Alistair's head popped out from his tent. Panting and face flush, he gasped as he took in the pre-dawn camp. Raviathan raised an eyebrow as his only sign of acknowledgment, his attention focused on the breakfast he prepared. A drizzling rain thickened the air, a grey mist obscuring the first light of dawn.
"Not much use sleeping at this point," Raviathan said. He remained hunched over the sputtering fire, stirring the pot. The skin of a wolf staked over the fire kept most of the rain off.
"Yeah." Letting his nightmare-induced panic go, Alistair dressed before sitting on one of the wet stones opposite the elf and mabari. Maker, he felt like he'd spent a year in these woods for all the progress they've made. The fall from the cliff a few days ago hadn't helped his chest any, the dull ache becoming sharp each time he stretched too far.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not really." Not with you, anyway, Alistair added in his head.
Weaponless, he had been wandering the halls of the Tower of Ishal by himself. This time the altars made of humans seemed alive. The entrails woven between spears writhed, while exposed lungs at the base of the altars breathed. A heart stuck at the top continued to beat and bleed. The organs remained fresh, the low torchlight reflecting off wet muscles. He sensed the altars had been made out of the other Wardens, could almost hear their cries of pain just below his ability to sense them, the same way he heard the song of the archdemon.
The human-crafted stone of Ishal turned to the rough-hewn caves of the Deep Roads as Alistair walked. The altars made from Grey Wardens turned to fleshy sacks that grew hair and nails. Little mouths of sharp teeth worked when he passed by, as if sensing his presence and wanting to feed. The darkspawn kept out of sight, but Alistair could feel them stalking him, waiting.
As the dream went on, Alistair felt himself dying. Mold grew on his hands, his skin turning sickly, the decay rotting his insides. With each step, he grew more tired, each step becoming a force of will until he could only shuffle, his joints locked in pain. When the darkspawn came, it had almost been a relief.
"Care for stew instead?"
Alistair shook himself to get rid of the specter of the dream. "Is that what's left over of the beaver?"
Raviathan nodded. "It's a proper stew, not the camp dish people call a stew."
"What's the difference?"
"Proper stew takes hours, sometimes a day to cook. Thick and rich, letting the flavors mature over low heat. The stuff we make for dinner is more like a soup without enough water, just enough to cook meat and veg."
"You've been up all night then?"
"Parts." Raviathan spooned a large portion into Alistair's outstretched bowl.
Too bad they had no bread to go with beaver stew. To Alistair's surprise, the meat wasn't the same stringy leather-tough meat he had cooked on spits last night. His jaw had ached from chewing the wretched stuff, and finally he started swallowing hunks whole just to get something in his stomach. Now, with the meat softened, he could concentrate on the taste, a bit like deer but fatty as bacon. "What else is in this?"
"Some forest herbs, mainly rosemary, roots from Morrigan, wild onions, the last jar of fermented cabbage."
"If we don't go back to the Dalish for more supplies, we'll be spending most of our time hunting and foraging."
Raviathan caught his lower lip between his teeth. "With spring coming, living off what we gather won't be as difficult. I'd rather stay out here where we're closer to finding Witherfang than waste time trudging back and forth. Some days we only gain a few miles."
They both glanced up as a raven flew eastward, a long branch clutched in her talons. The black wings pumped to take the bird up over the tree line. They would have to wait at the camp until Morrigan returned with the Grand Oak's boon least they fall prey to the forest without it. Alistair turned to Raviathan to see the elf watching Morrigan's flight with a strange expression. Was that longing? The two of them spent many evenings together. Did that mean they were…?
Raviathan turned back to the fire but froze when he caught Alistair watching him. The too-familiar frown knitted the elf's brows together before his face shuttered closed, as expressionless as a mask. Even so, the mask didn't hide the note of hostility that caught in the elf's eyes. Alistair's jaw tightened in response, and he lowered his head and started shoveling the stew as fast as he could.
