Part XXVIII
The Warden's trembling hands quickly went comfort his wounded witch. He stared in horror at the shiny metal blade that pierced her back, unable to remove his gaze from it. She reached out to take his hand, which he gently received. He looked up at her and saw a soft and tender stare, as if she was trying to tell him that it wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared to be. But he knew better than that. Her eyes couldn't hide the great deal of pain she was in. He reached out with his hand and pulled the dagger from her back with a hard tug, causing Morrigan to wince and cry out in pain.
Out of the corner of The Warden's eye, a glinting flash caught his attention. His head snapped up and his eyes honed in on the direction of the movement. There, standing at the farthest edge of the campfire's warm glow, stood the other soldier.
The soldier froze in his tracks when he saw that he'd been spotted by The Warden. It was clear that the man intended on making a run for it and was hoping not to be seen. Now that he had been noticed, however, he looked a bit unsure as to what to do next. Upon closer inspection, The Warden saw that the small sheath against his side was empty. The dagger it held was missing.
"You!" The Warden screamed at the man. "You did this to her!"
Jumping up, The Warden started stomping angrily toward the unsure soldier. He pulled his long blade from it's sheath and stormed ahead. The man panicked. All the color left his face at the sight of the most feared swordsman in Ferelden barreling right at him. His feet refused the frantic commands to take flight. Instead, they rooted themselves to their spot. His only other course of action was to draw his own sword and try fend to off his assailant.
The Warden relieved the man of his weapon in one swift move, flinging the sword far into the woods. The look on the poor soldier's face indicated that he knew all to well what was to come next. He felt the burning sensation of something sharp piercing his belly and looked down to see The Warden's blade sinking deep into his gut. With a sharp twist, The Warden pulled his blade upward, slicing the man from his stomach, up through his ribs. As the blade was withdrawn, the man stumbled forward, falling to his knees in a forming puddle made of his own life's blood. The last thing the soldier ever saw was the blur of The Warden's sword cutting through the air and lopping off the man's head. The beheaded corpse tumbled over and flopped against the ground for several seconds, before becoming motionless.
Seeing his job finished, The Warden threw down his sword and raced back over to Morrigan. He knelt down beside her and took her hand in his. All of the rage washed out of his body when his eyes once again caught the sight of his wounded witch. Fear and worry replaced the grim scowl he held just a few seconds before.
"Morrigan...you're going to be alright." he muttered frantically. "Just tell me what I need to do."
She raised her hand to caress his cheek, unintentionally smearing it with her own blood. "My...my pack." she said; her words strained and requiring great effort.
The Warden turned his head back to the tent, focusing his eyes on Habren. "Bring me her pack!" he ordered. "Now! Hurry!"
"I'm not anyone's servant! Get it yourself!" the spoiled heiress snapped back.
"If she dies, I swear you'll be next!" he threatened fiercely in return. "Now bring me that goddamned pack!"
When Habren saw that The Warden fully meant what he'd said, the girl relented, saying, "Alright, alright. You don't have to threaten me. Where is it?"
"In the back far corner you'll see a small black leather pack. Bring it to me."
The girl disappeared from the opening to the tent as she obediently went to look for the witch's pack. The clang and clatter of items being strewn about could be heard from within the tent, a testament to how quickly Habren wished to be finished with her assigned task. Whether that was because she truly feared The Warden's threat or if she only desired to finish such a menial chore, couldn't be known for sure.
"I don't see anything like that." Habren called out from the back of the tent.
The Warden rolled his eyes in disbelief at the young woman's ineptitude. "It should be on the ground against the back corner of the tent, across from the bedroll."
"Dwemer..." the witch muttered weakly while her slender fingers gave his arm a gentle squeeze, trying to soothe her agitated warden.
"Don't try to talk. Save your strength." he replied, trying his best to seem confident, but his voice cracking. "Habren! Move your arse!" he shouted back at the tent.
The girl inside said nothing, only the sounds of a hectic search could be heard coming from the small cloth and leather structure.
"Habren!" The Warden yelled out again.
Finally, the young woman emerged from the tent, carrying a medium-sized black leather pack by the strap. "Found it!" she called out while she ran to give her prize to The Warden.
"Quick, give it here." he said, holding out his hands to receive the object from her.
