Happy Fourth of July weekend to all my American readers ... and happy weekend to all the rest of you! Special thanks to WellspringCD for her skilled betaing, and thanks to all of you for reading!
Flemeth's second attempt had gone a long way toward defusing the tensions within the camp. No longer tense from waiting, they were all actively angry—and making this particular group angry wasn't something Jennie would have ever wanted to do, that much she was sure of. Preparations were at a fever pitch, and sparring matches were near-constant, everyone wanting to learn as much from each other as they could. The entire mood of the camp had shifted. Jennie found it pleasantly ironic that Flemeth herself had been the means of bringing them together and solidifying them all as a single team.
Except for Morrigan. The mage kept herself to herself, even shutting out Wulfric. At all hours of the night, she could be seen poring over an old black book, or pacing the perimeters of the camp muttering. Wulfric seemed concerned, but not anxious, so Jennie and the others took their cue from him and gave the mage some space. Wulfric was recovering from the injuries Flemeth had dealt him, but more slowly than Bethany would have liked. She watched him worriedly, wringing her hands. Bethany had never been much of a healer, unlike Anders. But Anders hadn't gone near Wulfric in his recovery, and had gone blue with Justice the one time Oghren had approached him about it, leaving the dwarf bewildered and hurt. Bethany was left on her own to do the healing. Fortunately for all of them, Wulfric was supremely healthy … but it would be a while before he would be effective in a fight again, especially one against Flemeth. Oghren, Fergus, and Fenris would have to take the brunt of any frontal assault Flemeth might choose to mount. Jennie hoped that, having been bold and straightforward in her first two attempts, Flemeth would use more subtlety in her next. Zev, Isabela, and Varric, not to mention Jennie herself, were more than capable of handling subtlety, even from Flemeth.
The child Arthur was restless and unhappy, fidgeting and fussing unless he was in the presence of one of his parents. Given Wulfric's slow recovery and Morrigan's distraction, that had proven difficult to maintain. The rest of the group were straining to find ways to keep the boy entertained. Jennie found him a bit frightening—she liked children well enough, she supposed, but this one was odd, and she couldn't help straining to see the old god in the eyes of the little boy. So far, she'd seen little sign of it outside the battle, when he had looked through his mother's eyes.
After his parents, Varric, not too surprisingly, seemed to keep Arthur calmest. They spent hours together by the fire, Varric telling stories with Arthur's big eyes fixed on him, while the others gave them a wide berth. Arthur wasn't used to so many people, and he found it stressful to be too crowded.
It was getting toward late evening a few days after Flemeth's recent visit. Varric was telling another long, involved story, while Arthur listened, occasionally glancing around in search of one of his parents. The steady thunk, thunk of Isabela practicing with her throwing knives could be heard nearby. Jennie was leaning against a tree, watching them all, thinking that it was a lovely camp, and that if they weren't all waiting for an ancient evil to snatch up a child she could be perfectly happy here.
What startled her, she couldn't have said, but suddenly she was moving, her hands reaching for her bow, as a giant bird of prey swooped silently through the air and caught Arthur by the shoulders, climbing effortlessly back into the sky with him. Varric had moved almost as swiftly as Jennie, brandishing Bianca and aiming her at the bird. The bolt, hastily shot, narrowly missed hitting Arthur as the bird twisted in the air and spat a stream of some kind of green liquid directly into Varric's unprotected face. The dwarf cried out in agony, falling backward on the ground. Bianca flew from his hands, landing near the fire, her stock scorching from the proximity to the heat.
Wings beating strongly, the bird made for the sky. Jennie focused, putting aside the screams of her friend, the movement around the campfire, the stricken white face of the child. The world narrowed to her arrow and the bird's powerful wing.
She knew as soon as she loosed the arrow that it would hit its mark. The scream of pain and anger the wounded bird gave added to the cacophony. Varric's cries were receding into sobs; he had taken the spray of acid full in the face and then had covered his face instinctively with his hands, so that they were coated with the acid likewise. Zev knelt next to him, rummaging frantically through his bag for a remedy, cursing in voluble Antivan. Jennie thought with despair of Bethany, in the Driazis' camp, but there was no time to go for her sister. The bird was falling from the sky, its wing unable to support it. The child was struggling in the wickedly sharp claws, trying to get free.
Everyone else in camp was in motion, shouting at each other as they took up positions around the perimeter. Except Anders. Where in the Void was Anders? Jennie thought, searching the darkness for the mage. Varric's pathetic sobs tugged at her heart—she'd never heard the dwarf make any such sound before.
Jennie loosed another arrow at the falling bird, aiming at the body, hoping to end it once and for all. But as the arrow left the bow the bird lost its hold on Arthur. The resulting shift in weight allowed the bird to gain a bit of altitude on its good wing, although it was swerving crazily in the sky. The arrow missed entirely, and Arthur, his own shapeshifting ability apparently forgotten in his terror, plummeted toward the earth. Fergus sprinted across the dirt as fast as his armor would allow him to go, managing to get under the boy's body just in time to catch him, falling to the ground under the force of the child's landing.
