The ogre was angry.
Make that furious, Will added as he half stumbled backwards, dodging another large fist heading for his head. I really hate these things!
The ogre advanced on him. Its blood streaming from the open wounds that he'd inflicted. Will found his footing again, resettled his shield on his arm and ducked to the left of the ogre bringing his sword through in a backhanded slash to the creature's exposed torso. He followed the sword with his shield, slamming it into the wound he'd freshly created, drawing an agonised howl.
Reeling away, Will knew he was tiring. His muscles burned with adrenaline and his heart was pounding. A salty mix of sweat and grime glistened on his skin, making his sword hilt slip slightly in his hand. He never wore gauntlets. He remembered Alistair's incredulous expression when he tried to explain this, but he needed to feel the leather bindings as they pressed into his palm. It grounded him...that simple contact made him remember what he was fighting for.
Will took a moment to try to locate the others. Glancing around he caught a glimpse of Morrigan's robes behind, Leliana running towards him, lifting her bow as she sprinted. Alistair..."Where the hell...?" He muttered before the ogre, recovering from its shock, charged at the warrior with renewed fury.
He panicked...he shouldn't have, he knew that. But the ogre was such an overwhelming thing to behold and he wavered for just a moment...one moment too long... as it rushed him, batting aside Will's raised sword as it closed its powerful hands around his torso, lifting him high into the air.
The creature roared in ear splitting triumph, drawing Will closer to its face until he could smell its putrid breath and feel the heat of the foam of its saliva as it hit his exposed face. The roar was primeval; a sound that paralysed him for a few agonising seconds before he came to himself with a start and struggled violently against the creature's powerful grip.
Will's hands grasped at the creature's fists and he felt his chest constrict; his ribs creaking painfully beneath his heavy armour. His breath caught in his throat and he grimaced, his face drawn into a concentrated frown.
Drawing his shield arm back as far as he could, Will smashed it into the ogre's head with as much force as he could muster and simultaneously drove his boots into the creature's chest in a clumsy attempt to make it release him...In shock, he found himself falling as a blast of arcane fire sizzled through the air, flowing into the creature's face. A burst of Leliana's arrows followed, forcing the ogre back against a ridge.
Will quickly rolled away, and standing, shot an incensed look at Morrigan, ignoring the agonised cries of the beast for the moment as he waved his sword arm at her. "You know my ownhead was right there?" he demanded of her. Morrigan shrugged, smirking at him and then cocked her head to one side slightly, her eyes following something over his shoulder.
Turning, Will blinked in surprise as Alistair sprinted along the grassy ridge towards the rear of the ogre. "Distract it!" Will bellowed at the two women, and ran back into the creature's reach, drawing its distressed attention back to him. He shouted his own roar of defiance as he noted Alistair's position...Almost there... he thought and shouldered his way into the wall of muscle and sinew that was the creature's legs. Blinkered by his closeness to the ogre, Will felt rather than saw the searing heat of Morrigan's next spell, and heard the faint buzz of Leliana's arrows as together they held the creature firmly in one position until, at last, Alistair reached the top of the ridge.
"Move!" Alistair screamed at them, and then reversing his sword, held it in a two handed grip as, jumping onto the creature's back, he forced the point of the blade down into its neck, severing the spinal cord and, with a grunt of exertion, drove it through until it burst from the beast's sternum in a spray of blood.
The ogre rocked on its feet for a few excruciating moments...before falling to its knees, tossing Alistair violently forwards over its head as it plunged to the ground with a low moan.
Leliana danced backwards gracefully as Alistair tumbled into an inelegant heap at her feet. He grinned up at her. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" he chuckled and ignoring a derisive snort from Morrigan, took the hand Leliana offered and hoisted himself to his feet. The bard giggled at him as he tentatively stretched his neck from side to side, shrugging in his armour, checking for any broken bones. "You do have a flair for the dramatic." She winked at him, shaking her head in mock disapproval before wandering off to retrieve any undamaged arrows.
Alistair focussed his attention on Morrigan, who, standing with her hands on her hips, regarded him with sneering distaste. "You'll get no admiration from me, if that's what you're waiting for." She snapped at him, holding his gaze until chuckling again, he backed away, pivoting on one foot until he was facing the corpse of the ogre.
