Ten: Blood Makes Noise


Kathil:

"I think you may actually have taken leave of your senses this time," Leliana muttered.

The problem was that Kathil rather agreed with her. They were standing atop a low hill, surveying the landscape. They were four days out of Denerim, and they had only recently started to see darkspawn sign. What darkspawn she had been able to detect had been at the very edge of her range, sullen flickers that had been gone almost as soon as she felt them. Cullen hadn't felt them at all.

"Probably," she said. "Southwest still, I think. At least he hasn't been much trouble."

She really had intended to tell Jowan where he could stuff his request to join the Grey Wardens, and give him an hour to get his traitorous self out of Denerim before she set Cullen on his tail. To serve something greater than myself, he'd said, and she'd remembered that he had always been good at magic. If he had survived all of this time as an apostate, he was probably very good. We take the best and the brightest, Duncan had told her. And if the best and brightest have managed to get themselves into trouble before we can get there, that is what the Right of Conscription is for.

There was still a good chance that the Joining would kill him. If they could manage to find any sodding darkspawn to get the last ingredient they needed for it, that was.

Jowan had kept his head down ever since they had left the palace, not speaking unless he was spoken to. Cullen was keeping a wary eye on him, Tower-bred suspicion in every bone. Zevran was reserving judgment. And Leliana, who usually was willing to give everyone a chance (including difficult Princesses Consort) was having absolutely none of it. They'd all seen what Connor had done in Redcliffe. Kathil hadn't known just how much it had upset her friend, though part of it might have been seeing what the demon had done to Teagan.

It isn't too late just to kill him and be done with it.

Leliana glanced at her, and Kathil realized she'd spoken aloud. "You're not going to, though," the bard said. "As much as he deserves it."

"If he survives, he'll be useful. If he doesn't survive, we don't have a whole lot to worry about. He's given me his phylactery, and I memorized the Litany of Adralla. I still know it by heart. Lei, I'm not expecting you to like him. I don't even like him, at this point, and he used to be the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. But he's a weapon, and I'll feel better when he's either neutralized or under my control."

The bard shaded her eyes, scanning the horizon. "Quite the arsenal you have, dearest."

That stung, and stung badly. Kathil opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of what she was about to say. "One might wonder what war I'm planning to fight now," she said dryly. "You don't have to be out here with us, you know. You could head back to Denerim."

"And miss a possible opportunity to put an arrow between Jowan's shoulderblades?" Leliana smiled and dropped her hand. "Never, dearest. I think you're right about going southwest. It looks like we almost have enough trees for a proper forest that way, yes?"

"The darkspawn do like their cover. Let's go roust the boys, then." They headed back to the small camp. They'd left Fiann back in Denerim since she was still unweaned, much to both pup and knight's dismay. They really had thought they'd be able to find some darkspawn within a couple of days of leaving Denerim.

This was turning into a much longer trip than she'd originally wanted, and between the knowledge that something bad was happening at the Tower and Kathil's decision to become Warden-General, she was feeling as if a deadline approached that she was vastly unprepared for. Who would have ever thought that in this country it would be difficult to find some blasted darkspawn to kill?

They traveled for a couple more days, and in the end, they did not find darkspawn.

Instead, the darkspawn found them.

*****

Jowan:

He was deep in sleep when the attack came.

Jowan woke to the sound of steel coming free of a sheath, running footsteps, and this was something he had long practice in at least. He rolled out of his blankets and to his feet, snagging and pulling on his shirt as he did so. He'd fight barefoot; that wasn't a problem.

He wasn't even properly awake by the time he cast his first spell, fire flaring out from his fingertips. Nearby, he heard Kathil mutter and felt ice crackle over a group of half-seen darkspawn. "Mind the friendly fire, Jowan!" she called, and next to him he heard a flutter as an arrow hurtled by him and one of the darkspawn fell.

Target. He needed a target.

There.

Lumbering toward them was an ogre, looming against the star-choked sky. "Ah, my friend," he whispered as he drew his sharp little knife and made a cut across one forearm. "We are all the children of blood, all the children of the great river—we are the Maker's thrumming heartbeat, the sweet slumber of the world—we are the roar of His broken city and His Voice within us—we are all his creations and you are mine—"

He did not have to see the blood dripping from his arm to feel it gather itself and lash out like a whip, the ogre pausing as it felt the sting touch its eyes, the confused roar—

And the blood leash tightened, and he knew it had succeeded.

