I know the darkness of the roads

It floods my liver

pollutes my breath

yet I still witness the white dawning

Night Travel - Esther G. Belin

Loghain immediately regrets going to sleep at all when he wakes up in a screeching turmoil of running soldiers and barked orders. The cloth of his tent is being torn apart by a few well-placed arrows of fire as he scrambles to his feet, grabbing his blade and shield before rushing outside.

The camp is under attack.

A large number of what appears to be assassins are making their way down the mountain pass and running from the edges of the forests, which means their guards have failed at their seemingly simple task to defend the borders of their camp. He feels a surge of anger at the mere thought, struggling to get a decent overview of the battle. In the distance, far ahead to the right he can hear the unmistakable sounds of large-scale battle and to the left, closer to the mountains, there are scattered soldiers fighting man to man.

Regretting the lack of armour, Loghain proceeds into the chaos unfolding before his eyes. He can see Cauthrien and three men take on a duellist who is accompanied with what must be bandits. They had known, of course, that they were bound to run into all sorts of outlaws but assumed the size – and imposing individuals for those inspecting them closely - of their party would act as a deterrent.

A foolish thought, of course.

He is almost thrown to the ground when the Orlesian mage casts a protective glyph around him as he passes her; his angry expression makes her frown back at him. Then he forgets to be ungrateful as a greatsword clashes against the magical wall and he - instead of being stabbed in the side - can behead a ragged bandit. It's difficult to judge the nature of the attackers since they're a scattered group.

His commander, he notices, is duelling a masked man; like most of them, she's wearing no protection save a pair of gauntlets and a breastplate.

"Loghain!" she cries out. "My brother!"

When Loghain looks around he sees a large shape a bit further away, near the brink of the woods; the contours of the teyrn of Highever remain motionless, however, and Loghain looks at Elissa who, with a sound in between grief and rage, finally plunges her blade in the attacker's throat.

Loghain reaches the fallen man, kneeling beside him, one hand searching for heartbeats and a pulse while the other loosens the shirt around his throat. It's a sweeping move, all of it written down within him with such force that he no longer have to think about what he does – it was Rowan who taught him, long ago, to apply a smidgen of knowledge of medicine to what they did on the battlefield. She would quickly examine an injured soldier, and then they'd decide whether it was worth the cost of bandages and time to patch him up. They tended only to the ones who could fight and left the others. It was a efficient way of managing a moving army, he found.

"I..." Fergus gasps, falling silent again and grimacing.

"Stay calm." Loghain says, rummaging through the dead attacker's corpse in search of bandages. He can tell the wounds – one in his abdomen, another one in is side – are deep and severe, in all likelihood deadly without a healer's care.

"It's... bad."

"It is," Loghain confirms, although he is uncertain it is a question. Not finding anything of use on the corpse, he puts one hand on Fergus' chest to keep him down while he uses the tip of his blade to make a tear and then rips off the front of the tunic. It's met with a groan but not much else, and Loghain can dress the most severe stab wound without problem. "Likely fatal."

"Such an... optimist."

Sharing his sister's grim humour and bravery, apparently, Fergus attempts a smile. Loghain finds it strangely sympathetic.

"I find brutal honesty works better," he mutters, attempting a bandage over the second injury as well, but finds that the little cloth he has left to use is already too drenched in blood.

"Look out!" Elissa's voice again and just as Loghain glances sideways he spots another man coming at them, followed by two archers wearing masks. And then there's just one archer left on his feet as Cauthrien, without any particular refinement to her move, cuts the second one down. She looks at Loghain with her face bloodied and her mouth a thin, displeased line. They have failed both each other and their army, such as it is. And he knows nobody apart from himself who loathes failure as intensely as the woman he once appointed the commander of Maric's own elite guards.

"I sent the knights after the escaping attackers," she says, hurriedly, while her blade misses the first archer who launches an arrow straight into her shield. The second attempt is successful and exhaling, she can continue with more ease. "The Orlesians are held up further down the road."

