The Stolen Throne

15

It took several hours for Nalthur and the rest of his Legion of the Dead to lead their guests back to the camp. They carried the bodies of their slain companions reverently, first wrapping them up completely in cloth and then carrying them high overhead. They sang a sad dirge in a guttural, unfamiliar language, their march almost a funereal procession through the underground with their blue lanterns lighting up the passages around them.

The song echoed off the stone walls of the Deep Roads, carrying far into the depths, a challenge to those dark places that here life still existed. Alone in the Deep Roads, these dwarves cared when someone died. Katriel could not understand the words, but she knew it spoke of loss.

She watched Maric as he listened to it, his eyes far away. Did he think of his mother? He reached over to Rowan and comforted her, and Rowan let him. Her eyes were far away, too, and Katriel remembered she had lost her father only recently. So, too, were Loghain’s eyes dark as he listened to the funeral dirge. They had all suffered great losses, and how many of them had had time to properly mourn?

Katriel had added to their losses, as well. She knew that. She watched Maric’s tears, watching him mourn with Rowan under the sapphire lanterns, and she felt emptiness in her heart, knowing she could not join him. She did not deserve to join him. A vast chasm was opening up between them, and he didn’t even know it, one that she would never be able to cross.

She wondered if she would cry if Maric died. She had never cried for anything, since the bardic training she had received had wrung the sympathy out of her; a necessity for a spy whose loyalties were up for sale. Sympathy was a weakness, she had learned, and yet now she wondered. Part of her quailed at the thought of living without him, but need was not love. She had no idea if she was as capable of love as she was of treachery.

She saw the dwarf, Nalthur, studying her carefully. And she watched him turn and study Maric and Rowan and Loghain in turn, intrigued by their mourning. Perhaps he thought they cried tears for his fallen comrades? For all she knew, they did.

As the hours wore on, it was simple to see they would have been lost. Twice they passed intersections where the dwarves turned without a second thought. Katriel craned her neck at those places to look for signs of markers or anything at all to indicate where the other directions might have led, but there was nothing but rubble and decay. Whatever corruption the darkspawn spread, it covered everything as they proceeded farther in, like a slick coating of filth and oil.

It was a frightening thought, to her. The farther they went, the more she realized that the chances of finding their way back to where they were diminished. They were now completely dependent on the dwarves for their lives. Maric seemed willing enough to trust their fate to Nalthur and his men, but that was part of the problem. Maric was far from infallible. He trusted her, after all, and thus his instincts were more than a little suspect.

Still, there was nothing else for them to do now but follow.

Eventually they arrived at another outpost not unlike the one they had found when they first entered the Deep Roads, although this was far more intact. The massive gateway that bisected the passageway had been repaired, the heavily armed dwarves standing guard outside snapping to attention as soon as they saw the blue lights approaching. The cavern beyond was small but high, with reinforced walls and a number of smaller caves radiating out from the core.

Dominating the center of the cavern was a great statue of a dwarf, holding up the ceiling as if it were a tremendous burden upon his shoulders. It was not unlike the great statue they had seen back at the ruined thaig, though this was much more majestic. He wore a large helmet with horns as broad as his shoulders, and his armor was a coat of linked octagons covered in glittering runes.

It seemed that the dwarves had done a great deal to clean up the outpost and push back the filth. Even their supplies were neatly stacked, right down to the last cup on a table. Nothing was left astray. Cleanest of all, however, was the statue. It was possible that they had even cleaned it first.

“Is that Endrin Stonehammer?” Katriel asked, staring at it in awe. She had seen a painting once, in a tome that told of the oldest dwarven legends, but it had been a faded depiction, and not a good one. To see a likeness in the flesh, so to speak, rendered in such magnificent detail . . .

“That is King Endrin Stonehammer,” Nalthur muttered angrily. “And mind how you speak that name, woman. We’ll make only so many allowances for surface folk.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to the warriors who filed through the gate behind him. All of them halted in unison as he spread his hands high over his head. “We have survived one more night, my brothers and sisters!” he shouted. “One more night to deliver vengeance on the spawn that stole our lands! One more night to spill their blood and hear their cries of terror!”

