Author's Note: This chapter corresponds with Chapter 10 of 'Moments In Time'. I'm not going to be doing a Brego POV for every chapter in the main story (pauses to join in collective sigh of relief), but I'd been thinking even before I pulled everything down that this would be a good way to show what was going on with the rest of the group in that episode, and during the review/edit process, the parallel events started coming clear.
"My dog is usually pleased with what I do, because he is not infected with the concept of what I 'should' be doing."
- Lonzo Idolswine
"Talia, stop!"
His Talia does stop in response to Alistair's shout, but it is a near thing. Brego can smell the rebellion mixing with the fear that has been growing steadily since they set out well before dawn this morning, but both are nearly lost beneath the stench of death that has also been growing stronger, almost obliterating the scent that he is tracking, despite the fact that the source is very, very close.
"She's close, Alistair!" His Talia is breathing hard, sweat coursing down her face. They have been moving fast, and since Brego caught Leliana's scent directly on the wind, they have been running: Brego in the lead, his Talia close behind, with Morrigan flying above them as a hawk and the rest trying to keep up. "Brego can smell her!"
"Lothering is close, Talia!" Alistair staggers to a stop beside her, gasping for breath and jabbing a finger forward. "There's the windmill! There are darkspawn there; I can feel them! You promised -"
"No more than a dozen!" his Talia protests wildly. "We can take that many!"
"But what if there are more?"
"There aren't!" she shouts. "You know I can feel them more clearly than you can, and I'm telling you, there aren't more than a dozen in Lothering right now!"
"The Warden is correct," the Sten rumbles as he joins them. Though he has run as long as any of them, he does not appear to be tired. "Her sense of the darkspawn is superior to yours, and twelve are well within our capability."
"I thought you didn't want to do this," Alistair says to the Sten.
"We have come this far; to turn back because of a foe that we can defeat with ease makes even less sense than coming here in the first place."
"Twelve?" Shale lumbers to a stop, the ground shaking slightly beneath the golem's steps. "I could dispatch that many without assistance."
The hawk spirals down from the sky and shimmers into Morrigan's form. "Half a score or so of darkspawn in Lothering with a single emissary," she reports, "and against all probability, the Chantry sheep has reached the outskirts of the town. She will see them...and they her, very shortly."
His Talia glances over her shoulder. "Alistair, please! We're so close! We can't just let her die!"
He follows her gaze, and Brego knows that he wants to obey her, does not want to leave Leliana here. His scent screams it. "Just the dozen or so?" he asks Morrigan. "You're sure?"
She gives him a withering stare. "There were also several hundred with the archdemon just south of town," she snaps, "but I did not think you would be interested in that. Of course, I am sure! I have no interest in dying for that fool, but the current numbers should not pose any real threat...as long as we fight with something remotely resembling a strategy." This last is delivered to his Talia with a glare.
She nods, her hand on the sword that the smith had given her as they left the mountain castle. His Talia had not wanted to surrender the sword that still held the scent of her father in the leather of its grip, but in the few skirmishes they have fought on the way, the new blade has served her well, the scent of its magic sizzling through the blood that it spills. "Right," she says, clearly fighting the urge to turn and race ahead, the fear still strong in her scent, the battle rage trying to rise beneath it. "We have to move quickly. I'm the fastest; I'll go in first and try to draw them to me. Morrigan, you find high ground, and as soon as you see them clustered close enough, send in a fireball."
"At you?" the witch demands incredulously.
"Wait until you can see my eyes," his Talia tells her. "If I can see it coming, I can duck and cover. Alistair, you find Leliana and make sure you're both down when the fireball hits. It should cause enough damage to make the cleanup easy. Sten -"
"NO!"
Alistair and his Talia both jerk around at the scream, panic surging in his Talia's scent, along with the rage that swells and is quickly tamped down. "Sten come in on the left flank, Shale on the right! Brego, stay with Sten! Go! Now!" The last words are shouted over her shoulder as she races away from them, sweeping her sword from its sheath. Brego wants to follow her, but she has given him an order, so he follows the Sten as he turns and begins to run, his body stretching out to cover the ground alongside the qunari, claws digging into the turf to propel him forward at ever greater speed. His Talia will not face a foe alone.
They angle outwards, then back in, the giant shortening his stride, slowing, his eyes turned ahead. Brego cannot see what he is looking at: at this distance, it is a blur of moving shapes, but his nose paints a clear picture: Leliana is there, and the darkspawn, and then his Talia, the battle rage teasing at the edge of her scent and the stench of darkspawn blood rising in the air with her battle cry:
"Come on, then!"
He wants to bay a challenge of his own, wants to race ahead to fight at her side, but he matches his pace to that of the Sten, because his Talia has given him an order, and he will obey her. Ahead, Alistair's scent joins his Talia's, then Morrigan's, the sharp tang of magic stinging briefly at his nostrils before bright fire blossoms ahead, adding the stink of charred darkspawn flesh to the mix.
"Now," the Sten rumbles, breaking into a full run that Brego mirrors, the blurred shapes swiftly resolving into a churning mass of friend and foe. He barrels past Leliana, slamming into a hurlock that is challenging his Talia, taking it to the ground and burying his teeth in its throat. He shakes his head from side to side, closing his jaws tighter, and the darkspawn stiffens in a sudden rush of foul blood that he knows he must not eat. He releases his now limp target, giving his head another shake to clear the nasty stuff from his mouth, then wheels to hamstring his Talia's opponent, feeling the ground shake with Shale's blows, hearing the shouts of challenge from Alistair and the Sten, smelling the stink of darkspawn blood and the pungency of magic on the air.
As predicted, the fight is done with quickly, the darkspawn slain and none of their pack injured. His Talia wipes the blood from her sword and sheaths it.
"Spread out, look for any survivors."
The Sten does not approve. "That is hardly likely. Our time would be put to better use -"
"Just do it, damn it!" His Talia fishes in the pouch at her hip, pulls out the small wooden box that he knows all too well and scoops out a fingerful of the bitter paste. He does not bother to whine a protest. She does this after every battle with the darkspawn, telling him that it will keep him from getting sick. He does not understand the why of it, but he remembers 'sick'; when he was much younger, he had found a pile of fatty scraps in the kitchen middens and gorged himself. For three days after that, he had been unable to keep down food, and his stools had been like water. He does not want to be sick again, but beyond that, he does not want to disobey his Talia, so he licks the paste from her finger and swallows.
"Good boy," she murmurs, scratching his head. "You did good. Now help them search. See if anyone is still alive."
He whines softly as she turns away and moves toward Leliana, because his nose has already confirmed what the Sten has said: the only living scents in this place of death belong to their pack. But she has told him to search, and search he does, pausing only to drink from a puddle before moving swiftly through the remains of the town, seeking any hint of life beneath the scents of burn and rot and darkspawn...and finding none.
He returns to find Talia and Alistair comforting Leliana and joins them, nosing his way under his Talia's arm. He does not understand what they speak of, but Leliana is alive, their pack is once again whole, and this is a good thing. Brego knows it is good because, for the first time since he woke her that night at Highever, there is neither fear nor anger nor grief in his Talia's scent.
