Haven was half-hysterical with relief and joy.
The Herald leaned on the fence and watched the dancing.
Killeen nursed a cup of ale and watched the Herald. She didn't know where Cullen was, but odds were good he'd turn up in the vicinity of the Herald sooner or later.
She didn't want to speak to him. There was nothing, really, to be said, not that wouldn't lead to things that couldn't be said.
I'm leaving.
I'm leaving, because the hole in the sky is fixed, and …
And because when I thought being your friend would be enough, I didn't expect there to be anyone else who would be more.
I'm leaving because if it wasn't for this 'Elder One' I might very well have hoped the Herald would die closing the Breach, and you love her, and if I love you I can't want that kind of pain for you.
I'm leaving. Because …
Because it turns out that when I swore to myself I would be what you need me to be, no matter how much or how little, no matter what, I really meant, until it gets difficult and then I'm off like a rat off a sinking ship.
No. She didn't want to speak to Cullen, just to see him, one more time, see him looking happy and relieved and hopeful of the future in a way that she had never seen before, not since the day she'd met him.
And then she'd go.
She'd be miles and miles away before he missed her.
Miles and miles and miles and miles …
A figure approached the Herald, and Killeen craned her neck, but it was just Lady Cassandra. Perhaps Cullen was waiting for a more private moment.
I'll finish this cup, Killeen said, and then go. Whether I've seen him or not.
She was packed. She had the horse she'd ridden in on, which was legitimately hers and not the Inquisition. There was nothing delaying her.
I'll just finish this cup.
And right then, the alarm bell began to toll.
Killeen was on her feet, cup rolling forgotten on the ground, slinging her sword-belt around her waist, before her mind had even registered what it was she was hearing. She pelted for the gates, the Lady Cassandra and the Herald just ahead of her.
Cullen's voice rose above the hubbub of confused voices. "Forces approaching! To arms!"
Killeen made a beeline for him, met his eyes as he scanned the crowd and at the jerk of his chin toward the soldiers trying to get themselves into some sort of order, changed direction. She was tightening shoulder-straps and dispensing words of encouragement as, with half her attention, she heard Cullen saying something about a massive force. Lady Montilyet asked about their banners. None, Cullen answered.
A booming at the gates. A voice outside. The Herald moved to open them and Cullen moved with her, sword out.
Dead Templars, and a strange, skinny boy, telling them his name is Cole and talking about the Elder One. An outflung arm, pointing, and against the skyline …
"Oh, shit." said a voice from around the level of Killeen's waist. "That's not possible. Unless there's two of them."
She looked down at Varric Tethras, back up at the monstrous silhouette. "Two of what?"
"You really don't want to know, Killer, you really don't want to know."
Then Cullen's sword was raised and his voice rang out. "Inquisition, with the Herald, for your lives, for all of us!"
At the front of the small group of soldiers who were battle-ready despite the general celebrations, Killeen raised her shield and sword and charged.
Templars. Faster and stronger than any Killeen had ever faced, though, a strange red glow in their eyes, and with them …
What the fuck are those?
Strong and fast and trying to kill them all, was what they were, half-human, half red crystal, fighting alongside the Templars. Killeen got a nasty surprise when one of them flung out its hand and a spray of crystal shards arced towards her.
She caught them on her shield and the force flung her backwards. Scrambling to her feet she found her shield half scored through.
"Don't it touch you!" Varric yelled at her. "That stuff is bad news!"
After she saw what it did to the face and neck of a soldier who didn't get his shield up in time, Killeen had to agree.
If it hadn't been for the Herald, and those who fought by her side — Varric here, there, and everywhere on the battlefield, crossbow firing with a regular thwap, the Iron Bull cleaving Templars in half with single blows, and Lady Vivienne firing bolts of ice with an elegant swish of her skirts — they would have had no hope. As it was, by the time the trebuchet was ready to fire, half her company were wounded and three were dead.
"The other trebuchet!" someone shouted, and Killeen gathered herself for a hard run, another impossibly hard fight.
Someone grabbed her arm, and Killeen swung around, was surprised to find herself staring at the Herald.
"Stay here," the Herald ordered. "Guard the crew. We've got this."
"No," Killeen said. "Commander's orders to guard you."
The Herald smiled, and even with blood on her face her smile was pretty. "We've been guarding you for the past fifteen minutes. Leave this to us, please. It'll be easier."
She was right, as sour as the taste of it was. Killeen nodded. "We'll hold here, ser."
With a nod and another smile, the Herald was gone, running up the path toward Maker knew what new dangers.
Well, shit, Killeen thought as she sent the worst of the wounded back into the town and got the rest of her soldiers into order. If I could fart fireballs I'd take on hordes of monsters on my own as well. Unfortunately, my only skill is poking things with a sharp piece of metal.
A cheer went up when the second trebuchet fired and the snow cascaded down the mountainside to bury the approaching army.
Then Killeen saw the dragon and knew that a piece of metal swung by an arm with only mortal strength behind it, no matter how sharp it might be, was most definitely not going to be enough.
"Inside!" she shouted. "Get in the gates! Move it, move it, move move move!"
She counted them past her and brought up the rear, holding her pace down to avoid overtaking the ones limping despite the crawling at the back of her neck and the knowledge that up there was that thing …
The gates loomed, and then she was under and through them. Cullen had his shoulder to one, ready to heave it closed if he had to, waiting as long as he could for the last of their people, and Killeen wheeled to throw her weight against the other.
