Our march to Calenhad's Foothold is fortunately an uneventful one. We climb a rather high hill, all three of us. Lysette and I would have gone alone, but Ser Fallon insisted on a third man to carry the Inquisition banner. Apparently the locals have heard rumours of some bandit host or another taking shelter in Calenhad's old fortress, though in the face of the Renegades and Apostates they've proven less eager to strike out into the Hinterlands. A good sign, I think; if they're cowering, they're not assaulting the refugees below them.
And now we may have to derive them of their only shelter. I would feel poorly for it, were it not for their predilection toward banditry. Instead I shall have to destroy them. And in that task I cannot be hesitant. I know this.
Then why do I still dread the tower ahead?
The man sent with us is named Barrett. I know only this, for he has been silent since introducing himself to us. He is not a large man, not small either. His face is plain, a heavy jaw and narrow eyes making him look almost naturally thuggish, though he seems pleasant enough in his own quiet way. The banner he carries, eight feet tall and topped with the icon of the Inquisition in heavy iron, looks heavy, as does the mace at his hip, but if the weight bothers him he does not say. Instead he simply marches, onward and forward, following behind Lysette and I.
"Well, this could certainly be worse," Lysette remarks, turning away to look down upon the valley below us, where the dispossessed of the Hinterlands gather around their cookfires seeking breakfast. "The view is pleasing at least."
We wind between rocks the size of houses, half-buried in the fertile earth. In the shadow of one outcropping I see a familiar green vine stretching up from the ground, half a dozen large green leaves stretching from its length. Elfroot. Perhaps I should pick some? I've no idea how to make potions, but I remember mentions of salves and ointments…
Before I can reconsider, I step over into the shade and squat down, grabbing my dagger from my belt. Barrett and Lysette watch in silence as I slice the leaves from the stalk, sliding them into one of the pouches at my hip. Lysette walks over and squats down beside me as I repeat the action with the other plant, watching me with a small smile on her lips.
"Good idea, sir." Barrett says, making both of us jump as he breaks his self-imposed silence. "Useful stuff, that."
"Indeed…" I murmur, slightly put-off by the scare before slipping the other leaves into my pocket. "I thought they may prove useful later."
"So you're an herbalist as well?" Lysette wonders aloud, finger and thumb gently tugging on her chin as she thinks aloud. "My, another trait for Varric to record. He's going to run out of paper soon."
"I'm sure he'll make do." I reply, frowning as I stand. "Right… that finished, to the fortress?"
"More of a fort, really…" Lysette says, still stroking her chin as she looks up at the fortification above us. "Oddly quiet, too. You would expect somebody to take shelter in this sort of mess."
"Indeed…" I murmur, and we carry on walking the trail that winds up the hill.
Something lingers in the back of my mind, a niggle that scratches at my scalp. I'm forgetting something, something important that is going to matter very soon. The fortress in unoccupied… at least, it should be. Isn't it? There's the treasure map and the tower with the box, and the main hall with part of the Avvar-Mother story, and…
We round the corner beneath the broken bridge, and suddenly I remember what I missed when a flash of emerald light fills the air, along with the dreaded vorpal sound of reality tearing and the wail of daemons. There, above a small dip in the ground, equidistant between the evergreen treeline around Lake Luthias and the crumbling walls of Calenhad's Foothold, sits a Fade Rift, already disgorging a small host of daemons to challenge us.
"Oh shit." Barrett says.
I'm hard pressed to disagree. Lysette seems the same, as she shoulders her sword and steps in front of me, her shield already up and eyes narrowed.
"I will lead, Markus," she says, and I draw my sword and nod.
"Barrett, mind our flank." I tell him. "Do not let the banner fall."
"Aye." he says, pulling free his mace and spitting on the ground. "Can do."
Lysette and I charge. I count the daemons as we go; three Shades, of the lesser variety, only just now noticing us. On the broken bridge above, a single Wraith floats and readies to attack. I duck past Lysette as it flings a ball of magical energy, dodging narrowly and watching the trailing green projectile splash against the ground beside me.
"Can you handle the Shades?" I ask, and when Lysette nods I turn and run for the bridge.
Up the incline, stumbling once but catching myself with my free hand. The Wraith attacks again and I cry out as the bolt of sickly green light strikes me in the side. It doesn't burn or tear, but it stings mightily, knocking me off balance. It feels rather like a punch in the ribs, actually. I let out a gasp, literally feeling some of the strength go out of myself, and whisper a verse of the Litany of Devotion to steady my aching body. Then I run, using a stone pillar at this end of the bridge as cover against the Wraith's next attack. Below me, between the two halves of the broken bridge, Barrett has planted the Inquisition's icon in the earth, standing in silent expectation his mace on his shoulder as a Shade approaches him.