Whatever. Alistair had tried. They didn't have to like each other. So what if Rav thought he was an idiot and useless? Everyone else did, everyone except Duncan, and that was the fire burning in Alistair's chest. If there was one thing Alistair could do for Duncan, one thing to make some sort of meaning out of his mentor's death and the slaughter and betrayal of the Wardens, Alistair would see the archdemon killed. For Duncan, for his brothers, he would tolerate that witch and this damn Warden he was stuck with. Whatever it took, Alistair would honor his mentor.
Still, he couldn't deny the relief he felt when he heard Venger barking, a signal the others had survived the cliff fall. Though Rav would never be the leader he wanted, Alistair would take that over being the last Warden in Ferelden.
"What do you think of magic?"
The question made Alistair glance back up in part for its unexpectedness and part because of the soft tone the elf used. Unsure where this line of questioning came from, Alistair shrugged. "Useful, I suppose."
"You don't much care for Morrigan."
Alistair snorted. "Figured that one out, have you?" The elf's sharp glance at the comment would have made Alistair feel ashamed for mouthing off so, but he was done with that. Mostly. Maybe if the elf's cold stare didn't make him want to squirm just a bit. Well, he wasn't going to apologize, not for that.
"Let me rephrase then." The elf turned his attention back to the stew. "Is your distaste for Morrigan because of her magic, because she's an apostate, or for her?"
Dragging his spoon around his bowl to capture the last of the gravy, Alistair wondered what was the point of this conversation. Didn't seem to matter to anyone what he thought. "I don't have an issue with magic. I think it's kind of neat, actually."
"You do?"
"Well, yeah. Mostly. I'd see mages practicing in the tower, sometimes. Usually they just studied from books when I was there, which is pretty boring, or listening to lectures. But every so often, I'd see a practicum. Most of the time the students sit around and look really focused, which isn't any better, but every once in awhile, we'd see something really cool. It's… well, it's magic, you know? All these things which should be impossible, fire just appearing, or lights, and it turns everything you know on its end. It's like it makes possibilities. There are rules and such, I know, but it's like breaking the rules of everything you know about how the world works."
Scraping the final pool of gravy from his bowl, Alistair sucked the last remnants off his spoon. Noting the odd silence, Alistair glanced up, spoon still in his mouth, too see the elf watching him with an unreadable expression.
"What?"
Raviathan shook his head as if to clear it then offered another portion of the stew. When Alistair hesitated, Raviathan said, "There's enough for you to have another bowl."
Considering the limitations of camp cooking, the stew wasn't half bad. Much better than Alistair expected. Filling, too.
"What about mages and apostates, then?"
Alistair shrugged and blew on the first spoonful. "Living with the templars, you see what a danger magic can be. I don't know. It's not a life I wanted. The Circles, when they're at their best, what they're supposed to do is to help mages learn how to use their power safely."
"What they're supposed to do?" Raviathan prompted when Alistair trailed off.
"We talked about this. A bit. Sometimes templars go too far. And the mages…well mages need fundamentals and control that they can't learn on their own."
"But you didn't want that life."
"No." Pondering the gentle tone from the elf, Alistair stirred the stew in his bowl before answering. His stomach still rumbled, but that would be alleviated in a few moments.
Alistair opened his mouth to continue when Leliana emerged from her tent. "That smells good."
Though her tone tried for light, nobody was happy with the constant clammy weather, and her weary trudge to a rock by the fire spoke of how unrestful her sleep had been. She held out her bowl, shoulders slumped and head drooping. At least she tried to make the best out of the situation.
A minute later, Sten joined the party, wordlessly holding out his bowl. He sat upright as ever, as unaffected by the rain as a duck. Alistair wondered if the giant ever tired. They were all dragging, yet Sten remained as aloof and stoic as the first day they had met. Was that a trait of all qunari, or was that just Sten? Considering all the condemnations from the Chantry, Sten didn't seem to be the mindless savage the sisters warned them of. But he did murder that family, so there was that. Alistair didn't know what to think.
"Continue with practice?" Raviathan asked Leliana once she finished with her breakfast. At her nod, the two left their bowls and wandered to the edge of camp. Raviathan stepped behind a tree and disappeared from sight. Leliana spun around once with her eyes closed then began searching for him.
