Author's Note— Extremely violent themes. Proceed at own risk!
She awoke, her entire body throbbing in pain. Letting out a ragged sigh, she pushed herself up.
A cell. She was in a cell. She assumed she was in whatever tiny dungeon Ostagar had, and did not care overly so.
She had been foolish, yes. Insolent, too. Was it suffice enough to throw her in a cell on the eve of battle? She did not think that improving the direly terrible battle plan Loghain had conjured from the empty space between his ears, albeit in the tactless manner she had done so, was reason enough to imprison her. She was positive that there would have been a public outcry towards that move, save that almost no one likely to aid them knew that both the potential heirs to the Teyrnir of Highever were trapped in the horribly indefensible castle of Ostagar. Besides, the Maker knew no man could be spared supervising her hopefully brief incarceration when darkspawn lurked at their perimeters. Her frustrated speculations mostly came up fruitless, but she knew for a fact that something terribly wrong was going to happen, starting with Loghain's planning.
Either the man was an idiot, or had intentionally persuaded the gullible king to suicide himself and all others to silence. As tempting as the idea was, she disregarded the former. Loghain had been in a position of trust as the close comrade of the late King Maric, and Andraste knew how malleable the young prince exposed freely as if nephew to Loghain would have been. She sighed again and closed her eyes, the thrill of being amid the familiar battlefield of conspiracy fading quickly under the terrible truth that she had stumbled upon something indeed deadly and dire.
Treason.
She rested, and began plotting. She knew a rescue from Fergus was inevitable. The hours passed without a single sign of him, and she began to grow concerned. Her thoughts turned to the Grey Wardens.
She had thought Duncan incorruptible. She did not doubt that he was a man of righteousness, and wondered what had been done to him to make him comply. She knew of no family or loved ones that would force him beyond his will. Frankly, the Grey Wardens were so shrouded in mystery and fanciful legend that she knew close to nothing about him, and in the weeks they had spent moving from the ruins of her household south to Ostagar she had not been inclined to casual conversation on his origins. She shook her head and forced herself to breathe slowly, to relax her pulse so that one might assume she was asleep.
Loghain. He was undoubtedly in league with something sinister. She surreptitiously—lest anyone observe her sleeping façade—rubbed the back of her neck, where her fingers disturbed drying blood. Ruffling her hair, she searched for a pin to no avail. She was devoid of arms as well, and sighed, pillowing her head on her arm.
A quarter to an hour later, a faint flicker of light replaced the inky blackness behind her lids. She opened her eyes a fraction, peering through her eyelashes. The light coalesced into a weak lamp, too dim to see its owner. The person came closer, and she kept her breath relentlessly even and her limbs slack.
The silhouette was hardly taller than her, although to be fair she was admittedly not all that short. Not Fergus, then, who towered above mortal men. Others ghosted into existence behind the figure, the sound of booted feet echoing in the hollow room. Dare she attempt to overpower one and snatch a weapon, her only advantage—and a bad one at that—that of surprise? By the sound of clinking plate and blades sliding free, she discarded the idea.
The bolt in the door slid free and the door swung open. Her chance passed as men filed in, swords pointed at her. Clearly no chances were being taken, and she sat up. The one with the lamp stepped forward.
"Get up," he said, his voice harsh and relentless. She cocked her head at him.
"So the gallows it is to be?" Before the remark was scarce past her lips, she was again on the floor, blood dripping from her split lower lip and a choir of birds ringing in her ear.
"That's the last flippant thing you will have ever said, Lady Cousland," She blinked to hear her name in such formality, although the tone spoken was far from proper. She suddenly wished that she had taken her chances in the cell. She might have even pulled it off, had she been unaffected by the darkspawn taint.
A gauntleted hang bit into her arm, distracting her from her retrospection, and she blinked back tears as she was hauled up. She was half dragged out of her confines, and she had lost feeling to her left arm by the time they had ascended the steep stairs to the surface.
She glanced about as she was pulled through what she thought was the majority of the camp. If anything, it was darker outside than in the pit she waken to, and when she glanced up it was to a faint sliver of moon and its myriad of starry companions. They avoided what scattered campfires they came across, and she wondered if she should call out. As if sensing her thoughts, the man in possession of her arm tightened his grip to the point of all-consuming pain, pausing long enough in his infernal march to send her a warning glare. She clenched her teeth and nodded curtly to him once.
