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From the Ashes: Glimmers of Victory (ch. 29)
🕑 Added 2023-03-31 14:53:33 +0000 UTCThe aftermath of the battle was bad. It was downright impossible to tell how many darkspawn had been slain throughout the night but it must have been thousands. Several thousand. There were token efforts to count them, and in sure I would find out the total eventually, but for the most part, people collapsed or shifted through the ashes. People were by far more interested in dealing with our losses.
Which were considerable.
Shockingly, the Chantry forces had managed to survive the night. The fire hardly touched the building and the undead had been barely managed to get through the front door with the pews stacked in front of it. The soldiers inside had hardly done a thing beyond cower behind the walls, but people were calling it a gift from the Maker. The other fall back point on the sloop had been completely overrun and everyone in it was killed. Killed, and then dragged back to Redcliffe castle based on testimonies from those cowering in the Chantry and from the blood smears.
It made calculating our losses a bit difficult, especially when the bodies were missing but the best guess was that we started with about three thousand combatants and we ended the night closer to a thousand and five hundred. About half our total. The warriors that held the wall were all slain to a man. From the looks of it, they all died fighting. A dozen horsemen that had charged the darkspawn ended limping back.
In short, all things considered, we lost. Redcliffe lost. The village was destroyed, the losses were catastrophic, and we had no clue what was going on in the castle beyond that it was filled with undead. To top it off, most of us were dead and the area was filled with darkspawn corpses. But the darkspawn had lost more. Morrigan scouted the darkspawn to find that their numbers had been cut down to a fifth. So, if she had been right about them numbering eight thousand, then in theory, our numbers were about even.
So, we lost, but we won.
The Archdemon knew it too. I collapsed into a bedroll face first, still filthy, and I dreamed. I almost didn't recognize Lothering with the wood palisade around it, but it was burning. The first streets were filled with corpses and blood -- I saw darkspawn dragging women off towards Ostagar and the monsters feasting upon the slain. It was making a point I thought upon waking up, my eyes dry and my body sore. While we made them lose more here, they had gotten the better of Lothering.
It was worrying. Especially when I had no idea what the rest of Ferelden was doing about the Blight. Was there an army marching down the imperial highway? Had Loghain completely abandoned the South? In Denerim, it felt like I had known everything that was happening in the kingdom and beyond it. Now I just felt completely blind. Anything beyond Redcliffe and I was ignorant of.
Despite the taunts that the Archdemon would be sending me, I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep upon waking up. I cast Rejuvenation upon myself but it didn't wake me up like it usually did. It did tip me over the edge of deciding if I should try to go back to sleep or not. Though peeling my face off the pillow from darkspawn blood was a good argument to go back to sleep and try again in a couple of hours. Dragging a hand down on my face, I felt nothing but dried blood that had turned flaky. A grimace and a grunt escaped me before I forced myself out of bed, knowing that in a few more hours, I'd be just as quick to give up.
Stumping out of a tent I had stumbled into, I winced at the afternoon sun to see Alistair approaching my tent, looking every bit as exhausted as I felt. His gaze met mine and he exchanged a heavy nod, "It's good that you're up. Morrigan kicked me awake," he informed, a frown creasing his brow, "Teagan has woken up. He… took a bad blow. He’ll live, but it was a near thing. He’s at the Chantry,” Alistair told me. “Do… you want to clean up?”
I felt absolutely disgusting. The kind of disgusting that it would take several baths to feel clean and I knew I was going to end up with a rash because of the dried darkspawn blood. It was incredibly tempting to just cast Prestiditation, but I shook my head. “No. Can hardly be seen with a fresh face after this mess,” I decided, knowing how that would look. Appearances mattered. We fought all night and I felt like I was covered in gallons of blood. Some of it was mine.
People seeing that would see that I fought hard. The hardest. Being clean, now, would make it seem like I had hung in the back and quaked in my boots while the fighting was happening.