The dwarves thrust up their weapons as one and roared in approval. “It has been one hundred and twelve nights since our deaths!” he shouted, and they roared again. “And tonight five more of us have found peace.”

The shouting died, to be replaced by a somber silence as the wrapped bodies were delivered forth, passed overhead from dwarf to dwarf until the five lay before Nalthur on the floor. “Rest well, my friends. For one hundred and twelve nights you lasted. Now it is time for you to return to the Stone, in the sight of the First Paragon.”

Quietly, a large number of the dwarves marched into the rear of the cavern and returned with picks. Immediately they began pounding away at the ground a distance away from the statue. The noise was incredibly loud, but they appeared to be making quick progress in digging a pit.

Noticing his guests watching with bafflement, Nalthur turned to them. “There is enough room in this cavern to bury most of us. They will dig a tomb and seal the bodies within, so the darkspawn cannot get to them.” He shot them a dark look as if this was to prevent something he did not want to discuss with strangers. “Most of us will be returned to the Stone.”

“Most of you?” Rowan asked.

The dwarf nodded grimly. “Eventually there will only be a handful of us left. Then the darkspawn will come.” His dark eyes became distant. “We will not be returned to the Stone,” he said flatly.

The sound of the picks cracking at the stony ground rang throughout the cavern. The dwarven warriors who were not taking part in the digging spread out quietly into the outpost, removing their armor and tending to their injuries. They spoke only in hushed voices. As Nalthur moved around, inspecting his ranks, they glanced respectfully at him and then their eyes moved suspiciously up to the tall humans and the elf who followed behind him.

Eventually they reached an area with several earthen ovens carved into the stone walls. Three male dwarves and a large, pretty female dwarf were sweating profusely as they worked over massive iron pots bubbling with meaty-smelling stew. The female dwarf turned to regard Nalthur with a displeased look, wiping her filthy hands on her smock.

“Still alive, then, are you?” she chuckled.

“So far.” Nalthur shrugged.

Her eyes glanced up at Maric and then at the others. “Those don’t look like darkspawn. Where did you pick them up?”

“Out in the Deep Roads. Alone, if you can imagine.” He turned to look at them. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Loghain said instantly.

“Yes,” Maric amended. He looked at Loghain. “We all are, in fact.”

“It’s not ready just yet,” the female dwarf grumped, “but for you I’ll make an exception.” She dug up several bowls and scooped out the stew into each. When no one was immediately forthcoming, she cleared her throat at Maric until he belatedly rushed forward to take his bowl. The others followed suit, followed by Nalthur.

They followed him out into one of the side caves, ducking their heads to get through the door. It was his quarters, Katriel assumed, though it was also neatly packed with enough barrels and crates and piles of fur and odd weapons that it might have doubled for a storage room. The cot was thick but sturdy, and Nalthur sat down on the edge of it. The others found seats wherever they could and began to eat.

Maric dug into his stew ravenously. Katriel picked at hers gingerly, sipping on some of the broth. The dwarf all but gulped his down greedily, finishing it long before the others were even half done, and then belching loudly. He wiped his beard with the back of his hand.

“Not as hungry as you thought?” he asked, watching their progress.

“No, it’s fine,” Maric quickly commented. “What is it?”

“Deep stalker.” He grinned.

Loghain paused. “Deep what?”

“You would have encountered them before the darkspawn if we hadn’t been hunting them around these parts for more than two months, now. We ran out of our perishables a few weeks back. What I wouldn’t give for a good nug steak.” He eyed them closely. “Don’t suppose you’d have one in those packs of yours?”

Rowan looked down at her stew queasily. “Nug steak?”

The dwarf sighed, disappointed. “Thought not.” He put his bowl down and watched them eat, and then his eyes drifted over to Maric’s longsword. “That’s quite a weapon. Mind if I see it?”

Loghain looked like he was about to object, but Maric waved a hand at him. He stood and pulled the stained sword out of his belt, handing it to Nalthur. “It’s dwarven, I think.”

“You don’t know?”

