Dragon's Era- No Man's Land Read online

  Chapter 1: The Redcliffe Fulcrum

  The boy was possessed. One could guess the end of the story, of course. The abomination would be killed, the world made safe from demons, the grieving survivors left to pick up the pieces.

  Then Jowan, pawn and player in this gruesome disaster, had an idea.

  "I can go into the Fade and fight the demon there." He hesitated. "It takes a lot of Nacronite and a lot of magic. Or it takes a lot of blood. A life's worth."

  It was a fair offer, but Alistair absolutely refused to have anything to do with Blood Magic. Arlessa Isolde would have sacrificed herself happily to save her son, but Astrid Surana laid the idea by. Her tenuous command would not stand the strain. The only being on whom she could rely was her dog Rambler, a stray picked up on the road.

  Was she in command? Sort of, she supposed. Sort of the leader. "Command" was too strong a word. It was rather more like herding cats. When there as a decision to be made—which direction to go, where to stop to eat or camp—Alistair stared at her until she said something. As often as not, he complained about it, but did not offer an alternative of his own. Morrigan smirked at her and made cutting remarks. Wanda was wide-eyed and cheerful, but never offered any helpful suggestions. She even told Astrid glowing stories about Astrid, where Astrid would be prized like a pet for her delicate features and tiny hands. Arvid, the impassive Grendle, looked down on her — literally— and informed her that in Grendle lands she would have been leashed like a dog. He frequently expressed his opinion of her callow inexperience and lack of tactical training.

  Well, duh. Yes, Arvid, that's just the sort of thing they teach us at the Circle. Tactics and strategy and how to defeat our sworn enemies. Who are standing there watching us the entire time.

  She was a mage, and that lay between them: Alistair, the almost-Templar; Wanda the lay sister of a Chantry whose paramount mission was the repression and incarceration of mages; Arvid, whose Grendle folk enslaved mages, sewed their lips shut, and kept them in kennels. Even Morrigan scorned her as a Circle mage, one who had been brought up in the limited, hot-house atmosphere of life-long imprisonment.

  And then, of course, she was an elf, a member of the most despised race on Thedas. That was not really much of an issue at the Circle, but it certainly was everywhere else. Her journey from the Circle with Duncan after her conscription and her subsequent arrival at Ostagar to join a large human army had been a rude awakening. On the road, everyone had assumed she was Duncan's servant at best, his whore at worst. At camp, she was constantly solicited — sometimes very bluntly and aggressively— for sexual favors that it was assumed she would provide with uncomplaining submission.

  It had not helped that while there were two other elves among the Grey Wardens, there were no other women at all. She had found her few nights sleeping in a tent with two dozen strangers—mostly huge, brawny, hairy, smelly human males— frightening and horribly awkward. They were dirty and gross; they belched and scratched and farted. There had been touches; there had been innuendo; she was convinced that within a few days there would have been much, much more, "brother" Wardens or not. For that reason, she had not spent any time mourning them. Duncan may have done her a favor; the rest had done her none at all.

  The one thing Alistair had insisted on was that they go first to his childhood home in Redcliffe. Arl Eamon had raised him, and Alistair said he was a good man and would see them right. Only the more she heard, the more it appeared to her that Arl Eamon was not a good man, and had had precious little to do with raising Alistair. Instead, he was just another arrogant noble, who had persuaded Alistair to be grateful for letting him sleep in the stables and eat scraps.

  To get back to her current situation: Jowan was the only person in this room that she sort of trusted. She had known him since she could remember. Everyone else was a stranger, and had either patronized or insulted her. Jowan had betrayed her, but she understood why: he had been in fear for his life. For that matter, he was the only person here who understood her.

  "If we had sufficient Nacronite and more mages," Morrigan pointed out, "we need not descend to the use of Blood Magic at all."

  Morrigan disapproved of Blood Magic, Astrid understood. Not out of fear of demons or possession, but out of some sort of magical snobbery instilled in her by her awful mother. It was enough to make Astrid want to try it.

