Wolf's Vengeance

"You know what my mother used to tell me?" Morrigan's dulcet tones echoed rather eerily throughout the dungeon tunnel the group were walking into. Her new attire of Tevinter in origin provided the dark-haired witch an extra boost to mana regeneration as well as improving spellpower. Black feathers covered her shoulders and stayed there, despite the constant walking and fighting. How the tailor managed to prevent feathers from naturally falling off was news to Hadrian but the young noble's mind was elsewhere.

"Vengeance is best enjoyed from the darkness," the witch continued, determined perhaps to revert the Warden's attention back to her at least.

"Hmmm, I'm pretty sure there was a lot of darkness back then, Morrigan," Alistair joked, all the while keeping an eye on his lover. The blonde warrior's concern for the other man was visible to all members of the group, including Morrigan. However, Hadrian's pace clearly indicated that the Warden did not care for it, at least not now and Alistair actually understood it. He didn't like the fact that Hadrian was pushing aside his concern but he understood all too well the implications of who the dungeon currently belonged too.

"Quiet, you two," Hadrian suddenly said and he lifted a hand to motion them to a stop. The dark tunnel curved to the right and three rooms appeared in front of them. All had wooden doors with bars of steel reaching from the ground to the top. Of course their enemies were just lying in wait on the other side of those doors and Hadrian was very glad to have brought Leliana with him.

"Leli, you still got those traps I bought for you a while back?"

The redhead smiled wickedly and she didn't need to be told twice to go into stealth mode. Almost immediately, she was all but invisible to her friends. Only Alistair and Hadrian could guess where she was by her particular scent of Andraste's Grace. Setting up traps took some time; excellent ones that could take out a whole group of people took even longer but the threesome knew that it would work to their favor.

The redhead briskly strolled back to them, a huge grin plastered on her pale face.

"Whenever you're ready," she singsonged and both warriors could only shake their heads at their archer's eagerness to see how well the traps would do in this cramped area.

"Alright, I'm going to open all the doors and led them back to us," Hadrian said and his voice was almost lost in the clear tang of his greatsword being pulled from its straps. "Morrigan, use inferno for any who were lucky enough to escape the traps."

"I do love to play with fire," Morrigan laughed, "and other things too."

"Ugh, please spare us the details of your recreational activities," Alistair moaned and the blonde warrior positioned himself ahead of the two ladies. The tunnel served as a choking point and Alistair wanted to make sure that no one was going to get by him to attack the least hardy members.

Morrigan, not wanting to have Alistair have the last word, was about to reply with a comment on how loud the two Wardens can be in the middle of the night when shouts and cries of pain erupted at the end of the tunnel they were in. The blonde templar was severely tempted to check on how Hadrian was doing but he trusted his lover's skills. His wolf would certainly tell him if Hadrian was in serious danger.

"Bringing the party to you, Morrigan! Make sure I'm out of range first!" Another shout reverberated off the stone walls and Morrigan found it quite comical to see a two-handed warrior running towards them, with a greatsword held tightly in one hand and being followed by a huge mass of cutthroats and mages.

Once Hadrian put a good distance between him and the person behind him, Morrigan muttered a few words of incantation and the screams of frustration and 'get him!' quickly turned into agonized screams and death rattles.

Of course, a solid wall of fire tended to increase the temperature of its environment. The dungeon, no longer the cold and bloody establishment of a deranged Arl, became an intolerable sauna instead and everyone had to back even further away from the flames.

"Ugh, now I'm sweating like Alistair," Morrigan's complaint only drew more laughter from the group.

"At least you didn't burn my hair this time," Hadrian chuckled and then yelped as the witch returned the comment with a light spark of lightning.

The party's light banter, however, died down as quickly as the fire did; only ashes of their enemies remained. As the foursome carefully made their way past the now empty rooms, the dungeon had become deadly silent, more so than usual, and suddenly, the hairs on the back of Hadrian's neck stood up as the young Cousland smelled something horrible- of blood, bile, and betrayal.

"Howe," Hadrian hissed and the warrior clenched his fists when the smell lead him to a locked room near another set of stairs. Instead of merely opening the doors, the man kicked it down and the door, apparently weaker than its counterparts, easily broke into pieces. Howe already knew they were here and thus stealth was no longer an option.

