The woman ran up within earshot of them, waving one hand frantically. "Oh, thank the Maker! We need help! They attacked the waggon; please help us!" she called out. "Follow me! I'll take you to them!" she added, before turning and hurrying back the way she'd come.
Alistair and Arren exchanged a look, then hurried after her, the rest of the group perforce hurrying along in their wake as well.
It was only as they drew close and saw the woman leaning over to exchange words with a blond-haired elf that the pair finally slowed, Arren looking uneasily around. "Something is wrong here..." he muttered, looking at the scattered bodies. And then the bodies rose, drawing out weapons and moving to encircle the pair of Wardens and their companions. Not dead or wounded, but lying in clever ambush instead...
With a groan of splitting timber, a huge tree crashed down to block the roadway behind them, cutting off their retreat. The elf grinned widely, stepping past the woman who'd lured them in. She turned to smirk at them as the elf gestured and called out. "The Grey Wardens die here!"
Whomever the elf was, he'd sadly underestimated his opponents; before his men could close in, Alistair and Arren had drawn their weapons and rushed them, Sten and Mouse splitting off to either side, while Morrigan, seeing the woman drawing a staff out of the cart and beginning to cast, quickly cast a spell of her own, freezing the woman in place, before transforming into a bear and wading into the fight as well.
Arren took on the elf himself, wielding his massive two-handed with easy grace and a surprising turn of speed to keep the other elf's two lighter, smaller blades away. He disarmed the elf's mainhand weapon, dealt his offhand shoulder a numbing blow with the hilt of his weapon, then swung at the elf's head, only pulling his strike at the last moment, changing from a killing to an incapacitating blow, before moving on to help the others slaughter the remaining attackers.
"Why didn't you just kill him?" Alistair asked, watching Arren efficiently tie up the elf afterwards.
"He can't answer questions very well if he's dead," Arren pointed out. "And I'm curious as to why he wanted to ambush us."
It took some little time before the elf finally awoke, groaning in pain and retching weakly; for all the blow to his head had been pulled, it had still been no light tap. He was lucky Arren had not split his skull – had it been a metal sword instead of a much lighter ironbark one, it likely would have.
The elf proved surprisingly willing to talk – at length, too – about who he was, why he'd ambushed them, and who had hired him. Eventually he made a not-very-subtle plea for his life.
Arren frowned in thought. "Very well. I accept your offer," he said abruptly, crouching down to untie the elf.
"What? You're taking the assassin with us now? Does that really seem like a good idea?" Alistair exclaimed.
Arren glanced up at the other warden. "If you want to kill him, Alistair, then you do it."
Alistair looked shocked for a moment, then looked uneasily down at the still bound and helpless elf. "I... well, no, I suppose we could use whatever help we can get," he said, then grimaced. "Still. If there was a sign we were desperate, I think it just knocked on the door and said hello."
"A fine plan. But I would examine your food and drink far more closely from now on, were I you," Morrigan pointed out dryly.
"That's excellent advice for anyone," Zevran remarked as Arren helped him to his feet.
Leliana made a face at Morrigan, then made a point of smiling charmingly at their latest addition. "Welcome, Zevran. Having an Antivan Crow join us sounds like a fine plan."
"Oh? You are another companion-to-be, then?" he asked, and ran an appreciative eye over her. "I wasn't aware such loveliness existed amongst adventurers, surely."
Her expression grew noticeably cooler. "Or maybe not," she responded, and looked pointedly away.
Zevran shrugged philosophically and turned back to Arren, drawing himself up straight, wincing slightly as it made his injuries twinge. "I hereby pledge my oath of loyalty to you, until such a time as you choose to release me from it. I am your man, without reservation... this I swear," he said, in formal tones, and gave Arren a slight bow.
Arren snorted, lips twisting into a slight smile. "Let's get you fixed up a little before we move on," he said.
Alistair sighed and unslung the pack he was carrying, which contained most of what few potions and poultices they'd been able to buy or make while in Lothering. "My job, I suppose," he said.
Arren grinned. "Unless you'd rather search corpses for valuables."
"I'd much rather bind wounds and apply poultices. Or does that go the other way around..." he mused aloud, already digging in his pack for supplies.
They were back on the road a short time later. Zevran kept up with them easily. Morrigan quickly decided that his main flaw – well, his main flaw apart from being an assassin who'd just tried to kill them – was his inability to be quiet. He chattered away like a magpie for the remainder of the day, not phased in the least when he drew little more than monosyllabic responses from most of them. Only Arren seemed willing to respond to his attempts at friendliness.
Though she was amused by how easily the elf managed to fluster Alistair, the couple of times the lummox made the mistake of responding to the elf's words.
Perhaps his chatterbox nature wasn't entirely without merit after all.