Legend (Dragon Age Origins)

Chapter 17: An Assassin Never Misses His Mark

Dawn was breaking, casting the first few rays of its light across Lake Calenhad and through the stained glass windows that lined the main hall. The coloured light decorated the bodies of the corpses that lay across the timber floorboards. With Connor's magic gone, they were no longer undead, returned simply to just flesh and bone.

Isolde muttered prayers for the men that once were as they passed through the hall and stepped out into the courtyard. A wide blue sky greeted them, accompanied by a cooling breeze that whistled through a beautiful tulip garden that lined the path to the gates. It was odd to imagine the horrors that had occurred within these great stone walls.

Dru and Morrigan helped Alistair to raise the castle gates, revealing the village of Redcliffe that lay before it in tranquil silence. The outcome from the night's battle would have to wait. As they crossed the stone bridge toward the village, Dru looked out past the castle and across the lake. In the far distance, the silhouette of the Circle Tower could just be seen through the morning fog that rolled over the water's surface.

"I'm not sure things will go as you hope," Dru said quietly to Alistair.

"I know," he admitted. "But Eamon and Teagan... Not so long ago, they were all that I had."

Isolde stopped at the centre of the bridge and turned back to them.

"Thank you for helping me," she said. "And I am sorry."

Her apology was directed to Alistair, to the boy she had forced out of the only home he knew. Alistair nodded in silence, and Dru knew that he had forgiven her long ago. For all his buffoonery, the man possessed a quality to him that she knew could scarcely be found in others.

*

The Grey Wardens watched from the hilltop as the people of Redcliffe mourned the deaths of their friends and family. The bodies of those lost in the battle were laid down into small boats and sent out across Lake Calenhad. From the shore, a Chantry priestess sang a prayer while archers shot out lit arrows that set the bodies aflame.

"I do not see how this is a victory when half of their own are dead," Sten stated.

"I agree," Leliana said sadly.

When they had returned to the village, Dru was ecstatic to find that they had survived. But neither Sten nor Leliana could find the strength to return her glee. They sat against the windmill alongside a few of Teagan's knights, listening to the horrified cries of the villagers as they discovered how many had died.

Later, once they had rested, Leliana told them what had happened. The fight carried on throughout most of the night. The undead had begun pushing the militia back, forcing them to retreat toward the village square. A few of the undead had managed to get past them and tried to break through the boarded windows of the Chantry, and were pushed back by the makeshift weapons that the children within held.

And then, once all seemed lost, the undead bodies dropped. They were all puzzled as it what had happened, suspecting a trap, but Leliana and Sten knew that their friends had confronted the evil within the castle. 

During the remaining hours of the night, the surviving villagers worked together to pile the undead onto a giant pyre by the docks. Although they knew that the corpses belonged to members of someone's family, they were afraid that the curse within the bodies would taint anyone who touched them. A wise precaution, in Sten's opinion. A testament that some men will never understand magic, was Morrigan's.