He felt a moment of panic when he first woke, in darkness, enclosed, unable to move. He ached, muscles protesting the long period of lying in one position, and an unnatural one at that, his arms stiffly out to the sides, legs more than half-asleep from the tightness of the straps holding him down. It took him a moment to identify what had disturbed his sleep, so deep and dreamless had it been, so sudden his wakening. Sobbing, begging – Bridie's voice, nearby. A sudden bang, hand or fist against wood.
"Shut it, woman!" Reynard's voice growled. Bridie fell silent, save for the shuddering breaths of someone trying to cry quietly. "Get him up," he added.
Anders barely had time to wonder who "him" referred to before the top of his box was thrown open, a pair of templars bending down over him. He could not keep back a frightened gasp, not stop himself from trembling and flinching as they touched him, brusquely undoing the buckles on the straps holding him in place, then hauled him roughly to his feet. He hung between them a moment before his legs were able to take his weight, and even then swayed, would have fallen if not for their continued support as they yanked him forward. He glanced quickly around as he sagged in their grip, eyes hidden behind the fall of his hair; a small fire had been built in the ashes of the one from the previous night, the templars were awake and rolling up their bedrolls, putting back on their armour, but it was still dark out, judging by the lack of any light leaking in from outside.
Reynard was standing by the other box, looking annoyed. He pointed toward the corner. "Heal him," he ordered sharply, then turned and stalked off, leaving the room, presumably to gather his own belonging from wherever it was he'd spent the night in the ramshackle structure.
Anders turned, clumsily, and hissed between his teeth as he took in the sight of Phillipe, curled on the cold stone floor in the corner. He was a mass of dark bruises, one eye swollen shut, lips puffed and split. The thin blanket wrapped around him was splotched with dried blood. Something was wrong with his breathing; Anders suspected at least broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung. He cursed and pulled free of the grip of the templars, hurrying over to drop to his knees beside Phillipe, cursing again at his lack of any real power; certainly not enough to truly heal the badly battered man.
He peeled back the blanket, wincing as he took in the full extent of the man's injuries. He couldn't heal everything; could only patch the worst of it, enough to give the man some chance of recovery. If he wasn't beaten again, if he was allowed some rest. If he had proper food, proper care. Nothing he was he likely to have in the templar's hands, Anders thought bitterly.
But he was a healer; he would do what he could. His hands lit with healing energy, and he set to work, beginning with the worst of the injuries, losing all track of his surroundings as he bent over the broken, bruised man, recklessly spending every bit of power he had. No sense in holding anything back, he thought as he worked; doubtless Reynard would order him drained when he finished. So he might as well drain himself, putting his power where it might at least do some good. So he did, expending everything, until he blacked out.
He wasn't out for long; he woke what must have been no more than a few minutes later, a templar squatting down beside him and shaking his arm. The friendlier one, he muzzily realized.
"Drink," the man said, holding out a waterskin. When Anders proved too weak to take it, he grunted, and lifted Anders to a sitting position to help him drink from it. He set Anders down again afterwards, walked over to where the others were wolfing down a cold breakfast of more bread and cheese, and came back with some, breaking off small bits with his fingers and feeding them one by to Anders.
Anders watched him warily as he ate, wondering why this templar made an effort to be kind when none of the others did. As he was feeding Anders the last few bites of bread, the templar gestured at Phillipe. "He live?" he asked.
Anders shrugged, answered honestly. "I don't know. I couldn't heal it all." The templar frowned, clearly having trouble following his words. "Maybe," Anders said resignedly.
The templar nodded. That word he seemed to understand. He fed the last of the bread to Anders, then pulled his waterskin from his belt and gave him another drink. Anders had recovered enough to be sitting on his own by then; once he was done, the templar hauled him the rest of the way up to his feet. "Toilet," he told Anders, and led him out of the inn to the slit trench. The sky was only just beginning to lighten, everything grey and silent, save for the occasional chirp of a single bird, an early riser, the first random notes of what would soon be a full dawn chorus of calls.
When they went back inside, the templar led him over to the box. Anders started trembling as they approached it, terrified that he was about to be put back in it, but instead the templar kicked the lid shut and lowered Anders to sit on top of it before wandering off in search of his own breakfast. Anders sat and shook, forcing his breathing to calm again, pulling himself back together. He had to stay calm, he told himself. He would do himself no good if a chance at escape came along and he was too upset to see it or take advantage of it. But he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold himself together for very long if he was shut away in the box again. He sat there quietly, counting slowly, forcing himself to inhale and exhale at timed intervals, trying to remain calm and he watched Phillipe sleep, and listened to the sound of Bridie's harsh, uneven breathing from the other box.
The Seeker walked back into the room, still scowling. He strode over and looked down at Phillipe, then turned and looked at Anders. "Can he ride?" he asked shortly.
Anders looked tiredly at the man. He bit back the first three answers he thought of; being exhausted or stressed often seemed to bring out his sarcastic side, and he suspected the Seeker would react poorly to such. "Not for long," he finally said. "Or at any pace that strains his injuries."
The Seeker muttered a curse and turned to glare balefully at Bridie's box. He must still think he had some use for the girl, Anders decided, or he wouldn't be so clearly put out over the idea of potentially losing his hold over her. Which made him wonder why the man had indulged himself so sadistically the night before, letting his men half-kill Phillipe as they had.
"Guillaume!" the Seeker called out, almost an angry shout.
The templar who'd helped Anders turned around, looking questioningly at the Seeker. "Oui, Seeker Reynard?"