Now. Kill for me.

The ogre turned on its former fellows, and as it started killing hurlocks he saw Kathil run past him with a bared sword in her hands, Cullen at her heels. "Ignore the ogre!" Jowan screamed over the din of battle, and set himself for another spell, opening another cut in his arm to power it.

He saw Leliana firing arrow after arrow, Zevran parrying with one blade and striking at the same time with the other, moving with efficient grace and somehow managing to target kicks in exactly the right places to cause the darkspawn a world of hurt. He heard the Kathil's Mabari more than saw him, howls and snarls and rending sounds.

The control he had over the ogre was stretched tight—the thing was fighting him—and with an impatient gesture he broke the leash and sent a bolt of energy flying into it. The ogre swayed, its mouth open and slavering, and began to lumber towards Jowan. There was a flash from the side and the ogre froze. Zevran used his blades to climb the darkspawn like a tree, stopping at its shoulder and sinking his longer blade into the massive neck.

The darkspawn fell, crashing into the ground.

Zevran sprang free at the last moment, laughing. He rolled when he hit the ground and came easily back to his feet. "That never gets old."

"And I never cease to have my heart stop every time you do that, Zev," Kathil replied. "Is everyone all right? Lorn, you're bleeding. Jowan, you too."

He blinked and looked down at his arm. His heartbeat was roaring in his ears. "Just—a moment," he said, and turned away. He could feel all of their eyes on him, but it didn't matter right now.

He took a deep breath, calming his heartbeat, slowing the rush of blood through his veins, the song of the blood spilled all around him, blood still contained in the bodies of the living. He pulled his mind back from where it resided near the tatters in the Veil.

Slowly, so slowly, the song of blood faded.

When he turned back around, Kathil was tending to a wound on her Mabari's shoulder, Zevran was rifling through a pouch that the ogre had been wearing, and Cullen and Leliana were poking at their fire, stirring it to life. "Jowan, catch!" Kathil said as she straightened, and tossed him something small. It was a glass vial. "Fill that with darkspawn blood. Quickly. Do you need me to look at your arm?"

"I've got it," he said, and laid his hand on the cuts that were now bleeding only sullenly. A murmur and a moment later, and the skin was sealed over. He collected the required blood from the wound that the elf had opened in the ogre's neck. By the time Jowan had sealed the vial again, those he was traveling with had gathered around the fire, talking in low voices.

He briefly fisted his hand around the vial, then went to go find his boots.

Jowan was pulling them on when he heard a step nearby and paused, raising his head. "We'll move away from here," Kathil said, looking down at him. He hadn't noticed before that she was wearing some armor, cuirass and gloves. "Once dawn comes, we can settle down and I can start preparing for the Joining." She held out her hand. "The vial, please?"

One hand went into his pocket, and he pulled out the vial and handed it up to her. "Are you going to tell me about this ritual?" he asked. "Or do I have to go into it blind?"

"You'll go into it with as much information as anyone gets, which is that it's required to become one of us, and that it's a secret." She opened the pouch she wore at her waist and placed the vial inside. "That's all I knew, when I went through the Joining. You'll understand more when you get there."

There were so many questions he wanted to ask, from why are you wearing armor to just how dangerous is this ritual? He asked none of them. Instead, he finished shoving his feet into his boots. Kathil walked away, back to the fire.

Not for the first time, he considered the wisdom of this whole venture. But he had begun it; he would see it through.

And hope it ends better than everything else I've tried to do with my life.

*****

Cullen:

The cup was made of rough-fired clay, different in every way from the steel cup that had been used at his Joining at Amaranthine. Different, except for the contents--darkspawn blood and lyrium, and a drop of blood from an Archdemon. Kathil had spent a few hours preparing the mixture, and at sundown she and Cullen had gotten Jowan and escorted him out here, to what once had been a large farmhouse and now was a burned-out shell that the land was beginning to reclaim.