With a quick flip, Habren tossed the pack to The Warden, who greedily snatched it from the air and flipped back the flap, exposing a considerable assortment of medicinal supplies. There were several vials filled with liquids of various colors and thickness. Stuffed to the side, bundles of herbs, roots, and other natural medicines lie in separate bunches whose fragrances mixed together in the bag, giving off a strong and pungent aroma.
"I don't know what any of these things are." The Warden grumbled. "What do I use?"
With her blood-covered hand, Morrigan slowly reached out, taking far more effort to accomplish than she figured, to show her warden which of the herbs she required. "That one. The black root." she informed, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
He reached into the pack and grabbed the black root from it, undoing the knot in the string that held the several pieces of root clumped together. "I've got it, now what?" he asked.
"Scrape...scrape some...shavings off...onto a clean bandage. Pour...a few drops from the vial marked...'elven tears'...onto it, then...then place the cloth against the wound." the witch replied, her speech becoming even more labored as the pain became more intense and she weakened from the continual loss of blood.
The Warden could barely force his shaking hands to cooperate enough with him in order to do what was needed. He never had any problems pulling any blade from its place in order to use it before, yet now, his fumbling fingers seemed to dance all around the dagger's handle and the edge of the small sheath that held it against his waist. At last, he was able to jerk it free and use it's razor sharp edge to peel away several chunks of root, which he adjusted so that they sat squarely in the center of a white bandage.
Next, he pulled the small vial of elven tears from the pack and he unplugged the cork stopper from its place with is teeth, spitting the cork out to the side. His trembling hands probably ended up spilling far more of the liquid than was necessary, but he didn't have time to worry about that. With a stiff slap, The Warden smacked the bandage against the witch's back, covering the wound and causing the witch to suck in air sharply.
The white fabric was instantly soaked with blood and turned a deep red. Within seconds of being applied, small drips of the crimson fluid began dripping from the bottom edge and leaking onto the ground next to Morrigan. While that was to be expected, what surprised The Warden is how cold the bandage got. He swore he could see ice crystals starting to form within the fabric. And soon, it even seemed as if the flow of the from the gash had been greatly reduced. He didn't know what sort of magic the ingredients held or what exactly they were doing, he was just thankful that they appeared to be doing something beneficial.
Some of the pain in Morrigan's voice seemed to evaporate a bit and her speech became somewhat easier, although not a great deal. "Now..." she said, "you must heat the tip of your blade in the hottest coals of the fire, 'til the tip glows red."
Although The Warden was unfamiliar with potions and other strange brews, he understood perfectly what the witch wanted him to do. It was something he very much did not want her to have to go through. "Don't you have anything else in that pack of yours that will help?" he asked, hoping there was another way.
The witch shook her head a bit, saying, "There is no alternative, my love. The wound must be sealed."
He knew that his witch was right, of course. They were miles from the nearest village and if the wound were to become infected, which was a likely probability, there wasn't anyone or anything around that would help. He begrudgingly picked his dagger up once again and buried the tip deep into the ashen coals of the burning campfire. The flames wouldn't harm the magical blade, but it would still cause it to glow red-hot when heated enough.
He left the blade in the fire until it was ready to be used for its grisly task. While he waited, The Warden knelt down once again beside his witch. The bandage was continuing whatever magic it was doing on her injury, but she was still very weak and the strain was leaving her ever more exhausted. With a look of deep worry in his eyes, he softly brushed away the stray hairs that covered her cheeks.
"I think it's ready." he noted after glancing over to the fire.
Morrigan said nothing in return, only silently nodding her head in recognition of him. He stood up, went over to the crackling fire, and withdrew the blade from the embers. The tip glowed red hot; the great heat warped the air around it, sending little ripples up into the night. The Warden walked back over to where the witch lay and got down on one knee. He pulled her shirt up higher, peeled away the bandage, and readied the dagger.
"I'm so sorry for this." he said apologetically.
"Do what you must and be quick about it. We've no time for weakness." she replied stoically.
His free hand went to clasp hers, rubbing his thumb back and forth along the back of her hand. He swallowed hard and proceeded.
The witch writhed in agony beneath him while the hot metal seared her bloodied flesh. Morrigan yelled out, screaming from the intense pain which consumed her. Smoke billowed up and the air began to stink of burning flesh. The witch clenched his hand in hers, clutching it so tightly that her nails dug deep into his skin. Unable to handle the noise, Habren covered her ears and turned away. Even Leo seemed to sympathize with the witch's plight and he started to howl in unison with her.
