'So, the Hinterlands are very… quaint,' Rush thought as they passed another small village in a picturesque valley, filled with beautiful streams of clear water and well-tended fields. Her satchel was half-full already from all the different kinds of elfroot, spindleweed, embrium and even a couple crystal graces she gathered on the way through the rich smelling forests and fertile valleys. 'Or, at least it would be, if not for this stupid mage-templar war.'
As beautiful as this village and the one before were, they passed many more that were burned to the ground. As much as she hated the Circle, it was better than this. No one should ever consider killing farmers and innocents over food to be a reasonable or logical choice. It made her feel ashamed so much as being a mage.
'Funny, though, how everyone seems to only blame the mages.' They have passed corpses who were not burned or clawed to death; these had arrows sticking out of their throats and guts spilling from sword wounds. Way too many people in common clothes to belong to apostates. The templars must have killed just as many innocents as the mages, yet mages were the only ones really blamed, somehow. Rush sighed, shook her head and followed the Iron Bull.
The saddest thing were the children. Shaking, shivering, hungry little things with huge, fear filled eyes, clutched in the arms of their families or worse yet - shivering alone. She remembered her apprentices, the children of the Circle. Imagined them suffering like this somewhere out there, hunted by ruthless bastards with swords, carrying little phials of children's blood in their cold, metal covered hands… She closed her eyes in pain.
If only there was something she could do for them…
They ran up another steep mountain path. The map showed they were getting close to the templar's hut. Just a couple more turns and they will see it.
Then she saw it. More corpses of refugees, cut apart by swords, laying by the road as if they were nothing more than garbage. A man, woman… a couple children. Rush saw red. Her hand clutched into a fist. Hurting mages was obviously no longer enough for these bastards. Now they started killing innocents as well. Bu no matter, she will stop them soon enough…
Rush paused when she felt eyes on her. She turned and looked right into Bull's eye. He watched her with a neutral expression. That was when she realized she was actually shaking from the force of her rage.
This was not the proper mood to be in when she went to fight. Especially against people who could neutralize most of her powers.
She closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath and released it, slowly. A couple more breaths, and the burning rage turned into cold determination to see this job through. She will not let her feelings distract her, not from this. When she looked back at Bull, he gave her a smile and nodded proudly.
She felt new energy enter her as she ran up the path, from Bull's proud look alone. Her daggers were ready for anything their enemies might throw at her.
At times like these, she was grateful that she became a Knight-Enchanter. The worst these men could do to her was make her attacks weaker should they block her magic. But considering how much she fought physically since her escape and the amount of training she went through with both Skinner and Krem, she was now a powerful fighter even without the extra magical help. The templars will be in for a nasty surprise when they try to fight her.
The hut finally came into view… and everyone stopped cold in their tracks. What from distance seemed nothing more than smoke from cooking fire actually rose from the ashes of smoldering wooden planks that once made the hut walls. There were corpses in the distinctive templar armor spilled all over the front steps and the ground. Burnt corpses, and ones torn apart by claws. The smell of magic and lyrium permeated the air.
"Well… shit," Bull commented from beside her. His voice sounded strange. Almost… afraid? "Demons."
Rush looked around, "Can't be the tranquil. Those can't get possessed. Apostates, maybe?" Where could they have gone? Obviously not to hide among the people as she did, otherwise their demon 'friends' would have slaughtered all the people at the Crossroads already.
Krem carefully stepped around the corpses to check the remains of the hut. Stitches went to follow him.
By unspoken agreement, Rush and Bull stayed behind to check the bodies. They might find some clues here.
Rush went through the pockets of several of the templars. She didn't recognize any of them. Most had some money, which she will put in the common bag to share with the other members of their team, one had daggers that looked better than hers. She pocketed those to test and use later. None of these had anything that would reveal their plans, though.
She walked closer to one of the torn and mutilated corpses. One of its legs lay several feet away, completely separated from the body. The back of the chest plate was torn off, revealing cloth, flesh and bits of bone from severed spine underneath. She swallowed and shivered in disgust as she grabbed the corpses' arm to turn it over.
That's when she felt it. A strange tremor passed through her magic as she touched the corpse's arm. It was a familiar feeling, almost like…
Her eyes widened and she reached for the leather bag tied to the templar's waist. With shaking fingers, she opened it and reached inside. Her hand closed around the familiar sword hilt. Tears stung her eyes as she pulled out her own spirit blade.
"Something wrong, Rush?" Bull asked quietly from beside her.
She looked up at him and showed him the lazurite blade hilt in her hands. She took a shuddering breath, "Remember how I mentioned that I saved money to buy my spirit blade back?" At his nod, she continued, "This is it. Valor's blade."
"What's it doing here?"
She paused. Then she looked back down at the corpse. She turned it over and pulled down the templar's helmet.
"Rylan." Somehow, it wasn't a shock to find him here. In fact, she almost expected him to join some group of mage-hunters and rogue templars willing to kill anyone with magic. "How did he get the blade, though? I doubt he could have afforded to buy it."
A terrible thought entered her mind. Did he…?
She picked up the small leather bag again and looked at the rest of its contents. "Coin bags, writs of passage,… a merchant ledger."
Something no merchant would ever willingly part with.
Not while he lived.
Bull laid a hand on her shoulder, but didn't say a thing. She didn't need him to.
