Chapter 45: Eyes of Wolves - Dead Heroes

“Come on, lad! Join us!”

Alistair’s face split into a grin as he made his way to the table where the rest were seated.

“Been three months with the Wardens. About time you joined us for a drink.” Kherek, an older dwarf with grey streaks in his russet beard, poured a goblet for Alistair. “Good to see new blood before I go.”

“You’re leaving?” Alistair straddled the seat with a goblet in hand. He sipped at the brew, a beer so dark it was near black, a favorite the dwarf swore by. The head rose so thick it stood three inches straight up from the goblet. Alistair didn’t know what to do with the foam. Did he lick it away? Blow it off? Try to drink with it? He decided the latter. The rest laughed when Alistair put down the goblet with a foam stalactite hanging off his nose.

Kherek laughed hardest, slapping Alistair on the back. “Good lad. Yar, I be off at the end of the week. Time to take my Calling.”

“What Calling?”

The rest sobered up though a few sad smiles remained. “Aye, lad. Happens to all of us who live long enough.”

“That’s the way to look at it.” Marcus had a friendly face, heavily lined with both laughter and scars. One thick scar marked his right cheek and split his wide mouth. Though not handsome, Marcus had a face full of character that made him easy to like. “The Calling means you survived more years than most Wardens have a right to.”

“Here, here!” Kherek lifted his goblet, and the rest joined in the toast. “I’ll be thanking the stone, were I a not a surfacer. Aye, but it’s been a good life with good fights. And one more for the Wardens.”

Levine pulled Alistair close. Alistair warmed with the weight of his senior Warden’s hand on his shoulder. Maker, but it felt good to be with the Wardens. Never before had Alistair felt so accepted. Almost immediately, he was a brother, treated just like the rest. He hadn’t even realized how alone he felt for so many years until the Wardens took him as one of their own. Tarimel remained distant, but he was like that with everyone, so Alistair didn’t feel excluded. Besides, the rest more than made up for one man’s cool treatment.

Praise the Maker, Alistair couldn’t remember a time he had been so happy. Every night he went to bed with a glow in his chest, near tears that he had found a place where he belonged.

“Don’t let this get you down, lad,” Levine said in his ear. “You know being a Warden isn’t an easy life. Constant war with darkspawn.”

“Oh yes. Of course.” Whatever the Wardens wanted, he would give. For the first time in his life, he had been chosen. Not shuffled off as an embarrassment or inconvenience, he had been chosen. Fought for, even.

“Ah, maybe Duncan should be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Alistair lifted his head to look at Levine. Instead of Levine’s light brown eyes, he saw empty sockets.

“The Calling. Comes to us all if we live long enough.” Levine, eyeless, smiled sadly.

Alistair looked to the rest. Empty sockets gazed back.

“The Joining,” Marcus said, one bloody tear sliding down his cheek. “When you take in the taint, eventually, it takes you.”

“Aye,” said Kherek. He grinned over his mug of beer, two bloody streams leaking out his eye sockets. “Can’t escape the taint. You have nightmares, the song starts to get into your head. No help for it then.”

The mountain of a man, Grigor, slapped Kherek hard on the back. “Who wants to live forever, anyway? Be some doddering cripple who needs a wench to wipe the drool off your chin and shit off your ass?”

“Eh, there are worse fates than that,” Marcus laughed. “I could use more wenches in my life.” Short, brown hair and a few patches of flesh remained on his skeletal face.

Grigor laughed, his teeth looking large and blocky without the rest of his skin to cover them. “Drink up, me lad! Or do you feel up to another challenge?”

Levine shook Alistair’s shoulder companionably. “After the headaches you settled the rest of us with, no thanks. Can’t wear out our newest member so quickly!” Alistair felt each bone of Levine’s hand. When he glanced back at his senior Warden, all that was left was a laughing skull.

“Maker’s breath, Grigor.” Marcus leaned over the table to make his point. “You’ve got an unfair advantage now that Alistair’s the only one with a stomach left.”

