Author's note: This chapter has been edited slightly to maintain a 'T' rating. See the author's profile for more information, and a link to the uncensored chapter. Even so, there are some mild allusions to non-consensual sex and a fair amount of violence, so consider this a trigger warning.
"Maker spit on you," gurgled Rendon Howe, as he lay dying on his own dungeon floor. He was an old man, with more salt than pepper in his hair, but he'd fought Alistair nearly to a standstill while Athadra and the others dispatched his two pet mages. "I...deserved...more!"
Alistair leveled his sword at the man's throat. "You deserve as much as you gave to Riordan and Oswyn and the rest," he snarled. The first man was an Orlesian Warden they'd freed from a small cell, while the second was a nobleman's son they'd cut down from a rack. Both had been tortured, and yet they still fared better than a few of the other prisoners in Denerim's dungeon. The bastard prince scoffed when Howe gave no reply, and Alistair stalked away.
Athadra opened the teyrn's throat with a dagger, just to make sure. Once again, in the interests of discretion, she'd left her magic-enhancing greatblade behind-not that discretion had served them well. The ill-fitting armour which Erlina provided had gotten them into the estate through the back door, but almost immediately, one of the serving wenches raised a hew and cry; evidently Howe, like his predecessors the Kendalls, did not allow elves into his guard. Now the halls of the Arl of Denerim's estate ran as red as the dungeons, cobblestones and floorboards soaked with the blood of fools. The Warden shook her head as she picked over Howe's corpse, and she wondered how many were still to die in the shadow of his failed ambitions.
A key let her open the cells in their immediate vicinity; one held a corpse, likely the subject of Howe's visit before the Wardens had interrupted him, but the other two had living occupants. The self-proclaimed Arl of Denerim, Vaughan Kendells, threatened to flay them all alive from the comfort of his own cell.
"Wait," Zevran cautioned, as Athadra moved to abandon the man to his fate. "Is this not the man that the elf told us about? Who liked to take liberties with the young brides of the Alienage?"
"As is my right as their arl," the man pronounced, gripping the iron bars of his cell tightly. "Now get me out of here!"
The Warden turned to face Kendells, her face an unpainted canvas. "What'll I get in return?" Her blood whispered at the back of her mind, yearning to be joined by his, and she let a bit of that hunger show in her eyes.
Kendells took the bait, mistaking her look for avarice. "You-you're brigands, right?" When Athadra inclined her head, he swallowed his distaste. "There's a chest in my room with a small fortune in it." He closed his mouth and worked his tongue until a small iron key poked out from between his lips. "Here," he said through clenched teeth. "You'll get it when I get out of this cell."
Zevran looked alarmed when Athadra opened the cell, but a cold glance silenced his complaints. She handed the key off to Leliana for safekeeping, but when Kendells moved to push past them, Athadra stepped fully into his path.
The man sneered at her. "Let me pass," he demanded. "That was our arrangement."
Even though Athadra had to tilt her head back to meet the man's gaze, she showed no sign of compliance. "Tell me, shemlen," she breathed. "Did any of the girls ever protest your liberties?" The Warden still held the dagger bathed in Howe's blood, and at last the so-called arl had the wisdom to look nervous.
"I...what...that's no concern of yours. Go get your gold, and leave me."
"Funny," Athadra breathed, her crimson eyes glinting. "That's exactly what I had in mind." His throat opened even more easily than the teyrn's had, and his scream of surprise launched a spray of blood directly into Athadra's face. A hand clamped down on her shoulder as she licked her lips, shuddering at the hot-copper taste, but Alistair shook her out of her reverie before she could call up more of Kendells' life from his slowing heart.
"Remember, you swore," the taller Warden reminded her. "Not in front of guests." The arl had fallen, nerveless at their feet, but Alistair motioned to the third cell.
Athadra shook the whispers out of her head and took hold of herself. "Right," she affirmed, and she was glad that she had; the dungeon's last remaining occupant turned out to be a half-mad templar, crazed in the midst of lyrium withdrawal, but she wouldn't trust him to conveniently forget an incident of blood magic, for all that. He babbled and refused to abandon his cell, but he gave them a ring to pass along to his sister-a bann in residence for the Landsmeet-and so they left him to stew in his memories.
