9:30 Dragon

"We should come up with a signal of our own." Durin says, after returning from meeting the human king.

Theron gives him an unreadable look, then returns his attention to his target some hundred feet off. He draws the bowstring back, releases a breath in a slow and steady stream of fog, and fires.

Bull's eye. Again.

Durin crosses his arms over his breastplate and frowns, which even he will admit is not exactly atypical of him anymore. He still lets Theron have his time to think, though. While he cannot be sure if Theron views archery as meditative as Durin's own swordsmanship is, it would not hurt to wait.

Sure enough, several minutes pass before, eventually, Theron has to retrieve his spent arrows.

Durin follows.

"I am not opposed to this plan." Theron says after a while longer, looking back toward the king's tent.

"Right, then. Well, where do you propose we start?"

Theron realizes that the battle is lost long before anyone else.

As a skilled archer, the Warden he had been partnered with had asked that he climb into the lower branches of a tall pine nearby, rather than staying on the ground. Theron had only agreed when Durin Aeducan offered to cut the knees off of the next human to give him an order, which drew a laugh from the assembled Wardens. Apparently, becoming a Grey Warden superseded all other commitments, whether to clan or race. Whether Durin would follow through on his threat had been deemed unlikely, because the humans were far too caught up in their myth to care. Theron hardly agrees with their cavalier attitudes, but he doesn't bother to voice his opinion. They are shem, and being Grey Wardens does not change that.

The only one of the Elvhen he's seen since their group of recruits was split is Senior Warden Surana. For a flat-ear, she fights well in the Keeper arts, but she has not deigned to join their war-band. Instead, she has entrusted the safety of the sole mage recruit (Stefan, because Theron would never even think that he needed protection) to Durin, Theron, and a handful of nominally-skilled humans.

But despite his resentment, he had nonetheless been surprised to find the darkspawn overwhelming their forces. He remembers, of course, that the shemlen king had put together some grand scheme that would have crushed the beasts from their flanks. But he doesn't see it happening. The middle ranks of the shemlen have all but collapsed at the head of the column as the darkspawn continue to storm into range of arrow and ballistae. A few mages fling spells over the line of battle, but he cannot see the darkspawn break ranks or panic, if they do at all.

"What do you see?" the Warden below his perch is bellowing, and Theron drops out of the pine a moment later, bow slung across his back.

"The center cannot hold." Theron replies, immediately looking for Durin and Stefan. Their orders are to retreat when the battle is lost, he thinks, and they cannot hope to stand against tens of thousands of monsters without some sort of reinforcement.

"Aye, we suspected as much," the Warden replies, and Theron blinks at him.

The Warden is a human by the name of Alphred, he thinks, and Theron can see the concern darkening his heavily bearded face. Theron cannot remember anything more about him, but the human just shakes his head. Apparently no one needs him to remember them, anyway. "All Wardens can sense the Taint, and the horde's been getting closer for the past half-hour. We're losing ground, brother, and it may be best for you and your fellows to be elsewhere."

There's a shout from somewhere nearby, and Theron turns. He spots Stefan running up to them, followed closely by Durin. The dwarf is hardly perturbed, he thinks, and if not for the blood spatter across both of them, Theron would hardly think that either Warden had been anywhere near the battle. However, having seen the mage and dwarf pull back from the left flank at about the same time as the tower signal was lit, Theron can hardly blame them for their haste. As it is, he knows that the battle is rapidly turning from a fight to a rout.

"Welcome, brothers. Ill news, I take it?" Alph asks.

Stefan hardly seems to hear him. "Yes, yes, all the news is bad and oh, look, there's blood everywhere."

Theron has a sudden urge to grasp the mage's shoulders and shake sense into him.

"There are only, what, about forty Grey Wardens in Ferelden, including us?" Stefan is speaking so quickly that he is becoming difficult to understand. "Only now there aren't, because Wardens Nikolai and Lorry just died fighting an ogre for us to get away."

"You were both assigned to the left flank, yes?" Alph is peering off into the dark, smoky distance, though he can't possibly see anything.

