Chapter 5: The Price of the Grey
The boat was small, a narrow-hulled skiff meant for quick crossings. It rocked gently beneath Daylen’s boots as he settled on the damp thwart facing Duncan. The veteran Warden took up the oars, his movements efficient and strong, pushing them away from the pier with a soft grunt of effort.
The mist clung to the surface of Lake Calenhad like gauze, swallowing the Tower’s reflection and muffling the world. The only sounds were the dip and pull of the oars, the lap of water against the hull, and the distant, lonely cry of a waterbird. Daylen watched the familiar silhouette of his prison—his home—dissolve into the grey-white nothingness.
Duncan rowed in silence for a long while, his eyes fixed on a point in the mist only he could see. Finally, he spoke, his voice low and steady, cutting through the damp air. “They’ll tell you I saved you. Conscripted you to spare you from punishment.”
Daylen kept his gaze on the vanishing shore. “It wasn’t a lie.”
“It’s not the full truth, either,” Duncan said, never missing a stroke. “Greagoir wanted you made Tranquil. Irving argued for leniency. I argued for you. I told them you had the makings of a Grey Warden. That the order needed someone with your… particular talents.”
“My talents.” Daylen’s laugh was hollow. “You mean my ability to be a useful idiot in a senior enchanter’s scheme.”
Duncan’s eyes finally flicked to him, sharp and assessing. “I mean your resilience. Your loyalty, even when it was misplaced. Your power, which you wield with more control than mages twice your age. The Circle sees a tool to be managed. I see a weapon to be aimed.” He leaned into another pull. “There’s a difference.”
The simplicity of it was jarring. At the Tower, every action was layered, every motivation obscured by politics and fear. Duncan’s blunt appraisal was like a cold wash of lake water. “Where are you aiming me?”
“South. To Ostagar.” Duncan’s expression darkened. “King Cailan is there, massing his forces against the darkspawn horde spilling from the Wilds. He’s… optimistic. Thinks it will be a glorious battle to sing of in the taverns.”
“And you don’t.”
“I’ve fought darkspawn. There’s no glory in it. Only filth, and blood, and a song that ends in a choking gurgle.” He shipped the oars for a moment, letting the boat drift. The mist was beginning to thin, hints of green shoreline emerging. “Our purpose is ending Blights. This isn’t a Blight yet, but the horde is larger than any I’ve seen in my lifetime. Something is stirring them up. We need more Wardens. Which is where you come in.”
“The initiation,” Daylen said.
“Yes. It’s done at a Warden base, with darkspawn blood. It’s… arduous. Not all survive.” He said it plainly, a fact of life like the mist or the cold. “Two other recruits will be joining us. Daveth, a cutpurse from Denerim with good eyes and quicker hands. And Ser Jory, a knight from Redcliffe. A good fighter, if a bit… verbose about his pregnant wife.”
Daylen absorbed this. A thief and a knight. Not the company he’d have imagined keeping. “And after?”
“If you survive, you stand with us at Ostagar. You’ll meet the King. And then you do what Wardens do. You fight. You kill darkspawn. And you listen for the Calling.”
The skiff grounded itself on the southern shore with a soft crunch of gravel. Duncan stepped out, seawater soaking his boots to the ankle, and held out a hand. Daylen took it, the grip firm and calloused. When he stood on the solid earth of the mainland, he turned. The Tower was gone, completely erased by the lingering mist and the growing distance. A chapter closed so finally it felt like a physical severing.
The journey south was a blur of hard roads and cold camps. Duncan was a quiet travel companion, his observations terse and practical. They joined a merchant caravan for a stretch, and Daylen felt the weight of stares. The shaved head, the staves strapped to his back—it marked him as a mage as clearly as a brand. He saw mothers pull children closer, guards grip their sword hilts tighter. Duncan would just position himself slightly between Daylen and the suspicious glances, a silent, formidable barrier.
They reached Ostagar as the sun was setting behind the fortress’s jagged, ancient stones. The sight stole Daylen’s breath.
