One Step Ahead Chapter 12
What a difference a little perspective makes.
Aaron swirled through the cold morning air as a dense cloud of wasps, perceiving the world around him in a shattered mosaic of millions of insect eyes, seeing from every side and angle. Aaron could feel sensations that few could ever even imagine, glimpse the true depth of the world through animal senses too alien to describe, yet there was nothing to distract him from stewing in his own thoughts as he orbited above Varric and Cassandra. No matter how his body or his perceptions may change, his memories and consciousness would remain to torment him.
Aaron felt like a terrible fool. It was a sick, disquieting feeling. Aaron had so little experience with emotions—he had only ever felt them vicariously, for the Memories of the Archive could produce lifelike visions and sensations, yet they could not impart the thoughts and feelings of those who had created it. In this way, Aaron had learned so much more of living as an individual than he had ever imagined before in his simple existence as a tiny facet of the darkspawn group mind, but the Memories were still limited in what they could express.
It was clear that there was much more for him to learn.
Shame, it turned out, was a sensation that seemed quite similar to disgust, only directed at oneself. For all that he knew the definition of the emotion, for all that he understood it well enough to infer what it was from context, it was still a totally foreign thing to Aaron, because no concept of self-regard existed at all to the darkspawn. There was only the bliss that was the Song of the Old Gods, and the primal satisfaction of carrying out its purpose.
Aaron was just starting to grasp how little he had actually exercised the individuality his Awakening had given him.
He had never wanted to be his own person, an individual. He had never conceived of free will, much less desired it. He made the first choice of his life without even realizing he had done so, when he decided he wanted to return to the Song. He had slavishly followed the Mother's plans to do so, striking at the Father and his forces more in blind, vindictive rage than for any constructive purpose.
Then the Warden-Commander had arrived, and everything changed.
Following his desertion from the Mother's army, nothing he had decided had carried any real consequence, and thus nothing could really reflect positively or negatively upon him. Aaron was untested as a person, he realized. And when his test had finally come, he had failed.
The sheer ease with which Gluttony had utterly crushed his mind and body was disturbing, but what truly shamed Aaron was what had ultimately freed him from Gluttony's mental influence.
It hadn't been strength of body, nor strength of magic, nor strength of will. It had not been the moral and ethical convictions he claimed to hold dear. It had not been any striking insight of intelligence or logic. It hadn't even been something as basic as his fear of death or the instinct to survive.
No, he'd been saved by his own weakness—his desire for the Song of the Old Gods.
The Mother and her army had tried to regain the Song in every way imaginable. Trying to bargain it by summoning demons had been one of the first things they'd tried, but even the rare demons that were willing to parlay with intelligent darkspawn were unable to undo the Father's Awakening, nor even produce a convincing simulacrum of the Song. The Song was no mere sound, it had an ineffable quality to it, a sheer, arresting perfection that was impossible to emulate. The haunting, ethereal beauty of the Song could not be recaptured even in one's own memories, save for the certainty that memory simply didn't do it justice. There was always something missing.
That was how Aaron had resisted Gluttony's possession, even in his completely addled and suggestible state. He'd known, through countless trial and error yielding only despair, that there was no carnal vice Gluttony could offer him that would be more fulfilling than the Song. Gluttony was an entity of hunger and greed, and tempted people along those lines, but what Aaron thirsted for no demon could provide.
It was enough to make Aaron angry at himself. He couldn't properly belong with any people or group, not even the Father's other Awakened darkspawn, but he at least thought he had the strength of his convictions to fall back on. He had supposedly learned the arts of skepticism, rationality, and logic from studying the dwarves' histories, yet he had still somehow deluded himself into thinking that his affinity for the Song was over and done. Submission to the Song went against every value he'd come to possess—every ideal of ethics, every notion of freedom and individuality, even the very concept of thought and emotion.
But upon further reflection, his belief that he had moved past needing the Song was false.
