"Is it made of wood?"

"In part, sometimes."

"Can it be metal?"

"Yes."

"Part metal, part wood?"

"Yes."

Alistair grew silent as he walked, face twisting up in thought. "How many questions is that?"

"Including that one?" Lindise asked. "Seventeen."

"That one doesn't count!"

"It was a question."

Alistair scowled, "Is it used to break things?"

"Sometimes."

"Is it an axe?"

"No."

"A hammer?"

"It is not! That's twenty!"

"No, that's nineteen. Is it a chisel?"

"Still no!" Lindise was grinning ear to ear. "An auger."

"An auger doesn't break things!"

"If I jabbed something hard enough with an auger, it can break."

"That's cheating."

Nathaniel let out a heavy sigh, "Aren't you both a little old for this game?"

They'd been walking for hours, north along the Imperial Highway and past quiet, empty farmlands. The party had seen fewer people the farther from Cumberland they marched, and the number of pilgrims to see the Divine to the south had dropped from twenty the previous day to only four. Paien had picked up a new map of the area before they'd left Cumberland, and added notes and markers from memory. Some time tomorrow they would reach a town at where the road met the river. There they would quiz the locals yet again, then either turn east towards an entrance into the Deep Roads or continue north towards Tevinter.

Alistair rolled his eyes, "Oh, yes, we should all walk in dour silence like you. Maker forbid we try to amuse ourselves in any way at all."

"You seem to have forgotten we're hunting down a blood mage," Nathaniel said, spinning to face him. "I would like to maintain the element of surprise if possible, not herald our approach with guessing games."

Elissa rubbed the back of her neck. They still hadn't let up. Nathaniel and Alistair would only stop bickering when they decided to stop talking altogether. She could pretend ignorance as to the source of their animosity, but the reason was obvious. She certainly wasn't going to comment on it, either. She simply slowed her pace until she was walking beside Alistair, and wordlessly took hold of his hand.

Nathaniel scowled and turned away again. He quickened his pace, jogging past Vash towards a burned out, dilapidated cottage that was the victim of a fire many years ago. Most of it was collapsed and overgrown with tall grass and moss.

Alistair gave her hand a squeeze, tilting his head to grin at her, "You want a turn, my dear? I've got something picked out."

Elissa smiled faintly at him, arching a brow, "Is it a dragon?"

Alistair let out a playful groan, "It is! How do you always beat me? Every time!"

"In the Circle," Lindise said with a nostalgic smile, "before exams or a Harrowing, none of us could sleep. We'd stay up 'til the wee hours playing Twenty Questions." She glanced towards Paien as she walked, "The Wardens aren't usually very keen on the game."

"My game is chess," the elder Warden said, looking back at the elf. "Involves actual logic. And it's quieter."

"Maker, this is the most boring trek. I'm actually starting to miss the darkspawn." Alistair sighed a bit and shook his head, "We should have brought a minstrel. Can we bring a minstrel next time? Howe, you didn't bring along a lute, perchance?"

Nathaniel turned back to answer, and the world moved in slow motion the moment the bandit appeared. She was a masked, armored figure with a pair of swords, leaping from behind the decayed cottage wall. Elissa dropped Alistair's hand and drew out her blade. She managed two steps forward before the bandit's blade sunk into Nathaniel's back. Her weapon was just long enough for the red shining tip to push through his chest from behind.

He cried out in alarm and pain, and swung his arm back to strike the bandit in the face. His elbow connected with her nose with a wet crunch. She shrieked, and then pushed him off her blade, stumbling back as a red spot began to form on her mask. A moment after her scream, ten more men, armed and masked, emerged from the cottage.

Nathaniel doubled over and collapsed on the road. He was dead. He had to be. The bandit's sword slipped through his leather armor as though it were paper and ran him through. Elissa only looked down at him a moment as she chased after the woman, but she could see the life pooling under his body. She turned back to face the bandit, but suddenly Vash was between her and her target.

The huge kossith held his pretty little dagger in his hand, took one large step forward, and swung the blade in an upward arc. One of the bandits stumbled backwards, head tipped back and throat spraying red. Vash's momentum continued and he pivoted on a heel as his arm finished its swing, downwards and aimed at the prone Nathaniel. The air whistled as his knife cut through it. His steel did not strike Nathaniel's flesh, missing only by the width of two fingers.

