabari's trusting brown eyes.

  "So..." the girl said cheerfully. "Where's the Compound?

  Loghain was silent.

  Freya answered. "It was...ransacked. Destroyed, I'm afraid. You'll find nothing there."

  A silence.

  "That is… unfortunate." A pause, while the girl thought it over. "If things were not quite so pressing, I could go to the old Grey Warden fortress of Soldier's Peak. Everything I need would be there."

  "It's a ruin!"

  "Yes, yes—but nonetheless, I have it on good authority that despite the fact that it is indeed a haunted ruin, it was never completely sacked. The Wardens ceased to be a force in Ferelden, yes, but many secrets remained. I can go there and be back within five days."

  Loghain growled. She was a charlatan, of course, trying to trick them.

  "We don't have five days. We have three or four at the most until the horde is here."

  A sigh. "Then you've got me. Maybe one or two more, if the recruits survive the Joining. It's pretty much fifty-fifty odds for that. I'd better choose carefully. A mage, perhaps. Historically, they do a bit better in living through the initiation."

  "Yes," Freya agreed quietly, surprising Loghain. "Cailan told me that many do not survive."

  That was alarming, and something that Loghain absolutely had not known. It explained, somewhat, why Duncan had recruited sparingly, and from the criminal classes. He was looking for people who would not be missed: who did not have friends, family, loved ones who would come looking for them and ask awkward questions.

  "How about you, Lord Regent?" The girl asked. "You're a famous warrior, and you killed off the last batch of Wardens.. I think you'd live through it. You might even kill the Archdemon yourself that way and win back heaps of good will."

  "You dare suggest Conscripting—" he began, rage building in him.

  "No doubt my father would make a splendid Warden," Freya interposed hastily, "but he is needed where he is. Do you have any other suggestions? We can hardly expect you to fight the Archdemon alone."

  "Hardly alone, since Ranger will be with me, but I confess I'd like some able comrades. What about the people your late Wardens had about them? The ones you haven't executed, of course. They're used to working with a Warden and might be highly motivated. Otherwise you waste all their skills locking them up, when you could dispose of them far more efficiently by putting them in mortal danger."

  Freya gave Loghain a hard look and answered. "Yes. We took some of the Wardens' companions prisoner, and interrogated them. Others seem to have escaped. In Fort Drakon we have an elderly Circle mage, a dwarf from Orzammar, an Orlesian bard, and a Grendle mercenary."

  "The bard won't be of any use to you," Loghain said flatly. "She's not fit to fight."

  Nor could she, after having her joints tore apart on the rack. She was still alive, but barely. Loghain was considering having one of his pet mages heal her so they could have another go. She had proved surprisingly resistant to questioning. What she had been persuaded to tell them was all at least two years old. At least they had now discovered who killed Harwen Raleigh, as if anyone cared.

  The girl paused again, looking at him in a very still way that made Loghain rather uneasy.

  "I suggest you find healing for her, if she's not 'fit.' Very well. Three of them, then, if not four. They'd be quite useful. No other mages? I wish you could find me a younger one as well."

  Loghain considered that. "There is a mage in my service I could give you."

  Yes, perhaps it was best to cut Jowan loose. He knew too much, and Loghain did not care to have him blabbing his secrets. Eamon had accused Loghain of having him poisoned—which was perfectly true—but the only evidence now would be Jowan's own testimony. Such a pitiful, hangdog creature would probably die of the Grey Warden initiation, eliminating him. Even if he survived, Loghain could not see him lasting in frontline combat against the Archdemon. It was a win-win situation—

  —As long as the Archdemon was, in fact, destroyed. Loghain repressed a shudder. It was best to know the worst. He had Riordan's version, but he needed yet more confirmation. It all sounded so fantastic.

  "So anyone other than a Grey Warden cannot kill the Archdemon? Not even stabbing it in the heart? Cutting off its head? What does it take?"

  Another sigh. "All right. I'm going to have confide central Order secrets to you. If you share them, that's just the sort of thing that would make the Order actually take an interest in you, to the point that they would hunt you down, kill you both, and slaughter everybody else they thought you might have spoken to. And they still wouldn't fight the Archdemon for you, even after that. I suggest you respect this confidence. All right?"

  Loghain shrugged. It was all nonsense, anyway. Freya glared at him again.

  "Of course you may rely on our discretion."

