"Stop!" Ahnnie shouted, surprising everyone. "Put down your weapons – I know him!"
Astounded stares met her at every corner, which she received with a firm conviction. But of course no one listened to her order. "And who might he be?" Cassandra asked her suspiciously.
"He's Cole. He's the guy I told you about at the Seeker fortress, but no one remembered seeing him." She opened her mouth to add the fact that he had helped her escape Envy's hold over her mind, but then thought better of it.
Noting the inconsistency, the Seeker subjected Ahnnie to a harsh scrutiny for several seconds before turning over to Cole. She tilted her head questioningly but did not remove her blade. "Is that so? And what have you come for this time, Cole?" she asked, sharp as ice.
Cole rose to his feet and gave his shaky answer to Ahnnie. His pale eyes bore into hers, round with fear. "I came to warn you," he gasped. "To help! People are coming to hurt you."
His response elicited a murmured conversation between Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine. Ahnnie looked from them to Cassandra and back at Cole again, shaking her head in confusion. "Cole? I don't understand..."
"The Templars come to kill you," he stressed.
"But there're no more Templars," Ahnnie argued, "except for the ones who..."
"Were corrupted by red lyrium," Varric finished for her as she trailed off. "Shit. This is...this is bad."
Commander Cullen whipped his head away from the other advisors upon hearing mention of templars and red lyrium. "Those Templars?" he asked in disbelief. "Are we so sure this isn't some rebel faction from the Hinterlands we haven't gotten rid of yet?"
Cole shook his head. "The Red Templars come under the Elder One. You know him; he knows you. You took his mages."
Something chafed irritably within Ahnnie upon hearing that. His mages, as if the mages from Redcliffe were nothing more than mere objects to be possessed. But of a more pressing concern was the Elder One. It would be the third time she'd heard his name uttered by someone outside the Inquisition now. And third time's the charm...she wondered just what sort of charm that would be.
"He's very angry that you took his mages," Cole reiterated, full of dread. A distant sound suddenly startled him, causing him to whirl around and point at a rocky outcropping far beyond the walls of Haven. "There."
They followed his finger to the silhouette of an armored man beneath the cold moon. It was rather difficult to tell from their distance, but a gaunt face could be made out in the white light as well as the tint of red on his armor.
"I know that man," Cullen murmured, frowning. "But this Elder One..."
Just as he spoke the name a taller, twisted mockery of the human form appeared beside the armored man. Moonlight glittered upon the jagged growths of red crystal protruding from his skull and enhanced the contours of his thin, elongated ribs, left curiously unprotected. Both figures stood watching the valley below from their perch. Behind them, snaking through the mountain pass, were the winking torchlights of an approaching mass.
"That's him," Cole affirmed.
That's the Elder One? Ahnnie wondered as she stared aghast at the twisted figure. "We..." She turned to Cullen. "We need a plan! Now!"
"Haven is no fortress," he told her grimly. "If we are to withstand this monster, we must control the battle." He turned to the soldiers surrounding Cole and waved them off. "This boy is the least of our concerns right now. Get out there and hit that force; use everything you can! Mages! You..." Cullen suddenly caught himself, unused to commanding forces of the arcane variety. "You have sanction to engage them. That man up there is Samson. He will not make it easy!"
Cassandra drew her sword away from Cole and thrust it up into the air. "Inquisition!" she cried. "With the Herald! For your lives; for all of us!"
The soldiers and mages answered the bold commands almost immediately, pouring out through the open gate before scattering like leaves to meet the threat. Josephine ran back into Haven while Ahnnie followed close behind Cassandra, Cullen, Varric, and Leliana, glaive held ready whilst listening to their harried plans. They had to be mindful of where they rushed, for people ran in all directions before them and not all were soldiers; Ahnnie recognized Harritt the blacksmith frantically making off with as many possessions as possible, while Dennet and some stablehands were in the process of removing the horses to a nearby, more defensible storm shelter.
In the midst of it all, she nearly forgot about the silent young man running beside her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise – even more surprising was the fact that neither of the others, previously engaged in threatening him, seemed to notice he was right behind them. "You look much better than last time," she remarked, noting the absence of bruises on his face. His tunic still had the slit where Lord Seeker Lucius stabbed him, though. "How's your shoulder?"
