Chapter 12 - The Battle of Ostagar

Wind and rain lashed the pale, moss-covered stones of Ostagar. Storm clouds darkened the sky, obscuring the once radiant moon and her glittering stars. It was as though the night knew precisely what lay ahead for the soldiers of Ferelden, and had chosen to set the scene accordingly. The storm did little to affect the troops, however. These were people who had been fighting in the tempest licked south for months, people who had stared into the very face of nightmares and won. There was nothing to suggest this battle would be any different.

The men in the valley had to rely on arcane fire to light their way, filling the battlements with a dun orange glow. It settled into the gaunt faces of the soldiers as they awaited their fate, making them seem almost as ghastly as the darkspawn awaiting them. The shadows danced as Chantry priests walked the lines with their swinging bronze censers, speaking the Chant of Light and asking for the blessing of the Maker. The scents of juniper and pine mingled with the rain as the priests swung their incense, and brought a measure of peace and reassurance to those gathered under the banner of war.

Thunder rumbled overhead as though joining in the growls of the Mabari assembled at the front. Wet banners fluttered with a sound like the crack of lightning, punctuating the rustling poplars that crawled up toward the battlements and wreathed the valley. Beneath the sounds of it all was a constant, hive-like humming. 

The darkspawn were coming.

They did not announce their arrival with the light of torches or arcane fire. They did not need light the way human eyes did. But they were there nonetheless. The soldiers could feel their taint in the air like a sickness, the smell of rot and blood and sick carried to them on the wind.

Duncan walked beside King Cailan along the front lines. The king seemed unphased by the storm, as did most of the other Fereldens assembled, but no matter how long Duncan stayed in this country, he could never get used to the cold. He shuddered as rain trickled down the back of his neck and cut a line of frost down his dark skin.

"The plan will work, your Majesty," he assured the king as much as himself.

"Of course, it will," Cailan said, all charm and youthful confidence. So like his father in every aspect. It had been years since Duncan had seen Maric, and yet being with Cailan was like being beside that headstrong blond man all over again. His head had been filled with dreams, too. "The Blight ends here."

As though to prove the young king false, the fog all around them began to grow thicker. A fresh blanket of pale mist wafting in from the tree line, heralding the arrival of the enemy. Shadows in the trees shifted, and out from the darkness emerged the darkspawn. Their almost insect-like humming grew louder as they seethed, ready for battle. Inhuman roars and grows echoed out from the darkness, the figures at the edges of the shadows writhing, their bloodlust surmounting. 

Duncan saw one man stagger away from the front lines, fear contorting his features. The man behind him held out a hand to stop him as much as steady him. The first man looked behind, ready to state his case, when the hardened face of the man behind him put an end to whatever he might have said. The second man shook his head. It was simple gesture, and yet it was enough to strengthen the resolve of the man in front of him.

King Cailan looked out over the valley.

Had there been this many darkspawn during the last battle? In any of the battles before? It seemed their numbers stretched to the horizon. The tree line made it impossible to tell, and yet he could feel it. The vileness that always came with the surge of these monsters was palpable in the very air. It felt thick with their evil, with their taint. 

A thrill of fear ran through him. Uncertainty fluttered in his chest.

No, he told himself firmly. Victory was assured. He was standing beside the fabled Grey Warden Commander, the same man who had traveled the Deep Roads with his father, who had faced countless darkspawn. He had nothing to fear. He refused to submit to such things.

He drew the sword at his side. The dragonbone longsword gleamed blue, runes he'd never had hope of deciphering glowed along the blade, eager to spill darkspawn blood.

As though in response to the sight of the sword, the darkspawn broke their ranks and flooded forward into the valley.

Hordes of towering hurlocks, stout and grinning genlocks, lumbering ogres as tall as trees, snarling emissaries. The ground shuddered beneath the creatures as they charged the battlements, the foundations of Ostagar quaking with the force of their thundering footfalls.

"Archers!" commanded the king.

Rows of archers lifted arrows tipped with magical flame, burning in a furious rainbow. The commander at the front held a hand to still the arrows. His eyes squinted through the storm, waiting for the darkspawn to come within range.

