Coming from behind the golem, a crowd of human soldiers began to rush into the chamber with swords drawn, and they clashed against the dwarves that held their ground. The sound of steel meeting steel rang out, the golem continuing to swing its great fists. As the deadly melee spread, Loghain’s eyes went wide in horror.
These were their own men. The standards on the soldiers that had surged out of the tunnel were Maric’s own.
“Stop!” Maric shouted. He ran forward into the line of dwarves, heedless of the danger and waving his hands. “Stop fighting! For the love of the Maker!” Nobody listened to him as the fighting surged onward. Blood was being spilled. The stone golem swung a large fist dangerously near Maric, crashing onto the ground and toppling him.
Loghain and Rowan rushed forward immediately to Maric’s side, drawing their weapons. They glanced at each other, wondering if they would need to engage their own men. The irony was that they might have traveled so far only to end up battling the very forces they had come to lead.
Loghain kicked back a soldier that had been about to strike Maric with his sword. “Don’t be a fool!” he roared. “This is Prince Maric!” His words were lost in the shouts of battle and the crashes of the golem’s fist against stone and armor. He looked about, hoping to spot the golem’s mage amid the chaos, but saw nothing.
“Stop fighting!” Loghain roared again, Rowan pushing several men back beside him and trying to pull Maric to his feet. Nalthur saw what they were trying to do but he couldn’t order the Legion to retreat. There was no room on the narrow rocky ledge, and trying to pull back would only end up with them being slaughtered or falling into the water and drowning.
The stone golem charged at Loghain, letting out a bellow of rage. It reared up over him, both fists ready to crash down on his head, and he held up his sword, bracing for the impact. . . .
“Halt!” rang out a new voice from behind the golem, and the effect was immediate. The golem went still.
The human soldiers paused in their fighting and looked around them in confusion. Nalthur took advantage and shouted for the dwarves to pull back, which they immediately did. A gap opened up between the forces, and while it looked like the human soldiers might chase after their quarry, they held their ground.
Like a sea had parted around them, Loghain was left in the clearing with Maric and Rowan beside him, the golem looming overhead as still as a statue.
“Who dares invoke the name of the Prince?” the voice demanded. The figure that walked around the golem into view wore yellow robes and possessed a pointed beard. Maric recognized him immediately.
“Wilhelm!” he shouted with relief. He jumped up and ran toward the mage.
Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he stepped back as Maric approached, staring at him in disbelief. Maric halted, and looked at the rest of the soldiers that likewise stared at him aghast. Nobody in the entire cavern said a word. The shocked silence was complete.
“Don’t you recognize me?” Maric asked. Loghain and Rowan walked up quietly behind him, lowering their weapons.
Wilhelm’s gaze flickered to each of them but went immediately back to Maric. His eyes hardened, and he held out a hand for the soldiers to stand back. “Be cautious,” he warned. “This may yet be a trick, an illusion to deceive us.”
He raised a hand, and bright power was summoned up from it. Maric stood still as the power surged toward him. He closed his eyes as it washed over him, and nothing changed. Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hand again, summoning a different spell. This one crashed against Maric’s form, and then another followed it.
Wilhelm’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He sank to his knees, and actual tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at Maric. “My lord?” the mage asked in a tremulous voice. “You . . . you live?”
Maric walked cautiously up to Wilhelm and knelt before him, gripping the mage’s hands in his own. Loghain and Rowan approached solemnly from behind. “It’s me, Wilhelm. Loghain, too, as well as Lady Rowan. All of us are here.”
Wilhelm looked back at the rows of soldiers that stared incredulously at them. “It is him,” he said. “It is really him!” As if a wave of shock ran through them, the soldiers began to whisper to each other excitedly. Word was passed back in the ranks, and men in the passage began to run up a set of stairs to the town above. A babble of shouting could be heard up there.
One by one the soldiers followed Wilhelm’s example, all of them falling to their knees and removing their helmets in respect. More soldiers crowded into the chamber, coming down the stairs behind the heavy doors, and as they laid eyes on Maric, they, too, fell to their knees. Some of them had tears running down their cheeks.
“We thought you were lost,” the mage said to Maric. “We thought everything was lost. Rendorn was dead. The usurper declared you dead. We thought . . . we were sure this was another attack, and that this was . . .” His voice choked up, and he shook his head again as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
Maric nodded gravely and stood, looking back at the row of silent dwarves behind him. Nalthur began giving orders to have those knocked into the water collected as well as the injured seen to. The dwarves scrambled immediately.
Maric turned back to look at the rows of soldiers in front of him, his own men. There were so many, crowded here into this dark passage and staring at him with the same hopeful expressions that he remembered when Loghain and Rowan had first brought him back to the camp in the western hills. There were more beyond, up on the surface. He could hear them shouting.
“We’re not too late, then,” Maric said. The relief was so overwhelming that tears rushed down his cheeks. “There’s still an army, and you haven’t disbanded. We made it? We actually made it?”
Wilhelm nodded, and Loghain put his hand on Maric’s shoulder from behind. “We actually made it,” he said quietly.