"Do you have an idea of the attackers?" Loghain stands up. "Bandits and assassins?"

Cauthrien nods. "It appears so. Perhaps they have teamed up. They seem to have entered our camp in at least three different fractions."

"How many?"

"Fifty men?" she shrugs apologetically. "It is difficult to say."

"Keep at least a couple of the bastards alive," Elissa commands, running towards them. "I want to know who they are."

"Got it, Commander." Cauthrien nods and takes off again.

Loghain looks down at Fergus who is growing paler, his face moist with sweat and blood that flows from a wound on his cheek that looks like the work of a poisoned dagger. It seems a wasteful mission to bring him to safety, or even to guard him here, until the mage can reach them. Unhealed, he will perish the moment someone moves him, of that Loghain is certain.

"Blast," Elissa says under her breath as she sinks down to the ground beside them. "Fergus?"

"He is still alive," Loghain says in Fergus' place since the other man has closed his eyes.

"Fergus, I will be back." She speaks so softly and with such an effort that Loghain feels his stomach churn a bit. Then she turns around to look at him. "I am looking for Shirei. You will stay with him."

"Although he breathes, your brother is seriously wounded," Loghain says, trying to keep his voice down. "Are you certain you do not wish to stay here and let me go find the mage?"

"I... yes." her voice fades momentarily. "I wouldn't have a clear head."

"Elissa-"

"Please." Catching herself as the words that come out of her mouth shiver with held-back emotions, she averts her eyes. "Do as I command."

And after stooping over her brother and placing a kiss on his forehead, she is gone again.

.

~*~

.

The battle goes on for most of the forenoon.

The Commander returns from the forest, bloodied but intact and with the Antivan limply hanging on to her, his arm slung around her for support. Judging by his face and the soaked leather armour he must have slept in, he is a breath away from slipping over the edge separating the living from the dead.

"He needs a healer," Elissa says, unnecessarily.

"She's with your brother," Loghain informs her. He has returned from patrolling the mountain passages aided by Hedin and Jenner and aside from a stray bandit that Jenner promptly finished they have encountered no more enemies. "I ordered Hawise and one of the guards to help her take care of the wounded."

With the assistance of the Orlesian mage, Loghain had managed to get the teyrn of Higever off the battlefield and safely tucked into a bedroll. He had breathed but not spoken and not opened his eyes.

Their victory is a hollow one, the stench of ashes and blood rising like darkspawn from the very ground.

"Good. I sent Cauthrien to rile up the soldiers." She stops for a short while to catch her breath and readjust the grip around the elf's slender waist. "I saved the knights for you."

And Loghain can't help but smile darkly at that.

.

~*~

.

Around the fires in the middle of their temporary home, they gather eventually one after another, counting their losses and accounting for the hard-won victories. Loghain sits among the Wardens, rolling up the sleeves of his tunic to tend to a wound on his upper arm when Cauthrien arrives with Elissa, who has a face that is stern and controlled like steel and a gaze that seems to pierce through them.

At least they make use of the camp already set up the previous night. This is the small mercy of being overwhelmed in your own field, Loghain knows, that once you have defeated the intruders, you have things already settled, the paths cleared. The mage works hard; he can see the strength seeping out of her steadily, exhaustion hanging like a grey cloud over her head as the soldiers calls out for her. Elissa notices the same thing, her voice breaking the low chatter and stifled sounds of pain colouring the camp.

"Most of you will be fine with some rest and a poultice," she says, sharply. "So let us save our healer's resources for those who truly need it."

Shirei sends the commander a grateful look. The knights, on the other hand, exchange the kind of looks Loghain knows well and has come to despise – the never-ending expectations of those who feel entitled to the best and will not accept actually having to prove themselves worthy of anything.

"What happened today will not happen again!" Elissa continues, slowly pacing around in a circle, to be able to look at them all. Even the complaining men straightens a bit as her gaze falls upon them, their slack mouths taut with reluctant respect and the faintest hint of shame. "We lost three soldiers. Three good men. The teyrn is badly wounded and unconscious. Zevran, the Wardens' guard, was nearly killed. Nothing excuses that."

