The Inquisitor doesn't normally attend superfluous social functions, but Josephine has lately been suggesting she get out a little more, now that Corypheus is gone. Kiss babies, cut ribbons, things like that. This afternoon was the groundbreaking for the new College of Enchanters. Now, it's a celebration dinner, at which Pel is prepared to speak. She's a good enough speaker, so long as she's not asked to be insincere. This speech was written by Josephine's people, and Pel has it on the podium before her.
She glances out to the mages gathered, and the Inquisition people represented. Josephine is in attendance, and some of her entourage, as well as some guards. Pel asked explicitly that none of the guards be the Inquisition's templars, but she knows Cullen sneaked in one or two at least.
"Many point to Tevinter as the example of a society with free mages," she continues. "I would point to the Dalish." It would be a scandalous thing to bring up in most crowds, but former Circle mages are an open-minded bunch. There is a murmur of approval.
"The Dalish Keepers do not rule over their clans. They are guides, counselors, and leaders, but never tyrants. I trained my whole life to one day take my place as my clan's Keeper. My reward was to work twice as hard every day as anyone else in my clan, waking up before dawn to gather food and fish, mend aravels, patch clothes, in addition to rigorous study and constant practice with my magic. Mage freedom is possible."
There's a break for applause (readily given). Pel stares at the words, frowning. It's one of those moments where she's not sure if she should veer off course or just read what's on the paper.
Before she can decide, the room goes bright blue. She opens her mouth and steps back, her spirit blade coming automatically to her hand. She can sense the sudden burst of action in the room, people leaping to their feet, flashes of magical light, but can barely hear it. A binding field, she's in a binding field. Someone is trying to trap her.
She smashes her spirit blade against the field as fighting breaks out. The force of the ricochet flings her back, and she sits down hard, a spike of pain shooting up her tailbone.
The Inquisition's footprint had re-shaped the manner of the world. And though now bereft of the rifts, even the very skies seemed... different, somehow.
Or so it seemed to Tal, who often looked upon them from without the barracks at Skyhold, searching for familiar patterns in stars that the thin alpine air made burn bright as brands in the velvet stretch of night. Days were often spent in meetings and conferences, or training, or upon martial errands devised by the commander. A captain under him, Tal had at last traded in templar arms and armor too beaten to be of service for those of Inquisition make and stamp, and in the wake of the Herald's doings, fought to suss out with old and loyal brothers the fate of the Templar Order.
Many had been slain or poisoned by Red Lyrium, and those which remained had retreated to other lives, the rigorous maintenance of their duties hunting apostates even without the sanction and support of the Order, or, like Tal, had been enfolded into the ever-growing arms of the Inquisition.
They had mapped out remaining strongholds, caches, lines of power which in the dissolution of their true function were weakening and going thin, like good steel left to rust in the elements. But all their planning hinged upon the words of the Herald; and at length, Cullen had granted petitioners among his men, those older seasoned soldiers who would have made the number of the Templar Order's remaining Knight-Commanders and Knight-Captains, and allowed them to bear silent witness to the turn of their fate.
And they bore it all within Inquisition-shaped shells, some with eyes still lit from recent doses of lyrium.
Like ships without sails, they were adrift in the speech, and hung on every word like sailors praying for wind or currents to lead them home.
But a different sort of home found them all instead; the sound of battle, familiar to them all as the crackling bite of magic against a cheek or brow. But it wasn't a mage's spells that cast fell light, and strange shadows on the plainsclothed folk who screamed, as cowled figures drew from their cloaks red swords. No.
Tal felt himself mouth the word as his gauntlet slammed down his helm's visor, and a heave of his great shoulder slung his shield into place down his arm. The nearest brace of Inquisition soldiers tightened in a guarding knot around the Herald, one offering an arm to help her up while Tal and two others became a shield-locked barrier between she and the crowd.
Red swords, red swords, whose banners bear red swords--
A pair of arrows rang smartly from their shields, but another found purchase in the weak shoulder of the man furthest left. His helm muffled his cry of pain, and the arm carrying his heavy shield sagged and shook with sudden strain.
The eight other soldiers which had been the honour guard had swarmed into the crowd, which found itself swiftly pinned between friend and foe. Like sheep in slaughter, they began to fall, and the enemy cries rose above their screams, "Blessed are they who stand before...! Who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter!"
"Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just! The elf would have us turn from the Maker and the Chant!"
The ozone scent of magic rose; not from behind but from before; and in a sudden blast of cold two armord soldiers were frozen solid where they stood, shields upraised. A cowled enemy with a red sword shattered them with a heaving blow. From another angle came a gout of flame worthy of a dragon's blast, and the screams of those trapped within its range was louder even than the roar of it.
"Back!" Shouted Tal at the soldiers about him, "Protect the Herald, and retreat!"
"What is going on?" the Inquisitor demands from the floor, frightened and angry with herself for being frightened. As she climbs slowly to her feet, she is also angry at the pain of a bruised tailbone, and angry at the damned guards being so damned tall that she can't see what's happening. She has to know what's happening in order to make decisions and give orders. She has to see her enemy.
"Ambush! Two dozen in the crowd, outnumbered, civilians and brothers dying: fall back, to the balcony behind!" Reported Tal tersely, lifting his shield reflexively when he hear a neat twang. The mark landed in the throat of the man to his right, who crumpled immediately, blood gushing up beneath his helmet and splashing hotly over his breastplate.
Not arrows-- bolts. Their armor would be as good as paper at such close range.
"Crossbowmen! Shields fore, protect the Herald! For the balcony, move!"
"You're not armored and they've got projectiles! The second you're free of guard you're a ready target!" Challenged Tal. As the man beside him slumped down, a chink in the small wall of metal they made around the Herald, a line of cowled enemies began to mass below the dais. On either end, men began winding back their crossbows, and at the center a mage drew a symbol mid-air that Pel would recognize:
Fire.
The remaining three soldiers around her began to fall back, shields up, hauling Pel with them should she try to stand her ground.
Soldiers can't be used to mages who fight on the front lines, she supposes. It goes to show Cullen picks the good ones to keep, at least, that their primary thought is for their charge's safety. Instead of arguing, she rails against the field with her spirit blade, though the backlash is strong. With each buzz as she strikes the barrier, there is a little more give, a little more power it has to put forth to keep the same amount of strength. She, on the other hand, is stronger with every blow. The field dissolves with a burst of vapor just as the retreat is called. All she has time to do is raise a barrier of her own around her guards, though it will fade quickly.
Fine. She has to let them do their jobs. But she's still going to be here for them as much as she can be.
Tal was the last one out onto the balcony, making their once-oversized seeming party seem pathetic, a paltry four people. He slammed the door closed after him and braced it with his body, twisting his face aside to snap, "Berrin! Find a way down! Tor, the ground below! Milady Herald, can you ice the door shut? We have seconds, not minutes!"
Happy to help. Pel's tiny hands move inches from the door, and in an instant, ice rises in layer after layer, hard as rock and burning like acid to the touch. It stops when it's about a foot thick.
"You're the match of another mage, and we're dead if we linger overlong in any case," noted Tal, a touch dryly, leaning his sword against his thigh so that he could shake the stinging, numbing cold out of one hand before gripping it again. He'd leaned too close.
Tor, the youngest of them, swiveled from where he'd been scouting over the far railing, "Our men at the gate and courtyard are slain, the banners are down!" he hissed, frantically fearful, "We can't escape without horses, there's the cowled men posted at the stables and gate!"
"Nor any easy way down, sir! No stairs, but a roof to catch our fall some five metres or so, but it's steep and we'll make a racket!"
Tal stood stiffly only a moment, frowning hard. "Greaves, knee, and thigh plate off, cut it if you have to! The weight will make a landing hard and give more noise. Herald, view the men below! Have you a magic which could slay so many swiftly? We can distract them to a point if that would aid you. Two of us will go down to the roof, the last help you down into their arms, and so on until we're back to ground. From there, a race to the horses and back to Skyhold. We have no position here, and if any live behind us we can only pray they may be ransomed."
There's a piercing pain in her throat at the thought of Josephine left behind, though her face changes little. She has no staff for focus, but she's no Circle mage from an ivory tower, practiced only under ideal conditions or in only one discipline. Her affinity is for ice, but it's not the only thing she can do.
She clenches her hand in the familiar position. A brutal shock strikes each of the men on the ground below, ringing between them, paralyzing them before they can cry out. Heads snap back, mouths open in silent cry as their bodies are fried from the inside. Each of them drops with hardly a sound.