Maric barely felt worthy. He walked toward the awestruck soldiers, almost unable to control his flood of tears as he looked at them all kneeling. They were hungry and tired and desperate. He could see it in their eyes. And yet they had endured.
Looking over them all, Maric raised a proud fist high over his head, and as one, the men of the rebel army leaped to their feet and responded with a resounding cry of jubilation that shook the very ground underneath them and rang far into the shadows of the Deep Roads.
16
Severan’s hands shook as he read the parchment. His mouth thinned into a grimace, and when he finished, he quickly rolled it up. This was not good news.
The mage paused in front of an ornate mirror, smoothing his black hair and telling his heart to calm down. It was beating too fast for his liking, the sweat glistening on his forehead far too visibly. The King would see it and know what the news was even before Severan opened his mouth, and that just wouldn’t do.
Meghren’s moods were bad enough to contend with even when the news could be filtered properly. If he was to take it upon himself to fly into a fury, Severan would much rather he took out his rage on one of the servants as usual. A week earlier, it had been a slender elven serving boy who had failed to notice the cream he brought the King was soured. His screams had brought the palace guard running into the royal chambers, only to stand there helpless as King Meghren beat the foolish boy within an inch of his life.
When the King turned his back, the desperate guard captain dashed forward to gather up the bloodied servant. It was a daring move, for Meghren could just as easily have turned his attention to the guard, his rage renewed by such outrageous interference. But Meghren had done nothing, seething and grinding his teeth as he stared out the window while the guards hastily retreated.
Frankly, Severan thought it would have been better had the fool just beaten the boy to death and been done with it. Instead, he had survived, and when he was returned to his wailing relatives with his tale of the event, there were riots in the alienage. The city garrison reported that it had needed to flee the quarter and lock down the gates, leaving the enraged elves to burn their own homes until a few days of hunger calmed them down. Meghren hardly cared about some rioting elves, but such problems did make things so very inconvenient for Severan.
But now there was worse news to deliver, and no convenient servant to pawn it off on. Severan wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief, a gift from a fawning Antivan merchant who had begged him to arrange an audience, and considered the possibility of not telling the news at all. He stared into his eyes within the mirror, frowning at the fear he saw there.
No, there was really very little choice.
He found Meghren down in the stables, being fussed over by a pair of burly smiths as they strapped new armor to him. It was gold-plated and specially crafted with the face of a lion embossed into the breastplate. It had many grooves, the metal glittering everywhere it wasn’t covered by black leather, the kind of armor one could easily imagine a great king wearing, or even an emperor. Ever since Meghren had led the army at West Hill he had become practically obsessed with everything military-related. This despite many assurances from the commanders on the field that he had been nowhere near the action and mostly got to tour the carnage on the battlefield after all had been said and done.
Severan thought the armor looked impressive, befitting a great king. Naturally Meghren disagreed. He barely tolerated the smiths, constantly shrugging with discomfort and snapping at them for tying a particular strap too tightly or griping that the greaves pinched or that the gauntlets made his skin itch. Several servants hovered nearby, too frightened to make any effort to help the smiths. Indeed, the nervous aura even seemed to agitate the few horses in the stable. The beasts stomped their hooves and looked like they were about ready to kick down the doors to their berth.
He was about to enter when he noticed Mother Bronach seated on a stool against the far wall, observing the fitting. Why she was there, Severan had no idea, but she looked up and noticed him. The slightest smile played across her face.
It seemed she knew. Perhaps she had even come here to watch.
Meghren saw Mother Bronach’s expression and turned to see Severan hovering in the doorway. “Oh, it is you,” he sneered. “What is it now? I hope there is news from Gwaren. This business has gone on entirely too long.”
The mage cleared his throat, which had suddenly become rather dry. He couldn’t help but stare at the sword sheathed at Meghren’s side. Ornamental or not, if the man decided to start flailing about with it, it could do more than a little damage. “Yes,” he finally said. “There is news.”
Meghren went cold, looking at Severan with narrowed eyes, and the entire room immediately picked up on the change in temperature. The servants all but scrambled out of the stable, and both the smiths stopped affixing the armor. They backed away, confused looks on their faces.
“What are you doing!” Meghren barked at them. “Why are you stopping?”
The smiths both immediately rushed back toward their king, so quickly that they bumped into each other and then nearly knocked him off his feet. Meghren roared in rage and kicked up with his metal boots, catching the nearest smith in the nose. Blood sprayed into the air as the man flew back, slamming into the stable wall.
“Get out of here, you fools!” Meghren roared.
The other smith stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, but only for a second. Running over to his comrade, who was kneeling by the wall in shock, covering his nose with bloody hands, he helped him to his feet and the two of them ran out of the stable.
Meghren watched them go, a disgruntled expression on his face, and then finally turned back toward Severan. “I would like to hear this news,” he said, his voice low and unpleasant.
“I would like to hear it, too,” Mother Bronach chimed in. She seemed awfully pleased with herself.