Dragon Age: Wars of the Wolf
Retribution
Bioware owns everything you recognize from the game; but Nyx is my own vision of darkness.
"Maker have mercy!"
"Oh, my, what is this?"
"The depots! The warehouses are burning!"
"Oh, how dreadful!"
One by one, most of the Inquisition's men and women had left their desks or watch posts and gathered in the gardens to watch the unthinkable events that unfolded on the other side of the fiery, rolling Clairaigues waters. The holy folks' frantic chatter covered the murmur of the river and the rumor of the perpetually active city, every clerk and nun offering his or her appraisal of the situation with a great abundance of Chant-inspired references. In a sense, most of them welcomed the little disturbance to the routine of their lackluster existence. Tomorrow, they would regale friends and family with the account of the blaze; they would be the bearers of important news, the center of attention, and surely the Maker would not begrudge them this little pleasure.
An explosion rocked the trees on the distant embankment, and the assembled Chantry folks sighed in fearful admiration. The light from the distant blaze increased in intensity, painting the perfectly straight lanes and square buildings of Chateau des Anges in starkly contrasted red and black; a fiery, dead-still landscape of geometric volumes among which the small groups of clerks and Templars appeared strangely displaced, as though their living, organic shapes did not belong here.
For the two lithe, sinister shapes that silently slid from shadow to pitch-black shadow, infiltrating the place under these conditions was child's play.
The tallest shadow stopped in front of a cleverly hidden air vent and pulled a tool from a broad grey silk sash while its smaller, more compact companion crouched in a defensive stance, serrated daggers ready to fly towards any unlucky disturbance. The grate surrendered with a faint creak of forced metal, and the shadows promptly affixed a grappling hook to the edge of the pit and disappeared into the Holy Andrastian Inquisition's private subterranean hell.
Things were different down here. Well-lit, to start with, and clinically clean, with very little in the way of shadows or cover. The mission's difficulty had suddenly increased exponentially. Zevran smirked as he undid the grey scarf that covered his face, his brown gaze meeting the Orlesian bard's liquid blue. Papillon smiled back through her mask.
In Zevran's experience, places that scared the hell out of people were often surprisingly easy to break in, especially if those places were designed to hold broken, unarmed prisoners. Judging by the prostrate figures he glimpsed in the holding cells, this was just such a place. At first the moans and prayers that rose on the rogues' passage unnerved him a little, but he quickly reasoned that they were nothing exceptional in here, and unlikely to draw much attention. In fact, the whole place seemed to be bathed in a perpetual, macabre murmur, and Zevran wondered if the Veil was frayed enough that these tunnels would soon start echoing with the insane rambling of abominations and the shuffling of cadaverous feet.
They progressed swiftly through neatly paved tunnels, Papillon leading the way based on the information her wings had collected about the place. Zevran couldn't help being mildly impressed at the sheer amount of data that the young bard's network had been able to coax out of various caretakers, gardeners and guards working for one of Thedas's most secretive organizations. In fact, the more time Zevran spent in Val Royeaux, the more he appreciated the local professionals' working style, and he had now come to the point where he seriously considered making this fine city his residence. Maybe Louis and his powerful protectors wouldn't mind subcontracting some of their business to an honest Antivan craftsman? Zevran wondered what it would take for Papillon to switch employers. Theirs would be a lucrative partnership, and that ass…
Papillon suddenly motioned for him to stop and he froze in his tracks, daggers held at the ready as the young bard crouched by a turn of the tunnel and peeked ahead with a small mirror. Turning to Zevran, Papillon addressed him a few quick hand gestures.
Guard post. Templars; four of them, guarding the door to the archives. Really, no big deal…
Moving with slow, controlled gestures, Zevran silently un-strapped his small rucksack, carefully extracted a big, rounded vial and methodically strapped his backpack on. His visit to Louis's storage room had proven a very fruitful one, and he had been rather pleased to see the master spy's eyes widen a little at his expertise with volatile and poisonous substances.
Expertise? Artistry, more like, Zevran thought as he lovingly shook the black vial, not too soft and not too strong, the way one ought to treat beauty, no matter whether this beauty resided in a honey-skinned Antivan bella or in a fragile skin of glass. When the black liquid inside the vial started to bubble dangerously, Zevran smoothly stepped around the corner and lobbed the grenade into the guard post.
