Chapter Seven – Take the Dragon by the Horns
The Tellari Swamps held more corpses than answers. There seemed little reason to stay. At least Harmony had a name to go on: Aurelian Titus. Whatever other information she needed would have to come from elsewhere.
In the mean time there was another problem. A Crow shaped problem.
They waded through the marshes back towards civilisation. The great dragon they had found in the swamp had circled overhead a few times before soaring off into the distance. For a long time it had stayed a winged shadow near the horizon, but now it had vanished entirely.
When the nearby town of Seleny came into view, Harmony broke into a determined march. The wound in her leg had been healing nicely. It no longer forced a limp into her stride, but every step still brought her pain. She wished Wynne were there to work her magic on it, even if said healing came with an endless lecture on why it had been reckless to chase Alistair all the way to Antiva.
Nathaniel had to jog to catch up to Harmony's relentless pace. "Remind me why we're walking right into midst of people who want your friend dead?" he asked once beside her.
"Because if Zev runs now, he'll always be running. I freed him from these people and I intend to see that he stays free." Harmony kept her glare fixed on the town ahead and didn't slow down for a second.
"And how do you feel, elf, about hiding behind the Queen's skirts like an infant?" she heard Ellin ask.
"If anything I would rather… something about getting under your skirts… or getting you out of them…" Zevran trailed off and let out a long sigh. "I am not myself. You'll have to make your own lewd remarks for a while."
Harmony looked back over her shoulder spared him a cautious smile. They had never before argued like they had back in the swamp. Then her confession had crashed onto him like a boulder. It would be a while before things were back to normal between them, but at least he was trying.
"So what's the plan?" asked Nathaniel. "We just walk into town and wait to be ambushed?"
Harmony drew to a halt and turned to her friends. "I'm walking in. You're staying out here where it's safe. All three of you."
"What?" Ellin cried. The way she covered her mouth afterwards made it seem like the noise had escaped her lips before she'd had time to stop it.
"Sol's already tried to kill Nathaniel to prove a point: you two are expendable to him. And Zevran's his target," Harmony explained. "Me? I have a nice shiny crown and that means I'm worth more alive than dead."
"Your Majesty, I really must…" Ellin began.
Zevran cut her off. "She has the right of it. Sol won't kill her."
"You see?" said Harmony.
"It's still not much of a plan," the elf added.
The Queen of Ferelden smiled warmly at the people who worked so hard to protect her. It was her turn to do the same for them.
"You can't always wait around for a good plan to show itself. Sometimes you have to just take a bad plan and roll with it. Take the dragon by the horns and hope for the best." At that, she pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and turned towards the town, ready to march into battle.
"Does that usually work?" Ellin asked her.
"I'm still alive," she answered with a shrug.
Harmony stepped alone into Seleny's square. There was no sound other than the rain battering the cobblestones and her feet splashing through the puddles.
She felt her skin prickle, felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and knew that there were arrows trained on her from all sides. She didn't need to glance up to the windows or the rooftops of the houses that lined the clearing to confirm that she was surrounded.
The square's market stalls were completely abandoned. The only person out in the open was Sol Castana. He stood before the doors of the chantry, staring upwards, letting the rain soak into his face. It wasn't until she was standing right in front of him that he even glanced her way.
"It's quiet here," Harmony observed. "Your haven't scared off all the locals, I hope?"
"Pleased to see you too, Queen of Hearts," he said with a wayward smile. "The locals are in hiding. Some inbred farmer's son thought he saw a dragon. Ridiculous, I know," he chuckled. "But people are easily panicked this near to the swamps."
He was holding a longsword that was still in its scabbard. He balanced its tip on the ground and elegantly leaned against it as if it were a cane.
"We found Prince Claudio for you," she announced. "What was left of him, anyway. It seems he met a witch in his travels. I don't think she liked him."
