Cullen rubbed his temple slowly in a vain attempt to stave off the headache tightening along the back of his head, just above his neck and wrapping around to his forehead. All he'd wanted to do was reestablish the borders to his territory that had existed while his father was thane.

That was it.

Simple, easy.

He'd been willing to clash blades with the Shadow Wolves, if that was what it took. Maybe their thane would have fallen in battle, though that would have done little to actually ease his anger. Mia would not have come home to Red Lion Hold, and even if she did, having left as she had, she never would have been able to assume her rightful place as thane.

Why had she fallen in love with fucking Blackwall?

Three years ago, just before their father's health had begun to fail, she'd had to abandon their clan and run off to the Shadow Wolves, all in the name of love—some had even whispered that their father had died of a broken heart, his daughter's betrayal too much for him. Cullen personally thought his father had been stronger than that. However, his beliefs hardly stopped the rumors, and any attempts to stem such talk only fueled them on.

Men were supposed to declare their intentions with the thanes of other clans before trying to sneak into the hold to steal a wife. A woman stolen without intent expressed to her thane could result in a blood feud. Cullen supposed that Thane Blackwall had tried to follow tradition, though his attempt had been doomed from the start, as the Red Lions and Shadow Wolves had already been on immensely poor terms for over a decade. He'd gone to their father and stated his interest in Mia. It had been laughable to all of them that someone from a clan they barely tolerated that the audacity to wish to steal their next thane to be his wife. Their father had turned him away, telling him that any Shadow Wolf raid on their women would result in a brutal backlash.

And so, instead of following tradition, Mia had simply left. Until that point, none of them had realized that the two of them had been having a tryst together for almost a year. How the Shadow Wolf thane had been able to get close enough to their territory to do so had baffled Cullen, though he hadn't bothered asking Thane Blackwall about it. He didn't want the man to think he was genuinely interested.

Once Mia was gone, all of the responsibilities that she'd been trained for all her life had fallen to Cullen, and it had been a struggle to learn everything quick enough that—when his father did pass—he was able to stand strong and be a pillar for his people.

He was supposed to have been the clan's chief warrior, an advisor to the thane on how to move their warriors and scouts with Mia having the final say in anything that mattered.

Instead, everything fell to him.

The surrounding clans had tested him. Every. Single. One of them.

And the Red Lions had beaten them back at every step. They'd held their lands, and impressed more than a few of their neighbors. He'd been glad to create or renew accords with most of them. However, the Shadow Wolves…

The only reason he'd gone to meet with Thane Blackwall was because of Mia. He'd wanted to look her in the eyes and damn her for every stupid thing she'd done. He wanted to curse her into the afterlife for her betrayal to her family. Branson and Rosalie missed her horribly, and he knew that Rosalie had cried when she left, even if his younger sister had managed to hide her tears from him.

He'd had a speech planned, his rage focused…

And then he'd stepped into the small clearing and seen her, and remembered how much he'd missed her smile and her nagging and every little annoyance and comfort she'd ever brought into his life. She'd run up and hugged him, nearly toppling him over as Thane Blackwall and his warriors simply waited on the other side of the clearing, pretending not to see how close Cullen had been to being overcome with his own emotions.

They'd wanted peace, according to the thane and his lady. They were willing to give back some of the land that had been taken from the Red Lions, if the Red Lions would be willing to help them with something, a problem with the lowlanders.

At the time, Cullen had felt like they were making an easy bargain, hoping to try to win him over—or lull him into a false sense of security, though it was hard to think that Mia would do that to him, even if she had abandoned her clan for their enemy.

Now…now he didn't know what to think.

If this was a trap of some sort, it had taken Thane Blackwall by surprise, too.

The guard for the carriage had been well equipped and well trained.

Both thanes had been toying with the idea of just capturing them to ask what was going on. With swords, of course. Cullen wasn't any good with diplomacy—he'd always thought it was better to work things out with displays of force and power—and Thane Blackwall had agreed that it would likely work quite well if they encircled the carriage and its guard and forced them to lay down their weapons.

They had the numbers, after all—there had been almost twice as many Avvar as lowlanders.

What they hadn't expected, however, was that the guards had been in on whatever this was, and had thus expected them to be the imposters, weaklings. Perhaps if they'd seen them in better lighting, they'd have reconsidered. After all, the stories said that lowlanders trembled before an Avvar in his war paint, with his weapon brandished.

In the end, only the carriage driver had surrendered, and if he knew anything, he was too distressed to speak. Aside from him, there was but one guard who had been captured, and he kept whispering a prayer, ignoring any attempts to reason with him.

Cullen had lost two of his people. Thane Blackwall had lost one. It left a sour taste in his mouth, made worse by the fact that they hadn't been able to get any information.