They walked further into the night. The sightings of grouped bedrolls and occasional tent became rarer as they progressed. Finally, they came upon a small solitary encampment, and she thought that they were practically asking for the darkspawn to drag them off then and there. She sighed, and wondered what it was that had her running into one tragic piece of bad luck to another.
They came across a lone man, looking for all the world as though he would rather be sleeping than out here. She didn't blame him. He looked curious at seeing her surrounded by so many, and waited patiently for her to be handed over. She was yanked forward (she didn't relish the prospect of seeing the undoubtedly dreadful bruise on her arm), but her captor seemed reluctant to relinquish his grasp.
"I was ordered to impress the importance of her… escort should I have found yours to be lacking," he said. The other man snorted in disbelief.
"One woman, unarmed," he said sarcastically, "Maker protect me!" Risking a glance, she saw that the man gripping her arm looked uncomfortable, as though he did not wish to say exactly what this lone woman had done to his master.
"Nevertheless…"
"Alright, alright," he said, muttering something ungrateful not quite under his breath. He went off and came back with three others, looking drowsy and annoyed. The man gripping her arm shifted uneasily, knowing as well as she did that they hardly sufficed.
"Only four of you?"
"Andraste's flaming sword, man, the standard for a spy is two." he said irritably. She looked slyly at him from behind slitted eyes, finding amusement as she often did in said accusation. A spy, was it? Her eyes shifted to over his shoulder, where somewhere beyond in the darkness inevitable torture lay in wait. She had no information that her torturer would be asking for, and she could more than stand pain. The only question was who Loghain had trusted enough to pass her on to brand a lesson on her flesh.
"I insist. My orders—"
"And my orders were to bring no more than we can spare. Your lord has a lot of gall pressing us like this. Where would he be without Howe's support?"
She blinked. Howe.
Howe.
In that moment, the events which had brought her but hilarity became personal. She had to restrain herself from lashing out then and there, the name burning away what caution and realistic good sense she had. Maker, that bloody bastard Howe. Her heartbeat accelerated, blood throbbing to her very fingertips, warming her against the chill night.
Howe. He was here. In Ostagar. Barely a hundred. Yards. Away.
Howe. The one word clamored in her brain, and she shuddered, eyes going wide, sweat beading against her skin. She locked her teeth to stop them from ripping into a feral snarl, and her reaction did not go unnoticed.
"Ah, the bitch's scared of him," Satisfied of her "fear", he let go of her and shoved her towards the other group. Needles stabbed deep into her arm, and she took in a ragged breath through her teeth. The other man grunted in accession, and the four surrounded her, walking away from the group. She looked over her shoulder in fragmented motions, and as soon as Loghain's lackeys were out of sight, she attacked.
Moments later, blood splattering the serviceable dress they had given her in replacement of her gear, she strapped as many weapons as she could about her body and ran. Her legs devoured the distance between her and her life's very reason of existence. She couldn't seem to close her eyes, her breath coming in large gasps despite the fact she was fit enough to have easily made it light of breath. She didn't care for subtlety as she scanned the slumbering camp. She homed in on the largest, loftiest tent in the camp, slaying those on guard duty and those who were unfortunate to have not been heavy sleepers.
Her mind was a whirl of informal prayers to whatever deity cared to listen. Gods, Rendon Howe. Her lips pulled back in the savage growl she was dying to release, and she hefted her sword. Arl Rendon Howe was going to wake up to a nasty surprise. She hefted her swords and went in blade first, tearing through the silken heraldry emblazoned on the tent.
It was bright inside. A brazier smoldered in the center, and lamps were abundant. The luminance blinded her eyes, adapted to the darkness outside that had suited her mood so well, and that one moment of vulnerability was all it took. Too late did she see the mage ready to pounce in the corner. Too late did she twist from the spell he hurled at her. It bit her in all its fury, leaving her both nerveless and in a world of torment. Her blades fell from her hands, and it was sheer luck that she managed to crumple gracelessly to the ground without impaling herself on them.
Gazing sightlessly into the malevolent face of Howe, back arched and mouth wide with a scream that couldn't quiet escape, she remedied that. It was sheer bad luck that she hadn't killed herself in her fall. Although, without a clean blow, the mage would have probably healed her before she could have escaped the sinister promise in Howe's eyes by death. In that single instant, the tables had turned. She had gone from predator to prey in that single, shocking instant.
