Author's note: This is the second story in the Sanguinarius Sanctus series, which is set in the Dragon Age universe and explores the power of blood. The first story of the series is called Tainted. Birds of Prey coincides with the plot of Dragon Age II, although there are significant deviations from canon, and as the story goes on, we'll see more of the wider world and work through some of the consequences of the events from Tainted. If the reader is interested, the first story of S. S. can be found in the author's profile.

Thanks for reading, and please review!

Trigger warning: This is a mature story, and as such, will often have violent themes and explicit language, as well as sexually suggestive situations. If such content offends, please beware.

The sun rose readily over the ancient fortress, as it had for each of the previous twenty days Carver Hawke had been there. The odd, thick storm clouds still massed to the South, looking somehow blacker by the hour, yet the army's encampment was plagued with dust and flies from the latrines. The previous evening, Carver had pulled latrine duty with Paquis, an elf from a farmhold in South Reach. They started before dawn, and by midmorning the flies were simply awful, as big as his thumb. They had to dig the new trench just ten yards from the old one, to keep the sector from growing too rapidly; with their dull spades, the work was hard, especially since they had to wear their splintmail and weapons. So after only a few hours' work, both human and elf were ready to faint from the stench of shit and their own sweat, and they decided to break early for their midday meal.

When they were a hundred metres from the offal ditches, Carver hazarded removing his helmet. The full faceplate offered protection from the Maker-damned flies, but it was too stifling in the full heat of day. Luckily, in both of the battles he'd participated in so far, the darkspawn had had the good sense to attack at dusk. "I think I'm liable to die before we make it to the mess," he sighed, wiping what felt like a quart of sweat from his brow.

"Then the serge'd make me carry you all the way back to the latrines, Hawkeye," the elf pointed out, only half-jokingly.

Carver shrugged, fixing his helmet to his belt. "At least I wouldn't have to smell them anymore, Paq," he retorted.

The elf doffed his helmet as well, when they were a bit nearer the great open-sided tent which housed one of the army's three mess halls. They'd become friends of a sort, Carver and Paquis, the warrior and the rogue. Carver knew none of the soldiers from Lothering who'd answered Bann Ceorlic's call for volunteers, and his two sisters certainly wouldn't appreciate him making any more local acquaintances who might want to come calling; once the king's business was done in Ostagar, Paquis would go back to his own village across the Imperial Highway, and the two would likely never meet again. Assuming either of them lived to see this place behind them, that made the elf an acceptable comrade.

"The next battle's gonna be tomorrow," Paquis mumbled, around a mouthful of grey stew. "Heard whisper of it outside the serge's tent, last night."

Carver nearly choked on his stringy ham. "You mad? Sneaking around after what happened to Shelby?"

The elf snorted into his watered-down ale. "That bastard couldn't sneak his way past a lame mabari with its nose cut off." Paquis glanced around, making sure nobody else was in whispering distance. "They say it's gonna be in the valley, right at the foot of the fortress."

That sent ice cutting through the human's stomach. Ostagar was supposed to be a hard-point, where the army would stockpile supplies and tend its injured while it pushed South into the Korcari Wilds, but each of the three major engagements with the darkspawn had seen the fighters march right back to the fortress rather than capitalise upon the victories they'd seen. "I wonder how many times we've got to retreat before they stop saying we're winning," Carver grumbled, suddenly off his appetite. He kept eating, though, too mindful of the sergeant's low opinion of waste in his company.

"Maybe we can break 'em in the canyon," Paquis suggested, his tone far from optimistic. "Not shaping up like you thought it would, Hawkeye?"

Carver swallowed the last of his ham and started on the stew, taking a couple of mouthfuls before he saw fit to answer. "I didn't think," he admitted. "Just needed to get away from home, is all. Now I just want to be able to go back with my head high and on my shoulders, and see my sisters again." One sister in particular, he thought, though he didn't feel the need to mention it to his acquaintance.

The rogue slurped up the last of his stew and dumped his cube of ham onto Carver's rough-hewn tray. "Why didn't they come, too?" He asked, with a shrug. "Plenty of girls in armour around."

"They're...not the fighting type," Carver improvised, silently cursing himself for bringing up his magical siblings. "And someone needed to stay behind and take care of Mother."

Paquis let the matter drop with a grunt, looking over his shoulder. "Speaking of skirts," he drawled, "I've got an appointment with a campie I don't want to miss. I'll need you to cover for me until three bells."

The warrior's brow arched. "Why can't you sneak off to see her tonight?"

The elf stretched as he stood. "Why is Shelby hanging in a cage?" He shook his head. "Three bells," he warned. "Maybe four."

"Fuck off, Paq," Carver answered casually. "If the serge comes asking why we're not half done by two bells, I'll tell 'em you were off digging a trench of your own." He winked, and was rewarded with a light tap to his shoulder.

