Let them come.
With a shout of terror, one of the elder banns made a break for the chantry door. Loghain gracefully swept low toward him and knocked his legs out from underneath him. The man went down hard on the stone floor. He gasped and opened his eyes wide in fear as he saw Loghain rise above him, holding the sword pointed down toward his heart.
Loghain made no expression as he thrust the sword down into the man. The blade penetrated with a wet, crunching sound and a single strained groan escaped the Bann’s lips.
Ceorlic raced toward Maric with a war cry, his sword held high to strike, but Maric raised a foot and connected with the man’s chest, pushing him back and slamming him against the wall. A second man rushed at Maric’s side and swung his blade low, but Maric parried easily.
He turned and swung the blade in a wide arc at his attacker. The man raised his blade, but the magical longsword sliced through it. Sparks flew and the man screamed in agony as Maric’s blade cut a deep slash across his chest. Blood spurted from the wound as Maric spun around again, slicing into the man’s abdomen. The Bann fell heavily to the ground, clutching his chest as he died.
The third ran at Loghain, charging him at full speed as he shouted in a mix of rage and terror. Loghain frowned in annoyance at the man, quickly pulling his blade from the one he had just slain and thrusting it before him like a spear. The charging Bann practically skewered himself on the blade, rushing up half its length until he stopped, quivering, bright blood running from his mouth.
Ceorlic watched them from the wall, horror twisting his features into an ugly grimace. His eyes flickered from Loghain to Maric and back again, and he threw down his sword to the floor. It clattered there noisily as he sank to his knees, shaking in abject terror.
“I surrender!” he shouted. “Please! I’ll do anything!”
Maric walked up to him slowly. The man cowered before Maric, and then lost what little dignity he had left as he bowed his forehead to the floor and crawled toward Maric’s boots. “Please! My . . . my armies! I’ll raise double the men! I’ll say that . . . that the others attacked you!”
“Pick up your sword,” Maric told him. He glanced toward Loghain, who only nodded coolly as he pushed the dead man off his blade.
Bann Ceorlic rose to his knees, looking up at Maric and putting his hands together in prayer. “For the love of the Maker!” he cried, tears running down his face. “Do not do this! I’ll give you anything you wish!”
Maric bent down and grabbed the man by the ear. He felt his rage bubble up, remembered how this man had run his sword through his mother, how he had raced through the forest while his men chased him. This man’s treachery had started all of this, and Maric was going to end it.
“What I want back you can’t give me,” he said, shaking with rage as he thrust the longsword through Ceorlic’s heart.
The man’s eyes went wide with shock. Blood trickled from his mouth, and he stared uncomprehendingly at Maric as he gasped. Each gasp became weaker, and Maric slowly lowered him to the floor. When he drew his last breath, Maric gritted his teeth and yanked the blade out noisily from Ceorlic’s chest.
The shadows grew longer in the chantry as Maric crouched there over Ceorlic. Five dead men surrounded them, their blood spreading and cooling on the stone and the statue of Andraste looking down from the dais upon it all. Loghain stood only a few feet away, but Maric thought he might as well have been alone.
“It’s done,” Loghain said evenly. There was a hint of approval in his voice.
“Yes. It is.”
“There will be an outcry. They weren’t wrong about that.”
“Maybe so.” Maric slowly stood up. His face was grim, and he felt as if something hard had settled within him, as if his heart had become a little more still. It was a strange feeling, peaceful and yet oddly disquieting. He had avenged his mother, but all he felt was cold. “But they can’t pretend, now. They have to choose a side and suffer the consequences, and they have to know I won’t forgive. Not now.”
Loghain looked at Maric, those icy blue eyes piercing into him uncomfortably. Maric tried to ignore it. He couldn’t tell what Loghain was thinking any longer. Was he pleased? This is what he had wanted. A Maric who did what needed to be done.
Loghain turned to leave, his black cloak swirling behind him, and then he paused at the door. “I had word shortly before we came. The two legions of chevaliers sent from Orlais will be crossing the River Dane in two days’ time. That is where we’ll need to engage them.”
Maric did not turn to look at him. “You and Rowan will be leading the attack.”
“You won’t reconsider? . . .”
“No.”
“Maric, I don’t think the—”
“I said no.” Maric’s tone was final. “You know why.”
Loghain hesitated only a moment, and then nodded firmly and left. The rush of wind through the chantry as the door opened was freezing cold, eagerly telling of the coming winter. The flame in the brazier fluttered wildly and then finally went out.
The die was cast. Maric felt the disquiet in his heart calm at last, leaving only an icy silence. There was no turning back now.
19
A dragon had taken to the air.
Loghain had seen it first thing in the morning. He had been disturbed in his sleep by the strangest sounds coming from far off in the distance, and had gone out of his tent with the sun just barely a sliver of pink and yellow peeking over the western mountains. He had stood there in the dim light, frost clinging to his tent and his breath coming out in white puffs, listening for the sound again.
For a moment he had thought it might be the chevaliers arriving at the river crossing early, that their scouts had been wrong. When he heard the sound again, however, he knew immediately that it couldn’t possibly be them. He couldn’t identify what it was until he walked out past the tents and the sleeping soldiers wrapped in frosty blankets and stood at the edge of the valley. There he hopped up on some rocks and looked at the entire sweep of the land beneath him, the mighty River Dane cutting a twisting path through the rocks with the morning mist still clinging to the ground as if reticent to awaken.
It was a majestic sight, and even better was the dragon that flew over it. From a distance it seemed almost small, gliding slowly in the air with the snowcapped mountain range behind it. Had it been closer, it would have been a giant beast, large enough to swallow a man whole. As it was, when the dragon roared, he could feel the rumble in the ground even from this far away.
They had said there were no more dragons. The Nevarrans had hunted the beasts mercilessly more than a century ago, until they were said to be extinct. But here she was, gliding free in the morning wind. This was the first time she had come to the Fereldan side of the mountains, apparently, as for two weeks now she had been laying waste to the Orlesian countryside.
The Chantry had taken it as an omen. The Divine in Val Royeaux had declared the next age was to be called the “Dragon Age.” Of all things.
The scout who had heard the news said that some were saying it was supposed to mean the coming century would be one of greatness for the Empire. But as Loghain watched the graceful dragon glide through the chill fog, its leathery wings spread wide, he wondered if that was really so.
He heard the footsteps crunching on the frost behind him, but didn’t turn around. The entire camp was still and barely moving, but he already knew who would be up this early. He knew the way she walked, the sound of her breath.