Chapter 20: Breakfast and Departure Plans
The dawn was a cold, grey promise over the lake. Mist clung to the water’s surface like ghostly fingers, and the campfire was a pit of defiant red embers fighting the damp. Daylen worked a whetstone along the edge of his longsword with a rhythmic, whispering scrape. The sound was methodical, calming. Each pass ground away a little more of the demon ichor, a little more of the previous day’s chaos.
Alistair wasn’t having any calm. He paced a trench in the soft earth near the shore, his boots squelching. “It has to be Redcliffe next. Logically, strategically, it just makes sense.”
“Your logic smells of sentiment,” Morrigan said, not looking up from where she was meticulously repacking her pouches of reagents. “You wish to see your foster father. Do not dress it in strategy’s clothes.”
“It’s not just that!” Alistair stopped, throwing his hands up. “Redcliffe is a major arling. It’s defensible. It has troops. And it’s on the way to Denerim from the Circle. See? Logic.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “Also, yes, I’d like to make sure Arl Eamon isn’t dead. Call me sentimental.”
Wynne, seated on a log and mending a tear in her robe, smiled softly. “There is no shame in caring for one’s family, Alistair. Even fostered family.”
“Thank you, Wynne! See? Wisdom.”
Morrigan snorted. “Wisdom is not allowing personal attachment to cloud military necessity. We have other treaties. The Dalish are mobile, their lands less besieged. Orzammar is a fortress. Both could be reached without traipsing across the entirety of Ferelden.”
“The Dalish won’t answer a shem’s call unless a dragon is biting their halla,” Leliana murmured, her fingers gently checking the tension on her lute’s strings. She sat cross-legged by the embers, the soft light painting her face in warm tones. “And Orzammar… my contacts say the dwarves are locked in a deep feud. A paragon’s grace would be needed just to get past the door. Alistair is not entirely wrong.”
Leliana’s words hung in the chill air, a quiet truth that seemed to sap the warmth from the embers. Alistair’s pacing slowed, his frustration giving way to a grimace of concession. He opened his mouth, another retort ready, but Daylen’s voice cut through the morning quiet, flat and final as the stone on his blade.
"Enough," Daylen declared. He set the whetstone down with a definitive clack. All eyes turned to him. "Loghain has secured the regency through fear. Fear of the darkspawn, and fear of the consequences of not doing so." He stood, sheathing his sword with a sharp click. "Arl Eamon is respected. He's a voice of reason, and he’s on our home turf. He's the best chance we have to pull the Bannorn together."
Morrigan’s eyes narrowed, a rebuttal forming, but Daylen pressed on, his gaze sweeping the camp. "If we are divided when the Blight truly hits—when it isn’t just rumors and scouting parties, but a tide washing over the land—we are fucked. Completely. It's Redcliffe. That's the call."
The finality in his tone brooked no argument. Alistair’s shoulders lost their defensive hunch, and a flicker of relieved gratitude passed over his face. Wynne gave a slow, approving nod. Sten merely grunted, which from him was as good as a shouted agreement.
A polite cough shattered the tense silence that followed. From the tree line, a stout, well-dressed dwarf stepped into the clearing, followed by a younger dwarf with a placid, faraway smile. "My most humble apologies for the interruption, dear Wardens," Bodahn Feddic said, doffing his hat with a flourish. "I couldn't help but overhear your… spirited debate. A treacherous business, politics, especially on an empty stomach and with dull steel!"
Sandal, his nephew, stood quietly behind him, clutching a large, oilcloth-wrapped bundle. "Enchantments?" he offered softly, his eyes wide and hopeful.
Bodahn chuckled, patting the boy's shoulder. "Indeed! We've come from the Tower market, and what with the recent unpleasantness, they were practically giving things away to see a friendly face with coin. I procured some items that might aid your noble, if somewhat loud, endeavor."
He gestured, and Sandal laid the bundle on a relatively dry patch of moss, untying it with careful fingers. The cloth fell away to reveal several pieces of expertly crafted leather and metal armor, along with a small, felt-lined case holding a collection of glowing rune stones.
"Now this," Bodahn said, lifting a brigandine vest of dusky grey leather reinforced with interlocking steel plates, "is Antivan corsair make. Light as a feather, stops a blade like a castle gate. Thought it might suit the Lady Nightingale." He winked at Leliana, who leaned forward with immediate interest.
For Sten, there were massive, etched vambraces of solid steel. "Qunari design, or a fine imitation. Improves grip and balance for a two-handed swing, or so the smith claimed." Sten took one, hefting it, and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod of approval.
Alistair was already poking at a new, polished shield boss. "Ooh, shiny. Less dented than mine."