"See you later, Hawkeye," Paquis called, once he'd turned to leave.

Carver waved the elf away and returned to his food, passing the balance of the hour with slow nibbles and short pulls of ale until his plank of wood and clay tankard were both clean. Then he stood, too, and struck out for the camp's quartermaster; he needed a new pair of boots, and it wouldn't do to return to his odious duty on a full stomach, unless he wanted to waste his lunch after all. As he trod toward the encampment's entrance, a warbler's call caught his ear, and his eyes lifted skyward almost of their own accord. In that instant, he nearly tripped over another elf-a quick glance told him that she must be a servant, given the ill-fitting peasant clothes she wore. He caught her just as she stumbled away from him. "Watch it," he cautioned, but he let her go when he felt her tense up. He meant to step around her and continue on his way, but just as he turned to go, the woman sucked in a breath.

"Knifey...?"

The name brought him to a halt, and he looked more closely at the elf. Recognition hit him all at once-the dark hair, caramel-brown skin and crimson eyes stood out as proudly in his memory as though he'd only seen the girl the day before. A grin took his lips as a sudden surge of joy flooded through his chest. "Adra!" And then he pulled her up into a hug, nearly crushing her against him; her hair smelt vaguely of charcoal, just as it had all those years ago. He hardly felt the elf hugging him back, thanks to his splintmail, but she managed to get his attention with a few swift kicks to the shins. Finally he put her down, still smiling. "Maker, I haven't seen you since..." Then his lips faltered, a sudden stab of fear lancing through the happiness which the impromptu reunion had generated. "Are you...on the run, Adra?" Her true name was Athadra, but she'd earned the elided version in retaliation for her own rebranding of his given name.

A well-armed Grey Warden, whom Carver had thought simply a passerby in the tumult of the camp, stepped closer and spoke up. "If an apostate's first thought is to run into the middle of a Chantry-observing army, I'd have to wonder how they'd managed to escape in the first place. I'm Alistair, soon to be the no-longer-most junior Grey Warden in Ferelden." Though the man played at wiping his eye, Carver detected a hint of a threat behind his jests. "It'll be quite an honour to give up the mantle at long last..."

The regular soldier relaxed, comforted to know that his childhood friend wasn't simply a fugitive from the Circle Tower. "So," he ventured, as Athadra stooped to pick up what must have been her Circle stave, "you're joining the Grey Wardens?" He gave the short-haired blond man, Alistair, a sidelong glance. Though it was well-known that King Cailan favoured the Grey Wardens above any other fighting force, their pitiful numbers and endless mission did little to bring them respect amongst the men-at-arms of the regular army. "Was the Circle that bad?"

Her fist took him by surprise when it collided with his armoured stomach, but he remembered that the elf had always been stronger than her slight frame would've suggested. "Yes it were, thank you very much...and all thanks to you and that sodding sister of yours."

Carver winced, suddenly remembering the day all-too-clearly; she was ten, he and his twin sister Bethany nine, while their older sister, Cethlenn, was a few weeks from turning thirteen. A self-conscious cough tore him out of his reverie, and Alistair spoke up again.

"It looks like I'm at a disadvantage, here. You both know me, but I only know one of you..." The Grey Warden looked from human to elf, expectantly.

Athadra stepped backward and gestured between the two men. "Sorry! Alistair, this is Carver. I knew him and his family in Lothering, before I got caught."

Carver forced a chuckle, his lips twisting into a bit of a grimace. "I, uh...might have played a bit of a part in that," he said sheepishly.

"Might have?" He stumbled backward a step, this time, from the force of her open palm smacking into his sternum. "You and Beth ran off and left me! How were I supposed to know the boy's father were a templar, anyway?"

Carver made a show of surrendering, his empty hands held high. "I tried writing to you, honest," he claimed, remembering the letter he'd scribbled. "But Father said it wouldn't've gotten through..." He shook his head, his ears still ringing from the argument he'd had with the man; Carver had only relented when the risk to his apostate siblings had been spelled out for him. "I'm really sorry, Adra. We didn't know, either...I promise, we didn't." He swallowed, looking at the griffon crest and blue-and-silver padding Alistair's armour bore. "And you look like you've done well for yourself. It's a big honour, joining the Wardens." He tried at a smile, but felt it falter under the weight of years that he'd not seen the elf.

Then Athadra broached the obvious question, which Carver again hadn't had the foresight to avoid. "How is Mister Hawke, anyway?"

A spasm twitched over the soldier's cheeks. When would he ever learn to stop mentioning his family in front of strangers? "Dead," he allowed, after a moment. "Three years come Kingsway."

Athadra seemed to have no answer to that, but her large companion came to her rescue. "Sorry to hear that. I don't mean to interrupt this rendez-vous, but I was just taking Athadra to get some grub. Do you want to come along?" Something deep in the man's expression was less than inviting, but when Carver heard the Grey Warden's stomach audibly rumble, he put it down to simple hunger.

