Wasn't sure I would be able to get this chapter up the night due to the complete mess that my week has been, if anyone's looked on my tumblr they'll know why, have to say the interest that I've been getting for this has been a great motivator to try and keep to posting once and week. THANK YOU MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS! So here it is! I'm already working on chapter 15 so hopefully my updates will keep steady enough even with everything I have to do over the next few weeks! Enjoy!

Chapter Six

They had been traveling for a day when they had met with bandits, well who they thought where bandits. The make of their weapons and armour meant they were more likely mercenaries.

It had happened when they had begun to set up their makeshift camp after a day's hard traveling. The horses where tired as where the two Highever guards that had been with Lady Cousland during her trip to Denerim.

They had not been difficult to spot in the dimming light of the sun set, one of the small elven girls had spotted them as they approached on the road. Quickly forgetting his weariness Ruari, who had yet to remove his armour, stood quickly equipping his shield and pulling his sword from its sheath. He looked round to see the other guards readying their swords and shields, handing the elven man Soris a lighter shield and sword. Lady Cousland stood with his two daggers ready to strike. He paused when he noticed another figure standing to his left, looking round he noticed that it was the small elven woman Kallian, she stood with two daggers at the ready as the thugs rushed them. Ruari rushed to meet the first one, bashing him off-balance with his shield; he quickly recovered and dogged the follow through of his blade. Steel met steel as he blocked the thug's great sword with his shield, sending a shock wave through his arm. Grunting he pushed back and up causing the other man to step back to stop himself from falling backwards, he quickly thrust his sword forward in to the man's gut.

Not even turning to watch the man's fall he quickly looked round for another opponent, turning when he heard a shout of pain, he noticed the elven woman ducking below another man's sword and shield, slicing his stomach with her left dagger while turning to bury her right in his back.

A scream ran out behind him, twisting quickly he saw Soris standing in front of the unarmed women, fighting with one of the three men that had managed to get around them. He ran back and charged in to the second warrior sending him sprawling to the ground, before twisting and bring his sword down two wards the second. The rouge dogged quickly Ruari having to bring his shield up to protect him from the onslaught of blows.

Noticing movement from the corner of his eye he turned in time to bring his sword up to deflect a blow from the second man who had recovered from being rammed in to by the guard, the distraction allowing the rouge to strike him in the shoulder, between the links of his plate armour.

He grunted and pushed him back with his shield stepping back to make it harder for them to flank him. They renewed attack of both men had him on the defensive, blocking and deflecting strike after strike. His legs and arms were burning from the strain of the weight of his heavy armour and the force of the blow his was blocking. He felt the rouges dagger cut through the weakened link of his gauntlet, cutting in to his skin, before the rouge jumped out of reach of his sword. His shield arm dropped slightly and the warrior raised his sword to deliver a final strike, Ruari's heart thumped in his chest as his watched the sword being raised, he quickly threw his sword up to block bracing for the impact, but it never came. He stood transfixed as the warrior dropped his sword and blood spurted from his mouth as he crumpled to the ground.

Kallian stood where the warrior once had, giving the rouge no time to recover from the shock, her right dagger flew through the air embedding itself in to his chest.

"Are you alright?" Kallian stooped down beside him as he grunted while struggling to his feet.

"Yes, I'm fine." He had managed to block most of the blows and his heavy armour had protected him from the worst of those he hadn't, though he could already feel the bruises forming under padding while blood seeped where the rouge had managed to cut into the weak areas of his armour. "The other?" he asked looking around. Soris had managed to cut the other thug down while Elissa and another guard took down the last two.

"Everyone's fine, one of the guards, Brian, has been hurt but he should be fine." Kallian watched as he gingerly sheathed his sword.

"Everyone still alive?" Elissa called out as she walked back to meet them.

"I think so." Rauri called back over.

"Well we should probably set up camp a bit further down the road," wrinkling her nose as she looked around "I don't much fancy the company here."

They gave a short laugh in spite of themselves. "It's a good thing we'd hardly started setting up camp then." Kallian turned and looked at her cousin Shianni as she spoke, smiling slightly, she had been very quite since they had left Denerim.

After they had finally set up camp for the night and set up watches, they slowly began to relax a little. Ruari sat down by the fire as Elissa looked over Brian's injuries; he had managed to get struck across the head by a shield, earning him a deep cut and large purple bruise over the right side of his head. He pulled out his own injury kit from his pack placing it in front of him, as he began to unbuckle his upper armour. Quickly he cleaned and stitched the gash across his left forearm he smothered the closed wound with a poultice before wrapping a small bandage around his arm. Satisfied with his work he turned his attention to the stab wound in his shoulder.

"Thank you." He looked up mid-way through unbuckling his padding when Kallian spoke.

"What?" he asked looking up at her from where he sat.

"For helping Soris and protecting my friends, thank you." She held her arm as she looked down at him sheepishly. She looked incredible young no more than 17, her blond hair hung louse falling down to her waist, her eyes not meeting his.

"I should be the one thanking you; you saved my life when you took out those two thugs." He smiled up at her; she looked up slightly meeting his eyes as she smiled back. Her eyes were so dark he thought they were black at first; only the soft orange light of the fire flicking across her pale face reviled the dark green hue. Her eyes widened slightly as she noticed the dark stain that trailed down his shoulder.

"You're bleeding."

"Ah, yeah the rouge caught me off guard for a bit there." He laughed lightly smiling again, "don't think it's that bad, bit of patching up and it'll be fine."

"Here let me take a look." She knelt behind him as he peeled his padding jacket off, revealing a brown linen shirt cut where the dagger had went through and stained with blood.

She ripped the shirt slightly allowing her to see the wound better. It was quite deep, the rouge managing to find the weak joining of the two pieces of metal, had cut through the seam of the padded jacket, piercing near the shoulder joint.

As she repeated his steps from before Ruari felt himself relax at her touch. Her hands were cold and soothing against his heated injured flesh.

"You're quite good at this." He stated as she begun to expertly stitch his shoulder.

"Ha, yes I've done this before, Soris and I where always getting in to trouble, always coming home with bumps, bruises, and cuts." Quirking her eyebrows with a smirk, "I suppose we still are really."

"I think that applies to all of us at the moment." He said smiling looking ahead in to the fire.

"There all done," Kallian said as she wrapped the last bandage around his shoulder. "Though it's not healed, you'll have to go easy on it for a while, doctor's orders." She replied jokingly.

"Of course my Lady." He smiled and nodded his head slightly, the use of the title had confused the elven woman before, but she had slowly got used to him calling her this. She simply smiled and returned to where her cousin Shianni and friend Meri stood near the carriage and horse. He watched her walk away, noticing the way her hair shined silver in the moon light.

I tried to think of a witty name for this chapter but couldn't really think of one, so cause Kallian saves Ruari's ass thought I'd stick in something simple and too the point. O and thanks to SnowHelm again for helping with the last chapter! Please rate and Review!