There was a careful pause. "So it is. Regrettable," was all he said. Whatever he felt about the news, Harmony couldn't tell. "And tell me, sweet lady, where is Zevran? He has done the Crows a service. He should be here to collect his reward."
"Drop the act," she snapped. "We both know the only reward you have planned is a slit throat and a shallow grave."
Sol grinned widely in amusement. "So you have come to bargain for his life, then?"
"Why must I bargain for something you seem to have no care for?" she asked him. "Why not just give this one small thing to the Queen of Hearts?"
"Small thing," he repeated. "Small thing?" There was a snort of disbelief, and the grin vanished from his face, replaced with a dangerous glare. Now serious Sol was speaking, and serious Sol made Harmony nervous.
"Tell me, how big is Antiva's army?" he asked.
The trick question made her pause for a moment. "You don't have one."
"Si. The Queen of Ferelden knows this. The Empress of Orlais knows this. The Kings and Magisters and Viscounts of all Thedas know this. Yet none march to claim our lands. Why? Because you all know that whoever ordered such an assault would not live to see another dawn. You all know to fear the assassins of this nation."
He stepped forwards as he spoke, moving near enough to brush a rogue strand of hair from her face. She wanted to bat his hand away, but his tone was so dangerous she thought it better to keep him talking.
"Your whoreson elf is an affront to this arrangement." Sol spat on the ground to emphasise his disgust. "When he failed to kill you, he could have stayed beyond our borders and lived a quiet life. Instead he chose to slay his former brothers in arms. He chose to scream from the rooftops that he had failed us and lived. He delighted in it. He sewed seeds of chaos, caring nothing for the innocent lives that would be lost should outsiders think us ripe for plucking."
"So long story short, Zevran made you look bad," she said dismissively. Sol let it go.
"Securing the reputation of the Crows also keeps Antiva secure." He said it so vehemently that she scarcely recognised him as the smirking lothario she had met out at sea. "That is my sole purpose, my life's work. And Zevran has been making my task difficult for many years now. So I assure you, his life is no small thing to me."
"I won't let you take him," she swore.
He took a deep breath and stared down at his sword. "Sol Castana is not a name often heard beyond these shores. Perhaps it's time I made it clear to you exactly who you're dealing with." At that, he drew his blade.
Harmony jumped back from him and reached back for her daggers. She drew them just in time that her blades caught his first attack. The clash of steel rang through the silent square like the toll of a bell. His Crows watched from the rooftops and did nothing to intervene.
A kick aimed for his knee was easily dodged. She followed through with a flurry of blows, all aimed for body parts that weren't easily blocked. His longsword somehow danced through the attacks. It spun her around and left her open to him. In the blink of an eye he was at her back, his dagger pressed to her throat. His sword-arm snaked around her waist to pull her tight against him.
Harmony had crossed blades with Tevinter slavers, Antivan Crows, Qunari mercenaries and dragon cultists. She had fought in dwarven provings. She had faced werewolves and abominations, darkspawn and the undead. But she had never seen a man as quick as this.
She felt him blow her hair aside. Felt his nose brush against her skin as he smelled her neck. "If Zevran was truly your friend, he would have warned you about me," he purred into her ear.
She realised then that this was no true duel. He was toying her. He assumed she would think herself trapped once in his grasp. He thought a dagger to her throat would make her raise her hands in surrender.
She recalled Zevran's words from the first night they'd met Sol. Only try to fight him if he threatens you. And fight like an Antivan. There's no room for Fereldan honour here.
"He did warn me," she replied. She snapped her head back to strike him in the face. She felt the back of her skull make something in his nose crunch. Before he knew what hit him, she had pushed his dagger arm away from her and spun out of his grasp.
Blood gushed from his broken nose, dripping over his lips and teeth. He wiped a sleeve across his face and started to laugh. "I suppose I asked for that," he chuckled.
Just then, the noon bells began to sound from the chantry. Their peals echoed from wall to wall through the empty square. There was nothing unusual about it. Hundreds of chantries across Thedas rang their bells to mark the middle of the day. But few chantry bells were within the hearing range of a rampaging dragon. Few were in a position to call such a creature to it like a dinner bell.
