Corlett lay prone in the snow, concealed on a low hill, watching the enemy moving down the slopes of the Haven Valley. Large formations of medieval troops were set up in a wedge formation. "Scarlett One-One, this is Echo-One-Charlie. We've got our first waves. A few infantry squares," he whispered into his radio, "Looks like they've got a lot of skirmishers and undisciplined people in the front lines!" The skirmishers were arranged in front of the wedge. A cluster of light infantry was located in the center and was flanked by what he guessed were some sort of medium infantry, ready to expand in any direction. Heavy infantry stood behind them, ready to exploit an advantage. Archers were behind the light infantry, protected in the center of the formation. "It looks like the weak center strong flank arrangement in the books. I think the size of the pass is limiting their options. They're supposed to be a straight line. And the formation's supposed to have cavalry on the flanks."
"Copy that. Undisciplined indeed. Like that doesn't describe all of them." Lopez said, "You got coordinates for us?"
"Looks like they've got some discipline. I've got eyes on a few veteran units," He eyed the archers and the heavy infantry, "Let's target them with the gun, and the others with the trebuchets. I've also got eyes on some of their officers. I can pick them off if you want."
"Negative, Echo-One-Charlie. Give us artillery coordinates, and pull out if they get close."
"Copy that. Fire mission; adjust fire, over."
"This is Scarlett One-One. Adjust fire. Out."
"Grid thirteen by twenty-four, direction 4800. Over."
"Grid thirteen by twenty-four, direction 4800. Out."
"Target, infantry company in the open. Precision fire, over."
"Infantry company in the open. Precision fire. Out."
There was a boom in the distance, and seconds later, a shell shrieked over the target, landing in a cluster of archers behind the main group of light infantry. "Echo-One-Charlie to Scarlett One-One. Adjust fire. Range, over. Drop 50."
"This is Scarlett One-One. Adjust fire. Range over. Drop 50."
Corlett braced himself for another shot, then checked himself. "One damn cannon…" he muttered.
When the shell finally came, about twenty seconds later, it screamed in and hit the enemy formation dead center. It bounced in the snow, tearing its way to the rear enemy formation. "Echo-One-Charlie to Scarlett One-One! Fire for effect! Sierra! Over!"
"Scarlett One-One. Fire for effect. Can't do Sierra, sorry. Out."
Corlett snarled at his forgetfulness. The cannon boomed. Even as the Templar unit fragmented, Corlett cursed, "One real howitzer, that's all I ask!"
XXXXX
Lopez watched the fledgling battery reload their cannon, and peered down at her topographical map of the area. The enemy was closing, despite the damage. At a certain point, Corlett would have to pull out. They'd need the cannon to hold off the enemy at close range.
She cursed. The valley was an awful defensive position at any time other than a scorching summer. It was an enormous bowl, likely carved out by glacial movement thousands or millions of years ago. The town occupied a third of the valley's bottom, hugging one wall. There were only two main passes out of the valley, one that Haven had a clear view of, with little room for an invader to unfold their army, and the other directly opposite.
Between the other pass and the town, a third of the valley was taken up by a frozen lake just opposite the town's main gates, linked to creeks and runoff from the mountains around, that provided Haven with water. A bridge crossed a small river that led down from the pass. The road reached around the wider side of the valley, snaking around to reach the town. Haven had been expanded since the Breach opened, with some buildings and barracks outside the fortified walls, mainly in the direction of the bridge. There was little ground directly between the gates and the water with enough room for commerce. It could theoretically allow a siege tower or battering ram to be brought in, but there was room for little else and would leave the enemy dangerously exposed to archers. However, that was only true in summer. When the lake was frozen, the ice was thick enough to stand on.
The remaining third of the valley had a thick forest that once reached the lake's edge. Previously it had crawled around the thinner side of the lake's edge, reaching to the edge of the road that came down from the Haven pass. A chunk of the woods had been cut down to provide firewood, lumber, and, more recently, materials for fledgling industries also at the water's edge. The sheer amount of charcoal needed to make black powder was just one of a few.
Speaking of powder, Lopez looked at the nascent gun battery. The cannon was surrounded by four people, two standing to either side of the gun's wheels, both holding long wooden rods. Two were behind the gun. One had his hand in a glove holding their thumb over the vent, the hole at the back of the cannon. The other held a long stick, checking to ensure the match on the end was still lit.
Two more were behind the gun near a caisson, a carriage with several boxes on it. One was the battery commander, while the other was the powder handler. "Advance cartridge! Solid shot!" the battery commander called out.
The powder handler opened one of the boxes, pulled out a cloth-wrapped object, and placed it in their satchel. They raced forward to the loader standing to the left of the gun, who was facing forward and placed the cartridge in their hand. The loader looked down, inspecting the cartridge.
"Load!" With minimal movement required, the loader turned and shoved the cartridge down the gun's barrel. "Ram!"
The rammer opposite the loader jammed their ramrod down the barrel, pushing the charge and cannonball in the cartridge down, making sure there was no space between the two. "Prick and prime!" Barked the commander.
The man holding his hand over the vent pulled his hand off and stuck a special wire, the priming wire, inside the hole. He immediately removed it, then stuck a fuse in the hole. The primer had done his job. "Ready to fire!"
"Take aim!" the commander barked and moved forward.
They stepped up to the rear of the gun, peering down a sighting piece attached to the rear of the cannon. The powder handler moved up behind them, holding the trails, the part of the cannon touching the ground at the rear. The commander adjusted the elevating screw mounted underneath the rear of the gun, signaling the powder handler to adjust the trails left or right, lowering the screw until they were satisfied.
Once they stepped away, the loader and rammer to the left and right of the gun's wheels covered their right and left ears respectively. All six members of the gun crew opened their mouths, with some working their jaws to unclench them.
The battery commander called out, "Preparing to fire!" The last member of the crew holding the long stick with the match mounted on it, a linstock, lowered it over the fuse. "Fire!"
The woman rotated the linstock, touching the match to the fuse, and stepped back. With the briefest of delays, the gun barked again. It lit up the entire area with a bright flash, creating eerie faceless silhouettes of the crew.
The smoke billowed around the gun, as the commander called out, "Search the vent!"
The primer stepped forward and stuck his priming wire in the vent, twisting it around to ensure it was clear of gunpowder or any residue. "Vent clear!" he shouted and put the thumb of his glove over the vent once again.
"Worm!" The loader took the pole they held and stuck one end, a corkscrew-shaped utensil, down the barrel, moving it around and twisting. They worked feverishly over the fouling in the gun, the intense heat, and the sound of battle that drew ever closer. They pulled it back out carefully, removing a clump of burned wadding. "Sponge!" The commander shouted. The trooper opposite the loader, the rammer, flipped their pole around to the opposite end, a slightly damp cloth wrapped around the tip of the rod, and shoved it down the muzzle, swabbing out the gun to make sure there were no embers left. "Advance cartridge!" The whole process was repeated.
As the commander advanced once again, Lopez called out, "Adjust fire! Right one-hundred, drop fifty!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
The cannon boomed several seconds later. They couldn't quite see what they were aiming at, just vague shapes in the distance, but according to Lopez, they were hitting something. It wasn't terribly accurate fire, but it was far better than anything else this planet could manage. Hitting the same ballpark was a minor miracle for them. Any 19th-century general would've killed for the accuracy they were getting, and the cannonballs were still bouncing around like pinballs.
She glanced at the Warthog nearby, ready to be hitched up at a moment's notice. The wooden wheels of the gun carriage wouldn't last long but they wouldn't need to. It was better than the horses they couldn't spare. The trebuchets were firing non-stop, now that more of the enemy was coming into range. They were at a distance of hundreds of meters now. There were thousands of them, dimly lit by torches.