Reynard gestured at Phillipe. "Put him in the mage's box for now. You," he added, turning and pointing at Anders. "Will ride again for today."
Anders nodded, and rose from the box, moving aside while Guillaume, with the help of the youngest templar, wrapped Phillipe in the blood-stained blanket, then picked him up and carried him over lowering him almost gently into the box. The templar only did up enough of the straps to prevent Phillipe from sliding around inside the box and being injured any further, before closing and fastening the lid.
Everything was carted out to the yard after that, the horses fetched from the stables. It took four templars to lift each of the boxes into place on the pack-frame on each of the two cart horses that had been brought along to carry them. Once they were secured in place Anders was put on a horse – not the same one as yesterday – and tied into the saddle again, and they set out, away from the inn, taking the southwards road.
The last dawn colours were just fading when they came across the ruined inn. It was clear from the tracks that their quarry had been here, and had departed already.
"Wait here a moment," Zevran commanded, tossing his reins to Fenris then dropping off his horse and hurrying off, following the tracks of horses off around back of the inn. Fenris sat and waited, watching the surrounding woods warily, the guards waiting patiently.
After a few minutes Zevran came back into view, almost running and with a grim look on his face. He climbed back into the saddle, retrieved his reins, and got them moving again before speaking. "They were certainly here, and recently – no more than an hour ago, judging by the coals of their fire."
Fenris glanced over at him. "And?" he asked, sure there was more.
Zevran shot him a look. "And there was blood on the floor in one corner; a lot of it. Someone has been hurt, and I doubt it was one of the kidnappers."
Fenris nodded, his own expression turning grim. They continued south, following the trail of the horses, at as fast a speed as they could manage.
It was nearing noon before they stopped again, in the foothills of the Vimmark Mountains. They were in heavy forest now, a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees; oaks, maples, and willows, pines and firs and spruce, with heavy undergrowth everywhere off of the narrow road they followed. They pulled up in a small clearing. The Seeker ordered the boxes taken down, and a pair of templars stood watchful guard on Anders while that was done, for once not draining him as soon as they stopped.
Phillipe was still alive, the repairs to the worst of his injuries having held through the morning's travels. Anders poured what energy he had into him, mainly concentrating on reinforcing the repairs he'd already done, though he also eased a few of the young man's less life-threatening injuries. He exhausted himself; not to the point of blacking out as he had that morning, but certainly to the point he was feeling shaky and lightheaded. He sat and rested, his head on his knees, his dizziness and hunger making him feel more than a little nauseated.
Hearing an outcry nearby, he quickly lifted his head and looked around, and saw a pair of templars crouched over Bridie's box. For a moment he thought they were tormenting her in some way, and then realized they were merely undoing the straps holding her in. She was struggling and crying, almost hysterical in her need to be out of the box.
The Seeker turned away from where he was standing talking with a different pair of the templars, and strode over in a few long steps, leaning down to pull Bridie up by the hair and slap her across the face. "Quiet!" he snapped at her. For a moment she gaped at him, open-mouthed, then her eyes fell on Phillipe, lying so still and quiet in the other box nearby, and she screeched and twisted in his grip. She clawed at Reynard, fingernails gouging bloody paths across his cheek before he jerked his head back out of reach and flung her away from him, cursing and reaching up to touch his cheek. He blinked at his fingertips, staring at the blood for a moment before paling and going for his sword, abruptly realizing what danger he was in, with fresh blood shed in the presence of a blood mage with little grip left on her own sanity.
Anders scrambled for cover as templars converged on the screaming woman, crouching down by Phillipe's box. He didn't know which to be more frightened of at the moment; the templars or Bridie. Either way, he decided, he and his patient were both too close to everything. He grabbed the rope handle in the end of the box with both hands, dug in his heels, and heaved. For a moment it resisted, then the head of the box lifted a little in his grip, and the foot of the box grated as it began to move across the gravelly surface of the road. He quickly backed up, keeping it in motion, adrenaline and his Grey Warden powers lending him the strength he needed to drag it away from the fight, over to the edge of the clearing.
He could tell that the templars had tried to silence or smite Bridie, but with fresh wounds providing her with a continuing source power she was not so easily stopped as the average mage would have been; in addition to the freely bleeding scratches on Reynard's face, she'd clawed open the skin of her own arm now, a vortex of blood droplets streaming out to swirl around her, keeping the templars at a distance.
She gestured, and one of them abruptly turned away from her, attacking the man beside him; a blood slave, Anders realized, feeling a chill go through him. The man would fight his fellows until either he or she was killed, and every one he wounded would be a source of further power to Bridie, any one he killed even more so, a lethal equation with only one possible answer. His fellow templars cut him down without hesitation; better to be forced to deal with the boost of power a single bloody death gave her than to have her raising power from all of them.
Anders dropped to his knees, head swimming, feeling ill as he watched the fight rage on. Abruptly he realized that with all of the templars concentrating on fighting Bridie, no one was paying attention to him. He gave a last look toward her, then down at the helpless Phillipe, and cursed, wavering for a moment between his need for freedom and his need to protect his patient. But there was no protection he could give Phillipe, not realistically. All he could do was flee, and hope that in his impatience to chase Anders down, the Seeker would not bother removing this one loose end first.
He flipped the lid of the box shut, for whatever little additional protection it might give the man, then turned and moved away, pushing through the thick bushes around the edge of the clearing and hoping it would be some time before Reynard or his men realized that he had vanished, and longer yet before they could do anything about it.