Alistair didn't seem like he had the energy to argue so he simply nodded in response, having only taken a token effort to clean himself off as well. I joined him and we made our way through the village, seeing the piles and mounds of the dead. The survivors gathered around the Chantry where the Revered Mother was offering prayers and singing the Chant of Light. Men and women were kneeling in the dirt, heads low, muttering thanks to the Maker.
I never understood praying. They loved because they either fought hard enough to survive or they cowered while braver men died saving their lives. One way or the other, the Maker hadn't saved anyone last night. The Maker abandoned us. No matter how loudly we had prayed or screamed, we wouldn't magically be saved. But, I kept my remarks to myself as we approached. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a raven perched on the burnt-out husk of a building.
While the Chant was happening, we were quietly allowed inside. There was blood soaking the stone floor, gallons upon gallons of it, and the barricade that had been erected was only shifted over instead of removed. Inside were the wounded, some of which were already showing signs of Blight sickness. I could feel them, the taint singing in their veins as it did mine. Some were simply wounded. Of the thousand and five hundred that survived, I expected another three hundred to die and three hundred were wounded with various degrees of severity.
Most were inside the Chantry, filling it with the sounds of moaning in pain as a single herbalist and midwives did what they could to save everyone they could. Magic had been refused by most. Even if it meant pain and death. I let them have it. And, I saw that even wounded nobility had its perks. Bann Teagan was seated in a cot that had once been the Revered Mother's private office, still in his armor. There was plenty of blood on him, but I couldn't tell how much of that was his own. One hand rested on his side, covering a gap in his chainmail just above his waist.
He seemed surprised to see me in my state, "I see that I wasn't the only one that spent the night fighting," he remarked, pain in the edge of his voice. My gaze went to a polished bronze plate that seemed like it was used for a mirror. My white hair was dyed black with blood, it was splattered over my face, and my armor. The worst part was, with the black hair… I damn near recognized myself.
"What happened in Redcliffe?" I asked him, not interested in his thanks. It was fair of me, I knew, but I didn't at all care for how those in the Chantry survived. They would have taken more losses, but if they hadn't hidden in the Chantry then it was possible that the second defensive group wouldn't have been wiped out. They wouldn't have been caught between the undead and the darkspawn.
"I don't know," Teagan admitted, an edge of fear in his voice. "The last that I heard was that many of the people in the castle were getting restless when we were no closer to finding my brother's poisoner. Because of the darkspawn. Isolde started to accuse Connor's tutor, a young man named Jowan. I was going to interrogate him, but the darkspawn proved more deserving of my immediate attention." Even bloodied and in pain, Teagan spoke like a noble. "I have no clue why there are undead in the Redcliffe. How they attacked us…"
I knew the others were going to complain, but we needed to deal with this. Now. "From what I saw, the darkspawn couldn't be raised up like I saw with humans," I started, my gaze sliding to Alistair to see that he had nothing to offer in terms of commentary beyond a creased brow. The undead became undead by spirits possessing corpses -- it was why Ferelden burnt our dead. It wasn't normal how they had possessed them though, but I had a theory about that.
"Whatever happened in Redcliffe, the Veil is thin there. During the battle, they rose up because of the intensity of the emotions present and enough spirits in the Fade pressed upon the Veil to slip through into a corpse. Darkspawn corpses seem to be unpreferable without a darkspawn necromancer like we saw." Meaning even spirits hated the taint. "The ones that were dragged back into the castle will likely be possessed by now."
Teagan dragged a hand down his face, "My poor brother. What will he awaken to?" Teagan muttered to himself.
Bold of him to assume that his brother wasn't already a shambling corpse. "We're dealing with up two two thousand corpses in Redcliffe castle," I stated and now Alistair spoke up.
"In theory, if we deal with the source of the undead, we deal with them all," He offered. I had my doubts about that given we had watched the darkspawn necromancer die and its undead still moved. "From the sounds of it, it's probably a case of demonic possession. Either the mage themselves are powerful or they were possessed by a powerful demon. Or both, I guess." Not exactly good news, but it was something.
