Chapter 10: That Wonderful Son of a Bitch
Summary:
The Inquisition fights against the templars charging down the mountain and Bull loses old friends and new friends.
Notes:
**Trigger Warning for Chapter**
Body Horror (red lyrium)
Death of minor characters
Magical Violence
War Violence
"So . . . celebratory drinks are on hold," Bull said as unholstered his axe.
Dorian let out a surprised laugh as he held his staff at the ready, the sparks of his power glimmering around him. "You think?" Dorian quipped.
The loud, mechanical sound of the trebuchet clanked. The ammunition was catapulted over Haven, soaring into the sky, and whizzed shrilly through the air before landing in a plume of snow on the distant mountains and hills covered with the moving bodies of templars. Based on the chaos he could see in the hills, Bull knew it wasn't the first trebuchet that had been launched. The plume of snow became a wave that thundered down the mountains, and Bull saw the wave bury hundreds of templars. A cheer rose up from their soldiers outside of the walls.
But a rumbling, deep roar shook the air. Bull watched with a combination of awe, wonder, and invigorating fear as a dragon, glowing red against the night sky, soared on giant wings over Haven. An explosion of fire too red to be normal fire spat out of its gaping mouth and Bull heard the sound of exploding wood and the screams of the dying as the projectile from its gaping mouth took out a building.
"So the Elder One has revealed it," Alexius said in a low voice. "This truly is the end."
Something vaguely humanoid-shaped and red scrambled over the protective walls of Haven and dropped down among the crowd of revelers. Civilians screamed in terror and scattered. There was a loud war shout, and Bull watched as Jen, the young scout he'd met at Redcliffe Castle, charge forward, her bow drawn, towards the creature. She was drawing its attention away from the fleeing civilians and making herself a target. Before Bull could do anything, something shot out of the monster's outstretched arm. Two of Jen's arrows caught the thing right in the eyes. Both Jen and the creature were dead before they hit the ground.
Bull felt a haze of bloodlust and anger make his blood thrum.
"Do not get caught in their fire!" Alexius shouted as he cast a magical shield over his son and over Dorian. Because of his proximity, Bull felt the protective shield fall over himself as well. "Red lyrium will eat you alive even if it doesn't kill you outright!"
"More storming over the walls!" a mage shouted as at least twenty templars, despite their armor, somehow managed to scale over the walls. Bull charged forward. A templar, glittering red in the lamplight, charged towards him with a strange, distorted roar that rang in Bull's ears.
This person used to be a person. Someone alive. They were still dressed in their armor. Red lyrium sprouted from their armor like a parasitic mind-altering fungus Bull had seen on an insect once. The smell was horrible, a mix of corrupted lyrium, blood, and rotting flesh. Bull was forced back by the templar's shield. When Bull sliced his axe through the templar, the blood that he barely managed to avoid getting splattered with glowed red.
"Chief!" shouted a voice. Bull whirled around and caught sight of Krem. He was fighting off a large armored templar with Sera at his side. And Sera, her bow up and her face pale, didn't look like she could focus her eyes well on the templar charging towards her.
Bull roared, drawing the templar's full attention, and charged forwards and rammed at full speed into the attacking templar, pushing her effectively away from Sera. The templar fell to the ground with an unnatural scream and Krem smashed his mace between the templar's eyes. When another templar charged towards the drunk and unfocused Sera, Bull realized he'd never get to her in time.
Suddenly, the templar charging at Sera let out a gurgle as two daggers impaled him. A person appeared in a puff of smoke over the falling corpse.
He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and ragged clothing that seemed patched together from already ragged clothing. His skin was pale, his hair even paler, and he was both rail-thin and wiry with tight muscles. He pulled the daggers out of the templar's back and rose to stand slightly slouched. When the man's white-blue eyes met Bull's, alarm bells rang in Bull's head and his hand tightened around the heft of his great ax.
"Here!" shouted Krem as he pushed a potion into Sera's hand. Sera uncorked the potion and shakily drank it down. Then Sera coughed as the herbal remedy for drunkenness Stitches had concocted burned down Sera's esophagus.
