Dragon Age Last Flight Liane Merciel (epub)

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.The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices.This e-book is for your personal use only.You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way.You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.Copyright infringement is against the law.If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.For Peter, as ever.And for the dogs, who taught me what a working partnership could be.CONTENTSTitle PageCopyright NoticeDedicationMapChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Novels in the Dragon Age™ SeriesCopyright19:41 DRAGONWeisshaupt.Backed by the great ivory butte of Broken Tooth, the faraway fortress rose before Valya’s awed eyes.Silver-fringed banners flapped from its towers, their emblems indistinct at this distance, but Valya knew that they showed a steely gray griffon upon a field of blue.Beneath them stood a single gate of thick wood and steel.Brother Genitivi had written in his histories that it was wide enough for three horses to pass abreast, but from where Valya stood, it was so dwarfed by Weisshaupt’s stony bulk that it seemed tiny as her thumbnail.For weeks she’d dreamed of this place.Ancient stronghold of the Grey Wardens, final resting place for the heroes of ages, first and last bulwark against the horrors of the Blights … and now her home, too.The thought made her shiver with fearful delight.None of that excitement was reflected on her companions’ faces.The fear was there, though, despite their best efforts to mask it.There were four of them besides Valya—an extraordinary number of recruits to be taken at once, she’d been told.They ranged in age from sixteen to nineteen, except for Senior Enchanter Eilfas, whose scraggly beard was more white than brown.All of them were mages, which was another extraordinary thing.By tradition, the Wardens took only one recruit from each Circle of Magi in Thedas.But that tradition had been broken.Violently.Beginning in Kirkwall and spreading swiftly through Orlais, the mages of Thedas had found themselves hunted and hounded on all sides.The Templar Order, supposedly their protector and defender, had turned against them.How and why it had happened, Valya wasn’t sure; she’d been only an apprentice until a few weeks ago, so no one had told her much of anything, and the rumors were impossibly confusing.What she did know was that Weisshaupt, and the Grey Wardens, represented sanctuary.Elsewhere in Thedas, the world might have gone mad.Elsewhere, she’d heard, entire Circles of Magi had been destroyed.Their towers had been pulled to the ground, and every mage and apprentice inside had been slaughtered—even the little children—for no crime beyond being born with the gift of magic.Other Circles were said to have risen up in rebellion and joined an army of mages massing somewhere around Andoral’s Reach.But that was elsewhere.Not here.Here in the Anderfels, men and women remembered the true dangers of the world, and they did not waste precious lives fighting one another.When the first rumors reached their Circle, the Senior Enchanter had sent a swift message to Weisshaupt, and within days the Wardens’ reply had come back.Any mage who wished to join the Grey Wardens was welcome.No such mage was to be troubled by the templars.The Wardens’ Right of Conscription was inviolate—and that meant its promise of sanctuary was too.Even so, few had chosen to accept the Wardens’ invitation.Becoming a Grey Warden meant a hard life and a sure death, one way or another.It was a noble and ancient order, its tales sung by bards across Thedas … and no one, absolutely no one, save the truly heroic or the truly desperate, wanted to become a member.Valya wasn’t sure which she was.But she knew she didn’t want to die fighting templars, and she knew the Grey Wardens, even more than the Circle of Magi, offered a place where an elf could stand equal to any human.Nowhere else in Thedas could give her that.So she had packed her few belongings and announced that she would accompany Senior Enchanter Eilfas and a handful of other junior mages to Weisshaupt.To become a Grey Warden, or die trying.Now, under Broken Tooth’s shadow, she could see the others regretting their decisions.It was as plain as the fear they tried so hard to hide.Templars were fanatics, but they were still men.They could be reasoned with, cajoled, bullied, bribed.There would be none of that with darkspawn.Only a hard life, and a sure death.Valya stepped forward, starting on the steep long road to Weisshaupt’s gates.* * *It was late afternoon when they turned onto the path to Weisshaupt, but it was fully dark by the time they reached its gates.Twice Eilfas had called a halt for water and rest.Life in the Circle’s tower, with all those endless spiraling stairs, had kept the Senior Enchanter reasonably fit for his age, but there was nothing in any Circle of Magi that approximated the road up Broken Tooth.A thousand feet of vertical distance separated Weisshaupt’s gate from the dusty earth.The path that climbed up all that stone was at least three miles of hard switchbacks punctuated by ancient carved steps where the slope was too steep to run smooth.Each step had been worn down by the boots of countless Grey Wardens through the centuries, leaving shallow bowls that sent up little puffs of bone-colored dust as the mages’ robes whisked across them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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