Only Tal was looking to see; standing behind and beside her, glowering down upon the quiet carnage like an old hawk searching a field for mice.
And he said nothing.
The other guards were hurriedly sawing at the leather latching of their armor, and after a moment, he bent with a nearly audible creak to begin to do the same. Metal clattered to stone, and they began to hear the dull, thudding shudder of a great force against the door now buried under ice.
The small band of survivors moved towards the railing near the steeply slanted roof extending from the keep; and helped to lower one soldier down, who cussed and nearly slipped on the ice, and then another. Their breaths were steaming in the air for their efforts, and Tal turned to Pel, hands offered.
"I'll help to lower you and they to catch. On your mark."
Pel keeps a close eye on the door, buried as it is under ice, while the men descend. Her mana is depleted, or she would be reinforcing the ice barrier. When Tal speaks to her, she musters up the last of her reserves to add one last thin layer before backing up to the railing and taking Tal's hands.
"Ready." One heel lifts, ready to lower herself to her knees so she can shuffle over the edge.
Their passage has disturbed the thin crust of snow over the railing; and sent fine dusting of the white stuff filtering over the edge. The small breeze whisked it away down into the dark, torchlit courtyard, where blackened bodies waited.
Tal used his elbow to jam up the visor of his helm so that he could see better, sword left against the railing, and took the lady's hands firmly. This was no time for courteous gentleness.
"I've hold of you. I won't release you 'til you bid me so. Now... careful, and steady," he said, and gripped her hand so that she could walk herself down the side of the stone wall. When she was firmly gripped up only by his hands, the line of his jaw drew taut and his brow crashed down with exertion and focus. It was an easy five feet between her feet and the uplifted hands of the other soldiers, one of whom helpfully offered, "Ready to catch!"
If Pel isn't confident, she's damned good at faking it. She hangs almost by her fingertips, stretched down as far as her five-foot-one frame will allow.
"Now."
And then she is flying free, kicking at the wall so she can spread and become an easier target for her men to catch.
She fell into their hands and they gripped her hard; the one nearest the edge slipped somewhat but quickly regained his footing. No sooner had they reassured themselves of her footing than they continued moving, and urged her to do the same, going to hands and knees to drop down from the roof to the ground beneath it.
The movements were punctuated by a great crack as the ice over the door began to split, and the sound of Tal moving over the railing to drop down himself, waiting for more space to clear before he dropped.
She has nothing left to fling at the door, but she keeps looking over her shoulder to monitor Tal's progress, betraying the nervousness and uncertainty she has kept hidden till now. She is leaving so many behind, can she at least try to save the last one?
She knows the answer. She has to get back to Skyhold. All those with the Inquisition who are not dead will be valuable hostages. Josephine in particular is far too valuable to kill. Pel has to get back so there's someone to negotiate for them.
Those with her seemed all in like agreement in the matter; they revolved themselves around her like celestial satellites, again lowering her to ground; and once all there, flanking her utterly on the race to the stables.
They had filed into the poorly-lit, cramped stable just in time to hear the ice break, utterly, and for a handful of cowled men to pour onto the balcony. "They're fleeing! Sound the alarm! Mages, seal the gate!"
"Mythal'enaste," Pel mutters. Then, for good measure, "Shit. They're going to put a magical barrier at the gate."
Worst part is, it takes time to fling a saddle on a horse, and it's only her time with the Inquisition that has seen her riding one. She freezes, staring at the beast and the saddle and unsure if she should just leap aboard and charge off, or if that's even possible.
The soldiers were already half-finished tacking horses, the beasts snorting and shying away from the rapidly-moving men. At the shout, though, they stopped, faltering, sharing a look between each other.
Tal shouldered out of the stall he'd barged into, motioning to Pel. "Hang near the door of the stable, facing the gate! Stay out of view, see if you can muddle any magic they set forth. At this distance, a Templar's powers would be ill-fitted, but if we need, we can dispel at the gate, and the weaker it is by then, the better! The rest of you: saddle the horse for her, and get your own horses in the isle, with another unsaddled tethered to the cantle! First to finish, draw the Herald back, get mounted, and go!"
Elgar'nan, she is happy someone else is giving orders. Her strengths are all in offense, not retreat. This is the duty of a guard, to have the escape plan.
