A/N: Expect perspective to switch between Rowan and Anders with each consecutive chapter. Anders is FUN to write...just hoping I got his voice right.
Thanks to all who have read/reviewed/favorited/etc so far!
Such an idiot, Anders thought to himself as he huddled against the cold stone of the Keep. You were already gone, the way was clear…she said she'd tell them you died, for the love of the Maker!
He had been on the road leading away from the Keep, carefully alert for any sign of Darkspawn – wretched, horrific creatures, and Maker do they smell of death– or Templars - won't matter what she says because if they see me out here, she's not going to be able to convince them that I was a sodding mirage. Plans were running through his head at a dizzying rate. Back to Amaranthine? No, they had just captured him there, and surely there were always Templars watching the ships fairly carefully. Best thing would probably be to lay low for awhile; find a bolt hole in Highever, or Dragon's Peak, maybe…
And then, of course, somewhere behind him, beyond the Keep's walls, a cry of pain had rent the air, wordless and mournful, the sound evoking a deep pull in his gut, magic spooling to his fingertips unsummoned. They need help in there, people are dying!
Without any conscious thought or decision, he was suddenly racing back into the besieged Keep, headed directly for the triage station set up by the few soldiers who had remained on their feet. Total idiot, his brain was saying, but that same brain was also replaying the matter-of-fact, cool feminine voice saying I don't really care what you were, and another of his own irritating internal voices was saying, What kind of man receives that kind of reprieve and walks away without offering to help? The magic, of course, had a wordless voice all its own, aching in his veins, demanding to be set free and put to work.
So he helped. It was the matter of twenty minutes' work to supplement the wounded soldiers' battle-dressings with healing magic and some disorientation spells to let them rest despite the frenzied sounds coming from within the Keep. And those same frenzied sounds picked away at his resolve, and he wondered idly, is she okay in there? The brunette had referred to her as Commander – did she command this garrison, then? Aside from the fact that she was quite lovely – sleek auburn hair, stunningly clear green-blue eyes – the fact that this Commander had just let him go would not leave him alone. What began as formless curiosity – who is she? – turned into something almost like a compulsion, almost like a responsibility, because how often had he faced anyone and simply been allowed to leave? And suddenly he found himself slipping back into the building, wondering all the while at his own stupidity.
He tried to follow the path of carnage left in the wake of the two women, but eventually there were too many diverging corridors and bodies everywhere, and then he came upon a few survivors who were hurt, huddling in corners, and he took a moment to escort them to the doors to join the soldiers. And then he took a few random turns, opened a few random doors, and he found himself on the roof. Carefully, he crept to the first bend, and stopped, holding his breath as his heart tried to beat its way out of its chest. The small platform was crawling with Darkspawn, and that was bad enough...but the creature standing in their midst, the thing that appeared to be directing them, wearing some sort of garish face paint, was even worse. And oh Maker, it was directing them, alright – to toss men off the roof! Frustration gripped him; there were four or five of them, and even a brief glance told him that he'd have trouble besting their leader, even without the help of its minions. But Andraste's blood, the screams of those men as they went over the side…!
As he stood there, back against the wall, craning his neck periodically to see if the monstrosity around the corner was still there – of course it was – he heard the door through which he had come swing open. A moment of icy fear gripped him – way to watch your own back, Anders, you'll be pirouetting off the roof yourself any second now – but when he turned his head, it was the Commander walking towards him. The other woman, the mousy brunette, was still with her, and they had been joined by a red-headed dwarf. All three were liberally spattered in black Darkspawn blood.
"So, just a thought," he said conversationally, "you might want to be careful out there." He paused a moment to peer over his shoulder again, to ensure that the arrival of the newcomers had not been noted by their quarry. "I think the big Darkspawn who led the attack is out there."
She studied him carefully for a moment, one eyebrow quirked above stunning green-blue eyes. "I thought I let you go?"
She's rather insanely gorgeous, was the first thought that popped into his head. "I know, I know, I'm really bad at the whole 'fugitive from justice' thing," he grinned, unconsciously mimicking that raised eyebrow. "I was already on the road and I thought, well, I couldn't just leave…not yet. So I came to help." (Because I can never leave well enough alone…)
"Well," the Commander replied with a wry twist of the lips, "your help would certainly be appreciated."
