Unknown - Dragon Age

Encouraged by the sight, Loghain urged his knights to continue pushing—and they did. They were shoving forward now, sweeping the line of enemy soldiers before them off the edge of the path like so much debris off the front steps. The bloodcurdling screams as those men were sent falling to their deaths were difficult to bear.

And then they stood at the edge, Loghain and his six men. They stared down at the carnage below, the many men lying broken at the bottom of a hundred-foot drop. Like dolls scattered by an angry child, Loghain thought grimly.

The few soldiers left on the path were now leaping off the side to get out of the way of Rowan and the several horsemen charging with her up the path. Those that stood their ground were cut down mercilessly. One of them was a lone, quaking halberdier who leveled his weapon toward the horse racing at him. Rowan pulled her horse to one side at the last moment and efficiently sliced her blade deep into the man’s neck as she rode past. He went down without so much as a blink.

When Rowan reached the top of the path, she slid off her horse in one smooth motion and ran toward Loghain, lifting up her helmet. Brown hair spilled around her face as she took in the sight of the small number of wounded, haggard men standing there with him. They all stared back at her dumbly, numb with exhaustion and the fading remnants of adrenaline.

“Are you . . . all right?” she asked uncertainly, her expression concerned.

Loghain walked toward her and held out his hand. Rowan hesitated, staring at him as if she wasn’t sure what it meant before she relaxed and shook it.

“That was quite the charge,” he congratulated her. Their eyes met, lingering a moment longer than was necessary. Rowan quickly disengaged her hand and glanced away.

“I can’t believe you lasted this long. I wish I’d come sooner.” She nodded officiously to the other men behind Loghain, several of whom had dropped to their knees. “Well done, all of you.”

“It’s not over yet,” he sighed. Already he could see the enemy recovering below. The charge had spooked them and taken a toll on their forces, but it wouldn’t be long before the Orlesians would recover from the shock. They still had the superior numbers, after all, and if they realized it quickly enough, they could race back into the clearing and surround Rowan’s men. They needed to get out—now.

Rowan was nodding, understanding the situation exactly as he did, he realized. Loghain found himself hardly surprised. “Maric will need us. Let’s go while we still can.”

Maric panted at the edge of the battle during a few rare seconds he could even breathe in the chaos, ears ringing with the sound of steel on steel. His sword arm ached so badly, he thought it might just fall off. He also suddenly noticed an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, the shaft having penetrated between the grooves of his fine armor. Well, that would explain the jabbing pain I felt earlier , he thought to himself .

The ebb and flow of the melee seemed to go on forever. He had lost the ability to judge what was actually going on with the overall battle once Arl Rendorn had charged the line. It had become his only concern just to survive, facing an endless array of opponents that charged at him from every direction.

So far, he remained alive despite it all. The heavy dwarven armor he wore had repelled dozens of strikes without so much as a dent. Far too many rebels had been killed before Maric’s

eyes, trying to buy their prince a few more moments of life. Even with all this protection, his sword dripped with the blood of men who would surely have killed him, if Maric hadn’t been a second faster than they. And then, of course, there was the blind luck.

At one point he had been barrelled over by a giant of a man in chain armor, and when Maric had rolled over, he’d seen a great axe ready to come down right on top of his head. None of his protectors had been near enough to help. All that had saved him was an errant gauntlet flung from some unknown soldier nearby, probably by accident, which struck the giant in the back of the head and knocked him off balance. The axe came down just shy of Maric’s ear. His breath had steamed on the metal of the axe-head buried in the ground not an inch away from the tip of his nose.

The giant soldier yanked the axe back up, but this time Wilhelm had intervened. An arc of lightning streaked across the battlefield and left a gaping, smoking hole in the fellow’s chest. Maric had at least enough sense to roll out of the way before the man toppled over like a falling building.

Evidently, Maric’s time on Thedas was not quite up yet.

He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and cast an eye over the battlefield. The first thing he wondered was what had happened to Rowan. He couldn’t see the green of her helmet, either racing across the field or lying on it. Nor were there any horsemen in the battle. How long had they been fighting? Was the bulk of the enemy force about to fall on them from the south?

He found himself worrying about Loghain most of all and the possibility that he might have asked the man to commit himself to a useless sacrifice. If Gareth’s son died trying to keep him alive, as well . . .

And then the horn sounded. Belatedly, to be sure, but it still had the desired effect. In the distance he could see Rowan’s

horsemen charging into the enemy line, scattering them in every direction.

It proved to be enough. Over the next ten minutes, desperation surged among the soldiers on both sides. Maric could hear the Arl shouting to the men, urging them to press toward the hill, and Maric began to do the same. Blood was spilling rapidly as casualties mounted, but as the horsemen took their toll, the enemy began to pull back. The enemy commanders ordered a retreat, shouting for their men to regroup outside the valley.

Maric was almost tempted to give chase as he watched the enemy soldiers scrambling to get away, but Arl Rendorn’s arrival prevented him. “Let them go! We must make a run for it!” he shouted. The man was clutching his chest and bleeding heavily as he was supported by two others. Seeing this, Maric merely nodded and began calling for the men to fall back.

It was not a victory.

In the end, after hours of confusion and running as the rebel army retreated out of the valley, they managed to regroup at the edge of a small river several miles to the north. The men arrived in dribs and drabs, exhausted and wounded and sometimes carrying each other. Men on horses were sent out to look for others who had fled in different directions, but in the end it looked as if they had lost at least half their numbers. On top of this, much of their supplies and equipment had been left in the valley out of necessity.

But it felt like a victory to Maric. Instead of losing everything that his mother had built, they had survived. They had evaded the usurper’s trap and even dealt him a bloody nose on the way out. As sore as their condition was, the usurper’s forces would not be so quick to be on their trail. Not tonight, and that was all the rebels needed.

When Rowan finally brought a bruised and bloodied Loghain to the fire at their new tent, still wearing fancy leathers and the soiled, tattered remains of the Queen’s purple cloak,

Maric cried out with glee and ran forward to sweep up the startled Loghain in a great bear hug. Loghain winced in pain but tolerated the display, staring down at Maric as if he had gone mad.

“It worked!” Maric cried. “Your plan bloody well worked!”

“Enough,” Loghain griped, shoving Maric away so that he was quickly dropped.

“Have a care, Maric,” Rowan chided him with amusement. “Loghain’s taken several wounds to his chest.”

“Bah! He’s invulnerable!” Maric laughed, and then danced away exuberantly. He circled the fire like some kind of barbarian shaman performing a strange victory ritual, all the while laughing maniacally.

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