AUTHOR'S FOREWORD: Note that this chapter is part of a double upload, being posted minutes after the previous one.
Chapter Ninety One: The Valley of the Shadow of Death
We continued our climb out of the underground, this time contested every step of the way. I had put the melee fighters up front to lead the way, the better to save bullets. The mages were in the middle, to maintain barriers, while those of us with firelances or bows brought up the rear.
It was a brutal slog for the warriors, as Venatori slave soldiers and a few mages threw themselves at us. All to prevent our getting to the castle courtyard again. We still cleared every room that we came across, that particular duty left to we Trojans. We found some interesting documents, including Alexius' own notes, but didn't have time to read much.
They failed. The power of our mages protected our sword-wielders, effectively rendering them invulnerable to any weapon powered by ordinary muscle alone and to the small number of Venatori mages too. We did not have to shoot a single bullet.
The Venatori ran out of bodies, to put it politely. Or, to put it honestly, we slaughtered them all.
I was impressed with the skill of Pentaghast, Rainier and even Iron Bull. They were extremely efficient in their lethality, with the Bull relying as much on hitting the right spot as his sheer strength.
Thanks primarily to them, we made it outside into the courtyard, still breathing. The dungeons did not connect directly to the castle keep, it seemed, but rather to a multi-purpose blockhouse built directly into the outer walls. We would have to cross the space in order to get to where Alexius was.
But as we exited, we were compelled to stop. Our group anyway, not the Inquisition team.
It was easy to see why people would call it the end of the world. Fade energies swirled in the sky, turning it a bright green rather than its natural blue. Parts of the land around the castle were floating in the air, including pieces of the Imperial Highway and statuary from the nearer Chantry chapel. Red lyrium crystals rose out of the ground, consuming trees and bushes, and three hellgates were open in the courtyard.
Demons were everywhere, though they had not noticed us yet. We joined the Inquisition crew in ducking down behind some stone divider walls that separated the various sections of the courtyard.
"What the hell happened here?" I thought aloud. Was this our future if we failed?
"I'll be happy to tell you," Nightingale responded angrily from beside me, "After we kill Alexius." I glared back at her, making a fake smile to concede the point without grace.
I paused to look at our new friends, noticing the entire Inquisition group were far worse than I thought they had been. In the dark of the underground, only the glowing eyes were really giveaways about their condition. In the daylight, we could see that it was much worse. Their skin was pallid, and around their eyes were subtle dark rings, like they hadn't slept in days. Their veins were also visible, and darker.
My determination to get the hell out of there grew. I didn't want to see Ciara, Armen or even Leha develop those symptoms.
"What should we do?" Aurelia asked, "Should I close the hellgates?"
"Hellgates?" Solas asked.
"The rifts," Aurelia said, irritably.
"You can close them?" he pressed, "How? Tevinter has no knowledge of such magics."
"I can close them if nobody is interrupting me," Aurelia growled, "We're trying to plan here, shut up."
Solas' chin went up in haughty dismissal, and he stalked off. Clearly not a fan of Vints or being told to be quiet. Then again, what person declared a 'god' ever is happy about the latter.
"No point in closing them," I said, "We can't hold the castle ourselves, we don't gain anything by keeping them outside the walls. We fight our way past the demons and put Alexius down like the reality-shattered prick he is."
My own companions nodded enthusiastically, making sure their own weapons were ready.
"And what is your plan to fight off those demons?" Pentaghast asked, seriously, "There are at least fifty."
I smirked. We were back in reality and the Veil had not come down fully. I could feel the difference; I was suddenly more at ease, as if my nature as an Earthling was more comfortable, not unlike how I felt after I exited the Crossroads after a journey through the eluvians. It had been the case before, but I felt it quite acutely now.
Which meant we were once again demonbane.
"Bit of a change in our formation for this bit," I said, "Those of us with the gaatlok weapons are going up front, except Ciara and Leha, who'll stay in the middle to mop up stragglers. Pentaghast and her crew will cover our flanks. Aurelia, Dorian, Armen, rearguard."
