Chapter 7

"Howe!"

Nathaniel started awake, back sore and eyes twisting shut as if that could block out noise. He groaned and rolled away from it.

"Howe, are you- oh, Ancestors. Get on your feet, man."

It was Vana. Of course it was Vana. And by the giggling behind her, it was Sigrun, too. He opened his eyes to a squint and looked over his shoulder.

And Velanna, looking disgusted as usual.

He heard the drag of fabric on hay and he craned his head. Cauthrien stirred, frowning and looking down the length of her curled body at the intruders. He winced as he imagined the hangover she must have had - four or more cups of whiskey and no water to go with it, no water likely since the morning before. She said nothing, though, and only watched as he stumbled to his feet and picked at the straw stuck in his hair.

"You know," Vana said, "I can just lock that door again. If you want me to."

"No," he said, grabbing up his boots and exiting the cell quickly. "That's not- no, it won't be necessary."

"Good. I need your bow again today." Vana smirked. "Time to head for the Blackmarsh."

"... Oh," Nathaniel said. "Joy."

"I'd take no for an answer and have Oghren or Anders with me instead, but I need somebody who knows the land at least a little for this, and I can't wrangle all of you blighters at once. We're going in looking for a missing Warden."

"A missing-?" Nathaniel said, frowning, as Vana turned and headed for the door without another word. He looked between her and Cauthrien, then mouthed, Later, later, I promise. She nodded and closed her eyes again, curling tighter, and he shoved his feet into his boots and jogged out, laces flapping.

When the prison door was shut behind him and the morning sun made him squint and wrinkle his nose against it, Vana huffed. "We were finally able to follow up on some leads yesterday, during your sabbatical. We took a turn by the city. Sigrun and I visited the Crown and Lion and found some of an Orlesian Warden's things there - Kristoff. He's been missing over a month now."

"Nice of you to be so prompt with your search," Nathaniel groused.

"Income to arm the guard and rebuild the keep, and sabotaging a darkspawn encampment, are slightly more important than a single missing man," Vana replied, with a clipped coldness that made him shudder. "But we're taking care of it now. Get your weapon and your armor and meet me at the stables in twenty minutes, Howe, and I'll forget that you were sleeping with Ser Cauthrien."

He flushed at her phrasing and nodded curtly, ignoring Sigrun's snickering - and the sudden laugh from one apostate mage who went, "Oy! So that's where you were. Heard you snuck off at dinner but then nobody knew where you went."

"Good morning, Anders," Nathaniel said, making eye contact only a moment as he strode for the main gate.

"Good morning, he says. Ahah," Anders said, coming up alongside him. "Good morning indeed. In the dungeons? That couldn't have been terribly comfortable."

"The commander's choice of words was unfortunate," Nathaniel said as he took the steps two at a time. "And the matter is, I might add, private."

"You're no fun. Did you know that? No fun at all." Anders sighed. "Is this about the other night, when you were brooding?"

"When I was-"

"And when you gave me that horrid advice about Velanna's name-"

"No." Nathaniel rubbed at his stubble. "No, this is not about that, and if you'd excuse me-"

"Hey, listen," Anders said, voice dropping as they reached the front hall. He reached out and took Nathaniel's elbow. Nathaniel flinched. "Just- can you talk to the Commander for me? She doesn't take me anywhere. And while I'm not complaining, you know - I mean, she's a good woman, there's good food, good drink, and she did take that pesky templar off my tail - I'd like to know if she... well, if she doesn't trust me anymore. Or doesn't, you know, need me."

"Are you saying that you're thinking of running, Anders?"

Anders considered for a moment, then shrugged. "I mean. If it came to it. I just want to know where I stand."

"Well, I'm hardly the one to ask her," Nathaniel said, unsure of what to say beyond the truth. "She might lock me up again."

"Well, I can't ask Velanna. Not after the Velannana incident. And I'd ask Oghren but then he'd forget the question."

"Ask Sigrun." Nathaniel shrugged. "That's all I can tell you. And that I wouldn't doubt that she has an eye on everything, and opinions on everything. With talking darkspawn about... maybe she just wants Wardens here on guard at all times, now that she has enough of us."

Anders pursed his lips, then nodded. "Well. I guess that's something, at least. Thank you. And good luck- with the lady in chains, I mean."

Nathaniel groaned. "She's not in chains, Anders."

"Behind bars, then. Slightly less steamy. More inconvenient-"

"Anders!"