The Wraith whispers, its voice incorporeal and hardly heard. I breath a moment, and then round the corner, head and shoulders down, sword's edge alight with the might of the Maker. The Wraith raises its not-hands, but I swing and the edge of my blade passes through its centre mass as if it weren't there. There is a moment where I dread that my strike failed, before the creature wails softly and vanishes, wisps of green smoke being sucked inexorably into the Rift to my left.
Below me, Barrett trades blows with the Shade. He's strong, and quick enough to move out of the way of its claws, but it is a daemon and he is a man. He doesn't even grunt as its claws rend his upper arm, before smashing it about the head with his mace. I watch as the creature's head is turned, but it twists back with snakelike agility, slashing at him again with those claws.
Enough, I decide, is enough. The distance is not too great; eight feet vertically, perhaps. I raise my sword, breath a moment's prayer to the Maker, and plunge off the edge of the bridge. A moment later, I land, knees bending, sword cleanly passing through the creature's neck and severing its head. I let out a slow sigh as it disintegrates, before looking to Barrett, who stares with a single cocked eyebrow.
Lysette cries out, and I turn and run toward her before I can think. She fends off two of the beasts, constantly stepping this way and that to keep her shield between herself and them. Rarely does she strike with her sword, only flicking out with a quick stab or two. I rush to her, calling out the Litany of Defiance. She joins her voice with mine, and the Shades are slowed enough. There is a warmth in my gut and chest, the lyrium I took with her before we departed the crossroads strengthening our words.
Then I strike, lashing out with my so-called steel fingernail. The Shade I strike takes the blow full on its face, and hisses in anger. I threw too much of myself behind the blow, and am flat-footed when it strikes back. Its claws catch on the chainmail on my collar, right beside my neck, and I feel links snap under its unnatural strength. It draws blood, a line of fire down my chest, and I let out a gasp before stabbing forward blindly.
It too was overly enthusiastic in its attack. My sword plunges deeply into its chest, and it wails as its fellows did when they died. I stagger back, as Lysette hammers her own opponent across the side of the head with her shield, stepping forward and thrusting that deadly short sword into its torso. It screams, it dies, and I steady myself as the Rift convulses in the air, before stabilising. More than one wave, then. Lysette looks to me, brown eyes flicking to my wound, and I shake my head. I can endure, though I dare not look to see how bad the cut is. From the way she frowns, it must be worse than I dare think.
The Rift sparks, and more Shades manifest all around us. No Wraiths this time, and nothing more advanced. I thank Andraste for small mercies as the clawed creatures descend upon our tiny holdout. We carry our voices together in Defiance once more, standing back to back. Five of them. Good. It would hardly be fair otherwise.
Then, before they can reach us, one is caught full in the neck by an arrow, screeching in pain and wavering in its charge. Then the one behind it, and from Lysette's sudden shift in stance, I assume one of the Shades behind me has met the same fate. The last Shade yet unfeathered rushes me, and I nimbly duck beneath its slashing claws before bringing my sword up, practically screaming the Litany as I tear it open from waist to throat, twisting with the blow to jerk my sword free of its flesh.
It screams. Its fellows scream too, and then there is quiet as the Rift is subdued, and I look up to see it stabilized. I know what must be done; I reach toward it with my marked hand, and will it to be shut. A line of green light connects me to it, and then the pain returns. It is dulled, lesser here where rifts are smaller, a throbbing like an old bruise and stinging like pins and needles all up my forearm. Beck slithers down to my wrist, and the pain is numbed as I wrench my hand back and what is left of the Rift explodes.
Then, silence, as I drop to one knee, the full pain of my chest wound catching up with me. My sword is buried in the soft ground several inches, giving me something to hold some of my weight as I let out a gasp. Lysette drops down to one knee beside me, and I hear Barrett's mail clanking as he rushes to us, banner on his shoulder and mace still in his hand.
"Steady now, Markus…" Lysette says, voice softer than I've heard it before, one hand pressing against my uninjured shoulder. "Let me see… oh…"
I chance a look at my wound. It's a rather brisk gap in my armour; and the flesh beneath is torn and ragged at the edges. There's a black residue clinging to it in places, likely filth from the creature's claws. I blink slowly. Marcus has never been injured like this before. Markus has only seen such a wound once, when a Knight of the Order was assailed by an enraged villager with a woodcutting axe.
