Griffon Wing
Varric pressed a flask with the alchemical invisibility into my hand, meeting my eyes and nodding silently. I nodded in return, and then looked up. Above us, Cole and Michele appeared to have located a suitable ledge. Michele was difficult to make out, but Cole was a brilliant streak of radiant light even in the growing gloom of evening.
I sent Varric up first, since he was more difficult for me, as I had to rely on physical sight and couldn't see precisely where I was placing him. It was easier to find an empty spot with the ledge less crowded. A moment later, the surprisingly soft purr varghest mothers used to soothe their young came from above - the signal that Varric was safe and steady. I turned to Solas.
This time he hadn't protested being separated from me, and our bond brought me only the faintest thread of unease. Apparently he, too, had finally moved past everything that had happened at Haven. Even so, he stepped up to me now, taking my face in his hands and pressing a kiss to my brow. "Eolasan sul'sildearas shivaglanast ga'lin, thusast sathan sila ane arulin'ala o sast'lin," he told me in a low voice, and then added with a quick, sharp glance at the man in question: "Let Dorian protect you."
I nodded. "Dar'eth, emma lath."
"On ghi'myal, ma vhenan." He stepped back and I wrapped him carefully in the Fade, willing him onto the ledge above. Another varghest purr let me know he had arrived safely, and I turned to Dorian.
"I'm flattered, by the way, that our resident hobo has deigned to make me responsible for your safety in his absence," the other mage told me.
"Dorian...I don't even know which parts of that are meant sarcastically," I informed him before tossing the invisibility flask on the ground and letting the smoke it contained coil around us both. He took my arm, and I Fade-stepped us away from the outcropping of rock and the walls flanking it, towards where the rest of our party lay hidden among the dunes.
After two Fade-steps to take us out of the immediate vicinity of the walls, we began walking, hurrying along in an effort to reach safety before the invisibility wore off. Amberley and the other scouts joining us had more of the flasks, but Dorian and I were so loaded down with lyrium that we hadn't had space to carry extras. I was using a lot of mana in setting all of this up, and would probably need more than one potion to get through the battle ahead.
We dropped down behind the shelter of a dune moments before the alchemy dissipated, leaving us fully visible, and then crawled our way to the rest of the group. "Any trouble?" Cassandra asked as we joined them.
"Everything seems to have gone smoothly," I replied. "We're going to need to do something about that rock face once we're in control of the keep."
"Priorities, Boss," Bull rumbled. "First we have to take the keep."
"All right, let's not keep the others waiting," I said, tacitly agreeing.
My initial plan had been to rely on my Fade-shifting ability to get everyone in close enough to strike, but Bull had pointed out how inefficient the idea was. "You'll be exhausted before the battle even begins." He had suggested the use of alchemical invisibility instead, allowing us to creep into range unseen - perhaps near enough for me to place Cassandra on the wall at the very beginning of the battle.
That wasn't, as it turned out, actually possible - there were no mages atop the wall as we stole close enough for me to pick out auras, and I didn't trust myself placing Cassandra without a strong aura to guide me. We had a solution for that, though - the scouts we had brought along were all archers. When they began picking off their counterparts from the walls, it was a matter of moments before an alarm was raised and mages rushed onto the walls to place barriers and toss down elemental effects that covered wide areas in the hopes of catching the sources of the arrows.
It was all I needed to drop Cassandra into their midst.
As Dorian cast a barrier on Bull and some of the archers, they began their offensive, the invisibility falling from them mere steps into the charge. Then he tugged me after them, guiding me while I kept my attention centered on Cassandra and the battle surrounding her.
The Venatori manning the wall were so shocked by her arrival that she managed to kill two before anyone even attacked her, and I took that brief second to begin divesting the spellbinders of their enchanted trinkets. After that moment, though, they quickly organized themselves, demonstrating thorough training and good discipline. Though archers were unlikely to carry swords with the same reach as Cassandra's, in the close quarters atop the wall I thought the length of her weapon was probably more liability than advantage. I cast a barrier on her as the first blows came, and then helpfully rearranged things so that all her enemies were coming at her from one direction.
That accomplished, I took a moment to observe the rest of our party. Though I couldn't see Bull, I could hear his bellowing as he made a gleeful mess of their barricade and anyone unlucky enough to be caught near it. Vivienne and two of the scouts were with him, but two more seemed to be on the ground between us and the entrance. "Dorian?" I asked, nodding in their direction.
"Scout Elin took an arrow to her leg - clean through the calf - and Scout Matthias is tending to her," he reported.
"I can do better than that," I said. "Have him bring her here."
Dorian took a moment to cast a barrier on me - protecting me, I supposed - and then jogged over to them. I looked up at the wall. Cassandra was down to three opponents, all mages, but more were coming up the stairs behind her. I grabbed the handful I could reach, dropping two in front of her and three more near Bull. Their arrival startled the mages on the wall and Cassandra rushed forward. An aura flickered and drained away.