Pel seizes a nearby dark cloth that's covering a barrel of feed. She casts it over her bright hair and wraps it like a hood as she darts to the stable door. She doesn't peer outside, only opens herself, feeling, searching. Ice magic. They're creating an ice barrier, knowing her reputation for it. They know her affinity is not for fire. It will take much longer to destroy with the spells she can cast.
Fine.
She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, spending a few seconds meditating to gather her remaining strength. Then, she pours it all out, stretching out her power to the mages at the gate. She can feel the flow of their magical energy slow over the course of a few seconds, then stop. Now she looks out at the gate, and sees the traitors at the gate frozen in their tracks--not with ice, but with something a lot harder to fight.
Now she's starting to realize why Sera thinks her knight-enchanter training is scary.
"I bought us a minute or two," she calls hoarsely to Tal, "but I'm good for nothing more. They started the barrier, but it's not finished. Can you punch our way through as we go?"
The growing wall of ice was straining downward from the grand arch of the entryway into the keep's large courtyard, casting a cold blue glow. It was so much magic, and so much recent death, that she could feel the Veil stretching thin.
The soldiers in the dark of the stable were all on the last steps of readying their pairs of mounts, and had paid no mind to her doings, trusting her without question to do what needed to be done. Berrin them waved her over, and took a knee beside the third horse in the line in the broad isle. "Good! Here, let me help you up, the gentlest of the lot. You ride second in line, in case there's more archers along the way: one man, his horse, and his unsaddled spare," he indicated the second horse, still in only its halter, tethered to the back of his saddle, "Both take the first volley. Follow alongside the roads, but not on them, and if we're separated or all killed, take wilderness paths to the nearest safe encampment. Aye?"
"Talking too long," snapped Tal, hauling himself up into the saddle, bringing up the rear, while Tor scrabbled up, favoring the arm connected to the bolt-pierced shoulder.
Pel is exhausted, clinging to the horse with her knees and thighs with what fragile strength is left. She's not sure how much of the talking is directed at her, but her horse falls into line on its own, and those who must be behind her take their place.
They ride out, and true to her word, the spell that can freeze a high dragon in its tracks is keeping those at the gate completely still.
"Let them live," she says with a growl to her voice. "Let them see their Maker's mercy in a heathen elf, and think about whose mercy was given to their victims."
She wants to kill them. Elgar'nan knows how badly she wants to destroy them all. But she has to be different from the people whose mess she has been cleaning up. She can't allow herself to indulge in vengeance even once, not even for a good reason, or else it will be easier to indulge for a bad reason. How had Solas put it? We must be above reproach.
Her word was obeyed, and four riders and eight horses thunder under the stone arch of the courtyard, to the dismayed cries of men only now beginning to pour out of the keep itself. As soon as the rocky ground leveled enough that it could be risked, their leader Berrin turned his horse into the woods and off the road, looking back often for Pel.
"Just hang on!" He hissed above the noise of their passage; which the snow helped to muffle.
They road long into the dark. And after the first few hours, almost noiselessly behind her, two of the spare horses were loosed, and let to find their own way through heavy drifts, where their passage would make it seem like far greater of their number had parted.
Though at first there had been the dim noise of pursuit, there was no baying of hounds (the sure sign that they'd be harried all the way) and they came across no one else. At some point in the night they passed an empty woodcutter's hut; but none paused near it.
Tal croaked for a halt when dawn's grey chill began to bring more snow.
"Fire and sleep. We'll see if we can find food when we begin moving again."
Pel knows how to move a lot of people without letting anyone know they've ever been there. She was apprenticed to a Keeper, after all.
"Start melting snow over the fire in anything we have," she directs as she dismounts. "Helmets would be fine. Water will be more urgent than food in the morning, for us and our horses."
She sways suddenly, catching herself with a quickly placed foot and a hand on a tree trunk.
Far craggier officers Tor and Tal both exchanged a look at her suggestion over the backs of their horses, and it was Tal who moved forward. "We're not new-minted knights, milady Herald; it's our task to see to your care, not t'other way 'round. So; come this way. I've something to show you so you might rest a time while we see to the particulars."
He beckoned her towards him while shucking off a gauntlet.