Pentaghast looked at me like I was child who had just suggested charging like a fool, but she was too polite to outright call me a moron after we had rescued her. That alone endeared her to me far more than her counterpart ever had at that point. So it was Iron Bull who coughed pointedly to draw attention to what they both probably felt was a flaw in our plan.
"And if they charge you? Or if the tall ones with claws pop up out of the ground?" the Qunari spy suggested, "I see Tama there has a sword, but that's not going to save you. Hope those weapons of yours are as good as they sounded."
"Let us worry about that," Mariette said, "This is our thing. You'll see."
"Have a little faith, baby!" I said, imitating a character from a film, "And knock off those negative waves!" All except Nightingale did not appreciate the reference, and the exception was too busy staring at the door to the castle keep to notice anyway.
I always enjoyed shocking people with my magical immunity, and a little demon slaughter was just what the doctor ordered for my mood.
We advanced stealthily. The main courtyard area was higher up than we were, so we were able to duck down and climb the two sets of steps until just before they brought us there, all unseen.
A quick glance confirmed what we were seeing from below; lots of demons hanging around, seemingly not killing each other. Rage, despair, Shades, wraiths, lesser terrors... a strange mix. There was one large hellgate in the middle of the space, surrounded by three large red lyrium crystals. Two more hellgates were in corners, opposite the way to the keep.
I had a brief moment of doubt. "Piece of cake," I muttered to Tam, "Let's hope I'm right and we're immune to the claws." There was no shortage of creatures out there with them.
Tam leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, earning an explosive splutter of surprise from the Iron Bull further down the steps. "Let's go," she said, "Our way home to Helen, Roxane and Mark is through the demons."
Morale restored.
"Stand up!" I commanded, "Advance by fire and movement!"
"Wait, what about barriers?" Solas asked from the rear. We ignored him.
Julie rushed to the front and levelled her heavy firelance across the top of the stone wall, and began shooting.
Tracers tore through a despair demon, and then a group of lesser terrors, as the rest of us broke cover and fanned out. The demons were disturbed by the attack, running or floating about, most looking for cover and acting more like people than you usually saw. The Fade leaking through had made the environment more familiar, and they had their mental faculties.
The exceptions were the Rage demons, who did not hesitate to throw up magical barriers and begin slinking our way.
With the suppression of the enemy perfectly executed, Julie gathered up her weapon again and ran to join us, leading everyone else out of the cover. A quick glance confirmed that everyone had formed up like I asked, and it was back to paying attention to the front. We paired off, each of us took turns shooting, while the other moved up reloaded. My drill instructors would've been proud, I think.
The demons began casting off spells against us in response. Ice beams came in, lancing across the air. Fireballs exploded around us. We cut a swath through the demons in our way. Our magical immunity kept us safe, and the firepower of our own weapons kept attention firmly on us, and not the others. Well... mostly.
We were directly under the hellgate when the inevitable happened; someone else got hit with a spell.
There was a cry of pain. "The dwarf is down," Ciara reported from the rear, "Theirs, not ours."
"Halt!" I called, turning around, "Everyone, keep a perimeter." Tethras was indeed on his ass, an icicle through his thigh, while Solas attended to him. The others fended off demons as they came, protecting him... but the ice was melting, and with it, anything keeping the blood inside him.
"What happened?" I asked.
"His barrier was breached," Solas said, "There are too many of the demons to concentrate solely on maintaining them." Doubting that, I looked for Aurelia; she could certainly pull it off if she wanted. I was wrong. Along with Vivienne and Dorian, she was sending barrages of spells back the way we had come. Demons had climbed over the walls and had followed us. Hundreds of them.
"Pick him up!" I ordered, "Let's move!"
I crouched and threw one of Tethras' arms over my shoulder, Solas doing the same with the other, and together we lifted him off the ground. He clung stubbornly to his crossbow as the whole group began moving again. Resistance between us and our objective dried up entirely once we got away from the central hellgate, so we moved on.