"Oh." I agree. "I… Maker this hurts…"
"Nothing for bandages…" she murmurs, before looking to Barret, who shakes his head. "And all that crap in the wound… there may be an infection."
"Elfroot, ma'am." Barrett says, and Lysette blinks before she reaches down to my belt and opens the pouch I stored the leaves in.
She grabs several and shoves them into her mouth, while pushing me to lay down on the ground. She chews the leaves, grinding them between her teeth, before spitting the newly made wad of green gunk into her palm, pressing it against the wound and rubbing it in with her thumb. I wince and groan a few times, but she is deadly serious.
Elfroot, when crushed and chewed, smells faintly of mint, I note. She finishes applying the makeshift salve and touches my face with her other hand, frowning down at me. Her fingers toy with the curled edges of my hair behind my ears almost unconsciously as she speaks.
"How do you feel?" she asks, and I grin through the pain.
"Better." I answer, and she rolls her eyes.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure this is at least one of your boyhood fantasies played out," she says, before her thumb wipes away a bead of sweat from my forehead. "Now, I'd tell you to lay still, but I doubt you'd listen. At least let me help you up."
"Gladly," I say, taking her offered arm and rising to my feet with her aid.
Barrett watches all this in silence, but when Lysette turns away to grab her sword from where she let it fall on the grass, he nods to me once in that universal way of congratulating another man. I smile.
"Right…" Lysette mutters, turning toward the Foothold with a frown. "Do we claim the fort, or find the sneak with a bow first?"
"Arrows came from there." Barret says, pointing with his mace to one of the Foothold's broken towers. "Saw them fly. Grabbed this."
He holds up an arrow, and I take it from him with a grateful nod. Black shaft, white fletching. Is it from a swan? It looks like a swan's feathers. The head is a dark metal, perhaps obsidian, with jagged edges and barbs at the base. One of these in a man's flesh would be a painful thing to remove. To a daemon, an annoyance… yet an annoyance enough to kill.
"Not Fereldan, that's for sure." Lysette notes. "I've taken enough of these on my shield to know where they came from, Markus."
"I know." I nod, looking at the arrow. "The archer in the trees by the road had a dozen of these in his quiver."
"The mages' mercenaries." Lysette frowns, before looking at the Foothold. "But they aren't shooting at us. Only the daemons."
"That bears investigation…" I finish her thought, and she nods, turning to face the Foothold. "Shall we?"
"Obviously." she says, and so we do.
Calenhad's Foothold is a humble fortification, for a place of such historical significance. Three broken stone towers connected by formerly thick, sturdy walls now left crumbling and ruined. A fourth tower at the back stands sturdier than the rest, only missing a few battlements off the top. At the centre of the courtyard a great oak tree grows tall and proud… and in the shadows at its base, a lone man stands, his back to us.
His regalia is black, for the most part, a long coat padded with dark brown leather at the shoulders and wrapping around his lower back. It clings to the shoulders and waist, before falling loose about the hips. The hem is edged in cloth of gold, and a quiver of black shafted, white fletched arrows dangles from his right hip. His boots are black as well, shining leather with a slight lift at the heel. When we come within twenty paces of him, he raises a hand in a silent command for us to stop. We humor him.
"Welcome, Herald of Andraste…" the man's accent is Rivaini, Spanish to Marcus, and thick enough to be cut. "I trust my men were of some small assistance to your work outside?"
"They were." I reply. "I suppose you are Mercadora?"
"Your beautiful knife-eared friend speaks highly of me, I see." he says, before turning his head. In profile his face is narrow, eye a dark brown and teeth glinting white as he grins. "She gave me a merry chase, you know. Very lithe, she is. The Dalish are always fun."
Lysette growls quietly beside me, but I touch her hand with mine, hoping she understands. She squeezes my fingers silently.
"Lady Lavellan did mention you to be good quarry." I tell him. "And she also named you a coward."
He presses a pale hand to his chest, letting out a false gasp.
"Ah!" he cries softly, before chuckling. "How she wounds me. She cut me well, you know. Ruined the bow my brother left me, split it right in half. Quite rude of her. I wonder how she would feel if I snapped that sword of hers in retort."