Fascinated, Alistair watched as Leliana would cock her head, this way and that.
"There!" She pointed, and the elf appeared with a muttered curse. He trotted back to the edge of camp and the game began again.
Stomach thankfully full, Alistair worked on repairing his armor as best he could with their limited supplies while keeping half an eye on the two rogues. The long, metallic scrape of Sten's whetstone against his blade joined with the morning noises of birds.
"There!"
Fifteen feet from his quarry, Raviathan appeared, lips pursed as he frowned in thought. He nodded once then set off towards his starting point. Alistair watched, fascinated, as he disappeared behind a tree. Leliana spied him again a few minutes later and so the game continued.
"How… how do you find him?" Alistair thought interrupting would result in a reprimand, but Maker, this was fascinating!
Hesitating, Leliana glanced back at him.
"Tell him." In a swirl of shadow, Raviathan stood where there had only appeared air before. "It won't distract you too much, will it?"
"Certainly not," Leliana replied, a little mischief in her eyes.
The elf went back to the twin trees where he kept starting the game, and Alistair hurried over.
"You never learned to find… devenir l'ombre," she waved her hands, "those cloaked in shadow? The hidden? I thought every guard learned some basic tricks."
Alistair shook his head, his eyes wide as he searched the quiet woods. "No need. The mages can't do that, though I'm sure many wished they could. Most came as children and never learned these kind of thief tricks."
Leliana made a small sound of ascent at the comment. "It can be a useful skill, but it has limits. Since we're in the wilderness, notice the flow of the wind. See how the ferns and trees move?" Alistair nodded, but it all seemed rather random to him. "Now look at how that fern is bent."
Raviathan appeared where Leliana's finger pointed. He nodded at her, a faint smile on his lips before retracing his steps back.
"This weather is particularly bad for this trick to work. Soft, muddy ground shows any steps but the most graceful. Fog or rain distort around the hidden, so look for odd gaps or shimmers when the weather is foul. Most keeps or fortified buildings will have a sounding board to catch the unaware. Something as simple as a creaky board will catch a trained guard's attention."
"And you've learned to… um... duven… yellow umbra? With all of those issues?"
"Duv… ," Leliana frown cleared and she laughed. "Devenir l'ombre. Become like a shadow," Leliana said. "Me? No. This is a most difficult trick to learn and one easily thwarted. Can't be used in a crowd, takes enormous concentration. Only lazy elves who have evil intentions learn such trivial things."
Raviathan appeared, glaring a storm at Leliana. She grinned at him.
"Oh blast it."
Leliana chuckled as he returned to his starting place. "See? A second of lost concentration, and you are in a world of trouble."
"So you don't know this… um, method?" Alistair waved his hand at the air.
"There are other methods of being unseen that can be just as effective, better even in a city. With Rav's style, he opens a door, and who would not notice that? Jostle an elbow, and not only is his concentration gone, he has alerted others to his presence. Of course he would be alone unless he is with an army of same-taught rogues. Appearing in the center of a pack of guards is a fantastic way to lose your head. And out here nature is more than willing to give up your secrets."
"Huh. It looks like such a useful skill," Alistair said, gesturing at the empty looking air.
"Very much so, but not infallible."
"What do you do then?"
"Have you noticed that the best servants do not attract attention? They are everywhere, in the most intimate of places, yet they garner no consideration. Or the plain maiden at a dance who nobody seems to see as she moves through the shadows at the edge of the halls? An old woman with a basket going about her day, the one that doesn't warrant a second glance? It is a different sort of invisibility."
"You move so quietly, though."
"Years of training, observation, and practice. Either path is not an easy one, but as a human, I have more options. I can be but don't have to be a servant whereas the only things elves are good for is cleaning muddy boots and stealing from their masters."
Alistair thought he saw a waver in the air. "There."
Raviathan glared at the both of them before stomping back to the start. Feeling a bit of warmth bloom in his chest and an odd excitement he couldn't name, Alistair shared a grin with Leliana before they returned to watching the wilderness. The teasing felt good. Companionable, even.
