Chapter 14: Staying Calm

We met up with the others, who had just finished their chores as well. With just a nod, Aedan handed the blade off to Sten. He took it, dumbstruck, and Leliana had to grab an arm to drag him with them as they all headed to the tavern to relax for a few minutes before the battle. I went back to the Chantry, as a noblewoman would not be seen sitting and drinking in a local tavern, especially with a bunch of fighters. As they left, I gave Aedan a look and he nodded - I had told him to recruit Lloyd and Berwick, and he remembered.

In the Chantry, I took off my cloak and surreptitiously covered my sword so no one would see. I sat with a very anxious Bann Teagan and tried to raise his spirits. We talked about my pretend family, and though I wasn't claiming a lover in Redcliffe this time, he seemed fascinated by my story of a horrible upbringing with a mad elderly father who never let me go outside. He very seriously told me that he would help protect me from my father should he come looking, and invited me to stay safely in Redcliffe once the castle's undead problem had been dealt with. I wondered if he was flirting with me or just trying to distract himself from his worries. If it was flirting, it wasn't a serious attempt, and it occurred to me that maybe he just flirted with all eligible noblewomen like that. I made a conscious effort to dial it back a bit. I didn't need Theron jealous or any more reasons to be embarrassed among my companions. Or any guilt later, in case he was serious, about misleading Teagan when I knew damn well I wasn't ever going to be any nobleman's wife.

I was unfailingly positive that we would be fine through the night, and my optimism seemed to rub off on him a little. He sat a bit straighter, smiled a bit more, and some of the lines on his tired but handsome face eased. As it happened, the villagers huddled in the Chantry also seemed to pick up on the mood, and soon everyone seemed a bit more hopeful. I offered Mother Hannah help with tending the wounded, which she declined, but when I learned that there were two tiny orphans around, whose parents had been killed the first night of the attacks, I immediately sought them out. They were about two and three, I figured, both walking but only the older talking beyond a few garbled words. I dug through my pack and found them some bread and cheese, kneeling down to their level and offering it by the simple expedient of placing it in their chubby little hands.

I had always been good with children, a result of necessity when living in foster care with multiple kids; I soon was sitting on the floor with the two of them curled up against my side, eating and snuggling their little faces into the fake velvet of my dress. I didn't have any books, so I started telling fairy tales from home as much as I could recall. I soon had a small audience of the other children trapped in the Chantry with their mothers, and I tried my best to keep their minds off what was happening. I told the stories of the little mermaid, and Cinderella, and the old lady in the shoe, even adapting the story of Wall-E to be about golems and a boat that was sailing on a lake rather than robots in space. I talked until I was hoarse, still sitting on the floor, now with two children sleeping in my arms, grateful parents coming to collect the other little ones as they saw that I couldn't keep going.

Aedan, Alistair, and the others came to see me before the locked the doors to the Chantry. I was stroking the soft hair of the two tiny angels who were still sleeping, thumbs in mouths and their heads on my lap. Leliana, eyes bright, helped me settle them on the floor on top of my blanket, with my cloak over them to keep them warm. This revealed the sword I had been hiding under the cloak, and I just shrugged as Teagan gave me a strange look. I left it sheathed, but kept it with me. I hugged each of my companions, including an incredulous Sten and a surprised (but pleased) Alistair, begging them to be careful. Then the Chantry doors swung shut and the bars dropped, Theron and I stuck inside and the rest of our friends stuck outside.

I settled near the Chantry doors, and Theron stiffly sank to the floor beside me. Teagan did the rounds, ensuring everyone was as settled as they could be, then also took position on the floor near us. Teagan again glanced at my sword. I leaned over to whisper softly, so that no one else in the Chantry would hear.

"I don't think we need to worry, but I believe in being prepared. I am not a helpless child, to sit in here relying entirely on others to protect me. If, by some terrible occurrence, the creatures manage to get through the defenses and enter this building, I will not stand by and watch us all be slaughtered. Whatever it takes," I looked back at the tiny kids sleeping curled in my cloak, "I will not let anything happen to these people. We will fight, and we will prevail, because the alternative is unthinkable."

Teagan studied my face in surprise, and I wondered if I had just blown my cover as a noblewoman. I had thought that it wasn't uncommon for Fereldan women to train, to fight, but perhaps that had just been for the benefit of any women who wished to play the game. But as my gaze passed over Theron's face, he gave me a smile and a slight nod (which looked to be perhaps pride?), and I figured I couldn't have blown it too badly. Theron himself propped his shield against his knees, unsheathed his sword and left it close at hand, and gave the impression of being a one-man army. Even Teagan fingered the sword at his own waist, and I knew that, should the worst happen, at least three of us would fight to protect the innocents huddled behind us in the flickering candlelight.