"Sorry, sorry," Anders muttered, and Nathaniel took a deep breath.

There were heavy footfalls and short strides behind them, and Nathaniel swore, ducking into the shadows and towards the next room just in time to hear Vana call, "Anders? I believe I found something that should belong to you," followed by a tiny meow.

And then Nathaniel made himself scarce, because he didn't need a sneezing fit from a mangy stray to reveal that he had wasted a good five minutes of his allotted twenty.


At least Nathaniel wasn't the only one wondering exactly what Vana's need for him was. Anders, though, had the benefit of a gift of a kitten; the whole ride to Blackmarsh had been filled with Vana telling Sigrun about it, with shared sniggering laughs as they rode. It only compounded the problem, seeing how close the two women were.

He looked to Velanna, who rode next to him in awkward silence, every so often muttering in elvish to her mount.

"Velanna?"

She sighed and closed her eyes before looking to him. "Yes?"

"Do you think the Commander hates me?" he asked.

"No." The dalish rolled her eyes. "If she hated you, she would have had you executed or locked up again, I'm sure. She at least finds you useful."

"I suppose that's something," he said, and Velanna huffed agreement.

"Yes," she said. "It's something." And then she tucked her heels into her horse's flank and broke forward, and Nathaniel was left following.

Useful. There were worse things to be thought. And Velanna was likely right; Vanadia saw nothing wrong in keeping a skilled and good woman locked alone in a cell for eight months, after all. What was one archer with a skill at poisons and traps? He kept his head down another mile, another half-mile.

And then he gave in and nudged his horse faster, to ride abreast of Vana.

"Commander, might I have a word?"

Vana looked over at him with an arched brow, tugging at the scar that crossed her cheek. Sigrun, who had been telling some story or another, stopped in mid-sentence to look between them. "Depends on what word," Vana said at last.

Nathaniel swallowed. "It's about-"

There. In the back of his head, the telltale buzz-

"Down!" he shouted, and slid from his horse, yanking its reins around until he could send it skittering off the way they had come. An arrow with a wicked barbed head struck the earth, passing through where its haunch had been just a moment before. Nathaniel swore and dropped low. His fingers caught the loop of his bowstring and he pulled up hard, seating it in its notch. He drew an arrow, nocked it, and waited.

The others had followed, and Sigrun was nowhere to be seen, already hidden by the twisting foliage around them. The first hurlock crested the rise in the road at a dead charge and at Vana's shouted order, he loosed his first shot.

It struck the beast in the knee. He nocked another.

Weeks ago the death howls of darkspawn had chilled his blood and added to his tainted nightmares. Now, while his skin still crawled, it was a matter of business. The Deep Roads did that, it seemed. And it helped that they weren't human. Killing humans- or elves, or dwarves or anything but beasts and darkspawn, that was dangerous ground.

He was not his father, though. And he was not Cauthrien, with her blade slicked with the blood of her people. This, at least, was easy.

They dropped five more before the full rush struck them. He caught a glimpse of Sigrun with one of her blades in a genlock's back just before a shriek struck him. He rolled hard, quiver spilling arrows, and reached instead for the dirk at his belt. A swift kick to what was something like its stomach and he was able to gain purchase.

It had a neck to slit like any other creature, and foul blood like any other darkspawn. He shoved it aside and got to his feet, hand raking the dirt to retrieve what arrows he could.

The forest creaked and roared; where Velanna had been frightening beneath the ground, here she was terrifying, arms raised and power dancing from toe to tip. The very branches seemed to heed her call. He had to tear his gaze away as Vana cried out.

Five hurlocks surrounded her. Three were already dead. He sheathed his dirk and hefted his bow; his fingers had remained clenched around it during the assault, and now he nocked one of his remaining arrows. He let fly, and it pierced one through the throat, just as Vana brought the last down.

The roaring of the trees faded. The buzzing in his mind stopped.

Nathaniel dropped to a crouch, lungs burning and body beginning to throb with all the pains that came only after the battle had ended. Shaking, he reached out to gather up what arrows hadn't snapped underfoot in the struggle.

He was lucky. He only lost two. A few had damaged fletching, but they would fly. He tucked them away and only looked up when he heard heavy footsteps with short strides approach.

Vana held out a hand. He took it with a wry smile; the leverage wasn't needed, but the gesture counted in some way.

"Good job," she said.

"Thanks. The horses-"

"Sigrun and Velanna are getting them." Vana let go of him, rolling her shoulders and settling her arms across her chest. "You had a question for me?"