Closer…

Closer…

When the first of the monsters came within a hundred feet, he motioned for the archers to let loose their arrows. A hurricane of color flashed through the squall, rising up from the grey battlements and toward the coming darkness. The bolts rained down on the darkspawn, bursting into flame where they found purchase in the rotting flesh of the charging darkspawn.

The other monsters did not so much as slow as their brethren fell around them.

"Hounds!" Cailan bellowed.

The beast masters shouted their commands to the Mabari in their charge. The hounds barked viciously as they broke across the valley, paws pounding the soft earth with a sound like a full cavalry. They tore into the darkspawn's front line, leaping to tear the throats from the enemy, spilling black ichor on the valley floor.

Some of the taller hurlocks in their mismatched armor brought their curved and wicked blades to bear. They tore into the Mabari with equal fervor, gutting the dogs with impossibly strong swings while the shorter genlocks bit back, their mouths crammed to bursting with jagged teeth. The sounds of whimpering joined the growls of Mabari and darkspawn alike as the dogs died horribly.

Cailan ground his teeth, anger thundering through his veins. He raised his blade high, calling above the din of battle, and crying for all the troops to hear, "For Ferelden!"

He burst into a run, shouting a battlecry as he ran into the fray. Behind him, a swell of warriors, mages, archers, and cavalry wielding flails and spears charged. Each of them lent their cry to his. The ferocity of the Ferelden people lay in those cries—these were a people who had come back from centuries of subjugation, who had fought for and won their freedom time and again. They did not yield to the Orlesians who tried to take their land from them. They would not yield to these darkspawn, or any one else who thought to conquer them.

Not now.

Not ever.

All along the battlements, soldiers and mages bustled about, preparing the trebuchets stationed along the battlements. They fired flaming boulders coated in tar and oil into the enemy lines. But the darkspawn had projectiles of their own. There was nothing so sophisticated as the machines of war made by humans—as far as anyone knew, darkspawn were all but mindless monsters bent on destruction whenever they were not hunting for their Old Gods—but the emissaries had access to magic that the Circle of Magi couldn't even dream of. They hurled great balls of fire through the air, crashing them into the towers along the balustrade of Ostagar.

Alistair raised a hand to shield his eyes as one crashed into a nearby tower. It burst against the stone, bringing brick and flame raining down among the soldiers who fought to hold their ground. Arual stared, mouth agape, at the chaos all around her. Someone bumped into her, nearly knocking her to the ground as they hurried to their stations of attack. Suddenly, she did not resent being kept away from the main field of battle. 

"We need to cross the bridge and get to the tower!" Alistair called over the sounds of battle. The sound of his voice brought her back to the moment at hand and the task before them. Arual closed her mouth with an audible click and nodded her affirmation.

"With me, Bran!" she called over the din. She needn't have bothered. Bran was at her side quick as blinking.

Alistair took point as the three of them dashed forward, doing their best to navigate the pell mell along the balustrade. The stone beneath them shook as another missile collided with the ruins, exploding in a shower of sound, light, scorching heat, and debris. Arual's heart lurched into her throat, cutting off the scream that had been about to come out. She stumbled, nearly losing her footing. She tried not to think of the balustrade collapsing beneath her, of tumbling down into the gorge to be crushed by so many stones. She tried not to think about anything but putting one foot in front of the other.

Alistair turned back only to find her still at his heels. She nodded at him, reassuring herself as much as him. Satisfied she could manage on her own, he continued to lead the charge.

At least they were past the gorge, feet back on solid ground rather than manmade stonework. Arual would have fallen to her knees and kissed the damp earth, but there was no time for theatrics.

Instead, she and Bran followed Alistair up the ramparts toward the tower. As they approached, two runners flagged them down; one a mage, the other a warrior.

"You... you're Grey Wardens, aren't you?" panted the warrior with exertion. "The Tower... it's been taken!"

"What are you talking about, man?" Alistair demanded, fear and anger rolling in his words. "Taken how?"

"The darkspawn came up through the lower chambers," supplied the mage. "They're everywhere! Most of our men are dead."