Just as Kendells had promised, they found a small chest beneath a bed in one of the chambers. Within was hoarded forty sovereigns, a string of pearls, and a ruby-encrusted chalice of silver banded with gold. Again, Athadra looked to Leliana, since her bow-work generally kept her well back from melee fighting, and the Warden couldn't assume a simple stroll back to Eamon's estate. The bard shut up the chest and made room for it in her pack, trading some of her supplies for space.
In the hallway, Erlina stood waiting with Anora, dressed in armour stripped from one of the guardswomen. "It was just as you said," the elf greeted them. "The barrier to my mistress' room faded not 'alf an 'our ago." The magic had been completely unresponsive to Alistair's talents, which made Athadra certain that it had been cast in blood.
"Yes, well," the Queen of Ferelden sighed, clearly uncomfortable in her bloodied garb. "Let's begone from this place, before we're caught literally red-handed."
"And red-faced," Alistair pointed out, glancing at Athadra's blood-stained visage. She rolled her eyes at both him and the woman she'd suggested he take to wife, and took the lead out to the estate's entrance hall...only to stop up short, when a formidable-looking woman stood in front of a line of archers.
"I am Ser Cauthrien," the woman announced in a cool voice, a magnificent greatblade already in her grip. "You are to face charges for the murder of Teyrn Rendon Howe and his men-at-arms...as well as kidnapping the Queen of Ferelden." Her gaze lit upon Anora, badly-disguised as the sovereign was. "Come quietly, and you will live."
Athadra's throat dried in a heartbeat; every single arrow was pointed at her, and she knew that her poor scalemail was unequal to them. The moment dragged out in her mind-on some level, she knew her heart was racing away in her chest, but every beat seemed to take half an Age to strike against her ribs. The better part of her considered surrender-surely now that Howe was dead, Anora could seek more of her moderation in the Landsmeet, and possibly secure Athadra's release. But a frisson of dread split her spine, visions of her confinement in the Circle Tower rising from the muck of her darkest memories, and she knew in an instant that she could never willingly see the inside of a cage again. With a quick look over her shoulder to Zevran and Alistair, she muttered, "Get her out of here. Now." Before either of them could respond, she stepped into the hall.
"No further," Cauthrien called. "Surrender your weapons."
The Warden crossed her arms over her belly, gripping her daggers tightly. "I can't do that," she called, hearing her long-dead fellows chant in her memory. In death, sacrifice. "I'd rather die." When she took another step, Athadra's flesh and armour took on the ghostly quality of the Arcane Warrior she'd become in the Brecilian Forest, and she launched herself at the knight with a cry to match the clash of her daggers with Cauthrien's sword. The woman matched her blow-for-blow, turning the longsword so deftly that Athadra's daggers could not find purchase.
The elf's borrowed armour offered no more protection from the archers than she'd expected, but her proximity to their commander stayed many of the bowmen's strings. A stumble saw the Warden retreat a step down the stairs, distance enough to risk a shot, and fire seared into her shoulder as an arrowhead buried there. She did not see the others getting away, but when the hilt of Cauthrien's greatblade shattered her nose into a dozen pieces and darkness stole over her, Athadra's last hope was that Alistair had escaped with Anora.
The Warden had thought that death was the end to pain-the Void, as the Chantrists called the place-that-wasn't where unrepentant sinners went to disappear utterly, where there was nothing to feel or think, not even blackness. Just nothing. And yet there had been darkness, as heavy as a snowbank, and bouts of agony almost great enough to claw that darkness back.
Pain bloomed across her non-existent face, and her flesh came back into her focus as tendrils of agony licked down her neck to her shoulders, her flanks, and...deeper in her abdomen. As slowly as a sunrise, Athadra realized that she wasn't dead after all. The low light of the dungeon stabbed into her eyes when she opened them, and her wrists and ankles ached where manacles had bitten into them. With a sickening jolt, the Warden knew that she hadn't seen a rack, but her limbs had been held apart in the night, while she lay on the brink of death.
