A Warden's Story: Chapter 1

I wrote it in a Dragon Age roleplaying forum :o Will write more shortly.

The wind howled cruelly in her ears as she made her way out of the treacherous mountain passes. Cliffs and steep rocky hills surrounded her, had always surrounded, there would never be anything more than cliffs and rocky hills. They had been her only sight for as long as her memory reached, despite she doubted that it reached back for more than a few hours. But it could not have been more than just that. Sweat ran down her face, she herself chilled to the bone, the freezing wind pulling her cloak towards the mountains. Towards templars, and sure death. Desperately she marched onwards, slowly making her way away from them and the mountains. They must have had a hard time with this wind, too, with that heavy armor they wear. If I'm already so tired, they must be double the same. At least a dozen templars had followed her and her friends, till suddenly striking in the calm of the night. Some had fled, including her, but she had seen the templars had pull some of the runners back and kill them. She had ran without much looking back, horrified of such powers. At first she had heard her friends' cries in the night as the templars cut them down one by one, but soon it had been replaced by a total silence. She had startled at every crack, every sound in the night as if it might've bore an arrow down at her, but nothing had happened for a while. Not so much than a few hours ago she had heard the first signs of pursuit; distant cries of the pursuing templars echoing from the steep mountain passes. She had come the long way down into the open plains, her eyes now frantically searching for a place to hide. For some hole to cower in. She found none; the plains were dark and empty, completely lifeless.

 

Her dark dress was ragged by the journey, the once shining and beautiful silver decorations now dim and dark. The sun was already rising; it was not a perfect darkness anymore, and her dark dress stood out in the open like a patch of black against dark gray. She lied down behind a low hill, temporarily hidden from the eyes of the templars, giving herself a moment to calm down. They're not far behind me. If there'd be any hiding places in these flaming plains...then they would obviously look there first. I can only flee from them... a distant cry reminded her of the present danger. But somehow it seemed to come from closer this time. She crawled to the edge of the low, stark hill to get a look at the mountain passes. She was greeted by a crisp, cold breeze from the mountains, bearing more sounds with it than just the sad howling. Yelling. Templars. She could not make out what they were shouting, but then a templar appeared around a corner. He held his helmet in his right hand, but other than that she could not make out much of what he looked like. Dark hair, dark beard, tall and slender. His figure bent backwards as he shouted to his companions. She had seen enough. Crawling back down the steep hill, she felt her heart bumping under her dress. At least I won't go down without a fight. She brushed it aside and tried to concentrate on channeling her magic. Suddenly the whole air around her seemed to ripple. The heat. She channeled her anger, anguish, fear and every other feeling with the magic, emptying herself of all emotion and feeling for the time being. Standing up, she watched as a roaring inferno left from her fingertips at the templars. They hadn't gone a long way down the dirt road yet. The dark-haired templar had yelled frightfully and leaped away from the inferno's path, and most of the templars had followed his lead. Four of them were too slow; she watched as their bodies burst to flame like torches, the fire consuming them much quicker than a normal fire.

 

"Apostate!" The templars spread out in a wide half-circle and approached her, half running, half trotting. She sent a bolt of lightning at the foremost templar, knocking him a few paces backwards. But he stood up and ran back in line with the rest of his comrades. Mavenna grimaced. School of Nature had never been one of her strong points. The ground heaved under the templars' heavy boots... and primitive cries filled the air. The templars looked down, surprised, but a greater danger was approaching from the mountains. At least twenty darkspawn had followed the templars quietly. Now they charged down the steep foothills, catching the surprised templars completely off balance. The ground was still heaving under their feet, and most of them were lying on the ground, unable to get up due to the extremely uncooperative ground. The darkspawn fell, too, but some managed to fall on top of the templars. Soon the ground was full of wrestling templars and darkspawn, each trying to stab the other with their swords. When the earthquake suddenly stopped, there were five templars left. The dark-haired templar got on his feet, glaring at her before launching himself at the darkspawn. "When I'm done with these, I'll get you!" His face was angry and determined, but his voice shook. He was not sure. Mavenna gasped for air as the weariness hit her. She had used a lot of energy there, almost too much for her to handle. She felt a desperate need to sleep, but she knew that she couldn't. Despite her best efforts, she could not resist the urge. Soon the sounds of battle crept outside her consciousness, leaving only a deep, dark silence.