"It's...fine," he replied, slightly surprised. "Sometimes it gets a little achy."
"Right," she nodded, and skidded to a stop as Leliana brought them before a large trebuchet north of the walls.
"We can hinder their advance if we fire from the north and south trebuchets," the spymaster said. "Cullen, you and Cassandra should stay to oversee the north one. I will go with Varric and the Herald to the south one."
Just then, several cries went up from the hill below the siege engine, alerting them to the presence of some of the enemy within fighting distance. If they were to successfully conduct Leliana's plan, they had best do it now. Without another word, Ahnnie split away from the Seeker and Commander to join the spymaster and rogue dwarf – and of course, Cole. She noticed him last minute from the corner of her eye, following them as urgently as though he had been included in the strategy.
Weird, I forgot about him there for a sec. "You don't mind if he comes along?" Ahnnie asked Leliana as they ran, pointing with her thumb at Cole.
"Who?" the spymaster frowned, and then looked to where she indicated. A flash of surprise rippled across her face, but was short-lived. "As long as he can fight, it doesn't matter at this point."
"I can fight," Cole affirmed, a hand brushing against a dagger hilt at his side.
Varric gave the young man a sidelong glance followed by a raised brow. "Strange friend of yours," he remarked. "Awful quiet, too."
"He was anything but quiet," Ahnnie murmured to herself. Just wait till you feel some sort of pain, but the thought was only sarcastic; that uncanny ability of Cole's was sure to land him into trouble if he used it within earshot of anyone else, and she fervently hoped he would keep it to himself.
The south trebuchet soon loomed into view, rising above the crest of a small hill. It was loaded with a large projectile, covered in tar and ready to be lit and fired, but its operators, a small host of Inquisition soldiers, were apprehended midway by several red templars. Though they outnumbered the templars, the soldiers were having a hard time countering the knights' corrupted strength.
With a powerful jump, Leliana launched herself onto the trebuchet's platform before loosing a rain of arrows into the red templars. Varric dove in with Bianca in hand and Ahnnie followed suit to assist a soldier being pushed back by a templar's punishing blows. She slashed at the templar's back, startling him, and the Inquisition soldier took advantage of the surprise to make a sweeping cut in the templar's waist. Enraged, the templar bashed the Inquisition soldier aside with his shield and swung his broadsword down on Ahnnie.
A dagger sank into the back of his neck, freezing him mid-attack. A brief struggle ensued whereby the templar attempted to throw off whoever was clinging to his back, but with a grunt, his assailant drove the dagger in until with a sickening snap it cut through the vertebrae, rendering him useless.
Cole leapt off as the templar fell face down into the snow, eyes meeting Ahnnie's briefly before he blinked out of existence. She jolted in shock and whirled around a moment later to find that he had reappeared several yards to her left, sneaking up on another red templar as suddenly as before. As soon as that templar was disposed of, he moved onto the next one in the same fashion, lightning fast and deadly silent.
What is he? she couldn't help but wonder for the umpteenth time.
"Don't just stand there!" Leliana suddenly reproached her. "If you're not fighting, you could be of more use up here!"
With a guilty blush, Ahnnie ran up the platform. "Sorry," she apologized. "Um, what do you need?"
"Help that soldier with the signal to the north trebuchet," the spymaster ordered as she nocked another arrow to her bow, "and once a responding signal is given, keep him free to man the trebuchet."
"Got it." Ahnnie then turned over to the soldier in question, and he handed her a torch. She was to light it to a brazier that the operators of the north trebuchet would see. Easy peasy. They watched for a corresponding light in the north and found it. Once that was done, she lit the tar-covered projectile and waited as the soldier pulled the winch. As promised, she kept an eye out for the conflict as he worked, glaive held ready to protect him. The templars were down to two men now, but still fought as wildly as raging bulls.
And then, in a great whoosh of air, the trebuchet launched.
It was a sight to behold. The flaming projectile, like a shooting star, sailed through the air in a dazzling arc. At the same time another such projectile marred the night from the north trebuchet. The southern one exploded onto a part of the mountain above the pass while the northern one struck the pass directly below it. The result was a twin avalanche that shook and groaned like a giant awakening from slumber, tumbling wave upon wave of snow onto the procession of Red Templars. As the snow spilled through the mountains, their torchlights winked out as abruptly as candle flames.