A clammy finger poked at her shoulder, and Athadra felt a surge of panic rise that she'd thought she'd left behind her in the Circle Tower. Unable to think, unable to breath, the Warden simply acted; she grabbed the stranger's offending hand, using him to lever herself up. An instant later, her fingers fastened about the man's throat like an iron vice, and he fell back into the bars of their cell with a strangled cry of surprise.
"A...Ath..." The man's blue eyes registered shock, but not a hint of malice, and a familiar susurrus sounded from her blood, cutting through the terror and desperation that overwhelmed her senses. The Warden recognized Alistair at last, just as the light began to fade from the edge of his vision, and she threw herself back from him with a half-concealed sob.
"I...sorry," she called thickly, after she'd backed into the bars in the opposite corner of the cell.
The other Warden coughed and caught his breath, before he blushed and looked away from her. They were both naked as they'd been on their namedays. "It's...alright," he managed. "You were calling out in your sleep...well, screaming, even worse than a darkspawn-dream." Alistair swallowed with difficulty.
"What are you doin' here, Alistair?" Now that she'd regained her senses, Athadra's eyes narrowed.
"I told you I wasn't leaving you again," the man said stubbornly, forcing himself to look at her. "The Queen is safe-the guards complained about Zev and Leliana slipping through their fingers." His grimace drove a spike into her gut as he looked over her. "Are you...alright?"
Athadra's hands shook as she felt over her ribs and legs. Nothing was broken-save her nose-but the ache that settled between her thighs confirmed the cause of her earlier panic. "I'll live," she hissed through her teeth. "You might want to close your eyes, though," she warned him as she felt the ruin that her nose had become.
"Why?"
Alistair tilted his head, but she saw him comply with her advice just before she turned her face into the bars and smashed the cartilage against the iron. Fresh blood rose in answer to the assault, and she used the life energy it gave to guide her healing energy. After a moment, she'd reshaped the hard flesh so that she could breathe again. It was still squashed a bit flat, but it would serve until she could see a competent healer.
"Are you alright?" Athadra looked her companion over, and saw that he hadn't avoided the guards' rough handiwork, either. Fresh bruises crisscrossed his torso and thighs.
Alistair shrugged. "I'll live," he shot back. "At least for a few minutes." She heard his stomach rumble, and felt her own tighten in sympathy. "We're in Fort Drakon. I think it's been about a day," he supplied, answering her unvoiced queries. "They haven't fed us, and it doesn't look like they're going to. There's a guard at the door, but no one else here."
"Except for corpses," the Warden supplied; as bad as her nose was, even she could smell the decay and offal wafting up from some pit nearby.
"They're stacked down there," Alistair confirmed. "There's a rack, too-I saw it on the way in. Looks like when the guests die on it, they just toss them onto the pile." He shuddered and looked at her again; his lips parted, but he seemed to think better of it.
Athadra's brow arched. "What?"
Another swallow, and Alistair shook his head. "Well, there were more guards here when we arrived. They took you down the stairs, and I...thought you wouldn't come back up again. Then some others came for me."
The elf drew in a breath and set her fingers to work, guiding her healing light into her belly. The pain within her receded, but didn't entirely subside. "Looks like we both made it," she breathed.
Alistair's smile was tinged with a bit of sadness. "Now how in the Maker's name do we get out of here?"
Athadra glanced back at the single guard at the door; he eyed them warily, but wasn't close enough to hear their conversation. Nevertheless, she mouthed 'Be quiet' to her fellow Warden. Her stomach clenched at the plan she'd come up with, but she swallowed hard, and eased herself to her feet. She'd cut through too many bastards and Blighted wretches to let a single guard stymie her. The Warden turned to face the man, doing her level best to remember Isabela on top of her. "You," she called, hoping the hitch in her voice hadn't come from fear.
The man sneered, but his eyes caught on the sight of her, pressed up against the bars. "What ye want, kife-ear?"
The Warden licked her lips, taking strength from the remnants of blood her nose had given. "I feel...lonely," she replied, and she let her tongue slither over the rusted iron of the bar beside her face.
