Warden-Commander Cousland woke suddenly, as he heard the tell-tale crack of, followed by a pause of utter silence, of a something approaching the small tent he had pitched in a narrow gully, just south of the Frostbacks.
He didn't bother crying out, or challenging the prowler.
He simply picked up his sword, a impressive, unique blade, crafted for him by the blacksmith Wade, before stilling the fire burning the length of the blade with a thought, and just waiting, his sword in the approved position for the crouching thrust, for his intruder, assuming that it was not the occasionally sighted from a distance Frostback Sasquatch, to pull back the flaps.
About a minute later, light steps approached, before pulling open the flaps, revealing what initially looked like a templar. Then his warden-sense began tingling, as he saw the red crystals in several places, and the drawn sword.
He didn't hesitate.
His blade flashed silver in the moonlight as it drove forwards, crunching through the mediocre quality armour plate worn by the templar, only forged from cheap iron, turning crimson as it severed the femoral artery with a slight shudder, before sliding through the man altogether, penetrating the backplate from the inside with as little effort as the breastplate.
The Warden kicked the first templar from his blade as he surged out of the canvas structure, trusting the enhanced senses of the gift to allow him to see in the dark. Another armoured figure was beginning to react as the Warden rolled forwards, the sword in his hand slashing sideways, the volcanic aurum blade cutting through the chain armour guarding the man's throat cleanly, along with the cataroid artery, the windpipe and the jugular vein in one cut, driven by the strength of arm that had disabled an Archdemon with a carefully placed stroke.
A third armoured man moved in, with a massive square shield. The first cut from the unarmoured warden was deflected, as was a probing thrust over the shield, aimed at the throat.
Unfortunately, the next weapon wasn't so easily evaded.
Without even pausing, Cousland grabbed the kettle from over his fire, the embers of which were still warm, before flinging the heavy cast-iron projectile upwards, cascading boiling water over the man, and through the gaps in his armour. The sudden agony left the Warden with a slight opening, which he punished mercilessly with a lunge, sending the tip of his sword punching into and through through plate, chainmail muscle and ribs, before slicing his victim's heart in half, dropping him to the ground with the sudden loss of blood pressure.
Glowering, he stooped, collecting his shield, along with his crested helmet, before two more of the strange Templars charged out of the bushes at him.
The first of the two, by half a pace, folded himself over a stop-thrust, burying the blade to the ornate guard in his own chest thanks to his momentum. The second launched a savage cut at the warden, who batted it away with his shield, feeling the strength of the blow the whole length of his arm. The man seemed startled, before chopping at the Warden again, who, this time met his attacker's sword with a circular parry, twisting the blade out of its owner's hands, sending it flying into the bush, before the Warden's sword came around in a simple cut at head height, sending the corpse of the templar toppling to the ground in a fountain of arterial blood, as its head rolled sideways.
Then Warden-Commander Eragon Cousland, Hero of Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine, went in search of his horse, carrying his sword, and whistling the Warden March.
It was time for answers.
And he had an idea of where they were likely to be found.
-000-000-000-
As Lancelot cruised up the mountain track, Warden-Commander Cousland began to daydream slightly. The pennon snapping in the wind above his head on the lance that he'd cut a day out from his attacked campsite was his own design; the arms of Amaranthine split vertically with the arms of the Cousland family, which featured a Gryphon over a crescent, with a second gryphon, this one wearing the fereldan crown, charged in the centre of the design, surrounded by light blue.
He was looking forward to arriving. By all accounts, the female elf who was leading an organisation comprising primarily of aggressively religious humans was very capable. He also held strong opinions on the subject of the darkspawn supposedly leading the corrupted Templars he'd fought.
He'd run into two patrols of Red Templars, as they were apparently called, subsequently. Neither had occupied him for long. Mounted and armoured, he was a match for more than a dozen of them. He hadn't met more than ten.
The banner flying from the castle seemed odd, with a Dalish Border and crest surrounding the heraldry he vaguely remembered from his history teachings, with a representation of the Sun set on a black background.
He touched his heels to Lancelot's flanks, encouraging the charger up the sloping path, towards the castle.
-000-000-000-
"My Lady!" Tahiri Lavallan heard from an excited page, a boy of about fourteen, whose ears, although not pointed, were still pronounced, and turned red whenever he was in her presumably exalted presence, along with a slight rise on behalf of his hormones. "The sentries have sighted a rider in the valley."
She nodded, wondering idly if taking the young shem to bed would solve anything for both of them. Why he was telling her about a lone horseman, though, was a mystery.
"What banner?" She asked.
In reply, she was handed a sheet of paper, a few inches across. It showed two half coats of human arms, along with a very special sigil. Only a few men were allowed the crowned gryphon, and only one on this side of the waking sea was still alive.
"Tell Sister Nightingale, Lord Cullen, and Lady Montylliet to meet me at the gates, with the guard turned out. And summon Lady Morrigan and her son. They will want to be there."
"Is it really..."
"Unless someone very stupid is counterfeiting his banner, it is." She said, idly running her eyes over the boy, considering rewarding him. He looked nice enough, even if he was young. She wasn't going to need much assistance, once the chains were on.
-000-000-000-
An hour after the note arrived, the inquisition was assembled at the gates of Skyhold. Bannermen stood proudly, and the troops drawn up glittered with polished metal, the final few soldiers jogging briskly from the barracks into the lines.
Inquisitor Tahiri Lavallan, leader of the inquisition, stood on the rampart she used for making speeches from, decked out in her full regalia, the official inquisitorial sword in its dragon-hide sheath at her side.