"Commander," a knight – Loghain thinks he remembers someone saying that his name is Walter – drops to his knees, bowing properly. "We were unable to foresee this attack. Our guards were in the right places, but the intruders were too many."

Loghain had not been mincing his words previously, nor had he allowed for any complaints: he had asked the knights to kindly inform him how they could serve the teyrn and the Warden Commander better than any random group of battered farmers in hiding. And reminded them of how deeply unpleasant it is to wake up to burning arrows sweeping past your head. Somewhere in the back of his head, he heard Maric chuckle darkly, as the knights fell to their knees and assured Loghain in no small words that they would lay down their lives in order to see this mission through. You rule through fear, Maric had once said, drunk and sentimental. Because you do not think they would follow you otherwise.

What Elissa thinks about her ability to inspire loyalty he does not know, but her presence is overwhelming within the small army they have at their disposal. She is the Hero of Ferelden and they have disappointed her.

"I am aware of the situation. I want no apologies." She raises her hand, like she's leading them into war all over again. Which, Loghain thinks, she might very well be doing. They have seen nothing of the countryside yet. If there are rebel armies as leftovers from the civil war, they are going to hide there. "What I want is that you – the lot of you – do your best. The Blight may be over, but the war is not. I have no use for sloppy, cocky men. I have no use for soldiers who cannot even keep us safe while we rest."

"I'm s-" the knight coughs. "Understood, Commander."

"Bring me the prisoners," she says, in a different tone altogether.

"Yes, ser." The knight bows again. "Immediately, ser."

Elissa looks at Loghain across the scene, signalling with no more than a little tilt of her head that she wishes to be assisted. He walks up to her as the prisoners are dragged in front of them, both of them young men, both of them tightly bound hand and foot; the soldiers on their sides holding them upright.

"You may leave," Elissa says to the soldiers as she and Loghain take over the leashes of the prisoners. The Commander steps forward, grabbing hold of the stained shirt collar of one of the them. It's a red-haired man, with freckled skin and a long scar along his cheek. He stares defiantly straight ahead, not meeting her gaze.

"So," she says, calmly. "Who are you and what do you want?"

Loghain observes the man – barely more than a boy, when he looks close enough – and his blank expression that doesn't shift, not even when Elissa leans closer, riveting her eyes upon him.

"Who sent you?"

No answer.

"Who sent you?" Elissa asks again, already impatient. Torture seems to be one those things she doesn't have a command of. Neither does Loghain, incidentally; he is too brusque to bother and not sadistic enough to enjoy the pain of others, at any rate.

There is an impenetrable silence around them.

Elissa tightens her grip around the man's throat, causing him to choke "Talk."

"There... is n-nothing to – say."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Y-yes."

"Very well," she says, releasing the man who falls roughly to the ground, landing on his face. Loghain picks him up again, to prevent an unlikely escape; the boy coughs, blood dripping from his nose. And Elissa proceeds to the man Loghain holds on to with his other hand. He lets him go with a faint sneer. This man is older than the redhead and doesn't look entirely Fereldan with his dark skin and deep, brown eyes.

"You see, we are not your friends," Elissa says, grabbing the man by his hair and pulling him closer. "We care very little about your life. The only purpose for your continued existence, as I see it, is if you chose to give me the answers I need."

"You... will not kill us," the redhead interjects, apparently speaking to his comrade. "Don't listen to her."

"Be silent," Loghain warns, pushing the man to the ground again, causing him to land on his back this time.

Elissa watches the display together with the dark-haired prisoner who has started to look less inclined to put up any form of resistance.

"Your friend is wrong, unfortunately," she says. "About not killing you, that is. I have no problem with that, you see. When people send assassins after me or people I care about, I tend to solve the matters with violence."

Loghain stifles an inappropriately amused snort.

