In the dim light cast by Fenris' tattoos and Anders' Fade-cracked skin, the first few corpses that moved up the tunnel at a shambling run almost looked as though they were still alive. Until the white gleam of bone through torn flesh caught the light, making Anders groan.
"Undead. Maker but I hate undead." He caught Fenris' arm before the elf could surge forward with his great sword. "We've a better chance if we work together."
The air around them both grew even colder, frost crystals painting mosaics up Fenris' blade before Anders thrust an arm out and swept it across the tunnel from right to left, leaving an arc of dagger-sharp ice in his wake to catch the first wave of undead and freeze them in place.
Fenris charged then, his great sword scything through the frozen corpses, shattering the ice as well as flesh and bone underneath indiscriminately.
Anders bared his teeth in a feral grin of challenge and shouted, "I'll show you why mages are feared!" at the walking dead that climbed over the remains of their cohorts to try to swarm the two men. He froze a corpse that flanked Fenris, allowing the elf to almost contemptuously shatter it with a blow from his sword pommel.
Fenris was hampered by the narrow tunnel, unable to use the whirlwind maneuver that would slash through enemies on every side. His tattoos flared with an actinic glare, and when the glare faded, so had the elf, looking as washed out as a painting left too long to bleach in the sun.
The attacking corpses had as much difficulty focusing on Fenris as Anders. Their strikes missed more often, and once Anders would have sworn that an arrow simply sailed directly through Fenris as though he was mere illusion.
For every creature that Fenris or Anders killed, two more joined their ranks, continuing to surge out of the depths of the tunnel despite their best efforts.
"Back," Fenris called. He had settled into that strange calm that Anders only ever saw from him when he was fighting. Anders saw him pull a grenade from his belt and hastily took several steps back.
He hated using those things, and not just because Tomwise charged an arm and a leg for them. Somehow it seemed almost insulting that non-mages could create something that almost perfectly replicated one of Anders' favorite spells – the fireball.
Fenris threw the grenade and Anders almost spitefully dropped a fireball directly on top of the tiny vial.
The concussion blew Fenris back into him, sending them both staggering before Anders caught himself and Fenris with him. His ears were ringing, but he bared his teeth in feral satisfaction to see that the tunnel had been cleared of onrushing undead.
Fenris shook his head and mouthed something Anders could not make out over the ringing in his ears, but the elf's gesture back down the tunnel coupled with his exaggeratedly mouthing More coming got the point across more than adequately.
They needed to get out of there. The only good thing about this tunnel was that it kept them from being utterly overwhelmed by the creatures' greater numbers. If they made it up to the Darktown wards, the creatures might not follow them and they could come back better prepared.
Anders pulled a face and put a hand on Fenris' arm, ignoring the sudden fury of the elf's expression when he felt the surge of magic. At least Fenris' rage subsided when he realized that it was the kind of magic that closed the wounds that Fenris had barely felt in the heat of battle. He could have used that spell and that mana for himself, but the warrior was taking the brunt of the damage.
For an instant, when one of the Fade cracks in his hand touched the lyrium in Fenris' skin, Justice did something in Anders' head that could be best translated into the physical realm as a shudder.
Anders snatched his hand away and once again wished that Hawke was there, or the Warden Commander, or Void, just about anyone who would bring reinforcements.
He drew a deep breath and raised his staff, as ready for the next wave of attackers as he was going to get.
"After the next wave, I say we run," he suggested in a low mutter. Fenris grunted, which Anders fervently hoped meant he agreed.
They had the space of a handful of deep breaths before more undead clattered up the tunnel toward them. Once again, he swept out the arc of freezing magic, and once again Fenris shattered the frozen corpses with a great sweep of his sword. They were growing tired, but they could survive this.
Knowing that they were going to run, Anders played a little too fast and loose with his spells. He tossed fireballs to clear out the archers, he pulled deep on his reserves for more ice, he threw healing at Fenris as soon as he saw the elf look at all wounded, and when the rest of the world seemed to suddenly move into double-time around him while he moved as slowly as ever, he was not ready.
Behind us, Justice hissed through his mind.
Turning, slowly, too slowly, Anders found himself face to face with grinning bones in a mage's hood and robe.
When a mage's corpse is possessed by a demon of pride, the arcane horror created is pitiless, merciless, and so very powerful.
Anders cried out despite himself, his surprise sounding hollow in his ears and overlaid with Justice's sudden rage to see one of his enemies in the flesh. So to speak, Anders thought incongruously.
He opened his mouth to cast a spell, meaning to catch the horror in the same force cage he had used on Fenris a lifetime ago, when an armored figure barreled into him, bearing him to the ground, knocking his staff from his fingers, while the arcane horror stared down at him with its baleful red gaze.
Whatever had struck him was crushing the breath out of him. He flailed, his arm out, trying to snatch his staff back up, trying to see Fenris, and…
Maker's breath…
Anders had known arcane horrors and revenants to work together before, but the sight of three more revenants flanking Fenris was unprecedented. These were creatures created by pride demons – sometimes desire demons – possessing a non-mage's corpse. They were not known for their cooperative natures.
To see four revenants and an arcane horror all working together…
He had enough time to be terrified not just for himself, but for Kirkwall before the revenant slammed his head into the floor.
He saw stars.
He saw white.
He saw nothing.
• • •
The first sign that he was not dead was the a red throbbing pulse behind his closed eyelids. Every time his heart beat, scarlet flared across the darkness.