The carriage was loaded with belongings, but no passengers. There were trunks and chests of paper and books, most of it written in either code or languages other than common. There was absolutely nothing that they could use. That hadn't stopped Thane Blackwall from ordering his men to start moving the loot to their camp—according to him, his augur was an odd one, with an interest in reading that might allow him to have some insight into what these wastes of trees were for.

Cullen didn't have much faith. And even if they did get information from those books, he'd still lost two of his own who shouldn't have been there to begin with. One of them was one of his clan's few mages—Thane Blackwall's loss had been the only mage he'd brought with him, as the guards had been smart enough to focus down the biggest threats before being beaten.

All of this had been a waste.

He'd lost two good warriors to this.

However, even as he fought the urge to break something, Cassandra thwacked Cullen on the arm and motioned toward the southern tree line.

One of the men they'd left to watch the horses and their camp—they'd left one man from each clan, so that neither could claim foul play on the other's part if things went missing—had emerged into the clearing, riding quickly toward them. A woman was seated in front of him and it looked like…by the Mountain Father, he was holding her by the neck to keep her still. As they drew closer, he could just barely make out that she had a black eye in the dim light and dozens of cuts and tears to her clothes and skin. Her hair was a wild mess that made her almost look like a damned witch. Even so, she was clearly a lowlander. She wore leathers—with pants instead of those frilly dresses he'd always heard about—though they were thinner than anything practical for this kind of weather.

The man bringing her out—Cullen's—had a broken nose.

Her arms were bound behind her back, and she was gagged, but that had hardly done anything to calm her spirit. Anger sparked in her eyes, and if looks could kill, she'd likely be the only one left standing.

Cullen turned his steed and a few others trotted up with him to meet them.

The one who'd brought her scanned the few who'd come toward him, eyes landing on Cullen. "I thought you might want to talk to this one." He paused before adding, "I couldn't quite follow what she said, but I think she knew about the raid."

Cullen pulled his horse up beside them, inspecting her idly. Despite her anger, her figure was slight, and he doubted she could take any of them in combat. He nodded for his warrior to remove her gag and addressed her in common. Despite not having the largest vocabulary, he was sure he could communicate with her easily enough. "And where did you come from?"

She scrunched her face up, lips dipping down into a sneer as she cursed them with language colorful enough that he was pretty certain the Gods were blushing. Cullen reached out easily, catching her chin firmly in his hand, pressing up a little so that her teeth clicked shut. "Enough of that. If you want to keep your tongue, choose your words with care."

When he let her go, she shook her head, incredulous. "Is this some sick game to you? Keep my tongue?" Despite having learned common, he'd never had to deal with the lowlander accents before, and he could see why his warrior wasn't sure what she'd said. The way her tongue rolled the words was a little hard to follow. However, the emotions were easy enough to read on her face. "I know what your orders are."

She tried to kick him, despite being straddled on the other horse. Her captor jerked on her bound arms to straighten her up so that she couldn't move around as easily, and she snapped her head back, trying to hit him in the face. The man hissed a few curses under his breath.

Arching his brow, Cullen looked her over again. The saying was that lowlander women were trouble, though he'd always assumed it was because they were high maintenance, not just impossible to control.

"Well?" she snapped, enough venom in her voice to down a horse. "What are you waiting for? Just do it, you cowards."

Cullen shifted in his saddle, crossing his arms as all that rage contorted her face into a most wicked scowl. As he watched her, Thane Blackwall walked up beside his steed so that he could stand just between the horses and inspect her as well. Thane Blackwall cocked his head. "Just what are we supposed to do?"

The strangled scream she let out was unearthly. She nearly toppled Cullen's man from his seat as she whipped her other leg up and over the horse's neck—using said man to support her weight to even do so—and aimed a sharp kick for Thane Blackwall's head.

With a laugh, the Shadow Wolf caught her leg at her knee and jerked hard, nearly dragging her off the horse. He caught her other leg before she could try to kick him again, and, with one fluid motion, tucked both of them beneath one arm as he stepped close enough that Cullen's man could drag her back into a sitting position on the horse.

The warrior gave Cullen an incredulous look as he held the woman more firmly in place.

Not bothering to hide his smirk, Cullen leaned forward in his saddle and motioned to Thane Blackwall. "The man asked you a question."

"He's not going to pay you, you know," she hissed. When Cullen narrowed his eyes, she shook her head. "You're just another loose end, the whole lot of you, and once the chevaliers get here, you'll regret every miserable choice you ever made that led you to this place."

"Sounds like someone's talking from experience," Thane Blackwall offered, grinning when she tried to knee him.