It was chaos rendered in firelight and shadow. A vast camp sprawled across the valley below the fortress ruins, a sea of tents and cookfires that stained the twilight smoke-grey. The air thrummed with a low-grade panic masked by forced bravado—the clang of smiths hammering blades, the gruff laughter of soldiers, the bawdy songs from makeshift taverns. And beneath it all, the smell: unwashed bodies, horse dung, boiling stew, and the sharp, clean scent of cold steel.
Duncan led him through the chaos with the ease of a man navigating his own home. They passed ranks of Ferelden soldiers in their leathers and mail, groups of chevaliers from Orlais looking disdainful, and hard-eyed dwarves from Orzammar standing stoically apart. The tension between the factions was a live wire in the air.
They climbed the stone steps into the fortress itself, the noise fading into a grim, militaristic hush. In a torch-lit alcove off the main yard, two men waited.
One was lean and wiry, with a sharp face and eyes that never stopped moving. He wore patched leathers and leaned against the wall with a practiced casualness, flipping a dagger over his knuckles. Daveth.
The other was a mountain of a man in worn but well-maintained plate armor. He had a broad, honest face currently creased with anxiety, and he was pacing. Ser Jory.
“Ho! The gang’s all here,” Daveth said, sheathing his dagger with a flick. He looked Daylen up and down. “Maker’s breath, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren’t they? A mage? Don’t you folks normally, you know, explode?”
“Only on Tuesdays,” Daylen said flatly.
Daveth’s eyebrows shot up, then he grinned. “Cheeky. I like it.”
Ser Jory stopped pacing and approached, his hand extended. “Ser Jory of Redcliffe. You are…?”
“Daylen. Of the Circle Tower.”
Jory’s grip was firm, but he dropped Daylen’s hand a little too quickly. “A mage. Right. Duncan mentioned. I’m sure you’re… very capable.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“He survived his Harrowing,” Duncan said, joining them. “That means he’s more capable than most you’ll meet here. Remember that.”
Before Jory could muster a reply, a new voice cut in, light and laced with a sarcastic edge. “Is this the sad bunch of misfits we’re calling reinforcements? I’m genuinely concerned.”
A man in silverite Grey Warden armor walked over. He was about Daylen’s age, maybe a year or two older, with an unruly mop of blonde hair and a face that seemed naturally inclined toward a smirk. He carried a large shield on his back.
“Alistair,” Duncan said, a hint of long-suffering affection in his tone. “Our other recruit. Daylen, meet Alistair. He survived his Joining six months ago. Try not to let his commentary lower your morale.”
Alistair’s smirk widened into a genuine grin as he looked at Daylen. He completely ignored Daveth and Jory for a moment. “A mage! Finally, someone who might appreciate a good fireball over a painfully dull sword technique. Did they really shave your head like that, or was it a dare gone wrong?”
Despite everything—the journey, the tension, the impending sense of doom—Daylen felt a corner of his mouth twitch upward. “It’s regulation. Lets the demons know we’re serious.”
Alistair snorted. “Right, because nothing says ‘I’m a formidable arcane adversary’ like a scalp you could use to signal ships.” He leaned in a little, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “So, between us, how many of these templars around here have you been secretly itching to turn into toads?”
“Only the rude ones,” Daylen replied, playing along. “So, most of them.”
Alistair laughed, a quick, bright sound that felt out of place in the grim fortress. “I think we’re going to get along just fine. Come on, Duncan’s probably going to bore you to death with tactics and supply lines. I, however, can point you to the cook who doesn’t spit in the stew.”
As Alistair led him away, chattering about the sorry state of the latrines and which drill sergeants to avoid, Daylen glanced back. Daveth was watching them with amused interest. Ser Jory was staring, his face a mixture of disapproval and deep unease.
For the first time since leaving the Tower, the tight coil of loneliness in Daylen’s chest loosened, just a little. In this loud, fearful, messy world, he’d found another outlier. He didn’t know what the Joining would bring, or if he’d survive it. But as he followed Alistair through the torchlit stones of Ostagar, the future felt less like a solitary march into darkness, and more like walking beside someone who, for now, wasn’t looking at him like he was a bomb about to go off.
