Huge thanks to my very patient beta, WellspringCD, and to all of you who continue to read, especially those who take the time to review!
As he surveyed the carnage left from the battle, Loghain was as pleased as he'd been with anything since before Ostagar. At least. The recruits had fought well; Oghren and Shianni, for all their distasteful personal habits, were deft and enthusiastic fighters; and with the amount of fighting he'd done this year, skills he'd thought long atrophied were coming back to him. Perhaps this Grey Wardening wasn't such a bad idea, he mused. Certainly he'd prefer to spend his time fighting darkspawn than trying to eke a living out of the blight-touched land of his farmhold.
He checked on the recruit with the leg wound. The boy was holding his own, the leg neatly bandaged. Oghren loomed over Loghain's shoulder. "Huh," said the dwarf. "Spent so much time travelin' with a mage, almost forgot how to tie one o' those. Good thing to mention to the Commander later—never know when yer mage is gonna go and get herself kidnapped." Loghain looked up at the dwarf in surprise. It was the most sensible thing he'd heard Oghren utter yet. Then Oghren belched loudly and shouted, "Bronto, ya see where I put that mug? Battle has me dry as the very Stone."
Loghain shook his head with a sigh. It took all kinds, he supposed. He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile to the injured recruit and went to inspect the bodies of the men they had fought. He had hoped to keep one alive, but the recruits had been a tad overzealous. The bodies were laid out neatly, prepared for a pyre later. Their armor was a hodge-podge, no two pieces seeming to match … but much of it was Templar issue. For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what exactly had happened to the Templars of Ferelden when his simp of a son-in-law had removed the mages from Chantry oversight.
"Hey, nug-humper!"
Loghain turned to look at the dwarf. "I hope you aren't expecting me to answer to that … appellation."
"Worked, didn't it? 'Sides, it was good enough for the sodding King o' Ferelden." Oghren smirked up at Loghain, as if daring him to make any of the cascade of comments that remark was asking for.
"What do you want?" Oral sparring with the dwarf was an activity best left to Shianni, who could do more with her mouth than talk.
"Feel 'er down there? Elf's still alive. Ought to see if we can get in there."
"Right." He did feel it, now that Oghren brought it to his attention. Raising his voice, Loghain called the recruits in. "We're going to find an entrance into these ruins. Be prepared for … anything. And for the Maker's sake, if you run into Velanna, remind her who you are before she chokes you with a tree!"
Several of the recruits looked uncomfortable at this, but Loghain thought if they were going to be Grey Wardens, they should know that their fellow Wardens could be as dangerous as anything they were likely to go up against. Leading the way inside the vine-covered ruin, he wondered if he was to blame for the Commander's tendency to pick up homicidal maniacs as companions—after all, he was the one who had sent the Crow after her in the first place.
They slashed their way through the vegetation creeping across the floors of the ruin, trying to make as little noise as possible. As they moved, Loghain felt a growing sense of apprehension—Velanna should have been able to use all this growth to tear apart the ruins and anything, or anyone, inside them. If she couldn't … well, the taint proved she was alive, but in what condition? He wasn't particularly fond of the elf, but she had been under his protection. Anyone who had harmed her had committed a personal affront on Loghain Mac Tir, and he would make them pay.
He stopped stockstill, shaking his head and snorting at himself. The Commander and her blood-lusty lunatics must be contagious.
As he stood there, he heard a sound coming from beneath his feet, a pounding. Gauntleted fists against metal, if he had to guess.
"Oghren!"
"Nug-humper?"
"Please stop calling me that." He glowered, but the dwarf grinned unabashedly. "Can you use that Stone sense of yours to get down there? It must be a tunnel of some kind, but damned if I can see an entrance."
Oghren looked around thoughtfully. "It's not dwarven construction," he said. "Sodding elves. Sorry, bronto baby."
The elf leered at him. "You can make it up to me later."
"You bet your sweet ass," Oghren crooned.
Loghain wanted to vomit. But Shianni was walking around the edges of the ruin, studying the walls. "Often there's a way to hide the stairs, or at least, there is in all the legends the elders tell." She ran her hand along the moss-covered walls, small fingers feeling for a pattern. Loghain paced impatiently. He could still hear the pounding beneath his feet, and the rising tension made him want to start ripping stones out of the floor. At last Shianni gave an excited cry. She'd come to an area of the walls where the moss and ivy were sparse, remnants of the vegetation crumbled on the ground. She stood back, studying the runic writing there, and then confidently pressed three places on the wall in rapid succession. With a grinding sound, the stone began to move, revealing a set of stairs that wound deep into the ground.
So much for a stealthy entrance, Loghain thought, wincing at the tremendous noise the wall made. When it subsided, he noticed the pounding had stopped, as well. Might as well go in full force, then. "Oghren, you're first."
"Aye." The dwarf brandished his weapon, beginning the descent into the earth. Loghain hoped he was sober enough to make it down in one piece. He followed the dwarf, motioning the recruits to get in line behind him, with two remaining at ground level to make sure no one caught the rest by surprise.
He heard Oghren's battle cry before he reached the first turn of the stairs, and quickened his pace. Two armored men with Templar bucket helmets were engaging the dwarf, and heavily outmatched. Oghren ducked a sword thrust that was aimed too high to have done the dwarf any real damage anyway, hacked his blade into the body of one of his opponents, and with a scream that halted both Loghain and the Templar in their tracks, yanked the blade out of the first body and sliced it into the neck of the second Templar. Both men were dead by the time the recruits made it down the stairs.