Before Raviathan disappeared, he took a moment to rotate his shoulders and rid himself of tension. A few deep breaths later, he stepped behind a tree and into the shadows.
"I don't know that I could get away with that," Alistair whispered to Leliana.
She sent a grin his way before her features settled into a more thoughtful expression. "I have noticed a bit of tension between you two."
Bothered, Alistair shrugged. He didn't want to talk about it. Speaking things aloud made them real, made the emotions come too close to the surface, and exposed raw wounds that could be forgotten in the dark. "We're all tense, I suppose. Anyway, what else should I look for?"
A raven dove down at the camp, wings beating sharply as she neared the ground.
"I found him!" Morrigan said the instant she shifted from feathers.
"Found who?" No matter how many times Alistair had seen her shift, he was still stunned by the magic she used. All the training the templars and mages went through to understand magic, and this ability had never been whispered as a possibility.
"Witherfang!" Morrigan said, disgusted at his obtuseness.
"Where?" Raviathan appeared, excitement making his already large eyes huge. Praise the Maker! After three fortnights of wading through the blasted forest with all its traps and twists, they found him! Witherfang, the White Wolf. Raviathan's heart started to speed with adrenaline.
"To the east, near a canyon. If we hurry, 'tis a good place to set an ambush."
"Go!" Raviathan called.
They snatched their packs and raced after the witch. "Is Witherfang alone?"
"No." Morrigan cast a glance at Raviathan but did not slow her stride. "He's in a pack. I saw seven."
Outnumbered. Even at their party's best, the wolves moved too quickly, too cohesively for their disjointed group to be effective. With the senses the wolves had, and their familiarity with the forest, this fight would be near impossible for Raviathan's group to win. Morrigan's idea of an ambush would be fantastic, but Raviathan knew there would be no sneaking up on these predators.
What to do to even the odds? "A canyon you said? What are its dimensions? Can we have archers hidden? Is it straight or curved?"
The best they could hope for would be to narrow the field of battle, get a choke point.
"A small ravine. They are on the far end. Wide enough for five men at the center, two at the end close to us. Lots of trees and brush at the top of both sides, but the base is clear save a few stones."
"How deep is the canyon? What more can you tell me?"
Morrigan hesitated as she considered. "'Tis about three men high? The walls are steep. Made from rock."
"Leliana, you and I will take the cliff sides and use our bows. Alistair and Sten will take the mouth. Morrigan, can you scare them into the canyon or would it be better to lead them? Never mind. We won't be able to hide our presence. Try to lead them in."
Maker save them. This couldn't even be called a plan. Fires, he had led children in more organized raids back in the alienage. Would they all die in this fool's mission? Why had he agreed to this at all?
His mind stuttered over the insanity of the situation while his legs kept propelling him forward. Another fifteen minutes of crashing through the forest, loud enough to wake sleeping bears, and Morrigan pointed ahead.
"Should be just over there."
"Get into positions." Raviathan hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. "Venger, go with Sten and Alistair."
Sten gave him a baleful glare, likely feeling the absurdity of his commands as much as Raviathan did, but the giant trotted off without comment. Raviathan watched his back for a second. The qunari's fatalism at least made him obedient in the face of abject failure.
As Raviathan moved to take the right side of the canyon's cliffs, he wondered at the determinism that made men fight in battles. Men stood against the horde of darkspawn, knowingly facing their deaths, yet they did not back down. Raviathan grasped at tree trunks and roots to climb up the steeper sections of the slope. What compelled men to obey when they knew they could die? And why was he thinking about the compulsions of leadership when he needed to think about the fight?
Dark wings spread out as Morrigan soared across the canyon. A howl broke the peace of the morning, an unearthly sound that shivered through Raviathan's nerves and sent a heavy rock of dread into his stomach. They were going to die.
With trembling hands, Raviathan strung his bow and set a few arrows into to the ground for easy access. He caught sight of Leliana moving through the forest on the other side of the canyon, her form flashing in and out of view between the pines.
Would she live? If Alistair and Sten fell, would she be fast enough to evade the wolves before they set upon her? No. She was as inexperienced in the forest as the rest of their mongrel of a party. At best, they might turn her into one of their own, a werewolf to suffer agony and rage.