Aaron had simply given up all hope of ever regaining the Song, and had latched on to Dunammar's philosophy of rationalism as a pale, inferior substitute—something to give his life some semblance of purpose and enjoyment, something to escape the aching loss. He'd even convinced himself that he preferred it.
What an ugly lie that had been.
Aaron was not about to give up, however. He had changed, even though it was not as complete a transformation as he'd once believed. Just because individuality and rationality held less value to him than the Song didn't mean that they were inconsequential. No, these things he had learned were precious and deeply important to him—it was just that not even the greatest experiences in life as an individual could compare to the hedonistic perfection that was the Song. That wasn't merely Aaron's inexperience speaking—every single Grey Warden that had ever lived long enough ultimately abandoned their previous lives in pursuit of the Song. It would be arrogant to assume that any amount of wisdom or logic or philosophy would make Aaron any different than them.
Was it really fair for Aaron to judge himself this way? Could he really be held responsible for reacting in the way he had been conditioned to all his life?
Aaron mused about this, wondering how he could be an advocate of Dunammar's philosophy if he was not yet fully committed to it himself. But even that seemed like a largely selfish concern, in comparison to the terrifyingly consequential situation he found himself embroiled in. Aaron decided he would try to resolve his personal development crisis once there wasn't an apocalypse to avert.
The Breach mattered. Gluttony's victims mattered. They had lives and perspectives just like Aaron did. People were suffering on a vast, unknowable scale, and every single one of them mattered, regardless of whether Aaron knew of them. Reprehensible or not, weak-willed or not, Aaron was still directly responsible for finding some way to end the Breach. If he could only do this one thing, then his own failings would be inconsequential. In the grand scheme of things, the only way that his weakness would matter would be if he allowed it to stop him from destroying the Breach.
The problem was, Aaron had no idea how to set about doing even this one thing.
Aaron shied away from this line of thought, and returned his attention to his task at hand, scouting the lands ahead. Quite frankly, it wasn't any more comforting than his introspection had been.
Aaron mustered his power, and with an effort like pulling and pushing, he split his swarm into three sub-swarms, each occupying his focus and housing his awareness. He sent two of the swarms out over the land below, like a combination of "hands" and "eyes," keeping the third as a sort of "body" following over Varric and Cassandra. That really wasn't it at all, but the truth of what he was doing defied conventional description.
Through his swarms, Aaron could sense the character of the landscape and forests changing significantly as the Imperial Highway gradually wound its way out of the mountains and into the valleys of the Southeast. Aaron had briefly skimmed the Botanical Field Guide of Southern Thedas during his research back at Haven, and so he was reasonably sure that the spiny trees were the ones called 'evergreen' and the ones with broad leaves in unusual colors were the ones called 'deciduous.' As they went further down in altitude, the evergreens steadily gave way to the deciduous trees.
The land became more sparse, as the deciduous forests thinned and gave way to more human farms and settlements. The humans here tended towards squat, round buildings of stone and wood, and many of the buildings were obviously destroyed. On closer inspection, evidence of war was everywhere. Aaron could smell the sickly-sweet odor of crops rotting or withering in untended fields. Many farms appeared to be long-abandoned, and others were charred wrecks, billowing sharp-tasting black smoke into the air that irritated Aaron's many sets of antennae. Destroyed wagons littered the roads, and corpses in various states of decomposition were piled in ditches alongside them or simply left out in the open. Unnatural pillars of frozen coldness and bewitched, smokeless flames could still be found, long after the mages that spawned them had left or been killed.
It was clear that the problems here long predated the Breach.
The Mage-Templar War had reignited in earnest. Aaron had only a vague understanding of the conflict, but it followed historically prominent patterns. The mages were a long-oppressed minority, pushed into rebellion and extremism by the steadily escalating oppression and institutional decay on behalf of the Templar Order, their overseers and ostensible guardians. It was not dissimilar to the Casteless Revolts of Dunammar's early history, where a population was likewise kept segregated and oppressed from birth, until tensions rose and conflict became inevitable.
