When the mist reached Cauthrien and swept over her, it was like being tangled in a spider web, one still cool and wet with the morning dew. Not so bad, one might think, until one remembered how monstrous spiders in the Wilds could get, especially in the caves which dotted the region—the size of a destrier, or larger still. Speaking of destriers, though, the horses were making sounds of surprise but not panic—that was good.

"Lieutenant?" the king called.

"Here, your Majesty!" She could hear Cailan crashing around in the underbrush, a distinct relief. If anything happened to the King while he was in her charge, it would be on her head. She did not fear the wrath of the Maker half so much as that of Loghain Mac Tir, Commander of the King's Armies and Teryn of Gwaren. After all, she knew Loghain was real, whereas the existence of Maker was questionable at best. The Teryn's disapproval alone would…but that was neither here nor there because nothing was going to happen to the King on her watch. Nothing.

"This mist seems to have sprung up out of nowhere. What do you think can have caused it?" Cailan wondered, "The day was clear a moment ago."

"So it was, your Majesty," she replied. "I know no more than you do. The Wilds are not like other lands. It may clear up—." Even as she said the words, the mist thinned. "as quickly as it came. See?"

The landscape was changed. Instead of young trees and underbrush, there were sere grasses and saplings. The time of year, the time of day were changed; it was hours later, by the height of the sun in the sky, and at least a month later, by the look of the vegetation. "How odd," Cailan looked about.

"Odd and wrong, Sire. Look," she pointed to the marker stone, intact and freshly cut. "A moment ago that stone was broken and overgrown, crumbling. Now it looks as though it were placed yesterday. This is magic at work, or I know nothing of the world. What it means, I cannot say."

"Magic?!" the King exclaimed. "You mean the beginning of an adventure!"

"I pray not, your Majesty, for I hear no one about, where before the bulk of your army was in earshot or within the sound of my signal horn. Your horse, Sire. We ought to seek out a place to shelter for the night, and on the morrow, find out what is going on."

"You have no heart in you for adventure? I would hope a member of my guard would have more spirit than that!" Cailan took the reins and swung himself up into the saddle.

"For you it may well be an adventure. For I, who am charged with your safety, it is an anxiety. I advise we make for Lothering; it is not too far and—."

"Lothering? Nay, we set out for Ostagar and Ostagar is where we shall go. Onward!" He showily reared his horse up and galloped off toward the road.

"Wonderful. He'll break his horse's leg doing that off the road," Cauthrien allowed herself to grumble before she got on her horse and followed him. Adventures, in her experience, meant constant danger, cold, wet feet, and never knowing when or what your next hot meal would be.

A few leagues down the road they encountered the chevaliers. Luckily there were only six of them. Unluckily, Cailan rode right up to them, with a tremendous smile on his face.

"Hail and well met, mes amis. Ride you to join the Grey Wardens at Ostagar? I would not have thought Loghain would unbend enough to admit you through our borders."

The Orlesian chevaliers looked at him as Orlesians usually looked at Fereldans: as though they smelled something bad. "Heard you the barking of a dog?" one asked another.

"I am sure I heard something like it. Mais oui, I certainly smell dog shit. Go away, dog lordling, you occupy space in my eyes I need for surveying the wastelands behind you." The party of knights laughed.

Cailan's face was comically astounded. "Know you not who I am?"

"Some lick-spittle lordling who bent the knee to King Meghran and retains his lands—for now. Hah, he has very pretty armor, this one, a pretty horse and a pretty follower to ride behind him. What is your holding? It must be a rich one. I shall ask His Majesty for it come Satinalia!" roared the leader.

"I am King Cailan, and you are—."

"Of course he is not, there is no king but the cousin of the Emperor," Cauthrien called out, desperate. Six was not too many for her to take on alone, but she wasn't alone. No doubt Cailan would want to help. "Forgive him, my lords. For all that he looks a man grown, he is…prone to fancies. His noble father—I pray you, heed him not, harm him not, and I will keep better guard over him."

"Ah, a poor lack-wit, is it? And you are his nurse-maid? What would you do to keep him safe?"

"What I must," Cauthrien replied.

What followed was not pretty. Her sword, the Summer Sword, had a history, related to her by Loghain Mac Tir when he gifted her with it at her knighting. The last blade made by the master smith Vercenne, it was made for the youngest son of a Grand Champion. The young Orlesian rejected it as old-fashioned, clumsy and barbaric—one might almost say, 'Fereldan'. His father, angered by the callow way his son disdained the last masterpiece of a genius, insisted that his son take it anyway, or be disinherited. He could make the lad take it; he could not make him learn how to use it, so when the young man, no longer quite so young and the most depraved and hated Chevalier in Fereldan, was disarmed of his fashionable blade, and had to rely on the Summer Sword, Loghain cut him down like the last leaf of summer.

Hence, this generation of Orlesians did not know how much damage a 'clumsy' weapon like a greatsword could deal. When you were horsed, and could use the strength and momentum of the horse to augment your arm, it could be devastating.