The sergeant wished for just one Shortsword bomber. Hell, even a biplane would come in handy right about now. Anything for some sort of long-range support. She turned to a few runners standing nearby, "Tell the south trebuchet to adjust fire, drop fifty! Tell the northern one right a hundred!"
They nodded and rushed off. Lopez looked at her map again. Despite their undisciplined, irregular lines, the enemy was slowing down, but they weren't breaking.
"How is it?" Gil-Galad asked. Some of the inquisition senior staff, Iron Bull, Varric, Solas, and Sera, had reassembled and were functioning as a mobile reserve, along with a few infantry units. And the musket company. They were all getting antsy. They'd get their chance to engage soon enough. Cassandra, Cullen, and Blackwall were helping coordinate the defenses. Dorian and Vivienne performed similar tasks, getting the mages out and helping the civilians.
Lopez grimaced. She gestured at the defensive lines. A trebuchet had been set up on either side of the valley and the lake's edge, with trench fortifications, dug in front of them for just this sort of attack. "Well, I'm glad we prepared for how bad this place is in the event of an attack. Ken and Blackwall are holding the fort in the trenches, but they don't know how much longer they can hold." She pointed at the flashing designators indicating enemy formations. "Our artillery is far more accurate than they can expect, so why aren't they breaking?"
"They're idiots?" Sera suggested.
"Templar discipline is sometimes something to speak of." Iron Bull said. "Some of them are probably veteran units fresh from fighting the mages."
"They have been fighting the mages. They stay because they are afraid of what's behind them."
Lopez blinked and looked up. She furrowed her brow at the young man in the odd hat standing nearby. "Has he been here this whole time?"
Solas waved dismissively, "Never mind him. What is our next step?"
"We're holding, well enough at least." She squinted and pointed to a formation moving toward their weaker flank. They'd posted most of their fresh troops on the road leading down from the bridge. A thin defensive line held the right flank, near the Haven pass road. An enemy unit was slowly making its way through what remained of the forest. "They're almost in position there."
Gil peered at the map. "Ah, and that is where…?"
Lopez grinned, "Yep. They're doing exactly what we want. But something fishy is going on. C'mon, I'll explain."
She stepped up to a raised platform and zoomed with her visor. Lopez could make out the small mills they established across the lake; they had been already evacuated, as per emergency instructions. "Papa One Hotel, do you copy?"
"Co'y. Tools safe. Staff safe."
"Get yourself to safety too, Henry. Do you copy?"
"Co'y."
"I said, copy?" Lopez growled.
"Roger, roger!"
She scoffed and went back to examining the front. She could see torches illuminate troops already testing the ice. Based on local reports, sometimes the ice was even thick enough to put up siege equipment. That was something medieval combat didn't want to allow. It meant the short land in front of the gates was no longer a problem. "This is a bad defensive position. I don't know what kind of brainiac they got for this, but it's awful. During the summer, the only things that can fling a projectile across that water are trebuchets. But with that ice, any bandit with ten bucks to spare can haul up any kind of catapult and pound this place."
Gil nodded, "Bandits can't usually afford catapults of any sort, but I understand. What are you getting at?"
She switched on her night vision. "If there's room for siege equipment…then where is it? They won't be able to get into the town without it! That guy, Sampson, what is he, Hannibal?"
Gil nodded. "Not that we're trying to stay."
"No, but I'm just worried." She glanced at the elf, "You know we still don't know where McCraw went. Or how much of our equipment is missing."
"Are you afraid he gave them weapons?" Gil asked.
Lopez grimaced, "McCraw wasn't an engineer. I don't know what his skills were, but he's nothing like Henry. I'm worried he helped them find some of our noisemakers. Either they're completely stupid, or they've got something that they think will break through the gates without needing a big catapult."
"Noisemakers?"
"I've been hearing some nasty reports." She glanced around. She looked the elf up and down for a moment.
"Sergeant?" Gil inquired.
"Vivienne and Leliana have had some reports. Some of our cargo may have gotten loose."
"What kind of cargo?"
"Nasty stuff. Have you ever heard of a gas–?" Lopez cursed under her breath. She didn't know if they even had the word for gas. "A... uh…air. There are different kinds of air. Do you know about that?"
"Yes. There are different kinds of air, like smoke, fire, cold air, warm air…"
"Well, you're not wrong…" Lopez shook her head, "See, my guys have more than just guns. We've got big guns, and we've got other weapons too. Stuff that makes my gear look like spitballs."
"Spitballs?"
Lopez narrowed her eyes, then shrugged, "Oh. You haven't invented straws yet. Anyway, we've also got…" She thought for a moment, "Flame weapons. We can control fire, only a lot better than you people can. But we've also got air weapons. Deadly air weapons. An invisible air weapon that makes people feel sick are paralyzed, and eventually, die."
Gil's eyes narrowed in alarm. Varric tilted his head and walked over. Gil said slowly, "You're describing…Dura."
"Dura?"
"Yes, Dura." Varric spoke up, coming to a halt, "I read about it in a human library. It was a lost Tevinter weapon. They used it in sieges. It was a deadly smoke that would be used in tunnels when they were digging sapper tunnels or countermining said tunnels." He shuddered, "Naturally, the Tevinters lost the secret extraordinarily fast, but the descriptions are vivid. They don't quite match, it was more a choking air."
Gil nodded, "I read about it as well. He is correct."
Lopez tilted her head. She'd have to reassess things. Even if this was supposed to be a private conversation. "Huh. We've also got another weapon. The weapon doesn't even need to work to hurt people. Those morons just need to break it. Imagine a weapon that uses metal as an explosive. Only that metal is dangerous. It's poisonous…"
"Like Red Lyrium, or any of those other materials. Sergeant, we're not foolish."
"Well, you don't have straws but you know what chemical warfare is. Just humor me, kid, okay? Moms do this sort of thing." Lopez grinned.
Gil noted she'd been referring to members of the group as her 'kids' lately. He smiled a little and suspected it meant something positive. "I just wanted to be sure…"
Lopez nodded, "Anyway, that metal weapon could be deadly on its own, but if they found one, and broke it, and got the metal inside, they could use it against us. The radioactive material–" She cursed, and gestured to the battlefield, "If they get the metal, they might have realized how dangerous it is, and want to fling it at us." She shook her head, "If they make metal shavings, and fling that at us, that'll be even worse, it'll ruin Haven for a long time."
"If what you say is true, how long before it takes effect?" Solas asked, walking up.
Lopez looked at him, "Back off, spooky."
"Iron Bull. What kind of attack is this?" Solas inquired, turning around. "Are they willing to wait?"
Iron Bull stepped up. "Oh, I guess everyone was listening…" Lopez murmured.
"This isn't a siege they're willing to sit around in. They mean to break in. They're not going to use disease or anything like that. They've got no supplies or siege pieces." The Qunari said.
Solas nodded, "So it is likely not the metal weapon. What other weapon do you fear?"
Lopez scowled. Then she sighed. "Well, they could have found the gas."
"Hey, like you said Sergeant, how are they going to get it over here?" Varric asked.
"Well, they might have found any number of caches. We've got mortar variants, howitzers, even grenades." She grimaced. The others had a point. "Whatever they've got, it's gotta be something handheld, or light weapons."
Gil nodded hesitantly. Most of what she'd said was in English. "And that means…?"
"They don't have anything big. It's gotta be a launcher or a mortar, or something. Something someone like MacCraw would be familiar with. There's nothing big out there. No siege equipment, no nothing. So it's something crew-served, or handheld."
"Hey, hey, Sergeant!" Sera suddenly piped up. She gestured, "Look at where they are!"
Lopez turned and noticed a group working their way around the right flank. They were working their way through the woods, trying to reach the wider field, encampments, and the main pass to the right side of the town. Lopez grinned predatorily. "Hey, watch this."
