The First Enchanter blanched when Maric explained his intention. Maric almost felt sorry for the man. After a great deal of fuss and many terse messages sent back and forth to the Grand Cleric’s entourage, Maric was finally ushered alone into the vaulted assembly chamber at the heart of the tower.
It was an impressive room, great columns reaching up to a ceiling a hundred feet up while small glass bulbs dangled and glowed with dim magic to form a starlike array overhead. Normally it served as a forum of debate for the senior mages, but today it would serve as neutral ground. The Grand Cleric sat stiffly by herself, wrapped in her glittering red robes, and rhythmically tapped her withered fingers on her chair. As he approached, she eyed him accusingly but did not deign to acknowledge him otherwise.
He was sweating profusely. How very large the chamber was, for just the two of them. He felt dwarfed and somehow insignificant.
“Prince Maric,” she said with forced politeness as he reached her.
He fell to one knee and lowered his head in a show of respect. “Mother Bronach.”
A tense silence ensued, after which Maric rose to his feet again. The priest regarded him with interest, not entirely displeased by his display. “You are fortunate,” she began crisply, “that I am not here with a proper honor guard. I would have taken you prisoner immediately. Surely you understand that.”
“We wouldn’t be talking, if that were the case.”
“Indeed.” She tapped her fingers on the chair again, and Maric got the feeling that she was studying him. Looking for a weakness, perhaps? Trying to see if he matched his no doubt lacking reputation? He wasn’t sure. “Are you an Andrastian, boy? A believer in the Maker and His Chantry?”
He nodded. “My mother taught me the Chant of Light.”
“Then submit to the proper ruler of Ferelden. End this nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” he snapped. “How can the Chantry support putting an Orlesian on Ferelden’s throne?”
Her eyebrows shot up. Mother Bronach was not accustomed to contradiction, he surmised. “It is the Maker’s will,” she said with belabored patience.
“He is a tyrant!”
She paused, pursing her lips as she watched him. “How many innocent lives had your mother wasted in this hopeless struggle? How many will you? Do your people not deserve peace?”
Maric felt rage bubbling up from within him and threatening to explode. How dare she? He closed the distance between them, marching up to her chair and stopping directly in front of her, fists clenched at his sides. It was all he could do to stop himself from throttling her. She still deserved respect, despite her arrogance. He had to remind himself of that.
He breathed out slowly, forcing himself to calm. Mother Bronach watched him, seemingly undaunted by his proximity and his unspoken threat. He could tell that she was nervous, however. He could see the bead of sweat on her forehead, watch as her eyes flicked toward the nearby doors. “Is it true,” he asked icily, “that he put my mother’s head on a spear outside the Denerim palace? My mother, your rightful queen?”
A long minute passed as they locked gazes. Finally, Mother Bronach rose imperiously out of her chair. “I can see there is nothing for us to discuss,” she said with just the slightest quaver in her voice. “You are an impertinent boy. I suggest you take your men and leave while you can, and pray to the Maker that when your end comes you receive more mercy than your mother did.” With that, she turned and strode out of the room. Maric’s knees turned to jelly as she left.
Maric’s brief meeting with the First Enchanter that followed fared little better. The Circle of Magi were unwilling to abandon their neutrality. At best they were willing to tacitly overlook the fact that one of their own was helping the rebels. Maric supposed he couldn’t expect more than that. The entire trip to the tower had done little for the rebel cause.
Still, meeting the Grand Cleric face-to-face must have been worth something, he thought. Even if she thought him rude and unready, at least he had looked her in the eye, one of the closest advisors to the usurper, and not buckled. She had left Kinloch Hold in a hurry, no doubt headed at full speed back to the palace. Maric was gone from the shining tower long before she could send anyone back to capture him.