"Lift her up for me," he said to the mage, almost conversational with his crafty, smooth voice. How many times had she heard that same tone in both horrifying nightmares and visions of crushing his hideous, deformed skull and drinking his blood? The mage did so while Howe bound her hands and lifted them until she was forced to stand on her toes, dropping the slack between her wrists over a hook attached to the frame of the tent. To her disappointment, the tent shuddered but supported her weight. Howe slowly pulled her blades from their sheaths and tossed them in a corner.
The mage let go of her, looking oddly sympathetic, and she met his cognac eyes behind the wisps of amber hair that had escaped his pony tail. She begged aid with a single look, despite her resentment at his being an accomplice to the obviously evil Howe, and he shook his head. Howe noticed, and he turned away to inspect a low table supplying a range of wicked looking objects.
"Reheat the brazier before you leave," he said, meeting her gaze as he held up a rusted scalpel in inspection. "And don't come back,"
"You won't need me to…" He drifted off.
"I'll cauterize her for tonight. Mayhap tomorrow you may heal her, if she behaves. And survives," His smile was wicked enough to send the mage scurrying immediately despite his doubts. Behind her, the brazier flared, and the tent flap stirred as he ducked out.
They were alone. He turned silently back to the table, pawing through its ancient blood-encrusted inflictors of torment, riddled with rust and lacking in sanitary care. She grew stiff in the silence, the pain of the mage's spell fading only to be replaced by a rapidly growing ache in her arms. Her mouth was dry, and she summoned an air of impossible nonchalance that had aided her so many times before.
She examined her surroundings while Howe drew out the silence. The weapons scattered at her feet were useless at the moment, and she scrutinized the bindings about her wrists. The tip of the hook was angled so that if she swung just so, she might be able to escape it. She glanced at Howe once more, whose satisfaction was palpable; she doubtlessly would have been unsurprised if he had patted himself on the back. She shrugged, inasmuch as one could do when bound thus. It was worth a try; she certainly wasn't going to stick around and wait while Howe finished plotting a night's worth of torture.
The slight shiver of the tent and the shadow of her movements caught Howe's attention; he looked at her for a moment, a frown on his face. She wasted no time in acting out her escape, and when he lunged to still her motions, she kicked him square in the chest. It brang her the ultimate satisfaction to see him fall to the ground, clutching at his torso, and she completed her swing as the hook shuddered and gave way. She tilted a fallen sword and pinned it with her foot, sawing at her bonds while Howe recovered. The rope broke just as Howe lunged at her, and he fell on her, a short blade drawn. She stiffened at the momentary nick at her throat before she rolled atop him, kneeing him viciously and twisting the wrist holding the sword, elbow pinning him down by his neck.
The guard posted outside came in, weapon drawn. Howe took advantage of her distraction and returned the favor, rolling over her. She struggled to wrench the sword from his grasp, desperate to kill him, hurt him, knowing it was never that easy. He worked his hand into his pocket and pulled out a dark vial. She stiffened and thrashed, managing to turn him over again, and he sliced his back on one of the swords lying on the floor, but not before he broke the vial against her hip bone.
Almost immediately her side began to burn like flame to paper, the liquid seeping through cloth faster than she could gasp. Howe grimaced and drew back his fist. She never felt the blow.
—
She ran her tongue over her teeth experimentally, and was satisfied that after her numerous successes in foiling Howe's advances she still retained all of them. He was still recovering from when she had whipped him across the face with the legs of a splintered chair previously tied to her, and had since been under the watch of several armed and wary men. She was presently placed in quite a few suffocating layers of ropes, as though some dangerous beast of predation, and she thought that Howe would have a fine time trying to stab her with burning hot pokers through her armor of stiffened cord.
Ah, and there the devil was, ducking under the tent flaps and looking fit to murder her with a mere glare. He looked surprisingly unhurt despite the abuse he had taken from her, and she noted jealously that he had received the attentions of the mage. The same could not be said for her.
"Demon-spawned bitch," he cursed, coming up to grip her chin in a harsh grasp. "If you wanted a crowd to observe your humiliation, then you shall have your wish." He smacked her about for a while, breathing heavily and pouring body and soul into each swing of his fist. She was dizzy and reeling when he was done, the exertion appearing to have relaxed him.
"I forgot how much fire Bryce Cousland's scion had," he said, backing away slightly as if to admire the worsened state of her face. He paced slowly. "How else could you have escaped the wreck you call a home when I had the place withering in my fist?" He shook his head, his cruel, beady eyes daring her to answer. Even if she had a smart retort, she was in such distress she doubted that she would have been able to.
