Fifty Shades of Grey Wardens

Staff and Bloody Blade

Dawn was a pale mist, its tendrils of thick fog low to the ground like a hunting cat, curling about a motley collection of leather boots, metal greaves and the legs of restless horses that wickered and whinied quietly into the dim morning light. They could sense it, too, Alistair mused, watching a horse paw at the damp ground nervously and toss its head. He found it odd that the Maker had chosen humans to build vast cities, to form armies and wield magic, when Thedas' beasts seemed so much more in touch with the world around them. People said animals could sense catastrophes before they happened. Alistair just hoped this wasn't one of them.
Though the Grey Wardens had waited for darkness to seep back into the sky to begin their attack, it was hardly any clearer now, with the dense, low cloud allowing vision no more than a few feet in any direction before a dull nothingness engulfed all like some colossal formless creature. The tents had been packed, the fires smothered, the horses watered, all in silence- or perhaps it was simply the fog dampening the sound of hushed conversations. The forming up was a sullen, joyless process; every one of them knew the reports, knew the numbers and strength of their foe, and every one of them knew that this could be their final march, that it could be they whom the Blight took sooner rather than later.
Alistair stood off to one side, away from the other Wardens. Beside him, Vas stood, arms loose by her sides, as though she was utterly at ease with the upcoming battle. It wouldn't have surprised the young man; from what he had seen of Qunari, they didn't hesitate to crush darkspawn skulls with their bare hands. A huge but deceptively slender greatsword was strapped across the woman's broad back, a blade Bec referred to, almost reverently, as Blightsbane. It was one of the few things Alistair had noted the dwarf to talk about seriously, and he hoped that wasn't for nothing. The Orzammaran was a little way away, two long, wicked blades sheathed upon his own, significantly smaller back, helping Jenner string a tall, elegant longbow with whirling patterns up and down its length.
And Tarja. She stood with her back to all of them, peering off into the fog as though that might help her catch a glimpse of the enemy that waited unseen within. He couldn't see her face, but Alistair knew she would still be harboring that dark, brooding expression. He didn't know if they knew the Wardens' own strength, or if they even knew they existed- did darkspawn communicate like that?- but he didn't envy the Hurlock who stood in the mage's way today. The axe that she had wielded that first time still adorned her back, fresh from the whetstone, but the young warrior sincerely doubted she needed such a crude weapon to lay waste to a small horde.
The scouts had returned earlier that morning, bloodied but, on the most part, alive. Their reports were grim, but not without hope. It seemed that the catapults were primed and loaded, but had yet to be fired. That meant that the darkspawn were either waiting for something big, or even they couldn't aim in the dark. And that meant there was still time.
As though guided by some signal that the rest of her small party could not interpret, Tarja turned her head to glance back. As she gestured them wordlessly forwards, Bec and Jenner joining them with a silent solemnity previously unheard of from the pair, she locked eyes with Alistair. She still wore the look of quiet agitation that had shadowed her elegant features since the previous evening, but her eyes told a different story entirely. The brown orbs an intensity the likes of which the warrior had never seen, and they spoke of defiance and vengeance. He found himself wondering how many had gazed at those eyes, instants before their flesh was scorched from blackened bones.
Tarja began to walk, moving into the creeping mist at a brisk stride, the motley group following closely behind. They made no attempt to be quiet; the fog did that for them- but Alistair couldn't help but feel he was making too much noise, the hardened steel plates of his armour clanking like an entire platoon as he trudged through the dew soaked grasses of a concealed meadow, having to try hard to keep up with his more lightly armoured companions.
It could have been little more than an hour before they hit the ridge- almost literally, in fact, as it loomed intimidatingly out of the mist no more than a metre from Alistair's face, forcing him to dodge to one side to avoid having his face forcibly remodeled by an inconvenient spine of yellow brown rock. After dismissing it as karma for his terribly timed jokes, the young man noticed that everyone else had also stopped, and were staring grimly down at something by their feet, which had apparently nearly toppled Bec. From the pained expressions plastered upon their faces, it was probably not pleasant.
A young woman. Dwarvish. Pretty, once. People tended to lose some of their inherent attractiveness when they had their heads cleaved in two. She wore light leather, dyed a lustrous blue, with the insignia of an eagle upon the breast. One of the few scouts who hadn't made it back. The wound had obviously killed her outright, but the signs of mutilation and pointless hurting were clear, written in blood upon her broken form. Alistair hoped they had happened after she had died. He feared that they hadn't.