The enemy reached a dip in the ground, a small creek that weaved through the trees as it came down from the hills. As they reached it, the claymores went off.
They weren't really "claymores", not the real manufactured kind. They were primitive directional landmines, packages of gunpowder and metal balls connected by a fuse, on top of metal plates salvaged from Lopez's escape pod. Their range was much more limited.
When the simple electric circuit, run by a potato battery, was closed by a concealed volunteer holding the detonator, the bombs went off. They blasted not in a random pattern but using the metal plate to direct the metal spheres into a cone pattern.
The forest lit up with a wave of bright orange flashes as dozens of metal balls tore through the enemy ranks at a height of several feet and in a broad cone like a shotgun. The concussion rippled through the air, smoke billowed high into the sky. The survivors tried to continue forward and another row went off. Screams echoed across the lake as the advance completely halted. The creek pooled over with blood. Even with the limited range, they were still lethal.
"Hell yeah!" Iron Bull exclaimed.
"Nice trick, that!" Sera said, smirking.
Gil-Galad was grimly satisfied. "An excellent plan, Sergeant."
Lopez nodded and pointed at the Templars in retreat. They were moving back to the entrance to the valley. "That'll increase the pressure on the left, but it'll channel them into a better chokepoint. It's wider and flat, but it gives them less cover." She cursed, "We could break their backs if we had a GPMG or something. That place is a good kill ground. Well, gotta make do…"
They had only a few directional mines available, limited by ammunition. The job soon fell to the archers stationed along the road as the Templars crawled over their own dead to reach the other side. The advance finally collapsed, and the enemy withdrew. "Well, at least that's over with. That's going in someone's memoir." Varric said.
Lopez reset her visor, noting the dwarf's words. Seventeen years in the corps in a bloody war that lasted a quarter of a century had taught her well in a single subject. Clever ways to kill.
She was a woman who had waded through the dirt, blood, and intestines of her friends and foes alike. She was the very pinnacle of 26th-century infantry. In her hands, and her mind was the most vicious, clever, nasty, and utterly filthy methods of five thousand years of warfare, finely honed over the dirtiest conflict they had ever faced. She didn't need air support, electronics, or guns to do her job. She only needed her hands and her mind. In twenty-five years of fighting, human ingenuity, tenacity, and adaptability had been all that held the Covenant's technological might back. They'd used the same tactics the Insurrectionists and countless others had once used. They found ways to fight energy shields with their armored starships. They found ways to fight when the enemy landed, how to fight hover tanks with landmines, and they relearned how to fight rifles with sticks when they ran out of hardware.
Lopez knew how to fight dirty. There had been few rules left in the war. She knew how to set punji stick traps, spike traps meant not just to impale the enemy, but to wound them; to make the bastard crying for his space mama draw his friends into a kill zone. The Templars had barely begun to scratch the depths of her skills. She could've lined the entire creek with concealed spikes, could have done so much torment.
Yet now, since arriving on this world, since seeing how far ONI was willing to go, the thought of fighting the way they had made her sick. Certainly, it was because there were precious few humans left. The population before the war, numbering almost 40 billion, was cut in half. She simply refused to do it. It made her sick. But you know, command-detonated mines are acceptable under the Mine Ban Treaty. It's only the ones with tripwires you can't use. Sometimes you have to make compromises.
The claymores held them back, buying a few minutes, but the enemy soon rallied on the other flank. As frightening as it was, these people had faced mages before. It would take much fancier stuff than claymores to break them. The wounded and remains of the broken units fled to the opposite side of the lake, joining the larger formation. With a few minutes of peace, they were ready to fight again. Iron Bull cursed, "Looks like the next push will break the line. They're not going to hold for long!"
"Let's move, then!" Gil cried, and jumped off the platform.
Lopez turned back to the battlefield. The enemy pushed all their assets to the opposite side of the lake, pushing more of their troops onto the lake, but continued hugging the side. What are they up to…? Lopez considered. They could unroll their entire army across the lake, but they weren't.
XXXXX
Despite the mysterious explosions on the other flank, the Templars were able to keep pushing on the roadside flank. Soon, the Templars were able to advance into a hole they'd broken in the Inquisition lines, climbing awkwardly through the trenches and hastily-dug fortifications. Each side of the hole in the Inquisition lines bent inward to face the breach, but the bulge continued to grow and advance deeper into their rear lines.
The retreating Inquisition soldiers failed to rally, bumping into the second and third defensive ranks, hampering their ability to fight back. Not that they could, there wasn't much heavy infantry available to go shield-to-shield with the Templars.
The lines broke and fell back into the town itself, and the buildings along the road ahead of the gate. A drum hammered out a staccato beat.
Thaa-rrump, thump, thrump thrump thrump! Thaa-rrump, thump, thrump thrump thrump! Tharrumpumpum, tharrumpumpum!
It was a neat, orderly, and reserved sound as if cut with a ruler. "First company, advance!" A formation of Inquisition troops moved forward as retreating infantry poured past them.
Haven's expansion was both a curse and a blessing; it made it harder to hold the outskirts, once the enemy passed the trenches and dirt walls, but it also made it easier to bleed the enemy with house-to-house fighting and made it difficult for the enemy to follow their movements. Few in the Templar advance wondered where the thundering weapon that had wreaked havoc on their formations had gone. They hoped it had been destroyed.
A horn blasted, and a unit of Templars marched through their lines to push forward. The sound was like a wail, a loud call to action that trailed off like a solemn song; yet boiled with anticipation of an avalanche ready to fall on the victims. The brief moment of silence that followed it was filled with a roaring blast of voices. The shock troops had come. Not that the locals had any concept of the term. "Fall back!" Inquisition officers in the third defensive line shouted, "Fall back!"
The Templars called out jeers and taunts, knowing no force on the planet would be able to stop them. Over the screams and shouted orders, a few of them noted an odd rumbling sound. Different from the deep booming they'd been hearing for the last few hours.
The Inquisition troops retreated, the lines directly in front of the Templar advance breaking apart and running, many tossing their weapons aside. The drums in the distance sounded again, beyond the retreating soldiers, but the Templars couldn't see the source.
Thumpthum, thumpthum, thumpthum, thump thump thump, thump thump thump, thump thump thump tharrump!
The last of the Inquisition soldiers streamed around a large formation standing in two neat rows across the width of the street, with one row crouched in front of the other standing behind. They didn't wear armor, nor did they have shields, all they had were pikes. The Inquisition must've been running out of troops. As dangerous as pikes could be, the Templars knew their superior discipline would win the day.
The Inquisition formation split a little, a wave shifting on either side as a large black object on wheels appeared in the center. The Templars were already casting magic purge spells and raising their shields against arrow attacks. "Charge!" Their advance slowly picked up steam, and they moved toward the enemy, ready to cut them apart.
"Preparing to fire!" A voice shouted, echoing toward the Templars distantly, as did the phrase, "Make ready!" The rows raised their "pikes" to hip level. "Battery fire!"
The six-pounder gun leaped back with a sound like a freight train, a huge white cloud of smoke lancing through the enemy ranks. Dozens of iron balls slashed into the enemy formation and completely halted their advance.
The double canister round was like a giant shotgun, tearing through flesh and iron and mail without halting. The smoke billowed away, revealing a massacred force out to 400 yards. The lead officer was completely gone, the standard-bearer nearby cut in half. Almost a hundred men and women lay dead or dying on the street, nursing injuries or trying to crawl away. It was a victory, but an utterly horrific display. A massive hole had been torn in their formation.
A Templar on the edge of the formation was blinded when something sticky splattered across his visor. The soldier flipped up his visor and turned to his side to see the soldiers who'd been standing beside him were just…gone. He turned slightly to see bodies and broken forms spread out in a v-shape behind him. He looked down at himself, numbly noting his armor had turned red, and bizarrely, his gauntlet was covered in white stuff. Is that snow? He wondered idly.