The guardsman's eyes widened, but then he stopped short, wariness crossing his features. "You got the bastard with ye," he observed. "Why'ncha straddle him? I can watch jus' fine from here."
Athadra forced herself to laugh. "Him?" A disdainful glance showed her Alistair's concern, but she subtly shook her head before returning to her quarry. "He weren't man enough for me. You look like you just might be."
"Oh, I know I could be, at that," the guard said with a leer.
The elf's grip tightened on the bars, but she fought down the urge to scream. With a steadying breath, Athadra found a reservoir of calm. One finger at a time, she took one of her hands off of her bars and let it slide down her flank, to her hip. "Wouldn't you like to say you'd had me screamin' on top of you? Something to hold over the other gents on patrol?"
A moment of indecision passed, but the guard's eyes didn't move away from the Warden's finger, and when it nearly disappeared inside of her, he finally gave her a nod and moved closer. "Alright," he acceded. "Step back from the door, now..."
Athadra did so, backing up to the filthy brick wall that the cell had been erected against. Alistair still seemed alarmed, but he made no move to stop the guard when he opened the door and crossed the threshold. The Warden didn't need to force the hungry smirk that crossed her lips as the man worked at his chainmail skirt, for her blood was already whispering to her, urging her on. "Come closer," she urged him, her heart pounding a symphony in her ears.
When the guard took a step forward, she let out the scream she'd offered up, launching herself at him with such force that he fell back over the threshold, halfway out of the cage. Before he'd hit the ground, Athadra threw off his helmet and tilted his head back, so that the crown of his skull was the first to hit the stone floor. The man's blood sang to her as it pooled beneath the mangled wreck of his skull. Without thinking, Athadra reached for the shortsword at his back, yanking it free from its scabbard with a grunt.
"Athadra..."
Alistair's voice sounded wary, and slightly disturbed, but the elf paid it no mind. Instead she ran her left arm down the edge of the stolen blade, opening her flesh from wrist to elbow. Her blood flowed freely, but it never hit the body beneath her; the crimson droplets rose in a haze about the Warden, soon joined by the dead guard's lifeblood, until she saw nothing but red all around her. The blood mist swirled in ever-tighter circles, caressing her skin and soothing her hurts until it soaked into her veins through the gash in her arm. Not a drop remained anywhere near the cell; the dead man lay utterly drained. As she stood, the Warden felt his lifeblood blending with hers, causing her veins to hum with pleasure.
"Maker, I'll never get used to that," Alistair swore, but he got to his feet easily enough. "What's your plan?"
The Warden had already discovered the crate that held their weapons and the ersatz armour Erlina had somehow procured for them. Along with their share of the poultices and other stores, Athadra found Morrigan's ring, and she slipped it onto her third finger without a second thought; a shiver crawled up her arm when she felt that it was still warm, just like the witch's skin had always been. "Plan?" Athadra scoffed offhandedly, as she tossed Alistar's chainmail at his feet and started to don her own scales. "I'm going to carve a crimson river out of this gods-damned hole. You?"
Alistair grunted his assent, and after a few moments, the pair of them were armed and armoured once more. Athadra kept her found blade, dual-wielding it with one of Duncan's daggers, while the human Warden readied his sword and shield. Like her, he'd left his more conspicuous weapons in Eamon's care, but his unadorned blade would serve. They both gave a few practice swings, and when Alistair winced, Athadra set about easing the worst of his bruising over his protests; whether he could tell that her mana was still drained, and so knew she was using stolen blood to fuel his own healing, the elf didn't bother asking.
"Ready?" She asked, when his bruises had melted away. He nodded to her, and together, they emerged from Fort Drakon's dungeon and stepped into the maelstrom. Athadra was at once disturbed and grateful that she hadn't been truly conscious for her special treatment, for while her imagination grafted guilt into every man's face she came across, some part of her knew that most of the raw boys she put down were little more than peasants conscripted by Howe himself. Yet, in plain armour and dull arms, the two companions acquitted themselves as Grey Wardens, bringing death to any foolish enough to stand and fight them.
