“Sort of.” Maric smiled. “I am fighting to regain my family’s throne. That is, in fact, why we’re down here.”
The tale took surprisingly little time to tell. Nalthur listened to it quietly enough, nodding his head empathetically. “We dwarves do things much the same, when it comes time for the Houses to contest the throne,” he admitted. “Though there’s rarely any of this bystanding business you speak of. No House is neutral in the Assembly, not ever. In Orzammar, things are solved quickly and with as much bloodshed as we can stand . . . and then a little bit more.” His grin was sardonic, as if sharing a private joke. Seeing that none of them got it, he shrugged. “Which is all well and good, I suppose, but if it’s Gwaren you were headed to, you were going the wrong way.”
“What!” Loghian shot up, shocked.
Nalthur put his hands up. “Now, now, big fellow, no reason to get upset over it. You were headed north. Didn’t you figure that was the wrong direction?”
“We can’t tell such things underground,” Katriel explained. She knew that dwarves could, their vaunted “stone-sense” being as much a part of their religion as it was a matter of practicality. A dwarf who didn’t have stone-sense was truly blind and considered a figure of pity, rejected by the Stone that had birthed them.
“Oh,” the dwarf seemed surprised, looking askance at Loghain and Maric as if his opinion of them now had to be revised to include such a sad handicap. Then he shrugged. “Well that explains it, dust to dunkels. You’re actually closer to Gwaren here than you were, though there’s not much there to see. The sea’s gotten into the outpost, last I heard.”
“We need to get to the surface, actually,” Maric said.
“Ah! Of course!”
“If you could direct us there . . . ,” Loghain suggested.
Nalthur grinned. “We can do better than that. We can take you! By the Stone, anyone who’s willing to journey through Ortan thaig deserves some respect. We’ll not send you back out there alone.”
Rowan’s eyes went wide in surprise. “You would do that?”
“We don’t want to keep you from your dying, or anything,” Maric said.
“Hah!” The dwarf clapped Maric on the back, just about knocking him off his seat. “To tell the truth, it gets a bit dull killing the darkspawn, day after day. There’s always more of them. An endless sea of evil to drown ourselves in, yes?” He shrugged and belched loudly once again.
Maric paused, suddenly churning something over in his mind. “So you don’t just fight darkspawn?”
“We cannot go back to Orzammar. What else is there to do in the Deep Roads?”
“You could probably survive out here a long time, if you wanted to,” Rowan said.
The dwarf snorted. “We’re dead men. What would be the point in that?” He waved his hand irritably. “There’s honor to be found in slaying the darkspawn, anyhow. If we’re to find our peace, we’ll do it fighting like true dwarves, fighting to take back what was once ours. Even if we never can.”
Maric smiled slowly. “How do you feel about fighting humans?”
Nalthur looked at Maric curiously. “You mean up on the surface?”
“I imagine there’s far more of us up there, yes.”
“Under the sky?” The dwarf said the word as if it were terrifying.
“Unless we’re already too late, we could use your help at Gwaren,” Maric said earnestly. “I don’t know what I could repay you with. I’m not King yet. I might never be. But if you and your men are looking for their deaths, I can at least offer you a glorious battle with something other than darkspawn.”
“Deaths on the surface,” Nalthur said without enthusiasm.
Maric sighed. “I suppose dwarves just don’t go up there, do they?”
He snorted. “Ones without honor, perhaps.”
Rowan arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you already exiled from Orzammar? What honor do you have to lose?”
The dwarf considered the idea, his face twisted into an unpleasant scowl. “We’ve none to gain, either. It’s not our business what you cloudheads get up to, up on the surface. Down here we’ve darkspawn to kill, and the Stone to return to when we die. That’s our business.”
Loghain stood up. “Let’s go, then. We’ll find no help here, Maric.”
“I don’t know . . . ,” Maric began.
“They’re cowards,” Loghain interrupted. “They’re frightened of the sky. They’ll find any reason not to come with us.”
Nalthur leaped up, drawing his warhammer in a flash. He held it threateningly at Loghain, bristling. “You’ll take that back,” he warned.
Loghain didn’t move, but eyed the dwarf carefully. The tension rose in the room as Rowan and Maric exchanged worried glances. Slowly he nodded to Nalthur. “I apologize,” he said sincerely. “You’ve treated us well, that was undeserved.”
The dwarf frowned, perhaps considering taking further offense, but then merely shrugged. “Very well.” Abruptly he chortled with amusement. “And it’s true enough, perhaps. That sky of yours is more frightening than an entire horde of darkspawn!” He bellowed with laughter at his own jest, and the tension in the room dissolved.
As he quieted, Katriel touched the dwarf’s arm to get his attention. “There is one thing that Maric could do for you,” she suggested. “Should he ever become King, he would be in a position to visit Orzammar. He could tell the dwarven Assembly how very valuable your help was to his cause.”
“Oh? You don’t say?”
“Your people treat human kings with great respect, do they not? The dwarves that assisted in the Siege of Marnas Pell during the Fourth Blight received many accolades at the word of a human king. One of them even became a Paragon.”
The dwarf’s eyes lit up with interest. “That’s true.”
Katriel smiled sweetly at him. “So there is, in fact, honor to be had on the surface. Honor for the houses you left behind. Honor that depends on Maric winning his battle, yes, but . . .”
Nalthur chewed on the idea. Finally he looked at Maric. “You would do this?”
Maric nodded, his look intense. “I would, yes.”
Loghain glanced at the dwarf warily. “Maric may never be King. There is no guarantee he can do what you ask, you understand this?”
Nalthur seemed amused by the caution. “You don’t seem to have much confidence in your friend. Are all you humans like this?”
“Just him, mostly.”
“I am being realistic,” Loghain muttered.
“I just ask one thing,” Nalthur stated slowly, “that if any of us fall as we aid you, we will not be left up there. Return us to the Stone, do not bury us in dirt. Do not bury us under the sky.” The prospect seemed to unnerve the dwarf, but his jaw was set.
Maric nodded again. “I promise.”
“Then you have our help,” he finally announced. Resolute, he turned and strode from the room out to the main cavern, where he immediately began shouting for the other warriors. The incessant ringing of the picks halted.
Those in the room stared at Maric, not quite believing this had just happened. “Well,” Loghain said dryly, “it looks like we have our help.”
Within the space of two hours, the Legion of the Dead was under way and traveling through the Deep Roads with all their equipment in tow. Loghain found himself quite impressed by the efficiency. Maric walked up front with Nalthur and the most senior of the warriors, all of whom listened grimly as Maric did his best to explain what they were likely to find on the surface.