Will was standing vigilant beside it…his sword still gripped tightly in his hand, listening attentively to the forest. Reaching Will's side, Alistair folded his arms across his chest and appraised the fallen creature, pursing his lips in thought. "Not quite as big as the one in the Tower of Ishal?" He asked, nodding thoughtfully. Will considered his question, looking the ogre up and down.
He sniffed, "It's at least as big, surely?"
They grinned at each other.
"Riiiight…well…let me just get my sword back…" He planted a foot on the ogre's back and grasping his sword hilt, tugged at it until it slid free with a slice of steel against bone. He glanced around getting his bearings before adding. "I dropped my shield somewhere…I think it slid down the far side of the ridge. " He nodded his head in a vague direction.
"I'll look for it. You help Leliana. " Will told him and sheathing his sword set off in the direction Alistair had indicated, following the bottom of the ridge round as it declined away from the forest path.
X X X
Will walked purposefully, taking in his surroundings as he glanced around for the missing shield. These forests were different from those around Highever. Denser. Greener. And eerily ancient. This forest had a soul of its own. Will felt it. He cocked his head to one side, the murmur of forgotten stories just beyond his hearing as the wind rustled through the leaves over head. His fingers twitched for his notebook as the forest whispered to him. There had been battles here, Will recalled and shivered suddenly as a cold breeze caressed the back of his neck. If ever a place was haunted this was it.
Shaking himself from his day dream, Will found himself drawn to a mass of brambles, and spotted Alistair's kite shield…just out of reach. Of course it is... Will smiled wryly to himself and shrugged his own shield onto his back. Looking around, he noted that the others were out of sight, although he could hear them…Morrigan and Alistair bickering like children.
Deciding he could reclaim the shield on his own he approached the brambles, eyeing the nasty looking thorns warily, thankful for the protection his armour would offer. Drawing his sword, he tried to cut a trail through, using his boots to trample them down where he could.
Swinging his sword, he hacked at the brambles until is hit something that made it clang rather than thud, and he felt a sharp vibration run through the sword into his hand. Peering through the foliage he spied what was certainly stonework and frowned to himself, puzzled. "Now what's that doing here...?" He muttered, and squinting slightly, pushed himself further into the brambles, forcing a path.
Clearing as many of the brambles aside as he could, Will found himself level with what looked to be a tombstone, or marker of some sort. That can't be right... Examining it more closely he saw what looked to be centuries of moss and lichen attached to the stone and he reached out to touch it...
A wave of nausea hit him hard and Will rocked backwards on his heels in shock, drawing back his hand sharply with a hissed intake of breath. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and tentatively touched his fingertips to it again. This feels wrong. Will could feel his body trembling, a deep sense of dark foreboding swelling in the pit of his stomach. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts...Don't be ridiculous, man... and pressed the palm of his right hand fully against the stone.
Icy pain speared through his hand and down his arm, coursing to his heart, and he fell through a dizzying rush of darkness towards a pin point of sickening green light.
And then he saw it...or rather him. A flash of a man in darkly coloured robes, his face deathly pale, eyes sunken and dead in his face...
And he was looking at Will...eyes locked onto his, the man's face twisted into a mirthless grin. "You disturbed my wards, boy..." He rasped in an unfamiliar accent. The man leaned in close causing the pain to crystallize in Will's chest...expanding like the icy surface of a lake in the dead of winter. He couldn't breathe...he couldn't...
A sudden yelp of astonished pain pierced his vision as Alistair's hand fell on his shoulder and dragged him bodily back towards the light. "Maker! What was that...?" Alistair exclaimed wrenching away his hand and shaking it frantically as if he'd just been scalded. Will's mouth hung open in shock, his eyes wide with alarm. "I...I...the man, he..." His voice trailed off, his eyes moving involuntarily back to the tomb stone, Will reached out again as if in a dreamy trance.
Alistair grabbed his arm. "Oh, no you don't." He muttered angrily and then froze...the forest was quiet...too quiet. The air was cold and dark...too dark for midday. His head jerked up in alarm as his eyes caught sight of a dark figure atop the ridge above them. Tall. Clad in archaic armour...a helmet with swept back wings...a wicked blade in its grasp.
Revenant, his Templar training told him, as he instinctively reached for his own sword.
"Oh, bugger..."
Thanks, Setrus! As always, not just for the feedback, but for telling me how it really is... ;-) I do listen...sometimes