"The battle isn't done," I told Teagan, my tone blunt. "The undead are going to attack again. We don't know when."
Despite his injury, Teagan stood up with a wince. "Continue? Now? The people are exhausted and they're mourning. Their children, spouses, and parents were in Redcliffe castle! Where they were supposed to be protected!" He spoke, passion leaking into his voice so he was shouting. I could tell the point came somewhere close to home. That he thought he was protecting his brother and his nephew and could do nothing as they died. Along with many others. "We will fortify around the bridge. We will hold them."
I shook my head, "We're going to lose hundreds to the taint and injuries. The taint can kill a man slowly if it's treated, but I don't know how nor do we have the resources," I told him, not sparing him the truth. The only thing I knew that could combat the taint was joining the Grey Wardens or that flower that the kennel master had me pick for a Mabari hound that probably died anyway. "If they die here, in the Chantry? Then those on the bridge are going to be surrounded. They might be anyway -- we didn't kill all the darkspawn. There could be thousands on their way to attack us now for all we know."
I could see that the points were being driven home and the fight started to leave him underneath the weight of cold undeniable logic.
"If that's the case… the castle is the only place we could survive such an attack," Teagan admitted, a sigh heaving out of him as he rubbed his eyes. "What do you propose?"
"Those that are blighted are already dead," I told him. "I'll take them with me into the castle and we secure it. Room by room until we deal with whatever is going on there. Hopefully, that deals with all the undead but if it doesn't then we clear the whole castle. As quickly as we can." The progress we made would be secured by the healthy and noninjured militia.
Teagan shook his head, "You want men to slay the corpses of their families?" He asked me, shaking his head at the idea of it rather than refusing me. "I cannot order these men to do such a thing. I won't get in your way. I'll fight by your side if needed, but these men have given enough."
"No," I told him, startling Teagan. "They still have their lives. They haven't lost everything just yet." I offered him a small nod and turned away while his lips parted. I stepped out of the private room in the Chantry, entering the hall that was filled with the dying and those that were already dead but possessed a heartbeat. I looked at them all to see that they were all looking at me -- some with fear, some with awe, and some with respect.
This, I reflected deep in my heart, was why Duncan chose me. Not because of my connections, not because of my martial skill, or even because of my magic. He chose me because I could do the things that I was about to do. I could take a step back, look at the larger picture, and pay the blood price for the greater good. If there was such a thing.
I took in a deep breath, "If you can stand, then follow me," I instructed, striding forward towards the Chantry gate. I hadn't noticed her before, but I saw Leliana was tending to the wounded, looking even more exhausted than I felt. I heard a general clamor as many tried to stand, some with more success than others. I pushed open the Chantry doors to see the rest of the survivors still kneeling while the Revered Mother prayed on top of a large crate.
She glanced back at me and smiled graciously, "And what more proof that the Maker heard our prayers than the delivery of the Grey Wardens? A sacred order of brave men and women that fight the manifestations of mankind's arrogance!" There was a generally tired cheer at that as the Revered Mother offered me the crate. I think it was a courtesy because she did seem faintly surprised when I took her up on that.
I stepped into the box and found myself surrounded by expectant gazes. They all looked tired, I thought. And hopeful. As if I would sprout wings and proclaim that I was here on the Maker's behalf. It was a foolish hope. Prayers to the Maker were about as useful as a fart in the wind. Instead, I told them the truth. "I know the cost you have faced to survive the night. Many of you have left your homes or lost them here. You lost loved ones. You're tired. Exhausted. You want to do nothing more than close your eyes and sleep for an Age." There were mutterings of agreement and some nodding heads. "It is because of that, must tell you how sorry I am because I will ask more of you yet."
I wasn't sorry. Not enough to not do it, at any rate. I did feel bad at the falling expressions of those that just hoped that their battle was done but feeling bad about something and still following through with it… well, I wasn't sorry enough.