  But she was forced to agree with Morrigan's assessment. So was Jowan. Alistair and Wanda were immensely pleased. Too bad. This solution, in Astrid's opinion, would only make everything worse.

  "We have to go to the Circle anyway!" Alistair blurted happily. "We'll go and get some mages, and come back and help Frigg!"

  "So we'll all leave," Astrid said tightly. "It will only take two days to get there and two days to get back. If we're lucky. Nothing to worry about. After all, what could happen here in four days with a demon in the castle?"

  Alistair grin faded. "Saladin could guard him..."

  "The same Saladin we saw cutting capers in the Great Hall?' Astrid drawled.

  "Well," Alistair said reluctantly. "I suppose I could stay and you could go."

  Astrid thought she might throw up. "That's an incredibly bad idea. When Duncan pulled me out of the Circle they were about to kill me. If I go back with no Duncan in tow, I expect they will. Or make me Tranquil. If you want to go, then go. I can stay here and guard the boy. Morrigan should stay too. If she goes to the Circle, they'll want to keep her."

  "Certainly not!" Morrigan declared. "I am not afraid of Templars! Alistair will need someone sensible along if you stay here."

  "And I shall go too," Wanda said brightly. "On the road, three are safer than two."

  "Pashaara!" Arvid exclaimed. "I and the Grell will guard the boy. With the dog."

  "That sounds fair," Alistair agreed. "Three and three."

  "All right," Astrid, not liking it at all, but unable to think of a way to make it work better. "And Jowan can help me prepare the ritual."

  "Absolutely not!" Alistair stormed. "He goes back in the cells. After what he did..."

  Astrid glared at him stonily. "Don't you think you should get going pretty soon? Or maybe we can just simplify this by killing the abomination, which is the sane, sensible thing to do, and which you would not hesitate to do, were he anyone but the son of a rich noble."

  Alistair glared back and flounced off to speak to Saladin, locking Jowan up and doubling the guard on him. He was quite smug about having his way. By this time, Astrid had had enough of the lot of them. She could see why Wanda wanted to go, considering how awkwardly her last conversation with Astrid had ended; but why was Morrigan clinging so to Alistair? She despised Alistair. There was some sort of agenda there.

  Astrid let Arvid take the first watch, and settled into her room: a little box of a bedchamber, good enough for an elf. For that matter, it really was the nicest room she had ever had. She was able to sleep for a few hours, even though she was unused to such a degree of privacy.

  She awakened, restless and on edge, and decided to go down and check on Jowan. They could at least feed him. Come to think of it, she was hungry herself. The upstairs kitchen was silent. Astrid snagged a basket of bread, sausage and cheese, dusted off a bottle of mead, and then went downstairs to the dungeons.

  No one was on guard there. Astrid paused, a terrible weight falling in her belly, like a premonition of doom.

  Jowan was dead. He looked small and at peace on the bloody floor of his cell. He had plainly been run through by a sword. Astrid sat with him for awhile, wiping her eyes and then eating a bit from her basket, because she was a Warden, and hungry. She gathered up her things and went to the Great Hall. A few guards lounged t
here. Arlessa Isolde, the cause of all this misery, dozed in her chair of state. Bann Saladin spoke in low tones with some of his knights. Astrid approached quietly and stood by the bench where he was sitting. A knight noticed her and jerked his head to catch Saladin's attention.

  "Yes? What is it, Warden?" the noble asked, studiously polite.

  "I noticed," said Astrid, with bright-eyed calm, "that the prisoner Jowan is dead."

  "Yes," Saladin nodded, looking serious. "Alistair thought it best, after all. He saw to it just before he left."

  "I see. Has there been any activity from the boy?"

  He hesitated, just for a moment. Astrid wondered if he would rebuke her for not referring to the abomination as "Lord Frigg." Luckily, he did not. She could not have answered for her reaction.

  "None so far. The Grendle is still on guard."

  "I shall soon relieve him. Thank you, my lord."

  He nodded in dismissal, and Astrid went her way, hating them all with a mighty, burning hatred. With Jowan's death, not one of them was worth so much as a broken fingernail to her.