“We found it on a skeleton not long after we left the ruins. Maybe it was one of your men? Even if it wasn’t, if it’s a dwarven weapon, your people should have it back.”

“You went through Ortan thaig?” Nalthur seemed impressed. “That would explain it. We don’t go near the thaig on account of all the tainted spiders. So I don’t know what you found, but it wasn’t one of mine.” He studied the blade with interest, running a stubby finger over the glowing runes, before finally handing it back hilt-first. “I’ve no use for it. It’s your blade now, human.”

Maric took the sword back slowly, looking confused. “But . . .”

“It won’t get back to Orzammar through me,” the dwarf explained with a grin. “I’m not going back, or didn’t you understand that part?”

“They’re dead,” Katriel explained hesitantly. “They . . . have a ceremony before they enter the Deep Roads, a funeral. They say good-bye to their loved ones, pass on their possessions, and then they go and they don’t come back.”

Rowan blinked in surprise. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

Nalthur chuckled ruefully. “To clear our debts. To clear our names. To clear our houses’ names.” His face went grim. “Orzammar politics are more deadly than the Deep Roads, by far. Best to have left it behind, really.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Maric sighed.

“That so?”

Loghain frowned. “I don’t think you need to explain that, Maric.”

“No, it’s fine,” Maric shook his head. He held out a hand to the dwarf. “My name is Prince Maric Theirin, and these are my companions.” He introduced each one of them in turn.

The dwarf stared at Maric quizzically, and then shook his hand in an awkward way as if he had never performed the gesture previously. “Human royalty, eh?”

“Sort of.” Maric smiled. “I am fighting to regain my family’s throne. That is, in fact, why we’re down here.”

The tale took surprisingly little time to tell. Nalthur listened to it quietly enough, nodding his head empathetically. “We dwarves do things much the same, when it comes time for the Houses to contest the throne,” he admitted. “Though there’s rarely any of this bystanding business you speak of. No House is neutral in the Assembly, not ever. In Orzammar, things are solved quickly and with as much bloodshed as we can stand . . . and then a little bit more.” His grin was sardonic, as if sharing a private joke. Seeing that none of them got it, he shrugged. “Which is all well and good, I suppose, but if it’s Gwaren you were headed to, you were going the wrong way.”

“What!” Loghian shot up, shocked.

Nalthur put his hands up. “Now, now, big fellow, no reason to get upset over it. You were headed north. Didn’t you figure that was the wrong direction?”

“We can’t tell such things underground,” Katriel explained. She knew that dwarves could, their vaunted “stone-sense” being as much a part of their religion as it was a matter of practicality. A dwarf who didn’t have stone-sense was truly blind and considered a figure of pity, rejected by the Stone that had birthed them.

“Oh,” the dwarf seemed surprised, looking askance at Loghain and Maric as if his opinion of them now had to be revised to include such a sad handicap. Then he shrugged. “Well that explains it, dust to dunkels. You’re actually closer to Gwaren here than you were, though there’s not much there to see. The sea’s gotten into the outpost, last I heard.”

“We need to get to the surface, actually,” Maric said.

“Ah! Of course!”

“If you could direct us there . . . ,” Loghain suggested.

Nalthur grinned. “We can do better than that. We can take you! By the Stone, anyone who’s willing to journey through Ortan thaig deserves some respect. We’ll not send you back out there alone.”

Rowan’s eyes went wide in surprise. “You would do that?”

“We don’t want to keep you from your dying, or anything,” Maric said.

“Hah!” The dwarf clapped Maric on the back, just about knocking him off his seat. “To tell the truth, it gets a bit dull killing the darkspawn, day after day. There’s always more of them. An endless sea of evil to drown ourselves in, yes?” He shrugged and belched loudly once again.

Maric paused, suddenly churning something over in his mind. “So you don’t just fight darkspawn?”

“We cannot go back to Orzammar. What else is there to do in the Deep Roads?”

“You could probably survive out here a long time, if you wanted to,” Rowan said.

The dwarf snorted. “We’re dead men. What would be the point in that?” He waved his hand irritably. “There’s honor to be found in slaying the darkspawn, anyhow. If we’re to find our peace, we’ll do it fighting like true dwarves, fighting to take back what was once ours. Even if we never can.”