Alistair's jaw rippled as he clenched it. Arual didn't have to be a Grey Warden to know this was bad. King Cailan's plan hadn't accounted for there being resistance here. Her mind tried to think of every which way they could solve the issue at hand. Scale the side of the Tower, perhaps? Or build and light a new beacon using the nearby foliage? Maybe the mage could send some kind of signal into the sky with their magic?

Alistair, it seemed, was working through the problem as well—though his solution was as straightforward as he was.

"Then we have to get to the beacon, and light it ourselves," he said, face set in a frown of determination. Without another moment's hesitation, Alistair drew his sword and shield and began trudging up towards the Tower.

Arual was stunned by how dauntless he was! Did it matter what lay ahead? Would Alistair rush into battle—any battle—simply for the asking? Or was there more to it? Did he believe in the call of the Grey Wardens so strongly that he'd hardly hesitate to fulfill his duty, even if it meant his very life?

He was either very brave or very stupid.

Whatever the case may be, Arual found herself drawing her own sword and shield and rushing after him.

They trudged up through the sloping tower grounds. Despite the rain slick grass and mud, Arual's feet found purchase without trouble. The sharp incline of the hill should have left her legs burning as she gasped for breath, but it didn't. She loped behind Alistair as easily as if they were on a flat plane on a sunny afternoon.

Was this the power of the Grey Wardens? If so...what else could she do?

All too suddenly, she found out as a tingling sensation crept across her skin. There was something there at the edge of her consciousness; something vile that hummed with a strange music. She was about to ask Alistair if he felt the same, when a swarm of darkspawn crested the slope. They brandished jagged and unwieldy weapons in their mismatched armor. The humming grew louder as the Grey Wardens closed the gap, and Arual realized she was sensing the darkspawn—sensing the taint within them as sure as in herself.

This must have been what Alistair meant when he'd said that all Grey Wardens can sense the darkspawn. This was how they sought them out; this was how they hunted and killed them.

The monsters had the high ground, but Alistair didn't let it deter him. He brought his shield to bear as a stout genlock tried to crush the man's skull with a downward slash of its heavy mace. Alistair used the genlock's momentum against it and hefted the creature up and over him, letting it fall behind him and roll uselessly down the hillside like rain of a duck's back.

Arual tried to follow suit, stabbing upward at a hurlock whose sword was poised too close to her ear for comfort. Arual's blade caught the beast in the belly, and it dropped its sword in surprise, if not pain. She pushed forward as it stumbled back, fighting for the ground ahead. 

She couldn't believe how easy it was!

Arual felt stronger than ever before, her body moving past limitations she'd once had to work so hard to circumvent.

"Maker!" she gasped in something between alarm and excitement. This was like nothing she'd ever experienced before!

There was only so much time to let the feeling sink in, however. There was still a battle to be won and a beacon to be lit.

The hurlock she'd impaled fell back. She didn't have time to see if it was dead or merely wounded before a genlock was upon her. She brought her shield up to block a hit from the creature's sword and yanked her sword free of the hurlock's belly. In a clean, horizontal strike, she beheaded the genlock, and pushed forward.

Alistair and Bran were ahead of her, but she quickly closed the gap in a few long strides.

The trio focused their efforts on bating the enemy aside, killing where they could, and hindering where they had to. There was no time to be thorough, only swift.

In this way, they made it to the base of the Tower of Ishal. The small courtyard was dark—no torches could stay lit in the pounding rain, and the mages of the Circle had neglected to provide their arcane fire enchantments to this part of the battlements. The only light came from what little of the moon was visible through the squall overhead. Here and there, a drop of rain water caught the light of that moon in such a way that it looked as though the three of them stood amidst a hail of needles. By this wan light, Arual could make out the slippery stone steps that led to an iron wrought door of heavy oak wood, swollen with age and rainwater.

"If there's this many on the grounds, there's bound to be more inside," Alistair said as he placed himself between the door and the rest of the grounds. The only darkspawn Arual could sense felt distant, as though they were a long way off, but Alistair kept his weapons at the ready. 

"Be careful."

"You, too," Arual said, exhaling. Bran was at her side, muzzle slick with blood, ready to follow his mistress into the abyss. She sheathed her sword, gave the hound a grateful pat, and opened the door.