"Just came from the mess," Carver sighed, swallowing the odd mixture of relief and disappointment that rose within him; seeing his childhood friend amidst all of the bustle of warfare was too strange to take in all at once. "But hey," he pressed, looking into Athadra's blood-coloured eyes, "you and I should catch up after the next battle, Adra. Rumour has it, it's tomorrow evening...though how they know when the darkspawn will show up is a mystery to me."

The Grey Warden spoke up once more. "You're welcome," he drawled, an indulgent grin tugging at his lips.

Carver shook his head. "I'll look you up in a couple of days; the Wardens aren't hard to find." He pointed to the distinctive armour Alistair wore. Their tents were coloured similarly, cordoned off from the rest of camp. "Maybe once this is all over, you can come back to Lothering and visit." He nearly bit his tongue on the offer, frightened that she would ask about her own mother and father, whom he hadn't seen nor spoken to since the day she'd been taken from them, nine years before-fully half of his lifetime.

Instead, the elf simply nodded. "I...think I'd like that," she admitted, an unfamiliar hesitation in her expression. His heartbeat hitched a few steps faster, as an echo of a childish crush flitted in the back of his mind, even as he noticed an odd shadow in her gaze. Athadra rewarded his nervous smile with one of her own. "I'll keep an eye out once the next fight's done. Try not to die, knifey."

Carver brought his clenched fist to his sternum in the common soldier's salute, inclining his head for a moment. Then, not trusting himself to speak, the warrior forged ahead, leaving his old friend in the care of her Grey Warden escort. The day's heat sharpened as he haggled with the quartermaster over new boots; he'd been issued a pair, and wasn't due for another three months or more, so he'd have to purchase what he wanted out of his own pocket. Giving the old pair in trade saved a bit of the meagre coin he'd managed to hoard-unlike most of the men in his regiment, he'd opted to have three quarters of his pay sent directly to his mother, and that left him only coppers to amuse himself with. A bit of salvage from his battles had earned him enough for a few drams of contraband whiskey. His fellow fighting men, and even a couple of the women-at-arms, seemed to enjoy donating the lion's share of their earnings to the camp followers who'd set up a shadow-encampment just to the North of the fortress. It was frowned upon, though tolerated, by the royal commissioners.

Carver had little interest in testing the limits of his sergeant's tolerance, either for bawdiness or tardiness, so he donned his helmet and hoofed his new boots back to the latrines to fall back to his duty. When the sergeant came asking after Paquis, Carver said he'd just gone off to get himself a splash of water. The older man was suspicious, but when the helmed elf returned just a few moments later, he suffered only a harsh verbal upbraiding before the sergeant stalked off. The digging took human and elf late into evening, but by the time they were done, a week's worth of waste trenches lay ready for use. Together, Carver and Paquis took a final meal and retired to their company's barracks tent scant moments before curfew sounded.

The structure was larger than the royal pavilions, but not nearly so fanciful; plain off-white canvas of the same make as a fishing ship's sail, with unfinished wooden beams to give it structure against the storms which had yet to lash the fortress, and row upon row of three-tiered bunks. Carver parted company with his companion once they reached the tent, glad for his top bunk. Even visiting the latrine after-hours courted an accusation of desertion, so more than one soldier went to sleep with too much ale and too small a bladder, to the detriment of any who might sleep below them. The night passed fitfully, for the rumour Paquis mentioned seemed to have spread of its own accord, and many of Carver's fellow soldiers kept themselves up until the small hours with whispered prayers or drinking. Tension only increased when the sergeant roused them an hour after sunrise, rather than an hour before, and set everyone to preparing their arms and armour for inspection. Carver's burden was lighter than some, for he kept his wide, fluted greatblade razor-sharp and wrapped in oilcloth to keep off the sweat from his back.

A few splints in his armour were tinged with a bit of rust, whether from blood or sweat or even spilt stew, and he spent a few hours worrying over them with a file and a bit of hemp oil until they shone as grey as the rest of his suit. He polished his helmet and dug the grime from the flutes in his greatblade until noon, but soon after, Carver ran out of chores with his armour. It didn't glitter like the plate of the knights, but he was proud of his work, all the same. He caught Paquis still sharpening his daggers and muttering to himself about an itch which had plagued him in the night, so the warrior left the rogue to take a light midday meal; if there was a battle in the offing, he preferred himself taut with a bit of hunger, rather than fully sated. Afterward, Carver made himself useful by chopping wood and hauling water for a few hours, until it came time for the commissioner's inspection.