The Crows had a ridiculously bombastic name for this sort of weapon: velvet death. Zevran liked the name. The crafting was as dangerous as the ingredients were precious, but the effects in an enclosed space… well, they were quick, and unpleasant. The black cloud that filled the guard post had the remarkable property of muffling sounds, and the Templars' choked cries drowned helplessly amid the sinister murmur of the holding cells. Leaning leisurely on the wall, Zevran fished a small, green apple from his pocket and bit in it. Papillon shot him an interrogative glance.
"You want to wait for the drug to break down into harmless components," he explained with an engaging wink, "want a bite?"
To Zevran's mild surprise, Papillon took the offered apple, turning it under the lamplight to examine the bite mark in the fruit's red skin.
"A little bite never hurts," she commented innocently before she bit into the fruit and handed it back to the Antivan.
"Ah, but where is the fun if it doesn't hurt a little?" Zevran's nostrils flared slightly; there was a hint of Papillon's scent on the apple, and he closed his eyes briefly to take it in. Mint, lemon and smooth skin… When he opened his eyes, Papillon stood very close, in a rather startling demonstration of silent movement.
"Some people may disagree…" The human's lips were about level with the point of Zevran's ear, her cool breath sending a delicious shiver down his neck.
"Like Louis?" Zevran asked playfully. He had a pretty good inkling of where the conversation was going, and it promised to be a lot of fun.
"Hmm. Or like your stunning companion?"
"Much as it pains me to admit it, I wouldn't really know."
"Would you, now? I would like to know," Papillon purred in his ear.
"Ah, shall I tell just you what you wish to hear then? I have a rather fertile imagination for these things."
The young bard pouted. "Maybe we should discuss this later," she said with a hint of annoyance as she turned and walked to the archives' reinforced door, hips swaying entirely too much. By the time Papillon crouched by the heavy door, her bearings showed nothing but cool professionalism. Zevran watched her work for the following ten minutes or so, the great locks reluctantly yielding to the Orlesian's light touch and superior lockpicking firepower. Finally, the massive steel pane pivoted open, and Papillon turned to Zevran with a little bow.
"Guests first," she quipped.
"Grazie mille, Bella," Zevran replied, twisting slightly on the threshold so that he didn't have to turn his back to his companion.
Keeping an eye out for traps, the rogues tip-toed into the Inquisition's vast underground archive. Zevran had imagined vast, cavernous halls with baroque sculptures and maybe a few titillating torture implements, so he was a little disappointed at the absolutely utilitarian arrangement of the vault.
"What now?" he asked, pointing at the rows after rows of neatly labeled wooden boxes on their neatly labeled storage shelves.
"Now we play bookworms, my handsome elf. Don't tell me you are afraid of a little paperwork?"
Zevran's sigh echoed for a long time in the silent vault.
"I must say, this is something I have wanted to do for a long time."
Louis cast an amused glance at the exiled Fereldan prince. Alistair's face, reddened by the intense heat from the blaze, was split from ear to ear by a mischievous grin. Not so surprising, if you considered that the man had only escaped a life of boredom in the Templars by joining the Grey Wardens. Not too far behind Alistair's robust shape, Louis could make out the figures of the warehouses guards, bound and gagged and struggling feebly on the floor. Toast hovered in the background, the scowl below the brand telling of her disapproval at letting her charge screw around in underground operations. Toast never fully relaxed, and that made her a perfect fit for her job as a bastard prince's bodyguard.
"I take it you didn't like taking Lyrium, my Lord?"
"Oh for goodness's sake, Louis, were are burning and pillaging Chantry property and you still milord me?" Alistair bellowed over the roar of the flames, and Louis smirked and bowed slightly.
"Very well, Alistair, then."
"See, that didn't hurt so badly, did it?"
The master spy's eyes narrowed slightly. The boy had obviously no idea how much it pissed him off to bow to noblemen. Those who grew up in Little Kal Sharok didn't harbor too much love for the ruling elites of either human or dwarven society. But as much as Louis liked Alistair, the bastard prince would never understand this and would never be one of his kin. Better keep things civil, and distant. The kid was perceptive, though, and answered the original question in a softer, almost apologetic tone.