"Right, and now there isn't one. Loghain was supposed to show and he didn't and now everyone's dead." The mage is quaking in his boots, Theron realizes. He had never thought the expression could be literal, and wonders at the cause. "I can't find anyone besides you and Durin and I think the templars already pulled out with every mage they could find except me because I'm a Warden—"

Durin takes this moment to kick the mage's legs out from under him.

Stefan lands flat on his back, all the breath knocked right out of him with a squeak, and Durin says sharply, "Pull yourself together."

"Nyx is probably with the Commander, as one of the senior Wardens and our only mage." Alph tells them, ignoring Stefan entirely. "If I remember right, they were posted in the thick of things. With the king."

There is a moment of relative silence as Stefan struggles back to his feet and the rest of them think. The darkspawn are approaching en masse, and it doesn't take a genius to understand that Ostagar is doomed. Stefan is merely the first of the Wardens whose nerve has broken.

Alph sighs. Then he hefts his two-handed axe over his shoulder, expression serious. Then, "Run."

"I will not run from darkspawn." Durin growls, straight-edged longsword in hand.

"And that isn't a request, Ensign." Alph says flatly, looking out over the battlefield, far beyond them.

Theron holds up two fingers as Durin is about to launch into a tirade, and the dwarf stops short. Perhaps Durin is not entirely aware of the enmity between shemlen and the Dalish, but it is a rare thing indeed when Theron obeys an order from a human. Where once he was one of the most promising young hunters of his clan, he is a soldier now.

And he thinks that perhaps Durin needs to remember that, for all the shem high-handedness that has been demonstrated time and again, the Grey Wardens can at least be trusted to know when the end is near.

Stefan is opening and closing his mouth, but no sound comes out. He's still shaking.

"When the horde reaches us, they won't be able to tell you from a hole in the ground." Alph growls, "Keep your eyes open and bring the warning to Weisshaupt if you can—Teryn Loghain betrayed the Grey Wardens and we can expect the Blight to continue."

"Then why do you even want us to retreat?" Durin demands. "The Wardens in the Tower of Ishal—"

"—Are also under attack." Alph cuts him off, voice dropping another register. "Run and live, brothers. Don't let Thedas fall."

Theron's fingers flash through a variety of quick signs behind Alph's back. Don't argue.

"…Very well." Durin turns to Stefan, who is shaking his head no, no, no. He grabs the mage's bracer and drags him along as the three very junior Wardens make a break for the tree line.

Theron leads the way.

"All right, I think that's far enough for now." Marian pants, stumbling to a stop and resting against a gnarled old tree. "Maker's tits, it's cold out here."

As soon as she does, her brother throws himself down on the only patch of dry ground they've found for some time, groaning. Their mabari—Raleigh, all grey and black and covered in darkspawn blood—whines at them from a little further on, tongue lolling out of his mouth. All three of them are breathing out thick clouds of white fog—it's fiendishly cold out here, and between the darkspawn blood and grimy swamp water, they're shaking in the cold.

When Carver gets his breath back, he says, "How much further, sister?"

"That…that I don't know." Marian admits, peering up at the sky. Just their luck; she can hardly make out the sun at all. After a second, she lets out a frustrated breath and says, "At least it's not raining."

"Great, just great." Carver snaps, getting to his feet again. Marian throws him a glare over her shoulder, but he doesn't stop. "The King's dead, the army's broken, the Wardens are dead, and we're lost."

Marian is about to give a cutting response, but Raleigh starts growling at that moment. Both of the Hawke siblings turn as one—Carver hefts his greatsword, and Marian draws her bow. There's a rustle in the bushes, and Marian almost expects darkspawn, but the figure that emerges is short, pointy-eared, unarmed, and alone.

Also, not a darkspawn. Having seen shrieks before, Marian is willing to forget some of the other things just to be thankful for that.

For a moment, no one says anything. Raleigh stops growling, though.

"Ostagar survivors?" the elf asks.

Marian nods, lowering her bow. "Yes. And you're a Grey Warden." She recognized the little griffon sigil on the woman's left pauldron, small as it was.

"Yes," she looks at Raleigh and Carver in turn, as though trying to figure something out. Then she shakes her head and says, "My name is Nyx. I hate to ask anything of you, but I need help. And in asking, I'm assuming you weren't included in Loghain's retreat."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Carver demands, but Marian frowns.

