"Dread Wolf."
The voice, harsh and female and ancient beyond measure, was unmistakable. So too was the anger therein. Solas turned with no surprise to see, standing across the clearing from him, the stately figure of Flemeth, the so-called Witch of the Fereldan Wilds. He knew her better as Mythal, the Great Protector of the Elven people among the Creator Gods, and a bad individual of whom to get on the bad side.
"My friend," he said, taking two slow steps to the left with his eyes locked on her. "How good to see you up and about. I have to admit I did not expect you to rejuvenate so soon after sharing with me your powers."
"Fool me once, Dread Wolf, shame on you," she said, shaking her head and her great sweeping white hair horns slowly. "Fool me twice…"
"You held power in reserve from me," Solas said. "I will say I did suspect as much, when I found myself unable to complete my plans to remake the world anew right away as I so wished. Why did you do that? You should be on my side in this. The side of the People, my friend."
"You are not on the side of the People, Fen'Harel, not on the side of anyone but your own twisted self," Flemeth said, taking two steps forward as she swept the air hard with a dismissive arm. "You don't want to save the People, you want to kill them, and make your own in your own image to worship you and you alone as the People never would."
"No, that's not true!" Solas said, sweat making his bald head shine.
"I know the darkness in your heart," Flemeth said, her yellow eyes narrowed. "You betrayed us and tried to lock the rest of us away when you built your Veil, but you failed, then you tried to lie to me about your motivations, and you failed at that, too. I have come to stop you from destroying this world, Dread Wolf. I suggest you take a defensive stance while you have the opportunity. I'm only giving you the one."
"Mythal, it doesn't have to be this way. We can work together to create the harmony that once we knew," Solas said in desperation.
"As Elgar'naan used to say, 'You're going down, Little Man,'" Flemeth said, and with a slashing motion sent a handful of liquid purple flame in Solas' direction. He ducked and dived for cover. A roll, and he managed to grab the staff he'd dropped when he dove.
"Mythal, it is always more profitable to talk out your problems than to fight!" he said as he sent back a bolt of blue lightning.
"Would you listen? You have never heard one word past what falls from your own arrogant lips," Flemeth said, and encased him in a spell of rocky paralysis he was hard-pressed to break before she struck him again with a killer spell of her own destructive flames or something worse. He had to form a rift in the veil itself in order to phase out of the casing swiftly, but not being the Inquisitor it took more power than he really possessed, even with what he took from Flemeth and wherever else he could get it. It tired him greatly.
He had to make a choice - offense or defense. He didn't know how much power she had held in reserve from him, but she probably had a great deal more than he did right now. He could use what power he had left to fight her, or he could use a portion of that power to make himself better able to defend himself against her until he had his second wind. The choice seemed obvious. He metamorphosed into the one other shape he could make himself into, that of a great grey wolf. The wolf didn't have any particular magical defenses, but it was swift and agile and could dodge her much better than a middle-aged elf. It would keep him alive for the time needed to regain some mana.
She laughed at him, a husky, unpleasant sound. "You don't think you're the only one capable of that trick, do you, Dread Wolf? Let me show you how I do it," she said, and transformed as she so enjoyed doing into a mighty high dragon.
It gives you no great advantage, Mythal, Fen'Harel said, communicating with her directly from the Fade itself. At this size you are cumbersome. You were better off in the body of the witch.
Cumbersome? My body perhaps, but as it is as large as the whole of the clearing you have nowhere to escape me, and my head strikes like a snake on this flexible twenty-foot neck. If you can escape that, good luck escaping the thirty-foot whip-tail on the other end. Beyond all that you have my fire to worry about. Thus. And she blasted a flame at him that was too broad for him to dodge before his fur was scorched black. He yelped and jumped.
Aw, poor puppy, Mythal said, her leering grin apparent more in her disembodied Fade voice than on the face of the dragon. Did I burn your little tail-tail? Watch out, the big jaws go snappy-snap!
She lashed out with her long neck, fast as lightning, her massive jaws snapping shut just shy of his tail as he bounded out of the way. He had to keep moving. He was at a disadvantage. There was a magical barrier between the trees so he could not escape - her work, of course - and there was very little room to maneuver between her snapping jaws and lashing tail. He had to think fast and work swiftly.
It took some precious mana, but it was the only sure thing. He vaulted up the barrier and used his power over the Veil that he had created to push himself higher still, running upwards against its hidden surface in defiance of gravity itself out of reach of the dragon's jaws and tail.