He turns to face us full. Wandering all along the left side of his face, the side I could not see before, is a tattoo of narrow red lines like fresh-spilled blood, running from right under his eye all the way down to his jaw, and up to disappear into his hairline. It encircles the eye as well, five little teardrop-shapes around it from top to bottom clockwise. His coat is buckled up the front with little gold clasps, with a curious silver icon threaded onto the right breast.
"A pleasure to meet you, dear Herald." he says, smiling wide and proud. "I am Mercadora Priuli, proud son of the noble city of Rivain and leader of the Silver Seventy. Or rather, the Silver Forty-Six, thanks to your Inquisition's efforts."
There is a moment where Lysette steps forward, but I grab her hand full and squeeze tight. She halts, looking over her shoulder at me, and I shake my head. Mercadora chuckles, before raising one hand and snapping his fingers.
Around us, from the shadows and eaves of the towers, no less than nine archers emerge, longbows in hand with arrows nocked. Seven of them are women, I note, an idle curiosity. Of the two men, one is a dead ringer for Mercadora himself, given away only by his tattoo being on the wrong side of his face, instead a mirror image to the right.
"As you can see, dear Herald, I have you at something of a disadvantage." Mercadora says, gesturing to his troops around us. "And though you seem a fine swordsman, your woman there has only one shield, and we have so many more arrows than that."
"Blowhard." Barrett grunts under his breath, his mace-hand tensing.
I look at the surrounding bowmen, before looking again to Mercadora. He leans back against the trunk of the oak, hands folding behind his head. His smile is very much that of the cat who caught the canary, all teeth and wicked mirth.
Lysette growls again. She hates this, being helpless in the face of our foe. Her hand in mine tenses, wanting to go for her sword, but I shake my head when she glances back at me. Once more she relents, though hesitant to do so.
"What do you want, Mercadora?" I ask, raising my voice a bit. "If it's the three of us dead, you may as well have killed us by now."
"Oh, never." Mercadora replies, shaking his head. "Do not mistake me for a man who would miss a chance to gloat, dear Herald, even over the defeat of two children and a farmhand. Though you are not wholly wrong; I have little interest in your deaths. You offer me an opportunity, one I can ill afford to waste."
"And what opportunity is that?" Lysette barks.
"A way out of this miserable backwater, little lioness, though I would ask you not interrupt me again." Mercadora replies, before shaking his head. "Bianca, dear heart… if the kitten speaks again, kill the farmboy with the eye on a stick."
Lysette scowls, pulling forward, and I yank her back when one of the archers begins to draw. I grab her by the arm, holding her in place. She continues to shoot Mercadora with a death glare, even as I hold her.
"What do you want, Mercadora?" I repeat the question, and he sighs dramatically.
"Your Inquisition has my current employers rather divided." Mercadora declares. "Some wish to run from you. Others wish to assail your camp and set fire to your tents, kill your men and desecrate the bodies, all that wonderful southern barbarism. I am displeased with both options, and so I seek a third."
"You want to turn your coat." I realize, and he laughs at me.
"Hardly," he replies, fingering one of his sleeves. "The lining is grey, dear Herald, not green or orange. I am afraid we would poorly fit into your little Inquisition. But I also grow weary of playing patsy for upjumped madmen. So I say this; my men and I abandon the mages, and go north, away from this mess and hopefully toward a friendly port. All we ask of the Inquisition is guarantee of safe passage… and a distraction."
"An attack on the mages." I nod slowly. "And your men wouldn't fight?"
"A few arrows may be loosed for the sake of appearances, but I assure you; most would miss," he says. "And of course, there is the matter of ensuring your lovely knife-ear friend does not pursue us. I trust you can convince her to let me be? Do tell her I'm sorry for the knee; I was aiming for the meat of the thigh, but alas, Elves. So slender."
"I will speak with Scout Lavellan…" I agree, holding a grave dislike for his tone but hardly in a position to argue. "You and your men will have your passage. Simply ensure you do not align yourself against the Inquisition again."
"Magnífica!" He claps his hands delightedly, before looking to his men. "My friends, I believe we are done here."
I watch as he walks toward us, bowing deeply at the waist with one hand folded in front of his stomach, before offering me a hand. I look at it for a moment, before taking it in my own and shaking once. He smiles, leaning in quickly with a kiss on the cheek. I recoil in surprise.
Then he smiles and steps around us, walking toward the same breach in the wall we used to enter. Lysette scowls at him as he goes, before her head turns to me.
"Markus, you can't-" I grab her shoulder, try to put a hand over her mouth, but it is too late.