"What is this about?"

"…I have a wounded friend, but I can't help him on my own. Will you help me?" Her voice sharpens somewhat toward the end, and she looks back over her shoulder as though expecting company.

"That depends." Marian says. She clears her throat under the look Nyx gives her, and adds, "We need someone to lead us back to Lothering. We're out of our depth out here."

Marian sees the Warden's lips move silently—at one point she seems to say, "Bloody Andraste"—before she nods. "All right. I've made the trip before—we'll see if we can shave a day or two off."

A day or two could make all the difference.

Cheered, Marian slings her bow back over her shoulder, and both Raleigh and Carver relax.

"So, how did you get so far out here? The rest of the Wardens…" Carver trails off, though Nyx just shrugs.

"I was ordered to retreat ahead of the horde," is all she says on the topic, and leads them through the undergrowth.

"This friend of yours—is he another Warden?" Marian asks.

"No."

"Well, then, I hope he's handsome."

That gets a brief bark of laughter out of the Warden, which makes Raleigh's ears perk up. Marian scratches behind his ears.

Nyx stops next to another gnarled old tree—this one is about twice as big and twice as ugly as the one Marian had been leaning against earlier, and it's the only tree in the area that's shed all its leaves. Marian guesses that it's dead, but isn't sure. And anyway, it's not that important in the end.

Nyx walks right up to the tree and…reaches into the bark, it seems. In that instant, a glaive appears in her hand—no, Marian realizes, it's a mage staff—and the tree seems to shudder. Briefly, reality ripples, and when Marian blinks the tree has its leaves back all of a sudden and there's a man lying at the base of its trunk. After a second, the man tries to sit up with a hiss of pain and Marian notices the way his left leg isn't responding the right way. It makes her a little ill just to look at it, particularly since at some point someone must have gotten his greaves off.

Blonde hair, golden armor… Sure, his eyes are unfocused and he looks absolutely ill with pain, but Marian would know that face anywhere. Her mother was always fond of the king.

"Maker, is that the king?" Carver sounds flabbergasted, and if Marian wasn't feeling much the same way she would have mocked him for it.

"Yes. I need one—or both—of you to hold him down so I can fix this damned leg of his." Nyx says. She looks angry, more than anything. "I've spent sixteen years killing darkspawn, and never in that time have I been more than competent at healing. I can overcharge my spells in order to do what's needed, but it's going to hurt and he is going to scream."

"...Lady Nyx?" the king asks in a vague sort of way. His eyes aren't focusing properly.

Nyx sighs. "Now, please. I'll get a belt…"

Even if Marian doesn't know much about magical healing, she and Carver both understand battlefield care well enough to understand what the Warden needs. Nyx crams the leather strip into the king's mouth. Carver grabs the king's left arm and shoulder, while Marian effectively sits on his right. All five stone of Raleigh's bulk ends up sprawled across the king's waist and hip. Nyx takes up a position on his right leg, pinning it under her weight, staff in one hand and the other hand on the king's shin.

Marian doesn't catch all that Nyx does—she's sure that there was something to do with magically resetting bone and then shooting healing magic into the limb until it took, but…ouch. Just overall, ouch.

By the time it's over, all of them are breathing hard and the king is unconscious. Nyx stands and leans heavily on her staff for a moment. Then she pulls a lyrium potion out of nowhere and downs the vial's contents in one gulp.

"All right. Give me a moment and I'll wake him up." The Warden looks old, somehow—she's probably ten years older than Marian is, though with elves it's always hard to tell.

Marian brushes her sweat-slicked hair out of her face and likewise stands. She says, "By the way, I don't think we ever introduced ourselves." She makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses her brother and the dog. "Carver, Raleigh, and… Well, my full name is Marian Hawke. But just call me Hawke—it's faster."

The Warden says nothing for a moment. Then, "Malcolm's children?"

Marian frowns. "Actually…wait, aren't you that elf who visited our farm? Maker, but that was ages ago! I don't know why I didn't recognize those tattoos off-hand." She'd been perhaps nineteen at the time, and rather less interested in joining the army for anything—after all, Carver had only been old enough to play with toy swords back then. Maker knows her brother needs someone to keep an eye on him (forever), and in the years since their father's death it had been her job.