The grim lesson from history was that neither side in these types of conflicts were blameless, and that made lasting peace incredibly difficult. Always, the individual was held accountable for the crimes of the group, and the group was held accountable for the crimes of the individual. In such an environment, there could be no innocence, and thus there could be no justice, nor peace.
What had ultimately ended the Castless Revolts was the larger external threat posed by an invasion of Dunnamar by the league of allied thaigs that would later become the Dwarven Empire, which itself fell to the unified invasion of the darkspawn. Aaron only hoped that the Mage-Templar War would also end in the face of the Breach's threat of mutual annihilation.
Sadly, there was relatively little precedent in history to suggest that would be the case here. The dwarves had defined many terms for problems of collective action—the Tragedy of the Commons, the Bystander Effect, and the Prisoner's Dilemma seemed particularly applicable here. That Dunammar was able to largely able to manage these forces was of little comfort, considering its population was highly educated, affluent, culturally homogeneous, and had an extremely stable system of government. The Surface had… none of these things in any meaningful sense.
Aaron felt so very, very small. The world was so vast, how was he supposed to tackle any one of the Surface's problems, much less all of them? He couldn't address the Breach because the mages and templars were at war with each other, and he couldn't resolve that without solving intractable problems like bigotry, poverty, and illiteracy.
It made Aaron feel as small and insignificant as the insects which comprised his current form…
Aaron paused at that, physically coming to a halt in midair. His body swirled around itself, the individual wasps weaving in and around each other in complex eddies like water—a pattern that wasn't directed by Aaron's conscious control, but which arose by the individual interactions of each individual wasp executing similar basic functions, never letting the other wasps fly too close nor stray too far away.
Aaron could feel his perspective shifting, as he meditated on the movement of his form. He had a strange, tingling feeling of anticipation, like he was working towards a profound realization.
People were like the wasps. They each followed similar patterns, interacted with their neighbors. The swarm was an entity unto itself, composed of individual wasps all acting in tandem, yet it was more than just the individual wasps. Complexity arising from simplicity.
In order to change their form into something else, a shapeshifter needed to study the subject and attempt to embody how it moved, acted, and reacted. Aaron had studied and ultimately became the swarm, not just the individual wasp. Aaron doubted he could take the form of a single wasp, even if he tried. Despite that, Aaron had been able to master the form of the swarm vastly more easily than any other creature he had studied. He understood, on a level deeper than nearly any other individual alive, what it meant to embody a complex system that was more than the sum of its parts. That's what the darkspawn horde had been, before he'd been cast adrift.
Now, he was trying to go up against titanic social forces—nations, institutions, factions. It was absurd to think he'd be able to do so alone. Alone, he was like an individual wasp facing a swarm. Regardless of his individual merit or ability, he would never be able to succeed by himself. But the actions of a single wasp in a swarm could have an impact. The individual wasps exerted an influence on the ones closest to them, which influenced the next, and so on, the consequences rippling outward until the entire swarm's behavior changed due to the actions of a single wasp.
Aaron had been so preoccupied by the foreignness of individuality that he never understood the fundamental similarity between the darkspawn horde and the social structures of the other races. The entities created by groups of people were vastly more diverse and lacked the unifying perspective of a group mind, but they operated no differently on the macro scale. Aaron, despite the pride he'd held in his uniquely broad perspective, had been missing the forest for the trees.
These were not problems he needed to solve alone.
Aaron's attention shifted to the companions that rode directly below him—Cassandra and Varric. As the people who had the most contact with Aaron, he had regarded them as allies at best, liabilities at worst, a risk to his identity being uncovered—but if he were to think more in terms of a swarm, they were his immediate neighbors, the individuals he could exert the most influence over. And acting together, they might be able to exert a greater influence over the Inquisition, and the Inquisition might be able to influence the things that Aaron himself could not.