Many of the Inquisition soldiers had never seen canister shells fired in actual combat. Most of the flintlock soldiers had seen the elephant, but never like this. Their lines shifted a bit, as several individuals, particularly in the front, became ill. Seeker Cassandra, commanding the unit, put an arm to her face, the stench of death mixed with the smell of rotten eggs, "Hold fast! Pull yourselves together!"
Another formation of Templar heavy infantry was on the other side of the field of blood, a hundred meters away. They passed through the first shattered force. "Advance cartridge! Canister!"
The Templars cast their anti-magic spells, but already the light infantry and skirmishers around them were halting, taking refuge behind and beside the heavy infantry. The survivors of the first unit stumbled back to safety, dragging shell-shocked and wounded comrades.
"Fire!"
The piece leaped back again. The single canister round ripped through the heavy infantry, sending body parts, armor, and bits of weapons back. Men and women just fell over backward like a stack of dominos. Some screamed. Some didn't. A rank of skirmishers couldn't take it; they turned and ran. An officer rushed behind them, raising his sword, "Stop!" A pair of Templars from the first company rushed through the skirmishers and roughly knocked him aside.
Another officer of the light infantry, seeing this display, raised his sword, "Bucinator! Signal retreat!" A member of the infantry raised a horn and let out a rough low series of blasts. The light infantry looked up and slowly began to withdraw. "With me!" The officer shouted, waving his sword.
The remaining heavy infantry, barely still in line, watched the retreat and shifted, only for their officer to snarl at his NCOs, "Forget about them! Dress those ranks! Close ranks!" The officer stepped over to the other company, and waved, "Stop, you cowards!" He looked around, and seized an NCO from the first shattered unit, "Form up with us!"
Among the Inquisition, Cassandra shouted, "First company, quicktime, forward march!" The first drum call sounded again.
Thaa-rrump, thump, thrump thrump thrump! Thaa-rrump, thump, thrump thrump thrump! Tharrumpumpum, tharrumpumpum!
The troops advanced toward the enemy, their weapons pointed upward. "Take care...halt! Ready arms! Fire by file!" They raised their weapons. The Templars raised their shields, extending their spears. The blood was mixing with the mud and snow, slowly sliding down the hill around their feet.
"Look out…" a soldier moaned, stumbling back toward their surviving lines, his left arm completely shredded. "Help…! They're going to-"
"First rank, first squad, ready! Commence firing!" Twelve flints snapped home and twelve muskets fired. It was a thunderous barrage, deep drawn-out sounds barely separated from one another. "First rank, second squad, fire!"
Hot on the heels of the first volley, the bullets tore into the Templars. Not as powerful or as far as the canister, but it was still deadly. They were all veterans, hardened against the screams of their comrades, but they had faced actual fire, not these new weapons. The sounds they made as they fired and as the bullets roared past were terrifying and utterly foreign. They tore through flesh and armor leaving new and bewildering wounds.
"Second rank, first squad, fire!" As the third volley fired, the first rank of Inquisition soldiers, their NCOs screaming for them to go faster, tore their cartridges, poured the powder, and shoved the paper inside. They pulled out the ramrods and pushed the projectiles down.
"Second rank, second squad, fire!" Four seconds after the fourth squad had fired, the last of the first rank were replacing their ramrods, the taste of paper cartridges on their lips. "First rank, first squad! Fire!"
Each half rank of soldiers fired one after the other every four seconds, completely halting any chance of advancement for the Templar heavy infantry. They were introduced to a new form of warfare centuries ahead of their own, a new and efficient sort of warfare.
Those who had even a chance to think knew that this wasn't magic, but they had no clue what it was. Unlike archers, even if the rate of fire slowed, the power didn't decrease as the operators wore out. Unlike many other weapons they were used to, these could fire almost as rapidly and as efficiently as a mage could cast spells. The infantry fell back, trampling the dead and the dying in their efforts to escape. They tried to shove through their comrades behind them. Their support and flanks fell apart as they saw the veterans fleeing, and a massive wave of congestion ran out as the officers tried to keep order and hold their positions.
The musketeers reloaded, and the roaring tapered off as Cassandra ordered the unit to cease fire. The smell of blood and gore, of burned flesh and rotten eggs stung their nostrils. The cold air stung their hands, even as their fingertips burned from handling their pieces. The repetitive and clipped rumble of the drums radiated from the formation.
Thaa-rrump, thrumpum, thrumpum, thrumpum; thaa-rrump, thrumpum, thrumpum, thrumpum. It was the sound of a heartbeat as if ordering the soldiers to give life rather than take it. At least, for the moment.
"Fix bayonets!" The musketeers pulled out shimmering blades; the clattering racket was the harbinger of death. They affixed the blades to their muskets. Some fumbled, but no one dropped anything. "First company, advance!"
With more units reforming behind them, the company advanced, pushing the enemy out of their positions with mere presence and discipline, and no small amount of stabbing. This marching green force that tramped onward with their vicious weapons, an oncoming wave of destruction in a rigid formation made for a frightening sight. The enemy was in retreat and didn't need much encouragement. They reestablished the perimeter, or at least enough of one to buy time. "First company, defix bayonets and pull back!" The drums sounded out, and they let the regular infantry take their place, falling back and letting their blocks break up a bit.
Back near the cannon, standing near the Warthog that had dragged it down, Lopez gagged at the sight of the field. "God, it looks like the Mona Lisa…"
Cassandra jogged up, "bring the cannon forward!"
The crew did as instructed and heaved, moving it down the hill to a prepared position behind the breastworks, raised just above the troops in line.
"The evacuation is going as planned," Lopez said to the seeker, "can you shift the company east? We may have another breach in the line soon."
"We don't have much ammunition to spare, sergeant. Are you certain you don't want the company to break contact completely?" Cassandra asked.
Lopez shook her head, "We can set up shop again somewhere else and make more. But we need to make sure we can survive today. Making brass cartridges is hard but we've got people who can make shot and powder. As long as we get them and the tools out, we're golden. Every Templar we take down here is one more body they don't have to throw at us next time. We can keep cranking out muskets and train an army in a week, but their skills require years of training. I don't intend to drown them in blood but we can make them pay for every inch of space. That's what I do."
Cassandra peered at her, "we can't exterminate the Templars-!"
"Wasn't planning on it, Cassie. I'm just making sure they don't have any knights or rooks to throw at us eventually." The cannon fired behind Cassandra. "Or pawns, whatever. Never liked chess but holding actions, I'm good at them."
Cassandra made an odd expression, then sighed, "very well. Is it the south trebuchet?"
"How'd you guess?"
There was a flash to the south, and a bolt of lightning went upward. "Divine intervention." Cassandra deadpanned, "1st company, to the north!"
Lopez let the unit go by. She cursed as she remembered why the British always had those red coats; so you could see who was who. As intimidating as they were when they advanced, these troops were a hodgepodge of colors and clothing, the only uniform features were their muskets and cartridge boxes, and various patches of green.
The cannon barked, and she tapped her headset, letting Corlett know to provide coordinates again.
Minutes later, "Scarlett One-One, this is Echo-One-Charlie. The enemy is in position Alpha. Repeat, the enemy is in position Alpha."
The enemy was finally in place. She rushed to the gun battery, "Gun commander, gun commander!"
"Sergeant!" The battery commander replied, raising a hand.
"Position alpha! They're at position alpha!"
"Yes ma'am!"
The gun commander called out orders and coordinates, and the gun was pulled around. "Advance cartridge! Solid shot!" The powder handler brought it forward. It was inspected. "Load!" The charge and projectile were pushed in, a new sense of tension in the moment. "Ram!" They carried out the necessary instructions. "Prick and prime!"
