“No,” Rowan stated. She looked up and spun her horse about. “We are reinforcing the bluff now, before it’s too late.”
“But my lady! What about the Prince?”
Rowan began to ride forward, her expression firm. “The Maker will watch over him,” she muttered solemnly. Then, louder to address the startled riders assembled behind her: “All of you! Follow me! We ride south!” Without waiting for a response, she kicked her warhorse into a gallop and began to head into the valley.
The enemy was on their third charge up the path.
Loghain was soaked in sweat and blood both, a burning, fiery pain in his chest from where a blade had successfully stabbed earlier. He ignored it and fought on. Seven were left of the thirty knights that had ridden up the path with him, and they stood their ground at the top of the bluff as wave after wave of the enemy soldiers tried to break through. These were Fereldan soldiers they were fighting, urged on by Orlesian commanders who remained safely below. Sending their dogs to do their dirty work, he thought angrily.
The enemy had brought halberds this time, wicked axe blades attached to long poles that gave them the advantage of reach. He had lost almost ten men immediately to the first rush of the halberdiers as they reached the top of the path and had nearly overtaken them. One man lost his arm as it was hacked off, blood spurting as the man stared at it, aghast.
“Push them back!” Loghain shouted.
An enemy soldier leaped on him, half to attack and half because he had been shoved forward from behind. Startled, Loghain was pushed back for a moment. The soldier, a short man with a weasel-like face, looked excited at the thought he might have struck a blow at the mighty prince and moved to strike again.
Loghain grabbed the man by the throat and threw him back. The short soldier stumbled, and his flailing hands caught onto the royal purple cloak—which by now had been stained a sticky black by blood and filth. He fell to the side, tugging hard on the cloak, and Loghain slashed with his sword to cut the fabric. Released, the soldier stumbled back even farther and went careening over the cliff edge, screaming shrilly.
Another man was on top of Loghain before he could recover, a large man with a robust red beard. And then a second charged him, axe held high overhead. Loghain ducked down low and spun around, swinging a wide arc with his sword. It took the axe-wielder across the abdomen, slicing him open. As the man stumbled, Loghain struck out with his elbow and took the red-bearded soldier in the throat. It didn’t stop him from stabbing Loghain in the shoulder, but Loghain merely hissed in pain and jumped back, forcing the blade to be pulled out of him
He struck out with his sword again, and the red-bearded man barely parried as he gasped and coughed. They traded several blows, Loghain gaining greater strength and position with each one until finally he ran the man through.
The few knights with him were barely holding on, and yet still the enemy pressed forward. Loghain almost couldn’t see with the sweat stinging his eyes, and the gore covering the ground at the lip of the path made getting one’s footing on the rocks difficult.
Where is the damned reinforcement? he thought, striking out at new enemies as they pressed forward. Even as he asked the question he knew the answer. They weren’t coming. It didn’t make sense for them to come. In fact, if he was in the Arl’s shoes right now, he wouldn’t come, either.
He grunted angrily and slashed even harder, trying to keep the enemy from getting past their line. Another man rushed him and he got his boot up onto the man’s midsection and then kicked out, sending the man flying back and over the cliff edge with a horrified cry.
Loghain wiped his eyes and looked down the cliff, then began laughing out loud in sheer surprise. The thundering of hooves heralded the charge of the rest of the rebel’s force of horsemen as they struck the larger enemy force from behind. The armored figure leading the charge could only be Rowan, the green plume atop her helmet trailing.
The effect on the enemy was dramatic. The Orlesians were pushed back toward the cliff, their shouts turning to confusion and surprise. Almost immediately their organization broke. Panic overtook the foot soldiers, and they began to scramble and run, even as the commanders screamed ineffectually for them to hold.
Loghain had no more time to watch as the enemies still on the path became desperate. Caught between the crush of men trying to run up behind them to escape the cavalry charge and Loghain’s remaining men, their fearful cries became deafening.
“Now! Do it! Push them back!” he shouted. Six knights stood next to him, their armor smeared with gore and all of them heavily wounded, but they gritted their teeth and did as he commanded. They pressed their advantage and began swinging hard to drive the enemy back.
There was a long moment of frenzied resistance as steel met steel, and then the enemy line broke. With a victorious shout, Loghain moved forward and stabbed his blade into two men who scrabbled backwards while screaming for mercy. The knights beside him did the same, and as the enemy fell back, they ran out of ground and forced a whole group of their own soldiers off the cliff.
There was mass panic below. The enemy was racing to get out of the way of the horsemen, dashing into the forest at the edges of the valley. Some even dropped their weapons in their rush. One of the Orlesian commanders screamed at his men with indignation, attempting to lead a rally, but Rowan put a quick end to that. A pair of hooves cut the pompous fellow off in midshout, sending his body flying against the rocks and galvanizing the nearest enemy soldiers into even quicker retreat.
Calling to several of her men to follow her, Rowan turned and raced up the path toward Loghain.
Encouraged by the sight, Loghain urged his knights to continue pushing—and they did. They were shoving forward now, sweeping the line of enemy soldiers before them off the edge of the path like so much debris off the front steps. The bloodcurdling screams as those men were sent falling to their deaths were difficult to bear.
And then they stood at the edge, Loghain and his six men. They stared down at the carnage below, the many men lying broken at the bottom of a hundred-foot drop. Like dolls scattered by an angry child, Loghain thought grimly.
The few soldiers left on the path were now leaping off the side to get out of the way of Rowan and the several horsemen charging with her up the path. Those that stood their ground were cut down mercilessly. One of them was a lone, quaking halberdier who leveled his weapon toward the horse racing at him. Rowan pulled her horse to one side at the last moment and efficiently sliced her blade deep into the man’s neck as she rode past. He went down without so much as a blink.
