The Messenger led them, because it had no choice. The hall in which it camped had an opening in the rear where the great metal locking mechanism that should have kept the surface world separated from the true Deep was half open, held in place by fallen rocks and bones that too small to be human or elven, but the occasional black stare from a tipped or cracked skull said not animal – dwarves then, who had fallen in their defense, although the mystery was what had attacked from above rather than burst out from below.
Fenris let the mystery occupy his mind as the Messenger led them past the failed lock and the bones of dwarves long forgotten.
Oghren looked down at the bones and shook his head. "Died like warriors at least. Worse ways to go down than with an axe in your hand."
"There are better ways," Nathaniel said, breaking his silence. "Just not for people like us."
"What? You want to die in bed surrounded by little Howes?" Oghren asked, snorting derisively. "That's codswallop for merchants and smiths to make them feel better about having to let others do their fighting for them." He slid a derisive look over at Anders. "And men in skirts."
"I'll take a dose of codswallop," Anders said. "Without the little Howes. That would be terribly awkward to explain."
"It's too late for you too," Nathaniel said. "You can't run away from being a warden."
"I can bloody well try," Anders retorted.
"Fat lot of good it did you, huh mage?" Oghren said with a low chuckle. "You know you can't resist us."
"How does Justice even allow you to run away from your duty?" Nathaniel asked.
Fenris nodded silently. He had often wondered the same thing himself. Plus, he rather enjoyed seeing how discomfited Anders was every time Nathaniel addressed him.
"I didn't run from my duty," Anders said, sounding tired. "I ran to it. The wardens could use me, but mages need someone who will stand up and say no more. We have been reviled and oppressed for too long and it is not right."
Nathaniel didn't slow his stride, barely changed his expression, but something in his posture changed as he nodded slowly. "Hello, Justice."
• • •
"Did you ever think," Anders asked several hours later as they walked through yet another endless tunnel lit only by the glow from Dal and Anders' staves, "that Justice's 'side effect' with you only happens when he's touching you?"
"No," Fenris said. "I have been endeavoring not to think about it at all."
"Only," Anders went on, not taking the hint. The mage did not take hints unless they were glued to the head of maul striking him in the head. "I've been thinking about it, and when we were on the ship, Justice took over when I was… you know."
"Dangling upside down on the end of a tentacle," Fenris supplied for him.
Zevran swung his head around to stare at the two of them before leaning in to whisper something in Dal's ear. Dal shook his head and motioned him to focus on the path ahead of them and the Messenger, who still led them through the abandoned tunnel that had once been a bustling thoroughfare between thaigs.
"Yes, that," Anders said dryly. "It wasn't until you grabbed his – our —bugger pronouns— my wrist that it happened. Same in the cabin."
Fenris did not want to think of either instance. He did not want to think of them because this was the wrong time and worst place to think of the coursing energy that jolted through him like a full-body orgasm.
He made his tone harsh. "I assume you have a point, mage."
"Yes. It's that Just because I have – ah – problems when you light up doesn't mean you have problems when Justice comes out."
"And you wish to test that theory here?"Fenris asked incredulously. "And if you are wrong? No. Do not. We will not chance this to facilitate a conversation between your d— spirit and his friend."
Oghren chortled. "That answers my question about which one of you is the girl."
Anders hissed through his teeth in irritation. "You are so lucky I don't use magic frivolously."
Which was not accurate if Isabela's tales of a certain Denerim brothel were true, but Fenris was not of a mind to give Oghren anything more to work with if it involved theorizing about sex between him and the mage.
"Did you ask that of the Warden-Commander and his companion?" he asked Oghren instead.
"Didn't have to," Oghren said. "The commander might wear a skirt like this freak here, but he's no girl."
"On that you have my word," Zevran chimed in, grinning. "He is most definitely all man."
Dal coughed, but was distracted by a hand signal from Nathaniel. He nodded, his expression hardening. "If we are done theorizing about what is under my skirt," he shot a look at Oghren, "my wardens should be readying themselves."
