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Keerla Tabris thought she knew what the stench of evil felt like. After so many nights buried in the Deep Roads, after all the Darkspawn limbs sliced by her blades, after every rotting corpse she’d left behind her… She thought she knew all there was to know about the taste of the taint deep in her throat.
But these were nothing compared to the Archdemon.
The creature’s smell overwhelmed Keerla the second she pushed open the doors to the tower, creating bright, blind spots in her vision. She staggered, hands clenching reflexively on the handles of her blades. Beside her, she saw Alistair heaving, his shield held close to his body. She heard Wynne cough and splutter, and Zevran’s eyes were shining with barely contained tears.
Keerla swallowed back some bile and rolled her shoulders once. She hadn’t survived that long, through the grief, wounds, and heartache, to be vanquished by the sole smell of her enemy. “Let’s go,” she said between clenched teeth.
Keerla tore off her sword from a Genlock’s chest in a hideous sucking sound, stumbling backwards from exhaustion and disgust. The tower had fallen almost perfectly silent. She wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her glove and spun around to take in the battlefield.
The fighting had stopped as fast as it had started. She couldn’t tell whether the Darkspawn army had been efficiently pushed back while she and her party were busy with the Archdemon, or if they had fled upon seeing their leader crash onto the ground.
Regardless, it was a massacre.
Corpses upon corpses, friend and foe so numerous they were piling up in bloody, unrecognisable stacks. Some allies were still breathing. They were stumbling towards their own, or towards the Circle Mages, seeking healing for the least wounded, prayers for the others.
In the middle of it all, the Archdemon’s body was rising and falling faintly, mouth open on the many rows of teeth glistening with thick, brownish saliva. It moved its wings in a shuddering movement. Useless. Keerla and her allies had taken care of them, and they were shredded all over, the bloody leather hanging from exposed bones.
Keerla might even have felt pity if she’d thought there was the slightest chance a creature such as this could feel pain. Its eyes were half open, their unnatural yellow gleaming in the growing light of dawn.
The stench seemed far worse now that the adrenaline had left the tip of Keerla’s fingers to retreat far into her core. It oozed in waves from the creature’s mouth, robbing her of more of her air at every breath it took. She was seeing stars again.
“Well, that could certainly have been worse.”
Keerla tore her eyes away from the Archdemon. It was Zevran.
He was laying not far, face bloody, his leg bent at a wrong angle. His lips were busted at several places, and there was a glistening red spot on his shoulder, from which an arrow was protruding.
Wynne was supporting his head on her thigh, waving trembling hands above his body. Strings of light were making their way from her fingernails to Zevran’s wound, just like Keerla had seen her do so many times.
Wynne looked up, burnt strands of hair in front of her face. She nodded at her, and then glanced to her side quickly before going back to her task.
Keerla followed her gaze to Alistair. He looked in better shape than Zevran did. His armour was distorted in several places, fabric torn and soaked in blood, but at least he was standing. He’d discarded his shield, which was now laying at his feet, even more bent and scratched than usual.
Her throat clenched at the sight of him. She stuck her blades into their sheaths on her back and walked over to him. He looked up upon hearing the shuffling of her boots on the stone, abandoning the contemplation of a wound on his forearm.
“Keerla.” The name escaped his lips in a murmur, not like a word but like a sound, an emotion he didn’t have any better way to express.
And for a moment, it was almost as though nothing had gone wrong between Alistair and her. There was still the same tenderness on his eyes, under the exhaustion of the battle; still the same undying trust in her.
She lifted her leather-clad hand to his cheek, and he closed his eyes as it hovered there, mere millimetres above his bloody skin.
“I love you,” she said like an apology.
That made Alistair open his eyes. He dropped his sword to the ground, the clattering noise lost in their breastplates clashing when Alistair wrapped both arms around Keerla. Their lips met. It tasted of salt and metal. It tasted of the taint. Ancient and cursed.
He didn’t move back when they stopped kissing, kept her as close as the armours would allow.
“I need more time.” Alistair was talking under his breath, fast, like the words were piling up helplessly in his mouth. “You need to teach me how to pick locks, and how to carve those pendants you make out of oak branches, and I need to show you where I met my first Mabari, and I need to meet your family, and I… I need to know everything, everything there is to know about you. I-”
She bumped her forehead to his, sweat and blood-slick hair gliding uncomfortably between their skin. “You know me enough to know that you can’t change my mind.”