It wasn't a plan, not yet. But it was enough to spur Aaron into action, into taking the first step.
Aaron descended until he hung in the air before Cassandra and Varric, buzzing loudly. The horses came to a stop, and Aaron returned to his true form, becoming one body in a flash of golden light.
"What is it? More demons?" Cassandra demanded as she hauled on the horse's reins, her face twisted with an unidentifiable emotion.
"No," Aaron said quietly, then raised his voice. "We are getting close to the Inquisition's forward camp. I wanted to join you down here, and… I wanted to talk with both of you."
"About what?" Varric asked with a half-apprehensive smile.
Aaron shrugged. "Anything. It just seemed like a good idea to get to know you both better… to get out of my own head for a bit."
Cassandra and Varric exchanged a baffled look.
"I think I could use that too, to be honest," Cassandra admitted with a sigh. "What happened back there rattled me, more than I care to admit."
Varric shook his head. "I'd be more worried if that kind of shit didn't rattle you, Seeker. It sure did me."
"Me too. It made me realize some things, actually—this crisis is so much bigger than any one of us, and I think I was conceptualizing my role in things the wrong way." Aaron said, and he was surprised at how easy it was to voice his thoughts aloud once he'd overcome the difficult decision to share them.
Aaron talked with Varric and Cassandra for a what seemed like a long time. Varric shared his insights on Aaron's thoughts, venting his frustrations at dealing with the intractable, foolish traditionalists in Orzammar. Cassandra, for her part, offered encouraging words about the amazing things she'd been able to achieve by working as one of the Seekers of Truth. She'd never have been able to accomplish those things alone, or so she claimed.
Varric and Cassandra both seemed genuinely sympathetic with how daunted Aaron felt at the prospect of facing this crisis by himself. Aaron told them about his epiphany with the wasps and swarms, which had then segued into talking about his shapeshifting in general. They were still discussing the topic by the time the Inquisition camp came within sight, situated on top of a relatively defensible rock outcropping.
"Wait, so if you can shapeshift into a swarm of bugs, why didn't you do that to escape when Gluttony grabbed you and tried to eat you? Did you deliberately let Gluttony eat you so that you could shapeshift and kill it from the inside?" Varric asked, clumsily leading his horse up the slope.
Aaron shook his head. "Actually, no. I didn't take my swarm form because I was attacking Gluttony with my spear and lightning, but its resilience and attack caught me off-guard. I was already in Gluttony's mouth by the time I remembered a series of experiments I did on my shapeshifting abilities, in particular the property that the volume of the new form physically displaces the old, even against pressure. I was originally inspired to investigate that possibility after reading a novel in which a magic ring suddenly transforms back into a pearl and takes off someone's finger in the process."
Varric burst out into laughter. After getting control of himself again, he said, "You should remember never to try anything you read in my books, Fluffy. Or if you do, at least make sure I'm there to watch it."
Cassandra, for some reason, started blushing at this.
Aaron was about to reply to Varric, but stopped when he spotted someone approaching them. She was a freckled, russet-haired dwarf wearing the Inquisition uniform, with an unstrung longbow strapped to her back.
Aaron felt a jolt of excitement at meeting another dwarf in person. So far, Varric had been the only representative of the dwarven people that Aaron had ever actually talked to.
Aaron crossed his fists over his chest and bowed to her in the formal fashion of the dwarves. "Atrast vala." Aaron intoned.
The woman looked taken aback, then she hastily returned the bow. "Um, it's an honor to meet you, Knight of Andraste. I'm a scout, my name is Harding. I'm just a trader's daughter, though, so there's no need for the, uh... show of deference, Ser."
"My name is Aaron, please address me as such. I was once a scout myself, before I started studying to become a scholar." Aaron said with a touch of amusement. "It seems I am falling back into that role again, in this crisis. So don't assume that you are any less deserving of respect than me."