In an instant the lighter mood darkened. Oghren pulled his axe off his back, Nathaniel nocked an arrow, and Anders, despite his assertion that he was no longer a warden, shifted his stance in a manner Fenris recognized from the times they had fought together.
"You'll want to draw your sword," Anders said, gripping his staff more tightly. "Nathaniel always was the most sensitive of us."
Dal called to the Messenger. "Can you lead them away or talk some sense into them?"
The darkspawn turned and shook its head. "They will not be listening. They will feel the Gray Wardens and there will be killing. The Gray Wardens should be running."
Oghren snorted. "Uh huh. Try another one. I'm long overdue for a good bashup. How many out there?"
Nathaniel rolled his shoulders and tipped his head, attention turning to some inner eye. "The good news is no ogres. The bad news is at least four shrieks, a full contingent of hurlocks with an alpha, the same in genlocks, and…" he grimaced, "emissaries. You know how they are in my head. I can't say how many."
Dal swiveled his attention to Anders. "Anders? How many?"
Fenris was surprised to see the man turning to Anders for input, but Anders just stared past them into the darkness, a line deepening into a furrow between his eyebrows as he concentrated. "Two," he said, sounding distant. "Maker I hate the feel of emissaries."
"But you're so good at sensing them," Dal said. "Right. Then we'll start with a storm, it's good to have you for this Anders, it's always faster with two."
Anders shuffled his feet. "I can't."
Dal frowned. "What do you mean you can't? Is it the chain?"
"It's—"
Zevran chortled. "Complicated. And as much as Iwish to hear the story, is it not true that when the wardens can sense the darkspawn, the darkspawn return the favor? Yes? Then let us save the explanations for later."
Dal's expression said that they would be revisiting this matter, but he nodded to Zevran. "I'll get the first spells." He scanned the walls and pointed to niches that could shield a single body. "Zev and Nathaniel there and there. Fire when they come out of the storm. Zev, stay with your bow as much as possible. The last thing I want is to conduct a life or death Joining down here.
"Oghren, hold back until they come through. You know what happened the last time you ran into the storm."
"Uh huh," Oghren said grimly. "Took months to grow my beard back. What kind of dwarf doesn't have a beard?"
Fenris thought of Varric, but it was no time to smile.
"You two, hold the hounds," he said to Anders and Fenris. "Don't let them run until the first darkspawn clear the storm."
Fenris wondered if this would be a storm like the hurtling fire Anders could call down, but rather than ask unnecessary questions, he nodded. He would see soon enough.
"Anders are there any spells you can cast?" Anders nodded. "Then do what you can to the emissaries when you see them. I'll do the same. Fenris…" And for the first time Dal faltered in his confident order-giving. "…do what you can."
It stung to be relegated to "do what you can." Fenris knew that he was an unknown quantity, but he balked at being viewed as some kind of burden to be defended or coddled.
Dal turned away to stride ahead of them down the passage, calling to the Messenger. "Get out of the way. Get back behind us or take cover. Don't get killed in this, I'm not done with you."
The Messenger ducked its head and backtracked the way they had come while Dal moved even farther ahead. It seemed as though he was challenging the darkspawn to sense him and come at his bidding.
Beside him, Anders murmured, "They're coming."
The mabari strained against the holds on their collars, but they were silent for all their eagerness. Oghren shifted restively. If he had not known where to look, Fenris would not have known Nathaniel and Zevran were there at all, but he could see the two men, bows ready, watching the passage ahead, waiting.
Dal's voice rose in the fraught silence, sending ripples of reaction through the lyrium in his skin from the power laden in each syllable of the chant. He had been around mages long enough to know that this chant was going on longer than a simple battle invocation, and that its result would likely reflect the power being pushed into each word. There was a reason Widald Amell's name was spoken across the entirety of Thedas. Fenris was seeing it firsthand.
When the last syllable of Dal's incantation rolled into the air, the passage ahead erupted in crackling lightning. Even at a distance, it made the fine hairs on Fenris' arms stand up.