He breathed out a sob. “No… No, no, no…”
She stroked a hand through his dirty hair. It was getting too long. He’d have to cut it. Maybe they would get the best specialists in Ferelden for him… Being King probably had that kind of advantages. “Take care of my dog, will you?”
“Don’t…”
She stepped back, Alistair’s arms falling against his sides in a clunk. His eyelashes were wet, and his eyes as red as the blood dripping from his temple.
“I love you,” she repeated.
And she turned around.
The Archdemon was stirring, slowly getting back onto its scaly legs. Renewed strength or survival instinct, Keerla couldn’t tell. It soon wouldn’t matter anyway.
“Keerla!”
She spun around. There were streaks of tears diluting the blood now, on Alistair’s cheeks. He cleared his throat, and said in a tight voice, “Take a longsword. You won’t be able to reach its brain with your daggers.”
She moved her head, half-nod, half-bow. This time it took her more effort to tear her gaze from Alistair’s figure. A sharp cry from Zevran attracted her attention.
Wynne had just yanked the arrow free from his flesh and was doing her best to keep the torn muscle together. Keerla crossed Zevran’s gaze, who gave her a trembling thumbs up with his good arm, accompanied by a wink. Her heart became just a little less heavy.
There was a longsword stuck in some Darkspawn corpse, not far away. Its previous owner was laying by its side, a Dalish woman staring at the brightening sky with empty eyes.
Keerla yanked the sword free, wincing at the smell of rot spewing from the Darkspawn’s gut.
This was it.
A knife-ear was about to save the world.
They didn’t deserve it. They’d been spitting at her her whole life.
But Alistair deserved it. He deserved it for being a truly good human among so much evil. And Wynne, for being a parent when Keerla needed it most. And Leliana for her stories and wonder. And Zevran for his loyalty to the very last moment.
They deserved their world to be saved.
The sword was far bulkier than anything Keerla was used to, but certainly not too heavy for her anger-filled muscles. She let it drag behind her on a few steps, the clattering noise attracting the Archdemon’s attention. It turned two glowing eyes in her direction and snarled.
Keerla heard a scream before realising it was her own, coming from the depth of her tired lungs. She lifted the sword firmly and ran towards the agitated Archdemon. Maybe it was just the blood pumping in her ears, but it sounded like her own voice covered the creature’s growl.
She climbed the stairs to the platform and jumped as the Archdemon reared to attack, her sword high above her head. It plunged through the leather and into its throat. The creature hissed and choked as blood and gut spilled onto the ground and onto Keerla. Its head fell back against the stone in a loud thump, its breath laborious. It looked at Keerla in the eye as she swung the sword around.
She moved forward. One step, two steps. And she jabbed the sword through its eye.
She felt the blade graze the bone and pierce the brain.
And then she didn’t feel anything anymore.
Or rather, she felt so much at once that she couldn’t register it.
Light rose through the creature’s body, through the sword, through Keerla herself. But it was light that hurt. And healed. It was the fire of the entire Darkspawn army, all their strength, and all their taint. It was the Archdemon’s soul seeking refuge, exploring Keerla’s mind for any space that might be left. Battling with her own soul.
Keerla’s body snapped backwards, but she didn’t let go of the sword. Couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. She clenched her teeth. Ice was going through her veins, an instinctive panic that wasn’t hers. The Archdemon was suffocating. It needed a host. She felt bones snapping from the pressure, but she couldn’t tell which ones they were.
She wasn’t in pain. Or maybe she’d become pain. Or maybe pain doesn’t exist anymore when you harbour the soul of an Old God.
The light exploded out of her and into the sky, forming a tall beam of cursed, blood-coloured energy. The Archdemon’s soul was destroying itself. And it was taking Keerla’s along for the ride. She felt it bruise, split, crumble inside of her. She couldn’t hear anything any longer.
The beam dissipated into the sky and faded away, like clouds after heavy rain in the alienage. The Archdemon was no more.
Keerla gasped for air.
No soul, no breath, no words, no life.
She collapsed onto the bloody stone.
There was light in the distance. It was filtering in rays through a torn banner.
It was warm. Golden and pink. It landed on Keerla’s eyelashes.
The light of a new day.