Maric smiled slowly. “How do you feel about fighting humans?”

Nalthur looked at Maric curiously. “You mean up on the surface?”

“I imagine there’s far more of us up there, yes.”

“Under the sky?” The dwarf said the word as if it were terrifying.

“Unless we’re already too late, we could use your help at Gwaren,” Maric said earnestly. “I don’t know what I could repay you with. I’m not King yet. I might never be. But if you and your men are looking for their deaths, I can at least offer you a glorious battle with something other than darkspawn.”

“Deaths on the surface,” Nalthur said without enthusiasm.

Maric sighed. “I suppose dwarves just don’t go up there, do they?”

He snorted. “Ones without honor, perhaps.”

Rowan arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you already exiled from Orzammar? What honor do you have to lose?”

The dwarf considered the idea, his face twisted into an unpleasant scowl. “We’ve none to gain, either. It’s not our business what you cloudheads get up to, up on the surface. Down here we’ve darkspawn to kill, and the Stone to return to when we die. That’s our business.”

Loghain stood up. “Let’s go, then. We’ll find no help here, Maric.”

“I don’t know . . . ,” Maric began.

“They’re cowards,” Loghain interrupted. “They’re frightened of the sky. They’ll find any reason not to come with us.”

Nalthur leaped up, drawing his warhammer in a flash. He held it threateningly at Loghain, bristling. “You’ll take that back,” he warned.

Loghain didn’t move, but eyed the dwarf carefully. The tension rose in the room as Rowan and Maric exchanged worried glances. Slowly he nodded to Nalthur. “I apologize,” he said sincerely. “You’ve treated us well, that was undeserved.”

The dwarf frowned, perhaps considering taking further offense, but then merely shrugged. “Very well.” Abruptly he chortled with amusement. “And it’s true enough, perhaps. That sky of yours is more frightening than an entire horde of darkspawn!” He bellowed with laughter at his own jest, and the tension in the room dissolved.

As he quieted, Katriel touched the dwarf’s arm to get his attention. “There is one thing that Maric could do for you,” she suggested. “Should he ever become King, he would be in a position to visit Orzammar. He could tell the dwarven Assembly how very valuable your help was to his cause.”

“Oh? You don’t say?”

“Your people treat human kings with great respect, do they not? The dwarves that assisted in the Siege of Marnas Pell during the Fourth Blight received many accolades at the word of a human king. One of them even became a Paragon.”

The dwarf’s eyes lit up with interest. “That’s true.”

Katriel smiled sweetly at him. “So there is, in fact, honor to be had on the surface. Honor for the houses you left behind. Honor that depends on Maric winning his battle, yes, but . . .”

Nalthur chewed on the idea. Finally he looked at Maric. “You would do this?”

Maric nodded, his look intense. “I would, yes.”

Loghain glanced at the dwarf warily. “Maric may never be King. There is no guarantee he can do what you ask, you understand this?”

Nalthur seemed amused by the caution. “You don’t seem to have much confidence in your friend. Are all you humans like this?”

“Just him, mostly.”

“I am being realistic,” Loghain muttered.

“I just ask one thing,” Nalthur stated slowly, “that if any of us fall as we aid you, we will not be left up there. Return us to the Stone, do not bury us in dirt. Do not bury us under the sky.” The prospect seemed to unnerve the dwarf, but his jaw was set.

Maric nodded again. “I promise.”

“Then you have our help,” he finally announced. Resolute, he turned and strode from the room out to the main cavern, where he immediately began shouting for the other warriors. The incessant ringing of the picks halted.

Those in the room stared at Maric, not quite believing this had just happened. “Well,” Loghain said dryly, “it looks like we have our help.”

Within the space of two hours, the Legion of the Dead was under way and traveling through the Deep Roads with all their equipment in tow. Loghain found himself quite impressed by the efficiency. Maric walked up front with Nalthur and the most senior of the warriors, all of whom listened grimly as Maric did his best to explain what they were likely to find on the surface.