When the deed was done, The Warden cast his dagger to the side, not wanting to be close to the instrument of his wife's pain. He took her in his arms and held her close to him. The witch, weak and in great pain from her ordeal, threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his chest.
"It's alright. It's alright." he said to her gently, as if he were consoling a child. "It's over now."
The cottage had been relatively quiet and free of incident for the past several days, almost as if Alistair and Edalweiss had established a silent truce of sorts between them. They went about their daily routines not really saying anything of importance to one another, instead making casual conversation like they were trying to feel each other out to see exactly where one stood with the other.
Over the course of that time, what they discovered was not at all what they expected to find. Edalweiss began to clearly see the greatness within Alistair, if he'd only let it out once in a while. She was starting to understand why the others often said he wasn't living up to his potential. There was far more to him than he gave himself credit for.
When the conversations would become meaningful, they would talk about how Eamon always held such high expectations for Alistair, even when he was a youth, and how Alistair constantly felt like he was letting the arl down. He feared that he could never be the man Eamon wished him to be. He'd spent his childhood as an unwanted burden who, through some sheer stroke of luck or divine plan, managed to become king of an entire nation. But as was always the way, Alistair managed to louse that up as well. Now, because of his own stupidity and short-sightedness, foreign powers were in control of Ferelden.
Although Edalweiss was not usually one for offering up pity, she found it very hard not to feel sorry for Alistair. She might have had a rougher lot in life than most, but at least she had known her parents and always felt as if they'd loved her very much. Had Alistair been accepted into his own family, things might have turned out very differently for him. He might even have been instilled with the self-confidence that he always seemed to lack. She felt like he'd been deprived of the very thing he needed in order to realize what a great leader he could become.
Edalweiss, on the other hand, was turning out to be even far more complex than Alistair had originally thought her to be. On the outside, he knew her to be flighty and easily distracted, but the more he got to know about her, the more he learned that these qualities weren't especially bad things. As it turned out, those same traits also prevented her from dwelling on the harshness of her life and it allowed her to always try to see the good things in everyone and everything.
Not once did she allow herself to get mired down in self-pity. Alistair soon saw that her bubbly personality wasn't merely a defense mechanism, it was truly how she was. Whether such a thing was instilled on her by her parents at a young age, he couldn't say for sure, but regardless of where it originated from, it allowed Edalweiss to live her life to the fullest and embrace each moment with a joy and zeal he'd never seen before. Life truly was a grand adventure for her that was meant to have every nuance explored and every experience relished.
The ability to carry herself like that in the face of all that she'd been through earned her a newfound respect from Alistair. He found he was becoming genuinely envious of her carefree nature. And after hearing her explain in vivid detail all that she'd endured in her short life, his troubles didn't seem so great anymore. Here she was, a woman who had lost both her sight and her parents at a very young age, someone who'd been transplanted from her home in Nevarra to a land that wasn't her own, and yet she still found the resolve and strength to not just soldier on, but to live; it was something that made Alistair more than slightly ashamed of his often cynical attitude. He might have been the rightful king of Ferelden, but he still felt she was a far greater person than he.
His interest in the small woman was quite a bit different than the attraction he'd felt for Dyana. His former captain of the guard had led a relatively comfortable life, growing up in an average family and raised by two loving parents. It was her two elder brothers that taught her to be a fighter and never back down. Being the youngest of three children was hard enough, but having two much older brothers who pestered her mercilessly meant that either she learned to stand up to them, or become the object of their endless teasing. These were the things that had given Dyana her '"take charge" attitude and turned her into an aggressive, confident woman.
But Alistair finally realized those traits only served to heighten his sexual attraction to her. No matter how much he might have wanted otherwise, he'd based nearly their entire relationship on sex. She was his first love and he'd acted with all the expected inexperience, blowing things far out of proportion in the process. He was starting to think that Dyana might have been right when she said that both of them needed to grow up a bit.
He'd done some very foolish things concerning Dyana. He moved too quickly and tried to force the issue on more than one occasion. When Dyana broke things off, he couldn't understand why she was rejecting him or what he'd done wrong. He felt so sure that he loved her and she him. But his friend The Grey Warden was right, it was nothing more than a physical attraction. He at last understood what Dyana was saying to him in the forest outside West Hill. He promised himself he wasn't going to make the same mistakes again. If he and Edalweiss were meant to pursue a romantic relationship, then he would proceed more slowly this time. He would take things as they come and show patience when needed. For the one thing Alistair knew for sure, if Edalweiss didn't want to take things any further, he wasn't going to lose her as a friend.