Beside him Anders murmured, "I miss being able to do that."
Dal barely paused between spells, taking up a new chant.
Oghren spat on the ground and moved ahead of Anders and Fenris, axe at the ready. "Too busy humping nugs to come pay the wardens their respect? Where are those blighted 'spawn?"
"Almost here," Anders said tightly. "Don't complain."
Brutal whined and jerked against Fenris' hold until he snapped a command at him. Anders was having less trouble with Walter, who was alert and eager, but calmer.
Dal finished his spell and the storm exploded.
"Maker, I miss that too," Anders said under his breath.
Where there had been only lightning, now the air swirled with ice, lightning, and howling winds. Dal retreated back toward the others and at an unspoken signal Oghren pushed ahead, putting himself between Dal and the storm.
The first darkspawn to push their way through the storm were genlocks. Barely out of the storm and still rimed with ice, the first two fell with arrows sprouting from throat and chest. Fenris glanced to the niches to see Zevran and Nathaniel calmly nocking more arrows and letting fly.
As one, Brutal and Walter tore themselves out of Fenris' and Anders' holds, racing down the hall toward the next genlocks to push through the maelstrom of ice and lightning.
"Alpha," Anders said tightly of the next figure to stride out of the chaos, ice melting off its armor in rising wisps of steam. Its steps never faltered despite the lightning that had coruscated over its body before it broke free of the powerful magic.
It shook off arrows like buzzing flies, raised an armored hand to bat Brutal carelessly aside, and raised an axe to rival Oghren's as the dwarf ran at him, voice raised in a shout. "Let's see what your innards look like!"
At least it was better than "suck on a fireball."
Anders raised his staff. "Give me all the slack." When Fenris shifted his arm to give him as much free play as possible, he used the bladed end of his staff to scratch runes in the floor. "Don't leave this spot until this goes off," he advised Fenris. "Or until I scream run."
Ahead of them, Dal was gathering a ball of arcane energy around his hand. It shed gritty particles into the air before he thrust his fist out to send it hurtling into the storm.
Everything seemed to be going in their favor. Oghren traded blows with the alpha while the mabari harried it from both sides. Zevran and Nathaniel picked off genlocks as they pushed their way through the chaos, Dal carefully threw more spells into his storm as though he could see things Fenris could not, and even Anders threw bolts of force from his staff, lending his assistance in wearing down the alpha.
Then the storm started to die.
First the lightning winked out, leaving the air thick and crackling with the lingering scent of ozone. Fenris could see other figures struggling in the remaining howling ice storm.
He hated that he was forced to watch others fight for him. Even Anders was participating, but he felt as useless as the Messenger.
Then there was a sudden silence as the ice storm disappeared, leaving only a lingering chill, rapidly melting ice, and twisted frozen bodies of darkspawn in its wake.
The silence lasted only the space of a breath before the passage erupted with the howls of charging darkspawn.
What came next was a chaos to rival Dal's storm.
Sudden harsh cries tore the air to either side of Fenris and Anders. Darkspawn leapt out of the air at them. They were attenuated things, all long limbs and gaping maws. They struck the marks Anders had laid on the ground, triggering a flash of light and magic that made Fenris' lyrium tattoos flare in sympathy even as the darkspawn were blown back by a soundless magical concussion.
Nathaniel called, "Shrieks!" and caught one in the throat with an arrow as it lurched to its feet.
Beside him Anders swayed and nearly fell, brilliant light leaking from his eyes and the fissures that were opening in his skin like glimpses into the rawest part of the Fade.
"Not now, mage," Fenris growled, raising his sword to fend off the other shriek before it could rake its claws down his arm. "Not. Now."
It was Justice who caught Anders' balance and raised his head. "I will not falter."
Nor did he. Just as they had practiced in Darktown, and put into practice on the Silverite Maiden, he moved with Fenris, leaving him enough slack in the chain to wield his sword, taking enough for himself to throw out arcs of stabbing ice and blazing lightning.