The idea that the usurper might already have reached Gwaren and that they could be walking into an impossible situation they seemed to understand and accept quite readily. The notion that there would be no ceiling over their head, however, no comforting miles of heavy rock, just vast empty space that went up and up forever into an endless sky, made them blanch and fidget nervously. Maric had to explain several times that, no, no one had ever fallen up into the sky to be lost forever. Yes, there was indeed a hot sun in the sky, and, no, it had never made anyone blind nor had it ever crashed to the ground and set someone on fire. These things they had trouble with.

Loghain and Rowan and Katriel walked with the supply carts in the middle of the procession, the rear guard watching warily for any signs of darkspawn attack. As near as Loghain could tell, they had stripped down the outpost completely and had left nothing of importance behind save one: the great statue of the dwarven king that held up the cavern. As the dwarves efficiently went about their tasks collecting their supplies, each stopped in turn at that statue to respectfully touch its base. They closed their eyes, and Loghain wondered if they offered a solemn prayer to their ancestor. Perhaps they asked him to watch over them, or to send a speedy and honorable death. Perhaps they apologized for leaving him alone once again, to be defiled by dust and the darkspawn taint.

The few members of the Legion of the Dead who were not warriors, such as the cooks they had met earlier, pulled the carts quietly and stared at Katriel out of the corners of their eyes. Rowan asked one why they did so, and the answer was simple. They had seen few enough surface folk during their days at Orzammar, but not a one of them had ever seen an elf.

They made good time. The dwarves knew the Deep Roads well, and the farther they traveled, the more it became apparent that Katriel’s idea of navigating the passages to Gwaren was unlikely ever to have worked. Even if there had been no darkpawn, it was likely they would have become lost. With little food and water, the chances that they would have made it out alive at all would have been slim.

But fortunately they had found the dwarves, Loghain reminded himself. Katriel’s plan was going to succeed after all. He watched her as they traveled, saw her hover away from himself and Rowan and keep her gaze focused solely on Maric up at the head of the procession. Either she knew how Loghain and Rowan felt or she had guessed. Loghain supposed that they had not gone out of their way to keep their suspicions hidden.

He moved up to walk beside the elf, and she regarded him with sullen wariness. Rowan did not join him, but watched him go with mild surprise.

“I want you to know,” he said to Katriel, “you’ve been a great help.”

She narrowed her eyes warily. “Have I, ser?”

“You have. You obviously knew that the dwarves would value any help we could offer their relatives, no matter how remote the possibility.”

She shrugged, looking away. Rather than being pleased by his comment, she seemed disturbed. “They become one of the Legion of the Dead,” she said faintly, “because they have no other choice. They are broke, or ruined. The best the Legion can offer them is to wipe the slate clean, set the balance back to zero.” She glanced back at Loghain, her look significant. “If they could do more than that . . . who wouldn’t want to try?”

“Who indeed?”

She looked away from him once more, resentful. Her chilly demeanor told him he was unwelcome, but he ignored it. Following her line of sight, he realized she was watching Maric again.

“Why do you stay?” he asked. “Is it for him?”

“Do you stay for him?” she rejoined coldly.

He thought about his answer for a long time. The blue lanterns swung overhead on their long poles, bathing the Deep Roads in their sapphire glow. They passed a dwarven statue that stood long-forgotten against one of the passage walls, now mostly a crumbled and silent guardian that watched them go by like they were intruders in this eternal darkness.

“No,” he finally answered. “I stay for me.”

It was a serious answer, and Loghain noticed that Katriel had turned to regard him with a thoughtful, almost melancholy look. “Maric is a good person,” she said bitterly. “And when he looks at me, he sees the same thing in me. He sees the good I didn’t think was even there. The longer I’m with him, the more it seems like it might almost be possible that I really am that person.”

Loghain nodded knowingly. “Almost,” he agreed.

His gaze met Katriel’s, his icy blue eyes probing her strange green ones, and she was the first to turn away. She seemed oddly vulnerable all of a sudden, rubbing her shoulders and looking off toward Maric longingly. He almost felt sorry for her.

“He’s not ready to be King yet,” he said evenly. “He’s too trusting.”