"Tastes like shite," Sera said, her eyes clearer and more alert as she took in the civilians running into the chantry and the soldiers fighting off the templars. "What's he doing out?" Sera asked in horror as Alexius held out a hand and burned three Templars in a wild conflagration of fire spewing forth from his hands.
"Community service," Bull said darkly.
The dragon soaring above let out another billow of fire. It took out the roof of the Tavern. There were screams from within the building. Bull ran towards the tavern, Dorian and Sera following. When he burst through the burning doorway, Bull caught sight of Flissa, caught under a fallen and burning beam. Samahl was kneeling beside her and pushing, with a pained grunt, at the beam to get it off her. Samahl was covered in soot and blood, and looked like he had already been fighting for a while even before the dragon revealed itself. Bull rushed over and heaved the beam off Flissa.
"Thank you!" Flissa sobbed, her eyes streaming with tears of pain and gratitude. "Thank you!"
"You're all right," Samahl said, and placed his hands over her torso. His hands gleamed a healing green-blue light.
"Boss," Bull said in warning as he looked around the burning Tavern.
"I know," Samahl said in acknowledgement, but he didn't move to take his healing hands off Flissa. "I just need to . . . there. All right, you can move now, Flissa," Samahl helped the barkeep to her feet. Between the two of them, Bull and Samahl led Flissa out of the tavern, and not a moment too soon. As they stepped out into the chaos and cold, the beams of the rafters collapsed and the ground shook with the impact. Flissa yelped, shaking, disoriented, and Bull put a hand on her back. Samahl's hand was already there on Flissa's shoulder, so Bull's hand ended up pressed over Samahl's. They quickly looked at each other, faces grim with quiet anger and rage, and led Flissa towards the Chantry. As they walked, they were joined by Cassandra, Solas, Dorian, and Sera, and Varric. Bull lost sight of Alexius, Felix, and Krem, but he could hear Alexius shouting orders to the mages on how to defend against the red lyrium templars.
Their progress to the chantry was halted by several small skirmishes and other rescue missions throughout Haven. More soldiers formed circles around their group of non-combat civilians. When they arrived at the Chantry, Flissa was still frantically thanking Samahl. "Go help someone else," Samahl whispered, his hand gripping her shoulder.
"I will," Flissa said, nodding and shaking.
As Flissa hurried away to help a master mage comfort a group of crying mage children, Bull saw Chancellor Roderick standing in front of the giant doors. The front of his red and white robes was stained with blood. "Move! Keep going!" Chancellor Roderick called breathlessly. "The chantry is your shelter!" As more people passed through the doors, the Chancellor slumped and fell over, but was caught in the arms of a rail-thin man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. The doors were pulled shut and barred.
"He tried to stop a templar." The voice was quiet, flat, and monotone. White-blue eyes looked up at them from under his hat brim. "The blade went deep. He's going to die."
Chancellor Roderick looked at the man with a hint of disbelief and dark humor. "What a . . . charming boy." Healer Adan, who Samahl had also rescued from a burning building, hovered by Chancellor Roderick's side as Roderick was guided into a chair. Adan sadly shook his head in frustration at the sight of the horrible wound in the Chancellor's side.
"Herald!" Bull turned to see Cullen, bloodied, scratched up, but still very much alive, trot up to them, his face lined with concern and relief as he took in the Herald's steely expression. "Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us."
"I've seen an archdemon," said the strange young man crouched on the floor beside Chancellor Roderick as Adan attempted to save his life. "I was in the fade, but it looked like that."
"I don't care what it looks like," Cullen snapped. "It's cut a path for that army. They'll kill everyone in Haven."
"The Elder One doesn't care about the village," said the man. Bull was beginning to think that he was more than a man. Bull's instinct to take out a threat was tempered by the fact that the strange young man kept a hand on Chancellor Roderick at all times as Adan cut away the Chancellor's robes so he could patch him up as much as he could. "He only wants the Herald."
Samahl was suddenly so angry and enraged that the mage's blue eyes glowed. It was one thing to attack the Herald of Andraste when he was by himself, or in a group of able-bodied warriors. It was quite another thing to attack Haven and all the civilians and refugees who had put their trust in him to protect their lives, all to go after Samahl. "I don't care what he wants," Samahl said ominously. "How do I stop him?"