The sizzle of magic flared, energy Raviathan felt as the air turned slippery to his mage senses. Morrigan's magic felt like the swamp she came from, that contradictory mix of creation and decay.
A trio of howls went up, echoing to sound like an army of wolves. The eerie sound burned Raviathan's blood, with fear, with excitement? His arms itched to be used. His vision quickening as he took in more of the world around him. He could feel his heart pumping too quickly, his world becoming bright.
The raven flew down the canyon. She landed as a human, turned to let another bolt of energy loose, then ran to take a safe place behind the warriors.
The werewolves came. So fast. They loped with a grace that belied their twisted forms. Not human. Not wolf. In between and tortured, but so fierce.
An arrow landed in the side of one. The werewolf yipped in response but did not slow. Raviathan's arrow caught another in the thigh, a lucky shot considering their speed. The werewolf's leg gave out, but the creature continued at the same pace a second later. More arrows. Leliana hit another while Raviathan's second arrow missed.
Swiftrunner had the lead. His long arm swiped out like a whip at the warriors. Raviathan cursed. The trees and uneven cliff blocked his view.
Where was Witherfang? No white wolf to be seen anywhere.
Grabbing his remaining arrows, Raviathan raced further up the canyon wall to try and get a better angle and see if Witherfang held further back. Four werewolves. Hadn't Morrigan said seven? Miscounted? Were those werewolves further away? Gone to get reinforcements?
Just as Raviathan's mind accepted the dreaded idea of a trap, an impact at his back made him fly across a small clearing. He twisted, tried to turn to lessen his crash as he scraped over bushes. Hard, wooden limbs tore at him. His shoulders slammed into a tree, the brunt of impact mediated by armor but it left his head ringing with shock.
Raviathan tried to get his bearings, the world spinning drunkenly around him.
Fear laced into him as he saw white fangs in a red mouth bearing down at his face. He got his bow up against the wolf's neck. The two struggled, the wolf shifting to snap at him in violent jerks, Raviathan fighting in panic to keep the thin ironbark between him and pain. His arms shook against the wolf's power. Hot breath caressed his face as he stared into that red mouth.
Red on white. Helpless.
Protect, protect, protect. Blood on skin.
The crack of ironbark as the bow broke. Helpless.
Strange black and gold eyes, eyes like an eclipse, stared at him with rage and more. Fear. A soul as ancient as the forest bored into his own.
His people, his pack, and he would chew off the face of any who came to harm them.
Like a flash of lighting to the brain, he understood. Wolf. What it meant to be wolf.
Family. Structure, relations, and hierarchy, that he understood, felt it as part of who he was. The importance of cubs and the health of all the family. The need for play, how it taught and bound them together in love. Territory, home, its boundaries, and the necessity to journey for food. How starvation and pain could drive a wolf to excess. The responsibility of leadership. What drove a wolf to wander alone. He understood this all as this knowledge had been his entire life. He had thought of wolves as savage dogs, rabid, but they had never been domestic. They were pure to their nature, pure as their ancestors, and had never lost that ancient knowledge of what they were. What he was.
He understood!
And just as suddenly the forest was his as well. Sight, sound, and smell. The forest lay before him like a tapestry, all his to know. Enthralled with his new senses-of soft grass under his paws and scent-rich air ruffling his fur-he threw back his head and sang at the ecstasy of it. Hearing birds, knowing exactly where they were and what their songs meant. He could hear them from a mile away as they searched, marked their own little territories with sound, sought company, and warned of danger.
In an instant, he knew the trail of forest creatures, the raccoon who had ventured near in search of food and had been terrified of the wolves, the pregnant fox in the den hiding until the conflict was over, the squirrels afraid but curious in their trees, and so much more. His wolven sight remained just as sharp as his elven eyes but a little grayer, other colors stronger, vision attuned to movement. Creatures shimmered when they moved, catching his attention.