"You put your families behind Redcliffe's castle because you thought that they would be safe there while you fought out here to protect them. Bravely. Courageously. Yet, while we fought here, the darkspawn attacked where we are most vulnerable. The people that we love," I continued and there was a swelling of anger. I had no clue if it was a darkspawn that caused this or not. The truth didn't really matter in this case. The darkspawn were an easy target to fan the flames of their anger. "They did so to break you. To make you give up. A vicious and cruel act."
I saw the others -- Sten was watching me with great interest. Shale was as well. Morrigan perched up on a well at the heart of the village, which was likely spoiled by a rotting corpse within its waters. I used Minor Illusion to spread my voice more easily without needing to scream at the top of my lungs. "So, I tell you this -- now is not the time for mourning or loss. Now is the time of anger! Of vengeance! Will you let the darkspawn get away with what was done to your families?! Or will you make them suffer?!" I questioned and almost as one, the crowd stood, screaming their rage to the heavens above. The dreary mourning air was given away to chanting and shouts of vengeance.
"Warden! Warden! WARDEN! WAR-DEN!" The crowd began to chant, whipped up into a frenzy with only a handful of words. I wasn't a gifted orator by any means. I just happened to know what they felt and I knew exactly what to say to get them to act on it.
And act on it they would.
…
Preparations began almost immediately. The blighted militia members volunteered to join me and if anyone noticed that the vanguard into the castle was those already sentenced to death, then they chose not to comment. Given the close quarters that we would be operating, it was decided that up close and personal weapons with tower shields would be the most effective way to deal with the undead. The shields were looted from dead darkspawn, whose tower shields that were carried by powerful genlocks needed two men to lift easily while the darkspawn only needed one arm.
Hatchets, sickles, maces, and daggers were chosen by the blighted warriors. They would use the shields to prevent themselves from getting overwhelmed while working in teams of six -- three to lift the shields and three to deal with the undead. Weapons and armor had also been looted by the darkspawn, most of which had been looted off of soldiers at Ostagar.
The Revered Mother was offering more prayers and I was trying to get an accurate map of the castle before we headed in but Teagan, despite living there, could only give me the broad strokes. He lived there in the kind of way that you never stopped to think about exactly how many rooms there were, where exactly did the servant tunnels lead, how large were the doorways or how large the rooms?
My group made their own preparations. The house that we had stayed in had been burnt down, but there was a small fishing hut near the water that was allocated for us to use. Alistair was quiet for the most part. He simply looked out at Redcliffe castle, a deep frown tugging at his lips.
"I must say, I am impressed," Morrigan remarked to me, her tone a low purr with approval while amusement danced in her eyes. "With a handful of words, you convinced those folks that could only contemplate their own navels to throw themselves into the jaws of death. Even better, they think it was their own idea. T'is most amusing."
Sten looked like he overheard the words as he sharpened his blade, casting a frown at Morrigan with evident dislike. However, it was Leliana that spoke.
"You diminish their bravery, Morrigan!" Leliana chided, sounding about as genuinely angry as I've heard her sound since I've known her. "They are not fools simply led by their nose. They understand what Azoth did. His words simply gave them the motivation they needed to do what must be done. Something they knew in their hearts," Leliana continued, frowning deeply at Morrigan.
Who couldn't have rolled her eyes any harder even if she tried, "Oh? Did they? T'were it so, then Azoth would not have needed to say a thing."
Sten's brow creased and he wore a frown equally as deep as Alistair's. I think he found himself agreeing with Morrigan and was starting to become distressed at how frequently it seemed to happen. I inspected the carving that I made of Redcliffe castle. One that I would connect with the one I made of the village. The outer walls were fairly defined, but the interior was an honest mixed bag. My hope of creating a line of choke points to make the undead's numbers mean less seemed a lot less likely.
"It worked because he gave them hope," Leliana dug her heels in, not willing to budge from the argument.
Morrigan laughed outright, "Fore he was sent forth by your absentee father figure, hm?" She said the words with a nasty sneer, uttering them with the utmost contempt. "T'is a pity that your Maker does not send someone to swoop in to save the day every time a number of people are in danger of being slaughtered by their own stupidity."