There, standing with a smug look on that long face, was Howe, the man responsible for his family's deaths. Hadrian wanted to wipe that smile off his nemesis' face; he wanted to slice his daggers across that delicate throat and tear out everything inside of Howe. His need for vengeance almost overtook his rational thought and it was with a great and deliberate effort to rein in his hatred. Hadrian had questions and dead men can't give answers. At least for now.

"And so Bryce's spoiled brat has come to pay me a visit without prior invitation. Such rudeness is beneath your family."

"Why did you betray us, Howe? Were we not good to you? What could we possibly have done to deserve this?"

Howe's dark brown eyes flashed angrily at the questions asked of him and the Arl sneered in answer, all the while drawing out a beautifully crafted axe and a dagger.

"Wouldn't you like to know your family's darkest secrets? The ones told to an Orlais confidente of a debt that must be repaid?"

"Orlais? We have family in Orlais but that is all," Hadrian scoffed in reply, "A word with meaning that simply eludes you, Arl Howe."

"Don't spit your lies at me! I know of what your father did in the darkest of nights! But she will punish you. Oh yes, you will all burn upon her return!"

Arl Howe's rants confused everyone, especially Hadrian who had no idea of what his nemesis could be talking about. However, the sudden throwing of a dagger that embedded itself into Hadrian's shoulder startled all out of their thoughts. Hadrian snarled in anger at how careless he was and he pulled the dagger from his body only to throw it at the mage that skulked in the shadows. An agonized cry heralded a successful hit and soon he found himself fighting the Arl himself.

Arl Howe was certainly spry for an older man and his deft footwork pushed Hadrian on the defensive. A greatsword's speed was no match for those of a dagger and an axe; however, the Arl hadn't counted on Hadrian's friends quickly dispatching his minions with terrible ease.

Alistair actually feared for his lover's life but something stopped him from delivering a fatal blow.

Let him taste our enemy's final moments; he will never forgive us if we take that from him.

The blonde warrior growled in frustration for he knew that the wolf was right; Hadrian would resent him for taking away the opportunity to kill Howe, even if it meant having his life saved. Thus, he could only helplessly watch his lover parry Howe's swift slashes and he was just about to step at the last second when Hadrian was abruptly knocked to the ground, the greatsword clattering uselessly to the ground, far out of his lover's reach.

Before either Alistair or even Morrigan could make a move, however, Arl Howe staggered back before falling down himself. Blood spurted out of Arl Howe's throat and his hand clutched at the hilt of the dagger, the same one he had thrown at Hadrian. How ironic it was that he was to die from his own weapon.

Hadrian groaned as he struggled to get up, one hand grasping his own shoulder wound while another clenched into a tight fist. Before anyone could stop him, not that they wanted to in particular, the young Cousland knelt on Howe's chest and he ruthlessly pulled out the dagger only to plunge it back into the Arl's throat. Uncaring that blood splattered all across his face, Hadrian continued to stab at his enemy's throat, screaming that it was for his family, for the horrid rape and subsequent death of his brother's wife, for the torture of his only nephew who never got to find out what a griffon was.

The man kept at it, even when the Arl Howe was long past dead. Only a pair of golden gauntlets halted his screaming tirade and a familiar voice whispered lovingly in his ear, "shhh...it's over...he's dead,"

Hadrian released the knife and his eyes grew horrified at what he had done to Arl Howe. The Arl How's face was barely recognizable now as it was hacked into indiscriminately. Eyes were no longer eyes, only a gelled mess of broken cells and blood vessels. The throat was shredded into pieces, with the trachea glistening brightly against a crimson background.

Hadrian wanted to wipe off the blood of his enemy but he couldn't and he sobbed at how even in death, Arl Howe managed to stain everything that Hadrian owned, that he was with his evil taint.

"Come on, love," Alistair said in a low tone, "we need to get out of here before more guards come."

Both Morrigan and Leliana became concerned at how easily Alistair pulled the other man, at how Hadrian couldn't really stand on his own two legs and had to be supported by him. Morrigan muttered a quick incantation of a spell that healed everyone's wounds. However, no healing spell could ever heal the hurts of a broken and shocked mind. Only time could heal those types of wounds.