The demons closed in, waves of them coming on. Inside a minute, no less than three terror demons attempted to teleport from underneath me, forcing me to stop shooting and stomp on their heads before they burst up and knocked me over. The mere touch caused their heads to dissolve, as expected, but little things like that almost saw us overwhelmed; every single one of us had to deal with incidents like that. Thinning the horde's numbers was difficult when you were busy fending off attacks like that.
My people were ready, either being able to do exactly what I did or armed suitably for it. Ciara drew her pistol more than once to deal with the fiends, before resuming firing, for instance. Others were not. The spells coming at us like they were being produced by a machinegun or a fire hose, straining even Aurelia's impressive defences.
The Madame de Fer was caught from behind, bowled over forwards before anyone could stop it, and caught all three claws in the back. Her dirty white mage robes bloomed red. The terror demon responsible shrieked in triumph before Julie shot it in the back, almost exactly in the same place it had hit Vivienne.
The Iron Bull was the next to die. The vitaar warpaint that he used as torso armour, like many Qunari warriors, had degraded in storage over the course of a year and there was no other armour to give him. He went into the fight bare-chested. When his barriers failed, he was in the process of fighting two Rage demons. They spewed fire, catching his legs and right arm.
His flesh cooked and sizzled, even as he plunged his greatsword into the middle of one of the offending demons. But he could barely move or swing the weapon any more, his arm and leg muscles ruined. Despite Nightingale and Mariette loosing arrows and bullets into the crowd to cover his retreat, a half dozen Shades made it through when the latter was reloading, rushed him and tore him to pieces.
Despite having been happy to see both locked up before, the death of Vivienne and the Iron Bull gripped me with terror. It was only a matter of time before one of my own companions, lacking my immunity to magic, was killed. Aurelia's barriers protected them, sure, but even her magic was not endless.
And it wasn't long before that fear was realised, or very nearly.
We made it all the way to the reinforced main doors of the castle keep, the opposite one to the one we had used to enter it before all this time travel crap started. Tam got them open, and I handed her Tethras, returning to the fight. After that, the most vulnerable of us to magical attack ran through to shelter behind the thick iron and wood. Pentaghast, Rainer, Nightingale, Ciara, Armen... and Leha.
My dwarva friend was the last to break off and make a run for it. She moved through our mages, who were still furiously swinging and pointing their staves at anything, and made it almost to the threshold.
Lightning bolts swung down from the walls. My eyes were drawn up to the top of the walls nearby; it was blue-purple wraiths, shooting electrical attacks at us. They weren't the most impressive bolts I had ever seen, but that didn't matter. They had a clear line of sight on all of us, so I targeted them. The lightning struck again before the bullets did the job.
"Leha's down!" Julie cried, desperation rising in her throat.
Her barriers had been shattered by the first barrage of lightning. The second had taken her off her feet, sending her writhing to the ground. Seeing her limp body on the ground, I stopped shooting and dragged her backwards through the doors. I needed to try to handle the situation... but my absence on the line was making things worse.
Solas' barriers blinked briefly, and he was hit in the chest with an icicle, his mage-mail just barely saving his life before he was able to restore it. I remember this because the man was knocked sideways and pieces of the ice skittered across the stone around us, as I removed Leha's kevlar from her torso.
"To the Void with this!" Aurelia shouted, before raising both her hands over her head. There was a deep whine sound, announcing a great wind.
It blew so hard that I couldn't help but look up from what I was doing. Just in time to see a fire tornado touch down at the bottom of the steps we had climbed, consuming the demon horde like a furnace. Electrical discharges crackled off of it too, hitting demons far from the conflagration and killing them stone dead.
While that was cool to see and all, I snapped out of it and resumed my urgent task.
I began doing CPR on Leha, first blowing her into her lungs mouth-to-mouth, compressing her chest to pump her blood and then repeating those steps. I vaguely heard the others get inside the castle, the doors thundering closed, the bangs of it being barred and then of demons attempting to claw their way in. All of that was shoved to the back of my mind though, as I tried desperately to save Leha's life.