Harding smiled. "Thanks, Kni—Aaron. I never would have expected you were a scout, no offense. I guess it's just that the rumors make you sound like this mysterious, mythic being, not a person just like the rest of us."
"Oh, he's pretty mysterious all right, and sure to be mythic at some point in the future, but yeah, he's still just a person—a very weird person, but a person nonetheless." Varric attested.
"Not that I'm disappointed in you or anything!" Harding added hastily, then her expression turned more serious. "But we could really use a mythic figure right about now. Things are dire here in the Hinterlands."
"We know," Cassandra said grimly. "We've already encountered powerful demons running amok."
Harding shook her head. "The demons aren't even the biggest problem, at least not yet. Most of them just linger around the Fade rifts. The real problem are the mages and the templars—there's encampments of each of them close by, and skirmishes are breaking out all over. It's all the refugees can do to avoid the demons, much less run away from roving bands of murdering zealots."
"Are you referring to the mages or the templars?" Aaron asked.
"Both," Harding said, gritting her teeth. "The ones camped out there? They're the real lunatics, the ones too crazy or bloodthirsty to hole up like the rest of the mages and templars while everything's falling apart. I've seen a group of templars go out of their way to attack innocent refugees—although that time, they didn't live long enough to kill anyone."
Harding patted her longbow with a fierce glint to her eye.
Aaron gave her a nod of acknowledgement. "We'll be watchful. Speaking of which, have you discerned the location of the Revered Mother?"
"Mother Giselle? Yeah, we found her pretty easily. She's set up near the crossroads, just a little ways down the road there." Harding said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "She's helping the refugees, tending to the sick and wounded with the help of a few hunters, soldiers, and a mage or two. We tried talking to her, but she refuses to evacuate to a safer place while the refugees are here."
Aaron tilted his head, thinking. At first, it seemed like a foolish thing to him—if for no other reason than Mother Giselle putting herself in jeopardy was inconvenient to Aaron's mission to make contact with her. She couldn't help anyone if she was dead, after all. But Aaron doubted that the woman was too stupid to understand she was in danger. Perhaps it was a testament to Mother Giselle's character that she was unwilling to abandon the refugees, or perhaps her role here was more important than it seemed at first glance.
"I suppose that means we'll simply have to ensure Mother Giselle's safety—perhaps that was her intention all along." Aaron mused.
Harding's eyebrows furrowed. "I admit, the thought has occurred to me that it's awfully convenient that the Inquisition ended up sending much of the few forces it has to stand vigil over the crossroads. Giselle may be a Revered Mother, but she's still an Orlesian."
Varric snorted. "At least she's using her dread powers of manipulation for Andraste, then."
"I don't think this is merely some selfish Orlesian scheme," Cassandra said thoughtfully. "Mother Giselle is famous—or rather notorious—for putting her own life in danger to help the unfortunate. Her hunger strike in Jader after the Blight ended up saving thousands of poor humans and elves, but it hardly endeared her to the nobles and Chantry officials who felt she was extorting them for charity."
"I see," Aaron said, crossing his arms. "While I can't fault her courage or methods, the fact remains that she's putting us in a difficult position. The Inquisition is needed to do more than just guard people here in the Hinterlands. It would be to everyone's advantage if the situation here is resolved, and quickly."
Harding stood straighter and saluted, making a fist with her right hand over her chest. "I'll stay here and keep an eye out on things. It's not even half a mile to the crossroads. You can leave your horses here at the camp, if you like."
"Thank the Maker," Cassandra muttered, swatting at a horsefly.
Varric, Cassandra, and Aaron left behind the horses and made their way back down the escarpment, into the crossroads proper. It was essentially a few small huts and buildings arranged around the intersection of two unpaved roads. It was beautiful, in a way, with the waterfall cascading from the northern slope, but it was hardly the hub of activity and elegant infrastructure that a crossroads in the Deep Roads would be. Aaron was rapidly becoming desensitized to the poverty and general decrepitude of human civilization, such as it was. The only sign that things had once been better here was an ancient, pale statue of Andraste rising high above all the other buildings.