On command, the primer used their priming wire and put a match into the vent. "Ready to fire!"
"Take aim!" The gun captain moved the gun around, adjusting it. "Preparing to fire!"
There was a brief stillness in the air. The gun commander froze for a moment. Lopez fixed her gaze on him. "Four letter word, soldier."
He shook himself out of it, "Fire!" The gun exploded.
The solid shot wasn't visible, but it climbed up and up over brief seconds. It struck just the right point. Lines spiderwebbed across the snow-covered mountains. And an avalanche erupted.
"Come on you motherfuckers...come on," Lopez muttered. It was like a Grizzly tank starting up. She could feel the rumbling in her feet. Nature with a little encouragement decided to tear loose.
They hadn't dared to hope. This wasn't exactly a Machiavellian scheme, of was more like a series of contingency plans had fallen into place. With the right flank concentrating on the left, that concentrated a large number of troops in the perfect position for an avalanche to squash them. With the force of a full barrage of an artillery park, or a strategic bomber it tore through the enemy formations. Their torches went out as they were obscured from view; the army had been buried under an avalanche. Clouds of snow rose like smoke. Cheers ran up from Inquisition lines as the enemy forces who weren't buried ran from the monstrous force of nature. There were screams drowned out by the voluminous force of the snow.
A Templar horn roared distantly. Lopez nodded in the direction it had come from, "Does anyone know what that signal is?"
The battery commander shrugged, "Apologies, Sergeant. I know not."
Lopez sighed. She looked into the night. Clouds passed overhead. She thought she saw one shift over a few stars. Huh. Wind's picking up. "Alright. Hold your fire for now. Don't waste powder chasing them. We're probably going to ship out soon, but be ready. The enemy's still got plenty of troops left, and if they launch another attack…" She shook her head, turned, and walked back up the street. "Echo-One-Charlie, come in."
"Roger, Scarlett-One-One. This is Echo-One-Charlie. Man, what a show!"
"Give me a status report, over."
"Stand by. The snow's not interacting well with my opticals. Damn cut-rate things…"
Something caught on the edge of Lopez's vision. Something blotted out the stars for a moment. Huh. "Alright, let me know when you–"
"Break break! This is Echo-One-Charlie! Enemy aircraft inbound!"
"Aircraft?" Lopez murmured, looking at the sky.
Several of the natives looked up and trembled with fear. "Dragon!" came a horrified scream, and the shout rebounded.
"Repeat! Enemy aircraft inbound!"
Oh, shit! Lopez thought quickly, watching the massive shape in the sky moving. If she hadn't seen it she wouldn't have believed it, but there it was. A dragon. She realized with dread exactly why the enemy didn't have siege equipment. It was airborne. She'd been too focused on the ground. Without radio or even proper timepieces, no wonder it had been so late. No triple-A, no jackhammers, no nothing! Oh, fuck! "Scatter! Everybody take cover!" Lopez roared, "Everybody hit the deck!"
The infantry dropped like a wave as the dragon passed overhead. Lopez realized the gun crew was still on their feet, loading another round. "Ready to fire!"
The shape in the corner of her eye was diving in an all-too-familiar motion. It was making an attack run. She broke into a sprint and ran toward the crew. "Hey, get outta there! Forget the gun-!"
The dragon's fire ran across their lines, destroying one of the trebuchets, torching some of the breastworks, and finishing by setting the cannon on fire. It burned like napalm, sticking to everything. The gun crew screamed in agony, writhing as they melted before Lopez's very eyes.
She tried to rush forward and brave the flames, to try and save them, to do something. She had to struggle through the fleeing Inquisition soldiers, their officers trying to rally them. Many were burned or carrying the injured. "Sergeant!" an NCO called out, spotting her distinctive uniform, "We can't hold them! Enemy units are coming through the snow!"
"Hold position here!" she gestured to the narrow street they stood on, "I'll blow the cannon!"
The fires were still raging, and the NCO looked extremely concerned, "But ma'am-!"
"Get me a squad and round up any mages you can find!" Lopez pulled her rifle off her back, checking the magazine, "then hold position here!"
"But-"
Lopez raised her rifle and shot several Templars, "You have your orders!"
"Y-Yes ma'am!"
A handful of Inquisition soldiers armed with swords and shields appeared, assembling across the street. A towering figure appeared from an alleyway, dressed in his black-purple armor. "Henry? What are you doing here?" Lopez asked.
"Assistance offered," he said, holding up his repeater, "tools are safe. Situation?"
"We're destroying that cannon!"
He looked down the street, then at Lopez, his eyes wide. "Are you mad?" He demanded in an odd tone, "the flames!"
"We have to destroy every piece of equipment we leave behind!" Lopez shouted, pointing at the flames, "And we have to save anyone we can! How much ammo do you have? We're going to be doing walking fire! Walking fire over their heads, you get me?"
She turned to move forward and lead the squad but felt an alien hand grab her shoulder. "Zhao, no! We must retreat!" Again he spoke with that odd tone.
Lopez fired at something moving beyond the remains of the gun crew, the cheers of the enemy troops reaching them. "get off me, split-lip!"
The Templars were surging, seeing the hated weapon destroyed. Henry raised his weapon, working the bolt as rapidly as he could, "there's too many!"
"Go on! I don't need your help!"
"Zhao, the battle is lost!"
"Fuck off!"
"We need to fall back, vermin!"
"Fuck off!"
"Heretic, we are running out of ammo! Our cannon is destroyed! We must withdraw!"
Still, she shook her head, "We gotta blow the gun! We can't let them get it!" Lopez glanced around, "I need a mage to shoot fairy dust at those flames! We can't let them get the gun!"
"There's no time! We must withdraw!" Henry gestured at the Templars climbing over the breastworks.
"Like hell!" A terrific explosion rent the area around the cannon. Lopez pushed Henry and the NCO to the ground, and several of the other Inquisition soldiers did the same with each other. Even if they didn't have much experience with firearms, they knew what to do with mage explosions, and had been told what would happen if a cannon burst. Lopez picked up her head, "Caisson blew! Ah, shit!"
Henry grabbed the back of her armor as she tried to get up, "Then there's no powder left! Get down!"
Lopez pulled out her knife, "God damn it let me go!"
Another explosion rang out, and Henry grabbed her around the middle and rolled, pulling her back to the ground in his grip. Flaming or smoking fragments rained down around them. Henry checked his comrades. Lopez rammed him in the ribs, and struggled out of his grip, "C'mon, everyone on your feet!"
The Sangheili grabbed her arm, "You do your fellows no good if you are dead! Come on!"
Lopez shrugged out of Henry's grip, growled, and raised her rifle to fire off another round. Her rifle bolt locked back. The light blue indicator flashed "00". The enemy surged around them as the gunfire slacked off.
Henry grabbed her and dragged her back, "we must withdraw!"
"Let go of me!"
"Will you withdraw?"
"Yes, Jesus H Christ, just let go of me!" The Inquisition troops were getting back to their feet, still arranged across the street, looking between the arguing soldiers and the enemy beyond the flames. Lopez snarled, and looked at the Inquisition officer standing nearby, looking quite nervous, "Alright, pull back slowly! We'll keep them back! Pull back up the street and hold at the other end!"
The NCO still looked nervous, but more relieved than last time. "Yes, champion- sergeant!"
As the last of the Inquisition troops passed the two soldiers, the enemy was closing ranks across the street. Many of them were ragged, covered in snow and ice, but there were still a number of them holding together. They were scratch units, confused and disorderly in the wake of the avalanche, but their numbers made up for a lot. They raised swords and put up their shields. They prepared for battle, calling out jeers and insults.