Dorian returned, leading Matthias, who was carrying Elin. "Keep a barrier on Cassandra," I told him. "She's about to get hit from behind." Then I turned my attention to the injured scout.
Matthias laid her carefully in the sand, and I sat beside her. He had already applied a tourniquet to help with the bleeding, removed the arrow, administered a potion, and sewn up one side of the wound. "Did you train to be a medic?" I asked, impressed by his efficiency.
"No, Your Worship," he replied - and I couldn't see his blush but he sounded so embarrassed that I presumed it was there.
"I'll tell Harding to see that you receive official training the next time you're at Skyhold," I told him, probing the wound, first with magic and then - carefully - with touch. "Can you stitch up the other side?" I asked. "I'm going to heal from the inside out. I'll do as much as I can right now - enough, hopefully, to get her back on her feet - but the rest will have to wait for camp and I don't want this breaking open while we're in battle."
He was already threading a needle as I spoke.
We worked quickly. I pressed a judicious dose of healing energies into Elin's leg as Matthias stitched her up, leaving deep gashes on either side of her leg. Then we bandaged it tightly and Matthias helped her to her feet while I uncorked and drank down a lyrium flask.
"It hurts," Elin said, "but it will hold my weight. I can go on."
I pulled two feladara potions from my belt. "Don't push yourself, and take one of these if you feel it start to bleed again," I instructed her.
"Yes, Your Worship," she agreed.
"Dorian - Cassandra?" I asked, looking up at the wall. She appeared to be alone, now.
"Bull pushed far enough in that Vivienne was able to take out the Venatori climbing up to catch her from behind," he said, coming to my side and taking my arm. "It looks as though they have secured the courtyard - at least for the moment. Shall we join them?"
"Yes, that would be a good idea," I told him, going with him willingly as he started towards the fortress. "Do you know how many we killed?" I asked as we neared the entrance.
"I see six - no, seven bodies on the ground," he told me. "Cassandra! How many did you kill?"
"Nine," she called down.
"There were four on the stairs," Vivienne's voice said, floating out from the courtyard. "And two more came rushing out of the inner gate a few moments ago. The Iron Bull dealt with them."
"So twenty-two," I concluded as we stepped past the splintered remnants of the barricade. "That...might be just about all the combatants in keep, presuming that Solas's group also took care of a few. Even so, we need to make a sweep of the other wings and servants' quarters." I plucked Cassandra from the wall and brought her down to the courtyard, noting as she appeared beside me that she had sustained a number of small wounds. "Matthias and Elin, take this lower area - I don't want you climbing up and down stairs on that leg, Elin. Other two head up - see if you can find the second team."
There were murmured assents all around, and the scouts scrambled off to follow orders. I took a moment to lay my hand on Cassandra's shoulder, sending a brief wave of healing energy through her even as I continued scanning the area for auras - particularly mage auras. I was at least certain that Solas - wherever he was - was unharmed and not particularly disturbed by anything. I hadn't had time to pay attention to our bond during the heat of battle, but I imagined a severe misfortune, such as one of them being severely wounded, would have called my attention regardless.
Cassandra began checking the bodies for valuables while I kept watch, and after a moment Bull joined her. A handful of minutes later, we heard some brief shouts and sounds of battle from the direction Elin and Matthias had taken. "Shall I go check?" Cassandra asked, and I nodded.
She didn't make it far before both of them returned, with nine or ten people in tow. "Your Worship!" Elin called, and Dorian helped me hurry to them. "Some of them are injured," she explained. "There were two apprentices - when they heard the fighting they tried to use blood magic to summon a demon."
Matthias spat on the ground. "Fools."
"They killed several slaves," Elin went on, "and injured a few of these," she gestured towards the people with them, "but they must not have done the binding right, because the demon killed them just before we got there."
"No trouble putting it down?" I asked, beckoning to the nearest person. "I have some healing magic," I explained to her when she didn't come immediately. "Are you injured?"
She came, then, and showed me the hastily-wrapped bandages on her arm. I saw, too, all of the scars peeking through. She wasn't even an elf - she was human. " Ir'el abelas ," I murmured anyway, pressing the healing energies into her abused body.
"We've...killed a lot of demons, Your Worship," Elin told me, watching. Of course they had, with rifts appearing everywhere - it took me time to make my way from place to place, closing them, and they needed to be contained in the meantime.
"And how is your leg?" I asked, beckoning to the next person.
"I had to take one of the potions," she admitted, "but it seems to have stopped bleeding."
I nodded as another human stepped forward, a woman leaning on his arm. "I'm unharmed," he told me, "but my wife - " Her injury hadn't been caused by a blood-letting, but was a broken ankle from taking a tumble down some stairs.