The forest was his in that he knew it. He felt the patches of sickness where the Blight encroached. He sensed the unease where the Veil was thin, where spirits lost their way in wandering beyond the Veil. The torment of these spirits, trapped in a foreign world where all the rules they understood were suddenly gone, howled to his senses. These spirits had longed for this sense of life but too late they realized this world was a prison. The totality of the prisons were driving them mad when all they wanted was life.
With the scents he understood his pack. He could smell their emotions, sense the beating of their hearts, feel them as though seeing their souls. Alistair's crushing loneliness. He was a beta, insecure and needing a leader, desperate for one. He could be more if only he could believe in himself. Sten. He was broken inside. Raviathan could smell it on him, how he felt lost and wavered between rage and depression. His balance was gone causing that oscillation. Leliana's pain. She had been hurt and didn't trust anyone with her broken heart. She had turned to faith to fill that pain, for something that wouldn't betray her.
Venger's total being was devotion. To him. It was such a painful thing to know, that Raviathan's death would mean the same for the dog. That all of Venger's happiness and joy was bound to him, that he was happy only when his master was near. It made Raviathan want to weep. No one, especially him, deserved such faith.
The complexities of Morrigan became clearer. In some ways she was the purist in who she was, not bent by society into a role, but she had been twisted since birth on a path she did not understand except that danger lay in that direction. He sensed her own heart of magic, and he was surprised to see how dim it was in comparison to his own, how small and somehow… lifeless, but there were thick twisted brambles, grey and dense, grown around to protect that heart. She had been damaged.
Then the werewolves, so full of rage as to be mindless, but they didn't want to be. The curse drove them, and they were trapped in it. Their fear choked the air as real to his senses as the wind or earth. They would die to protect the one thing that eased their rage, all so they could remember who they were. The rage took over everything, and they were lost in it. No identity. No self. The relief of feeling their own minds return had been excruciating, enough to sacrifice their lives and the lives of those they loved to keep that shred of their humanity. Raviathan felt such pity for them. Not human, not wolf, and trapped in a pain that made them want to gnaw off their own legs to be free.
A shimmer caught his attention. The great white wolf before him backed away. The wolf whined, shocked and uncertain. Raviathan understood this one, too. Witherfang had not expected the elf he had attacked to become wolf, and never so completely.
Those eyes, amber and black, showed him the truth. Witherfang was the forest. The spirit, just as trapped as all the other spirits in this realm, held on by necessity alone. The spirit's mind had been wrenched into consciousness and bound to this form with all the savagery of a rape. Bound, Witherfang had been frenzied in unthinking madness for decades as it struggled and finally regained some sense of what it was. Raviathan stepped forward, uttering a low 'wroof' to the spirit, a sound indicating help to be given.
The great white wolf backed away in confusion, uttering a low mournful howl. At the sound, the werewolves fell in retreat.
From below one of the werewolves gave a guttural cry, "Fall back! Protect the Lady!"
In seconds, the pack raced into the woods. Raviathan knew their path, where their den lay deep in the earth. No more would they be able to hide.
Taking one last long breath to fill his lungs with the perfect living cycle of the forest, Raviathan changed back. He had to shake his head a few times trying to clear it. After the intensity of sensation a moment ago, his own regained senses seemed at once dull yet familiar. He looked down the small ravine to see that Sten and Venger had given chase, a futile effort. The werewolves' bounding leaps sped them into the forest's deep in an instant.
Raviathan picked up his bow, cracked and useless. He would have cursed the creature before, but now he only sighed in regret that he hadn't understood earlier.
The forest's terrain settled in his mind with the ease of a long walked path. Raviathan picked his way to the canyon mouth were the others rested.
Demanding, Sten turned on him. "And where were you? I expected more support."
In response Raviathan held up his cracked bow. Sten nodded and sheathed his sword. Alistair blinked in surprise at the bow. "What happened?"
"I was attacked, knocked on my back. I had to use the bow as defense or have my face chewed off." Despite the epiphany that continued to rock him, Raviathan's irritation surfaced. He was getting sick of all his weapons breaking and armor ravaged to uselessness. The ironbark bow had been old, probably third-hand by the time the Dalish were willing to part with it to an outsider, but Maker's ass! What he wouldn't give for a decent weapon.