"And for the mages," Bodahn continued, turning to the rune case. "A selection of elemental and reinforcement runes. Frost, fire, healing for the staves and blades. This lovely paragon's work," he said, pointing to a rune that pulsed with a deep, earthy light, "fortifies armor against magical force. A prudent investment, given your proclivity for attracting the arcane sort of trouble."
Daylen picked up a rune that shimmered with barely-contained lightning. The energy tingled against his palm, a promise of focused power. "These are… impressive, Bodahn. And not cheap, even at a discount."
The merchant waved a dismissive hand. "Consider it an investment in Ferelden's future! And a guarantee that my future customers remain alive to, ah, frequent my establishment. Besides," he added, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "seeing the great Hero of the Circle Tower in my wares is its own kind of advertisement."
They spent the next hour fitting and testing. The sound of buckles being fastened, of leather creaking and metal plates settling, replaced the earlier argument. Leliana spun in her new armor, admiring its flexibility. Alistair practiced raising his refurbished shield with a solid thump. Daylen carefully slotted the lightning rune into the crossguard of his longsword; it flashed once, and a faint, static hum resonated up the blade.
Wynne watched them all, her expression a mix of maternal pride and deep concern. Her eyes lingered on Daylen as he moved through a few practice forms, the new energy in his weapon leaving brief after-images in the damp air. "Do not let sharper steel make you reckless," she said softly, more to herself than anyone.
Morrigan, who had accepted a set of reinforced leather greaves with a look of mild disdain, approached Sandal. The young dwarf was hunched over a spare dagger, muttering as he traced a finger over its edge. A faint, cold blue light followed his touch.
"Can you bind a rune of paralysis?" Morrigan asked, her voice curious rather than demanding.
Sandal looked up, his smile serene. "Enchantment!" he said brightly, and produced a milky-white rune from his pocket.
As the sun finally broke above the trees, casting long, sharp shadows, the camp was a picture of focused preparation. The debate was settled, the path chosen. The dread of the Blight was still a shadow on the horizon, but for now, they were better armed to face it. Daylen adjusted the strap on his newly-runed gauntlet and looked toward the road south.
"Redcliffe," he said, and the word felt like a first step.
"Redcliffe," he said, and the word felt like a first step.
Two days of hard travel later, that step had become a brutal slog through muddy foothills and stinging autumn rain. Bodahn’s promised armor had waited for them at a crossroads inn, crated and paid for with the last of their shared coin from the Tower’s spoils. Unpacking it in the inn’s cramped stable felt like a grim kind of holiday.
Daylen’s new plate was a profound, startling white. The brilliant steel caught the dim stable light like a shard of moon. Intricate etchings of the Grey Warden griffon wove across the breastplate and pauldrons, and a deep blue sash crossed his chest. He moved in it, the joints whispering. It felt less like wearing metal and more like being sheathed in a frozen melody.
“Show-off,” Alistair grunted, struggling with his own set. His was a wall of dark, oiled steel, each plate thick as a thumb. The pauldrons were monstrous slabs. When he finally stood, buckled in, he seemed to occupy twice his usual space. He took an experimental step. The floorboards groaned.“Okay. I feel… geological. If a mountain could waddle.”
Sten’s armor was a statement of pure, brutal mass. Forged for a Clydesdale, it layered steel plates over boiled leather in a way that made the Qunari’s already immense frame look like a moving siege engine. The helmet was a brutal cage of metal, leaving only a narrow slit for his eyes. He stood by the door, a statue of wrought violence. The stable boy had dropped a bucket of oats and fled without a word.
“He’ll cause as many deaths by heart attack as from his blade,” Leliana observed, adjusting her Antivan leathers with a satisfied smirk.
Morrigan looked them over, one eyebrow arched. “A traveling menagerie of polished threats.How subtle. We will announce our arrival from a league away.”
“Good,” Daylen said, his voice muffled slightly inside his beautiful, winged helmet. “Let them see us coming. Let Loghain’s spies report exactly what’s marching to Eamon’s gates.”
The final day’s approach to Redcliffe was deceptively quiet. The village below the castle seemed asleep under a blanket of grey mist from the lake. No farmers in the fields. No smoke from chimneys. Only the grim, steady banner of the Theirin crest flying from the castle’s highest tower offered any sign of life. The silence was a physical pressure.
“This is wrong,” Alistair muttered, his voice tinny inside his helm. His heavy plate seemed to absorb the unsettling quiet, making him a darker blot against the road. “It’s like a tomb.”