Bann Ceorlic was far too old to take to war himself, and he had a spendthrift daughter who'd never be caught lifting anything heavier than a cat, much less a bow or blade. Thus one of Ceorlic's trusted advisors stood in his stead as Teyrn Loghain's commissioner went through the three ranks of men and women from Lothering and the outlying settlements who owed the bann their allegiance. As an unseasoned swordsman with potential, Carver's lot was at the right end of the middle rank, where he might swing his greatblade unhindered by allies and yet gain more experience before taking a more honoured position in the front. When the commissioner passed him by, the man gave him a perfunctory tap on the shoulder; Carver ignored the prod, his heartbeat echoing inside his helmet, and the commissioner moved on. Eventually the man nodded, turning to Ceorlic's lieutenant.

"I believe these dogs'll do," the commissioner growled. "Take 'em across the bridge."

Ceorlic's man, the son of an Orlesian knight in service to Ceorlic's father, simply nodded and gestured to the sergeant. Carver realised that he didn't even know the man's name, so little did he speak; having an Orlesian accent might have been the height of fashion thirty years ago, but it was clearly a liability in the midst of a Fereldan army in the present day.

"Right, pups," the sergeant barked. "Fall into line!"

The company acted as one, borne of hours spent drilling for discipline over the past month. The three ranks merged into a single crisp line, and at the sergeant's gesture, the mass of metal-clad soldiers set to marching through the encampment. They headed East, across the great, crumbling bridge which spanned the canyon Ostagar had been built to command. The sun turned red as it set at their backs, and in the gathering darkness, they took position with four other companies amidst the thick woods of a sloping hill. As always, the common soldiers of Carver's company knew nothing; they stood hidden in the trees, waiting for the call to advance.

Carver's tongue grew heavy in his mouth as whispers and crickets sounded around him; he knew Paquis was somewhere nearby, but he did not dare try and seek the elf out, too mindful of how that might look to any commissioners or sergeants milling around behind them. His stomach tightened from nerves and hunger, but the minutes dragged on, for Maker knew how long. He said a short prayer for his mother and his two sisters, and finally for himself, but then he tried to clear his mind of what was to come-the mindless, ravening beasts who knew only slaughter, who would see all of Ferelden burnt and rotting if not for men like him, willing to fight and die to check the monsters. Carver tried to find the calm that Andraste was said to have attained, even in the face of Her own execution by fire, and he hoped that if he were to fall, someone would see his body to the pyre.

The darkness ahead of the soldiers, to the South, began to lift strangely. Those churning storm clouds were drawing closer, as evidenced by the intermittent flashes of lightning which occasionally threw the field before them into sharp relief. Yet in the distance, beyond the dry plain, the side of a far mountain seemed to catch fire as though it were a volcano. Carver's breath caught as he watched the dull orange glow crawl down the mountainside, his fingers tensing at his sides; the monsters were coming, he could tell, and any moment might bring the call to charge down their hill and into the teeth of the fiends. But the call failed to materialise, even when the rumble of the darkspawn's advance shook through the soles of his new boots and rustled the boughs around him. Still the call did not come, when the formless mass of darkspawn broke over the open fields, sending massive fireballs before them, propelled either by magic or the sort of craftiness only an Archdemon was supposed to instill in the monsters. When the soldiers inside the canyon let loose with arrows and sent Ferelden's famous mabari hounds to engage with the vanguard, Carver felt his spine tingling with anticipation, mixed with fear.

But the command simply did not sound, not even when the darkspawn rushed into the canyon to face King Cailan's forces head-on. There were so many of the tainted creatures on the field, even with battle noisily joined in the valley, that Carver might have doubted whether the hundred-and-fifty-odd soldiers which stood in the trees around him would be enough to make the difference. Surely, Carver told himself, the king would require their aid any minute now. But the minute passed, and the one after that, with the horde swelling before his very eyes and silence from his superiors ringing in his ears.

Finally, after what felt like another hour of listening to the battle raging half a kilometre to his right, Carver heard a great cheer lift from the fighters in the canyon. He swiveled his head, and through the eyeholes in his helmet he spied a great burst of flame spouting upward from the top of the Tower of Ishal. With laboured breaths which echoed oddly inside his helmet, Carver reached up to grab the hilt of his greatblade, certain he'd have need of it presently-if they did not charge soon, the darkspawn would surely discover them where they stood, regardless.

At long last, Carver discerned the yells of command from the officers at his back. "Retreat!" He heard his sergeant bark. "Pull out, pups! Back up the hill!"

It took the soldier a moment to register what was happening, but when the sergeant repeated his orders, Carver found himself backing up the steep grade as quickly as his fresh boots would allow. His stomach felt hollow when he finally made the plateau, and saw the splintmail-clad men and women of his company emerge from the trees around him. No one spoke except to bark more orders, for them to fall into line and set to marching. Carver's legs felt like lead, but he obeyed, putting one foot in front of the other until the ruined walls of Ostagar had fallen away from him and the winding road to the Imperial Highway spread out in front.