Emboldened, the Inquisition soldiers let out a cheer and fell upon the remaining pair of templars with a renewed vigor. Ahnnie meanwhile watched the avalanche with bated breath, unable to take her eyes away from crashing snow as it roared and twisted through the pass, erasing the black specks of trees and figures of men in a vast white blot, until finally it tumbled to a rumbling, fading stop. Then a beastly screech rent the air, followed by the beat of giant wings. Hair rose on the back of her neck as a sudden darkness came over them.
"Look out!" Ahnnie cried, and roughly pulled the soldier along in her jump off the trebuchet's platform. They both fell tumultuously to the ground and shielded their faces as a pillar of fire blast the siege engine into smithereens.
When she helped him up, she found that the explosion had dealt with the remaining templars for them. It also unfortunately took out three of their own. But before anyone could move, a mighty gust of wind assailed their little force. The screech once again echoed from above and a great shadow swept over them. Against her better judgment, Ahnnie looked up to meet the sleek underbelly of a winged and scaled creature soaring through the air, a creature she once thought existed only in myth, both back home and in this fantastical world that had magic and demons–
A dragon.
Her mouth dropped wide open. No! NO! That is not possible!
But it was. The horns of retreat blasting from Haven's walls proved it was so. "Everyone to the gates!" Leliana yelled, her usually calm and controlled voice now crackling with the frightened tones of urgency.
Even without her order they would have fled back down the path, running with abandon until they were once again within the town's boundaries. Commander Cullen stood just upon the threshold, desperately ordering soldiers and workmen back inside.
"Pull back, now!" he was yelling. "Move it, move it!" When the last person trickled through, he signaled for the gates to close and did not turn away until he heard them thud together. He then addressed their group as he jogged into Haven, "We need everyone back to the Chantry! It's the only building that might hold against...that beast!" His eyes bespoke a sense of frustrated helplessness. "At this point...just make them work for it."
Another blast of fire snaked down from the sky, hitting a wooden building directly in front of them. Several such blasts echoed through the town in the wake of the dragon's path, leveling to nothing the longtime dwellings of innocent townspeople and the new shelters constructed for the refugees. As the splintered boards scattered in the air and the flames fed on what was left, Ahnnie knew in that moment where she wanted to go first. Her legs carried her to the western edge of Haven, ducking past smoke and flames and rubble; it was only absentmindedly that she took note of the two Inquisition soldiers dashing after her.
"Rescue as many people as you can along the way!" Ahnnie shouted to them over her shoulder. "I'm heading for the Singing Maiden!"
Whether they listened or not was of little concern. She simply forged ahead, occasionally looking into the burning structures on either side to see if any innocents were left within. The crying of a little child alerted her halfway and she ducked into the alleyway of two houses to extract a young boy, no older than three, wailing in fear between a pair of barrels.
"Take him to the Chantry!" she ordered one of the soldiers. Pointing to the other one – "You, come with me."
Together they raced through the burning town until they arrived at the tavern; or at least, what was left of it. In its place was a broken skeleton of wood, burning away into the night like the celebratory bonfires they had lit not more than several hours ago. Ahnnie ordered the soldier to search the area for survivors before running around the ruined structure trying her best to spot signs of people. Please let them be okay, please let them be okay...
"Flissa!" she cried upon spotting the innkeeper's prone form. She was wedged beneath some wooden beams several feet within the tavern, obstructed from reach by fallen planks. Ahnnie dropped her glaive to throw the extra wood aside, heart hammering rapidly. "Flissa! Can you hear me?"
The innkeeper's body stirred, then groaned. "Ah...nnie?"
"I'm here, Flissa!" The harried girl threw off the last hunk of wood and dropped to her knees to reach through the widened crawlspace for Flissa's protruding hand. She caught it and clasped it tightly. "Everything's going to be okay!"
"...can't," Flissa grunted as Ahnnie started pulling. "Just...go...Osbert took Netta...they're safe."
"Yes I can," she argued, pulling harder. "You're going to make it! You're going to see them–"
"Please...take care...of her..."
"Don't say that!"