On the sixth round of chest compressions, a hand grabbed my arm... trying to get me to stop. I glanced up and saw Solas there, looking down at me sadly. For about half a second anyway. The butt of a shotgun came flying into his jaw, releasing me. The shotgun was pumped and Tam appeared, aiming it at the mage. No one was going to stop me trying.
The sound of that weapon being readied to fire was joined by a loud gasp; Leha's eyes and mouth flew open, and she sucked in air as fast as she could, sitting half upright with the force. I pulled my hands away. Relief washed over me. I couldn't believe how afraid of her dying I actually was. It would've been like an older sister dying... no, being murdered, before my eyes.
And just to make me appreciate her even more, she immediately grabbed her weapon and tried to stand up. "Easy, stay down," I said, "We're safe."
The gate banged loudly, something large had taken a shot at it. Dust fluttered down from the seams of it. Leha shot a doubtful look at me.
"For now," I added sheepishly, "You got hit by lightning."
"I feel like I was," Leha rasped in agreement, coughing loudly with the effort.
I saw Dorian tying a tourniquet around Tethras' leg to the side, and pulling the ice that caused the wound out, before applying healing magic to try and close it. The Kirkwaller looked even worse than Leha did, but he soon stood up, using his crossbow as a crutch and leaning against the Altus, biting down the pain.
Nightingale approached, wary to avoid the reach of Tam in doing so. "We must move on," she said, "Alexius' chamber is not far, and it has a second reinforced door. It is a superior defensive position." God only knew if that was actually true, Nightingale was just trying to get to Alexius, but it was exactly what we needed to hear so no one challenged it.
I nodded in agreement. "Tam, pick Leha up," I said, "At least until we get there. She'll be weak for a while." Tam frowned at Solas, who was still in her sights, before lowering her weapon and doing as I asked. The elf-mage, for his part, held his jaw and moved it uncertainly, like she had almost broke it. Which she probably very nearly had.
I shrugged an apology at him, took Leha's weapon over my shoulder and moved to the front with Nightingale, who was taking point now with her bow nocked.
We advanced in silence, not out of any need for stealth but because there was nothing to say. I kicked down thoughts about the same sort of demon horde attacking Troy, and concentrated on keeping us safe. I'm sure everyone else was in a similar place.
If Alexius knew we were coming, there was no sign yet.
The chamber in question was the main hall, in the very middle of the castle structure. It required us to go up another level and through some other rooms, like a galleried dining hall, where the Venatori had evidently been eating lunch. We all grabbed something off the table as we passed and shoved it into our mouths, with anything we couldn't take in one bite being discarded at once. Leha grabbed a large bottle of wine, unopened, but did not drink from it.
At last, we reached the door to the room we were looking for. It did not appear to have a lock, nor were there any guards outside. That was strange as hell.
"What now?" I asked Nightingale, "Last time we stormed a room like this, the bastard sent us through time without a word. He might have useful information, but "
She looked at me with weary eyes, my story not matching her own memories, but remained pragmatic. "There is a side door, I shall use it once you enter," she said, before addressing the entire group, "If you see him take up the amulet, kill him at once."
"You don't need to worry about that," Julie replied.
Without a further look or word to us, Nightingale left, moving down to and around the nearest corner. She'd be ready when the time came.
"Let's go," Leha said, jumping off Tam's back and swaying a little, "No point waiting." Her eyes were wild... and there was no way to dissuade her.
So, I opened the door and walked in. All my companions followed through first, Dorian excepted on account of Tethras, but eventually we were all inside.
The main hall was multi-tiered and as grand as you'd expect, with a high arched ceiling and lots of heraldry hanging from the walls. The noise of our movement echoed, the clinking of our equipment.
I gestured to the others to spread out; a line of magically immune people would cause Alexius' time spell to fail or give us enough time while he made the vortex large enough to take the whole room.
