When she managed to rouse herself to consciousness, the first thing she was aware of was the smell. It was like someone had overturned a privy and sprinkled it with a healthy dose of dried blood, then let the collection of bodily fluids dry in the sun and get old. Her adrenalin spiked with fear when she recognized the smell all too clearly, her stomach churning at the realization. Cold stone pressed against her face, and when she sat up, it was to be greeted with the sight of bars. "No no no no no…"

A hand on her shoulder made her tense up, and she looked up to see the face of a young elf woman. She stood over Kallian, a look of sadness on her kind face. "Are you alright? When they put you in here, you were already unconscious."

Kallian took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs, supporting herself against the bars and trying to quell her rising panic. At least there were others here, which was comforting in a slight way. As she looked around, she noted that they weren't the only cage of elves. There were two more, one across the room and the other standing next to them. They were in a wide-open space with a high ceiling, not like the dungeon she had been imprisoned in last, and the space was occupied mostly by packing crates. There were four other elves packed into the cage with her, and they looked like they had wedged themselves to the far corners to make room while she had been lying around unconscious for who only knew how long.

"We need to move the cargo."

All the elves froze when they heard the voice. A mage with feathery shoulder adornments and robes trimmed with crimson was at the head of a party of soldiers, five armed men following in his wake.

"It's only a four man team. Surely they'll pose little threat-"

The mage turned sharply on the armored man who dared to speak. "Do you have only air in your head?" he screeched, his face flushing with anger. "Someone has been plaguing our shipments for months! And now there are intruders heading straight for us? Put two and two together you dolt!"

The armored man baulked visibly. "I'm sorry magister-"

"You had better well be sorry." the Mage hissed in return, stomping back to the center of the room. "Chain them all. We need to head to the safe-house before the intruders get here."

Kallian shrank away from the bars when the slavers approached, manacles in hand. Her heart began to race, adrenalin and fear spiking sharply in equal measure. Not again. Never again. She would not be chained. The cage door opened and the slavers took the elves roughly and clamped them in irons. When one reached forward to grab Kallian and drag her out as well, she sprung into action.

She grabbed his extended wrist and pulled him forward with all of her strength, jerking him off balance. Caught off guard like this he had no chance to defend himself when she slammed her palm into the back of his elbow. It snapped backward at an unnatural angle and the man fell forward on the ground with a pained cry. Kallian quickly got her hand on the pommel of his sword and withdrew the blade attached to the sheath on his back, then just as quickly re-sheathed it in the space between his neck and armor. Kallian twisted the blade for good measure, then wrenched it back out in a spray of blood and stood to face down the remaining four slavers with a look of grim determination. They stared at her blankly in return, unable to believe that the small elf woman had just taken down one of their own in a matter of seconds.

The magister however seemed unimpressed, and decided that he was going to be having none of this independent foolishness.

Kallian saw the Mage prick his palm but before she could act his spell slammed into her like a charging Qunari. Her limbs snapped to her sides and she struggled to breath as all the blood in her body seemed to sear through her veins, the sword dropping limply from her fingers as she silently tried to scream. The magister let her suffer like that for a little while, dropped her with a flick of his fingers, leaving her panting in a trembling heap on the floor.

"This one is quite resilient. She could make an excellent blood slave or body guard if trained up a little." The magister sounded vaguely impressed when he walked toward Kallian, examining her like one would an animal at the fair. She gritted her teeth and tried to struggle to her feet, but the butt of the mage's staff pressed against her neck, making it impossible to rise. "Ah ah, we can't have you acting all rebellious like this. You'll stir up the others, and then we'll have to kill you to set an example. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

Kallian's anger was burning hot, her fists clenching against the stone floor. "I ain't content to sit quiet an' wait to be sold shem. I ain't goin' back in your cage, an' I ain't gettin' on your ship. Yer gonna have to kill me if you want me to go quiet."

She felt him increase the pressure of the staff on her neck and could see the mage's face start to turn purple in anger. There was a sudden commotion that sounded like fighting, then an eerie silence for a few seconds after. The sudden silence that followed was almost painful to listen to, then the door burst open and nearly came off its hinges, the wood splintering with a loud crack.