"I hated taking lyrium. I always tried to hide it under my mattress and throw it into the drains. Sometimes I didn't manage. Lyrium made me feel strong, but… I don't know how to describe it… The first time I saw what it does to older Templars…"
Louis nodded. Templars were fools on more than one level. Not only did the abuse slowly gnaw at their brains, it also required increasingly high dosages to keep its power-boosting effect. Louis had heard, and was inclined to believe, tales of Templars forced into withdrawal and madness because their upkeep had simply become too expensive for their local Chantry.
A soft whistle from one of the Grey Warden scouts brought his mind back to the matter at hand. Seconds later, a thin elven woman stopped before the half-blood, struggling to catch her breath.
"They're coming," the scout said through ragged breath, "nearly two hundred of them. Must have emptied the Redoute."
"Everyone in place?"
"Yup. Waiting for your signal."
Louis nodded and motioned for Alistair and the small group of Wardens posted with him to retreat into adjacent streets. Louis had pulled a few strings and greased a few wheels, ensuring that tonight's little party was going to unfold in the strictest privacy, with no City Guard interference.
Smiling, the half-blood motioned for Marteau and his crew to push a small, black-painted cart towards the flame. Then all sped away into the shadows. Seconds later, the blaze erupted into a phantasmagoria of blue and green flames.
The hunt of a lifetime was on. Funny that it should all have started with one little red-haired girl…
He should never have sent her to seduce Marjolaine. This was a job for a seasoned spy, not for a gifted beginner with a crazy, screw-it-all attitude.
He watches the shock of tousled red hair, the way a lone sunray is refracted in fiery sparks, the skin of the neck and shoulders so white, almost translucent, with a few freckles sprinkled here and there. She looks innocent, even fragile in spite of the well-developed muscles in her shoulders, and yet…
Yet her presence is a rather embarrassing testament to her seduction powers. Red is not really a beginner any more; the last two years have turned her into a very capable professional; her kind heart and capability for empathy have become deadly weapons in the service of a growing ambition.
Now Louis has serious misgivings about what he – they – just did. Not that he is against mixing fun with business; heck, life would be pretty dull if he didn't. But he knows that by allowing this to happen, he is playing with fire. And yet, given the possibility, he might well do it all over again.
He is not vain enough to believe that her presence by his side is entirely due to his exotic looks or charisma. More likely, it was a test of sorts, one that she passed and he failed. The balance of power has shifted a little, and he worries that this will make her mission all the more dangerous.
She has told him how she has been able to win Marjolaine's affections, and how the older woman is training her as an apprentice. Heck, she has just shown him a few tricks of Marjolaine's. She speaks of the bard master with a little too much admiration, and he wonders if her hand will tremble when he orders the kill. If anything, Red's presence by his side today is an early warning, a telltale sign of conflicting loyalties.
Maybe he should have her kill Marjolaine now. Maybe he should call back the whole operation and settle things the old way, with the gang storming the bard master's sophisticated little mansion and bringing back the head and hands. But Red is bringing in a precious trickle of information, names and facts that would take months or years to uncover without her, and he is loath to kill the goose with the golden eggs.
In hindsight, Louis dug his own grave like a good little amateur.
Nyx watched the Templars take position by the sides of the reinforced door as muffled shouts and the clash of steel on steel echoed feebly through the metal, filling the vast stone room with the murmurs of a phantom battle. Tiny elven fists grasped the bars of the cage in the center of the underground prison, ignoring the glacial pain from the Lyrium incrustations. The closest Templar threw the pale elven sorceress a nervous glance, and Nyx smiled at him, a joyless expression that was hardly more than the baring of white, slightly too pointed teeth.
"I will kill you," she said softly, her murmur echoing through the chamber just as the sounds of battle outside the door died out.
"Be quiet, maleficar," the holy warrior answered automatically, but his voice sounded too thin for his barrel chest and broad shoulders, the voice of a dead man, and the elf's smile widened. He knew what she knew: the inner doors to this prison were barred from the outside. The guards were sealed in with the Wolf Born, a precarious position at the best of times, and now there was nothing they could do but wait for their unknown enemy to barge in. They weren't afraid, not really, not yet, but Nyx knew that this would change, in time.
Soon.