  She found a leather bag in the chamberlain's room, and began some serious looting.

  "We're leaving, Rambler," she told the dog. "I've had it. Maybe we'll go find the Dalish. Or maybe we'll go live with the dwarves. I'm supposed to go to them anyway."

  She had the key to the armory and the treasury. She had the key to the Arl's desk. It was too bad she could not get into the private family apartments, where the jewels must be kept, but she found quite a bit of gold , which she tied up in a sash and wrapped around her waist next to her skin. The silver went into her belt pouch. She found a good map of Ferelden. She even found a new studded collar for Rambler in the empty kennels. She found some light leathers, obviously made for a young human boy, that fit her reasonably well, other than being a bit big in the shoulders. They were too big for Frigg. Perhaps they had belonged to Bann Saladin, or even to the King, the nephew of the Guerrins. With a light helmet to hide her ears, Astrid would look like a human boy: beneath the notice of bandits, Templars, or soldiers.

  She packed food, too. She had no idea how long her journey would last. If all else failed, she would find a Warden post elsewhere, and let the experts deal with the Blight.

  Yes. Actually, that was the best idea of all. She took a breath, sat down, and thought about it. She was a Warden, but a junior Warden, unequal to this monumental task. Alistair was even more incompetent that she. She would report to a superior officer, and let them manage it.

  She had not wasted her time on the trail with Duncan. They had needed something to talk about on those long days and nights, so they had talked about the Grey Wardens. The nearest post was in Jader, across the Orlesian border. Astrid pictured it in her mind. The next closest was in Ansburg in the Free Marches. Jader was a lot closer. The main gate of Orzammar was only a short distance from the city of Jader. She saw nothing wrong with going to get help from them. Duncan was friends with the Senior Warden there, whose name Astrid struggled to remember. Rendon? Randall? No! Riordan!

  What else was she supposed to do? The only other Fereldan Warden was a complete idiot who had just murdered her oldest friend. Maybe she could take one of those boats across the lake. When her backpack and her food bag were ready, she hefted her staff, considering walking away. She could be halfway to the border before Alistair knew she was gone.

  But then, her conscience rebuked her. Could she live with herself if she left all these people to be killed by the abomination? Not the nobles and their lackeys. She owed them nothing. Bann Saladin had been polite, but that was because she was a Warden who had arrived with Alistair and had saved his life. The Arlessa had made her contempt for Astrid clear. The possessed boy had cackled with glee, remembering how the castle dogs had chewed the sliced-off ears of the murdered elven servants. Not one survived in the castle. Astrid was the only elf in Redcliffe now. It was fairly alarming, when she allowed herself to dwell on it.

  But there were harmless, frightened people in the village like that girl Kaitlyn and her little brother. They had not shown much respect for her as an elf, but they, too, were utterly at the mercy of those in the castle. Astrid must see this through, and have the decency to wait until Alistair and the rest returned before she announced her decision to go to Jader. Reluctantly, she went to her room and set down her bags of loot and provisions. They would keep until her work here was done.

  It was time to find Arvid and send him off to bed. He was standing guard just at the entrance to the family apartments. Knowing his views on mages, Astrid approached him somewhat nervously, now that there were just the two of them. This creature had killed an entire family in a mindless rage, after all.

  He grunted at the sight of her. Perhaps she did not look as disgustingly mage-like in the leathers.

  "Has the boy done anything?" she asked.

  "No. There has been no movement and no sound. He is likely asleep."

  Astrid thought about that. That did not make them safe. "Be careful," she cautioned the Grendle. "The demon has the power to attack you when you are in the Fade. If your dreams seem odd, it could be that the demon is manipulating them. It will offer you things that you desire. Try to wake yourself, if you can. It might well be the way it first gained control of the castle."

  The Grendle did not scoff, but took the warning seriously. "It would have been better to slay the abomination at once."

  "I agree, but we are now guests of the family, and have promised otherwise. We must hold fast until Alistair and the rest return."