They reached the village gate. It stood unbarred, slightly ajar. Daylen pushed it open with the back of his white gauntlet. The squeal of rusted hinges was the loudest sound for miles. The main street was empty. Doors swung on broken latches. A lone hound, ribs sharp against its skin, slunk from behind a rain barrel and vanished down an alley without barking.
Wynne moved past Daylen, her staff glowing with a soft, ready light. “There is no sickness here. No plague. This is fear.”
A single, choked sob cut the air. It came from a small house with a caved-in roof. Daylen gestured, and they moved as a unit, Sten’s monstrous form taking point. The door splintered inward under one gauntleted fist.
Inside, a woman huddled in a corner, clutching two children to her chest. Her eyes were wide, glazed with a terror so deep it had moved past screaming. One of the children, a boy of maybe six, pointed a trembling finger toward the ceiling. Toward the castle.
“They come at night,” the woman whispered, her voice raspy from disuse. “The dead ones. From the castle. They took my husband. He went to help. He… didn’t come back.”
Alistair took a step forward, his massive armor suddenly looking less imposing and more grotesque in the terrified woman’s hovel. “The dead? What do you mean?”
“The arl is sick,” the boy piped up, his voice shockingly clear. “And the dead are hungry. Sir Eamon’s son, the templar, he tries to stop them. But there’s too many.”
Daylen and Alistair locked eyes. A templar. Eamon’s son.
“We need to get up there,” Alistair said, all trace of humor gone. His voice was flat, cold iron
Their grim procession through the lifeless village was cut short by the hollow clank of a water pump. Around the village well, a small group had gathered. These were the ones not broken by fear, but forged by it into something hard and desperate. Their faces were gaunt, their hands gripping makeshift weapons—a sharpened hoe, a wood axe, a rusted pitchfork.
A man in a mud-spattered noble’s tunic, his posture tired but unbent, stepped forward. His eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep, widened fractionally at the sight of Sten’s armored bulk and Daylen’s startling white plate. “By the Maker. Reinforcements? From Denerim?” The hope in his voice was a fragile, brittle thing.
“Grey Wardens,” Daylen said, removing his winged helmet. The cold air felt sharp on his shaved head. The title landed in the silence with unexpected weight.
The nobleman’s face fell, then recalibrated into a kind of weary calculation. “Bann Teagan. Brother to Arl Eamon. These… are not the King’s men I prayed for. But you are armed, and you are here.” He gestured to the grim-faced villagers. “Murdock, our bann-captain. What’s left of the village militia.”
Murdock, a barrel-chested man with forearms like knotted rope, gave a curt nod. His eyes were fixed on the castle looming above them. “We barricade the chantry at dusk. They pour from the castle grounds every night.Shades. Walking corpses. More each time.”
“We can hold the chantry,” Teagan said, the statement sounding more like a plea. “But we cannot sally forth. We cannot reach the castle itself to discover the source of this.”
“What of the castle’s defenders?” Wynne asked, her healer’s instinct forefront. “You mentioned a templar.”
Teagan’s jaw tightened.“Ser Perth. My nephew. He holds the castle’s inner gate with a handful of loyal men. They’re trapped between whatever sickness has taken my brother and the dead that now stalk the outer halls. We haven’t had word in two days.” He looked directly at Alistair, recognizing the familiar heraldry on his dark shield. “You wear the Grey Warden sigil, but your armor… you trained with them, didn’t you? The templars.”
Alistair gave a single, stiff nod. “I did.”
“Then you understand the fortifications. The layout.” Teagan’s voice grew urgent. “If you could force a path to the inner gate, reinforce Perth…”
“We need to secure the village first,” Daylen interrupted, his tone leaving no room for debate. He’d seen the terrified woman, the empty streets. “A path behind us that’s overrun is no path at all. What do you need here?”
Murdock scratched his greying beard.“Men. Steel. The blacksmith, Owen, he’s been working night and day reforging anything metal into spearheads and repairing what mail we have. But his daughter, Valena… she was caught in the fields when this started. Holed up in a windmill to the east. He won’t leave his forge until she’s safe. It’s eating him alive.”
“We’ll get her,” Daylen said.
“Good.” Murdock’s gratitude was a quick, gruff thing. “The tavern,” he pointed down the lane to a building with a faded sign of a rose. “It’s our gathering point. Bella, the girl who runs it, she’s got a better head for the mood of this place than anyone. And she’s noticed… things.Talk to her. Whatever help you can give before nightfall, we’ll take.”
The party split with quiet efficiency, the unspoken understanding of impending battle guiding them. Alistair and Sten went with Murdock to assess the chantry’s defenses, their armored forms a sudden, shocking promise of strength among the haggard villagers.