"It won't be easy," murmured the man in the wide brim hat. "He has a dragon."
Cullen looked at the man with frustrated exasperation. "We know what he—" he said heatedly, and he reined himself in with a loud sigh. "Herald, there are no tactics to make this survivable. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche. We could turn the remaining trebuchets, cause one last slide."
Samahl's glowing eyes stared down at the stone floor. "We're overrun. To hit the enemy, we'd bury Haven," he mused.
Cullen nodded tiredly in agreement. "We're dying, but we can decide how. Many don't get that choice."
From his seat on the chair, Chancellor Rodrick let out a shaky exhale as he stared towards the back of the chantry. The man in the wide-brimmed hat stared over as well. "Yes, that," the strange man whispered. He turned around to look up at Cullen and Samahl. "Chancellor Roderick can help. He wants to say it before he dies."
"There is a path," the Chancellor wheezed weakly. "You wouldn't know it unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage. As I have." The Chancellor stood up with a groan, pressing down on the wound in his side, while Adan and the strange man supported him. "The people can escape. She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could . . ." The Chancellor coughed. "Tell you."
Samahl frowned. "What are you on about, Roderick?" he asked.
Roderick looked towards the back of the chantry again. "It was whim that I walked the path. I did not mean to start. It was overgrown. Now, with so many in the Conclave dead, to be the only one who remembers . . ." Roderick laughed breathlessly and shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know, Herald. If this simple memory can save us, this could be more than mere accident. You could be more."
"What about it, Cullen?" Samahl asked quietly after a pause. "Will it work?"
"Possibly. If he shows us the path. But what of your escape?" Samahl turned away from Cullen and the crowd of listeners around him. Bull couldn't see his expression anymore. Cullen's expression, which had slowly begun to take on a hopeful look, fell. "Perhaps you will surprise it, find a way . . ." When Samahl did not answer, Cullen brought his attention back to the civilians, soldiers, and mages around them. "Inquisition! Follow Chancellor Roderick through the chantry! Move!"
The jostling of people meant Bull was cut off from Samahl. He saw Roderick say a few more words to Samahl, and Cullen slapped Samahl on the back with another hurried conversation, and Samahl suddenly dashed back out into the snow with Solas, Cassandra, and Varric following. Bull started forward to follow Samahl but heard the clink of manacles at his belt and looked quickly around the chantry for their Tevinter prisoners. Bull spotted Alexius and Felix standing beside Dorian.
It was at that moment that Cullen also caught sight of Alexius, and his light brown eyes narrowed in quiet fury. He stood still for a moment till he strode forwards toward Alexius. "Who set you free?" Cullen asked in a hard voice.
"Me," Bull said and Cullen's attention snapped towards him. "Thought they were more useful fighting than stuck behind bars."
Cullen looked at Bull and then back at Alexius. Cullen seemed to fight an inner battle for a moment. "In light of what you have done, what you almost did, there was a time when I would have ordered you to be put back in the dungeons and kept there to die," Cullen said threateningly as he glared at the Magister. Alexius just stared back at him without expression. "But I am not that man anymore, and now is not your time for judgment." In a louder voice, Cullen said, "As Commander of the Inquisition forces, I order you to protect these civilians, children, and refugees with your life, if it comes to that."
Alexius cast an emotionless stare over the terrified civilians. His eyes stopped their roaming and came to rest on a man rocking and shushing an infant against his chest as the babe wailed and cried in his arms. Some of the ice in Alexius's expression cracked. "Yes," he said.
Cullen gripped Bull's shoulder comradely. "Keep an eye on him," Cullen muttered to Bull.
"On it," Bull replied curtly.
The journey was slow going through the path. It was, as Roderick said, overgrown, and mages had to stand at the front to cut a path through the brambles and snow. In places where the snow was sparse, Bull could see rock and the imprints of hundreds of ancient footprints. Had this been the path the cultists took generation after generation to retreat to the mountains when there was trouble? Along the path were small carved statues on either side, as if marking the way. They looked like they were Avvar in origin and had been, at some point in the past, altered to look more Andrastian.