She nodded silently.

“But he needs to become ready. And it’ll be hard for him.”

“I know.” Her voice was hollow, resigned.

There was nothing more that needed to be said. Loghain returned to Rowan’s side and the column continued its trek through the shadows.

Less than a day later, they encountered the ruins of what had once been the dwarven outpost under Gwaren. Several times the Legion had been forced to stop to clear away rubble from collapsed tunnels, and Nalthur grumped at the darkspawn tendency to sabotage even “solid dwarven engineering.” Each time it was uncertain if there would be anything behind the rubble at all, but luckily each time they found more tunnels beyond.

The darkspawn were present. They lurked at the edges of the blue lights, watching. Always watching. Twice they surged out to make surprise raids, once from the fore and once from behind, but both times the Legion of the Dead assembled quickly and repelled them with bloody force. The calm precision with which the dwarves slaughtered a path through the monsters was uncanny, and sent the darkspawn scrambling to retreat back into their side caves.

Nalthur let them go. He said that even the Legion wasn’t about to follow the darkspawn down into the side caves. Down there the darkspawn were on their home ground, and only death awaited. While death was something the Legion did not fear, they wished to go out while taking as many of the darkspawn with them as possible. Not ambushed and killed to a man.

After those two attacks, the darkspawn kept back. They hated the dwarves, that much was clear, but they also respected their numbers. For a time all anyone heard were strange highpitched shrieks off in the distant shadows. The dwarves said that was another type of darkspawn, a tall and lanky thing with long talons that was incredibly fast. This made them nervous, as they said such creatures often brought the emissaries with them—darkspawn who wielded spells like mages.

The dwarves shrugged off the danger the emissaries represented, proudly proclaiming that their natural resistance to magic extended even to the sort wielded by the darkspawn. That didn’t stop them from becoming extra vigilant, however. Their dark eyes became wider as they scanned the shadows, warily watching for the next ambush with their swords drawn.

It never came. As they got closer to the Gwaren outpost, water began to appear in the passages, dripping down from above and draining from stagnant pools into cracks in the wall. Crusty limestone piled wherever the water appeared, the smell of rust and salt thick in the air. Once the group encountered water that filled almost an entire portion of the passage, forcing them to wade through it with equipment held over their heads. Here the dwarves stared resentfully at the taller humans and the elf among them, but said nothing.

All the water made Loghain nervous. Did these tunnels go underneath the ocean? If so, then wouldn’t the first cave-in fill the entire system with seawater? Nalthur dismissed the idea, but still Loghain kept thinking about it. He didn’t know enough about dwarven architecture to be reassured.

The outpost, when they finally found it, was inside a great cavern mostly filled with seawater, an underground lake with a narrow path of rock that led around the water’s edge. Stalactites hung down in multitudes from the cavern ceiling, each dripping water into the murky lake. The echoes of dripping water resounded everywhere, a cacophony of sound that greeted them as they entered.

The other side of the lake was too far off to see, the dark water disappearing into the shadows. Loghain wondered if it didn’t perhaps meet up with the ocean, an underground “port” just as Gwaren above was? An interesting thought. The air was still in the cavern, if heavy and moist.

A great steel structure stood half submerged in the lake, just off the rocky shore and over a hundred feet across. It was now mostly crumbled from rust and covered with white streaks of limestone. Many long pipes reached from it into the rock walls, those, too, brown with rust and falling apart.

It was impossible to tell what the purpose of the structure might have been. The dwarves didn’t say, and merely stood at the entrance to the cavern and hung their heads in reverence. The sounds of dripping were all they could hear. Nalthur eventually remarked to Maric that once there had been hundreds of pipes, that they wouldn’t have been able to see the roof of the cavern for all of them. Now most of them had fallen, no doubt rusting beneath the water on the cavern floor.

Maric asked what it had been for, if it had been some kind of fortress, but Nalthur only looked at him in disgust. “You humans wouldn’t understand,” he muttered.

The way up to the surface required them to march along the precarious edge by the water until they found another door much like the one that Maric and the others had found all the way back in the hills. This one, while covered with lime and rust, was still closed. The lime was so thick on it, in fact, that they couldn’t even see any evidence of a lock mechanism.

