"We'll have to scout the area to find somewhere you and the mages can enter the fade," Nathaniel was saying. "Zevran and I can do that. How close do you need to be?"
Neria shrugged. "It doesn't really matter," she said. "We'll enter the fade in our dream and head through the forest again. The main thing is making sure we coordinate the timing of the attack. We need to attack it in the fade at the same time you do so in the waking world."
"Is there any way we can signal you?" Nathaniel asked.
She looked at Anders, who shrugged. "No," he said simply. "But it does like to talk. We can probably delay our own attack longer than you will be able to. Just hit it and hit it hard as soon as you see it."
"Crude," Nathaniel said, twisting his mouth in a smile. "But sometimes effective."
The two rogues left shortly afterwards, leaving them to worry and wait. She stayed close to Anders, unwilling to admit the tense anxiety she felt and finding his presence a comfort.
"You know, I was never much for big confrontations," Anders said to her. They were sitting on a rocky outcrop, the rest of the soldiers milling around as soldiers were wont to do before a battle.
"What happened when you got caught by the Templars? Did you try to fight?"
He chuckled. "The first few times, yes. The joy of being kicked in the head wore off after a while. They never sent just one after me. One I could have dealt with."
"Like you dealt with Tristan?"
He grinned at her. "Hey, I seem to remember you singularly failing to get rid of him too. Perhaps you weren't motivated enough?"
"Oh I was motivated. Exceptionally so. But you were the senior warden in that encounter."
"Mmmm. Deferring to me now, are you? Finally learning respect for your superiors?"
"Don't push me."
"So. Confrontations. They were never good for me. Until I became a warden. I was far more inclined to run away if I had the opportunity."
"You were on your own," she said. "Before you were a warden, I mean. Maybe you just needed back up."
He smiled. "Maybe I did," he said. "Suffice to say I haven't run away for a long time."
"Are you saying you'd like to now?"
He looked more serious. "No. Not unless I knew everyone else would be safe. And I guess we just can't know that, can we?"
"Not unless we eliminate the demon," Justice said.
"Which is what we're here for of course!" Anders said cheerfully. "I just hope those two rogues are stealthy enough."
"Nathaniel's no fool," Neria said. "And I get the impression Zevran isn't either."
"No, our Antivan elf is anything but that. He fought against the archdemon with the King and Queen, you know."
She cocked an eyebrow. "So did Oghren, though."
Anders let out a laugh. "Oh, yes indeed. He could tell us a few stories."
"If he was ever sober enough."
He took her hand suddenly, surprising her. She shifted closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, the nerves she'd been trying to contain released by the unexpected contact.
You are afraid you will not survive, Justice said then. More precisely, you are afraid you both won't survive.
Yes, she said simply.
You have had no opportunity to consummate your relationship, he continued. She couldn't help blushing at that, despite being used to Justice's frankness. This is my fault. I am sorry.
Don't be, she said. It's not your fault. It's the fault of circumstance. She didn't try to suppress the sudden keenness of her regret, she'd learned that Justice was very good at peeling back the layers of her emotions and she couldn't help thinking of the Crown and Lion and how deliciously close they had come - the feeling of his long fingers sliding up her shin just before Tristan's untimely entrance still haunted her dreams. And her waking hours. Not to mention their kiss before the battle at the keep.
She found her breath coming short and had to lift her head away from his shoulder. She squeezed the hand that still held hers tightly.
They were still like that, sitting and waiting, when Nathaniel and Zevran returned an hour later. They looked grim.
"It does not look good," Zevran said softly. "It seems you and your mages will have to remain here - it truly is the last place where the ritual can be performed without interruption. Your demon has surrounded itself with several pockets of undead. We will have to fight our way through them to get to it."
Anders swore.
"We've plotted the most efficient route, but it will still take us at least three hours to get to it," Nathaniel said.
"It only took us a little while to get through the forest, with Justice guiding us," Neria said. "We should probably go into the fade a few hours after you leave."
"I shall leave some soldiers here for your defense," Zevran said.
"No," Anders said. "If we're attacked here it will mean you've failed. I'll set up some glyphs if Nathaniel will lay some traps. If that's not enough to protect us, there's really no point."
They spent a good hour setting up perimeter defenses and ate a meal. When the soldiers left, Neria found herself next to Anders again, with his arm around her shoulders. Branwen and Armand were eyeing them, but she found she didn't really care.