Charred beams stood stark against the deepening sky, and Cullen spared a grateful thought that it was late summer, and therefore not raining. The ruin smelled like smoke and dampness, like mushrooms. Kathil was holding the cup, brimming with the dark liquid, and in the gathering dim he could see the waters of the Fade moving in her eyes. Her voice was soft and shadowed. "And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that we will join you all too soon." She held the cup out to Jowan, who took it from her. The blood mage's hands trembled slightly. "Drink," Kathil said. "Drink, and become one of us."

Jowan raised the cup to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank.

He fell to his knees a moment later, then collapsed with his arms wrapped around himself, a scream escaping him. He convulsed once, and was still. The cup lay next to him, the last few drops running out to stain the earth.

Kathil dropped to one knee beside him, and put her hand to his neck. "He's alive," she said, and Cullen couldn't tell if that was relief or disappointment coloring her voice. "He'll wake in a little bit. Do you still have the vial, Cullen?"

He gave her the glass vial. She murmured, and a spark set alight the torch that she'd set in a twisted piece of metal still attached to a beam. The Veil thinned, tore, and reformed whole once more. "It never gets any easier," she said. "You hand someone a cup that you know sodding well is going to kill them, whether it's now or in thirty years, and watch them drink."

"How many Joinings have you stood at?" Cullen asked, giving Jowan's still form an uneasy look.

"Three, not counting my own." Kathil tipped the contents of the glass vial into the Warden's Oath she held in her other hand, holding both up to the light. "The third one, all four of the initiates died. That was about a week before Alistair's wedding." She capped the Oath, muttering a word, and the place where the cap and the vial met melted and melded together.

His mage bent her head and her hair fell to obscure her expression, torchlight throwing strange shadows under the pale. "Sebastian. Cainnec. Maia. Jubal. One member of the King's Guard, one farmer from a hold near Lothering, one Chantry archivist, and one elf from the Denerim alienage who I found in prison. All of them dead because I thought they had a chance to master the taint, but they didn't. It was about then that I decided the Grey Wardens were better off without me."

He stepped over to her, first putting a hand on her shoulder and then, when she didn't move, putting his arms around her. She turned her face into his shoulder, and he felt her take a deep, shuddering breath. "You remember all of their names."

"All of them. All of the ones who died during the Joinings I was a part of. All of the Templars and mages and servants who died at the Tower. People who died at Fort Drakon when I called them to help fight the Archdemon."

He didn't know what to say, and instead pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Behind them, Jowan groaned, and Cullen released Kathil. "Maker's Balls, that hurt," the blood mage said as he rolled to his back, staring up at blackened beams and open sky. "No wonder you don't tell anyone about the Joining before they get there."

"You're alive. It's better than many do," Kathil said. Her voice had that dry edge that it often had when she was speaking to her old friend. "Congratulations, Grey Warden." She held out a hand to Jowan, and when he took it she pulled him up and to his feet.

"What happens now?" Jowan asked.

Kathil rolled her bad shoulder. "We head back to Denerim. After that…I don't know yet. Ask me again when we get closer. This is for you, Jowan." She held out the Warden's Oath to him. "It has a little bit of your darkspawn blood in it. We wear them in remembrance of those who have fallen."

Jowan cupped his hand under the Oath, and Kathil dropped it into his hand, the chain making a metallic shushing noise. "Those who have fallen," he said, echoing Kathil. Cullen could see an odd look in the mage's eyes. "All who've fallen, or just Grey Wardens?"

"Your choice," she said. She raised her hand and touched her own Oath. "I choose to wear mine to honor of all those who have lost their lives helping me." She stooped to pick up the cup. "I'll see you both back at camp. I'm going for a walk."

Before Cullen could protest that it was dark, and there dangerous things likely about, Kathil had turned and walked away, taking the cup with her. Jowan's hand closed over his Warden's Oath. "She's changed, since the Tower."

He might have been talking to himself. Cullen answered anyway. "So have we all."

"I've noticed." There might have been questions in Jowan's expression, but Cullen turned away, willing himself not to see them. They were fellow Grey Wardens, now.

It changed everything. And it changed nothing.

"Back to camp," Cullen said. "Kathil will be back soon enough."

"And if she encounters something she can't handle in the woods?" Jowan asked. "Maybe we should—"

"No." The snap in his voice surprised him. "Leave her alone." Without waiting to hear anything Jowan might say in return, he walked away. After a moment, he heard the blood mage follow.