There was the sudden sound of flapping wings. Colossal wings that stirred the air around them. Sol and Harmony exchanged uneasy glances. She felt a shiver run the length of her spine.
Some of Sol's Crows up on the rooftops had seen something. Most began to whimper and squeal in panic, but there was one coherent shout that she needed no help translating. "Dragón!"
There was no time to breathe before something cataclysmic crashed down in front of them. The paved ground turned to dust beneath its feet, spreading cracks line veins through the cobblestones around it. The dragon spat out a mangled corpse, then let out a roar so loud that Harmony thought her ears were going to burst.
Its bulk almost filled the square. A swish of its tail smashed through a wall of the building behind it. It spotted Harmony then, and stomped with one of its front legs to try and pin her to the ground. She was only just quick enough to roll out of the way.
She heard voices screaming her name and looked over to the street that had led her into the square. Nathaniel, Ellin and Zevran were sprinting towards her. Evidently they had seen the dragon approach. Nathaniel already had his shortbow drawn and was firing shots into the beast's hind legs as he ran in. It didn't seem to notice.
Arrows and crossbow bolts rained down from the rooftops as Sol's Crows began to offer their aid. Most ricocheted off the beast's black scales, but some became lodged in the folds of its wings. It screeched up at them, somehow seeming even angrier than it had before.
A serpentine neck swooped down at Harmony. Its head was twice her size. Its teeth snapped at her, but she tumbled backwards to stay out of its grasp. While its attention was elsewhere, Sol ran in to stab the creature in the belly. It was enough to draw blood, but far from a mortal blow.
It reared up on its hind legs and glared down at the humans beneath it. For a moment Harmony found herself frozen on the spot.
She remembered the first dragon she had met. She remembered feeling like she was already dead as it snapped her up in its jaw.
She was so consumed by her fear in that moment, that she was barely aware of the fiery torrent of dragon's breath billowing her way.
Then, like a battering ram, Ellin crashed into her full-force and knocked her clear of the blast. Together they slammed into the ground. For a moment Harmony couldn't move, crushed beneath her armoured bodyguard. Then Ellin rolled clear and hoisted the Queen back to her feet.
Nathaniel was purposely drawing the beast's attention to give them time to regroup. He tore past it, shouting at the top of his lungs while he fired arrows at its snout. It turned with surprising agility to try and whip the archer with its tail, but he jumped high in the air so that the attack missed, then bolted in the other direction.
Zevran ran in then, launched himself into a mighty leap and sank both daggers into one of the dragon's wings. The leathery folds gave little resistance to the blades, and Zevran tore down them like a pirate through a ship's canvas. Howling, the dragon unfurled the shredded wing then and shook Zevran loose. He was catapulted across the square, but rolled into his landing and bounced right back to his feet.
Panicked, the beast tried to take flight, but with one wing torn to shreds, it couldn't manage to rise more than a few feet off the ground. With the chance to escape removed, it lunged forward to try and snap up the elf that had injured it so.
Harmony realised then that she had a choice. A choice not unlike the one Zevran was facing with the Crows. She could live in fear forever and avoid the obstacles that she might not be strong enough to overcome. Or she could take the dragon by the horns.
While its head was down and its attention was elsewhere, Harmony took her chance. She sprinted up to it, buried one dagger deep in its neck and used the hilt to swing herself up onto the back of the dragon's neck.
Desperately it thrashed around, smashing the square apart with its great whip of a tail. Harmony held on for dear life, trying not to notice how far away the ground had become. Through the dizziness and the nausea of its frantic movements, with all the strength and determination she could muster, she thrust her second dagger down into the top of its skull.
The dragon screeched in pain, then fell silent.
Its head dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks, and Harmony tumbled off onto the cobblestones.