Wynne moved toward the makeshift infirmary set up in the chantry’s antechamber, her satchel of herbs already open.
Daylen, with Leliana and Morrigan flanking him, made for the blacksmith. The forge was a pocket of defiant heat and furious noise in the cold silence. Owen was a massive man, his face sheened in sweat and soot, hammering a glowing piece of metal into a crude spearpoint. The rhythm was punishing, angry.
He didn’t look up as they entered. “If you need armor mended, leave it on the barrel. I’ll get to it if I’ve time before they come.”
“We’re here about Valena,” Daylen said, raising his voice over the clangor.
The hammer missed its strike, hitting the anvil with a dull, off-note clang. Owen slowly turned. His eyes, set deep in a face etched with exhaustion and terror, went from Daylen’s white armor to his shaved head. “A mage,” he stated, no accusation, just a flat recognition of fact. “Murdock sent you.”
“We can get to the windmill. Bring her back.”
Owen’s large hands trembled. He set the hammer down with exaggerated care. “She’s my only one. Her mother… gone. If the dead have her…” He swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing. “The windmill.East road. Don’t… don’t come back without her. Or don’t come back at all.”
The request was brutal in its honesty. Daylen met his gaze. “We’ll bring her.”
Next was the tavern,l. The common room was dim, lit by a single greasy lantern. It smelled of stale ale, damp wool, and a deeper, sour note of communal fear. A few villagers hunched over mugs, not drinking, just holding them for warmth.
Bella emerged from the back, wiping her hands on an apron. She was younger than Daylen expected, with sharp, intelligent eyes that took in his pristine armor and clean-shaven face without flinching. There was a weary beauty there, hardened by circumstances.
Bella’s gaze swept over Daylen, a frank, appraising look that lingered a second too long on the line of his jaw before snapping back to a businesslike sharpness. Her cheeks flushed a faint pink she couldn’t blame on the tavern’s meager heat. "Murdock said you'd come. You're… different than I expected."
"We get that a lot," Leliana offered with a gentle smile, trying to ease the woman's obvious tension.
"You've noticed things," Daylen said, cutting to the heart of it. He rested a hand on the back of a chair, the white metal of his gauntlet stark against the dark, scarred wood. "Murdock said you know the mood here better than anyone."
Bella’s eyes darted to the window, to the oppressive grey of the sky above the castle. "The dead don’t just shamble. They… remember. They go to places they knew. Old brewer Gethin’s corpse spends half the night rattling the latch on his cellar door. Millia, the baker’s daughter, she stands outside her family’s window, just… tapping." A small shudder ran through her. "It’s not mindless. That’s what frightens people the most. It’s personal."
Morrigan, who had been silent, shifted slightly. "A directed malice suggests a controlling intelligence. Something in the castle is not merely raising corpses. It is using them."
"The little boy," Leliana breathed, remembering the child in the hovel. "He said they were hungry."
Bella wrapped her arms around herself, as if the memory had its own chill. “Hungry for what, though? They don’t eat the barley they ruin. They just… break things. Hurt things. It’s like a child’s tantrum, but with claws.”
The image was too intimate, too specific. It settled in the room like a bad smell. Daylen pushed back from the table, the chair legs scraping against the stone floor. "Then we treat them like a storm," he said, his voice cutting through the cloying silence. "We don't reason with a storm. We board up the windows."
He turned to Bella, his movements decisive. "We need every flammable liquid you have. Oil, lamp fuel, strong whiskey. Barrels, pots, anything that can hold it and be thrown."
Bella blinked, shifting from witness to quartermaster in a heartbeat. "Owen's got smithy oil. The chantry's store-room has lantern fuel. The good vintage is under the floorboards behind the bar."
"Get it. All of it." He looked at Leliana. "Scout the perimeter. Find the choke points where the paths narrow, where they're forced to bunch up."
Leliana nodded, already moving for the door. "The alleys near the chantry gate. The space between the mill and the lake shore. Natural funnels."
"Morrigan," Daylen continued, "you and I will handle the munitions. Wynne, find Alistair and Sten. Have them start fortifying the chantry's main doors. No elegant solutions. We barricade."
Outside, the grey afternoon light was flat and cold. The work was brutal, simple, and deeply satisfying. There was no mystery to solve, only physics to exploit. Owen, upon hearing the plan, produced three great, reeking barrels of black, viscous smithy oil. They rolled them with a thunderous rumble over the cobbles, positioning them atop the low roof of the livery stable that overlooked the main approach to the chantry square.
"Run a rope trail down the side," Daylen instructed, heaving a barrel into final position. "We cut it, they roll, they break open on the cobbles."