The magister himself was standing by a fireplace, looking down into it, not unlike the first time we saw him. Beside him, haunched like an ape, was a bald, diseased man, dressed similarly to him in Tevinter jester uniform... It took me a few seconds to realise it was Felix, his son. I also recognised the disease; it was the Taint, the same thing that Nightingale was suffering from, except at an even more advanced stage. He had become a ghoul.
I coaxed as much noise out of my weapon as possible, some of the others doing the same, and aimed it at Alexius.
"Magister!" I shouted, "Bet you weren't expecting to see us again!"
The man turned around, head first and then his whole body, eyes narrowed. He examined those of us in front, we Trojans, clearly coming up short on our identity.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A question many of us would like answered," Solas remarked from behind. If we could have afforded to take our attention away from the Magister, that would've earned him a rebuke.
There was grunting as someone else took the task of helping Tethras stay upright, allowing Dorian to step forward to stand with me, closer to the light of the fireplace.
"Perhaps you recognise me?" he said, "After all, it seems everyone else here does."
The Magister sighed. "Dorian," he said, "I knew you would return, that I had not destroyed you. How fitting that you would be sent here, to witness the end. Where is the Herald? Has she fallen to the demons?"
"You can keep on guessing," I said, "Take the amulet and toss it on the ground, quickly. If we see so much as a drop of magic, we'll put you down. Do I make myself understood?"
Alexius' hand went to his pocket slowly, seemingly going to comply. Then he stopped and looked directly at me and the weapon held up to my eye.
"Will you spare my son?" the magister asked. That was a reasonable enough request, the son in question was already dead by all reasonable measures. I was about to allow it and say as much.
"No," said Nightingale.
The Left Hand of the Divine stepped out of the shadows while the magister spun towards the sound of her voice. Too late; her dagger plunged downwards through Felix's collar, causing the ghoul to howl with pain and fall to his knees even as she still held on to the weapon.
"NO!" the magister screamed, sending a bolt of fire at Nightingale with his hand, "NOOOOO!"
She dodged it easily, as the mage had been trying to avoid hitting his son, allowing her to side-step to the right and twist the dagger out of Felix's body. Now, the ghoul was definitely dead, landing face-first on the stone with arterial blood spurting out of his neck and collar.
Knowing that the magister would not forgive that, I opened fire. My other companions did so too, and the whole hall was filled with the sound of our firelances. I put five bullets into the magister before he could get his barriers up, and the others did similar damage.
Bleeding from thirty or so different places, Alexius staggered first towards Nightingale, then reversing course and moving towards his staff, propped up against a chair near the fireplace. He just barely made it, landing face first in the seat and tumbling over it. Dead as a dodo.
I wasted no time in moving up to the body, taking three steps at a time. I rifled through the pocket he had reached for before, grabbing his amulet. No need for the locals to get their hands on it and get ideas, I thought.
"I would ask if that was necessary," I said to Nightingale, shoving the magical artefact into a pocket, "But I'm not in a position to criticise." My shooting at the Hero of Ferelden was undoubtedly from the same emotional place as her slaying of Felix, after all.
The Left Hand of the Divine did not answer, instead pulling Alexius off the chair and looking down at the corpse. "I cannot believe he is dead," she said, "I spent a year wishing he was, and now I got to witness it... cause it."
"I can only imagine how that feels," I said, "In the mean time, we're still trapped here with wall-to-wall demons."
"Much has happened," Pentaghast replied, , "Perhaps we can exchange information. Like how magic does not seem to harm you."
"We don't have time for this," Dorian said, "It will take some time to reconfigure the amulet."
"And you will have to provide the mana," Aurelia added, "I have used much of my reserves." Fire tornadoes really took it out of you.
Since Iron Bull and Vivienne were gone, I was actually okay with answering. No tantrums or Qunari death threats to deal with. "Well, I can answer how I'm immune to magic at least, while you get started," I replied to them all, "We have a little time at least."
Aurelia and Dorian went off to do just that, using the amulet that they had made rather than requesting the one I had taken to Alexius.