The Inquisition had established a modest presence here, a few tents on the outskirts of the crossroads. The overwhelming majority of it, however, was crowded with clusters of people and lone individuals who closely guarded what meager belongings they had on their person or in bundles nearby. Everyone seemed to be on edge, and that was without even taking into account the weapons people clung to, whether they be proper swords or farming tools.
This was what a society looked like at its breaking point, Aaron realized.
Mother Giselle was relatively easy to spot in her robes of red and white trimmed in gold—she was at the southern end of the crossroads, near where they were approaching from, standing amongst an impromptu outdoor hospital. Cots and stretchers were lined with people, primarily injured, bandaged human men.
Giselle, in turn, spotted them relatively quickly, and moved from the bedside of one of the injured men, whispering something to the gray-robed man behind her, who knelt down beside the injured man and began tending him with glowing blue magic wreathing his hands.
Aaron mentally breathed a small sigh of relief. It appeared that Mother Giselle was not overtly hostile to mages, unlike Chancellor Roderick had been.
Giselle strode over to them, and Aaron noticed that she was quite a bit older than he'd been expecting, her dark brown creased with lines. He was able to see them even despite the black cloth covering the insides of his eye-slits, which tended to render most fine details rather fuzzy.
"Mother Giselle, I presume?" Aaron asked, inclining his head.
"I am. And you must be the one they are calling the Knight of Andraste, yes?" Giselle said, a distinct Orlesian lilt to her words.
"Just Aaron will do, thanks." Aaron said, starting to wonder how many times he'd have to tell people to call him by his new name and not the unwanted title. "You asked to meet with me?"
"I did," Giselle said, starting to walk away from the cots. Aaron was forced to follow to continue the conversation. "I know that you and the Inquisition have been denounced as heretical. I'm also familiar with those who are speaking out against you."
"What they say is simply not true. I do not claim to have any sort of divine mandate. The fact of the matter is, I can barely remember what happened to me at all." Aaron said flatly.
"I believe you," Giselle said, her tone soft. "Some are merely grandstanding, hoping it will increase their chances of being appointed the new Divine. Others are simply terrified of you, and what you represent."
Aaron put his hands on his hips, causing his mantle to draw back from his sides. It was almost impossible to convincingly deny that he was trying to become the leader of some kind of cult, because quite frankly his immediate goals did involve amassing a lot of institutional power and influence, albeit in a secular sense. Still, he couldn't let that pass without comment. "I think they ought to be more terrified of the Breach which may yet destroy the world, rather than a single person."
Mother Giselle raised an eyebrow at him. "Do not forget that many still believe that you are responsible for creating the Breach. The remaining clerics have heard only frightful tales of you. To them, their fears are entirely justified. You need to show them that you are not some monster to be feared."
The sheer, overwhelming irony of that statement muted any response that Aaron might have given her.
"I see you're still skeptical," Giselle said diffidently. "But there is much you may yet do to prove your character. Do not forget that mages were celebrated among the heroes of the Fifth Blight. Your kind may be persecuted, but individuals may still rise above the prejudices of others, if they are able to provide hope. Give the people hope, and they will rally to your cause."
Aaron was a bit taken aback at this. If Cassandra's story had been any indication, Mother Giselle certainly had experience in gaining followers, and her advice actually seemed pretty prudent, albeit basic. Of course, she only thought he was a mage—he was absolutely certain that no one would accept his true nature, with the exception of the Warden-Commander. Even getting Sister Leliana to not murder him had been a stretch, and from what Aaron had been able to infer about the horrifically backwards and primitive Surface politics, she was easily one of the most radically tolerant public figures in Thedas.
Aaron felt a bit awkward as the silence between them stretched on, so he defaulted to honesty. "If people look to me, I will certainly do whatever I can to lead by example, but you called this my cause. That worries me. I'm only trying to do the right thing, I don't own that."