The reunion in the forests near Amaranthine was a glad one. Arl Rendorn greeted Maric as he returned, as well as Rowan and Loghain. All of them were exhausted but pleased the others had returned safely. Rowan ran forward to embrace Maric happily and tease him about the beard he had grown over the winter, and if Loghain looked on silently, neither of them noticed. Maric was eager to hear the stories of the months spent in the Bannorn, and that first evening back at the camp he stayed up until the small hours, drinking and extracting one reluctant tale after another out of Loghain.
It proved to be the only reprieve they would have for some time. Arl Rendorn had already been warned that the army’s position was becoming too well known; they had remained in one place far longer than they ever had previously. Small bands of recruits had been making their way to the forest over the months, and word had spread, and when a secret messenger arrived from the Arl of Amaranthine to tell them the usurper’s forces were on their way, they started packing up quickly.
Maric told Arl Rendorn that he had only one thing to do first. He took Loghain with him and paid a visit to Arl Byron. Loghain suggested that he was foolish to do so, but Maric didn’t care.
The young Arl came out of his estate at Amaranthine as they approached, flanked by his guards. He waved amiably to Maric. “Your Highness,” he greeted them, “I have to admit I am a bit surprised to still see you here. Did you not receive my message?”
Maric nodded. “I did, Your Grace. I wanted to thank you for sending it.”
The man nodded, his expression unreadable. “It was . . . the least I could do.”
“The very least,” Loghain growled emphatically.
Maric shot an angry look at Loghain, who scowled but otherwise remained unrepentant. “My point,” he stated, looking back at Arl Byron, “was that we are grateful for the months you have provided us safe harbor. I hope nothing ill comes to you as a result.” He bowed deeply to the Arl, who appeared nonplussed and did little beyond muttering polite niceties as Maric and Loghain withdrew.
Certainly Maric never expected much from it. If anything, the Arl’s confused response forced Maric to grudgingly agree with Loghain’s assessment that they might have simply been better off not making the attempt. So when the rebel army began its march the next morning, Maric was shocked to encounter a force of soldiers wearing Amaranthine heraldry just as they left the forest bounds.
The soldiers had not come to attack, however. Arl Byron rode to the front of his men and quietly, in front of them all, bent knee to Maric.
“The usurper can take my land,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve sent my wife and children to the north, and brought with me what loyal men I have and all the supplies I could gather.” As he looked up at Maric, tears welled in his eyes. “If . . . if my lord Prince will have me, I would gladly offer my service to the rebellion, and I beg your forgiveness for not having the courage to offer it sooner.”
Maric was rendered speechless, and it wasn’t until both the Arl’s men and his own began cheering that he remembered to accept.
Battles followed, first as the rebel army sought to evade the usurper’s men as they headed back west into the hills, and then as Arl Rendorn decided that they needed to take the offensive. A series of small battles fought mostly in the spring rains sent the usurper’s unprepared forces into a hasty retreat. A larger force that the enraged Meghren had hastily assembled arrived weeks later, but by then the rebel army had already moved on.
In the lean two years that followed, that was how the rebel army stayed alive.
True battles were few and far between, however, and life with the rebels primarily consisted of waiting. Weeks were spent camping in the rain or snowed in during the winter, waiting for the enemy to find them or waiting for the opportunity to attack. When they weren’t waiting, they were marching, trudging through the most remote parts of Ferelden to flee a larger enemy force or to find a new place to hide and wait.
Only once did the usurper gain a serious advantage over them. A lightly armed caravan bringing supplies from Orlais in the early winter proved too tempting a target, and only too late did Arl Rendorn realize it was a trap. Before the rebels knew it, hundreds of Orlesian chevaliers rode out from the hills, hidden amid the rocks, their silvery armor and lances glittering against the snow. They would have flanked the bulk of the rebel force and pinned it there until more forces arrived had Loghain and the Night Elves not acted quickly.
Loghain and the elves ran into the hills in order to intercept the chevalier charge. Peppering the knights with arrows forced them to stop and deal with the archers instead of finishing their flanking maneuver. Lightly armored elves were no match for chevaliers, however, and more than half of them were slaughtered as the Orlesians overran their position. Loghain himself was gored by a lance.