"I thought to myself, and wondered long and hard while your mother lay groveling at my feet and my men had their fun with your father's cooling corpse." She swallowed, blood soothing her dry throat, knowing he was spewing lies and yet pained all the same. He noticed, and a creamy smile came upon his face, like that of a smug, purring cat. "It came to me, eventually. All know that estates have lesser entrances for their servant folk." He came before her, leaning close to savor her torment.
"Your fire certainly came from your mother, methinks. She stood against my torture for a long time before she told me where the exit you had used was. Longer than one would have expected, for a woman. Of course, by the time I got it out of her, you were already on your merry way to Ostagar with Duncan already." His expression turned annoyed for a moment. "Loghain had wanted me to kill him then and there. Two birds with one stone, so to speak." He shrugged. "It's not as though I've entirely failed, though."
"What have you done to him?" Ceostre rasped.
"A bit of this, a bit of that. Blood magic, if you must know," he confided in her. "I won't get into the specifics. Suffice to say, Duncan is much more complacent than he was before. But we were talking about your mother, yes?" His face came even closer.
"Would you like to know what technique I employed to make her talk? Just how personally would you want to know what I did to make her beg for mercy, make her writhe before me?" He turned to the brazier behind him, withdrawing a red hot poker. "I used one akin to this, and pressed it into every. Single. Orifice." She pulled back as far as she could, hating and fearing him as she had hated and feared no one else. She inhaled, holding a breath full of hot metal, and let it out as a scream as he touched her cheekbone with it.
Ohgodsohgodsohgods. The suffering was indescribable, much more than the vial of poison that had left scattered blisters across her hip. Much more than sharp cuts and scrapes. Sharp and sudden, it hurt more than her induction into the Grey Wardens. Well had she heeded her parents warning of fire, and had thus not had cause to panic at the infamous all-consuming pain. He held it there, bone sizzling, until she wept and raged and screamed and thrashed. Even with the poker gone, it still burned, and each tear that ran over her abused skin renewed the pain.
Howe stepped back in satisfaction, carelessly tossing the poker back into the brazier. Behind her, her physical captors shifted, some in anticipation, some in uncomfortableness. Howe waited until she was able to focus wet eyes on him. He drew out a small book, thin and worn, and her insides clenched when she realized it was her abused journal.
"I went through your things, you know. I wasn't surprised by most of the stuff in their; I dispensed your arms through my men. Cousland weaponry should serve the Howes, don't you think? But this," he shook the book, holding it high in the air. "This did. You know as well as I do that there is no hoarding of memorable or wealthy objects in the army. I would have thought the Cousland girl had enough brains to figure out to never let herself be as vulnerable as to leave a trail of herself in writing. I suppose I was wrong." He flipped it open.
"Very, very cute," he said as she groaned. "Quite the artist." He ripped out Fergus' locket of his beloveds and tossed it in the brazier distractedly as he scanned more papers.
"You vile son of a bitch," she said, voice atremble. "May you be incarcerated in a pit of squirming maggots and beetles while I laugh as they swim through your bowels." Her breath was heavy with loathing, her eyesight tinged red with rage. He seemed unfazed by her expletives, snapping the book shut.
"Cute," he repeated, before tossing the rest of the book into the brazier where it smoldered and burned. "I'm doing you a favor, you know. To become as ruthless as survival requires, you must have your past reshaped into an ideal nothingness." He was wrong. Survival? He wanted domination. He pulled the poker from the brazier once more, examining it offhandedly. She closed her eyes. She could endure torture, she knew she could. But he was not going to torture her out of a need of information.
He was going to torture her because he enjoyed it.
"We're going to play a game, you and I," he said, smiling his evil smile. He tapped the poker against her knee, and she put so much air into her next scream that all that came out was a strangled whimper. "You can take pain," he said, the smile widening. "That's good. Would you like to learn the rules?"
She spat blood at him in answer.
"Sweet little girlie, you. Reminds me of my daughter, back in Amarathine. 'Course, I never gave her the chance to grow up quite as privileged as you." He shifted the poker away.
"Every time you scream, see," He lifted a dagger from his belt enough to show a hint of blade. "I'm going to cut off a bit of your fingers. Perhaps a whole knuckle, even. Let's get rid of that famed prowess in battle, shall we?"