Henry and Lopez moved back to back and looked at each other. They took a couple of seconds to appreciate the unexpected situation. A Covenant soldier and a UNSC Marine back to back. Lopez checked for a rifle magazine, but no full mag met her grip. She pulled out her pistol and her Bolo bayonet. Henry checked his weapon and readied his sword. "Let's go, Henry!"
"Wort, wort, wort!"
Lopez put a round in each of the Templars on each side of the formation closing around them. Henry faced the rear, backpedaling as Lopez moved forward, using her bayonet to slice at their spears. Henry fired a shot at three Templars trying to shift forward, then swept his sword into one, knocking him into the other two.
Lopez rotated to the right, covering Henry's back. They were leapfrogging their way to safety, letting one pull back a few meters and reload, then halting to cover the other while they did the same thing.
Another Templar moved to Lopez's left, and her magazine clicked empty. Without missing a beat, she yanked out her smaller combat knife and hucked it right into the female Templar's eye. "Move it!" She roared.
She grunted as a sword glanced off her shoulder, and parried the blow, jamming her bayonet into the Templar's armpit. She shoved the wounded soldier into their comrades and sprinted for the Warthog. She grabbed her combat knife as she went by.
Pain suddenly lanced through her side and her leg gave out. Lopez fell to the ground with a grunt and rolled over painfully to find her wound had reopened. A dark stain was growing on her fatigues. A Templar with a bloodstained knife raised his weapon.
She swore and threw her combat knife once again. Before the Templar hit the ground, she reloaded her pistol and kept up the fire. Henry looked back, "Zhao!"
"I'm fine, watch your back!" She roared.
The elite moved behind her, then grabbed the back of her vest, dragging her back and firing. He slung his rifle and continued to swipe around with his sword. He picked the sergeant up around the midsection, making much faster progress. He released her by the driver's seat of the Warthog, then recocked his rifle and continued pushing them back. "Start the engine!"
Through a haze of pain her suit's painkillers worked desperately to treat, Lopez crawled her way to the driver's seat. She pulled herself in, hit the starter, and revved the engine, "C'mon you prick! Get in here!"
Henry rammed his shoulder against a small cluster of foes, knocking them back with his superior strength, then broke and ran. He howled as two arrows thunked into his back, but managed to claw his way onto the flatbed. Lopez floored it, "Dino! You alright?"
"Armor stopped most of it. Some hurt."
"Will you live? You get any blood anywhere?"
"One of the tail lights!"
"Does biofoam work on you people?"
"Where is it?"
"Usual place, sharky!" Lopez chinned her radio, "Echo-One-Charlie, move to Rally Point Charlie! Bravo's going to be overrun soon, and Alpha's compromised! We're pulling out! We'll be at Bravo until we can!"
"Wilco! Echo-One-Charlie out!"
Across the valley, Corlett got up from his position, firing a few wild shots, and sprinted for his own Warthog. "I'm oscar mike!"
He leaped into the vehicle, then pulled himself into a standing position in the driver's seat. He touched the side of his ballistic goggles, looking between Haven and the ridges. Nodding to himself, he sat back down and hit the gas.
Lopez and Henry pulled up to the Chantry, honking the horn. The defense of the gates was stillborn. They closed them, but they didn't have the staff to hold them. Not with the dragon about. There was a massive amount of congestion, carts, horses, and soldiers all milling around. Other troops were trying to defend the area but were hastily organized. The enemy's confusion was the only thing keeping them alive. All seemed confused, unsure of what to do. They looked like they wanted to run, but had no idea where to go. Some had undoubtedly fled already.
"Move your asses!" Lopez shouted, leaning out of the vehicle and honking the horn. Several Inquisition staff heaved to push a cart out of the way. Lopez parked the 'hog and jumped out. She pointed to an officer just standing around, "You over there! What are you doing? Shore up those defenses!" Turning to another, she ordered, "You, make sure those archers have enough ammo! Keep the enemy at range for as long as possible!" She looked for more, grabbing two officers, "What are we waiting for? This is an evacuation, isn't it? Everyone, stop standing around and get moving! Get those supplies out of here! Move it!"
Finally, the troops started to move, either pulling back or shoring up defenses. A few minutes later, Gil-Galad, his party, and what was left of the musket platoons arrived in dribs and drabs. "Most of the trebuchets have been destroyed," Gil said, "we've gotten everyone we could out of the lower town…" He grimaced, "...but we couldn't save everyone." A ragged handful of people passed Gil's party to safety.
"You never can, Gil," Lopez said, "you just do what you can."
The strange teenager, Cole, appeared as well. He was carrying the chantry official, that obnoxious man Roderick, in a human crutch lift. The priest looked heavily injured, blood mixing with his robes. At Lopez's look, Cole explained, "He tried to stop a Templar. The blade went deep."
Cole paused. "He's going to die."
"What a...charming boy." Roderick groaned as he was set down.
Lopez stepped over, pulled out her tricorder, and scanned the man. "Can't you do something?" Cassandra asked.
Lopez looked surprised for a second, and glanced around, "Hey, Benti, where's the medkit?"
Cassandra looked around, then back at the sergeant, "who?"
Lopez shook her head, "what's the matter with me?" She jogged over to the door, "Hey Henry, where's the medkit?"
Henry was leaning against the Warthog trying to figure out how to put the biofoam container back into the kit. He glanced up and brought it over. "Christ dino…" Lopez grunted and took out the tricorder and biofoam. The biofoam container was a long cylinder thirty or forty centimeters in height, with an extendable nozzle attached. She walked back inside and scanned the chancellor. Taking the green container of biofoam, she crouched in front of him, "Hold still."
"What–? Yagh!" She stuck the nozzle of the container into his wound and pulled the trigger. "What are you–?! A thousand ants are in my chest…!"
"Shut up and don't touch it." Lopez brushed aside his hand The foam polymer filled up the space left by the sword, stopping the bleeding, keeping the organs in place, and preventing further internal hemorrhaging.
"But you–!" Roderick suddenly took a breath, and his eyes fluttered, "Oh my. What was that?"
"It numbs the pain, but I'm afraid the kid's right." Lopez shook her head grimly, and glanced at the others, "I've got zips, but he's losing a lot of blood, and there's some internal damage. If we had time I could give him a transfusion, but I can't do field surgery. And I don't know how much or what kind of internal damage there's been."
She looked around. Iron Bull, Sera, Varric, and Solas had gathered round during the small drama. Henry approached as well, checking his wound. "We need to get out of here. Without any jackhammers, or ammo for the M41s, we're screwed."
Cullen rushed up, "Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time we might have earned."
"That's what I just said, jackass."
"Sergeant now is not the time," Gil said.
"I've seen an archdemon," Cole spoke up, "I was in the Fade. It looked like that."
"Archdemon? You mean the dragon?" Lopez asked, wondering where the little man came from.
"I don't care what it looks like, it's cut a path through the village!" Cullen snarled.
"The thanks we get for dealing with that slipspace rupture…" Lopez muttered. She thought about the message from the future. What did Corypheus want?
"He's not after the village…" Cole murmured, "He only wants the Herald."
All eyes turned toward Gil. "Me? Why does he want…" he raised his left hand, looking at where the mark would be, "...me?"
Lopez rubbed her face, "Ah, hell."
Cassandra approached. "Whatever he wants, he won't care about casualties. We must still get everyone to safety."
"No one else matters but he'll crush them, kill them anyway. I don't like him." Cole said.
"Can we get everyone down the pass?" Gil inquired.
"No. The bad guys are between us and the pass." Lopez grimaced.
"There is no way to survive this. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche!"
"And the claymores and cannons, and all of our soldiers," Iron Bull commented. Lopez blinked at him in surprise.