"Stupidity?" Leliana hissed, narrowing her eyes. "It is not the people that have failed her Morrigan. They looked to Bann Teagan and Arl Eamon, and for one reason or another, they were failed by them. That is not the good people of Redcliffe's fault that we had to step in. Nor is it a failure of the Maker that we are in this position in the first place. The Maker gave us free will in the hopes that we would use it wisely."
"And in this case, it was used most unwisely. The people you call are blameless are no better than sheep, completely oblivious to the wolf out at night and will do nothing but obey. Even if it leads them into the hungry jaws of the wolf. As our dear leader has so aptly proven," Morrigan stated her point, her tone triumphant. I didn't really agree. At least no completely.
It was an easy thing to condemn people for looking at those above them guidance and being paralyzed when they were without it. It was trained into people from birth. Just as looking the other way when a human abused an elf was in Denerim. The only way that habit was unlearned was by forcefully making them unlearn it. Such as breaking into someone's homes and breaking their legs for not doing anything about a beating they had witnessed but did nothing about. I did think that Leliana was a bit more hopeful and romantic about it, but it was hard to blame someone for doing what they were taught to do -- obey their noble lords.
However, I could and did find it annoying. I was just realistic with my expectations.
"You speak of things you don’t understand,” Theron remarked, and instead of the contempt that I expected to hear from him, he just sounded tired. “There is no weakness in praying to the Creators. Nor the Maker, I suppose. That faith gives people strength. Regardless if our prayers are heard or not.” Morrigan turned up her nose at Theron and Leliana alike, and they seemed to be talking about nobility and divinity in the same breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” I decided, ending the argument as I looked up to the sky. I had hoped the corpses would have attracted some birds that I could speak to about the surrounding area. I would really like to get some advanced warning on if the darkspawn decided to turn around. If they attacked now, we’d get overrun. There was no doubt in my mind. However, the birds knew better than to circle around darkspawn corpses. “Why they’re doing it is up to them. What matters is that we have the army we need to take the castle.”
“Agreed,” Sten rumbled, offering me a shallow nod.
Shale made an expressive sigh, “As interesting as the squishy things speak about gods is, I’d rather be crushing darkspawn. Or the undead. Or birds.” That also factored into why I hadn’t seen any birds. Shale waved its fist every time one came remotely near.
Theron grunted in response while Morrigan turned up her nose at everyone. “Forgive me for paying a well deserved compliment,” she muttered, her tone sarcastic and defensive.
There was a beat of silence that fell upon the group that was only broken by the sound of footsteps behind us. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Marian and Bethany coming down the hill, staffs in hand. I noticed that Marian favored one with a blade in one end of the staff. If I used them, it would have been my preference.
“You’re leading the charge into the castle, yeah?” Marian questioned, coming to a stop and pinning a look at me. “Carver, our brother, is in the castle with our mum. We’re going with you to find them.”
“You’ll likely find their corpses,” Morrigan remarked, casting a look at Leliana as if Marian had proven her point for her.
To that, Bethany shook her head, “Carver’s alive. And if he’s alive, then so is mum because he wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.” Morrigan curled her lips at the naitive of the belief while Leliana smiled brightly. Bethany glanced at Morrigan while Marian narrowed her eyes into slits at Morrigan. “We’re twins. I’ve… we’ve always been… aware of each other. I would know if he was dead. As he would me.”
“And we know you don’t have any issue with mages right?” Marian remarked, inclining her head at Morrigan. Then she looked to me, “It’s a neat trick you do. Casting without a staff or a focus,” she stated, crossing her arms over her chest.
I cocked an eyebrow in response, my expression not giving anything away. Marian met my gaze unflinchingly, simply thrusting out her chin as if she were daring me to lie. Bethany swiftly stepped in, offering a hopeful smile, “I don’t think any others know. They just see fires and vines growing. Your magic… its really subtle to everyone thats not a mage themselves, I think. Everyone just assumes it was us or one of your companions,” she offered.