And if that meant joining the arl's men in order to do so…well, big sister's prerogative.

That also means she has a much better memory for faces than Carver did at the time—eighteen or not, her brother is hardly going to remember the face of a woman who, at the time, Father had banned him from so much as seeing.

Marian, on the other hand, remembered quite well.

Nyx nods.

"Well, then. Sorry if I wasn't much help then—didn't know you were a Warden." Marian waves a hand. She'd had other things on her mind then. Like keeping the twins out of trouble for as long as she could. "So, about the king, and the battle."

"What do you want to know?" Nyx asks, even while digging around her pockets for another trinket.

"What happened?" Carver breaks in, and Marian isn't even quite sure what he's talking about. Maybe everything.

"From what I understand of the strategy, everything went wrong." Nyx jerked a thumb at Cailan. "His lines charged into the darkspawn, when they were supposed to hold position. Loghain quit the field. Two-thirds of my order, at a minimum, died fighting." Briefly, she pinches the bridge of her nose. "But that's not important now. I'll get you to Lothering—it's the nearest town—get him somewhere that isn't Lothering, and then start this operation from the ground up."

"Only two-thirds?" Marian asks before she can think better of it.

"…From what I can tell, some of the most recent recruits may be alive." Nyx shakes her head again, "But for now, I'll have to put that aside to get him—" she punctuates this with another sharp jerk of her head, toward the unconscious king, "—out of harm's way, and to fulfill my end of the bargain with you."

Marian pauses. "You're saying that our lovely little village isn't safe enough for the king."

"It won't be—as the southernmost village in Ferelden short of Ostagar, the Blight will hit Lothering first." Nyx's mouth is a flat, grim line. "We have to go."

"On that count, we're agreed." Marian says. "Come on, let's get King Cailan up and walking before we run off into the next disaster."

"And here I thought you two were going to stand around and chat until the darkspawn turn up for tea." Carver grumbles, but Nyx seemingly ignores the comment. Marian knows she does.

It takes some doing, with smelling-salts and also a slap to the face, but the king is on his feet within a few minutes. He's very quiet, compared to the man Marian vaguely remembers, but he's at least walking. And then they're off.

Maker, it seems like they're always off somewhere. Hopefully there will be a safe end to this, soon.

9:24 Dragon

Lothering is different from the village she remembers.

Part of the problem is that she never had a chance to visit, back when the place wasn't under threat from an imminent darkspawn invasion. She'd been twelve and still locked inside of Kinloch Hold, like every other mage her age. The town looks odd without refugees scattered all over, trying desperately to stay one step ahead of the darkspawn. It seems quiet, peaceful.

The other half of the problem, though, is how she is currently looking down at it from the arc in front of the Chantry, in the form of a jet-black crow.

Traveling through the Wilds in the form of an elf in borrowed clothes hadn't been the most practical idea, particularly without a hat or gloves in the midst of winter. She's lucky that Morrigan had been willing to teach her how to change shape, even if she never quite expected to be able to use it to travel like this.

Nyx ruffles her feathers and tries to focus despite a growing sense of desperation.

She remembers hearing, at some point, that the Champion of Kirkwall had originally been a Lothering refugee. Nathaniel had even told her that he'd seen Anders, long since possessed and teetering toward extremism, in the Champion's company. She remembers clenching her fists on her writing-desk, wishing she could drag the errant Warden back by his ear and understand where it had all gone wrong. She also remembers a report or two, from the Wardens in the Free Marches—about an apostate named Malcolm Hawke, about the debt Warden-Commander Larius owed the man, and about the one of the first darkspawn, Corypheus.

While Nyx had been forced to cut contact with her fellow Wardens and go on the run, she still maintained connections until the moment she woke up in the Wilds.

It's a pity that none of those connections mean anything now. The only creature she has the bad luck to be nominally allied with is Flemeth.

This can only end badly.

After a moment more, Nyx spreads her wings and takes off again. Hopefully, if nothing else, Malcolm Hawke can point her toward some of the Ferelden Wardens. Where there is one Warden, there are probably more, and sooner or later she'll be able to find Duncan.

