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“No,” Gareth Cousland said very firmly, folding his arms across his chest. “Absolutely out of the question. I’m doing it.”
The corpse of Riordan, dashed to bloody pieces of jelly far below on the pavingstones of Denerim twitched slightly. The assembled company on the roof of Fort Drakon ignored him.
Alistair cleared his throat. “I could–” he began helpfully before Liranel Mahariel’s eyebrows drew together in a Thunderous Frown that only really looked terrifying because of his vallaslin.
“Be quiet,” Liranel said, “You’re not part of this discussion.”
Soren Tabris had given up and sat himself down on the flat tiling of the roof, cross-legged like a tailor. Vali Aeducan glanced at him, but Soren had only shrugged and said, “They’re going to take forever, you know,” and promptly closed his eyes. Sodding blighter, Vali thought grumpily. Mostly because he lacked the ability to go to sleep as and when he pleased.
“Would you hurry it up back there?” An anonymous knight of Redcliffe yelled as he blocked the sword blow from a hurlock and thrust his sword under its guard, killing the darkspawn. About half of the Redcliffe force camped out on the roof of Fort Drakon had just begun to decide that maybe fighting directly under the command of the Grey Wardens wasn’t as glorious as it had sounded, after all. Standing around and hacking and slashing at darkspawn until the resident Grey Wardens come to a consensus tends to have a rather depressing effect on heroic ambitions.
Zevran Arainai sighed, knifed a genlock that the knight had been content to ignore and clapped an arm around the man’s shoulder, whispering conspiratorially, “It really doesn’t help, my friend. Take it from experience.”
Dawan Brosca was very much irritated at learning it was going to be a democracy after all. “I’ve got nothing sodding left for me in Orzammar, anyway,” she said. “I may as well kill the sodding dragon.”
Selim Surana coughed politely. “And Oghren?” he inquired.
“Oghren sodding has eyes for anything with teats and without one,” Dawan snapped back, “And considering that you and the bard have something going, that should put you right at the bottom!”
“That shouldn’t exclude anyone,” Dominic Amell was quick to point out. Probably because he’d been having an on-and-off fling with Zevran. “It means we’ve got more at stake.”
“I heard that!” Zevran called out, turning to a new victim. The last genlock slumped pathetically to the ground, dark blood draining from a great variety of cuts. Zevran had a way of getting creative with his frustrations. All kinds of frustrations.
Dio (as Dominic was wont to answer to) gulped.
“Oi, elf!” Vali said, aiming a kick at Soren. Soren blinked his eyes open.
“You don’t have to be so surly, you know,” he admonished. “You’re usually far more cheerful than Miss Sunshine there.”
“Oi, who’re you calling Sunshine, duster!”
“See?” Soren said, to no one in particular.
Leliana nocked two arrows to her bow and loosed them at once. They flew in two divergent directions, one taking a hurlock through the throat. The other buried itself in the ground with a soft tinkle of shattering glass. That was about all the warning the darkspawn had before the firebomb attached to the arrowhead exploded. Soren watched admiringly. “My design,” he said, again to no one in particular. Everyone else was busy arguing why they should be the one to go and die.
“So maybe we could decide based on who has the most to live for,” Liranel suggested, in his quiet voice. “Any takers?”
“Well,” Alistair said, bravely, in the silence that followed. “I mean, I’m the king of Ferelden, and if I kill the archdemon here, I’d be doing the best thing a king could for my people…”
“No,” the Wardens chorused at once. Gareth continued, “No, Alistair, it’s not even an option. You’re the king, which means you’re not going into the danger-zone.”
The archdemon roared, snapping its jaws for emphasis. Gareth turned about to stare coldly at the archdemon. “You!” he shouted. “Shut! Up! We’re busy!”
The archdemon fell silent. It was most unhappy and it whipped its tail about for emphasis but the Grey Wardens had all turned back to their litle council.
“So…who’s got living parents?” Dio wanted to know.
“I wouldn’t know,” Selim said, just about the same time as Dio said, “Don’t know.”
“He returned to the Stone, remember?” Vali said.
“They died when the keep was burned.”
“They died shortly after I was born…”
“But you have Ashalle,” Soren said, adding to the discussion for the first time. He said that in response to Liranel. “And the Keeper Marethari? And Fenarel. And Merrill. You said a Dalish clan’s like family.”
Liranel glared at his lover. “Well,” he said testily, “When you put it that way, Mr-I-Have-A-Father-And-Two-Cousins-And-The-Whole-Alienage-Is-Like-Family…”
Alistair coughed. He shut up when seven Wardens glared at him.
Wynne spun her staff about, directing a mage bolt straight at the closest shriek, and wondered if she’d spent too little time lecturing the Wardens about the importance of making quick decisions. And maybe she really should have discussed the principles of leadership with Gareth in greater depth…and she had thought he was turning out fine, too…
“And you wanted to keep Loghain too,” Vali said to Dio. “Can you imagine how much more time we’d spend arguing if Loghain had come along?”
“And there was Jowan–”
“ –I’m fairly certain I remember someone thought it wasn’t too late for Tamlen…”
“There was this Les–something…that dwarf, remember? The one who was with Jarvia…”
“You actually liked Ser Jory!” Dawan screeched.