With a determination born from anger and pride, Bec, Jenner and Vas took wordlessly to the face of the ridge, making their painstaking path up the way the scout had come down. Even as Alistair made to follow, he felt a restraining hand grasp at his own. Wondering whether this was really the time for a heart to heart, he turned- and was caught full in the face. Her lips were soft, sweet, they tasted of cherries- or was he just imagining that? His heart quickened until he thought he could feel his armour moving with the pounding of his chest, except he no longer knew whether it was his own heartbeat or Tarja's. For several moments that was his entire being, her hot lips pressed to his own, the sporadic frenzy of his heart, until he felt the tips of her fingers brush upon the back of his head, the length of her slim body pressed upright against his own. His hands- Maker, he didn't know where to put his hands. It didn't matter anyway; his whole body was in a panicked mess, and his arms just hung stupidly by his sides.
Then the moment was passed. The young woman broke off, quickly turning away. It may have simply been the red orange sunrise that threatened to burn away the fog, but Alistair thought he saw a crimson hue briefly touch her cheeks.
"Be careful." The mage muttered bluntly, before moving to the ridge and beginning to haul herself up.
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"Shit,"
Several rocks and a flurry of smaller stones went tumbling from under Alistair's foot to cascade back down the face of the ridge. The Warden grabbed at a weedy sapling to try and steady himself, before it uprooted itself and glew in pursuit of the fallen rocks. He cursed again, sliding backwards several feet before he was able to catch hold of a ledge to cut short his descent. Glancing back, he grimaced. It would have been a long slide, and a long, grueling climb back up. As they neared the top, that distance only grew.
The ridge's face was, thankfully, not vertical, but it was close enough that they had to scramble rather than walk. This would have been all well and good, had he not been wearing clothes made from forged metal that effectively doubled his weight. The others, who had long since passed him, were faring far better. Tarja and Jenner, lightly armoured and quick on their feet, scaled the rock with ease, and even Bec navigated the face as though he had done it a dozen times before; however, he could hear Vas laboring and grunting with annoyance as her weight caused the rickety to buckle and crumble. Alistair felt almost sorry for bringing her- or was it him?- on a task so obviously unsuited for her, but they would need the support of the towering qunari warrior in the coming hours.
Beginning to haul himself back up once more, the young man started as the top suddenly came into view over a large step of rock. The sky before him was aflame with the still rising sun and silhouetted starkly against it, the giant arm of a catapult reached forbidingly up into the morning air. Right where the scouts had reported it to be. Alistair scrambled a little further, and another arm appeared, and another. Three catapults. That meant three times the darkspawn. Grimacing, the young Warden moved up to join the rest of his party, all of whom were now concealed behind a small soil cliff, the rest of which seemed to have fallen down the ridge's face to rest somewhere hear the bottom.
Alistair glanced over at Tarja, a better or so along, and received a shallow nod. Cautiously, he half stood, and peered over the rim, then abruptly ducked back down. Through the thin, straggly copse of trees that were all that had managed to survive in the poor soil, about the bases of the three great siege engines, several dozen darkspawn milled aimlessly, as though quite unsure what they were doing. The group was close enough that Alistair could make out the wrinkles and tears of their half rotted flesh. Looking at Tarja's worried frown, he guessed she had also taken a brief look over the edge. A glance was exchanged through the group before, by some unspoken consensus, all began to move. Tarja and Jenner darted left and right, running low to the ground so that the dirt cliff still concealed them. The elf already had a goose fought arrow knocked to his bow. Even as they reached their positions either side of the small, Bec vaulted up onto higher ground, and vanished; not because had moved into cover, but by some obscure skill apparently not shared with front line warriors. And then it was their turn. Alistair glance at Vas, but the qunari was utterly focused, her purple eyes bright with the fury of battle as she surged up and over the low rise, a harsh rasp of steel on leather accompanying the sight of Blightsbane being torn bodily from its sheath. The Warden had half expected the Tal-Vashoth to issue some guttural, ferocious battle cry, but Vas charged in a silence broken only by the pounding of metal boots on hard packed earth. Alistair quickly leapt up and followed her lead, suppressing the urge to let loose the roar behind his lips as he hefted his longsword in his grip. It was peculiar following the silver skinned giant into battle, but it was still comforting to know she was on their side.
