Dragon Age: Last Flight (5 page)

As the griffon began to climb through the clouds that followed the Blight, Isseya heard a faint, strange melody seep into her mind. She had no sense of it as actual sound; rather, it seemed to come from within, almost as if she were humming the tune to herself.

She could never have imagined such a song, though. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. Aching and ethereal, it seemed to pull her toward a memory of nostalgic bliss that she had somehow lost—but that she would do anything to recover. Anything at all.

Blacktalon’s screech snapped Isseya out of her trance. The griffon bucked its head violently against the reins, almost tearing them out of Huble’s entranced grip. The senior Warden had pulled them taut, evidently without realizing what he was doing. His posture was frozen stiff in the saddle, and although Isseya could not see his face, she guessed he was enraptured by the same music that had caught her.

Cringing at her own temerity, she slapped him across the back of the head.

Huble jolted upright in his saddle, cursing. He loosed the reins immediately, letting Blacktalon take the slack, and half turned apologetically back to Isseya as they dove upward through the storm clouds. “Thank you.”

“What was it?” the elf asked, shaken.

Huble didn’t answer until the wall of cloud separated them from the darkspawn horde. When he did, his voice was tight and strained. “The Archdemon.”

Isseya sat back in her saddle, glad that the restraining straps kept her buckled firmly into her seat. A little noise, something like a moan, escaped her lips and was swept away by the wind. Her legs and spine seemed to have gone to jelly.

Of course the Archdemon was with the Blight. The Archdemon was what
caused
the Blight. But it still unnerved her to think that one of the corrupted Old Gods was sitting somewhere in that mass of darkspawn, separated from them only by air and Blacktalon’s wings.

And what frightened her most, even more than the unfathomable destruction that the Archdemon would soon set loose upon that lovely, hapless city by the sea, was how beautiful the melody in her mind had been.

For the rest of their ride back to Antiva City, Isseya sat small and quiet on Blacktalon’s back, unable to reconcile the horrors of the darkspawn with the sweetness of their song.

“It’s the corruption,” Warden-Commander Turab told her later, when they were sitting in the barracks waiting for the royal servants to bring in their dinner. Isseya had finally mustered up the courage to approach the formidable-looking dwarf, and had found him unexpectedly easy to talk to. Under his bristly red mustache and scarred gray plate mail, the Warden-Commander had a good deal of caring for his charges.

He pitched his voice loudly enough to be heard by all of them, old hands and fresh-faced recruits alike, although it was clear that he meant his words mostly for the latter. “The corruption that allows us to sense the darkspawn, and protects us from their taint, also causes us to experience some things as they do. The Archdemon’s call is among them. It’s the same song you’ll hear when the Calling comes upon you, and it will grow stronger as the corruption sinks deeper into your bones. Someday, if you wait too long, you won’t be able to resist. Your duty is to answer the Calling while you still have the choice.”

“Does that happen faster because we hear the Archdemon’s song?” Isseya asked.

Turab shrugged in a clanking of steel and silverite. “It might. It comes a little differently to each of us.”

“Well, that’s something to look forward to,” Garahel said, slapping his palms on his thighs in mock-cheer. “And, oh, look, here comes dinner. I know
I’ve
worked up quite the appetite, hearing that story.”

Isseya didn’t even try to smile at her brother’s jest. She took a wooden bowl from a cart that one servant had wheeled in, and filled it with bread and stew from another. None of the food had any flavor. It could have been the sweetest honey cake or fermented pig shit; it would have tasted just the same to her.

She had been so proud when she was chosen to be a Grey Warden. Everyone knew that the Wardens took only the best: the keenest archers, the most skilled mages, the cleverest tactical minds. It had been her chance to leap out of the semislavery that was an elf’s lot in a human city and, together with her brother, prove her mettle on a more equal field.

Of course she’d known about the Calling. Everyone who had ever heard of the Grey Wardens knew that someday the darkspawn taint that the Wardens absorbed during the Joining would overwhelm them, driving them to madness and death. It might take thirty years or more, but eventually, if they lived long enough, every one of them succumbed. Their only choice then was to throw themselves into the Deep Roads on a suicidal quest to kill as many darkspawn as they could before they died. That was the Calling—the fate that awaited them all, if nothing else killed them first—and the foreknowledge of doom clung to the Wardens like a shadow.