They met no resistance along the path. Samahl had truly drawn all attention away from the fleeing Inquisition. Once the retreating crowd was completely out of Haven, guarded on all sides by soldiers, a flaming arrow was fired into the sky to signal an "all clear."
When he heard the distant sound of a trebuchet, Bull turned around and stared down at Haven from their vantage point up on the mountain path. He could almost see the flying projectile gleam in the moonlight as it blasted into the mountainside. And then a second avalanche began, this one bigger and more dramatic than the first. The mountains around Haven were so high that they were never truly free of snow. The snow on the mountains were hard-packed and dense as glaciers, but snowfalls came in layers, and not all of them were dense. Some were soft, and it was with a mighty groan that a denser layer of snow over a softer layer slid off the mountainside, taking trees and what seemed like half the mountain with it.
The colossal wave of ice and snow plummeted towards Haven. The Inquisition gasped and shouted. Bull could see the dragon and the Elder One standing in the snow as a small figure sprinted towards Haven, a large sword gripped tight in his hand. The large dragon protectively curled its giant wings around the Elder One and hoisted him into the sky. Then the wave of ice and snow overtook the retreating figure.
Haven disappeared under the mountain of falling ice, snow, and trees as the crowd around Bull shouted and cried out in alarm.
The dragon let out one last rumbling roar and the shaking of the ground quieted as the avalanche slowed to a cacophonous, grinding halt.
After a night of marching through blistering cold and ancient pine forests into the very cradle of the Frostback mountains, the Inquisition and its civilian refugees stopped for the night beside an ancient stone fortress. With Alexius once again in manacles, Bull could finally walk around the crowd and see if all his boys had survived. He found Skinner, Dalish, Stitches, Rocky, Grim, and Krem, but a few of the others were missing. One of his Chargers, Flint, was dying with a bad concussion and a red lyrium wound. Flint never woke up, and Bull watched over him as he took his last breath. Flint had been with Bull when he was still part of the Fisher's Bleeders, and Flint had amazing stories about the Free Marches. He'd been one of the first humans outside the Qun to treat Bull like a friend rather than an oddity. Bull would miss his stories.
During the night, Solas, Cassandra, and Varric caught up with the survivors. Cassandra's stoic face was lined with extreme guilt and her hands shook as she warmed them by the fire. Solas quietly made his way to the outer edge of their crowd and stood alone. Varric built a fire, sat down on a crate, and put his hands over his face in silence.
All of Samahl's traveling companions had survived.
But Samahl . . .
Bull's report recounted the losses. 15 missing, 3 of them from the Bull's Chargers. 20 confirmed dead, 2 of them from the Chargers. 75 wounded. 120 civilians, including mage children, refugees, visitors, and dignitaries, saved.
Bull did not write their names in the report, but he quietly whispered the names of those he knew and had lost to himself as he worked.
Jen, Flint, Steel, Toe, Batty, Daffodil.
And in the report, Bull wrote the following.
Samahl Lavellan: deceased.
"Chief," Krem said quietly. "What is the plan?"
Bull looked up from his report. Krem along with Skinner, Rocky, Grim, Stitches, and Dalish stood around the fire watching Bull. Bull looked at them for a moment. Pride, the first emotion he'd felt since the end of the battle, filled him. Despite everything, despite the cold and race to escape, the Chargers had done their job and were still ready to take on what Bull needed them to. He'd never been prouder of them. "The Ben-Hassrath will want to know the Herald is dead," Bull said. "For now, we stay with the Inquisition. They're still gonna need us. We may have to forgo pay for a little while, at least until they get settled. We can . . . What's that?"
There was suddenly the sound of a great commotion as an Inquisition recruit sprinted through the crowd, shouting. Bull was on his feet, his axe unsheathed, and the chargers wielded their weapons at the ready. Then Bull heard what the recruit was screaming.
"The Herald's alive!" she roared. "He's alive!"
Bull grinned broadly. That wonderful son of a bitch! Bull thought. Then he turned to face the Chargers. "Chargers! We stay with the Inquisition. My bodyguard duty hasn't ended yet."
