"Spread out," he commanded.
His companions obeyed, moving with a silent grace unexpected of their heavy armor as they vanished into the shadows of the surrounding undergrowth. The men had come recommended by Knight-Commander Greagoir personally; each had survived one-on-one encounters with apostates and survived, and they had all been with the Order long enough to know what the Chantry would and would not tolerate during this mission.
He waved his index and middle finger forward to signify the advance. The forest canopy grew thickly here, dropping a shadow of darkness over them blacker than the night sky itself. But Alistair assured his soldiers could see him despite this: a special enchantment upon his armor by one of the Circle mages illuminated his body for their eyes and their eyes only. His movements would shine through the dark as bright as the sun to his men—and only to his men.
The additional effort put into the stealth for this mission had seemed ludicrous initially; only after learning of their quarry did he understand the necessity. The hunt tonight deserved their absolute focus: utmost attention to the smallest detail, preparation for any and all possible variables when the situation turned awry.
Then when—not if, but when—it turned awry, they would be ready.
He slowed his advance as the flickering light of a fire crept through the trees ahead. The firelight glowed against the northernmost sides of the trees separating Alistair and his men from the small camp. The bonfire rested at the center and a small scattering of bedrolls and tents were spread around it. The wagons of the caravan lined the side of the camp, providing a barrier from the elements and beasts alike for the few dozen figures huddled in the center.
Watch the fire, he reminded himself as his eyes narrowed in the direction of the flames. The apostate had wounded one of his fellow templars by fire quite badly in a skirmish a month ago—one the mage regrettably escaped from, but not without leaving his own blood stained upon the clothes of the templar he almost killed.
The apostate had never been inducted into the Circle of Magi, which meant the Order had never acquired a blood sample for the phylactery needed to track the mage outside the Circle Tower. But the bloodstains upon that templar uniform had allowed Greagoir to create a makeshift phylactery sufficient enough for identifying what regions the apostate frequented. With help from the other branches of the Order throughout Ferelden, Alistair and his squadron managed to pinpoint the apostate down to these forests along the Brecilian Passage. The pull from the phylactery became stronger the closer they got to the apostate, and right now the little pendant burned like fire against his chest.
The apostate was here. Alistair could feel it.
Around a dozen or so people sat around the fire, most of them dressed in unfamiliar and impractical clothing for the Ferelden weather: robes of fine cloth, light-tanned linens inner garments with little more than thin leathers for jackets and other outer wear. Various wrappings—some feathered and adorned with beads—shrouded their heads and faces. He had thought them Chasind when his squadron first encountered them. Watching them over the past few days had changed his opinion. While they were most certainly nomadic, they were not Chasind. They seemed too cultured and socially practiced to bear any association to those primitive and often barbaric tribes.
He frowned and gestured forwards with his whole hand to signal the command to tighten their perimeter. The Knight-Commander had enough political clout to explain away any 'accidents' in the field with foreign dignitaries, so long as nothing especially devastating happened. The apostate could consort with politically sensitive company all he wanted; it would not save him tonight.
Alistair tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword. Ahead of him, less than a dozen feet from the tree line he crouched in, one of the figures stood up. Alistair stiffened, but the preemptive reaction was for naught; the man only gestured loudly to another of his company across the flames, to which came an equally drunken rejoinder and perverse hand gesture from his comrade. A bout of laughter rose around the bonfire.
Alistair relaxed slightly and resumed his search with a guarded eye.
The apostate was a rumored specialist in the primal school of magic, hence the earlier attention upon the bonfire. Natural sustenance necessitated little usage of precious mana for crafting fire-based elemental attacks, which freed up the unused power for a variety of other unpleasant talents. Alistair had no desire to see those other magical avenues explored at the whimsy of the apostate; it was better to nullify any and all options in their entirety before the battle began.
His men knew the orders: a special physical prearrangement on their part would cleanse the area of all active magic once Alistair gave the command. The apostate would not have the edge on them.
He took a few steadying breaths to clear his mind. Then he advanced. From all directions around the camp his comrades emerged with him, their armored bodies a silver flash against the firelight and the white radiance of their nullification ability already gathered in their palms. Their combined power poured forth in a tidal wave of holy flame, crashing down upon and sweeping through the campsite. Though the visual perception of the cleansing aura resembled flames, it carried none of the physical effect; the only thing their fire hurt would hurt was the apostate mage.
Among all the figures gathered around the bonfire, only one reacted as though burned. The holy fire converged upon the man from all sides, staggering him with a force distinctive only to one whose magic had been dispelled—if only temporarily—by the magical rejection. Alistair steeled himself and pulled his sword from his sheath as he approached the cloaked figure.
He knew it. Now, while he had the chance—
A tremendous force slammed into his breastplate and knocked him backwards. He hit one of the giant pines several feet behind him hard enough to shake free a heavy rainfall of needles and branches. His armor rang with the resulting vibrations. In front of him, the cries of the women and children huddled around the bonfire rose in panicked fervor.
"Commander!" yelled one of his subordinate templars.
"Do not let the apostate escape!" Alistair was surprised how strong his voice sounded in the aftermath. He pushed himself away from the tree, stumbling slightly and reaching out with one hand to steady himself against the trunk. "Take him down, whatever the cost!"
Every bone in his body vibrated. For the apostate to call on that kind of strength, even with the effects of the cleansing aura—did mages even have access to that kind of raw power without the aid of lyrium? That strength only came from two things: demonic influence from forces beyond the Veil, or blood magic. Either was grounds for death for that apostate.
He steadied a trembling grip on his sword before rejoining the fight. The mage faced the other direction as Alistair approached him from the back. The air around the mage was alight with the unseen but palpable presence of his mana as another templar distracted him from the front. Wasting no time, Alistair lunged with his blade high over his head for the killing blow.
He never made it.
The second his sword came close—the barest thread away from the apostate's outer cloak—the man whirled to face him. His hand caught the sword just centimeters from it slicing into his thigh. For the first time, Alistair glimpsed the body hidden behind the protective folds of that cloak.
Her skin flickered pale white against the fire, lit by its fierce light as if the flames themselves danced beneath her flesh. Her tanned bodice circled her torso tightly and partially exposed her breasts, stretching downwards to a tapered point where its leather strappings secured the bodice around her waist and hips. The white linen of the robe beneath it touched the ground between her legs and left the legs themselves bared.
Maker's breath. A woman.
Temporarily thrown off by the sight, Alistair recognized too late the intent behind her interference with his sword. The edge of the blade had sliced into her forearm, wedging between the intricate silver weavings of her bracer and her flesh and bone. He had drawn blood without killing her. His heart stiffened in his chest, the world itself slowing to a standstill as he tried to pull back before the spell.
"Get back!" The words left his mouth unnaturally slowly despite the desperation of his shout. The rest of his comrades moved to his command, but not quickly enough; it was only seconds to them but a lifetime to a mage capable of working blood magic—and he had just given this woman all the components she needed.
Her eyes flashed at him as he turned back to face her, supernaturally lit by the fire of her blood-augmented mana for the precise second they locked glares. The long strands of her ash-brown hair swept across her shoulders and face as the gathering swell of her blood magic lifted around her body with unholy ferocity. In that last second before the activation of her spell, Alistair realized something:
The woman was no foreigner. Her skin tone and hair color was as fair as his own—a Fereldan, like him.
The spell unleashed then and he could think no more; it scorched him through to his core and split his skin open to the skies. His blood flash-boiled in the fire as her magic swept him through and blinded the rest of his senses with the inferno. The rest of the world disappeared.
He knew no more after that.