Flissa's head twitched upwards, revealing her bruised and battered face. That was the last thing Ahnnie saw before the tavern's upper level exploded in a shower of flames, sending heavy beams of wood crashing down onto the innkeeper. Her forearm snapped off in a bloody gush as Ahnnie was propelled backward by the momentum; when she recovered from the shock, it was to gaze in horror at the browned fingers still clasping onto her own. "Flissa!"
She would have lain there forever staring at the hand, if not for the Inquisition soldier. "Lady Herald, we must go! It's getting too dangerous!" Her glaive was pushed into her face a moment later, and with a shaken regret, she took hold of it and let go of the severed limb.
They ran back down the path but were forced to take a detour as a house collapsed in their way. They wedged themselves into a narrow opening between two buildings, luckily built of stone at the base, and spilled out a moment later back onto the dirt path. They saw Adan ahead of them, running with two women for the stairs leading to the upper tiers; and then the palisade wall split open, admitting four red templars.
Before they could get close enough to intervene, the nearest templar cut a large slash across Adan's body just as the healer whirled around in surprise. He was then impaled by the templar's sword, whose colleagues made quick work of the shrieking and fleeing women.
A surge of hatred coursed through her veins, such as she had not felt in a long, long time. "Bastards!" Ahnnie shouted. She caught the attention of Adan's killer and spared no time making life difficult for him, slashing and twirling her glaive as fast as her abilities would allow. Common sense had fled and gone; in its place was pumping adrenaline. She blocked and parried for every riposte he made, slashed and stabbed through every opening. It was thus a rude awakening when, a moment later, her body was flung aside by the shield of one of his fellows.
"Lady Herald!" the Inquisition soldier cried desperately, sandwiched by the other two templars and unable to assist.
Ahnnie rolled away in the nick of time as a sword rushed down to pin her stomach. The blade's edge caught against her shoulder but did not bite through, thanks to her leather armor. She thrust upwards with the bladed end of her glaive to fend the templar away, but found she didn't have to when he was suddenly struck by a bolt of purple lightning. She took the opportunity to risk a slide through the other templar's legs, stabbing upward through the codpiece with the bladed end.
His howl of pain assaulted her ears she leapt to her feet behind him, slicing through his back with the crescent blade before knocking him to the ground with a leg swipe at his unstable feet. His sword shot up in defense but she slapped it aside with a rude blow, laying his armored chest wide open, his neck exposed in a slit between the bottom of his helmet and the top of his breastplate.
She sunk the bladed end deep into his windpipe.
Another lightning bolt hissed and crackled through the air to strike another of the red templars. "Quickly, my dear!" Madame Vivienne called to her, and it was then she noticed the Madame with a group of extra Inquisition soldiers making mincemeat of the remaning templars. The Court Enchanter stunned another templar and held out a hand for her. "There is no more we can do here."
Ahnnie ran up the steps and into Vivienne's awaiting hand. "Has everyone–"
"Most of Haven is at the Chantry," Vivienne cut her off as she pulled her up. "The soldiers will follow once they are done."
Ahnnie settled for that assurance as she followed the woman to the Chantry. But her eyes continued to dash left and right, ever vigilant for stragglers or hidden enemies. Her head still pounded with the dregs of her latest fight and she flinched at every wayward shadow, every creak and howl. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" she exclaimed as her ears detected a thin, whining noise on the wind. She dashed off in its direction, much to the Madame's chagrin.
Picking through the lumpy rubble of another broken home, she strained to listen for the noise, feeling it increase at times and decrease at others. "C'mon," she coaxed, "who's a good boy? Who's a good girl? Come here! It's okay!" Come on, please!
A little yip echoed several yards to her right and she dove there to find the frightened puppy cowering under a pile of wooden planks. Beneath a heavier pile of wood lolled the lifeless head of his mother, saucer eyes half open to the sky and long pink tongue protruding through the brown muzzle.
Ahnnie gasped. Lady...She grit her teeth and reached under the planks, drawing the shivering pup into her arms. "Shh, it's okay, Charley," she cooed, and then rushed back to the Madame.
They came to the Chantry at the same time as two other civilians, their soldiers following not too far behind. Cole and Chancellor Roderick were at the door, pushing them in as soon as they fled by.
"Move! Keep going!" the Chancellor was yelling. "The Chantry is your shelter!"