  It was a horrible wait. The demon did not cease its onslaughts. A number of guards fell prey and some murdered each other. Arlessa Isolde did not cease to whine and complain.

  And someone had to feed and water the abomination in the family rooms. That job fell to Astrid. Arvid helped her, though he continued to make plain his opinion that it was absurd. Astrid did not disagree, only pointing out that the demon might lash out if its host was hungry. They left bowls and pitchers at the hall leading the rooms, and came back later to fetch the empties. The demon had decided to take the trouble to keep its vessel alive. It would all be so much easier if it did not.

  Days passed. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth. Astrid was filled with dread, wondering what those idiots had stumbled into. She considered raising the idea of just leaving to Arvid. On the seventh day they returned.

  With only one new mage.

  Astrid knew Wynne, of course: Senior Enchanter Perfect Wynne, who called herself an Aequitarian, but who was the most vocal Loyalist in the Circle. Her network of "old friends" among the Templars had ensured that she could go anywhere and do anything she pleased. She had been at Ostagar, for that matter, but Astrid had seen little of her. Wynne had managed to escape unscathed from that, too, which was no great surprise. How did Alistair imagine that they would be enough to perform the ritual to save Frigg?

  Before Wanda could compliment her on her new, boyishly martial look, Astrid asked, "Where are the mages?"

  Alistair turned red. "We ran into some trouble at the Circle. The mages were rebelling, and some of them were Blood mages..."

  Astrid stared at him in horror. "What are you saying?"

  Wynne answered for him, in her too-smooth, pseudo-maternal way. "The Knight-Commander has sent to Denerim for the Right of Annulment."

  "What!" Astrid screamed. She shouted at Alistair. "You were supposed to get the mages to help against the Blight. Not kill them all!"

  "It could not be helped," soothed Wanda, more in sorrow than in anger. "And the Templars will help us instead, so it is for the best. Who can tell who is a blood mage, and who is not? They will be questioned... and..."

  "They'll be tortured to death! But I noticed that Wynne slipped away, as usual. Nice to have faithful 'old friends,' isn't it?"

  Wynne was very indignant. Morrigan burst out into cackling laughter.

  "The Knight-Commander wished her to stay, and offered
her the position of First Enchanter!"

  "Such a surprise," Astrid said, sickened. "But you didn't stay, did you? Much safer to be far away when the killing starts."

  "You're upset," Alistair blurted. "You weren't there..."

  "No, I was here, trying to keep that little abomination from slaughtering what's left of Redcliffe! How are we going to do that ritual now?"

  "I guess... we can't."

  "Well," Astrid said, her words clipped. "Too bad you murdered Jowan, isn't it? We might have managed it with four mages. Good work there, stabbing a helpless man locked in a cell."

  "He poisoned Arl Eamon!"

  "We needed him! I needed him. We lost more people here, because there weren't enough to guard that little monster. I don't know why he matters so much to you anyway. You obviously don't object to killing children."

  "What?" He was furious now. "You can't say that!"

  "I can't, can it? What do you think will happen to the six-year-old apprentices you condemned to death?" She snarled, seeing the amusement on Morrigan's face. "I expect Morrigan to delight in death and cruelty, I expect Wynne to manipulate the situation to her own advantage, but you pretended to be something else. I see that empathy, after all, is not exactly your strong suit. Of course you won't see or hear them screaming for mercy as their little bodies are broken on the rack, so why should you care?"

  Morrigan's smile vanished, in a sudden look of confusion and surprise. Not at the picture of the torture of children, Astrid guessed, but that Astrid would express such contempt for her. With an effort, Astrid mastered her rage, burying it under an icy layer of clinical analysis.

  "All right. We're back where we started, and with an insufficient number of mages to help us. We have some hard choices now. We can walk away from this disaster, for I see no advantage to the Wardens in remaining..."

  "We can't—"

  "Or Frigg must die. Those are our choices. Those are the choices you have made, Alistair. You'd better inform Arl Saladin and that horrible woman."

  Arvid had awakened and come looking for her. Hearing the voices, he joined them.