Logically, she knew she couldn't be blamed for Rylan's actions, and if he chose to murder a merchant just because he bought something from her, it was Rylan's crime, not hers. But in her mind, she pictured the fat, jovial man with kind eyes, who took her hands in his own as she explained her situation, who exchanged her blade for more coin than it must have been worth and promised to hold it for her, the man who let her sleep over at the back of his wagon as he smuggled her through the harsh, dangerous mountains from Free Marches and past the Nevarran border.
She couldn't help the tears that spilled down her cheeks.
Bull stayed there with her, and for that, she was grateful. Both for the comforting hand on her shoulder and the time he gave her to pull herself together.
Once she felt calm enough, Rush dried her eyes and stood back up.
It was not all bad. Despite the high cost, the hunt on her life was over. Too many mages ran away for templars for them to bother with specific apostates. Templars simply hunted any mage now, regardless of guilt or innocence.
She paused as another thought flashed through her mind. She bent down again and pried to front part of Rylan's armor away. And there it was. Small, ruby-red flask with the distinctive templar symbol etched into the glass, together with a name. Her name. The phylactery templars used to track her.
So he did have it after all. She wondered about it, when she fought several groups of templars, careful not to kill any of them, and then the attacks suddenly stopped. Rylan must have taken the phylactery for himself… and then was either too lazy, too distracted or simply too incompetent to actually track her. Making it all but impossible for any other templar to track her either. She snorted in contempt, then she threw the bottle with all her strength against a nearby rock. It shattered and spilled the blood over the rock and onto the grass.
She was free.
She didn't have much time to enjoy her freedom though, as Krem walked out of what remained of the hut with a book stuffed with papers.
"Chief, we have a problem."
"What is it, Krem?" Bull asked, stood up as well and went to join his lieutenant.
"Looks like the templars were killed by some cultists." He handed Bull the papers. "They call themselves the Venatori and seem to be some kind of Tevinter supremacists."
"What the hell are fucking 'Vints doing here of all places?" Bull growled as he checked the documents.
Rush walked over as well and took the thick book from Krem's hands. It looked old. She frowned down at it. "Where did you find this?" It seemed unlikely that any mage would loose a manuscript like this, much less abandon it in a burning building.
"Under a burnt corpse, actually," Krem grinned weakly. "They must have thought it was destroyed. Better question is how the hell did it not burn too?"
Bull lifted his head as well and looked at the book in Rush's hands.
She skimmed her fingers down the cover and saw the faint blue sheen that covered it. "Wards." She frowned and looked closer. "These wards were… sewn into the cover? Amazing. This must be ancient Tevene magic. It may even date back to the time of Arlathan. Mages today just take a book, slap a spell on it and hope for the best. This is old. Really, really old."
"Great. More magic." Bull was clearly uncomfortable. "Can you read that?"
"Hmm," Rush looked down at the book in her hands and opened it. "This language hasn't been used in centuries. So no, I can't read it." At their disappointed looks, she added, "But I can recognize some of these symbols. And the diagrams. It depicts some kind of lock, and keys. The big sun here signifies 'illumination', which can be either knowledge… or literally light. Maybe both. If I combine that with this diagram… Hmmm…" She turned over several of the pages, and tried to make sense of it. "It describes a locked place. One that can only be unlocked through specific keys - combination of knowledge and some literal 'keys', which will light up under certain circumstances."
"What does that mean?" Stitches asked curiously. He seemed to be the only one who didn't seem to be too wary about magic. But then, he was also the only one who never had regular contact with mages aside from talking to Dalish. She found she couldn't really blame the men for their wariness. After all, she was wary too and she was a mage herself.
"That you need to find something, a shining object that contains the correct knowledge. You can use it to scout for the keys. So these Venatori look for a magical object that contains ancient knowledge to… Fuck."
Both Krem and Bull tensed up.
Rush raised horrified eyes towards her team. "The only place where you can find the right knowledge of ancient Tevinter or Arlathan today is the Fade and demons. Pride demons or corrupted Wisdom spirits, to be specific. And Tranquils… they have no emotions, no magic, the Fade considers them things, not people." She wanted to throw up. "They want to force a Pride Demon into the Tranquil."
Krem looked just as horrified as her. "They can do that?"
Rush nodded. "Tranquil don't have the will to say no. Possessing them would be no different than possessing a tree. The Venatori would use them as an object and summon a demon right into them, as if they were a scroll." She shut the book. "Do we know where they went?"
"There's a map," Krem pulled out a small sheet of parchment with a drawing of a hut. "Anyone knows where that is?"
"I might." Stitches answered. At their surprised looks, he lifted an eyebrow, "I lived here, before the Blight. During the Blight too, in fact. Give it here. Hmm… Looks like the old Hunter's Rest hut. It's just outside Redcliffe."
"Good. We know where to go, now." Bull clutched his axe tight and threw it over his shoulder. "Let's go. I'd love to kill some Vints. Especially before they summon demons."
Krem agreed quietly, "You and me both, Chief."
Rush put the book in her bag and followed.
A/N: For anyone interested, I have a Tumblr account. If you want to chat with me about any Dragon Age headcanons you have, just leave me a message. To use the slightly overused meme – misto shouts: "I'M ALWAYS A SLUT FOR DRAGON AGE HEADCANONS!" :D
You can find me as misto713 at tumblr.