Charley squirmed and sprang out of her hands the moment Ahnnie stepped into the hall. She was half afraid he would rush out the door, but then saw him running up to his littermates instead. They were lying despondent at Netta's feet where she sat crying with Osbert and sprang up in excitement upon seeing him.
"Oh, Lady Herald!" Osbert cried, and rushed up to meet her with Netta in tow. The edges of his beard were curled and singed. "Oh thank the Maker, you've made it!"
Ahnnie strapped her glaive behind her and bent down to Netta's level, cupping the child's face in her hands and turning it this way and that. "You're okay," she sighed in relief as she saw no sign of injury, and hugged the little girl tight. "Thank god, you're okay..."
Netta returned her hug with equal fervor, but then asked through her hiccoughs, "Where's Mama?"
"Is Flissa all right?" Osbert added. "Is she coming?"
Ahnnie felt her stomach tighten as she pulled away from Netta. She found it impossible to look into the child's teary blue eyes and cast her gaze down on the floor instead. "I'm so sorry," she said with a gulp.
Osbert drew in a sharp breath. "No," he gasped. Netta burst aloud into fresh sobs and the squat tavern cook gripped her in his arms as he, too, began weeping.
The next person to whom she was the bearer of bad news was Nala. "Your ladyship, are you hurt?" the elven girl asked, coming up to her with a bowl of warm water and a rag. "I know it's not much, but I will do my best until Master Adan comes."
"Adan..." Ahnnie's voice shook as she straightened up. "Adan is not coming."
"He...isn't?"
"No, Nala, he..."
Nala's eyes rimmed with moisture. "I see. I...I will do what I can, then."
Ahnnie turned away, unable to bear with the mournful faces of the people who once smiled and laughed with her. But even though she didn't look at them, their wails of pain and grief pierced the Chantry in an opera of torment. The thud of the doors finally closing was what brought her back into focus, and she looked up to see Chancellor Roderick wavering on his feet before collapsing into Cole's arms.
"Chancellor!" Ahnnie exclaimed as she rushed up to them. "What happened?" she asked Cole.
"He tried to stop a templar," the young man said. "The blade went deep. He's going to die."
Cole hefted the Chancellor up by the arm and Ahnnie followed suit, swinging the opposite arm over her shoulder. As the both of them moved the limp Chancellor down the hall, Ahnnie could see the wound Cole spoke of in the Chancellor's side. The blood was camouflaged in his scarlet robes but gleamed wet and obvious under better lighting.
"What a charming boy," Chancellor Roderick mused at Cole as the two of them lowered him against a wall.
"Shh," Ahnnie hushed him. "Lie still."
She was about to order for some water when Commander Cullen found her. "Herald!" he barked, striding up to where she knelt. "Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time we might have earned."
"I know," she grimaced.
Cole looked up as the Commander came close. "I've seen an archdemon," he interjected, trying to sound helpful. "I was in the Fade, but it looked like that."
If Cole's admittance to having been in the Fade bothered Cullen, he did not show it. "I don't care what it looks like," he snapped. "It has cut a path for that army. They'll kill everyone in Haven!"
"The Elder One doesn't care about the village," Cole put in yet again. "He only wants the Herald."
Ahnnie's hands balled into fists on her thighs. This Elder One wants only me, she thought, but sends an army and a dragon down the mountain to kill innocent people? Flissa and Adan and Lady and god knows how many more! I thought that everything was solved with the Breach, but no...It was more than she could bear. "If it's me the Elder One wants," she began, quivering with rage, "then it's me he'll get!"
Cole looked at her despondently. "It won't work," he murmured, soft voice almost childish. "He wants to kill you. No one else matters, but he'll crush them, kill them anyway. I don't like him."
"You don't like...?" Cullen shook his head in frustration and turned away from the cryptic young man. "Herald, there are no tactics to make this survivable, never mind any selfless sacrifices. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche; we could turn the remaining trebuchets, cause one last slide."
"We're overrun!" she protested. "The templars have made it through...if we're going to hit them, we'd have to bury Haven!"
"We're dying, but we can decide how," was the Commander's grave response. "Many don't get that choice."
While they spoke, the Chancellor coughed and turned feebly in the direction of the Chantry's deeper halls. Cole was the only one who noticed, and nodded in accord to the Chancellor's silent wishes. "Yes, that," he murmured, and turned back to Ahnnie and Cullen. "Chancellor Roderick can help. He wants to say it before he dies."