Pounding footsteps and the Herald raced through, followed by her companions. Cullen nodded, and Killeen heaved the door shut. Cullen did the same and the heavy bar dropped into place.
"The Chantry!" Cullen shouted. "It's the only building that might hold against … that beast." And then: "At this point, just make them work for it."
Killeen felt cold shock run through her. She had never seen him give up, not even at the gates of the Temple with demons spawning faster than they could be cut down. If Cullen thought there was no way to win this fight …
She gripped her sword more tightly. If Cullen thinks there's no way to win this fight, then I will go down with my sword in my hand and my face to the enemy, and Maker willing, I'll stab a few of their ankles too.
There were crystal monsters and Templars inside the town now. Cullen leapt forward to engage them, Killeen by his side, the thin remnants of their company making a shield wall to push them back, the push forward. Behind them, she could hear the Iron Bull bellowing a battlecry as the Herald and her companions kept others off their backs.
They reached the Chantry, stretching their line outwards, making room for the panicked townspeople to stream through the door. Killeen's world narrowed to the red-eyed faces in front of her, to the ache in her sword-arm and the burning in her lungs, to Cullen's shoulder against hers and the rasp of his breath.
"Fall back!" he shouted at last. "Through the doors! In good order!"
The line contracted again, the soldiers stepping back from it, two by two, turning and racing for the illusory safety of the building. There were ten of them now, eight … six, four …
There was Cullen and herself, space behind them, a nightmare in front.
"Now!" Cullen said, and they made one hard push forward, heaving the front line of the enemy back, and as one person, turned and ran for the Chantry doors, stride-by-stride, neck and neck.
In.
Doors shut behind them.
Killeen let her sword and shield fall clanging to the stone floor, bent over with hands on knees, coughing and retching for breath. Cullen himself had to pause, panting, and then gathered himself. He touched her shoulder, eyebrow raised in query. Wounded? Killeen shook her head, and he nodded and strode on, giving orders, arranging their scanty final defence.
The doors opened again, and Killeen heard a stream of obscenity in Varric's rough voice.
"Herald!" Cullen strode toward them. "Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time that you might have earned us."
The thin little boy from outside the gates raised his head from where he set beside Chancellor Roderick. "I've seen an archdemon. I was in the fade, but that's what it looked like."
Who gives a fuck what it looks like, Killeen thought, and heard Cullen echo her thoughts.
Then the Herald, ready to die to save Haven, to save the people of Haven. Killeen couldn't bear to look at Cullen to see the expression on his face at that declaration.
But it wouldn't work, the boy said. "No one else matters, but he'll crush them, kill them anyway. I don't like him."
So glad to be dying to someone for whom I don't matter, Killeen thought sourly. So glad to be a monster's afterthought.
I don't like him, either, laddy.
Cullen suggested the trebuchets. One last slide, burying Haven. To die by snow and not by fire, taking the enemy with them. Killeen silently approved. It was a soldier's solution to the impossible situation.
And then the pale boy, and the Chancellor, talking of a path.
"What about it, Cullen?" the Herald asked. "Will it work?"
I told you she trusts you, Killeen thought. You big bear-clad lummox.
Should have given her the flowers when you had the chance. Their tent, and everything in it including flowers, was doubtless a trampled mass of cloth and splinters now.
"Possibly," Cullen said. "If he shows us the path. But what of your escape?"
He paused, and in his pause Killeen felt him realise it. She is going to die to keep you safe.
She could neither look at him nor continue to listen to him. Instead, she went down the long aisle of the Chantry to the little knot of her soldiers. "Volunteers to load trebuchets," she said, and felt a hot lump in her throat when every hand went up. The odds of making it through the burning ruins of the town, past Templars and monsters, were not very good; the odds of making it back, worse. None of the men and women with her were the Chosen of Andraste, none of them had any skill or protection other than than granted by their own flesh and blood and will, but not a one of them hesitated any more than the Herald had.
She let them back towards the doors, caught Cullen's eye and made the cupped-hand gesture that was battlefield shorthand for trebuchets.
He was composed, but she knew him well enough to see the pain he felt at the Herald's peril, the fear for her and for what would come, in the set of his mouth and his narrowed eyes.
"Find a way," he said, looking at Killeen but speaking to the Herald, not an order but a plea.
Killeen turned and led her squad out.
"Don't engage unless you have to," she ordered them. "Leave that to the Herald. Just get to the trebuchets, get them loaded, get back to the Chantry, that's it, that's the entire job."
They ran, dodging dark forms looming in the flickering light of burning buildings, cut down two Templars who couldn't be avoided, hurtled down the stairs and along the path. Behind them the hiss of ice-spells and the sizzle of lightning told them the Herald was following, clearing her own path, keeping the enemy off their backs.
Rocks into the basket, one, two, three … Killeen was proud of how quickly and efficiently her people worked, remembering the endless drills she'd put them through, no hesitation, no confusion.
Movement in the corner of her eye, and she spun, drawing her sword. They were coming, too many, too fast —
Lighting seared her vision, arcing from Templar to Templar, leaving behind the smell of seared flesh.
The Herald leapt up to the platform. "Go!" she said. "It's clear behind us! Go, I'll get it aimed!"
Killeen nodded. "Maker be with you," she gasped, jumped down, and ran.
The Herald was as good as her word — they met no-one living on the way back to the Chantry. Apart from one scout left to show them the way the others had gone, the building was empty.
Outside, the dragon roared.
Killeen counted her people through the door, making sure the had everyone, seized a torch from the nearest sconce, and followed.