But as he followed Alistair through the torchlit stones of Ostagar, the future felt less like a solitary march into darkness, and more like walking beside someone who, for now, wasn’t looking at him like he was a bomb about to go off. “First rule of being a Warden recruit,” Alistair said, steering them past a group of dour-looking chevaliers. “Find food that hasn’t been sat on by a dwarf. It’s a rare commodity.”
He led Daylen down a narrower set of steps cut into the fortress’s inner wall, the noise of the main camp fading into a damp, subterranean quiet. The air grew colder, smelling of wet stone and old neglect. At the bottom was a small, barred cell dug into the rockface, where a gaunt man in tattered militia colors clutched the iron bars.
“He’s a deserter they dragged in last week,” Alistair muttered, his usual flippancy gone. “They’re just letting him… wait.”
The prisoner’s eyes locked onto Daylen’s robes. “You,” he croaked. “Mage. You have magic. Can you… can you bring me something to eat? Please. They forget I’m down here.”
Daylen glanced at Alistair, who shrugged, his expression uneasy. Without a word, Daylen turned and climbed back to the bustling main yard. He found a soldier finishing a heel of hard bread and a strip of dried venison, bargaining with a few coppers from his own meager purse. The soldier handed it over with a grunt, eyeing Daylen’s shaved head with suspicion.
The prisoner snatched the food through the bars, devouring it with feral urgency. Between ragged breaths, he whispered, “Thank you. Under that loose stone in the corner. A key. Took it from a mage who died on the journey here. Useless to me. Maybe not to you.”
Daylen pushed the cold, rough stone with his boot. A small iron key lay in the dirt. He pocketed it, the metal feeling strangely heavy. The prisoner just curled around his bread, already retreating back into his own private despair.
Back in the watery sunlight, Alistair was leaning against a wall. “Charity work done? Don’t let the Chantry see, they might get ideas.”
“He had a key,” Daylen said simply.
“Of course he did. Because this place wasn’t strange enough.” Alistair pushed off the wall. “Right. Next vital mission. See that hutch over by the kennels? The one sounding like a tubercular bear?”
The sound was a deep, wet, hacking cough. Inside a penned-off area, a massive, brindled mabari war hound lay on its side, ribs heaving. A young kennel boy was patting its head, looking near tears.
“His name’s Barkspawn, original, I know,” Alistair said. “He’s sick. The kennel master says only a specific moss-flower from the Wilds might clear his lungs. But no one’s going to risk their neck for a dog, not with the horde out there.”
The hound’s liquid brown eyes met Daylen’s. They held a desperate, knowing intelligence. He thought of the Tower, of the cold utility of things. A tool, a weapon, a thing to be managed. “Where in the Wilds?” he asked the boy.
The boy’s face lit up. “The southern ridges, ser! It grows near the old peat bogs, white petals with a red center. You’ll do it? Really?”
“If I go there, I’ll look,” Daylen said. It wasn’t a promise, but it was something. The boy nodded fiercely, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
The quartermaster was a brick of a man named Hargrave, sweating behind a table laden with gear. “Duncan said you get standard issue,” he growled, not looking up from his ledger. “Leathers, mail hauberk, plain longsword. Take it or leave it.”
Daylen slid the iron key from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I was told this might open a mage’s chest.”
Hargrave’s eyes flicked to the key, then to Daylen’s face. A slow, calculating smile spread under his thick beard. He reached below the table and hauled up a dust-covered oak chest with iron bindings. The key slid in and turned with a satisfying clunk.
Inside, nestled in velvet worn thin by time, lay a set of enchanted robes, deep grey and silver-threaded, and a staff of polished oak capped with a pulsating blue crystal. “Belonged to some Warden mage who didn’t make it back from the Deep Roads fifty years ago,” Hargrave said. “I’ll trade you. Your standard issue for this. Even swap.”
It wasn’t even. The gear in the chest hummed with potential, a whisper of power the mundane leathers could never match. “Done,” Daylen said.
As he hefted the staff, feeling its familiar weight, a voice like smoothed river stones cut through the din of the armory. “That is Keeper Elathan’s focus. I would recognize its song anywhere.”