Upon catching their attention, the Chancellor began his wheezing brief. "There is a path...you wouldn't know it unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage. As I have. The people can escape. She must have shown it to me...Andraste must have shown me so I could...tell you."
He gripped Ahnnie's wrist with a sudden ferocity. She gasped, startled. "Chancellor Roderick, what–"
"It was whim that I walked the path," he continued, undeterred. "I did not mean to start – it was overgrown. Now, with so many in the Conclave dead, to be the only one who remembers...If this simple memory can save us, this could be more than mere accident."
Ahnnie bit down on her lower lip. "Think it'll work?" she asked Cullen apprehensively.
"Possibly," he nodded. "If he shows us the path. But what of your escape?"
"Escape?" a burly voice cut through. "Ha! By the time we're through, it'll be the dragon trying to find an escape."
Ahnnie looked up to find the Iron Bull ambling towards them, his great battlehammer held lazily across his shoulders, followed by Blackwall and Sera and Dorian and Vivienne – "You'll help?"
"Why of course, my dear," Vivienne purred. "You can't possibly think to accomplish this alone."
"And I suppose a little winter exercise could do me some good," Dorian added encouragingly, flexing a shoulder.
Sera spread out her hands on both sides. "It's pretty simple innit? The people get moving, we spin the trebuchets, boom, snow all over Haven! Then we just run off!"
Blackwall simply shrugged. "It's our only chance. It's worth a try."
Cullen listened to them with a glimmer of approval in his eyes. He then waved a company of Inquisition soldiers over before sending them back out into Haven with fresh orders. "They'll load the trebuchets," he explained to Ahnnie. "Keep the Elder One's attention until we're above the tree line. We'll send up a flare to be sure."
She withdrew her glaive as she rose and stood up with it in hand. "Got it," she nodded.
"Inquisition!" Commander Cullen shouted to the rest of the people in the hall. "Follow Chancellor Roderick. Through the Chantry! Move!"
As the people began their shuffling file for the indicated passageway, Cole helped the Chancellor to his feet once more. Roderick's eyes caught hold of Ahnnie's when their faces came level with each other and his voice croaked out, full of hope, "Herald...if you are meant for this, if the Inquisition is meant for this...I pray for you."
He finally called me 'Herald'. And it came while he was dying. Ahnnie fought back the lump in her throat and simply smiled at the man. "Me too. Stay safe."
Their new group thus split away from the rest, making for the Chantry's main doors while the people headed for the passageways opposite. Ahnnie looked back over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of everyone before the halved Andrastian sunburst closed in completion behind her, shutting the hall away from view for what was very possibly the last time. She drank in the stench of smoke and turned to the path ahead, noting the Inquisition soldiers already on a head start to the east and west.
It was quickly decided that they would split up between trebuchets. Vivienne, Sera, and Blackwall were to head for the west; Ahnnie would go east with Dorian and the Iron Bull. And so they ran through the haze of the burning village, embers flying like glowing snow past their vision. Ahnnie felt her muscles tense as she once again anticipated trouble in the lurking shadows around them.
"Dear me," Dorian remarked a few minutes later, "it looks like we've got company."
The burly silhouettes of a pair of roving templars suddenly traced themselves in the gloom. Iron Bull charged forward with his giant battlehammer, lowering his horns as he swept in between them and dashed them aside with two consecutive bashes. Dorian pierced the air with twirling arcs of flame, setting their enemies afire before sinking a line of flame into the snow to raise up smoke.
They quickly left the scene, vanishing as quietly as possible through the curtain of smoke. It was not their aim to stay and kill; time was of the essence.
Iron Bull led the charge from then on, crashing into red templars both left and right and clearing a path for the two humans behind him. They made better headway in this fashion and were soon past the village walls on the road to the siege engine. The red brutes seemed to pose little trouble for Iron Bull, and Ahnnie felt grateful the qunari came along with them. I hope the others are doing all right. If for some reason they didn't make it to their trebuchet, the three of them would have to double back west...
"Holy shit, duck!" Iron Bull suddenly roared.
Ahnnie and Dorian jumped sharply to the left as angry red crystals zoomed past them. They looked up and found a red templar horror guarding the hill ahead with a rain of red lyrium. Atop that hill sat the trebuchet, where a group of red templars were assaulting the Inquisition soldiers Cullen sent ahead.