But it had always seemed so far away. Romantic, tragic, a storybook ending that befell storybook heroes. Not something that Isseya had been able to imagine snuffing out the flame of her own life.

The sight of the horde and the echo of the Archdemon’s song had shaken that complacency from her.

She ate without tasting, and drank without thinking, and put her empty bowl back onto the servant’s cart without any memory of it leaving her hands.

After they ate, Warden-Commander Turab and a handful of the most senior Wardens, including Huble, left for a second audience with the king and queen. The others played cards or dice games to pass the time, exchanging ribald and frequently farfetched tales of their exploits before Antiva City.

Isseya didn’t join them, and barely listened, although she heard Garahel boisterously recounting some lie or another, earning raucous laughter from his audience. Her brother had a gift for taking his companions’ minds off unpleasant matters while diverting himself in the process. It was a strength she didn’t share. She simply sat, waiting, until the Warden-Commander and his delegation returned.

Their failure was written in the grimness of their faces.

“The queen still wants to fight,” Turab informed them in his gruff baritone, “and because she’s made her feelings so clearly known, Antiva City no longer has a choice. Virtually every able-bodied captain has set sail for safer shores, and every crippled one has been abandoned by his crew. If they’d acted yesterday, the king and queen might have been able to effect an orderly evacuation … but as matters now stand, there aren’t enough ships to save even the palace household.”

The Wardens absorbed this news silently. Then Garahel raked a hand through his blond curls and asked the obvious question: “What do we do?”

Turab shook his head unhappily. The little brass rings braided into his red beard jangled against one another. “We have three ships left with loyal captains. We’ll use them to evacuate as many war assets as we can. Mages, archers, templars—anyone with the strength and skill to aid us significantly against the Blight.”

“And the politically connected,” a scarred female Warden said contemptuously. The long black staff slung across her back marked her as a mage, but Isseya didn’t know her.

“Yes,” Turab conceded. He raised a mailed hand to quell some of the Wardens’ discontented murmurs. “They’re war assets too. Some of them have armies we can call upon. Some have landholdings that can provide us support. We’ll need food, horses, weapons, supplies. Money. Merchants and nobles can give us those things. That makes them valuable.”

“Meanwhile the poor, who can’t give us anything, will be left behind for the darkspawn.” The female Warden snorted. “How will that reflect on us?”

Turab rolled his shoulders in a shrug and trudged across the room to take a mug of ale sitting in the middle of an unfinished card game. “We’ll still look better than the darkspawn. Maker’s mercy, Dendi, it’s a
Blight
. You think I like this? The idiot royals dawdled a day too long, and now hundreds of people we could have saved are going to die. That’s not even the worst of it. We’re taking the royals ourselves. The rest of the evacuees are going by ship, but King Elaudio and his queen will be leaving Antiva City by griffon-wing, as will a select handful of their advisers.”

The scarred mage, Dendi, recoiled so far that her staff clanked against the wall behind her. “Who’s taking them?”

“You and Huble, actually. Blacktalon and Skriax are our strongest and fastest griffons; they have the best chance at outflying any dangers that might pursue from the air. Ostiver, Fenadahl, and the other mages will go with the ships. Their talents will be most helpful if it comes to fighting on the water. I will go with them to ensure that the captains and their guests honor the bargains they’ve struck. The rest of you will take the remaining griffons. Everyone gets a passenger—but only one.”

Turab surveyed each of them in turn, his gaze forbidding under his bushy red brows. “I won’t have you compromising the griffons’ maneuverability or endurance to carry out more people. Your first task is to make sure the royals get out alive. Do you understand?”

Isseya nodded along with the others. She wasn’t sure she did understand, really, but it seemed imprudent to say so.

“Good.” Turab drained his ale. “I’ll take you out to meet the griffons now. Try and make your matches quickly. We don’t have time to wait until morning. I want everyone out of the palace within the next two hours.”