Cullen, however, had lost some of his humor. "You said chevaliers are coming?" He paused, remembering Cassandra's earlier report. "From the west?"

The look she gave him… he'd never seen condescension, disgust, arrogance, and disbelief tied so perfectly together before. "No. They're coming back from a vacation in Fereldan."

"How many?"

She scoffed. "Raiding's not so much fun when you're not the ones meant to win, is it?"

Thane Blackwall's eyes widened as he turned to Cullen, speaking in Avvar. "That's why the impersonators were so much weaker than the guards. They didn't need them, just their bodies."

Slowly running his tongue over his back teeth, Cullen eyed her before switching back to common. "How do we know you're telling the truth?"

"Well, it's not like I have battle plans on me," she muttered, though her anger had seemed to subside at least a little. She glanced from Cullen to Thane Blackwall and back. When she spoke again, it was slower, barely calmer. "This isn't meant to be a successful raid. The point of this charade is that the chevaliers are going to ride in and defeat the terrible barbarians, only too late to save the poor lady from their vicious, unscrupulous ways."

"So the whole point of all of this," Thane Blackwall clarified, pointing at her with his free hand, "is to kill you?"

"I don't know if that's the whole point of it, but I'm not out here for tea and pastries." She hesitated. "I don't know how many there are. Maybe twenty? Maybe more, maybe less. There were only five when they caught me yesterday morning, but there were quite a few already at the outpost when we got there today."

"If they're after her," Cullen murmured, speaking Avvar, "then they're likely in your woods, and probably won't leave until they get her."

"No," Cassandra interrupted. She was on her horse as well, her sword drawn. "They're here."

Turning toward the west, Cullen frowned as he saw horseback riders entering the far side of the field in twos. Their armor glinted in the moonlight, their forms dark against the snow.

Thane Blackwall glanced around to see who was still there. Half his men were gone with those damned trunks. "If there's twenty, they outnumber us." He scowled. "Chevaliers are well trained." With a shake of his head, he dropped the lowlander woman's legs and jogged over to his horse, pausing to catch one of his men and pointing toward the eastern tree line, speaking quietly. The man nodded and grabbed a horse, riding into the woods. Cullen barely saw him cut south as soon as he was in the shadows before he was gone from sight.

Good, at least they'd have the missing few coming up as a second wave—even if they would be tired.

Without pausing, the Shadow Wolves' thane called to his warrior guarding their other two prisoners. With a nod, she slit the guard's throat and then moved to the other man—it wouldn't do to have them get loose and assist with the Avvar's enemies. He tried to stand up, starting to scream something. He didn't even make it through the first word before he was falling to the ground as well.

However, the noise did catch the attention of the chevaliers.

One of the men rode a bit ahead of the others, stopping short of the group when he could comfortably call out to them. He leaned forward in his seat, his face covered by a half mask. His head turned slowly as he inspected those of them present in the dim light and then, abruptly, he sat back, laughing. "Is that… It is! Lady Trevelyan. You just love helping us out, don't you? If we'd known you were going to come here yourself, we wouldn't have wasted time searching for you."

"Die in a fire," she hissed back, recoiling at the man's attention.

"Well, even if I do, you won't be there to see it." Turning toward the others, he signaled one, who sounded a horn of some kind, no doubt for any of their fellow knights still scouring the woods for the woman. He finally turned to address the Avvar, "Is there a reason she isn't dead, yet?"

Thane Blackwall rode up beside Cullen, glancing over at him, bushy brow quirked. They looked back at the chevalier, and both rested their hands on their weapons at the same time.

"What has she done?" Cullen called out.

"You're not paid to care about that, gentlemen," the chevalier said, however, even as he spoke, he paused, tensing ever so slightly. His head turned as he looked over the scene again. Cullen could just barely make out a frown beneath the man's mask, his painted lips looking ghoulish in the darkness. "Where's Rodrin?"

Without need of direction, all of their warriors had already found their way back to their mounts, though they waited to sling themselves back up, not wanting to draw too much attention to any preparations, should they be unnecessary.

"Dead," Thane Blackwall replied, calm. "The fighting was a little much for him."

"That accent… Andraste's flaming ass, you're real Avvar." Even as both thanes readied their weapons, the chevalier drew his blade, the steel gleaming in the moonlight. "Attack!"

…-…

The carriage door slammed shut behind Katrina as her captor threw her into it and then joined the fray. Battle cries and the sound of metal clashing against metal sounded all around her, muted somewhat by the thin wooden walls trapping her.

Or where they supposed to be protecting her?