Not to complain, Maker, but you have a strange sense of humor sometimes.

*****

Zevran:

He had thought his Grey Warden might stay out in the woods all night.

Fortunately, she did not. He had taken the late watch, and so was awake when approaching footfalls announced her presence. The fire was burning low, but the sky was clear and the stars were casting soft shadows under the trees, their light reflecting off of Kathil's hair as she emerged into the clearing. He stood and waited for her to approach.

"Drew the short straw, did you?" she said, cocking her head at him.

He shrugged. "I could lie and say that I did, if you like."

"Don't bother." She came to him then and wrapped her arms around him, and he returned the embrace. She smelled strongly of ice tonight, as if what he held in his arms was a glacier rather than a woman. "Sorry I was gone so long. I had some thinking to do."

"I thought you might. It is not every day one inducts someone with such a…problematic past into the Grey Wardens, no?"

"Less about the past and more about what I'm going to do with him now that I have him. Taking Jowan back to the palace would be a very bad idea." She shook her head and fisted one hand in his shirt. "I'm not letting him out of my sight until I'm sure I'm not going to need to kill him. Fiann still has something like three weeks until she's ready to leave Yvrenne, so we can't leave Denerim yet. Did you mention that you had located some rooms that might suit?"

"I did," he said. "Though they will be somewhat of a tight fit with five of us and Lorn, I think. Perhaps Leliana will wish to stay in the palace."

Kathil snorted. "That leaves me as the only female in the place. If you decide to hold belching contests, I am going to beat you all. Severely."

"Tch. Would we do that, little bird?" he asked, all innocence.

She rolled her eyes. "If Oghren were around, yes. Or do you forget I was there that night?"

"I also seem to recall you engaging in some sort of drinking game with our redoubtable dwarf that same night, no?" he pointed out.

His Grey Warden groaned. "Don't remind me. It's been years and I still get a headache every time I smell ale. What I was thinking…"

What she had been thinking was that they had been nine months on the road and the Archdemon still loomed ahead of them, they had just returned from the Deep Roads, and she and Alistair had just had one of their rare arguments. She'd sat down with Oghren and started drinking. Zevran had watched her out of the corner of his eye all night, as her eyes had taken on a dangerous, glazed brightness and her voice had begun to slur.

She'd lasted quite a bit longer than he had expected, but eventually she had toppled over where she sat, pillowing her head on her arm. No demons had been summoned in her intoxication, fortunately.

No, the demons had shown up the next morning.

He shook off the memory. "Do you still mean to go back to the Tower?" he asked.

Her body tensed against his. "Yes. Do me a favor, though, Zev?"

"Anything, my Grey Warden."

"If I am so very stupid as to suggest that I stay there, for any reason—don't let me. If you have to, hit me over the head and drag me away." She grimaced and set her chin on his shoulder.

He chuckled, just a little. "I do not think it will come to that. But I promise, should you suffer a bout of madness and decide that the Tower cannot possibly do without you, I will spirit you away."

There was Cullen, and there was Jowan, and what had once been a refuge was no longer and would never be again. They had all left sanctuaries twisted and burned in their wake.

He held his Grey Warden, and tried not to muse on the wreckage they had all left behind them.

*****

Alistair:

"Don't you ever knock?"

Kathil smiled. "Do I have to, Alistair? Besides. Knocking means that your guards have to see me, and if your guards see me one of them might mention to Rima that, oh, the Grey Warden mage was visiting the King last night in his study, and we've only just now gotten to the point of being civil with each other." She pulled one of the chairs that usually sat on the other side of the desk from his around to his side, and dropped into it.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just wander in whenever you feel like, then."

"I did listen to make sure you didn't have anyone else in here," she pointed out. The mage chewed briefly on her lower lip. "Look, Alistair. There's some things you ought to know. Starting with the newest Grey Warden recruit. You're not going to like it. Maker knows I didn't."

Usually, she would just haul off with unpleasant news as if she were wielding a maul. That she felt the need to preface it with a disclaimer worried him.

A lot.

"I should probably start with something I never noticed," she said. "We left Redcliffe before Teagan executed Jowan. Remember, I couldn't stay and watch it done. Well. It turns out that Jowan escaped, and Teagan never saw fit to mention it to anyone. Andraste's blood, am I ever going to give that man a piece of my mind when I'm in Redcliffe next."