Another pair of Templars came from the other end of the hall, their weapons already raised. Loghain nodded to two of the recruits—Jonah, a young fighter from Rainesfere, and Margilde, a nondescript little woman who seemed defenseless until she had daggers in her hands. Jonah set himself to block the hallway, keeping both Templars occupied with sword and shield, and Margilde ducked unnoticed behind them, her daggers finding the chinks in their armor. All in all, surprisingly easy, Loghain thought. But then, he assumed the Templars had drained the mages' power before they took them, and few mages were trained to fight without magic. Another thing to mention to the Commander.
"Elf's in there," Oghren said to Loghain, jerking his head toward a door set into the wall. "Yo, elf girl!" the dwarf shouted. "Rescue's here!"
Loghain tried the door. "Velanna!"
Shianni caught Loghain's arm. "Sh!" she said. Her more sensitive elven hearing had picked up on something from within the room. Within a few moments, everyone in the corridor had silenced. Even Loghain could now dimly hear someone inside the room … singing?
"I know that song!" Oghren brayed. "'I'm Calenhad the Great, I am'," he joined in, before Shianni smacked him on the arm.
Loghain pounded his fist on the door. "Velanna! Open this door!"
Then a voice, not Velanna's, spoke, sharp and cold. "Oghren?"
"By the Stone, it's the titty witch!"
'Titty witch'? Loghain was fairly certain he didn't want to know.
There was a scraping sound, and the door opened a crack. Loghain could see a strange golden eye, more animal than human, peering through the door. "Do not try anything," the woman warned.
"We want the Grey Warden Velanna," Loghain informed the woman. "We will not leave without her."
The door opened the rest of the way. A beautiful young woman stood there, staring coldly at Loghain, her amazing eyes holding his. Then her gaze shifted past him, looking down at the dwarf. "Oghren," she said. "Not who I would have expected to meet here."
"Same here," the dwarf said.
"Morrigan," Shianni piped up. "What are you doing here?"
Morrigan? This was the famed Witch of the Wilds who had traveled with the Commander during the Blight? Loghain looked her over with renewed interest. He supposed he remembered seeing her during the battle of Denerim, but he didn't think he'd ever been this close to her. She met his eyes squarely, a hint of amusement in the back of hers, an acknowledgement of his primal male reaction to her scantily covered body.
A woman's voice lilted that dreadful song over their heads, and Loghain looked past Morrigan farther into the room. Velanna was curled up against the wall, singing to herself and occasionally stopping to laugh in a very disturbing way. Not that Loghain could imagine a way Velanna could laugh that wouldn't be disturbing, come to think of it.
"What's wrong with her?" Oghren asked.
"Lyrium," Morrigan said briefly. "She will recover once it has left her system."
"You never said why you're here," Shianni said.
"You are … Soris's cousin, yes?" Morrigan frowned at the elf. "I should think it would be obvious—I was captured, and brought here against my will."
"By these men?" Loghain thought it was high time he took charge of the situation.
Morrigan glanced at the dead bodies with contempt. "These, or others like them."
"What did they want?"
She raised a slender dark eyebrow. "What do men always want? Power. In this case, this man," she inclined her head into the room, toward a miserable-looking blond man held to the wall by tree roots, "was attempting to determine what makes a mage a mage. An interesting question."
"And what does?"
"He was not able to find the answer. Apparently whoever is in charge of this operation believes it is in the blood. Other mages they took were bled until there was no more blood to experiment upon. Circle sheep, no doubt." Morrigan's lip curled in disdain. "Pitiful."
"How did you escape?"
"Need you ask?" The golden eyes met his again, hard and haughty. "I am more than a match for any Templar, much less one whose brains have turned to mush through years of lyrium abuse." She glanced at Velanna, who was being helped to her feet by Shianni. "She was useful, as well. Dalish mages tend to be less cowed than the products of the Circle Tower, although still limited by tradition." Morrigan swayed slightly, her eyes fluttering closed, and Loghain was at her side in an instant, holding her elbow firmly. He noticed how pale she was, wondering how long she'd been held captive. He noticed, as well, the hand that strayed to her stomach as she swayed, and how she snatched the hand away when she regained her balance. "Thank you," she said coolly to Loghain.
His eyebrow quirked upward as she tore her elbow out of his grasp and moved steadily out of the room toward the stairs. At a nod from Loghain, Oghren followed her. Loghain stood, watching, as she moved through the doorway, speculation rampant in his mind … not all of it related to whose child she might be carrying.
As Morrigan disappeared out of sight, he turned to deal with Velanna.
"Loghain," the elf said, "how nice to see you!" She was bobbing up and down as if to music only she could hear, and she began humming again. She staggered and would have fallen if Shianni hadn't been holding her arm.
"So this is what being lyrium addled looks like," he said to Shianni. "She'll be mortified when it wears off. I think she actually smiled."
Shianni grinned. "Don't think we're going to let her live it down, either."
Loghain turned to deal with the Templar stuck to the wall. "Anything to say?"
"You—You shouldn't interfere!" The young man's eyes were wide. "This is important work. Cul—Our leader says so!"
"Which part?" Loghain snapped. "Murdering mages, or stuffing them full of lyrium for your personal pleasure?"
The blank look passed from the boy's face. "They did that themselves! They tricked me, the witches."
"Imagine that," Loghain said drily. "Who is your leader?"
"I can't tell you that! Please, he'll kill me."
"The way you wanted to kill those mages?" Loghain loomed over the young ex-Templar. "How many? How many mages have you caught and killed?"
"I don't know." The boy squirmed uncomfortably. "I lost count. I have … blackouts." He began to whimper and cry.
Of course. Lyrium addiction. Loghain shook his head at the sheer waste of it, and began to think better of young Alistair's decision to grant freedom to the mages. If this was what happened to the Templars who were supposed to watch over the mages and protect them, from themselves and from others, the mages seemed better off without them.
"Chop him down, then tie him up," Loghain snapped at a recruit, turning away from the boy. He would have to get his answers later.