The promise of power crackled faintly through the bars of her cage, creating fugitive streaks of blue light along the coiling veins of lyrium. A mortal mage would not break this prison, but Nyx was ready to take her chances. Leliana's presence was close, so close that Nyx's banished emotions bubbled and seeped right through the ice cap that had frozen her mind for so long. Now the ice was thinning and cracking under the pressure of deep, unseen forces. Part of her feared the consequences of the inevitable thaw, but a more fundamental, darker part of her craved it: a thing of fire and darkness that clawed under the ice, demanding to be unleashed.
It would not be denied. The darkness was a treacherous weapon, but anything was better than to be caged and subdued.
It was a strange, disorienting feeling, this onslaught of contradictory emotions, and Nyx finally understood why the Rite that she would have described as the great freeze was called Tranquility. As the bard walked along the now-silent tunnel and approached the reinforced door to Nyx's prison, new cracks appeared in the sorceress's frozen consciousness, deep concern and a sort of absurd pride at the idea that Leliana was risking so much for her. It wouldn't be so bad, Nyx thought, to die knowing that she had mattered so much for the bard, silly though it seemed. The thought brought a genuine little smile to her lips, and she shook her head slightly.
No sodding way. I'm taking that bard out of here, even if I have to slaughter all of Val Royaux.
A series of loud clicks and the clang of bolts retracting into the door informed Nyx that the final moments of her captivity had come, and the Rite's barriers unraveled some more. A big chunk of mental ice broke off, allowing fear and anger to literally gush through in a burning adrenaline rush. Throwing her head back, the sorceress laughed, and then clamored her challenge, the battle cry that had carried the Ferelden armies through the Horde and the ruins of Denerim.
"DEATH!"
The holy warriors glanced at the strange mage behind the bars, and the steel door pivoted silently on well-oiled hinges. A wounded Templar, his white woolen cape and lacquered helmet splattered in dark red splotches, teetered on the threshold and feel to his knees, clutching his belly. Behind the fallen Templar, the tunnel was pitch black, the torches snuffed by the shadowy attacker; wisps of oily smoke drifted in. The man on the threshold gasped in pain under the heavy helmet, and one of Nyx's guards let go of his shield and reached out to him while the others scanned the murky depths of the tunnel.
The wounded Templar seized his compassionate colleague's wrist and twisted, unbalancing the heavier man. Icy blue eyes gleamed through the blood-splattered visor, and Leliana's dagger plunged in the chink below the warrior's armpit, slashing muscles and severing the axillary artery. Pulling herself to the shocked Templar, the bard shoved him into an attacker's path and followed with a flurry of low-line blows, managing to draw blood before she had to duck away from the second man's attack.
Nyx watched with increasing worry as the three remaining Templars, overcoming their surprise, moved into a fighting formation, cutting the bard off from both the exit and the cage. Soon she could hear Leliana's breath grow ragged under the heavy helmet as the bard struggled to keep her foes at a distance. Then the holy warriors called on the Light, and things got quite a bit worse as Nyx was engulfed in searing, nerve-shattering radiance and lost sight of the battle. It was all the sorceress could do not to curl up into a ball in her cage; somehow the strange light radiating from the Templars made her feel nauseous, as though its brightness carried with it some insidious poison.
Nyx felt a jolting pang of pain in her right side even as Leliana's cry rang to her ears; fear and vertigo washed over her, and she understood that Leliana was wounded, perhaps grievously. She felt the darkness escape from her, but this time it was a mere trickle, hardly sufficient to close the bard's wounds. Perhaps the strange magic that flowed through the Bond had been exhausted during Leliana's previous fight. Nyx strained against the cage in furious despair, calling out the bard's name. Leliana was so close, so close and yet as unattainable as the moon.
Dark, damp and musty. The Devoured liked this subterranean environment; the gloom soothed the pain of its burning eyes, and the thick walls attenuated the nauseous feeling of being surrounded by crawling, pulsating life. For The Devoured craved the still of death, the mournful song of dry branches under a starless sky.
Of its past life, it had but the faintest, distant memories; an eternity ago, it had been alive, running insignificant errands, fulfilling the repulsive functions of life, food, excretion, reproduction, as well as the crumbling walls of the alienage allowed. None of it made any sense now, not any more.