The second sign that he was not dead was an almost pleasant weight against the front of his body. A little heavy, a little too knobby in places, but he'd had worse.
The third sign that he was not dead was realizing that the weight against the front of his body was Fenris. He could even feel the elf's hair tickling his chest where the Tevinter robe left it bare. This was not a sign that he would stay not-dead for long.
"Andraste's great gravity-defying bosom," he muttered and opened his eyes.
And saw nothing. He tried to reach to feel around him and jammed his elbows into something unyielding on either side with only inches to spare. Now his head hurt and his elbows were singing discordant songs of pain. And he was blind.
"Shit!"
"That wasn't as original as the first thing you said," Fenris' voice came in the darkness, too close, too loud. It made his head throb as though the elf had shouted instead of spoken in a low growl. "Were you saving that blasphemy for a special occasion?"
"Fenris, have I gone blind?"
The lyrium lines on the back of Fenris' neck lit right in Anders' face, making him squeeze his eyes closed with a moan of pain.
"Why are you on top of me?" he groaned.
"Because, mage, you and I are sharing a coffin," Fenris said, making no effort to conceal his bitterness.
"Then do that fisty thing you do and get us out!" He winced at the agony his own vehemence evoked and tried to summon enough magic to at least push the throbbing away enough to think. None came. Not a trickle, not a drop, not a trace of his magic. Nothing.
"Do you think I have not tried?"
Anders squinted his eyes open and tried to see the boundaries of their prison. They were far too close. Far, far, far too close. His shoulders were bounded by stone within inches on either side and if his elbows were any indication, the space grew no wider lower down. Fenris had just as little space between the roof and his face.
"S'stone," he said.
"What?" Fenris craned his neck to look at Anders, making his whole body shift against Anders in a manner that forcibly reminded him of earlier ruminations on how long it had been since he had last had a bed partner.
Anders grabbed Fenris' hips to make him stop moving. "Don't. Just… don't do that."
Fenris went still. "What?" he repeated, impatience creeping into his voice.
After a deep breath – in through the nose, out through the mouth, there's a good boy – Anders managed to clear his head enough for coherence. "It's a sarcophagus, not a coffin. Coffin's aren't stone. But why in Flame is it tilted at this angle?"
"I don't know."
"How long have we been in here?"
"I don't know."
"How much more air do you think we have?"
Fenris had no response to that, but Anders could feel the tension in the elf's wiry frame.
So this was how it was going to end, not run through by a Qunari, captured by templars and executed, not barbecued by a dragon, not even with his Calling and a final trip into the Deep Roads. No, Anders was going to suffocate in a sarcophagus with an elf who hated him in every particular.
"Well, bollocks."
"What of your magic?"
Anders started to shake his head and quickly thought better of it. "Nothing."
"And your… spirit?"
He had not even thought of Justice. When was the last time that had happened? Anders turned his attention inward, finding the part of his soul where Justice had taken up residence with no difficulty, but the spirit was weaker than Anders had ever felt.
What is wrong with us? he silently asked his passenger/other self/soulmate.
I cannot touch the Fade. We are in some kind of trap, probably meant for demons. The taint lingers.
If it lingered, Anders' head still hurt too abominably to sense it himself, but he trusted Justice's word.
"We're cut off from the Fade in here. That's probably why I can't use magic. Justice thinks this may be a prison or trap for demons."
"Who would be fool enough to release a demon from such a prison?"
Anders hissed through his teeth at the question. "Merrill? I don't think she did it," he added quickly. "But if there's one fool blood mage in Kirkwall, there are a dozen. What's more important is how we get out of it."
"I cannot budge the lid, nor can I phase through it," Fenris said grimly. His next words sounded as though they tasted bad when he spat them out. "I had held out hope that the mage might have some way to free us."
"The mage has little more than the worst headache in Thedas, and—" He had a flare of hope and fumbled at his waist only to find that his belts and pouches were no longer there. "—and nothing else," he finished disconsolately.
He closed his eyes and sighed, feeling his chest shift Fenris up and back down with his breath.
"I always thought I would die violently," he lamented softly.
"I could arrange it if you do not cease your complaining."
They lay in awkward silence for several minutes before Anders blurted, "I should have gone to the Pearl. Justice doesn't like when I do, but a man has needs. Now I'm going to die."
"I do not want to know of your needs," Fenris retorted.
"Then don't move around too much," Anders' eyes flew open as soon as the words left his mouth. He waited for Fenris to find a way to hurt him despite the close quarters.
"Do not even think of it," Fenris said, his voice even, but laced with venom.
"I can't help thinking of it, you're right there. Every other time I've had a man lying on top of me like this, sexy times ensued. I'd have to be dead not to—"
Fenris jabbed his elbow into Anders' ribs.
"Ow! Bastard."
"Do not think of me in that manner."
"I promise," Anders snapped, "that if I think in that manner, I will be picturing someone other than you."
Except now that it had become a thing between them, Anders couldn't help but think of Fenris in that manner. It was better than thinking of death by suffocation. Long limbs, a strong body, his hair smelled of sweat and smoke, blood and wine, and—
"Maker, I told you not to move," Anders gasped when Fenris shifted to try to work the stiffness out of his legs.
"Mage," Fenris warned, murder in his voice.
"Warrior."
"What is that—"
"Against your backside?" Anders smiled wryly despite himself. "Have you heard of Gray Warden stamina?"
Fenris went completely still.
"Yes…."
"Then if you don't want me getting my stamina all over your arse, you'll stop moving."