The crowd began speaking all at once in earnest, rushing forwards even as Cullen's voice rang out over the commotion. "Give him space!" he commanded. He, Cassandra, Leliana, and Josephine were bodily carrying a collapsed figure through the crowd
Bull found himself striding forward before he was consciously aware of it. "Here," he said gruffly to Cullen, Leliana, Cassandra, and Josephine as he approached. He carefully took Samahl from them into his arms and inspected Samahl's condition as he walked towards the tent that was being frantically prepared for Samahl. The Herald was bruised, cut up, barely conscious. Samahl's hand was glowing faintly. His head rested limply against Bull's chest. His cheek was as cold as ice. He wasn't shivering. "Hey, Boss," Bull said cheerfully. "Glad you could join us."
Samahl's breath huffed against Bull's chest. "Sorry I'm late," Samahl whispered. Cullen let out a laugh, but his eyes were worried and wide with disbelief.
"Fashionably late," Bull corrected as healers threw open the flaps of the tent and Bull carried Samahl inside.
Samahl laughed again, stronger this time, and opened his eyes. His pupils were hugely dilated, a sign he was dangerously hypothermic. Bull suspected the only thing that had kept him from being frostbit was his temperature magic, but magical exhaustion must have stopped him from being able to use it anymore.
After Bull lowered Samahl onto a cot, the healers took over, and Bull found himself being pushed out of the tent by Mother Giselle. Merewald gave Bull a trembling smile, her eyes wide with trauma, and Bull stood outside the tent with Cullen, Leliana, Josephine, and Cassandra in silence.
"How did he survive?" Cullen whispered, finally voicing what they all were thinking. "We saw . . . he should have died."
"Perhaps . . ." Cassandra whispered. "Perhaps he truly is blessed by the . . ."
Bull walked away before he could hear Cassandra claim that Samahl was blessed by the Maker, or that Samahl was saved by Andraste. People had died that day, good people, and Bull didn't want to hear that some had died while others lived because some fucking Maker willed it. Bull returned back to the Chargers' fire.
Hours later, Samahl stepped outside of the tent, dressed warmly in a borrowed white chantry robe. Bull wondered if it had been given to him purposely. He was quietly speaking to Mother Giselle as they watched Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine bickering.
Then Mother Giselle started singing an old Chantry hymn, so old no one knew when it was written. Slowly, others joined. Bull listened to the voices with a frown. People were gathering around Samahl. Then they knelt around him as if in worship, their eyes wide with awe and wonder as they stared at him.
Samahl took a slight step back from the penitent crowd. Bull saw just how tightly controlled he was trying to keep his expressionless face. Bull grumbled wordlessly in discomfort.
The people already thought this elf was blessed. What did they think of him now?
"To them, he is the dawn," a voice whispered quietly.
Bull whirled around and saw a young man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. His pale blue eyes stared through strands of white hair. "The fuck?" Bull said. "Kid, don't sneak up like—" The hairs on the back of Bull's neck stood on end as the young man continued to speak.
"A night filled with screams, red running deep. He is gone, the one man who could save us all. Now he is back. He is the dawn. The dawn always comes back." The young man looked down at the ground. "That is what they think of him. But you don't, The Iron Bull."
Bull swallowed back the bile crawling up his throat. "What do I think?" Bull asked.
The young man tilted his head to the side and stared at and through Bull. "Just started to know him. Don't want this to end. Not yet. Not yet. So happy to see him alive, that wonderful son of a bitch. Stop treating him like he's your Maker. Don't kneel. He's just a man. He needs me to remember that."
Bull gripped the handle of his axe and the young man's eyes widened. "You're afraid of demons! But I'm not a demon! I'm Cole!" He held up a hand towards Bull's face. "Forget."
Bull looked around him for a moment in confusion, but no one was standing near him. For a moment, he had been certain he was going to speak to someone, or to . . . attack someone? Why?
Bull let go of the handle of his axe. The troubling absent-mindedness scared him. But it was probably the exhaustion finally catching up with him.
Bull looked back at the kneeling refugees, and at Samahl standing at the center.
Stop treating him like he's your Maker, Bull thought. Don't fucking kneel. If you're going to act like he's your Maker, then I'll act like he's just a man.