"That's one ugly bastard," Iron Bull remarked as he swatted aside another red crystal with his battlehammer. "Lemme take care of this one, boss; you go with mustachio here and deal with the guys above."
"Mustach...beg your pardon, but I'm more than just my facial hair, you know!" Dorian protested.
"Don't let the lyrium hit you!" Ahnnie shouted back as she pulled the Tevinter mage after her. They weaved between several more red projectiles before the Iron Bull's battlehammer collided with the horror in a great crash, allowing them to relax somewhat from the danger of being hit by the devilish substance. Ahnnie brought her glaive forward as she jumped into the fray while Dorian knocked away a red templar marksman with a blast of magic, followed by a fiery bombardment on the rest of the knights.
The Iron Bull finally slammed the templar horror to the ground after several minutes of fighting, smashing into his torso like a meat tenderizer. Red lyrium and flesh shattered beneath the battlehammer. With an angry roar the qunari leapt for the other templars, bludgeoning them with wild abandon like there was no tomorrow. His assistance freed some Inquisition soldiers to return to the trebuchet and wheel it through a mechanism in its platform to face the slopes surrounding Haven.
The other templars were finished off the moment the trebuchet was aimed and ready. Iron Bull huffed as he lowered his weapon; parts of his face, arms, and leather chest armor were scored with angry welts and burn marks from the flying red lyrium. He had doubtless been hurt, but wiped his cheek brusquely and took a deep sniff of the cold mountain air like it was nothing. "Ready, boss?" he asked Ahnnie, nostrils flaring.
"Not yet," she replied, watching the mountain slope behind Haven for the promised flare. C'mon...She then turned around and took a gander at the mountain pass opposite the village; crap. That dragon cleared away most of the avalanche. And even more torchlights were winking down the hills than before. We're losing time!
As if on cue, a piercing shriek cut through the night sky. Ahnnie's heart leapt into her mouth as she spotted the accursed dragon's silhouette contrasted against the clouds, growing larger and larger as it zeroed in on their hill. "The dragon's coming back!" she cried in alarm, and ran with the others to get away from the creature.
A scorching column of fire shot down from above to encircle the trebuchet. Ahnnie suddenly felt heat well up behind her and realized with thick dread that the dragon was purposefully aiming for her. She launched with her feet to jump away from the flames, but the toe of her boot caught against a scuff in the ground and tripped her in an unceremonious tumble. Landing roughly on her stomach, it took a few seconds before she regained enough composure to sit up on her knees.
She was starting to rise when a noise alerted her to an incoming presence. Her head whipped to the left and she saw the twisted outline of the Elder One approaching through the flames. His shoulders, whether armored or mutated, rose like great spikes above his emaciated body. His face glimmered with red lyrium in the firelight, jerked into a perpetual smirk by a serrated crystal scarring the edge of his mouth. Red pierced the skin along the ribs and punctuated the abdomen as a garish crimson ridge; a smoked human husk held together by crystals.
Ahnnie grasped the shaft of her glaive and used it as support to straighten faster. She turned around to run but the earth suddenly shook as the dragon, dark as smoke, landed with a crashing pounce on its taloned claws mere yards away from her. She froze, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the creature. Then she took a wary step back, not daring to even breathe. The dragon regarded her ponderously, long scaly neck vibrating in a throaty growl before parting its maw in a roar that blasted a wave of hot, sulphurous breath.
Ahnnie coughed and turned away, shielding her face in her arms. The dragon, enraged by some unknown offense, craned its head back and screeched its ear-splitting song up at the moon.
"Enough," spat a deep voice like rumbling stones. The dragon fell quiet, and Ahnnie spun back around to face the Elder One.
She knew that voice.
The voice of the entity at the Breach–
The possible killer of Divine Justinia V.
"Pretender," he groused. "You toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."
Heat scorched her skin and lungs, choking all thought and feeling to smoke save for one question. "What...are you?"
The monster answered her full of contempt. "Know me, know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One! The will that is Corypheus!" His arm stirred from beside him and the long, darkened limb lifted to point a claw-like finger at her. "You will kneel."