Selim cleared his throat. “Wardens, please…”
“About damned time someone showed some sense,” Oghren muttered. He grunted as he reversed the momentum of his swinging double-headed axe abruptly, allowing the hurlock closer for the stroke that completely cut through it at the waist.
CRAAAACK!
The bickering fell silent, abruptly, as Selim lowered his mage staff. A tendril of smoke curled up from the tip, and the air smelled faintly of ozone.
“What about seniority?” Gareth wanted to know. “Riordan said it usually falls to the senior Warden to take the blow…and I’m the senior Warden here.”
Alistair coughed. “Er, if we’re talking about seniority…”
“No, Alistair, for the fifth time, no.”
“Well, I was just trying to help,” Alistair said, defensively. “Seeing that you’ve all got things…well in hand, so as to speak. Very well in hand.”
The archdemon made a sound more like a cross between a hiss and a hiccup. It flapped its wings impotently and reared up on its hind legs. Knights swore; some men pissed themselves. The Wardens ignored it.
“Get the Dalish and some mages,” Wynne instructed the nearest messenger, who snapped out a quick salute and ran off. “The archdemon must not survive this.” She’d just about decided that there was no harm done in making the archdemon a pincushion. Maybe it would horrify the Wardens into action.
“No,” Liranel said immediately, “Creators, it’s only a matter of minutes, if anything.”
Dio said, “Actually, if we assume each Warden took about five minutes for their Joining, we’ve got a fourty-five minute gap between Gareth and you…”
“Eh,” Vali growled, “Fourty-five minutes, what difference does that make? We’ll be finding the Deep Roads at about the same time.”
Soren said, “Does anyone here actually want to die?”
Silence fell.
“Well,” Selim said, heavily, “Now that you’ve put it that way…”
“I don’t mind dying,” Gareth said carefully, “There’s nothing really left for me since Howe burned the keep and killed my family and everyone I knew…”
“There’s no guarantee Fergus is dead,” Vali said. “But I too, have lost family…”
Dawan snorted. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You’ve got a son, and House Aeducan still stands. Lord Harrowmont would gladly take you in. A casteless thug, now…”
“Rica needs you,” Soren said, quietly. “She’s lost Bhelen. There’s only her son left…and your mother.”
Dawan faltered.
“Well,” Dio said, “We’ve established that Liranel and Soren can’t, because they’ve got a family…”
“And you mean to say First Enchanter Irving will not be devastated at your deaths?” Liranel wanted to know.
There was a loud scream then, of an enraged dragon. It occurred to Gareth at that point in time that Alistair had been entirely too silent and as they turned to gape along with the stunned soldiers, he’d been right. Soren grinned as he watched Alistair make the final, fatal charge. Blood flew as the sword bit deep into the archdemon’s neck and nestled into its skull.
The dragon screamed again and flailed and thrashed, but Alistair kept it firmly pinned under the weight of the sword and his own body, until the great beast fell dead. There was an explosion of light, then, and Soren shielded his eyes. The growing nest of scarlet Blight clouds evaporated in that single, incandescent instant, and the darkspawn threw down their weapons and were fleeing.
The archdemon was dead. The Blight was ended.
Alistair threw down the greatsword and strode back to them. “I told you,” he said.
Gareth blinked, speechless. Dio stared. Dawan shrugged. It was Selim who spoke first. “My friend,” he said, “I am glad you survived but how is this?”
“Morrigan,” Soren said. “She offered to perform a ritual. I rejected her, but there’s seven of us…eight, actually…”
“No,” Gareth said, shaking his head.
“Ask Zevran,” Dio shrugged.
“Definitely no,” Selim added.
“No, and Lira can account for us…”
Dawan said, “Can you see me having the bits to get her on?”
There was a few moments of silence, both in horrified contemplation (the general consensus was that Dawan was the most frightening creature one could attempt to procreate with) and then they all turned to stare reproachfully at Vali. (They knew Alistair was a definite no.)
“Well,” Vali said, slightly sheepish, “Morrigan is a fine lass…”
“You said yes?” Gareth, Dio and Selim fairly screeched at the same time.
Vali shrugged. “Thought it couldn’t do any harm, eh. Save some lives. Not like the Wardens know what they’re doing all the time.”
Gareth said, pained, “And you…didn’t inform us.”
“Well,” Vali said, “What was I to say? Oh by the way, last night, it wasn’t the two elves, it was me making babies with Morrigan?”
Soren said, “Good on you!” He was speaking to Alistair, now, and had long given up on the discussion. “Killed the archdemon. Now someone can tell those boys we can all go home…”
The knights were beginning to venture near the corpse of the archdemon, maybe to even poke it in disbelief. “Selim, Lira!” Soren called out. “Let’s go secure the archdemon corpse. We’ll need more blood for the Joining ritual…”
They sauntered off in the general direction of the archdemon corpse, accompanied by Alistair who had evidently nothing better to do.
“I need a drink,” Gareth said, finally. Almost mournfully, as if he’d been quite overcome by the situation and wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Dio wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulder.
“If it helps,” he said cheerfully, “So do I. Several drinks. Want to see if we can get Oghren to part with some of his brew?”
And so they did.