Screaming.
Besides the splatter of dark blood, the body parts as well as the sounds of feet in drenched ground squelching, the one sound he hadn't missed in battlefields was the screaming. Screaming meant that it wasn't one of the Darkspawn dying. It was a man. A man under his banner, his command and fighting for his country was being skewered somewhere like a stuck pig about to be roasted and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
It's what stuck with him the most.
He thinks perhaps the second thing which always haunted him was the ground. Footing on a battlefield became treacherous. There were bodies littering below like marketplace fliers. Some of them were parts and pieces of men and women in armor. Their landholdings or their family crests in leather, in steel, in dwarven chain, blue steel and red, dented as well as smashed or broken. Some of them were not dead. They clawed at his ankles or cried his name as he passed them.
It would be a fool of a man who stops in the middle of a war zone to help someone beyond helping. And he'd be a fool of a king for ever forgetting their faces. It's the least he could do. He"
"Your majesty!" The cry went up behind him and to his right.
"You're majesty! We must sound the retreat! The Wardens from Weisshaupt have been waylaid on the way here. They won't make it in time!
"Your majesty! Your?"
By the time Alistair turned Knight-Commander Reland had been swallowed by Hurlocks. A bit taller than a human, Hurlocks made the common enemy within the Darkspawn horde. Their twisted faces held piggish noses, green or black or brown skinned stained in filth pulled taut like dead men wither until sharpened teeth were always exposed in loathsome grin. It was not the last vision he'd ever want his worst enemy to bear.
He tried to fight his way back to her. Without thinking, Alistair plunged his runic-decorated sword into several other Darkspawn who would bar his way. His Templar armor, coated so badly as to no longer look like metal, a gift and an idea by Relad herself"Your majesty will be too easy to spot in Cailen's golden armor. If your majesty has no protest, we thought we'd place you in a set you'd be more familiar with"and hacked the head off another.
He reached the pile of them that had pulled her down and mowed through them as children spin hands through water. It wasn't fast enough for Reland. When the bodies had been cleared, their black tainted blood splattering, all that remained of Reland twitched alive, barely, from her middle up. Gnaw-marks and scratches lined the bloody end of her breast plate where the rest of her had simply been devoured.
"Maker, Reland I am ?" He didn't know if it was bile or the hot wash of tears that burned his throat and made him choke.
"Your majesty' Do not weep"I"Your majesty, you must retreat. For"For Ferelden. For-"Your pretty elf, Alistair. Your pretty Warden elf. " He felt his world drop, as if it had any further to drop at this very second.
"Reland" What?"
"Your pretty elf. She's with the wardens," dully repeated. "You must....retreat. King must be....alive...We all just wanted"Happy....Al?" And she was gone. There was nothing beautiful about the last stuttering splash of hot guts or the way life bled out of her eyes when she died. It was ugly. It was horrid, it was something he'd seen so much by now he just wished he could never, ever see it again. The way eyes fix themselves to the sky blankly, hollow, as if heaven were a cruel trick and the Maker turned his face from His children. He thinks it is wrong. He thinks that Reland, for her loyalty and duty and determination she should have had the joy of growing old. Of"
Maker. Amell was with the Wardens. If he didn't get to her in time....
"Your majesty!" A different cry this time rang out through the cacophony of death. With it came the usual tingle of magic that sizzled across Alistair's skin. The Circle's magi. They'd finally broken through the li?He ducked a jagged sword whistling through the air meant for his head. Gathering his will and with a short gesture, a circle of righteous fire enveloped the area about him. White light haloed across the ground sprinkled with body parts, sending Darkspawn that tried to overwhelm them hurling backwards. The shockwave rippled further than he intended, splashing against some of the approaching magi-shields. A few of the younger magi shuddered as wherever his fire touched it drained their mana.
He straightened, gathered air into his lungs to bellow his reply when magic he'd never felt before crackled over his armor and through his skin.
Maker, it felt like nothing he'd ever been trained to sense! He was being pulled apart strand by strand, or so it felt like. Blue light filled his vision and blinded him.
The last thing he'd heard before the light took him was the rising cry of the senior enchanter and the screaming.
Always, always it was the screaming.
It was the single most sound that would haunt him the most.