Oh, you're not the only one that can get airborne, Dread Wolf. You're not even the best at it, Mythal said, and the dragon pumped its powerful wings. She launched into the air and grabbed him up in her huge talon. She flew high into the air over the primeval forest to the fields beyond and dove at killing speeds for the earth, dropping him at the last moment before pulling up herself and gently touching down and turning back into the Wilder Witch. She leveled her staff at him.
"Enough fun and games, Fen'Harel," she said, yellow eyes glittering. "Face me as a man."
The wolf scrambled to regain its feet after the hard fall, then transformed into a crouching Solas propping himself upright with his staff. "You have the advantage in both power and strength, Mythal," he said. "This was an unfair battle from the beginning."
"And what of your infamous cunning and trickery, Dread Wolf?" Flemeth said stepping closer as a full dome barrier sprang up around them, trapping them inside together. "Has it abandoned you?"
"You have proven over and again that I never could deceive you, my old friend," Solas said, pushing himself to his feet and moving away slowly. "You have overcome me at every turn."
"And you will not flatter me to a point where I drop my guard, Dread Wolf, so you might as well stop trying," Flemeth said.
He smiled, with a bit of a nervous chuckle. "Who needs flattery? You always were the fiercest of us. Elgar'naan had the bluster but you had the real power." She sent another slash of purple flame at him, barely missing him as he dived for the dubious cover of the wheat.
"Enough!" she shouted. "I have heard enough of your flapping silver tongue to last a thousand lifetimes, and that is no exaggeration on my part! If you aren't man enough to die fighting then at least have the courtesy to die silently!"
Solas mustered the strength to cast a stone fist at her. It managed to connect and blast her back against the barrier, but it was obvious that it did little more than discommode her. She shook it off and fired back a bolt of lightning that blew him off his feet and onto his back. He reached for his staff with a weak hand but it was beyond his fumbling fingers. She advanced upon him one slow, deliberate step at a time.
"You always had your own agenda, Fen'Harel," she said, her staff still pointed at him and held in both hands. "You always played your own game for your own team. I didn't see it at first, I let you play me like you played all the others, but you will not play me longer. And though this world with all its inhabitants may be flawed and unjust, I will not let you destroy it and the millions of lives depending upon it, and I will not let you replace it with a world of your own personal mind-slaves that think your way and not for themselves."
"You know you can't kill me. You can kill this mortal shell, but I will simply find another. It may take me years, centuries even, but you cannot destroy me," Solas said desperately.
"True, but that would greatly incapacitate you at the least. Perhaps indeed it is useless in the end to kill you, but there is something I can do to put a long-term crimp in your plans for world domination, Dread Wolf."
"Oh? And what is that?" he said, still trying in vain to reach his lost staff. He could just touch it with his fingertips - if only he could close them upon it!
"I can lock you in the Beyond the same way you tried to lock me away there," Flemeth said, and she covered the last few feet between them in a sudden burst of incredible speed. She raised her staff high above her head with both hands.
He raised his hands in self-defense. "Think about what you are saying. Such a spell would require more power than even you could easily muster. When I created the Veil it took me thousands of years to recover. Why destroy yourself simply to put me out of the way? You have never been the illogical sort, Mythal. You have never done anything when there was no good return for yourself in it."
"My payment will be in witnessing your downfall, Dread Wolf. It has been what I have worked and schemed all these long centuries for, and is the only reason I live. And I will see you bound in the chains you forged for the rest of us if I have to bind myself in those selfsame chains for all eternity. Fie upon you, Dread Wolf. When we get to the Other Side, I hope I have the strength to see the revenge the others take upon your bedamned soul!"
Lightning crackled, thunder rumbled, and there was a strong sense that she was gathering power from all the world around her. Of course she was, she would have that ability, why wouldn't she? She began to glow, brighter and brighter. He knew his end was coming. He had only one chance; summoning all the remaining strength in his battered physical body, Solas made a roll for his staff and grabbed it. He cast a spell at her - he didn't know what spell and he didn't care, so long as it connected. She staggered back, no longer glowing, her connection to the natural world and its power broken. She snarled, looking much like the dragon, and raised her staff again, then brought it down hard and caused a major earth tremor. Broken bones and scorched flesh complained, and Solas shrieked in agony as he again lost his grip on his mage staff.
"Now, let's try this again, shall we?" she said, and gathered power to her once more. She raised her staff high and brought it down hard, and the Veil erupted all around them both like a volcano. She leaned down and grabbed him by the shirt collar as the Veil closed tightly around them again. The barrier fell, and the last thing the farmers nearby heard was her derisive laughter echoing across the fields.