So, we waited. The people behind us slowly seemed to fall into a fitful sleep, and everything became deathly quiet. Only the three of us near the door could hear the muffled shouts and the clash of steel on steel through the enormous Chantry doors. But nothing ever seemed to approach the doors themselves, and the sounds remained soft and unobtrusive.

After a while, I think I drowsed, leaning back against a pillar, chin on my chest, only to wake every few minutes listening to the minutest sounds filtering through the doors. I had no idea of the passage of time, and after a bit got up to pace lest I become too stiff with the sitting. Theron shadowed me, and Teagan did the same, periodically; we were the only movement in the stuffy building. When my legs were no longer stiff, I sat again. In this way, we passed a very boring, very tense night.

I was startled awake by an insistent knocking on the Chantry door. There was a rhythm to it - two knocks, pause, then three more knocks, and this was repeated several times before anyone inside had the presence of mind to get up and unbar the doors. When we did, we were greeted by the sight of a group of villagers, only one or two less than there had been yesterday, crudely armed and armoured, the dwarf and his men, and my companions. Everyone was covered in something sticky, but none of it looked like their blood. I studied each in turn, looking for any sign of injury, and finally allowing a sigh of relief to pass through me once I convinced myself they were all whole.

Teagan gave a short but heartfelt speech thanking each of the people who had fought to defend Redcliffe. Afterwards, I helped to organise the villagers into groups - kids and anyone who seemed squeamish to go gather wood for pyres, the rest to remove valuables from the recently re-dead and drag their corpses to a pile behind the Chantry. Mother Hannah came out to say a few words over the largely unrecognisable corpses and then we consigned them all to the fire.

Inside the Chantry, I consulted with Mother Hannah regarding the orphans. She promised to care for them and try to find them homes, and I left her with a small pile of silver to ensure they had everything they needed. They might end up like me, passed from one resentful substitute parent to another, but I swore to myself that if I was ever able I'd do something to help them. I walked away, after one last snuggle, unshed tears glistening in my eyes. Aedan, who knew a little of my past, wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we walked up the hill to the Windmill to meet Teagan.

Once at the windmill, no one had a better plan, so we chose to do exactly what had been decided in game. Isolde showed up; Teagan gave his ring to Aedan to access the secret passageway. He went with Isolde inside the castle, and Theron and I were to stand by the castle gates with Ser Perth and his men until the rest of the group could fight their way through to open them. With another hug for luck for each of my new friends, I walked to my assigned place and waited again. I could sense Theron getting frustrated, but knew of nothing that would soothe his wounded pride at having been left behind, or his impatience at having to wait around for others to do what he saw as his job. So I sat, exhausted, while he paced.

We ate a quick meal with the knights, then waited some more. Finally we heard a creak as a small door, barely visible through the gates, opened to reveal Aedan's wary face. They filed out of the cellar door, looking around and seeing nothing threatening. I realised that even Morrigan was spattered with blood, but no one was limping or otherwise obviously hurt, so I assumed either the blood wasn't theirs or relatively minor injuries had been managed with poultices. Aedan sent Leliana to open the gate for us. Just as she reached the lever, Prince started barking, loudly, and the hair on my arms stood up. We were about to be ambushed, I was suddenly certain, and it was my fault because I'd forgotten this detail.

As the portcullis rose, so did the bodies strewn all over the ground that somehow we had all managed to ignore. In the blink of an eye, the courtyard was full of rotting undead, archers as well as axe- and sword-bearing zombies, and then the icing on the cake - in the courtyard, nearer Leliana than anyone else, rose a strange, ghostly being, floating above the ground, no real feet or easily distinguished features, just a strangely humanoid-shaped grey blur. Sonofa ... that's a Revenant.

A string of curses burst from my mouth as I realised that Leliana was close, too close. I was running, Theron was running, as were Ser Perth and his men, but there wasn't enough time. The Revenant raised its arms, if blobs could be said to have such appendages, and some sort of fel energy gathered between them as it looked at her. I made to stab it with my sword as I drew near, but it seemed to effortlessly flow out of the way. Theron and the knights had all been intercepted by groups of undead. I screamed as the magic gathered, Leliana was already screaming, and suddenly there was an explosion of sorts. Animated corpses started dropping all over the courtyard, like puppets whose strings had been cut. The ball of energy the Revenant had been building just fizzled out, and my sword streaked through where it was still floating, eliciting a high pitched screech. Theron and Ser Perth joined me, and as they hacked at it, chunks of grey mist floated away only to vanish, as did the Revenant moments later.