Alistair stared at the mage. She looked back at him calmly.

Jowan.

"Kathil," he said, slowly. "Please tell me that you didn't just recruit the blood mage who nearly killed my uncle into the Grey Wardens."

"Duncan always told us to use the weapons we have to hand, rather than sit around wishing for ones that might be more…honorable. Jowan cost me everything I loved, once." She leaned forward, setting her elbows on her thighs and propping her chin on her fisted hands. "And the fact of the matter is that he is good at what he does, and he has a store of knowledge that the Grey Wardens can use. I am apparently going find a crowd of mages who want to join the Wardens when I go to Amaranthine. I'm going to need experienced help to turn them battle-ready."

He tried to wrap his brain around the concept. Failed. "He's a blood mage. How could—"

"Since when do I follow the Chantry line about what magic is and isn't all right to learn?" She stood and stalked away from him for a few steps, then turned to face him. "There are laws in the Chantry books that forbid what I am as well. It just happens that the last of the arcane warriors died three hundred years ago, so the laws have been forgotten." She shook her head sharply. "I had hoped he wouldn't survive the Joining. We weren't so lucky. So now I have him on my hands."

Alistair rubbed his temples. "Cheery. You do realize that if you bring him into the palace, Isolde will explode, Eamon will try to kill him, and they'll probably both blame me, right?"

"Give me a little credit. We've taken rooms near the market district. I'll keep a low profile until Cullen's Mabari is ready to leave her mother, and then we're off to visit the Tower and Redcliffe before we go to Amaranthine in the spring."

Amaranthine. The word sunk in now, like it hadn't before. "You're going to be Warden-General."

"Likely. Though I have a feeling it won't be quite as easy as walking in and announcing myself as such." She twisted her mouth, and touched the scar on her face with thin fingers. "You put Eamon up to asking me to step up, didn't you?"

He chuckled. "Use whatever weapons we have to hand, right? You have as much stake as I do in sending the Orlesian Grey Wardens back to where they came from. Maybe more. Besides, Kathil. You're going to be good at it."

"Because there's nothing like a mage with a knack for making unsavory friends and who has a habit of disappearing for years at a time to lead a branch of an ancient and honorable martial order," she said, her voice bladed. "Right?"

And in her voice was everything she never said, the vicious whip of the words and I am no Duncan, am I?

"Seems I remember we beat an Archdemon with a spy, an assassin, a murderer, a drunk, a witch, a crazy golem, a mostly-dead mage, and a secondhand Mabari," he said. "Oh, and a bastard prince and a mage who didn't know a thing about stuff like, oh, not running right into the middle of a group of darkspawn."

The mage's lips twitched. "And yet, have you heard the stories they tell about us?"

"The ones where we're all so sufferingly noble? I seem to recall that in a number of them you're a blushing maiden, chaste as the dawn." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "And don't forget the ones where you're twelve feet tall and eat babies for breakfast."

"I like those stories," she said, and then a smile broke over her face, at last. "I'll do the best I can with what I have, Alistair. I might not live up to all the old stories, but I'm not sure anyone ever does." She came back over to her chair and dropped into it again. Her mage robes were rumpled, stained with the characteristic mottled color of darkspawn blood. "There are some other things you probably should know while I'm here."

She told him of the latest news from the Tower, and by the time she was done Alistair understood a bit better why she had ended up recruiting Jowan. He still wasn't happy about it—but from the looks of things, neither was she.

"Well, if Jowan gets out of line, send him to me. I can think of a few choice names to call him," he told her. "If you've run out of ideas."

Kathil's eyes held a wicked light. "I will. Just in case I have a failure of imagination. It may be some time." She rose from her chair. "I will be around, Alistair. And I'll try not to cause too much trouble in my last few weeks here."

He very fervently hoped he was going to be able to hold her to that one.

Author's note: Heh. I've been foreshadowing Jowan's return for a while now, and the reactions to him finally being on stage have been gratifying. He has a pretty specific set of roles in both the plot and in the emotional arc of the story; I don't know how long I'll keep him as a POV character, but I'm enjoying writing him for the moment.

Thank you all for your kind comments! Reviews keep me going.