When Rowan reached the top of the path, she slid off her horse in one smooth motion and ran toward Loghain, lifting up her helmet. Brown hair spilled around her face as she took in the sight of the small number of wounded, haggard men standing there with him. They all stared back at her dumbly, numb with exhaustion and the fading remnants of adrenaline.
“Are you . . . all right?” she asked uncertainly, her expression concerned.
Loghain walked toward her and held out his hand. Rowan hesitated, staring at him as if she wasn’t sure what it meant before she relaxed and shook it.
“That was quite the charge,” he congratulated her. Their eyes met, lingering a moment longer than was necessary. Rowan quickly disengaged her hand and glanced away.
“I can’t believe you lasted this long. I wish I’d come sooner.” She nodded officiously to the other men behind Loghain, several of whom had dropped to their knees. “Well done, all of you.”
“It’s not over yet,” he sighed. Already he could see the enemy recovering below. The charge had spooked them and taken a toll on their forces, but it wouldn’t be long before the Orlesians would recover from the shock. They still had the superior numbers, after all, and if they realized it quickly enough, they could race back into the clearing and surround Rowan’s men. They needed to get out—now.
Rowan was nodding, understanding the situation exactly as he did, he realized. Loghain found himself hardly surprised. “Maric will need us. Let’s go while we still can.”
Maric panted at the edge of the battle during a few rare seconds he could even breathe in the chaos, ears ringing with the sound of steel on steel. His sword arm ached so badly, he thought it might just fall off. He also suddenly noticed an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, the shaft having penetrated between the grooves of his fine armor. Well, that would explain the jabbing pain I felt earlier, he thought to himself .
The ebb and flow of the melee seemed to go on forever. He had lost the ability to judge what was actually going on with the overall battle once Arl Rendorn had charged the line. It had become his only concern just to survive, facing an endless array of opponents that charged at him from every direction.
So far, he remained alive despite it all. The heavy dwarven armor he wore had repelled dozens of strikes without so much as a dent. Far too many rebels had been killed before Maric’s eyes, trying to buy their prince a few more moments of life. Even with all this protection, his sword dripped with the blood of men who would surely have killed him, if Maric hadn’t been a second faster than they. And then, of course, there was the blind luck.
At one point he had been barrelled over by a giant of a man in chain armor, and when Maric had rolled over, he’d seen a great axe ready to come down right on top of his head. None of his protectors had been near enough to help. All that had saved him was an errant gauntlet flung from some unknown soldier nearby, probably by accident, which struck the giant in the back of the head and knocked him off balance. The axe came down just shy of Maric’s ear. His breath had steamed on the metal of the axe-head buried in the ground not an inch away from the tip of his nose.
The giant soldier yanked the axe back up, but this time Wilhelm had intervened. An arc of lightning streaked across the battlefield and left a gaping, smoking hole in the fellow’s chest. Maric had at least enough sense to roll out of the way before the man toppled over like a falling building.
Evidently, Maric’s time on Thedas was not quite up yet.
He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and cast an eye over the battlefield. The first thing he wondered was what had happened to Rowan. He couldn’t see the green of her helmet, either racing across the field or lying on it. Nor were there any horsemen in the battle. How long had they been fighting? Was the bulk of the enemy force about to fall on them from the south?
He found himself worrying about Loghain most of all and the possibility that he might have asked the man to commit himself to a useless sacrifice. If Gareth’s son died trying to keep him alive, as well . . .
And then the horn sounded. Belatedly, to be sure, but it still had the desired effect. In the distance he could see Rowan’s horsemen charging into the enemy line, scattering them in every direction.
It proved to be enough. Over the next ten minutes, desperation surged among the soldiers on both sides. Maric could hear the Arl shouting to the men, urging them to press toward the hill, and Maric began to do the same. Blood was spilling rapidly as casualties mounted, but as the horsemen took their toll, the enemy began to pull back. The enemy commanders ordered a retreat, shouting for their men to regroup outside the valley.
Maric was almost tempted to give chase as he watched the enemy soldiers scrambling to get away, but Arl Rendorn’s arrival prevented him. “Let them go! We must make a run for it!” he shouted. The man was clutching his chest and bleeding heavily as he was supported by two others. Seeing this, Maric merely nodded and began calling for the men to fall back.
It was not a victory.
In the end, after hours of confusion and running as the rebel army retreated out of the valley, they managed to regroup at the edge of a small river several miles to the north. The men arrived in dribs and drabs, exhausted and wounded and sometimes carrying each other. Men on horses were sent out to look for others who had fled in different directions, but in the end it looked as if they had lost at least half their numbers. On top of this, much of their supplies and equipment had been left in the valley out of necessity.
But it felt like a victory to Maric. Instead of losing everything that his mother had built, they had survived. They had evaded the usurper’s trap and even dealt him a bloody nose on the way out. As sore as their condition was, the usurper’s forces would not be so quick to be on their trail. Not tonight, and that was all the rebels needed.
When Rowan finally brought a bruised and bloodied Loghain to the fire at their new tent, still wearing fancy leathers and the soiled, tattered remains of the Queen’s purple cloak, Maric cried out with glee and ran forward to sweep up the startled Loghain in a great bear hug. Loghain winced in pain but tolerated the display, staring down at Maric as if he had gone mad.
“It worked!” Maric cried. “Your plan bloody well worked!”
“Enough,” Loghain griped, shoving Maric away so that he was quickly dropped.