The sacrifice gave Maric time to call off the attack on the caravan, and the rebels pulled back to safety. Insisting on going to Loghain’s rescue, Maric brought the rebel forces around to clash directly with the chevaliers in the hills. The casualties were high, but both the wounded Loghain and the surviving Night Elves were saved before Arl Rendorn finally called for the retreat. The chevaliers gave chase, but eventually desisted before the rebels turned the tables. The trap had not succeeded.
Other battles were chosen more carefully. Arl Rendorn was the one who did the choosing most times, and when he and Maric would differ in opinion it ended up as an argument. In the end, the Arl’s long experience would always win out.
These lost arguments were not things that Maric took in stride. For days afterwards he would stay out of sight, spending his time brooding and bristling at the idea that he was not being taken seriously. He complained of being treated like a figurehead, though the Arl repeatedly told him this wasn’t so. Once, Maric walked in on a meeting of the Arl and both Rowan and Loghain, and belatedly realized that he had not been invited. He spent almost a week drunk and miserable, avoiding everyone until finally Loghain tracked him down and told him he was being an idiot and physically dragged him back to the camp. For whatever reason this seemed to mollify Maric considerably.
After that, Maric made an effort to ensure his presence was felt in other ways. Adamant that he would share the danger with his men, he insisted on fighting on the front lines in every battle. The soldiers watched him ride along the front, purple cloak billowing and dwarven armor shining brilliantly, and they worshipped him; he gave no indication if he knew just how much.
Rowan got truly upset on those occasions when Maric was carried in from the field, bleeding profusely from a horrible sword gash. Wilhelm would immediately come running and use his healing magic, even as Rowan shouted furiously. Maric would grin through the pain and tell her she was making far too much of it.
Then Loghain invariably arrived from the battle, still armored and covered in blood and sweat. He would take one look at Maric, frown thoughtfully, and declare that since Maric came out of the fight alive, all was well. Rowan would storm off, ranting about their idiocy, while Maric and Loghain shared a private grin at her expense.
The three of them slowly became closer over the two years. They fought together in battle, and Arl Rendorn included Loghain in planning discussions more and more. Indeed, the Arl increasingly praised Loghain’s abilities and once suggested that if Loghain’s father had been the one to train Loghain, it was a tragedy he had ever left the service of the throne. Things might have been different, the Arl said, and he would have liked to have met the man.
Loghain accepted the compliment with his usual stoic silence, his thoughts unknown to anyone but himself.
With the long weeks spent camped, Loghain devoted a great deal of time training Maric on the finer points of swordsmanship and archery. He claimed Maric was a poor student, but the truth was their training sessions became an excuse to spend time in each other’s company. Maric found Loghain endlessly fascinating, repeatedly trying to pry a story out of the tight-lipped man regarding his days as an outlaw, asking and insisting until he relented out of pure exasperation. Maric’s endless supply of charm was apparently capable of wearing down almost anyone, and it wasn’t long before Maric and Loghain were a constant sight together on the practice field.
Rowan often watched the training sessions, amused by the constant bickering and banter between Maric and Loghain. Outside of the Night Elves, Loghain was regarded as a taciturn and even unfriendly man. Maric had a way of drawing him out, she noted, which she had been unable to do during their months traveling the Bannorn. Often she laughingly criticized Loghain’s sword techniques, primarily because it nettled Loghain and thus vastly amused Maric. Loghain became so incensed by Rowan’s comments that, seething with anger, he challenged her to a duel to prove which of them knew more of swordsmanship. Grinning, she accepted.
Maric was incredibly excited by the entire idea, and immediately ran about the rebel camp announcing that the duel was about to occur. Within an hour, Loghain and Rowan had an audience of hundreds of cheering men.
Leery of the size of their audience, Loghain turned to Rowan. “Do you truly wish to pursue this?” he asked her, his expression solemn.
“I believe it was you who challenged me.”