There is the deep thrum of a longbow, and beside me Barret lets out a weak, ragged cough, before crumpling to his knees. The jagged head of the arrow that killed him juts from his throat, just below his Adam's Apple, and he has only a few moments to gurgle out a shocked groan before he collapses limp on the ground, convulsing helplessly as he chokes on his own blood. Lysette screams in anger, pushing me off of her.
Before she can go far, I grab her by the waist and pull her against me, turning my back to Mercadora and his archers. I hear him laugh, evidently amused, and I hate him as he speaks.
"Such a shame…" he says. "A word of advice, dear Herald; try collaring your little kitten. I find it keeps my pets in line."
Lysette bucks against me, angry, but I hold her until the sounds of footsteps fade. Then I let go, and she rushes to Barrett's side. I can see already it's too late; the unsteady rise and fall of his chest ceased before the last man left the Foothold. Beside him the Inquisition icon lay in the grass, his mace still clutched loosely in the fingers of his other hand. Lysette kneels beside him, touching two fingers to his neck after tearing her gauntlet off.
I just watch, as she desperately shakes his limp wrist, and pulls the arrow all the way through his neck. Eventually she curls up over his body, head against his chest, and I see her shoulders shake.
"They killed him." she whispers, and I barely hear it before she pulls away from him, rounding to face me with rage in her eyes. "They killed him and you let them go!"
She turns on me, rising to her feet, reaching for my hauberk but I step back, scowling myself. Beck thrums about my wrist but the aid is unwanted and I ignore the gentle pulsing blue, pushing it aside. She yells at me? As if this were my fault?
"He didn't have to die!" I retort, angrier now than I have been since I woke up in that cell. "If you had just shut up and let me talk, he would be alive!"
"That bastard mocked us!" she snaps back. "Mocked the Inquisition! You heard what he said of Scout Lavellan, of me! You would let him?"
She thrusts an armoured finger into my chest, prodding my wound. I wince, before pushing her hand aside and meeting her gaze. Her eyes are brimming with anger, and I imagine I cannot look all that different.
"If it meant all of us walked away alive, I would!" I say. "Words are wind, Lysette, have you ever heard the phrase?"
"I can't believe you." she spits. "I thought you were brave, and noble, and true. But you were just another coward."
"Better a coward than an idiot." I retort, scowling. "I had everything under control. What a man like Mercadora says doesn't matter. It's what he does that counts, and thanks to you acting like a fucking child, he killed a man!"
She punches me in the face. I don't see it coming; she's quicker than I've ever given her credit for. Fortunately for my teeth, she uses the hand she took the gauntlet off of; instead of breaking my jaw, it simply bruises, and nearly knocks me sideways. I stagger back a step, hand coming up to touch my already swelling cheek.
"There." The Inquisition banner lands at my feet, and I look up to see her storming away. "Plant your flag, Herald of Andraste. Pretend to have your damn pride. I'm sure Varric will be happy to add cowardice to that page as well."
She storms off, out of the Foothold, and I simply watch her go. Then I reach down and I pick up the icon, staring into the eye of Andraste.
I walk to the base of the oak tree, and jam the spiked end of the pole firmly in the dirt there, burying it deep so the icon might stand of its own accord. I shout as I do it, all my pent up anger driving the icon deep. Then I turn and sit beside it, on the stone ledge surrounding the tree, and I fold my hands and bow my head and wait.
Around my wrist, Beck thrums softly, but I don't acknowledge it. I can't. I can't leave Barrett where he's fallen either, so I rise from my seat and walk to his corpse, kneeling down beside him.
I am no cleric. The funerary rites are a mystery to me, beyond the most basic elements of the Chant involved. But I do fold his hands over his chest, and bow my head. And I whisper meaningless nothings into the soft summer breeze because I failed this man, just as poorly as Lysette failed him.
They find me there an hour later, half a dozen Inquisition soldiers, their Herald and so-called saviour praying for a dead man. I look up at them. Lysette is not among their number, nor is any other I recognize but the farmboy from this morning, Connor. He stands, sword in hand, ready for a fight that is not here.
"The Foothold is ours." I say. "One of you; help me bring this man back down the hill, will you? He deserves a proper burial"
Connor volunteers. I'm hardly surprised. And every step I take down that hill, back to the camp below, I take in silence.
I have nothing more to say.
AN: First time on the new Sunday schedule. Thanks for sticking around so long, and for all the positive reviews! Tune in next week for: Violence.