They broke the trees at a run, and by the time the darkspawn had turned to face down their attackers with rasping rattles and blood screams screams, the two warriors were already amongst them. Blightsbane swung in a red arc, the bloid crimson sun making it appear as though it was aflame. A Hurlock was cloven from skull to stomach mid roar, the creatures to either side scattered by soundless fury. Alistair smashed into the ragged line am instant later, shield braced against his shoulder as he brazenly rammed darkspawn from his path. As the Blight stricken monstrosities finally began to move with some semblance of order, a hail of arrows and golden fire poured from their flanks, instantly sending them crashing back into disarray. Just when Alistair thought Just when Alistair thought they might make it through the encounter unscathed, an eerie green flame flickered into life in the corner of his vision. Ending his charge with a vicious swipe of his longsword that turned an oncoming Genlock's neck into a ragged stump, the ex-Templar spun to track the source of the ethereal blaze, immediately recognising it as magic so deeply twisted and corrupt that it would break a human mage to even try to tame it. With horror, he realised that a line of darkspawn emissaries had formed at the foot of the closest catapult. They knew why the Wardens were here, and they knew that such a small group would have trouble dealing with a magical bombardment. Alistair was aware that they would be cut down instantly by such a barrage, but no one was close enough to do anything about it. Vas and he were now swamped, fighting back to back in the midst of the group of Hurlocks their charge had carried them into. Tarja and Jenner had Shrieks and Genlocks closing on them fast, so even their support was limited.
The magical bombardment, however, never came. A flicker of movement became visible just behind the line, and Bec phased into being, and began laying into the emissaries with merciless efficiency. The group scattered, unable to fight at such close quarters with no warriors to take the knives for them.
Alistair was brought sharply back to his own fight as a darkspawn's sword caught him in the shoulder, glancing off his plated armour and leaving a deep gash in the metal. An arrow ricocheted off his shield, forcing him backwards a step, but before his attacker could move in to fill the gap, the warrior surged forward and delivered a powerful diagonal cut to its exposed side, felling it. As another went to take its place, it was mown down by a blaze of golden fire, along with several of others. Tarja, axe unsheathed and burning, advanced over the decimated corpses, hacking down Hurlocks and Genlocks alike as she tore her way towards the desperately fighting warriors. The action won Alistair a little breathing space and, taking a swift glance over his shoulder, he Jenner and Bec had also joined them.
Darkspawn were all around them now, and a loose ring formed, each Warden back to back with the other four, blades coated in black blood and intense blasts of blazing magic cutting down any who got too near, only to have another three take its place. It could have been seconds or minutes or hours, but after a period of time, Alistair caught a glimpse of Hurlock. It was bigger than the rest, and the huge axe it carried marked it out as an Alpha, a huge creature head and shoulders above even Vas. Despite the obvious advantage it would provide the darkspawn, however, it was nowhere near the centre of the battle, instead heading towards...
The catapults.
Unless it meant to reposition them- on its own- to face the five Wardens, there could only be one thing reason for it to be headed there; it meant to fire the catapults before they could take them. If it managed to loose a rock, even one, it would mean that all those was for nothing; the vanguard fighting the main bulk of the darkspawn upon the plains far below, the other small groups that had gone to capture the other six catapults stationed in various positions; everyone who had fallen today would have died for nothing. The wall would be breached, and darkspawn would flood Val Royeaux, destroying anything and everything they found. Anyone still in the city would die.
This all raced through the young Warden's adrenaline augmented brain within the time it took him to decapitate a Hurlock, and in that brief moment he realised that he was the only one who had seen the imminent disaster. Only he could stop it. And so he did something to make swordsmen all over Thedas cringe.
He threw his sword.
The blade passed through the ranks of darkspawn unmolested, carving a blood red arc through the air. It turned over and over, catching the brilliant light of the sun so that it looked like some holy sword dragged straight from a Chantry tale. Thousands of lives weighed heavy upon that sword, upon that split second, and the whole world seemed to take a moment to watch its lazy course, a brief instant of total serenity that seemed to stretch for eternity.
The noise of metal rending metal was audible even from the midst of the rabidly attacking darkspawn as the sword impaled the Hurlock Alpha's skull, helmet and all. With a keening roar that spiralled into something of a grumbling whimper, it slumped forward, and died, its path cut violently short.
The noise gave everyone pause, even the Hurlocks and Genlocks still alive, and several even turned to look at their fallen commander in what seemed almost like disbelief- if darkspawn could feel such things. The Wardens snatched at the opportunity to launch a frenzied counter attack, laying into the creatures with a rekindled ferocity. Tarja, though, hesitated just a moment too long, brown eyes upon the slumped form, and Hurlock reared up behind her, sword held aloft. The mage, oblivious to the threat, made no move to defend herself, and Alistair's eyes grew wide as, for the second time that day, time seemed to hit some impossible barrier, and slow to a treacle like crawl. The blade rose, and fell, and the warrior knew that, even if she saw it coming, Tarja was going to die.
Then some base instinct, some age old primal emotion, sent Alistair's brain into an adrenaline flooded frenzy, something deeper than fear, more ancient than petty self preservation, and he began to push through the thick treacle, his entire being devoted to stopping that blade reaching its mark. The sword fell, and Alistair pushed. He didn't know if he made it.
White, screaming pain, like molten metal searing into his chest.
Then... nothing.