"Give up easy shemlen, and we'll consider letting you die quickly."

Kallian's heart raced, for she recognized that strange drawling accent immediately. The Grey Wardens had come. The pressure of the staff against her neck had lessened with the sudden disturbance and she looked up to see Theron splattered with blood, dual swords in hand. Alistair was at his side ready to do battle, the grim looking Qunari also at hand. A mabari pushed it's way forward, panting lightly with a snout covered entirely in crimson and it's flanks flecked with gore. She had never been so happy to see them as she was at this moment, blood and all.

"Well well, what do we have here?" The magister drawled, seemingly completely unthreatened despite the fact that the four looked not much the worse for wear despite having had to take out the patrols surrounding the building that were supposed to prevent their entry into the slave holding compound.

"Being coy isn't in your best interest right now shemlen Mage." Theron replied with a snarl. He looked over the slaves, his eyes lingering on Kallian for a few seconds longer then the others. "What's it going to be?"

The Mage sneered at Theron's forthrightness bit didn't loose his cool completely, keeping a loose grip on his staff. "Perhaps a deal can be arranged?" The magister asked, his haughty tone indicating that he expected to get his way in the end. "These slaves are worth something, ragged as they are. What say you if I were to give you 50 sovereigns, and you turn a blind eye to this, hm? Sound like a deal?"

Theron remained silent for a long moment, then he finally chuckled, the sound oddly hollow. "You shemlen are all the same. You disgust me."

The mage looked honestly surprised that the elf had turned down such an impressive sum, but had his game face back on almost immediately. "If that is the way it must be-" Without warning the mage dug his nails into the bleeding wound on his palm and brought forth his powerful blood magic in a single instant, slamming down a spell of blood binding on the four intruders.

Theron's face screwed up in concentration as he tried to resist the mental suggestion but the magister quickly won that battle. The elf, the mabari and the Qunari all tensed in silent suffering as their blood boiled, leaving Alistair the only one unaffected by the spell, though he seemed to be concentrating very hard on something else and shaping words silently with quick moving lips.

"Alistair-" Theron managed to growl out, and the ex-templar nodded in understanding. He began gathering his will, and even Kallian could see it as he suddenly slammed that gathered power over the mage. She felt the cool wash of air as the smite rolled over her without harm, but the mage staggered under it's weight, falling to his knees with a loud groan and the armed soldiers ringing him seemed stunned as the Templar magic hit them. The second that the blood mage was disabled his spell over the three broke and they rushed forward. The mabari charging the line and got his jaws around the first within range, an unfortunate slaver who quickly found his face scratched to tatters by the vicious dog.

Kallian got to her feet as well, shaking off the lingering feeling of the blood magic and reclaimed the short sword she had nicked earlier from the dead slaver. When she went to try out the weapon on the downed mage at her feet, she was stopped by a staggering pulse of energy, the mage glaring death at her from his place on the floor. The Wardens were there then, and everything turned to instant chaos.

Swords screeched against each other as the armed slavers leapt to defend themselves and the magister, one nearly hamstringing Kallian as she struggled to regain her balance after the mage's powerful mental blast. The sharp clang of metal on metal finally pulled her out of the daze when it sounded from right behind her, and she whirled on the spot, eyes wide but all barbs and daggers. Standing at her back struggling to hold off the armored man that had very nearly succeeded in crippling her was Norris. She sprung to his defense immediately, the two easily taking out the single armored man when they put both their strength into it. Kallian struck a fatal blow against the slaver's neck, spraying hot crimson blood all over and he went limp like a sack of flour.

"Norris! Why are you here?" She asked, quickly relieving the dead man of his sword and taking it as her own, pinning the younger elf with a disbelieving stare. "I thought you were with Sticker."

"I was." Norris replied with a lopsided grin. He turned to watch as the three remaining armored slavers and the magister pitted themselves against the Warden's group, the two sides fighting fiercely against one another, apparently matched for strength with their mage only at half power. "But we split when we were being followed. I found the Wardens in the Market, and they agreed to help out."