4

5:12 E
XALTED

“Choose your griffons carefully,” Turab advised the younger Wardens as he led them up the sunbaked stairs to the high walls where the winged beasts had chosen to perch. There were five of them: Garahel, Isseya, a pair of bald-headed twin sisters named Kaiya and Taiya, and a sullen, heavily tattooed tribesman from the Anderfels whose name Isseya did not know. All were carrying their saddlebags; they wouldn’t be spending another night in the palace. “You’re taking a partner who will share your life for many years. You will eat together, fight together, stand long and lonely guard together. Your lives, and your companions’ lives, will depend on the trust you share with your griffon. Abuse it, and you’ll have the worst enemy you could ever know.”

“Sounds like a wife,” Garahel said wryly, trudging up after the dwarf.

Turab nodded sagely. “That’s a fair way of putting it. If your wife outweighed you six times over, ate a live goat at each meal, and could snap every bone in your body under one foot.”

“I did once seduce a Qunari,” the elf murmured.

That earned a snort of amusement from the Warden-Commander. Upon reaching the top of the wall, the red-bearded dwarf stood aside to let the others pass him onto the wall. Isseya was flushed and sweaty, and both of the sisters were mopping perspiration from their shiny heads after that long hot climb, but Turab wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Some of these griffons have just finished their training; others lost their original riders to the Blight and need new ones,” the dwarf said as the young Wardens emerged onto the wall. “Fenadahl and the others rode them out here as the last step in the evaluation. We believe they’ll make good matches for the lot of you. While we have recommendations for specific pairs, in the end the final choice is between you and your griffon. So go on, get to know one another.”

Isseya shaded her eyes against the sun and looked over the preening griffons. She picked her way across the wall to approach them, feeling strangely shy. Up close, the beasts were always bigger than she’d thought, and more beautiful.

One of them, a muscular black female, raised her head as the elf approached. The griffon’s eyes were a lighter shade of amber than most; against the rich darkness of her feathers, they shone like yellow diamonds. Her beak had a faint tortoiseshell pattern, rough and chipped along its edges. She was the most breathtaking thing Isseya had ever seen.

She was scarred, too. A long, wavery stripe of bald gray skin ran along the side of the griffon’s neck where something had ripped flesh and feathers away. The injury was completely healed, but Isseya could tell it was recent and had been healed by magic, because the nearby feathers were still cut short. Had the wound healed of its own accord, those feathers would have grown back fully.

“What’s your name?” the elf murmured, looking down to the front of the griffon’s harness. The great beasts did not wear collars, but their names were inscribed on the chest plates of their battle harnesses. This one said …

“Revas,” she read aloud. It was an Elvish word: “freedom.”

The griffon’s tufted ears flickered upward in recognition at the sound of her name. She opened her beak and let out a hiss, then abruptly rested her enormous head on Isseya’s shoulder. Leonine musk filled the elf’s nostrils, along with an undercurrent of blood and bone marrow that lingered around the griffon’s chin.

The weight buckled Isseya’s knees, but she didn’t mind one bit. “I suppose I’m claimed,” she said to Warden-Commander Turab as he passed by.

The dwarf paused, a thoughtful look flickering across his bearded face. “I suppose you are,” he agreed. “Revas lost her rider just a few weeks back. His name was Dalsiral. He was a Dalish elf. Did you know him?”

Isseya shook her head. She felt a prickle of irritation that Turab would even ask—were
all
elves supposed to know one another, just because they were elves?—but it didn’t last. His question was meant honestly, and anyway, it was impossible to hold on to anger in the face of the awe and happiness that suffused her at having her own griffon.

“He was a good Warden,” Turab said. He was silent for a moment, then seemed to shake off whatever memory was holding him. “Revas took that wound from an ogre. It grabbed her after a dive, pulled her down. Nearly killed her. Dalsiral gave his life to save his steed. She’s been difficult since. In mourning, the roostmaster says. And angry, too. If you can bring her back, it would be a great service to the order. Revas is one of our best.”

He continued his walk down the wall, his plate mail ablaze in the sunlight. Isseya turned back to the griffon, who had lifted her head to watch Turab while he spoke.