  The girl gave Loghain another raking glance, and plunged into her tale.

  "If you cut the Archdemon's head off—which would be quite the undertaking, but fine, for the sake of argument, let's say you cut the bloody Archdemon's head off—well, the dragon would die, but the Archdemon wouldn't. Let me explain, and refer you to the dark days of the First Blight, when I suspect the Tevinter magisters killed Dumat numerous times. It just didn't stay dead. That's one reason that Blights have lasted so long."

  "Do explain."

  "If you kill the Archdemon's body—with a lucky bowshot, say, or cutting off its head—the Archdemon's spirit possesses the nearest available darkspawn. It's attracted by the Taint, you see, and it will keep possessing them until it finds one in which it can lie low long enough to reconstitute and shape-change back to its dragon form. So yes, you could kill the Archdemon and have a big party and pat yourself on the back until your arm fell off, but you'd have to do it again. And again, and so forth until a Grey Warden put the creature down for good. It's the Taint in us, you see. It's part of the Joining, and the thing that kills so many recruits. A darkspawn is a soulless creature; a Grey Warden is not. If a Grey Warden slays the Archdemon, the Archdemon's soul is drawn by the Taint to the Grey Warden, rather than to a darkspawn."

  Freya was rather wide-eyed. "And then?"

  "And then?" the girl echoed. With an eloquent flick of her hands, she mimed an explosion. "Boom. The end. Yes, for the Grey Warden, too, apparently. So far, all the Wardens who slew Archdemons died with them."

  "You think you won't?" Loghain sneered. And then felt oddly shamed when the girl's dog whined softly, its soft brown eyes full of reproach.

  Freya shut her eyes, and counted to ten.

  The girl beamed a smile at him. "If I die, that's what Grey Wardens are for, after all. Makes things tidy for you. You can even claim to have killed the Archdemon yourself."

  She changed the subject, ignoring his indignant bristling, "So let's get back to my support team. There's a lot that fighters who aren't Grey Wardens can do: damage the Archdemon's wings… cripple it…bleed it until it's weakened…blind it, even. In the past, Grey Wardens flew up on their griffons and surrounded the Archdemon in a cloud of battle; but that option is obviously not open to us. Instead, how about this? The army engages the darkspawn and clears the way so I am my people can get close to the Archdemon. Chances are that it will take a position in a high point in the city to oversee the battle. Dragons like high places. My guess is the top of Fort Drakon. The non-Wardens keep it at bay and cripple it, and the Wardens do the killing. That's my plan, anyway. Do you have a better one?"

  "I would prefer that you were also accompanied by some my own people," Loghain said.

  "Fine
with me, as long as they can pull their own weight, and they're people you won't be too upset to lose if they contract blight sickness and I can't find the materials to Join them soon enough. Just so you know, there's absolutely no guarantee they would survive conscription. As I said, Joining the Wardens can be quite a shock to the system."

  The dog wagged its tale at Loghain, watching him expectantly. The girl noticed.

  "Stop trying to make friends, Ranger. You can see it's quite useless."

  "That's a good dog," Loghain said slowly.

  The doggy tail thumped in agreement. The muzzle opened in a toothy, heart-melting grin.

  "The best," the girl answered, with luminous gravity. "You really have no idea." Then, briskly, she said. "All right. I need to gather my party, write letters to the allies, and settle in. Do you have a place I can use as headquarters, since the Warden Compound is currently unsuitable? What about that big estate west of here?"

  "That is the Arl of Denerim's estate—" Loghain began, a bit heatedly, remembering how the elf girl and the bastard had murdered Howe.

  "—And as there is currently no Arl of Denerim," Freya concluded, "it would be perfect for the purpose. Close to the palace and to Fort Drakon as well. What a good idea." She shot Loghain a quick, quelling, hostile look. Loghain remembered that Freya hated Howe. She could hardly be blamed for it, considering that the man had locked her up.

  "All right," Loghain sulked. "Take it. Start writing those letters, and I'll send the prisoners to you along with the others. I'll write you a pass—"

  "I'll do it right now, Father," Freya volunteered sweetly. "A safe conduct through the army and for the city guards. And an order giving the Grey Wardens the use of the Arl of Denerim's estate."

  She shot Loghain another sharp look, as if to say, "There. That's my revenge on you and Howe both." She got up and went to an alcove for parchment and ink and began writing busily.