“That’s right,” Levine chimed in. “With the rest of us dead, beer will go right through us!”

The skulls all laughed, their bones clicking.

“You’re not dead,” Alistair protested. Can’t be.

“Ah, lad.” Grigor gripped his shoulder with a giant bony hand. “Can’t be wishing back yesterday.”

No. Alistair felt his smile slipping. “But ... here you are. Talking.”

“Dead men tell no lies!” Marcus smacked his hand against the table. Though there were no eyes, Alistair felt Marcus’s skull staring at him. “Read my lips, Alistair. Dead men tell no lies.”

This was just one of their jokes. Had to be. Something cold settled in Alistair’s stomach. His smile faltered. “You ... you can’t be dead. You can’t leave me.”

“Laddie.” Kherek took a long drink from his beer only to have the contents slosh over the doublet that hung limply from his bones. “Death comes to us all, in time.”

“But...” Panic chased away the warmth Alistair felt. “But ... what about Duncan?”

“I’m here, Alistair.” A skeleton walked in wearing Duncan’s armor, black hair tied back in a leather thong and beard neatly trimmed.

“Duncan!” Grigor shouted. “Join us! A last drink before we go.”

“You can’t go.” Alistair looked from one skull to another. “You can’t. Not now.”

Duncan’s voice, warm and patient and so familiar Alistair could feel his throat tighten, “The time has come for us, my boy.”

The Wardens rose, some patting Alistair’s shoulder or back as they left. Where they touched the chill of death penetrated deep into Alistair’s skin. Dread followed panic. “Wait! Just wait! Or let me go with you.”

“It’s not your time, my boy.” Duncan turned away. Where a stone wall had stood now only grey mists swirled.

“Duncan! Please!” Not this. Not now. Not when he just found a family.

“It’s been good, Alistair,” Marcus said.

“Marcus,” Alistair pleaded. He followed after the rest. “I’ll go with you!”

He chased after them through grey smoke. A flash of armor, a white bone, the last remnants of voices laughing, but as Alistair ran, the ghosts eluded him. “Please! Let me stay!”

Alistair ran until he couldn’t breathe, until he was so exhausted he thought he would throw up. Please don’t leave me! “Duncan.”

With a gasp, Alistair sat straight up. Leliana’s hand shook his foot. “You’re turn for watch,” she whispered.

A fresh wave of grief threatened to stop his heart. Maker, if only it would stop. Duncan, it should have been me on the field. “I’m awake.”

Thankfully the tent hid his face. Even so, Leliana remained crouched at the front. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Just dreams, you know?”

She murmured, though acknowledgment or agreement, he couldn’t say.

“I’ll be fine. Go on.” The pain in his chest wasn’t just from the dream. He touched the bandage that covered the slashes the bear gave him two days before. Blasted thing itched. At this rate, he was going to have a complex about bears. And trees. And wasps. And poisonous vines. And forests in general.

His armor and boots felt extra cold as he struggled into them as quietly as he could. He poked at the pitiful fire. Rain soaked what wood they could find, sapping all heat and life away. Misery threatened to overtake him again. Try as he might, Alistair just couldn’t shake the loss he felt. He knew the others were tired of it, tired of him and his tears.

So what? They were asleep now, and Alistair could let his grief out.

The fire sputtered, gave a few pops, then settled back into a weak, low light. Alistair heaved a sigh and rubbed his short hair with one hand. He had been ready, too. Had been ready to follow the others and never wake up. He knew Duncan was heading into danger. He should have fought to stay by his side.

Duncan would be alive now. Everything would have been better.

A winking light in the distance caught Alistair’s attention. Too pale to be firelight. Should he wake the others?

Scowling, Alistair stood at the edge of their little camp. The light wasn’t winking, exactly. It bounced a bit as it moved, its light coming through trees as it floated back and forth. The light had a bluish tinge, almost cold.