For a moment all she could do was lie flat on the ground, catch her breath and stare up at the sky. She found herself laughing. It felt like searching high and low for something thought lost, only to find it in her pocket all along. In spite of everything she was still formidable, she was still a force to be reckoned with. She could still be fearless.
Ellin was there to pull her up to her feet. "Take the dragon by the horns," the bodyguard repeated.
"Not such a bad plan after all, was it?" Harmony said as she dusted herself off. Ellin pursed her lips and said nothing.
"Where's Sol?" she heard Zevran ask.
Harmony scanned the square. She realised then that she hadn't seen the man since the dragon had breathed fire. Anxiously, she looked around for a charred body. She didn't like Sol much, but that wasn't a death she wished on anyone.
After a moment, Nathaniel nudged her with his elbow and nodded over to where their Antivan foe lay on the ground, body protruding from the remains of an overturned cart. His chest was heaving with great effort to pump air back into his lungs. He was trapped.
His Crows had also seen him, they were scrambling from the rooftops and the edges of the square to try and be the first to reach him, but Harmony was much closer. In just a moment she was crouched beside Sol, dagger pressed to his neck.
"Tell your dogs to stay where they are," she ordered.
Sol swallowed a groan of pain, then called out "Detener!" His men froze in place as if they'd been turned to stone.
"I don't want any arrows pointed this way either," she added.
"Gettate le armi!" he called to them. Bows were lowered to the ground and hands raised in surrender.
"Good, now we're going to have a little talk."
Sol sighed in resignation. "They'll swarm on you if you kill me."
"But you want to live. So you'll agree to help me and we'll call a truce," said Harmony.
He rolled his eyes. "You want me to promise not to harm Zevran? I can't give you that, and it would do you little good."
"Oh?"
"If I were to stop hunting your friend, my life would be forfeit anyway, and another Crow would come for him," he explained, shaking his head.
She pressed the blade tighter against his throat. "You don't have anything else we need, Sol Castana," she seethed.
"Wait," she heard Zevran's voice from over her shoulder. "What do you know of Aurelian Titus?"
Sol's eyes narrowed as he gazed up at the elf. "I've heard the name spoken, though only in hushed whispers."
"He can't help us," Ellin grunted impatiently. "Just kill him, Your Majesty."
A part of her was ready to do it. To end him. She was tired of these Antivans and their games. All of it just served to slow her quest to find Alistair.
"Wait," said Sol. "There is a woman the Crows sometimes go to for answers when a trail has gone cold. A Rivaini seer by the name of Callista. She lives not far from Ayesleigh. I can take you there, in exchange for my life."
Harmony grimaced. "And what of Zevran?"
"I'll say he escaped our grasp. It will be a cover. I'll say Zevran's trail went cold so I had to go to the seer for advice." It was the faint hint of panic in his voice that made her believe him.
"Good man," she said with a nod. "Let's pay a visit to this seer then."
Nathaniel and Zevran set to work on freeing the man, and the Crows that surrounded them flocked in to help. Ellin meanwhile, pulled Harmony aside for a private word.
"You cannot trust that Antivan," she groaned. "This is your worst plan yet."
"Correct." There was no sense arguing.
"Your Majesty…" she began, in that tone that made Your Majesty sound like you idiot.
Harmony just shrugged. "I've got nothing else to go on. And we have a King to track."
"Are we going to end up regretting this?" Ellin asked seriously.
Harmony paused.
Suddenly she recalled the hopelessness in her mother's eyes as she left her parents to the mercy of a traitor.
She remembered a dwarf named Bhelen who had been clever enough to learn her story first, then used the word "usurper" to tug at her heartstrings and get her to side with him.
She remembered thinking that Loghain Mac Tir might be more useful as an ally than a corpse, but staying silent as Alistair struck the man's head from his shoulders.
She remembered promising her friend Anora a crown and then locking her up for refusing to marry her father's killer.
"I seem to end up regretting a lot of things," she eventually answered. "I'll be surprised if this makes the top five."