"Crude," Morrigan observed, watching him hammer a wooden spike to keep a barrel from shifting.
"Effective," he grunted, wiping sweat from his brow with a greasy forearm.
Alistair and Sten were a force of nature at the chantry. Broken furniture, sacks of mildewed grain, and even a heavy, disused statue of Andraste were piled against the great oaken doors. "They'll have to chew through a mountain of junk to get in," Alistair said, patting a precariously stacked pew. "Hope they've got good teeth."
Sten simply tested the barricade with a shoulder shove. It didn't budge. He gave a single, approving nod.
Meanwhile, Murdock rallied his militia. They were a sorry-looking bunch—farmers with pitchforks, a poacher with a mean-looking bow, a carpenter wielding his own hammer. The fear in their eyes was a palpable thing, a sour taste in the air.
Daylen walked among them, his white armor a glaring beacon. He didn't give a speech. He stopped before a young man whose hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold his scythe.
"Look at me," Daylen said, his voice low but carrying.
The boy's eyes, wide with terror, flicked up.
"You're scared. Good. The dead aren't. They don't care if they lose an arm. They just keep coming. Your fear? That means you want to live. Use it. Aim for their legs. Tangle them. Your friend with the pitchfork there," he pointed to an older man, "he'll take the head. You work together. You don't have to be heroes. You just have to be a wall."
He moved on, adjusting a grip here, nudging a man into a better position there. It wasn't inspiration he offered; it was a manual. Simple, repeatable actions. A series of tasks to focus on instead of the yawning dread. Murdock watched, his own shoulders squaring as he saw his men stop trembling and start listening, their fear hardening into a grim focus.
As dusk began to stain the sky a deep purple, the final traps were set. Pots of oil, suspended by frayed ropes, hung above key alleyways. Caltrops fashioned from Owen's scrap metal were scattered in shadows. The village square was a killing field waiting for a spark.
Bella’s tavern was a dim, crowded sanctuary. The smell of cheap stew and nervous sweat replaced the earlier scents of dust and decay. Every villager not on the first watch was crammed inside, clutching mugs of weak ale. The air buzzed with a tense, exhausted energy.
Daylen and his team claimed a corner table, their armor creating an island of strange, hard surfaces amidst the worn wool and leather. Bella brought over a tray of bowls, her earlier boldness replaced by a brittle efficiency.
"Here," she said, setting a bowl before Daylen. "It's hot, at least."
Alistair sniffed his. "Is that… turnip?"
"It's grey," Bella corrected, walking away.
They ate in silence, the simple act of spooning lukewarm broth into their mouths feeling both mundane and surreal. Outside, the last sliver of sun vanished, swallowed by the lake. The world became a tapestry of deep blues and black, punctuated by the watch-fires they'd lit at the village's edge.
Wynne stirred the contents of her bowl. "They look to you, Daylen. You gave them a plan instead of promises. That was wise."
"He gave them distractions," Morrigan corrected softly, not looking up from her own meal. "Busy hands are too occupied to contemplate the void."
"Same thing," Alistair said, pushing his bowl away. He leaned back, his dark armor creaking. "So. We wait."
They waited. The tavern's single lantern cast wobbling shadows on the walls. The low murmur of villagers' prayers in the chantry next door was a constant, humming underscore. Time stretched, thin and taut. Every rustle of the night wind against the shutters, every settling of the old building’s timbers, was a footstep, a claw-scrape.
Daylen cleaned his already-spotless swords, the methodical swipe of the cloth the only sound at their table. Leliana checked and rechecked the fletching on her arrows. Sten sat perfectly still, eyes closed, conserving every ounce of energy. Morrigan traced invisible patterns on the wooden tabletop, her expression unreadable.
Alistair picked at a flaw in the table's grain. "Remember that tavern in Lothering?" he said to no one in particular. "The one with the terrible bard who only knew one song about a druffalo?"
A faint, strained smile touched Wynne's lips. "He was very committed to that druffalo."
"It was a passionate ballad," Leliana agreed, her voice a whisper. "For a farm animal."
The forced humor died as quickly as it sparked. The silence rushed back in, heavier now. They were a island of waiting in a sea of night, all of them—villagers, warriors, mages—listening for the same sound: the low, collective groan of the dead, rising from the castle on the hill, beginning their hungry shuffle down the path.
Daylen rested his hands on the pommels of his swords. The polished metal was cool under his palms. He looked at each of his companions in turn, then at the terrified, determined faces of the villagers huddled in the dim light. He took a slow breath, listening to the blood thrum in his ears, and watched the tavern door.
The only thing left was the wait.