"Will you tell me what I want to know?" The question echoes against the stiff silence of the crowd.

Elissa allows a few moments of consideration.

As the prisoner shakes his head, she gazes up, out over the people who have gathered – more and more of them, of course, as every execution demands its drooling mob - and back at Loghain before she releases the grip of the man and lets him fall to the ground; he lands abruptly on his side with a muffled sound of pain.

She looks at Loghain through thin veils of history and time when she lifts the sword off her back; that ruthless, bare pain in her eyes, the kind that hardens inwards.

"Then you are useless," she says to the prisoner.

And the man on the ground says nothing as she drives her sword through his chest; the few soldiers that surround them are quiet too, stone-faced and calm. She wipes away the blood with a small, nearly invisible grimace that Loghain recognises, too, because it is his own.

"Keep this one alive, Commander?" he asks loudly, putting his boot against the squirming prisoner's chest.

"Yes." Clearing her throat she takes a last look at the man in question, who is flat on his back on the grass, and look decidedly paler than before. "Zevran will make him talk, I'm sure."

Elissa looks back at Loghain one last time before walking away, sheathing her sword without another word.

.

~*~

.

They are all aware of the slightest move around them tonight, aware of every rustle of leaves and of each shadow cropping up behind them.

Loghain has sent the knights with Cauthrien to patrol the passages ahead and the Wardens are spread out, ordered to cover every possible path and direction. During the day they have moved a little further, securing the camp somewhat by having the impenetrable side of the mountain behind them.

Three soldiers dead and two men wounded, both badly at that.

It's not acceptable. They are too skilled, much too experienced for these kinds of mistakes.

He allows himself a moment of frustration with the illogical, almost unfathomable way of warfare during a Blight and after it. He didn't know this. He could not even have guessed – not even if someone had told him about darkspawn and Archdemons and forced him to believe it – could he have suspected that a Blight would so thoroughly upset the brutal logic that war itself creates.

The land is torn apart, all but annihilated; it resembles the last time he saw it like that and yet nothing is the same. People have behaved the way people behave, facing war, but war has not. All over the countryside there are corpses and carrion piling up inside houses and on the roads, cattle lying half-eaten, half-decayed in the fields. There was no time to flee, not for most. Darkspawn pop up from underground and civil war drove people to fight each other.

Loghain feels hollow thinking about that. But he is making up excuses. This situation could have arisen at any time and he should have seen it.

As he finishes his supper, he realises Elissa is still with the wounded, likely berating herself – or him – for what happened and worrying herself useless. He fills a bowl brimful with today's bland stew of turnip and beets and walks up to the middle of camp. This is the spot where they have put up two canvas over poles in the ground and another two canvases on the sides, serving as wind shields: a temporary healing station where the mage and some assisting soldiers have tended to everybody for hours.

The elf is sleeping in the bedroll near the farthest fire, his face pale but seemingly relaxed; Teyrn Cousland is resting in the middle, warmed by fires on both sides. Elissa sits by his side, unmoving and stern. She looks very tired.

"Here." Loghain holds the bowl under her nose. "Eat."

"Oh." She frowns, but takes the food and puts it down on the chest serving as bedside table for her brother. "Thank you."

Cauthrien used to do this, all the time after Ostagar, that hurt expression never once leaving her face and her voice tasting of an irritation he refused to let her express. But no matter how she did feel about him, she used to bring him food. Sometimes brandy, or poultices but usually just food. No general or commander can get by on an empty stomach, she'd say and slam a plate down in front of him before leaving – a gesture as uncomplicated and matter of factly as herself. The unwritten chain of command in an army, the ever present mission to make certain your superiors are fit to give orders and your inferiors ready to accept them. And the silent implications of this, darkened beyond language.

"The camp is surrounded by guards," he says, eventually. "We've got men and women covering all the roads."

"Good," Elissa answers absent-mindedly and rises to her feet.