"I- yes." He dragged his gloved hand across his mouth, wiping shriek blood from his lips. "It's about Anders."

"Oh? I didn't know the two of you were particularly close."

"We're not."

"Go on."

His mouth tensed and his lips pursed - but it was something to go forward with. It was the first time he could remember actually having her attention, not just her forbearance. "He wants to know why you don't take him with you."

"Simple," Vana said. "I don't trust him as far as I could throw him."

Her honesty was staggering, and he frowned, searching for words. "I- then why-"

"Make him a Warden? He's a skilled mage. We need skilled mages."

"And his templar?"

"A liability. Look, Howe." She unfolded an arm to jerk her thumb west, towards the Keep. "We're fighting something Weisshaupt and the Shapearate have never heard of. I need all the help I can get. Why do you think I took you on?"

"But if you don't trust him, why leave him at the Keep?"

"Somebody who can feel the darkspawn needs to be there, just in case. Oghren's there to watch him in case he tries to run, though I think that cat will keep him around."

"And you trust Oghren?"

"He proved himself back during the Blight."

"... And me?"

She grinned. "You? You're a damn good scout. And you're getting a little less insufferable every time it gets to killing. No, you're fine. Didn't expect it, but- you're fine."

"And Sigrun?"

That drew a laugh from her. "None of your damn business. Get your shit together and let's get moving." She nodded towards where Velanna and Sigrun were leading the skittish horses back. "Keep my back, Howe, and don't make me think you'll run out on me, and we're good."

"Right." We're good. He shook his head and set off to join the others in calming the horses.

"Oh, and Howe-"

He paused. "Yes?"

"Don't question me about how I run my gang again."


"The thing you have to understand," Sigrun said from where she was perched behind him on his horse, "is that she's a Duster. It's that simple."

Vana rode ahead alone; her horse remained too skittish for a second rider, especially with the growing dark and the growing muck. Nathaniel frowned and looked over his shoulder to Sigrun.

"You say that word a lot, but like so many words, nobody will explain what it means."

Sigrun shrugged, letting go of him with one hand to point to her cheek. He squinted. There was a brand there, much like the one that Vana's scar broke across. "It's that. It's... your family did something, way back when, and now you're nothing. Less than dirt. You have a dad who's a criminal or a grandmother who tried to start a coup and failed, and you get this when you're born and that's it. You can't even be a servant. You scrape by for what you can get, you steal and you cheat and you murder, and then you die miserable. Duster."

"That's-" His brow furrowed and he looked forward again. It was him, it was the Howes, but writ large. The brand was more a mark than any hooked nose of his, and he shifted uncomfortably. "You lived that?"

"Yep."

"With no hope of redemption? Of proving yourself?"

"Of course not." She sighed. "I mean, you have the Legion. That's as close as it gets. You were in Kal'Hirol, you heard the ghosts."

"I don't think I understood."

"No. I don't imagine you did."

Nathaniel fell silent, frowning and stroking at his horse's mane idly. No redemption. The thought was dizzying- staggering. To have been born as he felt now, perhaps never knowing his ancestor's crimes, with nothing to work for in way of redemption or honor. No way to prove them wrong. No way to find another place to settle down in, and pretend it never happened.

It made him feel a little pathetic, really. He at least could kill darkspawn and maybe, one day, be seen by the people around him as worth something again. But Sigrun had just been sent down into the deep to die without anybody there to remember her.

Redemption.

Well, if it was on offer it was all he could do to take it. Vanadia had extended it, and he would chase after.

He glanced over his shoulder.

"And Vana lived all of that, too?"

Vanadia, treated like dirt for an unknown crime-

"Oh, yeah. We never ran with the same gangs, though. I knew about her - well, her sister - but Dust Town is a lot bigger than it should be. It's..." She sighed. "It's what it is. And then I ended up in the Legion and she ended up a Warden. But it's the Duster in her that's the important bit."

"Do you think that's why she's given me a chance?"

Her snort devolved into snickering. "Oh, no. She's given you a chance because she needs another person between her and the darkspawn. It's why she wanted me to join, too."

"I somehow doubt that."

"Anyway-" Sigrun said, and he shook his head at how she danced away from the topic. "Anyway, what I was saying is- Dusters don't trust easily. And Dusters don't think that just anybody will have their back in a fight. You keep the people you understand closest. And she understands Dusters and she understands people who are rough and abrasive, and so she has us. Oghren's a good guy but he's Warrior Caste. And Anders- I try to tell her that Anders would be a lot of fun, but she doesn't know how to handle that sort of humor. So, it's us."

