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Interlocking
Chapter Twenty Five: Fading
"Something tells her this is wrong. She should not be here." - Krem and Harding find each other in a world torn apart. A story told in brief glimpses.
Krem holds the courtyard.
He has always known duty. Always known the cost. He has never resented it until now.
But he doesn't think Harding could love a man who abandons others when they need him.
So he holds his weapon a little tighter, he bellows his war cries a little louder, he breathes in rage and swings with desperate helplessness. He drowns the thought of her in a frenzy of blood and devastation. It is the only way he will survive this. The only way he will not lose himself.
Not one living soul passes him. Not one Warden. Not one demon.
No one escapes his wrath.
Iron Bull finds Harding lying, unconscious and broken, behind one of the ballistae below the wall lining Adamant's outer courtyard. One of Harding's scouts, a skittish human woman with shaggy brown hair and bloody gashes along her right cheek and neck, is guarding the dwarf's prone form, slinging arrows into the crazed battle around them. As soon as the Inquisitor and the party finish off the last pride demon ravaging the troops, Bull rushes to them.
The human scout flicks frantic wide eyes at the incoming Qunari, her bow raised before recognizing him, and then lowered with a slow breath. Around them, the Inquisition forces are pushing into the inner square of the fortress while the Inquisitor finishes off the last of the horde, the high walls and courtyard littered with corpses and the dark remnants of demons.
"Harding?" Bull questions, laying his axe on the stone floor as he kneels to attend to the Head scout.
The human beside him sighs, wincing at the pain of her wounded face, glancing down at them. "I tried to stop the blood flow, sir. But she…she's pretty bad…"
Bull can hear the woman's voice crack as she bends over, hands on her knees, panting.
Bull eyes the blood-drenched front of Harding's tunic, the arrow missing. He looks up to the woman as he reaches to his belt for one of Stitches's poultices. "The arrow went through?"
She is shaking her head. "No, sir. I had to – had to push it through so I could break it off and slide the shaft out. I hope…" She stops and takes a shaky breath in. "I hope it didn't make her lose too much blood."
Somewhere in the distance there is a deafening boom of shattering rock. The scout glances at the far end of the courtyard where the rest of her regiment are slowly finding each other and checking their wounded.
Bull reaches for the bunch of bandages hastily wrapped around Harding's ribs and pulls them down, undoing the side straps of her leather chest plate while trying to keep her as still as possible. Her face is drained of all color, blood trickling past her still lips. "You did good, scout," he grunts. He can barely catch Harding's waning breath. His brows furrow as he moves the leather chest plate aside and tears open the tunic underneath. Beneath, her light, smooth skin is punctured and bleeding profusely around her ribs. He dumps the contents of the poultice onto the wound, not even bothering to try to clean it first. There is little time, if any. He starts to rub the thick paste along her wound, his fingers deft and quick along her ruined flesh.
The scout behind him watches with her lip caught between her teeth. "I tried to get a potion down her throat but she was unconscious. Don't know how much made it into her system." She swallows and licks her lips. "Tried to guard her best I could, sir. Almost didn't get down in time."
Bull grunts in acknowledgement, catching sight of the short blood smear on the floor beside them, where he figures the scout had dragged Harding from the midst of the fray. He realizes the claw marks along the woman's cheek and neck probably came from whatever demon she had faced while protecting her lieutenant's vulnerable body. He flicks his gaze to the awkward jut of Harding's shoulder, the sharp and unnatural angle her leg is twisted in. A low curse leaves his lips. "The fall certainly didn't help."
The Inquisitor calls Bull from across the courtyard. He looks up and finds them waving him over. He turns back to Harding and ties the bloody bandages back around the wound. "What's your name, scout?"
"Jaelan, sir. Private Jaelan." She straightens up as Bull stands himself. Soldiers rush past them, their boots thumping along the sandy stone of the courtyard.
He nods to her gashed cheek. "Need something for that?" He picks his large axe up from the ground beside him.
She shakes her head. "I'm good to go, sir."
He allows the smallest of smiles to grace his lips at the scout's steadfastness. "Get her to a healer then, quick." He looks back down at the broken form of Harding and something twists sharply in his gut. "Or we might lose her." His lips dip into a tight frown, his face marred in blood and filth.
Jaelan nods, the other scouts of their regiment rushing up to them in the next moment. Bull nods one final acknowledgement and then he is running toward the Inquisitor and following them further into Adamant's hold in search of Clarel.
All he can see is Krem's face, flushed with silent horror as he watches Harding tumble over the wall.
Harding does not know where she is. Her body feels light, lifted, not her own. Everywhere there is shifting, undulating light. Adamant fortress is a twisted, ethereal landscape around her.
She calls out and her voice echoes until it dies softly into nothing.
It takes her a long time to realize she is in the Fade.
The thought sends her to trembling.
She has never dreamed in here before. Never known this other-worldy wonder that others have described to her.
Something tells her this is wrong. She should not be here. She blinks in remembrance and reaches a hand to her ribs as she looks down. Her torso is covered in sticky, warm blood. But there is no pain. Her fingers brush along the frightening sight of an arrow wound peeking through the hole in her tunic. She swallows thickly and licks her lips, her breathes quickening.
There is a sudden tearing thunder in the distance and she can make out the flickering burst of green in the far-off, hazy sky, her arm coming up to cover her eyes.
Whispers sound around her. She twists about to find the source but there is only the empty, blurry plane of the Fade. The hairs on the back of her neck tingle in anxious trepidation. There is faint movement all around her but she cannot see anybody. It is only the warped walls of the Fade-tinged fortress around her. It is only the twisting, sloping air that surrounds her. It is only the constant shift and light-filled Fade that taunts her. Warns her. Promises her of a sleep with no return.
Her lips are trembling when they whisper Krem's name. She wraps her arms around her small frame.
The air grows dark around her.
She should not be here.