Oh good, and now she has insulted the men who have guarded her and saved her life. She stumbles toward Tal, quietly relieved that the details are in capable hands. What on earth could Tal have to show her, when they left everything and ran here?
"When it's fiercely cold, on the march, you sleep with your horse. They sleep standing, see, don't curl up as I imagine halla do, or deer; so you brace your back against the fronts of their hind legs, and curl up beneath them. In these parts, and in northern Ferelden, a saddle blanket has three folds; which you take down, like so," and he leaned over the unsaddled horse to demonstrate, letting the loose folds of heavy woolen cloth hang down both the horse's sides.
"Like a piss-poor tent, only it helps keep you both warmer, and readier to mount up and race on should you need."
He lifted his brows at her, searching her face as if to ask, 'questions?'.
Sensible enough. A corner of his mouth twitched up.
He rapped his knuckles against his breastplate. "Can't risk taking it off, never know when you need to move. So, no choice but to sleep upright. And a Forder at least will be trained against having a piss on you."
"Mythal'enaste," mutters Pel. "After the night we've had, I'd wind up sleeping through it even if it wasn't. Even a piss-poor tent is a tent. What about the ground?"
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She glances out to the mages gathered, and the Inquisition people represented. Josephine is in attendance, and some of her entourage, as well as some guards. Pel asked explicitly that none of the guards be the Inquisition's templars, but she knows Cullen sneaked in one or two at least.
"Many point to Tevinter as the example of a society with free mages," she continues. "I would point to the Dalish." It would be a scandalous thing to bring up in most crowds, but former Circle mages are an open-minded bunch. There is a murmur of approval.
"The Dalish Keepers do not rule over their clans. They are guides, counselors, and leaders, but never tyrants. I trained my whole life to one day take my place as my clan's Keeper. My reward was to work twice as hard every day as anyone else in my clan, waking up before dawn to gather food and fish, mend aravels, patch clothes, in addition to rigorous study and constant practice with my magic. Mage freedom is possible."
There's a break for applause (readily given). Pel stares at the words, frowning. It's one of those moments where she's not sure if she should veer off course or just read what's on the paper.
Before she can decide, the room goes bright blue. She opens her mouth and steps back, her spirit blade coming automatically to her hand. She can sense the sudden burst of action in the room, people leaping to their feet, flashes of magical light, but can barely hear it. A binding field, she's in a binding field. Someone is trying to trap her.
She smashes her spirit blade against the field as fighting breaks out. The force of the ricochet flings her back, and she sits down hard, a spike of pain shooting up her tailbone.
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Or so it seemed to Tal, who often looked upon them from without the barracks at Skyhold, searching for familiar patterns in stars that the thin alpine air made burn bright as brands in the velvet stretch of night. Days were often spent in meetings and conferences, or training, or upon martial errands devised by the commander. A captain under him, Tal had at last traded in templar arms and armor too beaten to be of service for those of Inquisition make and stamp, and in the wake of the Herald's doings, fought to suss out with old and loyal brothers the fate of the Templar Order.
Many had been slain or poisoned by Red Lyrium, and those which remained had retreated to other lives, the rigorous maintenance of their duties hunting apostates even without the sanction and support of the Order, or, like Tal, had been enfolded into the ever-growing arms of the Inquisition.
They had mapped out remaining strongholds, caches, lines of power which in the dissolution of their true function were weakening and going thin, like good steel left to rust in the elements. But all their planning hinged upon the words of the Herald; and at length, Cullen had granted petitioners among his men, those older seasoned soldiers who would have made the number of the Templar Order's remaining Knight-Commanders and Knight-Captains, and allowed them to bear silent witness to the turn of their fate.
And they bore it all within Inquisition-shaped shells, some with eyes still lit from recent doses of lyrium.
Like ships without sails, they were adrift in the speech, and hung on every word like sailors praying for wind or currents to lead them home.
But a different sort of home found them all instead; the sound of battle, familiar to them all as the crackling bite of magic against a cheek or brow. But it wasn't a mage's spells that cast fell light, and strange shadows on the plainsclothed folk who screamed, as cowled figures drew from their cloaks red swords. No.
Tal felt himself mouth the word as his gauntlet slammed down his helm's visor, and a heave of his great shoulder slung his shield into place down his arm. The nearest brace of Inquisition soldiers tightened in a guarding knot around the Herald, one offering an arm to help her up while Tal and two others became a shield-locked barrier between she and the crowd.