Senior Enchanter Wynne stood a few feet away, her hands folded calmly before her austere robes. Her gaze was neither friendly nor hostile, but profoundly assessing. A silence stretched between them, thick with the unspoken history of the Tower, of Irving’s study, of the desperation in Leorah’s chambers.
“You are Daylen,” she stated. “Irving spoke of you. He said you showed remarkable control, for one so… passionate.”
Daylen met her eyes. “He helped arrange my departure.”
“He did.” Wynne’s expression softened by a degree. “I am sorry for the manner of it. Greagoir’s fear is a blunt instrument.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “I heard of your Harrowing. To face a desire demon and not only resist but banish it… that is a rare strength. Do not let the distrust of strangers dim it.”
A spark, hot and defensive, flared in his chest. “Is that an instruction, Senior Enchanter?”
“An observation,” she corrected gently. “The Circle’s walls are behind you. What you build now is of your own making. Choose your materials wisely.” She gave the staff in his hand a final, thoughtful look, then nodded once and melted back into the stream of soldiers.
Alistair let out a low whistle. “She seems… intense. In a calm, ‘I could turn you inside out with a thought’ kind of way.”
“She’s one of the best,” Daylen said, the old respect slipping through despite everything. “Come on. Duncan’s waiting.”
They found Duncan’s campfire in a secluded corner of the upper ruins, the flames painting his stern face in flickering oranges and deep shadows. Daveth was already there, honing his dagger on a whetstone. Ser Jory stood stiffly, arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Took your time,” Duncan said, not unkindly. “Sit. The sun is fading, and your task begins now.”
Daylen and Alistair sat on the low stones around the fire. The warmth felt good against the creeping evening chill.
“The Joining requires three things,” Duncan began, his voice low and serious. “A draft prepared from ancient recipes, a vessel of lyrium, and the blood of the darkspawn. We have the first two. The third must be gathered by you, the recruits.”
Daveth looked up from his dagger. “So we’re going darkspawn hunting? Lovely.”
“In a manner of speaking.” Duncan poked the fire with a stick. “During the last expedition into the Korcari Wilds, a contingent of Grey Wardens secreted a cache of supplies in a ruin deep within the marshes. Among those supplies are vials of darkspawn blood, preserved for this purpose. Your task is to find that cache and retrieve three vials.”
Ser Jory shifted his weight. “You want us to go into the Wilds? At night? With the horde gathering?”
“The horde is massing further east. The path to the ruins is still clear, if dangerous. This is your test. To see if you can follow the maps, navigate the terrain, and face what waits in the dark.” Duncan’s eyes swept over each of them. “Alistair will lead you. He knows the markers.”
Alistair’s playful demeanor was gone, replaced by a focused grimness. “It’s not a pleasant walk. The Wilds are… unhappy. And the ruins aren’t empty. But the Wardens who laid the cache would have warded it. We find the wards, we find the blood.”
“And if we don’t?” Daylen asked.
Duncan met his gaze squarely, the firelight catching the hard lines of his face. “Then there is no Joining. And you will be returned to your previous lives.” He didn’t need to elaborate. For Daylen, it meant the Tower, Greagoir, and the brand of tranquility. For Jory, his family in Redcliffe. For Daveth, the gallows.
The silence that followed was filled with the crackle of the fire and the distant, rhythmic clash of drills from the camp below. Daveth sheathed his dagger with a sharp click. “Well. Standing here isn’t getting it done, is it?”
Jory muttered a prayer under his breath. Alistair stood, shouldering his shield. Daylen felt the weight of the new staff in his hand, the unfamiliar drape of the Warden-issue robes. He thought of the key in his pocket, the sick mabari’s eyes, Wynne’s measured words. These were his materials now.
“We move at first dark,” Alistair said, his voice all business. “Check your gear. It’s a long way down, and the marshes don’t care if you’re ready.” He looked at Daylen, and the ghost of his earlier smirk returned. “Try not to set the whole place on fire. Probably.”
Daylen nodded, the last of the Tower’s honeyed light fading in his mind, replaced by the immediate, tangible dark of the looming Wilds and the blood they needed to find.