It was only by sheer luck that the other three managed to not only free the prisoners who were held in the back room of where they fought Arl Howe and his minions but to find their missing friends in the next room.

Zevran made a slight 'tsk' noise at the sight of Hadrian's shocked state and Morrigan sighed out of exasperation when she had to heal the man Zevran was standing over protectively.

"Two Couslands down in one day," Morrigan muttered, "'Tis a good thing that Hadrian insisted on me learning the healing spells in Wynne's absence."

Fergus moaned during the process of his muscles and skin knitting themselves back into their proper place. Other than that, however, he stayed unconscious and Zevran sighed heavily.

"Leliana, perhaps a helping hand?"

"Normally, I would say no," the red-haired archer replied with a small smile, "but this is not the case of you being lonely, yes?"

"Can we stop the innuendos, please?" Alistair said, "We really need to get out of here and rescue Anora."

"Right," Leliana had the decency to blush due to Alistair's admonishment and she draped Fergus' arm across her shoulder. The man was not as heavy as Hadrian, thank the Maker, but it still took some time for all of them to make their escape.

Unfortunately, their foray into Arl Howe's dungeon and attempt in rescuing Queen Anora only resulted in an unwanted confrontation with Ser Cauthrien and a full platoon of well-armed soldiers. By then, Hadrian had regained his senses, enough so to convince the female Knight to let the others go, including Alistair himself.

"You don't know the whole story," was all Hadrian could say before giving himself up to Ser Cauthrien. Alistair wanted to fight the men off but he respected his lover's decision and directed the others out of the large atrium. The door behind him closed but not before he heard the order from Ser Cauthrien, "knock him out and throw him in the dungeons of Fort Drakon."

He looked back only to see a large burly knight strike his lover across the back of his head with the pummel of his sword. His vision reddened at the sight of his lover falling haplessly against another Knight and he was just about to throw himself at his enemies when Zevran urged Alistair to come away, to not let his sacrifice be wasted.

"You can't rescue him if you're dead, yes?"

Thus, the journey back to Arl Eamon's estate was silent and somber, each party member lost in their own thoughts of what had transpired back in Arl Howe's estate. Queen Anora had indeed shown her true colours upon being revealed as the true purpose of their whole mission and it was understandable that the sight of her made everyone want to slit her throat, most especially Zevran.

"I can't understand why we haven't done it yet," the blonde elf casually remarked, as if murdering a queen of a nation was an everyday chore for him.

"They would have taken him to-" Anora began to say before Alistair entered the room after ensuring that Fergus was well taken care of by Wynne and Leliana.

"Fort Drakon," he finished her sentence and Arl Eamon raised an eyebrow at Queen Anora's icy glare being thrown at the blonde Prince of Ferelden. The man, to his credit, did not wither underneath her piercing, cold gaze but continued on what he was planning on saying.

"Zevran, how's your infiltration skills?"

"Not at all rusty, my friend," Zevran laughed, "but I might need another hand or two. Perhaps a magical one, hmmm?"

"Not even if you were the last male on earth,"Morrigan said dryly and she crossed her arms over her bosom, perhaps denying the elf a look at her chest.

"No, I think Wynne should go with you, Zev. Her healing skills will undoubtedly come in handy in this situation. Also, I doubt that low class soldiers will treat a noble so kindly as a prisoner," Alistair's dark statement earned him some silence from his companions, especially Zevran, who was all too familiar with the dark lust of men and women.

"Then all the more reason to hurry," Zevran agreed with Alistair and the lithe elf bowed respectfully to his friend before exiting out of the room in search for Wynne.

"I shall retire to my room," Anora's tone was neutral at best but even Alistair could tell that she was unhappy with her situation. However, he curtailed his caustic comments enough to give her a nod of acknowledgment and he watched with wary eyes at her back, straight and poise as ever.

"So, what exactly happened down there?" Arl Eamon asked once Anora was out of sight and out of hearing range.

"Well...for starters..."

-TBC-

A/N: Slightly different from the scenes in the game, but hey that's what AU stands for, right? I'm sooo excited for DA: Inquisition and I already found my favourite pairing-Dorian/Male Inquisitor. What's yours and why?