"Thank me later," he said smoothly, "I'm pretty good. Trust me; you'll be mighty grateful I came back."
She rolled her eyes, but the sarcastic grin remained, even as the dwarf eyed him balefully from beneath bushy brows and growled, "Heh, comedian mage. That's a useful specialty, I bet."
"About as useful as smelling like whiskey vomit, I imagine," Anders shot back with a scowl. And who does he think he is?
He didn't hear the dwarf's reply; he was watching the Commander. As Anders himself had done, she was peering carefully around the corner of the wall. Unlike Anders, however, she apparently had no qualms about facing the creature there, because without a word, she stepped out into the open, in full view of the interlopers.
Interlopers in question, of course, were not paying attention; the creature and its minions were standing over the kneeling form of a older, respectable-looking man in silverite mail, and one of the beasts had a disgusting, filthy sword pressed to the man's throat. "Others will come, creature," the man growled up at his captor. "They will stop you."
The Commander took this opportunity to draw the twin longswords from her back with a resounding ring of metal, and three heads turned in her direction. "It seems your words be true," the creature rasped, "more than you are guessing."
"It's…talking!" Anders exclaimed. Darkspawn don't talk…do they? Not that you'd know the slightest thing about what Darkspawn do, since you've seen exactly one handful of the fiends and that's been in the last hour…
"Well," growled the dwarf, fingering the handle of his waraxe, "let's shut it up already!"
The silver-haired man cut his eyes to the side. "Commander," he gasped desperately.
"That's Seneschal Varel!" the brunette exclaimed.
The man was a second from death, and there was no time to even think; as the creature holding him tensed the muscles of its forearm to draw its blade across the man's throat, Anders sent a surge of magic flashing forward, encasing the seneschal in a protective force field. At the same time, the Commander drew back her arm, and threw one of her wickedly-curved longswords, as easily as one might toss a throwing knife, and it whistled end over end through the air with arrow-perfect accuracy and embedded itself in the Darkspawn's neck.
The Commander drew a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath at her belt and stepped forward, the dwarf coming up beside her, growling low in his chest like an angry dog. The stout little man leaned forward over his axe-handle, breath coming in short, heaving spurts, and all around him, limning him in pale red, an angry aura of sorts appeared. Anders understood immediately, and leaned forward a bit, fascinated. Berserker rage. He had heard tales of the dwarven berserkers, but had never actually seen one in action.
He glanced almost reflexively at the commander, and caught his breath. Her stance matched the dwarf's, and unaccountably, the same aura was spinning up from her toes to envelop her as well. But…only dwarves have ever mastered… His mouth dropped open in surprise at the same time her lips drew back from her teeth in a wild snarl. And then, wordless, human and dwarf gathered themselves, and leaped towards the oncoming Darkspawn leader, twin screams of feral rage pouring from their lips. Gooseflesh stippled Anders' skin as the sound washed over him, chilling him to the core. Okay, that's just...creepy. Effective, but...really, really creepy.
He spent a few long moments just caught up in watching them fight, the human woman and the male dwarf. They were a blur of motion, weapons sweeping in broad strokes, bodies moving in that reactionary dance, parrying, evading, ducking, weaving. All the while, he worked on autopilot, feeding them a steady stream of rejuvenating magic, pausing briefly to fling hexes at the creature they fought. All around them, the brunette danced, slamming into the other Darkspawn with the blunt edge of a kite shield, every movement economical and powerful. So intent was he on this fight that he didn't realize the battle had been joined until he saw the magic flare around the dwarf, a hard entropic drain that had him swaying suddenly on his feet. Eyes narrowing, Anders located the enemy even as he replenished the dwarf's energy and suffused him with healing magic. A Darkspawn mage?
It was short and squat, wearing an odd headdress and hefting a gnarled, hideous staff. Even from halfway across the stone floor of the parapet, he could feel the death magic surrounding the creature like a shroud. It was in the process of casting another spell, and without taking the time to even think, he reacted in haste, expelling a powerful burst of raw energy that drained much of his inner reserve, but laid the creature out flat, instantly dead. Apparently Darkspawn mages were no different than human mages, or elves – raw power versus raw power always equaled an explosion.