"I can't mend breaks," I told him regretfully, "but I can make certain that it's straight and immobilize it - Solas should hopefully be here soon, and he is a much more accomplished healer than I am."
He nodded and I went to work, Matthias coming to join me when I gestured at him.
So it went - most of the people in the group were human, and servants rather than slaves. It appeared the apprentices had targeted the elven slaves as sacrifices, turning to human servants only when still more power was needed. But there were a few elves in the group, all of them in particularly bad shape, and all of them hanging back in spite of it to allow the humans to be tended to first. It occurred to me only belatedly that I should have prioritized by injury severity rather than whoever was nearest me. Even so, it was the elves who picked up on the title Elin and Matthias used when speaking to me, and who began using it, as well.
It made me uncomfortable, but I didn't feel I could tell them not to - not in front of the scouts.
Solas and the rest of his team arrived as I was healing the last handful of elves, on my third lyrium potion since the fight. I found myself lavishing my magic on them, trying to erase entire lifetimes of abuse and neglect. They watched in wonder as chapped, abraded hands and feet healed, as scars disappeared, as aches were soothed away. Perhaps I should have felt proud to be able to offer that gift, but instead it made me angry - furious - that they had lived their lives in a land where magic was flaunted and used for the most mundane of tasks, and yet none of them had ever experienced a mercy as basic as healing.
Solas only approached me when I was finished. "I'm sorry we're late," he said taking my hand, and bringing it to his lips to press a kiss to my knuckles. I supposed he could feel my anger and disquiet, and wanted to comfort me. I squeezed his fingers, though I knew my smile was at best half-hearted. "Are you well?"
"No one even shot at me," I told him. "I'm not certain anyone even noticed me. What kept you? Were there many Venatori on the upper levels?"
"No, not many," he replied, and then gestured. I suddenly realized that there were a number of auras beyond him - at least a dozen, perhaps nearer two. "We found the servants' quarters, and most of the people there needed healing, as well as reassurance that we weren't going to kill them."
"It seems we are going to have a lot of people who need homes and jobs, or passage back to Tevinter. But that reminds me: I have a broken bone down here I need you to look at," I told him.
"I can show him,Your Worship." I flinched slightly at the voice coming from just behind me - I had been so focused on what I was doing and then on Solas that I hadn't realized Matthias was still following me.
"Thank you, Scout Matthias, that would be helpful," Dorian answered for me, taking my elbow and leading me away from Solas, the scout, and the people I had healed. I looked back at Solas with wide eyes, not at all certain that I approved of the direction events had taken, but he was already too far away for me to see clearly. "I apologize, my dear," Dorian said quietly as he guided me...well, somewhere. Perhaps back towards the gate where we had entered? "I had a thought just now that I would like to present to you before more important matters drive it from my mind. Inana, have you ever considered training as a healer?"
"Well...I thought of the possibility when I was young," I allowed, "but my maela - my Keeper - was always better at wards than healing. She taught me everything she could, of course, but there was no one else to train me, and eventually I realized that spirit was far from my strongest element anyway."
Dorian smirked at me. "I'm well aware - your lightning would put a thunderstorm to shame. But that's just what I mean - you are aware that you are a particularly powerful mage, yes?"
Was I? I shrugged. "I haven't had many people to compare myself to. You, Solas, and Vivienne seem to keep up."
"Only because we each have at least a decade on you in terms of honing our skills," he replied, "and, no doubt, access to a much wider range of instruction. Look what you have picked up from Solas in only a handful of months. The two of you have apparently resurrected an entirely lost art! In terms of raw power, I believe you surpass all of us - or at least I know you surpass me, and I have yet to see either Solas or Vivienne match you."
"What does this have to do with healing?" I asked, not quite able to make out the connection.
"You can channel more than enough spirit to be a respectable healer," he explained patiently. "It hardly matters if it is your best element when even your second-best is so impressive. You aren't living with your clan anymore - you aren't constrained by whatever your elders happen to know. The Inquisition could acquire someone to train you in whatever discipline you might choose to pursue."
I felt my eyes slowly go wide as a whole world of possibility unfolded before me. "Oh."
"Oh, indeed," Dorian agreed, amused. "Think it over, my friend. I will help you in any way I can - including scouring Tevinter for any esoteric disciplines that might catch your fancy."
Then he left me to stew over the bewildering abundance of options I had only just realized I possessed.
Eolasan sul'sildearas shivaglanast ga'lin, thusast sathan sila ane arulin'ala o sast'lin: I know you feel responsible for everyone, but please remember you are more important than any of us
Dar'eth, emma lath: Go safely, my love
On ghi'myal, ma vhenan: Good hunting, my heart