Suddenly, Eda came bursting into the den with Muirghein darting around her, jarring Alistair from his thoughts. "Someone is coming!" she exclaimed excitedly.
Alistair jumped up from the plush chair in front of the fireplace. "Who's coming? I didn't hear anything." he said.
"Muiren says he can sense three people headed this way." she replied while the fish zoomed up to Alistair, clicking and chirping as he animatedly tried to convey his story. The fish was so excited that his thin mustache twitched while he bobbed and weaved back and forth, his silky skin shimmering in the fire's light.
Alistair ran over to the corner where he'd stuffed all of his belongings and reached for his blade. "Does he know who it might be?" he asked while he fastened the buckle of his belt around his waist.
"He doesn't think he knows who it is. He knows he knows who it is: Dwemer and Morrigan are back." Edalweiss answered.
Muirghein zipped and danced around Alistair, trying to convince the former king that the small woman was correct. It was almost like he was urging the man toward the front of the cottage so that Alistair could open the door and take a look for himself.
"They're close. Just outside." Edalweiss confirmed.
Alistair allowed the fish to guide him to the door, grabbed the small metal ring, and turned it. The sound of the latch clicking free was soon followed by the moaning creak the door made as it was opened. Alistair stretched his neck and peered around the edge of the door to look outside, and what he saw puzzled him at first. He was clearly able to make out The Warden in the light of the waning sun, but the woman standing next to him didn't look anything like Morrigan. It took him a moment to recognize who she was, but after a bit of squinting and straining his eyes, Alistair saw who it was and was flooded with something he hadn't felt for quite some time: hope.
He'd found Habren and brought her back and she looked to be no worse for wear. Even though he never let himself doubt that his friend would succeed in his quest, the actual sight of the girl standing there was almost too good to believe. "He did it again." Alistair thought.
With a hearty pull, Alistair swung the door wide and bolted outside to jubilantly greet his friend, Edalweiss and Muirghein close on his heels. "You old bastard!" he shouted out. "You actually did it, didn't you? I mean, not that I didn't think that you would, but to really see it. I didn't honestly think there was any way you could possibly...I mean...not that I ever doubted you...it's just that..."
"Alistair..." Edalweiss interrupted. "You're babbling again."
"So I am." he admitted sheepishly. "I'm just happy that he's finally back." he said trying to defend himself. Turning his attention back to The Warden he blurted out, "You're actually back. And you did it...again! Maker's breath, I'm starting to think there isn't anything you can't do."
"There are some things even I can't prevent..." The Warden said softly with a deep somber look on his face. He turned his head to look down at something Alistair hadn't noticed before: A hastily constructed stretcher made of tree limbs and sticks.
One end was held up by The Warden while the other was tied to Leo using some cut straps of leather tied into a makeshift harness. On top of the stretcher, a bedroll had been placed along with a pillow or two. A shocked gasp escaped both Alistair and Edalweiss when they saw who was resting on top.
"Morrigan's been injured!" Alistair exclaimed. "What happened?"
Weakly, the witch rolled her head up to address the former king. "Why dear Alistair, do I detect concern for my well being? I must say that I am rather shocked at such a reaction from you of all people."
"She'll be fine." The Warden added. "It could have been worse than it was. We just need to get her inside and lying down so that she can rest. Where's the demon?"
"Last I saw, she was still inside. Probably looking at us through the window and gloating." Alistair answered.
"She hasn't been all that difficult, actually." Edalweiss noted. "Nothing that we couldn't handle."
"Good." The Warden replied with a nod. "Go find her and let her know that we're back. We'll need to make preparations for her to transfer my child back as soon as Morrigan regains her strength."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, the last transfer took a great deal out of both of them, do you think Morrigan is ready for that?"
"We don't have time to wait. The switch is only viable for a short time. To wait any longer would put the baby at risk. Neither Morrigan nor myself is about to let that happen. Besides, we accomplished what we needed to do so it isn't really necessary anymore." The Warden explained.
"Dwemer...no. I'll not let you do this alone." Morrigan mumbled, her hand rising up to caress him.
"I've made up my mind, Morrigan. I'm done playing these bullshit games. I'm going back to Denerim to put an end to this once and for all."