Giselle smiled, her expression gentle and kind. "I apologize if I made you uncomfortable, but the very fact that you are worried about such things is very reassuring to me. You are absolutely right, this is about more than just you. But the fact remains that you are the one people will look to, a symbol of the Inquisition. Whether you agree to it or not, you must at least understand that—or, better yet, learn to use your position to bring attention and help to those who need it."
Aaron took a step back from Mother Giselle, reassessing her. He'd been expecting to deal with another unpleasant, unreasonable religious official, but Giselle was turning that stereotype on its ear. Despite himself, Aaron was impressed by her quiet, assured sort of charisma. Her words were innocuous enough taken by themselves, but the sheer conviction with which she said them was oddly compelling. She seemed the complete opposite of Chancellor Roderick, and he couldn't deny the sense of what she was saying. Aaron suddenly understood why Leliana had thought Giselle was important and influential enough to grant her request to meet Aaron personally out in the Hinterlands. He could learn a lot from this priestess, if she was willing.
That is, if Aaron could secure her cooperation.
"You must know this area and its problems fairly well, what do you think my companions and I can do that would best help these people?" Aaron asked.
"No mage is as welcome a sight as a healer, but I'm afraid the few mages I have here lack the power or skill to treat the worst injuries. Do you have any expertise in healing magic?" Giselle asked.
Aaron felt a cold twisting sensation in his stomach. His magic was, in fact, exactly antithetical to healing. The Blight's inherent power allowed even non-magical darkspawn to regenerate from grievous injuries in hours or mere minutes, depending on how powerful they were, but Aaron didn't have the slightest idea how to heal someone else. He had studied Blight magic with the Father before he rebelled, and the Mother after that, and had even run his own experiments on the subject in the course of assembling and enchanting his Blight-sealing armor. He knew how to accelerate the Blight's corruption, how to create Grey Wardens and Awaken darkspawn, but nothing he ever researched suggested that he would be able to heal.
"I'm afraid not," Aaron said, feeling rather useless. "It's not because I lack the interest, but I'm a hedge mage, I never received any training or education in—"
Aaron was cut off by the sounds of shouting coming from behind him. He whirled around, scanning the landscape.
A pair of men with the Inquisition were sprinting towards an improvised barricade of wood and sandbags on the western road, their swords drawn. Refugees screamed and started running in the opposite direction, covering their heads and grabbing bags and other people nearby. Beyond the barricade, Aaron saw perhaps ten warriors in plate armor rapidly approaching. They wore silver and red, and some of their helmets had high plumes on the sides.
Templars.
Even as Aaron realized what they were, he saw one of the two Inquisition soldiers jerk to the side, the shaft of an arrow sticking out from his chest. He crumpled to the ground, and Aaron's blood went icy as his mind's awareness sharpened into battle-readiness.
"Varric! Cassandra!" Aaron barked out, gesturing at them. "Hold the barricade! I'll go after the archer!"
Varric and Cassandra were both already drawing their weapons, and rushing past the stunned Mother Giselle.
"Maker, templars are attacking here?" Giselle muttered to herself.
Aaron was already running, scout Harding's warning about the templars' atrocities echoing in his mind. He could not let the templars pass. All this talk of restoring hope and changing things for the better would never come to fruition if he allowed the forces of barbarity to triumph over civility. Here, now, he would make a difference the only way he could.
Aaron was going to protect these refugees and the Revered Mother. And for him to do that, these templars had to die.
In his rage, fueled by the emotions and horror of the past few days, it never even occurred to Aaron that he should be disturbed that at the prospect of murdering these men and women, he didn't feel even the slightest hint of sympathy.
Aaron unslung his staff, gripping it like a spear and charging it with lightning. He tapped into the well of his magic, and went yet further, calling the deeper reservoir of power that resided in his Blighted blood. His entire body crackled with energy.
Aaron would not be defeated this time.