Not any more. The Master had caught it, one cold night as it huddled for warmth amongst its family in a wooden shack. It vaguely remembered the pain and terror that had greeted him within the Master's maw, just as it vaguely remembered being spit out, soulless, a thing of dead flesh and living metal, chosen among the Master's dead trees to roam the lands of the living as the vanguard of His coming.
And so the Devoured had crawled in the dark, and killed, and sung the Master's praise; it had exulted as its prayers further unraveled the great chains that held Him away from His birthright. It had sought its kin among the shadows, to breed and sing together, and the pesky priests had caught it. They put it in a cage and did things to its body, painful things, but nothing they did could compare with the agony of being alone in the world of life. The Devoured needed to be with its kind, needed to let its voice blend with theirs and rend the Master's chains. For with the Master's reign would come oblivion, and oblivion was the only thing it aspired to.
It had recognized the human instantly; the smell of her blood seeping through her thin skin woke its hunger, the deep-seated drive to rip and rend the flesh garment and to offer the naked soul to the Master. It also knew that this was forbidden, that the Master wished to postpone the devouring until more pleasurable circumstances. The contradiction interested it, but only to the extent that it distracted it from the pain that was its existence.
The call came while it lay panting in its cage amid the pink, moist remains of the priest's arm. The great gash in the Devoured's abdomen was healing quickly, long threads of silver etching slowly across the wound like metallic spider webs; it took more than a sword to the gut to bring peace to its kind. The call hurt much more than a sword, however, for suffering and hunger were the only language the Devoured understood.
Hissing softly, it pulled the priest's body closer. Misshapen claws fumbled with the dead man's belt for a few seconds, then found the key. A beatific smile over its distorted features, the Devoured unlocked its cage and leapt into the brightly illuminated tunnel, dashing towards the source of the call.
The shadows were too weak; the Light passed right through Leliana's eyes, skin and flesh, singeing her very soul as she danced and struggled to stay alive. She could vaguely hear the sorceress's voice, warped and faraway through the radiance, but she wasn't sure of its direction. The gash in her thigh, the result of a Templar's glancing blow, was slowly closing, but this time the darkness had brought no surge of power, no all-consuming rage that Leliana could have used overwhelm her foes. Instead, the darkness seemed to waver, and she felt it was but a question of time before it subsided totally and left her practically naked before the Light. Before Leliana, the Templars were blinding silhouettes of living white light, and she had to fight the urge to cover her head and wait for the bite of steel. Instead, she willed her eyes to stay open despite the pain.
The Templars regrouped for a new assault, and it was all Leliana could do to leap aside, spinning and parrying sword blows as best she could. Every blow from the radiant swords left noticeable gouges in her sword and dagger, and she knew that the weapons would not hold for long. The Templars' attacks were slow and methodical, aimed at whittling away her resistance rather than outright killing her. Leliana realized suspect that her opponents planned to take her alive, and the thought of the torture instruments in the musty tunnels galvanized her aching muscles. Lunging forward with the energy of despair, the bard managed to get within a Templar's guard and inflict a deep cut to his sword arm. The man's weapon clashed loudly on the floor, but Leliana had to back off before she could finish off her mark, and she threw herself to the floor, rolling wildly as a radiant sword scarred the stone pavement where she had stood a second before.
The wounded man bent forward to pick up his sword; Leliana could have sworn that the Templar's blazing eyes smirked at her. Not for long, though. Something hit his back: something small and angry, with eyes and claws that reflected the surrounding blaze fiercely. The thing's flesh smoldered under the Light's assault, and Leliana saw scraps of charred skin fall from its emaciated frame, but it gave no sign that it noticed the pain as it snatched the fallen man's helmet and bit down into its victim's neck. The light faded from the writhing Templar's body, and his screams filled the room as he desperately tried to wring the thing off. Leliana saw a blazing blade plunge through the creature's ribcage, and it gave out a loud, high-pitched whine, but the infernal jaws did not relent.
"Lel, come to me! I am here baby, hurry!"
Somehow the distraction seemed to have lessened the Light's grasp onto Leliana; or maybe the fear in Nyx's voice gave her strength, because she now could tell the sorceress's direction with pinpoint accuracy. Turning away from her foes, Leliana dashed towards the pleading voice. The third Templar moved to block her path, and she desperately twisted to avoid a blow from the incandescent sword, fell, losing her own sword in the fall, rolled to her feet and ran as if all the demons of the Fade were after her.