"No," she breathed. The burning village flashed before her eyes, as did the Chantry of grief and a night of triumph rendered to ash – "No, I will not!" she yelled, louder. Not when I know what it means; what it will cost me!
He was displeased but not surprised. "You will resist," Corypheus surmised. "You will always resist. It matters not." He held up a ball in his other hand, a strange, bronze orb the size of an ostrich egg carved with looping geometric patterns. "I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now."
A bright red magic flared from that hand as he spoke, crackling around the ball until it glowed with a mucky green light. With the other hand he reached for her, orange-red fire dancing in the center of his palm. Ahnnie thought at first that he was going to strike her with magic; but then her left hand tingled. Tingled, flared, ached, stung, stabbed, crackled–
"Gaaah!" she cried, doubling over the marked hand. Her eyes watered as every tendon, every fingerbone seared with the white-hot slice of a thousand tiny knives.
"It is your fault, 'Herald'," Corypheus reproached. "You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose."
She felt the hand move forward and realized with horror that it was being drawn to Corypheus' magic like metal to a magnet. She grit her teeth and tried to fight against the pull. She did so futilely.
"I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as 'touched', what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens."
Her pain accumulated in sync to Corypheus' growing spell, until in a final burst of magic the Elder One clenched his hand and sent her mark dancing wildly. Ahnnie howled and dropped to her knees, letting go of the glaive to grip her flaring hand by the wrist. The dragon hissed and stalked behind her, as if to mock her for her suffering.
"And you used the Anchor to undo my work! The gall!"
It took a miracle to get her lips working properly, much less think straight. "I...never...took this...'Anchor' willingly," she ground out. "I didn't know...who you were...it was just...there!"
"And yet you flaunted its power like a fool," Corypheus growled. "You let others decide what the course of the Anchor would be, without understanding or seeking to understand the nature of what you held in your hand. Ignorance is truly the greatest of mortal sins."
A jagged hand suddenly enclosed around her left wrist and hefted her into the air as easily as a rag doll. She screamed and thrashed about with her free limbs, but if it bothered Corypheus, he showed it not at all. "I once breached the Fade in the name of another," he rumbled, "to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused; no more." He lifted her higher and higher until she was level with his face; his dried, crackled, leathery face. "I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world."
And then he leaned in close, his penetrating gaze boring through the depths of her soul. "Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty."
The world suddenly flew by in a dizzying blur as Corypheus flung her into the trebuchet. The wood connected with her back and slammed against her skull in a rough crash, knocking the wind from her lungs.
"The Anchor is permanent," Corypheus hissed. "You have spoiled it with your stumbling."
She limped to her feet as the Elder One and his dragon walked over. Fighting through the buzzing in her ears, Ahnnie reached behind for her glaive only to see it on the ground where she had knelt earlier. The dragon stepped on it with a powerful hind leg and crushed the weapon in a single crunch. Undaunted, Ahnnie reached for the sword in her belt and held it out threateningly at Corypheus.
He noted the maneuver with little amusement. "So be it; I will begin again. Find another way to give this world the nation – and god – it requires."
A little speck of light floated above Haven's walls as he spoke. She thought it to be a trick of the eyes at first, but then remembered what she had been here to do. Any minute now, the west trebuchet will...
"And you." Corypheus narrowed his eyes. "I will not suffer an unknowing rival. You must die."
Ahnnie glared back at him. "Same goes for you," she retorted hoarsely, and kicked at the winch. It spun madly under the momentum, swinging the stony projectile from under the trebuchet's counterweight and into the air from whence it struck the snowy face of a slope directly above them. Another such projectile slammed into the slope to the west, and the mountains rumbled as the avalanches began their descent.
Ahnnie launched herself off the platform and sprinted away as fast as her weary legs would take her. The snow was spilling with great rapidity and she knew, deep inside, that she would never make it. At least the Elder One will share the same fate. But then she heard his dragon screech as it rose into flight and looked up to find it bearing him away. Oh...fuck.
She grit her teeth and pressed on. Maybe, just maybe...!
Powdered frost began to cloud the air and her lungs felt as though they would freeze. With her vision growing obscured, she failed to see the drop straight ahead of her and unwittingly propelled herself off its ledge, flying into the air for a single, stomach-lurching second, before the laws of gravity plunged her through empty space and sank her weight with a deafening crash through a ceiling of wooden planks.