There were no werewolves as far as Alistair could see. Definitely no darkspawn. He took a few steps to get a better look. Well, as far as he knew, plants and bears didn’t cast or hold light, but he wasn’t putting anything past this forest at this point. Was that a person or a shadow? Wake the others?

After they yelled at him for crushing the wasp nest, Alistair wasn’t too keen on giving the rest another chance to berate him for a mistake. How was he supposed to know the log was full of wasps? At least the itching from the poisoned oak distracted from the painful stings on the back of his neck and arms, and the bear scratches made the oak less noticeable.

Just a better look, make sure it was something the others should know about. Alistair tried to stay silent as he followed the light along the path. It kept bobbing and weaving about, almost as if it was playing with him.

It veered further into the woods as Alistair followed. Maker, what was it? It would hide behind a tree, then peek out like a child playing tag. His earlier grief forgotten, Alistair smiled as he trailed after the bouncing light.

What a silly little thing.

The light hid under a fern, and as Alistair approached, it whizzed away. He swore he could hear it giggling.

“Come here, you.”

Laughing with the little light, Alistair started jogging to keep up. “Hold on.”

No more cares or worries, no more shame or loneliness. Leave that all behind. Just follow the happy little light.

“Oh, there you are!”

The light bounced around a small meadow, little sparkles trailing behind like laughing children. Alistair stumbled into the meadow, but no one laughed at him or sneered at his gracelessness. The light giggled, and Alistair giggled with it. The light spun around him, bobbed in front of his face.

Just out of reach. Alistair raised an arm, going to catch it, just a little more. The light danced around him, happy. Alistair grasped, aww, just an inch short. “I’m going to catch you.” Another swipe, just a finger’s breadth away.

“Alistair!”

He lowered his arm as if caught doing something wrong. What? No, he didn’t do anything bad. Not this time.

An elf. He knew that man. Why was he so angry? Always angry, Alistair thought with a frown.

A scream sounded, but far away. It echoed as if from a tunnel. As if from the Fade.

“Alistair, get your sword!”

What?

The elf lunged forward, sword in one hand, torch in the other. No, don’t hurt the light. It’s a sweet little light.

“Alistair!”

When Alistair turned, ready to put a arm out to ward away the attack, he didn’t see the light. Shocked, Alistair stumbled back. Shadows made substance, two eyes made of cold light, filled with hate, hungered for him. Alistair tripped, scrambled backwards to get away from the gaping mouth filled with teeth, like a cave with row after row of needles to swallow him down. “Maker!”

Sticks crunched under Alistair’s weight, the meadow filled with dozens of twigs. No, not sticks. Alistair yelled in horror at the pile of bones he lay on. He couldn’t get to his feet fast enough.

Raviathan crouched between him and the shade. He feinted with the torch, making the shade shy back, then shoved his sword into the shifting shadows. The thing hissed. It moved like nightmares, twisting and flowing.

The crack of old bones under Alistair’s feet made him sick. His sword shook in his hand.

Maker, light my way through the dark,

Let no shadow touch my heart.

The words came to him unbidden, a mantra repeated over and over like a shield. Still, he couldn’t get his nerve together to fight the shade.

A choking cry, the shade shuddered, and the last remnants of solid shadow shifted to nothingness.

Alistair felt ready to collapse. His knees shook and cold sweat covered him. He would have fallen had the ground not been littered with scores of bones. Sickened to his core, Alistair tore out of the death trap back to the woods. He leaned against a tree so as not to fall.

That thing nearly had me.

“What were you thinking?” Raviathan stormed up to him.

“Th-There was a light. At first I just wanted to see what it was.”

“You idiot! You could have been killed. Who sees a wisp in the middle of nowhere and thinks, ‘oh fun, let’s just see where this mysterious light goes?’ For the love of the Maker. Next time, Alistair, think! It can’t be that hard.”

