The Blight was meant to be stopped at Ostagar. The King, General Mac Tir beside him, had assembled his forces under the guidance of the Grey Wardens. It was optimistic. It was hopeful.
Then the worst happened.
Now the horde, the King’s forces and the Grey Wardens decimated, turned on Denerim, chasing the fleeing Teryn Loghain. His remaining men have held back the tide of darkspawn for days.
But now, all hell breaks loose.
As far as she's aware, Aria and Alistair are the only wardens left in the entirety of Ferelden. She's pretty sure that means it's their job to end the blight, so they've trekked back up to Denerim in search of the big glowy dragon thing from their dreams.
It turns out that finding and killing an archdemon when all you have is a tiny group of warriors and a dog is - hard is the wrong word, however flippant she wants to be. She'd known it was going to be hard. She hadn't realized that the darkspawn were going to come out in such force that they would completely overwhelm the city, such that she had to choose between a suicidal charge through their ranks and a last-ditch attempt at evacuating the city. As fun as that first option sounds, she errs on the side of getting some people out and living to fight another day. She wonders, a little bitterly, whether it would've been different if she hadn't slain half the arl's garrison last month.
She takes her band of refugees and warriors and heads west to Amaranthine, ruined city burning behind them.
The blighted hordes barely let them go, hissing and screaming at every step they take, wicked swords swinging.
But they do get past, the darkspawn have bigger targets in mind than Aria’s little group.
Once they’re out of immediate danger, Sten’s face turns from all out fury into something like sadness, as much as his stern face will allow.
"It's not over," says Aria, dully, when they're far enough away to walk instead of running. "There're more wardens in Orlais and more people who're bound to fight the darkspawn here in Ferelden, if we can get word to them. But we may well be the only group that made it out of Denerim, and it's likely that Alistair and me are the only wardens left in the country. We're definitely the only people with the treaties to call people to arms." She's not very sure that waving a piece of paper is going to inspire anyone to charge into that, but it's an errand to pursue, the next obvious step as long as any of them are still breathing. "We'll get the civilians to safety first, and then see where we stand."
Sten nods. “Retreat is sometimes the smarter option against an enemy that does not rest.”
"'S a lot of people," agrees Aria. "But there're a lot of people left in the world. Don't want them all facing the same fate as Denerim."
She's not really sure whether it's going to hit her at some point that almost everyone she's ever known is dead. It might not; she'd sort of given up on going home as soon as the wardens had conscripted her. She'll have to see.
“I thought the Maker drew me to you for a reason. I thought...it doesn’t matter now.”
"Maker knows what he's doing." She sure doesn't know what he's doing, but hey, when does anyone.
"If we follow the main roads we'll hit Amaranthine in a few days' time," she tells the survivors. They're a couple dozen people, mostly but not all elves. "We don't have enough food to stay out here very long, and we're not gonna find enough animals to feed everyone, so we've gotta keep moving."
And so they move.
Leliana returns to quietly crying, but makes sure to stop and help the younger or weaker survivors navigate.
Sten brings up the rear of the group, watching for following darkspawn, keeping everyone moving and together.
"Could've ended up with a worse team, given everything," she murmurs to Alistair.
"I suppose we could have raided the kennels and ended up with a team entirely of dogs," he says, but there's no heart in it. "We could hardly have done any worse in the end."
"'S not the end yet," she shrugs.
They make decent time going forward, stopping for a few hours at night and leaving several people on watch at any given time. They do not, in fact, have enough food to feed everyone, and their group is both tired and hungry by the time Amaranthine is within sight.
The lands around Amaranthine don’t bear the scarred, desolate look of the Bannorn yet, but the darkspawn aren’t here in massive force yet.
Indeed, the small (though not unintimidating) force that has come here, are mostly towards Vigil’s Keep, the ancestral home of the Howes.
Being intimidated is for people who aren't full of rage and sorrow, probably.
She herds most of the civilians off into town. She, Alistair, Sten, Leliana, and the mabari hound can fight their way through to the keep and see what's happening there. Soris wants to go, too, but she convinces him to stay with the group in case any stray darkspawn head toward town.
They shouldn't have trouble with the darkspawn as long as they can pick them off a few at a time and avoid running into any huge swarms all at once. She cuts her way through them to the front door and knocks loudly a few times, only half as a joke.
" - neat," says Aria, trying not to think about how close that was. "North, can you like, bark or something next time that happens?" The mabari bows his head and whines. She pats his head. "I know, dude, happens to the best of us."
She steps back from the front door. "You guys doing OK in there?"
"Oh, just fiiiiiiiiiiiiine, having the time of our lives!" Says a loud, sarcastic, male voice.
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