Unknown - Dragon Age

“I do not intend to kill you,” she said quietly. “I should do it, but you are right on that count, at least. My honor, for what it’s worth, forbids it.” She crouched down over him, absently adjusting his robe so it did not bunch up around his throat.

Severan tried to reach out for his staff, propped up next to his bed not far away. His fingers flexed, the effort to do so making his face turn red and sweaty, but he could not move his arm. Katriel watched his effort passively. “Consider this, mage: if I had slain you, it would have been your pride that was your undoing in the end. If my time as a bard has taught me anything, it is that men with power can still be approached. The more power they believe they have, the more vulnerable they are.”

He looked up at her, wanting to hurl furious insults, wanting

to reach up and strangle her slender throat, but he could do nothing but wheeze and spit. Her eyes hardened as she stared down at him. “I am not your servant, mage,” she said dispassionately. “I am no one’s servant any longer. That is what I came to tell you.”

Katriel stood up and moved toward the doorway, and he continued to lie there, struggling feebly against the poison in his blood. She opened the door and paused, looking back at him.

“If you are wise, you will abandon your plans and return to wherever you came from. If you continue here, you will die, of that I assure you.” She looked off into the distance, her countenance softening for a moment before she shrugged off the feeling. “Consider that warning a courtesy.”

And then she was gone.

Severan lay on the cold stone of his bedroom floor, trying with increasing success to reach out toward the staff. He supposed he should be glad for his life. He was a fool to let his guard down so completely, after all. As the beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, however, all he could truly think of was revenge.

For this indignity, she will suffer. Then the rebel prince after her and all the rest .

Oh, they will suffer .

17

Loghain watched Maric quietly from across the room.

They were all exhausted after the days of battle, finally resulting in Gwaren being successfully defended from the usurper’s attack, but still Maric toiled away at his table, writing letter after letter. How many he had written so far, Loghain could only guess, but three riders had already been sent westward, carrying word into the Bannorn and other parts of the land.

Loghain was fairly certain that word of Maric’s return would spread faster than any horse could, but Maric was determined to make a personal appeal to the Fereldan nobility while there was still time to capitalize on their victory. It had come at a heavy cost, after all. The number of dead within Gwaren had been staggering. The Orlesians had been brutal in their efforts to deal with the uprising, so much so that Maric had felt compelled to turn the army about even though they had been barely in fighting form and had been fleeing for their lives.

Maric felt responsible for those lost lives. Loghain could see that. He had stared at the streets full of dead men and women who had fought against mounted knights only because they believed in him, and Loghain had seen that a part of Maric’s soul had shriveled up right then.

It had been a desperate situation when they had fallen upon the chevaliers in Gwaren only days after having been handed a narrow defeat by them, and luck had played into their hands. The usurper’s men had not considered the possibility that they might come back, and their attention was wholly upon slaughtering the ungrateful populace. Maric had been filled with a righteous fury, and even when the enemy finally routed and fled the field, Loghain had been forced to hold him back from ordering them chased down. The rebel force had been decimated, and was in no shape to go anywhere. It had taken both Loghain and Rowan to convince Maric to stand down. They had to recover, and had many dead to burn.

And that was what they had been doing for days, now. Burning the dead. The air had been filled with acrid smoke that never seemed to go away. Only the Legion didn’t take part in their rites. They grieved for their heavy losses but also seemed satisfied that their men had died in a glorious battle. Nalthur shook Maric’s hand before the remaining dwarves took their dead back into the Deep Roads, promising to return soon. Loghain hoped they didn’t meet their end at the hands of the darkspawn after all. A sobering thought, to think that such creatures had existed beneath their feet for so long, forgotten.

At first Maric had insisted on walking through the streets of what remained of Gwaren, watching the funeral pyres and joining in the prayers said by the few Chantry priests that remained. But the eyes of the people were upon him wherever he went. The way they watched his every move and whispered behind his back, the way they bowed low whenever

they spotted him and refused to get up even when he begged them to; their worship disturbed him.

Returned from the dead, they whispered. Sent by the Maker to free them from the yoke of the Orlesians at last. Despite the fact that Maric’s mission had not changed, suddenly it seemed real to them. Suddenly it seemed possible, their loss at West Hill forgotten. And Maric would kill himself to make sure their belief was vindicated.

There were already tales being brought to them of the people stirring in the west, and the usurper clamping down hard—supposedly the palace in Denerim was lined with so many heads, they did not have enough space to keep them all. Yet the patience of the people seemed to be at an end. Their ranks were swelling as fit survivors in Gwaren rushed to join the rebels, and Loghain assumed that would only continue once they left for the west. Ferelden’s champion had braved death itself to come to their aid. So, despite their precarious position, Maric wrote letters in an attempt to fan this blaze as if he could do so purely through will alone.

Perhaps he could.

Loghain walked quietly across the room, mindful of the fact that there were soldiers sleeping in the hall right outside. They had so few tents left, and no energy remaining to erect them. Most of their men collapsed out of exhaustion wherever they could, trying to get what little sleep they might. Most of them were still hungry. Tomorrow would bring only more of the same.

“Maric, we need to talk,” he said gravely.

Maric looked up from his most recent letter, his eyes red and bleary from fatigue. There was a look in them that Loghain didn’t like, a nervous energy that Maric possessed ever since they had emerged from the Deep Roads and seen just how little of their fighting force had made it back to Gwaren.

Outside the rain continued to fall, lightning occasionally

flashing across the night sky. It was a welcome deluge, scouring the air clean of the smoke. Except for the single candle on his desk, Maric had no light to write with. Finding a proper lantern might have been difficult, as the chevaliers had sacked the manor almost completely and left it short of everything, so naturally Maric elected to do without. Really, he should have retired to his bedchambers long ago, and Loghain half wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t demand that Maric get some rest.

But this discussion could not wait any longer.

“Talk?” Maric asked, blinking in confusion.

Loghain sat on the edge of the table, crossing his arms as he considered his words. “About Katriel.”

Maric snorted, waving his hand angrily. “This again?” He picked up his quill to return to his writing. “I thought we settled this in the Deep Roads. I don’t want to discuss it any more.”

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