His attention returned to the main event just in time to watch the Commander's swords sweep sideways in a massive arc, neatly taking off the talking Darkspawn's head, even as the dwarf buried his axe deeply in its torso. They stood side-by-side for a long moment, each breathing heavily, staring down at the carnage at their feet as the pale red auras faded. He held back, not wanting to be…well, cut down by those incredibly terrifying swords, it wasn't like she looked particularly sane at present; and then, as clarity returned to her eyes, he strode over and clasped her arm, fingers slipping under the edge of a vambrace, seeking skin, sending a pulse of magic upward to mend the wound that he could see hidden beneath the armor on her forearm with the uncanny sixth sense of a healer.
This accomplished, his eyes traveled up her incredibly blood-bathed torso to her face, in time to see her own gaze travel from the distant corpse of the Darkspawn mage thing to his own face. One aristocratic eyebrow traveled upward towards her hairline. "That Emissary was…creatively handled," she said slowly.
"That…oh, the mage-type over there?" He favored her with a smug smile. "I did say that you'd be happy I helped, didn't I? Didn't want to make a liar of myself."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, so I see," she said dryly. "And yet at the same time, I took a maul to the stomach and somehow, ended up with no maul-shaped holes in me. You were exploding an emissary all over the ground and still managed to…"
"Warden Commander…I owe you my life." This was the Seneschal, who had been helped to his feet by the brunette, and the comment drew her eyes immediately to his face. Anders gaped, caught midway between Sod off while I'm being complimented by your lovely Warden Commander, and Warden Commander? This is the Commander of the Grey? It made perfect sense, he supposed; he recalled overhearing the Templars talking about the Wardens when they had arrived, and now that he thought of it, he had heard that the order was moving into one of the northern Arlings. He simply hadn't had the opportunity to consider the notion (forgive me if I was a little bit distracted by not dying and not letting anyone else die and escaping and all that nonsense). He eyed the Commander again, less superficially (mostly) than on previous inspections, wondering what great feats must be required to be named to such a position, particularly immediately following the end of a Blight.
The small group was leaving the roof now, heading down through the ravaged keep and into the yard, and Anders followed at a slight distance, wondering if now would be the ideal time to slip away. Of course, it was never that simple; as they swept through the outer gates and into the upper yards, they found one of the men who had been unceremoniously tossed off the rooftop lying there broken on the stairs, moaning unintelligibly. He never felt a slave to magic so much as he did at moments like this; even as his head was screaming at him to just get out, to walk away before he drew any attention, he was already crouched at the injured mans' side, pushing waves of healing along the lines of broken bones and punctured organs.
When he had done all he could for the soldier, he stood up to find the Commander facing him, watching him rather…well, respectfully. "Thank you, Anders," she said quietly. "But I think you had better…"
The seneschal strode over to interrupt once again (Maker's breath, man, can I not get my polite head-pat in peace?), his face pinched. "The king is here, Commander."
The king? Oh Maker's blood, wasn't he a Templar? Heart hammering wildly, Anders dashed up to a small catwalk overlooking the lower yards, immediately noting the small procession of guards that was, this very moment, proceeding up the stairs to the upper yards at a fast military pace. He briefly considered just sinking down to the ground on the catwalk, out of sight, hoping for them to pass…but no, if someone questioned him and the king's guard overheard, it would only raise suspicion. The king…he's a Grey Warden too, right? It's not like he's here to arrest me, for the love of the Maker. Just act natural, and blend in.
A quick survey of the upper yard found all personnel not actively involved with tending the sick, standing in a loose formation directly facing the stairs where the King would, any moment now, appear; he hurried over to join the small group, sidling up to the Commander. Of course you're not hiding behind her, you're just...being practical. Yes, that's it. She glanced briefly at him, curiosity and a kind of vague worry apparent in her eyes before they returned to the gateway.
And then the first of the soldiers strode in. Oh Maker, Templars!
Anders watched the approaching vanguard with a kind of helpless terror, eyes darting left and right, wondering if they'd notice if he walked slowly and calmly away, wondering if he had any chance of just running, knowing it was useless. Beside him, the Commander surreptitiously grasped his wrist, the motion concealed from the sight of the others behind the dwarf's armored back. He glanced at her out of the corner of wide, slightly panicked eyes; after all they had just seen – after he had helped! - was she going to restrain him here? But she only squeezed his arm briefly, a gesture of reassurance, and then her hand fell away as she knelt before the approaching King, and all that was left was to ride it out.