"Whatever the case. We may die, but we can go down fighting! We can use the trebuchets to trigger another avalanche, taking them with us!" Cullen said.
"I've got better things to do tonight than die," Sera commented, "Is that our whole plan?"
"We may be dying, but we can choose how! Many don't get that choice!"
"Riveting," Lopez said, rolling her eyes.
"He's not wrong, Sergeant, it is a privilege," Cassandra said.
Henry worted something, and Lopez glared at him. "Don't take his side!"
Nearby, the strange young man crouched near Roderick. "Yes…I think that might help," Cole murmured. He looked around, "I believe Chancellor Roderick can help."
"There is a path…" Roderick spoke up, "You wouldn't know it unless you took the summer pilgrimage."
All eyes turned toward him. "What was that?" Gil asked.
"There is a pass. I remember it…during the summertime. It's within our vicinity." Roderick groaned, and stood up, holding his wound. "She…Andraste must have shown me.
Lopez frowned and checked her PDA. "Huh. Scans didn't pick it up."
"This is more than mere accident." Roderick looked pointedly at the elf, "You may be more…"
"Well, that gets us an escape route," Gil said slowly and looked around. "Sergeant?"
"Well…if he can show us, it should work."
"...And I think we're all familiar enough with cliches that we all know what needs to be done to buy time," Varric commented.
Lopez cursed. "We can kill two birds with one stone. We don't have to die, but we can hurt Corypheus!" Cullen said.
"No need to worry. Just give me a clear shot." Lopez patted her sidearm.
Gil looked at her. He dragged his right arm across his forehead, "Sergeant. I need you and Cassandra to take charge of the Inquisition. If I…if we don't make it back, your leadership will be necessary."
"Her?" Cullen snarled.
"Me?" Lopez demanded.
"You. And Cassandra."
"Gil-Galad?" Cassandra asked. Gil realized it was the first time she'd called him by his first name. They were well and truly screwed.
"Seeker, you are far more worthy of it than I. The sergeant here has technology and information, but…" He glanced at Cullen, "She is not the most diplomatic, nor the most familiar with our land. If the inquisition is to survive, and for her to find her people, cooperation will be necessary."
Cassandra thought for a moment. "Very well." She looked at the others. "And you all will do your best to aid him?"
They made affirmations. Solas hesitated for the briefest moment before nodding. Cullen gestured to some guards, "Carry the chancellor, he'll show us the path."
As they brought the chancellor to his feet, he gestured for them to halt near Gil. "Herald, if you are meant for this... if the inquisition is meant for this…" He coughed, and spat blood, "I pray for you."
Gil nodded politely, and the official was led away by the guards. Lopez watched him go, then turned, "Alright, I'm guessing none of you are trained in trebuchets, plus keeping that damn thing aligned is going to be trouble. I've got an idea. Henry, where's that cart?"
Henry jerked his head and led the way back out. They went out to the Warthog, amidst the refugees and Inquisition staff milling about. Henry reached a cart that was ready to be chained to the Warthog and gestured. The cart contained a collection of wooden boxes full of new tools and supplies, along with the olive-drab hard crates and containers of Lopez's people. She shifted some around and pulled out a small box. She opened it to reveal a pack of devices that looked like tiny double-bladed axes. She pulled one out, handed it to Gil, and mimed putting it on her ear. When he did so, Lopez tapped the side of her helmet. "Testing, testing."
Gil jumped in surprise at the radio' squawk, "Ah…receiving."
"Good. You remember how they work then. Okay…" Lopez looked around and grabbed two Inquisition engineers, who'd worked at the industry they'd made. "You two, I need you to go with Gil." She passed them two bulky containers wrapped in brown cloth. "Put these on the trebuchets. Recognize them?"
"Yes, champion– Sergeant." One said.
"Alright. Here are the angles we need." She looked around and dragged a notepad out of their equipment. She glanced at her PDA, then quickly wrote something down. She tore the sheet off and pushed the paper into the chest of the one who spoke, "Got it?"
"Yes Sergeant."
Lopez turned to the others, "Gil, you guys gotta protect these two. They'll get the trebuchet set up."
Iron Bull walked up and tilted his head to look at the packages, "And why aren't we using the trebuchet rounds?"
"Because that's a crew-served weapon that needs dozens of people to operate," Lopez said.
"...Oh."
Henry chained the cart to the Warthog. Lopez cursed, "We need rubber. Those wheels aren't going to hold out." She looked at Gil. "Kid…Gil, you don't have to do this."
"Well, who else will? This is the best distraction we've got." Gil murmured.
Lopez shook her head, "This is insane. Give me a minute to think of something…"
A ripple of musket fire rang out at the small perimeter. "There's no time, Sergeant," Gil said, shaking his head.
He noted the look in the marine's eye. She gave a sidelong glance to the Sangheili nearby. She patted him on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself, Gil." She pulled out a red and white square and pushed it into his hands. "And give me that back when you're done with it." She turned and gestured to the engineers, "Go with him, you two." She climbed into the Warthog and started it up. "Damn it, will this thing even fit? Henry fix those chains!" He flipped her off.
Gil turned away and gestured to his group. "We must protect these engineers."
They made their way through the ragged defense perimeter. The musketeers were running low on ammunition, and the archers were down to their last arrows. Gil's unit proceeded through, fighting off the ragged and confused enemy units. Something was wrong again. They may have been reforming.
They reached the trebuchet. The engineers unpacked their equipment and adjusted the trebuchet as best they could with their limited numbers. They had to drag Iron Bull in to rotate it. Soon, it was ready.
Whump. Whump. Whump.
They heard the dragon's wings before they saw it. "Move! Move, move, move!" Gil-Galad shouted. The others didn't need to be told twice.
They spread out, scattering, moving as fast as they could, desperately hoping that the dragon's aim was poor for once, putting all their faith in luck, or whatever deities they held dear. All cursed as the dragon roared, and spewed death right down the center. The trebuchet miraculously survived, but barely a meter to the side was an inferno. The charred skeleton of one of the engineers lay on the edge of the inferno.
Gil-Galad was slightly behind the others and was forced to the side by the intense heat. Then something big, he didn't know what, hit the cart near the trebuchet, and it exploded. The blast threw him through the air like a giant's toy.
He hit the ground. Dazed, he tried to get to his feet. His staff was gone. A large figure appeared from the fire near the trebuchet. Intense fear filled the elf, and he tried to stumble to his feet, trying to escape.
The others were nowhere to be seen, they must've lost track of him. Wait! He could see them in the distance, further up the road as they realized he wasn't with them. Gil sprinted toward them.
The dragon appeared in his path from behind a wall, roaring and nearly knocking him back with the landing alone. He cried out, backing away, putting up his hands and trying to cast a spell, to defend himself, to do something.
"Enough." A tall being said behind Gil, and the dragon stopped advancing.
Gil-Galad whirled around, keeping an eye on the being and looking around for means of escape, or to fight. Whoever it was, they were monstrous, it was like a human body had been carefully sliced apart to build a massive scarecrow adorned with red robes. His face was human. It looked like a doll's face torn off, stretched over a sphere, and wrapped in a shredded shawl made of stone. His eyes and mouth were in motion, but the rest of his face was stretched taught, cracked, and blackened. He seemed to emulate red energy. As Gil studied him further, he realized the lower part of the being's torso was made of skin. It looked like it had been yanked off and pinned to a tanning board for display. This must be Corypheus.
"Pretender," he growled, "You toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."
Gil gasped, catching his breath, "What do you want?"
He scoffed, his right eye glowing with a slight red glint, "Mortals beg for truths they cannot have. It is beyond what you are. What I was. Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One, the will that is Corypheus. You will kneel."
Gil was taken aback. He snarled, "Is that what you want? You just want me to kneel? Is that what all of this was about?"