It was the same principle as jousting with a lance, but lances were too often one-use-only weapons, too heavy, too long, too awkward, prone to breaking on impact, and slow. In truth, they were better suited to the tourney field than to melee combat. A greatsword, on the other hand, where all that strength and momentum were concentrated into the well-honed edge, or on the point—.

Thinking themselves nearly kings in their own right, the chevaliers were not expecting any real opposition, and on her first charge, she sheared a chevalier's arm off at the elbow, hitting the vulnerable inner joint—a survivable injury, if someone tied it off immediately. Instantly incapacitating, however . On her second, she unhorsed another, and rode over him, hearing things crunch under her horse's hooves, the sound nearly drowned out by screaming.

By the third, they were ready. A glance at Cailan told her he was in no immediate danger—except perhaps from himself. He had, in drawing his own greatsword, nicked his earlobe and shorn off some of his hair—a mistake made by greenhorns who hadn't practiced how to draw enough. Now she was beset by the remaining four, who were in enough of a fury to hack her in bits. Parrying the nearest, she took the blow of the second's estoc on her more heavily armored shoulder in order to thrust the point of her blade between the ribs of his horse, which went down screaming.

Cailan swept down upon the third, raining down blows indiscriminately about the chevalier's head and shoulders. He was lacking in technique, but his greater strength and long reach compensated for that. The fourth chevalier, though, got in a slice at the back of the king's calf, but took a wild blow to the scalp in exchange, leaving a flap of skin dangling and welling blood as only scalp wounds could. Temporarily blinded, he dropped his defense to wipe his eye, and Cailan finished him with a thrust into the ribcage from the armpit.

The chevalier whose thrust she'd parried now interposed his horse between hers and the man who was trying to roll his dead steed off himself. She took his blow on her sword, pressing forward—the unfashionable, barbaric greatsword did help in keeping one's enemies further off—so he could not regain the leverage or space to get in another. Meanwhile, Cailan reared his horse up to kick—and over did it, making his steed stumble and nearly tip over backward.

Cauthrien's opponent had a stiletto in his off hand, and he made a slice with it under her sword, but only scraped it on her armor. That move left his neck vulnerable, and she took advantage, half beheading him. Blood fountained everywhere. The chevalier whose horse was dead now tried to make a run for the horse of the man who had lost his forearm—he was now dead, bled out but still in the saddle. In trying to pull his compatriot off, he left himself open.

That left one alive and still on horseback. Seeing how badly off he was, he chose to spin his mount around and gallop as if all the shades in the Fade were after him. Cailan gave chase, which meant Cauthrien had to follow. They ran him to ground a quarter of a mile away.

"Don't kill him yet!" Cauthrien shouted. "Monsieur, as you hope to gain the Golden City, what year is this? What year is this?" But it was too late. Blood, not words emerged from his mouth, and he choked out his life.

First things first. "Your Majesty, your leg must be seen to—." Cailan's skin was waxy, and she thought he was swaying in the saddle.

"No, no, the boot turned the blade. I'm just—." Abruptly he leaned over and vomited. Ah. He never killed a man before today. He reached for his flask, rinsed his mouth, spat, and then drank. "That's better. Lieutenant, what was that about asking the year? You know it as well as I do."

"There you are mistaken, Sire. The marker stone I remarked on dated from the Occupation, and never, never would a party of so many chevaliers be allowed to roam about Fereldan like that. Do you but recall who the chevaliers referred to? King Meghren, the Usurper. I suspect we have been displaced back into that time. " She dismounted and began to search the corpse.

"I hardly think that can be possible—what are you doing?" Cailan's eyebrows rose.

"The spoils of war, your Majesty." The dead chevalier had five sovereigns on him, as well as an intricate gold neck chain of Antivan make, and his weapons, an estoc and a poignard. All those she took. His armor was no doubt more valuable, but too bulky and difficult to explain to a merchant. The saddlebags on his horse yielded two clean shirts, a wine flask, some jerked meat, and a cache of perfumed letters. "And here is the proof of my suspicions. " She held out a letter which began with the date: 23 Molioris 8.96. "The magic, whatever it was or whoever cast it, has sent us back in time some thirty four years. Now come, we must get back to the other corpses before anyone else does." She mounted her horse and looked to Cailan.

"It is not for you to give me orders, Lieutenant."

"I beg your pardon, Sire, but my first consideration is and must always be the safety of your person. The oath I swore as one of Maric's Hand, the oath which you accepted of me, places that duty above and beyond all else, including following your orders. Or even waiting for them. I would stand before any court martial in the land with that as my defense, and provided I succeeded in that duty, none would convict me. If I fail in it, none would pardon me for any reason, save only my own death. Now come. We have few enough resources without wasting whatever those Orlesians had on them."

By the truculent set of his jaw, she could tell that little of what she had said had made an impression on him, nor had the implications of this misstep in time sunk in either. Cauthrien wasn't sure she even understood what had happened yet, not fully. She did not look forward to having to explain it to the king in detail, but it would likely be inevitable—once she had worked it out for herself, that is.


A/N: Tremendous thanks and much love to my readers and reviewers, Enchanter T.I.M. and Golden Naginata. You rock like no other.