Loghain watches her in silence. She stands, wincing momentarily as she has to adjust her breastplate that seems to have expanded a size lately. It should be impossible given that his commander eats enough for two grown men at every meal, but the food seems to burn away inside her, lost in that dark undercurrent that makes them part of those they defeat.

"Shirei was here before," she says, when he is about to ask if there is anything else she needs before he leaves her alone. "She thinks he will recover."

Loghain nods, although it's a pointless move since Elissa looks straight ahead, keeping her gaze on her brother. He freezes a little in his cloak. There is a severity in the air lately; the nights are growing longer and colder and it gets dark in the middle of the afternoons.

"Are you planning on remaining here until he does?"

She sighs. "I don't know. I...yes. I think so."

The journey across Dragon's Peak will not be easy regardless of her decisions, but leaving this spot with two injured seems arguably as feeble a plan as walking into Orlais without a full army at your back. Once they are through the mountain pass, however, the road to the northern coast should be quite simple.

Not that they will take any risks after today.

"When were you going to have the decency to inform me that Cauthrien is coming with me to Orlais?" Elissa asks suddenly, as though she's pushing herself away from the thoughts of her brother. "Or did you not deem me capable of handling that information?"

"It was a necessary decision," Loghain responds curtly. He has no pressing need to explain himself further. This doesn't seem to be popular with his commander, though.

"Indeed?" she scoffs, narrowing her eyes as she glances at him. "Necessary? For whom?"

He snorts but says nothing. That is met with a frustrated groan from the woman by his side, who rakes a hand through her hair, unkempt and wild, hanging down over her shoulders. It is unusual. She is too practical for it, normally. He has no idea why he knows that, but the notion is there within him somewhere, a stray observation surfacing.

"Not that I will pretend to have had many generals under my command, Loghain," she continues. "But surely generals are meant to discuss their plans with the commanders in charge?"

"If the commander is going to see reason, yes." He sneers, a gesture meant as much at himself as it is meant for her.

"Maker's breath." She doesn't look at him. "Do you know that you are a condescending bastard? I trust you. I trust you to make decisions that are well considered and strategical and if you would just sodding talk to me, I would listen to what you have to say."

"You would do well to remember the last time I served as a general," he says, looking at her and feeling, of all things, uncertain. He hadn't expected this. He has spent most of his life being a general – a trusted general - and yet he has not expected this. "The king who promised to give heed to my advice-"

"You would do well to remember that I am not Cailan," Elissa snaps. "Nor am I Maric."

Her voice, the notes in it and the way it lingers around them; it seems to shift through his own memories somewhat, separate and release them. There is a darkness in that, resembling the one in giving up.

"I know," Loghain says, wondering if he truly has, before now.

"You cannot be Maric's general any more." She is looking at him like she almost regrets speaking of it, one hand plucking at the strands of hair resting against the side of her face. Looking away again, she lowers her voice. "You told me once that it did not matter that he is dead. But it does."

Loghain doesn't know what to say to that; his hands are cold and he tries to hunch down in front of the fire to warm them. Elissa follows suit, slumping down on the ground, legs tucked in under her. Her gaze is warm.

And it matters.

With a move that is very far from being smooth, he sits down as well, ignoring the dull ache in his back and shoulders from the exertion earlier. Hopefully the potion he took before supper will take the edge off the pain soon, otherwise he might never get up from this position.

The Commander observes him with that blend of irritated worry and quiet acceptance she has adopted tonight.

"There's a rumour saying you made Ser John weep," she says, raising an eyebrow. She has brought the food with her as they moved to the fire and now she tastes a spoonful while Loghain shrugs, wondering how much of the afternoon's verbal battle he needs to narrate.

"He deserved all he got."

They had whimpered like spoiled, sodding brats, the lot of them. One excuse after the other, as expected.

"Oh, I have no doubt about that." Elissa looks faintly pleased, still chewing, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "John is said to be a delicate flower who is afraid to get his hand bloodied."

"Yes. I have met kittens with more fighting spirit," Loghain concurs, dryly.