Red swords, red swords, whose banners bear red swords--
A pair of arrows rang smartly from their shields, but another found purchase in the weak shoulder of the man furthest left. His helm muffled his cry of pain, and the arm carrying his heavy shield sagged and shook with sudden strain.
The eight other soldiers which had been the honour guard had swarmed into the crowd, which found itself swiftly pinned between friend and foe. Like sheep in slaughter, they began to fall, and the enemy cries rose above their screams, "Blessed are they who stand before...! Who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter!"
"Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just! The elf would have us turn from the Maker and the Chant!"
The ozone scent of magic rose; not from behind but from before; and in a sudden blast of cold two armord soldiers were frozen solid where they stood, shields upraised. A cowled enemy with a red sword shattered them with a heaving blow. From another angle came a gout of flame worthy of a dragon's blast, and the screams of those trapped within its range was louder even than the roar of it.
"Back!" Shouted Tal at the soldiers about him, "Protect the Herald, and retreat!"
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Not arrows-- bolts. Their armor would be as good as paper at such close range.
"Crossbowmen! Shields fore, protect the Herald! For the balcony, move!"
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Templars can do that, right? Mythal'enaste, if only Cullen were here. She's scared, and it comes across as sternness.
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Fire.
The remaining three soldiers around her began to fall back, shields up, hauling Pel with them should she try to stand her ground.
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Fine. She has to let them do their jobs. But she's still going to be here for them as much as she can be.
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"It won't last long against another mage."
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Tor, the youngest of them, swiveled from where he'd been scouting over the far railing, "Our men at the gate and courtyard are slain, the banners are down!" he hissed, frantically fearful, "We can't escape without horses, there's the cowled men posted at the stables and gate!"
"Nor any easy way down, sir! No stairs, but a roof to catch our fall some five metres or so, but it's steep and we'll make a racket!"
Tal stood stiffly only a moment, frowning hard. "Greaves, knee, and thigh plate off, cut it if you have to! The weight will make a landing hard and give more noise. Herald, view the men below! Have you a magic which could slay so many swiftly? We can distract them to a point if that would aid you. Two of us will go down to the roof, the last help you down into their arms, and so on until we're back to ground. From there, a race to the horses and back to Skyhold. We have no position here, and if any live behind us we can only pray they may be ransomed."
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She clenches her hand in the familiar position. A brutal shock strikes each of the men on the ground below, ringing between them, paralyzing them before they can cry out. Heads snap back, mouths open in silent cry as their bodies are fried from the inside. Each of them drops with hardly a sound.
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And he said nothing.
The other guards were hurriedly sawing at the leather latching of their armor, and after a moment, he bent with a nearly audible creak to begin to do the same. Metal clattered to stone, and they began to hear the dull, thudding shudder of a great force against the door now buried under ice.
The small band of survivors moved towards the railing near the steeply slanted roof extending from the keep; and helped to lower one soldier down, who cussed and nearly slipped on the ice, and then another. Their breaths were steaming in the air for their efforts, and Tal turned to Pel, hands offered.
"I'll help to lower you and they to catch. On your mark."
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"Ready." One heel lifts, ready to lower herself to her knees so she can shuffle over the edge.
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Tal used his elbow to jam up the visor of his helm so that he could see better, sword left against the railing, and took the lady's hands firmly. This was no time for courteous gentleness.
"I've hold of you. I won't release you 'til you bid me so. Now... careful, and steady," he said, and gripped her hand so that she could walk herself down the side of the stone wall. When she was firmly gripped up only by his hands, the line of his jaw drew taut and his brow crashed down with exertion and focus. It was an easy five feet between her feet and the uplifted hands of the other soldiers, one of whom helpfully offered, "Ready to catch!"
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"Now."
And then she is flying free, kicking at the wall so she can spread and become an easier target for her men to catch.
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The movements were punctuated by a great crack as the ice over the door began to split, and the sound of Tal moving over the railing to drop down himself, waiting for more space to clear before he dropped.
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She knows the answer. She has to get back to Skyhold. All those with the Inquisition who are not dead will be valuable hostages. Josephine in particular is far too valuable to kill. Pel has to get back so there's someone to negotiate for them.