Nalthur immediately sent his men to work with their picks, chipping away at the lime and rust to see what lay beneath. The dwarf seemed unsure if it was going to do any good, however. “Even if we manage to get through,” he muttered, “there’s no telling what’s at the top. You humans might have built over it, for all we know.”

Rowan frowned. “I don’t remember anyone mentioning anything about a passageway going down to the dwarven outpost.”

“It would have been sealed centuries ago,” Katriel said. “When the darkspawn took the Deep Roads, the townsfolk would have closed it up to keep them from attacking the town.”

Nalthur sighed. “Then we’ll have two seals to break, if we can.” He glanced at Maric. “Otherwise you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

Loghain stared at the cloudy water in the cavern, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “If you swam out that way, would it lead out to the ocean? Could you swim up to the shore above?”

The dwarf looked at him incredulously. “If the sluice gate is open. And if you can hold your breath long enough. And if the pressure doesn’t kill you.”

“Maybe not, then.”

The ringing of the picks went on for hours, until finally the great doors had been scoured enough that several older dwarves could take a closer look at the lock mechanism. One of them, Nalthur assured Maric, had been a smith “when he was alive.” After a time, the smith reported the bad news: the lock was rusted shut. They would need to burn their way through.

This process required the use of acid, which the dwarves brought forth from their equipment wagons in the form of small vials full of brackish liquid. They opened the vials with tongs and poured the acid into the lock. The result was a lot of acrid smoke and blue flame, and after three applications the smith finally declared the door ready to open.

Nalthur commanded the Legion to attach several large hooks to the door, each tied to a rope that five dwarves pulled on with all their might. They strained, gritting their teeth and digging their feet into the rock, and ever so slowly the doors opened. They groaned at first, letting out wrenching sounds that reverberated throughout the cavern. Then they began to give, parting by inches and generating an excruciating squealing noise as the rusted metal dragged along the rocky floor.

As the ancient doors opened more quickly, a great cloud of dust began to billow in, blown in by what was immediately recognizable as fresh air. As the dust made the dwarves cough, Loghain stepped forward.

Fresh air? His brows shot up. If there were fresh air, then that meant . . .

Suddenly a great form began to rush forward out of the dust cloud. It was a stone golem, over ten feet tall, and with a great roar it began to swing widely with its fists. The dwarves reacted with surprise as the creature charged into their ranks, its blows sending them flying into the air. Many of them slammed against the rocky walls, while others were flung into the nearby water.

The dwarves began to fall back in shock, drawing their swords as Nalthur charged toward them. “We’re attacked!” he bellowed. “To arms, Legion! To arms!”

Coming from behind the golem, a crowd of human soldiers began to rush into the chamber with swords drawn, and they clashed against the dwarves that held their ground. The sound of steel meeting steel rang out, the golem continuing to swing its great fists. As the deadly melee spread, Loghain’s eyes went wide in horror.

These were their own men. The standards on the soldiers that had surged out of the tunnel were Maric’s own.

“Stop!” Maric shouted. He ran forward into the line of dwarves, heedless of the danger and waving his hands. “Stop fighting! For the love of the Maker!” Nobody listened to him as the fighting surged onward. Blood was being spilled. The stone golem swung a large fist dangerously near Maric, crashing onto the ground and toppling him.

Loghain and Rowan rushed forward immediately to Maric’s side, drawing their weapons. They glanced at each other, wondering if they would need to engage their own men. The irony was that they might have traveled so far only to end up battling the very forces they had come to lead.

Loghain kicked back a soldier that had been about to strike Maric with his sword. “Don’t be a fool!” he roared. “This is Prince Maric!” His words were lost in the shouts of battle and the crashes of the golem’s fist against stone and armor. He looked about, hoping to spot the golem’s mage amid the chaos, but saw nothing.

“Stop fighting!” Loghain roared again, Rowan pushing several men back beside him and trying to pull Maric to his feet. Nalthur saw what they were trying to do but he couldn’t order the Legion to retreat. There was no room on the narrow rocky ledge, and trying to pull back would only end up with them being slaughtered or falling into the water and drowning.