That was reassuring, I think. It wasn’t going to remain a secret forever. It was only a matter of time before I did something that couldn’t be brushed off, but the longer the secret remained, the more use I got out of my special brand of magic.
Illusions were my specialty. Making people see things that weren’t there, or making them miss things that were. However, last night showed me how lacking I was when it came to offensive abilities, especially considering that my illusions didn’t really work on darkspawn. Nor undead, I imagined. Marian and Bethany, they must have killed a score of darkspawn on their own. I don’t think anyone else killed as many as the two of them. The most I could do was delay and entantgle the darkspawn into traps.
Physically, I was stronger than ever, but I wasn’t properly using that strength. My fighting was sloppy. Just less sloppy than the darkspawns.
It was an odd feeling, I reflected. In Denerim, I felt so powerful. Between my magic and the Rabbits, it felt like there was nothing that I couldn’t do. That I couldn’t get away with. And now, dealing with the Blight, it was obvious that there was so much that I could improve on. Things that I never even considered before joining the Grey Wardens.
“I’d hardly turn the two of you away,” I decided and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sten wasn’t happy about the idea of recruiting more mages, but he kept his complaints to himself. For now, at least. I could see another confrontation building inside of him, but I didn’t know how explosive that confrontation would be. I hoped I didn’t have to kill him. “You help turn the battle last night, and I suspect that you’ll turn the tide of battle now.” I said, standing up as I looked down at my figurine, not at all satisfied with it.
We were attacking the castle with three hundred dying soldiers. The Orlesians couldn’t crack Redcliffe with thirty thousand. We needed every advantage we could get to make the most of our numbers. To start with -- getting the gate open. Using the halls and rooms as chokepoints to stem the number of undead we would be dealing with. Or finding people that managed to survive the night in the castle.
Not to mention discovering what exactly had happened last night.
No matter how I looked at it, we needed two things -- information, and someone on the inside to open the gate. My gaze drifted up to the sky, seeing that the sun was blazing overhead as the survivors of Redcliffe made their preperations for an assault on the castle.
“We have three hours until the assault,” I voiced, standing up. “If you have any preparations, then make them. I’m going to go check out the castle a bit. See whats inside,” I decided, shouldering my bag as I earned a couple of odd looks. I saw Alistiar look over his shoulder at me before I cast Invisibility and Pass Without Trace, making Bethany’s eyes widen and her among the others.
It was going to be a long day, I decided, heading away from the group as I went to scope out Redcliffe castle.
Who knew being a big damn hero involved so much work?
...
So, I have a small confession to make. I wrote most of From the Ashes in about three weeks about a year ago now. I just churned out about 200k words -- no editing, no bouncing around ideas with my editors, just a straight stream of consciousness that I poured out on the page. And, because of that, I wrote some things that I usually never would have gone with and some ideas that I would have thought better of if I gave it a sit down to think about it.
The times I missed an update for From the Ashes is usually when I'm editing chapters to make them comprehensible or retconning plot elements that I now don't find particularly compelling. But, editing chapters is far more difficult that writing them and I do think I'm reaching the edge of what I can do with patchwork edits.
So, instead, I've come to an executive decision -- From the Ashes has reached a stopping point and an end of an arc, so it wouldn't be too intrusive to put the story on hold for a bit. Thursday was always the temporary/experiment slot in my rotation, and I will be rolling in a new story -- The Good Life -- for Thursday for until The Good Life reaches a natural stopping point. That should give me enough time to fix the issues that I have with From the Ashes -- stuff like balancing the magic, retconning some events where I feel I strayed into grimderp rather than grimdark, etc. Because there are a lot of little things that I wouldn't have gone with if I gave myself the time to think about them and, as the Blight arc continues, they're building up to something that's unmanageable and... well... bad writing.
Sorry for those that this will disappoint, but I feel like it's better than missing updates because this way you still get something to read and From the Ashes shouldn't be on ice for too long.
Comments
Anonykor
Damn, this was one of my favorites of yours too. Looking forward to its return!