"An' Sticker?" Kallian asked, hoping that the elf had managed to get somewhere safe. She didn't see him locked up in the cages with the others.

Norris didn't get the chance to answer her question, for at that moment the big bay doors to the warehouse burst open with a clatter of wood and iron, admitting a host of new slavers to the three already doing battle with the Wardens. The one who seemed to be in charge got a look at the chaos and the two free elves that had managed to claim swords, and ordered the others with him to battle in Arcanum.

Kallian grabbed Norris by the wrist and dragged him away from the charging line of slavers. He needed very little urging, and the two ducked around a flailing slaver just as he was stabbed through the middle and then decapitated in a spray of blood by Alistair, who barely even flinched when he noticed the ten others dashing through the box-strewn warehouse. He simply hunkered down and met the charge with a clash of shield and swords, shoving the first one who came at him back, then another quick shield flourish caught the man upside the head, stunning him. Nearby Sten was making a huge dent in enemy morale, the broad sweeps of his weapon denting armor and shattering a blade that had been raised in an attempt at a parry. Under it was the mabari, grabbing ankles and dragging them to the ground screaming, Theron working with deadly precision to strike at the exposed parts of the soldiers when they were busy concentrating on the Qunari that stood a good chance to cleave them in half.

Kallian was so bewildered by how the four effortlessly seemed to work together that she was afraid to join the skirmish to help out. They held their ground for a good long while, but soon enough the numbers pitted against them started to wear at the four's reserves, and Kallian could see that they were tiring. "Got any bombs?" She asked quickly of Norris, who nodded mutely and handed over a few flasks of swirling dangerous looking liquid. She tested the weight of a flask of acid briefly in the palm of her hand, then lobbed the vial over the head of Alistair, the flask cracking with a hiss against the helmet of a man that had just stepped up to face the blonde human. The slaver stumbled backward into another one, screaming and clawing at his face as the acid ate at his skin. Not one to miss such an opportunity, Alistair ran him through, earning a bit of breathing space when the corpse jostled the others behind him, nearly knocking one over.

Wounds appeared on both sides, the formidable offense that the Wardens had started out with slowly becoming a bitter defense as the slavers pressed them into a retreat, though they took heavy losses for the minor gain that it provided them. Then the bay doors were filled with stamping boots and armored bodies as another dozen of the slavers poured in the door. Just as Theron had finished a rather rude explicative in dismay, the force was followed by a second in full battle gear, these new armored fighters obviously not of Tevinter origin.

"Bless the Maker…" Norris breathed in relief, instantly recognizing Aedan at the head of the charge flanked by three others on either side that bore the House Cousland heraldry on their shields. The sudden influx of bodies sowed chaos in the Tevinter ranks, the soldiers running each other over as they tried to figure out what to do when they were suddenly pinned between a well-trained and well-armed force and the group of six that blocked the stairs to the only other exit out of the building surrounded by a pile of dead bodies.

A handful seemed able to do quick math and they charged the smaller group half-comprised of under-protected rogue types. One simply rammed straight into Alistair, locking shields with him and shoving him backward until he was pinned against an awkwardly placed crate. Theron tried to assist him but was intercepted by another wild-eyed slaver who put all of his effort into trying to rip the elf to shreds. The opening was enough, and Kallian suddenly found herself face to face with a very angry and very desperate man that had slipped past Sten and was bent on killing anyone that stood between him and the door out.

They fought for a few frantic seconds, Kallian retreating in the wake of his wild powerful swings, using her faster speed and greater body control to keep from getting sliced to ribbons. Then suddenly she was falling, her heel caught on the bottom stair and tripping her up mid-dodge. In that adrenalin packed second she realized that the slaver had won and would most certainly plunge his blade through her innards with no resistance on her part and her throat closed off in panic. Then Norris was there, awkwardly trying to parry the blow to the side but only half managed the feat. By the time that Kallian hit the stairs, the slaver had cut a deep wound across the young elf's chest, tearing fabric and flesh with a spray of blood.