]
Besides the splatter of dark blood, the body parts as well as the sounds of feet in drenched ground squelching, the one sound he hadn't missed in battlefields was the screaming. Screaming meant that it wasn't one of the Darkspawn dying. It was a man. A man under his banner, his command and fighting for his country was being skewered somewhere like a stuck pig about to be roasted and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
It's what stuck with him the most.
He thinks perhaps the second thing which always haunted him was the ground. Footing on a battlefield became treacherous. There were bodies littering below like marketplace fliers. Some of them were parts and pieces of men and women in armor. Their landholdings or their family crests in leather, in steel, in dwarven chain, blue steel and red, dented as well as smashed or broken. Some of them were not dead. They clawed at his ankles or cried his name as he passed them.
It would be a fool of a man who stops in the middle of a war zone to help someone beyond helping. And he'd be a fool of a king for ever forgetting their faces. It's the least he could do. He"
"Your majesty!" The cry went up behind him and to his right.
"You're majesty! We must sound the retreat! The Wardens from Weisshaupt have been waylaid on the way here. They won't make it in time!
"Your majesty! Your?"
By the time Alistair turned Knight-Commander Reland had been swallowed by Hurlocks. A bit taller than a human, Hurlocks made the common enemy within the Darkspawn horde. Their twisted faces held piggish noses, green or black or brown skinned stained in filth pulled taut like dead men wither until sharpened teeth were always exposed in loathsome grin. It was not the last vision he'd ever want his worst enemy to bear.
He tried to fight his way back to her. Without thinking, Alistair plunged his runic-decorated sword into several other Darkspawn who would bar his way. His Templar armor, coated so badly as to no longer look like metal, a gift and an idea by Relad herself"Your majesty will be too easy to spot in Cailen's golden armor. If your majesty has no protest, we thought we'd place you in a set you'd be more familiar with"and hacked the head off another.
He reached the pile of them that had pulled her down and mowed through them as children spin hands through water. It wasn't fast enough for Reland. When the bodies had been cleared, their black tainted blood splattering, all that remained of Reland twitched alive, barely, from her middle up. Gnaw-marks and scratches lined the bloody end of her breast plate where the rest of her had simply been devoured.
"Maker, Reland I am ?" He didn't know if it was bile or the hot wash of tears that burned his throat and made him choke.
"Your majesty' Do not weep"I"Your majesty, you must retreat. For"For Ferelden. For-"Your pretty elf, Alistair. Your pretty Warden elf. " He felt his world drop, as if it had any further to drop at this very second.
"Reland" What?"
"Your pretty elf. She's with the wardens," dully repeated. "You must....retreat. King must be....alive...We all just wanted"Happy....Al?" And she was gone. There was nothing beautiful about the last stuttering splash of hot guts or the way life bled out of her eyes when she died. It was ugly. It was horrid, it was something he'd seen so much by now he just wished he could never, ever see it again. The way eyes fix themselves to the sky blankly, hollow, as if heaven were a cruel trick and the Maker turned his face from His children. He thinks it is wrong. He thinks that Reland, for her loyalty and duty and determination she should have had the joy of growing old. Of"
Maker. Amell was with the Wardens. If he didn't get to her in time....
"Your majesty!" A different cry this time rang out through the cacophony of death. With it came the usual tingle of magic that sizzled across Alistair's skin. The Circle's magi. They'd finally broken through the li?He ducked a jagged sword whistling through the air meant for his head. Gathering his will and with a short gesture, a circle of righteous fire enveloped the area about him. White light haloed across the ground sprinkled with body parts, sending Darkspawn that tried to overwhelm them hurling backwards. The shockwave rippled further than he intended, splashing against some of the approaching magi-shields. A few of the younger magi shuddered as wherever his fire touched it drained their mana.
He straightened, gathered air into his lungs to bellow his reply when magic he'd never felt before crackled over his armor and through his skin.
Maker, it felt like nothing he'd ever been trained to sense! He was being pulled apart strand by strand, or so it felt like. Blue light filled his vision and blinded him.
The last thing he'd heard before the light took him was the rising cry of the senior enchanter and the screaming.
Always, always it was the screaming.
It was the single most sound that would haunt him the most.
]