Trotting down the hillock that made up the other side of the canyon, Leliana joined them. Two werewolves lay dead, the rest escaped. Raviathan stared at a werewolf arm, severed just above the elbow, and wondered at the cost of it all. Whoever that person or creature had been, he or she was permanently maimed, probably dying, and for what? The Dalish had lost their lives to the werewolves, so he was not inclined to feel guilt for the defense of life, but he did feel sympathy for both sides as he hadn't before.
Saddened, Raviathan wondered how much of his father's pacifist ideals had rubbed off on him in the last few years. His mother reveled in adventure, had missed the excitement of a good chase, only putting those activities aside when her family took precedence.
"Injuries?"
Sten and Alistair came forth with Venger trailing behind. Leliana left to retrieve arrows, and Morrigan took lookout.
Sten had taken the worst of it. Raviathan removed the cuisse from his right thigh and part of his upper armor where a werewolf had knocked him down and thrashed at his chest. The wounds were relatively shallow thanks to the armor, but the qunari bled from a long cut starting on the left temple. Raviathan cleaned the wounds thoroughly, mindful that the curse could still be transferred.
Maker, now that he knew Witherfang saved the werewolves from their rage, killing the spirit seemed an anathema. Yet Witherfang held the key to ending the curse. A death to save the minds of many? The lives of many others?
Alistair had some scratches and a bite on his sword arm. His wrenched shield arm had been re-injured to the point that holding a shield would do damage. Magical healing could speed up the process, but the constant fighting and re-injuring kept them all in poor condition. Alistair needed to rest the arm for a few days, a few weeks had they the luxury, but considering the bashing the party had taken from the forest and its creatures, rest seemed as likely as fish learning to speak.
Venger had fared the best of all with numerous but shallow scratches. At least he was in no danger from catching the curse. Raviathan called, "Morrigan. They're ready for you."
Morrigan came over and waved her hand in a grand gesture ending with raising her staff to the sky and emitting a flashy but meaningless light show. Raviathan tried not to roll his eyes at the drama while he performed the little hand gesture hidden by his healer's pack that channeled the power into knitting flesh.
Emerald flames danced over Sten's wounds for a moment and the bronze giant let out a breath in relief, the only sign he allowed that he had been in pain. Though the qunari hated magic, he accepted this part readily enough, Raviathan noted with irony. Sten packed his armor and left to the other side of the canyon to repair what he could.
Morrigan and Raviathan repeated the process for Alistair and Venger. Once finished Venger padded over, shoving his massive shoulder into Raviathan's chest and looking up at him in adoration. Raviathan grinned, hugging the dog's neck and scratching behind an ear. He whispered quietly, "No fooling you, huh." Venger gave a wide doggy smile with a 'ragh' of agreement.
"Leliana, Venger, can you see about supplementing our rations? The rest of us will set up fortifications for camp."
"So early?" asked Alistair.
Raviathan shrugged. "You need to rest your arm. With the werewolves so near it makes sense to take time for added precaution."
"Then it should not be so close to their base," Sten said.
"This forest is their home," Raviathan said. "They'll know where we are no matter where we go. At least here we have a defensible position."
Once the party members broke up to set up camp, Raviathan double-checked to make sure Alistair, Sten, and Leliana were occupied. Hiding his hand gestures, he completed the spell that would hasten Alistair's healing from a month to a week. Emerald light flashed in an arc over the templar's shoulder and fell away in small spheres of fading embers that drifted and died. The shocked man jumped as he stared at his arm then looked around wildly before his gaze settled on Morrigan.
"Morrigan. Stop picking on Alistair," Raviathan called out in annoyance.
The witch frowned at him only to find a mischievous glint in the elf's eyes. Alistair eyed Morrigan in alarm. "What did she do? Wha-What did you do?" He turned around a few times trying to look at his back. "I'm not going to turn into a toad am I?"
Morrigan smirked once she caught on to the joke. "You, a small, clammy, mucus-covered amphibian that croaks all night? 'Twould be an improvement to your regular chatter."
Raviathan stood up to stretch. Everything back to normal.