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They had filed into the poorly-lit, cramped stable just in time to hear the ice break, utterly, and for a handful of cowled men to pour onto the balcony. "They're fleeing! Sound the alarm! Mages, seal the gate!"
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Worst part is, it takes time to fling a saddle on a horse, and it's only her time with the Inquisition that has seen her riding one. She freezes, staring at the beast and the saddle and unsure if she should just leap aboard and charge off, or if that's even possible.
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Tal shouldered out of the stall he'd barged into, motioning to Pel. "Hang near the door of the stable, facing the gate! Stay out of view, see if you can muddle any magic they set forth. At this distance, a Templar's powers would be ill-fitted, but if we need, we can dispel at the gate, and the weaker it is by then, the better! The rest of you: saddle the horse for her, and get your own horses in the isle, with another unsaddled tethered to the cantle! First to finish, draw the Herald back, get mounted, and go!"
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Pel seizes a nearby dark cloth that's covering a barrel of feed. She casts it over her bright hair and wraps it like a hood as she darts to the stable door. She doesn't peer outside, only opens herself, feeling, searching. Ice magic. They're creating an ice barrier, knowing her reputation for it. They know her affinity is not for fire. It will take much longer to destroy with the spells she can cast.
Fine.
She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, spending a few seconds meditating to gather her remaining strength. Then, she pours it all out, stretching out her power to the mages at the gate. She can feel the flow of their magical energy slow over the course of a few seconds, then stop. Now she looks out at the gate, and sees the traitors at the gate frozen in their tracks--not with ice, but with something a lot harder to fight.
Now she's starting to realize why Sera thinks her knight-enchanter training is scary.
"I bought us a minute or two," she calls hoarsely to Tal, "but I'm good for nothing more. They started the barrier, but it's not finished. Can you punch our way through as we go?"
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The soldiers in the dark of the stable were all on the last steps of readying their pairs of mounts, and had paid no mind to her doings, trusting her without question to do what needed to be done. Berrin them waved her over, and took a knee beside the third horse in the line in the broad isle. "Good! Here, let me help you up, the gentlest of the lot. You ride second in line, in case there's more archers along the way: one man, his horse, and his unsaddled spare," he indicated the second horse, still in only its halter, tethered to the back of his saddle, "Both take the first volley. Follow alongside the roads, but not on them, and if we're separated or all killed, take wilderness paths to the nearest safe encampment. Aye?"
"Talking too long," snapped Tal, hauling himself up into the saddle, bringing up the rear, while Tor scrabbled up, favoring the arm connected to the bolt-pierced shoulder.
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They ride out, and true to her word, the spell that can freeze a high dragon in its tracks is keeping those at the gate completely still.
"Let them live," she says with a growl to her voice. "Let them see their Maker's mercy in a heathen elf, and think about whose mercy was given to their victims."
She wants to kill them. Elgar'nan knows how badly she wants to destroy them all. But she has to be different from the people whose mess she has been cleaning up. She can't allow herself to indulge in vengeance even once, not even for a good reason, or else it will be easier to indulge for a bad reason. How had Solas put it? We must be above reproach.
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"Just hang on!" He hissed above the noise of their passage; which the snow helped to muffle.
They road long into the dark. And after the first few hours, almost noiselessly behind her, two of the spare horses were loosed, and let to find their own way through heavy drifts, where their passage would make it seem like far greater of their number had parted.
Though at first there had been the dim noise of pursuit, there was no baying of hounds (the sure sign that they'd be harried all the way) and they came across no one else. At some point in the night they passed an empty woodcutter's hut; but none paused near it.
Tal croaked for a halt when dawn's grey chill began to bring more snow.
"Fire and sleep. We'll see if we can find food when we begin moving again."
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"Start melting snow over the fire in anything we have," she directs as she dismounts. "Helmets would be fine. Water will be more urgent than food in the morning, for us and our horses."
She sways suddenly, catching herself with a quickly placed foot and a hand on a tree trunk.
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He beckoned her towards him while shucking off a gauntlet.
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"Like a piss-poor tent, only it helps keep you both warmer, and readier to mount up and race on should you need."
He lifted his brows at her, searching her face as if to ask, 'questions?'.
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He rapped his knuckles against his breastplate. "Can't risk taking it off, never know when you need to move. So, no choice but to sleep upright. And a Forder at least will be trained against having a piss on you."
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