At this point, she was too confused and tired and cold to care. During her little conversation with the Avvar, she'd been slowly working on the hastily tied bindings that kept her wrists behind her back. She'd finally managed to loosen them enough that she could—with a great amount of pain—twist her hands down and straighten her arms behind her. She winced at the pressure it was putting on her wrists, but clenched her teeth as she pulled her legs up, and slipped her arms under her, so that she could see the knots.

Maker, they were complicated. If he'd been able to do this in a few seconds, she hated to think of the sorts of things he could do with rope in his leisure. She tried to gnaw on one of the ties, but quickly gave up on that. The rope was too thick, and it tasted awful.

At least her shoulders weren't so tense with her hands in front of her, though…her fingers were looking terrible. She'd been so busy being horridly cold and miserably afraid that she hadn't thought to actually check herself over. Maker, if she didn't find somewhere warm, soon, she might lose one.

Surely it wasn't actually that bad… her city-dwelling, northern self was likely just overreacting, even if it was getting harder and harder to bend her numb appendages.

As she stuck her tongue out, trying to let the freezing air claim that despicable tang from the rope, she looked around the carriage's cabin. Of course there wasn't anything sharp in here with her. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?

Even as she mentally groused at her abominable luck, someone slammed into the side of the carriage with a cry, a bit of blood dripping down from the top of the window, where they'd hit their head.

She waited a moment to see if they would get up before carefully sliding over to the door and testing it. It swung open, though she caught it before it could go too far. The man who had crashed into the carriage was a chevalier. To be fair, it wouldn't have made much of a difference which side he was from, as both were entrenched in the plot to murder her, but the Avvar had seemed ignorant of just what part they were to play, so—since it had to be someone—she was glad it was one of the Orlesian bastards.

After a quick glance around to make sure no one was concerning themselves with the assassination mark, she cautiously grabbed his sword from his still hand and slipped back into the privacy of the carriage.

Holding the hilt as best she could with her boots, she rubbed the ropes against the sharpened edge of the blade until they finally gave way, only nicking her wrists twice. She shoved the ropes off of her and gripped the saber, finally turning her attention to the fighting outside.

It was still going on in earnest, though there were quite a few additional bodies scattered around than when she'd first been toted out like a new toy. Her left eye hurt from where her kidnapper had punched her, but she couldn't help but feel a smug sense of superiority. After all, she'd broken his nose.

It was his fault for thinking he could put his sword up and just drag her off somewhere without a fight. Her victory was somewhat diminished by the horrid ache spreading through the back of her head, but such was the price of humiliating one of her would-be murderers.

She'd figured that if they were going to kill her, she was going to give bitter memories to as many of them as she could. She might not know how to shoot a bow or drive a sword home, but they would bear scars for the rest of their lives to remind them of their abhorrent actions.

At least, that had been her train of thought when she'd been captured and dragged off.

However, as she'd talked to those vile men, it had occurred to her that they weren't being nearly as, well, murderous as she'd expected them to be. They were arrogant pricks, sure, and yes, there were corpses everywhere, but she hadn't counted among them.

That had been rather odd, all things considered. It was almost as though they hadn't known they were supposed to be killing her.

Something about this whole matter was off, though she couldn't for the life of her place it.

It was something she would worry about later, when she had plenty of miles between herself and this debauchery.

Almost everyone was off their horses now, locked in combat, killing one another, blood soaking into the ground and staining the snow in dark swatches.

Glancing out the window, she carefully opened the door on the side that had fewer fighters and slipped out. She couldn't even hear her boots crunch into the snow, with all the commotion about.

Finally, she was stumbling into a little bit of luck.

She inspected the battlefield and let her gaze wander east. There, just shy of the tree line, was a very lovely mare of some kind, rider-less and saddled. It would do nicely.

Katrina made sure that everyone was too busy killing each other to notice her one last time and then bolted toward the horse.

Maker, I will never curse or swear again if you let me get out of here, she thought as loudly as she could, repeating it over and over like a mantra as she ducked past two men crashing to the ground, their weapons missing. The Avvar was winning that match with his large hands clamped down around his enemy's neck. The chevalier clawed uselessly against his shoulders, hands not quite reaching where he needed them.

She kept going.

Someone grabbed her arm. Katrina whirled around with her blade raised, slashing blindly. Both she and the chevalier gave each other startled looks as he reached up to hold his neck, blood spurting between his fingers.

As he crumpled to the ground, she ignored the pang of terror in her gut and picked up her speed. If he'd noticed her, others might.

She reached the horse, fingers digging clumsily into the worn leather saddle—the saddle had the same insignia on it as the carriage—and scrambled into the seat, smacking its rear to get it running before she'd even completely settled in.

She tangled the reins around her hands as she made it around a steep curve in the road—nearly going off and into the underbrush—and rode on.

Let her assassins kill each other. She was going to Fereldan.