Cullen killed three of the genlocks before the others arrived and dispatched the rest of them with ease. The redheaded Warden took out the archer that had hit her Commander with two swift arrows to the chest before she fell to the older woman's side, even as the fighting continued around her.
As his men checked to be sure the monsters were dead, Cullen stood by Toriana's side opposite the young woman and stared down at the Warden-Commander with a concerned frown on his face. One arrow to the side shouldn't have dropped such a strong woman so quickly, so why did she look so weak?
Toriana mumbled something and looked like she was trying to stop the redhead – Moiraine, if he had overheard her name correctly – from reaching the arrow in her side. "What is she doing?" Cullen asked, brow furrowing.
Moiraine looked up at him, frowning, "The arrow must have been poisoned, she's delirious."
They both looked back at Tori, whose brown eyes were clouded and unseeing, as she let out a noise that was rife with sorrow and pain. Her hand lifted into the air weakly, as if she was trying to reach for something, before it fell limply back to her side and her eyes rolled up into her head before they closed.
Moiraine felt the woman's forehead and shook her head, looking more serious than he had ever seen the girl in the short time he'd been around her. "She's burning. We need to get this arrow out, now."
Cullen turned to his men, who had clustered a short distance away, and gave them orders to set up camp and post sentries. When he turned back Moiraine was already peeling away Toriana's armor as best as she could without disturbing the arrow, ignoring him. He felt useless; he knew nothing of healing or poisons, and seeing Toriana lying there, looking so defenseless, made him feel… lost.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked, kneeling beside Toriana's limp form.
The redhead looked up, surprised, from where she had been unbuckling the breastplate. "Oh, I don't think…" she paused, studying his face with a peculiar expression on her face. "Perhaps you should try to get some rest, Knight-Commander," she eventually said with a finality in her tone. "There's nothing you can do for now, Pater and Carver will help me." The gesture to the other two Wardens who had joined her side told him that's what their names were.
Cullen almost argued, but realized that the girl was right; there was nothing he could do, and sticking around and getting in their way would likely only make matters worse. He turned away and made sure his men had started a small campfire before he unfurled his bedroll and, still clad in his armor with his sword within reach, laid down on his side to try to sleep.
Close his eyes as he might, he couldn't fall asleep. The hushed interchange between Moiraine and Pater floated to his ears and he found himself listening in with rapt attention.
Moiraine's voice was tense. "Hold her down while I cut the leather from around the arrow, just in case."
There was a moment of silence in which he could hear the sound of leather being cut. Apparently Toriana was completely unconscious, for he didn't hear any noises from her. The rustling of her armor and clothing being removed was clear – everyone in camp was silent, as if making noise would lessen the chances of the Warden-Commander's survival – and another pause stretched out before Cullen heard a low growl.
"Already festering." A rough, low voice – Pater. "Must be that damn poison those damn rogues use sometimes, I heard that's what killed Lemar on that trip to Orlais. Damned stuff rots the wound and makes you hallucinate; you either die with half your insides rotted out, or you go crazy an—"
"Stop." Moiraine's voice was almost a hiss, and Cullen was thankful when Pater's rant ended with a mumbled apology. He didn't want to imagine Toriana dying, rotting like a slab of meat left too long in the sun. The very idea made him shudder and brought an ache to his chest that made him wish he could heal her.
"We have to get the arrow out. This is going to be bad, it's probably barbed, you know how those bastards make their arrows. I need you two to hold her down as best you can, we can't risk her sending it deeper if she wakes up and thrashes around." Moiraine's voice was remarkably steady.
Cullen rolled over to watch the Wardens from his bedroll, unable to keep himself away for this. As much as they may have butted heads since she arrived, Toriana had once been a dear friend to him. He had to make sure she made it alright.
Moiraine placed a hand on Tori's side, and wrapped the other around the arrow. Her hands were already slippery with blood, but when she tugged on the arrow with a sharp, sudden wrenching motion, it came out with a sickening squelching noise.
Toriana's body jerked under Pater and Carver's hands and, though her mouth had at some point been stuffed with a rag to stifle her cries, the agonized scream that ripped from her throat echoed off the walls with such a nightmarish quality that he saw many of his men flinch and a few even covered their ears.
Cullen found himself unable to breath for a moment as he watched Tori's eyes snap open and she began to claw at her friends as if they were monsters. The babble that poured from her mouth was muted by the rag, but he could see the terror in her wide, glassy eyes as they rolled back into her head, then darted around unfocused, as if she couldn't really see anything around her. It was difficult to see her like this, like a rabid animal backed into a corner. Once again he felt useless, unable to help her.
The red-headed girl was pulling a small bag of herbs from her pack as Pater and Carver held Toriana down – she apparently lost her strength, for now she laid there panting and trembling, eyes lolling like a spooked horse. Moiraine chewed on a sizable amount of one of the herbs before spitting it out as a paste and pressing it into the wound, eliciting pained whimpers from Tori.
Moiraine sighed and wiped at her forehead, only serving to smear a streak of blood across it. "That's all I can do, since I doubt she'll drink any water we try to give her. Someone will have to watch her at all times." She sounded exhausted, and when she looked down at the shaking Warden-Commander, her eyes were full of sorrow. "I'm no healer. We leave her in the Maker's hands, now."
A chill ran down Cullen's spine as she said it, and when he closed his eyes he had to force away visions of Toriana, lying dead on the cold floor of the Deep Roads. He hadn't realized until now just how much she meant to him. She was his last connection to his old life, to a time when he had had less cares, less problems; she was a symbol of a time before he had ever been tortured, when he had dared to look at a mage apprentice and dream of how her lips would taste.
He didn't want to imagine the life leaving those warm brown eyes, never seeing her sweet, imperfect smile again, or hearing her laugh. They might have made amends, had the arrow not struck her. She had been trying to bridge the gap between them, bad as she may have been at doing it. She didn't hate him after all.
Cullen finally knew that the one mage he had ever cared about didn't hate him, and now she was dying.