The stone golem charged at Loghain, letting out a bellow of rage. It reared up over him, both fists ready to crash down on his head, and he held up his sword, bracing for the impact. . . .

“Halt!” rang out a new voice from behind the golem, and the effect was immediate. The golem went still.

The human soldiers paused in their fighting and looked around them in confusion. Nalthur took advantage and shouted for the dwarves to pull back, which they immediately did. A gap opened up between the forces, and while it looked like the human soldiers might chase after their quarry, they held their ground.

Like a sea had parted around them, Loghain was left in the clearing with Maric and Rowan beside him, the golem looming overhead as still as a statue.

“Who dares invoke the name of the Prince?” the voice demanded. The figure that walked around the golem into view wore yellow robes and possessed a pointed beard. Maric recognized him immediately.

“Wilhelm!” he shouted with relief. He jumped up and ran toward the mage.

Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he stepped back as Maric approached, staring at him in disbelief. Maric halted, and looked at the rest of the soldiers that likewise stared at him aghast. Nobody in the entire cavern said a word. The shocked silence was complete.

“Don’t you recognize me?” Maric asked. Loghain and Rowan walked up quietly behind him, lowering their weapons.

Wilhelm’s gaze flickered to each of them but went immediately back to Maric. His eyes hardened, and he held out a hand for the soldiers to stand back. “Be cautious,” he warned. “This may yet be a trick, an illusion to deceive us.”

He raised a hand, and bright power was summoned up from it. Maric stood still as the power surged toward him. He closed his eyes as it washed over him, and nothing changed. Wilhelm’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hand again, summoning a different spell. This one crashed against Maric’s form, and then another followed it.

Wilhelm’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He sank to his knees, and actual tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at Maric. “My lord?” the mage asked in a tremulous voice. “You . . . you live?”

Maric walked cautiously up to Wilhelm and knelt before him, gripping the mage’s hands in his own. Loghain and Rowan approached solemnly from behind. “It’s me, Wilhelm. Loghain, too, as well as Lady Rowan. All of us are here.”

Wilhelm looked back at the rows of soldiers that stared incredulously at them. “It is him,” he said. “It is really him!” As if a wave of shock ran through them, the soldiers began to whisper to each other excitedly. Word was passed back in the ranks, and men in the passage began to run up a set of stairs to the town above. A babble of shouting could be heard up there.

One by one the soldiers followed Wilhelm’s example, all of them falling to their knees and removing their helmets in respect. More soldiers crowded into the chamber, coming down the stairs behind the heavy doors, and as they laid eyes on Maric, they, too, fell to their knees. Some of them had tears running down their cheeks.

“We thought you were lost,” the mage said to Maric. “We thought everything was lost. Rendorn was dead. The usurper declared you dead. We thought . . . we were sure this was another attack, and that this was . . .” His voice choked up, and he shook his head again as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

Maric nodded gravely and stood, looking back at the row of silent dwarves behind him. Nalthur began giving orders to have those knocked into the water collected as well as the injured seen to. The dwarves scrambled immediately.

Maric turned back to look at the rows of soldiers in front of him, his own men. There were so many, crowded here into this dark passage and staring at him with the same hopeful expressions that he remembered when Loghain and Rowan had first brought him back to the camp in the western hills. There were more beyond, up on the surface. He could hear them shouting.

“We’re not too late, then,” Maric said. The relief was so overwhelming that tears rushed down his cheeks. “There’s still an army, and you haven’t disbanded. We made it? We actually made it?”

Wilhelm nodded, and Loghain put his hand on Maric’s shoulder from behind. “We actually made it,” he said quietly.

Maric barely felt worthy. He walked toward the awestruck soldiers, almost unable to control his flood of tears as he looked at them all kneeling. They were hungry and tired and desperate. He could see it in their eyes. And yet they had endured.

Looking over them all, Maric raised a proud fist high over his head, and as one, the men of the rebel army leaped to their feet and responded with a resounding cry of jubilation that shook the very ground underneath them and rang far into the shadows of the Deep Roads.