They moved on from the shrieks to the genlocks that poured down on them. Most of the hurlocks had died in Dal's storm.
When he could look away from the immediate matter of keeping darkspawn claws out of his untainted flesh, he caught glimpses of the rest of the battle – Zevran fighting a shriek with longsword and dagger, Nathaniel still calmly firing arrow after arrow, Oghren kicking aside the body of the alpha to wade deeper into the fray, the darting forms of the mabari fighting with tooth and raking claw, and Dal, blue energy pulsing out around him in a circle that was described as much by the bodies of fallen, frozen darkspawn as by the bounds of the light it shed.
Dal cried out when a jagged bolt of lightning lanced out of the darkness, striking him and staggering him.
"Emissary,"Justice said grimly, turning to search the shadows before calling out the words to a spell Fenris recognized from their practice together. It would catch the target in a collapsing vice of force and had the advantage of neutralizing spellcasters.
He did not see the emissary that Justice had targeted, but he heard a thin shriek of pain from the darkness.
"Slack,"Justice demanded, and Fenris gave it to him. He raised both hands and gathered magic into them in a tiny flaming sphere that he thrust out in the direction of the emissary. It hurtled through the fray to find its target and explode into a raging fireball with the emissary at its center.
Fenris saw its head throw back in a scream that was lost under the detonation before it collapsed to the ground.
Around them the battle was faltering. Darkspawn fell under blades, arrows, magic, and mabari teeth until finally silence fell.
"What of the other emissary?" Fenris asked, turning to survey the carnage as Zevran and Nathaniel emerged from their niches and began to pick through the fallen bodies, pocketing any valuables they found.
"Dead in the storm,"Justice said.
The unearthly tones drew Nathaniel's attention. "I thought you said he couldn't speak," he accused.
"It was not meant as a deception," Justice said. "We believed it would be a hazard to Fenris."
"But it isn't," Dal said, wiping blood off his staff. "Good. I'll want to have a few words with you later, but I'd rather talk to Anders now."
"Commander," Nathaniel began.
"I know," Dal said. "But not now. You and Justice will have time later. I need to talk to Anders about his little problem."
"Which one?" Nathaniel asked. "He has a surfeit of them."
Anders took a deep breath and staggered back, letting Fenris keep him from falling as the cracks closed in his skin and Justice withdrew. "That's hitting below the belt," he complained shakily.
"I know," Nathaniel said, and for once there was a ghost of a smile.
"Can you still heal?" Dal asked. "Can you at least be that much use?"
Fenris saw a flicker of hurt cross Anders' face. "I can still heal."
"He killed the second emissary," Fenris said, surprising himself and Anders as well.
Anders checked the chain before murmuring a spell that flowed out around them in a wash of warm yellow light, dancing over the scorched burn on Dal's chest from the emissary's lightning, closing wounds that Oghren seemed not to notice on his arms and face, even stroking gently over the panting mabari to heal gashes and scratches.
"Good." Dal said when the wave of healing magic receded. "Now while Zev and Nathaniel finish checking the bodies, you can tell me what happened to your magic."
"Justice happened," Anders said wearily, looking for a clear space on the ground before he sank down to sit. He craned his head up at Dal and tapped his temple with his forefinger. "He takes up space and the space that was most like home to him was the part that was closest to the Fade."
"The part with your magic," Dal said softly, and for once Fenris thought he heard real sympathy in his voice.
"The part with my magic," Anders agreed. "You wouldn't believe how much I lost. I've had to relearn almost everything and there are some things," he shrugged. "there are some things that just aren't coming back. It's like that part is just burned out. Some of it has come back, but it's weaker, like the lightning storm. I can summon it, but it's not what it used to be. It's not good enough to work with your blizzard."
Dal crouched down to bring his face level with Anders'. "Was it worth it?"
Anders sighed. "If I say no…" He shook his head and Fenris could hear the effort it took for him to sound firm. "It has to be worth it. I have to make it worth it."