The surviving Inquisition crew gathered, as I turned and slumped into another of the chairs near the fire, my weapon laying across my lap. The rest of my companions positioned themselves to guard both the main doors... and against any hostile reactions from those hearing about my origins. "I'm from another world, one where magic does not exist. I was dragged through the Fade to Thedas a little more than two years ago. It's a matter of debate about why."
"All of you?" the Seeker asked.
"Ah, no, only me," I said, "The others received their immunity from me by other means." Didn't want to give away the shop here, so I had been vague... but it had come off as innuendo. Pentaghast nonetheless turned a bright red, drawing her own conclusions that were perhaps not too far off the truth.
"And the Tevinter made, the little one," Solas said, "I presume her extensive magical abilities are your gift too?"
"Noticed she lasted a bit longer than most, I take it?" I quipped.
"She has a larger mana pool than any mortal mage I have ever encountered, yes," he said, choosing his words carefully there. Of course there were people that Aurelia was comparable with; namely himself when restored to his true power, as well as the other elvhen 'gods'. Albeit that she did not have the same level of sophistication in her magic.
"Yes, Aurelia got her mana pool from me," I confirmed.
Solas tilted his head. "The Fade does lead to other worlds, supposedly," he said, "But your existence should be impossible." I waited to see if he clarified. He did not.
"Impossible seems more and more like just a word to me," I sighed, "The things I've seen..."
"You seem to know who some of us are," Tethras asked, half-panting out his words as Rainier put him down on the top step, "How is that?"
"No idea," I admitted, "This time is a year and a half to two years ahead of ours, and we've definitely met you, Pentaghast, Sister Nightingale, the Iron Bull, and the Madame de Fer before."
"In fact, most of you are pains in our asses," Leha grumbled, "Which makes it all the more weird that you don't know who we are."
"I can answer why they don't," Dorian said, piping up, "I think we're in an alternate reality, one where you never met them."
"So they haven't just lost their minds on red lyrium?" Armen asked, "Because if their eyes glowed any brighter, they could use them as flashlights." Indeed, as all of them looked at me, it was a little like being stared at by a gang of alley cats in the dark.
"They remember their own pasts well enough," Dorian said, "It doesn't make sense that they'd forget half the momentous events of our timeline either. No, jumping timelines is the only explanation that fits."
Which left a serious problem for us, potentially. "Please tell me that isn't going to stop us getting back?" I asked.
"Not a problem," Aurelia replied airily, "As long as Pavus shuts up and concentrates on helping me get the equations right." The centurion in Aurelia was leaking out now, and if he wasn't careful, Pavus would receive the centurion's punishment. Getting the picture, Dorian held his hands up and turned about around towards the amulet, green magic swirling around it once more.
"What momentous events was Pavus referring to?" Nightingale asked, "There were many."
"I presume that means you don't remember coming to meet me?" I asked back, "In Hearth, couple of years ago?"
Nightingale's eyebrows rose in the most human expression I had seen her produce since we had found her. "Hearth? In the Eastern Dales?" she said, "I have heard of it, but I have never been there."
"Then there is little point in telling you," I replied, "You would not know what I was talking about... but if you're so curious, you should come back with us. We could use everything you know."
The Seeker drew her sword, and held it by the blade in front of her.
"We are already dead," Pentaghast said, "The red lyrium has progressed too far. I thank you for the chance, and for allowing us to see justice done to the magister, but it is time we join the Maker." She offered me her weapon. I refused it, pushing the grip back with my palm.
"I know and I appreciate the offer of your blade," I said, "But for Sister Nightingale here, there is hope."
I looked to the relevant person to make the offer. She held her shotgun over the back of her shoulder and joined me, leaning on the back of my chair.
"I am a Grey Warden," Tam said to Nightingale, "I have the ingredients for the Joining. Come with us, help us defeat this evil before it happens in our world. It may be the difference between victory and defeat."
Nightingale said nothing, turning towards the fire and staring at it, holding her hands together behind her back. Not an easy decision, it seemed. We let her think on it.
"If you want my advice," Tethras said, after a while, "Go with them. I would give anything for the chance to live and see the Elder One defeated. You know that Alexius was just a pawn too. We all saw how badly you wanted him dead. Your revenge isn't complete unless you go with them."