She hopes Hawke is at least willing to listen to a Warden after all that's happened. She needs a lead.

(Though really, what she needs is a lifeline.)

9:30 Dragon

Elissa wakes up and wonders why.

It's strange how heavy everything feels—as though she has a weight across her chest and arms. Even besides that bone-deep weariness is a sort of dullness that spans everything she can see. She's not precisely in pain, but it also feels like she's trying to move through molasses.

"Good to see you awake, Lady Cousland," says a familiar voice to her right. She blinks, and while the molasses feeling doesn't go away, she's able to turn her head to see Faren Brosca sitting at her bedside.

"Well met," she croaks, and winces.

"Yes, well, same to you if that's all right." Faren shifts, looking uncomfortable, but Elissa is too distracted to note his morose expression.

"Here," says another voice, and Kallian Tabris appears at her side. She sets a cup down on a nearby table, which Elissa realizes she can't get up to take. Not on her own.

Good. That's…that's two Wardens alive, besides her. Elissa closes her eyes briefly. Thank the Maker for small miracles. They're alive and she's alive and thank the Maker she hasn't lost everyone.

After a moment, both Faren and Kallian help her sit up, and Elissa feels every bone in her back creak in protest. This is followed by most of her major joints, making her wince. She doesn't curse, but it's a close thing.

Still, it feels a little better to be upright. "Where…where are we?" Elissa tries again, but her throat is still dry.

"In my mother's home." Elissa blinks and looks to their left—and there, standing by the fireplace, is Morrigan.

Kallian presses the cup into her hand before she can think of anything else to say, and Elissa gulps the contents gratefully. Even cold, tea is better than nothing.

Once she's done, Elissa clears her throat. She pushes back at the feeling of dullness and distorted time, blinks away the confused knot her emotions have become over the past several weeks. Then she says, "What happened?"

Morrigan tells them.

Loghain: Retreated.

The King: Missing, presumed dead.

The other Wardens: Missing or dead.

The only known survivors can be counted on one hand: Alistair, Elissa herself, Faren, and Kallian. And not one of them has been in the Wardens for more than a year.

Elissa wants to bury her face in her hands and scream, but she can't. Not now. Not yet.

"…How long until we can leave?" Elissa asks.

Faren replies, "As soon as you can walk, we'll go." The dwarf's expression is remarkably grim, and when Elissa looks at Kallian to confirm, the elf woman nods. Faren continues, "You were the worst-off out of us—Kallian only took a flesh wound, and I had a concussion that cleared up all right. You were—what do topsiders call it?—oh, a pincushion."

"Oh." Elissa looks down at the bandages covering her shoulders and chest. Hard to believe she hadn't noticed them before, but whatever injuries she took don't hurt anymore.

"…And can I just say, it's nice to hear you actually talk for once?" Kallian puts in. The elf's smile is sort of wobbly, but Elissa just blinks at her. "We were…worried."

Elissa sighs. "Then…then I apologize. But we have to see—"

There is an abrupt commotion outside, and a lot of shouting.

"Hang onto that thought." Faren says, and heads for the door.

He slips outside easily, leaving Kallian and Elissa in the house to think. They don't have long, or anything much to say. At least, Elissa doesn't. Kallian's blonde brows are knit together suspiciously, but she hasn't gotten up yet.

Then the shouting gets louder.

Faren slips back in. Amazingly, he looks a little stunned and a little happy. Sort of an even mix, and it takes him a moment to find his voice. Then, "The others made it!"

"What?" Kallian jumps to her feet, looking more hopeful than Elissa has ever seen her. For her part, Elissa feels a buoyant sensation building in her chest. The dwarf couldn't mean…?

"Theron, Durin, and Stefan all made it here." Faren says, "Couldn't tell you how, but that's three more of us who made it out, and I bet Theron had something to do with it."

Theron…right, the Dalish archer. Stefan was the Circle mage and Durin the…other dwarf. Elissa frowns, feeling like she should know more, but gives up.

It's the first good news she's had in a long while.

"Help me up." Elissa says to Kallian. "I can't…I can't walk on my own, but I need to see them."

"No problem. Faren, if you would?" Kallian takes Elissa's arm while Faren steadies her waist from the other side, and they walk out together.