The bird squawked in rage and pain above them. It was coming down, sharp beak pointed toward Fergus, who rolled away, cradling Arthur to his chest. He got to his feet, more nimbly than Jennie would have thought he could. She saw him embrace Arthur and whisper something in the little boy's ear before tossing him to Oghren. The dwarf tucked the boy over his shoulder and disappeared into the underbrush. Zev had apparently given up on finding a counteractant for the acid burns on Varric's face and hands and was dragging the dwarf out of the way. As he passed Bianca he kicked the crossbow away from the fire, leaving it lying forlorn in the camp, stock blackened.
The bird landed as Jennie shot another arrow at it. For a moment, as her eyes met those of the bird, she could see Flemeth in its face. Then, with a sharp cry, the bird's form began to alter. The feathers fell off shimmering away into the air as the body stretched and grew and expanded. Magical energy surrounded the body, and Jennie's arrows bounced off of the barrier. One nearly hit Fergus in the face, and she stopped firing until the transformation was completed.
At last, a dragon stood before them, red and shining and massive, with glittering black eyes that looked down on them all with something approaching triumph. Fergus attacked immediately, shouting at the dragon to catch its attention and hacking away at a front leg with his sword, undaunted by the beast's appearance, and Jennie resumed her archery, hoping her arrows would pierce the dragon's eye. The dragon kicked at Fergus, who dodged the clawed foot. Swiftly and silently, Fenris was with them, his blade held aloft and the lyrium shining in his skin. It occurred to Jennie, as she continued to fire arrows that never quite reached the dragon's eye, to wonder what the elf really thought of this journey they were on. Given Fenris's overall views on magic and its users, he must consider the child Arthur's very existence to be a terrible mistake—yet here he was, fighting valiantly in the little boy's defense.
Isabela was in the trees, a dagger poised to throw, but the dragon moved—with surprising agility for a creature that size—and the dagger bounced harmlessly off its thick hide.
A piercing cry split the air, and another bird, the same kind as Flemeth had been, but larger, hurtled through the air, sharp beak pointed straight at the dragon. The almost human notes of rage and desperation in its voice were unmistakably Morrigan's. Jennie held her arrow, not wanting to hit Morrigan as the bird and dragon closed in battle with one another. Slinging her bow on her back, Jennie drew her daggers and joined the combat, finding Isabela next to her as she reached the dragon's flank. With the dragon's focus largely on the bird, Jennie thought she might have a chance to take out the tendon in the back of the dragon's leg, crippling it that way. Fenris and Fergus, with their longer reaches, were attempting to slash the dragon's wings.
A blast of flame singed the flesh of the attacking bird, and the dragon made a sound that reminded Jennie of Flemeth's cackle. The bird raked its talons across the dragon's nose, sending blood spraying across the campsite, landing in the fire with a sizzle.
"Hawke, you think there are creatures in this jungle attracted to the smell of burning blood?" Isabela asked, avoiding a sudden kick of the dragon's meaty leg.
Jennie didn't even want to think that way, and from the mad grin Isabela tossed her before rolling out of the path of a stream of fire-breath, the pirate knew it.
As the battle dragged on, they were all tiring. Fergus and Fenris were hacking away at the wings whenever they had a chance, holding their swords in the air above their heads at awkward angles they couldn't maintain for long—and the position kept them from being able to dodge the dragon's attacks as agilely as they would have managed to do under more typical combat circumstances. Isabela was more able to dance around at the dragon's feet, but she'd taken a nasty blow to the head from one of the wings and seemed a bit slower on the dodge than usual. Zevran still had charge of protecting the wounded: Wulfric, who Jennie assumed must be in agony listening to the fighting and not able to take his rightful place in it, and Varric, the severity of whose injuries Jennie wasn't sure of yet. They must be extensive, she imagined, because Bianca still lay forgotten in the middle of the camp. If Varric was in his right mind, Bianca would have been in his right hand. The thought of her friend seriously injured stung Jennie's eyes dangerously with tears. She blinked them away, dodging a blow from a clawed foot. She felt the edge of the claw catch in her hair, which she hadn't cut recently, and tug. A sharp pain indicated that the claw had taken some of the tangled mop with it.
Jennie ignored the wound—she'd worry about her hair later, after they won this fight. If they won this fight. She hoped Oghren had carried Arthur someplace defensible. Disgusting as the dwarf was, she had the impression he would gladly give his life to save Wulfric's child.
The one name missing, other than Bethany, who was in the Driazi camp too far away to help even if she knew about the attack, was Anders's. Where was that mage? Jennie thought in frustration, hacking away at the tough dragon-hide with her dagger. All this sawing was dulling the blade, but she appeared to have little other choice at this point. They needed magic—healing, for Varric, and destructive, against the dragon—and there was none to be had.
The bird's buffeting wings were slowing, and while the dragon was bleeding from a dozen wounds, it wasn't tiring at all. If they didn't get some kind of help, Jennie thought in despair, they were going to lose this battle.