Sigrun, he decided, was very clever for all her perkiness.

"Were you eavesdropping earlier, from all the way down the road?" Nathaniel muttered, and she laughed.

"Of course!"

"You little sneak."

"At your service, you big brooding noble."

Mud squelched beneath his horse's hooves and he slowed them down, turning again to look over his shoulder. "... I had no idea about the Duster thing. Thank you. It's... enlightening."

"It is what it is." Sigrun shrugged. "But if she keeps you around, it means no matter what else she feels about you, she trusts you and needs you."

"Good to know, I suppose," he said, and sighed.

Ahead of them, Vana called out to stop. The horses wouldn't go much further, and Velanna had already dismounted and stood frowning, looking around them.

"The Veil is thin," she said when they approached, horse tethered to a more solid patch of ground. "Tread carefully."


Tread carefully, indeed.

Nathaniel hated the Fade. He hadn't known that before stepping foot in the Blackmarsh, but he was more than certain of it now. Being knee-deep in mud and muck was unpleasant enough. Fighting werewolves and darkspawn was bad enough. But being in the Fade, even dry and a little warm, was far, far worse.

They had found Kristoff, at least - late, as he had expected, and dead, as he had feared. They had found more talking darkspawn, more news of the Mother. The plot thickened, and he didn't like the feel of it at all.

He comforted himself with the thought that at least he was fulfilling a little boy dream, putting an end to a story his father had woven him back when things were all right. Save the Blackmarsh. By slaughtering demons and staggering through hazy, shifting ideas of swamps.

It was not his idea of a good story, but he supposed it could have been somebody's.

Then, he had imagined himself a knight, riding in and slaying evil. He couldn't have been more than ten. He certainly didn't think at the time that the horse's hooves would have gotten stuck in the grime, or that his gleaming silverite armor (because of course at the time he had nothing but disdain for light armor, thinking it boring and not good enough) would have been gummed up into a statue after the first fall in the mud.

There was something a little glamorous about it, at least. Maybe it was the fresh understanding of Vana; it changed the way he watched as the Commander pushed forward and ordered them ever onward. She was him, or what he could have been, and she had become a paragon, if the stories were true and he understood the words enough. She was at least the Hero of Ferelden and a veritable force of nature. The Fade didn't slow her down for an instant.

So there it was: slay the talking darkspawn, maybe have a statue erected in his honor (even if it was a small one made out of mud, as long as it wasn't summarily stomped on), and ride off into the sunset away from marshes and swamps.

Better than commanding his father's garrisons.


Nathaniel laid on his back, in the mud, and stared up at the night sky. It seemed appropriate that it should rain and throb with lightning and thunder, but of course it did neither. The pounding of his head was a decent stand-in, though, as was the sweat still tracking down his brow and cheeks.

"Get up," Vana said, and he grunted in return. "Or we'll leave you."

"Five minutes," he muttered.

The creature in Kristoff's body approached and peered down at him with glassy eyes. Nathaniel wrinkled his nose, though the smell of the muck overpowered any odor of death. "There is work to be done," it said. "Are you injured?"

Nathaniel frowned and looked down at himself, taking the time to wiggle his fingers and toes.

"No," Velanna answered for him. "He's not. And I for one would like to get out of this place."

"Then you should stand," Justice said, and Nathaniel groaned.

Sigrun joined Justice and went so far as to nudge Nathaniel with the toe of her boot. "It's not so bad," she said. "Whatever it is that's keeping you down there. Think of the mud, and everything that's in that mud."

Nathaniel closed his eyes.

He didn't like demons, he decided, or talking darkspawn, or the Fade, or blighted werewolves, or any of it. Had he really thought just that afternoon that killing darkspawn was easy? Compared to men, at least. But it was all very messy work that left his whole body aching to the bone.

"Nathaniel," Vana said, and with another groan he rolled onto his side and pushed himself up.

"You know," he said as he tried to wipe the worst of the mud from him, "I don't think this is what Garavel had in mind when he said to bring back Kristoff." He looked at Justice sidelong, and Justice looked back placidly.

"I don't really care what Garavel had in mind," Vana replied, and Nathaniel had to admit he had expected that. "If Justice is willing to aid in our task, I see no reason to deny him. Though," she added, "it will make the ride back a little more awkward."