At this moment, he didn’t even care. He leaned down with his forearms against his thighs, sword barely held in limp fingers.

“Are you going to vomit?”

“I don’t know.”

Raviathan huffed and leaned against a tree opposite him. “Use your finger if you need to. You might feel better. Not that we can waste the food.”

“I think I’ll be fine. Just a minute.”

“What were you thinking? When you saw the light.”

The misery that always followed him surfaced. “I was ... I had a dream. I was with the other Wardens. We were talking. Drinking together, but they were all dead. I wanted to follow them.” He tried to hold back the sob, but it only hurt his chest more from the effort. “I just wanted to see what it was before waking everyone up. And then ... I don’t know. I started feeling happy.”

A long moment passed with neither speaking. When Alistair looked up, Raviathan had an unreadable expression.

“Come on, Alistair,” he said gently. “Let’s get back to camp.”

He felt better after a few sips of water. The torch light wasn’t as easy to follow as the wisp had been, but it was warm. The shadows seemed thicker this time. “You called it a wisp?”

Raviathan glanced back at him, his eyes reflecting the light like sun through stained glass. How could his eyes be brighter than the torch that reflected through them? “Yes. Wisps are fragmented spirits. Looks like that one had been here awhile. Preying on travelers. Seems that one entices you with what you want. Like a desire demon.”

Alistair thought about that for a moment. He had heard about wisps in his training but never seen one. Maker’s breath, he should have known better. “How did you know...”

A soft green light rose from further west. Dousing the torch, Raviathan started in that direction.

“Isn’t it dangerous?” After he just had gotten yelled at, Alistair felt that tracing after mysterious glowing light was hypocritical at best.

“Probably. Be on guard.”

He followed the elf’s lead, though how Raviathan managed to be so quiet walking through a forest of blackest shadow, Alistair would never know. A hole jarred his ankle then a root tried to break it with his next step.

“Oh, wow.”

Cursing the forest under his breath, Alistair got to his knees to peer under the tall fern with Raviathan. What he saw stole his breath. “Maker. What is this?”

Raviathan shook his head in wonder. “A battle? Sarel said the Veil is thin here. Perhaps the remnants of spirits reenacting the last moments of their life?”

Before them translucent elves in bright armor fought, but their enemy remained in shadow. The whole field was awash in a blue-green glow. Tendrils of smoke obscured details, yet the noble bearing of the warriors shown clear. Their features seems odd to Alistair, the bridges of their noses more pronounced, their faces longer and narrower with shorter foreheads, and more angular features.

One powerful elf commanded the rest. His sword glowed bright as if reflecting sunlight through water. He showed no fear, only grim determination, as if he knew his life would be over shortly but he would fight to the end. Behind him, more elves, outfitted in the same ancient armor, stood at the ready. An army?

“I’ve never seen armor like that. Not even in the histories.” Alistair scared breathe as he watched. Intricately designed, the armor appeared to be silverite though the elves wore robes over the shining metal. Hard to tell with the strangeness of the image, but the craftsmanship remained clear.

“Could this be before Tevinter?”

Awed, Alistair could only shake his head bemusement.

Snatches of command rose from the vision. Raviathan grasped Alistair’s arm as they listened to words whose meaning had long been forgotten.

“To think what we’ve lost.”

Alistair tore his eyes away to glimpse Raviathan. Unshed tears glistened, a look of longing naked on the elf’s face. When he gasped, Alistair turned back to the ghostly vision.

The lead elf held a sword in one hand, but a ball of fire floated above his open palm. At a final shout, he hurled the fireball ahead to the unseen enemy. The rest shouted, and as one, they charged forward, the vision disappearing into the past.

Introspective, Raviathan sat back on his haunches. What would it be like to lose so much of your history? Alistair didn’t know what to say. Seemed like it didn’t matter. Everything he said angered the elf, but he should try. “Amazing. Warriors and magic in one. I’m ... I’m sorry so much history has been lost.”