Demons and Templars. Funny how opposites met in the end, Leliana thought as she reached blindly for the sorceress's outstretched hand, found it, and then crashed at full speed onto cold, hard metal. Great red flowers exploded in her field of vision; she tried to hold on to Nyx's hand as she slumped onto limp knees, the torturing Light quickly fading into deepening red.
Leliana tried to tell Nyx about the boat that waited outside the Redoute's battlements, but her voice drowned in the great rush of darkness that overwhelmed her senses, and she wearily gave up and let the merciful void carry her away.
"Ancestors… Oh, Ancestors… What have you done?"
Elgar'Nan's thin, quavering murmur is anything but regal, and under the bent and soiled crown, his noble features are frozen in a white mask of terror. The All-Father is staring at Anduril's spear. The weapon, still vibrating from the impact, has traversed the Sun God's brow and embedded itself deep into the sphere of gold that is his prison. Divine blood, thick and mercury-like, pours out of the wound, flowing slowly on the older god's hollow cheeks and emaciated chest. The wound will not heal: unlike his sons, the withered god has long lost the will to keep his essence alive.
Like the Ancestors before him, like any ordinary life form, the Sun God is dead, irrevocably and definitely dead, and this means…
"The Fires…" Elgar'Nan whispers, his eyes wide with disbelief, "Only Father could control the Fires…" A spark of his old anger returns, and the God of Vengeance points a shaking index at Andruil.
"I should have drowned you when you emerged from Mythal's womb, bitch of a daughter. Do you understand what you have done? The Fires are gone! You've killed us all!"
Andruil snarls at the insult, the last straw in a long series of humiliations at the hands of the tyrant. Wings of magic crackle, razor-sharp talons snap in challenge as she assumes a more sinister form. The old bastard has been weakened to within an inch of his life by his fight against the Wolf God; now Andruil is about to finish what her Lord has started.
"Then I will take responsibility for my actions," she growls through serrated fangs, "but not before I see you pay for yours."
Elgar'Nan shrugs contemptuously. "I won't even do you the honor of spilling your blood, you betraying twat. Your brothers can do the job, and I will piss on the ashes."
The God of Vengeance motions for Falon'Din and Dirthamen, and the twins look at each other uneasily. Their fear of the All-Father is greater than any love they have for their sister, but Andruil is the first born, and old habits die hard. Reluctantly, the twins arm themselves, then glance at the king of the gods for confirmation.
"Do it, my sons. Obey your King."
Andruil calmly turns to face her brothers; she will not slaughter them happily, but she is determined to face the All-Father, and make him pay for the indignity he has inflicted on the Wolf God. She nods briefly as she prepares for combat, but her brothers' expressions change from calm resignation to respectful fear as their eyes focus on a point behind her. Very slowly, very carefully, the divine twins lower their weapons. An indignant gurgle rises from the All-Father's throat and Andruil turns to see him struggling in a shadow's grip.
It takes the goddess a few seconds to identify this broken form as her Lord's. Most of his flesh has been seared off by the blast, his bones splintered and blackened, so that he is mostly a thing of glistening red and glassy black bound together by roiling shadows, a semi-material cloud of Essence animated by sheer, implacable willpower. The hand that clutches Elgar'Nan's throat is substantial enough to form deep grooves in the god's pale flesh, however, and it crackles with mystical energies as the All-Father's essence is inexorably ripped from his flailing body and absorbed by the Wolf Lord. From the slowly recomposing mass of charred meat, shattered fangs and humming darkness that occupies the space where Andruil's promised should be, comes the faint mental echo of a question.
Andruil simply nods.
The devastated battlefield in the heart of Arlathan resounds with the deep, menacing growl of the Wolf Lord. To Elgar'Nan's credit, he does not beg for his life, even as it is torn away from him in great, iridescent clouds that mingle with his conqueror's essence.
The last thing Elgar'Nan sees of his kingdom is the distant figure of his wife. The God of Vengeance lifts a limp, pleading hand, but Mythal the Protector averts her gaze and ignores his plea. His anger drained at last, along with his life, Elgar'Nan forgives her. In a sense, the God of Vengeance muses as the last spark of his consciousness dissolves into nothingness, he is the lucky one.
The Wolf Lord may be ruthless, but the Trespassers are worse.