"See, this is why I like you." Putting down the bowl, Elissa grins; the expression on her face relaxes with the sign of amusement. "Even though you are a conceited, arrogant arse."

"For making the knights cry?" He frowns, genuinely confused.

"Yes. Definitely." She stretches out on the empty bedroll beside them suddenly, propped up on her elbow on her side, hands held up in front of the flames. "And for making me laugh. Even when things are... bad."

Loghain tries to catch her gaze but she has turned her head, peering over her shoulder to check on her brother who is still sleeping soundlessly beside them. It's neither a bad nor a good sign that he is still beyond motions, beyond the faintest whimper of pain. Someone with less experience than Loghain would perhaps even consider it a sign that the healing has worked, and resulted in a dreamless sleep. Elissa seems to be more like him than he expected, however, because as she turns back to him again, all traces of amusement are gone.

"The guards will watch over him tonight," Loghain says, leaning forward to soak up more of the scant warmth coming from the flames. "You should get some rest."

Elissa doesn't looks like she has heard him or if she has, she does not give much for his words. She is silent for a long time, studying her hands and fiddling with the still half-full bowl of food in her lap.

"He's the only one left, you know."

If he hadn't looked at her, and seen the words leave her mouth, he would not have heard the softly spoken sentence at all. Briefly lit up by the flickering light, Loghain catches a grimace on her face, smoothed out as she looks up at him.

"The only Cousland?" he asks, wondering if he has ever even pretended to care that much about his own, inglorious name. He never mustered up much devotion as the deal was set in stone and Anora became betrothed to Cailan, although his advisors had pointed out the sensibility and security in having more than one child. For a man in your position, Your Grace. As though an heir would make him immortal. As though he had ever wished for that.

"Not just that..." Elissa sighs. "Well, there is that. But... Andraste's flaming sword, this sounds so selfish. But Fergus is the only one left who knows me. Everyone else knows the Warden and the bloody Hero of Ferelden. He knows me as the fat little girl who got stuck in trees."

Loghain feels an unexpected surge of sympathy at her words.

When no one remembers the same things as you remember, when no one is left from before – who do you become?

He knows this is what she is asking of him without asking it and he wants to say that she lets sentimental notions of nonsense cloud her judgement but he knows, too, that there is something to her words. Over the years Loghain has allowed himself to be transfigured by duty and work, by battle and obligations but the truth - one he rarely admits - is that it is the absence of the people who have shaped him, more than anything else, that has changed him.

He is aware of the fact that he should speak, offer some sort of consolation, but he feels the obstacles surrounding that only grow the longer he waits.

Elissa doesn't say anything else either; they put more wood on the fire and watch, mutely, as the flames rise in front them and offer a tickling heat on their skin, driving the chill of the night away, if only for a little while. Loghain lets his mind drift, his thoughts expertly forming themselves after his will. Strategy and maps, slices of ideas of how to structure the recruitment process once they have reached Highever; he closes his eyes and thinks of training new soldiers, of performing the Joining, of what truth he will offer and what secrets he will keep.

The wet, thick mist of morning rises from the earth when the Commander finally falls asleep on the bedroll next to her brother's. Every line of the landscape is blotched and erased, the prospect of seeing them clearly decreasing when all is wrapped into the grey, quiet blanket. Wool-sighted, Rowan used to call it, telling him once that it was a word she made up as a child. Loghain remembers it like he remembers other odd, insignificant details about her now that almost every other memory has escaped him.

And the sky is heavy as damp wool this morning, as he gets to his feet without any particular grace – still sore from the fighting and the cold sedentary night. He places another blanket over the sleeping commander and nods towards a guard when he walks away.

"Are you on the morning watch?"

"Yes, General," the guard, a girl who looks at him with bright green eyes in a set face, solemn in a way that makes her seem old beyond her years. "What can I do for you?"

"Don't wake her," Loghain says quietly.

A/N: Thanks to CJK for beta, handholding and never-ending support through various writing-related crises. And thanks to Tasmen for Zevran-advice.