 

Darin eyed the horizon curiously. It was most evidently just a regular darkspawn raid, and his task more important than slaughtering a few of them. He supposed it wouldn't hurt at all to dispose of them quickly, but even he acknowledged the thought utter folly and wool-headed heroism. Wearily he picked up his pace and trotted onward on the stone-paved road. The feeling tingled at the back of his head, gentle but fierce: darkspawn. At first it was faint, but the more he ran towards Denerim - his horse had been stolen during the night he spent in a village inn - the more he became aware of the tingling. It almost didn't exist, but at the same time it was more real than the ground below him. It almost pulled him towards the darkspawn. Darin winced; he hated the feeling. He wasn't sure if it was the awareness of darkspawn or his own mind playing tricks on him, yet he always felt an urge to chase them. Wherever there were darkspawn, there would he hunt and slay them in scores. More often than not in scores; he was very competent with his blade. When he was finally pulled away from his thoughts, it was for another reason that he would have suspected. Far in the distance, towards where the mountains lay, he saw whirling figures leaping and screaming at each other. The tingling feeling also seemed to pull him in that direction. He took up the offer graciously; luck was hard to come by these days.

Darin felt for his sword hilt, softly sliding it out of its scabbard as he strode towards the fighting darkspawn and templars. He moved with a deadly grace customary to most Wardens; in fact he had never met one without it, not counting in the novices. They learned it quickly, anyway. Snarling at the darkspawn, he hurled himself into a deadly dance amidst the howling beasts. The templars finished off a few heads for him here and there, but most of the killing still came from him. The first one he had caught between the ribs, the sword piercing its lifeless lungs, and the second had fallen to a whirling slash as it had attempted a wild slash from behind Darin. Finally, as Darin's sword pierced the last of the darkspawn, he came to notice that the templars were dead, too. Or as close to dead as they could be. Three still stood with gaping gashes running across their dented and battered breastplates, which Darin had heard were more for the show rather than offering the promised protection. Brushing the thought aside, he made himself concentrate on the obvious questions. Mostly, why were the templars here?

He asked them, and found himself eye-to-eye with a dark-bearded fellow who carried himself like a lord. His face seemed like stone, but emotion flickered in his eyes. He met his gaze coolly, but could not stop himself thinking that the fellow was dangerous; perhaps too dangerous for him to tolerate at the moment. Darin frowned at the dead darkspawn, some of them still twitching, he noticed. It didn't surprise him; darkspawn were always reluctant to give up their new-found lives. Just then he heard the templar answer.

"We came here in the footsteps of a dangerous maleficar, who killed a score of my men."

Darin turned his gaze at the templar, realizing that the templar frowned too. But he had seen no maleficar as of yet. And he didn't agree with the templar way of doing things, anyway.

"Maleficar? Would you be kind enough to show me to him, and without beating him to death first?"

He could not keep the sting out of his words. The templar glared at him for a long time, but then motioned him to follow. As soon as Darin saw the woman lying on the grass unconscious, he lashed out at the templars.

"Why did the woman pass out? I would say that she simply defended herself from being cut to pieces by you."

For a moment the templar looked furious. With an effort he held it back, but still his every word sounded of hard-suppressed anger.

"You don't have any authority..." his words trailed off into silence as Darin cut him off. He didn't know why he did it, but there he was interrupting an officer, while he himself was pledged to neutrality.

"I have more than you think. Who killed the darkspawn? Who saved your lives? You owe me your lives. But I happen to know a way you could repay me. Go back to your Chantry and leave the girl to me."

Now the templar didn't look furious anymore. He was abashed. Finally, he nodded, but still looked Darin in the eye. His voice was bitter.

"Fine, Warden. But don't think that it ends here. Your order has always been neutral. I wonder how long that lasts?"

He strode off limping with the two remaining templars, leaving Darin to take care of the woman. Darin scowled after him. They wouldn't survive the journey back to the nearest city.

 

Author's Note

Spare no expense, be as harsh as you can!