Norris collapsed at her feet, and Kallian was sure that she screamed for him when he did. The slaver looked slightly shocked at the sudden development, but recovered quickly with a maniac grin and stepped over the prone body to finish the job and make his escape. He jolted and dropped his weapon, turning fully around when a dagger slipped between his shoulder blades and was ripped to the side, only to have his throat slashed deeply enough to nearly decapitate him and crumpled just to the side of Norris' prone body. Theron shot the downed elves a look, then turned on his heel and got back to the battle, his daggers a flurry of blurring metal in his hands when he leapt to the defense of Sten, the Qunari pressed hard to continue to stem the tide of slavers that were trying to make a similar bid for freedom.

Kallian got to her feet despite her protesting muscles and threw herself into the chaotic fray, twisting out of the way of swords and plunged her blades into the back sides of men when they faced someone else to engage in battle and fell back when they turned to her. The battle wound down, and after a few magical explosions and any number of desperate attempts to turn the tides, the Tevinter forces were finally dead to a man, a victory cry coming from the small force that Aedan had brought along for the search and rescue mission when they realized they had won.

But there was no instant surge of joy for Kallian. She dropped her weapons and spun on the spot, her feet carrying her quickly to where Norris still laid on the ground and gently turned him so that she could see his face. He was pale as a ghost, but blinked at her, his eyes unfocused and watery, blood coloring his teeth as he gasped for air with a wet sound in his chest, blood leaking out of the fatally deep wound at an alarming rate.

Kallian pressed her hands to the gash, her fingers instantly becoming slick and crimson with his blood. "Hold on Norris." She whispered, panic in her eyes and her voice as she pressed harder against the wound. "Hold on. You can't die. Yer sister's gonna kill me fer lettin' you get hurt. You can't die!"

He smiled at that, his laugh becoming a wheezing wet cough and then a rattling gasp for breath. "I'm sorry." He whispered, managing to lift a shaking cold hand to his chest and weakly placed it over Kallian's, the smile on his face becoming rapidly more absent as his eyes drifted closed.

"No!" She practically screamed at him, shaking him while still maintaining pressure. "Don't be sorry, you idiot! You saved me! Jus' stay alive! Oh Maker please stay alive!"

Solona rushed to her side, stumbling once when she stepped on the wrist of a dead slaver and it shifted under her foot, but managed to push her way between Alistair and Theron who were staring on at the spectacle in dull silence. They had seen plenty of death and wounds in battle to know better than to think that he was within the mage's ability to heal, and turned away from the scene at almost the same time.

"Solona, heal him!" Kallian choked, her eyes beginning to well up with tears and her throat became strangely restricted. "You gotta save him. You have to save him!"

"I'll try." The mage replied tersely, kneeling next to Norris and let her staff clatter to the ground nearby, placing her hands on either side of Kallian's, her hands glowing with soothing blue light. She frowned, biting her lip when her magic began to falter, the energy that the battle beforehand had sapped at her strength. Even when she managed to close up the surface of the wound somewhat, she realized the severity of it. The sword had punctured deeply, probably tearing into Norris' lungs and any number of other vital organs when it was ripped sideways through him. She simply wasn't good enough of a healer to even dream of saving him from this state. "I'm sorry." She whispered, withdrawing her hands much to Kallian's dismay and bowed her head to avoid the accusing stare that the elf shot her. "I can't…"

"No…" Her voice was tinged with desperation, and a rogue tear finally broke free of her eyes when she met Norris' distant gaze. "You gotta pull through…"

Norris drew another deep breath, his face blanching further at the pain that such a simple action caused. "Sola…" A whisper of breath left him, and Kallian knew that he was dead, his head lolling to the side limply and the hand he had placed over hers slipping to his side.

Solona pulled Kallian into a hug seconds before she burst into loud tears. The normally composed witty elf broke down completely, mourning the loss of the young life ended too quickly, a dear friend that had died to save her.

OMG CHARACTER DEATH! I was this close to killing off Sticker or Rido instead, since they've had a little more face time, but I decided that they have some usefulness left yet and besides, this way Kallian is going to get her ass handed to her by a certain angry older sister. DRAMAAAAAAA~! But lo, what are the Wardens doing back in Denerim? I suppose that you'll just have to find out next chapter!