My companions and I looked to each other. 'The Elder One' was not a term we had heard before. I was almost afraid to ask.
Nightingale did not respond, just continuing to stare at the fire. Until a rumble shook the whole castle, causing all of us to look up. A dull roar followed, made by a creature.
"The dragon!" Pentaghast said, "The Elder One is here!"
"Time is short," Nightingale agreed, before asking our mages the fateful question, "How close are you to performing the necessary magic?"
"Close," Dorian said, sending a curl of Fade energy into the amulet, "We've gotten practice at this." Putting it mildly.
"Then we shall hold off the enemy," Pentaghast said, "Leliana; take their offer. If any of us can aid the fight, it is you. You know more than any of us, and it is knowledge they require, not swords or magic." She brought them into a hug, before taking up her sword and shield again.
Nightingale was paralysed. She had made her choice, but she could not bring herself to say it.
"Sorry I can't come along, Seeker," Tethras said from his step as his friends passed.
"Defend them best you can," Pentaghast replied, "You're their last line of defence."
Tethras shook his head. "Good luck."
With that, Pentaghast led Rainier and Solas out of the hall, the latter granting us one last look before he closed the doors behind him.
We soon had all the doors barricaded, and with little real cover in the room, sat down on the steps ourselves. Waiting to see if Hell would come for us again before we could escape.
The sounds of fighting became audible after about quarter of an hour, mostly the thunder of lighting spell discharges. As time went on however, the clash of metal on metal started up. The Inquisition team was being pushed back, as expected. But still, the demons did not burst through into the hall.
It was almost at the half hour mark by the stage that I didn't like the sound of what was going on.
"Okay, they'll be coming through any minute now," I said to the others, "Remember; if Aurelia and Dorian get killed, it's game over. Armen, I want a static barrier around them if the demons come before the spell is ready. Try and kill them in the doorway, bottleneck them. We don't have unlimited bullets, so don't waste them... unless you hear that the spell is ready, at which point I want you to mag-dump every bullet you have while moving to the mages' position."
I paused. "I love you all of you," I added, "Don't fucking die on me."
"You're making me blush," Tethras said, reminding me of his existence. The speech hadn't been for him... But I did feel a little bad about the fact he was definitely a dead man already.
Leha and Armen laughed briefly, but they were stopped, as the doors boomed with an impact. The sounds of fighting continued. It was another five minutes before they stopped, and the voices beyond could only have belonged to one person.
"The Seeker did well," Tethras said quietly.
"She did," I agreed, "They all did."
The doors banged again, being pushed slightly ajar. Inhuman noises emanated into the space, and suddenly the way into the room was engulfed in flames. The doors and the barricades we had built to bar the way through them spat and blackened, uselessly.
"Smart fuckers, aren't they?" I remarked to Nightingale.
"So we learned too late," she said, speaking for the first time since Pentaghast had left. She nocked her bow, but didn't have more than five arrows left.
A trio of Rage demons pushed their way through the fire, shoving aside any material still strong enough to be left standing and unbothered by the heat. They slid over the scorches stone, trailing fire behind them, directly towards us. One of them was holding a charred corpse in its arms; Pentaghast, judging by the armour.
Now it was my turn to rage.
"Open fire," I said, retaining enough sense to hold back my own weapon as a reserve.
Rather than the quick chatter of firelances, there was a scattered staccato. Everyone had taken my advice on bullets to heart. A handful of bullets hit each of the rage demons, the impact sites turning the fiery lava of their bodies to solid rock. Soon the demons had a dozen of the blemishes each, but still they moved on, forming fireballs with their hands and throwing them our way.
One splashed down dangerously close to Tethras, at my feet, before spluttering out of existence.
"Julie," I said, "Hose them down."
A solid stream of bullets erupted from the belt-fed heavy firelance, as Julie shot the thing from a prone position with a bipod deployed. She cut one of the Rage demons in half, and shattered the other two by demolishing their bulbous heads. They all turned to volcanic ash before evaporating back into the Raw Fade. With their demise, the flames died too, leaving the room clear of targets once more.