Elissa sprinted around Vash to engage the rest of the bandits in battle. Her twin blades struck away the blow of one of the men, and she kicked him into the dirt before she drove her weapon into his chest. Paien was suddenly beside her, as was Alistair, striking down their attackers.

Lindise ran past Nathaniel and Vash, spitting spells to freeze their attackers in place. Elissa spun towards one of the ice solid bandits and her blades struck him across the chest, and he shattered into a hundred frozen pink shards.

She turned to another masked bandit. The one with the broken nose, courtesty of Nathaniel Howe. She could see the front of her mask stained with blood. She felt a sudden rush of wind as Lindise pulled at the air itself, and the bandit stumbled forward with the force of the magic. Elissa stepped forward, grabbed the woman by the shoulder and plunged her sword up into her chest. The steel slid easily through flesh, and the bandit sucked in half a breath, shuddered, and went limp. Elissa dropped the tip of her blade and stepped back, letting the dead body fall from it.

It was all over in a few moments. The other men lay dead in piles around Paien and Alistair. Breathless, Elissa turned back to see Nathaniel still on the ground, and Vash hunched over him. He still held his ornate little dagger in his hand, wet and shining red. Nathaniel's shirt was black with blood, and he remained very still. She slipped her blades back into their sheaths and felt panic gripping her by the throat like a tight fist.

"Why did you swing at him?" She slid to her knees in the dirt beside Nathaniel and gave Vash a glare.

The kossith's brows lifted as he looked back at the Warden with confusion. "Why…?"

"After you killed those bandits, you turned and swung your blade at him! Heal him!"

Vash frowned, inching away as Elissa rolled Nathaniel onto his back. His blood at turned the dirt into a red mud that stuck to his pale, still face. She wiped it away quickly, "Nathaniel."

Nathaniel sucked in a very deep breath, eyes opening wide. He sat up quickly, hand grasping at his bow like a drowning man struggling for the surface.

Elissa fell back in alarm, her rear end hitting the road, "Nathaniel!" She put her hands up quickly, "You're hurt! Be still!"

Vash had gotten back to his feet and slipped his dagger back into its elaborately carved sheath. "He is healed."

Nathaniel, still breathless and disoriented, struggled to his feet and fumbled for an arrow from his quiver. His hands fell limp when he saw the bodies littering the road. "They… got the jump on us… I told you we needed to be quiet!"

Elissa stared at him in disbelief. After scrambling back to her feet, she took hold of his shoulder and slipped her hand behind his split armor. Nathaniel flinched at her touch, but she felt only blood, sweat, and scarred but unbroken skin. The bandit's blade had gone right through him. It had to pass through a lung or even his heart.

Nathaniel watched her from the corner of his eyes, and his tongue darted across his dry lips. His gaze dropped as he slowly regained his breath and his memory of what just occurred. He turned to look at Vash. "I should be dead, shouldn't I?"

"Yes," Vash replied, lifting a shoulder. "You are welcome."

"How did you do that?" Lindise asked as she stepped to Elissa's side, trying to see Nathaniel's lack of deadly injury. "Are you a mage?"

"No," Vash answered. "But one does not need to be saarebas to make use of magic."

"Your knife!" Alistair pointed at the blade on Vash's hip. "It's enchanted, isn't it?"

A large, gray hand rested almost protectively over the little blade. "Yes." He paused. "When it takes a life, it can save a life. The bandit's death replaced your companion's."

"And when were you planning on telling us about it?" Paien took a few steps closer to Vash.

"I just did," he answered calmly. "Prior to this moment, there was no reason to share." Vash moved to Nathaniel, took hold of his chin, tilted his head up, and studied his eyes. "You will need rest."

Nathaniel frowned and twisted his chin out of Vash's grasp, "I feel fine."

Vash's hand remained in the air a moment longer, fingers slowly curling into his palm. He glanced to Paien and repeated, "He will need rest."

Paien exhaled, eyes on Nathaniel. He nodded. "Off the road, let us find a place to make camp."

"But it's barely past midday!" Nathaniel turned to follow Paien, "If we stop-…" Nathaniel took a single step, and his leg folded up under his weight. He began to fall, but Vash caught him with a single large hand on his shoulder. Nathaniel yelped in pain and his hand flew to his chest.

"You will heal fully," Vash said, "but you will need rest." He carefully pulled Nathaniel upright again, not releasing him until the man found his balance.

Nathaniel rubbed his chest and eyeballed the Vashoth. "Fine," he said, his voice a hiss. "Let us make camp."