Soon they would enter the fade.
Nathaniel cursed that he couldn't see what was going on in front of him. It was necessary for him to remain out of sight - he knew that. Along with the four archers they had placed in other areas of the cavern. They had been careful on their way here not to let their full numbers be known - in none of the skirmishes they had with the undead had all of them been visible. If the demon had any way of communicating with its forces, it would have little idea that more than a dozen fighters would be storming the cavern.
The problem was, he reflected, that they'd had to leave their mages back with Anders and Neria. A good firestorm or tempest was what was needed for this particular fight. He remembered Velanna before she'd... disappeared at the battle for the Vigil, raining destruction down on the darkspawn below. Her lightning attacks had been devastating and effective and losing her had sapped morale almost to the point where they were in danger of losing.
His heart constricted a little, thinking of the elven mage. Although he knew she and Miranda had never seen eye to eye, he'd found her company refreshing, her beauty... enticing.
They had never found her body.
And now he was facing a demon with no magical backup. Although he knew intellectually Anders and Neria would be facing the demon and in just as much danger as the rest of them, part of him felt resentful that they were so far away from what he saw as the actual combat.
He laughed at himself, that he could think that way. He remembered his father, scorning his use of the bow - calling it a "woman's" weapon. Long range fighting was for cowards - those who didn't have the strength for an axe or a longsword.
An arrow in the back is just as effective, he thought to his long dead father. And probably would have served you better than your axe, in that final battle.
And Neria and Anders would, in a sense, be much closer to the demon than he was likely to get.
When he heard the first clash of weapons he stood, cocking an arrow on his bow, as did the other archers, and started to fire.
They were back on the clifftop. Anders swore softly and Justice - Justice was no longer inside her. He stood next to them on the clifftop, wearing the same armour he had worn when she first saw him in her fade fantasy, transparent. It was odd, being able to look at him, odder still, not feeling him.
"Well!" Anders said, relief evident in his voice. "At least we know you're back as separate entities!"
She grinned at him, thinking of what precisely that meant for the two of them. Justice, however, was looking around at the landscape, obviously puzzled.
"But where are we?"
"My dream," Anders said. "Sorry. It seems to be a powerful draw card for me at the moment. I can create a portal to your forest."
"You'd best do that quickly, then," Justice said. "We have no time to waste."
Anders shrugged and summoned the fade portal, and the three of them stepped through.
The forest had changed. What had once been merely menacing and strange was now twisted and eerie. "I was afraid of this," Justice said. "Without my influence to maintain the forest, the beings imprisoned here have begun to corrupt it. We will need to be cautious."
"Will they be able to escape?" Neria asked.
"I highly doubt it," Justice said. "I created this forest so that only I could navigate it. Even should they escape the individual prisons I have them in, they will never be able to escape the confines of the forest itself."
"We navigated it," Anders pointed out.
"You are mortal," Justice said. "And you are a mage. You have senses we do not."
"We? I thought you didn't place yourself in the same category as demons, Justice."
"Much as I hate to admit it, Anders, we spring from the same source, demons and I. We are related."
"Well, you wouldn't be the first to have relatives you're ashamed of, Justice," Anders said. "Don't worry too much."
They started on their way through the forest. The trees seemed even closer than previously, the undergrowth thicker, darker and more difficult to go through. Justice, however, seemed to have a calming affect on the landscape. Where he walked, the trees swayed backwards out of his way, more light seemed to filter down through the branches and they eventually had him take the lead.
Still, out of the corners of her eyes Neria caught glimpses of things moving - her ears picked up what sounded like breathing, or the rustling of crawly things in the undergrowth - the odd menacing growl. It was supremely unsettling. And on top of it all, the deep, brooding menace that was the pride demon, sitting in the centre of the forest as it sat in its lair in the deep roads, an all encompassing malevolence that drew them ever closer.
When finally they reached the edge of the clearing that held the demon, Neria and Anders were both thrumming with tension and anxiety. She could feel fear pricking at every sense, making her hyper alert and ready to cast at the slightest provocation. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.
They did not need to hesitate, their dual tactics were simple and direct. This would be a show of force, and whomever was the stronger would prevail.
The three of them stepped in unison into the clearing.