"Well, that was easy," Ciara chirped happily.
"You just had to say it," I said.
She certainly had tempted fate, and fate was happy to oblige.
With a collective scream, Shades began pouring into the room, spreading out from the doorway as best they could and leaning forward to reduce their size as targets. They got inside too fast, and weren't idiotic enough to come straight at us so that one bullet could kill two or three before stopping. We reaped a rich crop of the fiends, but they were advancing, step by step, yard by yard.
The Elder One was sacrificing his pawns to our firepower, knowing it would run out eventually.
"How long?" I asked Aurelia via radio.
"Very soon," she said, "We found something like a thread back to where we need to go."
"We've got minutes," I continued, "That soon enough?"
"It'll have to be," Dorian replied.
The Shades just kept coming, the bodies of the dead not dissolving fast enough and becoming an obstacle to those still living. Less of one than if Shades had actual legs instead of moving like very fast snails.
"They aren't stopping," Mariette declared, throwing her now-empty firelance onto her shoulder and pulling out her handcannon instead. She cracked off two bullets into a Shade that had managed to get around the side of her, backing off.
A quartet of Despair demons came flying in to try and suppress us, completely out of nowhere. They swung through the doorway and directly up, raising their hands in front of their hooded faces. Armen just barely got barriers around those vulnerable to magic before the ice-beam spells started up.
Thankfully, they didn't know who was immune and who wasn't, so I caught a light sprinkling of cold water in the face while Nightingale's barriers sparked under the strain of the full force. She loosed an arrow, catching one easily, but its own magical barriers were up. It did flinch though, letting me send a three round burst through its barriers and its chest, resulting in it falling out of the air like a bird having a heart attack.
The pressure was ready to crush us now, as more and more of us went down to our last magazines of ammunition for our main weapons.
"Now!" Dorian shouted, "To me!"
"Fire at will!" I shouted in return.
The weight of our firepower tripled in an instance, as we swept the barrels of our firelances over the crowd and into the air at all the demons we could see. We retreated as we reloaded, and once again, the demons surged forward, only to be struck down once we started shooting again. We made it back to Aurelia, just about.
Then I saw Varric Tethras, plugging Shades to the left and right of him, their claws mere inches from his face. And I couldn't just leave him. Letting the Seeker and the others sacrifice themselves because it was necessary was one thing, watching the guy get torn apart in front of my eyes was entirely another. It was cruel, when an escape route was right there, waiting.
"God damn it!" I said, advancing forward again, "Everyone stay with the mages!"
I moved to the dwarf, eating through the last bullets of my assault firelance in a couple of seconds to clear a safe zone around him. "What are you doing?" he asked as I grabbed the back of his collar with one hand and switched to my own handcannon with the other.
"Saving your ass," I replied, "This will hurt." He shouted with pain as I dragged him across the floor, shooting one handed at anything that came at us. There was no shortage of takers either, as the Shades continued to fling themselves at us. By now, everyone else was down to handcannons as well.
A Despair demon threw yet another ice beam at us, cutting through the darkness of the ceiling. Tethras, now unprotected due to my touching him and shattering his magical barrier, took it directly on the leg... the same one he had already injured. It was frozen solid before I could get a bead on the offender with my Glock, but he did not die.
When we finally got close enough, our trump card lit up the place once more. The back of the room exploded with fire, as Aurelia sent one of her concentrated immolation spells downrange, no longer distracted as she was by helping Dorian with the amulet. That caught out the Despair demons entirely, turning them into floating torches, shrieking and spinning through the air.
I joined my companions in the centre of the perimeter of mages, pulling Tethras in with me.
"Now Pavus!" Aurelia shouted, "Before they regroup!"
I fell to my knees as the spell vortex materialised and swallowed us, not sure if I could take it if something would go wrong again. But by the grace of the Maker and the skill of our mages, that did not happen.
We were going home at last.