Corypheus' face didn't change. "I am here for the anchor. The process of removing it begins now." He raised a clawed hand, holding a large sphere with red lightning flickering around it. He raised his other hand, and a shimmer of magic shot out. A lance of pain went up Gil's arm, and the mark's glow brightened in intensity. Gil held his left hand with the right, taking a step back. Corypheus turned his hand, his voice filled with a quiet rage. "It is your fault, 'herald'. You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose."
The pain increased in Gil's hand, sickly-green cracks appearing in the skin as he looked on in horror. "I don't know how you survived, but what marks you as 'touched', what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens." A blast of magic erupted from Corypheus' hand, and Gil fell to his knees. "...And you use the anchor to undo my work. The gall."
"What...what is this thing even for?!" Gil gasped.
"It is meant to bring certainty where there is none. For you, the certainty that I would always come for it." Corypheus strode forward, and in an astonishing show of strength, grabbed the elf's wounded arm and lifted him by it. At his full height, Corypheus was taller than any Qunari Gil knew. He dangled in the air by his arm, feet swaying a meter above the ground. This close, he could take in how shattered the man's skin was, it was as if the dirt covering his body had soaked into his pores and integrated itself into his skin. "I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the Empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption, dead whispers."
He leaned in toward Gil, his face grim and somewhat disgusted, "For a thousand years I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter, to correct this blighted world."
Corypheus held Gil out like a dead rat. The flames around them beat at the cool winter air, sending waves of heat toward them. "Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the Throne of the Gods, and it was empty!" Gil screwed up his face with pain, biting his tongue and letting out only a groan. Corpyheus's eyes narrowed, and he threw the elf away into the snow. Gil hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him. "The anchor is permanent, you have spoiled it with your stumbling." Corypheus continued monologuing as if nothing had happened.
Gil saw the trebuchet on the edge of his vision, rolled over, and crawled toward it. "Maybe your gods are gone…" he muttered, getting to all fours. He got to his feet, stumbling to the trebuchet. He looked back, and Corypheus' gaze narrowed at the interruption.
"So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation, and god it requires."
"Mythal, lasa ghilan…" Gil muttered. Everything was hurting. He struggled to remember more. He wasn't an intense follower of the Elven Pantheon, but he wasn't quite agnostic either.
"As for you… I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die." Corypheus' gaze narrowed. His head turned. The skin covering his neck was lit up by the fires. It looked healthy, yet filthy.
The elf's skin crawled. The former man was like something out of children's stories, or the nightmares he'd had as a child of the humans coming to take him away. It hurt Gil that he didn't know more elven. He struggled to remember more phrases. "Lathbora viran…" he muttered knowingly.
Corypheus glowered at the short statement. "Your false gods are gone as well, had they existed in the first place."
"Mythal'enaste." Gil said aloud, almost pleading.
"Your gibberish will not save you. Be silent, and I will be merciful."
"Dirthara-ma!" Gil snapped, "Fen'Harel ma ghilana!"
"I should kill you just for your use of that unholy filth." Corypheus snarled "Elves. Utterly unworthy of life."
"Killing me won't stop the rest of us." Gil said, "That's never worked for your people."
Corypheus' glower shifted slightly again. "You mean the warrior, don't you? The one who gave you the fire weapons. Who is he?"
A switch flipped in Gil-Galad's brain. "Which one?" He asked, smirking a tiny amount.
"The human."
"She's nothing special. She's just a Marine. Henry is just a soldier as well." Gil laughed, "It's funny. I'm just some elf mage and I'm some sort of rival to you? My life is such a mess."
"Be silent!"
"Varric said you used to be a human mage. A Tevinter mage at that. That certainly shows! For your godliness, you're still racist."
"That word is worthless. Meaningless." Corypheus commented, "Just another way for their inferiors to make themselves-"
"There it is." Gil chuckled, "That's what you always say. Ever since I was a child I've had to suffer through your people's nonsense. Always logical, always carefully structured to justify your dominion over us, over our city elves. You accepted them into the cities, but only as slaves. Even as they threw away their own culture you still wouldn't accept them. Nothing was ever good enough. They were always inferior, but somehow our groups were even more inferior. Fit to be nothing but slaves."
Corypheus's eyebrow, in his patchwork skin, rose slightly, "I'm glad you are aware of your place. A shame you can't keep it."
Gil-Galad winced when his earpiece spoke, "Golf-Niner-Lima, this is Scarlett One-One. We're clear." Gil froze for a moment, then tapped his comlink twice.
Corypheus tilted his head at the motion. "Don't worry. It's nothing you need to worry about," Gil snarled.
"Word of advice, Gil, run."
"I figured that out already," Gil muttered.
"No, seriously, run before it lights!"
"What are you doing?" Corypheus asked.
Gil looked at the lever of the trebuchet nearby. The massive tension knob was just at the mark made by a knife. He climbed painfully to his feet, "I'm doing what all elves have been doing since people like you have been around." He pulled out a small silver device, flipping the red lid open. He flicked the knob as he'd been taught, the device making a few crackling sounds.
"What is that?" Corypheus snarled.
"You couldn't comprehend it," Gil smirked, as a small flame lit from the Club Errera lighter, "You people never comprehend us." He held the lighter to a cord taped to the trebuchet's arm. "Arlathvhen, Halam'shivanas." The fuse caught and crept rapidly along the cord. Gil snapped the lighter closed, "Welcome to the future."
The tablet database had been designed to help colonists in any situation. That included combat, and compensating for a lack of certain materials in various atmospheres and environments. Cannons were hard, but if your tablet functioned enough to give you the database. It could still calculate flight equations.
The fuse continued to creep along the way, reaching a bundle of cylinders strapped to the trebuchet's arm concealed in the dark of the evening, even in the light from the burning town. The fuse split into four, each ending in four holes in the cylinders. For a brief instant, it seemed as if the fuses had gone out.
Gil-Galad was already running, sprinting as fast as he could. Corypheus stepped forward, peering at the devices, then snarled as jets of intense heat blasted out from all four. Math developed on another world millennia ago went into action, pushing designs based on work from China, to India, to Britain, to the United States. Newton's laws sent four points of red light shrieking into the sky, Goddard's influence improving Congreve's popularized design.
The four rockets screamed toward the mountain, hammering it with the explosive force of several kilograms of explosives. A relatively controlled avalanche immediately erupted; lines spider-webbed across the mountains. The snow immediately started sliding. Corypheus merely grimaced. His dragon picked him up, and they took off.
Gil could spare nothing for this. All he could think of was the sound of a hurricane quickly growing loud in his ears. There! There was the cavern entrance! He could hear the snow crackling off to his left, he had to jump for it-!
He hit something hard on the way in, just as the snow ran overhead like a freight train.
XXXXX
Lopez put both hands back on the wheel and swerved to avoid a snowbank. Their maps had been mangled by the avalanches, and the night certainly didn't help.
Lopez pushed the accelerator down further, feeling the metal under the pedal. "Shit, which way do we go?..." She muttered, "Scarlett One-One to Echo-One-Charlie, we are Lima Lima Mike foxtrot! The drone's gone dark. I need directions ASAP. I'm on the East ridge, passing the mine, the avalanche is going to start any minute. Requesting assistance, over!" Static hissed in her ear as she swerved to avoid a tree, "Scarlett One-One transmitting in the blind. Echo-One-Charlie, do you copy? I need immediate assistance, over!"
She heard the rockets detonating. "Scarlett One-One, in the blind-" An orange indicator, two triangles interlinked together to form an arrow, appeared on the edge of her HUD. A nav point! Lopez turned hard left, just barely avoiding a dangerous ledge and sliding to a halt. She peered at the indicator. "1.27 km" was written beside it. She glanced back in the direction of Haven, shrugged, and hit the gas.