Cullen was wearing his full armour, the one with gold trim, his helmet doffed and under one arm. While Josephine was wearing her best normal clothing, and had spent time ensuring the gold cloth was supplemented with a scale vest made from mother-of-pearl, and a ornamental helmet of the same, set into gilt panels.
Lelliana had replaced her robes with more ornate items, wearing what appeared to be blue velvet shoes, elegantly tasseled. From somewhere, a nug had appeared, and was riding on her shoulder in a harness, snuffling curiously, as she scratched its head.
Morrigan, confusingly, was dressed the same as ever, wearing the robes that had entranced so many of the young pages, and even a handful of the maids, not to mention inspired surprisingly tolerated imitations, among the females. Her son, Kieran, was looking slightly hard-done by, his hair flattened with a comb, and standing as if ill-at-ease.
The lone rider trotted through the gate, before saluting the elf with his lance, then dismounting, a awed looking page taking the head of the warhorse, presenting a carrot as a bribe, and leading the spectacular beast off to the stables, and Horsemaster Dennet.
Morrigan strode up to the commander, before throwing her arms around him, ignoring the night-black plate armour he was wearing.
The approach of Lelliana, complete with snuffling nug, was a complete surprise to her. Then the spymaster was hurled backwards, into the walls of the castle.
"He is mine!" Morrigan spat at the orlesian, as she rolled to her feet, having twisted in midair to cushion the nug from striking the wall, which she released from its harness, sending him scuttling towards Josephine and a carrot, presumably a safe place, as she drew a stiletto from inside her robes.
"He was never yours. He slept with you for convenience, you hag."
"I am no hag, Bard." Morrigan spat, throwing a fireball as the commander gathered his son, shielding him from the fight with his own armoured body, then hustling him out of sight. "He saw what you can really provide, I guess, after a few years as your lover. Then he decided he wanted someone who could give him more than a pleasant rutting partner."
Lelliana dodged the fireball by a foot, although the backwash from it hitting the wall sent some embers into her hair, while behind them, the ceremonial troops followed their training and stampeded to a safe distance, where they could start taking bets.
"I love him, you bitch. I'm not only interested in extracting fluids from him and then discarding him. I want his children."
"I have had his child already, Sister. You merely desire that joy. Tell me, though, what does he see in you? A toy, perhaps, or a plaything that would never complain? Or was it simply that you offered yourself to him, mayhaps?"
"He loves me!" Lelliana screamed, before throwing her dagger at Morrigan, although the witch deflected the cast blade with ease. "You..."
"Lelliana, enough." The warden snapped, stepping around the corner, Kieran walking beside him, somewhat nervously, but with his head held high nonetheless. "You are right when you say I love you. I still do. But compared to my feelings for Morrigan, after all this time, it is less than a stove beside a furnace. And I am so sorry about that." He said, his voice low and consoling.
"I looked for you. I tried everything in my power to find you. And now you return... and this? My worst nightmares did not come close." She sobbed.
"Then mayhaps you should have been more a wooer, and less the wooee." Morrigan spat. "To look at the great sister Nightingale, bereft through her own mithering misfortune. And for that, I am to blame, for being more the mother and wife than she ever was. Tell me, did you ever stop chewing that bitter root in secret, for all your twaddle about wanting a family? You'd have been a mother thrice, but for your self-important virtue?"
"Lelliana?" The warden asked, carefully standing in the line of fire, with Kieran between him and Morrigan. "You kept yourself that way?"
"You would have had to protect me, as I bore my love." She almost sobbed. "I was never going to be able to find the time to carry, if we fought our foes together."
"It would never have been a burden." He replied, almost sadly. "You wanted nothing more than the horizontal pleasures!" He spat. "You can go and screw your damned bow, for all I care. You have been lying for years. Morrigan rarely tells the whole tale, but at least she never lies to my face." The witch sniffed, but didn't interrupt. "Do I matter that little, that you pretended you wanted my children, to bind yourself to me with chains of hope?"
"Eragon..."
"Stay away from me, bard. Stay away from my wife, and my son." He growled, before Kieran darted away from him, swarming into Morrigan's arms for safety. "Loghain died, traitor that he was, to end the blight. He died in my place, to permanently slay the Archdemon. He should be the hero of ferelden, not me. His death saved my son from carrying that thing."
The last time he'd been as angry as he was in that moment, he'd cut down Arl Howe, and then continued hacking long after he was dead. For a second, his hand wavered on his sword hilt, fighting the urge to commit murder. He only kept the blade sheathed for Keiran. He was not going to become a murderer in front of his ten year old son, for the sake of Lelliana. Not yet.
As the bard retreated, her posture showing anger and more than a little fear, he turned, consciously purging the battle-rage from his system, and reached into his pocket, before smiling as he handed his son a small trinket; a hawk's skull elegantly woven with coloured twine through the eye-sockets, and a pair of downy feathers wrapped in the twine, one feather from each socket. He knew what the boy had just seen, so he limited himself to a gentle touch on the arm as he kissed his wife.
The church might have had words to say on him calling her wife, as they'd never exactly stood before a reverend mother and been married in the eyes of the Maker, but, frankly, he didn't give a damn about the Maker. If He had sent the Blights, as a punishment, he did not deserve to be worshipped. He'd pledged himself to Morrigan using a ritual she'd unearthed in an old tome. They were married.
End of debate, unless they wanted the book. The binding had turned as hard as iron, and it was about a foot thick. It would do the trick.
Then he became aware of another approaching, and turned, reluctantly stepping away from his wife.
Authors note: the entire story came into my head as a framing device for the initial confrontation between Lelliana and Morrigan. I did not plan any of the rest in any way. Hopefully, you are as intrigued as I am to figure out where this story goes. Edited 3/7/15: to clean up fight scene, and remove ambiguities.